Third Question: On the Mutability of the Old Law

St. Thomas, I-II, q. 100, a. 8; q. 103, a. 3 and 4; q. 104, a. 3.

312. Principle I. The old law, once the redemption of Christ had been accomplished, ceased, because its end ceased, which is to prepare for Christ and the new law (q. 103, a. 3; Heb. VIII, 13; Col. II, 16; Council of Florence). Nevertheless:

1. its moral precepts, although not on account of the old law, obligate because they are of natural right and because they were again imposed by Christ in the new law; this especially holds of the precepts of the Decalogue, which contain the very conservation of the common good, which is ordination to God (the first three precepts), and the order itself of justice and virtue to be preserved among men (the remaining seven);

1. Nevertheless the determination and application to individual acts can vary because of a change of matter and circumstances, as was said above concerning natural law, n. 258-259.

2. as to ceremonial precepts, the law had to cease when the Redeemer came, because exterior worship must be proportioned to the interior worship which it expresses; but in the Old Law there was faith and hope not only concerning beatitude and heavenly goods, but also concerning the means to it, which are the graces of redemption, as concerning certain future things. Whence, when the Redeemer came, it began to cease, and once redemption had been accomplished, worship lost obligation (as the Apostles decreed in the assembly at Jerusalem, Acts XV, 1-28), which happened in the very death of Christ (Council of Florence, decree for the Jacobites);

3. as to judicial precepts, because they were instituted for disposing the state of the people by which it was ordered to Christ, therefore, once the state of the people had been changed after Christ came, they lost obligation (cf. Acts XV).

313. Principle II. To observe the ceremonial precepts today is gravely evil, because they are false worship (q. 103, a. 4).

It is proved:

A false profession of faith is gravely evil. But all ceremonies are professions of faith, in which the interior worship of God consists, and the ceremonies of the Old Law signified Christ as to be born and to suffer. Therefore, just as he would sin gravely who now said that Christ is to be born, so does he who observes the ceremonies of the Old Law (Gal. V, 2, 4).

But the judicial precepts, because they were instituted not for figuring Christ as to come but only for disposing the state of the people, can be observed, unless per accidens someone from a false opinion wished to impose or observe them as obligatory from the institution of the old law.

314. Principle III. When Christ had died, the old law ceased to obligate (Heb. IX, 16, 17; Eph. II, 15), whence it is called dead (q. 100, a. 4, ad 1).

Nevertheless by the Jews it could be observed for a time without sin, as is clear from the example of the Apostles (Acts X, 14; XVI, 3; XVIII, 18; XXI, 24; I Cor. IX, 20), and from the necessity of observing it for a certain time so that the Jews might more easily be led to Christ: so that the law would cease not immediately and as if violently, but gradually, and worship and morals would be changed, and so that the Synagogue might be buried with honor. But it was not observed insofar as it signified Christ as to come, nor with the persuasion that it was still obligatory (as moreover the Apostles expressly said), but insofar as it prescribed the mode of worshiping God to be fittingly preserved according to the special circumstances of that time, as those circumstances sufficiently indicated. But after the time of the Gospel sufficiently promulgated, every reason for observing it ceased; whence from that moment worship no longer has anything but the false signification of a future redemption, and the law became death-bearing; which seems to have happened at the time of the fall of Jerusalem, at which time the Synagogue was definitively buried. Cf. Council of Florence, decree for the Jacobites, February 4, 1442.