Article IV: On the Causality of the Sacraments of the Old Law

St. Thomas III, q. 62, a. 6.

53. Thesis I. The sacraments of the Old Law did not properly cause grace. - This is certain.

It is proved: 1. From the Scriptures. The Apostle calls them weak and needy elements (Gal. IV, 9): weak, because they could not cleanse from sin; needy, because in themselves they did not contain grace; - they effected only legal sanctity, the cleansing of the flesh, and never had power to cleanse conscience and make the one serving perfect (Heb. IX, 10-13); - wherefore justification in the Old Testament was given by the power of faith, but never by the power of law, that is, by the power of the works, observances, sacraments of the law (Rom. III, 28), among which is circumcision itself (IV, 9). Whence the law was reproved because of its weakness and uselessness (Heb. VII, 18).

2. From Tradition: The Fathers teach the difference between the sacraments of the Old and New Law, as Augustine, on Psalm 73, n. 2: "If we distinguish the two Testaments, the Old and the New, the sacraments are not the same: the sacraments of the New Law give salvation; the sacraments of the Old Law announce the Savior beforehand." The Council of Florence afterward declared this difference, in the decree for the Armenians: "those did not cause grace, but only figured that it was to be given through the passion of Christ"; but Trent defines it, sess. 7, can. 2, nevertheless not formally establishing in what precisely it consists.

3. From reason: Under the Old Law the price of our grace, which was the passion of Christ, had not yet been paid. But with the price not yet paid, the sacraments could not have in themselves power derived from the passion of Christ, but were only signs of the future passion, and like a written pledge displaying the promise of the merits of Christ. Therefore they were signs of grace, not causes.

54. Thesis II. In certain sacraments before Christ justification and grace were conferred by God.

It is proved: a) God by an antecedent, sincere, and operative will wills the salvation of all; this will would be understood with difficulty unless He had instituted a remedy or rite by which, before the use of reason, little children would be justified from original sin. Men determined this rite by interior instinct, God holding it ratified; but in the time of Abraham, for males of his race, the sacrament of circumcision was instituted. b) This principle, on the first occasion occurring in the controversy against the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine and the other Fathers after him explicitly proposed. Hence c) for many centuries now this has been admitted by common consent in the School, although some, as St. Bonaventure, said that outside the case of circumcision an external sacrament is not required, but the internal faith of the parents suffices. Whence d) Innocent III, c. Maiores on Baptism, asserts that original guilt was remitted through¹ the mystery of circumcision.

¹ Understand as through a medium, not as through a cause.

But that which has a foundation in the salvific will of God, was explicitly declared by the Holy Fathers, admitted by all theologians, and confirmed by the authority of the Holy See, cannot be denied without temerity. Therefore.

55. Thesis III. In the sacraments of the Old Law grace could be conferred through faith in the future Redeemer, of which faith they were protestative signs. - Christ is the head of the people of the redeemed, whence all are sanctified through His influx, which comes to us through the sacraments. In the New Law Christ can operate through them as an efficient cause, because they were instituted by Him; this He could not do in the Old Law, because an efficient cause cannot be posterior to its effect. Therefore Christ could not influence except by way of final cause, which is foreknown and desired; and therefore the sacraments of the Old Law were only signs prefigurative of the passion and redemption of Christ, and protestative signs of faith and hope in the desired Redeemer and His merits.

And indeed:

1. Adults were aggregated to the people of God and sanctified, by the power of Christ's merits, ex opere operantis, that is, by acts of faith, hope, and charity which they exercised and manifested in the sacraments, and to which these could excite them.

2. Little children, however, through the acts of others applying the sacrament and confessing faith in their name, were aggregated to the faithful people, whose faith was applied to them, so that they were already accounted by God among the faithful. This faith of the people in Christ was the medium by which they were united to the merits of Christ, on account of which God gave grace to them: therefore the sacrament was not a true cause, but a mere condition without which grace was not given to them, and a sign representing the future merits of Christ, on account of which grace was conferred by God. "And therefore," says St. Thomas, ad 3, "in circumcision grace was conferred, insofar as it was a sign of the future passion of Christ." In this sense it is said by some that in circumcision grace is conferred as if ex opere operato, namely, not actively, but passively.