``Where the
Bishop is, there let the multitude of believers be;
even as where Jesus is, there is the Catholic Church'' Ignatius of
Antioch, 1st c. A.D
The Catholic Church
Changed The Ten Commandments?
Some Protestants
accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped one of
the 10 Commandments. "You're idolators! You worship statues! And
because you do, your Church dropped the commandment against graven
images!"
The truth, of course, is that the Catholic Church did not and could not
change the Ten Commandments. Latin Catholics and Protestants simply
list them differently. It is incredible that such a pernicious lie
could be so easily spread and believed, especially since the truth
could easily be determined by just looking into the matter. But the
rumor lives.
Now, below are the ways in which Protestants and Roman Catholics
enumerate the Commandments:
Most
common Protestant listing:
Thou shalt have
no other gods before me
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain
Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy
Honour thy father and thy mother
Thou shalt not kill
Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour
Thou shalt not covet
Latin
Catholic listing:
Thou shalt not
have other gods besides Me
Thou shalt not take the Name of the Lord thy God in vain
Remember to keep holy the Lord’s day
Honor thy father and thy mother
Thou shalt not murder
Thou shalt not commit adultery
Thou shalt not steal
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife
Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods
So
what the
heck? What did happen to the commandment about graven images in
the Catholic listing? Did the Church just "drop" a commandment?
Um, no. The Old Testament was around long before the time of the
Apostles, and the Decalogue, which is found in three different places
in the Bible (Exodus 20 and Exodous 34 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21), has not
been changed by the Catholic Church. Chapter and verse divisions are a
medieval invention, however, and numbering systems of the Ten Words
(Commandments), the manner in which they are grouped, and the
"short-hand" used for them, vary among various religious groups. Exodus
20 is the version most often referred to when one speaks of the Ten
Commandments, so it will be our reference point here. Here's how the
relevant portion of Exodus 20 reads:
2
I am the LORD
thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage.
3
Thou shalt have
no other gods before Me.
4
Thou shalt not
make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is
in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the
water under the earth.
5
Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
6
And shewing
mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.
7
Thou shalt not
take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold
him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
8
Remember the
sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9
Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10
But the seventh
day is the sabbath of the LORD thy God: in it thou shalt not do any
work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy
maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:
11
For in six days
the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and
rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and
hallowed it.
12
Honour thy
father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which
the LORD thy God giveth thee.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.
17
Thou shalt not
covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife,
nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor
any thing that is thy neighbour's.
So we have 16
verses and Ten Commandments (this we know because of Exodus 34:28 and
Deuteronomy 4:13 which speak of the "Ten Words" of God). How to group
these verses and Commands? Here's how different groups have handled
this:
Verses
Grouped Together
Counted as
Commandment #
Jewish
Latin
Catholic, Lutheran
Eastern Catholic, Orthodox, Most Protestant
1
2 (commandment
to believe)
3, 4, 5, 6
3
2
3, 4, 5, 6
7
4, 5, 6
3
7
8, 9, 10, 11
7
4
8, 9, 10, 11
12
8, 9, 10, 11
5
12
13
12
6
13
14
13
7
14
15
14
8
15
16
15
9
16
17a (commandment
against lust)
16
10
17
17b (commandment
against greed)
17
When the
Commandments are listed, they are often listed in short-hand form, such
that, for ex., verses 8, 9, 10 and 11 concerning the Sabbath become
simply "Remember the Sabbath and to keep it holy." Because Latin
Catholics group 3, 4, 5 and 6 together as all pertaining to the concept
"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me," we are accused of having
"dropped" the commandment against idols. That Eastern Catholics list
the Commandments differently never enters the equation for people who
think this way; they are simply against those they probably call the
"Romish popers" and that's that (I hope it doesn't bother them that
Jews would accuse them of totally forgetting the First Commandment, or
that Latin Catholics could accuse some Protestants of skipping lightly
over the commandments against lust. And why don't the Protestants who
have a problem with our numbering system go after the Lutherans for the
same thing, anyway?).
Bottom line:
chapter and
verse numbering in the Bible came about in the Middle Ages
the Catholic
Church (which includes Eastern Catholics, too) has two different
numbering systems for the Commandments given, one agreeing with the
most common Protestant enumeration;
the Latin
Church's numbering is the most common in the Catholic Church and is the
one referred to by Protestants who, ignoring Eastern Catholic Churches,
accuse the Catholic Church of having dropped a Commandment;
no Commandment
has been dropped, in any case, but the Latin Church's shorthand for the
Commandments looks different than the typical Protestant version
because of how the Commandments are grouped;
everyone knows
how to find Exodus 20 in the Bible, anyway -- even us stoopid Latin
Catholics; and
we don't care
how they are grouped together; we only care that they are understood
and obeyed -- not because we are under the Old Testament Moral and
Ceremonial Law with its legalism and non-salvific ritual (we aren't!),
but because we are to obey God as children of the New Covenant, whose
moral law includes the Two Great Commandments (to love God and to love
our neighbor) which surpass the Decalogue, and whose Sacraments
surpass empty ritual, being media of grace.
Footnote:
1 The Septuagint, the Latin
Vulgate
(the official Scripture of the Church), and the original Douay-Reims
phrase the Fifth Word as "Thou shalt not murder"; later Douay-Reims
versions, such as the Challoner, and the King James Bible, etc., phrase
it as "Thou shalt not kill." "Thou shalt not murder," however, is the
original intent and the meaning of the earliest texts. Catholics, of
course, have 2,000 years of Church teaching and the Magisterium to
interpret Scripture, and the meaning of the Fifth Commandment is that
one is not to take innocent human life. It doesn't entail pacifism,
ignoring the needs of self-defense and justice, worrying about
squashing bugs, etc.
The Catechism
of the Catholic Church: Section on the Ten Commandment
