Selections from The Call of All Nations (De Vocatione Omnium Gentium) of St. Prosper of Aquitaine on the Jews

St. Prosper of Aquitaine (c. 390–c. 455 AD) was a theologian, chronicler, and ardent defender of St. Augustine’s doctrine of grace against the Semi-Pelagians. His principal theological treatise, the De Vocatione Omnium Gentium (“The Call of All Nations”), written c. 450 AD, is a sustained argument — the first of its kind in Christian literature — on the universal scope of divine grace and the mystery of predestination. Though the work is primarily a contribution to the grace controversy, it is densely scriptural and repeatedly treats the theological condition of the Jewish people: their rejection of Christ, the supersession of the Mosaic Law by the New Covenant, the divine blindness visited upon Israel as a consequence of the Crucifixion, and the transfer of the covenant promises to the Church — the true spiritual Israel drawn from all nations, Jews and Gentiles alike. The passages below are drawn directly from the English translation by P. de Letter, S.J. (Ancient Christian Writers, No. 14, Newman Press, Westminster, MD, 1952) and are organised by theme.

I. Jewish Learning and the Resistance to the Gospel

Jewish Learning Resists the Gospel of the Cross

“No wonder either, that pagan philosophy opposes the Gospel of the Cross of Christ, when Jewish learning also resists it. We conclude that neither the learned nor the illiterate of whatever race or rank come to God led by human reason; but every man who is converted to God is first stirred by God’s grace.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 8

II. The Law: Its Impotence and Supersession by Grace

The Law Commands but Does Not Help; Its Rigour Is Obeyed out of Fear Alone

“If such were the case, there would be no difference between grace and the Law; and the spirit of forgiveness would enliven no one if the letter that kills remained. For indeed the Law commands things to be done or avoided, but it does not help one to do or to avoid them. Its rigour is complied with not out of free choice but out of fear.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 8

Christ Came Not to Destroy but to Fulfil the Law — and So to Abrogate Its Penal Sanction

“But the Lord with a view not to destroy but to fulfil the Law, through the help of His grace, made the command of the Law effective, and through the abundance of His clemency lifted its penal sanction so that He might not avenge sin with punishments, but destroy it through forgiveness.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 8

Grace Replaces the Law: The Adulterous Woman Set Free from the Law’s Sentence

“That is why the adulterous woman whom the Law prescribed to be stoned, was set free by Him with truth and grace, when the avengers of the Law frightened with the state of their own conscience had left the trembling guilty woman to the judgment of Him who had come to seek and save what was lost. And for that reason He, bowing down — that is, stooping down to our human level and intent on the work of our reformation — wrote with His finger on the ground in order to repeal the Law of the commandments with the decrees of His grace and to reveal Himself as the One who had said, I will give my laws in their understanding and I will write them in their heart.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 8

The Letter Kills; the Spirit Gives Life

“Who also hath made us fit ministers of the new testament, not in the letter, but in the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit quickeneth.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 24 (citing St. Paul, 2 Cor. 3:6)

III. Supersessionism: The New Covenant Replaces the Old

God Left Aside the Old Covenant, for Israel Did Not Persevere in It

“Behold the days shall come, saith the Lord, and I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Juda; not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers, in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, for they did not persevere in my covenant, and I left them aside, saith the Lord. This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will give my laws in their understanding, and I will write them in their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 9 (citing Jer. 31:31–33)

The True Sons of Abraham Are the Spiritual Israel Called from All Nations

“They are indeed the sons of promise, the reward of faith, the spiritual progeny of Abraham, a chosen generation, a kingly priesthood foreknown and foreordained for eternal life according to the testimony of the Holy Spirit…”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 9

The Elect Are Called Not Only from Among the Jews but Also from Among the Gentiles

“For these reasons do all the sons of light, sons of the promise, sons of Abraham, sons of God, a chosen people, a kingly priesthood, true Israelites, foreknown and foreordained for the kingdom of God who has called them not only from among the Jews but also from among the Gentiles, accept the word of Him who came down from heaven.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 20

God’s Promise to Abraham Is Fulfilled in the Church, Not in the Synagogue

“What, then, the Lord promised to Abraham without a condition and gave without a law, remains absolutely firm and sees its fulfilment every day. It is true, some who have heard this preached to them have not believed, yet their unbelief has not made the faith of God without effect. For God is true and every man a liar. Obviously, men who have heard the Gospel and refused to believe, are all the more inexcusable than if they had not listened to any preaching of the truth. But it is certain that in God’s foreknowledge they were not sons of Abraham and were not reckoned among the number of them of whom it is said, In thy seed all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 9

Faith in Israel Before Christ Remained Confined to One Race

“But up to the day that the seed should come of which it had been said, In thy seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, this faith remained confined to the people of one race, and there with the true Israelites the hope of our Redemption was kept alive.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 14

IV. The Blindness of the Jews and Their Enmity to the Gospel

Christ Is a Stumbling Block to the Jews, Foolishness to the Gentiles

“We preach Christ crucified: unto the Jews indeed a stumbling block and unto the Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. Is Christ actually a power for those to whom He is a stumbling block? Again, is He both wisdom and foolishness to some? No — some of these will be justified through faith whilst others will become hardened in irreligion.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 9

On the Blindness of the Jews: Some Saved by Grace, Others Held by Wilful Blindness

“In the Apostle also we find narrated under the name of the whole people what concerns only a part of them, and this remaining part is reckoned as a totality. For instance, discoursing about the blindness of the Jews and at the same time showing that some of them were saved through grace, he says: I say then: Hath God cast away His people? God forbid! For I also am an Israelite of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away His people which He foreknew.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 10

A Wilful Blindness Turned Away One Section of Israel

“Not the whole of Israel, therefore, was rejected; nor was the whole of it chosen. Rather, a wilful blindness turned away one section, while the light of grace kept the other as its own. And yet they are spoken of as if no division had been made of the whole people, in those who perish and those who are saved.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 10

Israel — Enemies of the Gospel for Our Sake

“As concerning the Gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake; but as touching the election of God, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 10 (citing Rom. 11:28)

The Church Prays for the Jews Whose Blindness Does Not See the Light of the Gospel

“The Church, then, pleads before God everywhere, not only for the saints and those regenerated in Christ, but also for all infidels and all enemies of the Cross of Christ, for all worshippers of idols, for all who persecute Christ in His members, for the Jews whose blindness does not see the light of the gospel, for heretics and schismatics who are alien to the unity of faith and charity.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 12

Blindness in Part Has Happened in Israel Until the Fulness of the Gentiles

“For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, of this mystery (lest you should be wise in your own conceits) that blindness in part has happened in Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles should come in. And so all Israel should be saved, as it is written: ‘There shall come out of Sion, He that shall deliver and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob. And this is to them my covenant: when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, indeed, they are enemies for your sake; but as touching the election, they are most dear for the sake of the fathers. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance . . . For God hath concluded all in unbelief, that He may have mercy on all.'”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 13 (citing Rom. 11:25–32)

Their Downfall Means Salvation for the Nations

“Why could not they whose downfall means salvation for the nations, be freed from their blindness before the fulness of the Gentiles should come in? Could they not receive the light at one time with all mankind, they, who after the conversion of all nations will yet be saved?”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 13

God Now Allows Israel to Go Blind Until the Universality of the Gentiles Enter the Fold

“Yet He delayed for centuries, while He was educating Israel, to enlighten the countless peoples of infidels; and now He allows that same Israel to go blind till the universality of the Gentiles enter the fold. He allows so many thousands of this people to be born and die to be lost, when only those whom the end of the world will find alive will attain salvation.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 21

Israel‘s Unbelief Was the Occasion for the Salvation of the Gentiles

“Why, namely, were all nations in former ages left to walk in their own ways, when Israel alone was singled out to be instructed by God’s own words and was chosen to know the truth, whereas in the end her unbelief was to be the occasion for the salvation of the Gentiles?”

— The Call of All Nations, Book I, Chapter 13

V. Deicide: The Impious Frenzy of the Jews Against the Lamb of God

The Impious Frenzy of the Jews Against the Lamb of God

“The proof of this is the impious frenzy of the Jews. The proof of how ready for the Gospel of Christ that generation was, are the dispositions not only of the people but also of the scribes, the princes, and the priests. It was not enough for them, in opposition to the teaching of the Law, to the oracles of the Prophets, and to the proofs given them of divine power, to have vented their fury against the Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world, in sedition, contumelies, spitting, buffets, blows, stoning, scourging, and, finally, the cruel death of the Cross. In their unchanged insanity they were to persecute also the witnesses of the Resurrection.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 15

Herod, Pilate, the Gentiles, and the People of Israel All Assembled Against Christ

“For of a truth there assembled together in this city against Thy holy Son Jesus, whom Thou hast anointed, Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do what Thy hand and counsel decreed to be done.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 15 (citing Acts 4:27–28)

God Chose These Times Precisely Because of Such Wild and Wilful Malice

“He rather chose the times which produced such people as would, in their wild and wilful malice, and not because they wished to be helpful but because they intended to do harm, persist in carrying out the very counsels of God’s hands. Thus God’s grace and power would appear the more marvellous when He transformed these hardened souls, these dark minds, these hostile hearts into His own people — faithful, submissive, holy.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 15

VI. The Circumcision: Its Abrogation and the Universal Guilt of Mankind

The Whole of Mankind, Circumcised or Not, Was Under the Same Guilt

“Wherefore, the whole of mankind, whether circumcised or not, was under the sway of sin, in fetters because of the very same guilt. No one of the ungodly, who differed only in their degree of unbelief, could be saved without Christ’s Redemption. This Redemption spread throughout the world to become the good news for all men without any distinction.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 16

Circumcision, Like the Law, Was a Temporary Ordinance

“At the time Abraham was justified through this faith, he had not yet received God’s command about the circumcision; and though he was then in his natural uncircumcision, his faith was reputed to justice. That same faith received the sign of the circumcision in the part of the body through which the seed of procreation was to advance to that flesh of which, without the seed of the flesh, the Son of God, God the Word, was made flesh and was born of Abraham’s daughter, the Virgin Mary.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 14

VII. Against Zionism: The Promise of the Land Spiritually Transferred to the Church

God Wills That All Nations Be Called into One Body — Not That One People Hold the Land

“We believe that God’s Providence had willed the expansion of the Roman Empire as a preparation for His design over the nations, who were to be called into the unity of the Body of Christ: He first gathered them under the authority of one empire. But the grace of Christianity is not content with the boundaries that are Rome’s. Grace has now submitted to the sceptre of the Cross of Christ many peoples whom Rome could not subject with her arms; though Rome by her primacy of the apostolic priesthood has become greater as the citadel of religion than as the seat of power.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 16

The Promise Made to Abraham Is Universal and Belongs to All Nations in Christ

“Every day the foreknown and promised fulness of the Gentiles enters the fold, and in the seed of Abraham every nation, every tribe, every language receives His blessings.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 29

The Nations That Had No Hope and Were Without God Are Now Called

“This faith remained confined to the people of one race… But notwithstanding the fact that the abundance of grace which now floods the whole world did not then flow with equal bounty, this does not excuse the Gentiles who, being aliens from the conversation of Israel, having no hope, and without God in this world, have died in the darkness of their ignorance.”

— The Call of All Nations, Book II, Chapter 14

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