The Origins of Christian Anti-Semitism

Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs ^ | May 5, 2009 | Prof. Pieter van der Horst

[Vlad0]

• Christian anti-Semitism began much later than Jesus’ life. In the gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, which are the historically more reliable ones, Jesus views himself as a messenger of God to the Jews and as a member of the Jewish people.

• The New Testament has several anti-Semitic elements in its chronologically latest documents. The Gospel of John has Jesus call the Jews “sons of the devil.” There is also a case of an anti-Jewish outburst by the Apostle Paul.

• The split between Jewish and gentile Christians brought with it the beginning of Christian anti-Jewish sentiments. In creating a new identity for itself, Christianity attacked the old religion as fiercely as it could, including demonization.

• Toward the end of the fourth century, much-publicized sermons of the church father John Chrysostom combined Christian anti-Jewish elements derived from the New Testament with earlier pagan ones. These themes were gradually integrated into the anti-Jewish discourse of the church.

Prof. Pieter van der Horst studied classical philology and literature. In 1978, he received his PhD in theology from Utrecht University. After his studies, he taught the literature and history of early Christianity and Judaism. Prof. Van der Horst is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He remarks: “In the three more historically based earlier Gospels, one sees Jesus in fierce dispute with leaders of the various Jewish groups, such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. It is clear from these texts that this is an internal Jewish debate. When, according to the Gospels, the Pharisees attacked Jesus because of his behavior, there followed a dispute of a halachic [Jewish law] nature. Jesus reasons in this context, remaining within the fold of Judaism. The debate, however fierce it may be, is less so than, for instance, the internal Jewish dispute between the Qumran sect and the Pharisees and the Sadducees.”

Non-Jews Become Christians Van der Horst says it is difficult to determine where to place the beginning of Christian anti-Semitism. “It varied from location to location. In the Jerusalem Christian community it started much later than in the communities in Asia Minor, Greece, or Rome, or wherever else Christian communities came into being.

“The earliest Christian generation in Jerusalem consisted almost entirely of Jews. These people believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but saw themselves as true Jews. The book of Acts of the Apostles makes it clear that the first Jewish Christians went to the Temple in Jerusalem, attended synagogue services, and wanted to remain Jews.[1] There were tensions with mainstream Jews, who looked askance at the belief that a crucified person was the Messiah. There was, however, no breaking point or even a discussion of excommunicating the Jewish Christians.

“The situation changed slowly in the second generation of Christians. This was directly related to the missionary activities of people like the Apostle Paul and his collaborators. Their vision was that ‘salvation,’ as they called it, was intended by God not only for the Jewish people but also for others. They began to preach their message to non-Jews outside the Land of Israel as well.

“These earliest missionaries wanted to facilitate the entrance of non-Jews into the growing Christian community. They therefore began to downgrade the Torah (the Pentateuch) and its commandments. Later they started to toy with the idea that, if God wanted non-Jews to be part of the community as well, the commandments of the Torah should be solely for the Jewish members. That gave rise to the first tensions between Jewish and gentile Christians.”

[Vlad0]

American Christians also need to be reminded that until late in the last century (1900-2000) Jewsish persons were not admitted to the most prestiges colleges and

Doing a little poking around to verify this, I found this interesting case:

Judah Monis (February 4, 1683 – April 25, 1764) was North America's first college instructor of the Hebrew language, teaching at Harvard College from 1722 to 1760, and authored the first Hebrew textbook published in North America.

Monis was also the first Jew to receive a college degree in the American colonies. His conversion to Christianity made him a figure of some controversy to both Jews and Christian.

I guess seeing as he converted you can say he wasn't a Jew (if you use only the religious component of being Jewish as your measure) -- but then again Harvard's only function early on was as a Divinity School to created Anglican ministers for the British colonies. In England, being a minister was a high-status, well paid position, so most were not interested in moving to the colonies.

So, one would not expect a Divinity School dedicated to education and training of Anglican pastors to have any Jewish students, would one?

[Mr. Blond]

You might want to ask an Armenian about that.

[Vlad0]

Yes, the Jews, through and using the Roman proxy and legal system, killed Jesus.

It's an odd thing -a bit ahistorical - to claim that the occupied nation, riven with its own divisions, was really so powerful that they forced the Governor (with actual Roman legions at his disposal) to do something.

I think when you take over the Role of the Government (which Rome did) and set yourself up as the Legal System as Rome did, and insist that you alone have to power to punish and condemn people as Pontious Pilot did... then you can't - at the last minute, or in the eyes of history say "Oh no: that noisy group of protesters MADE ME DO IT, it wasn't really my fault at all.

That seems preposterous to claim. Anyone who does seems like they are compensating or making excuses.

The Buck Stops Here: Pontius Pilot

To use a modern example: the entire Leftist mob hates Trump and wants to put him in jail, but when he is finally convicted the cause of that will be the Court System and Jury that tried him, despite all the braying of the Atlantic Magazine and MS-NBC it's the legal apparatus that did the deed.

[babble-on]

If Jews did it, it was still not THE JEWS. Assigning blanket guilt for a very bad thing done long ago to all members of that ethno-religious group, in perpetuity, seems not right.

[babble-on]

not sure your meaning about Armenians. Are you saying Jews slaughtered Armenians?

[Angelino97]

“The earliest Christian generation in Jerusalem consisted almost entirely of Jews. These people believed in Jesus as the Messiah, but saw themselves as true Jews.

John saw believers in Jesus as the ONLY true Jews. This is what he meant by "those who say they are Jews but are not" (Revelation 3:9).

Talmudic Jews (who rejected Jesus) likewise considered Christian Jews no longer Jews, which they made official at the Council of Jamnia at the end of the 1st century.

By then, each side was accusing the other of being false Jews.

Christians are today blamed for turning their backs on "the mother religion," but Talmudic Jews likewise drove away Christian Jews from the 1st century onward.

[Angelino97]

the Jews never being a large nation or having an empire were rarely in as good a position to weaponize their anti-Christianity ...

Oh, they got even in other ways. They opened the gates of Toledo to Muslim invaders, and collaborated with Muslims during the latter's long Spanish occupation.

Many Jews abused their power with relish when given the opportunity, such as when they acted as tax collectors for Polish aristocrats. Or as bankers. The Merchant of Venice trope had its real life inspirations.

And of course this culminated in the Holocaust ...

True. But decades earlier, Bolshevism attracted a disproportionate number of Jewish leaders, who used their positions within the atheist regimes of Soviet Russia and Hungary to exact bloody revenge upon Christian clergy and nuns, arresting, torturing, and murdering thousands of them.

Again, there were real life inspirations for the "Judaeo-Bolshevism" trope.

Anti-semitic tropes don't spring from nowhere. All stereotypes have some basis in reality.

[griswold3]

📌

[Angelino97]

Part of that history most Christian are not taught in school is in most every part of “Christian” Europe, until Napoleon’s “universal” laws, Jews lived all over Europe but could not be full fledged citizens anywhere.

Israel Shahak writes that the rabbis preferred it that way, because Jews (especially their rabbis) had certain privileges before Napoleon. Jews lived in self-governing ghettos, with their own laws and courts. Rabbis could even impose the death penalty on Jews who broke their religious laws, and sometimes did so. It was all very insular and Old Testament.

It was like those ultra-Orthodox communities you see in Brooklyn today, only more so. Rabbis had real legal authority over their people prior to Napoleon.

Prior to Napoleon, gentile nations recognized rabbinical jurisdiction over the lives of most Jews.

The "emancipation of Jews" also meant the diminishment of rabbinical authority and Jewish autonomy. Jews were now free to mingle among gentiles, but they were subject to gentile, secular authority, as never before.

[Wuli]

“Israel Shahak writes that the rabbis preferred it that way, because Jews (especially their rabbis) had certain privileges before Napoleon.”

The “privileges” of the favored Rabbis did not mean “privileges” for all Jews.

And while those “self governing” Jewish communities meant one thing, within those communitites, it did not prevent the abuses against the legally unprotected Jews in interactions with the broader society.

I think the famed Jewish writer was speaking mostly only for the rabbis and in that for some Rabbis more than others, and more so than for the general Jewish population.

[Vlad0]

Nor do Christians have a record of mass slaughtering of Jews. That was carried out by very anti-Christian Nazi secularists.

But there was a history of European pogroms long before the Nazi's took over Germany, centered in Russia (pre-Communist revolution).

Given the era one can say with some certainty that the persecutors were Christian (although not following Christian doctrine).

Significant pogroms in the Russian Empire included the Odessa pogroms, Warsaw pogrom (1881), Kishinev pogrom (1903), Kiev pogrom (1905), and Białystok pogrom (1906). After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, several pogroms occurred amidst the power struggles in Eastern Europe, including the Lwów pogrom (1918) and Kiev pogroms (1919).

[Petrosius]

I am familiar with the Russian pogroms. And yes, they were carried out by those who were Christians. But this is different than to say that “Christians have a history of mass slaughtering of Jews,” as if this were a normal aspect of Christianity; just as it unjust to say that “the Jews killed Christ” because his death was instigated by those in authority who were Jews. In neither case was unjust killing a feature of their respective faiths. Christians must, and to a large extent have, put aside their animosity towards Jews as a collective people. Likewise, Jews need to put aside their any animosity they have towards Christians as a collective people. Neither of us should be slaves to historical grievances. What matters is how we treat each other now.

[daniel1212]

The New Testament has several anti-Semitic elements in its chronologically latest documents. The Gospel of John has Jesus call the Jews “sons of the devil.” There is also a case of an anti-Jewish outburst by the Apostle Paul.

Which reveals ignorance or neglect of context.

[Mr. Blond]

They would tell you about the heavy Jewish involvement in the Young Turks. There was also the Red Terror and Holodomor carried out by the Bolsheviks prior to the Great Purge.

[rmlew]

Jewish leaders in Jesus' day: "Crucify him!!!"
Roman collaborators were Roman picked to subjugate Jews.Jesus was one of many messianic claimants killed by the Romans and their collaborators. And the collaborators would eventually join their masters in becoming Christian. Blaming actual Jews is ahistoric

[rmlew]

Do you think you are smart by playing the communist game of ignoring the actual history of the term "antisemitism." "Antisemitism" comes from 19th century Germany and Austria, where politically semitismus meant equal rights for Jews, and antisemitismus meant opposition to rights for Jews and/or racial hatred of Jews?

[rmlew]

Oh, they got even in other ways. They opened the gates of Toledo to Muslim invaders, and collaborated with Muslims during the latter's long Spanish occupation.
Neither Jews nor Muslims said that . Visigothic Spain was divided between a Nicean/ Chalcedonian Christian majority with little power and Vandal and later Visigoth rulers, who followed Arian Christianity. The Vandals were also forefully converting or murdering Jews. Eventually some Visigoths became Nicean/ Chalcedonian Christian, but they were still divided. The Muslim invaders took advantage of the divisions and religious strife to easily conquer the Iberian peninsula. Ashamed that Christian fighting paved the way for conquest, later Christians blamed Jews.

Many Jews abused their power with relish when given the opportunity, such as when they acted as tax collectors for Polish aristocrats. Or as bankers. The Merchant of Venice trope had its real life inspirations.
Jews are allowed limited jobs, which made them targets, and you fantasize that this was power and imagine a motive. Antisemitic delusions make peoples stupid.

True. But decades earlier, Bolshevism attracted a disproportionate number of Jewish leaders, who used their positions within the atheist regimes of Soviet Russia and Hungary to exact bloody revenge upon Christian clergy and nuns, arresting, torturing, and murdering thousands of them.
Incomplete to the point of being false. None were "Jewish". Marx was a formerly Lutheran antisemite who called for the cultural genocide of Jews
These were apostates from Judaism to the antisemitic atheist cult of communism. Thy murdered Rabbis and burned synagogues. Judaism and all Jewish practices were a crime in the USSR. I would note that the Soviets would recreate the Russian Orthodox Church during World War 2, but Judaism was a crime until the last years of the regime. Former Christian Orthodox seminary student turned Bolshevik mass murderer, Joseph Stalin, died while planning his own final solution to the Jewish Question, the mass murder and siberian imprisonment of Jews under pretext of the Doctors' Plot. Fortunately, Hitler's former ally died on Purim 1953.

[rmlew]

They would tell you about the heavy Jewish involvement in the Young Turks.
Complete and utter fantasy. In fact, the Young Turks murdered Jews, suppressed Judaism, and wanted to expell every foreign Jew from what is now Israel. The Germans stepped in and forced their allies to limit the expulsion to only Jews from Triple Entente countries.

. There was also the Red Terror and Holodomor carried out by the Bolsheviks prior to the Great Purge.
These both killed a large number of Jews and were carried out by a communist regime that was more antisemitic than Czarist Russia, where Judaism was a universal crime.

[cherry]

this is the whole "jews are the center of the world" attitude...

Christians have been persecuted openly around the world, killed...WW2 saw many Catholics killed...it wasn't just the jews....

as long as jews in the US continue to espouse anti Christian sentiment then the same should be given to them....

its leftist rats, that include a large number of jews, that has pushed porn, legal weed, homosexual rights and this crazy gender identity crap....

[cherry]

"It's still an interesting topic, and lots of Christians and other non-Jewish people are interested in the question of "What is the origin of Christian anti-Semitism?"

and I would like to know the origin of Jewish anti Christianity?...

why do they attack all of our values....?