Jules Isaac and the Roman Catholic Church Advocate for Scriptural Truth
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
JULES ISAAC AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH ADVOCATE FOR SCRIPTURAL TRUTH A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto © Copyright by Norman Cecil Tobias (2015) JULES ISAAC AND THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH ADVOCATE FOR SCRIPTURAL TRUTH Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Norman Cecil Tobias Department for the Study of Religion University of Toronto ABSTRACT This is the backstory of how the Catholic Church came to clarify, in terms of esteem, the role of Israel in salvation history, at the behest of an unlikely personality. In so doing, the Church put an end to a fifteen-plus centuries’ old tradition of anti-Jewish rhetoric that had served to nourish and sustain Jew hatred. This secular tradition, contemptuous of Jews and Judaism, is not easy to find in the Church’s own official documents and had never been denounced in so compelling a manner that the Church was forced to deal with it. The point of the dissertation is to demonstrate that but for the thought and activism of the eminent French Jewish historian, Jules Isaac, the Jewish Question would not have been added to the agenda of Vatican II and the Council Fathers would not have had the opportunity to declare that the New Testament could no longer be read as if the Holocaust had not happened. During the interwar years, Isaac was author of a multi- volume manuel d’histoire for French secondary students and in 1936, he was appointed Inspector General of Public Education for France. His ouster from civic life under Vichy provoked in him a question – was it really scripturally true as Christianity had taught for nearly two millennia that the Jesus of history had rejected the Jewish people as a whole ii and conversely, that the Jewish people as a whole had misjudged and rejected the Jesus of history. Isaac’s research led him to conclude in the negative to both questions. He devoted his remaining years to promoting a rectification of Christian teaching regarding Jews and Judaism. The centerpiece of Isaac’s thought in this regard is his Jésus et Israël, a book begun in clandestinity during the war years and amidst personal tragedy, completed in 1946 and published in 1948. Isaac’s campaign to purify Christian preaching and teaching of a secular tradition contemptuous of Jews and Judaism was to culminate in a private audience with Pope John XXIII that would set in motion a train of events that led directly to the conciliar statement on the Jews. iii For Ava iv It is without doubt a sign of the times that a conciliar text, one that we call upon to resound across the globe and that, I hope, will have happy consequences in the life of the Church, should have been inscribed in the program of an Ecumenical Council by a pope, and studied, discussed and adopted by more than two thousand bishops, at the request of a layman - a layman who was not Christian. Mgr Charles de Provenchères Archbishop of Aix, Arles and Embrun Conférence prononcée à l’Amitié judéo-Chrétienne d’Aix 11 janvier 1965 v -CONTENTS- PROLOGUE ………………………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER ONE: Formative Years 1877-1902 ………………………… 12 CHAPTER TWO: Pedagogical Years 1902-1940 ………………………… 47 CHAPTER THREE: Catastrophe 1940-1945………………………………… 76 CHAPTER FOUR: Scriptural Truth ………………………………… 115 CHAPTER FIVE: Jesus and Israel ………………………………… 151 CHAPTER SIX: A Second Papal Audience…………………………… 196 CHAPTER SEVEN: Abraham’s Stock …………………………………… 241 EPILOGUE … …………………………………………………… 277 vi -LIST OF APPENDICES- I. JULES ISAAC’S EIGHTEEN POINTS ………………………….. 296 II. SEELISBERG TEN POINTS……………………………………… 299 III. TABLE OF CORRESPONDENCES……………………………… 302 IV. NOTE COMPLEMENTAIRE ET CONCLUSIVE ………………. 312 vii -PROLOGUE- “In this age of ours when men are drawing more closely together…”1 These are the opening words of the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, one of the fruits of the Roman Catholic Church’s Second Vatican Council, convoked by John XXIII within a year of having been elected Pope. It was passed by an overwhelming majority of bishops on 28 October 1965, “surprisingly early”2 according to one prelate, following the close of the continuous discussion phase of the fourth and final session. The declaration has come to be known by its opening words in the original Latin - Nostra aetate. The fourth paragraph deals with Jews and Judaism. Why not just the Jewish religion? Because Judaism cannot be separated from the Jews, because “[t]he Jewish religion without the Jewish people is a fiction,”3 remarked Fr John Oesterreicher, a co-author of the conciliar statement. Some theologians regard this paragraph as clarifying the role of Israel in salvation history.4 Others regard it as espousing the Pauline view of the mystery of Israel.5 Still others regard it as propounding a new theological vision of, and corresponding new pastoral attitude to, Jews and Judaism.6 “Never before,” observed Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, secretary of the body that worked up this conciliar statement, had “…a systematic, positive, comprehensive, careful and daring presentation of Jews and Judaism 1 AAS 58 (1966), 740-4 with English Translation SPCU. 2 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Theological Highlights of Vatican II, trans. S.J. Henry Traub (New York: Paulist Press, 1966), 179. 3 Quoted in John Connelly, From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933-1965 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), 264. 4 Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, Many Religions - One Covenant, trans. Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1999). 5 John M. Oesterreicher, "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," in Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, ed. Herbert Vorgrimler (New York and London: Herder and Herder, Burns & Oates Limited, 1969). 6 Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, "Christians and Jews: A New Vision," in Vatican II by Those Who Were There, ed. Alberic Stacpoole (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1986). 1 2 been made in the Church by a Pope or by a Council.”7 The presentation was daring because the new teaching overturned two millennia of Church teaching. What had been this teaching? In a word, God hates the Jews. Gregory Baum, a co-author of the conciliar statement on the Jews, puts it this way: Passages in the New Testament say that those who believe and are baptized will be saved, and those who refuse to believe will be damned. Some passages also say that the hard-heartedness of the Jews leaves them in darkness, deserted by God. They say that salvation is in Jesus and in no other name, and that the Gospel is the single offer of redemption for the sinful world. (Of course, there are also passages with a different message.). On the basis of the exclusivist biblical texts, the Church began to teach ‘extra ecclesiam nulla salus,’ (outside the Church no salvation). This doctrine was preached with increasing severity. The Council of Florence in the 14th century decreed that schismatics, heretics, Jews and pagans go straight to hell after they die, even if their lives had been full of good works. Nonetheless, he continues, There are a few biblical passages that have a meaning in keeping with the Church’s essential message, among them especially Paul’s witness in Romans 11 that God has not rejected his people. The implications of this Paul did not clearly see. While the early Christians in Jerusalem went to pray in the temple believing God to be present there, there is no hint that Paul believed that God was present to the Jews in their synagogue. A radical division between Christians and Jews had taken place.8 After the Holocaust, the Church, recognizing with shame the cultural impact of its anti- Jewish discourse and the implications this discourse had in legitimating antisemitism, was to read Paul’s letter to the Romans in a new way. The revolutionary new teaching in Catholic history regarding Jews and Judaism is one whose purpose it is to address Catholics from a Catholic point of view, although the reactions of Jewish community members were not without interest to the Catholic 7 Ibid., 222. 8 Correspondence to the author dated 17 March 2014. 3 Church.9 What is this new teaching? The official Church, listening to the signs of the times,10 concluded that the scriptures could no longer be read as if the Holocaust had not happened. The official Church, appreciating that “…the theological negation of Judaism and the vilification of the Jewish people that were part of the Christian tradition were translated into genocidal action of monstrous proportions, not indeed by Christians themselves, but by a political party that used for its own purposes a heritage built up by Christianity…,”11 declared that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the living God whose great Name Israel is commanded to sanctify and whom Christians believe to be triune,12 abides and has never ceased to abide, in (covenantal) relationship adhuc (until now) with His first-chosen people, Abraham’s stock. “Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews therefore should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this came from the Holy Scriptures.”13 Cardinal Bea, evoking the distinction between Israel according to the spirit and Israel according to the flesh, between Israel as a church (corpus mysticum Israel) and Israel as a people (Jewdom) in Maritainian terms, 9 Generally, "Church" with an upper-case "C" denotes a specific communion, such as the Catholic Church, while "church" with a lower-case "c" denotes the church universal. 10 Three emancipatory movements of the twentieth century - of the working class, of women and of colonialized people - were alluded to as such signs of the times by Pope John XXIII (Pacem in terris, nn.