The Judicial Precepts of the Old Law: What They Are, Whether They Are Figurative, Whether They Still Bind, and How They Are Divided

Orientation #

He opens by announcing a “new question” and says we now consider the judicial precepts, first in common, then as to their reasons — four articles: what they are, whether figurative, their duration, their distinction. He ends the class saying he will be “an 80 year old man when I see you again.” The next class takes up the judicial precepts in detail (q. 105) beginning with precepts concerning rulers.

The class, in order #

1. The three objections of article 1 (“ordering us to our neighbor”) #

Point: whether the ratio of the judicial precepts consists in ordering man to his neighbor (proximum).

• Obj. 1: they are named from judgment, yet many things order men to their neighbor without pertaining to judicial order.
• Obj. 2: judicial are distinguished from moral, yet many moral precepts order to the neighbor — the seven precepts of the second tablet.
• Obj. 3: as ceremonial stand to God, judicial to neighbor; but some ceremonial precepts pertain to oneself (observances of food, clothing). So judicial are not named from ordering to neighbor.
• Sed contra: Ezekiel 18:8, among the good works of the just man, “if he make a good judgment between man and man.”
• Aside on Latin word order giving a reader away: of Father Robert’s dissertation, “he reads too much Latin.”
• He twice checks: “This is not too obscure, abstruse… don’t strain your minds too much.”

2. Body of article 1: obliging from reason vs. from institution (“from some institution, either divine or human”) #

Point: two conditions make a precept judicial.

1. Some precepts oblige from the dictate of reason itself — these are the morals.
2. Others, considered in themselves, have no absolute reason of being owed; they oblige from institution, divine or human, as determinations of moral precepts.
3. Determined by divine institution in what orders man to God: ceremonial. In what orders men to each other: judicial. Conclusion: the ratio of judicial precepts consists in two things — they order men to one another, and they oblige not from reason alone but from institution.

• Example of what reason itself dictates (from Aristotle): adultery admits no mean — not “too much or too little adultery, but just the right amount”; likewise murder, “not too early in the morning, not too late.” Aristotle’s example of universality: we hate all thieves.
• Aside: El Chapo interviewed by Sean Penn, killing only as a “line of business,” hitting the mean — “he would make Obama look like an extremist.” Student asks how Penn got the interview and how he responded; he answers the meeting may itself have given clues to Chapo’s location, and recalls Penn’s earlier approach to Saddam Hussein before the Second Gulf War.

3. Replies of article 1, and the prince as supreme judge (“who have the power of judging”) #

• Ad 1: judgment is exercised by the office of princes; to the prince pertains not only matters in litigation but voluntary contracts among men and all things pertaining to the community. So judicial precepts cover whatever falls under the ordering of the prince. (Aside: “what kind of government he’s got? I don’t know.”)
• Ad 2: that argument proceeds about precepts ordering to the neighbor which oblige from the dictate of natural reason alone.
• Ad 3: even among things ordering to God some are moral, because reason informed by faith dictates them — God is to be loved and worshipped. Digression: is it strange to be commanded to love? He answers first from the definition of law as for the common good, so loving God is loving the common good; the other answer is “we’re just that stupid that we need to be told.” He then has read out the prayer of St. Richard of Chichester (“may we know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly”); students note it appears in Godspell, he takes it as the saint’s own.
• Ad 3 continued: some things about God are ceremonial, obliging only from divine institution, since man is ordered to God as to an end, so he must be suitably disposed in himself for worship. But man is not ordered to his neighbor as to an end — servants are “something of their lords” (Politics I) — hence no judicial precepts order man in himself; such are all moral, reason standing in man as the prince or judge in the city.
• Closing note he stresses: because the order of man to neighbor is more subject to reason than the order to God, there are more moral precepts about the neighbor, and consequently more ceremonial precepts than judicial.

4. Digression: how “figure” came to mean sign (“that’s the man, right? That’s Washington”) #

Point: a found text in the Sentences commentary explaining the word.

• Figure first means the limit of quantity (shape). The passage to “sign” runs through statues: the figure of a man is taken as a sign of the man.
• Example: Lafayette returning to the United States after Washington’s death saw many statues, but at the one in the Virginia state house said “that’s the man” — the likeness is by shape, not colour, since it is marble. Generalized: the sign of anything is called a figure — “kind of stretched a little bit,” and that is as far as Thomas goes there.
• Aside: “imitating my master… find little texts, sometimes you find in the oddest places.”

5. Article 2, objections: whether judicial precepts figure something (“no difference between the judicial and the ceremonial”) #

• Obj. 1: to figure something is proper to the ceremonial (the lamb figures “Behold the Lamb of God”); if judicial also figure, the two would not differ. He remarks they might not figure the same things.
• Obj. 2: other peoples, Gentiles, are given judicial precepts too, and those figure nothing. (Aside: laws about gay marriage “only figure the disorder of the mind.”)
• Obj. 3: things of divine worship must be treated by figures because they are above our reason; things of our neighbor do not exceed reason. Note he adds: Thomas’ reason for metaphors in Scripture is that the thing is above our mind, whereas metaphors in poetry take from what is below our mind.
• Sed contra: Exodus 21, where judicial precepts are expounded allegorically and morally.

6. Body and replies of article 2: primo et per se vs. ex consequente (“omnia in figura contingebant illis”) #

Point: a precept can be figurative in two ways.

1. Primo et per se, instituted chiefly to figure — so the ceremonial, figuring the worship of God and the mystery of Christ.
2. Ex consequente — so the judicial, instituted to order that people’s status in justice and equity, yet figurative because the whole status of that people was figurative: “all things happened to them in figure” (1 Cor.).

• Ad 1: the two are figurative in different ways, one primo et per se, the other ex consequente. A student asks whether Israel is thus a figure of the Church; he agrees, “as kind of ex consequente.”
• Ad 2: the Jewish people was chosen that Christ be born of them, so its whole status had to be prophetic and figurative (Augustine, Contra Faustum); its wars and deeds are expounded mystically, unlike those of Assyrians and Romans — though those are “much more clear according to men.”
• Ad 3: the order to the neighbor in that people, taken by itself, lay open to reason; as referred to divine worship it was above reason, and on that side figurative.
• Asides: the morning’s reading from Samuel — Israel beaten by the Philistines, fetched the Ark, was beaten again and lost the Ark; “they’re always getting in trouble, the Jews… we’re always getting in trouble too,” as the church councils show, “even in the priesthood.” Book of Judges: God left some enemies “so they would learn to fight” — think of spiritual warfare. Student adds that “Palestine” is a corruption of “Philistine.”

7. Article 3, objections: whether the judicial precepts oblige perpetually (“justice is perpetual and immortal”) #

• Obj. 1: judgment is the carrying out of justice, and justice is perpetual and immortal (Wisdom 1:15).
• Obj. 2: divine institution is more stable than human, and human judicial precepts oblige perpetually. (Aside: Aristotle calls the best form of government “the government according to a prayer” — its circumstances are more to be prayed for than ordinarily expected.)
• Obj. 3: Hebrews — the reprobation of the preceding mandate came about for its weakness and uselessness; true of the ceremonial, which could not perfect the conscience, serving only in foods, drinks, baptisms and justices of the flesh; but the judicial were useful for constituting justice and equity among men.
• Sed contra: Hebrews 7 — the priesthood being translated, the law must be carried over; the priesthood has passed from Aaron to Christ.
• Aside: his own work editing the Sentences — he is at distinction 20 of Book III, about halfway of some forty per book, and is tempted to go back and read Book I again, “about the Trinity… a very exciting thing to read.”

8. Body of article 3: dead but not death-dealing (“they are dead, but they are not deadly”) #

Point: the judicial precepts do not oblige perpetually; they are evacuated by the coming of Christ, but differently from the ceremonial. “Now, this is interesting. A difference that Thomas sees.”

1. Ceremonial precepts are not only dead but mortiferous to those observing them after Christ, especially after the Gospel is divulged.
2. Judicial precepts are dead — they lack obliging force — but not death-dealing: a prince may order them observed in his kingdom without sin, unless he observes or commands them as having obliging force from the institution of the old law; then the intention is deadly. (He approves a student’s rendering: “deadly… that’s a good translation. Take your translation, Father.”)
3. The reason of the difference: the ceremonial were figurative primo et per se, instituted to figure the mystery of Christ as future, so observing them prejudices the truth of faith, which confesses those mysteries already completed. The judicial were instituted not to figure but to dispose the status of a people ordered to Christ; that status being changed at Christ’s coming, they lose obligation — “the law was a pedagogue leading us to Christ” (Gal. 3). Their observance does not of itself prejudice faith, but the intention of observing them from the obligation of the law does, since it implies the status of that people still endures and Christ has not yet come.

9. Replies of article 3, and a digression on women’s suffrage (“the determination… must be varied”) #

• Ad 1: justice is perpetually to be observed, but the determination of what is just by institution, human or divine, must vary with the diverse status of men.
• Digression: should women be given the vote? “Everybody, that’s my determination.” He remarks women elected Obama, men not in their plurality; married women vote better than unmarried “because they have the guidance of their husbands.” A student recalls an essay by Windshuttle (inferred spelling) in The New Criterion asking the actual fruits of women’s suffrage — “few and you could say bitter” — and calls it a courageous essay.
• Ad 2: humanly instituted judicial precepts hold for that status of the regime; if the city or nation passes to another regimen the laws must change — not the same laws suit democracy (power of the people) and oligarchy (power of the wealthy), as is clear through the Philosopher in the Politics.
• Ad 3: those precepts disposed the people to justice and equity as belonging to that status; after Christ there is no longer the discretion of Gentile and Jew, so the precepts must change.

10. Article 4, objections and sed contra (“ubi est ordo, oportet quod sit distinctio”) #

Whether the judicial precepts have any certain division.

• Obj. 1: what must be ordered among men in use are infinite, and there is no science or art of the infinite.
• Obj. 2: they are determinations of moral things, and moral precepts seem distinguished only by reduction to the Decalogue.
• Obj. 3: the ceremonial have their distinction brought out in the law itself (sacrifices, observances); no such distinction is hinted for the judicial.
• Sed contra, which delights him: “Where there is order, there must be distinction” — “Oh boy, do I like that text.” A student compares ubi caritas est; he mentions “the definition of reason by the great Shakespeare” [unclear in recording]. And the ratio of order pertains most of all to the judicial precepts, through which that people was ordered.

11. Body of article 4: the fourfold order in any people (“a fourfold order is able to be found”) #

Point: law is an art of instituting or ordering human life; as any art has a distinction of its rules, so any law must have a distinction of precepts, else confusion would take away the usefulness of the law. The judicial precepts are distinguished by the distinction of the ordering of human things. The fourfold order, with its corresponding part of the judicial precepts:

1. Princes to subjects — precepts about the institution of princes and the reverence shown them. (Aside: “Hail to the Chief” when the President comes in.)
2. Subjects to each other — buying and selling, judgments and punishments. (Aside: in the Sentences, Christ called Redemptor, “to buy us back,” redemption’s first meaning.)
3. The people to extraneous persons — war against enemies, receiving foreigners, strangers and travelers.
4. Domestic conversation — servants, wives, sons; three relations: father to son, wife to husband, lord to servant, as found in St Paul’s epistles.

• Aside: the Republican candidates debate tonight at nine — “So I’m going to ask them what that fourfold order is”; rumors that Bush and “what’s his name from New Jersey” would gang up on Rubio.

12. Replies of article 4 (“they can be reduced to some certain things”) #

• Ad 1: those things are indeed infinite in number, but reducible to certain heads according to the difference of the ordering of men.
• Ad 2: the Decalogue’s precepts are first in the genus of moralia, so other moral precepts are suitably distinguished by them; but judicial and ceremonial have another reason of obligation — not from natural reason but from institution alone — hence another reason of distinction.
• Ad 3: from the things ordered through the judicial precepts, the law itself hints at their distinction. He ends: “Shall we stop there?”

His words #

• judicial precepts — precepts ordering men to one another which oblige not from reason alone but from institution.
• ceremonial precepts — determinations by divine institution of what orders man to God; figurative primo et per se.
• morals / moralia — precepts obliging from the dictate of reason itself.
• proximum — his Latin for “neighbor.”
• figure — first the limit of quantity, i.e. shape; thence, through statues, a sign.
• primo et per se — “that’s up front”; instituted chiefly to figure something.
• ex consequente — figurative only consequently, because the whole status figured.
• mortiferous / deadly — “causing death”; said of ceremonial observance after Christ.
• evacuated — emptied of obliging force by the coming of Christ.
• omnia in figura contingebant illis — “everything happened to them in a figure” (1 Cor.).
• pedagogue — the law, leading us to Christ.
• ubi est ordo, oportet quod sit distinctio — “where there is order, there must be distinction.”
• government according to a prayer — Aristotle’s best regime, to be prayed for rather than expected.

Texts #

Read in class

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 104, aa. 1–4 (whole question, objections, bodies, replies)
• Ezekiel 18:8 (sed contra, a. 1)
• Exodus 21 (sed contra, a. 2)
• 1 Corinthians 10:11 (inferred verse) — omnia in figura
• Wisdom 1:15 (obj., a. 3)
• Hebrews 7 (sed contra, a. 3); Hebrews on the “reprobation of the preceding mandate” (obj. 3)
• Galatians 3 — the law as pedagogue
• Prayer of St Richard of Chichester (read aloud by a student)

Mentioned

• Aristotle, Politics I (servants as something of their lords); Politics (democracy vs. oligarchy); Aristotle on the best regime; Aristotle on adultery and on hating all thieves
• Augustine, Contra Faustum
• Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Sentences (on “figure”; on Redemptor; his own editing work, Book III d. 20)
• 1 Samuel (the Ark taken by the Philistines); Book of Judges
• St Paul’s epistles on father/son, wife/husband, lord/servant

His questions #

• What makes a precept judicial? Two things: it orders men to one another, and it obliges from institution, not from reason alone.
• Why are there more ceremonial precepts than judicial? Because the order to the neighbor is more subject to reason, so more of it is covered by moral precepts.
• How did “figure,” the limit of quantity, come to mean sign? Through statues: the shape is the likeness, so the sign of anything came to be called a figure.
• Do the judicial precepts figure something? Yes, but ex consequente only, since the whole status of that people was figurative.
• Is the nation of the Israelites a figure of the Church? (student) Yes, ex consequente.
• Do the judicial precepts still oblige? No; they are evacuated by Christ’s coming.
• What is the difference between ceremonial and judicial after Christ? Ceremonial are dead and death-dealing; judicial are dead but not death-dealing, unless observed as still obliging from the old law.
• Should women be given the vote? His determination: “Everybody” — but he presses the fruits of suffrage as few and bitter.
• Do the judicial precepts have a certain distinction? Yes, fourfold: princes to subjects, subjects to each other, the people to foreigners, and domestic relations.