An Eye for an Eye: Does Revenge Work?

If someone harms you, what should you do? The old way — hurt them back — can cause an escalating series of injuries. So, should you take revenge, seek justice through the law, or forgive your attacker?

These questions lie at the core of every justice system and every religion. When one person injured another physically, financially, or morally, the original legal systems devised by humanity attempted to make things right — by recommending retaliatory vengeance to restore the balance of justice.

RELATED: Consciously Moving Past Revenge and Retribution

The Baha’i teachings also focus heavily on establishing justice in the world, with a system of Baha’i laws designed to bring about a just global society. To accomplish those lofty goals, however, Baha’is do not seek revenge. Instead, Baha’is try to abide by the civil laws of their nations, as Abdu’l-Baha pointed out in his writings:

The Baha’i Cause covers all economic and social questions under the heading and ruling of its laws. The essence of the Baha’i spirit is that, in order to establish a better social order and economic condition, there must be allegiance to the laws and principles of government. 

So what does it take to maintain a just, fair system of civil law, one that everyone from every Faith or no Faith agrees on and supports? Let’s start that discourse with the oldest legal idea — an eye for an eye.

An Eye for An Eye

The Latin phrase lex talionis refers to the ancient law of exact retaliation and retribution, often phrased as “an eye for an eye.” If a person injures someone, lex talionis requires an equal penalty.

Despite what many might think, “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” the concept of retributive justice did not originally come from the Old Testament books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus. Instead, it originated much earlier, in the Code of Hammurabi in Babylon, long before the advent of the Jewish laws in the Torah and the Talmud.

The Code of Hammurabi was written sometime in the 18^th century B.C.E., approximately 300-500 years before Moses revealed his laws and covenant to his followers.

How do we know? In 1901, a French expedition to Old Babylon in Mesopotamia unearthed the seven-foot-tall basalt stone stele the Code of Hammurabi is carved on. Amazingly, you can see that actual relic — the real thing — at the Louvre in Paris today. Exact replicas also exist in several places, including the United Nations in New York and the Pergamon Museum in Berlin. Astoundingly, one of the very first codifications of human law now reposes in France — the first democratic nation.

Is Retributive Justice Just?

Most think of the lex talionis code of “an eye for an eye” as retributive justice that is still applicable today — but it was chiefly practiced during a time that witnessed the early growth of ancient civilizations, when no enforcement, imprisonment, or formal judicial systems existed, which meant that rudimentary justice had to be exacted immediately. Abdu’l-Baha, answering a question after a speech in New York in 1912, explained:

Moses dwelt in the desert. As there were no penitentiaries, no means of restitution in the desert and wilderness, the laws of God were an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Could this be carried out now? If a man destroys another man’s eye, are you willing to destroy the eye of the offender? If a man’s teeth are broken or his ear cut off, will you demand a corresponding mutilation of his assailant? This would not be conformable to conditions of humanity at the present time. If a man steals, shall his hand be cut off? This punishment was just and right in the law of Moses, but it was applicable to the desert, where there were no prisons and reformatory institutions of later and higher forms of government. Today you have government and organization, a police system, a judge and trial by jury. The punishment and penalty is now different. 

Today, as Abdu’l-Baha pointed out, most civilizations have matured sufficiently to dispense with “an eye for an eye” — although some societies still crudely operate on the old principle of lex talionis, unfortunately.

That lingering barbarism in some places — notably, those controlled by fundamentalist, tyrannical, and authoritarian regimes — operates at the lowest level of human moral and spiritual development. Harsh punishments, violent retribution sanctioned by the state, and oppression by force characterize those regimes. They take their power from the retaliatory instinct, which can occur to anyone — every human being has felt the desire to meet violence and injury with equal retribution in kind. We all have that reflexive, animalistic desire for revenge inside us. For that reason, we human beings need civilization — it can help restrain our worst instincts by teaching us to temper our desire for vengeance with the essentially spiritual virtues of mercy, understanding, and compassion.

RELATED: Justice or Revenge: Which Do You Want?

Luckily, lex talionis has (mostly) fallen out of favor in the majority of the world’s legal systems. No longer do civilized societies chop off an offender’s hand for stealing, physically mutilate people convicted of crimes, or stone those who have offended society’s morals — at least in the overwhelming majority of the world’s nations. The Baha’i teachings celebrate the fact that we have largely progressed, as a species, to a kinder and more thoughtful quest for justice:

In every dispensation, there hath been the commandment of fellowship and love, but it was a commandment limited to the community of those in mutual agreement, not to the dissident foe. In this wondrous age, however, praised be God, the commandments of God are not delimited, not restricted to any one group of people, rather have all the friends been commanded to show forth fellowship and love, consideration and generosity and loving-kindness to every community on earth. Now must the lovers of God arise to carry out these instructions of His: let them be kindly fathers to the children of the human race, and compassionate brothers to the youth, and self-denying offspring to those bent with years. The meaning of this is that ye must show forth tenderness and love to every human being, even to your enemies, and welcome them all with unalloyed friendship, good cheer, and loving-kindness.

What can help humanity build up more communities and countries that are able to transcend the old retaliatory lex talionis systems? In this series of essays, we’ll explore that important question.