Aquinas on Israel and the Church

Download or read book Aquinas on Israel and the Church written by Matthew A Tapie and published by James Clarke & Company. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Theologians have long debated the significance of the Jewish religion for the Christian Church. Some scholars see Thomas Aquinas as the leading advocate of the belief that Israel has been superceded by the Church, while others hold that Aquinas avoids supersessionism altogether. The discussion has, however, not always analysed the terminology, nor has it taken into account some of Aquinas's commentaries on Paul's letters, his writings most relevant to the subject. Drawing upon the Pauline commentaries, Matthew Tapie shows that while Aquinas's most commonly articulated view is that the passion of Christ made Jewish worship and the Mosaic law obsolete, Aquinas also advanced views that set this into question, in ways that support Christianteachings affirming the value of post-biblical Judaism. In doing so, he provides both a rich and timely reminder of the ambiguities in Aquinas's thought and makes an important contribution to the literature of supersessionism.