Chapter 15. The Purpose of the Natural and of the Mosaic Laws
Chapter 15
1. So then, the Law was both a training for them and a prophecy about future things. To explain, at first God admonished them by the natural precepts that he had given and implanted in men from the Beginning; that is, by the Decalogue.—If any one does not observe it, he does not have salvation.—He demanded nothing more of them. As Moses said in Deuteronomy, These words the Lord spoke to all your assembly at the mountain, and he added no more. And he wrote them upon two tables of stone, and gave them to me, in order that those who wished to follow him might observe the commandments.
However, when they had turned to making a calf, and with their minds returned to Egypt, desiring to be slaves in place of free men, they received the rest of the servitude suitable to their desire, which did not cut them off from God but did subdue them by the yoke of servitude. That is what Ezekiel the Prophet said when giving the reasons for making such a law: and their eyes were set on the desire of their heart. Moreover, I gave them statutes that were not good, and ordinances by which they could not have life. And Luke wrote that Stephen, the first of the deacons chosen by the apostles and the first to be put to death on account of testimony to Christ, spoke as follows about Moses: He received living oracles to give to us. But your fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt, saying to Aaron, “Make for us gods to go before us; as for this Moses who led us out from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” And they made a calf in those days and offered sacrifice to the idol and rejoiced in the works of their hands. But God turned and gave them over to worship the host of heaven, as it is written in the book of the Prophets: “Did you offer to me slain beasts and sacrifices, for forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? And you took up the tent of Moloch, and the star of the god of Rephan, the figures which you made to worship.” He points out plainly that such a law, which was not given by another God but by the same God, was suitable to their servitude. Wherefore, Moses says in Exodus, And I will send an angel before you; but I will not go up among you for you are a stiff-necked people.
2. But that is not all. The Lord revealed that certain commandments were given to them by Moses because of their hardness of heart, and because they refused to be submissive: Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away? He said to them, “For the hardness of your heart, he permitted these things but from the beginning it was not so.” He thus excused Moses as a faithful servant, and he professed the one God who made man and woman in the beginning, but he rebuked them for being stubborn and for not being submissive. Because of this they received from Moses the commandment of divorce suitable to their stubbornness.
But why say these things about the old covenant, when even in the new covenant the apostles are found to do the same thing for the reason mentioned? Paul says directly, It is I who say these things, not the Lord; and again, But I say this by way of concession, not of command; and again, Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord, but I give my opinion, as one who by the Lord’s mercy is trustworthy. Moreover, in another place he says, Lest Satan tempt you through lack of self-control. If, therefore, even in the new covenant the apostles are found making concessions by certain precepts because of the lack of self-control of some, lest such persons become stubborn and despair of salvation completely and become apostates from God, we must not wonder if also in the old covenant the same God wished to have something similar for the benefit of the people, leading them on by the ordinances mentioned, that they might swallow the saving hook of the Decalogue and be held fast by it, and might not return to idolatry, nor become apostates from God, but might learn to love him with all their hearts.
Now if any one, because of the disobedience of the Israelites and because of those who have been lost, should assert that the Law is weak, he will find that in our own calling, many are called but few are chosen; and that some are wolves inwardly but outwardly they are clothed with sheep skins. [They will also find] that God has always guarded both the free will and autonomy in man, and his admonitions, so that those who do not obey him would be justly judged precisely because they had not obeyed him; and that those who do obey him and believe in him would be crowned with imperishability.