Israel and the Church in the Exegetical Writings of Hippolytus

I. "The Covenant Is Theirs and Ours"

In one of its many polemical passages, the Epistle of Barnabas argues strenuously against "some people," apparently Christians, who claim that both Jews and Christians enjoy a covenantal relationship with the God of Israel:

I am asking you this as one who is from among you and who loves each and every one of you more than my own soul: watch yourselves now and do not become like some people [τινες] by piling up your sins, saying that the covenant is theirs and ours [ἡ διαθήκη ἐκείνων καὶ ἡμῶν]. It is ours [ἡμῶν μέν]! As for them, they permanently lost it in this way, when Moses had just received it.

(Barn. 4:6-7)¹

The author goes on to describe the sin of the golden calf (Exodus 32) as the decisive moment of apostasy in which Israel lost its portion in the divine covenant. This identification of the golden calf incident as the turning point in Israel's history of damnation quickly became a commonplace among Christian writers,² who sometimes joined it to the notion that the ritual commandments of the law were a divine punishment for this apostasy.³ For Barnabas and most of these later writers, the true covenant belongs solely to the Christians.

But not all Christians agreed. Indeed, the passage quoted above makes it plain that its author knows of, and is upset by, Christian opponents who hold a contrary opinion, namely, that the covenant belongs to both Christians and Jews. Barnabas considers these Christian opponents to be especially dangerous because their ideas may be contagious: "Watch yourselves now and do not become like some people." Indeed, Reidar Hvalvik argues convincingly that this question of the ownership of the covenant is the central concern of the epistle.⁴ It was probably such a live issue because of the influence in Barnabas's environment either of Jewish Christians, who as a result of their dual identity had a vested interest in the covenantal claims of both communities, of non-Christian Jews, or of both.⁵ But do we see evidence elsewhere in the early church for the sort of inclusive theology that Barnabas disputes?

The evidence is scarce. Most of the Christians we know about from the early centuries concur with Barnabas that Israel has lost its status as God's covenant people and has been replaced by the church. This loss is usually connected with the Jews' rejection of Jesus, but the latter is frequently seen as confirming the resistance to God that Israel had displayed already during the exodus and later OT times (see, e.g., Matt 23:29-39; Origen, Cels. 2.74). This theology of Christian replacement of Judaism, of course, has deep roots in the NT, including the Gospels (e.g., Matt 21:33-43; 23:34-39; John 12:37-43), Acts (13:46; 18:6; 28:25-28), Revelation (2:9; 3:9), and the epistles of Paul (e.g., Rom 2:17-29; 9:6-33; Gal 4:21-31). To be sure, elsewhere in Paul's letter to the Romans (e.g., 3:1-3; 4:11-12) he hints at a more inclusive approach, which reckons Israel of old still to be, in some sense, the people of God. Paul develops these hints more fully in the vital but elusive eleventh chapter, where he describes Gentile believers as having been grafted onto, that is, included in, the original stock of Israel (see also 9:1-5).⁶ But it is safe to say that it is the replacement theology rather than the inclusive one that forms the main line of approach in early Christian treatments of Israel.⁷

Some of the scant evidence for a more inclusive theology is indirect. As we have already seen, for example, the very vociferousness of Barnabas's denial that the covenant is both "ours" and "theirs" suggests that in his time and place—probably Alexandria or Syria in the reign of Nerva (96-98 C.E.) or Hadrian (130-32 C.E.)⁸—there was an influential group of Christians who were...