I have just finished reading a wonderful book by the late scholar Louis Feldman (d. 2017) entitled Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian. In it, he mentions the patristic attempts to convince the Jews of the truth of Christianity by citing examples of Old Testament prophecy fulfilled in Jesus, and he remarks that Jews in those days could hardly have found such Christian arguments convincing. In some ways I take his point. Even to my Gentile Christian ears some of their arguments sound forced, such as St. Justin Martyr’s suggestion that the figure of the cross can be found in the physical physiognomy of the human nose (Apology, ch. 55). But I still think that the patristic arguments were not completely unsound, even if the Fathers did over-stretch their arguments somewhat in their zeal to convert their Jewish neighbours to the Christian Faith. Accordingly I would like to revisit the whole project and suggest reasons why devout Jews should become devout Christians.
I am not unaware of how unpopular such a project can be today. The unpopularity of the attempt to convince Jews of the truth of Christianity goes back a long way. In the prehistoric days of my youth, the Anglican Book of Common Prayer contained a collect or prayer for use on Good Friday for the conversion of the Jews which read, “O merciful God, who hast made all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made, nor wouldest the death of a sinner, but rather that he should be converted and live: Have mercy upon the Jews, thine ancient people, and upon all who reject and deny thy Son; take from them all ignorance, hardness of heart, and contempt of thy word, and so fetch them home, blessed Lord to thy fold, that they may be made one flock under one shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord”. It hardly needs stating that this prayer could not stand the scrutiny of later political correctness, and so was omitted from later editions of the Prayer Book. Our Jewish neighbours objected to the Christian conviction that they should convert to Christianity, and so a later generation of Christians obligingly expunged the collect from their Good Friday liturgy.
I quite understand how our Jewish neighbours find offensive the suggestion that they should abandon Rabbinic Judaism for Christianity. In the same way, I suppose, our Muslim neighbours find offensive the suggestion that they should similarly abandon Islam. But if Christians regard their religion as true, the notion that all men should become Christians seems an inevitable corollary. Every person thinks his own religion is true and therefore that everyone else should embrace it. This does not make him a bigot or triumphalistic, but simply consistent. If he did not regard his own religion as true, no doubt he would find another religion.
For Christians the issue Jewish evangelism is complicated by the long history of anti-Semitism, especially in Europe. One thinks of the European ghettoes and of the Nazi Holocaust. We naturally view our relationship with our Jewish neighbours through the lens of the past European history in general and the Holocaust in particular, and read patristic comments—and sometimes New Testament verses—in light of this history of inequality and oppression. But this is a mistake.
In the New Testament, there was indeed an inequality between Christians and Jews, but it was the Christians who were at the distinct disadvantage. Leaving aside the crucifixion of Jesus, Jewish-Christian relations began with the persecution of Christians by the Jewish majority, culminating in the martyrdom of Stephen. In the decades and even centuries following, the Christians continued to be the persecuted minority, and the Jews continued to function in the role of either the persecutors or of collaborators with the persecutors, such as in the case of the martyrdom of St. Polycarp in the mid-second century. Throughout the early church and even into the Constantinian period, the Jewish communities in the Roman world were large, rich, powerful, and influential, while the Christian communities during the same period were small and comparatively powerless. The patristic denunciations of the Jews need to be read against this political and cultural background. It was the Christians who were in the ghettoes and under threat, not the Jews. The shrillness of the Christian characterization of Judaism arises at least in part from this inequality of power.
One also needs to recognize that the Christians were then reacting to an extreme and (to their mind) blasphemous Jewish rejection of Jesus. The Jews denounced Jesus as a deceiver and a blasphemer, and even today the Talmud contains sections of extraordinary vituperation in which Jesus is portrayed as sunk in hell and set ablaze in fiery excrement. The Toldoth Yeshu or “Story of Jesus”, tells the tale of Jesus from the Jewish perspective in lurid detail, and includes the assertion that Jesus was the bastard son of Mary and a Roman centurion named Pandira. It was not uncommon for Jews to add the words “May his name perish!” upon hearing the name of Jesus mentioned.
It is good that today we have largely left behind such polemics, but we must remember that in the past Christian denunciation of Judaism was matched by Jewish denunciation of Christianity. Our modern horror and rejection of anti-Semitism—godly and necessary as this rejection is—must not be allowed to distort our reading of history or make us think that the patristic opposition to Judaism shared the same root as modern anti-Semitism. One can and should reject such anti-Semitism as hateful and demonic, and still recognize that patristic polemic against Judaism was not necessarily anti-Semitic in our modern sense. In fact the Fathers tried to convert the Jews to Christianity for the same reason that the Jews tried to convert them to Judaism—because both thought that their religion was true.
For many Jews today all Christian evangelism aimed specifically at Jews is intrinsically and inescapably anti-Semitic. Certain Christian Jews—such as the so-called “Messianic Jews” or those of the “Jews for Jesus” movement—portray Jewish conversion to Christianity not so much an act of conversion as completion, a movement in which Judaism is not renounced but fulfilled. They often refer to themselves not as “converted Jews”, but as “completed Jews”. It is fair to say that such distinction and nuance are not well-received by their target audience. For many in this target audience, Jewish identity is paramount, and Christian beliefs such as the belief that Jesus is the Messiah, threaten that identity and are therefore emphatically rejected.
I suggest that such a rejection is incompatible with the Jewish inheritance found in the Hebrew Scriptures. For the prophets, it was following the will of God that was paramount, not ethnic identity. This prophetic preference for truth over national identity was summed up by John the Baptizer when he said to the Pharisees, “Do not suppose that you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father’, for I say to you that God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham” (Matthew 3:9). Israel’s national destiny was to follow their God wherever He led, even if following Him meant the sacrifice of national identity. To be a Jew was not merely an ethnic reality, but a spiritual one (Romans 2:28-29). Accordingly, I will offer an apologia for the Christian faith in the spirit of the Fathers. St. Paul taught that the Gospel was the power of God for the salvation of all men, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Romans 1:16). With the deepest respect for my Jewish neighbour, I will make the Christian case for the Gospel and attempt to show how Judaism finds its fulfillment in Jesus the Messiah.
Thank you Fr. Farley!
I am looking forward to reading your blog-posts on this subject.
Yours in Christ
“Jew and Greek” by Dom Gregory Dix recommended.
Father bless! Regarding “the Jewish communities in the Roman world”, it may be worth noting that there were Jewish communities *outside* the Roman Empire as well. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz had a fascinating article last year called “Before Islam: When Saudi Arabia Was a Jewish Kingdom”, which reports that one of the earliest known texts written in the Arabic alphabet concerns a late-5th-century Christian who may have been martyred by the rulers of Himyar, who had converted to Judaism about a century earlier.
Greetings Fr. Lawrence –
I was reading again, the Jewish scholar, Dr. Judith Komblatt’s work, particularly her book, “Doubly Chosen: Jewish Identity, the Soviet Intelligentsia and the Russian Orthodox Church,” and Googling, and you came up as a hit. So I said, maybe God has a reason….possibly to address what you have brought up about Jewish conversion…
In her book, and within her findings, Dr. Komblatt notes that of the Hebrew Groupings, Talmudic Ashkenazim, when they do convert to Orthodoxy, tend with less difficulty to assume Russian Orthodoxy (ROC), which remains perplexing to all involved, since the sacrifice of family and culture is much to ask of them, and then to be ministered to in the foreign language of Old Slavonic, and a mixed history coming from both sides. (But the one’s who do convert can admit to a mixed history of prejudice on both sides of the aisle.) Since the fall of communism, and even prior, ethnic Jews gave ethnic Russians a ‘run for their money’ in joining Orthodoxy according to Komblatt. Competing with them, but in lesser numbers, because they are fewer, yet less perplexing -since they vehemently reject the Talmud and are Scriptural Jews – are the Kairites, who find a fit more easily into Russian Orthodoxy. Part of this comes from the fact that the Karirites have had more of a positive history, except during the Soviet period, of being protected by the Russian monarchy because of refusing to be “followers of the scribes and the pharisees” – i.e. they are vehemently anti-Talmud. The whole phenomenon has Dr. Komblatt (who still writes on the subject) perplexed.
Falasha and Mizrahim convert to and fit well into Ethiopian Oriental Orthodoxy, and sometimes the Copts, both for racial, ethnic and psychological similarities. The Orthodox in Israel receive a number of Middle Eastern Jews who fit well into indigenous Orthodox groups associated historically with the few remaining groups claiming to be descendants of the Desponsyni – particularly St. James’ Orthodox.
The much fewer converts from the Askenazim in Canada and the US tend to come, oddly, from the extreme ends – the Frum (Ultra-Orthodox) and the Reconstructionists. Both groups have a commonality in that they tend to be ‘mystically’ and ‘mystery’ oriented in their perspectives, are very into ritual (for different reasons); both groups have a number of panentheists members (God is in everything; everything is in God), and both have developed their own version of negative theology. Furthermore the latter group, the Reconstructionists, view Judaism, particularly the Talmud, as culture and not religion – and therefore they are more biblically-oriented. (They were established by Rebbe Mordecai Kaplan, and are much challenged by the Reform, Conservatives and Modern Orthodox who often treat them harshly, particularly for their rejection of the notion of Jewish choseness.) O yes, Romaniotes, also non-Talmudic Hebrews tend to convert to Greek Orthodoxy, and have a long history of protection by the Greek Orthodox for having no part with the Talmud. The greatest historical loss have been the Mandeans (those followers of St. John the Baptist who did not go over to Christ God) – they manifest, to this day, an extreme hatred for the person of Christ and Christianity (which is an understatement), and don’t really care if the world knows it. There are so few of them now, that they intermarry with willing Jews and Samaritans to keep their numbers up; and the Samaritans do so with Jews for the same reason. Both Mandeans and Samaritans are so invested in their sense of ‘divine call’ that they, for the most part, shut themselves off from all outsiders who might challenge it. Serphardim, when they consider Christianity, tend towards Roman Catholicism…
If you get to the reasons as to why Jews back away from Christians, there are multiple reasons: 1. many, when versed, are versed in the Talmud more than they are in the OT Scriptures, whether or not they believe in a God; 2. there is a lot which is being asked of them, and we don’t often appreciate it: loss of culture and loss of family, and being doubly rejected once they are in the Church by their own and by ours and feeling they are made into second-classed members; 3. the behaviors of the ‘bible-thumpers’ (which I often hear from my Jewish associates) are so off putting; and many Jews cannot distinguish between one group of people calling themselves Christian and another, since in North America alone there are over 40,000 denominations – and how many Orthodox Churches as well (including both canonical, non-canonical and ‘independent’); 4. by the same token most Christains are thoroughly unaware of the many flavours of Hebraism, and that many of them are not biblically-oriented for the most part. Few Christians, for example, know that most Jews won’t even open the book of Jeremiah, although it is included in the Hebrew Bible. Explanations vary, but since the Holocaust it has become a book many now find ways to dispute its canonical authenticity – see http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/8587-jeremiah-book-of. 5. Except for Hesychasts and Fools in Orthodoxy, most Christians find the Jewish tendency of ‘arguing’ or ‘bargaining’ with God uncomfortable and off-putting, and a example of hubris, rather than a method of seeking ‘friendship’ with God and an obedience of freedom rather than slavery. 6. Most Christians are unaware that few Jews nowadays, compared to the whole, perceive Judaism as a religion of God, and that it is more a religion of race since the Holocaust. Most of the ‘atheism’ is a deeply impeded sense of hatred toward God that is displaced into a false sense of disbelief in His existence; and the ground of which had been prepared by their own ‘thinkers,’ such as Freud (Totem and Taboo), Ayn Rand and her multiple atheist writings, Marx and Trotsky and their ‘atheist experiments,’ Leo Strauss, and many others – and this latter matter is a hard thing to admit – anti-Semitism coming from their own, whom they have to believe were great thinkers rather than underminders of their own ability to believe and find meaning. When I’m talking Jews in this latter group, I’m talking 45 and younger in age…. 7. The hypocricy of Christians is a major stumbling block. 8 If persons calling themselves Christian don’t take the time to know the differences between Hebrew groups, who they are, their histories, what they believe and don’t believe – and most of our clergy are totally ignorant of Judaism (Judeanism) and Hebraism since 70AD, then they often feel why should they make a contrary effort to do the same…For example, I don’t know how many priests I’ve had to push their face into a book written by a Jewish scholar and show them that some Jews are monotheists/mono-person, some panentheists, some pantheists, some ditheists (two gods – a Greater and a Lesser), some believe in an anthropological God, some believe in a framented God of 11-13 parts; and some a god of reason, or a god of order – behind evolution or part of the evolutionary process…Father Pierre.
There are other reasons, that I’d like to list as personally off putting:
1) Orthodox Christians routinely make false accusations denigrating the Masoretic Text
2) Some of the worst anti-Jewish propaganda has been created, celebrated and disseminated by Orthodox Christians (ex. Protocols of the Elders of Zion)
3) Bible study is virtually non-existent in the Church
4) Christians normally assume the position that Law is bad, even though Torah and Law are the bedrocks of Jewish wisdom and holiness
And many more.
I had never heard of the Mandeans until now – that is extremely interesting.
” in the past Christian denunciation of Judaism was matched by Jewish denunciation of Christianity”
Evidence?
Having grown up Jewish and embraced Orthodox Christianity later in life, I can say this certainly doesn’t match my experience. So much hatred against Jews, both in ancient and modern Christianity (especially Orthodox).
I was referring to the liturgical denunciation of Jewish Christians as heretics for the purpose of excluding them in the early centuries, the extremely negative portrayal of Jesus in the Talmud, and the contemporary hatred shown to Christians on the part of some Orthodox Jews. When walking the streets of the Old City in Jerusalem wearing my cassock and cross, I was repeatedly spit at by Orthodox Jews–including young boys walking with their fathers.
The ancient liturgical denunciation is extremely vague (I believe that it’s association with Christians has to be inferred) compared to our own current and pervasive condemnation of the Jews throughout our services.
Spitting is of course uncalled for, but it’s nothing compared to what Jews have had to endure in just about every Orthodox country.