Calvinistic Churches, that is, in the Protestant Churches of Western Europe, and, also, in those of America derived from them, the mode of numbering the Commandments is to divide what we have reckoned as the first Commandment into two, and to account the ninth and tenth as one, thus still retaining the number of Ten Commandments. This arrangement prevails also in the Greek Church, and was first suggested by Origen. But in the Lutheran Church, which pervades Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and a great part of Germany,—and also in the Roman Catholic Church, throughout the world, the custom has existed of considering the whole of the first part of the Decalogue, having relation to the worship of one God, as a single Commandment, and of dividing the last part of the Decalogue, or that which relates to coveting, into two Commandments,—thus still retaining the number Ten. The reason why the number of Ten must be retained, is, because they are called in Scripture the Ten Commandments, or (literally) the "Ten Words;"[1] and this, for the reason that the number Ten signifies all, and the Decalogue contains the substance of all the commandments of the Word in a summary.[2]
Let us now consider the general meaning of these two Commandments. And first it may be remarked, that while the other Commandments, in their literal
- ↑ Exod. xxxiv. 28.
- ↑ Swedenborg, having been brought up in the Lutheran Church, naturally adopted the mode of division customary in that Church: perhaps, also, because he thought it better adapted to the internal sense.
