|
Some of the most virulent anti-Jewish language that we find in the early church is found in a series of eight sermons delivered by John Chrysostom in 386 CE to his church in Antioch. The city of Antioch in western Syria was one of the centers of Christianity in the early church. According to Acts 11:26, it was in this city that the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. And it was from the church in Antioch, according to Acts, that Paul launched his mission to Gentiles. Antioch was a city with not only a large Jewish population, but according to Josephus, a city with frequent contact between Jews and Gentiles. Josephus reports that Jews "were constantly attracting to their religious ceremonies multiudes of Greeks, and these they had in some measure incorporated with themselves" (War, 7.45). |
This is the context in which we need to hear Chrysostom's sermons. They are directed not to Jews but to Christians in his own congregation. The occasion of the series is the autumn Jewish religious festivals (e.g., Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and Sukkoth) and Chrysostom seeks to persuade Christians to not celebrate these festivals with Jews in the city. In his first sermon, Chrysostom writes, "What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now. My homilies against the Anomians can be put off to another time, and the postponement would cause no harm. But now that the Jewish festivals are close by and at the very door, if I should fail to cure those who are sick with the Judaizing disease. I am afraid that, because of their ill-suited association and deep ignorance, some Christians may partake in the Jews' transgressions; once they have done so, I fear my homilies on these transgressions will be in vain. For if they hear no word from me today, they will then join the Jews in their fasts; once they have committed this sin it will be useless for me to apply the remedy" (Homily One, I.5)
Chrysostom's basic position is that synagogue is not a legitimate place to worship God because of the willful actions of the Jewish people. They can not claim ignorance or blindness because the Jewish people didn't observe the Law when it was given to them by God and appropriate for them to obey. Yet now that it is no longer appropriate in light of Christ's death and resurrection, Chrysostom argues, they still bind themselves to the Law. For Chrysostom, it is precisely because the Jews had the witness of the prophets, which pointed to Christ in his reading of the Bible, and rejected that witness and him that they are now to be hated.
|
Homily One II. (1) But do not be surprised that I called the Jews pitiable. They really are pitiable and miserable. When so many blessings from heaven came into their hands, they thrust them aside and were at great pains to reject them. The morning Sun of Justice arose for them, but they thrust aside its rays and still sit in darkness. We, who were nurtured by darkness, drew the light to ourselves and were freed from the gloom of their error. They were the branches of that holy root, but those branches were broken. We had no share in the root, but we did reap the fruit of godliness. From their childhood they read the prophets, but they crucified him whom the prophets had foretold. We did not hear the divine prophecies but we did worship him of whom they prophesied. And so they are pitiful because they rejected the blessings which were sent to them, while others seized hold of these blessing and drew them to themselves. Although those Jews had been called to the adoption of sons, they fell to kinship with dogs; we who were dogs received the strength, through God's grace, to put aside the irrational nature which was ours and to rise to the honor of sons...." — II. (3) Nothing is more miserable than those people who never failed to attack their own salvation. When there was need to observe the Law, they trampled it under foot. Now that the Law has ceased to bind, they obstinately strive to observe it. What could be more pitiable that those who provoke God not only by transgressing the Law but also by keeping it? On this account Stephen said: "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart, you always resist the Holy Spirit", not only by transgressing the Law but also by wishing to observe it at the wrong time. — V. (2) Since there are some who think of the synagogue as a holy place, I must say a few words to them. Why do you reverence that place? Must you not despise it, hold it in abomination, run away from it? They answer that the Law and the books of the prophets are kept there. What is this? Will any place where these books are be a holy place? By no means! This is the reason above all others why I hate the synagogue and abhor it. They have the prophets but not believe them; they read the sacred writings but reject their witness-and this is a mark of men guilty of the greatest outrage. (3) Tell me this. If you were to see a venerable man, illustrious and renowned, dragged off into a tavern or den of robbers; if you were to see him outraged, beaten, and subjected there to the worst violence, would you have held that tavern or den in high esteem because that great and esteemed man had been inside it while undergoing that violent treatment? I think not. Rather, for this very reason you would have hated and abhorred the place. (4) Let that be your judgment about the synagogue, too. For they brought the books of Moses and the prophets along with them into the synagogue, not to honor them but to outrage them with dishonor. When they say that Moses and the prophets knew not Christ and said nothing about his coming, what greater outrage could they do to those holy men than to accuse them of failing to recognize their Master, than to say that those saintly prophets are partners of their impiety? And so it is that we must hate both them and their synagogue all the more because of their offensive treatment of those holy men. (5) Why do I speak about the books and the synagogues? In time of persecution, the public executioners lay hold of the bodies of the martyrs, they scourge them, and tear them to pieces. Does it make the executioners' hands holy because they lay hold of the body of holy men? Heaven forbid! The hands which grasped and held the bodies of the holy ones still stay unholy. Why? Because those executioners did a wicked thing when they laid their hands upon the holy. And will those who handle and outrage the writings of the holy ones be any more venerable for this than those who executed the martyrs? Would that not be the ultimate foolishness? If the maltreated bodies of the martyrs do not sanctify those who maltreated them but even add to their blood-guilt, much less could the Scriptures, if read without belief, ever help those who read without believing. The very act of deliberately choosing to maltreat the Scriptures convicts them of greater godlessness. (6) If they did not have the prophets, they would not deserve such punishment; if they had not read the sacred books, they would not be so unclean and so unholy. But, as it is, they have been stripped of all excuse. They do have the heralds of the truth but, with hostile heart, they set themselves against the prophets and the truth they speak. So it is for this reason that they would be all the more profane and blood-guilty: they have the prophets, but they treat them with hostile hearts. Source: Internet Medieval Sourcebook |
For Chrysostom, the proof that God has rejected Israel is to be seen in the destruction of the Jerusalem and the Temple by the Romans as the following excerpts show.
|
HOMILY V I. (1) Come now, and let me give you abundant proof that the temple will not be rebuilt and that the Jews will not return to their former way of life. In this way you will come to a clearer understanding of what the Apostles taught, and the Jews will be all the more convicted of acting in a godless way. As witness I shall produce not an angel, not an archangel, but the very Master of the whole world, our Lord Jesus Christ. When he came into Jerusalem and saw the temple, he said: "Jerusalem will be trodden down by many nations, until the times of many nations be fulfilled...." (6)...By this he meant the years to come until the consummation of the world. And again, speaking to his disciples about the temple, he made the threat that a stone would not remain upon a stone in that place until the time when it be destroyed. His threat was a prediction that the temple would come to a final devastation and completely disappear. (7) But the Jew totally rejects this testimony. He refuses to admit what Christ said. What does the Jew say? "The man who said this is my foe. I crucified him. so how am I to accept his testimony?" But this is the marvel of it. You Jews did crucify him. But after he died on the cross, he then destroyed your city; it was then that he dispersed your people; it was then that he scattered your nation over the face of the earth. In doing this, he teaches us that he is risen, alive, and in heaven. (8) Because you were not willing to recognize his power through his benefactions, he taught you by his punishment and vengeance that no one can struggle with or prevail against his might and strength. But even so, you do not believe in him, you do not recognize that he is God and Master of all the world, but you consider him just another man. Homily VI III. (6) But the Jews will say: "Where is the evidence that God has turned away front us?" Does this still need proof in words? Tell me this. Do not the facts themselves shout it out? Do they not send forth a sound clearer titan the trumpet's call? Do you still ask for proof in words when you see the destruction of your city, the desolation of your temple, and all the other misfortunes which have come upon you? "But men brought these things upon us, not God." Rather it was God above all others who did these things. If you attribute them to men. then you must consider that, even if men were to have the boldness, they would not have had the power to bring these things to accomplishment, unless it were by God's decree. (7) The barbarian came down upon you and brought all Persia with him. He expected that lie would catch you all by the suddenness of his attack and lie kept you all locked up in the city as if you were caught in the net of a hunter or fisherman. Because God was gracious to you at that time-I repeat, at that time without a battle, without a war, without a hostile encounter, the barbarian king left one hundred and eighty-five thousand of his slain soldiers among you and fled, contented that he alone was saved. And God often decided countless other battles in this way. So also now, if God had not deserted you once and for all, your enemies would not have had the power to destroy your city and leave your temple desolate. If God had not abandoned you, the ruin of desolation would not have lasted so long a time, nor would your frequent efforts to rebuild the temple have been in vain. Source: Internet Medieval Sourcebook |
Chrysostom's sermons provide good examples of at least two different themes that have been present in the church's supersessionist theology as it developed. According to the typology proposed by R. Kendall Soulen, economic supersessionism argues that Israel becomes obsolete in God's economy or plan of salvation with the sending of his son Jesus. The church replaces Israel in God's plans. Punitive supersessionism, a second type of this theology, holds that God is finished with Israel because of their rejection of Jesus, the one who is the heart of Scripture.
To return to Supersession Index Page and explore other examples of supersessionist theology, go to
To explore other expressions of anti-Jewish theology in John Chrysostom's sermons, follow the links below