were in general extremely moderate and were enjoined in the follow ing cases. (1.) For every unintentional transgression of the Levitical law, even if it was a sin of commission, (for in the Mosaic doctrine concerning sin and trespass offerings, all transgressions are divided into sins of commission, and sins of omission) a sin-offering was to be made, and thereupon the legal punishment was remitted; which, in the case of wilful transgression, was nothing less than extirpation. (Lev. iv. 2. v. 1. 4-7.) (2.) Whoever had made a rash oath, and had not kept it, was obliged to make a sin-offering; not, however, for his inconsideration, but for his neglect. (Lev. v. 4.) (3.) Whoever had, as a witness, been guilty of perjury-not, however, to impeach an innocent man, (for in that case the lex talionis operated,) but-in not testifying what he knew against a guilty person, or in any other respect concerning the matter in question; and in consequence thereof felt disquieted in his conscience, might, without being liable to any farther punishment, or ignominy, obtain remission of the perjury, by a confession of it, accompanied with a trespass-offering. (Lev. v. 1.) (4.) Whoever had incurred debt to the sanctuary, that is, had not conscientiously paid his tithes, had his crime cancelled by making a trespass-offering, and making up his deficiencies with twenty per cent. over and above. (Lev. v. 14, 15.) (5.) The same was the rule, where a person denied any thing given him in trust, or any thing lost, which he had found, or any promise he had made; or again, where he had acquired any property dishonestly, and had his conscience awakened on account of it, even where it was a theft, of which he had once cleared himself by oath, but was now moved by the impulse of his conscience to make voluntary restitution, and wished to get rid of the guilt. (Lev. vi. 1-7.) By the offering made on such an occasion, the preceding crime was wholly cancelled; and because the delinquent would otherwise have had to make restitution, from two to five fold, he now gave twenty per cent. over and above the amount of his theft. (6.) In the case of adultery committed with a slave, an offering was appointed by Lev. xix. 20-22.: which did not, however, wholly cancel the punishment, but mitigated it from death, which was the established punishment of adultery, to that of stripes. Such measures as these, Michaelis remarks, must have had a great effect in prompting to the restitution of property unjustly acquired: but in the case of crimes, of which the good of the community expressly required that the legal punishment should uniformly and actually be put in execution, no such offering could be accepted. 5. Imprisonment does not appear to have been imposed by Moses as a punishment, though he could not be unacquainted with it; for he describes it as in use among the Egyptians. (Gen. xxxix, 19, 20, 21.) The only time he mentions it, or more properly arrest, is solely for the purpose of keeping the culprit safe until judgment should be given on his conduct. (Lev. xxiv. 12.) In later times, however, the punishment of the prison came into use among the Israelites and Jews; whose history, under the monarchs, abounds with instances of their imprisoning persons, especially the prophets, who were obnoxious to them for their faithful reproofs of their sins and crimes. Thus, Asa committed the prophet Hannani to prison, for reproving him (2 Chron. xvi. 10.); Ahab committed Micaiah (1 Kings xxii. 27.), as Zedekiah did the prophet Jeremiah, for the same offence. (Jer. xxxvii. 21.) John the Baptist was imprisoned by Herod, misnamed the Great (Matt. iv. 12.); and Peter, by Herod Agrippa. (Acts xii. 4.) Debtors (Matt. xviii. 30,), and murderers (Luke xxiii. 19.), were also committed to prison. We read also of Tenis Anoia, a common prison, a public gaol (Acts v. 8.), which was a place of durance and confinement for the worst sort of offenders. In their prisons, there was usually a dungeon (Jer. xxxviii. 6.), or a pit or cistern, as the word (BOR) is rendered in Zech. ix. 11. where it unquestionably refers to a prison: and from this word we may conceive the nature of a dungeon, viz. that it was a place, in which indeed there was no water, but in its bottom deep mud; and accordingly we read that Jeremiah, who was cast into this worst and lowest part of the prison, sunk into the mire. (Jer. xxxviii. 6.) Into such a horrid place was Joseph cast in Egypt. (Gen. xli. 14.) In the prison also were stocks, for detaining the person of the prisoner more securely. (Jer. xx. 2. xxix. 26.) Michaelis conjectures that they were of the sort by the Greeks called Пsvreugyo, wherein the prisoner was so confined, that his body was kept in an unnatural position, which must have proved a torture truly insupportable. The Edwrega uλaxn, or inner prison, into which Paul and Silas were thrust at Philippi, is supposed to have been the same as the pit or cistern above noticed; and here their feet were made fast in the wooden stocks (Acts xvi. 24.), so guλov. As this prison was under the Roman government, these stocks are supposed to have been the cippi or large pieces of wood in use among that people, which not only loaded the legs of prisoners, but sometimes distended them in a very painful manner. Hence the situation of Paul and Silas would be rendered more painful than that of an offender sitting in the stocks, as used among us; especially if (as is very possible) they lay on the hard or dirty ground, with their bare backs, lacerated by recent scourging.2 The keepers of the prison antiently had, as in the East they still 1 This place is termed the prison-house: but it appears that suspected persons were sometimes confined in part of the house which was occupied by the great officers of state, and was converted into a prison for this purpose. In this manner Jeremiah was at first confined (Jer xxxvii. 15.); and a similar practice obtains in the East to this day. See Harmer's Observations, vol. iii. p. 503. 2 Doddridge's Expositor, on Acts xvi. 24. have, a discretionary power to treat their prisoners just as they please; nothing further being required of them, than to produce them when called for. According to the accurate and observant traveller, Chardin, the gaoler is master, to do as he pleases; to treat his prisoner well or ill; to put him in irons or not, to shut him up closely, or to hold him in easier restraint; to admit persons to him, or to suffer no one to see him. If the gaoler and his servants receive large fees, however base may be the character of the prisoner, he shall be lodged in the best part of the gaoler's own apartment: and, on the contrary, if the persons, who have caused the prisoner to be confined, make the gaoler greater presents, he will treat his victim with the utmost inhumanity. Chardin, illustrates this statement by a narrative of the treatment received by a very great Armenian merchant. While he bribed the gaoler, the latter treated him with the greatest lenity; but afterwards, when the adverse party presented a considerable sum of money, first to the judge, and afterwards to the gaoler, the hapless Armenian first felt his privileges retrenched: he was next closely confined, and then was treated with such inhumanity, as not to be permitted to drink oftener than once in twenty-four hours, even during the hottest time in the summer. No person was allowed to approach him but the servants of the prison: at length he was thrown into a dungeon, where he was in a quarter of an hour brought to the point to which all this severe usage was designed to force him.1 What energy does this account of an eastern prison give to those passages of Scripture, which speak of the soul coming into iron (Psal. cv. 17. marginal rendering), of the sorrowful SIGHING of the prisoner coming before God (Psal. lxxix. 11.), and of Jeremiah's being kept in a dungeon many days, and supplicating that he might not be remanded thither lest he should die! (Jer. xxxvii. 16—20.) 5. Banishment was not a punishment enjoined by the Mosaic law; but after the captivity, both exile and forfeiture of property were introduced among the Jews and it also existed under the Romans, by whom it was called diminutio capitis, because the person banished lost the right of a citizen, and the city of Rome thereby lost a head.2 But there was another kind of exile, termed disportatio, which was accounted the worst kind. The party banished forfeited his estate; and being bound was put on board ship, and transported to some island specified exclusively by the emperor, there to be confined in perpetual banishment. In this manner the apostle John was exiled to the little island of Patmos (Rev. i. 9.), where he wrote his Revelation. 6. In the East, antiently, it was the custom to put out the eyes of prisoners. Thus Sampson was deprived of sight by the Philistines (Judg. xvi. 21.), and Zedekiah by the Chaldees. (2 Kings xxv. 7.) It is well known that cutting out one or both of the eyes has been frequently practised in Persia, as a punishment for treasonable 1 Harmer's Observations, vol. iii. pp. 504, 505. offences. To the great work of restoring eye-balls to the sightless by the Messiah, the prophet Isaiah probably alludes in his beautiful prediction cited by our Lord and applied to himself in Luke iv. 18.1 7. Cutting off the hair of criminals seems to be rather an ignominious than a painful mode of punishment: yet it appears that pain was added to the disgrace, and that the hair was violently plucked off, as if the executioner were plucking a bird alive. This is the literal meaning of the original word, which in Neh. xiii. is rendered plucked off their hair; sometimes hot ashes were applied to the skin after the hair was torn off, in order to render the pain more exquisitely acute. In the spurious book, commonly termed the fourth book of Macabees, it is said that the tyrant Antiochus Epiphanes caused the hair and skin to be entirely torn off the heads of some of the seven Maccabean brethren. As an historical composition this book is utterly destitute of credit; but it shows that the mode of punishment under consideration was not unusual in the East. This sort of torture is said to have been frequently inflicted on the early martyrs and confessors for the Christian faith. 8. Exclusion from sacred worship, or Excommunication, was not only an ecclesiastical punishment, but also a civil one; because in this theocratic republic, there was no distinction between the divine and the civil right. The earliest vestiges of this punishment are to be found after the return from the Babylonish captivity. In later times, according to the rabbinical writers, there were three degrees of excommunication among the Jews. The first was called (NIDUI), removal or separation from all intercourse with society: this is, in the New Testament, frequently termed casting out of the synagogue. (John ix. 22. xvi. 2. Luke vi. 22. &c.) This was in force for thirty days, and might be shortened by repentance. If the person continued in his obstinacy after that time, the excommunication was renewed with additional solemn maledictions. This second degree was called (CHEREM) which signifies to anathematise or devote to death. The third, and the last degree of ex מרן אתא sHaM-ATHA), or) שם את communication was termed (MaRaN-ATHA), that is, the Lord cometh, or may the Lord come; intimating that those against whom it was fulminated, had nothing more to expect but the terrible day of judgment. The condition of those who were excommunicated was the most deplorable that can be imagined. They were debarred of all social intercourse, and were excluded from the temple and the synagogues, on pain of severe corporal punishment. Whoever had incurred this sentence was loaded with imprecations, as appears from Deut. xxvii. where the expression cursed is he, is so often repeated: whence to curse and to excommunicate were equivalent terms with the Jews. And therefore St. Paul says that no man, speaking by the Spirit of God, calleth Jesus anathema or accursed (1 Cor. xii. 3.), that is, curses Him as the Jews did, who denied him to be the Messiah, and 1 Fragments supplementary to Calmet, No. 192. excommunicated the Christians. In the second degree, they delivered the excommunicated party over to Satan, devoting him by a solemn curse to this practice St. Paul is supposed to allude (1 Cor. v. 5.); and in this sense he expresses his desire even to be accursed for his brethren (Rom. ix. 3.), that is, to be excommunicated, laden with curses, and to suffer all the miseries consequent on the infliction of this punishment, if it could have been of any service to his brethren the Jews. In order to impress the minds of the people with the greater horror, it is said that, when the offence was published in the synagogue, all the candles were lighted, and when the proclamation was finished, they were extinguished, as a sign that the excommunicated person was deprived of the light of Heaven; further, his goods were confiscated, his sons were not admitted to circumcision; and if he died without repentance or absolution, by the sentence of the judge a stone was to be cast upon his coffin or bier, in order to show that he deserved to be stoned.1 II. The Talmudical writers have distinguished the CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS of the Jews into lesser deaths, and such as were more grievous but there is no warrant in the Scriptures for these distinctions, neither are these writers agreed among themselves what particular punishments are to be referred to these two heads. A capital crime was termed, generally, a sin of death (Deut. xxii. 6.), or a sin worthy of death (Deut. xxi. 22.); which mode of expression is adopted, or rather imitated, by the apostle John, who distinguishes between a sin unto death and a sin NOT unto death. (1 John v. 16.) Criminals, or those who were deemed worthy of capital punishment, were called sons or men of death (1 Sam. xx. 31. xxvi. 16. 2 Sam. xix. 29. marginal rendering); just as he who had incurred the punishment of scourging was designated a son of stripes. (Deut. xxv. 2. Heb.) Those who suffered a capital punishment, were said to be put to death for their own sin. (Deut. xxiv. 16. 2 Kings xiv. 6.) A similar phraseology was adopted by Jesus Christ, when he said to the Jews, ye shall die in your sins. (John viii. 21. 24.) Eleven dif ferent sorts of capital punishments are mentioned in the sacred writings, viz. 1. Slaying by the sword is commonly confounded with decapitation or beheading. They were however two distinct punishments. The laws of Moses are totally silent concerning the latter practice, and it appears that those who were slain with the sword were put to death in any way which the executioner thought proper. See 1 Kings ii. 25. 29. 31. 34. 46. This punishment was inflicted in two cases (1.) When a murderer was to be put to death; and (2.) When a whole city or tribe was hostilely attacked for any common crime, they smote all (as the Hebrew phrase is) with the edge of the sword. (Deut. xiii. 13-16.) Here doubtless the sword was used by every one as he found opportunity. I Grotius's Note, or rather Dissertation, on Luke vi. 22. Lightfoot's Works' vol. ii. pp. 747-749. Selden, de Jure Naturæ et Gentium, lib. iv. c. 8. |