he Old Law.
For what Our Lord commanded about a man not putting away his wife, is
not contrary to what the Law prescribed. "For the Law did not say:
'Let him that wills, put his wife away': the contrary of which would
be not to put her away. _On the contrary,_ the Law was unwilling that
a man should put away his wife, since it prescribed a delay, so that
excessive eagerness for divorce might cease through being weakened
during the writing of the bill. Hence Our Lord, in order to impress
the fact that a wife ought not easily to be put away, allowed no
exception save in the case of fornication." The same applies to the
prohibition about swearing, as stated above. The same is also clear
with respect to the prohibition of retaliation. For the Law fixed a
limit to revenge, by forbidding men to seek vengeance unreasonably:
whereas Our Lord deprived them of vengeance more completely by
commanding them to abstain from it altogether. With regard to the
hatred of one's enemies, He dispelled the false interpretation of the
Pharisees, by admonishing us to hate, not the person, but his sin. As
to discriminating between various foods, which was a ceremonial
matter, Our Lord did not forbid this to be observed: but He showed
that no foods are naturally unclean, but only in token of something
else, as stated above (Q. 102, A. 6, ad 1).

Reply Obj. 3: It was forbidden by the Law to touch a leper; because
by doing so, man incurred a certain uncleanness of irregularity, as
also by touching the dead, as stated above (Q. 102, A. 5, ad 4). But
Our Lord, Who healed the leper, could not contract an uncleanness. By
those things which He did on the sabbath, He did not break the
sabbath in reality, as the Master Himself shows in the Gospel: both
because He worked miracles by His Divine power, which is ever active
among things; and because His works were concerned with the salvation
of man, while the Pharisees were concerned for the well-being of
animals even on the sabbath; and again because on account of urgency
He excused His disciples for gathering the ears of corn on the
sabbath. But He did seem to break the sabbath according to the
superstitious interpretation of the Pharisees, who thought that man
ought to abstain from doing even works of kindness on the sabbath;
which was contrary to the intention of the Law.

Reply Obj. 4: The reason why the ceremonial precepts of the Law are
not mentioned in Matt. 5 is because, as stated above (ad 1), t