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Section 3. Having said all this about the two types of legislation — the rational and the transmitted — I should now explain what need there is for messengers and prophets.
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For I have heard that some say people have no need of messengers, and their own minds suffice to guide them in what is good and what is repugnant.
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I turned to the standard of truth and saw that if the matter were as they say, then the Creator — who knows it better than anyone — would not have sent messengers, for He does not do what has no purpose.
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Then I reflected carefully and found that creatures' need for messengers is a pressing one — not only for the transmitted laws, so they might be made known to them,
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but also for the rational laws, because acting on them cannot be completed without messengers who ground people in them.
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Among such needs: reason requires gratitude to God for His benefaction, yet has not specified the form of that gratitude — neither its wording nor its timing nor —
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— its posture. And so it required messengers, who fixed a determined form for it, called it prayer, and gave it specific times, specific words, a specific manner, and a specific orientation.
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Another example: reason forbids adultery, but it does not specify how a woman becomes guarded to a man so as to become his protected spouse — whether by words alone, or by property alone, or by her consent and her father's consent alone.
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The messengers came with a bride-payment, a written document, and two witnesses. Another example: reason condemns theft, but it does not specify how a person acquires property so as to make it truly his.
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Whether through craft, through commerce, through inheritance, or through permitted means such as hunting on land and at sea —
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Another example: making the transgressor pay for his crime. Reason sees that every criminal should be made to pay for his crime, but does not specify the form of that payment — whether by rebuke alone, or insult added, or physical chastisement as well.
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The messengers came with a precise penalty for every crime, combined some penalties with others in certain circumstances, and assigned monetary fines to some.
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For these matters I have enumerated, and their like, we are compelled to rely on the messengers' mission — for if we were left to our own opinions, our intentions would diverge and we would agree on nothing.