Was the Early Church Anti-Semitic?

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Adversus Judaeos, “Against the Jews,” is the title given to a collection of homilies by St. John Chrysostom. This is the work which is most often cited as the extreme case of openly anti-Semitic writings among the early church fathers. In Chrysostom’s defense it is sometimes argued that his purpose in these homilies was to warn the Christian community in Antioch that they cannot be observant Jews and Christians at the same time, in other words, that he was only denouncing Judaizing Christians rather than the Jewish community as a whole. The fact remains that Nazi propagandists found plenty of material in these homilies to use as (name removed by moderator)uts for their largely successful campaign to gain support for the Hitler regime among practicing Christians, Catholics and Lutherans alike.

Adversus Judaeos - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
St Chrysostom spoke about religion not race. The concept of races, biologically defined as in inferior and superior really is a Modern thing. Black people from Africa were the people of Ham back in those times for example.
 
Mary888 said:
The concept of races, biologically defined as in inferior and superior really is a Modern thing.
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Not really. Racial ideas against Jews and other groups (especially Goths and other Germanic peoples) started arising in the fourth century, and they were tightly intertwined with religion (the Goths and other Germanic tribes were predominantly Arian Christians).
 
So if what you’re saying is true, it’s not just the Jews in particular that were singled out for what you call “racial ideas.” What we’re seeing is the people of the Roman Empire being wary of strangers. A normal and understandable attitude, considering that Rome had to deal with threats both within and without its borders.
 
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Jews being barred from civil service, the army, destruction or confiscation of synagogues, restriction on religious practices and commercial activity, barred from the legal profession, travel bans, and eventually progroms.

Pretty much the same stuff you saw in 1938.
 
So your point basically is that the Christians of the Early Church were Nazis.
 
Sachsen said:
it’s not just the Jews in particular that were singled out for what you call “racial ideas.”
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Oh, no. Jews were very much singled out as a special class. Don’t try to whitewash that. And Jews were not “foreigners” in the sense that the Germanic tribes were. They had been within the Empire for five centuries at that time.
 
I am not trying to whitewash anything here. It is you trying to discredit the Early Church by associating them with Nazis.
 
Your kind of thinking shows us that you’re not on our side, you just can’t help but undermine our faith.
 
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Sachsen said:
It is you trying to discredit the Early Church by associating them with Nazis.
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It’s not discrediting. It’s a very well documented part of Church history. Not one of our proudest moments, to be sure.

Trying to divorce Nazi antisemitism from Christian antisemitism would be extremely dishonest. The Nazi’s borrowed it from us, more or less wholesale, and gave it a modern cast, but the phenomenon was a natural outgrowth of trends that started in the fourth century.
 
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KJW5551 said:
Edit: some relevant reading:
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Not that relevant at all, considering that it comes from the twelfth century, whereas I was talking about the fourth and fifth centuries.

On the whole, antisemitism found a comfortable home in the Catholic Church up until the end of WWII. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but never completely absent.
 
AndrewAxland said:
Not that relevant at all, considering that it comes from the twelfth century
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Not that relevant? Pulled straight from the first article:

"As early as A.D. 598, Gregory the Great clearly laid down that the Jews, while they were to be restrained from presuming upon the toleration accorded to them by the law, had a claim to be treated equitably and justly. They were to be allowed to keep their own festivals and religious practices, and their rights of property, even in the case of their synagogues, were to be respected "
 
veritatisstella said:
No one in the early church ever specifically targeted Jews that I know of.
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I thought that Justin Martyr in 145 AD wrote an essay in which he was having a conversation with the Jew Trypho. I thought that in that essay he condemned the Jews for killing Jesus, and expressed happiness that the Temple was destroyed?
 
KJW5551 said:
Not that relevant?
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Yes. You can whitewash and cherry pick all you want, but there’s no putting lipstick on that thar pig. On the whole, the Catholic Church at all levels was pretty much hostile to Jews, exceptional figures and occasional statements notwithstanding.
 
AndrewAxland said:
On the whole, the Catholic Church at all levels was pretty much hostile to Jews, exceptional figures and occasional statements notwithstanding.
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What you’re saying is simply not backed up by historical facts. Again, see the Papal Bull linked above which, according to the Wikipedia article, “was reaffirmed by many popes including Alexander III, Celestine III (1191-1198), Innocent III (1199), Honorius III (1216), Gregory IX (1235), Innocent IV (1246), Alexander IV (1255), Urban IV (1262), Gregory X (1272 & 1274), Nicholas III, Martin IV (1281), Honorius IV (1285-1287), Nicholas IV (1288-92), Clement VI (1348), Urban V (1365), Boniface IX (1389), Martin V (1422), and Nicholas V (1447)”.

You painted yourself into a corner by comparing the Catholic Church to Nazis which is a wholly and completely absurd and indefensible position, and now you’re just mud slinging to try to get your way out.
 
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