Miscellanies 1.27.171

Let no one, then, attack the law because of its punishments as not noble and good. For if the one who removes a disease of the body will be thought a benefactor, will not the one who tries to free the soul from injustice be even more a protector, by as much as the soul is more precious than the body? For the sake of the body's health we submit to cuttings, burnings, and the drinking of medicines, and the one who applies these is called savior and physician, not out of envy or hostility toward the patient, but as the principle of the art dictates, even cutting off some parts, so that the healthy parts may not be destroyed with them; and no one would accuse the physician's art of wickedness. Shall we not in the same way, for the sake of the soul, submit to exile, fines, or bonds, if only one may at some time acquire righteousness in place of injustice? For the law, caring for its subjects, educates them in piety, dictates what must be done, and restrains each from sins, imposing penalties on the lesser of them; but when it sees someone in such a state as to seem incurable, driven to the extreme of injustice, then, caring for the others, so that they may not be corrupted by him, it puts such a person to death, as if cutting off a part from the whole body, and so most healthfully.