Jaroslav Pelikan somewhat harsh on Gentile Christians?

[ReformedCuban]

Good evening everyone. I will say that I am not well trained in church history nor the church fathers, and I recently got into reading books about them. I just got started reading Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition, vol. 1. I notice that in True Israel, he seems to treat the Gentile Church somewhat harshly than those who "found a continuity with the old" and "...continued to follow the Scriptures, the worship, and the observances of Jewish religious life" (p. 13). In contrast, according to Pelikan, the Gentile Christians essentially despised the Jews and that the people of God were "...the Church of Gentile Christians" (p. 21). I haven't read much from the church fathers, so I'd like to know from those who have read Pelikan's book and the ECF.

As far as I'm aware, Pelikan was a Lutheran who converted to the EOC, so I would imagine that he would have likewise seen Covenant Theology negatively due to the "de-Judaization" of Christianity. Am I correct?

 

[RamistThomist]

Good evening everyone. I will say that I am not well trained in church history nor the church fathers, and I recently got into reading books about them. I just got started reading Jaroslav Pelikan's The Christian Tradition, vol. 1. I notice that in True Israel, he seems to treat the Gentile Church somewhat harshly than those who "found a continuity with the old" and "...continued to follow the Scriptures, the worship, and the observances of Jewish religious life" (p. 13). In contrast, according to Pelikan, the Gentile Christians essentially despised the Jews and that the people of God were "...the Church of Gentile Christians" (p. 21). I haven't read much from the church fathers, so I'd like to know from those who have read Pelikan's book and the ECF.

As far as I'm aware, Pelikan was a Lutheran who converted to the EOC, so I would imagine that he would have likewise seen Covenant Theology negatively due to the "de-Judaization" of Christianity. Am I correct?

Pelikan isn't despising the Gentile Christians. He is simply pointing out that the Gentile Christians around the 2nd Century onward began to take a negative view of Jews and Jewish Christians. That's standard in every church history book.

The so-called continuity of "Jewish Christians" had little to do with what we call covenant theology. It was much closer to Messianic Judaism.