Desitrader
New member
I’d like to understand why there are documentary evidence of Popes and other Christian leaders in the Middle Ages making strong “anti-Semitic” comments if Christianity was indeed created by Jews.
I am reading Thomas Dalton’s “Eternal Strangers”. Dalton is no friend of the Jew. Here are some of the comments he lists:
In another place:
Then there is of course Luther’s “The Jews and their Lies”.
I don’t know how to reconcile this two seemingly contradictory positions.
I am reading Thomas Dalton’s “Eternal Strangers”. Dalton is no friend of the Jew. Here are some of the comments he lists:
Thomas Dalton said:Four of the most important early church fathers—Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine—were notably anti-Jewish.
Writing in the late 300s, Gregory blasts the Jews as the absolute dregs of humanity, deploying an impressive array of adjectives:
Murderers of the Lord, murderers of prophets, rebels and full of hatred against God, they commit outrage against the law, resist God’s grace, repudiate the faith of their fathers. They are confederates of the devil, offspring of vipers, scandal-mongers, slanderers, darkened in mind, leaven of the Pharisees, Sanhedrin of demons, accursed, utterly vile, quick to abuse, enemies of all that is good. (In Christi resurr. orat.)
In another place:
Thomas Dalton said:Of all the early church fathers, Chrysostom is widely viewed as the most openly hostile. Of particular note is his work Adversus Judaeos, commonly called Homilies against the Jews (387 AD).7 The first homily captures the essence of his attack. He begins with mention of a “very serious illness” that pervades society. “What is this disease? The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews” which were soon to commence (I.I.4). “But do not be surprised that I call the Jews pitiable,” he adds. “They really are pitiable and miserable” (I.II.1). Citing Biblical precedent, Chrysostom refers to them as dogs, and as “stiff-necked.” They are drawn to gluttony and drunkenness (I.II.5), and chiefly characterized by their lust for animal pleasures. Indeed, they are animals, though of a worthless kind.
Then there is of course Luther’s “The Jews and their Lies”.
I don’t know how to reconcile this two seemingly contradictory positions.