What about the death penalty?
From
Divine Institutes, Book VI (Of True Worship) by
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius
Chapter 20. Of the Senses, and Their Pleasures in the Brutes and in Man; And of Pleasures of the Eyes, and Spectacles.
"For when Godforbids us to kill, He not only prohibits us from open
violence, which is not even allowed by the public
laws, but He warns us against the commission of those things which are esteemed lawful among
men. Thus it will be neither lawful for a
just man to engage in warfare, since his warfare is
justice itself, nor to accuse any one of a capital charge, because it makes no difference whether you put a man to death by word, or rather by the sword, since it is the act of putting to death itself which is prohibited. Therefore, with regard to this precept of
God, there ought to be no exception at all; but that it is always unlawful to
put to death a
man, whom God willed to be a sacred animal."