Chapter 5 (142)
Distinction XXXVII | lay; Chapter 5 (142) 1. ON THE FOURTH. The fourth is: You shall not commit theft.' Here is forbidden sacrilege and every form of theft with violence.—AUGUSTINE,
ON Exobus: "For he did not allow theft with violence, who forbade theft, but by the term theft he surely willed to be understood any illicit usurpation of another's thing."
2. Sacrilege is committed in three ways: namely when a sacred thing is taken from a sacred place, or a non-sacred thing from a sacred place, or a sacred thing from a non-sacred place. Any thing designated for divine worship, such as a church, or a thing of a church, is called sacred.
3. JEROME, IN A CERTAIN LETTER. Here usury is also forbidden, since it is contained under theft with violence. Hence Jerome: "It is not at all different to seek usuries, or to defraud, or to steal. Lend to your brother, receive what you gave, and seek nothing above it, because such excess constitutes usury.""—AUGUSTINE, ON THE PSALM. For usury, as Augustine says, is "when one exacts more, in regard to either injury or any other thing, than he may have suffered."*—JEROME, ON EZECHIEL. Also
Jerome: "Some believe that usury consists only in money; but let them understand that usury is called a superabundance, namely if whatever thing it is is more than he may have given, as if we give ten measures in winter, and take fifteen measures at harvest-time.""
4. WHETHER THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL COMMITTED THEFT WHEN THEY
DESPOILED THE EGYPTIANS. The children of Israel, at God's command, took away from the Egyptians gold and silver vessels and costly clothes; if it is asked whether they committed theft, we say that they who did this in obedience to God's command did not commit theft, nor sinned in any way.—AUGUSTINE, ON ExoDus. Hence Augustine: "The Israelites did not commit theft, but offered service to God at his command. For God who gave the Law commanded this. Just as the judge's servant without sin kills him whom the law commands, but is a murderer if he does it of his own accord, even if he kills someone whom he knows is about to be condemned to death by the judge."°—AUGUSTINE, ON THE PSALM: "As for those weak ones who deceived the Egyptians out of greed, it is more
'Ex. 20, 15; Deut. 5, 19.
Ordinary gloss, on Ex. 20, 14; from Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, bk 2, q71.
>Not in Jerome, but found with the same attribution in Summa sententiarum, bk 4 c4.
"Ordinary gloss, on Ps. 54, 12; from Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, on Ps. 54,
12, n14.
Ordinary gloss, on Ez. 18, 8; from Jerome, /n Ezechielem 18, 8.
°Ordinary gloss, on Ex. 11, 2; from Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum, bk 2 q39.