sanguinuous marriages.[1] These, and similar enactments are what God called “my statutes” (חקותי), which, as the Rabbis say are “statutes which I (God) have enacted for thee, which thou hast no right to subject to criticism, which the nations of the world attack and which Satan denounces, as for instance, the statutes concerning the red heifer, the scapegoat, and so forth”.[2] Those transgressions, however, which the later sages called rational laws are termed commandments (מצות), as the Rabbis explained.[3]
It is now evident from all that we have said, what the transgressions are for which, if a man have no desire at all, he is on a higher plane than he who has a longing, but controls his passion for them; and it is also evident what the transgressions are of which the opposite is true. It is an astonishing fact that these two classes of expressions should be shown to be compatible with one another, but their content points to the truth of our explanation.
This ends the discussion of the subject-matter of this chapter.
- ↑ See Rosin, Ethik, p. 94, n. 4.
- ↑ Yoma, 67b: תנו רבנן את משפטי תעשו דברים שאלמלא לא נכתבו דין הוא שיכתבו ואלו הן עבודה זרה וגלוי עריות ושפכות דמים וגזל וברכת השם [ו]את חקתי תשמרו דברים שהשטן משיב עליהן ואלו הן אכילת חזיר ולבישת שעטנז וחליצת יבמה וטהרת מצורע ושעיר המשתלח ושמא תאמר מעשה תהו הם תלמוד לומר אני ה׳ אני ה׳ חקקתיו ואין לך רשות להרהר בהן.
- ↑ Cf. Eth. Nic., V, 10, where the “just” is spoken of as of two kinds, the natural and the conventional, the former corresponding to “commandments” (חקים), and the latter to “statutes” (חקים). The former, says Aristotle, have everywhere the same force, while the latter may be this way or that way indifferently, except after enactment, being, in short, all matters of special decree, such as, for instance, the price of a ransom being fixed at a mina, or sacrificing a goat instead of two sheep, etc.
M. discusses the nature of the commandments in Moreh, III, 26. He makes, as here, a distinction between commandments whose object is generally evident, such as the prohibition of murder, theft, etc., and those whose object is not generally clear, such as the prohibition of wearing garments of wool and linen, boiling milk and meat together, etc. The former he calls judgments (משפטים, termed מצות here), and the latter he designates statutes or ordinances (חקים). See Scheyer, Dalalat al Haiirin, Part III (Frankfurt am Main, 1838), p. 178, n. 2; and Lazurus, Ethics, I, pp. 118—119.
