The History of Christian Anti-Semitism

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1 The History of Christian Anti-Semitism i would like to start with a quotation from St Augustine (of Hippo): "HOPE has two daughters: their names are ANGER and COURAGE - Anger that things are the way they are; Courage to make them the way they oughht to be". Tonight I am trying to make you angry at the past - and full of courage & determination to make things better in the future. 30: After the Ascension the Apostles went back to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives "and they were continually in the Temple praising God" Luke 24:53. In the beginning the early Christians, who were all Jews, carried on the practices of the Jewish Faith. 30: after Pentecost - 50 days after Easter - St Peter preaches to the pilgrims in the Holy City telling them "you killed Jesus of Nazareth but God raised him to life" He went on to tell them "to repent and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins". Acts 2: 21, 38. Later Peter put it more bluntly: "You killed the prince of life" (but he added) "I know, brothers, that neither you nor your leaders had any idea what you were really doing" Acts 3:15,17. The Acts of the Apostles goes on to tell the story of hostility between the Authorities and the Apostles. They were flogged and told not to preach about Christ and not to lay the blame for his death on them. The first Christian to be putto death for the faith was Stephen and was followed by the Apostle James. Paul, who as Saul had been a very strict Pharisee, was loathed by many of his former Jewish friends. We hear of some of them taking a vow not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul: Acts 23:12. Peter was to die in Rome in 64 AD and Paul some three years later. I

2 2 70: The calamity of the siege of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple was a turning point for both Jews and Christians. From now on there was no hope of reconciliation. The definite split took place. Meanwhile the Romans built pagan temples on the sites of the Temple and Calvary. 80s: St Matthew's Gospel achieves its final form; it includes the words from the Passion Narrative "His blood on us and on our children". No other Gospel has these words, but the Gospels do have 'the crowds' shouting "crucify him, crucufy him" Second Jewish revolt under Simon bar Kokeba. Put down without mercy by the Romans. 190; or therabouts the Rabbis included a cursing of the 'heretics and Nazarites1 in their main daily prayer. ^ A 2_** ^ i ^ - ^ 240: One of leading writers ORIGEN wrote: "For this reason (for not accepting Christ) the blood of Jesus is not only on those who lived at the moment (of Christ's death) but on all the generations of Jews that followed until the end of time. *' Other leading Christian writers, known as the Eastren & Western Fathers, made similar statements. What they have said is totally repudiated by NOSTRA AETATE 312: Battle of the Milvian Bridge. The persecution of Christians more or less finishes now as Constantine becomers a Christian. The Christians begin to gain power. Meanwhile, Jews were mainly living outside the Holy Land; they had no home. As Europe became Christian Jews were often persecuted. 1215: The Fourth Lateran Council decreed that Muslims and Jews living in Christian countries should wear distinctive clothing to mark

3 them out to prevent Christians from being deceived into marrying them In certain large towns & cities Jews lived in ghettoes. I T~ <A Z2-< -*Arc «AJCp^r\*-&^^<M~ During the first two Crusades there were massacres of Jews in Western Europe and pogroms in Palestine. Jews were often expelled from he countries they had setled in:- 1290: Jews expelled from England. 1394: Jews expelled from France. 1492: Jews expelled from Spain by 'los reyos catholicos' 1497: Jews expelled from Portugal. It is said that the Inquisition was started to make sure that the Jews who were baptised arid became Christians did not slip back into their former Faith. These former Jewish converts were known in Spain as 'converses'. Henry Katen's book "the Disinherited" tells the story of Jewish exiles who created Spanish culture. There is some evidence that Jews were better off in the Papal States and that they were given some protection. It is good to remember that St Teresa of Avila had Jewish blood. In the Middle Ages Jews were often made scapegoats. During the time of the plague in the late 1300s and early 1400s Jews were said to have poisoned the wells. They were given many foul names: money grubbers, God-killers, cursed and condemned to wander. 1597: "The Merchant of Venice". The Jew Shylock wants his pound of flesh. Portia saves Antonio; "The quality of mercy is not 3

4 4 strain'd - It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath; it is twice blest - It blesseth him that gives and him that takes; Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown". No mercy was shown by Shylock; he is portrayed as totally without humanity. 1789: The French Revolution and the Enlightenment prepared the way for a change of heart (see Concilium 11). 1871: Pope Pius IX: said Jews had become "dogs" and that "we have today in Rome unfortunately too many of these dogs and we hear them barking in the streets and going round molesting people everywhere". (197). The Pope also refused to return a child, Edgardo Mortara, abducted from his parents by one of the Church's inquisitors. 1900s: The Dreyfus case in France; also, the publication of a book entitled "The Contempt of Jews" : THE SECOND WORLD WAR. ONE THIRD of all Jews were killed by the Nazis. This was a wake up call for all of us. Pope Pius XII (Eugenio Pacelli) was Pope between 1939 and 1958; he was thanked by the Chief Rabbi of Rome for sheltering Jews. He had given orders that the convents & monasteries of Rome and the surrounding areas take in Jews to save them from being seized. Some people blame Pius XII for not speaking out publicly. We need to take note that the Dutch Bishops spoke out against the deportations and the Gestapo immediately widened the net and took more people to the concentration camps and death. We also note that before the outbreak of war, when Jews were fleeing Germany, many countries, including Britain, refused to raise the

5 5 Quota of those allowed in. Also, during the war Chuirchill was asked to bomb the railway lines leading to Auschwitz and he refused. 1947: The State of Israel founded. This new State was not recognised by the Vatican until the 1990s - 40 years later. 1960s: Pope John XXIII ( ) asked Cardinal BEA to prepare a text for the Council ( ). Meanwhile, Hockhulth accusses the Church of failing to speak up for the Jews in his play THE REPRESENTATIVE. 1965: NOSTRA AETATE ("Our Age") published. This was followed by "GUIDELINES and suggestions for implementing the Conciliar Declaration" in 1974 and "WE REMEMBER: A reflection on the Shaoh" in ; "The Jewish Annontated New Testament" was published. This would have been unthinkable years earlier. Summary Bishop Budd of Plymouth in 1994 wrote "After centuries of bullying and vilifying our Jewish brothers and sisters, Christians and Jews are entering into a new and positive era of friendship... We need to ponder with true regret that the One we accept as the Messiah.. we have often used to bring not peace & justice, but pain, injustice and destruction on many of our fellow human beings, and particularly on the Jewish people. For centuries Jews had been pilloried, persecuted aj /nd blamed for the death of Jesus. The charge of deicide or killing God was levelled against them - this was fertile soil in which the evil of nazism took root with such catastropic effect. HANS KUNG wrote: "I must state quite clearly: Nazi anti-judaism was the work of godless anti-christian criminals;

6 but, without the almost 2000 year long pre-history of 'Christian' anti-judaism which prevented Christians in Germany from convinced and energetic resistance on a broad front. IT WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE. Pope John Paul II spoke of the Jews as our "Elder Brother," H I I H I I f l H f H I H U H I H i n + fhht HH-H-H+I-H+H Our Response A short course on Judaism (Ay re/fort a)... invite Rabbi Wollenberg of Childwall to speak to us... visit a synagogue... look at the American Bishops' Conference Booklet CATHOLIC TEACHING ON THE SHAOH (2001)... get to know a Jewish family... keep Holocaust Day have a Passover meal... find a Jewish Prayer to say regularly H--HK++++1 Tf>

7 Pastoral Letter for 1st Sunday of Advent 1994 about our Links with the Jewish People In Advent we celebrate the divine promise, both fulfilled and yet to come. It is a time of preparation for Christmas when we remember the first coming of God's Son; and it is also the time when our minds are directed by this memory to Christ's second coming at the end of time. The first sentence of today's Old Testament lesson explains what is special about the season of Advent, "The days are coming - it is the Lord who speaks - when I am going to fulfil the promise I made to the House of Israel and the House of Judah." As we listen to the 'Law and the Prophets' read in our churches week after week, we can come to an appreciation of the status and dignity of that people from whom the Old Testament Scriptures have come to us. After centuries of bullying and vilifying our Jewish brothers and sisters, Christians and Jews are entering into a new and positive era of friendship. We do have different beliefs about the Messiah - for Christians, Jesus the Christ is the fulfilment of the promises God made to the houses of Israel and Juda; for the Jews the Messiah is a human figure who ushers in an age of peace and justice in the here and now. We need to ponder with true regret that the one we accept as the Messiah, truly God and truly man, we have often used to bring not peace and justice, but pain, injustice and destruction on many of our fellow human beings, and particularly on the Jewish people. Jesus himself, his mother Mary, the Apostles and Disciples were Jewish. The Jewishness of Jesus is very obvious in the Gospels, perhaps mostly in Matthew; but it is Luke's Gospel which we begin reading today, that tells us that Jesus was circumcised and was presented in the Temple in Jerusalem, as far as we know like any other Jewish boy of his time. The other Gospels mention Jesus worshipping in both Temple and Synagogue, observing the Great Feasts, keeping and criticizing the Law, like any other Rabbi of his time. The death of Jesus and the death of millions of Jewsahis century are tragically and inextricably linked. For centuries Jews had been pilloried, persecuted and blamed for the death of Jesus. The charge of deicide or killing God was levelled against them - this was fertile soil in which the evil of nazism took root with such catastrophic effect. This teaching of deicide is to be firmly rejected. Historically, Jesus was killed by crucifixion, a Roman penalty; theologically, the Churches have taught that the death of Jesus was within the purpose of God and that he died to save us all; morally, it is wrong to blame a whole people for the supposed sins of their forbears.

8 This false teaching that in someway all Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus has only recently been corrected, especially by Pope John XXIH. Vatican II took up the theme at his prompting. However, some of our prayers and hymns still have traces of this prejudice. The New Catechism of the Catholic Church emphasises the unique relationship between Christians and Jews. (CCC, passim, esp. 839) Christians and Jews are linked together at the very level of their identity. " The Catechism nowhere suggests that God's loving choice of the Jews has been diminished in any way by their unwillingness to accept Jesus as their Messiah; but it goes on to make it quite clear that God's dealings with the Jews remain a constant source of blessings. Christians are indebted to the Jewish people for so much: No Jews - No Jesus - No Bible - No Liturgical tradition. The first part of the Mass is based on the synagogue service and even the Lord's prayer itself is made up from phrases which Jesus would have heard in the synagogues of his time. Jesus had much in common with the Pharisees: the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, forms of piety, like alms-giving, fasting and prayer, addressing God as Father; the priority of the commandment to love God and our neighbour. Paul always considered being a Pharisee as a title of honour. The Catechism in various ways invites Catholics to see their faith as inseparably bound to the pattern of Jewish faith as expressed in the Old Testament, the faith and practice that nurtured Jesus. We are also bidden to understand that the faith and practice of the Old Testament though now greatly revised and understood is what nurtures Jews of today. Pope John Paul recently reminded us that Israel remains the chosen people, the pure olive on which were grafted the branches of the wild olive which are the Gentiles. Christianity and Judaism come from the same root but have grown in different and distinct ways. Slowly we are learning that we do not have to squabble over which of us God loves best. As we listen to the words of Isaiah during this Advent, we have an opportunity of coming to understand and love that people from whose stock came the One who was born for us. This could be a fruitful way of using our Advent celebrations to prepare for the birth of Jesus at Christmas. May God bless you all Christopher 10 November 1994