Objection 10:  Further, as Augustine says (De Civ.  Dei xxi, 11), “Tully writes that the laws recognize eight forms of punishment, indemnity, prison, stripes, retaliation, public disgrace, exile, death, slavery.”  Now some of these were prescribed by the Law.  “Indemnity,” as when a thief was condemned to make restitution fivefold or fourfold.  “Prison,” as when (Num. 15:34) a certain man is ordered to be imprisoned.  “Stripes”; thus (Deut. 25:2), “if they see that the offender be worthy of stripes; they shall lay him down, and shall cause him to be beaten before them.”  “Public disgrace” was brought on to him who refused to take to himself the wife of his deceased brother, for she took “off his shoe from his foot, and” did “spit in his face” (Deut. 25:9).  It prescribed the “death” penalty, as is clear from (Lev. 20:9):  “He that curseth his father, or mother, dying let him die.”  The Law also recognized the “lex talionis,” by prescribing (Ex. 21:24):  “Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.”  Therefore it seems unreasonable that the Law should not have inflicted the two other punishments, viz. “exile” and “slavery.”

Objection 11:  Further, no punishment is due except for a fault.  But dumb animals cannot commit a fault.  Therefore the Law is unreasonable in punishing them (Ex. 21:29):  “If the ox . . . shall kill a man or a woman,” it “shall be stoned”:  and (Lev. 20:16):  “The woman that shall lie under any beast, shall be killed together with the same.”  Therefore it seems that matters pertaining to the relations of one man with another were unsuitably regulated by the Law.

Objection 12:  Further, the Lord commanded (Ex. 21:12) a murderer to be punished with death.  But the death of a dumb animal is reckoned of much less account than the slaying of a man.  Hence murder cannot be sufficiently punished by the slaying of a dumb animal.  Therefore it is unfittingly prescribed (Deut. 21:1, 4) that “when there shall be found . . . the corpse of a man slain, and it is not known who is guilty of the murder . . . the ancients” of the nearest city “shall take a heifer of the herd, that hath not drawn in the yoke, nor ploughed the ground, and they shall bring her into a rough and stony valley, that never was ploughed, nor sown; and there they shall strike off the head of the heifer.”

On the contrary, It is recalled as a special blessing (Ps. 147:20) that “He hath not done in like manner to every nation; and His judgments He hath not made manifest to them.”

I answer that, As Augustine says (De Civ.  Dei ii, 21), quoting Tully, “a nation is a body of men united together by consent to the law and by community of welfare.”  Consequently it is of the essence of a nation that the mutual relations of the citizens be ordered by just laws.  Now the relations of one man with another are twofold:  some are effected under the guidance of those in authority:  others are effected by the will of private individuals.