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AAARGHin English -- AAARGHen francais Preceding-- Following
by Bernard LAZARE Chapter Three
ANTI-JUDAISM IN CHRISTIANANTIQUITY FROM THE FOUNDATION OF CHURCHOF CONSTANTINE
THE Church is the daughter of the Synagogue; sheowes her early development to the Synagogue; she grew in the shade of theTemple, and from her first infant cry she opposed her mother, which wasquite natural, for they were divided by a wide divergence of opinion. In the first centuries of the Christian era, duringthe apostolic age, Christian communities sprang forth from Jewish communities,like a swarm of bees escaping from a beehive; they settled on the same soil. Jesus was not yet born when the Jews had builttheir prayer-houses in the cities of the Orient and the Occident; theirexpansion to Asia Minor, Egypt, Cyrenaica, Rome, Greece and Spain has alreadybeen noted. By their unceasing proselytism, by their preaching, by the moralinfluence they exercised over the nations amidst whom they lived, they pavedthe way for Christianity. This immense class of proselytes won over by theJews, this God-fearing multitude, was ready to receive the broader and morehumanitarian teachings of Jesus, those teachings which the universal Church,from its very inception, undertook to adulterate and to turn away from theirtrue meaning. These converts whose numbers steadily increased during thefirst century before Christ, were free from the national prejudices of Israel;they Judaized, but their eyes were not turned toward Jerusalem, and, onemay say, the fervid patriotism of the Jews rather checked the conversions.The Apostles, or at least some of them, completely separated the preceptsof the Jewish faith from the narrow idea of nationality; they built uponthe foundation of Jewish work accomplished before and thus won for themselvesthe souls of those who had received the Jewish seed.[30] The Apostles preachedin the synagogues. In the cities, where they arrived, they went straightto the prayer-houses and there made their propaganda and found their firsthelpers; later a Christian community was founded, side by side with theJewish community, and the original Jewish nucleus was increased by all thosewhom they had convinced among the Gentiles. Without the existence of Jewish colonies Christianitywould have encountered much greater obstacles; it would have had greaterdifficulties in establishing itself. As has been stated, the Jews in ancientsociety enjoyed considerable privileges; they had protective charters assuringthem an independent political and judicial organization and freedom of worship.These privileges facilitated the development of the Christian churches.For a long time the associations of the Christians were not distinguishedby the authorities from Jewish associations, the Roman government takingno cogni zance of the division between the two religions. Christianity wastreated as a Jewish sect, thus benefiting by the same advantages; it wasnot only tolerated, but, in an indirect way, protected by the imperial governors. Thus, on the one hand, unwillingly, the Jews wereunconscious auxiliaries of Christianity while, on the other hand, they wereits enemies, for which there were numerous reasons. It is known that Jesusand his teachings enlisted their first following among the Galilean provincialswho were despised by the Jerusalemites for having yielded more than othersto foreign influences. "Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?"they said. These humble folks of Galilee, though much attached to the Judaicrites and customs, in which respect they were perhaps stricter than theJerusalemites, were ignorant of the Law and were therefore despised by thehaughty doctors of Judea. This scorn likewise followed the first disciplesof Jesus, some of whom, besides, belonged to the disreputable classes, suchas e.g., the publicans. Nevertheless, while the origin of the primitiveChristians brought upon them the scorn of the Jews, it was not enough toexcite their hatred; graver reasons were required for that, foremost amongthem was Jewish patriotism. The birth and early development of Christianitycoincided with the time when the Jewish nation attempted to shake off theyoke of Rome. Offended in their religious feelings, ill- treated by theRoman administration, the Jews felt a yearning for liberty, which grew with[31]their hatred of Rome. Bands of zealots and assassins traversed the mountainsof Judea, entering the villages and wreaking vengeance upon Rome by strikingthose of their brethren who bowed to the imperial authority. Plainly, thesezealots and assassins who attacked the Sadducees for mere complacency towardsthe Roman procura tors, could not spare the disciples of Him to whom thewords were attributed, "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's." Absorbed in the expectation of the coming Messianicreign, the Jewish Christians of those days were "men without a country";the thought of free Judea no longer made their hearts throb, though some,like the seer of the Apocalypse, had a horror of Rome, still they had nopassion for captive Jerusalem, which the zealots strove to liberate; theywere unpatriotic. When all Galilee rose in response to the appealof John of Gischala, they held aloof, and when the Jerusalemites triumphedover Cestius Gallus, the Jewish Christians, indifferent to the outcome ofthis supreme struggle, fled from Jerusalem, crossed the Jordan and soughtrefuge at Pella. In the last battles which Bar Giora, John of Gischala andtheir faithful gave to the Roman power, to the trained legions of Vespasianand Titus, the disciples of Jesus took no part; and when Zion was reducedto ashes, burying under its ruins the nation of Israel, no Christian methis death amidst the destruction. One may well understand what could have been thetreatment accorded, in those days of exaltation, before, during and afterthe insurrection, to the Jewish and Gentile Christians, who, with St. Paul,counseled submission to the power of Rome. The patriotic indignation rousedby the nascent Church was seconded by the wrath of the rabbis against Christianproselytism. Originally the relations between the Jewish Christiansand the Jews were fairly cordial. The followers of the Apostles, as wellas the Apostles themselves, recognized the sanctity of the ancient law;they observed the rites of Judaism and as yet had not placed the worshipof Jesus side by side with that of the one God. The development of the dogmaof the divinity of Christ made a breach between the Church and the Synagogue.Judaism could not admit of the deification of a man; to recognize any oneas the son of God was blasphemy; and as the Jewish Christians had not severedtheir connections with the Jewish community, they were disciplined. Thisaccounts for the flagellation of the Apostles and the new con-[32] verts,the stoning of Stephen and the beheading of the Apostle James. After the capture of Jerusalem, after that stormwhich left Judea depopulated, the best of her sons having perished in battle,or in the circus where they were delivered to the beasts, or in the leadmines of Egypt, during this third captivity called by the Jews the Romanexile, the relations between the Jews and Jewish Christians became stillmore strained. Their country being dead, Israel gathered around their doctors.Jabne, where the Sanhedrin reconvened, replaced Zion without extinguishingits memory, and the conquered attached themselves still more closely tothe Law which the sages commented upon. Thenceforth, those who assailed that Law, whichhad become the most cherished heritage of the Jew, were to be treated asenemies worse than the Romans. The doctors accordingly fought the Christiandoctrine which was making proselytes amidst their flock. "The Gospelsmust be burnedsays Rabbi Tarphonfor paganism is not as dangerous to theJewish faith as the Jewish Christian sects. I should rather seek refugein a pagan temple than in an assembly of Jewish Christians." He wasnot the only one who thought so, and all the rabbis comprehended the dangerthreatening Judaism from Jewish Christianity. Some modern interpreters of the Talmud have goneto the rabbinical discussions and decisions of that epoch for weapons againstthe Jews, accusing them of blind hatred against anything that did not bearthe mark of Israel; they do not seem, however, to have carried into theirresearches the requisite scientific spirit and good faith. Originally, all Talmudical inhibitions contemplatedthe Jewish Christians alone. The Tanaim wanted to preserve the faithfulfrom Christian contamination; for this purpose the Gospels were likenedto books on witchcraft, and Samuel Junior, by order of the patriarch Gamaliel,inserted in the daily prayers a curse against the Jewish Christians, BirkatHaminim, which has furnished the foundation for the charge that the Jewscurse Jesus thrice a day. While the Jews thus sought to separate themselvesfrom the Christians, the Church, swayed by a great religious movement, wasforced to cast away Judaism. To conquer the world, to become a universalcreed, Christianity had to rid itself of Jewish[33] particularism, to break the narrow chains of theancient law, so as to be able to spread the new one. This was the work ofSt. Paul, the true founder of the Church, who opposed to the exclusivenessof the Jewish-Christian doctrine the principle of catholicity. As is well known, the struggle between these twotendencies in the nascent Christianity, which were symbolized by Peter andPaul, was long and bitter. The whole apostolic service of Paul was a longbattle against the Judaizing. On the day when the Apostle declared thatin order to come to Jesus one need not pass through the Synagogue nor acceptthe sign of the old covenant, the circumcision, on that very day all tieswhich bound the Christian Church to its mother were torn and the nationsof the world were won over by Jesus. The resistance of the Judaizing who wanted to belongto Jesus and at the same time to observe the Sabbath and the Passover, wasin vain; their prejudice against the conversion of the Gentiles was of noavail. After Paul's journey to Asia Minor the cause of Catholicism was won.The Apostle was braced up by an army, and that army arrayed against theJewish spirit the Hellenic, Antioch against Jerusalem. The great bulk of the Jewish Christians tore themselvesaway from the narrow doctrine of the little community of Jerusalem; theruin of the holy city led them to doubt the efficacy of the ancient law.It was good for the further development of the Church. Ebionism met itsdeath. If Christianity had followed the Jerusalemites it would have remaineda small Jewish sect. Having rid itself of the Ebionites and the Jewish Christiansand cut loose from its mother, Christianity allowed the nations to cometo it without forfeiting their individuality. To safeguard its supremacy, the Church had to fightthe Jewish spirit in two forms. The first was that noted above, the Judaicpositivism, hostile to anthropomorphism and deification of heroes. Neverthelessthis positivism has maintained its existence throughout the ages so thata history of the Jewish current in the Christian Church could be written,beginning with early Ebionism down to Protestantism, including among othersthe Unitarians and Arians. The second form is the mystic form representedby the Alexandria and Asiatic gnosis. The Alexandrian Jews, as known, wereinfluenced by Platonism and Pythagorism; Philo himself was the forerunnerof Plotinus and Porphyry in this renovation of the meta-[34] physical spirit.Aided by Hellenic doctrines the Jews interpreted the Bible and scrutinizedthe mysteries contained therein, construing them into allegories and furtherdeveloping them. Proceeding from monotheism and the conception ofa personal God as their religious point of departure, the Jews of Alexandriawere bound to come metaphysically to pantheism, to the idea of a divinesubstance, to the doctrine of intermediaries between man and the Absolute,i.e., to emanations, to the Eons of Valentinus and the Sephiroths of Kabbala.To this Jewish fund were superadded the contributions of Chaldean, Persianand Egyptian religions, which coexisted at Alexandria; at that time wereelaborated those extraordinary Gnostic theogonies, so multifarious, so varied,so madly mystical. When Christianity was born, the gnosis was alreadyin existence; the Gospels brought new elements into it; it speculated onthe life and words of Jesus, as it had speculated on the Old Testament,and when the Apostles, in their early preaching, addressed themselves tothe Gentiles, they were confronted with the Gnostics, and primarily theJewish Gnostics. Peter met them at Samaria in the person of Simon the Magician;Paul faced them at Colosse, at Ephesus, at Antioch, wherever he came withhis Gospel, and possibly he fought Cerinthus; John himself fought them,and, in the Epistles of the Apocalypse he opposed the Nicolaites who were"of the Synagogue of Satan." After having escaped the danger of crystallizinginto a barren Jewish community, the Church was thus exposed to the new dangerof Gnosticism, which, if triumphant, would have resulted in splitting itup into small sects and breaking its unity. All preachers of the Christian religion had tocontend against this gnosis; traces of that fight are found in the Epistlesof Paul to the Colossians and Ephesians, in the pastoral letters, in thesecond Epistle of Peter, in the Epistle of Jude and in the Apocalypse. Theydid not confine themselves to persecuting the Jewish spirit in the gnosis;as soon as the Pauline spirit had triumphed over Peter, they declared warto the Judaizing tendencies within the Church, as well as to the Jews themselves. We find all these sentiments reflected in the writingsof the Apostle Fathers, with a growing desire to separate Christianity fromJudaism; and with the development of the dogma of the divinity of Jesus,the Jews became the abominable people of Deicides, which[35] they had notbeen originally. The Pauline traditions resound in the beginning of thesecond century in the seven letters of Ignatius of Antioch addressed tothe churches of Rome, Magnesia, Philadel phia, Ephesus, Smyrna and Trallesand to the Bishop Polycarp. Still in face of these hostile demonstrations theJews were not inactive and proved very dangerous adversaries. It was underthe fire of their criticism that the dogma was constructed; it was theywho, by their subtle exegetics, by their firm logic, forced the teachersof Christianity to give precision to their arguments. Their hostility worriedthe theologians; though having severed themselves from Judaism, they wantedto win over the Jews to their side; they believed that the triumph of Jesuswould only be assured on the day when Israel would recognize the power ofthe Son of God; indeed, this belief has survived under different forms throughoutthe ages. It would seem as though the Church were not satisfied of the legitimacyof its faith until the day when the people of whom its God had come wereconverted to the Galilean. This work was taken up by the apologists of Christianity,and their apologetic prepossession was mixed with violent enmity. Thus theLetter to Diognetus, which has been preserved for us in the work of St.Justin, and was written to refute the errors of the adversaries of the Christians,may be considered as one of the first anti-Jewish writings. The unknownauthor of this brief epistle, in his vigorous attack upon the Millenarianideas, speaks of the Jewish rites as superstitions. The motives are notthe same as those which actuated the unknown author of the Testament ofthe Twelve Patriarchs, for he wanted, and so he declared, to convert theJews and convince them of the excellence of the word of Christ. The most thorough of the apologists of that epochis assuredly Justin, the philosopher. His Dialogue with Tryphon will remaina model of this kind of dialogical polemics, of which we have another samplefrom the same epoch in the Altercation of Jason and Papiscus, from the penof the Greek Ariston of Pella; the latter dialogue was reproduced in thefifth century by Evagrius, in his Altercation of Simon and Theophilus. Justin,a native of Samaria, and well acquainted with the Judeans, puts all theobjections of the Jewish exegetes into the mouth of Tryphon, meant to representRabbi Tarphon, who vigorously fought against the apostolic evan gelization.The author attempts to persuade him that the New Testament is in accordwith the Old, and to reconcile monotheism [36] with the theory of Messiahas the Word incarnate. At the same time, replying to Tryphon's reproachthat the Christians have abandoned the Mosaic law, he maintains that itwas merely a preparatory law. Justin attacked the Judaizing tendencies inboth forms, viz., Jewish Christianity on the one hand, and, on the other,Alexandrinism, which would admit the Word only as a temporary irradiationof the One Being. He closes with the warning: "Blaspheme not the Sonof God; listen not to the Pharisees; ridicule not the King of Israel, asyou are doing daily." The irony of the Jews he met with sarcasm directedagainst the rabbis: "Instead of expounding the meaning of the propheciesyour teachers indulge in tomfoolery; they are anxious to ascertain why malecamels are referred to in this or that passage, or why a certain quantityof flour is required for your oblations. They are worried to know why analpha is added to the original name of Abraham. This is the subject of theirstudies. As to things essential, worthy of meditation, they dare not speakof them to you, they do not attempt to explain them, and they prohibit youfrom listening to our interpretation." The last complaint is important, it indicates thecharacter of the struggle for the conquest of souls in which Judaism wasdefeated. The second century is one of the most momentous epochs in thehistory of the Church. The dogma, still uncertain in the first century,is then formulated and defined; Jesus advances toward divinity and attainsit, and his metaphysics, his worship, his conception, are blended with Judeo-Alexandriandoctrines, with Philo's theories of the Word of God, the Chaldean memraand the Greek logos. The Word is born, it becomes identified with the Galilean;in Justin's apologetics and the fourth Gospel, we see the work completed.Christianity has become Alexandrian, and its most ardent upholders, itsdefenders, even its orators, are at that hour the Christian philosophersof the Alexandrian school: Justin, the author of the fourth Gospel, andClement. While this dogmatic transformation was going on,the idea of a universal church gained strength. Bonds of union were formedbetween the small Christian communities, detached from Jewish congregations;the more their numbers increased the stronger became the ties, and thisconception of unity and catholicity kept pace with the growing expansionof Christianity. This expansion could not proceed undisturbed. Christianpreaching addressed itself to all the Jewries of Asia Minor, Egypt,[37]Cyrenaica and Italy, wherever there was an unorthodox element among them,the Hellenized Jews whom the Christian teachers sought to win over to theirside. The propagandists likewise spoke to the anxious masses who had alreadylent their ears to the Jewish word. The Jews witnessed the failure of theirinfluence and, perhaps, of their hopes; at all events, they saw their beliefs,their faith, attacked by the neophytes; the feeling of the Jews againstthe Christians was as bitter as that of the Christians when they saw theobstacles which the Jewish preachers put in their way. Furious hatred wasmutual, and the parties were not content with Platonic hatred. The Christiancongregations, unlike the Jewish communities, were not recognized by thelaw; they were considered enemies of law and a danger to the Empire. Fromthis there was but one step to violence; this accounts for the periods ofsuffering the Church had to go through. The Church, in those evil days,could not count upon its rival, the Synagogue, for assistance; in some placeswhere the struggle between the Jews and the Christians had reached an acutestage the Jews, recognized by Roman legislation and possessed of vestedrights, would join the citizens of the towns in dragging the Christiansbefore the court. In Antioch, for example, where the enmity between thosetwo sects was most bitter, in all probability, the Jews, like the pagans,demanded the trial and execution of Polycarp. They are said to have fedwith great eagerness the stake upon which the bishop was burned. Still, not everywhere was the strife marked withsuch bloody manifestations. The controversy was always very lively, yetit must be said it was not conducted with equal weapons. The Bible was theircommon arsenal, but the Christian teachers had but a scant knowledge ofit. They did not know Hebrew and used the Septuagint version, which theyinterpreted very freely, often relying, in support of their dogma, uponpassages interpolated into the Septuagint by falsifiers for the good ofthe cause. The Greek speaking Jews did not hesitate to do the same, so thatthe Septuagint, a bad translation as it was, full of absurdities, becameavailable for any purpose. These controversies, which continued through longcenturies, were not always courteous. Simultaneously with touching legendsconcerning Jesus, scandalous stories were invented. To humiliate their enemies,the Jews attacked him of whom the former made their God, and to the deificationof Jesus they opposed the stories[38] of the soldier Pantherus, of abandonedMary; these were taken up by philosophers hostile to Christianity, and Origenrefuted them in his Contra Celsum, meeting abuse with abuse. Amidst these battles was born a theological anti-Judaism,purely ideological, which consisted in rejecting as bad or worthless anythingcoming from Israel. This sentiment is evidenced by Tertullian's De Adversusludaeos. In that work the fiery African attacked circumcision, which, hesaid, brought no salvation, but was a simple sign for distinguishing Israel;when Messiah would come he would substitute spiritual for bodily circumcision;he attacked the Sabbath, the temporal Sabbath, to which he opposed the eternalSabbath. But this special anti-Judaism, which we find againin Octavius, by Minucius Felix; in De Catholicae Ecclesiae Unitate, by Cyprianof Carthage; in Instructiones Adrersus Gentium Deos, by the poet Commodian,and in Divinae Institutiones, by Lactantius, was mixed with the desire toconvince the Jews of the truth of the Christian religion, of the soundnessof its beliefs, its dogmas and principles; hence the ambition to make proselytesamong them. This anti- Judaism crossed with the efforts which the Churchwas making to arrive at universality, and during the first three centuriesremained purely theoretical. We shall further see how, since Constantineand the triumph of the Church, this anti-Judaism was transformed and moreprecisely defined. Preceding -- Following You have downloaded this document at <http://www.vho.org/aaargh/engl/BLantisem3.html> This text is the third chapter of the English translation of L'Antisémitisme,son histoire et ses causes, by Bernard LAZARE (real name: Lazare BERNARD),first published in Paris in 1894, several times republished, lastly by thepublishing house La Vieille Taupe (= the Old Mole) in 1982, reprinted in1985, ISBN 2-903279-09-8. The book is still on sale and may be ordered fromthe publisher, BP 98, 75224 Paris cedex 05, France. We believe it costs80 F (around 15 US$) This republication triggered a controversy which isdocumented in a booklet later published by Les Editions de la Différence,Contre l'antisémitisme, Histoire d'une polémque, Paris,1983, 127 p. This material will be displayed with the French text of Lazare. The original French text will be soon available. Check at <http://www.vho.org/aaargh/fran/fran.html> WARNING An English translation, under the title Antisemitism,Ist History and Causes, appeared in London in 1967, by Britons PublishingCompany. No name is given for the translator. In fact, this is more an adaptationthan a proper translation. Paragraphs are quite often abridged and sometimesaltogether suppressed. Serious students should refer to the French originaltext. Nevertheless, as this book provides a glimpse into an epochal reflexionon antisemtism, we follow this text and do not interfere with the translationitself. A US edition was later done on this English publication: Universityof Nebraska Press, Lincoln, Nebraska, 1995, 208 pages. pbk $10. We thank the Australian friend who lent us this rare anddeeply thought book. This text has been computerized, displayed on the Net,and forwarded to you as a tool for educational purpose, further research,on a non commercial and fair use basis, by the International Secretariatof the Association des Anciens Amateurs de Récits de Guerre et d'Holocauste(AAARGH) in 1997. The E-mail of the Secretariat is <aaargh@abbc.com> Interested readers are kindly requested to consider buyingthe book from the publisher, which is handier to read as a book on paper.In order to survive, books must be produced and sold by publishers. We see the act of displaying a written document on Internetas the equivalent of displaying the said document on the shelves of a libraryopen to the public. It costs us a modicum of labor and money. The only benefitaccrues to the reader who, we surmise, thinks by himself. Be reminded of the US copyright law, Section 107: Section 107. 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