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Jewish Christianity in Post-Apostolic Times1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

J. Munck
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Extract

The words ‘Jewish-Christian’ and ‘Jewish Christianity’ are used in several different senses within the field of New Testament research. Some scholars—no doubt oneself included on occasion—use them with varying significance in the same article or book, so that the reader is either led astray, or discovers that the words do not have the same meaning every time they occur. The aim of the following is to draw attention to this fact, of which perhaps not everyone is aware, and to attempt to reach a clearer usage of the term Jewish Christianity; and I shall therefore now try to formulate and answer certain questions that may throw light on the conditions described by the terms in question, and on the use of these terms.

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Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 6 , Issue 2 , January 1960 , pp. 103 - 116
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1960

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References

2 Lawlor, H. J., Eusebiana (Oxford, 1912), pp. 28–34Google Scholar, assumes Eusebius' and Epiphanius' source for this to have been Hegesippus. This assumption is attacked in the criticism of Lawlor's conception of Hegesippus' work put forward by me in an article on Papias to be published in H.T.R

1 Cf. another theme, that only when the righteous man (in this case James, the brother of the Lord) is dead, will Jerusalem perish (Eusebius H. E. ii, 23, 19–20). Cf. ‘Discours d'adieu etc.’, Mélanges Maurice Goguel (Neuchâtel-Paris, 1950), p. 160, note 3.Google Scholar

2 See Cramer, F. H., ‘Expulsion of Astrologers from Ancient Rome’, Classica et Mediaevalia, xii (1951), pp. 9–50.Google Scholar

3 Schoeps, H. J., Theologie und Ceschichte des Judenchristentums (Tübingen, 1949), p. 270.Google Scholar

4 Cf. Strecker, G., Das Judenchristentum in den Pseudoklementinen (T.U. vol. 70, 1958), pp. 229–31Google Scholar, Brandon, S. G. F., The Fall of Jerusalem and the Christian Church (London, 1951), pp. 168–73, 263–4.Google Scholar

5 See Moses Hadas's important articles on and editions of Aristeas and III Macc. (Harper and Brothers, 1951 and 1953).Google Scholar See now also Zuntz, G., ‘Aristeas Studies’ I and II, J. Sem. Stud. iv (1959), 21–36;CrossRefGoogle Scholar iv, 2 (1959), 109–26.

1 See the above-mentioned book by Schoeps, and also Aus frühchristlicher Zeit (Tübingen, 1950)Google Scholar, and Urgemeinde, Judenchristentum, Gnosis (Tübingen, 1956)Google Scholar, and several articles. Schoeps has modified his original opinions on some points, but methodically there is no change.

2 Studia Theologica, ix (1955), 1–39Google Scholar, see pp. 8–25. Molland's critical examination has to some extent been anticipated by earlier investigations; these are attacked by Schoeps in Theologie, etc., who takes his stand on what is generally accepted as being Jewish-Christian!

3 Recherches de Science religieuse, XVIII (1928), 143–63,Google Scholar reprinted in Recueil Lucien Cerfaux (Gembloux, 1954), 1, 301–19.Google Scholar

1 Edgar, Hennecke, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, etc., 3rd ed., edited by Schneemelcher, W. (Tübingen, 1959), 1, 75–108.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte (Aarhus-Copenhagen, 1954), pp. 105–11; 226–37.Google Scholar

3 Holl, Karl, ‘Der Kirchenbegriff des Paulus in seinem Verhältnis zu dem der Urgemeinde’, Ges. Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte (Tübingen, 1928), ii, 44–67, especially pp. 45–54Google Scholar; cf. Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte, pp. 282 ff.—The strongest description of the place of James in the Salvation story is to be found in the newly discovered Gospel of Thomas. Vielhauer stresses this passage, Logion 12, as a remarkable parallel. Parallel is hardly the right term, as the passage is far stronger than the text in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. It is more like the statements made about James in the corrupt Hegesippus quotation in Eusebius H.E. 11, 23, 5 ff. See Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte, p. 108, note 76, and p. 109, note 83. For parallels to the statement about James in the Gospel of Thomas, see Ginzberg, , The Legends of the Jews (Philadelphia, 1947), v, 67–8Google Scholar, especially the passages showing that the world was created for the sake of Abraham, Moses, David, or the Messiah. Cf. also Herman Vis. ii, 4, 1 on the Church: διά ταύτην ό κόσμος κατηρτίσθη With Dibelius’ note in Lietzmann's Handbuch, Ergänzungsband, p. 452.

1 Verus Israel (Paris, 1948, Bibl. des Écoles Françaises d' Athènes et de Rome, Fasc. 166)Google Scholar. Simon first bases his opinion on a missionary Judaism which to my mind never existed (cf. Paulus und die Heilsgeschichte, pp. 259–65), and secondly, underestimates the importance of the internal Church debate as to the Old Testament and the Law. This debate I regard as the necessary preliminary to a new interest in the Jewish attitude to the Law, and with it the adoption of Jewish customs and doctrines, or conversion to the Jewish religious community. The only exception to this is the conversion to Judaism during the persecutions which Simon also discusses.

2 Histoire des doctrines chrétiennes avant Nicée, vol. 1 (Tournai, 1958).Google Scholar

3 Daniélou points out that it is Goppelt, in his book Christentum and Judentum (Gütersloh, 1954) who has demonstrated the significance of this Jewish Christianity.Google Scholar

4 As for instance in Bultmann's Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen, 1948–1953), pp. 64–182.Google Scholar

1 Although the talk of rejudaization is right enough in theory, we must be cautious in applying it to the gospels. Matthew in particular has features which are generally taken to be rejudaization, but which can more probably be attributed to Jesus' conflict with the Jews about the relation between the Mosaic law and the will of God.

1 See Torrance, T. F., The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (Edinburgh, 1948), and his remarks on the difficulty experienced by the first Gentile Christians in understanding the New Testament message, pp. 135–41.Google Scholar

2 Cf. Paulus and die Heilsgeschichte, pp. 122–6.

3 Longmans, Green, and Co. (1866), vol. iii, ch. xiii, p. 24.

1 As a single example, and as regards a single work, I may mention the recently concluded research by Philonenko, Marc, ‘Les Interpolations chrétiennes des Testaments des Douze Patriarches et les Manuscrits de Qoumrân’, 1–11, Rev. d'Hist. et de Philos. Relig. (1958), pp. 309–43 and (1959), pp. 14–38Google Scholar. A warning against the above-mentioned tendency is given by Noack, Bent, ‘Qumran and the Book of Jubilees’, Svensk exeg. arsbok xxii–xxiii (1957–1978), 191–207.Google Scholar

1 Compare Daniélou's interpretation of Hippolytus' account of the doctrines of the Naassenes (p. 95) with the far more cautious treatment of the Apocryphon of John in Wilson, R. McL., The Gnostic Problem (London, 1958), p. 154.Google Scholar

2 See, for instance, the discussion of II Cor. v. 1 ff. in Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London, 1955), pp. 312 ff.Google Scholar

3 See Dibelius, (H.N.T. 11, 3rd ed., Tübingen, 1937)Google Scholar, and Lohmeyer, (Meyer, 9, 8th ed., Göttingen, 1930), on Phil. iii. 2 ffGoogle Scholar. In opposition to most exegetists of the older school they both stress the fact that Paul's opponents here are Jews, not Judaists.

1 It can, for instance, be pointed out that according to Harnack, , Marcion, 2nd ed. (T.U. vol. 45, 1924), p. 22Google Scholar, Marcion is familiar with the Jewish interpretations of the Old Testament. It is doubtful whether, like Harnack, one can conclude from this that Marcion was at one time closely connected with Judaism, and that his attitude to the Old Testament and Judaism is to be taken as resentment. The latter is at all events superfluous, since the Old Testament-Jewish features of the Church were at that time overstressed to such a degree that they provided enough to react against. R. M. Grant has recently argued convincingly that Marcion's distinction between the righteous God and the just creator goes back to theological distinctions in Judaism (Vig. Christ. xi, 1957, pp. 145 f.).Google Scholar