The Seeds of Anti-Semitism: Theological and Historical Roots

All three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam teach that there is only one God. Simultaneously, as we know, their adherents have killed fellow believers who professed something different than their particular interpretations. Jewish history stands as the least violent in this tradition. If we wish to obtain a deeper understanding of the antisemitism that has sadly flourished in the West, it is helpful to study its roots in the theological and consequent historical rifts between Christians and Jews.

That the Jews, for most of the past two thousand years, were confined to second class citizenship in Christian Europe is well documented. Jews, as we know, were limited to living in ghettos, needing permission to buy houses, to marry, among many other humiliating practices. All such practices came to tragic expression when Hitler took power in Germany. The Nazi goal went much further than past practices, however, its goal was to create a new consciousness—a new society—free from the pervasive presence of the Hebrew Scriptures and all the contributions of Jewish culture in art, politics, music, science etc.1 Germany, it was believed, would reverse the integration that Jews had achieved2 and would change history the way the Jews and their Scriptures had changed history. Nazi Germany would erase the Jews to inaugurate a new humanity, unsoiled by any submission to Jewish contributions and/or values. The Jewish body represented all of what such beliefs wished to repudiate. German narcissistic needs would triumph over the chosen people.3

I am not extensively exploring the theological roots of anti- Semitism.4

I would like to offer a grounding of anti-Semitism in terms of the convictions held within some early Christian communities. I am limiting my reflections primarily to what some contemporary scriptural scholars can tell us about such early Christian beliefs and consequent anti-Semitic sentiments.

What we have learned from scriptural studies is that there were many different vying theologies and practices within the early Christian communities. Many different beliefs about who Jesus was as well as his teachings were evident from the very beginning (complicated, at times, by Gnostic and Manichean doctrines)5. What is not commonly known is that initially the primary Christian community was centered in Jerusalem, with James, Jesus's brother, as its head. James, and the followers in Jerusalem, understood Jesus within a Jewish context. They awaited God's imminent judgment—as Jesus had preached. Concurrently Paul, a Pharisee, along with others, spread the message about Jesus, in both Jewish and Gentile communities in the Mediterranean basin. The Jerusalem community, under James's leadership, was recognized, as I mentioned, as the head of any such movement. What we know is that James was willing to allow for non-Jews, who wished to follow Jesus, to dispense with circumcision and dietary laws, without compromising Jewish moral teachings.6 As I have mentioned, it was Paul, a Pharisee, outside of the James' Jewish Christian community, who was one of the primary theological interpreters of Jesus as Christianity would come to understand him—that is, the transcendent Christ. Paul's teachings

contributed to the enigmatic doctrine of the Trinity.7

A crucial turning point in the history of Christianity, and consequently Jewish/Christian relations, occurred when the Romans plundered and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE, killing over 60,000 inhabitants and destroying the newly completed Temple. Christianity was severed from its Jewish roots; it was to flourish from then on only within a Roman context. Christian scriptural writings would reflect that change, i.e., it was the Jews who killed Jesus, not the Romans—an obvious error that served the narcissistic needs of the early Christian communities. Such a tactical missionary approach was secondary, however, to the mindset of most of the earliest converts who became followers of Jesus. For example, the destruction of Jerusalem was not understood as a politically motivated retaliation by Rome for the ongoing and persistent Jewish rebellions. Rather, it was theologically interpreted as an unequivocal sign that God himself was punishing the Jews for rejecting their Messiah, echoing many similar interpretations in the Hebrew Scriptures. (All this within the common belief that God's final judgment on the world was imminent—that is, Jesus would return shortly. Such a conviction was both Jesus's teaching and Paul's belief.)

The four Gospels, among many others, e.g., the Gospel according to Thomas, were written over a period of years by unknown authors. They were meant to convey the “good news” of salvation. They were not and are not primarily historical documents. The various writers, most of whom we do not know, did not understand history as we understand that term today. The stories and events that are related in the various scriptures are intended to convey a moral teaching and/or a particular interpretation of Jesus. Mark's Gospel was written the closest chronologically to the life of Jesus (c 60 CE), while the author of John's Gospel is the farthest away (c 90–95 CE). It is in John's Gospel where Paul's interpretation of a transcendent Jesus holds sway and where, as well, there are repetitive statements about the Jews' rejection of Jesus. Within such a framework, the history of anti-Semitism can be read as a narcissistic competition—a fratricidal history,8 a splitting and a projection of the bad self onto the unbelieving and Christ-rejecting Jews.

As mentioned, there were many different interpretations as to what Jesus' message meant and who he was. There were other Gospels, such as the Gospels of Peter or Thomas, the various Gnostic Gospels as well as many other writings that were suppressed by the early Church. Bert Ehrman's controversial How Jesus Became God, along with the works of such scholars as Crossan, Mack or Aslan, give us a better picture of Jesus the man. Following the works of such scholars, it is important to note that Jesus, except as found in the Gospel of John, never makes a claim to divinity. The statement “I and the Father are one” is understood as his willingness to do whatever his father wished. In the judgment of many scholars such a claim of divinity, when he walked the earth, would have been impossible for him—he was a good Jew.

Jesus was against the corrupt money preoccupations of the high priests, the consequent commercialization of the Temple, the proliferation of rules and regulations that made God and the experience of worship a distant object rather than a present reality. He called for repentance and caring, even for a stranger, i.e., the parable of the good Samaritan. Ultimately, he spoke to a spiritual renewal—focusing on the need for the personal over the formal, the individual over tradition. He was a healing itinerant preacher announcing the imminent presence of God's kingdom on earth.

All the four Gospels were written in Greek. The Gospel of John particularly reflects Greek thought, in its appreciation of the transcendent Christ. Its content, however, reflects the failure to appreciate that the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth were distinct from the belief in the transcendent Christ. Tragically, as I have mentioned, this Gospel mirrors the growing distance between Jew and Christian. It is as if many of the early Christians emotionally and intellectually missed the obvious—Jesus, as the Christ, is a belief of faith. Consequently, it assumes a personal response—an act of faith—it is not a consequence of listening to Jesus' teachings, or the message that he was seen and experienced as alive after he was crucified. Such a belief is obviously an act of faith. Given

the mindset of many of the early believers, the ever-present narcissistic phantasy of possessing the truth, and the ever-present conviction of the imminent ending of the world—the Jews' refusal to believe—was interpreted by many followers of Jesus as just that, an obstinate refusal, as if Christian belief was a self-evident reality. When the Temple was destroyed the early Christian community interpreted that as God's judgment for their rejection of Jesus. Against such convictions, it is difficult to argue.

With the statement of Jesus as divine (Council of Nicaea in 325 – called by Emperor Constantine), the separation between Jew and Christian became irreversible. The participating bishops struggled, fought, and debated very different formulas in their articulation of Jesus as divine. One of the most common and popular formulas was that of Arius, whose belief made Jesus divine but not co-equal with God. When orthodox Christianity became the new state religion, under Constantine's mandate, Jews and other religious minorities were de facto second-class citizens. What had been done to Christians by the state was now done to the Jews by the state, as well as by many Christians. A tragic history unfolded—ghettos, social and legal discriminations multiplied—the fruition of the bad self over the moral teaching of Jesus.

Belief became, all too often, a test and a weapon rather than an invitation. Difference was not welcomed, it was forbidden in Nazi Germany, it is not accepted in many places today.

Democratic consciousness is a hard-won achievement.