Chapter 7: The Replacement of Israel as Societas Sanctorum (Ephesians)
7
The Replacement of Israel as Societas Sanctorum (Ephesians)
In the Ephesians commentary, Aquinas views Israel as a “society of the saints” that enjoyed special election as God’s people. However, in ways similar to the Galatians commentary, Aquinas describes the ceremonial law as “destroyed” after the passion of Christ. In the Ephesians commentary, Christ is described as the one who destroys the Law rather than the Apostle Paul. Aquinas argues that Christ brings about a convergence between Jews and Gentiles by destroying the ceremonial law and uniting the two groups together into one body, the Church, the true heir of Israel’s promises. For this reason, the Ephesians commentary reveals that, for Aquinas, the replacement of Israel with the Church is the result of Christ’s fulfillment and cancellation of the ceremonial law.
1. Primary Theme and Division of the Ephesians Commentary
In Aquinas’s view, Paul’s intention in writing the letter is strengthening the faith of the Ephesian believers.517 He selects Psalm 75:4, “I have strengthened its pillars,” as the interpretive key verse of the letter in order to emphasize Paul’s aim of building up ecclesial unity among Jews and Gentiles as one body.518 For Aquinas, these “pillars” represent the Jewish and Gentile believers in the Church. Christ’s establishment of unity between these two groups is the primary theme of the commentary.
Aquinas divides the six chapters of Ephesians into two parts: chapters 1 through 3 and 4 through 6. Overall, chapters 1 through 3 concern the divine blessings of God through which the Church’s unity is established and preserved. Chapters 4 through 6 consist of Paul’s admonishment to the Ephesians to maintain this unity. In chapter 2, Aquinas comments upon the effects of Christ’s supreme power, including how it destroys slavery to sin and the alienation between Jew and Pagan. The result of Christ’s power is that all races have access, by Christ, in the Spirit, to the Father. As Christopher Baglow has observed, for Aquinas, the relationship between Jewish and Gentile Christians becomes the major theme of chapter 2 but also serves as a concrete pole that bounds his exposition of the entire letter.519 Chapter 2, as well as chapter 3, lecture one, contains the majority of Aquinas’s comments on the ceremonial law and the Jews and Gentiles before and after their convergence in the Church.
2. Paul’s Jewish “Nationality”
In the first lecture, Aquinas begins by commenting upon Paul’s identity as a Christian in religion (religio) and a Jew in nationality (nation). Aquinas’s opening comments on Paul’s identity indicate that the theme of Jew and Gentile is a prominent one throughout the commentary. As I argue below, these two aspects of Paul’s identity seem to correspond to the Gentile Christian and Jewish pillars of the Church: “Of the church at Ephesus he rightfully can claim: ‘I have strengthened its pillars’—I who am an Israelite in nationality, a Christian in religion, an Apostle in dignity.”520 Paul’s identity as “Israelite in nationality” and Christian in religion functions as a sort of microcosm of the Jewish and Gentile Ephesian believers and foreshadows the sort of convergence these two groups will exhibit when they are unified by Christ into one body.
Although Aquinas refers to Paul’s Christian religion and his Jewish nationality as present parts of his identity, he is also careful to guard against the idea that Paul’s Judaism is from any observance of the ceremonial law. Citing 2 Corinthians 11:22, Aquinas says that Paul is a Jew by birth because he “sprung from Abraham’s seed in the tribe of Benjamin.”521 The caveat he adds to this citation hints at what sort of Judaism Aquinas imagines to exist in the Church in the age of grace. Although Paul is a Jew by birth, his Christian faith also means he is dead to the Law: “A Jew by birth, ‘for I am an Israelite sprung from Abraham’s seed.’ . . . A Christian in religion, ‘for I, through the Law, am dead to the Law, that I may live to God . . . .”522 For Aquinas, Paul’s Judaism is a nationality and not a religion. It is based on his birth but no longer has anything to do with the observance of the Law. Aquinas’s view of Paul’s Judaism seems as if it is an extension of the picture of the Apostle’s identity that emerged from the Galatians commentary: Paul is viewed as having been called out of the synagogue to faith in Christ, no longer observing the rites of the Law after conversion.
In addition to Judaism as a nationality, Aquinas also mentions a second attribute of Paul’s Judaism. Paul’s Judaism is also characterized by the contemplation of God: “Everyone who proclaims saving wisdom, like Paul, must be an Israelite in his contemplation of God, a Christian in his religious faith, an Apostle in his function’s authority.”523 Although Aquinas views Paul as having left the works of the Law behind, he maintains a twofold connection to Paul’s Judaism through the idea of “nationality” as well as the “contemplation of God.”
Aquinas therefore posits a sort of nonreligious Judaism that is independent of the Law. Aquinas’s view of Paul’s identity may suggest a sort of archetype for the particular type of Jewish Christians he envisions as so crucial to the unity of Jew and Gentile discussed in the Ephesians commentary. Aquinas will eventually argue that Jews are built along with Gentiles as two walls of the temple that is the body of Christ.
Therefore, in the Ephesians commentary, Aquinas seems to articulate a different type of Jewish Christian than the Jewish Christian (or “Church of the Jews”) presented in the Galatians commentary. The Jewish believers in Christ of Galatians observed the Law but these Christians were destined not to endure after the expiration of the Augustinian middle period.524 However, as I show below, the Jewish believers in Christ in the Ephesian Church are united to the Gentile believers and both are viewed as central to the formal cause of the Church being unified and increasing. Nevertheless, it is important to first discuss Aquinas’s view of the state of the Jews before their convergence into the body of Christ and then return to these different views of the importance of Jewish Christians.
3. The Convergence of Jews and Gentiles into the Temple of Christ’s Body
In chapter 2, Aquinas comments on how Paul expounded upon the convergence of the Jews and Gentiles and their assimilation into Christ’s body. Before touching upon the blessings of the unity established between Jews and Gentiles by Christ, he outlines the condition of both groups before their conversion.
The Sinful Condition of Jews and Gentiles before their Convergence
For Aquinas, Paul taught that Jews and Gentiles were in a state of “sin and paganism” before they received the blessings of Christ.525 All are under sin. Yet Aquinas explains that the Jews and Gentiles were in a state of sin in different ways.526 According to Aquinas, Paul designated two causes for Gentile sin. Gentiles were in sin because of “worldly causes,” and because of the demons they worshiped. These demons tempt “the children of despair” away from faith in eternal realities. While the Gentiles sin from both worldly causes and the worship of idols, Jews sin only from worldly causes.527
The worldly causes of sin affecting both groups are threefold: sins of the heart, sins of action, and original sin.528 The “sins of the heart” consist of the “carnal desires of our flesh” by which Aquinas means “inner concupiscence.”529 The “sins of action” are “nothing else than a manifestation” of the sins of the heart, or inner concupiscence.530 The last worldly cause of sin is original sin, and Aquinas thinks Paul hinted at this with the phrase “and we were by nature children of wrath.”531 Both Gentile and Jew suffer from original sin.532 However, the Jews enjoyed cleansing from original sin through circumcision. In the Ephesians commentary, Aquinas states his early view on circumcision: it instrumentally cleansed the individual from original sin. He does not specify, as he does in his mature thought, that the cleansing power of circumcision comes only because implicit or explicit faith in Christ.533
Israel as a Societas Sanctorum and Gentiles as Strangers to the Promises
When Aquinas comments upon Paul’s words that the Gentiles were formerly at a disadvantage because they were alien to “Israel’s way of life” he takes the time to outline the good things of Israel in which the Gentiles had no share. In doing so, Aquinas positively affirms the covenants of Israel as the promises of God in very much the same way that he does in the Romans commentary. However, it should become clear as the chapter unfolds, that the positive affirmation of the covenants of Israel as the promises of God fade after the passion, and are ultimately relativized when their election is described only as something formerly held.
Paul “recounts the good things” of which the Gentiles were deprived. Overall, in their sinful state the Gentiles were deprived of two things: 1) a “share in the sacraments,” and 2) a “knowledge of God.”534 According to Aquinas, the greatest injury the Gentiles suffered was their ignorance of the knowledge of God.535 However, Aquinas only mentions the former deprivation in passing. He spends more time lecturing upon “three sacraments” of Israel that the Gentiles did not have.536 When Aquinas uses the term sacramenta in the context of the Old Law, he is usually referring to circumcision.537 But here, Aquinas employs the term in a broad way that includes both the promises of the old and new covenants.
The first sacrament of Israel the Gentiles lacked was the “promise of a Christ.” Though he does not use the term covenant, Aquinas seems to have in mind the Davidic covenant.538 Here, Aquinas does not define the promise of Christ as Abraham’s seed as he did in the Galatians commentary. Rather he treats Abraham’s promise as a third and separate sacrament that I will outline below.
The second sacrament seems to consist of two covenants enjoyed by Israel, or the people whom he refers to as a societas sanctorum or “society of the saints.” Aquinas takes note of the fact that Paul refers to testaments in the plural and chooses to interpret this as meaning the old and the new covenants: “He says testaments in the plural since the old testament was offered to the Jews and the new was promised.”539 When Aquinas cites Sirach 44:25, he makes clear that the first covenant of the second sacrament of Israel is the old covenant established by God: “The Lord made his covenant rest upon the head of Jacob” which he says, “can be understood of the old testament.”540 Throughout this section of his commentary, Aquinas insists upon pointing toward the old covenant in a way that emphasizes the Jews as God’s elect people. He cites Deuteronomy 7:2–3 “You shall not make any league with them, nor show them mercy. Neither shall you make marriages with them.”541 Aquinas then cites John 4:9: “Jews do not communicate with Samaritans” to reinforce that no other people were chosen from among the nations in this way. Aquinas says that Gentiles were deprived because they were not part of this society and did not enjoy its covenants.542 Even Gentile proselytes were still not considered to have equal citizenship, since, if they became proselytes of this society, they were accepted to partake of God’s covenants as “strangers of the testaments” rather than as citizens.543
Aquinas mentions the second covenant of the second sacrament of Israel when he cites Baruch 2:35, “And I will make an everlasting covenant with them,” and then Romans 9:4 to connect this promise to the Israelites: “the latter [or new covenant] was granted to those ‘to whom belong to the adoption as children, the glory and the giving of the Law.’”544 Thus far, Aquinas has identified two of three sacraments of Israel to which Gentiles did not have access.
The third sacrament that the Gentiles were deprived of is what Aquinas refers to as “another blessing” for Israel.545 Aquinas then references Paul’s words that the Gentiles had no “hope of the promise,” which he defines as “the hope of future goods.”546 Aquinas then cites Galatians 3:16, “To Abraham were the promises made and to his seed.”547 This hope of the promise of future goods is Abraham’s seed.
What Aquinas does not say about Abraham’s seed is significant. Aquinas’s use of the Galatians 3:16 reference to God’s promise to Abraham’s seed is different than his use of the same verse in the Galatians commentary. In the Galatians commentary the promise to Abraham’s seed is defined exclusively as the promise for the new covenant justification of all peoples in Christ.548 In the Ephesians commentary, however, the promise for Christ is not associated with Abraham but with the Davidic covenant and promise for a King. The new covenant is listed as a distinct sacrament (the second sacrament of Israel) from the promise to Abraham’s seed (third sacrament of Israel). Aquinas’s choice to distinguish between Abraham’s promise of future goods and the new covenant despite his appeal to the Galatians 3:16 text is one sign that in the Ephesians commentary there is more interest in God’s multiple promises to Israel—an interest that was absent in both the Galatians and Hebrews commentaries.
In the Ephesians commentary, Paul’s language about the Gentiles living as strangers of the plural promises and covenants seems to influence Aquinas to explore multiple possibilities of the literal sense of the promise to Abraham. Aquinas adopts a more expansive view of Israel’s covenants that includes affirmation of aspects of the literal meaning of the covenants: enclosing Israel in the knowledge and worship of the one God. God’s promises and covenants to Israel are not limited exclusively to a Christological interpretation. This is not to say that Aquinas thinks that the covenant with Abraham does not also prefigure Christ or is something separate from the future and eternal good that is Christ. It is to say that, here, Aquinas affirms the promise of Christ as a Davidic promise to Israel without replacing the literal meaning. The sacraments of Israel, the society of saints, are presented as a matrix of God’s covenants that include the explicit promise of Christ’s kingdom, the benefits of the Old Law, the promise of a new covenant, and undefined “future goods” for Abraham’s seed.
However, as I show below, Aquinas highlights the special election of the Jew not because his aim is to offer a treatment of the multiple literal meanings of God’s promise to Abraham. Rather, his main intention is to follow what he views as Paul’s teaching on how Christ unifies these two estranged groups that are Jews and Gentiles and the idea that the Law, which separated these two peoples, is destroyed by Christ.
Christ’s Abolishment of the Ceremonial Law
In addition to presenting the conditions of Jew and Gentile before faith in Christ, Aquinas also treats of the justification of Jews and Gentiles and the blessing of being assimilated into Christ.549 After discussing the blessing of justification, Aquinas moves on to treat how such justification overcomes hostility and establishes unity between Jews and Gentiles.550
Aquinas understands Paul to show how Gentiles “have converged with the Jewish people” and “are drawn close to God.”551 The Gentiles are now partakers of the goods previously denied them. These goods include the covenants that consisted of Israel’s way of life. Because of the blessing of the grace of justification, Gentiles now participate and share in the covenants of Israel not as strangers but citizens.552 Aquinas then outlines the 1) cause, 2) method, and 3) purpose of the convergence of Jew and Gentile.
As he proceeds to discuss these elements of how the Gentiles “share” in the covenants with the Jews, it becomes increasingly clear that Aquinas means “share” in covenants with Jewish believers in Christ. He does not address the theological status of Israel’s way of life in the era after grace, amidst the building up of the spiritual edifice of the Church. As he describes the deconstruction of the ceremonial law and the building of the walls of the Church, the societas sanctorum fades out of view and is replaced by the new community of believers.
First, the cause of the convergence of the Jew and Gentile is Christ, who Aquinas says, is the cause of peace. When commenting upon Paul’s phrase, “For he is our peace, who has made both one,” Aquinas says “this is an emphatic way of speaking to better express the reality, as though he said: ‘Rightly do I say that you are drawn near each other, but this occurs through Christ since he is the cause of our peace.’”553 The result of this convergence is that Christ made both Gentiles and Jews one: “he has made both one, joining into unity both the Jews who worshiped the true God and the Gentiles who were alienated from God’s cult.”554
Next, Aquinas spends a great deal of time explaining the method of convergence of Jew and Gentile, which is indicated by Paul’s words “breaking down the middle barrier of partition.”555 Christ’s method in unifying Jews and Gentiles in one body involves “removing what is divisive” or that which prevented Jews and Gentiles from mixing together in the past.556 Aquinas then presents an analogy in order to explain the phrase “breaking down the middle barrier of partition.” Before Christ came this wall was a high barrier separating the two peoples:
To understand the text we should imagine a large field with many men gathered on it. But a high barrier was thrown across the middle of it, segregating the people so that they did not appear as one people but two. Whoever would remove the barrier would unite the crowds of men into one multitude, one people would be formed.557
Aquinas’s illustration provides a metaphor for why the ceremonial law is destroyed by Christ in the creation of the Church.
The field represents the world crowded with men, and the barrier that runs down this middle of the field of men is explained as the carnal observances of the Old Law: “the Old Law can be termed such a barrier, its carnal observances kept the Jews confined . . . .”558 The people segregated by the observances are the Jews and Gentiles.
Aquinas gives two reasons why the carnal observances were a barrier of partition. First, Aquinas explains that Paul uses paries maceriae or “barrier of partition” and not a paries muri or a “wall,” for a reason.559 The Old Law was a barrier because it was not “mortared together with charity, which is, as it were, the cement unifying individuals among themselves and everyone together with Christ.”560 Rather, as Augustine holds, the Old Law is a law of fear that persuades by threats. Those who kept it, did so out of love “belonged by anticipation . . . to the New Testament which is the law of love.”561 It is for this reason that the barrier of partition was not meant to last permanently but only for a time: “A barrier of partition,” says Aquinas, “is one in which the stones are not mortared together with cement; it is not built to last permanently but only for a specified time.”562
In addition to the barrier as a metaphor for the ceremonial law that temporarily separated these two peoples, the barrier also prefigured Christ. Aquinas writes, “Christ was figured (figurabatur) through the Old Law: ‘Behold he stands behind our wall’ (Cant. 2:9).”563 “Christ, however, has put an end to this barrier,” writes Aquinas.564 Christ has made these two people one by the method of “breaking down the middle barrier.”565
As he does in several places in the Pauline commentaries, Aquinas recognizes that the claim that the Law has been destroyed seems to be in tension with positive descriptions of the Law. It seems Paul’s words “breaking down the barrier of partition” that is the ceremonial law appears contrary to Christ’s own words about fulfilling but not destroying the Law in Matthew 5:17. He says, “A problem arises here since [Paul] says ‘breaking down the barrier of partition’ and, on the contrary, Matthew 5:17 states: ‘Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law (solvere legem) or the prophets. I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill.’”566
Aquinas’s reply explains the meaning of “fulfill” by relying upon the idea that the Law Christ said he did not come to destroy was the moral commandments: “I reply. The Old Law contained both moral and ceremonial precepts. The moral commandments were not destroyed (non solvit) by Christ but fulfilled in the counsels he added and in his explanations of what the Scribes and Pharisees had wrongly interpreted.”567 Christ fulfilled (adimplevit) the moral commandments when he said “your justice must abound more than the Pharisees” and then cites Christ’s commandment to love enemies (Matt 5:43–44).
However, regarding the ceremonial precepts, Christ “fulfilled them with regard to what they prefigured.” Christ’s fulfillment of carnal Law added “what was symbolized to the symbol.”568 This fulfillment brings about the cessation of the literal meaning of the ceremonial law: “He abolished the ceremonial precepts with regard to what they were in themselves.”569 Christ breaks down the barrier of the Law in and of itself for a positive purpose: he destroys the enmity Aquinas says the commands caused between Jew and Gentile. Aquinas says, “It should be understood, therefore, that in saying breaking he refers to the observance of the carnal Law. To break down this barrier of partition is to destroy the hostility between the Jews and Gentiles.”570 The hostility was the result of anger and jealousy that had sprung up between these two peoples. By abolishing the carnal Law (lex carnalis) Christ has also abolished this animosity.571 Christ, abolished this barrier in his incarnation and death. “In fulfilling the Old Testament figures, he killed the hostility that had arisen through the Law between Jews and Gentiles.”572
The result of the destruction of the barrier of partition is that all the sacrifices “were fulfilled and came to an end.”573 “Christ was symbolized through the Old Law. . . . Christ, however, has put an end to this barrier . . . .”574 Through the precepts of the New Testament “the law was cut off.”575 “It is as if Paul said: I affirm that Christ in his flesh was ‘making void the law of commandments’ as the imperfect is made void by the perfect and the shadow by the truth.”576 Faith in Christ is “the truth of those symbols.”577
After discussing this method of the destruction of the carnal Law at length, Aquinas then treats the purpose of the convergence. Because Christ took the place (succedens) of the Law the two people can be reconciled into “one new man, making peace.” The purpose of the convergence is the same as the purpose of the grace of justification: because Christ put an end to the barrier of the ceremonial law, “the Jews and Gentiles became one people.”578 This union is possible only because that which divided the two peoples has been destroyed: “since the law divided they could not be united in that law.”579 In Baglow’s terms, the carnal Law posed a “dilemma” to the unity of the human race.580
Throughout his description of Christ’s abolishment of the carnal Law, Aquinas emphasizes the prefiguring function of the rites. This is clear from Aquinas’s exposition of the symbolic meaning of the barrier of partition, as well as from his description of the “novelty” of Christ. Aquinas explains that this novelty, or newness, is expressed in both the manner of Christ’s conception and his command “love one another as I have loved you.”581 The newness is also expressed in the grace he bestows, and Aquinas then cites Galatians 6:15: “neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any meaning, but a new creature.”582 After the destruction of the Law, the grace of Christ renders circumcision superfluous.
4. The Foundation and Construction of the Temple of Christ’s Body
After indicating how the Gentiles have “been admitted to spiritual blessings together with the Jews” by the removal of the barrier, Aquinas says Paul goes on to teach that the new blessing enjoyed by the Gentiles is not of less eminence than the Jews.583 Aquinas is referring to the share of blessings in Christ in the Church. Each group has “equal access to Christ’s blessings.” This is why Paul says that the Gentiles are “no more strangers and foreigners.” Both are conformed to the whole Trinity and in no way lack a share in spiritual goods.584 Aquinas explains this equal access by drawing upon two analogies used for the growth and increase of the faithful in Scripture: the Church as a building with Jews and Gentiles as its two walls.
To understand Paul’s words that Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners to Israel’s promises and covenants, Aquinas says one must realize “that the community of the faithful are sometimes referred to as a house in the Scriptures.”585 Aquinas briefly comments about the ways in which a Church can be compared to a city and a house.586 But he spends more time commenting upon how the Church is a “building” (aedificium) and his use of this metaphor makes clear his view of the promises of Israel after the passion of Christ in the Ephesians commentary.
Aquinas’s treatment of the building metaphor expresses well the theme of unity in the Ephesians commentary. Aquinas understands Paul to teach that the Ephesians can be likened to a building or aedificium, based on Paul’s words, “built upon the foundation of the Apostles.”587 In Aquinas’s view, Paul’s use of the metaphor is meant to clarify his teaching about how the Church is constructed. This “building” consists of two key parts, a foundation and two walls.
First, Aquinas explains what he terms the primary and secondary foundations of the building.588 The secondary foundation of the building is made up of the apostles of the new covenant and the prophets of the old covenant. It becomes clear as Aquinas explains the relationship between these two pieces of the secondary foundation that Aquinas thinks that the entity formed by God’s commanding (Old Law given through prophets) and God’s helping grace (New Law given through apostles) is the Church. He even correlates prophets and apostles as they relate to the prefigurement of Christ in Israel’s worship and Christ’s fulfillment of that worship as proclaimed by the apostles. Aquinas writes, “What the prophets foretold was to come, the apostles proclaimed as accomplished.”589 There is a unity or “harmony between the two”590 that is clearly Christological. Each relates to Christ through their respective function of either prefiguring Christ or announcing Christ’s fulfillment of the figure. The one who was to come, or the truth of the figure, is therefore the primary or “principal foundation” that supports and unites the prophets and apostles.591 For Aquinas, the foundation of the Church is the unity of Israel’s Law and the apostles preaching as these relate to Christ’s coming or having come. The reason why Christ is “called a cornerstone” is precisely on account of the convergence of both [Jews and Gentiles]. He writes, “As two walls are joined at the corner, so in Christ the Jewish and Gentile peoples are united.”592 This building grows into a “holy temple” when the number of the disciples multiplies greatly as it did in Acts 6:7 and when its members make progress in good works. However, the “perfection and completion” is achieved when the two walls of the temple, Jews and Gentiles, “are built together,” into a holy temple.593 This takes place through what Aquinas describes as a sharing in the covenants and promises of Israel.
5. They Were Set Apart: The Special Election of Israel as a Thing of the Past
When Aquinas comments upon Paul’s statement that the Gentiles are now “fellow heirs” he returns once again to the subject of Israel’s threefold sacraments but this time uses the term “prerogatives” to describe the three sacraments of the Jews, and how these have now also been received by Gentiles.594 When Aquinas says Jews share the covenants and are co-partners with Gentiles, he means Jewish believers in Christ. However, unlike his view of the prerogatives in the Romans commentary, Aquinas describes the prerogatives of the Jews in the past tense, as things the Jews formerly held. Aquinas begins by saying, “it should be recognized that the Jews enjoyed three prerogatives with respect to the Gentiles.”595
The first prerogative he mentions is justification through faith: “they had the promised inheritance: ‘For not through the Law was the promise to Abraham or to his seed, that he should be heir of the world; but through the justice of faith’ (Rom. 4:13).”596 The third sacrament mentioned above which pertained to the promise to Abraham is defined here only according to Romans 4:13 as the justice brought by Christ. The second prerogative of the Jews is their special election. “Another [prerogative] was their special election, they were set apart from the Gentiles: ‘The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be his peculiar people of all peoples that are upon the earth’ (Deut. 7:6).”597 Finally, they had “the promise of Christ” and Aquinas then cites God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 that “in thee shall all the kindred of the earth be blessed.”598
At one time, these three prerogatives were promises and covenants that the Jews had and that Gentiles did not enjoy. Aquinas reiterates this when he cites Ephesians 2:12, concerning the notion that the Gentiles were aliens and strangers.599 However, Gentiles have now been made the co-heirs of the prerogatives, including the special election. The Gentiles “have received them,” that is, received each prerogative by faith.600 Again, Aquinas lists each prerogative received by the Gentiles. First, when Paul says that the Gentiles are “fellow heirs” (cohaeredes) with the Jews, this refers to the heavenly inheritance of justification by faith.601 Next, and most importantly, when Paul says “of the same body” Aquinas says this refers to the fact that Gentiles are also fellow heirs to the election of “the chosen community of believers” (speciale collegium fidelium).602 But Aquinas immediately states that this same body is “one body,” by which he means the body of Christ. Third, Gentiles are admitted to a participation in the promised grace and this is clear from when Paul says they are “co-partners of his promise, the promises made to Abraham.”603 Gentiles have received justification, admission to the chosen community of believers, and because of this, they are co-partners of the promise. Though the language of fellow heirs and co-partners of the promise is employed, the society of the saints that is Israel is described as having had these promises in the past. The promises of Israel now belong to the community of believers. The inheritance has been passed along to the new community of those justified in Christ.
6. Fulfilled and Destroyed: The Economic Supersessionism of the Ephesians Commentary
Aquinas’s view of the Law in the Ephesians commentary shares characteristics with the commentaries on Hebrews, Romans, and Galatians. Ephesians is similar to the lectures on Hebrews and Galatians in its description of Christ’s destruction of the ceremonial law. Aquinas insists that the ceremonial law is a barrier to the unification of Jew and Gentile. The destruction of the ceremonial law in Christ’s immolated and resurrected Jewish flesh is the method by which Christ removes the barrier of the Jewish rites, overcomes hostility, and unites Jew and Gentile. The replacement of Israel with the church is the result of Christ’s fulfillment and destruction of the ceremonial law. For this reason, the commentary clearly contains economically supersessionist view of the Jewish people.
However, Ephesians is similar to the Romans commentary in two ways. In the Ephesians commentary, Aquinas affirms the special election of Israel and melds the election with the covenants as promises from God. The special election of the Jewish people is a covenant or promise from God. He even refers to Israel as a societas sanctorum. Second, although Aquinas understands Christ as abolishing the ceremonial law, he does not say that the Law is now deadly or that its observance by Jews is a mortal sin, despite one of the most extended and detailed treatments of how Christ “tears down” the observances, as Baglow puts it. There is also no mention of the Augustinian middle period in Ephesians and in the Romans commentary.
The view of the ceremonial law after the passion of Christ in the Ephesians commentary can therefore be said to represent somewhat of a middle position between Aquinas’s view in Romans and his view in Galatians and Hebrews. In the Ephesians commentary, the ceremonial law is not affirmed as “fulfilled and upheld” as it is in the Romans commentary, but it is also not declared “fulfilled, destroyed, and deadly” (i.e., Galatians and Hebrews). Rather, the view in Ephesians is that the ceremonial law is “fulfilled and destroyed” after the passion of Christ.
Nevertheless, Aquinas’s argument that the passion of Christ fulfills and destroys the ceremonial law undermines 1) his positive affirmation of the special election of Israel as a promise of God as well as 2) his attempt to say how Jewish Christians exist as a second wall of the temple of the body of Christ.
Aquinas’s argument that Christ has destroyed the ceremonial law, when considered in the context of two other claims, implies that God has broken God’s promise to Israel to be a special people and has replaced the societas sanctorum with the community of believers who have received Israel’s promised Christ. Aquinas’s teaching that Christ completely destroys the ceremonial law, combined with his description of the Jews’ special election as a thing of the past, and the notion that Jewish and Christian believers have received Israel’s special election and promises implies that Israel is no longer the elect. Rather, the fellow heirs of the election are the Jewish and Christian believers united in the one body of Christ. After the passion of Christ, the body of Christ becomes “the chosen community of believers” (speciale collegium fidelium).604 Taken together, these claims imply that the promise of the special election of Israel as a societas sanctorum now applies to the body of Christ.
Aquinas’s teaching on the replacement of Israel with the Church also problematizes his comments upon the Jews and Christians of the Ephesian church as the two walls of the temple of Christ’s body. When Aquinas refers to Jews and Gentiles as co-heirs of the promises, he means that there is now a convergence between Jewish believers in Christ and Gentile believers in Christ. These believing Jews and Gentiles are the elect co-heirs of the promises of Israel.
Yet it is not clear how the Jewish wall of the temple of Christ’s body, which is built together with the Gentile wall, can be said to be a Jewish wall. It may seem that the Jewish Christians of Ephesians practice the Law but only during the middle period and without placing their hope in this Law—Aquinas chooses to adopt this view of the Jewish Christians in the Galatians commentary.
But such a middle period is absent in the Ephesians commentary. The Jewish Christian described in the Ephesians commentary is foundational to the unity and growth of the Church. The Jewish Christians of Ephesians are described as a fundamental aspect of the Church’s very construction and growth as they are united together with Gentiles into one body.
In the Galatians commentary, on the other hand, Aquinas adopts Augustine’s view that after the middle period expires, the observance of circumcision becomes deadly. The Jewish Christian of the Galatians commentary is not permanent. The Jewish Christian believers of Galatians, which he refers to there as the Church of the circumcision, or ecclesia Iudaeorum fidelium (Church of the Jewish believers)605 observe the Law and are viewed by Aquinas as “not destined to endure.”606
When Aquinas speaks of the Jewish wall of the temple of Christ’s body he does not have in mind the Church of the circumcision of the Galatians commentary. If Aquinas did adopt the Galatians view of the Jewish Christian it would seem one wall of the temple of Christ’s body was not destined to endure. In the Ephesians commentary, with its emphasis on the unity of Jewish and Christian believers in the Church, there is no discussion of how Jewish Christians could observe the Law without putting their trust in it, i.e., without sinning.
In what way then is the second wall of the temple of the body of Christ a Jewish wall in the Ephesians commentary? Aquinas’s understanding of Paul’s Jewish nationality may provide an answer to this question.607 It seems that when Aquinas speaks of the Jewish Christian that exists as a permanent part of the Church of the Ephesians, he may have in mind the idiosyncratic Judaism he attributed to Paul at the outset of the commentary. Paul is only Jewish in “nationality” and “contemplation.”608 This odd view of Judaism is dead to the Law. It could be the case that for Aquinas, the Jewish believers of the Ephesian Church are also Jewish only “from birth” and no longer observe the ceremonial law since Christ destroyed this barrier.
Nevertheless, even if Aquinas’s peculiar Pauline Judaism is shared by all the Jewish believers of the Ephesian Church, it is still not clear how the Jewish wall of the Church remains fundamental since it is not clear how one remains Jewish without the observance of the Law. Both versions of Aquinas’s “Jewish Christian” seem impermanent. One is explicitly impermanent since the Law-observant Jewish believer of the Galatians commentary is permitted to observe the Law in the middle period but is not destined to endure. The other is implicitly impermanent since the nonobservant “Jewish” believer of Ephesians would, without the Law, soon be absorbed into the Gentile wall of the Church.
517. Ad Eph. Prologus 1.
518. Ad Eph. Prologus 1.
519. Baglow, “Modus Et Forma,” 165.
520. Ad Eph. 1.1.1.
521. Ad Eph., 1.1.1.
522. Ad Eph., Prologus 1.
523. Ad Eph., Prologus 1.
524. Recall Aquinas’s view of the Church of the Jewish believers in Galatians: “Now the reason why the custom prevailed in the early Church for those in the Church of the circumcision to sell their goods and not those in the Church of the Gentiles was that the believing Jews were congregated in Jerusalem and in Judea, which was soon to be destroyed by the Romans, as later events proved. Hence the Lord willed that no possessions were to be kept in a place not destined to endure. But the Church of the Gentiles was destined to grow strong and increase, and therefore, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it came about that the possessions in it were not to be sold.” Ad Galatas 2.2.75.
525. Ad Eph. 2.1.72.
526. Ad Eph. 2.1.80.
527. Ad Eph. 2.1.80.
528. Ad Eph. 2.1.80.
529. Ad Eph. 2.1.81.
530. Ad Eph. 2.1.82: These sins of action amount to “doing what the flesh delights in” especially in food, and sexual relations. Another manifestation of the sin of action is in the thoughts or appetitve faculty of the soul. The sins of action in the appetitve faculty include: ambition for honors and for one’s own excellence.
531. Ad Eph. 2.1.82.
532. Ad Eph. 2.1.82.
533. In Valkenberg’s concise words this “latter” view was that “the sacraments of the Old Law cannot be said to cause grace by themselves, but only as much as they prefigure Christ.” The late view appears in Summa theologiae III 62.6 ad 3; 70.4 and ad Romanos 4.2. As far as I can see, the late view includes two changes to the early view. As Richard Schenk has noted, Aquinas’s late view is “that the rite was . . . like non-covenantal religious practices, at best an occasion of the implicit (or even explicit) faith in Christ. It was by this Christological faith alone that the rite of circumcision had mediated grace . . . .” The second point was made clear for me by Andrew Hofer: “Aquinas ascribes to the sacrament of circumcision the grace that removes all sin and enables one to resist all sin.” Aquinas’s early view (Libri Sententiarium IV d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, qua. 5) was that circumcision removed original sin in and of itself. Valkenberg writes, “Old Testament circumcision removes original sin and is a sign of Christian spiritual circumcision. It is not just a sign of future removal of sin, it is not only valued as a prefiguration of the Christian dispensation, but it really removes original sin even before the passion of Christ.” Andrew Hofer, “The Circumcision of the Lord,” 259–78. See Schenk, “Covenant Initiation, 555–93. Valkenberg and Schoot, “Thomas Aquinas and Judaism,” 58–59.
534. Ad Eph. 2.3.105.
535. Ad Eph. 2.3.107. Aquinas is careful to maintain a distinction between the natural knowledge of God and the knowledge of God that we have by faith: “‘And without God in this world’ means without the knowledge of God. ‘God has shown himself in Judah’ (Ps 76:2), but not among the Gentiles: ‘Not in the passion of lust, like the Gentiles that do not know God’ (1 Thes 4:5). This must be understood of the knowledge obtainable through faith, for Romans 1 (21) speaks of their natural knowledge: ‘Although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor give him thanks.’” He also asserts, however, in Ad Hebraeos, that such Gentile knowledge of God is only a knowledge of God from God’s effects. God “is not able to be comprehended by a creature except through His effects.” Ad Heb. 9.1.422.
536. Aquinas’s positive description of Israel’s sacraments is reminiscent of the treatment of the prerogatives in Ad Romanos 3.1.
537. Cf. Ad Romanos Prol. 12 and Ad Galatas 1.1.2. In Ia-IIae q. 101.4, Aquinas’s use of sacramenta usually occurs, in the context of the Old Law, as one aspect of the ceremonial law. He divides the ceremonies of the Old Law into four categories: 1) sacrificia or sacrifices; 2) sacra or sacred things; 3) sacramenta or sacraments; and 4) observantiae or observances. All of these categories are referred to together as caeremoniae veteris legis. The 1) sacrificia include sacrificial animals offered by the Levite priesthood. 2) Sacra include instruments such as the temple, tabernacle and the vessels. 3) Sacramenta include circumcision, “without which no one was admitted to the legal observances” (102.5) and the eating of the paschal banquet. Aquinas actually refers to the paschal banquet as an observance but it is treated in the same article on sacraments, indicating that the Passover, for him, may fit into both sacramenta and observantiae categories. 4) Observantiae mostly refers to dietary regulations, which include the prohibition of blood and fat of animals. According to Aquinas, the latter two precepts, which are the 3) sacrament of circumcision and 4) observances both function together to consecrate the Jewish people to the worship of God. Indeed, in Ia-IIae q. 102.6 Aquinas affirms the literal, rational cause for the observantiae of the Law as “a special prerogative of that people.” All of these precepts are ceremonial in character in the sense that they give public expression to divine worship.
538. Ad Eph. 2.3.106. Aquinas references Jeremiah 23:5: “I will raise up for David a just branch; and a king shall reign and shall be wise.”
539. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
540. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
541. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
542. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
543. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
544. Ad Eph. 2.3.106. Here, Aquinas reads Romans 9:4 as an exclusive reference to the new covenant promised to Israel and not the old. Aquinas’s use of the Romans 9:4 text in the Romans commentary differs from his use here. In the Romans commentary, he not only mentions Israel’s “sonship” or adoption, and the glory, and giving of the Law, but he also mentions the “covenant.” Secondly, in the Romans commentary he offers two definitions of this covenant that indicates it can be either the new or the old covenant: “the covenant [is] the pact of circumcision given to Abraham, as is recorded in Gen. 17, although this could be referred to the new covenant first preached to the Jews.”
545. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
546. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
547. Ad Eph. 2.3.106.
548. Aquinas also does this in III 70 a. 1–2. Valkenberg summarizes Aquinas’s view from this question of the promise made to Abraham as a promise for Christ: “Through circumcision Abraham differentiated himself as a believer from the non-believers, moving out from his homeland and his family, on the promise of God that in and through his offspring, which is Christ, all nations of the earth would be blessed.” Valkenberg, “Aquinas and Judaism,” 58.
549. Ad Eph. 2.2.88.
550. God’s mercy is the efficient cause of the blessing of justification. The exemplary cause of the blessing of God’s mercy is the life of Christ. Aquinas then explains that the final cause or purpose of the blessing granted in Christ for Jews and Gentiles can be taken in two ways, depending upon how one interprets “ages to come.” Aquinas says the phrase “age to come” can mean “in this age” or “the one to come.” If one takes it to mean “this age,” the text means God shows the blessings of Christ in the age to come by giving gifts of grace to the early saints in order that “later generations would more easily be converted to Christ.” However, the final cause or purpose of the blessing of God can also be taken to mean God’s purpose in showing the “abundant riches of his grace.” This mercy even exceeds the mercy and grace God has bestowed in the world in the interim. God’s purpose in the blessing of the grace of justification can therefore be to bring to perfection “the next life” or the eternal age. Ad Eph. 2.2.89–90.
551. Ad Eph. 2.4.110.
552. Ad Eph. 2.4.109.
553. Ad Eph. 2.5.111.
554. Ad Eph. 2.5.111.
555. Ad Eph. 2.5.112.
556. Ad Eph. 2.5.112.
557. Ad Eph. 2.5.112.
558. Ad Eph. 2.5.112.
559. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
560. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
561. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
562. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
563. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
564. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
565. Ad Eph. 2.5.113.
566. Ad Eph. 2.5.114.
567. Ad Eph. 2.5.114.
568. Ad Eph. 2.5.114.
569. Ad Eph. 2.5.114.
570. Ad Eph. 2.5.114.
571. Aquinas says Christ destroys the ceremonial law and not only the hostility between the Jew and the Gentile. Baglow’s interpretation of Aquinas’s view makes this point clear: “The barrier of religious custom, so often in human history a cause for division, is torn down by Christ who fulfills the end of religious custom by achieving what it attempted.” Baglow, 176.
572. Ad Eph. 2.5.119.
573. Ad Eph. 2.5.114.
574. Ad Eph. 2.5.112.
575. Ad Eph. 2.5.115: “Et hoc decretis, id est, praeceptis novi testamenti, per quae excluditur lex.” [Emended.] Lamb translates excluditur, which Aquinas uses only once in the commentary, as “was annulled” but a better translation may be “was excluded,” “was cut off,” or “was removed.”
576. Ad Eph. 2.5.115.
577. Ad Eph. 2.5.116.
578. Ad Eph. 2.5.112.
579. Ad Eph. 2.5.116.
580. Baglow, Modus et Forma, 174.
581. Ad Eph. 2.5.116.
582. Ad Eph. 2.5.116.
583. Ad Eph. 2.6.122.
584. Ad Eph. 2.6.123.
585. Ad Eph. 2.6.124.
586. Aquinas briefly comments upon how the Church is like a city in its public acts of faith, hope, and love, and how it is like a home in that it is ruled by the Father. He quotes 1 Timothy 3:15: “that you may know how to behave thyself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God.” At other times the community of the faithful (collegium fidelium) is called a city, and Aquinas cites Psalm 121:3: “Jerusalem, which is built as a city.”
587. Ad Eph. 2.6.126.
588. Ad Eph. 2.6.126.
589. Ad Eph. 2.6.128.
590. Ad Eph. 2.6.128.
591. Ad Eph. 2.6.129.
592. Ad Eph. 2.6.129.
593. Ad Eph. 2.6.132.
594. Aquinas uses “prerogatives” to reference his earlier discussion of the three sacraments of Israel. He therefore seems to use “sacraments,” “promises,” and “prerogatives” as interchangeable terms. See Ad Eph. 3.1.142
595. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
596. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
597. Ad Eph. 3.1.142. Aquinas’s discussion of each of the prerogatives appears in a list of things they held. Lamb’s translation emphasizes this.
598. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
599. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
600. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
601. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
602. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
603. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
604. Ad Eph. 3.1.142.
605. Ad Galatas 2.2.74–75.
606. Ad Galatas 2.2.75.
607. Ad Eph. Prologus 1.1.1.
608. Ad Eph. Prologus 1.1.1.