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The Faith of Christians and Hostility to Jews

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Gavin I. Langmuir*
Affiliation:
Stanford University, California

Extract

There is a fundamental question that any historical analysis of the relations between Christianity and Judaism must face. What is the relation between the hostility that Christians have directed at Jews and their faith as Christians? It is a hard question to answer for both conceptual and evidential reasons. The conceptual problem is that historians may be misled by some of the theological categories which are so deeply embedded in the languages of Western culture. Let me give an example close to home. At the first conference of the Society, C. N. L. Brooke spoke of the Christian religion and of the Church with a capital ‘C’. Similarly, several titles of the volumes of Studies in Church History and many of the contributions in them have used ‘the Church’ as if there was such a thing as the universal Christian Church. Indeed, the style sheet for Studies in Church History states that a capital is required for ‘the Church’ where the universal Church is implied and gives as an example the sentence, ‘The Church preaches tolerance’—an assertion that may seem passing strange in the context of this year’s conference.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1992

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References

1 Brooke, C. N. L., ‘Problems of the Church HistorianSCH, 1 (1964), pp.119.Google Scholar

2 Patrick Collinson, ‘Introduction’, SCH, 23 (1986), p. xv.

3 For a brief and lucid description of some of the complexities involved in believing, see Jonathan, Glover: The Philosophy and Psychology of Personal Identity (London, 1988), pp. 13963.Google Scholar For a longer discussion see my History, Religion, and Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 143–76.

4 I Cor. 5. 1.

5 II Cor. 11.4.

6 Gal. 2; Acts 15.

7 See Gager, John G., The Origins of Anti-Semitism (New York, 1985).Google Scholar

8 Rom. 3-11; I Cor. 9. 19.

9 The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John, tr. Raymond E. Brown (Garden Ciry, NY, 1966), p. lix.

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11 James, Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue (London, 1934; New York, 1969), pp.95107 Google Scholar; Simon, Verus brail, pp. 93-117, 166-213; Rosemary Reuther, Faith and Fratri cide (New York, 1979), pp. 117-81.

12 Bernhard, Blumenkranz, Les Auteurs chrétiens latins du moyen âge (Paris, 1963), pp.43, 67.Google Scholar

13 see Bernhard, Blumenkranz, Juifs et chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430-1096 (Paris, 1960).Google Scholar

14 I have tried to do so in Toward a Definition of Antisemitism (Berkeley, 1990), pp. 100–33.

15 For a more extensive discussion of Peter, see my Toward a Definition of Anlisemitism, pp. 197-208.

16 Heinz Schreckenberg, Diechristlichen Adversus-Judaeos-Texte (11-13Jh) (Frankfurt am Main, 1988).

17 Peter the Venerable, Aàversusjudeorum inveteratimi duritiem, ed. Yvonne Friedman, CChr.CM, 58(1985), pp. 122-4.

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21 Ibid., pp. 465-6.

22 Étienne, Gilson, Héloise and Abelard (London, 1931), p.68.Google Scholar

23 Letters of St. Bernard, pp. 316-18.

24 Peter, Abelard, Commentarium super S. Pauli epistolam ad Romanos, PL 178, col. 836.Google Scholar

25 A Dialogue of a Philosopher with a Jew anda Christian, rr. Peter J. Payer (Toronto, 1979).

26 Letters of St. Bernard, p. 316.

27 Peter Abelard’s Ethics, ed. D. E. Luscombe (Oxford, 1971), p. xxxii.

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30 See my Toward a Definition of Antisemitism, chs 8-12.

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32 James, Parkes, ‘Jews and Christians in the Constanrinian Empire’, SCH, 1 (1964), pp.6979.Google Scholar

33 James, Parkes, Voyage of Discoveries (London, 1969), p.120.Google Scholar

34 Sec also his The Jew in the Medieval Community (London, 1938). It concludes (p. 387) with the judgment that ‘It was Christendom which decided that the price of that loyalty [of Jews to Judaism] should be psychological and social degradation.’

35 E.g. Liebeschütz, Hans, Synagoga und Ecclesia (Heidelberg, 1983),Google Scholar completed in 1938 but only published forry-five years later; Jacques Maritain, Les Juifs parmi les nations (Paris, 1938); Maurice Samuel, The Great Hatred (London, 1943); Jules Isaac, Jésus et Israël (Paris, 1948) and Genèse de l’antisémitisme (Paris, 1956); Marcel Simon, Verus Israël, 1st edn (Paris, 1948), 2nd edn (Paris, 1964); Léon Poliakov, Histoire de l’antisémitisme (Paris, 1955–77); Bernhard Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chrétiens dans le monde occidental, 430-1006 (Paris, 1960); Flannery, Edward H., The Anguish of the Jews, 1st edn (New York, 1965)Google Scholar, 2nd edn (New York, 1985); Reuther, Faith and Fratricide; Gilbert, Dahan, Les Intellectuels chrétiens et les juifs au moyen âge (Paris, 1990).Google Scholar

36 Parkes, Voyage of Discoveries.