Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity

by Jeremy Cohen

Overview

In Living Letters of the Law, Jeremy Cohen investigates the images of Jews and Judaism in the works of medieval Christian theologians from Augustine to Thomas Aquinas. He reveals how—and why—medieval Christianity fashioned a Jew on the basis of its reading of the Bible, and how this hermeneutically crafted Jew assumed distinctive character and power in Christian thought and culture.

Augustine's doctrine of Jewish witness, which constructed the Jews so as to mandate their survival in a properly ordered Christian world, is the starting point for this illuminating study. Cohen demonstrates how adaptations of this doctrine reflected change in the self-consciousness of early medieval civilization. After exploring the effect of twelfth-century Europe's encounter with Islam on the value of Augustine's Jewish witnesses, he concludes with a new assessment of the reception of Augustine's ideas among thirteenth-century popes and friars.

Consistently linking the medieval idea of the Jew with broader issues of textual criticism, anthropology, and the philosophy of history, this book demonstrates the complex significance of Christianity's "hermeneutical Jew" not only in the history of antisemitism but also in the broad scope of Western intellectual history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520922914
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	11/11/1999
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	461
File size:	727 KB

About the Author

Jeremy Cohen, Professor of Medieval Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, has written two prize-winning books, The Friars and the Jews (1982), and "Be Fertile and Increase, Fill the Earth and Master It" (1989). He is the editor ofEssential Papers on Judaism and Christianity in Conflict (1991), and From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (1996).

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Living Letters of the Law

Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity

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By Jeremy Cohen

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

Copyright © 1999 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-92291-4

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CHAPTER 1

The Doctrine of Jewish Witness

Augustine of Hippo (354–430) lived during an age of transitions. During his lifetime, the division between Eastern and Western capitals of the Roman Empire became a permanent one, as the imperial government in the city of Rome itself entered the last generations of its history. More than any later fifth-century event, like the deposition of the last Western emperor in 476, the sacking of Rome by the Germanic Visigoths in 410 signaled the decline of classical civilization in contemporary eyes. Political change, with its accompanying social ferment, induced many to question the presuppositions upon which their societies and worldviews rested, contributing roundly to the cultural anxiety that characterized this period, to experimentation with new notions of personal power and security that sought to allay such anxiety, and to the propagation of new value systems in keeping with these ideas. Where, ultimately, did personal fulfillment lie? How might one seek to achieve it?

As the Roman Empire stood on the brink of a new era, so did the Christian church. Augustine formally embraced Christianity soon after Theodosius the Great declared it the official religion of the empire. Although the imperial ban on the pagan cult capped the victory of the recently persecuted Christian church over its detractors, it confronted church and state alike with an array of new problems. Christianity had claimed to spurn the pleasures and powers of this world, sharply demarcating the realms of God and Caesar, looking forward to an apocalypse that would replace existing political institutions with the rule of Christ and his saints. A Christian empire might ensure the safety and supremacy of Christians and their church, but how did it bear on the Christian quest for salvation and its underlying philosophy of human history? Furthermore, if Constantine's conversion earlier in the fourth century and Theodosius's marriage of the empire to the church decades later appeared to vindicate the Christian revolution against classical pagan civilization, how did the sacking of imperial Rome by the "barbarians" figure in this equation? Did it, as the old pagan aristocracy suggested, manifest the gods' wrath over the conversion of the empire to Christianity? If not, precisely what significance attached to such events of political history in God's plan for the salvation of the world?

Like these and other issues of his day, the course of Augustine's life, itself rife with conversions, transitions, power struggles, and intense self-examination, has been studied exhaustively. Alongside the decline of Rome and the triumph of the Roman Catholic Church, it too heralded the approaching junction between classical antiquity and the ensuing Christian Middle Ages. The concerns of Augustine's career invariably informed his distinctive ideas of the Jew. To trace the history of those ideas properly, one must appreciate the chronology of their appearance during Augustine's life and their place in the Augustinian worldview.

AUGUSTINE ON THE JEWS AND JUDAISM

THE EARLY YEARS: ON THE AGES OF MAN

Between his conversion to Christianity in 386 and his arrival in the North African town of Hippo in 391, Augustine formulated his renowned sevenfold scheme for the periodization of human history. In the De Genesi contra Manichaeos (On Genesis against the Manicheans, 388–389), Augustine found a biblical foundation for his theory in the story of creation in six days, and in the nature of the seventh day, the Sabbath, in particular: "I think that the reason why this rest is ascribed to the seventh day should be considered more carefully. For I see throughout the entire text of the divine scriptures that six specific ages of work are distinguished by their palpable limits, so to speak, so that rest is expected in the seventh age. And these six ages are similar to the six days in which those things which Scripture records that God created were made." On this basis Augustine proceeded through the six days of the Genesis cosmogony, linking them to the successive eras of terrestrial history, even linking the biblical refrain, "and there was evening and there was morning," to specific developments within each historical period. When he reached the primordial Tuesday Augustine wrote:

It was therefore morning from the time of Abraham, and a third age like adolescence came to pass; and it is aptly compared to the third day, on which the land was separated from the waters.... For through Abraham the people of God was separated from the deception of the nations and the waves of this world.... Worshipping the one God, this people received the holy scriptures and prophets, like a land irrigated so that it might bear useful fruits.... The evening of this age was in the sins of the people, in which they neglected the divine commandments, up to the evil of the terrible king Saul.

Then in the morning was the kingdom of David.... It is aptly compared to the fourth day, on which the astral bodies were fashioned in the sky. For what more clearly signifies the glory of a kingdom than the excellence of the sun...? The evening of this age, so to speak, was in the sins of the kings, for which that people deserved captivity and slavery.

In the morning there was the migration to Babylonia.... This age extended to the advent of our lord Jesus Christ; it is the fifth age, that is, the decline from youth to old age.... And so, for the people of the Jews that age was, in fact, one of decline and destruction.... Afterwards those people began to live among the nations, as if in the sea, and, like the birds that fly, to have an uncertain, unstable dwelling.... God blessed those creatures, saying "Be fertile and increase ...," inasmuch as the Jewish people, from the time that it was dispersed among the nations, in fact increased significantly. The evening of this day—that is, of this age—was, so to speak, the multiplication of sins among the people of the Jews, since they were blinded so seriously that they could not even recognize the lord Jesus Christ.

Augustine's review of biblical history from Abraham to Jesus may appear to add little, if anything at all, to standard patristic doctrine concerning the Jews. Yet this early Augustinian text, whose subsequent influence in medieval historiography surpassed its importance even for Augustine himself, already demonstrates how various other issues of pressing concern led Augustine to dwell upon' the Jews and Judaism. Here the characterization of the Jews somehow exemplifies his approach to biblical exegesis—in this case allegory, and the allegorical interpretation of Genesis in particular. Moreover, inasmuch as the Jews dominate much of the divine plan for human history, they assume significance in the exposition of Augustine's scheme of salvation history, a connection to which Augustine returned soon thereafter in his De vera religione (On the True Religion, 389–391). Here he reviewed the six or seven proverbial ages in the life of a human being as they apply both to the "old," exterior or earthly man, and to the "new," inward or heavenly man, a contrast that similarly bears on the totality of human history. Adumbrating his later theory of the two cities, Augustine thus proposed that

the entire human race, whose life extends from Adam to the end of this world, is—much like the life of a single person—administered under the laws of divine providence, so that it appears divided into two categories. In one of these is the mass of impious people bearing the image of the earthly man from the beginning of the world until the end; in the other is a class of people dedicated to the one God, but which from Adam until John the Baptist led the life of the earthly man while subject to a measure of righteousness [servili quadam iustitia]. Its history is called the Old Testament, which, while appearing to promise an earthly kingdom, is in its entirety nothing other than the image of the new people and the New Testament, promising a heavenly kingdom.

Augustine's allegory of the six ages assumes both microcosmic and macrocosmic proportions, reflecting the experience of the individual and that of society at large. The Jews and their religion are again, in pre-Christian times, at center stage; here, in the De vera religione, they also bridge the chasm between the two species of human existence. Their Old Testament pertains to the life of earthly man, proffering the rewards of an earthly kingdom. Yet somehow this covenant of the Jews entails "a measure of righteousness," complicating the evaluation of its character. If correctly interpreted, it embodies the image of the new man and the New Testament. Such interconnections between exegesis, philosophy of history, and the Jews will prove critical to an appreciation of Augustine's place in our story.

AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

During the final decade of the fourth century, Augustine's ideas and career matured considerably. His polemic against the Manicheans continued to develop, with additional subtlety and with sustained vigor. His vehement opposition to the Donatists enhanced his leadership role in the African church and contributed to his notion of the coercive role of the state in a properly ordered Christian society. And his understanding of human will and divine grace in the process of an individual's salvation changed dramatically—a transformation we shall consider again below. The thirty-three books of the Contra Faustum (Against Faustus, 397–398) testify to much of this development and, not surprisingly, offer insight into the molding of Augustine's perspective on Jews and Judaism.

The Contra Faustum reiterates both the fundamental importance of the figurative interpretation of Scripture and, by way of example, the correspondence between the days of creation and the ages of world history; once again, exegesis and philosophy of history emerge as interdependent. Yet the persistent attacks of the dualist Faustus upon the Old Testament demanded that Augustine clarify his evaluation of the old law and of the people of the book with greater precision. He thus affirmed the accuracy and the authority of the books of Hebrew Scripture. He posited a perfect concord between the two testaments, inasmuch as everything in the Old Testament instructs concerning the New. "All that Moses wrote is of Christ—that is, it pertains completely to Christ—whether insofar as it foretells of him in figures of objects, deeds, and speech, or insofar as it extols his grace and glory." Such prefiguration by word and event lies at the heart of the biblical typology with which Augustine responded to the Manichean polemic. All of the contents of the Old Testament were historically true (in the case of narrative) and/or valid (in the case of prophecy and precepts), and this accuracy underlay the truth of their prefigurative significance. At great length did Augustine therefore defend the stories and commandments of the Old Testament, seeking to demonstrate both their intrinsic coherence and their corresponding Christological value. To be sure, Augustine hardly deviated from accepted Pauline and patristic doctrine on the relative authority of the two covenants. Teachings of the Old Testament lost their worth as signifiers upon the inauguration of the New. The "true bride of Christ ... understands what constitutes the difference between letter and spirit, which two terms are otherwise called law and grace; and, serving God no longer in the antiquity of the letter but in the novelty of the spirit [she] is no longer under the law but under grace." Because Jesus fulfilled the law, Christians observe its precepts more thoroughly in their spiritual sense, while the Jews, over the course of time, have in fact neglected their literal observance—and still refuse to believe in Jesus and his church. Nevertheless, even in the wake of the crucifixion the Old Testament has not lost its value and function altogether. It continues to offer testimony to the truth of Christian history and theology.

What, then, of the Jews, those who continue to accept the Old Testament and persist in rejecting the New? How does their survival comport with the divine plan for human history, now that the symbolic, typological value of Judaism has outlived its necessity? Augustine's reply, bound to assert the triumph of the church over the synagogue and yet to subvert the Manichean rejection of biblical history, included strands of the Augustinian doctrine of Jewish witness so essential to the present inquiry. First, following established Christian tradition, Augustine perceived in Cain a type of the Jews and in Abel a figure of Jesus. Punished with an existence of exile and subjugation for the murder of their brother, the Cain-like Jews consequently bear a God-given mark of shame that ensures their miserable survival:

Now behold, who cannot see, who cannot recognize how, throughout the world, wherever that people has been scattered, it wails in sorrow for its lost kingdom and trembles in fear of the innumerable Christian peoples ...? The nation of impious, carnal Jews will not die a bodily death. For whoever so destroys them will suffer a sevenfold punishment—that is, he will assume from them the sevenfold punishment with which they have been burdened for their guilt in the murder of Christ.... Every emperor or king who has found them in his domain, having discovered them with that mark [of Cain], has not killed them—that is, he has not made them cease to live as Jews, distinct from the community of other nations by this blatant and appropriate sign of their observance.

Insofar as they are typified by Cain (Genesis 4:1–15), why need the Jews thus endure? Augustine made no mention of their scriptures in this regard but simply explained: "Throughout the present era (which proceeds to unfold in the manner of seven days), it will be readily apparent to believing Christians from the survival of the Jews, how those who killed the Lord when proudly empowered have merited subjection." Owing to their punishment and guilt, the survival of the Jews in exile vindicates the claims of Christianity in the eyes of Christians themselves; for this reason has God ensured that none of the Gentile rulers obliterates them or the vestiges of their observance.

Second, Augustine also found in Ham, the rebellious son of Noah (Genesis 9:18–27), a figure of the Jewish people, now enslaved to the church of the apostles and to the Gentiles (prefigured in Noah's worthy sons, Shem and Jafeth, respectively):

The middle son—that is, the people of the Jews ...—saw the nakedness of his father, since he consented to the death of Christ and related it to his brothers outside. Through its [that is, the Jewish people's] agency, that which was hidden in prophecy was made evident and publicized; and therefore it has been made the servant of its brethren. For what else is that nation today but the desks [scriniaria] of the Christians, bearing the law and the prophets as testimony to the tenets of the church, so that we honor through the sacrament what it announces through the letter?

In the case of their likeness to Ham, Augustine beheld in the Jews "desks of the Christians," that is, an implement for preserving, transmitting, and expounding the prophecies of Christianity inscribed in the Old Testament. The Jews authenticate these scriptures, demonstrating now to the enemies of the church that the biblical testimonies to its legitimacy and even to its victory over them have not been forged. By consequence, "in not comprehending the truth they offer additional testimony to the truth, since they do not understand those books by which it was foretold that they would not understand."

Third, the Contra Faustum links the substance of Augustine's anti-Jewish polemic with that of his attack upon. heretics in general, and the Manicheans in particular. Citing 1 Corinthians 11:19 ("there must be factions [hairéseis] among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized"), Augustine accorded both Jews and heretics the function of defining, albeit by contrast, the essential teachings of the church: "All who receive and read any books in our canon where it is demonstrated that Christ was born and suffered as a mortal, even though they do not respectfully clothe that mortality made bare in suffering with the harmonious sacrament of [Christian] unity ...— although they may disagree among themselves, Jews with heretics or one sort of heretic with another—still prove useful to the church in a particular condition of servitude [servitutis], either in bearing witness or [otherwise] in constituting proof." Like the Jews, the Manicheans err by understanding the Old Testament solely in its carnal sense; and they, too, although not completely excised from the cultivated olive tree of God's elect (Romans 11), "have remained in the bitterness of the wiid olive." Yet in their rejection of biblical doctrine the Manicheans approximate pagans more than do the Jews; for, unlike the Jews, they seek "to break the commandments of the law, even in whose figures we recognize that Christ is prophesied."

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Living Letters of the Law by Jeremy Cohen. Copyright © 1999 The Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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Table of Contents

Contents

Acknowledgments, vii,
List of Abbreviations, ix,
Introduction, 1,
PART ONE: AUGUSTINIAN FOUNDATIONS, 19,
1. The Doctrine of Jewish Witness, 23,
PART TWO: THE AUGUSTINIAN LEGACY IN THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES: ADAPTATION, REINTERPRETATION, RESISTANCE, 67,
2. Gregory the Great: Between Sicut Iudaeis and Adversus Iudaeos, 73,
3. Isidore of Seville: Anti-Judaism and the Hermeneutics of Integration, 95,
4. Agobard of Lyons: Battling the Enemies of Christian Unity, 123,
PART THREE: RECONCEPTUALIZING JEWISH DISBELIEF IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY, 147,
5. Reason in Defense of the Faith: From Anselm of Canterbury to Peter Alfonsi, 167,
6. Against the Backdrop of Holy War: Bernard of Clairvaux and Peter the Venerable, 219,
7. Renaissance Men and Their Dreams, 271,
PART FOUR: THE FRIARS RECONSIDERED, 313,
8. Judaism as Heresy: Thirteenth-Century Churchmen and the Talmud, 317,
9. Ambiguities of Thomistic Synthesis, 364,
Afterword, 391,
References, 401,
Index, 437,