Israel and Its “Mystery” in St. Thomas Aquinas’ and Martin Luther’s Commentaries to the Epistle to the Romans

Abstract

Beginning with the second century AD, there has developed an understanding of the role of the Old Testament in the life of the Church and its theology in which Jews who reject Jesus no longer have a positive role in subsequent salvation history as the Church has taken over all the prerogatives of ancient Israel. In the Middle Ages, summas of systematic theology did not contain comprehensive thinking about the Church. At the same time, they do not include teachings about the role of Israel and the Jews in salvation history after Christ in their theological system. In theology, the problem of the identity of the Church appeared only at the end of the Middle Ages due to its crisis. Two complete commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans by St. Thomas Aquinas (from 1273) and Martin Luther (1518), authors who played a colossal role in the history of European thought, give us insight into the understanding of Israel and its “mystery.” We analyze how this topic is conceptualized in the eleventh chapter of the epistle. Despite the difference in each author’s approach, we can see how this topic weighs on tradition in the interpretation of this book, relegated the topic of the mystery of Israel, which rankled St. Paul and was in his view important for all of Christ’s disciples, to the margins of Christian thought.