St. Augustine's Analysis of Judaism

The purpose of this research is to examine the theological and theoretical treatment by St. Augustine of Judaism. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical and cultural context in which Augustine's analysis of Judaism emerged in the history of Christian doctrine, and then to discuss the importance of the so-called Augustinian tolerance of the Jewish minority living in urban Europe from the ancient period to the time of the early Renaissance, as well as the scope, limit, and effect of this species of tolerance on the shape of the Diaspora and on strands of Jewish and Christian thought throughout the period.

In the background of the formulation of the Augustinian articulation and analysis of Judaism is Fremantle's characterization of the medieval philosophical period as an age of belief. The doctrines of institutional Catholicism of that age were most systematically articulated in the post-apostolic period by Augustine of Hippo, whose philosophy and theology functions very much as an introduction to the intellectual history of Christian Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, from Augustine (354-430) to William of Ockham (1300-1349). The central fact of intellectual discourse is that throughout that period, despite many disputes about theology, ethics, morality, and politics, the world as a whole shared a vision of the world predicated on the Christian and specifically Catholic thought. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, spoke with the strongest doctrinal autho

ieth-century Protestant theologian Paul Tillich would declare to be the New Being, or an assertion of unique significance for the Christian message of faith implied by the Redemption, is for the first Catholic theologian Augustine a declaration of incorrigible exclusivism and universalism that makes irrelevant any message that has preceded the Word. Augustine's and Tillich's respective emphases make all the difference for the encounter between Christianity and Judaism, and not only because Tillich's articulation is informed by the sometimes squalid nature of that encounter in history. Given that Catholicism absorbed the major scriptural texts of Judaism, the special significance of Christianity for the persistence of Judaism despite the Redemption cannot be overlooked. Equally, it helps explain why, especially in the City of God, Augustine is at such pains to explain the preeminence of Christianity over Judaism--as opposed to the relatively short treatment given the Hellenistic civil religion and the belief systems from Persia. Augustine argues that Jewish scripture and belief is incomplete to the degree Jews do not see that Judaism is grounded in truth only insofar as it anticipates the Redemption. Christian trinitarianism, whic