Antisemitism and Christianity

  • Thread starter Thread starter followingtheway
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
F

followingtheway

Guest
Anti-Semitic Christians have often used this Bible verse to argue that “the Jews killed Jesus”

“And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it.” “And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.” - Matthew 27:24-25

Anti-Semitic Christians argue that since Pontius Pilate washed himself clean of Jesus’ blood, the Romans didn’t kill Jesus but since the Jewish crowd said “let His blood be upon us and our children” that means Jews are guilty of Jesus’ death.

How can I as a Christian and as a Catholic respond to these people? What is this verse really mean?
 
Hi Following,

It’s a way of saying, “We take full responsibility”. So those Jews were accomplices in the death of Jesus, although Pilate did fail in his duty to render justice.

But you cannot make the other Jews of those days or today’s Jews responsible for the death of Jesus’ death.

Antisemitism rose in the early days of the Church when Jews opposed Christians in and outside of Palestine and did everything in their power to counter Christian evangelism, which, to them, was the right thing to do. Christians often reacted in a very unChristian way.

Later Jews got into the business of lending money with interest, which, at that time, Christians were forbidden to do. Persecuting and exiling Jews was a good way of escaping the payment of your debts. And so on it went.

Verbum
 
I can’t think of one antisemitic Christian that I’ve ever met. But the modern use of the word “Christian” is defined so broadly that it can mean someone of just about any kind of belief.
 
followingtheway said:
Anti-Semitic Christians have often used this Bible verse to argue that “the Jews killed Jesus”

“And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it.” “And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.” - Matthew 27:24-25

Anti-Semitic Christians argue that since Pontius Pilate washed himself clean of Jesus’ blood, the Romans didn’t kill Jesus but since the Jewish crowd said “let His blood be upon us and our children” that means Jews are guilty of Jesus’ death.

How can I as a Christian and as a Catholic respond to these people? What is this verse really mean?
Click to expand...
Let’s point out the passage first. The originally Greek has merely Τὸ αἷμα αὐτοῦ ἐφ’ ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐπὶ τὰ τέκνα ἡμῶν (To aima autou eph’ hēmas kai epi ta tekna hēmon), which literally translated is, “His blood on us and on our children.” There is no verb in the original. The word ‘let’ and ‘be’ is actually just an insertion by translators (which some opine has no syntactical justification). The statement is not so much a wish as a sort of acceptance of responsibility by the ‘crowd’ (“X’s blood on Y” is a common Semitic expression signifying Y’s taking of the responsibility for X’s death; cf. Leviticus 20:9, 11-13; Joshua 2:19; 2 Samuel 1:16; Ezekiel 18:13; 33:4-6; Matthew 23:35-36; Acts 5:28; 18:6).

Now at this point I should point out the difference between anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism. As it is often explained, anti-Semitism denotes opposition to Judaism or/and Jews based upon racial or ethnic prejudice, while anti-Judaism is one based on religious beliefs and practices. Christianity isn’t ‘anti-Semitic’, yes, but we have a long history of anti-Judaism, starting from the very first generations of Christians themselves.

Christian anti-Judaism, somewhat ironically, sprung from a Jewish context. Even at the very beginning there is a common trend among Christians to emphasize Jewish guilt over Jesus’ death (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16; Acts 2:22-38; 3:12-26; 4:8-22; 5:29-32). This is based on the traditional Jewish pattern of calling Israel for its disobedience and/or the rejection of its prophets (e.g. Nehemiah 9:26; 2 Chronicles 36:14-16). To reject the nation’s alleged messiah, or to be involved in any manner in the events leading to His death, is to invite a demand of repentance from the followers of that messiah.

It is at least plausible - if not probable - that this context of early Christian preaching to fellow Jews provided the earliest social situations in which Jewish culpability for Jesus’ execution was emphasized and increasingly became a point of bitterness between Jews devoted to Jesus and other Jewish groups. In other words, Jewish followers of Jesus were treated by their fellow Jews as apostates and heretics who deviated from Jewish orthodoxy; in return, they answered that it wasn’t really them who deviated from the right path, but the other Jews, due to their rejection of Jesus, who is (they believe) the Messiah.

In fact, the two most Jewish gospels, that of Matthew and John, are at the same time the most ‘anti-Jewish’. While Matthew tries hard to portray Jesus as the Jewish Messiah who fulfilled the Jewish Scriptures, he repeatedly has Jesus slamming “the scribes and the Pharisees” - his gospel is, after all, the one which has that infamous line in Matthew 27:25. John, while he records Jesus saying, “Salvation is from the Jews,” often (but not always, note) casts “the Jews” as antagonistic to Jesus.

While increasing blame was placed on the Jews (oftentimes using hostile rhetoric that would indeed sound rather offensive in this post-Holocaust world), the Romans, curiously, were increasingly whitewashed. While the earliest tradition included Roman and Jewish cooperation in the death of Jesus, in subsequent tradition history Christians would emphasize the role of each party to varying degrees: if 100% of the guilt must be assigned, some accounts tended to divide it evenly while others appeared to be much closer to total guilt/innocence. In the latter scenario it was nearly always in the direction of Jewish guilt/Roman innocence. In its most extreme form, the Romans are excused of all responsibility, so that it is only the Jews who actually perform the crucifixion.
 
(Continued)

The 3rd century Gospel of Peter is one particular example of this. There it is not Pilate, but “Herod the king” who condemns Jesus to death and hands Him over, not to Roman soldiers, but to “the people” to be killed in what is effectively an officially-sanctioned lynching.

But of the Judaeans none washed the hands, neither Herod nor any one of his judges. And since they would not wash Pilate rose up, and then Herod the king orders that the Lord be taken away, speaking to them, “What I ordered you to do to him, do.” Now there was Joseph the friend of Pilate and the Lord there, and knowing they were about to crucify him, he came to Pilate and requested the body of the Lord for burial, and Pilate, having sent to Herod, requested his body. And Herod said, “Brother Pilate, even if nobody had requested him, we would have buried him since also Sabbath is dawning, because it is written in the Law: ‘The sun must not set on one who has been murdered.’” And he handed him over to the people before the first of Unleavened Bread, their feast.

Now having taken the Lord they were pushing him, running, and saying, “Let us drag the Son of God along, having authority over him.” And they clothed him with purple and set him upon a seat of judgment, saying, “Judge righteously, King of Israel!” And one of them, having brought a thorny wreath-crown, set it upon the head of the Lord, and others, standing, were spitting in his eyes, and the rest struck his cheeks. Others were jabbing him with a reed-staff, and some scourged him, saying, “With such honour let us honour the son of God.” And they brought two wrongdoers and crucified the Lord in the midst between them, but he was silent as if having no pain. And they, when they set the cross upright, inscribed that ‘THIS IS THE KING OF ISRAEL.’ And having placed his clothes before him, they divided them up and cast a lot upon them.

…] Having seen these, those around the centurion hastened to Pilate at night, having left the burial-place which they were guarding, and reported all that they had seen, greatly agonized and saying, “Truly, he was God’s son!” Pilate answered and said, “I am clean of the blood of the son of God; but you have decided this.” They all, having come forward, begged and urged him to command the centurion and the soldiers to say nothing of what they had seen. “For it is better,” they said, “for us to incur the greatest sin before God than to fall into the hands of the Judaean people and be stoned.” Pilate therefore commanded the centurion and the soldiers to say nothing.

The tone of this work is quite close to that expressed by Melito of Sardis in his homily On Pascha (AD 160-170), which reflects perhaps the most vehemently critical attitude toward Jews of any Christian work from the period. Both the Gospel of Peter and Melito characterize Jesus’ death as an “unjust murder,” both exclusively blame the Jews for the deed, both believe that the supernatural phenomena at Jesus’ death were signs of divine judgment against the people in retribution for their crime.

Why, O Israel, did you do this strange injustice? You dishonored the one who had honored you. You held in contempt the one who held you in esteem. You denied the one who publicly acknowledged you. You renounced the one who proclaimed you his own. You killed the one who made you to live. Why did you do this, O Israel? Has it not been written for your benefit: “Do not shed innocent blood lest you die a terrible death”? Nevertheless, Israel admits, I killed the Lord! Why? Because it was necessary for him to die. You have deceived yourself, O Israel, rationalizing thus about the death of the Lord. It was necessary for him to suffer, yes, but not by you; it was necessary for him to be dishonored, but not by you; it was necessary for him to be judged, but not by you; it was necessary for him to be crucified, but not by you, nor by your right hand.

O Israel! You ought to have cried aloud to God with this voice: “O Lord, if it was necessary for your Son to suffer, and if this was your will, let him suffer indeed, but not at my hands. Let him suffer at the hands of strangers. Let him be judged by the uncircumcised. Let him be crucified by the tyrannical right hand, but not by mine.” But you, O Israel, did not cry out to God with this voice, nor did you absolve yourself of guilt before the Lord, nor were you persuaded by his works.

The withered hand which was restored whole to its body did not persuade you; nor did the eyes of the blind which were opened by his hand; nor did the paralyzed bodies restored to health again through his voice; nor did that most extraordinary miracle persuade you, namely, the dead man raised to life from the tomb where already he had been lying for four days. Indeed, dismissing these things, you, to your detriment, prepared the following for the sacrifice of the Lord at eventide: sharp nails, and false witnesses, and fetters, and scourges, and vinegar, and gall, and a sword, and affliction, and all as though it were for a blood-stained robber. For you brought to him scourges for his body, and the thorns for his head. And you bound those beautiful hands of his, which had formed you from the earth. And that beautiful mouth of his, which had nourished you with life, you filled with gall. And you killed your Lord at the time of the great feast.
 
(Continued)

As the rift between Christianity and Judaism grew wider apart, so did the conflict between them become more and more pronounced. Jews accused Christians of being apostates; Christians began to develop supersessionistic views. The Christian focus on Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus was a means of maintaining clear boundaries between themselves and those people and groups that had come to be understood as ‘outsiders’, which is what non-believing Jews were perceived to be.

Still there was some regional variation in anti-Judaism: it was found mainly in areas where Christianity was strong, especially in cities with mixed pagan and Jewish populations, places where religious rivalries were more likely to be expressed openly. (In other words, places like Rome, Syria and Asia Minor.) In some regions like Judaea and Greece, it was less pronounced, perhaps because the population constituency and blend of rivalries were different. Sardis, BTW, had a substantial Jewish population during Melito’s time (as is evidenced by a synagogue), and in reading his homily we may be catching some glimpse of the ongoing tensions between Christians and Jews in the city.

Within early Christianity there was a range of attitudes over Judaism: on the one hand it included criticism of Judaism by both Jews (such as Matthew and John, and perhaps the unknown authors of Hebrews and the Epistle of Barnabas) and non-Jews (Ignatius of Antioch, Marcion, Melito of Sardis, the author of the Epistle to Diognetus); on the other hand, it involved benign neglect (gnostics like Valentinus) and accomodation to Judaism by absording and adapting its documents (cf. the Didache and the prayers embedded within the Apostolic Constitutions).

Now curiously, Pilate’s role as the one who condemns Jesus generally diminishes in later Christian sources. The idea is that the more the state persecuted Christians, the more generous becomes the description of Pilate as a witness to Jesus’ innocence. This trend has a precedent, ironically enough, in Jewish apologetics: Philo appealed to Caligula and reminded him of the many privileges that previous emperors had granted to Jews, in response to measures the emperor was about to enforce that were offensive to Jewish sensibilities.

It is not just that Christians needed an ally in the form of a Roman official, but it was also significant for them to not have an enemy in the form of a Roman official, especially considering the status of Christians as illegal “atheists” after they were more or less distinguished from Jews (they could no longer invoke Judaism’s long-standing tolerated status and so were left to their own devices to negotiate their own alternatives to participating in the Imperial cult). There was after all an inherent scepticism surrounding new religious movements in the Greco-Roman world in which Christianity developed, so that novel sects could expect to face severe scrutiny from political authorities. It was when Christianity more or less broke off from Judaism and could no longer present itself as a ‘Jewish sect’ that authorities began to crack down harder on it, something not helped by the well-known that the leading figure of Christianity was executed by Roman officials as a criminal (cf. Tacitus, Annals 15.44). Christians of the time understandably thus sought to downplay this aspect of their group’s origins to appeal to a wider base.

The positive portrayal of Pilate begins to wane by the 4th century, coincidentally with the arrival of Constantine and the recognition of Christianity as a legal religion. The Edict of Milan made it so that Christians no longer needed an ally in the form of a Roman official. Constantine and his successors were living, breathing emperors whose stature overshadowed that of a long-dead governor. It is at this point that we begin to hear of legends about his supposed fall from grace and suicide and how evil spirits infesting his corpse wreaked havoc that they had to move it from place to place and so on, in contrast to the Christian-in-the-making ‘Saint Pilate’ of earlier legends. Basically the positive portrayal of Pilate remained strong in the East (he is even considered a saint along with his wife in the Ethiopian Church), while in the West, the negative portrait of Pilate began to dominate.

But whereas there was some differing opinions on just how the Romans were involved in Jesus’ death, Christian anti-Judaism did not wane - on the contrary it took some turns for the worse. In a post-Constantinian world, where Jews have become a minority and Christians have dominated Europe, the original Jewish context of the dispute became more and more obscured as time went on to the point that long-standing anti-Jewish sentiments had oftentimes segued into full-blown anti-Semitism.
 
(Last post for now)

This has gotten to the point where when some people would hear about how the crowd shouts “His blood is on us and on our children” in Matthew’s gospel or the repeated negative references to “the Jews” in John, they would use it as an excuse to marginalize, mistreat or even exterminate Jews. “It’s all right here in Scripture, they murdered our Lord, those accursed God-killers are just getting what’s coming to 'em.” (Incidentally, the Passion narratives from Matthew and John are the ones read on Palm Sunday and Good Friday before we in the Roman Rite came to use the three-year cycle of readings.) Unfortunately, that line of thinking is apparently only a small step away from spreading nasty rumors about Jews murdering and eating babies or using human blood on matzo or thinking that they’re sneaky, dirty money-grubbers or something along those lines, as history would show us.
 
Locked and loaded, eh Patrick? 🙂

Caiaphas’ confidence in sending Jesus over to Pilate, and then going about his business for the rest of the day, indicates that Pilate was beholden to the high Priesthood in some fashion. Probably was paid off.

It is a tough sell to give the High Priesthood and many of the common Jews a pass on this one. They were against the Christians all the up to the Jewish Revolt, after which the High Priesthood was disbanded by the Romans.
 
the Church has.Papal Protection of the Jews Pope Gregory X 1272 papalencyclicals.net/Greg10/g10jprot.htm en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_XII_and_Judaism
Documents discovered in the Vatican Secret Archives, by Dr. Michael Hesemann indicate that Archbishop Pacelli intervened in 1917, through the German government, to assure the Jews of Palestine that they would be protected from any harm from the Ottoman Turks. Dr. Hesemann further stated that Pacelli also directly intervened with the World Zionist Organization representative Nachum Sokolov, and used his influence to arrange for Mr. Sokolov to meet directly with the Benedict XV in 1917 to discuss a Jewish homeland in Palestine. In 1926, Pacelli also encouraged Catholics in Germany to join the Committee Pro Palestina, which supported Jewish settlements in Palestine.[1]
Click to expand...
 
Christian anti-Judaism, somewhat ironically, sprung from a Jewish context. Even at the very beginning there is a common trend among Christians to emphasize Jewish guilt over Jesus’ death (cf. 1 Thessalonians 2:13-16; Acts 2:22-38; 3:12-26; 4:8-22; 5:29-32). This is based on the traditional Jewish pattern of calling Israel for its disobedience and/or the rejection of its prophets (e.g. Nehemiah 9:26; 2 Chronicles 36:14-16). To reject the nation’s alleged messiah, or to be involved in any manner in the events leading to His death, is to invite a demand of repentance from the followers of that messiah.
Click to expand...
Just elaborating on my earlier post. This is what St. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 2, nowadays held to be the earliest document in the New Testament (ca. AD 52):

And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gentiles that they might be saved—so as always to fill up the measure of their sins. But wrath has come upon them at last!

Notice a few things here. Paul here links the sufferings of his Thessalonian audience to those of Christians in Judaea. The Thessalonian imitation of the Judaeans lies in the experience of persecution from their fellow countrymen. Just as Judaean Christians suffered at the hands of fellow Judaeans (“Jews”), so the Thessalonian Christians are suffering from other Macedonians. Not only does Paul associate Thessalonian sufferings with that of Judaean Christians, he ties both experiences to the suffering of Jesus, and it is Jews who are said to be culpable for both the Judaean persecution and the killing of Jesus.

Paul speaks of Jewish responsibility for Jesus’ death in the same context in which he refers to them as “[filling] up the measure of their sins.” The measure of “the Judaeans’” sins here includes the killing of “the Lord Jesus and the prophets,” along with the expulsion and hindrance of Christian missionaries. For Paul, rejection of the Christian message is tied to the ultimate rejection of God’s chosen - the crucifixion of Jesus. Moreover, to hinder the work of Christian missionary efforts is to call to mind the original refusal to heed the message brought by Jesus. So even just after twenty years right after Jesus’ crucifixion, we already see a specific focus on Jewish responsibility for His death.

As mentioned, Paul and the early Christians are here drawing from an established Jewish motif: castigating the nation for their rejection of people perceived to be chosen by God and holding them responsible for whatever ills that happened afterward. This castigation is supposed to lead into a call for reform: it’s not too late, you still have a chance, change your minds and turn away from your sins.

Nevertheless, they were disobedient and rebelled against you and cast your law behind their back and killed your prophets, who had warned them in order to turn them back to you, and they committed great blasphemies. Therefore you gave them into the hand of their enemies, who made them suffer. And in the time of their suffering they cried out to you and you heard them from heaven, and according to your great mercies you gave them saviors who saved them from the hand of their enemies. But after they had rest they did evil again before you, and you abandoned them to the hand of their enemies, so that they had dominion over them. Yet when they turned and cried to you, you heard from heaven, and many times you delivered them according to your mercies. And you warned them in order to turn them back to your law. Yet they acted presumptuously and did not obey your commandments, but sinned against your rules, which if a person does them, he shall live by them, and they turned a stubborn shoulder and stiffened their neck and would not obey. Many years you bore with them and warned them by your Spirit through your prophets. Yet they would not give ear. Therefore you gave them into the hand of the peoples of the lands. Nevertheless, in your great mercies you did not make an end of them or forsake them, for you are a gracious and merciful God.

(Nehemiah 9:26-31)

In the same vein, the early Christians basically saw themselves as the faithful remnant, while indicting their Jewish brothers for their unbelief towards Jesus and at the same time, calling them to repentance. When the followers of Israel’s Messiah find themselves persecuted and ostracized by the official leadership of Israel, it is no wonder than an element of ‘anti-Jewishness’ can be detected.

This is exactly why Matthew and John - as mentioned the two most Jewish gospels - are the most virulently *anti-*Jewish of the four. It is precisely because of their Jewishness that they somewhat (rather ironically) come off as anti-Jewish: they were writing from a Jewish context, trying hard to convince other Jews that Jesus is indeed the Messiah promised to Israel.
 
(Continued)
While increasing blame was placed on the Jews (oftentimes using hostile rhetoric that would indeed sound rather offensive in this post-Holocaust world), the Romans, curiously, were increasingly whitewashed. While the earliest tradition included Roman and Jewish cooperation in the death of Jesus, in subsequent tradition history Christians would emphasize the role of each party to varying degrees: if 100% of the guilt must be assigned, some accounts tended to divide it evenly while others appeared to be much closer to total guilt/innocence. In the latter scenario it was nearly always in the direction of Jewish guilt/Roman innocence. In its most extreme form, the Romans are excused of all responsibility, so that it is only the Jews who actually perform the crucifixion.
Click to expand...
We can notice some of it in the writings of Justin Martyr (First Apology 35):

And how Christ after He was born was to escape the notice of other men until He grew to man’s estate, which also came to pass, hear what was foretold regarding this. There are the following predictions: — “Unto us a child is born, and unto us a young man is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulders;” (Isaiah 9:6) which is significant of the power of the cross, for to it, when He was crucified, He applied His shoulders, as shall be more clearly made out in the ensuing discourse. And again the same prophet Isaiah, being inspired by the prophetic Spirit, said, “I have spread out my hands to a disobedient and gainsaying people, to those who walk in a way that is not good. They now ask of me judgment, and dare to draw near to God.” (Isaiah 65:2, Isaiah 58:2) And again in other words, through another prophet, He says, “They pierced my hands and my feet, and for my vesture they cast lots.” And indeed David, the king and prophet who uttered these things, suffered none of them; but Jesus Christ stretched forth His hands, being crucified by the Jews speaking against Him, and denying that He was the Christ. And as the prophet spoke, they tormented Him, and set Him on the judgment-seat, and said, Judge us. And the expression, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” was used in reference to the nails of the cross which were fixed in His hands and feet. And after He was crucified “they cast lots upon His vesture,” and they that crucified Him “parted it among them.” And that these things did happen, you can ascertain from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.

Compare this with the snippet from the Gospel of Peter I posted earlier (“Now having taken the Lord they were pushing him…”) Justin in this particular passage also attributes the crucifixion to “the Jews speaking against Him and denying that He was the Christ.” In fact Justin brings up the issue of Jewish culpability quite often in his writings (cf. First Apology 36, 49; Dialogue with Trypho 14, 16, 17, 93), although he does show awareness that Jesus was killed by a combination of Jewish and Roman action (First Apology 40) His casting of guilt upon the Jews is explaining what is, in his eyes, the refusal of his Jewish contemporaries to acknowledge the identity of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah.

For other nations have not inflicted on us and on Christ this wrong to such an extent as you have, who in very deed are the authors of the wicked prejudice against the Just One, and us who hold by Him. For after that you had crucified Him, the only blameless and righteous Man—through whose stripes those who approach the Father by Him are healed—when you knew that He had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven, as the prophets foretold He would, you not only did not repent of the wickedness which you had committed, but at that time you selected and sent out from Jerusalem chosen men through all the land to tell that the godless heresy of the Christians had sprung up, and to publish those things which all they who knew us not speak against us. So that you are the cause not only of your own unrighteousness, but in fact of that of all other men. And Isaiah cries justly: ‘By reason of you, My name is blasphemed among the Gentiles.’ (Isaiah 52:5) And: ‘Woe unto their soul! Because they have devised an evil device against themselves, saying, Let us bind the righteous, for he is distasteful to us. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings. Woe unto the wicked! evil shall be rendered to him according to the works of his hands.’ And again, in other words: ‘Woe unto them that draw their iniquity as with a long cord, and their transgressions as with the harness of a heifer’s yoke: who say, Let his speed come near; and let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel come, that we may know it. Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put light for darkness, and darkness for light; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!’ Accordingly, you displayed great zeal in publishing throughout all the land bitter and dark and unjust things against the only blameless and righteous Light sent by God.

For He appeared distasteful to you when He cried among you, ‘It is written, My house is the house of prayer; but you have made it a den of thieves!’ (Matthew 21:13) He overthrew also the tables of the money-changers in the temple, and exclaimed, ‘Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you pay tithe of mint and rue, but do not observe the love of God and justice. You whited sepulchres! Appearing beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones.’ And to the Scribes, ‘Woe unto you, Scribes! For you have the keys, and you do not enter in yourselves, and them that are entering in you hinder; you blind guides!’
 
(Continued)

By the way, I also like to introduce something interesting regarding this whole dispute. You’re all familiar with Jesus’ prayer on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do,” right? Now some manuscripts of Luke, including a number of early ones (such as Papyrus 75, ca. 175-225), do not have this saying. In fact, there is a variant reading which has “yield to them” (synchōrēson autois) instead of “forgive them” (aphes autois).

Here’s the funny thing about it. Early Christians interpreted Jesus’ plea for forgiveness as referring to the Jews. In fact, Jewish Christian gospels such as the ‘Gospel of the Nazarenes’ and the ‘Gospel of the Hebrews’ supposedly make reference to thousands of Jews who became believers after witnessing Jesus make this prayer on the cross.

However, they were at a conundrum: Christians also believed that that the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70 was divine retribution against the Jews for Jesus’ death. So the problem is, why would the Jews be punished if Jesus had already asked that God forgive them? Did God not then listen to Jesus’ prayer?

One of the solutions proposed to get around this difficulty is to interpret the siege of Jerusalem as a punishment not so much for Jesus’ death, but that of James the Just, Jesus’ ‘brother’. Apparently the idea is God may have forgave the Jews at first, but then they killed James - which was the final straw. For instance, Eusebius’ retelling of James’ death in Church History 2.23, taken from the 2nd century Christian writer Hegesippus, has him dying with almost the same words as Jesus does in Luke: “I entreat you, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Interestingly, Epiphanius (Panarion 78.14.5) repeats the same story, but has James saying “yield to them” instead of “forgive them” - the same variant we see in some witnesses to Luke 23:34!) Also, the way things are narrated, Eusebius (Hegesippus) makes it appear as if the siege of Jerusalem happened immediately as a direct cause of James’ death.

The aforesaid Scribes and Pharisees therefore placed James upon the pinnacle of the temple, and cried out to him and said: ‘You just one, in whom we ought all to have confidence, forasmuch as the people are led astray after Jesus, the crucified one, declare to us, what is the gate of Jesus.’ And he answered with a loud voice, ‘Why do you ask me concerning Jesus, the Son of Man? He himself sits in heaven at the right hand of the great Power, and is about to come upon the clouds of heaven.’

And when many were fully convinced and gloried in the testimony of James, and said, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ these same Scribes and Pharisees said again to one another, ‘We have done badly in supplying such testimony to Jesus. But let us go up and throw him down, in order that they may be afraid to believe him.’ And they cried out, saying, ‘Oh! Oh! The just man is also in error.’ And they fulfilled the Scripture written in Isaiah, ‘Let us take away the just man, because he is troublesome to us: therefore they shall eat the fruit of their doings.’

So they went up and threw down the just man, and said to each other, ‘Let us stone James the Just.’ And they began to stone him, for he was not killed by the fall; but he turned and knelt down and said, 'I entreat you, Lord God our Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.'

And while they were thus stoning him one of the priests of the sons of Rechab, the son of the Rechabites, who are mentioned by Jeremiah the prophet, cried out, saying, ‘Stop. What are you doing? The just one prays for you.’ And one of them, who was a fuller, took the club with which he beat out clothes and struck the just man on the head. And thus he suffered martyrdom. And they buried him on the spot, by the temple, and his monument still remains by the temple. He became a true witness, both to Jews and Greeks, that Jesus is the Christ. And immediately Vespasian besieged them.

These things are related at length by Hegesippus, who is in agreement with Clement. James was so admirable a man and so celebrated among all for his justice, that the more sensible even of the Jews were of the opinion that this was the cause of the siege of Jerusalem, which happened to them immediately after his martyrdom for no other reason than their daring act against him.

So here’s the difficulties that may have led to the omission of the passage in such manuscripts: if Jesus asked that His Father forgive the Jews, why then did God still punish them? If Jesus predicted that judgment will fall upon Jerusalem (cf. Luke 19:41-44; 23:29-31), why would He choose to avert that judgment?
 
(Continued; last post)

But that’s not all. Part of the reason why this prayer was omitted from some manuscripts of Luke is most likely because the implication that Jesus absolved the Jews would have been very offensive to many Christians at that time in light of the strong anti-Jewish sentiments prevalent in their circles. (I would recommend reading Nathan Eubank’s A Disconcerting Prayer: On the Originality of Luke 23:34a for more detailed information about the passage and arguments for its authenticity.)

There were actually quite a number of patristic interpretations which try to tone down the impact of this hard saying, for example by proposing that the prayer did secure an opportunity for the Jews to repent, but their continued obstinacy demanded that punishment visit them anyway. Another interpretation links the Jews with either Esau or the Pharaoh, while Jesus is connected with Jacob or Moses: Jesus showed compassion for the Jews just as Jacob showed pity for Esau and Moses to the Pharaoh, but both Esau and Pharaoh did not receive forgiveness in the end and are rejected. A third strategy is to juxtapose the prayer with Psalm 58 (59):5 LXX, which was interpreted by some Christians as David’s attempt to dissuade God from forgiving the Jews. As Theodoret (393-460) summed it, David “with the eyes of inspiration” saw the crucified Jesus asking forgiveness; loathing “the extraordinary degree of [the Jews’] impiety,” the horrified David in turn composes the psalm which begs: “And you, Lord God of hosts, God of Israel, pay attention to visiting all the nations; pity none of those who practice lawlessness,” which Theodoret interprets to mean as David “[begging] the Lord of hosts and God of Israel to leave the Jews to their own devices and transfer all his providence to the nations, illuminating them with the light of the knowledge of God.” Eurbanks comments in his article:

Theodoret does not say whether he expects David’s prayer to countermand Jesus’ prayer successfully. Indeed, answering this question directly would doubtless produce an unsatisfactory result; surely Jesus’ prayer would trump David’s. Instead, Theodoret leaves the contradictory prayers suspended in their conflict, weakening the force of the prayer of the son of David by juxtaposing it to the prayer of David.

The variant reading “yield to them” instead of “forgive them” could also be motivated by these sentiments: the standard verb for forgiving in the Septuagint, the New Testament and subsequent writings was aphiēmi; by contrast, synchōreō never describes forgiveness in Christian literature. While there is some overlap between the two words (both words are used to describe leaving someone alone or allowing someone to do something), the reading synchōrēson autois “yield to them” had the ‘advantage’ of avoiding the suggestion that Jesus actually forgave (gasp!) the Jews, something more evident in the standard reading. Eventually, this came to the point that Jesus is praised for His patience rather than His showing forgiveness on the cross.
 
followingtheway said:
Anti-Semitic Christians have often used this Bible verse to argue that “the Jews killed Jesus”

“And Pilate seeing that he prevailed nothing, but that rather a tumult was made; taking water washed his hands before the people, saying: I am innocent of the blood of this just man; look you to it.” “And the whole people answering, said: His blood be upon us and our children.” - Matthew 27:24-25

Anti-Semitic Christians argue that since Pontius Pilate washed himself clean of Jesus’ blood, the Romans didn’t kill Jesus but since the Jewish crowd said “let His blood be upon us and our children” that means Jews are guilty of Jesus’ death.

How can I as a Christian and as a Catholic respond to these people? What is this verse really mean?
Click to expand...
Remind them that all of Jesus’s Apostles WERE Jews.
As also were MOST of His followers.
They are our elders in the faith and ours comes from theirs. We need to pray for their conversion and come to accept Jesus as what it really is. The saviour of all mankind.
 
patrick457 said:
Now curiously, Pilate’s role as the one who condemns Jesus generally diminishes in later Christian sources. The idea is that the more the state persecuted Christians, the more generous becomes the description of Pilate as a witness to Jesus’ innocence. This trend has a precedent, ironically enough, in Jewish apologetics: Philo appealed to Caligula and reminded him of the many privileges that previous emperors had granted to Jews, in response to measures the emperor was about to enforce that were offensive to Jewish sensibilities.

It is not just that Christians needed an ally in the form of a Roman official, but it was also significant for them to not have an enemy in the form of a Roman official, especially considering the status of Christians as illegal “atheists” after they were more or less distinguished from Jews (they could no longer invoke Judaism’s long-standing tolerated status and so were left to their own devices to negotiate their own alternatives to participating in the Imperial cult). There was after all an inherent scepticism surrounding new religious movements in the Greco-Roman world in which Christianity developed, so that novel sects could expect to face severe scrutiny from political authorities. It was when Christianity more or less broke off from Judaism and could no longer present itself as a ‘Jewish sect’ that authorities began to crack down harder on it, something not helped by the well-known that the leading figure of Christianity was executed by Roman officials as a criminal (cf. Tacitus, Annals 15.44). Christians of the time understandably thus sought to downplay this aspect of their group’s origins to appeal to a wider base.
Click to expand...
Again, elaborating on this.

It was common knowledge that Jesus “was crucified under Pontius Pilate,” something also attested to by non-Christian writers.

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man. (…) For he was a doer of startling deeds, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. And he gained a following both among many Jews and many of the Greeks. (…) And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him. (…) And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.
  • Josephus, Antiquities 18.63-64 (18.3.3)
Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called ‘Chrestians’ by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.
  • Tacitus, Annals 15.44
Of course, the fact that this was known was a source of embarassment for Christians, who are actively spreading in the Greco-Roman world. Crucifixion after all was a very shameful form of death - it also caused social death, which was much worse (in that culture) than physical death. Especially by the 2nd century, when Christians were officially no longer classified as ‘Jews’ and could be put to death by Roman officials simply for being Christians (whereas before non-Jewish Christians might be dealt with under the charge of ‘tax evasion’ - the tax being the fiscus Iudaicus imposed upon all Jews in the Empire after AD 70), this was somewhat of a liability.

I’ve already mentioned the Gospel of Peter’s attempt to absolve Pilate of any responsibility for the crucifixion by shifting the blame to “Herod the king” and the Jewish mob. This depiction of Pilate in GP makes good apologetic sense: a Roman official did not condemn Jesus, the Jewish ‘king’ did. In fact, the Roman governor declared the founder of the Christian sect innocent and never cast a vote in favor of the execution. Moreover, the author of GP downplays Roman participation by casting Pilate in an inferior light: he is portrayed as subservient to Herod that when Joseph asks for Jesus’ body in advance, Pilate had to ask for Herod’s permission. It would be foolish for the author of GP to deny that the historical Pilate had a role in the crucifixion of Jesus since his involvement is general knowledge and is fixed in the tradition, so rather than denying and deleting him outright from the story he engaged in historical revisionism by demoting the governor to a subordinate position.

Other writers like Justin Martyr and Tertullian adopt the same strategy as the author of GP by co-opting Pilate as a supportive figure for Christians. Justin writes:

And that it was predicted that our Christ should heal all diseases and raise the dead, hear what was said. There are these words: “At His coming the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the stammerer shall be clear speaking: the blind shall see, and the lepers shall be cleansed; and the dead shall rise, and walk about.” (Isaiah 35:6) And that He did those things, you can learn from the Acts of Pontius Pilate.
  • First Apology 48
Justin already made reference to this “Acts of Pontius Pilate” earlier in the work (chapter 35). Leaving aside the whole issue of what these “Acts” exactly were and whether it was ‘genuine’ or not, what is of import here is how Justin makes use of Pilate as a Christian ally. He is convinced that the Roman governor would have recorded the allegedly miraculous deeds of Jesus when compiling his account. In his estimation, Pilate is one who provides testimony about some of the central Christian claims concerning about Jesus’ life.
 
(Continued)

Tertullian goes even further in that he transforms Pilate into an outright Christian. At one point in his Apology, he tells the passion story and includes the role of Pilate as the executioner of Jesus. But he follows up this account with the remark:

But the Jews were so exasperated by His teaching, by which their rulers and chiefs were convicted of the truth, chiefly because so many turned aside to Him, that at last they brought Him before Pontius Pilate, at that time Roman governor of Syria; and, by the violence of their outcries against Him, extorted a sentence giving Him up to them to be crucified. He Himself had predicted this; which, however, would have signified little had not the prophets of old done it as well. (…)

All these things Pilate did to Christ; and now in fact a Christian in his own convictions, he sent word of Him to the reigning Caesar, who was at the time Tiberius. Yes, and the Caesars too would have believed on Christ, if either the Caesars had not been necessary for the world, or if Christians could have been Caesars.

Tertullian had explained that Pilate acted on the basis of tremendous outcry from the Jews, so while he recognizes Pilate’s role in executing Jesus, he partially excuses it. Most importantly, Pilate post-crucifixion had undergone a transformation: he is “now in a Christian in his own convictions.” To be a Christian in one’s convictions is to be anything but an enemy of the movement, a move that Tertullian also seeks to exploit elsewhere in his writings. For example, he alleges in Apology 5 that Tiberius ruled in favor of Christ’s divinity (something the Senate rejected) and threatened “wrath against all accusers of the Christians,” that Marcus Aurelius (reigned 161-180) was a protector of Christians, and that Trajan (reigned 98-117) forbade persecution of Christians. This last allegation is a half-truth: Trajan in a letter did once counsel Pliny the Younger not to actively hunt down Christians, but he also added that if the accused are guilty of being Christian, then they must be punished.

You observed proper procedure, my dear Pliny, in sifting the cases of those who had been denounced to you as Christians. For it is not possible to lay down any general rule to serve as a kind of fixed standard. They are not to be sought out; if they are denounced and proved guilty, they are to be punished, with this reservation, that whoever denies that he is a Christian and really proves it–that is, by worshiping our gods–even though he was under suspicion in the past, shall obtain pardon through repentance. But anonymously posted accusations ought to have no place in any prosecution. For this is both a dangerous kind of precedent and out of keeping with the spirit of our age.

Tertullian is really one of the first to co-opt Pilate outright into the Christian cause by claiming that became a follower of Jesus. This idea would influence many authors to come, eventually developing into the idea of ‘Saint Pilate’. St. Augustine is one example: he suggested along the same lines as Tertullian that Pilate not only recognized Jesus’ innocence but also recognized His divinity, which is what led Him to become a Christian. In fact, Augustine compares Pilate to the wise men, who had recognized Jesus at His birth. (Again, a recommended reading here: Robin M. Jensen’s How Pilate Became a Saint.)
 
patrick457 said:
But whereas there was some differing opinions on just how the Romans were involved in Jesus’ death, Christian anti-Judaism did not wane - on the contrary it took some turns for the worse. In a post-Constantinian world, where Jews have become a minority and Christians have dominated Europe, the original Jewish context of the dispute became more and more obscured as time went on to the point that long-standing anti-Jewish sentiments had oftentimes segued into full-blown anti-Semitism.
Click to expand...
There’s also a social factor involved here. Before Constantine, Jews generally held more social and political power than Christians in the larger Greco-Roman world. As mentioned, Judaism was one of the legally tolerated religions within the Empire, whereas Christianity (after it divorced from Judaism) was an illegal superstitio - in fact, a criminal organization - its subjects subject to discrimination and local (after mid-3rd century, official) persecution.

During the reigns of Julius and Augustus Caesar, Jews were tolerated and given legal rights within the empire. Even with the Jewish revolts against Rome in the late 1st and early 2nd century (when Jews nearly lost their privileged status), state tolerance of Judaism continued due to political and religious concessions made by Jews to Rome in the wake of the Trajanic and Hadrianic wars. Eventually Judaism ceased to be a political danger that pagan Rome could afford to continue tolerance to it in the 2nd, 3rd, and early 4th centuries. Jews slowly regained Roman trust and their religious privileges under the Antonine (96-192) and the Severan (193-235) dynasties. With Diocletian (reigned 284-305), they regained the full status granted a religio licita, and up to AD 398, they lived under the lex Iudaeorum. While Christians regard Diocletian as a complete monster who sent many followers of Christ to their martyrdom (he was after all the instigator of the ‘Great Persecution’), Jews looked upon him as another Augustus: someone who brought peace and order out of chaos.

Jews as a people enjoyed special privileges that exempted them from the jurisdiction of imperial government in matters concerning the forum, the statues, and the law. Jewish courts and commerce were under Jewish control. They were exempt from the compulsory public service of the curiales. (Curiales were members of the municipal council or curia - at this time usually wealthy people like businessmen or landowners - who served as local magistrates. They were responsible for local tax collection - they were expected to make up for any shortfall out of their own pockets - and had the duty to perform public works and pay for them with their own money.) Plus Jews also enjoyed the dignitas (the Roman virtue close to something like “prestige” or “clout”) of the senatorial aristocracy’s highest imperial titles and the dignitas of the urban ruling classes. Plus, at the time of Decius (the Decian persecution of 250) they were exempt from the obligation to perform a sacrifice to the Roman gods in exchange for a certificate (a libellus). By the dawn of the 4th century, all past offenses were mostly forgotten: Jews had become to Roman eyes a model people with an exemplary religion.

Then as everyone knows Constantine came and also granted legal tolerance to Christianity in 313, eventually paving the way for Theodosius the Great (reigned 379-395) to declare it the state religion of the Empire on 380. While the status of Christianity arose at this time, the status of Judaism suffered some setbacks, something observable in compilations of laws such as Code of Theodosius II (reigned 408-450) and Justinian’s (reigned 527-565) Corpus Iuris Civilis. In 404, Jews were excluded from certain governmental posts. In 418, they were barred from the civil service, and from all military positions. In 425, they were excluded from all remaining public offices, both civilian and military - a prohibition which Justinian repeated. In addition, Jews were also unequal to Christians with respect to the ownership of slaves. Finally, Judaism was at least allowed to survive (in contrast to pagan cults, which were eradicated) within the empire, but it was not allowed to thrive. Again, the theological view of Judaism among Christians as the ‘old’, ‘outdated’ religion that was superseded by Christianity is at play here: Judaism and the Jews were allowed to survive as a symbol of the triumph of Christianity over the old law, but it and the Jewish people were kept in check so as not to pose a threat to Christianity.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top