Early Christians’ Use of Scripture Regarding Jews, Christians, and the People of God (An Enquiry into the Primary Sources)

Pope John-Paul II stated in his 1999 Post-Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation Ecclesia in Europa that
the Church and the Jewish people were united in that the covenant God made with
Israel was, as Paul stated in Rom. 11.29, irrevocable, and it is the same
covenant that has reached its fulfillment in Christ (56).  The same document distinguishes this
conviction from religious relativism, which sees religion of one sort to be as
good as another.  On the contrary, the
Church has a mission to all peoples (55).

How, then, is it that in the Patristic period we find the
thoroughgoing conviction that the Jews were no longer God’s covenant
people?  This paper will explore this
question by looking at how these Christian authors used the common Scriptures,
the Old Testament, to make their case (New Testament passages will seldom be
presented).  I will examine this under
five headings:

–      
Proof from Scripture that Israel was no longer the people of God

–      
Proof from Scripture that Israel was sinful

–      
Christians rightly understand the Law

–      
Scripture foretells the demise of Israel

–      
Proof from Scripture that Israel has been replaced by the Church

Argument 1: Proof From Scripture that Israel was No Longer the People of God

 

For being hard of heart, they understood not that this very thing,
which they called the disgrace of the Lord, was a prophecy wisely uttered:
“The Lord was not known by the people” [Is. 1.3] which erred, which
was not circumcised in understanding, whose darkness was not enlightened, which
knew not God, denied the Lord, forfeited
the place of the true Israel, persecuted God, hoped to reduce the Word to
disgrace; and Him whom they crucified as a malefactor they crowned as a king.

Tertullian also argued from Scripture that Israel
would reject God (Jer. 2.10-12; Is. 65.13-16 LXX; An Answer to the Jews III), that God’s blessing or Spirit would be
taken from Israel: Is. 3.1, 3; 5.1ff (XIII), and that Christ asked God to
disperse Israel (Ps. 59.11; XIII).  He
concludes:

Since,
therefore, the Jews were predicted as destined to suffer these calamities on
Christ’s account, and we find that they have suffered them, and see
them sent into dispersion and abiding in it, manifest it is that it is on
Christ’s account that these things have befallen the Jews, the sense of
the Scriptures harmonizing with the issue of events and of the order of the
times. Or else, if Christ is not yet come, on whose account they were predicted
as destined thus to suffer, when He shall have come it follows that they
will thus suffer. And where will then be a daughter of Sion to be
derelict, who now has no existence? where the cities to be exust, which
are already exust and in heaps? where the dispersion of a race which is now in
exile? Restore to Judea the condition which Christ is to find; and (then, if
you will), contend that some other (Christ) is coming (XIII).

Commodianus
(mid-third century African bishop) references Isaiah 6.10 in his argument that
Israel was hard-hearted and rejected the Law, as also in the time of Moses (Ex.
32).  Thus God rejected her (XXXVIII).

Orthodox Christians
of this period unequivocally maintained that salvation could only be found in
Jesus.  As they did not distinguish
election from salvation, they concluded that those Jews who were not Christians
were no longer the people of God.  The
Jews who were Christians occupied no position of privilege within the Church,
which was made up of all peoples confessing Christ, and the Gentiles who became
Christians did not need to become Jews to be the people of God.  Moreover, the Jewish Scriptures were also the
Christian Scriptures and should not be rejected.  They could, in fact, be used to explain
Judaism and the Church in God’s plan of salvation.  This last point is the one to be pursued momentarily.

… by this alone the Jews could
obtain pardon of their sins, if they wash away the blood of Christ slain in His
baptism, and, passing over into the Church, should obey His precepts (Treatise 12.1.24).

It is not, however, Antisemitic
to insist that a Jew needs to accept Christ as saviour for salvation. 

Argument 2: Proof From
Scripture That Israel was Sinful

That the Jews have
been sinful and have therefore lost their status as God’s people is a
prevailing view.  So, for example, Justin argued that
Scripture foretold that the Jews would reject God’s salvation (Is. 1.3f; 66.1;
1.11-15; 58.6-7) (First Apology 38).  Clement of Alexandria
illustrated modes of rebuke for the instructor almost wholly from passages
where God rebukes Israel for her sins (Instructor
I.9):

Admonition: Jer. 3.9; Ez. 2.6-7;
Is. 39.13

Upbraiding: Jer. 5.8-9; Hos. 4.14

Complaint: Is. 1.2-4; Jer. 1.16;
2.13 or 19.4 (‘they have forsaken me’)

Invective: Is. 30.1

Reproof: Is. 1.4; Jer. 2.12-13;
Lam. 1.8

Bringing one to one’s senses: Jer.
6.10; 9.26; Is. 30.9

Denunciation: Is. 1.4

Accusation: Jer. 5.11-12 (God
divorces Israel); Jer. 5.11-12

Bewailing one’s fate: Lam. 1.1-2

Objurgation: Jer. 3.3-4; Nah. 3.4

Indignation: Dt. 32.5-6; Is. 1.23

While Clement intends by this to
illustrate how God inspired fear in order to bring salvation (I.9), in his view
this did not work for Israel, as already noted (II.8).

We find the idea that God has rejected Israel due to her
sinfulness succinctly stated in Commodianus, a North African bishop writing
around AD 240 (XXXVIII):

Evil always, and
recalcitrant, with a stiff neck ye [Jews] wish not that ye should be overcome;
thus ye will be heirs.  Isaiah said that ye were of hardened heart. 
Ye look upon the law which Moses in wrath dashed to pieces; and the same Lord
gave to him a second law.  In that he placed his hope; but ye, half
healed, reject it, and therefore ye shall not be worthy of the kingdom of
heaven.

Likewise, Minucius
Felix writes (XXXIII):

For they
themselves also, as long as they worshipped our God–and He is the same God of
all–with chastity, innocency, and religion, as long as they obeyed His
wholesome precepts, from a few became innumerable, from poor became rich, from
being servants became kings; a few overwhelmed many; unarmed men overwhelmed
armed ones as they fled from them, following them up by God’s command, and with
the elements striving on their behalf. Carefully read over their Scriptures, or
if you are better pleased with the Roman writings, inquire concerning the Jews
in the books (to say nothing of ancient documents) of Flavius Josephus or
Antoninus Julianus, and you shall know that by their wickedness they deserved
this fortune, and that nothing happened which had not before been predicted to
them, if they should persevere in their obstinacy. Therefore you will
understand that they forsook before they were forsaken, and that they were not,
as you impiously say, taken captive with their God, but they were given up by
God as deserters from His discipline.

Thus, on the
one hand, Minucius Felix affirms that the Jews have worshipped the same God as
the Christians, but, on the other hand, they have rebelled against God’s
command.  He argues this latter point
with reference to the manifold testimony of Scripture as well as historical
events.  This would give some credence to
reading Scriptural texts directed at the Jews centuries earlier as though they
were still relevant in the time of the early Church.  The conclusion of this, for Minucius Felix,
is that God only gave up on the Jews after they had forsaken him.  This could be considered Antisemitic, since a whole group is spoken of negatively and viewed as
deserving their troubles.  But it could
be viewed otherwise as well: the issue is not ethnicity but behaviour, and when
they behaved well they were blessed.

Tertullian
references various passages in Scripture that demonstrate the sinfulness of
Israel and predict her exile (An Answer
to the Jews):

            Ex. 32: Israel turned to idolatry

            Dt. 28.65ff predicts exile and agony
for Israel

            Is. 1.2, 4, 7-8, 15 predicts
Israel’s sin and destruction

            Is. 33.17 predicts Israel’s exile

            Is. 65.1, 13-16 states that Jews
would forsake the Lord and others will serve Him

            Jer. 2.10-13 states that the Jews
have exchanged their glory for something unprofitable,

                        forsaking
God and pursuing idolatry

Once again, the
testimony of Scripture across the centuries of its writing has been that Israel
is sinful.  Tertullian feels no need to
locate these verses in a particular period: rather, Scripture characterizes the
Jews as forsaking God and foretells, in Is. 65.1-16, that others would serve
him.

on account of their unbelief, and the other insults
which they heaped upon Jesus, the Jews will not only suffer more than others in
that judgment which is believed to impend over the world, but have even already
endured such sufferings. For what nation is an exile from their own metropolis,
and from the place sacred to the worship of their fathers, save the Jews alone?
And these calamities they have suffered, because they were a most wicked
nation, which, although guilty of many other sins, yet has been punished so
severely for none, as for those that were committed against our Jesus (Contra Celsum II.8).

The sinfulness of the Jews
culminates in their attitude towards Jesus Christ, according to Commodianus
(XL). 

There is not an unbelieving people such as yours. 
O evil men! in so many places, and so often rebuked by the law of those who cry
aloud.  And the lofty One despises your Sabbaths, and altogether rejects
your universal monthly feasts according to law, that ye should not make to Him
the commanded sacrifices; who told you to throw a stone for your offence. 
If any should not believe that He had perished by an unjust death, and that
those who were beloved were saved by other laws, thence that life was suspended
on the tree, and believe not on Him.  God Himself is the life; He Himself
was suspended for us.  But ye with indurated heart insult Him.

This last quote points to two theological and exegetical problems
with the discussion among the Church fathers. 
First, there is the notion that the Jews are more sinful than other
nations.  Perhaps, however, Paul’s
presenting the extreme sinfulness of the Gentiles before the sinfulness of the
Jews in his argument in Romans sets the proper tone for Christian thinking on
the Jews.  Rom. 1.18-3.26 makes the
argument that Jews and Gentiles are equally culpable for their sins, not that
the Jews are more sinful.  Second,
Commodianus expresses the view that the practices of Judaism that mark them off
as a particular people are odious before God. 
While this can be argued from Scripture (e.g., Is. 58), this is again
not the New Testament perspective (e.g., 1 Cor. 9.20; Gal. 5.6; 6.15; Rom. 14.1ff;
etc.).

The sinfulness of Israel is a line of argument one meets at
numerous times in the literature.  The
Scriptural basis for this typically comes from the prophetic writings on Israel’s
sin.  Of interest is the fact that early
Christian writers took these writings as though they continued to apply to the
Jews.  Also to be noted is the diversity
of texts used from author to author—the case was not standardized, but it could
be made from many passages.  Within
these, however, a few texts do get repeated attention, such as Is. 1.2ff.*  Finally, note that these Old Testament
passages were not read as part of a larger story of God’s ultimate rescue of
sinful, exiled Israel, as in the prophets.

Argument 3: Christians Rightly Understand the Law

On the issue of the
Law, several perspectives can be identified in the patristic sources.  The primary argument of interest here—one
well attested in the texts—is that the Law needs to be read ‘spiritually’
rather than literally.  Some argue that
this is a development in light of the movement of salvation history, while
others, more critical of the Jews, argue that the Laws should never have been
followed literally.

Early in the second
century, Ignatius advocated that the progression of salvation history meant a
different attitude towards the Law:

“Old
things are passed away: behold, all things have become new.” For if we
still live according to the Jewish law, and the circumcision of the flesh, we
deny that we have received grace (Magnesians
8.1 long)

The prophets were His servants, and foresaw Him by the Spirit, and waited
for Him as their Teacher, and expected Him as their Lord and Savior, saying,
“He will come and save us.” Let us therefore no longer keep the
Sabbath after the Jewish manner, and rejoice in days of idleness; for “he
that does not work, let him not eat” (Magnesians
9.2 long).

Also in the early 2^nd
century, Aristides wrote:

Another early 2^nd
century writer, in the Epistle to
Diognetus, sees Jewish religious practices as virtual idolatry.  The key to such an argument is thata literal
interpretation is believed to lean in this direction:

 But those who imagine that, by means of blood,
and the smoke of sacrifices and burnt-offerings they offer sacrifices
[acceptable] to Him, and that by such honours they show Him respect: these, by
supposing that they can give anything to Him who stands in need of nothing,
appear to me in no respect to differ from those who studiously confer the same
honour on things destitute of sense…. (3).

The author of this
epistle simply takes Jewish food laws, Sabbaths, boasting, circumcision,
fastings, and new moons to be ridiculous (4). 
No Scriptural argument is proffered. 
The ease with which these are dismissed suggests that the Jews are not
the author’s concern so much as making the argument that Christians ‘are
distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor customs
which they observe.  For they neither
inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech….’ (5).

And yet another
early 2^nd century author, in the Epistle
of Barnabas, argued that the Scriptures should not be read literally but
typologically, for we live in the last days (6).  This argument could be stated in one of two
way, and Barnabas employs them both:

1.     A literal reading is said to be a misreading of Scripture, as when Barnabas insists that a
circumcision of the flesh was never God’s intent but in fact a deception by an evil angel (9).  Circumcision was always to be understood
spiritually—as a circumcision of the heart (Jer. 4.4; Dt. 10.16).  Barnabas also argues this point allegorically:
Abraham’s
circumcision of 318 men (confusing Gen. 17.26f and 14.14) points to Christ,
since ten and eight are written with the first two Greek letters of Jesus’ name
(‘I‘
and ‘H‘) and 300 is the written with the Greek letter ‘T‘, representing by
its shape the cross of Christ.  Various foods are
interpreted as characters with whom one should not associate (10). 

2.     A literal reading is said to be no
longer the right reading of Scripture, as when Barnabas says that Jewish
sacrifices were already abolished by the prophets (Is. 1.11-14; Jer. 7.22; Zech. 8.17; Ps. 51.19)
(2).

The spiritual interpretation of the Old
Testament in general clarified the distinction between Jews and Christians, as
we find in Melito of Sardis’s Paschal Sermon (39-45):

            Earthly                                                           Heavenly
or Spiritual

            The Jewish people                                          The
Church

            The Law                                                          The
Gospel

            Sacrifice of sheep                                           The
life of the Lord

            Temple                                                            Christ

            Earthly Jerusalem                                           Heavenly
Jerusalem

            Meagre inheritance in
one place                    Abundant
grace throughout the world

A spiritual interpretation of Israel’s Law was
considered to be superior:

•       
It
is not that the Church needed a spiritual interpretation of the OT in
order to ‘save’ the Scriptures for the Church, although this is a result of the
argument.

•       
Rather,
it suggests that interpretation is better when it uncovers the spiritual
meaning.

•       
The
Jews’ literal following of the Law was therefore an example of bad exegesis.

The notion of a hermeneutical progression, from
literal to spiritual, cn be found in various authors of the second and third
centuries: that the spiritual reading should always have been preferred is not
the only argument.  Justin Martyr, while
he allowed that some Christians hold to the Jewish regulations (Dialogue with Trypho the Jew 47), argued
that nobody now obeys all the Mosaic Law since one cannot offer the paschal
lamb (46).  Moreover, he avers, the
Mosaic Law was given because of Israel’s hardness of heart–to remind them
constantly of God through the many precepts (19), but Christ replaced the Law,
as Is. 51.4-5 and Jer. 31.31f state (11). 
The laws on circumcision, foods, sabbaths, sacrifices and oblations were
instituted because of the Jews’ unrighteousness and idolatries, to divert them from the practices of
the nations around them, not because there was any necessity for such sacrifices
(19-22). 

Clement of Alexandria actually
argues that the Law was good.  It was
better than the laws of the Greeks, although something better in Christ has now
come (Stromata I.27).

Tertullian argued that, on the one hand, the
Mosaic Law was prefigured in the command that God gave to Adam and Eve while,
on the other hand, there were righteous persons (Abel, Enoch, Noah, Abraham,
Melchizedek) who were so without the Mosaic Law (An Answer to the Jews 2).

He believed that a shift from a temporal or carnal reading of the Law to
an eternal or spiritual reading has
taken place when, through Jesus, a new covenant was given and the spiritual
came (An Answer to the Jews VI).  Thus he argues that the 10 Commandments were
enclosed as seeds in the Adamic Law,
and natural law prevailed until Moses
(e.g., Noah was found righteous).  The
Mosaic Law also had its place in time, but God ‘reforms the law’s precepts
answerably to the circumstances of the times, with a view to man’s salvation’ (II).  It was a temporal mirror of the new law in
the new covenant, which is eternal.  Jer.
31.31f promised a new law, a new circumcision. 
With the abolition of the old Law and circumcision also went Sabbath
observance (IV). 

Even so, Tertullian advanced the argument that
prior to Jesus Jewish regulations were not acceptable to God.  The prophets (Is. 1.13) bore witness that God
hated the Jews’ Sabbaths, as we already read in Genesis regarding Cain’s
(Israel’s) sacrifice and Abel’s (Christian) sacrifice (V). 

Like Justin, Origen acknowledged that some
Christians follow the Jewish laws (Contra
Celsum V.61), but the superior reading of the Scripture is allegorical
(IV.49).  With reference to Jn. 16.12-13
and Acts 10.13-15, he argued that the coming of the Spirit after Jesus’ death
and resurrection allowed a spiritual understanding of the Law (Contra Celsum II.2).  In true Alexandrian form (cf. Philo), Origen argues that Christians
penetrate to a deeper understanding of the Law than the Jewish superficial
(literal) reading of it (II.4; V.60, with reference to 2 Cor. 3).  With Jesus’ coming, Jewish Scriptures could now be clearly
interpreted (IV.42).  The Law, indeed,
had both a literal and a spiritual understanding (VII.20), but the literal interpretation has come
to an end with the end of Israel’s governmental authority, Temple, and presence
in Jerusalem (VII.26).

Origen adds a new piece to the argument: the
expansion of the Gospel beyond Israel’s borders to all nations requires that
the Law no longer be taken literally (VII.26):

… that it must be impossible for the legislation of
Moses, taken literally, to harmonize with the calling of the Gentiles, and with
their subjection to the Roman government; and on the other hand, it would be
impossible for the Jews to preserve their civil economy unchanged, supposing
that they should embrace the Gospel. For Christians could not slay their
enemies, or condemn to be burned or stoned, as Moses commands, those who had
broken the law, and were therefore condemned as deserving of these punishments;
since the Jews themselves, however desirous of carrying out their law, are not
able to inflict these punishments. But in the case of the ancient Jews, who had
a land and a form of government of their own, to take from them the right of
making war upon their enemies, of fighting for their country, of putting to
death or otherwise punishing adulterers, murderers, or others who were guilty
of similar crimes, would be to subject them to sudden and utter destruction
whenever the enemy fell upon them; for their very laws would in that case
restrain them, and prevent them from resisting the enemy.

Hippolytus offers another problem with the use of the Law.  The Ebionites, he comments, live according to
the Jewish Law and believe that in it they, like Jesus, are justified.  Jesus was made the Christ because he
fulfilled the Law, and they too might become Christs by fulfilling the Law (Refutation of All Heresies VII.22).  *[move to quote from Ignatius]

At the beginning of the third century, Novatian wrote three
treatises for Christians against Jewish practices of circumcision, the Sabbath,
and food regulations.  Of these, only that
on food regulations has survived.  In it
we encounter the view that Jewish regulations set the Jews apart from and above others: the Law leads to
boasting and, as a Jewish system, it is seen as a problem for a universal
mission.  So much emphasis on Jewish
sinfulness because of the Law runs through the writings of the early Christian
authors that Novatian’s argument is noteworthy: ‘They consider that they only
are holy, and that all others are defiled’ (On
Jewish Meats, 1).

Like a number of other Christian
authors at the time, Novatian advocated a spiritual interpretation of Jewish food laws:
‘Thus in the animals,
by the law, as it were, a certain mirror of human life is established…’ (On Jewish Meats 3).  For example,

what does the law mean when it says, “Thou
shalt not eat the camel?—except that by the example of that animal it condemns
a life nerveless and crooked with crimes. Or when it forbids the
swine to be taken for food? It assuredly reproves a life filthy and dirty, and
delighting in the garbage of vice, placing its supreme good not in generosity
of mind, but in the flesh alone. Or when it forbids the hare? It rebukes men
deformed into women. And who would use the body of the weasel for food? But in
this case it reproves theft (On Jewish
Meats 3).

With Novatian, not much is left of
the notion of an unfolding salvation history. 
Quite simply, he argues, the Jews failed to see that the Law was meant
to be interpreted spiritually (2, with reference to Rom. 7.14—a
misunderstanding of the text).  Even Rom.
10.4 is interpreted as Christ’s coming to disclose the Law’s spiritual meaning
(4), although later Novatian argues (with mostly New Testament quotes, but also
Dt. 8.3 and Zech. 7.6 LXX) that the literal Law no longer applies (5).

Perhaps the most positive assessment of the Law is to be found in Minucius
Felix. As we have already noted, he argued against those who saw Jewish laws as
superstitious customs and stated that God blessed them when they obeyed the Law
(Octavius XXXIII).

Argument 4: Scripture Foretells the Demise of Israel

Justin
taught that, as a result of the Jews’ rejection of God’s salvation, the land of
the Jews would be devastated (Is. 64.10-12; 1.7) (First Apology 47).

Clement of Alexandria’s interpretation of Daniel’s 70 weeks (Dn.
9.25-27) is that Israel was in captivity for one ‘week,’ after which the temple
was rebuilt, existed until Christ for sixty-two weeks, was ruled by Christ for
one week, and in the middle of that week shall he make
the incense of sacrifice cease, and of the wing of destruction, even till the
consummation, like the destruction of the oblation” (Stromata I.21).

Tertullian also sees Dn. 9.25-27 as a prophesy fulfilled in the
destruction of the Temple AD 70 (An
Answer to the Jews VIII).  And he argues that
circumcision was given to the Jews so that they could be identified and not
admitted to Jerusalem (An Answer to the
Jews 3).  Isaiah
predicted the desolation of the land of Israel, and Tertullian sees in this the
prohibition against the Jews’ entry into Jerusalem rather than a prediction of
the exile centuries earlier (Is. 1.7-8).

Another argument from Tertullian is that there is a
connection between Jesus’ death and the suffering of the Jews.  Amos 8.9 has the prophecy that God would
darken the earth at noon on the day of judgement for sinful Israel.  Since the Passover lambs were to be
slaughtered at twilight (Ex. 12.6), the darkness during Jesus’ sacrificial
death (Mt. 27.45 with Jn. 19.14) can be said to fulfil the passage in
Amos.  But Amos 8.10 immediately adds, ‘I
will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation,’ and Tertullian
interprets this as the Holy Spirit’s foretelling Israel’s captivity and
dispersion after Jesus’ passion (An
Answer to the Jews X).  Jesus’
sacrificial suffering and Israel’s suffering in judgement are therefore
related, and both took place in the first century.

Origen offers a charismatic
proof of Christianity over against the myths of the Greeks.  Proof of Jesus’ power
lies in the spread of the Church throughout the habitable world, conversions
from sins, casting out of demons and removing diseases in Jesus’ name, and a
change of character in true followers of Him (Contra Celsum LXVII). 
Similarly, since Jesus’ coming,

the Jews were altogether abandoned, and possess now
none of what were considered their ancient glories, so that there is no
indication of any Divinity abiding amongst them. For they have no longer
prophets nor miracles, traces of which to a considerable extent are still found
among Christians, and some of them more remarkable than any that existed among
the Jews; and these we ourselves have witnessed, if our testimony may be
received? (II.8; cf. VII.8).

Argument 5: Proof From Scripture That Israel Has Been Replaced by
the Church

One fact, then, which proves that Jesus was
something divine and sacred, is this, that Jews should have suffered on His
account now for a lengthened time calamities of such severity. And we say with
confidence that they will never be restored to their former condition. For they
committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind, in conspiring against the
Saviour of the human race in that city where they offered up to God a worship
containing the symbols of mighty mysteries. It accordingly behoved that city
where Jesus underwent these sufferings to perish utterly, and the Jewish nation
to be overthrown, and the invitation to happiness offered them by God to pass
to others,–the Christians, I mean, to whom has come the doctrine of a pure and
holy worship, and who have obtained new laws, in harmony with the established
constitution in all countries; seeing those which were formerly imposed, as on
a single nation which was ruled by princes of its own race and of similar
manners, could not now be observed in all their entireness.

The Jews’ rejection
of Jesus, moreover, was predicted by Isaiah (6.10).  This passage already featured in Jesus’
explanation of his teaching in parables (Mk. 4.12; Mt. 13.13-15), the rejection
of Jesus by the Jews (Jn. 12.40), and Paul’s dialogue with Jews in Rome (Acts
28.25-27)—it was a significant passage early on for Christians in the dialogue.

Cyprian’s Treatise 12 (book 1) is devoted to the
question of the Jews as God’s people.  He
argues that the Jews have been rejected by God and that this was foretold in
the Scriptures.  His approach in the
treatise is simply to quote passages of Scripture (references alone will be
given) under certain heads, as follows:

1.             
That the Jews have fallen under the heavy wrath of God,
because they have departed from the Lord, and have followed idols: Ex. 32; Jdg. 2.11-13; 4.1; Mal. 2.11

2.             
Also because they did not believe the prophets, and put
them to death: Jer. 7.25; 25.4, 6-7; 1
Kgs. 19.10; Neh. 9.26.

3.             
That it was previously foretold that they would neither
know the Lord, nor understand nor receive Him: Is. 1.2-4; 6.9-10; Jer. 2.13; 6.10; 8.7-9; Prov. 1.28-29; Ps. 28.4-5;
82.5; Jn. 1.11-12.

4.             
That the Jews would not understand the Holy Scriptures,
but that they would be intelligible in the last times, after Christ had come.

This
point is made with respect to the Jews prior to Christ’s first coming from Is.
29.11-18; Jer. 23.20; and Dn. 12.4-7. 
Then New Testament passages are cited to make the point that the Jews
continue in their lack of understanding (1 Cor. 10.1; 2 Cor. 3.14-16).  Christ opened the understanding of the
disciples after his resurrection (Lk. 24.44-47).

5.             
That the Jews could understand nothing of the Scriptures
unless they first believed on Christ: Is.
7.9; Jn. 8.24; Hab. 2.4; Gen. 15.6; Gal. 3.6-9. 
The quotations relate specifically to believing or trusting in God,
although the passage from Jn. 8.24 emphasizes the need for the Jews to have
faith in Jesus.

6.             
That they would lose Jerusalem, and leave the land which
they had received: Is. 1.7-9 and Mt.
23.37-39.

7.             
That they would also lose the Light of the Lord.