Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

[Resp. The Mosaic religion consisted of the same essential elements as the primitive religion, those elements neither suppressed nor fundamentally changed, but only amplified. Hence the Israelite people, politically constituted by God himself, was a continuation of the primitive Church and a preparation for the Church instituted by Christ.

Although the Mosaic Church consisted of the same elements as the primitive Church, a great difference between the two must be noted with regard to its external constitution. For the primitive Church coalesced from all those men who, preserving the oral tradition, awaited the redeemer to come, promised by God immediately after the ruin of the human race, and worshipped the true God in the manner of their fathers. The Church at that time was therefore dispersed among various nations, bound and united solely by the bond of religion. But the Mosaic Church was divinely constituted not only religiously but also politically, so that the Israelite nation, distinct and wholly separated from the other nations, might truly be the people of God, in whom the divine promise was preserved, through whom the redemption of mankind was prepared, and from whom, at the appointed time, the universal Savior would arise, of whom dying Jacob prophesied, Gen., XLIX, 10, that he would be the expectation of the nations.

This election and separation is affirmed by God himself. For he says, Exod., XIX, 5 : If therefore you will hear my voice, and keep my covenant, you shall be my peculiar possession above all peoples; for all the earth is mine. Deuter., VII, 6 : Because you are a holy people to the Lord your God, the Lord your God has chosen you, that you may be his peculiar people of all the peoples who are upon the earth. Lest this people be mingled with others and confused with them, by the Lord's command all the neighboring nations were to be treated as enemies, and the Israelites are forbidden to contract marriages with them, ibid., VII, 3.

That God might perfectly attain his highest end, he gave his people a purely theocratic government, ruling it monarchically even in civil matters through ministers deputed by himself, so that he reserved to himself the exercise of royal authority. The Lord therefore directly chose the leaders of his people, Moses, Josue, etc. When afterwards the people demanded a king and God granted their petition, he designated to Samuel whom he should anoint: Saul first, then David, from whose family the scepter shall not be taken away..., until he come who is to be sent, Gen., XLIX, 10. Since legislative power is an essential attribute of monarchical authority, God himself ordered the administration of temporal affairs through manifold decrees recorded in the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, whose observance he prescribed in these words, Deuter., IV, 1 et 2 : And now, O Israel, hear the commandments and judgments which I teach you; that doing them, you may live... You shall not add to the word which I speak to you, neither shall you take away from it. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you. Graver causes were referred to the divine judgment and settled by God answering, Num., XXVII, 4. He presided over military affairs, as is evident from the column of fire directing the army in the desert, and from the many battles which were undertaken only at the Lord's command. By all this and much else it is shown that God kept the government of his people to himself, even in matters profane by their nature, lest the danger arise that anything should be decreed by a human lawgiver repugnant to the special vocation of this nation.

If it seemed expedient to God that inferior matters be so provided for by himself, much more did he have to order spiritual things, by which he had decreed to procure his glory and the salvation of the human race. Moreover, three things were necessary for obtaining this twofold end, as was said in the preceding article, namely dogmas, moral precepts and divine worship. In these, therefore, divine authority intervened positively.

1° The dogmas revealed from the origin of the world were never changed, but day by day illustrated with a clearer light, as happens before our eyes in these last days in the Catholic Church. So it came about while the Mosaic law was in force. The promise of the redeemer to come is often renewed. Prophets are raised up by God who, illumined by his Spirit, announce the Messiah in repeated oracles. He is the one who is to be sent, and he will be the expectation of the nations, Gen., XLIX, 10. He is the one whom the Lord designated to Moses, saying, Deuter., XVIII, 18 : I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like unto you, and will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. He is the one whose history David, Isaias, Jeremias, Zacharias and the other prophets wove together, so that their writings were rightly and justly called the anticipated Gospel, and Philip could say to Nathanael, Ioann., I, 45 : Whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write, we have found Jesus, the son of Joseph of Nazareth. That his coming may be most certainly established, the number of years is precisely determined through Daniel, whose prophecy will be examined in the treatise de Incarnatione, after which Christ the leader will appear and be put to death, Dan., IX, 24-27. The Apostle recalls this prophetic preparation, saying, Hebr., I, 1 : At sundry times and in divers ways formerly God speaking to the fathers in the prophets, last of all in these days has spoken to us in the Son, whom he appointed heir of all things.

Christ was foretold besides, either through those men whom God raised up to snatch his people from frequently imminent dangers, such as Moses, Josue, Gedeon and others, or through symbolic things which foreshadowed him, among which the sacrifices taken generally hold the chief place, together with the paschal lamb and the other sacraments. And thus, as the Apostle says, 1 Cor., X, 11, all these things happened to them in figure.

To the future divine incarnation all the dogmatic truths enunciated in the preceding article were referred, or proceeded from it.

2° The moral law given originally to man likewise underwent no change, as regards its essentials, nor could it undergo one. But because it had to be observed most perfectly by the chosen people, God solemnly promulgated it, with terrifying pomp, on Mount Sinai, through his angel, and handed it over to Moses engraved on two stone tablets, adding, as has already been said, the precept on the sanctification of the sabbath, Exod., XX. And because the Israelites were already stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, Act., VII, 51, Moses afterwards again proclaimed the decalogue before the people, Deuter., V. All the things God further commanded, whether for establishing the political regime or for ordering public worship, pertained accessory to the same law, because the supreme Lord spoke, to whom obedience and adoration are owed; and the ritual precepts were nothing but the practical rule by which the observance of the first mandate was determined. And in all these things Christ was announced, of whom Isaias prophesies, XXIII, 22 : The Lord our judge, the Lord our lawgiver, the Lord our king: he himself will save us;¹ who said of himself, Matth., V, 17 : Do not think that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

3° Because the Israelite people had already been politically constituted, public worship had to be instituted; for honor must be shown to God not only by the private individual, but also by society taken collectively, especially since a nation was divinely elected to prepare the way for the Messiah, about to come in order to establish among men the most perfect religion, he who would himself say, Ioann., IV, 23 : The hour cometh, and now is, when true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth.

Moreover, public worship could not be ordered unless an authentic public priesthood were first instituted, whose functions would be committed to certain persons. Therefore, when the tabernacle, which was a portable temple, had been constituted in form and arrangement at the Lord's command through Moses speaking, together with everything that looked to the sacrifices and the other sacred ceremonies, Exod. and Levit., Aaron is consecrated pontiff according to the rite prescribed by God, and his sons as priests, Levit., VI. This election is confirmed by the miracle of the rod of Aaron flowering and bearing fruit, by which sign the tribe of Levi is singularly assigned to the divine worship, the others being excluded, Num., XVII et XVIII. Where it must be observed that, although Moses had been placed by God over the governing of the people, it was not therefore lawful for him to assume the priesthood ; for he is told only, Exod., XVIII, 19 et 20 : Be you to the people in those things that pertain to God, that you may bring back to him what is said, and show the people the ceremonies and the rite of worship; but Aaron and his sons, and their successors, are commanded to observe all the ritual laws given by the Lord with perpetual cult and rite throughout their generations, Levit., XXIV, 3. But because this priesthood, these sacrifices and all the rites were thus divinely established as figurative, and foretold him who was made pontiff forever, Hebr., VI, 20, and his immolation, and the perfect worship ordered by him in the Church with which he promised he would remain until the consummation of the age, Matth., XXVIII, 20, it was foretold through Daniel that all these things would endure until Christ the leader, by whose death the city and the sanctuary would be laid waste, and the people destroyed together with the leader to come;... and the victim and the sacrifice shall fail, and there shall be in the temple the abomination of desolation, and the desolation shall continue even to the consummation and the end, Dan., IX, 26-27.

If at least one sacrament was given to man in innocence, it was no less, indeed more, fitting or necessary that certain sacraments be instituted after sin. Having set forth the reasons which demonstrate the moral necessity of the sacraments (3 p., q. 61, a. 1, c.), the Angelic Doctor says, a. 3, c. : « Sacraments are necessary for man's salvation, inasmuch as they are certain sensible signs of invisible things by which man is sanctified. Now no one can be sanctified after sin except through Christ, whom God proposed as a propitiator through faith in his blood, to the showing forth of his justice, that he may himself be just and the sanctifier of him who is of the faith of Jesus Christ, Rom., III, 24-26. And therefore there had to be before the coming of Christ certain visible signs by which man would profess his faith concerning the future coming of the Savior; and signs of this kind are called sacraments. And thus it is clear that before the coming of Christ it was necessary that certain sacraments be instituted. »

But what were these sacraments ? The first place is held by circumcision, which was given to Abraham as a sign of the covenant between God and his initiated people, Gen., XVII, 12 et 13, just as baptism is now the indelible sign of the covenant by which the Christian people is united to God through the redeemer Jesus.

Since the other sacraments were necessary for stirring up and preserving faith in Christ to come, there follow next the sacrifices, which foreshadowed the unique sacrifice of the new law, by which Christ offered himself for the salvation of the world on the altar of the cross, and is immolated unbloody daily in the sacrifice of the Mass. The same was foretold by the slaughter of the paschal lamb, whose eating besides prefigured Eucharistic communion. The manna, which the children of Israel ate for forty years, until they came into the land of habitation, and of which, by the command of God, one measure called a gomer was kept for future generations, Exod., XVI, 32-35, was a sign of the Eucharistic sacrament, as Christ himself testified, Ioann., VI, 49-52 : Your fathers did eat manna in the desert, and are dead. This is the bread descending from heaven, that if any man eat of it, he may not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world. Many other things could be recounted among the sacraments, and it must be said that all the things done then in honor of God, and the Israelite nation itself, were sacraments of those which exist now, the Apostle saying, Galat., II, 16 et 17, that festival days, or new moons, or sabbaths were shadows of things to come, just as the Church present is the shadow of the Church triumphant in heaven.²

These ancient sacraments were shadows of the sacraments instituted by Christ himself, not only because, these arriving, they had to vanish away, but also because, since they did not contain inherent grace, they could not sanctify men except by the worth of the one working (ex opere operantis). Hence Paul calls them, Galat., IV, 9, weak and needy elements, which it is not permitted to serve again. And Augustine says, book XIX contra Faustum, chap. 13 : « The first sacraments which were observed and celebrated under the Law were foretellings of the Christ to come : which when Christ had fulfilled by his coming, they were taken away, and therefore taken away, because fulfilled; for he did not come to dissolve the Law, but to fulfill it. And others were instituted, greater in power, better in usefulness, easier in act, fewer in number, as though the justice of faith having been revealed, and the sons of God called to liberty, the yoke of servitude being removed which befitted a hardened people given over to the flesh. »

To public worship are likewise referred the feast days to be celebrated solemnly, among which the chief are Pascha, Pentecost and the feast of Tabernacles, on which the best-known events were recalled and the mysteries of the New Testament announced in figure.

With everything briefly described by which the Israelite nation, elected as the peculiar people of God, was religiously constituted not only in spirituals but also in civils and politicals, and which personated and announced Christ the redeemer to come, it is clear that this people was truly the Christian Church, whereby the way was paved for the Church instituted by Christ himself and destined to last until the consummation of the age.