As for the "sequential" issue, I also beg to differ with you, for I DO see it as sequential. "All Israel" will not be saved until the fulness of the Gentiles comes in. The saving of "all Israel" will not happen, sequentially, until the fulness of the Gentiles comes in. Regardless of whether there are Jews being saved now, the fact is, I am abiding by the grammar of Romans 11:25-26.

As for Ott, if you read it carefully, Mark, he says nothing different than what I just said above. He is careful not to elaborate on what Romans 11:25-26 actually means. All he does is quote the verse and then put a disclaimer on the end saying that a morally universal conversion is in question. There is simply nothing for you to go on here.

R. Sungenis 2: Third, let's look at what Ott says about your Elijah theory. He writes:

"The conversion of the Jewish people is frequently brought into a causal connection with the coming-again of Elias, BUT WITHOUT SUFFICIENT FOUNDATION. The Prophet Malachy announces: 'Behold, I will send you Elias the Prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers: lest I come, and strike the earth with anathema.' Jewry understood the passage as referring to a physical coming-again of Elias (Ecclus 48:10) but erroneously placed it in the beginning of the Messianic era, and saw in Elias a precursor of the Messiah (John 1:21; Mt 16:14). Jesus confirms the coming of Elias, but refers it to the appearance of John the Baptist; of whom the Angel had foretold that he would go before the Lord, that is, God in the spirit and in the power of Elias (Luke 1:17): 'He (John) is Elias, who (according to the prophecy of the Prophet) is to come' (Mt 11:14). 'But I say to you that Elias is already come: and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they had a mind (Mt 17:12; Mk 9:13). JESUS DOES NOT SPEAK EXPLICITLY OF A FUTURE COMING OF ELIAS BEFORE THE GENERAL JUDGMENT, PROBABLY NOT EVEN IN MT 17:11 ('Elias indeed shall come and restore all things'), in which the prophecy of Malachias is simply reproduced. JESUS SEE IT ALREADY FULFILLED IN THE APPEARANCE OF JOHN THE BAPTIST (Mt. 17:12)."

As you can see, Mark, Ott agrees with my position. Obviously, Ott is aware of the few Fathers that said Elijah would come in the future, but he dismisses them as without sufficient foundation," as I do. Ott agrees that Jesus did not teach it either, but insists that Jesus taught that Elijah came figuratively in the person is John the Baptist.

Mark 3: I wouldn't say that Ott agrees with your position entirely. He simply says that the contrary (traditional) interpretation is not proven. He says that the return of Elijah theory is "without sufficient foundation," and asserts that Jesus does not "explicitly" speak of a future coming of Elijah, "probably not even in Matt. 17:11." It seems to me that he leaves the Elijah theory as open, but not proven, and not as central to the tradition as what he has already asserted: that there will be an end times conversion of the Jews.

R. Sungenis 3: Of course. I leave the Elijah theory "open," too, but that doesn't mean I teach with certainty, as I see some Catholics doing today, that Elijah WILL return to convert the Jews sometime in the future. Moreover, if Ott is leaning in any direction on this issue it is certainly not in entertaining the idea that Elijah will return bodily in the future. That to him is more of a Jewish myth than a Christian truth.

Mark: The Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, edited by Dom Bernard Orchard, 1953, says of Romans 11:25-32: "From the present, (verses) 1-24, St. Paul turns his attention to the future. The time will come when the present problem of Israel's exclusion from the salvation of the Messias will cease to exist because of her conversion, which will follow the conversion of the Gentiles. The final conversion of Israel could not be known to St. Paul from any natural source.'" It then goes on to argue that St. Paul deduces the "final conversion of Israel" from the permanence of God's promises and prophecies, which promise the eventual salvation of Israel.

R. Sungenis 2: Again, we have the same problem. Orchard offers no exegesis of the very passage he is citing. He, as other commentators on this passage do without sufficient study, merely proof-text the passage, thinking that a mere citation of it proves their point. As I told John Pacheco, Orchard did not not address the Greek text of Romans 11, and thus he was oblivious to the fact that the passage could be saying the very opposite of what he claims it says. Until you offer a commentary that delves into the exegetical issues regarding Romans 11, then citing them really doesn't offer any persuasive evidence.

Mark 3: I hadn't read, or hadn't noticed, John P's earlier citation of Orchard in your debate, as I was focusing on your assertions about the Fathers, so I am coming anew to this issue. Reading your previous dialogue, I realize that you went beyond saying that Orchard didn't offer exegesis of the passage to asserting that he was incapable of doing so, saying "The quote you have from Dom Orchard misses this, of course, since he didn't know Greek," and, regarding the issue of whether a definitive marker of the future tense is necessary in v. 27, Orchard would not be able to catch this."

Now this is absurd! Dom Bernard Orchard is one of the most important Catholic New Testament scholars of the 20th century. Among his many works are "A Synopsis of the Four Gospels in Greek." You couldn't even get a good degree from an English university without a good knowledge of Greek back when Dom Orchard started his career -- let alone become the leading Catholic Biblical scholar.

I suggest that the reason that there is no detailed exegesis of this passage is that he did not think that the standard Catholic interpretation (first, the coming in of the fullness of the Gentiles, then, the conversion of the Jews) was in need of any defence in a commentary intended for a fairly general audience of priests and educated laity.

R. Sungenis 3: Wishful thinking, Mark. As you can see from the information provided to you previously that the contextual and grammatical issues permeate the exegesis of Romans 11, it is simply unconscionable that a modern exegete could propose an interpretation of Romans 11 without recourse to the Greek grammar and context. If Orchard had a working knowledge of Greek, then it was his responsibility to apply that knowledge to Romans 11, for without it, he leaves himself wide open to refutation. A matter as simple as whether the Greek achri hou continues the action of the main verb or terminates it is absolutely essential in determining the meaning of Romans 11:25-26, and without acknowledging that Greek variable, no one has any business offering an interpretation of the passage. I find it interesting that Catholics appreciate it is pointed out that the Greek grammar of heos hou in Matthew 1:25 can easily be interpreted to continue the action of the main verb, thereby saving Mary's perpetual virginity, yet, because they have a pet belief in the future restoration of Israel, they don't like it when it is pointed out that the very same adverbial construction as that of Matthew 1:25 would make their conclusions somewhat less than dogmatic.

Mark: The more I search the Fathers, the broader the consensus seems to be. To add to the Augustine and Chrysostom quotes I found earlier, here are a few more:

Pope St. Gregory the Great, Moralia in Iob (Preface, X, 20):

"After the loss of Job's possessions, after all his bereavements, after all the suffering of his wounds, after all his angry debates, it is good that he is consoled by twofold repayment. In just this way does the holy church, while it is still in this world, receive twofold reward for the trials it sustains, when all the gentile nations have been brought into its midst, at the end of time, and the church converts even the hearts of the Jews to its cause. Thus it is written, 'Until the fulness of nations enters and so all Israel is saved.'"

R. Sungenis 2: Again, Mark, this is vague at best. First, you'll notice that Gregory does not cite any earlier patristic witness. In order for a massive conversion of Jews at the end of time to be the abiding view of the Church, there would have had to be an apostolic teaching that such was the case. As it stands, none of the early Fathers speak of such a massive conversion in the distant future, let alone say they received such teaching from the apostles.

Second, Gregory offers no exegesis of the crucial phrases in the Romans 11 text (e.g., "fullness of the Gentiles," "so all Israel is saved").

Third, Gregory does not specify a massive conversion of Jews, and thus there is nothing that departs from the stipulation in Romans 11 that a "remnant" of Jews will be saved, either now or in the future.

Mark 3: Gregory didn't need to cite earlier witnesses because this was so well known. It is featured prominently in St. Augustine's City of God, one of the most widely read books in Latin Christendom, where it is already referred to as a common belief among the faithful. He offers no exegesis because, again, he didn't feel he had to (and, as I will discuss below, modern scientific exegesis, textual criticism, etc. was unknown to the Fathers).

R. Sungenis 3: Again, we are not looking for the popularity of the belief, but the patristic consensus and unanimity of the Fathers. There is none, and Augustine doesn't point to any. As for your statement that "he offers no exegesis because he didn't fell he had to," is presumptuous and gratuitous, Mark. Not only did Augustine equivocate on this very issue (as I pointed out before), but when he wanted to argue a point and was certain of his position, he spared no "exegesis" or reasoning from the text. You don't catch Augustine "proof-texting" when he wants to drive home a point, but proof-texting is certainly what he does in some instances with Enoch and Romans 11. The reason is plain. There is simply little information to extract from Scripture on this very complicated topic, as is the case with most prophecy. Moreover, Augustine didn't know Greek or Hebrew. He didn't have a reading knowledge of Greek until he was an old man, but by then most of his material had been written, except for the treatises on Predestination.

Mark 3: I do think you make a valid third point, however. There is a tension between the suggestion that "a remnant" will be saved and "all Israel" will be saved. Is "all Israel" all the Jews living in the end times, or simply a remnant -- presumably a large, significant group, but not necessarily the entire Jewish people? This is why Ott says that there is a "question" about a morally universal conversion. Some texts refer to a universal conversion of the Jews, but other important texts refer to a remnant being saved in the last days.

R. Sungenis 3: Well, you're just proving my point. For them to equivocate on such a major point just shows that there was no consensus, and that a major difficulty with the context of Romans 11 was never sufficiently overcome. Of course, I would have little argument with the "remnant" interpretation, for to argue against it would defeat my whole purpose. But it is not so easy for you, for if you reject the "remnant" interpretation, then, in being required to be faithful to the meaning of "all" in the phrase "all Israel," would require you to interpret it as referring to every last Jew in the future conversion you envision. My interpretation is faithful to the word "all," since I say that "all Israel" refers to all the people of Israel who will have been saved from Abraham to the end of time. Hence, if I really wanted to press the issue with the futurists, the very same futurists who insist that the interpretation of Romans 11:25-26 means that "all Israel" can only refer to a group of Jews at the end of time, then I will be just as persnickety about their interpretation of the word "all." If they say that it really doesn't have to refer to every Jew of the future, then their interpretation can be dismissed out of hand.

R. Sungenis 2: My contention is that your view actually LIMITS the salvation of the Jews, since your view is so fixated on a mass future conversion that you minimize the salvation of the Jews in the present time and since Pentecost. Your view is that God is not already doing a work among the Jews, but is reserving that for some obscure moment at the end of time. But, as the passages from Luke and other citations show, that is not what the New Testament predicts. All those passages speak of God coming to the Jews at the First Coming of Christ, and that is why 3,000 Jews and Gentiles converted on Pentecost Day, in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy that God would send the Redeemer to them from Zion, as I pointed out in Luke 1:68-79. On the other hand, you have no passage, other than your personal interpretation of Romans 11:25-26, to support your claim of a massive conversion in the future, a passage that not even the person you cited (Ott) sees as proof.

Mark 3: I disagree with this. There have always been Jewish converts to the faith. In recent times, one thinks of St. Edith Stein, former chief rabbi of Rome Eugenio Zolli, doctor and writer Karl Stern, Cardinal Lustiger, author Rhonda Chervin, columnist Robert Novak, former abortionist turned pro-life leader Dr. Bernard Nathanson, etc. Of course God is doing a work among the Jews. But the fact is, Jewish conversions have always been a trickle, not a flood. There has never been a mass conversion of the Jewish people as there was of the Roman Empire, the Franks, the Irish, the English, the Germans, the Goans, the Filipinos, etc. It is passing strange that the people who have been most prepared for the Gospel, heirs of over 1000 years of prophecy pointing towards it, have been among the least receptive to it. What Scripture and Tradition tell us is that this is deliberately the case. God has hardened the hearts of the Jewish people, in part for their rejection of Christ, but also in part because the continued existence of the Jewish people and faith is a witness to many of the truths of Christianity, and because of God's plan of ultimate redemption for the Jewish nation at the end of time. This doesn't mean that we shouldn't encourage Jewish conversion, but that we shouldn't necessarily expect it on a large scale, and certainly shouldn't coerce it. The continued existence of Judaism is part of God's plan of salvation, something which is not the case for any other religion.

R. Sungenis 3: I beg to differ, Mark. Judaism, if you really want to be honest about what it believes of Christianity, is not "part of God's plan of salvation," no more than Islam, being 1,500 hundred years old is part of God's plan of salvation. As for the "trickle" concept, there was always a trickle of true believers in Jewry. There never were large masses who followed God, even in their glory years. Only two from Egypt entered the land of Canaan, yet there were more than a million who left Egypt. The Judges period was marked by continued unfaithfulness. Except for David, Josiah and Hezekiah, all of Israel and Judah's 43 kings had severe problems, two-thirds of them being declared "evil in the sight of the Lord." In Elijah's time there were only 7,000, out of a nation of about 10 million, who didn't bow the knee to Baal. So, if we base what we see today on precedent, there is really no change. Jews are being saved, but it is still a trickle, and that is because, as God said himself, they are a "stiffnecked" people. It was the very reason he rejected them nationally.

Mark: Now, before going on the Medievals, I have to note that the statements you made regarding the view of the fathers were quite unequivocal. "The consensus among the early Fathers is that there is no divinely mandated future glory for national Israel" I agree that there is no divinely predicted glory for a future state of Israel, but there is assuredly a consensus prediction of the conversion of the Jews. You say, "There are only a few personalities who even address the issue of Israel in the future," and quote seven, adding "only two Fathers hold out for any future large restoration of faith in Israel." This suggests that you have searched long and hard to see what the Fathers have had to say about this topic, and found only a few quotes, mostly arguing against a future conversion.

Yet with just a little bit of searching around, I have found four more quotes you had missed. (Indeed, I found several others, but not as directly pertinent as the ones I have given).

R. Sungenis 2: Mark, in reality, this is what you have found: (1) two commentators, one of which disagrees with your view of Elijah and reserves a universal conversion of Jews as a "question," while the other commentator offers no exegesis of Romans 11 to support his conclusion. (2) You offered the view of Chrysostom, which as I said in my last view, bases his conclusion on a uninspired translation of Malachi 4:5, as does John Damascene, and both of which go against Jerome's translation. (3) You offered Gregory, but as you can see, he does not offer any patristic support or Scriptural exegesis to back up his view. (4) You offered Augustine, but at best Augustine's view is equivocal, since he says opposite things in different places. Even Augustine does not cite patristic witness to support even his more positive statements, and even his positive statement lends itself to being interpreted in more than one way.

Further, even if I were to accept Augustine, Chrysostom, Gregory and John Damascene as witnesses, this DOES NOT represent a "consensus" of Fathers. A "consensus" of Fathers is the "unanimous consent of the Fathers." It means that, except for a few detractors, ALL the Fathers took the same view. Pope Leo XIII taught in Providentissimus Deus that, unless the Fathers all took the same view, we were not bound to accept them. For example, most of the Fathers took the view that the "Sons of God" in Genesis 6 were angels who had sex with women. Alexander of Alexandria, Chrysostom and Augustine disagreed, and said that it referred to the godly line of Seth. Although in the minority, the view opting for "godly line of Seth" is the one most accepted by the Church today.

Mark 3: The point is, even if it is not a total consensus, which would be a sign of infallible teaching, there is a strong patristic tendency to interpret Romans 11:25-27 as implying a future conversion of the Jews. You has argued that there was a consensus against this view, which there clearly is not. Since my last reply, John Loughnan pointed me towards a whole series of additional patristic quotes in favour of this view. Fr. Augustin Lemann, himself a Jewish convert of the late 19th century, records, in addition to St. Augustine, the following patristic witnesses to this tradition: Tertullian, L. V, contra Marcion, Chap.IX ; Origen, Sixth Homily on the Book of Numbers, towards the end. St. Hilary, Commentary on Psalm 58 ; St. Ambrose, Book about the Patriarch Joseph. St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chap. XI; St. Jerome, Commentary on Micheas, Chap. II; Commentary on Malachias, Chap. III, etc.; St Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on Genesis, Book, V, etc.; St. Prosper of Aquitaine, The Calling of the Gentiles, Book I, Chap. XXI. Cassiodorus, Commentary on Psalm 102; Preniasius, Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, Chap.XI. St. Gregory the Great, Liber Moralium, lib. II, etc.; St. Isidore, Book about the Calling of the Gentiles, Chap. V.

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