Capital Offences (Marg-arzān Sins) in the Middle Persian Texts

According to the Middle Persian texts Marg-arzān is a sin that is punished by death. In the list of the degrees of the sins, Marg-arzān is the heaviest one. Several Middle Persian texts speak about the sin and its punishment, some of them have allotted a whole chapter to the subject and other speak about it sporadically. In this article, capital offences and their trial procedures has been surveyed according to Pahlavi texts. Capital offences are divided into the “offenses /sins regarding opposite party (= hamēmālān)” and the “offenses which endanger the soul of the criminal (= ruwānīg)”. Some of the sins such as killing, stealing and perjury have been placed in the group of “hamēmālān” because they harm an opposite party. Other sins, such as converting to another religion, deceiving and burying the dead, have been placed in the group of “ruwānīg” because they harm one own soul. This paper also surveys the legal and religious procedures for punishing the sinners.