Chapter 4: The Ceremonial Law as a Shadow of the Night (Hebrews)
4
The Ceremonial Law as a Shadow of the Night (Hebrews)
More than any other of Paul’s letters, Aquinas understands Hebrews to demonstrate the preeminence of Christ over the Old Law.198 Indeed, the letter addresses a subject at the crux of the matter in the discussion over whether or not his theology is supersessionist: the observance of the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ.199 For Aquinas, Paul’s letter teaches the Hebrews that Christ’s priesthood and Law bring about the voiding of the ceremonial law, which is likened to a shadow of the night. For this reason, the commentary on Hebrews represents a rather concise statement on a commonplace medieval teaching: the cessation and obsolescence of the Law.
1. The Primary Theme and Divisions of the Hebrews Commentary
At the close of the prologue Aquinas raises the ancient question of Pauline authorship of the letter to the Hebrews, states two objections to the idea of his authorship offered at the Council of Nicaea, and presents a respondeo.200 His reply to one of the objections reveals three features of his view of the observance of the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ: that there exists a Pauline teaching on the subject; that the teaching is tied to the dispute at the Jerusalem council chronicled in Acts 15; and that the teaching is addressed to a particular group.201
First, Aquinas thinks Paul taught directly on the ceremonial law, and that his teaching created great controversy among the Jews. Indeed, from Aquinas’s view, the Apostle did not claim authorship because of the controversial teaching that the “legal observances,” or the practices of circumcision, Passover, and dietary laws, can no longer be followed.202 “[Paul’s] name was odious to the Jews, since he taught that the observances of the Law were no longer to be kept, as is clear from Acts 15:2. Consequently, he concealed his name, lest the salutary doctrine of this epistle go for naught.”203 Second, Aquinas interprets the idea that the ceremonial law is no longer to be kept as a teaching approved by the council.204 Third, Aquinas explains that Paul’s teaching in this letter is directed to “converted” Jews: “He wrote this letter against the errors of those converts from Judaism who wanted to preserve the legal observances along with the gospel, as though Christ’s grace was not sufficient for salvation.”205 For Aquinas, Hebrews is therefore an argument to “converted Jews” on why the salvific efficacy of Christ’s grace is more excellent than the observances of the Law—a Law that has passed away. “The time of the New Testament is called the day,” Aquinas states, “because it repels the shadow of night of the law.”206
As was customary in scholastic exegesis, Aquinas begins his Hebrews commentary with a citation of a Scripture, which he understands as an interpretive key to the divisio textus.207 “There is none among the gods like unto you, O Lord: and there is none according to your works [Psalm 85:8].”208 In Aquinas’s view, the spiritual meaning209 of this verse expresses the two main subjects of the book of Hebrews: 1) the excellence of Christ in regard to sacred persons such as angels, prophets, and priests,210 and 2) the effects of Christ, which refers to the faith that joins members to his body.211 Aquinas understands Paul to divide the letter according to these two subjects, where he first (chs. 1–10) “extols Christ’s grandeur in order to show the superiority of the New Testament over the Old,” and in division two (chs. 11–13) he discusses “what unites the members to the head, namely, faith.”212
More than two thirds of the commentary is devoted to division one, which contains the most relevant material on the subject of the ceremonial law.213 These chapters compare Christ to angles, prophets, and priests, which Aquinas also calls the “three sacred persons” contained in the Old Testament.214 In general, chs. 1–6 of the commentary reveals Aquinas’s view of the authority of the Old Testament as it relates to the authority of Christ. In chs. 7–10, Aquinas comments on the ceremonial law at length. Since these chapters in division one contain the bulk of the relevant material on the ceremonial law they receive the most attention.
2. The Authority of the New Testament over the Old Testament
Aquinas’s commentary is an elaborate and theologically rich Christological treatise worthy of study in its own right. To give adequate attention to its Christology would require an entire study. I therefore limit my overview of the argument in the first six chapters to how this section relates to the Mosaic Law in general. The treatment of this first part of the first division is meant to provide context for the examination of chapters 7 through 10, which directly treat of the ceremonial observances of the Law. I argue here that, initially, Aquinas emphasizes continuity between the New and Old Testaments and then moves into an exploration of the differences between the two testaments via a contrast of Christ and the “sacred persons” of the Old Testament.
Continuity between the New and Old Testaments
As explained above, Aquinas understands the occasion of the letter as a misunderstanding on behalf of Jewish converts who wanted to keep the legal observances along with the gospel. According to Aquinas, in order to convince these Jewish converts that the grace of Christ is sufficient for salvation Paul argues that the New Testament transcends the Old Testament in its authority.
However, Aquinas attempts to maintain continuity between the two testaments. Though he does not use the term “continuity,” the theme appears as early as the first lecture and recurs at several points in the first division. The first example is evident when Aquinas explains how the Apostle Paul “removes the Manichaean error.” Paul removes the error in two ways: “First, by calling God the author of the Old Testament; second, in saying that he made temporal things.”215 That God spoke in “times past” rules out the view of the Manicheans.216
The continuity is further maintained when Aquinas explains several positive attributes concerning the goodness of the Old Testament, inspired again by the first verse of Hebrews: “God, Who, in many ways and in diverse manners, speaking in times past to the fathers in the prophets. . . .”217 Here, explains Aquinas, Paul praises the Old Testament for its “authorship, because it is from God; second, subtlety and sublimity, because in many ways and in diverse manners; third, duration, because in times past.”218 The Old Testament was promulgated among many persons, such as Abraham and Noah, and it contains the revelation of divina or divine things.219
Another example of continuity between the testaments appears in lecture three where Aquinas briefly discusses the unity created by Christ between Jews and Gentiles.220 Aquinas comments upon the contrast between Christ as the builder of the house that is the communion of the faithful and Moses the servant.221 Although Moses is very honorable, explains Aquinas, Christ is more honorable as the maker of the house of the faithful and its principal lawgiver. Paul proves that Christ is the builder of the house because Christ unifies diverse parts in the same way a builder unites wood and stones.222 These diverse parts include both Jews and Gentiles: “The assembly of the faithful, which is the Church and the house of God, is composed of various elements, namely, Jews and Gentiles, slaves and free. Therefore, the Church as any other house, is put together by someone.”223 Aquinas then cites 1 Peter 2:5 and Ephesians 2:20, which he understands to strengthen Paul’s argument.
In another place, Aquinas stresses that the new covenant brings justice to the house of Israel. He teaches that the new covenant is for both Jews and Gentiles. “They . . . who have obtained God’s grace are Israel by faith, and Judah by confession.”224 Here, Aquinas strikes a strong chord of continuity, emphasizing that Gentiles who obtain grace are “of Israel” and “of Judah.” Gentiles are of Israel through faith and with Israel rather than in the place of Israel. Here, Aquinas also draws upon Paul’s words in Romans 11 to strike an even stronger chord of continuity. Aquinas states that the new covenant is a shared covenant: “Gentiles are made partakers (participes) of the New Testament as the wild olive tree is grafted into the good olive tree and shares (participat) of its fatness, as is said in Romans 11:24.225 Here, Aquinas does not say that the Gentiles are grafted on top of the good olive tree or in the place of, but, rather, Gentiles are grafted into and share and participate in Israel, the good olive tree. In these texts, Aquinas sees the Church as a sharer of Israel’s faith and the grafting of Gentiles into Israel does not seem to entail a replacement or passing away of the good olive tree.
Christ More Excellent than Angels, Moses, and Aaron
The greater part of the commentary is devoted to explicating the differences between the two testaments. Aquinas comments upon differences between the two testaments beginning in the fifteenth section of the first lecture, and in the context of this discussion on God’s dual authorship of the testaments.226 Though God speaks through both testaments, it is more important that God speaks through them in different ways “according to the degree of their potency and the effects they produce.”227 Aquinas’s comments emphasize varying degrees of discontinuity between Israel and the Church through a comparison of Christ’s superiority over the Levitical priesthood. Metaphors of discontinuity are also employed, such as night and day, and new regime and old regime.
In Aquinas’s view, the two testaments receive their authority directly from the mediators of the respective covenants. The greatness of the New Testament over the Old is, therefore, first and foremost grounded in the authority of its mediator, Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word of God. From section fifteen of the first lecture, and all the way to the end of the first division, Aquinas comments upon Christ’s excellence over Old Testament mediators. The speech of God in the New Testament is mediated through Christ, whereas, in the Old Testament, God spoke through the prophets “by revelations in the minds of men.” The Old Law, explains Aquinas, “derived its authority from three things, namely, from the angels, from Moses, and from Aaron the high priest.”228 Christ, on the other hand, does not mediate the speech of God in the same way as these mediators. This is because Christ does not simply mediate God’s speech, but rather, Christ is God’s speech. Christ, “the incarnate Word is related to the uncreated Word as the [word of the voice] is related to the [word of the heart].”229 In this way, the Apostle, according to Aquinas, shows the “excellence of Christ as regards the peculiarity of His origin.”230 The first argument that Aquinas offers for the superiority of the New over the Old Testament is therefore Christological.
Aquinas then applies this Christological argument to angels, Moses, and Aaron, from the second chapter of the commentary all the way to the sixth, and with exhaustive detail. Because Christ is greater than angels, it is more necessary to obey [his] commandments rather than the Old Law.231 Christ is more excellent than Moses because, although Moses was “very honorable” and a faithful servant, he was only one who proclaimed.232 Moreover, Moses was a servant in the house of the Lord but Christ is as the Lord in his own house.233
Lastly, Christ is more excellent than a priest of the Old Law, such as Aaron. Two things pertained to the high priest, and, according to Aquinas, Christ exceeds both of these. One was the priestly office, which required him to enter once a year into the holy of holies with blood. The other is that he was to be of a certain tribe. Christ exceeds the high priest since he entered through his own blood into the holy of holies, the sacred heavens. He is without sin, perfect in obedience, and the priest of a nobler tribe than Aaron because of his origin as Son of God.234
Christ is also a high priest of temporal as well as future and eternal goods: “For the [priesthood of the Old Law] was temporary and passed away with the coming of the One prefigured.” But the priesthood of Christ is eternal since it is of truth, which is eternal.235 Although Aquinas explains figures in the Old Testament several times throughout chapter 1 through 4, this text is the first occurrence of the concept applied to the Old Law.236 Aquinas returns to the subject of the prefiguring function of the Old Law in greater detail in chapter 7 through 10.
The Conclusion of the Argument that Christ is More Excellent than the Old Law
The conclusion that follows from the comparison of Christ with the mediators of the Old Law is that the New Law is to be obeyed rather than the old.237 The commandments of the New Law in particular are to be followed with more diligence than the commandments of the old,238 because of the “usefulness of the things said,” since the commandments of Christ are “the words of eternal life, as it says in Jn. 6:69, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, etc.”239 Christ’s commands provide salvation while the Old Testament does not. This is because the Old Testament does not provide grace: “[the Old Testament] did not confer grace, for grace is conferred in the New Testament.” Aquinas then cites John 1:17: “Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”240 The commandments of the Old Testament are only bonorum temporalium or temporal goods. The temporal nature of the commandments is due to the end for which the “word spoken by angels” is ordered: the commandments only provided knowledge of sin and knowledge of God.241
Regarding knowledge of sin, the Old Law is described as subjecting man in servitude because of what Aquinas understands the apostles to say about this Law. Once again, Aquinas’s interpretation of the apostolic decree in Acts 15 is key. “In Acts 15:10, the Law is called a ‘yoke . . . which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.’”242 Likewise, Aquinas understands the Old Law as revealing a crucial knowledge of God but only in a temporal way. The Old Law was a time of expectation and shadows in comparison to the New Law: “[God] spoke first in a time of expectation and shadows, but the latter in these days, that is, in the time of grace. Rom. 13:12: Night is passed, and the day is at hand, etc. The Old Law ‘was called night.’”243 The promises of the Old Testament are to be understood spiritually: “It should be noted that the things promised in the Old Testament should be understood spiritually.”244
Aquinas then explains that everything that was foretold in the Old Law has been fulfilled. Here, Aquinas strikes another strong chord of continuity with Israel and Church when he says, citing Matthew 5:18 (“not one dot or one iota of the Law shall pass away until all be fulfilled”), that this fulfillment does not mean that the Old Law was made void (non fuit irritatus) in these latter days. Rather, Aquinas explains that in the fulfillment through Christ, the Old Law “became steadfast (firmus).”245
Another reason that the commandments of the New are to be more diligently followed than the Old is that the latter are gravia or heavy. Aquinas again cites the words of Peter at the Jerusalem council in Acts 15:10 as evidence of the gravia of the Old Law: “This is a yoke which neither we nor our fathers have been able to bear.”246 The commandments of the New Law, on the other hand, “are not burdensome,” since, as Aquinas explains, Jesus taught “For my yoke is sweet” in Matthew 11:30. Acts 15:10 is read not only as a judgment by the apostles that the Old Law is burdensome, but that it should no longer be observed now that the New Law has come. Aquinas’s comment on the heaviness of the Law illuminates his reference to the same verse in the Prologue and reveals what he views as the rationale behind an apostolic decision to end observances of the Law.247
In summary, Aquinas argues in the first division that Christ holds more authority than angels, Moses, and Aaron, because of his diverse excellence. Because he possesses more authority than these sacred persons, his commandments in the New Testament are more to be followed than the commandments of the Old Testament.
3. The Change in the Mode and Order of the Divine Regime
The impact of the new priesthood of Christ upon the prerogatives of Israel becomes clearer in chapters 7 through 10. Aquinas understands the perfect priesthood of Christ to render the Levitical priesthood void. This change affects what Aquinas refers to as the “whole mode and order” of the regime, including the observances of the carnal ceremonial law.
The Perfect Priesthood of Christ Renders the Levitical Priesthood Void
Aquinas unfolds a detailed comparison between Christ and the Levitical priesthood beginning in lecture one of chapter 7. Despite having been born after Melchizedek in time, Aquinas explains that Christ is more excellent because “Christ . . . as God and as the Son of God . . . exists from eternity.”248 Christ’s priesthood is eternal because “no mention is made of the end of his priesthood or of his successor.”249
Aquinas then contrasts the perpetuity of Christ’s priesthood with the perpetuity of the Levitical priesthood since he is aware of the Old Testament texts that state the priesthood and the Law is forever. “Even in Scripture it is frequently referred to as perpetual. Ex. 27:21: ‘It shall be a perpetual observance throughout their successions among the children of Israel.’ Lev. 24:3; ‘By a perpetual service and rite.’”250 Aquinas explains the sense in which the latter are perpetual by drawing once more upon the prefiguring function of the ceremonial law. The priesthood is described as perpetual in so far as it functioned as a symbol since “that which was symbolized by it was perpetual.” Melchizedek is “a priest forever” because “that which is prefigured, namely Christ’s priesthood, lasts forever.”251 Lecture one of chapter 7 is the second appearance of the concept of the prefiguring function of the Old Law.252 The theme appears again in lecture two of chapter 8: “There they were a figure, but here the truth expressed by the figure. Therefore, this testament is better throughout.”253 And again, “In the Old Testament, there were only figures, but in the New, the truth of the figures; so the New completes and perfects the Old.”254
Because the imperfect priesthood of the Old Testament is recognized as “perpetual” only in its prefiguring function, it is changed by the arrival of that which it prefigured. The perfect priesthood of Christ renders the mode and order of the Levitical priesthood changed since “the perfect voids (evacuat) the imperfect.”255 Aquinas then interprets 1 Corinthians 13:10 to express this change in the priesthood: “when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away.” For Aquinas, Paul’s teaching proves that “the priesthood of Christ renders the Levitical priesthood void.”256
A Complete Change in the Entire Mode and Order of the Imperfect Regime
The change in the priesthood brings about a change of the Law.257 Aquinas explains the nature of the change by drawing upon the analogy of how the law of a polity is affected by regime change, as understood by Aristotle:
And the reason for this is that the end being changed, it is necessary that the means be changed, just as he who changes the intent of traveling by water, changes the intent of searching for a ship. For every law is ordained to human behavior according to some regime [or polity]. Hence, according to the Philosopher in the Politics, to change behavior it is necessary that the law be changed. Moreover, just as human law is ordered to a human regime, so is spiritual and divine law ordered to the divine regime [regimen divinum]. But this regime is designated through the priesthood. Therefore, the priesthood being translated, it is necessary that the law be transferred.258
The change is not a slight one brought about by a new priest. Aquinas explains that the Law would not be changed if one priest dies. Rather, the change in the regime, or polity, is more dramatic. Drawing upon Aristotle’s explanation of how a city’s law is affected by a complete regime change, Aquinas explains that because the entire priesthood has changed, a proportional change occurs in the regime’s laws.259 Therefore, “the whole mode and order of the regime is changed” (totus modus et ordo regiminis).260 The change this metaphor implies should not be overlooked. Aquinas thinks such a sweeping change in the order of an old regime does not leave the identity of the citizens intact, but rather destroys it.261 If the order of the regime is changed, the city and citizens do not remain the same.
Aquinas then explains the nature of the change in the regime throughout chapters 7 through 10, using a series of contrasts between the old and new priesthoods.262 The old is characterized by a carnal command while the new is a spiritual command. The promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a carnal and temporal promise, while the promise in the new concerns heavenly and eternal things. The Old Law is ordained to an imperfect end while the new is ordained to the perfect. The Old Testament was a time of shadow while the New is a time of grace. I examine each contrast below.
The Coming of the Eternal Priesthood Renders the Old Testament Void
From Aquinas’s view, the reason for the change of the divine regime is due not only to the divine institution of the perfect priesthood. The priesthood is brought about in connection with a twofold ratio for the new priesthood. The new priesthood is brought about because of the 1) imperfection of the Law and 2) what Aquinas refers to as a “change of time.” The imperfection of the Law consists of its carnal nature and its inability to lead to beatitude.263
For Aquinas, the Levitical priesthood is inseparable from the ceremonial law, which was only a temporal and carnal commandment as opposed to the perfect priesthood of Christ, which is spiritual and eternal. The Old Testament is a carnal commandment because it had certain “carnal observances, as circumcision and purifications of the flesh and because it promised carnal punishments and rewards.”264 The New Testament, on the other hand, is “not dispensed by carnal things, but consists of spiritual things.” And that which is spiritual is perpetual, and the New Testament dispenses perpetual goods and punishments. The Old Law was only a shadow of these good things to come.265 “In the Old Testament there were only figures, but in the New, the truth of the figures; so the New completes and perfects the Old.”266
This consummation and perfection also involves the making void of the “carnal commands” of the Old Testament. According to Aquinas the introduction of the New brings about “the voiding of the Old Testament.”267 This voiding is an evacuatio.268 Again, the reason is due to the change in the priesthood:
If a new priest arises, this will not be according to the law of a carnal commandment, but according to the law of an eternal and indissoluble life; the reason being that the first was according to that law. It is proper, therefore, to say that the new one be according to another law, if a new [priest] does actually arise. But a new one does arise.269
The carnal commands of circumcision and purifications were not perpetual because they did not consist in eternal and spiritual things that Christ establishes.270 The new priesthood therefore requires a spiritual law and renders the carnal commandment void.
The Temporal Promise
Aquinas also understands the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as a promise of carnal things. He is keenly aware of Old Testament witnesses that indicate the covenant is to endure forever: “He says moreover, to their fathers, namely to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, with whom He had initiated a special covenant. Ps. 104:8: ‘He hath remembered his covenant forever: the word which He commanded to a thousand generations. Which He made to Abraham, etc.’” Yet, this promise, explains Aquinas, was regarding only carnal things, such as the deliverance from slavery in Egypt: “But he promised carnal things to those who came out of Egypt.”271 While discussing how Christ is the mediator of a better covenant, he writes of the Old Testament that “Then, temporal things were promised. Is 1:19: ‘If you be willing, and harken to Me, you shall eat the good things of the land.’” Now, however, “heavenly things are promised.” Aquinas concludes that the content of the promises of the New Testament are not transitory and therefore they are better: “Therefore, this one is better in regard to what it promises men.”272
Imperfect But Not Evil
In addition to the carnal nature of its commandments and promises, the former priesthood was imperfect because it did not lead to perfection. Aquinas explains that the priesthood was not perfected.273 This is because the Old Law only provided knowledge of sin and knowledge of God. But it failed to bring the perfection of justice.274 Aquinas then cites Matthew 5:20 in support the idea of the Law’s imperfection: “For I tell you, that unless your justice abound more than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.” Christ’s command to let justice abound more than Pharisees is taken to mean that the Old Law was imperfect. The Law administered by this priestly office did not give the helping grace to avoid sin, but only to know it.275 Christ’s priesthood is perfect because it brings a justice that abounds more than that of the scribes and Pharisees. The institution of the new covenant is necessary because only the sacraments of the new covenant bring perfect justice. The voiding of the Old Law is therefore followed by a transfer to a New Law.
In Aquinas’s view, this transfer is indicated in Scripture by two verses. The first is Jeremiah 31:31, which, Aquinas cites as: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with house of Judah, not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, etc.” The second is Romans 8:2, which states “For the Law of the spirit of life, in Christ Jesus, hath delivered me from the Law of sin and of death.” Here, Aquinas takes the “Law of sin and death” mentioned in this Romans 8:2 to refer to the Old Law: “For the Old Law is called the law of sin and death, because it did not confer grace ex opere operato, as the sacraments of the new law do.”276 The New Law joins man to God through divine grace and provides perfect cognition of God and the remission of sins.277 The Old Law contained “no grace in itself.”278 This was true even for the fathers of the Old Testament who Aquinas admits are described in the Old Testament as holy. Abraham and Moses were holy only because of faith in Christ, not the observances.279
Aquinas is quite aware of how the imperfection of the old priesthood and Law might be taken to mean that these were evil. He is again concerned to guard against the Manicheans who “condemn the Old Testament, saying that it was formed by an evil principle, namely, the devil.”280 Citing Romans 7:1, Aquinas replies to the objection by explaining that the Law is holy and just and not evil.” It was “not evil in itself but . . .unsuited to the time,”281 meaning the time of the New Testament: “For the things of the Old Testament are not to be kept in the New Testament.”282 Both the Law and the priesthood are rejected, not because these are evil, but because of imperfection: “for that is said to be weak which cannot produce its effect; but the proper effect of the Law and of the priesthood is to justify.”283 The Law could not justify but it was nevertheless useful in its own time, inasmuch as it disposed to faith.284
When Aquinas considers the question why God would institute such a weak and imperfect law, he offers the argument that a change of time occurred:
It is true that they would have been uselessly instituted if they were to remain always. But just as one ought to give a teacher to a child, but when he arrives at the perfect age he is given the manner of comporting himself according to the judgment of the ruler of the republic: so in the Old Law those things which were instituted until the perfect time arrived, and then those things which lead to perfection had to be instituted. And so he says, “Until the time of correction,” that is, the time in which it is corrected, not as something evil, but imperfect: “For the law is good,” as it says in 1 Tim. 1:8.285
Here, Aquinas states for the first time in the commentary that the ceremonial law possessed a literal ratio: it disposed the Jewish people to faith in God though only for a time.286 He affirms this again in an explicit way when he says that the “ceremonies of the law were ordained to one thing according to that state; but to something else, insofar as they were figurative, namely, inasmuch as they represented Christ.”287 I return to the idea of the concept of the change of time at the end of this section.
The Renunciation of the Ceremonial Law
As stated above, because the Law has been made void, to practice the laws of the old regime is now considered a sin. While commenting upon Paul’s statement that the priesthood was obligated to take the tithes of the people according of the Law, he explains that the ceremonial laws are no longer to be followed.288 The commandment to tithe provides Aquinas with the opportunity to explain why it is acceptable to tithe even though tithing is a commandment of the Old Law, which has passed away. When Aquinas introduces his comment on the problem he summarizes this objection to tithing and mentions that observing the ceremonial law is now a sin: “since the observance of a commandment of the law is now a sin, it seems unlawful to give or receive tithes now.”289 Aquinas then responds to this objection by presenting the famous distinction between moral and ceremonial law:
I answer that there were in the law some precepts purely ceremonial, such as circumcision, the offering of the lamb, and son on. Such laws, since they were only figurative, it is no longer licit to observe, for they were a figure of something to come; hence, anyone who observes them now would be signifying that Christ is still to come. But others were purely moral, and these must be observed now. Among these was the giving of tithes . . . but the determination of such a portion is now made by the Church, just as in the Old Testament it was determined by the law.290
The observance of the ceremonial law has been made illicit in what Aquinas refers to as “the time of grace.” Later, Aquinas asks why God would command sacrifices if he did not desire them, and states once more that observance of the ceremonial law after Christ is a sin.291 God does not want these observances “for that time in which the shadows cease with the advent of truth, and hence a person would sin by offering them now.”292 These ceremonies have never been pleasing to God but were accepted because “they were figures of Christ whose passion was accepted by God” and they restrained the Jews from idolatry.293 To observe ceremonies after the passion “would be an insult (iniuria) to the sacrifice of Christ.”294 After the passion, all those who observed the ceremonies must go “outside the general community of carnal things, or outside the observances of the Law, or outside the senses of the body.”295 Again, he writes, “Let us renounce [renuntiemus] the ceremonies of the law, now that the truth has come, on account of which we are a reproach among the Jews, that is, on account of the signs of penance which are a reproach to carnal things.”296 Both Christ and the apostles are examples in this renunciation of the Law: “For just as Christ was accused of subverting the law, so the apostles were reproached for preaching that the ceremonies of the law should not be observed.”297 After the passion of Christ the ceremonies are void and must be renounced.
The Change of Time
Aquinas anticipates an objection to the idea that divine providence would change an immutable law. The objection actually contains a premise similar to Wyschogrod’s argument that the Law is perpetual and cannot be declared dead or deadly, because to say so implies that God has lied to the people of Israel and no longer desires for them to exist as his distinct people.298 One might think that divine providence implies immutable law:
But the Manicheans raise an objection here: if the Old Law was given by divine providence, which is immutable, the law itself should be immutable; consequently, it should not be changed. Therefore, since it was changed, it was not given by divine providence.299
In his reply, Aquinas marshals Augustine’s Against Faustus and appeals again to the change of time that comes with the advent of Christ. In so doing he makes clear that he understands the ceremonial law to have exhausted its figuring function:
I answer, as Augustine says in Against Faustus, that just as a wise dispenser by one and the same arrangement and providence gives different laws according as times and persons differ, one law for summer and another for winter, one for children and one for adults, one for perfect and another for imperfect, and yet is the same providence; so with divine providence remains unchanged, the law was changed to fit the times; because before the coming of Christ precepts were given to prefigure his coming, but after his coming precepts were given to signify that he had come. Furthermore, the precepts were given to them as to children, but in the new law as to the perfect. Hence, the law is called a pedagogue, which is strictly for children. Therefore, if something in the law suggests perpetuity, this is by reason of the one prefigured.300
Aquinas already introduced the concept of the prefigurement of the Law above. Here, he explicitly explains why the prefiguring function ceases after the coming of Christ. The Old Testament’s language of perpetuity refers only to that which is truly perpetual: the future coming of the new priesthood of Christ. After the coming of Christ, the precepts are replaced by precepts of the New Law. The ceremonial law was good but imperfect and it is now changed and rendered void by the time of Christ’s advent. To observe the carnal ceremonies after Christ would be a serious mistake.
4. Israel and the Church in the Hebrews Commentary
It seems rather clear that the Hebrews commentary represents a sophisticated and concise statement of Aquinas’s teaching on the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ that is quite similar to his teaching in Ia-IIae q. 103.4. In the Hebrews commentary, Aquinas teaches that observing the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ is a sin because its observance is understood as a profession that Christ has yet to come despite his already coming. The eternal priesthood of Christ, the advent of the truth, fulfills the Old Law in its totality. Aquinas frequently states that the Law is rendered void; that the coming of the New is likened to a day that repels the shadow of the Law’s night. The shadow of the Law’s night is comprised of a matrix of the Law’s attributes: its prefiguring function; its temporal and carnal characteristics; and its inability to lead to beatitude. Although the legal observances of the ceremonial law were figures of the eternal and perfect priesthood of Christ, these ceremonies are no longer to be kept because the change of time manifested in the coming of Christ, which renders them void. Moreover, to observe the ceremonies after the institution of the New commandment is not only a sin but an offense to the sacrifice of Christ. It seems there is no theological value in the prerogatives of Israel after the passion. Indeed, the ceremonies are harmful, and must be renounced.
It is this rendering void of the carnal command that Isaac and Soulen challenged. Moreover, the same concern drives Wyschogrod’s critique of Aquinas. It is also what Matthew Levering seems to miss when he interprets Aquinas’s teaching on the ceremonial law to apply only to Jewish Christians (or what Aquinas would refer to as “Jewish converts”) and not to Jews.301 To the contrary, the rendering void of the mandatum carnale is, for Aquinas, similar to how light repels shadow. “The time of the New Testament is called the day,” Aquinas states, “because it repels the shadow of the Law’s night.”302 The shadow is the temporal nature of the ceremonial law and the coming of the light of the New Testament does not leave it intact. The Old Law is replaced by the new in the way that the ruler or a new political order might replace the laws of the old order. God no longer desires these sacrifices “for that time in which the shadows cease with the advent of truth.” It seems safe to conclude that Aquinas’s view of the relationship between Israel and the Church in the Hebrews commentary is economically supersessionist.
My examination also reveals a tension in Aquinas’s thought on the Law. Early in the Hebrews commentary Aquinas states that the fulfillment of the Old Law by Christ does not render the Old Law void.303 Aquinas is concerned to avoid Manichean interpretations of the Old Law as evil and argues that the ceremonial law was good for a time. He preserves the literal reason for Jewish worship before the coming of Christ. His view therefore overlaps with the Prima Secundae where the ceremonial law is described as having a twofold ratio of prefiguring Christ and enclosing the Jewish people in the worship of the one God. However, in 7.3.361, and at other places in the text, Aquinas contradicts his earlier statement that the Old Testament is not void when he says that the introduction of the new priesthood and testament brings about “the rendering void of the Old Testament.”304
The economic supersessionism in the commentary sits in tension with two important points in Aquinas’s thought. The tension exists between the Aristotelian regime change analogy and two metaphors Aquinas draws directly from Scripture: the olive tree metaphor of Romans 11 and the household metaphor of Ephesians 2. The regime analogy seems to point to the complete replacement of the temporal priesthood and the Old Law with the eternal priesthood and New Law. The transfer from one regime to another brings about a total change in the mode and order of the former regime, which includes the complete voiding and renunciation of the carnal commandments.
However, Aquinas also draws upon the olive tree metaphor of Romans 11 to describe the Gentile ecclesia as grafted into Israel or existing with and alongside of Israel in faith. He states that the Gentiles “were made partakers” of the New Testament. The wild olive tree is grafted into the good olive tree and “shares of its fatness.”305 Additionally, Aquinas brilliantly synthesizes the olive tree metaphor with the Ephesians metaphor to describe Christ as a builder of a house uniting Jews and Gentiles. The Ephesians household metaphor and the Romans olive tree metaphor do not emphasize replacement of Israel with Church and seem to sit in tension with the Aristotelian regime change metaphor. Aquinas’s use of the olive tree metaphor as well as his argument that the Church is a union of Jews and Gentiles can be seen as echoes of more positive descriptions of Israel’s promises in the commentaries on Romans and Ephesians. Next, I attempt to answer whether a similar view of the ceremonial law can be found in the Romans commentary.
198. In Ia-IIae q. 98.3, Aquinas states that letter to the Hebrews is especially important in showing how the New Law transcends the old. Aquinas states that “Paul—especially in Hebrews—proves that the new law transcends the old . . . .’”
199. Each citation will include the chapter, lecture, and paragraph numbers from the Marietti edition of the commentary. For example, Ad Hebraeos (hereafter Ad Heb.) 3.2.173. As explained above, English translations are from the Aquinas Institute edition of Aquinas’s commentary on Hebrews. However, I also draw upon Chrysostom Baer’s 2006 translation as well. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, trans. Chrysostom Baer. I indicate my changes to the Aquinas Institute’s text with “[emended].” According to the Aquinas Institute editors, Aquinas appears to be familiar with more than one translation of Scripture, often quotes from memory, and paraphrases. The closest available version of Scripture to Aquinas’s text is the Clementine Vulgate of 1598, and the closest translation of the Clementine Vulgate in English is the Douay-Rheims version. Therefore Scripture citations are of the Douay-Rheims.
200. Ad Heb., Prologus 5.
201. Aquinas views the letter to address the subject as it relates to “Jewish converts” to Christianity as well as Jews. He understands the teaching to apply to those that followed the Law.
202. Following Boguslawski, I also refer to these particular rites of the ceremonial law as the prerogatives of Israel. Aquinas does not make a clear distinction between these three rites (or what I am referring to as prerogatives of Israel) in this commentary but he does in the Summa theologiae and in the commentary on Romans. In general, Aquinas uses legalis to refer to law in general, human law, or the Law of the Old Testament. Here, the context is of course the Law of the Old Testament. See Deferrari, A Latin-English Dictionary of St. Thomas Aquinas. According to Deferrari, Aquinas’s use of the phrase observatio legalis refers to the “observance of the prescriptions of the Old Testament.” Although it is not exactly clear in this section of the commentary which laws Aquinas is referring to, his mentioning of legalia in relation to Acts 15:2 reveals he is more than likely referring to three specific rites or “legal observances” that can be considered under the broader category of caeremoniae veteris legis (or ceremonies of the Old Law): these rites include the sacraments of circumcision and Passover, and observance of dietary regulations. Additionally, associating “legal observances” with these rites in particular seems justified by a reading of Ad Galatas. 2.1 In this text, Aquinas refers to Acts 15:2 as a discussion among the apostles that resulted in the handing down of a decree on not observing the rites of the Law: legalibus non observandis. In Ia-IIae q. 101.4, “observances” are only one category of caeremoniae veteris legis or ceremonies of the Old Law. Aquinas divides the ceremonies of the Old Law into four categories: 1) sacrificia or sacrifices; 2) sacra or sacred things; 3) sacramenta or sacraments; and 4) observantiae or observances. All of these categories are referred to together as caeremoniae veteris legis. The 1) sacrificia include sacrificial animals offered by the Levite priesthood. 2) Sacra include instruments such as the temple, tabernacle and the vessels. 3) Sacramenta include circumcision, “without which no one was admitted to the legal observances” (102.5) and the eating of the paschal banquet. Aquinas actually refers to the paschal banquet as an observance but it is treated in the same article on sacraments, indicating that the Passover, for him, may fit into both sacramenta and observantiae categories. 4) Observantiae mostly refers to dietary regulations, which include the prohibition of blood and fat of animals. According to Aquinas, the latter two precepts, which are the 3) sacrament of circumcision and 4) observances both function together to consecrate the Jewish people to the worship of God. Indeed, in Ia-IIae q. 102.6 Aquinas affirms the literal, rational cause for the observantiae of the Law as “a special prerogative of that people.” All of these precepts are ceremonial in character in the sense that they give public expression to divine worship. Replacement of the Jewish people as God’s elect people has more to do with the third and forth categories than the first two. Replacement is brought about by the teaching that the latter two categories of ceremonial law are now useless (3) sacramenta and 4) observantiae) and not that the former two categories (1) sacrificia or 2) sacra) are useless. This is because Jews can remain Jews without sacrificia of the Temple and without sacra. However, they cannot remain Jews without sacramenta and observantiae. Interestingly, even Aquinas recognizes the importance of ceremonial law categories 3 & 4 for the distinctiveness of the Jewish people. On his own terms temple sacrifice (or sacrificia) and sacred things (or sacra), such as the tabernacle, are not tied to the “special prerogative of that people.” The “special prerogative of that people” is tied to category 3 and 4 of the ceremonial law: sacramenta and observantiae or circumcision, Passover, and dietary laws. In Ad Heb. 7.3.359 he seems to employ the term mandatum carnale or carnal commands in order to refer to two of these prerogatives when he explains that the Old Testament is a carnal commandment “because it had certain carnal observances such as circumcision and carnal purifications.” But the distinction is not as explicit as it is in the Summa theologiae. That Aquinas recognizes the special dignity of these markers of Jewish identity as “prerogatives” (in the Summa theologiae) rather than collapsing all rites into ceremonial law in general seems as if it is a nuanced achievement in its own right that might be a fruit of his engagement with Maimonides.
203. Ad Heb., Prologus 5.
204. Acts 15:1–2 reads as follows: “And some, coming down from Judea, taught the brethren: That, except you be circumcised after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved. And when Paul and Barnabas had no small contest with them, they determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of the other side should go up to the apostles and priests to Jerusalem, about this question.” Aquinas’s interpretation of the Jerusalem council of Acts 15 becomes clearer in Ad Galatas. He discusses the controversy over the observance of the Law between Paul and Peter (referred to as the “Antioch incident”), and refers to the teaching as a “decree” that the Law ought not be kept in Ad Galatas 2.1; 6.3.
205. Ad Heb. 1.1.6: Although it might appear that the intended audience is Jewish Christians or what Aquinas refers to as “Jewish converts” the argument he understands Paul to make applies to Jews who observe the rites after the passion of Christ. Near the end of the commentary, in Ad Heb. 13.3.774, Aquinas comments once again upon the audience of the message and it seems to include anyone who followed the observances of the Law. Although Paul’s letter contains a salutation to the saints and other disciples, he explains that the letter is not written to them but to those that followed the Law: “He does not write to them since he had no intention to write except against those who followed the observances of the Law.”
206. Ad Heb. 3.2.173.
207. Such scholastic practice is referred to as “division of the text.” Boyle’s explanation of the practice is worth quoting in full: “In a division of the text, a commentator states some theme that serves an interpretive key for his commentary. . . . With the theme stated, the commentator begins to divide the text, dividing each division in turn into smaller and smaller parts down to the verse or even smaller. Thus, St. Albert divides the Gospel according to St. Mark into seven initial parts according to seven properties of [a] lion. The division of the text provides a sustained structural analysis by which the parts of the Gospel stand in relation both to the whole and to each other. No verse stands in isolation, but rather each stands in a rich and organic set of relations to the rest of the Gospel. The division maintains the integrity of the Gospel in the midst of careful, detailed, and often word for word interpretation. In the De Potentia, Thomas stated that one of the criteria for considering the legitimacy of a given interpretation of Scripture is that ‘the circumstance of the letter’ is preserved. By providing a context that reaches not only to the surrounding verses or even chapters, but to the Gospel as a whole, the division of the text articulates in a highly formal way the circumstance of the letter.” Though Boyle is speaking of the commentary on the Gospel of John, his analysis of the divisio textus applies to all Aquinas’s scholastic exegesis, which include the commentaries on Paul’s letters. Indeed, Aquinas’s method of division routinely slices down sentences to the smallest of phrases, often devoting entire paragraphs to explicating only two words, such as “hold fast.” See Boyle, “Authorial Intention and the Divisio Textus,” 7–8; “‘Division of the Text’ with Particular Reference to the Commentaries of Saint Thomas Aquinas,” 276–83.
208. Ad Heb., Prologus 1.
209. By “spiritual meaning” I refer to the broader definition of the term, which means “the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament in light of Christ and the New Testament.” Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, ix.
210. Ad Heb., Prologus 2. Citing the Shema in Deut. 6:4 (Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord), Aquinas explains that though God is only one in nature, there are many gods in heaven and on earth. These gods though, are not like the one God. They are only sometimes called gods on account of some excellence, such as shining with the glory of God as in the case of angels, or possessing knowledge of the word of God as in the case of prophets.
211. Ad Heb., Prologus 1.
212. Ad Heb. 1.1.6.
213. Division two consists of chapters 11 through 13, which Aquinas considers as the works or “effects” of Christ. The little relevant material from these chapters is incorporated into subsection three.
214. Ad Heb., Prologus 2.
215. Ad Heb. 1.1.23.
216. Ad Heb. 1.1.19.
217. Ad Heb. 1.1.
218. Ad Heb. 1.1.11. [Emended]. Baer translates commendat vetus testamentum as “he commends the Old Testament” yet the context suggests “commendation” may be too reserved for describing the laudatory character of all the praises of the Old Testament in Ad Heb 1.1.11.
219. Ad Heb. 1.1.9.
220. This is a theme Aquinas will expound upon greatly in the commentary on Ephesians.
221. Ad Heb. 3.1.155. Aquinas comments upon Heb. 3:1–4: “the apostle and high priest of our confession, Jesus . . . was counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, by so much as he that hath built the house, hath greater honor than the house. For every house is built by some man: but He that created all things, is God.”
222. Ad Heb. 3.1.163.
223. Ad Heb. 3.1.163.
224. Ad Heb. 8.2.397.
225. Ad Heb. 8.2.397. This translation is from Chrysostom Baer’s. [Emphasis added]
226. In Ia-IIae q. 98.3, Aquinas compares the difference between God’s relationship to the Old Law and the New Law to the difference in relationship between a shipbuilder to the materials produced or prepared for his use by subordinates. He comments on the difference as it relates to 1) the two types of mediators (angels and Christ) and 2) the two effects which the Law produces. These two differences, both treated in the Summa theologiae seem to operate as a summation of the entire first division of the Hebrews commentary. Both reflect the content of the Hebrews commentary since chapters 1 through 6 pertain to Christ the more perfect mediator and chapters 7 through 10 demonstrate that the Old Law was imperfect (or accomplished different effects than the New Law). This mirrors the twofold difference between the testaments in 98.3: “it was right for the Old Law to be given by angels. For, as we have already said, the Old Law, while itself imperfect, nevertheless prepared the way for the perfect salvation of the human race which was to be achieved through Christ.” He then goes on to explain the difference between the testaments by employing the ship-building analogy: “Now the following general rule may be taken to apply whenever we find a series of causes of this sort ranged in order according to the degree of their potency and the effects which they produce. With regard to the principal and perfect effect the agent who is above all the rest acts of himself in person to produce this. But with regard to those factors which merely induce the right dispositions for the ultimate perfection to be achieved, he operates these through his subordinates. Thus for instance, a shipbuilder puts the parts of the ship together himself in person, but makes use of subordinate assistant builders to prepare the materials. For this reason then, it is appropriate that the perfect Law of the New Testament should have been given directly by God made Man in person, and that the Old Law, on the contrary, should have been given to men through the ministers of God, in other word the angels.” Aquinas then concludes: “This is the way in which St. Paul—especially in Hebrews—proves that the New Law transcends the Old.” Ia-IIae q. 98.3 seems as if it is a concise summation of the major points of the Hebrews commentary.
227. Ia Iae 98.3. Aquinas returns to the notion that Scripture is the speech of God delivered through mediators. This is an idea he first employed in his inaugural sermon, Hic est liber, 5.
228. Ad Heb. 3.1.155.
229. Ad Heb. 1.1.15.
230. Ad Heb. 1.1.7.
231. Ad Heb. 2.1.90.
232. Ad Heb. 3.1.165.
233. Ad Heb. 3.1.168.
234. Ad Heb. 4.3.234.
235. Ad Heb. 5.1.252.
236. References to figures in the Old Testament appears in Ad Heb. 1.3.51; 4.1.202. The first time Aquinas elaborates on the prefiguring aspect of the Old Law is in his explanation of the sense in which the Levitical priesthood is described as “perpetual” in Exodus 27:21. The most explicit treatment of the prefiguring function of the ceremonial law seems to be in 7.3.352, which I discuss in section three of this chapter.
237. Ad Heb. 2.1.89.
238. Aquinas gives a total of three reasons. The first reason has already been discussed at length: Christ’s authority as the Creator and Son of God gives his commandments a status far above that of an angel, which is only a creature. I only include the second and third reasons here. Ad Heb. 2.1.90
239. Ad Heb. 2.1.90.
240. Ad Heb. 2.1.97.
241. Ad Heb. 2.1.97.
242. This twofold servitude includes a subjection to sin and the Law.
243. Ad Heb. 1.1.14.
244. Ad Heb. 4.1.198.
245. Ad Heb. 2.1.94: “Factus est ergo firmus, quia non fuit irritatus” [emphasis added]. Chrysostom Baer also translates irritatus as “void.” Deferrari defines the term as “void” and lists other meanings “vain, useless, without effect, ineffectual.” The Marietti text points the reader to 1.1.15, which explains the way in which the Old Testament spoke in the past. The note seems to imply that the Old Testament is not void or useless because God spoke divine things through it. Both Larcher and Baer translate the term as “void.” In chapter seven, Aquinas will say, using a different term, that the Law is rendered void—the opposite of his statement in Ad Heb. 2.1.94.
246. Ad Heb. 2.1.90.
247. Aquinas also refers to the Law as a heavy yoke and refers to Acts 15:10 in Ad Heb 2.4.145 and 12.4.704.
See also 12.4.704, when commenting upon Hebrews 12:21. The Old Law is a law of fear, while the New Law is viewed as a law of grace. As the study progresses, it should become clear that for Aquinas, Acts 15:10 is an official apostolic decision that the ceremonial law no longer be observed by all.
248. Ad Heb. 7.1.334.
249. Ad Heb. 7.1.334.
250. Ad Heb. 7.1.334.
251. Ad Heb. 7.1.334.
252. Aquinas uses the perfect passive participle figuratum and then the imperfect passive figurabatur in this paragraph to describe the priesthood’s function of prefiguring. The tense emphasizes that the prefiguring was and is now no longer functioning. He does not refer to the priesthood as figura. This lecture may also be unique for its treatment of the idea of the perpetuity of the Old Law. I investigate this further when I correlate my findings with that of the Summa theologiae.
253. Ad Heb. 8.2.392.
254. Ad Heb. 8.2.396.
255. Ad Heb. 7.3.349.
256. Ad Heb. 7.3.349. Aquinas cites 1 Cor 13:10 again in 9.3.437 to explain how Christ’s entering of the holy of holies is the coming of the perfect tabernacle and the cessation of the imperfect tabernacle.
257. Ad Heb. 7.3.350.
258. Ad Heb. 7.3.350. [Emended.] I am aware that regimen could be translated “rule.” Nevertheless, it can also mean “regime” or “polity” (politia), as indicated by Aquinas’s reflections on Politiae et legislatio in Sententia libri Politicorum 3.1.348–50. Chrysostom Baer’s translation is therefore to be preferred over the Aquinas Institute’s since it carries a stronger political context of regimen as the rule of some polity as it relates to human behavior, which is how regimen is used in the Sententia libri Politicorum, 1.1.13–15; 29. Aquinas relies upon Aristotle to help describe the process of the change of the Old Law in the Ephesians commentary as well. See chapter 7.
259. Sententia libri Politicorum 3.2.359.
260. Ad Heb. 7.3.351.
261. Sententia libri Politicorum 3.2.364.
262. Ad Heb. 7.3.351.
263. The ratio behind the institution of the new priesthood, which administers the new covenant seems due to both the inadequacy of the imperfect Old Law as well as the change of time orchestrated by divine providence. Despite the space attributed to the inadequacy of the Old Law, Aquinas repeatedly returns to the change of time. He does this when he considers the objection that the Law is not evil but only fitting for a time (Ad Heb. 7.3.362); and when he considers the objection that God’s Law cannot change because God is also immutable (Ad Heb. 7.3.352).
264. Ad Heb. 7.3.359.
265. Ad Heb. 8.1.388.
266. Ad Heb. 8.2.396.
267. Ad Heb. 7.3.361.
268. Ad Heb. 7.3.361. Evacuo means to make void.
269. Ad Heb. 7.3.359.
270. The carnal command is contrasted with what is genuinely perpetual, that of spiritual virtue. It is only through spiritual virtue that there “is generated in us a perpetual life.” See Ad Heb. 7.3.359.
271. Ad Heb. 8.2.401.
272. Ad Heb. 8.2.392.
273. Ad Heb. 7.2.348.
274. Ad Heb. 7.3.348.
275. Ad Heb. 8.2.393.
276. Ad Heb. 7.3.352. Aquinas’s view here represents his mature view on circumcision where grace is mediated only through faith in Christ not through the Law itself. Aquinas adopts the same position in the Galatians commentary and the Romans commentary, as well as in the Tertia Pars of the Summa theologiae where he rejects his earlier position on circumcision (that the rite saves in and of itself) in the Sentences. See Schenk, “Views of the Two Covenants in Medieval Theology.”
277. Ad Heb. 8.3.405.
278. Ad Heb. 9.1.415.
279. Ad Heb. 9.2.431.
280. Ad Heb. 11.2.566.
281. Ad Heb. 7.3.362.
282. Ad Heb. 7.3.362.
283. Ad Heb. 7.3.362.
284. Ad Heb. 7.3.362.
285. Ad Heb. 9.2.434. Aquinas thinks that there is a twofold cleansing: one from the stain of the guilt of sin, and “regarding this the Law could not do anything.” The other cleansing is in regard to “worship, namely, so that they would be allowed to minister at these sacrifices; and thus the Law did cleanse.” Ad Heb. 9.2.430. Cf. 9.3.443; 9.4.449; 9.4.460.
286. Here, the commentary comes into full agreement with Aquinas’s view of the twofold ratio for the ceremonial law in the Summa theologiae: it served to prefigure the perfect priesthood of the One who was to come; and it enclosed the Jewish people in proper worship of God.
287. Ad Heb. 9.1.422. [Emphasis added]
288. Heb. 7:5 in the Douay-Rheims reads: “And indeed they that are of the sons of Levi, who receive the priesthood, have a commandment to take tithes of the people according to the law, that is to say, of their brethren: though they themselves also came out of the loins of Abraham.”
289. Ad Heb. 7.2.339. [Emphasis added]
290. Ad Heb. 7.2.339. In lecture two of chapter 8, Aquinas makes the distinction between moral and ceremonial law once more: “in the Old Law there were precepts pertaining to the worship of God, namely the ceremonial precepts, and some that pertained to correct conduct, namely, the moral precepts, which continue; but the others do not.” Ad Heb. 8.2.392.
291. Heb. 10:5–6, in the Vulgate reads: “Wherefore when He cometh into the world, He saith: Sacrifice and oblation Thou wouldest not: but a body Thou hast fitted to Me: Holocausts for sin did not please Thee.”
292. Ad Heb. 10.1.488. It seems clear here that Aquinas is describing how the observing the ceremonial law, in this case, the sacrifices, is a sin for anyone who offers such things, not only Jewish believers in Christ.
293. Ad Heb. 10.1.488.
294. Ad Heb. 10.1.500.
295. Ad Heb. 13.2.749.
296. Ad Heb. 13.2.749.
297. Ad Heb. 13.2.749.
298. Of course the conclusion that Wyschogrod comes to is all together different than the Manichean, since he understands the change in the immutable Law not to indicate that the Law was not given through divine providence but that this providence is somehow lacking in goodness: that God lied about the promise to Abraham to create a people and tie the identity of the people to the perpetuity of the Law. Here, however, Aquinas defines both the promise to Israel and the ceremonial law as temporal as well as separates the two concepts. While the Old Law ordained Israel to knowledge of God and knowledge of sin, the promise to Abraham is reduced to the deliverance out of Egypt and other temporal goods. The dividing of the Law from the irrevocable and perpetual promise to the people seems to provide the occasion for viewing the Law as a temporal manifestation.
299. Ad Heb. 7.3.352.
300. Ad Heb. 7.3.352. [Emphasis added]
301. “Aquinas does not condemn the observance of Torah by Jews who do not believe in Jesus Christ, but neither does he condone not believing in Jesus Christ.” Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, fn. 64, 161.
302. Ad Heb. 3.2.173.
303. Ad Heb. 2.1.94.
304. Ad Heb. 7.3.361.
305. The “sharing” relationship between Israel and the Church which Aquinas builds using these metaphors is not unlike the one described by George Lindbeck, “Critical Exegesis and Theological Interpretation,” 166.