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Objection 1: It would seem that since Christ's Passion the legal
ceremonies can be observed without committing mortal sin. For we must
not believe that the apostles committed mortal sin after receiving the
Holy Ghost: since by His fulness they were "endued with power from
on high" (Lk. 24:49). But the apostles observed the legal
ceremonies after the coming of the Holy Ghost: for it is stated
(Acts 16:3) that Paul circumcised Timothy: and (Acts
21:26) that Paul, at the advice of James, "took the men, and
. . . being purified with them, entered into the temple, giving
notice of the accomplishment of the days of purification, until an
oblation should be offered for every one of them." Therefore the
legal ceremonies can be observed since the Passion of Christ without
mortal sin.
Objection 2: Further, one of the legal ceremonies consisted in
shunning the fellowship of Gentiles. But the first Pastor of the
Church complied with this observance; for it is stated (Gal.
2:12) that, "when" certain men "had come" to Antioch, Peter
"withdrew and separated himself" from the Gentiles. Therefore the
legal ceremonies can be observed since Christ's Passion without
committing mortal sin.
Objection 3: Further, the commands of the apostles did not lead men
into sin. But it was commanded by apostolic decree that the Gentiles
should observe certain ceremonies of the Law: for it is written
(Acts 15:28,29): "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost
and to us, to lay no further burden upon you than these necessary
things: that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from
blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication." Therefore
the legal ceremonies can be observed since Christ's Passion without
committing mortal sin.
On the contrary, The Apostle says (Gal. 5:2): "If you be
circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." But nothing save
mortal sin hinders us from receiving Christ's fruit. Therefore since
Christ's Passion it is a mortal sin to be circumcised, or to observe
the other legal ceremonies.
I answer that, All ceremonies are professions of faith, in which the
interior worship of God consists. Now man can make profession of his
inward faith, by deeds as well as by words: and in either profession,
if he make a false declaration, he sins mortally. Now, though our
faith in Christ is the same as that of the fathers of old; yet, since
they came before Christ, whereas we come after Him, the same faith
is expressed in different words, by us and by them. For by them was
it said: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son," where the
verbs are in the future tense: whereas we express the same by means of
verbs in the past tense, and say that she "conceived and bore." In
like manner the ceremonies of the Old Law betokened Christ as having
yet to be born and to suffer: whereas our sacraments signify Him as
already born and having suffered. Consequently, just as it would be a
mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say
that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old said devoutly
and truthfully; so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those
ceremonies which the fathers of old fulfilled with devotion and
fidelity. Such is the teaching Augustine (Contra Faust. xix,
16), who says: "It is no longer promised that He shall be born,
shall suffer and rise again, truths of which their sacraments were a
kind of image: but it is declared that He is already born, has
suffered and risen again; of which our sacraments, in which
Christians share, are the actual representation."
Reply to Objection 1: On this point there seems to have been a
difference of opinion between Jerome and Augustine. For Jerome
(Super Galat. ii, 11, seqq.) distinguished two periods of
time. One was the time previous to Christ's Passion, during which
the legal ceremonies were neither dead, since they were obligatory,
and did expiate in their own fashion; nor deadly, because it was not
sinful to observe them. But immediately after Christ's Passion they
began to be not only dead, so as no longer to be either effectual or
binding; but also deadly, so that whoever observed them was guilty of
mortal sin. Hence he maintained that after the Passion the apostles
never observed the legal ceremonies in real earnest; but only by a kind
of pious pretense, lest, to wit, they should scandalize the Jews and
hinder their conversion. This pretense, however, is to be
understood, not as though they did not in reality perform those
actions, but in the sense that they performed them without the mind to
observe the ceremonies of the Law: thus a man might cut away his
foreskin for health's sake, not with the intention of observing legal
circumcision.
But since it seems unbecoming that the apostles, in order to avoid
scandal, should have hidden things pertaining to the truth of life and
doctrine, and that they should have made use of pretense, in things
pertaining to the salvation of the faithful; therefore Augustine
(Epist. lxxxii) more fittingly distinguished three periods of time.
One was the time that preceded the Passion of Christ, during which
the legal ceremonies were neither deadly nor dead: another period was
after the publication of the Gospel, during which the legal ceremonies
are both dead and deadly. The third is a middle period, viz. from
the Passion of Christ until the publication of the Gospel, during
which the legal ceremonies were dead indeed, because they had neither
effect nor binding force; but were not deadly, because it was lawful
for the Jewish converts to Christianity to observe them, provided
they did not put their trust in them so as to hold them to be necessary
unto salvation, as though faith in Christ could not justify without
the legal observances. On the other hand, there was no reason why
those who were converted from heathendom to Christianity should observe
them. Hence Paul circumcised Timothy, who was born of a Jewish
mother; but was unwilling to circumcise Titus, who was of heathen
nationality.
The reason why the Holy Ghost did not wish the converted Jews to be
debarred at once from observing the legal ceremonies, while converted
heathens were forbidden to observe the rites of heathendom, was in
order to show that there is a difference between these rites. For
heathenish ceremonial was rejected as absolutely unlawful, and as
prohibited by God for all time; whereas the legal ceremonial ceased as
being fulfilled through Christ's Passion, being instituted by God
as a figure of Christ.
Reply to Objection 2: According to Jerome, Peter withdrew
himself from the Gentiles by pretense, in order to avoid giving
scandal to the Jews, of whom he was the Apostle. Hence he did not
sin at all in acting thus. On the other hand, Paul in like manner
made a pretense of blaming him, in order to avoid scandalizing the
Gentiles, whose Apostle he was. But Augustine disapproves of this
solution: because in the canonical Scripture (viz. Gal.
2:11), wherein we must not hold anything to be false, Paul says
that Peter "was to be blamed." Consequently it is true that Peter
was at fault: and Paul blamed him in very truth and not with
pretense. Peter, however, did not sin, by observing the legal
ceremonial for the time being; because this was lawful for him who was
a converted Jew. But he did sin by excessive minuteness in the
observance of the legal rites lest he should scandalize the Jews, the
result being that he gave scandal to the Gentiles.
Reply to Objection 3: Some have held that this prohibition of the
apostles is not to be taken literally, but spiritually: namely, that
the prohibition of blood signifies the prohibition of murder; the
prohibition of things strangled, that of violence and rapine; the
prohibition of things offered to idols, that of idolatry; while
fornication is forbidden as being evil in itself: which opinion they
gathered from certain glosses, which expound these prohibitions in a
mystical sense. Since, however, murder and rapine were held to be
unlawful even by the Gentiles, there would have been no need to give
this special commandment to those who were converted to Christ from
heathendom. Hence others maintain that those foods were forbidden
literally, not to prevent the observance of legal ceremonies, but in
order to prevent gluttony. Thus Jerome says on Ezech. 44:31
("The priest shall not eat of anything that is dead"): "He
condemns those priests who from gluttony did not keep these precepts."
But since certain foods are more delicate than these and more conducive
to gluttony, there seems no reason why these should have been forbidden
more than the others.
We must therefore follow the third opinion, and hold that these foods
were forbidden literally, not with the purpose of enforcing compliance
with the legal ceremonies, but in order to further the union of
Gentiles and Jews living side by side. Because blood and things
strangled were loathsome to the Jews by ancient custom; while the
Jews might have suspected the Gentiles of relapse into idolatry if the
latter had partaken of things offered to idols. Hence these things
were prohibited for the time being, during which the Gentiles and
Jews were to become united together. But as time went on, with the
lapse of the cause, the effect lapsed also, when the truth of the
Gospel teaching was divulged, wherein Our Lord taught that "not
that which entereth into the mouth defileth a man" (Mt.
15:11); and that "nothing is to be rejected that is received
with thanksgiving" (1 Tim. 4:4). With regard to fornication a
special prohibition was made, because the Gentiles did not hold it to
be sinful.
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