pie shall respond, savdng, "Amen!"^ In this \erse, indeed, the curse is inv()ked against anyone who in the future casts an idol and sets it up "in secret."' The curse applies to anyone who so acts, whether apprehended or not. .Moreover, the cursingof such persons is generalized: so far as our information goes there was no formal curse intoned over such an indiv idual. No ritual cursing takes place after conviction. The passage seems always to have been so understood, d'here is nothing in the Mishnah to show that cursing after conviction was ever part of the penalty. But why was a curse not so applied.- It surely seems appropriate that a heinous wrongdoer be condemned by God as well as man. .And it would surely add to the solemnitv’ of the punishment, d'he ancient Israelites had some fancy penalties.'’ Why ever was a convicted wrongdoer not also cursed to increase the horror of the occasion.^ rhe explanation cannot simply be that the curse was not used by the ancient Israelites as a punishment because it was not needed after guilt was established. Unnecessarv' punishments have always been fashionable, fhus, for the punishment of a parricide in ancient Rome it was not obv iously necessary that he was, after a beating, put into a leather sack along with snakes and other animals-ancient authors name variouslv a cock, dog, ass-and put on a wagon drawn by black oxen to the l iber, and thrown in. A person convicted in the 4 The verses have long been seen as a composite, but David Daube rightly sees themas a unity, concerning offences "as may easily evade earthly justice:" 'Some Forms of the Old Testament Legislation,' in Oxford Society of Historical Theology: Abstract of Proceedings for the Academic Year 1944-45, pp. 36ff. at p. 39. For present purposes it is interesting that Joseph Blenkinsopp, for example, holds that the provisions are not strictly curses: The New Jerome Biblical Commentary {Englewood Cliffs, 1990) edit. Raymond E. Brown, et al. p. 106. 5 See already Daube, 'Forms,' p. 39. 6 See, e.g., Mishnah Sanhedrin. 7 See, e.g., Theodor Mommsen, Römisches Sfrafrechf (Leipzig, 1899), p. 922. 128
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