The duty of executing punishment on the murderer is in the Law expressly laid on the " revenger of blood ;" but the question of guilt was to be previously decided by the Levitical tribunal. A strong bar against the licence of private revenge was placed by the provision which required the concurrence of at least two witnesses in any capital question (Numb, xxxv, 19-30 ; Deut. xvii, G-12; xix, 12, 17). In regal times the duty of execu- tion of justice on a murderer seems to have been as- sumed to some extent by the sovereign, as well as the privilege of pardon (2 Sam. xiii, 39 ; xiv, 7, 11 ; 1 Kings ii, 34). During this period also the practice of assassi- nation became freipient, especially in the kingdom of Israel. Among modes of effecting this object may be mentioned the murder of Benhadad of Damascus by Ilazael by means of a wet clotli (I Kings xv, 27 ; xvi, 9; 2 Kings viii, 15; see Thenius, ad loc; Jahn. ///••!/, i, 137; comj). 2 Kings x, 7; xi, 1, IG; xii, 20; xiv, 5; xv, 14, 25, 30).
MURDER
741
MURDER
■ It was lawful to kill a burglar taken at night in the act, but unlawful to do so after sunrise (Exod. xxii, 2, 3).
The Koran forbids child-murder, and allows blood- revenge, but permits money-compensation for blood- shed (ii, 21; iv, 72; xvii, 230, ed. Sale).— Smith. See M.vnslayp:r.
jMURDEK, Christian Laws concerxixg. In civil law murder is termed the killing of a human being of vuilice aforethought, and the crime thus committed is in most countries punishable by death. In the United States there are several states in favor of life imprison- ment, and in Sweden capital punishment is no longer meted out. Murder is defined by Coke thus : " When a person of sound memory and discretion unlawfulh"- killeth any reasonable creature in being, and under the king's peace, with malice aforethought, either express or implied." Almost every word in this definition has been the subject of discussion in the numerous cases that have occurred in the law-courts. The murderer must be of sound memory or discretion ; i. e. he must be at least fourteen years of age, and not a lunatic or idiot. The act must be done unlawfully, i. e. it must not be in self-defence, or from other justifiable cause. The person killed must be a reasonable creat- ure, and hence killing a child in the womb is not mur- der, but is punishable in another way. See Isfanti- ciDK. The essential thing in murder is that it be done maliciously and deliberately ; and hence in cases of hot blood and scuffling the offence is generally manslaugh- ter only. Killing by duelling is thus murder, for it is deliberate. It is not necessary, in order to constitute murder, that the murderer kill the man he intended, provided he liad a deliberate design to murder some one. Thus if one shoots at A and misses him, but kills B, this is murder, because of the previous felonious in- tent, which the law transfers from one to the other. So if one lays poison for A, and B, against whom the poi- soner had no felonious intent, takes it and is killed, this is murder. The murderer is here regarded as hostis humani generis. "Anciently," Blackstone says, "the name of murder, as a crime, was applied only to the se- cret killing of another, which the word moerda signifies in the Teutonic language." Among the ancient Goths in Sweden and Denmark the whole vill or neighborhood was punished for the crime, if the murderer was not dis- covered. The Roman Catholic Church stands accused of encouraging murder in various instances. Though no doubt the Church has frequently been held responsible where the individual acted of his own will and accord, it is yet apparent, from various ecclesiastical actions, that the Church of Rome has taken a peculiar view of this subject. Thus the clergy (q. v.) were at times exempt- ed from severe punishment for this crime. In England the statute for the " Benefit of Clergy" was only abol- ished by George IV (7 and 8, c. 28). The murder of heretics has frequently been encouraged in the Romish Church, as witness the slaughter of St. Bartholomew (q. v.). Pope Urban II stands accused beyond dispute of having encouraged murder; and in the I5th century, when those of the Romanists who desired reform urged the Council of Florence and of Constance in vain to condemn the monstrous teachings of Jean Petet (see Monstrelet, The Eight Principles of J. Petet, li, c. xxxix), who in ambiguous writing had vindicated as just and lawful most foul and treacherous murder, and in this vindication laid down " principles utterly subversive of human society; principles which would let loose man- kind upon each other, like wild beasts; principles in direct violation of one of the commandments of God, and in plain, bold opposition to every principle, and to the whole religion of Christ" — the council not only did not condemn these monstrous tenets, but declared them simply "moral and philosophical opinions, not of faith," and therefore out of the province of the Church and of the councO (Milman, Hist, of Latin Christianity, vii, 508). In the 10th century indulgences were freely