A Midrashic and Patristic Journey: Towards an Ethic of Peace Beyond Just War

This paper seeks to foster an interpretative dialogue between Judaism and Christianity on an audacious theological dynamic: the shift from an ethics of war to an ethics of peace. Beginning with a hermeneutical examination of a brief midrashic text from the Tanhuma collection, the article argues that the dynamic momentum initiated by the midrash, suggesting a path of transformation from war to peace, finds a powerful echo and development in a contemporary Catholic theological movement rooted in Augustine’s notion of “bellum iustum,” as reoriented by the Magisterial teaching’s emphasis on “just peace” from Pope Benedict XV onward. The authors suggest that the early midrashic dynamic, and the theological audacity it expresses—which will be further explicated—is enriched and given new dimensions when brought into conversation with the Church’s current effort to move beyond the traditional framework of “just war” toward a renewed insistence on peace as the primary ethical horizon. This case study highlights the potential for mutual theological enrichment when the inner movements of both traditions are brought into dialogue.