ABSTRACT
Now, if Maimonides holds that with respect to witchcraft no divine commandment was necessary, and by virtue of the exercise of reason alone one must abhor it, then is it conceivable that he would say that with respect to murder one must desist from homicide only because God revealed that it was wrong? Perhaps Maimonides did not conceive of, or define, natural law as Aristotle did before, and Aquinas after, him. But no Jewish philosopher could justify God's punishment of Cain for his fratricide unless there are moral imperatives which require no divine revelation but are derived either a priori from man's nature or reason, or a posteriori from the nature of society.
