urther, the commands of the apostles did not lead men into
sin. But it was commanded by apostolic decree that the Gentiles
should observe certain ceremonies of the Law: for it is written (Acts
15:28, 29): "It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, to lay
no further burden upon you than these necessary things: that you
abstain from things sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from
things strangled, and from fornication." Therefore the legal
ceremonies can be observed since Christ's Passion without committing
mortal sin.

_On the contrary,_ The Apostle says (Gal. 5:2): "If you be
circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing." But 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.

_I answer that,_ All ceremonies are professions of faith, in which
the interior worship of God consists. Now man can make profession of
his inward faith, by deeds as well as by words: and in either
profession, if he make a false declaration, he sins mortally. 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 was it 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 (Contra
Faust. xix, 16), who says: "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."

Reply Obj. 1: On this point there seems to have been a difference of
opinion between Jerome and Au