Reply Obj. 2:  As Augustine says (Contra Faust. xix, 26), those precepts of Our Lord are not contrary to the precepts of the 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), their observance was abolished by their fulfilment.  But of the judicial precepts He mentioned that of retaliation:  so that what He said about it should refer to all the others.  With regard to this precept, He taught that the intention of the Law was that retaliation should be sought out of love of justice, and not as a punishment out of revengeful spite, which He forbade, admonishing man to be ready to suffer yet greater insults; and this remains still in the New Law. ________________________