The earliest divisions of the Decalogue are those of Josephus (_Ant. Jud._, lib. iii. c. v. s. 5.), the Chaldee Paraphrase of Jonathan, and _Philo-Judæus de Decem Oraculis_. According to the two former, the 3rd verse of Exod. xx., "Thou shalt have no other gods but me," contains the first commandment, the 4th, 5th, and 6th, the second. Philo makes the Preface or Introduction to be a distinct commandment, as do also St. Jerome and Hesychius. The two latter make what we call the first and second to be the second only; but Philo does not recite the words "Thou shalt have no other gods but me;" and whether he understood them in the first or the second, does not hence appear. The same uncertainty is found in Athanasius in _Synopsi S. Scripturæ_. It may however be inferred, from these two writers giving the commencement only of the other commandments, that they made the prohibition, "Thou shalt not make," &c., in the same manner the commencement of the second; and therefore joined the other, "Thou shalt have," &c., to the words "I am the Lord thy God." Those which we call the first and second were united by St. Augustine. The distinction made by Josephus and the Chaldee Paraphrast, separating the two prohibitions, was adopted by the following early writers: Origen (Hom. viii. in Exod.); Greg. Nazianzen (_Carmina, Mosis Decalogus_) Irenæus (lib. ii. c. xlii.); Ambrose (in _Ep. ad Ephes._ c. vi.). The Jews divide the Decalogue thus: 1. I am.... 2. Thou shalt not have.... 3. Thou shalt not take.... But in the field of speculation, the Jews have followed a variety of systems for dissecting the Decalogue, as may be seen in Abarvanel in the Pericope "Jethro," and in Voisin's _Prooemium ad Martini Pugionem Fidei_. The following authors may be consulted on the arguments which have been adduced to support their respective divisions by the Church of Rome and the Lutherans on the one side, and the Reformers or Calvinists and the Church of England on the other. 1. Church of Rome.--Gother's _Papist Misrepresented_; Godden's _Catholics No Idolaters_; _Gotti Vera Ecclesia Christi_. 2. Lutherans.--_Salmuthi Theses_; _Winckelmanni Dissertatio, &c._; _Crameri de distinguendo decalogo, &c._; _Franzii Disputatio_; _Weimari Demonstratio_; _Opitii Dissertatio de usu accentuationis geminæ in genuina divisione decalogi_; _Dasdorfii Dissertatio de decalogo, ex fundamento accentuum examinato_; _Hackspanii Notæ Philologicæ in varia loca S. Scripturæ_; _Pfeifferi Opera_ (_cent._ 1.). 3. Reformers.--_Sam. Bohlii vera divisio decalogi ex infallibili principio accentuationis._ In reference to this argument, which is used by both parties, I have been favoured with the following remarks by a learned professor of languages, of the Jewish faith: