Remembering Krister Stendahl
Convocation 1963
Judaism and Christianity: Then and Now
in his recent book, the meaning and end of religion, Wilfred Cantwell Smith of McGill and, we may say, of Harvard, has drawn to a pointed conclusion the uneasiness which scholars have felt for some time when using the word "religion," not to say "religions." His warnings are much to the point when we try to speak about Judaism and Christianity.
"Christianity" and "Judaism" are abstractions. The given is not a religion but a people, a church, a community with its history, its traditions, its claims, its witness, its attempts to relate itself to an ever-changing world. If we were to use a not too attractive image we could say that the abstraction "Christianity" is just the skin which the snake sheds every so often. It can be handled and studied in many ways. But the living reality is the church, the people with its organic continuity and complexity through the ages. And the same applies of course to Judaism. To speak about Christianity and Judaism as two religions already forecloses many of the possibilities to understand what happened, happens, and might happen.
At the present time the popular image of the relationship between Judaism and Christianity is well expressed in two distinct habits of speech. On the one hand there is the reference to The Three Faiths of America: Catholics, Protestants, and Jews. On the other hand there is the more academic construct The Hebrew-Christian Tradition. Both of these "models" exert a powerful influence on our culture and our thinking. While theology is to many a highly technical and suspect term, it is no secret for us here present that such expressions harbor whole theologies, partly conscious but mainly unconscious. It is reasonable to ask whether these theologies are well founded, sound and honest.
To speak about The Three Faiths is perhaps dubious already since it suggests that a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Muslim, an agnostic or an atheist could not be a true American. But it is not necessary to draw that arrogant conclusion. More serious is the implicit suggestion that the relation and the distance between these three faiths is somehow of the same order. This is further complicated by the fact that, due to the given majority/minority ratio in a community, we often get a constellation of Protestants and Jews versus Catholics. Yet, from many points of view, Catholics and Protestants would be expected to have a great deal more in common than such a pattern suggests. And also Judaism has its catholics and protestants. It becomes increasingly clear that the pattern of The Three Faiths is a construct in which non-theological factors easily gain the upper hand. That does not diminish its significance. But it makes us anxious not to extend this significance beyond its own limitations.
The expression The Hebrew-Christian Tradition is more at home in colleges and universities, in the survey courses of the Humanities. It sees this tradition as having furnished the Western world with certain indispensable ideas and ideals, often epitomized as justice and compassion. It presupposes that the significant elements in Judaism and Christianity are those which they have in common, not those which divide them. If The Three Faiths are non-theological in the direction toward the sociological, The Hebrew-Christian Tradition is non-theological in the direction toward the philosophical and ethical. It should also be noted that the Christian imperialism exerts its pressure on how this tradition is usually handled in higher education. The component "Hebrew" often stands for what Christians call the Old Testament, and once Christianity is on the scene this "Hebrew" element is absorbed in the Christian tradition. Little or no attention is given to Jewish history and thought after 70 or 135 C.E. Maimonides may be a footnote to Thomas, the Jewishness a footnote to Spinoza, and Hasidism is not mentioned at all. Thereby the expression The Hebrew-Christian Tradition becomes more manageable, but the term pays little more than lip-service to the actual relationship between Judaism and Christianity. It does not need to be that way, of course, and it may well be that the formula The Hebrew-Christian Tradition could function more adequately in our search for a viable understanding of the relations between Judaism and Christianity. Even so, we should not forget that it of necessity puts a premium on similarities rather than differences, thereby prejudging the case before us.
Whatever the respective and relative assets and liabilities of these two models, habits of speech or even slogans, we cannot stress too emphatically that they are good and highly significant signs of a positive climate; a climate which the Western world has seldom known, and the Christian majority has seldom allowed. A climate in which we may be able to take a new look at the relationships. Without sounding more prophetic than we have the right to be, we could see the present situation in America as a unique and fresh challenge to our own generation of theological scholarship. The Jewish and the Christian communities find themselves side by side without many of the man made walls which earlier separated them socially, culturally, intellectually. In both communities this proves to be a blessing, and it has driven us to a deeper grasp of our separate identities as believers. This is the time and the place and the climate in which we dare and we must question these models. We can and we must ask whether they are as well conceived as they were well-intentioned and have proven pragmatically beneficial.
It is my contention that, in the long run, a onesided stress on the common elements, or a non-theological acceptance of a sociological status quo with its mutual and, hopefully, increased respect for one another, cannot be the final chapter. That climate constitutes rather the first pages of a new volume in the history of the debate out of which the Christian Church was born. The time has come for resuming that debate which was cut off prematurely and transformed into an unusually grim history of everything ugly from name-calling to pogroms and holocaust.
I am not sure that the image is a happy one, but for whatever it is worth, we need a certain type of historical psychoanalysis, by which we are made aware of what happened in that most early infancy when the nascent church emerged out of its Jewish matrix and when the first steps were taken. Without serious attempts to recapture that most significant stage in the life of the Christian Church, new and free and fearless action may well be impossible.
It is well known to this audience that we know a good deal more about those early years than we did a hundred years ago. But such knowledge is slow in affecting the sentiments and the systematic thinking of the present. Contemporary biblical and Jewish studies may have many weak points, but they have developed a very impressive ability to distinguish the actual issues of the past from the ways in which these issues appeared to later generations, our own included.
Let us then turn to a few areas where I think a changed picture of the past might affect the questions of the present and rectify the future debate between Judaism and Christianity.
1) The understanding of Jesus depends heavily on how one reads what we Christians call the Old Testament. In a time when the red thread through that Old Testament was seen to be ethical monotheism and where the prophets were hailed and measured by that canon, Jesus became to the Christians the super-prophet. His greatness was asserted by demonstrating—often on shaky grounds—that his ethics was higher and his monotheism was purer and warmer than ever before in Israel or in the world at large.
We are now very much aware of how such a perspective on the Old Testament, while congenial to the 19th century in the West, is alien to the perspective of the Scriptures. We have learned to see the Old Testament centered in the people of the covenant, with its Torah, its cult, its psalms, its wisdom and proverbs, its prophets and their promises. We see an Old Testament which points toward an Age to Come, and Old Testament which leads to eschatology and messianism.
2) This new picture was mainly drawn on the basis of a better analysis of the Old Testament texts in their historical context, but it was highly confirmed and corroborated by the increased concern for and knowledge about the so-called Intertestamental Literature with its apocalyptic intensity and religious vitality. All this came to the attention of a wider public with the much celebrated find of the library of the Qumran community, the Dead Sea Scrolls. Here was a Jewish community where the strict obedience to the Law was an integral part of its eschatology, even to the point of an anticipatory realization of the New Covenant. Their common meal was a foretaste of the messianic banquet.
3) Different in the structure and yet not unrelated to the sentiments of the age, pharisaism can be understood in categories which had been utterly submerged in the anachronistic alternatives of legalism and grace. Pharisaism becomes a serious and honorable way of living in expectation and obedience, and obedience which is motivated and warmed by the expectation and an expectation which is made realistic and practical in concrete and flexible obedience.
4) In such a setting all that is said and came to be said of Jesus has its genetic center in the claim that he was the Messiah, that with him or through him the messianic age had drawn nigh. His teaching, his actions, his gracious and his harsh words all relate to this one claim. It would be wrong to say that he came to teach a better concept of love, a deeper concept of repentance, a more spiritual concept of the kingdom. All these concepts were there, warm, deep and spiritual enough. But, to him, so close was the kingdom, to closely did he believe himself related to its coming, that he dared to apply its glorious gifts and standards here and now. And often—I think to his own surprise—the publicans and the sinners were more willing to listen and follow than were the professed religious. Thereby both the grace and the judgment were heightened immeasurably in the very structure of the gospel.
5) There is increasing evidence that the role of Pilate was considerably greater in the execution of Jesus than the tradition and even the gospels lead us to think. The precise role of the Jewish leaders we cannot assess. The nature of the sources makes it unlikely that we ever will. The crucifixion—a Roman execution—speaks its clear language, indicating that Jesus must have appeared sufficiently messianic, not only in a purely spiritual sense, to constitute a threat to political order according to Roman standards. At this very point we can discern one of the earliest signs of how tensions between Judaism and Christianity have affected the writing of history. Already in the gospels two tendencies are at work. The role of the Roman official, Pilate, is minimized—it was not easy in the Empire to have a founder who had been crucified by a Roman procurator; and the "no" of the Jews was the theological basis on which Paul and other missionaries claimed the right to bring the gospel to the gentiles. "He came to his own, but his own received him not . . ."—". . . and the vineyard will be given to other tenants who will deliver to him the produce when the time comes." Under the pressure of these two tendencies, one political and one theological, the exact events of history have been lost, as to the interplay between the members of the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. But it is reasonable to see the latter as the key figure.
6) Thus the messianic issue in all its Jewishness stands in the center of Christian origins. What else could we expect when "Christian" actually is only the Greek for "Messianic." I do not consider it an overstatement to say that the whole christological develelopment of Christianity, even to that famous intensity of the 4th century should be seen as a development from its original and Jewish nucleus: Jesus Christ. That is the creed: I believe that Jesus is the Messiah; and its chiastic correlate: the Messiah is Jesus.
There is one point in the early stages of this christological development which needs special attention. If we were to say, as we often do, that the Christian believes that the Messiah has come, while the Jew still lives in expectation, then we use at least highly unprecise language.
In one of the earliest christological expressions found in the New Testament we hear Peter say: Repent . . . that times of refreshment may come from the Lord and he may send the Messiah who was appointed for you, i.e. Jesus, whom heaven must keep until the time of consummation . . . (Acts 3:19-21). Here the coming of the Messiah Jesus is still future. Peter here shares with the Jewish community the faith in the Parousia, which is the consummation, the Age to Come. He announces that their Messiah will be this Jesus. While later Christians came to assert the "first coming" of Jesus in his earthly ministry but had highly divided opinion about the so called "second coming," the earliest Christians were clear about the Coming, the Parousia, which they looked forward to, together with their Jewish brethren. Their problem was to find the right answer to the question: In what sense and to what extent was the life and death of Jesus a coming of the Messiah? This is the problem to which the different gospels, and the traditions underlying them, give their answers, some tentative, some increasingly clear.
In the earliest stages of this development the claim that the messianic age had come and was truly inaugurate, that its powers were at work in the world through the church, centered around the resurrection and the spirit. These were the decisive signs that the new age was here. The general resurrection had begun, Jesus being "the first fruits from those who have fallen asleep," and the spirit was at work as the prophet Joel had promised, and the Messiah was now enthroned in heaven, and one prayed in the Lord's Prayer: let your will become manifest on earth as it is now manifest in heaven.—Maranatha.
It may be suggested that this and similar layers of Christian thought, piety, and experience will prove significant to keep in mind as we resume the debate between Judaism and Christianity. No one could or should claim that such language is an inadequate witness to Jesus as the Christ. Nor is it easier to take than much of the later christological or trinitarian development. But it is a language cut out of the same cloth as that of Judaism. And Judaism, in turn, has had its own developments. Yet one point at which to start is where the communications broke off, perhaps for extraneous reasons. This is not to turn the clock back; that neither should nor could be done. But since the picture of that early history has been one of the alienating and agonizing factors in the later developments of our relations, let us at least get the record straight. And let us compare similar things, i.e. first century Judaism with first century Christianity. To compare Buber to Paul, and Tillich to Akiba or Philo is nonsense from many points of view. And so it is to compare Jesus to Maimonides, and Hillel or Qumran to Origen or Chalcedon.
7) But what about Paul? In the more recent phases of Jewish studies of Christian origins there has been a tendency to recognize Jesus as somehow within the pale of Jewish tradition: Jesus as one of the great teachers in the prophetic tradition. Such an "Ehrenrettung" of Jesus has usually taken place at the expense of Paul. Paul the Jewish renegade is then blamed for having transformed and distorted the teachings of Jesus into a sacrilegious hellenistic mystery of religion in which the properly Jewish sentiment of monotheism yields to claims of the divinity of Jesus. Or we hear about Paul's willful or inadvertent misunderstanding of Judaism and its understanding of Law, Mercy, Repentance and Forgiveness.
It is striking that such assessments of Paul depend heavily on an understanding of Paul which was set forth by apologetic and tendential Christian interpreters. In such studies Paul's words and attitudes have often lost their connections with the specific issues which were Paul's primary concern. "Judaism" and "Judaizers" became symbols of self-righteousness and legalism as discussed in the controversies of the Western Church by Augustine, Luther, and Harnack. One could perhaps have expected Jewish scholars to be more sensitive to the primary setting of Paul's arguments than were their Christian contemporaries. Only recently, through the work of men like Johannes Munck, have we begun to see more clearly how Paul was positively related to Judaism even in his sharpest arguments in favor of the inclusion of the Gentiles into the People of God. And Paul's doctrine of justification by faith without the works of the Law was primarily a scriptural argument, according to the exegetical principles of Judaism, in defense of his mission to the Gentiles. It was not a promulgation of a superior religion or of a deeper insight into the nature of grace, superior to that of "benighted pharisaic legalists."
Thus Paul's epistle to the Romans reaches it climax in chapters 9-11, where he gives his most explicit views on the relation between the Jews and Gentile Christians. He, the apostle to the Gentiles, is not only full of what could have been a condescending concern for his "kinsmen according to the flesh;" as he looks toward the consummation of history, he cannot imagine that end without the final salvation of the Jews. He goes as far as to consider the mission to the Gentiles and the success of that mission in the name of the Messiah Jesus only as a detour which ultimately must lead to the point where the Jews accept his same Jesus as their Messiah. To him this is necessary; otherwise God would not be the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He reminds his Gentile Christians that they certainly have no reason to boast and to feel superior to the Jews. On the contrary, they should remember that they are the true olive tree of Israel. "So do not become proud, but stand in awe."
It is of interest to note that Paul does not think about this final return of the Jews to their Messiah as the result of a mission from the Gentiles. At least he nowhere admonishes his congregations to such efforts. Nor does he intimate that it will come about by a spectacular display of virtue on the part of the Gentile Christians. In accordance with his good pharisaic training he looks toward this return as a mystery which lies in God's hands and which will happen in God's own time. But without such an end the Gospel could not be the Gospel and Jesus could not be the Messiah.
the pauline panorama suggests to us and to our concern for the relations between Judaism and Christianity that these two are far more closely connected than we are apt to think when we speak about hem as two religions. It suggests even that the Gentile Christian is what we might call "an honorary Jew." As Christians we speak to our Jewish friends and ask them to consider our claim to be fellow heirs to their promises. We claim that right by faith in Jesus the Messiah and for his sake. Such a claim appears to be well in accordance with the image which has emerged from our reconsideration of some of the earliest facets of our common and divided history.
Such a view has a strange effect on the present situation. First it reminds us that the New Testament has something to say about our relation to actual Jews. There are many good Christians who know their New Testament and the eleventh chapter of Romans quite well. But, to them, the "Jew" has ceased to be a real Jew; it has become that negative symbol for legalism and self-righteousness. The Church has so spiritualized its Scriptures that they have lost their original and concrete meaning. While this at points has a beneficial effect, it has also been impoverishing and misleading. The present discussion at the Vatican Council seems to follow a spiritualizing course when it expresses the conviction that all mankind shares in the guilt of Jesus' condemnation. The validity of such a theological interpretation of the gospels can hardly be denied by any Christian. It should become a corner stone in our catechisms and it will prove highly beneficial. But such an interpretation should not deprive Israel of its particular role in God's history, nor should it absolve the churches from listening obediently to Paul's warnings against Christian boasting and superiority feelings.
What is far more important is, however, the way in which Paul's vision somehow reverses the present sentiment of many Christians. The Gentile Christian now finds himself in need of defending his right and his claim to be one with his Jewish brother. With that attitude the debate which was drastically interrupted can be resumed. For the Christian there is an inner necessity to resume it. Not for the benefit of the Jews but for the sake of his own faith and identity. And that at the very center of the faith.
What good could come of such a resumed debate? The history of the debates between Judaism and Christianity has many chapters which make such encounters the last thing to be encouraged. Vestigia terrent. But if the general climate from which we took our point of departure is what I think it is, and if the attitude of which we have just spoken in the context of contemporary biblical studies is a valid one, then the debate is not only necessary for the reasons given but holds much promise. Not that we know where it will lead, but it should at least bring us to the point where we differ and disagree for the right reasons. In the atmosphere of the University such a result is a great and purifying achievement; in the hands of God it may prove fruitful and significant beyond our planning.
Our plea for such an approach should, however, never lead us to forget or belittle the unity of our common humanity. That unity is all the more significant for Jews and Christians since as human beings we have more things in common than many: the faith in God, a God who acts in history; the glorious and demanding values of what could be called the Hebrew-Christian tradition; with these we share in the common responsibility to our fellow men near and far. All these things bind us together in an all-embracing brotherhood with truly universal ties. And yet the future does not lie only in the attempts at letting all that is particular to each of us be swallowed up in an ever growing universality.
It seems that the power of religion in men's lives and in human culture lies in the specific, the particular, i.e. that which divides. Here philosophy and religion part ways and reach their intensity and identity in opposite directions. Worship and faith reach truth and creativity by intensifying the specific, the particular. I guess that is why we are apt to speak about a personal God, and that is why the language of worship must always be closer to myth and poetry than to philosophy. Thus the particular—which is the divisive—is of the essence to our two traditions. We can only proceed by purifying our understanding and intensifying our grasp of the particular, even toward the point of transcending it; and yet we retain the specific, lest those who come after us be deprived of that transcendence.
Recent Literature
For the New Testament and the Early Church: Gregory Baum, O.S.A., The Jews and the Gospel, (1961).—Paul Winter, The Trial of Jesus, (1961).—Josef Blinzler, The Trial of Jesus, (1959).—Johannes Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind, (1959).—H. J. Schoeps, Paul, (1961).
I have given a fuller treatment of some of the New Testament problems relating to our topic in two recent articles in the Harvard Theological Review 55 (1962), 343-55, and 56 (1963), 199-215; and in the chapter on "Messianic License" in Paul Peachey (ed.), Biblical Realism Confronts the Nation (1964).
On the history and issues of Jewish-Christian relations: Jacob Katz, Exclusiveness and Tolerance: Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval and Modern Times, (1961); cf. idem, Tradition and Crisis, (1961).—H. J. Schoeps, The Jewish-Christian Argument, (1963).—Jakob Jocz, The Jewish People and Jesus Christ, (1949); cf. idem, The Spiritual History of Israel, (1961).—James Parkes, The Foundations of Judaism and Christianity, (1960).
Much of the recent development in the reconsideration of Jewish-Christian relations emanated from the programmatic study of Jules Isaac, Jésus et Israël (1948).—On the American scene Will Herberg's, Protestant, Catholic, Jew (1955) has been highly influential. See also the chapter "The Relations of the Christians and Jews in Western Civilization" in Reinhold Niebuhr, Pious and Secular America (1958).
The Convocation Address delivered by Dr. Krister Stendahl, Frothingham Professor of Biblical Studies, on September 25, 1963, in Memorial Church.
