Author Description

Argues that Christianity is not anti-Jewish in itself; rather, it is the Church that has from the onset developed, and later elaborated on, an anti-Jewish pseudo-theology which goes against the original Christian message of love of all mankind. Paul was the first to deny Jesus' Jewish identity and, as the Church gained in power from the 4th century on, the Jewish Jesus was replaced by a Christian Christ, since his Jewishness constituted a source of anxiety for the Church. This anxiety exploded in anti-Judaism and antisemitism. The history of the Church's persecution of the Jews is part of the history of the struggle between a distorted image of Jesus and the image of Jesus as the incarnation of love. This struggle was fueled by the fear that Judaism's strength and attraction would entice Christians to convert. Traces this struggle from antiquity to the present, focusing on the following persons, periods, and aspects: Augustine and his anti-Jewish theology, Byzantine anti-Judaism, the situation of the Jews in medieval Spain and France, the popes and the Jews, medieval French theologian Peter Abelard's "Dialogus inter Philosophum Judaeum et Christianium", the passion plays, blood libel accusations, and anti-Judaism in the struggle between the Reformation and Counter-Reformation in the early modern period.