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The ‘Holy Land’, Zionism, and the Challenge to the Church

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Michael Prior C.M.
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The ‘Holy Land’ is of particular interest to Christians everywhere, an interest intensified whenever they read their Bibles. There God intervened in human history through his dealings with the Israelites, and in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was crucified and raised in, and ascended from Jerusalem, and it was there also that the Holy Spirit descended on the Church.

There has been, of course, an unbroken Christian community in the land from the beginning, and it was those residing there who were the architects of a Christian ‘Holy Land’. But Christians outside also have their interests. Well before Constantine, Palestine was a place of pilgrimage. In the middle of the second century, Melito of Sardis went to establish accurately the books of the Old Testament’, and to examine the relevant places. Others went ‘for the sake of the holy places’, and ‘to trace the footsteps of Jesus’, and pray. Some stayed, living piously near the sites. Nevertheless, however important, the Holy Land never attracted more than a handful of (affluent) pilgrims from abroad, and the practice of pilgrimage was virtually moribund by the end of the eighteenth century. As we shall see, Western interests from then went beyond the religious.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 83 , Issue 980 , October 2002 , pp. 471 - 489
Copyright
Copyright © 2002 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 See Wilken, Robert L., The Land called Holy. Palestine in Christian History and Thought (New York and London: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 119Google Scholar.

2 See further my ‘Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Yesterday and Today,’ in Prior, Michael and Taylor, William (eds), Christians in the Holy Land (London: WIFT/Scorpion Press, 1994), pp. 169–75Google Scholar; ‘A Perspective on Pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, in Ateek, Nairn, Duaybis, Cedar and Schrader, Maria, Jerusalem: What makes for Peace? (London: Melisende, 1997), pp. 114–31Google Scholar, and ‘Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land’, in Macpherson, Duncan (ed.), A Millennium Guide to Christian Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (London: Melisende, 2000), pp. 25–39Google Scholar.

3 See Nur Masalha's Expulsion of the Palestinians: the Concept of ‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948 (Washington, D.C.: Institute for Palestine Studies, 1992)Google Scholar, his A Land without a People. Israel, Transfer and the Palestinians 1949–96 (London: Faber and Faber, 1997)Google Scholar, and his Imperial Israel and the Palestinians: The Politics of Expansion, 1967–2000 (London: Pluto, 2000)Google Scholar.

4 See Sabella, Bernard, ‘Socio‐Economic Characteristics and the Challenges to Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land’, and Geraisy, Sami, ‘Socio‐Demographic Characteristics: Reality, Problems and Aspirations within Israel’, in Prior, Michael and Taylor, William (eds), Christians in the Holy Land, pp. 31–44, 45–55Google Scholar.

5 E.g., the Joint Memorandum of the Heads of Christian Communities in Jerusalem on “The Significance of Jerusalem for Christians’ (14 November 1994). The text is reproduced in the appendix to my ‘“You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”. Christian Perspectives on Jerusalem’, in O'Mahony, Anthony (ed.) Palestinian Christians: Religion, Politics and Society in the Holy Land ((London: Melisende, 1999), 96–140, pp. 136–40Google Scholar.

6 Brightman's Apocalypsis Apocalypseos was published in London in 1585. Finch's The World's Great Restauration or Calling of the Jewes was published in London in 1621.

7 Darby, John Nelson, The Collected Writings (edited by Kelly, William, Kingston on Thames: Stow Hill Bible and Trust Depot, 1962), Vol. XX, p. 456Google Scholar.

8 The Collected Writings, Vol. II, pp. 6–7, 108Google Scholar.

9 The Collected Writings, Vol. II, pp. 153–55Google Scholar.

10 Darby, Synopsis of the Books of the Bible (London: G. Morrish, n.d.), Vol. V, p.91.

11 The Collected Writings, Vol. I, p. 94Google Scholar.

12 Wagner, Don, Anxious for Armageddon: A Call to Partnership for Middle Eastern and Western Christians (Scottdale & Waterloo, Penn: Herald Press, 1995), p. 89Google Scholar.

13 See Merkley, Paul C., The Politics of Christian Zionism 1891–1948 (London/Portland OR: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 3–34Google Scholar.

14 In Merkley, The Politics of Christian Zionism, pp. 15–16.

15 Herzl and his Zionism were anathema to the most influential eastern European rabbis (see Vital, David, A People Apart: The Jews in Europe 1789–1939, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999, p. 625CrossRefGoogle Scholar). In the West, his own Chief Rabbi in Vienna, Moritz Güdemann, objected that the Jews were not a nation, and that Zionism was incompatible with Judaism (Nationaljudentum, Leipzig and Vienna: M. Breitenstein's Verlags‐Buchhandlung, 1897, p. 42). Similarly France's Grand Rabbin, Zadok Kahn, protested (Herzl, Diaries, 18 November 1895). The German Rabbinical Council publicly condemned the efforts of ‘the so‐called Zionists’ to create a Jewish national state in Palestine as contrary to Holy Writ. Belgium's Grand Rabbin, M.A. Bloch, also protested, describing Zionist aspirations as far from those of Judaism. The Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, Hermann Adler, who had received Herzl in London, viewed his programme as an ‘egregious blunder’ and an ‘absolutely mischievous project.’ He considered the Zionist movement to be opposed to the teaching of Judaism (see Chief Jakobivits, Rabbi Immanuel, The Attitude to Zionism of Britain's Chief Rabbis as Reflected in their Writings, London: The Jewish Historical Society of England, 1982, pp. 4–5Google Scholar).

16 Blackstone, William E., Jesus is Coming, (New York: Fleming Revel, 1908, third ed.; first ed. 1878), pp. 210–13, 236–41Google Scholar.

17 Thus, Dyer, Charles H., World News and Biblical Prophecy (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1993), pp. 128–29Google Scholar.

18 O'Neill, Dan, and Wagner, Don, Peace or Armageddon? The Unfolding Drama of the Middle East Peace Accord (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1993), p. 84Google Scholar.

19 For a fuller treatment, see my Zionism and the State of Israel: A Moral Inquiry (London and New York: Routledge 1999), pp. 137–47Google Scholar. For a perspective on Christian Zionism in the USA, Britain, and Scandinavia, see the articles by Don Wagner (‘Reagan and Begin, Bibi and Jerry: The Theopolitical Alliance of the Likud Party with the American Christian “Right”’), Stephen Sizer (‘Christian Zionism: A British Perspective’) and Goran Gunner (‘Christian Zionism in Scandinavia’) in Prior, Michael and Ateek, Nairn S., Holy Land? Hollow Jubilee: God, Justice and the Palestinians (London, Melisende, 1999), pp. 199–215, 189–98, and 180–88Google Scholar, respectively.

20 See Shepherd, Naomi, The Zealous Intruders: The Western Rediscovery of Palestine (London: Collins, 1987), pp. 186–89Google Scholar.

21 Biblical Researches in Palestine, Mount Sinai and Arabian Petraea. A Journal of Travels in the Year 1838 (Boston: Crocker and Brewster, 1842).

22 See Silberman, Neal A., Digging for God and Country (New York: Knopf, 1982)Google Scholar, and ‘Structuring the Past: Israelis, Palestinians, and the Symbolic Authority of Archaeological Monuments’, in Silberman, Neil Asher and Small, David, The Archaeology of Israel. Constructing the Past, Interpreting the Present (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997, pp. 62–81), p. 66Google Scholar.

23 Foreign Office 79/390 [No. 134] Public Record Office (italics added).

24 See Hummel, Ruth and Hummel, Thomas, Patterns of the Sacred. English Protestant and Russian Orthodox Pilgrims of the Nineteenth Century (London: Scorpion Cavendish, 1995), pp. 3, 13Google Scholar.

25 The Jewish State. An Attempt at a Modern Solution of the Jewish Question, a revised translation, with a foreword by Israel Cohen, was published in London (Henry Pordes) in 1993, and page references in the text refer to this edition.

26 ‘Die arme Bevölkerung trachten wir unbemerkt über die Grenze zu schaffen, indem wir in den Durchzugsländern Arbeit verschaffen aber in unserem eigenen Lande jederlei Arbeit verweigern’ (Herzl, Theodor, Briefe und Autobiographische Notizen. 1886–1895. Vol. II, ed. by Wachten, Johannes et al., Berlin: Propylaen Verlag, 1983, pp. 117–18Google Scholar).

27 Old New Land, translated from the German by Lotta Levensohn, is republished by Markus Wiener Publishers, Princeton (third printing, 2000).

28 The Jewish State, p. 30.

29 The Complete Diaries of Theodore Herzl, translated by Harry Zohn, and edited by Raphael Patai (New York: Herzl Press, 1960), Vol. I, p. 343. In 1996 the final, seventh volume of all Herzl's writings in the original languages, begun in 1983, was completed (Berlin: Propylaen Verlag).

30 Kreutz, Andrej, Vatican Policy on the Palestinian‐Israeli Conflict. The Struggle for the Holy Land. Contributions in Political Science, No. 246 (New York, Westport, London: Greenwood Press, 1990), p. 51 n. 20Google Scholar.

31 The Complete Diaries, 1: 352–54.

32 The Complete Diaries, 3: 1096–97.

33 19 October 1903, The Complete Diaries, 4: 1566–67.

34 September 1903, in Kreutz, Vatican Policy…, p. 32. Similarly, in The Jewish State (p. 30).

35 The Complete Diaries, 4: 1601–603.

36 Daniela Fabrizio examines the interplay between religious, cultural and political interests on the question of the Holy Places (La Questione dei Luoghi Santi e l'Assetto della Palestina 1914–1922, Milano: Franco Angeli, 2000)Google Scholar.

37 Minerbi, Sergio I., The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895–1925 (New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. xiiiGoogle Scholar.

38 In Kreutz, Andrej, ‘The Vatican and the Palestinians: A Historical Overview’, in Islamochristiana 18 (1992): 109–25, p. 115Google Scholar.

39 Perowne to Burrows, 19 January 1948—FO 371/68500, in Kreutz, ‘The Vatican and the Palestinians’, p. 116.

40 Apostolic Exhortation, ‘Concerning the increased needs of the Church in the Holy Land’, 1974.

41 Acta Apostolicae Sedis, January‐March 1976, p. 134.

42 See ‘La Santa Sede e lo Stato d'Israele’, in La Civiltà Cattolica, 16 February 1991, pp. 357–58Google Scholar.

43 See the communiqué after Yasser Arafat's visit to the Pope (15 September 1982) in La Documentation Catholique 73 (1982, 17 October), pp. 921 and 947Google Scholar, and the Apostolic Letter, Redemptions Anno (April 1984), in Secretariats pro non‐Christianis, Bulletin 57 (1984), XIX(3), p. 254.

44 There is virtually no difference between the perspectives of the World Council of Churches and the Holy See. With respect to the national churches one detects sympathy for Israel growing the closer they are to Germany. See my Zionism and the State of Israel, pp. 103–33.

45 For a fuller discussion of the proclivities of the Jewish‐Christian dialogue see my Zionism and the State of Israel, pp. 123–31.