Chapter 8: Rival Versions of Christ’s Fulfillment of the Law
8
Rival Versions of Christ’s Fulfillment of the Law
The Tension in Aquinas’s Thought between Galatians 5:2 and Romans 3:1–2
A comparison of Aquinas’s thought on the ceremonial law after Christ in the commentaries with his teaching in the Summa theologiae609 reveals a tension in his thought on the ceremonial law. The tension is caused by what Aquinas understands as a difficulty in Pauline statements concerning the value of circumcision after the passion of Christ. Aquinas understands the value of the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ to hang on whether Paul teaches that circumcision is “superfluous” for all in the era of grace (Gal 5:2) or “advantageous” (Rom 3:1–2) for the Jewish people. In the Romans commentary, Aquinas recognizes that Paul defends the Law as a spiritual benefit for Jews even after Christ, and uses this teaching to reject the traditional view in Ia-IIae q. 103 a. 4, and based in Galatians 5:2, that circumcision no longer has value for Jews.
1. Revisiting the Discussion Over the Question of Supersessionism in Aquinas’s Theology
In my analysis of the commentaries I asked whether Aquinas consistently teaches that the ceremonial law becomes mortua et mortifera or whether he attributes some sort of theological value to the rites after the passion of Christ? I discovered three views of fulfillment of the ceremonial law in the relevant Pauline commentaries: 1) fulfilled, destroyed, deadly (Hebrews and Galatians); 2) fulfilled and destroyed (Ephesians); and 3) fulfilled and upheld (Romans).
My study of Aquinas’s commentaries on Paul supplies a perspective for comparing the Summa theologiae not only as it relates to the Romans commentary, which a few scholars have done, but also to the commentaries on Hebrews, Galatians, and Ephesians. Since my primary task in this chapter is a comparison of Aquinas’s thought on the ceremonial law after Christ in the commentaries and the Summa theologiae it is necessary to briefly engage the three Thomists who have, with varying degrees of detail, commented upon the relationship between the Summa theologiae and Romans commentary.
Boguslawski, Marshall, and Levering on the Relationship between the Romans Commentary and the Summa theologiae
Although these scholars provide illuminating comparisons of the Summa theologiae and the Romans commentary they either 1) do not attend to the teaching in the Summa theologiae on the cessation of the ceremonial law or 2) overlook the particular point in Aquinas’s teaching on the duration of the ceremonial law in the Summa theologiae that is in tension with his more positive teaching on the ceremonial law in the Romans commentary.
Boguslawski rightly argues that Aquinas’s commentary on Romans 9 through 11 provides a positive view of the Jews and avoids Augustinian supersessionism, which he defines as the deconstruction of Israel’s prerogatives to Christological prefigurements.610 As I argued in chapter 5, Aquinas’s view of the fulfillment of the ceremonial law in the Romans commentary can be referred to as “fulfilled and upheld.” Nevertheless, while it is clear that this special delineation for the Jewish people exists in Aquinas’s Romans commentary, it is not clear from Boguslawski’s presentation how such delineation exists in the Summa theologiae, as he does not address Aquinas’s teaching on the fulfillment and cessation of the ceremonial law after Christ in Ia-IIae q. 103.4. Although Boguslawski highlights positive aspects of Aquinas’s views concerning the teaching on the Jewish people in the Summa theologiae, it is not clear that these aspects “overcome supersessionism.” In fact, my below examination of the treatise on law demonstrates that Aquinas’s teaching in the Summa theologiae actually strengthens Augustine’s view that the Law is dead after the passion of Christ by buttressing it with Pauline authority.
Unlike Boguslawski, who views the relationship between the Summa theologiae and the Romans commentary as works of Aquinas that share complimentary views of Israel and the Law that avoid supersessionism, Marshall thinks the Romans commentary is in tension with the teaching on the ceremonial law in the Summa theologiae, which largely corresponds to what I have described above as the “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly” view of the ceremonial after the passion of Christ. Nevertheless, he does not provide an in-depth analysis of Romans or demonstrate the source of the tension in these two works of Aquinas.
When it comes to explaining how the view of the positive language about the Jewish people in the Romans commentary is related to Aquinas’s teaching in the Summa theologiae, Marshall and Boguslawski depart in significant ways. Whereas Boguslawski views the teaching in the Summa theologiae as complimenting the positive view of Jewish election in the Romans commentary, Marshall thinks that the teaching in the Summa theologiae actually undermines the positive view of Jewish election in the Romans commentary.
Both scholars overlook the particular point in Aquinas’s teaching on the duration of the ceremonial law in the Summa theologiae that is in tension with his more positive teaching on the ceremonial law in the Romans commentary. Levering’s view of the relationship between the Summa theologiae and the Romans commentary deserves more attention since he has treated the concept of fulfillment of the Old Law in Aquinas at length.
Levering on How Aquinas’s Teaching on Christ’s Fulfillment and Transformation of Israel’s Law is Influenced by Pauline Texts
Levering has shown that the concept of the fulfillment of the Old Law plays an incredibly significant role in Aquinas’s theology of salvation. He provides a helpful summary of the historical reasons why Aquinas attended to the Old Law and how he did so with originality. Drawing upon the work of M. D. Chenu and Beryl Smalley, Levering rightly explains that Aquinas’s interest in the Mosaic Law was influenced by a “growing enthusiasm for the Old Law among medieval theologians.”611 Levering points out that one sign of the growing importance of the Old Testament is a shift that occurs in Aquinas’s theology of salvation between his Commentary on the Sentences (1256) and his Summa theologiae (early 1270s).612 Levering points out that there is almost no discussion of the Old Law in the Sentences. However, by the time Aquinas writes the Summa theologiae he includes a massive and detailed treatment of the Old Law.
Levering explains that Aquinas’s treatment of the fulfillment of the Law in the Summa theologiae mirrors an important source: the Summa Fratris Alexandri. The Summa Fratris Alexandri proposes three classes of precepts: moral, judicial, and ceremonial. Each set of precepts functioned to “confer goodness in accord with the ‘branches of charity’: love of neighbor in the moral precepts; punishment of evildoers in judicial precepts; and preparation for worship of God in the ceremonial precepts.”613 Most significantly, argues Levering, the Summa Fratris Alexandri views each set of precepts as being fulfilled in different ways by Christ: Christ fulfills the moral laws by perfect knowledge of the good; perfect execution of the good; and perfect revelation of the good after the fall.614 Christ fulfills the judicial laws by teaching not to resist evil rather than exacting retribution. Christ fulfills the ceremonial laws as the “end or term” of the ceremonial laws. In this way, Levering writes, Christ shows what they prefigure, and he manifests their inner meaning. Aquinas adopts from Fratris Alexandri the threefold division of the Mosaic Law and the claim that Christ fulfills the Law. However, Levering points out that the novelty of Aquinas’s position is that “Christ fulfills the Old Law precisely in his passion or suffering on the cross.”615 Christ’s passion is the perfect and supreme act of obedience and that fulfills the Old Law.616
According to Levering, Aquinas’s systematic exposition of Christ’s fulfillment of the Law by the passion is influenced by his reading of Pauline texts. Indeed, Levering points out that the commentaries “assisted his mature theological expression.”617 Levering identifies the Commentary on John as an influence upon Aquinas’s view, and Augustine’s Against Faustus is identified as a key source.618
Although Levering does not explain exactly how the Pauline commentaries function in Aquinas’s view of Christ’s fulfillment of the Law, he does imply that the most determinative verse for Aquinas is Romans 3:31. In particular, Levering argues that Aquinas’s interpretation of this verse in his Romans commentary influences his view of Christ’s fulfillment of the Law. Levering points to Aquinas’s interpretation of Romans 3:31 (“Do we then, destroy the Law through faith? God forbid! But we establish the Law.”). Here, in the Romans commentary, Levering rightly sees that Aquinas interprets Romans 3:31 in light of Matthew 5:17 and understands it “to mean that the Mosaic Law is established (statuimus) by being perfected and fulfilled (perficimus et adimplemus) by Christ.”619
Here, the first text that Levering points out as a Pauline source for Aquinas’s view of the fulfillment of the Law is actually the same text (Ad Romanos 3.4.321) that I argued represented the positive view of fulfillment of the Law as “fulfilled and upheld.”620 In chapter 5 of this study, I argued that in the Romans commentary, Aquinas does not teach that the ceremonial law is destroyed, nor does he include the teaching that Jewish observance of the Law is now a mortal sin after the passion of Christ. Aquinas argues that Paul is faithful to Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:18 (“Not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law.”), and does not destroy the Law. “On the contrary,” writes Aquinas, “we uphold the Law, i.e., by faith we complete and fulfill the Law, as Matt 5:17 says, ‘I have come not to abolish the Law but to fulfill it.’”621
However, when Aquinas discusses Christ’s fulfillment and cessation of the Old Law in the Prima Secundae he does not use either of these verses from Romans or Matthew. Indeed, Matthew 5:17 and Romans 3:31 are left out of Aquinas’s treatment of the fulfillment of the Law in the treatise on law altogether.622 I shall demonstrate below, the primary sources for Aquinas’s view of the fulfillment and cessation of the Law in the treatise on law are Hebrews and Galatians. Aquinas’s account of the fulfillment and cessation of the Law in the treatise on law is shaped not by the positive view of fulfillment in Romans, but by the view that I referred to as “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly.”
Levering’s account of the fulfillment of the Law does not include the more negative aspect of Aquinas’s teaching. Levering claims that the Pauline texts teach that the Law is fulfilled and transformed and seems to avoid the more negative language of the Law in Hebrews.623 This is clear from Levering’s handling of the influence of both Hebrews and Galatians on Aquinas’s view of fulfillment.
When discussing how Christ fulfills the Old Law as priest of Israel, Levering rightly points out that Aquinas follows the focus of Hebrews on how the passion takes place in “the context established by Israel’s law.” Christ, as God, who was already the principal legislator of the law of which Moses was the promulgator, “fulfills and transforms Moses’ law.” This perspective, according to Levering, is present in the Summa theologiae, as well as in Aquinas’s commentary on Hebrews. However, Levering seems to avoid the fact that in the Hebrews commentary, Aquinas teaches that the Old Law is not fulfilled and transformed but fulfilled and rendered void.624
Indeed, the cessatio legalium (cessation of the Law) caused by Christ’s fulfillment of these precepts is also included in Aquinas’s teaching on the Summa theologiae. That the influence of this common medieval doctrine is overlooked in Levering’s account of fulfillment becomes especially clear when one examines Aquinas’s reliance upon Pauline texts from Galatians. In particular, Aquinas takes what he views as Paul’s teaching on how the ceremonial law renders the grace of Christ of no benefit and synthesizes it with themes from Hebrews to support the common medieval doctrine of the cessatio legalium in Ia-IIae q. 103.4.
Levering understands this teaching from Galatians 5:2, which states, “If you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you” to function as a teaching only for Jewish converts to Christianity and not Jews.625 In a footnote he remarks that Aquinas does not take this verse to mean Jews should not observe the Law: “In this crucial discussion, Aquinas does not state, that Jews, who have not accepted Christ, sin by continuing to observe the Torah’s ceremonial precepts.”626 As I briefly mentioned in chapter 6, which focused on the Galatians commentary, Levering misinterprets Aquinas’s view of this text and in so doing, he misses how the text fundamentally influences Aquinas’s view of Christ’s fulfillment of the ceremonial law.
For Aquinas, Galatians 5:2 marks the middle period in which Israel’s old sacraments become superfluous. Because Levering misses how this key text functions in Aquinas’s account of fulfillment, he does not see why it is problematic on Aquinas’s own terms to assert that the Jewish Law is “transformed,” rather than abolished, after the passion.627
2. Aquinas’s Teaching on the Ceremonial Law After the Passion of Christ in the Summa theologiae
An examination of Aquinas’s teaching on the ceremonial law after Christ in the Summa theologiae should provide a more comprehensive picture of Aquinas’s thought on the ceremonial law after Christ and help clarify not only the source of the tension between his views of the ceremonial law, but the significance of the positive view of circumcision in the Romans commentary.
Because of the great size of Aquinas’s treatment of the ceremonial law, my analysis must be limited to the same scope of inquiry that has guided the study throughout: whether the ceremonial law becomes expired and obsolete or retains a theological status after the passion of Christ. Aquinas addresses this question directly in Ia-IIae q. 103.1–4.628
The Setting of Aquinas’s Treatment of the Ceremonial Law after the Passion of Christ in the Summa theologiae
M. D. Chenu observes that, towards the end of Aquinas’s life, he became aware that the two forms of university teaching, lectio (commentary on texts) and quaestio disputata (disputed question), could not satisfactorily meet the requirements of theological education. According to Chenu, these two forms of teaching failed to provide beginning students with a summa, or summary of theology, which he defines as “organic presentation of the whole of sacred wisdom.”629 A summa consisted of a concise exposition of the teaching of theology adapted for students and constructed in a way that made clear “the internal relationships of the objects under consideration.”630 Like other medieval theologians, Aquinas sought to make clear the crucial interrelationship between the old and the new covenant in his Summa theologiae.631 David Braine has observed that the opening of the Summa theologiae “makes it plain that Aquinas is speaking as a theologian, giving an exposition of sacred doctrine, intending to speak of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.”632 Aquinas consistently defended the claim that both testaments were from the good God of Israel and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.633 Aquinas discusses the commandments of the good God of Israel in the context of his treatment of the interrelationship between Law and humankind’s return to God as “destiny and goal” in the Prima Secundae.634 It is within this overarching context of God’s instruction of humankind through law in general that the first discussion of the ceremonial law appears in his treatise on law.635
The Old Law is only one form of law in the treatise on law.636 However, even a cursory reading of the treatise makes clear that Aquinas exerts an enormous effort to explicate its details with great care. The discussion on the Old Law is comprised of a total of forty-six articles. Indeed, the number of articles on the Old Law exceeds the number of articles on eternal law, natural law, human law, and New Law, combined.637 As noted by several scholars, the articles dealing with the ceremonial law in particular are some of the longest in the entire Summa.638 The length of the articles on the ceremonial law suggests that Aquinas takes the history and purpose of the Jewish rites seriously.639 As Jean-Pierre Torrell has observed, Aquinas examines the Law of Moses “in minute detail.”640 And yet, the length of the articles found in the Old Law may also indicate, as Michael Wyschogrod pointed out years ago, that Aquinas faced a degree of difficulty in his analysis of the Old Law: “The number of pages he devotes to the problem of the Old Law (over 150 in the Blackfriars edition) may signal a greater turbulence than appears on the surface.”641 In Ia-IIae q. 99 Aquinas undertakes a detailed treatment of the diverse precepts of the Old Law, which he divides into moral, ceremonial, and judicial precepts. He takes up the discussion of the ceremonial law in Ia-IIae q. 101–3.
The Cessatio Legalium as a Crucial Concept in Twelfth-Century Accounts of Fulfillment
A more complete picture of Aquinas’s notion of Christ’s fulfillment and cessation of the Law in the treatise on law comes into view with the help of Chenu’s historical treatment of twelfth-century medieval theological views of the relationship between the new and the old covenants.642
According to Chenu, the twelfth-century theological world understood fulfillment of the Old Law within a dialectic between the two poles: 1) continuity with the Old Law and 2) break with the Old Law.643 Chenu explains that this century experienced an increasingly positive attention to figures in the old covenant and did not treat it as a bygone and defunct stage. Rather, theologians sought to elaborate upon how it might illuminate various aspects of Christendom.644 It was thought that the new lies enveloped in the old and thus typological exploration of the old abounded.645 Chenu explains that for these theologians, “History was thought to unfold as a divine plan and it contained stages whose continuity and breaks one had to observe with equal attention.”646 Attending to the two poles of what Chenu refers to as the “textual continuum” was “intrinsic to the progress of the economy of salvation, a progress that anticipated its final course through prefigurations of the future.”647 Continuity with biblical history was encapsulated in Christ’s words “I have not come to destroy the Law.” And yet breaks with this same biblical history were encapsulated in Christ’s words “but I say to you.”648
However, increased attention to the old covenant was also accompanied by an awareness of progress. Among twelfth-century theologians there remained a “sufficient awareness” of what Chenu refers to as the “irreversible progress” of the new dispensation. Exemplifying this progress, according to Chenu, was the cessatio legalium (cessation of the Law) tradition that characterized the notion of fulfillment of Israel’s Law. Chenu observes that fulfillment and cessation was expressed by a particularly common analogy of the Church displacing the synagogue:
Men of the Middle Ages recognized and proclaimed the cessatio legalium (cessation of the Law). In contrast to the figure of Ecclesia with her open and radiant countenance stood the figure of Synagoga portrayed as a conquered queen, her crown fallen, her face veiled or her eyes blindfolded. This allegory popularized in art a theme found in polemics against the Jews; namely that the fulfillment offered by the New Covenant displaced the dead letter of the Law . . . as Gratian phrased it: “Under the Old Law many things were permitted which today have been abolished by the perfection of grace.”649
The teaching on the cessatio legalium was, as Richard Schenk has pointed out, “almost universally affirmed by medieval Christian authors.”650
Schenk points out that this teaching can be traced to the much-discussed controversy between Jerome and Augustine.651 Schenk observes that the dispute between Augustine and Jerome on the cessation of the ritual law was, “a principal theological focus that fascinated and preoccupied medieval authors.”652 Indeed, “after the inclusion of the controversy by Peter Lombard in his Sentences,” observes Schenk, “no Catholic theologian until Trent could easily pass over the questions framed by the patristic debate about the relationship of Christianity and Judaism.”653
Aquinas was very much aware of the teaching on the cessation of the Law as is evidenced by his own inclusion of a detailed description of the debate between Jerome and Augustine in both the Galatians commentary and the treatise on law in the Prima Secundae. Aquinas situates the debate precisely within his discussion of the duration of the ceremonial law and against the backdrop of Christ’s fulfillment of the old sacraments in the context of salvation history.
Aquinas’s Teaching on the Cessation of the Law in Ia-IIae q. 103
Aquinas’s inclusion of the debate between Jerome and Augustine appears Ia-IIae q. 103. However, before examining question 103, it is necessary to highlight a theme that is especially prominent in articles 3 and 4, where Aquinas states that the ceremonial law is dead and deadly. Taking notice of the theme is important because it appears again in the Romans commentary, but Aquinas handles it differently.
Aquinas draws upon the debate between Jerome and Augustine to reconcile the apparent tension between biblical support for two contradictory ideas: the idea that the ceremonial law is permanent and the idea that the ceremonial law is impermanent or temporal. For Aquinas, the fact that the good God of Israel commanded the Law, and that Christ and the apostles observed this Law indicates the permanence of the Law.
On the other hand, he understands Paul to have taught that the Law as has no value after Christ and that it renders the justifying power of the passion void. Aquinas also understands the apostles to have affirmed this teaching at the Jerusalem conference. These texts indicate the impermanence of the ceremonial law.
These two pictures of the theological status of the ceremonial law after Christ appear in stated objections and in Aquinas’s replies Ia-IIae q. 103.2–4. Texts that support the permanence of the Law are consistently cited in the objections. Texts that support cessation of the Law are consistently cited in Aquinas’s replies.654 Throughout question 103, Aquinas defends the claim that the ceremonial law is impermanent against biblical texts cited in the objections that suggest its permanence.655
In the second article of question 103, Aquinas addresses “Whether, at the time of the Law, the ceremonies of the Old Law had any power of justification?” Aquinas begins his argument (in the sed contra) with Paul as the primary authority, and synthesizes two Galatians texts: Galatians 3:21, “For if there had been a Law given which could give life, verily justice should have been by the Law”; and Galatians 2:21, “For if justice be by the Law, then Christ died in vain.”656 Aquinas synthesizes these texts into one Pauline axiom: “If there had been a Law given which could justify, Christ died in vain, i.e., without cause.” In his reply, Aquinas answers that the ceremonial law had no power to cleanse from sin because expiation from sin comes only through Christ’s Incarnation and passion, which had not yet taken place. The old sacraments, explains Aquinas, did not have “a power flowing from Christ already incarnate and crucified, such as the sacraments of the New Law contain.”657 Next, Aquinas cites Hebrews 10:4 to explain that the old sacraments were not efficacious as the new: “it was impossible that with the blood of oxen and goats sin should be taken away.” He cites Galatians 4:9 to reinforce the point that these sacraments, in and of themselves, were “weak and needy elements.” Aquinas closes by adding the caveat he repeats throughout his treatment on the Old Law: that these old sacraments were not as efficacious as the new does not mean they were not good. Before Christ, observance of the ceremonies could bring justification because the rites served as “a sort of profession, inasmuch as they foreshadowed Christ.” After Christ, these ceremonies expire.
As Aquinas moves along, it becomes clear that Paul’s letter to the Galatians is the primary authority that Aquinas cites to say the Law has now ceased after Christ. And, though Aquinas does not mention Augustine as an authority in Ia-IIae q. 103.2–3, the idea that the rites served as a sort of profession is assumed in the background of Aquinas’s replies and finally surfaces in an explicit way when he explains how the rites become deadly after the passion of Christ in Ia-IIae q. 103.4.
In Ia-IIae q. 103.3, Aquinas addresses “Whether the ceremonies of the Old Law ceased at the coming of Christ?”658 In the sed contra, Aquinas once again appeals to Paul as his authority for the reply. He begins with two citations from Paul, each of which emphasizes what I argued in chapter four (concerning the Hebrews commentary) was the theme of Aquinas’s view of the teaching in Hebrews: “the shadow of the law’s night.”659 Aquinas cites Colossians 2:16–17: “Let no man . . . judge you in meat or in drink, or in respect of festival day, or of the new moon, or of the sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come.” He then appeals to Hebrews 8:13, which states that because the new things come, the old decay and then end: “In saying a new (testament), he hath made the former old: and that which decayeth and groweth old, is near its end.”660 The ceremonies had to cease at the advent of the new sacraments because these new sacraments are now “the means of obtaining heavenly goods.” The new sacraments are no longer things to come (as they were in the state of the Old Law), but these new sacraments are actually the things now present in the state of the New Law.
The first objection (Ia-IIae q. 103.3 ad. 1) that Aquinas lists against this explanation of the cessation of the Law is that it seems the ceremonial law in the Old Testament is permanent or “said to be forever” (citing Baruch 4:1). Here, as in the commentaries on Paul, Aquinas is aware of the biblical texts that indicate the ceremonial law is permanent. He even grounds the objection in an Old Testament text. His reply to this objection relies upon the division of the permanent aspect of the Law (moral law) from the impermanent (ceremonial and judicial). Aquinas takes the standard medieval view and argues that the old law is said to be eternal simply and absolutely (in aeternum simpliciter et absolute) only in regard to moral precepts, it lasts for ever in respect of the reality which those ceremonies foreshadowed.”661
The second objection (Ia-IIae q. 103.3 ad. 2) is that Law must be permanent because Christ observed the ceremonial law himself. In ad. 2 it is clear that Aquinas is aware of Christ’s observance of the legal ceremonies. Aquinas responds to the objection by claiming that Christ’s observance was before the passion: “Hence, before Christ’s passion, while Christ was preaching and working miracles, the Law and the Gospel were concurrent, since the mystery of Christ had already begun, but was not as yet consummated. And for this reason Our Lord, before His passion, commanded the leper to observe the legal ceremonies.”662
In Aquinas’s view, the stronger objection to the idea of the cessation of the Law is that the apostles’ observed the ceremonies, which he discusses in Ia-IIae q. 103.4: “Whether since Christ’s passion the Legal Ceremonies Can be Observed without Committing Mortal Sin?” That the apostles’ observed the Law even after the “mystery of Christ . . . was consummated” seems to problematize Aquinas’s above reply for why Christ observed the Law. Aquinas attempts to answer the objection by appealing to Augustine in ad. 1. Before citing the debate between Jerome and Augustine, Aquinas’s reply begins by claiming Paul’s letter to the Galatians as his authority, revealing that the letter is the primary authority for his defense of the cessation of the Law: “The Apostle says (Gal 5:2): ‘If you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing.’”
Aquinas then attempts to attach Augustine and Jerome’s premise that the ceremonial law is a mortal sin to what Aquinas views as the Pauline idea of Christ being unprofitable to those who observe circumcision: “nothing save mortal sin hinders us from receiving Christ’s fruit. Therefore since Christ’s passion it is a mortal sin to be circumcised, or to observe the other legal ceremonies.”663 For Aquinas, Galatians 5:2 serves as a marker for Paul’s apparent teaching that the observance of circumcision after the passion makes the grace of Christ void. It is no longer beneficial at this particular time: “the Apostle’s statement in Gal. 5:2 that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be no advantage to you refers to the era after grace . . . .”664 Only mortal sin can void Christ’s grace. Therefore, Paul’s teaching is taken to mean that observance of circumcision is a mortal sin.
Aquinas views Paul’s teaching that circumcision brings no advantage to one in the era after grace and uses this claim to support the Augustinian argument that the old sacraments are now false professions. After the middle period expires, the observance of the ceremonial law functions as a false profession. The Augustinian rationale is as follows: All ceremonies are professions of faith. Professions of faith are made in deeds and words. If such professions in word or deed are false professions, then the one making such a profession sins mortally. Since Christ has already come, it is false to declare that he will come. Therefore, the one observing a sacrament for declaring he will come (prefiguring Christ’s passion), makes a false profession and sins mortally. Aquinas’s reply is as follows:
Now, though our faith in Christ is the same as that of the fathers of old; yet, since they came before Christ, whereas we come after Him, the same faith is expressed in different words, by us and by them. For by them it was said: Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, where the verbs are in the future tense: whereas we express the same by means of verbs in the past tense, and say that she conceived and bore. In like manner the ceremonies of the Old Law betokened Christ as having yet to be born and to suffer: whereas our sacraments signify Him as already born and having suffered. Consequently, just as it would be a mortal sin now for anyone, in making a profession of faith, to say that Christ is yet to be born, which the fathers of old said devoutly and truthfully; so too it would be a mortal sin now to observe those ceremonies which the fathers of old fulfilled with devotion and fidelity. Such is the teaching of Augustine . . . .665
Aquinas adopts Augustine’s teaching from Against Faustus on the idea that a sacrament is a false profession of faith and synthesizes it with Galatians 5:2.666 He then records the debate between Jerome and Augustine on when the cessation of the Law took place. The main point of disagreement between these Fathers was the motive and purpose for the Jewish apostles’ observance of the legal ceremonies after the passion. According to Aquinas, the objection runs as follows:
It would seem that since Christ’s passion the legal ceremonies can be observed without committing mortal sin. For we must not believe that the apostles committed mortal sin after receiving the Holy Ghost: since by his fullness they were endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49). But the apostles observed the legal ceremonies after the coming of the Holy Ghost: for it is stated (Acts 16:3) that Paul circumcised Timothy: and (Acts 21:26) that Paul, at the advice of James, took the men, and . . . being purified with them, entered into the temple, giving notice of the accomplishment of the days of purification, until an oblation should be offered for everyone of them. Therefore the legal ceremonies can be observed since the passion of Christ without committing mortal sin.667
Aquinas’s summary of the controversy between Jerome and Augustine takes up the majority of the article. In Ia-IIae q. 103.4 ad. 1 he cites Augustine’s Epistle 82 and then sides with Augustine’s solution to the problem of distinguishing three periods, or the tria tempora doctrine: The Holy Spirit allowed Jews to observe the rites immediately after the passion, in the middle period, but not after the promulgation of the gospel. The rites become dead and deadly after this time.668
I will not rehearse the differences in Augustine and Jerome’s views since this was done in chapter 6.669 What is most important for my purposes here is to point out two things. First, Aquinas adopts the Augustinian tria tempora doctrine in the treatise on law to explain Christ’s fulfillment of the Law as a fulfillment that also brings about a cessation of the ceremonial law, as well as its becoming deadly. Second, Aquinas relies on Paul’s teaching on the Law in Galatians, which he understands to dovetail with Augustine’s view of the old sacraments in Against Faustus and Epistle 82.
Therefore, in the treatise on law, Aquinas appeals to Paul’s teaching as the primary biblical authority in his argument that the Jewish rites are fulfilled and cease after the passion. But Aquinas does not, as Levering argues, appeal to the more positive texts in Romans.670 He relies upon Paul’s letter to the Galatians to support his claim. Indeed, as I show below, Aquinas’s argument for the cessation of the Law in the Summa theologiae is based on an interpretation of Galatians 5:2 that differs greatly from Aquinas’s handling of that same verse in Ad Rom. 3.1.247.
3. Rival Versions of Fulfillment: The Economic Supersessionism in Aquinas’s Theology in Tension with Post-Supersessionist Resources
Aquinas’s view of Paul’s teaching on the ceremonial law in Ia-IIae 103.2–4 shares economically supersessionist views of Christ’s fulfillment of Jewish Law similar to those in the commentaries on Hebrews and Galatians. And although the Ephesians commentary also shares certain economically supersessionist elements found in Hebrews, Galatians, and the Summa theologiae, the Ephesians commentary contains an important post-supersessionist resource. Moreover, the Romans commentary provides a post-supersessionist resource based in Romans 3:1–2 that actually undermines the logic of the economic supersessionist views in all of these places.
Fulfilled, Destroyed, and Deadly: The Economic Supersessionism in Aquinas’s Summa theologiae and Commentaries on Hebrews and Galatians
Aquinas’s position on the cessation of the ceremonial law in the Summa theologiae explains the logic of Augustine’s teaching with brevity and precision. He synthesizes Augustine’s views with Paul’s teaching on the “superfluous sacrament” from Galatians. Indeed, it is this view of Paul’s teaching on the Law that Aquinas thinks dovetails with Augustine’s teaching on the tria tempora and the idea that the Law is dead and deadly in the third era. Aquinas extends Augustine’s thought on the cessation of the Law in the Prima Secundae by buttressing these Augustinian doctrines with his reading of Paul’s letters to the Galatians and Hebrews. In this sense, one can say that Aquinas’s reading of Paul does not overcome Augustinian supersessionism, as Boguslawski holds, but actually strengthens it.
Recall that Aquinas expresses a view of fulfillment in the Hebrews and Galatians lectures that could be referred to as “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly.” In this traditional form of fulfillment of the ceremonies, the Law is “destroyed” by both Christ and Paul; declared superfluous by the apostles at the Jerusalem conference; and thereafter it becomes deadly to anyone who observes it in the era after grace. The observance of the Law in the era of grace is an offense to Christ’s passion and it must be renounced. Anyone who observes the rites after the passion is guilty of mortal sin. Aquinas teaches that circumcision is no longer of value since to say otherwise threatens to evacuate the gospel. Therefore, Aquinas’s view of the fulfillment and cessation of the ceremonial law in the treatise on law directly corresponds to the “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly” view of fulfillment in Galatians and Hebrews. Both visions of fulfillment are economically supersessionist.671
Jean-Pierre Torrell’s description of the Law after it is fulfilled is representative of Aquinas’s view of the ceremonial law after Christ in the treatise on law, and in the commentaries on Hebrews and Galatians. Torrell thinks Aquinas relativizes the value of the Law because God is not content with this teaching. Torrell remarks that although Aquinas’s treatment of the Old Law in the Summa theologiae is a “magnificent apologia for the law,” he “radically relativizes” the Law:
While Thomas highlights the great educative value of the law for personal freedom and stresses its necessary role in service to the common good, he also radically relativizes it, since its usefulness is only pedagogical and disappears once its service is completed. God is not content with instructing us from the exterior by law.672
Torrell’s language about the radical relativization and corresponding disappearance of the law resembles Isaac’s language of “fulfilled and expired.” The treatise on law and the commentaries on Hebrews and Galatians make clear that Aquinas understands Paul to teach that the old sacraments have been relativized and replaced by the new sacraments. If one considers these texts as representative of Aquinas’s view of Paul’s teaching on the ceremonial law, his theology can be described as economically supersessionist.
Fulfilled and Destroyed: Economic Supersessionism in Tension with Post-Supersessionist Resources in the Ephesians Commentary
Nevertheless, Aquinas does not consistently hold to the teaching that the ceremonial law is fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly after the passion of Christ. In the Ephesians commentary, Aquinas teaches the Law is dead, or destroyed by Christ, but he does not say it is deadly. Moreover, in the Ephesians commentary Aquinas defines the election of Israel as a promise of God and a “sacrament” of the society of saints. For this reason, the commentary can be considered as a step away from theme so prominent in the tradition of the cessatio legalium that emphasizes that Law is not an aspect of the promise but is an impermanent and carnal command.
However, in the Ephesians commentary, these positive resources exist alongside and in tension with economically supersessionist views of the ceremonial law and Israel. Ephesians shares certain economically supersessionist elements found in Hebrews, Galatians, and the Summa theologiae. First, Aquinas’s view of Paul’s teaching in Ephesians is similar to Hebrews and Galatians commentaries in that it describes Christ’s destruction of the ceremonial law. Second, in the Ephesians commentary, Aquinas describes the promise of the special election of Israel, the societas sanctorum, as a thing of the past. The body of Christ has inherited the promise.
Fulfilled and Upheld: Post-supersessionist Resources in Aquinas’s Romans Commentary
Aquinas understands the permanent value of the ceremonial law to turn on whether Paul teaches that circumcision is “superfluous” (Gal 5:2) or “advantageous” (Rom 3:1–2) to the Jewish people in the era after grace. Indeed, Aquinas’s attention to this question and his answer in the Romans commentary calls into question the cessatio legalium tradition and departs in significant ways from the “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly” view of the Summa theologiae.
In the Romans commentary, Aquinas’s teaching that Christ fulfilled the ceremonial law does not also render the Law void, destroyed, or deadly. However, the absence of this teaching is not what is most significant about his view of the ceremonial law in the Romans commentary. Rather, what is most significant is what Aquinas does say about the theological value of circumcision even after the passion. In his Romans commentary, Aquinas places Jewish rites on a higher theological ground than he does in the treatise on law and the other Pauline commentaries. Even as Aquinas insists upon the priority of the Christological prefiguring function of the Jewish rites before Christ, he also defends their literal meaning with a different theological argument than he used in the Prima Secundae.673 As I argued in chapter 5, Aquinas anchors the literal meaning of the Jewish rites in the authority of Paul’s teaching on God’s faithfulness to the Jewish people. In particular, their election and prerogatives is anchored in the claim that God does not lie. This high view of the theological status of the Jewish rites after Christ is most clearly evident in his handling of the question of “outward” Judaism in Ad Romanos 2–3. It is in his defense of “outward” Judaism, which he takes to mean circumcision, that Aquinas undermines the cessatio legalium tradition and resists the relativizing force of Galatians 5:2, which he thinks teaches that circumcision is superfluous.
Recall that in Ad Romanos 2.4, Aquinas discusses the idea of the “inward Jew” and the “external Jew.” At first, Aquinas says that circumcision profits only if the Law, i.e., the moral precepts, are observed. This keeping of the moral law is defined as “inward Judaism.” An outward Jew is one who only keeps the ceremonial law but neglects the moral law. Aquinas then explains that “he is truly a Jew who is one inwardly, i.e., whose heart is possessed by the precepts of the Law, which the Jews professed.”674 Since the inward character of Judaism, which again, is observing the moral precepts, is obtainable by both the Jew and the Gentile alike, inward Judaism “prevail over the outward.”675
However, after explaining this idea of the superiority of inward Judaism, Aquinas immediately follows with an objection from Paul in defense of the ongoing value of external Judaism, or the value of circumcision even after the passion of Christ.676 Here, it becomes evident that Aquinas’s awareness of what might be referred to as the difficulty of “two views of circumcision” after Christ ultimately prevents him from relativizing the theological value of “outward” Judaism or observance of the ceremonies.
Aquinas notices that Paul seems to say, on the one hand, that ceremonial law possesses a permanent theological value, and that the ceremonial law is, on the other hand, impermanent or superfluous after Christ.677 It seems that Aquinas was preoccupied with the difficulty of two views of circumcision in Paul (as advantageous or as superfluous) in three places in his work: the Galatians commentary; the Romans commentary; and in Ia-IIae q. 103.2–4.
Recall that in the Galatians commentary, Aquinas raises a possible objection to the Pauline claim that “there is neither Jew nor Greek” in the era of grace by citing Romans 3:1–2: “What advantage then hath the Jew? Much in everyway.”678 Here it is clear that Aquinas views this verse from Romans as an objection to the view that circumcision no longer has status. 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.”679
Here, Aquinas is commenting directly upon the advantage of the Jews after the passion of Christ. He does not take the opportunity, as he does in the Romans commentary, to advance an argument that there is a value to circumcision based on the idea that God commanded it or that God chose the Jewish people as his elect people. Rather, he restricts Jewish advantage to something in the past or something that was: “Before the faith, the Jew was greater.” Whereas, in the Romans commentary, the “Much in everyway” of Romans 3:2 compels Aquinas to argue at length for the Jews’ advantage (amplius) even after grace, in the Galatians commentary, he concludes that the theological advantage to the Jew only existed before Christ’s passion.
In the Romans commentary Aquinas once again sets two statements from Paul on circumcision against each other: one that seems to support the advantage of the Jew after grace, and another that supports the disadvantage of the Jew after grace. Aquinas discusses the more positive Pauline teaching on circumcision based in Romans 3:1–2—this is the same teaching Aquinas thinks supports the advantage of Jews only in the past, in the Galatians commentary. In the Romans commentary, however, Aquinas reads Romans 3:1–2 as referring to the present advantage. It becomes clear that Aquinas understands Paul’s rhetorical question in Romans 3:1 “What advantage has the Jew?” and the answer in 3:2 “Much in everyway!” as an objection and a reply to a question. He rephrases Paul’s question so that it more directly addresses the issue of the theological status of circumcision after Christ: “What advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision, i.e. outward?”680 Aquinas even translates Paul’s rhetorical question into the form of a scholastic objection: “It seems from his previous teaching that there is no value.” Aquinas then understands Paul to provide the answer: “Then when he says ‘Much in everyway’ he answers the objection.”681 “‘Much in everyway!’ refers first to Judaism’s prerogative; and second, ‘to the value of circumcision.’”682 Here, Aquinas does not say that the value of circumcision was only in the past. Rather, he sees the Galatians 5:2 teaching that circumcision is superfluous after Christ as problematized by Paul’s strong language in Romans 3:1. Indeed, it does not seem unreasonable to conclude that Aquinas understands the Romans 3:2 “Much in everyway!” to refute the traditional claim based in Galatians 5:2 that circumcision no longer has status. Aquinas says that when Paul exclaims “Much in everyway!” he answers the objection and affirms the permanent value of outward Judaism and circumcision.683
In addition to affirming circumcision as an advantage even after the passion of Christ, Aquinas makes two other positive claims about the theological status of the Law after Christ:
1) As I showed in chapter 5, Aquinas connects the value of circumcision in the era after grace to the prerogatives of Israel as promises of God.684 He makes the theological argument that God’s faithfulness would actually be compromised if the prerogatives of Israel were taken away or annulled. Aquinas therefore secures the permanent theological status of the Jewish rites after Christ as a matrix of prerogatives that cannot be taken away because they are wrapped up in the faithfulness of God’s promises to the Jewish people: “For if the Jews’ prerogative were abrogated on account of the unbelief of some, it would follow that man’s unbelief would nullify God’s faithfulness—which is an unacceptable conclusion.”685 Here, “outward” Judaism, or, to use Wyschogrod’s term, “carnal” Judaism’s prerogative is secured in the era after grace by the authority of Paul’s affirmation of God’s irrevocable promise to these elect people.
2) Aquinas claims the rites retain a figuring function as figures of present spiritual benefit. In making these moves, Aquinas avoids the relativizing of the Jewish rites that takes place in the treatise on law, and the commentaries on Galatians, Hebrews, and Ephesians.
When viewed in the context of the other commentaries and the Summa theologiae, the “Much in everyway!” not only represents a tension between a positive teaching in the Romans commentary, and the more negative view of the Jewish rites in the Galatians commentary and Summa theologiae. In the Romans commentary Aquinas thinks Paul actually defeats the objection that circumcision is superfluous—an objection Aquinas rephrases as “It seems circumcision has no value.” Aquinas’s view of the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ reflects the “shock of the present tense.”686 The present tense descriptions of Israel compel Aquinas to construct an argument for the theological value of circumcision that undermines a significant premise in the logic of the cessatio legalium tradition: the premise that circumcision has no value after Christ.
609. English translations are from the Benziger edition unless otherwise noted. Summa Theologica, trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Citations of the Summa theologiae will appear in the text and footnotes as: Ia-IIae q. 103.2 ad. 1, where “Ia-IIae” stands for Prima Secundae etc., “q. 103” stands for question 103, “2” for the article, and “ad.” for “reply objection.”
610. Ibid., xv.
611. This surge of interest lay in a number of factors, which include “combat with the Catharist heresy, which rejected the Old Testament, to the development of increasingly complex legal and political institutions.” Levering relies upon Marie-Dominique Chenu, “The Old Testament in Twelfth-Century Theology.” The Summa Fratris Alexandri, whose completion preceded the Summa theologiae by little more than a decade, influenced Aquinas’s interest in the Old Law. The treatment of the Mosaic Law in the Summa Fratris Alexandri was a collaborative effort on the part of Franciscan theologians, among them Alexander of Hales and his students John of la Rochelle, and William of Middleton. Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, 6.
612. Ibid.
613. Ibid., 7.
614. Ibid.
615. Ibid. [Emphasis added]
616. Levering shows how the fulfillment of the Law should be interpreted in light of Israel’s threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. I unfortunately do not have the space to present Levering’s detailed account of all the ways in which Aquinas understands the fulfillment of the Law in the Summa theologiae. It should suffice for my purposes to note that Christ’s act of obedience in the passion is what fulfills the ceremonial precepts. Christ’s act of obedience flows from the supernatural grace that infused Christ’s soul at the moment of the hypostatic union. Levering explains that Christ’s perfect act of obedience simultaneously fulfills all three aspects of the Old Law. Christ fulfilled the moral law because his perfect charity, displayed in his love of the Father and love of his neighbor. Christ perfectly fulfilled the ceremonial precepts in the self-sacrifice that he offered upon the cross. Finally, Christ perfectly fulfilled the judicial precepts by taking upon himself the suffering due to others. Ibid., 70–9.
617. Ibid., 8.
618. Ibid. Levering points out that although Aquinas commented upon Matthew, his treatment of Matthew 5:17 is lost. Levering also explains that “the Catena Aurea demonstrates that the key patristic source for Aquinas’s theology of fulfillment is Augustine’s Against Faustus, Book 19, to which his debt is enormous, although his thought develops rather than merely recapitulates Augustine’s.” Levering says that the view that the Catena Aurea is a major source is from Valkenberg, Words of the Living God, 188. Levering 150n38. Catena Aurea, vol. 1, St. Matthew, 170. However, Levering does not say how Against Faustus influences Aquinas, especially on the question of the cessation of the Law. He explicitly says Aquinas follows Augustine on the following: that the traces of martyrs’ scars may remain in their resurrected bodies, 105; that sacraments are important for unity in religion, 121; the relationship between sacrifice and sin offering, 55–56; that Christ becomes sin and that Christ is a priest, 77; that God is author of Scripture, 90. Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, 150, fn. 39. The works of Augustine that Levering says Aquinas follows are cited throughout the above notes: De Trinitate, De Civitate Dei, De Doctrina Christiana. Despite Against Faustus being the key source, however, it is only mentioned there (150n.39). As I show below, one way in which Contra Faustm functions in Aquinas’s view of fulfillment of the Law is the teaching in Ia-IIae q. 103.4 that the Law ceases after the passion of Christ. Another major influence is Augustine’s debate with Jerome. Aquinas synthesizes Augustine’s views from both of these works with his view of Paul’s teaching in Galatians and Hebrews to say that ceremonial law is destroyed and deadly.
619. He cites Ad Rom. 3.4.321.
620. See chapter 5 of this study.
621. Ad Rom. 3.4.321.
622. As far as I can see, the only citation of Matthew is 5:11 and 5:22. Ia-IIae q. 100.3 “Blessed are ye when they shall revile you, etc.”; Ia-IIae q. 100.9: “Whosoever is angry with his brother, shall be in danger of the judgment.”
623. Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, 54.
624. Ad Hebraeos. 7.3.361.
625. Levering, Christ’s Fulfillment, 160n64. Levering mentions two other Galatians texts in two footnotes. He also understands Aquinas to follow Galatians 3:16 when Aquinas argues that the promise to Abraham signified the future birth of the Savior from among the descendants of Abraham. Ibid., 193, fn. 20. The third place Levering notes Galatians influence is when he rightly says that Aquinas frequently describes the Law “as a pedagogue” (he cites Ia-IIae, q. 91.5). Ibid., 193, fn. 24.
626. Ibid., 161.
627. When commenting upon Christ’s role of prophet, Levering writes, “Aquinas conceives of the content of the New Law as fulfillment, not a destruction, of the Old Law.” “Christ does not abolish the commandments; rather, he shows how they can be truly obeyed in light of the supernatural destiny that he reveals.” Ibid., 76. Levering reiterated this view of “fulfillment and not negation” in his recent essay on Aquinas’s view of the Old Testament entitled, “Ordering Wisdom: Aquinas, the Old Testament, and Sacra Doctrina.” He writes, “Christ’s fulfillment of the Torah reveals the ‘whole divine pedagogy of God’s saving love.’ Since this fulfillment is not a negation, the Old Testament remains ‘a storehouse of sublime teaching on God and of sound wisdom on human life.’” See Levering, “Ordering Wisdom,” 91.
628. As I explain below, Aquinas’s treatment of the Old Law is the largest part of the treatise on law and contains some of the longest articles in the entire Summa theologiae. I do not have the space to discuss scholars who have commented upon the theological sources of the Old Law in relation to Paul in general. In my view, reading Aquinas’s inaugural lectures is the best introduction to Aquinas’s theology of the Old Law. For commentary on Aquinas’s theology of the Old Law see the following sources. Levering, “Ordering Wisdom,” 80–91. For scholarly comments on how Paul influences Aquinas’s view of the Old Law in general see John Y. B. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews, and Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law. For scholarly treatments of how Paul influences Aquinas’s theology in general see the following resources: The Proceedings of the IX Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas, entitled, Saint Thomas’s Interpretation on Saint Paul’s Doctrines, 2009; Baglow, “Modus et Forma”; Valkenberg, Words of the Living God; Otto Pesch’s classic lecture is also a good starting point: Pesch, “Paul as Professor of Theology.”
629. Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 137. That Aquinas is concerned to teach “beginners” is clear from the preface to the Summa theologiae.
630. Ibid., 137.
631. See Chenu, “The Old Testament in Twelfth-Century Theology”; Smalley “William of Auvergne, John of La Rochelle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the Old Law,”; Schenk, “Covenant Initiation,” and “Views of the Two Covenants in Medieval Theology.”
632. Braine, “Aquinas, God and Being,” 1.
633. “The Old Law was given by the good God, Who is the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.” Ia-IIae q. 98.2. In ad Hebraeos 1.1.19, Aquinas says Paul’s words about how God spoke in “times of past” refers to the Old Testament, and that such divine speech rules out the view of the Manicheans: “By this he shows against the Manichaeans that the author of the Old and the New Testaments is the same.” See also Hic est Liber, where Aquinas says the Old Law and the New Law bring life to humankind yet mediate that life in two ways. His view of the relation between the Old and New Law is held together by John 1:17: “Both of these” writes Aquinas, “are touched on in John 1:17: ‘For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.’” See Hic est liber, 2.
634. Chenu, Aquinas and His Role in Theology, 137. The Prima Secundae treats broadly of human actions in order to “know which ones lead us to happiness and which ones prevent our attaining it.” Ia-IIae q. 6 Prol. The entire structure of the Summa theologiae reflects this broad theological vision of salvation history: the emanation of creatures from God and made in God’s image in the Prima Pars; the return of creatures made in God’s image in the Prima Secundae and Secunda Secundae; and the union of creation with Christ in the Tertia Pars.
635. Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa , 33.
636. The treatise on law includes a discussion of four laws: 1) the eternal law, which is God’s own wisdom or reason; 2) the natural law, which is the participation of creatures in eternal law; 3) the human law, which aids in specifying the natural law and establishes friendship among humankind; and 4) the divine Law, which establishes friendship between humankind and God. Aquinas divides divine Law into new and old, with the old coming through Moses to Israel, and new coming through Christ to both Israel and Church. Ia-IIae q. 91. See also Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa, 34.
637. The other forms of law contain an average of three questions with four articles each. Aquinas devotes eight questions with a total of forty-six articles to the Old Law. My count of the articles in the treatise on law in the Summa theologiae is as follows: The eternal law contains three questions (q. 90–92), with a total of twelve articles distributed among the questions (q. 90.1–4; q. 91.1–6; q. 92.1–2). The natural law contains one question (q. 94) with a total of six articles distributed among the questions (94.1–6). The human law contains three questions (q. 95–97) with a total of fourteen articles distributed among the questions (q. 95.1–4; q. 96.1–6; q. 97.1–4). The Old Law contains eight questions (q. 98–105) with a total of forty-six articles distributed among the questions (q. 98.1–6; q. 99.1–6; q. 100.1–12; q. 101.1–4; q. 102.1–6; q. 103.1–4; q. 104.1–4; q. 105.1–4). The New Law contains three questions (q. 106–108) with a total of twelve articles distributed among the questions (q. 106.1–4; q. 107.1–4; q. 108.1–4).
638. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews, 40; Wyschogrod, “A Jewish Reading,” 126; Edward Synan, “Some Medieval Perceptions on Jewish Law,” 120; Coolman points out that Ia-IIae q. 102.3 ad. 5 runs for more than 8,000 words. Coolman, “Christological Torah,” 5.
639. A comparison of Aquinas and Kant on the significance of Jewish practices suggests there may be greater theological significance to Aquinas’s efforts to ground Jewish rites in historical and theological ends in the treatise on law than has been realized. Kant saw the particularities of Jewish faith as a corruption of Christianity’s universal nature, which was, in his view, rational religion. The idea that only one people would worship God seems to Kant unreasonable and against the true nature of the religion of reason. Immanuel Kant, Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, 114. Kendall Soulen observes that, for Kant, “Christianity falls short of moral religion just insofar as it retains rudiments of Jewish belief, while it approximates to true religion just insofar as it breaks in principle with the Israelite dimension of traditional Christian faith. The true service of religion in the Christian church, therefore, consists in expelling the vestiges of Judaism from the body of Christian divinity. The task begun by the abolition of circumcision, the mark of Jewish flesh, must be completed by the abolition of the Hebrew Scriptures, the mark of the Jewish spirit.” Soulen, The God of Israel, 57–68. As I show below, Aquinas resists the spiritualization of Judaism at its source, “the abolition of circumcision,” when, in the Romans commentary, he argues for the permanent theological value of Jewish practice after the passion of Christ.
640. Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa, 34. He also states that the treatise on the Old Law “deserves to be known better.”
641. Wyschogrod, “A Jewish Reading of St. Thomas Aquinas,” 126. Bourke and Littledale (the editors of the Blackfriars edition) of the volume on the Old Law, comment that the length of the articles shows that Aquinas “had to strain the characteristic ‘article’ structure almost to the bursting point.” Unfortunately, however, they seem to attribute this difficulty to an inherent flaw in the Hebrew Bible: “[Aquinas] has, in fact, to some extent fallen victim to the intransigent untidiness of the Old Testament, which, as more recent scholars have increasingly come to recognize, is not so much a book as a bundle of traditions, heterogeneous in age, provenance and subject matter, which has been accumulated over many troubled centuries.” Bourke and Littledale, introduction to Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, xxvi.
642. Chenu, “The Old Testament.”
643. Ibid., 160.
644. Just a few of the examples Chenu offers are prophets as figures for the monastic life and old testament kings as ideas for the Christian prince. The true model of political society was furnished by the old testament: “It was clearly in the Old Testament that the crusade, that distinctive enterprise of all Christendom, found its inspiration, its basis, its rules, and all the ambiguities concerning worldly messianism that form a usual part of the imagery of prophetic books. The ‘Lord of hosts’ became not only the mystical but the earthly triumphant conqueror in that holy war.” Ibid., 147; 150–1; 158.
645. Chenu: “More than the lifting of particular figures and ideas from the Old Testament, which the theology of the great masters balanced with texts from the New, was a whole manner of presenting arguments, a whole turn of style and thought, a whole cast of mind that revealed this envelopment of the New Testament in the Old—Novum in veteri latet (the New lies enveloped in the Old).” Ibid., 158.
646. Ibid., 160.
647. Ibid.
648. Ibid.
649. Ibid., 159.
650. Schenk, “Views of the Two Covenants,” 895.
651. Ibid. The teaching can also be traced to Augustine’s Against Faustus as well. Augustine mentions that these laws cease after the passion several times.
652. Schenk, “Views of the Two Covenants,” 910.
653. Ibid.
654. I do not mean to imply that these “two pictures” of the status of the ceremonial law after Christ represent an anomaly in Aquinas’s thought which is usually an airtight system. Indeed, the scholastic method consisted of addressing precisely such apparent tensions that may arise from a reading of the sacred page. The method also included finding solutions to these tensions by appealing to authorities. “Whenever conflicting statements appeared, either because of some apparent contradiction in the text of Scripture or in the comment of some ecclesiastical authority, the arguments from both sides would be debated briefly and a solution found.” Weisheipl, Friar Thomas D’Aquino, 116–17.
655. The first question does not pertain to the end of the Law as much as the other three because it answers “Whether the precepts were in existence ‘before the law,’” to which Aquinas answers that though some ceremonies existed they were not legal ceremonies established by Mosaic legislation but rather prompted by a heavenly instinct. Because the legal ceremonies are designated for divine worship this question addresses the apparent problem that worship (ceremonies) existed before Moses received the Law (i.e. some leaders were gifted with the spirit of prophecy).
656. Torrell explains that, “Usually, the sed contra is an ‘authority,’ such as Scripture or one of the Fathers of the Church. Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa, 67.
657. Ia-IIae q. 103.2.
658. Ia-IIae q. 103.3.
659. “The time of the New Testament is called the day,” Aquinas states, “because it repels the shadow of the Law’s night.” Ad Heb. 3.2.173.
660. Ia-IIae q. 103.3.
661. Ia-IIae q. 103.3 ad. 1. Aquinas also draws upon his interpretation of a few texts from the Gospels: John 19:30, where Christ says “it is finished” and Matthew 27:51 where the temple is rent.
662. Ia-IIae q. 103.3 ad. 2.
663. Ia-IIae q. 102.4.
664. Aquinas makes this comment about Galatians 5:2 in the Romans commentary. Ad Rom. 2.4.238.
665. Ia-IIae q. 103.4.
666. Aquinas cites Augustine’s Against Faustus 19:16: “It is no longer promised that He shall be born, shall suffer and rise again, truths of which their sacraments were a kind of image: but it is declared that He is already born, has suffered and risen again; of which our sacraments, in which Christians share, are the actual representation.” Augustine writes, in 19.11: “The very intention of the observances was to prefigure Christ. Now that Christ has come, instead of its being strange or absurd that what was done to prefigure His advent should not be done any more, it is perfectly right and reasonable. The typical observances intended to prefigure the coming of Christ would be observed still, had they not been fulfilled by the coming of Christ.”
667. Ia-IIae q. 103.4 obj. 1.
668. Ia-IIae q. 103.4 ad. 1: “On this point there seems to have been a difference of opinion between Jerome and Augustine. For Jerome (Super Galat. 2, 11, seqq.) distinguished two periods of time. One was the time previous to Christ’s passion, during which the legal ceremonies were neither dead, since they were obligatory, and did expiate in their own fashion; nor deadly, because it was not sinful to observe them. But immediately after Christ’s passion they began to be not only dead, so as no longer to be either effectual or binding; but also deadly, so that whoever observed them was guilty of mortal sin. Hence he maintained that after the passion the apostles never observed the legal ceremonies in real earnest; but only by a kind of pious pretense, lest, to wit, they should scandalize the Jews and hinder their conversion. This pretense, however, is to be understood, not as though they did not in reality perform those actions, but in the sense that they performed them without the mind to observe the ceremonies of the Law: thus a man might cut away his foreskin for health’s sake, not with the intention of observing legal circumcision. But since it seems unbecoming that the apostles, in order to avoid scandal, should have hidden things pertaining to the truth of life and doctrine, and that they should have made use of pretense, in things pertaining to the salvation of the faithful; therefore, Augustine (Epist. 82) more fittingly distinguished three periods of time. One was the time that preceded the passion of Christ, during which the legal ceremonies were neither deadly nor dead: another period was after the publication of the gospel, during which the legal ceremonies are both dead and deadly. The third is a middle period, viz. from the passion of Christ until the publication of the gospel, during which the legal ceremonies were dead indeed, because they had neither effect nor binding force; but were not deadly, because it was lawful for the Jewish converts to Christianity to observe them, provided they did not put their trust in them so as to hold them to be necessary unto salvation, as though faith in Christ could not justify without the legal observances. On the other hand, there was no reason why those who were converted from heathendom to Christianity should observe them. Hence Paul circumcised Timothy, who was born of a Jewish mother; but was unwilling to circumcise Titus, who was of heathen nationality.
The reason why the Holy Ghost did not wish the converted Jews to be debarred at once from observing the legal ceremonies, while converted heathens were forbidden to observe the rites of heathendom, was in order to show that there is a difference between these rites. For heathenish ceremonial was rejected as absolutely unlawful, and as prohibited by God for all time; whereas the legal ceremonial ceased as being fulfilled through Christ’s passion, being instituted by God, as a figure of Christ.”
669. See also Ad Galatas 2.3.86.
670. Cf. Ad Rom. 2.4.238; Ad Rom. 3.1.247. The first time he references Galatians 5:2 he interprets it according to the standard view. Circumcision was a benefit only in the past. The second time he references it he actually presents it as an objection to the claim that circumcision is an advantage as outward Judaism. He then follows that affirmation with an extended explication on the prerogatives and advantages of outward Judaism.
671. This is not to say that Romans does not shape Aquinas’s view of the fulfillment of the Law. Aquinas draws upon the notion that the Law is good but imperfect in several places throughout his discussion of the Old Law. However, when Aquinas teaches that the Law is fulfilled and then becomes dead and deadly he does not appeal to texts in Romans or Matthew 5:17. Romans is not the primary Pauline source of Aquinas’s view of the cessation of the Law in the Summa theologiae.
672. Torrell, Aquinas’s Summa, 34.
673. This may indicate some development in Aquinas’s thought on the ceremonial Law from the Prima Secundae to the commentary on Romans, as well as the Tertia Pars of the Summa. It is possible that Aquinas’s thought on the ceremonial shifts from a “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly” view in the Prima Secundae, to a “fulfilled and upheld” view in the Romans commentary, which he edited himself in the last years of his life. Schenk argues that Aquinas strived to maintain the historical and literal integrity of the meaning of the Law, but increasingly emphasized its Christological meaning. Schenk even refers to this development as a “shift” and also uses the term “phase” to describe Aquinas’s thought. The first phase emphasizes the twofold end of the ceremonies: literal and prefigurative. The second phase increasingly emphasizes the prefigurative with a fading interest in the literal end. Schenk, “Views of the Two Covenants,” 911. However, Schenk rightly points out that the dates for the editions of Aquinas’s works on Paul are still “unresolved.”
674. Ad Rom. 2.4.244.
675. Ad Rom. 2.4.245.
676. Schenk holds that Aquinas’s statement in Ad Rom. 2.4 concerning inward Judaism is evidence of a spiritualization of the older covenant as a covenant of faith in Christ in the manner he detects in the Tertia Pars. “Views of the Two Covenants,” 911. He seems to miss Aquinas’s attentiveness to Paul’s objection to the idea of inward Judaism and his argument that the advantage of the Jew remains “Much in everyway.”
677. Edward A. Synan is the only scholar I am aware of that has remarked on Aquinas’s struggle with impermanent and permanent notions of the Law. Synan observed that the fact that the Summa theologiae represents Aquinas’s mature thought combined with the extreme length of the articles on the Old Law reveal that a particular tension in the Law “preoccupied” Aquinas to the end of his life: “That the enigma of laws, announced by Holy Scripture to be both permanent and passing, preoccupied him to the end is visible in the extreme length of the Summa articles on the issue.” Synan does not demonstrate his thesis regarding Aquinas’s preoccupation with what might be referred to as the “permanence and impermanence of the ceremonial law” in Scripture. Synan mentions it briefly, and on the way to making the point that, at the end of the day, Aquinas’s conscience would not permit him to defend the persistence of the Jewish ceremonial laws. Synan, “Some Medieval Perceptions of the Controversy on Jewish Law,” 120–21.
678. Ad Galat. 3.9.186.
679. Ad Galat. 3.9.186. [Emphasis added]
680. Ad Rom. 3.1.247.
681. Ad Rom. 3.1.248.
682. Ad Rom. 3.1.248.
683. Ad Rom. 3.1.248.
684. Ad Rom. 3.1.249.
685. Ad Rom. 3.1.253. [Emended]
686. Soulen, “They are Israelites.”