CHRISTIANITY AND THE ASIAN HEBRAIC HERITAGE
Keywords:
Asian Christianity, II Vatican Council, Ressourcement, Unity and solidarity of humanity, Hebraic roots, Election, Covenants, Church, Eastern Churches, Children of Abraham, Corporate Personality, Interpretation of scripture and tradition, Law, worship, PatriarchsAbstract
II Vatican Council rediscovered the sacramental nature of the Church and her mission as the universal sacrament of salvation. The unity and solidarity of humanity in Adam and Christ is a foundational vision of Christian salvation. Church needs to gather her resources in order to update herself and revitalize herself for serving the whole humanity. In the spirit of ressourcement and revitalization she needs the resourcing from the common bond between Christianity and the Jewish Hebraic heritages. It is ‘intrinsic’ to her life and mission and the resourcing from the Hebraic roots and elements in Christianity brings into focus many
apostolic traditions and usages of the Eastern Churches in the Asian scenario. St Paul has interpreted the powerful bond between the Jewish world and that of Christianity through the metaphor of the grafting of ‘wild olive branches to the cultivated olive’ in Romans 11:17-18. The Hebrew treasures are identified in the letter to the Romans 9:4-5, as election, promises, covenants, the law and the worship that were all culturally and geographically bound to the Asian realities. ‘Gentiles’ are also called to inherit those treasures by becoming ‘children of Abraham’ through faith. The Church of Christ thus subsists on the ideals of faith and obedience of Abraham which became fulfilled in the perfect obedience of Christ. St Ephrem explains this continuity of the economy of salvation from Abraham and his progeny through Christ by way of faith and obedience. Thus the authentic Church is formed from all peoples as a new ‘People from the peoples’ in which the ‘nation’ (Israel) and the ‘nations’ (‘gentiles’) have equal access through faith. The fact of ‘continuity in tradition’ is well depicted in the history of salvation through the abiding biblical vision of faith and obedience.
References
Avery Dulles, “Vatican II: The Myth and the Reality,” America (Feb. 24, 2003).
H. Wheeler Robinson, Corporate Personality in Ancient Israel, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980 (Revised Edition).
John Paul II (discourse in the Synagogue of Rome, 13-4-1986), AAS 78 (1986).
Khaled Anatolios, “The Decree on the Eastern Catholic Churches, Orientalium Ecclesiarum,” in Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering, ed., Vatican II, Renewal within Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Marwin R. Wilson, Exploring Our Hebraic Heritage: A Christian Theology of Roots and Renewal, Michigan: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2014.
Pope Benedict XVI (Josef Cardinal Ratzinger), “A Proper Hermeneutic for the Second Vatican Council,” in Matthew L. Lamb and Matthew Levering (ed.), Vatican II, Renewal Within Tradition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
Pope St John Paul II, Ecclesia in Asia, 1 (Post Synodal Apostolic Exhortation, given on 6 November, 1999).
Pope St John XXIII, Gaudet Mater Ecclesia The Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, 86, Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church, Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993.
The Pontifical Biblical Commission, The Jewish People and their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible, Vatican City: Libreria Editirice Vaticana, 2002.
