Category:Decalogue

Dec"a*logue, n. Etym: [F. décalogue, L. decalogus, fr. Gr. Ten.]

Defn: The Ten Commandments or precepts given by God to Moses on Mount Sinai, and originally written on two tables of stone.

---excerpt from the Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

Decalogue - The name given by the Greek fathers to the Ten Commandments; "the ten words," as the original is more literally rendered (Exodus 20:3). These commandments were at first written on two stone slabs (Exodus 31:18), which were broken by Moses throwing them down on the ground (Exodus 32:19). They were written by God a second time (Exodus 34:1). The decalogue is alluded to in the New Testament five times (Matthew 5:17 - 19; Mark 10:19; Luke 18:20; Romans 7:7, Romans 7:8; Romans 13:9; 1 Timothy 1:9, 1 Timothy 1:10). These commandments have been divided since the days of Origen the Greek father, as they stand in the Confession of all the Reformed Churches except the Lutheran. The division adopted by Luther, and which has ever since been received in the Lutheran Church, makes the first two commandments one, and the third the second, and so on to the last, which is divided into two. "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house" being ranked as ninth, and "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife," etc., the tenth. (See COMMANDMENTS and Ten Commandments).