Christianity and anti-Semitism
Encyclopedia
Christian attitudes to Judaism and to the Jewish people developed from the early years of Christianity
, the persecution of Christians in the New Testament
, and persisted over the ensuing centuries
, driven by numerous factors including theological differences, competition between Church and Synagogue
, the Christian drive for converts decreed by the Great Commission
, misunderstanding of Jewish beliefs and practices, and a perceived, and sometimes acutual, Jewish hostility toward Christians.
These attitudes were reinforced in Christian preaching, art and popular teaching over the centuries containing contempt for Jews. In many Christian countries, it led to civil and political discrimination against Jews, legal disabilities
, and in some instances to physical attacks on Jews which occasionally ended in emigration, expulsion, and even death.
From time to time, anti-Jewish sentiments within European society were exploited or fomented for internal political purposes and sometimes to extract a financial advantage from Jewish subjects. Such sentiments made the expansion of anti-Jewish measures politically acceptable.
Antisemitism has been described as primarily hatred against Jews as a race with its modern expression rooted in 19th century racial theories, while anti-Judaism is described as hostility to Jewish religion, but in Western Christianity
it effectively merged into antisemitism during the 12th century.
Scholars have debated how Christian antisemitism may have played a role in the Nazi Third Reich, World War II
and the Holocaust
. However, "a widespread consensus of historians, church leaders, and academic theologians is that Christian theological anti-Judaism is a phenomenon distinct from modern antisemitism, which is rooted in economic and racial thought, so that Christian teachings should not be held responsible for antisemitism." That consensus position, essentially an exculpation of Christianity for modern antisemitism, is articluated, among other places, by Pope John Paul II
in 'We Re member: A Reflection on the Shoah,' and the Jewish declaration on Christianity, Dabru Emet
.
Throughout Christian history, some Popes, bishops and some Christian princes stepped up to protect Jews. But it was only in the mid-20th century that the Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations issued major statements repudiating anti-Judaic theology and began a process of constructive Christian-Jewish interaction
.
to be antisemitism. They regard anti-Judaism as a disagreement of religiously sincere people with the tenets of Judaism, while regarding antisemitism as an emotional bias or hatred not specifically targeting the religion of Judaism. Under this approach, anti-Judaism is not regarded as antisemitism as it only rejects the religious ideas of Judaism and does not involve actual hostility to the Jewish people.
Others see anti-Judaism as the rejection of or opposition to beliefs and practices essentially because of their source in Judaism
or because a belief or practice is associated with the Jewish people. (But see supersessionism
)
Although some Christians in the past did consider anti-Judaism to be contrary to Christian teaching, this view was not widely expressed by leaders and lay people. In many cases, the practical tolerance towards the Jewish religion and Jews prevailed. Some Christian groups, particularly in early years, condemned verbal anti-Judaism.
, religion was an integral part of the civil government. The Emperor was from time to time declared to be a god and demanded to be worshiped accordingly. This created religious difficulties for Jews, who were prohibited from worshiping any other god than that of the Hebrew Bible
. This created problems in the relations between Rome and its Jewish subjects, as well as for worshipers of Mithras, worshipers of Sabazius, and Christianity
. In the case of Jews, this led to several revolts against Rome and severe persecutions by Rome as punishment.
Many of the early gentile converts to Christianity probably came from and shared this cultural bias. As gentile converts they also were not well acquainted with the internal life of the Jewish community. Hence they read many of the New Testament texts as condemnations of Judaism as such, rather than as internal differences which were commonplace within the Jewish community.
"The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees
. 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." [Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 3 pg. 474]
“Pharisaism became Talmudism, Talmudism became Medieval Rabbinism, and Medieval Rabbinism became Modern Rabbinism. But throughout these changes of name, inevitable adaptation of custom, and adjustment of Law, the spirit of the ancient Pharisee survives unaltered.” [Rabbi Dr. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith, pg. xxi]
"The Talmud is the written form of that which in the time of Jesus, was called the 'Tradition of the Elders,' and to which He makes frequent allusions." [Michael L. Rodkinson, The History of the Talmud: From The Time Of Its Formation About 200 B. C. Up To The Present Time, Kessinger Publishing, LLC (June 8, 2006), ISBN 978-1428631366, p. 70]
“The complex of rabbinically ordained practices ... including most of the rules for the treatment of Scripture itself—do not derive from Scripture at all. Rabbinic Judaism's initial concern was with the elaboration and refinement of its own system. Attaching the system to scripture was secondary. It therefore is misleading to depict rabbinic Judaism primarily as a consequence of an exegetical process or the organic unfolding of Scripture. Rather, rabbinic Judaism began as the work of a small, ambitious, and homogeneous group of pseudo-priests ...By the third century (A.D.) the rabbis expressed their self-conception in the ideology of "oral Torah
" which held that a comprehensive body of teachings and practices (halachot) not included in Scripture had been given by God and through Moses only to the rabbinic establishment.” (Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System, Jacob Nuesner, pp. 31–34)
There have been philosophical differences between Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism
since the founding of Christianity. Christians acknowledge the roots of Christianity in Judaism. Some claim the entirety of Jewish religious heritage as its own, while interpreting it very differently.
Debates between the Early Christians
, who at first saw themselves as a movement within Judaism and not as a separate religion, and other Jews initially revolved around the question whether Jesus was the Messiah
, which later encompassed the issue of his divinity. Once gentiles were converted to Christianity, the question arose whether and how far these gentile Christians were obliged to follow Jewish law in order to follow Jesus (see Paul's letter to the Galatians). At the Council of Jerusalem
, it was decided that new gentile converts did not need to be circumcised
(the Apostolic Decree of ), while requiring acceptance to a set of laws similar to Judaism's Noahide Law, (see also Old Testament#Christian view of the Law for the modern debate), but Paul also questioned the validity
of Jewish Christians' adherence to the Jewish law in relation to faith in Christ, according to some interpretations. The issue of Paul of Tarsus and Judaism
is still hotly debated.
The increase of the numbers of gentile Christians in comparison to Jewish Christians eventually resulted in a rift between Christianity and Judaism, which was further increased by the Jewish-Roman wars
(66–73 and 132–135) that drove many more Jews into the diaspora
and reduced the influence of the Bishop of Jerusalem, leader of the first Christian church. Early Christians also found in the Old Testament, prophecies which seemed to indicate that God's original covenant with the Jews
would be expanded to include also the Gentiles, in other words Proselytes, God-fearer
s, and Noachides. Thus the Church Fathers
tend to emphasise that the Church is the new "spiritual" Israel, completing or replacing the earthly Israel which was but its prototype
. In modern times, this view would come to be called "Supersessionism
".
Also, the two religions differed in their legal status in the Roman Empire
: Judaism, restricted to the Jewish people and Jewish Proselytes, was generally exempt from obligation to the Roman imperial cult
and since the reign of Julius Caesar
enjoyed the status of a "licit religion", though there were also occasional persecutions, for example in 19 Tiberius
expelled the Jews from Rome, as Claudius
did again in 49. Christianity however was not restricted to one people, and as Jewish Christians were excluded from the synagogue
(see Council of Jamnia
), they also lost the protection of the status of Judaism, though said protection did have its limits (see for example Titus Flavius Clemens (consul)
, Akiba ben Joseph, and Ten Martyrs
).
From the reign of Nero
onwards, who is said to have blamed the Great Fire of Rome
on Christians, Christianity was considered to be illegal and Christians were frequently subjected to persecution, differing regionally. Comparably, Judaism suffered the setbacks of the Jewish-Roman wars
, remembered in the legacy of the Ten Martyrs
. Robin Lane Fox
traces the origin of much later hostility to the period of persecution, where the commonest test by the authorities of a suspected Christian was to require homage to be paid to the deified emperor. Jews were exempt from this requirement as long as they paid the Fiscus Judaicus
, and Christians (many or mostly of Jewish origins) would say they were Jewish but refused to pay the tax. This had to be confirmed by the local Jewish authorities, who were likely to refuse to accept the Christians as Jewish, often leading to their execution. The Birkat haMinim
was often brought forward as support for this charge that the Jews were responsible for the Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In the 3rd century systematic persecution of Christians began and lasted until Constantine's conversion to Christianity. In 390 Theodosius I
made Christianity the State church of the Roman Empire
. While pagan cults and Manichaeism
were suppressed, Judaism retained its legal status as a licit religion, though anti-Jewish violence still occurred. In the 5th century, some legal measures worsened the status of the Jews in the Roman Empire
(now more properly called the Byzantine Empire
since relocating to Constantinople
).
These elements of the New Testament have their origins in 1st-century history. Christianity began as a revision of Judaism. Many of Jesus' followers during his life were Jews, and it was even a matter of confusion, many years after his death, as to whether non-Jews could even be considered Christians at all, according to the way some interpret the Council of Jerusalem
.
Although the Gospels offer accounts of confrontations and debates between Jesus and other Jews, such conflicts were common among Jews at the time. Scholars disagree on the historicity of the Gospels, and have offered different interpretations of the complex relationship between Jewish authorities and Christians before and following Jesus' death. These debates hinge on the meaning of the word "messiah," and the claims of Early Christians.
which Judaism does not accept. The Gospels claim that Jesus was a preacher, healer, and messiah. There is no reason to think Jesus would have come into conflict with Jewish authorities in 1st century Judea on account of his preaching and healing, yet part of the gospel record is the Cleansing of the Temple. However, claims that he was the Messiah were more controversial. The Hebrew word mashiyakh (משיח) typically signified a man, chosen by God or descended from a man chosen by God, to serve as a civil and military authority. If Jesus made this claim during his life, it is not surprising that many Jews, weary of Roman occupation, would have supported him as a liberator. It is also likely that Jewish authorities would have been cautious, out of fear of Roman reprisal.
Jesus was considered by Christians to be the Messiah, while for most Jews the death of Jesus would have been sufficient proof that he was not the Jewish Messiah
. If early Christians preached that Jesus was about to return
, it is virtually certain that Jewish authorities would have opposed them out of fear of Roman reprisal.
Such fears would have been well grounded: Jews revolted against the Romans in 66 CE, which culminated with the destruction of the Second Temple
in 70 CE. They revolted
again under the leadership of the professed messiah Simon Bar Kokhba
in 132 CE, which culminated in the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem, which Hadrian
renamed into Aelia Capitolina
in an attempt to wipe out memory of Jews there.
At the time, Christianity was still considered a sect of Judaism, but the messianic claims alienated many Christians (including Jewish converts) and sharply deepened the schism
.
or so-called Judaizers
argued that Christians were bound to observe Mosaic law, while Paul
perhaps argued that only some of Mosaic Law applied to Christians, though the issue of Paul of Tarsus and Judaism
is still hotly debated with some advocating complete abrogation
. The issue was argued especially in the context of whether Gentile converts were obligated to undergo circumcision
, which was a requirement for Jewish boys. The issue was hotly debated in the 1st century and settled at the Council of Jerusalem
, in which Paul and Barnabas participated as representatives of the church at Antioch. The Council decided that Gentile converts were not subject to most Mosaic Law, including circumcision, but required them to stay away from eating meat with blood still on it, eating the meat of strangled animals, eating food offered to idols, and sexual immorality. See also Noahide Law and Proselyte
.
Many have interpreted Paul's writings as other parts of the New Testament as ending the requirements of the Jewish law
. See Proselyte
and New Perspective on Paul
for more details. An example of another view is represented by the Catholic Encyclopedia
article on Judaizers:
emerged as the dominant form of Christianity, especially after Paul, James and the other apostles agreed on a compromise set of requirements. Some Christians continued to adhere to Jewish law, but they were few in number and often considered heretics
by the Church. One example is the Ebionites
, which, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia
, were "infected with Judaistic errors" (language which Jews find offensive); for instance, they denied the virgin birth of Jesus, the physical Resurrection of Jesus
, and most of the books that were later canonized
as the New Testament
, see also "Judaizers
" (a term which Jews find offensive). For example, the Ethiopian Orthodox are often accused of being Judaizers because they still observe Old Testament
teachings such as the Sabbath
, and conversely they accuse their opponents of residual Marcionism
. As late as the 4th century Church Father John Chrysostom
complained (see John Chrysostom#Sermons on Jews and Judaizing Christians) that some Christians were still attending Jewish synagogues.
and it has been argued that these passages have shaped the way that Christians viewed Jews. Like most Bible passages, however, they can and have been interpreted in a variety of ways.
During Jesus' life and at the time of his execution, the Pharisees were only one of several Jewish groups such as the Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes; indeed, some have suggested that Jesus was himself a Pharisee. Arguments by Jesus and his disciples against the Pharisees and what he saw as their hypocrisy were most likely examples of disputes among Jews and internal to Judaism that were common at the time, see for example Hillel and Shammai
. (Lutheran Pastor
John Stendahl has pointed out that "Christianity begins as a kind of Judaism, and we must recognize that words spoken in a family conflict are inappropriately appropriated by those outside the family.")
, 1994) has published a detailed study of the description of Jews in the New Testament, and the historical effects that such passages have had in the Christian community throughout history. Similar studies of such verses have been made by both Christian and Jewish scholars, including, Professors Clark Williamsom (Christian Theological Seminary), Hyam Maccoby
(The Leo Baeck Institute), Norman A. Beck (Texas Lutheran College), and Michael Berenbaum (Georgetown University). Most rabbis feel that these verses are antisemitic, and many Christian scholars, in America and Europe, have reached the same conclusion. Another example is John Dominic Crossan
's 1995 Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus.
argued that the Jews should be left alive and suffering as a perpetual reminder of their murder of Christ
. Saint John Chrysostom
used Jesus' words in Luke
19:27 to call for the murder of Jews in Chrysostoms Eight Homilies Against the Jews:
Emperor Leo I
compiled a code of law, the New Constitutions of Leo, under which Jews were compelled to observe Christian rites.
, spoke out against the antisemitism of their day.
, and was reaffirmed by many popes, even until the 15th century.
The bull forbade, besides other things, Christians from coercing Jews to convert, or to harm them, or to take their property, or to disturb the celebration of their festivals, or to interfere with their cemeteries, on pain of excommunication.
Pope Alexander II
:
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
Thomas of Monmouth
Pope Innocent III
Thomas Aquinas
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory X
:
Geoffrey Chaucer
Pope Martin V
Pope Clement VIII
Patriarch
Miron Cristea
and host desecration
drew popular attention and led to many cases of persecution against Jews. Antisemitic imagery such as Judensau
and Ecclesia et Synagoga
recurred in Christian art and architecture.
In Iceland, one of the hymns repeated in the days leading up to Easter include the lines,
expelled all the Jews from England in 1290 (only after ransoming some 3,000 among the most wealthy of them), on the accusation of usury
and undermining loyalty to the dynasty.
and Isabella I of Castile
, the rulers of Spain
who financed Christopher Columbus
' voyage to the New World just a few months later in 1492, declared that all Jews in their territories should either convert to Catholicism or leave the country. While some converted, many others left for Portugal
, France
, Italy
(including the Papal States
), Netherlands
, Poland
, the Ottoman Empire
, and North Africa
. Many of those who had fled to Portugal were latter expelled by King Manuel
in 1497 or left to avoid forced conversion and persecution.
Martin Luther
at first made overtures towards the Jews, believing that the "evils" of Catholicism had prevented their conversion to Christianity. When his call to convert to his version of Christianity was unsuccessful, he became hostile to them.
In his book On the Jews and their Lies, he excoriates them as "venomous beasts, vipers, disgusting scum, canders, devils incarnate." He provided detailed recommendations for a pogrom
against them, calling for their permanent oppression and expulsion, writing "Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they could be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them force to work, and if this avails nothing, we will be compelled to expel them like dogs in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath and eternal damnation from the Jews and their lies." At one point he wrote: "...we are at fault in not slaying them..." a passage that "may be termed the first work of modern antisemitism, and a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust
."
Luther's harsh comments about the Jews are seen by many as a continuation of medieval Christian antisemitism. In his final sermon shortly before his death, however, Luther preached: "We want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord."
, Russia's discriminatory policies towards Jews intensified when the partition of Poland in the 18th century resulted, for the first time in Russian history, in the possession of land with a large Jewish population. This land was designated as the Pale of Settlement
from which Jews were forbidden to migrate into the interior of Russia. In 1772 Catherine II, the empress of Russia, forced the Jews of the Pale of Settlement to stay in their shtetls and forbade them from returning to the towns that they occupied before the partition of Poland.
Throughout the 19th century and into the 20th, the Roman Catholic Church still incorporated strong antisemitic elements, despite increasing attempts to separate anti-Judaism (opposition to the Jewish religion on religious grounds) and racial antisemitism. Pope Pius VII
(1800–1823) had the walls of the Jewish ghetto
in Rome rebuilt after the Jews were emancipated
by Napoleon
, and Jews were restricted to the ghetto through the end of the Papal States
in 1870. Official Catholic organizations, such as the Jesuits, banned candidates "who are descended from the Jewish race unless it is clear that their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather have belonged to the Catholic Church" until 1946.
Brown University historian David Kertzer
, working from the Vatican archive, has argued in his book The Popes Against the Jews that in the 19th century and early 20th century the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc. Many Catholic bishops wrote articles criticizing Jews on such grounds, and, when accused of promoting hatred of Jews, would remind people that they condemned the "bad" kind of antisemitism. Kertzer's work is not without critics. Scholar of Jewish-Christian relations Rabbi David G. Dalin, for example, criticized Kertzer in the Weekly Standard for using evidence selectively.
The transcript of this discussion contains no response by Bishop Berning. Martin Rhonheimer
does not consider this unusual since, in his opinion, for a Catholic Bishop in 1933 there was nothing particularly objectionable "in this historically correct reminder".
The Nazis used Martin Luther
's book, On the Jews and Their Lies (1543), to claim a moral righteousness for their ideology. Luther even went so far as to advocate the murder of those Jews who refused to convert to Christianity, writing that "we are at fault in not slaying them"
Archbishop Robert Runcie
has asserted that: "Without centuries of Christian antisemitism, Hitler's passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed...because for centuries Christians have held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus
. On Good Friday Jews, have in times past, cowered behind locked doors with fear of a Christian mob seeking 'revenge' for deicide. Without the poisoning of Christian minds through the centuries, the Holocaust is unthinkable." The dissident Catholic priest Hans Küng
has written that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..."
The document Dabru Emet
was issued by over 220 rabbi
s and intellectual
s from all branches of Judaism
in 2000 as a statement about Jewish-Christian relations. This document states,
According to American historian
Lucy Dawidowicz
, antisemitism has a long history within Christianity. The line of "antisemitic descent" from Luther, the author of On the Jews and Their Lies, to Hitler is "easy to draw." In her The War Against the Jews
, 1933-1945, she contends that Luther and Hitler were obsessed by the "demonologized universe" inhabited by Jews. Dawidowicz writes that the similarities between Luther's anti-Jewish writings and modern antisemitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of Judenhass, which can be traced to Haman's
advice to Ahasuerus
. Although modern German antisemitism also has its roots in German nationalism
and the liberal
revolution of 1848, Christian
antisemitism she writes is a foundation that was laid by the Roman Catholic Church and "upon which Luther built." Dawidowicz' allegations and positions are criticized and not accepted by most historians however. For example, in "Studying the Jew" Alan Steinweis notes that, "Old-fashioned antisemitism, Hitler argued, was insufficient, and would lead only to pogroms, which contribute little to a permanent solution. This is why, Hitler maintained, it was important to promote 'an antisemitism of reason,' one that acknowledged the racial basis of Jewry." Interviews with Nazis by other historians show that the Nazis thought that their views were rooted in biology, not historical prejudices. For example, "S. became a missionary for this biomedical vision... As for anti-Semitic attitudes and actions, he insisted that 'the racial question... [and] resentment of the Jewish race... had nothing to do with medieval anti-Semitism...' That is, it was all a matter of scientific biology and of community."
was, in 1934, the first Christian opposition group. The Catholic Church officially condemned the Nazi theory of racism in Germany in 1937 with the encyclical
"Mit Brennender Sorge
", signed by Pope Pius XI
, and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber led the Catholic opposition, preaching against racism.
Many individual Christian clergy and laypeople of all denominations had to pay for their opposition with their life, including:
By the 1940s fewer Christians were willing to oppose Nazi policy publicly, but many secretly helped save the lives of Jews. There are many sections of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Museum, Yad Vashem
, dedicated to honoring these "Righteous Among the Nations
".
).
Before becoming Pope, Cardinal Pacelli presided as Papal Legate
over the International Eucharistic Congress
in Budapest
on 25–30 May 1938. At this time antisemitic laws were in the process of being formulated in Hungary. Pacelli made reference to the Jews "whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today".
The 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge
was issued by Pope Pius XI
, but drafted by the future Pope Pius XII
and read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it condemned Nazi ideology and has been characterized by scholars as the "first great official public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism
" and "one of the greatest such condemnations ever issued by the Vatican."
In the summer of 1942, Pius explained to his college of Cardinals the reasons for the great gulf that existed between Jews and Christians at the theological level: "Jerusalem has responded to His call and to His grace with the same rigid blindness and stubborn ingratitude that has led it along the path of guilt to the murder of God." Historian Guido Knopp describes these comments of Pius as being "incomprehensible" at a time when "Jerusalem was being murdered by the million". This traditional adversarial relationship with Judaism would be reversed in Nostra Aetate
issued during the Second Vatican Council.
Prominent members of the Jewish community have contradicted the criticisms of Pius and spoke highly of his efforts to protect Jews. The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide
interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands". Some historians dispute this estimate.
The Christian Identity
movement, the Ku Klux Klan
and other White supremacy
groups have expressed antisemitic views. They claim that their antisemitism is based on purported Jewish control of the media, international banks, radical left wing politics, and the promotion of multiculturalism
, anti-Christian groups, liberalism
and perverse organizations. They rebuke charges of racism
and claim Jews who share their ideology maintain membership in their organizations. A racial belief common among these groups, but not universal, is an alternative history doctrine, sometimes called British Israelism
. In some forms this doctrine absolutely denies that modern Jews have any racial connection to Israel of the Bible. Instead, according to extreme forms of this doctrine the true racial Israel and true humans are the Adamic (white) race.
These groups are often rejected and not considered to be Christian groups by mainstream Christian denominations as well as the vast majority of Christians around the world.
immigrants and Jews across Europe. The US State Department reports that antisemitism has increased dramatically in Europe and Eurasia since 2000.
While in a decline since the 1940s, there is still a measurable amount of antisemitism in the United States of America as well, although acts of violence are rare. The 2001 survey by the Anti-Defamation League
reported 1432 acts of antisemitism in the United States that year. The figure included 877 acts of harassment, including verbal intimidation, threats and physical assaults. Antisemitic pronouncements still occur, however. John Hagee, a leading proponent of "Christian Zionism," reiterated a view—the popularity of which is very hard to gauge but must nonetheless be considered not simply isolated—that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by angering God.
Most Evangelicals
agree with the SBC position, and some have been supporting efforts specifically seeking Jews' conversion. At the same time these groups are among the most pro-Israeli groups. (For more, see Christian Zionism
.) Among the controversial groups that has found support from some Evangelical churches is Jews for Jesus
, which claims that Jews can "complete" their Jewish faith by accepting Jesus as the Messiah.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church
, and the United Church of Canada
have ended their efforts to convert Jews. While Anglicans do not, as a rule, seek converts from other Christian denominations, the General Synod has affirmed that "the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ is for all and must be shared with all including people from other faiths or of no faith and that to do anything else would be to institutionalize discrimination".
The Roman Catholic Church
formerly had religious congregations specifically aimed to conversion of Jews. Some of these were founded by Jewish converts themselves, like the Community of Our Lady of Zion, which was composed of nun
s and ordained priest
s. Many Catholic saints were noted specifically because of their missionary zeal in converting Jews, such as Vincent Ferrer
. After the Second Vatican Council
many missionary orders aimed at converting Jews to Christianity no longer actively sought to missionize (or proselytize
) among Jews. Traditionalist Roman Catholic
groups, congregations and clergymen, however, continue to support missionizing Jews according to traditional patterns, sometimes with success (e.g., the Society of St. Pius X
which has notable Jewish converts among its faithful, many of whom have become traditionalist priests).
Some Jewish organizations have described evangelism and missionary activity directed specifically at Jews as antisemitic.
Apostolic Age
The Apostolic Age of the history of Christianity is traditionally the period of the Twelve Apostles, dating from the Crucifixion of Jesus and the Great Commission in Jerusalem until the death of John the Apostle in Anatolia...
, the persecution of Christians in the New Testament
Persecution of Christians in the New Testament
The persecution of Christians in the New Testament is an important part of the Early Christian narrative which depicts the early Church as being persecuted for their heterodox beliefs by an alleged "Jewish establishment" in what was then Roman occupied Iudaea province.The New Testament, especially...
, and persisted over the ensuing centuries
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
, driven by numerous factors including theological differences, competition between Church and Synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
, the Christian drive for converts decreed by the Great Commission
Great Commission
The Great Commission, in Christian tradition, is the instruction of the resurrected Jesus Christ to his disciples, that they spread his teachings to all the nations of the world. It has become a tenet in Christian theology emphasizing missionary work, evangelism, and baptism...
, misunderstanding of Jewish beliefs and practices, and a perceived, and sometimes acutual, Jewish hostility toward Christians.
These attitudes were reinforced in Christian preaching, art and popular teaching over the centuries containing contempt for Jews. In many Christian countries, it led to civil and political discrimination against Jews, legal disabilities
Disabilities (Jewish)
Disabilities were legal restrictions and limitations placed on Jews in the Middle Ages. They included provisions requiring Jews to wear specific and identifying clothing such as the Jewish hat and the yellow badge, restricting Jews to certain cities and towns or in certain parts of towns , and...
, and in some instances to physical attacks on Jews which occasionally ended in emigration, expulsion, and even death.
From time to time, anti-Jewish sentiments within European society were exploited or fomented for internal political purposes and sometimes to extract a financial advantage from Jewish subjects. Such sentiments made the expansion of anti-Jewish measures politically acceptable.
Antisemitism has been described as primarily hatred against Jews as a race with its modern expression rooted in 19th century racial theories, while anti-Judaism is described as hostility to Jewish religion, but in Western Christianity
Western Christianity
Western Christianity is a term used to include the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church and groups historically derivative thereof, including the churches of the Anglican and Protestant traditions, which share common attributes that can be traced back to their medieval heritage...
it effectively merged into antisemitism during the 12th century.
Scholars have debated how Christian antisemitism may have played a role in the Nazi Third Reich, World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
. However, "a widespread consensus of historians, church leaders, and academic theologians is that Christian theological anti-Judaism is a phenomenon distinct from modern antisemitism, which is rooted in economic and racial thought, so that Christian teachings should not be held responsible for antisemitism." That consensus position, essentially an exculpation of Christianity for modern antisemitism, is articluated, among other places, by Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
in 'We Re member: A Reflection on the Shoah,' and the Jewish declaration on Christianity, Dabru Emet
Dabru Emet
The Dabru Emet is a document concerning the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. It was signed by over 220 rabbis and intellectuals from all branches of Judaism, as individuals and not as representing any organisation or stream of Judaism.The Dabru Emet was first published on September...
.
Throughout Christian history, some Popes, bishops and some Christian princes stepped up to protect Jews. But it was only in the mid-20th century that the Catholic Church and many Protestant denominations issued major statements repudiating anti-Judaic theology and began a process of constructive Christian-Jewish interaction
Christian-Jewish reconciliation
Reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism refers to the efforts that are being made to improve understanding of the Jewish people and of Judaism, to do away with Christian antisemitism and Jewish anti-Christian sentiment...
.
Anti-Judaism
Many Christians do not consider anti-JudaismAnti-Judaism
Religious antisemitism is a form of antisemitism, which is the prejudice against, or hostility toward, the Jewish people based on hostility to Judaism and to Jews as a religious group...
to be antisemitism. They regard anti-Judaism as a disagreement of religiously sincere people with the tenets of Judaism, while regarding antisemitism as an emotional bias or hatred not specifically targeting the religion of Judaism. Under this approach, anti-Judaism is not regarded as antisemitism as it only rejects the religious ideas of Judaism and does not involve actual hostility to the Jewish people.
Others see anti-Judaism as the rejection of or opposition to beliefs and practices essentially because of their source in Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
or because a belief or practice is associated with the Jewish people. (But see supersessionism
Supersessionism
Supersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...
)
Although some Christians in the past did consider anti-Judaism to be contrary to Christian teaching, this view was not widely expressed by leaders and lay people. In many cases, the practical tolerance towards the Jewish religion and Jews prevailed. Some Christian groups, particularly in early years, condemned verbal anti-Judaism.
Antecedents of Christian antisemitism
In Rome and throughout the Roman EmpireRoman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
, religion was an integral part of the civil government. The Emperor was from time to time declared to be a god and demanded to be worshiped accordingly. This created religious difficulties for Jews, who were prohibited from worshiping any other god than that of the Hebrew Bible
Hebrew Bible
The Hebrew Bible is a term used by biblical scholars outside of Judaism to refer to the Tanakh , a canonical collection of Jewish texts, and the common textual antecedent of the several canonical editions of the Christian Old Testament...
. This created problems in the relations between Rome and its Jewish subjects, as well as for worshipers of Mithras, worshipers of Sabazius, and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
. In the case of Jews, this led to several revolts against Rome and severe persecutions by Rome as punishment.
Many of the early gentile converts to Christianity probably came from and shared this cultural bias. As gentile converts they also were not well acquainted with the internal life of the Jewish community. Hence they read many of the New Testament texts as condemnations of Judaism as such, rather than as internal differences which were commonplace within the Jewish community.
Early differences
"This is not an uncommon impression and one finds it sometimes among Jews as well as Christians - that Judaism is the religion of the Hebrew Bible. It is, of course, a fallacious impression. Judaism is not the religion of the Bible." [Rabbi Ben Zion Bokser, Judaism and the Christian Predicament, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967, p. 59, 159]"The Jewish religion as it is today traces its descent, without a break, through all the centuries, from the Pharisees
Pharisees
The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...
. 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
Talmud
The Talmud is a central text of mainstream Judaism. It takes the form of a record of rabbinic discussions pertaining to Jewish law, ethics, philosophy, customs and history....
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." [Universal Jewish Encyclopedia, Vol. 3 pg. 474]
“Pharisaism became Talmudism, Talmudism became Medieval Rabbinism, and Medieval Rabbinism became Modern Rabbinism. But throughout these changes of name, inevitable adaptation of custom, and adjustment of Law, the spirit of the ancient Pharisee survives unaltered.” [Rabbi Dr. Finkelstein, The Pharisees: The Sociological Background of Their Faith, pg. xxi]
"The Talmud is the written form of that which in the time of Jesus, was called the 'Tradition of the Elders,' and to which He makes frequent allusions." [Michael L. Rodkinson, The History of the Talmud: From The Time Of Its Formation About 200 B. C. Up To The Present Time, Kessinger Publishing, LLC (June 8, 2006), ISBN 978-1428631366, p. 70]
“The complex of rabbinically ordained practices ... including most of the rules for the treatment of Scripture itself—do not derive from Scripture at all. Rabbinic Judaism's initial concern was with the elaboration and refinement of its own system. Attaching the system to scripture was secondary. It therefore is misleading to depict rabbinic Judaism primarily as a consequence of an exegetical process or the organic unfolding of Scripture. Rather, rabbinic Judaism began as the work of a small, ambitious, and homogeneous group of pseudo-priests ...By the third century (A.D.) the rabbis expressed their self-conception in the ideology of "oral Torah
Oral Torah
The Oral Torah comprises the legal and interpretative traditions that, according to tradition, were transmitted orally from Mount Sinai, and were not written in the Torah...
" which held that a comprehensive body of teachings and practices (halachot) not included in Scripture had been given by God and through Moses only to the rabbinic establishment.” (Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System, Jacob Nuesner, pp. 31–34)
There have been philosophical differences between Christianity and Rabbinical Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
since the founding of Christianity. Christians acknowledge the roots of Christianity in Judaism. Some claim the entirety of Jewish religious heritage as its own, while interpreting it very differently.
Debates between the Early Christians
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
, who at first saw themselves as a movement within Judaism and not as a separate religion, and other Jews initially revolved around the question whether Jesus was the Messiah
Messiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
, which later encompassed the issue of his divinity. Once gentiles were converted to Christianity, the question arose whether and how far these gentile Christians were obliged to follow Jewish law in order to follow Jesus (see Paul's letter to the Galatians). At the Council of Jerusalem
Council of Jerusalem
The Council of Jerusalem is a name applied by historians and theologians to an Early Christian council that was held in Jerusalem and dated to around the year 50. It is considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later Ecumenical Councils...
, it was decided that new gentile converts did not need to be circumcised
Circumcision controversy in early Christianity
There is evidence of a controversy over religious male circumcision in Early Christianity. A Council of Jerusalem, possibly held in approximately 50 AD, decreed that male circumcision was not a requirement for Gentile converts. This became known as the "Apostolic Decree" and may be one of the...
(the Apostolic Decree of ), while requiring acceptance to a set of laws similar to Judaism's Noahide Law, (see also Old Testament#Christian view of the Law for the modern debate), but Paul also questioned the validity
Abrogation of Old Covenant laws
While many Christian theology systems reflect the view that at least some Mosaic laws have been set aside under the New Covenant, there are some theology systems that view the entire Mosaic or Old Covenant as abrogated in that all of the Mosaic laws are set aside for the Law of Christ...
of Jewish Christians' adherence to the Jewish law in relation to faith in Christ, according to some interpretations. The issue of Paul of Tarsus and Judaism
Paul of Tarsus and Judaism
The relationship between Paul of Tarsus and Second Temple Judaism continues to be the subject of much scholarly research, as it is thought that Paul played an important role in the relationship between Christianity and Judaism as a whole...
is still hotly debated.
The increase of the numbers of gentile Christians in comparison to Jewish Christians eventually resulted in a rift between Christianity and Judaism, which was further increased by the Jewish-Roman wars
Jewish-Roman wars
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Iudaea Province and Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire. Some sources use the term to refer only to the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba revolt...
(66–73 and 132–135) that drove many more Jews into the diaspora
Diaspora
A diaspora is "the movement, migration, or scattering of people away from an established or ancestral homeland" or "people dispersed by whatever cause to more than one location", or "people settled far from their ancestral homelands".The word has come to refer to historical mass-dispersions of...
and reduced the influence of the Bishop of Jerusalem, leader of the first Christian church. Early Christians also found in the Old Testament, prophecies which seemed to indicate that God's original covenant with the Jews
Mosaic Covenant
The Mosaic Covenant or Sinaitic Covenant are terms used for the biblical covenant between God and the Israelites...
would be expanded to include also the Gentiles, in other words Proselytes, God-fearer
God-fearer
A God-fearer or Godfearer was a class of non-Jewish sympathizer to Second Temple Judaism mentioned in the Christian New Testament and other contemporary sources such as synagogue inscriptions in Diaspora Hellenistic Judaism...
s, and Noachides. Thus the Church Fathers
Church Fathers
The Church Fathers, Early Church Fathers, Christian Fathers, or Fathers of the Church were early and influential theologians, eminent Christian teachers and great bishops. Their scholarly works were used as a precedent for centuries to come...
tend to emphasise that the Church is the new "spiritual" Israel, completing or replacing the earthly Israel which was but its prototype
Typology (theology)
Typology in Christian theology and Biblical exegesis is a doctrine or theory concerning the relationship between the Old and New Testaments...
. In modern times, this view would come to be called "Supersessionism
Supersessionism
Supersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...
".
Also, the two religions differed in their legal status in the Roman Empire
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
: Judaism, restricted to the Jewish people and Jewish Proselytes, was generally exempt from obligation to the Roman imperial cult
Imperial cult (ancient Rome)
The Imperial cult of ancient Rome identified emperors and some members of their families with the divinely sanctioned authority of the Roman State...
and since the reign of Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
enjoyed the status of a "licit religion", though there were also occasional persecutions, for example in 19 Tiberius
Tiberius
Tiberius , was Roman Emperor from 14 AD to 37 AD. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla. His mother divorced Nero and married Augustus in 39 BC, making him a step-son of Octavian...
expelled the Jews from Rome, as Claudius
Claudius
Claudius , was Roman Emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul and was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy...
did again in 49. Christianity however was not restricted to one people, and as Jewish Christians were excluded from the synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
(see Council of Jamnia
Council of Jamnia
The Council of Jamnia or Council of Yavne is a hypothetical late 1st-century council at which it is postulated the canon of the Hebrew Bible was finalized....
), they also lost the protection of the status of Judaism, though said protection did have its limits (see for example Titus Flavius Clemens (consul)
Titus Flavius Clemens (consul)
Titus Flavius Clemens was a great-nephew of the Roman Emperor Vespasian. He was the son of Titus Flavius Sabinus , brother to Titus Flavius Sabinus and a second cousin to Roman Emperors to Titus and Domitian.-In classical sources:...
, Akiba ben Joseph, and Ten Martyrs
Ten Martyrs
The Ten Martyrs refers to a group of ten rabbis living during the era of the Mishnah who were martyred by the Romans in the period after the destruction of the second Temple...
).
From the reign of Nero
Nero
Nero , was Roman Emperor from 54 to 68, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Nero was adopted by his great-uncle Claudius to become his heir and successor, and succeeded to the throne in 54 following Claudius' death....
onwards, who is said to have blamed the Great Fire of Rome
Great Fire of Rome
The Great Fire of Rome was an urban fire that occurred beginning July 19, AD 64.-Background:According to Tacitus, the fire spread quickly and burned for six days. Only four of the fourteen districts of Rome escaped the fire; three districts were completely destroyed and the other seven suffered...
on Christians, Christianity was considered to be illegal and Christians were frequently subjected to persecution, differing regionally. Comparably, Judaism suffered the setbacks of the Jewish-Roman wars
Jewish-Roman wars
The Jewish–Roman wars were a series of large-scale revolts by the Jews of Iudaea Province and Eastern Mediterranean against the Roman Empire. Some sources use the term to refer only to the First Jewish–Roman War and Bar Kokhba revolt...
, remembered in the legacy of the Ten Martyrs
Ten Martyrs
The Ten Martyrs refers to a group of ten rabbis living during the era of the Mishnah who were martyred by the Romans in the period after the destruction of the second Temple...
. Robin Lane Fox
Robin Lane Fox
Robin Lane Fox is an English historian, currently a Fellow of New College, Oxford and University of Oxford Reader in Ancient History.-Life:Lane Fox was educated at Eton and Magdalen College, Oxford....
traces the origin of much later hostility to the period of persecution, where the commonest test by the authorities of a suspected Christian was to require homage to be paid to the deified emperor. Jews were exempt from this requirement as long as they paid the Fiscus Judaicus
Fiscus Judaicus
The Fiscus Iudaicus or Fiscus Judaicus was a tax collecting agency instituted to collect the tax imposed on Jews in the Roman Empire after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in 70 CE in favor of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome.-Imposition:The tax was initially imposed by Roman...
, and Christians (many or mostly of Jewish origins) would say they were Jewish but refused to pay the tax. This had to be confirmed by the local Jewish authorities, who were likely to refuse to accept the Christians as Jewish, often leading to their execution. The Birkat haMinim
Birkat haMinim
The Birkat ha-Minim, , is a Jewish prayer of blessing on heretics in general, and sometimes Christians, though in this context "blessing" may also be a euphemism for a curse....
was often brought forward as support for this charge that the Jews were responsible for the Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In the 3rd century systematic persecution of Christians began and lasted until Constantine's conversion to Christianity. In 390 Theodosius I
Theodosius I
Theodosius I , also known as Theodosius the Great, was Roman Emperor from 379 to 395. Theodosius was the last emperor to rule over both the eastern and the western halves of the Roman Empire. During his reign, the Goths secured control of Illyricum after the Gothic War, establishing their homeland...
made Christianity the State church of the Roman Empire
State church of the Roman Empire
The state church of the Roman Empire was a Christian institution organized within the Roman Empire during the 4th century that came to represent the Empire's sole authorized religion. Both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox churches claim to be the historical continuation of this...
. While pagan cults and Manichaeism
Manichaeism
Manichaeism in Modern Persian Āyin e Māni; ) was one of the major Iranian Gnostic religions, originating in Sassanid Persia.Although most of the original writings of the founding prophet Mani have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived...
were suppressed, Judaism retained its legal status as a licit religion, though anti-Jewish violence still occurred. In the 5th century, some legal measures worsened the status of the Jews in the Roman Empire
Jews in the Roman Empire
Jews, primarily from the Eastern Mediterranean, and Romans, primarily from Latium in central Italy, are ancient ethnic groups. Their cultures began to overlap in the centuries just before the Christian Era. Jews, as part of the Jewish diaspora, migrated to Rome from Alexandria, where they formed a...
(now more properly called the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
since relocating to Constantinople
Constantinople
Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...
).
New Testament rejection of Judaism
A number of passages in the New Testament may be considered as a rejection of Judaism given a certain interpretive approach. Among them are:- For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men.
- criticisms of Jewish parochialism or particularism
- criticisms of Jews being children of the devil and the like
- criticisms of the PhariseesPhariseesThe Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...
- the assertion that the Jewish covenant with God has been supersededSupersessionismSupersessionism is a term for the dominant Christian view of the Old Covenant, also called fulfillment theology and replacement theology, though the latter term is disputed...
by a New CovenantNew CovenantThe New Covenant is a concept originally derived from the Hebrew Bible. The term "New Covenant" is used in the Bible to refer to an epochal relationship of restoration and peace following a period of trial and judgment... - the explication of the Jewish role in the Passion of Jesus. This is exemplified by :
These elements of the New Testament have their origins in 1st-century history. Christianity began as a revision of Judaism. Many of Jesus' followers during his life were Jews, and it was even a matter of confusion, many years after his death, as to whether non-Jews could even be considered Christians at all, according to the way some interpret the Council of Jerusalem
Council of Jerusalem
The Council of Jerusalem is a name applied by historians and theologians to an Early Christian council that was held in Jerusalem and dated to around the year 50. It is considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later Ecumenical Councils...
.
Although the Gospels offer accounts of confrontations and debates between Jesus and other Jews, such conflicts were common among Jews at the time. Scholars disagree on the historicity of the Gospels, and have offered different interpretations of the complex relationship between Jewish authorities and Christians before and following Jesus' death. These debates hinge on the meaning of the word "messiah," and the claims of Early Christians.
Rejection of Jesus as the Messiah
Christianity says that Jesus is the MessiahMessiah
A messiah is a redeemer figure expected or foretold in one form or another by a religion. Slightly more widely, a messiah is any redeemer figure. Messianic beliefs or theories generally relate to eschatological improvement of the state of humanity or the world, in other words the World to...
which Judaism does not accept. The Gospels claim that Jesus was a preacher, healer, and messiah. There is no reason to think Jesus would have come into conflict with Jewish authorities in 1st century Judea on account of his preaching and healing, yet part of the gospel record is the Cleansing of the Temple. However, claims that he was the Messiah were more controversial. The Hebrew word mashiyakh (משיח) typically signified a man, chosen by God or descended from a man chosen by God, to serve as a civil and military authority. If Jesus made this claim during his life, it is not surprising that many Jews, weary of Roman occupation, would have supported him as a liberator. It is also likely that Jewish authorities would have been cautious, out of fear of Roman reprisal.
Jesus was considered by Christians to be the Messiah, while for most Jews the death of Jesus would have been sufficient proof that he was not the Jewish Messiah
Jewish Messiah
Messiah, ; mashiah, moshiah, mashiach, or moshiach, is a term used in the Hebrew Bible to describe priests and kings, who were traditionally anointed with holy anointing oil as described in Exodus 30:22-25...
. If early Christians preached that Jesus was about to return
Second Coming
In Christian doctrine, the Second Coming of Christ, the Second Advent, or the Parousia, is the anticipated return of Jesus Christ from Heaven, where he sits at the Right Hand of God, to Earth. This prophecy is found in the canonical gospels and in most Christian and Islamic eschatologies...
, it is virtually certain that Jewish authorities would have opposed them out of fear of Roman reprisal.
Such fears would have been well grounded: Jews revolted against the Romans in 66 CE, which culminated with the destruction of the Second Temple
Second Temple
The Jewish Second Temple was an important shrine which stood on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem between 516 BCE and 70 CE. It replaced the First Temple which was destroyed in 586 BCE, when the Jewish nation was exiled to Babylon...
in 70 CE. They revolted
Bar Kokhba's revolt
The Bar Kokhba revolt 132–136 CE; or mered bar kokhba) against the Roman Empire, was the third major rebellion by the Jews of Judaea Province being the last of the Jewish-Roman Wars. Simon bar Kokhba, the commander of the revolt, was acclaimed as a Messiah, a heroic figure who could restore Israel...
again under the leadership of the professed messiah Simon Bar Kokhba
Simon bar Kokhba
Simon bar Kokhba was the Jewish leader of what is known as the Bar Kokhba revolt against the Roman Empire in 132 CE, establishing an independent Jewish state of Israel which he ruled for three years as Nasi...
in 132 CE, which culminated in the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem, which Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
renamed into Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina
Aelia Capitolina was a city built by the emperor Hadrian, and occupied by a Roman colony, on the site of Jerusalem, which was in ruins since 70 AD, leading in part to the Bar Kokhba revolt of 132–136.-Politics:...
in an attempt to wipe out memory of Jews there.
At the time, Christianity was still considered a sect of Judaism, but the messianic claims alienated many Christians (including Jewish converts) and sharply deepened the schism
Schism (religion)
A schism , from Greek σχίσμα, skhísma , is a division between people, usually belonging to an organization or movement religious denomination. The word is most frequently applied to a break of communion between two sections of Christianity that were previously a single body, or to a division within...
.
Observance of Mosaic law
Another source of tension between early Christians and Jews was the question of observance of Mosaic Law which was also debated among Proselytes. Early Christians were divided over the issue: Some Jewish ChristiansJewish Christians
Jewish Christians is a term which appears in historical texts contrasting Christians of Jewish origin with Gentile Christians, both in discussion of the New Testament church and the second and following centuries....
or so-called Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...
argued that Christians were bound to observe Mosaic law, while Paul
Paul of Tarsus
Paul the Apostle , also known as Saul of Tarsus, is described in the Christian New Testament as one of the most influential early Christian missionaries, with the writings ascribed to him by the church forming a considerable portion of the New Testament...
perhaps argued that only some of Mosaic Law applied to Christians, though the issue of Paul of Tarsus and Judaism
Paul of Tarsus and Judaism
The relationship between Paul of Tarsus and Second Temple Judaism continues to be the subject of much scholarly research, as it is thought that Paul played an important role in the relationship between Christianity and Judaism as a whole...
is still hotly debated with some advocating complete abrogation
Abrogation of Old Covenant laws
While many Christian theology systems reflect the view that at least some Mosaic laws have been set aside under the New Covenant, there are some theology systems that view the entire Mosaic or Old Covenant as abrogated in that all of the Mosaic laws are set aside for the Law of Christ...
. The issue was argued especially in the context of whether Gentile converts were obligated to undergo circumcision
Circumcision controversy in early Christianity
There is evidence of a controversy over religious male circumcision in Early Christianity. A Council of Jerusalem, possibly held in approximately 50 AD, decreed that male circumcision was not a requirement for Gentile converts. This became known as the "Apostolic Decree" and may be one of the...
, which was a requirement for Jewish boys. The issue was hotly debated in the 1st century and settled at the Council of Jerusalem
Council of Jerusalem
The Council of Jerusalem is a name applied by historians and theologians to an Early Christian council that was held in Jerusalem and dated to around the year 50. It is considered by Catholics and Orthodox to be a prototype and forerunner of the later Ecumenical Councils...
, in which Paul and Barnabas participated as representatives of the church at Antioch. The Council decided that Gentile converts were not subject to most Mosaic Law, including circumcision, but required them to stay away from eating meat with blood still on it, eating the meat of strangled animals, eating food offered to idols, and sexual immorality. See also Noahide Law and Proselyte
Proselyte
The biblical term "Proselyte", derives from the Koine Greek προσήλυτος/proselytos, as used in the Septuagint for "stranger", i.e. a "newcomer to Israel"; a "sojourner in the land", and in the New Testament for a convert to Judaism from Paganism...
.
Many have interpreted Paul's writings as other parts of the New Testament as ending the requirements of the Jewish law
Abrogation of Old Covenant laws
While many Christian theology systems reflect the view that at least some Mosaic laws have been set aside under the New Covenant, there are some theology systems that view the entire Mosaic or Old Covenant as abrogated in that all of the Mosaic laws are set aside for the Law of Christ...
. See Proselyte
Proselyte
The biblical term "Proselyte", derives from the Koine Greek προσήλυτος/proselytos, as used in the Septuagint for "stranger", i.e. a "newcomer to Israel"; a "sojourner in the land", and in the New Testament for a convert to Judaism from Paganism...
and New Perspective on Paul
New Perspective on Paul
The "New Perspective on Paul" is a significant shift in the way some scholars, especially Protestant scholars, interpret the writings of the Apostle Paul.-Description:Since the Protestant Reformation The "New Perspective on Paul" is a significant shift in the way some scholars, especially...
for more details. An example of another view is represented by the Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
article on Judaizers:
- Paul, on the other hand, not only did not object to the observance of the Mosaic Law as long as it did not interfere with the liberty of the Gentiles but also he conformed to its prescriptions when occasion required. Thus he shortly after [the Council of Jerusalem] circumcised Timothy, and he was in the very act of observing the Mosaic ritual when he was arrested at Jerusalem.
Conversion of Gentiles to Judaism
After Paul's death, Christianity emerged as a separate religion, and Pauline ChristianityPauline Christianity
Pauline Christianity is a term used to refer to the Christianity associated with the beliefs and doctrines espoused by Paul of Tarsus through his writings. Most of orthodox Christianity relies heavily on these teachings and considers them to be amplifications and explanations of the teachings of...
emerged as the dominant form of Christianity, especially after Paul, James and the other apostles agreed on a compromise set of requirements. Some Christians continued to adhere to Jewish law, but they were few in number and often considered heretics
Christian heresy
Christian heresy refers to non-orthodox practices and beliefs that were deemed to be heretical by one or more of the Christian churches. In Western Christianity, the term "heresy" most commonly refers to those beliefs which were declared to be anathema by the Catholic Church prior to the schism of...
by the Church. One example is the Ebionites
Ebionites
Ebionites, or Ebionaioi, , is a patristic term referring to a Jewish Christian sect or sects that existed during the first centuries of the Christian Era. They regarded Jesus as the Messiah and insisted on the necessity of following Jewish religious law and rites...
, which, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia
Catholic Encyclopedia
The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...
, were "infected with Judaistic errors" (language which Jews find offensive); for instance, they denied the virgin birth of Jesus, the physical Resurrection of Jesus
Resurrection of Jesus
The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...
, and most of the books that were later canonized
Biblical canon
A biblical canon, or canon of scripture, is a list of books considered to be authoritative as scripture by a particular religious community. The term itself was first coined by Christians, but the idea is found in Jewish sources. The internal wording of the text can also be specified, for example...
as the New Testament
New Testament
The New Testament is the second major division of the Christian biblical canon, the first such division being the much longer Old Testament....
, see also "Judaizers
Judaizers
Judaizers is predominantly a Christian term, derived from the Greek verb ioudaïzō . This term is most widely known from the single use in the New Testament where Paul publicly challenges Peter for compelling Gentile believers to "judaize", also known as the Incident at Antioch.According to the...
" (a term which Jews find offensive). For example, the Ethiopian Orthodox are often accused of being Judaizers because they still observe Old Testament
Old Testament
The Old Testament, of which Christians hold different views, is a Christian term for the religious writings of ancient Israel held sacred and inspired by Christians which overlaps with the 24-book canon of the Masoretic Text of Judaism...
teachings such as the Sabbath
Shabbat
Shabbat is the seventh day of the Jewish week and a day of rest in Judaism. Shabbat is observed from a few minutes before sunset on Friday evening until a few minutes after when one would expect to be able to see three stars in the sky on Saturday night. The exact times, therefore, differ from...
, and conversely they accuse their opponents of residual Marcionism
Marcionism
Marcionism was an Early Christian dualist belief system that originated in the teachings of Marcion of Sinope at Rome around the year 144; see also Christianity in the 2nd century....
. As late as the 4th century Church Father John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...
complained (see John Chrysostom#Sermons on Jews and Judaizing Christians) that some Christians were still attending Jewish synagogues.
Criticism of the Pharisees
Many New Testament passages criticise the PhariseesPharisees
The Pharisees were at various times a political party, a social movement, and a school of thought among Jews during the Second Temple period beginning under the Hasmonean dynasty in the wake of...
and it has been argued that these passages have shaped the way that Christians viewed Jews. Like most Bible passages, however, they can and have been interpreted in a variety of ways.
During Jesus' life and at the time of his execution, the Pharisees were only one of several Jewish groups such as the Sadducees, Zealots, and Essenes; indeed, some have suggested that Jesus was himself a Pharisee. Arguments by Jesus and his disciples against the Pharisees and what he saw as their hypocrisy were most likely examples of disputes among Jews and internal to Judaism that were common at the time, see for example Hillel and Shammai
Hillel and Shammai
Hillel and Shammai were two leading rabbis of the early 1st century CE who founded opposing schools of Jewish thought, known as the House of Hillel and House of Shammai...
. (Lutheran Pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
John Stendahl has pointed out that "Christianity begins as a kind of Judaism, and we must recognize that words spoken in a family conflict are inappropriately appropriated by those outside the family.")
Recent studies on Antisemitism in the New Testament
Professor Lillian C. Freudmann, author of Antisemitism in the New Testament (University Press of AmericaUniversity Press of America
University Press of America is an academic book publisher based in the United States. Part of the independent Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, it was founded in 1975 and boasts of having published "more than 10,000 academic, scholarly, and biographical titles in many disciplines"...
, 1994) has published a detailed study of the description of Jews in the New Testament, and the historical effects that such passages have had in the Christian community throughout history. Similar studies of such verses have been made by both Christian and Jewish scholars, including, Professors Clark Williamsom (Christian Theological Seminary), Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby
Hyam Maccoby was a British Jewish scholar and dramatist specializing in the study of the Jewish and Christian religious tradition. His grandfather and namesake was Rabbi Hyam Maccoby , better known as the "Kamenitzer Maggid," a passionate religious Zionist and advocate of vegetarianism and animal...
(The Leo Baeck Institute), Norman A. Beck (Texas Lutheran College), and Michael Berenbaum (Georgetown University). Most rabbis feel that these verses are antisemitic, and many Christian scholars, in America and Europe, have reached the same conclusion. Another example is John Dominic Crossan
John Dominic Crossan
John Dominic Crossan is an Irish-American religious scholar and former Catholic priest known for co-founding the Jesus Seminar. Crossan is a major figure in the fields of biblical archaeology, anthropology and New Testament textual and higher criticism. He is also a lecturer who has appeared in...
's 1995 Who Killed Jesus? Exposing the Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Gospel Story of the Death of Jesus.
The Church Fathers
Patristic bishops of the patristic era such as AugustineAugustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
argued that the Jews should be left alive and suffering as a perpetual reminder of their murder of Christ
Deicide
Deicide is the killing of a god. The term deicide was coined in the 17th century from medieval Latin *deicidium, from de-us "god" and -cidium "cutting, killing")...
. Saint John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom
John Chrysostom , Archbishop of Constantinople, was an important Early Church Father. He is known for his eloquence in preaching and public speaking, his denunciation of abuse of authority by both ecclesiastical and political leaders, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, and his ascetic...
used Jesus' words in Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...
19:27 to call for the murder of Jews in Chrysostoms Eight Homilies Against the Jews:
The Jewish people were driven by their drunkenness and plumpness to the ultimate evil; they kicked about, they failed to accept the yoke of Christ, nor did they pull the plow of his teaching. Another prophet hinted at this when he said: “Israel is as obstinate as a stubborn heifer.” … Although such beasts are unfit for work, they are fit for killing. And this is what happened to the Jews: while they were making themselves unfit for work, they grew fit for slaughter. This is why Christ said: “But as for these my enemies, who did not want me to be king over them, bring them here and slay them.” [Luke 19:27]Steven Katz cites Chrysostom's homilies as “the decisive turn in the history of Christian anti-Judaism, a turn whose ultimate disfiguring consequence was enacted in the political antisemitism of Adolf Hitler”. James Parkes called the writing on Jews "the most horrible and violent denunciations of Judaism to be found in the writings of a Christian theologian". His sermons against Jews gave momentum to the idea that Jews are collectively responsible for the death of Jesus. Ephraim the Syrian wrote polemics against Jews in the 4th century, including the repeated accusation that Satan dwells among them as a partner. These writings were directed at Christians who were being proselytized by Jews and who Ephraim feared were slipping back into the religion of Judaism; thus he portrayed the Jews as enemies of Christianity, like Satan, to emphasize the contrast between the two religions, namely, that Christianity was Godly and true and Judaism was Satanic and false. Like John Chrysostom, his objective was to dissuade Christians from reverting to Judaism by emphasizing what he saw as the wickedness of the Jews and their religion.
Christians and Jews in Muslim lands
While in Christian Europe Christianity had the upper hand as the religion of state, under Islam Jews and Christians were on a more even footing.The Emperor Leo I
The ByzantineByzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
Emperor Leo I
Leo I (emperor)
Leo I was Byzantine Emperor from 457 to 474. A native of Dacia Aureliana near historic Thrace, he was known as Leo the Thracian ....
compiled a code of law, the New Constitutions of Leo, under which Jews were compelled to observe Christian rites.
"Jews shall live in accordance with the rites of Christianity. Those who formerly were invested with Imperial authority promulgated various laws with reference to the Hebrew people, who, once nourished by Divine protection, became renowned, but are now remarkable for the calamities inflicted upon them because of their contumacy towards Christ and God; and these laws, while regulating their mode of life, compelled them to read the Holy Scriptures, and ordered them not to depart from the ceremonies of their worship. They also provided that their children should adhere to their religion, being obliged to do so as well by the ties of blood, as on account of the institution of circumcision. These are the laws which I have already stated were formerly enforced throughout the Empire. But the Most Holy Sovereign from whom We are descended, more concerned than his predecessors for the salvation of the Jews, instead of allowing them (as they did) to obey only their ancient laws, attempted, by the interpretation of prophesies and the conclusions which he drew from them, to convert them to the Christian religion, by means of the vivifying water of baptism. He fully succeeded in his attempts to transform them into new men, according to the doctrine of Christ, and induced them to denounce their ancient doctrines and abandon their religious ceremonies, such as circumcision, the observance of the Sabbath, and all their other rites. But although he, to a certain extent, overcame the obstinacy of the Jews, he was unable to force them to abolish the laws which permitted them to live in accordance with their ancient customs. Therefore We, desiring to accomplish what Our Father failed to effect, do hereby annul all the old laws enacted with reference to the Hebrews, and We order that they shall not dare to live in any other manner than in accordance with the rules established by the pure and salutary Christian Faith. And if anyone of them should be proved to have neglected to observe the ceremonies of the Christian religion, and to have returned to his former practices, he shall pay the penalty prescribed by the law for apostates."
Pope Gregory I
Not all early Christians were antisemitic though. Some, such as Pope Gregory IPope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...
, spoke out against the antisemitism of their day.
Sicut Judaeis
Sicut Judaeis (the "Constitution for the Jews") was the official position of the papacy regarding Jews throughout the Middle Ages and later. The first bull was issued in about 1120 by Calixtus II, intended to protect Jews who suffered during the First CrusadeFirst Crusade
The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
, and was reaffirmed by many popes, even until the 15th century.
The bull forbade, besides other things, Christians from coercing Jews to convert, or to harm them, or to take their property, or to disturb the celebration of their festivals, or to interfere with their cemeteries, on pain of excommunication.
Later Christian writers
Pope John XVIIIPope John XVIII
Pope John XVIII was Pope in Pisa from 1004 to 1009. He was born Fasanius at Rapagnano, near Ascoli Piceno, the son of a Roman priest named Leo....
- 1007: "The Jews of France, victims of persecution, are taken under papal protection."
Pope Alexander II
Pope Alexander II
Pope Alexander II , born Anselmo da Baggio, was Pope from 1061 to 1073.He was born in Milan. As bishop of Lucca he had been an energetic coadjutor with Hildebrand of Sovana in endeavouring to suppress simony, and to enforce the celibacy of the clergy...
:
- 1063: "Praise for Winfred, archbishop of Narbonne, for defending the Jews."
- 1063: "Praise for Berengar, viscount of Narbonne, for protecting the Jews."
- 1065: "Admonition to Landulf, lord of Benevento, that the conversion of Jews is not to be obtained by force."
Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
- "Is it not a far better triumph for the Church to convince and convert the Jews than to put them all to the sword? Has that prayer which the Church offers for the Jews...been instituted in vain?"
Thomas of Monmouth
Thomas of Monmouth
Thomas of Monmouth was a monk who lived in a Benedictine monastery in Norwich, in Norfolk, England during the 12th century.-Career:Thomas of Monmouth was the author of The Life and Miracles of William , an anti-semitic polemic which accused the Jews of murdering a young boy whose body was found on...
- In 1173 wrote a detailed antisemitic tractate, called The Life and Miracles of St. William of Norwich, holding that Jews tortured to death a Christian child during Passover.
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III
Pope Innocent III was Pope from 8 January 1198 until his death. His birth name was Lotario dei Conti di Segni, sometimes anglicised to Lothar of Segni....
- 1199: Constitution for the Jews
- 1199: Letter on the Jews
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...
- Not imposing, he said, his own judgment but rather urging the judgment of the experts, declared that, "as the laws say, the Jews by reason of their fault are sentenced to perpetual servitude and thus the lords of the lands in which they dwell may take things from them as though they were their own — with, nonetheless, this restraint observed that the necessary subsidies of life in no way be taken from them...[and that] the services coerced from them do not demand things that they had not been accustomed to do in times gone by." However, he also argued that the Jews should not be baptized against their will, quoting the council of Toledo: "In regard to the Jews the holy synod commands that henceforward none of them be forced to believe."
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX
Pope Gregory IX, born Ugolino di Conti, was pope from March 19, 1227 to August 22, 1241.The successor of Pope Honorius III , he fully inherited the traditions of Pope Gregory VII and of his uncle Pope Innocent III , and zealously continued their policy of Papal supremacy.-Early life:Ugolino was...
- Wrote several decrees to prevent discriminations against Jews (see Pope Gregory IX and JudaismPope Gregory IX and JudaismThe relations between Pope Gregory IX and Judaism were comparatively good for a medieval Pope, since Gregory acted as a political protector to persecuted Jewish communities...
).
Pope Gregory X
Pope Gregory X
Pope Blessed Gregory X , born Tebaldo Visconti, was Pope from 1271 to 1276. He was elected by the papal election, 1268–1271, the longest papal election in the history of the Roman Catholic Church....
:
- "And most falsely do these Christians claim that the Jews have secretly and furtively carried away these children and killed them, and that the Jews offer sacrifice from the heart and blood of these children, since their law in this matter precisely and expressly forbids Jews to sacrifice, eat, or drink the blood, or to eat the flesh of animals having claws. This has been demonstrated many times at our court by Jews converted to the Christian faith: nevertheless very many Jews are often seized and detained unjustly because of this. We decree, therefore, that Christians need not be obeyed against Jews in a case or situation of this type, and we order that Jews seized under such a silly pretext be freed from imprisonment, and that they shall not be arrested henceforth on such a miserable pretext, unless-which we do not believe-they be caught in the commission of the crime. We decree that no Christian shall stir up anything new against them, but that they should be maintained in that status and position in which they were in the time of our predecessors, from antiquity till now."
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
- Wrote in "The Prioress's TaleThe Prioress's Tale"The Prioress's Tale" follows The Shipman's Tale in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Because of fragmentation of the manuscripts, it is impossible to tell where it comes in ordinal sequence, but it is second in group B2, followed by Chaucer's Tale of Sir Topas...
" of his Canterbury Tales of a devout little Christian child who was murdered by Jews affronted at his singing a hymn as he passed through the Jewry, or Jewish quarter, of a city in Asia. A considerable body of critical and scholarly opinion holds that this speech, in the mouth of the Prioress, represents an ironic inversion of Chaucer's own sentiments: that is, the Prioress is seen as a hypocrite whose cruelty and bigotry belies her conventionally pious pose — a situation typical of the indeterminacy of Chaucer's intentions.
Pope Martin V
Pope Martin V
Pope Martin V , born Odo Colonna, was Pope from 1417 to 1431. His election effectively ended the Western Schism .-Biography:...
- Declared in 1419: "Whereas the Jews are made in the image of God and a remnant of them will one day be saved, and whereas they have besought our protection: following in the footsteps of our predecessors we command that they be not molested in their synagogues; that their laws, rights, and customs be not assailed; that they be not baptized by force, constrained to observe Christian festivals, nor to wear new badges, and they be not hindered in their business relations with Christians" Martin however issued a bull in 1425 ordering Jews to wear a "badge of infamy". After the Austrian and German Jews appealed to him, he spoke in their favor in 1420 and "in 1422, confirmed the ancient privileges of their race".
Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII
Pope Clement VIII , born Ippolito Aldobrandini, was Pope from 30 January 1592 to 3 March 1605.-Cardinal:...
- "All the world suffers from the usuryUsuryUsury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
of the Jews, their monopolies and deceit. They have brought many unfortunate people into a state of poverty, especially the farmers, working class people and the very poor. Then, as now, Jews have to be reminded intermittently that they were enjoying rights in any country since they left Palestine and the Arabian desert, and subsequently their ethical and moral doctrines as well as their deeds rightly deserve to be exposed to criticism in whatever country they happen to live." (see Pope Clement VIII and JudaismPope Clement VIII and JudaismThe relations between Pope Clement VIII and Judaism were rather bad, since Pope Clement had no qualms in making the usual link between Jews and usury:...
)
Patriarch
Patriarch of All Romania
The Patriarch of All Romania is the title of the head of the Romanian Orthodox Church. As of September 12, 2007, the chair is occupied by Daniel Ciobotea.-Metropolitans of Ungro-Wallachia:* Maxim * Macarie II * Ilarion II...
Miron Cristea
Miron Cristea
Miron Cristea, was an Austro-Hungarian-born Romanian cleric and politician....
- "The duty of a Christian is to love himself first and to see that his needs are satisfied. Only then can he help his neighbor. . . . Why should we not get rid of these parasites [Jews] who suck Rumanian Christian blood? It is logical and holy to react against them."
Popular antisemitism
Antisemitism in popular European Christian culture escalated beginning in the 13th century. Blood libelsBlood Libels
Blood Libels is the third full-length album by French black metal band Antaeus.-Track listing:# Rot - 5:36# Cyklik Torture - 3:40# Control and Abuse - 5:34# Colliding in Ashes - 5:10# Words as Weapons - 6:27# Here is Punishment - 3:29...
and host desecration
Host desecration
Host desecration is a form of sacrilege in Christianity involving the mistreatment or malicious use of a consecrated host— the sacred bread used in the Eucharistic service or Mass...
drew popular attention and led to many cases of persecution against Jews. Antisemitic imagery such as Judensau
Judensau
Judensau is an image of Jews in obscene contact with a large sow , which in Judaism is an unclean animal, that appeared during the 13th century in Germany and some other European countries; its popularity lasted for over 600 years.-Background and images:The Jewish prohibition of pork comes from...
and Ecclesia et Synagoga
Ecclesia et Synagoga
Ecclesia et Synagoga is a sculptural depiction of the Church and the Jewish synagogue found on the façades of churches across Europe....
recurred in Christian art and architecture.
In Iceland, one of the hymns repeated in the days leading up to Easter include the lines,
- The righteous Law of Moses
- The Jews here misapplied,
- Which their deceit exposes,
- Their hatred and their pride.
- The judgement is the Lord's.
- When by falsification
- The foe makes accusation,
- It's His to make awards.
Expulsion of Jews from England
King Edward IEdward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
expelled all the Jews from England in 1290 (only after ransoming some 3,000 among the most wealthy of them), on the accusation of usury
Usury
Usury Originally, when the charging of interest was still banned by Christian churches, usury simply meant the charging of interest at any rate . In countries where the charging of interest became acceptable, the term came to be used for interest above the rate allowed by law...
and undermining loyalty to the dynasty.
Expulsion of Jews from Spain
In 1492 Ferdinand II of AragonFerdinand II of Aragon
Ferdinand the Catholic was King of Aragon , Sicily , Naples , Valencia, Sardinia, and Navarre, Count of Barcelona, jure uxoris King of Castile and then regent of that country also from 1508 to his death, in the name of...
and Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I of Castile
Isabella I was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor...
, the rulers of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
who financed Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
' voyage to the New World just a few months later in 1492, declared that all Jews in their territories should either convert to Catholicism or leave the country. While some converted, many others left for Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
(including the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
), Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
, and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. Many of those who had fled to Portugal were latter expelled by King Manuel
Manuel I of Portugal
Manuel I , the Fortunate , 14th king of Portugal and the Algarves was the son of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, , by his wife, Infanta Beatrice of Portugal...
in 1497 or left to avoid forced conversion and persecution.
Protestant Reformation
Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
at first made overtures towards the Jews, believing that the "evils" of Catholicism had prevented their conversion to Christianity. When his call to convert to his version of Christianity was unsuccessful, he became hostile to them.
In his book On the Jews and their Lies, he excoriates them as "venomous beasts, vipers, disgusting scum, canders, devils incarnate." He provided detailed recommendations for a pogrom
Pogrom
A pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
against them, calling for their permanent oppression and expulsion, writing "Their private houses must be destroyed and devastated, they could be lodged in stables. Let the magistrates burn their synagogues and let whatever escapes be covered with sand and mud. Let them force to work, and if this avails nothing, we will be compelled to expel them like dogs in order not to expose ourselves to incurring divine wrath and eternal damnation from the Jews and their lies." At one point he wrote: "...we are at fault in not slaying them..." a passage that "may be termed the first work of modern antisemitism, and a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
."
Luther's harsh comments about the Jews are seen by many as a continuation of medieval Christian antisemitism. In his final sermon shortly before his death, however, Luther preached: "We want to treat them with Christian love and to pray for them, so that they might become converted and would receive the Lord."
18th century
In accordance with the anti-Jewish precepts of the Russian Orthodox ChurchRussian Orthodox Church
The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...
, Russia's discriminatory policies towards Jews intensified when the partition of Poland in the 18th century resulted, for the first time in Russian history, in the possession of land with a large Jewish population. This land was designated as the Pale of Settlement
Pale of Settlement
The Pale of Settlement was the term given to a region of Imperial Russia, in which permanent residency by Jews was allowed, and beyond which Jewish permanent residency was generally prohibited...
from which Jews were forbidden to migrate into the interior of Russia. In 1772 Catherine II, the empress of Russia, forced the Jews of the Pale of Settlement to stay in their shtetls and forbade them from returning to the towns that they occupied before the partition of Poland.
19th century
Pope Pius VII
Pope Pius VII , born Barnaba Niccolò Maria Luigi Chiaramonti, was a monk, theologian and bishop, who reigned as Pope from 14 March 1800 to 20 August 1823.-Early life:...
(1800–1823) had the walls of the Jewish ghetto
Ghetto
A ghetto is a section of a city predominantly occupied by a group who live there, especially because of social, economic, or legal issues.The term was originally used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were compelled to live. The term now refers to an overcrowded urban area often associated...
in Rome rebuilt after the Jews were emancipated
Jewish Emancipation
Jewish emancipation was the external and internal process of freeing the Jewish people of Europe, including recognition of their rights as equal citizens, and the formal granting of citizenship as individuals; it occurred gradually between the late 18th century and the early 20th century...
by Napoleon
Napoleon and the Jews
The ascendancy of Napoleon Bonaparte proved to be an important event in European Jewish emancipation from old laws restricting them to ghettos, as well as the many laws that limited Jews' rights to property, worship, and careers.- Napoleon's Law and the Jews :...
, and Jews were restricted to the ghetto through the end of the Papal States
Papal States
The Papal State, State of the Church, or Pontifical States were among the major historical states of Italy from roughly the 6th century until the Italian peninsula was unified in 1861 by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia .The Papal States comprised territories under...
in 1870. Official Catholic organizations, such as the Jesuits, banned candidates "who are descended from the Jewish race unless it is clear that their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather have belonged to the Catholic Church" until 1946.
Brown University historian David Kertzer
David Kertzer
David I. Kertzer is Paul Dupee, Jr. University Professor of Social Science, Professor of Anthropology , Professor of History , and Professor of Italian Studies at Brown University. He became Provost of Brown on July 1, 2006...
, working from the Vatican archive, has argued in his book The Popes Against the Jews that in the 19th century and early 20th century the Roman Catholic Church adhered to a distinction between "good antisemitism" and "bad antisemitism". The "bad" kind promoted hatred of Jews because of their descent. This was considered un-Christian because the Christian message was intended for all of humanity regardless of ethnicity; anyone could become a Christian. The "good" kind criticized alleged Jewish conspiracies to control newspapers, banks, and other institutions, to care only about accumulation of wealth, etc. Many Catholic bishops wrote articles criticizing Jews on such grounds, and, when accused of promoting hatred of Jews, would remind people that they condemned the "bad" kind of antisemitism. Kertzer's work is not without critics. Scholar of Jewish-Christian relations Rabbi David G. Dalin, for example, criticized Kertzer in the Weekly Standard for using evidence selectively.
WWI to the eve of the WWII
In 1916, in the midst of the First World War, American Jews petitioned Pope Benedict XV on behalf of the Polish Jews.Nazi antisemitism
On April 26, 1933 Hitler declared during a meeting with Roman Catholic Bishop Wilhelm Berning of Osnabrück:
“I have been attacked because of my handling of the Jewish question. The Catholic Church considered the Jews pestilent for fifteen hundred years, put them in ghettos, etc., because it recognized the Jews for what they were. In the epoch of liberalism the danger was no longer recognized. I am moving back toward the time in which a fifteen-hundred-year-long tradition was implemented. I do not set race over religion, but I recognize the representatives of this race as pestilent for the state and for the Church, and perhaps I am thereby doing Christianity a great service by pushing them out of schools and public functions.”
The transcript of this discussion contains no response by Bishop Berning. Martin Rhonheimer
Martin Rhonheimer
Martin Rhonheimer is a Swiss academic philosopher and a priest of the Catholic personal prelature Opus Dei. He currently teaches at the Opus Dei-affiliated Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome.-Life:...
does not consider this unusual since, in his opinion, for a Catholic Bishop in 1933 there was nothing particularly objectionable "in this historically correct reminder".
The Nazis used Martin Luther
Martin Luther
Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...
's book, On the Jews and Their Lies (1543), to claim a moral righteousness for their ideology. Luther even went so far as to advocate the murder of those Jews who refused to convert to Christianity, writing that "we are at fault in not slaying them"
Archbishop Robert Runcie
Robert Runcie
Robert Alexander Kennedy Runcie, Baron Runcie, PC, MC was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1980 to 1991.-Early life:...
has asserted that: "Without centuries of Christian antisemitism, Hitler's passionate hatred would never have been so fervently echoed...because for centuries Christians have held Jews collectively responsible for the death of Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
. On Good Friday Jews, have in times past, cowered behind locked doors with fear of a Christian mob seeking 'revenge' for deicide. Without the poisoning of Christian minds through the centuries, the Holocaust is unthinkable." The dissident Catholic priest Hans Küng
Hans Küng
Hans Küng is a Swiss Catholic priest, theologian, and prolific author. Since 1995 he has been President of the Foundation for a Global Ethic . Küng is "a Catholic priest in good standing", but the Vatican has rescinded his authority to teach Catholic theology...
has written that "Nazi anti-Judaism was the work of godless, anti-Christian criminals. But it would not have been possible without the almost two thousand years' pre-history of 'Christian' anti-Judaism..."
The document Dabru Emet
Dabru Emet
The Dabru Emet is a document concerning the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. It was signed by over 220 rabbis and intellectuals from all branches of Judaism, as individuals and not as representing any organisation or stream of Judaism.The Dabru Emet was first published on September...
was issued by over 220 rabbi
Rabbi
In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...
s and intellectual
Intellectual
An intellectual is a person who uses intelligence and critical or analytical reasoning in either a professional or a personal capacity.- Terminology and endeavours :"Intellectual" can denote four types of persons:...
s from all branches of Judaism
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
in 2000 as a statement about Jewish-Christian relations. This document states,
"Nazism was not a Christian phenomenon. Without the long history of Christian anti-Judaism and Christian violence against Jews, Nazi ideology could not have taken hold nor could it have been carried out. Too many Christians participated in, or were sympathetic to, Nazi atrocities against Jews. Other Christians did not protest sufficiently against these atrocities. But Nazism itself was not an inevitable outcome of Christianity."
According to American historian
Historian
A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...
Lucy Dawidowicz
Lucy Dawidowicz
Lucy Schildkret Dawidowicz was an American historian and an author of books on modern Jewish history, in particular books on the Holocaust.-Life:...
, antisemitism has a long history within Christianity. The line of "antisemitic descent" from Luther, the author of On the Jews and Their Lies, to Hitler is "easy to draw." In her The War Against the Jews
The War Against the Jews
The War Against the Jews is a 1975 book authored by Lucy Dawidowicz. The book researches the Holocaust of the European Jewry during World War II....
, 1933-1945, she contends that Luther and Hitler were obsessed by the "demonologized universe" inhabited by Jews. Dawidowicz writes that the similarities between Luther's anti-Jewish writings and modern antisemitism are no coincidence, because they derived from a common history of Judenhass, which can be traced to Haman's
Haman (Bible)
Haman is the main antagonist in the Book of Esther, who, according to Old Testament tradition, was a 5th Century BC noble and vizier of the Persian empire under King Ahasuerus, traditionally identified as Artaxerxes II...
advice to Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus is a name used several times in the Hebrew Bible, as well as related legends and Apocrypha. This name is applied in the Hebrew Scriptures to three rulers...
. Although modern German antisemitism also has its roots in German nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
and the liberal
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
revolution of 1848, Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
antisemitism she writes is a foundation that was laid by the Roman Catholic Church and "upon which Luther built." Dawidowicz' allegations and positions are criticized and not accepted by most historians however. For example, in "Studying the Jew" Alan Steinweis notes that, "Old-fashioned antisemitism, Hitler argued, was insufficient, and would lead only to pogroms, which contribute little to a permanent solution. This is why, Hitler maintained, it was important to promote 'an antisemitism of reason,' one that acknowledged the racial basis of Jewry." Interviews with Nazis by other historians show that the Nazis thought that their views were rooted in biology, not historical prejudices. For example, "S. became a missionary for this biomedical vision... As for anti-Semitic attitudes and actions, he insisted that 'the racial question... [and] resentment of the Jewish race... had nothing to do with medieval anti-Semitism...' That is, it was all a matter of scientific biology and of community."
Collaborating Christians
- German ChristiansGerman ChristiansThe Deutsche Christen were a pressure group and movement within German Protestantism aligned towards the antisemitic and Führerprinzip ideological principles of Nazism with the goal to align German Protestantism as a whole towards those principles...
- GleichschaltungGleichschaltungGleichschaltung , meaning "coordination", "making the same", "bringing into line", is a Nazi term for the process by which the Nazi regime successively established a system of totalitarian control and tight coordination over all aspects of society. The historian Richard J...
- Hanns KerrlHanns KerrlHanns Kerrl was a German Nazi politician. His most prominent position, from July 1935, was that of Reichsminister of Church Affairs...
, Minister for Ecclesiastical Affairs - Positive ChristianityPositive ChristianityPositive Christianity was a slogan of Nazi propaganda adopted at the NSDAP congress 1920 to express a worldview which is Christian, non-confessional, vigorously opposed to the spirit of "Jewish Materialism", and oriented to the principle of voluntary association of those with a common...
(the approved Nazi version of Christianity) - Protestant Reich ChurchProtestant Reich ChurchThe Protestant Reich Church, officially German Evangelical Church and colloquially Reichskirche, was formed in 1936 to merge the 28 regional churches into a unified state church that espoused a single doctrine compatible with National Socialism...
Opposition to the Holocaust
The Confessing ChurchConfessing Church
The Confessing Church was a Protestant schismatic church in Nazi Germany that arose in opposition to government-sponsored efforts to nazify the German Protestant church.-Demographics:...
was, in 1934, the first Christian opposition group. The Catholic Church officially condemned the Nazi theory of racism in Germany in 1937 with the encyclical
Encyclical
An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...
"Mit Brennender Sorge
Mit Brennender Sorge
Mit brennender Sorge is a Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on 10 March 1937 . Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sundays,...
", signed by Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
, and Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber led the Catholic opposition, preaching against racism.
Many individual Christian clergy and laypeople of all denominations had to pay for their opposition with their life, including:
- Catholic priest, Maximilian KolbeMaximilian KolbeSaint Maximilian Maria Kolbe OFM Conv was a Polish Conventual Franciscan friar, who volunteered to die in place of a stranger in the Nazi German concentration camp of Auschwitz, located in German-occupied Poland during World War II.He was canonized on 10 October 1982 by Pope John Paul II, and...
. - Lutheran pastor Dietrich BonhoefferDietrich BonhoefferDietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian and martyr. He was a participant in the German resistance movement against Nazism and a founding member of the Confessing Church. He was involved in plans by members of the Abwehr to assassinate Adolf Hitler...
- the Catholic parson of Berlin Cathedral, Bernhard LichtenbergBernhard LichtenbergBlessed Bernhard Lichtenberg was a German Roman Catholic priest and theologian, awarded the title righteous among the Nations....
. - the mostly Catholic members of the MunichMunichMunich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
resistance group White RoseWhite RoseThe White Rose was a non-violent/intellectual resistance group in Nazi Germany, consisting of students from the University of Munich and their philosophy professor...
around HansHans SchollHans Fritz Scholl was a founding member of the White Rose resistance movement in Nazi Germany.-Biography:...
and Sophie SchollSophie SchollSophia Magdalena Scholl was a German student, active within the White Rose non-violent resistance group in Nazi Germany. She was convicted of high treason after having been found distributing anti-war leaflets at the University of Munich with her brother Hans...
.
By the 1940s fewer Christians were willing to oppose Nazi policy publicly, but many secretly helped save the lives of Jews. There are many sections of Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Museum, Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem
Yad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
, dedicated to honoring these "Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous Among the Nations
Righteous among the Nations of the world's nations"), also translated as Righteous Gentiles is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis....
".
Pope Pius XII
See (Pope Pius XII and JudaismPope Pius XII and Judaism
The relations between Pope Pius XII and Judaism have long been controversial, especially those questions that surround Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust...
).
Before becoming Pope, Cardinal Pacelli presided as Papal Legate
Papal legate
A papal legate – from the Latin, authentic Roman title Legatus – is a personal representative of the pope to foreign nations, or to some part of the Catholic Church. He is empowered on matters of Catholic Faith and for the settlement of ecclesiastical matters....
over the International Eucharistic Congress
International Eucharistic Congress
In the Roman Catholic church, a Eucharistic Congress is a gathering of clergy, religious, and laity to bear witness to the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, which is an important Roman Catholic doctrine...
in Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
on 25–30 May 1938. At this time antisemitic laws were in the process of being formulated in Hungary. Pacelli made reference to the Jews "whose lips curse [Christ] and whose hearts reject him even today".
The 1937 encyclical Mit brennender Sorge
Mit Brennender Sorge
Mit brennender Sorge is a Catholic Church encyclical of Pope Pius XI, published on 10 March 1937 . Written in German, not the usual Latin, it was read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches on one of the Church's busiest Sundays,...
was issued by Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI
Pope Pius XI , born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti, was Pope from 6 February 1922, and sovereign of Vatican City from its creation as an independent state on 11 February 1929 until his death on 10 February 1939...
, but drafted by the future Pope Pius XII
Pope Pius XII
The Venerable Pope Pius XII , born Eugenio Maria Giuseppe Giovanni Pacelli , reigned as Pope, head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of Vatican City State, from 2 March 1939 until his death in 1958....
and read from the pulpits of all German Catholic churches, it condemned Nazi ideology and has been characterized by scholars as the "first great official public document to dare to confront and criticize Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
" and "one of the greatest such condemnations ever issued by the Vatican."
In the summer of 1942, Pius explained to his college of Cardinals the reasons for the great gulf that existed between Jews and Christians at the theological level: "Jerusalem has responded to His call and to His grace with the same rigid blindness and stubborn ingratitude that has led it along the path of guilt to the murder of God." Historian Guido Knopp describes these comments of Pius as being "incomprehensible" at a time when "Jerusalem was being murdered by the million". This traditional adversarial relationship with Judaism would be reversed in Nostra Aetate
Nostra Aetate
Nostra Aetate is the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated on October 28, 1965, by Pope Paul VI.The first draft, entitled "Decretum de...
issued during the Second Vatican Council.
Prominent members of the Jewish community have contradicted the criticisms of Pius and spoke highly of his efforts to protect Jews. The Israeli historian Pinchas Lapide
Pinchas Lapide
Pinchas Lapide was a Jewish theologian and Israeli historian. He was an Israeli diplomat from 1951 to 1969, among other position acting as Israeli Consul to Milan, and was instrumental in gaining recognition for the young state of Israel. He wrote more than 35 books during his lifetime...
interviewed war survivors and concluded that Pius XII "was instrumental in saving at least 700,000, but probably as many as 860,000 Jews from certain death at Nazi hands". Some historians dispute this estimate.
The "White Power" movement
Christian Identity
Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.According to Chester L...
movement, the Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
and other White supremacy
White supremacy
White supremacy is the belief, and promotion of the belief, that white people are superior to people of other racial backgrounds. The term is sometimes used specifically to describe a political ideology that advocates the social and political dominance by whites.White supremacy, as with racial...
groups have expressed antisemitic views. They claim that their antisemitism is based on purported Jewish control of the media, international banks, radical left wing politics, and the promotion of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, anti-Christian groups, liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
and perverse organizations. They rebuke charges of racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
and claim Jews who share their ideology maintain membership in their organizations. A racial belief common among these groups, but not universal, is an alternative history doctrine, sometimes called British Israelism
British Israelism
British Israelism is the belief that people of Western European descent, particularly those in Great Britain, are the direct lineal descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The concept often includes the belief that the British Royal Family is directly descended from the line of King David...
. In some forms this doctrine absolutely denies that modern Jews have any racial connection to Israel of the Bible. Instead, according to extreme forms of this doctrine the true racial Israel and true humans are the Adamic (white) race.
These groups are often rejected and not considered to be Christian groups by mainstream Christian denominations as well as the vast majority of Christians around the world.
Post World War II antisemitism
Antisemitism in Europe remains a substantial problem. Antisemitism exists to a lesser or greater degree in many other nations as well, including Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the occasional tensions between some MuslimIslam in Europe
This article deals with the history and evolution of the presence of Islam in Europe. According to the German , the total number of Muslims in Europe in 2007 was about 53 million , excluding Turkey. The total number of Muslims in the European Union in 2007 was about 16 million .-Early history:Islam...
immigrants and Jews across Europe. The US State Department reports that antisemitism has increased dramatically in Europe and Eurasia since 2000.
While in a decline since the 1940s, there is still a measurable amount of antisemitism in the United States of America as well, although acts of violence are rare. The 2001 survey by the Anti-Defamation League
Anti-Defamation League
The Anti-Defamation League is an international non-governmental organization based in the United States. Describing itself as "the nation's premier civil rights/human relations agency", the ADL states that it "fights anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, defends democratic ideals and protects...
reported 1432 acts of antisemitism in the United States that year. The figure included 877 acts of harassment, including verbal intimidation, threats and physical assaults. Antisemitic pronouncements still occur, however. John Hagee, a leading proponent of "Christian Zionism," reiterated a view—the popularity of which is very hard to gauge but must nonetheless be considered not simply isolated—that the Jews brought the Holocaust upon themselves by angering God.
Jewish converts
The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant Christian denomination in the U.S., has explicitly rejected suggestions that it should back away from seeking to convert Jews, a position that critics have called antisemitic, but that Baptists see as consistent with their view that salvation is found solely through faith in Christ. In 1996 the SBC approved a resolution calling for efforts to seek the conversion of Jews "as well as for the salvation of 'every kindred and tongue and people and nation.'"Most Evangelicals
Evangelicalism
Evangelicalism is a Protestant Christian movement which began in Great Britain in the 1730s and gained popularity in the United States during the series of Great Awakenings of the 18th and 19th century.Its key commitments are:...
agree with the SBC position, and some have been supporting efforts specifically seeking Jews' conversion. At the same time these groups are among the most pro-Israeli groups. (For more, see Christian Zionism
Christian Zionism
Christian Zionism is a belief among some Christians that the return of the Jews to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, is in accordance with Biblical prophecy. It overlaps with, but is distinct from, the nineteenth century movement for the Restoration of the Jews...
.) Among the controversial groups that has found support from some Evangelical churches is Jews for Jesus
Jews for Jesus
Jews for Jesus is a conservative, Christian evangelical organization that focuses on the conversion of Jews to Christianity. Its members consider themselves to be Jews – either as defined by Jewish law, or as according to the view of Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus defines “Jewish” in terms of...
, which claims that Jews can "complete" their Jewish faith by accepting Jesus as the Messiah.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Methodist Church
United Methodist Church
The United Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination which is both mainline Protestant and evangelical. Founded in 1968 by the union of The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church, the UMC traces its roots back to the revival movement of John and Charles Wesley...
, and the United Church of Canada
United Church of Canada
The United Church of Canada is a Protestant Christian denomination in Canada. It is the largest Protestant church and, after the Roman Catholic Church, the second-largest Christian church in Canada...
have ended their efforts to convert Jews. While Anglicans do not, as a rule, seek converts from other Christian denominations, the General Synod has affirmed that "the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ is for all and must be shared with all including people from other faiths or of no faith and that to do anything else would be to institutionalize discrimination".
The Roman Catholic Church
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
formerly had religious congregations specifically aimed to conversion of Jews. Some of these were founded by Jewish converts themselves, like the Community of Our Lady of Zion, which was composed of nun
Nun
A nun is a woman who has taken vows committing her to live a spiritual life. She may be an ascetic who voluntarily chooses to leave mainstream society and live her life in prayer and contemplation in a monastery or convent...
s and ordained priest
Priest
A priest is a person authorized to perform the sacred rites of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in particular, rites of sacrifice to, and propitiation of, a deity or deities...
s. Many Catholic saints were noted specifically because of their missionary zeal in converting Jews, such as Vincent Ferrer
Vincent Ferrer
Saint Vincent Ferrer was a Valencian Dominican missionary and logician.-Early life:Vincent was the fourth child of the Anglo-Scottish nobleman William Stewart Ferrer and his Spanish wife, Constantia Miguel. Legends surround his birth...
. After the Second Vatican Council
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council addressed relations between the Roman Catholic Church and the modern world. It was the twenty-first Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church and the second to be held at St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. It opened under Pope John XXIII on 11 October 1962 and closed...
many missionary orders aimed at converting Jews to Christianity no longer actively sought to missionize (or proselytize
Proselytism
Proselytizing is the act of attempting to convert people to another opinion and, particularly, another religion. The word proselytize is derived ultimately from the Greek language prefix προσ- and the verb ἔρχομαι in the form of προσήλυτος...
) among Jews. Traditionalist Roman Catholic
Traditionalist Catholic
Traditionalist Catholics are Roman Catholics who believe that there should be a restoration of many or all of the liturgical forms, public and private devotions and presentations of Catholic teachings which prevailed in the Catholic Church before the Second Vatican Council...
groups, congregations and clergymen, however, continue to support missionizing Jews according to traditional patterns, sometimes with success (e.g., the Society of St. Pius X
Society of St. Pius X
The Society of Saint Pius X is an international Traditionalist Catholic organisation, founded in 1970 by the French archbishop Marcel Lefebvre...
which has notable Jewish converts among its faithful, many of whom have become traditionalist priests).
Some Jewish organizations have described evangelism and missionary activity directed specifically at Jews as antisemitic.
Reconciliation between Judaism and Christian groups
In recent years there has been much to note in the way of reconciliation between some Christian groups and the Jews. Most of this reconciliation has occurred between the Jewish community and the Catholic Church, and evangelical Christian organizations.See also
- Antisemitism in the Gospel of John
- Christianity and Judaism
- Criticisms of Christianity
- Ecclesia et SynagogaEcclesia et SynagogaEcclesia et Synagoga is a sculptural depiction of the Church and the Jewish synagogue found on the façades of churches across Europe....
- Good Friday Prayer for the Jews
- Jewish deicideJewish deicideJewish deicide is a belief that places the responsibility for the death of Jesus on the Jewish people as a whole.This deicide accusation is expressed in the ethnoreligious slur "Christ-killer." As a part of Second Vatican Council , the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued a declaration...
- Judas IscariotJudas IscariotJudas Iscariot was, according to the New Testament, one of the twelve disciples of Jesus. He is best known for his betrayal of Jesus to the hands of the chief priests for 30 pieces of silver.-Etymology:...
- Luther and antisemitismLuther and antisemitismMartin Luther , a German Reformation leader, had a significant influence on German antisemitism by his harsh anti-Jewish statements and writings.-Evolution of his views:Luther's attitude toward the Jews changed over the course of his life...
- Passion of the Christ
- Persecution of ChristiansPersecution of ChristiansPersecution of Christians as a consequence of professing their faith can be traced both historically and in the current era. Early Christians were persecuted for their faith, at the hands of both Jews from whose religion Christianity arose, and the Roman Empire which controlled much of the land...
- PogromPogromA pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
- Pre-AdamitePre-AdamitePre-Adamite hypothesis or Preadamism is the religious belief that humans existed before Adam, the first human being named in the Bible. This belief has a long history, probably having its origins in early pagan responses to Abrahamic claims regarding the origins of the human race.Advocates of this...
- Religious pluralismReligious pluralismReligious pluralism is a loosely defined expression concerning acceptance of various religions, and is used in a number of related ways:* As the name of the worldview according to which one's religion is not the sole and exclusive source of truth, and thus that at least some truths and true values...
- ShoahShoahShoah may refer to:*The Holocaust*Shoah , documentary directed by Claude Lanzmann * A Shoah Foundation...
Further reading
- "Anti-Semitism in the Church?" by Julio Dam
- "Christian Antisemitism: A History of Hate" by William Nicholls, 1993. Published by Jason Aronson Inc., 1995.
- "Christian Anti-Semitism and Paul's Theology" by Sidney G. Hall III, Fortress Press, 1993.
- "John Chrysostom and the Jews" Robert L. Wilken, Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1983
- "Mature Christianity: The Recognition and Repudiation of the Anti-Jewish Polemic in the New Testament" Norman A. Beck, Susquehanna Univ. Press, 1985
- "National Socialism and the Roman Catholic Church" Nathaniel Micklem, Oxford Univ. Press, 1939
- "The New Testament's Anti-Jewish Slander and Conventions of Ancient Polemic", Luke Johnson, Journal of Biblical Literature, Volume 3, 1989
- "The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes Toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity" John G. GagerJohn GagerJohn Goodrich Gager Jr. retired from his position as William H. Danforth Professor of Religion at Princeton University in the spring of 2006. Gager was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1937...
, Oxford Univ. Press, 1983 - "The Popes and the Jews in the Middle Ages," Edward A. Synan, Macmillan, New York, 1965
- "The Satanizing of the Jews: Origin and development of mystical anti-Semitism" Joel Carmichael, Fromm, 1993
- "Theological Anti-Semitism in the New Testament", Rosemary Radford Ruether, Christian Century, Feb. 1968, Vol. 85
- "Three Popes and the Jews" Pinchas E. Lapide, Hawthorne Books, 1967
- "What Did They Think of the Jews?" Edited by Allan Gould, Jason Aronson Inc., 1991
- Richard Utz: "Remembering Ritual Murder: The Anti-Semitic Blood Accusation Narrative in Medieval and Contemporary Cultural Memory." In Genre and Ritual: The Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals. Ed. Eyolf Østrem. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press/University of Copenhagen, 2005. Pp. 145–62.
External links
- Antisemitism and Eastern Orthodoxy
- Attempts to convert Jews to Christianity, and responses
- Catholic Encyclopedia: History of the Jews
- Catholic Encyclopedia: Judaism
- Catholic Timeline on Antisemitism
- "Christianity and Judaism" by Dr. Warren Carroll
- "Historian's Accusations Against Wartime Holy See Are Refuted" 21 November 2002
- How ALL ISRAEL will be saved, about Paul's apostleship to the diaspora (including the Gentiles)
- Jews and Christians in Search of a Common Religious Basis for Contributing Towards a Better World
- Mainline churches launch a policy to punish Israel by Eugene Kontorovich, in the Wall Street Journal, July 22, 2005.
- Relations between Christians and Jews
- Southern Baptist views on Judaism and other faiths
- The beginnings of Christian Anti-Semitism Judeophobia (Jew Hate) in Early Christian thought. Judeophobia - History and analysis of Antisemitism, Jew-Hate and anti-"Zionism". By Gustavo PerednikGustavo PerednikGustavo Daniel Perednik , is a Jewish author and educator residing in Israel.Perednik graduated from the Universities of Buenos Aires and Jerusalem and he completed doctoral studies in Philosophy in New York and took courses at the Sorbonne , San Marcos and Uppsala...
(zionism-Israel.com) - Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Father John Pawlikowski from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
- Yad Vashem's "Righteous Among the Nations"