DECALOGUE. — The Ten Commandments (δέκα λόγοι “the ten words,” Ex. 34:28), given by God to Moses on Sinai as the obligations of the covenant (Ex. 19:5 ff.) established between God himself and the people of Israel, who had risen
to the status of a nation (Ex. 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-22). The D., the essence of the covenant, is also the essence of ancient Yahwism, the magna charta of the chosen nation. It stands at the center of the entire Old Testament, which narrates the vicissitudes of the covenant in its implementation, with the nation’s observance or non-observance of the precepts of the D. and the application of the corresponding sanctions (Ex. 20 ff.; cf. Lev. 26; Deut. 28). The First Commandment binds Israel to the strictest monotheism; religious in character are also respect for the divine name and Sabbath rest (II and III); the others are moral in character. The Church (like the Jews and Lutherans) regards the prohibition of every idolatrous sculpture or image (Ex. 20:4 ff.) as a simple explanation or practical application of the First Commandment; whereas it rightly sees (against a large part of the Protestants) in V. 17 two distinct precepts, since coveting another’s possessions is specifically different from coveting another’s wife. Connected with the First Commandment, the foundation and root of the others, is the sanction: collective punishment or reward for the infidelity or fidelity of the various generations (from fathers to sons), 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 natural law (Sum. Theol., 1ᵃ-2ᵃc, q. 100, aa. 1, 3, 11), these precepts, although directed to the nation as such (collectivism), bound each of its members (individualism); and they still remain in the conscience of human beings of every age (universalism); thus they entered unchanged into the definitive covenant sealed by Christ.
The criticism that seeks in ancient Yahwism a polytheistic, ritualistic, amoral cult has fiercely challenged the antiquity and Mosaic authenticity of the D.: a) K. Marti, S. Mowinckel, P. Meinhold, and others assigned it, in its present form, to the period after the Exile; b) more commonly J. Wellhausen, B. Stade, R. Smend, H. Schultz, H. Holzinger, B. Baentsch, and others (as well as the proponents of sociologism: A. Loisy, A. Lods, A. Causse, and others) regard it as belonging to the seventh century, the product of prophetic preaching; c) B. Duhm, W. Nowack, H. Schmidt, E. König, B. D. Eerdmans, and others, except for the precepts concerning the Sabbath and filial piety, trace it back to the Mosaic period; d) critics more closely acquainted with Oriental literature (Egyptian and Babylonian) declare it to be substantially from the Mosaic period, while admitting later revisions: 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 consider it wholly Mosaic: L. Lemme, G. Wildeboer, etc. All Catholic exegetes attribute it to Moses in substance and literary form; they admit traces of further redactions only in the form and in secondary details.
In reality, the variants between Ex. 20:1-17 and Deut. 5:6-22 are numerous, but not important. Exodus motivates observance of the Sabbath by the divine rest after creation in six days; in Deuteronomy the reason is humanitarian, without excluding the earlier one. Exodus places the woman (we are in a patriarchal regime) among the man’s other possessions; Deuteronomy places her separately. The others are accidental literary modifications; Papyrus (v.), from the pre-Masoretic text, offers some of its own. They make it possible to deduce that only the precepts, without the reasons that sometimes accompany them, were engraved on the two stones.
There is no reason to assign the D. to a later period and deny it to Moses. Its “Deuteronomistic” character in Deuteronomy proves nothing; nor is the late composition of Deuteronomy at all demonstrated; indeed, a revision of this old postulate is currently under way among critics. Nor is it at all true that the prophets were unaware of the D.; Ex. 20:10-12 speaks explicitly of precepts given by Yahweh to Israel in the desert and among them names the precept of sanctifying the Sabbath. There is no doubt that they inculcate observance of the commandments of the D. (Gampert): cf. Os. 4:2, 13; 6:9; Jer. 7:9; etc. Their entire preaching calls for a return to the pure monotheism of the origins and is directed against idolatry, that is, toward observance of the first precept, the root of all the others and the essence of the Sinai covenant. And they assume these precepts to be known when they inveigh against their violation: Am. 2:4-16; Os. 4:6; 6:5-11; Is. 1:12; Jer. 6:19; Mi. 6:8; etc.
Very ancient documents from the time of Moses attest the practice of engraving important writings of a religious or political nature on stone (for the D.: Ex. 24:12; Deut. 9:9), placing them in sacred locations. In a treaty between Stupphaliuma, king of Hatti, and Mattiuazza, king of Mitanni, it is stated that a copy of the tablet was to be deposited in the temple of Sema. Stone stelae with sculptures and inscriptions were found at Sinai by F. Petrie (Researches in Sinai, London 1906).
Finally, ethnology has established the primitiveness of the worship of the Supreme Being (monotheism) and the elevated moral sentiment of primitive peoples (W. Schmidt, Manuale di storia comparata delle religioni, Italian translation, Brescia 1938, pp. 428-78), in harmony with the evidence provided by Egypt (chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead: L. Speleers, Egypte, in DBs, II, cols. 847-50), by Babylonian texts (J. Plessis, Babylone et la Bible, in DBs, I, cols. 841-45), and by Phoenician texts (G. B. Roggia, Alcune osservazioni sul culto di El a Ras Shamra, in Aevum, 15 [1941], pp. 559-75). — Vedi tav. 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