On the contrary, It is written (Lev. 1:13):  “The priest shall offer it all and burn it all upon the altar, for a holocaust, and most sweet savor to the Lord.”  Now according to Wis. 7:28, “God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom”:  whence it seems to follow that whatever is acceptable to God is wisely done.  Therefore these ceremonies of the sacrifices were wisely done, as having reasonable causes.

I answer that, As stated above (A. 2), the ceremonies of the Old Law had a twofold cause, viz. a literal cause, according as they were intended for Divine worship; and a figurative or mystical cause, according as they were intended to foreshadow Christ:  and on either hand the ceremonies pertaining to the sacrifices can be assigned to a fitting cause.

For, according as the ceremonies of the sacrifices were intended for the divine worship, the causes of the sacrifices can be taken in two ways.  First, in so far as the sacrifice represented the directing of the mind to God, to which the offerer of the sacrifice was stimulated.  Now in order to direct his mind to God aright, man must recognize that whatever he has is from God as from its first principle, and direct it to God as its last end.  This was denoted in the offerings and sacrifices, by the fact that man offered some of his own belongings in honor of God, as though in recognition of his having received them from God, according to the saying of David (1 Paral. xxix, 14):  “All things are Thine:  and we have given Thee what we received of Thy hand.”  Wherefore in offering up sacrifices man made protestation that God is the first principle of the creation of all things, and their last end, to which all things must be directed.  And since, for the human mind to be directed to God aright, it must recognize no first author of things other than God, nor place its end in any other; for this reason it was forbidden in the Law to offer sacrifice to any other but God, according to Ex. 22:20:  “He that sacrificeth to gods, shall be put to death, save only to the Lord.”  Wherefore another reasonable cause may be assigned to the ceremonies of the sacrifices, from the fact that thereby men were withdrawn from offering sacrifices to idols.  Hence too it is that the precepts about the sacrifices were not given to the Jewish people until after they had fallen into idolatry, by worshipping the molten calf:  as though those sacrifices were instituted, that the people, being ready to offer sacrifices, might offer those sacrifices to God rather than to idols.  Thus it is written (Jer. 7:22):  “I spake not to your fathers and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt-offerings and sacrifices.”