Chapter 1 - The Prior Church Legacy

Summary

The emergence of Christianity within Palestinian Jewry and its eventual movement beyond its Jewish origins created complex Christian imagery of and policy towards Jews and Judaism. The Old Testament component in Christian Scripture portrays Jews as the original human partners to the divine-human covenant, but also presents them as unceasingly failing in their covenantal obligations. Within the New Testament, the Gospels portray both positives and negatives with respect to Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries. Most positively, Jesus himself and his immediate followers were all Palestinian Jews; on the other hand, the opposition to Jesus came from the leadership of Palestinian Jewry. The Gospel portrayal of the Jewish role in the Crucifixion highlights the destructive role of Jews in this cosmic event. Paul’s perspective on the evolution of the divine-human covenant created the new reality of gentile Christianity and a new view of Jews. Paul emphasized the past greatness of the Jews, acknowledged their present shortcomings, but insisted on their future return to a role in the divine-human covenant. Augustine, the great synthesizer of early Christianity’s views and policies, was deeply influenced by the Pauline perspective. He adopted Paul’s views of the Jewish past, present, and future and adumbrated a Church policy grounded in those views. Jews were to enjoy material and spiritual security in Christian societies; they were to be precluded from inflicting harm on host Christian societies; they were to be regularly and sympathetically addressed in hopes of winning them over to Christian truth. This Augustinian synthesis became the foundation for subsequent Church policies.