Supersessionism

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.

The word supersession is used by Sydney Thelwall in the title of chapter three of his 1870 translation of Tertullian's Adversus Iudaeos. (Tertullian wrote between 198 and 208 AD.) The title is provided by Thelwall; it is not in the original Latin.

Christian views

Many Christian theologians saw the New Covenant in Christ as a replacement for the Mosaic Covenant. Historically, statements on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church have claimed its ecclesiastical structures to be a fulfillment and replacement of Jewish ecclesiastical structures (see also Jerusalem as an allegory for the Church). As recently as 1965 Vatican Council II affirmed, "the Church is the new people of God," without intending to make "Israel according to the flesh", the Jewish people, irrelevant in terms of eschatology (see "Roman Catholicism," below). Modern Protestants hold to a range of positions on the topic.

In the wake of the Holocaust, mainstream Christian communities began the work of "undoing" supersessionism.

New Testament

In the New Testament, Jesus and others repeatedly give Jews priority in their mission, as in Jesus' expression of him coming to the Jews rather than to Gentiles and in Paul's formula "first for the Jew, then for the Gentile." 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 of Tarsus 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' divinity, known as Christology, Jews disqualified themselves from salvation. Paul himself was born a Jew, but after a conversion experience he came to accept Jesus' divinity later in his life. In the opinion of Roman Catholic reformer James Carroll, accepting Jesus' divinity, for Paul, was dichotomous with being a Jew. His personal conversion and his understanding of the dichotomy between being Jewish and accepting Jesus' divinity, was the religious philosophy he wanted to see adopted among other Jews of his time. 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, Catholic and Protestant. The text most often quoted in favor of the supersessionist view is Hebrews 8:13: "In speaking of 'a new covenant' [Jer. 31.31-32] he has made the first one obsolete."

Church fathers

Many Early Christian commentators taught that the Old Covenant was fulfilled and replaced (superseded) by the New Covenant in Christ, for instance:

Augustine (354–430) follows these views of the earlier Church Fathers, but he emphasizes the importance to Christianity of the continued existence of the Jewish people: "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. Like his anti-Jewish teacher, St. Ambrose of Milan, he defined Jews as a special subset of those damned to hell, calling them "Witness People": "Not by bodily death, shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish (..) 'Scatter them abroad, take away their strength. And bring them down O Lord". Augustine mentioned to "love" the Jews but 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."

Roman Catholicism

In this Torah, which is Jesus himself, the abiding essence of what was inscribed on the stone tablets at Sinai is now written in living flesh, namely, the twofold commandment of love. ... To imitate him, to follow him in discipleship, is therefore to keep Torah, which has been fulfilled in him once and for all. Thus the Sinai covenant is indeed superseded. But once what was provisional in it has been swept away, we see what is truly definitive in it.

Supersessionism is not the name of any official Roman Catholic doctrine and the word appears in no Church documents, but official Catholic teaching has reflected varying levels supersessionist thought throughout its history, especially prior to the mid-twentieth century. Supersessionist theology is extensive in Catholic liturgy and literature. The Codex Justinianus (1:5:12) for example defines "everyone who is not devoted to the Catholic Church and to our Orthodox holy Faith" a heretic and Catholic liturgy contains echoes of supersessionist theology. The Second Vatican Council (1962–65) marked a shift in 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 (below).

Prior to Vatican II, Catholic doctrine 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”:

By the death of our Redeemer, the New Testament took the place of the Old Law which had been abolished; then the Law of Christ together with its mysteries, enactments, institutions, and sacred rites was ratified for the whole world in the blood of Jesus Christ… [O]n the gibbet of His death Jesus made void the Law with its decrees fastened the handwriting of the Old Testament to the Cross, establishing the New Testament in His blood shed for the whole human race.

At the Second Vatican Council, which convened within two decades of The Holocaust, there emerged a different framework for thinking about the status of the Jews’ covenant. The declaration Nostra aetate, 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.” Notably, a draft of the declaration contained a passage which originally called for the “the entry of that [Jewish] people into the fullness of the people of God established by Christ;” however, at the suggestion of Catholic priest (and convert from Judaism) 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’ (Zeph 3:9).”.

Further developments in Catholic thinking on the covenantal status of 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 (1980), where he called Jews the “people of God of the Old Covenant, which has never been abrogated by God (cf. Romans 11:29, "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable" [NRSV]).” 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.”

The post-Vatican II shift toward acknowledging the Jews as a covenanted people has led to heated discussions in the Catholic Church over the issue missionary activity directed toward Jews, with some Catholics theologians 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:

"[B]ecause as Christians we know that God’s covenant with Israel by God's faithfulness is not broken (Rom 11,29; cf. 3,4), mission understood as call to conversion from idolatry to the living and true God (1 Thes 1,9) does not apply and cannot be applied to Jews…. This is not a merely abstract theological affirmation, but an affirmation that has concrete and tangible consequences; namely, that there is no organised Catholic missionary activity towards Jews as there is for all other non–Christian religions.”

Recently, in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii gaudium (2013), Pope Francis’s own teaching on the matter closely mirrored these 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, [as] the faithful response of the Jewish people to God’s irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises.

In 2011, Kasper specifically repudiated the notion of “displacement” theology, clarifying that the “New Covenant for Christians is not the replacement (substitution), but the fulfillment of the Old Covenant.”

These statements from Catholic officials signal a shift away from a “hard” supersessionist model of displacement. Nevertheless, the references to the Church as the “new People of God” and the New Covenant as “fulfilling” the Old Covenant (irrevocable though it might be) imply a clear Christian superiority and thus comport with a “soft” supersessionism. It should be noted that fringe Catholic groups, such as the 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 “soft” supersessionism remain:

Protestant

Protestant opinions on supersessionism vary. These differences arise from dissimilar literal versus figurative approaches to understanding the relationships between the covenants of the Bible, particularly the relationship between the covenants of the Old Testament and the New Covenant. In consequence, there is a range of viewpoints, including:

Three prominent Protestant views on this relationship are covenant theology, New Covenant theology, and dispensationalism. Extensive discussion is found in Christian views on the Old Covenant and in the respective articles for each of these viewpoints: for example, there is a section within Dispensationalism detailing that perspective's concept of Israel. Differing approaches influence how the land promise in Genesis 12, 15 and 17 is understood, whether it is interpreted literally or figuratively, both with regard to the land and the identity of people who inherit it.

Adherents to these various views are not restricted to a single denomination, although covenant theology is particularly important within the Presbyterian and Reformed traditions. In the US, a difference of approach has been perceived between the Presbyterian Church and the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the United Methodist Church which have worked to develop a non-supersessionist theology.

Paul van Buren developed a thoroughly nonsupersessionist position, in contrast to Karl Barth, his mentor. He wrote, "The reality of the Jewish people, fixed in history by the reality of their election, in their faithfulness in spite of their unfaithfulness, is as solid and sure as that of the gentile church."

Mormonism

The Latter Day Saint movement rejects supersessionism.

Jewish views

From a Jewish perspective, the Torah was given to the Jewish people as an eternal covenant (for example Exod 31:16-17, Exod 12:14-15) and will never be replaced or added to (for example Deut 4:2, 13:1). For religious Jews and other critics, supersessionism is usually perceived as a theology of replacement, which substitutes the Christian church, consisting of Christians, for the Jewish and B'nei Noah people. While some modern Jews are offended by the traditional Christian belief in supersessionism, a different viewpoint has been offered by Rabbi and Jewish theologian David Novak, who has stated that "Christian supersessionism need not denigrate Judaism" and that some subsets of Christian supersessionism can affirm that God has not annulled his everlasting covenant with the Jewish people, neither past nor present nor future."

Islam and supersessionism

Islam is quite explicit about its own triumphalist supersession of its two predecessor faiths in Abrahamic monotheism.

In its developed form, taḥrif is the Islamic teaching that the scriptures of other monotheists and/or their interpretations have been corrupted, and thus obscure the message that had been previously sent by God. The implication of taḥrif is that the Qur'an comes both to confirm and to correct errors in the teachings of the Jews and Christians, making Islam not simply another monotheistic religion, but rather, the final and most pure revelation by which all others are measured. Various authors argue the formulation of the doctrine of taḥrif gives a strong indication that Islam was from its inception supersessionist, the view that the new revelations sent by God would 'replace the corrupted scriptures possessed by other communities'. The Qur'an and the earliest teachings of Muḥammad display a clear theology of revelation that is concerned with establishing the credibility of the nascent community viz-a-viz other religions.

Types

Both Christian and Jewish theologians have identified different types of supersessionism in the Christian reading of the Bible.

R. Kendall Soulen notes three categories of supersessionism identified by Christian theologians: punitive, economic, and structural:

These three views are neither mutually exclusive, nor logically dependent, and it is possible to hold all of them or any one with or without the others. The work of Matthew Tapie attempts a further clarification of the language of supersessionism in modern theology that Peter Ochs has called "the clearest teaching on supersessionism in modern scholarship." Tapie argued that Soulen's view of economic supersessionism shares important similarities with those of Jules Isaac's thought (the French-Jewish historian well-known for his identification of "the teaching of contempt" in the Christian tradition) and can ultimately be traced to the medieval concept of the "cessation of the law" - the idea that Jewish observance of the ceremonial law (Sabbath, circumcision, and dietary laws) ceases to have a positive significance for Jews after the passion of Christ. According to Soulen, Christians today often repudiate supersessionism but they do not always carefully examine just what that is supposed to mean. Soulen thinks Tapie’s work is a remedy to this situation.