cannot be denied that the subject of the Jewish people is both very
difficult and very fascinating.
because the Jewish people is present in all history both divine and
human. There is no period of history about which one can write without
mentioning them. Says the Jewish author of Jesus Told by the
Wandering Jew (Editions Fleg, p.177):
are two mysteries of history. Jesus is a mystery as Israel is a
mystery! And when you put these two mysteries together, do I have to
tell what results? —A third mystery, more mysterious by itself than the
fascinating, because who can concern himself with the Jewish people
without a feeling of admiration or pity, or of both at the same time?
The Jewish people brought Christ into the world, yet before Pilate it
repudiated Him; the people without a nation of their own and yet unable
to live together among others.
Jewish people is still more fascinating because of its many strengths.
It is to its credit as achievers that the Jewish people holds positions
in governments, in international and party politics, in the direction
of national economies, in the complex mechanisms of money, in the media
and leisure, and in the influence over lifestyle and public opinion.
For two thousand years it has applied itself with unique tenacity.
when one thinks of this people, who live in the midst of all the
nations, through the most varied changes of fortune but always and
everywhere intact and incorruptible —one reflects that this people’s
lineage is the greatest upon earth!
Jewish people justly claims the greatest of lineages, because it has
six thousand years of indestructible history. The greatest of lineages,
because it was in it that Christ, the Son of the living God, took
flesh. This is a people which, though a minority, is here and
everywhere, as it has been for 20 centuries of Christian history. What
is its origin? How and why does it continue? What is its destiny in
history? What attitude should one adopt towards it? These are the
questions this article hopes to explain.
article claims to be an explanation of the Jew —a theological explanation
—which in this case is the only possible one.
Theology is the science of the mysteries of God. These mysteries are
the inscrutable judgments of the Most High which are known to us when
He deigns to manifest them to us. Without these manifestations we would
have no inkling of them.
theology teaches that the Jewish people is the object of a very special
vocation from God. Only in the light of theology can one explain the
Jew. Neither merely psychology nor the biological sciences, nor even
purely historical studies can explain the Jewish people. This people is
a topic of universal and eternal scope which by its very nature
requires a universal and eternal explanation that is valid for today,
for yesterday and forever. The Jewish people must be considered by an
explanation which is eternal, like God; that is to say, a theological
emerges from this explanation is not meant in any way to justify either
semitic or antisemitic activity. These two terms tend to trivialize a
situation that is deeper and more universal. Catholic theology, while
throwing light on the mystery of the Jewish people, will indicate the
relations between Jews and Christians, who must live apart until the
mercy of God disposes their reconciliation.
The Jewish People According to
Jewish people is not like the other peoples, who are born today and
fade tomorrow, creating admirable civilizations limited to a point in
time and space. We remember the great empires of Egyptians, the
Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans: their glory was the
glory of a day.
Jewish people, a tiny enclave at the crossroads of East and West, was
made tiny for its purpose of bearing the mystery of God through the
centuries. And to bear this mystery graven in its flesh it was not to
create a civilization, because that is a human thing. What was
necessary for it was the divine.
Jewish people is the theological people which God created for Himself.
Moses tells us in Genesis how, two thousand years before Jesus Christ,
the Lord God called the patriarch Abraham, living at Ur of the
Chaldees, in Mesopotamia, and told him:
- Go forth out of thy country, and from thy
kindred, and out of thy father’s house, and come into the land which I
shall show thee.
- And I will make of thee a great nation, and I
will bless thee, and magnify thy name: and thou shalt be blessed.
- And I will bless them that bless thee, and
curse them that curse thee; and in thee shall all the kindred of the
earth be blessed (Gen. 12).
Jewish people, the sons of Abraham, have their origin in God, because
it is He who has chosen them out of the rest of mankind and it is He
that promises His blessing in such a way that in them all the kindred
of the earth shall be blessed. Israel, then, is great with a
theological greatness. But does this greatness consist purely in its
bodily descent in the flesh from Abraham, the patriarch from whose body
it was formed, or does it rest on the faith Abraham had in God’s
Promise of a Redeemer?
is an extremely important question. If the blessings of God are for
Abraham’s bodily descendants only, then the Jewish people would be
chosen and blessed among all the nations of the earth only for the fact
of being sons of Abraham. But if the blessings are reserved to faith in
the divine Promise, then simple descent by lineage is
valueless. It is necessary to be a descendant of Abraham by faith
in the Promise, that is to say, a spiritual descent based on faith.
Ishmael and Isaac
then, is the basis of Israel’s greatness in the light of God’s plan? To
make it clear, God gave Abraham two sons. The one called Ishmael was by
his slave-woman, Hagar, and his birth was in the ordinary course of
nature. The other was given him, against all hope, by his wife Sarah in
her old age, in accordance with the Promise of God. He was called Isaac.
to Isaac and his descendants that God confirmed the Pact made with
Abraham. He also bestowed a blessing on Ishmael, but a purely material
one, promising to make him the head of a great people. From Ishmael
descend the present Arabs, who are in such bitter opposition of the
entry of Jews into Palestine. That is because Abraham was persuaded by
Sarah and commanded by God to show Hagar and Ishmael the door (Gen. 21).
is signified by these two sons of Abraham? St. Paul, the great apostle
of the divine mysteries, tells that two nations are prefigured in
Ishmael and Isaac (Gal. 4).
the first to be born and the natural offspring of the slave, Hagar,
represents the Synagogue of the Jews, which glories in its descent from
the flesh of Abraham. But Isaac, born miraculously of the sterile Sarah
according to a Promise of God, represents the Church which, like Isaac,
is born by faith in the Promise of Christ.
is not lineal descent from Abraham which brings salvation, but
spiritual union with Christ through faith. The Jewish people which
began with Abraham will be able to attain to its salvation not by the
fact of its material descent from Abraham, but in believing in Christ
and assimilating itself to Him in faith.
who are united in Christ form the blessed inheritance of Abraham and
the patriarchs, and are the object of God’s Promises. The Catholic
Church is Sarah made fruitful by the divine power. It is the spirit
that gives life, while the flesh, on the other hand, is worth nothing,
as Jesus Christ was to say:
is the spirit that quickeneth: the flesh profiteth nothing. The words
that I have spoken to you, are spirit and life." (Jn. 6:64)
it happen that this people, or a part of it —united to Abraham by
bodily descent —should believe that this same genealogical link alone
is what gives justification and salvation? Yes, it could happen, and it
did. St. Paul comments that, to show it in advance, God so disposed
had two sons; the one by the bondwoman and the other by the free woman.
But he who was of the bondwoman, was born according to the
flesh: but he of the free woman was by Promise." (Gal. 4:22,23)
this was said by way of allegory in order to signify that the simple
fact of fleshly union with Abraham is represented by Ishmael, the
slave’s son; and the imitation of Abraham, by faith in Jesus Christ, is
represented by Isaac, the son of the Promise.
one must also make a distinction between those who are true Israelites
because they imitate Abraham’s faith in God by believing in Jesus
Christ (those represented by Isaac), and the Israelites who descend
from Abraham in the flesh without imitating his faith (who are
prefigured by Ishmael).
persecuted Isaac. St. Paul, commenting on this, adds:
as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was
after the spirit: so also it is now (Gal. 4:29).
we see expressed the theological necessity by which Ishmael persecuted
Isaac, the Synagogue persecutes the Catholic Church, and the Jews who
are united to Abraham by only a union of the flesh persecute the
Christians who are the true Israelites, united to Christ by faith.
same mystery is revealed to us by the two sons granted by the Lord for
the patriarch Isaac —Esau and Jacob. Let us turn to Genesis (ch. 25):
And Isaac besought the Lord for his wife, because she was barren; and
He heard him, and made Rebecca to conceive.
But the children struggled in her womb: and she said: If it were to be
so with me, what need was there to conceive? And she went to consult
And He answering said: Two nations are in thy womb, and two peoples
shall be divided out of thy womb, and one people shall overcome the
other, and the elder shall serve the younger.
And when her time was come to be delivered, behold twins were found in
He that came forth first was red, and hairy like a skin: and his name
was called Esau. Immediately the other coming forth, held his brother’s
foot in his hand, and therefore he was called Jacob.
Epistle to the Romans, in which he reveals the mystery of the Jewish
people, St. Paul shows how Esau, the elder according to the flesh, is
the Jewish people united to Abraham by a simple blood-tie, while the
younger brother Jacob is the Catholic Church (formed of Jews and
Gentiles) which, because it is united by faith to Christ, is preferred
above Esau. In this way were fulfilled the words of Scripture (when God
reproached the Jews for their ingratitude and lack of pure sacrifice,
and called the Gentiles to offer up to Him in every place an acceptable
have loved you, saith the Lord: and you have said: Wherein hast thou
loved us? Was not Esau brother to Jacob, saith the Lord, and I have
loved Jacob, but have hated Esau? and I have made his mountains a
wilderness, and given his inheritance to the dragons of the desert."
is written: "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated." (Rom.
is that the Church overcomes the Synagogue, although the Synagogue,
hated Jacob...and he said in his heart...I will kill my brother Jacob."
The Greatness of the Jewish People
have referred to these figures from among the Patriarchs as interpreted
by the Catholic Church to show that at the very origins of the Jewish
people there is foreshadowed both its greatness and complexity.
Jewish people has a theological lineage, chosen, consecrated, and
sanctified for the purpose of identifying and bringing to us the bodily
reality of our Divine Lord Jesus Christ who had to come, and whom the
Gentiles expected. This is what is awe-inspiring in the Jewish people:
its flesh is sanctified and marked to bring us Him "Who is the Way,
the Truth and the Life."
precisely why is this flesh holy? Why is it of Abraham’s
lineage? Why must it bring to us the Christ? In other words, is
it Christ who sanctifies the Jewish lineage, or the Jewish lineage that
fact is that Christ, as Isaiah had foretold (Rom. 9:32) had been placed
as a stumbling block, a stone of scandal among his people. If, with the
humility of Abraham, this people believed in Christ as sanctifying
their lineage, then it was called to be the root and the stem of that
flourishing Olive Tree which was to be the Church of Jesus Christ, the
Catholic Church. On the other hand, if it was to reject Christ,
confident in its pride of race, then it destined itself to be the root
and stock of a wild vine which would produce bitter fruits.
former case, this people will be Isaac, Jacob, and Abel; in the latter,
it is called to play the part of Ishmael, Esau, and Cain.
this chosen line will always take precedence over all the other races
of men. If it accepts Christ, it will be the principal and best part of
the Catholic Church, the root and trunk of that Olive Tree that
produces fruit for eternal life, as the Apostle Paul teaches. If it
rejects Christ, it will be chief in the kingdom of iniquity. The great
Apostle, St. Paul, who was proud to know himself an Israelite,
emphasizes the Jewish pre-eminence for good or ill when he says:
and anguish upon every soul of man that worketh evil, of the Jew first,
and also of the Greek…" (Rom. 2:9)
advantage then hath the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?
Much every way. First indeed, because the words of God were committed
to them (Rom. 3:1,2).
Jew then is first in the order of goodness, in the mystery of grace.
The trunk of the tree that is the Catholic Church is Jewish. The
Patriarchs are Jews; the Prophets are Jewish, John the Baptist is
Jewish; St. Joseph is Jewish; the Mother of God is Jewish; and our
Blessed Savior in whom all nations of the earth are blessed is Jewish.
The Apostles are Jewish; the Evangelists are Jewish; and the first of
the Martyrs, St. Stephen, is Jewish.
people, this theological people that is the trunk of the tree of the
Church! In the presence of this Olive Tree, what worth have the Gentile
peoples who are only poor wild olives? What worth has the learning of
the Greeks or the power of pagan Rome? Mere foolishness, says St. Paul,
because these nations did nothing to bring salvation such as the Jewish
nation did. If the Gentile nations–starting with the Greeks–wish to
enter the way of salvation they must do so by charity, profiting by the
general rejection of Jewish people in order to be grafted in. That is
why St. Paul says the fall of a part of the Jewish people has become
the opportunity of salvation for the Gentiles:
if some of the branches be broken, and thou, being a wild olive, art
ingrafted in them, and art made partaker of the root, and of the
fatness of the olive tree, boast not against the branches. But if thou
boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee." (Rom. 11:17,18)
Israel’s greatness, which was predestined to be in Christ, needs to be
matched by a corresponding fidelity to Christ. What unhappy
consequences visit this people if it repudiates the One Who is its
salvation! Judas Iscariot, Annas, and Caiphas were Jewish. It was the
Jewish chief priests who persuaded the people to call for the
crucifixion of the Savior and who cried out, "His blood be upon us
and our children!" (Mt. 27:25) Jews stoned St. Stephen; Jews
martyred St. James and laid traps for the apostles. The greatest crime
of all time —the death of the God-Man —was perpetrated by this forlorn
is the root of the errors of the Jews? —It is that "a part of this
people" believed that the promises given to the Jewish people on
account of Christ (who was due to be born from among them) were made to
His flesh, to His lineage. However, the Jewish people, instead of
acknowledging that it was the chosen people because of Christ, rather
believed that it was Christ who had something to boast about on account
of His genealogical lineage.
it was not Christ, but the flesh of Abraham, that was the source of
glory. And the Pharisees, the veritable incarnation of this spirit of
iniquity, declared proudly as a reason for not accepting Christ: "We
have Abraham for our father."
their sin consisted in making carnal (i.e., material) the
promises of God. In that way they attributed substantial value to what
was only a foreshadowing. They expected salvation from what was only a
sign of that salvation.
the Messiah, the One awaited, who was to bring grace and truth to the
world, they made of Him a political, earthly ruler, who would assure
and perpetuate the greatness of Israel over all the nations.
The Carnalization of the
will be instructive to distinguish the different stages in the process
of the carnalization of the Jews. We have coined this word —carnalization
—by which we mean to indicate the Jewish people’s
Sacred Scriptures record that the Israelite people had always a nature
dominated by great pride and avarice. Moses himself distinctly warned
therefore that the Lord thy God giveth thee not possession of this
excellent land for thy justices [righteousness], for thou art a very
stiff-necked [stubborn] people…" (Deut. 9:6)
again the Lord said to me: I see that this people is stiff-necked: Let
me alone that I may destroy them, and abolish their name from under
heaven, and set thee over a nation, that is greater and stronger than
this." (Deut. 9:13.14)
period of the Kings, the people’s dishonesty and materialism became
particularly evident. They abandoned themselves to a thousand
perversities and idolatries to such a degree that they were the first
to be broken up and led into captivity in Babylon by King
Nebuchadnezzar, six centuries before Christ. This hard captivity lasted
seventy years. At the end of it the Jewish people, returning to
Palestine, reformed themselves on new and firm foundations given by
Ezra, whom the Jews considered as great a lawgiver as Moses. In fact,
Judaism, as it was at the time of Christ and as it has remained until
the present day, springs from the reorganization of the people under
generalize, it must be said that the Jews are a people bound to a book,
the book above all others, the Law —the Torah. In reality, the
Torah is composed of the first five books of the Sacred Scriptures [the
Pentateuch], written by Moses as inspired by
the Holy Ghost. But the Jews only accept as the Word of God (superior
to that of Moses himself) the Torah together with the
interpretations the rabbis have handed down by oral tradition. These
interpretations have been collected and in some way petrified in a
voluminous book called the Talmud. The Talmud is the civil and
religious code of the Jewish people.
Jews are a people created by the mentality of the rabbis, especially of
the Pharisee rabbis. The Pharisee vividly displays the carnality of the
Jews. We are not using the word carnal with the meaning that
they have a special leaning to sins of impurity, but with the meaning
Jesus Christ gave this word when He anathematized the tendency to give
a literal, inferior, earthly interpretation to what in the mind of God
has a superior and heavenly meaning.
Pharisees, instead of following in the steps of prophets like Isaiah
and Ezekiel who had preached a worship of God in spirit, compunction of
heart, a reform of conduct, and charity to all men, worked to train the
people in a literal following of petty observances and a feeling of
pride in the fact of lineal descent from the patriarch Abraham. "They
answered Him: We are the seed of Abraham..." (Jn. 8:33) as if it
was the flesh of Abraham itself that brought justification.
Pharisees had drawn up a host of rules on purification, ablutions,
washing and immersion of hands, of the body, of cups and cloths, so as
to preserve the purity of the people. They obliged any of their
faithful who had touched a non-Jew in the street or in the market to
wash himself. They considered the violation of these ritual
prescriptions a grave sin.
shows better the carnalized Judaic mentality than the terrible "Woes"
declared by the Jew, our Lord Jesus Christ, in the last days of His
life on earth, when He denounced the hypocritical religion, purity, and
piety of the Pharisees (Mt. 23). Against religious hypocrisy, He said:
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you shut the
kingdom of heaven against men, for you yourselves do not enter it; and
those that are going in, you suffer not to enter.
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you go round
about the sea and the land to make one proselyte; and when he is made,
you make him a child of hell twofold more than yourselves.
Woe to you blind guides....
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you tithe mint,
and anise, and cummin, and have left the weightier things of the law;
judgment, and mercy, and faith....
Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; because you are like to
whited sepulchers, which outwardly appear to men beautiful, but within
are full of dead men’s bones, and of all filthiness.
denounced simulated worship and piety towards ancestors when He said:
Woe to you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites; that build the sepulchers
of the prophets, and adorn the monuments of the just, and say: If we
had been in the days of our Fathers, we would not have been partakers
with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore you are witnesses
against yourselves, that you are the sons of them that killed the
prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.
You serpents, generation of vipers, how will you flee from the judgment
of hell? Therefore behold I send to you prophets, and wise men, and
scribes: and some of them you will put to death and crucify, and some
you will scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city:
that upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the
earth, from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of
Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and
in all the course of history has pronounced more terrible anathemas
than those of the Son of God against the perfidious carnality of His
The Sin of the Jews
14th of the month of Nisan in the year 33, the Jewish people, assembled
before the praetorium of Pilate the Governor, and urged by the priests
demanded the death of the Promised One:
the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out saying,
Crucify Him, crucify Him. Pilate saith to them: Take Him you, and
crucify Him: for I find no cause in Him. The Jews answered him: We have
a law; and according to the law He ought to die, because He made
Himself the Son of God." (Jn. 19:6,7)
rabbis had said beforehand in a secret council against Jesus:
we let Him alone so, all will believe in Him; and the Romans will come,
and take away our place and nation. But one of them, named Caiphas,
being the high priest that year, said to them: You know nothing.
Neither do you consider that it is expedient for you that one man
should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not." (Jn.
these Jews, in the name of their Law, their Torah, and to serve the
material interests of their nation and race, demanded the blood of Him
who had been promised them as their blessing. They stirred up the
Gentiles against Jesus. Using them to carry out their plans, they
crucified the One who was to be raised up as a "sign of
contradiction". (Lk. 2:34)
will not exterminate the carnalized Judaism. When the Jews turn toward
the Lord, and say to him as did Cain...:
iniquity is greater than that I may deserve pardon. Behold thou dost
cast me out this day from the face of the earth, and I shall be hidden
from thy face, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth:
every one, therefore that findeth me, shall kill me." (Gen. 4:13-14)
the Lord will say to them, as He did to Cain:
the Lord said to him: No, it shall not be so: but whosoever shall kill
Cain, shall be punished sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain,
that whosoever found him should not kill him." (Gen. 4:15)
the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any one who came upon him should kill
him. And ever since, this people marked by God’s seal must wander
through the world. And, what will they be doing? —Bearing in their
flesh witness to Christ in the mystery of iniquity. Jesus Christ chose
the flesh of His own race to, willingly or unwillingly, proclaim that
it is He who is blessed for ever and ever. Jewish flesh proclaims it
because Christ comes from that genealogy. One cannot remember Christ
without remembering the Jews, and one cannot remember them without
Jewish people, once a mystery of goodness, is now changed into a
mystery of iniquity. It is no longer Isaac, but Ishmael. No longer
Jacob, but Esau. No longer Abel, but Cain.
have won from it the birthright. To others have been granted the
blessings of the Promise. Those others are all of us who make up the
Church of Jesus Christ–converted Jews at first and later the Gentile
Church of Christ is the true Isaac, the true Jacob, the true Abel.
Christ has sanctified Jews and Gentiles to form a new creation, the
Catholic Church, which adores the Father in spirit and in truth (Jn.
with the Church, which is Isaac, Jacob and Abel, what will the
Synagogue do? —It will play the part of Ishmael, of Esau, and of Cain.
What did Ishmael do to Isaac? He mocked him and persecuted him (Gen.
21:9). What did Esau do against Jacob? Genesis tells us:
therefore always hated Jacob for the blessing wherewith his father had
blessed him: and he said in his heart: The days will come of the
mourning of my father and I will kill my brother Jacob." (Gen. 27:41)
is the part that now falls to the Synagogue, to the Jew who will not
recognize Christ as He revealed Himself and convert: he will set out to
persecute the Church, as the Apostle Paul observes. In this way, just
as in the kingdom of goodness the Jewish people had and still has the
first place (for history is all present together in God’s eyes), so
also the first place in the kingdom of evil must go to it. The other
peoples, if wishing to do the work of evil, follow the example of the
carnalized, unrepentant Jewish people. If the Gentiles want to be
carnal, they must judaize. Thus it was with perfect theological
precision that the Fathers of the Church gave the name of Judaizers to
Gentiles who taught heresy.
is a theological opposition —that is to say, one arranged by God —which
exists throughout Christian history between the Synagogue and the
Church, between Christians and Jews, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau.
What is indispensable at this point is to put down the theological
conclusions in the light of which history must be interpreted.
Conclusion: The Jewish people, whose destiny was to bring
Christ to us, found Christ a stumbling block. A part of them believed
in Him, and built on Him to form the roots and the trunk of that Olive
Tree which is the Catholic Church. The other part fell, denying Him and
invoking their carnal pride of race and nation. That part of Israel was
rejected, and called upon itself the blood of Christ as a curse. It is
this part that forms Judaism proper, which is the heir and the
continuation of the rabbis who rejected Christ.
Conclusion: Judaism is inimical to all nations in general, and
in a special manner to Christian nations. It plays the part of Ishmael
who persecuted Isaac, of Esau who sought to kill Jacob, and of Cain who
put Abel to death. St. Paul, the converted Jew, says:
you brethren, are become followers of the churches of God which are in
Judea, in Christ Jesus: for you also have suffered the same things from
your own countrymen, even as they have from the Jews, who both killed
the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us, and please
not God, and are adversaries to all men." (I Thess. 2:14,15)
note of St. Paul’s terrible and very important fact, written under
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That is to say, the adversarial
relationship of the Jewish people is not a local enmity, or one based
on blood, or on conflicting interests. It is an enmity disposed by God.
The Jewish people, if it has not converted to Christianity, will, even
if it does not wish to, seek to ruin Christianity, as Jesus Christ said
when speaking to the Pharisees:
are of your father the devil, and the desire of your father you
will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the
truth; because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh
of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof." (Jn. 8:44)
Conclusion: If the unrepentant Jewish people are disposed by
God to be a theological enemy, the status of this opposition must be
universal, inevitable, and terrible.
because it must extend to all nations. Wherever Christendom extends,
the Jewish people goes, too. There is no way of avoiding this, because
it is theological.
and Jewry are destined inevitably to meet everywhere without
reconciliation or mixing. It represents in history the eternal struggle
of Lucifer against God, of darkness against the Light, of the flesh
against the spirit. It represents in time the spiritual accomplishing
and the fleshly accomplishing of the Scriptures. The Letter
must be everywhere to be the servant of the Spirit. It is with
this understanding St. Thomas Aquinas teaches us that the Jewish people
is the servant of the Church.
a terrible enmity, because it is theological. There is a
mystery of iniquity in the Jewish people, as we are taught by St.
Jerome and St. Justin, echoing Jesus Christ and the preaching of the
Apostles. Jesus Christ anathematized them, calling them hypocrites and
liars because the Pharisees practiced enmity under pretense of doing
good. They only perpetuate what they did once to Christ.
Conclusion: Ever since Christ was lifted up on Mount Calvary,
the world has been subjected to two truly opposite forces: the Jewish
force and the Christian.
world as it is, there can be only two truly basic modes, two poles of
attraction: the Christian and the Jewish. Only two religions: Christian
and Jewish. All that is not of Christ and for Christ is done in favor
of Judaism. It follows from that, that the de-Christianizing of the
world runs parallel to its Judaizing.
are only these two modes possible? Because they are the only ones
willed by God, they are the only theological ones. God has divided the
world between Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Cain and Abel, and
Christ and the Anti-Christ. All human energies must serve one front or
is why the Gentile peoples, we to whom the vocation to the Catholic
Church is freely offered, have only two roads ahead to us: to
Christianize ourselves or to Judaize ourselves, to be part of the Olive
Tree of the Church or of the sterile Vine of Judaism, to be sons of
Sarah the free woman, or else of Hagar the bondwoman.
Gentile people wishes to be free and great, it has no other solution
than to humbly adhere to the Catholic Church. It can have no other
greatness than the incomparable greatness of the Christian nations of
the Middle Ages, which forged saints and heroes, raised the cathedrals,
educated the peoples by the examples of the saints, gave them an
understanding of beauty by Gregorian Chant and the frescoes of Fra
Angelico and Giotto, and elevated their understanding with the Summa
Theologica of the Angelic Doctor, St. Thomas Aquinas.
Gentile people now considers this genuine greatness of the medieval age
as gloomy or obscurantist, and wishes to be great with the material
greatness of Babylon, then it can have it: but only as a servant of
Judaism. In the domain of the material, it is the Jewish people who
have the superiority. History tells us (Werner Sombart) that the
renowned greatness of English and American Capitalism is only a Judaic
creation. While Capitalism fulfills its promises and is unquestionably
of incomparable material greatness, it compromises the work of millions
of Christians for the benefit of a much smaller number of the Jewish
Conclusion: The only protection of the Gentile people against
enslaving itself to the material superiority of the Jewish people is
the Catholic life. This is because Jesus Christ alone is the Savior of
all mankind. Note that the Middle Ages did not succumb to material
mastery for centuries.
of its theological disposition, the Catholic Church applied wise laws
to the Jewish people, and was vigilant against their perversion of
Catholics. The Catholic Church, however, has never hated the Jewish
people. On the contrary, it has always prayed and asked prayers for its
spiritual well-being, and defended them against harassment and unjust
persecution. This has not gone unrecognized by the Jewish people
itself. So, for instance, when in France (1807) the Jewish Sanhedrin
met publicly for the first time in centuries, it rendered public homage
to the benevolence of the Popes in a document that one can still read
Israelite Deputies of the Empire of France and of the Kingdom of Italy,
at the Hebrew Synod decreed on the 30th May ult., inspired with
gratitude for the successive benefits that the Christian clergy has
bestowed in past centuries on the Israelites of different European
States, and full of gratitude for the welcome which diverse Popes in
different epochs have given to Israelites of various countries when
barbarism, prejudice and ignorance combined to persecute the Jews and
expel them from society, declare as follows:
the expression of these sentiments shall be recorded in the minutes of
today so as to remain forever an authentic witness to the gratitude of
the Israelites of this assembly for the benefits which the generations
preceding us have received from ecclesiastics of different European
countries." (From Collection of the Acts of the Assembly of the
Israelites of France and the Kingdom of Italy by Diogene Tama.)
Conclusion: Under pain of sin, Catholics cannot hate the Jewish
people, cannot persecute them or prevent them to live, nor disturb them
in their private practice of their laws and customs. But, they must
nevertheless preserve themselves from the danger they represent.
Catholics are not to enter into commercial, social, nor political
relations which are bound hypocritically to seek the ruin of
Christendom. Jews must not live together with Christians because this
is what their own Jewish laws ordain and also because their errors and
material superiority have virulent consequences among other peoples. If
the other peoples reject these precautions, they will invite upon
themselves these consequences, namely, to serve the Jewish people to
whom belongs superiority in the kingdom of the material.
Conclusion: In the wandering and pitiable life of the Jewish
people one must discover the Christian mystery. This is magnificently
demonstrated by the converted Jew, Fr. Joseph Lehmann, in his book L’entrée
des Israelites dans la société française
(p. 3). The Jews were responsible —directly and/or indirectly —for
covering the Just One with insults, throwing over His shoulders a cloak
of contempt, putting on His head a crown of thorns and into His hands a
reed. With striking, spitting, insults, and injury they lavished on Him
every sort of humiliation. They spared Him no shame. Finally, He was
sold for the slave’s price of 30 pieces of silver.
since, similar insults have been visited upon the Jewish people as a
chastisement and penalty for its deed. Moses himself warned:
thou shalt be lost, as a proverb and a byword to all people, among whom
the Lord shall bring thee in [will lead you away]." (Deut. 28:37)
long must this terrible enmity between Jews and Christians last? Until
God in His mercy brings about the conversion and reconciliation of the
Jewish people. St. Paul teaches us that the day will come when Israel
will recognize Him whom he has denied:
I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, (lest you
should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part has
happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in.
And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall
come out of Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away
ungodliness from Jacob." (Rom. 11:25,26)
the moment arrives (which is in the hands of God), then Esau will be
reconciled with Jacob, that is to say, the Jews will become Catholics,
and the words of the prophet Ezekiel, five centuries before Christ,
will be fulfilled:
saith the Lord God: Behold I will take the children of Israel from
among the midst of the nations whither they are gone: and I will gather
them on every side, and will bring them to their own land. And I will
make them one nation in the land on the mountains of Israel, and one
king shall be king over them all: and they shall no more be two
nations, neither shall they be divided any more into two kingdoms. Nor
shall they be defiled any more with their idols, nor with their
abominations, nor with all their iniquities: and I will save them out
of all the places in which they have sinned, and I will cleanse them:
and they shall be my people, and I will be their God." (Ezek. 37:21-23)
all will be one in Christ because the Jewish people will convert from
its Judaism and the Christians will be Christians in earnest, and peace
will become a reality as the fruit of justice and charity, in Him Who
promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is Jesus Christ, the Blessing of
all the ages.
The Jewish and Christian Peoples
relations of Christians and Jews cannot be governed by the common law
of Christians, but only by an exceptional legislation which takes count
of the theological status of the Jewish people. The Catholic Church’s
teaching is that they should neither be eliminated from among us (as
antisemitism seeks) nor given equality of rights, which leads to
their superiority (as is advocated by liberalism or philosemitism).
Catholic Church has always had the habit of praying for the Jewish
people, which was the depository of the Divine Promises up to the
coming of Jesus Christ, in spite of this people’s blindness. More than
that, it has done so on account of that very blindness. Ruled by the
same charity, the Apostolic See has protected this people against
unjust vexations, and just as it reproves all hatred between peoples,
so it condemns hatred against the people formerly chosen by God, that
hatred that ordinarily goes by the name of Antisemitism (from the Decree
of the Holy Office, 25 March, 1928).
Jewish people must live among Christians as a blind witness to the
Christian truth, like a spur to keep us faithful. The Catholic Church
teaches that it must not be exterminated (for the Jewish people bears
the mark of Cain given it by God so no one would kill it) nor
frequented (for God warns of its danger). As once they treated Christ,
ever since, to persecute Christianity is their theological
we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then
he, that was born according to the flesh [i.e., Ishmael],
persecuted him that was after the spirit [i.e., Isaac]; so also it is
now." (Gal. 4:28,29)
theological law is stronger than all human plans and expedients. The
Jewish people realizes this law. The law contained in the Talmud, which
governs Jews, orders enmity with Christians.
celebrated rabbi, Paulus L.B. Drach, who converted to the Catholic
Church, authored a valuable work on the Talmud, De l’harmonie entre
l’église et le synagogue (ed. Paul Melier, Paris 1844). The Talmud
corpus of Jewish doctrine, to which the most authentic teachers of
Israel in different periods have contributed. It is the complete civil
and religious code of the Synagogue. Its object is to explain the Law
of Moses in conformity with verbal tradition, and includes discussions
of doctors. Although the Christian reader will sometimes be repelled,
for one reason or another, he will get valuable information to help
explain obscure passages in the New Testament. From the time of the
Captivity in Babylon (586 BC), the authority of the rabbis took the
place of that of Moses and the Prophets. Rules for the temporal
development of the people got more important than rules for religious
Talmud got particularly virulent after Christianity appeared. Insolent
and sacrilegious infamies against Christ and Christians were written
into it, which is why copies were burnt by order of Christian rulers
and popes. Hence, a Jewish synod in Poland in 1631 ordered all in the
Talmud that related to Christ and Christians to be suppressed, saying:
you publish a new edition of these books, leave blank the pages
referring to Jesus of Nazareth, making a circle like an O; and every
rabbi or other teacher will take care not to teach these passages
except verbally. In this way, learned Christians will have nothing to
reproach us with on this, and we will live in peace."
have already discussed the spiritual greatness of the nation from which
Christ came. Israel is so great in whatever he does that it is unable
to perpetrate evil except also in a great, a terrible way. We will
discuss four of these ways. He is a consecrated lineage which, if he
saves us in Christ, ruins us in the Antichrist. Yet, Christians cannot
hate him, only lament him. Jewish writers like Barnard Lazare recognize
this, the Jewish people forged as it is by the spirit of the rabbis.
rabbis had separated Israel from the community of nations; they had
made the people a wild solitary people, rebellious against all law,
hostile to all fraternity, shut against every beautiful, noble and
generous ideal; a miserable little nation made bitter by isolation,
made brutish by a narrow education, demoralized and corrupted by an
unjustifiable pride (l’Antisemitisme, v.1, p.57).
1. The Jewish people persecute
Paul denounces it for persecution:
you also have suffered the same things from your own countrymen, even
as they have from the Jews, who both killed the Lord Jesus, and the
prophets, and have persecuted us, and please not God, and are
adversaries to all men; prohibiting us to speak to the Gentiles, that
they may be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath of God
is come upon them to the end." (I Thess. 3:14b-16)
also St. Justin in his Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon (XVI,
133). St. Basil affirms that the Jewish and pagan people were formerly
at enmity, but joined together against Christians, as is confirmed by
Tertullian, Origen, and Gregory Nazianzen. See Leclerc, Les Martyres
(Paris, 1905, v.1, p.103); and the article of J. Vernet, "Juifs et
the 12th century these persecutions became rare because of the Church’s
vigilance. But we find them allied to heretics repeatedly: Cathars,
Vaudois, Hussites. As the Jew Darmesteter himself said (Les
prophètes d’Israel), all revolutionaries in spirit go to the Jews
2. The Jewish people conspire
against the Christian State.
facts: In Spain (694) the Jews conspired with the Jews in Africa to let
the Arabs into Spain; in 711 they allied with the Arabs; in 952 they
handed over Barcelona. In 854, Bordeaux was delivered to the Normans by
the Jews; at the end of the 12th century they made common cause with
the Mongols against the Christians of Hungary.
The Jewish people win control of property by usury. [The main vice
of the Gentile people is its sensuality. To satisfy this, it spends
itself into debt and must seek moneylenders.—Ed.] The Jewish
people were forbidden to lend at interest among themselves.
shalt not lend to thy brother money to usury, nor corn, nor any other
thing: but to the stranger [i.e., foreigner]. To thy brother
thou shalt lend that which he wanteth, without usury:..."(Deut.
Thomas Aquinas says (II-IIae, Q. 78, A. 1) God permitted them to lend
usuriously to foreigners, not as though it were lawful, but in order to
avoid the greater evil, that is, through the avarice to which they were
prone (Is. 56:11) that they should take usury from their own Jewish
people who worshipped the true God.
the great historian of the Reformation wrote:
Jews not only monopolized money-changing; the real source of their
wealth was usury...they gradually became the bankers and financiers for
cites that in 1338, Emperor Louis of Bavaria allowed the Jews to charge
interest rates as high as 32½% upon the citizens of Frankfurt, Germany;
43% for foreigners in the city. At Ratisbon, Augsburg, and Vienna, the
legally permitted interest was as high as 86%. One of Jansen’s
Jewish usurers now install themselves in fixed places in even the
smallest towns; when they advance five florins they take security
representing six times the value of what is lent; then they claim
interest and compound interest, so that the poor man is deprived of all
he had (Erasmus of Erbach" 1487)
superiority of the Jewish moneylenders and the extravagant wastefulness
of the Gentiles is exemplified by the fact that when Philip Augustus
expelled the Jewish people from France in the 12th century, they owned
a third of the land, and had so gotten hold of the money, that when
they left, it was difficult to find any anywhere.
4. Jews are known to kill
St. Justin (3rd century) said so. The Talmud allows it. History
confirms it. It is certain that lives of Christians have been taken:
St. William of York, 12 years old (1144); St. Richard of Paris (1179);
St. Dominic de Val, crucified at Saragossa, Spain (1250); Bl. Henry of
Munich (1345); Bl. Simeon (1475); the controversial martyrdoms of Fr.
Thomas of Cangiano and his aide (1840) in Damascus.
grisly as they are, these four accusations can be documented in every
period and country where Jews live with Christians. In earlier times
the Jews could only act directly against Christians who were
well-cautioned about them. But now that Christians are
de-Christianized, the Jews pursue their aggression with the help of the
Judgments of Popes Regarding the
are at least 15 papal documents warning the Catholic Church against the
dangers presented by the Jewish people. Catholic theology has always
recognized that the Jewish people are a sacred people. In one sense,
the Jewish people is the Father of the Church, because the oracles of
God were given to it; and however perverse a father may be, he is owed
protection and respect. Antisemitism is condemned because it is
persecution of the Jewish people without taking account of their sacred
character nor the rights that come from this. An excerpt from one of
the papal documents regarding the Jewish people tidily summarizes the
are the living witnesses of the true Faith. The Christian must not
exterminate or oppress them....We must not molest them in the exercise
of the privileges accorded them....As they seek our help, we accept and
take them under our protection; and following our predecessors
Callixtus, Eugenius, Alexander, Clement and Celestine, we forbid the
forcing of baptism on a Jew, also harming them in any way or taking
their goods, etc., or violating their cemeteries and digging up corpses
to find money. The punishment for disobedience to these dispositions is
excommunication." (from the Constitution Licet Perfidia Judaeorum,
Pope Innocent III, 1199)
though the Jewish people must be protected, it was recognized it was
dangerous enough to be isolated into its own neighborhoods. Was this an
offense against its natural human rights? —No, for this people refuses
to assimilate itself into the country that gives it hospitality, and
lives by Talmudic laws contrary to the common good. The policy of the
Catholic Church is to extend liberty to the Jewish people to develop
and live within its legitimate laws while guarding Catholics,
however, against its domination.
The Church’s Wisdom
Catholic Church perceives the deep desire of the Jewish people to
impose its material superiority and the guilt of Catholics who seek
this people to get material gain. The enslaving of Christians and
Christian nations began by the fault of Christians.
Christians wish to remain free, let them avoid entanglements with the
Jewish people. It dominates in every branch of commerce and finance, in
philosophy and the universities. Its action is felt in the consequences
of the French Revolution, in the socialization of socialist countries,
and in the slavery of Communism. If the Gentile people wishes for a
civilization based on economic greatness and the comfortable life, with
everything set at the epitome of organization and technical
development–then it can have it, with the Jewish people as master and
the all the rest as slaves.
Christ came into the world, a civilization where Mammon is king is only
possible under the Jewish people because, as said previously, the gift
of dominance has been given it in all that is of the flesh, the world.
rules history. History has a meaning, a theological one; because God
knows how to profit from all the successes and failures of men to
realize His plan.
gave two enemies to the nations that flourished under the Church’s
guidance in the Middle Ages: an internal one, the spirit of
rebellion against the spiritual in order that worldly greatness be
achieved; and an external one, the Jewish people, who live
among the Christians to be a goad and a spur. Christendom under holy
kings and popes knew how to guard against these dangers. Christendom
perceived in a truly theological manner the Jewish people’s domination
of the material world and so isolated this sacred but perfidious people.
the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, carnal instincts rebelled,
and by a theological necessity stronger than men’s calculations, the
emancipation of the Jewish people necessarily followed: an emancipation
that under Capitalism and Communism turned into domination.
is not to be charged to the Jewish people for the evils that have come
upon society. It is realizing the program which, in God’s plan, is its
task to bring to completion. The fault is on the Catholics, unfaithful
to their great vocation, who have sought with its help a material,
carnal, worldly greatness–which ends in rivers of Christian blood.
The Jewish People and the
true defense of Christendom is not police measures, but Jesus Christ.
Woe to the world if it forgets Him! At the end of the Middle Ages, the
Gentile people committed great sins, especially the clergy. Thus
weakened, this people succumbed to the brain and hand of Judaization
—through the Renaissance, the French Revolution, and Communism. Judaism
would give mental ammunition to the rebels, e.g., Renaissance
skeptics and 18th-century libertines. Werner Sombart, the authoritative
historian of Capitalism who is neither Catholic nor antisemite, shows
in his book Les juifs et la vie économique how some Protestant
sects, especially the Puritans, are Judaic. Close relations formed
between Judaism and some of the Reformation sects and a great keenness
for Hebrew studies swept Europe. In England alone, for instance, a sect
named the "Levellers" called themselves Jews and wished to make the
Torah the English code of law, Cromwell was urged to imitate the
Sanhedrin by numbering 70 members in the Council of State, and it was
proposed (1629) in Parliament to change the Sunday worship to Saturday.
influence Judaism had in the Renaissance and Reformation, it certainly
profited. The Jewish author, Bernard Lazare, says:
Jewish spirit triumphed with Protestantism." (l’Antisemitisme,
the breach thus opened in the structure of Christendom, the Jewish
people hope to exercise their astuteness to realize their ancient dream
of a world empire. Having rejected Christ, it awaits the messiah
promised in the Talmud who will "give to the Jews the scepter of
penetrate Christendom, the masses must be captivated and rebellion
fomented against its two pillars —Pope and King. The formula prepared
by Judaism for their destruction: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity.
This formula was introduced first to the malcontents making up the
membership of the Freemasonic lodges. The lodges proclaim inoffensive
programs about the improvement of humanity, but the real aim is to "destroy
all that the Catholic Church has done in the world" (Etudes sur
la franc-maçonnerie américaine, A. Preuss).
are solid proofs of their deadly activity in the public record,
especially in confiscated Masonic documents and the public claims of
the Masons themselves. The Jewish author Isaac Wise reported:
is a Jewish institution, whose history, regulations, duties,
recommendations and explanations are Jewish to the end." (The
Israelite, August, 1855)
the deceitful slogan of the Rights of Man, Christian society has become
ripe for conquest. Firstly, by Capitalism, all wealth falls to
centralized control. Secondly, by Liberalism and Socialism,
the understanding of nations is perverted and their heart corrupted.
Thirdly, by Communism, all opposition is eliminated and
the remaining people are submitted to a yoke from which they cannot
essence of the capitalist regime in force since the French Revolution
which has produced the material greatness of the modern world is the
regime of financial wealth as the prime mover of all economic affairs.
The financial power concentrated in the banks assures the development
of all commercial, industrial, and agricultural activity. By means of
credit and lending at interest, finance capital mobilizes great wealth,
which in turn increases that same finance capital. The banks enrich
themselves rapidly by lending at interest. By being loaned, money
acquires a magnetic power. Lending at interest, in a regime with
monetary stability, tends to create two well-defined classes. The
lending, capitalist class necessarily goes on getting richer,
because the money cannot help increasing. The working class
must work both for itself and for the lender. The moment comes when the
work done does not cover what is due to the lender, and then it goes
way by which bankers enrich themselves is the numerous operations of
loans and repayment of loans. It is a real creation of money for the
use of the banker. Credit is money, and in creating it, they become
public knowledge that the Jewish sector, relatively small compared to
the Gentile sector which devotes itself to the creation of wealth,
controls especially the financial power that is exercised through
banks. Wise Solomon observes for us under the power of the Holy Ghost:
slothfulness a building shall be brought down, and through the weakness
of hands, the house shall drop through. For laughter they make bread,
and wine that the living may feast: and all things obey money."
(Eccl. 10:18,19 [emphasis added])
gifted Jewish bankers have created a controlled economy whose ultimate
end is the multiplication of money. Even money-strapped governments
become their obedient clients. Governments could break their financial
bonds except that, despite many other circumstances, these bankers are
also national or international at will and can bring pressure to bear
from nearly any point. International Judaism has created international
capitalism to gain international wealth. Werner Sombart’s voluminous
work (Les juifs et la vie économique, Payot, Paris, 1923
[translated from the German]) shows how Judaism has created Capitalism
and could not be otherwise explained without it.
Demo-liberal Corruption and
its financial influence, Judaic thinking comes to dominate the cultural
and educational fields. The pattern repeats: Jews get into posts of
influence, and submit society to a high degree of corruption in ways of
thinking and acting, which leads to a reaction of public opinion
demo-liberalism is only a stage. The next step is socialism, whose
seminal thinkers, from Marx to Leon Blum, were of the Jewish people.
The construction of both Capitalism and Socialism, two opposing forces,
is to further divide and conquer. Capitalism robs Christians of what
they have. Socialism poisons those who have not, and so starts the
Class War. Catholicism, however, which constructed Christendom, is
confined to sacristies and convents.
people are Judaized: the rich with Liberalism, the poor with Socialism.
It thinks and acts in the manner of Judaism. Thinking itself free, it
thinks with the Judaized mind of the media.
great ideal of Judaism is that the whole world should be imbued with
Jewish teaching, and that in a universal fraternity of nations —an
enlarged Judaism —all separate races and religious should disappear....
By their activity in literature and science, by expressing their
dominant passion in every branch of public activity, they are gradually
pouring into Jewish molds all non-Jewish systems and ideas." (Jewish
World newspaper, Feb. 9, 1863)
a matter of public historical record that Communism was financed by
Jewish money. Jacob Schiff and his banking partners, Felix and Max
Warburg, financed revolutionary propaganda among Russian prisoners of
war in different countries and helped Trotsky. Schiff publicly
declared (1917) that the revolution had succeeded thanks to his help.
Jewish review declared that Communism had achieved "the
emancipation of Jews and the triumph of Judaism," because it had "been
created, realized by Jews" (Vu, April, 1932).
is only a transition stage toward the egalitarian leveling of
Communism. That Communism was created by Judaism does not mean it has
the control of it as it once had, especially since 1947 when the
alliance broke into two blocks. In Russia now there is a general
anti-Judaism feeling and though Judaism still promotes Communism, it
prefers to see it realized in another manner.
the Jewish people succeed in its ambitions? To what extent? God knows.
He has His plans, and knows how to combine human acts to further them.
The amalgamation of the Jewish and Gentile peoples has been
catastrophic; but God has allowed it, so something good will come of it.
the goods will be that Catholic nations will expiate for their
centuries of infidelities. These nations who, headed by France, should
have been the heralds of Christ to the peoples of East and West have
instead been heralds of sin. As the Jewish people were punished in 70
AD, so the Gentile people. For the Christian peoples, yesterday it was
Russia; tomorrow, the world. A global chastisement is due for both Jew
and Gentile alike, for both have offended God for centuries and need
purifying. Afterwards then will appear men of sanctity, full of the
genuine Catholic faith and charity of the martyrs. A weak and
hypocritical Catholicism will no longer be possible. Only after this
purification will be possible the reconciliation of Jacob and Esau,
Christian and Jew. St Paul teaches that when the knowledge of the
Catholic Faith shall have reached all nations, Israel will convert en
masse. In the shared pain of a common chastisement, all will
understand that we are brothers in Him who was promised to Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob; in Whom all nations of the earth are blessed. There
will be an outpouring of the Spirit of God in the coming collision of
the forces of evil against the few who will resist. He will inflame
hearts through the flames of material punishment. He will enter them
and teach them to meet together in Him who is "meek and humble of
heart." Because we all have been ruined by pride and
materialism, and must be saved in the humility of Christ.
The Mystery of History and
Jewish people are of exceptional importance in human history. Other
peoples have been dominant, but only for a time. To begin to understand
the mystery of the Jewish people in history, let us make some
theological considerations about history.
begins with the Creation. Here the initiative was with God. God
continues to act on humanity, to continue what He made good at the
start. He can give direction and meaning to otherwise absurd acts of
men. Man, however, has the initiative in doing evil.
at things from a human viewpoint, one can see
two histories, one written by the intervention of God, and the
other, by man. In the divine history of God, Christ is the
center. Profane history is the history of successive
civilizations. In the profane history of civilizations, it seems that
man’s will prevails. In it, however, one sees a strong dose of
fatality, by which Divine Providence directs the progress of human
affairs for purposes it does not reveal.
reality there is only one history, that written by God
with the cooperation of all His creatures. It is a magnificent drama.
The Creation. The disorder introduced by human sin. The profit of God
from this fault. The Incarnation. The conflict with Evil. The
Resurrection. Christ Risen is at the center, and with Him, His chosen
ones. When the Mystical Body of Christ is complete, all history will
end. Profane history, written by man and his passions, is only a
secondary element in God’s great unique history.
key to this one history is given by St. Paul:
all are yours; and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s." (I Cor.
world is for the benefit of the faithful, to teach them something, to
serve them. The faithful are for Christ, and Christ —as Man —is
ordained to God.
Thomas Aquinas says, the movement of history as made by men does not
have its end in itself, but outside itself, that is, the filling-up of
the number of the elect which will bring the movement of all history to
a close (De Potentia 3,10 ad 4).
knows how to make men’s perverse designs serve His purpose exactly.
(St. Thomas Aquinas gives the example of Joseph and his brothers.)
Profane history is what St. Augustine thinks of under the phrase
"City of Man," as distinct from the "City of God." The
Bible gives us the profane history up to Abram. After that, God is in
control. It is divine history. It seems as though God abandoned the
City of Man to its own devices. We could even venture to say that the
life of the Gentile nations fell under "the Prince of this world": not
because they were bad in themselves, but because Satan had gotten
possession of them since Man yielded to his suggestion.
John seems to indicate the logic of the great laws of civilizations:
- The desire of power over other nations: "the
pride of life";
- Unbounded enrichment, with poverty for the
weaker: "the concupiscence of the eyes";
- Sexual rivalries and jealousies: concupiscence
of the flesh.
John juxtaposes divine and profane history.
know that we are of God, and the whole world is seated
in wickedness." (I Jn. 5:19 [Emphasis added])
Epistles, St. Paul contrasts the dialectic of the world —i.e.,
rivalries between Jew and Greek, Master and Slave, Man and Woman —with
the City of God:
you are all the children of God by faith, in Christ Jesus. For as many
of you as have been baptized in Christ, have put on Christ. There is
neither Jew nor Greek: there is neither bond nor free: there is neither
male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be
Christ’s, then are you the seed of Abraham, heirs according to the
Promise." (Gal. 3:26-29)
authors show how civilizations decline, how there are laws of birth,
growth, and death of civilizations. Their common error is to think that
profane history of nations is the only history. In fact, profane
history aids the true divine history, because the latter makes use of
the former. It is inserted into it, mixed with it.
we know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good,
to such as, according to His purpose, are called to be saints." (Rom.
Thomas Aquinas comments:
happens to the good, who are the noblest part of the universe, is not
done for the benefit of others, but for themselves. The reprobate, and
inferior creatures, are ordained for the good of the elect."
exists to give time for the preaching of the Gospel.
this gospel of the kingdom, shall be preached in the whole world, for a
testimony to all nations, and then shall the consummation come." (Mt.
the preaching of the Gospel is continually frustrated by Judaism. This
historical fact is given us by St. Paul, especially in I Thessalonians:
both killed the Lord Jesus, and the prophets, and have persecuted us,
and please not God, and are adversaries to all men; prohibiting us to
speak to the Gentiles, that they may be saved, to fill up their sins
always: for the wrath of God is come upon them to the end." (I Thess.
we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then
he, that was born according to the flesh, persecuted him that was after
the spirit; so also it is now." (Gal. 4:28,29)
the Catholic Church opposed the amalgamation of the Jewish people with
Christians, it insisted the Jews be treated with respect in view of the
greatness of their ancestors: a sacred people, but inimical. When
Catholic fervor cooled and pagan influences entered, then Christian
nations imprudently opened their doors to the Jews. Nowadays, nations
no longer have missionary ambitions or political aims; they are moved
purely by economic welfare, in which they cannot succeed except in
dependence on the Jews.
The Mystery of the Tension Between
the Jewish and Gentile Peoples
Paul discusses this mysterious dispensation of Providence in his Letter
to the Romans, chapters 9 and 11. Further testimony from Sacred
Scripture highlights this tension in relation to history.
The Jewish people is superior to the Gentile people.
glory, and honor, and peace to every one that worketh good, to the Jew
first, and also to the Greek." (Rom. 2:9)
advantage then hath the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision?
Much every way. First indeed, because the words of God were committed
to them." (Rom. 3:1)
Israel should be saved, as it is written: There shall come out of
Sion, he that shall deliver, and shall turn away ungodliness from
Jacob. And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away
their sins. As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your
sake: but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of
the fathers (Rom. 11:26-28).
But this superiority comes from faith, not from the flesh. The Jewish
people’s constant temptation is to think it comes from the flesh. This
is indeed great, but great only because it was to bring us the Savior.
Jewish-Gentile tension and the superiority of the Jewish people over
the Gentile people come to an end in Christendom. This end is not
temporal, but supra-historical.
you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Gal. 3:29b)
is a mystery regarding the Jewish people: that a part of this people
has been rejected so the Gentile people may be saved.
Isaiah crieth out concerning Israel: If the number of the children
of Israel be as the sand of the sea, a remnant shall be saved....And
as Isaiah foretold: Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed,
we had been made as Sodom,and we had been like unto Gomorrah. What
then shall we say? That the Gentiles, who followed not after justice,
have attained to justice, even the justice that is of faith." (Rom.
[Paul] say then: Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also
am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God
hath not cast away his people, which he foreknew. Know you not what the
scripture saith of Elias; how he calleth on God against Israel?
Lord, they have slain thy prophets, they have dug down thy altars; and
I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the divine
answer to him? I have left me seven thousand men, that have not
bowed their knees to Baal. Even so then at this present time also,
there is a remnant saved according to the election of grace." (Rom.
Paul says the Gentiles have received the Faith so that the jealousy of
the Jewish people might be aroused to receive it as well.
say then, have they [the Jews] so stumbled, that they should fall? God
forbid. But by their offense, salvation is come to the Gentiles, that
they may be emulous of them." (Rom 11:11)
reprobation of Israel is allowed until the fullness of the Gentile
people comes in.
I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery, (lest you
should be wise in your own conceits), that blindness in part has
happened in Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles should come in."
that time, however, the Jewish people will be jealous of the Gentile
Christians. Unfortunately, this will not inspire them to seek the
salvation enjoyed by the Gentile Christians, but provoke it to enmity.
In the course of history, some Jews will be saved.
day, all of Israel will convert. (See Ps. 147; Ps. 126.)
if the offense of them [the Jewish people] be the riches of the world,
and the diminution of them, the riches of the Gentile; how much more
the fulness of them." (Rom. 11:12)
so all Israel should be saved..." (Rom. 11:26a)
the word of the Lord, O ye nations, and declare it in the islands that
are afar off, and say: He that scattered Israel will gather him: and he
will keep him as the shepherd doth his flock. For the Lord hath
redeemed Jacob, and delivered him out of the hand of one that was
mightier than he. And they shall come, and shall give praise in mount
Sion: and they shall flow together to the good things of the Lord, for
the corn, and wine, and oil, and the increase of cattle and herds, and
their soul shall be as a watered garden, and they shall be hungry no
more....Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: As yet shall
they say this word in the land of Juda, and in the cities thereof, when
I shall bring back their captivity: The Lord bless thee, the beauty of
justice, the holy mountain." (Jer. 31:10-12, 23)
I say to you, you shall not see me henceforth till you say: Blessed is
He who cometh in the name of the Lord." (Mt. 23:39)
they shall fall by the edge of the sword; and shall be led away
captives into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by the
Gentiles; till the times of the nations be fulfilled." (Lk. 21:24)
conversion of the Jewish people to the Catholic Church will be in the
course of history.
History proceeds towards an eschatological state
where Jew and Gentile are one.
he is our peace, who hath made both one, and breaking down the middle
wall of partition, the enmities in his flesh; making void the law of
commandments contained in decrees; that he might make the two in
himself into one new man, making peace; and might reconcile both to God
in one body by the cross, killing the enmities in himself. And coming,
he preached peace to you that were afar off, and peace to them that
were nigh....Built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets,
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the
building, being framed together, groweth up into an holy temple in the
Lord. In whom you also are built together into an habitation of God in
the Spirit." (Eph. 2:14-17,20-22)
The Jewish People and the End-Times
must consider the role of the Jewish people in those last events which,
already outside history, have a gravitational pull on all history. The
order of these events seems to be:
The fullness of the nations (as prophesied by St. Paul) coming into the
the same time, conversions amongst the Jewish people multiply. These
developments enrage the central core of Judaism, and it succeeds in its
stepped-up propaganda among the Gentile people. Thus will come the
no man deceive you by any means, for unless there come a revolt first,
and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition, who opposeth, and
is lifted up above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so
that he sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself as if he were
God." (II Thess. 2:3,4)
Apostasy will be contemporaneous with the Antichrist (II Thess. 2:3).
He will be recognized as the messiah of the Jews and master of the
Gentiles. He will arrive by Satan’s suggestion.
conversion of the Jewish people will follow, chiefly by the preaching
of Elias (and Enoch).
I will send you Elias the prophet, before the coming of the great and
dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to
the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers:..." (Mal.
with the Apostasy and Antichrist will come the Great Tribulation
announced by our Lord.
there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the
beginning of the world until now, neither shall be." (Mt. 24:21)
sun will be darkened...then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in
heaven:...and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of
heaven with much power and majesty....And he shall send his angels with
a trumpet, and a great voice: and they shall gather together his elect
from the four winds, from the farthest parts of the heavens to the
utmost bounds of them." (Mt. 24:29,30,31)
the General Judgment.
when the son of Man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with
him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty [judgment]: And all
nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate
them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the
goats." (Mt. 25:31,32)
when the glory of the Lord appears, the heavens will pass away and the
earth will dissolve.
the day of the Lord shall come as a thief, in which the heavens shall
pass away with great violence, and the elements shall be melted with
heat, and the earth and the works which are in it, shall be burnt up."
(II Pet. 3:10)
will be a new heaven and a new earth.
we look for new heavens and a new earth according to his promises, in
which justice dwelleth." (II Pet. 3:13).
behold I create new heavens, and a new earth: and the former things
shall not be in remembrance, and they shall not come upon the heart."
I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first
earth was gone, and the sea is now no more. And I John saw the holy
city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared
as a bride adorned for her husband." (Apoc. 21:1,2)
An eternal banquet in heaven.
you may eat and drink at my table, in my kingdom: and may sit upon
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Lk. 22:30)
as Israel has a primordial mission in historical time, so it has in the
eschatological events. The Jewish people is great with a triple
greatness: in its name Israel given by God, in the benefits received
from God, and that it gave flesh to Jesus Christ. The Gentile people,
grafted into this Olive Tree, have a mission to accomplish in God’s
plan, too, that is, to accelerate (unwittingly) the evangelization of
the end, when the nations have entered the messianic kingdom, Israel,
by being newly inserted into the Olive Tree (i.e., the Catholic
Church) from which it has been partially detached, will announce by its
conversion to the Catholic Church the moment of the start of the great
events which prepare the Second Coming of the Son of Man. And in the
consummation of eschatology, in the eternal banquet of Divine
contemplation, called in from the East and the West "they will come
and sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven."
Jewish people is the bearer of salvation in Christ. One cannot
adequately evaluate the people that has given us Mary and Jesus. With
them we touch the Divine. The Jewish people should have acknowledged
their littleness in comparison to them. But a part of Israel was
consumed by pride. For the wrong reasons, it thought itself greater
than all other races, greater than even Jesus Christ and the Blessed
Virgin Mary. Thinking itself superior to all, it put a fence round
itself to prevent contamination from others, and worked to dominate
them. In the system of carnal, worldly greatness they have raised up
with the de-Christianized peoples, the Jews are the masters, and no
power seems able to resist their hidden power.
must the Christian peoples resign themselves to a degrading slavery? In
Catholic life can be summarized:
said to him: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart,
and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind. This is the
greatest and the first commandment. And the second is like to this: Thou
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself (Mt. 22: 37-39).
means seeking the good of those whom we love, that is, God’s
good, which is that His Name should be
glorified by the doing of His will, and Man’s good, which is
that all rights necessary for him to obtain his temporal and eternal
welfare be afforded him. Infractions against these "goods" should be
prevented and/or punished by responsible authority. Charity, remember,
is not sentimentality. It is to seek the real good of others
and to hate evil.
things understood, the ambitions of the Jewish people can be prevented
in two ways at the same time. Firstly, the Catholic life
of Gentile nations must be strengthened. Since there is a theological
law proved in history that de-Christianization allows the ascendancy of
Judaism, the revivification of the Catholic spirit in private and
public life is the only way to ensure its decline. Secondly,
acts of aggression by Judaism must be resisted. A characteristic
strategy of Judaism is to perpetrate falsehood.
are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you will
do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and he stood not in the
truth; because the truth was not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he
speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof." (Jn.
Gentile Christians are eradicated under the pretense of security,
enslaved in the name of liberty, scorned under pretense of fraternity,
mastered under guise of equality (of democracy), robbed under pretense
of giving credit, endarkened under pretense of enlightenment.
unthinkable to Catholics that the Jewish people should be repressed
simply for being Jewish. The Catholic argument is not hostile to
Jewishness as such. Rather, it is a defense of the true Jewish
heritage, the glory of which is Jesus Christ and the Blessed Virgin
Jews must not be persecuted or chased like beasts....They are living
signs that remind us of the Passion of our Lord. Besides, they are
scattered through the world so that, while they pay for such a crime,
they can be the witnesses of our redemption." (St. Bernard of
Clairvaux, Letter 363)
[Catholic] Church has a nobler triumph over the Jews by making them see
their errors or converting them than by killing them. It is not in vain
that the Church has prayers for the incredulous Jews: for it would be
pointless to pray for them if we did not hope that they may come to
believe." (St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Letter 365)
Catholic Church defends the true Jewish heritage, that is, the
principles of Christianity, by outlawing its infection by pharisaism.
It is the prayer of the Catholic Church that true Israelites understand
they cannot attain to the true greatness of their people until they
themselves take sword in hand to clean out from within themselves the
leaven of the Pharisees that perverts them, and adhere to Him who came
to save all men.