Dialogue or Diatribe?

Studies in the Historical Connection Between Christian Theology and Anti-Jewish Rhetoric

John August Schumacher

eBook edition Cover art: The Destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem by Francesco Hayez (17911882) Unless otherwise indicated, Bible quotations are my own translations. The Greek text used is the third edition Greek New Testament (London: United Bible Society, 1983). The LXX text is the 8th edition Septuaginta (Stuttgart: Wttembergische Bibelanstalt, 1965). Copyright 2013 John August Schumacher All rights reserved

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CONTENTS
FORWARD ........................................................................... 7 1 THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW .......................................................................... 9 2 ANTI-JEWISH RHETORIC IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN ................................................................................. 20 3 JUSTIN MARTYRS DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO ... 31
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... 31
Dating the Historical Argument ..............................................................36 Outline of the Book ................................................................................40

JUSTIN AND HIS WORLD .................................................................. 42 PROPHECY AND SUPERSESSIONISM .................................................. 45

Justins Presuppositions: Outline ............................................................49

JUSTINS COSMIC PRINCIPLE ............................................................ 53

The Origin and Nature of the Logos .......................................................53 The Logos as a Cosmic Principle .............................................................54 The Distinction Between the Father and the Son .....................................55 The Spermatic Logos ...........................................................................60 The Logos, Christology and the Historical Argument ..............................63

JUSTINS INTERPRETIVE INNOVATION ............................................. 64

The Logos as an Hermeneutical Principle ................................................64 Justins Doctrine of Scripture ..................................................................66

JUSTIN ON THE MOSAIC LAW ........................................................... 75

The Law as Proscription for Jewish Sin ...................................................75

JUSTIN ON ISRAEL AND THE FATE OF THE JEWS .......................... 83

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
Gods Actions in History ........................................................................ 83

THE LEGACY OF SUPERSESSIONISM................................................. 89

Ancient Polemic and Modern Faith ........................................................ 89 Suggestions for Further Research............................................................ 99

4 AUGUSTINE AND THE JEWS: PROPHECY AND HISTORY IN CITY OF GOD .......................................... 102 5 LUTHERS VIEW OF HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN ON THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES ........................... 119
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 119 CONTEXT OF THE CONTROVERSY ................................................. 120 THE JEWS AND DIVINE JUDGMENT ............................................... 123 LUTHERS RESPONSE TO COUNTER-INTERPRETATIONS ................ 127 TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF LUTHERS HISTORICAL ARGUMENT .................................................................................. 133 CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................... 137

6 PURITY AND SALVATION IN PAULINE CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY ....... 139
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 139 PAULS WORLD: PHARISAIC JUDAISM ............................................ 141
Pauls Theology of Inclusion ............................................................. 145 Is Paul Anti-Judaic? .............................................................................. 149

CHRISTIAN IDENTITYS DOCTRINE OF RACIAL PURITY ................. 156

The Chosen People of God .............................................................. 157 The Gospel According to Christian Identity: Salvation by Race ........... 159

THE END TIMES ............................................................................ 162

Christian Identity and the Apocalypse ................................................... 162 Paul and the End Times: Resurrection and Redemption ....................... 166

CONCLUSIONS ............................................................................... 170

7 FINAL THOUGHTS ................................................. 173 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY .............................................. 176

THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW ......... 176

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JUSTIN MARTYRS DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO ................................. 177 LUTHERS VIEW OF HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN ON THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES..................................................................................... 179 PURITY AND SALVATION IN PAULINE CHRISTIANITY .................... 179

FORWARD
The work presented here is a culmination of my interest in the history of Christian animosity toward the Jews. As will be argued in more detail herein, I prefer the term anti-Jewish to either the more ubiquitous term anti-Semitism or its complement, anti-Judaism. The former is of recent origin, having been coined in the 19th century. As such, it carries connotations of hatred for Jews based on ethnic or racial prejudice. The latter, meanwhile, is meant to describe animosity based on religious disagreement. Epithets such as Christ-killer leveled against Jews would fall into this category. I would argue, however, that the distinction between the terms is artificial: the simple fact is that historic hatred of Jews was often a complex matter that involved both ethnic and religious dimensions. What follows is focused on the religious side of this equation. Parts I and II examine two instances of anti-Jewish rhetoric in the New Testament. Part III, meanwhile, skips ahead to the second century and a man named Justin, a convert from Neoplatonism to Christianity. In his Dialogue With Trypho, Justin goes to some length to prove that Judaism has been superseded by Christianity. Justins argument involves an obscure text from Genesis (49:10), which he insists is a prophecy for the destruction of the Second Jewish Temple in 70 A.D. My study of this subject culminated in a thesis

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER submitted to the faculty of Wartburg Theological Seminary (Dubuque, IA) in 1998 as part of the requirements for a Master of Arts. That thesis now constitutes Part III of this study. Part IV then jumps ahead to the time of the Reformation. Raised a Lutheran (and the son of a pastor to boot!), it was not until I was in college that I heard of Luthers infamous diatribe, On the Jews and Their Lies. Within the pages of this venomous tract, Luther quoted Genesis 49:10 to prove that the Jews had been replaced by the Christian church as the Chosen People of God. The paper I wrote for a history class at the time is now included as Part V. It was this work that was the catalyst for later studies that led to the thesis outlined above. In the years that followed my encounter with Luthers diatribe, I traced allusions to Genesis 49:10 (which I had dubbed the historical argument) back through Christian history. Along the way, I encountered its use in Augustines City of God (the resulting research paper included as Part IV) and finally in the work of a Justin. At the same time, I had become aware of the existence of a Christian Identity, an outgrowth of an earlier movement called British Israelism. Whereas Justin, et al., argued that Christianity replaced the Jews as the Chosen People of God, Christian Identity claimed to have found the true people of Israel in the pale-faced population of northern Europe. To wit: the Germanic and Scandinavian were the so-called ten lost tribes of Israel. The Jews, meanwhile, were imposters. What follows then, is a series of snapshots in the history of antiJewish sentiments on the part of Christians. It is my hope that my own contributions can help others who are pursuing similar research. My own observations and conclusions, constituting Part VIII, are offered as well.

January 2013

1 THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

On the next day, which is after the day of preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together before Pilate, saying, Lord, we remember that that impostor said while living, After three days I will rise. Therefore command the tomb to be made secure until the third day, lest his disciples, coming by night, steal him and say to the people, He has been raised from the dead, and the last deception will be worse than the first. Pilate said to them, Have a guard of soldiers; go make it [as] secure as you know. And going, they began to secure the tomb, sealing the stone [along] with the soldiers. After the Sabbath, at the dawning of the first [day] of the Sabbath, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And behold, there was a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord coming down out of heaven and coming forward rolled away the stone and began to sit on it. His face was as lightning and his clothing bright as snow. Out of fear of him those who were guarding were shaken and became as the dead. But the angel said by way of answer to the women, Do not be afraid, for you know that Jesus who was crucified lives. He is not here, for he has been raised, just as he said. Come see the place where he was. And going quickly, tell his disciples, He has been raised from the dead, and behold he goes before you into Galilee, and you will see him there. Behold I said [this] to

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you. And quickly going up from the tomb with fear and great joy they ran to report to his disciples. And behold Jesus met them, saying, Greetings! Coming to him, they took ho ld of his feet and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them, Do not be afraid. Go report to my disciples that I went into Galilee, and they will be seeing me there. While they were going, behold some of the soldiers, after going into the city, reported to the chief priests all that had happened. And after they had gathered together with the elders, taking a large amount of silver, they gave it to the soldiers, saying, Say, His disciples, after coming at night, stole him while we were sleeping. And should this be heard by the governor, we will persuade him and make you free from care. Those who took the silver did as they had been instructed. And this story is spread widely among the Jews up to this day.1

Of the canonical Gospels, only Matthew relates this story of a conspiracy between the Jewish leaders and the guards whom they had placed to watch Jesus tomb. What are to make of this strange tale? I believe the text itself provides the answer: it is a theological and polemical refutation of Jewish disbelief in Jesus. I further believe that in this passage, Matthew is refuting a story put forward by his Jewish rivals that explained Jesus resurrection in purely naturalistic terms. No attempt will be made to reconstruct this source, which may only have been spread by word of mouth. It is possible, however, to speculate about its general content. First, it denied that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah; following from this would be a denial that Jesus was raised from the dead. Instead, an alternative interpretation of Jesus purported resurrection was offered: he had not risen from the dead, despite what his followers insisted. Rather, his dead body had been taken (stolen) from the tomb by his disciples, who then claimed he had returned from the dead. In reacting to this Jewish polemic, early Christians developed its
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Matthew 27:62-28:15

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? own; in the process, the tale was turned on its head. Jesus had indeed risen from the dead. The guards posted to watch the tomb were first-hand witnesses to this miraculous event, but were silenced by the Jewish officials, who could not allow word of Jesus resurrection to spread, lest it undermine their own authority. The guards were eyewitnesses to the event, but must not be allowed to tell others. They were therefore bribed into complicity. What is intriguing about this text is Matthews portrayal of Jewish officials. The chief priests and Pharisees (who are not mentioned afterward) approach Pilate and request that a guard be placed at the entrance to the tomb where Jesus is being laid.2 Their concern is that his disciples would fulfill their masters prophecy (i.e., his claim that he would rise from the dead after three days) by stealing the body, only to claim that he was resurrected. The term used by the Jewish officials to describe Jesus is strong and derogatory: . This word ties into an earlier theme in Matthews story, but first is it necessary to say more about the word itself. The Greek verb literally means to lead astray.3 However, it is a later, developed usage which the translators of the Septuagint adopted and which was to influence the New Testament writers. While the Septuagint does use in the literal

The text reads: The next day, that is, after the day of Preparation. This must mean the Sabbath, though the choice of wording is most unusual. Also, Matthew is apparently unconcerned with the paradox of having Torah-conscious Pharisees approach a ritually-impure Gentile (Pilate) on the most holy Sabbath of the year, nor of the problem this would create for their eating the Passover meal! 3 A full discussion of the history of from which this brief outline is taken, is found in Gerhard Friedrich (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. VI, (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968), 228-253.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER sense, as in the command not to lead the blind astray4, it is more often used to mean a transgression of the will of God. Hebrew Scripture stresses the culpability of humanity: humans sin because, though hearing the word of God, they do not obey. In the LXX, this straying from the right path is , the leading astray of oneself or others. Later development tied to eschatological dualism. This notion is present in Matthews portrayal of Jesus. In chapter 24, after denouncing the scribes and Pharisees and predicting the destruction of the temple, Jesus cautions his disciples about false teachers:
See that someone does not lead you astray [], for many will be coming in my name, saying, I am the Christ, and they will lead many astray [ ]. And then many will be caused to fall, and they will hand each other over and hate each another. And many false prophets will be raised up and they will lead many astray Then if someone should say to you, Behold, here is the Christ, or Here, do not believe. For false Christs and false prophets will be raised up, and they will give great signs and omens so as to lead astray, if it is possible, even the elect.5

Jesus point is clear: He alone is the true Messiah (Christ). If anyone else comes claiming to be the Christ, they are a deceiver (). When we return to the Mt. 27:62-28:15 text, however, we see this charge of leading astray applied by the Jewish officials to Jesus. According to them, Jesus is a false Messiah, a who mislead his disciples into believing that he would return from
Deuteronomy 27:18a: Cursed is the one leading the blind astray on the road (LXX). 5 Mt. 24:4, 9-11; 24:23-24.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? the dead; his word would be fulfilled, even if this meant stealing the body and falsifying the resurrection. According to Matthew, however, the story is exactly reversed. The dramatic appearance of the angel at the tomb and the bribing of the guards by the Jewish officials points to the fact the Jews knew the truth, but chose to ignore and cover it up. The circle is complete, as is the Jews rejection of Jesus as Messiah. It is to this that we now turn. First, it is important to remember that Jesus was not the first (nor the last) messiah to be executed by the Romans. There were others both before and after Jesus who made messianic claims and attracted followers. In this light, the Jewish religious leadership merely added the name of Jesus of Nazareth to their list of (deceivers). It is also a matter of debate as to whether the term messiah is rightly applied to this time period. R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson6 argue that modern assumptions about messianic expectation among ancient Jews are skewed. The authors point out, as noted above, that Jesus was one of many persons making claims within the bounds of existing notions of a coming anointed one or king-figure. They also insist that our understanding of messianic expectation at the time of Jesus is exaggerated and misunderstood. Moreover, the very term messiah may not have been used by the people to whom we attribute it, or at least not in the time we assume it to have been used. Nonetheless, the writers of the New Testament do tie Jesus to messianic expectation. Describing Jesus of Nazareth as a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, one of the travelers on the road to Emmaus went on to state that we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.7 Jesus fulfilled the requirements expected of a messiah, which in this case seems to have been interpreted in worldly terms. He who would redeem
R. A. Horsley and J. S. Hanson, Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs, (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985). 7 Luke 24:19, 21
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Israel would do so with the sword, as the king who would vanquish the Roman occupiers and reestablish the throne of David. Jesus clearly placed himself in opposition to the religious and political authorities of his day. The historical reasons for his death are thus as numerous as the enemies he made during his lifetime. Matthew, however, is less concerned with the Romans historical or political motivations in crucifying Jesus as an insurrectionist who claimed the title King of the Jews than with the theological and eschatological plot perpetrated against him. The charge made was that Jesus claimed to be king of the Jews, a charge which is loaded with meaning. Horsley and Hanson note that Jewish messianic expectation among the peasantry was that of a king (anointed one) in Davidic fashion. Ancient Israelite kingship was conditional, was by popular election or anointing, and was revolutionary.8 In other words, Israelite kings were elected by popular election or casting lots and could be removed in like fashion. Added to this was the notion that those chosen were anointed by Yahweh, giving the king a spiritual as well as political base.9 Finally, the election of a king was a revolutionary act done in the face of an external threat (such as the Philistines) or internal problems (e.g., I Kings 11:26-40; 12:16-20). I Kings lays particular emphasis on Yahwehs intervention in human history, raising up a new king after Solomon became oppressive and had violated the covenant.10 In its original context, the messiah was not a universal divine savior come to save the world from sin, but an earthly, human ruler, anointed by the power of God and elected by the people,
Horsely and Hanson, 94. The term meshiak, from which we get Messiah, means anointed one; similarly, the Greek term christos (hence, Christ). The connection of anointing with kingship hearkens back to Saul, who was chosen by God and anointed by Samuel to become the first king of Israel. 10 See I Kings 11:1-13
9 8

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? who would follow Gods will and establish Gods rule in the form of a more just society on earth. But this is not the definition in which Matthew and the Jesus community believed. The definition had changed, for in Jesus they saw not an earthly king but a heavenly figure walking among humans. Jesus life and death was seen as the fulfillment of prophecy from the very Scriptures that early Christians shared with their Jewish brothers and sisters. But there was more. The earthly Jesus had very little that was positive to say about the state-of-affairs in the world of his day. His teaching turned accepted ways of thinking and behaving upside-down and inside-out. Such ideas would have been seen by the existing power structure as chaos and madness amidst their ordered society. For this, he was hated by both Jewish and Roman officials, who may have conspired together to kill Jesus, as the text claims. However, what the text is relating in retrospect, some forty or so years after Jesus crucifixion, cannot be taken at face value, particularly in the light of the focus-text for this study. With this in mind, I believe Matthew 27:62-28:15 is shown for what it really is: a combination of evangelical outreach toward the unconverted and anti-Jewish polemic against those who refused to believe. Moreover, Matthews mosaic incorporates Hebrew Bible quotations to reinterpret the term Israel itself. For Matthew, the community that confesses Jesus as Messiah is the new Israel. Jesus did not come arguing against Torah, but bringing a new interpretation of it. This is Jesus the ber-rabbi, come to bring right understanding, but only to those who comprehend his teaching.11 As anti-Jewish polemic, on the other hand, Matthews gospel lashes out against the enemy. Portraying Jewish reactions against Jesus, Matthew intends his readers to come away with a sense of appeasement: those who now work and speak against them have
Cf. 11:25, where Jesus is portrayed praying to the Father with thanks that you [God] have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent and revealed them to infants.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER done so since the beginning. It is these unbelievers that Peter F. Ellis dubs pseudo-Israel. By rejecting Jesus, the Jewish officials (typified as Pharisees) have themselves been rejected; while this animosity may have been present for the historical Jesus, it is in Matthews time a way of dealing with polemic coming from the synagogue. The story of the Pharisees relations with Jesus mirrors the situation between Jews and Christians in Matthews own day.12 Viewed in this light, the texts in Matthew 24:4, 24:9-11, 24:23-24 and 27:63 are part of the same window and mirror situation. It is no accident that the warning Jesus gives about false messiahs is mirrored in the charge by the Pharisees and high priests that he is a . Again, this serves as a mirror for Matthews admonition to avoid false teachings. What is more interesting, however, is the window this opens to relations between Matthews community and the synagogue of his day, with particular attention to the larger context of polemical exchange that must have existed. In short, there must have been considerable animosity between the Christian community and the synagogueenough, at least, to warrant the type of polemic here displayed. It is unlikely, I think, that Matthew would tell such a story for no reason; apart from helping to forward Matthews theological agenda, the 27:62-28:15 text has no real place in his gospel. In addition, the animosity must have endured, since there are numerous allusions in other, later texts to this very problem. My conclusions are corroborated by several scholars. Noting the usage of the term Jews in Matthew 28:15, A. J. Saldarini distinguishes between certain unbelieving Jews who are the target of Matthews polemic and the people of Israel in general:
Caution should be exercised in distinguishing too immovably between Jews and Christians, since there were likely many who considered themselves Jews who believed in Christ, and not as converts to a new, separate religion. The use of the terms here, as well as that of church, is strictly for succinctness of language.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?

Clearly the author of Matthew is replying to a common charge of fraud made by Jews who did not accept Jesus and his resurrection. The author explains the origin of this charge by the story of the bribed guards and then comments, and this story has been spread among the Jews to this day. The author of Matthew attacks a particular group within Israel with the gentile designation for Israel. . .Their distance from Matthew is conveyed by the gentile usage Jews. However, not all those in Israel, but only some, those who have rejected Jesus resurrection, are included in this designation.13

It is Saldarinis contention that Matthews use of Jews is a window into the animosity between those who did and those who did not accept Jesus as Messiah, respectively. He notes that Jew was a term used by Gentiles and not by the people of Israel as selfdesignation. Saldarini also argues that Matthews church was concerned less with divisions among Christians (such as was Paul) than with the relationship of the church to the synagogue. In Matthews time, it seems clear that those in the synagogue and those in the Christian community clashed over messianic claims about Jesus. In attacking this splinter group of Jewish-Christians, it is understandable that some in the synagogue might create a rumor about Jesus which included a less-than-flattering explanation for the resurrection. (After all, in response to the virgin birth, Jewish polemic held that Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier. How far is it to also disclaim the resurrection as the work of grave-robbing disciples?) As stated before, a plethora of external evidence points to the

Anthony. J. Saldarini, Matthews Christian-Jewish Community, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), 35.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER existence of such a Jewish rumor. Claudia Setzer14 points to several Jewish and later Christian writings in which references or allusions are made to alternative explanations for the resurrection. In his Dialogue With Trypho, Justin Martyr repeats the claim that the Jews knew about the resurrection of Jesus and covered up the truth, adding that this had been foreshadowed in Jonahs three-day affair in the belly of a fish and foretold to the Jews by Jesus himself. 15 Although Setzer questions whether or not Justin is merely repeating the charges made by Matthew, it is clear that this polemical exchange (or, at least, the Christian side of this exchange) continued long after Matthews time. The point is that after Matthews words had been written down, they were transmitted throughout the church. That transmission brought with it the understanding that certain Jews had conspired against Jesus during his lifetime, and had consummated their unbelief by knowingly covering up his resurrection. The fact that the author of Johns gospel in the first century, Justin in the second, and Martin Luther in the 16th century accepted and forwarded this belief is evidence of its enduring influence.16 What this also means is that no matter the nature of the original rumor,
Claudia Setzer, Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics, 30 -150 C.E., (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994), 40ff. See also n. 41 on page 200. Setzer sees this passage as falling against the framework of first-century polemic between Christians and Jews. For nonbelievers (particularly, Jewish nonbelievers) a naturalistic explanation for the resurrection was necessary; the notion of grave-robbing disciples fits nicely with the idea that Jesus and his followers were deceivers. 15 Justin Martyr, Dialogue With Trypho, 108. 16 For Johns usage of see John 7:10-31. In his treatise On the Jews and Their Lies, Martin Luther vacillates between espousing the blindness of the Jews and condemning their wanton ignorance, but lays much of the blame on the rabbis, who knowingly hide the truth from the people.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? the resulting polemical reaction by Christianity throughout history has been furious: anyone who does not believe that Jesus was really raised from the dead is a . Such persons have no part in the Christian community, for they are not part of the true Israel. Unfortunately for history, in his attempt to defend Christian belief against an assault (real or perceived) from the synagogue, Matthew added to the history of anti-Jewish polemic a conspiracy story that is difficult to reconcile with, and even more difficult to expunge from, the Gospel message.

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2 ANTI-JEWISH RHETORIC IN THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the Light of the world. Whomever follows me will never walk in the Darkness, but will have the Light of life. Therefore, the Pharisees said to him, You are witnessing about yourself. Your witness is not true (valid). Jesus answered and said to them, If I witness about myself, my witness is true, because I know from where I came and to where I am going. You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. And if I do judge, my judgment is true (valid), because it is not I alone, but I and the one who sent me. In your own law it is written that the witness of two persons is valid. I AM the one witnessing about myself, and the Father who sent me [also] witnesses about me. Therefore, they began to say to him, Where is your father? Jesus answered, You know neither me nor my Father. If you had known me, you would have known my Father. He spoke these words while teaching in the treasury in the temple. And no one arrested him, because his hour had not yet come.17
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John 8:12-20; emphasis mine.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?

The motif of light () is introduced early in Johns Gospel. John 1:4 states that life was in the Logos, and that that life was the Light of all human beings. This Light is said to shine in the Darkness, and the Darkness did not it. The exact translation of in 1:5 is crucial to understanding Johns gospel as a whole. F. W. Gingrich18 suggest two possibilities: (1) grasp, comprehend and overcome, put out, master or (2) seize with hostile intent, overtake, come upon. As we shall see, while this Light is said to be life of all human beings, it is also tied to a motif of judgment which runs throughout Johns Gospel. As such, it is part of the ongoing Johannine dichotomy between those who believe and walk in Light from those who do not believe and walk in Darkness. From beginning to the end, the Gospel of John draws the sharp distinction between Light and Darkness, and furthermore, between the true Light (Jesus) and all false (or incomplete) lights. First among these incomplete lights is John the Baptist,
the one having been sent from God came in order that he might witness about the Light [for] this one [John] was not the Light. The true Light, which enlightens all human beings, was coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, and the world did not know him. He came to his own things, and his own people did not accept [or receive] him.19

The dichotomy between believer and unbeliever appears immediately in the first chapter of the Gospel. Light then disappears from the text until the third chapter, where it is unequivocally connected to judgment (). After stating that
F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Shorter Lexicon of the New Testament, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, fifth impression, 1975), 110. 19 John 1:6-11.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER the Son came into the world not in order to judge it, but in order that it might be saved through him, we are told that the one who believes in him [the Son] is not judged, while the one who refuses to believe is already judged.20 The distinction is made emphatic in verse 19: As we see from these two passages, Light is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it is the life of all human beings, for it is the very Word through which all that exists came into being. But as such, it is also the Great Discriminator persons: those who do good and walk toward the Light vs. those who do evil and stay away from the Light. In John 5:35, we encounter yet a third use of lightthat of metaphor for the witness of a lesser light, in comparison to the one, true Light. As such, it also entails an implicit judgment or discrimination of persons: John the Baptist, the one sent from God to testify about the Light, is contrasted with Jesus, who is the Light. The scene is one of yet another conflict between Jesus and his opponents, the Judeans.21 In 5:18, we are told that the Judeans
John 3:17-18a; the verb is a perfect form () indicating a state which has come into being in the past and continues in the present. 21 I believe that the Greek term is more appropriately translated the Judeans for several reasons: (1) not all Jews oppose Jesus; in fact, 8:31ff. explicitly states that some Jews believed in Jesus, though that belief is challenged by Jesus and leads ultimately to his condemnation of them as children of the Devil, a statement probably more rhetorical than universal; (2) Jesus opponents are not always mentioned by name (e.g., the crowds of 7:12-13, 20), but when they are, they alternate between and the Pharisees (see most notably 8:12-20); (3) in claiming that Jesus has a demon and is deceiving the crowd, his opponents seem to connect his possession with his birthplace and with a regional rivalry between Judeans from Jerusalem (symbolizing the Temple establishment and Jewish authorities) and Samaritans or Galilean outsiders looked down upon by that establishment. In 7:45-52, Jesus deception of the crowd is spoken in
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? are seeking to kill Jesus, following his statement equating himself with God (see 5:1-18). Jesus responds with a long monologue, in which he details his relationship to the Father and his authority arising therefrom. The key passage for our purposes is verse 31ff., where Jesus names John the Baptist among the witnesses to his authority:
If I witness about myself, my witness is not true. There is another who is witnessing about me, and I know that his witness, which he witnesses about me, is true. You have sent [people] to John, and he has witnessed to the truth. I do not accept the witness of a human being, but I say these things to you in order that you might be saved. That one [John] was a burning and shining lamp, but you wished to rejoice in his light [only] for an hour. But I have a witness greater than Johns22

Here again, we see the light of John the Baptist contrasted with the one to whom he witnessed, Jesus, who is the true Light. Several important themes permeate the passage. First, Johns relevance and importance are upheld: he was a burning and shining lampa light to the people, preparing the way for the Light (Jesus) to come. Secondly, it is clear that the people did bask in Johns light for a time. However, the witness of John, put forth in Jesus defense, is just as quickly downplayed in favor of the true witness to Jesus: the Father who sent him. It is this witness, to whom Jesus constantly refers and in comparison to whom all others stand in secondary position, that Jesus opponents refuse to
terms also of his place of origin, for a prophet is not to arise out of Galilee (v. 52). Further, the midst of the heated exchange in 7:31-59, in which Jesus proclaims that the are children of the Devil, they respond by saying, Is it not right that we say that you are a Samaritan and you have a demon? 22 John 5:31-36

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER accept. In John 8:12-20, the theme of light is applied directly to Jesus, by Jesus. Once again, light and life are connected; and again, those who believe and follow Jesus are contrasted with those who do not:
Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the Darkness, but will have the Light of life.23

Light is also connected to sight, as evident in Chapter 9. Jesus heals a man who was blind from birth, and this miracle prompts an investigation by the Pharisees. The climax occurs in 9:35ff., where Jesus links the literal blindness of the man to the metaphorical lack of insight that the Pharisees are displaying:
And Jesus said, For judgment I came into this world, in order that those who do not see might see, and those who see might become blind. Those of the Pharisees who were with him heart these things and said to him, We are not blind also, are we? Jesus said to them, If you were blind, you would not have sin. But now [because] you say, We see, your sin remains.24

In the story of the raising of Lazarus, there is an example of the enigmatic Jesus making statements which seem wildly out of context to the rest of the storyline. Having received word that Lazarus was ill, Jesus and his disciples prepare to return to Judea. Upon hearing this, Jesus disciples question the wisdom of returning to the very area where just a short time before, Jesus opponents were plotting against his life. Jesus response is as surprising as it is illuminating to the overall theme of light within Johns gospel:
23 24

John 8:12. John 9:39-41.

24

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?

Jesus answered, Are there not twelve hours of the day? If someone should walk in the day, he/she does not stumble, because he/she sees the Light of this world. But if someone should walk in the night, he/she stumbles, because the Light is not in him/her.25

This strange response to the disciples question about Jesus safety is, for our purposes, illustrative of the large scope of light within the Fourth Gospel. Again, we are reminded of the urgency of Jesus mission on earth: Jesus is here for only a short time, after which he will return to the Father. The urgency of Jesus message is also an urgency for those who would believe: time is short, the author(s) seem to be saying, so do not delay in believing in Jesus and accepting/comprehending the Light. This message of urgency is explicit in 12:35-36. Having entered Jerusalem, Jesus is again teaching in public, despite the continuing threat from his opponents. Answering the crowd, Jesus avoids a direct response to their question of who the Son of Man is, telling them instead:
Still a short time the Light of the world is among [literally: in] you. Walk as you have the Light, in order that the Darkness not overcome [or seize or comprehend(?)] you. And whoever walks in the Darkness does not know where I am going. As you have the Light, believe in the Light, in order that you might become children of the Light.26

Finally, Jesus cries out in verse 46:

I have come, a Light in the world, in order that whoever believes in me may not remain in the Darkness.27
25 26

John 11:9-10. John 12:35-36. 27 John 12:46.

25

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

As we have seen, Light and Darkness are opposing principles cosmic realitiesin Johns Gospel. As the Light of the world, Jesusthe incarnate Logosembodies that life offered to those who believe and follow him. But the distinction between Light and Darkness is no mere dualism. The key to this understanding lies in the term , a term which can be described as having both worldly and other-worldly sets of meaning.28 By worldly, I mean the following possible translations: seize with hostile intent, or overtake or come upon. By other-worldly, I mean grasp and/or comprehend. The distinction between the two sets is clear: the former is one of action against the Light, while the latter is the lack of reception of understanding of it. The interplay between these meanings is crucial to understanding Johns use of the light motif. Jesus, who came from the Father and will return to the Father, is the Light of the world while in the world, offering a way (indeed, the only way) for human beings to avoid walking in Darkness. This is no Gnostic dualism of psychics and sarkics.29 All who believe, accept, comprehend or grasp the Light will be saved, for the one who hears my word and believes the one who sent me has eternal life and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life (5:24). This provides a segue to the second part of our topic: Light as judgment. Jesus states repeatedly throughout the gospel that he
These two sets of meanings are listed in Gingrich; the designations are my own. 29 Gnosticism taught that psychics were those who had the most of the spark of divinity within them, while sarkics had the least. Psychic comes from , often translated soul. Sarkic comes from , meaning flesh. In Gnostic metaphysics, the psychic was the most spiritual, being most imbued with the spark of divinity from the world of Light (above). The sarkic, meanwhile, was closest to creation and the world of matter (below).
28

26

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? judges no one, though even if he does judge, that judgment is valid, because it is not he alone who judges, but the Father as well (see 8:15ff). This theme of non-judgment or delayed judgment is part of the realized eschatology of Johns gospel. John 3:16-21 goes to great pains to point out that the Father did not send the Son to judge the world, but to save it. The Light of the world, which comes into a world that is hostile to it, becomes the Great Discriminator of persons, separating those who believe from those who do not. Ironically, that judgment is not an active process on Gods part, but the passive result of human decision and refusal to believe:
Whomever believes in him [Jesus] is not judged, but whoever does not believe already has been judged, because he/she has not believed in the only begotten Son of God.30

It is not Jesus nor even the Father who condemns; rather, the human being who refuses to believe in Jesus as the Messiah has already judged him- or herself, by the active rejection of Jesus message. Such is the realized eschatology: those who walk in the Light avoid judgment, while those who continue to walk in Darkness are already judged. John 12:44-50 is clear: Jesus has come as a Light to the world, so that those who believe will no longer be in Darkness. There is no hint of predestination here, so as to say that some are chosen by God to remain in Darkness; rather, the knowledge of the worlds rejection of the Light is enough to condemn unbelievers by their own stubbornness.
Whoever rejects [or ignores] me and does not receive [or accept or comprehend or grasp] my word has a judge: the word which I have spokenthat will judge him [or her] on last day. Because I myself have not spoken, but the one who sent me, the Father, has given me a commandment
30

John 3:18.

27

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

what I say and what I speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life. Therefore, what I am telling to you, just as the Father has spoken to me, so I am telling to you.31

Note how this passage connects to the focus text, 8:12-20. Jesus speaks not on his own authority, but on the Fathers authority, with a commandment given to him by the Father. This commandment is eternal life, but it is clear that this commandment also only applies to those who believe or accept Jesus, the Light of the world. Jesus word which will judge on the last day is the very commandment of the Father: the offer of eternal life to those who believe and the promise that to follow Jesus is to step out of the Darkness into the Light. This is not a matter of coming to the fork in the road and choosing between two paths; rather, it is a matter of the world, which already walks in Darkness, being given the opportunity to come out of that Darkness into the one, true Light of the worldout of judgment and into eternal life. Those who refuse remain where they were to begin with, and the word of life and promise that Jesus spoke to them becomes a witness (testimony) to their judgment. This is most clearly stated in John 5:39-47, where Jesus attacks the false sense of security to which his opponents continue to cling:
You search the scriptures, because you think you have life in them. They are the ones witnessing about me. [But] you do not wish to come to me in order that you might have life. I do not accept glory from a human being, but I have come to know that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have spoken in the name of my Father, and you do not receive [accept] me. If another should come in his own name, you would receive [that one]. How is it possible for that you believe the glory received from

31

John 12:48-50

28

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
another [human being] and do not seek the glory which [comes] from God alone?32

The symbolic power of this passage is elusive, unless one remembers, as Raymond Brown points out, that Torah had come to be seen by Jews of Jesus day as the imperishable light given to the world.33 Brown also notes that throughout the Gospel of John, images that Jesus uses for himself are often images that Judaism used for the Law.34 When seen in his light, the message of the passage becomes more profoundly clear: it is an indictment of a form of Judaism (and particularly, I would argue, of the Jewish leadership, symbolized by Judeans, Pharisees, etc.) that placed emphasis on the Law to the exclusion of the Messianic reality that came into the world in Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus continues:
Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father. Moses is your accuser, in whom you have put your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would have believed me, for he wrote about me. But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?35

Judgment is closely linked to rejection of the Light, for those who do not walk in the Light suffer a dual malady. First, they do not operate with the proper discernment of persons. This is why Jesus tells his opponents:

John 5:39-44. Raymond Brown, The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John, I-XII. (Garden City, NY: 1966), 344. See Wisdom 18:3-4. 34 Ibid. 35 John 5:45-47; emphases added.
33

32

29

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER

You judge according to the flesh; I judge no one. And if I do judge, my judgment is true, because it is not I alone, but I and the one who sent me, the Father.36

Jesus and the Father, possessing right judgment, are able to discriminate between persons: the believers and the unbelievers. Secondly, those who continue in Darkness stand already judged, for they have rejected the means by which (according to 3:18ff) to avoid judgment. There is no middle ground: those who walk in Light escape judgment, while those who remain in Darkness are already in a state of judgment. The subtle irony of the Gospel of John, related to light and judgment, is the means by which judgment is finally administered. Jesus goes to great lengths to point out that he judges no one, and that those who reject him are already judged. As a result, in the realized eschatology of the Fourth Gospel, the judgment prepared for those who reject Jesus is a self-imposed judgment, brought on either by ignorance of the truth or stubborn refusal to accept it (or, perhaps, both). The Darkness did not the Light: it did not seize with hostile intent, overtake, or come upon the Light, but likewise, it did not grasp, comprehend and overcome, put out, master it either. As such, it stands condemned not because of what Jesus or the Father imposed from outside, but because of what was imposed from the inside of each person, on him- or herself, who does not accept the Light.

36

John 8:15-16.

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3 JUSTIN MARTYRS DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO

INTRODUCTION
The story of Christian animosity toward the Jews has only become a topic of serious discussion relatively recently. In fact, it was not until the twentieth century that the full implications of this situation has become clear. The Holocaust will forever cast a shadow upon any discussion of Jewish-Christian dialogue, for the Church bears at least some responsibility for the Nazi attempt to eradicate European Jewry. And yet, it is only through dialogue that understanding comesdialogue with ones neighbor and oneself. The present work is not concerned with Jewish-Christian dialogue, but rather with intra-Christian dialogue. Specifically, it offers a historical analysis and critique of a particular theological construct that I have dubbed the historical argument: an allegorical reading of Genesis 49:1037 used for centuries in Christian
A ruler [or prince or lord] shall not fail out of Judah and a ruler out of his thigh until he should come for whom it has been stored up, and he
37

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER polemic against the Jews. The historical argument finds in the Genesis passage a prophecy concerning the fate of the Jews: the scepter, signifying Jewish self-rule, was to cease when he should come for whom it has been stored up, for the one to come is Messiah, the expectation of the nations. Though generalized statements about first-century Jewish messianic expectation over-simplify the issue,38 at least some Jews at the time of Jesus of Nazareth hoped for a political Messiah, a leader who would rise up and free them from Roman occupation. But when certain Jews began to teach that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, new questions began to circulate. Foundational for some was the issue of the Mosaic Law: were Christians obligated to dietary restrictions, circumcision, and other things Jewish?
is the expectation of the nations (translation mine); , . 38 A fairly recent trend among scholars has been to speak not of firstcentury Judaism, but rather of first-century Judaisms. This distinction of singular from plural recognizes that Judaism of ancient times (like both Judaism and Christianity of the modern day) was not monolithic. Writing in the first century and addressing a pagan audience, Josephus described various sects or schools of thought within Judaism, each with specific teachings that were at least in part mutually-exclusive. The New Testament affirms this as well, for the gospel writers point out that, for example, the Pharisees believed in bodily resurrection, whereas the Sadducees did not. The tendency to see Judaism as a singular unit, ignoring the multiplicity of opinions within the various groups that fell under its umbrella, would be analogous to describing modern Christianity without delving into the important ritual and doctrinal differences between Roman Catholic, Protestant and Eastern Orthodox traditionsto say nothing of groups (e.g., Mormons, Jehovahs Witnesses) who also claim the name Christian, yet reject many of the foundational teachings of so-called mainstream Christianity.

32

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Pauls answer seems to have carried great weight, at least for the long-term development of doctrine: Christians ought not be required to follow the Law, for Christ was the end of the Law. The rapid increase in Gentile membership, which was in many ways a result of this teaching, also contributed. Finally, the destruction of the second temple in Jerusalem, and the subsequent exile of its inhabitants, seems to have closed the matter. Centuries before Solomons temple was built, much less the second temple that replaced it later on, a dying man made a prophetic statement with reference to one of his sons. The man was Jacob, also known as Israel; the son was Judah, the Lions whelp. The prophecy stated that the scepter or prince or ruler would not pass from Judah until someone else laid claim to it. Centuries later, in early Christian circles, the someone else was believed to be Jesus, whose Messianic entrance into the world sealed the fate of the Jews. In the eyes of Christians, the prophecy also foretold the rejection of Jesus by the Jewish people, and their eventual rejection by God as the Chosen People. As a result, the particular interpretation with which we are concerned, which I have dubbed the historical argument, is but one among many prooftexts that undergird so-called replacement theology, or the teaching that the Church has superseded (replaced) the Jewish People as Israel. Proponents of the historical argument shared a belief in Biblical prophecy, and saw in the destruction of the temple a fulfillment of that prophecy. Such figures as Justin Martyr, Augustine of Hippo, and Martin Luther proclaimed the whole-scale replacement of the Jews by the Christian church as the Chosen People of God, or the New Israel. But answering the question of just how important this particular interpretation was in the history of anti-Jewish through is more difficult. The historical argument plays an important part in Justins Dialogue with Trypho in the 2nd century, and appears again in Augustines City of God in the 5th century. It reappears explicitly in the writings of Martin Luther, 33

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER specifically in his infamous tract On the Jews and Their Lies, written in 1543, three years before his death. Apart from these explicit examples, the historical argument seems to have remained in the background. But given the three examples, spanning more than a millennia of Christian history, perhaps the historical argument was not explicitly used elsewhere precisely because it was assumed everywhere. In other words, the rejection of the Jews and their replacement by the Church as Gods Chosen People was presupposed and did not require overt mention. Such a conclusion is, of course, speculative, but it does make one wonder. The greater power (and danger) of the historical argument lies in its implications for Christian theology, for it provides a definitive answer to a very ancient question: if Messiah has come, and the Jews did not accept him, what becomes of them? Jews, including those who came to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, saw themselves as a Chosen People, a people set apart by God with a special covenant. At the core of that covenant were (1) the Mosaic Law itself, which proscribed a way of life and (2) the practice of circumcision, which provided an outward sign of ones participation in the covenant. But when the question of circumcision arose among early Christians, the answer that was accepted was the one that was, in many ways, the least Jewish: circumcision was not to be practiced, or at least not to be required, among Christians. This decision had profound implications for Christian theology, as well as for the social interactions of Jews and Christians. Though it began as a sect within Judaism, by the end of the first century, Christianity had developed into a separate religious tradition. But the emergence of Christianity from Judaism raised many questions, not the least of which was the relationship of Christians to Jews. If Jesus was Messiah, and if the Mosaic covenant found both its completion and its end in him, what placed remained for the Jewish people as Jews? The answer, as we 34

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? shall see, was as important as it was unfortunate for JewishChristian relations from this point forward, for, at least in part, it is provided by the interpretation here known as the historical argument. Above all else, the historical argument teaches supersessionism, or replacement theology: Judaism was superseded by Christianity; any claim by Jews to be the Chosen People is now false, for the Church is Israel. It is important to note that supersessionism is not found among the teachings of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament, nor does it appear in the early Christian doctrines of the Apostle Paul. The first Christians were, after all, Jews who had come to believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the crucified and risen Son of God, the Messiah promised in the Hebrew Bible. Nonetheless, it is equally true that the vast majority of the Jewish community rejected the messianic claims being made about Jesus. But while the explicit idea that the church had replaced Israel does not appear in the New Testament, the frustration that these early believers held for their non-believing contemporaries is evident in the following passage from Acts:
The next Sabbath almost the whole city gathered to hear the word of the Lord. But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy; and blaspheming, they contradicted what was spoken by Paul. Then both Paul and Barnabas spoke out loudly, saying, It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken first to you. Since you reject it and judge yourselves to be unworthy of eternal life, we are now turning to the Gentiles.39

Over time, the vast majority within the Jewish community refused to the accept Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah, and in the wake of missionary work to the gentiles, the Church became increasingly non-Jewish. Ironically, Pauls journeys, aimed at spreading the
39

Acts 13:44-46.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER message about Christ to all the world, set the stage by which Jews and Christians would separate forever. By the end of the first century, Christians and Jews were distinctive religious groups, each with their own histories and theological agendas, and with mutual animosity for the other. And while it would be erroneous to assume that all encounters between Christians and Jews during this time were filled with strife, the history as told by the winners (Christians) seems to indicate that this was increasingly the case. Nor is such animosity particularly surprising: the radical shift in world-view that the followers of Jesus presented to their contemporaries, Jew and Gentile alike, would have been shocking. One can imagine, for example, the reception passages like Matthew 10:34-37 must have met within the Jewish community. But whatever the reason for their rejection of the Apostles message, Christians and their contemporaries continued to look to the Scriptures for answers. It was only a matter of time before Christians found new answers, and new prophecies, in those Scripturesanswers which would become all the more divisive for both communities.

DATING THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

The exact origin of the historical argument, that is, the supersessionist interpretation of Genesis 49:10, is probably lost to history. It is not to be found even implicitly in the New Testament. Of the known and extant early Christians writings, it appears for the first time in the second century writings of Justin Martyr. Nonetheless, Justins usage of the argument seems to indicate that he inherited it from earlier usage. It therefore seems reasonable to conclude that the allegory here referred to as the historical argument had its origins some time before Justin, perhaps in the latter part of the 1st century. Because the first believers in Jesus were Jews, they brought to 36

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? their new faith an old book: the Hebrew Bible, known to modern Christians as the Old Testament. But although these early Christians shared a common Scripture with Judaism, the interpretation of those writings differed radically on many points. Nowhere was this more evident than in the various messianic texts that Christians now insisted were prophecies about Jesus. The chief of these for our purposes is Genesis 49:10. When this allegory first appeared among early Christians is not known. However, one can hypothesize that the historical argument arose sometime after 70 C.E., perhaps the result of Christian reflection upon that momentous year. The tragedy of that event for the Jewish community is difficult to overstate. With Jerusalem destroyed and the temple gone, the religious center of Judaism ceased to exist, and the sacrificial rites proscribed by ancient law have not been practiced since. Instead, Judaism became realm of the Pharisees, the teachers of the Torah; this later gave way to the rabbinical movement, in which the synagogue became the center of Jewish life. Through it all, Judaism continued, albeit in an altered state, and Jews continued to follow the covenant they believed God had given to them. From a Christian perspective, the momentous events of 70 C.E. were seen as marking the fulfillment of prophecy and the carryingout of divine retribution. It seems that when Christians reflected on the event, they concluded that Jewish rejection of Christ had resulted in Gods rejection of them as the Chosen People. There is no way of knowing when such a conclusion was actually reached, but its legacy lives on the allegorical reading of Genesis 49:10 here known as the historical argument. My first encounter with the historical argument came while writing a college paper on Martin Luthers attitude toward the Jews. Within the pages of Luthers infamous treatise, On the Jews and Their

37

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Lies,40 I first discovered the allegorical reading of Genesis 49:10 that purported to prove that the Jews had been rejected and superseded by Christians as the new, true Israel. Jacobs blessing of his son Judah contained a prophecy about the future of the Jewish people, for a prince will not fail out of Judah until he should come for whom it has been stored up. The he, according to Christian allegorists, was a reference to Christ. Genesis 49:10 was thus a prophecy about the end of Jewish self-rule with the coming of Christ, who would take his rightful place as ruler of all nations: the King of Israel and all the world. As Christian evangelism toward the Jews morphed into polemic against them, Genesis 49:10 became a proof-text not only for Jewish rejection of Christ, but also for their whole-scale replacement by the (Gentile) Christian Church. Given the widespread Jewish reluctance to accept Jesus as the Messiah, the Christian community apparently concluded (as Justin did) that the destruction of the temple and subsequent dispersion of the Jewish people were a punishment from God. That conclusion was no doubt reinforced by the triumph of Christianity and the formation of the Holy Roman Empire. As will be discussed in the final chapter, the legacy of this idea has been hatred, persecution, and murder. The Greek term for nations (), can also be translated Gentiles. This, too, became fuel for the historical argument, for Christ was the expectation of the nations. Many Jews had refused to accept Jesus as Messiah, while many Gentiles believed. This, in turn, was read back into Genesis 49:10 to become a prophecy concerning Jewish rejection of Christ as the Messiah. For so grave a sin (so the argument went) the Jews had been rejected by God and replaced with the (Gentile) Christian Church: the true, spiritual Israel. Nor was this a new innovation, for the true
See the American Edition of Luthers Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV, 137-306.
40

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Israel had never been ethnic; true Israelites were the spiritual heirs. In the years following my first encounter with Luther and the historical argument, I concluded that this belief was neither original to Luther, nor his alone. In the end, explicit usage of this particular allegory was traced back to the 2nd century, to the writings of Justin Martyr. In his treatise, Dialogue with Trypho, a Jew, Justin claimed to record a two-day-long debate between himself and a learned Jew named Trypho, a Hebrew of circumcision, a refugee from the recent war [Bar Kochba rebellion], living in the cities of the Greeks and Corinthians.41 Of Justins extant works considered authentic by scholars, the Dialogue is the latest, probably written around 160 C.E.42 However, it was not only in the Dialogue that Justins use of the historical argument appears. On the contrary, Genesis 49:10 was quoted as part of Justins argument in his first Apology, in which he attempted to convince pagan readers of the truth of Christian claims about Jesus:

Dialogue with Trypho 1 [hereafter Dial.] Quotes from Justin are my own translations of the Greek text as found in J. P. Migne, Patrologiae Gracae, Vol. VI, (Paris, 1857), to which I have compared: Thomas B. Falls, translator and editor, Writings of Saint Justin Martyr, The Fathers of the Church [series]: A New Translation, (New York: Christian Heritage, Inc., 1948); Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds, The Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, Vol. I: The Apostolic Fathers Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, (New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1903); St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies, translated by Leslie William Barnard, Ancient Christian Writers series, Walter J. Burghardt, John J. Dillon and Dennis D. McManus, eds., no. 56, (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1997). 42 Citing the consensus of many scholars, L. W. Barnard suggested this dating in Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967), 23, n. 4 [hereafter Justin].

41

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Moses, being the first of the prophets, said expressly: A ruler shall not fail out of Judah, nor a leader out of his thighs, until he should come for whom it has been stored up, and he is the expectation of the nations. Therefore, it is yours to carefully examine and to learn until what time there was a ruler and a king of their own kind among the Jews. It was until the manifestation of Jesus Christ, our teacherFor Judah is the forefather of the Jews, from whom they are also called Jews, and after his [Christs] coming, you appeared and ruled over the Jews and took possession of all their land.43

In his Apologies, Justin sought to prove to a Gentile audience that Christianity was a reasonable, even logical religion. Justins audience in this regard was the philosophically-sophisticated pagan, to whom his arguments. In the Dialogue, however, Justins method shifted from philosophy to prophecy. No longer content to prove the reasonable nature of Christianity, he instead devised arguments, based upon a reading of Hebrew Bible, that were intended to convince his Jewish audience that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah, the Logos (or second God) incarnate, and the fulfillment of Mosaic Law.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK

This study will focus upon Justins use of the historical argument (Genesis 49:10ff) in the Dialogue With Trypho. This is done for several reasons. The Dialogue, which dates to a number of years after the writing of the Apologies, contains the same arguments relating to the Genesis passage, but in greatly expanded form. Secondly, the audience is Jewish; this allows for a more fullydeveloped view of Justins beliefs and motivations. Third, I believe that it is only in the context of the Dialogue that various
43

I Apol. 32.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? presuppositions become clear, presuppositions that underlie Justins use of the historical argument itself. Fourth, the Dialogue has not received the same degree of scholarly attention that has been paid to the Apologies, perhaps due both to its length and Justins rather indirect writing style. Finally, and most importantly, I believe that the arguments presented in the Dialogue have profound implications for understanding relations between Christians and Jews, both in ancient and modern times. In short: arguments such as these buttressed Christianitys historical intolerance for Jews as Jews. The first chapter introduces the notion of the historical argument and sets the parameters within which the rest of this study will proceed. Chapters 2 outlines Justins theology of the Logos, a term borrowed from pagan philosophy, which was Christianized and shaped to fit Justins theological agenda. According to Justin, the Logos was the universal force through which all creation had come into being. Chapter 3 shows how Justins Logos became an interpretive lens through which he read the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible and the only Scripture that Justin knew. Justin believed that the Logos had inspired the ancient Hebrew prophets, and that the Hebrew Bible contained prophecies about the coming of the Logos in the flesh (Jesus Christ), as well as prophecies concerning the fate of those who would accept or reject Christ. As we shall see, there was a direct link between Justins Logos doctrine and his understanding of prophecy, for Genesis 49:10 was read as foretelling not only of the coming of Christ (the one for whom it is has been stored up) but of Gods eventual rejection of the Jews as the Chosen People. Chapter 4 describes Justins attitude toward the Mosaic Law and its implications for his theology. Throughout, Justins argument is simple: Christians did not follow the Mosaic Law because it had been given only for the Jews, as a proscriptive set of regulations designed to curb Jewish sinfulness. As such, it had also been 41

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER periodically increased in proportion to their ever-increasing hardheartedness. Justin further contended that the Law was given to set Israel apart not as the Chosen People, but for the purposes of divine punishment. By this reasoning, circumcision was a mark of divinely-ordained exile, by which they were separated from society and especially from their homeland. Chapter 5 explores the logical complement to Justins argument about the Law: Gods alleged ordination of the Christian Church as the new Israel. In this respect, Justin only repeated earlier forms of supersessionist theology, in which it was argued that the 44the Christian assembly (or church, as it is more popularly translated today)had replaced the synagogue as the house of the Lord. Justins supersessionism was grounded in the belief that a specific historical event, the loss of Jewish self-rule in 70 C.E., proved that the prophecy of Genesis 49:10 had been fulfilled. Finally, Chapter 6 considers the historical context against which this argument from history must be viewed. Consideration will be given to the notion that the historical argument may, indeed, serve as model for 20 centuries of Jewish-Christian relations, albeit centuries that have been filled more with animosity than amiability, less with dialogue than with diatribe. This chapter also offers analysis and opinion concerning the implications of the historical argument for modern theology, especially in light of the Holocaust.

JUSTIN AND HIS WORLD

The aim of the early Greek Philosophers was to find some central principle in the confused multiplicity of existence.45 For
Literally, called out ones. Edwin R. Goodenough, The Theology of Justin Martyr: An Investigation into the Conceptions of Early Christian Literature and Its Hellenistic and Judaistic
45 44

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Justin, this search ended with the figure of Christ. His studies in Stoic and Platonist philosophy provided the framework and language with which to expound his later Christian beliefs. Chief among these was the doctrine of the Logos, the Greek concept incorporating both Reason and Order. From the Stoics, Justin inherited a belief in the Spermatic Logos, a divine force that permeated all of creation. Through the seeds of the Logos, the spark of divinity present in every human being, it was possible for one to participate in divine Reason. For Justin, they had one Creator (God), from whom the Logos was begotten in ages past. Thereafter, God used this Logos to create all that existed. As Gods creative agent, then, the Spermatic Logos was the means by which the universe came into existence, and the glue that held it together. Through the seeds of the Logos, the spark of divinity present in every human being, it was possible for one to participate in divine Reason. For Justin, the world had one Creator (God), from whom the Logos was begotten in ages past; God used this Logos to create all that existed. As Gods creative agent, then, the Spermatic Logos was the means by which the universe came into existence, and the glue that held it together. The other function of the Logos was intermediarythat is, as messenger for God. The Greek conception of God held that the Creator was far removed from the world. As a result, God required an intermediary (the Logos) through which to communicate with creation. Justin changed the original teaching by stating that the Logos became incarnate in the person of Jesus. However, the Logos was active in creation before the Incarnation. Justin interpreted the Theophanies of the Hebrew Bible in terms of the Logos. For example, it was the Logos who spoke to Moses from the burning bush.
Influences, (Jena: Verlag Frommannsche Buchhandlung (Walter Biedermann), 1923) 1.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER To the degree that human beings comprehended divine things, they did so because of the seeds of the Logos. Justin affirmed that pagan philosophy and Jewish tradition contained certain truths, but he further declared that Christianity alone had all the truth. With the coming of Jesus, the whole of the Logos was made available to those who would accept it. The Spermatic Logos had been sown in Jew and Gentile alike. It was therefore the responsibility of every person not only to take hold of the seed, but to acknowledge the Sower (i.e., Christ). In short, the doctrine of the Logos allowed Justin to Christianize teachings borrowed from Greek philosophy and the Hebrew Bible (OT). For example, Justin taught that Socrates had lived according to the seed of the Logos. Likewise, he believed that the Hebrew prophets were inspired by the Logos, especially when they prophesied about the coming Messiah. But while Jews and pagans had seeds of the Logos, Christians had the whole of the Logos. For Justin, however, the Incarnation was not the first time that the Logos had been active in creation. Quite to the contrary, Justin believed that the God was utterly transcendent and unapproachable, and that the Logos was therefore the divine intermediary acting as both messenger and agent for God. In this regard, we see that Justins conception of God was heavily influenced by Platonism: God, as spirit, was to be totally separate from matter. As a result, Justin interpreted the various theophanies of the Hebrew Bible in terms of the Logos. For example, it was the Logos, and not God, who spoke to Moses from in the burning bush. And finally, it was the Logos who took human form and came to Earth as Jesus of Nazareth. Herein lay the conflict, for according to Justin, only in Christ was the whole of the Logos to be foundnot in pagan philosophy or Jewish tradition. With the coming of Jesus, the whole of the Logos was made available in the world, to those who would accept it. The seeds of the Logos had already be sown among 44

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Jew and Gentile alike. It was therefore the responsibility of the individual to not only take hold of that seed, but to acknowledge the Sower (i.e., Christ). Apart from this, one could not hope to be saved.

PROPHECY AND SUPERSESSIONISM

The question of whether the opening scene of the Dialogue with Trypho accurately reflects second-century Jewish-Christian relations remains open.46 Justin depicts an encounter between a group of Jews (only one of whom, Trypho, is named) and himself. The Dialogue as a whole suggests that such encounters, when they did occur, were hostile. The general tone of the Dialogue itself is quite hostile, and Justins invectiveswhether directed at Trypho, or at Jews in generalare far from accommodating to Jewish selfidentity as the Chosen People. But it is not until Chapter 52 of the Dialogue that Justin plays his trump card, what we have dubbed the historical argument:

For example, Demetrios Trakatellis (Justin Martyrs Trypho, Harvard Theological Review 79:1-3 (1986): 286-297) concludes that Trypho the Jew, as presented by Justin the Christian, is fairly and even favorably presented. In opposition to this view, Marc Hirshman (Polemic Literary Units in the Classical Midrashim and Justin Martyrs Dialogue with Trypho, The Jewish Quarterly Review LXXXIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 1993): 369384) argues that Trypho serves as little more than Justins captive audience, against whom all manner of invective is directed. Hirshmann also calls attention to Manfred Hoffmans contention [Der Dialog in der apologetischen Literatur, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Gershichte der altchristilichen Literatur 90 (1966): 10-28] that Justins Trypho is assigned only a subordinate role and is confined to relatively brief and limited queries and responses (see Hirshmann, quoting Hoffman, 371).

46

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A ruler shall not fail out of Judah, and a leader out of his thigh, until he should come for whom it has been stored up, and he is the expectation of the nations.47

In its own way, the Dialogue was an evangelistic attempt to prove that Jesus is the promised Messiah. Justin was attempting to convert Jews to Christianity by allusion to the Scriptures they held in common. As anti-Jewish48 polemic, however, Justins allegorical interpretation of Scripture betray supersessionist presuppositions: the Jews are the rejected and scorned former People of God, while Christians are the new Israel. The dual nature of Justins messageevangelism and judgmentleads to questions. The first of these, as noted above, concerns the historicity of the Dialogue. Does the Dialogue record an actual conversation, or simply reflect Justins rhetorical creativity:
Justins quotation of Genesis 49:10 (as found in the Migne text) matches exactly the text as found in Rahlfs edition of LXX. 48 When speaking of polemic or hatred directed against Jews, I have come to prefer the term anti-Jewish to either of the traditional appellations, anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism. The former is meant to reference specifically religious or theological attacks against Jews, almost always by Christians, because the Jews have failed to accept Jesus as the Messiah. The latter references hatred based on race or ethnicity, an outgrowth of more secular 19th and 20th century notions about race and the superiority of whites to non-whites. When combined in the minds of some authors, the terms antiSemitism and anti-Judaism were used synonymously. Others, however, admit that to speak of pre-19th century anti-Semitism is anachronistic. In the words of Heiko Oberman: Strictly speaking, antiSemitism did not exist prior to the race theory of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, there are events, attitudes, or statements which long before the rise of the concept come very close to the reality of anti-Semitism. (Heiko A. Oberman, The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation, translated by James I. Porter (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), xi.).
47

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? forming and manipulating a straw figure (Trypho) for the purposes of expositing his own conclusions? Secondly, one is left to wonder what was Justins motivation for writing the Dialogue. From the text itself, it is clear that Justins motives were two-fold. First, he was calling upon Jews to convertthat is, to abandon the identity and practices of Judaism, and embrace Christian teachings as the only way to salvation. Second, apparently in reaction to Jewish rejection of his message, he pronounced Gods judgment upon them. One senses from the text that having explained the Christian message to Jews (whether in the Dialogue or elsewhere), Justin grew impatient with their misunderstanding, incomprehension, or total rejection of his teaching about Christ. As a result, he used prophecies such as Genesis 49:10 to pronounce Gods judgment upon their blindness, ignorance, and obstinacy. Moreover, Justins argument against the Jews was no empty bit of rhetoric. Rather, he seems truly to have believed that the historical argument had become history: with the destruction of the Temple and subsequent scattering of the Jews to the Diaspora, Israel once again became a conquered and subjugated people. I believe that the phrase once again is an important, though unstated, part of Justins argument. He surely was aware that in Jesus day, Israel was not sovereign. Those who returned from the Babylonian Exile had been rebuilt both the walls and the Temple at Jerusalem. This second temple was in Jesus day the center of Jewish religious self-identity, but Jewish national identity was more difficult to reclaim. The Persians permitted considerable freedom with respect to Jewish religious expression, but the land itself was occupied by foreigners. Persian rule gave way to Greek rule under Alexander the Great, and thereafter to Roman rule. In Jesus day, Palestine was but one of many provinces controlled by the Romans, with King Herod (appointed by the occupiers and only half-Jewish by lineage) as the local authority. In light of these facts, Justins argument would appear to be 47

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER historically inaccurate. The difference, I believe, is the prophecy (or lack thereof) relating to the re-establishment of Jewish self-rule. In the wake of the Exile, the Jewish prophets promised the people that a return to the land would indeed occur. Gods anger would not last forever, and the promises made about the peoples return to the land would be fulfilled. But early Christians claims about Jesus forever changed the expectations of those who believed him to be the Messiah. The gospels record various sayings of Jesus that point to the spiritual or eschatological nature of the Kingdom. The King of that Kingdom was Christ himself, a descendant of David and heir to the throne of Israel; hence his appellation by Pilate as King of the Jews. However, the Christian interpretation of Jesus kingship differed markedly from Jewish messianic or Roman imperialism, for as he explained to Pilate, my kingdom is not of the world.49 Those who believed in Jesus as Messiah were to recognize that the earthly kingdom of Israel had given way to the spiritual Kingdom of God in Christ. In this sense, it could be argued that the scepter (symbolic of Jewish self-rule) had indeed passed from Judah, for the Kingdom of God was not to be found among the Jews, but among the Christians, the new Israel. According to Christian teaching, the coming of the Messiah had been prophesied in the Scriptures (i.e., the Hebrew Bible) that these believers shared with their non-believing Jewish contemporaries. Standing in the second century, over 100 years after the time of Jesus, Justin proudly proclaimed that Christ had come, and the scepter had passed from Judah. By expecting a military messiah who would fight the Romans and conquer the Holy Land for them, the Jews had placed their hopes in a false interpretation of Scriptureso goes the traditional Christian summary of the situation. By rejecting Jesus as the real Messiah, the Jews had sealed their own fate. The scepter was no longer with Judah, but with Christ and the church. Nothing remained for Jews who refused to
49

John 18:36

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? accept Jesus as the Messiah but judgment. Forever removed from their homeland,50 they were now to live in the misery of divinelyordained exile, forever abandoned, replaced by the Church (the new Israel). As such, they stood as an example to the nations that Gods judgment would come upon all those who disobeyed or sought to subvert divine will.

JUSTINS PRESUPPOSITIONS: OUTLINE

Underlying Justins use of the historical argument was a set of presuppositions about the nature of God and Gods relation to the world. Foundational to Justins thought was his belief in the Logos, the word or reason of God, which Justin also referred to as an angel or second God. The Logos served several functions in Justins worldview. First, it was through the Logos that God had created and organized the universe. As a result, the Logos held an intermediary and intercessory position: having created the world by means of the Logos, the immutable and transcendent God also dealt with creation through the Logos. This belief in the Logos as a communicative agent underlay another of Justins teachings, that of the so-called Spermatic Logos ( ). According to Justin, through its participation in creation, the Spermatic Logos had sown a seed of the Logos in every human being. It was by these seeds of the Logos, the very sparks of divine Reason, that human reason was made possible. Because of this, those who had lived according to reason (i.e., according to the Logos), even before the time of Jesus, could rightly be considered Christians.51 The Spermatic Logos provided Justin with an explanation for
One wonders what Justins response would be to the establishment of the nation of Israel in 1948! 51 See I Apol. 46 and II Apol. 8.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER the Theophanies recorded in the Hebrew Bible: the Logos (not God the Creator) had spoken to Abraham, Moses, and so forth. Similarly, it was the Logos who inspired the prophets of old, and by so doing, foretold the coming of the Logos in the flesh.52 Now that the Logos had become incarnate in Jesus, Christians had not only the seed, but the whole of the Logos ( ), for the whole Logos revealed for our sake became Christ and body and Logos and soul.53 As we shall see, Justins contention that Christians alone had the whole of the Logos led him to contend that they alone were able to properly interpret Scripture. As a result, Christians properly understood that the prophecy of Genesis 49:10 had been fulfilled, while Jews did not and, indeed, could not. A second presupposition involved Justins understanding and interpretation of Scripture, i.e., the Hebrew Bible. As mentioned above, Justin believed that God had inspired the ancient prophets through the Logos; the prophecies written by these prophets were therefore about the Logos. Specifically, the Hebrew Bible contained prophecies about what Christian theology calls the Incarnation, the coming of the Logos in the flesh. Proper understanding of these
Willis A. Shotwell notes the problematic nature of Justins understanding of inspired Scripture, sometimes attributing to the Logos the function of inspiring, while elsewhere stating that the Prophetic Spirit inspired the prophets. In either case, Shotwell concludes, it is ultimately God who is the inspirer. Note especially Justins apparent mixing of these ideas in I Apol. 33: Justin attributes inspiration to the Prophetic Spirit (Holy Spirit), but just as quickly backs away from what post-Nicene ears would expect to hear (explicit trinitarian teaching) in favor of a somewhat reductionist monotheism: The Spirit and the power which is from God is to be understood as nothing other than the Logos, who is also the firstborn of God. See Willis A. Shotwell, The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr, (London: SPCK, 1965), 4 53 II Apol. 10.
52

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? prophecies required the gift of insight given by God through the Logos. Christians alone had this gift of insight, for they alone had the whole of the Logos present in Jesus Christ; as a result, they alone were able to understand the Scriptures.54 In other words, the seeds of the Logos, sown in part throughout creation, were given in whole to Christians. The Jews, who rejected Jesus and denied that he was the Messiah, remained unable to discern Scripture, for they lacked the whole of the Logos. Justins third presupposition concerned the Mosaic Law, for which he saw but one purpose: to curb human sin. Specifically, the Law had been given to curb Jewish sin, for it had been given to, and was intended for, Jews alone. For Christians to be circumcised or observe the Sabbaths was frivolous; indeed, it was contrary to Gods will, for Christians were not subject to the Law of Moses. Justin also held that the Law had become a stumbling block for Jews. By their devotion to its fulfillment, they failed to understand that righteousness under the Law did not lead to salvation. As noted above, Justins arguments about misinterpretation can be described in terms of blindness, ignorance, or sheer obstinacy. The severity of these charges cannot be overstated. Attempting to reconcile Gentile faith to Jewish resistance, Justin concluded that either (1) the Jews failed to see the truth about Christ, or (2) they were too foolish to understand what was in their own Scriptures; or, most damaging of all, (3) they were aware of the truth, but refused to accept it. As we shall see, Justins reading of Genesis 49:10 presupposed all of these positions to one degree or another. In the end, however, he seems to have concentrated on the third. In short, Justin believed the Jews had been expelled from their land and rejected by God not only for ignorance or blindness about Christ, but because when faced with the irrefutable truth, based on prophecy from the Scriptures, they defiantly refused to accept it.
Dial. 119; for Justins view of and definition of Scripture, see Chapter 3.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Justins fourth presupposition was that the Church had inherited the title Israel, for it had replaced the blind, ignorant, and obstinate Jews as the Chosen People of God. The Jews killed Christ, having rejected his teachings, then went on to persecute and kill Christs followers. For this, they were now rejected, abandoned, and cursed by God. Genesis 49:10 was thus a prophecy in two ways. First, it foretold Christs coming as the expectations of the nations. The incarnate Logos was divine Reason in human form, something of which the ancient philosophers could only have dreamed. Second, Genesis 49:10 foretold the end of the Jews as the Chosen People. The prophecy had been fulfilled in their expulsion and exile from Jerusalem at the hands of the Roman legions. Justin was thoroughly convinced that God had foreseen these events and foretold them in the Scriptures. Alternately, Justin suggested that Christians were those to whom the promises had always been directed. Either way, the Jews only hope was to reject the teachings of their leaders, who misread and misinterpreted the Scriptures, and become Christians. Only in this way could they rightfully be called people of Israelthat is, members of the true Israel, the Church. The presuppositions described above will be discussed further in the proceeding chapters. As noted in the introduction, Justin was not the last to use these arguments against the Jews, nor was he likely the first. The historical argument is discernible in other patristic literature, especially the so-called Adversus Judaeos writings. Augustine of Hippo references Genesis 49:10 and demonstrates the same supersessionist interpretation in City of God. Later on, Martin Luther quoted this same passage in his infamous treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies.55 Given the ease with which the Nazis used
Attempts have been made to distinguish between Luthers early and later attitudes toward the Jews, such that young man Luther sought to convert the Jews, while old man Luther merely condemned them. This dichotomy is untenable, however, in the light of Luthers own writings on
55

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? religious material (such as Luthers) in their propaganda, the historical argument has far-reaching implications for modern Christian theology. The final chapter will address the implications and ramifications of so many centuries of anti-Jewish thought polemicimplicit and explicitamong Christians.

JUSTINS COSMIC PRINCIPLE

THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF THE LOGOS
Precisely what Justin meant by Logos () had a profound impact upon his theology. In short, the Logos was the key to unlocking the true meaning of Scripture, a key that was available to Christians alone. An understanding of Justins Logos doctrine necessarily begins with the philosophical backdrop from which he inherited the term. If Justins doctrine was uniquely Christian in outcome, its heritage (as a product of Greek philosophy) remained pagan, part of a world-view that Justin adopted and adapted for his own purposes. In other words, Justins Logos was a Christianized Logos, shaped by his belief in the uniqueness of God and the manifestation of Gods Logos in Jesus
the subject. In the introduction to his translation of On the Jews and Their Lies, Martin Bertram notes the work of Wilhelm Maurer (Die Zeit der Reformation, in Rengstorf and von Kortzfleish (eds.), Kirche und Synagoge, Handbuch zur Geschichte von Christen und Juden: Darstellung mit Quellen, I, Stuttgart: 1968). According to Bertram, Maurer demonstrated, in fact, that Luthers earliest lecturesthose on the Psalms, delivered in 15131515already contained in essence the whole burden of his later charges against the Jews. Similar sentiments are expressed in Luthers Lectures on Romans of 1515-1516 In short, the evidence indicates that the Luther of these earlier years shared to the [fullest] in the medieval prejudices against the Jews. See Luthers Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 126-127.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Christ.

THE LOGOS AS A COSMIC PRINCIPLE

Greek philosophy had its origins in a search for meaning in the world and for that principle or power by which it was held together. For Justin, this was the Logos, the reason or Word of God, distinct in number but not in essence from the transcendent Father-Creator. It was this Logos, and not the Father-Creator, that was active in creation, for
you should not think that the unbegotten God himself has come down from anywhere or gone up to anywhere. For the inexpressible Father and Lord of all things has not arrived anywhere, nor does he walk around, or sleep, or rise up, but he remains in his own place, wherever that is, quickly seeing and quickly hearing, not with eyes or ears, but by means of indescribable power.56

L. W. Barnard has shown that St. Justins starting point is that the [Logos] is the personal Reason of God in which all [human beings] partake, with an emphasis that the whole [Logos] only resided in Jesus Christ.57 Barnard noted three implications of the Logos doctrine as exposited by Christian writers, all of which are discernible in Justins use of that doctrine. First, it enabled them
Dial. 127. L. W. Barnard, The Logos Theology of St. Justin Martyr, The Downside Review 89 (1971?): 134; cf. I Apol. 23 [hereafter Logos]. Barnard tempered this remark in a footnote in Justin (p. 85, n.3) by noting that Justin interpreted salvation as effected through the death of Christ (cf. Dial. 7-8). The last sentence of Dial. 7, however, references salvation only for those to whom God and his Christ gave to understand these things [i.e., the prophecies about Christ], thoroughly.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? [the apologists] to claim as Christian anything that was good or noble in pagan philosophy and literature.58 Justin applied this hermeneutic not only to pagan philosophy, but to the Jewish Scriptures, the Hebrew Bible. The Logos was also a theological necessity which enabled them to solve the cosmological problem and to show that Christianity itself was as old as the creation.59 Finally, the Logos provided a basis for their rather intellectual view of salvation, viz. that Christ as [Logos] was a teacher whose words brought salvation to [humanity].60

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN THE FATHER AND THE SON

In describing God the Father, Justin employed the term (unbegotten) which is to be distinguished from (without beginning). Goodenough defined as the philosophical term applied to Deity to express the fact that [God] has no beginning, and as such is superior to the exigencies of change and decay to which all other beings, having had a beginning, are subject.61 Early Christian theologians, however, found to be less useful in describing the relation of the begotten Son to the unbegotten Father than , for pointed to the attribute of that most profoundly separated the latter from the former: that of unbegottenness. In short, the Father alone was , or unbegotten.
58 59

Barnard, Logos, 132. Barnard, Logos, 132. 60 Ibid; compare Barnards comments cited above, n. 14. 61 Goodenough, 129.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Aristotle taught that

if there is nothing eternal, neither can there be any coming into existence; for any real thing which comes into existence necessarily pre-supposes some real thing from which it came into existence, and the last term of such a series must be unbegotten62

This last term is , the uncaused Cause of all others in the series and the source or beginning of all else, without which no other thing could exist. It was in this sense that Justin applied unbegotten () to the Father. From the Fathers unbegotten existence, Justin further posited the utter namelessness of the Deity: since nothing preceded God, there was no one to give God a name. Closely related was Justins insistence upon the unutterableness of God, a term that Goodenough took to mean that God is utterly beyond human reason. But to say that God is transcendent is not to say that God is inactive. Contrary to the Stoics, Justin emphasized the activity of God through the Logos. In describing the relation of God the Father to the Logos, Justin employed the philosophical notion of self-manifestation by means of personhood. Such personhood further implied a definition of the Logos. The indefinable, impersonal God, utterly transcendent, was active in creation through a definable, personal, creative agent: the Spermatic Logos. In this regard, Jean Danilou noted that in the very act of begetting the Word, who is infinite power, the Father gives him definition, the quality that Clement of Alexandria was to term , circumscribed.63 This notion of circumscription was shaped in a unique way by
Quoted without citation in Goodenough, 129. Jean Danilou, A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea: Volume Two: Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture, translated and edited by John Austin Baker, (Bath, Great Britain: The Pitman Press, 1973), 162.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Justin and other apologists when they argued that the first form of this limitation is the act of generation itself. As noted above, Justin was not Trinitarian in the later Nicene sense; the difficult task of maintaining monotheism in light of his claims about Jesus led him to emphasize the distinction between God and Christ to a degree that later generations would find problematic. In the meantime, Justin contrasted the Logos who was circumscribed [] from the uncircumscribed () Father.64 When applied to theophany, this teaching helped explain why the Logos, and not the transcendent Father, had been present with Abraham, Moses, and so forth. The Father was not bound to places or times. Just such a limitation had been ascribed to the Logos in the act of the Fathers begetting it to be the communicative agent between the material world and the transcendent Godhead. Chapter 61 of the Dialogue with Trypho opens with Justins address to his Jewish audience, I will give you, friends, another witness from the Scriptures, that from the beginning of all created things God begat a certain power out of himselfthe Logos.65 Clearly, Justin was alluding not to the eternal procession of the Son from the Father (as later Nicene theology would), but to the Logos as begotten before the rest of the created order. Goodenough, however, was quick to point out that Justin did not mean to say that God made the Logos. Rather, he explains,
where Wisdom describes her origin in terms both of creation and begetting [Justin] quietly ignores the first Danilou, 163. Dial. 61. A footnote in Falls translation notes that may mean a beginning, not in the beginning. Roberts and Donaldson expanded this to suggest a rendering of in the beginning, before all creatures for Justins phrase . See Falls, 244, n. 1; Roberts and Donaldson, 227, n. 4.
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term [creation] in expounding the passage to lay stress on the conception of begetting.66

This attempt to preserve Justins orthodoxy inviolate in the light of later developments, is admirable, but in my opinion, unfounded. Justin was not a systematic theologian, and one must remember that his beliefs were developed in the midst of conflict and debate, specifically with Jews. For example, Barnard notes that it was in contrast to strict Jewish monotheism that the otherness of Justins Logos theology was most pronounced:
There will not be another God, Trypho, nor was there from eternity (I was speaking in such a way to them) other than the one who created and arranged everything. Nor do we think that there is one God for you, but another for us67

According to Barnard, Justins basis for this claim of otherness was three-fold. First, biblical theophanies could not be explained in terms of direct communication between a transcendent God and the created order.68 Second, other passages (e.g., the let us make phrase of Genesis 1:26) portrayed God as conversing to another who is a rational being like himself.69 Finally, there were texts within the Jewish Wisdom tradition that imply either a poetic or a real personification of Wisdom.70 Throughout these and similar passages, Justins purpose was not to show that the Son and the Father were one, but, in fact, just the opposite. In fact, Justin went to great lengths to show that the
Goodenough, 147f; see Dial. 129. Goodenough also notes that while Justin attributes the verb (to make) to Trypho, he himself does not use it. 67 Dial. 11. 68 Barnard, Logos, 135; see Dial. 56-60. 69 Barnard, Logos, 135; emphasis mine. 70 Ibid; cf. Proverbs 8:22, Dial. 129.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Logos was God in second place only. Justins theology of the Godhead, developed as it was in the light of the monotheism that Christianity inherited from Judaism, thus contained a subordination of Son to Father. And so, Justin stated that Christians had
learned that he [Logos] is the Son of the living God himself, and we hold him in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third order.71

Justin argued that there was one God and one Logos, the only begotten of the one God. This Logos, God in second rank, shared the same (will) and (substance) and (mind) with God the Father, but had no independent thoughts, impulses, or existence apart from the Father-Creator.72 This distinction was also reflected in Justins teaching about the incarnate Logos, for he referred to Christ as the firstborn of all creation and the beginning again of another race.73 Goodenough concluded from this that if Justin understood new race in the Pauline sense of existing in Christ or Christ existing in us, then he was saying that as Christ is the mystic Person in whom all the new race dwells, and who dwells in the new race, so all creation is sustained and permeated by the
I Apology 13. Paraphrasing J. N. D. Kelly, Barnard comments that this rank or order (taxis) is not intended to suggest degrees of subordination within the Godhead but refers to the triad as manifested in creation and revelation. To this, Barnard adds: Justins statement is the language of Christian experience and worship rather than doctrinal expression (see Barnard, I Apology, 116-117, n. 77). 72 The latter argument was especially important in Justins fight against Marcion, for to hold that the Logos was numerically distinct but of the same substance as God the Father-Creator was to deny Marcions claim that there were two separate Gods. 73 Goodenough, 159; translation mine; Goodenough quoted the Greek text (without citation): .
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER First Born of God.74 The centrality of Christ for Justins theology now comes into view, just as his notion of the cross as an omnipresent mystic symbol speaks to the universality of his Christology.75 In the symbol and shape of the cross, Justin found a universal symbol of power: the sails of ships are hung on beams that form a cross; the human, with arms outstretched, resembles a cross; even the face forms a cross in the projection of the nose, while respiration through the nose indicates a special and immediate linking of spirit and matter in human beings.76 Justins point in proving the omnipresence of the cross, according to Goodenough, was to point to the cosmic Christ or Logos [as] the guiding and sustaining force of the universe.77

THE SPERMATIC LOGOS

Justins Christology was further tied to his belief in the doctrine of the Spermatic Logos ( ). In Stoic physiology, the Spermatic Logos was the gaseous element present in all creatures, responsible for reproduction. When male and female elements united, germination took place. This idea was further applied to God, to indicate that in the universal Matter there were two elements, the active and the passive. The active element, according to the Stoics, was the Spermatic Logos. A dynamic power, the Spermatic Logos was thought responsible for the cyclical flow of the universe and for the coming into being of the various phenomena of the universe.78 In later Platonic usage,
74 75

Goodenough, 159. Goodenough, 159. 76 Goodenough, 160; see I Apology 55. 77 Goodenough, 160. 78 Goodenough, 161.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? the term represented the spiritual (i.e., gaseous) effluence from God whose entering into matter caused it at first to take on form, and afterwards to have the power of growth and generation.79 In short, the Spermatic Logos was the creative and sustaining Principle through which the universe came into existence, and by which it continued to exist. There is no clear consensus among scholars as to what Justin meant by Spermatic Logos. Goodenough believed that Justin understood Spermatic Logos as active in two ways: in creation and in revelation. By this assessment, Spermatic Logos was at once the means of Gods creative activity and the communicative agent linking God to creation, especially human beings. As the Logos had been active in creation as the beginning () of all things, so also the Spermatic Logos was active in revelation, mediating the saving knowledge which God wished to make known to the world. Others scholars stress the moral implications of Justins Logos idea. According to Barnard, Justin attributed divinity to the Spermatic Logos, but saw the seeds of the Logos as something human and distinct from the divine logos.80 Conversely, M. Pohlenz emphasized how Justin conceived the relationship between the logos-Christ and the seed of the logos, for
St. Justin did not conceive of these [seeds of the Logos present in creation] in the physical sense but transferred them to the ethical field, identifying them with the Stoic semina virtutum, the moral dispositions already implanted in the soul. This made possible a natural knowledge which in men such as Socrates was so far developed that they could, at least in part, know the [Logos]-Christ.81

Goodenough, 162. Barnard, Logos, 138. 81 M. Pohlenz, Die Stoa I (Gottengen, 1948): 88, 199, 412; cited in Barnard, Logos, 138.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Carl Andresen used as his starting point that St. Justin understood [the Spermatic Logos] not in the cosmologicalpantheistic sense of the Stoa but as a spiritual-ethical principle.82 This theory was vigorously criticized by another scholar, R. Holte, who believed that by seed of the [Logos] St. Justin did not mean a germinative force but a static factor incapable of further development.83 As quoted by Barnard, Holte went on as follows:
St. Justin did not assume in [humanity] any immediate knowledge of the [Logos] but an analogous knowledge gained through things reflecting and resembling logos the epithet spermatikos does not mean disseminated but refers to the [Logos] in a special activity, i.e., sowing his seed in religious and moral illumination 84

Barnard, however, took issue with Holtes denial of any immediate knowledge of the [Logos] in humanity. Citing II Apology 8, 10 and 13, Barnard claimed, showed that St. Justin assumed the presence in every man, before the coming of Christ, of part of the sowing [Logos] which is identical with Christ.85 Indeed, Justins Logos was an active and divine potential, the sowing [Logos] who sows in [human beings], even before the coming of Christ in the flesh, a part of himself.86

Carl Andresen, Z.N.T.W. 44 (1952-53): 157-95; cited in Barnard, Logos, 138. 83 [Title not given], Studia Theologica (Vol. 12, 1958): 109-68; cited in Barnard, Logos, 139. 84 [Title not given], Studia Theologica (Vol. 12, 1958): 109-68; cited in Barnard, Logos, 139. 85 Barnard, Logos, 140. 86 Barnard, Logos, 140.

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THE LOGOS, CHRISTOLOGY AND THE HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

Justins doctrines of Godhead, the Logos, and Christology are all related to his use of the historical argument. His teachings were grounded in the idea that God the Creator was a transcendent, impersonal Being, totally separate from the created order: unnamed, unbegotten, and indefinably Other. Gods interaction with the world was accomplished in and through the Logos, the second God, begotten by God for that purpose. This same Logos was the creative agent through whom the world came into being. But much more than a mere tool for creation, the Logos was the animating Principle upon which creation was founded, and the sustaining Power by which it continues to exist. As such, Justin believed that the Spermatic Logos permeated all of the created order, sowing the seeds by which human beings were made capable of living rationallythat is, according to the Logos. Finally, Justin also believed that the Logos became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth. While some human beings had always lived by the seeds of the Logos, the Incarnation brought the whole of the Logos into the world. This whole Logos was made available to those who, in faith, accepted that Jesus was the Messiah promised and foretold in the Hebrew Bible. And yet, Justin also believed that comprehension of this fact was made possible only by the Logos, for no one could rightly read and understanding the Scriptures apart from the enlightening power of the Logos. With specific reference to his view of the Spermatic Logos, Justins idea of the Sower had profound implications for his attitude toward the Jews. The seeds were, after all, sown in Jew and Gentile alike; all were equally capable of living according to reason. With the coming of Jesus, the whole Logos entered the world. It was up to the individual to accept or reject the Christian message, which alone contained this whole of the Logos.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER But if Justins idea of the Spermatic Logos left Gentiles with no excuse for not accepting Christ as Messiah, so much more were the Jews made the target of this criticism. As we shall see, Justin simultaneously proclaimed the truth of the Hebrew Bible and the inability of the Jews to understand their own scriptures. The core of this argument lay once again in his Logos doctrine, for he believed that only Christians possessed the power of the Logos by which the Scripture could rightly be interpreted. By contrast, the Jews suffered from ignorance, blindness, and obstinacythe result, Justin taught, of their rejection of Christ.

JUSTINS INTERPRETIVE INNOVATION

THE LOGOS AS AN HERMENEUTICAL PRINCIPLE
The Scriptures that Justin knew so well were the Old Testament in Greekthat is, the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible. 87 It is also generally accepted that Justin knew no Hebrew.88 These two facts had intriguing implications for Justins understanding and interpretation of Scripture. First, Justins appellation of inspired to the Septuagint brought with it a Christological and allegorical hermeneutic. This is especially important because Justin believed that known discrepancies between the Greek and Hebrew texts were examples of the Jews ignoring, excising, or otherwise distorting the true meaning of the text.89 By so arguing, Justin mirrored other Christian authors, who
Shotwell, 6. See Shotwell, 6; Barnard, Justin, 43ff; Goodenough, 95ff. 89 Justin accused the Jewish teachers of denying the accuracy and validity of the Greek translation, of mistranslating, or of teaching that the Christian interpretation was a misreading of the text (see Dial. 68).
88 87

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? insisted that the Jews had tampered with the Hebrew text, and even excised certain passages from it, in response to messianic claims being made about Jesus. Justin had no concern for the historical or even the theological value of the Hebrew Bible for the ancient Israelites; rather, it was the prophetic or prognostic value of the Hebrew Bible that drove him forward. Justins belief in prophecy had a profound influence upon his reading of Scripture, for it is here that his doctrines of the Logos and divine revelation converged. In Justins worldview, revelation had two parts: (1) the message itself, and (2) the vessel by which that message was delivered. The revelation contained in the Hebrew Bible was the Logos himself, who had become man, and he was called Jesus Christ.90 But revelation was also the Hebrew Bible, which had foretold the coming of the Logos. God, through the Logos, had inspired the prophets of ancient Israel to speak words of prophecy about the Logos.91 God present in the incarnate Logos was also present after Jesus ascension, through the Scriptures. Thus, Justin believed in a duality of the Hebrew Bible as both the message and the messenger, all because of its divine origin. Shotwell further divided the predictive element of Justins teaching into two sections.92 The first referred to the mystery of Christ, and contained material predictive of the Messiah, or such material as might be so construed. The second referred to Gods commandments given because of Jewish intransigence, the content of which explicitly referred to hard-heartedness, or such material

Elsewhere (Dial. 71-73), Justin accused the Jews of outright mutilation of the text: excising prophetic passages from the LXX which proved Christians claims about Jesus. 90 I Apol. 5. 91 Shotwell, 3; cf. I Apol. 33. 92 Shotwell, 3.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER as could be so construed.93 This chapter will deal with Justins understanding of Scripture as explicating the mystery of Christ. The next chapter will outline Justins contention that the Law was given for Jewish hard-heartedness.

JUSTINS DOCTRINE OF SCRIPTURE

Justin maintained that God had verbally-inspired every word of Scripture, as his description of how he came to be a Christian makes clear. 94 Having met teachers from the various schools of philosophy, Justins quest for Truth ended after his conversion to Christianity, occasioned by an encounter with a certain old man ( ), who introduced him to the writings of the ancient Hebrews. Thereafter, a fire rose up in my soul, and a love for the prophets and for those men who were friends of Christ. Because of these things I am a [Christian] philosopher. 95 The old man proclaimed to Justin that these ancient prophets had spoken not of their own accord, but
by means of the Holy Spirit, and they foretold many things, which indeed are now happening. They are called prophets. Their writings are still extant and now remain, and there is much to be benefited from consulting them, concerning both the beginning and end [of things], and they are what it is necessary for a philosopher to know, having believed them.96

While by Jewish hard-heartedness Justin ultimately meant the rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, he saw this only as the climax of a longstanding history of Jewish intransigence. 94 See Dial. 3-8. 95 Dial. 8. 96 Dial. 7.

93

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Finally, the old man called upon Justin to

pray [that] before all things, the gates of light might be opened to you. For all this is neither seen nor understood, except by the one to whom God and his Christ give the ability to understand.97

This teaching underlay Justins understanding of Scripture, as well as his beliefs concerning the proper interpretation of the Scripture. True understanding came only as a result of the gift of understanding. But before this gift would be imbued, it was necessary for the person to have faith, by which he or she was able to gain all the knowledge necessary to a philosopher.98 Then came the gift of understanding the Scriptures, which was a gift from God. But because this required faith, it was only given indeed, could only be givento Christians. Addressing his Jewish listeners in the Dialogue, Justin stated:
Would you suppose, gentlemen, that we have been able to comprehend the things in the Scriptures, unless we had been given grace to comprehend from the One having willed them?99

Behind this and similar statements lay Justins doctrine of the Logos. As we have seen above, Justin believed that the Logos, active in the creation of the world, continued to be active in sowing the seeds of divine Reason in the world. With the coming of Christ, the seeds had given way to the whole. Therefore, what the world before the time of Christ had in part (Spermatic Logos), Christians now had in its complete form (the whole of the Logos) in the person of Jesus Christ. So equipped, Christians alone were
97 98

Dial. 7 Shotwell, 6. 99 Dial. 119.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER able to discern the meaning of the Scriptures, while they remained closed to others, especially the Jews. And so we see that from Justins perspective, the Logos itself was the key to unlocking the meaning of Scripture, a Scripture filled with prophecies about Christ, now either already fulfilled or being fulfilled. This did not mean, however, that Jews were incapable of understanding that Jesus was the Messiah. Justin seemed confident that if they would only turn to the Scriptures with open eyes, even the meager seeds of the Logos would be sufficient to prove his case about Christ. Like many prophecy-minded Christians throughout history, Justin apparently believed that one could not help but see prophecies about Christ in the Hebrew Scriptures. And of course, if a Jews came to believe in Christ, he or she could also receive the gift of grace by which the deeper meaning of the Scriptures would be revealed. Here we encounter one of the logical inconsistencies about Justins beliefs. He repeatedly contrasted the many Gentiles who had come to faith in Christ with the majority of Jews who had remained unconverted. But if Gentiles had understood the Gospel, why had Jews remained unconvincedboth having an equal share of the seed of the Logos that led to understanding? Justin posited three hypotheses. The first was ignorance. Jews missed the true meaning and content of Scripture because they insisted upon a literal, rather than allegorical or typological reading of the text. The second was blindness. By this theory, Jews were misled by their teachers (rabbis) into false belief and misunderstanding. Finally, the third was obstinacy, whereby the Jews knew and understood the truth, but refused to accept or believe it. This three-fold approach was likely borne of Justins experience with Jewish resistance to Christian missionary efforts, compounded with impatience over their continued adherence to the Mosaic Law. It is also interesting to note that Justin did not apply these criteria categorically; that is, he did not classify some Jews under one rubric (ignorance) while placing others under another (obstinacy). Rather, 68

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? he seems to have held these three ideas dialectically. We begin our survey of Justins application of these ideas with Chapter 38 of the Dialogue. In a long monologue, Justin had attempted to prove to his Jewish audience that Jesus was the Messiah. In response, Trypho stated:
It would have been better for us if we had been persuaded by the teachers giving a law that none of us [Jews] was to speak with any of you [Christians], nor to have communion with this word. For you blaspheme much when you speak, to persuade us that this crucified man was present with Moses and Aaron, and to have spoken with them in a pillar of cloud100

Justins response demonstrated his assumptions about Jewish ignorance, bolstered by blindness:
I know that, as the word of God says, this great wisdom of God, the maker of the whole world and the Almighty, has been hidden from you. Therefore, sympathizing with you, I am struggling to the point of fatigue, so that you will understand these things which are paradoxical for you; but if not, I myself will be innocent on the day of judgment. For you will yet hear other words seeming like paradoxes; but do not be thrown into confusion, but rather having become eager, also remain an excited listener, despising the traditions of your own teachers. Since they are not able to know the things which are from God, they are convicted by the Holy Spirit; but they moreover choose to teach their own false beliefs.101

The Jews, Justin argued, failed to grasp the meaning of Scripture because it was concealed from them. Moreover, God was hidden from the Jews and their rabbis; failing to discern the Scriptures
100 101

Dial. 38 Dial. 38.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER properly, they preferred their own ideas to Scripture. It is with this in mind that Justin went on to state: And it is therefore no surprise if you also hate those who know these things and convict you with knowledge of your endless hardness of heart. 102 The Jews in their blindness and ignorance despised those who, having the gift of insight, understood the Scriptures properly. Justin continued, intermixing charges of blindness or ignorance and obstinacy. It had been predicted that Christ would capture us from error and give us giftsthe gift of discerning the Scriptures.103 Those who have been taught out of the whole truth honored God and Christ by actions, by knowledge, and by the heart until death.104 These charges of blindness and ignorance were eclipsed, however, by his most serious chargethat of obstinacy. Here the true power of Justins polemic makes itself known, for he states that the Jews knew the truth, but refused to believe it. Several accusations follow therefrom, including the notion that the Jews rejected Christ for political gain, or in order to escape Roman persecution for the sake of the name.105 He further rebuked the Jews for rejecting the Septuagint as an incorrect translation, and added to this the charge that the Jews tampered with or altered the Hebrew text, removing passages that proved that Christ was the Messiah. For our purposes, the most important example concerns Genesis 49:10. According to Justin, had the Jews understood its real meaning, it too would have been excised, for in it, Jacob foretold the two advents of Christ. 106 In the first, it was predicted
Dial. 39. Dial. 39. Justins choice of the verb (to take captive) is intriguing, as it portrayed Christ in a mythic battle against the personified forces of human error, (deception). 104 Dial. 39. 105 See I Apology 4. 106 Dial. 120.
103 102

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? that he would be humiliated and killed, after which

neither a prophet nor a king [was] to come from your race and [furthermore] the Gentiles who came to believe in Christs passion [would] expect his coming again.107

His second coming, to which Justin also looked, would be full of glory and splendor. The fact that Jesus was the Messiah had been proven by the fulfillment of Jacobs prophecy as recorded in Genesis 49:10, for
neither a prophet nor a ruler, out of which beginning [Christ] came, failed among your race, until this Jesus Christ both was born and suffered, nor do you dare to shamelessly say that, nor do you have proof. For among your race there was one called high priest, so that then there was one offering sacrifices for you according to the law of Moses, and nevertheless ruling lawfully and prophesying according to succession until John was born (as also when your people were carried captive into Babylon, when there was warring on the land and the sacred vessels were carried off), a prophet did not cease among you as lord and leader and ruler of your people. For the Spirit which was in the prophets both anointed and appointed kings for you. But after the manifestation and death of Jesus our Christ among your race, there has by no means been a prophet, nor is there [now]. But you also ceased to be under your own king, and your land was laid waste, and it has been left behind like a crop-watchers hut.108 Dial. 52. I have chosen to translate Justins word as race, rather than the usual people. Throughout the Dialogue, Justin singled out the Jews as the people who earned Gods wrath. It is this pejorative notion of a people set apart, evident in much of Justins writings, which warrants this translation. 108 Dial. 52. I have translated as race and as people to show Justins intermixing of the two terms.
107

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Justin interpreted the next phrase, tying up his foal to the vine and the foal of his donkey to the vine tendril, as a foretelling of the works done by him in his first advent, and similarly of the Gentiles who were about to believe [in] him. The foal was the Gentiles, who like an unsaddled donkey did not have a yoke upon its neck until Christ came and sent the disciples to convert them. The Gentiles now looked forward to Christs second advent, and were strengthened in their burdens by this hope.109 Justin also noted that the text mentions a donkey that is accustomed to the yoke. This, he proclaimed, was a prediction that some of the Jews would believe in Christ, for they bore the yoke of the Jewish law. What this also referenced, however, was Justins belief (to be taken up in the proceeding chapter) that the Jews misunderstood, misapplied, and thoroughly misused the yoke of the Law, insisting that salvation was tied to circumcision and observation of the other commandments. Justins disdain for the rabbis is also worth noting. He held these Jewish teachers singularly responsible for the blindness, ignorance, and obstinacy of the Jews, for it was they who had excised from the Hebrew Bible various passages that clearly made reference to Christ. As a result, Justin repeatedly admonished Trypho to abandon the interpretations of the rabbis and read the Scripture both anew and aright, that is, with Christian eyes:
Dial. 53. However Justin derived his use of vineyard, , its appearance in Jesus parables (cf., Matthew 20:1ff, 21:28ff; Mark 12:1ff; Luke 13:6, 20:9ff) and the Similitudes of Hermas (5.5.2) points to a tradition within early Christianity that used vineyard as a symbol for the Christian community. See in William F. Arndt and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, translation and adaptation of Walter Bauers GriechischDeutsches Wrterbuch und der brigen urchristlichen Literatur, 4th revised and augmented edition, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952, 1957), 46.
109

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
Therefore, if you do not despise the dogmas of those who raise themselves up and wish to be called Rabbi, Rabbi, and with such enthusiasm and mind come to the words of the prophets, in order that you suffer under the same people that the prophets themselves suffered, you will not be able to actually receive an advantage from the prophets.110

Finally, Justins allegory of Psalm 22 combined polemic against the rabbis with the predictive quality of Scripture and the notion that the Jews were Christ-killers:
What is said next in the PsalmTrouble is near, because there is no one to help me. Many calves have encircled me, fatted bulls have surrounded me. They opened their mouths upon me, as ravishing and roaring lions. All my bones are poured out and dispersed just like water likewise was a foretelling of the things happening to him. For, on that night when those from your people, sent by the Pharisees and Scribes along with the teachers, came up to him from the Mount of Olives, they encircled himthose whom the Word called young calves, horned and bent on destruction. And he spoke the words, fatted bulls have surrounded me beforehand, to speak about both them and those who would do similarly, when he was taken before your teachers. Because of this the Word spoke of them as being bulls, since we know bulls are the cause of calves. As bulls are the fathers of calves, therefore, your teachers were the reason your children went up to the Mount of Olives to seize and lead [him] to them. And the saying, There is no one to help, also became indicative of it. For there was no one, even one person, to help him, as rendering help to an innocent person.111

For Justin, Psalm 22 was a prophetic passage in two senses.

110 111

Dial. 112. Dial. 103.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER First, it foretold the actual events of Jesus betrayal and arrest. Second, it passed judgment before the fact upon those who would instigate and orchestrate Jesus suffering and death, i.e., the Jews. Specifically, Psalm 22 pointed to the guilt of the rabbis, the Pharisees, and the Scribesthe bulls who sent young calves horned and bent on destruction (other Jews of lesser authority) to do their evil bidding. That the Jews could be capable of such unmitigated evil was no random thought for Justin. As we shall see, Justins attitude toward the Law was closely connected to his anti-Jewish beliefs about human sin, particularly Jewish sin. According to Justin, the Law served but one purpose: to curb Jewish sin. With this attitude came the belief that God had progressively increased the both severity and volume of laws in direct proportion to increasing Jewish sin. Psalm 22 passed judgment specifically upon Jewish rabbis and leaders, while other parts of Scripture (especially, for our purposes, Genesis 49:10) prophesied the eventual ruin of the entire Jewish people. This was done because of their sinfulness, culminating in their rejection of Christ, which God had foreseen! Given what has been discussed above, it is not surprising that for Justin, the Mosaic Law was not a covenant in the usual sense of the word. The Law was Gods means of restraining a sinful, rebellious, idolatrous, ignorant, blind, and obstinate people. The emphasis within Justins discussion of the Law is not on Gods faithfulness, but on Jewish sinfulness, a sinfulness that found its ultimate expression in their rejection and murder of Jesus. Similarly, Justins emphasis upon the Law as Gods punishment saw as its climax Gods final judgment upon the people of Israel: they are rejected, removed, and replaced as the People of God in favor of the Christians. All of this had at its center Justins belief that these things had been predicted in prophetic texts such as Genesis 49:10.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?

JUSTIN ON THE MOSAIC LAW

THE LAW AS PROSCRIPTION FOR JEWISH SIN
Justins attitude toward the Mosaic Law boldly reflected his negative attitudes about Judaism as a religion and the Jews as a people. Ironically, the Dialogue portrays Trypho as admonishing Justin to abandon his Christian beliefs and embrace Judaism:
It was better that you continue to philosophize Plato or some other philosopher, practicing endurance and selfcontrol and good judgment. But you have been deceived by false words, and you have followed people of no worth. If then you will listen to me (for I have already thought of you as a friend) first be circumcised, then keep the things as it is commandedthe Sabbath and the festivals and the new moons of Godand simply do all the things which are written in the Law. And then you will perhaps be shown mercy from God. But this Christ, if he even exists and is somewhere, is unknown and neither has he believed [in] himself, nor does he have any power until Elijah should come to anoint him, to make him manifest to all.112

Trypho then reminded Justin that circumcision on the eighth day was commanded not for the Jews alone, but for the stranger and the [slave] who was purchased. Failure to fulfill this commandment would result in estrangement from the peoplea reference to Genesis 17:14.113 Implied in this critique of Christian teaching was a charge of hypocrisy, for while professing faith in and obedience to God, Christians failed to keep Gods explicit laws. Such was the challenge for Justin: how to defend the theological consistency of Christianity while maintaining that the
112 113

Dial. 8. Dial. 10.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Law was not binding upon them. Justins response to this challenge took another step in separating Jews from Christians as the Chosen People. All laws are not the same, Justin argued. Christ, the incarnation of right reason ( ) came to distinguish the greater law from the lesser. Justins contention in the Dialogue was not so much that the Law was bad as that the Law was inadequate. He consistently argued that the Mosaic Law had been a temporary and limited means by which God had dealt with specific problems, before Christ came to establish the new covenant. The fact that sin persisted under the Law was the very proof by which it was shown to have been ineffective. Conversely, Justin also argued that the Mosaic Law had looked forward to the coming of a law which was not inadequate but perfect,114 for
there will be also a final law, and a covenant ruling over all. It was now necessary for every human being to watch, as many as were seeking the inheritance of God. For the Law given on Horeb is already old, and yours [the Jews] alone; but this [Law of Christ] is simply for all. A law placed alongside another law overrides the one before it. And a covenant placed afterward negates the first. And an eternal and final law and the covenant of faithwhich is Christ has been given to us, after which there is no law, nor order, nor commandment.115

The true, spiritual Israelites were the descendants of the patriarchs (Judah, Jacob, Isaac, Abraham) through Christ. But the patriarchs had certainly not been justified on the basis of circumcision, for that practice post-dated all of them. Why then
Eric Francis Osborn, Justin Martyr, Beitrge zur Historischen Theologie [series], vol. 47 (Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1973), 158. 115 Dial. 11.
114

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? the Law? Justin consistently and emphatically argued that the Mosaic Law was given for one purpose: to curb Jewish sin. To one degree or another, Justin tied the notion of Jewish sin to his discussion of the Mosaic Law, for he believed that it was binding upon the Jews alone. The old covenant, meant to be a temporary arrangement, had now found its completion and end in the coming of Christ. But the Jews refused to accept this; blindly placing hope in their own piety, they obstinately held fast to the notion that salvation came through obedience to the tenets of the Law, rather than through Christ. Speaking of Christ as the New Law, Justin proclaimed:
This very law [of Christ] you [Jews] have treated shamefully, and you have done evil to his new holy Covenant, and now you neither acknowledge nor repent for your evil deeds. The Lawgiver is present, and you do not see. There is already need for a second circumcision, but you think greatly upon the circumcision of the flesh. The new Law wills you to continually observe the Sabbath, and you think not working for one day to be pious, not considering why it is prescribed for you.116

As with their failure to properly understand the Scriptures, the Jews utterly failed to understand the tenets of the Law, or even to see that the Law was null and void after the coming of Christ. More ominously, however, Justin also taught that the Law had become an instrument of divine judgment, and the tenets of the Law a way of setting the people of Israel apart from the nations not as an example of righteousness, but rather, of rabid disobedience. For example, in Chapter 16 of the Dialogue, Justin brusquely informs Trypho that circumcision was a sign given by God

116

Dial. 12.

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in order that you [Jews] might be separated from all nations and from us [Christians], so you alone might suffer that which you now are justly sufferingyour lands laid waste and your cities destroyed with fire, that others eat your fruits before you, and no one of you goes up into Jerusalem.117

This was so, Justin insisted, because God had foreknown things which were about to happen and are happening, and had thus prepared what is deserving for the end.118
And these things happened well and justly for you, for you killed the just One and his prophets before him, and now you reject those who hope in him, and the one having sent him, God the Father and maker of all things, and heap insults as much as you can upon him, cursing in your synagogues those who believe in Christ. For you do not have authority to put your hands on us, because of those who now rule over you, but as often as you were able, you did this also.119

Circumcision, the sign of Gods covenant with the Jews, was reinterpreted by Justin as a mark upon Jews, setting them apart for divinely ordained suffering and punishment. One is reminded of another similar mark, that of Cain.120 While Justin does not make such a clear allegory, the comparison is hardly unfounded. Like Cain, Justin believed that the mark set the Jewish people apart for a form of punishment; also like Cain, the mark of circumcision had, at least at first, carried a positive connotation, for it was the mark of the old covenant. As a result, Justins concern was not with circumcision as such, but with its misapplication in
117 118

Dial. 16. Dial. 16. 119 Dial. 16. 120 See Genesis 4:15.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? light of the new covenant in Christ. For their refusal to forego circumcision and instead embrace Christ, God had made circumcision part of the punishment to be meted out upon the obstinate Jews, a punishment that was theirs alone. Elsewhere, Justin repeated the charge that this circumcision is not necessary for all, but for you alone, in order that, as it was foretold, you might suffer these things which you now suffer in justice.121 Sabbaths,122 sacrifices,123 dietary restrictions,124 and other laws had been imposed to curb Jewish sin, not because God had need of them, but so that [by] giving yourselves to God through this [Temple], you might not worship idols.125 This approach to the meaning, purpose and limitations of the Mosaic Law also provided Justin with an explanation for why Christians did not observe it. The Laws sole purpose was to curb Jewish lawlessness and hard-heartedness; it did not apply to Christians.126 In the midst of Roman persecution, Justin challenged his Jewish listeners to explain why, if Christians quite willingly endured such sufferings, they should observe also the things which do not harm us in the least [such as] circumcision of the flesh and Sabbaths and feasts?127 As mentioned above, Justin contended that the Law had come in stages. According to his assessment, these stages had been proportional to the increasing sin of the people. But a full understanding of this fact came only through the the great grace received from God, to know what was said and done by the

121 122

Dial. 19. Dial. 21. 123 Dial. 22. 124 Dial. 20. 125 Dial. 22. 126 Dial. 18. 127 Dial. 18.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER prophets.128 Justins emphasis on the limitations of the Law was evident also in the fact that it had been given not to Adam:
For if someone should wish to inquire of you, since Enoch and Noah together with their children and others like them were acceptable to God, while not being circumcised nor observing Sabbaths, why God appointed that those from Abraham until Moses were to be justified on account of circumcision, but that those from Moses and afterwards would be justified on account of circumcision and other commandments, that is, Sabbaths and feasts and offerings and sacrifices. [But God will be slandered] unless you show that because God, having foreknowledge, knew that your nation would be worthy to be expelled from Jerusalem and that no one would be permitted to enter into there.129

Finally, answering Tryphos observation that Christ had lived under the Law and kept the commandments, Justin argued that Christ had indeed lived under the law, but not in order to be justified by it. Justin then returned to his argument about the Patriarchs, to whom he pointed whenever challenged by Tryphos charge that Christians should keep the Law. Before the Law was given, Justin explained, God justified Abraham. This proved that the Law was given to Jews only, for the purpose of curbing Jewish sin. In stark contrast to the Mosaic Law, Justin pointed to the Law of Christ, a universal and eternal law, which for him was summed up in the commandment to love God and the neighbor. Jewish sin and hard-heartedness had produced in them an animosity toward God, the prophets, and all those who sought to follow God, especially the Christians. Note Justins charge not of blindness or ignorance, but of obstinacy:

128 129

Dial. 92. Dial. 92; emphasis added.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
But you [Jews] have not shown friendship or love toward God or the prophets or toward yourselves, but as has been shown, you were found to always be worshippers of idols and murderers of the just, as also until you laid hands even on Christ himself. For having the ability to understand that this [man] is the Christ from the signs existing through Moses, you refuse to do so130

Like many Christians throughout history, Justin believed that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. By signs, Justin therefore meant manifestations of divine power as recorded by Moses in the Scriptures. As noted above, Justin further believed that proper interpretation of the Scriptures was possible only for Christians, who had received the gift of discernment by means of the whole of the Logos, in the sense of divine Reason. On the basis of these presuppositions, it becomes clear that Justin blamed Jewish obfuscation of the Scriptures on the passive notions of ignorance or blindness, but also on the more active concept of obstinacy: the Jews actively chose to reject what they knew to be true.131 These ideas apparently underlay Justins claim that the persecution of Christians by the Roman government had Jewish origins, for
it was foretold of God that all of you and those like you would not believe that this one who existed from the beginning, and was an eternal priest of God and a king and the Christ, was being about to come.For you curse in Dial. 93; emphasis added. In Chapter 89, Trypho alluded to Deuteronomy 21:23 to argue that even if the coming Messiah was to suffer, we [Jews] doubt whether the Christ should be so shamefully crucified, for the Law declares that he who is crucified is to be accursed. 131 This argument, of course, bears a striking resemblance to Pauls argument in Romans 1:18-22 that Gentiles are without excuse for failing to recognize Gods existence through nature.
130

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your synagogues all those who have become Christians, and the other nations132 are also carrying out your curse by their deed, killing those who are only confessing themselves to be Christians.133

Viewed in this way, the expulsion of Christians from the synagogue was seen not only as a catalyst for subsequent persecution of Christians by the Roman government, but was tied back again to the Jews as the root cause and active agent of persecution. In the history of anti-Jewish sentiments by Christians, this charge carries the farthest, for it forms the basis of the Christ killer accusation. According to this belief, the Jews are singularly responsible for the crucifixion (murder) of Jesus, while the Roman officials are made at best compliant, at worst patsies of a Jewish conspiracy. Of course, what is notably absent in all of this is specific reference (such as found in Pauls letter to the Romans) to Gentile sins. In fact, on the subject of Gentile sin, Justin was disturbingly silent. Gentile sin was mentioned as a past event in several places, but was always tempered with the joyous proclamation that Gentiles had abandoned their former ways and embraced the new Law of Christ. Conversely, Jews became Justins par excellence example of idolatry and hard-heartedness, both in the past and in the present. They alone were responsible for keeping the Law, for it was imposed only on them, first as constraint for sin, thereafter as a punishment for continued obstinacy. Having rejected Jesus as the Messiah, they now suffered expulsion from their land and a divinely-ordained exile in the Diasporaall because, despite all the evidence for Christian truth, they nonetheless persisted in their ignorance, blindness, and/or obstinacy.

132 133

Or Gentiles [ ]. Dial. 96.

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JUSTIN ON ISRAEL AND THE FATE OF THE JEWS

GODS ACTIONS IN HISTORY
Like the Jews, Justin understood Gods salvific action as having a history. The climax of this salvation history was the coming of the Logos in the flesh. But the Incarnation was not simply the product of prior events; rather, it sums them up, adds them together and crowns them.134 In the beginning, human beings had chosen sin, and now suffered the consequences of this choice. But Christ suffered and died, and those who believed in his name gained the benefit of salvation from his death. In the regard, Justin maintained that salvation remained open to all, and his writings were filled with calls for Jews to believe and repent. But salvation nonetheless meant salvation through Christ, and he saw no place within Gods salvific plan for Jews as Jews. As seen in the previous chapter, Justin clearly believed that the people of Israel had been judged and rejected by God for their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah. Conversely, he pointed to the Gentiles as the epitome of faith in Christ. In Justins eyes, the Scriptures themselves foretold that the Jews would reject Christ, and furthermore prophesied that Gentiles would accept him. And yet, Justin did not pronounce judgment on all Jews: his pessimistic assessment of Jewish fate was balanced by an evangelistic call for Jews to repent and come into the Christian fold. The double edge of Justins rhetoric must not escape our notice. On the one hand, Justin sincerely and repeatedly called upon Jews to repent and accept Jesus as the Messiah. The covenant under the
134

Osborn, 156.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Law had ended with the coming of Christ. It was now time for Jews to accept, as Gentiles had, that Jesus was the Messiah whose coming had been prophesied in the Scriptures (Hebrew Bible). When Jews refused to do this, however, Justins countered with charges of Jewish ignorance, blindness, and obstinacy. In bringing these charges, Justin returned to the root of his argument about the fate of the Jews: Genesis 49:10 prophesied both the rejection of the Jews as the Chosen People and the end of Jewish self-rule, on the foreknowledge that they would reject Gods Messiah. And so we see that the historical argument both precedes and underlies Justins approach to the Jewish question. In the end, he left no room for Jews as Jews: they would either repent and convert, or they would suffer. In my view, Chapter 120 of the Dialogue is the climax of Justins argument, the point at which he returned full circle, repeating his earlier quote of Genesis 49:10. Though his line of reasoning is difficult to follow, Justins main point was that through Judah the promises have been fulfilled. Quoting the promises to Isaac and Judah concerning the descendants that they were to have, Justin noted in passing that these promises were made only to them from whom Christ was to come through the Virgin Mary, in accordance with the divine plan of our redemption.135 The remainder of Justins argument was centered in Judah. After Jacob, the seed was divided among his sons. Justin took this as a sign that some Jews, being children of Abraham, would believe in Christ, while others, also children of Abraham, would not. Apparently, Justin saw in Judah the family line of those who would believe, while his brothers (the other sons of Jacob) represented the Jews who would not believe. Finally, according to Justin, Genesis 49:10 also proved that the expectation of the Gentiles was not Judah, but Christ. Here again is the text:
135

Dial. 120.

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A prince [or ruler or lord] shall not fail out of Judah, and a ruler [or leader] out of his thigh, until he should come for whom it has been stored up, and he is the expectation of the nations.136

The nations (or Gentiles), Justin argued, had not awaited the coming of Judah, but rather of Christ, the ruler of the nations for whom it [kingship] has been stored up. This brings us to Justins new definition of Israel. According to Justin, Isra means a man who overcomes, while el means power; Israel thus spoke of Christ, who overcame all. Justin thus tied the name Israel to those (whether Jew or Gentile) who believed in Jesus as the Messiah, for Israel referred not to the Jewish people, but to Christians. At first, this argument for the inclusion of both Jews and Gentiles is reminiscent of Pauls argument that Gentiles are grafted onto the rootstock of Israel.137 But the fact that Justin was operating with a different assumptions is evident from Dial. 125 where, quoting the parable of the Sower and the Seed, Justin stated that it is necessary to speak in the hope that there is some good ground somewhere.138 That hope for good ground found expression in Justins belief that Christians were the recipients of an understanding of the Scriptures (by means of the whole of the Logos) that was impossible for Jews. As we have seen, Justin believed that Christians alone were able to read the Scripture and understand its true (hidden) meaning. How, then, does this jibe with the evangelical thrust of the Dialogue, and especially with Justins repeated attempts to convince Trypho that Jesus was the Messiah? Ultimately, Justins admonition for Jewish conversion must be read in the context of his contention that the overwhelming number of Jews were beyond
136 137

Genesis 49:10 (LXX; my translation). Romans 9-11, especially 11:11-36. 138 Dial. 125.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER hope. Even at this late date, a certain number of Jews no doubt continued to convert, but the overwhelming majority, as represented by Trypho, remained loyal to the faith of their ancestors and even attempted to convert Christians to the Jewish world-view. It was this unconverted majority that Justin certainly had in mind when he wrote of those who justify themselves and are saying they are children of Abraham will wish to inherit with [us Christians] even a small place, and yet would not.139 Justins was not a racial outlook, but a religious one; the line of demarcation lay in his claims about Jesus, and the major contrast was between the unbelief of the Jews vs. the belief of the Gentiles. A Jew who repented and believed in Christ as the Messiah could align him- or herself with the true Israel (the Church) and thereby be saved. Those who did not were without the Truth, whether because of ignorance, blindness or obstinacy. But as we have seen, Justins jeremiad against the Jews did not stop there. For their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah, the Jewish people were rejected by God; this was, moreover, a fulfillment of prophecy, for God had predicted this fate in their own holy book, the Hebrew Bible. Quoting Isaiah 24:14, Justin thus proclaimed divine judgment on the Jews:
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to remove this people, says the Lord, and I will remove them, and I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and I will hide the shrewdness of the shrewd.

Justin found the fulfillment of the Isaiah passage in Genesis 49:10. The Jews had indeed been removed by God: their spiritual removal as the Chosen People had been manifested in their physical removal from Jerusalem. History itself proved that the
139

Dial. 25.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? prophecy of Genesis 49:10 had been fulfilled; hence, the historical argument. We find, therefore, that Justins argument was two-fold in nature. On the one hand, Justin hoped and believed that some Jews would be converted, and he saw in Scripture a prophecy that this would occur. On the other hand, it was clear to him that the vast majority of Jews had not converted, and never would. For them, the consequence of ignorance, blindness, and obstinacy was divine judgment, foretold in Genesis 49:10 and now manifested in history. Furthermore, for all his evangelistic tendencies, Justins call for Jewish conversion was rooted in the belief that Christianity had replaced Judaism and that Jews no longer had a place as Jews within Gods plan for salvation. Their refusal to abandon Mosaic Law and acknowledge the truth of Christian claims was seen by Justin as further proof of their lost state. Ignorant, blind, and obstinate, they were without hope of salvation. At the same time, Justin attributed to the Jews a jealousy of those of us [Christians] who think these things [concerning Jewish sin] and correct you [Jews], knowing your continual hardness of heart.140 Justin apparently believed that the blind, ignorant, and obstinate Jews were nonetheless envious of Gods gift to Christians of insight into Scripture. And yet, he did not take this idea to its logical end and suggest that such envy might move them to convert. Rather, tying this jealousy to the notion of remnant, Justin concluded that God was withholding final destruction of the Jews out of the foresight that
day by day some [Jews] are becoming disciples into the name of Christ, and leaving behind the way of deception. They also receive good gifts, each as he is worthy, being enlightened through the name of this same Christ.141

140 141

Dial. 39. Dial. 39.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER How could Justin argue, on the one hand, for Jewish rejection and punishment, while, on the other hand, arguing that some were converting and being saved? Here we return to the fact that Justin was not a systematic theologian. As noted at the beginning of this chapter, Justin believed that human beings were endowed with free will. Having chosen sin, humans (and especially the Jews) now suffered the consequences of that choice. Through all of this, Justin maintains what seems to us a double standard. On the one hand, the Gentiles who do not convert are certainly destined for divine judgment. But such judgment is not specified, and Justin never really discusses the issue at all; rather, he seems to take it for granted. On the other hand, Justin goes into great detail about the impending doom of the Jews, whose fate will be determined by their choice, but whose choice was foretold in prophecies of their collective fate. By refusing to set aside the Mosaic Law and accept Christ, the Jews have consigned themselves to divine retribution. Long ago, God had given circumcision as a sign of the promise made to Abraham, the promise that Israel would be saved. But kinship in the true Israel was not by blood, nor by adherence to a now outmoded Mosaic Law, but by faith. With the coming of Christ, and their rejection of him, Jews as Jews were indeed set apart by their circumcisionnot as a sign of a covenant with God, but rather as representation of their continual hardness of heart. 142 Moreover, their own choices set them apart. That this was part of Justins thinking is evident from his insistence that Jews were obstinate: Jews knew the truth, but refused to accept it. Justin clearly believed in a divine prophecy about the rejection of Jesus by the Jews, but this does not mean that Justin believed God caused these things to happen. The Jews freely chose to reject Christ, just as Gentiles chose to follow. God foreknew and foretold this in the Scripture (such as Genesis 49:10), but this did
142

Dial. 39.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? not nullify the choice that Jews made. Stated in this way, the title of this chapter contains a misnomer: Justin did not believe that the Jews were fated to reject Christ and thus earn divine wrath. Rather, their rejection as the People of God came as the direct result of their free choicemade because of blindness, ignorance, and/or obstinacyto reject Jesus as the Messiah.

THE LEGACY OF SUPERSESSIONISM

ANCIENT POLEMIC AND MODERN FAITH
When read allegorically, Genesis 49:10, and indeed, the entire Hebrew Bible, became a weapon for Christian polemicists to use against their Jewish adversaries. As a result, otherwise obscure prophecies were seen as prophecies of divine vengeance, to be leveled against those whoonce known as the Chosen People, had now rejected God and killed Gods Messiah. The term Christ-killers may be as old as Christian animosity toward Jewish non-believers, but it has been fueled by such things as the historical argument, interpretations which leave little room for dialogue amidst the scathing polemic of the new Israel, or even the socalled new testament143 vis--vis the old. The historical argument has had a long and unfortunate history in the Church. Irenaeus use of Genesis 49:10 in Against Heresies 4:10 mirrored that of Justin, as did the writings of Augustine.144
Scholarly circles prefer the term Hebrew Bible to Old Testament, though New Testament remains the designation for the books that comprise that Christian include in their canon. 144 I have argued elsewhere (see Part IV below) that Genesis 49:10 was the lens through which Augustine read all of Scripture. For Augustines use of the historical argument, see Reply to Faustus the Manichan XII.42 and City of God XVI.42.
143

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Great emphasis is placed in these and other writings upon prophetic proof that Judaism has been rejected by God, superseded and replaced by Christianity, an interpretation that warranted misuse of other biblical material for religious (and later, secular) ends. The latter is especially visible when one views the historical argument through the horrific roadway of anti-Jewish thought and action that led to Auschwitz. Hitler was, of course, no churchman; and yet, one can draw an uneasy connection through the muddled course of history between Justins thoughts and Hitlers actions, for Hitlers rise to power came no less on the shoulders of the Churchs long history of antiJudaic145 rhetoric (and action) than on the more secular brand of anti-Semitism that flourished in European society. As a result, Nazism found no less justification in the writings of God-fearing Christians such as Martin Luther146 than of the 19th century neopagans who advocated a replacement of Bible stories with ancient Teutonic myths.147 Throughout this work, teachings that deal with animosity toward the Jews have been labeled anti-Jewish. This term is used in contrast to two definitions that I believe distort the true history of Jewish-Christian relations. The first seeks to label as antiSemitism those attitudes, teachings or opinions that express or advocate animosity toward Jews on the basis of race. The second
Anti-Judaism is used here in the sense of a religious conflict with Judaism, as contrasted with later anti-Semitism, that advocated hatred of Jews purely on the basis of race. 146 e.g., On the Jews and Their Lies 147 This movement found its most artistic expression in the musical genius of Richard Wagner, whose operatic Ring trilogy inspired many (including the young Adolph Hitler) to nationalistic zeal. Around the same time, Houston Stuart Chamberlain, a 19th century racial theorist, advocated a racial form of social Darwinism that influenced later Nazi belief in race purity.
145

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? contrasts racial hatred of Jews from religious animosity. From my own view, both definitions are flawed, as they setup a dichotomy where one does not necessarily exist. The first term is overly broad, encompassing all animosity toward Jews and attaching to it one label, anti-Semitism. But anti-Semitism as such is a 19th century phenomenon, the brainchild of a German racial theorist named Wilhelm Marr. Marrs work drew on a tradition that had analyzed the so-called Semitic languages and deduced (erroneously) that this language must have been spoken by a Semitic people. Jews were thus termed Semites, and those (like Marr) who fought against them were anti-Semites. The appellation anti-Semitism has since been used to describe writings or speech that is hostile to Jews.148 Though anti-Semitism is commonly associated with ethnic or racial animosity, the term has also been used to describe attitudes that are primarily religious in character. As we have seen, at the center of Justins argument is a religious claim: the Hebrew prophets foretold both the coming of Messiah and his summary rejection by the Jewish people. Passages like Genesis 49:10 are prophetic proof for the notion that the Jews would, in turn, be rejected by God, exiled from their homeland and superseded by the Church as the true Israel. While this interpretation does look upon the Jews as an ethnic group (set apart, for example, by circumcision), the conclusion reached is that Justins arguments are about religion and not about race or ethnicity. To wit: a Jew who accepted Christ as Messiah would be included in true Israelthough as a Christian, not as a Jew. This leads us to the second school of thought, which seeks to contrast, for example, the attitudes of Hitler from those of Justin. According to this view, Hitlers Mein Kampf would rightly be called anti-Semitism, while Justins Dialogue would be placed into a
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/WilhelmM arr.html
148

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER different category: anti-Judaism. So-called anti-Judaism is said to describe theological arguments against the Jews without reference to ethnic or racial categories. In my view, however, this definition over-simplifies the situation, creating a false dichotomy between hatred of Jews based on religion and that based upon race. As an alternative to these terms and the artificial distinction they involve, I propose the term anti-Jewish. Such a term synthesizes the notions of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism while taking into account the broad spectrum that exists between them. It has been argued that original Christian animosity toward the Jews was based upon religious, rather than racial or ethnic, differences. This is true, but it is also true that Justins Dialogue presupposes certain ethnic distinctions as well. For example, Justin saw circumcision as a religious act that set Jews off as a people designated by God for special punishment. The religious act thus identified its practitioners in ethnic terms, as a people distinct from the nationsor, perhaps more appropriately translated, the Gentiles. The far-reaching implications of Justins theological use of the historical argument, as well as the underlying ethnic tone of a Gentile Christian attacking the Jews as a nation set apart for special punishment, must not escape our notice. But having said this, care must be taken to avoid making too much of the double entendre in the Greek word . This term, which can rightly be translated either as nations or Gentiles, does not necessarily connote race as understood by modern readers. Rather, race remains the product of a later age, and we must read this notion back into ancient texts, at the risk of making Justin a proto-Nazi. While Justins accusations against the Jews may have contained an ethnic component, this comes only secondarily to his main argument, based upon a theological construct, based upon his particular reading of Scripture. As the Church began to function and develop on its own, Christian membership became increasing Gentile. For these 92

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Gentiles, Jewish heritage was at best somewhat familiar, especially for those God-fearers who had been affiliated with Judaism to one degree or another before their conversion. At worst, Jewish thought and practice was foreign material altogether. When the Gentile church, forced to answer Judaism, turned to Scripture and apostolic teaching for answers, it turned first of all to the Scripture that it held in common with Judaism. Given the fact that apostolic teaching included a tradition that repudiated the Law as the way to salvation, it is not surprising that a Gentile Church concluded that the Law given to the Jews was not applicable to Christians. When those same Scriptures and tradition were read with a more radical viewpoint, they seemed to repudiate Jewish religion in general, despite the fact that Paul had contended that the Gentile vine was being grafted onto the root of Israel, and not vice versa.149 But if the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. marked a watershed in Christian interpretation of Genesis 49:10, one would expect to see the so-called historical argument reflected in the New Testament writings themselves. It is not, and Justin, writing in the mid-second century, seems to be the earliest written record of this particular interpretation. Why this is the case may be lost to history. We can only assume that it existed as a kind of oral tradition, for Justin seems to have inherited rather than coined it himself. Irrespective of when this particular allegory came into existence, it is clear that certain historical eventse.g., the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E., the Roman dictum that no Jew was to re-enter Jerusalem after the Bar Kochba rebellion, and the resultant Diaspora of the Jewish peoplebecame a lens through which later Christians read Genesis 49:10 as a prophecy fulfilled, the Jews rejected, punishment imposed, and a Gentile Christian Church chosen to take their place. With this as background, we return to the Dialogue With Trypho. If Justins Dialogue represents actual exchanges between Jews and
149

See Romans 11:17-24.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Christians, then how do we reconcile the apparent amiability between Justin and Trypho, at least at first, with Justins subsequent use of the historical argument, as a way of passing judgment upon the Jews? The answer, I believe, lies in the dual nature of the Dialogue as polemic and evangelistic tool. From this point of view, the Dialogue represents (1) Justins sincere attempts to convert Jews to Christianity and (2) the frustration resulting from his failure to do so. If, as I believe, the Dialogue is an intricate web of Justins recollection, permeated by rhetorical embellishment, it is at least possible that something like what is recorded actually occurred. History, after all, is written by the winners. No other known record exists than Justins account of the supposed two-day conversation between the Jew, Trypho, and the Christian philosopher, Justin. It is my assumption that depictions of amiability between Justin and Trypho represent one facet of second century Jewish-Christian relations, whether this represents historical fact or literary construct. Likewise, Justins repeated reversion to polemic and diatribe counter this dialogue with the other (or another) facet of these relations: Christian supersessionism. If my assumption about amiability is warrantedand if not, it remains to be seen in light of the opening and final chapters of the Dialogue, where Justin and Trypho address each other as friend then Justin was at least open to debate with Jews on a somewhat equal footing, notwithstanding his frequent polemical digressions. In other words, despite his supersessionist presuppositions (or, perhaps, because of them), Justin seems to have been motivated by an evangelistic agenda: it was his responsibility as a Christian to attempt to convert Jews, for only as Christians could they be part of true Israel. Conversely, should he fail in this regard, he would not be responsible before God for Jewish unbelief, for passages such as Genesis 49:10 proved that Jewish obstinacy and the divine retribution that followed therefrom had been foretold long before. But if Justins evangelistic spirit led to a certain openness for 94

DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? debate, his passion for Christian truth outweighed any egalitarian concern he might have for what the modern age would call interfaith dialogue. As noted above, Justin alone is the author of the Dialogue. It is no surprise, therefore, that in that debate, Trypho is simply no match for Justin, who takes in stride whatever questions or concerns his Jewish listeners raise. If Trypho is merely a literary constructa straw figureas some scholars believe, this fact becomes all the more clear. I believe, however, that there is much more to the Dialogue than a theological disputation between a Jew and a Christian. First, Justins use of the historical argument is the first explicit usage of this particular allegory. The fact that it is repeated in the writings of the Fathers, and apparently assumed by subsequent generations of Christians, points to the power of this belief, regardless of its origin. Second, Justins attitude shows just how easily theological controversy took on ethnic connotations: Justin the Gentile addressed Trypho, who is portrayed in the Dialogue as introducing himself not only as a Jew by religion, but as a Hebrew of the circumcision.150 We might posit that Tryphos introduction as Hebrew of the circumcision served two purposes. First, it clearly distinguished him from Justin, who is a Gentile Christian. Second, and more importantly, it set the stage for Justins later attacks against circumcision as the mark by which the Jews are set apart for divine punishment. While it would be anachronistic to attribute modern racist notions to Justin, the idea that a Christian held an ethnic prejudice against Jews is not outside the limits of reason.151 It seems clear, at any rate, that Justins theological attacks found an ethnic voice, echoed in his belief that by circumcision, Jews have a unique
Dial. 1. Oberman, for example, noted that Augustine cited the Roman pagan philosopher Seneca as his authority for the fact that the Jews were an arch-criminal race. See Oberman, xi.
151 150

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER identity as the recipients of divine rejection and punishment. As noted above, Justin believed this was the result of their choice to reject Jesus as the Messiah:
The other nations have not treated Christ and us, His followers, as unjustly as have you Jews, who, indeed, are the very instigators of that evil opinion they [the Gentiles] have of the Just One and of us, His disciples. After you had crucified the only sinless and just Man ... and after you realized that He had risen from the dead and had ascended into Heaven ... you not only failed to feel remorse for your evil deed, but you even dispatched certain picked men from Jerusalem to every land, to report the outbreak of the godless heresy of the Christians and to spread those ugly rumors against us which are repeated by those who do not know us. As a result, you are to blame not only for your own wickedness, but also for that of all others. With good reason, therefore, does Isaiah cry out: Because of you My name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.152

I believe that the ethnic overtones of Justins arguments point to a larger issue: the history of Christian anti-Jewish polemic is one of a progressive, slow but steady shift away from the purely theological and toward the ethnic, or perhaps more appropriately, toward a merging of the two. In this regard, there is a striking and disturbing similarity between ancient beliefs and modern propaganda. If the portrayal of Peters speech in Acts 2:23 is any indication, the earliest Christians believed that Jesus had been crucified as part of Gods plan and with Gods foreknowledge. Writing less than 100 years later, Justin placed far less emphasis on Gods plan than on Gods foreknowledge; the power of prophesy, however, is not that Jesus was sent to die for the sins of the world, but that the Jews were Christ-killers. The Jews were first accused of homicide; later generations would add a much more ominous
152

Dial. 17.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? charge: deicide.153 This may offer some explanation for the demonization of Jews in subsequent centuries. Justin seems to suggest that insofar as they persecuted Christians, the Romans were mere pawns of the Jews.154 What are we to make of this conspiracy theory, depicting Jews as behind-the-scenes agents, instigating the malevolent actions of others? More stories such as these would follow in the centuries to come. Medieval history is replete with stories of how Jews stole consecrated hosts155 from Christian churches in order to profane them in various inventive and scandalous ways. Worse yet was the so-called blood libel, the claim that Jews routinely kidnapped and murdered unbaptized Christian infants in order to cure a horrible skin disease endemic only to them. Seen in its totality, it seems clear that such folklore built upon earlier theological disputes that viewed Jews as other; Jews were the quintessential heretics within Christian society. Over time, this gave way to the Jew as outsider in a (Gentile) Christian world. Jews were depicted as foreigners in every land; hence the legend of the wandering Jew. And through it all, the religious and ethnic character of the dispute was intermixed. It seems that the later one goes in history (especially in the West), the more easily and frequently the Christ-killers were
The term Christ killer has been hurled against Jews for centuries, on the mistaken notion that they alone were responsibility for Jesus death. Apart from its other horrific implications, what is missing from this belief is the apparent lack of comprehension that, from the perspective of Christian theology as a whole, Jesus betrayal and death were necessary for the salvation of the world. 154 Dial. 96. See above, p. 39. 155 Bread (or wafers) that had been blessed by a priest for distribution at the Eucharist (Lords Supper). According to the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, this bread had been transformed into the body of Christ. As a result, the teaching was that Jews were desecrating not merely a central symbol of Christian belief, but the actual body of Christ.
153

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER seen as monsters: the religious outcast gave way to a demonic figure that existed on the very fringes of society, waiting for any opportunity to steal, deceive, strike, or kill. This blending of religious and ethnic presuppositions is prominent in Martin Luthers infamous 1543 treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies.156 Extolling an evangelical drive to convert the Jews but fed by frustration and impatience at their resistance, Luthers treatise is a response to an unidentified anti-Christian treatise, apparently of Jewish authorship, in which biblical texts were quoted in order to destroy the basis of our faith. 157 The following passage offers a glimpse into Luthers use of the now welldeveloped historical argument:
Therefore a Christian should be content and not argue with the Jews. But if you have to or want to talk with them, do not say any more than this: Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty, together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for over 1,460 years? For such a ruthless wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they assuredly have erred and gone astray. Even a child can comprehend this. For one dare not regard God as so cruel that he would punish his own people so long, so terribly, so unmercifully, and in addition keep silent, comforting them neither with words nor with deeds, and fixing no time limit and no end to it Therefore this work of wrath is proof that the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his people, and neither is he any longer their God. Yes, unfortunately, this is their lot, truly a terrible one. They may interpret this as they will; we see the facts before our eyes, and these too do not deceive us.158 Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, translated by Martin H. Bertram, Luthers Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 126-127. 157 Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, 137. 158 Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies, 138; emphases added.
156

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While Luther does not cite Genesis 49:10 in this passage, his comments do reference the presuppositions by which it is read.159 The city of Jerusalem, Jewish sovereignty, their temple and the priesthood have been destroyed for over 1460 years. For Luther, these facts stood as evidence of Gods rejection of the Jews: they were no longer Gods people, nor was God their God. Gods silence, the fact that Gods wrath had no apparent end in sight, the removal of Gods comfort in times of distressthese were cited as proof that the Jews assuredly have erred and gone astray.160

SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

This study has focused upon Justins references to the historical argument only within the Dialogue, while noting that such arguments are also present in Justins first Apology.161 As such, I believe the Dialogue represents an expansion of Justins earlier arguments. The purpose of the I Apology was to defend Christianity against various charges leveled against it by the pagans, as well as to admonish these same readers to belief in Christ. In this context, Genesis 49:10 was quoted to argue that (1) Christians, who read the predictive Scriptures, had a superior knowledge of Gods plan; (2) those same Scripture predicted that the unbelieving Jews would be banished from their homeland; and (3) the fact that the Romans themselves conquered the Jews and expelled them from Jerusalem proved that the prophecies had been fulfilled.
In fact, Luthers quotation of Genesis 49:10 does not occur until page 178 of the published translated, a full forty pages into his argument, and only after a long diatribe against Jewish pride and boasting. 160 Luther On the Jews and Their Lies, 138. 161 See, for example, I Apology 31-34.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Conversely, Justins attempt in the Dialogue was to convert Jews. As a result, Genesis 49:10 was quoted in part to prove his contention that they misread, misinterpreted, and utterly misconstrued the Scriptures. Justin further charged that Jews had been misled by the rabbis into continual error and so must abandon their adherence to the Law and embrace Christianity if they held any hope of salvation. In the Dialogue, therefore, prophecies were quoted first and foremost to convince the Jews that Jesus is the Messiah. The historical argument was part of this attempt, perhaps central to it. In detailing Justins presuppositions, I have not explored what I see as a possible connection between Justins chiliastic thinking (belief in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ on earth) and his use of the historical argument. Such a connection first occurred to me after reading an article by Robert L. Wilken on Christian chiliasm and its connection to Jewish and Christian messianism. 162 Among the early Christian writers discussed in Wilkens article is Justin Martyr, for whom the belief in a literal thousand-year reign of Christ was an orthodox Christian stance, though he admits that there are non-millenarians among the orthodox.163 If, as Wilken states, early Christian chiliasm is the obverse side of Jewish Messianismthat is, the hope that the Jews will return to the land of their ancestors, reclaim the city, rebuild the temple, and establish in Judea a kingdom ruled by Jews164there would seem to be a connection between Justins belief in a literal reign of Christ (whose coming fulfills the messianic prophecy of Genesis 49:10) and the belief that the Christians have usurped all things Jewish to become the new Israel. Since the historical argument is considered
Robert L. Wilken, Early Christian Chiliasm, Jewish Messianism, and the Idea of the Holy Land, Harvard Theological Review 79:1-3 (1986): 298-307. 163 Dial. 80. 164 Wilken, 299.
162

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? ipso facto proof of Gods rejection and abandonment of the Jews as the Chosen People, Justins chiliasm would be yet another presupposition underlying his interpretation of Genesis 49:10.

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4 AUGUSTINE AND THE JEWS: PROPHECY AND HISTORY IN CITY OF GOD

Prophecy for Augustine was no small matter. Throughout City of God, Augustine discusses many prophecies relating either directly or indirectly to Christ, which, he claims, have been fulfilled. Among these is the (replacement) of Judaism by Christianity, a situation which Augustine sees as the final culmination of Gods plans of old. In reaching this conclusion, Augustine reads both Old and New Testament texts through the lens of Genesis 49:10-12. I have termed this particular interpretation of this particular text the historical argument. As we shall see, it is through this text that Augustines interprets nearly all other texts. While on the surface, Genesis 49:10 appears cryptic and irrelevant to history, it became for Augustine the allegorical key to Christological prophecy:
Judah is a lions whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a lionesswho dares rouse him up? The scepter shall not

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depart from Judah, nor the rulers staff from between his feet, until tribute come to him; and the obedience of the people is his. Binding his foal to the vine and his donkeys colt to the choice vine, he washes his garments in wine and his robe in the blood of grapes; his eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk.165

This passage, which is referenced throughout the history of Christian apologetics, from Justin Martyr to Martin Luther,166 is seen by Augustine (as by Justin before, and Luther after him) in two important ways: first, it is ex post facto proof that Christ is the Messiah. Secondly, it is a proof-text in support of the supersessionist notion that the Church has replaced the Jews as the Chosen People. As we shall see, the two ideas are inseparably linked in Augustines argument, which redefines Israel in terms of a dichotomy pitting spiritual against physical descent from Abraham. The true children of Abraham, Augustine argues, are children by faith and according to the promise: members of the City of God not by physical descent, but by spiritual descent As such, only they are predestined to salvation, while all earthly citizens of the City of Man will be condemned. This study will focus on Augustines use of Genesis 49:10 as a lens for other prophecies concerning the coming of Christ and the establishment of the Church. In so doing, we will see how Augustine employs this lens to read not only Hebrew Bible passages, but also texts from the New Testament. The end result, as we shall see, is a decidedly supersessionist understanding of Christianity, over and against Judaism, an understanding which, I believe, undergirds the entirety of Augustines discussion of the two cities. Augustine provides a definition of these two cities in Chapter 28 of Book XIV of City of God:
165 166

Genesis 49:10-12 (NRSV); italics added. See Dialogue with Trypho and On the Jews and Their Lies, respectively.

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I classify the human race into two branches: the one consists of those who live by human standards, the other of those who live according to Gods will. I also call these two classes the two cities, speaking allegorically. By two cities I mean two societies of human beings, one of which is predestined to reign with God for all eternity, the other doomed to undergo eternal punishment with the Devil.167

In terms of their eternal destiny, the two cities are completely separate, for they are heading, so to speak, in two different directions. However, prior to the End, the two cities are mingled: citizens of the Heavenly City live and travel as pilgrims on the Earthly City. Alluding to Pauls similar division, Augustine argues that in the individual man the animal comes first, then the spiritual; all human beings are inevitably evil and carnal to begin with, but if reborn into Christ, they will afterwards be good and spiritual. Citizens of both cities are so by Gods providence: the citizen of the City of God chosen by grace, predestined to eternal life, the citizen of the Earthly City likewise predestined to damnation. Both were created from the same lump, one for honor, another for dishonor. Adam is father to both cities; the distinction between them became pronounced after Abels death at his brothers hand. Cain typifies the earthly city, represents possession; that is, undue attachment to earthly and temporal things of this world, rather than to God and the next world. Augustine states that although Cains sacrifice was rightly offered, it was not rightly divided: Cains sacrifice, though correctly done with reference to the outward act, was wrong with respect to his motivations. It is this distinction
City of God XV.1 (p. 595). Quotes and page number references are from St. Augustine, Concerning The City of God Against the Pagans, translated by Henry Bettenson, (London: Penguin Classics Series, Penguin Books, 1972, 1984).
167

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? which Augustine sees at the heart of all citizens of the earthly city, for they suppose that with this gift [offering] God is being bought over to help them, not in curing their depraved desires, but in fulfilling them, and it was precisely this mentality which Augustine attacked both with respect to paganism and with respect to the Jews persisting earthly reading of Mosaic Law: both sought to control God for their own ends, rather than trusting in God for Gods ends. Augustine next traces the lineage of the City of God through the generations of Adams son, Seth, and the earthly city through Cains line. Of particular importance is Heber, who is listed first among the descendants of Shem, Noahs oldest son, for Heber is not a direct son of Shem, but a great-great grandson. Hebers prominence at the beginning of this list is taken by Augustine as a signal of his importance, for it was for him that the Hebrew people were named, according to Augustine. Finally, Augustine points to the fact that after detailing the episode of the Tower of Babel, the biblical narrative returns to list Shems descendants. Since nothing in Scripture happens by accident, this must be to emphasize Shems descendants, namely, as those through whom the lineage City of God was to be passed down. Here again we see the complexity of Augustines argument, seeking to account for every nuance in the text. Before Babel, all humanity shared a common language; after Babel, the people were divided into many language groups, of which one was the family Heber. It was to these people, Augustine concludes, that the Hebrew language, original to all humanity, was passed on. Augustine then continues to trace the City of God, beginning with Abrahams father, Terah, whom Augustine credits for preserving the worship of the one true God. Abraham plays a prominent role in Pauls understanding of salvation history, which Augustine quotes widely. This prominence is mirrored in Augustines lists of three promises which God made to Abraham: 105

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1. Abraham and his descendants will be blessed and given a great name, and a great nation will arise from Abrahams seed (Genesis 12:1ff). 2. The land of Canaan will be given to Abrahams seed (Genesis 12:7). 3. The land of Canaan will be given to Abrahams seed forever (Genesis 13:8ff). Like Paul, Augustine takes these promises about Abrahams posterity to be representative of spiritual descendants according to faith. As such, he is able in Chapter 21 of Book XVI to make a statement which is a startling foreshadowing of his later argument:
At any rate, no one doubts that the only land referred to here is the country called Canaan. Yet the statement, I shall give it to you and to your seed for ever, may puzzle some people, if they take for ever (usque in saeculum) to mean for eternity. If, on the other hand, they accept the word saeculum here in accordance with our confident belief that the beginning of the future era (saeculum) starts with the end of the present era, there will be nothing to puzzle them. For even though the Israelites have been expelled from Jerusalem, they still remain in other cities of the land of Canaan, and they will remain there to the end. And the whole land, being inhabited by Christians, is itself the seed of Abraham.168

Israel, as well as forever, is reinterpreted in terms of faith in Christ, rather than physical descent from Abraham. The covenant of Sinai has been replaced by the covenant in Christ; those who believe in Christ are now rightly called Israel. The giving of Canaan to Israel is fulfilled by Christians inhabiting that land!
168

City of God XVI.21 (p. 680).

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Augustine also connects the blessing of Abraham by Melchizedek to the Letter to the Hebrews, alluding to that letters Christological interpretation of Psalm 110:1: Christ is the new, final high priest. Claiming that the blessing of Abraham is a prophetic foreshadowing of Christs coming, Augustine reminds his readers that Christ came not in the line of the Aaronic, but of the Melchizedek priesthood, for the Aaronic line was destined to be abolished when the events prefigured by these shadows came to the light of day [i.e., when Christ was at last revealed]. 169 Read through the lens of Genesis 49:10, this notion carries strongly supersessionist overtones: Judaism has been replaced by Christianity. All this leads up to Augustines treatment of the classic text on Gods predestination and providence: Galatians 4:21-5:1. Abrahams two sons, both born of Abrahams seed, are symbols of the two cities, with the former (earthly) standing as a testimony to the latter (heavenly). Those in the earthly city (typified by Ishmael) are born according to the flesh, through normal human reproduction, while Isaac was born by a promise, a symbol of Gods grace.170 Most importantly, God promised Abraham that his descendants would carry on Abrahams name through Isaac, a promise which Augustine takes to be symbolic of Isaacs special status. only the sons of the promise are true heirs, that is, heirs according to faith. The same division applies to Abrahams three wives. Sarah, his first wife, gave her servant Hagar to Abraham to bear him the son she was unable to have; Hagar was later sent away, and when Sarah died, Abraham took another wife, Keturah. But only Sarah is Abrahams true wife, for
[here] we see both of them called wives; but they [Hagar and Keturah] are both also found to have been concubines,
169 170

City of God XVI.22 (p. 680) City of God VI.3 (p. 598).

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for the Scripture goes on to say, Now Abraham gave all his property to his son Isaac; and to the sons of this concubines Abraham gave presents, and sent them away from his son Isaac, in his own lifetime, to the east, to the eastern lands.171

Emphasizing the dichotomy between son of Sarah and sons of the concubines, Augustine concludes: Thus the sons of the concubines have some gifts, but they do not come to the promised kingdomneither the heretics nor the Jews by physical descent because there is no heir except Isaac.172 This distinction between heir and non-heir drives Augustine forward, as we turn to his allegory of the story of Rebeccas twins, borrowed from Pauls letter to the Romans. 173 Quoting the Genesis account, Augustine lays out the first of several interpretations in defense of his supersessionist claims:
Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will derive their separate existence from your belly. One of the peoples will overcome the other, and the elder will be servant to the younger.174

This passage serves Augustines argument for predestination rather nicely, for, before either of these twins were born, God chose one over the other and foresaw that in complete contradiction to the normal social order, the elder would serve the younger. Interpreting allegorically, Augustine also finds a rationale for his claims:

171 172

Augustine, quoting Genesis 25:1ff; City of God XVI.35 (p. 697). City of God XVI.35 (p. 697) 173 See Romans 9.10-12. 174 Augustine, quoting Genesis 25:23; ibid.

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the younger was chosen, without any question of merit, while the elder was rejected. As for the statement The elder will be servant to the younger, hardly anyone of our people has taken it as meaning anything else but that the older people of the Jews was destined to serve the younger people, the Christians. Now it is true that this prophecy might seem to have been fulfilled in the nation of the Idumaeans for the Idumaeans were later to be overcome by the people descended from the younger son, that is by the Israelites. But in fact it is more appropriate to believe that the prophetic statement, One of these peoples will overcome the other, and the elder will be servant to the younger, was intended to convey some more important meaning. And what can this meaning be except a prophecy which is now being clearly fulfilled in the Jews and the Christians?175

The second prophecy in support of supersession is Jacobs tricking his brother out of the birth-right and blessing. Augustine retells the story in terms of Christ, Law and Prophets: Isaac is the Law and Prophets; and Christ is blessed by the Law and the Prophets, even by the lips of Jews, as by someone who does not know what he is doing, because the Law and the Prophets are themselves not understood. The Jews bless Christ even while they curse him, for they fail to see how Christ fulfills the Law and the Prophets. It is Christ whom the nations serve, and to whom the princes do reverence. Christians, who are the children of Abraham according to spiritual descent, have received the blessing and the inheritance in Christ. The fact that Isaac is not angry at his sons trickery becomes for Augustine a prophetic sign of the truth of this interpretation: the blessing is not revoked because the great mystery [sacramentum] is straightway revealed to Isaac in the depths of his heart. The sacramentum, an event with allegorical significance, forming part of the divine plan, is fulfilled in Christ,
175

City of God XVI.35 (p. 698).

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER for it was to Christ that the writers of the Hebrew Bible prophetically looked forward. Clearly Augustine concludes that Jacob knew this in the depths of his heart and therefore let the blessing stand. That the elder (the Jews) will serve the younger (Christians) is made explicit in Augustines third example of prophecy: his interpretation of Genesis 49:10-12, quoted above, which I see as the climax of his argument. Augustine first addressed this Genesis text in his treatise against Faustus, where he argued for just the ex post facto proof cited above: your brothers will praise you is fulfilled, because all Christians praise Christ. Their (Christians) hands are on the necks of the enemies after the growth of Christianity throughout the world, even in spite of opposition. Those who praise Christ are the sons of Judah; the sons of the promise, are saved according to election by grace. Christ is the lions whelp: ascending the cross, he bowed down and gave up his spirit to death; sleeping as a lion, He is raised up by Him whom no man hath seen or can see. As we have seen, the key verse is Genesis 49:10:
The scepter shall not pass from Judah, nor the rulers staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him; and the obedience of the peoples is his.176

Like Justin Martyr before him and Martin Luther after him, Augustine argues that the scepter, or power of the Jewish monarchy, did not fully pass from Jewish hands until the time of Christ:
For we learn from the authentic history of the Jews themselves, that Herod, under whom Christ was born, was their first foreign king. So the scepter did not depart from
176

Quote from NRSV

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the seed of Judah till the things laid up for him [Christ] came.177

Augustines translation of this passage reads, he is the desire of the nations, to emphasize that it is through faith in Christ that believers, including Gentiles, share in the inheritance. And so
it is Christ himself in whom the promises made to Judah have been laid up; and until these things come to fulfillment princes from that stockthat is, the kings of Israelhave never been lacking.178

That the Jews have rejected Christ was prophesied in a forth example of prophecy: the story of the blessing of the Josephs sons. When Jacob blessed them, he crossed his hands, (an action itself rife with allegorical possibility, which Augustine either missed or ignored), intentionally placing his right hand on the younger brother, symbolic that:
This one also will become a prophet, and he will be exalted; but his younger brother will be greater than he, and his descendants will become a great multitude of nations.179

Given Augustines earlier equation of Jews as the elder and Christians as the younger, the conclusion is clear: the blessing of Jacobs sons is an allegory describing the supersession of Judaism by Christianity. That the elder should serve the younger fulfills the Old Testament theme of Gods choice of one over another, a theme resounded in Paul. In Augustines usage, however, this theme is given both a Christological and supersessionist spin by reading it
177 178

City of God, XII City of God ___ 179 [reference]

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER through Genesis 49:10. Because this prophecy is fulfilled in Christ, and the identity of Chosen People has passed from Jews to Christians, the prophecy concerning the elder serving the younger is also seen as fulfilled. It is, in short, an argument from history. The supersession of Jews by Christians is made even more explicit in a fifth prophecy: the 1 Samuel story where Eli is addressed by the man of God. The Aaronic priesthood will be displaced from Gods service, Eli is informed, an action which Augustine argues was not finally fulfilled in Samuel himself. Rather, this text hints at the final displacement of the old covenant of Sinai with the new covenant in Christ. Again alluding to Psalm 110, Augustine states that the Aaronic priesthood is superseded by the priesthood of Melchizedek, whose high priest is Christ. Everyone of your housewill fall by the sword not literally, but symbolically, for Aarons line is being superseded, even though its members live on. Those who survive will do him (Christ) obeisance, for a remnant will be saved. Noting that in his time, the temple is destroyed and the Jewish people scattered throughout the world, Augustine ponders rhetorically about what else this could be, but a fulfillment of prophecy. The notion of Aarons priesthood being superseded is also linked to Sauls kingship, Augustines sixth example of prophecy. God foreknew Sauls sin, and besides, Saul was not destined to rule forever, anyway, for
God had designed his kingship to be a prefigurement of the eternal kingship . . . Thus what was symbolized in that kingdom endured, and will endure; but the kingship will not endure for Saul, since he was not destined to reign for ever, nor was his line.180

180

City of God XVII.6 (p. 730).

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? The kingship of Israel was to pass to David, among whose descendants was the true King: Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.181 The kingdom is torn from Saul and given to a neighbor of yours, who is better than you. 182 Of course, this tearing and giving takes place with reference to physical kingship, but Augustine references another, spiritual meaning. Citing an alternative translation (good, above you), Augustine again alludes to Christs fulfillment of Psalm 110: Christ, who is above David, has been given the kingdom, as God had always intended, while his enemies have become his footstool.183 And since Israel (by which Augustine here means unbelieving Jews) is one of the enemies of Christ, the passage points to Christs messianic reign as the rightful heir to the kingship torn from Israel, a fulfillment of Genesis 49:10! The verse, and Israel will be divided into two, is taken by Augustine to mean the two parts of Israel, corresponding to the two cities. The division is final, for God will not change Gods mind or go back on Gods word, and whoever passes over from one group (or city) to the other is merely going to where they belong. The division is also pronounced: those who believe in Christ will have nothing to do with the non-believers, for the two groups are forever separate, and so long as the Law is read and held in esteem above Christ, a veil is laid on their [Jews] hearts, but if (or when) they accept Christ as Messiah, the veil will be taken away.184 The message is abundantly clear: given their rejection of Christ,
Matthew 1:1 (NRSV); though not quoted by Augustine, this text fits well with his tracing of the lineage from Abraham through David to Christ. 182 1 Samuel 13:28. 183 The Lord says to my lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool (Psalm 110:1, NRSV). 184 City of God XVII.7 (p. 733); cf. 2 Cor. 3:15f.
181

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER unbelieving Jews have themselves been rejected. This rejection has occurred according to Gods providence, and was foretold by the prophecies cited above. The scepter has passed from Judah indeed, it passed almost 300 years before Augustines own time and the Jewish people are now scattered across the face of the earth, while Christians inhabit the land of Canaan. History is prima facie evidence in Augustines case; the triumph of Christianity refutes any Jewish claims to the contrary and forever proves the supersession of the Jewish religion. And yet, Augustine does not teach the condemnation of all Jews, for Israel is defined in terms of spiritual, rather than physical, descent. And so we turn to the final judgment, where Augustine interprets Malachi 4:5-6185 in what may seem a surprisingly inclusive way: on the Last Day, Jews will be convertedbut not all of them. Before Christ comes, Elijah will come to teach them the spiritual understanding of the Law, and only then will they begin to interpret the law as their fathersthat is, the prophets, including Moses himselfinterpreted it. Then Elijah will
turn the heart of God the Father towards the Son, not, of course, by causing the Father to love the Son, but by teaching men that the Father loves the Son, so that the Jews also, who first hated the Son, will love this same Son, who is our Christ.186

Elijah will teach the Jews that the Father, whom they worship as God, loves Christ. The Jews will thus come to understand that Jesus of Nazareth is the promised Messiah; they will repent and believe,
See, I shall send you Elija the Tishbite, before the great and splendid Day of the Lord; and he will turn the heart of the father to the son and the heart of a man to his neighbour, so that in my coming I may not utterly shake the earth. (Augustines translation, City of God XX.29, p. 957) 186 City of God XX.29 (p. 957).
185

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? and be saved. Quoting Zechariah 12:9-10,187 Augustine states that on that day the Jews will repent for gloating over Jesus suffering and death and will recognize Jesus as the one who formerly came in humility, whom they mocked at in the persons of their parents.188 And yet not all the Jews will be saved, for those saved will only be the children of those who once mocked and killed Jesus. Their parents will rise on that day, but to punishment, for it is only upon the children that mercy and grace will be given. The implications of Augustines eschatology are provocative: the Jews have failed to see that the prophecy concerning the passing of the scepter from Judah (climaxing in the destruction of Jerusalem) was fulfilled with the coming of Christ. Rather than turn to God in Christ, they have persisted in their reading of the Law, a reading which is temporal and earthly, rather than spiritual. And so the kingdom has been taken from them, not so much as punishment (though this is among its function) as a fulfillment of Gods will. Saul was never intended to rule forever; his throne has been usurped by Davids line culminating in Christ; the Aaronic priesthood has been superseded by the priesthood of Melchizedek, whose high priest is Christ. The only hope for Jews is to turn from their misreading of the Law and their possession of earthly things and embrace the spiritual things of God. As such, they also show themselves to be true members of the City of God, destined for heavenly glory. Perhaps more provocative, however, is Augustines explanation of why God has allowed Jews to continue as Jews. The answer is as
When that day comes, I shall seek to remove all the nations who come against Jerusalem; and I shall pour out over the house of David and over the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and mercy. Then they will look at me because they have gloated over me; and they will mourn for him as if for one very dear, and they will grieve as men grieve for an only son (Augustines translation, City of God XX.30, p. 960). 188 City of God XX.30 (p. 960).
187

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER simple as it is disturbing: in refusing to believe in Christ, Jews fulfill their own scriptures. Some, indeed, have believed, and make up the remnant, who are part of the City of God. As for the rest, Augustine argues that their unbelief, and thus, their fate, was also foretold in a seventh prophecy:
As for my God, his mercy will go before me; my God has shown me this in the case of my enemies. Do not slay them, lest at some time they forget your Law; scatter them by your might.189

Rather than destroy them altogether, God has chosen to scatter them across the world; in fact, there are Jews in every land in which Christianity exists, according to Augustine. And although [the Jews are] conquered and oppressed by the Romans, God has not put a total end to their existence as Jews, for fear that they should forget the Law of God and thus fail to bear convincing witness to the truth of the Christian Gospel (a fulfillment of Genesis 49:10).190 And so the Jews function as a witness to the truth of Christian claims about Jesus, unwitting pawns in Gods plan to spread the Gospel. The Diaspora thus serves a dual function: punishment for Jewish unbelief and (ironically) evangelical device for the spread of Christianity.
[For] if they lived with that testimony of the Scriptures only in their own land, and not everywhere, the obvious result would be that the Church, which is everywhere, would not have them available among all nations as witnesses to the prophecies which were given beforehand concerning Christ.191

189 190

Psalm 59:11 (Augustines translation, City of God XVIII.46 (p. 828). City of God XVIII.46 (p. 828). 191 Ibid.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Throughout this paper, I have suggested that Augustines interpretation of Genesis 49:10 stands at the heart of his treatment of the Jewish question192 and acts as the hermeneutic tool for his other interpretive work. If Christ is Messiah, and the Jews do not believe this, they are part of the earthly city destined for damnation. The special status of Israel as Chosen People is defined spiritually, not physically. Jewish identity by physical descent alone is no guarantee of salvation apart from belief in Christ. The fact that the Jews are spread around the world, providing a witness to the truth of Christian claims, is further historical proof of Christian claims, and a fulfillment of the very prophetic text (Genesis 49:10) through which Augustine reads all others. In the end, Augustines thoughts are part of a larger tradition of Jewish/Christian polemic, directly traceable to Justin Martyrs work in the second century, and perhaps indirectly linked to the New Testament itself. In its historical perspective, supersessionism may be the natural outgrowth of a sibling rivalry: the final victory of one faction of first-century Judaism193 over another. Whatever
The ominous overtones of this term are both obvious and intentional, for the Genesis 49:10 text, used as it has been in Christian supersessionist theology, is just as easily made to serve anti-Jewish political ends, such as Hitler and the modern white supremacist movements. A good example is Luthers treatise On the Jews and Their Lies (cited above), as theological justification for hatred and genocide. 193 It is important to note that Judaism was not a monolith structure, but rather (not unlike modern Christianity) a disparate collection of worldviews with some features that were common and others that were unique to each group. The Essenes retreated to the desert in protest of the impurity they perceived around the Temple in Jerusalem. Pharisees and Sadducees had differing views on the afterlife. Zealots were committed to a very literal coming of Messiah, rather than the more figurative language used by others. Finally, those Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah proclaimed that the prophecies were fulfilled and
192

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER its ultimate cause, the effect of this idea has been profound, stretching even into the modern day. Like all of Augustines theology, his conclusions concerning the historical fulfillment of prophecy reach out from the past to encompassindeed, to underlaymuch of the Western Christian theological tradition of supersessionism.

the End was near. All of these groups nonetheless saw themselves as Jews, with commitment to the holy writings (e.g., the Law and Prophets) and a shared view that however defined, they were to remain separate and pure over-and-against Gentilesand even each other!

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5 LUTHERS VIEW OF HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN ON THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES
INTRODUCTION
The subject of Luther and the Jews has received a great deal of attention in recent years, particularly as Christians and Jews reflection the Holocaust, its roots in Western Christianity and the degree to which Christianity is responsible for the Holocaust. Such reflection has also brought about a debate concerning Martin Luthers statements against the Jews in the sixteenth century, as well as Hitlers use of these statements as justification of racial hatred in the twentieth century. My purpose, however, is not to delve into the controversial issue of Luther as an proto-Nazi, but rather to focus upon Luthers 1543 treatise, On the Jews and Their Lies, to examine Luthers use of the so-called historical argument. It was this argument, adopted by Luther from medieval tradition, that was used as proof for the rejection of Jews as the Chosen People.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Luthers use of the historical argument is directly related to his Christological interpretation of the Bible, which, in turn, fed Luthers over-arching theme: the Jews have been exiled from their homeland of Palestine, Jerusalem and the Temple for 1500 years. In light of this fact, Luther continued, how can they still call themselves Gods elect, rejecting the Gospel and its Messiah in favor of their legalistic Judaism? Our study will focus upon Luthers use of Genesis 49:10, one of several proof-texts he uses in On the Jews and Their Lies. Luther insisted that the passage prophesied about Christ, who had come fifteen hundred years ago. Luther further argues that, on the basis of the historical argument, the Jews no longer hold claim to Chosen People status before God: they have been rejected by God for rejecting and killing his Messiah. To begin, we shall examine the context of Luthers treatise, his reasons for writing, and the anti-Jewish polemics which likely influenced his thinking. We shall then examine Luthers argument concerning the Genesis passage within the context of his historical argument; we shall then examine other information helpful drawn from editorial notes in The American Edition of Luthers Works as it is helpful. Finally, we shall consider the implications of this study for the modern debate, focusing upon how Luther is to be interpreted.

CONTEXT OF THE CONTROVERSY

Luthers stated purpose in writing On the Jews and Their Lies was to respond to a Jewish apologetic which, by way of a dialog between a Jew and a Christian, had dismissed Christianitys interpretation of Scripture.194 Yet, as Luther states at the beginning
This pamphlet, which has never been identified, may well have been the source for some of the statements about Jewish teaching and practice which are cited about Luther in his treatise and which are not
194

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? of the treatise, he came not to quarrel with the Jews, nor to learn from them how they interpret or understand Scripture; nor did he propose to convert the Jews, for that is impossible.195 Rather, his purpose was to counsel and educate his fellow Christians, warning them about the Jews and admonishing them not to listen to anything the Jews may say, especially about the Scriptures. Luther had this advice for those engaged in dialog with the Jews:
[If] you have to or want to talk with them, do not say any more than this: Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty, together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for over 1,460 years? For this year, which we Christians write as the year 1542 since the birth of Christ, is exactly 1468 years, going on fifteen hundred years, since Vaspasian destroyed Jerusalem and expelled the Jews from the city.196

Here we see the historical argument as Luther uses it: the fact of Gods wrath was sufficient evidence that the Jews had gone astray, for God would not have so cruelly punished the Chosen People (destroyed the temple and Jerusalem, exiled them from their land) without good reason. It is also clear that Luthers view of history is linked to a Christological interpretation of Scripture: the Jews have been rejected by God for 1500 years and are no longer the chosen people for one and only one reason--they have rejected Jesus as the Christ. We now skip ahead in the treatise, as pages 140-176 (constituting Part I) are devoted to a discussion of false boasts of the Jews and are unimportant for our study. In passing it should be
traceable to other authorities. Luthers Works Volume 47, p. 133, n. 36 [hereafter LW]. 195 LW 47:137. 196 LW 47:138. Luther assumes the date 74 C.E. for the destruction of Jerusalem, rather than the date of 70 C.E. accepted by scholars.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER noted that Luther labels these boasts works-righteousness, an accusation which was main-stay against all his opponents: either one believes in faith alone or in works-righteousness; there is no middle ground. Part II begins with Luther reminding his readers that the Jews still await the Messiah, even though Messiah came 1500 years ago! Rather than listen to the truth of the Gospel, however, the Jews have
turned a deaf ear to us [Christians] in the past and still do so, although many fine scholarly people, including some from their own race, have refuted them so thoroughly that even stone and wood, if endowed with a particle of reason, would have to yield Their accursed rabbis, who indeed know better, wantonly poison the minds of their poor youth and of the common man and divert them from the truth.197

Two important things stand out in this quote: (1) Luther speaks of Jewish stubbornness in rejecting Christian truth-claims about Jesus; (2) Luther specifically names the rabbis as a cause (or, more appropriately, the cause) of Jewish blindness in interpreting Scripture. This blindness is also attributed to the Turks and papists, who with the Jews share in Gods terrible wrath and incomprehensible judgment because of their unwillingness to hear the truth: i.e., the Gospel as Luther preaches it.198 Nevertheless, Luther continues, it is helpful to
discuss their senseless folly among ourselves, [both] for the strengthening of our faith and as a warning to weak Christians against the Jews. . . .That the Jews do not believe us it does not concern us; we believe their accursed glosses LW 47:176. In reference to some from their own race, Luther is thinking of converted Jews whose anti-Judaic writings were current during his lifetime. 198 LW 47:177.
197

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
still less . . .We have a better knowledge of Scripture, thanks be to God; this we are certain of, and all the devils shall never deprive us of it, much less the miserable Jews.199

Many scholars have argued that anti-Jewish polemic is based not upon actual experience or knowledge of Jews and Judaism, but upon perceived beliefs and practices of their community of faith. Such perceptions, the argument follows, may not be accurate, depending on the level of bias with which such information is collected. It is important to remember that much of Luthers perception of Jewish belief and practice came from medieval tradition, which taught that Jews blasphemed Christ and the Virgin Mary, desecrated the host of the Lords Supper and committed other contemptuous acts against the Church. The accuracy of such perceptions may be questioned, however, in light of a study by Joshua Trachtenberg200 on medieval anti-Jewish folklore. As we shall see, it is quite reasonable to conclude that Luther not only knew of these materials, but that he had read them and was, in fact, quite familiar with the ideas they put forth. Certainly, it is clear from Luthers writings that he was familiar with the Church polemics, since it was from this tradition that his use of the historical argument derives. We now turn from the historical context to the actual text itself, to see how Luther interprets Genesis 49:10 as a proof-text for his view of history.

THE JEWS AND DIVINE JUDGMENT

Luther used the Genesis 49:10 text on several occasions, drawing upon its messianic character as proof for his claims
LW 47:177ff. Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943).
200 199

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER about the rejection of the Jews. As we shall see, he reads each word very carefully, critically translating the text to support his thesis. We begin, therefore, with the text: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.201 According to Luther, the ancient, true Jews understood this verse correctly, as we Christians do. This correct understanding is that
the government or scepter should remain with the tribe of Judah until the advent of the Messiah [to whom would be] the obedience of the people.202

The scepter would not be confined to the tribe of Judah, but, as the prophets later explain, it shall be extended to all peoples on earth at the time of the Messiah. As further evidence, Luther quotes from the Chaldaean Bible: The sultan shall not be put away from the house of Judah nor the saphra from his childrens children eternally until the Messiah comes, whose is the kingdom, and the peoples will make themselves obedient to him.203 The Hebrew term shebet, Luther explains, denotes a mace or royal rod held by a king or judge while in his official capacity. The Chaldaean translation uses the word shultan instead of shebet, substituting the person who bears this rod (a prince, lord or king) for the rod itself. Thus, a prince, lord or king shall not depart from Judah until Messiah comes. Luther translated the Hebrew mehoqeq (translated rulers staff in the NRSV) as master or one who
Luther translates this verse as until Shiloh comes, omitting the phrase nor the rulers staff from between his feet, until tribute comes to him when quoting the verse (see LW 47:178, n. 39; emphasis added). 202 LW 47:178. 203 Ibid.
201

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? teaches, so that the ehoqeq, i.e., master, will not be taken from between his feet. According to Luther, this means that teachers and listeners who sit at their [the rulers] feet will remain in an orderly government.204 Luther further contends that a country must have two things in order to survive: power and law. These are inseparable, since the ruler (who holds the power) must rule within the guidance of the law
for wherever sheer power prevails without the law, where the sultan is guided by his arbitrary will and not by duty, there is no government, but tyranny...205

Now we see how Luther ties these together into his argument. The councilors who gathered in Jerusalem, coming from the tribe of Judah, were called the Sanhedrin. However, King Herod did away with the Sanhedrin, placing himself as sultan and saphra (scribe) over Israel. Herod was an Edomite, a foreigner; with his ascension to the throne, the scepter passed from Judah and it was time for Messiah to come and occupy the throne of David forever, as Isaiah 9:6 prophesied. Luther now argues, on the basis of Genesis 49:9, that Judah has been enthroned and established [as] a kingdom which no one could overwhelm, for Jacob had established, ordained, and confirmed the kingdom, the sultan, the rod, the saphra in the tribe of Judah. Continuing into verse 10, Luther argues that since the sultan will remain until Shiloh comes; Judah will remain intact as a nation until Messiah comes; it will have enemies, but they will not

204 205

LW 47:181. LW 47:181.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER prevail against it.206 Luther also sees the Holy Spirit speaking in defense of Judah:
This kingdom in the tribe of Judah is mine, and no one shall take it from me, no matter how angry and mighty he may be, even if the gates of hell should try...And when he [Messiah] does appear, the kingdom will become far different and still more glorious. For since you [the Devil and the Gentiles] would not tolerate the tribe of Judah in a little, narrow corner, I shall change him into a truly strong lion who will become sultan and saphra in all the world. I will do this in such a way that he will not draw a sword nor shed a drop of blood, but the nations will voluntarily and gladly submit themselves to him and obey him. Such shall be his kingdom. For after all, the kingdom and all things are his.207

Clearly, Luther sees Genesis 49:10 as a prophecy foretelling the coming of the Messiah: until the time of Herod, the sultan remained within Judah (i.e., the throne of Israel was held by a member of the tribe of Judah). When Herod ascended the throne, this line of succession was broken and the scepter passed from Judah. Thus, the time of Messiah had truly arrived, according to Jacobs prophecy: the co-incidents of Christs incarnation on earth and Herods ascension to the throne of Israel is no coincidence at all.

LW 47:182. The NRSV reads: Judah is a lions whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches down, he stretches out like a lion, like a lioness--who dares rouse him up? 207 LW 47:183.

206

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LUTHERS RESPONSE TO COUNTER-INTERPRETATIONS

In Luthers mind, the only correct interpretation of Genesis 49:10 was a Christological reading of the text; any other reading, which might suggest that Messiahs coming had nothing to do with the destruction of Israel, would make God out as a liar. Luther knew that the Jews continued to await the Messiah, refuting the Christian claim that Jesus was the anointed one of God. In doing this, Luther argued, Jews call God a liar who breaks his promises. It was quite simple: either Messiah had come 1500 years ago before Luthers time or God and the Scriptures lie for saying that he did.
What do you hope to accomplish by engaging an obstinate Jew in a long dispute on this? For this verse, the scepter shall not depart from Judah is as clear and plain as the verse, God created heaven and earth. And the fact that this scepter has been removed from Judah for almost fifteen hundred years is a patent and manifest as heaven and earth are, so that one can readily perceive that the Jews are not simply erring and misled but that they are maliciously and willfully denying and blaspheming the recognized truth in violation of their conscience. Nobody should consider such a person worthy of wasting a single word on him, even if it dealt with [a swindler or impostor], much less if it deals with such exalted divine words and works.208

Here again we see a central premise of Luthers historical argument: the Jews are not merely blinded, but actively and intentionally deny the truth about Christ and the Gospel. They fully understand the divinity of Christ, yet continuing to follow their own tradition. As we shall see, Luther sees the Jews as the Devils
208

LW 47:184.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER foremost advocates and servants on the earth, both by their own choice and by the Devils trickery. In showing how the Jews actively reject Christ, Luther attacks Jewish glosses of the Genesis 49:10 text, which are taken (according to an editors note) from his sources in anti-Jewish literature.209 The first of these glosses adheres to the text, but
twist and turn as follows: To be sure, they say, Gods promise is certain; but our sins prevent the fulfillment of the promise. Therefore we still look forward to it until we have atoned, etc.210

Judaism, according to Luther, is works-righteousness: the way in which all religions move when absent from the Gospel. In assuming that they must cleanse themselves of sin before God will send the Messiah, the Jews make it imperative upon themselves to usher in the Messiahs reign by their own good works. Luther vehemently attacks the idea that Gods promise rests on human righteousness, calling it blasphemous and stating that it accuses God of lying. Furthermore, it implies that God would have to become truthful once again by reason of our righteousness.211 Against this self-righteousness, Luther throws several quotes (Psalm 130:3; 143:2) to show that no man is righteous before God and arguing on the basis of Deuteronomy 9:5 that the promised land was not given
because of your [Israels] righteousness; for you are a stubborn and disobedient people, but because of the promise which the Lord gave to your fathers.212 LW 47:185, n. 51. LW 47:185. 211 LW 47:185; italics added. 212 Ibid; Luther adds in parentheses: It seems to me that this [Israels stubbornness] may indeed be called sin.
210 209

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?

It is true, Luther admits, that if Gods promise is conditional, the fulfillment of a prescribed action is necessary on our part before Gods action can be realized. But the coming of the Messiah is not a conditional agreement; it requires no human action.
For [God] does not say: If you do this or that, then the Messiah will come; if you fail to do it, he will not come. But he promises him unconditionally, saying: The Messiah will come at the time when the scepter has departed from Judah. Such a promise is based only on divine truth and grace, which ignores and disregards our doings. That renders this subterfuge of the Jews inane, and, moreover, very blasphemous.213

Luther now attacks interpretations which depart from the text to claim that Shiloh is the city where the Ark of the Covenant was kept. Thus, the scepter shall not depart from Judah until Saul is anointed king of Shiloh. This Luther calls foolish prattle, saying that neither Judah nor Israel as a whole even had a scepter prior to Saul. How then could it depart from Judah when Saul became king? In support of his position, Luther quotes from Gideons speech214, arguing that there was not a judge from Judah (with the possible exception of Othniel, Joshuas immediate successor) who ruled over Israel. Finally, Luther cites I Samuel 10 to show that Saul was anointed king in Ramath and confirmed at Gilgal. Again and again in his argument, Luther returns to the text: Jacob is referring to one Israel: one nation, one people, one body of laws. Accordingly, Jacobs claim that the obedience of the peoples will be Shilohs means that other nations would fall to Shiloh; Shiloh is the Messiah, not the name of a town. The
LW 47:187. Italics added. Judges 8:23 (NRSV): I will not rule over you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over you.
214 213

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER problem, of course, is the

stubbornness of the Jews, who will not submit to this saying of Jacob, although they stand convicted by their own conscience.215

These stubborn Jews stand in the way of what God has willed to happen. They will not submit to the power and authority of Shiloh, even though the scepter has passed from Judah and with it, their right (or privilege) to be self-governing. Thus, the fact that Israel does not fall to Shiloh is not a blessing, but a curse, since it means they do not share in the glory of Messiahs kingdom. Luther now attacks a second group, who claim that Shiloh refers to King Jeroboam, crowned in Shiloh, to whom ten tribes of Israel defected from Rehoboam, the king of Judah (I Kings 12). This group, Luther tells us, changed the text to read: The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh, that is, Jeroboam, comes. Luther attack this idea on several points:
1. Jeroboam was crowned in Shechem, not Shiloh.216 2. It follows, therefore, that the scepter did not leave the house of Judah, since I Kings 12:20 goes on to say that there was no one who followed the tribe of David, except the tribe of Judah alone. 3. The priesthood, worship and temple remained in Judah until the fall of Jerusalem (70 C.E.) 4. Jeroboam did not conquer Judah, nor did other nations fall to him, as they were to fall to Shiloh.217

A third group claimed that Shiloh means sent, arguing that the passage refers to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Accordingly, the scepter would not pass from Judah until the king of Babylon
215 216

LW 47:187. Cf. I Kings 12:20. 217 LW 47:187.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? comes, since he would lead Judah into exile and destroy it. Luther grounds himself in Hebrew grammar: Shiloh (a proper noun) is different from shiloch, which may be translated sent; the text reads Shiloh, not shiloch. Furthermore, Nebuchadnezzar is not the Messiah, as the Jews and all the world know very well. The scepter did not depart from Judah with the exile of the Jews to Babylon, since this exile was only a temporary punishment. The prophets knew how long the exile would last, and many who were originally led away returned during their lifetime.218 As a result, this cannot be viewed as loss of the scepter, but as a light flogging, for although the Jews were exiled, God pledged his precious word that they could remain assured of their land.219 Yet for the last fifteen hundred years, the Jews have been rejected by God, since after the coming of Messiah, not even a dog, much less a prophet, has any assurance concerning the land. Therefore the scepter has now definitely departed from Judah.220 Luther now attacks a fourth group, which
[twisted] the word shebet and interprets it to mean that the rod will not depart from Judah until Shiloh, that is, his son, will come, who will weaken the Gentiles. These regard the rod as the punishment and exile in which they now live. But the Messiah will come and slay all the Gentiles.221

This, Luther insists, ignores the Chaldaean text entirely and is a completely arbitrary interpretation of the word shebet. How could talk of punishment follow Jacobs glorious language about Judah as a lions whelp? Would not the sins responsible for the punishment be listed first? But all that is mentioned is praise,
218 219

Cf. Haggai 2 LW 47:188. 220 Ibid. 221 Ibid.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER honor, and glory to the tribe of Judah.222 The scepter of a king or judge is also one of punishment against evildoers, Luther continues. The rabbis interpretation points to a foreign rod which does not rest in Judahs hand but on Judahs back and is wielded by a foreign hand: the saphra (which symbolizes the exile of the Jews) is held by another nation. The text clearly states that Judah holds the saphra; therefore, the rabbis interpretation is wrong. The rod must therefore represent the rule of the tribe of Judah, not some other power or government. Still others twist the word donec (until) to mean because, changing the text to read: The scepter of Judah will not depart because the Messiah will come. Now the order of events is changed: the Messiah will come, therefore the scepter will remain. This is not in following with the text: Jacob proclaims Judah to be a lions whelp, holding the scepter until Messiah comes; when this occurs, Judah will surrender the scepter to Messiah, to whom the nations shall fall.
Thus Judah retains neither the principality nor the role of lion nor the scepter, which Jacob assigned to him. Furthermore, the fool [interpreter] arbitrarily makes out of the term until a new term, because. This, of course, the language does not allow.223

A final interpretation is attributed to an unnamed rabbi, who claims that the word translated come is really the word to set, as the Hebrew uses the word to come in discussing the setting of the sun. Accordingly, the scepter will not depart from Judah until Shiloh (the city) goes down (sets), at which time David, the Messiah, will come. But where, Luther asks, was the scepter of Judah prior to Shiloh or David? Dismissing this interpretation as
222 223

Ibid; cf. Genesis 49:8-9. LW 47:189 ff.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? preposterous, Luther concludes by saying that despite the abuses of these various false interpreters, the Chaldaean text
topples all of them and convicts them of being willful liars, blasphemers, and perverters of Gods word. However, I wanted to present this to us Germans so that we might see what rascals the blind Jews are and how powerfully the truth of God in our midst stands with us and against them.224

This statement offers insight into Luthers own thinking about this treatise: the treatise is written not as an apologetic to the Jews, but rather as instruction to his fellow Christians. By writing On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther hoped to warn his fellow Christians about the dangers posed by the Jews.

TOWARD AN UNDERSTANDING OF LUTHERS HISTORICAL ARGUMENT

In trying to understand Luthers historical argument, it is important to note several things. First, according to editorial notes in the American Edition of Luthers Works, the various counterinterpretations which Luther cites throughout the treatise are drawn from anti-Jewish polemics of his time. As discussed earlier, Luthers understanding of the Jews was influenced by such polemics. Furthermore, Luthers use of the Genesis 49:10 text is not limited to this treatise; it had played a decisive role in his 1523 treatise, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, where he presented the historical argument within the context of an argument to fellow Christians for toleration and patience, in the hopes of gaining new

224

LW 47:190-191.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Jewish converts.225 Second, Luther places great emphasis upon tradition when writing against the Jews: overtones of Church polemical tradition of and the folklore of Europe are woven into his writings and are the source of Luthers historical argument. Luther saw Christ in both the Old and New Testaments; by interpreting the Old Testament in this way, Luther was following the Churchs centuries-old Israel rejected theology. Olaf Roynesdal has demonstrated that Luther used the historical argument throughout his career: as teacher, theologian, reformer and interpreter of the Scriptures. He writes:
[For Luther], this argument was the proof that confirmed the fate and the status of the Jews. There was no getting around the hard data provided by this argument. Why were the Jews treated so harshly and unfairly in Luthers day? It was because they had rejected the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth...All the prophecies concerning the Jews in the Old Testament were confirmed by the historical argument... [which], for Luther, discredited anything and everything Jewish.226

Third, it must be remembered that our modern notion of religious toleration is just that: a modern understanding which cannot be artificially injected into Luthers time. For Luther, any idea which he perceived as standing against the Gospel (as he saw it) was rejected; he had little (if any) toleration for countering Truth claims, particularly since the salvation of souls was at stake. Rather than attack Luthers position as un-enlightened, we must learn to read Luther from within his own context, listening to what Luther has to say. True, Luthers statements against the Jews
LW 45:199-229; specifically, 213-221. Olaf Roynesdal, Martin Luther and the Jews, (Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 1986), 292.
226 225

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? are scandalous in light of modern inter-faith dialogue, yet his argument that the Jews are rejected by God--that Christianity has somehow usurped the chosen people status from the Jews--is something which modern, thinking Christians must be willing to face head-on. How we interpret what Luther meant by these claims and what made him voice these concerns will greatly influence our responses to his arguments. We cannot forcibly inject twentieth-century ideals into a sixteenth century man, but we canfrom our own time and perspectivebegin to deal effectively with the theological implications that Luthers writings bring to the modern discussion. Fourth, Luthers understanding of what history was and how it should be used was profoundly influenced by his theology. As Bernhard Lohse states:
Luthers style and method of thinking can best be studied on the basis of his understanding of history. His interpretation of history, like all his thinking, was closely related to numerous theological themes...Luthers view of history was thoroughly determined by his theology. In spite of the fact that it was Luther who first asserted the rightful role of human reason in life, Luther can still without the slightest concern say that either God or the devil is working in all history.227

Lohse goes on to say that Luthers central presupposition was that history is ultimately the arena in which God and Satan struggle.228 Against this background, we can fully understand what Luther meant when he saw the clash between the Roman Church and the reformers as a struggle between God and Satan. This understanding also provides clues as to why Luther repeatedly
Bernhard Lohse, Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 193-194. 228 Lohse, 195.
227

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER called the Jews children of the devil. I shall elaborate: The Temple in Jerusalem had been destroyed for almost fifteen hundred years at the time that Luther was writing On the Jews and Their Lies; yet although Christ had come and the Church had for 15 centuries witnessed to this event, the Jews (like the Turks) refused to believe. Rather, they looked for a Messiah yet to come. This stubbornness to accept the Gospel was interpreted by Luther as having two causes:
1. The Jews are blinded by God to the truth of the Gospel, as punishment for their blasphemy, heresy and ultimately: the murder of Christ. Thus, Luther saw the Jews as standing under Gods eternal curse: they rejected Jesus; therefore, God rejected them. 2. Luther also understood the Jews as standing under the influence or control of the Devil. This, again, had two causes: in some of places, Luther seems to indicate that the Jews are led into blindness by Satan. Accordingly, the Jews do not realize that their adherence to the Law is really a false pretense of the Devil, used to trick them and pull them away from God.

On other occasions, however, Luther states that the Jews follow the Devil both willingly and knowingly; indeed, he goes so far as to state that Jew equals Devil. In doing so, Luther was following tradition, which taught that the Jews were involved in everything from well-poisonings and ritual murders to black magic (the Kabbala was seen as tied to Devil-worship).229 Yet Luther also assumes that the Jews knew of the truth in the Gospel, but refused to believe or accept it out of stubbornness. In this, Luther blamed the rabbis for Jewish disbelief, charging that rabbinical glosses blinded the Jews to the truth. Finally, Luther saw the Jews of his day as a threat, insofar as
For a thorough discussion of this and related topics, see Joshua Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943).
229

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? they continued to oppose both the Church and the Gospel. As long as they stood against the Gospel, clinging to their worksrighteous Judaism, they were utterly rejected by God. Luthers insistence upon the primacy of Christ in Scripture led to no other conclusion. The destruction of the Temple, their exile from the Promised Land, and the continued turmoil of their lives to date were taken by Luther as signs of Divine punishment and abandonment. Through their blasphemy and contempt for God, Christ and the Church, the Jews threatened to bring divine punishment upon all: both believer and unbeliever.230 Luthers concern was, therefore, that the Jewish stubbornness might bring about the destruction of Christians.

CONCLUSIONS
Luthers use of the historical argument must not be ignored: it is an idea central to his theology, which holds many implications for how we are to interpret his life and thought. Yet despite the malicious nature of these writings, they must be read with careful consideration of the context from which they came. Luthers historical argument, as we have seen, was based upon his Christological understanding of Scripture: Luther read Christ back into the Genesis 49:10 text, so that Shiloh who is to come is Jesus of Nazareth. We have also seen how Luther refuted several counter-interpretations, drawn not from actual Jewish writings, but from anti-Jewish polemical works of Luthers time. We have also briefly outlined some implications which arise from Luthers use of the historical argument, paying particular attention to the reading
Here again, Luther is drawing upon tradition, which taught that the Jews not only rejected the Gospel, but intentionally blasphemed Christ, desecrated the host, and told malicious tales about Mary as a prostitute and Jesus as the son of a whore.
230

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER and interpreting of Luthers theology. In my view, any serious study of Luther requires a detailed and careful study of the historical argument, since this central idea carries with it implications for his view of history, his doctrine of salvation and his image of Christ, among other theological points. More study must also be done into how this historical argument plays into Luthers theology as a whole. It is interesting to note, for example, that at the end of On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther continues to hope for the conversion of Jews:
My essay, I hope, will furnish a Christian (who in any case has no desire to become a Jew) with material not only to defend himself against the blind, venomous Jews, but also to become the foe of the Jews malice, lying, and cursing, and to understand not only that their belief is false but that they are surely possessed by all devils. May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them mercifully and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him, which is eternal life. Amen.

Luthers notion of Jew had nothing to do with race: a converted Jew was a Christian in his eyes. Following from this, future investigation should be made into the relationship of Luthers historical argument to his Law/Gospel distinction. More study is necessary if we are to finally come to grips with Christianitys history of anti-Jewish attitudes and teachings, particularly as we attempt dialogue with modern Jews as fellow believers in the one true God.

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6 PURITY AND SALVATION IN PAULINE CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN IDENTITY

INTRODUCTION
On first approach, Pauline Christianity and Christian Identity appear to have nothing in common: Pauline Christianity is, after all, the more traditional form of Christianity, whereas many would argue that Christian Identity (which uses Scripture to support racial ideas) is not Christian at all. For the purposes of this paper, however, Christian or Christianity shall refer to any system of religious thought which claims to be such. All differences aside, Pauline Christianity and Christian Identity are similar in one specific area: both are based upon, and heavily influenced by, a purity system. In exploring this idea further, I shall incorporate Mary Douglas concept of purity to study patterns of classification and order in Pauls and Christian Identity thinking, respectively. My contentions are as follows:

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Both Paul and Christian Identity are concerned with purity: Pauls system is religious; Christian Identitys is racial. These conceptions of purity have great influence upon the two religious systems, respectively. This allows Paul to argue for Gentile inclusion into the Christian community (his solution to an on-going theological debate), while continuing to uphold an insider/outsider boundary with respect to Church membership. Christian Identity is based upon race, making salvation a matter of ethnic background and not faith; an insider/outsider distinction is rigidly held to keep those inside the community (whites) from being polluted by those outside the community (all non-whites). In the end, Pauls and Identitys understanding of Christianity cannot be reconciled: they are radically different, if not contradictory, systems of religion who both claim status as the true Christian belief system.

To begin, we turn to Pauls thinking and the social, historical and religious setting which influenced it: the theological debate over requiring Gentile converts to the Christian movement to be circumcised. As we shall see, this debate produced some of the writings through which we will examine Pauls theology, his notions of purity and his position on the fate of Jews in a Christian world-view.

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PAULS WORLD: PHARISAIC JUDAISM

The first century Gentile world into which Paul introduced his new theological system of Christianity231 was one in which sharp divisions were made between Jew and Gentile, insider and outsider. Before his conversion, Paul had been a Pharisee, a strict adherent to Torah and a fervent persecutor of the newlyformed group of followers loyal to the memory of their leader, Jesus of Nazareth, recently executed by the Romans. These followers claimed that Jesus was not dead, but resurrected by God; furthermore, Jesus had been no ordinary man, but was the Son of God. Such a blasphemous claim could not be tolerated by the Jewish officials of the day, and Paul, who would later describe himself as advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people...far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors, became one of Christianitys most bitter enemies.232 All of this changed, however, following a conversion experience which changed Pauls world-view. Having received what he considered to be a revelation from the risen Christ, Paul turned from his native religious system to preach a reformed Judaism which proclaimed that Jesus was the Messiah. This conversion did not, however, change the method of Pauls thinking: he continued to use the purity-based system inherited from his Judaic background, now interpreted through the lens of his new Christian theological understanding. Jerome Neyrey, in his book, Paul, In Other Words, argues that

I use this term with some reservation, since the community of Jesus followers were, at this time, still commonly seen as a sect of Judaism, and not as a separate religious group. 232 Galatians 1:14; all quotations are from The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1990).

231

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER Paul was socialized to perceive the world as a Jew.233 Pauls world-view lay in a series of maps through which he saw the world around him. These maps tended to be dualistic, separating pure from impure, clean from unclean, and so forth. According to Neyrey, the traditional Jewish understanding of holy God refers primarily to notions of separation: God, who is holy and deathless, is separated from mortals, who have sin. However, God created a world, giving more clues about Gods holiness. As Neyrey states it:
The holy God expressed holiness by creating a holy/orderly cosmos. God acted to bless this creation precisely by the divine ordering and structuring of all relationships.234

Thus, we have separation of clean and unclean also on earth, as everything in creation is seen as having its own place and space. A person and thing out of place was to be avoided, since such a pollutant disrupted the established order. This purity system also held that not all persons or things were clean or holy; such persons and things were limited according to purity concerns. For example, a sacrifice was to be unblemished, bled not strangled, and the killing must be performed by a priest. Sacrifices were to be carried out in the temple, the center of Jewish worldview, and only holy males (those without physical deformity or passage of bodily fluids) could participate. If not all these restrictions were followed, pollution would occur and the order of creation was put out of balance. For the Jew, to be holy was to keep these concepts of order and chaos very well defined. Pauls sense of order and chaos came from his years as a Pharisee, and he never gave up this purity-based
Jerome Neyrey, Paul, In Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters, (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), 25. 234 Neyrey, Paul, 26.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? world-view. Rather, this view would change after the conversion, as Pauls symbolic universe changed from seeing Torah as the center of his covenant to seeing Christ as the center. For our purposes, it is not necessary to lay out all of Pauls theology in detail. Rather, I wish to focus primarily upon his new notions of inclusion and exclusion with respect to the church. Pauls maps of persons are especially important in understanding his idea of how one gains entrance into the Christian community. As a Pharisee, Pauls purity system was based upon a dualism between the holy and the unholy, called and uncalled. This dualistic pattern of inclusion and exclusion has its root in the ancient idea of Israel as a chosen people, set apart from the larger world. According to ancient Jewish understanding, the Jewish people were the keepers of a special covenant with God, in which they alone kept Torah laws. Jewish law also recognized the Noahide commandments, which were based upon the Torah and applied to all non-Jews. These Noahide laws had a double jurisdiction: (1) the system of law which all non-Jews were obligated to follow, and (2) the system of law which Jews were required to keep before the revelation of the Torah on Mount Sinai. Thus, Jews understood themselves as having been subject to the Noahide laws in the past, before the giving of the Torah. Now, however, Jews were to keep the Torah commandments. By keeping this special law, Jews showed that they were a people set apart: they alone were the chosen people of Yahweh.235 Thus, Pauls Jewish background provided a system of categorization for persons and things. In addition to this, Judaism also provided Paul with a system of spatial categories, which he
A more detailed discussion of the Noahide laws in relation to Jewish views of non-Jews may be found in David Novaks The Image of the Non-Jew in Judaism: An Historical and Constructive Study of the Noahide Laws, (Toronto Studies in Theology, v. 14. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press), 1983.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER used to map out places. The Jews saw the land of Palestine as their own land, given to them as part of their Torah covenant. In his book, The Territorial Dimension of Judaism, W. D. Davies explains that in Jewish world-view, Jerusalem and Judea is seen at the center of all things. Israel is the center of the earth, Jerusalem is the center of Israel, Mount Zion is the center of Jerusalem and finally, at the center of all is the eben shetiyyah, the foundation stone, which during the period of the Second Temple occupied the place of the Ark of the Covenant.236 This belief that the Land of Israel stands at the center of the earth, Davies explains, comes from Ezekiel 38:12, where the people of Israel are described as those who live at the center [or navel] of the earth. Such an idea is also present in Ezekiel 5:5:
Thus says the Lord GOD: This is Jerusalem; I have set her in the center of the nations, with countries all around her.

The land of Israel was given by Yahweh to Abrahams descendants, and is the dwelling place of Yahweh. This idea has important implications for understanding the Torah, for if the people are to live on Yahwehs land, in his very presence, they must also approximate his holiness by following his Law.237 Such an understanding is explicit in Leviticus 19:1, where the people are told through Moses: You shall be holy, as I the LORD your God am holy. Thus, laws are set down to avoid defilement or pollution of Yahwehs holy land: against harlotry, against shedding blood, etc. The purpose of these laws is the preservation of holiness, which is accomplished only through the totality of the Israelite community. Everything has its rightful place; for anything to be out of place constituted a pollution which can not be tolerated.
W. D. Davies, The Territorial Dimension of Judaism, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ltd., 1982), 2. 237 Davies, 19.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Therefore, there must be no violation of species, no crossing of the boundaries set between differing groups, no mixing of the sacred and the profane.238 As we have seen, the Jewish world-view provided Paul with a purity-based classification system. Violation of this system resulted in pollution and was to be avoided. The center of Jewish consciousness was the calling to holiness which they lived out in the Torah: to be part of Gods holy land and share in the blessing of Chosen People status, they had to maintain their holiness apart from the rest of the world. Thus, Jewish holiness was wholly reliant upon their ability to be holy: to refrain from contact with the impure and to constantly remember their special calling as the Chosen People of God. With his conversion, however, Pauls criteria for determining those inside and outside the community of faith changed. He did not abandon his system of categorization and purity; rather, he changed it in light of a new theological understanding centered in the death and resurrection of Christ.

PAULS THEOLOGY OF INCLUSION

As a Pharisee, Pauls theology was centered in keeping the Torah of the covenant between God and humanity; as an apostle of the growing Christian movement, however, his theology changed radically, reflecting his new understanding of Jesus as inaugurating a new time in history. In Jesus (who was no ordinary man, but the Son of God--the Messiah), Paul saw the establishment of a covenant between God and humanity. No longer were Jews to be separated from the outside world; circumcision was no longer necessary for entrance into the community of faith. However, as we shall see, this new covenant is in no way a racial understanding,
238

Davies, 19.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER nor is Paul arguing for the rejection or destruction of the Jews as a race of people; rather, Pauls argument is centered in a theological debate over Gentile inclusion into the community of faith. According to Acts of the Apostles, Paul first turned to the Jews in his missionary activities, but they had rejected any theology of Jesus as the Messiah; Paul then turned to the Gentiles, in whom he found a more receptive audience. Pauls Pharisaic background dictated that birth into the chosen people of Israel was a special honor, similar to the honor of priesthood. However, unlike the priesthood, which relied upon the bloodline of the person, Judaism was open to converts, provided they agreed to abide by the Torah and become circumcised.239 Following his conversion, however, Paul argued against circumcision requirements for Gentile converts to the growing Christian community: Jews and Gentiles should live together in a single community, Paul said, a community in Christ.240 What Paul suggested was simply unheard of: How could Jews, the Chosen People of God specifically called to be holy and separate, now eat and live with Gentiles, who did not follow the restrictions of Torah and thus were not holy? Pauls answer was simple: Jews and Gentiles are not unalike, as the Jews believed; rather, both Jews and Gentiles are together under sin. The only way out of this sin was through the covenant God created in Christ, a covenant which abolished the distinction between holy Jews and unholy Gentiles to create one new community for both. The Gospel, Paul proudly proclaimed, is Gods power for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.241 Sin is all humanitys condition, not a specifically Jewish or Gentile problem.
Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), 194. 240 Segal, 202. 241 Romans 1:16.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? According to Paul, Gods power and nature have been visible in the world since the creation: Gods divinity was revealed in the things God did and the creation he made. As a result of this fact, the pagan unbelievers have no excuse, since though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened.242 As a result, Paul continued, God gave the Gentiles over to lust and other immoral behaviors as punishment for their unbelief. Thus, the Gentiles condemned themselves through their unbelief and shameless acts. Had the Gentiles accepted and worshipped the eternal God who is revealed in creation, they would not stand condemned; however, they had continued in disbelief despite a knowledge of God in nature, choosing to ignore God; they now pay the penalty of their action. In explaining this condemnation of unbelievers, Paul also argued for the impartiality of God: evildoers will be punished, the Jew first and then the Greek, while those who do good will be given glory and honor and peace...the Jew first and also the Greek. Those who sin apart from Law will perish apart from Law, while those who sin while under the law will be judged by the Law. Gentiles and Jews both stand condemned, but for different reasons.243 Throughout this discussion, Pauls use of purity language is evident. He argued against the rules of separation between Jews and Gentiles: there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.244 Salvation is given as a gift, through the redemption which is available by faith in Christ. Redemption will not occur apart from faith; those who believe will be saved on account of Christ; Jews and Gentiles have equal claim to this covenant. However, in eliminating one system of
242 243

Romans 1:21 Romans 1:9-16 244 Romans 3:22

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER separation, Paul is only replacing it with another: separation is now on the basis of faith. Jews and Gentiles once separated by holiness are together under sin (un-holiness), and new categories (believer and unbeliever) now separate those in the church from those outside the church, those who are saved from those who are not. However, this begs the question: What about the Law? The Law, Paul argues, was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith.245 Sin is personified in Pauls discussion of how sin, working under the law, killed him. Before the law, Paul says, he did not know sin, but after the commandments came, sin worked within him to bring him down. Thus, sin is to blame and not Gods holy and just law. The Law condemns, but Christ
has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and to deal with sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, so that the just requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us...246

Salvation is available to all by faith in Christ. The distinction between Jew and Gentile is no longer valid. In its place, Paul has created a distinction between those inside and those outside the community of faith in Christ. With this new community comes a new set of rules and boundaries. The former distinction of holy and unholy is replaced with believer and unbeliever. Community is defined as in Christ: Jews and Gentiles who have come together into one group, share a common faith, and who will one day inherit salvation on the basis of faith apart from works.
245 246

Galatians 3:24 Romans 8:3-4

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Thus, Pauls Christian community, while universal in the sense that it is open to both Jews and Gentiles, is also limiting: Paul is still very concerned with making and maintaining boundaries, especially between those inside and outside the community of faith. Faith has replaced law as the way to salvation (Christ is the completion of the Law), but Pauls use of purity language remains: a sharp distinction is to be made between being inside and outside this covenant.

IS PAUL ANTI-JUDAIC?247
Pauls treatment of the Law also raises the question: Does Pauls theology of inclusion in fact lead to an unequivocal rejection of Judaism as a religion apart from Pauls Christo-centric understanding? Put more simply, does Pauls understanding that Christ is the completion of the law jeopardize Judaisms claim to be a religion unto itself? I should think not, but let us examine this further. David Kaylor approaches this question with a socio-historical view of Paul and his world. According to Kaylor, Paul did not understand himself as abandoning his Jewish heritage or

Much debate surrounds the notion of Pauls anti-Judaism and the implications which follow from it. The interpretation I will offer is one of Pauls inclusion: Paul did not see the Jews are rejected by God, nor did he argue that Christianity replaced Judaism. Many would disagree, however, among whom is Rosemary Ruether, who argues that Paul is guilty of anti-Judaism. Others, such as Lloyd Gaston, have broken from the traditional view held by Ruether and others to argue a position much closer to Davies and my own. To my knowledge, however, Paul is never accused of racial anti-Semitism, which would become prominent in the nineteenth century.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel.248 Paul changed sects within Judaism; he did not leave Judaism. Alan Segal shares a similar view: Paul saw Jesus as the fulfillment of the Torah covenant, not as a replacement for it. Therefore, Paul may not be labeled a supercessionist, since he does not see Christianity as revoking Judaism, nor does he see God rejecting the Jews in favor of Christians, as later thinkers would argue.249 Pauls notion that God shows no partiality was unalterable. Any notion that God was somehow biased against the Gentiles was wrong. Paul is equally adamant in his disagreement with Judaizers (Jewish Christians who believed the new community should continue to follow Torah) that circumcision should be required for Gentile converts. In his letter to the Galatians, Paul goes so far as to say that circumcision would nullify the covenant of Christ:
Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no benefit to you. Once again I testify to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obliged to obey the entire law. You who want to be justified by the law have cut yourselves off from Christ; you have fallen away from grace...For in Christ Jesus neither
248

R. David Kaylor, Pauls Covenant Community, (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988), 171. 249 Almost from the beginning of the movement, certain Christians believed that Jews were rejected because of their disbelief, that the Torah covenant had been revoked by God. This idea was especially strong in the Adversus Judaeos literature of the fourth century and following, which reinterpreted the Hebrew Scriptures in line with a theology of exclusion: the Jews, because of their rejection of the Gospel, stood condemned and rejected by God. Many thinkers, carrying this idea to its logical end, also argued that Christianity had replaced Judaism as the Chosen People of God. See Edward Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism, A Stimulus Book, (New York: Paulist Press 47-65.

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circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working through love.250

Paul should be seen as upholding a single premise: that the center of the community is faith in Christ, and not in circumcision. Kaylor is quick to point out that Pauls opponents likely believed that while keeping the entire Torah was not necessary, a minimum adherence to circumcision (and possibly other rituals) was needed. Paul disagreed strongly, choosing to focus on faith in Christ, with baptism serving as the entrance rite; Judaism focused on circumcision and adherence to Torah laws. Paul saw any circumcision requirements as a threat against the single-minded nature of the Christian community: it must be centered in faith apart from works. Given all this, does Pauls argument, which seems to set Torah and faith in opposition, show an anti-Judaic or anti-Semitic bias? I should think that anti-Semitism as system of racial categories is not present in Pauls thought. As a Pharisee, Paul followed the Torah covenant between the Yahweh and the Chosen People of Israel, the Jews. As a convert to the Jesus community, Paul rejected his previous adherence to the Torah in the process of arguing for a new, inclusive covenant for Jews and Gentiles in Christ. However, in the process, he did not reject Jews on the basis of their race, since he himself was Jewish by birth. Did Pauls rejection of Torah restrictions show an anti-Judaic bias? To begin our discussion, it is helpful to see Pauls usage of the term Israel, in Romans 9:
It is not as though the word of God has failed. For not all Israelites truly belong to Israel, and not all of Abrahams children are his true descendants; but It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named for you. This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of
250

Galatians 5:2-6.

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God, but the children of the promise [in Christ] are counted as descendants.251

According to James Aageson, Paul is here distinguishing between Israel as a historical people of God and Israel as the people of promise. This argument, Aageson continues,
involves a theological distinction which enables Paul to differentiate two groups of people in the present. The Jews who do not believe are distinguished from the Jews and Gentiles who do.252

Thus, Paul is redefining Israel. However, Aageson adds,

there is no suggestion in [Romans] 9.6-13 that Paul understood the Christian community as having superseded Israel; on the contrary, he argues that the Christian community is the embodiment of Israel, that is Israel understood as the people of promise.253

In other words, Paul is redefining what it means to be part of Israel. As Davies states, Paul is not opposed to Sinai, but a particular understanding of it.254 Paul is not rejecting the Law; he is reinterpreting it to show that Gods purpose is to bring Jews and
Romans 9:6-8. J.W. Aageson, Typology, Correspondence, and the Application of Scripture in Romans 9-11, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31. no. (1987): 54-5. 253 Aageson, 55. Aagesons interpretation is by no means a universallyaccepted one. Bruce W. Longenecker argues that Pauls understanding of Israel is not one of Jews vs. Gentiles, but rather one of unbelieving Jews and believing Jews (Jewish Christians). See Bruce W. Longenecker, Different Answers to Different Issues: Israel, the Gentiles and Salvation History in Romans 9-11, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36 (1989) 95-123. 254 Davies, 12.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Gentiles together under one covenant in Christ. Pauls argument is with a particular understanding of Judaism, even though he believes they also will be reconciled with God in the end. Pauls argument for the final redemption of the Jews is best seen in his metaphor of the olive tree:
But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say, Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in. That is true. There were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith...Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but Gods kindness toward you, provided you continue in his kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.255

Once again, Paul is using categories of belief and unbelief to separate those who have fallen away from Gods grace from those who have stayed with it. The unbelieving Jews are those branches who have been cut off the olive tree. However, they will be grafted back onto the tree in the end--not because of their own works, but because of Gods faithfulness. This message of Israels final salvation is critical to Paul, since it discounts any notion of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism: Paul does not believe that the Jews stand condemned by God in the end; rather, they will be saved because of God s continuing faithfulness to the promise of old. Paul was not breaking from Judaism to create a new Christian
255

Romans 11:17-20;22-24

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER religion; nor, was Paul expressing views that are anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic. While it is true that Paul saw his world dualistically (as I have shown), it may not be said that these divisions were along racial lines. Pauls dualisms are between insider and outsider (of the in Christ community), believer and unbeliever, saved and unsaved. These took shape within a larger purity system built around divisions: divisions of persons (believer/unbeliever), places and things. Paul changed the focus of his Pharisaic purity system following his conversion, he did not abandon these distinctions. Given this, it is increasingly important to understand that Pauline Christianity was not superseding Judaism (as would be the understanding in proceeding centuries256), but was the completion of Judaism. Davies sums things up well:
In accepting the Jew, Jesus, as the Messiah, Paul did not think in terms of moving into a new religion but of having found the final expression and intent of the Jewish tradition within which he himself had been born. For him the gospel was according to the scriptures: it was not an alien importation into Judaism but the true development of it, its highest point...To make him guilty of anti-Judaism, not to speak of anti-Semitism, is to ascribe to the doctrine and life of first-century Judaism a monolithic character which they did not possess and which Paul himself would not have

Jeffrey Siker has shown how the use of the Abraham covenant changed from the time of Paul to the time of Justin Martyr. Paul uses Abraham as a symbol of justification by faith, with an understanding that Israel descended from Abraham. Justin, in contrast, uses Abraham to fight against what he sees as legalistic Judaism: Abraham becomes a symbol for Christian faith over and against the superseded Jewish cult. See Siker, Disinheriting the Jews: Abraham in Early Christian Controversy, First Edition, (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press), 1991.

256

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countenanced, a fact which is essential for the true appreciation of his position.257

Pauls theology was one of inclusion: a theology which saw Jesus as opening the way to Gentile inclusion in salvation apart from the Law. All of this is made possible because God controls history: God made an earlier covenant in Sinai and the Torah; now, God has made a new covenant through Christ which applies equally to Jews and Gentiles. Pauls argument was with Jewish Christians who wanted to require Torah adherence by Gentiles, a strictly intra-Jewish debate. Paul was not arguing from outside the Jewish community, but from a certain sect within Judaism. Furthermore, Paul argues in Romans that the Jews are allowed to remain Jews until the end as part of Gods mysterious plan. Despite their rejection of the Gospel, the Jewish people remain the Chosen People; God has not abandoned or rejected them. The covenant in Christ allows Gentiles to enter into salvation, but the Jews are always listed first by Paul, since they hold a historical and chronological priority over the Gentiles. There is no distinction between Jew and Gentile, but the Jews were, nevertheless, the first to receive the Word. Because they rejected it, however, Paul moved on to missionary work among the Gentiles. Regardless of whether or not Pauls argument is anti-Judaic is ultimately irrelevant, for even if we accept the Ruether argument that Pauls theology is anti-Judaic, it still lacks characteristics of racial anti-Semitism. As Ruether herself states:
Pauls position was unquestionably that of anti-Judaism [sic]. This does not, of course, mean that Jews as a people, are excluded from becoming members of the community of salvation (Christians). The polemic against the Jews in

257

Davies, 20.

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Paul, as in the New Testament generally, is a rejection of Judaism, i.e., the Jews as a religious community.258

From the first century C.E. to the present, anti-Judaism has been a part of Christian theology. It was in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, that these religious anti-Judaic (Judaic referring to the religion of Judaism, not to the race of Jew) ideas were changed into racial anti-Semitism. A formerly theological dispute between Jews and Christians became a racial discrepancy between whites and non-whites, and anti-Judaic ideas (particularly, that the Jews were cursed for rejecting the gospel) became theological justification for racial ideology. Jesus the Jew became Jesus the Aryan: a white Messiah for a new racial understanding of Christianity which would be as foreign to Paul in the first century as the Jew/Gentile controversy would be in the twentieth.

CHRISTIAN IDENTITYS DOCTRINE OF RACIAL PURITY

It was in the twentieth century that formerly religious prejudices toward Jews were changed forever with the dawn of a new racial understanding of Christ, Christianity and the fate of Jews in Gods creation.259 At some time during the late nineteenth century, the so-called racial myth was born, teaching the inherent value of certain races (whites) over all others. From the racial myth grew a movement known as British Israelism. Taking root in the 19th
Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, (New York: The Seabury Press, 1974), 104. 259 It is my contention that the formerly-religious anti-Jewish prejudices of earlier centuries were transformed by the rise of the racial movement of the nineteenth century. See Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? century, British Israelism drew upon the post-Darwinist notion of scientific racism: the idea that some races were naturally stronger and healthier than others. Strong races, it was argued, should be encouraged and helped to prosper; weak races should be limited and forced into population control. It was from this root that Christian Identity grew. When we view Christian Identity theology in comparison to Pauls theology, the differences become obvious. We have seen that Pauls argument concerning Jewish-Christian relations is religious in nature. Conversely, Christian Identity is centered solely in racial terms; neither system leaves much room for differing interpretations or for outsiders. As we shall see, however, the racial nature of Identity thinking has major implications for their understanding of their own salvation and the place of non-whites (particularly Jews) in the world.

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE OF GOD

On the subject of the Chosen People mentioned in the Bible, Christian Identity is quite straight-forward: they are it. The true People of Israel are not the Jews, but white (Aryan) Europeans. In an ironic twist, Identity leader Jack Mohr interprets Romans 9:6 in racial terms, using the passage as a proof-text for his own antiSemitic ideology:
In Romans 9:6,7, the Apostle Paul states: ...For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel; neither because they are of Abraham are they all children; but (because of this) in Isaac shall thy seed be called. There is only one race of people in the world today, who are named after Isaac. They were once

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called Sacae, then Sacs Sons, then Isaacs Sons, and are now known as Saxons, or Anglo-Saxons.260

As discussed in Part I, Paul is here redefining Israel by drawing a distinction between the historical and spiritual nature of Israel. Those who are historically part of Israel (ethnic Jews) are not all necessarily part of the spiritual Israel, determined by faith. Mohr, however, reads this passage differently, determining that Paul is speaking in racial categories. Another example of Identitys reinterpretation of Scripture is the much-boasted claim of a migration of the Northern tribes of Israel from what is now the Middle East to northern Europe (The Appointed Place) following the reign of Solomon. At this time, Israel had split into Northern and Southern Kingdoms. According to Identity writers, this migration occurred about 723 B.C.E., when the Northern tribes were taken over by Assyria. In keeping with tradition, the Assyrians pulled the people from their homeland to resettle them elsewhere; thus, these people became known as the lost tribes. The historicity of this takeover is not in much doubt today. However, Identity goes on to teach that these tribes, who remained intact, moved from the Indo-European region, across the Caucasus mountains into Europe to settle in northern Europe and the British Isles. Although no scholarly proof has been found to back up this claim, the migration is taught by Identity preachers as proven historical fact. It is further taught that these lost tribes were not concerned with religious identity, but racial identity. It was these people, Identity teaches, whom God set apart: not because of religious commitment to a covenant, but because of commitment to their racial purity. Identitys message is centered in this idea of a racial core to Christianity, with teachings specifically aimed at
Mohr, quoted by Zeskind; emphasis in original; Mohrs scriptural quotation is from the King James Version of the Bible.
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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? educating white people about their true racial nature.261 It is also a purity system based upon race: whites are the Chosen People by race, not religion. The Jews, according to Identity thinking, are the supreme liars of all time. For centuries, they have falsely named themselves the Chosen People of God, the People of Israel who are special in Gods eyes, even though they knew this was not the case. Jack Mohr has this to say:
The Jews know who they are; they have known it for centuries. They knew it during Jesus time on earth, when He told them over and over again in John 8 and 10, that they were not of His fold.262

Once again, we can see the purity system under which Christian Identity operates: Chosen People status is determined by racial, rather than religious, purity. The Jews cannot be the Chosen People, because they are not white. Identity can also read certain statements of Jesus from Johns Gospel as proof-texts for their position. As we shall see, this racial distinction is closely tied to Identitys notion of salvation, with a sharp distinction drawn between saved and unsaved.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO CHRISTIAN IDENTITY: SALVATION BY RACE

In the eyes of Christian Identity, the Jews are hopelessly
Hate Crime in America by William Muldrow, chairperson of the Task Force on the Christian Identity Movement and Hate Groups, Racial Ethnic Ministry Unit, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Church and Society 80, no. 5 (May/June 1990): 58-59. 262 Jack Mohr, Phariseeism or Anglo-Saxon Identity, n.p., n.d.; as quoted by Muldrow, 21.
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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER doomed. For centuries, they have lied about their identity as the Chosen People of God and have tried to keep the truth of this identity from those who may rightfully claim it: whites. The Jews are not rejected by God (which would imply that they were at one time a part of Gods plan and could allow for their redemption); rather, they are cursed for breaking their racial identity, and for fighting against Gods will that the races be kept separate and pure. Once again, the Identity purity system can be seen, this time with reference to space and persons: purity concerns require the separation of the races; intermarriage is to be avoided at all costs. Space is also a concern, as Europe becomes the Promised Land which must be kept clear of the mud races. Insider and outsider is defined by race: white Christians are inside; everyone else is outside. As discussed above, Christian Identity, however, holds that the Chosen People are white Europeans, descendants of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. These tribes, Identity argues, did not stay in captivity and inter-marry with the surrounding peoples; rather, they managed to move in a series of migrations from their land of exile to a new land. Destiny magazine, a publication of the Anglo-Saxon Federation, issued this statement in 1941:
When the people of the Northern Kingdom went into Assyrian captivity, they did not remain there. During the subsequent dissolution of the Assyrian power through its involvement in foreign wars, the people of Israel escaped in successive independent waves, leaving the land of their captors when the opportunity came to do so. Under different names...they moved westward into the wilderness, across Asia Minor, then into Europe and eventually into the Scandinavian countries and the British Isles.263

But what of the Southern Kingdom? Identity teaches that the

263

The Anglo-Saxon-Celtic Israel Belief, Destiny, January, 1941.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Jews of today are a mixed-blood race which cannot be the true People of Israel mentioned in the Bible. The reason for this is simple: such a mixed-blood race is against Gods will; they are cursed by God for their disobedience to racial purity. Modern Jews are descendants of the tribe of Judah who inter-married with surrounding peoples to create a mongrelized race of people. Racial history and scientific racism have proven that
characteristics of the racial type we recognize as that of the Jews today were the result of intermarriages in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah. At that time a mutation of the blood stream occurred...[which was a]...defection from Gods will...264

The implication of this idea cannot be stressed enough. The Jews are rejected by God, not because they rejected the Gospel (as religious anti-Judaism argued), but because they are not of pure Aryan stock. The purity system of Christian Identity is based solely upon race; religious devotion is irrelevant. Thus, we begin to see just how incompatible these two systems (Pauline Christianity and Christian Identity) are in their understandings of Christianity. For Paul, the question was a religious one of Jewish/Christian relations; for Identity, the question has changed to a racial one of White/non-White. Both systems claim Divine inspiration and Scriptural proof-texts to back up their arguments, and both would likely think the other illegitimate as a form of Christian understanding. We have seen that Paul was concerned with Gentile inclusion into the Christian movement, arguing that Jews and Gentiles should be together in a single movement in Christ. Pauls theology was one of inclusion. Conversely, Christian Identitys gospel is based upon racial categories: whites are the true People
264

Destiny, (Second quarter, 1969), 196; as quoted by Zeskind.

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER of Israel, while Jews and other non-whites are rejected by God for violating the racial purity (including separation of the races) intended from the beginning. Both systems carry strong connotations of what is and is not pure or holy, but the basis for distinction is totally different. Faith, it would seem, has no place in Identity theology, as salvation is only for the Elect (i.e., the white race) upon whom God has shown favor throughout the centuries. These Elect are the true People of Israel; they alone will inherit salvation in the end. All other races (particularly the Jews) stand condemned before God on racial grounds. As we shall also see, Identitys racial ideas have important implications for their notion of the End Times, when Christ will return to create his new Kingdom on earth.

THE END TIMES

CHRISTIAN IDENTITY AND THE APOCALYPSE
Christian Identitys view of salvific history culminates with the Apocalypse, when the world as we know it will end. The importance of Christian Identity apocalyptic for our purposes lies in Identitys understanding of how salvation will be brought about. As we shall see, Paul also places great significance upon the return of Christ; however, Pauls and Identitys understandings of how salvation will come about are radically different, as are their views of humanitys role in this process. Identity apocalyptic is based upon a racial interpretation of the books of Daniel and Revelation. In order to understand the Identity view of the End Times, it is necessary to understand something about Christian apocalyptic in general. According to Zeskind, Identity ideas fall within a division of Christian

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? apocalyptic theology known as pre-Millennialism, which teaches that the Second Coming of Christ will occur after a thousand-year period of Tribulation. At his coming, Christ will put an end to the Tribulation and establish the Millennial Kingdom, which will last for another 1000 years until eternity begins. The Tribulations are seen as a definite period of history. Identity teaches that not only is this a time when prophecy is fulfilled, it is also a time when prophecies may be understood.265 Identitys pre-Millennialism also involves Dispensationalism, the idea of Divinely-ordered events in human history. Each dispensation opens with a revelation and ends with a judgment by God; the timing of events is solely at Gods discretion. Accordingly, Identity interprets Scriptural prophecies (such as those found in the book of Daniel) as telling of a Battle of Armageddon in which Gog (the Soviet Union) is defeated by [white] Christians. It is not until this battle is over that the identity of the people of the Kingdom--the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples--as the true Israel...becomes universally known.266 Paul believed that the end was quite near and that Jesus would soon be returning. Identity has the same idea about the modern age: they teach that humanity has already moved into the period of Tribulations. According to Identity, the Elect have a special role to play in this period of Tribulations, until the coming of the Kingdom. The Elect, of course, are the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic nations, chosen to be watchmen, overcomers, and to occupy until He comes. They are to look for the signs of the Second Coming, warn their fellow Christians of the impending danger, and fight here on earth against evil by occupying Gods Kingdom on
Zeskind, 16-17. Destiny, 262. There are, of course, others who associate the enemy in Daniel with the Soviet Union; however, to my knowledge, only Identity puts a racial twist upon this idea, since Gog is the creation of Jewish Communism according to Identity.
266 265

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER earth. The Elect will not have an easy task: they will have to fight overwhelming odds against the violation of Gods Law, sin and the Anti-Christ forces, and will suffer many losses. Identity further interprets the Tribulations as coming because of their sin: they have allowed the strangers (Jews and others) to live amongst them, and have stood by while society allowed inter-racial marriages and homosexuality to exist openly and freely.267 Salvation in Identity is not limited to the individual; the entire nation is in need of salvation and redemption. As one Identity publication entitled Thy Servant People put it:
The Lord is calling both the individual and the nation to repentance. The preaching of the Gospel of Salvation is personal, while the call to righteous administration by the establishment of the perfection of Kingdom rule is national.268

In the end, it is prophesied, the Elect will overcome, and the long-standing suffering of the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic people at the hands of their Jewish enemies will at last be ended. Whites Christians are called upon to be what Posse Comitatus leader Jim Wickstrom refers to as Yahweh Soldier-Saints, warriors who will fight in the final battle to usher in the thousand-year Kingdom. This idea of salvation is best summarized by Jack Mohr:
Do you want to rule and reign with Him? Then you must become an overcomer....The promise to rule does not come automatically because you are a born again child of God. It comes through active participation in the

267 268

Ibid. Thy Servant People, (Destiny Publishers, 1946), 23.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
spreading, not only the message of personal salvation, but that of National Salvation and the Kingdom message.269

Identity teaches that whites constitute not only the true Israel, but the Elect who will fight in the final battle of the Armageddon to bring about the thousand-year reign of Christ. These overcomers, according to some, will also rule and reign with Christ in the Millennial Kingdom, acting as the Divine agency through which the Lord will express his will.270 The distinction between believer and unbeliever for Christian Identity is thus a distinction between those who have discovered the true destiny of the elect white race and have responded accordingly, and those who have not. Furthermore, faith is limited to ones understanding of the necessary fight against Jewish conspiracy and cannot be tied theologically to the hope for salvation. Identity teaches that by fighting in the Battle of Armageddon, whites will share with Christ in the Christian Republic to come. When all other races have been destroyed, the new heaven and new earth will truly be perfect because it will be racially pure. Thus, Identitys apocalyptic theology is the culmination of all that they believe: Christs return will bring about the long-awaited Kingdom to come, destroying forever the sinfulness and impurity of this world. When we turn to the Pauls notion of the End Times, however, we find that the Jews are not rejected by God; rather, they have a part in Gods mysterious plan for the salvation of all humanity.

Mohr, Jack, Redemption Draweth Nigh, (pamphlet published by Mohr, n.d.) as quoted by Zeskind, 21; emphases added. 270 Zeskind, 21.

269

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PAUL AND THE END TIMES: RESURRECTION AND REDEMPTION

As we have seen, Paul did not believe that God has rejected the people of Israel (Jews) as the elect. You will also remember that Jack Mohr interprets Pauls language in Romans 9:6 (not all Israelites truly belong to Israel) in racial terms, to show that the true Israel was white. However, when one reads the fuller context of Pauls argument, it is clear that this is not what he wishes to say. To see racial distinctions as criteria for election is not only to misread Paul, it is to attribute to him ideas which were foreign to his time. As we have seen, Aageson argues that Paul is drawing a distinction between the historical people of Israel and the children of promise. The children of the promise are the descendants of Abraham; righteousness is reckoned to them on account of faith in accordance with a promise given before the Law of Sinai. All of this is part of Gods mysterious plan: God called certain people even before they had been born or had done anything good or bad so that Gods mysterious plan of salvation might be carried out.271 Kaylor has this to say about Pauls view of the election of Israel:
Paul does not consider the people of Israel to be rejected by God; such a notion is to him simply inconceivable. Even now their ultimate, eschatological salvation is assured, regardless of the present condition of their faith or faithlessness, for it is finally Gods faithfulness and not their own which assures it...The Torah, for Paul, came centuries after the election, and therefore can cease without abrogating election; Israels election is contained in Gods promises to Abraham, witnessed to by the Torah; Israel continues to be beloved for the sake of their ancestors.

271

Romans 9:11.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? Again and again, Paul reiterates his contention that salvation is available to all through Christ: there is no distinction between Jew or Greek, slave or free, but all will be saved through faith in Jesus. Paul has changed the distinction from holy/unholy to believer and unbeliever. Conversely, Christian Identitys notion of salvation is based upon the election of whites. These two systems (one based upon grace and one upon grace) are radically different. Faith operates in both systems, but the way in which it operates is radically different. Faith for Paul allows him to place total trust in Gods redemptive grace, with the belief that all those who come to believe in Christ will be saved. Christian Identity also contains a notion of faith, but this leads only to preparation for the impending Battle of Armageddon. When we look at Pauls apocalyptic theology, it is important to see the centrality of such notions: Pauls Christianity, according to J. Christiaan Beker, is grounded in and centered around an apocalyptic theology of Christ as Messiah. Paul, Beker says, saw himself as an eschatological apostle who spans the time between the resurrection of Christ and the final resurrection of the dead.272 Beker further argues that Paul modified the traditional apocalyptic of his day (particularly the Jewish apocalyptic of his Pharisaic background) in three distinct ways273: Paul does not employ this age/next age terminology, such that the present age and the age to come are placed in opposition. Paul modified the traditional view of the escalation of evil forces in the end times. Paul rarely uses the terms Kingdom of God or Day of
J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980), 145. 273 Ibid.
272

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JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER the Lord, and only in the traditional sense if at all. First, Paul sees Christians as standing in constant anticipation of the return of Christ, following from the revelation of Christs resurrection. For Paul, the Christ-event is the first of a two-step process, with Christs resurrection standing in anticipation of the general resurrection when Christ returns. Thus, the next age exists already in the present age, and the Christ-event is the link between the two. This Christ-event changed Pauls world-view from a this world/next world dualism to one which understood the age to come as already present in the here and now. As a result, Christians may live already in the glory of Gods kingdom; they need not wait. Secondly, Paul modified terms troubles of present age and the coming glory. Christians do not simply suffer the tribulations of the End Times, sitting around in anxious anticipation of the glorious new age; rather, they may glory in their sufferings, because Gods power manifests itself in the midst of suffering.274 The cross stands as a symbol of a redemptive power in suffering: in the light of Christs death and resurrection, there is glory to be found in suffering. Finally, Paul refrains from kingdom of God or end of all the ages terminology precisely because he sees the end as having come in Christ: the kingdom of God has already come, and is present now. Pauls thinking does not seem to contain the nextworldliness so common in other apocalyptic theology. Unlike Christian Identity, which anxiously awaits the coming Millennial Kingdom, Paul sees the next world as already a part of this world. Hope, Beker contends, is the basis for Pauls faith: Faith not only is hope but it has a hope: it cannot exist without the specific
274

Ibid, 146.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? object of hope.275 Pauls faith is centered in Christs death and resurrection, which is both crucial and provisional. It is crucial in so far as it marks the beginning of the new creation; it is provisional in that it anticipates the consummation of this beginning. Thus, Pauls understanding of resurrection is bifocal: the Christ-event has created an elliptical historical-view having two foci276: The Christ-event, which Paul sees as the first blow to death. This is accomplished in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and anticipates the general resurrection to come. The Parousia (the Second Coming of Christ277), at which time all will be raised from the dead; this will be the day of Gods final victory over his enemies, the last of which is death. In Pauls own words, Christ is described as the first fruits of those who have died.278 Great emphasis is placed upon Christs death, but always within the context of his anticipated return. Also contained in this is an inherent theology of the cross, embedded in Pauls apocalyptic understanding of resurrection: while suffering is not good for those under the cross (those who believe) in the sense that it is wanted, Christians may revel in the glory of suffering, a glory made possible by Christs own suffering. As Paul says within his discussion of the Eucharist:

275 276

Ibid, 147. Ibid, 160. 277 Also known as the Messianic Advent. 278 I Corinthians 15:20.

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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lords death until he comes.279

CONCLUSIONS
As stated throughout this paper, it is my contention that the Pauline and Identity systems or understandings of Christianity are ultimately at odds, since they argue from wholly different theological presuppositions toward wholly different objectives. Pauls Christian system is largely based upon his Pharisaic understandings of purity, which develop into a notion of inside/outside, believer/unbeliever, saint/non-saint. In order to understand fully the differences between Pauline and Identity notions of Christianity, it is helpful to note the following contrasts: Pauline Christianity
Salvation is through belief in Christ; covenant of faith apart from works. No Jew/Gentile distinction: all are equally under sin and capable of salvation in Christ. Center of system in remembrance of crucifixion of Christ: he suffered and died on our behalf. Entrance rite is baptism into the community of faith: conversion from all social levels or backgrounds.

Christian Identity
Salvation is through keeping the racial purity proscribed by God from the beginning. Strict adherence to racial categories and separation; no room in community for non-whites; Jews are especially cursed. Center of system in keeping racial purity; Christ was killed by the Jews; God has cursed Jews. White Europeans are the true Chosen People; Israelites were white, as was Jesus.

279

I Corinthians 11:26.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE?
Jews have been and continue to be the Chosen People of God, and their present faithlessness has no bearing on their salvation. Gods mysterious plan and earlier promise are not revoked or changed by Christ. Jews lie about their heritage.

Jews are the result of a union of Satan with Eve, and are demonic; the Final Battle of Armageddon will witness their total destruction on earth, with the resulting new creation a White Christian Republic freed from mud people. Converts actively sought among whites: spread the gospel of racial purity and the true destiny of whites as the Chosen People; teach that Jews and other non-whites will be and must be destroyed in the end. Theology of Sword: the white race has suffered long and hard under the oppression of Jews; in the end, however, white Christians will fight in the battle of Armageddon to initiate the next world; Christians anxiously await Christs return and the subsequent new order. The Apocalypse will establish a new order: a racial war will be fought, pitting white Christian patriots against the enemies of Christ (Jews, etc.). In the end, a white Christian Republic will be created, after the total destruction of all non-whites races, especially the Jews.

Converts actively sought among both Jews and Gentiles: spread the Gospel of salvation through faith in Christ to all the world, The Jew first and also the Greek. Theology of the Cross: there is glory in suffering because of Christs death and resurrection; Christians should revel in the promise of Christs return, as they experience the next word already a part of this world. The Apocalypse will establish a new order. The dead will rise for judgment with those still alive; only those who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved.

This notion of salvation by grace vs. salvation by race, 171

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER renders these two systems of belief irreconcilable, and I suspect that if Paul were here today, he would be as puzzled about Identity beliefs as Identity is about Paul. Many Identity believers teach that Pauline Christianity is a form Judeo-Christianity,280 which is against what Jesus had intended or desired. I suspect that Paul would have similar sentiments about much Identitys theology.

Christian Identity thinkers make a distinction between (white) Christianity and Judeo-Christianity, which they see as a false Christianity heavily influenced by the Jewish conspiracy.

280

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7 FINAL THOUGHTS
Tertullian, the third-century lawyer turned Christian theologian, once asked famously, What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? His question was posed in the face of the challenge that pagan philosophy and the heresies it had spawned held for orthodox Christianity. Today, we might ask a different question: What has Jerusalem to do with Auschwitz? The answer, unfortunately, even ironically, is quite a bit. It was the city of Jerusalem, the center of religious devotion for Jews, that Christians superseded when they proclaimed themselves the new Israel. And it was upon this very foundation, the history of Christian supersessionist thinking, that contributed to the rise of Hitler. It is precisely this realization that makes the Church uneasy when approaching this topic: our theological heritage (in part) fueled hatred of Jews, the Nazi propaganda machine, the ovens. All of this is part of the unfortunate history that the sinful, fallen world has woven for itself. Yet above and beyond even the horrific details of the Holocaust, there lies another dangerhidden and largely undisturbedthat threatens Christian tradition more than Hitler ever could. This danger, I would suggest, has to do with the question of Jewish and Christian identity before God, with Gods 173

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER covenant promises, and with the hope based on faith in those promisesin short, with the hope that Jews and Christians share for Gods promised new creation. When approached from a soteriological angle, the historical argument gives rise to a question: If this interpretation is true, at what time in the future might Christians expect to be superseded? That is, if the Jews may be superseded by God in favor of another group (the Church), what is to say that God will not have another change of mind in favor of a third testament? When approached in this way, the Mormon claim to the restored remnant of a corrupted and fallen Church is not so extraordinary. In fact, it is ironic, for by claiming the legacy of the historical argument, Christianity may only be foreshadowing its own replacement by whomever God elects next. Ultimately, I believe that Scripture itself provides a response to, and refutation of, the historical argument. If we take seriously Pauls argument in Romans 9-11, the fate of the Jews has not been revealed to us, but remains among the mysteries of God. How are we to understand that Gods covenant with Israel formed on Sinai was completed on the cross, without either condemning the people whom God chose (a judgment that is not ours to pass), or being led into a syncretism that contradicts the heart of the Gospels message of salvation through Jesus Christ alone? If the Church is to continue to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified and risen, and if it is to proclaim salvation through his name, then it must abandon the historical argument. This is so not because in our modern politically correct climate it is unpopular to believe that the Jews are rejected by God, but because with the judgment by which you judge others, you yourselves will be judged.281 Lutherans proclaim that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Jesus Christ alone, we must take seriously the faithfulness of God to Gods promises, and leave
281

Matthew 7:2; translation mine.

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DIALOGUE OR DIATRIBE? to God the task of reconciling the biblically-mandated covenants of Torah and cross. For, if trust in God and Gods faithfulness is lost, the entire Christian message is for naught. Lutherans should be particularly sensitive to this issue, given the emphasis in Lutheran theology upon Gods grace and our inability to act on behalf of our own salvation. Scripture commands us to believe, and the Holy Spirit provides the means by which that faith can be implanted and grow, but how that occurs is beyond our comprehension, so far as we know, at least this side of the resurrection. If the same principle is applied to the question of the Jews relation to God, the conclusion is the same; rather than speculate about what has not been revealed, we would be better served to trust that God will see to it that the various promises made will be kept.

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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
THE JEWISH CONSPIRACY IN THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW
Friedrich, Gerhard (ed.). Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Vol. VI. Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968. Horsley, R. A. and J. S. Hanson. Bandits, Prophets and Messiahs. Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1985. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, LW 47: 121-306. Justin Martyr. Dialogue With Trypho in Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, ed. The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1899. Saldarini, Anthony. J. Matthews Christian-Jewish Community, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994), Setzer, Claudia. Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics, 30 -150 C.E. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1994.

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JUSTIN MARTYRS DIALOGUE WITH TRYPHO

(Brackets [] indicate abbreviations used in footnotes) Barnard, Leslie William, trans. St. Justin Martyr: The First and Second Apologies. Ancient Christian Writers series, no. 56. Walter J. Burghardt, John J. Dillon and Dennis D. McManus. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist Press, 1997. Falls, Thomas B., trans., ed. Writings of Saint Justin Martyr. The Fathers of the Church [series]: A New Translation. New York: Christian Heritage, Inc., 1948. Goodenough, Erwin R. The Theology of Justin Martyr: An Investigation into the Conceptions of Early Christian Literature and Its Hellenistic and Judaistic Influences. First printing, Jena, 1923; reprint, Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1968. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies. Translated by Martin H. Bertram. Luthers Works, Vol. 47: The Christian in Society IV. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, 137-306. Migne, J. P. Patrologiae Gracae. Vol. VI. (Paris, 1857). Rahlfs, Alfred, ed. Septuaginta. 7th edition. Wrttembergische Bibelanstalt Stuttgart, 1962. Roberts, Alexander and James Donaldson, eds. The Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers Down to A.D. 325, Vol. I: The Apostolic Fathers Justin Martyr, Irenaeus. New York: Charles Scribners Sons, 1903. Arndt, William F. and F. Wilbur Gingrich, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. Translation and adaptation of Walter Bauers Griechisch-Deutsches Wrterbuch und der brigen urchristlichen Literatur. 4th revised and 177

JOHN AUGUST SCHUMACHER augmented edition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1952, 1957. Barnard, L. W. Justin Martyr: His Life and Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967 [Barnard, Justin]. Barnard, L. W. The Logos Theology of St. Justin Martyr. The Downside Review 89 (1971?): 132-141 [Barnard, Logos]. Danilou, Jean. A History of Early Christian Doctrine Before the Council of Nicea: Volume Two: Gospel Message and Hellenistic Culture. Translated and edited by John Austin Baker. Bath, Great Britain: The Pitman Press, 1973. Hirshman, Marc. Polemic Literary Units in the Classical Midrashim and Justin Martyrs Dialogue with Trypho. The Jewish Quarterly Review LXXXIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 1993): 369384. Oberman, Heiko A. The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation. Translated by James I. Porter. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981. Osborn, Eric Francis. Justin Martyr. Beitrge zur Historischen Theologie [series]. Vol. 47. Tbingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1973. Shotwell, Willis A. The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr. London: SPCK, 1965. Trakatellis, Demetrios. Justin Martyrs Trypho. Harvard Theological Review 79:1-3 (1986): 286-297. Wilken, Robert L. Early Christian Chiliasm, Jewish Messianism, and the Idea of the Holy Land. Harvard Theological Review 79:1-3 (1986): 298-307.

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LUTHERS VIEW OF HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN ON THE JEWS AND THEIR LIES
Lohse, Bernhard. Martin Luther: An Introduction to His Life and Work. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986. Luther, Martin. Against the Sabbatarians. Luthers Works 45:199229. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies. Luthers Works 47:121306. Roynesdal, Olaf. Martin Luther and the Jews. Ph.D. Dissertation, Marquette University, 1986. Trachtenberg, Joshua. The Devil and the Jews. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943).

PURITY AND SALVATION IN PAULINE CHRISTIANITY

Aageson, J.W. Typology, Correspondence, and the Application of Scripture in Romans 9-11. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31. no. (1987): 51-72. Beker, J. Christiaan. Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980. Campbell, C.G., Race and Religion, (n.p., 1953, 1975), 144. Corcoran, James. Bitter Harvest: Gordon Kahl and the Posse Comitatus: Murder in the Heartland. New York: Viking Penguin Books, USA, Inc., 1990. 179

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Davies, W. D. The Territorial Dimension of Judaism. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, Ltd., 1982. Hate Crime in America by William Muldrow, chairperson of the Task Force on the Christian Identity Movement and Hate Groups, Racial Ethnic Ministry Unit, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Church and Society 80, no. 5 (May/June 1990): 58-59. The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1990). Kaylor, R. David. Pauls Covenant Community. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1988. Longenecker, Bruce W. Different Answers to Different Issues: Israel, the Gentiles and Salvation History in Romans 9-11. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 36 (1989) 95-123. Neyrey, Jerome. Paul, In Other Words: A Cultural Reading of His Letters. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990). Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Faith and Fratricide. New York: Seabury Press, 1974. Segal, Alan F. Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Zeskind, Leonard. The Christian Identity Movement: A Theological Justification for Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence. Atlanta: Division of Church and Society of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA, 1986.

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