The Principle: The Decalogue as Legal Code
The Ten Commandments, or Decalogue, appear twice in the Hebrew Bible: in Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. Traditionally dated to the thirteenth century BCE and attributed to divine revelation mediated through Moses at Sinai, these ten imperatives constitute what is arguably the most influential legal text in Western history. The second table of the Decalogue - commandments five through ten, governing relations between persons - established prohibitions that map directly onto the categories of modern criminal law: homicide ('Thou shalt not kill,' Exodus 20:13), theft ('Thou shalt not steal,' Exodus 20:15), perjury ('Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour,' Exodus 20:16), adultery ('Thou shalt not commit adultery,' Exodus 20:14), and covetousness ('Thou shalt not covet,' Exodus 20:17). The first table, governing the divine-human relationship, influenced blasphemy laws, Sabbath legislation, and the broader concept that law derives its authority from a source higher than the sovereign.
The Decalogue's jurisdiction was originally limited to the Israelite covenant community, but its influence expanded dramatically through three channels: the Jewish diaspora, the Christian appropriation of the Hebrew Bible as the Old Testament, and the incorporation of Mosaic categories into Roman legal thought via patristic writers.
Biblical Foundation
The key texts are Exodus 20:1-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21. The KJV of Exodus 20:13-16 reads: 'Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.' These prohibitions are apodictic law - unconditional commands without stated penalties - which distinguishes them from the casuistic (case-based) law that dominates the rest of the Torah. The apodictic form gave the Decalogue a universal quality that made it adaptable beyond its original context.
Deuteronomy 17:18-20 adds a crucial constitutional dimension: the king must write a copy of the law and 'read therein all the days of his life,' establishing the principle that the ruler is under the law, not above it. This passage became a cornerstone of the rule-of-law tradition.
Historical Transmission
The transmission of Decalogue principles into Western law follows a traceable path across two millennia. In the rabbinic period (first through sixth centuries CE), the Talmud elaborated the Decalogue's prohibitions into a comprehensive legal system. The Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a-60a, developed the seven Noahide laws - a universal moral code derived partly from the Decalogue - which influenced later natural law thinking.
Christian canon law, codified from the fourth century onward, incorporated Decalogue categories directly. The Codex Theodosianus (438 CE) and Justinian's Corpus Juris Civilis (529-534 CE) absorbed biblical moral categories into Roman law. Justinian's Digest opens with the declaration that justice is 'the constant and perpetual wish to render to every one his due' - a formulation that echoes Deuteronomy 16:20's command to 'follow that which is altogether just.'
In the medieval period, Gratian's Decretum (c. 1140), the foundational text of Western canon law, explicitly organized moral and legal obligations around the Decalogue. Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologica (I-II, Q. 100) argued that the Decalogue constitutes the core of natural law accessible to reason, giving it philosophical authority beyond its scriptural origin.
The common law tradition received the Decalogue primarily through William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769). Blackstone wrote: 'Upon these two foundations, the law of nature and the law of revelation, depend all human laws; that is to say, no human laws should be suffered to contradict these.' He explicitly identified the Decalogue as the core of the 'law of revelation' and argued that English common law presupposed it.
Key Champions
Several jurists and legislators made the Decalogue-law connection explicit. Alfred the Great (r. 871-899) prefaced his law code with a translation of Exodus 20-23, directly linking English law to Mosaic legislation. Gratian (fl. 1140) made the Decalogue the organizing principle of Western canon law. Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), Chief Justice of England, argued in Calvin's Case (1608) that the law of nature, which included the Decalogue's moral precepts, was part of English common law. William Blackstone (1723-1780) gave the Decalogue its most influential expression in common law jurisprudence. In the American context, John Adams wrote in 1798 that 'the moment the idea is admitted into society, that property is not as sacred as the laws of God... anarchy and tyranny commence,' directly invoking the eighth commandment.
James Wilson (1742-1798), one of the original Supreme Court Justices and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, argued in his Lectures on Law (1790-1791) that the 'law of nature' underlying the Constitution derived from divine law as expressed in the Decalogue.
Modern Application
The Decalogue's influence in contemporary law operates both explicitly and structurally. The prohibition on murder (sixth commandment) underlies every homicide statute in the Western world. The prohibition on theft (eighth commandment) is the foundation of property law. The prohibition on false witness (ninth commandment) is the direct ancestor of perjury statutes - 18 U.S.C. Section 1621 in American federal law, for example.
The U.S. Supreme Court has engaged the Decalogue directly. In Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980), the Court struck down a Kentucky statute requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. In Van Orden v. Perry, 545 U.S. 677 (2005), however, the Court permitted a Ten Commandments monument on the Texas State Capitol grounds, with Chief Justice Rehnquist writing that the Decalogue has 'an undeniable historical meaning' in American law. In McCreary County v. ACLU, 545 U.S. 844 (2005), decided the same day, the Court struck down courthouse displays, distinguishing between historical acknowledgment and religious endorsement.
The Eighth Amendment's prohibition on 'cruel and unusual punishment' traces conceptually to the proportionality principle embedded in the Mosaic code's broader legal framework, of which the Decalogue is the cornerstone.
Scholarly Debate
The extent of the Decalogue's influence is contested. Legal historian Harold Berman, in Law and Revolution (1983), argued that the Western legal tradition is fundamentally a product of the 'Papal Revolution' of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which built on biblical foundations. John Witte Jr., in The Reformation of Rights (2007), traced the development of Western rights discourse through Protestant engagement with the Decalogue.
Secular legal historians offer alternative accounts. Brian Tierney, in The Idea of Natural Rights (1997), argued that natural rights theory emerged primarily from medieval canon law debates rather than directly from Scripture. Larry Siedentop, in Inventing the Individual (2014), traced Western individualism to Pauline Christianity rather than the Decalogue specifically. The legal positivist tradition, from John Austin to H.L.A. Hart, rejects the notion that law requires a moral or theological foundation at all, arguing that the Decalogue's influence is historical but not logically necessary.
Critical scholars note that the Decalogue was not unique in the ancient Near East. The Code of Hammurabi (c. 1754 BCE) contains similar prohibitions on murder, theft, and false testimony, predating the traditional date of the Decalogue by several centuries. This raises the question of whether the Decalogue represents a genuinely distinctive contribution or simply codifies universal moral intuitions.
Comparative Perspective
Islamic law (Sharia) shares the Decalogue's prohibitions through the Quran's own versions of these commands, particularly in Surah 17:22-39 (the 'Isra' passage), which Muslim scholars have called the 'Islamic Decalogue.' The five objectives of Sharia (maqasid al-shariah) - protection of religion, life, intellect, progeny, and property - map loosely onto the Decalogue's categories.
Jewish law (halakha) treats the Decalogue as the summary of all 613 commandments. The Talmudic tradition (Makkot 23b-24a) records that the prophets progressively condensed the commandments: David to eleven (Psalm 15), Isaiah to six (Isaiah 33:15), Micah to three (Micah 6:8), and Habakkuk to one ('the just shall live by his faith,' Habakkuk 2:4).
Hindu dharma contains parallel prohibitions in the yamas (restraints) of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras: ahimsa (non-violence), satya (truthfulness), asteya (non-stealing), brahmacharya (sexual restraint), and aparigraha (non-covetousness) - a striking parallel to commandments six through ten.
Secular natural law theory, from Grotius onward, has attempted to ground these prohibitions in reason alone, independent of revelation. The question of whether such prohibitions require a theological foundation or can be sustained on purely rational grounds remains one of jurisprudence's enduring debates.
Cross-References
Related law entries: [Two-Witness Rule](/bible-influence/two-witness-rule), [Presumption of Innocence](/bible-influence/presumption-innocence), [Magna Carta's Biblical Foundations](/bible-influence/magna-carta-biblical-basis), [Proportionality and Lex Talionis](/bible-influence/proportionality-lex-talionis). Key Bible passages: Exodus 20:1-17, Deuteronomy 5:6-21, Deuteronomy 17:18-20, Matthew 5:17-48 (Jesus's engagement with the Decalogue in the Sermon on the Mount).