Augustine's Contribution to Supersessionism

Augustine’s contribution to the doctrine of supersessionism is significant. James Carroll points out that Augustine’s attitude toward the Jews was rooted in “assumptions of supersessionism.”[i] According to Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, Augustine (354–430) introduced a “negative element into judgment on the Jews.”[ii] He did so by advancing the “‘theory of substitution’ whereby the New Israel of the church became a substitute of ancientIsrael.”[iii]

In line with supersessionist theology, Augustine explicitly stated that the title “Israel” belonged to the Christian church: “For if we hold with a firm heart the grace of God which hath been given us, we are Israel, the seed of Abraham. . . . Let therefore no Christian consider himself alien to the name of Israel.”[iv] He also said, “The Christian people then is rather Israel.”[v] According to Augustine, when Gentiles believe and become part of the new covenant, their hearts are circumcised and they become part of Israel:

Now what the apostle attributed to Gentiles of this character, how that “they have the work of the law written in their hearts;” must be some such thing as what he says to the Corinthians: “Not in tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart.” For thus do they become of the house of Israel, when their uncircumcision is accounted circumcision. . . . And therefore in the house of the true Israel, in which is no guile, they are partakers of the new testament.[vi]

Concerning Israel’s role in the plan of God, Augustine argued that national Israel prefiguredspiritual Israel—the Christian people:

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob three fathers, and one people. The fathers three, as it were in the beginning of the people; three fathers in whom the people was figured: and the former people itself the present people. For in the Jewish people was figured the Christian people. There a figure, here the truth; there a shadow, here the body: as the apostle says, “Now these things happened to them in a figure.”[vii]

For the most part, Augustine’s supersessionist views were not original. In fact, they were mostly consistent with the patristic tradition that preceded him. Augustine’s most original contribution regarding Israel and the church, however, can be found in his reasons for Israel’s continued existence. During Augustine’s time, the existence of the Jews and Judaism posed an apologetic problem for the church. If the church was the new Israel, for what purpose did national Israel exist?

Augustine offered an answer for this perceived dilemma. For him, the Jews functioned primarily as witnesses. They were witnesses to the faith preached by the prophets, witnesses of divine judgment, and witnesses of the validity of Christianity. He wrote, “But the Jews who slew Him . . . are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ.”[viii] The Jews, according to Augustine, shielded Christians from accusations that Christians invented Old Testament prophecies that pointed to Jesus. Thus, the existence of non-Christian Jews was not a problem but an essential testimony to the truth of Christianity.

Hood views Augustine’s contribution in this area as “ingenious” because it “provided a foundation for tolerating Jews within a Christian society.”[ix] Augustine’s contention that the Jews were witnesses to Christianity became especially important when the crusades began and the church began to persecute heretics. Hood asserts that Augustine’s views “shielded the Jews of western Europe from the full force of Christendom’s coercive powers.”[x]

Although devoting much of his attention to matters such as free will, original sin, and predestination, Augustine’s views on the Jews and Judaism carried great weight for many years. In fact, Hood asserts that Augustine’s ideas on these matters “dominated the medieval debate.”[xi] This was so “despite the fact that Judaism and the Jews are not major themes in Augustine’s voluminous writings.”[xii] Yet, because Augustine’s writings in the Medieval Era were so revered, his thoughts on any topic, no matter how sparse, were considered important.

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[i] James Carroll, Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), 219.

[ii] Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, “Christianity and Judaism, a Historical and Theological Overview,” in Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), 20.

[vii] Augustine, On the Gospel of St. John 11.8, NPNF¹ 7:77. Augustine also stated, “In that people [the Jews], plainly, the future Church was much more evidently prefigured.” Augustine, On the Catechising of the Uninstructed 19.33, NPNF¹ 3:304. Augustine expressed a supersessionist perspective when he wrote, “But when they [the Jews] killed Him, then though they knew it not, they prepared a Supper for us.” Augustine,Sermons on New Testament Lessons, Sermon 62, NPNF¹ 6:447.

[ix] John Y. B. Hood, Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995), 12. Carroll states, “It is not too much to say that, at this juncture, Christianity ‘permitted’ Judaism to endure because of Augustine.” Carroll, Constantine’s Sword, 218. See also Jeremy Cohen, “Introduction,” inEssential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict: From Late Antiquity to the Reformation, ed. Jeremy Cohen (New York: New York University Press, 1991), 13–14.

It's a waste of time, Uri-el.

If God has lied to the Jews and has broken His promises to them, then He has broken His promises to everyone and committed a horrific sin when He sent Jesus Christ to die. If He has lied to the Jews, and has broken His eternal covenants with them (even though those who make these lies about God can never produce His words that tell us that His eternal covenant with His chosen people is broken), then He has lied also to those who believe they are saved. If God will lie to one, He will lie to all.

This is the real issue you are dealing with:

in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. (2 Corinthians 4:4)

and

But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. (1 Corinthians 2:14)

Satan was the first person to deny the word of God and call God a liar and anyone who follows in that path and denies the word of God and says that there are parts of the Bible in which God lies does not know Christ as Savior. It's that simple.

God promised His people He would bring them back from among the nations into their own land and He has fulfilled that promise. He promised His people He would restore their nation and He has fulfilled that promise.

God is in the process of keeping the promises He made to His people, and despite the best efforts of those who, like Satan, despise the Jewish people and have allowed themselves to be deceived into believing that the Bible is a book of fairy tales and that God lies, He will continue to keep every last promise He made to the Jews down to the most minute detail.

Whenever you see a person denying the Scripture that details God's promises to the Jews, and lying about what God has said about His chosen people, you can know that you are not dealing with someone who knows Christ as Savior. No true believer in Christ would deny His word, and no true believer in Christ would accuse Him of lying.

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