In the OT, there is inquisition and rooting out of heresy, punishing heretics, etc. so from that I know that the Catholic inquisitions themselves were justified.
But, can’t the persecution of Christians by the Jews in the early times of Christianity been seen as this justified inquisition? In OT, God commands that the Jews root out heresy, so isn’t that what the Jewish authorities were basically doing with the Christians (they were heretics from their point of view)?
Then Christians in the middle ages did the same thing to heretics and Jews - isn’t this hypocrisy? I know that the Catholic religion is right, so therefore they are justified, but is there an objective way of justifying this? I mean, if you hold that Judaism is the one true faith, you will disagree with justifications for Catholic inquisitions, so it is a subjective justification. I support that the Church fought heresy like this, but my problem is justifying it to people who ask me about it (or accuse the church or hypocrisy).
Thanks
The Romans fed Christians to the lions. The Roman Christians were involved in the persecution and rejection of the original Christians - the Ebionites. The Roman Christians and the Arian Christians were involved in mutual infighting resulting in the death of tens of thousands of Christians on both sides until the Roman Christians finally gained the upper hand, and political power, in the fourth century of the common era. Almost immediately they began promulgating laws aimed against the Jews.
Between 66 c.e - 135 c.e the Jews were involved in uprisings against Rome which led to the deaths of one third of the Jewish people. Whenever I ask about the extent of persecution by Jews of Christians (what period? how many Christians were killed? what are the sources for information of these persecutions and do they include non Christian sources? Are the laws and acts against the Jews a result of “revenge” for these “'persecutions”? If so, are acts of revenge compatible with Catholicism and at what point, if ever, is the “account” settled?) I never receive a clear authoritative answer. We Jews are of course bound by Torah and God’s commandments (see Vayikra/Leviticus 19:17 - 18 which obligates us to not hate or take revenge or bear a grudge and to love your fellow as yourself).
From “Jews and Judaism” Original Catholic Encyclopedia
"The obligation of wearing a distinguishing badge was of course obnoxious to the Jews. At the same time, Church authorities deemed its injunction necessary to prevent effectively moral offenses between Jews and Christian women. The decrees forbidding the Jews from appearing in public at Easter-tide may be justified on the ground that some of them mocked at the Christian processions at that time; those against baptized Jews retaining distinctly Jewish customs find their ready explanation in the necessity for the Church to maintain the purity of the Faith in its members, while those forbidding the Jews from molesting converts to Christianity are no less naturally explained by the desire of doing away with a manifest obstacle to future conversions.
It was for the laudable reason of protecting social morality and securing the maintenance of the Christian Faith, that canonical decrees were framed and repeatedly enforced against free and constant intercourse between Christians and Jews, against, for instance, bathing, living, etc., with Jews. To some extent, likewise, these were the reasons for the institution of the Ghetto or confinement of the Jews to a special quarter, for the prohibition of the Jews from exercising medicine, or other professions. The inhibition of intermarriage between Jews and Christians, which is yet in vigor, is clearly justified by reason of the obvious danger for the faith of the Christian party and for the spiritual welfare of the children born of such alliances. With regard to the special legislation against printing, circulating, etc., the Talmud, there was the particular grievance that the Talmud contained at the time scurrilous attacks upon Jesus and the Christians (cf. Pick, “The Personality of Jesus in the Talmud” in the “Monist”, January, 1910), and the permanent reason that “that extraordinary compilation, with much that is grave and noble, contains also so many puerilities, immoral precepts, and anti-social maxims, that Christian courts may well have deemed it right to resort to stringent measures to prevent Christians from being seduced into adhesion to a system so preposterous” (Catholic Dictionary, 484).
History proves indeed that church authorities exercised at times considerable pressure upon the Jews to promote their conversion;"
