Chapter 57 — Of the difference between the sacraments of the Old and of the New Law

The next point to consider is that since these visible sacraments derive their efficacy from Christ’s Passion, and in a certain way represent it, they ought to be of such a nature as to be in keeping with the salvation wrought by Christ. Now this salvation, before Christ’s Incarnation and death, was indeed promised, but not actually realized: the Word, by his Incarnation and Passion, wrought this salvation. Accordingly, the sacraments which preceded Christ’s Incarnation needed to be such as to signify and (so to speak) promise salvation; but the sacraments that followed Christ’s Passion needed to be such as to give salvation to man, and not merely signify it.

Thus we avoid the opinion of the Jews, who believe that the sacraments of the Law, as being instituted by God, ought to be observed forever, for God does not repent, nor does he change. But it does not argue change or repentance in a man if he makes various arrangements to fit various times. Therefore, even as a father gives certain commands to his son when a child, and others when he is grown up, so too God delivered one kind of sacraments and precepts before the Incarnation, to signify the future, and another kind after the Incarnation, to show forth the present and commemorate the past.

Still more absurd is the error of the Nazarenes and Helonites, who held that the sacraments of the Law are to be observed together with those of the Gospel, since such an error implies a contradiction. By observing the sacraments of the Gospel, they admit that the Incarnation and other mysteries of Christ are things of the past; by observing the sacraments of the Law, they hold that those things are yet to come.