Nostra Aetate on Jews

[LeonardDeNoblac]

The document Nostra Aetate states that “Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”. Should we understand from this that the Jews are not condemned by God if they are guilty of not believing in Jesus Christ? Because that would be contrary to the Catholic faith. But it’s impossible for an ecumenical council (such as Vatican II ) to teach anything contrary to faith in a magisterial and universal capacity (even though ordinary, because there were no solemn dogmatic definitions in that council - the ordinary and universal magisterium is still infallible ). What should we think?

 

[Fauken]

Should we understand from this that the Jews are not condemned by God if they are guilty of not believing in Jesus Christ?

I think it’s referring to the erroneous idea of blaming the Jewish people (as in all Jewish people) for the crucifixion and thus being an accursed/evil people for doing so.

 

[Genesis315]

The Jews are like the rest of us, subject to original sin, and sinners who need Christ to be saved. They are not subject to any additional curse–in fact, they remain beloved and are called to repentance and salvation. Everyone is responsible for his own sins. All Jews are not cursed for the specific sins of some.

St. John Chrysostom explains:

What then did they? When they saw the judge washing his hands, and saying, I am innocent, they cried out His blood be on us, and on our children. Matthew 27:25 Then at length when they had given sentence against themselves, he yielded that all should be done.

See here too their great madness. For passion and wicked desire are like this. They suffer not men to see anything of what is right. For be it that you curse yourselves; why do you draw down the curse upon your children also?

Nevertheless, the lover of man, though they acted with so much madness, both against themselves, and against their children, so far from confirming their sentence upon their children, confirmed it not even on them, but from the one and from the other received those that repented, and counts them worthy of good things beyond number. For indeed even Paul was of them, and the thousands that believed in Jerusalem; for, you see it is said, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe. And if some continued in their sin, to themselves let them impute their punishment.

http://home.newadvent.org/fathers/200186.htm

 

[Salibi]

the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”. Should we understand from this that the Jews are not condemned by God if they are guilty of not believing in Jesus Christ

No, what you should understand from this is that Jews are not a people hated or rejected by God, as has been said over the centuries to justify unspeakable atrocities against them. Rather, like all sinners, Jews are loved by God and called to repentance, through membership in the Catholic Church.

But it’s impossible for an ecumenical council (such as Vatican II ) to teach anything contrary to faith in a magisterial and universal capacity

It isn’t.

 

[choose_to_love]

Should I ‘check out’ the Protocols, as well?

 

[Dovekin]

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? Of course not! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
Romans 11: 1-2, 29.

Nostra Aetate repeats the traditional teaching that the Church has always taught, as shown by St Paul in Romans. Don’t let anyone convince you otherwise, that the individuals who tried to teach any form of antisemitism were speaking on behalf of the Church.

 

[Crusader13]

Basically it was an attempt to foster ecumenical relations to the Jewish community and to fix the erroneous belief that Jews were irredeemable simply because they were Jewish. Meaning that if a Jewish person wanted to convert to Catholicism to be saved, it wouldn’t matter because they were beyond salvation anyway, that’s false and absurd.

Unfortunately, this has lead to the disastrous belief that Jews are saved simply because they are Jewish. . . .

. . . . To suggest that anyone can attain salvation apart from Jesus is false. The law cannot save and St. Paul makes this very clear. You cannot teach that an outright rejection of Jesus Christ is simply a non privileged route to heaven.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Should I ‘check out’ the Protocols, as well?

Don’t waste your time.

 

[choose_to_love]

do you mean in responding to mantis?

 

[RHIC12]

I saw that thing also. On Wikipedia:

Controversial claims[edit]​

Chrysostom claimed that on the shabbats and Jewish festivals synagogues were full of Christians, especially women, who loved the solemnity of the Jewish liturgy, enjoyed listening to the shofar on Rosh Hashanah, and applauded famous preachers in accordance with the contemporary custom.[9] A more recent apologetic theory is that he instead tried to persuade Jewish Christians, who for centuries had kept connections with Jews and Judaism, to choose between Judaism and Christianity.[10]

Chrysostom held Jews responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus and deicide (killing God, see “Jewish deicide” for the subject) and added that they continued to rejoice in Jesus’s death.[11] He compared the synagogue to a pagan temple, representing it as the source of all vices and heresies.[9]

He described it as a place worse than a brothel and a drinking shop; it was a den of scoundrels, the repair of wild beasts, a temple of demons, the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils, a criminal assembly of the assassins of Christ.[1] Palladius, Chrysostom’s contemporary biographer, also recorded his claim that among the Jews the priesthood may be purchased and sold for money.[9] Finally, he declared that, in accordance with the sentiments of the saints, he hated both the synagogue and the Jews,[1] saying that demons dwell in the synagogue and also in the souls of the Jews , and describing them as growing fit for slaughter .[12]

I couldn’t find anything on his quotes. How do these reconcile? Do they make more sense in context?

 

[Genesis315]

Here’s an academic back and forth on the series of sermons where the harshest language occurs:

https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/chrysostom-jews6-react.asp

It should at least provide some different perspectives on this issue.

 

[steve-b]

The document Nostra Aetate states that “Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures.”. Should we understand from this that the Jews are not condemned by God if they are guilty of not believing in Jesus Christ? Because that would be contrary to the Catholic faith. But it’s impossible for an ecumenical council (such as Vatican II ) to teach anything contrary to faith in a magisterial and universal capacity (even though ordinary, because there were no solemn dogmatic definitions in that council - the ordinary and universal magisterium is still infallible ). What should we think?

When Jesus said

Matt 10:5 These twelve Jesus sent out, charging them, “Go nowhere among the Gentiles, and enter no town of the Samaritans, 6 but go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. 7 And preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ 8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons…

Jesus is obviously not saying don’t evangelize the Jews. He’s saying go and convert the "lost sheep of the house of Israel’? IOW, convert the Jews.

After all, what makes THEM lost if they are in the covenant by virtue of being Jewish?

Jews, the first people of the covenant, are being given 1st right of refusal by God. to be in the NEW and everlasting covenant

 

[RHIC12]

I skimmed it and what I got was this:
There are harsh things said about the Jews, but he wasn’t trying to directly say that all Jews were and all Jews will forever be those who directly shouted ‘Crucify him!’

What about those other quotes by Aquinas and Augustine?

Also, it said Chrysostom hated sinners. Doesn’t that go against the whole thing of “love the sinner hate the sin?” or is that what it was trying to say?
Also, didn’t Chrysostom say in a homily that not all Jews are responsible for the crucifixion in a homily?
Thanks!

-RHIC

 

[DissidentMantis]

We should bot even talk about the Jews on this forum. What is the point? . . . We have to show kindness to them while they claim that our savior is boiling in hell in his own feces- Talmud Giddin 57a

 

[Fauken]

We should bot even talk about the Jews on this forum.

We should not spread slander about anyone on this forum.

We have to show kindness to them while they claim that our savior is boiling in hell in his own feces

Yeah. Which is kind of a very important part of being Christian: showing kindness in the face of unkindness. I don’t remember there being a caveat when Jesus told us to turn the other cheek, nor do I remember him permitting slander.

 

[MiserereMeiDei]

Yes, we do have to show kindness to them even when rabbis said such things. Jesus told us:

But I say to you, Love your enemies: do good to them that hate you: and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you: [45] That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven, who maketh his sun to rise upon the good, and bad, and raineth upon the just and the unjust.

[46] For if you love them that love you, what reward shall you have? do not even the publicans this? [47] And if you salute your brethren only, what do you more? do not also the heathens this? [48] Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.

He also prayed:

“father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

St. Steven likewise prayed:

“Lord, lay not this sin to their charge.”

 

[Genesis315]

For Chrysostom, I think the difference is in the intention and genre of each work. The shocking quotes come from his series of speeches intended to give his audience a horror of Judaizing (syncretism between Old Testament and New Testament practices) using a popular rhetorical style whereby one says horrible, exaggerated and hyperbolic things about one’s opponent (from my perspective, it does not seem a style of rhetoric befitting a Christian, but it was what it was).

On the other hand, a homily is an exposition of a passage of Scripture, meant to draw out its doctrinal content. These then are much more precise and serious. Between the two forms, homilies would have the more real doctrinal value.

As for hating sinners, I’m not sure the context, but I’m guessing it is related to Psalm 5:5, which says of God: “thou hatest all evildoers.” Commenting on this, St. Augustine says:

In what manner is it that God first chooses and loves unjust men, that He may justify them, when it is written, You hate, Lord, all that work iniquity? In what way, think we, but in a wonderful and ineffable manner? And yet even we are able to conceive, that the good Physician both hates and loves the sick man: hates him, because he is sick; loves him, that he may drive away his sickness.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/220133.htm

St. John Chrysostom himself is even more on point:

Do you see how he bade us hate the deed that is evil, and not the man? For indeed it is the work of the devil to tear us asunder from one another, and he has ever used great diligence to take away love that he may cut off the way of correction, and may retain him in error and you in enmity, and thus block up the way of his salvation. For when both the physician hates the sick man and flies from him, and the sick man turns away from the physician, when will the distempered person be restored, seeing that neither the one will call in the other’s aid, nor will the other go to him?

But wherefore, tell me, do you at all turn away from him and avoid him? Because he is ungodly? Truly for this cause ought thou to welcome and attend him, that you may raise him up in his sickness. But if he be incurably sick, still you have been bidden to do your part. Since Judas also was incurably diseased, yet God left not off attending upon him. Wherefore, neither do thou grow weary. For even if after much labor thou fail to deliver him from his ungodliness, yet shall you receive the deliverer’s reward, and will cause him to wonder at your gentleness, and so all this praise will pass on to God. For though you should work wonders, and raise the dead, and whatsoever work you do, the Heathen will never wonder at you so much, as when they see you displaying a meek, gentle, mild disposition. And this is no small achievement: since many will even be entirely delivered from their evil way; there being nothing that has such power to allure men as love.

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1315.htm

continued…

 

[Genesis315]

continued from above…

As Aquinas and Augustine, I couldn’t find the Augustine quote (it may be a paraphrase) to understand what he was getting it (as it stands, I can’t make sense of it). I can’t find the Aquinas one in context either, but it appears he is responding to a question as to whether it was ok to tax the profits gained by Jews through usury (they were generally permitted to practice it, while Christians were not). Aquinas answers in the affirmative (so long as it does not deprive them of sustenance and other needs of life), and that it was better that they work for a living than to live off usury; but he counsels not to be harsh in this regard. He saw the practice of usury as incompatible with what he saw as a consequence of the OT Law (it appears he may not have meant what we think of as slavery, since the Jews at issue were not slaves in that sense, nor did he require it–but rather labor in general. But again, I can’t say for sure.)