On reading the Old Testament, especially the last books of Moses, in which so many trivial, useless, and even cruel laws are laid down, each preceded by the words, ‘And God said to Moses,’ it seemed passing strange to me that Christ should have confirmed such laws; His doing so seemed incomprehensible. But I then left the problem unsolved. I blindly believed the teaching of my childhood: that these commandments were inspired by the Holy Ghost, that they were in perfect harmony with each other, that Christ confirmed the Law of Moses, and that He amplified and completed it.
I could, indeed, never clearly explain to myself wherein the amplification lay, nor how the striking opposition, so obvious to all, between the verses 17-20 and the words ‘but I say to you’ could be harmonized. But when I at last really understood the clear and simple meaning of Christ’s doctrine, I saw that these two commandments were in direct opposition to each other; that there could be no question of harmony between them, or of the one being an amplification of the other; that it was necessary to accept either the one or the other, and that the interpretation of verses 17-20 of the fifth chapter of St. Matthew, which, as I have already said, had struck me by their want of clarity, was erroneous.
On a second reading of the same verses 17-20, which had seemed so unintelligible to me, their meaning flashed full upon me.
This again was not the result of my having discovered anything new, or having made any alteration of the words; it was due solely to my having cast aside the false interpretation that had been given to them.
6 Tolstoy was, at the time he wrote this, ignorant of what are commonly referred to as ‘peace churches.’ He went on to write that his realizations were not so new, after all, in The Kingdom of God Is Within You.
Christ says (Matthew 5:17-19), ‘Do not think that I have come to destroy the law or (the teaching of) the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle (the least particle) shall in no way pass from the law, until all is fulfilled.’
And (verse 20) he adds, ‘Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven.’
Christ means by these words, ‘I have not come to destroy the eternal law, for the fulfillment of which your books and prophecies are written; but I have come to teach you how to fulfill that eternal law. I do not speak of the law that your teachers, the Pharisees, call the law of God, but of the eternal law, which is less liable to change than heaven and earth.’
I here give the meaning of the text in other words, solely for the purpose of drawing the mind away from the incorrect interpretation usually offered. If this incorrect interpretation did not exist, we should see that the idea of Christ could not be better or more definitely expressed than by these words.
The interpretation that Christ does not reject the Mosaic Law is based on the fact that in this passage, without any ostensible reason (except the comparison of the jot of the written law) and contrary to the true sense, the word ‘ law’ is treated as meaning the ‘written law,’ and not the eternal law. But Christ does not speak here of the written law. If Christ, in this passage, had spoken of the written law, He would have used the words ‘the law and the prophets,’ as He always does in speaking of the written law; but He uses a very different expression: ‘the law or the prophets.’ Had Christ meant to speak of the written law, He would have used the words ‘the law and the prophets’ in the next verse, which is but the continuation of the preceding one; but there He uses the word ‘law’ alone.
Moreover we find, in the gospel according to St. Luke, that Christ uses the same words in a manner that leaves no doubt as to their true meaning (Luke 16:15). Christ says to the Pharisees, who thought to justify themselves by the written law, ‘You are those who justify themselves before men; but God knows your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. The law and the prophets were until John. Since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presses into it.’ And immediately after this, in the 17th verse, we read, ‘And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail.’ The words ‘the law and the prophets, until John,’ annul the written law. The words ‘it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than for one tittle of the law to fail,’ confirm the eternal law. In the first text Christ says ‘the law and the prophets,’ i.e. the written law; in the second He uses the word ‘law’ alone, i.e. the eternal law. It is obvious, therefore, that the eternal law is here set in opposition to the written law, and that exactly the same occurs in the context of the gospel of St. Matthew, where the eternal law is expressed by the words ‘the law or the prophets.’7
7 As if to dispel all doubt as to the law He means, He, immediately after, most decisively casts aside the Mosaic Law for the divine law, of which not one jot or tittle can fail, by the most direct contradiction that we meet with in the gospels, of the Law of Moses. He says (Luke 16:18), ‘Whoever puts away his wife, and marries another, commits adultery’; i.e., the written law permits divorce, but according to the eternal law it is a sin.
The history of the different renderings of this text (v.17-18) is very curious. In most of the transcripts the word ‘law’ is not followed by the words ‘and the prophets.’ In this case there can be no doubt of its signifying ‘the eternal law.’ In other transcripts, as, for instance, in those of Tischendorf and the canonical transcripts, the word ‘prophets’ is added – not with the conjunction and, but with the disjunctive or – ‘the law or the prophets,’ which likewise excludes the meaning of ‘the written law,’ and confirms that of the ‘eternal law.’
In some transcripts again, which are not adopted by the Church, we find the word ‘prophets’ preceded by the conjunction and, and not by or; in these transcripts, after the repetition of the word ‘law,’ the words ‘and the prophets’ are again added. Thus the meaning given to the whole saying, by this remodeling, is that Christ’s words refer only to the written law.
These variations give us the history of the various interpretations to which this passage has been subjected. One point is obvious: Christ speaks here, as He does in the gospel according to St. Luke, of the eternal law; but we find men among the transcribers of the gospels who have added the words ‘and the prophets’ to the word ‘law,’ with the design of rendering the Mosaic Law obligatory, and have thus altered the sense of the text.
Other Christians, again, who reject the Mosaic Law, either leave out the word completely, or substitute the word η (or), for the word και (and). And thus the passage enters the canon with the disjunctive or. Yet though the text adopted by the canon is so indubitably clear, our canonical commentators continue to expound on the passage in the spirit of the alterations that have not been adopted.
Countless commentators have treated this passage, and as the expounder agrees less with the simple, direct sense of the doctrine of Christ, the further his commentary must necessarily be from the true sense of that doctrine. The majority of expounders retain the apocryphal sense, which the text rejects.
In order to be convinced that Christ speaks in this verse only of the eternal law, it will suffice to fully understand the word that has given rise to these false interpretations. In Russian, it is ‘законъ’ (law); in Greek νομος; in Hebrew, ‘tora.’ This word has two principal meanings in the Russian, Greek, and Hebrew languages: the one, the unexpressed, unwritten law; the other, the written expression of what certain men call the law. Indeed, the difference exists in all languages.
In Greek, in the epistles of Paul, the difference is sometimes marked by the use of the article. In speaking of the written law, the apostle omits the article before the word law, and when he speaks of the eternal law, the article is prefixed.
The ancient Hebrews, the prophets, and Isaiah always use the word ‘tora’ (the law) to indicate the eternal, unwritten, but revealed law of God. This same word ‘tora’ (the law) was first used by Ezra, and later we find it in the Talmud, as signifying the five books of Moses, which bear the general title of ‘tora’
