Aquinas on the Old Law's Rules for Foreigners, War, Slaves and Children (ST I-II q.105 a.3–4)

Orientation #

He opens: “Up to one o five, Article Three,” and works straight through a. 3 (outsiders) and into the following article on domestic persons, stopping mid-way through its objections and replies. The previous class covered the judicial precepts on judges, witnesses and punishments in the same question.

The class, in order #

1. Objection 1 and its reply: who may enter the Church of God (“God is not an accepter of persons”) #

Objection: Peter in Acts says God is no accepter of persons but accepts every nation that fears him; so it is unsuitable that Deuteronomy 23 bars Ammonites and Moabites forever, while Edomites and Egyptians are not to be abominated.

He takes the reply first — “it might be a little easier.” Reply:

1. The law excludes no nation from the worship of God and what pertains to the soul’s salvation — Exodus 12: the stranger circumcised may keep the Passover and shall be as one born in the land.
2. In temporal things, in what pertains to the community of the people, not just anyone is admitted at once. Some after the third generation (Egyptians, Idumeans); others perpetually, in detestation of the old guilt (Moabites, Ammonites, Amalekites).
3. Reason: as one man is punished so that others fear and desist, so a race or city can be punished for its sin so that others abstain from the like.
4. Dispensation is possible for an act of virtue: Achior, leader of the sons of Ammon, added to the people of Israel with all his line (Judith); Ruth the Moabite, a woman of virtue. A student adds Rahab the harlot of Jericho.
5. Or: the prohibition extends to men, not women, “to which does not belong simply to be citizens.”

Aside: “Put that in the current debate — the war on woman.”

2. Objection 2 and reply: eunuchs and the spurious; citizen simpliciter and secundum quid (“in two ways someone is said to be a citizen”) #

Objection: what is not in our power merits no punishment; but being a eunuch, or born of fornication, is not in one’s power; yet Deuteronomy 23 bars them from the church of the Lord. (He connects this to those born of rape in present debate.)

Reply, from Politics III: citizen simpliciter = one able to do what pertains to citizens, to give counsel or make judgment among the people; citizen secundum quid = anyone who inhabits the city — vile persons, boys, old men (“that’s me, I guess”). So the spurious, for the vileness of their origin, and eunuchs, to whom the honour owed to fathers cannot belong, are excluded from the college of the people to the tenth generation — especially among the Jews, where the worship of God is conserved through generation of the flesh; even the Gentiles honoured the man who begot many sons (Politics II). But as regards the grace of God eunuchs are not separated: Isaiah 56, let not the stranger say the Lord divides me from his people, nor the eunuch say “Behold, I am a dry tree.”

3. Objection 3 and reply: usury from aliens (“You shall not sadden the immigrant”) #

Objection: the law commands mercy to the immigrant (Exodus 22, you shall not afflict him, for you were aliens in Egypt); but to be oppressed by usury is an affliction; yet Deuteronomy 23 permits lending at usury to aliens.

Reply: taking usury from aliens was not according to the intention of the law but from a certain permission, given the Jews’ proneness to avarice, and so that they might live more peacefully with the strangers from whom they gained wealth. A student compares Moses’ permission of divorce; he agrees — they were cruel and might kill the wife to be rid of the bond.

Discussion: “this question should be learned by all the political candidates out there about immigration, refugees, and border security.” A student mentions Neuhaus of First Things making a Catholic case for prudence about immigration; he notes many bishops “have thrown caution to the winds,” and quotes his mother: “Charity doesn’t mean you got to be stupid.”

4. Objection 4 and reply: killing the men but sparing the trees (“cut down the people but not the trees”) #

Objection: we owe affection more to men than to trees, and more to those near us (Ecclesiasticus 13, every animal loves its like, as every man his neighbour); yet the Lord commands that in captured enemy cities all be killed but the trees not cut down.

Reply — a distinction among enemy cities:

• Remote cities, not among those promised: the men who fought against the people of God are killed, but women and infants are pitied.
• Nearby cities of the promised land: all are commanded to be killed, on account of their prior iniquities, the Israelites being sent as carriers-out of divine justice.
• Fruit-bearing trees are reserved for the usefulness of that people whose territory was now subject to them.

Aside: Richard Dawkins refused to debate “Doctor Daniel Craig” [ed.: William Lane Craig] on this very point, and Craig’s answer seemed akin to Thomas’s — “this is actually a big issue in the big atheist debates today.”

5. Objection 5 and reply: the men sent home from battle (“Instead of burning your draft card you plant a vineyard”) #

Objection: the common good in war should be preferred to the private, yet the law sends home the man who has built a new house, planted a vineyard, or taken a wife.

Reply, two reasons:

1. What a man newly has, or is at once prepared to have, he loves more, and so fears its loss more; whence he would fear death more and be less brave in fighting.
2. From Physics II: it seems unfortunate when someone approaches having a good and is then impeded from it; those left behind grieve more, and onlookers are struck. So these men were withdrawn from battle for the fear of death.

Aside: his uncle Jim volunteered for both world wars reasoning “I’m a bachelor, I should go in — if I get killed it doesn’t hurt the family.”

6. Objection 6 and reply: the fearful sent home (“lest others be provoked to fear”) #

Objection: one ought not get an advantage from guilt; but the fearful, weak-hearted man is culpable, contrary to fortitude; yet he is excused from the labour of battle.

Reply: the timid are sent home not that they should gain a benefit, but lest the people suffer harm from their presence, since by their fear and flight others also would be provoked to fear.

He applies this to admitting women to combat; a student reports the Israelis tried it and stopped, because men would do stupid things to save the women — “that’s a good example.” Talk follows about the Israelis’ airport security and their not having open borders.

7. Digressions: Pacific, papyrus, the division of world history, the Incas (“You know how the Pacific Ocean got its name”) #

Triggered by pacifice in the body of the article. In the old translation of St Catherine of Siena God is called “the Pacific one”; a peace-offering sacrifice is called pacifica. “Paper” from papyrus — paper was actually invented in China but did the same work as papyrus, so kept the name.

On world history (a dollar book from the Tuesday library): ancient/medieval/modern is a good division of European history but not of world history. MacNeil’s The Rise of the West, “probably the best history in the world,” divides it: (1) to c. 500 BC, civilization beginning in the Middle East and spreading; (2) 500 BC–1500 AD, the “Eurasian cultural balance,” four main independent centres — old Middle East, Europe, India, China; (3) from 1500, the rise of the West, whose technologies must be accepted. His new book, under other names (“divergence of civilizations”), does the same — “you can’t really improve upon that.”

The Incas’ planned economy: everyone issued a pair of shoes and pants at set times, so trade broke out at the bottom among those who wore out one faster than the other — “the only way the planned economy can exist is by some frantic exchange at the bottom,” always accompanied by a black market.

8. The body of a. 3: peaceful and hostile dealings with strangers (“pacifice … hostiliter”) #

Sed contra: Proverbs 8, “Right are all my sermons; there is nothing perverse in them.”

Men can behave toward strangers peacefully or in a hostile way, and the law has suitable precepts for both.

Peaceful, in three occasions: (1) strangers passing through the land as wanderers; (2) strangers dwelling in the land as immigrants — for both, the law proposes precepts of mercy: Advenam non contristabis, “don’t sadden the immigrant” (Exodus 22); (3) when strangers wish to be wholly admitted into their fellowship, religion and life. Here an order is observed: they are not received as citizens at once — as among some Gentiles one is not reckoned a citizen unless from a grandfather or great-grandfather (Politics III). Reason: strangers not yet having a firm love for the public good might attempt something against the people. Hence Egyptians (among whom some were born and nourished) and Idumeans (sons of Esau, brother of Jacob) in the third generation; Ammonites and Moabites, who behaved in a hostile way, never; the Amalekites, adversaries with whom there was no kinship, to be held perpetual enemies — Exodus 17, “the war of God will be against Amalek from generation to generation.”

He applies this to Muslim refugees: we cannot judge their religion — “we can’t decide what’s real Islam or what isn’t, that’s their business” — but there are sufficient reasons to exclude many on national-security grounds. A student replies that the left sees culture as no issue, everything reducing to economics, “a very Marxist sort of view of humanity,” refuted by the San Bernardino shooting; but “the facts are irrelevant.”

Hostile dealings, likewise ordered: (1) that war be justly entered — Deuteronomy 20, peace is offered first; (2) that it be bravely carried out, with confidence in God, the priests strengthening the people as war approaches; and that impediments be removed by sending home those who would hinder; (3) that victory be moderately used — mercy to women and little ones, and to the trees, not cutting them down. Aside: “I don’t know if you approve of that salting of the Carthage soil.”

9. Article 4 begins: objections on masters and servants (“that which is of something is to be perpetually of him”) #

Objection 1: the servant is his master’s, as Politics I says; what is of something should be perpetually of it; so it is unsuitable that Exodus 21 frees servants in the seventh year. Digression on seven: Thomas died at forty-nine; Thomas says the square of a number has the same symbolism as the number; seven is a symbol of wisdom; the Greeks divided the ages by sevens; Aristotle says the mind is best at forty-nine (“so you know how far I’ve gone from my best”). A student notes the Church’s law speaks not of the age of reason but of the age of discretion — “big difference.”

Objection 2: a stray ox or ass is to be returned to its owner (Deuteronomy 22), yet Deuteronomy 23 forbids returning the servant who flees to you. Digression: error comes from the Latin for “to wander”; Christ uses the Greek word — “you wander, knowing neither the power of God nor the scriptures” — so he defines error as a disordered movement of the mind.

Objection 3: divine law should provoke more mercy than human law, which punishes those who bitterly afflict servants; yet Exodus 21 says he who strikes his servant with a rod is not punished if the servant survives a day, “because he is his money.”

10. The replies, taken out of order (“let’s go back and look at one and two”) #

Reply 3 (taken first): the law considered whether the injury was certain or uncertain. Certain injury: for mutilation, the servant’s forfeiture — he is to be given liberty; for death, the punishment of homicide, since the servant died in his master’s hand. Uncertain injury, having only appearances — as when the struck servant does not die at once but after some days — the law inflicted no punishment for one’s own servant, since it is uncertain whether he died from the blow. Compare a free man: if he did not die at once but could walk on his cane, the striker is not guilty of homicide even if he dies later, though he is held to the expenses of the physicians. But this has no place with one’s own servant, since whatever the servant has, and his very person, is a possession of the master; so he is not subject to a fine — “because he is his money.”

Reply 2: that command is understood of the servant sought by his lord to be put to death, or for the service of some sin. Textual note: his printed text capitalizes Domino — “it shouldn’t be capitalized… the Lord doesn’t use you for sin.”

Reply 1: because the sons of Israel were freed by the Lord from slavery and thereby became his servants, he did not wish them to be servants forever — Leviticus 25, if compelled by poverty your brother sells himself to you, do not oppress him with the slavery of servants but treat him as a hireling or sojourner, “for you are my servants, and I brought you out of Egypt.” Therefore those who were not simply servants but secundum quid were dismissed when a set time was finished.

11. Objections 4 and 5: selling a daughter; the father’s rule over the son (“the paternal rule has only the power of admonition”) #

Objection 4: the rule of a master over a slave differs from that of a father over a son; but selling belongs to mastery; yet the law permits a man to sell his daughter as a maidservant.

Aside on Aristotle’s proportion: should reason rule the emotions as a master rules a slave, or as a father rules a son? He says (from his cousin Donald and a psychologist) that ruling the emotions like a slave is the source of many psychological problems.

Reply 4: no Jew could possess another Jew as servum simpliciter, but only secundum quid, as a hired man for a time — compare American indentured servants. In this way poverty could force a man to sell son or daughter; the law’s own words show it, for it says she shall not go out as a bondwoman is wont to go out. He notes ancilla seems the stronger word, famula the lesser. And so a man could sell even himself, more as a hireling than as a servant (Leviticus 25 again). Aside: he tries to look up colonus against the claim that “colonial” comes from Columbus — but this usage is before Columbus. Joke about parents selling a few of their many children, “temporarily, just until we retire, after our world cruise.”

Objection 5: the father has power over his son, and punishing excess belongs to him who has power over the sinner; yet Deuteronomy 21 commands the father to lead his son to punishment by the elders.

Reply 5: from Ethics X, paternal rule has only the power of admonition, not a coercive power by which the rebellious may be put down; therefore the law commands that the contumax son (“stubborn”) be punished by the princes of the city. He notes scripture’s strong penalty for the son who insults father or mother.

Closing story: his aunt Helen at the store telling the clerk he had been spinning the toadstool seats all day, and the man saying “we can put him in jail for a day” — “I really sobered up after that… saved me from the gallows.” A student: “That’s the beginning of your conversion right there.”

His words #

• simpliciter / secundum quid — simply vs. in a certain respect; the governing pair for citizen, and for servant (“not simply servants but secundum quid”).
• “the church of the Lord” — the college or consortium of the people, i.e. citizenship, distinguished from the worship of God.
• immigrant — his translation of advena; also “traveler,” “stranger,” “wanderer,” “colonist” for those in Exodus 12.
• pacifice / hostiliter — peacefully / in a hostile way; the two ways of dealing with strangers (“pacifice with Germany now and hostiliter back in the Second World War”).
• error — “a disordered movement of the mind,” from the Latin for “to wander.”
• contumax — rendered by a student as “stubborn”; the rebellious son.
• pecunia — “his money,” i.e. the servant as the master’s wealth.
• ancilla vs. famula — he suggests ancilla is more the simpliciter servant, famula the lesser.
• “age of discretion” [ed.: a student's correction of "age of reason"].

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 105, a. 3, objections 1–6, replies, and body
• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 105, a. 4 (inferred), objections 1–5 and replies 1–5

Mentioned (as cited within those articles or by him)

• Acts (Peter: God is not an accepter of persons); Exodus 12; 17; 21; 22; Deuteronomy 20; 21; 22; 23; Leviticus 25; Isaiah 56; Proverbs 8; Ecclesiasticus 13; Judith (Achior); Ruth; Joshua (Rahab of Jericho, by a student)
• Aristotle, Politics I, II, III; Physics II; Nicomachean Ethics X
• Catherine of Siena, old translation (“the Pacific one”)
• W. H. McNeill, The Rise of the West; an unnamed world history bought for a dollar
• Neuhaus, First Things, on prudence about immigration (raised by a student)

His questions #

• Are the judicial precepts suitable as regards outsiders? Yes: no nation is barred from the worship of God, while admission to the community is graded by generation, kinship and past hostility.
• Is a woman a citizen? Only secundum quid; to be a citizen simply does not belong to her — which is why the prohibition may be read as extending to men only.
• Why does the law permit usury from aliens? Not from the law’s intention but by permission, given the Jews’ proneness to avarice and for peaceable dealing with strangers.
• Why kill all in the nearby cities but not in the remote ones? The nearby cities of the promised land were punished for prior iniquities, Israel acting as executor of divine justice; elsewhere women and children are spared.
• Why send home the new householder, vine-planter and bridegroom, and the fearful? The first three would fear death more and fight less bravely; the fearful lest their flight infect others with fear.
• Why return a stray animal but not a fleeing servant? Because the command concerns the servant sought by his master for killing or for the service of some sin.
• Why is a master unpunished if his beaten servant lives a day? Because the injury is then uncertain, and the servant’s very person being the master’s possession, no fine can be exacted — “he is his money.”
• Could a Jew own a Jew? Not simpliciter; only secundum quid, as a hireling for a time — hence release, and hence even selling oneself or one’s daughter.
• Has the father power to punish his rebellious son? No: paternal rule has only admonition, not coercion; the princes of the city punish.