The Vermont poor suffer like the poor of
all time, but there is a safety net. They receive aid through the Reach First, Reach Up,
and Reach Ahead programs in Human Services.70 In the Bible, farmers were required
to leave a corner of the field uncut for the
poor—Lev. 19:9-10 (“And when ye reap the
harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly
reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt
thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.”)
If you forget a sheave, during field harvest,
“thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall
be for the stranger, for the fatherless, and
for the widow.”71
The Old Testament in Court
Scanning the Vermont Reports, it is rare
to find any express reference to the Bible or
Old Testament in the decisions of the highest court. Justice Taylor’s opinion in 1915 in
an adultery case is an exception.
It remains to consider whether, under
the common-law definition of adultery, our statute makes both parties to
the act guilty of the offense, or whether the fact of marriage on the part of
the man is material. On this question
the common law furnishes no direct
authority; for, as we have seen, adultery was not an indictable offense at
common law. That the wrong involved
the man as well as the unfaithful wife is
perfectly apparent. If we recur to the
source from which the common-law
idea of adultery sprung, we shall see
that it regarded the man and woman
alike. It found its root in the Mosaic law
which provided:
“If a man be found lying with a woman
married to a husband, then they shall
both of them die, the man that lay with
the woman and the woman.” Deut.
xxii, 22; Lev. xx, 10. The common-law
idea of adultery prevailed in the Mosaic law, for by the latter the man was
condemned, not because he had violated his matrimonial vow, but “because he hath humbled his neighbor’s
wife.” Deut. xxii, 24. 72
Epilogue
Moses was no Milton. He did not have the
need or the presumption to attempt to “justify the ways of God to man,” but whomever he was, Moses’s God left his mark on that
set of green books that lines your library. No
need to genuflect or bow. It is enough to
know that much of our statute law is firmamental.
Forgive the passing conservative whimper, but considering the laws that formerly codified biblical commands, don’t you
www.vtbar.org
see the modern state drifting away from its
moorings? The world of the court of Solomon, where some believe these books were
first compiled from much older oral traditions, is not our world, and the laws that
regulated the early Middle East have not all
been translated into the V.S.A. Are we wiser, more educated, and sophisticated than
those early Judeans? Maybe, maybe not.
We are no less bound to tradition, even
though the tradition we are bound to is often newly invented.
Knowing the origins of laws gives the
reader an understanding, and authority—
Deut. 4:5 (“Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my
God commanded me, that ye should do so
in the land whither ye go to possess it”).
When we find a statute that is reflective of
an ancient law, we can say, justifiably, “This
isn’t just a law: it’s biblical.”
____________________
Paul S. Gillies, Esq., is a partner in the
Montpelier firm of Tarrant, Gillies, Merriman
& Richardson and is a regular contributor to
the Vermont Bar Journal. A collection of his
columns has recently been published under
the title of Uncommon Law, Ancient Roads,
and Other Ruminations on Vermont Legal
History by the Vermont Historical Society.
____________________
Ruminations: Palimpsests of the V.S.A.
Title 33: Human Services
1
Part II will discuss the palimpsests of the V.S.A.
through the lens of the Twelve Tables of Rome
and Justinian’s Code, much of which has found its
way into Vermont law through the common law.
2
Pentimento is a painting revealed under another painting; palimpsest is the parchment equivalent. The stress is on the first syllable. Both are
metaphors for memory. Martha Weinman Lear,
Where Did I Leave My Glasses?: The What, When,
and Why of Memory Loss (2008) (unpaginated).
3
http://www.archimedespalimpsest.org/.
4
Adina Hoffman, Peter Cole, Sacred Trash: The
Lost and Found World of the Cairo Geniza (2011).
In analyzing the Old Testament, scholars have discerned an ur-text. Harold Bloom wrote about the
author of the unde ɱ她