“[W]e as Christians have to honor the Jews… We have a covenant with Israel.”— Charlie Kirk, popular conservative pundit^[1]

“Europe has the values of the Talmud.” — Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission^[2]  

“Judaism is as a sacrament of every otherness that as such the Church must learn to discern, recognize and celebrate.” — Cardinal Walter Kasper, former President of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity^[3] 

(LifeSiteNews) — In the previous part, we demonstrated that the Mosaic Covenant was not preserved as a parallel path to God alongside the New Covenant, but was fulfilled and brought to its end in Christ. 

As such, it no longer functions as a salvific covenant for anyone—Jew or Gentile—because it has served its purpose and passed away. To suggest otherwise is to contradict Scripture, and the solemn, unanimous voice of the Fathers, Councils, and Popes. 

In spite of this, these ideas are voiced by churchmen of the highest prestige, such as Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline—who is a frontrunner for the 2025 conclave, and thus the subject of an extensive theological study.

However, the rupture in question is even deeper than it may appear. What today persists under the name “Judaism” is not simply the Old Testament religion without Christ. That religion was centered on animal sacrifice, the Levitical priesthood, and the Temple. It completely ceased to exist in AD 70, when the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem (as Christ prophesied). Without priesthood and sacrifice, the cultic heart of the Mosaic Covenant was gone. 

Thus, what we call “Judaism” today is a new religion: it is a version of the pre-Christian religion, reimagined for a world without the Temple or sacrifice, and based not on the rites and sacrifices of Moses, but on the teaching of the Rabbis and the “Sages”—and continuing in their opposition to Jesus of Nazareth and the emerging Christian Church.  

Rabbinic Judaism and ‘The Sages’

In our days of interreligious dialogue, Cardinal Aveline speaks of the “vocation” of Judaism, and what Christians have to learn from this religion. Aveline himself, after condemning the Church Fathers for their hostility towards this religion, proposes that a “new avenue” for Catholic theological research involves drawing from “the Sages of Israel” and their Talmud:  

The first concerns the relationship between the Church Fathers and the Sages of Israel, that is, between, on the one hand, the considerable work of biblical hermeneutics undertaken by early Christian patristic literature and, on the other hand, the incredible spiritual vitality with which the Jewish people managed to transform the catastrophes of the first century (with its two fateful dates of 70 and 135) into the foundation of a new hermeneutical construction, the Talmud, capable of maintaining Jewish identity and bearing fruit, even in the worst situations of exile, dispersion, and persecution.^[4]  

But who were these “Sages of Israel”?  

The term “Sages” (Chazal/Hazal) refers to the rabbinic teachers and authorities who flourished roughly between 250 BC and 625 AD. Their writings, teachings and interpretations form the foundation of the new religion constructed after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70 AD, which came to be known as Rabbinic Judaism.^[5]  

But how did this religion emerge? What replaced the priesthood, sacrifices, and Temple? Who became its new authorities?   

How the Pharisees rebuilt Judaism after 70 AD 

Many Jewish sources give the same answer: this new religion was shaped—above all—by the Pharisees. Norman Solomon summarizes the relationship as one of doctrinal and institutional continuity:  

… the Pharisee ‘philosophy’ would evolve into rabbinic Judaism…^[6]

The Pharisees (Perushim) and the pharisaic tradition, particularly in reference to the traditions and “the Oral Torah,” were decisive in the formation of this new religion and were codified in the Talmud.^[7] While not all the “Sages” were Pharisees in the strict sense, the dominant stream of Rabbinic thought—and the interpretative framework and assumptions of Rabbinic Judaism—was deeply and self-consciously shaped by the Pharisaic traditions. Even earlier traditions were preserved and transmitted only through this lens, as selected and interpreted by the compilers and redactors of the Talmud and its related texts.  

Let us consider a range of different sources on the role of the Pharisees. The popular religious historian Karen Armstrong—who can hardly be suspected of pro-Catholic leanings—described the development of Rabbinic Judaism, and the role of the town of Yavneh, as follows:  

By the disastrous year 70 [AD], the Pharisees had become the most respected and important sect of Palestinian Judaism […]  

It is said that, after the conquest of Jerusalem, Rabbi Yohannan had been smuggled out of the burning city in a coffin. He had been opposed to the Jewish revolt and thought that the Jews would be better off without a state. The Romans allowed him to found a self-governing Pharisaic community at Jabneh [Yavneh], to the west of Jerusalem.^[8]  

Armstrong then refers to the Pharisaic roots of the tannaim and amoraim sages who were influential in producing the Talmud: 

Similar communities were founded in Palestine and Babylonia, which maintained close links. These communities produced the scholars known as the tannaim, including rabbinic heroes like Rabbi Yohannan himself, Rabbi Akiva the mystic and Rabbi Ishmael: they compiled the Mishnah, the codification of an oral law which brought the Mosaic law up to date.  

Next a new set of scholars, known as the amoraim, began a commentary on the Mishnah and produced the treatises known collectively as the Talmud.^[9] 

This continuity between Rabbinic Judaism and the sect of the Pharisees is not a polemical Christian invention. As mentioned, it is acknowledged by Jewish scholars themselves.   

Jacob Neusner—praised by Benedict XVI and often cited by modern churchmen—discusses the continuity, particularly through the “Yavneh program” after the destructions of the Temple in 70 AD:  

The surviving Pharisees of Jerusalem, assembled at Yavneh by Yohanan ben Zakkai, offered another viewpoint: The old order endures.^[10] 

In the same place, Neusner states that the rabbis of Yavneh “claimed to possess the oral traditions of pre-70 Pharisaism.”^[11] 

However, that “old order,” in Neusner’s words, was not the Mosaic system—but a conscious reinvention, required by the circumstances of the destruction of the Temple, by the sect most opposed to Christ.  

Jewish encyclopedias confirm the Pharisaic origins of Rabbinic Judaism  

Two significant Jewish encyclopedias also bear witness to the Pharisaic heritage of Rabbinic Judaism. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia admits: 

[W]ith the destruction of the Temple the Sadducees disappeared altogether, leaving the regulation of all Jewish affairs in the hands of the Pharisees. 

Henceforth Jewish life was regulated by the teachings of the Pharisees; the whole history of Judaism was reconstructed from the Pharisaic point of view, and a new aspect was given to the Sanhedrin of the past.   

A new chain of tradition supplanted the older, priestly tradition (Abot i. 1). Pharisaism shaped the character of Judaism and the life and thought of the Jew for all the future.^[12]

The 1969 Universal Jewish Encylopedia takes up the same theme: 

The principles held by this party, which are not indicated clearly if at all by the name Pharisee, were older than the date indicated above, and have continued to be held down to the present day.^[13] 

It explains the nature of their religion, and how it already existed “independent of the Temple” and so was “unharmed by its destruction”:  

It was again through their devotion to the religion based on the Torah, and their thorough understanding of what was implied in it, that they were able to carry it safe through the disaster of the fall of Jerusalem (70 C.E.) and the disruption of the Jewish state (135 C.E.).   

In the synagogue they had developed a type of religion which was independent of the Temple and unharmed by its destruction. And in the schools, more particularly those where the leading teachers (rabbis) studied and taught the Torah, they insured the continuity of the Jewish religion, both as theory and practice, in spite of all outward disasters.   

The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees.^[14]

It admits that the Talmud gives expression to the “leading ideas and methods” of the Pharisaic party:  

Their leading ideas and methods found expression in a literature of enormous extent, of which a very great deal is still in existence. The Talmud is the largest and most important single member of that literature, and round it are gathered a number of Midrashim, partly legal (Halachic) and partly works of edification (Haggadic).   

This literature, in its oldest elements, goes back to a time before the beginning of the Common Era, and comes down into the Middle Ages. Through it all run the lines of thought which were first drawn by the Pharisees, and the study of it is essential for any real understanding of Pharisaism.^[15]  

This is followed by a direct affirmation of continuity between Rabbinic Judaism and the Pharisaic religion: 

Rabbinic literature, in all its length and breadth, goes to show that the Jewish religion as interpreted by the Pharisees was continuous with the forms of the religion represented in the older parts of the Hebrew Scriptures, more particularly with the teaching of the prophets. There was no cleavage between the prophets and the scribes; there was a difference of method, and the main result of that difference was to make the teaching of the prophets far more effective than ever it had been in their own time.^[16] 

It later refers explicitly to the “religion of the Pharisees,” and concludes:  

While the general principles of the Pharisees have continued to be held down to the present day, the name Pharisee, as the designation of the party, passed out of common use in the second cent. C.E.^[17]  

These sources speak for themselves. The Pharisees did not vanish after Christ’s condemnation—they reinvented Judaism in their own image. And it is their system, not the Mosaic one, that forms the basis of modern Rabbinic belief.  

No matter the nuance, the Pharisaic roots remain 

All this said, scholars continue to debate the precise lines of succession and links between Rabbinic Judaism and the Pharisees—and some propose difficulties and revisionist narratives. 

However, even revisionists concede that Rabbinic Judaism preserved the Pharisaic emphasis on the Oral Law—and with it, many of the same assumptions condemned by Christ. For example, Efraim Palvanov adopts a revisionist tone, noting:  

The Sadducees (Tzdukim) and Pharisees (Perushim) were the two major movements or political parties in Israel at the time. The former only accepted the written Torah as divine, while the latter believed in an Oral Tradition dating back to the revelation at Sinai.   

Thus, ‘Rabbinic Judaism’ as we know it today is said to have developed from Pharisee Judaism, though this is not quite certain. The Sages of the Talmud didn’t speak so highly of the Pharisees in general, and Judaism also includes key elements from another major group that flourished at the time, the Essenes.^[18]

Palvanov softens the connection—but he cannot sever it. While he hedges the claim of continuity, even he admits that the defining feature of Pharisaic religion—the Oral Law—remained intact and central to Rabbinic Judaism.  

Because the Sadducees only accepted the written Torah, their observance was highly dependent on the Temple and the land of Israel, since most of the Torah is concerned with sacrificial and agricultural laws. When the Romans ultimately destroyed the Temple and the majority of Jews went into exile, Sadducee Judaism simply could not survive. (Later, a similar movement based solely on the written Torah, Karaite Judaism, would develop.)   

Meanwhile, the Pharisees and their Oral Tradition continued to develop, adapt, and flourish in exile and, together with Essene practices, gave rise to the Judaism of today.^[19]  

He ultimately affirms it directly:   

As Rabbinic Judaism came out of Pharisee Judaism […]^[20] 

Further, while the relationship may not be one of strict identity, and may involve legendary or reconstructed elements, this does not reduce the continuity to a merely academic or non-existent level. It is actively affirmed in Orthodox Jewish identity today, as the following Chabad Bar Mitzvah speech template makes clear:  

The Tzedokim [Saduccees] were vehemently opposed by the Perushim (literally: separate ones — Pharisees) who strictly adhered to both the Written and Oral Torah. […] 

With the destruction of the Temple the Tzedokim disappeared from the scene of Jewish history, while the Perushim [Pharisees], the great teachers of Jewish tradition as embodied in the Talmud, remained to preside over the destinies of the Jewish people. […] 

My dear Bar Mitzvah, you have been raised to be a member of the Perushim, who have accepted the validity of the Oral Tradition. For you and us, the teachings of our Chazal—our authentic Rabbis—is valid and must be perpetuated for all times and places.^[21]

The above text shows more than a merely historical continuity: it is a living self-identification. Rabbinic Judaism may not be identical to the religion of the Pharisees—but it is their legacy. The rabbis of this new order preserved the very principles, methods, and traditions which Christ had publicly opposed and condemned.  

Opposition to Christ and to the Church  

The Gospels do not present the conflict between Christ and the Pharisees as one-sided, with Christ as the critic and the Pharisees as merely passive recipients of his condemnations.   

It was a clash of claims—a mutual confrontation. Christ exposed their hypocrisy, denounced their traditions, and warned of their “leaven.” In response, they resisted him at every turn, challenged his authority, and plotted his death.   

Once the Pharisees secured their position after 70 AD, the system which they built from their tradition would bear the mark of that rejection and would inherit its sustained opposition to Jesus Christ and to the Church. Early patristic texts against the Jews are well known, but the comparable Jewish texts against Christ, Christians and Christianity are less well known. Peter Schäffer’s landmark study Jesus in the Talmud offers an overview of this conflict, and The Jewish Encyclopedia also writes of this literature: 

The Jewish legends in regard to Jesus are found in three sources, each independent of the others—(1) in New Testament apocrypha and Christian polemical works, (2) in the Talmud and the Midrash, and (3) in the life of Jesus (“Toledot Yeshu”) that originated in the Middle Ages. It is the tendency of all these sources to be-little [sic] the person of Jesus by ascribing to him illegitimate birth, magic, and a shameful death. In view of their general character they are called indiscriminately legends. […] 

It ought also to be added that many of the legends have a theological background. For polemical purposes, it was necessary for the Jews to insist on the illegitimacy of Jesus as against the Davidic descent claimed by the Christian Church. Magic may have been ascribed him over against the miracles recorded in the Gospels; and the degrading fate both on earth and hereafter of which the legends speak may be simply directed against the ideas of the assumption and the resurrection of Jesus.^[22] 

This opposition arose from the same spirit that opposed Christ to his face, and it hardened into a theological identity, defined in part by this rejection. Rabbinic Judaism, forged in opposition to the Gospel, retained this stance—not merely towards Gentiles in general, but toward Christ himself, and toward the Church that proclaims him.  

The continuing ‘mission’ of Judaism 

It has become common to speak of Rabbinic Judaism as having a continuing vocation or mission in our day. Cardinal Aveline has even expressed the subversive notion that the Church’s mission was received “in shared communion” with that of Judaism, and that she can only gradually come to understand it by accepting this alleged fact:  

[T]he real issue, which concerns both Jews and Christians, is not only one of better mutual understanding: it is about each community’s perception of the vocation that is theirs and that each discovers gradually can only be understood by accepting that it was received in shared communion with the other, not in an exclusive manner.^[23]  

Aveline in turn cites Cardinal Ratzinger, who spoke of “the common mission of Jews and Christians in the modern world,”^[24] and asked: 

Can Christian faith, retaining its inner power and dignity, not only tolerate Judaism but accept it in its historic mission? Or can it not?^[25] 

But given what we have seen about the fundamentally different and Pharisaic nature of Rabbinic Judaism, what “vocation” or “historical mission” could it have after the coming of Christ and the fulfillment and abrogation of the Mosaic Law?  

A vocation is a calling to a particular purpose, usually noble or even spiritual. Who, then, called the Pharisees, their contemporaries and heirs to establish Rabbinic Judaism—and to what purpose?  

In fact, alongside the Church’s insistence that the Jews were not to be harmed or forced to convert,^[26] we find the Doctors of the Church have indeed suggested that such a “mission” might be said to exist.  

However, it is not a vocation or mission in the sense imagined by modern churchmen. St. Augustine writes in The City of God that the presence of the Jews in all nations allows for a universal witness to the fulfilment of prophecy, in that they…   

… were dispersed through the lands (so that indeed there is no place where they are not), and are thus by their own Scriptures a testimony to us that we have not forged the prophecies about Christ.^[27] 

St. Bernard of Clairvaux makes the same point.^[28] For such reasons, St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the Jewish rites can be tolerated: 

[F]rom the fact that the Jews observe their rites, which, of old, foreshadowed the truth of the faith which we hold, there follows this good—that our very enemies bear witness to our faith, and that our faith is represented in a figure, so to speak. For this reason they are tolerated in the observance of their rites.^[29] 

However, there is no sense in which this “mission” constitutes a divinely ordained vocation for the Pharisees, rabbis and Sages after the abrogation of the Old Law and fulfillment of the Mosaic Covenant; nor can it be regarded as a salvific mandate parallel or complementary to the Church’s, which alone is entrusted with the fullness of truth and the means of salvation.  

On the contrary, the real vocation is the same for Jews as it is for all men: to enter the Church and be saved. 

Conclusion: Why is this Pharisaic heritage important?  

We need to be clear what is being said when someone like Ursula von der Leyen asserts that “Europe has the values of the Talmud,” or when Charlie Kirk speaks of a “covenant with Israel” and claims that Christians are obliged to “bless the Jews.”  

These persons, whether they realize it or not, are making these claims about the intellectual and spiritual heirs of the Pharisee movement. 

The implications are similarly clear when conclave frontrunners such as Cardinal Aveline say that the Mosaic Covenant was “never revoked,” or when Cardinal Walter Kasper referred to Judaism as “a sacrament” for the Church, and called for Catholics to grow closer to it: 

[W]e Catholics became aware with greater clarity that the faith of Israel is that of our elder brothers, and, most importantly, that Judaism is as a sacrament of every otherness that as such the Church must learn to discern, recognize and celebrate. It is therefore proper [on] this date for the Pontifical Council to welcome and to encourage any initiative favoring the growth of a bond with Judaism, with its theological and spiritual wealth, and with the culture that is expressed by it.^[30]  

But we have seen that the “Sages of Israel” are (one way or another) the intellectual and spiritual heirs of the Pharisees, and that Rabbinic Judaism and the Talmud are the lasting legacies—no matter how many other influences there may also have been. The “Judaism” celebrated by conservatives, conclave-frontrunners, Christians and churchmen, is not the religion of Moses or the prophets. It is a system rebuilt after Christ, and against him—a post-Christian, anti-Christian religion formed by the heirs of those who rejected him. 

No one can affirm both Christ and that system. No one can hold to the Cross and the Talmud alike. The New Covenant does not exist as one path to God alongside its negation.