A Lawyer s Studies in Biblical Law. promulgation fathers were put to death for their children, and children for their fathers. This was in accordance with our theory that, as Sir Henry Sumner Maine puts it, "A crime was a corporate act and extends in its consequences to many more persons than have shared in its actual perpetration; if the individual is conspicuously guilty, it is his children, his tribesmen or his fellow-citizens who suffer with him, and sometimes for him." {Ancient Law, page 122.) There is no case mentioned in the Bible in which the father was put to death for the son's crime, but there are several instances of the reverse. Achan, who had stolen some 'of the spoils of war, was punished by death and his entire family, his sons, his daughters, his cattle, and his property were destroyed with him. The act of the father had made the entire family accursed (Joshua, vii. 24-2 5). (Andsee"The Trial of Achan by Lot," Green Bag, De cember, 1900.) The manner in which the Gibeonites took vengeance for King Saul's breach of faith is characteristic, although the Gibeonites were not of the families of the Hebrews but a remnant of the Amoriteswho had lived in the land before the conquest of Caanan by the Hebrews. When David be came king the Gibeonites petitioned him to de liver seven of the sons of Saul to them to be hanged for the crime of their father, commit ted many years theretofore. David acceded to their request, and delivered seven of the grandsons of King Saul to atone for his crime (II Samuel, xxi, 5-9). A dramatic instance of the application of this principle is found in the case of Naboth's vineyard, in which vengeance was taken on Jehoram, the son of King Ahab on the very land which King Ahab had through perjury and murder wrested from Naboth (II Kings, be, 25-26). (And see "The Case of Naboth's Vineyard," Green Bag, October, 1900.) Although, as we stated above, there is no
491
case in the Bible in which the father is slain for the crime of his son, there is a suggestion of it in the story of the slaying of the Shechemites by Simeon and Levi, the sons of Jacob. They, becoming incensed at the crime com mitted against their family honor by the vio lation of their sister Dinah, fell upon the inhabitants of Shechem and put them to the sword. Jacob, their father, complains to them and expressed his fears that their act would bring vengeance upon him and all his house (Genesis, xxxiv, 30). It was a rude justice that made each man responsible for the act of the members of his family, and in those days, in which national government was unknown, it was perhaps the only way in which society could maintain itself. Every man was a policeman in duty bound to see that the members of his family kept the peace, under penalty of suffering personally for their transgression. The law in Deuteronomy above quoted provided that every man should be put to death for his own sin, and thus ended the notion of the corporate nature of crime. It was one of the steps in the transition from the theories of the old family law to the modern conception, according to which the individual is directly and solely responsible to the law for his act, irrespective of his filia tion or his personal status. During the reign of King Amazia of Judah this Deuteronomic law was observed by the king. The Biblical record makes special note of this fact in these words, "And it came to pass as soon as the kingdom was confirmed in his hand, that he slew the serv ants which had slain the king's father, but the children of the murderers he slew not, according unto that which is written in the book of the law of Moses, wherein the Lord commanded saying, The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, nor the chil dren be put to death for the fathers; but
