Posted on 05/11/2009 7:35:16 AM PDT by GonzoII
They were God's chosen people until the coming of Christ, and they could have been among His chosen people now, had they remained true to God. God did not change in His attitude to them; rather they changed in their attitude to Him. They had been taught to look forward to the Redeemer. But when He came they rejected Him because they wished Him to bring them temporal, not spiritual gifts.
168. What was the religion of Noah?
Man has always had a religion taught by God. But this religion falls into four great divisions:—
1.—The religion of Adam, who was instructed immediately by God. This was the first stage, and is known as the religion of innocent man.
2.—After Adam's fall, Adam handed on to his children the truth about God, and the duty of worshipping Him. Thus Abel offered sacrifice. The traditions were transmitted by Adam's posterity, but memories faded. Still, conscience always dictated what was naturally right, and this period could be called the period of natural law. However, God gave occasional revelations to various individuals, such as the Patriarchs, over and above the natural law, and this stage is often called the period of the Patriarchal religion, or the period of pre-Mosaic unwritten law.
3.—The third stage came with Moses. After the re-multiplication of the human race from Noah, men again began to forget God, and God gave to Moses a clearer exposition of religious duties to be put into writing. This is known as the stage of the written law, or that of the Mosaic religion.
4.—Finally God sent His own Son to give the more perfect law—the Christian law—which the Catholic Church teaches today in its fullness, and will teach till the end of time.
Noah belonged to the second of these four stages, that of the Patriarchal unwritten law.
169. Why did God delay the sending of His Son with the perfection of the law?
The delay was adapted to mankind's natural methods of progress from the less perfect to the more perfect. It taught the human race its need of God from sad experience. It brought out the real dignity of Christ which could thus be heralded by a long series of prophets. God is not so impatient as man. He is quite content to wait for an acorn to become an oak tree, rather than create all oak trees immediately.
170. Christ was a Jew, and practiced the Jewish religion. Why would He establish another religion when the religion of God was already in existence?
As stated above, God gave the true religion to mankind gradually, so that men would be prepared by more simple doctrines for still more noble truths. Thus He sent Moses the lawgiver, and after him a series of prophets to explain the law and to predict the coming of the Messiah. Christ fulfilled these predictions and taught the perfect law of God. The religion known by the Jews before Christ was therefore but imperfect and preparatory. The religion of Christ was its perfect fulfillment, and the Jews should have recognized and accepted it. They did not, and then Christ sent his Apostles to preach it to the Gentiles. Christ did not therefore establish another religion. Christianity is the perfect development of the Jewish religion, just as the perfect tree is the perfect development of the seed from which it grew.
171. Can you show from Scripture that Christ intended this perfect development of the Mosaic religion to be distinct from the religion of the Synagogue?
Yes. Referring to the future, Christ said, "I will build my Church." The Synagogue was already established. Christ prescribed new doctrines, new modes of worship, and a new form of authority. He even predicted to His Apostles, "In the Synagogue you shall be beaten." Mk. XIII, 9. The intended distinction of His Church from the prefigurative Synagogue is most clear.
172. In what did the religion of Christ differ from that taught by Moses?
Christ retained all the basic laws of religion and morality contained in the progressively revealed Jewish preparation, abolishing only the particular rites and ceremonies which were purely figurative, and also the imperfections of the initial religion.
173. If Christianity is the true development of the Jewish religion, why is it not the religion of the Jews today? Why did not the Jews accept Christ?
Many individuals did. As a race the Jews did not. This was not because Christ did not sufficiently prove His mission, but because the leaders of religious thought, and the teachers of the people had lost the true religious spirit, had selfishly transferred their affections to a love of their own high places, and had substituted the idea of a magnificent temporal ruler for the idea of a spiritual Saviour. They wanted deliverance from the tyranny of the Romans, and help to trample upon them in turn. Since Christ did not fit in with their earthly notions and ambitions, the leaders rejected Him. The majority of the people, dependent upon the Scribes and Pharisees for religious direction, obeyed these leaders, their own fears, and their national pride. The first members of the Christian Church were individual Jews chosen by Christ to spread His doctrines among the Gentiles; and this, in accordance with Christ's own prediction in the parable of the great supper, where those first invited would not come. Indeed an earlier warning had been given to the Jews that their birthright would pass to the Gentiles if they did not overcome their attachment to earthly ideals in the incident of Esau's selling his birthright to Jacob. Although Christianity should be the religion of the Jews, therefore, it is not, through their own fault as a race. The modern Jew takes his religion for granted, without inquiring deeply into the question.
174. God treated the Jews unfairly. It must have been difficult to comprehend the teachings of Christ, and He offered them no material benefits.
God did not treat the Jews unfairly. They had every opportunity given them to recognize the truth. Christ offered them the evidence of many miracles in the material order and before their eyes. They could not deny these miracles, but in their bad will ascribed them to the devil. Christ, as promised, came to offer eternal spiritual benefits, the only lasting ones and the only ones which the grave cannot take from us. Had He not offered such benefits, the Jews would have been justified in rejecting Him. But that He did not offer the material benefits He did not come to give, can never justify the Jews in their rejection of Him.
175. If the miracles were so evident, I don't see how the Jews could refuse to accept Christianity?
Many a man knows what he ought to do, but to do it is another thing altogether. The Jews could not honestly deny that Christ was of God, and that His religious teaching should be accepted. Some did accept it; others did not. Even God would not compel these to accept the true religion, and Christ warned them of the guilt in their bad will when He said, "He who does not believe shall be condemned."
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From: John McDade SJ
Schismatic Bishops, Holocaust Denial and Christian-Jewish Relations
Pope Benedict has gone out of his way to condemn denial of the Holocaust, calling such revisionism “intolerable”. He is following the lead given by Pope John Paul II who was responsible for an astonishing transformation in the Church’s theological understanding of the Jewish people and their significance in the present age. The change inaugurated at Vatican II can be simply described: it was the removal of what is called the ‘theology of supersessionism’ by which Judaism is understood to have been replaced by Christianity. Supersessionism has been the default position in Christian thought, and it is given clear expression in the American Baltimore Catechism used widely before the Council:
Why did the Jewish religion, which up to the death of Christ, had been the true religion, cease at that time to be the true religion?
Answer: the Jewish religion was only a promise of the redemption and figure of the Christian religion, and when the redemption was accomplished and the Christian religion was established by the death of Christ, the promise and the figure were no longer necessary. (391)
Nostra Aetate subtly counters this replacement theology by affirming that God’s covenant with the Jewish people was not revoked because ‘God does not take back the gifts he bestowed or the choice he made’. St Paul had written about those Jews who did not accept Jesus as Messiah and Lord: ‘as regards election, they are beloved for the sake of their forefathers. For the gift and the calling of God are irrevocable’ (Rom 11.28-9). In other words, God does not alter the choice he has made to bestow his love on Israel; God is faithful to his promises.
Without reflecting on it, often Christians have treated Judaism as part of the prehistory of Christianity: it is what prepares the way for Jesus Christ, but has no significance in the present age. Jews are simply early, troublesome actors in the overarching Christian story. Christians who suggest that God has ‘rejected’ or replaced the Jewish people should consider that if God can withdraw his love from Israel, he can also withdraw it from the Church: so on what basis could we Christians possibly trust a God who shows himself to be so inconsistent? A replacement theology has profound consequences for your doctrine of God and your doctrine of the Church, so think again, my supersessionist friend, before, through your theories of Israel being removed from divine favour, you undermine the solidity of the very Christian faith you claim to uphold.
In a thoroughly Pauline spirit, during his visit to the Mainz synagogue in 1980 Pope John Paul II spoke of ‘the people of God of the Old Covenant that has never been revoked by God’. Now, if the covenant has never been revoked, then it is still in place, and we have to acknowledge that what God inaugurated at Sinai is still a feature of God’s relation to the Jewish people, awaiting fulfilment as God brings them to the fullness of redemption. Later the Pope spoke of Christianity and Judaism as traditions ‘linked together at the very level of their identity’ and ‘founded on the design of the Lord of the covenant’. Now this cannot be a sequential relationship, in which one follows the other and supersedes it: it must refer to a bond at one and same time.
You said:"I said neither."
Earlier in this very thread you said to... Julia H.
God bless the Jews; no offence here, nor do believe in the post but rather an honest laying out of differences in belief.
Perhaps I misunderstand the meaning of this statement.
Then why did Jesus teach “us” to pray as Jews re, “Our Father....”
Mr. McDade doesn’t seem to understand Catholic Christianity in general, replacement theology, or Nostra Aetate.
Of course the covenant was not “revoked”. It was broken by the Jews when they rejected God in the person of Christ. God will fulfill His part of the covenant when the Jews fulfill theirs and convert to Catholic Christianity.
God cannot withraw his love for Israel or, for that matter, for anyone else. God is love.
Sorry, I left out the "I".
What I meant was that it is clear that Jews and Christians see and believe things differently and no offense should be taken when one states his beliefs to another.
I don't believe the Fathers are being uncharitable in there defense of the Catholic faith, but rather are simply stating it.
Because He is.
Christ, with his teachings, came for the Jew first then for the Gentiles.
Because He is.
Christ, with his teachings, came for the Jew first then for the Gentiles.
Well, its not really about charity. I also do not believe that they are moved by animus or hatred, but their reading of the text and what they had been taught.
In my reply to annalex, I quoted a section of a discussion on this topic that contains a quote from John Paul II interpreting Nostra Aetate that the Christian connection to God relies on the understanding that God does not do "take backs." Otherwise, in the incident of the Golden Calf, he surely would have, else you believe that he could be pursuaded by Moses against his will.
God's relationship with the Jewish people is complex, the Jewish role is one that pretty much guarantees pain and suffering in service to God's greater plan, and as many have remarked, he picked the hardest headed, most unruly, difficult folks to place this obligation. The stories of the Jews are not a list of their perfections and glories, but rather almost a indictment of how folks can create difficult stress filled situations by making wrong headed choices. The miracle is and has always been that God has kept his promise to all of the people of this world and does at all times. He has not abandoned a single one of us even though we may chose to abandon him.
The first Covenant must stand forever or no Covenant has any meaning.
Pretty arrogant. mmm..Annalex, I wonder what your qualifications are to make such a statement. Mr. McDade seems to me to be competent to at least quote John Paul II correctly. I include his bio so you can compare your own against it. Perhaps I have met a true scholar rather than this duffer.. McDade.....
John McDade is a Jesuit priest. He studied Modern Languages at Oxford and theology at Heythrop. After teaching in secondary school, he did his doctorate at the University of Edinburgh on the interpretation of pre-existence language in Christology, using Paul Ricoeur’s theory of metaphor as an interpretative category. He has taught Systematic Theology at Heythrop since 1985, focusing on the main areas of God, Christ and Salvation. During his teaching, he became interested in the new theology of Christian-Jewish Relations and its impact on Christian theology. He is responsible for developing the Diploma in Christian-Jewish Relations and the MA in Contemporary Theology in the Catholic Tradition. For 9 years (1986-1995) he was Editor of The Month, a Review of Christian Thought and World Affairs, and wrote extensively during that time on a range of issues affecting Christian faith and the modern world and on contemporary cinema. He is President of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain (1999-2005).
That’s great. And I am an anonymous guy on the Internet who knows what his Church teaches. Go fugure.
Go fugure. Thats original. So we have crossed out the Popes and Priests who don't know.
Keep care.
The Jesuits, for sure. While there are individual Jesuiut priests who are true Catholic, the order as a whole has gone heterodox since the 70’s.
Perhaps, but the man is quoting John Paul II. You are saying he is heterodox as well? When you are quoting someone, its their words that matter, not the quoter unless you suppose the quote has been altered.
Look, your stance has been the justification of evil done against Jews for two centuries but in the final analysis, even the most anti-semetic Popes found themselves having to provide for keeping his own last supply of Jews for without them Revelation falls apart. "No Heaven for you!" says the Soup Nazi.
If the Jews are necessary then they are still an integral part of the story, and thus cannot be cut off or left out any more than Joseph was cut off in Pharoh's dungeon. There is no possibility of the second coming if their are no Jews left, so understand, for your basic system to work there had better be some Jews around. Thus all of this talk about the branches grafted on to the root and then somehow providing for themselves their own root.. is silliness.
This is why, many who have looked at the whole of the plain words have become Zionists much to the chagrin of the Jewish community.
The Jewish community thinks this new use of Jews as the sacrificial lambs for Revelation's events as a bit of a bore as well. And say, that this motive of seeing us killed by the million to bring about the second coming as not being something we care to participate in.
Ultimately, replacement theology cannot stand an internal analysis of consistency to the rest of the Christian Cannon.
But this is not the point. The point is that Replacement Theology supposes that God is willing to break his Covenant given directly to the people who are his chosen emissaries. This is supposed because the Jews had not reached out to teach the rest of humanity but this is not so. Instead, at the time of the distruction of the 2nd Temple, 10% of the population of the entire Roman Empire was Jewish.
It was Emperor Hadrian's assault on Judiasm and the conflict that occurred between the "Orthodox" Jewish community in Judea and the early adherents of Christianity that forced Christians to adapt sharp differentiations between themselves and the Jews of the time. For in crushing Judea, Hadrian committed an atrocity that was as great or greater than Hitler, but even in this the divine hand can be seen. As murdered Jews by the Hundreds of Thousands and salted the earth to make Judea a desert, he was preserving Israel for the return of the Jews in the current era.
And if you attempt to say, what price did Hadrian pay, for how is it that this served God's purpose to murder us so, then we see that great things occured because of this. The most important of which was the casting of the Oral Torah onto paper so that it might be preserved if the last Rabbi was murdered. The end of the Temple Sacrificial practice with the passing of necessary elements for a Jewish Priest to function. And even though the whole population of Judea was murdered or hauled off into slavery, and the Jews of the rest of the empire oppressed and murdered or converted to other faiths, Hadrian's plan to conquer Persia was thwarted never to be attempted by any following Roman Emperor.
Infact, the Hadrian's sacking of Judea in response to the Bar Kochba rebellion marked the true high water mark for the Roman empire. From there on, Rome was never to again hold the territory or the power they had before this atrocity.
Ultimately, what matters is that for some reason, beyond all reason, Jews still matter. There are only 12 million of us, yet we seem to be right in the eye of history and unfolding events.
The Holocaust has shaken Jews to the core, forcing us to ask, why. Why were we sheep led to the slaughter? Why did so many good people do nothing? Does God still love us or are we truly forsaken as the Christian's and Muslims and everyone else keeps assuring us. But, it is funny, the very word Holocaust being chosen to describe the great organized murder of so many people. Jews and Gentiles the same. For it is the term used to describe what is done to a sacrifice in the old Temple where the lamb is entirely burnt and the smoke rises to heaven. This was an evil sacrifice and the people who organized it evil people who were crushed to dust in a matter of a few short years, for the whole might and the greatest terrors imaginable were unleashed into mans hands in the space of these very same years so that this evil could be crushed.
The olive tree still stands. Extra branches are fine. The Jew is acutely aware that history is full of Righteous Gentiles without whom Jews would not have existed or survived. Christianity has meaning and it can be a blessing for all who reach out to God through its teachings, but evil has been done and will be done via folks manipulating its teachings just the same. But for all of these flaws, Christian's have the opportunity to live Righteously and in complete accord with the requirements of Torah when they are not Jews, for only Jews are obligated to be Jews and though any human can decide to become a Jew, the obligation falls on not just that individual but all of the generations to come.
For the third time: the Revelation of Christ and His rejection by the organized Judaism is not God stopping to love the Jews, or breaking His own word. When Jews convert to Catholic Christianity, the covenant of Moses will be fulfilled.
Nothing John Paul II, or any other pope, said contradicts the posted discourse or replacement theology, at least not fundamentally.
Catholicism condemns the Holocaust as an unspeakable crime, as well as it condemns racism of every kind.
Well, we are getting more into rational territory. The Jews will never convert. Ever. 2000 years and the Roman lash were not enough. Nor was the Holocaust, or the Spanish Inquisition. As I have been trying to share, the moment the Jews cease to be so will the Christians, we travel together down separate but important paths toward the same goal.
Christians are welcome to attempt to convert Jews as long as they use the tactics of persuasion by reason and always avoid coercion. Jews who can be converted are not Jews, just folks who remember that they have a heritage and an obligation that they aren't ready to keep. This has consequences for all, and we pray for them to come back to life and their unique obligation, but it is so difficult once you cut yourself off.
What Christian's have to offer is meaningless to Jews, Judaism as a faith does not offer salvation. We instead are called to live a Holy life, and this indeed is not easy, such that as all humans we are reduced to attempting to meet this obligation each day, and begging for forgiveness when we fall short of this mark. And Jews, have no place in the Christian "Kingdom of Heaven" for we are the meek who were instead given a portion of the Earth as our own but who just borrow our souls and when our time comes and we have lived well, we happily give them back to from whence they came, God.
This is no loss, for God remembers all, is all and the soul is no longer separated from God by the identity of living beings. We do experience what Christians describe as Hell however, in that once the soul has departed the body, if it attempts to hide from God and stay separate because of Guilt for evil done but not atoned for to man or God and moreso because of fear of the loss of identity. In this case, the very fires of Hell are God's love radiated to call the soul back to him. The torture comes from the very denial of this call.
About the Covenant of Moses. This doesn't exist as such. The Covenant is with Abraham's children through Issac. At Sinai, Israel came into the very presence of God and each individual member of the nation of Israel was given the Law and accepted it, saying all that you command we will do.
It is said, every Jew from throughout time stands there at the base of Mt. Sinai in that very moment for this is a commitment that each Jew makes in his own time if he is to be a Jew and any human can step into this light, and accept this yoke if they so decide, but it is a moment beyond any other religion because it is a commitment made to God directly, not through any intermediary who must travel afar to bring back this gift. Instead it is the acceptance of the individual of a bond and obligation to God to be a light unto the world, a priest to the nations and a witness to the existence and Glory of the One and ONLY God who is our Lord, Creator and Source of life.
The Christian message brings mankind onto this path and therefor is in service to God's desire that all human beings are freed from slavery and oppression of the body and the spirit. Christian practice is consistent to the obligations of those who have not accepted the yoke of Judaism and thus is a path to Righteousness. Judaism commands us to love accept and assist others who are not Jews, to accept the stranger in our midst, and always remember that we were once oppressed and that the gift of freedom we received has come with the obligation to help others to freedom as well.
Thank you for your two posts; it has been my understanding of Judaism also. My sole point here, with respect, was to point out that Replacement theology is not internally inconsistent and is not intrinsically anti-Semitic.
I understand that, but it is inconsistent and a source of great evil. Now more than ever, Jews and Christians need to stand on common ground without fear and distrust dividing them. The forces of darkness and evil are afoot, and Western Civilization and our very most basic values are under assault.
We all need to be looking to God for help and answers, clearly attempting to rid the world of Jews by conversion is not a path that has brought anything but tears for all.
But, as I said, Christians are welcome to try any time they like as long as they attempt to persuade by discussion and example rather than coercion, threat and humiliation. Pope Benedict's stance as reinterated just this week is the proper stance and it leaves this edge just fuzzy enough that we might not live in conflict and Jews might not fear the ascendancy of Christianity which has so often in the past brought death and humiliation. This is the promise of America, the core of our own national philosophy.
People who want to dominate and enslave the vast majority of people in this world hate faith based on the teachings of the Bible because the bible tells a core message of freedom, human dignity and worth, and the obligation of each human to the stranger and those less fortunate.
Christians share the basic values of the Jews though we each have fellow co-religionists whom we feel have lost their way.
As I said before, the greater problem of bringing people back to God needs to be the top priority for the religious institutions of the USA.
Recently, the unity and clarity of the American Catholic Bishops on the issue of Abortion has signaled a turn in what has been more than a score of years of wondering in the dark due to scandal and arrogance. And, this clarity is being rewarded by people responding to the clear message, though this is a matter of time.
Now is the time for Christians and Jews to continue to forge ties of understanding and increase trust as the basic structure of morality and freedom are under assault. Fears of renewed oppression by Christians has for too long been the source of motivation to pursue secularism as the foundation of our society rather than morality guided by the Judeo-Christian heritage and this has been a disaster. Our government must be blind to faith in God, but our laws and morality cannot.
You repeat that replacement theology is inconsistent and evil, but you do not present any argument to support your view, other than a desire not to convert, and historical fears of forced conversions or persecutions. That is perfectly understandable, but it is not a logical argument.
No question, Christian and Jews can and should cooperate on many levels even before Jews convert to Christianity — convert not because they are forced to, but because that is the one truth. In fact, Christians also cooperate with any religion or irreligion. However, Christianity does replace Judaism, as it is the fullness and the completion of it.
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