Jewish roots of Christianity

Thinking about this little article: AUDI, ISRAËL: Jewish Feasts in the Propers of the Traditional Roman Rite and a post on Facebook by Peter Kwasniewski (copied below) on the topic of the fulfillment of the Old Law... *

It's shocking how willing modern Catholics are to jettison the Jewish heritage of the faith, in both the rites of worship and the strict duty to teach and obey the Ten Commandments, the bedrock of morality -- while often repeating the slur that those who love Tradition are guilty of antisemitism. 

There are wicked people everywhere, of course, but how could traditional Christianity itself be anything other than reverent towards the Jews, in principle? It's all very odd, since I have noticed that it's the Novus Ordo that, by design and practice, ignores continuity and flattens typology, as if the Jewish heritage is of so little value that it can easily be superseded. 

Even with the inclusion of the Old Testament readings in the new Mass, this is so; we have less contact now with the Psalms overall, we have relegated liturgical prayer (other than the Mass) to the few, and as the first link I post here demonstrates, we have lost connection with the memory of Jewish feasts.

Overall, the primacy of the moral law grounded in love for God and neighbor -- fallen man's struggle for goodness, for virtue in the light of eternity -- has been replaced with something entirely different, something less demanding that ends up changing the nature of the good itself, first by diluting it and then by doing away with it altogether. Adultery, theft, lying -- these things are becoming positive goods in the new dispensation. Does that sound hyperbolic? What about acceptance of LGBT politics in our dioceses, promotion of unjust taxation for economic redistribution by our bishops, prelates using "trans pronouns" to refer to people appropriating the opposite sex? What are all these things but transgressions against God's immutable laws?

When I'm feeling rhetorical, I ask when was the last time you heard a sermon (in the Novus Ordo) on the Commandments that explains them along with their non-negotiability? Now that Pope Francis has bestowed his trademark incoherence on the Decalogue and its importance to life, saying (albeit without authority) that he observes them but "not as absolutes," I don't want to hear any answers.

In Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict says -- gently, without argumentativeness, but with ample grounding in Scripture -- that Our Lord embodies the Torah and came to fulfill the Law. He also demonstrates that the Beatitudes express this central reality and must be interpreted in its light. But today's prevailing theology is antinomianism; our leaders in general want to separate goodness from truth, redefining both to suit a worldly urge. 

Pope Benedict engages in a fraternal way with the thoughts of Rabbi Jacob Neusner, and agrees that when Jews reject Christianity it is because they are rejecting this claim, made by Himself: that Jesus is the Law, that worship is now to be directed to His Person as "the heart of the Sabbath." It is the choice of some, represented by the rich young man in the Gospel who knew so much about the Law but went away sad after being invited to follow Him, to reject this challenge, one sealed by the sacrifice of Calvary. We can hope, pray, and offer witness that they might turn back after all. 

But for Christians to tinker with the whole of salvation history, presented and preserved as a unity, is beyond scandalous. 

Peter's post: 

Reading the following passage from Fr. Nicholas Gihr made me realize yet again the fundamental break in consciousness that has taken place between the old (traditional) paradigm and the new (basically postconciliar) one. 

The old paradigm is that the Church is the fulfillment of Israel, the inheritor of its revelation and religion, and its public worship will be the incarnational transposition thereof. Therefore, all that Israel did, prayed, built, loved, will necessarily find its correspondence in Christianity, only *moreso*. For the new paradigm, in contrast, there is a rupture between priestly sacrificial temple worship and the supper-table fellowship of friends who have been released from the bonds of cultic religion, which is shown to be fear-based superstition. 

Are we not seeing a major recrudescence of Marcionism among churchmen, as regards both the moral law (believers are loosened from the strict observance of the Ten Commandments) and divine worship (we build simple comfortable everyday spaces for our symbolic suppers, rather than engaging in all that Jewish stuff)? In this light I think the pope's approach to the Decalogue fits well with the motu proprio TC...

Anyhow, check out this passage from Gihr:

"The Lord Himself promised that in the New Law He would fill the house of God with His glory, and with a far greater glory than was that of the old Temple of Jerusalem (Agg. 2:8–10). Now, if the people of Israel 'in the simplicity of . . . heart have joyfully offered all these things' (1 Par. 29:17) to build unto the Lord of hosts a magnificent temple, how much more should the highly favored children of the Church make every effort and exertion duly to honor the God and Savior concealed in the Sacrament, since He, out of love for them, so graciously and so benevolently abases Himself on the altar. 

"Splendor and wealth of ornament serve, therefore, in the first place to glorify God, and secondly to promote the edification and salvation of men. When precious vessels and vestments are used in the celebration of the divine service, then the Christian faithful are in a more striking and lively manner impressed with the sublimity and adorableness of the mysteries celebrated; those present find themselves lifted up above the common, daily life, penetrated with a holy awe and reverence for heavenly things, more devoutly and seriously disposed, edified in heart, and refreshed in mind. For this reason the Church also celebrates her divine worship with more pomp in order to awaken and foster in the faithful the utmost esteem and reverence for the marvelous mysteries of Christ’s sacrifice. 

"His temples are the most beautiful of artistic edifices and the richest and most splendid of buildings; His altars are of precious stones, His tabernacles are masterpieces of artistic carving; His sacred vessels are of gold and silver, adorned with gems; His altar-cloths and corporals are of fine and clean linen, ornamented with embroidery. As the king is surrounded by his courtiers, here Christ is surrounded by the images of His saints; He is served by priests and ministers in festive garments, amid the splendor of lights, the beauty of colored flowers, and the sweet perfume of incense, amid melodious chants, the harmony of the organ, and the ringing of bells.”

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, Dogmatically, Liturgically, and Ascetically Explained (Herder, 1949), 264-65.

 *Re: Old Testament readings at Mass: it's startling for someone used to the Novus Ordo pattern to hear, on the Feast of the Assumption, the "epistle" (Lesson) from the book of Judith! 

If only there were a list of things to do and not do

Perhaps you will think me unsophisticated with what follows. Maybe so! But --I will risk it, because the ideas are vital to our life together and need to be expressed clearly and without scholarly embellishments.

My contention is this, that a lot of philosophical debates among Christians might be avoided by agreeing on the necessary (if insufficient) importance of basing our life together explicitly on the Ten Commandments, as we did in our country up until the upheavals of the Sixties.

We could dispense as moot many endless, tiresome wrangles about whether our Founding is Lockean or Protestant or Modernist or secretly Traditional; about whether we should overthrow it and start anew with some sort of "integralist" rule, whatever that might be (and as if our hierarchy were in any condition to undertake it, could we identify it and could they be convinced). 

In any case, the debates would at least be more coherent, because the participants will have demonstrated that they take God at His word. (If you need the scholarly view to understand the importance of the Ten Commandments to any form of government, but especially to the "most perfect" one of the mixed Constitutional one, read this essay, Freedom and Decline, by Reuven Brenner.)

Today, even the most religious person forgets that the Ten Commandments were written/engraved on, over, or in every courthouse in the land and displayed on the board in every classroom. 

I am confident I can surprise you with the information that above the main door of City Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that hotbed of Progressivism, exists to this day the following inscription in stone:

‘‘God has given Commandments unto Men. From these Commandments Men have framed Laws by which to be governed. It is honorable and praiseworthy to faithfully serve the people by helping to administer these Laws. If the Laws are not enforced, the People are not well governed.’’

Although Protestants were the majority in America and there is anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish bigotry in our history, children could be brought up in peace with each other and with reasonable hope of a decent life -- because there was a common reference point for the Good. 

Jews and Christians could agree on Thou Shalt Not, even in the breach. It's true, notably and regrettably, that there was some divorce, in violation of the Sixth Commandment. But there wasn't no-fault divorce, which came about just as the Commandments were being ripped down. The Commandments were taught in public school to every child; people knew what each commandment signified. Now even our clergy (and I include bishops!) are ignorant of them, and by any metric, moral intelligence and practice have gotten much worse.

Hypocrisy isn't the worst sin, we are discovering, as a moral vacuum threatens us. Don't misunderstand; I am aware that Modernism began before the 60s -- not decades before but at least 700 years before, with William of Ockham, some say. 

What I am arguing is that taking down the physical manifestation of the Ten Commandments from our public spaces along with the conscious teaching of them to children, something that necessarily acts as a moral "booster shot" to adults doing the teaching, has eviscerated our life together.

Our country with its Founding is what it is. Instead of wasting our energy trying to remake it, we should restore the Commandments -- we should make their restoration our keystone, our first object. (Note well that atheists target public manifestations of the Commandments whenever they have the opportunity. It matters. They weren't inscribed in actual stone for nothing.) Republics can work in that imperfect way that every society works; along with monarchies they are one possible way to organize society -- when they are based on the Ten Commandments.

Even our secular state worked, far better than many Catholic countries today. Tony Esolen makes the point that the political progressive of sixty years ago wouldn't have been caught dead defending something like "drag queen story time" because they had a lot more ordinary decency than many a conservative today. They certainly wouldn't have defended it, as some do today, on liberal grounds. 

They understood what we seem to miss, that if you don't maintain concrete (or better, stone) standards, life falls apart. Ultimately, those standards can be traced back to the irreducible standard of God's Law, made explicit in the Ten Commandments.

We sense that we need something (but strangely, we seem confused about what) to educate our children better. We lamely mention faulty catechesis and subside at the thought of the energy required to implement it and the resistance we'd find. 

If only there were a good guide of some sort, one with a truly trustworthy imprimatur... how much easier our task would be! We are hampered in finding the very guide given to us by God, however, by our tendency to reach for argumentation before we have offered principles, and by our acquiescence to the demand that we not reference Revelation.

Caught up in apologetics, which require a common moral vocabulary, we have almost abandoned reliance on revealed truth. We have cultivated the habit of looking at Revelation as less valid than logic, forgetting that God cannot be illogical or unreasonable, including in His precepts. Worried about the debunkers our children might encounter, we teach them responses to wrong thinking before we have taught them right thinking. We claim to reject relativism, but we ourselves do not accept givens.

We worry that our children will resist eternal truth, since resistance is all around us. If we begin as if they have already been subjected to spurious debunking (the kind that casts doubt on everything), and are in the post-debunked stage, we begin at the wrong end. 

In truth, children are pre-bunked and very open to precept, to receiving eternal truths as such.

This entrenched pedagogical mistake is most committed in the areas of science and morality. Science is the observation, explanation, and description of nature. Other inquiries (into causes) are not natural science, but they are still analysis. These discussions must take place, but the development of the child's scientific mind requires that first he must learn certain facts and habits, and he must learn to reason, before he can arrive at the intellectual ground from which he can discover the relationship of scientific facts to larger questions.

In the area of morality (or "religion" as we might think of it, forgetting that the object of religion is God, Who is Good -- that is, moral), we want to provide our children with explanations that protect them against errors before we provide them with precepts.

When struck by a general decay of morality in the populace, our tendency is to defend from the stance of rationalistic argument rather than to teach from the moral law; we are driven on to it by a thousand eager Masters in Theology, backed by the academic credentials of dozens of institutes dedicated to certifying them, when really we should be stating and memorizing and requiring the memorization of ... the Ten Commandments.

Remember Naaman the Syrian? He scorned the prophet's prescription for cleansing his leprosy -- he didn't expect to be told to dip in the River Jordan -- too simple. But the young servant girl pricked his pride.

We are in the same situation (but worse, because we don't even acknowledge the severity our disease; we don't see ourselves as suffering from moral leprosy). We can't help wanting the remedy for what ails us to be backed by some accredited authority. We aren't comfortable unless it involves a program administered by professionals, for which we would be required to offer payment.

Basic religion was expunged from our common life in 20th century upheavals. We see that. Yet we don't seek to remedy that tragedy by the straightforward means of restoring it. We accept the revolution and assume that a highly developed and abstract but essentially defensive replacement will bring about the desired result for those who are motivated; and those who are not motivated will have to do without, since they don't have the intellectual habits to participate. (We also continually water down the intellectual expression of the moral law in an attempt to package it for the masses, which carries its own risks.) In this way, we abandon the poor.

Today, the most devout and upright person, when asked how to combat moral decay, will respond with some lengthy involved plan that involves an intense inquiry into natural law and/or deep study of Thomas Aquinas; I have seen well meaning proposals for high school curricula that would be more suited to graduate school studies, even if our youth had familiarity with fundamentals, which they do not.

This regrettable method of teaching young people forms the habit of stressing codicils more than fundamental law, of focusing on exceptions over straightforward precepts. In this way, our young people will remain incapable of absorbing what they need most of all: that which is given. Certainly, those outside the scope of this misbegotten effort will remain ignorant of the Ten Commandments; for if the green wood knows not of them, the dry wood hasn't a chance.

Over-complication and manifest disobedience to God's expressed desire in Scripture and Liturgy for us to pass on and teach and love precisely His Law betrays the tradition handed down to us. Those who went before us did and understood what we do not. John Henry Newman, a religious thinker surely not lacking in subtlety and academic learning, put it this way:

"I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do his work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place — if I do but keep his commandments and serve him in my calling" (Meditations and Devotions, 301-2).

"If ye love Me, keep My Commandments" says the Lord. “Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children" we read in Deuteronomy. Without the Ten Commandments, we simply can't restore our culture.