Are the Land Promises Annulled in Christ?

EDIT: I have added some additional quotes since the first time I wrote this. I may continue to expand this as I find more material.

A common Catholic theological position these days is that, since the land promises to Abraham are fulfilled in Christ, there is no literal promise of the Land of Canaan anymore. It is assumed furthermore that this is the historic Catholic position. While I do not wish here to adjudicate theologically who is correct, I do want to show that the ongoing promise of physical land is actually something which appears in the Catholic tradition.

As a brief disclaimer, I think it is important to clarify that the promise of land is not equivalent to Zionism. While the two are related, they are distinct. Neturei Karta and Satmar for example agree that there is a divine promise of the Land of Canaan to the Jewish people. Furthermore, many members of these groups live in Israel to connect with the holiness of the land. Nonetheless, they object to Zionism because they think it is forbidden for Jews to take sovereignty over the land before the time of the messiah. Likewise, on the other side Theodor Herzl and many other early Zionists were atheists, so evidently they did not believe God promised them the land. This Zionism was founded instead on modern ideas of nationalism. Of course, many others are Zionists because of the land promise, but a further demonstration would be necessary to move from a land promise to Zionism.

Additionally, I will not appear to early chiliasts here. While it is true that some early Fathers like St. Justin Martyr and St. Irenaeus thought Jesus would literally reign in Jerusalem for 1,000 years, this position was later rejected by the Church. This is quite different from a land promise within history though.

It is the case that not everyone in the tradition thought the physical land promise continued after Christ. For example, St. John Chrysostom argued based on Luke 21:24 that the Jews would never return to the land.

It was not my sole purpose to stitch shut the mouths of the Jews. I also was anxious to give you more extensive instruction in the teachings of the Church . Come now, and let me give you abundant proof that the temple will not be rebuilt and that the Jews will not return to their former way of life. In this way you will come to a clearer understanding of what the Apostles taught, and the Jews will be all the more convicted of acting in a godless way. As witness I shall produce not an angel, not an archangel, but the very Master of the whole world, our Lord Jesus Christ. When he came into Jerusalem and saw the temple, he said: "Jerusalem will be trodden down by many nations, until the times of many nations be fulfilled." [Luke 21:24]

By this he meant the years to come until the consummation of the world. And again, speaking to his disciples about the temple, he nude the threat that a stone would not remain upon a stone in that place until the time when it be destroyed. His threat was a prediction that the temple would come to a final devastation and completely disappear. (Against the Jews 5.1.6)

While, strictly speaking, Chrysostom’s argument is only about the temple, he argues it based on the Jerusalem being trodden by Gentiles until the “Times of the Gentiles” is fulfilled. As we will see below, this fulfillment is understood by other Fathers as something that happens within history rather than at its absolute end.

On the other hand, St. Augustine understands the land promise as continuing, not only at the very end of the world, but throughout all of history!

Certainly no one questions that only that land is meant which is called Canaan. But that saying, To you will I give it, and to your seed for ever, may move some, if by for ever they understand to eternity. But if in this passage they take for ever thus, as we firmly hold it means that the beginning of the world to come is to be ordered from the end of the present, there is still no difficulty, because, although the Israelites are expelled from Jerusalem, they still remain in other cities in the land of Canaan, and shall remain even to the end; and when that whole land is inhabited by Christians, they also are the very seed of Abraham. (City of God 16.21)

Augustine does not understand this in terms of sovereignty, but in terms of presence. The land promises are not annulled, but rather are expanded to include Christians, although not in a way exclusive of Jews. Jews still continue to dwell in the land in a literal fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.

Nonetheless, Augustine does think that the literal meaning of the land promises were fully realized in the Kingdom of Israel, unlike Maimonides and some dispensationalists who think the land promises were not fully realized and so there must be an additional Jewish kingdom to fulfill them.

And it was fulfilled through David, and Solomon his son, whose kingdom was extended over the whole promised space; for they subdued all those nations, and made them tributary. And thus, under those kings, the seed of Abraham was established in the land of promise according to the flesh, that is, in the land of Canaan, so that nothing yet remained to the complete fulfillment of that earthly promise of God, except that, so far as pertains to temporal prosperity, the Hebrew nation should remain in the same land by the succession of posterity in an unshaken state even to the end of this mortal age, if it obeyed the laws of the Lord its God. But since God knew it would not do this, He used His temporal punishments also for training His few faithful ones in it, and for giving needful warning to those who should afterwards be in all nations, in whom the other promise, revealed in the New Testament, was about to be fulfilled through the incarnation of Christ. (City of God 17.3)

Augustine’s expansion of the land promises to include Christians is to include Christians is actually commonly taken up in the tradition. For example, in his call for the first crusade, Pope Urban II emphasized the unique holiness of the land.

That land which as the Scripture says “floweth with milk and honey” was given by God into the possession of the children of Israel. Jerusalem is the navel of the world; the land is fruitful above others, like another paradise of delights. This the Redeemer of the human race has made illustrious by His advent, has beautified by residence, has consecrated by suffering, has redeemed by death, has glorified by burial. This royal city, therefore, situated at the center of the world, is now held captive by His enemies, and is in subjection to those who do not know God, to the worship of the heathens. She seeks therefore and desires to be liberated and does not cease to implore you to come to her aid. (Recorded by Robert the Monk, Historia Hieroselymitana, taken from Levy, “Tactatio Theologico-Politica,” in Contemporary Catholic Approach to the People, Land, and State of Israel, 211-212)

Likewise, Pope St. Pius X, as recorded by Herzl, objected to Zionism not on the grounds that the land of Canaan is like any land now, but on the basis of its unique holiness:

The soil of Jerusalem, if it was not always sacred, has been sanctified by the life of Jesus Christ. As the head of the Church I cannot tell you anything different. The Jews have not recognized our Lord, therefore we cannot recognize the Jewish people. (Source)

Pius’s approach differs from Augustine then not in whether or not the land is special, but in whether that promise has passed over from Jews to Christians. For Pius, the promise is transferred, whereas for Augustine, it is expanded. Nonetheless, Pius does say that he will not try to stop the Jews from going to Palestine, so perhaps it has more to do with sovereignty here than presence, whereas Augustine was more interested in presence.

Venerable Bede goes the furthest though of any of the above cited authors. Bede argues that the Jews would actually return to the land one day and reconstitute a nation!

Until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled [Luke 21:24]. Of course, this time of the Gentiles is that which is discussed by the Apostle, saying a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the full number of the Gentiles come in, and so all Israel will be saved [Rom 11:25-26]. For when the promised salvation will have been obtained, they also will return to their fatherland, rejoicing once again in the possession and habitation of their former capital city, and perhaps it is not unreasonable to hope for this, because he did not say in perpetuity, but until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. (Commentary on Luke, PL 92 588C-D)

Bede’s position then is essentially that something like Zionism would be good once they convert to Catholicism.

This position by Bede has two important points of reception in the tradition. Firstly, it is repeated nearly word for word by St. Rabanus Maurus (PL 110 412D-13A). Secondly, this passage from Bede is included by St. Thomas Aquinas in the Catena Aurea. Thomas offers a similar position in his commentary on Jeremiah:

Second, with regard to the end to which the liberation is directed: and there is hope for your future, [Jer 31:17] to signify that in the last times they shall be turned to the true faith and perhaps even to their own land, at the death of the antichrist. The expectation of the just is gladness, but the hope of the wicked shall perish (Prov 10:28). (Commentary on Jeremiah, c. 31, l. 4)

Of course, as I have shown, there is a lot of disagreement in the tradition about the details of how this work out, or if such a promise even exists in the first place. All of this is just the private opinions of various saints and popes. Nonetheless, I think it would be too quick to dismiss a literal land promise as the naive theory of modern dispensationalists stemming from the Scofield Reference Bible.