Did the early Catholic Church officially teach anti-semitism?

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TommyT1

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I have not found any document, papal encyclical, bull, or teaching of the magisterium for or against this. Can someone please bring up some sort of historical evidence that shows the official teaching of the early Church about the Jews. I don’t care about anything outside what the Church officially taught, that is irrelevant to me. To clarify, I don’t care about what the early Christians did to the Jews, I only care about what the Church actually taught.
 
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Actually, in 83 A.D., the Jewish religious leaders added a prayer against the “Menim” to the synagogue worship. This prayer was a curse upon those who followed Christ. This immediately meant that no Christian-Jews could worship in the synagogue. The canon of Hebrew Scriptures was also closed at this time to prevent proclamation of New Testament literature. So, it is correct to say that Judaism was anti-Cristian. The early Church, however, was not anti-Semitic.
 
In the Neocatechumenal Way, a Vatican II based church affiliation, it is taught that Judaism is a prelude to Christianity. The better you follow the Old Testament and the more you respect its people, the better Catholic you might become on day. The Jews have already done it, my friend. Our salvation is the next.
 
Can you please give me some primary source document that can back up that the early Church was not anti-Semitic.
 
The one reference I know off the top of my head is from the Fourth Council of Toledo:
  1. By the decree of the most glorious prince this sacred council ordered that Jews should not be allowed to have Christian slaves nor to buy Christian slaves, nor to obtain them by the kindness of any one; for it is not right that the members of Christ should serve the ministers of Anti-Christ. {emphasis mine}
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Well Peter and Paul taught his sub Judaic “sect” that circumcision wasn’t necessary. That’s somewhat anti Semitic. What would we think if the SPXS said those who celebrate non Latin Masses cannot be saved. That would be pretty anti-Catholic methinks.
 
curious_cath said:
The Jews have already done it, my friend. Our salvation is the next.
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What does this mean?

There is only one Messiah: Jesus Christ. The Jews must accept Jesus Christ. This is something many of them have not done.
 
Election cannot be overridden as the promises of God are irrevocable. The people of God were promised salvation as the elect. Of course Jews will also accept Jesus as their own. He was a Jew together with the 12 apostles.
 
The Neocatechumenal Way is recreating the early church communities in modern setting. It is present in over 100 countries, over 10 thousand communities. We are not anti-Semitic. We take Jews as our older brothers in faith, as Pope John-Paul II said.
 
The Gospel of John was written at a time of tension between the synagogue and the early Christian communities. The whole thing was a misunderstanding and the communities had to leave the synagogues. This schism is visible in John. But he is not anti-Semitic by any measure. He is just overly cautious with Judaism.

Actually, the rabbinic movement in Judah had every right to define the future development of Judaism, apart from the Jesus sect, as they viewed Christians, into the diverse structure we are seeing today.
 
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TommyT1 said:
Can you please give me some primary source document that can back up that the early Church was not anti-Semitic.
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The absence of evidence isn’t typically evidence. The question ought to be what evidence is there that the early Church was anti-Semitic. The answer is none.
 
There nothing anti-Semitic about Peter and Paul expressing Divine Revelation. Yet, for a non- believer, who does not accept the New Covenant, it may appear so.
 
@TommyT1 here is an official magisterial statement on the Jews from the Middle Ages:

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/pope-innocent-iii
Pope Innocent III

Constitution for the Jews (1199 CE)

[The Jews] must not be oppressed grievously by the faithful as the prophet says: “Do not slay them, lest these be forgetful of Thy Law,” [Ps. 58 (59):12].

Just as, therefore there ought not to be license for the Jews to presume to go beyond what is permitted them by law in their synagogues, so in those which have been conceded to them, they ought to suffer no prejudice. These men, therefore, since they wish rather to go on in their own hardness than to know the revelations of the prophets and the mysteries of the Law, and to come to a knowledge of the Christian faith, still, since they beseech the help of Our defense, We, out of the meekness proper to Christian piety, and keeping in the footprints of Our predecessors of happy memory, the Roman Pontiffs Calixtus, Eugene, Alexander, Clement, and Celestine, admit their petition, and We grant them the buckler of Our protection.

For we make the law that no Christian compel them, unwilling or refusing, by violence to come to baptism. But if any one of them should spontaneously,a nd for the sake of faith, fly to the Christians, once his choice has become evident, let him be made a Christian without any calumny. Indeed, he is not considered to possess the true faith of the Christianity who is recognized to have come to Christian baptism, not spontaneously, but unwillingly.

Too, no Christian ought to presume, apart from the juridicial sentence of the territorial power, wickedly to injure their persons, or with violence to take away their property, or to change the good customs which they have had until now in whatever region they inhabit.

Besides, in the celebration of their own festivals, no one ought to disturb them in any way, with clubs or stones, nor ought any one try to require from them or to extort from them services they do not owe, except for those they have been accustomed from times past to perform.

In addition to these, We decree, blocking the wickedness and avarice of evil men, that no one ought to dare to mutilate or diminish a Jewish cemetery, nor, in order to get money, to exhume bodies once they have been buried.

If anyone, however shall attempt, the tenor of this decree once known, to go against it - may this be far from happening! - let him be punished by the vengeance of excommunication, unless he correct his presumption by making equivalent satisfaction.
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From the same pontiff, Innocent III:
Letter on the Jews (1199 CE)

We decree that no Christian shall use violence to compel the Jews to accept baptism. But if a Jew, of his own accord, because of a change in his faith, shall have taken refuge with Christians, after his wish has been made known, he may be made a Christian without any opposition. For anyone who has not of his own will sought Christian baptism cannot have the true Christian faith. No Christian shall do the Jews any personal injury, except in executing the judgments of a judge, or deprive them of their possessions, or change the rights and privileges which they have been accustomed to have. During the celebration of their festivals, no one shall disturb them by beating them with clubs or by throwing stones at them. No one shall compel them to render any services except those which they have been accustomed to render. And to prevent the baseness and avarice of wicked men we forbid anyone to deface or damage their cemeteries or to extort money from them by threatening to exhume the bodies of their dead…

From: Oliver J. Thatcher, and Edgar Holmes McNeal, eds., A Source Book for Medieval History, (New York: Scribners, 1905), 212-213.
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BlackFriar said:
Well Peter and Paul taught his sub Judaic “sect” that circumcision wasn’t necessary. That’s somewhat anti Semitic.
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That Peter and Paul spoke against the necessity of Jewish religious laws and disciplines does not make them anti-Semitic.
BlackFriar said:
What would we think if the SPXS said those who celebrate non Latin Masses cannot be saved. That would be pretty anti-Catholic methinks.
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If the early Christians said that non-Christian Jews could not be saved – and I am not sure that they did, until much later, though I am not familiar with that history – I am not sure if a mere theological assertion like that would count as anti-Semitism. It is not on a par with the persecution, injustice, and crimes that define anti-Semitism today.

I must review Paul’s letters to the Hebrews and to the Romans on this.
 
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People need to learn to separate between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism is hating Jews because of their Jewish ethnicity.

Anti-Judaism is being against the Jewish religion without regard to their ethnicity.

I would reckon many of the Church Fathers were anti-Judaic, but most were not truly anti-Semitic.
 
The early Church couldn’t possibly be anti-Semitic. Jesus was Jewish! The apostles were Jewish! But what Jesus did was redirect authority, essentially hitting a divine reset button. Jews were the first to understand man’s relationship with God, and as such in order to understand how salvation worked, and to receive it, you had to be Jewish. No exceptions! But then Jesus came and said it was for everyone. So Jews were the first converts, while the Gentiles were learning something entirely new. And Jesus never made a point of rejecting his Jewish faith, but rather refining it. He rejected corrupted Jewish authority, not Judaism itself. How could he? The apostles were given the task of deciding whether or not it was still necessary to become Jewish first (circumcision) or merely start with Catholicism. It’s there in the New Testament. If later Catholics said anything else about Jews, they were in error.
 
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