The Ten Commandments

By
Bishop Edward K. Braxton

When I was eleven years old I went on an adventure. With several classmates from Blessed Sacrament Catholic School, I took the elevated train to downtown Chicago without my parents for the first time. We had lunch together at Marshall Field’s and made our way to the McVickers Theater. We had reserved seats for the two o’clock matinee. The lights dimmed, the music played and we sat back into our seats as the three hours and thirty-nine minutes of Cecil B. DeMille’s production of "The Ten Commandments" unfolded.

The scene that made the greatest impression on me was the giving of The Law. Amidst thunder and lightning, the fiery "finger of God" inscribed the commandments upon the red granite of Mount Sinai. Elmer Bernstein’s stirring Wagnerian music galvanized each fiery inscription. Charlton Heston, as Moses, with a chiseled face that resembled Michelangelo’s magnificent sculpture of the law giver, embraced the still smoldering tablets and said, "Written with the finger of God."

Seeing this film, which more than forty years later still attracts a vast audience, had a twofold effect upon me. It enkindled a life-long interest in the extraordinary art of motion pictures. More significantly, it reinforced the deep interest in Scripture that my parents, Evelyn and Cullen Braxton, had already instilled in me at a time when it was not popular for Catholics to read the Bible. This interest in Scripture deeply influenced my vocation to the priesthood and nourished a lifetime of study of the best available Scripture scholarship.

Because of this background, I followed with great interest this summer’s controversy that led to a federal court order overruling Chief Justice Roy Moore of the Alabama Supreme Court and decreeing that a large stone monument of the Ten Commandments must be removed from the Alabama State Judicial Building amid protests and outcries, believers saying "This is a Christian country!" "We should obey God’s Law not man’s law." The monument was removed. But Governor Bob Riley, aware of the serious tension caused by the conflict, found an acceptable location to display the commandments away from public view.

First time readers of the Declaration of Independence might be surprised to find that while reference is made to "our Creator" the word God does not appear. Nor are Jesus of Nazareth and Christianity mentioned in the document.

The argument for removing the monument suggested that its presence clearly violates the First Amendment which declares that there is a wall of separation between church and state. The actual words of the First Amendment are "Congress shall make no laws respecting the establishment of religion," which later came to be interpreted as "the separation of church and state." In recent decades this interpretation has been used to oppose even voluntary prayer in public schools, Christmas nativity scenes on government property and the phrase "one nation, under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. It is interesting to note that Moses and the Ten Commandments, along with Mohammed and the Koran and Hammurabi and his law (all contributors to modern systems of laws) are a part of ornamentation of the Supreme Court where this issue may finally be decided.

This conflict may be an expression of what some commentators have called the schizophrenic status of the American psyche on the question of religion. On the one hand, we are the most secular, materialistic culture in the world. On the other hand, we have a very high percentage of people who say they believe in a personal God, in life after death, and in heaven and hell. We also have the most religiously pluralistic country in the world. Christianity (in its many manifestations), Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, African animistic religions, New Age religious movements, etc. are all present in this country. There are many Americans who profess a deep "spirituality" who have no affinity to any religious community. More than that a significant number of Americans speak of themselves as agnostics or atheists.

Since the Ten Commandments are derived from Exodus, a book of Jewish Scripture that is also part of the Christian Old Testament, they are a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. But they are not a part of sacred writings of other religious traditions. Yet many ethicists would argue that many of our civil laws presume a "higher law." Murder and stealing, for example, are not wrong simply because of a consensus of the governed to accept a law that says they are wrong in the manner of John Locke. They are wrong, ethicists and theologians argue because they are wrong whether or not the majority of people think they are wrong. Adultery is condemned in the Commandments, in part, because it undermines the traditional structure of the family (husband, wife, children). Many theologians, religious traditions and some ethicists argue that adultery is wrong. But today the civil laws against adultery that exist are not strongly enforced. Many American citizens apparently no longer consider adultery to be wrong. American law now accepts divorce like most countries. Same sex marriage is legal in a growing number of countries, including Canada.

One author has called the Ten Commandments a set of operating instructions included with every human being by the Manufacturer. When you buy a new computer you will find that it will do wonders but only if you follow the operating instructions of the manufacturer. These operating instructions for human beings are moral norms "written with the finger of God" in the human heart, in human nature, in the natural law. We human beings can also do wonders if we follow these instructions. Whether or not a stone monument of the Commandments is allowed in a public building, they are always in the court of every human conscience, a monument more lasting than bronze. In this view, the Commandments transcend the Jewish and Christian faiths. Every one "knows" them even if the deny the existence of the "Divine Manufacturer."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say. "The Ten Commandments belong to God’s revelation. At the same time they teach us the true humanity of man. They bring to light the essential duties, and therefore, indirectly, the fundamental rights inherent in the nature of the human person. The Decalogue contains a privileged expression of the natural law: From the beginning, God had implanted in the heart of man the precepts of the natural law. Then he was content to remind him of them. This was the Decalogue." (St. Irenaeus) Pope John Paul II seems to have this in mind when he urges Europe to acknowledge its religious and Christian routes in its new constitution.

Most people who are not regular readers of the Bible are quite surprised by what the actually find in Exodus. There is no place where the author says, "Here are the Ten Commandments." Instead what subsequent editors have designated as chapters 20-23 are filled with dozens of laws spoken by God governing the smallest details of Jewish life. Chapter 20, containing the Decalogue, the ten "words" of God, actually contains more than ten regulations. Readers might also be surprised by the fact that the Ten Commandments as they learned them are actually abbreviations of longer laws and that the "First" Commandment is not a command at all. It is a mighty statement, an announcement by God of the reason why these laws should be obeyed. It is as if God were saying to the Children of Israel and to us: Since I really am God and I have saved you, you must obey me. As Pharaoh Rameses II says of Moses in the film, "His God is God."

Here is the text. You will notice that the first three Commandments deal with the love we owe God and the remaining seven deal with the love we owe our neighbors. (The traditional list is in bold. Note that Jewish, Catholic and Protestant lists and wordings of the Commandments differ slightly. Cf. Exodus, 20, 1-24, another listing is in Deuteronomy 5,1-22.)

"And the Lord spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. You shall have no strange gods before me. You shall not make for yourself any graven image, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.

You shall not adore them, nor serve them. I am the Lord thy God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the fathers onto the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me. And showing mercy unto the thousandth generation to those that love me and keep my commandments.
You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. For the Lord will not hold him guiltless that shall take the name of the Lord his God in vain.

Remember that you keep holy the Sabbath day. Six days shall you labor and do all your works. But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. You shall do no work on it: nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your beast, nor the stranger that is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all things that are in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the seventh day and sanctified it.

Honor your father and your mother, that you may live long upon he land which the Lord your God will give you. You shall not kill. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. Neither shall you covet his wife, nor his servant, nor his handmaid, nor his ox, nor his ass. You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. You shall not covet anything that is your neighbor’s.

And all the people saw the flames and the mountain smoking, heard the voices and the sound of the trumpet. They were terrified and struck with fear. They stood afar off. They said to Moses, You speak to us and we will hear. But let not the Lord speak to us or we shall surely die. Moses said: Fear not. For God has come to test you so that the dread and fear of him might be in you and you should not sin.

And the Lord said to Moses, You shall not make unto yourself gods of silver or gold. You shall make unto me an altar of earth and you shall sacrifice your burnt offerings, your peace offerings, your sheep and oxen on it."

One of the most surprising things about the way this dramatic passage from Exodus is written is the fact the primary motive given for obeying the Commandments seems to be fear. Obey or suffer the wrath of God. They are clearly not recommendations, or suggestions. They are Commandments! Yet if you study them carefully, it becomes obvious that the Commandments have undergone a great deal of interpretation and adaptation. The Jewish Sabbath (Saturday), for example has become the Christian Sunday in celebration of the resurrection. And all the civil restrictions against working on Sunday have been abandoned. Now, for many people, including Catholics, Sunday is one of the busiest and most commercial days of the week. Not only is it not a day of rest. For many, it is no longer a day of worship and prayer either. There seems to be no consensus in the U.S. about the meaning of the Commandment not to kill when we face difficult questions such as modern warfare, capital punishment, abortion, and euthanasia.

The controversy concerning the Ten Commandments in the courthouse was news for only a day or so. It may become news again if the Alabama case, or the one in Austin, Texas, makes its way to the U. S. Supreme Court. But for faithful Jewish people, Christians, and others who revere the Decalogue the truth and meaning of the Commandments, "written with the finger of God" should be news every day. As long as the Ten Commandments are inscribed in our hearts and shape our daily lives, our communities will be stronger and our future will be better whether or not monuments of the Decalogue are allowed to stand in public places.