The "Dark Ages"?

[Lisel]

John21652

Technically you are correct. As an institution the Catholic Church did not persecute Jews. We actually learned that in Jewish History.

In fact Christians were more likely to fall foul of the Inquisition than Jews.

However there is no question that many individual preachers spread a diapason of hatred about Jews around Europe. I’ve mentioned Chrysostom. There were many more.

Well, many of the Christians that fell foul of the Inquistion were jews that had converted to christianity in order to avoid deportation or worse.

 

[tonyrey]

I would hope that most Catholics are familiar enough with the history of their Church and with history in general to know the difference between historical facts and “hot air”. It was not my intention to derail a thread but merely to respond to the baseless assertions here that the Catholic Church was not directly involved in the persecution of Jews over the centuries. To this had been added by another poster the spurious contention that Jews have similarily persecuted Christians and Muslims. Indeed we are in the “Dark Ages”. It is impossible to hope for true change in attitudes if there is a blanket denial as to what took place. As making false assertions does not apparently derail the thread unless those false assertions are challenged, I will merely add a link below to those who are interested as to Church and the ghetto, yellow clothing for Jews and forced lectures. For a little taste about forced baptism and removal see Mortara. Catholic pogroms see Martinez March 15, 1391, racial purity I gave you the Jesuit order. Those wishing the specific Papal bulls and edicts or additional examples are welcome to contact me.

myjewishlearning.com/history/Modern_History/Early_Modern/roman-ghetto.shtml

As to the contention that Jews have similarily persecuted Christians and Moslems, well now its my turn to ask for examples in say the last 1800 years or so.

What precisely are you trying to prove?

 

[John21652]

What precisely are you trying to prove?

He’s trying to ‘prove’ he’s right and everyone else is wrong and he’s willing to derail this thread in the process. If he had any moral courage, and the courage of his convictions, he’d start his own thread. However, it doesn’t seem to be happening…

So ignore him and let’s stick with Max’s topic, shall we?

 

[abucs]

Thought you might like this one too. Try not to read it all at once - if you can

gutenberg.org/ebooks/34067

As far as persecuting and marginalising people i would say we are all prone to demonising the other and in times gone past with the connection of nationality (or soveriegnty) with religion and language there were bound to be many instances of cases of unfair domination and control by Christian groups that we would not advocate today.

 

[Cecilianus]

I was taught in college history classes (by the secular, presumably non-Catholic professor) that the term “Dark Ages” refers to the relative quantity of documentary evidence we have remaining from the period (we are “in the dark” about it, so to speak), not to the amount of knowledge of civilization that period had. That’s the technical use of the term as introduced by historians, at any rate.

On an unrelated note, since a set of Chrysostom’s magnificent homilies were mentioned earlier in connection with the real or supposed persecution of the Jews by “the Church”, I would like to note that his homilies were directed against Judaizing Christians, that is, heretics in the Church who were adopting Jewish practices or frequently converting to Judaism outright while remaining tied enough to Christianity to attend St. Chrysostom’s homilies (the saint notes that some people in the congregation were there to hear the beauty of his oratory rather than for prayer). Judaism at the time was a real intellectual threat he had to fight, just as Gnosticism, Arianism, and Protestantism all were/are at various points in the Church’s history.

 

[Elijah_Baley]

I was taught in college history classes (by the secular, presumably non-Catholic professor) that the term “Dark Ages” refers to the relative quantity of documentary evidence we have remaining from the period (we are “in the dark” about it, so to speak), not to the amount of knowledge of civilization that period had. That’s the technical use of the term as introduced by historians, at any rate.

Furious backpedaling, sounds like. A cursory glance at Wikipedia confirms it.