Anti-Judaism

Christianity commenced as a sect within Judaism, known as Jewish Christianity. It was seen as such by the early Christians, as well as Jews in general. The wider Roman administration most likely would not have understood any distinction. Historians debate whether or not the Roman government distinguished between Christians and Jews before 96 CE, when Christians successfully petitioned Nerva to exempt them from the Jewish tax (the Fiscus Judaicus) on the basis that they were not Jews. From then on, practising Jews paid the tax while Christians did not.[24][25][26] Christianity is based on Jewish monotheism, scriptures (generally the Greek Old Testament or Targum translations of the Hebrew Bible), liturgy, and morality.

The main distinction of the Early Christian community from its Jewish roots was the belief that Jesus was the long-awaited Messiah,[lower-alpha 4] as in the Confession of Peter, but that in itself would not have severed the Jewish connection. Another point of divergence was the questioning by Christians of the continuing applicability of the Law of Moses (the Torah),[28] though the Apostolic Decree of the Apostolic Age of Christianity appears to parallel the Noahide Law of Judaism. The two issues came to be linked in a theological discussion within the Christian community as to whether the coming of the Messiah (First or Second Coming) annulled either some (Supersessionism), or all (Abrogation of Old Covenant laws), of the Judaic laws in what came to be called a New Covenant.

The circumcision controversy was probably the second issue (after the issue of Jesus as messiah) during which the theological argument was conducted in terms of anti-Judaism, with those who argued for the view that biblical law continued to be applicable being labelled "Judaizers" or "Pharisees" (e.g. Acts 15:5).[lower-alpha 5][29] The teachings of Paul (d. ~67 CE), whose letters comprise much of the New Testament demonstrate a "long battle against Judaizing."[30] However, James the Just, who after Jesus's death was widely acknowledged as the leader of the Jerusalem Christians, worshiped at the Second Temple in Jerusalem until his death in 62, thirty years after Jesus' death.[31]

The destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE would lead Christians to "doubt the efficacy of the ancient law",[32] though Ebionism would linger on until the 5th century. However, Marcion of Sinope, who advocated rejecting the entirety of Judaic influence on the Christian faith,[33] would be excommunicated by the Church in Rome in 144 CE.[34]

Anti-Judaic works of this period include De Adversus Iudeaos by Tertullian, Octavius by Minucius Felix, De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate[lower-alpha 6] by Cyprian of Carthage, and Instructiones Adversus Gentium Deos by Lactantius.[35] The traditional hypothesis holds that the anti-Judaism of these early fathers of the Church "were inherited from the Christian tradition of Biblical exegesis" though a second hypothesis holds that early Christian anti-Judaism was inherited from the pagan world.[36]

Taylor has observed that theological Christian anti-Judaism "emerge[d] from the church's efforts to resolve the contradictions inherent in its simultaneous appropriation and rejection of different elements of the Jewish tradition."[37]

Modern scholars believe that Judaism may have been a missionary religion in the early centuries of the Christian or common era, converting so-called proselytes,[38] and thus competition for the religious loyalties of gentiles drove anti-Judaism.[39][40] The debate and dialogue moved from polemic to bitter verbal and written attacks one against the other. However, since the last decades of the 20th century, the view that a proselytizing struggle between turn of the era Judaism and early Christianity may have been the main generator of anti-Jewish attitudes among early gentile believers in Jesus is eroding.[41] Scholars have revisited the traditional claims about Jewish proselytizing and have largely concluded that active Jewish proselytizing was a later apologetic construct that does not reflect the reality of first century Judaism.[42]

To Tarfon (died 135 CE) is attributed a statement about whether scrolls could be left to burn in a fire on the Sabbath. A disputed[43][44][45][46] interpretation identifies these books with the Gospels (see Gilyonim): "The Gospels must be burned for paganism is not as dangerous to the Jewish faith as Jewish Christian sects."[30] The anonymous Letter to Diognetus was the earliest apologetic work in the early Church to address Judaism.[47] Saint Justin Martyr (died 165 CE) wrote the apologetic Dialogue with Trypho,[48] a polemical debate giving the Christian assertions for the Messiahship of Jesus [49] by making use of the Old Testament contrasted with counter-arguments from a fictionalized version of Tarphon.[50] "For centuries defenders of Christ and the enemies of the Jews employed no other method" than these apologetics.[47] Apologetics were difficult as gentile converts could not be expected to understand Hebrew; translations of the Septuagint into Greek prior to Aquila would serve as a flawed basis for such cross-cultural arguments,[51] as demonstrated by Origen's difficulties debating Rabbi Simlai.[51]

Though Emperor Hadrian was an "enemy of the synagogue", the reign of Antonius began a period of Roman benevolence toward the Jewish faith.[52] Meanwhile, imperial hostility toward Christianity continued to crystallize; after Decius, the empire was at war with it.[53] An unequal power relationship between Jews and Christians in the context of the Greco-Roman world generated anti-Jewish feelings among the early Christians.[54] Feelings of mutual hatred arose, driven in part by Judaism's legality in the Roman Empire; in Antioch, where the rivalry was most bitter, Jews most likely demanded the execution of Polycarp.[55]

When Constantine and Licinius were issuing the Edict of Milan, the influence of Judaism was fading in the Land of Israel (in favor of Christianity) and seeing a rebirth outside the Roman Empire in Babylonia.[5] By the 3rd century the Judaizing heresies were nearly extinct in Christianity.

After his defeat of Licinius in 323 CE, Constantine showed Christians marked political preference. He repressed Jewish proselytism and forbade Jews from circumcising their slaves.[56] Jews were barred from Jerusalem except on the anniversary of the Second Temple's destruction (Tisha B'Av) and then only after paying a special tax (probably the Fiscus Judaicus) in silver.[56] He also promulgated a law which condemned to the stake Jews who persecuted their apostates by stoning.[57] Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire (see Christendom). "No sooner was [the Church] armed than it forgot its most elementary principles, and directed the secular arm against its enemies."[57] Animosity existed on both sides, and in 351 the Jews of Palestine revolted against Constantine's son in the Jewish revolt against Constantius Gallus.

From the middle of the 5th century, apologetics ceased with Cyril of Alexandria.[58] This form of anti-Judaism had proven futile and often served to strengthen Jewish faith.[58] With Christianity ascendant in the Empire, the "Fathers, the bishops, and the priest who had to contend against the Jews treated them very badly. Hosius in Spain; Pope Sylvester I; Eusebius of Caesaria call them 'a perverse, dangerous, and criminal sect.'"[59] While Gregory of Nyssa merely reproaches Jews as infidels, other teachers are more vehement.[59] Saint Augustine labels the Talmudists as falsifiers; Saint Ambrose recycled the earlier anti-Christian trope and accuses Jews of despising Roman law. Saint Jerome claims Jews were possessed by an impure spirit.[59] Saint Cyril of Jerusalem claimed the Jewish Patriarchs, or Nasi, were a low race.[59]

All these theological and polemical attacks combined in Saint John Chrysostom's six sermons delivered at Antioch.[59] Chrysostom, an archbishop of Constantinople, (died 407 CE) is very negative in his treatment of Judaism, though much more hyperbolic in expression.[60] While Saint Justin's Dialogue is a philosophical treatise, Saint Chrysostom's homilies Against the Jews are a more informal and rhetorically forceful set of sermons preached in church. Delivered while Chrysostom was still a priest in Antioch, his homilies deliver a scathing critique of Jewish religious and civil life, warning Christians not to have any contact with Judaism or the synagogue and to keep away from the rival religion's festivals.

"There are legions of theologians, historians and writers who write about the Jews the same as Chrysostom: Epiphanius, Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyprus, Cosmas Indicopleustes, Athanasius the Sinaite among the Greeks; Hilarius of Poitiers, Prudentius, Paulus Orosius, Sulpicius Severus, Gennadius, Venantius Fortunatus, Isidore of Seville, among the Latins."[61]

From the 4th to 7th centuries, while the bishops opposed Judaism in writing, the Empire enacted a variety of civil laws against Jews, such as forbidding them from holding public office, and an oppressive curial tax.[57] Laws were enacted to harass their free observance of religion; Justinian went so far as to enact a law against Jewish daily prayers.[57] Both Christians and Jews engaged in recorded mob violence in the waning days of the Empire.[62]

Through this period Jewish revolts continued. During the Byzantine–Sasanian War of 602–628 many Jews sided against the Byzantine Empire in the Jewish revolt against Heraclius, which successfully assisted the invading Persian Sassanids in conquering all of Roman Egypt and Syria. In reaction to this further anti-Jewish measures were enacted throughout the Byzantine realm and as far away as Merovingian France.[63] Soon thereafter, 634, the Muslim conquests began, during which many Jews initially rose up again against their Byzantine rulers.[64]

The pattern wherein Jews were relatively free under pagan rulers until the Christian conversion of the leadership, as seen with Constantine, would be repeated in the lands beyond the now collapsed Roman Empire. Sigismund of Burgundy enacted laws against Jews after coming to the throne after his conversion in 514;[65] likewise after the conversion of Reccared, king of the Visigoths in 589, which would have lasting effect when codified by Reccesuinth in the Visigothic Code of Law.[66] This code inspired Jews to aid Tariq ibn-Ziyad (a Muslim) in his overthrow of Roderick, and under the Moors (also Muslims), Jews regained their usurped religious freedoms.[65]

Beginning with the 8th century, legislation against heresies grew more severe. The Church, once confining itself to only the powers of canon law, increasingly appealed to secular powers. Heretics such as the Vaudois, Albigenses, Beghards, Apostolic Brothers, and Luciferians were thus "treated with cruelty"[67] which culminated in the 13th century establishment of the Inquisition by Pope Innocent III.[67] Jews were not ignored by such legislation, either, as they allegedly instigated Christians to judaizations, either directly or unconsciously, by their existence. They sent forth metaphysicians such as Amaury de Béne and David de Dinan; the Pasagians followed Mosaic Law; the Orleans heresy was a Jewish heresy; the Albigens taught Jewish doctrine as superior to Christian; the Dominicans preached against both the Hussites and their Jewish supporters, and thus the imperial army sent to advance on Jan Ziska massacred Jews along the way.[67] In Spain, where Castilian custom (fueros) had granted equal rights to Muslims, Christians, and Jews, Gregory XI instituted the Spanish Inquisition to spy on Jews and Moors wherever "by words or writings they urged the Catholics to embrace their faith".[67]

Usury became a proximate cause of much anti-Jewish sentiment during the Middle Ages.[68] In Italy and later Poland and Germany, John of Capistrano stirred up the poor against the usury of the Jews; Bernardinus of Feltre, aided by the practical notion of establishing mont-de-piétés, called for the expulsion of Jews all over Italy and Tyrol and caused the massacre of the Jews at Trent.[69] Kings, nobles, and bishops discouraged this behavior, protecting Jews from the monk Radulphe in Germany and countering the preachings of Bernardinus in Italy.[69] These reactions were from knowing the history of mobs, incited against Jews, continuing attacks against their rich co-religionists.[69] Anti-Judaism was a dynamic in the early Spanish colonies in the Americas, where Europeans used anti-Judaic memes and forms of thinking against Native and African peoples, in effect transferring anti-Judaism onto other peoples.[70]

The Church kept to its theological anti-Judaism and, favoring the mighty and rich, was careful not to encourage the passions of the people.[69] But while it sometimes interfered on behalf of the Jews when they were the objects of mob fury, it at the same time fueled the fury by combating Judaism.[69]

Martin Luther has been accused of antisemitism, primarily in relation to his statements about Jews in his book On the Jews and their Lies, which describes the Jews in extremely harsh terms, excoriating them, and providing detailed recommendation for a pogrom against them and their permanent oppression and/or expulsion. According to Paul Johnson, it "may be termed the first work of modern anti-Semitism, and a giant step forward on the road to the Holocaust".[71] In contrast, Roland Bainton, noted church historian and Luther biographer, wrote "One could wish that Luther had died before ever this tract was written. His position was entirely religious and in no respect racial".[72]

Peter Martyr Vermigli, a shaper of Reformed Protestantism, took pains to maintain the contradiction, going back to Paul of Tarsus, of Jews being both enemy and friend, writing: "The Jews are not odious to God for the very reason they are Jews; for how could this have happened since they were embellished with so many great gifts...."[73]

Throughout the Islamic Golden Age, the relatively tolerant societies of the various caliphates were still, on occasion, driven to enforce discriminatory laws against members of the Jewish faith. Examples of these and more extreme persecutions occurred under the authority of multiple, radical Muslim Movements such as that of the Fatimid Caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah in the 11th century, the Almohad Caliphate in the 12th century, and in the 1160s CE Shiite Abd al-Nabi ibn Mahdi who was an Imam of Yemen.[89]

Differentiation laws were enforced much more regularly following the decline of secular influence within Islamic society and external threats posed by non-Muslims.[89]