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    Christian Theology and Judaism With Professor Judith Lieu For The First Christian Theologians PDF

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    The First Christian Theologians An Introduction to Theology in the Early Church Edited by G. R. Evans @ Blackwell §—-2. G OY Publishing Christian Theology and Judaism Paula Fredriksen and Judith Liew To compare “Christan theology” and “Judaism” i dificult, because the tems do rot quite correspond: theology” isa particular ype of philosophical enterprises ‘Jadism” isan umbrella term forthe social and clipious actives of ancient Jews Systems of thought do not infience or interact with each other: people do. To teddress our topi, then, we need to do both intllesal history and socal istonys to consider not only ancient ides, but also ancient people, in ther socal context ‘The picture that emerges fiom our consideration wil, neces, be complex. And that compli attests, intr, tothe vigor, vtaliy, and variety of Chrsian/Tewish interctons in antiquity. The Context: The City, Paideia, and Theology In modern paslance, “theology” often functions to mean something ike “religious thoughts." In antiquity, the term had greater precision. Its component words reveal its orginal meaning. Theor Greek mean “divinity” or “god”; fgos~ a term with 2 very broad semantic range ~ means “word, order, reason.” “Theology.” then means something ike “rational discourse on the natire and function of divi.” The point of theology was to presen, in a sjstemutc and coordinated manner, conceptalzaions of the way that divinity elated 10 other aspects of ely: cosmos, soul, mind, body, and so on. Its dependence on rational categories and systems of thought meant that, intlecwally, theology was ffom the beginning a species of philosophy Prilotophy provided the tools and principles for constructing theology. Butta | tional naratives of profound cultural and polital importance ~ inal, he various myth of casiclantigtity~ provided theology’s occasion and, in a sense its nce. Ine. The High God of the Hellenic curcalum wat conceived as radically stable, impassve, incopores, eternal, fee ffom change; these categories defined “good” int metaphysical (not necesay ethical) sense The more he (OF “t™ either pro noun could sere) became transcendent, the mare the gap ~ metaphysical and moral Pala Fredviion nd Juith Liew ~ between him and the universe became filed with various intermediaves stars and planets; lower gods; angels; demons the demiurge (crafman”) or lager who ordered {he cosmos acconding to divine principles. But the great ancent epics, poems, and dramas ofthe Greckspreseated divinity as personalities: characters who appeared to have bodies; who forgot and remembered; who grew angry or calm who pleted, ‘aged raped. These divine characters didnot oblige the categories of philosophy. To spin the saw of waditional religious narrative into the gold of philosophic. ally coherent and clevating theology, Hellenistic inelectualsavled themselves of allegory (Alls in Greek means “other”; agorencin means “to speak") Allegory enabled the enlightened reader to see trough the surice level of text {0 it spiritual message, to understand what the text truly meant in contrast 10 what it merely sid, Grammar, rhetoric, philological finest all these tool of casclpaieia imight be brought 0 bear on an ancient etry to tum ie into a phlosophically lid statement of timeless truth? The curriculum of the urban pmnasi that educated young men to become leaders i their es saturated them with all hese trates, Plulosophicl, chetorcal, mythological, As civic leaders, they would fund, legislate, and overce the cults connected with the adtional gods a educated men, they ‘might conceive such worship as expressing philosophical rhs. In bie, cheology in antiquity was frst of allan inteleeual expression of pagan cult dependent on & postcasical pedagogy that rested socially and leraly on the ancient gods” Jews and, eventually, Chrisans (whether Jows or Genes) in their turn, produced theologies also. To do s0, they depended on educations that were intrinsically, profoundly pagan, The Jewish encounter with and internalization of pagan paideia preceded by some four centuries the Christian encounter. In many ways, educated Jews rehearsed the experiences, convictions, and arguments ofthe lace Christians Jewish populations of the fourth and thied centuries ncB had followed Greck ‘ones in the wake ofthe armies of Aleander the Great In the new Hellenistic urban foundations diffsed chroughout Asa Minor, Egyp, and the Near East, immigrants 5 well as conquered indigenous peoples moved ffom their native vemaculrs ¢0 GGreck. Migrating Jews tok their sacred writings with them. When their community shifted vernacular, thee Scriptures shied too. By 200ace, in Alexandria in Eaypt, 4 huge collection of Jewish sacred writings, originally writen in Hebrew or, ose sionally, Aramaic, was becoming avaible in the international language. The Semitic nguage “Tanakh” (Torah, the “five books of Moss”; Neviim, "prophets", and Keruvfim, *wetigs”) had become the Greck Septuagint (LXX). Translation invariably affects meaning, no matter how accurate translators strive. to be. The God of Israel, newly avaiable in Greek, took on new aspects, The divine ame revealed atthe Burning Bush became 8 yy “the Being” (Exod. 3:14); when this god established the heavens, he did 50 x Koy), *by the Logos” or “Wort (Ps 32 (33):6), Philosophical concepts, thus, did not nesd to be read into Scripture they were already theee, by virtue of the new language ofthe text. The Greck text of the Bible i turn presented new intexpretive opportunities for educated Hellenistic Jews. Many Jews in the Diaspora acquired their education ‘through the gymnasno, nurcared, Uke thei pagan counterparts on grammar, rhetoric, and poems and stories about the classical gods. And again like their pagan counter pars, Jewish inelecuas aso had to suuggle to make systematic sense oftheir own ancient religious literature. Biblia tories no less than Homeric ones depicted divinity in ways that contrasted sharply with the principles of philosophy. ‘Thus, and again like their pagan counterparts, many Jevish intellectuals relied especially onthe une Pretive techniques of allegory, Allegory enabled Greek-speaking, dicated Jews 9 rewieve philosophical meaning from the stories constituting thei own religious and cethnie patrimony, ‘But westem Jews did much more than acquicepaidei, or apply it to their own teadtions. They utteriy appropriated pail and claimed ita thei own, Again ca ‘gin the theme emerges in Helenistc Jewish literature: what the Greek got eight ~ muinly philosophy, but also mathematies, or musi, or astronomy ~ they actly sot fom the Jews." Pato, some Jews argued, had tidied Torah and developed his doctrines in Egypt, ftom a (lost) Greek wandation ofthe Bible made several ‘centuries prior to the LAX One Jewish writer depicted Abraham as the bringer of altace o the Egyptians ~ another argument fr superiority, n a culture where older was beter Hellenistic Jews forged pagan prophecies, wherein ancient sll pease Jewish ethical and religious culture in proper Homere hexameters? Others pre sented “histories” according to which the LXX was tanslted at King Prolomy's request; he had wanted this renowned book of Jenish wisdom to grace his lary inAlexandria In one account, the young Motes recived instraction fom the wisest teachers both Egypsan and Greek, but of couse outstripped them all in another, Moses taught music to Orpheus. Jews tured out Judsiing vers while ascribing them to Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and other hesoes ofthe cascal slater these turn up, piousy repeated in the writings ofthe church fathers” In all these ways, educated Hellenistic Jews gave philosophy, and ‘thus theology, a new “native” culture: their own Centuries later, by the second century €8, some Gentile Chrisans in their turn began to theologze. That i, hey strove to make sytem, philosophical sense out ofthe cevelaton of Christ as they saw it mediated in the LAX and, eventually also in various specifically Christian teats, To think about the Bible theologically and, thus philosophically, they drew deeply from the springs of Hellenistic Jewish apology Many ofthese Hellenic Jewish texts (such as the entirety of Philo’ exegedcl ope) survive exclusively in Christian recensions"™ Indeed, in some cass scholars remain undecided wivether a particular text shouldbe labeled “Jewish” or “Chiiaan.” And ‘when arguing against Gentile pagan contemporaries, Gentle Christians readily svaled themselves of this Hellenisie Jewish arsenal, Their utitarian appreciation in fact sccouns forthe patric preservation of thee originally Jevsh spologese tions" These Christan theologians and apologists of the second and thied centuries waged s hermeneutical batle on many font simultancoasly. They fought to define their community and to establish the supesodty of ther own understanding of philosophy and paideia against Gentile pagans” They abo strove to establish tele ‘eadings of the LXX, and the practices that they saw enjoined there, agains the understandings of other Cristian, as wel a again those ofthe various Jews. All ofthese arguments affected all he ochers, Our cancer hee i to trace the particular development of the arguments contr Indaeo. 5 we shal ee, the battle was waged over the tert andthe interpretation of the LXX. The Christians thin Jesue Chat asthe flfllmene of the ovisian Thealgy and Judo Peale Fredriben and Jui Liew promises of the Bible and asthe key ois meaning determined thee rejetion of any “Jewish reading.” Allegriing the LXX by thei own lights they condemned Jewish readings a5 insufficiently phlowphical. Advocating “spiral” over “carnal” inter prctation of biblial texts, they renounced Jewish practice as termined, thus fnssng the intent ofthe ex's divine athor. AS dey read Jewish scipeures through the lens of Christian Pasion traditions, these churchmen condemaed the Jews 2, murderers of Cris, Indeed, they urged, using the prophets as proof text, the Jewish murder of Christ confirmed his satus as Chest, Finally, some Gentle Crisian writer turned the vicssicuds of Palestinian Jewish history in the cay Roman period to their own advantage, arguing that current vents sustained the Christian view. Reman arms had desroyed Jerusalem and its temple i the course of the First Revole (66-73 cf). Laer, the bar Kochkba revolt led to the erasute of Jewish Jerusalem (132-5 c3) Hadrian established a pagan city, ‘Aca Capitolina, on its rns. Why ele would God have permited such disasters lunless he, too, had lost patience with Jewish practice, Jewish custom, and the ieneralJevish refial 0 acknowledge the tuth of Gentle Christian claims? “This antagonistic theme within Gentile Chistianity has been much studied. Is nearubiquity in our surviving ancient sources, and its reaionship to and resonance ‘nth the violent antJudaism of recent European history, enhance its visbily to the point chat much ofthe pose socal and religious interaction between Jews and (Christians ~ as between Jews, pagans, and Chissans~ les obscured or overlooked. * ‘We know from many of these sume sources that Christian theologians consulted ith Jewish scholars on the meanings of words and phrases in thelr shared Sci tures, and als for the meaning of Aramaic or Hebrew words appeaing in che New ‘Testament. We also Know har Gentile Chrstans ~ as well a8 Gentle pagans ~ fequented Diaspora synagogues, where they would hes Srpeues, take vows, worship together, and ext with Jows. There they would seek cures, a8 also in pagan temples, by “incubating” overnight, that ix sleeping in or near the sincwary In order to receive healing of celestial advice “Long afer one sream of Gentile Chisiaity became a form of Imperial Roman cultuce ~ 2 process that begins and proceeds, in fts and starts, ehroughout the fourth century the canons of church councils sl provide oblique testimoay to the fice social and thus religious interactions between members of all these groups, the pronouncement of the eologues notwithstanding,” Indeed, this comfortable incimacy berween groups may well have spurred the increasing shrillnes and invect ive of oficial ~ especially episcopal ~ theological screeds on Jewish eligious and moral degeneracy: the heat of thee polemic betrays thei stration in tying to effect 4 principled reparation of communities. Paiste theology conveys clear separs tion of (“tue Chistaniey from (“fale”) Christians, fom paganism, and fom Judaism, Real fe blued these distinctions “Thus throughow late antiquity, pagans, Jews, and various Christians continued to mix in synagogues to encounter each other at civic athletic and cultural events; to meetin town counel halls and atthe baths. Those ofthe upper economic and. flural stata, further, were bound together aso by the intellectual principles of philosophical and shetoricl pala even a they were divided by the parcular ext, that they regarded as vesels of revelation, These elitr also shared prime socal "y he he se nd of ial rmawix of high culeue: urban institations of eduction. This cultural connection Perduted well fer the conversion of Constantine. Augustine's Confesions (397c2) present one glimpse ofthis shared universe. The ton ofa fervently Catholic mother tnd catechumen father, Augustine learned through mastering a literature peopled with such characters a$ Dido, Aeneas, and the old Roman gods.” The leners of Libanvs, che great pagan thetorician of fourh-century Antioch, provides yet another glimpse. He writes to the Jewish paviarch Gamal to console this vir tlavisimws about his son's lack of academe apttude; the boy, sent by his father from Tiberias to farther his rhetorical eduction, had skipped out on Lbanius* deere. ‘Theology and Identity: Defining “Being Jewish” In what way, then, can we speak of Chiat ae Judaism as “val” traditions? To do s0 isto adopt a perspective from which the relationship between the two can ‘only be seen as competitive socially and antthetial theologically. Yet to assess such 8 perspective we muse fst establish conte. “The earliest “Christian” texts ~a portion of which were collected and canonized 2s the New Testament over a pesiod extending into the fourth century and beyond = are ireducibly “Jewish.” This is so both beenue they ate thoroughly indebted to Seripeual uadion (the EXX), and because they rely on eontemporary patterns of Jewish interpretation and thought. Writen in Greek, they belong to the Hellenistic Diaspora Indeed, iti parly for this reson that these writings do. not belong themselies to a distinctive Christan seolagy so much ato it soces2” Distinctive about these isthe various ways in which they configure allegiance to Chris within an understanding ofthe biblical covenant with the people Israel, shaped bythe promises to Abraham and by the ging ofthe Torah co Mors at Sina. Paul's characteizations of Isl “2ecording to the fe,” John the evangelit’s antithesis ‘of Jesus’ community to that of “te Jews,” the author ofthe Epistle to the Hebrews presentation ofa “new covenant” that “has made che fist obsolete” (8:13): within 2 fint-entury ina-Jewish context, all these arguments would round like claims sou the right way to be Jewish, That right way would be the way urged by the Tewih writer ofthe text. Thus the high rhetoric oF thete sectarian Jewish texts ~ not inke that of their near-contemporary Judean counterparts, the Dead Sea Scols denies any leghimacy to a constriction of “Is!” ot of the “people of God” oF the “children of lighe” at odds with the new movements own seleunderstanding "Non-Chrisian” understandings of Judaism seem a least davowed, i not ecualy repudiate. ‘Read by ter generation of Genes independent ofr alienated fiom the ritions ofthe synagogue, these texts established he main themes and paters of antithesis that so characterized subsequent Chrisian theology. One such antithesis emerges already inthe eters ofthe late fist-erl second: entry bishop, Ignatius of Antioch, Te may be he who coined the term *Chisanity”(crimianimes), which he set over ‘guns “Judaism” (ioudaiomes, a tem he may have learn fom Jewish sources* He imagines these postions, the Cian and the Jewish, 2s in opposition, Ghrizian Thelany and Judson Pala Fredrikson and Judith Liew “Christianity,” he urges, “id not establish its faith in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity” (Magnesians 10.3). Yee Ignatius also takes for granted at least some continuity besween Jewish scriptures and Christian proclamation, He urges his readers fo run to Christ as to the one Temple or to the altar of God ~ both references t0 (such the Jerusalem sanctuary ~ and he assures them that “the truly divine prophets” ~ the Chris. ‘ones, that is, whose stories stood in Jewish Scripture ~ “lived according to Jesus groups Chuise” (Magnesians 7.2; 8.2), Some « leis difficult to determine precisely what the “Judaism” and the “Judaizing” that ba Ignatius excoriates actually were. His disapproving references to Gentile Christians’ 7 would keeping Sabbath and circumcision suggest that he objected to particular practices they o Yet he may have used these terms instead simply as slogans or code for what (good) represe Christians “did not do.” Paul, some fity years before Ignatius, had taught that Yer Gentiles-in-Christ were not responsible for the practices mandated by Torah: those itsimp were the exclusive responsibility and privilege of Istael (e.g. Rom. 9:4)2* Justin probl ‘Mary, some fifty years after Ignatius, taught that not only Gentile Chaistians, but the so also Jewish Christians, were not to live “Jewishly.” Indeed, even forthe Jews then cenmés selves such practices drew on a faulty, indced a fleshy, reading of Scripture which, its sub ‘once understood spiritually, was seen not to prescribe behavior but rather to foretell dlscon Christ and his Church. However, he has to concede that there are Law-observing while Christians of Jewish (and even Gentle) descent and that they may sill be saved sought (Dial. 48). Ignatius, the chronological mid-point between Paul and Justin, enunci (tbe “) ates no clear idea justifying his position that Gentile Christians are not to do what espor Scripture commands. (Again, at this point in time, the only collection of texts give a regarded as holy and authoritative by Greek-speaking Gentle Christians was the Celsus same a8 that used by the Hellenistic synagogue, that is, the LXX.) Yer his encounters trai ‘ith those Gentiles in the churches that he visited who were, in his terms, “Judaizing angered him greatly This imterwoven, indeed simultaneous, pattern of theological condemnation and Rival {ecumenical behavior continued long after Ignatius’ petiod. Both Origen in the third century and John Chrysostom in the fourth denounced those in their congregations who attended synagogue on the Sabbath and celebrated various other observances With their Jewish neighbors, while Commodian scolded Jews for allowing pagans 10 covcelebrate with them.” This easy mixing of Gentiles (whether pagan of Christian) eizcun and Jews in the cities of the Empire seems not to have been an unital phenom: both ) ‘enon. And while ideologically articulate churchmen and much later modetn histor. Boa © fans might identify such pattems of behavior as “Judaizing,” to these ancient people, such socializing may well have been simply what ie meant to live in a Mediterranean “Judaizing” itself as a set of behaviors was unitary neither in practice nor, prob: ably, in motivation, Visiting the synagogue; observing some of the practices laid clown in Torah expecting other Gentile Christians to do likewise; adopting Jewish traditions of exegesis; seeking to locate Jesus in relation to an understanding of the God of the Jewish Scriptures: ll of these behaviors, individually or in combination, might be followed by persons or by groups and might be inspired by an equal variety of reasons, not all theological, Sometimes a Jewish community need not have been involved at all. A fih-century North African Christian community against whom Augustine wrote, for example, seems to have been inspired to act “Jewishly” fn the basis of its own understanding of the Bible." Where such an ethos is theologically articulated and survives in literary sources (such as in the Prewdo-Clementineliteratute), scholars sometimes speak of “Jewish Christianity.” Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and later writers like Epiphanivs who speak of ‘groups such as the Ebionites or Nazoreans, consider such Christians to be heretics, Some of these communities (such as ones that Epiphanius names) might themselves hhave been ethnically Jewish, others not. We have no clea view of how these groups would have constructed their relationship with non-Cheistin Jews. Nonetheless, they clearly belong to an account of the history of Christian theology, even if they represent positions that would be marginalized, a least in the Wes. ‘Yet the label “Jewish Christianity” is itself misleading if is taken to suggest that its implied antithesis, “Gentile Christianity," is untouched by any “Jewishness.” The problem with our scholaey language is that it obscures, through an excess of clarity, the social and intellectual past it seks to describe. All ancient Christian writes were enmeshed in webs of continuity and discontinuity with their scriptural heritage and. its subsequent interpretation. They had to account both for continuities and for Aiscontinuities. They had to explain how they could lay claim to Jewish scriptures while eschewing, even condemning, the Jewish practices mandated therein. They sought to position themselves vis-a-vis both those who sought much more continuity (che “Jewish-Christian” response) and muich greater discontinuity (the “Marcionite™ response, which will be discussed below). And at the same time, they also had to give an account of themselves to those watching outsiders lke the pagan polemicist Celsus, for whom the Jewish claim to being the true heirs of Jewish scriptural traditions seemed more convincing than these competing, Gentile claims. Rivalry and Readings of the Scriptures This tension between continuity and discontinuity marks much of the writing of Justin Martyr (. 167 8). In his Dialegue with Trypho, Justin explains at great length why (Gentle) Christians do not observe the Law of Moses or practice male circumcision, He also demonstrates the multiple ways in which the LXX foretlls both Jesus” frst and second comings, his death and resurrection, and God's rejec: tion of the Jews in favor of the Gentiles, Ie is the Gentiles, argues Justin, who are the “crue” Israel and, chus, che alvays-intended recipient of God's promises of redemption. Throughout his Dislague Justin sharply dismisses alternative, Jewish understandings ‘of Scripture. Yet he also seems indebted to Jewish interpretive traditions. For example, hen he argues that it was not the High God, but rather Jesus asthe pre-Incarnate Son, who appeared in the theophanies of Genesis 18-19 and whois tobe identified as “Lord”, he may be drawing on Jewish angelic exegesis (Dialague 56-8).” Jews, too, substituted angels and other intermediaries when they read narratives about appearances ofthe biblical God, and Justin, too, sees Christ as (among other things) a chief angel (61). Justin further presents Trypho, rather implausibly, as persuaded. by allthis (63), His presentation may be motivated by his desire to refute those Chrisian Theology and Judaion Fredritaen and Judi other Christians who, as we shall see, distinguished between the God of Israel and the Father of Jesus, and so who disputed as Christians the religions value of what ‘other Christians would eventually call che “Old Testament.” Justin goes on to argue that Psalm 45:7-13 establishes that Christ is to be worshipped and that dhe Gentiles are summoned to leave their ancestral way of life, which i idlatrous. When Trypho suggests in light ofthis interpretation, that Jews who “already worship God as Creator” and not idols need not worship Christ, so that only Gentiles need recognize Christ as Lord, Jutin reacts strenuously. Indeed, he responds, Trypho’s suggestion only reinforces Justin’s deepest doubss about the likelihood of salvation for “any of [their] race” (63-4). For Justin, as for most subsequent writers in his stream of Christian thought, there is no room for Jews who do not believe in Jesus, of for Jewish interpretations of the Scriptures, in the Cristian understanding of God, Christ, and biblical revelation, Justin represents a pattern followed by neatly all ancient Chistian writers. He both relied on the LXX and used existing traditions of biblical “proof texts” to establish that Christ and the Church were the true subject of Jewish Scriptures. In debate, he had to acknowledge that Jews possessed the Scriptures ~ indeed, he may hhave had to consult their copies. Yer, faced not only with theie alternative inter pretatons but even with their different, and probably more stable, versions of the Greek text, he reacted by insisting that they misunderstood their own Scriptures and indeed, to spite Christians, had probably mutilated them." To establish his Christological reading of the LXX against Jewish understandings, he relendessly applied prophetic critiques of Israel's hard-heartedness and unfithfulness 10 con: emporary symmagogue communities, while directing exclusively to his own church the prophietic promises of eschatological redemption.” ‘Yer in his Apology, where he pleads his case before pagan outsiders, Justin takes a different path. There, the Jewish ownership of the Scriptures becomes an inde- pendent witness to Christian claims, legitimating the Charistian appeal t0 antiquity and philosophical priority based on that of Moses (olay 31.1-8; 59.1-60.11). A. sgeneration later, the pagan anti-Christian writer Celsus used this same argument in feverse: Christians, he claimed, were apostate from Judaism, forsaking the ancient Jewish heritage while retaining all the ancient Jewish vices.” In brief, for Justin as for the Christan tradition he represents and helps to establish, the presence of the Jews both challenged and legitimated Christan selBunderstanding, while the exist ence of Judaism both occasioned and focused crucial issues in Christian theology Both Valentinus (fl, 130) and Marcion (fl, 140), Gentile Christians in the genera tion before Justin, had responded ro the theological challenge of Judaism in ways ‘hat difered from Justin's and that would contour his own response. All three men, well-educated in paideia, made the same assumption once they turned, as Christians, to Jewish Scriprures: the busy, active deity of the LXX could not, they knew, be the High God, However, while Justin, as we have seen, saw a unity of intent between the Maker of all things and that other God or Lord, the other ewo concluded that the Creator God of the LX must, by definition, be a lower god. And unarguably given the social location ofthis text in the synagogues of the Diaspora, that lower Bod presented in Genesis was the God of the Jews. What, then, was the relation of this lower god of the Bible to the High God, the Father of Chiist their Redeemer? What « Judai For coppon inten darkae chose “Gnos base the Je 0 do “kon hav’ the Ge disguis Mar the H beliew ally fc of lig Marci lexcers wor tained Iew repudl Father record ‘What did this Jewish text have to do with Chistian revelation? Wha, indeed, did Judaism have to do with Christianity? For Valentinus and for Marcion, this lower god was in some sense the Father's ‘opponent, and thus also the opponent of his Son. Reading Genesis with this conv tion, and enlightened by Christian revelation, Valertinus understood that the angry, intemperate deity in the Garden, the god of the Jews, represented the forces of darkness, matter, ignorance, fear ~ all chat from which Christ had come to sive his chosen, Valentinian Christians, and others of similar mind, whom scholars designate ““Gnostis" (ftom the Greek word gnosis, “kaovledge”), canvassed the Jewish Seri. tures and the burgeoning body of Christian writings to work out their theology based on this insight: namely, that che god of the Bible was actully the villain of the jece. Their theologians produced the first Christian commentaries on parts of the Jewish Bible, and on the Gospel of John. Justa theie God and his Soa had little to do with the material cosmos, and nothing to do with the Jews, so t00 these ‘knowing” Christians. They knew that their redemption was spiritual, not carnal; that their erue “root” lay in the upper heavens apart from the Creator God's cosmos; that, through Christ, they had the knowledge of salvation, the revelation of the God above God. This was the message of Chrstian redemption encoded, even dlisguised, they maintained, in Jewish writings. To nd i there one had to read them very carefilly, very cannily, always guided by the Spirit. ‘Marcion, t00, held that the lower deity of Genesis was the god of the Jews; that the High God was the Father of Christ; and that through Christ, the Christin believer had been redeemed from sin, flesh, death. But he took his cue most specifi ally fom the rhetoric of Paul's letters. Accordingly, to the standard contrasting pare Of light/darkness, upper world/lower world, knowledge/ignorance, spitit/fesh, Marcion added what he took to be corresponding Pauline tropes, consigning to the negative pole both Law and the Jews. For Marcion, the God of the Jews proclaimed Jn their Scriptures was a harsh deity: dedicated unyeldingly to justice, even venge ance, and yet often inconsistent; demanding obecience through fear; threatening punishment for sn, But Christ, the Son, revealed the face ofa diferent (“Stranger”) deity, that ofhis father the High God. This God, through Christ, brought a message of| love, not fear; forgiveness, not punishment; forbearance, not wrath; peace, not strife ‘Whar did such a message have to do with Judaism? What indeed, asked Marcion, did or could such a message even have to do with Jewish books? In a demonstration fof supreme confidence, Matcion argued for a new textual medium of Christian revelation. If Christ, as Paul taught, had freed the Christan ftom the Law, then the text ofthe Law, the LXX, had no stinding as Christan Scripeure. Marcion proposed 4 radical alternative: a collection of new, specifically Christian writings, namely the lexers of Paul and one of the Gospels: Ler the Jews worry endlessly over food and circumesion and holy days and carnal things; let them pore over their Law and worship their lower god and awaie their messiah ~ who indeed, as they rightly main tained, had sill not come. The Christian, in Christ, was free of all that Te was these constructions of Gentile Christianity that Justin and others like him repudiated, Instead, they discovered within Genesis the presincarnate Chiat, the Father's Son, Consequently they wrought a division deep throughout the scriptural recor: the heroes of Jewish Scripture, like Abraham, Moses, Davi, and the prophets, Christian Theolagy and Judai Paula Fredrikson and Judith Lie ‘they maintained, had known and acknowledged Christ a God. On the other side as a history of disobedience and rejection: the idolatrous sinners whom Moses and the prophets opposed; Jesus’ contemporaries, who murdered him; later Jews up 0 and including these theologians’ contemporaries, who repudiated Jesus teachings as preserved in the preaching of this Gentile church - these did not and do av acknowledge Jesus as god. Instead, they remain mired in their carnal practices, enslaved to the Law. Accordingly, these theologians urged, the Jews, in some profound sense, had lost title to what had once been their own Seriptutes. They did not and could not understand chem bats pncuma, “spiritual.” that is, in tis particular Gentle Cristian way. Unlike Valentinian Christians, this group could see a positive message in Jewish Scripture. Unlike Marcionite Christians, they did not need to repudiate Jewish Scripcure, This group kept the Sciprares; they repudiated, instead, the Jews.” We have seen Justin’s response to these alternative Chaistanties when tracing his complex relation to Jews and to Judaism, A similar complexity marks many other early Christian waiters, who use “Jew” as the ultimate term of opprobriuim while insisting that they, and they alone, have the true understanding of Jewish tradition Thus, since Marcon apparently supported a non-Christological reading of Jewish Scriptures ~ the LXX, he had insisted, had nothing to say about Christ = Tertullian labeled him an ally of the Jews, something that was clearly not the case (Mire. 3.6.2). Rejecting Marcion’s “solution” to the problem of the relation of Gentile CCuistianity to Judaism and thus to Jewish scriptures, other Christian writes, from ‘Terman on, justiied their retaining a text whose precepts they declined in principle to practice (Sabbath, circumcision, food laws) by increasingly lambasting the Jews In shor, they held, there was nothing wrong with Jewish Scripture; the problem was, rather, the Jews themselves ‘These theologians strove to prove from Scripture itself the antiquity of the Jews? failure to understand their own text of to respond to God's call. Some writers even dated this fulure not just to the advent of Jesus but to the very beginning of the nation, The Episle of Barnabas argued that the Jews, because of their sin with the Golden Calf, had lost the covenant atthe very moment when Moses was receiving it, The covenant did, and always had, belonged only to “us” (Bariabas 4.7). This mode of exegesis, prying the text loose from the synagogue while preserving its spiritual value for the Church, became enshrined not only in commencary but also i ‘other Chistian literary gentes: sermons, parenesis, testimonies, martyr acts, hymns ‘This extreme devaluation of Jews and Judaism measured the younger commnuity’s Positive valuation of Jewish scripeure, and the importance of protecting a claim to the continuity of the new revelation with biblical tradition, ‘The “Jew” as the Christian “Other”? ‘The view presented thus far presupposes that Judaism presented an ideological challenge to the making of Christian theology. This challenge was inherent in the ambiguities of Gentile Christan attitudes toward the Jewish Scriptures, and was ‘made all the more unavoidable Because it was embodied in the continuing encounter ith the Nourishing Jewish communities of the Greco-Roman Diaspora. This recon. Christian Theolegy and Judaiom second century, Gentle Christians had few contacts with ~ and thus litle chance t0 learn from ~ contemporary, “real” Jews. For these scholars the “Jews” of Christian polemic, even Justin's Trypho, are a construct, a sheological abstraction, a way of dealing with the ideological problem of relation of Gentile Christianity to its Jewish past, a past frozen in the biblical txt. In support of this view, these scholars can point to the artificiality of the theo: gical “Jew”; the thinness in descriptions of, or debate about, contemporary Jewish practices; and the overwhelmingly literary quality of Christan polemical portraiture, s0 dependent on images and language taken directly from Scripture.” Finally, two documentary voids both permit and encourage this scholarly opinion: the neat total albsence of Jewish writings ftom the Greco-Roman Diaspora after the frst or second century CE with which to compate Christian writings; and the absence of rabbinic | interest in engaging in debate with Gentle Christans. These data conspire in pre senting a picture of little or no real contact between these communities ‘The making of Christian theology, like so much identiy-construction, indeed seems to have demanded an “Other” against which to shape the elf And it was the “Jews” who repeatedly provided theologians with this “Other.” In this sense ~ the hermencutial or ideological or theological sense the “Jewish Other” is indeed a construct.‘This image was shaped by the dilemmas of Christian selEunderstand | ing, and these dilemmas included questions about the significance and meaning of Jewish Scriptures for Christian revelation, The “Jeo,” in ths discourse, was in many ways a theological abstraction, a construct made to served as the ultimate ant-type of the Christian. Fleshly, faithless, hird-hearted, obdurate, spiritually dull: the “Jew” of patristic polemic provided a reversed image of al that was desirable and laudable in the Christian, The hermeneutical Jew confirmed by contrast the desiderata of, (Christian identi | ‘Yet there is plentifil, even if often circumstantial, evidence that this “Other” was also constructed in the face of the fact of actual Jewish communities who were not fly socially well-established but who also succesfully maintained their own dis saci int uncontesed. Othe oars have navel tha, begining om the tinctve lives of communal and religious activity, induding the creative interpretation of the Scriptures. Moreover, these Jewish communities atracted outsiders, both ‘Christian and non-Christian. Donor inscriptions, other epigraphy, legal corpora both ecclesiastical and imperial, patristic writings sich as we have already referred t0 | = Ignatius, Origen, and John’ Chrysostom ~ all evince this contact. When these > authors thunder that there ea be no commonality between Judaism and Christian- ity, synagogue and church, they give us the measure of the power of an alternative | social realty wherein some Christians and some Jews evidently did experience 2 great deal in common, Yer we should not simply contrat social reality (“contact”) with theology ("separa tion”), Nor should we see theology as being only negatively shaped by the distane Il ing from “Judaism.” Judaism also contributed positively to Christian formulations Ieis self-evident that Christian theology has its roots in Jewish reflection on the Scriptures and on the nature of God a5 revealed there. Increasingly, scholars have recognized that even aspects of Christian thought once attributed to “Greek” or “Hellenistic” influence are not, in that measure, any less “Jewish.” Hellenistic Jews, Paula Fredrikien and Judith Liew as Hellenistic pagans, enought in terms of a divine lagos and both pagan and Jewish concepts of divine unity, as later Christian ones, encompassed ideas of mediation and mulkipliiy Jews and Christians lived among each other in the cities of dhe Roman Meditr: ranean. Christan thought (in all ts varieties) developed alongside of and in interac tion with Jewish thought, this development involving both dialogue and argument. Early proto-orthodox accounts of martyrs, which did so much to shape Christan sensibility, betray this much more complicated picture. Only rarely in these stories do Jews feature a5 aggressors alongside hostile pagans (a role that some modern ‘writers have also cast them in). Yer, in other accounts, Jews feature as sympathetic witnesses to Christian suffering.” And the image of the Christian manyr ~ the slorious athlete winning the crown of and for Christ ~ appears, transposed into a Jewish Key, in contemporary renderings of martyr stories in 4 Maccabees"? The Image of Isaac and the akedab (“binding,” in Genesis 22) provided both rabbis and Cristian theologians with a biblical trope and type of atoning sacrifice. The rabbis even spoke of Isac toiling beneath the wood of the offering *as ane who carries his own cross”; Christians, of Isaac as the prefiguration of the sacrifice of Christ. Tertullian’s waenings about the dangers and difficulties of living among the idols in pagan cities (Concerning Iiolasy) is framed in terms similar to those sabbinic warn ings in the Mishnah's Avodab Zara Indeed, the Hebrew title of the rabbinic tractate precisely corresponds to the Latin of Teralian’s Conclusions: Are Siblings Always “Rivals What then, finally, can we say about the relationship between Christian theology and Judaism in the fist through fourth centuries? As we have seen, that relationship was complex, for many reasons. No single generalization ~ “hostile,” “dependent,” “sympathetic” ~ adequately encompasses the range of evidence, ‘We may, however, question the term “rival” Rivalry implies competition. For what, then, did Jews and Christians “compete”? Modem scholarship has responded to this question variously over the course ofthe past century. AF the turn ofthe lst century, Christian scholars held that Second Temple Judaism (or “late Judaisn 2s it was then called) had become a spiritually arid and inward-looking zeligion, separate and separatist, to which the Temple's destruction in 70 c® had simply delivered the cong de gre The force and ubiquity of antique Chrisanity’s contra Iusiacas tradition, in this view, arose from images of Jews and Judaism avaiable in the Seriprares appropriated by the Church. In realty ~ so went this argument ~ the two religions scarcely even made contact, much less competed. Especially in the wake of World War Il, scholars challenged and revised this image. They interpreted the heat of Chistian anti-Jewish polemic as an index of active and energetic competitive contact. In consequence, they reimagined Judaism, «casting i in the image ofthe Gentle Church. In this newer construct, Roman-era Judaism became a vigorous missionary religion, thus a genuine threatto the Church's missionary efforts. Indeed, in this later view, Christianity and Judaism were rivals, competing for the allegiance of Gentile converts In the fity-odd years since, the study of ancient Christianity and of ancient Judaism has been revolutionized by the development ofthe study of religion within the liberal arts or humanities. Anthropology, sociology, archacology, theories of literary cttcism, the methods and interpretative strategies from many other

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