The Mark of Cain and the Jews: Augustine's Theology of Jews and Judaism 9781463203856, 1463203853

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The Mark of Cain and the Jews

Gorgias Studies in Early Christianity and Patristics 39

In this series Gorgias publishes monographs on Christianity and the Church Fathers in the early centuries of the Christian era. Gorgias particularly welcomes proposals from younger scholars whose dissertations have made an important contribution to the field of patristics.

The Mark of Cain and the Jews

Augustine’s Theology of Jews and Judaism

Lisa A. Unterseher

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34 2014

Gorgias Press LLC, 954 River Road, Piscataway, NJ, 08854, USA www.gorgiaspress.com Copyright © 2014 by Gorgias Press LLC

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise without the prior written permission of Gorgias Press LLC. 2014

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ISBN 978-1-4632-0385-6

ISSN 1935-6870

Reprinted from the 2009 Gorgias Press edition.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A Cataloging-in-Publication record is available from the Library of Congress. Printed in the United States of America

TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................vii INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................vii Introduction ....................................................................................................1 Augustine and the Adversus Judaeos Tradition ........................................2 A Brief Overview of Scholarship on Augustine and the Jews ................4 Outline of the Book .......................................................................................8 Conclusion.....................................................................................................11 THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGY OF JUDAISM .........................................................................................................13 Introduction ..................................................................................................13 The Legal Status of Judaism Prior to Christian Emperors ....................21 Imperial Laws Regarding Jews Between 380-430 ...................................33 Augustine’s Knowledge of Jews in North Africa....................................43 Conclusion.....................................................................................................51 CAIN AND ABEL IN THE PRE-AUGUSTINIAN EXEGETICAL TRADITION ...53 Introduction ..................................................................................................53 The Salutary Function of Exegesis ............................................................55 Cain and Abel as Moral Exemplars ...........................................................58 The Salutary Accent in Philo and Ambrose.............................................66 The Salutary Import of Cain’s Punishments............................................70 Cain as Representative of the Jews............................................................72 Conclusion.....................................................................................................78 AUGUSTINE’S EXEGTICAL PILGRIMAGE ..........................................................81 Introduction ..................................................................................................81 De Genesi Contra Manichaeos ..................................................................85 De Utilitate Credendi...................................................................................89 Tyconius.........................................................................................................92 De Doctrina Christiana ...............................................................................97 Conclusion...................................................................................................103 AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGY OF JEWS AND JUDAISM.......................................105 Introduction ................................................................................................105 The Theological Concerns in the Contra Faustum...............................107 v

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The Christian Tradition on the Mosaic Law..........................................111 The Spiritual Significance of Scripture....................................................118 The Debate in Book Twelve of the Contra Faustum...........................122 Augustine’s Exegesis on Genesis 4..........................................................126 Conclusion...................................................................................................141 REVERBERATING THEMES ................................................................................143 Introduction ................................................................................................143 The Link Between Genesis 4:15 and Psalm 58:12 ................................144 Correspondence with Paulinus of Nola..................................................150 De Civitate Dei ...........................................................................................152 Adversus Judaeos .......................................................................................158 Conclusion...................................................................................................162 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................163 Summary ......................................................................................................163 Conclusion...................................................................................................172 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................175 INDEX....................................................................................................................197

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Scripture tells us that we are surrounded by a “great cloud of witnesses” who accompanies us on this journey. In a similar fashion, the making of a book is also surrounded by a host of others who have, each in their own way, left their mark on this book and who have shaped me into the scholar that I am today. First and foremost, my appreciation goes to my beloved theology teacher, Professor Ellen T. Charry, now of Princeton Theological Seminary, who first molded me as a theologian and as a lover of the Christian tradition. Over the years, she has also encouraged my studies in the history of Jewish-Christian relations. My appreciation also goes to Professor Melissa Barden Dowling, classicist at Southern Methodist University, who honed my instincts and abilities as an historian. And I owe especially gratitude to Professor William S. Babcock, Professor emeritus of Southern Methodist University, who patiently guided the original dissertation work on Augustine and who kindled within me a passion for Augustine, a passion that I now pass on to my own students. Over the years, my provost, Dr. Laurie Hopkins, of Columbia College, has continually encouraged and supported my research and writing endeavors. For her support I am most grateful. My deep appreciation also goes to Professor Esther Richey, of the English Department at South Carolina University. I owe Esther a profound debt for serving as my “unofficial” editor of this work by spending countless hours editing and offering insightful comments to clarify my own thoughts. I am also deeply grateful to Mary Wall, the Director of Web Services and Publications at Columbia College, who very patiently worked with me to convert the finished manuscript into the proper printing format. And, finally, I want to express my gratitude to my editor, Dr. Steve Wiggins, at Gorgias Press, for his able support and assistance. The long history between Jews and Christians has been a difficult and often tortuous one. But we cannot move toward a better future between these two people without first understanding the past. May this exploration of one of the most seminal intellectual figures in that history play a small role in the repairing of that fabric that has been torn between the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah for far too many centuries. Lisa A. Unterseher Purim 2009

INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION Both Jewish and Christian scholars recognize that a significant body of material directed specifically against Jews, frequently called the Adversus Judaeos tradition, comes from the earliest centuries of the Christian Church. Often written by prominent Church Fathers, this material, which is heavily polemical in tone, issues scathing denunciations of the Jewish people and their religious practices. Sometimes this Adversus Judaeos material is found in the form of specific tractates directed against Jews. Representative examples are Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho, Tertullian’s Adversus Judaeos, and Cyprian’s Three Books of Testimonies Against the Jews. In other cases, antiJewish polemic can be found in sermons. John Chrysostom’s sermons, Against Judaizing Christians, are the most infamous expression of this particular genre. Yet other Adversus Judaeos material is embedded in polemical works, not necessarily directed specifically at Jews. Origen’s Contra Celsum is a prime example. Regardless of genre, however, certain key themes reverberate throughout the Adversus Judaeos tradition: the Jews have failed to recognize that Jesus is the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament; the Old Testament observances are no longer valid; the Jews have killed Christ and, as a consequence, God has punished them by destroying the city of Jerusalem and their Temple. These are the core accusations that comprise the Adversus Judaeos tradition and thus the reproaches that Augustine of Hippo (354-430) inherits. Augustine’s own writings perpetuate these same themes and bequeath them to the Middle Ages. Scholars such as Stephen Haynes and Jeremy Cohen consider Augustine’s views to be the decisive influence on medieval, Christian views of the Jewish people.1 Augustine’s own views of 1Stephen R. Haynes, Reluctant Witnesses: Jews and the Christian Imagination (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1995), 28-33. Jeremy Cohen, The Friars and the Jews: The Evolution of Medieval Anti-Judaism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982), 14, 19-22.

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the Jewish people, then, have had a pronounced impact on Christian attitudes far beyond his own lifetime. Certainly Augustine’s views contain and perpetuate the seminal themes noted above. His statements on Jews, however, are not simply a repetition of the standard fare. Rather, Augustine makes his own significant and unique contributions to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. These contributions are the focus of this work. This book will argue that the bishop of Hippo makes important augmentations to the Adversus Judaeos tradition, which arise primarily out of his biblical exegesis, and yet are influenced by the presence of contemporary Jews maintaining their ancestral religious customs in his North African setting.

AUGUSTINE AND THE ADVERSUS JUDAEOS TRADITION From Christianity’s beginnings, Christian theologians argued that Old Testament rites such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, and Passover have been fulfilled in Christ. Therefore, they claimed that Christians should not practice these rites. Nevertheless, Judaism continued to hold a legally recognized place within Roman society. Even though imperial legislation came to favor catholic Christianity, Judaism was not prohibited and was even permitted under the reign of the Christian emperors. Further, imperial legislation offered protection against physical attacks upon Jewish synagogues. However, such an imperial stance posed potential problems for a Christian theology that contended that traditional Jewish practices had been abolished with the coming of Christ. In other words, the continuing existence of Judaism within Roman society stood in obvious contrast and contradiction to the traditional Christian claims that the Old Testament rituals or ordinances should no longer be practiced. Augustine provides a Christian perspective which reflects the social reality of a contemporary Judaism and that theologically justifies the protected status of Jews within Roman society. Though his position is not complimentary to Jews, his argument, nevertheless, offers a theological rationale for the continuing existence of Jews as a witness people and for protecting them against physical attacks. Herein lies perhaps his greatest contribution to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. By carving out a special, indeed divinely appointed, role for the Jews in eschatological history, Augustine offers a theological justification for contemporary Judaism. He grounds this theological rationale in his exegesis of Genesis 4, the story of

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Cain and Abel. Augustine’s theology of the Jewish people emerges primarily out of his exegesis of Genesis 4. In the exegetical tradition prior to Augustine, on both the Hellenistic Jewish and the Christian sides, biblical interpreters placed the accent on the salutary or moral lessons that one could cull from the story of the primordial brothers. Repeatedly, Abel is exalted as an exemplar of moral virtue to be emulated, while his brother Cain is taunted as an example of moral depravity to be avoided. Christian exegetes introduced a new theme in the exegetical tradition. Certain patristic writers, most notably, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome, made passing references to Cain as a type of the Jewish people. Though no exegete fully exploited this story for extensive typological parallels between Cain and the Jews, the sacrifices of the two brothers did receive the most attention for a typological parallel.2 Augustine, however, will exploit this association by offering a nearly verse-by-verse typology between Cain and the Jews. Out of this careful typology emerges Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism. Rather than focusing on the sacrifices, as had been the Christian exegetical tendency, he directs his attention to the punishment of Cain. In book twelve of the Contra Faustum (ca. 398), Augustine offers his typological reading of Cain’s punishment. It is here that he first formulates his unique and highly original contributions to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. He argues that like Cain, the Jews too are fated to wander the earth. This is not a particularly new element within the Adversus Judaeos tradition. But Augustine also contends that the Jewish Diaspora is not simply divine punishment. Rather it serves a divine purpose. In effect, Augustine grounds the continuing existence of the Jewish people in the schema of divine history. The Jews, the bishop insists, play a decisive role in the dissemination of the gospel among the nations. They are the preservers of the Old Testament texts that testify to the truths of Christianity, since the former testament contains the prophecies that have now found their fulfillment in Christ. The Jews, by preserving these texts, act as independent, non-partisan witnesses that Christians have not invented the Old Testament prophecies about Christ. Thus, the Jews play an unknowing and unwitting role in verifying the truths of Christianity. Given the centrality of their divinely appointed mission, the Jews must not be physically harmed or eliminated from the world. Rather these people must endure until the end of the ages. To ensure their physical safety, just as Cain 2See Chapter 3 for a discussion of typological interpretations of the

sacrifices of Cain and Abel.

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received a special mark or badge, the Jews too receive a special mark that distinguishes them as a people who stand under divine protection. Augustine identifies this Jewish mark with Jewish ritual practices. By identifying the mark of Cain as a protective sign, Augustine can insist that the Jews wander the earth not simply as punishment for their culpability in the death of Christ, but in order to fulfill a divine purpose in God’s economy. It is here that Augustine makes his most significant contributions to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. He offers a theological rationale for the continuing existence both of Jews and of Judaism. Rather than simply relegating Jews and their religious customs to the biblical past, as was frequently done by other patristic writers, Augustine invests the contemporary reality of Jews and Judaism with significance by providing a theological justification for Jews and Judaism. These seminal elements are formulated early in his theological development. This view parts company then with earlier scholarship on Augustine and the Jews.

A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF SCHOLARSHIP ON AUGUSTINE AND THE JEWS Though earlier works had appeared on Augustine’s position on Jews, it was Bernard Blumenkranz who set the parameters for scholarly discussion.3 Publishing his work in the immediate wake of the Jewish Holocaust, Bernard Blumenkranz entitled his dissertation Die Judenpredigt Augustins: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der jüdisch-christlichen Beziehungen in den ersten Jahrhundrerten in 1946.4 In this monograph and in his later, “Augustin et les Juifs, Augustin et le Judaïsme,”5 Blumenkranz argued for the centrality of Augustine’s tractate, Adversus Judaeos, as the primary locus for understanding 3Blumenkranz notes the following works: Ch. Douais, “Saint Augustin et le Judaisme,” Université Catholique, 17 (1894): 5-25; Pierre Bérard, Saint Augustin et les Juifs (Lyon: Thèse, 1913); L. Ginzburg, article “Augustine” in The Jewish Encyclopedia (London-New York, 1900ff); and J. Klatzkin, article “Augustin” in Encyclopaedia Judaica (Berlin, 1928ff) (Blumenkranz, 7 n14.) 4Bernhard Blumenkranz, Die Judenpredigt Augustins: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der jüdisch-christlichen Beziehungen in den ersten Jahrhundrerten (Basel: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, 1946). 5Bernard Blumenkranz, “Augustin et le Juifs, Augustin et le Judäisme,” Recherches augustiniennes 1(1958): 225-241.

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the bishop’s theology of the Jews. Augustine wrote this tractate very late in his career, ca. 425-429.6 Blumenkranz argues that Augustine’s theology was deeply influenced by the bishop’s encounter with contemporary Jews and the fact that Christians were still competing with Jews for converts. 7 Both of Blumenkranz’s claims—that Augustine’s personal encounters with Jews influenced his theology and that Jews and Christians competed for converts—are in fact highly questionable. Recent scholarship now seriously challenges the notion that Jews and Christians were vying for converts in the Roman Empire of the early fifth century.8 As we shall see, though Augustine may have some casual contact with contemporary Jews in North Africa, such encounters are rather superficial and do not appear to have significantly influenced his theology of Jews and Judaism. Further, as this present work will argue, the most significant contours of Augustine’s theology of the Jewish people are well established approximately thirty years prior to the Adversus Judaeos tractate. Despite problems with Blumenkranz’s proposal, his work set the parameters for scholarship on Augustine’s theology of the Jews for decades. Other scholars such as Marc Saperstein and Stephen Haynes note the importance of the Augustinian insistence upon the Jews as a witness people. In his Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations, Saperstein stresses the point that this Augustinian emphasis helped to shape medieval policies and attitudes toward Jews.9 Similarly in Reluctant Witnesses: Jews and the 6Augustine does not mention this tractate in his Retracations, written 427. Thus, this tractate has been dated anywhere from 425-429. Blumenkranz dates the work after 425 (Die Judenpredigt Augustins, 207-209, 245). Jeremy Cohen, however, places the date at 429 (Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999), 34. Regardless of the precise date, the tractate was written at the end of Augustine’s career. 7Blumenkranz, 200-202. 8Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion. Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). See also his “Jews and Judaism in the Mediterranean Diaspora in the Late-Roman Period: The Limitations of Evidence,” Journal of Mediterranean Studies 4.2(1994): 208-224. See also Louis Feldman, “Proselytism by Jews in the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Centuries,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 23(1992): 1-58. Cf. Marcel Simon’s argument that Christians and Jews were competing for converts in his now classic work, Verus Israel: A Study of the relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (135-425), trans. H. McKeating (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986). 9Marc Saperstein, Moments of Crisis in Jewish-Christian Relations (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989), 9-11.

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Christian Imagination, Haynes stresses the importance of what he labels the witness people theory in shaping Christian mythological images of Jews.10 Both Saperstein and Haynes note this theme in a variety of Augustinian texts. Scholars tend to disagree as to where precisely to locate the genesis of Augustine’s theology of the Jewish people. Emphasis on the Adversus Judaeos reemerges in articles by Juan Alvarez, Thomas Raveaux and Piet Cesare Bori.11 Paula Fredriksen breaks new ground by shifting the focus and emphasis of the scholarly debate on Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism. She achieves this in two significant ways: by turning the focus to Augustine’s early work, the Contra Faustum (ca. 398) and by placing the Augustinian theology of the Jews within the broader context of his theological concerns. In her essays, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei: Augustine on Jews and Judaism,” “Divine Justice and Human Freedom: Augustine on Jews and Judaism,” and her article “Secundum Carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine,” Fredriksen focuses on the seminal importance of the Contra Faustum.12 She argues that Augustine’s theology of Jews emerges out of his protracted struggle over his biblical hermeneutic. She traces a trajectory, beginning with the Contra Fortunatum (392), through his early commentaries on Paul (394/95), to his reassessment of Pauline understanding of grace and faith in the ad Simplicianum (396) and the autobiographical work the Confessions (397), and ending with Augustine’s “massive refutation of Latin Manichaeism,” the Contra Faustum. 13 Specifically, Fredriksen focuses on Augustine’s struggle over theological 10Haynes, 27-33. 11Juan Alvarez, “St. Augustine and Antisemitism,” in Studia Patristica (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1966) IX: 340-349. Thomas Raveaux, “Adversus Judaeos - Antisemitismus bei Augustinus?,” in Signum pietatis (Würzburg: Augustinus-Verlag, 1989): 37-51 and Piet Cesare Bori, “The Church's Attitude towards the Jews: an analysis of Augustine's Adversus Iudaeos,” in Miscellanea historiae ecclesiastica, edited by A. Lippold (1983) 1: 301-311. 12Paula Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei: Augustine on Jews and Judaism,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 3(1995): 299-324. Paula Fredriksen, “Divine Justice and Human Freedom: Augustine on Jews and Judaism, 392-398,” in From Witness to Witchcraft: Jews and Judaism in Medieval Christian Thought (Wiesbaden: Wolfenbüttler Mittelalter-Studien, 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 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 26-41. 13Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 300-301.

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issues of divine justice and human freedom. During the course of this long theological struggle, Augustine read Tyconius’ Liber Regularum, which, as Fredriksen points out, would be “decisive” in shaping Augustine’s biblical hermeneutic. From Tyconius Augustine adopted what Fredriksen calls his “historicizing hermeneutic,” which allowed the bishop to read the Bible allegorically, or more properly typologically, while at the same time respecting the historical integrity of the biblical events.14 By drawing on this exegetical principle, Augustine can affirm the continuity between the Old and the New Testaments. This in turn will enable him to affirm the historical integrity of Israel both in the biblical past and in the contemporary present. This historical integrity merges with Augustine’s theological concerns with divine justice and human freedom in the Contra Faustum to inform his theology of Jews, so contends Fredriksen. This theology, she argues, is in place by the beginning of the fifth century.15 Fredriksen has been one of the first to contextualize Augustine’s position by situating it within his exegetical and theological concerns. Moreover, she has successfully shifted the focus of scholarly discussion away from the later Adversus Judaeos tractate. Jeremy Cohen approvingly notes that Fredriksen has offered new insights on the linkage between Jews, biblical interpretation, and historiosophy in Augustine’s theology.16 Even though Cohen acknowledges Fredriksen’s significant contribution to the scholarly debate, he takes issue with her for locating Augustine’s theology of Jews early in his theological development. In his book, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, Cohen delineates six primary components of Augustine’s theology of the Jews that emerge out of his exegetical and historical concerns: the exile of the Jews testifies to their punishment for rejecting and crucifying Christ; their persistent blindness and disbelief fulfills biblical prophecies concerning their “repudiation and replacement;” the Jews serve as the custodians of the Old Testament which bears truth to the prophecies concerning Jesus Christ; the Jews’ continued observance of their ancestral laws is valuable; Psalm 58:12 (59:11) serves as the proof text not only that Jews must not be physically harmed or killed but must also be allowed to maintain their customs; and conversion of the Jews will come in due

14Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312. 15Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 320. 16Jeremy Cohen, “‘Slay Them Not’: Augustine and the Jews in Modern

Scholarship,” Medieval Encounters 4.1(1998): 87-88.

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course.17 In both his article, “'Slay Them Not': Augustine and the Jews in Modern Scholarship,” and his work, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity, Cohen stresses that Augustine’s theology of the Jews does not reach maturity until his invocation of the Psalm text, “slay them not” [Psalm 58:12 (59:11)]. Granted, this Psalm text nowhere appears in the Contra Faustum. Indeed, as we shall see in a later chapter, this Psalm text does indeed become one of the dominant “proof texts” in Augustine’ arsenal for his theology of the Jewish people. We might even argue that this particular text becomes a sort of exegetical shorthand for the key components of his theology that he originally formulated from his typological reading of Cain. Augustine's exegetical/typological hermeneutic and consciousness of the Jews in his own time merge in a brilliant typological reading of Cain that will insist that the “mark” of the Jews assures the divinely sanctioned preservation of a Jewish presence in Christian society.

OUTLINE OF THE BOOK This work will argue that Augustine’s typological reading of Genesis 4:15, the mark of Cain, serves as the foundational biblical text for Augustine’s theology of both Jews and Judaism. Out of such a reading emerges Augustine’s unique contribution to the Adversus Judaeos tradition: his view that Jews witness to the truths of Christianity by preserving the Old Testament texts and should not accordingly be harmed or killed; the mark of their divine protection, moreover, is their Torah observance. Augustine's acknowledgment of contemporary Judaism thus gives rise to a unique theological position that reinforces the continuing importance of Judaism in the period after Christ. To make such an argument this book is divided into five main chapters. Chapter 2 provides the historical and social context for Augustine’s writings on Jews. Like Blumenkranz’s work, this chapter examines available literary and archaeological evidence for Jews in late antique Roman North Africa. Included in this discussion is an examination of Augustine’s own knowledge of Jews and their customs as revealed primarily in his letters and sermons. Particular attention is paid to Epistula 8*, only discovered in 1974, in which Augustine adjudicates a case between a Jewish landowner and a cleric, possibly a fellow bishop. This letter, along with the cumulative 17Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval

Christianity, 35-37.

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evidence from his sermons and letters, suggests that though Augustine certainly knew of Jews in Hippo, his own personal contact with them and his knowledge of their customs is often cursory. The majority of the chapter is devoted to an extensive examination of the legal status of Jews within the late Roman Empire. Breaking with the earlier scholarly consensus that Jewish fortunes rapidly declined under the Christian emperors, this chapter provides a careful examination of Roman legal codes, particularly the Theodosian Code, which reveals a remarkable continuity of traditional Roman policy toward Jews and their religious practices. 18 Even during a time when pagan or traditional Roman polytheistic religious practices came under increasing proscription, Judaism experienced no similar restrictions. Thus, even in the late fourth century when Augustine was working out his theology of Jews and Judaism, Jews still retained imperial sanction for the practice of their ancestral customs. Chapter 2, thus, provides the necessary social and legal context for locating Augustine’s theology. Similarly, Chapter 3 is another contextual chapter. This work argues that Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis 4:1-15, the story of Cain and Abel, is not only foundational for his theology of Jews and Judaism but that his interpretation is also unique in the annals of Christian biblical exegesis. This particular chapter, then, explores the exegetical history of this biblical story prior to Augustine. The majority of exegetes, both Jewish and Christian, repeatedly emphasized the salutary or moral lessons that might be culled from the primordial brothers. This is most evident in the writings of the Hellenistic Jewish writer Philo of Alexandria. Centuries later, the Christian bishop of Milan, Ambrose, drew heavily on Philo for his own treatise on Cain and Abel. While Jewish and Christian interpreters followed similar exegetical paths in interpreting the biblical story, Christian interpreters introduced a new theme. Scattered through the Christian interpretative tradition are attempts to form a typological link between Cain and the Jews. This typology, however, remained largely underdeveloped. 18For scholars who have argued for a rapid decline under Christian emperors see in particular James Everett Seaver, Persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire (300-438) (Lawrence, Kansas: University of Kansas Publications, 1952). Solomon Grayzel, “The Jews and Roman Law,” Jewish Quarterly Review 59(1968): 93117. Solomon Grayzel, “The Beginnings of Exclusion,” Jewish Quarterly Review 61(1970): 15-26. But cf. Bernard S. Bachrach, “The Jewish Community of the Later Roman Empire as Seen in the Codex Theodosianus,” in "To See Ourselves as Others See Us" Christians, Jews, "Others" in Late Antiquity, edited by Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1985), 399-421.

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Whereas these earlier exegetes focused primarily on the two sacrifices of Cain and Abel for their typology, presenting them as a type of the contrast between Judaism and Christianity, Augustine would shift his attention primarily to the punishment of Cain to form his typology between Cain and the Jews. It is here, in his typological reading of Cain’s punishment, that Augustine will make his most significant contributions to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. His theology of Jews and Judaism, in other words, emerges primarily out of his biblical exegesis. Given the centrality of Augustine’s biblical interpretation to his theology of Jews and Judaism, Chapter 4 traces his long, arduous journey toward a mature biblical hermeneutic. Here we will follow Augustine in an exegetical pilgrimage that began with his complete rejection of the Old Testament and will culminate in the sophisticated hermeneutic for interpreting the former testament set forth in his De doctrina christiana. In charting Augustine’s exegetical pilgrimage, this chapter will examine three crucial Augustinian works, De Genesi contra Manichaeos, De utilitate credendi, and De doctrina christiana. These texts illustrate how Augustine formulates a hermeneutic for interpreting the Old Testament in general and the Mosaic Law in particular. In these works, we see glimmers of the exegetical principles that he will later employ in the formulation of his theology of Jews and Judaism. Pivotal to his theological development as an exegete is his discovery of Tyconius’ Liber Regularum. The hermeneutic that he develops over the course of the decade of the 390’s provides him with the exegetical tools he needs to hammer out his theology of Jews in the Contra Faustum. In Chapter 5, then, we turn our attention to the Contra Faustum proper. Issues such as Christian appropriation of the Old Testament, an understanding of its rituals, and the doctrine of God dominate the theological concerns of this treatise. It is within the context of these theological issues that Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism emerges. This chapter places Augustine’s thoughts on Jews within a broader theological context by showing how he brings various theological concerns together in book twelve. Here Augustine supplies a virtually verse-by-verse typological reading of the story of Cain and Abel. By typologically reading Cain as a figure of the Jews, Augustine locates contemporary Jews within a divine schema in which the Jews play a crucial role in that they testify to the truths of Christianity. Given the importance of their role, Augustine mandates a theology of non-violence towards them. Further, his theology stipulates that Jews must be allowed to remain as Jews until the close of the ages; that is, he formulates a theological position that sanctions the

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continued practice of Judaism within a Christian society. These are the unique elements that Augustine contributes to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. This theological position is fully in place, then, prior to 400, only a few short years into his episcopacy. Chapter 6 explores how these central elements in Augustine’s position persist in his later works. The typology of Cain and the Jews lingers for several years, but it slowly becomes merged with another scriptural “proof-text”, specifically Psalm 58:12 (59:11), “slay them not, lest at anytime they forget thy law.” Though this text will become the primary scriptural support for his views in his later writings, most notably the De civitate Dei, Augustine’s position retains the same elements that he had formulated earlier in the Contra Faustum. In short, the same familiar themes found in his anti-Manichaean work continue to echo throughout his ecclesial career, even in his anti-Jewish sermon, Adversus Judaeos. Chapter 7 concludes the book by summarizing the main line of argumentation. This chapter also offers evidence that suggests the influence of Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism upon subsequent generations. Augustine’s theology played an influential role in shaping medieval ecclesial policies and attitudes toward Jews. This chapter suggests that Augustine’s typological association between Cain and the Jews lingers within the Christian imagination not only into the Middle Ages but well beyond, even into the twentieth century. In sum, the theology of Jews and Judaism that Augustine first formulates in his response to the Manichee Faustus will develop a life of its own and permeate Christian theological thought and imagination for literally centuries to come. Given the importance of this Augustinian legacy, this book hopes to elucidate how an influential theology was originally formulated and understood by one of the Church’s greatest theologians.

CONCLUSION Given that Augustine’s comments on Jews run throughout the breadth and depth of the full corpus of his writings, this book does not attempt a comprehensive study of Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism. Rather it focuses primarily on Augustine’s earliest and most complete discussion on Jews and Judaism. By looking chiefly at Augustine's exegesis of the story of Cain and Abel, which is the foundational text for Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism, this work seeks to elucidate the key, recurring elements within his teaching, the same components that continue to appear in his writings and that will linger well past his own lifetime.

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Like any other theologian, Augustine writes neither in a cultural nor a social vacuum. To understand the historical context in which he develops his theology, we must first examine the social and religious climate in which he crafted his important theology of Jews. To this end we now turn to the question of Jewish legal status within the late Roman Empire.

THE LEGAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT OF AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGY OF JUDAISM INTRODUCTION Augustine developed his influential theology of the Jewish people and Judaism during an age when Jews lived scatted throughout the Roman Empire. Historical evidence for the social history of the Diaspora, particularly in the western half of the Empire, is scanty.1 Though epigraphical and archaeological discoveries have yielded some new insights, our sources remain meager at best.2 While Jewish sources, especially rabbinical literature, fails to identify the historical circumstances in which these texts are written, Christian sources are frequently polemical in tone. Specifically, Christian writers generally fail to distinguish between contemporary Jews based on actual knowledge of living Jews and biblical or hermeneutical Jews.3 Though Roman sources provide limited historical evidence, one major body of evidence, however, does stand out. The Theodosian Code offers invaluable insight into the legal status of the Jewish people and their religion in the later Roman Empire. Promulgated in its collected form in 438, this legal code records imperial legislation dating back to the days of Constantine the Great (312-337). The Code in and of itself cannot offer the historian a full picture of the rich and variegated complexities of Jewish social, religious, and political life in the fourth and fifth centuries. However, at the very least, the Code does provide us with evidence for the legal status of Jews during the late Empire.

1Fergus Millar, “The Jews of the Graeco-Roman Diaspora Between

Paganism and Christianity, AD 312-438,” in The Jews Among Pagans and Christians (London and New York: Rutledge, 1992), 99. 2We will turn to our evidence for Jewish communities in Roman North Africa later in this chapter. 3Paula Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 321.

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While some historians have been quick to assume that the status of Jews under Christian emperors changed dramatically, and not for the better, an examination of the Theodosian Code reveals a variegated picture. Certainly, the fourth century is marked by an increasing sensitivity to religious matters. One can detect a heavy emphasis on catholic orthodoxy in the number of anti-heretical edicts found in the Theodosian Code: a total of approximately 66.4 A trend toward defining proper religion may have had its origins in the third century. J.B. Rives has argued that the edict of Decius (249) which required all citizens of the Empire to sacrifice to the Roman gods marks a significant shift in the religious climate. Rives contends that, regardless of Decius’ original motivations, in effect the decree helped to establish a new type of religion, one linked not to local religious organization but to the Empire as a whole.5 Decius’ decree was an important step in establishing ‘a religion of the Empire.’ Only now could “systematic persecution” occur.6 In the fourth century, the first form of religious legislation is directed against other Christians. From the days of Constantine, imperial legislation regarding religious matters deals heavily with three major groups: heretics within Christianity, polytheists who still cling to traditional Roman practices, and Jews. The first Christian emperor issues anti-heretical legislation that reveals his favoritism toward orthodox or normative Christianity. This is clearly evident in a law from 326 in which the emperor proclaims that only catholic Christians are granted “privileges” in regards to religion; “heretics and schismatics” receive no such privileges and are subject to “various compulsory public services” (CTh 16.5.1).7 Eusebius of Caesarea records 4Michele Renee Salzman, “The Evidence for the Conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity in Book 16 of the Theodosian Code,” Historia 42 (1993): 375. In book 16 of the Theodosian Code, which deals with religion, the longest section, section 5, deals extensively with heretics. 5J.B. Rives, “The Decree of Decius and the Religion of Empire,” Journal of Roman Studies LXXXIX (1999): 152. 6Rives, “The Decree of Decius,” 153. 7Translation from C. Pharr, The Theodosian Code and Novels, and the Sirmondian Constitutions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952), 450. The Theodosian Code will be abbreviated CTh. Unless otherwise indicated, references to and English translations from the Theodosian Code are from Amnon Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1987). Latin texts from Theodor Mommsen and Paul M. Meyer, eds.

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Constantine’s denunciation of several heretical groups and prohibits such groups from meeting (Vita Constantini 3.64-66). There is repeated imperial legislation in the years that follow Constantine that continues restrictions against heretical sects from meeting (e.g., CTh 16.5.3, which prohibits meetings of the Manichaees; other heretical groups, CTh 16.5.4; CTh 16.5.10). Groups that fail to adhere to the faith of Nicaea are considered heretical and are thus forbidden the right of assembly (cf. CTh 16.5.6). Given the numerous pieces of legislation against heretical groups, the problem of heresy appears to have been a more pressing problem for the emperors than either traditional Roman religious practices or Judaism.8 David Hunt notes that it is no "mere coincidence" that the Code explicitly upholds the decisions of the Council of Ephesus in 431.9 Clearly Christian emperors regard only the Nicene faith as normative Christianity. Antiheretical legislation sets the parameters for religious debate in the fourth century for such decrees create a climate in which there is a disposition for enacting other religious legislation.10 The other group that comes under intense imperial scrutiny consists of polytheists, those who persist in retaining traditional Roman religious practices. A survey of anti-polytheist legislation of the fourth century reveals a gradual diminishment of legal rights accorded to this group, as well as increasing pressure to abandon traditional practices. Constantine’s policy toward this group is uneven, even ambivalent.11 According to his biographer, Eusebius, the emperor orders the prohibition of divination and sacrifices (Vita Constantini 2.45). Some temples,

Theodosiani libri XVI: cum Constitutionibus Sirmondianis et Leges novellae ad Theodosianum pertinentes / consilio et auctoritate Academiae Litterarum Regiae Borussicae, 3rd ed. (Berolini: Weidmannos, 1962). 8See Salzman, “The Evidence of the Conversion,” 375. 9David Hunt, “Christianising the Roman Empire: the Evidence of the Code,” in The Theodosian Code, edited by Jill Harries and Ian Wood (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993), 176. 10I thank Professor Paula Fredriksen for this insight. 11In a rescript to the town of Hispellu, in Umbria (CIL 11.5265), Constantine orders the establishment of a new provincial imperial cult center with a temple (Michele Renee Salzman, On Roman Time. The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity [Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990], 142).

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particularly those associated with prostitution, may have been destroyed.12 For example, in one piece of legislation, Constantine prohibits divination, an echo of Roman monarchial prohibitions against private, unsanctioned nocturnal sacrifices carried the death penalty (Twelve Tablets, Tablet IX, Law 6),13 yet permits participation in public rituals and ceremonies (CTh 9.16.2).14 Though Constantine clearly favors the Christian religion, restrictions on public expressions of traditional Roman practices find prescription under his sons. In 341, Constantius insists that superstition “must be completely eradicated” (CTh 16.10.2).15 Here superstitio refers to divination, not traditional sacrifices.16 Restrictions are increasingly applied to public sacrifices. The first real threat to polytheism, according to Chuvin, comes in 353 when nocturnal sacrifices are outlawed (CTh 16.10.4).17 A year later, on pain of death, a person is forbidden to perform sacrifices (CTh 16.10.5). This law leads to the closing of temples in 354 (CTh 16.10.4; CJ 1.11.1), as well as denying access to them. Such a ruling was renewed in 356, along with the threat of capital punishment for violators (CTh 16.10.6).18 A 12A.H.M. Jones, The Later Roman Empire 284-602 (Baltimore: John

Hopkins University Press, 1964), 1: 92. See also Michele R. Salzman, “'Superstitio' in the Codex Theodosianus and the Persecution of Pagans,” Vigiliae Christianae 41(1987): 178. 13English translation found in S. P. Scott, The Civil law, including the Twelve tables, the Institutes of Gaius, the Rules of Ulpian, the opinions of Paulus, the enactments of Justinian, and the constitutions of Leo; translated from the original Latin, edited, and compared with all accessible systems of jurisprudence, ancient and modern (Cincinnati: The Central Trust Company, 1932). 14Trans. Pharr, 237. 15Trans. Pharr. 16Bury, 1: 367; see also Salzman, “‘Supersitio,’” where she argues that the legislation could have been interpreted by polytheists to refer to divination and magical sacrifice (179). However, Christian administrators in predominantly Christian areas could have read the law as applying directly to paganism and therefore against all pagan sacrifice (Salzman, ‘‘Supersitio,’” 179). See also P. Chuvin, Chronicle of the Last Pagans (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard, 1990), 36 and Elizabeth Craddock Casale, “Ecclesiastical Legislation: An Annotated Translation of the Sixteenth Book of the Theodosian Code,” Ph.D. Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 1948, 218. 17Chuvin, 38. 18Even the pagan Libanius notes that it was dangerous to frequent temples (Orations 1.27; 18.114-115, 62.8).

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series of laws from 341-358 prohibit sacrifices and divination, though such policy is not always consistent. For example, legislation under Valentinian and Valens that stipulates Christians cannot be forced to serve in polytheistic temples is an indication that the temples still remain open, though Christians are expressly forbidden to worship in them (CTh 16.1.1).19 Explicit anti-polytheistic legislation will intensify under Theodosius I.20 Under the reign of Theodosius I (379-395), the second ecumenical council met at Constantinople in 381. Prior to and in the wake of this council, several pieces of legislation are issued that establish catholic Christianity as the only legal form of Christianity in the Empire. In these decrees, only those who profess the faith as proclaimed at the Council of Nicaea are to be regarded as true members of the church (CTh 16.1.2, February 28, 390; CTh 16.5.6, January 10, 381).21 In the first of these 19John M. Lawrence, “Imperial Christian Legislation Against Sacrificial Divination,” Near East Archaeological Society Bulletin 31(1988), 16. 20Julian's successor, Jovian (363-364), tolerated sacrifices of a non-magical nature. Valens (364-378) and his brother Valentinian (364-375) tolerated the public cult of the gods (Garth Fowden, “Polytheist Religion and Philosophy,” in The Cambridge Ancient History [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998], 548); Ammianus Marcellinus 30.9.5. Valentinian's policy seems to have been inspired by a genuine belief in religious freedom for all (A.H. Armstrong, “The Way and the Ways: Religious Tolerance and Intolerance in the Fourth Century A.D,” in "To See Ourselves as Others See Us" Christians, Jews, "Others" in Late Antiquity, edited by Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs [Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1985], 369). In practice, both Valentinian and Valens tolerated paganism (Peter Brown, “Christianization and Religious Conflict,” in New Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 12: 548. 21“It is our will that all the peoples who are ruled by the administration of Our Clemency shall practice that religion which the divine Peter the Apostle transmitted to the Romans, as the religion which he introduced makes clear even unto this day. It is evident that this is the religion that is followed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic sanctity; that is, according to the apostolic discipline and the evangelic doctrine, we shall believe in the Single Deity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, under the concept of equal majesty and of the Holy Trinity. “We command that those persons who follow this rule (lex) shall embrace the name of Catholic Christians. The rest, however, whom we adjudge demented and insane, shall sustain the infamy of heretical dogmas, their meeting places shall not receive the name of churches, and they shall be smitten first by divine vengeance and secondly by the retribution of Our own initiative, which We shall

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statutes, for the first time the word religio refers to normative belief, specifically belief that has descended from the apostles themselves and is now executed by a Roman emperor.22 Those who refuse to embrace this normative Christianity shall be judged to be “demented and insane” (dementes vesanosque). In the second of these decrees, the imperial chancellery uses extremely strong language to portray Christian heretics as being the antithesis of true Roman religion by using such words as “contamination,” “poison,” and “abominable.”23 Heretical teachings are “alien” in sharp contrast to “true religion” (verae religionis). Only 21 days after the official proclamation at the Council of Constantinople, on July 30, 381, the emperors reaffirm that catholic Christianity constitutes the only legitimate expression of Christianity within the Empire (CTh 16.1.3).24 Note, however, this law does not formally establish Christianity as the exclusive religion of the realm. As is clear in the two edicts, the emperors direct their attention to a debate within Christianity as they seek to make all Christians conform to the catholic faith. These laws outlaw only heretical forms of Christianity; they are not general prohibitions against non-Christian religions. Nevertheless, restrictions on traditional expressions of Roman religion do intensify. Two trends stand out: the prohibition of divination and sacrifices and the status of traditional shrines and temples. The turning point comes in 391 in an imperial law that forbids sacrifices (CTh 16.10.11).25 Only in this year was sacrifice finally prohibited in Rome proper.26 The following year, 392, witnesses a repeat of restrictions of public sacrifices with the added proviso of restrictions on private sacrifices (CTh 16.10.12). Indeed, after 391, the ban of sacrifices is never lifted.27 assume in accordance with divine judgment” (CTh 16.1.2) (trans. Pharr). Note that the previous year, 379, the same emperors had outlawed all heresies (CTh 16.5.5). 22Hunt, 146, 147. 23In particular, this decree condemns “the contamination of the Photinian pestilence, the poison of the Arian sacrilege, the crime of the Eunomian perfidy, and the sectarian monstrosities, abominable because of the ill-omened names of their authors” (Trans. Pharr, 451). Fotinianae labis contaminatio, Arriani sacrilegii venenum, Eunomianae perfidiae crimen et nefanda monstruosis nominibus auctorum prodigia sectarum ab ipso etiam aboleanturn auditu. 24The council issued its declaration on July 9, 381 and the emperors issue CTh 16.1.3 on the 30th of July. 25Salzman, On Roman Time, 222. 26Salzman, On Roman Time, 208. 27Jones, 1: 168.

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Further restrictions against ancient customs can be seen in the law of 396 that strips civil priests (sacerdotes), magistrates, prefects and hierophants of special privileges long enjoyed by such professions and further condemns their profession (CTh 16.10.14).28 On the eve of the fifth century (399), the emperors decree that temples in country districts shall be torn down without "disturbance or tumult" (CTh 16.10.14).29 The purpose of such a decree is the removal of any physical vestige of "superstition." The period of 399-401 marks a high point in official suppression of traditional Roman religions in North Africa.30 Augustine himself testifies to the destruction of temples in Carthage. This injunction for the destruction of temple images is renewed in imperial legislation in 408, though the buildings themselves are to be reserved for public uses (CTh 16.10.19; Constitutiones Sirmondianae 12). The same law now also grants bishops the power to exert ecclesiastical authority to ensure the prohibition of traditional religious festivals. Finally, in 415, practitioners of such religious customs are excluded for the first time from imperial service and from the rank of administrator or judge (CTh 16.10.21).31 Such a law clearly displays imperial pressure being exerted on persons in upper classes to convert to Christianity. An earlier law had already stripped social rank from those who had once been Christian but now reverted to ancient customs (CTh 16.7.5, 391). Such trends provide evidence for increasing imperial pressure to root out polytheist influence 28In 415, Honorius and Theodosius II decree that priests of superstitious practices must depart Carthage or be punished (CTh 16.10.20). Salzman notes that Christians in North Africa continued to hold the office of the Flamen Perpetuus of the imperial cult into the late fourth century (On Roman Time, 143). 29Trans. Pharr. 30Brown, "St. Augustine's Attitudes to Religious Coercion,” in New Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 12, 632-664 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 265. Again, this does not mean that traditional practices were totally eliminated from North Africa. For example, at Sufes, Christians destroyed an image of Hercules, which led to a riot. Sixty people were killed. The council of the city gave support to the polytheists. The catholic Council of Carthage sent a legation for an appeal for even more legislation against polytheistic practices (Conc. Carth, v, can. 15; English trans. in Casale, 221). 31Those who refuse to embrace the catholic faith were denied public office in 408 (CTh 16.5.42). Cf. Chuvin, 91. O'Donnell questions whether such laws are mere passing fancy (James J. O’Donnell, “The Demise of Paganism.” Traditio XXXV (1979), 60). An earlier law, from 395, had already banned Christian heretics from imperial service (CTh 16.5.29). Those who are “hostile to the Catholic sect” were excluded from service within the imperial palace in 408 (CTh 16.5.42).

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from the public sphere. Again, in 423, legislation from Honorius and Arcadius reiterates the insistence that all polytheists shall be suppressed (CTh 16.10.17). Since this law comes some seventeen years after the law of 408, we can safely surmise that the emperors are still concerned with polytheism. Further, this law from 423 provides additional proof that the ban on sacrifices was never lifted after it was pronounced in 391.32 However, only during the reign of the emperor Justinian in the sixth century, are expressions of traditional Roman religion finally eliminated from public life.33 This brief survey shows that traditional expressions of and participation in traditional Roman religion are increasingly denied legal status within the Empire. Such a review provides the crucial historical backdrop for understanding the legal status of Jews and Judaism within the later Empire. Legislation regarding polytheists displays a particular severity that laws regarding Jews frequently lack. Augustine writes his theology of the Jews, then, during a period of Roman legal history when imperial legislation sought to curtail polytheistic practices and heretical Christian groups. In contrast, Jewish practices were allowed to continue largely unimpaired. In other words, emperors, at least from Theodosius I forward, were endeavoring to restrict public expressions of traditional Roman religious practices; Jews, however, experienced no such treatment. Augustine writes in a period during the late Empire when Jews are still accorded the legal privilege of observing their own distinctive customs. Thus, Augustine’s own views of the Jews should be understood within the larger historical context in which he was writing. Augustine does not develop his theology on Jews in a societal vacuum. From the limited historical evidence, historians now know that Jews had established communities in Roman North Africa centuries prior to Augustine’s episcopacy. Not only are such Jewish communities scattered about North Africa, but Augustine himself acknowledges that there are Jews living in his episcopal see of Hippo as well as in other cities in the province of Numidia. Even so, although his own writings demonstrate that the bishop has some acquaintance with them, his knowledge of Jews and their customs is cursory at best. Yet, remarkably, he manages to develop a 32Jones, 1: 168. A law from 451 explicitly forbids anyone from reopening

pagan temples for the sake of worship (CJ 1.11.7). 33John Meyendorff, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions. The Church 450680 A.D. (Crestwood, New York: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989), 8. See also Chuvin, 71; Fowden, 538.

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theology that accounts for their continued presence and for their preservation of their customs within contemporary society.

THE LEGAL STATUS OF JUDAISM PRIOR TO CHRISTIAN EMPERORS There is some evidence, principally from Josephus, that Jews also enjoyed special privileges under Greek rule.34 While Tessa Rajak cautions that a clear line of influence from Hellenistic precedent concerning Jewish 34For a brief overview of civic rights of Jews in antiquity see Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 B.C.-A.D. 135), Revised ed., trans. by Geza Vermes, Fergus Millar and Martin Goodman (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1986) III/1: 126-137. See also Tessa Rajak, “Was There a Roman Charter for the Jews?,” Journal of Roman Studies 74(1984): 107-123. Examples of Jewish rights under Greek rule include the following. Alexander grants Jews permission to reside in Alexandria “on terms of equality with the Greeks” (Josephus, Jewish Wars, 2.487-489; Loeb trans.). This privilege was confirmed by his successors and later by the Romans (Jewish Antiquities 12.121-123). Seleucus Nicator (d. 280 BCE) made Jews citizens in the cities that he built in Asia Minor and in lower Syria and “declared them to have equal privileges with the Macedonians and Greeks who were settled in these cities, so that this citizenship of their remains to this very day” (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 12.119-124; Loeb trans.). Josephus insists that even after the Judaean war Vespasian and Titus did not revoke these Jewish privileges (Jewish Antiquities 12.122). Josephus also records that under the rule of Seleucids of Syria during the reign of Antiochus III (the Great) (223-187 BCE) Jews were granted special privileges. Such privileges included financial assistance for the restoration of the Temple, religious autonomy, and protected the sanctity of Jerusalem (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 12.138-53). Josephus further records a decree from Sardis in Asia Minor, ca. 100 BCE that granted Jews permission to gather together and to build a house of worship. Additionally, they were also permitted to import “suitable” (i.e., kosher) food (Jewish Antiquities 14.259-261). Plutarch (ca. 46129 CE) records that during the siege of Jerusalem by King Anticohus VII of Syria, he granted them an armistice for seven days to celebrate the festival of tabernacles (Apophthegms of Kings and Generals 184 E-F). Onias the high priest requested and received permission from Ptolemy and Cleopatra to build a Jewish temple in Alexandria. (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 13.62-72). The rights of Jews were inscribed on bronze tablets in Antioch, where the Romans refused to revoke the rights of citizenship to Jews (Josephus, War Against the Jews 7.110; see also Contra Apion 2.3839). Additional claims include citizenship in the cities of the Ionian coast, particularly in Ephesus (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 12.39).

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privileges to Roman policy cannot be clearly established, Roman imperial law does maintain and reaffirm certain Jewish privileges.35 As recorded in the Theodosian Code, the imperial chancellery from Constantine to Theodosius II builds upon ancient Roman precedents regarding the Jews. Two clear tendencies stand out: granting religious liberty and restrictions on circumcision. Building on the precedent established by Julius Caesar, Roman emperors tended to grant the Jewish people special legal status in regards to the practice of their religion. While the liberty for Jews to practice their own religion remains relatively secure, other legislation seeks to limit conversion to Judaism or restrict circumcision. The first Roman leader to recognize such a privilege is no one less than Julius Caesar himself. Unfortunately, Caesar’s original decrees have not survived. Apparently in gratitude for Jews serving Julius Caesar during the Civil War and in response to local authorities in Asia Minor who forbade Jews to observe their ancestral customs, Caesar grants Jews permission “to assemble and feast in accordance with their native customs and ordinances” (Jewish Antiquities 14.213-216).36 Augustus, the first Roman emperor, becomes the first in a long line of emperors granting the Jews similar liberties. Not unlike Caesar, responding to a similar situation, also in Asia Minor, Augustus decrees that in accord with the privileges granted by Julius Caesar, “the Jews may follow their own customs in accordance with the law of their fathers” (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 16.160-165).37 Occasionally, however, emperors will suspend such Jewish privileges. This is evident in Claudius’ decree that revokes Caligula’s suspension of Jewish privileges (41 CE) (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 19.278-85).38 Further, Claudius extends the privileges granted to 35Rajak, 108. 36For problems with the historical reliability of Josephus see L.V. Rutgers,

The Hidden Heritage of Diaspora Judaism (Leuven: Utigeverij Peeters, 1998), 173. 37According to the Alexandrian Platonic philosopher Philo Augustus also ordered that daily sacrifices be made for him at the Temple in Jerusalem (Philo, Embassy to Gaius 23.155-158, cited in Louis H. Feldman and Meyer Reinhold, eds. Jewish Life and Thought Among Greeks and Romans: Primary Readings [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996], 84; see Embassy to Gaius 40.311-317. 38The insane Caligula’s decree that a statue of himself be set up in the Jewish Temple clearly violated Jewish sensibilities (see Philo, Embassy to Gaius 20.199-203; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 18.263-269, 270-272, 276-278, 289-290, 292293-305). For an account on the riots that broke out under Caligula see Philo’s, Against Flaccus 5.29-30, 33-34, 35; 6.41-42, 43; 8.53-57; 10.73-75; 18.120-122, 124.

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Jews empire-wide (41 CE) (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 19.286-91).39 Two centuries later, Alexander Severus (222-235) continued to allow Jews to exist “unmolested” (Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Alexander Severus 22.4). Emperors even grant Jews exemption from obligatory participation in civic liturgies. Written sometime between ca. 212-218, and now preserved in the Digest (50.2.3.3), a book by the Roman legist Ulpian states that under Severan legislation Jews are allowed to enter governmental offices.40 Of special note is that Jews are to observe civil “liturgies” only to the extent that doing so does not transgress their own religion (superstitio).41 Thus, not only are Jews granted privileges but they are even granted special exemptions from duties that would violate their religious sensibilities. Despite such strong legal precedents for these liberties, there were occasions when emperors did not accord Jews such tolerance. There are 39According to Josephus, Claudius orders that “the Jews throughout the whole world under the Romans also observe the customs of their fathers without let or hindrance.” This decision was based on Claudius’ assessment that “the Jews deserve to obtain their request on account of their loyalty and friendship to the Romans” (Jewish Antiquities 19.288). An Alexandrian papyrus may confirm Josephus’ account of Claudius’ decree (see CPJ, no. 153 (43). Cited in Feldman and Reinhold, 91-92. 40Note that such legislation comes from the reign of Septimius Severus (193-211). 41Originally, superstitio was devoid of negative significance and meant simply a religion or religious cult. However, it also acquired an additional connotation that of “exaggerated religious piety,” and was applied to cults, both foreign and unconventional, not recognized by the state. Such a negative connotation became more prevalent during the fourth century as the term was applied to Jews, heretics, and pagans (Linder, 105). Michelle Salzman argues that the term superstitio is basically ambiguous as used in the Theodosian Code and that the term can refer to divination, magic, excessive religious fear, paganism or Christianity (Salzman, "'Superstitio,” 172). See the same article for further discussion on the development of this word, 173-177. For further discussion on the definition of superstitio see F. Martroye, “La répression de la mage et le culte des gentils au IVe siècle,” Revue historique de droit français et étranger, Series 4, IX (1930), 672-676; Pffaf, PW II: 7, 1931, s.v. Superstitio, Cols. 937-939; R.C. Ross, “Superstition,” Classical Journal. XLIV (1968-69): 354-358; D. Grodzynski, “Superstitio,” revue des études anciennces, LXXVI (1974): 36-60; L.F. Janssen, “Die Bedeutungsentwicklung von superstitio/superstes,” Mnemosyne, Series 4, XXVIII (1975): 135-188; D. Harmening, Superstitio-Überlieferungsund theoriegeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur kirchlich-theologischen Aberglaubenslierature des Mittelalters, (Berlin, 1979), 14-32.

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records of at least two expulsions of the Jews from Rome itself, one under Tiberius (14-37 CE) and the other under Claudius. The Jews were apparently expelled from Rome in 19 CE, a case which seems to have been connected with alleged proselytizing activities.42 In the second instance, the historical evidence leaves it uncertain as to whether there was actually an expulsion of Jews or whether Roman officials were concerned rather about the spread of Christianity in the imperial city.43 Dio Cassius reports that Claudius did not expel Jews from Rome. Rather he did not permit them to gather, apparently in an attempt to stop proselytizing activities (Roman History 60.6.6). In both cases, then, we see Roman concern with proselytism. Peter Schäfer notes that prohibitions on proselytism seem to be a “continuous” feature of Roman legislation from Antoninus Pius to the Christian emperors.44 Jews also suffered from restrictions on circumcising males. Hadrian’s decree may mark the first prohibition of circumcision, though such prohibition was not limited only to Jewish males. For example, after

42We have four accounts of this expulsion under Tiberius (Josephus,

Jewish Antiquities 18.81-84; Tacitus, Annuals 2.85; Suetonius, Life of Tiberius 36; Dio Cassius, Roman History 57.18.5a), as well as a possible reference from Seneca the Younger (Moral Epistles 108.22). All cited in Feldman and Reinhold, 317-318. For more information on this expulsion see Ernest L. Abel,“Were the Jews Banished from Rome in AD 19,” Revue des Etudes juives 127 (1968): 383-386 and Margaret H. Williams, “The Expulsion of the Jews from Rome in AD 19?,” Latomus 48 (1989): 765-84. Williams disagrees with the hypothesis that the expulsion was due to proselytizing activities. She argues that the expulsion was due to unrest over the public annona (public cornmon dole), which many Jews were dependent upon. All of this took place within a general climate of social and political uneasiness. Peter Schäfer, however, argues that the expulsion in 19 CE was a response to the growing number of proselytes to Judaism (Judeophobia. Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997], 106110. 43The sources for this possible expulsion are from Suetonius, Life of Claudius 25.4; Dio Cassius, Roman History 60.6.6; Acts of the Apostles 18:2. All are cited in Feldman and Reinhold, 332. For more information see Stephen Benko, “The Edict of Claudius of AD 49 and the Instigator Chrestus,”Theologische Zeitschrift 25 (1969), 406-418 and Dixon Slingerland, “Chrestus, Christus?,” in Alan J. AveryPeck, ed. New Perspectives on Ancient Judaism, vol. 4: The Literature of Early Rabbinic Judaism (Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 1989), 133-144. 44Schäfer, 117-118.

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the conquest of Arabia, the Romans imposed a ban on circumcision. 45 According to the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Hadrianus 14.2, in the wake of the Bar Kochba rebellion in Palestine (132-135), Hadrian issued a ban on all circumcision, though this does not appear to be a specific measure aimed at Jews.46 However, by the time of Justin’s Dialogue with Trypho, ca. 155, the Jews themselves seem to face no infringement on their right to circumcise their own sons.47 Later, in the same century, Septimius Severus, on a visit to Judaea in 198/199, may have issued a ban on proselytism (Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Septimius Severus, 17.1). Under heavy penalties, he forbade people from becoming Jews. Since this law does not appear in any other source, however, its historicity is questioned.48 Schäfer observes that the punishment imposed by Hadrian for circumcision is exactly the same as for castration, specifically the application of the Lex Cornelia de sicariis et veneficis.49 Feldman notes that such a complete 45Additionally, papryological evidence dating from the reigns of

Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius attests to the fact that Egyptian priests required special permission to circumcise, though for the non-priestly classes of Egypt circumcision was forbidden (Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, 3 vols. [Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences, 1974-1984], 2: 620). Herodotus, from the mid century BCE, states that the Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine had learned the practice of circumcision from the Egyptians, whereas the Syrians of the river valleys in Asia Minor had learned the custom from the Colchians (Herodotus 2.104.2-3). Philo also notes that not only Jews but also Egyptians, Arabs, and Ethiopians practice circumcision (Questions on Genesis 3.48). The Church historian, Sozoman, also attests to the Arabian custom (Historia Ecclesiastica 6.38.11). Though various Eastern peoples practiced circumcision apparently there were different ways of performing the operation (Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness. Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties [Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1999], 46). For additional discussion of circumcision practiced by non-Jews in antiquity see Stern 1:3-5. 46Note that the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Hadrianus is an unreliable historical source that has generated much controversy. Feldman calls this source “a historical romance by a fraudulent author" (Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World [Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1993], 383). See also Ronald Syme, Ammianus and the Historia Augusta (Oxford: Clarendon, 1968). 47Linder, 99. 48Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 386. However, Stern accepts the historicity of the source, 2: 625). 49At the beginning of the third century, the jurist Marcian wrote that at the time of the law of Hadrian, those convicted under this law who belonged to the

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ban probably reflects a continuation of castration laws, rather than a measure aimed primarily at the Jews.50 Indeed, Linder argues that Hadrian’s ban on castration undoubtedly led to the ban on circumcision.51 Such prohibitions on circumcision were probably influenced by social sensibilities. Schäfer argues that Hadrian, the most Greek of the Roman emperors, would have adhered to the standards of Greek aesthetics and may have restricted circumcision since it would be a mutilation of an otherwise perfect body.52 Since Romans tended to link circumcision with castration, the practice of removing the foreskin may have been seen as a threat to Roman ideals of masculinity.53 For example, circumcised men

honestiores were punished by banishment to an island and confiscation of property, while humiliores were executed (Linder, 101-102). See Ulpian, Digesta Recognovit Theodorus Mommsen, Rectractavit Paulua Krüger 48.8.4.2; 48.8.3.5. For discussion on the association between circumcision and castration see Schäfer, 104. See also Stern 2:621. 50Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 100. Domitian had forbidden castration, and, it was again forbidden in 97 by Nerva (Linder, 101 n.8; see Suetonius, Domitianus 7.1; Cassius Dio, Historia Romana 47.2.3; Martial, Epigrammata 2.60; 6.2). (Though Domitan defied his own edict and castrated his beloved slave. I thank Professor Melissa Barden Dowling for this note.) At the beginning of the third century, a law decreed that violators of this ban were subject to extreme punishment. Those belonging to the “honestiores” were subject to banishment to an island and the confiscation of their property. Those who belonged to the “humilores” were to be executed (Digest 48.8.4.2). Eunuchs, however, did play an important role in the imperial court in the later Empire. For important examples from this period see A.H.M. Jones, 1: 566-570. The Church Father Origen, according to Eusebius, had castrated himself (Eccles Hist 6.8.2-3). For evidence of the prevalence of castration among third and fourth century Christians see also Henry Chadwick’s The Sentences of Sextus: A Contribution to the History of Early Christian Ethics (Cambridge: University Press, 1959), 110. Peter Brown cites the example of a young Christian man from Alexandria, around the time of Justin Martyr, who petitioned the Augustal Prefect for permission to castrate himself (Peter Brown, The Body and Society. Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity [New York: Columbia University Press, 1988], 140; 169. 51Linder, 102, n8. 52Schäfer, 105. 53I thank Professor Melissa Barden Dowling for raising this important question. See also Mary Beard, John North and Simon Price, Religions of Rome (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 1:165.

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were forbidden to participate in the Olympic games.54 Romans also seem to have equated castration with the sect of Magna Mater, or Cybele, where the mythic consort to the goddess, Attis, commits self-castration. Cybele priests who similarly castrated themselves represented the most dangerous and “foreign” aspect of the Magna Mater cult.55 Moreover, practices such as castration may have contributed to Roman suspicions and mistrust of eastern peoples and cults.56 If Romans did indeed view circumcision as a type of castration, and if they associated such practices with eastern cults, then a crucial question must be raised. Should we regard Roman anti-Jewish sentiments as specifically targeting Jews or rather do Romans merely regard Jews, along with their objectionable practices, as an eastern people who are seen as being suspicious and potentially subverting Roman societal views?57 Nevertheless, beginning in the second century, we can discern a long historical tendency to restrict circumcision. According to Modestin, referring to a rescript of Antonius Pius (ca. 138-155), Jews are permitted to circumcise their own sons; however, anyone who performs the procedure on a non-Jew will be liable for “the punishment of a castrator” (Digest 48.8.11). Again we are probably seeing cultural norms influencing such 54Feldman notes the prohibition of participating in the Olympic games

(Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 155). Men who were castrated were forbidden to serve in the military. (I owe the remark about restrictions of military service to Professor Melissa Barden Dowling.) Roman authors also widely loathed circumcision as practiced among Jews (e.g., Petronius, Satyricon 68.8; Martial, Epigrams 7.35.3-4 ; 7.82; 11.94; Tactius, Histories 5.5.2). See also Martin Goodman, Mission and Conversion. Proselytizing in the Religious History of the Roman Empire, 138. 55Beard, North and Price, 1: 164. For a reference to Juvenal to this practice see his Satries 6.511-521. 56“The crucial point is that all these issues are discussed in this poem within the frame of religion. We are not dealing here with dilemmas of incorporation or expulsion of ‘foreign cults; we are dealing with those cults, and their repertoire of rituals and myths, as established ways of thinking at Rome about the most central human values. If some Romans were in this period establishing a tradition of questioning and wondering about all aspects of their own culture, if they were explicitly challenging, dissecting and reconstructing embedded notions of what it was to be, and act like, a Roman—they were doing that, in part, within the discourse of religion. Religion was, and remained, good to think with” (Beard, North, and Price, 1: 166). 57I thank Professor Melissa Barden Dowling for raising this intriguing question. Certainly Roman attitudes towards Jews need to be looked at within the broader view of Roman anti-eastern attitudes.

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legislation. Romans considered the removal of the foreskin as inherently unnatural and forced, so circumcision underscored the otherness, exclusiveness, and misanthropy of Judaism, traits which no true Roman could accept.58 Similar legislation that bans circumcision of non-Jewish males, while Jews are permitted to circumcise their own sons finds expression in The Sentences, attributed to the jurist Paul and completed before 300 (Paul, Sententiae, 5.22.3-4).59 Violators will be sent into perpetual exile and a doctor who performs such an operation is subject to “capital punishment.”60 Similar restrictions on circumcision continue during the reign of the Christian emperors. Despite such limitation, the basic legal protection accorded Jews to practice their religious customs remains secure leading up to the time of Constantine. A strong Roman legal precedent had been established that permitted Judaism within the Empire; Judaism is a religio licita, a permitted religion. Even under the “Christian” emperor Constantine the continued influence of this legal precedent is evident, including Jewish liberties, as well as the right to circumcision, though with restrictions. This is not to say that there are no changes in the legal status of Jews or that their religion continues unhampered. Nevertheless, the same basic insistence that Jewish religious customs are prohibited by no law continues to resonate under the “Christian” emperors of the fourth century, including Constantine.61 58Schäfer, 98. See for example, Tacitus Histories 5.5.1-2. Here Tacitus denounces Jews for the perverseness of their rituals, their intense loyalty to one another, their exclusive communities, and circumcision as their distinguishing mark. Linder argues that societal, religious laws influence bans on circumcision (67). Of course, circumcision did have a religious element according to the Jewish religion for circumcision often marked the final step in a conversion to Judaism by a nonJewish male. 59Constantine granted legal authority to this work (CTh 1.4.2), which was reaffirmed in the Law of Citations in 426. The Sententiae became a major source of Roman law in Western Europe well into the Middle Ages (Linder, 50). See also E. Levy, “The Vulgarization of Roman Law in the Early Middle Ages as Illustrated by Successive Versions of Pauli Sententiae,” Bulletino dell’Istituto di diritto romano, NS, XIV-XV (1951): 222-258. See also V. de Villa, “Exilium perpetuum’ Studi Albertario, I, (Milan 1953), 293-314. 60Relegatio normally meant exile to an island, as well as the confiscation of all property and loss of citizenship (Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., 1298). (See Linder, 119, n.7). 61See CTh 16.8.9.

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THE LEGAL STATUS OF JUDAISM FROM CONSTANTINE TO THEODOSIUS I Embedded within Western historical memory is the famous story of the Roman emperor Constantine’s so-called conversion to Christianity at the Milvian Bridge in 312. Though historians disagree as to whether or not Constantine actually pledged allegiance to the Christian God in 312, two facts are clear. First, Constantine became the first self-professed Christian Roman emperor. Second, his legislation tends to favor Christianity. A popular, though overly simplified, view has been that as the first Christian emperor, Constantine is responsible for the creation of a Christian Roman Empire. According to the Church historian Eusebius, Constantine even granted Christian clergy special favors (Historia Ecclesiastica 10.6, 7). Because of the emperor’s favoritism toward Christianity, some scholars assert that under Constantine, the status of the Jews in the Empire began to decline. These scholars start to trace the decline of Jewish privileges and immunities to the reign of Constantine.62 However, a closer examination of legislation under Constantine’s rule reveals a rather different and more complex picture. Constantine appears to retain a hint of the mores maiorum long granted by Roman emperors to Jews. Drawing on the Roman legal precedent that holders of Jewish religious offices are exempt from participating in civil or state religious ceremonies (Digesta 50.2.3.3 and 62James Everett Seaver, Persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire (300-438),

6. Jeremy Cohen lists a number of other scholars who share this view (“Roman Imperial Policy Toward the Jews from Constantine Until the End of the Palestinian Patriarchate (ca. 429),” Byzantine Studies 3 (1976), 2, n4. This list includes: H. Graetz, Geshichte der Juden von den ältesten Zeiten bis auf die Gegenwart, 11 vols. (Leipzig, 18741902), IV, 332 ff; S. Dubnow, Weltgeschichte des Jüdischen Volkens von seinen Uranfängen bis zur Genenwart, 10 vols. (Berlin, 1925-1930), III, 211 ff; J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l’Empire romain; leur condition jurdique `econique et sociale, 2 vols. (Paris, 1914), I, 49, 7778, 299, and 249-250; and II, 323 ff; James Parkes, The Conflict of Church and Synagogue; A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (London, 1934), 157, 177, 185, and 187; M. Simon, Verus Israel, étude sur les relations entre chrétiens et juifs dans l’Empire romain, 135-425, Bibliothèque des Ecoles françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, 1 sér., fasc. 166 (Paris, 1948), 161; S.W. Baron, History of the Jews, 15 vols., 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, 1952-1973), II, 172 and 191; J.E. Seaver, Persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire (300-439), 56, 59, and 84; S. Grayzel, “The Jews and Roman Law, The Jewish Quarterly Review, 59 (1968), 105; M. Avi-Yonah, In the Days of Rome and Byzantium [in Hebrew], 4th ed. (Jerusalem, 1970), 178, 183, and 185.

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27.1.5.6), Constantine decrees that those who hold religious offices, specifically those who are under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Patriarch and Sanhedrin, shall be exempt from “all liturgies, personal as well as civil” (CTh 16.8.2; cf. CTh 16.84). In effect, this law grants Jewish officers the same status as that of senior Christian clergy, a recognition reaffirmed by Arcadius in 397 (CTh 16.8.13).63 Nevertheless, some legislation under Constantine does seek to limit conversion to Judaism. In 329, a piece of legislation may have an anti-Jewish edge by seeking to curb conversion to Judaism and to prevent Jews from persecuting Jewish converts to Christianity (CTh 16.8.1; cf. CJ 1.9.3).64 The legislation refers to Judaism as a “deadly sect” (feralem sectam) and a “nefarious sect” (nefariam sectam). According to Linder, the term “sect” had no negative connotations in classical Latin; rather the word denotes a “school”, as in a philosophical school.65 Regarding the word “nefarious,” Feldman, who attributes the term to the influence of a Christian bishop, notes little difference between this law of Constantine’s and legislation promulgated by Septimius Severus (Digesta 50.2.3.3).66 Therefore, though Constantine seeks to limit conversion to Judaism, he does not either explicitly permit or prohibit Jews from maintaining their own customs.67 Constantine’s legislation to prohibit Jewish owners from circumcising non-Jewish slaves has deep historical precedent (Constitutio 63Linder, 133-134. 64For an additional law on the non-harassment of Jewish converts to Christianity see CTh 16.8.5, issued in 336. The penalty for a Jew harassing a convert to Christianity is death at the stake, a particularly severe punishment (Linder, 131 n14). 65Only with Diocletian’s condemnation of the Manichees was the term used in a negative sense, especially when contrasted with “veteriores religiones.” Later, in the Christian context of the later Empire the term “sect” did refer to groups outside of the catholic Church, i.e., Jews and pagans (Linder, 130, no. 13). However, Feldman argues that the vehemence of the language of laws on Jews is an indication of just how much the emperors and their Christian advisors perceived Jewish proselytism to be a threat (Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 387). 66Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 87. See Robert L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 50. 67The issue of conversion to Judaism is a major concern in imperial legislation on Jews. Feldman calculates that fourteen or 21% of laws on Jews are concerned with proselytism; 21 (or 18%) deal with the conversion of slaves (Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 19).

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Sirmondiana 4; CTh 16.9.1). However, a Christian influence on such laws is beginning to be felt. This same law proscribes Jews from persecuting Jewish converts to Christianity. Here we may be hearing an anticipatory whisper of later legislation where Jews are expressly forbidden to harass or disturb Christian ceremonies or sensibilities (CTh 16.8.18; 16.5.40). Though limitations are placed on conversion to Judaism, Constantine does not enact any laws that limit Jews the right to observe their own religious customs.68 An examination of legislation from the death of Constantine to the ascension of Theodosius I further reveals little change in Jewish legal status in the Roman Empire. The Theodosian Code mentions only three laws during this period. Two of these laws, issued during the reign of Constantine II and Constantius, are directed at limiting conversion to Judaism (CTh 16.9.2; 16.8.6; CJ 1.10.1; and CTh 16.8.7).69 The first prohibits the circumcision of a Jewish-owned slave on pain of capital punishment, apparently in an echo of earlier legislation (e.g., Paul, Sententiae 5.22.3.4). The second threatens confiscation of property for anyone who converts to Judaism. These two pieces of legislation indicate again that emperors sought to limit conversion to Judaism, while not directly interfering with the religious liberties of Jewish-born persons.70 However, during the same period, Valentinian II, along with Valens, issue a law addressed to Remigius, the Master of Offices, directed toward military activities along the Rhine frontier.71 Specifically, imperial troops are not to be quartered in synagogues; the law decrees that troops 68The Theodosian Code records the promulgation of several laws

prohibiting conversion (CTh 16.16.81; 16.8.22; 16.8.26). 69The law from CTh 16.8.6 forbids men from marrying Jewish women in the weaving industry. For a discussion of Jews in the weaving industry see Bernard S. Bachrach, “The Jewish Community of the Later Roman Empire as Seen in the Codex Theodosianus,” 408-409 n37. 70One possible exception to this might be Emperor Julian who issued orders for the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem (Epistle 51). Given Julian’s own vehement anti-Christian attitudes (see Against the Galileans), his attempt to rebuild the Temple might be viewed more as an anti-Christian action than as the expression of a genuine pro-Jewish attitude. According to the Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus, the process of rebuilding the Temple was begun, only to be destroyed by a fire (Historia 23.1.2-3). Julian himself died in battle on June 26th in the same year that his edict on the Temple was issued. Julian’s orders were never completed. 71According to Linder, this law was issued on May 6th either in 368, 370, or 373 (161).

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are not permitted to “occupy houses of private persons, not places of religion, on right of habitation” (CTh 7.8.2; cf. CJ 1.9.4).72 This law explicitly prohibits the quartering of soldiers in “a synagogue of the Jewish law” (in synagogam Iudaeicae legis) and applies in general to religious buildings or sites.73 At the very least this legislation demonstrates that Jewish religious sites receive special exemptions, a right not always granted to polytheistic places of worship during the same period. Much of the legislation regarding Jews from the period of 339-380 retains a remarkable continuity with earlier Roman imperial precedent. While some Christian influence begins to assert itself in influencing such legislation, it does not signal a major shift in legal status of Jews or their freedom to practice their own religion. Linder concurs. With the dawning of a “Christian” empire, no “substantial” change was introduced into the Roman legal tradition on Judaism.74 The limited anti-Jewish legislation is directed primarily at Jewish proselytization efforts.75 Second, the emperors

72Cf. with Julius Caesar's order that troops are not to be winter quartered among Jews (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 14.192). 73Linder, 161. 74Linder, 68. See Wilken’s comments that the lack of legislation from 330 to 380 “suggests that Constantine’s impact on the status of the Jews was less profound than is usually supposed” (John Chrysostom and the Jews, 52). 75Goodman argues that, though there were some Jewish proselytizing efforts in the talmudic period, the second to fifth centuries, there is no rabbinic discussion that offers an explicit formulation of a theology of a proselytizing mission (148). Shaye Cohen has identified at least six different ways that gentiles were attracted to Judaism in antiquity (The Beginnings of Jewishness, ch. 5). This attraction to Judaism caused anxiety by Christian officials as testified by ecclesial canons of the fourth century. For example, Canon 50 of the Council of Elvira (ca. 300) forbade laity and clergy from receiving hospitality from Jews. Another canon threatened excommunication for Christians who have their fields blessed by Jews (Canon 49). Canon One of the Council of Antioch (341) decreed: “The canons of the Nicene Council are to be observed; in particular Easter is not be celebrated with the Jews” (cited in Seaver 34). Feldman notes that this law was perhaps directed primarily at the Quartodecimans who celebrated the Christian Passover on the fourteenth of Nissan, the exact same date as the Jewish Passover (Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 376). Similarly, the Apostolic Canons, possibly from the mid-fourth century, warned bishops and other clerics from joining Jews in their festivals (Canon 70; English translation in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2

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themselves tend to follow the tradition of mores maiorum in granting Jews special privileges. Thus, a reasonable historical interpretation of the imperial legislation seems to be that the ascension of Christian emperors to the imperial throne did not result in any immediate reversal of Jewish status or fortunes within the Empire.

IMPERIAL LAWS REGARDING JEWS BETWEEN 380-430 Rather than precipitating dramatic changes to the legal status of Jews with the accession of the first Christian emperor, the imperial chancellery still seeks to maintain continuity with older legal precedents.76 Legislation under Theodosius’ reign reflects this continuity. Theodosius will continue the tradition of mores maiorum that stretches back to the earliest days of the Empire, but he will fall into step with his Christian predecessors by seeking to limit conversion to Judaism. Further, under Theodosius’ reign, we see the beginning of a rising tide of legislation that orders imperial protection of synagogues. Therefore, in the immediate years prior to Augustine’s Contra [Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, Michigan: T & T Clark/Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1991], 14: 598). The Council of Laodicea in Asia Minor, held sometime between 343 and 381, also issued canons restricting Christian participation or in imitation of Jewish practices. Canon 29 exhorted Christians to work on the Jewish Sabbath and to rest on Sunday, thereby making a sharp distinction between the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian day of worship. Canon 37 forbade Christians from receiving gifts from Jews or celebrating feasts with them (English translation in Seaver, 35). Canon 38 restricted Christians from receiving unleavened bread from Jews or participating in their festivals. Concern about Judaizing influences on Christians is also reflected in the canons of the Fourth Council of Carthage (ca. 398), though its canons were not collected until the sixth century (Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient Word, 400). Canon 89 decreed: Any one who is a slave to magical rites and incantations is to be segregated from the fellowship of the church; likewise any one who clings to Jewish superstitions or festivals [is to be segregated from the fellowship of the church] (quoted in Seaver 55). Like previous councils, the Council of Carthage sought to limit Judaizing influences among Christians. 76Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 387.

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Faustum, the imperial legal climate is still tolerant of Jews and their religious practices. Despite this relative tolerance, there are at least two laws which limit conversion to Judaism. In keeping with church canonical law from the fourth century, Theodosius orders in 388 that no Christian woman or man may marry a Jew (CTh 3.7.2; 9.7.5; CJ 1.9.6; Scott 1.9.5).77 Such an offense is now considered “adultery.”78 Along similar lines, Theodosius decrees that Jews may not purchase Christian slaves (CTh 3.1.5). Further, Christians are exhorted to buy back slaves either owned by Jewish masters or who have converted to Judaism. These pieces of legislation seek, then, to curtail possible avenues for conversion to Judaism.79 Yet, at the same time, Theodosius reechoes the mores maiorum regarding Jews by sanctioning the sanctity of Jewish prayer houses. During his reign, violence toward synagogues erupted in various areas of the Empire, particularly in the East. The most famous incident is that at Callinicum, located along the Euphrates River. In 388, a mob of fanatic Christians, led by the bishop of that community, attacked and destroyed a synagogue there. The emperor ordered the bishop to rebuild the synagogue, though Ambrose, bishop of Milan, wanted the order rescinded (Epistula 74 [Maurist ed. 40]).80 Apparently violence against Jewish sites continued, for 77E.g., Canon 16 of the Council of Elvira (ca. 300) decrees that Christian

girls are not to be given in wedlock to either Jewish or pagan men (Seaver, 25). 78Roman imperial law on adultery stems from the Lex Julia de adulteris coercendis, passed by Augustus in 18 BCE (Linder 181, n4). Linder argues that this law signals the influence of Ambrose (Linder 178). Indeed, in 385, the highly influential bishop of Milan led a campaign against marriages between Christians and Jews (see Ambrose, Epistula 19, where he warns of the dangers of marriage with non-Christians.) 79Also attempting to curtail undue Jewish influence upon Christians, Emperor Gratian in 383, in addressing the Praefectus Praetorio of Italy, prohibits Christian participation in pagan, Jewish, or Manichaean cults. Those who despise the “dignity of the Christian religion” and who have “polluted themselves with the Jewish contagions shall be punished for their disgraceful acts” (neglecta Iudaicis semet polluere contagiis) (CTh 16.7.3; CJ 1.7.2). 80The incident over Callinicum has generally been interpreted as an incident of Ambrose’s authority over the emperor. McLynn has carefully reread the correspondence between emperor and bishop and concludes that Ambrose’s Epistula 74 failed in its intention to have the emperor reverse his imperial order (McLynn, 298-303). Even the confrontation between Ambrose and Theodosius in the basilica in Milan further illustrates the emperor as the one providing clemency

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in 392 Theodosius issues an explicit imperial edict that troops are to “repress with due severity” Christians who attempt to “destroy and despoil” synagogues (CTh 16.8.9).81 This law will be the first of many in the next few decades that attempt to extend imperial protection to Jewish sites. The actual significance of this law, however, may lie more in its comments on Judaism than in the imperial protection it extends to synagogues. Even though a catholic rules the Empire, Theodosius reaffirms the special privileges of the Jewish religion in the law on Jewish houses of prayer. The law begins, “[i]t is sufficiently established that the sect of the Jews is prohibited by no law” (Iudaeorum sectam nulla lege prohibitam satis constat) (CTh 16.8.9). This text further illustrates that Theodosius did not make Christianity the solely permitted religion within the Empire. Rather the emperor extends the tradition of granting Jews special privileges, though the term secta may indicate a subtle shift in how the imperial chancellery now regards Jews. Seaver argues that this law implies a general anti-Jewish feeling and is the first indication of “popular prejudice” against Jews.82 Whatever the terminology employed to describe the Jewish religion, however, one distinctive tendency within the imperial law remains clear. Even as the catholic Church strengthens its tenacious hold on Roman society, the legal protection of Jews remains in force. However, Theodosius’ favorable actions toward Jews should not be viewed as favoritism but rather as simply a continuation of the venerable tradition established by Julius Caesar himself. After the death of Theodosius (395), there seems to be an explosion of legislation regarding Jews. During the main period of Augustine’s literary career, from 395 to approximately 430, various emperors issue approximately thirty-one laws regarding Jewish matters, compared to seven pieces of legislation under Theodosius, dealing with to the bishop and, thus, finally, conceding to drop the Callinicum incident. McLynn argues that the spectators in the basilica would have seen the incident as a gesture of the emperor’s benevolence, not as a victory for Ambrose (Neil B. McLynn, Ambrose of Milan: Church and Court in a Christian Capital [Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1994], 303-309). Ambrose’s letter to his sister (Epistulae extra collecionem 1 [Maurist ed. 41]) regarding the incident at the basilica is a deliberate attempt to paint himself as the victor, though clearly the emperor still retains his imperial power, unhindered by ecclesial authority (McLynn, 308). 81The law from CTh 16.8.9 is addressed to the Master of the Soldiers in the East. 82Seaver, 50.

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both social and religious concerns.83 Of particular concern to us here is how the laws from 395 to 430 affect the legal status of Jewish religious customs within Roman society.84 While the primary focus of our discussion is on the legal status of the practice of Judaism, we should also note how legislation was beginning to impinge upon the social status of Jews. Early fifth-century legislation limits the state offices that Jews may hold. The first law in 404 deals with Jewish and Samaritan Executive Agents who abuse their privileges and powers and proscribes that they be removed from office (CTh 16.8.16), though this is not a formal prohibition of state service.85 Such a ban is imposed in 418 and closes offices to Jews in three areas of civic government: Executive Agents, Palatins, and the Military Service, though they may still practice law (CTh 16.8.24). However, such a restriction on public office occurs later than similar exclusions of heretics and pagans from public offices. In 425, additional legislation bars Jews from “the right to practice law and to serve in the State service” (Constitution Sirmondiana, 6). Linder contends that this position was to exclude Jews from all positions of authority.86 Such prohibitions, however, do not tell us exactly what kind of impact, if any, such legislation would have had on the Jewish community. Consequently, for example, we do not know how many Jews actually served in such positions at the time such restrictive laws were promulgated. Though these laws limiting Jews from imperial service signal a significant shift in Jewish fortunes within the Empire, familiar themes regarding Jewish religious practices continue during the same period. 83There are also several laws that concern the Patriarch in Palestine (CTh

16.8.8; 16.8.11; 16.8.13; 2.1.10, see CJ 1.9.8; 16.8.14; 16.8.15; 16.8.17; 16.8.22). These laws will not concern us in this chapter, for though Jews in the Empire did financially support the Patriarch, we are primarily concerned with the practice of Jewish customs in the Diaspora. Note also that this same period (395-430) also witnesses tightening restrictions on expressions of public, traditional Roman polytheistic practices. 84Some of this legislation may be attributed to John Chrysostom's influence in Constantinople. Casale observes that in 397 Arcadius confirms the privileges of the Jews. But with the arrival of the new patriarch, legislation takes an anti-Jewish bent (CTh 16.8.10; 16.81.11; 16.8.12; 16.8.13). After Chrysostom's expulsion from the imperial city, Arcadius resumes a more favorable stance (Casale, 212). 85 Linder, 222. 86 Linder, 306-307.

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Though imperial policy on Jews continues to follow a varied course, we can discern four general trends or tendencies in the legislation directed strictly at religious practices. These include: restrictions on conversion, sanctions against abuse of catholic Christians, continuation of the mores maiorum, and protection of synagogues from attacks. Therefore, only key legislation will be highlighted. The purpose here is to underscore some of the reoccurring or dominant themes after 395, particularly in legislation having to do with the practice of Jewish religious customs. In continuity with pre-Christian emperors, post-395 emperors perpetuate the interdiction against the circumcision of slaves and conversion to Judaism. In 409, Honorius issues a law that forbids Godfearers, people who have embraced some aspects of Judaism but have not fully converted, from adopting “the abominable and vile name of the Jews (ut de Christianis quosdam foedum cogant taetrumque Iudaeorum nomen induere) (CTh 16.8.19).87 Honorius decrees in 415 that Jews are permitted to keep Christian slaves, provided that such slaves are free to keep their “proper religion” (CTh 16.9.3). A few years later, Theodosius II and Honorius issue two laws which explicitly forbid Jews from owning Christian slaves (CTh 16.8.26; 16.9.5), which echo the law of 384 that forbids Jews from owning slaves or Christian conversion to Judaism (CTh 3.1.5). In 423, Theodosius II decrees that if any Jew shall circumcise or order a Christian to be circumcised, then that Jew “shall be condemned to confiscation of property as well as to perpetual exile” (CTh 16.8.26). While this injunction echoes the earlier law from Paul in the Sententaie, we are seeing Christian anxiety over conversion to Judaism influencing imperial legislation on circumcision. Other legislation displays a certain anxiety of perceived Jewish mockery of catholic Christians. Honorius issues an early law in this regard in 407 and one that is directed toward heretics, God-fearers, and pagans (CTh 16.5.44; cf. Constitutio Sirmondiana 14; CTh 16.2.31; 16.5.46; CJ 1.3.10).88 Though the legislation claims that Jews are cooperating with Donatists in harassing Christians, this claim is not substantiated by other

87Though this law was addressed to Iovius, the Praefectus Praetorio of Italy, the law was probably directed to Spain and North Africa as well. Augustine has a brief comment on God-fearers in Epistula 44. 88Note that this legislation is passed during a period of intense debate and even physical conflict where the goal was to reconcile the Donatists to the catholic Church. Similar legislation is passed in 423 that again prohibits Jews from prosecuting catholic Christians (CTh 16.8.26).

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evidence, even though Augustine makes a similar claim (Sermo 62).89 Regardless, the main thrust of the legislation appears to be to prohibit the harassment of catholic Christians. Theodosius II, in 408, issues an explicit piece of legislation that bans Jews from burning an effigy of Hamman during the Jewish festival of Purim, though Jews are still permitted to mark the celebration (CTh 16.8.18; CJ 1.9.11).90 The burning of such an effigy was equated with mocking the crucifixion of Christ (CJ 1.9.11). Even as late as 425, legislation is enacted to safeguard the sanctity of Christian holy days by forbidding both Jews and pagans from holding any form of public entertainment (e.g., the theater or the circus), on Sundays or other major Christian festival days (CTh 15.5.5). Consequently, such laws should not be seen as expressing a general intolerance of Jews; rather they seem to reflect Christian sensitivities on particular points. Other imperial laws from the period between 395 and 430 continue to reflect the mores maiorum tradition by affirming centuries-old imperial legal precedent that permits Jewish-born persons to maintain their ancestral customs. Arcadius, for example, continues this venerable position in a law from 397. Addressed to the Praefectus Praetorio of the East, the legislation declares, in part, that “[t]he Jews should be bound to their rites; while we shall imitate the ancients in conserving their privileges, for it was established in their laws and confirmed by our divinity” (Iudaei sint obstricti caerimoniis suis: nos interea in conservandis eorum privilegiis veteres imitemur) (CTh 16.8.13).91 By imperial decree, Jews are reaffirmed in their liberties for the practice of their religion. The legislation further stipulates that those Jews who submit themselves to the Jewish patriarchs and who persevere in “the rite of the religion” (religionis sacramento) of the Jewish rites shall be granted the same privileges “that are reverently bestowed on the first clerics of the venerable Christian Law” (CTh 16.8.13). This second part of the law is not without significance since, as Linder notes, the legislation employs no pejorative or insulting terms to refer to Jewish clergy.92 Moreover, terminology such as religionis sacramentum and caerimoniae is similar, if not identical, to that

89Linder, 239. He argues that Augustine’s claim may be more a matter of the sermon’s rhetorical style than the historicity of the events. 90CJ 1.9.10 in Scott's translation. 91Another aspect of this legislation is that Jews serving in the curia are exempt from public liturgies. This particular aspect is abrogated in 398 by Honorius, who does require Jews to perform public liturgies (CTh 12.1.158). 92Linder, 202.

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normally used of the Christian religion.93 Consequently, literally on the eve of Augustine’s crafting of his theology of the Jewish people and their religion, imperial legislation decrees that Jews may persevere in their own religious customs. Such customs even include special exemptions from appearing in court on the Sabbath (CTh 16.8.20 from 412), a traditional stance, first granted by Augustus (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 16.160-65). Nevertheless, as we move into the fifth century, Jewish synagogues increasingly hostilities by fanatical Christian mobs, as evidenced by an escalation of legislation designed to help protect such houses of worship. For example, in 411, in Edessa, under the episcopal leadership of Rabbulas, there was an attempt to seize a synagogue and convert it into a church.94 In 412, Honorius issues a decree that not only are synagogues to be kept safe from attack, but further grants that Jews “must retain what is theirs with unmolested right and without harm to religion and cult” (cum sine intentione religionis et cultus omnes quieto iure sua debeant retinere) (CTh 16.8.20). The law also contains another crucial imperial sanction that exempts Jews from appearing on courts on the Sabbath. Similar legislation from 409 also exempts Jews from appearing in court either on Saturday or on their festival days (cf. CTh 2.8.26; 8.8.8; CJ 1.9.13).95 Clearly, Honorius follows the agelong imperial precedent of granting special privileges to Jews. This is confirmed in the concluding remarks of Theodosian Code 16.8.20: it would be most worthy of the government of our time that former privileges (delata privilegia) shall not be violated; although it would seem that enough has been legislated on this matter in general constitutions by past Emperors. Clearly, Honorius, like other emperors, refuses to violate the traditional privileges of Jews and indeed continues a long and distinguished tradition of reaffirming such privileges. Continuing the precedent established by Theodosius I, imperial protection continues to be extended to synagogues in the eastern half of the Empire. The eastern emperor Arcadius, in 397, extends imperial protection to synagogues and seeks to ensure the safety of Jewish religious buildings (CTh 16.8.12). However, by 415, he prohibits the construction of new 93Linder, 202. 94Seaver, 74 and 94, n. 227; see Chronicon Edessae, III, s.s., IV, pt. 1 of Corpus Scriptorum Orientalium; see Michael the Syrian, bk. VI, 10. 95CJ 1.9.12 in Scott's translation.

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synagogues and orders that vacant synagogues be destroyed (CTh 16.8.22).96 Imperial decree also reaffirms the venerable legal tradition of severe penalties for those who mark their slaves with the “mark of infamy,” i.e., circumcision. Additionally, the Jewish Patriarch Gamaliel VI or any Jewish person is prohibited from adjudicating in cases that involve Christians (cf. CJ 1.9.15).97 Though we see imperial pressure here to limit civic interaction between Jews and Christians, this provision does not limit or curtail Jewish customs as practiced by Jewish-born citizens. Indeed, TheodosiusII issues four additional laws regarding synagogues, though such legislation carries with it certain stipulations (CTh 16.8.21; 16.8.25; 16.9.5; 16.8.27). The first is promulgated in 420 and the emperor orders that synagogues are not to be burned or “wrongly damaged” (CTh 16.8.21).98 The imperial chancellery issues a caveat to Jews, however. Jews must not “grow perchance insolent, and elated by their security commit something rash against the reverence of the Christian cult” (ne Iudaei forsitan insolescant elatique sui securitate quicquam praeceps in Christianae reverentiam cultionis admittant).99 While imperial legislation affords Jews a degree of protection for Jewish religious sites, Jews are nonetheless reminded they are not to harass or insult the Christian faith, a new concern that we have seen introduced into the imperial law. Nevertheless, the emperor maintains a rather traditional course by legislating against attacks on synagogues. Theodosius II, in 423, issues, at approximately two-month intervals, three laws extending imperial protection to synagogues and addressed to the Praefectus Praetorio of the East (CTh 16.8.25; 16.9.15; 16.8.27). The laws seem to be prompted by a series of violent attacks against synagogues in Syria, Palestine, and Trans-

96This legislation was apparently spurred by unspecified actions taken by the Patriarch Gamaliel VI (Linder, 267). It also deprived the Patriarch of one his honorary titles, that of honorary prefecture. 97CJ 1.9.14 in Scott's translation. 98The text has numerous problems. Linder reconstructs the text to read, “No one shall be persecuted for being a Jew, though innocent of a crime, nor shall any religion whatsoever oppresses one who acts openly” (286, n3). 99Apparently there was some Jewish violence directed towards Christians in the early fifth centuries. The Church historian records an incident at Inmestar, near Antioch, where Jews mocked the cross of Christ by seizing a Christian boy and tying him to a cross (Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastical 7.16). For a discussion of Jewish violence toward Christians see Seaver, 12-18.

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Jordan by Bar-Sauma and his followers in the years 419-422.100 For example, in 423, Christians destroyed a synagogue in Antioch. When Theodosius tried to restore the Jewish place of worship, he incurred the wrath of Simeon Stylites, who exerted such pressure that the emperor had to abandon his project.101 In February of 423, Theodosius orders that synagogues are not to be attacked and that destroyed synagogues can be rebuilt (CTh 16.8.25). However, the legislation forbids the construction of new synagogues. Two months later, the emperor reaffirms his stance on the destruction of synagogues (CTh 16.9.15). This piece of legislation ends with the threat of exile for any Jew who circumcises a Christian, a familiar theme (cf. CJ 1.9.15).102 The final law, issued in June 423, reaffirms the previous legislation and reasserts Theodosius’ earlier order that new synagogues are not to be constructed (CTh 16.8.27; cf. CJ 1.11.17).103 Thus, in a religious climate where non-Christian sites or shrines are under attack by fanatical Christian mobs, the imperial chancellery extends protection only to synagogues. Such sanctions perhaps may be viewed as an extension of the traditional mores maiorum granted to Jews that permits them to maintain their own religion. Even staunchly Christian emperors refuse to ignore this imperial legal precedent. Therefore, there seems to a general tendency of the chancellery to preserve “a direct continuity” between older and new legislation. Even in the face of increasingly severe restrictions on traditional forms of Roman religions, such continuity is maintained in regard to Jewish practices. This continued legal recognition of ancient custom may have been influenced by an acknowledgment that Jews worship the same God as the Christians, though to the Christian mind, Jews now worship wrongly since they have not acknowledged the coming of Christ and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. In this light, the Jews are in a fundamentally different camp from the polytheists who not only engage in false worship, but do not have even the true God. In the minds of Christian emperors, then, though both Jews and polytheists are clearly non-Christian groups, 100 Linder, 288. 101 Alfredo Mordechai Rabello, “The Legal Condition of the Jews in the

Roman Empire.” In Aufsteig und Niedergang der römischen Welt. Vol. 2.13: 723; see Migne, Patrologia Graeca (PG) 114, 381; PG 86, 2456; Evagrius, Historia Ecclesiastica 1, 13. Also note that this incident is strikingly similar to the incident at Callinicum and the showdown between Ambrose and Theodosius I. 102 Scott translation. 103 Scott translation.

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they are two very different groups religiously.104 Hence, the two religious groups are accorded different imperial treatment. Christian emperors can maintain a rather traditional position on Jews, who have at least retained the true God. But no such imperial favor can be granted to polytheists who worship the wrong gods. The primary reason for this continuity in the legal treatment of Jews, however, seems to be the unwillingness of emperors to depart from imperial legal tradition. Jones concurs, reminding us that special privileges extended to Jews had been in existence since the days of Julius Caesar.105 In other words, the direct influence of Christian theology of Jews and Judaism is negligible upon imperial policy on Jews. Surely, Rabello is incorrect when he writes that a Christian theology of Jews as a witness people influenced imperial legislation.106 The theology of a witness people is articulated clearly only in the Contra Faustum, written after imperial laws have granted Jews the liberty to maintain their own distinctive practices. Rabello’s insistence that the Christian claim that Jews serve as testes veritatis was influential in shaping imperial policy is difficult to sustain in the light of the development of this theology. As I will argue elsewhere in this book, though there are hints of such a theology in earlier Christian writers, Augustine is the first to articulate this position clearly. Note also that Augustine first develops his view in the Contra Faustum, written in 398, after the laws of 392 and 397 which permit the practice of Judaism. Indeed, Bachrach argues that perhaps as late as 398, the same year Augustine writes his Contra Faustum, Jews still retained, and as evidenced by later legislation, continued to retain special privileges.107 Thus, the bishop of Hippo writes in a period when Judaism is still legally permitted by the imperial crown. Though no direct influence of imperial legislation on Augustine's theology can be established, his position does at the very least mirror the imperial legislation in allowing Jews to retain their ancestral customs.

104 I thank Professor William Babcock for clarification on this issue. 105 Jones 2: 948. 106 Rabello, 693. 107 Bachrach, 402.

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AUGUSTINE’S KNOWLEDGE OF JEWS IN NORTH AFRICA Augustine’s own knowledge of Jews and their customs in North Africa appears to confirm other historical evidence. Despite the fact that our sources for this region of the Empire are meager, historians have been able to sketch the broad contours of the Jewish past in Roman North Africa. These contours will be broadly sketched below to provide the historical framework for Augustine’s own knowledge of the Jewish people. One historical fact seems reasonably clear. Historical evidence suggests that Jews were already living in North Africa by the first century of the Common Era.108 J.B. Rives notes that some earlier scholars suggested that Jewish settlers first arrived during the Punic period, perhaps as early as the destruction of the first Temple in 586 BCE.109 The presence of Jews in North Africa can only be securely dated, however, from the Roman period. Since Jewish texts from the first century CE never mention Carthage or any part of Africa west of Cyrenaica, these early Jewish communities must have been fairly insignificant.110 The greatest impetus for the growth of Jewish communities in North Africa appears to have come from the Jewish wars in Judaea (66-70 and 132-135 CE).111 The medieval historian Yosephon reports that Vespasian gave his son Titus the area of Africa to settle 30,000 Jews in Carthage and other places.112 Though Rives dismisses the historical value of this medieval account, he does believe that it provides a good indication of Jewish slaves who were brought to work the estates and to

108 Johannes Van Oort, Jerusalem and Babylon: A Study into Augustine's City of

God and the Source of His Doctrine of the Two Cities (Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1991), 365-367. 109 J.B. Rives, Religion and Authority in Roman Carthage from Augustus to Constantine (New York: Claredon Press, 1995), 216. Emil Schürer notes that a sacrophague is the only identifiable Jewish object from the Punic period (III/1: 62 n. 73). 110 Rives, Religion and Authority, 217. See Acts 2:9-11 which mentions Libya and areas “belonging to Cyrene.” See also Philo, De Legatione ad Gaium 281f. and In Flaccum 43. 111 J.W. Hirschberg, A History of the Jews in North Africa, 2nd, Rev. ed., Vol. 1. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1974), 26-27. 112 Hirschberg, 27. See also A. Neubauer. Medieval Jewish Chronicles (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1887-1895), I.190.

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labor in the shipyards of North Africa.113 Writing in the late second century, the Latin Christian Carthaginian theologian, Tertullian, notes the presence of Jews in Carthage (e.g., Ad Nationes 1.13). Scattered epigraphical evidence also suggests a Jewish presence in Carthage. Epitaphs have been discovered which include depictions of the menorah and palm branches, and a lamp with a menorah, typical Jewish symbols.114 The most significant evidence for Jews in the vicinity of Carthage comes not from Carthage proper but from the hill of Gammarth, located approximately five kilometers from the center of Carthage. Located on this hill is an extensive Jewish necropolis. This contains some 100 tombs, with each tomb housing some fifteen to seventeen burial places.115 On the basis of such information, Rives concludes that the Jewish community would have numbered at least 300-500 people.116 Thirty-five to forty epitaphs have been discovered, the majority of these dating from the beginning of the Roman Empire.117 Three extant inscriptions contain typical Jewish symbols, while earlier descriptions note that such symbols were common on the tombs.118 Certainly, there was a physical presence of Jews in the environs of Carthage, a city that as a Christian bishop Augustine would frequent for ecclesiastical business.119 The most significant archaeological evidence, however, comes not from the Carthaginian vicinity but from Naro, now called Hammam Lif, on the coast of the Mediterranean, approximately eleven miles from Roman Tunis. Hammam Lif has preserved the ruins of a synagogue from late antiquity. Rich and elaborate mosaics have been discovered at the site.120 The ruins contain numerous mosaics as well as a complex of building 113 Rives, Religion and Authority, 217. 114 Rives, Religion and Authority, 215. 115 Rives, Religion and Authority, 215. 116 Rives, Religion and Authority, 221. 117 Rives, Religion and Authority, 215. See Hirschberg, 50. For these

inscriptions see Jean Baptiste Frey, Corpus of Jewish Inscriptions: Jewish Inscriptions from the Third century B.C. to the Seventh Century AD (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1975), no. 24-63. 118 Rives, Religion and Authority, 215. 119 Note also that Augustine spent some time in Rome, a city with a substantial Jewish population. 120 For a description and photographs of these mosaics see Franklin M. Biebel, “The Mosaics of Hammam Lif,” The Art Bulletin, XVIII (1936): 541-551.

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foundations.121 The inscriptions clearly confirm that the building was a synagogue.122 Other inscriptions contain Jewish symbols, including a candelabrum and fragments of a seven-branched candelabrum.123 Though the mosaic floors date from the late fourth century, the building itself is probably much earlier.124 Such archaeological evidence confirms the presence of Jews in late antique North Africa. Additional epigraphical evidence strengthens this claim. Tombstones, with Latin inscriptions, have been discovered in the central part of North Africa.125 These inscriptions come from Utica, Henchir Djouana (central Tunsia), Sidi Brahim, Cirta, Henchir Fuara, Ksour-elGhennaia, Sitifis, Khalfoun, Auzia. Apparently Sitifis also contained a synagogue, though to my knowledge this has yet to be located.126 Archaeological evidence, such as this epigraphical evidence, combined with scattered literary evidence, has allowed historians to pinpoint known Jewish communities in Roman North Africa.127 These locations include: Caesarea, Tipasa, Ausia, Sitifis, Fesdis, Thusurus, Cirta, Simithus, Utica, Hippo Regius, Carthage, Naro, Hadrumetum and further east Oea and Iscina Locus Judaeorum Augusti.128 The evidence for Jews in Hippo Regius comes largely from the writings of Augustine, the bishop of that city.

121 Erwin R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period, 13 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953-68), vol. 2, 90. For a discussion of this complex see Goodenough, vol. 2, 90-93. For a diagram of the complex see Goodenough, vol. 3, figure 886. 122 The inscriptions can be found in Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (vol. 8, suppl pt. 1) 12457 a, b, c. English translations are from Hirschberg, 50-51. 123 Hirschberg, 50. For a description of the mosaics see Goodenough, 2: 93-100. 124 Rives, Religion and Authority, 216. 125 Hirschberg, 51. See also Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, vol. VIII. 126 Hirschberg, 70. 127 Schürer for a lit of places where Jewish inscriptions have been found (III/1: 62-64). 128 Hirschberg, 22. See Bernard Blumenkranz, Die Judenpredigt Augustins: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der jüdisch-christlichen Beziehungen in den ersten Jahrhundrerten (Basel: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, 1946), 60-61.

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In a mere handful of his writings, particularly his letters, Augustine alludes to Jews in his episcopal see and in other areas of North Africa.129 He offers scattered comments about the presence of Jews in other North African towns. In a letter to Jerome, Augustine mentions the town of Oea, where a group of Christians consulted a Jewish person who knew Hebrew in order to settle a dispute over Jerome’s translation of Jonah (Epistula 71.5). Other towns where Augustine mentions Jews include Uzalis, where a senatorial woman suffering from an ailment bought a ring containing a charm from a Jewish man (De Civitate Dei 22.8), and Shitthu, now called Chemtou, a small town near Hippo (Sermons 9 and 17).130 He further implies that Jews are living around Hippo when he interjects the phrase “[t]he Jews whom you see” (Judaei quos vides) in one of his sermons (Sermon 325.4).131 He further makes an obscure reference to Jews in the vicinity of Hippo when he differentiates between two sorts of Jews, those who are “profligate and turbulent” (perditi et seditiosi Iudaei) and those who are keepers of the commandments of the law (servantes mandata legis) (Sermon 112A.13). Here, then, we can surmise from his comments that Augustine assumed that his congregation would encounter Jews, including those who observed Torah. While these last two references are not wholly clear as to whether Augustine knew Jews in Hippo, two other references confirm that he did. In discussing the approaching celebration of New Year’s day, the bishop asserts that “there are just two sorts of people here, Christians and Jews” (Sermon 196.4).132 The clearest evidence that Augustine was well aware of Jews in Hippo comes from the newly discovered letter 8*.133 According to Helmut 129 Hippo Regius had a population of some thirty to forty thousand. The

population included pagans, Manichees, Donatists, Christians, and Jews (F. Van der Meer, Augustine the Bishop. Church and Society at the Dawn of the Middle Ages, trans. Brian Battershaw and G.R. Lamb (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1961), 19. See also J.E. Merdinger, Rome and the African Church in the Time of Augustine (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), 69. 130 See also Hirschberg, 79. 131 All translations of Augustine’s sermons are from Edmund Hill, O.P., trans., Sermons. The Works of Saint Augustine. A New Translation for the 21st Century, Part 3/11 vols. (Brooklyn, New York: New City Press, 1990-1995). 132 Hill dates this sermon after 420 (III/3:60). 133 In 1974, while working for the Austrian Academy of Sciences to catalogue all Augustinian manuscripts in France, Johannes Divjak discovered twenty-nine unknown letters, texts that were first published in CSEL 88 in 1981. A

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Castritius, this letter, as well as letter 20*, constitutes “a definite proof” that Jews were living not simply in North Africa, but more specifically in Hippo.134 Perhaps more importantly, Letter 8* provides us with one of only two possible instances in Augustine’s writings where he mentions that he ever spoke to an actual Jewish person. In the De Sermone Domini in Monte 1.9.23, he makes a rather obscure comment suggesting that, after puzzling over the Hebrew word “Raca” (cf. Matthew 5.22), he consulted a “certain Hebrew” (quadam Hebrea). In Epistle 8*, however, Augustine explicitly records a conversation with a Jewish man named Licinius. The bishop received a complaint from Licinius about a certain Victor, who was possibly a bishop, though this is not entirely certain. According to Licinius, Victor had swindled him out of some land by purchasing the land from Licinius’ mother. Unfortunately, the mother no longer owned the land and, accordingly, had no right to sell it. When Licinius approached Victor for compensation, Victor told Licinius to sue his mother. Apparently Augustine patiently listened to this problem. For he writes, “[t]hose things about which Licinius the Jew complained to me, if true, greatly saddened me” (ea quae apud me Iudaeus Licinius deplorauit, si uerum est, multum me contristant) (Epistula 8.1).135 Therefore, Augustine urged Victor to restore the land to Licinius. This constitutes the first part of the letter. The second part of the letter addresses issues of unlawfulness since there apparently was some kind of estrangement between Licinius and his mother. The most valuable section of the letter for our purposes is obviously the first part which supplies direct evidence for Jews in Hippo and an actual conversation between Augustine and a Jewish person. Furthermore, the letter suggests that the bishop may have been influenced by and heeded imperial laws regarding such civil cases. According to Castritius, the legal advice Augustine gave to Victor shows that the bishop’s attitudes were being influenced by the “norms of

revised Latin text, with French commentary, has appeared in vol. 46B of the Bibliothèque Augustinienne series. This revised text has superseded Divjak’s version (“Introduction” by Robert E. Eno in Augustine, Letters VI (1*-29), trans. Robert B. Eno, ed. Thomas P. Halton (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989) 81: 3, 6. 134 Helmut Castritius, “The Jews in North Africa at the Time of Augustine of Hippo—Their Social and Legal Position,” in Proceedings of the Ninth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1986): 32. 135 Trans. from Eno, 66.

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contemporary laws”, as contained in the imperial constitutions.136 Moreover, Licinius was able to claim “optimum ius,” which was based on the law of December 412 (CTh 16, 2, 41). This law permitted clerics to be sued if there was sufficient evidence. Augustine appeals to Victor to avoid the episcopal court, where such a case would be tried. In Castritius’ view, then, the first part of this letter reveals that Augustine’s appeal accords with “strict adherence” to official imperial policy.137 Therefore, the bishop of Hippo, by adhering to official laws, did not discriminate, as was widely practiced by clerics, against Jews.138 Such a non-discriminatory ruling also feels its influence from the writings of Paul. The bishop employs 1 Corinthians 10:32, where Paul writes, “‘[g]ive no offense to Jews or to Greeks or the Church of God’” (Epistula 8*.1). Here we get a hint that Pauline writings on the Jews may also be influencing Augustine’s practices in dealing with Jews. Castritius argues that Augustine uses this biblical reference to counter discriminatory practices against Jews on the grounds that they are incompatible with the apostolic proclamation.139 By heeding both Paul’s exhortation and imperial laws, Augustine seems to follow a non-discriminatory path by adjudicating in Licinius’ favor. Though Epistula 8* shows Augustine judging favorably on Licinius’ behalf, the letter does not suggest that Augustine engaged in day to day conversations with Jews. Despite Juan Alvarez’s insistence that Augustine had Jewish friends in Carthage and in his own diocese,140 we might reasonably conclude that on the basis of Epistula 8* and the absence of comments of anything similar in other Augustinian sources, his actual encounters or associations with contemporary Jews were infrequent and not of a personal nature. This should not be surprising since extant canons of Church councils during the fourth century show a tendency to limit social interaction between Christians and Jews.141 Though Hirschberg contends 136 Castritius, 31. 137 Castritius, 33; 36. 138 Castritius, 33. He also notes that Augustine did possess a good

working knowledge of Roman law (32) (see Epistula 278). 139 Castritius, 33. 140 Alvarez, “St. Augustine and Antisemitism,” 9: 341. 141 E.g., canon 50 of the Council of Elvira (ca. 300) in Spain threats excommunication for clergy and laity who share meals with Jewish persons (see Seaver, 25-26). The Council of Laodicaea in Asia Minor, which Feldman dates sometime between 343 and 381 (Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 399), also bans Christians from celebrating festivals with Jews (Canon 37). In the western half of

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that Augustine was “well acquainted” with Jews living in Hippo, he fails to distinguish between casual acquaintance with Jews and sustained social interactions with them.142 It is more plausible, given the available evidence, that Augustine had the former, not the latter. Indeed Paula Fredriksen astutely notes that Augustine’s references to Jews are “random and superficial.”143 At the most, it seems, we can conclude only that he had a casual acquaintance with Jews residing in Hippo Regius. Perhaps more important for his theology of the Jewish people and Judaism, Augustine demonstrates some general knowledge of contemporary Jewish practices. Like a scarlet thread that runs throughout his comments on Jews, Augustine acknowledges that Jews still adhere to their ancestral customs, despite being now subject to the Roman Empire. For example, he writes: All the other nations subjugated by the Romans took over the laws and customs of the Romans; this nation was both conquered and still remained with their own law; as far as the worship of God is concerned, they preserved their ancestral customs and rites (patrias consuetudines ritumque custodivit). Even though their temple has been demolished and their ancient priesthood extinguished, as foretold by the prophets, they still keep circumcision and a certain way of life which distinguishes them from other nations (Sermon 374.2; emphasis added; cf. Sermon 361.6).

Such an insistence implies that Augustine had a measure of respect for the Jewish ability to maintain their own customs. He was also perfectly capable, however, of issuing scathing denunciations of those who failed to keep such practices. He writes, for example: You are told to observe the sabbath spiritually, not in the way the Jews observe the sabbath in worldly idleness. They like the free time to spend on their frivolities and extravagances. The Jew would do better doing some useful work on this land instead of joining in faction fights at the stadium. And their women would do better

the Empire, the eighty-ninth Canon of the Fourth Council of Carthage (ca. 398) decrees that “any one who clings to Jewish superstitions or festivals [is] to be segregated from the fellowship of the church]” (quoted in Seaver, 55). 142 Hirschberg, 80. 143 Paula Fredriksen, “Secundum Carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine,” 40.

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THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS spinning wool on the sabbath than dancing shamelessly all day on their balconies (Sermon 9.3).

He also makes a similar comment in his tractates on John. He accuses the Jews of using the Sabbath for “luxuriousness and drunkenness.” He further adds, “[h]ow much better would their women be employed in spinning wool than in dancing on that day in the balconies?” (Commentary on John 3.19).144 Yet, Augustine can also notice that Jews do indeed observe the Sabbath. In the Contra Faustum, he notes that the Jews still keep the Sabbath by not harvesting or cooking on this day (Contra Faustum 6.4). Such comments indicate that Augustine had some awareness of sabbath practices (cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos 91.2). Yet, notice the superficiality of Augustine’s comments on contemporary Jewish religious practices. The statement from the Contra Faustum could be based either on actual observation of such practices or on a reading of the relevant sections of the Pentateuch that describe the Sabbath injunctions. His knowledge of dietary laws appears to have been lifted straight out of the Pentateuch (Sermon 62A.4).145 One reference to a contemporary Jewish practice may rest on his actual observation of such a custom.146 Augustine discusses the traditional Jewish custom of building a succah (or booth) for the fall celebration of Succoth (Sermon 133.1). Here he calls the celebration skenopegia. Furthermore, he notes that “[t]hese festival days were being held by the Jews, not because it took place on one day, but because it was celebrated with continuous festivities, like the festival day of Passover, like the festival day of unleavened bread; and yet, as is clear, this festival day is held over several days.” Augustine is indeed correct to assert that both Passover and Succoth extend over several days, though he does not specify the length of these celebrations. However, Augustine’s knowledge of Succoth could have been gleamed from reading the Pentateuch, not from actual observation of an actual Succoth.147 Thus,

144 English translation from A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 1, vol. 7, trans. R. Stothert (Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, Michigan: T & T Clark/Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 7: 24. 145 The injunctions that Augustine list can be found in Levicitus 11:3, 17, 26; Deuteronomy 14:6, 7. 146 Hill dates this sermon to be from 397 (III/3: 339 n3). 147 “Speak to the people of Israel, saying: On the fifteenth day of this seventh month and lasting for seven days there shall be the festival of booths to the

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while Augustine has some sense that Jews continue to keep their traditional practices, his actual knowledge seems vague and superficial. Moreover, Augustine’s respect for such practices is limited only to Jewish-born persons. His works provide a mere handful of allusions or references to God-fearers in North Africa (e.g., Epistula 44 and 196; Contra Faustum 19.4). Not unlike other Christian bishops of his day, he adamantly opposes any Christian effort to participate in or co-opt Jewish religious practices (e.g., Epistula 82.16).148 Even in his theological arguments over the ritual requirements of the Old Testament, Augustine is always clear. Christians today do not keep such ceremonial customs; Jews, however, do. On the basis of the limited evidence provided by Augustine’s own writings, then, we can reasonably conclude that, at best, Augustine was aware that Jews were living in Hippo and other North African cities. Further, he displays some awareness that Jews in these areas maintained their ancestral religious practices. But neither his awareness of contemporary Jews nor knowledge of their religious practices exhibit any real intimacy or personal contacts with contemporary Jews or Judaism. Despite the lack of any intimate acquaintance with contemporary Jews or Judaism, however, Augustine does develop a sophisticated theological understanding of Judaism. That theology will emerge, not from his interactions with contemporary Jews, but from his maturing theological and exegetical concerns. Only as he brings these individual theological strands together in his Contra Faustum does Augustine actually weave together his theology of the Jewish people.

CONCLUSION While Augustine's own theology of Jews will arise primarily out of his hermeneutical concerns, the social and religious context in which he crafts his teaching is not without significance. Beginning with Theodosius I and continuing with his successors, traditional Roman religious practices progressively come under proscription by imperial law. Privileges once granted, such as state support of priesthoods, are now being denied to LORD” (Leviticus 23:34). Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references and translations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible. 148 Augustine is not unlike other Christian bishops of his century who denounced any kind of “Judaizing” practices. E.g., John Chrysostom, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, trans. Paul W. Harkins (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979).

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polytheists. Yet, Jews receive no such denials of privileges. During the pivotal period of the 390's, imperial law explicitly permits Jewish-born persons to retain their own religious customs, a privilege acknowledged in imperial legislation of 392 and again of 397. Imperial sanction of Jewish customs is not new. What is new is that such liberties are granted by pious Christian emperors. Building upon an ancient Roman foundation that extends back at least to the time of the Julius Caesar, catholic emperors continue a deeply traditional legal policy toward Jews in their realm. Hence, Augustine constructs his theology of Jews during a period when Jews still enjoy imperial sanction of their ancestral customs. Yet, during the same period, we witness that public expressions of traditional Roman practices are being increasingly restricted. Though there is no indication in Augustine's writings that he has explicit knowledge of imperial edicts regarding Jews, he does know that Jews continue to preserve their ancient customs (though his knowledge of such matters seems to be cursory at times). Despite a no more than casual acquaintance with Jews and their religious customs, Augustine does manage to craft an intricate theology of Jews and contemporary Judaism. In fact, as we shall see in Chapter 5, he formulates a theology of Jews that at the very least mirrors the social reality of his day. Augustine's own teachings on Jews provide a theological justification for the place of contemporary Jews in Christian society. Such a justification provides a theological rationale for the legal status of contemporary Jewish practices, not simply a fossilized caricature of Old Testament observances. In other words, Augustine does not simply shuttle Jews off to some distant past prior to Christ. In his theology of the Jews, he fully acknowledges and endorses the contemporary reality that Jews retain their ancestral customs. Despite this contemporary realism, however, it is Augustine's exegesis of Scripture, particularly his hermeneutic of the Old Testament, that serves as the foundation upon which he crafts his theology on Jews. His theological justification of contemporary Jewish practices, and indeed his entire theology of Jews, emerges primarily out of his biblical interpretation. Central to such a hermeneutic will be Augustine's understanding not simply of the Old Testament, but more importantly his understanding of the Mosaic Law. On this issue, over a period of several years, he develops a thoroughly Christian and sophisticated theological hermeneutic of the Mosaic Law, both prior to and after the first coming of Christ. Augustine will combine such a hermeneutic with a unique and original typological reading of Genesis 4, the story of Cain and Abel, to construct his theological outlook on Jews and their religious practices.

CAIN AND ABEL IN THE PREAUGUSTINIAN EXEGETICAL TRADITION INTRODUCTION While the legal status of Jews as delineated in the imperial legislation sets the social and religious context in which Augustine writes, his exegesis of Genesis 4:1-15, the story of Cain and Abel, orients his discussion of his theology of Jews and Judaism. As interpreted in the Contra Faustum, this biblical text is pivotal in the formulation of his theology of Judaism. In order to appreciate the centrality of this text to this theology, this chapter will examine earlier Christian interpretations of this biblical passage and the innovations that Augustine makes with his unique exegesis of the story of Cain and Abel. At first glance, the story of the two brothers, Cain and Abel, as recorded in Genesis 4:1-16, seems an unlikely candidate for playing a significant role in shaping early Christian views of Jews and Judaism. This tale is pregnant with sibling rivalry, jealousy, deceit, betrayal, and ultimately murder and its consequences. Indeed, the story of Cain and Abel contains all the ingredients of a good novel, not the elements of important theological discourse on Jews and Judaism. The tale of the two brothers is seemingly straightforward. The Genesis account records that the primordial woman, Eve, conceives and gives birth to a son, whom she names Cain. Eve conceives again and bears another son, Abel. These brothers take up two different vocations. The elder son is a “tiller of the soil,” while the younger brother tends sheep. In due time, the two brothers bring gifts to offer to God. According to Genesis 4:4-5, God has regard for Abel’s offerings but not for Cain’s. Cain reacts with anger and “his countenance fell.” Failing to heed God’s counsel, Cain entices Abel to go out into a field. There Cain slays the younger son of Eve. God asks Cain where his brother is. Cain utters the now hauntingly familiar words, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Because Cain denies his 53

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culpability in the crime of fratricide, God punishes Cain, cursing him so that Cain becomes a wanderer and a fugitive. Cain exclaims that his punishment is too great to bear. For he now fears for his own life, believing that anyone who finds him will kill him. So God places a mark on Cain so that anyone who kills Cain will himself suffer from God himself a sevenfold vengeance. Cain then flees from the presence of God and goes and dwells in the land of Nod. Clearly the story does not even mention the Jewish people, much less their religious practices or beliefs. Moreover, placed within the larger context of the book of Genesis, the story of Cain and Abel stands at the confluence of recurring themes in this biblical book. At least two leitmotifs found in the Genesis 4 text dominate the book of Genesis: sibling rivalry and the younger brother being chosen over the elder brother. Stories of deep-seated sibling rivalry reappear most notably in the stories of Jacob and Esau (Genesis 25:19-34; 27:1-28:10) and of Joseph and his eleven brothers (Genesis 37:1-36; 42:1-45:28). The younger sons of the three great patriarchs of Genesis, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are all chosen over the elder son (Genesis 17:15-22; 18:1-21; 27:27-30; 48:13-20). This last theme in particular is repeatedly played out in Christian exegesis as foreshadowing that the Church, the younger son, will be chosen over the elder son, the Jews. Drawing heavily from the stories of Ishmael and Isaac, and Jacob and Esau, early Christian theologians argue that the elder son typologically represents the Jewish people who are now replaced by the younger son, who represents the Church. Only certain sibling pairs receive special or extensive attention. The apostle Paul, for example, draws on the story of Hagar and Sarah, the two mothers of Abraham’s two sons. For Paul, these two women represent two covenants. Hagar, the slave, represents the covenant from Mount Sinai, and, thus, slavery (Galatians 4:24-25). Though not explicitly named, Sarah, the free woman, bears Isaac who was born according to the promise (Galatians 4:23). The story of Hagar and Sarah finds continued expression among Christian exegetes such as Augustine (De Civitate Dei 15.3) and Theodore of Mopsuestia (Commentary on Galatians).1 Other Christian exegetes, such as Tertullian (Adversus Judaeos 1), draw on the biblical figures of Jacob and Esau to represent the Church and the Jews respectively.

1English translation in Joseph W. Trigg, Biblical Interpretation (Wilmington,

Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1988), 172-177.

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In the Christian exegetical tradition prior to Augustine, there are scattered instances where a similar relationship is seen in the pair of Abel and Cain. At times, Abel is seen as a type of Christ. Occasionally, a Church Father makes a passing comment, suggesting that Cain is a type of the Jewish people (e.g., Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos 5). Such comments are usually brief and seldom extensively discussed, much less developed exegetically. This particular theme—Cain as a type of the Jews--I regard merely as a sub-theme, at best, in the Christian exegetical tradition prior to Augustine. I call it a sub-theme because it does not dominate Christian discussion of the story of Cain and only occasionally receives a passing remark. As I seek to show in this study, the use of the Cain and Abel story to draw detailed correlations between the Jews and Cain only comes to the fore in Augustine’s Contra Faustum. His exegesis of Genesis 4 in this particular work shows Augustine drawing on and yet making a crucial break with the Christian exegetical tradition. This break also enables him to make a significant contribution to emerging Christian attitudes towards Jews and Judaism. To illuminate the significance of Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis 4, this chapter will sketch the exegetical tradition prior to Augustine. Rather than review exhaustively the references to the story of Cain and Abel, this chapter will trace the exegetical trends in both Jewish and Christian interpretation of the story. Specifically, this chapter will explore two main lines of interpretation: the tropological and the typological. The tropological refers to the moral or salutary lessons that might be drawn from the biblical figures of Cain and Abel. Such an exegetical approach dominates in such key interpreters as Philo of Alexandria and Ambrose of Milan. The tropological approach dominates early exegesis of Genesis 4, both in the Jewish and in the Christian exegetical tradition. Pre-Augustinian Christian interpreters introduce a new, yet minor theme, in the history of exegesis of Genesis 4 when they use the character of Cain as a type of the Jewish people. Though this typology is never dominant, references to it lie scattered throughout the writing of early Christian exegetes. Augustine will be the first to supply a detailed typological link between Cain and the Jewish people.

THE SALUTARY FUNCTION OF EXEGESIS The story of Cain and Abel presents a number of problems that have captured the imagination of ancient Jewish and Christian exegetes for many centuries. These interpreters long recognized that, though the narrative of

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Genesis 4 appears to be rather straightforward, the text actually leaves what I call huge gaps in the narrative.2 Specifically, the narrative leaves unanswered several crucial questions. These questions include: why was Abel’s sacrifice acceptable to God and not Cain’s?; what was the nature of Cain’s punishment?; and what was the mark that God placed upon Cain? These sorts of questions litter the exegetical landscape prior to Augustine. Exegetical attempts to fill in the gaps generated by the narrative are not meant to be exegesis for its own sake, however. Whether trying to resolve unanswered questions or focusing on specific sections of the biblical narrative, the ancient interpreters regularly seek to elicit salutary or moral lessons from the texts. What is salutary might be defined as what serves the formation of moral excellence and the cultivation of virtue. Frances Young correctly contends that the present divorce between biblical exegesis and practice would have been unthinkable for the Church Fathers.3 A similar dynamic is no less evident in Jewish biblical exegesis.4 Origen, one of the greatest biblical exegetes in the patristic period, perhaps best exemplifies this approach among the Church Fathers. Origen regards a proper understanding of Scripture as essential for both Christian theology and Christian practice.5 He makes this point most clearly in the prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs. Origen here insists that Scripture helps to cultivate the interior or spiritual life. His exegesis, then, is

2There are also numerous textual problems in the Hebrew text. For highlights of the textual problems in the Hebrew text see Jack P. Lewis, “The Offering of Abel (Gen 4:4): A History of Interpretation,” Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 37, no. 4 (1994), 481-482. These textual problems present numerous difficulties in translation. The Aramaic Targums, for example, are reflective of these textual problems (see Jouette M. Bassler, “Cain and Abel in the Palestinian Targums. A Brief Note on an Old Controversy,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 17 (June 1986), 56-64. See also Geza Vermes, Post-Biblical Jewish Studies. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity, (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975), 92-127. 3Frances M. Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 4. 4E.g., see James L. Kugel, “Cain and Abell in Fact and Fiction: Genesis 4:1-16,” in Hebrew Bible or Old Testament?, edited by Roger Brooks and John J. Collins (Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame, 1990), 172-176. 5For further discussion on this salutary dimension in Origen see Karen Jo Torjesen, Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Method in Origen’s Exegesis (Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 1985) and “‘Body’, ‘Soul’, and ‘Spirit’ in Origen’s Theory of Exegesis.” Anglican Theological Review 67 (1985), 17-30.

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aimed at aiding the Christian to grow in the love and knowledge of God.6 For example, Origen encourages his readers to stretch themselves beyond the “carnal sense” of the text so that they “may be able to make clear a wholesome meaning in regard to the name and the nature of love, and one that is apt for the building up of chastity.”7 Thus, it is the salutary lessons drawn from the biblical text that dominate Origen’s exegetical landscape. This salutary approach to exegesis is by no means unique to Origen. In the case of Origen, as of other Church Fathers, this salutary approach is profoundly shaped by Greco-Roman rhetorical education. Young notes that a common assumption of ancient culture was that literature was to be read for moral improvement.8 In this regard, Patristic exegetes are following the lead of the rhetorical schools in seeking to discern the moral import of the text.9 Regardless of whether a Christian exegete follows the so-called allegorical method or the so-called literal or historical method, the purpose of exegesis is the same: to draw salutary lessons from the text.10 Thus, the primary purpose of scriptural interpretation in the Patristic period was the cultivation of a way of life made known through holy Scripture.11 Though Christians very early rejected Halakah, they replaced it with an emphasis on moral teaching as 6For a similar dynamic at play in Patristic theology see Ellen T. Charry By

the Renewing of Your Minds: The Pastoral Function of Christian Doctrine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). 7English translation in Origen, The Song of Songs: Commentary and Homilies, trans. R.P. Lawson, Ancient Christian Writers, vol. 26 (Westminster, Maryland: The Newman Press, 1957), 24. 8Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, 248; 81. See also her article, “The Rhetorical Schools and their Influence on Patristic Exegesis,” in Rowan Williams, ed., The Making of Orthodoxy. Essays in honour of Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 182-99. 9For examples in classical literature, see Plutarch’s “On the Education of Children” (De liberis educandis) and “How the Young Should Study Poetry” (Quomodo Adolscens Poetas Audire Debeat) in Moralia, trans. Frank Cole Babbitt, Loeb Classical Library, 3 vols. [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1961]). 10Modern scholars have frequently attempted to draw sharp distinctions between the Alexandrian and Antiochene schools. In Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, Frances Young has done a masterful job in demolishing the opposition normally imposed upon the Christian exegetical schools in antiquity. 11Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, 215.

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enshrined in Scripture.12 These early Christian exegetes not only mined passages from the Psalms, Proverbs, and the gospels for moral exhortation, they also mined precious moral nuggets from the characters in biblical narratives, taken as representative of models of virtue and righteousness.13 The influence of the rhetorical schools is felt again in this regard. This educational tradition insists that models of virtue are to be impressed upon the minds of its students. Providing “moral narratives” is a crucial element of Greco-Roman education.14 Plutarch’s Lives is an example. In the Christian tradition, Averil Cameron notes, Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Moses portrays Moses as a type of Christian spirituality. Cameron contends that Gregory’s use of Moses is characteristic of Christian writing in general in that Moses is presented as a figure or ‘pattern’ of spiritual virtue.15 Such insistence upon employing biblical characters as models of virtue to be emulated will dominate the exegetical stage for the story of Cain and Abel. Although the educative function of classical literary interpretation unquestionably influences and molds Christian exegesis, early Christian interpretation also has antecedents in the Jewish biblical exegetical tradition. Thus, both streams converge to shape, in large measure, early Christian exegesis of Genesis 4:1-16. As we will see later in this chapter, the figurative use of Cain as a type of the Jewish people receives scant attention, while salutary concerns dominate the exegetical tradition. In other words, according to the Christian exegetes of late antiquity, the figures of Cain and Abel function, over all, tropologically.

CAIN AND ABEL AS MORAL EXEMPLARS Both Jewish and Christian exegetes frequently employ the biblical figures of Cain and Abel as representatives of two kinds of persons. They lift up Abel as the one who represents virtue and righteousness, Cain as the one who represents vice. In other words, the two biblical figures are most often portrayed as contrasting moral exemplars. Ambrose, bishop of Milan in the late fourth century, is typical of such an approach. He writes: 12Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, 203, 248. 13Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, 248. 14Young, Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture, 235. 15Averil Cameron, Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire. The Development of

Christian Discourse (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1991), 56.

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We have in Cain and Abel two contrasting characters. One was just, innocent and loyal (iustus innocens pius). Because of the acceptability of his offerings to God he incurred the hatred of his brother and, while still a youth, become a victim of the sin of parricide (parricida). The other brother was unjust, evil, and disloyal (iniquus sceleratus impius) (De Cain et Abel 2.9.37).16

Here, Ambrose gives voice to a common assumption that dominates the late antique Jewish and Christian exegetical traditions. Abel serves as the model for people to emulate; Cain serves as the example that one must shun.17 Though the two traditions have slightly different emphases, both the Jewish and the Christian exegetical tradition stress that the names, Abel and Cain, illustrate contrasting virtues and vices. The names, then, illuminate the very characters of the two brothers.18 An early Jewish attempt to supply definitions of the names can be found in the Alexandrian Platonist Philo. Cain, according to Philo, means “possession,” because “he thinks he possesses all things” (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini I.2; see also De Cherubim XX.65).19 In sharp contrast to Cain stands Abel, whose name

16All English translations from Ambrose are from “Cain and Abel,” in Hexameron, Paradise, and Cain and Abel, trans. John J. Savage, Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1961) 42: 357-437. See also Jerome, Homily 76. 17An exception to this exegetical trend can be found among a gnostic group called the Cainites who viewed Cain as the model to be emulated. For a description of this group see Epiphanius’ (c.315-403) account in his Panarion 38.1.38.8.6. English translation in Frank Williams, trans., The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (London: E.J. Brill, 1987). Williams notes (248n) that this section is based on Irenaeus Adversus omnes haereses 1.3.1. 18Etymology, deriving meanings from names, is commonplace in late classical culture deriving in particular from Stoic practice. (I thank William S. Babcock for this insight.) 19All English translations of De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini are from F.H. Colson and The Rev. G.H. Whitaker, trans. Philo (Loeb Classical Library, Philo II [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press], 1958). Josephus proposes a similar understanding when he defines Cain to mean “acquisition” (Josephus, Jewish Antiquities I.52). He further contends that Abel’s name means “nothing” (Jewish Antiquities I.52). English translation of Jewish Antiquities from H.St.J. Thackeray,

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means “one who refers (all things) to God,” according to Philo (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini I.3). Philo presents, then, a sharp contrast in the meanings of the names Cain and Abel; and this contrast will further buttress his argument for insisting that Cain represents vice and Abel represents virtue, a theme in Philo which we will explore later in this chapter. The Church Fathers also furnish meanings for the biblical names, frequently to present contrasting characters. One of the earliest Christian references to the definitions of the names comes from the so-called Clementine Homilies. The writer translates Abel to mean “grief” (Clementine Homilies 26). Not unlike Philo, the writer defines Cain as meaning both “possession and envy” (Clementine Homilies 25).20 Notice that while the Clementine Homilies show some similarity to Jewish interpretations, the Christian writer adds another moral dimension to Cain’s name by introducing the theme of envy. The theme of envy occurs repeatedly among the Fathers as the source of Cain’s crime.21 Eusebius of Caesarea argues along similar lines. Eusebius contends that the Greeks translate Cain’s name as “jealousy” (Preparatio evangelica 11.6.24).22 Eusebius further argues that Abel’s name means “sorrow” because he brought sorrow to his parents (Preparatio evangelica 11.6.24). Another Christian exegete, Hilary of Poitiers, contrasts two emotional states as exhibited in the names. According to Hilary, Abel’s name means “weeping,” which stands in sharp antithesis to Cain’s name, which means “laughter” (Tractatus Mysteriorum 6). Thus, in translating the names as representations of contrasting moral characters, the Josephus: Jewish Antiquities, Books I-IV, Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1961). 20 English translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers (Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, Michigan: T&T Clark Eerdmans Publishing, Co., 1995), 8: 243. 21The relationship between envy and Cain runs throughout early Christian exegetical tradition. Examples include Clement of Rome who argues that envy and jealousy led to the murder of his brother (1 Clement 4.1-7). Similarly, in reporting the views of a Gnostic sect, Irenaeus argued that Cain was the first to manifest jealousy and death (Adv. haer. 1.30.0). Likewise, Jerome declared that envy caused the first fratricide (Hom. 76.1). Basil supplies the source of this envy by contending that Cain learned envy from the devil (Homily 11, Concerning Envy). Cf. Basil’s comments to Jewish interpretation that contends that Cain was influenced by the devil (cf., e.g., Apocalypse of Abraham 24:5, English translation in James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigraphia (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1985), vol. 2. 22English translation from Edwin Hamilton Gifford, Preparation for the Gospel, 2 vols. (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1981), 2: 517.

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Church Fathers, like Philo, employ their definitions to strengthen their presentation of the salutary import of Genesis 4:1-16. Not only their names, but more importantly the very figures of Abel and Cain are viewed as windows into the characteristics of virtuous and wicked persons. As early as the first century of the Common Era, the characters of Cain and Abel are regularly employed as moral exemplars for religious believers. Abel is frequently included in lists of righteous men. One of the first indications of this trend is found in 4 Maccabees, written prior to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 CE.23 In the eighteenth chapter, readers are encouraged to suffer patiently for righteousness sake, following the examples of such men as Abel, Isaac, and Joseph (18:11). Clearly in this text, Abel is regarded, in effect, as a martyr. This theme of martyrdom is picked up early in Christian literature. Born from the womb of Judaism, Christianity from its infancy fed upon the rich milk of Jewish sacred texts for its own spiritual nourishment. Not surprisingly, then, the Christian material that later was canonized as the New Testament overflows with this nourishing milk, which abounds in biblical images and figures. For example, one cannot get past the very first verse of Matthew, the first canonical book of the New Testament, without encountering the great Old Testament figures of David and Abraham.24 Indeed, Old Testament imagery and allusions lurk behind virtually every line of such New Testament books as Matthew and Hebrews. As recorded by Matthew even the very words of Jesus drip with biblical imagery and references. Accordingly, Jesus warns his followers:

23The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, 341 AP. 24In this book, I will use the traditional Christian designation of “Old

Testament” rather than the modern convention of “Hebrew Scripture” for two primary reasons. First, neither the Jewish nor Christian traditions have traditionally referred to the Hebrew text as the “Hebrew Scripture.” The traditional Jewish designation for this body of literature has been Tanakh. The traditional Christian designation for this body of material has been the Old Testament since the Patristic period. Two, though both the Jewish and Christian traditions have shared a common collection of sacred material, both traditions have not only arranged the various books differently, they have also interpreted the texts differently, each seeking to meet the religious needs of their respective faith communities. Since this book focuses on tracing theological ideas in the Christian tradition, the use of “Old Testament” is intended to underscore a specifically Christian interpretation of this text.

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THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar (Matthew 23:34-35; cf. Luke 11:51).

Here, not unlike 4 Maccabees, Jesus includes Abel as one who has been wrongly murdered and who thus joins the ranks of those slain for righteousness sake. Later, in the mid-third century, Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, stresses the same theme. Imperially instigated persecutions of Christians bookend Cyprian’s episcopacy. Shortly after he became bishop in 249, the Decian persecution (249-251), the first empire-wide persecution of Christians, broke out. During the next round of persecution under Emperor Valerian (257-260), Cyprian himself became a martyr. Written toward the end of the Decian persecution, his De dominica oratione elevates Abel to the status of the proto-martyr (De dominica oratione 24). This theme occurs again and again in Cyprian’s writings (Ad Fortunatum, De exhortatione matyrii 11; De bono patientiae 10; Epistulae 6.2; 59.2). Further the Carthaginian bishop encourages his flock to follow the example of Abel. He writes, “Let us, beloved, imitate righteous Abel, who initiated martyrdoms (qui initiauit martyria), he first being slain for righteousness’ sake (Epistula 55.5).”25 In Cyprian, then, we find discernible echoes of 4 Maccabees 4:11 and Matthew 23:34-35. Michael Andrew Fahey notes that for Cyprian Abel becomes the model for those who suffer martyrdom for their faith.26 Thus, not unlike 4 Maccabees, Cyprian uses the example of Abel to exhort and encourage a beleaguered faith community, battered by the storms of persecution. Though not all writers, either Jewish or Christian, employed Abel as the model of martyrdom, there appears to be unanimous agreement that Abel is representative of righteousness. Fahey notes that Cyprian almost always refers to Abel as iustus and once to Abel as Abel pacificus et iustus.27 And earlier, in the late second century, Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, had contended that Abel prefigures both a gathering in of a righteous race of 25English translation Ante-Nicene Fathers, trans. Ernest Wallis (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing, Co., 1995) 5: 348. 26Michael Andrew Fahey, Cyprian and the Bible: A Study in Third-Century Exegesis (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mahr, 1971), 560. 27Fahey, 559.

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people (Adversus Haereses 4.25.2; 4.24.4) and the Just One, i.e., Christ himself (Adversus Haereses 4.25.2).28 A special emphasis on Abel’s righteousness often appears in interpretations of his offering to God. Typically, Christian writers regard Abel as the brother who offered right and proper sacrifices to God. The New Testament book of Hebrews germinates this seed early. In Chapter 11, Abel heads a distinguished roll call of giants of faith which includes among many others Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses. The author remembers Abel, who through faith offered to God “a more acceptable sacrifice” (Hebrews 11:4). According to the biblical text, because of his faith, Abel still speaks to us today. In other words, Abel provides an example of acceptable faith that Christians should imitate in their lives. Clearly salutary exhortation comes to the fore in this mode of interpreting Abel. A similar emphasis on the righteousness of Abel’s offering appears in early Jewish writers as well. The Apostolic Constitutions, which date from the third century, contain a number of prayers that are believed to have originated in the synagogue. Scholars, notably Kaufmann Kohler, W. Bousset, and E.R. Goodenough, have recognized these prayers as deriving from Jewish liturgy. In particular prayers in books seven and eight contain the same kind of material as found in the prayers of Diaspora Judaism.29 For example, Kohler cites a prayer found in book seven as a clear example of a synagogal prayer adapted by the Church. This particular prayer contains the phrase, “‘O God of our holy and perfect fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’” Kohler contends that these words exhibit a close relationship between book seven of the Apostolic Constitutions and Jewish prayers.30 Even more germane to our interests is Kohler’s discussion of the 28See Prudentius (348-c.410), Hamartigenia, English translation in Fathers of

the Church 52: 43-44. 29For a discussion of the scholarly debate, see David A. Fiensy, Prayers Alleged to be Jewish. An Examination of the Constitutiones Apostolorum (Chico, California: Scholars Press, 1985), especially 1-17. See also the specific works that Fiensy notes. Kaufmann Kohler, “The Origin and Composition of the Eighteen Benedictions,” Hebrew Union College Annual, Volume I, 1924, Reprinted in Contributions to the Scientific Study of Jewish Liturgy (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1970). W. Bousset, “Eine jüdische Gebetssammlung in siebenten Buch der apostolischen Konstitution, Nachrichten von der Könglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttingen: Philogische-historische Klasse 1915 (Berlin, 1916) 438-85. E.R. Goodenough’s By Light, Light (New Haven/London: Yale University Press/Oxford University Press, 1935) 306-58. 30Kohler, 75.

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passage, “And while indeed from Abel, as from a devout man, you favorably received a sacrifice” (Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers 12.5331; Apostolic Constitutions 8.12). In the same passage, Cain’s character is sharply contrasted to Abel’s. Cain is referred to as “an accursed man.” Further, Abel’s sacrifice is also included among those offered by other righteous men, such as Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Moses (Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers 6.4; Apostolic Constitutions 7.37). In both passages, Christians appear to have appropriated a Jewish understanding of the story of Cain and Abel. Consequently, the Apostolic Constitutions furnish another occasion where Christian interpreters have borrowed from their Jewish counterparts in exegeting the text of Genesis 4. In other words, the Apostolic Constitutions show that certain Jewish exegetical threads influence Christian interpretation of Genesis 4. The use of Cain as a moral exemplar of what one should shun reveals a further parallelism in Jewish and Christian interpretation of the Genesis text. Again, this line of exegesis begins early. The deuterocanonical book, Wisdom of Solomon, dating probably from the latter part of the first century BCE,32 provides one of the earliest examples. The writer discusses the vices associated with failing to heed the gentle counsel of wisdom. The author alludes to Cain when he writes that, when “an unrighteous man” departed from wisdom, “he perished because in rage he killed his brother” (Wisdom of Solomon 10:3). The New Testament writers of I John and Jude follow suit, pointing to Cain as an example that godly people should not follow. In discussing the importance and characteristics of love toward others, the Johannine writer cautions Christians not to imitate Cain “who was from the evil one” and murdered his brother (I John 3:11). The writer explains Cain’s vile crime on the grounds that “his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous.” Similarly, the writer of Jude deplores those who walk in the way of wickedness and thus follow the way of Cain (Jude 11). Toward the end of the book, the author exhorts Christians to keep themselves in the faith and in the love of God (Jude 20-21). The implication is clear. The Christian must flee from the vices of wicked men such as Cain and instead cleave to the godly life. Later, Church Fathers, such as Methodius and Basil of Caesarea lift up the vices of Cain as an example that 31James H. Charlesworth has separated these synagogal prayers out into

Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers (The Old Testament Pseudepigraphia, vol. 2. [Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, 1985]. All English translations and citations of the synagogal prayers are from this work. 32The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha, 57 AP.

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Christians are to avoid. In Concerning Free Will, Methodius (d. ca. 311) tells Christians not to imitate the jealousy of Cain.33 Later in the same century, Basil, bishop of Caesarea, argues that Cain was “inflamed with jealousy” from the devil and admonishes his hearers to “flee from this disease” (Homily 11, Concerning Envy). In both cases the emphasis falls on the avoidance of vice and the cultivation of virtue. Thus, beginning very early and extending far into the Patristic period, Christian writers employ the Old Testament figure of Cain to issue moral exhortations. Jewish interpreters employ Cain in a comparable fashion. Codified around 200 CE, the Mishnah, the formative work of rabbinic Judaism, presents Cain as a negative example to all. In discussing capital cases, this rabbinic text quotes Genesis 4:10 where Abel’s blood cries out to God. Attentive to the precise details of the Hebrew text, the rabbis note that the text reads “bloods”, not simply “blood.” Immediately the rabbis issue this warning: Therefore but a single man was created in the world, to teach that if any man has caused a single soul to perish from Israel Scripture imputes it to him as though he had caused a whole world to perish; and if any man saves alive a single soul from Israel Scripture imputes it to him as though he had saved alive a whole world (Sanhedrin 4.5).34

Here the rabbinic writers employ Cain’s example to issue a strong moral exhortation to proper conduct toward one’s fellow human beings. Thus, the Mishnah incorporates the wicked example of Cain not simply to engender proper virtues but more broadly to inculcate proper moral behavior toward others. Stretching over a period of several hundred years, then, both Jewish and Christian interpreters take the figures of Cain and Abel as moral exemplars. The characters of these two brothers serve as beacons, one positive and one negative, to religious followers. In this regard, Jewish and Christian exegetes are employing these biblical characters in comparable ways. Though such texts as the Apostolic Constitutions suggest that Jewish interpretation had an influence upon Christian usage of Cain and Abel, the 33English translation in Ante-Nicene Fathers, trans. William R. Clark

(Edinburgh and Grand Rapids, Michigan: T & T Clark and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993), 6: 356. 34English translation from Herbert Danby, ed. and trans., The Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933), 388.

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most profound influence of Jewish exegesis upon Christian interpretation of Genesis 4 stems from the writings of Philo, who exercises a direct influence on the fourth-century Christian writer Ambrose. These two interpreters produce the most extensive exegetical comments on Genesis 4:1-16 found in antiquity. Philo, with Ambrose following his lead, mines the rich vein of the story of Cain and Abel for precious nuggets of moral exhortation.

THE SALUTARY ACCENT IN PHILO AND AMBROSE The salutary or moral accent is especially dominant in the writings of Philo and Ambrose. Philo furnishes us with the first extensive discussion of the Genesis 4:1-16 story. Though references and allusions to the passage are scattered throughout his writings, Philo pays particular attention to the Genesis text in his Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin and De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini. Almost three centuries later Philo’s interpretation will exert a profound influence on the exegesis of Ambrose. This influence is no accident. After his ordination to the episcopacy, Ambrose embarked on an extensive study of Scripture with the priest Simplicianus. Ambrose’s reading list included not only important Greek Fathers such as Origen and Basil but also Philo.35 This study forcibly shaped Ambrose’s own approach to the interpretation of Scripture. Enzo Lucchesi estimates that Ambrose uses Philo on some 600 occasions.36 Runia further notes that Ambrose either paraphrases or translates five of Philo’s treatises, including the De Cain et Abel.37 Both exegetes interpret Cain and Abel as two very different characters, one virtuous and one wicked. Both interpreters universalize the two different characters to represent the two kinds of people who are in the world. Paying minute attention to biblical detail, Philo notes that in Genesis 35David T. Runia, Philo in Early Christian Literature: A Survey (Minneapolis/

Assen, The Netherlands: Fortress Press/Van Gorcum & Comp, 1993), 291. 36Cited in David T. Runia, Philo and the Church Fathers (Leiden/New York: E.J. Brill, 1995), 151 n26. See also Enzo Lucchesi, L’usage de Philo dans l’oeuvre exegetique de Saint Ambroise: une ‘Quellenforschung” relative aux Commentaires d’Ambroise sur la Genese, ALGHJ i (Leiden, 1977). 37Runia 1993: 292. For extensive parallels between Ambrose and Philo see the notes of Caroli Schenkl’s critical edition in Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasicorum Lationorum 32.1: 339-409.

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4:2, the younger brother, Abel, is mentioned prior to the elder brother, Cain. For Philo this ordering of the brothers is no accident. Rather it points to an important truth. He contends that: First, (Scripture) does not mean that he is first by nature who happens to be the first to be perceived, but he who comes in his time and with sound morals. Second, as there were two persons, good and evil, He [i.e., God] turned toward the good man, looking upon him because He is a lover of goodness and virtue, and first seeing him to be more inclined toward that side in the order of nature, He deprecates and turns away from the evil man (Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin I.61).38

In terms of worth, virtue is prior to vice. Similarly, Ambrose draws on the idea of two contrasting characters of human beings. In Ambrose’s scheme, Abel is “just, innocent and loyal.” In contrast, the older brother is “unjust, evil, and disloyal” (De Cain et Abel 2.9.37). By setting up such a clear-cut distinction between the virtuous and wicked, both exegetes will employ such a sharp contrast to highlight virtues and vices. Philo discusses at length the contrasts between virtue and vice (e.g., De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini IV.15-17). Following the example of his mentor, Ambrose proceeds with a lengthy discussion of virtues and vices (De Cain et Abel 1.4.14).39 Both Philo and Ambrose intimate that neither virtues nor vices are simply innate, however. Rather virtues must be carefully cultivated. Philo insists that a person must cultivate the virtues of the soul (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini VIII.39) and must train his reason (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini XXIII.85). 40 The two vocations of the brothers lend support for this theme. Both exegetes elevate the prestige of shepherding over the vocation of tilling the soil, though Ambrose acknowledges that tilling the soil comes first in our experience (De Cain et Abel 1.3.11). Philo does not negate the importance of tilling the soil for “God had appointed toil as the beginning of all goodness and true worth to men” (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini VI.35). Philo further insists that good does indeed come through toil (De sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 38English translations of Quaetiones et Solutiones in Genesin are from Ralph

Marcus, trans. Philo (Loeb Classical Library, Supplement I [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press], 1953). 39See Jerome’s comment that Cain should have made but did not make “virtue his model” (Homily 76.1). 40Ambrose draws on medical imagery by insisting that one should flee to God, the One who can heal our passions (animae passiones) (De Cain et Abel 1.10.40).

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VII.37). Nevertheless, shepherding is regarded as the higher vocation. Philo makes this point explicit when he insists that: Even though the righteous man was younger in time than the wicked one, still he was older in activity. Wherefore now, when their activities are appraised, he is placed first in order. For one of them labours and takes care of living beings even though they are irrational, gladly undertaking the pastoral work which is preparatory to rulership and kingship. But the other occupies himself with earthly and inanimate things (Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin 1.59 [36]).

In other words, shepherding symbolically encodes a higher form of vocation, tilling the soil a lowly one. Notice that the discussion is not so much concerned with the relative merits of vocations as it is concentrated on the contrast between them as symbolic exemplars of virtue and vice. The vocations, then, are employed by Ambrose and Philo to underscore a salutary thrust in their exegesis. The types of sacrifices offered by the brothers provide rich exegetical fodder for the discussion of the lives of virtue and vice. Both Philo and Ambrose note that according to Genesis 4:3, Cain brought, not first-fruits, but simply fruits. Both exegetes use this distinction to further support their discussion of the contrast between the virtuous life and the wicked life. For Philo, the question of the first-fruits leads him to take up the instructions given in Exodus 13:11-13.41 The Exodus text clearly stresses that the first fruits and the firstborn are to be set aside for the Lord. Philo interprets this to mean that one is to offer God the best that one can offer. Thus, Abel offers both the firstlings and the fat. This sacrifice represents “that gladness and richness of the soul” that “should be set apart for God” (De Sacrificiis Abelis et Caini 32.136). Similarly, Ambrose insists that “fat” connotes the idea of “finest,” which he contrasts to Cain’s sacrifice which was “thin and scrawny” (tenuis et exilis) (De Cain et Abel 2.5.17). Abel refused to withhold anything from God (Ambrose, Epistula 22.9). Unlike his

41“And when the LORD has brought you into the land of the Canaanites,

as he swore to you and your ancestors, and shall give it to you, you shall set apart to the LORD all that first opens the womb. All the firstborn [or firstlings RSV] of your livestock that are males shall be the LORD's. Every firstborn of a donkey you shall redeem with a sheep, or if you will not redeem it you must break its neck. Every first-born male among your children you shall redeem” (Exodus13:11-13).

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brother, then, Cain offers only his leftovers to God.42 Philo further stresses the contrasting sacrifices when he argues: [Abel’s] offering was living, Cain’s was lifeless. His was first in age and value, Cain’s but second. His had strength and superior fatness, Cain’s had but weakness” (De Sacrificiis Abelis and Caini 2.7.88).

This contrast of sacrifices led Philo, with Ambrose following suit, to further underscore their common insistence on the virtuous life. The virtuous life, however, is not lived simply under one’s own direction. Both interpreters insist that the virtuous person will cleave to God. Philo draws on the contrasting characters not simply to discuss virtue, then, but also to describe two contrasting examples of human responses to God. He makes a crucial distinction between lovers of God, represented by Abel, and lovers of self, represented by Cain. Philo reasons that “Scripture manifests a distinction between the lover of self and the lover of God. For one of them took for himself the fruit of the first fruits and impiously thought God worthy (only) of the second fruits” (Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin 1.60). Likewise, Ambrose contends that just as Abel cleaved to God, so, too, does the righteous person cleave to the Holy One (De Cain et Abel 1.3.10). The bishop further emphasizes that the things that belong to heaven should take precedence over earthly goods (De Sacrificiis Cain et Abel 2.6.23). Thus, both exegetes employ the sacrifices of the two brothers to extend the discussion of a virtuous life, lived for God, and not for one’s self or under the domination of the passions. As one of the first exegetes, either Jewish or Christian, to offer an extended commentary on Genesis 4:1-16, Philo stands at the headwaters of a strong current that focuses on the moral or salutary import that can be drawn from Genesis 4. Ambrose himself clearly swims in the same current. These two interpreters, then, perhaps best exemplify the dominant interpretation of this text prior to Augustine. This current runs swiftly with salutary lessons, found not only in the sacrifices of Cain and Abel and the order of their birth, but also in the punishment of Cain.

42John Chrysostom also underscores that Cain’s offerings were second

rate (Homilies on John, homily 13, 1.1.47 and Homilies on Timothy, homily 61.8.499).

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THE SALUTARY IMPORT OF CAIN’S PUNISHMENTS Even in his banishment from before God’s face and his sentence by the Almighty, Cain’s life continues to provide a basis for moral and religious exhortations, a theme noted by Philo and stressed by several Church Fathers. Cain’s famous reply, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9) elicits a call to sinners to flee to the mercy of God. Christian exegetes repeatedly note that Cain refuses to admit his guilt before God. Basil and John Chrysostom, for example, note that God’s questioning of Cain (Genesis 4:9) affords him the opportunity for repentance (Basil, Epistula 260; John Chrysostom, Homilies on Genesis 19.6). Drawing on medical imagery, Basil contends that “the Physician [i.e., God] presented himself to him, in order that the sick man might flee to him for refuge” (Epistula 260).43 Likewise, Chrysostom observes that Cain rejected the healing that God offered (Homilies on Genesis 19.14). The implication is obvious; the sinner should run to God for mercy and forgiveness. However, by denying his guilt and refusing to repent, Cain condemns himself (Chrysostom, Concerning the Statues, Homily 12). Further, both Ambrose and Jerome detect insolence and insult in Cain’s reply to God (De Cain et Abel 2.9.28 and Epistula 36.2). By refusing to admit his culpability in the murder of Abel, Cain brings upon himself a harsher punishment than if he had repented before God. Yet, even in describing the severity of Cain’s punishment, the theme of mercy dominates the discussion of Cain’s sentence. Philo himself notes this mercy. Though Cain has committed a most severe crime, God offers him “amnesty” by imposing “a benevolent and kindly law concerning the first (crime) on judges, not that they may not destroy evil men, but that by hesitating a little and showing patience they may cleave to mercy rather than to cruelty” (Philo, Quaestiones et Solutiones in Genesin I.76). Cyril of Jerusalem detects this when he stresses that, though Cain’s sin was great, his sentence was light (Catecheses 2.7). Ambrose places the accent on God’s desire to correct the sinner (qui mauult peccatoris correctionem quam mortem) (De Cain et Abel 2.9.38). Instead of immediate death to the murderer, God enjoins that Cain shall live a life of wandering and fear. This sentence carries the subtle implication that God’s mercy in imposing this punishment was meant to assist Cain in his repentance. According to Ambrose, God 43English translation from A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene

Fathers, Series 2, vol. 8, trans. Blomfield Jackson (Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, Michigan: T & T Clark/Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989), 8: 297.

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desires “the wanderer” have time for reflection so inspired by God’s kindness he might change his ways. Ambrose continues, though the kindness to Cain was not great, “[y]et it was enough to scotch (ad correctionem) the foolish actions of a stupid man” (De Cain et Abel 2.9.35). Cain’s punishment, in Ambrose’s eyes, serves as a corrective sentence to lead Cain back to God. Other Christian exegetes, such as Chrysostom and Ambrosiaster, stress that Cain’s punishment as a whole serves as an example that Christians should not emulate. Chrysostom warns that: The remission of punishment for your [i.e., Cain’s] whole life will be instructive for succeeding generations, and what you have committed alone, with no one else present, everyone will know about who sees your lament and trepidation as if you were shouting aloud by your bodily tremors and saying and communicating to everyone: Let no one else be rash enough to do the terrible things I have done lest they receive the same terrible punishments (Homilies on Genesis 19.19).44

In other words, Cain’s life in and of itself will be an example to all.45 Chrysostom in this passage appears to echo a statement found in Midrash. According to R. Rab, God “‘turned Cain into a sign [an example] for murderers’” (Genesis Rabbah 22.12.4).46 Indeed, a similar emphasis finds a certain resonance in Ambrosiaster who contends that Cain’s punishment of fear and trembling will serve as a example of an evil man (Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti XXVII.4). Consequently, every aspect of Cain’s life, including his punishment, becomes instructive according to late antique exegetes. Clearly, the primary theme of the exegetical tradition prior to Augustine accents the moral or salutary lessons that can be culled from the story of Cain and Abel. Both Jewish and Christian exegetes underscore this exegetical thrust. Christian exegetes, however, also introduce a sub-theme into the exegetical tradition. With this sub-theme, they depart from Jewish exegesis in a most profound way. Specifically, certain Church Fathers make 44All English translations to Chrysostom’s Homilies on Genesis are from Robert C. Hall, trans., Saint John Chrysostom. Homilies on Genesis 18-45, The Fathers of

the Church, vol. 82 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press), 1990). 45See also Chrysostom’s Discourses Against Judaizing Christians 8.2.10. 46English translations and numbers are from Jacob Neusner, ed. and trans. Genesis Rabbah. The Judaic Commentary of the Book of Genesis. A New American Translation, vol. 1 (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1985).

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occasional comments that identify Abel as a type of the Church and Cain as a type of the Jewish people. This sub-theme is never fully developed, however. Normally, this allegorical use of Cain as a figure of the Jewish people focuses narrowly either on the contrast between the sacrifices of the two brothers or on the theme of the younger son being chosen over the elder son.

CAIN AS REPRESENTATIVE OF THE JEWS The sub-theme that associates Cain with the Jewish people depends heavily on allegory as understood by the early Church Fathers. For these Fathers, Scripture was a rich, inexhaustible treasure chest, out of which one brings “what is new and what is old” (see Matthew 13:52). Scripture, then, contains a mira profunditas. Therefore, there is no one correct interpretation of Scripture, or, as Andrew Louth more aptly puts it, there is no one “objective” truth to be discerned. The early Church saw Scripture as a treasure chest waiting to be waiting to be explored. Specifically, the Church Fathers seek to discover the riches that disclose the mystery of Jesus Christ.47 Accordingly, Christianity is not first of all a religion of the Book. Rather the heart of the Christian faith is the mystery of Christ himself. Therefore, according to prominent Patristic writers, all of Scripture has been designed to reveal Christ. Christ, then, becomes the hermeneutical key to unlocking the Old Testament.48 To modern biblical interpreters, taking Christ as the hermeneutical key appears to be an illegitimate interpretation of the Old Testament, because it departs from the true meaning of the Hebrew text. Rowan Greer offers an important corrective to this view. Greer suggests that a dialectic exists between sacred texts and religious communities in the ancient world, 47Andrew Louth correctly insists that the quest for the one correct

interpretation is a modern preoccupation, not a Patristic one (Discerning the Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology [Oxford: Clerendon Press, 1983], 101-102). 48For the theological significance of the early Christians retention of Jewish Scripture, see Rowan A. Greer and James L. Kugel and, Early Biblical Interpretation (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986), 111-112. For an early example of biblical exegesis that is rich in allegorical, or more specifically, typological, exegesis that makes connections between the Passover of Exodus and Christ see Melito of Sardis’ famous paschal sermon. English translation of the Peri Pascha can be found in S.G. Hall, trans. Peri Pascha, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford, Clarendon, 1979).

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whether Jewish, Christian, or pagan. Sacred texts shape the religious communities; yet, the religious communities shape the reading and interpretation of the sacred texts.49 Consequently, the Church Fathers developed normative standards for reading their religious texts, which for them included both testaments. One such hermeneutic was allegory. Early Christian exegetes frequently employ allegory, or more specifically, typology to make comments on or to make allusions to the Jewish people.50 For example, several Church Fathers use Jacob and Esau as types of the Church and the Jewish people respectively. As previously noted, Tertullian makes such a move in the opening chapter of his Adversus Judaeos.51 Although early Christian interpreters normally use the biblical pairs of Jacob and Esau or Isaac and Ishmael for this purpose, they occasionally refer to Cain and Abel. The younger brother is sometimes depicted as either Christ or the Church; the elder brother as a type of the Jewish people. Though certain Christian writers offer fleeting glimpses of such an association, references to Cain as a type of the Jews are usually brief and never fully developed. Frequently, the spotlight focuses on the contrast 49Kugel and Greer, 126. 50I use the word “typology” advisedly here. As Louth notes, the coinage

of the word is of recent vintage. The Latin typologia appears around 1840 and its English counterpart from 1844 (Louth 118). See also Frances Young, “Typology” in Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 29-48. Though the boundary between allegory and typology is razor thin, I shall use the word “typology” to simply refer to figurae or types that are interpreted to signify a particular theological reality. In the next chapter, we shall examine Augustine’s own use of figurative language in exegeting Scripture. The use of figurative language was widespread in Patristic exegesis, in both the so-called Alexandrian and the so-called Antiochene schools of biblical exegesis. See Young’s “The Rhetorical Schools and their Influence on Patristic Exegesis” and her Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture for important discussion in this regard. 51Though allegorical interpretations sometimes resulted in making seemingly anti-Jewish comments, there are clearly other examples in which the use of allegory actually spares the exegete from making an anti-Jewish comment. For example, see Origen’s comments on John 8:44, where the Scripture implies that the Jews are of the devil. Rather than embarking on a lengthy anti-Jewish diatribe, Origen links the Johannine text with I John 3:8, which states that anyone who sins is of the devil (Commentary on John XX.100-127). The purpose of Origen’s discussion of these texts is to emphasize obedience to God, not a denunciation of Jews.

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between the sacrifices of Abel, which are represented as the prayers that the Church offers, and the sacrifices of Cain, which represent the prayers that the synagogue offers. Hints of this anti-Jewish slant are heard as early as the second century.52 These hints will slowly develop until they reach a climax in the writings of Augustine. To highlight the development of anti-Jewish associations with Cain, let us proceed chronologically. Justin Martyr (c. 100-c. 165) appears to be the first to offer a bare whisper of associating Cain with the Jewish people. In his dialogue with Trypho the Jew, Justin maintains that physical circumcision, as practiced by the Jews, is not acceptable to God. The Christian apologist demonstrates that people were acceptable to God even before the law of circumcision. Within this discussion, Justin provides a list of “righteous” men, who, though uncircumcised, still found favor in the sight of God. Included in this list are such figures as Noah, Lot, Melchizedek, and Abel (Dialogue with Trypho 19; cf. Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos 2). Later in the same century, Irenaeus (c. 130-c. 200), bishop of Lyons, picks up this trend. Like Justin, Irenaeus stresses the importance of 52In this book I will use “anti-Jewish” rather than the modern term “anti-

Semitic.” To use the later term for early Jewish-Christian relations appears to me to be an anachronism. The term “anti-Semitism” was not coined until 1879 by Wilhelm Marr and was originally associated with hatred directed toward Jews based on racial considerations. I prefer the term anti-Jewish for the Patristic period, since the Patristic period was primarily concerned with theological and religious issues, not racial issues. For a discussion on the difficulties of applying the term ‘antiSemitism” see Shaye J.D. Cohen, “‘Anti-Semitism’ in Antiquity: The Problem of Self-Definition,” in History and Hate. The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia, New York: The Jewish Publication Society, 1986), 43-47. For an in-depth and rich discussion on anti-Jewish prejudices in the ancient world see Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, as well as the collection of primary texts in Louis H. Feldman and Meyer Reinhold, eds. Jewish Life and Thought Among Greeks and Romans: Primary Readings. For an overview of Feldman’s arguments see “Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World,” in History and Hate: the Dimensions of Anti-Semitism (Philadelphia/New York/Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society, 1986), 15-42. Peter Schäfer argues for the term “Judeophobia”, which was “an ambivalent combination of fear and hatred,” particularly among the Romans (Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia. Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World [Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1997], 210). According to him, given the Jewish otherness, Romans perceived, much like the Greek charge of misanthropy, that Jews might undermine the cultural and religious values of Roman society. See also Schäfer’s chapter, “Anti-Semitism,” which has a lengthy discussion of the complexity of the use of the term (197-211).

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offering acceptable sacrifices to God. He draws on the sacrifices of Cain and Abel to underscore his point. As we have already seen in other Fathers, Irenaeus contrasts the two characters of Cain and Abel. Abel is righteous and single-minded, whereas Cain is full of envy and malice (cum zelo et malitia) (Adversus omnes Haereses 4.18.3). In the course of this discussion, Irenaeus refers to Matthew 23:27, 28 where Jesus chastises the Pharisees for being whited sepulchers, beautiful on the outside but full of bones on the inside. It is in this context that Irenaeus associates Cain with the Jews. He contends that the Pharisees are the ones like the jealous Cain. Here Irenaeus appears to be picking up the tropological tradition of equating Cain with jealousy and thus combining this tradition with a typological association between Cain and the Jews. Like Cain, the Pharisees out of jealousy slew the Just One, i.e., Christ, since they slighted the counsel of the Word (Adversus omnes Haereses 4.18.3). Irenaeus equates this slighting the counsel of the Word with the Jewish rejection of Christ. Irenaeus stresses that the Church alone offers “a pure sacrifice”; the Jews do not because their hands are full of blood (manus enim sanguine plenae sunt) since they did not receive the Word (Adversus omnes Haereses 4.18.4). But he immediately turns to take a jab at Christian heretics. Consequently, though Irenaeus briefly suggests a negative association of Cain with the Jews, his attention is quickly turned elsewhere. Further notice that Irenaeus focuses on only one aspect of the Genesis text. Specifically, he stresses the sacrifices of the two brothers and the jealousy of Cain; he ignores other elements of the text. This focus on the sacrifices to generate anti-Jewish comments will further dominate later Christian typological use of Genesis 4. This sentiment grows slightly more prominent in Tertullian, though again he never fully expounds this sub-theme of anti-Jewish association between Cain and the Jews. For Tertullian, the two sacrifices of Cain and Abel represent, or more accurately foreshadow, two peoples. He writes, “from the beginning, the earthly were foreshadowed, in the person of Cain, to be those of the ‘elder son,’ that is, Israel; and the opposite sacrifices demonstrated to be those of the ‘younger son,’ Abel, that is , of our people” (Tertullian, Adversus Judaeos 5).53 In other words, Abel prefigures the 53sic et sacrificia terrenarum oblationum et spiritulium [sacrificarum] praedicta

ostendimus a primordia, et quidem maioris filii, id est Israël, terrena fuisse in Cain praeostena sacrificia, et minoris fili Abel, id est, populi nostri, sacrificia diversa demonstrata. Tertullian appears to influence Hilary of Poitiers on this point. In Hilary’s Tractatus Mysteriorum, he appears to allude to this. For parallels between Hilary and Tertullian, as well as Augustine’s Contra Faustum 12.9, on this point, see Jean-Paul Brisson, ed., Traité Des Mystères (Sources Chrétiennes, vol. 19, Paris, 1947)., 88-89n.

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Church; Cain the Jews. Notice that Tertullian’s focus remains firmly on the sacrifices and their typological significance, while the rest of Genesis 4:1-16 has no typological import for Tertullian. Writing in the fourth century, Jerome continues to put the stress on the sacrifices of Cain and Abel to underscore his contention that God does not hear the prayers of the Jews. For example, he insists that the prayers of the Jews do not have a pleasing aroma (In Amos II, v., 21, 22). In the same passage, Jerome pictures the synagogue in the most unflattering terms by referring to it as the council of Satan.54 Thus God does not receive the prayers of the Jews, just as God did not receive the prayers of Cain. In contrast, just as God did receive Abel’s prayers, God receives the prayers of the Church (In Amos II, v., 21, 22). Like Irenaeus and Tertullian, then, Jerome limits his attention almost exclusively to the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, not the rest of the narrative, in his anti-Jewish comments. Jerome’s attention, however, does move briefly to another verse (Genesis 4:16), which states that Cain went to dwell in the land of Nod. By supplying a definition of Nod, Jerome employs Genesis 4:16 to make additional anti-Jewish comments. While Ambrose defines “Nod” to mean commotion (De Helia et ieiunio 16.58), Jerome defines Nod or Naid to mean “wandering” (Homily 35 on Psalm 108).55 He ties “wandering” in with the present state of the Jews who are largely living in Diaspora. According to Jerome, the Jews are now wanderers since they no longer possess their own land and are dispersed throughout the world (Homily 35 on Psalm 108; cf. Tractatus de Psalmo CVIII 10). This theme, that the Jews are without a homeland, appears regularly in patristic writings. Early Christian writers, such as Tertullian (Adversus Judaeos VIII), often regard the present Diaspora as a punishment for the Jews’ culpability in the death of Christ. Therefore, Jerome is introducing no new theme here. What is new is that Jerome makes an etymological interpretation of Nod to emphasis the Diaspora of the Jewish people. In this respect, then, Jerome does momentarily stray from the standard practice of making Cain’s sacrifice the point of negative

54See John Chrysostom’s, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians 6.7.5. Note that although Chrysostom has some discussion of Cain and Abel in these sermons (8.2.6-3.2) he does not avail himself of the opportunity to issue a diatribe against Jews, based on Genesis 4. There is, however, a subtle association of Cain’s sacrifices with the feasts of the Jews (1.7.3). 55Elsewhere Jerome also defines Nod to mean commotion (Tractatus de Psalmo CVIII 10).

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association with the Jews. However, he does not otherwise expand the early Christian treatment of Cain as a type of the Jewish people. Anti-Jewish statements culled from the story of Cain and Abel are also scattered throughout other Patristic writers. In a fragment of his commentary on Genesis, preserved in Jerome’s Epistula 36, Hippolytus (c. 170-c. 236) makes a typological association not only between Cain and Jews but also with the devil.56 Other typological links between Cain and the Jews add nothing new, but rather continue to assert a general association between Cain and the Jews. For example, the Christian Latin poet Commodian includes Cain in a list of Old Testament types of the synagogue (Instructiones 39).57 Other exegetes, such as Hilary of Poitiers (Tractatus Mysteriorum 6), Diodorus (Prologue to his commentary on Psalms), and Ambrosiaster (Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti 127.5.2) all see Cain as a type of the Jewish people, though these writers fail to contribute anything new to such a typological comparison. Ambrose makes a more extensive association when he writes: Following the Scriptures, I am inclined to hold that in this place we have a reference to two classes of peoples. In disposing for the Church’s use the faith of His devoted flock, God has made ineffective the perfidy of the people who fell away from Him. The very words of God seem to establish this meaning: ‘Two nations are in your womb; two peoples stem from your body.’ These two brothers, Cain and Abel, have furnished us with the prototype (figura) of the Synagogue and the Church. In Cain we perceive the parricidal people of the Jews, who are stained with the blood of their Lord, their Creator, and, as a result of the childbearing of the Virgin Mary, their Brother, also. By Abel we understand the Christian who cleaves to God (De Cain et Abel 1.2.5).

Unquestionably, for Ambrose Cain is a type of the Jewish people. The whisper that we can just begin to discern in Justin has now been given clear voice in Ambrose. Also notice that Ambrose alludes to Jacob and Esau, often used by the Church Fathers as types of the Church and the Jews respectively. Here Ambrose sets up a contrast between the Church and the Jews, which is also seen in the contrast between Abel and Cain. Recall, 56English translation in Fragments from Commentaries, trans. S.D. Fl.

Salmond, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5 (Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, Michigan: T & T Clark/Eerdmans, 5: 169. 57Though there is great uncertainty when he lived, his dates are frequently given sometime in the third century. See Quasten, Patrology 4: 259-262.

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however, that Ambrose’s primary theological concern in his treatise on Cain and Abel focuses on the salutary import of Genesis 4:1-16. While Ambrose has unquestionably made an explicit type of Cain and the Jews, this typology does not dominate his discussion. Nor does Ambrose offer any lengthy or detailed typological correlation between Cain and the Jews. Ambrose, like the other Church Fathers we have examined, only makes, what I call “quick jabs” at the Jewish people in employing Cain as a type of the Jews. As we have seen, this typological focus has primarily centered on the sacrifices of Cain and Abel, with some incorporation of the meaning of Nod. In no instance have I been able to locate a Church Father prior to Augustine who develops a verse-by-verse typological treatment of Cain and the Jews.

CONCLUSION In one sense, then, Augustine will merely lend his voice to the chorus of other Church Fathers who employ a basic typology between Cain and the Jews. In another sense, however, he will do something quite new by providing a detailed typology of Cain and the Jews in Contra Faustum. In this regard, at least, Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis 4 is truly unique. Additionally, his exegesis in Contra Faustum is also unique in that he moves away from a salutary reading of Genesis 4. As we have seen in this chapter, an anti-Jewish sentiment is occasionally expressed in patristic interpretations of Cain and Abel, though anti-Jewish sentiment is widespread in patristic writings. While a typological association between Cain and the Jews lurks in the background, however, the moral or salutary concerns take center stage in both the Jewish and the Christian tradition. Indeed, there appears to be a close parallelism between the two religious traditions in using the story of Cain and Abel tropologically. Moreover, Jewish interpretation of Genesis 4 apparently had a direct influence on Christian interpretation in some instances, as is evident in at least two sources. First, a Jewish influence can be detected in the synagogal prayers that are reiterated in the Apostolic Constitutions. Second, and more importantly, Philo’s exegesis exerts a most pronounced influence on Ambrose’s exegesis of the Genesis text. Further, regardless of religious tradition, exegetical discussion tends to cluster around key sections of Genesis 4, such as the names of Cain and Abel, the two vocations, the sacrifices, and some attention to Cain’s punishment. A Christian typological interpretation of the story narrows the focus down even further. In making references or allusions to Cain as a

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type of the Jews, patristic writers tend to concentrate on the sacrifices, with some attention to the land of Nod (e.g., Jerome). Note that at no juncture do any of these Christian writers venture a detailed, lengthy exposition of the Jewish people or their religious practices on the basis of careful typological reading of the story of Cain and Abel. In other words, only highly specific aspects of the narrative, not the entire narrative, are employed typologically prior to Augustine. Unlike other Christian exegetes, Augustine scans the entire biblical narrative in search of typological comparisons between Cain and the Jews. As we shall see in Chapter 4, Augustine does follow the trend to employ the sacrifices of the two brothers to make comments about the Church and the Jews. He does not linger on this aspect of the narrative, however. Rather Augustine shifts his attention elsewhere. He will concentrate on the punishment and groaning and trembling of Cain, as well on the mark of Cain, areas that had received scant attention in the prior Christian exegetical tradition. Christian exegetes, unlike Jewish interpreters, seldom discuss the mark of Cain. Exceptions include Basil who sees the sign as a part of Cain’s punishment (Epistle 260). Cyril of Jerusalem actually correlates the mark with the chrism of the newly baptized. He states, “You are anointed first upon the forehead to rid you of shame which the first human transgressor bore about him everywhere” (Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Lecture 3.4).58 Ambrosiaster sees the mark as the law placed upon Cain (Quaestiones veteris et novi testamenti CXXVII 5.5). Ambrosiaster appears to be referring to the law prohibiting murder, not the Mosaic Law, since he states that the law was not yet manifested. In other words, there was no law instructing Cain that murder was wrong. Christian interpretations refuse to identify the precise nature of the mark. In contrast, Jewish interpretation offered several explanations of the mark of Cain. Midrash, for example, offers several explanations for Cain’s mark. According to Rabbi Judah, God “made the orb of the sun shine for him.’” Rabbi Nehemiah said that God made sarat “break out on him.” Yet Rabbi Rab argued God gave him a dog, which is his sign. Abba Yose contended God made a horn grow on him. According to Rabbi Rab, “‘He [God] turned Cain into a sign [an example] for murderers’” (Genesis Rabbah 22.12.4). The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan offers perhaps the most interesting explanation. The Targum states, “[t]hen the 58English translation in Leo P. McCauley, S.J., trans., The Works of Saint

Cyril of Jerusalem, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1970).

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Lord traced on Cain’s face a letter of the great and glorious Name, so that anyone who would find him, upon seeing it on him, would not kill him (Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Genesis 4:15).”59 Though Augustine will follow the Christian interpretative tradition and refuse to identify the precise nature of the mark of Cain, he does take this previously neglected verse (Genesis 4:15) to make pivotal typological associations between Cain’s mark and Jews and Judaism. By spotlighting the mark of Cain, Augustine will make a whole new departure in his theology of Jews and Judaism. We should note that the occasional comments on Cain and the Jews in the earlier tradition appear primarily in Latin writers such as Tertullian, Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, and Jerome.60 Thus, Augustine will not invent the use of Cain as a type of the Jews. Indeed, the seeds of such a typology had been planted early in the soil of patristic biblical exegesis, particularly in the fertile soil of Latin exegesis; and Augustine will bring this seed to fruition in his Contra Faustum. However, the North African bishop will break with with the tropological tradition and, instead, will bring the typological interpretation to the fore. This shift will be foundational in Augustine’s developing views on Jews and Judaism.61 His interpretation of Cain as a type of the Jews will be foundational for his theology of the Jewish people. This shift needs to be understood within the context of Augustine’s biblical hermeneutic, the subject of discussion in the next chapter.

59English translation in Michael Maher, trans. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1992). 60Courcelle notes that Augustine would have been quite familiar with the writings of Hilary of Poitiers, Tertullian, Cyprian, and, of course, Ambrose, Augustine’s teacher. Pierre Courcelle, Late Latin Writers and their Greek Sources, trans. Harry E. Wedeck (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1969), 196. 61Augustine is not unaware of the tropological use of Genesis 4, however. In his De Civitate Dei, Book 15, he returns to the story of Cain and Abel. Here, in his famous discussion of the two cities, Augustine picks up the exegetical tradition by focusing primarily on the tropological interpretation of the Genesis 4 text.

AUGUSTINE’S EXEGETICAL PILGRIMAGE INTRODUCTION Augustine’s typological reading of Genesis emerges out of a long struggle to learn to read Scripture, particularly the Old Testament. Before undertaking a typological reading of the story of Cain and Abel, he must embark upon a long and arduous journey that transforms his initial hermeneutic. As a youth he embraced Manichaeism, which fervently denounced the Old Testament. His own theological musings as a student in Carthage could not anticipate the kind of passionate defense of the Old Testament that he offers in the Contra Faustum. Only over the course of many years does Augustine slowly, sometimes painfully, make his way to such a view. His journey takes him from rejecting the Old Testament to embracing an understanding that the Bible itself employs figurative language to disclose spiritual truths. His path culminates in a theologically sophisticated hermeneutic of the first Testament. Augustine records the first stages of his hermeneutical pilgrimage in his autobiographical Confessions, begun in 397 and completed around 400. As a youth, he pursued what he describes as “a sacrilegious quest for knowledge” (Confessions 3.3.5).1 His reading of Cicero’s Hortensius, an exhortation to philosophy, inflamed the young Augustine with an ardent passion for wisdom (Confessions 3.4.7-8). This quest propels him to seek after God. Cicero lacks discussion of Christ. However, since Augustine believes such discussion about Christ is crucial in the pursuit of wisdom, he turns his attention to the Scriptures. In his initial reading of the sacred writ, he encounters difficulties with both the style and the content of the biblical text, neither of which measures up to his classical standards. He deems the 1All references and translations of the Confessions are from Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991).

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Scripture “unworthy” (indigna) compared to the eloquence and style of Cicero. (Confessions 3.5.9).2 He also has problems in explaining the origin of evil, which at this point in his thinking he still views as a material substance (Confessions 3.7.12; 4.15.24; 5.10.19).3 Moreover, he encounters several other difficulties in interpreting the text. Two issues in particular concern him: the anthropomorphic language Scripture uses in speaking of God and the immorality of the biblical characters, especially in the Old Testament (Confessions 3.7.12).4 He questions whether a person can be called righteous if he has several wives and offers animal sacrifices.5 Only much later will Augustine have two important insights. First, he will come to recognize that God is a spirit and, thus, is not a figure with flesh and limbs or any material substance (Confessions 3.7.12). Second, he will come to understand that “moral customs of different regions and periods were adapted to their places and times, while [the divine] law itself remains unaltered everywhere and always” (Confessions 3.7.13). He argues that, although God gave one commandment at one time and another at a different time, the love of God and the love of neighbor are always paramount (Confessions 3.7.15). At this early stage of his intellectual and exegetical development, however, Augustine is still unable to resolve the dilemmas such as the nature of God that he encounters in the biblical text. As a result, he turns to the Manichees, who promise a rational reading of Scripture, and becoming a hearer, one of lower rank within the sect, remaining with them for the next nine years. Like Augustine, the Manichees also took offense at the Old Testament. Their solution was to jettison the former testament. The Manichees interpreted the Old Testament literally, and as a consequence they took its statements at face value. Accordingly, in their view, the Old Testament held an anthropomorphic view of God and was infected with immorality in its representation of the law. Further, this sect, according to Augustine, “asserted that the scriptures of the New Testament had been tampered with 2Latin text for the Confessions is from The Confessions, trans. William Watts.

The Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1912). 3In 3.7.12 Augustine notes that later he will come to understand that evil is a privation of good. 4As we shall see in Chapter 5, the immorality of the Old Testament characters will be one reason why the Manichee Faustus rejects the Old Testament. 5Henry Chadwick notes in his translation that the Manichees thought the Old Testament sacrifices were indistinguishable from polytheistic sacrifices (Confessions, 43 n24).

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by persons unknown, who wanted to insert the Jews’ law into the Christian faith” (Confessions 5.11.21). Note two key points here. First, the Manichees reject the Jewish law, and thus, the Old Testament. Second, the Manichees set the law in direct opposition to the Christian gospel. Later, during the early years of his ecclesial career, these two issues will be crucial in Augustine’s on-going debates with the Manichees. And they will be central to the development of his own biblical hermeneutic, in general, and his Old Testament hermeneutic, in particular. The journey toward such an understanding begins with a growing dissatisfaction with Manichaean teaching. As he studies more of the Manichees’ teaching, he discovers that the classical philosophers’ teaching was more “probable” (Confessions 5.3.3). He also learns that eloquent speech does not always equate with truth (Confessions 5.6.10). His disillusionment with the Manichees continues to grow when he hears the discourses of Faustus, a leading Manichaean teacher, for he recognizes that Faustus is unable to supply the reasons that were supposedly the foundation for the Manichaean claims (Confessions 5.6.11). It is Ambrose, however, who exposes Augustine to a way of viewing Scripture that begins to show him a way out of his difficulties. Shortly after his arrival in Milan, Augustine seeks out Ambrose’s sermons, not for their content, but rather for their eloquence and rhetorical style (Confessions 5.13.23). Sitting at the feet of this skilled biblical exegete, Augustine soon discovers that Ambrose interprets, “figuratively”, or spiritually, the difficult Old Testament passages that had been the death of him when he took the passages literally (cum ad litteram acciperem, occidebar) (Confessions 5.14.24). Consequently, the “despair” that he once felt at not being able to defend the law and the prophets gradually begins to fade away.6 The writings of the law and the prophets no longer seem “absurd” to him (Confessions 6.4.6). Drawing on 2 Corinthians 3:6, where Paul writes that “[t]he letter kills, the spirit gives life,” Ambrose teaches his protégé an important lesson.7 Augustine writes, “[t]hose texts which, taken literally (ad litteram), seemed to contain perverse teaching he would expound spiritually 6The terms “law and prophets” is frequently used to denote the Old Testament. The New Testament itself uses such terminology; see Luke 24:44. 7Marcel Dubois notes various phrases that Augustine uses to indicate the letter. Such phrases include ad litteram, carnaliter, and corporaliter. To indicate the spirit, Augustine uses spiritualiter, illustris intellectus, intellectus spiritualis (Marcel Dubois, “Jews, Judaism and Israel in the Theology of Saint Augustine—How He Links the Jewish People and the Land of Zion,” Immanuel 22/23(1989), 167).

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(spiritualiter), removing the mystical veil” (Confessions 6.4.6). Ambrose teaches Augustine that the biblical text is full of figurative language which speaks of invisible, spiritual truths. In other words, the bishop of Milan introduces Augustine to allegory, or perhaps more correctly, a spiritual understanding of the biblical text. Augustine reaches another important insight in regard to biblical interpretation, when he comes to see that the language of Scripture is a divine accommodation to humans. Humans are unable to discover truth on their own and, therefore, need “the authority of the sacred writings” (Confessions 6.5.8); and they need to be addressed in the material and corporeal terms that they can understand if they are ultimately to be led beyond the material and corporeal realm. Now, rather than despising the lowliness of the biblical text, Augustine asserts that “[t]he authority of the Bible seemed the more to be venerated and more worthy of a holy faith on the ground that it was open to everyone to read” (Confessions 6.5.7). Yet, the Bible still contains a dignity because it does have a deeper meaning, which correctly understanding the figurative language enables one to grasp. Now, equipped with a knowledge that Scripture contains allegorical language and that the Bible itself is a means through which God lovingly condescends to communicate with human beings, Augustine is in a position to develop his hermeneutic for interpreting Scripture. This chapter, however, will not trace all the intricacies of Augustine’s emerging scriptural hermeneutic. Rather we will focus on two pivotal trajectories in his biblical exegesis: the scriptural use of figurative language to reveal divine truths and the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament, especially in regard to the Mosaic Law. Both are seminal in his theology of Jews and Judaism. Two early works illustrate Augustine’s struggle to understand the figurative language of Scripture and to work out a theological understanding of the relationship of the two Testaments. In his De Genesi contra Manichaeos (389), we see his first attempt at explicating the spiritual meaning of the first three chapters of Genesis. In his De utilitate credendi, composed in 391, we will see him struggling to explain the relationship between the law of the Old Testament and the grace of the New Testament. These early works reflect the influence of Ambrose. The most decisive moment in Augustine’s maturing hermeneutic comes, however, with his reading of Tyconius, a dissident Donatist. Augustine’s reading of Tyconius’ Liber Regularum indelibly marked his own understanding of Scripture, particularly his understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. For Tyconius supplies Augustine with a crucial key to

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understanding the relationship of the two testaments. Paula Fredriksen labels this as Augustine’s “historicizing hermeneutic.”8 It is a mode of interpretation that enables him to take seriously the historicity of the entire biblical narrative, as well as its figurative meaning. This will form a crucial trajectory in Augustine’s biblical hermeneutic. Finally, we will examine Augustine’s handbook on biblical interpretation, the De doctrina christiana. Here we will see Augustine outlining a mature exposition of the nature of symbols disclosed in Scripture. In this work, too, Augustine gains greater clarity on how he should understand the position of the Jews. Then we will be able to see how his mature understanding of biblical figurative language will merge with his principle of the historicity of the scriptural narrative to shape his theology of Jews and Judaism in Contra Faustum (ca. 398). Before he can fully articulate that theology, however, he must first hone his hermeneutical principles.

DE GENESI CONTRA MANICHAEOS Completed shortly after his return to Africa, Augustine’s early commentary on the first chapters of Genesis, De Genesi contra Manichaeos (389), marks a major milestone in his interpretation of the language of Scripture as figurative speech.9 Much later, writing from the vantage point of retrospection, Augustine notes that this early writing, as well as De Genesi ad 8Paula Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 313. 9The De Genesi contra Manichaeos is only one of a number of anti-

Manichaean works written between 389 and 398. In the course of these debates, Augustine tackles a number of important theological questions. The central issues include: the problem of evil, its origins and its persistence; the interpretation of Scripture, particularly when the two testaments seem to contradict one another, as well as how Christians should now understand the ceremonial requirements of the Jewish law as found in the Old Testament; and the dilemma of the relationship between authority, as enshrined in the teachings of the catholic Church, and reason and intellect (Gerald Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies [Norwich: The Canterbury Press, 1986], 193-194). Though the problem of evil is a major intellectual and theological concern for Augustine, we will focus primarily on his use of figurative language in interpreting Scripture and the relationship of the two testaments. For a good summary of Augustine’s wrestling with this particular problem and Manichaean understanding of evil, see Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, 194-214. Paula Fredriksen rightly notes another important theme that runs through Augustine’s early writings, his understanding of divine justice and human freedom (“Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 300).

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litteram imperfectus liber, were published against the Manichees as “a defense of the old law which they attack with vehement intensity and frenzied error” (Retractations 9.1).10 This is a heavily apologetic work in which Augustine sets about the task of offering a defense of the Old Testament. Central to our concerns is how he understands the Bible to be full of figurative meaning. We will also note a passing remark about the Mosaic requirement of Sabbath observance in which Augustine first tackles the question of the ceremonial requirements of the law. The influence of Ambrose is evident as Augustine explicates the figurative meaning of Genesis 1-3.11 Returning to his argument that Scripture is a divine accommodation to human beings, he explains that the Bible speaks of visible things, such as heaven and earth “on account of the weakness of the little ones (parvulorum infirmitatem) who are less suited for grasping invisible things” (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.5.8).12 Here he suggests that Scripture speaks of “visible things” in order to point to deeper spiritual truths. In book two, he emphasizes again that Scripture speaks in figures (figura) and enigmas (aenigma) (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.2.3). 13 Here, according to Teske, the term allegory is used synonymously with enigma, to denote a problem that needs to be solved.14 But Augustine is not opposed to literal interpretation. In fact, he proposes to examine the text both “according to history” (ad historiam) and “according to prophecy” (ad prophetiam) (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.2.3).15 Augustine does not reject a 10English translation from The Retractations, trans. Mary Inez Bogan,

Fathers of the Church (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1968). 11Roland J. Teske, “Criteria for Figurative Interpretation in St. Augustine,” in De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 112. 12All references and translations are from Saint Augustine on Genesis. Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees and On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book, trans. Roland J. Teske, S.J., ed. Thomas P. Halton, Fathers of the Church, vol. 84 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America), 1991. 13Teske observes that Augustine the rhetoric teacher finds in Genesis “the same sort of figures that students of Virgil have learned through the centuries to recognize in the Aeneid” (Saint Augustine on Genesis, 23). 14Teske, Saint Augustine on Genesis, 28 n56. 15Teske explains that history for Augustine means a narrative that has a beginning, middle and end. The historicity of such a narrative is another matter (Teske, 27).

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literal interpretation of the text, provided that such an explanation does not lapse into anthropomorphic statements about God. The apostles, rightly interpreting the figures and engimas of the Old Testament, show how Scripture to is be understood in a way that is “pious and worthy of God” (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.2.3). In discerning the spiritual truths that underlie the biblical text, Augustine seeks to overcome and to explain the kind of anthromorphisms in the Old Testament that the Manichees had ridiculed.16 Augustine’s approach is readily apparent in his discussion of texts that mention physical parts of God. He acknowledges that Scripture, both the Old and New Testaments, does speak of corporeal parts of God. However, Augustine contends that: All who understand the Scriptures spiritually (spiritaliter) have learned to understand by those terms, not bodily members, but spiritual powers, as they do in the case of helmets and shield and sword and many other things. Hence, we should first point out to these heretics the impudence with which they attack such words of the Old Testament, since they see these things used in the New Testament as well. Or perhaps they do not see them since they are blinded in their disputes (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.17.27).

While Augustine recognizes that Scripture does employ somatic language to refer to God, he maintains that such language actually points to a spiritual truth. Further, since even the New Testament contains corporeal language about God (e.g., “helmet,” shield,” etc.), the Manichees cannot consistently reject the Old Testament without also rejecting the New Testament.17 This hermeneutical move away from an anthropomorphic interpretation to a more figurative interpretation enables Augustine to resolve his earlier problem about God’s creation of human beings in his likeness and image.18 The Manichees had interpreted Genesis 1:26 as implying that God has a human body, since it designates the embodied human being as the image of God (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.17.29). Rather, according to Augustine, 16Roland J. Teske, “Criteria for Figurative Interpretation in St.

Augustine,” 109. 17Teske, 75, n 88. 18Augustine had great difficulty with Scripture’s insistence that God created persons in his likeness and in his image (Genesis 1:26). The Manichees normally interpreted this verse to mean that God had a human body (Confessions 6.3.4).

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God’s “likeness” and “image” refer not to the physical body, but to the “interior man, where reason and intellect reside” (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.17.28). After years of struggle, Augustine is finally able to make sense of this text by adopting a figurative reading that overcomes the point of offense. Though much of Augustine’s commentary is predicated on a figurative reading of scriptural language, he does not treat the spiritual level of meaning as the only level of meaning in Genesis. Rather he distinguishes between propria locutio and figurata locutio in the text.19 His discussion of God creating Eve from Adam’s rib is an example. He writes: For a proper (propria) expression is one thing, and a figurative expression, such as the one we are now considering, is quite another. Hence, although in terms of history (secundum historiam) a visible woman was first made from the body of her husband by the Lord God, this was certainly not done in this way without reason, but to intimate some secret (aliquod secretum) (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.12.17).

Notice here that Augustine does not deny the historicity of the biblical account of the creation of woman. That is, he does not let go of the historical giveness of a biblical event.20 Only after his reading of Tyconius, however, will he develop a full theological understanding of the historical continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. At this stage in his hermeneutical development, it is his reading of Scripture’s figurative meaning that dominates his exegesis of Genesis. Though the early chapters of Genesis do not afford Augustine the opportunity to hone his understanding of the religious rites of the Pentateuch, he does offer us at one point a glimpse into the shape of his later, more mature understanding on this matter. The Sabbath injunction recorded in Genesis 2:1-3 momentarily catches his attention. He stresses that both Jews and Manichees interpret this text incorrectly. Employing an anthropomorphic interpretation, the Manichees insist that this text refers to 19Teske notes that Augustine makes a distinction between understanding a passage spiritually and understanding a passage carnally (Saint Augustine on Genesis, 19). In 2.2.3, Augustine insists that one can sometimes read a text literally, that is “exactly as the letter sounds” (littera sonat). In fact, he issues a challenge for anyone who can so interpret Scripture, while avoiding making absurd statements about God and while conforming everything to the catholic faith. 20Possibly, it should not come as a surprise that he will find Tyconius’ historicizing hermeneutic so attractive.

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God’s need for physical rest. The Jews take this passage literally by “carnally” (carnaliter) observing the Sabbath (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.22.33).21 Both go wrong, then, by reading the passage literally. Though the hermeneutical framework is not yet in place for interpreting the Old Testament religious observances, Augustine does hint at what will become his understanding of such practices. He supplies a spiritual understanding of the Sabbath. He contends that God’s rest actually refers to our rest (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.22.34). Though he persists in supplying a spiritual interpretation of the Mosaic rites in his later writings, similar to the one offered here, Augustine will later also read these practices ad litteram, which affirms the importance (at least for Jews) of keeping these rites secundum carnem. In De Genesi contra Manichaeos, then, we already see the emergence of Augustine’s argument that Scripture is full of figurative or spiritual language. This aspect of Augustine’s hermeneutic, as we shall see later in this chapter, reaches maturity in his De doctrina christiana. But first Augustine must wrestle with the relationship between the law of the Old Testament and the grace of the New Testament. Another early work, De utilitate credendi, exemplifies this struggle.

DE UTILITATE CREDENDI Bonner notes that the De utilitate credendi contains the outlines of the argument that will appear later in the Contra Faustum.22 Written shortly after his ordination as a presbyter in 391, the De utilitate credendi shows Augustine gaining more clarity in his understanding of the relationship between the law and grace as he defends the Old Testament against Manichee criticisms. Augustine accuses the Manichees of “destructive criticism” in their reading of the Old Testament (2.4); and he responds with a complex and sophisticated interpretative scheme.23 Augustine launches his defense of Christian Scripture by claiming that there is a four-fold sense in Scripture: the historical, the aetiological, the analogical, and the allegorical (De utilitate credendi 3.5; see also De vera 21Augustine reiterates this charge that Jews observe the Sabbath secundum carnem, according to the flesh, in Contra Faustum 12.11. 22Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, 216. 23All references and quotes are from Augustine: Earlier Writings, trans. John H.S. Burleigh (Philadelphia: Westminister Press, 1953).

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religione 50, 99; De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber 2.5). In the historical sense, Scripture records what was written or done. The aetiological sense explains the cause of something. The analogical sense shows that the two testaments do not conflict with each other—and Augustine acknowledges that by employing this sense, he has been able to resolve some of the difficulties that he previously had with Scripture (De utilitate credendi 3.7). By the allegorical sense “we are taught that everything in Scripture is not to be taken literally (ad litteram) but must be understood figuratively” (figurate) (3.5). Further, Augustine contends that these four senses of Scripture were employed—and thus were authorized--by Christ and his apostles (De utilitate credendi 3.6). For example, even Christ himself employs allegory when he uses the sign of Jonah to signify the three days he would lie buried in the tomb (De utilitate credendi 3.8). Augustine also cites Paul who understands the story of the Exodus to be an allegory of the “Christian people.” The apostle writes, “‘I would not have you ignorant, brethren, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and did eat the same spiritual food, and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ” (De utilitate credendi 3.8).24 Here Paul argues that Old Testament events contain spiritual truths. Augustine cites another example of Paul’s use of allegory in his interpretation of the Old Testament wives of Abraham as types of the two covenants (De utilitate credendi 3.8; Galatians 4:22-26). Notice that the young presbyter interprets the language of Scripture figuratively, because he reasons that the Bible itself indicates that its language is to be understood spiritually. Augustine draws on such a hermeneutic to propose tentatively an understanding of the Mosaic Law, particularly the religious customs enjoined in the written Torah. Standing in a long line of Christian exegetes, Augustine must explain why Christians, though they retain the Old Testament, no longer keep the religious observances it imposes, such as Sabbath or circumcision. The non-observance of these requirements of the law raises the question, why should Christians revere the Old Testament if they fail to keep its practices? The Manichee Faustus, as we will see in the next chapter, recognizes this problem and attacks the Christian retention of the Old Testament precisely at this point. Here in the De utilitate credendi, Augustine proposes a deeply traditional Christian answer to this dilemma. As we will explore more fully in the next chapter, early Christian writers insist that the religious observances and sacrifices of the Old Testament 24Quotation of Paul from Burleigh’s translation; see 1 Corinthians 10:1-4.

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were types or figures that foreshadowed Christ and have now found their fulfillment in him. In other words, this interpretative tradition emphasizes a spiritual understanding of the religious observances of the Mosaic Law. Tertullian, for example, insists that the Old Testament law was temporal and that ordinances such as Sabbath and circumcision actually point to an eternal and spiritual Sabbath and circumcision (Adversus Judaeos 4). In the De utilitate credendi, then, Augustine draws on long-standing Christian exegetical practice in similarly insisting that the Old Testament customs should be understood as types of spiritual truths. On this basis, Augustine can begin to forge a theological understanding of the relationship between the law and gospel. While he acknowledges that obedience to the law is not necessary for salvation, he still insists that the law was indeed “profitably laid down” (utiliter esse latam) (De utilitate credendi 3.9). Further, Augustine believes that “the law was promulgated and codified at the command and by the will of God” (dei issu ac voluntate) (De utilitate credendi 5.12). Augustine clearly perceives that the law has a crucial pedagogical function. Though the law does not save, those who could not be persuaded by reason had to be “coerced by threats and terrors of penalties” of the law (De utilitate credendi 3.9). The law, in other words, has served as our “schoolmaster” (paedagogus noster) (Galatians 3:24). Though the grace of Christ has now set people free from the “threats and penalties” of the law, grace does not condemn the law (De utilitate credendi 3.9). Rather grace frees us to obey the law out of love rather than fear (De utilitate credendi 3.9). Notice that the demarcation between the two testaments is not a distinction between law as opposed to grace or grace as opposed to law. Augustine’s treatment of the interconnection between law and grace allows him to establish continuity, a positive relationship, between the two testaments. Though Augustine does not set law and grace in opposition to each other, the onus is still on him to explain such Old Testament religious practices as Sabbath and circumcision. Augustine emphatically contends that Christians should not continue these practices; they should not “now lawfully obey” them (De utilitate credendi 3.9). Yet he does not dismiss the importance of such rites. Instead he argues that they contain spiritual insight once they are properly understood. He invokes 2 Corinthians 3:14, “The same vail [sic] (velamen) remains in the reading of the Old Testament and there is no revelation, for in Christ the vail [sic] is taken away” (De utilitate credendi 3.9); and he offers a careful exegesis of this Pauline verse. Augustine perceives that the problem does not lie with the Old Testament per se; rather the problem has to do with the veil that covers the Scripture.

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The New Testament has not set aside the Old Testament. Christ has not taken away the Old Testament, only the veil that shrouds it. Augustine is clear on this point: “It is not the case, therefore, that by the grace of the Lord that which was covered has been abolished as useless; rather the covering has been removed which concealed useful truth” (De utilitate credendi 3.9). With the advent of Christ, the veil has been removed so that the true meaning of the text might be revealed more clearly and plainly.25 Augustine notes that “secret truths” are contained in figures. As a result, there is no “jot” that does not agree between the two testaments. Bonner underscores Augustine’s insistence that the Old Testament observances were shadows or figures to what was to come, though Scripture itself has not been abolished.26 Augustine is beginning here to develop a very Christocentric interpretation of Scripture, where all of the biblical text points to Christ. At this point in Augustine’s theological development, he still assigns only a spiritual significance to the religious customs of the Old Testament. Nevertheless, the De utilitate credendi, particularly in 3.9, contains the seeds of Augustine’s hermeneutic of both the Old Testament in general and the law in particular, which will gain greater clarity in the Contra Faustum. Before moving to the Contra Faustum, however, we need to consider the influence of Tyconius on Augustine with regard to the question of the relation between the Old Testament and the New.

TYCONIUS Tyconius’ Liber Regularum is the earliest known Latin treatise on biblical exegesis.27 Our earliest evidence for Augustine’s acquaintance with the Liber Regularum comes from a letter to Aurelius of Carthage, dated 396 (Epistula 41). Fredriksen proposes that Augustine had read Tyconius as early as 394, on the basis of similarities between Tyconius’ arguments on Paul in Liber Regularum 3 and Augustine’s in Expositio Quarundam Propositionum ex Epistola

25As we will see in the next chapter, Augustine returns to this argument in his debate with Faustus. 26Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, 218. 27William S. Babcock, “Augustine and Tyconius: A Study in the Latin Appropriation of Paul,” in Studia Patristica (1982) XVII/3, 1212.

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ad Romanos.28 The date of Augustine’s encounter with Tyconius is significant for our study.29 It means that, by the time Augustine comes to write the Contra Faustum, he has had enough time to hone the hermeneutical tools that he acquired from Tyconius. Tyconius supplied Augustine with an exegetical principle for understanding the relationship between law and gospel. This key will be a respect for the historical continuity between the two testaments. Fredriksen calls this Augustine’s “historicizing hermeneutic.”30 Such a principle enables Augustine to formulate a full theological understanding of the historical continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The establishment of this historical continuity is predicated on a form of allegory, sometimes referred to as typology.31 Drawing on this form of figurative language, Augustine charts a via media between what Bonner labels a “crude literalism” and what he calls an “overstrained allegory.”32 Though such an approach relies heavily on the use of figurative language, it also “historicizes what is figured.”33 In other words, though the figurative language does point to spiritual truths, typology also ensures the historical

28Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 311-312 n35; also her article,

“Apocalypse and Redemption in Early Christianity From John of Patmos to Augustine of Hippo,” Vigiliae Christianae 45 (1991), 163 and n. 54. 29Eugene TeSelle argues that Augustine suppressed the importance of Tyconius for his own thinking due to his debates with the Pelagians. Needing to prove the antiquity and catholicity of his views, the bishop increasingly made use of citations from Greek and Latin fathers to discredit a charge of innovation in his teachings. Augustine finally does acknowledge Tyconius in 426 when he completes book three of De doctrina christiana (3.30.42), though TeSelle argues that Augustine had already read Tyconius’Liber Regularum in 396 or 397 (Augustine the Theologian [New York: Herder and Herder, 1970], 181-182). See also William S. Babcock, “Caritas and Signification in De doctrina christiana 1-3,” in De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 162 n27. 30Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 313. 31As I noted in Chapter 3, the line between allegory and typology is razor thin. Note that Fredriksen states that [t]ypology is allegory” (“Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312). Thus, typology is a form of allegory, not a separate category from allegory. 32Bonner, “Augustine as Biblical Scholar,” 555. 33Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312.

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giveness of an event.34 This usage does not simply reconcile the two testaments; it actually insists upon the historical continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. For example, the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites both prefigures Christian baptism and is an actual historical event. Since Scripture is not just figurative or symbolic, the figurative significance is not opposed to the historical giveness of an event. Tyconius thus describes a continuity of salvation history without any sharp rupture between the dispensation of the Old Testament and the dispensation of the New Testament.35 There is no radical, historical cleavage between the two testaments. For example, the “interplay” between grace, free will, and God’s justice remains constant across individuals, times and nations.36 By drawing on this theological framework for understanding salvation history, Augustine will be able to construct a foundation of historical continuity that will mark his discussion of the law and the Jewish people and their religious practices. This foundation is further strengthened by Tyconius’ understanding of the law. Any Christian insistence upon the historical continuity between the two testaments must inevitably involve a discussion of the relation between the law of the Old Testament and the grace of the New Testament. Tyconius does not disappoint us. His Liber Regularum contains a lengthy discussion of this relationship in his third rule, entitled “The Promises and the Law.”37 One of seven rules discussed by Tyconius, the third rule helps to explain the apparent contradictions in passages from Romans and Galatians where the law is sometimes presented positively and

34Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312. 35Fredriksen summarizes this emphasis: “Further, Tyconius emphasized

the continuity of biblical salvation history, disowning any sharp rupture between Old Dispensation and New. The Law is the Bible, and thus Law encompasses God’s promises; the Law speaks both to the period of Israel and to the age of Church. Both Law and promise obtain at all times, and the Law works in the predestined to arouse faith” (“Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312). See also Pamela Bright, who writes “Throughout the Book of Rules there is no notion of a literal, historical sense of the text as juxtaposed to a spiritual sense” (The Book of Rules of Tyconius. Its Purpose and Inner Logic [Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988], 152. 36Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312. 37Later, in his De doctrina christiana, Augustine will change this title to “On the Spirit and the Letter” (3.32.46).

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at other times negatively.38 Tyconius resolves these apparent contradictions by appealing to a progression from the old dispensation to the new dispensation. Tyconius proposes a delicate dialectic between the law and grace, with each interdependent upon the other. Just as the law does not cancel faith, neither does faith undo the law. Rather “each confirms the other” (Liber 25).39 Though Tyconius is clear that the law does not save, this does not mean that the law does not serve a crucial function. Indeed, the law plays a vital pedagogical function for the law is “our guardian” (paedagogum) (Liber 31; cf. 33). Tyconius explains: The law was given ‘until the offspring to whom the promise was made should come’ and should preach faith. Until then, it was the law that compelled to faith because, without the law, sin would have lacked its power and faith, as a consequence, could not have been pressed into seeking God’s grace (Liber 31).

William Babcock underscores the force of Tyconius’ argument. The purpose of the law is to drive people to seek God’s grace.40 Tyconius himself is clear that the law instills fear in people so that they might obey God (Liber 45). However, he further insists that the law does not result in wrath for the godly but rather arouses faith so that the pious might seek God’s grace (ad gratiam confugiant) (Liber 47). For it is the law itself which shows faith (Liber 33) and draws people to rely on God’s grace (Liber 31). Therefore, Tyconius proposes a healthy, indeed a salutary, function for the law. As a result, there is a progression from the law to faith, not a divergence. Tyconius is clear that the same line of faith extends from Abraham in the Old Testament to Christ in the New Testament. Consequently, the two testaments are inseparably joined. He argues:

38Manlio Simonetti, Biblical Interpretation in the Early Church: An Historical

Introduction to Patristic Exegesis, trans. John A. Hughes, ed. Anders Bergquist and Markus Bockmuehl (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1994), 96. 39All page numbers and translations are from William S. Babcock’s translation of the Liber Regularum, Tyconius: The Book of Rules (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1989). 40Babcock, 29, n1. Notice that Tyconius’ argument is similar to Augustine’s in De utilitate credendi 3.9 discussed earlier in this chapter.

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THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS For the righteous in Israel were simply called from faith to the same faith. For the same Spirit, the same faith, the same grace was always given through Christ. When the veil of the law had been removed, he came and bestowed the fullness of these on all people. But what was given before differed only in measure, not in kind, from what was to come. Otherwise there never was a line of Abraham (Liber 33; emphasis added).41

Babcock elucidates the import of Tyconius’ argument. He explains that as to the two testaments, there is not a different interaction between law and faith and grace, but rather the difference is between unrevealed and revealed grace (Liber 31). Thus, the same faith spans both dispensations; and the difference between faith and grace prior to Christ and after Christ is “a difference in measure, not in kind.”42 Though the law and the promise are distinct, they are always related to one another and, thus, they are inextricably joined (cf. Liber 39). Tyconius thus is able to avoid a radical disjunction between law and grace. Tyconius will profoundly shape Augustine’s subsequent exegesis. Fredriksen summarizes such an influence. The elements that Augustine appropriated from Tyconius include: the constancy of the way that God speaks in history, the religious validity of the law, and the “historical integrity” of events in biblical history.43 The advantage of Augustine’s model of history is that God’s work of redemption is continuous from creation through the first coming of Christ and the constitution of the Church. Augustine now has in place a theological framework to understand the relationship of the two testaments to one another. Now the refinement of his hermeneutic of biblical figurative language awaits further completion. His De doctrina christiana marks this development.44

41Iusti enim Israhel ex fide in eandem fidem vocati sunt. Idem namque Spiritua,

eadem fides, eadem gratia per Christum semper data est, quorum plenitudinem veniens remoto legis velamine omni genti largitus est, quae modo non genere a futuris differebant. Aliter enim numquam fuit semen Abrahae. 42Babcock, 29, n.1. 43Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 312-313. 44Augustine began this work in 396 and stopped at 3.25.25 in 397. Thirty years later, in 427, he resumed his writing and completed book three and wrote book four (see Babcock, “Caritas and Signification in De doctrina christiana 1-3,” 162 n27).

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DE DOCTRINA CH RISTIANA In the De doctrina christiana, Augustine seeks to lay out “certain rules” for interpreting Scripture (Preface 1).45 Central to Augustine’s discussion is his careful explication of signa (signs). Though his sign theory, as it is sometimes called, raises linguistical and semantic questions, our discussion will focus on illuminating Augustine’s understanding of signa as it relates to his biblical interpretation.46 He constructs a complex and intricate understanding of signa in the first three chapters of De doctrina christianai by making distinctions between various kinds of signs. These distinctions help him to elucidate the point that not all signs are the same or share the same import. Before embarking on a lengthy exposition of these diverse signs, he unpeels the layers of distinction by beginning at a general level. The now bishop of Hippo starts with a distinction between res (thing) and signum (sign). Sometimes a thing is simply a thing; other times a thing signifies something other than itself. In the latter case, it is a sign. He elaborates, “[f]or a sign is a thing which of itself makes some other thing come to mind, besides the impression that it presents to the senses” (2.1.1). A sign brings to mind not merely the thing serving as a sign, but the sign also brings to mind something that the res signifies. For example, when a person sees an animal track in the woods, she not only sees the track itself, but also brings to mind the animal that made the imprint. Given the importance of signa in interpreting Scripture, we will focus on Augustine’s explanation of signa. Augustine makes a further distinction between signa naturalia (natural signs) and signa data (given signs). Some signs are natural, such as the animal tracks mentioned above. Such signs do not wish or desire to signify something else (2.2.2). Smoke, for example, does not consciously desire to signal a fire underneath the smoke, though the smoke does indeed indicate a fire. This lack of intention to signify distinguishes signa naturalia from signa data. The latter are signs that “living things give to each other, in 45All translations are from On Christian Teaching, trans. R.P.H. Green (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997). Reference numbers are standard references to the De doctrina christiana. 46For further discussion on sign theory in Augustine see the now classic works, R.A. Markus, “St. Augustine on Signs,” Phronesis 2 (1957): 60-83; and B. Darrell Jackson, “The Theory of Signs in Augustine’s De doctrina christiana,” Revue de Etudes Augustiniennes 15 (1969): 9-49. Both essays are reprinted in Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. R.A. Markus (Garden City: New York, 1972), 61-147.

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order to show, to the best of their ability, the emotions of their minds, or anything that they have felt or learned” (2.2.3). And words constitute by far the largest class of signa data. These will be the focus of Augustine’s investigation. Augustine emphasizes that “even the divinely given signs (signa divinitus data) contained in the holy scriptures have been communicated to us by the human beings who wrote them” (2.2.3). Scripture itself, then, is replete with signs that communicate divine truths to human beings. Drawing from his own classical education, he argues that the use of images is much more pleasant and more rewarding than to state a matter plainly (2.6.7).47 This phenomenon is observed in Scripture. Therefore, since Scripture abounds in signa data, proper interpretation of them is essential to interpreting Scripture rightly. Proper interpretation of these signa data is not an easy task though. For indeed even the signs themselves can cause numerous difficulties. Numbers found in Scripture, for example, can seem “unintelligible” (2.16.25). Augustine thus makes a further distinction among signa data. Signs are either signa propria (proper signs) or signa translata (transferred signs). 48 Augustine cites the example of bos (ox), which is a name to specify a particular kind of a four-legged animal. The name is proper to the animal it signifies. This would be a signum proprium, according to Augustine. Other signa data are signa translata in that they signify something beyond a proper or literal meaning. The word bos can also be used to mean a “worker in the gospel” (2.10.15). A signum translatum, then, is a signum that signifies a thing (e.g., an ox), which itself can signify something else (i.e., an evangelist). When interpreting Scripture, the exegete must distinguish between the 47For a discussion on Augustine’s understanding of the affective

consequences of reading the allegories of Scripture, see J. Patout Burns, “Delighting the Spirit: Augustine's Practice of Figurative Interpretation,” in De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 182-194. 48Green translates these two terms as literal and “metaphorical”, 37. Robert W. Bernard notes that “figurative” is the most appropriate word to describe Augustine’s non-literal exegesis of Scripture (“The Rhetoric of God in the Figurative Exegesis of Augustine,” in Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. Eerdmans, 1991], 88). Bernard further contends that Augustine’s non-literal exegesis cannot be neatly compartmentalized into the categories of allegory and typology, for the bishop’s exegesis often fails to fall systematically into such categories, even though Augustine employs some kind of figurative interpretation (99).

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signification of words and the signification of things.49 Such significations arise either from human institution (quas instituterunt homines) or from divine institution (divinitus institutas) (De doctrina christiana 2.19.29).50 Augustine places the accent on the latter. These are the sorts of signa translata that are found in Scripture. Additionally, he himself is acutely aware that a signum translatum can be read as if it were signum proprium (cf. 3.10.14). Augustine applies this last point in making a crucial comment about the Old Testament observances of the Jewish people. Augustine insists that one must take special care in distinguishing between the two kinds of signa data. He cautions that a figurative expression (signum translatum ) should not be interpreted literally. Similarly, a literal expression should not be interpreted figuratively (3.6.9; 3.10.14). 2 Corinthian 3:6 “the letter kills but the spirit gives life,” provides Scriptural support for this point. A person, for example, who hears the word “sabbath” and takes it to mean to a cycle of seven days and to signify that one is to rest physically on the seventh day (3.5.9) interprets the ‘sabbath” as if it were a signum proprium.51 Such a person fails to rightly discern a signum translatum and thus fails to ascertain the spiritual significance of the “Sabbath.” To interpret signs that have a spiritual significance as if they were things, is to languish in a “miserable kind of spiritual slavery” (miserabilis animae servitus) (3.6.10). Consequently, “[s]omeone who attends to and worships a thing which is meaningful but remains unaware of its meaning is a slave to a sign” (3.9.13). Such a person is incapable of “raising the mind’s eye above the physical creation so as to absorb the eternal light” (3.5.10). According to Augustine, this was and is the plight of the Jewish people. They read the signa translata as if they are only signa propria. That is, they read the earthly promises as if they did not signify heavenly rewards (3.6.10). Consequently, they were unable to recognize the signs when Christ came. Yet there were other Jews, who though under the temporary imposition of signs, were able to direct their thoughts to the “one eternal God” so that they were receptive enough to the Holy Spirit that they sold their possessions and laid the profits at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:32-

49Babcock, “Caritas and Signification in De doctrina christiana 1-3,” 150.

151.

50Babcock, “Caritas and Signification in De doctrina christiana 1-3,” 15051Recall that Ambrose had used this particular text to help Augustine

understand the figurative language of Scripture (Confessions 6.4.6).

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35). These Jews formed a “new temple” (3.6.10). Those, however, who do not properly interpret the signs remain in servitude.52 Yet, even in his discussion of the Jews in this context, Augustine suggests that the Jews are not as far off track as pagans in interpreting signs. Even as he begins his discussion of Jews, he concedes that the Jewish experience was very different from that of other nations (3.6.10). The Jews are not thus a “prime case” of mistaking things for signs; rather they are a special case.53 There is a crucial difference between the Jewish people and the pagans; and the difference is the Jews worship the one true God. Though the Jews have been enslaved by their misreading of the scriptural signs, the signs themselves genuinely represent the one God (unus Deus) (3.6.10). Thus the Jewish practices had been divinely instituted, unlike those of the pagans who had contrived signs that were mere human inventions and had “related them to the worship and veneration of the created order” (3.7.6). Though the Jews failed to distinguish between signa translata and signa propria, nevertheless they have recognized and worshipped the one true God. This same theme will echo in the Contra Faustum. In both the De doctrina christiana and the Contra Faustum Augustine never wavers from the biblical fact that the Old Testament observances were divinely instituted and that the Jews had a true knowledge of the one eternal God. Since Augustine concedes that even the true worshipers of God, the Jews, have had difficulty in distinguishing between signa propria and signa translata, he must suggest some kind of criterion to distinguish between these two kinds of signs. He proposes the following: anything in the divine discourse that cannot be related either to good morals or to the true faith should be taken as figurative. Good morals have to do with our love of God and our neighbour, the true faith with our understanding of God and our neighbour (3.10.14).54

52Notice that Augustine does not affirm the appropriateness of the literal observance of the law. This is an important issue in the Contra Faustum. 53Babcock writes, “[t]he difference, then, appears to be that the Jews are taking as things signs that had been divinely instituted and thus belonged to a system that signified rightly, while the Gentiles had taken—and continued to take—as things, signs that had been humanly contrived and thus belonged to a system that signified wrongly (the worship of the creature rather than of God)” (“Caritas and Signification in De doctrina christiana 1-3,” 161, n25). 54ut quidquid in sermone divino neque ad morum honestatem neque ad fidei veritatem proprie referri potest figuratum esse cognoscas. Morum honestas ad diligendum deum et proximum,

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Passages that show any moral wrongdoing on the part of the biblical characters are “entirely figurative.” The salutary concern of Augustine’s exegesis comes to the fore at this point.55 Immoral behavior, as exhibited by Old Testament people, is to be interpreted figuratively in such a way as to engender and nourish love (3.12.18).56 Similarly any cruel words or deeds attributed to God or his saints are to be interpreted figuratively (tota figurata) (3.11.17).57 This desire to avoid the appearance that Scripture condones what would currently be regarded as morally offensive will form a formidable weapon in Augustine’s defense against Manichaean assaults on the Old Testament. Augustine’s criterion of the double movement of love of God and love of neighbor assists him in resolving difficult biblical passages. Augustine makes this a criterion for interpreting all of Scripture (De doctrina christiana 1.35.39). Though Augustine insists that the Old Testament is be interpreted figuratively, he does not reject the literal interpretation of a text. In fact, he fidei vertitatem ad cognoscendum deum et proximum pertinent. See also De doctrina christiana 1.35.39-40.44, where Augustine lays out this criterion at greater length. 55Recall our discussion in Chapter 3 where I argued that the salutary concerns dominated patristic exegesis. In this regard, Augustine is perpetuating this legacy. 56Augustine also makes a well-known distinction between use and enjoy. According to him, “[t]o enjoy something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love” (2.4.4). To enjoy a thing means to love that thing simply for its own sake, without thought of reward or some personal gain, whether material or spiritual. Though a person may truly love someone else, the person may still be “using” a person for a particular gain such as companionship or friendship. In Augustine’s assessment, the one thing that is to be enjoyed is the Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (1.5.5). To use Augustinian terminology, we use Scripture as a means by which we come to enjoy God. Augustine further insists that anyone who thinks they understand Scripture but fails to love God and neighbor fails to understand sacred Scripture (1.26.41). For a fuller discussion see Oliver O'Donovan, “Usus and Fruitio in Augustine, De doctrina christiana,” Journal of Theological Studies 33/2(1982): 361-397. 57Augustine also cautions that “wickedness” or “wrongdoing” as recorded in the Old Testament, which though such deeds were not judged as such according to the standards of that day should be “transferred” or “applied” to our lives today (3.8.25). Unfortunately, Augustine does not present a completely satisfying way in which moral standards from different time periods can be distinguished.

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admonishes exegetes to begin at the literal level before proceeding to the figurative or spiritual level. While Old Testament events are often types, such events are not only signs or types. For, Augustine contends, the events did indeed occur. Tyconius’ influence is evident here. Augustine accepts the historicity of an event, even while he contends that the historical occurrence anticipates or prefigures a spiritual truth. Marcel Dubois insists that, for Augustine, the spiritual meaning rests upon its “historical foundation.” 58 Consequently, Augustine refuses to assign biblical passages to rigid categories of either literal or figurative meaning in interpreting Scripture. Accordingly, the literal and the spiritual interpretation of a biblical text are not mutually exclusive. Whether interpreting a text literally or figuratively, the exegete is to understand that all of Scripture refers to Christ. This includes the Old Testament. The Old Testament, according to the Church Fathers and according to Augustine himself, anticipates or prefigures Christ. The story of the Exodus, for example, illustrates this. Augustine contends that the Exodus is a “figure” (De doctrina christiana 2.40.61). The Passover lamb is to be seen as Christ, the Passover lamb which has been sacrificed for humanity (cf. 1 Corinthians 5:17). Augustine provides an extended discussion of how various elements in the Exodus story prefigure Christ. The bishop advocates, then, a very Christocentric view of Scripture. Recall that in De utilitate credendi, Augustine had already anticipated such a prophetic reading of Scripture (see De utilitate credendi 3.9). There are other types that anticipate the Church, such as Noah’s ark (Contra Faustum 12.14-17). Even the Old Testament observances are seen as types. For example, physical circumcision as enjoined by the Pentateuch is to be viewed as a type of the true, the spiritual, circumcision that God will perform on the heart. Passages such as Jeremiah 4:4 were routinely interpreted as God’s desire of the true circumcision, the circumcision of the heart.59 Augustine stands in a long line of Christian exegesis that insists that the Old Testament anticipates the New Testament. Specifically, the Old Testament reveals the New Testament through figures or signa (cf. Contra Faustum 15.2). Though Augustine argues that the Old Testament prefigures the New Testament, he does not believe that exegesis of the New Testament can be done without 58Dubois, 167. 59“Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; or else my wrath will go forth like fire, and burn with no one to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.” (See Romans 2:28-29; e.g., Cyprian’s Book of Testimonies 1.8.).

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the Old Testament. Consequently, a double movement takes place in Augustine’s interpretation of Scripture. The figurative meaning of the Old Testament is understood only with the coming of Christ. Yet, Christ’s advent cannot be understood apart from the foreshadowings found in the Old Testament. Many years later, in the De Civitate Dei, Augustine reiterates this double movement in interpreting both testaments: ‘Newness’ is the note struck in every detail; and the new covenant is presented, in a veiled manner, in the old. For what is the ‘Old Testament’ but a concealed form of the new? And what is the ‘New Testament’ but the revelation of the old? (De civitate Dei 16. 26).

The Old Testament promises, and the New Testament fulfills the promises (cf. De Civitate Dei 18.11). Promise or anticipation comes first, then fulfillment. Both elements, promise and fulfillment, are essential. Consequently, each testament is dependent upon the other for correct interpretation. Augustine will draw on this principle to counter Faustus’ objections.

CONCLUSION By the writing of Contra Faustum, then, Augustine had assembled an impressive arsenal of hermeneutical weapons to ward off potentially lethal assaults on the Old Testament by the Manichees. The De doctrina christiana anticipates a decisive move that Augustine must make to refute the Manichees. Here Augustine elaborates and refines his interpretation of scriptural figurative or spiritual language. Such a hermeneutic will prove not to be wholly adequate in his debates with Faustus, however. Augustine must also employ his exegetical principle in light of Tyconius’ historicizing hermeneutic, which left an indelible mark on his maturing biblical exegesis. For this hermeneutic provides a crucial theological framework for interpreting the relationship of the two testaments to each other. The historical continuity between the testaments and the interpretation of the figurative meaning found in Scripture together constitute the foundation that Augustine must build on to construct his defense against Manichaean attacks on catholic Christianity. Augustine takes his understanding of the figurative or spiritual language of Scripture and combines it with his historicizing hermeneutic to form an exegetical and theological framework in which to interpret the Old Testament, as well as to discover a Christian significance for its religious practices. His ongoing

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concerns over the relationship of the two testaments and a Christian exegesis of Old Testament injunctions will provide Augustine with the scaffolding for his views of Jews and Judaism as presented in the Contra Faustum. For he can now construct such a theology upon a theologically and exegetically solid foundation.

AUGUSTINE’S THEOLOGY OF JEWS AND JUDAISM INTRODUCTION In the Contra Faustum, building on the exegetical and theological foundation he had formulated in the 390s, Augustine proposes a defense of the Old Testament against the Manichees that includes, for the first time, a typological interpretation of Cain that becomes the linchpin for his theology of Jews and Judaism. Here, moving beyond earlier Christian exegetical readings of Cain and beyond the earlier view that the rites found in the Pentateuch ceased with the coming of Christ, Augustine provides a vindication for the continued existence of Jews, placing them under divine protection and insisting that they are not to be put to death or to be forced to give up their ancestral customs. In short, he develops a theology, whether wittingly or unwittingly, that reflects the legal status of Jews under Roman imperial law. While his theology of Jews and Judaism emerges primarily out of his theological arguments, he is aware that contemporary Jews still remain Torah observant; i.e., they circumcise their sons, they observe the Sabbath and other festival days, and they maintain ancient dietary laws. These are the customs that Romans typically associated with Jews. Augustine seems to have this standard societal criterion in mind when he discusses current Jewish religion. Nevertheless, his vindication of Judaism arises primarily from his defense of the Old Testament and, in particular, of the ritual requirements of the Pentateuch against the Manichee attacks. As we shall see, it is within this context that Augustine interprets Cain as a figure of the Jews and the mark of Cain as a figure of their continued Torah observance. But it is striking--and original to Augustine-that his conclusion is that Jews are not be destroyed or to be forced to convert, i.e., cease to be Jews. And it is in this sense that the Contra Faustum, with its typological interpretation of Cain, is the foundation for Augustine’s theology of Jews and for its remarkable correlation with the actual legal status of the Jewish religion in the late Roman Empire. 105

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His argument must be understood, however, within the context of the theological concerns of the Contra Faustum. In this work, Augustine presents a supposed debate between himself and the Manichee Faustus; and in this context, he sets out the theological grounds for the Manichaean rejection of the Old Testament. Faustus, as a Manichee, opposes the god of the Old Testament, the god of darkness and the material world to the god of the New Testament, the god of light and the spiritual realm. He denigrates the immorality of the patriarchs and other figures in Israel’s history and pre-history. And he argues that the religious and ceremonial practices imposed by the Pentateuchal laws have no application in the new religion established by Christ.1 It is the third of these arguments that is most important for our purposes. The Manichaean claim is that Christians cannot consistently accept the Old Testament while rejecting its ritual ordinances. In response, Augustine develops a defense of the Old Testament which will turn out to be the seedbed for his theology of Jews and Judaism. Needless to say, the development of a Christian theology of Judaism is not his primary or dominant interest. His chief concern is rather to provide a theologically defensible argument for the Old Testament, especially the Mosaic ritual requirements. In book six of the Contra Faustum, Augustine reprises the language of signification that he had used earlier in De Doctrina Christiana to counter Faustus’ objections to the rites of the Old Testament law. Here Augustine makes a crucial distinction between praecepta uitae agendae and praecepta uitae significandae (precepts for the living of life and precepts that signify life). The Mosaic rites are the latter. Such customs, he argues, signify eternal and divine truths. Therefore, Jews had indeed been correct in observing these ordinances in the time prior to Christ’s coming. Even though Christians no longer keep these customs, nevertheless, believers are still to read the Pentateuch, because these precepts were “written down for our sake” as the apostle Paul had insisted (Contra Faustum 6.2; 1 Corinthians. 10:6). Book six lays the necessary theological groundwork for understanding the rites of Torah. Augustine draws on this theme when he formulates his typological association between Cain and the Jews in book twelve. Here Augustine makes two new innovative exegetical moves that lead directly to his theology of Jews and Judaism. In the first place, drawing on and yet moving beyond earlier Christian exegetes, he develops a typological interpretation of Genesis 4 which identifies the biblical figure of Cain with the Jews. In the second place, while following a largely traditional 1See Gerald Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo: Life and Controversies, 215.

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interpretation of religious practices prescribed for the Jews in the Pentateuch, an interpretation that understands these ceremonies spiritually, he nevertheless also reads these observances ad litteram. In other words, Augustine takes seriously the historicity of these biblical customs and insists that God had originally intended that Jews should keep them secundum carnem, according to the flesh. But he also takes an important further step, arguing that contemporary Jews are still to observe these practices for they are the sign or mark that the Jews are a people under divine protection. In short, Augustine will offer a Christian theological justification for continuing, contemporary Judaism. While supplying a theological defense of the Old Testament against Faustus, Augustine formulates his theology of Jews and Judaism.

THE THEOLOGICAL CONCERNS IN THE CONTRA FAUSTUM Fredriksen perceptively calls the Contra Faustum (398) Augustine’s massive refutation of Latin Manichaeism.2 In this particular work, Augustine must refute a treatise by the Manichee Faustus of Milevis who repudiated the Old Testament. Faustus has three main objections: the opposition of the god of the Old Testament to the god of the New Testament, the immorality of Old Testament characters, and the ritual requirements of the Mosaic Law. The Manichees developed an elaborate cosmological schema in which the God of the Old Testament who created the material world was distinct from the Father of Greatness who ruled in the Kingdom of Light.3 2Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 301. See also Bonner, St.

Augustine of Hippo, 216. David F. Wright dates this work to 397-398, in “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics,” in Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996) I/1: 715. For various suggested dates for the Contra Faustum see Anthony Joseph Springer, “Augustine's use of Scripture in his anti-Jewish polemic,” (Ph.D. diss., Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989), 56. 3Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, 215. For a good summary of the Manichaean position on God(s) and the created order see Bonner, St. Augustine of Hippo, 161-172. For more detailed studies on Manichaeism see Samuel N.C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1992); François Decret, Le christianisme en Afrique du Nord ancienne (Paris: Edition du Seuil, 1996); François Decret, L'Afrique manichéene (IVe-Ve siecles). Etude historique et doctrinale, I-II (Paris: 1978); François Decret, Mani et la tradition

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Since the god of darkness has nothing to do with the god of light, which is associated with the god of the New Testament, Faustus completely rejects the Old Testament, which is connected with the god of darkness. Such a cosmology obviously denies the continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament and separates the work of creation from the work of redemption by assigning them to two different gods. Early in the work, Faustus begins his assault on the Old Testament by insisting that it lacks a certain spiritual quality. Contrasting the two testaments, he argues that the former testament exhibits an “inheritance that is so miserable and bodily and remote from the advantages of the soul,” while the later testament contains the glorious promises of the kingdom of heaven and eternal life (Contra Faustum 4.1).4 Faustus further rests his rejection of the Old Testament on two primary objections: the religious observances of the Mosaic Law and the immorality of the biblical characters. He claims that Old Testament persons led “outrageous and shameful lives” (flagitia et turpes) (Contra Faustum 22.1).5 Book twenty-two opens with a lengthy diatribe by Faustus against the immorality of the patriarchs. He notes several examples, which include Abraham’s infidelity to Sarah when he sleeps with Hagar. The same patriarch also sold his wife to the Egyptian pharaoh. Lot, Abraham’s nephew, slept with his two daughters after escaping Sodom. Jacob’s son Judah slept with his daughterin-law Tamar after she had married two of his sons. Faustus also recounts briefly the story of how David seduced the wife of Uriah and had him killed in battle. Even the prophets are indicted for immoral behavior. For example, Hosea’s children were born of a prostitute. Even the great Old Testament figure of Moses is soundly condemned for committing war, plundering Egypt, and taking more than one wife. Faustus concludes that such men are “evil and shameless men and liars” (Contra Faustum 22.5). Augustine accuses Faustus of failing to interpret the Old Testament correctly. He insists that the Old Testament stories are meant to teach its manichéene (Paris: 1974); François Decret, Aspects du manichéisme dans l'Afrique romaine. Les controverses de Fortunatus, Faustus et Felix avec Saint Augustin (Paris: 1970). 4All translations of the Contra Faustum are from Answer to Faustus, a Manichaen, translated by Roland Teske, S.J., The Works of Saint Augustine. A Translation for the 21st Century, edited by Boniface Ramsey vol. 1/20 (Hyde Park, New York: New City Press, 2007). 5Latin text of Contra Faustum is from Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum, vol. 25, pars 1 (Vienna, F. Tempsky, 1891).

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readers important spiritual lessons. We shall return to Augustine’s argument shortly. Here, in book twenty-two, Augustine embarks on an extensive, careful refutation of Faustus’ charges (Contra Faustum 22.30-93). At the heart of Augustine’s argument in this lengthy discourse is that the Old Testament narratives have spiritual import if one rightly discerns the spiritual language that Scripture uses (e.g., Contra Faustum 22.95). For example, David is represented as a great figure of repentance, “because people who have fallen into sin neglect the remedy of repentance out of pride or utterly perish out of their despair over salvation or meriting pardon.” Thus, examples such as David’s serve to instruct the ill so that they might be so healed (Contra Faustum 22.97). Then Augustine argues that the lawlessness of the Old Testament characters is no more repulsive than some of the Manichaean behavior (Contra Faustum 22.98). At the heart of Augustine’s argument is his reprise of the De doctrina christiana, where the fundamental guiding exegetical principle is that Scripture is to cultivate the love of God and the love of neighbor. Recall from the previous chapter that he had proposed that anything that cannot be “related either to good morals or to the true faith should be taken as figurative” (De doctrina christiana 3.10.14). Therefore, any apparent wrongdoing committed by biblical figures, such as David, is to be understood figuratively so as to nourish love of God and love of neighbor (De doctrina christiana 3.12.18). In the Contra Faustum, Augustine returns to this insistence when he writes, “[f]or the commandments of the law were received in order to be fulfilled by the love of neighbor and of God, but the promises of the law were shown to have been fulfilled by the cessation of circumcision and of the other sacraments of that time” (Contra Faustum 22.6).6 In the time prior to Christ, the observances gave people the assurance that the promises would be fulfilled. In addition, “[t]he commandment made guilty people desire salvation, but the promise enacted symbols so that they would look toward a savior” (Contra Faustum 22.6). Here Augustine may have in mind his argument from the De utilitate credendi, where he proposed that the law leads persons to seek God’s grace (3.9; cf. Tyconius, Liber Regularum 47). In short, Augustine seeks to find salutary lessons in the seemingly immoral behavior of Old Testament characters as a way to counter one of Faustus’ objections to the former testament.

6Note also in Augustine’s discussion of the Decalogue that he accuses

Faustus of not understanding that the first three commandments relate to the love of God and the last seven relate to the love of neighbor (Contra Faustum 15.7).

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While the Manichee seriously questions the moral instruction found in the first testament, his primary objection is the ritual requirements of the Mosaic Law, such as circumcision, sacrifices, Sabbath, and festivals. He displays nothing but contempt and abhorrence for Jewish religious practices. Vehemently he denounces such customs as “shameful” (turpium) (Contra Faustum 6.1). Revealing his true hand, Faustus passionately asserts that the religious practices of the Mosaic Law were not only additions to but actual corruptions of the law (Contra Faustum 22.2). These adulterations, according to Faustus, were the invention of the Jewish people. According to Faustus, the Hebrew writers infected the Old Testament text by mingling “these abominable and shameful commandments,” i.e., circumcision and sacrifices (Contra Faustum 22.2). He specifically characterizes circumcision as the “obscene mark” given by God to mark the Jews, much as a shepherd brands his sheep (Contra Faustum 25.1). His real problem is not with the Mosaic Law per se, but rather with the ritual practices recorded in it. In other words, Judaism, not God, is the originator of the Old Testament rites. Here Faustus lays his cards on the table. He contends that Manichees “are enemies of Judaism, not of the law” (Iudaismi inimicos) (Contra Faustum 22.2; cf. 1.2). Faustus also calls for a removal of “the shameful practices of the Jews” and accuses catholic Christians of failing to distinguish between the observances and the law (Contra Faustum 22.2). The problem is not with the latter but with the former. He drives home the point that Christianity is not Judaism. Contemporary Christians no longer practice these religious requirements. Faustus enumerates these rites, such as Sabbath, circumcision, and the feast of unleavened bread (Contra Faustum 6.1).7 Neither catholic Christians nor Manichees engage in such practices. He reasons that since Christians themselves do not keep the Jewish rituals, then “it is fitting that we give back the documents of the law along with the inheritance we have been denied” (Contra Faustum 4.1).8 This is the crux of the issue for Faustus. Either one retains the Old Testament and its religious 7On a historical note, such Roman authors as Petronius, Martial, Ovid,

Plutarch, Dio Cassius, and Tacitus, among others, ridiculed Jewish practices such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, and dietary laws. Their views more than likely reflect larger societal attitudes regarding these practices. (For examples see Feldman and Reinhold, Among Greeks and Romans: Primary Readings, 366-380; for a more comprehensive list see Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews. 8quae qui christianorum placuere nemini--neque enim quisquam nostrorum ea custodit-dignum est, ut cum refusa hereditate reddamus et tabulas. See Origen’s Contra Celsum 2.1-4 where Celsus accuses Jewish believers in the New Testament of believing in Christ and yet keeping the customs of their ancestors.

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requirements or one abandons the former testament completely. For Faustus, then, the issue of the law, particularly its religious practices, is the linchpin for either accepting or rejecting the Old Testament. This is the issue that has a direct impact on Augustine’s formulation of a theology of Jews and Judaism. The onus is on Augustine to provide a defense of the Old Testament, with a particular concern for supplying a catholic interpretation of the Mosaic customs. This is the bone of contention. Like Augustine, Faustus can accept the moral precepts of the Decalogue, such as the commandments not to kill, not to commit adultery, and not to bear false witness against one’s neighbor (Contra Faustum 22.1). Even Augustine himself explicitly makes a distinction between the precepts for the living of life and the precepts that signify life (Contra Faustum 6.2; cf. 19.18). For him, the commandments of the Decalogue are precepts that govern or “regulate” life; the commandment to circumcise every male on the eighth day is a precept that signifies life. This distinction is at the heart of Augustine’s argument and leads directly to his theology of Jews and Judaism. Augustine and Faustus part company over this distinction. The Manichee refuses to find any spiritual import in the Mosaic ritual requirements; Augustine adamantly disagrees. Augustine’s understanding on this point is deeply rooted in the prior Christian exegetical tradition. Yet he will also be innovative in his interpretation of the Old Testament rites when he affirms that both biblical Jews and contemporary Jews have been obedient in their Torah observance secundum carnem, according to the flesh.

THE CHRISTIAN TRADITION ON THE MOSAIC LAW Augustine’s affirmation of the continuity between the Old and New Testaments and his insistence upon the spiritual significance of the ritual precepts in the former testament is deeply rooted within well established Christian exegesis. To emphasize the traditional understanding of the Old Testament, as well as to accent the innovative exegetical moves Augustine makes in the Contra Faustum, we will briefly trace a trajectory from Martyr to Irenaeus to Tertullian to Origen. Writing in the middle of the second century, Justin wrestles with the religious practices enjoined in the Pentateuch. Not unlike Barnabas before him, Justin rejects a literal interpretation of these rituals. Rather Justin supplies a spiritual or figurative meaning to such practices. According to him, over and above the moral law, all “other Mosaic precepts” reveal that they are “types, symbols, and prophecies” of what would occur in

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Christ (Dialogue with Trypho 42).9 Justin also finds a treasure trove of Old Testament types. For example, the roasted Passover lamb is a type of Christ’s passion on the cross (Dialogue with Trypho 40). The bells on the priests’ robe are a type of the apostles, and the oblation of fine flour is a figure of the Eucharist (Dialogue with Trypho 42; 41). The figure of Jacob, for Justin, is a figure of the Church (Dialogue with Trypho 134). Aside from Justin’s use of typology, three other aspects of Justin’s view of the religious observances are worth noting. First, Justin has no place in his theology for the continuing validity of the law. He argues that the law given at Horeb is now obsolete (Dialogue with Trypho 11; 24; 40; 43). Second, he views the law as a punishment given by God. Referring to the Jewish people, Justin exclaims that the ritual requirements were imposed because “of your sins and the sins of your fathers that, among other precepts, God imposed upon you the observance of the Sabbath as a mark” (Dialogue with Trypho 21; cf. 44; 67). He continues to underscore the penal aspect of the law when he states that the hardness of Jewish hearts was the cause of the law (Dialogue with Trypho 45). Specifically, sacrifices were enjoined as a restraint on the ancient Hebrews proclivity toward idolatry, as seen in the worshipping of the golden calf (Dialogue with Trypho 19).10 In particular, circumcision receives a sharp pronouncement by Justin who contends that it is a “mark” for the sufferings that the Jews deserve (Dialogue with Trypho 19): For the circumcision according to the flesh, which is from Abraham, was given for a sign; that you may be separated from other nations, and from us; and that you alone may suffer that which you now justly suffer; and that your land may be desolate, and your cities burned with fire; and that strangers may eat your fruit in your presence, and not one of you may go to Jerusalem (Dialogue with Trypho 16).11

For Justin the ritual requirements of the Mosaic Law are clearly punitive. Theodore Stylianopoulos argues that Justin is the first Christian to

9Augustine himself draws on this tradition. 10As we shall see later, Augustine intentionally avoids an association of

Jewish rites with idolatrous practices. 11As noted in Chapter 2, Romans had a great abhorrence for the practice of circumcision. Is it possible that Justin’s comments on circumcision reflect this societal disdain even though he couches aversion for this custom in theological language?

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formulate the notion that circumcision was punitive.12 Third, we also get in Justin hints of a perspective of the Jews as a witness people. Employing Ezekiel 20:19-26, Justin claims that God declares that “for the sake of the nations, lest His name be profaned among them, therefore He permitted some of you to remain alive” (Dialogue with Trypho 21).13 Justin continually sees the Diaspora, like the law, through penal spectacles; and, unlike the apostle Paul, the apologist cannot bring himself to affirm that the Mosaic Law is essentially good (see Romans 7:12; 7:16). Justin lacks, then, a theological framework in which to give the law any positive relationship to the gospel. Irenaeus (c. 130-c.200) supplies such a framework. Briefly stated, Irenaeus develops a theology of salvation history that begins with creation and runs through redemption and the final consummation of all things in and under heaven. According to Greer, only with Irenaeus do we get a framework for interpretation of the entire Christian Bible. Such a framework emphasizes the Incarnate Word but places the Word in relationship to his activity in creation and the history of Israel.14 Likening salvation history to the development of a child, Irenaeus argues that the law was given to Israel in its childhood to educate them about Christ.15 12Theodore Stylianopoulos, Justin Martyr and the Mosaic Law (Missoula,

Missouri: Society of Biblical Literature and Scholars Press, 1975), 138. 13“I the LORD am your God; follow my statutes, and be careful to observe my ordinances, and hallow my Sabbaths that they may be a sign between me and you, that you may know that I the LORD am your God. But the children rebelled against me; they did not follow my statutes, and were not careful to observe my ordinances, by whose observance everyone shall live; they profaned my Sabbaths. Then I thought I would pour out my wrath upon them and spend my anger against them in the wilderness. But I withheld my hand, and acted for the sake of my name, that it should not be profaned in the sight of the nations, in whose sight I had brought them out. Moreover I swore to them in the wilderness that I would scatter them among the nations and disperse them through the countries, because they had not executed my ordinances, but had rejected my statutes and profaned my Sabbaths, and their eyes were set on their ancestors’ idols. Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I defiled them through their very gifts, in their offerings up all their firstborn, in order that I might horrify them, so that they might know that I am the LORD”(Ezekiel 20:19-26). 14Greer and Kugel, Early Biblical Interpretation, 155ff. 15Cf. Greer, 146. Cf. Galatians 3:24 where Paul describes the law as our tutor or “pedagogus” prior to Christ.

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Irenaeus proposes then, a pedagogical understanding of human history, which means that the Old Testament becomes a necessary step in humanity’s growth and development (e.g., Adversus Haereses 4.14.3).16 The Old Testament, then, becomes a source of instruction (e.g. Adversus Haereses 4.14.2; 4.13.2). Nevertheless, the practices of the Old Testament have been abolished by Christ (Adversus Haereses 15.2). Not unlike Justin, Irenaeus also has a tendency to view the law as punitive for Israel’s sins, especially because of the golden calf incident (Adversus Haereses 4.15.1; Exodus 32). 17 Yet, unlike Justin, Irenaeus sees such a punishment as having an educative function (Adversus Haereses 4.16.5). In effect, Irenaeus has managed to “circumvent” Marcionite tendencies by treating the history of Israel as a part of salvation history.18 The first known Latin theologian will enlarge this understanding and recover Paul’s affirmation of the goodness of the law. Like Barnabas and Justin before him, Tertullian (c. 160-c.225) echoes the theme that the rituals of the Old Testament are types. Further, Christians are no longer obligated to observe such practices as circumcision, Sabbath, and sacrifices (Adversus Judaeos 3-5).19 Such observances are merely temporal, not eternal. Though Tertullian repeatedly denies that Christ destroyed the law, he does recognize that there is a progression from law to gospel, comparable to Irenaeus’ theological move. More precisely, according to Tertullian, the gospel is an enlargement or an expansion of the law. The gospel is only distinguished from the law “by way of reformation, of enlargement, of progress, as fruit is separated from seed, since fruit comes out of seed.” (Adversus Marcionem 4.11).20 Tertullian continues, “So also the gospel is separated from the law, because it is an advance from out of the law, 16Greer, 172. 17N.B. Irenaeus draws on Ezekiel 20:24, a passage that Justin also incorporates in his argument. 18Greer, 174. 19Tertullian further argues that a law existed prior to Moses. This universal law is found in the commandment that Adam and Eve were not to eat of the tree of life (Genesis 2:17). According to Tertullian, this particular injunction is “the womb of all the precepts of God,” including portions of the Decalogue (Adversus Judaeos II). Since this law in embryonic form existed prior to the disclosure at Sinai, this law applies to all peoples of the world. 20et tamen si concedimus separationem istam, per reformatione, per amplitudinem, per profectum. sicut fructus separatur a semine, cum sit fructus ex semine, sic et euangelium separatur a lege, dum prouehitur ex lege, aliud ab illa, sed non alienum, diuersum, sed non contrarium.

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another thing than the law, though not an alien thing, different, though not opposed (Adversus Marcionem 4.11; emphasis added). In book four of Adversus Marcionem, Tertullian painstakingly demonstrates that Christ neither did nor said anything that was contrary to the Old Testament (e.g., Jesus and his disciples plucking grain on the Sabbath ([Adversus Marcionem 4.12; see Luke 6:1-5]). Notice that Tertullian refutes any notion that the gospel is brand new and, thus, does not oppose the law to the gospel. According to him, the law prepares the way for the gospel. Accordingly, the law receives a more grandiose splendor in Christ (cf. Adversus Marcionem 4.17). Tertullian accents, then, a progression from the law to the gospel. Since the gospel now is the full expression of the law, he can reasonably argue that the rituals of the Old Testament were temporary until they found their fullest expression in Christ. In arguing against the Jews, Tertullian stresses this point. He writes: it follows that after all these precepts had been given carnally, in time preceding, to the people Israel, there was to supervene a time whereat [sic] the precepts of the ancient law and of the old ceremonies would cease, and the promise of the new law, and the recognition of spiritual sacrifices, and the promise of the New Testament, supervene (Adversus Judaeos 6).21

Since the original testament was only temporary, it was thus changeable (Adversus Marcionem 4.1). Tertullian points to John the Baptist as the line of demarcation between the law and the gospel. John separates “old things and new, a line at which Judaism should cease and Christianity should begin” (Adversus Marcionem 4.33). Even the prophets foretell that this separation has been divinely ordained. Though Tertullian clearly states here that Christianity supersedes Judaism, Tertullian’s main theological concern is to show a temporal distinction, not a radical separation, between the law and the gospel. Nevertheless, he finds a role for the Mosaic Law only in the period prior to the advent of John the Baptist. Tertullian is clear that the ceremonial aspects of the law in particular are merely temporal, not eternal. With the cessation of the ritual requirements of the law, Tertullian cannot find a present role for such observances. In effect, he denies that Jews should still observe their ancestral customs secundum carnem. Like Justin, Tertullian insists that circumcision is a sign for the Jews so that they may be distinguished from gentiles and, thus, prohibited from entering Jerusalem 21All translations of Adversus Judaeos are from Tertullian, “Adversus

Judaeos,” in Ante-Nicene Fathers, trans. S. Thelwall, vol 3 (Edinburgh and Grand Rapids, Michigan: T.T. Clark and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993).

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(Adversus Judaeos 3).22 Though he promotes a healthier appreciation for the Mosaic Law by, in effect, affirming with Paul the essential goodness of the law, Tertullian, like Justin Martyr, fails to provide a framework where he can formulate a contemporary function for literal obedience to the law in the time after Christ. In effect, these Christian thinkers crafted a docetic history, which denied the importance of literal obedience to the ritual requirements.23 In contrast, Augustine will affirm God’s desire for the Jews to keep their ancestral customs secundum carnem in the biblical period. He will also echo Tertullian’s emphasis on the goodness of the law. Finally, Augustine’s Old Testament hermeneutic shows the influence of Origen, one of the great patristic biblical exegetes. Origen insists upon the continuity between the Old and New Testaments by arguing that the spiritual truths of the Old Testament are to be understood in the light of the New Testament, specifically with the first advent of Christ. Origen alludes to the Old Testament fulfillment in Christ when he writes in the preface to De Principiis: For the contents of scripture are the outward forms of certain mysteries and the images of divine things. On this point the entire Church is unanimous, that while the whole law is spiritual, the inspired meaning is not recognized by all, but only by those who are gifted with the grace of the Holy Spirit in the word of wisdom and knowledge” (Preface 8).24

While not denying that Scripture has a literal level, Origen insists that there is a spiritual meaning of the text by arguing that the biblical text itself serves as a veil to cover the spiritual meaning (De Principiis 4.2.8). He writes:

22Both Justin and Tertullian refer to Hadrian’s ban on Jews from entering

Jerusalem. 23Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 314-315. According to

Fredriksen, “[l]iteral obedience to God’s commands was the last thing that God had wanted, and the last thing Jews would have done had they truly understood the Law. Israel was not, and never had been, the Jews, but whether before or after Christ’s incarnation had always been the Church. Thus these theologians refuted their opponents docetic Christology; but in so doing, they created a docetic history” (314-315). Augustine opposes such a history. Therefore, “[s]uch an ironic double context, Augustine felt, undermined the authority of Scripture, and so played into Manichee hands” (Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 315). 24English translation from Origen, On First Principles, trans. G.W. Butterworth (Gloucester, Massachusetts: Peter Smith, 1973).

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[t]he splendor of Christ’s advent has, therefore, by illuminating the law of Moses with the brightness of truth, withdrawn the veil which had covered the letter of the law and has disclosed, for every one who believes in him, all those ‘good things’ which lay concealed within (De Principiis 4.1.6).

Christ makes the illumination of the Old Testament possible. We have already seen this same theme in Augustine’s De utilitate credendi 3.9, where he argues that a veil covers the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament text. Origen condemns the Jews for reading the biblical prophecies too literally and thus failing to discern their spiritual significance, a point that is constantly repeated in the Christian tradition and echoed by Augustine (see De Principiis 4.2.1; De doctrina christiana 3.5.9). Because the Jews interpreted the Mosaic Law literally, they failed to recognize that the customs were “a pattern and shadow” of heavenly things (Contra Celsum 2.2).25 Similarly, as we have already seen in the De utilitate credendi and will see again in the Contra Faustum, Augustine makes much the same point. On the one hand, then, Augustine’s defense of the Old Testament stands in continuity with the earlier Christian theologians discussed. Note four key similarities between Augustine and earlier Christian writers. Like them, he emphasizes the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament text. Augustine, like Origen, will stress that the Old Testament is shrouded by a veil that only a proper reading of the New Testament can remove. Further, the religious observances find their fulfillment in Christ. Finally, like Tertullian, Augustine will affirm the essential goodness of the Mosaic Law. All of these elements dominate his discussion with Faustus. Augustine will hold in a delicate tension the two exegetical principles discussed in Chapter 4: the insistence upon the historical continuity between the two testaments, which allows him to read the Mosaic rites ad litteram, and the insistence that Scripture uses figurative language to reveal divine and eternal truths. These two trajectories of his exegetical method merge in book twelve of the Contra Faustum, where he formulates his theology of Jews and Judaism. But first he must lay the necessary theological groundwork in book six. Here he reprises the language and the argument of De doctrina christiana to explain the spiritual significance of the rites of the Pentateuch.

25English translation from Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick

(Cambridge: Cambridge at the University Press, 1953), 68.

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THE SPIRITUAL SIGNIFICANCE OF SCRIPTURE Book six begins with Faustus’ frontal assault on the Mosaic rites. He rejects circumcision as “shameful” (pudenda), observance of Sabbath as “needless” (superuacuus), and sacrifice as “idolatry” (idolatria). He also regards the week of eating unleavened bread and the feast of tabernacles” as “useless and vain” (inutilis et uanus) (Contra Faustum 6.1). He even accuses Augustine of acting “like a slave” since he praises the Old Testament practices, while actually abhorring them in his own heart. Faustus presents himself as the moral superior who at least honestly hates “those who command such shameful things as much as the commandments themselves” (Contra Faustum 6.1). Augustine counters by contending that Faustus displays ignorance in his failure to distinguish between praecepta uitae agendae and praecepta uitae significandae (precepts that regulate life and precepts that symbolize or signify life) (Contra Faustum 6.2). By refusing to make this distinction between the two kinds of precepts, the Manichees fail to understand that the praecepta uitae significandae prefigure (significarentur) future things. Augustine again turns to Paul to find Scriptural warrant for his claim that the Bible itself notes that it uses figurative language or figures to speak of divine truths.26 The apostle had argued, in referring to Old Testament events and observances, that “‘[a]ll these things happened to them in symbols, but they were written down for the sake of us upon whom the end of the ages has come” (haec omnia in figura contingebant illis; scripta sunt autem propter nos, in quos finis saeculorum obeuenit?) (Contra Faustum 6.2; 1 Corinthians 10.6). According to Augustine, here Paul explains that these things were written for the instruction of Christians (ecce ipse aperuit, cur illae litterae accipiantur a nobis et cur illa rerum signa iam necesse non sit ut obseruentur a nobis). These observances were “symbols” (figurae nostrae). Augustine continues, “when we have those realities as revealed, it is no longer necessary to observe the celebration of the symbols that foretold them” (iam non opus ese ut, cum res ipsas manifestatas agimus, figurarum praenuntiantum celebrationi seruiamus” (Contra Faustum 6.2). Notice that the language in this section is pregnant with the language of De doctrina christiana--res, figura, significare. Augustine here makes the same 26Recall that Augustine had made a similar move in De utilitate credendi 3.8 when he quotes Paul, “‘I would not have you ignorant, brethren, how that all our fathers were under the cloud and all passed through the sea, and did eat the same spiritual food, and did all drink the same spiritual drink. For they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ’” (1 Corinthians 10:1-4).

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distinction that he had made in his earlier work by distinguishing a res from a signum. He wants to insist that the Old Testaments rites are not rei, merely things; rather the religious practices are signa. Specifically, though he does not use the precise language he employed in the earlier work, he contends, in effect, that rites are signa translata, i.e., a signum that signifies something else. The main point here is that Augustine asserts that Christians must still read the Old Testament, because it contains signa that reveal spiritual truths. He proceeds to give an account of how the Mosaic rites reveal divine truths. While the Manichees ridicule circumcision of the flesh, they fail to understand that it refers to the circumcision of the heart (Contra Faustum 6.3). Similarly, though Christians no longer observe the Sabbath, nevertheless, it is not “useless to read about or understand” since the Sabbath symbolizes the eternal rest (Contra Faustum 6.4). Likewise, the sacrifices of the Old Testament which Faustus renders as idolatrous (idolatriam and sacrilegus) are actually a figure (figurae nostrae) of the one sacrifice, i.e., Christ’s death on the cross (Contra Faustum 6.5). Augustine repeatedly emphasizes that these rites have spiritual significance. In other words, they are indeed signa, because they point to something beyond themselves. Augustine is not content to stop here, however. Employing the distinction between res and signum, he reprises his argument from De doctrina christiana where he discusses the Jewish failure to distinguish correctly between signa propria and signa translata. Recall that he accuses the Jews of reading the Old Testament rites simply as signa propria, thereby failing to recognize that these customs were actually signa translata, in that they contained spiritual import (e.g., De doctrina christiana 3.5.9). But even though the Jews fail to grasp the spiritual significance of their rites, they are still in a better position than pagans, because at least Jews worship the one true God whereas the pagans do not (De doctrina christiana 5.6.10). Augustine reiterates this same general theme in book six of the Contra Faustum. He contrasts the Jewish observance of the Mosaic rites with Manichaean practices. For example, Jews do not harvest or cook meals on the Sabbath. This differs from Manichees who, in their rest, wait until one of the hearers goes to the garden, cuts one of the fruits or vegetables, and brings it to the elders. Augustine ridicules this practice by insisting that the Manichees would be better to observe a literal day of rest like the Jews than to keep a Manichaean rest which is “useless” and is condemned as “damnable on account of its error” (non significatione acceptabilem sed errore damnabilem) (Contra Faustum 6.4). He makes a similar point with regard to the Manichaean distinction between clean and unclean food (Contra Faustum

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6.5). The difference between Manichaean rites and Jewish practices is simple. Manichaean practices are simply res. That is, they do not have any spiritual significance. Jewish rites are another matter; they are true signa, which do indeed signify or prefigure divine truths. While Old Testament observances, such as sacrifices, are no longer binding on Christians, they still retain the “authority of their meaning” (in significandi auctoritate manserunt) (Contra Faustum 6.5). Later, in the work, Augustine insists that “people could not be gathered together under the name of any religion, whether true or false, if they were not bound together by some sharing of visible signs of sacraments” (Contra Faustum 19.11). The key for the bishop is whether or not these rites are signa rather than merely res, such as the Manichees observe. Citing 1 Corinthians 10.11 which claims that these things were written for our instruction, he can argue that the Old Testament practices were indeed signa (Contra Faustum 6.5). Even though the Mosaic rites are no longer obligatory or binding for Christians, Christians should still read the Old Testament because it contains important spiritual lessons. However, Augustine refuses to negate the importance of the literal observance of the Mosaic rites in the biblical period. In the era prior to Christ, “[f]or there was a time when the things that were going to be revealed at a later time had to be foretold not only by words but also by actions” (sed priori populo multa talia non tantum audienda, uerum etiam obseruanda praecepta sunt. tempus enim erat, quo non tantum dictis, sed etiam factis prophetari oporteret ea, quae posteriore tempore fuerant reuelanda) (Contra Faustum 6.7). Indeed, what is now seen as a prefiguring had indeed been “suited to the time at which they signified” (congruebant) in the former dispensation (Contra Faustum 6.2). Therefore, it pleased God that “our fathers” (nostri patres) observed the Mosaic injunctions. By abstaining from foods that by nature are clean but are symbolically unclean, “our fathers” prepared themselves “so that what they signified might prefigure the future revelation of events” (Contra Faustum 6.9). Consequently, in the former dispensation, not to observe the festival of unleavened bread or not to keep the feast of tabernacles would have been a sin. Therefore, Augustine argues for biblical Jews to have neglected the Mosaic rites would have been as “guilty” as for Christians now to neglect to read the Old Testament (Contra Faustum 6.9). Accordingly, it would be “sacrilegious and wicked and” (sacrilegus et impius) to discard the Old Testament books, simply because God now requires a spiritual interpretation of the text. Again, Augustine invokes 1 Corinthians 10.11 to contend that these praecepta uitae significandae were written for our instruction. The types now reveal divine truth. He argues, “[s]o the same Scripture which then required symbolical action, now testifies to the things

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signified. Thus Scripture required “symbolic actions” that now “witness to the realities that were symbolized, and those practices that were then observed for the purpose of foretelling events are now read for the purpose of confirming them” (ergo ipsa scriptura, quae tunc fuit exactrix operum significantium, nunc testis est rerum significatarum; et quae tunc obseruabatur ad praenuntiationem, nunc recitatur ad confirmationem) (Contra Faustum 6.9). Thus, the same Scripture, Augustine concludes, which once commanded the shadow of the future things is revealed by the light (itaque eandem scripturam tenemus et tunc potestate preaecipientem umbris tegendum. quod nunc aperiretur, et nunc auctoritate adtestantem luce apertum, quod tunc tegebatur) (Contra Faustum 6.9). In proposing an argument that emphasizes the spiritual import of the Old Testament, Augustine can also argue for the continuity between the Old Testament and the New Testament. He contends, therefore, that the two testaments are inseparable from one another. Book 22 presents one of the most lucid statements by Augustine on this matter (Contra Faustum 22.6).27 The “commandments and sacraments of the Old Testament” were given so that “you might understand that what was given in order to be fulfilled in deed by the grace of the New Testament was distinct from what was shown by its removal to have been fulfilled by the revealed truth.” He insists that: But for those who understand correctly, the Old Testament is a prophecy of the New Testament. And so the holy patriarchs and prophets in that first people, who understand what they were doing or what was being done through them, had this hope of eternal salvation in the New Testament. For they belonged to that Testament, which they understood and loved. For, even if it was not yet revealed, it was already prefigured. (Contra Faustum 15.2).

Notice that his argument here repeats the theme of book six. The litmus test for Augustine’s argument is Matthew 5:17, where Christ insists that he comes to fulfill, not to abolish, the law. Peter Hebblethwaite astutely observes that this Matthean text threatens to undercut totally Faustus’ objections to the law.28 As Augustine presents the supposed debate between himself and Faustus, the Manichee raises the question of the interpretation of this Matthean text. He attempts to explain away this dilemma by arguing that the law, as used in Matthew 5:17, simply 27Wright, I/1: 713. 28Peter Hebblethwaite, “St. Augustine's Interpretation of Matthew 5, 17,”

in Studia Patristica, ed. Elizabeth A. Livingstone, XVI/2 (Berlin: Verlag, 1985), 511.

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means the law in a general, not in a specific sense (Contra Faustum 19.1). The law as used in this Matthean text does not refer to the Jewish law, according to Faustus. Augustine disagrees. He affirms that the law spoken of in Matthew 5:17 is indeed the law as found in the Old Testament. In the Ad Simplicianum 1.1.17, Augustine had discovered John 1:17, “The same law, that is, that was given through Moses to be feared, was made grace and truth through Jesus Christ so that it might be fulfilled.” Augustine now links these two New Testament verses, Matthew 5:17 and John 1:17, to stress not only the continuity between the two testaments but also the relationship of the law and the gospel.29 Augustine writes, that “[w]hen the law is fulfilled, it is made grace and truth. Grace pertains to the fullness of love, truth to the fulfillment of the prophecies” (Contra Faustum 17.6). He bases this argument on the ground that the law itself is prophetic, in that it anticipates or prefigures Christ, in whom the law is fulfilled (Contra Faustum 19.8).30 Here Augustine may have in mind Romans 10:4, where Paul argues that Christ is the end of the law. As we have already seen, an insistence that the law has prophetic significance requires a distinction between the moral and ceremonial aspects of the law. Not only have the Manichees failed to grasp the importance of this distinction, they have been blinded to the provisional nature of the ceremonial requirements of the law, and thus fail to understand the successive stages of salvation history.31 In sum, the ceremonial practices find their fulfillment and elucidation in the revelation of Christ. Yet, Augustine also insists upon the properness of literal obedience to the Mosaic Law in the period prior to Christ. These two issues come to a head in book twelve.

THE DEBATE IN BOOK TWELVE OF THE CONTRA FAUSTUM This book opens with a disagreement between the two protagonists over the Old Testament prophets and how they foretold the coming of Christ. The discussion almost immediately turns to a discussion of the proper interpretation of Scripture. Faustus denies that the Old Testament prophets point to Christ. Fervently disagreeing, Augustine contends that all of 29See Hebblethwaite, 513. 30See Hebblethwaite, 513. 31Hebblethwaite, 513.

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Scripture, including the Old Testament, points to Christ. Seeking to support this claim, Augustine turns to Paul, for even Faustus himself accepts the words of Paul (Contra Faustum 12.2; cf. 13.2). Employing Romans 1:1-3, Augustine argues that Paul’s reference to the prophets refers to none other than the Hebrew prophets themselves (Contra Faustum 12.2).32 This same Pauline passage also states that Christ was born of the seed of David according to flesh, which confirms that Christ himself stands in continuity with the Old Testament. Therefore, on the basis of Paul’s own testimony, the Manichaean claims about Christ are reduced to heresy (Contra Faustum 12.2). By using the very testimony of the apostle, a favorite of the Manichees, Augustine argues for the importance of the Old Testament. But Augustine does not stop here. Resuming his argument for the Mosaic Law, he confirms Paul’s affirmation of the essential goodness of the law, which Tertullian had echoed. Augustine quotes Paul who wrote that the Jews possess “the adoption, and the glory, and the testaments, and the legislation, the worship, and the promises” (Contra Faustum 12.3). 33 Augustine appeals to Galatians 4:4-5 to show that this adoption is nothing other than adoption through the Son of God.34 To explicate the implication of “glory” as spoken of in the Romans passage, Augustine cites the crucial passage where Paul writes that the Jews do indeed possess an advantage because “these words of God were entrusted to the Jews” (see Romans 9:4). These “words” could only be the Old Testament texts (Contra Faustum 12.3). Notice that Augustine’s primary concern is to affirm the authority of the law, and thus rescue the Old Testament from the Manichaean attacks. At the same time, however, in drawing on key passages 32“Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh” (Romans 1:1-3). 33“I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience confirms it bears in the Holy Spirit-- I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kindred according to the flesh. They are Israelites, and to them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the worship, and the promises; to them belong the patriarchs, and from them, according to the flesh, comes the Messiah, who is over all, God be blessed for ever. Amen” (Romans 9:1-5). 34“’But when the fullness of time came, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that he might redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children’”(Contra Faustum 12.3; emphasis added).

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from the Pauline corpus, Augustine must also take the Jewish people themselves into account since, especially in the Romans texts, Paul draws an explicit connection between the law and the Jewish people. For the law, according to Paul, was entrusted to the Jewish people. Acknowledging Paul’s own insistence on the goodness of the law, Augustine reasons that “[i]f the it [i.e., the Law] were evil, he would certainly not have mentioned it to their praise” (quae si mala esset, non utique in eorum laude poneretur) (Contra Faustum 12.3; cf. 15.8). Notice here that Augustine reads the Pauline text ad literram, i.e., he accepts the plain or obvious meaning of the verse. At issue is the authority of Scripture itself. Theological necessity, in other words, is the motivating factor in Augustine’s wrestling with the question of the Jewish people. Augustine asserts God had indeed given the law or Torah to Israel. The implication is clear. The ritual requirements found in the Torah were given by God himself; they were not corruptions or inventions by the Jews, as Faustus had claimed. Augustine’s defense of Jews and Judaism is not an independent theme. It has a place here only to the extent that it is important in his overarching theological concern—the defense of the Mosaic Law. For Augustine, the problem is not with the Torah per se, but rather with the correct interpretation of it. Again returning to Paul to buttress his argument, Augustine discusses the reason that Jews and some Christians wrongly interpret the Scriptures. Here he contends that such people have been blinded, particularly the Jews. He refers to 2 Corinthians 3:15, where the apostle contends that a veil covers the hearts of those who read Moses (Contra Faustum 12.4; De utilitate credendi 3.9). This veil now covers the hearts of the Jews as they read their Scriptures. Only by turning to Christ will the veil be lifted so that they may now rightly read Scripture with new eyes. The problem, then, is not with their obedience to the law, but rather their blindness regarding the correct interpretation of the law. Though Augustine does not use exactly the same terminology he did in De doctrina christiana, he does reprise here his distinction between signa propria and signa translata. For the Jews in the Contra Faustum interpret Moses literally, as if the signs were signa propria, and fail to discern the spiritual significance, or the signa translata, behind the literal sense of the text. The Manichees, too, are blinded, though in a slightly different manner, or worse. At least the Jews attempt to read the law and the prophets; the Manichees do not (Contra Faustum 12.4). Recall Augustine’s argument from book six where he had asserted that at least the Jews observed rites that were indeed signa; the Manichees did not. Similarly, here in book twelve, the bishop insists that the Jews still maintain a spiritual advantage over the Manichees. Since they do not even read the

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law of Moses, the Manichees also fail to understand that Christ did indeed bodily rise from the grave. Accordingly, the Manichees can neither know nor understand the true Christ as revealed in both the Old and New Testaments. The Manichees, then, worship a false Christ (Contra Faustum 12.4). In contrast to this false Christ of the Manichees, catholic Christians believe in the “true and truthful” (uerum atque ueracem) Christ who “was foretold by the prophets and proclaimed by the apostles, who used testimonies for their preaching from the law and the prophets, as they show in countless passages” (Contra Faustum 12.5). Augustine appeals to a very Christocentric hermeneutic for the correct understanding of Scripture. He argues that since Christ is the end of the law to all who believe, Christ is himself the righteousness of God to whom all the prophets and the law point (Contra Faustum 12.5; cf. Romans 10:4). For, though the righteousness of God has now been manifested apart from the law, nevertheless the law and the prophets bear witness to it (Contra Faustum 12.5; Romans 3:21). Therefore, according to Augustine, “[f]or everything that that is contained in those books is said either about him or on account of him [i.e., Christ] (Contra Faustum 12.7). Christ, then, has become the hermeneutical key that unlocks the entire Bible, whether the exegete employs a literal or a figurative interpretation of Scripture. Augustine emphasizes this exegetical principle when he writes: But for the sake of providing exercise for one who seeks and delight for one who finds, many more things are taught in them [i.e., scriptures] by allegories and enigmas, partly by words alone and partly as actions that are reported. Yet there are not some clear things in them, we would not grasp the meaning that also helps to clarify some obscure points. Nonetheless, if certain of those things that are wrapped in figures are set forth and combined as to be seen, as it were, by a single glance, they unite their voices in testimony to Christ, so that any dullard would blush with shame at being deaf to them (Contra Faustum 12.7).

Augustine is clear at this point. Namely, regardless of whether a literal or figurative reading is required in exegeting a text, all of Scripture points to Christ. Relying on this hermeneutical principle, Augustine asserts that “everything that we read there [i.e., in Genesis], when it is considered clearly and piece by piece (enucleate minutatimque), foretells Christ and the Church

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either in good Christians or in bad ones” (Contra Faustum 12.8).35 Though his stated purpose is to set forth a Christological reading of Genesis, Augustine actually reviews, often briefly, other Christological types scattered throughout the entire Old Testament. In his exegesis of Genesis, Augustine provides extensive and detailed typological readings of two stories, Cain and Abel and Noah’s ark. It is his typological reading of the story of Cain and Abel that affords Augustine the opportunity to fashion a Christian defense of reading the Mosaic Law ad litteram, which in turn provides an odd sort of defense of the Jewish people and Judaism since it gives a theological rationale for the continuing presence of Jews and Judaism in the world and for placing them under divine protection. In other words, Augustine here formulates a theological justification for the ongoing reality of Judaism after the first coming of Christ. As we shall see, however, his affirmation of the legitimacy of Judaism should not be construed as sanctioning Judaism for its own sake.

AUGUSTINE’S EXEGESIS OF GENESIS 4 Augustine’s defense of contemporary Jewish practices emerges from his typological reading of Genesis 4:1-15. Here Augustine makes significant exegetical departures from the prior exegetical tradition. Here, too, he forges his unique contribution to the Adversus Judaeos tradition.36 He formulates his theory of a witness people, in which Jews perform a crucial service to Christianity by preserving the Old Testament texts. Given their role, Jews must not be physically harmed or killed, and they must be allowed to preserve their ancestral customs, which is their badge of divine protection. In his insistence that Jews need to be distinguished from nonJews by some kind of identifying mark, Augustine may also be reflecting standard Roman societal criteria for distinguishing Jews from non-Jews. Theologically and exegetically, however, his argument for continued Torah 35This statement owes much to the influence to Tyconius, and specifically to Tyconius’ second rule, where he argues that the church is composed of both good and evil (Liber 21). Augustine himself adopts this rule wholesale in De doctrina Christiana III.32.45. 36Cf. Blumenkranz who contends that Augustine’s entire polemic is against the Jews. He notes that Augustine’s original contribution is the witness people theory (Die Judenpredigt Augustins, 211). I argue that the originality of Augustine’s position is not limited to this point.

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observance emerges from his innovative understanding of the rituals of the Mosaic Law. He reads these customs both spiritually and ad litteram.37 Recall that earlier writers such as Tertullian had argued that the law ceased with the coming of John Baptist. Other writers such as Origen had chided the Jews for keeping their ancestral practices. Augustine significantly departs from the tradition when he proposes a function for the contemporary practice of the ancient Mosaic customs by Jews. His double move of reading the Old Testament rites both ad litteram and figuratively comes together in book twelve. Here Augustine also breaks ranks with earlier Christian exegetes in his interpretation of Genesis 4:1-15, the story of Cain and Abel. Rather than emphasizing a salutary reading of the text, a normative Christian exegetical 37Augustine’s correspondence with Jerome from 394-405 illustrates his

hermeneutical move to read the Old Testament rites ad litteram. Wrestling over Galatians 2:11-14, which records a debate between Peter and Paul as to whether or not Gentile Christians should keep Torah, Augustine argues that Paul is indeed recording an actual controversy (Epistula 28). At stake is a profound theological issue, the authority of Scripture. If Paul is not recording an actual debate, then, Augustine reasons, Scripture contains falsehood (Epistula 28.4; Epistula 40.5; Epistula 82.2.4). Further, an ad litteram reading of the Galatians text also enables Augustine to affirm that early Jewish Christians had indeed observed Jewish ancestral customs. He argues that the apostolic age was a transitional age for traditional observance of the Mosaic Law (Contra Faustum 19.7). Otherwise, Gentile Christians would view these practices as pagan or as institutions or innovations of the devil, a point that Augustine repeatedly emphasizes (De Mendacio 8; Epistula 82.4.8, 12, 15-17, 20, 28). Again we see here his insistence on a distinction between Jewish practices and pagan or Manichee practices. As he will do in the Contra Faustum, the bishop asserts that the observances had been given by the authority of God himself and that the practice of these rites by Jewish Christians in the apostolic period confirmed their divine origin (Epistula 82.4.9, 12, 15). Even Christ himself had kept the Torah requirements (Epistula 82.4.18). While the catholic exegete does not condone contemporary Christians, Jew or Gentile, remaining Torah observant (Epistula 82.4.20), he does accord Jews not only the right but also the responsibility to remain faithful to their ancestral customs. For a discussion of this debate between Augustine and Jerome see Caroline White, The Correspondence (394-419) between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo (Lampeter Dyfed, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990); Ronald S. Cole-Turner, “Anti-heretical Issues and the Debate Over Galatians 2:11-14 in the Letters of St. Augustine to St. Jerome,” Augustinian Studies 11(1980): 155-166. See also Shaye Cohen’s appendix, ““Was Timothy Jewish?,” in The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 363-377. See also Paula Fredriksen’s article, “Secundum Carnem,” 37-39.

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move in the tradition prior to him, Augustine produces an elaborate typological reading of Cain as a type of the Jewish people. As noted in Chapter 3, there were a mere handful of Christian exegetes, such as Ambrose, who implied or stated that Cain in some way is a type of the Jewish people. Other exegetes, such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian, limit the typological association between Cain and Jews to the sacrifices of the two biblical brothers. Jerome devotes some attention to the land of Nod as symbolic of the present Jewish Diaspora. However, Augustine focuses his attention primarily on the punishment of Cain, as recorded in Genesis 4:11, 12, and 15. As a result, he will be the first Christian exegete to formulate an extensive typological reading of the whole of Genesis 4:1-15.38 Augustine anticipates his typological reading of the Jews when he makes a momentary comment about Adam and Eve. Again returning to the Pauline corpus, Augustine employs Ephesians 5:31-32 which speaks of a wife leaving her mother to cleave to her husband. The text comes directly from Genesis 2:24.39 Augustine interprets these texts to mean that the mother refers to “the synagogue of the Jews” who cling “to the Old Testament in a fleshly manner” (matrem synagogam Iudeaorum ueteri testamento carnaliter inhaerentem)” (Contra Faustum 12.8). Christ thus left this “mother,” the synagogue, so that he might be united to the Church. Skipping over the entire story of the Fall as recorded in Genesis 3, Augustine proceeds immediately to Genesis 4, the story of Cain and Abel. Beginning with the sacrifices of the two brothers, as recorded in verse 3, Augustine follows a path similar to, though not wholly identical with, the one that Irenaeus and Tertullian had already blazed. He likens the sheep and fat of Abel’s sacrifice to the faith of the New Testament, which is sharply preferred to “the earthly (terrenis) works of the Old Testament” (Contra Faustum 12.9). At first glance, Augustine appears to denounce the Old Testament ritual practices. However, in order to avoid the possibility of such an interpretation, he nuances his previous claim by asserting that “even if the Jews were formerly right in doing those works (ante Iudaei recte illa fecerent), they are guilty of unbelief insofar as, when Christ came, they did not distinguish the time of the New Testament from the time of the Old 38Augustine’s exegesis is virtually a verse-by-verse typology of Genesis

4:1-15, though he commences his typological reading only with verse 3. 39“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church” (see Genesis 2:24).

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Testament” (Contra Faustum 12.9).40 Once again the distinction between reading biblical signs as if they were signa propria rather than signa translata creeps back into the discussion. Though Augustine continues to stress the spiritual reading of the biblical text, he also refuses to adopt an entirely figurative reading of the text. He also reads the Old Testament ad litteram, thereby, refusing to give any quarter to Manichaean opponents who would claim that God had not originally decreed literal observance to the Old Testament religious practices. Rather he stresses that Jews were indeed correct in keeping the customs secundum carnem. Notice that Augustine here parts company with Barnabas and Justin who claim that God had never wanted literal obedience to the law.41 For Augustine, the Jews’ guilt lies not in observing the ancestral customs, but rather in failing to distinguish the coming of Christ. Since the Jews persist in disbelief, a veil shrouds the “strength” of the Old Testament from them as they attempt to understand it. According to Augustine, the veil is removed by Christ alone. “For only in Christ is there removed not the reading of the Old Testament, which keeps hidden the strength of grace, but the veil by which it is hidden” (Contra Faustum 12.11). Augustine finds no difficulty with the Old Testament per se but rather with the failure to interpret it rightly. With the crucifixion of Christ, the veil has been rent in two, an obvious allusion to the Temple veil torn in two at the moment of Christ’s death.42 Because the Jews refuse to come to Christ, the veil has not yet been removed from their eyes. Drawing on Genesis 4:7 where God instructs Cain to be content after the rejection of his sacrifice, Augustine contends that if Cain had acknowledged his guilt and confessed to God, he would have been assisted by grace so that he might master his sin rather than slay his innocent brother (Contra Faustum 12.9).43 The bishop applies this argument to the Jewish people. Like Cain who refused to acknowledge his guilt, these “actions prefigured (figura)”the Jews, who if they had calmed down from their disturbance,” they would have “recognized the time of salvation through grace in the forgiveness of sins” (Contra Faustum 12.9). Being proud of their works of the law, the Jews refuse to submit to the 40See Contra Faustum 6.7, 10.2, and especially 16.6 where Augustine

explicitly states that circumcision as given to Moses was pleasing to God. 41Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 315. 42Matthew 27:51 and Mark 15:38. 43“‘Be call; you sin will be turned to you, and you will be its master” (Genesis 4:7 LXX as quoted in Contra Faustum 12.9).

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grace of Christ. Here Augustine suggests that the Jews’ refusal to be sub gratia is deliberate and willful (Contra Faustum 12.10). This implication grows much clearer when he employs the language of his Propositions; he contends that the Jews “wanted to be not under grace but under the law” (nolentis esse sub gratia, sed sub lege) (Contra Faustum 12.11).44 Since the Jews remain ignorant of God’s righteousness and desired to establish a righteousness of their own, Christ has become the “stumbling block” for the Jewish people (Contra Faustum 12.9). By so stumbling, they have “blazed forth in hatred” against Christ. Augustine explicitly argues that Christ, not the law, is the stumbling block for the Jewish people. Such an emphasis continues to underscore that the law is in and of itself not bad. To deflect possible Manichaean objections to the law, Augustine stresses the blindness of the Jews in failing to recognize Christ. At this point he momentarily strays from a close typological reading of the Genesis text, for the story of Cain implies no blindness on his part, though Augustine does make a passing reference to the man born blind (see John 8:34, 36). By placing the crux of the problem of correct biblical interpretation with the Jewish people, to whom Christ is the great stumbling block, Augustine can divert attention away from non-salutary interpretations of the Old Testament, particularly the Mosaic Law. He continues to hammer home the problems with the Jews when he returns to a close typological reading of the two sacrifices of Cain and 44Augustine’s insistence here has a potential theological Achilles’ heel.

Augustine strongly suggests in book 12 that the Jews’ refusal to accept Christ and his testament is deliberate and willful on their part. This raises several theological issues. If the Jews’ blindness has been ordained by heaven, then how can God be just in punishing them? Moreover, if sin is not voluntary, can it still be sin? Further, if such sin is not voluntary, then how can God be just? This issue comes to a head in book thirteen of the Contra Faustum. He must wrestle with the objection, “’[h]ow, then, did the Jews sin if God blinded them so that they would not recognize Christ?’” Here Augustine moderates his stance on divine punishment. While he argues that the Jews’ punishment is just, he does not here equate such punishment with the consequence of killing Christ. Rather he consigns the cause of the punishment to “other hidden sins known to God” (ex aliis occultis peccatis Deo cognitis venire iustam poenam huius caecitatis) (Contra Faustum 13.11). Only God knows the precise nature of these “hidden sins.” The only certainty is that God’s ways are just, even if they remain hidden. For a fuller discussion of this issue and the development in Augustine’s own understanding of divine justice and human freedom see Paula Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 299-324 and her essay, “Secundum Carnem.”

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Abel. Augustine lifts Abel up as a type of Christ and Cain as a type of the Jews. He argues: And so Abel, the younger, is killed by his older brother. Christ, the head of a younger people, is killed by the older people of the Jews. Abel is killed in the field; Christ is killed on Calvary (Contra Faustum 12.9).45

Employing the text, “‘[a]nd now you shall be cursed by the earth that has opened its mouth to receive from your hand the blood of your brother,’” Augustine continues to underscore the Jews’ culpability in the death of Christ when he accuses them of being “the persecuting people” (Contra Faustum 12.11). He stresses that the Jews are not cursed from the ground, as Cain was, but rather from the Church. As Fredriksen points out, this passage could have been an opportunity for charges of deicide, but instead it becomes an elaborate ecclesial metaphor.46 Moderating this extreme charge, Augustine takes note of Cain’s reply to God that he was not his brother’s keeper (cf. Genesis 4:9). Applying typology to this verse, he writes: Up to now what else do the Jews answer us when we question them about Christ with the words of God, that is, with the words of the holy scriptures, but that they do not know the Christ of whom we speak? (Contra Faustum 12.10).47

Here Augustine seems to be moderating possible charges of deicide by implying that the Jews really did not understand whom they were crucifying. In the Enarrationes in Psalmos, Augustine makes a sharp distinction between crucifying Jesus the man and Christ the Son of God. Citing 1 Corinthians 2:8, Augustine contends that the “[t]hese homicides—not to say deicides — were forgiven for spilling the Lord’s blood, because if they had known, they would never have crucified the Lord of glory” (Fusus Domini sanguis donatus est

45“itaque occiditur Abel minor natu a fatre maiore natu: occiditur Christus, caput

populi minoris natu, a populo Iudaeorum maiore natu; ille in campo, iste in Caluariae loci.” 46Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 315. Haynes insists that Augustine’s witness people theory is not “simply another elaboration” of deicide charges (28). 47It is possible that Paul is again influencing Augustine’s exegesis of Genesis 4. In 1 Corinthians 2:8 Paul writes, “None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

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homicidis, ut non dicam deicidis)” (Enarrationes in Psalmos 65.5).48 A similar emphasis is seen in book thirteen of the Contra Faustum. Augustine draws on Jeremiah to make his point. The bishop writes: To go no further, in the very place where he said, And he is a man, and who will recognize him? (Jer 17:9) in order that the Jews would not have an excuse because they did not know him (for, as the apostle said, If they had known him, they never would have crucified the Lord of glory [1 Cor 2:8], the same Jeremiah continues and shows that it was due to their hidden sins that they did not know him (Contra Faustum 13.11).

Drawing on 1 Corinthians 2:8, Augustine continues to underscore the blindness of the Jews: If they had recognized Christ, they would not have crucified him.49 Though Augustine attributes the reason for Jewish culpability in the death of Christ to ignorance, in his exegesis of Genesis 4 he still stresses the severity of their crime. He underscores the futility of Jewish practices as a consequence of their crime. He likens this futility to the curse placed upon Cain’s own labors. Just as the earth refused to yield to Cain’s toiling in it, so too, after the killing of Christ, the Jew “still carries out the work of earthly circumcision, the earthly Sabbath, the earthly unleavened bread, and the earthly Pasch” (terrenam circumcisionem, terrenum sabbatum, terrenum azymum, terrenum pascha) as they persist in “their impiety and unbelief” (Contra Faustum 12.11). Augustine is extremely careful at this point. While the Jews do continue to till the ground, that is, they “practice in a fleshy manner the works of the law,” the bishop places the accent rather on the Jews inability to “understand (intellegit) in it the grace of Christ” (Contra Faustum 12.11). Even after the coming of Christ, the Jews continue to understand the law as if Christ still had not come. Again Augustine implies a certain blindness on the part of the Jews. He then turns his gaze upon the punishments of Cain.50

48All translations of the Enarrationes in Psalmos are from Expositions of the

Psalms, translation and note by Maria Boulding, O.S.B., The Works of Saint Augustine: A New Translation for the 21st Century, edited by John E. Rotelle, O.S.A., III/15-20 (Hyde Park, New York: New City Press, 2000-2004). 49“None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory” (1 Corinthians 2:8). 50See Romans 11:11 where Paul writes, “So I ask, have they stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous.”

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After establishing the typology between Cain and the Jewish people, he develops an elaborate typological interpretation of Cain’s punishments. Augustine here makes his most significant contributions to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. These contributions consist of at least five crucial components: that the Jews are a wandering people; that thy must not be killed; that they must be preserved until the end of time; that they serve as a witness people; that they are marked by their Torah observance. These various elements merge to present a theological rationale for the continuing presence of Jews in Christian society. Augustine begins his explication of Cain’s punishment with a discussion of the wandering Jew. The bishop equates the text, “‘You shall groan and tremble on the earth’” with the present Diaspora of the Jews (Contra Faustum 12.12). He enumerates two aspects of this wandering. He argues: Look now, who would not see, who would not recognize on the whole earth, wherever that people is scattered, how they groan in grief over the kingdom that they lost and tremble with fear under the countless Christian peoples? (innumerabilibus populis christianis) (Contra Faustum 12.12).

There is an awareness in this text that the Jews have been dispersed among the nations. Living in Diaspora, the Jews now both mourn for the loss of their land and live in subjection to their Christian overlords. Here Augustine paints a picture of a dejected and subjected people.51 There is nothing complimentary in his comments here. According to Augustine, however, the Jews’ wandering is not merely punishment for them but actually fulfills an eschatological role in the divine plan. He begins by offering an exegesis of the first half of Genesis 4:15. After God imposes his punishment on Cain, Cain fears that now his very life is in jeopardy. God attempts to alleviate his fears by pronouncing that anyone who kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance. Refusing to waver from his typological interpretation, Augustine applies this verse to the Jews. He argues: [t]he impious people of the fleshly Jews shall not perish by bodily death (non corporali morte). For whoever destroys them in that way shall suffer seven punishments. That is, God will take away from them the seven

51As I have argued in Chapter 2, the social and religious status of Jews as

exhibited in the imperial legislation does not reveal a sudden or drastic turn of fortunes during the 390s, the period in which Augustine writes the Contra Faustum.

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THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS punishments to which they were subject on account of their guilt over the death of Christ (Contra Faustum 12.12).

Notice that Augustine brandishes a double-edged exegetical sword here. On the one side, he consigns a sevenfold vengeance to the Jews for the crucifixion of Christ. Yet on the other side, he proposes a clear and unmistakable defense of the Jewish people. Augustine argues that a sevenfold vengeance will come upon anyone who should kill them. He proposes, then, that the Jewish people stand under divine protection. Such a proposal is highly significant. It eliminates any theological basis for physically harming the Jewish people, much less for genocide.52 Such divine protection is not intended simply for the preservation of the Jewish people, however. Rather such protection serves a crucial divine function. According to Augustine, the preservation of the Jews testifies to “the Christian faithful” who will see “well enough the subjection that the Jews merited when they killed the Lord for their proud kingdom” (Contra Faustum 12.12). Though Augustine continues to underscore the Jews’ culpability in the death of Christ, he also eliminates any grounds for Christian vengeance against the Jews. He forecloses such a possibility by carving out a role for the Jews in divine history. He here develops the notion of the Jews as a witness people, a concept that had received no more than passing comment in the Christian tradition prior to Augustine (e.g., Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 21; Lactantius, Divine Institutes 4.12). He emphasizes that the divine preservation shall be “in the whole of this time that passes under the number of seven days” (Contra Faustum 12.12). Here he harkens back to 12.8 where he speaks of seven periods in which God deals with humanity. This passage echoes the sevenfold schema of history that he had worked out almost a decade earlier in De Genesi contra Manchaeos.53 Within this 52In an attempt to stop the shedding of Jewish blood during the Second

Crusade, Bernard of Clairvaux will appeal to this Augustinian insistence. See Bernard of Clairvaux, The Letters of St Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. Bruno Scott James (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1998), 462, 463. 53In De Genesi contra Manichaeos, Augustine had argued that the seven days of creation correspond to the seven ages of human history (cf. De Genesi contra Manichaeos 2.2.3). The six days of creation symbolize the six stages of human history. The first day represents the infancy of the entire world. This age extends from Adam to Noah, over ten generations. The second age extends from Noah to Abraham, another ten generations. The third day extends from Abraham to the time of David, over fourteen generations, and is like the developmental stage of

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periodization of history, humanity now lives in the sixth day, between the first and second comings of Christ. Since the seventh day is the eschaton that has yet to arrive, the Jews must be preserved until the time of the ages. The divine protection of the Jews does not imply, however, that they have privileged status. Augustine is clear on this point. Their “subjection” will be the proof of their crimes. The Jews are destined to live in a state of subjection. Yet, this “subjection” is not merely punishment. Rather the Jews serve an important role in the divine economy. According to Augustine, the Jews serve as a witness people to the truths of Christianity. This view emerges from his historicizing hermeneutic which provides the framework for his affirmation of the integrity of Jewish religious identity. In this particular insistence, he acknowledges the continuing reality of Judaism. Affirming the historical continuity between the testaments, he views Jewish history as continuous from the days of the Patriarchs and Prophets to the present age. For Augustine, contemporary Jews perform a valuable service for Christianity.54 Augustine asserts that “[f]or what else is that people today but a certain library (scriniaria) for Christians, which holds the law and the prophets as a witness to the claim of the Church that we reverence as a mystery what that people preaches in a literal sense? (Contra Faustum 12.23).55 Here Augustine elaborates on the specific nature of the Jewish witness: the Jews are the keepers of the Old Testament texts. They bear witness that these texts, themselves prophetic witnesses to Christ, predate the church and thus were not made up by the church. Otherwise, a skeptic could easily claim that the Christians had invented the texts to prove that Christ had been foretold by the ancient prophets. Augustine writes, “[i]t is through their books, of course, that we prove that we did not write down these events after we learned of their occurrence. Rather, these events were foretold and preserved in that kingdom, but now they have been revealed adolescence. The fourth stage is the kingdom of David, which is likened to the age of youth. The fifth age runs from the Babylonian exile to the time of Jesus Christ, which is the age of decline from youth “toward old age, not yet old age, but no longer youth.” The preaching of the gospel marks the start of the sixth age. In the seventh age Christ shall return in glory (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.23.35-41). These stages also recapitulate the growth of the individual (De Genesi contra Manichaeos 1.23.42). 54Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 317. 55quid est aliud hodieque gens ipsa nisi quaedam scriniaria christianorum, baiulans legem et prophetas ad testimonium adsertionis ecclesiae, ut nos honoremus per sacramentum, quod nuntiat illa per litteram?

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and fulfilled” (Contra Faustum 13.10, cf. 16.21; cf. De civitate Dei 4.34).56 He reiterates this point in Enarrationes in Psalmos 56.9: [a] Jew carries the book which is the foundation of faith for a Christian. Jews act as book-bearers for us, like the slaves who are accustomed to walk behind their masters carrying their books, so that while the slaves sink under the weight, the master make great strides through reading.57

The preservation of the Old Testament by an independent, non-partisan, even hostile, people helps to validate the truths of Christianity by showing that the ancient prophecies of Christ are not recent Christian inventions, but independent witnesses in their own right. Later in the Contra Faustum, Augustine argues that many gentiles have come to know Christ by reading the Jewish books (16.21). In both cited passages, Augustine is clear that Jews function as slaves to Christians in that they are book carriers. The Epistle to the Romans may be shaping Augustine’s understanding of the Jewish people here. In Romans 9:4 Paul referred to Genesis 25:23 where Rebecca is told that her elder son, Esau, shall serve her younger son, Jacob. These two sons were frequently used by Christian exegetes as types of the Jews and the Church, respectively. Elsewhere, in Sermon 5.5, with an obvious reference to Genesis 25:23, Augustine explicitly states that the Jews, the elder brother, are the servant of the younger brother, the

56James Parkes succinctly notes the import of Augustine’s insistence. He

writes, ““[t]he books of the heretics were burnt. The Torah of the Jews was a sacred book of the Church. In a word, the heretic could be forbidden to exist. The Jew could not” (The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, 184). With a touch of irony, Moses Mendelsohn wrote, “‘Blessed be the ashes of that humane theologian [Augustine] who was the first to declare that God was preserving us as a visible proof of the Nazarene religion. But for this lovely brainwave, we would have been exterminated long ago’” (English translation in Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelsohn: A Biographical Study [University, University of Alabama, 1973], 212; see also 722). German text in H. Borodianski With F. Bamberger S. Rawidowicz, B. Strauss, L. Strauss, edited by I. Elbogen, J. Guttmann, E. Mittwoch, Moses Mendelssohn Gesammelte Schriften, Jubiläumsausgabe (Berlin: Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1971f), 7: xxxiv. 57This exposition on the Psalms dates from 395. So this is a theme that develops very early in Augustine’s theology of the Jews. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, vol. XXVIII, Pars X, 1 (Turnholti: Typographii Brepols Editores Pontificii, 1956), xv.

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Church.58 The preservation of the Jewish people, then, is predicated upon the service that they do for Christians; this is clearly not a defense of the Jewish people simply for their own sake. Rather the Jews perform an invaluable service for Christianity. Since the Jews serve in this capacity, they themselves must be distinguished from other peoples. Some kind of identifying mark is needed. Turning to the second half of Genesis 4:15, Augustine interprets the sign or “mark” of Cain that distinguishes Jews from other peoples. Here several concerns of Augustine converge. It is here that Augustine makes his unique contribution to both Christian exegesis and to the Adversus Judaeos tradition. In devising his typological reading of Cain’s mark, Augustine forges a revolutionary new Christian understanding of the Mosaic Law as currently practiced by Jews. This new insight also provides him with additional ammunition in his defense against Manichaean objections to the law. Moreover, I believe that it is in his discussion of Cain’s mark that Augustine refers to the social reality of Torah observance in his own time. As noted in Chapter 2, even as late as the time in which Augustine lived, Judaism continued to receive imperial legitimacy as long as Jewish religious customs were practiced by Jewish-born persons. In other words, the continuing, imperially sanctioned, social reality of Judaism may be influencing Augustine’s exegesis of Cain’s mark. Genesis 4:15 provides Augustine with the exegetical text needed to account for this social reality. The Genesis text states, “‘[a]nd the Lord placed a sign (signum) on Cain so that no one who found him would kill him’” (Contra Faustum 12.13). Augustine does not offer an explicit definition of the mark of Cain.59 He does, however, draw a sharp contrast between the effects of Roman dominance on the Jews and on the pagans: It is truly remarkable how all the nations that the Romans subjugated crossed over to the religious practices of the Romans and took up the observance and celebration of those sacrilegious rites but that the Jewish people, whether under pagan kings or under Christian ones, did not lose the sign of its law (signum legis suae), by which it is distinguished from the other nations and peoples (quo a ceteris gentibus populisque distinguitur). And every emperor or king who finds Jews in his realm finds them with this sign and does not kill them, that is, does not make them cease to be Jews, who are 58Galatians 3:22-31 also speaks of those under the law as being children

of the slave woman. 59In this regard, Augustine continues the silence of other Church Fathers who fail to define the mark.

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THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS set apart from the community of other nations by a certain distinct and proper sign of their own observance, unless any of them crosses over to Christ so that Cain may no longer be found and may not go away from the face of God nor dwell in the land of Nod, which is said to mean ‘commotion’ (Contra Faustum 12.13; emphasis added; cf. 13.10).60

Notice several important elements in Augustine’s statement here. The Jews have not assimilated; rather they have kept themselves distinct from other peoples by their observance of the law. Also observe that Augustine returns to his insistence that there is a distinction between Jewish rites and nonJewish, in this case polytheistic customs. Again he privileges Jewish observance over other forms of religious practice. Further, in his contention that neither “pagan” nor Christian monarchs have forced Jews to give up their law, we may be hearing a faint reference to the Roman legal tradition that granted Jews permission to maintain their ancestral customs.61 As a bishop Augustine certainly would have had a basic knowledge of Roman laws necessary to fulfill his juridical duties. For example, in his Epistula 8*, as noted in Chapter 2, Augustine displays a knowledge of imperial laws in adjudicating a legal dispute between the Jewish landowner Licinius and a cleric.62 Additionally, in this passage, he repeats an earlier refrain on not harming Jews by insisting that no one, not even rulers and emperors are to make Jews “cease to be Jews,” that is, prohibit them from keeping their rituals.63 The law, in effect, becomes a badge of divine protection for the Jews. Although Augustine does not explicitly state the nature of the Jewish mark, the context provides the clues. Recall that, in the same discussion about Cain and the Jews, the bishop does identify several 60See also 13.10 and Enarrationes in Psalmos 39 (40).13 where Augustine explicitly likens the Jews’ mark with that of Cain. 61I thank Professor William S. Babcock for this suggestion. 62For a good introduction to Augustine’s knowledge of Roman law see Angelo Di Berardino’s article in Augustine through the Ages: An Encyclopedia, ed. Allan D. Fitzgerald, O.S.A. (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge, UK: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 731-733. See also P. Lardone, “Roman Law in the Works of St. Augustine,” Georgetown Law Journal 21(1933): 435-451; K.K. Raikas, “St. Augustine on Juridical Duties: Some Aspects of the Episcopal Office in Late Antiquity,” in Collectanae Augustiniana, vol. 1: Augustine: Second Founder of the Faith (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1990), 467-483. 63One implication is that the forced conversion of Jews does not accord with the divine plan.

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particularly Jewish customs such as circumcision, Sabbath and Passover (e.g., 12.11). Ruth Mellinkoff argues that Augustine indicates that the mark was circumcision.64 I disagree for two key reasons, one internal to Augustine’s own writings and one external and related to Roman society. First, in the Enarrationes in Psalmos, Augustine clearly does state the nature of the mark. Speaking of the mark of the Jews which he equates with Cain’s mark, he writes, “they preserve tenaciously the remnants of their law; they practice circumcision, observe the Sabbath, slaughter the paschal lamb, and eat unleavened bread” (58.1.21).65 Notice the emphasis on a “remnant of their law” since with the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, Jews can now no longer obey the Mosaic injunctions to offer sacrifices in the Temple. Further note that Augustine has more than circumcision alone in mind in his identification of the Jewish mark. Moreover, if Augustine’s intention is to identify an external sign that easily distinguishes the Jews, then circumcision alone would be insufficient. For circumcision marks only half of the population and could only be normally observed in either the baths or the gymnasium.66 I suggest that Augustine intends more than mere circumcision; he identifies a mark that is more external and more readily identifiable: the practice of Jewish ritual. Here he may be reflecting standard Roman criteria for identifying Jewish people within Roman society. Second, in the Contra Faustum passage, Augustine accents the fact that the Jews have been distinguished from other nations and peoples by their ancestral customs. As I noted in Chapter 2, throughout Augustine’s 64Ruth Mellinkoff, The Mark of Cain (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 1981), 94. She further argues that Isidore of Seville (ca. 560-636?) clearly spelled out the mark as circumcision. 65Iudeai tamen manet cum signo; nec sic uicit sunt, ut a uitoribus absorberentur. Non sine causa Cain ille est, qui cum fratrem occidisset, posuit in eo Deus signum, ne quis eam occideret. Hoc est signum quod habent Iudaei: tenent omnino reliquias legis suae; cirumciduntur, sabbata obseruant, pasha immolant, azyme comdunt. Sunt ergo Iudaei, non sunt occisi, necessari sunt credentibus gentibus. 66Shaye J.D. Cohen, “'Those Who say They are Jews and Are Not': How Do You Know a Jew in Antiquity When You See One?,” in Diasporas in Antiquity (Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1993), 20. Cohen also notes that only approximately a century after the Maccabean state did gentiles begin to associate circumcision with Jews (13). Cohen’s article reappears in a slightly modified form in his work, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 25-68. However, in the Hellenistic world, the circumcised were not allowed in the gymnasium. (I thank Professor Melissa Dowling for clarification on this point.)

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writings, he echoes this refrain. Such a refrain accords with normative Roman standards for distinguishing Jews. Shaye Cohen argues that, in antiquity, such characteristics as physical appearance, clothing, speech, names, or occupations were not readily identifiable marks of Jewish identity.67 The image of the bearded Jew with payess and fringes belongs to the world of the nineteenth century shtetl of Eastern Europe, not to the streets of late antique Carthage or Hippo. Further, a survey of Roman authors reveals that such practices as Sabbath observance and dietary laws, as well as circumcision, receive sharp criticism by Roman writers.68 From these writings, we can infer that such practices are clearly identified with Jews. Cohen argues rightly, I believe, that without a “publicly visible mark,” it would be impossible to distinguish a Jew from a Roman gentile.69 So, to echo Cohen’s question, how do you know a Jew in antiquity when you see one? Simply by walking around the forum of Rome one could not readily identify a Jew from a non-Jew. However, if one observed a person keeping distinctively Jewish customs such as Sabbath observance or Passover celebration, then one could reasonably conclude that person was Jewish. 70 Another way to identify a Jew was to observe whether he or she associated with other Jews. This is not a foolproof indicator, however. For, despite dietary restrictions, we cannot conclude that Jews completely separated themselves from gentiles.71 Even participating in Jewish rituals such as Sabbath observance or Passover did not necessarily guarantee that a person was Jewish. John Chrysostom’s sermons against Judaizing Christians, for example, indicate that Gentile Christians in Antioch were participating in Jewish customs. Nevertheless, one could still reasonably conclude that a 67Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 3-12. 68For a convenient collection of the relevant passages see ed. Louis H.

Feldman and Meyer Reinhold, Jewish Life and Thought Among Greeks and Romans: Primary Readings, 366-381. For an extensive catalogue of Roman and Greek attitudes on Jews see Stern. 69Cohen, Shaye, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 6. 70Cohen, Shaye considers this to be a plausible conclusion (The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 25). 71Cohen, Shaye, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties, 26. Further, archaeological evidence from Rome itself strongly suggests that there was indeed interaction between Jews and gentiles; see Leonard Victor Rutgers, The Jews in Late Ancient Rome: Evidence of Cultural Interaction in the Roman Diaspora (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1995).

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person keeping traditional Jewish practices, such as observing Sabbath or Passover, was indeed a Jew. According to Cohen, for outsiders, the Jewishness of Jews normally expressed itself via the observance of Jewish practices.72 When Augustine writes that the keeping of their law distinguished Jews from other nations and peoples (cf. Contra Faustum 12.13), I suggest, that he has this aspect of contemporary Jewish society in mind. In this regard he interjects nothing particularly new, since apparently Jews had long been distinguished by their own distinctive customs. Augustine’s insistence that Jews be allowed to maintain such practices is not new either. As we have already seen in Chapter 2, even under Christian imperial rule, Jews and their religious practices continued to enjoy religious liberty. As Dubois contends, Augustine’s thoughts on Jews are not “purely theoretical.”73 However, it is striking that, whether intentionally or unintentionally, Augustine proposes a Christian theological position that mirrors the social and legal situation of his day.

CONCLUSION What is new is that Augustine recognizes the continuing presence of Judaism in society and, hence, forges an innovative understanding of the Mosaic Law after the first coming of Christ. He insists that contemporary Jews are to continue to observe their ancestral customs secundum carnem, even though such practices now find their fulfillment in Christ. Here Augustine breaks with the previous Christian tradition by affirming that Jews must continue to maintain their ancient observances. Notice that in his view of traditional Jewish practice, he maintains a delicate tension in his interpretation of the Mosaic Law, both reading the traditional Jewish observances prescribed by the law as containing spiritual truths, as had the prior Christian tradition, and insisting on their validity ad litteram (for Jews). By reading Jewish customs ad litteram, Augustine can affirm that God did indeed intend Jews to keep the Old Testament rites secundum carnem and that God still desires Jews to observe their ancient practices. Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism, as presented in the Contra Faustum, contains both beauty and disfigurement. He offers to Christian theology a vision of the Jews and Judaism that grants them a

72Cohen, 31-33. 73Debois, 176.

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divinely protected place and role in society, even in Christian society.74 Such a theological position is revolutionary in the annals of the Adversus Judaeos tradition. Yet clearly visible within such a position are unmistakable overtones of the view that the Jews are an inferior and subjected people. While Augustine insists upon their continued and protected presence within society, he also insists that their status is inferior, a punishment inflicted on them by God. In associating the Jews with Cain, then, he obviously does not flatter the Jews. Moreover, the validation of Judaism that he offers is not a defense of Judaism per se. Judaism has a role in society only to the extent that it provides a valuable service to Christianity by bearing the sacred Scripture that records the prophecies of Jesus Christ. Accordingly, Judaism has no independent status separate from Christianity. Augustine’s position thus contains profound ambivalence. Even though he reduces Judaism to an inferior, though valuable, status, he does affirm its on-going presence in society, and he does insist that Jews are not to be harmed or to be forced out of their Judaism. This view arises out of Augustine’s long standing struggles with such theological issues as the relationship of the Old Testament, especially the Mosaic rites, to the New Testament, and his understanding that Scripture contains signa that signify spiritual truths. Whether intentionally or not, however, Augustine did in fact construct a powerful theological argument for the preservation of the Jewish people and the continuation of their religious practices. In this regard, he has taken into account not simply biblical Jews, but also contemporary Jews. Throughout his ecclesial career, he will not lose sight of this point. These same themes will continue to appear in his later writings.

74As I will argue in the concluding chapter, this legacy powerfully shapes

medieval theology and ecclesial policy on Jews. See Kenneth R. Stow, “Hatred of the Jews or Love of the Church: Papal Policy Toward the Jews in the Middle Ages,” in Antisemitism Through the Ages, trans. Nathan H. Reisner (New York: Pergamon Press, 1988), 73-74.

REVERBERATING THEMES INTRODUCTION Throughout his later writings, Augustine reiterates the key themes of his theology of Jews and Judaism: the Jews are a wandering people; they must not be killed; they serve as a witness people; and the mark of the Jews is their continued practice of their ancestral customs. As we have seen in Chapter 5, Augustine employs Genesis 4:1-15, especially verse 15, to formulate his position in the Contra Faustum. In other words, as early as 400, Augustine had already fully developed his theology of Jews and Judaism. Jeremy Cohen, however, traces the maturation of Augustine’s teaching on Jews to the second decade of the fifth century, as evidenced in De civitate Dei 18.46. Cohen emphasizes the importance of Augustine’s exposition of Psalm 58:12 (“slay them not, lest at any time they forget thy law”) in this development.1 Indeed, as Paula Fredriksen observes, Augustine’s stance on the Jewish people swells to a crescendo in books 15-18 of the De civitate Dei.2 However, the use of Psalm 58:12 in the De civitate Dei does not mark the first time that Augustine has employed the Psalm text in his discussion of his theology of Jews and Judaism; nor does it represent any major shift in his theological position. The appearance of Psalm 58:12 in his discussion of Jews occurs already in the De fide rerum quae non videntur, written almost 20 years prior to the De civitate Dei. In the period between the Contra Faustum and the De civitate Dei, Augustine employs both the mark of Cain from Genesis 4:15 and Psalm 58:12 when presenting his theology of Jews and Judaism. This employment of both biblical texts is seen in Sermon 201, in the Enarrationes in Psalmos, and in his correspondence with Paulinus 1Jeremy Cohen, Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval

Christianity, 37-38. 2Paula Fredriksen, “Secundum Carnem: History and Israel in the Theology of St. Augustine,” 37.

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of Nola. In the De civitate Dei, however, Augustine presents Cain as the symbol and the earthly founder of the earthly city; and so Cain is no longer available to serve as a type of the Jews. For the Jews constitute only a part, not the whole, of the earthly city. In the De civitate Dei, then, Augustine relies on Psalm 58:12 as the main scriptural text for his teaching on Jews. But, though his biblical support has now shifted from Genesis 4:1-15 to Psalm 58:12, his theology of Jews and Judaism has not changed. Rather the same key themes that we have already seen in the Contra Faustum reappear in the De civitate Dei. The familiar concerns that have been crucial in Augustine’s theology of Jews find continued expression, though in a somewhat muted form, in his Adversus Judaeos, written in the waning years of his life. Here Augustine also accents the Pauline image of the Gentiles being grafted into the domestic olive tree, which is Israel. Though this theme had already found expression in Augustine’s earlier writings, its now finds a fuller expression in his final thoughts on Jews.

THE LINK BETWEEN GENESIS 4:15 AND PSALM 58:12 Augustine’s use of Psalm 58:12 occurs as early as the De fide rerum quae non videntur, written after 399, that is, in the wake of his writing of the Contra Faustum.3 Late in the De fide rerum quae non videntur, Augustine appeals to the importance of the Old Testament prophets to confirm Christianity (De fide rerum quae non videntur 9). As in the Contra Faustum, he encourages his readers to examine the texts of the Jews (De fide rerum quae non videntur 9). Though

3This date is based on Augustine’s reference to the destruction of idols

(De fide rerum quae non videntur). This law was enacted by Honorius in 399 (see Quasten 4:362). Jeremy Cohen places the work much later (420-425) (Living Letters of the Law, 38). However, Mary Francis McDonald, O.P., disagrees. She insists that the dating of the De fide reum quae non videntur must be based upon the references in sections 7 and 10 to the abandonment of polytheistic gods, the conversion of its temples, and the extirpation of traditional rites and ceremonies (Saint Augustine's De Fide Rerum Quae Non Videntur: A Critical Text and Translation with Introduction and Commentary. A Dissertation [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1950], 30). Given the passage of legislation against polytheistic practices and customs in the 390’s, she concludes that this Augustinian work may have been written as early as 395, though a precise terminus a quo is provided by the mission of Jovius and Gaudentius in 399 to carry the emperor’s decrees. Thus, she places the date after 400 (30-33).

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he blames the Jews for killing Christ due to their blindness, he remains extremely clear that the Jews must not perish. He argues: Therefore was it brought to pass, that they should not be so blotted out, as that this same sect should altogether exist not (ut eadem secta omnino nulla est): but it was scattered abroad upon the earth, in order that, carrying with it the prophecies of the grace conferred upon us, more surely to convince unbelievers, it might every where profit us (De fide rerum quae non videntur 9).4

Some of the familiar themes of the Contra Faustum reemerge in this statement. The Jews must not cease to exist because they carry the prophecies that testify to Christ. Rather than relying on Genesis 4:15 in the De fide rerum quae non videntur, however, Augustine now turns to Psalm 58:12 for his scriptural support. He regards this Psalm text as a prophecy that speaks of Jews when he writes: ‘Slay them not,’ saith He, ‘lest at any time they forget Thy law but scatter them abroad in Thy might.’ Therefore they were not slain, in that they forgot not those things which were read and heard among them (in eo quo non sunt quae apud eos legebantur et audiebantur obliti) (De fide rerum quae non videntur 9).

Though his statements in the De fide rerum quae non videntur lack the fullness of his earlier comments in the Contra Faustum, Augustine does delineate two crucial components in his theology of the Jewish people: Jews must not be killed; and they bear witness to Christianity. Notice, however, that Augustine fails to make any specific mention of the observance of Jewish law, an important theme in the Contra Faustum. Further, he makes no reference to Cain in support of his position. However, the typological association between Cain and the Jews does not completely fade. In Augustine’s Enarrationes in Psalmos 39.13, preached some time between 411-413, he returns to the mark of Cain.5 Drawing on the prophecy that “the elder shall serve the younger” (Gen 25:23) and Galatians 4English translation from A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene

Fathers, Series 1, vol. 3, trans. R. Stothert (Edinburgh/Grand Rapids, Michigan: T & T Clark/Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1989). 5Even as late as 414-416, Augustine continues to appeal to Genesis 4:15 to insist that the Jews killed Christ and have been scattered among the nations, they must not be killed (Enarrationes in Psalmos 77.22).

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3:24, he insists that Jews now serve Christians as their “slaves carrying our satchels” and thus as independent confirmation of the truths of Christian scriptures (Enarrationes in Psalmos 40.14).6 Approximately around this same period Augustine increasingly turns to Psalm 58:12, in connection with Genesis 4:15, to support his theology of the Jewish people. Augustine’s sermon 201 illustrates this exegetical move. Preaching some time between 411-415, he delivers a sermon on the feast of the Epiphany, the feast that commemorates Christ’s manifestation to the Gentiles with the coming of the Magi to see the Christ child. The bishop uses this occasion to discuss the fate of the Gentiles and the fate of the Jews. Here he alludes briefly to Romans 11 when he speaks of the spiritual descendants of the Jews, i.e., Christians, who are now grafted on to the olive tree, while the “unbelieving Jews” were broken off (Sermon 201.2). Using Matthew 2:1-4 as his main text, Augustine emphasizes that the Gentile magi had to ask the Jews where the Messiah was to be born.7 For Augustine, this story of the Magi and Herod serves to elucidate the role of the Jews. The bishop explains the import of this biblical text. Just as the non-Jewish magi had to consult the Jews, so, too, people must consult the Jews, specifically their sacred texts, to learn about Christ. Given the importance of such a mission, the Jews carry around the “divine testimonies” for the sake of the salvation and acceptance of the Gentiles, which, in turn, explains why the Jews have been dispersed among the nations (Sermon 201.3).8 Though Augustine acknowledges that the priests, the temple, and the sacrifices have now ceased, he does concede that the Jews preserve “a few of their old sacraments (paucis veteribus sacramentis)” so that they might not disappear among the nations and thus lose “their value

6Cf. Enarrationes in Psalmos 136.18 where Augustine employs the “elder shall serve the younger” text to insist that Jews bear the books for Christians. 7“In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we have observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When Herod the king heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born” (Matthew 2:14). 8Ad hoc sunt autem interrogati Judaei, ut demonstraretur eos non ad suam, sed ad Gentium salutem et agnitionem testimonia divina portare.

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as evidence of the truth.”9 This he likens to the sign of Cain, which prevents others from killing Jews. The key concerns—Jews bear witness to the truth of Christianity, they preserve their law, and they must not be killed--are all familiar themes from the Contra Faustum. Augustine strengthens his argument by appealing to Psalm 58:12, which he regards as a prophecy. He writes at length: My God has demonstrated to me in my enemies: Do not slay them, lest they should ever forget your law (Ps 59:11). Among them, that is, enemies of the Christian faith (inimicis fidei Christianae), a demonstration is given the Gentiles of how Christ was prophesied. Otherwise, when they saw the prophecies so manifestly being fulfilled, they might suppose that these same scriptures had been fabricated by Christians, when things foretold about Christ are recited that they can observe have been fulfilled. So the sacred volumes are produced by the Jews, and in this way God ‘demonstrates to us in our enemies’; whom he didn’t slay, that is totally eliminated from all countries, for this reason, that they should not forget this law.10 The reason they remember this by reading it, and observing some of its contents though in a literal and material manner, is to bring judgment on themselves, and present testimony to us (Sermon 201.3; emphasis added).11

The essential elements of Augustine’s position on the Jews remain intact here. Reprising a refrain from the Contra Faustum, Augustine reiterates that by preserving the Old Testament texts, the Jews testify to the fact that the Christians have not invented the prophecies of Christ. At the same time, while the Jews serve a vital function for Christianity, Augustine continues to underscore that Judaism serves no function, except its witness to

9Hill argues that these “old sacraments” refer primarily to circumcision, sabbath, and dietary laws (6:90 n8). As I have argued in Chapter 5, this is indeed what Augustine has in mind here. 10Another English translation reads, “they were to preserve their law from oblivion” (Augustine, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany, trans. Thomas Comerford Lawler (Westminster, Maryland/London: The Newman Press/ Longmans, Green and Co., 1952), 168. 11Proferunter ergo codices a Judaeis, atque ita Deus demonstrat nobis in inimicis nostris; quos ideo non occidit, hoc est, de terris non penitus, perdidit, ne obliviscerentur legis ipsius: quam propterea legende, et quaedam ejus quamvis carnaliter observanda, meminerunt, ut sibi sumant judicium, nobis praebeant testimonium.

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Christianity.12 Though the themes in Sermon 201 are certainly familiar, Augustine here appeals both to Psalm 58:12 and to the mark of Cain as the scriptural texts for his teaching on Jews. Augustine continues to use both Genesis 4:15 and Psalm 58:12 in his Enarrationes in Psalmos 58, written in 413.13 He continues to link Genesis 4:15 with Psalm 58:12, though the latter biblical text now begins to emerge as Augustine’s primary scriptural support for his theology of the Jews. Nevertheless, the substance of his teaching on Jews remains unchanged. Psalm 58 in general speaks of David’s response to his enemies who are literally hunting him. Augustine picks up on this theme and uses David’s enemies as a type of the enemies of Christians. Hammering home the accusation that Jews are the enemies of Christians, he implies that they were “men of blood” when they crucified Christ (Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.1.5).14 Yet, just as David did not desire the destruction of his enemies, neither does God desire the destruction of his enemies, the Jews. According to Augustine, Psalm 58:12 advocates this position.15 Placing this text in the mouth of God, the bishop writes, “[d]o not slay those enemies of mine who slew me” (Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.1.21; cf. 58.1.2) Rather “[l]et the Jewish race survive.” Emphasizing that Jews are distinguished from other people, he writes: So many provinces have been subjugated by the Romans, and who can tell any longer which nation is which, now that they are all within the Roman Empire? They have all become Romans, and all are called Romans. Yet the Jews remain distinct, marked with their sign; they have been so conquered so to be absorbed by their conquerors. It was on Cain, and significantly, after he had slain his brother, that God put a mark, to prevent anyone killing him. This is the sign that the Jews bear today. They preserve tenaciously the remnants of their law; they practice circumcision, observe the Sabbath, slaughter the paschal lamb, and eat unleavened 12As I noted in Chapter 5, in Sermon 5.5, using an obvious reference to

Genesis 25:23, Augustine explicitly states that the Jews, the elder brother, are the servant of the younger brother, the Church. Though the imagery of slavery is nowhere explicitly stated in Sermon 201, this theme may lie behind Augustine’s insistence on Jews as a witness to Christianity. 13Date from introduction to Sancti Aurelii Augustini Enarrationes in Psalmos I-L. Corpus Christianorum, series Latina (Turnholi: Tyographi Brepols Editores Pontificis, 1956), 38: xvii. 14All English translations of the Enarrationes in Psalmos are from Boulding. 15“Do not kill them, let them never forget your law.’”

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bread. The Jews abide; they have not been killed, for they are necessary to Gentile believers. (Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.1.21).16

Augustine asks, “Why?” (Quare hoc?). Here he alludes to the olive tree image of Romans 11:17-24:17 So that God may give us proof of his mercy by his dealings with our enemies. My God has given me proof of it by his dealing with my enemies. In the branches lopped off for their pride he has demonstrated his mercy to the wild olive tree engrafted in their place. Look where they lie, those who were so proud, and look where you, who used to lie there, have now been grafted in. Do not be proud, lest you deserve to be lopped off. O my God, do not kill them, let them never forget your law (Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.1.21)

Notice three crucial points here: Augustine equates the mark of Cain with the traditional Jewish observances; he uses the olive tree metaphor of Romans 11:17-24; and he cites Psalm 58:12. In effect, Augustine has conflated three key scriptural passages, Genesis 4:15, Romans 11 and Psalm 16Maneat gens Iudaeroum: certe victa est a Romanis, certe deleta ciuitas eorum; non admittuntur ad ciuitatem suam Iudaei, et tamen Iudaei sunt. Nam omnes istae prouinciae a Romanis subiugatae sunt. Quis iam cognoscit gentes in imperio Romano quae quid erant, quando omnes Romani facti sunt, et omnes Romani dicuntur? Iudaei tamen manent cum signo; nec sic uicti sunt, ut a uictoribus absorberentur. Non sine causa Cain ille est, qui cum fratrem occidisset, posuit in eo Deu signum, ne quis eum occideret. Hoc est signum quod habent Iudaei: tenent omnino reliquias legis suae: circumciduntur, sabbata obseruant, pascha immolant, azyma comedunt. Sunt ergo Iudai, non sunt occisi, necessarii sunt credentibus gentibus.Augustine reiterates this same point in Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.2.2. 17“But if some of the branches were broken off and you, a wild olive shoot, were grafted in their place to share the rich root of the olive tree, do not boast over the branches. If you do boast, remember that it is not you that support the root, but the root that supports you. You will say, ‘Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.’ That is true. They were broken off because of their unbelief, but you stand only through faith. So do not become proud, but stand in awe. For if God did not spare the natural branches, perhaps he will not spare you. Note then the kindness and the severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God’s kindness toward you, provided you continued in his kindness; otherwise you also will cut off. And even those of Israel, if they do not persist in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God has the power to graft them in again. For if you have been cut from what is by nature a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these natural branches be grafted back into their own olive tree.”

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58:12, to reiterate key concerns from the Contra Faustum, most notably that Jews are distinguished from other peoples by virtue of their Torah observance and that as a divinely protected people they must not be killed. In the Contra Faustum 9.2, Augustine had already referred to the grafting of Gentiles on the olive tree by quoting Romans 11:16-26 to urge the Manichees to be regrafted into the true branch. Here, in the Enarrationes on Psalmos, Augustine introduces the Pauline image to stress that Gentile Christians should not boast of their inclusion in the household of God. Augustine exhorts his hearers to remember the mercy of God, even to his enemies, i.e., the Jews (Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.2.1). The Jews not only testify to the mercy of God but they also serve as a witness. Referring to the verse, “[s]catter them by your power” (Psalm 58:12), Augustine refers this text to the Jewish Diaspora, in which the Jews bear witness to the truth of Christianity by possessing “the books belonging to the Jews” (codicibus Iudaeorum), that is, the Old Testament (Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.1.22). As we have already seen in the Contra Faustum, the Jews act as an independent, even hostile, witness that the Christians did not invent the prophecies that foretold the coming of Christ prior to his coming. To make this familiar point, Augustine not only appeals to Genesis 4:15 but also to Psalm 58:12. This psalm text also allows him to put even greater stress on the claim that the Jews are a divinely protected people and must not be killed. Their Torah observance serves as the sign of their divinely protected status.

CORRESPONDENCE WITH PAULINUS OF NOLA Augustine continues to employ both scriptural texts, Genesis 4:15 and Psalm 58:12, well into the second decade of the fifth century, as evidenced in his correspondence with Paulinus of Nola. However, in the letters of Paulinus and Augustine, Psalm 58:12 is the focus of the discussion, though the mark of Cain does not completely fade away in Augustine’s comments. Some of the correspondence between the two bishops failed to reach its destination. Nevertheless, Paulinus’ letter 50, dated no earlier than 410, did reach Augustine. Unfortunately, the bishop of Hippo’s reply failed to reach Paulinus.18 Augustine’s letter 149 did reach Paulinus, however; and in this epistle, Augustine attempted to clarify the interpretation of several verses that troubled Paulinus, including Psalm 58:12. 18Paulinus of Nola, Letters of St. Paulinus of Nola, trans. P.G. Walsh

(Westminster, Maryland/London: The Newman Press/Longmans, Green and Co., 1967) 2: 362.

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Paulinus had already posed such exegetical queries as early as his letter 50. Though he puzzles over the meaning of Psalm 58:12, he does note that the Psalmist was speaking of “hostile Jews” (Epistula 50.7). Indeed, for Paulinus, the text speaks of contemporary Jews. Applying the verse, “[s]catter them by Thy power and bring them down, O Lord,’” to the Jews, he speaks of the present state of the Jewish people when he contends: This we observe is fulfilled in the case of the Jews even up to our day; for they have been brought low from their ancient fame (destructi sunt enim ueteri sua gloria), and they live without temple, without sacrifices, and without prophets, scattered through all the nations (Epistula 50.7).

Notice that Paulinus accents the traditional Christian point that the Jews have been scattered among the nations, a commonplace which we have already seen in Augustine’s Contra Faustum. Yet the phrase, “[l]est at any time they forget Thy law,” greatly puzzles Paulinus. Unable to reconcile the Jewish way of life with Christian claims that salvation is obtained only through faith, he proposes a possible solution to his dilemma. Tentatively, he ventures that the “ancient Law” survives so that “perhaps some men by a study of the Law may be enlightened to gain faith in Christ, who is the end of the Law and the prophets (Romans 10:4), and shines forth prefigured and prophesied in all their books” (Epistula 50.7).19 Paulinus suggests that the study, not the observance of the Law, might lead some to faith in Christ. Though his position is similar to Augustine’s, in that Paulinus believes that Jews are a witness people, he makes no mention of either Cain or his mark. Nor does Paulinus note the importance of Jews observing their ancestral customs secundum carnem. Replying to Paulinus, Augustine elaborates on these omissions. Writing in 414, the bishop of Hippo answers Paulinus’ concerns over Psalm 58:12, as well as other scriptural passages. Unlike Paulinus, Augustine places a much heavier accent on the law and the Jews’ relationship to the law. In explaining the verse that had perplexed Paulinus, “slay them not, lest at any time they forget my law,” he argues that though these people have been “defeated and overcome,” nevertheless, they had not yielded to “the superstitions of the victorious people (in populi uictoris superstitiones), but would remain firm in the Old Law, thus preserving over the whole earth the testimony of the Scriptures whence the Church was to be called into being” (Epistula 149.9). Again, Augustine continues to stress 19legis antiquae littera perseueret, ni forte aliqui legenda legem inluminentur ad fidem

Christi, qui est legis et prophetarum finis est.

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that the Jewish people have remained distinct from other peoples by virtue of their observance of their ancestral customs. Therefore, echoing the phrase “slay them not,” he forcefully concludes that the Jewish people must not be destroyed. Otherwise, the Jews would forget “thy law,” which according to the bishop, “would certainly have happened if they had been compelled to accept the rites and sacrifices of the Gentiles and had failed to preserve the very name of their own religion” (Epistula 149.9).20 Augustine continues, “[w]hat was written of Cain was a figure of them, that ‘the Lord set a mark upon him that no one should kill him’” (Epistula 149.9). Augustine thus immediately links Genesis 4:15 with Psalm 58:12; and he further emphasizes the Jews as a witness people when he interprets the psalm phrase, “‘[s]catter them by thy power.’” According to Augustine, God scattered the Jewish people among the nations so that they might bear witness to the gospel (Epistula 149.9). This theme, along with the themes of Jewish observance of the law and their witness to the gospel, are all central components of Augustine’s theology of the Jewish people that he had developed some sixteen years earlier in the Contra Faustum. To the best of my knowledge, Epistula 149 marks the last time that Augustine explicitly links Genesis 4:15 with Psalm 58:12 to present his theology of Jews. In his later, mature works, the typological association between Cain and the Jews has faded; and Psalm 58:12 has displaced Genesis 4:5 as the basis for his claim that the Jews are not to be destroyed. Nevertheless, his theology of Jews and Judaism, as seen in the De civitate Dei, still contains the key elements of his earlier theology as recorded in the Contra Faustum.

DE CIVITATE DEI The shift in biblical texts, then, does not signal a major departure from Augustine’s earlier position in the Contra Faustum. The key difference is simply that, in the De civitate Dei, Augustine uses the figure of Cain as the founder of the earthly city; and, as a consequence, Cain is no longer available to him to represent the Jews. Rather than offering a comprehensive study of Augustine’s theology of the Jews in the De civitate Dei, then, we shall focus primarily on how he presents his theology of the Jews as a witness people, which culminates in his discussion of Psalm 58:12

20Ne occideris eos, ne ipsius gentis nomen extinexeris, ne quando obliuiscantur legis

tuae, quod utique fieret, si ritus et sacra gentium colere compulsi penitus qualecumque nomen suae religionis minime retinerent. quod in eorum figura etiam de Cain scriptum est .

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as his main biblical support for the contention that the Jews are a divinely protected people. In Book 15, he refers his readers back to an earlier work (the Contra Faustum) for a discussion of Cain as a type of the Jews. In the De civitate Dei, Augustine lifts up Cain and Abel as types of his famous schema of the two cities.21 Cain represents the earthly city (civitate terrae), while his brother Abel represents the heavenly city (civitate Dei). The two cities stand in sharp contrast to each other for these cities consist of two different types of citizens who live by different standards (De civitate Dei 15.1). Augustine had already established the criterion for the distinction between heavenly and earthly citizens: the two cities are created by two kinds of love, amor Dei (love of God) and amor sui (love of self). The former looks only to God, while the latter looks for its glory on the human plane (De civitate Dei 14.28). Underlying this distinction, one can detect Augustine’s distinction between “use” and “enjoyment.”22 This distinction comes to the fore when he writes, “[f]or the good make use of this world in order to enjoy God, whereas the evil want to make use of God in order to enjoy the world” (De civitate Dei 15.7). Those who belong to the Heavenly City desire only God; such people are not lured away by pursuing the material gains of this world. Abel and Cain, then, are representatives of these two cities. According to Augustine, “Cain was the first son born to those two parents of mankind, and he belonged to the city of man (pertinens ad hominum civitatem); the later son, Abel, belonged to the City of God (ad civitatem Dei)” (De civitate Dei 15.1).23 The earthly city, however, is not homogeneous for it consists of two parts. In De civitate Dei 15.2, Augustine begins his discussion of the heavenly city by insisting that “[t]here was certainly a kind of shadow and 21Ricardo J. Quinones, The Changes of Cain. Violence and the Lost Brother in

Cain and Abel Literature (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1991), 35. Cf. F. Edward Cranz, “De civitate Dei, XV, 2, and Augustine's Idea of the Christian Society,” in Augustine: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1972), 405. See also Psalm 61.6, written around 412, which alludes to Abel and Cain representing two different cities. Cf. Enarrationes in Psalms 142.3 which dates from either 412 or 415 (Boulding, 6: 345). 22See De doctrina christiana 1.4.4. See also the earlier discussion on use and enjoyment in Chapter 4 of this work. 23N.B. Augustine’s two cities represent two kinds of societies, but not as geographical or political units on earth. He argues that “[b]y two cities I mean two societies of human beings, one of which is predestined to reign with God for all eternity, the other doomed to undergo eternal punishment with the Devil” (15.1).

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prophetic image (imago prophetica et significandae) of this City which served rather to point towards it than to reproduce it on earth at the time when it was due to be displayed” (De civitate Dei 15.2). This image, too, is called the holy city, “in virtue of its pointing to that other City” (De civitate Dei 15.2). In a typical move, Augustine refers here to Galatians 4:21-5:1, where Paul speaks of Hagar and Sarah representing two covenants.24 Augustine offers a complex interpretation of this Pauline text, taking it to mean that one part of the earthly city, represented by Sarah, signifies the heavenly city and is itself signified by Hagar, who is to be construed as an image of the heavenly city. The bishop writes: One part of the earthly city has been made into an image of the Heavenly City, by [signifying] something other than itself, namely that other City; and for that reason it is a servant. For it was established not for its own sake but in order to [signify] another City; and since it was signified by an antecedent symbol, the foreshadowing symbol (signum) was itself foreshadowed (De civitate Dei 15.2).

Thus the earthly city is divided into two parts or aspects (duas formas); and only a portion of this city is an image of the heavenly city. It is worth noting here that Augustine has again brought his sign theory into play in interpreting the place and role of the Jews. F. Edward Cranz clarifies Augustine’s position. Israel, as he notes, occupies a unique position in that 24“Tell me, you who desire to be subject to the law, will you not listen to

the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave and the other by a free woman. One, the child of the slave was born according to the flesh, the child of the free woman was born through promise. Now this is an allegory: these women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is Hagar, from Mount Sinai, bearing children for slavery. Now Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, for she is in slavery with her children. But the other woman corresponds to Jerusalem above; she is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, ‘Rejoice, you childless one bear no children; burst into song and shout, you who are endure no birth pangs; for the children of the desolate woman are more numerous than the children of the one who is married.’ Now you, my friends, are children of the promise, like Isaac. But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now also. But what does the scripture say? ‘Drive out the slave and her child; for the child of the slave will not share the inheritance with the child of the free woman.’ So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman. For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Galatians 4:21-5:1)

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it exists both as a part of the earthly city and as a prophecy pointing to the city of God.25 Once again, Augustine identifies Israel’s purpose solely in terms of the role it plays in signifying the heavenly city.26 In his interpretation of Galatians 4, he underscores that Israel remains in bondage like Hagar, who is an image of the Jews. The free woman, Sarah, is the image of “the free city which the shadow, Hagar, for her part served to point to in another way” (De civitate Dei 15.2). The implication is clear. The Jews are servants of the heavenly city. In effect, Jews, themselves signified by Hagar, become a signum of the civitas Dei. Augustine finds additional scriptural support for the subservient role of the Jews in the story of Jacob and Esau. He quotes the prophecy of Genesis 25:23, “‘[t]wo nations are in your womb, and two peoples will derive their separate existence from your belly. One of those peoples will overcome the other, and the elder will be servant to the younger’” (De civitate Dei 16.35). Here Augustine is employing a traditional Christian typology. For these two sons are types for two groups of people, the Jews and the Christians. The older son, Esau, represents the Jews. The younger son, Jacob, represents the Christians. In speaking of the Jews, Augustine contends that “[a]s for the statement ‘The elder will be servant to the younger’, hardly anyone of our people has taken it as meaning anything else but that the older people of the Jews was destined to serve the younger people, the Christians” (De civitate Dei 16.35).27 Though Augustine had implied this in the Contra Faustum, here he explicitly argues that Jews serve Christianity. As already noted, this insistence is manifested in his discussion of the role of Israel prior to Christ’s first advent and continues to dominate his discussion of the Jews’ role after Christ’s coming. Prior to the advent of Christ, the Jews signified the earthly manifestation of the city of God. After Christ’s initial coming, the Jews no longer serve this role as a witness people. However, in Augustine’s scheme of divine history, the Jews do not merely fade off into the sunset with the coming of Christ. They continue to serve as a witness people, but in a new way. Instead of pointing to the Heavenly City, the Jews now serve as witness to the truth of Christianity, a theme Augustine had already developed in the Contra Faustum. Here Augustine repeats a familiar refrain: the Jews are blinded to the fact that the law and prophets foretold Christ 25Cranz, 407. 26Cranz, 407. 27nemo fere nostrorum aliter intellexit, quam maiorem populum Iudaeorum minor:

Christiano populo serviturum.

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and their own blindness (De civitate Dei 16.37). Due to their blindness, the Jews have failed to recognize that the promised Messiah has come. Augustine refers to this as the “amazing stupidity and blindness” (mirabili vanitate atque caecitate) of the Jews (De civitate Dei 17.18). Granted, for Augustine, one reason for this diaspora of Jews is punishment for killing Christ. He is clear that the Jews are incurring divine punishment for their crime of killing Christ and refusing to believe in him (De civitate Dei 18.46; 17.18). Therefore, the Jews “suffered a more wretched devastation at the hands of the Romans and were utterly uprooted from their kingdom, where they had already been under the dominion of foreigners” (De civitate Dei 18.46). This theme, of course, had already appeared in the Contra Faustum. Consequently, the Jews are presently living in a dejected state, far away from their homeland, and without their sacred sacrifices (De civitate Dei 18.28). Such a pronouncement, according to Augustine, is “an utterly irrevocable sentence” and “a sentence absolutely perpetual” (omino perpetuam) (De civitate Dei 17.7).28 Yet, this dispersion is not merely a punishment. Echoing his thoughts from the Contra Faustum, Augustine also maintains that the Jewish diaspora serves a divine purpose. Scattered among the nations, the Jews, in possessing the Old Testament that finds its fulfillment in Christ, confirm that Christians have not invented the prophecies fulfilled in the New Testament. Augustine argues: [F]or indeed there is no part of the earth where they were not to be found--and thus by the evidence of their own Scriptures they bear witness for us that we have not fabricated (non finxisse or “not forged’, Loeb trans.) the prophecies about Christ. In fact, very many of the Jews, thinking over these prophecies both before his passion and more particularly after his resurrection, have come to believe in him. About them this prediction was made: ‘Even if the number of the sons of Israel shall be like the sand of the sea, it is only a remnant that will be saved.’ But the rest of them were blinded; and of them it was predicted (De civitate Dei 18.46).

Consequently, Jews continue to play a role as a witness people, though not in the same capacity as prior to Christ’s coming. In their present role, the Jews confirm that Christians have neither “fabricated” nor “forged” the Old Testament prophecies which point to Christ. The Jews, then, serve as an independent validation of the truth that the Old Testament foretold 28Elsewhere Augustine implies that later the Jews will come to believe in

Christ (De Civitate Dei 15.28).

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Christ. In spite of themselves, the Jews “supply [this witness] for our benefit by their possession and preservation of those books” (De civitate Dei 18.46). According to Augustine, the dispersion of the Jews among the nations has resulted in the growth of Christ’s Church (De civitate Dei 18.47). Now living scattered among the nations, Jews fulfill their divine role by preserving the Old Testament texts. Given the importance of their divinely appointed task, Jews must not be physically harmed or killed. To silence the Jews would also mean a silencing of their witness to Christ. Augustine writes at length: In fact, there is a prophecy given before the event on this very point in the book of Psalms, which they also read. It comes in this passage ‘As for my God, his mercy will go before me; my God has shown me this in the case of my enemies. Do not slay them, lest at some time they forget your law; scatter them by your might.’ God has thus shown to the Church the grace of his mercy in the case of her enemies the Jews (in eius inimicis Iudaeis), since, as the Apostle says, ‘their failure means salvation for the Gentiles.’ And this is the reason for his forbearing to slay them—that is not putting an end to their existence as Jews, although they have been conquered and oppressed by the Romans, it is for fear that they should forget the Law of God (ne obliti legem Dei ad hoc, inde quo agimus, testimonium nihil valerent) and thus fail to bear convincing witness on the point that I am now dealing with. Thus it was not enough for the psalmist to say, ‘Do not slay them, lest at some time they forget your law’, without adding, ‘Scatter them.’ For if they lived with that testimony of the Scriptures only in their own land, and not everywhere, they would not have been available among all nations as witnesses to the prophecies which were given beforehand concerning Christ” (18.46).

Notice that Augustine weaves together three crucial strands here. First, the Jews must not be killed. Second, the Jews are to observe their law. Third, God has scattered the Jews among the nations to bear witness to the truth of Christianity. Therefore, the prohibition against slaying Jews is not so much for their physical protection as it is for the salvation of the Gentiles. Augustine supports this claim by quoting the Apostle from Romans 11:11, “‘their failure means salvation for the Gentiles.’” These are all themes reprised from the Contra Faustum. The difference is that here, in the De civitate Dei, Augustine uses Psalm 58:12 as a prophetic text, which he had not done in the earlier work. The Psalm text has now become for Augustine the needed biblical passage to undergird his theology of the Jewish people, especially the emphasis on non-violence toward Jews. Instead of lifting Cain up as a type

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of the Jewish people, he now raises Cain up as a representative of the earthly city. Though the typology of Cain has shifted in the De civitate Dei, Augustine’s basic vision of the Jewish people as a witness to Christianity has remained intact. What is new in the De civitate Dei is that Augustine insists that the Jews are a signum of the civitas Dei prior to the first advent of Christ. Nevertheless, Augustine’s theology of Jews still retains the characteristic features that he had already formulated some twenty years earlier in the Contra Faustum: the Jews in their blindness have failed to recognize that Christ fulfills the Old Testament prophecies; the Jews have been scattered among the nations; after the first coming of Christ, the Jews’ witness is their preservation of the Old Testament which points to Christ; and, because of their divinely appointed role, they must not be killed or physically harmed but rather be allowed to maintain their ancestral customs. It is plain, then, that although Augustine has shifted the key scriptural support for his views from Genesis 4:15 to Psalm 58:12, the substance of his theology of Jews and Judaism remains unaltered.

ADVERSUS JUDAEOS Written late in Augustine’s life, approximately 427-428, his Adversus Judaeos tractate reiterates key themes in his theology of Jews and Judaism.29 The discussion here will not offer a comprehensive study of Augustine’s tractate. Rather the purpose is more modest in that it seeks to highlight reoccurring themes in Augustine’s theology of Jews. Using Romans 9-11, with an emphasis on the Pauline image of the olive tree in Romans 11:1724, and centering his work on a discussion of the inscriptions of certain Psalms, Augustine stresses familiar themes: the Jews in their blindness do not interpret correctly their own Scriptures; Christians no longer keep the Old Testament observances, though they retain the first testament; the Jews must not be harmed. The Pauline texts come to the fore in this tractate. Piete Casare Bori notes the importance of Romans 9-11 in this work.30 Citing Romans 11:22, Augustine opens the Adversus Judaeos with Paul’s exhortation, “‘[s]ee then, the goodness and severity of God: his severity towards those who 29Augustine, “In Answer to the Jews,” in Saint Augustine: Treatises on

Marriage and Other Subjects, trans. Marie Liguori (New York: Fathers of the Church, 1955’), 387. Blumenkranz sets the date after 425 (Die Judenpredigt Augustins, 207-209, 245). 30Bori 1: 302.

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have fallen, but the goodness of God towards thee if thou abidest in his goodness.’” (Adversus Judaeos 1.1). Drawing on the Pauline imagery, Augustine stresses that the Jews, the natural branches of the olive tree, have been broken off because of unbelief. The wild olive, i.e., the Gentiles, have been grafted in and have “shared in the richness of the true olive tree.” However, Augustine issues a caution. The unnatural branches, i.e., the Gentiles, must not boast of their inclusion, because God can also cut off unbelievers from the olive tree and is still able to graft the natural members, i.e., Jews, back on the branch (Adversus Judaeos 1.1). Augustine sets up a sharp contrast: the Jews have been broken off the olive tree because of pride and the Gentiles have been grafted in because of “faithful humility” (fidelis humilitas). The Jews have lost their place in the olive tree due to their inability to interpret Scripture correctly. Citing Psalm 49:6, Augustine argues that the Jews failed to recognize that God’s salvation would extend to the Gentiles (Adversus Judaeos 1.2).31 Augustine proceeds to offer a careful explanation of how Jews fail to understand the Old Testament. Here he reprises a pivotal argument from the Contra Faustum. Recall that Faustus had argued that Christians should forsake the Old Testament if Christians do not keep the observance of the Mosaic rituals. In the Adversus Judaeos, Augustine places this same objection now into the mouth of the Jews. He insists that it is one of the Jews’ errors to suppose that the Old Testament does not concern Christians, since “we observe the new sacraments (sacramenta) and no longer preserve the old. For they say to us: ‘What is the reading of the Law and the Prophets doing among you who do not want to follow the precepts contained in them?’” (Adversus Judaeos 2.3). Like Faustus, the Jews accuse Christians of failing to circumcise the flesh of males, to practice dietary laws, to observe the Sabbath and new moons, and to keep the Passover (Adversus Judaeos 2.3). Augustine responds by reiterating the same argument he had made in the De doctrina christiana and in the Contra Faustum. These “ancient sacraments” (vetera sacramenta), according to Paul, were “shadows of things to come” (umbras futurorum), since they “signified events to be revealed which we have accepted and recognized as already revealed” (quia ea significabant suo tempore revelanda, quae nos revelata suscepimus) (Adversus Judaeos

31“‘I have given thee to be the light of the Gentiles, that thou mayest be

my salvation even to the farthest part of the earth’” (Isaiah 49:6 quoted in Adversus Judaeos 1.2).

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2.3).32 Notice that Augustine uses the vocabulary of sign and significance to present the Old Testament rites as signifying future realities in Christ. As in his argument against Faustus, Augustine insists that Christ was prefigured in the Old Testament rites. For example, the former sacrifices of goats prefigure Christ’s sacrifice (Adversus Judaeos 2.3).33 Augustine argues, “[t]hrough His Body are changed the things that before were prefigured through shadows” (per cujus corpus immutantur, quae antea per umbras figurabantur) (Adversus Judaeos 4.5). Therefore, Christ came not to change the “ancient signs” (vetera signa) but to fulfill them (Adversus Judaeos 3.4). Augustine is clear. Christians no longer observe the Old Testament rites not because they have been condemned, but rather because they have been changed. Specifically, the practices that signify Christ have changed, not the realities to which they point (qui nunc est populus christianus, jam non cogatur observare quae propheticis temporibus observabantur: non quia damnata, sed quia mutata sunt; non ut res ispae quae significabantur perirent, sed ut rerum signa suis quaeque temporibus convenirent) (Adversus Judaeos 3.4). Notice again that Augustine employs the familiar language of the De doctrina christiana and the Contra Faustum in using such words as signa and significare. Augustine justifies the change in the Old Testament rites by appealing to the inscriptions of Psalm 44:1, ‘‘’[f]or these things that shall be changed’” (Adversus Judaeos 3.4); Psalm 68:1, “‘[f]or the things that shall be entirely changed’” (Adversus Judaeos 5.6); and Psalm 79:1, “‘[f]or the things that shall be changed’” (Adversus Judaeos 6.7). Augustine insists that though Christians no longer observe the Old Testament, they still “hold fast to the promises made there” (Adversus Judaeos 5.6). Here Augustine seems to have the argument from the Contra Faustum in mind where he argued that Christians still read the Old Testament because it points to spiritual truths (Contra Faustum 6.9). The problem with the Jews, then, is that they fail to read the signa found in their own Scripture, because they interpret the texts carnaliter (Adversus Judaeos 5.6).34 Augustine continues to underscore the Jews’ inability to read Scripture correctly by insisting that they also fail to understand that they are part of the “natural Israel” (Israel secundum carnem), not the true, spiritual Israel (Adversus Judaeos 7.9; 8.11). Thus, the Jews fail to 32Latin text from PL 42, 51-64. 33See also Adversus Judaeos 9.13 when Augustine talks about the kind of

spiritual sacrifices that Christians now offer. 34In 6.5, Augustine also employs the image of Galatians 4 of Hagar languishing in slavery.

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recognize who they truly are (Adversus Judaeos 7.10). These are the enemies, according to Augustine, that the psalmist refers to in Psalm 58:12, “‘[m]y God shall let me see over my enemies: slay them not, lest at any time they forget thy law. Scatter them by the power’” (ne occideris eos, ne quando obliviscantur legis tuae: disperge illos in virtute tua) (Adversus Judaeos 7.9). Here Augustine uses the scriptural support of Psalm 58:12 that had become so crucial in his theology of Jews and Judaism in his mature writings. He offers a faint echo on his earlier position of the Jews and their law when he writes, that “bearing the same Law about for a covenant to the Gentiles and a reproach to yourselves, you [i.e., Jews] unknowingly are ministering the Law to a people that has been called from the rising to the setting of the sun” (Adversus Judaeos 7.9).35 Augustine urges the Jews to repent. He writes, “[f]or a long time you have not believed in Him [i.e., Christ] and you have opposed Him, but you are not yet lost, because you are still alive; you have time now for repentance; only come now” (Adversus Judaeos 8.11). The Jews’ inability to read Scripture correctly continues to allow them to “resist the Son of God against [their] own salvation” (Adversus Judaeos 9.12). If they would heed the prophet’s words, “‘O house of Jacob, come ye and let us walk in the light of the Lord’” (Isaiah 2:5), the Jews would belong to the house to which God has called them (Adversus Judaeos 9:14). Whether or not Jews will accept this counsel and turn to Christ, Augustine insists that Christians are to proclaim the “divine testimonies” with “great love” to the Jews (Adversus Judaeos 10.15). Augustine returns to the image of the olive tree. He urges Christians, “[l]et us not proudly glory against the broken branches; let us rather reflect by whose grace it is, and by much mercy, and on what root, we have been engrafted” (Adversus Judaeos 10.15). Not in vain gloating but in simple humility must Gentile Christians accept their inclusion into the household of God (Nec superbe gloriemur adversus ramos fractos). As we saw earlier in the Enarrationes in Psalmos 58.1.18, Augustine had already included this theme in his discussion of Jews and Judaism. This concern also reappears in other writings (e.g., Contra Faustum 9.2; Enarrationes in Psalmos 65.5; Sermon 162A.9).36 But it is here, in the

35unde non obliviscentes legem Dei, sed eamdem circumferentes, Gentibus ad

testimonium, vobis ad opprobrium, nescientes eam populo ministratis, qui vocatus est a solis ortu usque ad occasum. 36An interesting study would be to trace the olive tree imagery in Augustine’s thought.

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Adversus Judaeos, that the theme of the olive tree sets the frame for his discussion of the Jews. Though the olive tree imagery receives a new emphasis in the Adversus Judaeos, Augustine reiterates familiar themes from the Contra Faustum: the Jews’ blindness and their inability to interpret Scripture properly; Christians no longer observe the Mosaic rites, though these practices contain spiritual truths; and the insistence that Jews must not be killed, now based on Psalm 58:12. Consequently, the Adversus Judaeos introduces no new concerns in Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism. Therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that the Contra Faustum, not the Adversus Judaeos, truly represents Augustine’s unique understanding of the Jewish people.

CONCLUSION Over a span of approximately 30 years, Augustine never significantly deviates from the theology of Jews and Judaism that he had formulated in his debates with the Manichees. Throughout his long ecclesial career, the same themes from the Contra Faustum reverberate like a persistent refrain. As we have seen in Chapter 5, Genesis 4:1-15, the story of Cain and Abel, serves as the foundational biblical text on which Augustine first develops his theology of Jews and Judaism. Augustine’s typological association between Cain and the Jews, especially his interpretation of the mark of Cain, lingers on in the almost two decades following the writing of Contra Faustum. During this period, Augustine increasingly associates Genesis 4:15 with Psalm 58:12, “slay them not, lest at any time they forget Thy law.” This merging of the two biblical texts is an important transitional element in the development of Augustine’s thought on the Jews. In the De civitate Dei, Augustine employs Cain as a type of the founder of the earthly city and thus Cain drops out as a type of the Jews. But he still reiterates the same theology of Jews and Judaism now relying primarily on Psalm 58:12 for the key point that the Jews are not to be harmed. Thus the shift from Genesis 4:15 to Psalm 58:12 does not alter the basic shape of his teaching on the Jews. It still contains essentially the same elements: the Jews are to be a wandering people; they serve as witness to the truth of Christianity; they must not be slain; they are divinely protected; and they are to remain Torah observant. Even his Adversus Judaeos gently echoes some of these same themes. It seems clear, then, that Augustine never fundamentally wavers from the theology of Jews and Judaism he first proposed in the Contra Faustum.

CONCLUSION SUMMARY Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism remains consistent throughout his long ecclesial career. He never fundamentally waivers from the position that he establishes in the Contra Faustum. Augustine constructs a theology of Jews and Judaism that is characterized by two notable features: Jews are a witness people to the truths of Christianity and Torah observance constitutes the distinctive mark of the Jews as a divinely protected people. This theology emerges out of Augustine’s exegetical and theological concerns. Out of his struggle to understand the figurative language of Scripture and to explain the relationship of the Old Testament, particularly the Mosaic ritual requirements, to the New Testament, he formulates his theology of Jews and Judaism. These issues stand at the heart of the debate between Faustus the Manichee and Augustine, as recorded in the Contra Faustum. These concerns have a direct influence on Augustine’s formulation of his theology of Jews and Judaism. Departing from earlier Christian exegesis, he offers a careful typological association between the biblical figure of Cain, as recorded in Genesis 4:1-15, and the Jews. Out of his typological reading of the story of Cain and Abel emerges his theology of Jews and Judaism, which has at least five crucial components: the Jews are a wandering people; they must not be killed; they must be preserved until the end of time; they serve as a witness people; and the mark of the Jews is their continued practice of their ancestral customs. First, like Cain, the Jews are to be a wandering people. Though Jews are to live in Diaspora, however, their exile is more than divine punishment for rejecting Christ. Second, the Diaspora serves a functional role since the Jews faithfully preserve the Old Testament texts, which contain the prophecies of Christ. Thus the Jews provide an autonomous, even hostile, confirmation of the truths found in Scripture. Without them, a skeptic might easily conclude that the Christians had invented these texts in an effort to prove that Christ had been foretold by the ancient prophets. Third, accordingly, the Jews themselves must not be physically harmed or 163

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killed. Rather, they must survive until the end of the ages. Fourth, these people stand under divine protection. Fifth, some kind of identifying badge is required to distinguish Jews as a divinely protected people from nonJews. Such a mark Augustine identifies with traditional Jewish religious practices, such as circumcision, Sabbath observance, dietary laws, and festivals. Here Augustine affirms that God had indeed originally intended the Jews to keep the Mosaic rituals secundum carnem, according to the flesh. The byproduct of such an argument is that he also formulates a Christian theological rationale for contemporary Judaism. Augustine’s insistence that Jews be allowed to observe their ancestral customs is not entirely new. A careful examination of the Theodosian Code reveals that even under Christian emperors Jews were still permitted to maintain their ancestral customs. Even as late as the end of the fourth century, the period in which Augustine formulates his theology of Jews and Judaism, Christian emperors continued the ancient and venerable Roman legal tradition that granted Jews permission to practice their own religion. In part, then, Augustine’s theology of the Jews is a reflection of the legal status of Judaism in the Roman Empire of his era. What is new is that Augustine recognizes the continuing presence of Judaism in society in his theology and forges an innovative Christian understanding of Jewish Torah observance after the first coming of Christ. He insists that contemporary Jews are to continue to observe their ancestral customs secundum carnem, even though such practices have now found their fulfillment in Christ. He carefully holds in tension an interpretation of the Mosaic Law that insists on its spiritual significance, which only Christ reveals, and yet also maintains that Jews are to continue to observe their ancestral customs according to the flesh. Augustine’s statements on continued Torah observance by Jews should not be construed as complimentary to Judaism, however. For, in his view, contemporary Judaism has no legitimacy, save that it provides a service to Christianity. Nevertheless, Augustine has supplied a theological rationale for the continuing preservation of Judaism within Christian society. Here Augustine makes an important and original contribution to the Adversus Judaeos tradition.

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THE AUGUSTINIAN LEGACY Augustine bequeaths to future generations a rich legacy that will shape ecclesial policy and theology on Jews for centuries to come. Though the study of this influence falls outside the parameters of this current study, here is a brief survey of how the influence of Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism lingers through the centuries in Christian writings. Here we will focus specifically on the use of Psalm 58:12 as a proof text to support ecclesial policy and theology, as well as the transmission of the typological association between Cain and the Jews. In his article, “‘Slay them not’: Augustine and Jews in Modern Scholarship,” Jeremy Cohen suggests that Psalm 58:12, “slay them not” is the pivotal biblical text that shaped subsequent ecclesial policy on Jews.1 Though Fredriksen herself focuses on the importance of the Contra Faustum, and hence Genesis 4, she concurs that Augustine’s invocation of Psalm 58:12 helped to “safeguard” later generations of Jews in medieval Christian Europe.2 Two seminal figures of the Middle Ages in the shaping of policy toward Jews, Bernard of Clairvaux and Pope Innocent III, seem to confirm the significance of Psalm 58:12 as the pivotal text. In urging the English people’s participation in the Second Crusade, Bernard of Clairvaux writes: The Jews are not to be persecuted, killed, or even put to flight. Ask anyone who knows the sacred scripture what he finds foretold of the Jews in the Psalms. “Nor for their destruction do I pray,” it says. The Jews are for us the living words of scripture, for they remind us always of what our Lord suffered. They are dispersed all over the world so that by expiating their crime they may be everywhere the living witnesses of our redemption. Hence the same Psalm adds, “only let thy power disperse them.” ... If the Jews are utterly wiped out, what will become of our hope for their promised salvation, their eventual conversion?3

Bernard’s line of argumentation is clearly Augustinian. Like Augustine, Bernard argues that the Jews have been dispersed among the nations so that they might be witnesses. Notably absent from Bernard’s position, however, 1Jeremy Cohen, “'Slay Them Not'" Augustine and the Jews in Modern Scholarship,” 78-79. 2Paula Fredriksen, “Excaecati Occulta Justitia Dei,” 320. 3Bernard of Clairvaux, 462, 463.

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is that Jews are especially marked by the observance of their ancestral customs. Employing Psalm 58:12, “Nor for their destruction do I pray,” Bernard insists that Jews must not be harmed, a key component in Augustine’s own theology. In a letter to the bishop of Mainz, Bernard again invokes Psalm 58:12 in condemning a monk by the name of Rauol who had incited people against Jews (Epistula 393). In his Sefer Zekhirah or The Book of Remembrance, Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn, who himself may have been an eyewitness to violence against Jews, notes the importance of Bernard’s message. Rabbi Ephraim records: The Lord heard our outcry, and He turned to us and had mercy upon us. In His great mercy and grace, He sent a decent priest, one honored and respected by the clergy in France, named Abbé Bernard of Clairvaux, to deal with this evil person [i.e., Rauol]. Bernard, too, spoke raucously, as is their manner; and this is what he said to them: “it is good for you to go against the Ishmaelites. But whosoever touches a Jew to take his life, is like one who harms Jesus himself. My disciple Radulf, who has spoken about annihilating the Jews has spoken in error, for in the Book of Psalms, it is written of them: ‘Slay them not, lest my people forget.’”4

Here Psalm 58:12 is a key biblical text. Writings from Pope Innocent III lend additional confirmation as to the importance of the Psalm text in shaping medieval ecclesial policy on Jews. Writing to the Count of Nevers on January 17, 1208, Innocent proposes a strikingly Augustinian position: The Lord made Cain a wanderer and a fugitive over the earth, but set a mark upon him, making his head to shake, lest any finding him should slay him. Thus the Jews, against whom the blood of Jesus Christ calls out, although they ought not be killed, lest the Christian people forget the Divine Law, yet as wanderers ought they remain upon the earth, until their countenance be filled with shame and they seek the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord (Epistula 391).5

4Shlomo Eidelberg, The Jews and the Crusaders. The Hebrew Chronicles of the

First and Second Crusades (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1977), 122. 5Solomon Grayzel, The Church and the Jews in the XIIIth Century (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1933), 127.

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Cohen emphasizes the importance of Psalm 58:12 here, particularly in the phrase "they ought not be killed, lest the Christian people forget the Divine Law.”6 While the Psalm text is evident, Augustine’s use of Cain as a type of the Jews is also clearly present. Notice that Innocent here reiterates key elements in Augustine’s theology of Jews: Jews are to be wanderers and fugitives, they bear a mark, and they must not be killed. These are all elements that Augustine gave expression to in his typological exegesis of Genesis 4:15. While Cohen is surely correct to point out the importance of the Psalm 58:12 text, the importance of Genesis 4:15 here is also unmistakable. A brief survey of medieval Christian biblical exegesis similarly reveals that Augustine’s typological interpretation of Cain’s mark continues to have staying power for many centuries. In The Mark of Cain, Ruth Mellinkoff notes several sources where medieval exegetes discuss Cain’s mark. Here I will follow Mellinkoff’s lead and note several places where biblical exegetes follow an Augustinian interpretation of the mark. Like Augustine, Isidore of Seville (ca. 560-636) argues that Abel and Cain represent two groups of people (Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum 6.1, 2). Isidore provides a careful typology between Cain and the Jews. For example, Isidore accuses the Jews of laboring in the earthly observances of circumcision, Sabbath observance, unleavened bread, and Passover (adhuc operatur terrenam circumcisionem, terrenem Sabbatum, terrenum azymum, terrenum pascha, quia omnis terrena operatio habet occultam virtutem intelligendae gratiae Christi) (Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum 6.10). Isidore’s description of Jewish customs here is similar to that given by Augustine in his Enarrationes in Psalmos 59.1.21. Further, like the bishop of Hippo, Isidore insists that the Jews must not perish physically (non corporati morte interbit genus impium carnalium Judaeorum) (Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum 6.15). Isidore also invokes Psalm 58:12, “Ne occideris eos, nequando obliviscantur populi mei legis tuae; disperge illos in virtute tua, et depone eos” (Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum 6.16). Like Augustine before him, Isidore equates the mark of Cain with the Jews’ preservation of their customs by asserting that Jews are distinguished from other peoples by the sign of their law and by circumcision (signum legis et circumcisionis suae) (Quaestiones in Vetus Testamentum 6.17). Augustinian influence is also clearly evident in the commentary on Genesis of Rabanus Maurus (c. 780-856). Rabanus Maurus invokes Psalm 58:12 as a justification for the Jewish Diaspora, a familiar theme in Augustinian theology (Commentarium in Genesim 2.1). Like the bishop of 6Jeremy Cohen, “‘Slay Them Not,’” 78-79.

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Hippo, he marvels that the Jews, unlike other people subjugated by the Romans, have not lost their own customs (Commentarium in Genesim 2.1). Reprising Augustine’s theology, Rabanus Maurus insists that no ruler, whether pagan or Christian, has prevented Jews from observing their law or practicing circumcision (signum legis et circumcisionis suae) (Commentarium in Genesim 2.1).7 While Rabanus Maurus’ language is largely Augustinian, one can detect two subtle changes. First, like Isidore, Rabanus Maurus links the mark of the Jews both with Torah observance in general and with circumcision in particular. Recall that Augustine typically makes Torah observance in general the decisive feature of his interpretation of the mark. By the time of Peter Riga’s Aurora of the thirteenth century, the mark has been limited to circumcision.8 Second, Rabanus Maurus identifies Cain’s mark with trembling and moaning (ipsum videlicet signum, quod tremens et gemens) (Commentarium in Genesim 2.1). Augustine himself, however, does not equate Cain’s mark in any way with trembling and moaning. Here, Rabanus Maurus conflates the Augustinian interpretative tradition with an exegetical tradition apparently inherited from Bede the Venerable. As the Augustinian tradition is transmitted to succeeding generations, we can discern that subsequent generations redefine Cain’s mark. In his In Genesim, for example, Bede the Venerable (c. 673-735) identifies the mark of Cain as trembling and moaning (Ipsum videlicet signum quod tremens et gemens uagusque et profugus semper uiueret, eadem sua aerumna admonitus quia non passim a quibuslibet posset occidi) (In Genesim II.4.15). Here we can detect that in Bede’s exegesis the mark of Cain is associated with a bodily ailment, an idea notably absent in Augustine’s writings. Preliminary 7ipsum videlicet signum, quod tremens et gemens, vagus et profugus semper viveret, nec

audere eum uspiam orbis terrarum sedes habere quietas; et forte idcirco civitatem condidit in qua salvari posset. Hoc revera mirabile est, quemadmodum omnes gentes quae a Romanis subjugatae sunt, in ritum Romanorum sacrorum transierint, eaque sacrilegia observanda et celebranda susceperint; gens autem Judaeo sive sub paganis regibus, sive sub Christianis, non amisit signum legis et circumcisionis suae, quo a caeteris gentibus populisque distinguitur; sed et omnis imperator vel rex qui eos in regno suo cum ipso signo suo invenit, nec occidit (Commentarium in Genesim 2.1; Latin text from Migne, Patrologia, series latina, vol. 107). The Romanized text is where Rabanus Maurus is quoting directly from Augustine’s Contra Faustum 12.13. Notice that Rabanus Maurus adds et circumcisionis suae to his description of the mark of the Jews. 8Paul E. Beichner, ed. Aurora Petri Regae Biblia Versificata: A Verse Commentary on the Bible, Pt. 1 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965), 44.

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research suggests that medieval exegesis increasingly takes a physical ailment as constitutive of the mark of Cain. An emphasis on the trembling of Cain’s limbs finds expression in Bruno of Asti (ca. 1049-1123). He refers to Cain’s mark as the trembling of the limbs, “hoc autem signum membrorum tremor fuisse dicitur” (Expositio in Genesim 4). Likewise, Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1142) refers to the mark of Cain as the trembling of the limbs (Adnotationes et Elucidatoriae in Pentateuchon).9 Similarly, in his famous and influential Historia Scholastica, Peter Comestor (d. 1179) also identifies the mark of Cain with a trembling of the head (tremorem capitis) (Liber Genesis 27), as does Peter Riga in his Aurora.10 Mellinkoff traces a line from Peter Comestor to the highly influential Aurora, which contributed to popular biblical lore, and then to Innocent III’s comments.11 This lore that Cain’s mark was his trembling head, finds its way into the teachings of Innocent III, as we previously saw, when he writes “[t]he Lord made Cain a wanderer and a fugitive over the earth, but set a mark upon him, making his head to shake, lest any finding him should slay him” (Epistula 391).12 This is a notable change from Augustine who does not identify the mark of Cain with a shaking of the head or with any physical characteristic. Consequently, we see here a transformation of the Augustinian tradition. Whereas the typological mark of the Jews, according to Augustine, was Jewish religiocultural distinctiveness, Cain’s mark in later medieval exegesis is identified with a physical ailment, a trembling either of the limbs or of the head. While vestiges of Augustine’s typological interpretation linger, essential elements undergo alteration. Certain elements of the Augustinian theology persist well beyond the medieval period and even find muted expression in Protestant writers. Here are brief indications of this persistence. The Protestant reformer John Calvin draws on Augustine’s typological association of Cain with the Jews. Writing on Matthew 25:35, where Christ speaks of blood being shed from the time to Abel to Zechariah, Calvin contends: Though Abel was not killed by the Jews, Christ imputes his death to them because there was an affinity of wickedness between them and Cain; 9Migne, vol. 175, col. 44. 10Beichner, 43, lines 417-418. 11Mellinkoff, 49-50. 12Grayzel, 127.

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THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS otherwise there would have been no consistency in speaking of the righteous blood that had been shed from the beginning of the world unto this generation. So Cain is made the chief and principal designer of the Jewish people because ever since they began to slay the prophets they followed in the steps of him whom they imitated (A Harmony of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke).13

Though Calvin’s typology lacks certain elements of the Augustinian typology, most notably the mark of Cain, he still insists that Cain is a type of the Jews, who are thus murderers like him, though Calvin no longer shows any sense that the Jews are a divinely protected people. Approximately three centuries later, a similar typology reemerges in the writings of John Nelson Darby, the founder of nineteenth century dispensationalism and premillennialism, which have had a profound influence upon American Protestant evangelical eschatology.14 In his synopsis of the Old Testament, Darby argues that “Cain himself is a striking type of the state of the Jews”(Comments on Genesis).15 Though almost all of the distinctively Augustinian elements, such as that the Jews must not be harmed or that they bear a distinguishing mark, have completely disappeared, a faint echo of Augustine remains in Darby’s typological association of Cain with the Jews. One Augustinian element obviously absent from the comments of Calvin and Darby is the mark of Cain. But this feature of Augustine’s interpretation does not completely disappear among Protestant writers. Commenting on the twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy in his Explanatory Notes on the Old Testament, the eighteenth century English preacher John Wesley alludes to Cain as a type of the Jews. Noting that the Jews now live in Diaspora, Wesley exclaims, “Tis amazing, a people so incorporated, should be so universally disperst! And that a people scattered in all nations, should not mix with any, but like Cain, be fugitives and vagabonds, and yet so marked as to be known” (Explanatory Notes on the Old 13Jean Calvin, A Harmony of the Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke [and the

Epistles of James and Jude], trans. A.W. Morrison (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, [1972]) 3:65. For additional discussion on Calvin's views on Jews see Jack Hughes Robinson, John Calvin and the Jews, American University Studies, Series VII, Vol. 123 (New York: Peter Land, 1992). 14Haynes, 145. 15John Nelson Darby, Synopsis Of The Books Of The Bible. (Kingston-onThames: Stow Hill Bible and Tract Depot, 1948-1949), 1: 15.

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Testament, Deuteronomy 28: 46; emphasis added).16 Here, Wesley reprises the traditional Christian accusation that the Jews live in dispersion. Thus, we hear faint whispers of the Augustinian tradition in Wesley, particularly in the charge that the Jews, like Cain, are a fugitive and a vagabond people. Yet other key elements are clearly absent, most notably that Jews must not be harmed. Though Wesley indicates that the Jews are a marked people, unlike Augustine he fails to identify precisely the nature of their mark, and he fails to draw the conclusion that the Jews are a divinely protected people. The emphasis on the Jews as a marked people continues to linger in Protestant exegesis. In his Bible History, the nineteenth century biblical commentator Aldred Edersheim writes: As a warning, and yet as a witness to all, Cain, driven from his previous chosen occupation as a tiller of the ground, was sent forth “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.” So — if we may again resort to analogy — was Israel driven forth into all lands, when with wicked hands they had crucified and slain Him whose blood “speaketh better things than that of Abel.”But even this punishment, though “greater” than Cain “can bear,” leads him not to repentance, only to fear of its consequences. And “lest any finding him should kill him,” Jehovah set a mark upon Cain, just as He made the Jews, amidst all their persecutions, an indestructible people. Only in their case the gracious Lord has a purpose of mercy; for they shall return again to the Lord their God — “all Israel shall be saved;” and their bringing in shall be as life from the dead. But as for Cain, he “went out from the presence of Jehovah, and dwelt in the land of Nod, that is, of “wandering” or “unrest” (emphasis added).17

Notice, that like Wesley, Edersheim insists that the Jews are marked, though he fails to define the nature of the mark. But he does at least suggest that the continued existence of Jews belongs to the divine plan and is even an expression of divine mercy. The insistence that the Jews are a marked people finds continued expression in the twentieth-century German theologian Martin Niemöller. Preaching in 1937, in Nazi Germany, on Matthew 23:34-39, Niemöller reiterates the centuries-long Christian charge that the present fate of the 16John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Old Testament (1765; reprint,

Salem, Ohio: Schmul Publishers, 1975), 1: 671. 17Aldred Edersheim, Bible History (Boston: Bradley & Woodruff, [1872?1887]), 1: 25.

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Jews is due to their culpability in the death of Christ. Despite such a hideous crime, however, Niemöller insists that “we know full well that there is no charter which would empower us to supplement God’s curse with our hatred. Even Cain receives God’s mark, that no one may kill him; and Jesus’ command, ‘Love your enemies! leaves no room for exceptions.”18 Here, the all too familiar imagery of Jews marked as Cain was marked continues to linger within the Christian imagination and continues to offer a kind of protection (even if all too feeble) to the Jews. While the examples offered here do not provide an exhaustive account of the use of the mark of Cain in Protestant thought, these examples do indicate that the analogy has had tremendous staying power within the Christian imagination. Certainly the initial research indicated here suggests that Augustine’s theology of Jews and Judaism has bequeathed a rich legacy to subsequent generations. The image of Cain as a type of the Jews has found a rich home within the Christian imagination throughout the centuries. The precise nature of this influence awaits further scholarship.

CONCLUSION Though this study has not exhausted Augustine’s theology of the Jews, it has sought to make a contribution to the scholarly discussion with regard to the formulation of his theology and its enduring significance. Following the lead of Paula Fredriksen, this study has shifted the locus of the scholarly debate away from Augustine’s later Adversus Judaeos, to his earlier Contra Faustum. This shift has been justified on two principal grounds. First, Augustine’s formulation of his theology of Jews and Judaism in the Contra Faustum contains the crucial components that persist throughout his career. Even though in his later writings he turns from Genesis 4 to Psalm 58:12 for scriptural support, his argument remains essentially the same. Second, and perhaps more importantly, the imagery of Cain as a type of the Jews that Augustine evokes in the Contra Faustum lingers literally for centuries. Thus Contra Faustum is the pivotal Augustinian text for discerning his theology of Jews and Judaism. Here, in this anti-Manichaean work, guided primarily by hermeneutical concerns, yet with an awareness of the contemporary reality of a living Judaism safeguarded by Roman imperial law, Augustine makes his unique contribution to the Adversus Judaeos 18Martin Niemöller, Here Stand I!, trans. Jane Lymburn (Chicago/New

York: Willett, Clark & Company, 1937), 195.

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tradition. Rather than consigning the Jews to the biblical past, as previous Christian writers had done, Augustine crafts a theology that takes into account the present reality of a contemporary Judaism and finds exegetical grounds for insisting that Jews are not be harmed. In sum, Augustine does not simply reiterate the Adversus Judaeos tradition that he inherited; rather he leaves his own unique stamp on a tradition that would influence JewishChristian relations for generations to come.

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Tertullian. “Adversus Judaeos.” Trans. S. Thelwall In Ante-Nicene Fathers. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, Vol. 3: 151175. Edinburgh and Grand Rapids, Michigan: T.T. Clark and Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1993. TeSelle, Eugene. Augustine the Theologian. New York: Herder and Herder, 1970. Teske, Roland J. “Criteria for Figurative Interpretation in St. Augustine.” In De doctrina christiana: A Classic of Western Culture. Edited by Duane W.H. Arnold and Pamela Bright, 109-122. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995. Teske, Roland J. S.J., trans. “Introduction.” In Augustine, Saint Augustine on Genesis. Two Books on Genesis against the Manichees and On the Literal Interpretation of Genesis: An Unfinished Book . Fathers of the Church. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America, 1991. Torjesen, Karen Jo. “‘Body’, ‘Soul’, and ‘Spirit’ in Origen’s Theory of Exegesis.” Anglican Theological Review 67 (1985), 17-30. Torjesen, Karen Jo. Hermeneutical Procedure and Theological Method in Origen’s Exegesis. Berlin and New York: Gruyter, 1985. Trigg, Joseph W., ed. Biblical Interpretation. Vol. 9. Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, 1988. Tyconius. Tyconius: The Book of Rules. Trans. William S. Babcock. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press, 1989. Vermes, Geza. Post-Biblical Jewish Studies. Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1975. Wesley, John. Explanatory notes upon the Old Testament. 3 vols. 1765. Reprint, Salem, Ohio: Schmul Publishers, 1975. White, Caroline. Correespondence (394-419) between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo. Lampeter Dyfed, Wales: The Edwin Mellen Press, 1990.

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Wilken, Robert L. John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983. Williams, A. Lukyn. Adversus Judaeos. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1935. Williams, Frank, trans. The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis. London: E.J. Brill, 1987. Williams, Margaret H. “The Expulsion of the Jews from Rome in AD 19?” Latomus 48 (1989): 765-84. Wood, Jill Harries and Ian, ed. The Theodosian Code. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993. Wright, David F. “Augustine: His Exegesis and Hermeneutics.” In Hebrew Bible/Old Testament: The History of Its Interpretation. Edited by Magne SaebØ, Vol. I/1: 701-730. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1996. Young, Frances M. Biblical Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Young, Frances. “The Rhetorical Schools and their Influence on Patristic Exegesis.” In The Making of Orthodoxy. Edited by Rowan Williams, 182-199. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Young, Frances. “Typology.” In Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honour of Michael D. Goulder. Edited by Paul Joyce Stanley E. Port and David E. Orton, 29-48. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994. Zosimus. Historia Nova. The Decline of Rome. Trans. James J. Buchanan and Harold T. Davis. San Antonio, Texas: Trinity University Press, 1967.

INDEX A Abel ....... 3, 9-11, 52-56, 58-71, 73, 73-80, 126-128, 131, 153, 162-163, 167, 169, 171 Abraham ............................................................ 54, 60-61, 63, 108, 112, 134, 154 Alexander Severus................................................................................................. 23 Alexander the Great ............................................................................................. 21 Alvarez, Juan......................................................................................................6, 48 Ambrose ......... 3, 9, 34, 41, 55, 58-59, 66-67-70, 76-78, 80, 83-84, 86, 99, 128 Ambrosiaster............................................................................................. 71, 77, 79 Ammianus Marcellinus...................................................................................17, 31 Antoninus Pius ................................................................................................24, 25 Apostolic Constitutions................................................................................. 63, 66, 78 Arcadius......................................................................................... 20, 30, 36, 38-39 Augustine's Writings Ad Simplicianum ...........................................................................................6, 122 Adversus Judaeos Tractate.......................................................................... 4-5, 158 Commentary on John ............................................................................................ 50 Confessions ............................................................................................................. 6 Contra Faustum..... 3, 6-8, 10-11, 34, 42, 50-51, 53, 55, 76, 78, 80, 105-111, 117-139, 141, 143-145, 147, 150-153, 155-163, 165, 168, 172 De civitate Dei ................................................... 11, 136, 143-144, 152-158, 162 De doctrina christiana................................ 10, 109, 117-119, 124, 153, 159-160 De fide rerum quae non videntur ................................................................. 143-145 De Genesi contra Manichaeos ...............................................................10, 134-135 De utilitate credendi.............................................................10, 109, 117-118, 124 Enarrationes on Psalmos ....... 50, 131-132, 136, 138-139, 144-146, 148-150, 153, 161, 167 Epistle 8* .........................................................................................8, 46-48, 138 Letters ................................... 34, 37, 46- 48, 51, 127, 138, 151-152, 166, 169 Sermons ................................................ 38, 46, 49-50, 136, 143, 146-148, 161 Augustus.................................................................................................... 22, 34, 39 B Babcock, William S. ............................................................................... 42, 59, 138 197

198

THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS

Bachrach, Bernard...................................................................................... 9, 31, 42 Bar Kochba Rebellion .......................................................................................... 25 Basil ................................................................................................ 60, 65-66, 70, 79 Bede the Venerable............................................................................................. 168 Bernard of Clairvaux ..........................................................................134, 165-166 Biblical Interpretation...... 2-3, 6-11, 52, 52-58, 64, 66, 68, 72-73, 78, 80, 111, 116, 125, 126, 128, 131-133, 135, 137, 163, 167-169, 171 Blumenkranz, Bernard ........................................................... 4, 5, 8, 45, 126, 158 Bonner, Gerald ........................................................................................... 106, 107 Bori, Piet Cesare..............................................................................................6, 158 Bousset, W. ............................................................................................................ 63 Brown, Peter ............................................................................................. 17, 19, 26 Bruno of Asti ....................................................................................................... 169 C Cain ...... 3, 8-11, 52-55, 58-61, 64-81, 105-106, 126-133, 137-139, 142-143, 145, 147-153, 158, 162-163, 165-172 Caligula ................................................................................................................... 22 Callinicum.........................................................................................................34, 41 Calvin, John................................................................................................. 169, 170 Carthage.................................................................................19, 43-45, 48, 62, 140 Cassius Dio ............................................................................................................ 26 Castration ......................................................................................................... 25-27 Castritius, Helmut ...........................................................................................47, 48 Charlesworth, James .......................................................................................60, 64 Christ....... 1-3, 7-8, 21, 38, 40-41, 52, 55, 63, 72-73, 75-76, 105-106, 109-110, 112-132, 134-136, 138, 141-142, 145-148, 150-151, 154-158, 160-161, 163-164, 166, 169, 172 Circumcision .... 2, 22-28, 31, 37, 40, 49, 74, 105, 109-115, 118-119, 129, 132, 139-140, 147-148, 164, 167-168 Claudius ............................................................................................................ 22-24 Cohen, Jeremy ....................................................1, 5, 7, 8, 29, 143, 144, 165, 167 Cohen, Shaye ..........................................................25, 32, 74, 127, 139, 140, 141 Comestor, Peter................................................................................................... 169 Constantine ....................................................................................13-15, 22, 28-32 Constantius ......................................................................................................16, 31 Conversion to Judaism.........................7, 22, 24-25, 28-31, 33-34, 37, 144, 165 Council of Carthage................................................................................. 19, 33, 49 Council of Elvira ...................................................................................... 32, 34, 48 Council of Laodicaea............................................................................................ 48

INDEX

199

Council of Laodicea.............................................................................................. 33 Council of Nicaea ................................................................................................. 17 Cranz, F. Edward ...............................................................................153, 154, 155 Cybele...................................................................................................................... 27 Cyprian...................................................................................................................... 1 D Darby, John Nelson............................................................................................ 170 David...................................................................... 15, 61, 108-109, 123, 134, 148 Decalogue............................................................................................109, 111, 114 Decius ..................................................................................................................... 14 Diaspora of Jews ................................................................................................. 156 Dio Cassius ....................................................................................................24, 110 Diocletian ............................................................................................................... 30 Divination...................................................................................................15-18, 23 Domitan.................................................................................................................. 26 Domitian................................................................................................................. 26 Donatists ....................................................................................................37-38, 46 Dowling, Melissa Barden ...................................................................... 26, 27, 139 Dubois, Marcel .................................................................................................... 141 E Edersheim, Aldred .............................................................................................. 171 Edessa ..................................................................................................................... 39 Esau........................................................................................................54, 136, 155 Eusebius of Caesarea................................................................... 14-15, 26, 29, 60 Eve .........................................................................................................53, 114, 128 Everett, James.......................................................................................................... 9 Exodus............................................................................................................72, 114 F Faustus...... 11, 82-83, 90, 92, 103, 106-111, 117-119, 121-122, 124, 159-160, 163 Feldman, Louis................ 5, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 30, 32, 33, 48, 74, 110, 140 Fowden, Garth ................................................................................................17, 20 Fredriksen, Paula....... 6, 7, 13, 15, 49, 107, 116, 127, 129, 130, 131, 135, 143, 165, 172

200

THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS G

Gentiles..................................................................................32, 116, 136, 139-140 Goodenough, E.R................................................................................................. 45 Goodenough, Erwin R...................................................................................45, 63 Goodman, Martin ................................................................................5, 21, 27, 32 Gratian .................................................................................................................... 34 Grayzel, Solomon.............................................................................9, 29, 166, 169 Greer, Rowan A. ............................................................................72, 73, 113, 114 Gregory of Nyssa .................................................................................................. 58 H Hadrian .....................................................................................................24-26, 116 Hagar......................................................................................54, 108, 154-155, 160 Hammam Lif ......................................................................................................... 44 Haynes, Stephen.............................................................................1, 5, 6, 131, 170 Heretics...................................................... 14-15, 17-20, 23, 36, 37, 75, 127, 136 Herodotus .............................................................................................................. 25 Hippo ..................................1-2, 9, 20, 42, 45-46, 48-51, 140, 150-151, 167-168 Hippolytus.............................................................................................................. 77 Hirschberg, J.W. ....................................................................43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49 Honorius......................................................................................19, 20, 37-39, 144 Hugh of St. Victor .............................................................................................. 169 Hunt, David .....................................................................................................15, 18 I Irenaeus ........................................................ 59-60, 62, 75-76, 111, 113-114, 128 Isaac............................................................................................. 54, 61, 63, 73, 154 Isidore of Seville..................................................................................139, 167-168 J Jacob............................................... 9, 54, 63, 71, 73, 77, 108, 112, 136, 155, 161 Jacob and Esau .................................................................................54, 73, 77, 155 Jerome...............................................3, 46, 59-60, 67, 70, 76-77, 79-80, 127-128 Jerusalem .......................1, 21-22, 29, 31, 43, 47, 61, 74, 79, 112, 116, 146, 154 Jewish Blindness.......................................... 7, 124, 130, 132, 145, 156, 158, 162 Jewish Mark .......4, 8, 24, 28, 54, 56, 79-80, 105, 107, 110, 112, 126, 137-140, 143, 145, 148-152, 162-164, 166-172 Jews ..... 1-14, 20, 21-46, 48-55, 73-80, 83-85, 88-89, 99, 100, 104-106, 110-

INDEX

201

113, 115-117, 119-120, 123-124, 126-172 John Chrysostom ............................................... 1, 30, 32, 36, 51, 69-71, 76, 140 Jones, A.H.M. .............................................................................. 16, 18, 20, 26, 42 Josephus......................................................................................... 21-24, 32, 39, 59 Jovian ...................................................................................................................... 17 Judaism ..... 2-6, 8-11, 13, 15, 20, 22, 24, 28, 30-37, 42, 49, 51-53, 55-56, 61, 63, 65, 80, 105-106, 110-111, 115, 117, 124, 126, 135, 137, 141, 143, 147, 152, 158, 161-165, 172 Julian .................................................................................................................17, 31 Julius Caesar................................................................................. 22, 32, 35, 42, 52 Justin Martyr ................................1, 3, 25-26, 74-75, 77, 111-116, 128-129, 134 Justinian ............................................................................................................16, 20 Justinian Code CJ 1.11.1 ............................................................................................................ 16 CJ 1.11.17 .......................................................................................................... 41 CJ 1.3.10 ............................................................................................................ 37 CJ 1.7.2............................................................................................................... 34 CJ 1.9.11 ............................................................................................................ 38 CJ 1.9.13 ............................................................................................................ 39 CJ 1.9.15 ...................................................................................................... 40-41 CJ 1.9.3............................................................................................................... 30 CJ 1.9.4............................................................................................................... 32 CJ 1.9.6............................................................................................................... 34 CJ 1.9.8............................................................................................................... 36 CJ 16.8.14 .......................................................................................................... 36 CJ 16.8.15 .......................................................................................................... 36 CJ 16.8.17 .......................................................................................................... 36 CJ 16.8.22 ....................................................................................................36, 40 Juvenal .................................................................................................................... 27 K Kohler, Kaufmann................................................................................................ 63 Kugel, James ............................................................................................. 56, 72, 73 L Lactantius ............................................................................................................. 134 Libanius .................................................................................................................. 16 Linder, Amnon .........................14, 23, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41 Louth, Andrew ................................................................................................72, 73

202

THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS M

Magna Mater .......................................................................................................... 27 Manichees......11, 30, 46, 82-83, 86-89, 103, 105, 107, 110, 118-119, 122-125, 150, 162 Marcus Aurelius..................................................................................................... 25 Martial ...................................................................................................... 26, 27, 110 Mellinkoff, Ruth .................................................................................139, 167, 169 Methodius............................................................................................................... 65 Middle Ages ............................................................................... 1, 11, 28, 142, 165 Midrash .............................................................................................................71, 79 Millar, Fergus ...................................................................................................13, 21 Mount Sinai....................................................................................................54, 154 N Nerva....................................................................................................................... 26 New Testament .... 61, 63-64, 106-108, 110, 115-117, 121-122, 128, 142, 156, 163 Niemöller, Martin....................................................................................... 171, 172 North Africa ............................................................5, 8, 19, 20, 37, 43, 45-47, 51 O O'Donnell, James.................................................................................................. 19 Old Testament.....1-3, 7-8, 10, 41, 51-52, 60-61, 64-65, 72, 77, 105-112, 114123, 126-130, 135-136, 141-142, 144, 147, 150, 156, 158-160, 163, 170171 Origen .............................................. 1, 26, 56-57, 66, 73, 110-111, 116-117, 127 P Passover.......................................................2, 32, 50, 72, 112, 139-141, 159, 167 Paul....... 6, 28, 31, 37, 48, 54, 106, 113-114, 116, 118, 122-124, 127, 131-132, 136, 154, 158-159 Paulinus of Nola..................................................................................144, 150-151 Pentateuch.............................................................................50, 105-107, 111, 117 Petronius.........................................................................................................27, 110 Pharr, C...................................................................................................... 14, 16, 18 Philo ..................................................................9, 22, 25, 43, 55, 59-60, 66-70, 78 Plutarch..............................................................................................21, 57, 58, 110 Polytheists ........................................................................ 14-16, 19, 20, 41, 42, 52

INDEX

203

Pope Innocent III ....................................................................................... 165-166 Prudentius .............................................................................................................. 63 R Rabanus Maurus......................................................................................... 167, 168 Rabbi Ephraim of Bonn .................................................................................... 166 Rabbi Judah............................................................................................................ 79 Rabbi Nehemiah ................................................................................................... 79 Rabbi Rab............................................................................................................... 79 Rabbinic Interpretation........................................................................... 32, 65, 79 Rabello, Alfredo Mordechai .......................................................................... 41-42 Rajak, Tesa .......................................................................................................21, 22 Raveaux, Thomas.................................................................................................... 6 Riga, Peter ................................................................................................... 168, 169 Rives, J.B. ............................................................................................14, 43, 44, 45 Roman Polytheistic Religious Practices....... 9, 14-17, 19-20, 32, 36, 52, 138, 144 Roman Temples ......................................................................................15-20, 144 S Sabbath ...... 2, 33, 39, 49-50, 86, 88-91, 99, 105, 110, 112, 114-115, 118-119, 132, 139-141, 147-148, 159, 164, 167 Salzman, Michelle Rene .......................................................14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 23 Saperstein, Marc .................................................................................................. 5, 6 Sarah............................................................................................... 54, 108, 154-155 Schäfer, Peter ............................................................................... 24, 25, 26, 28, 74 Schürer, Emil ............................................................................................ 21, 43, 45 Seaver, James ................................................. 9, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 39, 40, 48, 49 Seneca the Younger .............................................................................................. 24 Septimius Severus .................................................................................... 23, 25, 30 Signa data ........................................................................................................... 97-99 Signa propria............................................................................98-100, 119, 124, 129 Signa translata .........................................................................98-100, 119, 124, 129 Slaves............................................................................ 30, 34, 37, 40, 43, 136, 146 Sozoman ................................................................................................................. 25 Stern, Menachem .................................................................................25, 110, 140 Stern, Menahem ..............................................................................................25, 26 Stow, Kenneth R. ................................................................................................ 142 Suetonius ..........................................................................................................24, 26

204

THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS

Synagogue..............................................32, 34, 39, 41, 44-45, 63, 74, 76-77, 128 T Tacitus...................................................................................................... 24, 28, 110 Tactius..................................................................................................................... 27 Tertullian .......................1, 3, 44, 54-55, 73-76, 80, 111, 114-117, 123, 127-128 Teske, Roland J.................................................................................................... 108 Theodosian Code ..................................................... 9, 13-14, 16, 22-23, 31, 39, 164 CTh 12.1.158 ..................................................................................................... 38 CTh 15.5.5 ......................................................................................................... 38 CTh 16, 2, 41 ..................................................................................................... 48 CTh 16.1.1 ......................................................................................................... 17 CTh 16.1.2 ................................................................................................... 17-18 CTh 16.1.3 ......................................................................................................... 18 CTh 16.10.11 ..................................................................................................... 18 CTh 16.10.12 ..................................................................................................... 18 CTh 16.10.14 ..................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.10.19 ..................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.10.2 ....................................................................................................... 16 CTh 16.10.20 ..................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.10.21 ..................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.10.4 ....................................................................................................... 16 CTh 16.10.5 ....................................................................................................... 16 CTh 16.10.6 ....................................................................................................... 16 CTh 16.16.81 ..................................................................................................... 31 CTh 16.2.31 ....................................................................................................... 37 CTh 16.5.1 ......................................................................................................... 14 CTh 16.5.10 ....................................................................................................... 15 CTh 16.5.29 ....................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.5.3 ......................................................................................................... 15 CTh 16.5.4 ......................................................................................................... 15 CTh 16.5.40 ....................................................................................................... 31 CTh 16.5.42 ....................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.5.44 ....................................................................................................... 37 CTh 16.5.46 ....................................................................................................... 37 CTh 16.5.5 ......................................................................................................... 18 CTh 16.5.6 ...................................................................................................15, 17 CTh 16.7.3 ......................................................................................................... 34 CTh 16.7.5 ......................................................................................................... 19 CTh 16.8.1 ......................................................................................................... 30

INDEX

205

CTh 16.8.11 ....................................................................................................... 36 CTh 16.8.12 ....................................................................................................... 39 CTh 16.8.13 .......................................................................................... 30, 36, 38 CTh 16.8.16 ....................................................................................................... 36 CTh 16.8.18 .................................................................................................31, 38 CTh 16.8.2 ......................................................................................................... 30 CTh 16.8.20 ....................................................................................................... 39 CTh 16.8.21 ....................................................................................................... 40 CTh 16.8.22 .................................................................................................31, 40 CTh 16.8.24 ....................................................................................................... 36 CTh 16.8.25 ................................................................................................. 40-41 CTh 16.8.26 .................................................................................................31, 37 CTh 16.8.27 ................................................................................................. 40-41 CTh 16.8.5 ......................................................................................................... 30 CTh 16.8.6 ......................................................................................................... 31 CTh 16.8.8 ......................................................................................................... 36 CTh 16.8.9 ...................................................................................................28, 35 CTh 16.84 .......................................................................................................... 30 CTh 16.9.1 ......................................................................................................... 31 CTh 16.9.15 ................................................................................................. 40-41 CTh 16.9.3 ......................................................................................................... 37 CTh 16.9.5 ...................................................................................................37, 40 CTh 2.1.10 ......................................................................................................... 36 CTh 2.8.26 ......................................................................................................... 39 CTh 3.1.5......................................................................................................34, 37 CTh 3.7.2............................................................................................................ 34 CTh 7.8.2............................................................................................................ 32 CTh 8.8.8............................................................................................................ 39 CTh 9.16.2 ......................................................................................................... 16 CTh 9.7.5............................................................................................................ 34 Theodosius I ........................................................ 17, 19-20, 31, 33-37, 39, 41, 51 Theodosius II .........................................................................19, 22, 37, 38, 40-41 Torah........ 8, 10, 46, 52, 79, 84, 90-91, 105-108, 110-113, 115-117, 122-127, 130, 133, 136-137, 141, 150, 162-164, 168 Tyconius ............................................................................................7, 10, 109, 126 Typology.........3, 10-11, 55, 73, 78, 80, 112, 128, 131, 133, 155, 158, 167, 170 U Ulpian......................................................................................................... 16, 23, 26

206

THE MARK OF CAIN AND THE JEWS V

Valens................................................................................................................17, 31 Valentinian .......................................................................................................17, 31 Vespasian..........................................................................................................21, 43 W Wesley, John ................................................................................................ 170-171 Wilken, Robert....................................................................................................... 32 Witness People Theory ...... 2-3, 5-6, 8, 42, 113, 126, 131, 133-136, 143, 150152, 155-157, 163, 165 Y Young, Frances...................................................................................56, 57, 58, 73