Selections of St. Edith Stein’s Writings on the Jews

Edith Stein (12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942), known in religion as Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, was a German-Jewish philosopher, student of Edmund Husserl, and pioneer of phenomenology, who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922 and entered the Discalced Carmelite Order in 1933. Beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1987 and canonized on 11 October 1998, she is venerated as a martyr of the Church and proclaimed one of six co-patron saints of Europe. She was murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau on 9 August 1942, arrested not for her faith but because of her Jewish ancestry. Her principal works bearing on the themes below are the mystical drama Conversation at Night (Gespräch in der Nacht, 1941), her autobiographical Life in a Jewish Family (Aus dem Leben einer jüdischen Familie, begun 1933), her spiritual testament of 9 June 1939, her letter to Pope Pius XI of April 1933, and her unfinished treatise The Science of the Cross (Kreuzeswissenschaft, 1942). All English texts below are those of the translators identified in the Sources section. No word has been altered.

The passages reproduced here bear on the following themes of her thought: supersessionism (Christianity as the fulfilment of Israel‘s longing), the theological concept of Jewish “unbelief” in Christ as calling for atonement, the Christological framing of Jewish suffering, the eschatological hope for Israel‘s conversion, and the portrayal of post-Resurrection Jewry as “enemies of the Cross” and “far from the Lord.” They are reproduced here for scholarly and historical purposes. As the Frontiers of Faith study notes, Stein’s theology “blended her desire for solidarity with supersessionist theology” and implied “a curse laid on the Jewish people” stemming from “her view that Jews had rejected Christ, their Messiah.” Her framework was entirely pre-Nostra Aetate (1965).

I. The Theological “Unbelief” of the Jewish People: The 1939 Testament

Testament of Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, 9 June 1939

(Self-Portrait in Letters, 1916–1942, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 5, ICS Publications, Washington D.C., 1993; also preserved in the archives of the Carmelite monastery, Echt, Netherlands)

“I beg the Lord to take my life and my death … for all concerns of the sacred hearts of Jesus and Mary and the holy church, especially for the preservation of our holy order, in particular the Carmelite monasteries of Cologne and Echt, as atonement for the unbelief of the Jewish People, and that the Lord will be received by his own people and his kingdom shall come in glory, for the salvation of Germany and the peace of the world, at last for my loved ones, living or dead, and for all God gave to me: that none of them shall go astray.”

II. The Jews as “Enemies of the Cross” and “Far from the Lord”: Conversation at Night

Conversation at Night (Gespräch in der Nacht), written for the feast day of Mother Antonia of the Holy Spirit, O.C.D., Prioress of the Carmel of Echt, 13 June 1941

(The Hidden Life: Hagiographic Essays, Meditations, Spiritual Texts, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 4, ICS Publications, Washington D.C., 1992; English translation © ICS Publications)

The following drama, in verse, depicts Queen Esther appearing at midnight to the Carmelite prioress (the “Mother”) to intercede for the Jewish people. Stein assigns Esther’s voice to articulate the theological condition of post-Resurrection Jewry and the eschatological programme of the Church. All stage directions are Stein’s own.

The soul of Esther, recounting what was revealed to her in the afterlife after Christ’s Resurrection:

“I saw the church grow out of my people,
A tenderly blooming sprig, saw that her heart was
The unblemished, pure, shoot of David.
I saw flowing down from Jesus’ heart
The fullness of grace into the Virgin’s heart.
From there it flows to the members as the stream of life.”

Esther, explaining why she has returned to earth as a pilgrim:

“The church had blossomed, but the masses
Of the people remained distant, far from the Lord
And his mother, enemies of the cross.
The people are in confusion and cannot find rest,
An object of disdain and scorn:
It will be thus until the final battle.”

Esther, on the eschatological condition for Christ’s Second Coming:

“But before the cross appears again in heaven,
Even before Elijah comes to gather his own,
The good Shepherd goes silently through the lands.
Now and then he gathers from the depths of the abyss
A little lamb, shelters it at his heart.
And then others always follow him.
But there above at the throne of grace
The Mother ceaselessly pleads for her people.
She seeks souls to help her pray.
Then only when Israel has found the Lord,
Only then when he has received his own,
Will he come in manifest glory.
And we must pray for this second coming.”

The prioress (Mother), receiving the message from Esther:

“Her people, which are yours: your Israel,
I’ll take it up into the lodgings of my heart.
Praying secretly and sacrificing secretly,
I’ll take it home to my Savior’s heart.”

Esther, departing, on the great eschatological day:

“We’ll meet again on the great day,
The day of manifest glory,
When above the head of the Queen of Carmel
The crown of stars will gleam brilliantly,
Because the twelve tribes will have found their Lord.“

III. The Christological Framing of Jewish Suffering: Offering Her Life as a Holocaustum

Personal letter, c. 1930

(Cited in Berkman, Joyce Avrech, “Esther and Mary: The Uneasy Jewish/Catholic Dynamic in the Work and Life of Edith Stein,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, vol. 32, no. 1, 2016; and in the academic study published in MUSE, Johns Hopkins University Press)

“After every encounter in which I am made aware how powerless we are to exercise direct influence, I have a deeper sense of the urgency of my own Holocaustum.”

Note to the Prioress of the Carmel of Echt, c. 1939

(Cited in multiple ICS Publications biographies, including Posselt, Teresia Renata, Edith Stein: The Life of a Philosopher and Carmelite, ICS Publications, 2005)

“Dear Mother, I beg you, give me permission to offer myself to the Heart of Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement for the sake of true peace, that the Antichrist‘s sway may be broken.”

Religious profession, Carmelite convent, Cologne, 1933

(Cited in multiple ICS Publications biographies; confirmed in Scaperlanda, María Ruiz, Edith Stein: The Life and Legacy of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, Sophia Institute Press)

“Human action cannot help us, but only the sufferings of Christ. My aspiration is to share them.”

IV. Supersessionism: The Church Growing from Israel, Israel Left Behind

Conversation at Night, 1941

(The Hidden Life, Collected Works vol. 4, ICS Publications, 1992)

Esther’s soul recounting the vision of Christ’s descent to the afterlife and the reception of the patriarchs:

“We waited there in peace,
Still far from the light, so always in longing.
But there came a day when, through all of creation,
There occurred a fissure. All the elements seemed
To be in revolt, night enveloped
The world at noon. But in the midst of the night
There stood, as if illumined by lightning, a barren mountain,
And on the mountain a cross on which someone hung
Bleeding from a thousand wounds; a thirst came over us
To drink ourselves well from this fountain of wounds.
The cross vanished into night, yet our night
Was suddenly penetrated by a new light,
Of which we had never had any idea: a sweet, blessed light.
It streamed from the wounds of that man
Who had just died on the cross; now he stood
In our midst. He himself was the light,
The eternal light, that we had longed for from of old,
The Father’s reflection and the salvation of the people.“

Esther, on how she understood her own life’s meaning only in retrospect:

“Now in the mirror of eternal clarity, I saw
What happened after that on earth.
I saw the church grow out of my people,
A tenderly blooming sprig …
My life was only a beam of hers [i.e., of the Virgin Mary’s].”

V. Jewish Inadequacy as a Preparation for the Gospel: Life in a Jewish Family

Life in a Jewish Family (Aus dem Leben einer jüdischen Familie, begun 1933, published posthumously)

(Life in a Jewish Family, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 1, ICS Publications, 1986; trans. Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D.)

Stein recounting an incident at a Synagogue with her mother on 12 October 1933, the day before she left permanently for the Carmel at Cologne:

“Then came the despairing reply: ‘Why have you learned more? I don’t want to say anything against him. He may have been a very good man. But why did he make himself God?‘”

Stein recounting her early religious inquiries directed to an Orthodox Jewish student at Göttingen:

“In Göttingen when I began to interest myself in religious questions, I wrote to Metis asking him for his idea of God and whether he himself believed in a personal God. The answer was brief: God is Spirit — there is nothing more to be said. To me it was as if I had been given a stone instead of bread.“

VI. Eschatological Supersessionism: The “Destiny of the People Is My Own”

Letter to a friend, cited in surviving correspondence, c. 1942

(Confirmed by niece Susanne Batzdorff; cited in Espin, Olivia, “‘The destiny of the people is my own …’: Edith Stein’s Paradoxical Sainthood,” CrossCurrents, vol. 58, no. 1, 2008)

“It was luminously clear to me that once again God’s hand lay heavy on His people, and the destiny of this people is my own.“

VII. The Letter to Pope Pius XI: A Jewish Convert’s Witness to the Christological Frame

Letter to Pope Pius XI, April 1933

(Vatican Secret Archives; first published February 2003; English translation by Suzanne Batzdorff, Sr. Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D., and Rev. Dr. John Sullivan, O.C.D.; published by the Council of Centers on Jewish-Christian Relations)

Note: This letter was written to defend the Jewish people against Nazi persecution. It is included here because its theological framing — appealing to the sanctity of Jewish blood precisely through its relation to the flesh of Christ and the Apostles — reflects Stein’s supersessionist hermeneutic in its most condensed form.

“Holy Father! As a child of the Jewish people who, by the grace of God, for the past eleven years has also been a child of the Catholic Church, I dare to speak to the Father of Christianity about that which oppresses millions of Germans.”

“Is not this idolization of race and governmental power which is being pounded into the public consciousness by the radio open heresy? Isn’t the effort to destroy Jewish blood an abuse of the holiest humanity of our Savior, of the most blessed Virgin and the apostles? Is not all this diametrically opposed to the conduct of our Lord and Savior, who, even on the cross, still prayed for his persecutors?”

“I know that my letter was received by the Holy Father. I never received a reply. I have often wondered since whether my letter might have come to his mind once in a while. For in the years that followed that which I had predicted for the future in Germany came true step by step.”

(Later diary entry, 18 December 1938)

Sources

All passages are drawn from, or independently confirmed against, the following primary editions and translations. No word has been altered.

Primary Works — Collected Editions:

  • The Hidden Life: Hagiographic Essays, Meditations, Spiritual Texts, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 4, ICS Publications, Washington D.C., 1992. Contains “Conversation at Night” (Gespräch in der Nacht, 1941). English translation © Washington Province of Discalced Carmelites, Inc. Full text of the “Conversation at Night” dialogue reproduced non-commercially at: https://www.umilta.net/stein.html
  • Self-Portrait in Letters, 1916–1942, The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 5, trans. Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D., ICS Publications, Washington D.C., 1993. Contains the 1939 spiritual testament and related correspondence.
  • Life in a Jewish Family (Aus dem Leben einer jüdischen Familie), The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 1, ed. Lucy Gelber and Romaeus Leuven, trans. Josephine Koeppel, O.C.D., ICS Publications, Washington D.C., 1986.

The 1939 Testament — Primary Text and Confirmation:

The Letter to Pope Pius XI — Primary Text:

“Conversation at Night” — Full Text:

The Holocaustum Letter (c. 1930) and Offering at Echt:

  • Academic study: “On the Frontiers of Faith: Edith Stein Encounters Herself as a Burnt Offering,” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies, Johns Hopkins University Press / MUSE. https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/137/article/400596/pdf

Secondary Scholarship — Jewish and Critical Perspectives: