§ 1. The matters which are usefully disputed by theologians concerning the old law do not contribute much to politics; accordingly, I shall conclude them in a few propositions and prepare myself for other matters.
Certain laws besides natural law were established by God even before the law of Moses was given: in Paradise, the law concerning not eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; afterward, the law concerning clean and unclean animals.
§ 2. The law given to Moses was holy, given by the good God through angels into the hand of Moses the mediator. Its end was supernatural: that they might be led to virtue and consequently to eternal life;
that it might prefigure for us Christ, to whom the law led; that it might establish the worship of God amid so many discordant ceremonies of idolatry; and that it might strengthen political order.
§ 3. It was given to the Jews alone, and it bound them alone and those who, having received circumcision, passed over into the colony of the Jews.
§ 4. The precepts were of three kinds: moral, ceremonial, and judicial. The moral precepts bind everyone and always; the ceremonial have been abrogated; and the judicial, through the death of Christ, were first dead and afterward death-bearing.
§ 5. These matters are disputed in many ways, learnedly and most usefully, but they do not greatly pertain to politics. There is one matter which has sometimes been proposed by learned men. Why do Christian states not use the judicial laws carried by God himself? Although those laws do not bind, why do they not decide controversies according to the laws of God rather than those of impious Caesars? This is all the more so because we all ought to judge those judgments just, whereas we may deservedly doubt the laws of the emperors, many of which were unjust. God inculcates this upon his judges in Deuteronomy 1:17: “And I commanded all the things which you ought to do.”
Why, therefore, are the things commanded in Exodus 21 concerning servitudes not observed? Why, if anyone has stolen an ox, is he not compelled to give five for one, but is hanged? And in verse 16, for fornication are only marriage with the woman and a dowry commanded? And in verse 26, pledges are commanded to be returned before night? Since eternal truth weighed these and similar things in a just balance, why do we now use other laws? Why does a brother not take his brother’s wife into his house?
But however many laws there are of this kind, since they are mutable, it is not necessary for a state to adopt them; nor on that account were they carried less prudently by God. For they were accommodated to the capacity and character of the Jews. But since the beginnings of cities had other laws, there was no cause for changing them. Next, God carried those laws only for that state which he foresaw would be changed. When times are changed, laws also must be changed. Theft is now rightly punished by death; for if stolen things had to be restored, since thieves are generally poor, they would be bound all the more strongly to thefts.
Third, how great an incitement to wickedness would it be if marriage to a rich girl should fall as a reward to her fornicator? I am not unaware that this is the custom when they are equals; but when there is a great difference, the laws establish otherwise. Yet at that time those laws were just among that people and under that discipline; now the subject matter has changed among many nations, so that the laws cannot pertain to it.