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1 The quotation is originally Tertullian’s (“Quid ergo Athenis et Hierosolymis?”); cf. De praescriptione haereticorum, c. 7. 2 For a good, short introduction to the classical roots of the natural law tradition, see J. Rufus Fears, “Natural Law: The Legacy of Greece and Rome,” in Common Truths: New Perspectives of Natural Law, ed. E. B. McLean (Wilmington, Del.: ISI Books, 2000), 19-56. 3 The best-known Christian critic of the natural law tradition from a religious-biblical perspective in the past century was undoubtedly the Protestant theologian Karl Barth. See esp. his Church Dogmatics, 2:2 (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark, 1957). Among contemporary thinkers, the most influential is perhaps Stanley Hauerwas; see esp. his The Peaceable Kingdom: A Primer in Christian Ethics (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1983), esp. 50-71. There has traditionally been suspicion of the natural law tradition among Jewish rabbinic scholars as well. For testimony to this fact and for a good defense of the natural law tradition from the Jewish perspective, see David Novak, Natural Law in Judaism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). And for an excellent defense of the notion that the natural law occurs within the Old Testament itself, see John Barton, Ethics and the Old Testament (Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press, 1998), esp. chap. 4, “Divine Commands or Natural Law?” and ch. 5, “Why Should We Be Moral?,” 58-97. 95 The Thomist 75 (2011): 95-139 WHAT THE OLD LAW REVEALS ABOUT THE NATURAL LAW ACCORDING TO THOMAS AQUINAS RANDALL SMITH University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas W HAT DOES THE OLD LAW have to tell us about the natural law? For some, this question is tantamount to asking, “What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?”1 since it seems clear that the natural law is a category drawn from Greek, particularly Stoic, philosophy,2 while the Old Law refers the Mosaic Law of the Old Testament Hebrew people. If Athens represents the natural law and Jerusalem the Old Law, then what do they have to do with one another? For some, the answer would clearly be “nothing.”3 For Thomas Aquinas, however, as I hope to show, they have quite a lot to do with one another. Indeed, the goal of this article is to reveal how material in Thomas’s discussion RANDALL SMITH 96 4 R. A. Armstrong, Primary and Secondary Precepts in Thomistic Natural Law Teaching (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1966), esp. 2-5. Martin Rhonheimer says of this work that it is still “the standard work” on the precepts of the natural law, adding: “This very circumspect and comprehensive study has not won the attention it deserves from many scholars of St. Thomas” (Martin Rhonheimer, Natural Law and Practical Reason: A Thomist View of Moral Autonomy, trans. Gerald Malsbary [New York: Fordham University Press, 2000], 292 n. 24. of the Old Law can help us to adjudicate and resolve a number of centuries-old debates about the precepts of the natural law. I. THE DEBATE CONCERNING THE PRIMARY AND SECONDARY PRECEPTS OF THE NATURAL LAW The debate over the precepts of the natural law has raged for many centuries, with no signs of abating. Although the precepts of the natural law are supposed to be “naturally known” to all persons, fundamental differences remain between the commentators over such basic matters as whether the natural law consists in a few, basic precepts, or whether it includes a complex series of commandments; whether it is invariable in all cases for all persons, or whether its commands must be tempered by prudence. Indeed, so many and so varied are the positions that we will need an effective way of sorting through them all. To this end, I propose making use of a schema first suggested by R. J. Armstrong in The Primary and Secondary Precepts in Thomistic Natural Law Teaching.4 Armstrong notes that there are four seminal factors in the debate over the precepts of the natural law: the generality or specificity of the precepts, and their variability or invariability. Given these four, we can generate eight possible positions regarding the precepts of the natural law. The natural law might consist of: 1...

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