Record contributor Fr Sean Fernandez, theology lecturer at Notre Dame University, continues his reflection on the disturbing phenomenon of anti-Semitism
In this article, I am not setting out to be prosecutor and judge;
questions of guilt, I leave to others. I hope it will be clear that I
find anti-Semitism abhorrent. And if you read Church teaching since the
Second Vatican Council you will find a significant shift in its
treatment of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.
Anti-Judaism is not an acceptable position. This has been illustrated clearly in the statements of various European Bishops’ conferences on the position of the followers of Lefebvre; they will not be accepted back into full communion with the Catholic Church until they accept all the teachings of Vatican II including conciliar teaching on the Jewish people.
Anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism
I mentioned anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Anti-Judaism may give rise to anti-Semitism, but the former is not identical with the latter. John Gager’s differentiation between the two is influential. Anti-Judaism encompasses certain Christian ‘religious and theological’ differences from Judaism. Anti-Semitism, on the other hand, historically designates ‘hostile statements about Jews and Judaism. Such statements show certain basic similarities to what we call anti-Semitism today. They are expressed by complete outsiders, betray very little knowledge of Jews or Judaism, and tend to sweeping generalisations’ (Origins of anti-Semitism).
Difficulties and Complexities
Much of the historical ground of this topic is contested. The documentary evidence, where it exists, does not lend itself to easy interpretation. How did the populace receive anti-Judaic diatribes? Were royal and episcopal decrees aimed at Jews implemented? Was there a degree of convivencia not just in the Iberian Peninsula (contemporary Spain and Portugal), but also in Western Europe? To what degree was the invective directed against Jews extraordinary? For every David Nirenberg (Communities of Violence) or Robert Moore (The Formation of a Persecuting Society) who writes of a persecuting society, one has a Cary Nederman or John Laursen (Beyond the Persecuting Society) who writes of the threads of tolerance in Mediaeval Europe. What is the amateur historian to make of the claims and counter-claims? I suppose I am leaving myself open to the accusation that I am choosing the interpretation which suits me; I hope I have drawn on solid and contemporary scholarship.
You will be appalled by the vitriol which was thrown at Jews, but I would point out that such opprobrium was not uniquely anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic. Anna Sapir Abulafia writes of Jewish invective against Christians, invective which goes back to the fourth century: churches ‘were simply known as “houses of idolatry”; baptism as “[Christian] stench”’; and there was worse. Abulafia further points out that vilification of one’s opponents was quite common (Christians and Jews in the Twelfth Century Renaissance).
Of course, the peculiarities of history meant that Jewish communities were very vulnerable. Slander would at times give rise to mob violence and murder. Sometimes Christians would recognise the stories for the rubbish they were and ignore them. Frequently Bishops, princes and even the Popes would intervene to quash the rumours. These threads of tolerance only place in sharp relief the violence and dispossession to which Jewish communities were subject over the centuries.
We do not do justice to the courage and perseverance of the Jewish people by only seeing them as victims. They made homes and carved out a space for themselves in the midst of Christian communities. They made friends, sought patronage and navigated the politics of their time. When they were subjected to violence or expelled, they would wait for the opportunity to return to the homes they had made for themselves (Elukin, Living Together. Living Apart).
Jesus and the Infant Church
How did anti-Judaism arise? After all Jesus was a Jew. The first disciples were Jews. Jesus’ choice of the Twelve pointed to a renewal of the twelve tribes of Israel.
There were several crises in the relationship between Jesus’ disciples and the broader Jewish community. The failure of the Jewish people as a whole to accept Jesus as a Messiah frustrated the expectations and hopes of the disciples. It presented a challenge to the disciples’ preaching of the Gospel; why should anyone believe them when their own people did not? Another crisis was the problem of Gentile converts: if the ‘Christian’ movement was about a renewed Israel, did one have to be a Jew to be a member? We can read of some of these struggles in the New Testament. Some of the antipathy in the Gospels towards Pharisees reflects the struggles of the early Christians with Jewish teachers and authorities. An interesting point is made by Paula Fredriksen who points out that later Christians, who were distant from the Jewish context of the Scriptures, misinterpret them (The Birth of Christianity and the Origins of Christian Anti-Judaism); the early Christian movement was seen as a Jewish messianic one and so the arguments in the New Testament were written by Jews addressing their fellow Jews. The Christian polemic should be interpreted as reflecting intra-Jewish debates in other words. And it wasn’t just a debate between the disciples of Jesus and other Jews, but amongst the disciples themselves.
We see something of the form the discussion took in the writings of St Paul. The great apostle’s argument sets out interpretation of the Scriptures (when Paul writes of the Scriptures he is referring to the Old Testament). For Paul the key to the Scriptures is Christ. And what of his co-religionists who reject his stance? He writes in his letter to the Romans:
“I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew.” And, he goes on, “so I ask, have [the Israelites] stumbled so as to fall? By no means! But through their stumbling, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to make Israel jealous. Now, if their stumbling means riches for the world, and if their defeat means riches for Gentiles, how much more will their full inclusion mean!”
Alas, some Christians through the centuries did not pay sufficient heed to the nuances of Paul’s argument.
Contemporary scholarship points to a vibrant Judaism and a nascent Christianity contesting a common space in the Roman Empire; both attracted converts and each saw the other as a challenge to their integrity. As we saw, both groups were not above name-calling. Christians depicted Jews as ‘fleshy’ and lacking in understanding. They accused them of hardness of heart and claimed that their role in the killing of Jesus was consistent with their history of killing prophets. Some went so far as to accuse the Jews of deicide. Vile and slanderous accusations against Jews were to spring up time and again: they murder Christian children (the egregious blood libel), they desecrate the Eucharistic species, they engage in sorcery.
Christian polemic post-Constantine
From the fourth century with the seeming triumph of Christianity in the Roman Empire, Christian invective became more extreme. It seemed obvious to some Christians that it could only be sinful obstinacy that prevented Jews from recognising the truth of Christianity. Slowly, the protections which Jewish people had been granted by Roman law were eroded. One writer warned Christians that if they had any fellowship with Jews they were making themselves ‘comrades of the crucifiers’ (Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews). But as many authors have argued, the shrillness of the polemic is an indication of the bonds which bound communities; many Christians were not inclined to ostracise their Jewish neighbours.
St John Chrysostom preached that the Jews were ‘the most miserable of men … lustful, rapacious, greedy, perfidious bandit … inveterate murderers, destroyers, men possessed by the devil … They have surpassed the ferocity of wild beasts, for they murder their offspring and immolate them to the devil’ (Flannery). It grieves me to repeat this awful vitriol, especially as I admire Chrysostom as a theologian, but in the ferocity of his attacks on the Jews he did a terrible wrong.
St Augustine of Hippo too struggled with what he saw as Jewish intransigence. However, he believed that their continued survival was part of God’s plan – they existed to bear witness to their own error and to the truth of Christ; they were part of God’s plan whereby salvation was to be brought to the nations. Augustine admonished Christians to charity: ‘let us preach to the Jews, whenever we can, with a spirit of love … It is not for us to boast over them as branches broken off … We shall be able to say to them without exulting over them – though we exult in God – “Come, let us walk in the light of the Lord.”’
Judaism was left in this twilight world where its continued existence was deemed necessary, but its flourishing was in no way to be permitted. Ambivalence litters the discussion: even when a Pope indulged in a violent diatribe against Jews, he would order that their property be protected, that they be allowed to worship and not be subject to forced conversion (Elukin). Nonetheless, the anti-Judaic polemic of Christian rhetoricians sowed the seeds of anti-Semitism; ideological opposition gave rise to stereotypes and hatred. The Jewish people as a whole were judged guilty of deicide; God was obviously punishing them and Christians through the centuries took it upon themselves to be the instruments of divine vengeance.
Crusades
A terrible chapter in this long history of prejudice and persecution was written dur-
ing the Crusades. The First Crusade saw terrible massacres of Jews. In the first half of 1096 it is estimated that 10,000 Jews were killed in northern Europe.
This terrible toll was despite the attempts of many Bishops, local clergy and townspeople to protect Jewish residents or refugees from the fanatical violence of the Crusaders.
The anti-Jewish violence of the later Crusades was less because the civil and ecclesiastical authorities were better prepared. St Bernard of Clairvaux too played a role; he condemned those who attacked Jews: ‘Who is this man who should make out [St Paul] to be a liar and render void the treasures of Christ’s pity and love?’ and ‘It is an act of Christian pity … “to spare the subjected,” especially those for whom we have a law and a promise, and whose flesh was shared by Christ whose name be for ever blessed.’
Jews as merchants and money-lenders
Besides the physical and verbal attacks to which they were subjected, Jews also had, at various times and in various places, constraints placed upon their means of livelihood. They became known as moneylenders and merchants because they were forced into these spheres. There were several factors which helped some of them become successful. The far-flung Jewish Diaspora meant that there were Jewish communities all through the known world and a common faith helped them establish business relationships. The demand for money grew and Christians were not permitted to engage in usury.
Their success in money lending became a sword of Damocles over their heads. Those who drew on the services of money-lenders sometimes used mob violence to gain relief from their debts. At various times, one can see economic factors behind the expulsion of Jews from territories or pogroms. A Christian prince aware of his indebtedness and with his eye for the main chance would expel Jews from his territory, ostensibly as an act of piety.
Spain
I shall touch briefly on the situation in Spain. After the Christian re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula there was a concern with Limpieza de sangre – or blood purity. Jews were amongst those singled out, including Jewish converts to Christianity. Various Popes condemned this racialism, but it, among other factors, was to give rise to a long history of suffering in Spain. In 1492, Jews were ordered to convert or to leave the Spanish kingdoms. The suffering was immense; those who could, fled to Italy and Turkey where they were welcomed. Jewish communities which had existed on the Iberian Peninsula for 1,500 years were destroyed. Some Jews were subjected to forced baptism. It should be remembered that not all Christians welcomed this savagery; Christians who had lived with Jewish neighbours for generations were horrified at the cruelty to which they were subject and some sought to shield them, to plead for them, to hide them, but with limited effect. I should introduce a note of caution; historians like Philippe Wolf raise the question as to whether the Spanish pogroms of the 14th century are better seen in terms of class-rebellion rather than anti-Semitism; it just illustrates how complex the situation was.
Conclusion
I have only touched on a little of the brutal history of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism; there are episodes and factors which I have omitted due to lack of space. There are many books on the subject; I would recommend Fr Edward Flannery’s The Anguish of the Jews.
I would like to suggest (boldly) that the situation for Jewish communities worsened with the development of national identity and the growth of the strong monarchical government. After the great expulsions of Jews of the 16th century only ecclesiastical states, in other words, territories under the rule of Bishops and other churchmen, were prepared to re-admit Jews to their territories; the secular territories were not (Elukin). The turmoil of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation sharpened anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. The weak are always prey to prejudice and violence in times of uncertainty – we do not have to look far to see the same dynamic at work in our own society. The anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism that took root in European soil ensured that Jewish communities were perennially vulnerable.
Before I end, I would ask that you remember how I started. The history is a terrible one, but it is not all black. It is also the history of a people making homes and lives for themselves in precarious times. It is the history of occasional charity being shown in the midst of hatred. It is the history of neighbours sometimes haltingly seeking to be good neighbours in times of need.
I hope that my Jewish brothers and sisters will not be offended by my temerity. I have sought to be honest in my portrayal, but I have not tried to be complete. Historians continue to explore this history and witness to its complexity. In the next article I shall be very bold indeed; I shall explore the nexus between violence and religion.