He who
commits perjury also is to suffer capital punishment.[289] He adds a
law which finds no place in the Palestinian tradition, making the
exposure of children a capital crime.[290] Again, following the text
of the Biblical law literally (see Deut. xxi. 18), he gives power of
life and death to parents over their rebellious children, whereas the
Jewish law demands a trial before a court to make the death sentence
legal. He approves of the _lex talionis_, "an eye for an eye, a tooth
for a tooth," agreeing here, indeed, with the opinion of earlier
rabbis like R. Eliezer (see Baba Kama 84, [Hebrew: 'yn tht 'yn mmsh],
"the law of eye for eye is to be taken literally"), and disagreeing with
the later Halakic interpretation, which says that the law of Moses means
the award of the value of an eye for an eye, etc.
This is one instance among many of Philo's adoption of the older
tradition, established probably under the Sadducaean predominance,
which was modified in the rabbinical schools of the first and the
second century. Paradoxically, in his exposition of the law, Philo
follows the letter more closely as the expression of justice, while
the later rabbis often allegorize it in order to support their humaner
interpretation. Thus, commenting on the passage in Exodus xxii. 3
about the law of theft, "If the sun be risen upon him, blood shall be
shed for blood," he, like R.
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