Therefore Christ, using the word ‘tora,’ takes it in the two different accepted meanings of the word – either confirming it, as Isaiah and the other prophets do, in the sense of the law of God, which is eternal, or rejecting it, when He refers to the Mosaic Law. But in order to make a distinction between the different meanings of the word, he always adds ‘and the prophets,’ and the pronoun ‘your,’ in speaking of the written law.
When Christ says, ‘As you would want men to treat you, also treat them likewise; this is the whole law and the prophets,’ He refers to the written law. He tells us that the whole written law may be reduced to this sole expression of the eternal law; and, by these His words, He annuls the written law.
When He says (Luke 16:16), ‘The law and the prophets until John the Baptist,’ He refers to the written law, and by these words asserts that it is no longer obligatory.
When He says (John 7:19), ‘Didn’t Moses give you the law, and yet none of you keeps the law?’ or (John 8:17), ‘Isn’t it said in your law?’ or again (John 15:25), ‘The word that is written in their law,’ He refers to the written law – the law that He rejects – the law by which He was, soon after, sentenced to death. John 19:7: ‘The Jews answered Him, “We have a law, and by our law He ought to die”.’ It is obvious that this law of the Hebrews, by which Christ Himself was sentenced to death, was not the law that He taught. But when Christ says, ‘I come, not to destroy the law, but to teach you to fulfill it, for nothing can be altered in the law, but all must be fulfilled,’ He does not speak of the written law, but of the divine, eternal law.
It may be said that these proofs are controvertible; that I have skillfully assorted the contexts, and have carefully concealed all that could contradict my interpretation; that the commentaries given by the Church are very clear and convincing, and that Christ did not destroy the Law of Moses, but that He left it in full force. Let us suppose this to be the case. What, then, does Christ teach?
According to the commentaries of the Church, He taught men that He was the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God the Father, and that He had come down from heaven to redeem mankind from the sin of Adam. But whoever has read the gospel knows that Christ says nothing of this, or, at least, alludes to it in very ambiguous terms; the passages in which Christ speaks of Himself as being the Second Person of the Trinity, and of His redeeming mankind, are the shortest and least perspicuous in the gospels. In what, then, does the rest of Christ’s teaching consist?
It is impossible to deny, what all Christians have always acknowledged, that the main point in Christ’s doctrine consists in His rules of life – how men are to live together. Now, if we admit that Christ taught a new system of life, we must form some definite idea of the men among whom He taught.
Take, for instance, the Russians, the English, the Chinese, the Hindus, or even any wild insular tribe, and you will be sure to find that they all have their own rules of life, their own laws; and that no teacher could introduce new laws of life without destroying the former ones; he could not teach without infringing them. Such would be the case everywhere. The teacher would inevitably have to begin by destroying our laws, which have grown precious and almost sacred in our eyes.
Perhaps in our days it might happen that the teacher of a new doctrine of life would only destroy our civil laws, our government, and our customs without interfering with the laws that we call divine, though this is hardly probable. But the Hebrews had only one law – a divine law that embraced life in its minutest details. What could a preacher teach them if he began by declaring that the entire law of the people to whom he preached was inviolable?
But let us assume that this is not regarded as a proof. Then let those who assert that Christ’s words confirm the Mosaic Law explain to themselves who they were whom Christ denounced during His whole life; who did He speak against, calling them Pharisees, lawyers, and scribes? Who was it that refused to follow the doctrine of Christ, and crucified Him?
If Christ acknowledged the Mosaic Law, where were the true followers of the law, whom Christ must have approved of? Is there a single one? We are told that the Pharisees were a sect. The Hebrews do not say so. They call the Pharisees the true fulfillers of the law. But let us suppose they were a sect. The Sadducees were also a sect. Where, then, were the true believers – those who did not belong to any sect?
In the gospel according to St. John, all the enemies of Christ are called Hebrews. They do not assent to Christ’s doctrine; they oppose it only because they are Hebrews. But in the gospel the Pharisees and Sadducees are not the only enemies of Christ; the lawgivers, who keep the Mosaic Law, the scribes, who study it, and the elders, who are considered as the representatives of the popular wisdom, are likewise called the enemies of Christ.
Christ says, ‘I did not come to call the righteous to repentance,’ to a change of life, μετανοια, ‘but sinners.’ Where were the righteous, and who were they? Surely Nicodemus was not the only one? And even Nicodemus is described as being a good man, but one who had gone astray.
We have grown so used to the singular interpretation given to us, that the Pharisees and some wicked Hebrews crucified Christ, that the simple question never occurs to us, ‘Where were the true Hebrews, who kept the law and who were neither Pharisees nor wicked men?’ No sooner does the question arise than all grows clear. Christ, be He God or man, brought His doctrine to a people who already had a law that gave them definite rules of life, and which they called the law of God. In what light could Christ have considered that law?
Every prophet – teacher of a faith – on revealing the law of God to a people, will find that they already possess a law that they consider as the divine law, and he cannot avoid a twofold application of the word, as referring either to what men wrongly consider the law of God (your law) or as referring to the true eternal law of God. Moreover, not only is the preacher of the new doctrine unable to avoid the two-fold use of the word, but it often happens that he does not even endeavor to do so, and purposely unites both ideas, in order to point out that the law confessed by those he tries to convert, though defective as a whole, is not devoid of some divine truths.
And it is just these truths, so familiar to his hearers, which every preacher will take as the basis of his preaching. Christ does so in addressing the Hebrews, who have the same word ‘tora’ for both laws. Referring to the Mosaic Law, and more often still to the prophets, especially the prophet Isaiah, whom he often quotes, Christ acknowledges that in the Hebrew law, and in the prophets, there are eternal truths, divine truths, which coincide with the eternal law; and He bases His doctrine upon them, as for instance in the saying ‘Love God and your neighbor.’
Christ expresses this idea on many occasions, e.g., Luke 10:26: ‘What is written in the law? How do you read it?’ We may find the eternal truth in the law, if we can read. And He points out more than once that the precept contained in their law of love to God and their neighbor was a precept of the eternal law.
After the parables by which he explains His doctrine to His disciples, Christ says, as if in reference to all that had preceded, ‘Therefore every scribe (i.e. every man who can read and has been taught the truth) is like a householder who brings forth out of his treasure (indiscriminately) things old and new.’ (Matthew 13:52)
It is thus that St. Irenaus understands these words, and so does the Church, and yet, arbitrarily transgressing the true sense of the saying, they attribute to these words the meaning that the whole ancient law is sacred. The obvious meaning of the text is that he who seeks for what is good, takes not only what is new, but what is old too, and that its being old is not a sufficient reason for throwing it aside. Christ means, by this saying, that He does not deny what is eternal in the ancient law. But when questioned concerning the law or its forms, He says, ‘We do not pour new wine into old bottles.’ Christ could not confirm the whole law, neither could He completely deny the law and the prophets; He could neither deny the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ nor the prophets, in whose word He
