I answer that, All the ceremonial precepts of the Old Law were ordained to the worship of God as stated above (Q. 101, AA. 1, 2).  Now external worship should be in proportion to the internal worship, which consists in faith, hope and charity.  Consequently exterior worship had to be subject to variations according to the variations in the internal worship, in which a threefold state may be distinguished.  One state was in respect of faith and hope, both in heavenly goods, and in the means of obtaining them—­in both of these considered as things to come.  Such was the state of faith and hope in the Old Law.  Another state of interior worship is that in which we have faith and hope in heavenly goods as things to come; but in the means of obtaining heavenly goods, as in things present or past.  Such is the state of the New Law.  The third state is that in which both are possessed as present; wherein nothing is believed in as lacking, nothing hoped for as being yet to come.  Such is the state of the Blessed.

In this state of the Blessed, then, nothing in regard to worship of God will be figurative; there will be naught but “thanksgiving and voice of praise” (Isa. 51:3).  Hence it is written concerning the city of the Blessed (Apoc. 21:22):  “I saw no temple therein:  for the Lord God Almighty is the temple thereof, and the Lamb.”  Proportionately, therefore, the ceremonies of the first-mentioned state which foreshadowed the second and third states, had need to cease at the advent of the second state; and other ceremonies had to be introduced which would be in keeping with the state of divine worship for that particular time, wherein heavenly goods are a thing of the future, but the Divine favors whereby we obtain the heavenly boons are a thing of the present.

Reply Obj. 1:  The Old Law is said to be “for ever” simply and absolutely, as regards its moral precepts; but as regards the ceremonial precepts it lasts for even in respect of the reality which those ceremonies foreshadowed.

Reply Obj. 2:  The mystery of the redemption of the human race was fulfilled in Christ’s Passion:  hence Our Lord said then:  “It is consummated” (John 19:30).  Consequently the prescriptions of the Law must have ceased then altogether through their reality being fulfilled.  As a sign of this, we read that at the Passion of Christ “the veil of the temple was rent” (Matt. 27:51).  Hence, before Christ’s Passion, while Christ was preaching and working miracles, the Law and the Gospel were concurrent, since the mystery of Christ had already begun, but was not as yet consummated.  And for this reason Our Lord, before His Passion, commanded the leper to observe the legal ceremonies.

Reply Obj. 3:  The literal reasons already given (Q. 102) for the ceremonies refer to the divine worship, which was founded on faith in that which was to come.  Hence, at the advent of Him Who was to come, both that worship ceased, and all the reasons referring thereto.