Chapter 6: The Ceremonial Law as Fulfilled, Dead, and Deadly (Galatians)
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The Ceremonial Law as Fulfilled, Dead, and Deadly (Galatians)
The Galatians commentary contains a number of topics directly related to the question at the heart of supersessionism, whether with the advent of Christ, the ceremonial law becomes expired or obsolete. In the Galatians commentary, Aquinas comments upon the Apostle Paul’s teaching on Christ’s fulfillment of the Law as well as Paul’s observance of the Law; the question on Gentile observance of the Law debated by the Jerusalem Conference in Acts 15; the Antioch incident between Paul and Peter; and the controversy between Jerome and Augustine on the Jewish apostles’ observance of the ceremonial law. As Aquinas comments upon each of these topics it becomes clear that he understands the ceremonial law to have been destroyed (destruxi) by the Apostle Paul’s teaching.403 Aquinas thinks the Jerusalem conference in Acts 15 approved Paul’s teaching and declared that the old sacraments were superfluous in the apostolic age, and deadly thereafter, not only for Gentiles and Jewish believers in Christ, but for all who observe the old sacraments, including Jews.
1. Primary Theme and Division of the Galatians Commentary
The prologue and the greeting indicate that the cessation of the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ is a major theme of the Galatians commentary.404 Aquinas’s selection of Leviticus 26:10 as the interpretive key of Paul’s message makes this especially clear: “The new coming on, you shall cast away the old.”405
Aquinas understands this verse to express the teaching in Paul’s letter to the Gentile Christians at Galatia. For Aquinas, these Gentile Christians had fallen into the same error as the Jewish Christians in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews.406 The problem in both cases was that believers in Christ were seeking to observe the ceremonial law along with the gospel.407 Aquinas therefore understands the letter to address not simply the cessation of the rites of the Law. Rather, the teaching of Galatians is that the old sacraments must be cast away because of the grace available in the new sacraments of the Church.408
That the theme of the commentary is the cessation of the old sacraments due to the arrival of the new sacraments is clearly indicated by Aquinas’s view of the place of Galatians after the Corinthian letters in the canon of the New Testament:
The order of this epistle is fitting in that, after the two epistles to the Corinthians, in the first of which it is a question of the sacraments of the Church, and in the second, of the ministers of these sacraments, there should necessarily follow the epistle to the Galatians, treating of the termination of the sacraments of the Old Testament.409
For Aquinas, Hebrews treats the origin of grace in Christ the head of the Church. Romans treats the manifestation of the grace of Christ in the Church. The Corinthian letters treat the new sacraments of the Church and its ministers. Galatians treats the teaching that these new sacraments must not be observed along with the old:
[T]he Apostle plainly is arguing against them that if the death of Christ is the sufficient cause of our salvation, and if grace is conferred in the sacraments of the New Testament, which have their efficacy from the passion of Christ, then it is superfluous to observe, along with the New Testament, the rituals of the Old Law in which grace is not conferred nor salvation acquired, because the law brought nothing to perfection (Heb. 7:19).410
Therefore, for Aquinas, the primary theme of the letter is Paul’s teaching that the efficacy of the new sacraments renders the old sacraments superfluous.411
2. The Ceremonial Law as Fulfilled and Destroyed
Aquinas’s view of Paul’s claim that it is now superfluous to observe the ceremonies along with the New Testament seems to indicate that Aquinas understands Paul to rebuke believers in Christ who thought the observance of the ceremonial law was necessary for salvation. For the most part, the commentary does consists of Aquinas’s comments on what he views as Paul’s response to the particular error of Gentile Christians at Galatia who, under pressure from Peter and Jewish converts, had stubbornly left the faith and sought “to be preserved by carnal observances.”412 In Aquinas’s view, the Galatian Gentile believers abandonment of the new sacraments for the old amounted to turning away from Christ and to another gospel.
However, Aquinas also thinks that Paul and the Jerusalem conference in Acts 15 declared that the old sacraments were superfluous in the apostolic age, and deadly thereafter, not only for Gentile and Jewish Christians, but for all who observe the old sacraments, including Jews. In Aquinas’s view, Paul’s teaching is based on the fact that the Law was temporal and carnal because it served to prefigure Christ. Once Christ fulfilled the carnal Law it was destroyed and its observance is now sinful for Christians as well as Jews.
“Before the Faith, the Jew was Greater”: The Temporality of the Law
Aquinas understands Paul’s reference to the Gentile Christians turning to another gospel to mean their observation of the old sacraments. However, when Aquinas explains the evil of this act he is careful to once again guard against the Manichean idea that the Old Law is in and of itself evil.413
The Old Law, explains Aquinas, is not evil because it is “a good message.” The Law is good “only insofar as it does announce some good things, namely, temporal and carnal.”414 The Old Law is not perfect because it only announces goods that are “small and slight.” The New Law, on the other hand, announces goods that are greatest and perfect. The reason the goods of the New Law are perfect is because these goods are not carnal but spiritual. “The New Law,” says Aquinas, “is perfectly and in the full sense a Gospel, i.e., good message, because it announces the greatest goods, namely, heavenly, spiritual and eternal.”415
Aquinas then anticipates an objection to the claim that the Old Law was in any sense a good Law. Since the Law seems to have accomplished so little, what purpose did it actually serve? Aquinas then cites Paul’s rhetorical question from Romans 3:1. For Aquinas, to ask what purpose the Old Law served is reminiscent of Paul’s question, “What advantage then does the Jew have; or what is the profit of circumcision?”416
This question, explains Aquinas, is solved by showing how the fourfold purpose of the Old Law corresponds to the four consequences of sin enumerated by Bede: wickedness, weakness, passion, and ignorance. First, the Old Law restrained men from the wickedness of sin by forbidding it and punishing it. Second, the Old Law disclosed human weakness because “men gloried in two things: knowledge and power.”417 Third, the Old Law was given to tame the “concupiscence of a wanton people” in order that they would be “worn out by various ceremonies” so they would not fall into idolatry.418 Fourth, the Old Law was given as a “figure of future grace.” Indeed, the Law was significantly “interposed . . . between the law of nature and the law of grace.”419
Although Aquinas goes onto argue that the Law “was a pedagogue” and the Jews “were benefited” his explanation of the purposes of the Law certainly lacks the theological defense of the advantage for the Jew after the grace of Christ prominently displayed in the Romans commentary.420 The ways in which Law benefited the Jews are consistently described in the past tense, before faith came. “What benefits did the Jews derive from the law before faith came by grace?”421 Aquinas’s second answer draws upon his earlier defense of the fourfold purpose of the Law: The Jews were protected from idolatry by being kept under the Law. Unlike his replies to the “What advantage then does the Jew have?” in the Romans commentary, there is no mention of the present theological value of the Law as a light to the nations or circumcision and Law as present spiritual benefit to Jews after the grace of Christ.
When Aquinas comments upon Paul’s statement in Galatians 3:28 “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female” he returns to the rhetorical question of Romans 3:1 once more.422 First, Aquinas paraphrases his interpretation of what Paul might have thought about the meaning of verse 28: “as if to say: truly have I said, that as many of you as have been baptized in Christ Jesus have put on Christ, because there is nothing in man that would exclude anyone from the sacrament of the faith of Christ and from baptism.”423 For Aquinas, “There is neither Jew nor Greek” means: “Since you have been baptized in Christ, the rite from which you came to Christ, whether it was the Jewish or the Greek, is no ground for saying that anyone occupies a less honorable place in the faith.”424
Then he presents a possible objection to his interpretation of the claim that “there is neither Jew nor Greek” by drawing once again upon Romans 3:1–2: “What advantage then does the Jew have? Much in everyway.”425 Aquinas states that what Paul said in Romans 3:1–2 seems to contradict Galatians 3:28 (there is neither Jew nor Greek)—it seems there is no advantage to the Jew if there is no distinction between Gentile and Jew in Christ. In the respondeo Aquinas says that Jews and Greeks
can be considered . . . according to the state in which they were before faith. In this way, the Jew was greater because of the benefits he derived from the law. In another way, according to the state of grace; and in this way, the Jew is not greater. And this is the sense in which it is taken here.”426
Here, Aquinas is commenting directly upon the advantage of the Jews after the passion of Christ. Jewish advantage is affirmed, but only as something in the past: “Before the faith, the Jew was greater.” The picture of the Law that begins to emerge from the commentary is similar to that of Hebrews: the Law was imperfect but beneficial for the Jews only in the time before the coming of the New Law.
Aquinas’s view of the temporality of the Law is also expressed in the idea that it can be changed due to the fact that the source of its authority is angels, not Christ. He explains that there are three kinds of teachings each with different forms of authority. The first is that of the philosophers who arrive at knowledge of their doctrine with their own reason guiding them.427 The second doctrina is “that which has been delivered by angles, as the Old Law.”428 The Old Law, explains Aquinas, was not issued by a human will but by angels. The third doctrina “was given immediately by God Himself, as the teaching of the Gospel.”429 Aquinas then quotes Hebrews 1:2 and explains why the first and second type of teaching can be “changed and revoked” because these are not given directly from God:
Now, a teaching passed on by a man can be changed and revoked by another man who knows better, as one philosopher refutes the sayings of another, or by an angel who has a more penetrating knowledge of the truth. Even a teaching handed down by one angel could be supplanted by that of a higher angel or by God. But a teaching that comes directly from God can be nullified neither by man nor angel.430
The Gospel teaching has come directly from God and is therefore so great that “if a man or even an angel preached another Gospel . . . he is anathema.”431 The Old Law, on the other hand, is given by angels, not directly by God, and can therefore be changed. Although the Old Law is indeed higher than man it is not grounded in the same authority as the New Law. As in the Hebrews commentary the Law is not closely connected with God’s election of the Jews or God’s faithfulness as it was in the Romans commentary. Rather the Law is associated with its angelic mediators and it passes away due to a change of time. The Old Law “had a time fixed by God determining how long it was to endure and how long the heir, i.e., the Jewish people, were to be under it.”432
The Prefiguring Function of the Ceremonial Law
In addition to the temporality of the Law, the prefiguring function of the Old Law is discussed in the Galatians commentary. Aquinas understands Christ’s words in Matthew 5:17 to mean that the figures of the Old Law are now fulfilled.433 To observe the ceremonial law after the passion is “absurd and the greatest of troubles.”434 To observe the ceremonial law after the passion is to cling to an old sign after having already arrived at the destination to which it pointed, which is to misuse it:
But the New Testament and the Gospel of Christ are not ordained to the Old, but contrawise, the Old Law is ordained to the new law, as a figure to the truth. Consequently the figure ought to be converted into the truth, and the Old Law to the Gospel of Christ, not the truth into the figure, or the Gospel of Christ into the Old Law.435
To illustrate this point, Aquinas draws upon an analogy about the relationship between a man and an image of a man: “This is plain from the way we ordinarily speak; for we do not say that a man resembles the image of a man, but contrawise, that the image resembles the man . . . .”436 He then cites the Leviticus text once more: “the new coming on, you shall cast away the old.”437 For Aquinas, to observe the ceremonial law after the passion is an attempt to turn the Gospel into the Old Law.
Aquinas also argues that the words that encapsulate the apostolic message of the letter, “The new coming on, you shall cast away the old,” indicate a rationale for a casting away of the ceremonial law based on its “oldness”: “In these words the Lord suggests a fourfold oldness (quadruplicem vetustatem).438 The first and second forms of oldness are directly related to the rationale behind the casting away of the ceremonial law.439 The first oldness is that which Isaiah referred to in Isaiah 26:3: “The old error is passed away.”440 The teaching of Christ removes the error of the old. The second oldness of the Law refers to the prefiguring function of the rites which, for Aquinas, announced the new covenant in Jeremiah 31:22. Aquinas explains that, “Here he shows first of all that the first testament is old and that it is made new by the newness of grace or of the reality of Christ’s presence.”441 Aquinas’s use of the Jeremiah text functions in the same way it does in the Hebrews commentary: to refer to the change of time, when the grace of the new covenant appears in Christ. It is because of this grace of the New Testament, Aquinas explains, that “the Old Testament should be cast out, so that with the fulfillment of the truth, the figure may be abandoned, and with the attainment of these two, grace and truth, one may arrive at the truth of justice and glory.”442
The Cessation of the Ceremonial Law
Aquinas not only sees the old sacraments as fulfilled but he also understands them to terminate with the coming of Christ.443 The prefiguring function of the Law therefore also points toward the Law’s cessation and replacement by better sacraments. If the Old Law justified, it was only because it prefigured Christ: “Again, if there were any in the Old Law who were just, they were not made just by the works of the Law but only by the faith of Christ . . . although some who observed the work of the law in times past were made just, nevertheless, this was effected only by the faith of Jesus Christ.”444 The difference between the sacraments is essentially a matter of when and how they are configured to the appearance of the grace of Christ: “Hence the sacraments of the Old Law were certain protestations of the faith of Christ, just as our sacraments are, but not in the same way, because those sacraments were configured to the grace of Christ as to something that lay in the future; our sacraments, however, testify as things containing a grace that is present.”445 Now that justifying grace is present in the new sacraments, the prefiguring function of the old sacraments as figure of the future reality is exhausted and no longer necessary.
Because the Old Law pointed forward to Christ, observing the Law after Christ is “something that cannot be done without sin.”446 However, there is a difference in the gravity of the sin for those that observe the Law. Aquinas uses harsh language to describe the error of Gentile observance of the ceremonial law.447 The termination of these rites is especially serious for the Galatians who were Gentile believers.448 If the foolish Galatians would read the Law they would realize that it should be abandoned: “You have either read the law or not. If you have read it, you ought to know the things written in it. But those things prove that it should be abandoned.”449 In Aquinas’s view, the Law contains “certain things which clearly indicate that the law must not be retained.”450 To assume the burden of the Law is “a mark of exceeding stupidity” as is clear from the fact that the apostles themselves abandoned the Law at the Jerusalem conference in Acts 15:10.451
The Apostle’s Pious Destruction of the Carnal Law
Lastly, Aquinas views Paul as one who destroyed (destruxi) the ceremonial law. Paraphrasing what he takes as Paul’s own view, Aquinas writes, “I destroyed the law understood carnally by judging and teaching it spiritually.”452 Yet Aquinas sees how such an idea seems to contradict the claim that the Law is good and not evil: “one might regard [Paul] as a destroyer of the law and consequently impious according to Psalm 118:126: They have dissipated your law . . . .”453 Aquinas replies by explaining how Paul actually destroys the Law without being impious. When anyone destroys a law by means of the law itself, he is indeed a prevaricator of the law, but not impious: “For a law is destroyed by means of the law when the law itself contains some local or temporary precept, such that the law should be observed for such a time or in such a place and no other, and this fact is expressed in the law.”454 If someone were to not use that law after the said time and place, explains Aquinas, then he “destroys the law by means of the law itself . . . .”455 “In this way,” says Aquinas, “the Apostle destroyed the law.” Aquinas paraphrases his view of Paul’s thinking on the matter: “I somehow destroyed the Law, but by means of the Law; because through the Law I am dead to the Law, i.e., by the authority of the Law I have rejected the Law, as being dead to the Law.”456 This authority, according to Aquinas, is “cited in many places in Sacred Scripture,” chief of which is Jeremiah 31:31: “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel . . . .”457 In a sense, the “terms” for the abolishment of the old covenant are therefore included in that same old covenant. For Aquinas, the old covenant is therefore abolished by the new covenant because this old covenant clearly foretold such abolishment.
3. Aquinas on the Jerusalem Conference, Antioch Incident, and Controversy Between Jerome and Augustine
In Aquinas’s view, the dispute between Peter and Paul at Antioch (frequently referred to as the Antioch incident) raises the issue of apostolic authority and the unity of the gospel as it relates to the observance of the ceremonial law. He begins his comments on the Antioch incident by first highlighting Paul’s commendation of the authority of the gospel as it relates to the other apostles in matters “where they opposed his teaching.”458 For Aquinas, Galatians reveals how Paul demonstrated that he not only instructed Peter regarding the implications of the gospel for the observance of the ceremonial law, but that he did so based on apostolic authority of the Jerusalem conference.459 Indeed, before Aquinas even begins to comment on the dispute between Peter and Paul he takes the time to explain why the conference is the authoritative basis of Paul’s rebuke.
Aquinas on the Apostolic Decree that the Ceremonial Law is No Longer of Value
Aquinas explains the circumstances of the Jerusalem Conference of Acts 15 in detail.460 He takes the time to do so because Paul famously references the Conference in Galatians 2:1, when he tells of his confrontation with Peter, and because Aquinas understands Paul to have established and defended his authority at the conference.461
In Aquinas’s view, the Jerusalem Conference results in what he views as an apostolic decree on the value of circumcision. It is this decree that serves as the ground of Paul’s rebuke of Peter’s error at Antioch. Aquinas understands Paul’s words in Galatians 2 to report the time, place, witnesses, and motive of the apostolic conference of Acts 15. Though he views Paul and the apostles as equals in the Church, he privileges Paul as the apostle who taught the others and not vice versa. The other apostles greatly benefit from Paul’s perfect conversion, which included direct instruction by Christ.462 Paul “neither received the Gospel from man nor learned it by man.”463
However, Aquinas also views the apostles as called from out of the synagogue by the Holy Spirit to a shared faith in the gospel. The “conversion” of the apostles from the synagogue is mentioned in 2.1.66. And when Aquinas comments upon the possible meanings of Paul’s words that God “separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace,” he explains that the “womb” is the “college of Pharisees.” The Pharisees trained Paul in Judaism. “Therefore,” says Aquinas, “the synagogue was his mother . . . its womb are the Pharisees. And from this womb he was separated by the Holy Spirit unto faith in the Gospel . . . .”464
Paul’s teaching on faith in this gospel was confirmed at the Jerusalem conference where he conferred with Peter, James, and John, among others. Paul conferred with these senior apostles on the gospel and the observance of the Law.465 The discussion at the conference concerned the teaching of false brethren that held “you cannot be saved without circumcision.”466 Aquinas argues that Paul, on the other hand, had always taught that faith is of value but “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision profits anything . . . .”467 This is why Aquinas explains that after Paul’s conversion he began to preach that the ceremonial law was not to be observed by Gentiles: “immediately after his conversion [he] began to preach things odious to the Jews, especially the vocation of the Gentiles and that they should not observe the justifications of the law.”468 It should be noted that here, Aquinas understands Paul’s teaching on the gospel to include a prohibition of the observance of the ceremonial laws (or legal justifications) as a specifically Gentile vocation. Paul’s teaching on the gospel is that the Gentiles must not be compelled to observe the rites of the Law.
Jewish Christians, on the other hand, can and should observe the legal ceremonies.469 This is made clear in a comment Aquinas makes on why Paul allowed Timothy to be circumcised but prevented Titus from being circumcised. When Aquinas explains why Timothy, a Jewish “convert” to Christianity, was circumcised but not Titus, a Gentile, he reiterates his point about the Gentile vocation for nonobservance. However, he then adds a significant justification for what seems like a Jewish Christian vocation to observe the Law in the middle period that is based on obedience to the Law. Aquinas writes,
But the special reason why Timothy was circumcised and Titus not, was that Timothy was born of a Gentile father and Jewish mother, whereas Titus’ parents were both Gentiles. And the opinion of the Apostle was that those born of a Jewish parent on either side should be circumcised, but those born entirely of Gentile parents should on no account be circumcised.470
For Aquinas, Paul’s teaching required Jewish Christians to continue observing the Law in the middle period because of their Jewish identity.471 At least in the case of Timothy, Paul taught Jewish believers in Christ to follow the ceremonial law. Aquinas even refers to these Jewish believers as an ecclesia led by Peter. He views Peter as a pillar of what he calls the Ecclesia Iudaeorum fidelium or “Church of the Jewish believers.”472 However, as Aquinas moves into the discussion of the Jerusalem Conference, there is no mention that a Jewish Christian should observe the rite of circumcision because of their Jewish parent.
According to Aquinas’s reading, Paul’s aim at the conference was to gain apostolic support for his teaching on the Law. Paul “wanted to confer with them, in order that when his hearers heard that his teaching was in agreement with that of the other apostles and approved by them, they would hold to it more firmly.”473 The result of the conference, in Aquinas’s view, is that Paul’s teaching is approved rather than the opinion of the false brethren. At the Jerusalem conference, Paul won apostolic approval of his controversial teaching that was “odious to the Jews.” Aquinas paraphrases Paul’s view of the outcome of the conference as follows: “contrary to the opinion of the adversaries who came up to Jerusalem to oppose me in this matter, it was I that the Apostles approved.”474
Aquinas then moves to a description of the decree issued by the conference. When he describes the apostles’ decree to approve Paul’s teaching he does not mention that nonobservance of the Law was the particular vocation of Gentiles. As Aquinas draws upon a citation of John Chrysostom’s view of the Law, his description of the apostolic decree seems to implicitly broaden the rule of nonobservance of the Law to include all who observe the rites, including Jewish Christians like Timothy.
Aquinas explains the outcome of the conference as follows: “The discussion occasioned the decree handed down by the apostles on not observing the rites of the Law, as is had in Acts (15:28).”475 Immediately after describing the terms of the decree, Aquinas explains the rationale for the decision that the rites are “not to be observed” by appealing to John Chrysostom’s view of circumcision as a sign of the promise with Abraham that was fulfilled and completed by the passion of Christ:
The reason why these rites were not to be observed after the passion of Christ is assigned in the following way by Chrysostom: “For it is evident that the instrument drawn up for any promise or pact binds only until the pact and promise are fulfilled; but when fulfilled, the instrument no longer binds on that point.” Now circumcision is an instrument of the promise and pact between God and believing men. Hence it was that Abraham underwent circumcision as a sign of the promise, as is said in Genesis (11:26). And because the promise was fulfilled and the pact completed by the passion of Christ, neither the pact holds after the passion nor is circumcision of any value.476
Here, Aquinas states the terms of the apostolic decree as a decision on “not observing the rites of the Law” in general, with no mention of the qualification of Gentile vocation. Chrysostom’s view of circumcision and Aquinas’s interpretation of Paul’s teaching on nonobservance of the rites as a Gentile vocation are clearly different. Chrysostom’s view that the rites are not to be observed at all and that circumcision is no longer of value is not the same as the more nuanced Pauline teaching that only Gentiles should not observe the Law and Jewish Christians that have Jewish parents should be circumcised. The distinction between a Jewish Christian obligation to Torah in the middle period and a Gentile vocation of nonobservance seems to dissolve into one general principle of nonobservance of the rites.
Nevertheless, Aquinas then argues that Paul’s teaching was vindicated at the conference and that his preaching “was not changed nor did the apostles add to it.” He then paraphrases his understanding of Paul’s view of the decree in a way that seems to blend together the Gentile vocation of nonobservance with Chrysostom’s view that the rites should no longer be observed:
I say that the result of my discussion with them about the teaching of the Gospel was that my teaching and opinion remained unaltered concerning the non-observance of legalism, i.e., the Gentiles would not be compelled to observe the rites of the law[.] . . . [T]his discussion occasioned the decree handed down by the apostles on not observing the rites of the law.477
Aquinas seems to attempt a synthesis of Paul’s teaching on the Gentile vocation of nonobservance of the rites with his view that the conference of Jerusalem decreed that the rites should not be observed in general because circumcision no longer has value.
Overall, the recounting of the conference and its decision is part of what Aquinas views as Paul successfully defending his authority and the authentic gospel message.478 Though he asserts there was no change made to Paul’s teaching, his exposition of the meaning of the decree handed down by the apostles at the Jerusalem conference seems to undermine his comments that Paul’s teaching was that nonobservance of the rites was a specifically Gentile vocation. The rationale of the apostles, which Aquinas explains by relying upon the citation of Chrysostom, explicitly states that the observance of the ceremonial law is no longer of value. Aquinas’s reliance upon Chrysostom’s description of the rationale indicates that he thinks the decision of the apostles’ is that the ceremonial law is dead for all. As the quote from Chrysostom made clear, circumcision was a sign of the promise. Now, after the passion, the pact is fulfilled and completed. The passion completes the promise and the rites are no longer of value.
For Aquinas, therefore, the question before the Jerusalem conference concerned whether Gentiles should observe the ceremonies but the decision that was handed down is a general prohibition on observance of circumcision based on the idea that the sacraments of the Old Law are superfluous after the passion.
Aquinas’s View of the Antioch Incident
After establishing the validation of Paul’s teaching by the Jerusalem Conference, Aquinas comments upon Paul’s rebuke of Peter at Antioch. For Aquinas, Paul shows how he “helped Peter by correcting him.”479 Aquinas summarizes Paul’s narration as follows. After regularly eating the food of the Gentiles, Peter withdrew from the Gentiles when certain Jews arrived, and “adhered to the Jews alone and mingled among them.”480 Peter did so, reasons Aquinas, because he feared the Jews. Although this fear was not “a human or worldly fear but a fear inspired by charity, namely, lest they be scandalized, as is said in a Gloss.”481 Peter “became to the Jews as a Jew, pretending that he felt the same as they did in their weakness.”482 “What resulted from this pretense,” says Aquinas, is “the rest of the Jews consented who were at Antioch, discriminating between food and separating from the Gentiles.”483 “Prior to this act,” explains Aquinas, “they would not have done this.” In order to avoid scandalizing the Jews, Peter pretended to feel the same way the Jews did and observe the laws. The Gentiles were then compelled to observe the legal justifications and the truth of the gospel was being undone.484
Paul’s rebuke was just and fitting, explains Aquinas, because “in cases where danger is imminent, the truth must be preached openly and the opposite never condoned through fear of scandalizing others . . . .”485 Aquinas understands Peter to have an obligation to not compel the Gentiles to eat such foods. This is because Aquinas thinks Peter was instructed by God to no longer live as the Jews do: “he had been instructed by God that although he had previously lived as the Jews do, he should no longer discriminate among foods: ‘That which God has cleansed, do not thou call common’ (Acts 10:15).”486 Paul’s rebuke of Peter is restated and then paraphrased by Aquinas with echoes of Acts 10 in the background:
If you, being a Jew, by nature and race, live after the manner of the Gentiles and not as the Jews do, i.e., if you observe the customs of Gentiles and not of Jews, since you know and feel that discriminating among foods is of no importance, how do you compel the Gentiles, not indeed by command, but by example of your behavior, to live as the Jews do?487
In Aquinas’s view, the idea that the ceremonial law is no longer to be observed is a teaching revealed to Peter by God in Acts 10:15.488 Peter did not observe the rites prior to the arrival of the Jews and ate with Gentiles because “the inspiration of the Holy Spirit Who had said to him: ‘That which God hath cleansed, do not thou call common,’ as is had in Acts 10:15.”489 Aquinas’s Peter is therefore aware that the ceremonial law is of no importance and need not be observed. While Aquinas’s understanding of Peter’s observance of the Law is rather straightforward (he did not observe it after his dream; he did observe it when under pressure from Jewish Christians), his view of Paul’s position on the Law is more complex. As I show below, Aquinas departs from Augustine on this important point: whether Paul actually observed the ceremonial law and whether he taught that Jews could observe it in the apostolic age.
From Superfluous to Deadly:Aquinas on the Controversy between Jerome and Augustine
In his discussion of the debate between Aquinas and Jerome, it becomes clear that Aquinas follows Augustine on two important points but also departs from Augustine in a significant way. Aquinas says that Paul’s rebuke of Peter “occasioned no small controversy between Jerome and Augustine . . . .”490 The controversy concerned the proper interpretation of Galatians 2:11–14.491 The discussion dominated a series of letters exchanged between these church fathers “from opposite ends of the Latin-speaking Roman Empire,” sometime between 394 and 419.492 “As their writings clearly show,” explains Aquinas, “they are seen to disagree on four points.”493 Aquinas then lists and comments upon each of the four disagreements, two of which will be discussed below.494
First, Augustine and Jerome disagreed as to the time of the justifications, namely when they should be observed. Aquinas explains that Jerome distinguishes two periods for the observation of the legal justifications: 1) before the passion of Christ and 2) after the passion. For Jerome, explains Aquinas, “the legal justifications were living before the passion of Christ, i.e., had validity, inasmuch as original sin was removed through circumcision, and God was pleased with sacrifices and victims.”495 After the passion, explains Aquinas, Jerome held that the legal justifications were “not only not living i.e. dead (mortua), but what is more, they were deadly (mortifera), so that whoever observed them after the passion of Christ sinned mortally.”496
Augustine, on the other hand, distinguishes three periods. The first period is 1) before the passion of Christ. Here, and in agreement with Jerome, the legal justifications were living before the passion. The second period is 2) that time “immediately following the passion of Christ, before grace was promulgated . . . .”497 Aquinas describes Augustine’s view of this “time of the apostles in the beginning” as follows:
During this period, says Augustine, the legal justifications were dead (mortua) but not yet deadly (mortifera) to the converted Jews, so long as the ones observing them placed no hope in them. Hence the Jews observed them during that period without sinning. But had they placed their trust in them when observing them after their conversion, they would have sinned mortally; because if they had placed their trust in them so as to believe that they were necessary for salvation, then, as far as they were concerned, they would have been voiding the grace of Christ.498
In the time of the apostles the Law is therefore dead for all Jews or of no value. However, it is not yet deadly and converted Jewish Christians as well as Jews observed the ceremonial law during this time. These “Jews observed them during that period without sinning,” says Aquinas.499 In order to explain how these Jews observed the Law without sinning, Aquinas relies upon what might be referred to as the “two ways” of observing the ceremonial law in the middle period or apostolic age.
Jewish Christians could have observed the rites of the Law in the time of the apostles without having sinned so long as they did not “place their trust in them so as to believe that they were necessary for salvation.”500 Here, Aquinas makes a distinction between 1) observing the Law and 2) being of the Law. “Observing the law” is simply one who fulfills or obeys the law, “so that one who fulfills is not under a curse.” However, to be “of the works of the Law” is to place trust and hope in these works.501
It is this latter form of observance—being “of the works of the Law”—that Aquinas, following Augustine’s view, believes is unacceptable. This distinction allows Aquinas to say that it is not the Law in and of itself that suddenly becomes sinful but rather the belief that the Law saves: “Therefore, inasmuch as the law begets a knowledge of sin and offers no help against sin, they are said to be under a curse, since they are powerless to escape it by those works.”502
For Aquinas, these “two ways” of observing the Law in the apostolic age (or middle period) also functions to explain how Christ himself observed the Law. Aquinas says that “a difficulty comes to mind” concerning Christ and the Law when Paul’s says “If you are led by the spirit, you are not under the Law” in Galatians 5:18.503 The difficulty is that “if Christ is not only spiritual but the giver of the Spirit, it seems unbecoming to say that He was made under the Law.”504 Aquinas’s respondeo relies upon the “two ways” of observing the Law in the middle period. He explains that “to be under the Law” can be taken in two ways: “under” can denote mere observance of the Law, which is the sense in which Christ was made under the Law, because he was circumcised and presented in the temple. Aquinas then cites Matthew 5:17 “I am not come to destroy but to fulfill.” And “under” can also denote oppression, in the sense that one is oppressed by fear of the Law. “But neither Christ nor spiritual men are said to be under the Law in this way.”505 For Aquinas, the “mere observance” of the Law, without trust in it, by Christ can therefore be considered a form of “fulfillment” of the Law. This middle period is the only time in which the ceremonial law can be observed by Jews and Jewish Christians after the passion of Christ.
Lastly, Aquinas explains that Augustine posits a third period: 3) after the grace of Christ had been proclaimed. It was during that period, according to Augustine, that these legal justifications became both “dead and deadly” to all who observed them.506 The “reasoning that underlies these statements,” explains Aquinas, is that
if the Jews had been forbidden the legal observations right after their conversion, it might have seemed that they had previously been on equal footing with idolaters, who were immediately forbidden to worship idols, and that just as idolatry had never been good, so too the legal observances. Therefore, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, the legal observances were condoned for a short time for the reason given, namely, to show that the legal observances had been good in the past. Hence says Augustine, the fact that the legal justifications were not forbidden right after the passion of Christ showed that the mother, the synagogue, was destined to be brought in honor to the grave. But whosoever did not observe them in that manner would not be honoring the mother, the synagogue, but disturbing her grave.507
In order to avoid any semblance of the Manichean idea that the legal observances were evil, a special condoning of the legal observances is declared for the apostolic age. By allowing for the observance of the ceremonial law in the apostolic age the Church shows its respect for the ancient customs. The sacraments of the synagogue are honored and respected in this way but are nonetheless, in Augustine’s view, destined to expire.
It is important to emphasize that Aquinas understands the observance of the ceremonies after the promulgation of grace as a mortal sin for Jews and not Jewish Christians. As I argued in chapter 2, the reason Matthew Levering misses the primary concern in Wyschogrod’s critique of Aquinas is because he thinks Aquinas’s teaching that the observance of the ceremonial law is a mortal sin after the passion applies only to baptized Jews. For Levering, Aquinas does not condemn Jewish observance of the Law.508
Levering fails to recognize the consequence of Aquinas’s adoption of Augustine’s teaching that after the final period (after the grace of Christ had been proclaimed), the observance of legal observances is deadly for all. Aquinas states the consequences of observing the Law after the middle period in 5.1.278: “To observe the legal ceremonies after grace had been preached is a mortal sin for the Jews. But during the interim, i.e., before the preaching of grace, they could be observed without sin even by those who had been converted from Judaism, provided they set no hope on them.”509 There is no question in Aquinas’s mind that the legal observances were always sinful for Gentile Christians, but after the expiration of the middle period that comes with the promulgation of the gospel, these observances are forbidden for Jewish Christians and Jews.
The second point on which Jerome and Augustine differed was on the reason the apostles observed the ceremonial laws. Jerome argues that the apostles only observed the rites out of pretense. For example, they did not really observe the Sabbath, but simply rested. Augustine, on the other hand, argues that the apostles definitely intended to observe the legal justifications. However, they did so without putting their trust in them as though they were necessary for salvation.
Aquinas adopts Augustine’s position here again, and explains the rationale. In the apostolic age, both Jews and Jewish Christians can safely observe the ceremonial laws: “This was lawful for them to do, because they had been Jews. Nevertheless, they observed them before grace was proclaimed. Hence just as certain other Jews could safely observe them at that time without putting any trust in them, so too could the apostles.”510
As is well known, Aquinas sides with Augustine on both of these points. However, there is a significant difference between Augustine’s interpretation of Paul’s observance of the Law and Aquinas’s own interpretation. Although they arrived at different answers to the question, both Jerome and Augustine assumed that the apostles observed the Law after the passion of Christ. As Peter Gorday explains, the question that preoccupied them concerned whether “the abrogation of the law as the means of salvation [was] a simple, straightforward matter? Why then did not only Peter but [also] Paul . . . continue on occasion to observe its requirements?”511 Augustine’s words to Jerome in Epistle 82 demonstrate that he thought Paul’s observance of the Law was a fact: “I believe that the Apostle Paul did all these things honestly, and without dissimulation; and yet if any one now leave Judaism and become a Christian, I neither compel nor permit him to imitate Paul’s example, and go on with the sincere observance of Jewish rites, any more than you, who think that Paul dissembled when he practiced these rites, would compel or permit such a one to follow the apostle in that dissimulation.512 For Augustine, Paul observed the ceremonies and meant to do so. For Jerome, the apostles also observed the ceremonies but did so under pretense. Both Fathers viewed Paul as observing the rites.
As is clear from his presentation of Augustine’s view, Aquinas understands Augustine to hold that the Jewish apostles actually observed the Law without sinning in the middle period. Unlike Augustine and Jerome, however, Aquinas does not think that Paul observed the Law. Although Augustine and Aquinas agree that Jews and Jewish Christians who observed the Mosaic Law without putting hope in it avoided sinning during the middle period, they differ on 1) whether the Apostle Paul observed the Law during the middle period; and 2) whether Paul taught that Jews should abandon the Law in the middle period.
First, Aquinas holds that Paul, and Peter, actually abandoned the Law during the middle period. Peter did so at the direct instruction of the Holy Spirit. Aquinas views the cessation of the ceremonial law to have begun almost immediately with Paul and Peter’s conversions. He views both apostles as having been called out by the Holy Spirit from the synagogue and into a “life without the law.” Aquinas thinks Paul himself abandoned the Law and encouraged others to do likewise. He claims that Paul lived without the Law himself, had abandoned a life of the Law, and that he taught Jews to do so as well. When Paul admonishes the Galatians to “Be as I am,” Aquinas describes Paul’s thinking as follows: “‘Be as I am,’ i.e. live without the law, because I, who had the law and was born in the law, am now as you formerly were, namely, without the law.”513
Second, Aquinas teaches that the Apostle Paul destroyed the Law through his teaching that the old covenant had been fulfilled by the new covenant. He also interprets Paul to have taught Jews that the ceremonies should not be observed, and that the Jerusalem Conference approved this teaching. Additionally, in Ad Gal. 5.2.295, Aquinas argues that Acts 21:21 proves that Paul was suffering Jewish persecution because he taught that the legal ceremonies should not be observed even in the apostolic age: “For the Jews persecuted Paul precisely because he taught that the legal ceremonies should not be observed.” He then cites James’ report to Paul in Acts 21:21 of what the Jews were saying about Paul’s teaching: “They have heard of you that you teach those Jews who are among the Gentiles to depart from Moses; saying that they ought not to circumcise their children nor walk according to custom.”514 Augustine rightly interprets the charge reported by James against Paul as a false description of Paul’s teaching.515 Aquinas, on the other hand, interprets James’s report as an accurate description of what Paul was teaching.
Yet the differences between Aquinas and Augustine on these points are not as important as their shared view that the fulfillment of the ceremonial law also means that it was destined to expire, and that Jewish Christians were not destined to endure. Because of his adoption of Augustine’s interpretation of the middle period, Aquinas assumed that the Church of the circumcision was simply not meant to continue. His view of the destiny of the Jewish Christians is mentioned in passing when he comments on the meaning of the Jewish Christian Church’s (or Church of the circumcision) practice of selling their goods. Such a practice was allowed because the Church of the circumcision, which was in Jerusalem, was “not destined to endure.”
Now the reason why the custom prevailed in the early Church for those in the Church of the circumcision to sell their goods and not those in the Church of the Gentiles was that the believing Jews were congregated in Jerusalem and in Judea, which was soon to be destroyed by the Romans, as later events proved. Hence the Lord willed that no possessions were to be kept in a place not destined to endure. But the Church of the Gentiles was destined to grow strong and increase, and therefore, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it came about that the possessions in it were not to be sold.516
Aquinas’s view of the destiny of the Church of the circumcision operates as an extension of the Augustinian idea that the Holy Spirit allowed believing Jews and Jews to observe the ceremonial law but only for a limited time. After the middle period those who observe the ceremonies were not destined to grow strong and increase.
4. Fulfilled, Destroyed, and Deadly: The Economic Supersessionism of the Galatians Commentary
In the Galatians commentary, Aquinas clearly views the ceremonial law as dead in the apostolic age and deadly thereafter. Although he acknowledges the historical value of the Law in securing the Jewish people against the danger of idolatry, and serving as a pedagogue that provided knowledge of sin, this value is lost once the prefiguring function of the Law is fulfilled by the reality that it prefigured. The fulfillment of the ceremonial law also brings about its completion, and it is a completion that requires what Aquinas refers to as the “destruction” of the ceremonial law.
Aquinas thinks Paul’s message about the sinfulness of observing the ceremonial law is directed toward the Gentile Christians of Galatia. However, he also thinks Paul’s teaching also applies to all who observe the Law after the passion of Christ, including Jews. This is clear from Aquinas’s approval of Augustine’s “middle period” where the ceremonial law becomes dead and deadly for all after the promulgation of grace.
Aquinas’s view of the ceremonial law in the Galatians commentary is at odds with his positive theological view of the Law in the era after grace in the Romans commentary. In the Romans commentary, Aquinas takes the time to articulate a theologically positive answer to the question “What is the value of circumcision?” His replies state that the ceremonial law (including circumcision) is an advantage for the Jew in the present tense, and a fundamental aspect of God’s promise to Abraham. Moreover, in the Galatians commentary, Aquinas argues that observance of the ceremonial law after the promulgation of grace is a mortal sin, yet in the Romans commentary, he describes it is a present spiritual benefit.
The conflicting visions of the ceremonial law that emerge from Romans and Galatians amount to what might be called rival versions of the fulfillment of the ceremonial law. On the one hand, Aquinas’s Romans commentary represents a view of fulfillment that emphasizes the ongoing theological significance of Judaism; the law is “fulfilled and upheld.” On the other hand, the Galatians commentary represents a view of fulfillment that could be referred to as “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly.” In this latter form of fulfillment, the Jewish Law is declared as superfluous, destined to expire, and then deadly to anyone who observes the rites in the era after grace.
403. Ad Galat. 2.5.100.
404. Aquinas uses “insufficiency,” “cessation,” and “abandonment” a number of times to describe the ceremonial law. Ad Galat. 1.1.15: “insufficientiam legalium”; 1.1.2: “. . . epistola ad Galatas, in qua agitur de cessation sacramentorum veteris testament”; “. . . si observantia legalium dimissa, observantiae Evangelii Christi ferventer insistamus.” Like Aquinas’s use of term legalia in the Hebrews commentary, he does not define the rites in detail. Ad Hebraeos, Prologus 5. In general, he uses legalis to refer to the Law, human law, or the Law of the Old Testament. In this context it is of course the Law of the Old Testament to which he refers. According to Deferrari, Aquinas’s use of the phrase observatio legalis refers to the “observance of the prescriptions of the Old Testament.” Aquinas 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. 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. Associating “legal observances” with category 3 and 4 in particular seems justified by a reading of the Aquinas’s description of the Antioch dispute between Paul and Peter, in which Aquinas discusses ceremonial law as rites at length (Ad Galat. 2.1). As I show below Aquinas understands the decision among the apostles at Acts 15 as a decree on not observing the rites of the Law. See also the note on this same topic in chapter 4.
405. Ad Galat. 1.1.1.
406. “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.” Ad Heb. 1.1.6.
407. However, this does not mean that Aquinas’s teaching does not also apply to Jews, a point I attempt to make clear below.
408. Ad Galat. 1.1.2: “. . . sacramentorum veteris testament.”
409. Ad Galat. 1.1.2.
410. Ad Galat. 1.1.14.
411. Aquinas’s discussion of the ceremonial law is scattered throughout the chapters. Since the great majority of the content is found in chapters 1 through 4, my thematic examination of the commentary focuses there.
412. Ad Galat. 3.2.125. That Aquinas thinks Jewish converts, rather than Jews, are the false brethren is clear from 4.5.239: “certain false brethren, converted from Judaism, went about the churches of the Gentiles, preaching the observance of the law.”
413. Ad Galat. 1.2.19. He relies upon the imperfect/perfect distinction to avoid what he identified in the Hebrews commentary as the Manichean view that the Old Testament is evil.
414. Ad Galat. 1.2.19.
415. Ad Galat. 1.2.19.
416. Ad Galat. 3.7.163.
417. Ad Galat. 3.7.165.
418. Ad Galat. 3.7.165.
419. Ad Galat. 3.7.165.
420. Ad Galat. 3.8.175; Cf. 3.8.178–9.
421. Ad Galat. 3.8.176.
422. Ad Galat. 3.9.186. He also cites Romans 10:12 as well, which states “There is no distinction of the Jew and Greek; for the same is Lord over all.” “Et Rom. X,12: non est distinctio Iudaei et Graeci, et cetera.”
423. Ad Galat. 3.9.185.
424. Ad Galat. 3.9.186.
425. Ad Galat. 3.9.186.
426. Ad Galat. 3.9.186.
427. Ad Galat. 1.2.25.
428. Ad Galat. 1.2.25.
429. Ad Galat. 1.2.25.
430. Ad Galat. 1.2.25.
431. Ad Galat. 1.2.25.
432. Ad Galat. 4.1.196.
433. Ad Galat. 4.1.200.
434. Ad Galat. 1.2.21.
435. Ad Galat. 1.2.21.
436. Ad Galat. 1.2.21.
437. Ad Galat. 1.2.21.
438. Ad Galat. Prologus 1.
439. The third oldness is of guilt. Aquinas understands this guilt as a result of “not confessing . . . sins” but this is made new by “the newness of justice.” Although he does not spell out this justice, it is safe to assume he means the sanctifying justice that comes only through Christ. The fourth oldness is punishment of sin in the body, which the newness of glory will remove. Ad Galat. Prologus 1.
440. Ad Galat. Prologus 1.
441. Ad Galat. Prologus 1.
442. Ad Galat. 1.1.2.
443. Aquinas makes the distinction between the permanent moral precepts and the temporary ceremonial law in Ad Galat. 2.4.94.
444. Ad Galat. 2.4.94.
445. Ad Galat. 2.4.94.
446. Ad Galat. 2.5.100.
447. Ad Galat. 4.7.248. Aquinas views Acts 15:10 as the apostolic rejection of the ceremonial law: “This is a yoke which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear.” I will treat Aquinas’s view of the Jerusalem conference below.
448. That Aquinas thinks the Galatians are Gentiles is clear in 3.1.123.
449. Ad Galat. 4.7.248.
450. Ad Galat. 4.7.249.
451. Ad Galat. 3.2.121.
452. Ad Galat. 2.5.100.
453. Ad Galat. 2.6.103.
454. Ad Galat. 2.6.103.
455. Ad Galat. 2.6.103.
456. Ad Galat. 2.6.103.
457. Ad Galat. 2.6.103.
458. Ad Galat. 2.1.51.
459. Ad Galat. 2.3.76.
460. Larcher translates collatione as “conference” or “discussion.”
461. Aquinas explains that the Galatians had been so deceived by false teachers that they believed that Paul did not “enjoy the same authority as the other apostles, as having neither been taught by Christ nor lived with Him, but sent by them as their minister.” See Ad Galat. 1.1.6.
462. “Furthermore, his conversion was perfect with respect to his understanding, because he was so instructed by Christ that there was no need to be instructed by the apostles; hence he says, Neither went I to Jerusalem, i.e., to be instructed by them.” Ad Galat. 1.4.44. Aquinas is aware of Paul’s stay with the apostles in Damascus and Jerusalem mentioned in Acts 9 and includes this fact as an objection to his position that Paul was not instructed by the apostles but received his teaching directly from Christ. His reply is simply that Paul, although he did go to Jerusalem to see Peter, did not go for instruction. Aquinas repeats this in 1.4.47 in order to reinforce the idea that Paul did not seek instruction from Peter but obtained his teaching from Christ. He states in his own words what he believes Paul meant to say: “Although I did not go to the apostles to be instructed by them in the beginning of my conversion, because I had already been instructed by Christ, yet, being moved by a feeling of charity, after three years, i.e., after my conversion, I went to Jerusalem, because I had long desired to see Peter, not to be taught by him but to visit him . . . .”
463. Ad Galat. 2.2.69.
464. Ad Galat. 1.4.41.
465. Ad Galat. 2.1.56.
466. Ad Galat. 2.1.62.
467. Ad Galat. 2.1.63.
468. Ad Galat. 2.1.57.
469. This observance is only allowed in what Augustine calls the “middle period” or the apostolic age.
470. Ad Galat. 2.1.63.
471. For Augustine, the ceremonial law should be observed by Jewish Christians in order to avoid scandalizing the Jews in the middle period but is ultimately a matter of indifference for the Jewish Christian—the Law can be observed as an expression of Christian freedom and respect for the ancient customs but is not necessary. Augustine Ep. 82, cited in White, Correspondence, 153. In Titus’s case the rationale to not circumcise is the rejection of the doctrine that circumcision is necessary for salvation for Gentiles. Paul allows Timothy to be circumcised in Acts 16:3; Titus is refused circumcision by Paul in Galatians 2:3–5.
472. Ad Galat. 2.2.74–5.
473. Ad Galat. 2.1.59.
474. Ad Galat. 2.2.71.
475. Ad Galat. 2.1.61.
476. Ad Galat. 2.1.61.
477. Ad Galat. 2.1.61.
478. Ad Galat. 2.1.60.
479. Ad Galat. 2.3.76. Aquinas sides with Augustine, who also viewed Peter as being in the wrong for withdrawing from Gentile table fellowship.
480. Ad Galat. 2.3.79–80.
481. Ad Galat. 2.3.80. He goes onto explain that Peter “became to the Jews as a Jew, pretending that he felt the same as they did in their weakness. Yet he feared unreasonably, because the truth must never be set aside through fear of scandal.” Aquinas’s reference to Peter’s “fear of scandal” motivated by charity actually resembles Jerome’s view of the reason for Peter’s fear. Peter Gorday explains: “[Jerome] took the tack of interpreting the ‘fear’ felt by Peter ‘of those from the circumcision’ mentioned by Paul (Gal. 2:14) as a reference not to cravenness on Peter’s part but to a fear that he would lose his Jewish converts if he acted unwisely in the crisis (Ep. 112, 8). He enters not into a lie, contended Jerome, but into ‘honest diplomacy’ intended to display the wisdom of the apostles . . . .” Gorday points out that the idea that Peter caved to the circumcision group out of a craven fear is actually from the anti-Jewish tradition of the Marcionite prologues. Gorday, “Jews and Gentiles,” 215.
482. Ad Galat. 2.3.88.
483. Ad Galat. 2.3.81.
484. Ad Galat. 2.3.83.
485. Ad Galat. 2.3.83.
486. Ad Galat. 2.3.85.
487. Ad Galat. 2.3.85.
488. As far as I can tell, in his exchange with Jerome, Augustine does not use Acts 10:15 to argue that Peter knew the Law was no longer important.
489. Ad Galat. 2.3.79.
490. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
491. Peter Gorday points out that the controversy between Jerome and Augustine centered upon finding answers to lingering questions about the Antioch incident: “To be sure, on one level Paul’s narrative posed no problem for Augustine and Jerome. They were quite clear in their agreement about the final implications for faith and practice of the encounter between the two apostles at Antioch. Christians may on no account feel bound to observe Jewish ritual law as a required, inherent part of their discipleship. In Christ, the Law has been dethroned as the means of salvation. On another level, however, questions remained about what had really been going on in the encounter between the two apostles. Was it a straightforward matter of the clash of two opposed points of view, in which one man was right and the other wrong? Was the outcome a simple submission of one to the other? Further, was Peter not only theologically wrong but also morally flawed in his behavior? Was Paul arrogant, or worse, inconsistent, in administering the rebuke? Was there a triumph here of the Gentiles’ understanding and practice of the gospel over that of their Jewish fellow believers? Or were there deeper, hidden dimensions of the meeting of Peter and Paul, in which a more fundamental unity, even concord, was more significant than their opposition? Furthermore, and more basically, was the abrogation of the law as the means of salvation a simple, straightforward matter? Why then did not only Peter but [also] Paul . . . continue on occasion to observe its requirements? The answers arrived at by Jerome and Augustine to these questions, based in part on their historical reconstructions of the special circumstances affecting Paul’s theology, then enabled them to arrive at somewhat different understandings of the continuing significance of the law of Moses in the history of salvation.” Gorday, “Jews and Gentiles,” 205–6.
492. Augustine wrote the first letter in the exchange after he read a copy of Jerome’s commentary on Galatians (written in 388). Augustine believed Jerome had given an unsatisfactory and dangerous interpretation of Galatians 2:11–14. The danger was that Jerome suggested that the Jewish apostles had acted under a pretense in observing the ceremonial law, which would mean the biblical authors sometimes lie. Carolinne White provides a helpful overview of the letters exchanged: “It was his disagreement on this point in particular which was to lead to the famous controversy, prolonged because their letters were often lost or delayed and because of Jerome’s refusal to reply to the question at issue; the discussion of the critical passage of Galatians is restricted to Ep. 28 (which never reached Jerome), Ep. 40 (largely a repetition of Ep. 28), Jerome’s lengthy Ep. 112 and Augustine’s final answer in his Ep. 82—the other letters written while the dispute raged are largely devoted to expressions of love and respect or indignation and to the question of the extent to which criticism is permissible between Christian friends.” Augustine writes letter 40 only because there is no response to the first letter, 28. For an introduction to the letters see White, The Correspondence between Jerome and Augustine, 2–3; 120–32. For a concise summary of the debate see ibid., 43–7. See also Nanos, The Irony of Galatians; Nanos, “Peter’s Hypocrisy (Gal. 2:11–21) in the Light of Paul’s Anxiety (Rom. 7)”; Boyarin, Border Lines, 209; Gorday, “Jews and Gentiles, Galatians,” 199–236; Childs, Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, 293.
493. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
494. The third and forth points of the disagreement between Augustine and Jerome are less relevant to my argument that Aquinas thinks the Law is now dead and deadly for all Jews and thus will be included here. The third point on which Jerome and Augustine differ is the sin of Peter. Jerome, explains Aquinas, claims Peter did not sin because he withdrew from the Gentiles out of charity not mundane fear. Aquinas, however, claims that Peter sinned venially. He sinned on account of a lack of discretion by leaning toward the Jews in order to avoid scandalizing them. Finally, the fourth point which Jerome and Augustine differ is on Paul’s rebuke. Jerome claims that Peter pretended to observe the legal justifications and Paul pretended to rebuke him. Jerome said this was done by mutual consent, explains Aquinas, so that each might exercise his care over their respective mission, Gentiles and Jews. Augustine, however, claims Peter really sinned by observing the justifications because this action was a source of scandal to the Gentiles. Paul did not sin in rebuking him because no scandal followed from his rebuke.
495. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
496. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
497. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
498. Ad Galat. 2.3.86. Aquinas actually refers to this middle period as the “third period” but I am reordering them according to chronology in order to simplify the presentation.
499. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
500. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
501. Ad Galat. 3.4.136; Cf. 5.5.318.
502. Ad Galat. 3.4.136.
503. Ad Galat. 4.2.208.
504. Ad Galat. 4.2.208.
505. Ad Galat. 4.2.208.
506. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
507. Ad Galat. 2.3.86.
508. “Aquinas does not condemn the observance of Torah by Jews who do not believe in Jesus Christ.” Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, 161fn60.
509. Ad Galat. 5.1.278.
510. Ad Galat. 2.3.87. Aquinas’s view that the Jewish apostles actually practiced the ceremonial law and his view of the three periods is basically the same as Augustine. Augustine writes, concerning Paul’s observance of the ceremonial law: “Paul was without doubt a Jew and when he became a Christian he did not give up the practices of the Jews which that people had accepted as being lawful and suitable for the times. That is why he undertook to perform these things although he was already and apostle of Christ: he did so in order to show that they were not harmful to those who wished to observe them in the way they had received them from their parents by means of the Law even after they had come to believe in Christ. He wanted to show that Christians ought not to set their hope of salvation in these things because the salvation which was signified by those sacraments had already come through the Lord Jesus. And so he judged that they were in no way to be imposed upon the Gentiles because such a heavy and unnecessary burden might repel them, unaccustomed as they were, from the faith. Consequently, Paul was not rebuking Peter for observing the traditions of his fathers which could be performed without deceit or inconsistency if Peter wished (for although these customs were now superfluous they were not harmful); but he criticized him for forcing the Gentiles to live as Jews, which he could only do by himself observing these traditions as if they were still necessary for salvation even after the coming of the Lord.” Augustine, Ep. 40, in White, 77–8.
511. Gorday, “Jews and Gentiles,” 205–6.
512. Augustine, Epistle 82, cited in White, Correspondence (394–419), 120–32. [Emphasis added]
513. Ad Galat. 4.4.227. [Emphasis added]
514. Ad Galat. 5.2.295. [Emphasis added]
515. Augustine writes, in Epistle 82: “It is clear, in my opinion, that James gave this advice so that those Jews who had continued to be zealous for the Law after coming to believe in Christ should know that what they had been told about Paul was false, namely that the commandments prescribed by God and granted to their fathers by Moses should be regarded as condemned as sacrilegious by the teaching of Christ. . . . Plotting to rouse hatred and persecution against him, they accused him of being an enemy of the law and the divine commandments and the only way Paul was able to avoid the hatred awakened by their false accusation was by himself performing these rites, which he was thought to condemn as sacrilegious.” See Augustine, Epistle 82, in White, Correspondence (394–419), 150–51.
516. Ad Galat. 2.2.75.