Was the Early Church Anti-Semitic?

[AndrewAxland]

You painted yourself into a corner by comparing the Catholic Church to Nazis

I did no such thing. I said that the Nazis borrowed their antisemitism from us more or less wholesale, and gave it their own spin.

 

[KJW5551]

The mentality wasn’t all that different, it’s sad to say.

So this wasn’t comparing the Church to Nazis? Could have fooled me.

 

[AndrewAxland]

So this wasn’t comparing the Church to Nazis?

Of course it’s not. And you fooled yourself.

 

[KJW5551]

I’ve managed to fool myself; that’s a new trick. Something new every day on CAF.

I suppose this quote wasn’t comparing Catholics with Nazis either:

Trying to divorce Nazi antisemitism from Christian antisemitism would be extremely dishonest.

 

[AlNg]

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.

I thought that there were many priests in Croatia during WWII that backed the Ustase regime. And when the Ustase was defeated, I thought that there were priests in the Vatican helping the Ustase leaders to escape to Argentina?
And I thought that it wasn’t just Pavelic who was allied with Hitler, but also Franco?

 

[AndrewAxland]

I suppose this quote wasn’t comparing Catholics with Nazis either:

No, it wasn’t. I’m a Catholic myself, if you didn’t get that.

 

[AndrewAxland]

I thought that there were many priests in Croatia during WWII that backed the Ustase regime.

There were Catholics who ardently supported Hitler and his persecution of the Jews. There were Catholics who ardently opposed same, and many gave their lives fighting it. It caused a deep rift in the Church. This was one of the main reasons Vatican II was convened.

 

[KJW5551]

I’m fully aware, thanks. You said so earlier.

But you also said that the mindset of the Nazis wasn’t all that different from the mindset of the Catholic Church, but yet claim that somehow this wasn’t an instance of you comparing the Church with Nazis.

And you ignored the links provided to you that show that since the year 598 the official position of the Church has been decidedly not antisemitic.

No more for me here.

 

[AndrewAxland]

But you also said that the mindset of the Nazis wasn’t all that different from the mindset of the Catholic Church

In persecuting the Jews, they were very similar in their methods, save for the mass murders. As is to be expected as the Nazis directly took the idea from us. They took advantage of the fact that antisemitism was already rife among Christians of the time.

 

[Erikaspirit16]

The apocryphal gospels (2nd c. +) were much more anti-Semitic than the canonical Gospels. And at the same time, Christians (in those Gospels at least) tried to identify with “Israel” --but not Jews! For example, the sign nailed to the cross was, according to canonical gospels, INRI–Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. In the apocryphal gospels (I think the Gospel of Peter) it’s changed to “Jesus of Nazareth, King of Israel.” And a lot more is made of the part of the Jews in the death of Jesus and the role of the Romans is toned down.

So my off the top of my head answer is that yes, the early Church was anti-Semitic, esp. by the late 1st and certainly the 2nd c. Perhaps because more Gentiles were becoming Christian and Jews were no longer a majority?

As for the massacre of Jews in the Rhineland at the start of the First Crusade, bishops actually gave shelter to Jews and condemned the attacks. But usually they gave in to the mob and turned over the Jews to them–didn’t have a choice, really. But bear in mind that in 1066 ( about 20 years before), the Muslims in Granada massacred Jews–most scholars think in even greater numbers than in the Rhineland. So it was not a great time to be Jewish.

 

[Augustinian]

On the whole, the Catholic Church at all levels was pretty much hostile to Jews, exceptional figures and occasional statements notwithstanding.

I don’t think any blanket statement can be made on this, one way or another. Circumstances differed from country to country and age to age. How much can the church be blamed for the well poisoning accusations against the Jews, or accusations of Host desecration, or problems with the Spanish inquisition in the 15th and 16th centuries?

Looking over a broad expanse of time, and a large geographic area, I don’t think you can make a generalization on this

 

[AndrewAxland]

So my off the top of my head answer is that yes, the early Church was anti-Semitic, esp. by the late 1st and certainly the 2nd c.

Not uniformly so. Some Christians still considered themselves sort of an offshoot of Jews and attended services in synagogues until the late fourth century. This is one of the things that John Chrysostom was campaigning against.

Looking over a broad expanse of time, and a large geographic area, I don’t think you can make a generalization on this

Pretty much most of Western Europe for most of the Middle ages. The one bright spot was, oddly, Poland, where many Jews ended up after they had been expelled from the countries of Western Europe, and were generally tolerated until the partitions of Poland.

 

[AndrewAxland]

Also, the situation in Spain varied a lot, though things broke down completely in 1492. After that, some took refuge in Rome at the invitation of Alexander VI, where they were ghettoized and discriminated against, but to a far lesser extent than they were elsewhere at the time (except Poland).

For a Jew living in Christian dominated Europe, the situation usually ran from lousy to bat-sh** crazy awful. They couldn’t own land, they could not run legitimate businesses (hence money lending and slave trading), they couldn’t participate in by far most functions of society, and whatever property they had was frequently confiscated. They had no or limited recourse to courts of law, and eventually were expelled from many countries with no more than they could carry on their backs.

 

[Mary888]

Arianism has been establiahed as heresy by the Council organized under Constantine. So whatever the Arians taught is not Christian. So the Church opposed racism even religiously considering they dismissed as heresy the beliefs of those who were also the racists.