Supersessionism
Supersessionism, also called fulfillment theology by its proponents, and replacement theology by its detractors, is the Christian doctrine that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people, assuming their role as God's covenanted people, thus asserting that the New Covenant through Jesus Christ has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant. Supersessionists hold that the universal Church has become God's "New Israel" and thus Christians are the people of God.
Often claimed by later Christians to have originated with Paul the Apostle in the New Testament, supersessionism has formed a core tenet of many Eastern Orthodox churches, Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches for the majority of their history. Many early Church Fathers—including Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo—were supersessionist.
Most historic Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran Churches, some Reformed Churches and Methodist Churches, hold that the Old Covenant has three components: ceremonial, moral, and civil. They teach that while the ceremonial and civil laws have been fulfilled, the moral law of the Ten Commandments continues to bind Christian believers. Since the 19th century, certain Christian communities, such as the Plymouth Brethren, have espoused dispensationalist theology as contrasted to supersessionism and covenant theology. Additionally, as part of Christian–Jewish reconciliation, the Roman Catholic Church has placed an increased emphasis on the shared history between the Christian and modern Jewish religions.
Rabbinic Judaism rejects supersessionism as offensive to Jewish history. Islam teaches that it is the final and most authentic expression of Abrahamic monotheism, superseding both Judaism and Christianity.
Etymology
The word supersessionism comes from the English verb to supersede, from the Latin verb sedeo, sedere, sedi, sessum, "to sit", plus super, "upon". It thus signifies one thing being replaced or supplanted by another.Throughout Church history, many Christian theologians saw the New Covenant in Christ as a replacement for the Mosaic Covenant and the Church as the new people of God. The word supersession is used by Sydney Thelwall in the title of chapter three of his 1870 translation of Tertullian's An Answer to the Jews.
Early Church
New Testament
In the New Testament, Jesus and others repeatedly give Jews priority in their mission, as in Jesus's expression of him coming to the Jews rather than to gentiles and in Paul the Apostle's formula "to the Jew first and also to the Greek". Yet after the death of Jesus, the inclusion of the gentiles as equals in this burgeoning sect of Judaism also caused problems, particularly when it came to gentiles keeping the Mosaic law, which was both a major issue at the Council of Jerusalem and a theme of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, though the relationship of Paul and Judaism is still disputed today.Paul's views on the Jews are complex, but he is generally regarded as the first person to make the claim that by not accepting claims of Jesus's divinity, non-believing Jews disqualified themselves from salvation. Paul himself was a Jew. After a conversion experience he came to accept Jesus's claim to be the Messiah later in his life. In the opinion of Roman Catholic ex-priest James Carroll, accepting Jesus's divinity, for Paul, was dichotomous with being a Jew. His personal conversion and his understanding of the dichotomy between being Jewish and accepting Jesus's divinity, was the religious philosophy he wanted to see adopted among other Jews of his time. However, New Testament scholar N.T. Wright argues that Paul saw his faith in Jesus as precisely the fulfillment of his Judaism, not that there was any tension between being Jewish and Christian. Christians quickly adopted Paul's views.
For most of Christian history, supersessionism has been the mainstream interpretation of the New Testament of all three major historical traditions within Christianity – Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant. The text most often evident in favor of the supersessionist view is Hebrews 8:13: "In speaking of 'a new covenant' he has made the first one obsolete." Other statements by Jesus have also been used, namely Matthew 21:43, "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits."
Church Fathers
Many early Christian commentators taught that the Old Covenant was fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant in Christ, for instance, Justin Martyr wrote that the "true spiritual Israel" referred to those who had "been led to God through this crucified Christ". Irenaeus taught that, while the New Covenant had superseded the old, the moral law underlying the Law of Moses continued to stand in the New Covenant. Whereas, Tertullian believed that the New Covenant brought with it a new law, writing: "Who else, therefore, are understood but we, who, fully taught by the new law, observe these practices, the old law being obliterated, the coming of whose abolition the action itself demonstrates....Therefore, as we have shown above that the coming cessation of the old law and of the carnal circumcision was declared, so, too, the observance of the new law and the spiritual circumcision has shone out into the voluntary observances of peace."Augustine of Hippo followed the views of the earlier Church Fathers but emphasized the importance to Christianity of the continued existence of the separate Rabbinic Jewish faith: "The Jews... are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ." The Catholic church built its system of eschatology on his theology, where Christ rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church. Augustine, however, also mentioned to "love" the Jews as a means to convert them to Christianity. Jeremy Cohen, followed by John Y. B. Hood and James Carroll, sees this as having had decisive social consequences, with Carroll saying, "It is not too much to say that, at this juncture, Christianity 'permitted' Judaism to endure because of Augustine."
Contemporary views
Eastern Orthodox
In the early days, there were different views within the Orthodox Church regarding replacement theology, although the Orthodox Church did not use this term to describe this theological thought. However, more recently, replacement theology was reconsidered, and some churches have explicitly rejected it.Roman Catholic
Supersessionism is not the name of any official Roman Catholic Church teaching and the word appears in no Church documents, but official Catholic teaching has reflected varying levels of supersessionist thought throughout its history, especially prior to the mid-twentieth century. The theology that religious Jews dissent by continuing to exist outside the Church is extensive in Catholic liturgy and literature. The Second Vatican Council marked a shift in emphasis of official Catholic teaching about Judaism, a shift which may be described as a move from "hard" to "soft" supersessionism, to use the terminology of David Novak.Prior to Vatican II, Catholic teaching on the matter was characterized by "displacement" or "substitution" theologies, according to which the Church and its New Covenant took the place of Judaism and its "Old Covenant", the latter being rendered void by the coming of Jesus. The nullification of the Old Covenant was often explained in terms of the "deicide charge" that Jews forfeited their covenantal relationship with God by executing the divine Christ. As recently as 1943, Pope Pius XII stated in his encyclical Mystici corporis Christi:
At the Second Vatican Council, which was convened two decades after the Holocaust, a different framework emerged on how Catholics should think about the status of the Jewish covenant. The declaration nostra aetate, which was promulgated in 1965, made several statements which signaled a shift away from "hard supersessionist" replacement thinking which posited that the Jews' covenant was no longer acknowledged by God. Retrieving Paul's language in chapter 11 of his Epistle to the Romans, the declaration states, "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues. Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures." A draft of the declaration contained a passage which originally called for "the entry of that people into the fullness of the people of God established by Christ"; however, at the suggestion of Catholic priest John M. Oesterreicher, it was replaced in the final promulgated version with the following language: "the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and 'serve him shoulder to shoulder'."
Further developments in Catholic thinking on the covenantal status of ethnic Jews were led by Pope John Paul II. Among his most noteworthy statements on the matter is that which occurred during his historic visit to the synagogue in Mainz, where he called Jews the "people of God of the Old Covenant, which has never been abrogated by God." In 1997, John Paul II again affirmed the Jews' covenantal status: "This people continues in spite of everything to be the people of the covenant and, despite human infidelity, the Lord is faithful to his covenant."
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in his 1999 work Many Religions – One Covenant that "the Sinai Covenant is indeed superseded."
The post–Vatican II shift toward acknowledging the ethnic Jews as a covenanted people has led to heated discussions in the Catholic Church over the issue of missionary activity directed toward Jews, with some Catholics theologians with Cardinal Avery Dulles reasoning that "if Christ is the redeemer of the world, every tongue should confess him", while others vehemently oppose "targeting Jews for conversion". Weighing in on this matter, Cardinal Walter Kasper, then president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, reaffirmed the validity of the Jews' covenant and then continued:
In his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium, Pope Francis emphasized communal heritage and mutual respect for each other, writing:
Similarly, the words of Cardinal Kasper, "God's grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all. Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises," highlight the covenantal relationship of God with the Jewish people, but differ from Pope Francis in calling the Jewish faith "salvific". In 2011, Kasper specifically repudiated the notion of "displacement" theology, clarifying that the "New Covenant for Christians is not the replacement, but the fulfillment of the Old Covenant."
These statements by Catholic officials signal a remaining point of debate, wherein some adhere to a movement away from supersessionism, and others remain with what can be described as a "soft" notion of supersessionism. Traditionalist Catholic groups, such as the canonically irregular Society of St. Pius X, strongly oppose the theological developments concerning Judaism made at Vatican II and retain "hard" supersessionist views. Even among mainstream Catholic groups and official Catholic teaching, elements of what can be described as "soft" supersessionism remain. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to a future corporate repentance on the part of Jews:
In the Second Vatican Council's Lumen gentium, the Church stated that God "chose the race of Israel as a people" and "set up a covenant" with them, instructing them and making them holy. However, "all these things. were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant" instituted by and ratified in Christ. Vatican II also affirmed, "the Church is the new people of God" without being "Israel according to the flesh", the Jewish people.
In Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism, the Church stated that the "Church and Judaism cannot then be seen as two parallel ways of salvation and the Church must witness to Christ as the Redeemer of all."