EXPLANATION OF THE MORAL LAW (THE TEN COMMANDMENTS)
12. THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE COMMANDMENTS IN THE TWO TABLES
The whole law is contained under two heads. Yet our God, to remove all possibility of excuse, willed to set forth more fully and clearly by the Ten Commandments everything connected with the honor, fear, and love of him, and everything pertaining to the love toward men, which he for his own sake enjoins upon us. The effort to gain familiarity with the divisions of the commandments is not ill-directed, provided you remember that it is a matter wherein each man ought to have free judgment, and ought not to strive in a contentious spirit with one who differs from him. We are of necessity obliged to touch upon this point in order that our readers may
not either laugh or wonder at the division we are about to put forward as if it were new and recently devised.
That the law is divided into ten words is beyond doubt, for on the authority of God himself this has often been confirmed. Thus we are uncertain, not about the number, but about the way of dividing the
Decalogue. Those who so divide them as to give three precepts to the First Table and relegate the remaining seven to the Second, erase from the
number the commandment concerning images, or at least hide it under the First. There is no doubt that the Lord gave it a distinct place as a
commandment, yet they absurdly tear in two the Tenth Commandment about not coveting the possessions of one’s neighbor. f263 Besides, their division of the commandments was unknown in a purer age, as we shall soon see. Others, with us, count four articles in the First Table, but in place of the First Commandment they put a promise without a commandment. But I, unless convinced only by the clearest contrary evidence, take the ten words mentioned by Moses to be the Ten Commandments; and they seem to me to be arranged in quite the most beautiful order. Granting them their opinion, I shall follow what seems more probable to me, namely, that what they take as the First
Commandment should occupy the place of the preface to the whole law.
Then the commandments follow, four to the First Table, six to the Second.
We shall take them up in this order. Origen set forth this division without controversy, as if commonly received in his day. f264 Augustine also supports it in a letter to Boniface, and in enumerating them keeps this order: to serve the one God with religious obedience, not to worship idols, not to take the name of the Lord in vain. He had already separately spoken about the commandment of the Sabbath as foreshadowing the spiritual reality. f265 Elsewhere, indeed, that first division pleases him, but for a very insufficient reason: that in the number three (if the First Table consists of three commandments) the mystery of the Trinity more clearly shines forth. Nevertheless, in the same place he admits that in other respects our division suits him better. f266 Besides these men, the author of the
unfinished commentary on Matthew is on our side. f267 Josephus, no doubt according to the common agreement of his age, assigns five commandments to each Table. f268 This is contrary to reason in that it confuses religion and charity; furthermore, it is refuted by authority of the Lord, who according
to Matthew puts the commandment to honor one’s parents in the canon of the Second Table [<401919>
Matthew 19:19]. Now let us hearken to God himself as he speaks in his own words.
(Detailed exposition of the individual commandments, 13-50)
FIRST COMMANDMENT
“I am Jehovah, your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no other gods before my face.” [<022002>
Exodus 20:2-3, cf. Vg.]
13. THE PREFACE (“I AM JEHOVAH, YOUR GOD... “) Whether you make the first sentence a part of the First Commandment or read it separately makes no difference to me, provided you do not deny to me that it is a sort of preface to the whole law. First, in framing laws, care must be taken that they be not abrogated out of contempt. God therefore especially provides that the majesty of the law he is about to give may not at any time fall into contempt. To secure this he uses a threefold proof. He claims for himself the power and right of authority in order to constrain the chosen people by the necessity of obeying him. He holds out the promise of grace to draw them by its sweetness to a zeal for holiness. He recounts his benefits to the Jews that he may convict them of ingratitude should they not respond to his kindness. The name “Jehovah” signifies God’s authority and lawful domination. If, then, “from him are all things and in him all things abide,” it is right that all things should be referred to him, as Paul says [<451136>Romans 11:36 p.]. With this word alone, therefore, we are sufficiently brought under the yoke of God’s majesty, because it would be monstrous for us to want to withdraw from his rule when we cannot exist apart from him.
14. “I AM JEHOVAH YOUR GOD”
God first shows himself to be the one who has the right to command and to whom obedience is due. Then, in order not to seem to constrain men by necessity alone, he also attracts them with sweetness by declaring himself God of the church. For underlying this expression is a mutual
correspondence contained in the promise: “I will be their God, and they
shall be my people” [<243133>Jeremiah 31:33]. Hence, Christ confirms the immortality of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob from the fact that the Lord has declared himself their God [<402232>Matthew 22:32]. It is as if he had spoken as follows: “I have chosen you as my people, not only to benefit you in the present life, but also to bestow upon you the blessedness of the life to come.” f269 The end to which this looks is attested in various
passages in the law. For since the Lord by his mercy renders us worthy to be reckoned among the company of his people, “he has chosen us,” as Moses says, “to be his very own people, a holy people, and we are to keep all his commandments” [<050706>
Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2; 26:18-19, conflated]. Hence that exhortation: “You shall be holy, for I... am holy”
[<031144>
Leviticus 11:44; Cf. ch. 19:2]. From these two statements is derived that protestation of the prophet: “A son honors his father, and a servant his lord... If I am a lord, where is your fear?... If I am a father, where is your love?” [Malachi l:6 p.].
15. “WHO BROUGHT YOU OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT, OUT OF THE HOUSE OF BONDAGE”
The recital of his benefit follows. This ought more powerfully to move us in the same degree as the crime of ingratitude is more despicable even among men. Indeed, he was then reminding Israel of his recent benefit, a benefit of such marvelous and everlastingly memorable greatness as also to remain in force for posterity. Moreover, it is most appropriate to the present matter. For the Lord means that they have been freed from miserable bondage that they may, in obedience and readiness to serve, worship him as the author of their freedom. He also habitually, in order to keep us in the true worship of him, makes himself known by certain titles by which he distinguishes his sacred presence from all idols and invented gods. For, as I have said before, such is our inclination to vanity, joined with rash boldness that, as soon as God’s name is mentioned, our mind is unable to refrain from lapsing into some absurd invention. f270 Therefore God, willing to provide a remedy for this evil, adorns his divinity with sure titles, and so fences us in, as it were, that we may not wander hither and thither and rashly contrive for ourselves some new god — if, having abandoned the living God, we set up an idol. For this reason, the prophets, whenever they wish to designate him properly, clothe him with, and as it
were, confine him to, those marks under which he had manifested himself to the people of Israel. For when he is called “the God of Abraham” or
“the God of Israel” [<020806>Exodus 8:6], when he is set in the Temple of Jerusalem [<300102>
Amos 1:2; <350220>
Habakkuk 2:20] “between the cherubim” [<198001>Psalm 80:1; 99:1; <233716>Isaiah 37:16], these and like expressions do not bind him to one place or people. Rather, they are put forward merely for this purpose: to keep the thoughts of the pious upon that God who by his covenant that he has made with Israel has so represented himself that it is in no wise lawful to turn aside from such a pattern.
Yet let this point be agreed upon: deliverance is mentioned in order that the Jews may give themselves over more eagerly to God, who by right claims them for himself. But, in order that it may not seem that this has nothing to do with us, we must regard the Egyptian bondage of Israel as a type of the spiritual captivity in which all of us are held bound, until our heavenly Vindicator, having freed us by the power of his arm, leads us into the Kingdom of freedom. At a former time, God, intending to gather the scattered Israelites to worship his name, released them from the intolerable dominion of Pharaoh by which they were oppressed. So today all those to whom he professes himself their God he releases from the devil’s deadly power — foreshadowed by that physical bondage. For this reason there is no one whose mind ought not to be kindled to heed the law, which has come forth, he hears, from the highest King. As all things take their
beginning from him, it is reasonable that they should in turn determine and direct their end to him. There is no one, I say, who ought not to be
captivated to embrace the Lawgiver, in the observance of whose
commandments he is taught to take especial delight; from whose kindness he expects both an abundance of all good things and the glory of immortal life; by whose marvelous power and mercy he knows himself freed from the jaws of death.