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The Catholic church wound up being antinomian, i.e., they rejected the law. There were a bunch of reasons: one was the circumcision ruling from the "Council of Jerusalem" mentioned, I think, in Acts--was circumcision binding in the Gentiles that Paul recruited (for all the anti-Pauline venom here, please note that there's little evidence that Jesus or the Apostles proselytized outside of Israel, or considered non-Israelites to be of great interest). This was taken to mean the law wasn't applicable to gentiles.
Further support came from a vision that Paul had early on: three times presented with unclean meats in a vision, he said each time he had never eaten any unclean thing. He wondered what it meant. The Catholic church said the dietary laws, and, in general, laws concerning purity and rituals,weren't binding. Paul said it meant that he should call no man unclean, and Gentiles were open for conversion.
Further support was read into the "fulfill the law", so Protestants ramble around the countryside saying "Christ fulfilled the law." In it's place are the quotes from Leviticus, Love thy neighbor as thyself, etc. "Law of love" is how it's usually put, with 'love to God' being expressed solely as 'love for fellow man'. Circumcision, all the ritual purity and sacrificial laws, and other laws are dumped; I guess they bring the "do not murder" law back in under "law of love". This is a strongly dispensationalist view, although the term is anachronistic and wouldn't have been used in the 4-5th centuries when this was being hashed out.
I know of no brand of Xianity that, if you sat down and actually communicated with reasonable members of its adherents, wouldn't agree with a great deal of that. But some would disagree with the conclusion.
A much, very much less held point of view is that Christ didn't actually suspend any OT legal requirements during his lifetime; he even toughened up the law on divorce, revoking liberalization introduced under Moses administration. He didn't say not to tithe; he called adultery a sin, and added the "lust in your heart" proviso that Moses left untouched; he pointed out the sabbath was for man's good, not that it shouldn't be kept, but it wasn't onerous. He was a perfectly observant Jew, who made the law much, much tougher to keep: outward observance wasn't enough, hoop-jumping didn't cut it any more. Circumcision was for Israel, not binding on non-Israelites; Jesus, sent to Israel, didn't address the issue because it would never have come up. There was no question about whether his followers should keep the Mosaic law, so that also never came up. When points of the law came up, he was actually quite consistent. He said not to add things to the law, and hammered the Pharisees on that point; and not to take things from the law, and again hammered the Pharisees. He argued for mercy, and for not punishing those who erred if they made a mistake and feel sorry about it.
This leaves the ritual side of things, and it gets messy, in this line of reasoning. If Christ was the perfect sacrifice, the sacrificial system's certainly trashed. What about the ritual laws--foods, etc.? Some keep them, on the 'better safe than sorry' plan, or have reasons that aren't entirely convincing to everybody; others dump them, on the 'we'll be forgiven for our mistakes' system, or have reasons that are also not entirely convincing. A further complication is, What's a ritual law? Holy days? Unclean foods? Sabbath?
For almost none of this do you get quotes from Jesus: you can read what he says in the canonical gospels, and the associated cirumstances, and form a pattern. But that doesn't address many of the big issues. The quotes from Paul are more cogent, but aren't always crystal clear in their meaning: 'law' can have any number of referents, and the context isn't always clear to guide us; sometimes the syntax is contorted.
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