Mark 3: Now, we have discussed several of these Fathers before, but Tertullian, Origen (who you had quoted as ambivalent on the identity of "all Israel"), Ambrose, Prosper, Cassiodorus, Preniasus, and Isidore are new additions to the list. The only one of these quotes I could find on line was Tertullian -- the earliest witness to this tradition:

"Christ is the proper and legitimate High Priest of God. He is the Pontiff of the priesthood of the uncircumcision, constituted such, even then, for the Gentiles, by whom He was to be more fully received, although at His last coming He will favour with His acceptance and blessing the circumcision also, even the race of Abraham, which by and by is to acknowledge Him." Tertullian, L. V, contra Marcion, Chap.IX

It is significant that Tertullian writes about this in his critique of the Marcionites, who attempted to throw out the Old Testament on the grounds that the Jewish religion was utterly worthless to Christians. Tertullian argues at length how a knowledge of Jewish law, traditions, liturgy, and Scriptures are essential as witness to Christian truth.

R. Sungenis 3: Correction, the Marcionites attempted to throw out the Old Testament, not the "Jewish religion." The Jewish religion was already thrown out. The Marcionites believed that the OT served no useful purpose for the Christian Church, but the Church retorted that the OT contained valuable principles for the Christian life, namely, the Ten Commandments. As for Tertullian, if he limits the favoring to the last coming, then he is wrong, since no one will be saved at Christ's second coming, for at that time, salvation is over. Moreover, he is also wrong if he limits the favoring to the future, since Luke 1:68-79; Acts 2:16-21; 15:16-18 all say the favoring occurred at the first coming of Christ. The whole point of Paul's argument in Romans 11:1-2 is that "God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew," since God saved Paul and is still saving a remnant of Jews today just as He did in the OT, which is precisely what Paul says in Romans 11:3-5.

Mark 3: There is a fuller version of the quote from Cyril of Alexandria, which we already had seen, that makes its importance even more explicit:

'Towards the end of time, Our Lord Jesus Christ will effect the reconciliation of His former persecutor Israel with Himself. Everybody who knows Holy Scripture is aware that, in the course of time, this people will return to the love of Christ by the submission of faith ... Yes, one day, after the conversion of the Gentiles, Israel will be converted, and the Jews will be astonished at the treasure they will find in Christ.'

It would be interesting to go back and dig up these other quotes (and the references in the other lists from Cornelius a Lapide, etc.), but the fact is there are many patristic witnesses to this tradition, and a significant number to the return of Elijah tradition as well.

R. Sungenis 3: "Everybody who knows Holy Scripture"? Then why was the "everyone" so equivocal as to how it was going to occur? Why was did this "everyone" refer to no apostolic-patristic consensus that had such a view? What "Scripture" did this "everyone" rely on to give them such dogmatism, other than the somewhat obscure passage in Romans 11:25-26 and Malachi 4:2 (which we already saw had no consensus of interpretation among them)?

Mark 3: Here, however, is the kicker. Lemann's work is quoted by a priest who you yourself have quoted as "the expert on Catholic/Jewish relations" and "a man who was totally dedicated to our Catholic traditions," Fr. Dennis Fahey in The Kingship of Christ and The Conversion of The Jewish Nation.

Fr. Fahey concludes his citation of these sources with this:

"The conversion of the Jewish people to the True Supernatural Messias is, therefore, certain, in spite of the overwhelming evidence of uncompromising hostility to Him on their part at the present time. Their conversion will be a glorious triumph for the Immaculate Heart of Mary. It will be a special source of exultation for Her, when Her own people will at last acclaim Her Divine Son as their King and welcome as their Queen Her who is their Sister according to the flesh, and who so ardently desires to be their Mother according to the Divine Life of Grace. She will then be able to pour forth anew the heartfelt thanksgiving of Her Magnificat: 'He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy: as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever.'"

Now, I strongly disagree with Fr. Fahey on many points. I think his conflation of Orthodox Judaism with Masonic and socialist revolutionism in his notion of "Jewish naturalism" is grossly wrong. There is a huge difference between Orthodox Jews, living according to the Torah and Jewish tradition, and the many Jews who have left their faith for liberalism and secularism. Fahey sees them all as part of the same vast Hebraic conspiracy.

R. Sungenis 3: You'll be surprised to know that in reading Fr. Fahey's treatment of the conversion of Israel, it was at that time I began to do some serious investigation into this issue. I found that the majority of Fr. Fahey's patristic support was wanting. He had about a half dozen or so citations, but I didn't find them either convincing or representative of a unanimity. There were just too many conflicts and contradictions on their interpretations of the text in Romans 11. And again, if these witnesses are going to base their view of Israel's future on an exegesis of the text, then that exegesis better be thorough and exact, otherwise it is not worth the paper it is written on.

Mark 3: I agree with Hilaire Belloc on this point when he says, "We are asked to believe that this political upheaval [the Bolshevik revolution by which the Jews got control of Russia] was part of one highly organised plot centuries old the agents of which were millions of human beings all pledged to the destruction of our society and acting in complete discipline under a few leaders superhumanly wise. The thing is nonsense on the face of it. Men have no capacity for acting in this fashion . . . moreover the motive is completely lacking. Why merely destroy, and why, if your object is merely to destroy, manifest wide differences in your aims?... The conception of a vast age-long plot, culminating in the contemporary Russian affair, will not hold water."

However, there is no question that Fr. Fahey spent a great deal of time (some would suggest too much time) studying the Jewish question. He was one of the most negative Catholics of the twentieth century in his view of the Jews. And yet he was an ardent defender of the Church's traditional belief in the eventual conversion of the Jews at the last times.

Now let's go on again to the medievals. Mark: The 10th century French Abbot Adso wrote a treatise of the Antichrist that became very influential in the Middle Ages. In it he wrote:

"Lest the Antichrist come suddenly and without warning and deceive and destroy the whole human race by his error, before his arrival the two great prophets Enoch and Elijah will be sent into the world. They will defend God's faithful against the attack of the Antichrist with divine arms and will instruct, comfort, and prepare the elect for battle with three and a half years teaching and preaching. These two very great prophets and teachers will convert the sons of Israel who will live in that time to the faith, and they will make their belief unconquerable among the elect in the face of the affliction of so great a storm. At that time what scripture says will be fulfilled 'If the number of sons of Israel be like the sand of the sea, their remnant will be saved'."

R. Sungenis 2: The problem here, Mark, is that the abbot has misread the passage. There are only two passages in Scripture that have these elements, Isaiah 10:22 and Romans 9:27. Isaiah 10:22 reads: O Israel, may be like the sand of the sea, Only a remnant within them will return; A destruction is determined, overflowing with righteousness. Romans 9:27 quotes from Isaiah 10:22. But you'll notice that neither passage predicts a massive conversion of the Jews, but only what I've been saying all along -- that only a "remnant" will be saved.

Mark 3: This gets back to what I said earlier about a tension between "all Israel" meaning "all the Jews" or "a remnant of the Jewish nation" being saved at the end of time. I think the tradition is close to unanimous that this refers to future events, but is not as clear as to the scale of the future conversion. I have found several other important medieval passages that refer to a remnant of the Jews being saved in the end times.

R. Sungenis 3: Mark, it's a little bit more than a "tension." It is a massive contradiction. If "all Israel" means "all the remnant," then we can stop this discussion right here. Your job is to prove that "all Israel" means ALL Israel, both by patristic unanimity and exegesis of Scripture. If you can't, then you have conceded the argument between us, for then it would be the "remnant" by default, and you'll be in my corner.

Mark 2: St. Thomas Aquinas wrote a Commentary on Epistle to the Romans, in which he wrote: "The blindness of the Jews will endure until the fullness of the gentiles have accepted the faith. And this is in accord with what the Apostle says below about the salvation of the Jews, namely, that after the fullness of the nations have entered, 'all Israel will be saved', not individually as at present, but universally." He goes on to make it clear that he is referring here to "the conversion of the Jews at the end of the world."

R. Sungenis: Thomas has every right to his opinion, just as he did with the Immaculate Conception, but that fact is he offers no exegesis or patristic support for the idea of a "universal" conversion. In fact, he is the first to use the word "universal," and thus, it is quite unprecedented.

Mark 3: There is a big difference between St. Thomas' views on the Immaculate Conception, where he was not followed by the Church, and this issue where he is speaking consistently with what the Fathers and Doctors said before him and after him. I would agree that while many of the earlier quotes seemed to speak of generally all the Jews living at the end times, St. Thomas does appear to be the first to specify a universal conversion.

R. Sungenis 3: Well, this again proves that there is not a consensus of opinion, but a diversity of opinion. The whole issue revolves around whether it is universal or not universal.

Mark 2: Moving on to the Counter Reformation era, the great Jesuit apologist St. Robert Bellarmine writes in De Summo Pontifice (I, 3) about "the coming of Enoch and Elias, who live even now and shall live until they come to oppose Antichrist himself, and to preserve the elect in the faith of Christ, and in the end shall convert the Jews, and it is certain that this is not yet fulfilled."

R. Sungenis: First, if this concept is being based on Scripture, as most of them do in reference to Romans 11:25-26, then where is the Scripture that says Enoch is going to return to earth to convert the Jews? There is no such passage in Scripture. Enoch is mention only in Hebrews 11:5 and Jude 1:14 (outside of his OT references), but neither of them speak of him returning. Second, Bellarmine cites no Scripture, nor any patristic witness, to back up the claim.

The only place in Scripture that even remotely suggests something along these lines is Apocalypse 11:5-6, which reads: "And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire."

The problem with this, however, is that the passage does not specifically name Enoch or Elijah. Elijah is sometimes associated with the passage only because he once prayed that it would not rain in Israel (James 5:17-18). But Enoch is not even alluded to, since there is no such action he performed during his lifetime. This is why Enoch is sometimes left out of the predictions (as is the case with Venerable Bede). The only other personage that could fill the description is Moses, since Exodus records him as turning water into blood, yet curiously, none of the aforementioned interpreters mention Moses as a possibility, even though he fits the description better than Enoch.

So what you have, Mark, is a confusing assortment of ideas, with little, if any, Scriptural backing, and that from the very people who claim to be getting their ideas from Scripture, not Tradition. In addition, the Apocalypse is a highly symbolic treatise, especially Chapter 11, of which many exegetes have seen as a symbolic representation of the Church preaching the gospel during the New Testament era, signified by the "two-by-two" formula used in the passage (cf., Mark 6:7; Luke 10:1; 2 Cor 13:1; Eph 2:15; 1 Cor 14:29).

Mark 3: Whether Enoch and Elijah are the "two witnesses" is a bit of a side issue. There is fairly universal consensus that Elijah is one of the. The scriptural basis for this is that Hebrews 9:27 says it is appointed for all men once to die. The only men who never died in Scripture are Elijah and Enoch. Enoch was known as a prophet of the Apocalypse, and Jude 1:14 quotes from the apocryphal Book of Enoch, "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, behold the LORD cometh with ten thousands of his saints." So, it would not be surprising to see Enoch return in an end times context. The apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (4th century) has Enoch say the following: "I am Enoch who pleased God, and was translated by him. And this is Elijah the Tishbite. We are also to live to the end of the age; but then we are about to be sent by God to resist Antichrist, and be slain by him, and to rise after three days, and to be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord." While of course this is not canonical, this does show that the early Church saw Enoch and Elijah reflected in this passage.

I will admit that the Fathers are reading Elijah and Enoch in to their understanding of these passages, but as I will argue below, this searching for symbolic meanings is essential to the Catholic understanding of Scripture.

R. Sungenis 3: I guess the old saying is true that one man's treasure is another man's trash. The treasure you see is that some of them at least think Elijah might return. The trash is that they aren't sure Elijah will come (as Ott agrees), nor that Enoch will be with him. So again, Mark, we don't have any solid evidence, but we do have a lot of speculation. Interpretation of prophecy is filled with it, so I'm not surprised to see it here.

Mark 2: Writing on Matthew 17:11-12 ("Elijah does come, and he is to restore all things; but I tell you that Elijah has already come, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they pleased. So also the Son of man will suffer at their hands."), Lapide says that Elias will: "Restore all things: that is, convert the Jews to Christ as the Messiah promised to themselves and there forefathers."

He goes on to say that: "Falsely do the Calvinists refer all these things to the first Advent of Christ, and explain both mentions of Elias -- viz., in verses 11 and 12 -- to mean John the Baptist. For they think that Elias, whom Malachi predicted shall come as the precursor of Christ (Mal. 4:5), is John the Baptist, and there is no other who shall come with Enoch before Christ's second Advent.'"

R. Sungenis 2: If that is the case, Mark, then why would Ott say that such a view was erroneous?

Mark 3: Ott doesn't say this view is erroneous, just not sufficiently proven. Clearly, by 1952 in Germany, even in orthodox Catholic circles, the taste for symbolic, prophetic interpretations of Scripture had diminished. Lapide might well have accused Ott of following Calvinist error (at least in this one instance).

R. Sungenis 3: No, he does not say "sufficiently proven," rather, "without sufficient foundation," which means that those who propose it have little basis for doing so, and I agree, for the same reasons Ott lists.

Mark 2: Writing on Matthew 23:37-39 ("O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.'"), Lapide writes:

"It is possible that this passage may be understood of the Jews, who about the end of the world shall be converted to Christ by the preaching of Elias, and who, when He shall presently come to judgment, will acknowledge Him to be the Messiah, the Blessed of the Lord."

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