Supersessionism, also called fulfillment theology by its proponents and replacement theology by its detractors, is the Christian doctrine that the Christian Church has superseded the Jewish people, assuming their role as God's covenanted people, thus asserting that the New Covenant through Jesus has superseded or replaced the Mosaic covenant. Supersessionists hold that the universal Church has become God's "New Israel" and thus Christians are the people of God, not Jews.
Often claimed by later Christians to have originated with Paul the Apostle in the New Testament, supersessionism has been a core tenet of many Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Lutheran churches for most of their history. Many early Church Fathers, including Justin Martyr and Augustine of Hippo, were supersessionists.
Most historic Christian churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and historic Reformed churches and Methodist churches, hold that the Old Covenant has three components: ceremonial, moral, and civil ( covenant theology). They teach that while the ceremonial and civil (judicial) laws have been fulfilled, the moral law of the Ten Commandments continues to bind Christians. Since the 19th century, certain Christian communities, such as the Plymouth Brethren, have espoused dispensationalist theology as opposed to supersessionism and covenant theology. Additionally, as part of Christian–Jewish reconciliation, the Roman Catholic Church has placed increased emphasis on the shared history of the Christian and modern Jewish religions.
Rabbinic Judaism rejects supersessionism as offensive to Jewish history. Islam teaches that it is the final and most authentic expression of Abrahamic monotheism, superseding both Judaism and Christianity.
Etymology The word supersessionism comes from the English verb to supersede, from the Latin verb , "to sit",Cassell's Latin Dictionary plus , "upon". It thus signifies one thing being replaced or supplanted by another.Collins Dictionary of the English Language
Many Christian theologians have seen the New Covenant in Christ as a replacement for the Mosaic CovenantFonrobert, Charlotte Elisheva. "Jewish Christians, Judaizers, and Christian Anti-Judaism." A People's History of Christianity, Volume 2: Late Ancient Christianity. Ed. Virginia Burrus. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2005. and the Church as the new people of God. Sydney Thelwall used the word supersession in the title of chapter three of his 1870 translation of Tertullian's An Answer to the Jews.
Early Church New Testament
In the New Testament, Jesus and others repeatedly give Jews priority in their mission, as in Jesus's expression of him coming to the Jews rather than to gentiles; ; cf. ; and in Paul the Apostle's formula "to the Jew first and also to the Greek". Yet after Jesus's death, the inclusion of the gentiles as equals in this burgeoning sect of Judaism caused problems, particularly when it came to gentiles keeping the Mosaic law,; which was both a major issue at the Council of Jerusalem and a theme of Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, though the relationship of Paul and Judaism is still disputed.
Paul's views on the Jews are complex, but he is generally regarded as the first person to make the claim that by not accepting claims of Jesus's divinity, non-believing Jews disqualified themselves from salvation. Paul himself was a Jew. After a conversion experience, he came to accept Jesus's claim to be the Messiah. According to Roman Catholic ex-priest James Carroll, accepting Jesus's divinity was, for Paul, dichotomous with being a Jew. His personal conversion and his understanding of the dichotomy between being Jewish and accepting Jesus's divinity were the religious philosophies he wanted to see Jews of his time adopt. But New Testament scholar N. T. Wright argues that Paul saw his faith in Jesus as precisely the fulfillment of his Judaism and saw no tension between being Jewish and Christian. Christians quickly adopted Paul's views.
For most of Christian history, supersessionism has been the mainstream interpretation of the New Testament of all three major historical traditions within Christianity—Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant. The text most often adduced in favor of supersessionism is Hebrews 8:13: "In speaking of 'a new covenant' Jeremiah 31:31–32 he has made the first one obsolete." Other statements by Jesus have also been used, including Matthew 21:43, "Therefore I tell you, the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people producing its fruits."
Church Fathers
Many early Christian commentators taught that the Old Covenant was fulfilled and superseded by the New Covenant in Jesus. Justin Martyr wrote that the "true spiritual Israel" referred to those who had "been led to God through this crucified Christ". Irenaeus taught that, while the New Covenant had superseded the old, the moral law underlying the Law of Moses continued to stand in the New Covenant. Tertullian believed that the New Covenant brought with it a new law, writing:
Augustine of Hippo followed the views of the earlier Church Fathers but emphasized the importance to Christianity of the continued existence of the separate Rabbinic Jewish faith: "The Jews ... are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ." The Catholic Church built its system of eschatology on his theology, where Jesus rules the earth spiritually through his triumphant church. Yet Augustine also said to "love" the Jews as a means to convert them to Christianity. Jeremy Cohen, followed by John Y. B. Hood and James Carroll, sees this as having had decisive social consequences. Carroll writes, "It is not too much to say that, at this juncture, Christianity 'permitted' Judaism to endure because of Augustine."
Contemporary views
Eastern Orthodox In the early days, views of supersessionism varied within the Orthodox Church, though it did not use that term. More recently, supersessionism has been reconsidered, and some churches have explicitly rejected it.
Roman Catholic
Supersessionism is not the name of any official Roman Catholic teaching, and the word does not appear in any Church documents. Yet, official Catholic teaching has reflected varying levels of supersessionist thought throughout its history, especially before the mid-20th century. The theology that religious Jews dissent by continuing to exist outside the Church is extensive in Catholic liturgy and literature. The Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) marked a shift in emphasis of official Catholic teaching about Judaism, a shift that may be described as a move from "hard" to "soft" supersessionism, in David Novak's terminology.
Until Vatican II, Catholic teaching on the matter was characterized by "displacement" or "substitution" theologies, according to which the Church and its New Covenant took the place of Judaism and its "Old Covenant", the latter being rendered void by the coming of Jesus. The nullification of the Old Covenant was often explained in terms of the "deicide charge": that Jews forfeited their covenantal relationship with God by executing the divine Jesus. In 1943, Pope Pius XII wrote in his encyclical :
At the Second Vatican Council, which convened two decades after the Holocaust, a different framework emerged for how Catholics should think about the Jewish covenant. The declaration , promulgated in 1965, made several statements signaling a development away from "hard supersessionist" replacement thinking, according to which God no longer acknowledged the Jews' covenant. Retrieving Paul's language in chapter 11 of his Epistle to the Romans, the declaration states, "God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues.[...] Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures." A draft of the declaration contained a passage that called for "the entry of that [Jewish] people into the fullness of the people of God established by Christ","Second Declaration on the Jews and Non-Christians, 28–29 September 1964," qtd. in Philip A. Cunningham et al (eds.), The Catholic Church and the Jewish People (Fordham, 2007), p. 195. but at the suggestion of Catholic priest (and convert from Judaism) John M. Oesterreicher, it was replaced in the final version by the following language: "the Church awaits that day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice and 'serve him shoulder to shoulder' ( 3:9)."
Pope John Paul II led further developments in Catholic thinking on the covenantal status of ethnic Jews. One of his most notable statements on the matter occurred during his 1980 visit to the synagogue in Mainz, when he called Jews the "people of God of the Old Covenant, which has never been abrogated by God" (Romans 11:29: "for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable"). In 1997, John Paul II again affirmed the Jews' covenantal status: "This people continues in spite of everything to be the people of the covenant and, despite human infidelity, the Lord is faithful to his covenant."
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who later became Pope Benedict XVI, wrote in his 1999 work Many Religions – One Covenant, "the Sinai [Mosaic] Covenant is indeed superseded."
The post-Vatican II shift toward acknowledging ethnic Jews as a covenanted people led to heated discussion in the Church over missionary activity directed toward Jews. Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote, "if Christ is the redeemer of the world, every tongue should confess him", while others vehemently oppose "targeting Jews for conversion". Cardinal Walter Kasper, then president of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, reaffirmed the validity of the Jews' covenant,Reflections by Card. Walter Kasper, 6 November 2002. writing:
In his apostolic exhortation (2013), Pope Francis emphasized communal heritage and mutual respect for each other, writing:
Similarly, Kasper highlights God's relationship with the Jewish people, but differs from Francis in calling Judaism salvific: "God's grace, which is the grace of Jesus Christ according to our faith, is available to all. Therefore, the Church believes that Judaism, [as] the faithful response of the Jewish people to God's irrevocable covenant, is salvific for them, because God is faithful to his promises." In 2011, Kasper specifically repudiated the notion of "displacement" theology, clarifying that the "New Covenant for Christians is not the replacement (substitution), but the fulfillment of the Old Covenant".
These statements signal a remaining point of debate, where some adhere to a movement away from supersessionism, and others retain what can be called a "soft" supersessionism. Traditionalist Catholic groups, such as the canonically irregular Society of St. Pius X, strongly oppose Vatican II's theological developments concerning Judaism and maintain "hard" supersessionist views. Even among mainstream Catholic groups and official Catholic teaching, elements of soft supersessionism remain. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to a future corporate repentance on the part of Jews:
In the Second Vatican Council's (1964), the Church wrote that God "chose the race of Israel as a people" and "set up a covenant" with them, instructing them and making them holy. But "all these things[...] were done by way of preparation and as a figure of that new and perfect covenant" instituted by and ratified in Christ (No. 9). Vatican II also affirmed that "the Church is the new people of God" without being "Israel according to the flesh", the Jewish people.