I sold it to you, and you and I will litigate before the people and go to the judge. When you bring your claim against me, the judge will ask, “What is your response?” I will say, “My response is that the car belongs to him, that I have wrongfully taken it, and that I sold it to so-and-so.” Therefore, we say: the right of this purchaser, who has paid the price and concluded the entire transaction, cannot be invalidated merely by this man’s acknowledgment. However, if he produces evidence, it is accepted and the sale is rescinded; and if the purchaser confirms his statement, the sale is likewise rescinded, holding him to his acknowledgment, since he himself has admitted that the sale was invalid.

The second issue: a gift. After giving away an item and handing it over, it is as though he regrets the gift and says, “I cannot retract my gift, because the gift has been taken possession of. But I will acknowledge that this particular item belongs to someone else.” We say: Your statement is not accepted unless supported by evidence or confirmed by the donee.

The third issue: emancipation. Likewise, after emancipating a slave and drawing up a document of his emancipation, he says, “The slave is not mine; he belongs to so-and-so.” If the slave confirms this, the emancipation does not take effect; but if he denies it, the emancipation takes effect, and the emancipator must compensate the person in whose favor the acknowledgment was made. Likewise, if evidence establishes that the slave did not belong to him, the emancipation does not take effect; rather, it is invalidated, because it has been established that he was not his property.

“If he says, ‘It was not my property, but I acquired it afterward,’ and he produces evidence, it is accepted—unless he had acknowledged that it was his property, or that he had received the price of his property; in that case, it is not accepted.”

His statement, “If he says, ‘It was not my property, but I acquired it afterward,’ and he produces evidence, it is accepted,” is because it is possible that, at the time of the sale, it was not his property, and that he then purchased it from its owner afterward. Thus, if he produces evidence of that, it is accepted.

His statement, “Unless he had acknowledged that it was his property, or that he had received the price of his property, it is not accepted.”