MOSES RIGHTLY CALLED A DIVINE LEGISLATOR, AND, THOUGH INFERIOR
TO CHRIST, FAR SUPERIOR TO THE GREAT LEGISLATORS OF THE GREEKS,
MINOS AND LYCURGUS.
Whence the law was rightly said to have been given by Moses, being a
rule of right and wrong; and we may call it with accuracy the divine
ordinance (θεσμος[1058]), inasmuch as it was given by God through
Moses. It accordingly conducts to the divine. Paul says: “The law was
instituted because of transgressions, till the seed should come, to
whom the promise was made.” Then, as if in explanation of his meaning,
he adds: “But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up,”
manifestly through fear, in consequence of sins, “unto the faith which
should afterwards be revealed; so that the law was a schoolmaster
to bring us to Christ, that we should be justified by faith.”[1059]
The true legislator is he who assigns to each department of the soul
what is suitable to it and to its operations. Now Moses, to speak
comprehensively, was a living law, governed by the benign Word.
Accordingly, he furnished a good polity, which is the right discipline
of men in social life. He also handled the administration of justice,
which is that branch of knowledge which deals with the correction of
transgressors in the interests of justice. Co-ordinate with it is the
faculty of dealing with punishments, which is a knowledge of the due
measure to be observed in punishments. And punishment, in virtue of its
being so, is the correction of the soul. In a word, the whole system of
Moses is suited for the training of such as are capable of becoming
good and noble men, and for hunting out men like them; and this is the
art of command. And that wisdom, which is capable of treating rightly
those who have been caught by the Word, is legislative wisdom. For it
is the property of this wisdom, being most kingly, to possess and use.
It is the wise man, therefore, alone whom the philosophers proclaim
king, legislator, general, just, holy, God-beloved. And if we discover
these qualities in Moses, as shown from the Scriptures themselves, we
may, with the most assured persuasion, pronounce Moses to be truly
wise. As then we say that it belongs to the shepherd’s art to care
for the sheep; for so “the good shepherd giveth his life for the
sheep;”[1060] so also we shall say that legislation, inasmuch as it
presides over and cares for the flock of men, establishes the virtue
of men, by fanning into flame, as far as it can, what good there is in
humanity.
And if the flock figuratively spoken of as belonging to the Lord is
nothing but a flock of men, then He Himself is the good Shepherd and
Lawgiver of the one flock, “of the sheep who hear Him,” the one who
cares for them, “seeking,” and finding by the law and the word, “that
which was lost;” since, in truth, the law is spiritual and leads
to felicity. For that which has arisen through the Holy Spirit is
spiritual. And he is truly a legislator, who not only announces what is
good and noble, but understands it. The law of this man who possesses
knowledge is the saving precept; or rather, the law is the precept of
knowledge. For the Word is “the power and the wisdom of God.”[1061]
Again, the expounder of the laws is the same one by whom the law was
given; the first expounder of the divine commands, who unveiled the
bosom of the Father, the only-begotten Son.
Then those who obey the law, since they have some knowledge of
Him, cannot disbelieve or be ignorant of the truth. But those who
disbelieve, and have shown a repugnance to engage in the works of the
law, whoever else may, certainly confess their ignorance of the truth.
What, then, is the unbelief of the Greeks? Is it not their
unwillingness to believe the truth which declares that the law was
divinely given by Moses, whilst they honour Moses in their own
writers? They relate that Minos received the laws from Zeus in nine
years, by frequenting the cave of Zeus; and Plato, and Aristotle,
and Ephorus write that Lycurgus was trained in legislation by going
constantly to Apollo at Delphi. Chamæleo of Heraclea, in his book
_On Drunkenness_, and Aristotle in _The Polity of Locrians_,
mention that Zaleucus the Locrian received the laws from Athene.
But those who exalt the credit of Greek legislation, as far as in them
lies, by referring it to a divine source, after the model of Mosaic
prophecy, are senseless in not owning the truth, and the archetype of
what is related among them.