Newspaper Page Text
T
PAGE 5—August 5, 1976
Paul And Jewish Law
BY STEVE LANDREGAN
God’s free gift of salvation through Jesus
Christ is so simple that for 2,000 years
Christians of various sects have been insisting
that perfect Christianity must call for more
than Christ asks of all men.
In the days of Paul, those who would add to
Christ’s demands were called Judaizers, a name
derived from the fact that they taught that men
must not only answer Christ’s call to “reform
your lives and believe in the Gospel” (Mark 1,
15), but that they also must observe Jewish
Law, the Law of Moses.
In two of his letters, Galatians and Romans,
Paul explains his teaching on observance of the
Law by Christians. In Galatians the Apostle
confronts efforts by Judaizers who were
attempting to discredit Paul as an Apostle and
accusing him of watering down the Gospel of
Jesus Christ to win converts (Gal. 1, 10). Paul’s
repetition of the same teachings in Romans
appears to reflect his concern that the Roman
community not suffer similar division between
its Jewish and Gentile members.
The problem has its roots in the Old
Testament. To Israel the Law was the greatest
religious reality, the revealed will of God,
mediated through Moses, the Lawgiver.
For this reason, the Jew believed that the
Law was absolutely necessary for his salvation
and to do the will of God. So imbued was he
with this belief that he found it difficult to
think that even with the free gift of Christ’s
grace, the law could be completely dispensed
with.
Paul confronts the situation head-on in his
letter to Galatians where he writes “a man is
not justified by legal observance but by faith in
Jesus Christ” (Gal 2, 15-16), and in Romans
with the statement that “we hold that a man is
justified by faith apart from observance of the
law” (Rom. 3, 28).
In his teaching, Paul is careful to explain the
place of the law in the plan of salvation. It is
holy and good (Rom. 7, 12), a great gift to
Israel (Rom. 9, 4), but possesses no power of
itself to save man (Rom. 7, 14). It merely
points out what sin is (Rom. 3, 20).
He uses an example easily understood by
citizens of the Greco-Roman world, the
pedagogue, a slave, whose sole responsibility
was to watch over a boy and lead him to and
from school while he was still a minor (Gal. 3,
23ff). The Law, in Paul’s teaching, was such a
guardian: “In other words the Law was our
monitor until Christ came to bring about our
justification through faith. But now that faith is
here we are no longer in the monitor’s charge.
Each one of you is a son of God because of
your faith in Christ Jesus. All of you who have
been baptized into Christ have clothed
yourselves with Him” (Gal. 3, 24-27).
But Paul points out that faith does not free
the Christian from morality. The moral idea of
the commandments remain, they are exceeded
by the commandment of love which is the
fulfillment of the Law.
“Owe no debt to anyone except the debt
that binds us to love one another. He who loves
his neighbor has fulfilled the law. The
commandments, ‘You shall not commit
adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not
steal; you shall not covet’; and any other
commandment there may be are all summed up
in this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as
yourself.’ Love never wrongs the neighbor,
hence love is the fulfillment of the law” (Rom.
13, 8-10).
Thus, in Paul’s teaching on the Law the
unselfish, undemanding love of God and
neighbor set forth but never completely
achieved in the Old Testament (Dt. 6, 4-5: Lv.
19, 18) is made possible for Christians because
man, reconciled by the death of Christ, is filled
with the love of God through the power of the
Holy Spirit (Rom. 5, 5ff).
“In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor the
lack of it counts for anything; only faith, which
expresses itself through love” (Gal. 5, 5).
Man’s freedom from the law, Paul insists “is
not a freedom that gives free rein to the flesh.
Out of love, place yourselves at one another’s
service” (Rom. 6, 12).
The Christian who lives by the Spirit will not
yield to immorality (Gal. 5, 16) but will enjoy
the fruits of the spirit, “love, joy, peace, patient
endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness
and chastity” (Gal. 5, 22).
For the Christian the Law is not something
external, carved on stone tablets, but is written
by the Spirit on his heart (2 Cor. 3, 3) in
fulfillment of the promise of God made
through Ezekiel (Ez. 36, 26-27).
St. Paul
•-:> f4-v» ■ \ ;%■ ; , r > t t
Does Create Differences
BY MARY MAHER
St. Paul’s writing about Jewish law is one of
the most sensitive areas within the
Jewish-Christian dialogue today. It has always
been so. It bristles with the possibility of
deeper respect for our faith traditions or of a
deeper misunderstanding and insulation from
each other. Yet the question comes from a
common historical matrix. St. Paul spoke out
forcefully and with consistency from his
experience of conversion. He rightly claimed
the radical newness which Jesus brought. In
heightening the newness of the Christian
tradition, he often played down the oldness of
the Mosaic law tradition or, at least, its
interpretation. At times he comes off in a
roundly condemning tone.
The possibility of Jewish law and Christian
Gospel co-supportive of each other is difficult
to grasp. It may be almost impossible. Often
lesser attempts at understanding go the route of
polite coffee parties which discuss the literary
themes of modern Jewish writing. Synagogues
and churches near to each other share common
organ recitals. I am not speaking cynically, only
factually. Topics such as the holocaust and
Zionism make a hard dialogue which comes of
the radical differences which really are.
I have been happy to have been a part of a
hard dialogue group here in D.C. It was begun
by a Reform rabbi, a Methodist minister and a
Catholic director of religious education. The
sharing extended out into the community from
which its congregational members came. The
Methodist minister, a Christian of great
courage, invited us in an experience of
“shalom” (well-being, peace). “Shalom” took
Jewish and Christian differences seriously into
account, it stressed oneness where oneness was,
not simply imagined to be. It did not reduce
givens of either tradition. It did justice to the
integrity of both traditions by stressing the
reams of language would not make oneness.
Love came bearing understanding. No more.
Group members were aware of Paul’s style of
language with its definite either/or stress. They
were aware of the Christian Gospel and its
emphasis on grace on which comes of beatitude
more than law. There was no resolution of
these religious issues which divide us. Yet there
was also experience of God’s face turning to
give peace (Book of Numbers). A brotherhood
evolved from the group.
One day during the meeting the rabbi who
has two grand young sons turned his intense,
sensitive face to the group and said, “If a
pogrom were here and someone knocked on my
synagogue door, who would save my sons?” His
head dropped and then suddenly focused
directly onto his minister friend. “Lyle would.
Lyle would.” One felt the young rabbi had
himself long shared some of his friend’s harder
hours of proclaiming the Gospel.
There is in a seminary here in the D.C. area a
statue of a strong, p en- * ; ^en Lord who seems
to come in a Herculeru ay fror the very
material in which it is embedded. The arms are
strong, image"* in Old Testamet Mosaic
strength and bold courage. Often it has seemed
to me that the image is more a spiritual
Colossus than an historical Christ. Yet,
whatever, it is lovely, big, bold and
uncompromising. It is strong and seems
incapable of the malice of reducing differences
to platitudes by virtue of misplaced piety. It is
the work of a Jewish artist.
Paul did stress that for Christians, the Old
Covenant made with Moses had been replaced
by Jesus Christ who claimed to inaugurate the
New Covenant. There is no way short of
distortion to change His claim for purposes of
ecumenism. No Jew can accept His claim; no
Christian can reject it. So Paul leaves us with
Jesus’ claim and we face an understandable
dilemma.
But Paul himself warns Christians against
showing contempt for the Jewish people when
he reminds them that they (Christians) are wild
branches grafted into the olive tree itself to
share its life. “ . . . Remember that you do not
support the root: it is the root that supports
you” (11, 18). And he invites his listeners to a
love of the Jews, since they are “still loved by
God for the sake of their ancestors” (11, 28).
The U.S. bishops, in their Nov. 20, 1976
statement, said: “In effect, we find in the
Epistle to the Romans (Ch. 9-11)
long-neglected passages which help us to
construct a new and positive attitude toward
the Jewish people. There is here a task
incumbent on theologians, as yet hardly begun,
to explore the continuing relationship of the
Jewish people with God and their spiritual
bonds with the New Covenant and the
fulfillment of God’s plan for both Church and
Synagogue.”
Like Jacob, we may be called to be wounded
and healed to receive more understanding. We
may be called upon to be “anawim,” the little
ones of the Lord of the Hebrew Scripture who
were given understanding because they dared to
depend for it beyond themselves.
IN THE DAYS OF PAUL, Steve Landregan writes, those who
would add to Christ’s demands were called “Judaizers,” a name
derived from the idea that men must not only answer Christ’s
call to “reform your lives and believe in the Gospel” (Mark
1:15) but that they must also observe Jewish Law, the Law of
Moses. (NC Sketch by Eric Smith)
TOBIT, a devout and wealthy Israelite, suffers great illnesses
and is finally blinded. Because of his misfortunes, he prays to
God to let him die. God, hears the prayers of Tobit, and sends
the angel Raphael to help him. Tobit’s son, Tobiah, returning
from a long journey, rubs his father’s eyes with a fish gall and
Tobit’s blindness is cured, as shown in this painting by Bernardo
Strozzi. “Tobit is the example of a man who practices his
religion strictly and never loses the human touch,” Father
Alfred McBride writes. (NC Photo)
Tobit: Of Faith And Trials
BY FATHER ALFRED MCBRIDE, O. PRAEM.
Religious faith operates at two levels with
two appropriate challenges. Intellectually, faith
is an assent to truths like those in the Creed.
Doubt is the challenge that assails the mind. It
is the sort of problem that afflicted the
doubting apostle Thomas. Personally, faith is a
whole-hearted dedication to God, a loving
surrender to him. Despair is the challenge that
most deeply mounts an attack on this level of
faith.
Normally, when one speaks of the trials of
faith, it is most often at the level of personal
faith with the corresponding temptation to
despair that is the substance of the trials. This is
certainly true in the biblical story of Tobit. His
trials are such as would drive anyone to despair.
The interesting thing is that the challenge never
Know
Your Faith
(All Articles On This Page Copyrighted 1976 by N.C. News Service)
moves Tobit to cry out with the supreme agony
of Job. Granted he does not undergo the
overwhelming troubles of Job, but in a scaled
down manner, he endures enough adversity to
make him shout to God the classical questions:
Why would a good man suffer? Why me, God?
Tobit is the example of a man who practices
his religion strictly and never loses the human
touch. In the New Testament, Jesus uses some
harsh words against strict observers for their
lack of compassion and for their hypocrisy.
Tobit represents another view, namely, of the
observant Jewish people who did not lapse into
hypocrisy and who were fine examples of
neighborliness and thoughtfulness.
The strict observance of one’s faith does not
necessarily lead people to the religion of the
whitened sepulchre - clean and nice outside,
but rotten within. At the same time, the strict
observance of religion does not absolve one
from the testing of one’s faith. Tobit is clearly a
good man. He chooses for his special religious
apostolate the burial of the dead, especially
those who have no one to look after them after
they die. He is the patron saint of burial
societies.
In his case the apostolate is fraught with
some dangers, since the neglected bodies are
“enemies of the State” meant to rot on an
execution mound as a moral example to the
people of what comes of outstanding
non-conformity to the State’s intentions. These
are not the bodies of criminals so much as
people asserting their civil and religious rights in
the face of an intolerant overlord. Hence
Tobit’s mission is more than a genteel pious
practice. It is a religious venture involving peril
and risk.
What does he get for his efforts? Little
sympathy from his family and blindness
brought on by the droppings of a bird. Not the
stuff of great tragedy perhaps, but a
humiliation and a sorrow by any standards. But
far from indulging in the rages of a Job or the
cursings of an atheist, Tobit is remarkably
flexible in his reaction to the bad turn in his
life. He remains a devout believer and continues
to express his concern.
No need here to review the well-known
details of the story except to note that God
sends the angel Raphael both to find a wife for
young Tobit and a medicinal fish-cure for the
elder Tobit’s blindness. A gentle charm
combined with superb story telling makes all
these events continuously fresh, entertaining
and inspirational.
Commentators often take a special look at
the manner in which young Tobit is instructed
to conduct himself with his new bride on the
wedding night. She had lost seven husbands on
the wedding night, their lives robbed of them
by the wicked demon Asmodeus. Tobit is
advised by Raphael to spend time in prayer
with his new wife before engaging in the act of
love. The idea seems to be that marriage should
get off to a good start by consecrating oneself
to God before the mutual self giving. Thus the
act of human love occurs within the broader act
of spiritual love of God. It was this spiritual
approach to their marriage that repelled the
power of the evil one to destroy the union as he
had done seven times before.
The message is that a religious faith will help
to sustain the future of a marriage; its absence
will tend to let the destructive evil of
dissolution kill off the marriage. The census
bureau lately reported that 1 million marriages
ended in divorce in 1975. Other studies speak
of the failure to link faith and moral choices.
Tobit tells us of the need for religious faith in
marriage. Then maybe the trials and challenges
can be handled more successfully.