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257 death by the avenger of blood. The three cities referred to in Deut. xix. were, no doubt, on the west of the Jordan. The measure was preliminary or tentative, and the trans-Jordanic region, at that time— to ward the end of the seventh century—loosely connected with the west (which was really the seat of the nation), was either not thought of, or was to

left for

future legislation.

At a later time, probably

during or after the Exile, the sense of the ecclesiastical unity of the land grew stronger, and it was thought proper to set apart three cities on the east of the Jordan or it may be that this step was merely the natural completion of the first measure. The first intimation of this extension of the law is found in Deut. xix. 8-10, which, as it stands, is an interruption of the legal statement, and is manifestly an interpolation by a scribe who wished to bring the Deuteronomic law up to the later usage. In this paragraph it is merely said that three additional cities are to be appointed, but their names are not given we find them, however, in Deut. iv. 41-43, which, likewise, is an exilic or post-exilic editorial



addition to the text, intended, perhaps, as the hisThe regulation is stated torical sequel to xix. 8-10. more fully in Josh. xx. (post-exilic): The fugitive, standing at the entrance of the city-gate, is to lay his case before the elders, who then protect him till he can be tried before the congregation. If he is adjudged innocent by the congregation, he is at liberty, on the death of the high priest of the time, to go "to his own house, and can not then be called to account by the avenger of blood. Presumably, if he is adjudged guilty, he is handed over to the

avenger. It is expressly stated, in accordance with the humane spirit of the period, that this law is to apply to the resident alien as well as to the native The two new points in the regulation inhabitant. of Joshua (the congregation as tribunal, and the death of the high priest as ushering in the period of liberty for innocent homicides) belong to the post-exilic ecclesiastical organization of the Jewish commuSubstantially the same form of the law is nity. given in Num. xxxv. 11-32, where also the fact is emphasized that, up to the death of the high priest within whose reign the offense was committed, the fugitive is safe only within the borders of the city It thus appears that the movement of of refuge. legislation was in the direction of exact justice; the object was to take the decision respecting homicide out of the hands of the angry avenger whose function was doubtless necessary in a certain stage of society— and assign it to an impartial tribunal. The important specifications in the latest form of the law are The abolition of the right of Asylum in sanctuaries, and the appointment of cities, in which presumably an innocent fugitive might have a house and live comfortably with his family the determination of the tribunal that was to try the case and the

—







fixing a

day when the

man might

go freely and

The six cities of refuge named are Kedesh in Naphtali, Schechem in Ephraim, Hebron in Judah, and, on the east without fear to his

of

Asverus

THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA

257

own home.

the river, Bezer in Reuben,

Ramoth

in Gad,

and Golan in Manasseh. The first three were old sacred places, and so, probably, were the second three. In the texts referred to there is no mention

II.— 17

Asylum

of a right of sanctuary for fugitive debtors and slaves; the reference in Deut. xxiii. 16 [15] is to foreign fugitives, and these are protected by residence anywhere in the land.

As to how far this post-exilic law was actually in Under the force there is no definite information. rule of the Persians, the Greeks, and the Hasmoneans, the Judean state never had control of Later the whole of the old territory. If the History, statement may be trusted (I Mace. x. 43; Josephus, "Ant." xiii. 2, § 3) that the Seleucid Demetrius I. (about 152 b.c.) offered to make the Jerusalem Temple an Asylum, the natural inference will be that it was not then so regarded the offer seems, however, not to have been accepted. The custom of Asylum doubtless continued, though the function of the avenger of blood ceased the six

may have

retained their legal privilege, and possibly the right of Asylum was extended to the Under the Greek and Roother Levitical cities. man rule a number of cities in Syria enjoyed this privilege (lists are given in Barth, " De Gra>corum

cities

Asylis"). S. Baeck, in Monatsschrift, xviii. 307-312 ana A. P. Bissell, The Law of Asylum, in Israel, 1883 commentaries on Makkot Farbstein, in Ner ha-Ma'arahi, Golubov, Institut Uhye-ZMshcha u ii. 35-38, 101-106; N. M. Drevnykh Yevreyev, St. Petersburg, 1884; S. Oblenburg, Die Bihlischen Asule in Talmudischem Gewan&e, 1895. On Greek and Roman asylums, see Pauly-Wissowa, ReaLEncycl.des Classischen Alterthums, s.v. Asyl. T. J. JR.

Bibliography 565-572







In Rabbinical Literature



The

Biblical or-

dinances on Asylum are formulated and developed into a complete system in the tannaite tradition. As in many other instances of the Halakah, the law on Asylum is in its main features merely theoretic at the same time the tannaite sources often hand down actual facts, as, for example, the regulation of the right of Asylum in the period between 100 b.c.

and 30

which is mentioned Mak. iii. [ii.] 5; Male. Eliezer was a tanna who, shortly after

c.e.

,

especially that

by Eliezer ben Jacob 10<J et seq.).

(Tosef.,

the destruction of the Temple in 70, set himself the task of studying and arranging the laws and customs that had lost their force with the fall of the Jewish state.

Although nothing

else is

known about Jewish

in Palestine (Josephus, " Ant. " xiii. 2, § 3, does not mean Asylum in the Jewish sense, and furthermore the passage is of doubtful historic value

Asylum

view of I Mace. x. 31 et seq.), the authority of Eliezer is sufficient to prove its existence in Palestine at the beginning of the common era, especially since the validity of his statements is proved by the account of actual conditions in the cities of refuge handed down by tannaim of Akiba's school (Mak. Jewish tradition fixes upon the year 30 as ii. 6). the time when the Jewish courts were deprived of their power to inflict capital punishment (Sanh. From the remark found in a Baraita (Sotah, 41a). in

the first Temple 48*), that after the destruction of the Levitical cities ceased to exist, it does not follow

that the cities of refuge, which formed part of them, that also passed away; the remark simply means there were no longer any Levitical cities laid out in the manner prescribed in Num. xxxv. 2-5 (compare also Sifre, Num. 161, where it is expressly stated