No CrossRef data available.
The Mystery of Israel's Salvation: Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2005
Extract
Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “The Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”
Paul, Romans 11:25–26I have generally adhered to the RSV except where the wording of biblical quotations in the works of patristic or medieval authors mandates otherwise. Citations of chapter and verse in the Hebrew Bible, however, generally follow the numbering in the Masoretic Text.
This text is the basis of the common opinion that, at the end of the world, the Jews will return to the faith. However, it is so obscure that, unless one is willing to accept the judgment of the fathers who expound the apostle in this way, no one can, so it would seem, obtain a clear conviction from this text.
Luther, Lectures on RomansMartin Luther, Scholien—Epistola ad Romanos (vol. 56 of Werke; Weimar: H. Bohlaus Nachf, 1883–1983) 436–37; Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans (trans. Wilhem Pauck; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961) 315.
Information
- Type
- ARTICLES
- Information
- Copyright
- © 2005 Cambridge University Press
Biblical exegesis has always occupied center stage in the encounter between Christianity and Judaism. Most obviously within the context of polemics, the evidence marshaled by the advocates of one faith in debate against those of the other has typically focused on the interpretation of sacred texts. As Amos Funkenstein observed several decades ago, Christian anti-Jewish polemics during the patristic period and throughout much of the Middle Ages typically amounted to “a stereo-typed enumeration of proofs taken from the Bible for the truth of Christianity, and the detection of prophecies and prefigurations that were enriched with arguments taken from the present status of the Jews in ‘servitude’ and dispersion”; Jewish anti-Christian polemicists typically responded in kind.3
Amos Funkenstein, “Basic Types of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemics in the Later Middle Ages,” Viator 2 (1971) 374; and see Jeremy Cohen, “Towards a Functional Classification of Jewish AntiChristian Polemic in the High Middle Ages,” in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalter (ed. Bernard Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner; Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 4; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1992) 93–114.
Ivan G. Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany (Études sur le Judaïsme médiéval 10; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 1.
Yet the role of the Bible in the Jewish-Christian encounter extends much further than the limited confines of interreligious polemic. The very genesis of Christianity within the Jewish civilization of the Second Temple period, the various trends and tendencies that contributed to the “parting(s) of the ways” between the two faiths, and the subsequent history of relationships between Christians and Jews all depended in large measure on the interpretation of Scripture. Rival conceptions of the sacred canon rendered “Scripture” itself an inexact term, and the inherent polyvalence of the Bible coupled with the ambivalence of one interpretative tradition toward the other have consistently proved mutually reinforcing. The controversy surrounding Mel Gibson's rendition of “The Passion of the Christ,” for example, conflates piercing questions of the “facticity” of biblical history, of the relationship between the literal meaning of a sacred text and its internalization by its devotees centuries later, and of the pernicious evils of prejudicial ethnic stereotyping. Precisely because of their susceptibility to reinterpretation, sacred texts of old have not lost their relevance in carving the framework for human relationships today.
Christians and Jews involved in the encounter between the two faiths have usually directed their energies to expounding the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament. Jesus and his apostles knew only one biblical testament, while non-Christian Jews have never acknowledged the authority of any other; and Christian interpretation of the Old Testament has understandably become a vast field of scholarship. Many investigators have analyzed the nexus between the Gospel accounts of Jesus' passion and Christian anti-Judaism,5
I explore this linkage at length in my forthcoming book, Christ-Killers: The Jews and the Crucifixion, from the Gospels to Gibson, scheduled for publication by Oxford University Press in 2006.
Questions such as these hardly lend themselves to neat or simple resolution. But they linger conspicuously in the background of this essay, which explores the interpretation of one New Testament passage that bears directly and heavily on Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. Paul's prophecy of the ultimate redemption of “all Israel” in Romans 11, his allusion to the divine “mystery” whereby Israel, once rejected, will be restored to God's favor following the entry of other peoples into the church, has long nourished the notion that the Jews have yet to outlive their utility in the divinely ordained drama of human history. Their presence, one would think, still serves a purpose. But as Martin Luther noted in his own commentary on Romans, the obscurities of the passage well overshadow the clarity of its meaning. Diverse understandings of virtually every significant term in Rom 11:25b–26a—the hardening of Israel, the full number of the Gentiles, and all of Israel to be saved—as well as the place of these verses in the broader context of Romans 9–11 have yielded divergent implications for the construction of the Jews in Christian theology and the status of the Jews in Christendom. At any stage in the annals of Christianity, such disparity has characterized perceptions of Jews of the past, present, and future, and the Christian sense of continuity and discontinuity in the history of Israel.
It goes without saying that our present concerns intersect with an array of questions about Paul and Romans that have consistently engaged New Testament scholars but cannot receive due attention here. First, under what circumstances did Paul compose his epistle to the Romans? What were his motivations, and to what sort of Roman constituency (church?) did he direct his instruction—namely, to Christians of Jewish or Gentile origin? Second, what, ultimately, was Paul's attitude toward the law of the Torah, its character, its place in the history of salvation, and its validity for Jews even after the coming of Christ? Scholars of Paul often consider this issue independently of his comments on spiritual and carnal Israel in Romans 9–11, and, until recently, many chose to treat this section of the epistle almost as a separate entity, distinct from the unity of the preceding chapters. The logic of the progression from one section of the epistle to the next may still be grounds for debate, but many more exegetes now tend to affirm the integrity of the letter as a whole, and the analysis of any passage or section must naturally consider its place within the entirety of the book. And third, recent research has explored the complexity and sophistication of the rhetoric of Romans: multiple voices, including those of Paul's putative interlocutors; veiled but deliberate allusion to key biblical intertexts; and the conscious use of rhetorical devices and ploys typical of various literary genres in the Hellenistic world. How ought such sensitivity to Pauline rhetoric to inform the interpretation of his teaching on the Jews of the end time?6
Studies of Paul, his theology, and Romans are legion, and this note cannot begin to survey the pertinent scholarly literature in any comprehensive fashion. Among the treatments of Paul that I have found helpful in the preparation of this essay, readers may wish to consult the following. On Paul and his attitudes towards the Jews and biblical law: E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983) chs. 11–15, and idem, Reinventing Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Lloyd Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press, 1987); Heikki Räisänen, Paul and the Law (2d ed.; WUNT 29; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1987); Alan F. Segal, Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990); Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles (CRINT 3.1; Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1990); and Charles H. Talbert, “Paul, Judaism, and the Revisionists,” CBQ 63 (2001) 1–22. On Pauline theology and Romans: Karl P. Donfried, The Romans Debate (rev. ed.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 1991); Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996); Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle's Convictional World (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997); and James G. D. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 1998) esp. 499–532. On Romans 9–11: K. H. Schelkle, Paulus, Lehrer der Väter. Die altkirchliche Auslegung von Römer 1–11 (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1956); W. D. Davies, “Romans 11:13–24: A Suggestion,” in Paganisme, Judaïsme, Christianisme. Influences et affrontements dans le monde antique (Mélanges offerts à Marcel Simon) (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1978) 131–44; Heikki Räisänen, “Paul, God, and Israel: Romans 9–11 in Recent Research,” in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute to Howard Clark Lee (ed. Jacob Neusner et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 178–206; Mary Ann Getty, “Paul and the Salvation of Israel: A Perspective on Romans 9–11,” CBQ 50 (1988) 456–69; Anthony J. Guerra, “Romans: Paul's Purpose and Audience with Special Attention to Romans 9–11,” RB 97 (1990) 219–37; Hubert Frankemölle, “Die Entstehung des Christentums aus dem Judentum: Historische, theologische und hermeneutische Aspekte im Kontext von Röm 9–11,” in Christen und Juden. Voraussetzungen für ein erneuertes Verhältnis (ed. Siegfried Schröer; Altenberge: Oros Verlag, 1992) 34–83; Stephen Westerholm, “Paul and the Law in Romans 9–11,” in Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. James G. D. Dunn; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1996) 215–37; and Klaus Haacker, “Die Geschichtstheologie von Röm 9–11 im Lichte philonischer Schriftauslegung,” NTS 43 (1997) 209–22. On Romans 11:25–26: Francois Refoulé, “Et ainsi tout Israël sera sauvé”. Romains 11, 25–32 (LD 117; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1984); Traugott Holtz, “Das Gericht über die Juden und die Rettung ganz Israels: I Thess 2,15f und Röm 11,25,” in Geschichte und Theologie des Urchristentums (WUNT 57; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991) 313–25; Christopher D. Stanley, “‘The Redeemer Will Come ek Siōn’: Romans 11.26–27 Revisited,” in Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed. Craig Alan Evans and James Alvin Sanders; JSNTSup 83; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) 118–42; Seyoon Kim, “The ‘Mystery’ of Rom 11.25–6 Once More,” NTS 43 (1997) 412–29; James M. Scott, “‘And Then All Israel Will Be Saved’ (Rom 11:26),” in Restoration: Old Testament, Jewish, and Christian Perspectives (ed. James M. Scott; Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 72; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 489–527. On the distinctive rhetoric of Romans 9–11: James A. Aageson, “Scripture and Structure in the Development of the Argument in Romans 9–11,” CBQ 48 (1986) 265–89; E. Elizabeth Johnson, The Function of Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans 9–11 (SBL Dissertation Series 109; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989); Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) esp. ch. 10; and Charles Cosgrove, “Rhetorical Suspense in Romans 9–11: A Study in Polyvalence and Hermeneutical Election,” JBL 115 (1996) 271–87.
Rather than seek to elucidate the meaning of Paul himself, the present study endeavors to map several instructive trajectories in the interpretation-history of Rom 11:25–26. In particular, I hope to begin to link this exegetical issue to patristic and medieval Christianity's construction of the “eschatological Jew”: the Jew of the end time, when upheaval, cataclysm, and salvation will bring the tumultuous course of terrestrial history to harmonious resolution and perfection. Just as the Augustinian doctrine of Jewish witness, based on Augustine's original understanding of Ps 59: 12 (“Slay them not, lest my people forget …”) and other Old Testament passages, underlay the church's toleration of the European Jewish minority during much of the Middle Ages,7
See Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999) esp. pt. 1.
Epistolary Ambiguities
While our primary interest lies not with Paul and his intentions but with others' perceptions of them, and then with the potential implications of those perceptions for Christian-Jewish relations, two considerations mandate that we devote several pages at the outset to Romans itself. On the one hand, the modern scholars cited in the preceding paragraphs were not the first to recognize problems and ambiguities inherent in Romans. Some of these issues already engaged the church fathers and theologians of the Middle Ages, and such questions can therefore serve as signposts in our treatment of the pertinent exegetical material. On the other hand, the questions and ambiguities inherent in Romans 9–11 themselves reflect the exegetical nature of Paul's own enterprise. Paul did not initiate this exegetical discourse, several of whose later chapters comprise the core of this study, but he himself was engaged by biblical texts and traditions much older than he, with which he struggled continuously in mapping his scheme of salvation history. As various scholars have hastened to emphasize, Romans 9–11 reveals “a mind steeped in Israel's scriptures,”8
J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the Romans (NovTSup 101; Leiden: Brill, 2002) esp. 347.
Hans Hübner, “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation, Volume I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (ed. Magne Saebø et al.; pt. 1–2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996–2000) 345; see also idem, Gottes Ich und Israel: Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Römer 9–11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), and idem, Biblischer Theologie des Neuen Testaments (3 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990–1995) esp. 2.239–58 (“Die rhetorische Analyse des Römerbriefs”).
Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989) 35. Among many others, see also Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980) esp. 272–76, 311–15; Paul and the Scriptures of Israel (ed. Evans and Sanders); John G. Lodge, Romans 9–11: A Reader-Response Analysis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996).
“All Israel” and Its Components
Among the questions raised by Paul's prediction that “all Israel will be saved” (11:26), one must inquire immediately: who qualifies as Israel, and all Israel at that? Romans redefines the identity of Israel as those who had inherited God's promises of salvation to the ancient Hebrew patriarchs. “Not all are children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but ‘through Isaac shall your descendants be named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants” (9:7–8). Paul thus appears to disavow God's election of Abraham's physical descendants qua Israel, but not without equivocation. “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel [10:22–23]: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with rigor and dispatch’ ” (9:27–28). Although Paul's reference to this prophecy of Isaiah suggests that most of the Jews, labeled the children of Israel, would forfeit their elect status, some would be saved. Who constitutes this remnant? Have these Jews already been saved, or did their salvation pertain to future, perhaps eschatological events?
Moreover, how does the “remnant” (
, reliquiae) of Rom 9:27 relate to Paul's subsequent uses of similar terminology? Affirming that God has not rejected his people, Paul invokes the divine assurance to Elijah that he, in fact, did not remain alone in his refusal to abandon God for the worship of Baal, but that seven thousand others remained with him. “So too at the present time there is a remnant [
, reliquiae], chosen by grace” (11:5). What, then, happened to the others, not part of the Christian elect? “Israel failed to obtain what it sought. The elect obtained it, but the rest [
, caeteri] were hardened” (11:7). Finally, Paul declares that “a hardening has come upon part [
, ex parte] of Israel” (11:25). The language of Romans might suggest a qualitative difference between the “remnant” of the elect destined for salvation and the “rest” or remaining part of Israel that were “hardened” temporarily,
11See Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, ch. 4, esp. 238ff. (“‘The Remnant’ and ‘the Rest’”).
The Mystery
Paul declares that the hardening and ultimate salvation of Israel pertain to a mystery (
, mysterium), aspects of which Paul elaborates to the Christian recipients of his letter, lest they “be wise in their own conceits” (11:25), but which he never explains in full. Apparently, the mystery comprises God's plan for the redemption of humankind, a blueprint for salvation history replete with irony, paradox, and reversal. In Romans 9, Paul's new criteria for inclusion in a reconstituted, spiritual Israel and his remarks on the inscrutability of divine justice facilitate his declaration that believing Gentiles have largely replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, at least for the time being.
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath that are made for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Hosea [2:25, 1:9], “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’” (9:22–26)
There follows immediately Paul's citation of Isaiah to the effect that only a remnant of Israel will be saved. So far, the rationale for the reversal in the destinies of Jews and Gentiles appears coherent, if not fully understandable in all of its depth. Thus the chapter concludes that Gentiles have attained righteousness in their faith, while Israel has lost it in its observance of the law. Romans 10 eventually returns to these themes, reaffirming that “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek…. ‘Every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved’” (10:12–13); references to Deut 32:21 and Isa 65:1–2 then reinforce the reversal in the relationship between Israel and the nations.
Romans 11, however, complicates matters. Here Paul appears to retreat from his statements on the displacement of Jews by Gentiles, declaring emphatically that God has not rejected his people, that the whole lump of dough and the branches stemming from the roots of Israel retain their sanctity and that all Israel will be saved. More interesting still, the apostle highlights God's use of the Gentiles to arouse jealousy among the Jews, disclosing another dimension to the mystery of salvation history.
So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean…! For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? (11:11–15)
Evidently, the Jews needed to fall in order to allow for the salvation of the Gentiles, “the reconciliation of the world,” and jealousy needs to prod the Jews to return to God, which will signify the consummation of the divine master plan, nothing other than “life from the dead.” Does this suggest that the Jews simply functioned as pawns in the divine blueprint for human history, alternatively facilitating the salvation of the nations in their fall and the final redemption in their conversion? Could God not have realized the redemption of the world in any other way? What constitutes the intrinsic significance of Israel's salvation?
Divine and Human Responsibility
The relationship between grace, predestination, and free will in determining the fate of a human being clearly weighs heavily on Paul throughout much of the epistle; in and of itself, this vast, intricate, perplexing, and foundationally important issue lies outside the purview of this paper. Nonetheless, one can readily understand how the question of the Jews' moral responsibility for the divinely wrought punishment of their “hardening”—or, the extent to which God punished them for transgressions that were intentional—does bear upon exegetical discussions of Rom 11:25–26 and the ultimate salvation of Israel. Here, again, one has trouble finding consistency in Paul's instruction. Chapter 9 propounds the inscrutability of divine justice: “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills” (9:18). As we have seen, however, the concluding verses of chapter 10 suggest that the basis for the Jews' rejection lay in their own intention: “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the preaching of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have…. Again I ask, did Israel not understand?” (10:17–19). Adding still further to the confusion, Paul proceeds in the next chapter (11:8–9) to invoke Isa 29:10 (“God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see”) and, as we have noted, Ps 69:24 (“let their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see”). Ought one to conclude that the blindness—and obstinacy of the Jews—derive from God's decree, so that the Jews might not bear full responsibility for their continuing error? Or, perhaps, since the Jews' error and punishment preceded their blindness, and not vice versa, they must assume such responsibility in full. Presumably, the extent to which the Jews bear direct moral responsibility for their punishment will contribute to the extent that they must will to mend their ways before the removal of their “hardening” and the salvation of all Israel.
Alongside these questions and ambiguities, one must recognize the high stakes involved in the interpretation of our passage, beyond the exegesis of Romans per se. Paul's instruction concerning the place—and identity—of Israel in the divine economy of salvation bears directly not only on the status of the Jews, who in the past were readily identifiable as Israel, but also on that of Christians, who claim to have replaced them as the true Israel of the present. To what extent have God's ancient promises to the Hebrew patriarchs of Israel withstood the trauma of the Jews' refusal to accept the truth of Christianity? How, if at all, must Christians acknowledge Israel's former election in their dealings with Jews living in their midst and under their dominion? Looking forward to the future, must Christians preserve the Jewish people precisely so that they can convert at the end-time, thereby fulfilling Paul's prophecy in its ostensibly literal meaning? We shall consider the most instructive interpretations of Paul's eschatology from among the writings of the Greek fathers of the church, the Latin fathers, and the medieval European exegetes who succeeded them.
Origen and the Greek Patristic Tradition
Perhaps even more than Paul himself, Origen occupies center stage in our story. The first truly scientific patristic exegete, he rendered biblical commentary an enduring, major genre of Christian ecclesiastical literature. His encounter with Judaism and the rabbinic texts of his day was arguably more serious and systematic than that of any other patristic scholar. Origen undoubtedly sought to resolve ambiguity in Paul's eschatological forecast, but the depth and complexity in his analysis of Romans 9–11, at least in the Latin translation of Rufinus, had the opposite effect: They rendered the ambiguities that he perceived in the text a permanent fixture in Christian tradition.12
On Origen and his oeuvre, see, among others, the important studies of Jean Daniélou, Origen (trans. Walter Mitchell; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955); Henri Crouzel, Origen (trans. A. S. Worrall; San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and Joseph Wilson Trigg, Origen: The Bible and Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlanta: J. Knox, 1983). On his Romans commentary and its Latin translation by Rufinus, see, above all, Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, Der Römerbrieftext des Rufin und seine Origenes-Übersetzung (Vetus Latina 10; Freiburg: Herder, 1985) esp. 43–104, 387–418, as well as Henry Chadwick, “Rufinus and the Tura Papyrus of Origen's Commentary on Romans,” JTS, n.s. 10 (1959) 10–42, and Riemer Roukema, The Diversity of Laws in Origen's Commentary on Romans (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1988). For the purposes of this paper, I have presented Origen-Rufinus simply as Origen, while remaining aware that Rufinus might have modified the form, contents, and import of the commentary in no small measure. On Origen's attitudes towards Jews and Judaism, see Hans Bietenhard, Caesarea, Origenes und die Juden (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1974) esp. ch. 8; Nicholas R. M. DeLange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976); Peter Gorday, Principles of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 9–11 in Origen, John Chrysostom, and Augustine (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, vol. 4; New York: E. Mellen Press, 1983) ch. 3; Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, “Die Juden im Römerbriefkommentar des Origens,” in Christlicher Antijudaismus und jüdischer Antipaganismus: Ihre Motive und Hintergründe in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (ed. Herbert Frohnhofen; Hamburger theologische Studien 3; Hamburg: Steinmann & Steinmann, 1990) 245–51; John A. McGuckin, “Origen on the Jews,” in Christianity and Judaism (ed. Diana Wood; Studies in Church History 29; Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) 1–13; Joseph S. O'Leary, “The Recuperation of Judaism,” in Origeniana sexta (ed. Gilles Dorival and Alain Le Boulluec; BETL 118; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995) 373–79; and Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (trans. Batya Stein; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996) chs. 7–8.
Opening his comments on Romans 9, Origen places the mystery of 11:25–26 in the limelight of his exposition. He affirms Paul's commitment to—and confidence in—the ultimate salvation of the Jews, even as the apostle redefines the identity of Israel. Paul's efforts to save the Jews, in fact, outstripped those of Moses himself, who had implored God to forgive his sinful people and, if not, to expunge Moses' name from his book. But while Moses' “descendants, who had received the promised land, are even now meandering away from it as wanderers and exiles… Paul says about Israel, ‘I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, that blindness has fallen upon part of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in and thus all Israel will be saved.’”13
Origen, Commentarii in Romanos 7.11, in Der Römerbriefkommentar (ed. Caroline P. Hammond Bammel; 3 vols.; Vetus Latina 16, 33, 34; Freiburg: Herder, 1990–1998) 3.612. I have based my translations on Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans: Books 6–10 (trans. Thomas P. Scheck; FC 104; Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), modifying it—often considerably—where appropriate; for this passage, see 107.
Origen on Romans 9: Israel the Elect
In accordance with the Pauline principle that “not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel” (9:6), Origen affirms that the reality of salvation history defies appearances. The distinction between the elect (the vessels of God's mercy) and the damned (the vessels of his wrath) is not always readily comprehensible, and one cannot always make sense of the continuity (or discontinuity) between the members of these two categories at various stages in their history. Just as the ancient Hebrews had formerly attained mercy after having been rejected by God and reckoned for lost by other men, Origen explains that now the Gentiles, “who were looked down upon and given up on by those who boast in circumcision, have attained mercy.”14
Origen, Comm. Rom. 7.16 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.631; trans. Scheck, 124).
Thus did Origen explain Paul's citation (in Rom 9:27) of Isa 10:22. (“Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will be saved.”) Owing to the Jews' obstinacy, their impenitent heart, and the crucifixion of Jesus, Isaiah foresaw that many “were going to be ‘vessels of wrath made for destruction….’ Those who are not saved are like the sand of the sea; but the remnant that will be saved are like the stars of heaven. For the words of the promise that came to Abraham [Gen 22:17] contain both”—that is, both the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven.
15Comm. Rom. 7.17 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.634–635; trans. Scheck, 126–27).
, semen) that the prophet had referred to Jesus.
16Comm. Rom. 7.17 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.635–636).
Origen on Romans 10: Jews and Gentiles
Origen openly acknowledges that difficulties in reading Romans can arise from its changing voices: Paul seemed to converse with an unnamed interlocutor, who questions and challenges the ostensibly troubling implications of Paul's Christology; at times, Paul clearly addressed an audience of Gentile Christians, but elsewhere he appears to have addressed the Jews.17
See Gorday, Principles of Patristic Exegesis, 84, which calls Origen's interpretation an “argument in perpetual motion.”
Comm. Rom. 8.1 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.641); cf. Patrologia graeca (henceforth PG) 14.1157: “ineffabilis zelus et aemulatio Dei.”
Comm. Rom. 8.3 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.651).
Comm. Rom. 8.4 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.652, 654; trans. Scheck, 142, 144).
Comm. Rom. 8.5 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.659–660).
Comm. Rom. 8.4 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.653; trans. Scheck, 151).
Comm. Rom. 8.5 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.666).
Origen on Romans 11: “Remnant” and “Rest” of Israel
In interpreting Romans 11, Origen sets out to unravel these seeming inconsistencies concerning those who will and will not be saved, but, perhaps because such inconsistency is so deeply imbedded in epistle and commentary alike, he appears to compound the ambiguity of Paul's doctrine no less than to resolve it. In order to establish that God has not rejected his people Israel at the same time as he has in effect disowned them, Origen explains, Paul brought two concrete counterexamples: (1) that of himself, and (2) that of the seven thousand faithful, who, as God assured the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19), had not deserted him for the worship of Baal. These examples lead Origen once more to two distinct and inconsistent means of attacking the problem. First, he states, Paul intends to differentiate between two peoples of Israel.
Everyone who descends from the race of Israel is called Israel, but he is a true Israelite who sees God with a pure mind and a sincere heart…. In one passage he [Paul] names Israel according to the flesh; in another he does not make any mention of Israel of the flesh, as in the present passage, where, when… he wanted to set forth the nobility of the Israelite soul, he says, “For I myself am an Israelite.”24
Comm. Rom. 8.6 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.670–671; trans. Scheck, 158–59).
Nobility of faith, purity of heart, and sincerity—not nobility of lineage—distinguish the spiritual Israel destined for salvation. As Origen concludes succinctly, “Such then is the ‘remnant chosen by grace.’”25
Comm. Rom. 8.6 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.671–672; trans. Scheck, 158–59).
The Apostle divides Israel into two groups, one of which he calls “the elect,” which has obtained what it was seeking, the other he names “the rest,” which not only did not obtain what they were seeking but have been blinded by a spirit of confusion. Of them he indeed says that God gave “eyes that they would not see and ears that they would not hear, down to the present day,” that is, until the consummation of the age.26
Comm. Rom. 8.7 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.673; trans. Scheck, 160).
Where lies the confusion? On the basis of these overlapping but different distinctions, Origen does not clarify who constitutes the reliquiae, the remnant that Isaiah prophesied would be saved and that Paul suggested already were: Was it the largely non-Jewish Israel of the spirit or those few believing Jewish Israelites? Reliquus Israel, the rest of Israel that God has blinded,27
Comm. Rom. 8.7 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.675). Cf. ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.673: “ipse dederit oculos residuo Israhel quibus non videat….”
Origen on Romans 11: Israel's Rejection, Reversal, Restoration
Complicating matters still further, Origen takes pains to delimit the extent of carnal Israel's rejection, making guardedly positive mention of the salutary character of the Jews and their role in God's historical plan, their error and guilt notwithstanding. Origen understands Paul to mean that Jewish Israel stumbled temporarily but did not fall permanently. Its temporary lapse facilitated the salvation of the Gentiles. The Gentiles' conversion, in turn, will instill jealousy in Israel and ultimately rouse the Jews to believe in Christ. Albeit counterproductively, the Jews retain their zeal for God; they continue to immerse themselves in the study of God's law. Their alienation from God accordingly serves his purposes, and it has not deprived them of their inheritance forever. Origen proposes an instructive analogy:
If at some time a righteous man, having been overcome by one thing—for example, by the weakness of the flesh or by any other offense—would have fallen, he would not, however, on that account withdraw from all observance of the law, but he would hold fast to righteousness, cultivate mercy, preserve the faith, piety, and gentleness, and he would not neglect to meditate on the law of God; of this we can say, “Has he stumbled so as to fall? By no means!” For even the Israelites, although they have denied their own redeemer and have stoned and persecuted those sent by him to preach salvation; nevertheless they still have something that remains.28
Comm. Rom. 8.8 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.683; trans. Scheck, 168–69).
Despite the Jews' rejection of Jesus and his apostles, the potential for restoration and renewal remains inherent within them.
More important still, for all his denigration of the Jews and their observance, Origen insists that their reintegration into the people of God remains a vital, indispensable component of the ultimate salvation.
At the present time, while all the Gentiles are [still] coming to salvation, the riches of God are being gathered from the multitude of believers. But as long as Israel persists in unbelief, the fullness of the Lord's portion will not be said to be completed; for the people of Israel are missing from the whole. Yet when the fullness of the Gentiles enters in and Israel comes to salvation through faith in the end time, it will be that that very people which had been first would, in coming last, somehow complete that fullness of the inheritance and portion of God. Thus it is called “the fullness,” because, in the last days, it will fill in what was lacking in God's portion. And in this way the dispensation of the good and almighty God makes the offenses of some fruitful for others, just as in the present the offenses of Israel produce riches for the world and render their forfeiture wealth to the Gentiles.29
Comm. Rom. 8.8 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.685–686; trans. Scheck, 170–71).
Completion—achievement of the “fullness”—of the divine portion depends on the entry of both the “fullness” of the Gentiles and the people of Israel into the community of the faithful. As we shall see, such parity between the “fullness” of the Gentiles and “all Israel” will continue to engender ambiguity in the meaning of Romans throughout the ensuing centuries of Christian history.30
In pointed rhetorical fashion, Origen preempts a putative retort to his theory: “Now of course whether the dispenser of all things may do something similar with the Gentiles' offenses that they inevitably commit, and bestow riches upon certain others from these, so that it should not seem that this was unique to Israel alone, but that equality before the just and good God might be preserved for all—even you, the reader, should investigate on your own” (Comm. Rom. 8.8 [ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.686; trans. Scheck, 171]).
This interdependence of the fate of the Gentiles and that of the Jews, Origen elaborates, embodies the “mystery” that Paul wished to unravel to his readers. The initial election, the subsequent rejection, and the final reconciliation of Israel comprise vital elements of the divine economy of salvation; without them, God's plans for the redemption of humankind could not be realized.
At the dispersion of the sons of Adam, when the rest of the nations had been distributed according to the number of the angels, Israel became, as it were, God's portion…. So long as that portion of the Lord was abiding in its status it was not possible for us who were Gentiles to enter into the inheritance of God and to succeed to the rights of his scepter. On account of this, therefore, God allows blindness to remain over a part, that is, not all but some, of Israel…. For by turning away the people of God unto themselves through the allurements of sin, they made room for the Gentiles to enter into the inheritance of God…. But when the fullness of the Gentiles shall have been completed and Israel, in jealousy of their salvation, shall have begun to disperse the blindness of heart from herself and to behold Christ…. Israel, now motivated, would seek the salvation she had lost in her blindness.31
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.699–700; trans. Scheck, 182).
And yet, even here, despite Origen's intent to elaborate and to clarify, uncertainty and ambiguity remain. What, or who, is the part of Israel overcome by blindness? Origen gives the impression of a lesser part—“a part, that is, not all, but some”— rather than a majority. If so, must one conclude that the (presumably greater) part of Israel not overcome by blindness represented a majority of the Jewish people? But this would not comport with Origen's previous intimations that the saved remnant (reliquiae) of the Jews not blinded by God were relatively few in number, far fewer than the relative portion of the Gentiles that had come to have faith.32
One could, perhaps, argue that the blinded portion of Israel corresponded to Israel of the flesh, the great majority of the Jewish people, while those of Israel of the spirit did not suffer this blindness. The immediately ensuing contrast between Israel and the Gentile nations militates against this inference.
Origen on Romans 11: The Fullness of the Gentiles and the Extent of Israel's Salvation
Likewise, if Origen fails to explain precisely what part of Israel will succumb to blindness, he has similar difficulty deciphering Paul's prediction that “all Israel will be saved.”
Who the “all Israel” are who will be saved, and what that fullness of the Gentiles will be, only God knows…. Yet we can comprehend that just as Israel cannot attain salvation so long as it continues to be Israel according to the flesh and fails to become a true Israelite according to the Spirit, mentally gazing on God, so, not even can absolutely all of the Gentiles be saved, but only those that are found within the fullness, whatever it is that the Apostle calls the fullness. So then, the mystery of God is conducted by a certain ineffable dispensation of his wisdom in such a way that, even though a soul may inflict upon itself the condition of evil in itself, he who knows how to dispense all things may turn its rejection and punishment into the salvation of others.33
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.702; trans. Scheck, 183–84).
Understandably, Origen proposes a measure of parity between the conversion of “the full number of the Gentiles” and the salvation of “all Israel.” Both will signify the culmination of human history, bringing God's plan for human salvation to its final fulfillment. Both represent qualitative as well as quantitative designations, defying any immediate, simplistic definition, although the progression of Origen's commentary up until this point in Romans 11 bespeaks the conviction that the “rest of Israel” (reliquus Israel), blinded upon their initial rejection of Jesus, would ultimately be restored.
In the sentences that follow, however, Origen, appears to reverse himself, thereby reinforcing our uncertainty. “He [Paul] does not say that this blindness had occurred to all Israel but only in part. ‘For there is a remnant, chosen by grace….’ So, then, that remnant in blessedness is compared with the fullness of the Gentiles; but the others who have been blinded out of Israel are compared with the Gentiles who cannot attain to the fullness.” Origen then offers the exegete seemingly clear-cut advice for sorting matters out.
In this way, then, what is found in the words of the prophets relating to the promises, things written containing blessedness, if these things are about Israel, they pertain to that remnant that was chosen; if about the Gentiles, they have in view the fullness. If, however, grievous things are spoken about Israel, doubtless, they will be referred to the rest who were blinded; but if they are spoken about the Gentiles, they actually deal with those who are outside of the fullness.34
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.702–703; trans. Scheck, 184); see also Origen, In Jeremiam Homilia 5.4 (SC 232.290–293), and idem, Commentaria in Matthaeum 17.5 (GCS 40.590).
Origen here draws a parallel between the full number of Gentiles and the remnant of Israel—not to “all Israel”—to be saved at the end time. This, in turn, might imply that just as there will, evidently, remain some unconverted—and therefore unsaved—Gentiles not part of this fullness, so will those many blinded Jews (reliquus or residuum Israel)35
See above, nn. 26–27; and for other instances of these terms, albeit with inconsistent conclusions, see Origen, In Leviticum homilia 3.5, 5.11 (GCS 29.309, 353–354), and idem, In librum Iudicum homilia 6.1 (GCS 30.498).
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.703; trans. Scheck, 185).
When all is said and done, will all Israel be saved, or only the remnant? Origen only begins to hint at a possible solution to this seeming contradiction, although this, too, confounds no less than it clarifies. He proceeds to suggest that the infernal punishments intended for those not included in “the full number of the Gentiles” or in “all Israel” will not last forever. For how long will this “purging” endure? Again, only God knows.37
Ibid.
See Origen, In librum Iesu Nave 8.5 (GCS 30.341); and see Gorday, Principles of Patristic Exegesis, 94. One wonders curiously concerning the possible link between such a post-eschatological stage in Origen's thinking and his idea of continually repeating world cycles; on the latter, see Trigg, Origen, 108–10.
See, for example, Origen's In Genesim homilia 5.5 (GCS 29.64); In Exodum homilia 6.9 (GCS 29.199–200); In Leviticum homilia 3.5, 5.11 (GCS 29.309, 353–354); In Numeros homilia 6.4 (GCS 30.36).
Later Greek Fathers
Most other extant patristic commentaries on Romans pale in comparison with Origen's—in the depth of their exposition of chapters 9–11, in the level of their commitment to grapple with the exegetical problems inherent in the text, and in extent of their engagement by the issue of Israel's salvation. Some addressed the issue of Israel's free will and resulting responsibility for their crimes against God, while others considered the logic underlying God's plan for salvation history, but few confronted the difficulties implicit in Paul's prophecy that “all Israel will be saved.” In his penchant for a systematic comprehensiveness and the ambiguity that often resulted therefrom, Origen appears to have delineated the range of problems and interpretative strategies available to his successors, eastern and western alike, even as his own diligence, exegetical sensitivity, and theological disposition led him generally to steer a middle course.
Let us consider two other Greek patristic authors very briefly. Though their commentaries on Romans 9–11 might lack the fascinating—if at times confounding—exegetical thoroughness of Origen's, they do illustrate the extent to which Christian exegesis of the New Testament and anti-Jewish polemic may or may not have proven interdependent. To one side of Origen, as it were, one can adduce the Romans commentary of John Chrysostom (347–407), well known for his avid campaign against Judaizers in his city of Antioch and for the resulting series of eight sermons Adversus Judaeos that he delivered in 386 and 387. If Origen had sought somehow to retain the duality of Israel and the nations throughout his understanding of salvation history, Chrysostom strove to erect an insurmountable barrier between communities of Jews and Christians. While we remember Origen for his interest in Jewish exegetical traditions and his interaction with rabbinic scholars of his day, Chrysostom hardly leaves us the impression that Jews and Judaism could enrich his Christianity. “Where Christ-killers gather, the cross is ridiculed, God blasphemed, the father unacknowledged, the son insulted, the grace of the spirit rejected.”40
John Chrysostom, Adversus Iudaeos homilia 1.6 (PG 48.852; translation from Jews and Christians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era [ed. Wayne A. Meeks and Robert Wilken; SBLSBS 13; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978] 97).
Alongside Origen's commentary, Chrysostom's homilies on Romans number among the acclaimed works of Christian biblical interpretation. For Johannes Quasten, they are “by far the most outstanding patristic commentary on this Epistle and the finest of all Chrysostom's works.”41
Johannes Quasten et al., Patrology (4 vols.; Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1986) 3.442.
On Chrysostom, his attitudes toward the Jews, and his commentary on Romans, see J. N. D. Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1995); Robert Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); A. Piédagnel, “L'angoisse du salut des Juifs dans l'âme de l'apôtre Paul, d'après le De laudibus Pauli de Jean Chrysostome,” StPat 13,2 (1975) 269–72; Anne-Marie Malingrey, “La controverse antijudaïque dans l'oeuvre de Jean Chrysostome d'après les discours Adversus-Judaeos,” in De l'Antijudaïsme antique à l'Antisémitisme contemporain (ed. Valentin Nikiprowetzky; Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1979) 87–104; Gorday, Principles of Patristic Exegesis, ch. 4; Martin Parmentier, “Greek Church Fathers on Romans 9,” Bijdragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 51 (1990) 6; Demetrios Trakatellis, “Being Transformed: Chrysostom's Exegesis of the Epistle to the Romans,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 36 (1991) 211–29; Adolf M. Ritter, “John Chrysostom and the Jews: A Reconsideration,” in Ancient Christianity in the Caucasus: Iberica Caucasica I (ed. Tamila Mgaloblishvili; Richmond, Eng.: Curzon, 1998) 141–54, 231–32; and Margaret M. Mitchell, “A Variable and Many-sorted Man: John Chrysostom's Treatment of Pauline Inconsistency,” JECS 6 (1998) 93–111.
John Chrysostom, Homiliae in epistulam ad Romanos 17.1 (PG 60.564).
Hom. Rom. 19.3 (PG 60.587).
He shows here that the Gentiles were called first; and only then, inasmuch as they were unwilling, were the Jews chosen; and then the same thing happened again. For when the Jews did not wish to believe, the Gentiles were again ushered in. But he does not draw to a halt here, nor does he draw everything to a conclusion with their repudiation, but with showing them mercy yet again. Note how much he allots to the Gentiles—just as much as he previously allotted to the Jews. For when you, he said, disobeyed as Gentiles, then the Jews came in. Again, now that they have disobeyed, you have come in.
Granted, hopes Chrysostom, that the Jews will not perish forever; they will eventually be drawn to God out of jealousy for the Gentiles who had replaced them. Still, the Jews' fall appears much more permanent and difficult to reverse than it did in Origen's commentary. Chrysostom recapitulates: “Ponder this: You disobeyed, and they were saved. Now they have disobeyed, and you have been saved. Yet you have not been saved so as to recede again, in the manner that the Jews were, but so as to attract them in their jealousy while you remain.”45
Hom. Rom. 19.7 (PG 60.592).
Chrysostom's friend and colleague, Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–428), was similarly one of the deans of the Antiochene “school” of Christian biblical exegesis. He, however, did not use his Romans commentary as a vehicle for anti-Jewish polemic. To the contrary, he affirmed the centrally important contribution of the people of Israel to the redemption of humankind, both in the past and in the future, in terms more emphatic than Origen's. Jews served as catalysts for the salvation of the Gentiles, not in their falling away from God but in their faith in him, in their establishment of the early church, and in their preaching the doctrine of Christ. Hosea's prophecy of reversal cited by Paul in Rom 9:25–26—“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘my beloved’ ”—refers not to the replacement of the Jews by the Gentiles but to the future restoration of the Jews themselves. Not the Gentiles but those Jews already redeemed will arouse the envy of their coreligionists and ultimately induce them to return to God. In the same vein, Paul asserted that if a few believing Jews have already brought so many Gentiles into the faith, certainly the belief of all of the Jews would expedite the salvation of the entire world. For Theodore, it goes virtually without saying that “all Israel” to be saved in Rom 11:25–26 includes both the Jews (
) and those from among the Gentiles who shall be deemed worthy of the name.
46The extant fragments of Theodore's commentary on Romans 9–11 appear in Pauluskommentare aus der griechischen Kirche (ed. Karl Staab; Münster i. W.: Aschendorff, 1933) 143–59; cf. PG 66.833–860.
Ambrosiaster
Midway in our survey, situated between Origen and his Greek successors and the Latin exegetes of the late ancient and medieval periods, stands an anonymous church father whom we have come to remember as “Ambrosiaster.” Writing early in the last third of the fourth century, “Ambrosiaster” composed the first complete Latin commentary on the epistles of Paul, and that before Rufinus translated the commentaries of Origen. Although we know virtually nothing concerning the identity or career of this writer, his works manifest considerable erudition, and his interpretation of Romans, more thorough and systematic than that of any other Latin father, rightfully commands our attention. Ambrosiaster's commentary helped to enshrine ambiguity in the western understanding of Pauline teaching concerning the Jews. And it appears to have done so independently, without merely following the example of Origen, and on purely exegetical grounds, unencumbered by exceptional considerations of anti-Jewish ideology or polemic.47
On Ambrosiaster and his exegesis, see, above all, the still foundational work of Alexander Souter, A Study of Ambrosiaster (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905); Lydia Speller, “Ambrosiaster and the Jews,” StPat 17,1 (1982) 72–78; and David G. Hunter, “On the Sin of Adam and Eve: A Little-Known Defense of Marriage and Childbearing by Ambrosiaster,” HTR 82 (1989) 283–99.
Ambrosiaster recognized and addressed many of the same exegetical issues raised by Romans 9–11 that occupied Origen, but his resolution of those issues, while reminiscent of Origen's, nevertheless differs. Ambrosiaster evidently had difficulty understanding how Paul elicited sympathy and even praise for the Jews if God had rejected them, and, though affirming Paul's expectations for the salvation of Israel, he did not share Origen's resounding confidence, stated and unstated, that God would ultimately redeem the Jewish people. For his part, Ambrosiaster proposed to distinguish between various categories of Jews within the people of Israel as a means of explaining the ostensibly inconsistent dicta of Paul. Such a pattern of distinction runs like a unifying thread throughout Ambrosiaster's commentary on Romans 9–11, and yet, while it avoids some of the inconsistency of Origen's interpretation, it remains perplexing on other grounds.
Addressing Paul's anguish on behalf of his apostate Jewish kinsmen at the beginning of Romans 9 and his ensuing self-consoling proposal that not all Jews qualify as true Israelites, Ambrosiaster reasons as follows:
Thus does he diminish his grief, finding it once predicted that not all were to believe, such that he may grieve only for these who have failed to believe on account of their jealousy, for they still can believe…. Yet one should not rightly grieve for those predicted to be unbelievers, since they have not been predestined for life. For the foreknowledge of God did not formerly determine that they were meant to be saved, and who laments over one long ago considered dead? With the entry of the nations of the world who previously were without God, and with their acceptance of the salvation which those others [the Jews] had forfeited, his grief is aroused; but then, inasmuch as they are the cause of their own perdition, it is allayed.48
Ambrosiaster, Ad Romanos 9.13.3 (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum [henceforth CSEL] 81,1.314–315).
Ambrosiaster's comment conveys at least three ideas that figure significantly in his understanding of the Jews' role in the divine economy of salvation. First, not all Jews of the future were predestined to believe, only some. Second, one must differentiate between the present disbelief of these two categories of Jews: Some failed to believe because of their envy (per invidiam minime crediderunt), and these retain the potential for belief and salvation; yet for those inherently lacking in faith (incredulis), there remains no hope for the future. And third, divine foreknowledge notwithstanding, those doomed to perdition bear the responsibility for their own fate. These notions reappear as Ambrosiaster's commentary on Romans unfolds. In one particularly important passage, regarding the blindness imposed upon Israel as punishment for its rejection of Jesus and his gospel, he thus differentiates between two classes of people.
One is that eternally blinded by reason of its own malevolence, so that it may not be saved. These are people of the worst intention, such that even when they do understand, they say that they do not comprehend what they hear…. Therefore have they been blinded, so that no longer might they be able to believe and be saved. They have been sustained in their own will, such that inasmuch as they declared false what they knew to be true, no longer might they understand what was true—or possess the truth that they previously wished were false. The other class is that which, when pursuing the righteousness of the law, did not accept the righteousness of Christ; and since it did this not on account of the envy of an evil will but out of zeal for the tradition of their ancestors, they are blinded temporarily…. Therefore are they blinded, so that when the nations of the world have been admitted to the promise—owing to that same [misguided] zeal of theirs—and when they come to envy the Gentiles, they might return to faith in God. Because some Jews in their zeal for the law resisted the savior not out of malice but out of ignorance, they have not been blinded forever.49
Ad Romanos 11.10.2–5 (CSEL 81,1.368–371).
Ambrosiaster repeatedly employs this interpretative strategy of differentiating between Jews blinded temporarily and permanently in his exposition of Romans 9–11: in explaining the distinction between the remnants of Israel destined for salvation and the rest of Israel doomed to damnation (9:27, 11:2–5, 11:8–10); in understanding Paul's limited praise for the Jews (10:1–4); and in elaborating Israel's ultimate salvation (11:25–26). For all that he may have wished to minimize the ambiguity and inconsistency that we may have encountered in a reading such as Origen's, however, these do persist, and on multiple grounds.
The “Remnant” and the “Rest”
First, Ambrosiaster's comments raise questions concerning the remnants of Israel that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah adduced by Paul, would be saved, whereas the rest would not. Who were these remnants, and when would they receive the faith and salvation? Ambrosiaster explains: “Thus he states that of the greatest of multitudes, only the faithful, whom God foreknows, are saved.”50
Ad Romanos 9.28 (CSEL 81,1.332–333).
One finds similar ambiguity in the repeated observation of Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus in Psalmos 59.13, 121.4, 126.10, that upon the entry of the full number of the Gentiles “relicum Israhel”—not “omnis Israhel”—will be saved (CSEL 22.201, 573, 620).
Although the latter alternative might prove simpler and more consistent for Ambrosiaster, he appears to have opted for the former, more complicated and confusing interpretation. At the beginning of chapter 11 he portrayed Paul as differentiating between “the part of Israel, who God previously knew was meant to be saved, that has been saved or that still has the potential for being saved, and the part of Israel doomed to perdition on account of their persistent infidelity.”52
Ad Romanos 1.1 (CSEL 81,1.362–363).
Blindness, Ignorance, Error, Envy, Malevolence
Second, Ambrosiaster appears to have contradicted himself with regard to the rationale for this distinction between various classes of Jews. As noted above, his comments on Romans 9 assert that some Jews failed to believe because of their envy (invidia), while, owing to their malevolence (malivolentia), others were inherently incapable of believing (increduli). Expounding Romans 10, however, he explains precisely which Jews Paul praised for their devotion to God in spite of their ignorance of Christ. “He says that out of ignorance they did not believe in Christ; they indeed had zeal for God, but not knowing his will and his counsel they worked against God, whom they claimed to support. He speaks of those who failed to accept Christ not out of the malevolence of envy (non malivolentia invidiae) but out of error.”53
Ad Romanos 10.3 (CSEL 81,1.342–345).
Ad Romanos 11.22.1a (CSEL 81,1.378–379).
Ad Romanos 11.10.5a (CSEL 81,1.371).
Ambrosiaster has here adduced a verse that both he and most medieval Christian exegetes after him understood as bearing upon the intentions of those Jews responsible for Jesus' crucifixion: Did the Jews who killed Christ understand the magnitude of their crime—that is, did they realize that they were taking the life of their messiah and the son of God? Ambrosiaster, Augustine, and others typically used terms like ignorance and blindness almost interchangeably in explaining the error of the Jews, while those who later came to condemn the Jews for perpetrating their crime intentionally asserted that the Jews knew, not that they were blind. Once again, although the possibility remains that Ambrosiaster allowed for a third, intermediate alternative—of Jews blinded, but whose blindness derived from envy,56
See the sources cited in Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, 214 n. 140.
See also the studies cited below, n. 60.
The Mystery and Its Rationale
Third, as he explains Paul's prophecy concerning “all Israel,” Ambrosiaster alludes only briefly to the “mystery” in God's plan for salvation history, which Origen had expounded in depth as a recurring pattern of reversal, replacement, and reinstatement that would culminate in the final redemption of the world at large. Ambrosiaster surely acknowledges, as we have seen, that “for this reason are they [the Jews] blinded, so that when the nations of the world have been admitted to the promise—owing to that same [misguided] zeal of theirs—and when they come to envy the Gentiles, they might return to faith in God.”58
Above, n. 49.
See Ad Romanos 11.28.2 (CSEL 81,1.384–385), which does appear to leave the door open for a most welcome return of the Jews to the faith.
The Latin Exegetical Tradition
Romans 9–11, and the questions pertaining to the salvation of Israel, did not receive the same probing consideration in the exegetical works of the later Latin fathers of the church and their medieval successors as they did in the commentaries of Origen and Ambrosiaster. Instead, one finds that subsequent western exegetes borrowed extensively from the interpretations of their predecessors, and that inconsistency abounds in their own resulting comments. Although the question of the role of the Jews in the divine economy of salvation hardly lost its currency during the Middle Ages, other issues—the nature and effects of original sin, and the tension between predestination and divine justice, for example—evidently overshadowed the questions presently concerning us in the eyes of the epistle's commentators. These “Jewish questions,” in turn, proceeded to evoke discussion within the framework of avowedly anti-Jewish polemical treatises as well as in other exegetical and theological contexts.
Against the backdrop of this general assessment, several trends, individuals, and exceptions warrant our attention. His biographical obscurity notwithstanding, Ambrosiaster's distinction between those predestined for salvation and those not so predestined among the presently unredeemed people of Israel found echoes over the course of the Middle Ages, particularly as issues of human intentionality grew increasingly pressing in their own right. Moreover, while Ambrosiaster does not appear to have had a well-developed polemical agenda, others did. As I have demonstrated elsewhere, the differentiation between disbelief originating in blindness and unintentional error and that deriving from ill will came to figure significantly in medieval reevaluations of the guilt of the Jews responsible for Jesus' crucifixion.60
See Jeremy Cohen, “The Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983) 1–27; the more recent studies of Jack Watt, “Parisian Theologians and the Jews: Peter Lombard and Peter Cantor,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and the Religious Life: Essays in Honour of Gordon Leff (ed. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson; Studies in Church History Subsidia 11; Woodbridge, Eng.: Boydell Press, 1999) esp. 56–68; and Irven M. Resnick, “Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great,” Viator 33 (2000) 80–85.
Pelagius: The Salvation of Israel as Passed
The heresiarch Pelagius did have a definite polemical agenda, although not a specifically anti-Jewish one, and his commentary on Romans 9–11 sheds light both on his own singular ideas and on the “orthodox” consensus from which he departed. In addressing Rom 11:25–26, Pelagius suggests that the salvation of all the Gentiles did not entail the complete disenfranchisement of Israel but signaled equivalence in the status of both peoples in the eyes of God. Moreover, Pelagius understands the prophecy of Israel's salvation in Rom 11:26 (omnis Israhel salvus fieret) to have materialized already: “all Israel was saved,” not “all Israel will be saved.” Otherwise, he elaborated, one would have to understand Paul's citation (in Rom 11:26) from Isaiah (59:20) to refer to the future as well, and this leads to an untenable conclusion.
Some interpreters regard all these as future events. To these one must reply: Then this prophecy—“the Deliverer” of Israel “will come from Zion”—has yet to take place, and Christ will come again to set them free; and, if they have been blinded temporarily by God, and not by themselves, what will come of those who perish now as unbelievers?61
Pelagius, Expositio in Romanos 11.26, in Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of St. Paul (ed. Alexander Souter; 3 vols.; Texts and Studies; Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature 9; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–1931) 2:91; translation, with modifications, from Pelagius, Pelagius's Commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans (trans. Theodore de Bruyn; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 129.
The position of those who postpone the salvation of Israel to the end time, such that in large measure the Jews remain deprived of salvation until then, renders God's blinding of Israel grossly unjust in the eyes of Pelagius. For if God has purposefully distanced the Jews from salvation for the duration of the present era, what will come of those denied the opportunity to have faith of their own accord, as people must in order to save their souls?62
On Pelagius and his doctrine concerning sin and salvation, see, among numerous others, Peter Brown, “Pelagius and His Supporters: Aims and Environment,” JTS, n.s. 19 (1968) 93–114; Claudio Basevi, “La justificación en los comentarios de Palagio, Lutero y Santo Tomás a la Epístola a los Romanos,” Scripta theologica 19 (1987) 113–76; R. A. Markus, “The Legacy of Pelagius: Orthodoxy, Heresy and Conciliation,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (ed. Rowan Williams; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 214–34; B. R. Rees, Pelagius: Life and Letters (2 vols. in 1; Woodbridge, Eng.: Boydell Press, 1993) esp. ch. 4; and the introduction of de Bruyn to Pelagius's Commentary on St Paul's Epistle to the Romans, esp. 46–49.
Pelagius thus effectively sidesteps the question of how many Jews are included in the eschatological Israel to be saved, reinterpreting the divine mystery of Rom 11:25 so as to strip it of its commonly presumed eschatological resolution. While Israel's blindness afforded the Gentiles the appropriate occasion for their salvation (occasionem eis salutis), neither does Pelagius view this blindness as signifying a wholesale rejection of the Jews and their law, nor does he consider the displacement of the Jews necessary to make room for the Gentiles. On the contrary, God wished to bring the Gentiles into the fold for the express purpose of wooing the Jews. “They were not broken off for your sake, but you were grafted in because of the fact that they were broken off.”63
Pelagius, Exp. Rom. 11.17 (ed. Souter, 2.89; trans. de Bruyn, 127).
Indeed, without overlooking the importance of the gift of God's grace, Pelagius's commentary suggests that divine rejection and election correspond directly to the just deserts of those concerned, and that such status can fluctuate in accordance with human merit and demerit. God “has not rejected everyone, he says, and not for ever, but only those who do not believe, and as long as they do not believe.”64
Exp. Rom. 11.1 (ed. Souter, 2.85; trans. de Bruyn, 124).
Exp. Rom. 11.11 (ed. Souter, 2.88; trans. de Bruyn, 126–27).
The Scripture says: “Before a man are life and death; and whichever pleases him will be given to him” [Sir 15:18]—clearly, so as not to eliminate freedom of choice. It is therefore God's prerogative to allow them the spirit of stupefaction that they desired, for they have always disbelieved the words of God. Indeed, if they had wanted to have a spirit of faith, they would have received it. But even today Christians who doubt the resurrection and reward or Gehenna have sought a similar spirit for themselves, for in this passage the prophet was addressing both unbelievers and sinners.66
Exp. Rom. 11.17 (ed. Souter, 2.86–87; trans. de Bruyn, 125–26).
Thus placing present-day Israel and the nations on a par, Pelagius brings us full circle. Israel sinned, bringing blindness upon itself. God redeemed the Gentiles, essentially for Israel's sake. Now that their redemption has occurred, Jews and Gentiles share the same status. Those who fail to believe share in the same blindness, the same spirit of confusion to which the apostle had alluded. Of these, those who will to repent have the ability to do so, and, with the help of God, they can re/join the community of the elect. The reference of Rom 11:26 to the salvation of “all Israel” refers to developments already transpired, to the very establishment of Christianity. Simply put, it refers to the inauguration of a new basis for achieving salvation, the basis of faith. “Both transgression and faithlessness seized Israel to such an extent that the time came when all the Gentiles were given access to life. All of Israel, thus, was being saved in the same way as the full number of the Gentiles—by faith alone—so that, because they had been equals in transgression, they were equals in Christ.”67
Exp. Rom. 11.25 (ed. Souter, 2.91; trans. de Bruyn, 129).
Augustine: Romans 11 and the Doctrine of Jewish Witness
Augustine of Hippo did not complete a systematic commentary on Romans, and his interests in the epistle focused chiefly on the interplay of divine election and grace and the human will in determining the call to faith, much more than on Paul's prediction of the salvation of Israel. Nonetheless, as with so many other questions of theology and biblical interpretation, on this issue, too, Augustine set the tone for the prevailing trends in the Christian interpretation of Romans 9–11 during the millennium that followed him.68
Augustine's Expositio quarundam propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos and Epistolae ad Romanos inchoata expositio appear conveniently in Augustine on Romans (ed. and trans. Paula Fredriksen; SBLTT 23/Early Christian Literature Series 6; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982). In addition to Fredriksen's introduction, see also her valuable articles linking Augustine's interpretation of Romans and his attitudes toward the Jews, especially “Excaecata occulta iustitia Dei: Augustine on Jews and Judaism,” JECS 3 (1995) 299–324; “Divine Justice and Human Freedom: Augustine on Jews and Judaism,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (ed. Jeremy Cohen; Wolfenbütteler Mittellter-Studien 11; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996) 29–54; “Secundum carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine,” in The Limits of Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus (ed. William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999) 26–41; “Allegory and Reading God's Book: Paul and Augustine on the Destiny of Israel,” in Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period (ed. Jon Whitman; Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 101; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 126–49; and “Augustine and Israel: Interpretatio ad litteram, Jews, and Judaism in Augustine's Theology of History,” StPatr 38 (2001) 119–35. I have responded to Fredriksen's reading of Augustine's anti-Judaism in “‘Slay Them Not’: Augustine and the Jews in Modern Scholarship,” Medieval Encounters 4 (1998) 78–92, and presented my own interpretation in Living Letters of the Law, ch. 1. On Augustine's Romans exegesis in particular, see also, among others, William S. Babcock, “Augustine's Interpretation of Romans (A.D. 394–396),” Augustinian Studies 10 (1979) 55–74; Adolar Zumkeller, “Der Terminus ‘sola fides’ bei Augustinus,” in Christian Authority: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick (ed. G. R. Evans; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988) 86–100; and Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, “Augustine, Origen, and the Exegesis of St. Paul,” Aug 32 (1992) 341–68.
Augustine's comments on Romans restore the salvation of “all Israel” to the end time, in a manner that expresses his debt to both Origen and Ambrosiaster. Echoing Origen's rationale for the alternating pattern of rejection and election for Jews and Gentiles outlined by Paul in Romans 9–11, Augustine explains in a letter to Paulinus of Nola that the “mystery” of Rom 11:25 bears upon the reason why it pleases God “to allow those to be born, to increase and multiply, those who he foreknew would be wicked, even if he himself did not make them wicked.” Augustine here affirms that while God might work in strange ways, all that transpires in terrestrial history gives expression to the wondrous teleology of his creation. “His design is deeply hidden, whereby even in making a good use of the wicked for the benefit of the good, he exalts the omnipotence of his goodness, since, just as their evil constitutes bad use of his good works, so does his wisdom make good use of their evil works.”69
Augustine, Ep. Rom. 149.18 (CSEL 44.364); Augustine, Letters (trans. Wilfrid Parsons; 5 vols.; Fathers of the Church 12, 18, 20, 30, 32; 1951–1956; repr., Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1964–1967) 3.253 (with modifications). See also my discussion of this theme in “Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a Biblical Text (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989) 245–59.
How, then, do the fall and ultimate restoration of the Jews serve the interests of the divine master plan? Paul's denial in Rom 11:11 that the Jews have “stumbled so as to fall” intends not to underscore the reversibility of their fall—which for some might in fact prove irreversible—but its ultimately beneficial quality. The Jews have not fallen purposelessly; rather, their fall facilitated the salvation of the Gentiles.70
Augustine, Expositio quarundam propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos 70, in Fredriksen, Augustine on Romans, 40–41.
Augustine, Ep. Rom. 149.20 (CSEL 44.365–366; trans. Parsons, 253–54).
On the question of the ultimate eschatological destiny of the Jews, however, Augustine's letter to Paulinus appears to have taken a step back from the Origenist position, blending it with ideas of Ambrosiaster. Quoting Rom 11:25–26, Augustine endeavors to understand the partial nature of Israel's blindness.
He said [that Israel was blinded] “in part,” because not all of them were blinded; there were some among them who recognized Christ. But the fullness of the Gentiles comes in among those who have been called according to the plan. And so all Israel shall be saved, inasmuch as from among the Jews and of the Gentiles who have been called according to the plan, they more truly constitute Israel … while he calls those others “Israel according to the flesh” [1 Cor 10:18]. Then he inserts the testimony of the Prophet: “He who delivers and banishes ungodliness from Jacob will come from Zion, and this will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins”—not, indeed, those of all the Jews, but of the elect.72
Ep. Rom. 149.19 (CSEL 44.365; trans. Parsons, 253).
As we have seen, Origen himself had noted that the “true Israelite … sees God with a pure mind and a sincere heart,” while many who number among Israel of the flesh do not; similarly, Origen acknowledged that just as only God knows who and how many will number among the plenitude of the Gentiles, so does the precise numerical extent of “all Israel” remain a riddle. But, while Origen nonetheless belabored God's need for the people of Israel to return to the fold in order to bring his plan for human history to its perfect fulfillment, giving the impression that all of the Jewish people, more or less, will be saved, Augustine suggested otherwise, at least in his letter to Paulinus. Augustine's eschatological Israel is here a reconstituted Israel; it is “more truly Israel,” including both Jews and Gentiles. Accordingly, one can perceive in this passage a threefold classification of the Jews along lines laid down by Ambrosiaster. Some Jews recognized Christ; blindness struck the others, and, of these, God will ultimately save some, the elect, but others will remain unsaved. “All Israel,” evidently, does not mean all Jews.
Thus formulated, the Augustinian position seems fairly clear and comprehensible. Yet, once again, inconsistency and ambivalence cloud this picture, on at least three counts. First, in an array of other contexts, Augustine speaks of the ultimate salvation of the Jewish people, ostensibly as a whole; although he does not explicitly state that this category includes each and every Jew, one could very reasonably leave these texts with the impression that “all Israel” does denote all of the Jews.73
Among numerous references, see, for example, Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 2.154, 5.56 (Corpus Christianorum, series Latina [henceforth CCSL] 33.143, 310); Enarrationes in Psalmos 45.15, 138.8 (CCSL 38.528–529, 40.1996); Contra adversarium legis 2 (CCSL 49.92).
Augustine, Ep. Rom. 20ff., in Fredriksen, Augustine on Romans, 82ff.
Cohen, “Jews as the Killers of Christ,” 8ff.
If now they have been dispersed throughout almost all the world and [almost all] the nations, this is the providence of the one true God, so that when in any place the images of the false Gods are overthrown, with their altars, sacred groves, and temples, and when their sacrifices are forbidden, it may be proved from their books that this was prophesied long ago; and so that when this is read of in our scriptures one should not think that it has been fabricated.76
Augustine, De civitate Dei 4.34 (CCSL 47.127), freely adapting Henry Bettenson's translation of Concerning the City of God against the Pagans (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books, 1972) 178.
Just as the fall of the Jews, deriving from their role in the crucifixion, once contributed to the salvation of the world at large, so, too, does their survival in the present; therefore, Augustine teaches, God mandated that survival in his express command (Ps 59:12), “Slay them not, lest my people forget.”77
See Bernhard Blumenkranz, Die Judenpredigt Augustins (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1946); Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, pt. 1.
Patterns of Medieval Interpretation
On the basis of this spectrum of diverse, ambivalent, and often inconsistent patristic opinion, one can track the appearances of several recurring tendencies in the Latin exegesis of the Middle Ages, mindful that any given exegete might well find a place on more than one list. Pelagius's comments on Romans enjoyed a measure of popularity among some later exegetes, whether or not they recognized the dangerously Pelagian nature or source of their arguments and took steps to “correct” their own commentaries accordingly. The sixth-century Cassiodorus, for example, positively declares that one cannot merit the gift of divine grace and to assert otherwise “is Pelagian”;78
Cassiodorus (Ps.-Primasius), In Epistolam ad Romanos commentaria, Patrologia latina (henceforth PL) 68.489.
Ibid. 68.492.
Ibid. 68.493.
Ibid. 68.491.
Ibid. 68.487.
Ibid. 68.472–473.
John the Deacon (Ps.-Jerome), Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 30.699.
Expositio Pauli Epistolae ad Romanos, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis (henceforth CCCM) 151.77–112 nn., passim.
Yet the majority of western medieval theologians wavered between the positions of Origen, Ambrosiaster, and Augustine that we have considered, offering little new and substantial insight to the understanding of the verses from Romans in question. On the one hand, many suggested that all of the Jews would convert and be saved at the end of time. Such suggestion, to be sure, did not necessarily require an emphatic, explicit declaration that each and every Jew would be saved; one could speak collectively of the Jewish or Israelite people, of Synagoga, of Judea, or simply of “the Jews” and convey essentially the same impression. Addressing Job 38:41 (“Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?”) in his Moralia, for instance, Gregory the Great identifies the raven with the Jews and its young as the apostles, who originated in their midst.
Thus is it written: “until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved”—because the holy apostles strove especially hard first to preach to those that heeded them and then to present the example of the converted Gentiles to those that resisted them…. When the Jewish people sees the Gentiles converted to God through the efforts of the preachers, it ultimately grows ashamed at the foolishness of its disbelief. Then it understands the teachings of its holy scripture, when it recognizes that they became clear to the Gentiles even before themselves…. For with the routes of the apostles throughout the world completed, it finally accepts spiritually those things of which it had long deprived itself owing to the constraints of its perfidy.86
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 30.9.32 (CCSL 143B.1512–1513).
Several hundred years later, the ninth-century Haymo of Auxerre found additional support for the “mystery” of Rom 11:25–26 in 1 Cor 15:46: “It is not the spiritual which is first but the physical [animale], and then the spiritual”; so, too, will the fullness of the physical Gentile church enter the faith before the more spiritual Synagoga.87
Haymo of Auxerre, Homilia 139 (PL 118.741).
On the other hand, the limitations set by Ambrosiaster and Augustine on the inclusiveness of “all Israel” found a variety of expressions in medieval exegesis as well, notably, but hardly exclusively, among exegetes of the Carolingian period. In a different context, the same Haymo of Auxerre notes that Synagoga would believe only ex parte.88
Haymo of Auxerre, Homilia 2 (PL 118.24).
Sedulius Scotus, Collectanea in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 103.106.
Atto of Vercelli, Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 134.244.
Rabanus Maurus, Enarrationes in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 111.1534.
Bruno the Carthusian, Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 153.97–98. On the attribution of this work, see C. Spicq, Esquisse d'une histoire de l'exégèse latine au Moyen Age (Bibliothèque thomiste 26; Paris: J. Vrin, 1944) 55, and Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (3d ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1983) 48.
Peter the Venerable, Adversus Iudaeorum inveteratam duritiem 5 (CCCM 58.127).
Otto of Freising, Chronik 8.7 (ed. Adolf Hofmeister and Walther Lammers; Berlin: Rotten & Loening, 1960) 594, refers to the future conversion of the Jews as fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy concerning the remnant of Israel, invoked by Paul in Rom 9:27.
Peter Abelard, Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, CCCM 11.265–266.
Nonetheless, even Abelard acknowledges that in the view of other “holy men,”96
Ibid., citing Gregory the Great, Remigius of Auxerre, and Haymo of Auxerre.
See Jeremy Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and Christianity's ‘Eschatological Jew,’” Speculum 79 (2004) 309–40. I am presently preparing a broader study on the Christian linkage between Antichrist and Jew.
Peter Lombard, Collectanea in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, PL 191.1489–1491.
See Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla litteralis, in Biblia sacra cum glossis (6 vols.; Venice, 1588) 6.26r. On Nicholas, his biblical commentary, and his attitudes toward the Jews, see Herman Hailperin, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963) esp. pt. 4; Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1982) ch. 7; and the essays in Nicholas of Lyra: The Senses of Scripture (ed. Philip D. W. Krey and Leslie Smith; Studies in the History of Christian Thought 90; Leiden: Brill, 2000).
Thomas Aquinas, Super ad Romanos, in Opera omnia (ed. Roberto Busa; 7 vols.; Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1980) 5.482. On Thomistic exegesis and the Jews, see John Y. B. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995); and Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, ch. 9—both with additional bibliography.
I shall reveal a certain secret to you, my brothers, which would perhaps be better hidden in silence if it were not to your advantage that I speak—to prevent you, that is, from being arrogantly pleased with yourselves because you seem to have been preferred to the Jews. This blindness came upon the Jewish people, but not upon all of them and not forever. A good many of them do acknowledge Christ, and others will persist in their own blindness only until the number of Gentiles, for whom the fall of the Jews has now opened an access, has been filled. But when they see that the whole earth abounds in the profession of the Christian faith, that they await that messiah of theirs in vain, that their city, temple, sacred things, and people have been dispersed and scattered, they will finally begin to regain their vision and to acknowledge their own error, and they will understand that Christ is the true messiah. And thus all of the Israelites will be restored to salvation, although now part of them have fallen away from it.101
Erasmus, Paraphrasis in Epistolam ad Romanos, in Opera omnia, 10 vols. (1703–1706; repr., London: Gregg, 1962) 7.815–816; translation from Erasmus, New Testament Scholarship: Paraphrases on Romans and Galatians (ed. Robert D. Sider; Collected Works of Erasmus 42; Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984) 67 (with slight modification).
Exegesis and the Eschatological Jew
Tacitly confirming the sentiments of Martin Luther quoted at the very beginning of this essay, the early-seventeenth-century Flemish Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide offers a fitting and helpful distillation of the patristic and medieval Christian interpretation of Scripture with which to conclude our survey.102
Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria in sacram scripturam (ed. Augustinus Champon; 24 vols.; Paris: L. Vives, 1866–1874) 18.194. On Cornelius and his work, see John F. McConnell, “Communis omnium patria,” CBQ 17 (1955) 217–32.
Cornelius thus assimilates and expresses the indecisiveness of the patristic and medieval exegetical tradition that he inherited. Indeed, his comments on Rom 11: 25–26 enumerate three conflicting approaches to the understanding of “all Israel.” First, he writes, some of the church fathers understood “all Israel” “not carnally, but spiritually,” referring to all believers destined to be saved from among both Jews and Gentiles. Offering a second interpretation that Cornelius found preferable, others asserted that “all Israel” means all Jews, such that “at the end of the world all Jews without exception shall be converted and saved.” Third, Cornelius explains that “all Israel” can mean “almost all, [that] very many from among the individual tribes of Israel, except for the tribe of Dan [of which the Antichrist will be born103
On the origins and development of this tradition, see C. E. Hill, “Antichrist from the Tribe of Dan,” JTS, n.s. 46 (1995) 99–117; and, on its impact on late medieval German literature and culture, Andrew Colin Gow, The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 1200–1600 (Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought 55; Leiden: Brill, 1995).
Cornelius's summary of the exegetical alternatives for Rom 11:25–26 sheds light on the linkage between Christian eschatology and biblical interpretation. Just as the Augustinian doctrine of toleration for the contemporary Jew as constructed in medieval Christian theology—whom I have elsewhere dubbed Christianity's “hermeneutical Jew”104
Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, passim.
This essay has shown that even the common sense of that Pauline prophecy was hardly a foregone conclusion. From the first centuries of the patristic period through the end of the Middle Ages, Christian theologians and exegetes debated and equivocated over the number and identity of those Jews included in Paul's prophecy, and how and when it would materialize. Moreover, while theological differences concerning the “hermeneutical Jew” of the past and present may have jibed with alternative ecclesiastical policies vis-à-vis the Jews of Christendom, the interpretation history of Rom 11:25–26 appears to militate against any neat categorization or taxonomy of alternative opinions. Prevalent assumptions regarding the ultimate redemption of Israel notwithstanding, the exegesis of Romans only begins to scratch the surface of the puzzle.
Nonetheless, the exegetical field that we have surveyed provides an essential context for this investigation. No matter how complex the etiology of the ancient and medieval church's expectations of the end, these could never extricate themselves from Christianity's biblical foundations. Nurtured in a biblical culture, neither theologians nor eschatological visionaries could shirk a fundamental responsibility to the sacred text. As it did for Paul himself, that text, in many ways, comprised both the starting point and endpoint of their quest.
Footnotes
The research for and preparation of this article were supported by the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 722/99), by the Research Fund of Tel Aviv University, by the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora Research Center of Tel Aviv University, by fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and by the generous hospitality of the University of Notre Dame. I am indebted to my colleagues at these various venues for their helpful and constructive reactions to variegated requests for advice and information. Pursuit of the research, demanding the assembly and processing of a vast array of source material, would not have been possible without the dedicated help and cooperation of my research assistants over the past several years: Marianne Naegli, Dorit Reiner, Tali Berner, Montse Leira, Adi Greenman, Ella Raskin, Haim Cohen, and Avital Davidovich.
You have
Access
- 3
- Cited by