Whether Since Christ's Passion the Legal Ceremonies Can Be Observed
Without Committing Mortal Sin?
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" (Luke 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.
Obj. 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.
Obj. 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 of 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 Obj. 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 Obj. 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 Obj. 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" (Matt. 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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