Antecedents of Anti-Semitism

Essential Questions

Why does one group become hated?

Why were the Jews Hated?

What is Anti-Judaism and how is it different then Anti-Semitism?

Membership and Jews Relationship with Christianity

Christian Roots of Anti-Semitism: We and They Why the Jews?

Center on 2 main Positions:

1. The Deicide Charge 2. Jews seen as the Minority Other

What did the church teach? Who killed Jesus? • After Jesus died the followers thought of themselves as a Jewish Sect.

• 70 CE The Gospel of Mark was written down.

Mark 15:12-15 (New International Version)

12"What shall I do, then, with the one you call the king of the Jews?" Pilate asked them. 13"Crucify him!" they shouted. 14"Why? What crime has he committed?" asked Pilate. But they shouted all the louder, "Crucify him!"

• 85 CE The Gospel of Mathew is written down and records the charge of Deicide

Mathew is competing against the Pharisees (the Rabbis) for followers so he engaged in Polemics against them in the form of the Deicide. The Rabbis were portrayed as betrayers and hypocrites.

Matthew 26:4-5 (New International Version)

4and they plotted to arrest Jesus in some sly way and kill him. 5"But not during the

Feast," they said, "or there may be a riot among the people.“

Why the Deicide charge?

• Although the Christian Gospel portray the Jews as seeking the death of Jesus. It was not until 167 CE that any church leader actively promoted the charge that of Deicide (Christ Killers)

• This charge comes out of an attempt for Christians to align with Rome.

• By 300 CE over 60 million people inhabited the Roman Empire.6 million Christians and 3 million Jews.

At first Jews were treated better by the authorities because they were an older religion.

• However Constantine in 312 CE on his way to fight his final battle to secure his Imperial rule had a vision of a cross in the Sun. He has his soldiers painted crosses on his soldiers uniforms and were the first army in history to march under the symbol of the cross.

• Constantine after winning the battle changed his relationship to the church on his death bed he converted making Christianity an institution. In 325 CE the Council of Nicea adopts the cross as primary symbol for Christianity eliminating tolerance for Jews and Jews becomes the other who killed G-d.

The Medieval Jewish Experience

• Geopolitical life under the rule of Christianity

• Dispersed and exiled people living in the Diaspora. see map

Socio-legal

1. Aliens

Read Excerpt of the early legal decrees passed against Jews in the Empire.

2. Corporate-collective identity

Christian Anti-Judaism

John Chrysostom: Judaism and Christianity as mutually exclusive

“Where Christ-killers gather, the cross is ridiculed, God blasphemed, the Father

unacknowledged, the Son insulted, the grace of the Spirit rejected... In a word, if you

admire the Jewish way of life, what do you have in common with us? If the Jewish

rites are holy and venerable, our way of life must be false. But if our way is true, as

indeed it is, their is fraudulent.”

Augustine’s Witness Theory - > De Humanization -> Blood Libels

Saint Augustine's Witness Theory

"Not by bodily death shall the ungodly race of carnal Jews perish. . . . To the end of the seven days of time, the continued preservation of the Jews will be a proof to believing Christians of the subjection merited by those who, in the pride of their kingdom, put the Lord to death. . . . 'And the Lord God set a mark upon Cain, lest any one finding him should slay him.' . . . Only when a Jew comes over to Christ, he is no longer Cain.

---Augustine, "Reply to Faustus, the Manichaean," in F. E. Talmage, ed., Disputation and Dialogue ( New York: Ktav and the Anti-Defamation League, 1975), 31.

In his Commentary on Psalm 58-59, Augustine wrote:

The Jews have been scattered throughout all nations as witnesses to their own sin and to our truth. They themselves hold the writings that have prophesied Christ. If a pagan doubts Christ, we can prove his Messiahship because he was predicted in the writings of the Jews themselves a long time ago. And so by means of one enemy [the Jews] we confound another enemy [the pagans]. 'Scatter them abroad, take away their strength. And bring them down O Lord' (Ver. 12).

http://www.hcacentre.org/Augustine.html

The Feudal System and Usury Lead to further Persecution and Expulsions

The Feudal Economic System:

Kings -> Nobles -> Knights -> Serfs

Jews were not apart of this system

They were not freeman or serfs

due to laws and customs

stemming back to the

Roman Empire.

Instead Jewish communities were

Outside the system and were directly founded by charters from individual kings. For the economic benefit of the King.

Charters allowed for the establishment of ghettos for the Jews to settle in which were usually in the heart of the city. Kings would borrow money from Jews and levy special taxes and ransoms in order to wage wars and live beyond their means.