{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020319.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020319.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020319.htm","text":"Whence the law was rightly said to have been given by Moses, being a rule of right and wrong; and we may call it with accuracy the divine ordinance (\u03b8\u03b5\u03c3\u03bc\u03cc\u03c2 2110 ), inasmuch as it was given by God through Moses. It accordingly conducts to the divine. Paul says: \u201cThe law was instituted because of transgressions, till the seed should come, to whom the promise was made.\u201d Then, as if in explanation of his meaning, he adds: \u201cBut before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up,\u201d manifestly through fear, in consequence of sins, \u201cunto the faith which should afterwards be revealed; so that the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we should be justified by faith.\u201d 2111 The true legislator is he who assigns to each department of the soul what is suitable to it and to its operations. Now Moses, to speak comprehensively, was a living law, governed by the benign Word. Accordingly, he furnished a good polity, which is the right discipline of men in social life. He also handled the administration of justice, which is that branch of knowledge which deals with the correction of transgressors in the interests of justice. Co-ordinate with it is the faculty of dealing with punishments, which is a knowledge of the due measure to be observed in punishments. And punishment, in virtue of its being so, is the correction of the soul. In a word, the whole system of Moses is suited for the training of such as are capable of becoming good and noble men, and for hunting out men like them; and this is the art of command. And that wisdom, which is capable of treating rightly those who have been caught by the Word, is legislative wisdom. For it is the property of this wisdom, being most kingly, to possess and use,\nIt is the wise man, therefore, alone whom the philosophers proclaim king, legislator, general, just, holy, God-beloved. And if we discover these qualities in Moses, as shown from the Scriptures themselves, we may, with the most assured persuasion, pronounce Moses to be truly wise. As then we say that it belongs to the p. 339 shepherd\u2019s art to care for the sheep; for so \u201cthe good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep;\u201d 2112 so also we shall say that legislation,inasmuch as it presides over and cares for the flock of men, establishes the virtue of men, by fanning into flame, as far as it can, what good there is in humanity.\nAnd if the flock figuratively spoken of as belonging to the Lord is nothing but a flock of men, then He Himself is the good Shepherd and Lawgiver of the one flock, \u201cof the sheep who hear Him,\u201d the one who cares for them, \u201cseeking,\u201d and finding by the law and the word, \u201cthat which was lost;\u201d since, in truth, the law is spiritual and leads to felicity. For that which has arisen through the Holy Spirit is spiritual. And he is truly a legislator, who not only announces what is good and noble, but understands it. The law of this man who possesses knowledge is the saving precept; or rather, the law is the precept of knowledge. For the Word is \u201cthe power and the wisdom of God.\u201d 2113 Again, the expounder of the laws is the same one by whom the law was given; the first expounder of the divine commands, who unveiled the bosom of the Father, the only-begotten Son.\nThen those who obey the law, since they have some knowledge of Him, cannot disbelieve or be ignorant of the truth. But those who disbelieve, and have shown a repugnance to engage in the works of the law, whoever else may, certainly confess their ignorance of the truth.\nWhat, then, is the unbelief of the Greeks? Is it not their unwillingness to believe the truth which declares that the law was divinely given by Moses, whilst they honour Moses in their own writers? They relate that Minos received the laws from Zeus in nine years, by frequenting the cave of Zeus; and Plato, and Aristotle, and Ephorus write that Lycurgus was trained in legislation by going constantly to Apollo at Delphi. Cham\u00e6leo of Heraclea, in his book On Drunkenness, and Aristotle in The Polity of Locrians, mention that Zaleucus the Locrian received the laws from Athene.\nBut those who exalt the credit of Greek legislation as far as in them lies, by referring it to a divine source, after the model of Mosaic prophecy, are senseless in not owning the truth, and the archetype of what is related among them.\nFrom the ancient derivation of this word from \u03b8\u03b5\u03bf\u03c2.\n338:2111 339:2112 339:2113","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Chapter XXVI.\u2014Moses Rightly Called a Divine Legislator, And, Though Inferior to Christ, Far Superior to the Great Legislators of the Greeks, Minos and Lycurgus.","type":"page"}