Decalogue

DECALOGUE. - The ten commandments (δέκα λόγοι "the ten words", Ex. 34:28), given by God to Moses on Sinai, as obligations of the covenant (Ex. 19:5 ff.) ratified between God himself and the people of Israel, which had become a nation (Ex. 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-22). The D., the essence of the covenant, is still the essence of ancient Yahwism, the magna charta of the chosen nation. It is at the center of the whole Old Testament, which narrates the vicissitudes of the covenant in its realization, with the observance or non-observance of the precepts of the D. by the nation and the application of the corresponding sanctions (Ex. 20 ff.; cf. Lev. 26; Deut. 28). The I commandment commits Israel to the strictest monotheism; the respect for the divine name and the sabbath rest (II and III) are likewise religious in nature; the others are moral in nature. The Church (like the Jews and the Lutherans) considers the prohibition of any idolatrous sculpture or image (Ex. 20:4 ff.) a simple explanation or practical application of the I commandment; while it rightly sees (against the majority of Protestants) in v. 17 two distinct precepts, since the coveting of another's goods is specifically different from the concupiscence of another's wife. To the I commandment, the basis and root of the others, is connected the sanction: collective punishment or reward, for the infidelity or fidelity of the various generations (from fathers to children) as parts of a single organism: the nation.

In the religious and moral doctrine of the D. lies the true prerogative of the people of Israel. Nothing similar is found among other peoples. The D. of Moses has no rival in the world (Vaccari). Based on the natural law (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃc, q. 100, aa. 1, 3, 11) these precepts, though directed to the nation as such (collectivism), committed each member of it (individualism); and they are still in the conscience of men of all times (universalism); thus they entered unchanged into the definitive covenant sealed by Christ.

The criticism that seeks in ancient Yahwism a polytheistic, ritual, amoral cult has fiercely attacked the Mosaic antiquity and authenticity of the D.: a) K. Marti, S. Mowinckel, P. Meinhold and others placed it, in its present form, after the exile; b) more commonly J. Wellhausen, B. Stade, R. Smend, H. Schultz, H. Holzinger, B. Baentsch and others (in addition to the proponents of sociologism: A. Loisy, A. Lods, A. Causse, and others) consider it to be of the 7th century, the fruit of prophetic preaching; c) B. Duhm, W. Nowack, H. Schmidt, E. König, B. D. Eerdmans and others, excepting the precepts of the sabbath and of filial piety, trace it back to Mosaic times; d) the critics more in contact with Oriental literature (Egyptian, Babylonian) declare it substantially of the Mosaic period, while admitting later reworkings: E. Meier, S. R. Driver, A. Dillmann, F. Delitzsch, H. Grimme, H. Gunkel, R. Kittel, A. Gampert, A. Jirku, E. Sellin, P. Volz, etc.; e) they regard it as integrally Mosaic: L. Lemme, G. Wildeboer, etc. All Catholic exegetes attribute it to Moses as regards substance and literary form; they admit traces of further redactions only in the form and in secondary particulars.

In reality, the variants between Ex. 20:1-17 and Deut. 5:6-22 are numerous, but not important. Exodus motivates the observance of the sabbath with the divine rest after creation in six days; in Deuteronomy it is a motive of humanity that does not exclude the former. Exodus places the wife (we are in a patriarchal regime) among the other possessions of the man; Deuteronomy places her apart. The others are accidental literary modifications; and the Nash papyrus (v.), from the pre-Masoretic text, offers some of its own. They allow us to deduce that on the two stones only the precepts were carved, without the motives that sometimes accompany them.

There is no reason to postpone the D. to a more recent epoch and to deny it to Moses. Its "Deuteronomistic" coloring in Deuteronomy proves nothing; for the late composition of Deuteronomy is not at all demonstrated; indeed, among critics a revision of this old postulate is underway. Nor is it at all true that the prophets ignore the D.; Ex. 20:10-12 speaks explicitly of precepts given to Israel by Yahweh in the desert and among them names that of sanctifying the sabbath. It is beyond doubt that they inculcate the observance of the commandments of the D. (Gampert): cf. Hos. 4:2, 13; 6:9; Jer. 7:9; etc. All their preaching is for the return to the pure monotheism of the origins, and is against idolatry, that is, for the observance of the first precept, the root of all the others, and the essence of the covenant of Sinai. And they presuppose these precepts as known, when they inveigh against their violation: Am. 2:4-16; Hos. 4:6; 6:5-11; Is. 1:12; Jer. 6:19; Mic. 6:8; etc.

Very ancient documents from the time of Moses attest the use of engraving on stone (for the D.: Ex. 24:12; Deut. 9:9) important writings of a religious or political nature, placing them in sacred places. In a treaty between Stupphaliuma king of Hatti and Mattiuazza king of Mitanni it is said that a copy of the tablet be deposited in the temple of Sema. Stone steles with sculptures and inscriptions were found at Sinai by F. Petrie (Researches in Sinai, London 1906).

Ethnology, finally, has established the primitiveness of the cult of the Supreme Being (monotheism) and the elevated moral sentiment of primitive peoples (W. Schmidt, Manuale di storia comparata delle religioni, Italian trans., Brescia 1938, pp. 428-78), in harmony with the data offered by Egypt (chap. 125 of the book of the dead: L. Speleers, Egypte, in DBs, II, coll. 847-50) and by Babylonian texts (J. Plessis, Babylone et la Bible, in DBs, I, coll. 841-45) and Phoenician texts (G. B. Roggia, Alcune osservazioni sul culto di El a Ras Shamra, in Aevum, 15 [1941], pp. 559-75). - See plate LXXXIII.

Tra gli articoli: A. Fernandez, El castigo de los hijos por los pecados de los padres, in Estudios eclesiásticos, 2 (1923), pp. 419-26; A. Vaccari, De praeceptorum Decalogi distinctione et ordine, in Verbum Domini, 17 (1937), pp. 317-20, 329-34; id., Praeceptorum Decalogi numeratio, ibid., 20 (1940), p. 179 sgg.; H. Michaud, Sous quelle forme le Décalogue fut-il promulgué?, in Revue apologétique, 64 (1937, 1), pp. 665-81; 65 (1937, 2), pp. 23-34; M. Valentini, Le condizioni sociali del D. e la sua autenticità mosaica, in Salesianum, 1 (1939), pp. 407-20; E. Baumann, Der Ursprung der zehn Gebote, in Junge Kirche, 9 (1941), pp. 126-33; L. Hatmann, The enumeration of the Ten Commandments, in The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 7 (1945), pp. 105-108; S. Lach, Le décalogue à la lumière de la critique biblique moderne, in Athenaeum Kaplanskie, 45 (1946), pp. 225-44; id., Qu'est-ce que le décalogue?, ibid., 45 (1946), pp. 333-52; 46 (1947), pp. 23-33; id., Les deux rédactions du décalogue, ibid., 46 (1947), pp. 142-51, 237-48; id., Les commandements du Décalogue, ibid., 46 (1947), pp. 330-45; id., L'époque de la promulgation du Décalogue, ibid., 47 (1947), pp. 14-20; id., Le lieu de la promulgation du Décalogue, ibid., 47 (1947), pp. 383-94; id., Explication du texte du Décalogue, ibid., 48 (1948), pp. 327-45.

Francesco Spadafora