Exodus — Chapter 21

But if death ensue thereupon, he shall render life for life. The lex talionis (eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life) is not, says Lapide, a primitive principle of vengeance but a principle of proportional justice that limits revenge. Before this law, blood feuds could exact unlimited vengeance; the lex talionis established that punishment must not exceed the crime. He cites Aquinas (I-II, q. 102, a. 5): the judicial precepts of the Old Law were wise accommodations to the hard-heartedness of that people, pointing forward to the more perfect justice of the New Law.