Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology: Necessary or Subsidiary?

[This was written for my supervisor Dr. Vittorio Montemaggi for the module "Jewish and Christian Responses to the Holocaust"]

Is Christianity Necessarily Anti-Judaic?

Introduction

When considering whether Christianity is inherently anti-Judaic, it is important to define terms. When we talk of Christianity, do we meant the early “Jesus movement” or the “people of Q” that Burton Mack speaks of? Or do we mean the normative Christian tradition of the Church Fathers that took full expression after the Bar Kokhba revolt and after the near effacement of Jewish Christians? It is clear we cannot speak of a unified early church as Paul’s writings are difficult to comprehend without envisaging an early conflict between himself and the ‘super-apostles’ of Jerusalem whose gospel should be rejected in favour of his Gospel (Gal 2). Acts 15 expresses this in more sober and temperamental terms, but nonetheless imagines a conflict between the nomian stance of James and the antinomian Pauline view with Peter perhaps in the middle. Certain scholars on early Christianity have argued a particular Jewish Christianity found within the Letter of James, the Q document, the Gospel of Thomas and the Didache represents an alternative gospel message which was in fact the dominant Jesus movement and Robert Eisenman even argues the Clementine Homilies and Recognitions is an authentic Petrine and Jamesian source wholly directed against the heretic school of Paul. It would therefore be incorrect to assume Christianity is fundamentally a religion that began in the first century BC; rather, the religious experiences and writings of the Church Fathers culminating in official edicts and creedal statements in the fourth century represent the authentic Messianic Christian movement that we may consider normative. Later disagreements between Monophysites, Nestorians and Western Christianity may be understood in light of this developed Christian tradition.

Having defined Christianity as that understood to be an evolved tradition, it is immediately recognisable how such a dynamic tradition can in fact be deconstructed to reclaim certain themes or disclaim others, in light of historical events or religious experiences which may function to direct the Church. With this in mind, I will consider the views of a radical feminist Holocaust Theologian, Rosemary Radford Ruether, who sees traditional Christianity as inherently anti-Judaic, and how such a view in fact does injustice to both the nature of doctrines and the historical and political factors that shaped the attitudes of the Church. The defining characteristic of Christianity is the messiahship of Jesus, and most historians agree Jesus claimed the title of Messiah, the awaited eschatological figure of Jewish lore. According to Ruether, Christology, or claiming Jesus as the Messiah, is inherently anti-Judaic. Ruether’s thesis however is grounded in a linear reading of the Church’s evolution and she thus ignores several key stages in the development of the adversus Judaeos tradition of the Church Fathers and finds Christianity inherently virulent to the Jewish other.

The Developing Tradition

Undeniably the canonical Gospels are hostile to Jews. Matthew attacks the Pharisees (Mt. 23) and clearly attributes the blame for the death of Jesus to the Jews (Mt. 27:25); the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews strongly condemns the cult (Hebrews 10) and explicitly endorses the better character of the Christian covenant. Ruether and some other scholars argue that the earliest examples of the adversus Judaeos literature were in the form of testimonia or ‘collections of citations from the Hebrew scriptures with some commentary appended, in which the confluence of ancient promise and Christian fulfilment and concomitant rejection of non-Christian Jews was made plain’ (Kessler, A Dictionary of Jewish-Christian Relations), but evidence for this is lacking. The first extant texts that have an adversus Judaeos character are Barnabas’s writings and more clearly Justin Martyr’s Dialogue with Trypho (c. 160). The anti-Judaic theme is seen to persist in the writings of John Chrysostom, Augustine of Hippo and Saint Jerome, and through the ages in the edicts of emperors, bishops sermons, later writings of Martin Luther and the ambivalent attitude of late theologians like Karl Barth and Karl Adam. The common themes in such literature include the invalidity and particularity of the law (especially after the destruction of the temple); the replacement of the Jewish covenant as the chosen people by the Christians, the ‘New Israel’; and expropriation of Old Testament material to vindicate Jesus’ Messiahship and his nature within a Trinitarian system. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Hermann Strack (d. 1922) and Paul Billerbeck (d. 1932) from Germany, R Travers Herford (d. 1950) from England and GF Moore (d. 1931) from America, were Christian scholars who pioneered in the revision of traditional negative Christian attitudes toward the Pharisaic-Rabbinic tradition out of which Christianity emerged (Allan Cutler, 1967).

Jules Isaac pioneered the study of the connection between Christian thought and racial anti-Semitism. He wrote “without centuries of Christian catechism, propaganda and vituperations, the Hitlerian teachings, propaganda and vituperations would not have been possible”. Following him were James Parkes, Gregory Baum (whose later thought was heavily influenced by Ruether), Alan Davies, A Roy Eckardt and Franklin Littell, may of whom are so-called ‘Holocaust Theologians’, those who saw a ‘transcendental uniqueness’ (Ekhardt) in the Holocaust which expressed itself in a revelatory capacity to demonstrate the Church’s ‘wholesale apostasy’ (Littell) and acute responsibility to rectify its stance on the Jews. Isaac was an important influence in the creation of the Nostra Aetate, the Church’s declaration on its relationship with non-Christian religions in the Second Vatican Council, which dealt with the redefinition of the Jewish people in light of a critical reclamation of earlier untainted doctrines, of the election of Israel and its validity as a religion; as James Parkes, the accommodating Anglican theologian wrote, Judaism is “not an alternative scheme of salvation to Christianity, but a different kind of religion”.

The Question of Origins

Christology: The Ruether Thesis

In her 1974 work, Faith and Fratricide, Ruether argues “anti-Judaism is the left hand of Christology”. She asks “Is it possible to say ‘Jesus is Messiah’ without, implicitly or explicitly, at the same time saying ‘and Jews be damned’?” For her, anti-Judaism runs deeper than merely absolving Jews of the charge of deicide as in the Nostra Aetate, as, she argues, most Americans still blamed Jews: with the assertion that the cross redeems and forgives (the right hand) follows the rejection and condemnation of the Christ-killers (the left hand), hence the rejection of the Jews is inherent to the earliest forms of Christianity. There are several problems with this thesis on the origin of Christian anti-Semitism, not least of which is Ruether’s assumption that Christology grew out of a need to understand the crucifixion hence the enemies that are its perpetrators are naturally condemned. Christologies were borne out of other trajectories besides the cross like the wisdom-Christology of the early Q document and its parallel Gospel of Thomas (which may better represent Jesus’ view of himself); furthermore, some Christian theologians like Helmut Koester ‘dehistoricise’ Jesus’ death, hence the killers are themselves insignificant to the cosmic plan that unfolded. Moreover, historians of Jesus like EP Sanders, argue it was the Romans intent on killing Jesus for his threatening claim to be the ‘king of the Jews’, and indeed Jesus’ trial at the Sanhedrin does appear to be extremely out of place and may have been created as part of a later anti-Judaic polemic; hence the charge of deicide may in fact be an expressive effect of anti-Judaism and not its cause.

Ruether rightly points out “the foundations of anti-Judaic thought were laid in the New Testament”. There is a “hardening of attitudes” towards the “sons of the kingdom” (Jews) in Matthew and John’s anti-Judaism is incontestable. She argues anti-Judaism is a synoptic development (common to Matthew, Mark and Luke) which appeared within the first two decades after Jesus’ death and is critical to the Christology Paul was expounding at this time. As evidence she uses the description of the parable of the vineyard in Mark’s Gospel, the earliest of the synoptics, as paradigmatic of Jewish rejectionism and allusion to the Israelites. The allusion to the Israelites is indisputable as the elaborate description of the hedge, pit and tower in the vineyard has clear resemblances with Isaiah 5 and rejectionist rhetoric is clear from the allusion to Psalm 118. However both the elaborate description and the Psalms allusion is absent from the Gospel of Thomas which according to Stevan Davies represents a more primitive form than Mark’s Gospel, hence while maintaining a Christology, anti-Judaism may not be unavoidable. As Thomas Idinopulos writes in his critique of Ruether “We must reckon with a plurality of Christian communities and a plurality of tendencies, not all of which were anti-Judaic”.

Although Paul does develop his Christology from the cross, he does not represent an unrelenting anti-Jewish attitude as Ruether suggests. Ruether makes use of the pseudo-Pauline passage 1 Thessolonians 2:13-16 which condemns Jews as Christ-killers, prophet-killers, gentile-haters, sinners and earners of God’s wrath. Birger Pearson (1971) argues this passage is a later addition as it interrupts the flow of the text and Daly D. Schmidt (1983) argues it is an interpolation on linguistic grounds, further evidence of anti-Judaism being incorporated into later copies as opposed to being original Church doctrine. Although Paul does highlight the crucifixion as crucial to his Christology in 1 Corinthians 2, he only mentions the enemies once as ‘the rulers of this age’ (1 Cor 2:8) referring to the Romans, not the Jews.

The key passage from Romans 9-11 is similarly inconclusive. In this passage, Paul does shift attention to the Gentiles but maintains that the Torah is to be kept with the Jews: God has not abandoned the ancient covenant (Rom 9:1) and “all Israel will be saved” (11:26). Paul does consider the Jews unenlightened (Rom 10:2,3) but this does not mean the Jews are rejected, and he in fact explicitly denies this (Rom 11:1) and confirms God’s gifts and grace are irrevocable (11:29), unlike in Matthew where the rejection of the ‘sons of the Kingdom’ is complete. Ruether says for Paul Jews never knew faith or grace but it is the Gentiles of whom Paul says they “never knew God” and he boasts of his Jewishness (Phil 3:5;Rom 11:1), thinks a new righteousness has come (Romans 10:3), does not deny the law (Rom 7:12) nor the election of Jews (Rom 11:28) – like the Qumran he represented a radical Jewish sect but unlike the Qumran who hoped for the destruction of the mainstream, Paul hoped for the salvation of Israel (11:26).

The Jewish Revolt: The Partition of Church and Synagogue

Ruether ignores the critical Jewish-Roman war from 66-73 AD which according to some early writers like Origen and Eusebius was a result of the civil discord created when James the brother of Jesus was murdered by Ananus the high priest. After the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, the Church and Synagogue were definitively divided, and the period between this and the second revolt which ended in 135 AD saw the marginalisation of Jewish Christianity, strongly indicating the Church’s reactionary effort to distance itself from Judaism and present Jesus and Christianity as pacifist, anti-Judaic and pro-Roman (James Dunn, The Parting of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism, 1991). Luke-Acts is clearly antagonistic to Jews and Ruether attempts to use Stephen’s monologues as evidence of Paul’s anti-Judaism, but scholars are agreed all the speeches in Acts are post-70 interpolations and renditions. The second century Gospel of Peter takes this to its logical conclusion, denying Pontius Pilate’s involvement and placing blame for the crucifixion solely on the Jews.

Greco-Roman pagan anti-Semitism antedates Christian anti-Semitism which added a theological flavouring, but was not completely separate as suggested by Ruether. Greco-Roman anti-Judaism was borne out of Jewish separatism which gave the image of arrogance and also Jewish success in converting gentiles and pagan failure, especially after the Maccabean war. Pagan writers condemned Jews for misanthropy and aloofness, superstition in not eating pork, laziness in following the sabbath, atheism, ritual of animal sacrifice and circumcision, ritual murder, disobeying rational laws of the universe, many of which are reminiscent of Christian polemics against Jews. There was some Roman antipathy to Christians for separatism and proselytising as well.

Ruether suggests Hellenising influences on Judaism (e.g. in Philo) and the philosophical attraction of Jewish monotheism fostered an understanding between Jews and Romans. In contrast, she argues, Christians tended to antagonise and ghettoise Jews in a manner distinguishing Christian anti-Semitism from Roman anti-Semitism. However, in comparing the most favourable relationship between Romans and Jews and the most unfavourable relationship between Jews and Christians, she ignores the possibility that the antagonism may have arose from the separatism-isolation-ostracism-oppression dynamic as created by the historical precedent and the political climate. Christians continued this antagonism by competing in converts with Jews and in the second century (following the second Jewish revolt), because of their closeness, attempted to define itself against the Jewish ‘other’ and then from the second to the fourth century attempted to supersede Judaism and the important element here was deicide. The charge of deicide was first enunciated by Justin Martyr and repeated by Origen and Hippoclytus; it was then fiercely used as a stick with which to beat Jews by John Chrysestom who called it an ‘odious assassination’ for which the Jews had ‘no expiation possible, no indulgence, no pardon’. This charge of divine punishment of the Jew was the theological turning point in Jewish-Christian antagonism. The church no longer saw the need to only refute the Synagogue but actively repelled them and gave the Romans a theological justification for their persecution. From Church-Synagogue rivalry an anti-Judaic theology seems an expected outcome (which then devolved into a widespread anti-Semitism in the fourth century) but it is “not some fateful, inner logic of Christology itself” (Idinopulos).

Problems with Holocaust Theology

Holocaust Theology suffers from many flaws, which draws from its excesses in affirming Christian culpability for anti-Semitic crimes. Holocaust Theologian Paul van Buren in Discerning the Way follows Irving Greenberg and Norman Perrin in considering revelation as being reinterpretations of tradition under the pressure of reorienting events in Jewish history; hence the Holocaust and the birth of the State of Israel are revelatory indicated by the ‘radical reversal’ in the Vatican (1965), Pastoral Council to the Catholic Church in Netherlands (1970), French Bishops’ Committee (1973), Faith and Order Commission of the World Council od Churches (1967), the US National Council of Bishops (1975) and the Synod of the Reformed Church in Netherlands (1970). The theologising of Jews as a ‘mirror’ for Christian reflection is not new to Holocaust Theology but whereas pre-Holocaust theology made use of the ‘Jewish mirror’ as a sign of God’s judgement on Israel for its rejection of the truth, post-Holocaust used it as a sign of God’s judgement on the church for the truth in Israel. This new form of theology undoubtedly renders invaluable service in exposing the ‘moral bankruptcy’ of the absolute denial of Christian culpability by Evangelical writers like Stephen Davis. However, its purposes can be self-defeating in its absolutist uncritical interpretations of history and politics. It, for instance, displays uniform support for Israel, which for Eckardt represents a redemptive ‘resurrection’ of the Israelite people after the Nazi destruction, a non-eschatological ‘restorationist’ view. This has meant minimising Palestinian suffering even while writing in full knowledge of how ideas justify suffering. The Palestinians, ethnically cleansed in 1948 and massacred in multitudes as in the Sabra and Shatila incident of 1982, are ‘invisible’ (Stephen Haynes) to Holocaust Theologians. When Ruether, a prominent Holocaust Theologian, unconventionally criticised Israel’s policies in The Wrath of Jonah, she was attacked by Franklin Littell and others as being a cultural anti-Semite, unhistorical, irresponsible and faddish. Littell perhaps best represents this trend of ‘compensatory philosemitism’ (Dieter Kraft) as he attempted to maintain Reinhold Niebuhr’s legacy in a post-1967 world when many liberal Christians lost trust in Israel after the Six Day War exposed the deception of a defenceless victimised Israel in need of external support.

More dangerous to their cause, Holocaust Theologians are characterised by a rhetoric of continuity between Christian anti-Judaism and the Nazi Holocaust in ways that are unnuanced and historically problematic. Littell wrote “the cornerstone of Christian anti-Semitism is the superseding or displacement myth...[which] already rings with a genocidal note”; Eckardt remarked “the holocaust shows the final message of Christian anti-Semitism”; and James Parkes wrote “there is no break in the line which leads from the denigration of Judaism in the formative period of Christian history, from the exclusion of Jews from civic equality in the period of the church’s first triumph in the fourth century, through the horrors of the Middle Ages, to the Death Camps of Hitler in our own day”. Although to a lesser degree to other Holocaust Theologians, Ruether also displays a rhetoric of continuity. In his critique of Ruether the Jewish historian Yosef Yerushalmi writes “From Rosemary Ruether we gather that genocide against the Jews was an inexorable consequence of Christian theological thinking. I do not think that is quite the case”. Although Jews were condemned in Christendom, there was an element of ‘preservation’ in Christian theology that was never quite genocidal; furthermore, a rhetoric of continuity ignores the effects of modernity and the lost war in generating Nazism’s fascist and racist ideologies. Hence, although Christian anti-Judaism was necessary, it is not a sufficient explanation for the Nazi genocide (Roth and Rubenstein).

In ways that lack empathy with real theological beliefs of the common populace, Holocaust Theologians propose untenable reinterpretations of what it means to be Christian, in order to compensate for pre-Holocaust anti-Judaism. Ruether, for example, proposes that Christians like the Jews should accept a proleptic ‘unfulfilled messianism’ as expressed in the Second Coming, as opposed to present salvation which would relativise Christianity and divest it of its imperialistic tendencies. However, if anti-Judaism is rooted more in political and historical conditions and only secondarily in theology which is more ‘expression’ than ‘cause’, then we have reason to reject Ruether’s constructive theology. Ruether’s limited form of Christology dismisses the irreducible central historical claim of Christianity of Creation, Redemption and Coming Kingdom into one unintelligible and unrecognisable to any Christian denomination; it is ‘a case of stopping the disease by shooting the patient’ (Idinopulos). Ruether overestimates the doctrinal effect on anti-Semitic belief and underestimates the experiential realities of core doctrines which cannot simply be undone (as expressed in the writings of Friedrich Schleiermacher). Other attempts in, for example, creating two functional covenants are equally elusive.

Conclusion

As Idinopulos writes ‘both the New Testament canon and the history of the early church show that the conjoining of the confession of Jesus Christ and the condemnation of Jews came about as the initially competitive, eventually combatitive relationship between church and synagogue. The source of Christian anti-Judaism is not Christian thinking per se but the political purpose to which it is put’. Theology cannot undo history. What is required is getting rid of prejudicial characterisations of Judaism as ‘Pharisaism’ or ‘legalism’ and ‘old’; and acknowledging Judaism as an independent tradition. In other words, what is needed is not better theology but better deeds as expressed in institutional edicts, liturgies and catechisms.

Bibliography

Rosemary Radford Ruether, Faith and Fratricide, 1974
Rosemary Radford Ruether, To Change the World, 1981
Arthur Zannoni, Jews and Christians Speak of Jesus, 1994
EP Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, 1993
Charlotte Klein, Anti-Judaism in Christian Theology, 1978
Stephen Haynes, Christian Holocaust Theology: A Critical Reassessment, 1994
Thomas Idinopulos, Is Christology Inherently Anti-Semitic? 1977
Burton Mack, The Lost Gospel, 1994