gustine. For Jerome (Super Galat. ii,
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. lxxxii) 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 ceremo