The church disapproves, but allows it
The Christian Church is responsible for two thousand years of anti-Semitism. I'm sorry, I can't formulate it more tactfully.
In this series we look at the history of toleration in Christianity. We encountered heretics, and pagans, and Muslims. Now, let’s take a look at how Christianity related to Judaism through the ages.
Christianity began with Jewish followers of the Jewish teacher Jesus. But the community really started to grow when ties to Judaism were loosened. The early church's resentment of the Jewish people was there early on, and only recently have ties loosened up. We will look, among other things, at the isolation of the Jewish communities in the Middle Ages, and the role of the church in the persecution of the Jews through the ages. We conclude with the position of the Church of Rome in the face of the Holocaust.
A warning in advance. This article contains nasty and racist texts about Jews. Not to shock, but to illustrate how Christians spoke of Jews in the past. How deep the hatred sometimes ran. Also, if, as a Christian, you get easily upset by a critical approach, you might want to skip this article.
Christians became less and less Jewish
After Paulos, Christianity in the Roman Empire attracted more and more non-Jews. Efforts to convert Jews to the Christian faith had proved largely fruitless. Gradually, the Church Fathers had less and less interest in the Jews and their laws.
What drove the Christians and the Jews apart? Primarily, it was Paulos' attitude toward Jewish law. Although it was binding on Jewish believers, it was not binding on non-Jewish adherents. As a result, Jews began to feel less and less at home in the Jesus communities, which were gradually overrun by Roman citizens and other rabble.
Secondly, it was the divine status of Jesus that gradually became theologically dominant in the Jesus communities. That was unpalatable to professing Jews. This dogma was not undisputed even within the early Christian communities. Partly because of this uncertainty, Christian positions were hardened: by rebelling against Jews and dissident Christian theologians, their own dogmas became stronger.
The murder of Jesus
Over time, the Jews were rhetorically portrayed as the murderers of Jesus, especially incited in the Gospel of John, around AD 100. The Jews had murdered God, even knowingly, according to later apocryphal gospels.
What was true about that? I let the mild but skeptical assessment of the Bible historian and priest Bruce Chilton be my guide. The account of Jesus' execution in the Gospels appears to be coloured, but generally not implausible.
As mentioned earlier, Jesus was under the spell of the kingdom of God, which was at hand. It would free the Jewish people from the Roman ruler, the unpopular Herodian dynasty and the controversial high priests. It is quite conceivable that he had gradually come to see himself as the Messiah already foretold by the Old Testament prophets, an incorruptible, pious new ruler of Israel. Jesus could not wait for that time to come, and would lend a hand if necessary.
Jesus knew the Tanakh like the back of his hand. The prophet Zechariah's predictions about the end times must have fascinated him. Zechariah described spectacularly and in some detail what would happen. Including this passage:
Every cooking pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the Lord, so that all who sacrifice may come and use them to boil the flesh of the sacrifice.
And there shall no longer be traders in the house of the Lord on that day.— Zechariah 14:21
Traders in the temple, why? For practical reasons, the high priest had decreed that believers were no longer allowed to bring their own sacrificial animals to the temple. Especially on heydays it was extremely busy on the temple grounds, and the dragging of animals resulted in chaotic scenes, and a lot of dirt. After the intervention of the high priest, believers could only obtain their sacrificial animals from the official traders on the temple grounds. Much more orderly. An additional advantage for the priests was that the merchants probably had to pay part of the proceeds. But for poor Jews it was a disaster: instead of being able to bring their own animals, grown at home for free, they now had to pay money for cattle to be sacrificed.
Jesus had a plan. With a group of supporters, he went to put an end to that trade on the Temple Mount. It became quite a riot. He might have expected the apocalypse to come right away. But that didn't happen. Instead, he and his allies were chased off the Temple Mount. Jesus had to go into hiding.
For Caiaphas, the high priest, this riot was an offence of the highest order. Do not forget that the temple was the epicentre of the religion: all faith was focused on it. Disturbing the order at the temple was a sin on God's own doorstep. It didn't take long for Jesus to be arrested. When questioned, Jesus took a defiant attitude, not at all impressed by the clergyman. What he said exactly to Caiaphas can be left open, but it is clear that Caiaphas then accused him not only of disorderly conduct on the Temple Mount, but also of blasphemy. People had died for less.
But Caiaphas could not execute blasphemers on his own authority. Only the Roman authorities were allowed to do that. So Caiaphas went to the governor, Pilatus. There was constant give and take between the two; they needed each other. By way of concession, Pilatus will have approved Jesus' execution. The next time Pilatus could ask Caiaphas for a concession, that’s how things went. To the Romans, Jesus was mainly blamed for accepting the title of Messiah. That was sensitive, because implicitly that title could be interpreted as an undermining of Roman authority.
Ultimately, then, the execution of Jesus was primarily the responsibility of the Jewish clergy. But the Roman governor hadn't stopped it. And Jesus himself had played high stakes, and lost.
This complex reality is documented in the Gospels, but has been coloured by the evangelists. Remember, they were literate gentlemen, posthumous fans of Jesus, and strongly oriented towards Greco-Roman civilisation. Jesus, of course, had to be blameless, and the Roman governor was not to be taken too hard. The blame therefore lay with the high priest, and the guilt of the Jewish believers was further exacerbated. The passage below is unlikely for that reason alone, and has fueled Christian hatred of Jews for centuries:
Pilate saw that there was nothing he could do and that the people were starting to riot. So he took some water and washed his hands in front of them and said, “I won't have anything to do with killing this man. You are the ones doing it!” Everyone answered, “We and our own families will take the blame for his death!”
— Matthew 27:24-25
Christian Jews, especially in Jerusalem, had a hard time. James, the brother of Jesus, met his end when he was thrown off the Temple Mount. But after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans, little was heard of the Jesus movement in Jerusalem. Paulos's Christian community, on the other hand, grew rapidly, especially in the western part of the Roman Empire, gradually cutting ties with the Jewish diaspora. Insofar as an average Jew came into contact with the Paulos' Christian communities, he would have shrugged at those fools.
But gradually that changed. After the conversion of Emperor Constantinus in 312, the Roman Empire gradually became more Christian. In the 11th century, Jewish communities formed marginal clusters in Christian Europe, with outliers amounting to roughly ten percent of the population, particularly in Speyer, Worms, Mainz and Narbonne. The largest Jewish communities were still in the caliphates: in Cordoba, Baghdad and Cairo, under the wings of Islam. The Jewish communities mainly sought isolation.
The anti-Semitism of the Church Fathers started quite early: as early as the beginning of the third century. It is reminiscent of the rage of the rejected lover. The attitude of some of the Church Fathers toward the Jews was downright poisonous. The Roman theologian Tertullianus (160-230) had a personal aversion to Jews and believed that Christians were chosen by God to replace the Jews as his people because they were more honourable. Augustinus thought that the Jews should live to remember with their suffering that they had murdered Jesus. The Jews deserved to be oppressed by the Christians. And in hell there was a special section reserved for them. Ioannis Chrysostomos (345-407), archbishop of Constantinople, is known for his anti-Semitic sermons. However, there were also theologians who were more favourable to the Jews, most notably Eusebios of Caesarea.
When the Roman Empire became Christian, the Jews were in a tight spot. They were not allowed to hold important offices, were not allowed to build new synagogues, and contact with Christians was hindered. The isolation that they themselves were already seeking was reinforced by this.
The church looked down on the Jews, but it was not until the 11th century that occasional pogroms took place: spontaneous lynchings, initially usually aimed at Jews who exercised local economic power or political influence. The initiative did not come from the church, but the church did not stop it either. The first excesses arose in the Peasants' Crusade of 1095, a spontaneous migration of French and German scum towards Jerusalem. Along the way, Jewish communities in Rouen, Trier, Spiers, Worms, Mainz, Regensburg and Prague were looted and Jews were slaughtered if they did not voluntarily got baptised.
Why this violence? First of all because they were scum, desperados. But secondly, because the movement was religiously motivated. Pope Urbanus had called for the Holy City to be liberated from the Mussulmans who behaved so badly towards pilgrims. The city of Jesus had to become Christian again, and that could only be done by force. Faith and violence were thus pronounced in the same breath. Crowds of ragged people are going to plunder in transit, obviously. But violence against Christians was out of the question; their religious mission prevented it. Muslims were the target, but they were still a long way off. Who were left then? Exactly, the Jews, the murderers of God. And they happened to live exactly on the route eastward ...
It must be said, the church reacted disapprovingly. In 1120 the pope issued a bull, Sicut Judaeis, which prohibited Christians under penalty of excommunication from forcing Jews to convert or taking their property. Their religious rituals, synagogues and cemeteries were to be left alone. The bull was endorsed by most popes until the 15th century.
Canon law was developed from the 12th century. The legal texts mention the Jewish customs from which the church must keep aloof. "Ecclesia non approbat, sed permittit": the church does not approve, but allows it. Judaism is reprehensible, but Jews should be left alone.
Tommaso d'Aquino, who called the Jews "our enemies," felt the same way. Despise them, but leave them alone. The secular decrees issued by various monarchs in the Middle Ages to protect the religious freedom of the Jews must also be seen in this light, including the Polish Statute of Kalisz (1264).
Religious freedom was therefore generally available to Jews, albeit not wholeheartedly. Stigmatising measures were also taken. Jews (and Muslims) had to wear different clothes, or a yellow star. Marriages between Jews and Christians were forbidden. Jews had to pay more taxes. Many professions were forbidden, Jews had to live in secluded areas (ghettos) and were not allowed to own land. Jewish communities were regularly expelled.
A widespread legend was that Jews drank the blood of Christian children to mock the Eucharist, the blood libel. From the 14th century pogroms became more common. Jews were accused of spreading the Black Death (plague) and had to pay for it. In 1348 the pope spoke out against these pogroms in the bull Quamvis perfidiam. The clergy were instructed to protect the Jews.
However, in the bull Cum nimis absurdum (1555), the Reformation struggle was at its fiercest, the pope limited the rights of the Jews in the papal state, the part of Italy where the pope was sovereign. Ghettos were introduced everywhere, each city was allowed to have only one synagogue, the right to land ownership was abolished in practice and most professions were banned.
And, while Jewish religious practices were to be tolerated, the Church would welcome all Jews voluntarily converting to Christianity. For centuries, however, this only happened very sparingly.
Pfefferkorn and Reuchlin
The Jewish German Johannes Pfefferkorn was an exception. He converted from Judaism to Christianity in 1505. He was appointed to deal with the “Jewish question”. He did so with gusto:
There are three causes that hinder the conversion of Jews: Firstly, usury. Secondly, because they are not forced to listen to sermons in Christian churches, and thirdly, because they study the Talmud.
— Johannes Pfefferkorn, Judenspiegel (1508)
In 1509 Pfefferkorn was commissioned by the emperor. All Jewish books that opposed Christianity were to be confiscated and destroyed. It only needed to be determined which books that concerned exactly. Pfefferkorn, himself not a great intellectual, enlisted the help of the German scholar Johann Reuchlin, who had studied Hebrew with a number of Jewish teachers in Rome in the 1490s. In 1510 Reuchlin delivered his conclusion. He showed that Jewish writings in which Christians are openly insulted were very rare and were not taken seriously by most Jewish scholars. The rest of the Jewish writings are either necessary to the Jewish religion (which was protected by both Papal and Imperial law) or hold such scientific value that destruction would amount to vandalism. He proposed establishing two Hebraic chairs at every German university and asking the Jews to make their books available for them. Because of his expertise, Reuchlin had done the exact opposite of what was expected of him.
Pfefferkorn reacted furiously. He published a pamphlet, Handspiegel wider und gegen die Juden (1511). Reuchlin responded with his own pamphlet, Augenspiegel (1511), which was confiscated by Imperial order. Reuchlin had to answer to the Inquisition and eventually to the pope himself.
The issue caused quite a stir among the intellectuals of his day. Erasmus also spoke out on the matter. About Pfefferkorn:
I may die if he was baptised for any other reason than to sow more destruction among Christians and, as one of us, to infect the whole nation with his Jewish poison. For what could he have done to the Christians if he had remained the Jew that he was? Only now does he act like a true Jew, after putting on the mask of a Christian, now he answers to his kind. The Jews only slandered Christ, but he rages against many men of integrity who excel in life and learning. He could have done no greater service to his Jews than, disguised as a turncoat, to deliver Christianity to his enemies.
— Desiderius Erasmus, letter to Willibald Pirckheimer (1517)
It behoves your mind to inquire whether Reuchlin's little book contained anything that might seriously harm the Christian faith. But it says nothing other than that the Jews must be tolerated within the limits of reason. Why was it necessary to arouse hatred against the Jews with such zeal? Is there anyone among us who doesn't abhor such people enough? If hatred against Jews is Christian, then each of us is more than enough Christian in this regard.
— Desiderius Erasmus, Letter to Jacob van Hoogstraten (1519)
Were Erasmus and Luther anti-Semites?
Scholars do not yet agree on the assessment of this anti-Semitism of Erasmus. Everyone warns against judging him with our modern eyes. Erasmus's attitude to Judaism is sometimes qualified as asemitism. He was preoccupied with the future of the "true philosophy of Christ," and the Jewish community of his day left him cold. Erasmus never advocated the exile of the Jews, or the use of force. But neither did he speak out against the violence against Jews, which was commonplace in his time. He took mediaeval religious freedom for Jews for granted, just as much as the ubiquitous hatred. Yet, not every historian agrees with this rather lenient assessment of Erasmus. He didn't have to write about the Jews.
While Erasmus' remarks about the Jews were still rather informal, he barely published about them, Luther made them a point of principle. In 1543, Luther wrote the book On the Jews and their lies, full of obscenities and hatred.
A base, fornicating people, not a people of God, and their bragging about their lineage, circumcision, and law, must be regarded as filth.
The Jews are full of the devil's dung.
— Martin Luther, Von den Juden und ihren Lügen (1543)
Luther advocated burning down Jewish schools and synagogues, establishing ghettos, confiscating Jewish scriptures, banning rabbis from preaching, removing the protection of Jews on public roads, confiscating all silver and gold belonging to Jews, and forced labour for able-bodied Jewish men.
Luther's turnaround was remarkable. At the beginning of the Reformation, Luther had studied Hebrew. He still had the hope of converting the Jews to Protestantism. That hope had turned out to be vain. In his disappointment, he began to taunt the Jews and he added the usual conspiracy theories that Jews were secretly out to destroy Christianity. Political motives also played a role: he had struck a deal with Protestant monarchs who aspired to religious sovereignty in their area. Jews stood in the way, and had to be dealt with.
In 1933, the German Lutheran Church was overwhelmingly enthusiastic about Hitler's seizure of power. Hitler liked to refer to Luther's anti-Semitism, and the Nazis instituted a national Luther Day in 1933. The similarities between Luther's proposals and the Nazi measures against the Jews are too striking to be coincidence.
Christian anti-Semitism after the Middle Ages
I already mentioned the Polish Statute of Kalisz (1264). In the same tradition, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (large parts of present-day Poland, Belarus, Ukraine and Lithuania) was the area where most Jews moved. Little was put in their way. By the mid-17th century, half a million Jews lived in the area, more than in the rest of Europe combined. In the rest of Europe, the aversion was mainly theologically driven; the small Jewish communities lived more or less in isolation and were generally tolerated, and sometimes expelled. At the end of the 15th century, Spain and Portugal did a big clean-up: all Muslims and hundreds of thousands of Jews had to pack their bags if they did not convert to Christianity. Most Jews sought refuge in the Ottoman Empire and in the Low Countries. The Jews who converted were able to stay, but continued to be subject to racist policies. And the Catholic Inquisition was hot on their heels; secret Jewish customs were mercilessly punished. In Poland-Lithuania, the Jewish community was an important social factor and had significant political influence. Insofar as there was local aversion to Jews, it was mainly social in nature. There was envy.
In Western Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Jewish minority gradually emerged from its isolation. Wealthier and better-educated Jews started to mingle in society. Relations with the European elite were often cordial, but usually also suspicious. Voltaire suspected the Jewish community of a covert agenda aimed at the downfall of humanity. Rumours of a Jewish conspiracy were commonplace in France. While the intellectual vanguard in France had a secular stance, anti-Semitism in Germany was more dominated by the theological tradition. Fichte, Kant, and Hegel had reservations about the morality of Judaism; assimilation of Jews was seen as risky. The father of romantic nationalism Herder called Jews corrupt, parasitic and disgraceful. It was not until the revolutions of 1848 that equal rights for Jews became the norm in Europe.
I will not dwell on the European anti-Semitism that culminated in the Holocaust. This article is about the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, not anti-Semitism in general. The factors that played into the hands of anti-Semitism are well documented. Foremost: the rage of the Christians. The isolation of the Jewish community and its recognisability. The repression that ensured that Jews could only excel in the liberal professions. Envy of successful Jews. Contempt for the Jewish underclass. Rising nationalism and race theory. The role of Jews in the communist movements. The rumours of secret Jewish plots. Here, we should look specifically at the attitude of the Christian churches to the anti-Semitic agenda of the Nazis.
The Vatican and the Holocaust
Pope Pius XII's attitude towards the Nazis is still debated among historians to this day. The church had an excellent network and excellent information. It is highly unlikely that the Vatican was unaware of the Holocaust. Publicly, the pope limited himself to one speech, a Christmas message in 1942, in which the persecution of the Jews was veiledly condemned in one sentence:
Humanity owes this vote to the hundreds of thousands of people who, without any fault of their own, sometimes only due to nationality or lineage, are destined to death or progressive deterioration.
— Pope Pius XII, Alla vigilia del Santo Natale (1942)
The Nazi’s took note of this statement with irritation. It is also known that the pope lectured the German Foreign Minister Von Ribbentrop in an audience. At the same time, the pope was much clearer about the disrespectful treatment of the Nazis with church property, and the murder of priests. Like many Western governments, the Pope seems to have turned a blind eye to the fate of the Jews.
Could the Pope have done more for the Jews? Likely. Popes had stood up for the Jews in a long papal tradition that started in 1120. At that time, the pope already threatened with excommunication of Catholics who did not leave the Jews alone. Why didn't he do that in the 1930s? Why didn't he make the genocide public as soon as he heard about it?
The fact that the pope did not want to get involved in politics cannot be a defence. Popes had publicly condemned communism several times and in the strongest terms (his predecessor had called it “the most dangerous of all evils” in 1932). But not a word about national socialism and fascism. It seems that while the pope hated the Nazis, their fight against Stalin suited him. Attention to the Holocaust would only distract from the good cause, the fight against the greatest evil, communism.
The lower Roman echelons also largely kept aloof, with only one notable exception: the Archbishop of Utrecht, Jan de Jong, had his priests refuse the sacraments to the Nazis and pleaded explicitly to the occupying forces for the fate of the Jews in his country. With little effect, incidentally: more than 100,000 Dutch Jews were murdered.
In conclusion
The aversion in Christianity towards the Jews ran deep. In view of the Jewish roots of Christianity, that is actually surprising. It is strange that the church has never been able to get over its aversion, especially since Jews have never been aggressive towards Christianity. Jews mainly remained aloof; it would not even occur to them to try to convert a Christian. We can see, for example, in emigration countries such as Argentina and the United States, how Christians and Jews have been able to see eye-to-eye socially for centuries. And elsewhere, for example in India, Jews have been living in harmony with other religious traditions for ages. The millennia of repression of Jewish communities in Europe can therefore mainly be attributed to the Church of Rome, or, by extension, to Christianity. Until well into the twentieth century, the Church of Rome in particular fell deeply short of the toleration it advocated. And the Vatican should be deeply ashamed of its very questionable role in World War II.
Further reading
Tertullianus, Adversus Iudaeos (ca. 200, also in English) and Ad scapulam (212, also in English)
Lactantius, Institutiones divinae (303-311)
Ioannis Chrysostomos, Adversus Iudaeos (4th century)
Desiderius Erasmus, Letter to Willibald Pirckheimer (1517), Letter to Jacob van Hoogstraten (1519). (Both in Dutch translation.)
Johannes Pfefferkorn, Judenspiegel (1508)
Johann Reuchlin, Augenspiegel (1511)
Martin Luther, Von den Juden und ihren Lügen (1543, also in English)
Shimon Markish, Érasme et les Juifs (1979)
Gavin Langmuir, History, religion, and antisemitism (1990)
István Bejczy, Tolerantia: a medieval concept, Journal of the History of Ideas (1997)
Bruce Chilton, Rabbi Jesus (2000)
Michael Phayer, “Helping the Jews is not an easy thing to do.” Vatican holocaust policy: continuity or change?, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (2007)
Walter Laqueur, The changing face of anti-semitism: from ancient times to the present day (2008)
This was the ninth newsletter in a long series: Toleration and Christianity. An overview of all articles in this series can be found in the overview article Toleration in the history of Christianity.
I was travelling for a while, so I had to skip one week. The next episode in this series will be about the Reformation. But first, a new episode in the series about Morality and toleration, about virtue ethics, will follow in a week.