CHRISTIANITY CAUSES ANTI-SEMITISM
This page is about the active hatred and oppression of Jews in history and at present. It is an examination of how and where specific anti-semitism arose out of proportion to the "normal" background levels of prejudice that have always plagued mankind. The history of organized anti-Semitism is a history of Christian influence... this page is about that history with a few introductions to the confusing subject of how a religion that arose out of Judaism and Paganism combined, then turned on its heritage with the most bloody and hateful vengeance that either pagans or Jews have ever seen.
Introduction
Anti-Zionism, Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, Israel and Racism
BCE to 4th Century: The Roman Empire tolerated Jews until Christianity took over
6th-11th Century: Non-Christian Cultures were not Anti-semitic or Intolerant
11th Century: The First Crusades: Muslims were tolerant of others, Christians were not
13th-16th Century: Christian anti-Jewish legislation continues
19th Century
Reasons for Christian Anti-Semitism
Modern Times
Conclusions
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1. Introduction
Nearly every culture that came into contact with Western Christianity tolerated and accepted Jews until Christianity spread its violent anti-Jewish message across the West. Only with Christian principles was anti-semitism made possible, culminating in the atrocities of the Nazis during World War 2. No other religion has hated the Jews as much as Christian communities.
The Dark Ages, encompassing the Spanish Inquisition, the Burning Times witch hunts, etc, was the time in which Christianity had complete control over the imagery and information people could come into contact with. Anti-Semitism spread from Christianity, through many stereotyped and falsified stories, to the whole of Europe and wherever else the Christian message spread at that time.
"Semites include Hebrews, Assyrians, and Arabs. But hatred of, or prejudice against, the Jews specifically, which has waxed and waned since the foundation of Christianity - goes by the misnomer of anti-Semitism. One strand derives from the crude assertion that 'the Jews crucified Christ'"
"Ideas that Shaped Our World", Robert Stewart, p55
"By tradition Semites are descendants of Shem, son of Noah, and include most of the peoples of the Middle East. Anti-Semitism refers specifically to prejudice against or hatred towards the Jews. In its earliest systematic form, anti-Semitism had a religious character, reflecting the hostility of Christians towards the Jews, based on their complicity in the murder of Jesus and their refusal to recognize him as the Son of God. Economic anti-Semitism developed from the Middle Ages onwards, expressing a distaste for the Jews as moneylenders and traders. The nineteenth century saw the birth of racial anti-Semitism in the works of Wagner and H. S. Chamberlain, who condemned the Jewish peoples as fundamentally evil and destructive. Such ideas provided the ideological basis for German Nazism and found their most grotesque expression in the Holocaust."
"Political Ideologies" by Andrew Heywood, p233
2. Anti-Zionism, Anti-Judaism, Anti-Semitism, Israel and Racism
Although this essay is about hateful and racist antisemitism, we need to define other terms that are related. Anti-Zionism and Anti-Judaism are both different from racist anti-semitism.
Anti-Zionism: The belief that Israel, as a country, should not exist and the land that it now exists should be returned to the original owners. It is also used to describe those who would reduce the power, strength or stability of Israel as a country - regardless of whether the inhabitants are Jews, Christians, Arabs, etc.
"It is unreasonable and unfair to assume that opposition to Zionism or criticism of Israeli policies and action is [...] an expression of anti-Semitic prejudice. The Arab-Israel conflict is a political one - a clash between states and peoples over real issue"
"Semites and Anti-Semites" by Bernard Lewis, p20/22
Anti-Judaism: Philosophy, Logic, Reason and religious beliefs lead many to reject Judaism as a religion, just as Judaism itself rejects other religions. It is in the nature of religious dialogue that this be true - but anyone can convert to Judaism and be a Jew, according to their beliefs, so anti-Judaism is not race specific or necessarily prejudice.
Anti-Semitism: This is a racist dislike of the Jewish race, a form of xenophobia. This page is not about anti-zionism or anti-Judaism.
They are all inevitable and deeply linked. One must be careful not to accuse the victims of Israel as being anti-Semites, when in fact they're merely anti-Zionists, or to accuse a Hindu of being an anti-semite because he sees the religion of Judaism as wrong or silly. Even if such a view is ignorant, uneducated or prejudice, it is held against the religion, not against a race of people. Likewise you must be doubly careful when criticizing Israel or Judaism, not to accidentally fall into anti-semitic rhetoric. Be precise and be aware of the issues. For obvious historical reasons there is a lot of emotion around the sensitive issues of antisemitism, people are apt to find it where it isn't present as much as to miss it where it is!
3. BCE to 4th Century: The Roman Empire tolerated Jews until Christianity took over
The Roman way was tolerance. They allowed religious groups to order their own internal affairs according to their own religious rules. They allowed most religions to exist alongside each other, with the Emperors having various religious affiliations. Sometimes certain cults and sects were suppressed, sometimes bloodily and violently, but historically there was no other empire so tolerant and accepting of a multitude of religious beliefs as under Roman rule.
As Jewish Christianity arose within Judea, inside the Roman Empire, its fundamentally Jewish beliefs combined with pagan sun worshipping religions such as Mithraism and other Roman influences. Pauline Christianity, which is the Christianity we know, was very similar to Judaism and the original Gnostic Christianity. It was these two close neighbours that Christianity first came to view as its two greatest competitors and enemies; all three had similar beliefs, all three competed for the same types of religious convert. But gnostic Christianity and the priestly castes of Judaism were both peaceful. Pauline Christianity was bloodthirsty.
"Within only a few decades of the Crucifixion, many converts to Christianity had already chosen to forget that the four evangelists, the twelve apostles and even Christ himself had been devout and practising Jews", "All that was well done in the Old Testament or that might be interpreted as proof of Messianic authority, the Christians claimed for themselves; the failures and denunciations they allotted to the Jews". The Jews saw the plundering and abuse of their own holy texts and themselves wrote on the life of Jesus. "Christian writers retaliated with hideous accounts of Jewish depravity". "It is here, in the rantings of the early Church Fathers against the Jews, that the first fertile seeds lie buried in the hysterical anti-semitism that was to become so rampant in the Middle Ages.". Quotes taken from "The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall, p259-260.
Even before the Church was the official religion of the Roman Empire, when it was still autonomous, it was producing official anti-Judaism legislation. For example in 306CE "The church Synod of Elvira banned marriages, sexual intercourse and community contacts between Christians and Jews." [Quote: ReligiousTolerance.org: Christian persecution of Jews]
The aggressive Pauline Christianity gained the upper hand in the 4th century. The Roman Empire became a Christian Empire and under Emperor Constantine from the 4th century "theological diatribes" against the Jews began to appear in law. The first bloodshed was the finalisation of the slaughter of all the gnostics and the destruction and oppression of Judaism. The Roman Empire, once a multicultural tolerant nation became a theocracy ruled by Christian intolerance; and this influence spread through the Roman Empire to all of the Western world. Where Christianity had a stronger foothold, the Jews and non-Christians were persecuted and slaughtered more mercilessly than at any other time.
Due to this "religious fanaticism of such intensity" Jews were forced to live separately, were striped of wealth, belongings and all rights, they were reduced to slavery, ceremonially and regularly dehumanized, scapegoated, humiliated and slaughtered by Christian powers. This intolerance combined with complete enforced ignorance and superstition in all areas of life, resulted in the Dark Ages; that period in the Middle Ages when all of Europe was under the brooding, monstrous shadow of a bloodthirsty, out-of-control, corrupt Christian Church ruled from Rome. Roman Catholicism became most successful and bloodthirsty religion the world has ever known.
"Mixed marriages between Jews and Christians were punished by death. In the Codex Thedosians of the Emperor Theodosius II (408-450), the Jews were forbidden to hold any public office or function or to build new synagogues. Justinian completed this process of discrimination against the Jews in the 6th century by outlawing them altogether with all pagans and 'heretics'."
"The misery of Christianity - a plea for Humanity without God" by Joachin Kahl, 1968, p55
The Christian anti-Judaism hatred spread further and further... this trend lasted a full one thousand years before it began to abate.
315: Constantine published the Edict of Milan. [...] Jews lost many rights with this edict. They were no longer permitted to live in Jerusalem, or to proselytize.
325: The Council of Nicea decided to separate the celebration of Easter from the Jewish Passover. They stated: "For it is unbecoming beyond measure that on this holiest of festivals we should follow the customs of the Jews. Henceforth let us have nothing in common with this odious people...We ought not, therefore, to have anything in common with the Jews...our worship follows a...more convenient course...we desire dearest brethren, to separate ourselves from the detestable company of the Jews...How, then, could we follow these Jews, who are almost certainly blinded."
337: Christian Emperor Constantius created a law which made the marriage of a Jewish man to a Christian punishable by death.
339: Converting to Judaism became a criminal offence.
343-381: The Laodicean Synod approved Cannon XXXVIII: "It is not lawful [for Christians] to receive unleavened bread from the Jews, nor to be partakers of their impiety."
367 - 376: St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem refers to synagogues as brothels.
379-395: Emperor Theodosius the Great permitted the destruction of synagogues if it served a religious purpose. Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire at this time.
380: The bishop of Milan was responsible for the burning of a synagogue; he referred to it as "an act pleasing to God."
415: The Bishop of Alexandria, St. Cyril, expelled the Jews from that Egyptian city.
415: St. Augustine wrote "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot, who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."
418: St. Jerome, who created the Vulgate translation of the Bible wrote of a synagogue: "If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil's refuge, Satan's fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever you will, you are still saying less than it deserves."
489 - 519: Christian mobs destroyed the synagogues in Antioch, Daphne (near Antioch) and Ravenna.
List taken from ReligiousTolerance.org: Christian persecution of Jews
4. 6th-11th Century: Non-Christian Cultures were not Anti-semitic or Intolerant
It wasn't just the Roman Empire that tolerated Jews and multiple religions. Most surrounding cultures did too. It was only with the rise of Christianity that the world saw bloodthirsty, immoral and fundamentalist intolerance for freedom of belief. Non-Christian cultures around the growing darkness of Christianity were tolerant of Jews and others, including fledgling Christian communities, but Christian theology was not a well behaved child; its founders and theology was deeply intolerant of any knowledge or ways of life that was non-Christian. The most Christian countries were the most anti-semitic, the more the anti-Jewish rhetoric and legislation spread from the Christian Churches, the worse the violence became.
Spain
Under the Moors and the Arian Kings of Spain Christians and Jews could both practice their religions freely.
"But to this relatively satisfactory situation the conversion of King Recared (589) and his successors to Catholicism soon put a stop. From the moment the voice of Catholic orthodoxy gained the royal ear [...] and throughout the seventh century, a series of Church canons and royal enactments complemented one another in a rising crescendo of anti-Jewish measures that was to culminate, at the end of the same century, in the total destruction of Spanish Jewry."
"The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall, p261
"The seventeenth Church Council of Toledo bound over every Spanish Jew [...] into perpetual slavery. Whatever their intentions in 694, there can have been few Jewish slaves who regretted the annihilation in 711 of the Visigoth kingdom at the hands of the Moors, under whom the subject peoples, both Christians and Jews, were permitted to practice their own religions in a more tolerant atmosphere of cultural exchange"
"The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall p263
France
One European purge of Jews centered around the widespread Christian belief that the end of the world was going to occur in 1033, the 1000th anniversary of the fable of the crucifixion of Jesus. France had also succumbed, after centuries of toleration, to the Christian anti-Jewish ravings.
"In France some Christians sought to prepare the way for the return of the Saviour by forcibly baptising or murdering Jews"
"The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall, p215
Western Europe
All of Western Europe gradually came to be as bad as main Catholic countries as Catholicism's power continued to increase and spread, even to Germany which had, before Christianity, had high morals and tolerated Jews.
Religious Tolerance.org note that persecution and outlawing of a Jew would stop if he converted to Christianity:
528: Emperor Justinian (527-564) passed the Justinian Code. It prohibited Jews from building synagogues, reading the Bible in Hebrew, assemble in public, celebrate Passover before Easter, and testifying against Christians in court.
535: The "Synod of Claremont decreed that Jews could not hold public office or have authority over Christians."
538: The 3rd and 4th Councils of Orleans prohibited Jews from appearing in public during the Easter season. Canon XXX decreed that "From the Thursday before Easter for four days, Jews may not appear in the company of Christians." 5 Marriages between Christians and Jews were prohibited. Christians were prohibited from converting to Judaism.
561: The bishop of Uzes expelled Jews from his diocese in France.
612: Jews were not allowed to own land, to be farmers or enter certain trades.
613: Very serious persecution began in Spain. Jews were given the options of either leaving Spain or converting to Christianity. Jewish children over 6 years of age were taken from their parents and given a Christian education
692: Cannon II of the Quinisext Council stated: "Let no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman, let him be cut off."
694: The 17th Church Council of Toledo, Spain defined Jews as the serfs of the prince. This was based, in part, on the beliefs by Chrysostom, Origen, Jerome, and other Church Fathers that God punished the Jews with perpetual slavery because of their responsibility for the execution of Jesus.
722: Leo III outlawed Judaism. Jews were baptized against their will.
855: Jews were exiled from Italy
1050: The Synod of Narbonne prohibited Christians from living in the homes of Jews.
1078: "Pope Gregory VII decreed that Jews could not hold office or be superiors to Christians."
1078: The Synod of Gerona forced Jews to pay church taxes
1096: The First Crusade was launched in this year. Although the prime goal of the crusades was to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, Jews were a second target. As the soldiers passed through Europe on the way to the Holy Land, large numbers of Jews were challenged: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!" 12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed in the first Crusade. This behavior continued for 8 additional crusades until the 9th in 1272.
1099: The Crusaders forced all of the Jews of Jerusalem into a central synagogue and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were forced back into the burning building.
List taken from ReligiousTolerance.org: Christian persecution of Jews
5. 11th Century: The First Crusade: Muslims were tolerant of others, Christians were not
Germany and more Eastern countries were not anti-Jewish, and communities existed there peacefully. But with the Crusades, large Western Christian armies roamed Europe, having an unfortunate affect on many Jewish settlements.
"Christian armies began to advance into Germany, and the first to feel the edge of their weapons were the peaceful Jewish communities long-settled in the trading cities along the river-valleys of the Rhineland and the Danube. [...]"
Crusaders said, "'Great tracts of country stand between us and the enemies of God whom we wish to conquer. It is absurd to begin this enterprise when before our eyes are the Jews, more hostile to God than any other race.'. Most men who wore the cross made little distinction between Jew and Muslim. [...]". Quote taken from "People of the First Crusade" by Michael Foss p58-59.
"By early 1096, they [including "monks who had absconded from their monasteries"] were already beginning to move south-eastwards, in bands large and small. [They] butchered as many Jews as they could lay their hands on and looted their property."
"The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall, p91
Chronicler Solomon bar Simson records an age-old Christian argument, "You are the children of those who killed the object of our veneration, hanging him on a tree. And he himself had said, "There will yet come a day when my children will come and avenge my blood." We are his children and it is therefore our duty to avenge him against you who disbelieve in him." [Michael Foss p59]
Tens of thousands were killed in total. Multiple communities were attacked including those at Cologne, Neuss, Eller, Xanten, Trier and Metz. Also different groups of Christians under multiple leaders, from Christian Monks to Christian Hermits, overwhelmed Jews in Prague, Ratisbon, Regensburg, and other places, after attempting forced conversions of the Jews to Christianity.
Some Christians were horrified and ashamed by the actions of their comrades, and some of their written complaints survive. But the overwhelming vast majority of Christian texts and rhetoric were violently anti-Jew. The hatred was very specifically anti-Jew and not merely anti-pagan, it wasn't a blanket hatred as with "pagans" in general, but a directed hatred of the Jews in particular.
After the taking over of Jerusalem from the Muslims by the Christian armies, the Muslims hoped to reclaim their territory but they weren't the only ones who wanted to see the Christian aggressors removed:
"Nor were the Muslims the only ones to hope for a return to Islam. For generations, apart for some years of madness under Caliph al-Hakim, the Jews of the land and the city had, on the whole, been treated with tolerance by the Muslim rulers of Palestine. Yet what had the Christians done? Among the first monstrous acts of their presence in Jerusalem they had shut Jews in a synagogue and burnt them alive."
"People of the First Crusade" by Michael Foss, p183
The Jews reminisced over the temperate Muslim government, the safety, stability and tolerance of Muslim rule. It had all been replaced by Christian war, blood, danger, instability and fierce anti-semitism. The Muslims had also allowed the co-existence of Orthodox Greek Christians, and also Christian Copts, Syrians, Jacobites and Armenians. These relatively peaceful Christian groups were all oppressed by the new Christians proclaiming Latin patriarchy. The Catholics destroyed all peace in the whole middle East. The more pagan Christians, peaceful and tolerant, were shocked at how low and barbaric Western Christianity had become.
6. 13th-16th Century: Christian anti-Jewish legislation continues
In England the Jews situation was unique. Before Christianity, England contained many religions, pagan Celts, druids, natural religions and an assortment of imported beliefs all co-existed. But the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity led to a top-down enforcement of Christianity. The populace were convinced, coerced and led into Christianity by varied ingenious schemes, and all other religious beliefs were purged. Christianity meant the end of religious pluralism in England in the Middle Ages; if the Jews were present before 1000CE, they too would have been violently purged. Jews were introduced to England only in the 11th century, but by then England was already Christian. They were imported as subservients to the Christian government, coerced into providing trading advice and financial services.
The thirteenth century saw continuing Papal legislation limiting the rights of Jews, cross-marriage and even cross-contact between Jews and Christians were enforced, with Jews living in walled-off areas. The Catholic Church led the world in making new, innovative ways at dehumanizing the Jews, removing every right possible.
"Throughout Western Europe, although in some countries later than others, the general pattern was the same. The springtime of Christian usury and the pillaging, burning and looting of Jewish property" led eventually to them becoming financially useless and being expelled by the Christian rulers.
In England, France and Germany Jews were expelled as Christian commerce finally caught up with historical Jewish experience of trade which they'd gained before Christianity shattered their communities. "And from Spain and Portugal too, where Jewish prosperity lasted longer than in the North, all Jews who refused to convert to Christianity were finally driven out in the last decade of the fifteenth century [so that] the main bulk of the European Jewish had been pushed eastwards into Poland and the European provinces along the Russian border" [McCall, p283-284]
Martin Luther (1483-1540)
Martin Luther created the Protestant reformation with the publication of his 95 theses in 1517. He was also one of the most famous Christian anti-Semitical writers during this time, and in 1543 listed seven horrible, unjust and inhuman ways in which Jews should be treated, effectively stripping them of most their rights within (what was to be) Protestant territories.
"New York, NY, April 20...The impact of Martin Luther's anti-Jewish writings, the persistence of anti-Jewish ideas in Christian theology and the efforts of the Lutheran Church to fight the scourge of anti-Semitism and racism are explored in the new issue of Interfaith Focus, a magazine published by the Anti-Defamation League."
Anti-Defamation League, 1999 or 2000
"He made his famous recommendation that rebellious peasants should be 'killed like mad dogs' [and] that synagogues be burned - Jews were 'poisonous bitter worms'. [...] The Bohemian Protestants also turned on the Jews and expelled them from Prague. Indeed, most of the new sects were as intolerant as the old ones."
"A History of Sin" by Oliver Thomson, page 161
7. 19th Century
"In the nineteenth century, the Catholic Church opposed the emancipation of the Jews, insisting that they remain in ghettos [...] and be denied equal rights. In its view, which dated back to St. Augustine in the fifth century, Jews should remain degraded until they renounced their anachronistic religion and embraced the saving truth of Christianity. The Jews immured since 1555 in the ghetto of Rome, which was ruled by the popes [...] suffered oppression, humiliation - including, as in the Middle Ages, having to wear a yellow star of David on their clothing [...]. After 1870 and until [the 1960s] papal pronouncements regarding Jews normally assumed that their proper status was ghetto subjugation and restrictions. [...] Forced conversions ended only after 1870. [...]
Popes fostered anti-semitic movements in Europe; from behind the scene Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903) supported the virulently antisemitic Catholic Social Party in Austria and smiled on its leader, Karl Lueger, as he smiled on the French antisemitic volcano Edouard Drumont. [...]
The Vatican daily L'Osservature Romano in 1892 "glorified in antisemitism. Good antisemitism, wrote a typical Catholic journalist, is "nothing other than Christianity, completed and perfected in Catholicism""
"Anti-Semitism" by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, p6
8. Reasons for Christian Anti-Semitism
The Church Fathers were anti-Jewish, probably because the Jews actually owned and wrote the "Old Testament" of the Christian Bible, and argued with the new Christian sect over the claims of these newcomers about the Jewish Scriptures. From the very beginning the Church Fathers were vehemently anti-Jewish. They claimed that Jews belonged to Christians, along with their sacred texts; the Jews were forced to be slaves of Christians. Aquinas, a highly influential Christian theologian of the 13th century, is just one example of a high-brow Christian scholar who continually repeated the traditional Christian claims against Jews.
"St Thomas Aquinas gives the principle theological backing in his Summa Theologica when, reiterating the views of St Bernard, he declares that 'since the Jews are the slaves of the Church, she can dispose of their possessions'."
"The Medieval Underworld" by Andrew McCall p271-272
"In the Gospels we read more and more frequently about the Jewish people being reluctant to accept Jesus as the Messiah. He speaks to the Jewish audiences about 'your Law' as if it were not the same Law which he acknowledges and lives by. He grieves for the 'hardness of the hearts' of the Jewish congregation (Mark 3:5). We read about the Jewish people having been 'moved against' Jesus by the priests (Mark 15:11)"
"Jesus Versus Christianity" by Alfred Reynolds, p316
"The Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets"
Pilate, the Roman governor, is pressurized by Jews to "take action against an innocent man to placate the hostile Jews (Mark 15:15)'. Jesus is crucified despite Pilate finding 'no fault in him' (Luke 23:3). Pilate 'asserts the prisoner's innocence (John 19:4/6), and only the insistence of 'the Jews' prompts him to deliver Jesus to his executioners. Reading this story in the Gospel of John, one might even get the impression that the executioners in question were Jews, although the only form of execution used by the Jews was stoning; crucifixion, the Roman form of carrying out a death sentence, filled them with horror'. The later gospels are even more adamant in their condemnation of 'the Jews'. [Reynolds, p317]
The Christians always blamed the Jews for the persecution of their Messiah (see my essay on Paul & Mithraism for why and when Christianity decided that Yeshua was the messiah), and because it the Jews who killed him they have consistently produced violently anti-semitic propaganda, which have permeated into society in general even in today's enlightened world.
Note that the Romans crucified a large number of people of all types yet the crucifixion of Jesus is not attributed to the Romans by the Christians but always to the Jews. Jesus was killed by the Romans as a conspirator who wished to instigate a theocracy in Roman territory, yet the Italians are not blamed (as ancestors of the Romans) but the Jews (as ancestor's of the Rabbi's who with Jesus frequently argued).
St Paul, a very early Christian writer and the most influential saint of Christianity, wrote in 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 "...the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and persecuted us. How displeasing they are to God! How hostile they are to everyone! ... In this way they have brought to completion all the sins they have always committed."
From the very outset there were hatefully anti-Jewish Christians. It was hundreds of years before the New Testament was compiled, but the writings of such influential people as St Paul, so early, are an indication as to how intrinsically anti-Jewish Christianity was to become.
Sons of the Devil
"[The Bible's representation of the Jew:] The Jews were descended neither from God (like Jesus and the Christians), nor from Abraham but from the devil (John 8:44), and, as the children of the devil, the father of lies and a murderer from the beginning, they were bound to seek Jesus' life"
"The misery of Christianity - a plea for Humanity without God" by Joachin Kahl, 1968, p53
"Jesus said to [the Jews], "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. [...] You belong to your father, the devil [...] The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God"
John 8:42-47, New Testament, NIV
More Pauline Text
"The epistles show that at one time the point was reached when no reconciliation was possible and when the 'Church of Christ' was inevitably set against 'the Jews'. The Jews are said to have failed to attain righteousness and stumbled through unbelief (Rom. 9:31/3). They are ignorant of God's will (Rom. 10:3) and invoke His severe stricture (Rom. 10:21). Straying from the path of righteousness, they have sinned through blindness and stubbornness (Rom. 11). ['The Jews'] have 'both killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and... please not God, and are contrary to all men (1 Tess. 2:15)"
"Jesus Versus Christianity" by Alfred Reynolds, p314
Hypocrisy
"It is a painful but inescapable truth that antisemitism, which seethes with hate, was spawned and nourished by Christianity, which reveres a Jewish prophet who preached love and compassion. The New Testament and the writings of the Church Fathers often refer to Jews and Judaism contemptuously. Jews were depicted as an accused people, children of the Devil collectively condemned by God to suffer for rejecting and killing Christ. This degrading image of the Jew was propagated over the centuries in numerous books, sermons, works of art, and folklore, and vestiges endure into the twenty-first century. Two thousand years of Christian anti-Judaism [...] hardened hearts against Jews. [...] This mind-set, deeply embedded in the Christian outlook, helps to explain why so many people were receptive to anti-Jewish propaganda"
"Anti-Semitism" by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, p3
The hypocrisy is that the Jews were led from captivity by Moses, a character massively revered within Christianity, and Jesus preached love and tolerance, yet the Christians managed to bring the world, and the Jews, down to a horrific hell as if Jesus and Moses both never existed! It is a psychological characteristic of Christianity that has allowed such contradiction, violent hypocrisy and emotional corruption within its ranks for so many hundreds of years.
9. Modern Times
Stereotypes
The stereotypes of Jews that were fabricated by early Christians are still with us today: Big nosed, money grabbers, conspirators and grotesque, these all stem from the bigoted viewpoints forced upon all of Europe by Christian literature and messages that were endlessly created in the name of their God, based on versus found in the New Testament.
"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..."
Hans Küng, "On Being a Christian"
"Today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord"
Adolf Hitler
Nazi Germany
Probably the most evident and known example of serious anti-semitism, the atrocities committed under Adolf Hitler's German government had no comparison, with millions of Jews murdered. Like previous Catholic-influenced programs, the Nazis also slaughtered many other groups such as gays and many forms of minority religion.
Universalism: All people will enter heaven independent of their religion & knowledge gained in life
Liberal Christianity
There have always been moral people, some of them Christians, who have bemourned the actions of fellow Christians against the Jews. Thankfully, the future is bright as in the 20th and 21st centuries, liberal Christianity has become the dominant form of Christianity. Liberal Christianity abandons much of the traditions and original Christian ideas in favour of a much more deistic approach to belief and morality. Liberal Christianity is largely moral and certainly good-natured. As such, the more violent anti-Jewish readings are marginalized in favour of other, more universal, interpretations. Liberal Christianity, and especially universalism has led to a much more moral-minded and apologetic Christianity, which is a very welcome modern trend.
10. Conclusions
Christianity created anti-semitism. All anti-semitism has been made possible because of the teachings of early and middle ages Christianity. In the early centuries the Roman Empire tolerated most religions including Judaism until Christianity took over; after which it became a monster and oppressor of any non-Christian belief systems. Anti-semitism has always been rife within Christianity, right from the original Church Fathers of the first century and many of the most influential Christian theologians wrote anti-Jewish tracts including Martin Luther. Muslim governments and people through the Middle Ages were more tolerant of beliefs, of science and knowledge, and of Jews, than Western Christianity. Cultures surrounding Western Christian countries were all more tolerant than those inflicted by Christianity. Anti-semitism marched in step with Christianity, was caused by Christian beliefs and was preached from the pulpit by the highest Christian leaders right on through to the twentieth century.
Muslims, pagans and Jews all had superior moral systems to the Christian intolerance and violence towards anything non-Christian. No other religion has displayed such immovable hatred towards another religion as Christianity did towards the Jews. No holy war has ever lasted so long and been so bloody as the one the Christians waged against innocent Jews. History provides us with only few occasions where Jews, or even Muslims or pagans, were as intolerant or morally corrupt as the West was under Christian rule. Thankfully modern Christianity, since it lost its power, is generally more humane. Christianity has slowly been forced to change its ways mostly due to pressure from increasingly powerful secular, poly-cultural governments and changing culture.
List all the pages on Judaism
Christian Morals
Bibliography:
Foss, Michael
"People of the First Crusade", 1997.
Heywood, Andrew
"Political Ideologies", 1992. Quotes taken from Third Edition, 2003. Published by Palgrave MacMillan.
Kahl, Joachin
"The misery of Christianity - a plea for Humanity without God", 1968.
Lewis, Bernard
"Semites and Anti-Semites", 1986. Hardback.
McCall, Andrew
"The Medieval Underworld", 1979. Quotes from 2004 Sutton Publishing softback edition.
Perry, Marvin and Schweitzer, Frederick M.
"Anti-Semitism", 2002. Hardback. Published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Reynolds, Alfred
"Jesus Versus Christianity" 1988. Quotes from 1993 edition, Cambridge International Publishers, London UK.
Stewart, Robert (Consulting Editor)
"Ideas that Shaped Our World", 1997. Quotes from original Marshall Editions hardback edition.
Thomson, Oliver
"A History of Sin", 1993. Quotes from original Hardback Edition, Canongate Press.
Links:
Anti-Defamation League (
www.adl.org)
www.ReligiousTolerance.org: An overview of 2000 Years of Jewish Persecution
holy-land-online.com: The Bloody History of God's Chosen City
holysmoke.org: Religion inspired suffering (especially of the Jews) in history
Notes:
Portions of this text were originally wrote by myself in 2000 Apr 06, although on that date itself the original text was a rewrite of even older text with an unknown composition date.
2005 Mar 18: Added a quote from Bernard Lewis on types of anti-semitism, and quotes from Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer.
Read / Write CommentsBy Vexen Crabtree 2004 Oct 06
© 2005 Vexen Crabtree. All rights reserved.
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/antisemitism.html