Augustine and the Jews

Fascinating interview with Paula Fredriksen in Time regarding her new book on Augustine and the Jews.

One of the most intriguing quotes in the interview that makes me want to read the book:

Augustine, in the course of arguing for Christ's incarnation — this intimate relationship between divinity and humanity — explicitly parallels it to God's relationship with the Jews. He writes that Catholics and Jews stand as one community over against pagans and heretics, that Jesus and his apostles, including Paul, lived as Torah-observant Jews for the whole of their lives. And he urges that God himself would punish any king who tried to interfere with the Jews' practice of Judaism.

Given my reflection at Morgantown's last community observance of the Shoah, where I linked Jesus' Jewish identity in the midst of his Ascension, I am pleased to see a link between incarnation and the Jews as they relate to God.