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AS king Herod was very zealous in the administration of his entire
government, and desirous to put a stop to particular acts of injustice
which were done by criminals about the city and country, he made a law,
no way like our original laws, and which he enacted of himself, to expose
house-breakers to be ejected out of his kingdom; which punishment was not
only grievous to be borne by the offenders, but contained in it a dissolution
of the customs of our forefathers; for this slavery to foreigners, and
such as did not live after the manner of Jews, and this necessity that
they were under to do whatsoever such men should command, was an offense
against our religious settlement, rather than a punishment to such as were
found to have offended, such a punishment being avoided in our original
laws; for those laws ordain, that the thief shall restore fourfold; and
that if he have not so much, he shall be sold indeed, but not to foreigners,
nor so that he be under perpetual slavery, for he must have been released
after six years. But this law, thus enacted, in order to introduce a severe
and illegal punishment, seemed to be a piece of insolence of Herod, when
he did not act as a king, but as a tyrant, and thus contemptuously, and
without any regard to his subjects, did he venture to introduce such a
punishment. Now this penalty, thus brought into practice, was like Herod's
other actions, and became a part of his accusation, and an occasion of
the hatred he lay under.
Flavius Josephus. The Works of Flavius Josephus. Translated by. William Whiston, A.M. Auburn and Buffalo. John E. Beardsley. 1895.
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