The Origins of Anti-Semitism

Nadene Goldfoot                                                                        

Germany's Legislation Against Jews Before WWII Started September 1, 1939
Beginning of the Holocaust when 6,000,000 Were Murdered

It is said by Christian historians and theologians that Jesus was teaching between 27-30 CE when he died at age 37.  This was before the  fall of the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE by about 40 years.  He was then placed on the cross, something that had also happened to thousands of Jews prior to his hanging for any misdeed the Romans didn't like.
                                                                 

Emperor Constantine was in charge of the first gathering of Christians in 324 to make decisions about the new religion.  Constantine had involved himself in a fateful battle for control of the Western Roman Empire and had faced Emperor Maxentiius at the Tiber River's Mulvian Bridge in 312.  It was said that Constantine saw a sign that he would conquer, and he did.  He routed and killed his enemy, who was his own brother-in-law. It was 2 Romans fighting over power.   The next year he was truly the Western Roman Emperor, and the Eastern Roman Emperor Licinius signed an Edict of Milan which  ensured religious tolerance for Christians. This ended the "Age of Martyrs, which had begun after Jesus' death.  They were also given specific legal rights like the return of confiscated property and the right to organize dedicated churches.  

"The Jewish Temple had been destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans under Titus. Then Israel was totally destroyed as a nation with the defeat of Bar Kochba  in 135 CE. (It was the hardest war that the Romans had fought and lasted for 3 years from 132-135 CE)  Hundreds of thousands of Jews were massacred. Most of the survivors were dispersed into the Gamut (Diaspora or Exile), many of who were sold into slavery. Yet, thousands remained in Judah and Israel undetected by the Romans who were mainly concerned with Jerusalem.  
                                                                         

Seen in Rome, this depicts the Jewish slaves being forced to carry the loot from the Temple
ARCH OF TITUS-
Titus astride his chariot, chained Jewish slaves forced to carry the Temple spoils, dragging the
golden menorah and table through the streets of Rome surrounded by Roman soldiers 
who plan to use the slaves to build the coliseum. 

The final utter defeat of Israel was seen by many Christians as a sign that Israel was rejected by her God. The "Church" was seen as the new Israel. Anti-Semitism began to take a firm hold on Christianity. By the time that Constantine called the first general church council at Nicea in 325, anti-Semitism was endemic in the "Church." The Council of Nicea was attended by 318 bishops, none of whom were of Jewish ancestry."
                                                                         

Emperor Constantine unified the Roman Empire under his rule in 324 and rebuilt his seat of power in largely Christian Byzantium, renamed Constantinople and today is called Istanbul in Turkey.  His ruling class grew, establishing a growing Christianity in the Roman and then the Byzantine Empires.

The Council of Nicea was then held in 325 in Iznik, Turkey.  They then decided on the divinity of God the Son  (Jesus) and God the Father.  After this council, orthodox Christians agreed on the critical point that Jesus and God were equally divine and created of the same substance.  At this time, people still believed in the Roman gods such as Jupiter, Juno, Mars, etc.

The belief had included gods leaving Mt. Olympus and consorting with humans and producing half-godlike people.  Julius Caesar (13 July 100 BCE-15 March 44 BCE)  was declared a demigod by the Roman Senate. 

The council also condemned the practice of money lending by clerics and standardized their holiday of Easter.   As it was to happen, the only trade allowed to Jews was the money lending, for they were then not ever allowed to own land or join the different trade unions.  It had been deemed at this meeting that money-lending was beneath the Christian to be involved in.

Nicea in 325, with its theological anti-Judaism, laid the groundwork for anti-Semitic legislation of later church councils. The Council of Antioch (341 CE) prohibited Christians from celebrating Passover with the Jews. The Council of Laodicea in the same century forbade Christians from observing the Jewish (and biblical) Sabbath. (Some Christians had been observing both Sunday and the Sabbath.) Christians were also forbidden from receiving gifts from Jews or matzoh (4) from Jewish festivals and "impieties."   What they were doing was ending all Jewish connections with their friends and relatives.  

"Early Christianity grew gradually in Rome and the Roman Empire from the 1st to 4th centuries, when it was legalized and, in its Nicene form became the state church of the Roman Empire with the Edict of Thessalonica of 380.  Hellenistic polytheistic traditions survived pockets of Greece throughout Late Antiquity. The Neoplatonic Academy was shut down by Justinian I in 529, a date sometimes taken to mark the end of Classical Antiquity."  So it took about 200 more years before people dropped their belief in polytheism of the Greek and Roman gods.  

The 4 gospels were not placed in a canon yet at this time.  This took centuries to do. Therefore, it's really hard to judge just when they were written.   "Though the Early Church used the Old Testament according to the canon of the Septuagint (LXX),perhaps as found in the Bryennios List or Melito's list, the Apostles did not otherwise leave a defined set of new scriptures; instead, the New Testament developed over time. Jesus was figured to have been born in November of 5 BCE and died on a Friday, April 3, 33 CE, age 37.  He is said to have been born to Joseph, a Jewish Carpenter and his young wife, Mary.  She was pregnant before they had married.  

Writings attributed to the apostles circulated amongst the earliest Christian communities. The Pauline epistles were circulating in collected forms by the end of the 1st century AD. Justin Martyr, in the early 2nd century, mentions the "memoirs of the Apostles," which Christians (Greek: Χριστιανός) called "gospels," and which were considered to be authoritatively equal to the Old Testament."

Mark had been written sometime after 70 CE.  It's thought he was writing to the Greek gentiles and was doing this from Rome.  That was a good 40  or more years after the death of Jesus.  "According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus' crucifixion was authorized by Roman authorities at the insistence of leading Jews (Judeans) from the Sanhedrin.  No Jew, no matter what year, would insist that mad Romans, who had already hung thousands of undeserving Jews of such a fate, would demand that another be hung.  The Romans didn't need prodding to do this.  They had heard that Jesus said he was king of the Jews and that was enough.  There could be no king of oppressed people who were being occupied by the Emperor of Rome.  That was a political eye-wink to get along with the Romans and win them over to convert to Christianity, which Emperor Constantine  finally did by 324.    " The story explains for this small sect of Jesus followers that survived the Roman-Jewish War and why God permitted the destruction of the Temple.  This had to have been written after 70 CE when the Temple was destroyed."  

Matthew was written about 10 years later in 80 CE to Jews and he was doing this from Syria. Anti-Jewish rhetoric increases.   First, a series of "woes" are pronounced against the Pharisees: "You testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets...You snakes, you brood of vipers!  How can you escape being sentenced to hell?  (Matthew 23: 31-33). He includes the demise of the Temple, so had to have known this had really happened in order to include it.  He wrote: ""His [Jesus's] blood be on us and on our children!" (Matthew 27:25). This so-called "blood guilt" text has been interpreted to mean that all Jews, of Jesus' time and forever afterward, accept responsibility for the death of Jesus."  This is why thousands of years later, people have still be accusing Jews of killing their god.  

Luke was the next to be written 10 years later than Matthew in 90 at least. ."Luke was a Greek native of the Hellenistic city of Antioch in Syria."  He was possibly a doctor and disciple of Paul, formerly called Saul.   He is not writing to anyone in particular but just giving history as he thought it had happened.  He wrote about Herod (73 BCE-4 BCE).  He wrote that Mary's expected son (she didn't even know she was pregnant) would reign over the house of Jacob-which would infer that he would be the king of the Jews and would be called the son of the highest forever and there would be no end to his kingdom.  " The earliest manuscript of the Gospel, dated circa AD 200, ascribes the work to Luke; as did Irenaeus, writing circa AD 180, and the Muratorian fragment from AD 170." It's thought that Luke wrote "Acts".  The book of Acts is a narrative about this “parting of the ways from Judaism.

John,  the hardest gospel on Jews, was written sometime between 90 and 100 and it seemed to be finished by 100.  He was in West Anatolia when he wrote this.  This then was written 70 years after the fact.  "The Gospel of John collectively describes the enemies of Jesus as "the Jews". In none of the other gospels do "the Jews" demand, en masse, the death of Jesus; instead, the plot to put him to death is always presented as coming from a small group of priests and rulers, the Sadducees.  John's gospel is thus the primary source of the image of "the Jews" acting collectively as the enemy of Jesus, which later became fixed in the Christian mind.".  He has dialogue in his story.  "I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you. I speak of what I have seen with my Father, and you do what you have heard from your father. They answered him, "Abraham is our father." Jesus said to them, "If you were Abraham's children, you would do what Abraham did. ... You are of your father the devil."  

" It wasn't many decades until attacks on Jews and their synagogues became commonplace. The Jew was a second-class citizen, somewhat protected by law, but merely tolerated, something akin to the dhimmi status that is given to non-Moslems in Islamic countries."  "(Paul) commanded the Christians to "provoke the Jews to jealousy" with righteous living. Unfortunately, Christians kept only half the commandment; they provoked the Jews."

Many Protestants now believe, from reading the Gospels, that "The Children of Israel were God's original chosen people by virtue of an ancient covenant, but by rejecting Jesus they forfeited their chosenness - and now, by virtue of a New Covenant (or "testament"), Christians have replaced the Jews as God's chosen people, the Church having become the "People of God."

The  transformation of Christianity from a Jewish sect consisting of followers of a Jewish Jesus, to a separate religion is found to be often dependent on the tolerance of Rome while proselytizing among Gentiles loyal to the Roman empire, to understand how the story of Jesus came to be recast in an anti-Jewish form as the Gospels took their final form, for to make their point that Christianity was the only religion viable, they had to put down Judaism and drive it out.  It was more like today's political 2 party-system with Trump and Hillary running for the presidency with each telling vile things about the other, only Judaism didn't say a thing about Christianity except to teach their people that they were to beware of false messiahs as Moses had warned them.  

I have traced the origin of anti-Semitism to the Gospels.  I write this because anti-Semitism is found in these early writings of which most Christians have read.  Anti-Semitism still exists today, showing up physically against Jews and politically even in the UN which is supposed to be such a fair body of decision-makers.  People have this attitude towards Jews and they have no idea where it comes from, or don't they?  Could they just be in denial, not wanting to face the fact that their very own beloved Bible is teaching them to dislike Jews?                        

Pope Benedict XVI 

The Catholics were the first Christian group to practice anti-Semitism and the first to try to change.  "The Catholic Church issued its most authoritative teaching on the issue in its 1965 Second Vatican Council document "Nostra Aetate," which revolutionized the church's relations with Jews by saying  Christ's death could not be attributed to Jews as a whole at the time or today."   Pope Paul VI on October 28, 1965 wrote this.  It was "Pope Benedict XVI" who has pardoned Jews already in 2011, but it's hard to see what imprint he has made on people's attitudes.  He had made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book, "Jesus of Nazareth-Part II."  

""Holocaust survivors know only too well how the centuries-long charge of 'Christ killer' against the Jews created a poisonous climate of hate that was the foundation of anti-Semitic persecution whose ultimate expression was realized in the Holocaust," said Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust Survivors and their Descendants."  This climate of hate and distrust had survived the centuries right to the time of the establishing of Massachusetts in the facts of the governor, Peter Styvasant, turning away 23 Jewish boat refugees from his shore as undesirables in 1640.  Anti-Semitism has lasted in one form or another, even in the USA.  

We're down to only 14 million Jews today.  That's 0.02% of the world population.  We're almost an extinct people that have existed since the 2nd millennium BCE from Abraham.  That's over 4,000 years of knowing our history in detail.  Christian Crusaders swarmed down on Jews and killed them outright for being Jews.  The Spanish Inquisition burned Jews at the stake, tortured Jews on their torture machines, and the Holocaust burned 6 million of Jews.  In 1942, a Catholic priest told a rabbi with his congregation in Germany, "`It is not just a matter of deportation. You will not die there of hunger and disease. They will slaughter all of you there, old and young alike, women and children, at once--it is the punishment that you deserve for the death of our Lord and Redeemer, Jesus Christ."  
                                                          

At the Western Wall at night

And here we are with Israel as predicted.  Surely it's about time to join the Catholic Pope in pardoning today's Jews for something the Roman army did over 2,000 years ago when Jews were under THEIR occupation.  It's time to cut out the anti-Semitism by judging all Jews the same.  How about sampling our Golden Rule-a little different from how you have heard it from Jesus.  Hillel, a rabbi and president of the Sanhedrin of the 1st century BCE:  said it first as "Don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself."  Actually, my source found that it was Confucius who said it first in the 5th century BCE as "What thou dost not like when done to thyself, do not unto others ." 

An interesting note is that Constantine did not change in temperament or really "get" religion.  "Constantine, only one year after convening the Council of Nicea, had his own son (Crispus) put to death. Later he suffocated Fausta (his wife) in an overheated bath. Then he had his sister's son flogged to death and her husband strangled. (1) It was also during the reign of Constantine that the cross became a sacred symbol in Christianity, just as it had been in pagan religions.(2) Throughout his reign, Constantine treated the bishops as political aides. He agreed to enforce whatever opinion the majority of the bishops formulated."  Truly,  life is so political.  
                                                                       

Me in my very new Safed apartment on David Elezar, 1980 waiting for my lift,
 when Israel was 32 years old
Now it's had its 67th birhday.  .

After years of slavery at the hands of Titus; after years being locked into the ghetto without sunlight or air; after being hunted by Himmler, rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz; after graffiti on some of Rome’s walls that is still virulently anti-Semitic; it is enough to sit here as a Jew, and to feel proud and grateful of my heritage..  To be a witness to history and to know that Israel is 67 years old, is to know that our promises are being kept.  

Add on: 12/30/15  New Testament is written in koine Greek by 100 CE.  Some parts may have been in Aramaic first.   By 400 CE was the stabilization of Canon of 27 books;  Jerome translated it into Latin Vulgate and by 1382 was the first complete Bible into English by John Wycliffe.  The King James version was completed by scholars appointed by King James in 1611- 44 years before Jews were allowed to enter England in 1655.  

Resource:  http://www.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/timeline 10.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Milvian_Bridge
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon
http://www.unrv.com/culture/major-roman-god-list.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_the_New_Testament
http://www.biblicalfoundations.org/when-was-jesus-born-and-when-did-he-die/comment-page-1/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/pope-jews-jesus-death_n_830140.html
http://www.churchhistory101.com/council-nicea-325.php
http://messianicfellowship.50webs.com/nicea.html
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Luke
http://www.bibleinterp.com/articles/luke357926.shtml
http://www.jewishmag.com/174mag/jewish_rome/jewish_rome.htm
http://www.tribunesandtriumphs.org/roman-gods/roman-gods-family-tree.htm
New Testament-King James Version
http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_nostra-aetate_en.html
added: 1/1/16  http://cjcuc.com/site/2015/12/03/orthodox-rabbinic-statement-on-christianity/
added 1/3/16  https://www.rt.com/news/327794-vatican-recognition-treaty-palestine/