Export a Citation 
Print View
hide main text 
show main text 
hide table of contents
show table of contents
previous
1. Opinion of Others
a. Exposition of the Opinion
155. About the second main point [n.145], namely whether circumcision was voided by the fact that reception of baptism was simply necessary [n.154], the response is made that the time when baptism fell under counsel was from the first publication of it to the passion of Christ, and this did not void circumcision, not even as to its necessity. For during that time it was necessary for a Jew to circumcise his child, because that law was not yet revoked, as neither was the other imposed.
156. But from the time of the passion to the time of the publication of the Gospel, circumcision was licit but not necessary nor useful, because the obligations of the Law were fulfilled in the death of Christ. This is proved from the verse in John 19.30: when, with death imminent, Christ said, “It is finished.” And if it be asked what for a child of a Jew there was as remedy against original sin from Christ’s passion up to the publication of the Gospel, the response is that it was not circumcision but the faith of the parents, as in the time of the law of nature.
157. But in the third time, after the publication of the Gospel, circumcision was death dealing, and for this time Paul says Galatians 5.2, “If you are circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.”
b. Rejection of the Opinion
158. Against the first of these [n.155] the argument is as follows: if a precept when imposed totally revokes something else, then counsel or admonishment about it makes that something else non-necessary. The reason is that where something whose act when prescribed is prohibition of the act of something else, there the counseling of its act is a license not to observe the act of that something else. Therefore, if precept about baptism was prohibition of circumcision (as to its fruit), then counsel about baptism rendered circumcision non-necessary.
159. There is a confirmation of this, that if some Jew before the Passion had, at the preaching of Christ or St. Peter, baptized his child and not circumcised him, then that child, had he died, would have been saved, because he received grace in baptism; for baptism conferred grace from its first institution.
160. But if you say that it is true baptism would have been sufficient for the child but the father would have sinned in not circumcising him - on the contrary: because he was able to circumcise his son before the eighth day, and from the fact he already had a remedy against original sin, and the father believed this (for he believed baptism to be efficacious for it), then it seems he was not necessarily bound to make provision from the other remedy for his child.
161. Against the second [n.156], which is asserted about the time between the passion of Christ and the promulgation of the Gospel, I argue as follows, that no one is differently disposed as to some law save because he has it differently promulgated to him; but after the passion of Christ, before the Apostles were preaching baptism, baptism was not promulgated to the people differently than it was before the passion; therefore no one was obligated to baptism after the passion differently than before, and so neither was he differently disposed as to circumcision
162. Again, the precepts get their power of obligating and of remedying and curing from the same source; the fact is plain from Bede in his Homily on John 3.5: “unless a man will have been born again” (and it is put in Lombard’s text, IV d.1 ch.10), “He who is now terribly and salubriously exclaiming, ‘Unless a man will have...’ (and ‘terribly’ is said by Bede because of the strictness of the obligation, and ‘salubriously’ because of the efficacy of the remedy), he was exclaiming before through the Law, Genesis 17.14, ‘A male child the flesh of whose foreskin is not circumcised, his soul will perish from the people.’” But circumcision retains its obligatory power until it be authentically revoked; therefore by the same fact it had the power of providing remedy until that revocation. But by Christ’s death alone it was not revoked differently than before, as is plain from the preceding reason [n.161], because no law was promulgated to anyone differently than before.
163. Again after the death of Christ until the time of promulgation the Jews were bound to circumcise their children, because they did not in any way have certainty about the revocation of circumcision. Now no one imposed circumcision on his child save as to its being useful and necessary for him for salvation, because he was bound to put hope in circumcision just as he did before; so ‘was he bound necessarily to have a false opinion about circumcision?’ - which amounts to saying nothing, because God deceives no one nor does he obligate anyone necessarily to deceive.
164. Again, man was never left without a remedy that was certain and a remedy about which he would not be certain that the remedy was certain; but the time after the passion before the publication [of baptism], there was no new certain remedy given to them, because neither was it promulgated to them; therefore, the remedy remained the same as before and was equally certain; therefore circumcision remained equally as before.
165. Against the third [n.157], which is asserted of the time after the publication of the Gospel, the passage in Acts 21.15-26 is plain, where it is read about Paul that he went up to Jerusalem, and there, on the advice of James and the other brothers (after the fourth synod held in Jerusalem19), he was purified according to the Law and went up to the temple and offered sacrifice for himself. And it is plain from Acts 21.20 how solemnly the Gospel had been published there, “See how many thousands of men in Judea have believed and all are zealous for the Law.” Therefore, while so great a publication of the Gospel is going on there, observance of the Law in Paul himself and among the converted Jews is approved of; and in the same place Paul himself among so many Christians accomplished a work of the Law.
166. Now the time when this purification and offering of Paul according to the Law will have been carried out can be conjectured partly from the way Acts proceeds, and partly from the Master of the Histories [Petrus Comestor, School History, chs.97-113]. For it was before the arrest of Paul seven days later, as is plain in Acts 21.27. Now this arrest was about the beginning of the reign of Nero, because Paul came to Rome in the third year of Nero, according to the Master of the Histories; and Nero began to reign about the twentieth year after the passion of Christ [54 AD, October 3, Tacitus Annals 12.69]. Now it seems that in so great a time the Gospel was sufficiently made public, and especially in Judea, where however Paul was observing the Law’s provisions.