Summa summae S. Thomae, Tomus III

More recent Jews contend not only that the promised Messiah has not yet come, but also that the Mosaic law is so perfect in every respect as to be essentially immutable, and that neither is it to be abrogated by the Messiah himself when he shall appear on earth. Whence they infer that Christ is not the true Messiah whom the people of God was expecting, because he presumed to abolish the ancient law.

Four things are to be distinguished in the Mosaic religion : moral matters, dogmatic matters, judicial matters and ceremonial matters. The moral precepts, which pertain to the natural law, are intrinsically immutable. Only in this sense could they be abrogated, namely that, the old law ceasing, they would no longer bind as a part of this law, but by the force of the natural law, which is adapted to all times and conditions of men. The dogmas by which the existence and nature of God are expressed likewise undergo no change. This part could vanish away only in this respect, that what happened in figure, as the Apostle says, 1 Cor., X, 11, insofar as they foretold the redeemer to come, were made void by his advent. The judicial matters and everything by which the people of God was politically constituted could stand only while the figurative Church lasted, which had to give place to the Church about to be instituted by the Savior and destined to remain until the consummation of the age. The ceremonial matters, which foreshadowed redemption in figure, would not only be vain once redemption was accomplished, but false, as promising as future what is already done. These things premised,

I say : the Mosaic religion or law was to be abrogated. And this is proved from the old law itself.

Proof. 1° from the prophecies which promise a new mediator or lawgiver, and a new covenant : 1° A new lawgiver is announced by Moses himself, when he says, Deuter., XVIII, 15-18 : « A prophet of your own nation and of your fathers will the Lord your God raise up to you like me; him you shall hear... And the Lord said to me : ... I will raise them up a prophet out of the midst of their brethren like unto you : and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. But whoever will not hear his words which he shall speak in my name, I will be the avenger. » After Moses had finished his life, it is said, ibid., XXXIV, 10 : « And there arose no more a prophet in Israel like unto Moses. » Therefore the prophet designated in this place will not appear while the Mosaic law is in force. He will be like unto Moses, not indeed as regards dignity, for Moses was only a figure of this prophet, but as regards the office of lawgiver; which is intimated in the words related above : I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I shall command him. More expressly such a one is afterwards described, Is., XLII, 1-4 : « Behold my servant, I will uphold him... I have given my spirit upon him, he shall bring forth judgment to the gentiles... In truth he shall bring forth judgment,... and the islands shall wait for his law. » — 2° Through the coming lawgiver, God will enter into a new covenant with a new people, the old law vanishing away, since its end will be fulfilled, Ierem. XXXI, 31-33 : « Behold the days come, saith the Lord ; and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Juda, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt ; the covenant which they made void... But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord : I will give my law in their bowels and I will write it in their heart, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. » To this promise the Apostle alludes, II Cor., III, 3, saying that the new law is written, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not on tables of stone, but on the fleshy tables of the heart. Whence, having related the prophecy of Isaias, he concludes the same thing, Hebr., VIII, 13 : « In saying a new thing, he hath made the former old. And that which decayeth and groweth old is near its end. » What clearer could be desired ?

Proof. 2° from the prophecies which concern the calling of the gentiles. From what has been said in the preceding articles it must be concluded that the Israelite nation was not elected by God into a peculiar people except so that the Messias, about to spring from her, might be certainly recognized when he should come, and so that the way might be paved for the Church about to be instituted by him, which had truly to be catholic or universal. It was necessary therefore that the calling of the gentiles be clearly foretold in the ancient Scriptures, and so indeed it was foretold. For already this calling is expressed in the text of Isaias just cited, where it is said that a new covenant is to be entered into by God with the house of Israel. Moreover this house of Israel is the same as the seed of Abraham, which indeed carnally coalesces from the Jewish people, but spiritually embraces all who have imitated the faith of the holy patriarch. For of Abraham it was said, Gen., XVIII, 18 : « All nations shall be blessed in him », and once and again the Lord said to him, ibid., XXII, 18 et XXVI, 4 : « All the nations of the earth shall be blessed in thy seed. » That this promise is to be understood thus is clear from the Apostle testifying to it, Rom., IV, 13 et 16 : « For not by the law was the promise to Abraham, or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world; but through the justice of faith... Therefore it is of faith, that according to grace the promise may be firm to all seed; not to that only which is of the law, but also to that which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all », that is, not of the Jews only, but of those who from the gentiles believe themselves to have been redeemed by Christ. To Christ, who was the expectation of the nations anticipated, this testimony is rendered, Psal. II, 7 et 8 : « The Lord has said to me : You are my son, this day have I begotten you. Ask of me, and I will give you the gentiles for your inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for your possession. » Of the same it is said, Psal. LXXI, 11 : « And all kings of the earth shall adore him, all nations shall serve him. » Isaias cries out announcing him, XLIX, 6 : « Behold I have given you to be the light of the gentiles, that you may be my salvation even to the uttermost part of the earth. » In Osee it is read, II, 24 : « And I will say to that which is not my people : You are my people; and it shall say : You are my God. » The other prophets accord, Ierem., III, 17 ; Soph., II, 11 ; Zach., IX, 9 et 10. Therefore all nations will be gathered spiritually into one people, with Christ as leader. Therefore to the new people a new law will be given, whereby, the promise being fulfilled, all figures will be evacuated. Therefore the Mosaic law, in which all things were contained in figure, necessarily had to be abrogated.

Proof. 3° from the prophecies which foretell a new priesthood, a new sacrifice, the ark forgotten, the everlasting overthrow of the temple; from which follows the abrogation of the ritual or ceremonial law, in which the chief place in the Mosaic constitution was held.

1° The new priesthood. Psal. CIX, 4 : « The Lord hath sworn, and he will not repent : You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchisedech. » Thus the Lord decreed that the Messias would be a priest forever, no longer according to the order of Aaron, but according to the order of Melchisedech king of Salem, who, although a gentile, offered forth bread and wine; for he was priest of the most high God, Gen., XIV, 18 ; of whom the Apostle says, Hebr., VII, 1 et 3, that, since he was priest of the most high God,... but assimilated to the Son of God, he remains a priest forever. By which words the Christian priesthood is signified, whose chief function is mystically to renew and perpetuate, under the species of bread and wine, the bloody sacrifice by which Christ offered and immolated himself upon the altar of the cross. Priests of the new law will be chosen not only from outside the family of Aaron, but even from outside the Israelite people, Isaias saying, LXVI, 19-21 : I will send from among those who have been saved,... and they shall bring all your brethren from all nations for a gift to the Lord,... and I will take some of them for priests and levites, saith the Lord. » Moreover the Aaronic priesthood excelled all institutions among the Jews, and when it fell, the whole law had to fall with it, as Paul teaches, speaking of the future priesthood, Hebr., VII, 11 et 12 : « If then the consummation, that is, the fulfillment of the divine secret concerning the salvation of mankind, was through the levitical priesthood — for under it the people received the law — what further need was there that another priest should rise according to the order of Melchisedech, and not be called according to the order of Aaron? For when the priesthood is translated, it is necessary that a translation of the law also be made. »

2° The new sacrifice. While the Mosaic law was in force, it was lawful for the priests alone, sprung from the stock of Aaron, to offer sacrifices, and in one place only, namely in the temple of Jerusalem, and these sacrifices were of many kinds, each of which in some respect figured specifically some perfection of the future and unique sacrifice to be instituted. Moreover all these were to be abolished when the Messias substituted one perfect sacrifice for the old ones, which is announced in the remarkable prophecy of Malachias, I, 10 : « I have no will in you, saith the Lord of hosts, and I will not receive a gift of your hand. For from the rising of the sun even to the going down my name is great among the gentiles, and in every place there is sacrificed and offered up to my name a clean oblation; because my name is great among the gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts. » But this abolition of the old sacrifices Daniel had already predicted before, IX, 26 et 27 : « And after sixty-two weeks Christ shall be slain, and the people that shall deny him shall not be his. And a people with their leader that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary... And in the half of the week 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. » These things are clearer than light.

3° The ark forgotten. At the command of the Lord, the ark had been fabricated by Beseleel of setim wood, Exod., XXV, 10 ; XXXVII, 1. It is several times called the ark of the testimony, ibid., XXV, 22 and elsewhere,

It was the ark of the testament, ibid., XXX, 26 ; the ark of the covenant, Num., X, 33 ; Iosue, III, 3 and elsewhere. God had said to Moses, Exod., XXV, 16 : « You shall put in the ark the testimony which I will give you. » But what this testimony was appears from this place, Deuter., X, 1 et 2 : « The Lord said to me : Hew yourself two tables of stone like the former ones, and come up to me into the mount. And you shall make an ark of wood, and I will write on the tables the words that were on those which you broke before, and you shall put them in the ark. » Moses therefore laid up in the ark the tables on which the ten commandments of God had been written, which were the testimony of the covenant between the Lord and his initiated people. The covenant itself therefore was connected with this sign. Moreover, this sign was to pass into oblivion at the time when the covenant was to come to an end, as appears from these words, Ierem., III, 15 et 16 : « I will give you pastors according to my own heart... They shall say no more : The ark of the testament of the Lord, neither shall it come upon the heart, neither shall they remember it, neither shall it be visited, neither shall it be done any more. » Then will be what is said ibid., VII, 15 : « And I will cast you off from my face, as I have cast off all your brethren, the whole seed of Ephraim. » Therefore, the ark of the covenant perishing, the covenant itself, that is, the whole Mosaic law and religion, was to be abrogated.

4° The everlasting overthrow of the temple. The temple which Solomon built at the command of the Lord, and in which the ark of the covenant was kept, had supplied the place of the portable tabernacle, and was the house of God and the place where the legal sacrifices were offered. It was acceptable to the Lord, as he himself testified, saying, III Rey., IX, 3 : « I have sanctified this house which you have built, that I might put my name there forever, and my eyes and my heart shall be there all days », that is, as long as the figurative worship lasts, and until there comes, as Christ said, Ioann., IV, 23, the hour when true adorers shall adore the Father in spirit and in truth. But the destruction of this temple was clearly predicted, Ierem., VII, 14 et 15 : « I will do to this house, in which my name has been invoked, and in which you trust, and to the place which I gave to you and to your fathers, as I did to Silo. And I will cast you off from my face. » Moreover, for a long time the tabernacle of the Lord had remained in Silo, in which the ark of the covenant had been stored away and sacrifices were offered, and the Lord had forsaken this place, as is related Psal. LXXVII, 60 : « And he repelled the tabernacle of Silo, his tabernacle, where he dwelt among men. » Therefore in like manner the temple of Jerusalem was to be rejected. And not only was it to be rejected, but overthrown, as having now become useless, when the new worship was instituted, as appears from Daniel, where it is said, IX, 26, that, Christ being slain, a people with their leader that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary, and the end thereof ruin, and after the end of the war the abomination of desolation shall stand.

Many places of Scripture can be objected, where the law is said to endure forever, Levit., XVI, 29 ; to last forever, Deuter., XXIX, 29 ; to be destroyed by no oblivion, ibid., XXXI, 21 ; founded forever, Psal. CXVI, 18.

Resp. 1° If the phrases forever and for eternity were taken strictly, it would follow that the Mosaic law would be truly eternal, and since this can be said only absurdly, it must be said that it was destined to last a long time, and ought not to be abrogated before he should come who was to be sent to redeem mankind. 2° This interpretation is shown true by the text of Jeremias cited above in the first proof, from which it follows that the old law was to be observed as long as the Israelite people itself subsisted, that is, until the fulfillment of the divine promise. 3° Christ himself declared in what sense the perpetuity of this law is to be understood, when he said, 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. » The old law was abrogated inasmuch as it was figurative; it was confirmed inasmuch as it was fulfilled; it is eternal, inasmuch as the Mosaic Church paved the way for the Christian Church, in which the heavenly Church, destined to remain forever, is prepared. In this threefold state Christ appears diversely, who was yesterday, is today, the same also forever, Hebr., XIII, 8.]