which it was a restraint of great moral importance.

We come now to the enactments of that law itself. The first sentence, in relation to the subject of Adultery, is found in the second table of the Decalogue.* This verse contains an express prohibition of the crime, in terms as explicit as the circumstances under which it was uttered were impressive and awful. It is a simple prohibition: no reason is added, for the reason was unnecessary it is one of those crimes which carries its own condemnation in its name, and immediately and sufficiently justifies its own prohibition. It has been already observed, that it annihilates the very end of marriage, and entails after it the greatest miseries and acutest sufferings.

This prohibition of the Decalogue has, however, received a wider interpretation than that which would restrict it to this crime. Many of the etymologists and commentators contend, that it restrains, not only the gross act of adultery, but all illicit coition, and all unnatural lusts. This has been the received opinion of many eminent Jews and Christians, though others limit it to the breach of conjugal faith. Philo and Tertullian state,

* Exodus xx. 14.

that some Greek copies of the Decalogue, extant in their time, placed this precept before that relative to murder, and they contend adultery to be the greater evil of the two. To this, however, it may be replied, that Moses no where gives so weighty a reason against this crime, as he did against the other, when he said, "In the image of

God made he man."

With regard to other unnatural crimes, they are made the subject of express prohibition in other parts of the divine law, and made capital; except, indeed, fornication; the punishment of this, if committed against a virgin, was a fine of fifty shekels and an obligation to marry her without the power of divorce. We shall consider the Seventh Commandment, then, as referring to Adultery, in the usual acceptation of the term, defined in Leviticus xviii. 20, as lying carnally with a neighbour's wife."*

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.לא תנאף The terms of the prohibition are

"to sa

The Arabic root, from which the Hebrew word, is a derivative, signifies, tiate the thirst by drinking;" situm explevit potu: and the sacred writers appear to have made the exact application of this term in the comparisons which they institute in relation

to this subject. Solomon denominates adulterous loves, "stolen waters," but. describes the lawful enjoyment of a man's own wife, as the " drinking of waters out of his own cistern, and running waters out of his own well."*

The definition and prohibition of the crime are thus quite clear. The penalty attaching on the commission of it next follows. That is mentioned among the capital punishments, in Leviticus, xx. 10: "The man that committeth Adultery with another man's wife, even he that committeth Adultery with his neighbour's wife, the Adulterer and the Adulteress shall be surely put to death."+

This is repeated in Deuteronomy, xxii. 22: "If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman." Several cases follow this last passage, mitigating the punishment where the guilt was not of equal enormity; but it is worthy of notice, that the violation of a woman during the period of her sponsalia, mentioned in the twenty-third verse,

* Prov. v. 15, 18. ix. 17. and verse 18, Septuagint.

Cant. iv. 12, 15.

+ Levit. xx. 10.

Deut. xxii. 22.

was considered an adulterous act, and was visited by death. This marks the strictness which the Jewish law would maintain on the subject of the marriage vow. The only difference between the penalty attaching to the commission of this crime, during the contract for marriage before its solemnization, and defilement afterwards, was in the mode of executing the offender. But, of this presently. From what has been stated, it is clear that the punishment for Adultery was thus declared to be capital, and that both parties to it were placed on on the same footing. Neither the violence of the passions of the one sex, nor the weakness and timidity of the other, were admitted as any excuse. The sixth chapter of Proverbs, and the 32nd and 35th verses, implies a continuance of this penalty in the days of Solomon; and a passage, quoted below, the same in Ezekiel's time.†

The strictness of the Mosaic law, in reference to the Sponsalia mentioned above, is remarked by Maimonides. With the Jews, he states, that a woman might be espoused three ways; by money; i. e. probably, by dowry; by a writing, the settlement; or by a concubitus. Being thus espoused, though not yet married, nor conducted

* Prov. vi. 32-35.

† Ezek. xvi. 38, 40.

into the man's house, yet was she his wife; and if any man should lie with her besides him, he would be punished with death by the Sanhedrim. And if the man himself would put her away, he must write a Bill of Divorce.

The modes of inflicting this penalty were various. A curious distinction has been drawn between the expressions of Scripture, wherein a variation in the pain and disgrace of this punishment has been supposed to be referred to; and this distinction has accordingly been prevailingly adopted by the Jews. When the punishment is simply mentioned as death, they understood it to imply strangling; but when it is said,

their blood shall be upon them,"

they supposed the mode intended to be stoning. So Selden states it: "Interficiuntur morte; simplici mortis mentione, strangulationem intelligunt, sed quemadmodum adjicitur illud, sic sanguis super eos, lapidationem denotat.' And the reason of this was because strangling was the easiest death of the four in use among the Jews; and, where the mode was not specially prescribed, they said, Ampliandi favores," the most merciful exposition is to be given. But the rule is not correct. For the expression of the punishment of Adultery

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* Selden de Uxor. Hebraica.