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The Old Testament in Controversy with the Jews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
The extensive use of typology and allegory by the early Church is usually and rightly regarded as the Church's effective answer to Marcion's rejection of the Old Testament. It was also a part of her answer to the Jewish acceptance of the Old Testament. Controversy has a stimulating effect upon the development of new ideas, but it has in most cases also the disadvantage of fostering special pleading and unbalanced exaggerations. It seems worth trying to discover in what ways anti-Jewish controversy and the mere fact of the Jews' use and possession of the Old Testament affected the Church's understanding of it in the formative ante-Nicene period.
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- Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1955
References
page 113 note 1 According to the Scriptures, P. 17.
page 114 note 1 op. cit., pp. 16, 17.
page 114 note 2 Cyprian: Introduction to Three Books of Testimonies against the Jews.
page 116 note 1 Con. Cel. 2.28.
page 116 note 2 Dan. 2.34–45.
page 116 note 3 Dan. 7.13.
page 116 note 4 Dial. Trypho. 76.1. Hippolytus does interpret Dan. 2.34–45. Christologically as a picture of 
(Hipp. Dan. 2.13). Tertullian quotes Dan. 7.13 very differently from Justin as evidence of the real humanity of Christ in a catena of anti-Valentinian texts (Tert. De. Carne Christ. 15).
page 116 note 5 Dial. Trypho. 90.4.
page 117 note 1 Hom, in Lib. Reg. 1.9.
page 117 note 2 Dial. Trypho. 72, 73.
page 117 note 3 Con. Cel. 1.34.
page 118 note 1 Dial. Trypho. 68.7.
page 118 note 2 Williams, A. Lukyn, Christian Evidences, p. 189.Google Scholar
page 118 note 3 It is interesting to note that according to Origen, psalms 89–100 were attributed by the Jews to Moses, in which case the argument of Hebrews falls to the ground (P.G. XII, 1056 B-1057 c).
page 119 note 1 op. cit., p. 127.
page 119 note 2 Athanasius, De. Inc. 33.44.
page 119 note 3 De. Res. Carn. 20.
page 120 note 1 Con. Cel. 1.50.
page 120 note 2 Or., Com. Jn. 10.17.
page 120 note 3 Con. Cel. 2.37.
page 121 note 1 Tert., Adv. Jud. 14; Apologetic, 21. Cf. Or., Con. Cel. 1.56, 2.29, Lact., Div. Inst. 4.16.
page 121 note 2 Roc. Clem. 1.49.
page 122 note 1 This is true within the New Testament itself e.g. Zech. 12.10 in John 19.37 and Rev. 1.7. Cf. also Dan. 7.13, which is normally used as a testimony of the second advent, but is used also (Lact., Div. Inst. 4.21) as a testimony of the ascension. There also appears to have been a certain hesitancy as to whether Elijah wasb to be forerunner of the first or second advent; the answer of the fathers is that there was to be a forerunner of the first advent in the spirit and power of Elijah and of the second in the person of Elijah (Justin, Dial. Trypho. 49).
page 123 note 1 e.g. The Trinitarian interpretation of Gen. 1.26 is wholeheartedly accepted by Wordsworth in his Commentary in loc. (1866). For more recent writers, cf. Wilhelm Vischer on Jacob's wrestling ‘without the slightest contradiction this man was not an angel, but our Lord Jesus, who is the eternal God and yet was to become a man whom the Jews would crucify’ (cited by Rowley, H. H., Unity of the Bible, p. 19, n.)Google Scholar. Also Knight, , A Biblical Approach to the Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 28Google Scholar: ‘It was the Holy Spirit that led the Hebrews to think in terms of angels, even if angels are but a parable of the truth that lies behind them; for the truth that lies behind them is that God is indeed a communion within Himself, an organism, a Trinity.’
page 123 note 2 Tert., Apologetic. 21, Adv. Prax. 31.
page 124 note 1 Tert., Adv. Jud. 5.
page 124 note 2 Conflict of Church and Synagogue, pp. 96 ff.
page 125 note 1 Hom, in Gen. 12.1.
page 125 note 2 Nov. De Trin. 26.
page 125 note 3 Nov. De Trin. 21.
page 125 note 4 Or., De Princ. II. 6.4, 6: IV. 1.31.
page 125 note 5 Tert., De Carn. Christ. 21.
page 126 note 1 Ath. Or., Adv. Ar. 2.18–82; for his inconsistency compare sections 44 and 78.
page 126 note 2 Council of Sirmium: Anathemas 14–17. The texts in question are Gen. 1.26, the appearance to Abraham (Gen. 18), the wrestling with Jacob (Gen. 32) and Gen. 19.24.
page 126 note 3 Cf. the judgment of Dr Parkes in: H. Loewe, Judaism and Christianity, p. 142. He allows to this stimulus one good result—a more accurate knowledge of the text than would in all probability have been our lot without it.