Contextualizing the Decalogue: The Invention of the Ten-Commandments in Late Ancient Christianity

Abstract

This article argues that while several Decalogue precepts are mentioned in the New Testament, the Decalogue as a distinct normative category is completely absent. This goes in line with the evidence from Second Temple Jewish sources, where very limited attention is given to the Decalogue, with Philo serving as an exception. I further propose that the formation of the Decalogue as a distinct normative category comes accompanied by a specific anti-Jewish discourse, beginning in the late second century and continuing into the fourth century. Authors such as Irenaeus of Lyon, Ptolemy, Aphrahat, and the anonymous author of the Syriac Book of Steps construct ‘the Decalogue’ as a category for commandments that Christians must still follow, as opposed to the rest of Law. The latter is characterized as ‘not good laws’, given to the Jews only on account of their sins.

Keywords

Decalogue Irenaeus Judaism Law New Testament polemics Ptolemy

The decalogue was (and is) for Jews and Christians alike the heart of the Law (Stuhlmacher 1985: 103).

For as far as God has in the ten commandments taught what is just and right, and given directions for guiding our life, no abrogation of the law is to be dreamt of; for the will of God must stand the same forever (Calvin, Comm. Rom. 7.2; Owen 1849, 246).

This article seeks to trace the history of the formation of the Decalogue as a distinct normative category in early Christianity. As opposed to seeing it as an ancient, widely accepted idea, grounded in both the Old and the New Testament, I wish to highlight specific historical circumstances in which this normative concept first emerges within Christian sources in the late second century CE.

The fact that the divine proclamation of the Decalogue appears twice in the Pentateuch (Exod. 20; Deut. 5) only strengthens the accepted recognition that it stands, already within Scripture, as a distinct event, granting the ten statements—or commandments—(δέκα λόγους; עשרת הדברים‎; ܥܫܪ̈ܐ ܦܬܓܡ̈ܝܢ) a special normative, theological, and social status.¹ In line with this, it is only natural that this centrality of the Decalogue is perceived as continuing in Second Temple Judaism, including in the New Testament. The aura of the Decalogue—seen as ancient, most holy, and directly transmitted by God—together with its inter-textual distinctness from the rest of the commandments of the Old Testament, served as a valuable tool for creating inter-normative distinctions within the Law, so crucial for early Christian authors. The argument, in this sense, is twofold: the first is that the Decalogue obtained in Second Temple Judaism a special social and normative status with relation to the rest of the Law. In addition, historical Jesus (or the authors of the gospels) and historical Paul have used this internal Jewish normative hierarchy in order to distinguish between the continued obligation to follow God’s law—as expressed in the Ten Commandments—and the abrogation of the Law through Jesus Christ.

The importance of the Decalogue in the New Testament is presumed, to a large degree, due to its centrality in its first-century Jewish context.² In this article I seek to reexamine both assumptions. My first argument will be that contrary to most scholarly opinion, the Decalogue did not receive a central normative status in Second Temple Jewish literature or in the New Testament. Second Temple Jewish sources devote rather limited attention to the Ten Commandments, which do not function there as a distinct normative category (apart from Philo of Alexandria, who, as will be discussed below, stands as an exception).

It is crucial to emphasize that my main interest is the Decalogue as an organizing normative category. By this I mean how the biblical list of the ‘ten words’ was transformed into a fixed term, differentiated normatively, theologically, and culturally from the rest of the commandments. This differentiation can take place on various levels: it can refer, for example, to the origin of these specific commandments (who transmitted them? when? in what manner?), but primarily it occurs by granting them a special normative status—as a fixed group of ten discrete precepts, distinct from the rest of the Law. In that sense, I will not focus on the importance or function of any particular commandment (e.g., ‘You shall not murder’, or ‘You shall not commit adultery’), some of which undoubtedly were perceived as highly significant by Second Temple authors, including those of the New Testament, but rather on the Ten Commandments as a unified normative category. In other words, I am interested here in the transformation of the list of ten sayings into ‘The Decalogue’.

I will further argue that there is little reason to presume an early Jewish notion of the Decalogue as a fixed normative category, one that historical Jesus and historical Paul could naturally have inherited and utilized for their own purposes. However, this presumption was crucial for the way scholars have tended to read the Decalogue into the New Testament. Although certain individual biblical commandments from the Decalogue appear in numerous places in the New Testament (e.g., Mk 10.17–22 and parallels; Mt 5.21, 27; Rom. 7.7, 13–19; Jas. 2.11), it is remarkable that the term itself, as a reference to an existing concept or a fixed group of precepts, is never mentioned. As noticed by New Testament scholars, not even all ten of the Ten Commandments are mentioned in the New Testament (e.g., Fuller 1989: 250). Thus, many attempts were made to track allusions, quotations, and references to ‘missing’ commandments in order to prove the presence of the entire Decalogue in the New Testament.³ This very endeavor, however, further exposes the apparent lack of an existing organizing category. Indeed, as these studies demonstrate, while (most of) the Ten Commandments are scattered in some way or another in the New Testament, they are mentioned individually or in small groups of a few precepts, and never as a whole entity or as a fixed category. Thus, the most crucial characteristic of the Decalogue, namely its function as an existing, separate and unified list or code of distinct ten-commandments, is completely missing.

In the last part, I will situate the emergence of the Decalogue as a distinct normative category in late second century CE Christian polemic regarding the Law. Its very formation and importance come together with the negation of the rest of the Mosaic law. As can be seen from different Christian sources from the late second century to the late fourth century, it is particularly in this period that the Decalogue starts to function as a means to reconcile the contradictory claims regarding the everlasting need to observe the Law and its abrogation.

The Decalogue in Late Second Temple Jewish Literature

Most studies on the Decalogue in the New Testament seem to accept without further question the assumption that the Decalogue was central for Second Temple Jews, who granted it a special status as a distinct normative set of commandments endowed with great theological and cultural importance. In this sense, it is frequently claimed that the Decalogue was part of Judaism’s daily liturgy, along with the Shema. In a recent article I have argued that clear evidence in support of this argument cannot be found in any Second Temple sources (Bick 2024). On the contrary, in most sources the Decalogue is not mentioned at all, and its presence is assumed, or read into the sources, only in light of later sources, specifically the description of m. Tamid 5:1, where the priests are referenced as saying the ‘ten words’ as part of their daily service in the temple.⁴

However, Second Temple sources, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Letter of Aristeas, and Josephus, do not indicate any inclusion of the Ten Commandments in the daily liturgy (or of the Shema, in this regard).⁵ In all these sources, one is struck by the extremely limited number of clear references to the Decalogue.⁶ And whereas the Decalogue does appear in other sources—such as in the Nash papyrus (Burkitt 1903: 392–408; Albright 1937: 145; Martin 2010: 205–24) and in a few phylacteries found in Qumran, these do not support the claim that the Decalogue was part of the daily liturgy or that it had any distinct normative importance.⁷ Regarding the phylacteries in particular, the Decalogue verses appear as part of a larger passage, which in itself is only one of four biblical passages included in the phylacteries.⁸

The same can be said regarding other sources: In a letter addressed to the emperor Trajan, Pliny the Younger describes Christians in his province as gathering before dawn to recite hymns to Christ, and binding themselves with an oath ‘to avoid acts of theft, brigandage, and adultery, not to break their word, and not to withhold money deposited with them when asked for it’ (Pliny the Younger, Letters 10.96; Walsh 2009: 278–79). I do not see in this list any intentional allusion to the commandments of the Decalogue, but even if that were the case, it is clear that the Christians in this testimony did not give any special status to the Decalogue as a distinct whole—as they ‘allude’ to only a few of the commandments, while adding prohibitions which are not found within the Decalogue.⁹

To this discussion we can also add The Sentences of Pseudo-Phocylides. This work, written between 100 BC and 100 CE (Wilson 2005: 7), opens with a list of several instructions¹⁰ that scholars have traditionally understood as a summary of the Decalogue.¹¹ However, similar to the previous examples, the assumed allusions are very general. The work indeed prohibits adultery, murder, taking what belongs to others (which is not identical, necessarily, to the biblical prohibition against theft), and honoring God and parents. Yet there does not seem to be any internal reason to assume that this list, taken as a whole, is relying on the Decalogue as a unified and normative unit. Furthermore, allusions can be found only to part of the Ten Commandments—while other instructions are added—and the category ‘Decalogue’ is missing completely. The inclusion of other precepts, such as the prohibition on ‘arousing male passion’ or on being ‘unjustly rich’, suggests the opposite conclusion. Namely, while in writing his instructions the author might have had in mind some of the prohibitions that appear in the Ten Commandments (and, not surprisingly, the most ‘natural’ ones), he does not grant the Decalogue, as a coherent group of ten commandments or as a category, any special normative or theological status.¹²

As opposed to the previous examples, a stronger allusion to the commandments from the Decalogue can be found in Didache 2.2–3 (as well as 5.1), as noticed by numerous studies.¹³ Since the prohibitions against murder, adultery and theft appear at the beginning of a long list of prohibitions, and taking into account the linguistic similarities to the Decalogue (the repeated use of οὐ [οὐ ϕονεύσεις, οὐ μοιχεύσεις, … οὐ κλέψεις] with the second person singular future indicative), it has been argued that Didache 2.2–7 should be seen as an expanded list of vices seeking to ground its authority in the Decalogue.¹⁴ However, even if that were true, it is crucial to notice that in the Didache the commandments of the Decalogue are not singled out or marked as more important than other referenced prohibitions, and there is no attempt to keep the unity of the Decalogue intact. Precisely if the biblical Decalogue rests in the background of the expanded list, it is important to recognize how in the Didache the very concept of ‘decalogue/ten-commandments’ has been deconstructed. In that sense, the Decalogue does not function as a heading for numerous additional commandments—as in the case of Philo (see below)—but rather has been transformed into a new extended list of vices.¹⁵ Thus, instead of arguing, for example, that the Didache ‘follows a loose interpretation of the second table of the Decalogue, exhibiting considerable freedom in selection, formulation, and arrangement’,¹⁶ I would prefer to say that the Didache offers another example where no special status is granted to the Decalogue as a whole (namely, as a distinct, unified, normative group)—as opposed to some individual commandments.¹⁷

The lack of almost any special normative status does not mean that the Decalogue had no cultural significance, or that some Decalogue precepts did not obtain a high status. On the contrary: occasionally, certain specific commandments, including those from the Decalogue (e.g., the Sabbath; the prohibitions against idolatry and murder), were understood as more important, or ‘heavy’, commandments than others.¹⁸ However, the Decalogue as a whole does not stand out as a distinct normative category, more important as a group, from other parts of Scripture.

One significant exception is Philo of Alexandria: as discussed in many studies, for Philo the Decalogue serves as a heading (κεϕάλαια) ‘summarizing the particular laws’ of the Torah (Philo, Decal. 19, 154–175; Philo, Spec. 1.1). Yet, as already emphasized by Amir (1990: 160), the superiority of the Decalogue in Philo is primarily methodological, as he does not suggest that there is any normative difference between the Decalogue and the rest of the Law.¹⁹ In other words, the Decalogue’s function as a heading for certain particular laws does not grant them any distinct normative value, and they are not portrayed as more binding or authoritative than other commandments. Nevertheless, it must be recognized that Philo is the first to construct the Decalogue as distinct from the rest of the commandments. He can therefore be properly regarded as an important early precedent for later developments within Christianity that will be discussed below.²⁰ However, in Second Temple Jewish sources, as well as in light of the New Testament sources that will be discussed in the next section, Philo stands as an exception, and should not be seen as representing wider Jewish conceptions concerning the Decalogue.²¹ As will be discussed in the next section, the explicit prioritization and distinctness of the Decalogue, along with the fundamental role that it plays in Philo’s biblical exegesis, bring into relief the absence of a similar attitude in all other pre-second century CE sources, including the New Testament.

The Decalogue in the New Testament?

Studies that seek to highlight the importance of the Decalogue in the New Testament rely on ancient Jewish sources, either from the late Second Temple era or even from latter rabbinic literature. Since it is recognized that the term ‘Ten Commandments’ / ‘Decalogue’ is nowhere mentioned in the New Testament, and that the same goes for all ten individual commandments, ancient Jewish sources are used to fill the lacunae in the hypothesis of the Decalogue’s importance in the New Testament.²² The foregoing discussion regarding the Decalogue’s absence as an organizing normative category from the late Second Temple sources thus also impacts the way one should read the evidence from the New Testament. In this sense, I share the view that the New Testament’s attitude towards the Decalogue should be understood within its Jewish context, yet I wish to draw an opposite conclusion: in the New Testament, similar to almost all other Jewish sources, the Decalogue is not seen as a unified set of commandments with a distinct normative status.

In what follows I will not be arguing against the well-documented observation that certain specific commandments from the Decalogue are scattered in numerous places in the New Testament. Thus, for example, the prohibitions on murder and adultery appear—several times, in different settings (e.g., Mt 5.21, 27; Mk 10.19; Rom. 13.9; Jas. 2.11; cf. Mk 7.21–22 / Mt 15.19; 1 Tim. 1.9–10), and so do the commandment to honor one’s parents (Mk 7.10; 10.19)—and the prohibitions against theft (Mk 10.19; Rom. 13.9), false witness (Mk 10.19), and coveting (Rom. 7.7; 13.9). It is also possible that in some cases allusions to or echoes of certain additional commandments from the Decalogue can be found—although frequently the arguments for the existence of such allusions are circular and rely on an a priori presupposition of the Decalogue’s centrality. Thus, for example, it has been argued that Jesus’ proclamation in the wilderness temptation episode that ‘you should worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve’ (Mt 4.10) is an allusion to the first commandment of the Decalogue (Evans 2012: 30). However, while Jesus’ proclamation corresponds nicely to the same principle as outlined by the first commandment, it is considerably more difficult to demonstrate direct dependence or even an allusion, since the prohibition against worshiping other gods appears elsewhere throughout Scripture.

Even if certain Decalogue precepts are mentioned, then, this does not yet lead to the conclusion that the Decalogue, as a whole and as a distinct normative category, is attested in the New Testament. On the contrary, the presence of only a few commandments and the inclusion of additional precepts/vices demonstrates that in the New Testament the Decalogue did not have any special normative status—as opposed to specific commandments from the Decalogue—and similar to the situation in the majority of Jewish sources from that period.

The most notable references to commandments from the Decalogue (as opposed to ‘the Decalogue’ in the general sense) occur in the Rich Man episode, in Mk 10.17–22. To the petitioner’s question about how to inherit eternal life, Jesus famously replies:

Jesus said to him, Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.

Scholars have long studied the differences between the versions of this story in the three synoptic gospels (Mk 10.18–19; Mt 19.17–19; Lk 18.19–20).²³ However, the question of the possible original version of Jesus’ saying is less important for the current discussion since all three versions demonstrate that while Jesus was indeed referring to some of the commandments of the Decalogue, he does not grant any special status to the Decalogue as such.²⁴ This is not to deny that, according to this story, these particular prohibitions may have held some special meaning in Jesus’ perception of the Law, or that the story is fundamental for understanding the place of the Law in the Gospels—as much as to submit that this has little to do with the question of the Decalogue as a whole. Furthermore, even if one were to argue that by mentioning these precepts Jesus was not offering an exhaustive list of commandments but limited himself to a few specific examples, there is still very little evidence to support the assumption that as examples they are pointing to the Decalogue, as opposed to, for instance, ‘common righteousness’ (what might be termed ‘ethical commandments’), or even to the entire Law altogether.

Two commandments from the Decalogue are also quoted in the Sermon on the Mount—the prohibitions against murder and adultery (Mt 5.21, 27)—thus signaling both their importance and the lack of the Decalogue’s canonicity as a whole. The only reason to posit, for example, that the fourth antithesis on oaths alludes to the Decalogue (either to the third or the ninth commandment) would be if one had already presupposed that the Decalogue was the main reference point for Jesus’s saying (Fuller 1989: 247; Flusser 1990: 233).²⁵

References to specific commandments from the Decalogue (e.g., the prohibitions against murder and adultery) should therefore not be automatically assumed to be references to the Decalogue as a whole, as this category is simply absent from the ancient sources. Thus, for example, the reference to the prohibitions on murder and adultery in Jas. 2.11 could be understood as representing the whole Law, or perhaps the ethical commandments of the Law (which correspond to the logic of Lev. 19.18), but not ‘the Decalogue’, as there is no indication in the text that the author of James was assigning any distinct status to the Decalogue as a whole (Moo 1985: 95–96).²⁶ The same applies to Paul’s use of four commandments from the Decalogue in Rom. 13.9. While these verses may be crucial for understanding Paul’s attitude towards the Law (including issues regarding the supposed division between ‘moral’ and ‘ritual’ law, or the relation of works and faith), no evidence can be drawn from the text itself regarding the Decalogue as a whole—which is simply never addressed.²⁷ In fact, as the foregoing examples also show, in the repeated references to specific commandments the very concept of ‘Decalogue’ as a unified list of ten-words appears to be deconstructed.

When the centrality of the Decalogue is presupposed, it can be read not only into fragmentary allusions but also into complete silence. Thus, for example, Evans (2012: 42), in a study dedicated to the Decalogue in the New Testament, writes that ‘[t]he non-appearance of the first three commandments is probably due to their noncontroversial nature. Faith in only one God, the God of Israel, avoidance of idolatry, and respecting the divine name were givens’. It is difficult to understand, however, in what sense ‘faith in only one God’ was more ‘noncontroversial’ than the prohibition against murder, for example. In fact, in his first reply to the rich man (Mk 10.19) Jesus seems to be addressing precisely those ‘noncontroversial’ commandments. Furthermore, as can be seen from several places in the New Testament, idol worship, and consequently the need to warn against it, posed a great challenge for the followers of Jesus (as for other Jews as well). Consequently, it cannot be viewed as taken for granted to a greater extent than the prohibitions against murder, idolatry or theft.

In his study on the Decalogue in the New Testament Evans (2012: 35) further states that ‘Jesus’ quotation of several of the commandments may have presupposed all ten, though he only cites half of them’. This approach represents a broader tendency in New Testament scholarship that presupposes the centrality of the Decalogue for both Jews and early Christians in the first century. In his comments on Jesus’ reply in Mk 12.28–31 Allison (1994: 273) has argued as follows:

Mark’s first-century Christian readers would in all likelihood have construed Jesus’ commandments to love God and one’s neighbor as Philo surely would have, namely, as together constituting a synopsis of the decalogue. In other words, the quotations of Deut. 5.6 and Lev. 19.18 were intended to be brief resumes of the two tables given to Moses (italics added).²⁸

Interestingly, this perspective is shared by scholars who otherwise would not quickly agree on the issues pertaining to the ‘Jewish origins of Christianity’ or on the meaning of the Law for the historical Jesus and Paul. According to Paula Fredriksen, for example, both John the Baptizer and Jesus advocated for the observance of the Decalogue. The fragmentary evidence provided by the New Testament is bolstered here by the aforementioned contemporaneous Jewish sources.²⁹ Although, according to Fredriksen, Paul’s mission was very different from those of Jesus and John the Baptizer, surprisingly he too had apparently advocated for the observance of the same legal corpus—the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, it is the Ten Commandments that apparently best express ‘what Paul meant by justification by faith’ (Fredriksen 2014: 801–8).³⁰ The Ten Commandments, therefore, apparently served as ‘a core teaching of the early movement, one on which the historical Jesus (and, for that matter, John the Baptizer) and Paul seem to converge’ (Fredriksen 2015: 190). In this approach Fredriksen follows earlier scholars, such as E. P. Sanders (1993: 224), who also took Philo’s treatment of the Decalogue as an expression of a general tendency among Second Temple Jews to identify the two love commands as a summary of the two tablets, and thus as providing the background for understanding Jesus’ attitude toward the Decalogue.³¹ This assumption is shared, almost without further examination, by many New Testament studies.³² However, the centrality of the double love command and the distinction between duties towards God and towards fellow humans is so widely attested in late Second Temple sources and later Rabbinic literature that it seems highly problematic to draw any conclusions from this for the question of the Decalogue. It is important to emphasize, moreover, that also here Philo serves as an exception: while several early sources mention the double love command, Philo is unique in attaching this duality to the two tablets of the Decalogue.³³

Indeed, some scholars recognize that given its importance as a central normative and theological category, one would have expected to find more explicit references to the Decalogue in the New Testament. Thus, for example, although accepting the centrality of the Decalogue for Second Temple Jews, F. E. Vokes (1968: 151) finds it ‘significant that the Decalogue by itself is not picked out as a whole as the summary or crown of the divine law’. According to Vokes, the variations in the way commandments from the Decalogue are quoted in the New Testament do not represent different traditions, but rather function ‘as evidence that the Decalogue was not felt to be sacrosanct’ (152). As he notices, precisely since already in the New Testament we find a strong tension regarding the status of the Law, it is noteworthy that nowhere does the New Testament openly suggest the idea ‘that while the ritual and ceremonial law is abrogated, the moral law identified with the Decalogue remains’.³⁴

Following Vokes, and in light of the Jewish sources discussed above, it becomes evident that the Decalogue as a whole and as a normative category is completely absent from the New Testament. The endeavor to ground it in the New Testament should be recognized as a retrojection of subsequent ideological, theological, and normative developments within Christianity. In this regard, the Decalogue has its own complicated history and should not be seen as an ancient, unchanged, and enduringly revered concept.³⁵ The references to specific commandments from the Decalogue should be seen as what they are—expressing the importance of those individual precepts.

By recognizing the absence of the Decalogue as a normative category from the New Testament, one can perceive the dramatic conceptual shift that takes place from the end of the second century CE onward. It is only starting from this period, beginning with the Letter of Ptolemy to Flora and Irenaeus of Lyon, that the Decalogue receives its unique normative—and hence its socio-cultural—value. Thus, it is within a polemical discourse and a specific historical moment that the Decalogue is constructed as a coherent and distinct set of divine commandments, with a special normative status. The following section of my study analyzes this development.

The Decalogue in Late Ancient Christian Polemic

The absence of any clear reference to the Decalogue continues in the early Christian authors from the first two centuries. Contrary to previous scholarly attempts—which rely on the assumption of the Decalogue’s centrality—I will now argue that for early Christian authors such as Justin Martyr, Clement, or Origen of Alexandria, the Decalogue had no organizing normative value.

As in the foregoing cases, the Decalogue is frequently read into early Christian sources which say nothing about it. For example, scholars have found traces of the Decalogue in the writings of Justin Martyr, although he does not discuss the Decalogue at all—neither as a general term nor even with regard to specific commandments. Thus, in Dial. 44, as part of his argument that there is no hope in keeping the Law without faith in Christ, Justin states that in the Old Testament ‘some commandments for worship of God and practice of righteousness were laid on you’.³⁶ This general statement has been understood by some as proof that Justin saw the Decalogue as an expression of one’s duties towards God and society: ‘A certain commandment [that is, the Decalogue] is for service of God and neighbor’ (Allison 1994: 273; cf. Grant 1947: 12). Similarly, Salvesen (2012: 51) finds a reference to the Decalogue in Justin’s discussion in Dial. 93, where he asserts that all mankind knows that adultery and murder are sinful. However, such a general statement cannot be seen as an allusion to the Decalogue, as Justin is clearly speaking about humanity’s natural recognition of the wrongness of murder and adultery. Justin’s discussion demonstrates the importance of the double love command and its relation to certain recognized grave sins—while the Decalogue remains completely absent.

As opposed to Justin, both Clement and Origen of Alexandria address the Decalogue explicitly on several occasions. However, while offering creative allegorical interpretations of specific precepts as well as of the meaning of the number ten,³⁷ neither author juxtaposes the ten commandments with the rest of Scripture. Origen, for example, sees the number ten as an expression of perfection, yet does not articulate any explicit distinction between the Decalogue and the rest of the commandments. Similarly, Clement provides allegorical explanations of the Decalogue in his Stromata, a work intended for the more advanced reader, and in Paedagogus emphasizes the importance of keeping the literal sense of the Ten Commandments. Yet, while he explicitly mentions ‘the Decalogue of Moses’, for him it is only one list of valuable instructions among several that Clement collects from all of Scripture. Thus, the Decalogue has some value in its ‘simple and unified elementary form’ (Paed. 3.12.89; Wood 1954: 266; Marcovich 2002: 197) and is worthy of special interpretive and pedagogic attention, but nowhere does Clement suggest that it has any distinct normative status compared to the rest of Scripture (see Paed. 3.12.87–96).³⁸ For both Origen and Clement, the main distinction within Scripture is not normative (e.g., between the Decalogue and the rest of the Law) but rather exegetical—between an earthly/literal and spiritual/allegorical way of reading, which is applied similarly to all parts of Scripture (cf. Gibbons 2017: 98).³⁹

It is with two second-century authors—Ptolemy and Irenaeus of Lyon—that the Decalogue receives for the first time a distinct normative status, explicitly differentiated from the rest of Mosaic law. Ptolemy’s Letter to Flora has come down to us only through Epiphanius’ fourth century Panarion (33.3.1–33.7.10), alongside many other Christian heresies. The Letter is the only known work of Ptolemy, but scholars have long identified him with a student of Valentinus who had a similar name and was mentioned by Irenaeus (Haer. 1.8.5). However, as demonstrated by Christoph Markschies (2000: 225–54), nothing in the Letter itself seems particularly ‘Valentinian’ or ‘Gnostic’, and thus the Letter should be read in the context of other second-century Christian approaches to the meaning of the Law.

In the Letter, the author attempts to reject the attribution of parts of the Law to an evil god, while at the same time creating distinctions, and hierarchies, within the Law. As the opening of the letter demonstrates, Ptolemy is arguing against competing attitudes towards the Law, alternatively attributing all of the Law to God the Father and to the devil. Although Ptolemy does not name his opponents, it seems most likely that he is mainly interested in arguing against a Marcionite position (Markschies 2000: 234). As opposed to these two groups which identity the Law either as completely good or evil, Ptolemy divides the Law into different levels. First, it was given by three: part of it was given directly by the craftsman and creator of the universe (not to be confused with the Perfect God); another part by Moses from his own reasoning; and another by the elders (Ptolemy, Flor. 33.4.1–2; Quispel 1966: 54; Storin 2017: 5). The laws that were given by the creator are also divided into three parts: pure legislation, free from any injustice; laws that are interwoven with inferiority and injustice; and a third type that is figurative and symbolic (33.5.1). According to the author, Jesus’ declaration that he had come not to abolish but to fulfill was made concerning the first type of legislation (Mt 5.17). The author then identifies this first type of laws with the Decalogue:

And the law of God, pure and not interwoven with inferiority, is the Decalogue (δεκάλογος), those ten statements (δέκα λόγοι) on two tablets divided into a prohibition of things from which one must abstain and a command of things that one must do. (Flor. 33.5.3; Quispel 1966: 60; Storin 2017: 7, with the translation slightly modified)

It is important to notice that Ptolemy does not argue that only these commandments have divine origin, or that the rest were falsified, or given by a different agent. However, he does create a clear normative hierarchy, in which the Decalogue stands out as more holy and pure. Thus, although many parts of Ptolemy’s theory of the Law have parallels in contemporaneous Christian sources, as shown by Markschies (2000: 225–54), he is the first to explicitly single out the Decalogue as a whole as a distinct, and more important, part of the Law.

Another explicit reference to the Decalogue as a separate normative category appears in the work of another second century author—Irenaeus of Lyon. Notably, as with the Letter to Flora, Ireneus’ reference to the Decalogue appears in a polemical context, in his Against Heresies. According to Irenaeus, all that God had originally required from the Jews was to observe the Decalogue:

They (the Jews) had therefore a law (νόμον), a course of discipline, and a prophecy of future things. For God at the first, indeed, warning them by means of natural precepts (ϕυσικὰς ἐντολάς), which from the beginning He had implanted (ἐμϕῠτους) in mankind, that is, by means of the Decalogue (τὴν δεκάλογον), which, if any one does not do them, he will not be saved, did then demand nothing more of them. As Moses says in Deuteronomy, ‘These are all the words which the Lord spoke to the whole assembly of the sons of Israel on the mount, and He added no more; and He wrote them on two tables of stone, and gave them to me (Deut. 5.22)’ (Irenaeus, Haer. 4.15.1; Rousseau et al. 1965: 549).⁴⁰

According to Irenaeus, the Decalogue is an expression of the natural law that was implemented in humanity from the very beginning (ἀπ’ ἀρχῆς). The argument that there is some connection between the Law and natural law is not unique to Irenaeus—an early version of it can be found already in Paul (e.g., Rom. 2.14–22), and it was widely accepted by other early Christian authors (e.g., Justin, Tertullian, Eusebius, and Chrysostom), as well as by some Jewish sources, especially with regard to the Patriarchs. However, it is only here with Irenaeus that an explicit connection is made between the Decalogue, as an organized category, and the natural law. According to Irenaeus, all the laws that came after the Decalogue were only added because of the sin of the golden calf. These commandments did not separate the Jews from God, but placed them in a state of servitude:

But when they turned themselves to make a calf, and had gone back in their minds to Egypt, desiring to be slaves instead of free men, they were placed for the future in a state of servitude suited to their wish, (a slavery) which did not indeed cut them off from God, but subjected them to the yoke of bondage; as Ezekiel the prophet, when stating the reasons for the giving of such a law, declares: ‘And their eyes were after the desire of their heart; and I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments in which they shall not live (Ezek. 20.24–25)’ (Irenaeus, Haer. 4.15.1; Rousseau 1965: 551).

Irenaeus does not specify the identity of the ‘not-good’ statues, and although he probably would have excluded certain additional precepts beside the Decalogue from that category (such as Lev. 19.18 and other ‘moral’ commandments), he does not find it necessary to say that explicitly. Irenaeus, therefore, is not interested here in the individual commandments of the Decalogue—or in any individual commandments whatsoever—but rather in the Decalogue as a whole, as an organizing category, set against the ‘yoke of bondage’. Justin makes a similar argument regarding the giving of ‘not good statues’ to the Jews due to their sins—quoting the same verses from Ezekiel. However, as opposed to Irenaeus, the Decalogue nowhere comes up in Justin’s discussion (Dial. 21). Thus, while there seems to be a close similarity between Irenaeus and other early Christian authors regarding the practical relevance of different Mosaic laws, Irenaeus’ discussion creates a significant discursive shift, identifying the Decalogue as a distinct normative category, inherently different from the rest of the Law. In other words, Irenaeus, like Ptolemy in his Letter to Flora, does not offer a different understanding of the Law, nor does he differ in his identification of specific commandments that Christians still must follow. His main contribution is a conceptual one, by constructing the Decalogue as a unified and distinct normative category. In addition, the Decalogue, according to Irenaeus, was also the only part of the Law that was given directly by God, while the rest was added by Moses:

Preparing man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue; and therefore, in like manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving by means of His advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation. But the laws of bondage (τῆς δουλείας λόγια) were one by one promulgated to the people by Moses separately (χωρίς), suited for their education (Irenaeus, Haer. 4.16.4–5; Rousseau 1965: 571).

For Irenaeus, like Ptolemy, the adding of precepts to the Law by Moses is not necessarily negative. Irenaeus further explains that even Paul added instructions from his own mind. Thus, these laws can be legitimate, and at certain moments even necessary, yet they are inferior to the original law of God—namely, to the Decalogue (Haer. 4.15.2).

As has already been discussed by various scholars (e.g., Fonrobert 2001: 483–509; Zellentin 2022: 238–43), in the Didascalia a distinction is made between the Decalogue and the judgments (ܥܫܪ̈ܐ ܦܬܓܡ̈ܝܢ ܘܕܝ̈ܢܐ) and the ‘second legislation’ (ܬܢܝܢ ܢܡܘܤܐ)—the term used for all the laws given by God to the Israelites after the sin of the golden calf (The Didascalia Apostolorum 2, 26; Vööbus 1979: 18, 243 [Syr.]; 15, 224–48 [Eng.]).⁴¹ It is important to notice, however, that the ‘first law’ (ܢܡܘܤܐ ܩܕܡܝܐ) does not overlap completely with the Decalogue, as it includes additional laws as well.⁴² Nevertheless, at least at the rhetorical level, it seems that the primary emphasis is placed on the Decalogue. As will be further demonstrated below, it is the category of the Decalogue, as opposed to any specific commandments, that lies at the center of the distinction between the two types of laws.⁴³

In the Pseudo-Clementine literature it is similarly argued that some of the commandments of the Law were given neither by God Himself nor by Moses but by others, in a distorted and falsified manner.⁴⁴ Whereas in the Homilies the Decalogue is not explicitly highlighted as part of this distinction between the divine and false commandments, in the Recognitions this distinction is made more explicit, and once again the sin of the golden calf functions as the turning point.⁴⁵ Yet, it is important to take into account that the focus there is on sacrificial laws, and it is unclear whether one can see the critique of these laws as reflecting the inferior status of other commandments of the Law as well. Thus, in both the Didascalia and the Ps.-Clementine literature the distinction between the Decalogue and the rest of the Law is not as sharp and clear as it is in Ptolemy and Irenaeus. Nevertheless, when combined with other sources, they do point to the formation of a broad Christian perspective regarding the distinct normative status of the Decalogue.

Alongside these sources, a clear distinction between the Decalogue and the rest of the Law appears in fourth century Syriac Christian sources, in Aphrahat’s Demonstrations and in the Book of Steps—both written in the Sasanian Empire.⁴⁶ Aphrahat repeatedly emphasizes that important ‘Jewish’ commandments such as circumcision, Sabbath, dietary laws, and sacrifices were completely annulled with the coming of Christ. Similar to what we have seen in the previously discussed sources, it was due to the Israelites’ sins that God had added supplementary commandments to the original ten holy ones:

Be persuaded, O stubborn scribe of the Law, teacher of the people! … It was because of your sins that he instructed you to give offerings and distinguished foods for you. About which commandments and judgements did Ezekiel say, ‘Whoever does them will live by them’? And concerning which did he say, ‘I have given you commandments that are not good and judgements by which [you] will not live’? The life-giving commandments and judgements, on the other hand, are those which were written from above, just and righteous judgements which he set before them, the ten holy commandments which he inscribed with his hand and gave to Moses so that he might teach them. But when they made a calf for themselves and turned away from following him, then he gave them commandments and judgements which were not good, [concerning] offerings as well as purification for lepers, discharges, menstruation, and childbirth, and that no person should approach a dead body, or a grave, or bones, or those who have been killed, and that for all sins and all human uncleanness an offering should be brought (Aphrahat, Demonstrations 15.8; Parisot 1894; Lehto 2010: 371).

According to Aphrahat, from the time these laws were added ‘there was not even one day in which the Israelites were purified from sins’ (Aphrahat, Demonstrations 15.9; Parisot 1894; Lehto 2010: 372), rendering attaining righteousness through the Law impossible—as Aphrahat argues from Gal. 3.10–12. Jesus, on the other hand, has removed this heavy and impossible burden, offering instead a ‘light and pleasant yoke’, one which people can keep and be saved. Although the author does not say this explicitly, from the context it seems clear that this easy yoke is the restoration of the Decalogue, the original ‘ten pure commandments’ that were given before the sins of Israel.⁴⁷ Noteworthy again is the mention of Ezek. 20.25, which similar to Irenaeus and the Didascalia (DA. 26; Vööbus 1979: 249–50 [Syr.], 231–32 [Eng.]) provides the scriptural basis for juxtaposing the Decalogue with the ‘not good statues’—which include all the rest of the Law.

Another work that emphasized even further the distinction between the Decalogue and the rest of the Law is the Book of Steps. This late fourth-century Syriac-Christian work is largely dedicated to the classification of different commandments in the Old and New Testament, according to different levels of people. The main distinction is between the Upright (ܟܺܐܢܶܐ), who follow the small commandments (ܦܽܘܩܕ̈ܢܶܐ ܕܰܩܕ̈ܩܶܐ/ ܦܽܘܩܕ̈ܢܶܐ ܙܥܽܘܪ̈ܐ), and the Perfect (ܓܡܺܝܪܶܐ), who follow a separate, and sometimes even contradictory, system of the great commandments (ܦܽܘܩܕ̈ܢܶܐ ܪܰܘܪ̈ܒܶܐ). As part of his efforts to sort and classify the two systems, the anonymous author of the Book of Steps pays special attention to the commandments of the Decalogue:

About the commandments addressed to the whole world on how to become Upright ones. Since not everyone drives himself to ascend to Perfection, these are the commandments for the Upright: Do not kill; do not commit adultery; do not steal; honor your father and your mother; have mercy upon the afflicted; do not fornicate; do not bear false witness; do not plunder or defraud; do not covet your neighbor’s bull, nor his ass, his house, his wife, his field, nor his vineyard; do not pull up his boundaries. Whatever you hate, do not do to your neighbor, for as you wish people to do to you, so you should do to them (The Book of Steps 7.1; Kmosko 1926: column 145; Kitchen and Parmentier 2004: 65).

The commandments mentioned in this passage are directed toward the Upright who are unable to follow the great commandments of the Perfect. Although below perfection, the Upright are careful to follow God’s laws, while still living in the world—having wives and children and occupied by earthly concerns. It is important to notice that although commandments from the Decalogue constitute most of this list, other precepts are also referenced, and the Decalogue as an organizing concept is not explicitly mentioned. Furthermore, these commandments are not set against other Mosaic laws. Elsewhere, however, the author explicitly states that it is only the Ten Commandments that remained in force after the coming of Christ:

From now on not a single letter Yud will pass away from the Law and the prophets. As for the rest, the whole Law and Prophets up to John were established in order to serve and then pass away. For the thing that has become old is worn out and close to destruction, and from then on, we ought not to speak about these. From then on, that one letter Yud will remain—which is the ten commandments, which are called ‘Yud’.⁴⁸ …These ten commandments, which I will enumerate here, are ‘the Yud’ that do not pass away from the Torah and from the prophets. Hear, O Israel, our Lord and our God is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your strength and with all your soul. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness. This is the letter Yud, and look, it is recorded in the Gospel. So from now on let no one serve these other commandments that have been abolished, or these by which a person is not saved, because they were given on account of the outcry of the people and their contentiousness. In summary, these ten commandments are sufficient for the salvation of people [ܣܳܦܩܺܝܢ ܠܚܰܝܰܝ̈ܗܽܘܢ ܕܰܒܢܰܝ̈ܢܳܫܳܐ], so that whoever does them will be saved by them. For all the wearisomeness of the Law and the prophets was intended so that people might come to these commandments of this Yud…. But whatever is outside of this Yud is in the Law and in the prophets, being called the testament of debts [ܕܺܝܰܬܺܝܩܺܝ ܕܚܰܘ̈ܒܶܐ], for on account of the debts of the people is designated the testament of debts (The Book of Steps 22.21–23; Kmosko 1926: columns 681–87; Kitchen and Parmentier 2004: 269–71).⁴⁹

A quick glance reveals that there are fewer than ten commandments listed. Furthermore, although the list seems close to the one quoted above from the seventh Memra, they are not completely identical. This further demonstrates that the author is not interested in the actual ten individual commandments of the Decalogue, but rather in the Decalogue as an organizing category. Indeed, throughout the work several additional precepts are mentioned that the Upright are expected to observe. The main factor for determining which commandments are included in the category of ‘Yud’ is not their scriptural location but rather their correspondence to what the author had determined throughout the work as belonging to the system of the small commandments—the normative system of the Upright. Logically, commandments that according to the author are below uprightness are excluded. The Decalogue, therefore, is not what governs the inclusion or exclusion of commandments for the Upright. Instead, the Decalogue functions as a constructed category, imposed on the commandments of the Upright to strengthen their legitimacy and bolster the internal distinction that the author seeks to create between the fitting and unfitting laws.

As in the case of Aphrahat, also here the ‘Ten Commandments’, which are not identical in content or in number to the biblical ten commandments, are set against the rest of the Law, which cannot lead one to life. Earlier in the same Memra the author also connects the commandments that are not part of ‘the virtuous commandments of love’ to the familiar verse from Ezek. 20.25 regarding the ‘not good statues’, mentioned by authors such as Irenaeus and Aphrahat (The Book of Steps 22.7; Kmosko 1926: column 649; Kitchen and Parmentier 2004: 257).

From the sources discussed here it becomes evident that the normative category of the Decalogue has evolved into a heightened polemical concept, used to create an internal distinction within Mosaic law whereby certain commandments (which we might anachronistically call ‘ceremonial’, or ‘Jewish’) are set aside as ‘not good’, and thus abrogated. As can be seen, in most of the sources discussed above (Irenaeus, the Didascalia, Aphrahat, and the Book of Steps), the Decalogue’s importance is opposed to Ezek. 20.25—‘I gave them statutes that were not good, and judgments in which they shall not live’. As Van der Horst (1992: 94–118) has demonstrated, the polemical use of this verse in Christian literature began only in the late second century. Despite its potential as a scriptural basis for denouncing Jewish law, this verse is nowhere quoted or alluded to in the New Testament. It is from this specific polemical discourse—which seeks to create clear internal distinctions in different parts of the Law—that the Decalogue received its distinct and highly regarded status in Christianity. That status differs significantly from the manner in which specific commandments from the Decalogue were used in earlier periods.

In a recent study I have traced similar dynamics also in rabbinic literature, where interest in the Decalogue, along with anxiety caused by its inclusion in the liturgy, begins to appear only in Amoraic sources, in the Palestinian and Babylonian Talmud (Bick 2024: 253–63). In both places, although with certain significant differences which cannot be addressed here, a suggestion to add the Decalogue to the daily liturgy is rejected on the grounds that it might be understood as affirming the opinion of certain Minim—heretics—who argue that only the Decalogue was given to Moses by God at Sinai (y. Ber. 1:5; b. Ber. 12a). However, beyond the official rejection one can also notice a continued desire to include the Decalogue in the daily liturgy. The fear to include the Decalogue could have arisen following the development of an established tradition conceptualizing the Decalogue as a distinct and well-defined normative category—that is, only from the late second century, and not earlier as previous studies have tended to suggest.⁵⁰ In other words, the Talmudic anxiety regarding the Decalogue should be understood against contemporaneous Christian developments, which began to take place from the late second century CE.⁵¹

Conclusion

The various examples discussed in this article demonstrate how the Decalogue evolved into a distinct normative category, playing a crucial role in late ancient Christian polemic regarding the authority of the Law. The diverse ways in which the Decalogue functions in these sources underscore its construction into a significant and distinct category—central for Christian polemic and one that the rabbis could find threatening. The increased prominence of the Decalogue and its various functions as a tool for normative classification brings into relief its almost complete absence from earlier sources—from Second Temple Jewish writings (except for Philo), the New Testament, and early second-century Christian literature. Specific commandments from the Decalogue are often mentioned, but in most cases not all ten, and they appear in a scattered manner, as opposed to a unified category.

Thus, while absent from the New Testament, the Decalogue appears to emerge as a normative category only from the late second century. One of the main implications of this observation is that the Decalogue, like any other concept, has its own history. Its unique status, and particularly the way in which it functions within the theological and normative framework of Christianity, is not self-evident or fixed but results from specific historical processes that must be examined in their original context. Consequently, discussions regarding the contemporary relevance of the Decalogue must recognize the historical nature of this very concept. For example, we have seen that the formation of the Decalogue as a distinct normative category comes together with a repeated emphasis on the Israelites’ corrupted spiritual status. Thus, any discussion of this concept must also consider its strong anti-Jewish elements. While not many late ancient authors would have doubted the divine origin of the Ten Commandments, not all would have so easily recognized the Decalogue as having a distinct normative status within Scripture, as this was a product of specific late ancient Christian polemic.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Shraga Bick

Notes

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