The Source of Christian Anti-Semitism

by

Louis W. Cable

The antichrist is alive today, and he is a Jew - Rev. Jerry Falwell

Anti-Semitism, the systematic persecution of the Jews, stands out as perhaps the darkest page in the history of western civilization. By this senseless barbarism the very essence of the traditional Christian message of peace, love and forgiveness is nullified. For almost two thousand years Jews have been subjected to the most ruthless, the most relentless acts of terrorism in history. Through the centuries the primary gifts that Christians have given the Jews have been pain, death, ghettoization and religious persecution on a scale that defies imagination. These horrible acts of murder, mayhem and banishment were not only ignored by church and government, they were, in fact, encouraged. Jews serve as a constant reminder to Christians that the claim that they, and they alone, control the pathway to salvation is not universally acknowledged. So, let us see just when and how it all begin?

Jesus of Nazareth, if he did in fact exist, was himself a Jew. Christianity, the religion he allegedly founded, had its beginnings as a Jewish sect. Around the year 90¹ the followers of Jesus were expelled from the synagogue and became known thereafter as “Christians” (Acts 11:26). The early church fathers such as Polycarp, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Jerome, Tertullian and Chrysostom expressed deep and virulent anti-Jewish views characterizing the Jews as “evil people unfit even to live²". Marcion, a second century church leader, sought to sever Christianity from its Jewish roots by altogether eliminating the Old Testament and to deny Jewish ancestry. Although the church ultimately rejected Marcion declaring him to be a heretic, his virulent anti-Semitism was destined to continue to exert its ugly prejudice in official church doctrine. These leaders were to wield great influence as the church struggled to survive in a period of persecution and to prepare it to become the dominant religion in the Roman Empire in 324 under Constantine the Great and eventually throughout the western world.

The Crusades, a series of devastating holy wars by Western European Christians to recapture the Holy Land from the Muslims, were first undertaken in 1096 and ended in the late 13th century³. It should be noted, however, that most of these fervent Christian soldiers who set off on these "romantic" crusades, never actually made it to the Holy Land. They only made it to one or two villages or towns away from their homes where they took it out on the only "infidels" they could find, the Jews. After all, didn’t they deserve it, asked the Christians? Hadn’t they killed Jesus, our dear Lord and savior? As a result, Jews were killed in village after village as their homes were systematically ransacked and looted.

The evil practice of Christian anti-Semitism culminated in the 1930s and early 1940s with what has come to be known as the Final Solution, AKA, the "Holocaust" resulting in the senseless murder of over six million Jewish men women and children. As a justification for his savage persecution of the Jews, Adolf Hitler says on page 65 of his magnum opus, Mein Kampf, “Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord”.

Part of what led to Hitler was none other than the great 16th century Christian theologian Martin Luther, venerated today as the father of the Reformation and founder of Protestantism. Luther, a rabid anti-Semite, railed against the Jews both publicly and privately at every opportunity, and his followers acted on the permission their leader had given them to engage in their own deeds of violence against the defenseless Jews.

Over the years, Germany has stood out as a devout Christian nation. It has produced many of the world's most eminent Bible scholars and Christian church leaders. It might be asked, how could the German people have tolerated Hitler and the NAZI party whose announced aim it was to rid the world of Jews? How could they have sanctioned the Holocaust which will stand forever as one of the darkest pages in human history? Perhaps the answers to these disturbing questions are to be found in the New Testament itself. So, in an attempt to better understand the true source of such chilling hatred, let us examine some selected New Testament passages and compare them with words said and deeds committed by Christians against Jews.

Matthew 3;7 ~ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come"?

Matthew 8:12 ~ But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.

Matthew 12:30 ~ He who is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.

Matthew 23:37-38 ~ O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Matthew 27:24-25 ~ "So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, 'I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves.'" And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!" To seriously believe that such a self imposed curse on their own children could actually be uttered by Jews, or any one else, is a violation of respect for the human intellect. Be that as it may, the fact is that no other Bible passage has provided the justification for so much violence and bloodshed against the Jews as has this one. Coupled with the anti-Jewish ranting of  Martin Luther, this passage played a huge role in the implementation of the Nazi Holocaust

Mark 13:9 ~ But take heed to yourselves: for they shall deliver you up to councils; and in the synagogues ye shall be beaten.

Mark 16:16 ~ He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.

John 1:11 ~ He came to his own and his own people received him not.

John 8:44-47 ~ Ye (Jews) are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it. And because I tell you the truth, ye believe me not. Which of you convinceth me of sin? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me? He that is of God heareth God's words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.

Acts 7:51-53 ~ Ye stiff necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? They have slain them which showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.

Acts 13:45-46 ~ But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spake against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming. Then Paul and Barnabas waxed bold, and said, "It was necessary that the word of God should first have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles".

Romans 11:8-10 ~ Paul says of the Jews, “According as it is written (Isaiah 29:10), God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumbling block, and a recompense unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and keep their backs bent forever”.

Titus 1:10-14 ~ For there are many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers, specially they of the circumcision: Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not.

1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 ~ For ye, brethren, became followers of the churches of God which in Judea are in Christ Jesus: for ye also have suffered like things of your own countrymen, even as they have of the Jews: Who both killed the Lord Jesus, and their own prophets, and have persecuted us; and they please not God, and are contrary to all men: Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.

1 John 2:22-23 ~ Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is Antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son. Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: (but) he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.

These are but a few of the many anti-Semitic statements to be found in the New Testament. What follows are some quotes of noted Christian saints and leaders. Notice how their anti-Semitic expressions are all based on New Testament verses listed above.

Origen: "The Jewish rejection of Jesus has resulted in their present calamity and exile. We Christians say with confidence that the Jews will never be restored to their former condition for they have committed a crime of the most unhallowed kind in conspiring against the savior."

St. Gregory: "Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophet, enemies of God, haters of God, advisories of grace, enemies of their father's faith, advocates of the devil, a brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, a congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, stoners and haters of everything that is good."

St. Jerome: "They (the Jews) are serpents, haters of all men. Their image is Judas. Their psalms and prayers are but the braying of donkeys.

St. John Chrysostom: "A synagogue is not only a whorehouse, it is also a den of thieve and a haunt of unclean wild animals. When animals are unfit for work (as the Jews clearly are) they are marked for slaughter. By making themselves unfit, they have become ready for slaughter.

St. Augustine: "Judaism is a corruption. Indeed, Judas is the image of the Jewish people. Their understanding of the scriptures is carnal, but above all, they bear the guilt for the death of the savior. They killed the Christ."

St. Thomas Aquinas: "It would be lawful to hold Jews because of their crimes in perpetual servitude. Therefore, the princes may regard Jews as belonging to the state."

Martin Luther: "Know oh adored Christ that aside from the devil you have no enemy more venomous, more desperate, more bitter than the Jews. They are the children of the devil, as our Lord Jesus Christ said. What then shall we Christians do with this damned and rejected race? First, their synagogues must be set on fire. What ever does not burn must be covered with dirt. Second, their homes shall be destroyed. Third, they shall be deprived of their prayer books and Talmud in which such idolatry and blasphemy are taught. Fourth, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach. In truth, the Jews, being foreigners, should posses nothing. What they do possess in our land should be ours. In short, the Jews must be driven out of Germany."

The tale of Judas Iscariot, the alleged betrayer of Jesus, provides another good example of deliberate and irresponsible Christian Jew bating. Although obvious fiction, this story has lead to some tragic consequences. Judas (Greek for Judah, the ancestral homeland of the Jews) is deliberately portrayed as a caricature intended to confirm the very worst misconceptions about the Jewish people. For that reason Jews have served as convenient scapegoats blamed, wrongly of course, for plagues, pestilence, poverty, famines, as well as the source of other supposed manifestations of divine revenge. As a result, for almost two thousand years the Jews have been unjustly vilified and persecuted because their forefathers were accused of slaying Jesus, a mythical god-man whose very existence remains unproved.

Over the centuries, these quotes have served as inspiration for unruly Christian mobs and unscrupulous leaders to oppress, disposes, exploit and dehumanize the Jewish people. The infamous Christian Crusades, in which many Jews were massacred, found their justification in Matthew 10:34 where Jesus said, "Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword." The Inquisition found its justification in the words of John 15:6 where Jesus said, "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned." The arbitrary and unethical cancellation of legitimate debts owed to Jewish money lenders found justification in the Parable of the Dishonest Manager, Luke 16.

The first blood liable was made by Jesus himself where in Matthew 23:35 he specifically states, "That upon you (the Jews) may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar." First, there were no Jews around when Cain killed Able. Second, here the Jews are unjustly and inaccurately blamed for all of the blood ever shed on the earth. Third, Zacharias son of Barachias was not slain. This passage is revealed as an anti-Semitic forgery.

The quotes above are almost all from ancient sources, but are present day Christian attitudes toward the Jews any better? Some say they are due to the ongoing call for religious tolerance and universal human rights. But what progress has been made is being insidiously and conscientiously undermined by orthodox Christians. By their compulsion to convert the Jews, they prove themselves to be the most anti-Semitic of them all. This is because the whole idea of conversion is basically anti-Semitic. It is, in fact, anti every body who happens not to agree with the narrow, fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible.
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1 All dates are Common Era unless otherwise noted.
2 Spong, John Shelby, Unmasking the Sources of Christian Anti-Semitism, part 2.
3 Microsoft Encarta Reference Library, 2004, The Crusades