Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-xbtfd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T01:47:52.670Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Jew in Seventeenth-Century Protestant Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Robert M. Healey
Robert M. Healey
Affiliation:
Professor of Church History in theUniversity of Dubuque Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In his pamphlet entitled From the First to the Last of the Just, Jean-Paul Lichtenberg concludes a brief history of Jewish-Christian relations with a list of five periods to each of which he assigns a particular quality of anti-Judaism or anti-Semitism. Of the third period, 1096–1520, marked by the Crusades, the Ghetto and the Inquisition, Lichtenberg remarks,

“the pogroms, the massacres and the persecutions perpetrated on the Jews by Christian hands are the manifestation of a Christian anti-Semitism of the people, fed by harsh and comtemptuous preaching. Doctrinal anti-Judaism had filtered down to the masses and given birth to anti-Semitism. The end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance brought about no changes in this situation. Relations between Christians and Jews are already poisoned and only the coming of the (French) Revolution will bring a change in the situation [emphasis added]. One may qualify the Christian anti-Semitism which prevails during this period as an anti-Semitism of passion based upon religion or, again, as an anti-Semitism of intolerance.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , March 1977 , pp. 63 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1977

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Lichtenberg, Jean Paul, From the First to the Last of the Just (Jerusalem: Ecumenical Theological Research Fraternity in Israel, 1972?)Google Scholar

2. Ibid., pp. 23–24. Emphasis in original.

3. On France, particularly for the eighteenth century, see Hertzberg, Arthur, The French Enlightenment and the Jews, (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968).Google Scholar

4. Michman, Jozeph, “The Netherlands,” Encyclopedia Judaica (Hereafter EJ), 12:975–976.Google Scholar

5. de Bethencourt, Cardozo, “Notes on the Spanish and Portuguese Jews in the United States, Guiana and the Dutch and British West Indies during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society (Hereafter PAJHS) 29 (1925): 7–38.Google Scholar

6. Kohler, Max J., “The Doctrine that ‘Christianity is Part of the Common Law’ and Its Recent Judicial Overthrow in England, with Particular Reference to Jewish Rights,” PAJHS 31 (1928): 110–11.Google Scholar

7. Kohler, Max J., “Phases in the History of Religious Liberty in America with Particular Reference to the Jews—II,” PAJHS 13 (1905): 7–13.Google Scholar

8. “London,” EJ 11:472.Google Scholar

9. “London,” 1620. See: “Traske, John,” EJ, 15:1346.Google Scholar Of interest also is A Briefe Refutation of John Traske's Judaical and Novel Fancyes (1618) attributed to Falconer, John, reproduced in English Recusant Literature 1558–1640, Rogers, D. M., ed., vol. 48, (Menston, Eng.: Scolar Press, 1971).Google Scholar

10. “London,” EJ 11:473–474,Google Scholar and “Manesseh ben Israel,” EJ 11:857.Google ScholarRoth, Cecil, Essays and Portraits in Anglo-Jewish History (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society America, 1962), p. 106.Google Scholar

11. Huehner, Leon: “The Jews of South Carolina from the Earliest Settlement to the End of the American Revolution,” PAJHS 12 (1904): 39–43Google Scholar; and “The Jews of North Carolina Prior to 1800,” PAJHS 29, (1925): 137.Google Scholar

12. Kohler, , “Phases, II,” 7–13,Google Scholar and “Doctrine,” 110–111.

13. “London,” EJ 11:474.Google Scholar

14. Kohler, , “Phases II,” 7–13Google Scholar; Friedenberg, Albert M., “Jews of America, 1654–1787,” American Jewish Year Book 28 (1926–1927): 199.Google Scholar

15. “Maryland,” EJ 11:1076.Google Scholar

16. For a survey of the literature of the controversy see Osterman, Nathan, “The Controversy over the Proposed Readmission of the Jews to England (1655),” Jewish Social Studies, 3 (1941): 301–328.Google Scholar See also Toon, Peter, “The Question of Jewis Immigration,” in Puritans, the Millenium and the Future of Israel: Puritan Eschatology 1600 to 1660 (Cambridge: James Clarke & Co., 1970), pp. 115–125.Google Scholar

17. Smith, George, History of Delaware County, Pa., (Philadelphia: H. B. Ashmead, 1862), p. 82,Google Scholar and Brodhead, John Romeyn, History of the State of New York, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1853) 1:698.Google Scholar Both cited in Rosenbach, Abraham S. W., “Notes on the First Settlement of Jews in Pennsylvania, 1655–1703,” PAJHS 5 (1897): 195.Google ScholarMarcus, Jacob R., Early American Jewry (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1952) 2:228.Google Scholar Similar examples of hostility occurred in the eighteenth century. In 1743 in New York, a Jewish funeral was disturbed by a group of Christians led by a man garbed in black, holding forth a crucifix and muttering Latin. (Oppenheim, Samuel, , “Disgraceful Acts of a Mob at a Jewish Funeral in New York, 1743,” PAJHS 31 (1928): 240–241.Google Scholar) A decade later the Naturalization Act of 1753, popularly known as “the Jew Bill,” enabling all Jews to prefer bills of naturalization in Parliament without receiving the sacrament, had to be repealed after only one year because of the storm of protest it provoked. See Tuchman, Barbara, Bible and Sword (New York: New York University Press, 1956), p. 97.Google Scholar

18. “United States of America,” EJ 15-1648.Google Scholar

19. Friedman, Lee M., “Early Jewish Residents in Massachusetts,” PAJHS 23 (1915): 79.Google Scholar

20. Huehner, Leon, “The Jews of New England (Other than Rhode Island) Prior to 1800,” PAJHS 11 (1903): 87.Google Scholar

21. E.g., Robert of Reading was led by a love of Hebrew to embrace the Jewish religion in 1275. See Matthaei Parisiensis Chronica Majora 4, ed. H. R. Luard, (London: Rolls Series, 1877), p. 553,Google Scholar cited in Daiches, David, The King James Version of the Holy Bible (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1941), p. 115.Google Scholar See below, n. 30.

22. EJ 4:1120,Google Scholar and 8:1061. See Anderson, M. D., A Saint at Stake—The Strange Death of William of Norwich, 1144, (London: Faber and Faber, 1964).Google Scholar

23. Kohler, Max J., “Dr. Rodrigo Lopez, Queen Elizabeth's Jewish Physician and His Relations to America,” PAJHS 17 (1909): 9.Google Scholar

24. Two are still taught in school and revived periodically: Marlowe's, Jew of Malta (1589)Google Scholar and Shakespeare's, Merchant of Venice (1596).Google Scholar See Modder, Montagu Frank, The Jew in the Literature of England to the End of the 19th Century (New York: Meridian Books, 1960), pp. 1–30.Google Scholar

25. See Holmio, Armas K. E., The Lutheran Reformation and the Jews: the Birth of Protestant Jewish Missions (Hancock, Mich.: the Finnish Lutheran Book Concern, 1949), especially pp. 100–124Google Scholar; “Reformation,” EJ 14: 18–23Google Scholar; “Martin Luther,” EJ 11: 583.Google Scholar Developments in the doctrine of the Eucharist at least caused charges that the Jews were desecrating the Host to disappear in Protestant circles.

26. Toon, , “Jewish Immigration,” pp. 115–25.Google ScholarRoth, , Essays and Portraits, pp. 97–107.Google Scholar

27. Marcus, Jacob R., American Jewry—Eighteenth Century—Documents, (Cincinnati-Hebrew Union College Press, 1959) PP. 50–53, 86, 137, 143, 187Google Scholar; Studies in American Jewish History, (Cincinnati-Hebrew Union College Press, 1969) pp. 55, 76, 77, 79, and 81–84.Google ScholarRoth, , Essays and Portraits, pp. 97–98.Google Scholar

28. Nicholas' identity is not known, and that he was a Christian has been questioned (see Roth, , Essays and Portraits, p. 58).Google Scholar For all that, his line of argument was intended to stir the humanitarianism of Christians.

29. Birmingham, Stephen, Our Crowd, the Great Jewish Families of New York (New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1968) pp. 48–49,Google Scholar presents an example of which to be wary. Friedman, Lee M., Pilgrims in a New Land, Jews in American History, (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1948), p. 15,Google Scholar is considerably more sober and realistic.

30. Daiches, , The King James Version, p. 109Google Scholar; Tuchman, , Bible and Sword, p. 60Google Scholar; “Roger Bacon,” EJ 4:57.Google Scholar

31. See Hailperin, Herman, Rashi and the Christian Scholars (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1963), pp. 137–246.Google Scholar

32. See: Blumenkranz, B., “The Roman Church and the Jews” in The Dark Ages: Jews in Christian Europe 711–1096, ed. Roth, C. and Levine, I. H., (London: W. H. Allen, 1966), pp. 74, 86–88Google Scholar; Daiches, , King James Version, p. 115.Google Scholar

33. Ben-Sasson, Hayim Hillel, “The Reformation in Contemporary Jewish Eyes,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities 4 (1969–1970): 239–326.Google Scholar

34. For two excellent examples of this line of reasoning by an eighteenth century Puritan see Edwards, Jonathan: “Some Thoughts Concerning Revival” in The Great Awakening, Goen, C. C., ed., (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972). p. 355Google Scholar; and Original Sin, Clyde Holbrook, ed., (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970), pp. 182–183.Google Scholar

35. That great advocate of toleration, Penn, William, repeatedly cites the Jew as an example not to be imitated in Advice to His Children (1726).Google Scholar One of his pamphlets defending the Quakers against their critics is entitled Judas and the Jews Combined against Christ and His Followers (1673).

36. Toon, , Puritans, pp. 115–125, 137–153,Google Scholar and elsewhere.

37. Roth, Cecil, A History of the Marranos (New York, Meridian Books, 1959), pp. 252–71Google Scholar; Toon, , Puritans, pp. 117–121.Google Scholar

38. For Holland, see Roth, , History of Marranos, p. 244.Google Scholar For the United States see Gaustad, Edwin, Historical Atlas of Religion in America, (New York: Harper & Row, 1962) p. 144.Google Scholar For England see Wendeborn, F. A., A View of England Towards the Close of the Eighteenth Century, (London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson, 1791), 2:468Google Scholar; but cf. Jewish Encyclopedia 5:174.Google Scholar Cited in Modder, , The Jew in the Literature of England, p. 372.Google Scholar

39. See Marcus, , American Jewry—Eighteenth Century—Documents, p. 86.Google Scholar

40. See ibid., pp. 50–53, 137, 143, 187; and idem, Studies in American Jewish History, pp. 55, 76, 77, 79, and 81–84.

41. See Rosenthal, Judah M., “Two Early Jewish Polemicists on American Soil” Hebrew Union College Annual 34 (1963): 299.Google Scholar