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Catechesis and language - Three New Word-images
Carmine Di Sante
Language not only transmits information about reality, it also creates the precise mechanism whereby it is perceived, selected, organized and verified. Many, thanks to the knowledge acquired through the scientific study of language, like to say that words do more than just reflect thought, they are an integral part of its birth and articulation.
This methodological observation holds good for all language, but particularly for the language used by preachers and catechists. This language, which has to speak continually — and it cannot do otherwise — of "Jews" and "Judaism", is not limited to the transmission of objective "facts". Inevitably it gives a clue to the understanding of the text and encourages those partisan interpretations which, taken literally, give rise to ambiguity and prejudice. I: is in order to help towards the elimination of such ambiguities and prejudices that the Holy See has addressed the Notes primarily to those responsible for preaching and catechesis.
To give a "correct presentation of Jews and Judaism", as the title expressly states, certainly does not depend on language alone, but also on a change of mentality and, even more, on a courageous new expression of many knotty theological problems, especially in dogma and Christology. However, even if everything does not depend on language, most certainly much does depend on it, especially in the way images are used both in the acquisition and transmission of knowledge. We arc going to look briefly at three images which could be used by preachers and catechists to speak of Jews and Judaism. not only with greater accuracy but also .in a richer and more productive way.
The first image is that of foundations/building, which should be used to portray the relationship between the Old and New Testaments. It should be noted that the expression "Old Testament" is very equivocal and these same Notes are careful to state precisely, in a footnote (11.1) that "'Old' does not mean "out of date' or -outworn" and also that it has "a permanent value... as a source of Revelation". The more common and traditional image used in both preaching and catechesis to portray the relationship between the Old and New Testaments is that of shadow/ reality, an image which transmits only too easily the idea of "out of date" and "outworn" and in no way that of "permanent value". The new image of foundations/building has the advantage of eliminating this ambiguity and helps to show the "permanent value" spoken of in the Vatican text. In fact, the foundations of a building are not only never "out of date" nor "outworn", they have permanent validity, since the building cannot exist without them. By using this image the Old Testament is not only not devalued, as it is in the shadow/reality image, but it is given the highest possible value for what it actually is, and what it must be: the beginning, the "ache", the fountainhead, without which the New Testament would be unable to exist. Moreover this image helps towards a more positive understanding of the same typology (which takes up most of the second paragraph in the Vatican text), presenting it, not as a completion of an incomplete reality but, on the contrary, as the transmission to the present of a reality given in the past, i.e. the reality of the love of a God who both gives himself and gives life.
The second image is that of root/tree, which should he used to represent the relationship between Synagogue and Church. Paul himself uses it in Rom 11:17-24 when he refers to Christians of pagan origin as "branches of the wild olive" which are grafted on to the "root of the cultivated olive tree", the Jewish people (cf. Nostra Ablate 4). Unfortunately this image, which unites inseparably the people of the First Covenant and the people of the Second Covenant, has not been developed in the history of Christianity and another image has been preferred, the dualistic one of separation and rupture, which is used to declare the end of Israel as a community of faith and her present non-existence. Here also the image of root/tree, far from annulling the reality of Israel, the people of God, affirms its freshness and vitality, the same qualities brought by water to the tree.
The third image is that of city/citizenship; this also should be used to represent the relationship between the Jewish and Christian peoples. Paul uses it in Eph 2:11 when he says:
"Remember that at one time you Gentiles... separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise... now in Christ Jesus you... have been brought near."
The metaphor used by the apostle is clear: Israel is the city into which the Church enters, assuming its citizenship. She enters this city as a guest, to sit at table "with Abraham" (Mt 8:11). Like the preceding images this one, instead of transmitting ideas of contrast and competition, passes on feelings and concepts which are positive, expressive of complementarity and brotherliness.
All the images reflect the mind and heart of the one who expresses himself in them and speaks through them. These images are only three examples among many which demonstrate and transmit the changed attitude of the Church in relation to Judaism, both "linked together at the very level of their identity" (I.1).
Carmine Di Sante is theological consultant and librarian, SIDIC Center, Rome.
