Cohen 2005

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The Mystery of Israel's Salvation: Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and

Medieval Exegesis
Jeremy Cohen
Harvard Theological Review / Volume 98 / Issue 03 / July 2005, pp 247 - 281

DOI: 10.1017/S0017816005000970, Published online: 20 December 2005
Link to this article: http://journals.cambridge.org/abstract_S0017816005000970
How to cite this article:

Jeremy Cohen (2005). The Mystery of Israel's Salvation: Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and Medieval Exegesis.
Harvard Theological Review, 98, pp 247-281 doi:10.1017/S0017816005000970
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The Mystery of Israel’s Salvation:
Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and
Medieval Exegesis*
Jeremy Cohen
Tel Aviv University
Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mys-
tery, brethren: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number
of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved; as it is written, “The
Deliverer will come from Zion, he will banish ungodliness from Jacob.”
Paul, Romans 11:25–261
This text is the basis of the common opinion that, at the end of the world,
the Jews will return to the faith. However, it is so obscure that, unless one is
willing to accept the judgment of the fathers who expound the apostle in this
way, no one can, so it would seem, obtain a clear conviction from this text.
Luther, Lectures on Romans2
*The research for and preparation of this article were supported by the Israel Science Foundation
(grant no. 722/99), by the Research Fund of Tel Aviv University, by the Goldstein-Goren Diaspora
Research Center of Tel Aviv University, by fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of
Pennsylvania, and by the generous hospitality of the University of Notre Dame. I am indebted to my
colleagues at these various venues for their helpful and constructive reactions to variegated requests
for advice and information. Pursuit of the research, demanding the assembly and processing of a vast
array of source material, would not have been possible without the dedicated help and cooperation
of my research assistants over the past several years: Marianne Naegli, Dorit Reiner, Tali Berner,
Montse Leira, Adi Greenman, Ella Raskin, Haim Cohen, and Avital Davidovich.
1
I have generally adhered to the RSV except where the wording of biblical quotations in the
works of patristic or medieval authors mandates otherwise. Citations of chapter and verse in the
Hebrew Bible, however, generally follow the numbering in the Masoretic Text.
2
Martin Luther, Scholien—Epistola ad Romanos (vol. 56 of Werke; Weimar: H. Bohlaus Nachf,
1883–1983) 436–37; Martin Luther, Lectures on Romans (trans. Wilhem Pauck; Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1961) 315.
HTR 98:3 (2005) 247–81

248 HARVARD THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
Biblical exegesis has always occupied center stage in the encounter between
Christianity and Judaism. Most obviously within the context of polemics, the evi-
dence marshaled by the advocates of one faith in debate against those of the other
has typically focused on the interpretation of sacred texts. As Amos Funkenstein
observed several decades ago, Christian anti-Jewish polemics during the patristic
period and throughout much of the Middle Ages typically amounted to “a stereo-
typed enumeration of proofs taken from the Bible for the truth of Christianity, and
the detection of prophecies and prefigurations that were enriched with arguments
taken from the present status of the Jews in ‘servitude’ and dispersion”; Jewish anti-
Christian polemicists typically responded in kind.3 Even when later developments
steered polemics into realms of philosophy, mysticism, and post-biblical juridical
scholarship, their biblical foundations retained a fundamental importance; these
avenues of cultural creativity, during the high Middle Ages at least, often rested on
what has aptly been termed “creative misreadings” of sacred texts.4
Yet the role of the Bible in the Jewish-Christian encounter extends much further
than the limited confines of interreligious polemic. The very genesis of Christian-
ity within the Jewish civilization of the Second Temple period, the various trends
and tendencies that contributed to the “parting(s) of the ways” between the two
faiths, and the subsequent history of relationships between Christians and Jews all
depended in large measure on the interpretation of Scripture. Rival conceptions
of the sacred canon rendered “Scripture” itself an inexact term, and the inherent
polyvalence of the Bible coupled with the ambivalence of one interpretative tradition
toward the other have consistently proved mutually reinforcing. The controversy
surrounding Mel Gibson’s rendition of “The Passion of the Christ,” for example,
conflates piercing questions of the “facticity” of biblical history, of the relationship
between the literal meaning of a sacred text and its internalization by its devotees
centuries later, and of the pernicious evils of prejudicial ethnic stereotyping. Pre-
cisely because of their susceptibility to reinterpretation, sacred texts of old have not
lost their relevance in carving the framework for human relationships today.
Christians and Jews involved in the encounter between the two faiths have
usually directed their energies to expounding the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament.
Jesus and his apostles knew only one biblical testament, while non-Christian Jews
have never acknowledged the authority of any other; and Christian interpretation
of the Old Testament has understandably become a vast field of scholarship. Many
investigators have analyzed the nexus between the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ pas-
3
Amos Funkenstein, “Basic Types of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemics in the Later Middle Ages,”
Viatorr 2 (1971) 374; and see Jeremy Cohen, “Towards a Functional Classification of Jewish Anti-
Christian Polemic in the High Middle Ages,” in Religionsgespräche im Mittelalterr (ed. Bernard
Lewis and Friedrich Niewöhner; Wolfenbütteler Mittelalter-Studien 4; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz
Verlag, 1992) 93–114.
4
Ivan G. Marcus, Piety and Society: The Jewish Pietists of Medieval Germany (Études sur le
Judaïsme médiéval 10; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 1.
JEREMY COHEN 249
sion and Christian anti-Judaism,5 and some have studied the belligerent readings
of the New Testament by medieval Jewish polemicists, their response in kind to
the church’s threatening exposition of Hebrew Scripture. Yet far less attention has
been paid to the history of New Testament interpretation and its role in Christian
theological posturing on Jews and Judaism. Can we identify and situate the processes
of New Testament exegesis at work in the formation of these attitudes? How have
such exegetical considerations melded with varying theological dispositions and
ideological preconceptions in conditioning Christian-Jewish interaction?
Questions such as these hardly lend themselves to neat or simple resolution.
But they linger conspicuously in the background of this essay, which explores
the interpretation of one New Testament passage that bears directly and heavily
on Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. Paul’s prophecy of the ultimate
redemption of “all Israel” in Romans 11, his allusion to the divine “mystery”
whereby Israel, once rejected, will be restored to God’s favor following the entry
of other peoples into the church, has long nourished the notion that the Jews have
yet to outlive their utility in the divinely ordained drama of human history. Their
presence, one would think, still serves a purpose. But as Martin Luther noted in
his own commentary on Romans, the obscurities of the passage well overshadow
the clarity of its meaning. Diverse understandings of virtually every significant
term in Rom 11:25b–26a—the hardening of Israel, the full number of the Gentiles,
and all of Israel to be saved—as well as the place of these verses in the broader
context of Romans 9–11 have yielded divergent implications for the construction
of the Jews in Christian theology and the status of the Jews in Christendom. At
any stage in the annals of Christianity, such disparity has characterized perceptions
of Jews of the past, present, and future, and the Christian sense of continuity and
discontinuity in the history of Israel.
It goes without saying that our present concerns intersect with an array of
questions about Paul and Romans that have consistently engaged New Testament
scholars but cannot receive due attention here. First, under what circumstances
did Paul compose his epistle to the Romans? What were his motivations, and to
what sort of Roman constituency (church?) did he direct his instruction—namely,
to Christians of Jewish or Gentile origin? Second, what, ultimately, was Paul’s
attitude toward the law of the Torah, its character, its place in the history of salva-
tion, and its validity for Jews even after the coming of Christ? Scholars of Paul
often consider this issue independently of his comments on spiritual and carnal
Israel in Romans 9–11, and, until recently, many chose to treat this section of the
epistle almost as a separate entity, distinct from the unity of the preceding chapters.
The logic of the progression from one section of the epistle to the next may still
be grounds for debate, but many more exegetes now tend to affirm the integrity
5
I explore this linkage at length in my forthcoming book, Christ-Killers: The Jews and the
Crucifixion, from the Gospels to Gibson, scheduled for publication by Oxford University Press
in 2006.
of the letter as a whole, and the analysis of any passage or section must naturally
consider its place within the entirety of the book. And third, recent research has
explored the complexity and sophistication of the rhetoric of Romans: multiple
voices, including those of Paul’s putative interlocutors; veiled but deliberate al-
lusion to key biblical intertexts; and the conscious use of rhetorical devices and
ploys typical of various literary genres in the Hellenistic world. How ought such
sensitivity to Pauline rhetoric to inform the interpretation of his teaching on the
Jews of the end time?6
6
Studies of Paul, his theology, and Romans are legion, and this note cannot begin to survey
the pertinent scholarly literature in any comprehensive fashion. Among the treatments of Paul that
I have found helpful in the preparation of this essay, readers may wish to consult the following.
On Paul and his attitudes towards the Jews and biblical law: E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the
Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983); John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism:
Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press,
1983) chs. 11–15, and idem, Reinventing Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); Lloyd
Gaston, Paul and the Torah (Vancouver, B.C.: University of British Columbia Press, 1987); Heikki
Räisänen, Paul and the Law (2d ed.; WUNT 29; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1987); Alan F. Segal,
Paul the Convert: The Apostolate and Apostasy of Saul the Pharisee (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1990); Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1994); Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of
the Apostle to the Gentiles (CRINT 3.1; Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1990); and Charles
H. Talbert, “Paul, Judaism, and the Revisionists,” CBQ 63 (2001) 1–22. On Pauline theology and
Romans: Karl P. Donfried, The Romans Debate (rev. ed.; Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers,
1991); Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letterr (Minneapo-
lis: Fortress Press, 1996); Terence L. Donaldson, Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle’s
Convictional World d (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1997); and James G. D. Dunn, The Theology of
Paul the Apostle (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W. B. Eerdmans, 1998) esp. 499–532. On Romans 9–11:
K. H. Schelkle, Paulus, Lehrer der Väter. Die altkirchliche Auslegung von Römer 1–11 (Düssel-
dorf: Patmos, 1956); W. D. Davies, “Romans 11:13–24: A Suggestion,” in Paganisme, Judaïsme,
Christianisme. Influences et affrontements dans le monde antique (Mélanges offerts à Marcel Simon)
(Paris: E. de Boccard, 1978) 131–44; Heikki Räisänen, “Paul, God, and Israel: Romans 9–11 in
Recent Research,” in The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism: Essays in Tribute
to Howard Clark Lee (ed. Jacob Neusner et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988) 178–206; Mary
Ann Getty, “Paul and the Salvation of Israel: A Perspective on Romans 9–11,” CBQ 50 (1988)
456–69; Anthony J. Guerra, “Romans: Paul’s Purpose and Audience with Special Attention to
Romans 9–11,” RB 97 (1990) 219–37; Hubert Frankemölle, “Die Entstehung des Christentums
aus dem Judentum: Historische, theologische und hermeneutische Aspekte im Kontext von Röm
9–11,” in Christen und Juden. Voraussetzungen für ein erneuertes Verhältnis (ed. Siegfried Schröer;
Altenberge: Oros Verlag, 1992) 34–83; Stephen Westerholm, “Paul and the Law in Romans 9–11,”
in Paul and the Mosaic Law (ed. James G. D. Dunn; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1996) 215–37; and
Klaus Haacker, “Die Geschichtstheologie von Röm 9–11 im Lichte philonischer Schriftauslegung,”
NTS 43 (1997) 209–22. On Romans 11:25–26: Francois Refoulé, “Et ainsi tout Israël sera sauvé”.
Romains 11, 25–32 (LD 117; Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1984); Traugott Holtz, “Das Gericht über die
Juden und die Rettung ganz Israels: I Thess 2,15f und Röm 11,25,” in Geschichte und Theologie
des Urchristentums (WUNT 57; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1991) 313–25; Christopher D. Stanley,
“‘The Redeemer Will Come ek Siøn’: Romans 11.26–27 Revisited,” in Paul and the Scriptures of
Israel (ed. Craig Alan Evans and James Alvin Sanders; JSNTSup 83; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993)
118–42; Seyoon Kim, “The ‘Mystery’ of Rom 11.25–6 Once More,” NTS 43 (1997) 412–29; James
M. Scott, “‘And Then All Israel Will Be Saved’ (Rom 11:26),” in Restoration: Old Testament,
Jewish, and Christian Perspectives (ed. James M. Scott; Supplements to the Journal for the Study
JEREMY COHEN 251
Rather than seek to elucidate the meaning of Paul himself, the present study
endeavors to map several instructive trajectories in the interpretation-history of
Rom 11:25–26. In particular, I hope to begin to link this exegetical issue to patristic
and medieval Christianity’s construction of the “eschatological Jew”: the Jew of the
end time, when upheaval, cataclysm, and salvation will bring the tumultuous course
of terrestrial history to harmonious resolution and perfection. Just as the Augustinian
doctrine of Jewish witness, based on Augustine’s original understanding of Ps 59:
12 (“Slay them not, lest my people forget . . .”) and other Old Testament passages,
underlay the church’s toleration of the European Jewish minority during much of
the Middle Ages,7 so, too, did New Testament exegesis contribute to the character
and function that Christianity ascribed to the Jews of the eschaton.
■ Epistolary Ambiguities
While our primary interest lies not with Paul and his intentions but with others’
perceptions of them, and then with the potential implications of those perceptions
for Christian-Jewish relations, two considerations mandate that we devote several
pages at the outset to Romans itself. On the one hand, the modern scholars cited
in the preceding paragraphs were not the first to recognize problems and ambigui-
ties inherent in Romans. Some of these issues already engaged the church fathers
and theologians of the Middle Ages, and such questions can therefore serve as
signposts in our treatment of the pertinent exegetical material. On the other hand,
the questions and ambiguities inherent in Romans 9–11 themselves reflect the
exegetical nature of Paul’s own enterprise. Paul did not initiate this exegetical
discourse, several of whose later chapters comprise the core of this study, but he
himself was engaged by biblical texts and traditions much older than he, with which
he struggled continuously in mapping his scheme of salvation history. As various
scholars have hastened to emphasize, Romans 9–11 reveals “a mind steeped in
Israel’s scriptures,”8 and “the theology of Romans is the result of the encounter
with the Old Testament.”9 Indeed, as Richard Hays has proposed, the epistle “is
of Judaism 72; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 489–527. On the distinctive rhetoric of Romans 9–11: James A.
Aageson, “Scripture and Structure in the Development of the Argument in Romans 9–11,” CBQ 48
(1986) 265–89; E. Elizabeth Johnson, The Function of Apocalyptic and Wisdom Traditions in Romans
9–11 (SBL Dissertation Series 109; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989); Stanley K. Stowers, A Rereading
of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994) esp. ch. 10; and
Charles Cosgrove, “Rhetorical Suspense in Romans 9–11: A Study in Polyvalence and Hermeneutical
Election,” JBL L 115 (1996) 271–87.
7
See Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1999) esp. pt. 1.
8
J. Ross Wagner, Heralds of the Good News: Isaiah and Paul “in Concert” in the Letter to the
Romans (NovTSup 101; Leiden: Brill, 2002) esp. 347.
9
Hans Hübner, “New Testament Interpretation of the Old Testament,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testa-
ment: The History of Its Interpretation, Volume I: From the Beginnings to the Middle Ages (ed. Magne
Saebø et al.; pt. 1–2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996–2000) 345; see also idem, Gottes Ich
und Israel: Zum Schriftgebrauch des Paulus in Römer 9–11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
most fruitfully understood as an intertextual conversation between Paul and the

voice of Scripture, that powerful ancestral presence with which Paul grapples.”10
Granted that the Christian exegetes considered below generally did not share Paul’s
preoccupation with that same ancestral presence; there is, nonetheless, continuity
in the nature of their enterprise. Paul, no less than his commentators, theologized
about the Jews in an exegetical framework, and his commentators no less than he
attributed importance to Israel in their Christian expectations of the end of days.
The following issues and uncertainties prove particularly significant in our ensu-
ing discussion.
“All Israel” and Its Components

Among the questions raised by Paul’s prediction that “all Israel will be saved” (11:
26), one must inquire immediately: who qualifies as Israel, and alll Israel at that?
Romans redefines the identity of Israel as those who had inherited God’s promises
of salvation to the ancient Hebrew patriarchs. “Not all are children of Abraham
because they are his descendants; but ‘through Isaac shall your descendants be
named.’ This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of
God, but the children of the promise are reckoned as descendants” (9:7–8). Paul
thus appears to disavow God’s election of Abraham’s physical descendants qua
Israel, but not without equivocation. “Isaiah cries out concerning Israel [10:22–23]:
‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant
of them will be saved; for the Lord will execute his sentence upon the earth with
rigor and dispatch’ ” (9:27–28). Although Paul’s reference to this prophecy of Isaiah
suggests that most of the Jews, labeled the children of Israel, would forfeit their
elect status, some would be saved. Who constitutes this remnant? Have these Jews
already been saved, or did their salvation pertain to future, perhaps eschatological
events?
Moreover, how does the “remnant” (to; katavleimma, reliquiae) of Rom 9:27
relate to Paul’s subsequent uses of similar terminology? Affirming that God has
not rejected his people, Paul invokes the divine assurance to Elijah that he, in fact,
did not remain alone in his refusal to abandon God for the worship of Baal, but
that seven thousand others remained with him. “So too at the present time there is
a remnant [lei`mma, reliquiae], chosen by grace” (11:5). What, then, happened to
the others, not part of the Christian elect? “Israel failed to obtain what it sought.
The elect obtained it, but the rest [oiJ loipoiv, caeteri] were hardened” (11:7). Fi-
1984), and idem, Biblischer Theologie des Neuen Testaments (3 vols.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1990–1995) esp. 2.239–58 (“Die rhetorische Analyse des Römerbriefs”).
10
Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1989) 35. Among many others, see also Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans (trans.
Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1980) esp. 272–76, 311–15; Paul and the
Scriptures of Israel (ed. Evans and Sanders); John G. Lodge, Romans 9–11: A Reader-Response
Analysis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996).
JEREMY COHEN 253
nally, Paul declares that “a hardening has come upon part [ajpo; mevrou~, ex parte]
of Israel” (11:25). The language of Romans might suggest a qualitative difference
between the “remnant” of the elect destined for salvation and the “rest” or remain-
ing part of Israel that were “hardened” temporarily,11 but additional reflection can
quickly obscure it. For if the whole of Israel to be saved in fact includes part that
was hardened or blinded, what does Paul intend when, earlier in the same chapter
(11:10), he invokes the exhortation of Ps 69:24, “let their eyes be darkened so that
they cannot see, and bend their backs forever.” If this remaining and disbelieving
part of Israel had been punished forever, how can the apostle include it within the
whole of Israel to be saved? Additionally, does Isaiah’s prophecy of the salvation
of Israel’s remnant strike Paul as pertaining to past or to eschatological events,
that is, to the first or second coming of Christ? If the latter, what, if anything,
distinguishes the salvation of this remnant from all Israel’s salvation predicted in
Rom 11:25–26?
The Mystery
Paul declares that the hardening and ultimate salvation of Israel pertain to a mystery
(musthvrion, mysterium), aspects of which Paul elaborates to the Christian recipients
of his letter, lest they “be wise in their own conceits” (11:25), but which he never
explains in full. Apparently, the mystery comprises God’s plan for the redemption
of humankind, a blueprint for salvation history replete with irony, paradox, and
reversal. In Romans 9, Paul’s new criteria for inclusion in a reconstituted, spiritual
Israel and his remarks on the inscrutability of divine justice facilitate his declaration
that believing Gentiles have largely replaced the Jews as God’s chosen people, at
least for the time being.
What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has
endured with much patience the vessels of wrath that are made for destruc-
tion, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy,
which he has prepared beforehand for glory—even us whom he has called,
not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? As indeed he says in Ho-
sea [2:25, 1:9], “Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and
her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ And in the very place where
it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘sons of the
living God.’” (9:22–26)
There follows immediately Paul’s citation of Isaiah to the effect that only a rem-
nant of Israel will be saved. So far, the rationale for the reversal in the destinies of
Jews and Gentiles appears coherent, if not fully understandable in all of its depth.
Thus the chapter concludes that Gentiles have attained righteousness in their faith,
while Israel has lost it in its observance of the law. Romans 10 eventually returns
to these themes, reaffirming that “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
. . . ‘Every one who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved’” (10:12–13);
11
See Wagner, Heralds of the Good News, ch. 4, esp. 238ff. (“‘The Remnant’ and ‘the Rest’”).
references to Deut 32:21 and Isa 65:1–2 then reinforce the reversal in the relation-
ship between Israel and the nations.
Romans 11, however, complicates matters. Here Paul appears to retreat from his
statements on the displacement of Jews by Gentiles, declaring emphatically that
God has not rejected his people, that the whole lump of dough and the branches
stemming from the roots of Israel retain their sanctity and that all Israel will be
saved. More interesting still, the apostle highlights God’s use of the Gentiles to
arouse jealousy among the Jews, disclosing another dimension to the mystery of
salvation history.
So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their
trespass salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now
if their trespass means riches for the world, and if their failure means riches
for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean . . . ! For if their
rejection is the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean
but life from the dead? (11:11–15)
Evidently, the Jews needed to fall in order to allow for the salvation of the Gentiles,
“the reconciliation of the world,” and jealousy needs to prod the Jews to return
to God, which will signify the consummation of the divine master plan, nothing
other than “life from the dead.” Does this suggest that the Jews simply functioned
as pawns in the divine blueprint for human history, alternatively facilitating the
salvation of the nations in their fall and the final redemption in their conversion?
Could God not have realized the redemption of the world in any other way? What
constitutes the intrinsic significance of Israel’s salvation?
Divine and Human Responsibility

The relationship between grace, predestination, and free will in determining the
fate of a human being clearly weighs heavily on Paul throughout much of the
epistle; in and of itself, this vast, intricate, perplexing, and foundationally important
issue lies outside the purview of this paper. Nonetheless, one can readily under-
stand how the question of the Jews’ moral responsibility for the divinely wrought
punishment of their “hardening”—or, the extent to which God punished them for
transgressions that were intentional—does bear upon exegetical discussions of
Rom 11:25–26 and the ultimate salvation of Israel. Here, again, one has trouble
finding consistency in Paul’s instruction. Chapter 9 propounds the inscrutability
of divine justice: “So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens
the heart of whomever he wills” (9:18). As we have seen, however, the concluding
verses of chapter 10 suggest that the basis for the Jews’ rejection lay in their own
intention: “So faith comes from what is heard, and what is heard comes by the
preaching of Christ. But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed they have. . . . Again I
ask, did Israel not understand?” (10:17–19). Adding still further to the confusion,
Paul proceeds in the next chapter (11:8–9) to invoke Isa 29:10 (“God gave them
a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see”) and, as we have noted, Ps 69:24 (“let
JEREMY COHEN 255
their eyes be darkened so that they cannot see”). Ought one to conclude that the
blindness—and obstinacy of the Jews—derive from God’s decree, so that the Jews
might not bear full responsibility for their continuing error? Or, perhaps, since the
Jews’ error and punishment preceded their blindness, and not vice versa, they must
assume such responsibility in full. Presumably, the extent to which the Jews bear
direct moral responsibility for their punishment will contribute to the extent that
they must will to mend their ways before the removal of their “hardening” and the
salvation of all Israel.
Alongside these questions and ambiguities, one must recognize the high stakes
involved in the interpretation of our passage, beyond the exegesis of Romans per
se. Paul’s instruction concerning the place—and identity—of Israel in the divine
economy of salvation bears directly not only on the status of the Jews, who in the
past were readily identifiable as Israel, but also on that of Christians, who claim
to have replaced them as the true Israel of the present. To what extent have God’s
ancient promises to the Hebrew patriarchs of Israel withstood the trauma of the
Jews’ refusal to accept the truth of Christianity? How, if at all, must Christians
acknowledge Israel’s former election in their dealings with Jews living in their
midst and under their dominion? Looking forward to the future, must Christians
preserve the Jewish people precisely so that they can convert at the end-time, thereby
fulfilling Paul’s prophecy in its ostensibly literal meaning? We shall consider the
most instructive interpretations of Paul’s eschatology from among the writings
of the Greek fathers of the church, the Latin fathers, and the medieval European
exegetes who succeeded them.
■ Origen and the Greek Patristic Tradition

Perhaps even more than Paul himself, Origen occupies center stage in our story. The
first truly scientific patristic exegete, he rendered biblical commentary an enduring,
major genre of Christian ecclesiastical literature. His encounter with Judaism and
the rabbinic texts of his day was arguably more serious and systematic than that
of any other patristic scholar. Origen undoubtedly sought to resolve ambiguity
in Paul’s eschatological forecast, but the depth and complexity in his analysis of
Romans 9–11, at least in the Latin translation of Rufinus, had the opposite effect:
They rendered the ambiguities that he perceived in the text a permanent fixture in
Christian tradition.12
12
On Origen and his oeuvre, see, among others, the important studies of Jean Daniélou, Origen
(trans. Walter Mitchell; New York: Sheed and Ward, 1955); Henri Crouzel, Origen (trans. A. S.
Worrall; San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989); and Joseph Wilson Trigg, Origen: The Bible and
Philosophy in the Third-Century Church (Atlanta: J. Knox, 1983). On his Romans commentary and
its Latin translation by Rufinus, see, above all, Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, Der Römerbrieftext
des Rufin und seine Origenes-Übersetzung (Vetus Latina 10; Freiburg: Herder, 1985) esp. 43–104,
387–418, as well as Henry Chadwick, “Rufinus and the Tura Papyrus of Origen’s Commentary
on Romans,” JTS, n.s. 10 (1959) 10–42, and Riemer Roukema, The Diversity of Laws in Origen’s
Commentary on Romans (Amsterdam: Free University Press, 1988). For the purposes of this pa-
Opening his comments on Romans 9, Origen places the mystery of 11:25–26 in

the limelight of his exposition. He affirms Paul’s commitment to—and confidence
in—the ultimate salvation of the Jews, even as the apostle redefines the identity of
Israel. Paul’s efforts to save the Jews, in fact, outstripped those of Moses himself,
who had implored God to forgive his sinful people and, if not, to expunge Moses’
name from his book. But while Moses’ “descendants, who had received the prom-
ised land, are even now meandering away from it as wanderers and exiles . . . Paul
says about Israel, ‘I do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, of this mystery, that
blindness has fallen upon part of Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles should
come in and thus all Israel will be saved.’”13 Origen thus seeks to integrate the
substance of these three chapters in Romans. He suggests that Paul’s exposition
of God’s mysterious plan for salvation history in general, and of the relationship
between Israel and the other nations of the world in particular, will culminate in
the glorious forecast of 11:25–26, which serves to direct the flow of Paul’s argu-
ment in this part of the epistle. A careful reading quickly reveals, however, that
the road from the opening of Romans 9 to the end of Romans 11 hardly lacks its
confusing twists and turns.
Origen on Romans 9: Israel the Elect

In accordance with the Pauline principle that “not all who are descended from
Israel belong to Israel” (9:6), Origen affirms that the reality of salvation history
defies appearances. The distinction between the elect (the vessels of God’s mercy)
and the damned (the vessels of his wrath) is not always readily comprehensible,
and one cannot always make sense of the continuity (or discontinuity) between
per, I have presented Origen-Rufinus simply as Origen, while remaining aware that Rufinus might
have modified the form, contents, and import of the commentary in no small measure. On Origen’s
attitudes towards Jews and Judaism, see Hans Bietenhard, Caesarea, Origenes und die Juden (Stutt-
gart: W. Kohlhammer, 1974) esp. ch. 8; Nicholas R. M. DeLange, Origen and the Jews: Studies in
Jewish-Christian Relations in Third-Century Palestine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1976); Peter Gorday, Principles of Patristic Exegesis: Romans 9–11 in Origen, John Chrysostom,
and Augustine (Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity, vol. 4; New York: E. Mellen Press,
1983) ch. 3; Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, “Die Juden im Römerbriefkommentar des Origens,”
in Christlicher Antijudaismus und jüdischer Antipaganismus: Ihre Motive und Hintergründe in den
ersten drei Jahrhunderten (ed. Herbert Frohnhofen; Hamburger theologische Studien 3; Hamburg:
Steinmann & Steinmann, 1990) 245–51; John A. McGuckin, “Origen on the Jews,” in Christian-
ity and Judaism (ed. Diana Wood; Studies in Church History 29; Oxford: Blackwell, 1992) 1–13;
Joseph S. O’Leary, “The Recuperation of Judaism,” in Origeniana sexta (ed. Gilles Dorival and
Alain Le Boulluec; BETL 118; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1995) 373–79; and Marc Hirsh-
man, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (trans.
Batya Stein; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996) chs. 7–8.
13
Origen, Commentarii in Romanos 7.11, in Der Römerbriefkommentarr (ed. Caroline P. Ham-
mond Bammel; 3 vols.; Vetus Latina 16, 33, 34; Freiburg: Herder, 1990–1998) 3.612. I have based
my translations on Origen, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans: Books 6–10 (trans. Thomas
P. Scheck; FC 104; Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2002), modifying it—often
considerably—where appropriate; for this passage, see 107.
JEREMY COHEN 257
the members of these two categories at various stages in their history. Just as the
ancient Hebrews had formerly attained mercy after having been rejected by God
and reckoned for lost by other men, Origen explains that now the Gentiles, “who
were looked down upon and given up on by those who boast in circumcision,
have attained mercy.”14 In Origen’s view, moreover, Paul’s claim that Abraham’s
physical descendants do not constitute his real children (9:7) in fact generalizes
and oversimplifies. Not alll of those descendants qualify as his genuine heirs, but
some do! More important, the “Hebrew people” of old did represent the vessels
of divine mercy as a people in their time, until they and their erstwhile Gentile
oppressors exchanged roles. The mystery of salvation history owes its complexity
not only to mistaken appearances, but to dramatic reversals as well.
Thus did Origen explain Paul’s citation (in Rom 9:27) of Isa 10:22. (“Though
the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant of them will
be saved.”) Owing to the Jews’ obstinacy, their impenitent heart, and the crucifix-
ion of Jesus, Isaiah foresaw that many “were going to be ‘vessels of wrath made
for destruction. . . .’ Those who are not saved are like the sand of the sea; but the
remnant that will be saved are like the stars of heaven. For the words of the promise
that came to Abraham [Gen 22:17] contain both”—that is, both the sand of the sea
and the stars of heaven.15 How, then, ought one to compute the extent of Israel’s
displacement by the Gentiles, which naturally depends on the size of the remnant
of Israel to be saved? On the one hand, the stars in the sky, especially as God had
referred to them in making his promises to Abraham, abound. On the other hand,
Paul proceeded immediately (Rom 9:29) to cite Isa 1:9, “If the Lord of hosts had
not left us children, we would have fared like Sodom” and been utterly destroyed;
and Origen concluded from the singular form of “children” (spevrma, semen) that
the prophet had referred to Jesus.16 Did the remnant of Israel include but one Jew-
ish soul, that of Jesus himself?
Origen on Romans 10: Jews and Gentiles

Origen openly acknowledges that difficulties in reading Romans can arise from
its changing voices: Paul seemed to converse with an unnamed interlocutor, who
questions and challenges the ostensibly troubling implications of Paul’s Christology;
at times, Paul clearly addressed an audience of Gentile Christians, but elsewhere
he appears to have addressed the Jews.17 As he reads Romans 10, Origen himself
proceeds to interpret the epistle along just such equivocal lines. He understands
Paul as seeking to console the Jews after having alienated them in the previous
chapter. For all their error, Paul appeals to God on the Jews’ behalf, testifying that
14
Origen, Comm. Rom. 7.16 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.631; trans. Scheck, 124).
15
Comm. Rom. 7.17 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.634–635; trans. Scheck, 126–27).
16
Comm. Rom. 7.17 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.635–636).
17
See Gorday, Principles of Patristic Exegesis, 84, which calls Origen’s interpretation an “argu-
ment in perpetual motion.”
they retain their zeal and passion for God (zelus et aemulatio Dei),18 albeit ardor
grounded not in knowledge but in ignorance. The Gentiles’ displacement of the Jews
notwithstanding, Origen defends Paul’s assertion that all have equal opportunity
to achieve salvation.19 Nevertheless, Origen condemns the Jews virtually in the
same breath, underscoring the misguided futility of their ways that lead ultimately
to perdition. “For the Jews have not believed in Christ and, therefore, they do not
call upon him in whom they have not believed. . . . There is no salvation, he says,
except for the one who calls. But no one calls who does not believe. Therefore,
since you do not believe, you do not call; and because you do not call, you are
not being saved.”20 While neither all Jews nor all Gentiles have been saved, many
more Gentiles than Jews have taken the right path.21 And despite their laudable
zeal and misguided ignorance, Origen concludes, Paul “wants to verify, by means
of suitable witnesses, that Israel is without excuse.”22 The Jews have continually
scoured their Scriptures in search of evidence of Christ but have found none, while
the Gentiles, ironically, have discovered him. For the Jews, the cross remains a
scandal, and they remain guilty of rejecting it.23
Origen on Romans 11: “Remnant” and “Rest” of Israel

In interpreting Romans 11, Origen sets out to unravel these seeming inconsisten-
cies concerning those who will and will not be saved, but, perhaps because such
inconsistency is so deeply imbedded in epistle and commentary alike, he appears
to compound the ambiguity of Paul’s doctrine no less than to resolve it. In order
to establish that God has not rejected his people Israel at the same time as he has
in effect disowned them, Origen explains, Paul brought two concrete counterex-
amples: (1) that of himself, and (2) that of the seven thousand faithful, who, as
God assured the prophet Elijah (1 Kings 19), had not deserted him for the worship
of Baal. These examples lead Origen once more to two distinct and inconsistent
means of attacking the problem. First, he states, Paul intends to differentiate be-
tween two peoples of Israel.
Everyone who descends from the race of Israel is called Israel, but he is a
true Israelite who sees God with a pure mind and a sincere heart. . . . In one
passage he [Paul] names Israel according to the flesh; in another he does not
make any mention of Israel of the flesh, as in the present passage, where,
when . . . he wanted to set forth the nobility of the Israelite soul, he says, “For
I myself am an Israelite.”24
18
Comm. Rom. 8.1 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.641); cf. Patrologia graeca (henceforth PG) 14.1157:
“ineffabilis zelus et aemulatio Dei.”
19
Comm. Rom. 8.3 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.651).
20
Comm. Rom. 8.4 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.652, 654; trans. Scheck, 142, 144).
21
Comm. Rom. 8.5 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.659–660).
22
Comm. Rom. 8.4 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.653; trans. Scheck, 151).
23
Comm. Rom. 8.5 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.666).
24
JEREMY COHEN 259
Nobility of faith, purity of heart, and sincerity—not nobility of lineage—distin-

guish the spiritual Israel destined for salvation. As Origen concludes succinctly,
“Such then is the ‘remnant chosen by grace.’ ”25 Second, Origen holds that Paul
differentiated between two categories of Israelites among the single, presumably
Jewish, people of Israel itself.
The Apostle divides Israel into two groups, one of which he calls “the elect,”
which has obtained what it was seeking, the other he names “the rest,” which
not only did not obtain what they were seeking but have been blinded by a
spirit of confusion. Of them he indeed says that God gave “eyes that they
would not see and ears that they would not hear, down to the present day,”
that is, until the consummation of the age.26
Where lies the confusion? On the basis of these overlapping but different dis-
tinctions, Origen does not clarify who constitutes the reliquiae, the remnant that
Isaiah prophesied would be saved and that Paul suggested already were: Was it
the largely non-Jewish Israel of the spiritt or those few believing Jewish Israelites?
Reliquus Israel, the rest of Israel that God has blinded,27 closing off their hearts
to the truth until “the consummation of the age,” can in turn be identified with
the Jewish nation of carnal Israell or with the remainder of the Jews who have no
faith in Christ.
Origen on Romans 11: Israel’s Rejection, Reversal, Restoration

Complicating matters still further, Origen takes pains to delimit the extent of carnal
Israel’s rejection, making guardedly positive mention of the salutary character of the
Jews and their role in God’s historical plan, their error and guilt notwithstanding.
Origen understands Paul to mean that Jewish Israel stumbled temporarily but did
not fall permanently. Its temporary lapse facilitated the salvation of the Gentiles.
The Gentiles’ conversion, in turn, will instill jealousy in Israel and ultimately rouse
the Jews to believe in Christ. Albeit counterproductively, the Jews retain their zeal
for God; they continue to immerse themselves in the study of God’s law. Their
alienation from God accordingly serves his purposes, and it has not deprived them
of their inheritance forever. Origen proposes an instructive analogy:
If at some time a righteous man, having been overcome by one thing—for
example, by the weakness of the flesh or by any other offense—would have
fallen, he would not, however, on that account withdraw from all observance
of the law, but he would hold fast to righteousness, cultivate mercy, pre-
serve the faith, piety, and gentleness, and he would not neglect to meditate
on the law of God; of this we can say, “Has he stumbled so as to fall? By
25
26
27
Comm. Rom. 8.7 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.675). Cf. ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.673: “ipse
dederit oculos residuo Israhel quibus non videat. . . .”
no means!” For even the Israelites, although they have denied their own re-
deemer and have stoned and persecuted those sent by him to preach salvation;
nevertheless they still have something that remains.28
Despite the Jews’ rejection of Jesus and his apostles, the potential for restoration
and renewal remains inherent within them.
More important still, for all his denigration of the Jews and their observance,
Origen insists that their reintegration into the people of God remains a vital, indis-
pensable component of the ultimate salvation.
At the present time, while all the Gentiles are [still] coming to salvation,
the riches of God are being gathered from the multitude of believers. But as
long as Israel persists in unbelief, the fullness of the Lord’s portion will not
be said to be completed; for the people of Israel are missing from the whole.
Yet when the fullness of the Gentiles enters in and Israel comes to salvation
through faith in the end time, it will be that that very people which had been
first would, in coming last, somehow complete that fullness of the inheritance
and portion of God. Thus it is called “the fullness,” because, in the last days,
it will fill in what was lacking in God’s portion. And in this way the dispen-
sation of the good and almighty God makes the offenses of some fruitful for
others, just as in the present the offenses of Israel produce riches for the world
and render their forfeiture wealth to the Gentiles.29
Completion—achievement of the “fullness”—of the divine portion depends on

the entry of both the “fullness” of the Gentiles and the people of Israel into the
community of the faithful. As we shall see, such parity between the “fullness” of
the Gentiles and “all Israel” will continue to engender ambiguity in the meaning
of Romans throughout the ensuing centuries of Christian history.30
This interdependence of the fate of the Gentiles and that of the Jews, Origen
elaborates, embodies the “mystery” that Paul wished to unravel to his readers.
The initial election, the subsequent rejection, and the final reconciliation of Israel
comprise vital elements of the divine economy of salvation; without them, God’s
plans for the redemption of humankind could not be realized.
At the dispersion of the sons of Adam, when the rest of the nations had
been distributed according to the number of the angels, Israel became, as
it were, God’s portion. . . . So long as that portion of the Lord was abiding
in its status it was not possible for us who were Gentiles to enter into the
inheritance of God and to succeed to the rights of his scepter. On account of
28
Comm. Rom. 8.8 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.683; trans. Scheck, 168–69).
29
30
In pointed rhetorical fashion, Origen preempts a putative retort to his theory: “Now of course
whether the dispenser of all things may do something similar with the Gentiles’ offenses that they
inevitably commit, and bestow riches upon certain others from these, so that it should not seem that
this was unique to Israel alone, but that equality before the just and good God might be preserved
for all—even you, the reader, should investigate on your own” (Comm. Rom. 8.8 [ed. Hammond
Bammel, 3.686; trans. Scheck, 171]).
JEREMY COHEN 261
this, therefore, God allows blindness to remain over a part, that is, not all but
some, of Israel. . . . For by turning away the people of God unto themselves
through the allurements of sin, they made room for the Gentiles to enter into
the inheritance of God. . . . But when the fullness of the Gentiles shall have
been completed and Israel, in jealousy of their salvation, shall have begun to
disperse the blindness of heart from herself and to behold Christ. . . . Israel,
now motivated, would seek the salvation she had lost in her blindness.31
And yet, even here, despite Origen’s intent to elaborate and to clarify, uncertainty
and ambiguity remain. What, or who, is the part of Israel overcome by blindness?
Origen gives the impression of a lesser part—“a part, that is, not all, but some”—
rather than a majority. If so, must one conclude that the (presumably greater) part of
Israel not overcome by blindness represented a majority of the Jewish people? But
this would not comport with Origen’s previous intimations that the saved remnant
(reliquiae) of the Jews not blinded by God were relatively few in number, far fewer
than the relative portion of the Gentiles that had come to have faith.32
Origen on Romans 11: The Fullness of the Gentiles and the Extent of Israel’s
Salvation
Likewise, if Origen fails to explain precisely what part of Israel will succumb to
blindness, he has similar difficulty deciphering Paul’s prediction that “all Israel
will be saved.”
Who the “all Israel” are who will be saved, and what that fullness of the Gen-
tiles will be, only God knows. . . . Yet we can comprehend that just as Israel
cannot attain salvation so long as it continues to be Israel according to the
flesh and fails to become a true Israelite according to the Spirit, mentally gaz-
ing on God, so, not even can absolutely all of the Gentiles be saved, but only
those that are found within the fullness, whatever it is that the Apostle calls
the fullness. So then, the mystery of God is conducted by a certain ineffable
dispensation of his wisdom in such a way that, even though a soul may inflict
upon itself the condition of evil in itself, he who knows how to dispense all
things may turn its rejection and punishment into the salvation of others.33
Understandably, Origen proposes a measure of parity between the conversion of

“the full number of the Gentiles” and the salvation of “all Israel.” Both will signify
the culmination of human history, bringing God’s plan for human salvation to its
final fulfillment. Both represent qualitative as well as quantitative designations,
defying any immediate, simplistic definition, although the progression of Origen’s
commentary up until this point in Romans 11 bespeaks the conviction that the “rest
31
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.699–700; trans. Scheck, 182).
32
One could, perhaps, argue that the blinded portion of Israel corresponded to Israel of the flesh, the
great majority of the Jewish people, while those of Israel of the spirit did not suffer this blindness. The
immediately ensuing contrast between Israel and the Gentile nations militates against this inference.
33
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.702; trans. Scheck, 183–84).
of Israel” (reliquus Israel), blinded upon their initial rejection of Jesus, would
ultimately be restored.
In the sentences that follow, however, Origen, appears to reverse himself, thereby
reinforcing our uncertainty. “He [Paul] does not say that this blindness had occurred
to all Israel but only in part. ‘For there is a remnant, chosen by grace. . . .’ So, then,
that remnant in blessedness is compared with the fullness of the Gentiles; but the
others who have been blinded out of Israel are compared with the Gentiles who
cannot attain to the fullness.” Origen then offers the exegete seemingly clear-cut
advice for sorting matters out.
In this way, then, what is found in the words of the prophets relating to the
promises, things written containing blessedness, if these things are about
Israel, they pertain to that remnant that was chosen; if about the Gentiles,
they have in view the fullness. If, however, grievous things are spoken about
Israel, doubtless, they will be referred to the rest who were blinded; but if
they are spoken about the Gentiles, they actually deal with those who are
outside of the fullness.34
Origen here draws a parallel between the full number of Gentiles and the remnant
of Israel—not
l to “all Israel”—to be saved at the end time. This, in turn, might
imply that just as there will, evidently, remain some unconverted—and therefore
unsaved—Gentiles not part of this fullness, so will those many blinded Jews
(reliquus or residuum Israel)35 belonging not to the presumably small “remnant”
(reliquiae) of Israel remain unsaved at the end! Along with unbelieving Gentiles,
they will suffer “sorrows and penal purifications,” the fire of hell.36
When all is said and done, will all Israel be saved, or only the remnant? Origen
only begins to hint at a possible solution to this seeming contradiction, although
this, too, confounds no less than it clarifies. He proceeds to suggest that the infernal
punishments intended for those not included in “the full number of the Gentiles”
or in “all Israel” will not last forever. For how long will this “purging” endure?
Again, only God knows.37 Yet the fires of hell do purge and purify, suggesting
that they will rehabilitate their victims. Does Origen mean, somehow, to add an
additional, post-eschatological stage to his expectations for the end time? Will
the entry of “the full number of the Gentiles” at the end of days lead to the salva-
tion of “all Israel,” such that those errant Gentiles and Jews not included in these
categories will yet suffer the torments of hell and themselves, at last, be saved?38
34
Comm. Rom. 8.11 (ed. Hammond Bammel, 3.702–703; trans. Scheck, 184); see also Origen, In Jer-
emiam Homilia 5.4 (SC 232.290–293), and idem, Commentaria in Matthaeum 17.5 (GCS 40.590).
35
See above, nn. 26–27; and for other instances of these terms, albeit with inconsistent conclusions,
see Origen, In Leviticum homilia 3.5, 5.11 (GCS 29.309, 353–354), and idem, In librum Iudicum
homilia 6.1 (GCS 30.498).
36
37
Ibid.
38
See Origen, In librum Iesu Nave 8.5 (GCS 30.341); and see Gorday, Principles of Patristic
Exegesis, 94. One wonders curiously concerning the possible link between such a post-eschatologi-
JEREMY COHEN 263
Perhaps. But, in any event, Origen does appear to assume that the Jewish people
as a whole will regain their status as a community of God’s faithful, that all Jews
will ultimately be saved.39
Later Greek Fathers

Most other extant patristic commentaries on Romans pale in comparison with
Origen’s—in the depth of their exposition of chapters 9–11, in the level of their
commitment to grapple with the exegetical problems inherent in the text, and in
extent of their engagement by the issue of Israel’s salvation. Some addressed the
issue of Israel’s free will and resulting responsibility for their crimes against God,
while others considered the logic underlying God’s plan for salvation history, but
few confronted the difficulties implicit in Paul’s prophecy that “all Israel will be
saved.” In his penchant for a systematic comprehensiveness and the ambiguity that
often resulted therefrom, Origen appears to have delineated the range of problems
and interpretative strategies available to his successors, eastern and western alike,
even as his own diligence, exegetical sensitivity, and theological disposition led
him generally to steer a middle course.
Let us consider two other Greek patristic authors very briefly. Though their
commentaries on Romans 9–11 might lack the fascinating—if at times confound-
ing—exegetical thoroughness of Origen’s, they do illustrate the extent to which
Christian exegesis of the New Testament and anti-Jewish polemic may or may
not have proven interdependent. To one side of Origen, as it were, one can adduce
the Romans commentary of John Chrysostom (347–407), well known for his avid
campaign against Judaizers in his city of Antioch and for the resulting series of eight
sermons Adversus Judaeos that he delivered in 386 and 387. If Origen had sought
somehow to retain the duality of Israel and the nations throughout his understanding
of salvation history, Chrysostom strove to erect an insurmountable barrier between
communities of Jews and Christians. While we remember Origen for his interest in
Jewish exegetical traditions and his interaction with rabbinic scholars of his day,
Chrysostom hardly leaves us the impression that Jews and Judaism could enrich his
Christianity. “Where Christ-killers gather, the cross is ridiculed, God blasphemed,
the father unacknowledged, the son insulted, the grace of the spirit rejected.”40 No
doubt that times had changed since Origen, that Christianity’s victory in the Ro-
man world fuelled the aggressiveness of a churchman with pastoral responsibilities
cal stage in Origen’s thinking and his idea of continually repeating world cycles; on the latter, see
Trigg, Origen, 108–10.
39
See, for example, Origen’s In Genesim homilia 5.5 (GCS 29.64); In Exodum homilia 6.9 (GCS
29.199–200); In Leviticum homilia 3.5, 5.11 (GCS 29.309, 353–354); In Numeros homilia 6.4
(GCS 30.36).
40
John Chrysostom, Adversus Iudaeos homilia 1.6 (PG 48.852; translation from Jews and Chris-
tians in Antioch in the First Four Centuries of the Common Era [ed. Wayne A. Meeks and Robert
Wilken; SBLSBS 13; Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978] 97).
like Chrysostom, and that the metropolitan context of Antioch itself contributed to
the passion of Chrysostom’s rhetoric. Yet personality, temperament, and theology
influenced exegesis no less than these environmental factors, and Paul’s predictions
for “all Israel” afford an instructive case in point.
Alongside Origen’s commentary, Chrysostom’s homilies on Romans number
among the acclaimed works of Christian biblical interpretation. For Johannes
Quasten, they are “by far the most outstanding patristic commentary on this
Epistle and the finest of all Chrysostom’s works.”41 Yet as much as Origen’s com-
mentary strikes an ambivalent note concerning the Jews, Chrysostom’s strikes a
consistently strident one, especially in its review of those chapters that concern us.42
Chrysostom evidently undertook to neutralize the dimension of Origen’s interpre-
tation that one might label positive or supportive in its attitude toward the Jews.
Paul’s own Jewishness is minimized, discounted, or overlooked by Chrysostom.
Here one finds none of the salutary, redeeming qualities that Origen highlighted
in the Jewish character; where one might wish thus to construe the intent of the
apostle, Chrysostom quipped, “See how cleverly he conciliates them in his speech
and yet shows their unreasonable contentiousness.”43 So, too, when Paul appears
to emphasize the continuing sanctity and worth of the people of Israel in the di-
vine economy of salvation, Chrysostom understood Paul as “preaching kindly to
them”44 while in fact intensifying their condemnation. Contra Origen, neither the
fall nor stumbling of the Jews facilitated the redemption of the Gentiles, but their
own genuine faith. Paul’s parable of the olive tree in Rom 11:16–24 underscores
the rejection of Israel and the adoption of the Gentiles much more than it seeks to
maintain a place for the Jews in God’s plan. Romans 11:26 warrants no comment
whatsoever on the future salvation of all Israel; Chrysostom’s commentary does
not even cite the second half of the verse. Moreover, in reviewing the rhythm of the
mysterious path that God had ordained for human history, Chrysostom attributed
41
Johannes Quasten et al., Patrology (4 vols.; Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1986) 3.442.
42
On Chrysostom, his attitudes toward the Jews, and his commentary on Romans, see J. N. D.
Kelly, Golden Mouth: The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1995); Robert Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the
Late 4th Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983); A. Piédagnel, “L’angoisse du salut
des Juifs dans l’âme de l’apôtre Paul, d’après le De laudibus Pauli de Jean Chrysostome,” StPat
13,2 (1975) 269–72; Anne-Marie Malingrey, “La controverse antijudaïque dans l’oeuvre de Jean
Chrysostome d’après les discours Adversus-Judaeos,” in De l’Antijudaïsme antique à l’Antisémitisme
contemporain (ed. Valentin Nikiprowetzky; Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1979) 87–104; Gorday,
Principles of Patristic Exegesis, ch. 4; Martin Parmentier, “Greek Church Fathers on Romans 9,” Bij-
dragen, tijdschrift voor filosofie en theologie 51 (1990) 6; Demetrios Trakatellis, “Being Transformed:
Chrysostom’s Exegesis of the Epistle to the Romans,” Greek Orthodox Theological Review 36 (1991)
211–29; Adolf M. Ritter, “John Chrysostom and the Jews: A Reconsideration,” in Ancient Christian-
ity in the Caucasus: Iberica Caucasica I (ed. Tamila Mgaloblishvili; Richmond, Eng.: Curzon, 1998)
141–54, 231–32; and Margaret M. Mitchell, “A Variable and Many-sorted Man: John Chrysostom’s
Treatment of Pauline Inconsistency,” JECSS 6 (1998) 93–111.
43
John Chrysostom, Homiliae in epistulam ad Romanos 17.1 (PG 60.564).
44
Hom. Rom. 19.3 (PG 60.587).
JEREMY COHEN 265
primacy to the Gentiles, not the Jews. The latter were relative latecomers to the
community of the elect.
He shows here that the Gentiles were called first; and only then, inasmuch as
they were unwilling, were the Jews chosen; and then the same thing happened
again. For when the Jews did not wish to believe, the Gentiles were again
ushered in. But he does not draw to a halt here, nor does he draw everything
to a conclusion with their repudiation, but with showing them mercy yet
again. Note how much he allots to the Gentiles—just as much as he previ-
ously allotted to the Jews. For when you, he said, disobeyed as Gentiles, then
the Jews came in. Again, now that they have disobeyed, you have come in.
Granted, hopes Chrysostom, that the Jews will not perish forever; they will eventu-
ally be drawn to God out of jealousy for the Gentiles who had replaced them. Still,
the Jews’ fall appears much more permanent and difficult to reverse than it did
in Origen’s commentary. Chrysostom recapitulates: “Ponder this: You disobeyed,
and they were saved. Now they have disobeyed, and you have been saved. Yet you
have not been saved so as to recede again, in the manner that the Jews were, but
so as to attract them in their jealousy while you remain.”45
Chrysostom’s friend and colleague, Theodore of Mopsuestia (ca. 350–428),
was similarly one of the deans of the Antiochene “school” of Christian biblical
exegesis. He, however, did not use his Romans commentary as a vehicle for anti-
Jewish polemic. To the contrary, he affirmed the centrally important contribution
of the people of Israel to the redemption of humankind, both in the past and in
the future, in terms more emphatic than Origen’s. Jews served as catalysts for the
salvation of the Gentiles, not in their falling away from God but in their faith in
him, in their establishment of the early church, and in their preaching the doctrine
of Christ. Hosea’s prophecy of reversal cited by Paul in Rom 9:25–26—“Those
who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I
will call ‘my beloved’”—refers not to the replacement of the Jews by the Gentiles
but to the future restoration of the Jews themselves. Not the Gentiles but those
Jews already redeemed will arouse the envy of their coreligionists and ultimately
induce them to return to God. In the same vein, Paul asserted that if a few believ-
ing Jews have already brought so many Gentiles into the faith, certainly the belief
of all of the Jews would expedite the salvation of the entire world. For Theodore,
it goes virtually without saying that “all Israel” to be saved in Rom 11:25–26 in-
cludes both the Jews (∆Ioudaiòi) and those from among the Gentiles who shall be
deemed worthy of the name.46 Even among contemporary proponents of similar
exegetical methodologies, the commentaries of John Chrysostom and Theodore
of Mopsuestia demonstrate the breadth of the range of interpretative possibilities
45
Hom. Rom. 19.7 (PG 60.592).
46
The extant fragments of Theodore’s commentary on Romans 9–11 appear in Pauluskommen-
tare aus der griechischen Kirche (ed. Karl Staab; Münster i. W.: Aschendorff, 1933) 143–59; cf.
PG 66.833–860.
offered by our enigmatic Romans text. As we shall see, exegetes in the Latin West
proved little different.
■ Ambrosiaster
Midway in our survey, situated between Origen and his Greek successors and the
Latin exegetes of the late ancient and medieval periods, stands an anonymous
church father whom we have come to remember as “Ambrosiaster.” Writing early
in the last third of the fourth century, “Ambrosiaster” composed the first complete
Latin commentary on the epistles of Paul, and that before Rufinus translated the
commentaries of Origen. Although we know virtually nothing concerning the
identity or career of this writer, his works manifest considerable erudition, and his
interpretation of Romans, more thorough and systematic than that of any other Latin
father, rightfully commands our attention. Ambrosiaster’s commentary helped to
enshrine ambiguity in the western understanding of Pauline teaching concerning
the Jews. And it appears to have done so independently, without merely follow-
ing the example of Origen, and on purely exegetical grounds, unencumbered by
exceptional considerations of anti-Jewish ideology or polemic.47
Ambrosiaster recognized and addressed many of the same exegetical issues
raised by Romans 9–11 that occupied Origen, but his resolution of those issues,
while reminiscent of Origen’s, nevertheless differs. Ambrosiaster evidently had
difficulty understanding how Paul elicited sympathy and even praise for the Jews
if God had rejected them, and, though affirming Paul’s expectations for the salva-
tion of Israel, he did not share Origen’s resounding confidence, stated and unstated,
that God would ultimately redeem the Jewish people. For his part, Ambrosiaster
proposed to distinguish between various categories of Jews within the people of
Israel as a means of explaining the ostensibly inconsistent dicta of Paul. Such a
pattern of distinction runs like a unifying thread throughout Ambrosiaster’s com-
mentary on Romans 9–11, and yet, while it avoids some of the inconsistency of
Origen’s interpretation, it remains perplexing on other grounds.
Addressing Paul’s anguish on behalf of his apostate Jewish kinsmen at the
beginning of Romans 9 and his ensuing self-consoling proposal that not all Jews
qualify as true Israelites, Ambrosiaster reasons as follows:
Thus does he diminish his grief, finding it once predicted that not all were
to believe, such that he may grieve only for these who have failed to believe
on account of their jealousy, for they still can believe. . . . Yet one should not
rightly grieve for those predicted to be unbelievers, since they have not been
predestined for life. For the foreknowledge of God did not formerly determine
that they were meant to be saved, and who laments over one long ago con-
47
On Ambrosiaster and his exegesis, see, above all, the still foundational work of Alexander Souter,
A Study of Ambrosiasterr (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905); Lydia Speller, “Ambrosia-
ster and the Jews,” StPatt 17,1 (1982) 72–78; and David G. Hunter, “On the Sin of Adam and Eve: A
Little-Known Defense of Marriage and Childbearing by Ambrosiaster,” HTR 82 (1989) 283–99.
JEREMY COHEN 267
sidered dead? With the entry of the nations of the world who previously were
without God, and with their acceptance of the salvation which those others
[the Jews] had forfeited, his grief is aroused; but then, inasmuch as they are
the cause of their own perdition, it is allayed.48
Ambrosiaster’s comment conveys at least three ideas that figure significantly in

his understanding of the Jews’ role in the divine economy of salvation. First, not
all Jews of the future were predestined to believe, only some. Second, one must
differentiate between the present disbelief of these two categories of Jews: Some
failed to believe because of their envy ((per invidiam minime crediderunt), and these
retain the potential for belief and salvation; yet for those inherently lacking in faith
(incredulis), there remains no hope for the future. And third, divine foreknowledge
notwithstanding, those doomed to perdition bear the responsibility for their own
fate. These notions reappear as Ambrosiaster’s commentary on Romans unfolds. In
one particularly important passage, regarding the blindness imposed upon Israel as
punishment for its rejection of Jesus and his gospel, he thus differentiates between
two classes of people.
One is that eternally blinded by reason of its own malevolence, so that it
may not be saved. These are people of the worst intention, such that even
when they do understand, they say that they do not comprehend what they
hear. . . . Therefore have they been blinded, so that no longer might they be
able to believe and be saved. They have been sustained in their own will,
such that inasmuch as they declared false what they knew to be true, no
longer might they understand what was true—or possess the truth that they
previously wished were false. The other class is that which, when pursuing
the righteousness of the law, did not accept the righteousness of Christ; and
since it did this not on account of the envy of an evil will but out of zeal for
the tradition of their ancestors, they are blinded temporarily. . . . Therefore
are they blinded, so that when the nations of the world have been admitted to
the promise—owing to that same [misguided] zeal of theirs—and when they
come to envy the Gentiles, they might return to faith in God. Because some
Jews in their zeal for the law resisted the savior not out of malice but out of
ignorance, they have not been blinded forever.49
Ambrosiaster repeatedly employs this interpretative strategy of differentiating

between Jews blinded temporarily and permanently in his exposition of Romans
9–11: in explaining the distinction between the remnants of Israel destined for
salvation and the rest of Israel doomed to damnation (9:27, 11:2–5, 11:8–10); in
understanding Paul’s limited praise for the Jews (10:1–4); and in elaborating Israel’s
ultimate salvation (11:25–26). For all that he may have wished to minimize the
ambiguity and inconsistency that we may have encountered in a reading such as
Origen’s, however, these do persist, and on multiple grounds.
48
Ambrosiaster, Ad Romanos 9.13.3 (Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum [henceforth
CSEL] 81,1.314–315).
499
Ad Romanos 11.10.2–5 (CSEL 81,1.368–371).
The “Remnant” and the “Rest”

First, Ambrosiaster’s comments raise questions concerning the remnants of Israel
that, according to the prophecy of Isaiah adduced by Paul, would be saved, whereas
the rest would not. Who were these remnants, and when would they receive the
faith and salvation? Ambrosiaster explains: “Thus he states that of the greatest of
multitudes, only the faithful, whom God foreknows, are saved.”50 Here, then, Am-
brosiaster identifies those Jews predestined by God for salvation with the reliquiae
of Isaiah’s famous prophecy, although, using the present tense, he does not specify
whether this prophecy of their salvation referred to past or future events—the first
or second coming of Christ. Most Christian exegetes, Origen included, tended to
understand the remnant of Israel in Rom 9:27 as those Jews who still number among
God’s chosen now that the Gentiles have replaced the Jews as the larger community
of God’s faithful. From Paul’s perspective as interpreted by these exegetes, then,
Isaiah’s prophecy applied to the past, to the first coming of Christ. The prediction
had already been fulfilled, perhaps even in the person of Jesus the Jew himself.
Yet Ambrosiaster’s standing distinction between those Jews blinded temporarily
and those blinded permanently—that is, those preordained for salvation and those
destined for perdition—suggests that these destinies have yet to materialize, that
they will materialize at some time in the presumably eschatological future.51 Did
Ambrosiaster therefore differentiate between three classes of Jews: (i) those predes-
tined for salvation and already saved (Isaiah’s reliquiae), (ii) those predestined for
future salvation but presently blinded by their envy, and (iii) those predestined for
ultimate damnation? Or, contrary to the opinio communis, did Ambrosiaster read
Isaiah’s prophecy of the remnant as unfulfilled, appealing to the future?
Although the latter alternative might prove simpler and more consistent for
Ambrosiaster, he appears to have opted for the former, more complicated and
confusing interpretation. At the beginning of chapter 11 he portrayed Paul as dif-
ferentiating between “the part of Israel, who God previously knew was meant to
be saved, that has been saved or that still has the potential for being saved, and
the part of Israel doomed to perdition on account of their persistent infidelity.”52
Ambrosiaster had set out, one would think, to distinguish between two categories
of Jews; yet the complexities of Paul’s epistle seem to yield three.
Blindness, Ignorance, Error, Envy, Malevolence

Second, Ambrosiaster appears to have contradicted himself with regard to the
rationale for this distinction between various classes of Jews. As noted above, his
comments on Romans 9 assert that some Jews failed to believe because of their
500
Ad Romanos 9.28 (CSEL 81,1.332–333).
51
One finds similar ambiguity in the repeated observation of Hilary of Poitiers, Tractatus in
Psalmos 59.13, 121.4, 126.10, that upon the entry of the full number of the Gentiles “relicum
Israhel”—not “omnis Israhel”—will be saved (CSEL 22.201, 573, 620).
522
Ad Romanos 1.1 (CSEL 81,1.362–363).
JEREMY COHEN 269
envy (invidia), while, owing to their malevolence (malivolentia), others were in-
herently incapable of believing (increduli). Expounding Romans 10, however, he
explains precisely which Jews Paul praised for their devotion to God in spite of
their ignorance of Christ. “He says that out of ignorance they did not believe in
Christ; they indeed had zeal for God, but not knowing his will and his counsel they
worked against God, whom they claimed to support. He speaks of those who failed
to accept Christ not out of the malevolence of envy (non malivolentia invidiae) but
out of error.”53 Previously he noted that the Jews overcome by invidia still retained
the ability to believe and would eventually be saved; now he wrote that the envious
Jews in particular qualify as malignant and damned. Furthermore, as we have seen,
Ambrosiaster refers to both of these groups as blind,54 but only to one of them as
ignorant.55 At the same time, in the continuation of the passage from which we just
quoted, he finds authoritative support for his distinction in Acts 3:17. “To these
[Jews who failed to accept Christ because of their error and not out of any ill will],
the apostle Peter also said: ‘now, brethren, I know that you perpetrated this evil act
in ignorance, as did also your rulers.’ ”
Ambrosiaster has here adduced a verse that both he and most medieval Chris-
tian exegetes after him understood as bearing upon the intentions of those Jews
responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion: Did the Jews who killed Christ understand the
magnitude of their crime—that is, did they realize that they were taking the life of
their messiah and the son of God? Ambrosiaster, Augustine, and others typically
used terms like ignorance and blindness almost interchangeably in explaining the
error of the Jews, while those who later came to condemn the Jews for perpetrat-
ing their crime intentionally asserted that the Jews knew, not that they were blind.
Once again, although the possibility remains that Ambrosiaster allowed for a third,
intermediate alternative—of Jews blinded, but whose blindness derived from envy,56
not from ignorance or error—it does not appear to comport well either with his
own understanding of the intentions of Jesus’ Jewish killers or of that of most
subsequent Latin exegetes.57
The Mystery and Its Rationale

Third, as he explains Paul’s prophecy concerning “all Israel,” Ambrosiaster al-
ludes only briefly to the “mystery” in God’s plan for salvation history, which
Origen had expounded in depth as a recurring pattern of reversal, replacement,
and reinstatement that would culminate in the final redemption of the world at
large. Ambrosiaster surely acknowledges, as we have seen, that “for this reason are
they [the Jews] blinded, so that when the nations of the world have been admitted
533
Ad Romanos 10.3 (CSEL 81,1.342–345).
544
Ad Romanos 11.22.1a (CSEL 81,1.378–379).
555
Ad Romanos 11.10.5a (CSEL 81,1.371).
56
See the sources cited in Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, 214 n. 140.
57
See also the studies cited below, n. 60.
to the promise—owing to that same [misguided] zeal of theirs—and when they

come to envy the Gentiles, they might return to faith in God.”58 Yet he displays
relatively little interest in Rom 11:11–15, in which Paul discusses the rationale for
God’s mysterious plan, allotting it not even two pages in (the printed edition of)
his commentary, as opposed to the eleven pages that they receive in Origen’s. And
addressing 11:25–26, Ambrosiaster merely reiterates how some Jews, blinded by
their misguided but well-intentioned zeal for the law, will eventually regain their
free will and return to Christ after jealously observing the Gentiles in possession
of the promise given to Abraham. “All Israel” and “the full number of the Gen-
tiles”—terms so important, and difficult, for Origen—receive no comment, and
readers must simply answer for themselves those questions left unanswered by
Paul. One certainly can infer that those other Jews, blinded by their ill will towards
God and predestined never to have faith, will never return and be saved, although
on this, too, Ambrosiaster equivocates.59 In all, Ambrosiaster’s reading of Romans
9–11 hinges much more on matters of heavenly foreknowledge, human will, and
divine justice than on the dialectical interaction between Israel and the nations at
the heart of God’s plan for salvation history.
■ The Latin Exegetical Tradition

Romans 9–11, and the questions pertaining to the salvation of Israel, did not receive
the same probing consideration in the exegetical works of the later Latin fathers of
the church and their medieval successors as they did in the commentaries of Origen
and Ambrosiaster. Instead, one finds that subsequent western exegetes borrowed
extensively from the interpretations of their predecessors, and that inconsistency
abounds in their own resulting comments. Although the question of the role of
the Jews in the divine economy of salvation hardly lost its currency during the
Middle Ages, other issues—the nature and effects of original sin, and the tension
between predestination and divine justice, for example—evidently overshadowed
the questions presently concerning us in the eyes of the epistle’s commentators.
These “Jewish questions,” in turn, proceeded to evoke discussion within the frame-
work of avowedly anti-Jewish polemical treatises as well as in other exegetical
and theological contexts.
Against the backdrop of this general assessment, several trends, individuals,
and exceptions warrant our attention. His biographical obscurity notwithstanding,
Ambrosiaster’s distinction between those predestined for salvation and those not
so predestined among the presently unredeemed people of Israel found echoes
over the course of the Middle Ages, particularly as issues of human intentional-
ity grew increasingly pressing in their own right. Moreover, while Ambrosiaster
does not appear to have had a well-developed polemical agenda, others did. As
58
Above, n. 49.
59
See Ad Romanos 11.28.2 (CSEL 81,1.384–385), which does appear to leave the door open for
a most welcome return of the Jews to the faith.
JEREMY COHEN 271
I have demonstrated elsewhere, the differentiation between disbelief originating

in blindness and unintentional error and that deriving from ill will came to figure
significantly in medieval reevaluations of the guilt of the Jews responsible for
Jesus’ crucifixion.60
Pelagius: The Salvation of Israel as Passed

The heresiarch Pelagius did have a definite polemical agenda, although not a
specifically anti-Jewish one, and his commentary on Romans 9–11 sheds light
both on his own singular ideas and on the “orthodox” consensus from which he
departed. In addressing Rom 11:25–26, Pelagius suggests that the salvation of all
the Gentiles did not entail the complete disenfranchisement of Israel but signaled
equivalence in the status of both peoples in the eyes of God. Moreover, Pelagius
understands the prophecy of Israel’s salvation in Rom 11:26 (omnis Israhel salvus
fieret) to have materialized already: “all Israel was saved,” not “all Israel will be
saved.” Otherwise, he elaborated, one would have to understand Paul’s citation
(in Rom 11:26) from Isaiah (59:20) to refer to the future as well, and this leads to
an untenable conclusion.
Some interpreters regard all these as future events. To these one must reply:
Then this prophecy—“the Deliverer” of Israel “will come from Zion”—has
yet to take place, and Christ will come again to set them free; and, if they
have been blinded temporarily by God, and not by themselves, what will
come of those who perish now as unbelievers?61
The position of those who postpone the salvation of Israel to the end time, such
that in large measure the Jews remain deprived of salvation until then, renders
God’s blinding of Israel grossly unjust in the eyes of Pelagius. For if God has
purposefully distanced the Jews from salvation for the duration of the present era,
what will come of those denied the opportunity to have faith of their own accord,
as people must in order to save their souls?62
60
See Jeremy Cohen, “The Jews as the Killers of Christ in the Latin Tradition, from Augustine
to the Friars,” Traditio 39 (1983) 1–27; the more recent studies of Jack Watt, “Parisian Theologians
and the Jews: Peter Lombard and Peter Cantor,” in The Medieval Church: Universities, Heresy, and
the Religious Life: Essays in Honour of Gordon Lefff (ed. Peter Biller and Barrie Dobson; Studies
in Church History Subsidia 11; Woodbridge, Eng.: Boydell Press, 1999) esp. 56–68; and Irven M.
Resnick, “Talmud, Talmudisti, and Albert the Great,” Viatorr 33 (2000) 80–85.
61
Pelagius, Expositio in Romanos 11.26, in Expositions of Thirteen Epistles of St. Paul (ed.
Alexander Souter; 3 vols.; Texts and Studies; Contributions to Biblical and Patristic Literature 9;
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922–1931) 2:91; translation, with modifications, from
Pelagius, Pelagius’s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans (trans. Theodore de Bruyn;
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 129.
62
On Pelagius and his doctrine concerning sin and salvation, see, among numerous others, Peter
Brown, “Pelagius and His Supporters: Aims and Environment,” JTS, n.s. 19 (1968) 93–114; Claudio
Basevi, “La justificación en los comentarios de Palagio, Lutero y Santo Tomás a la Epístola a los
Romanos,” Scripta theologica 19 (1987) 113–76; R. A. Markus, “The Legacy of Pelagius: Orthodoxy,
Heresy and Conciliation,” in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwickk (ed.
Pelagius thus effectively sidesteps the question of how many Jews are included
in the eschatological Israel to be saved, reinterpreting the divine mystery of Rom
11:25 so as to strip it of its commonly presumed eschatological resolution. While
Israel’s blindness afforded the Gentiles the appropriate occasion for their salvation
(occasionem eis salutis), neither does Pelagius view this blindness as signifying a
wholesale rejection of the Jews and their law, nor does he consider the displace-
ment of the Jews necessary to make room for the Gentiles. On the contrary, God
wished to bring the Gentiles into the fold for the express purpose of wooing the
Jews. “They were not broken off for your sake, but you were grafted in because
of the fact that they were broken off.”63 In other words, rather than save the Gen-
tiles as opposed to the Jews, God sought to level the distinction between them,
emphasizing that the same essential human condition—the inherent capability of
achieving justification through faith with the help of God’s grace along with a (not
insurmountable) propensity for sin—characterized them all.
Indeed, without overlooking the importance of the gift of God’s grace, Pelagius’s
commentary suggests that divine rejection and election correspond directly to the
just deserts of those concerned, and that such status can fluctuate in accordance
with human merit and demerit. God “has not rejected everyone, he says, and not
for ever, but only those who do not believe, and as long as they do not believe.”64
And again: “They have not fallen away completely and beyond hope. . . . He loved
them so much that the Gentiles were called for their salvation, so that when they
saw that the Gentiles were allowed into the kingdom of God, they might perhaps
repent more readily.”65 Jews who do not number among the elect thus bear respon-
sibility for their own rejection. “Israel as a whole has not obtained righteousness,
because it did not seek it by faith but thought that it was justified solely by works
of the law, though it disregarded the greatest commandments of the law.” And,
when “God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that should not see,” their blindness
did not constitute the punishment that other church fathers had reckoned it, but the
essential state that they had brought upon themselves and from which they could
extricate themselves.
The Scripture says: “Before a man are life and death; and whichever pleases
him will be given to him” [Sir 15:18]—clearly, so as not to eliminate free-
dom of choice. It is therefore God’s prerogative to allow them the spirit of
stupefaction that they desired, for they have always disbelieved the words of
God. Indeed, if they had wanted to have a spirit of faith, they would have
received it. But even today Christians who doubt the resurrection and reward
Rowan Williams; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 214–34; B. R. Rees, Pelagius: Life
and Letters (2 vols. in 1; Woodbridge, Eng.: Boydell Press, 1993) esp. ch. 4; and the introduction
of de Bruyn to Pelagius’s Commentary on St Paul’s Epistle to the Romans, esp. 46–49.
63
Pelagius, Exp. Rom. 11.17 (ed. Souter, 2.89; trans. de Bruyn, 127).
64
Exp. Rom. 11.1 (ed. Souter, 2.85; trans. de Bruyn, 124).
65
Exp. Rom. 11.11 (ed. Souter, 2.88; trans. de Bruyn, 126–27).
JEREMY COHEN 273
or Gehenna have sought a similar spirit for themselves, for in this passage the
prophet was addressing both unbelievers and sinners.66
Thus placing present-day Israel and the nations on a par, Pelagius brings us full
circle. Israel sinned, bringing blindness upon itself. God redeemed the Gentiles,
essentially for Israel’s sake. Now that their redemption has occurred, Jews and
Gentiles share the same status. Those who fail to believe share in the same blind-
ness, the same spirit of confusion to which the apostle had alluded. Of these, those
who will to repent have the ability to do so, and, with the help of God, they can
re/join the community of the elect. The reference of Rom 11:26 to the salvation of
“all Israel” refers to developments already transpired, to the very establishment of
Christianity. Simply put, it refers to the inauguration of a new basis for achieving
salvation, the basis of faith. “Both transgression and faithlessness seized Israel
to such an extent that the time came when all the Gentiles were given access to
life. All of Israel, thus, was being saved in the same way as the full number of the
Gentiles—by faith alone—so that, because they had been equals in transgression,
they were equals in Christ.”67 How many Jews will ultimately avail themselves of
the new opportunity open to them? For Pelagius, that question appears to have no
bearing on the essential meaning of Romans.
Augustine: Romans 11 and the Doctrine of Jewish Witness

Augustine of Hippo did not complete a systematic commentary on Romans, and
his interests in the epistle focused chiefly on the interplay of divine election and
grace and the human will in determining the call to faith, much more than on Paul’s
prediction of the salvation of Israel. Nonetheless, as with so many other questions
of theology and biblical interpretation, on this issue, too, Augustine set the tone
for the prevailing trends in the Christian interpretation of Romans 9–11 during the
millennium that followed him.68
66
Exp. Rom. 11.17 (ed. Souter, 2.86–87; trans. de Bruyn, 125–26).
67
Exp. Rom. 11.25 (ed. Souter, 2.91; trans. de Bruyn, 129).
68
Augustine’s Expositio quarundam propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos and Epistolae ad
Romanos inchoata expositio appear conveniently in Augustine on Romans (ed. and trans. Paula
Fredriksen; SBLTT 23/Early Christian Literature Series 6; Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1982). In
addition to Fredriksen’s introduction, see also her valuable articles linking Augustine’s interpretation
of Romans and his attitudes toward the Jews, especially “Excaecata occulta iustitia Dei: Augustine
on Jews and Judaism,” JECS 3 (1995) 299–324; “Divine Justice and Human Freedom: Augustine
on Jews and Judaism,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian
Thoughtt (ed. Jeremy Cohen; Wolfenbütteler Mittellter-Studien 11; Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1996)
29–54; “Secundum carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine,” in The Limits of
Ancient Christianity: Essays on Late Antique Thought and Culture in Honor of R. A. Markus (ed.
William E. Klingshirn and Mark Vessey; Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999) 26–41;
“Allegory and Reading God’s Book: Paul and Augustine on the Destiny of Israel,” in Interpretation
and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Periodd (ed. Jon Whitman; Brill’s Studies in Intellectual His-
tory 101; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 126–49; and “Augustine and Israel: Interpretatio ad litteram, Jews,
and Judaism in Augustine’s Theology of History,” StPatrr 38 (2001) 119–35. I have responded to
Fredriksen’s reading of Augustine’s anti-Judaism in “‘Slay Them Not’: Augustine and the Jews in
Augustine’s comments on Romans restore the salvation of “all Israel” to the end
time, in a manner that expresses his debt to both Origen and Ambrosiaster. Echoing
Origen’s rationale for the alternating pattern of rejection and election for Jews and
Gentiles outlined by Paul in Romans 9–11, Augustine explains in a letter to Pauli-
nus of Nola that the “mystery” of Rom 11:25 bears upon the reason why it pleases
God “to allow those to be born, to increase and multiply, those who he foreknew
would be wicked, even if he himself did not make them wicked.” Augustine here
affirms that while God might work in strange ways, all that transpires in terrestrial
history gives expression to the wondrous teleology of his creation. “His design is
deeply hidden, whereby even in making a good use of the wicked for the benefit
of the good, he exalts the omnipotence of his goodness, since, just as their evil
constitutes bad use of his good works, so does his wisdom make good use of their
evil works.”69
How, then, do the fall and ultimate restoration of the Jews serve the interests of
the divine master plan? Paul’s denial in Rom 11:11 that the Jews have “stumbled
so as to fall” intends not to underscore the reversibility of their fall—which for
some might in fact prove irreversible—but its ultimately beneficial quality. The
Jews have not fallen purposelessly; rather, their fall facilitated the salvation of the
Gentiles.70 Yet here Augustine takes his explanation one step further than Origen’s.
Referring Paulinus to Rom 11:28, where Paul indicates to the Gentiles that “as
regards the gospel they [the Jews] are enemies of God, for your sake,” Augustine
elaborates: “Now, the price of our redemption is the blood of Christ, who could
manifestly not be killed except by his enemies. Here is the use of wicked men
for the benefit of the good.”71 Not only did the fall of the Jews make room for the
Gentiles in the community of God’s faithful, as Origen had explained the mystery,
but the Jews’ central role in spilling the salvific blood of Christ, specifically, served
God’s purposes well.
On the question of the ultimate eschatological destiny of the Jews, however,
Augustine’s letter to Paulinus appears to have taken a step back from the Origenist
Modern Scholarship,” Medieval Encounters 4 (1998) 78–92, and presented my own interpretation
in Living Letters of the Law, ch. 1. On Augustine’s Romans exegesis in particular, see also, among
others, William S. Babcock, “Augustine’s Interpretation of Romans (A.D. 394–396),” Augustinian
Studies 10 (1979) 55–74; Adolar Zumkeller, “Der Terminus ‘sola fides’ bei Augustinus,” in Chris-
tian Authority: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwickk (ed. G. R. Evans; Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988) 86–100; and Caroline P. Hammond Bammel, “Augustine, Origen, and the Exegesis of
St. Paul,” Aug 32 (1992) 341–68.
69
Augustine, Ep. Rom. 149.18 (CSEL 44.364); Augustine, Letters (trans. Wilfrid Parsons; 5
vols.; Fathers of the Church 12, 18, 20, 30, 32; 1951–1956; repr., Washington: Catholic University
of America Press, 1964–1967) 3.253 (with modifications). See also my discussion of this theme in
“Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It”: The Ancient and Medieval Career of a
Biblical Textt (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1989) 245–59.
70
Augustine, Expositio quarundam propositionum ex Epistola ad Romanos 70, in Fredriksen,
Augustine on Romans, 40–41.
71
Augustine, Ep. Rom. 149.20 (CSEL 44.365–366; trans. Parsons, 253–54).
JEREMY COHEN 275
position, blending it with ideas of Ambrosiaster. Quoting Rom 11:25–26, Augustine

endeavors to understand the partial nature of Israel’s blindness.
He said [that Israel was blinded] “in part,” because not all of them were
blinded; there were some among them who recognized Christ. But the full-
ness of the Gentiles comes in among those who have been called according to
the plan. And so all Israel shall be saved, inasmuch as from among the Jews
and of the Gentiles who have been called according to the plan, they more
truly constitute Israel . . . while he calls those others “Israel according to the
flesh” [1 Cor 10:18]. Then he inserts the testimony of the Prophet: “He who
delivers and banishes ungodliness from Jacob will come from Zion, and this
will be my covenant with them, when I take away their sins”—not, indeed,
those of all the Jews, but of the elect.72
As we have seen, Origen himself had noted that the “true Israelite . . . sees God with
a pure mind and a sincere heart,” while many who number among Israel of the flesh
do not; similarly, Origen acknowledged that just as only God knows who and how
many will number among the plenitude of the Gentiles, so does the precise numeri-
cal extent of “all Israel” remain a riddle. But, while Origen nonetheless belabored
God’s need for the people of Israel to return to the fold in order to bring his plan for
human history to its perfect fulfillment, giving the impression that all of the Jewish
people, more or less, will be saved, Augustine suggested otherwise, at least in his
letter to Paulinus. Augustine’s eschatological Israel is here a reconstituted Israel;
it is “more truly Israel,” including both Jews and Gentiles. Accordingly, one can
perceive in this passage a threefold classification of the Jews along lines laid down
by Ambrosiaster. Some Jews recognized Christ; blindness struck the others, and,
of these, God will ultimately save some, the elect, but others will remain unsaved.
“All Israel,” evidently, does not mean all Jews.
Thus formulated, the Augustinian position seems fairly clear and comprehen-
sible. Yet, once again, inconsistency and ambivalence cloud this picture, on at least
three counts. First, in an array of other contexts, Augustine speaks of the ultimate
salvation of the Jewish people, ostensibly as a whole; although he does not explicitly
state that this category includes each and every Jew, one could very reasonably
leave these texts with the impression that “all Israel” does denote all of the Jews.73
Second, when Ambrosiaster divided the Jews blinded for their rejection of Jesus
into two sets, those who would be saved and those who would not, he identified
these groups with those who sinned out of blind error and those who sinned out of
malice, respectively. Augustine, too, may have deliberated as to the degree of guilt
incurred by the Jews who rejected their savior,74 but, when it came to their part in
the crucifixion, he generally asserted adamantly that the Jews who crucified Jesus
72
Ep. Rom. 149.19 (CSEL 44.365; trans. Parsons, 253).
73
Among numerous references, see, for example, Augustine, Quaestiones in Heptateuchum 2.154,
5.56 (Corpus Christianorum, series Latina [henceforth CCSL] 33.143, 310); Enarrationes in Psalmos
45.15, 138.8 (CCSL 38.528–529, 40.1996); Contra adversarium legis 2 (CCSL 49.92).
74
Augustine, Ep. Rom. 20ff., in Fredriksen, Augustine on Romans, 82ff.
did not recognize him as their messiah or as divine.75 Third, in a similar spirit, and
perhaps most important, Augustine’s doctrine of Jewish witness, which defined
and highly valued the continuing, present role of the Jewish people in the divine
economy of salvation, comported well with the expectation of its eventual salva-
tion, just as it nourished—and was nourished by—the notion that blind ignorance
prevented the Jews from recognizing Jesus as messiah and God.
If now they have been dispersed throughout almost all the world and [almost
all] the nations, this is the providence of the one true God, so that when in
any place the images of the false Gods are overthrown, with their altars,
sacred groves, and temples, and when their sacrifices are forbidden, it may
be proved from their books that this was prophesied long ago; and so that
when this is read of in our scriptures one should not think that it has been
fabricated.76
Just as the fall of the Jews, deriving from their role in the crucifixion, once contrib-
uted to the salvation of the world at large, so, too, does their survival in the present;
therefore, Augustine teaches, God mandated that survival in his express command
(Ps 59:12), “Slay them not, lest my people forget.”77 If the Jewish people of the
past and the present have functioned in accordance with the divine interest, why
should one think otherwise concerning the Jews of the end time, to whom Elijah
will come to preach a true, spiritual understanding of the law? Had not Paul himself
declared, “If their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their
acceptance mean but life from the dead?” Given the forthrightness of Augustine’s
doctrine concerning the Jews of his own era, why should one doubt that he shared
Paul’s ostensibly more inclusive expectations for the Jews of the eschaton?
Patterns of Medieval Interpretation

On the basis of this spectrum of diverse, ambivalent, and often inconsistent pa-
tristic opinion, one can track the appearances of several recurring tendencies in
the Latin exegesis of the Middle Ages, mindful that any given exegete might well
find a place on more than one list. Pelagius’s comments on Romans enjoyed a
measure of popularity among some later exegetes, whether or not they recognized
the dangerously Pelagian nature or source of their arguments and took steps to
“correct” their own commentaries accordingly. The sixth-century Cassiodorus,
for example, positively declares that one cannot merit the gift of divine grace and
to assert otherwise “is Pelagian”;78 and he allows, albeit far less emphatically, for
75
Cohen, “Jews as the Killers of Christ,” 8ff.
76
Augustine, De civitate Dei 4.34 (CCSL 47.127), freely adapting Henry Bettenson’s transla-
tion of Concerning the City of God against the Pagans (Harmondsworth, Eng.: Penguin Books,
1972) 178.
77
See Bernhard Blumenkranz, Die Judenpredigt Augustins (Basel: Helbing & Lichtenhahn,
1946); Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, pt. 1.
78
Cassiodorus (Ps.-Primasius), In Epistolam ad Romanos commentaria, Patrologia latina (hence-
forth PL) 68.489.
JEREMY COHEN 277
the conversion of Israel at the end of days.79 In keeping with Pelagius, however, he
stresses that the initial advent of Christ resulted in equivalence between the status
of Jews and Gentiles,80 that God’s wish for such parity—rather than any prefer-
ence for the Gentiles over the Jews—underlay his rejection of Israel,81 and that
the Jews once willed not to have faith in Jesus,82 just as they must will to regain
it, even if the will of penitent sinners alone does not entirely suffice to facilitate
their salvation.83 In a commentary on Romans erroneously attributed to Jerome,
Cassiodorus’s contemporary, John the Deacon, reiterates verbatim the Pelagian
argument that Paul’s prophecy of Israel’s salvation had already been realized.84
A pseudo-Augustinian Romans commentary of the ninth century also borrows
extensively from the commentary of Pelagius.85
Yet the majority of western medieval theologians wavered between the posi-
tions of Origen, Ambrosiaster, and Augustine that we have considered, offering
little new and substantial insight to the understanding of the verses from Romans
in question. On the one hand, many suggested that all of the Jews would convert
and be saved at the end of time. Such suggestion, to be sure, did not necessarily
require an emphatic, explicit declaration that each and every Jew would be saved;
one could speak collectively of the Jewish or Israelite people, of Synagoga, of
Judea, or simply of “the Jews” and convey essentially the same impression. Ad-
dressing Job 38:41 (“Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones
cry to God, and wander about for lack of food?”) in his Moralia, for instance,
Gregory the Great identifies the raven with the Jews and its young as the apostles,
who originated in their midst.
Thus is it written: “until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all
Israel will be saved”—because the holy apostles strove especially hard first
to preach to those that heeded them and then to present the example of the
converted Gentiles to those that resisted them. . . . When the Jewish people
sees the Gentiles converted to God through the efforts of the preachers, it ul-
timately grows ashamed at the foolishness of its disbelief. Then it understands
the teachings of its holy scripture, when it recognizes that they became clear
to the Gentiles even before themselves. . . . For with the routes of the apostles
throughout the world completed, it finally accepts spiritually those things of
which it had long deprived itself owing to the constraints of its perfidy.86
Several hundred years later, the ninth-century Haymo of Auxerre found additional
support for the “mystery” of Rom 11:25–26 in 1 Cor 15:46: “It is not the spiritual
79
Ibid. 68.492.
80
Ibid. 68.493.
81
Ibid. 68.491.
82
Ibid. 68.487.
83
Ibid. 68.472–473.
84
John the Deacon (Ps.-Jerome), Commentarius in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 30.699.
85
Expositio Pauli Epistolae ad Romanos, Corpus Christianorum, continuatio mediaevalis (hence-
forth CCCM) 151.77–112 nn., passim.
86
Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob 30.9.32 (CCSL 143B.1512–1513).
which is first but the physical [animale], and then the spiritual”; so, too, will the
fullness of the physical Gentile church enter the faith before the more spiritual
Synagoga.87
On the other hand, the limitations set by Ambrosiaster and Augustine on the
inclusiveness of “all Israel” found a variety of expressions in medieval exegesis
as well, notably, but hardly exclusively, among exegetes of the Carolingian period.
In a different context, the same Haymo of Auxerre notes that Synagoga would
believe only ex parte.88 Stating that the end time would bring parity between Jews
and Gentiles, Sedulius Scotus hints that, inasmuch as a great many, but not all,
Gentiles would be saved, the same would hold true for the Jews;89 Atto of Vercelli
makes this conclusion explicit, adopting the Augustinian notion of a reconstituted
Israel that would include remnants of the carnal Israel and many Gentiles.90 And
Rabanus Maurus cites Ambrosiaster to the effect that only those Jews blinded by
their error, not by malice, would be saved.91 Late in the eleventh century, Bruno the
Carthusian similarly limited the number of Jews within “all Israel,”92 and notable
twelfth-century churchmen followed suit, including Peter the Venerable of Cluny,93
Otto of Freising,94 and Peter Abelard. Curiously, Abelard argues that while some
Jews from each Israelite tribe would number among eschatological Israel, others
would not, since some Jews needed to remain perfidious in order to fulfill predic-
tions of their support for Antichrist.95
Nonetheless, even Abelard acknowledges that in the view of other “holy men,”96
the Jewish supporters of Antichrist would themselves eventually convert and be
saved,97 and thus did many of the luminaries of medieval Christian theological schol-
arship hedge their bets, so to speak, accommodating multiple, even contradictory,
viewpoints on the issue. We can include Peter Lombard,98 Thomas Aquinas, and
87
Haymo of Auxerre, Homilia 139 (PL 118.741).
88
Haymo of Auxerre, Homilia 2 (PL 118.24).
89
Sedulius Scotus, Collectanea in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 103.106.
90
Atto of Vercelli, Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 134.244.
91
Rabanus Maurus, Enarrationes in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 111.1534.
92
Bruno the Carthusian, Expositio in Epistolam ad Romanos, PL 153.97–98. On the attribution
of this work, see C. Spicq, Esquisse d’une histoire de l’exégèse latine au Moyen Age (Bibliothèque
thomiste 26; Paris: J. Vrin, 1944) 55, and Beryl Smalley, The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages
(3d ed.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1983) 48.
93
Peter the Venerable, Adversus Iudaeorum inveteratam duritiem 5 (CCCM 58.127).
94
Otto of Freising, Chronikk 8.7 (ed. Adolf Hofmeister and Walther Lammers; Berlin: Rotten &
Loening, 1960) 594, refers to the future conversion of the Jews as fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecy con-
cerning the remnant of Israel, invoked by Paul in Rom 9:27.
95
Peter Abelard, Commentaria in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, CCCM 11.265–266.
96
Ibid., citing Gregory the Great, Remigius of Auxerre, and Haymo of Auxerre.
97
See Jeremy Cohen, “Synagoga Conversa: Honorius Augustodunensis, the Song of Songs, and
Christianity’s ‘Eschatological Jew,’” Speculum 79 (2004) 309–40. I am presently preparing a broader
study on the Christian linkage between Antichrist and Jew.
98
Peter Lombard, Collectanea in Epistolam Pauli ad Romanos, PL 191.1489–1491.
JEREMY COHEN 279
Nicholas of Lyra99 among those noticeably concerned to minimize dissonance in

the exegetical traditions of the church; Thomas, for one, observes that the Gentiles
at the end of time would be saved “entirely or for most part,” implying that the
Jewish people would be saved in a similar manner, “not individually as they are
now, but universally, as a whole.”100 Transmitting this prevalent medieval opinion
to his own contemporaries, the early-sixteenth-century Catholic humanist Erasmus
of Rotterdam offers the following paraphrase of Paul’s prophecy:
I shall reveal a certain secret to you, my brothers, which would perhaps be
better hidden in silence if it were not to your advantage that I speak—to
prevent you, that is, from being arrogantly pleased with yourselves because
you seem to have been preferred to the Jews. This blindness came upon the
Jewish people, but not upon all of them and not forever. A good many of them
do acknowledge Christ, and others will persist in their own blindness only
until the number of Gentiles, for whom the fall of the Jews has now opened
an access, has been filled. But when they see that the whole earth abounds in
the profession of the Christian faith, that they await that messiah of theirs in
vain, that their city, temple, sacred things, and people have been dispersed and
scattered, they will finally begin to regain their vision and to acknowledge
their own error, and they will understand that Christ is the true messiah. And
thus all of the Israelites will be restored to salvation, although now part of
them have fallen away from it.101
■ Exegesis and the Eschatological Jew

Tacitly confirming the sentiments of Martin Luther quoted at the very beginning of
this essay, the early-seventeenth-century Flemish Jesuit Cornelius a Lapide offers a
fitting and helpful distillation of the patristic and medieval Christian interpretation
of Scripture with which to conclude our survey.102 In his commentary on Rom 11:25,
Cornelius states that once the Gentiles are called to salvation, “all the Jews are to
99
See Nicholas of Lyra, Postilla litteralis, in Biblia sacra cum glossis (6 vols.; Venice, 1588)
6.26r. On Nicholas, his biblical commentary, and his attitudes toward the Jews, see Herman Hailperin,
Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963) esp. pt. 4; Jeremy
Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell
University Press, 1982) ch. 7; and the essays in Nicholas of Lyra: The Senses of Scripture (ed. Philip
D. W. Krey and Leslie Smith; Studies in the History of Christian Thought 90; Leiden: Brill, 2000).
100
Thomas Aquinas, Super ad Romanos, in Opera omnia (ed. Roberto Busa; 7 vols.; Stuttgart:
Frommann-Holzboog, 1980) 5.482. On Thomistic exegesis and the Jews, see John Y. B. Hood,
Aquinas and the Jews (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995); and Cohen, Living
Letters of the Law, ch. 9—both with additional bibliography.
101
Erasmus, Paraphrasis in Epistolam ad Romanos, in Opera omnia, 10 vols. (1703–1706; repr.,
London: Gregg, 1962) 7.815–816; translation from Erasmus, New Testament Scholarship: Para-
phrases on Romans and Galatians (ed. Robert D. Sider; Collected Works of Erasmus 42; Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, 1984) 67 (with slight modification).
102
Cornelius a Lapide, Commentaria in sacram scripturam (ed. Augustinus Champon; 24 vols.;
Paris: L. Vives, 1866–1874) 18.194. On Cornelius and his work, see John F. McConnell, “Communis
omnium patria,” CBQ 17 (1955) 217–32.
be enlightened, to believe, and to be saved.” Several sentences later, however, he

indicates that this plenitude of the Gentiles signifies a specific number—apparently
not each and every Gentile individual—and immediately adds: “Thus, in their wake,
all Israel will be saved, and from the respective plenitudes of Gentiles and Jews
there will rise and stand one complete and perfect church.” Although Cornelius
unhesitatingly interprets “Israel” as the Jews, the parity between the collectives of
Gentiles and Jews destined for salvation and inclusion in the eschatological church
might lead one to infer the plenitude of the Jews to be saved likewise represents a
particular number of Jews, and is not necessarily all-inclusive.
Cornelius thus assimilates and expresses the indecisiveness of the patristic and
medieval exegetical tradition that he inherited. Indeed, his comments on Rom 11:
25–26 enumerate three conflicting approaches to the understanding of “all Israel.”
First, he writes, some of the church fathers understood “all Israel” “not carnally,
but spiritually,” referring to all believers destined to be saved from among both
Jews and Gentiles. Offering a second interpretation that Cornelius found prefer-
able, others asserted that “all Israel” means all Jews, such that “at the end of the
world all Jews without exception shall be converted and saved.” Third, Cornelius
explains that “all Israel” can mean “almost all, [that] very many from among the
individual tribes of Israel, except for the tribe of Dan [of which the Antichrist will
be born103], will be converted and saved.” Curiously, although it reminds one of
Abelard, Cornelius cites no earlier proponent of this third alternative interpreta-
tion, which he avowedly likes the best. Moreover, his stated preference hardly
tallies with his unqualified opening comment on 11:25 that “all the Jews are to be
enlightened, to believe, and to be saved.”
Cornelius’s summary of the exegetical alternatives for Rom 11:25–26 sheds
light on the linkage between Christian eschatology and biblical interpretation. Just
as the Augustinian doctrine of toleration for the contemporary Jew as constructed
in medieval Christian theology—whom I have elsewhere dubbed Christianity’s
“hermeneutical Jew”104—derived from a particular exegetical outlook and found
justification in particular biblical prooftexts, so, too, were Christian expectations for
the Jew of the end time rooted in the interpretation of Scripture; the polyvalence of
Scripture comported well with a multiplicity of interests and perspectives among its
interpreters. And, much like its hermeneutical Jew, Christianity’s “eschatological
Jew” evoked inconsistency and ambivalence in the attempts of churchmen to define
his character and role. The blend of Paul’s prediction of the salvation of Israel with
commonly assumed connections between the Jews and Antichrist—connections
that I hope soon to reconstruct and analyze in more systematic fashion—under-
103
On the origins and development of this tradition, see C. E. Hill, “Antichrist from the Tribe
of Dan,” JTS, n.s. 46 (1995) 99–117; and, on its impact on late medieval German literature and
culture, Andrew Colin Gow, The Red Jews: Antisemitism in an Apocalyptic Age, 1200–1600 (Studies
in Medieval and Reformation Thought 55; Leiden: Brill, 1995).
104
Cohen, Living Letters of the Law, passim.
JEREMY COHEN 281
standably generated a wide range of alternative eschatological scenarios. Insofar

as these also bore on attitudes toward the Jews of the present, political, economic,
and social factors having little to do with theology or exegesis readily added further
to the complication.
This essay has shown that even the common sense of that Pauline prophecy
was hardly a foregone conclusion. From the first centuries of the patristic period
through the end of the Middle Ages, Christian theologians and exegetes debated
and equivocated over the number and identity of those Jews included in Paul’s
prophecy, and how and when it would materialize. Moreover, while theological
differences concerning the “hermeneutical Jew” of the past and present may have
jibed with alternative ecclesiastical policies vis-à-vis the Jews of Christendom, the
interpretation history of Rom 11:25–26 appears to militate against any neat cat-
egorization or taxonomy of alternative opinions. Prevalent assumptions regarding
the ultimate redemption of Israel notwithstanding, the exegesis of Romans only
begins to scratch the surface of the puzzle.
Nonetheless, the exegetical field that we have surveyed provides an essential
context for this investigation. No matter how complex the etiology of the ancient and
medieval church’s expectations of the end, these could never extricate themselves
from Christianity’s biblical foundations. Nurtured in a biblical culture, neither
theologians nor eschatological visionaries could shirk a fundamental responsibility
to the sacred text. As it did for Paul himself, that text, in many ways, comprised
both the starting point and endpoint of their quest.

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The Mystery of Israel's Salvation: Romans 11:25–26 in Patristic and

Harvard Theological Review / Volume 98 / Issue 03 / July 2005, pp 247 - 281

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HTR 98:3 (2005) 247–81

most fruitfully understood as an intertextual conversation between Paul and the

“All Israel” and Its Components

Divine and Human Responsibility

■ Origen and the Greek Patristic Tradition

Opening his comments on Romans 9, Origen places the mystery of 11:25–26 in

Origen on Romans 9: Israel the Elect

Origen on Romans 10: Jews and Gentiles

Origen on Romans 11: “Remnant” and “Rest” of Israel

Nobility of faith, purity of heart, and sincerity—not nobility of lineage—distin-

Origen on Romans 11: Israel’s Rejection, Reversal, Restoration

Completion—achievement of the “fullness”—of the divine portion depends on

Understandably, Origen proposes a measure of parity between the conversion of

Later Greek Fathers

Ambrosiaster’s comment conveys at least three ideas that ﬁgure signiﬁcantly in

Ambrosiaster repeatedly employs this interpretative strategy of differentiating

The “Remnant” and the “Rest”

Blindness, Ignorance, Error, Envy, Malevolence

The Mystery and Its Rationale

to the promise—owing to that same [misguided] zeal of theirs—and when they

■ The Latin Exegetical Tradition

I have demonstrated elsewhere, the differentiation between disbelief originating

Pelagius: The Salvation of Israel as Passed

Augustine: Romans 11 and the Doctrine of Jewish Witness

position, blending it with ideas of Ambrosiaster. Quoting Rom 11:25–26, Augustine

Patterns of Medieval Interpretation

Nicholas of Lyra99 among those noticeably concerned to minimize dissonance in

■ Exegesis and the Eschatological Jew

be enlightened, to believe, and to be saved.” Several sentences later, however, he

standably generated a wide range of alternative eschatological scenarios. Insofar

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