Traditional Catholic Teaching - Lesson 17

Appendix to Supplement A of Lesson 17

Appendix:
The Decalogue: The Ten Commandments

Introduction

The following is based on chapter 3 of "Biblical Questions" by Professor Rudolph Bandas (Bruce Publishing Co 1934).

The Decalogue was given directly to Moses by God on Mt. Sinai, some time after the departure of the Jews from Egypt. The Book of Exodus tells us that God was the author of the two tables of stone as well as of the law written upon them:

"And the Lord said to Moses: Come up to Me into the mount, and be there, and I will give thee tables of stone, and the law, and the commandments which I have written, that thou mayest teach them" – Exodus 24: 12.

"And the Lord, when He had ended these words in Mount Sinai, gave to Moses two stone tables of testimony, written with the finger of God" – Exodus 31: 18.

"And Moses returned from the mount, carrying the two tables of the testimony in his hand, written on both sides, and made by the work of God: the writing also of God was graven in the tables", – Exodus 32: 15 – 16.

The New Testament calls attention to a further detail in the giving of the law; namely, the ministry of angels. St. Stephen tells the Jews that although they

"received the law by the disposition of angels," they had not kept it. – Acts 7: 53

St. Paul recalls to the Galatians that the law was

"ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator" – Gal 3: 19.

While God was the author of the law and appeared in a sensible (that which is capable of being perceived through our senses) manner to proclaim it, the angels ordained the external circumstances which accompanied the promulgation of the law.

God's authorship of the two stone tablets is not to be understood as implying that God slowly fashioned them with corporeal hands and then carved upon them the Ten Commandments. If God fashioned the tablets, He formed them immediately and directly — together with the writing upon them — by converting pre-existent matter. Such a formation of the tablets would belong to the same category of divine works as the multiplication of the loaves or the fashioning of Adam's body out of the chemical elements of the earth. Consonantly with New Testament doctrine, the formation of the tablets and the writing upon them is to be attributed to angelic agency. Revelation tells us that on certain occasions the angels assumed bodies and through the instrumentality of these bodies exercised great powers. This angelic ministry would not derogate from God's primary authorship, since the angels acted in His name and accurately re-produced His divine message.

By adoring the golden calf the Jews broke the promise which they made to God. To symbolize that God had in turn revoked His pact with the Jews, Moses destroyed the tables of stone "at the foot of the mount (Mt Sinai) (Exodus 32: 19)." When the Jews repented of their sin, God permitted Moses to reproduce the tables of stone together with the inscription upon them. The renewal of the tablets was intended to impress upon the Jews God's unalterable hatred for superstition and idolatry and to indicate His renewed adherence to the pact established between Himself and the Jews.

The history of the Mosaic tablets henceforth becomes indissolubly linked with the history of the Ark of the Covenant — a chest of precious wood and of gold in which the tables of the law were preserved. The Ark accompanied the Jews in their wanderings and frequently in their military expeditions, although it was usually kept in a sacred place in the tabernacle and later on in the temple. With the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. the Ark disappears from human history. According to Second Machabees
(2: 4 – 8), the prophet Jeremias hid it in an unidentified cave on Mt. Nebo.

Returning for a moment to the theophanies on Mt. Sinai, let us note that Moses did not behold there the Divine Essence. In fact, God as a pure spirit, is not perceptible by the corporeal eye nor can He utter audible sounds. God appeared to Moses under a visible, sensible form. In this corporeal form God conversed with Moses in a familiar, friendly manner. Yet, the two conversed as friends in an obscure place. Moses was not allowed to see the face of the Lord who spoke to him from within the cloud; he was not allowed to catch a glimpse of God's countenance under a sensible form. For God had decreed that, to avoid idolatry and superstition, there was to be no sensible representation of the Deity. Though Moses was not allowed to behold God's face, the rays of splendor which emanated from God's bright figure adhered to Moses' countenance. His face appeared "horned," that is "radiant" Possibly, too, the rays of light which emanated from Moses' face took the form of horns These rays were a confirmation of the truths which Moses testified he heard on the Mount.

The message inscribed on the stone tablets is frequently referred to as the Decalogue The word "decalogue" is derived from the Greek terms deka meaning "ten" and logos meaning "word". The literal meaning of "decalogue," then, is, Ten Words or Sayings.

The number ten is vouched for by several passages:

"He [Moses] wrote upon the tables the ten words of the covenant" – Exodus 34: 28.

"He shewed you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, and the ten words that he wrote in two tables of stone" – Deuteronomy 4: 13.

The Decalogue designates the collection of commandments and precepts which Moses received from God amid the thunders of Mt. Sinai and which he made the groundwork of the Mosaic Law. These commandments bear on the fundamental obligations of religion and morality and embody the revealed expression of the Creator's will in regard to man's duty to God and to his fellow creatures. Joined to some of the commandments are short explanations, stating the reason of the sanction of the precept in question. It is possible that the two tables of stone contained only the text of the commandments without this commentary, for the tables were of such size that they could be conveniently carried.

There is no numerical designation of the commandments in the book of Moses. Hence there have arisen, as the following table will show, three systems of numbering the commandments.

	A	B	C
Introduction			1
Polytheism		1
Combined >	1		2
Idolatry		2
Profanity	2
Sabbath	3	4	4
Parents	4	5	5
Murder	5	6	6
Adultery	6	7	7
Theft	7	8	8
False Witness	8	9	9
Covetousness of Wife	9
Combined >		10	10
Covetousness of Goods	10

System A is followed by Catholics and Lutherans. It goes back to St Augustine
(AD 354 – 430) who because of a certain fitness distinguished three commandments dealing with God, in order to hint at the mystery of the Blessed Trinity. Then, in order to obtain the number ten, he divided the commandment against covetousness into two. The Lutherans, however, invert our ninth and tenth commandment.

System B is given by Philo, Josephus, Origen, St Gregory Nazzianzus (AD 329 – 389) and others and is used by the Greeks and the Protestants (except the Lutherans). It makes two separate commandments of polytheism and idolatry, and one of covetousness.

System C is used by modern Jews. It is unsatisfactory because it makes a commandment of the introductory formula in Exodus, which reads:

"And the Lord spoke all these words: I am the Lord thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" – Exodus 20: 1 – 2.

System A has much to recommend it: it seems logical to group at the beginning (polytheism and idolatry) and to separate at the end (covetousness of wife and of goods); for while one single object is aimed at under worship, two specifically different sins are forbidden under covetousness; if adultery and theft belong to two distinct species of sin, the same ought to be said of the desires to commit these evils.

The injunctions and prohibitions set forth in Exodus (20: 1 – 17), are also contained in the book of Deuteronomy" (5: 6 – 21). The differences in the two enumerations are not essential and pertain rather to the reasons alleged for the precepts than to the precepts themselves Thus the reason for the sanctification of the Sabbath in Exodus is that God rested on the seventh day, while in Deuteronomy the Sabbath is the memorial of the liberation of the Jews from Egypt. In the precept against covetousness Exodus first mentions the neighbor's house and then his wife; Deuteronomy inverts the order. Scripture does not say how the Ten Commandments were divided on the two tablets Our division, three duties toward God, and seven toward men, is based, as we have said, on St. Augustine's arrangement. Another division is given by Philo and St. Irenaeus, in which the first tablet contained precepts of piety toward God and parents, the second, precepts of justice toward fellow men. According to Philo's system of numbering commandments (System B) this would give five commandments to each tablet, twenty-eight Hebrew words on the first and twenty-six on the other (leaving out the commentary attached to the commandments).

The ten commandments express not only the Creator's positive will but the natural laws as well — laws which govern our being and are inscribed upon every human heart. A written law was demanded by the fact that the unwritten law had become obscured in men's souls by sin.

Christ summed up the Ten Commandments in the double precept of charity love of God and love of neighbor. He amplified and interpreted them in the Sermon on the Mount, and proclaimed them as binding under the present dispensation (Matthew 5: to 7).

The Church, after changing the day of rest from the seventh day of the week (Sabbath) to the first, made the Third Commandment refer to Sunday as the Lord's Day. The Council of Trent condemned those who would affirm that the Ten Commandments are not binding on Christians.

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