In a message dated 97-07-05 06:23:01 EDT, you write:
> >I was reading in Golden Legend (c 1250) that the Catholic Church
> celebrated
> >the feast of the Macabees during the Middle Ages, although it was also
> >believed that, as Jews, the Macabees had certainly gone to hell.
> >
> >Does anyone know when this feast ceased being celebrated by the Church?
>
> Seems odd, there shouldn't be a problem with pre-Christ Jews... Moses,
> David, the Prophets, etc. are all concidered Saints. I do know the Eastern
> Orthodox actively venerate the Macabees as Saints today. In fact I've got
> an icon of them.
>
> -Caedmon
>
Yes, Archbishop Voragine, who wrote Golden Legend (which is basically stories
about saints) makes the point that the Eastern Church doesn't believe all
Jews went to hell, though the Roman Catholic Church does (but still
celebrates the feast of the Macabees).
The distinction you're mentioning comes up later. In Commedia (Parad. 32),
Dante has Saint Bernard of Clairveaux explain that Jews born before the time
of Christ will be saved, but those born after the time of Christ will go to
hell if they refuse to be baptised. I assume this was the view of the Church
at the time. If you go back to Inferno 4, you find Virgil recalling that
Christ came down to Limbo, removed Old Testament figures, and carried them
off "to blessedness." This is Dante's variation on the legend of the
harrowing of hell, which in earlier forms (the Gospel of Nicodemus) didn't
say a word about Jews. Notice that Dante has even the Hebrew patriarchs
passing into Limbo (the first circle of Dante's hell) although Christ comes
down to remove them.
I'm picking up these threads from literature, but don't know enough about
Church history to understand how they developed, or what the theological
basis might have been.
pat sloane
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