Origen on the Natural Law: The Pedagogue of the Soul

ORIGEN OF ALEXANDRIA, THE INCARNATION of the theology of the Alexandrian Catechetical School as it were, is an ecclesiastical figure that is truly sui generis. Intellectually, he is a prodigy, one of the colossi of Christian thought. His father, Leonides, was beheaded by order of Emperor Septimius Severus when Origen was still a teenager, a fact which had a deep influence on Origen's efforts to be a worthy successor to a martyr father. Origen himself was arrested during the Decian persecution, was tortured, and succumbed to his injuries a few years later, not yet seventy years of age.

Origen was, as one might expect from a student of Clement of Alexandria, deeply influenced by a neo-Platonist speculative philosophy. The combination of this speculative neo-Platonism with a Stoic practical philosophy, a deeply Scriptural Christian theology, and a mind of incredible inventiveness, makes Origen's work extremely delicate and nuanced, complex, even abstruse. As a result of his assertion of controversial speculative positions, and some, indeed, heretical doctrines (e.g, a hierarchical notion of the Trinity, the apokatastasis, the pre-existence of souls), Origen has never comfortably settled into the Church's Tradition, and never will. Indeed, some of his doctrines, at least as advanced by his disciples, and even he by name himself, were anathematized in a local council in Constantinople in 545 A.D., and then, more formally, in the so-called "15 Anathemas" against Origin in the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Constantinople, of 553 A.D. Though his texts are cited by Catholic theologians, and though he is recognized as a great theologian within that communion, he is not considered, nor ever will be, a Father of the Church. Similarly, though his life was driven with a great zeal of discipleship, even to martyrdom, it is tainted by such severity as his self-mutilation by castration. Given such intellectual and moral imbalance, erring perhaps on the side of zeal by excess, Origen has not been accepted as a model of balanced, integrated, yet heroic virtue, that is to say, a canonized Saint. In fine, Origen must be judiciously read, and followed only temerariously, as within the undeniable wheat of his work, there is some significant an unpalatable chaff.

Deeply steeped in the Scriptures, and armed with a knowledge of Hebrew, Origen interpreted Scripture in a highly-allegorical fashion. Origen's constructions were, however, tied to the Apostolic tradition, and tempered by allegiance to the teaching of the magisterial authority of the Church. Despite his problematic positions on some doctrinal issues, Origen tried to live as a faithful son of the Catholic Church. Origen's corpus of works was immense: perhaps as many as 320 books, including Scriptural Commentaries, his philosophical treatise, De principiis (On First Principles), a work of Scriptural textual criticism called the Hexapla, 310 homilies, and numerous letters. And though many of these works have not survived, the works that have remained extant are truly formidable. Thankfully, the works of Origen that address the issue of the natural law do not seem particularly tainted by any of his controversial positions, and where they are, I will try to point that out.

Origen depicted in Parchment

The two of Origen’s works that address the issue of the natural law are his Commentary on Romans and his Contra Celsum. We shall focus in this blog entry on Origen’s Commentary on Romans.* In the next we shall focus on Origen's Contra Celsum.

In his Commentary on Romans, Origen clearly uses the term natural law in a moral sense. Its use by him is fully compatible with both the Stoic notions of the natural law, as well as St. Paul's teachings of it in the Epistle to the Romans. It is however within the context of Scriptural exegesis that Origen uses the term. At the outset of his commentary on St. Paul's great epistle, Origen warns that St. Paul's use of "law" in his Epistle to the Romans can be confusing, as he refers variously to the Mosaic law and the natural law, and careful distinction must be made in construing St. Paul's text. Only rarely does Origen use the term natural law in a physical sense, such as it being part of the law of nature that we die. e.g., Com. Rom., 4.10(1). Essentially, Origen understands the natural law in an exclusively moral sense, as a law of practical reason, implanted by God, and which directs us, through the testimony of conscience, to do good and avoid evil. Origen ties in the natural law or the natural moral law with St. Paul’s “law of my mind” in Romans 7:23. Com. Rom., 5.6(3). His view of the natural law is therefore decidedly more than mere biological: it is both intellectual and moral, and ultimately spiritual.

Origen, like his master Clement of Alexandria, and like the Jewish Hellenistic philosopher Philo, equates the essence of the Mosaic law, specifically the Decalogue, with the natural moral law. Whether in its positive form and promulgated by Moses (i.e., the Decalogue) or as manifested in the natural law by the witness of conscience, that "pedagogue" to the soul, the natural law binds both Jew and Gentile, that is to say, all mankind. At the heart of this natural law is the Golden Rule. And while the Gospel did not supplant the natural moral law, the natural law is not the sum-total of man’s end, for man, who has sinned and fallen short of the natural moral law and thus stands condemned by it, is called to go beyond the natural moral law, to the Son of God who fulfilled the natural moral law, who is the end of that law (in the sense of its objective or culmination). Ultimately, then, the natural moral law is a necessary preamble, a foundation, as it were, to knowledge of the righteousness of God, to the law of Christ, the law of faith and of grace. Through Christ, God effects his merciful forgiveness for past violations of the natural law, and provides the strength and ability to follow it. More than that, Christ is the avenue to truth, to goodness, to justice, and to communion with God in supernatural life. This is a short summary of Origen's teachings.

Origen’s notion of the natural law is firmly based upon St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. According to Origen, the law “written in the heart” of the Gentiles referred to by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Romans (2:14-15) is not the Mosaic law in so far as it deals with rituals or sacrifice, but it would include all the precepts of the Decalogue: “The reference is instead to what they are able to perceive by nature, for instance, that they should not commit murder or adultery, they ought not to steal, they should not speak falsely, they should honor father and mother, and the like.” Com. Rom. 2.9(1) It is clear from this enumeration that Origen equates, as was common teaching at the time, the Decalogue revealed to the Jew with the natural moral law revealed to the Gentile. It is through the natural law that God has revealed his law to the Gentiles, albeit in an implied manner relative to the express revelation to the Jew in the form of the Mosaic law. Com. Rom., 2.7.5-6; 7.19.6. This natural law in the heart of the Gentiles, however, should not be construed as excluding the Jew: the natural law “is naturally innate within men, both Jews and Gentiles” Com. Rom., 3.6(2) It is thus universally binding upon all men.

One finds that God has in fact given to man every disposition and every drive by which he can press forward and advance toward virtue. Over and above the power of reason God has ensured that man should know what he ought to do and what he ought to avoid. One finds then that God has supplied these things universally to all men. But if a man who has received these things has disdained to advance upon the road of virtue, this man, to whom nothing was lacking from God, is found to be lacking in what is given to him by God. Deservedly, then, God is said to prevail in such a judgment and to be justified in his words.

Com. Rom., 3.6(2). Origen goes beyond the natural moral law as being just the tutor of good, and also suggests the possibility that “written in the hearts of the Gentiles” is the fact that “God is one and the Creator of all things.” Com. Rom. 2.9(1) The natural moral law would thus compel the recognition of our creaturehood, and the obligation to reverence the God who made us.

Medallion Possibly Depicting Origen

Origen advances the notion, common with the fathers and seen in Clement of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, and others, that not only is the natural law consonant with the Mosaic Decalogue, it is consonant with the “evangelical laws,” or the laws of the Gospel, “where everything is ascribed to natural justice,” the centerpiece of which is the Golden Rule. “For what could be nearer to the natural moral senses than that those things men do not want done to themselves, they should not do to others?” Origen asks rhetorically. Com. Rom., 2.9(1)

With respect to the particular, positive precepts of the Mosaic law, where reason is hard-pressed to find an explanation or justification, there remains, for Origen, even there a tenuous link between even those Jewish-specific rites such as circumcision, the prohibition of wearing wool woven with linen, or the prohibition of the use of yeast during the Passover. Cf. Gen.17:12; Lev. 12:3; Deut. 22:11; Ex. 12:15-20; 23-15. Here, however, we must go into allegorial construction of the laws, and interpret these provisions in a spiritual, not literal sense. “Natural law is able to agree with the law of Moses according to the spirit but not according to the letter.” Com. Rom., 2.9(1) Thus the Jewish rites and customs as revealed in the Old Testament, interpreted in a spiritual sense, may still have useful purpose in the life of the Christian.

The law that St. Paul speaks of, Origen clarifies, is not literally written in the heart; rather, it is a law of practical reason, as “one should realize that the soul’s rational power is normally called the heart.” Com. Rom., 2.9(2). This law of reason is made known to us through the testimony of conscience. The conscience of which St. Paul speaks of, and which condemns us and approves us is, in Origen’s view, “identical with the spirit, which . . . is with the soul.” “The conscience functions like a pedagogue to the soul, a guide and companion, as it were, that it might admonish it concerning better things or correct and convict it of faults.” Com. Rom., 2.9(3); see also 2.9(4). Thus conscience is part of man’s spiritual nature, and for Origen, is separate from the soul. [Note: This Origenist view is consistent with a Platonic or Pythagorean notion of a tri-partite or trichotomous view of human nature: body, soul, and spirit [soma, psyche, pneuma]. It may not be entirely consistent of a more proper dichotomous view of man [body and spiritual soul]. In a dichotomous view of man, conscience would, strictly speaking, be part of, or a component of, man's spiritual soul, and not a separate or different substance.] Upon reaching the age of reason, and coming to understand the natural moral law, faults or violations of that law are imputed to that person, and with such imputation spiritual death. Com. Rom., 3.2.(7)-(8); 5.1(23)-(26); 6.8(3)-(4). “Those who are at the time of life at which they have already received the ability to distinguish good and evil are under this law,” this “natural law, which is written in men’s hearts.” Because it requires the use of reason, it certainly excludes children, may exclude mentally incompetents, but includes all intelligent creatures, including the angels. Com. Rom., 3.6(1), (3), (4).

The natural law, however important it is in the life of man, is not an absolute end all. The natural law has limits to its witness. It does not, for example, witness to the righteousness of God. “God’s righteousness is disclosed apart from the law. For the law of nature was able to reveal the nature of sin and bring to light the knowledge of sin; but the righteousness of God surpasses and rises above whatever the human mind can scrutinize by natural senses alone.” Com. Rom., 3.7(5). Further, through both the natural moral law as well as the Mosaic law comes knowledge of sin. Com. Rom., 3.6; cf. Rom. 3:19-20. Yet in this regard, Origen is quick to defend both the Mosaic law and the natural law. The fact that sin is known through law does not impute evil on either the Mosaic law or the natural law. Knowledge of sin does not come “from the law,” but rather “through the law." Com. Rom., 3.6(9). Since the Fall, moreover, the “law in the members,” the fomes peccati, enters the world “under the cover of the natural law.” Com. Rom., 5.6.(1)-(4). Finally, the Jew, by his failure to comply with the jot and tittle of his law, stands condemned before his Mosaic law. The Gentile likewise stands condemned by his conscience before the natural moral law. Com. Rom., 3.2(7)-(9). The violation of the positive or natural law invites wrath. Com. Rom., 4.4; cf. Rom. 4:15. Most significantly, neither the Mosaic law nor the natural moral law offer a way out of the moral and soteriological problematic caused by the knowledge of sin, the existence of the law of the members, and the guilt associated with having violated them.

So it is that the natural law, despite the fact that it is good and of God, has limits. It does not and cannot save. Yet there is hope nevertheless, as man is called to go beyond the natural moral law. Alone, the natural law is an insufficient witness to the entire truth and the entire end of man. It is unable to testify to the revelation of God in Christ. The law of nature is not the law of Grace, and so it does not impel or draw a man to believe that Jesus is Lord, the son of God. Com. Rom., 3.7.8-10. The natural moral law is not equivalent to the “law of faith” that St. Paul speaks of in Romans 3:27. For fulfilment, we must also turn to the law that is Christ.

Christ is not under the law but is the fulfillment of law. And just as he himself is the righteousness through which all become righteous; and he is the truth through which all stand firm in the truth; and he himself is the life through which all live; so also he himself is the law through which all are under law. He comes to the judgment, then, not as one who is under law but as one who is law.

Com. Rom., 3.6(5). Both the Gentile and Jew, therefore, share a mutual need of Christ in addition to the Decalogue or natural moral law. Through the letter of the law, or the witness of conscience, and through obedience to the Decalogue or the natural moral law, Christ leads us to mystery, and in fact is that mystery. From the natural, we are lead to the supernatural. From the letter we are led to the spirit. From the law written to the heart, we are led to the very heart of God through the Word. There is the letter, which leads to law, and beyond all law is mystery.

The doctrine of the Law . . . at the school of Christ is like this, the letter is bitter, like the [green-covered] skin [of a walnut]; secondly, you will come to the shell, which is the moral doctrine; thirdly, you will discover the meaning of the mysteries, with which the souls of the saints are nourished in the present life and the future.

Hom. Num. 9, 7


*English translation of Origen's Commentary is from Scheck's translation, published by CUA as part of its Fathers of the Church series (2001).

Clement of Alexandria: "The Law of Nature and Instruction are One"

CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Titus Flavius Clemens, ca. 150 - ca. 215) is another Apostolic Father that is witness to the early Church's adoption of a concept of the natural moral law. Clement is perhaps best known for being the teacher of the Origen, as well as the author of a trilogy of works, the Stromata or Miscellanies, the Protrepticus or Exhortation to the Greeks, and the Paedagogus, or Instructor. Other works of his survive but in fragments. Clement was a synthetic thinker of the Cathechetical School of Alexandria, and he strove to reconcile and synthesize truths he found in philosophy and in Christianity. He may be said to have been the father of Christian Platonism, a synthesis or combination which found so much fruit in his controversial disciple Origen and, more distantly, in the more stolid and reliable St. Augustine. It is to Clement that we must attribute this gem which we can throw out to every thinker who has the audacity of thinking about reality without reference to the Logos, in particularly, the Logos made flesh. "Philosophers are children until they have been made men by Christ." If Clement of Alexandria's teachings are to be given any weight, it appears that from its inception, the Church insisted on both Faith and Reason, both Natural Law and the Gospel. The Church refused to entertain false dichotomies, and rejected the extreme spiritual dualism of such groups as the Gnostics, and the extreme moral dualism of such groups as the Montanists or other enthusiasts.

Icon of Clement of Alexandria

In fact, it is within this blend of Platonism and Christianity that we find a discussion by Clement of Alexandria of the relationship between natural law, that is ,the law of reason, and the Mosaic law. In his Miscellanies or Stromata, Clement suggests, almost certainly inaccurately, that Plato himself was familiar with the Mosaic law, and, indeed adopted the noble end of the Mosaic law--friendship and union with God or contemplation--as the the end of law in his dialogue The Statesman. It is within this discussion that we find the following statement which presupposes, as a thing well accepted, that the law is right reason, rectam rationem:

Cui consequenter, bonae scilicet opinioni, quidem dixerunt legem esse rectam rationem quae jubet quidem ea quae sunt facienda, prohibet autem quae non sunt facienda.

As a consequence of which, some, namely those of good opinion, have called law to be right reason, which enjoins what is to be done and forbids what is not to be done.

Strom., I.xxv.

The final end of the State is "contemplation," not some sort of material self-aggrandizement. This is what Plato, according to Clement, learned from the books of Moses. Plato, therefore, was able to criticize the polity of Minos, as well as that of the Spartan Lycurgus, both of which in practice neglected the need to form both laws and polity sub specie aeternitatis. Law as well as polity must be structured "with reference to the dignity of heaven." In his book The Statesman, Plato "interprets what is in the law, enjoining us to look to one God and to do justly." This comes very close, on need hardly add, to Christ's synopsis of the Decalogue, itself a synopsis of the natural law, into the two great Commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. (e.g., Matt. 22:36-40).

For Clement, there is no notion of arbitrariness in God's law, and so early in the Church's history we have a proper emphasis on the ratio ordinis that is law. "And the law is not what is decided by law (for what is seen is not vision), nor every opinion (not certainly what is evil)." Strom., I.xxv. Here already is a sophisticated understanding, as well as rejection, of a philosophy of law that is positivism: that law is what is decided by law, and no more. Clement of Alexandria would spurn those, who like the judge who "looks down his nose" says, in Auden's "Law Like Love Law," "speaking clearly and most severely":

Law is as I've told you before,
Law is as you know I suppose,
Law is but let me explain it once more,
Law is The Law.

Here also is a clear rejection of legal relativism: that law is merely opinion of the one in power. Clement is also disdainful of those who, like Auden's "law-abiding scholars," advance the thesis that:

Law is neither wrong nor right,
Law is only crimes
Punished by places and by times,
Law is the clothes men wear
Anytime, anywhere,
Law is Good morning and Good night.

Clement rejects such theories, and insists in a philosophy of law that recognizes a Law above all human law in which the latter participates. In this Clementine teaching is the clear kernel of the concept of eternal law that will play such a central feature in St. Thomas Aquinas's philosophy of law. Law is not arbitrary will or opinion; it is one opinion, the objective good based upon right reason, and ultimately based upon truth, even God. This is the genius of Moses's teaching on Law. "Law," Clement states, "is the opinion which is good, and what is good is that which is true, and what is true is that which finds “true being,” and attains to it. “He who is,” says Moses, “sent me.” Strom., I.xxv.

Clement of Alexandria (?) in Mosaic

This "philosophy of law" which is advanced by Moses and is adopted by Plato is the only sound philosophy of law. "Whence," Clement concludes, "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 (θεσμός), inasmuch as it was given by God through Moses." Law has a pedagogical, tutorial role as it molds our acts and directs towards the good and to the true, and ultimately to He who is both simply Good and True. Law as understood by Moses and by St. Paul "accordingly conducts to the divine." Strom., I.xxvi. Law is part of soulcraft; consequently, "[t]he 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.

Strom., I.xxxvi. The aim of the law is virtue, a virtue conducive to happiness, even eternal happiness. "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." Strom., I.xxvi.

In summary, the Mosaic philosophy of law recognizes objective good and truth, and is fashioned for the good of man, in accordance with his nature, that is, right reason, "fanning into flame" all virtue, and ultimately tending to the last good of man, God himself, the fount of all good, truth, and justice. The ultimate basis of law is therefore not material, but spiritual, and it participates in God. So it is that God is "the good Shepherd and Lawgiver" of the law that "is spiritual and leads to felicity." A human legislator worthy of the name will recognize the linkage between God and law.

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 “the power and the wisdom of God.” (1 Cor. 1:24). 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.

Strom., I.xxvi. From all this it follows that Clement rejects any notion that Christ opened up humanity the gates of anarchy, of a grace without law such as advocated by enthusiastic groups then and ever since. Obedience to law, and not rejection of law, is a fundamental sign of those who have a grasp of what is true:

Then 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.

Strom., I.xxvi. Even outside of Plato, the Greeks seem to have had an inkling of the linkage between the divine and human law. Minos is said to have obtained his laws by frequenting the cave of Zeus, Lycurgus obtained his law from going to the temple of Apollo at Delphi, Zaleucus the Locrian is said to have received his laws direct from Athena. .

But 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.

Strom., I.xxvi.

The law must needs have its penalty, its mechanisms of enforcement. It is not to be called evil because of these organs of discipline and reproof. "Let no one, then, run down law, as if, on account of the penalty, it were not beautiful and good." Strom., I.xxvii. In punishing, the law is not unlike the physician who subjects the body to painful regimens for the good of the corporate whole.

Ultimately, the punitive aspects of law are to conduce to good and to dissuade from evil: For the law, in its solicitude, for those who obey, trains up to piety, and prescribes what is to be done, and restrains each one from sins, imposing penalties even on lesser sins. . . . But it is the highest and most perfect good, when one is able to lead back anyone from the practice of evil to virtue and well-doing, which is the very function of law. . . . For the law is beneficent, being able to make some righteous from unrighteous, if they will only give ear to it, and by releasing others from present evils; for those who have chosen to live temperately and justly, it conducts to immortality. To know the law is characteristic of a good disposition.

Strom., I.xxvii. At the extreme, the law may even put to death the offender.

Clement clearly rejects the notion that law is incompatible with the Gospel. That the law and Gospel hold hands, are one "energy," is stated succinctly: "For both the law and the Gospel are the energy of one Lord . . . ." Strom., I.xxvii. Clement concludes his analysis of law in the first book of his Stromata with the following:

"The good commandment," then, according to the Scripture, "is a law and the law is a light to the path; for instruction corrects the ways of life." (Prov. 6:23) "Law is monarch of all, both of mortals and immortals," says Pindar. I understand, however, by these words, Him who enacted law. And I regard, as spoke of the God of all, the following utterance of Hesiod, though spoken by the poet at random and not with comprehension:--

For the Saturnian framed for men this law;
Fishes, and beasts, and winged birds may eat
Each others, since no rule of right is theirs;
But Right (by far the best) to men he gave.

Whether, then, it be the law which is connate or natural, or that given afterwards, which is meant, it is certainly of God; and both the law of nature and that of instruction are one. Thus also Plato, in The Statesman, says that the lawgiver is one; and in The Laws, that he who shall understand music is one; teaching by these words that the Word is one, and God is one. And Moses manifestly calls the Lord a covenant: "Behold I am my Covenant with thee," (Gen. 17:24) having previously told him not to seek the covenant in writing. For it is a covenant which God, the Author of all, makes. For God (θεός) is called from Θέτις (placing), and order or arrangement. And in the Preaching of Peter you will find the Lord called Law and Word. But at this point, let our first Miscellany of gnostic notes, according to the true philosophy, come to a close.

Strom., I.xxix.

In summary, though presented within the context of Mosaic revelation, Clement of Alexandria clearly sees a compatibility between the natural law and the commandments of Moses. Intimated by the Greeks and their legendary lawgivers, finding reality in Moses the "living law," adopted by Plato in his dialogues and teachings, the law's ultimate basis is God. Law is not arbitrary, not merely positive, not merely will. The notion of a purely secular, material basis for law is to be rejected. Human law, at least one worthy of the name, participates in the ratio ordinis, the rational order, of the eternal law. Similarly, the natural moral law participates in the eternal law. All law is conducive to the building of virtue, is consonant with liberty, and has as its ultimate end, the God who made us and in whom we move, and live, and have our being. “Law,” Clement states in a definition to be remembered, “is the opinion which is good, and what is good is that which is true, and what is true is that which finds 'true being,' and attains to it.” Strom., I.xxv. Law finds God and attains to it. This is Clement of Alexandria's teaching; and it ought to be our own.

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: The Natural Law in Adversus Haereses, Part II

FOR ST. IRENAEUS, THE CREATION OF ADAM, INDEED ALL MANKIND, WAS NOTHING but divine munificence. "In the beginning . . . did God form Adam, not as if He stood in need of man, but that He might have [someone] upon whom to confer His benefits." iv.14[1] All God's relationship with man, therefore, even the demand for obedience and service, must be seen as an effort of God's beneficence, his merciful giving. God's giving is needless; that is, God has no intrinsic need or lack that he assuages or meets by creating us, forming us, and demanding our obedience. He is self-sufficient, and so His act of creation is entirely for creation's benefit. It is creation, it is man, that is entirely in need of God.

This lack of need on the part of God is also true with respect to the divine law and the natural law. "For as much as God is in want of nothing, so much does man stand in need of fellowship with God." iv.14[1] And this is the purpose of God's law, to assure fellowship with God, and to govern us and lead us to our good and final end. God has no need of our obedience to his law; rather, it is we who are in need to be obedient to it.

Stained Glass Window Depicting St. Irenaeus

After man had fallen, in his divine plan of salvation, God called patriarchs, then prophets, then Moses, who led the Jews out of Egypt and into the desert up until the threshold of the promised land, where from a life of nomads they entered into a settled life, with all its accouterments, including a complex Temple cult and priesthood. In each of these phases, God acting through his agents, the patriarchs and prophets, promulgated law "adapted and applicable to every class." Thus, when they roamed the desert, God "promulgated a law very suitable [to their condition]." iv.14[2] When the settled in Israel, he promulgated "legal monitions, and all the other service of the law," that included such things as the election of Levites, and the prescriptions associated with the tabernacle, and with sacrifice. iv.14[3] "They (the Jews) had therefore a law, a course of discipline, and a prophecy of future things." iv.15[1] This law was manifestly positive, in that it was legislated or posited by God outside of, in addition to, or in confirmation of a law that was with man from the very beginning of his formation. This law was therefore circumstantial, that is, defined by, and conditional upon, circumstances.

The divine laws that God gave to the Jews were not only well-suited to their circumstances, but they were pedagogical. They were supplementary or complimentary to the natural law that prohibited the worship of idols:

He instructed the people who were prone to turn to idols, instructing them by repeated appeals to persevere and to serve God, calling them to the things of primary importance by means of those which were secondary: that is, to things that are real, by means of those that are typical; and by things temporal, to eternal; and by the carnal to the spiritual; and by the earthly, to the heavenly . . . .

iv.14[3] Departing his attention from these myriad positive laws, St. Irenaeus turns his attention to the central keystone of the Jewish law, the Decalogue. The Decalogue was given by God to the Jew, but it merely confirmed the "natural precepts, which from the beginning He had implanted in mankind." iv.15[1] The Ten Commandments, then, are nothing but, and demanded nothing more from the Jew than, the natural law, which "if any one does not observe, he has no salvation." iv.15[1] As we shall see, St. Ireneaus shall return to the Decalogue in greater depth in his analysis of the Mosaic law and the natural law in the context of salvation history.

Some of the Mosaic laws, St. Irenaeus acknowledges, were concessional, and "were enacted for [the Jews] by Moses, on account of their hardness [of heart]," one instance being divorce. There are instances even in the Apostolic writings of concessions to "human infirmity." iv.15[2] The concessions, however, are in some manner collateral. Such concessions were never made to the Decalogue. The Decalogue, whose principal purpose was to confirm the "natural precepts, which from the beginning [God] had implanted in mankind," was also intended to steer the Jews away from idolatry. The Decalogue was given to the Jew to obey, so that in the Jew's obedience, he should be restrained, and in such restraint, "not revert to idolatry, nor apostatize from God, but learn to love Him with the whole heart." iv.15[2] Manifestly, if the purpose of the Decalogue was to prevent the Jew from falling into idolatry, there could be no concessions made with regard to it.

Icon of St. Irenaeus with Miter, Crozier, and Pallium

St. Irenaeus views the Decalogue as being markedly distinct from the myriad circumstantial, pedagogical, and concessional laws of the Jew. The Decalogue is also substantially different from those laws of God that are assignatory or typical, such as circumcision initiated by Abraham and the legal and judicial requirements associated with the Sabbath under the Mosaic law. The latter have symbolic, assignatory, or typical value, they point to, are signs of, or are types of a deeper underlying reality. They are thus secondary, not primary. Circumcision and the Sabbath are both "signs." iv.15[1]. Thus Abraham, Lot, Noah, Enoch were all saved without either circumcision or the Sabbath. iv.15[2].

All the rest of the multitude of those righteous men who lived before Abraham and of those patriarchs who preceded Moses, were justified independently of [circumcision and Sabbath observations] and without the law of Moses.

iv.16[2] Then St. Irenaeus pulls out, as it were, the Decalogue from the circumstantial, pedagogical, concessional, and assignatory or typical laws contained in the Old Testament. He finds that the Decalogue is distinct, not only in degree, but in kind. The Decalogue is not only essential, it is confirmatory or declaratory of a law already written in the hearts and souls of all men.

Those righteous men that predeceased Moses, indeed Abraham, had the Decalogue written in their very nature: But the righteous fathers [before Moses, before Abraham] had the meaning of the Decalogue written in their hearts and souls, that is, they loved the God who made them, and did no injury to their neighbor. There was therefore no occasion that they should be cautioned by prohibitory mandates, because they had the righteousness of the law in themselves.

iv.16[3] The Decalogue was an effort by God to feed the souls of the Jew, who had forgotten these natural precepts, not unlike the giving to them of manna. The Decalogue, like the natural precepts written in man's nature, enjoined the same things. But for the manner of their promulgation, they cover the same ground:

[I]t enjoined love to God, and taught just dealing towards our neighbor, that we should neither be unjust nor unworthy of God, who prepares man for his friendship through the medium of the Decalogue, and likewise for agreement with his neighbor,--matters which did certainly profit man himself; God, however, standing in no need of anything from man.

iv.16[3] The Decalogue, which was binding without exception among the Jew, retains every bit as much its validity among the Christians operating under the new covenant. Indeed, the Decalogue's pale has been extended, increased by Christ's exhortation to internalize them.

Preparing man for this life, the Lord Himself did speak in His own person to all alike the words of the Decalogue; and therefore, in like manner, do they remain permanently with us, receiving by means of his advent in the flesh, extension and increase, but not abrogation.

iv16[3] The Decalogue, a law confirmatory or declaratory of the natural law in the hearts and souls of men, has been thus continued in the new covenant. This is not so with the "laws of bondage" that were "promulgated to the people by Moses," specific to the Jew, of circumstantial, pedagogical, concessional, or assignatory or typical value, and not of universal application. These "laws of bondage" were replaced by the "new covenant of liberty." iv.16[5]

But He has increased and widened those laws which are natural, and noble, and common to all, granting to men largely and without grudging, by means of adoption, to know God the Father, and to love Him with the whole heart, and to follow His word unswervingly, while they abstain not only from evil deeds, but even from the desire after them.

iv.16[5] The covenant of liberty ought not to be viewed as a release from law into licentiousness. No. Rather, the covenant of liberty ought to be viewed as a covenant that elicits from us the even greater response of obedient love and loving obedience to the Lord. It, in fact, imposes a greater responsibility of us than mere external obedience to laws, and thus is a test whether he will not only fear and serve, but believe and love the Lord. There is not the least suggestion in St. Irenaeus that the Law of Grace, which affords us re-entry into the supernatural life of the "likeness of God" or similitudo Dei, and the Natural Law, which governs the life of the image of God, the imago Dei, are inconsistent. Christ was not a moral anarchist who released us from all law. Nay, as St. Irenaeus puts it beautifully in a fragment from one of his lost works that has come down to us: Jesus Christ, who was "born of a virgin, and suffered on the cross," and who was "raised also fom the dead, and taken up to heaven," that self-same is also the "Founder of the universe," the "Maker of man," "with Moses . . . Legislator," "the Man among men," and the "Law in the laws." [Frag. LIV]. Christ, "the Law in the laws," is our Law.

Icon of St. Irenaeus in Posture of Blessing

St. Irenaeus of Lyons: The Natural Law in Adversus Haereses, Part I

SAINT IRENAEUS, CHRISTIAN BISHOP OF LUGDUNUM (LYONS) who flourished in the late second century A.D., is considered an Apostolic Father and perhaps the first controversialist of the Church. He was a disciple of the martyr Polycarp, who, in turn, was a disciple of St. John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved." (John 13:23, 19:26, 20:2, 21:7, 21:20) Best known for his book Adversus Haereses or Against Heresies which was written around the year 180, St. Irenaeus is a valuable witness to the early Christian Church's conception of the natural moral law. It is manifest from his writings that the he saw the institutional Church as willed by Christ, and so emphasized obedience to episcopal authority and participation in the Sacramental life of the Church, particularly the Eucharist. From the foundation of the Church and the promulgation of the Gospel, the natural law was part of received Apostolic teaching. He also rejected the Gnostic tendency to claim secret traditions and hidden doctrinal knowledge. He is also a witness, along with Sts. Ignatius and Clement, to early recognition of papal supremacy, that is the supremacy of the Roman Church, with which communion had to be maintained. His theory of the natural law, thus, is within the mainline thinking of the early Christian Church.

Stained Glass Window Depicting St. Irenaeus

St. Irenaeus may have been born in Smyrna between 115 and 125 A.D. He lived through the persecution of the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, had a hand in fighting against the Montanist heresy that so bewitched Tertullian, and succeeded St. Pothinus, the second bishop of Lugdunum (modernly, Lyons) when the latter was martyred. Originally probably written in Greek, his best-known work, On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis (ἔλεγχος και άνατροπή της ψευδωνύμου γνώσεως) is commonly known by a shorter title, Against Heresies or Adversus haereses (Greek=κατὰ αἱρέσεων). Only fragments of the original Greek text exist, although an early Latin translation of that work exists. Unfortunately, the Latin text suffers from clarity in some areas. It is to that great text of St. Irenaeus that we turn to for his understanding of the natural moral law from the perspective of the early Christian Church. In regard to St. Irenaeus, we might consider the short summary of Michael Crowe before we turn to the work of Irenaeus himself:

Irenaeus treats of the natural law at length in his Adversus Haereses. His perspective is theological; for him human nature is created nature and the law of human nature is the law of God the lawgiver and is given to man to help out the Mosaic Law, itself completed in the Gospel. But despite the theological preoccupations Irenaeus, who after all was writing a polemic against heretics, insists upon the naturalness of the moral law. Phrases like naturalia praecepta and naturalia legis flow easily from his pen. On one occasion he says, apropos of the unity of the old and the new law as coming from the same legislator, God, that the first and greatest precept, namely love the [L]ord with your whole heart and the second like it, love your neighbour as yourself, is found in lege et Evangelio. The phrase, in the context, is innocuous. But is intriguing to think that the same phrase was to be the keynote of one of the most influential--and misleading--definitions of the natural law in the Middle Ages, Gratian's assertion that natural law is what is contained in the law and the gospel.

(Crowe, 59-60). In reviewing St. Irenaeus's concept of natural law, it is important to stress that it is fashioned within the context of salvation history. The focus is thus on its role within the divine economy of salvation. Pace the thesis of the Protestant theologian Felix Flückiger that the Apostolic Fathers had no concept of a metaphysical natural law, no conception of a "timeless person," St. Irenaeus's concepts of the natural moral law, while principally drawn from the context of salvation history, do not necessarily contradict metaphysical concepts of the natural law based upon reason. St. Irenaeus's concept of natural law is not derived from an abstract "timeless person," but is derived from concrete man in time. Recollect that in St. Irenaeus we are dealing with a bishop communicating with those who speak the language of Faith and who have a hold on the events of salvation history and Christian revelation, even if, like the Gnostics, they have misunderstood them and have slid into heresy. We are not dealing with a philosopher talking to his students among the columns of the Stoa, and it would be incongruous to expect our shepherd of souls to either talk or think like one. Given the substantial familiarity with, and borrowing of, Stoic concepts of metaphysical natural law by the Christian intellectuals from the very beginning, it is highly dubious, in my mind, that a metaphysical natural law was not part of the presuppositions of the Apostolic Fathers, including St. Irenaeus. Indeed, incorporating a metaphysical concept of natural law within salvation history gave the metaphysical concept a depth that it had not enjoyed when advanced by the Stoics without any concreteness. The "timeless person," was no longer orphaned, but became a "person in time," in the time that mattered, salvation history. (Cf. Fuchs, Guevin) More accurate than Flückiger's view is the synthetic view espoused by Crowe and Osborn. "Natural law has its place," in St. Irenaeus's concept of the good, "and natural man has been justified by natural law and faith." "In his blend of love and truth, Ireneaus joined Paul and Plato. In his blend of love and natural law, he united Paul and the Stoics." Eric Osborn, Ireneaus of Lyons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 11.2.2, p. 239.

Another concept that is important in St. Irenaeus is the distinction between image and likeness. Paradisaical man had both the image and likeness of God. Fallen man lost God's likeness, but retained the image of God. Christ was the perfect, the plenary image of humanity, being also the perfect image and likeness of God, indeed bound to the very person of God the Son himself: His humanity was both the image and likeness of God, the paradigmatic human. Through Faith in Christ, the benefits of Christ's redemptive death served to allow man, with the grace of God, to repair God's image in as so to re-establish God's likeness. Man receives back the likeness he lost. It is within this context of re-establishment, of receiving back what was one lost, that Guevin argues one must understand St. Irenaeus's discussion on the natural law. (Guevin, 222-23)

And now, to Irenaeus . . .

Irenaeus's treatment of the natural law is found in Book IV of his Adversus Haereses. Man, for St. Irenaeus, must be understood within the various stages of salvation history. "Now man is a mixed organization of soul and flesh, who was formed after the likeness of God, and molded by His hands, that is by the Son and the Holy Spirit to whom also He said, 'Let Us make man.'" adv. haer., iv.pref.[4]. St. Irenaeus rejects outright any notion that would posit a strict dualism between flesh and spirit, and assign the creation of the flesh to someone other than God, some Demiurge that is less than, or separate from, God. Likewise, he rejects any notion that would begrudge to Jesus, at any moment of his post-incarnate existence, real fleshly existence. Importantly, St. Irenaeus resists any notion of duality in the Old Testament and the Gospels. We are dealing with the same, unchanging and unchanged God in both the Old and New Testaments, and with the same foundational law. "But as man as feared God, and were anxious about His law, these ran to Christ, and were all saved." iv.2[7]. Since, then the law originated with Moses, it terminated with John as a necessary consequence. Christ had come to fulfill it: wherefore 'the law and the prophets were' with them 'until John.'" iv.4[2]. The law, like the temple in Jerusalem, "fulfilling it own times, must have an end of legislation when the new covenant was revealed." iv.4[2]. The coming of the new covenant, and the end or fulfillment of the Mosaic law in Christ, does not bespeak a change in God. Rather, like the seasonal changes in the harvesting of wheat, it bespeaks of a change, a maturation or fruition, in man.

For He who makes the chaff and He who makes the wheat are not different persons, but one and the same, who judges them, that is separates them. But the wheat and the chaff, being inanimate and irrational, have been made such by nature. But man, being endowed with reason, and in this respect like to God, having been made free in his will, and with power over himself, is himself the cause to himself, that sometimes he becomes wheat, and sometimes chaff. Wherefore also he shall be justly condemned, because, having been created a rational being he lost the true rationality, and living irrationally, opposed the righteousness of God, giving himself over to every earthly spirit, and serving all lusts . . . .

iv.4[3]. God has revealed himself to man "by means of the creation itself, . . . by means of the world, . . . by means of the formation of man . . . and by the Son . . . . and these things do indeed address all men in the same manner, but all do not in the same way believe them." iv.6[6] It is "fitting that the truth should receive testimony from all" these revelations, "and should become [a means of] judgment for the salvation indeed of those who believe, but for the condemnation of those who believe not." iv.6[7]. Indeed, there is but one author and end to both covenants. "All things therefore are of one and the same substance, that is from the one and same God . . . who delivers a law suited both for slaves and those who are as yet undisciplined; and gives fitting precepts to those that are free, and have been justified by faith . . ." iv.9[1] "[O]ne and the same householder produced both covenants, the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who spake with both Abraham and Moses, and who has restored us anew to liberty, and has multiplied that grace which is from Himself." iv.9[1] "Greater," however, "is that legislation which has been given in order to liberty than that given in order to bondage; and therefore it has also been diffused, not throughout one nation [only], but over the whole world." iv.9[2] Within this notion of two covenants, revealed by the same God, a distinction must be made between the "tradition of the elders," and the "law given by Moses." iv.12[1]. The former is "a spurious law," "Pharisaical law," "and one contrary to the [true] law." iv.12[1]. The true "law of God . . . prepares them [the Jews] for the coming of Christ." iv.12[1]. The "commandment of the law," the true law, "is the love of God . . . and . . . neighbor." iv.12[1]-[2]. What Jesus taught is taught by Paul: "Love is the fulfilling of the law." Rom. 13:10; adv. haer., iv.12[2].

Icon of St. Irenaeus with Miter, Crozier, and Pallium

As in the law, therefore, and in the Gospel [likewise], the first and greatest commandment is, to love the Lord God with the whole heart, and then there follows a commandment like to it, to love one's neighbor as one's self; the author of the law and the Gospel is shown to be one and the same. For the precepts of an absolutely perfect life, since they are the same in each Testament, have pointed out [to us] the same God, who certainly has promulgated particular laws adapted for each; but the more prominent and the greatest [commandments], without which salvation cannot [be attained], He has exhorted [us to observe] the same in both.

iv.12[3]. St. Irenaeus sees Christ, like the apostle Paul did, as the "end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth." Rom.10:3, 4; adv. haer. iv.12.4. "And how is Christ the end of the law," as St. Paul teaches, "if he is not also the final cause of it?" iv.12[4] And if the end and final cause, also the beginning, "[f]or He who has brought in the end has Himself also wrought the beginning." iv.12[4]. The "law did beforehand teach mankind the necessity of following Christ," so does Christ teach. And Christ enjoined his followers to love "God the Father . . . who was proclaimed by the law from the beginning." iv.12[5] Jesus "taught that they should obey the commandments which God enjoined from the beginning . . . and follow after Christ." Thus, for St. Irenaeus, Christ's teaching, while not contrary to the law of Moses, is an appeal to the law, to the commandments "from the beginning." The "Lord did not abrogate the natural [precepts] of the law, by which man is justified, which also those who were justified by faith, and who pleased God, did observe previous to the giving of the [Mosaic] law, but that He extended and fulfilled them . . . ." iv.13[1] This is clear from Christ's insistence that one go beyond the letter of the commandments, beyond the mere prohibition of adultery, of murder, of false oaths, to banish the more basic underlying lust, anger, and deceit and guile in words. Jesus' teachings in this regard "do not contain or imply an opposition to and an overturning of the [precepts] of the past . . . ." iv.13[1]. In his teaching with respect to the Decalogue, Christ has done two things. "In the first place, [we must] believe not only in the Father, but also in the Son now revealed . . . . In the next place, [we must] not only say, but we must do . . . and [we must] not only abstain from evil deeds, but even from the desires after them." iv.13[1].

Now He did not teach us these things as being opposed to the law, but as fulfilling the law, and implanting in us the varied righteousness of the law. That would have been contrary to the law, if He had commanded His disciples to do anything which the law had prohibited. But this which He did command--namely, not only to abstain from things forbidden by the law, but even from longing after them--is not contrary to [the law], as I have remarked, neither is it the utterance of one destroying the law, but of one fulfilling, extending, and affording greater scope to it.

iv.13[1]. With respect to the Mosaic law, then, Christ sought to free the Jew whose relationship to the Father was in the form of slavery or bondage, to a relationship of freedom or adoption into sonship:

For the law, since it was laid down for those in bondage, used to instruct the soul by means of those corporeal objects which were of an external nature, drawing it, as by a bond, to obey its commandments, that man might learn to served God. But the Word set free the soul, and taught that through the body should be willingly purified. Which having been accomplished, it followed as of course, that the bonds of slavery should be removed, to which man had now become accustomed, and that he should follow God without fetters: moreover, that the laws of liberty should be extended, and subjection to the king increased, so that no one who is converted should appear unworthy to Him who set him free, but that the piety and obedience due to the Master of the household should be equally rendered both by servants and children; while the children possess greater confidence [than the servants], inasmuch as the working of liberty is greater and more glorious than that obedience which render in [a state of] slavery.

iv.13[2]. Therefore, both the natural law and the Mosaic law "have received growth and completion" in the followers of Christ.

Inasmuch, then, as all natural precepts are common to us and to them (the Jews), they had in them indeed the beginning and origin; but in us they have received growth and completion. For to yield assent to God, and to follow His Word, and to love Him above all, and one's neighbor as one's self (now man is neighbor to man), and to abstain from every evil deed, and all other things of a like nature which are common to both [covenants? (per trans.) or rather to both Jew and Gentile?], do reveal one and the same God.

iv.13[4] Jesus revealed himself, then, to be the God who "certainly drew slaves to God," that is the Jews whom he appointed "that bondage with respect to God through the law," as well as the God who certainly drew friends, such as Abraham, who followed the Lord "voluntarily and under no compulsion, because of the noble nature of his faith." iv.13[4] This distinction between the patriarch Abraham and the lawgiver Moses leads St. Ireneaus to pay more attention to the historical relationship of God with mankind, beginning with Adam. And from Adam, he turns his attention to the new Adam, Christ. But these matters will be reserved for the next blog posting.

Icon of St. Irenaeus in Posture of Blessing

*Reference to Guevin is to Benedict Guevin, O.S.B., "The Natural Law in Irenaeus of Lyon's Adversus Haereses: A Metaphysical or Soteriological Reality?, XXXVI Studia Patristica (Leuven: Peters 2001), 222-25, and Fuchs is to Joseph Fuchs, S.J., Natural Law: A Theological Approach.

Tertullian and the Natural Law: Christ not Chrysippus

NEQUE DEUS NEQUE NATURA MENTITUR, neither God nor nature lie. In this striking statement found in his De testimonium animae, Tertullian brings together both strands of the natural law and the divine law as components of our striving to comprehend the truth about what is, and what is good. Tertullian's theology was therefore informed by both nature and revelation. While he accepted the Christian revelation without reserve, he did not for all that disdain the testimony of natural theology and a natural moral law. Much of Tertullian's notion of a natural moral law was borrowed from the Stoic philosophy which Christians found so hospitable to their concept of the good. The notion of the natural moral law was complimentary, indeed, a necessary adjunct to, the Law of Christ. And yet in crafting their ideas of the natural moral law, the early Christians, including Tertullian, were not slavish, uncritical adopters of the Stoic moral philosophy. Tertullian was a follower of Christ, not of Chrysippus.

In light of Christ's abrogation of some of the Mosaic ceremonial and juridical laws, and under the divine commission to bring the Gospel to all men, Jew and Greek, the Christians sought to found their moral thinking upon those aspects of the divine law that remained binding, e.g., the Decalogue, and the law that was communicated by the natural moral law, that is, by reason and by conscience. Christ's redeeming death overcame the mankind's failure to obey both the Mosaic Law and the Natural Law. Christ was the end, the fulfillment, the telos of both the Mosaic Law and the Natural Law.

In deriving their synthetic position on universal morality, i.e., the existence of a natural moral law that bound all men, that governed their relationship with God, and by which they would be judged, the Christians both borrowed and added to the Stoic and Jewish concepts, and therefore enlarged both. "Broadly speaking," Michael Crowe states in his The Changing Profile of the Natural Law, "the Fathers seem to have been content with a conception of the natural law similar to that of Cicero. This conception was, of course, now put into a Christian setting; the impersonal deity or nature of the Stoics gives way to the Christian God, sovereign lord and lawgiver; and the knowledge of the the natural law and its precepts becomes more intimately a matter of conscience." (Crowe, at 59.) Tertullian followed this pattern. As Professor Marcia Colish puts it in her historical review of Stoicism:

By natural law, [Tertullian] means both the order of the universe and the moral bonds that unit all men, as well as man's natural capacity to know them, a distinctively Stoic amalgam although he does not name it as such. All men can know God and the good by natural law (naturale iuri), he avers, but this knowledge is by no means adequate to man's needs. It does not constitute the saving knowledge of god's ethical commandments or of God's transcendent power over nature, nor does it create a personal relationship between man and God. These vital epistemological and moral conditions are met only be revelation, first in the Mosaic covenant and consummately in the Gospel. In this instance, Tertullian rigorously deemphasizes any harmony that can be found between pagan truth and Christian truth in the light of the superiority of revelation.

Marcia L. Colish, The Stoic Tradition from Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1985), 16-17.

Mosaic Depiction of Tertullian

Though therefore not an uncritical advocate of Stoic ideas, and though clearly not seeing the Stoic conception of the good sufficient in the light of Christ, Tertullian readily employs Stoic philosophy, especially in the areas of natural theology and the natural moral law. "He draws freely on the Stoic argument for the existence of God and His primary attributes on the evidence of the created order and on the basis of man's natural rational capacity to perceive God's connection with the creation." Colish, 17. Tertullian naturally "correlates man's natural knowledge of God with revelation, observing that God provides a fuller and more authoritative knowledge of Himself and His moral law in Holy Scripture." Colish, 18. One can summarize Tertullian's treatment of Stoicism thus: Tertullian treats Stoicism "as an ancilla [ancillary or sevant] to Christian truth." Colish, 18. Obedience to the natural law is a necessary, but not sufficient condition of salvation. The natural law formula alone is insufficient. But though the revelation of Christ must be joined thereto, the natural moral law is not therefore without essential value.

Tertullian saw the universal basis of the natural law in God's creation, and in the natural brotherhood of man that arose from mankind's common nature. In Chapter II.4-5 of his Spectaculis, Tertullian found that our nature bespoke of its creation by a benevolent God, and so was the source of universal moral instruction. Tertullian found that belief nearly universal, indeed, almost self-evident, although subject to limitations arising from ignorance or lack of clarity:

No one denies, because no one is ignorant of, that which nature of herself suggests: that God is the maker of the whole universe, and that that universe is both good and placed under man's dominion. But because they [the Pagans] know not God thoroughly, except by the natural law (naturali iure), not as being also of his household, but from afar, not close by, they necessarily must be ignorant regarding the manner in which he administers what he made, that is, what he encouraged and what he prohibited with regard to them, as well as the rival force from the opposing side which acts in adulterating the uses of the creatures of God. For they cannot know either the will, or that which resists the will, of him of whom they know nothing.

Nemo negat, quia nemo ignorat, quod ultro natura suggerit, deum esse universitatis conditorem eamque universitatem tam bonam quam homini mancipatam. Sed quia non penitus deum norunt nisi naturali iure, non etiam familiari, de longinquo, non de proximo, necesse est ignorent, qualiter administrari aut iubeat aut prohibeat quae instituit, simul quae vis sit aemula ex adverso adulterandis usibus divinae conditionis, quia neque voluntatem neque adversarium noveris eius quem minus noveris.

De spect., II.4-5. The natural law, therefore, found its source in the creation of the universe. This included man's nature, something that all men shared. So it was the common brotherhood of man, man created by the one God, that allowed for a common or universal notion of right and wrong, a univeral natural moral law. For example, in Chapter 39 of this Apologeticus pro Christianis, Tertullian dedected the natural law in the common humanity Christians shared with all men:

But we are also your brothers, by right of nature, the one mother, although you are little deserving of the name men, because you are evil brothers. But how much more worthily are those both called and considered brethren who have recognised one Father, namely God, who have imbibed one spirit of holiness, who from one womb of the same ignorance have quaked before one light of truth! (Souter, trans.)

Sed et quod fratres nos vocamus, non alias, opinor, insaniunt, quam quod apud ipsos omne sanguinis nomen de affectione simulatum est. Fratres autem etiam vestri sumus iure naturae matris unius, etsi vos parum homines, quia mali fratres. At quanto dignius fratres et dicuntur et habentur, qui unum patrem deum agnoverint, qui unum spiritum biberint sanctitatis, qui de uno utero ignorantiae eiusdem ad unam lucem expaverint veritatis!

Apol., XXXIX.8-9.

16th Century Woodcut of Tertullian