Aquinas on Israel and the Church

381 Pages·2012·2.98 MB·English

by  Matt Tapie

THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

Aquinas on Israel and the Church: A Study of the Question of Supersessionism
In the Theology of Thomas Aquinas

A DISSERTATION

Submitted to the Faculty of the

School of Theology and Religious Studies

Of The Catholic University of America

In Partial Fulfillment for the Requirements

For the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

By

Matthew Anthony Tapie

Washington, D.C.

2012
Aquinas on Israel and the Church: A Study of the Question of Supersessionism
in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas

Matthew Anthony Tapie, Ph.D.

William C. Mattison III, Ph.D.

During the last decade, the discussion over whether Thomas Aquinas’s theology is
supersessionist—the idea that God abolishes Jewish observance of circumcision and Torah
and replaces Israel with the Church—has elicited deep disagreement among scholars. With
the exception of a few studies on Aquinas’s commentary on Romans, scholars in the
discussion over whether Aquinas’s theology is supersessionist have overlooked his
commentaries on Paul’s epistles to the Galatians, Hebrews, and Ephesians, which include
some of Aquinas’s most extended reflections on the subjects of Israel and the Gentile Church
and on Jewish observance of the ceremonial Mosaic Law after the passion of Christ. The
neglect of Aquinas’s commentaries on Paul’s epistles represents a significant gap in the
current scholarship on the question of supersessionism in Aquinas’s theology. This
dissertation adjudicates conflicting claims in the discussion over whether Aquinas’s theology
is supersessionist by examining Aquinas’s view of the ceremonial Mosaic Law after the
passion of Christ in his neglected commentaries on Paul’s epistles. My dissertation
demonstrates that throughout Aquinas’s commentaries on Paul’s epistles there exist tensions
and contradictions in his views of the theological status of the ceremonial Mosaic Law after
the passion of Christ. In his Galatians lectura and in his Hebrews lectura, Aquinas argues
that the observance of the ceremonial Mosaic Law after the passion of Christ is a mortal sin.
Yet in Aquinas’s lectures on Ephesians and Romans, Aquinas leaves this teaching out of his
discussion of the ceremonial Mosaic Law after the passion of Christ. In his lectures on
Galatians and Hebrews, Aquinas argues that circumcision is superfluous for all. Yet in the
Romans lectura, Aquinas argues circumcision is a present spiritual benefit for the Jewish
people after the passion of Christ. This dissertation illuminates the scholarly discussion over
whether Aquinas’s theology is supersessionist by demonstrating that Aquinas’s thought, as
revealed in his commentaries on Paul’s epistles, contains economically supersessionist views
of the Jewish people alongside and in tension with significant post-supersessionist resources.
This dissertation by Matthew Anthony Tapie fulfills the dissertation requirement for the
doctoral degree in Moral Theology/Ethics approved by William C. Mattison, III, Ph.D., as
Director, and by R. Kendall Soulen, Ph.D., and Rev. Frank Matera, Ph.D., and Joseph
Capizzi, Ph.D., as readers.

______________________________________
William C. Mattison, III, Ph.D., Director

______________________________________
R. Kendall Soulen, Ph.D., Reader

______________________________________
Rev. Frank Matera, Ph.D., Reader

______________________________________
Joseph Capizzi, Ph.D., Reader

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To Carolyn

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When Paul says, “Do we therefore overthrow the law?” he excludes an objection. For
someone might claim that he is overthrowing the aforementioned law; therefore, he asks:
“Do we therefore overthrow the law by faith?” inasmuch as we say that men are justified
without the works of the law? He answers “By no means!” in keeping with Matt 5:18, “Not
an iota, not a dot, will pass from the law.” Rather, he adds: “On the contrary, we uphold the
law,” i.e., by faith we complete and fulfill the Law, as Matt 5:17 says, “I have come not to
abolish the law but to fulfill it.” This is true as regards the ceremonial precepts because,
being figures, they were upheld and fulfilled by the fact that the truth signified by them is
shown forth in the faith of Christ.

Thomas Aquinas, Ad Romanos 3.4.321

What Paul sees happening in Christ and in the Christian Church, like what Jesus had said in
Matthew, is the fulfillment and not the abolition of the meaning of Torah as covenant of
grace. “Fulfillment” is a permanently open border between
what went before and what comes next.

John Howard Yoder, The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

The Question of Supersessionism in the Theology
of Thomas Aquinas ................................................................................................ 1

1. The Scholarship on Aquinas’s Social Doctrine of the Jewish People ...................... 2

2. The Language of Supersessionism ............................................................................ 8

2.1 Tracing the Usage of the Term ........................................................................ 9
2.2 Terence Donaldson’s Typology of Relations Between Israel and
Church and Kendall Soulen’s Economic Supersessionism ............................ 18
2.3 A Definition of Economic Supersessionism .................................................... 32

3. Aquinas and the Paramount Question of Supersessionism ....................................... 36

3.1 Michael Wyschogrod’s Jewish Reading of Aquinas ....................................... 36
3.2 Matthew Levering’s Reply to Michael Wyschogrod ....................................... 49
3.3 Matthew Levering’s Adaptation of David Novak’s Language of
Supersessionism .............................................................................................. 60
3.4 Matthew Levering’s Reply to Mark Kinzer ..................................................... 70

4. A Thomistic Engagement of Michael Wyschogrod’s Paramount Question ............. 74

4.1 Bruce Marshall on the Problem of Fulfillment Theology and the
Need to Reexamine Aquinas’s Claim that the Ceremonial Law is Deadly .... 75
4.2 Steven Boguslawski on Supersessionism as the Deconstruction of
Israel’s Prerogatives to Christological Prefigurements ................................... 82

5. The Task Ahead: Examining Aquinas’s View of the Theological Status of the
Ceremonial Law after the Passion of Christ in
His Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles .................................................................... 91

CHAPTER TWO

Approaching Aquinas’s Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles ...................... 95

1. Renewed Scholarly Attention to Thomas Aquinas’s Commentaries on Scripture
as a Source for Understanding His Theology ........................................................... 97

2. Contemporary Approaches to Aquinas’s Biblical Commentaries ............................ 103
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2.1 Thematic Correlation of the Commentaries with Attention to the Organic
Theological Unity of Aquinas’s Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles .................... 110

3. Magister in sacra pagina: The Historical Context for the Production of Aquinas’s
Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles ............................................................................. 113

4. The Theological Structure of Grace and the Prerogatives of Israel in Aquinas’s
Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles ............................................................................. 122

4.1 Aquinas’s View of the Threefold Structure of Grace in the
New Testament According to Hic est liber mandatorum Dei .......................... 123
4.2 Israel and Church Amidst the Power of Grace in the Prologue to
Aquinas’s Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles .................................................... 127
4.3 The Prerogatives of Israel in Aquinas’s Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles ...... 132

CHAPTER THREE

The Shadow of the Law’s Night: The Ceremonial Mosaic Law in
in Aquinas’s Hebrews Lectura ........................................................................... 138

1. The Themes and Division of the Hebrews Lectura .................................................. 140

2. The Authority of the New Testament over the Old Testament ................................. 148

2.1 Continuity Between the New and Old Testaments ........................................... 148
2.2 Christ More Excellent than Angels, Moses, and Aaron .................................... 152
2.3 The Conclusion of the Argument that Christ is More Excellent
than the Religious Persons of the Old Law ...................................................... 156

3. The Change in the Mode and Order of the Divine Regime ...................................... 159

3.1 The Perfect Priesthood of Christ Renders the Levitical Priesthood Void ........ 159
3.2 The Change in the Mode and Order of the Imperfect Regime ......................... 161

4. The Continuity and Discontinuity Between Israel and the Church in
the Hebrews Lectura ................................................................................................ 174

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CHAPTER FOUR

Fulfilled and Upheld: The Prerogatives of Israel in Aquinas’s
Romans Lectura ...................................................................................................... 178

1. The Themes and Division of the Romans Lectura ................................................... 179

2. The Theological Status of the Prerogatives of Israel Before and After
the Passion of Christ ................................................................................................. 189

2.1 The Privileged State of the Jews as a Light to the Nations ............................... 190
2.2 The Value of Circumcision in the Time Before the Passion of Christ ............. 193
2.3 Aquinas on the Advantage of Circumcision and the Faithfulness of God ........ 199
2.4 The Ceremonial Law as “Fulfilled and Upheld” .............................................. 210
2.5 The Prerogatives of Israel as a “Present Spiritual Benefit” .............................. 215

3. The Emerging Tension Between the Official and Unofficial View of
the Prerogatives of Israel in the Pauline Commentaries ........................................... 219

CHAPTER FIVE

Mortua et Mortifera: The Ceremonial Mosaic Law in Aquinas’s
Galatians Lectura .................................................................................................... 222

1. The Themes and Division of the Galatians Lectura ................................................. 223

2. The Ceremonial Law as Fulfilled and Destroyed ..................................................... 226

2.1 “Before the Faith, the Jew was Greater”: The Temporality of the
Law and Promises ............................................................................................. 228
2.2 Christ and the New Covenant as God’s Promise to Abraham .......................... 223
2.3 The Prefiguring Function of the Ceremonial Law ............................................ 236
2.4 The Cessation of the Ceremonial Law .............................................................. 239
2.5 The Apostle’s Pious Destruction of the Carnal Law ........................................ 241

3. Aquinas on the Jerusalem Conference, Antioch Incident, and Controversy
Between Jerome and Augustine ................................................................................ 242

3.1 Fulfilled and Completed: The Jerusalem Conference and the Apostolic
Decree that the Ceremonial Law is No Longer of Value .................................. 243
3.2 Aquinas’s View of the Antioch Incident .......................................................... 250
3.3 Aquinas on the Controversy Between Jerome and Augustine .......................... 253

4. Fulfilled, Destroyed, and Deadly: The Economic Supersessionism
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of the Galatians Lectura .......................................................................................... 263

CHAPTER SIX

The Replacement of Israel as the Societatem Sanctorum:
The Ceremonial Law in Aquinas’s Ephesians Lectura ............................. 266

1. The Themes and Division of the Ephesians Lectura ................................................ 267

2. The Convergence of Jews and Gentiles into the Temple of Christ’s Body .............. 269

2.1 Paul’s Jewish Nationality .................................................................................. 270
2.2 The Sinful Condition of Jews and Gentiles Before Their Convergence
into the Temple of Christ’s Body ..................................................................... 273
2.3 Israel as a Societatem Sanctorum and Gentiles as Strangers to
God’s Promises ................................................................................................ 275
2.4 Christ’s Destruction of the Ceremonial Law .................................................... 280

3. The Foundation and Construction of the Temple of Christ’s Body .......................... 288

3.1 The Gentile and Jewish Walls of the Temple of Christ’s Body ....................... 288
3.2 They Were Set Apart: The Special Election of Israel as a Thing of the Past ... 291

4. Aquinas’s View of Israel and Church in the Ephesians Lectura .............................. 293

4.1 The Relationship Between Aquinas’s View of the Ceremonial Law
in the Ephesians Lectura and in the Commentaries on Hebrews,
Romans, and Galatians ..................................................................................... 293
4.2 Fulfillment as the Replacement of Israel as the Societatem Sanctorum ........... 294

CHAPTER SEVEN

It Seems There is No Value: The Relationship Between Aquinas’s
Teaching on the Ceremonial Law in the Summa Theologiae and
Commentaries on Paul’s Epistles ..................................................................... 299

1. Revisiting the Contemporary Discussion Over the Question of
Supersessionism in Aquinas’s Theology .................................................................. 302

1.1 Revisiting the Limitations with the Contemporary Discussion Over
the Question of Supersessionism in Aquinas’s Theology ................................. 303
1.2 Revisiting the Work of Boguslawski and Marshall on the Relationship
Between the Romans Lectura and the Summa theologiae ................................ 307
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