Religion as Hatred: Antisemitism as a Case Study

The topic of religion as a source of hatred could be explored through several lenses. I first came to this topic through an analysis and evaluation of the studies done on prejudice in Catholic teaching materials undertaken in the soci-ology department of St. Louis University. This evaluation of ways in which Catholic textbooks covering literature, social studies, and religion generated stereotypes of religious and racial outgroups opened my eyes to the ways in which religion could become a force for social hatred rather than reconciliation. This initial research has grounded my subsequent work both as a social ethicist and as a scholar concerned about interreligious relations. It has convinced me that any effort to use religion as a source for social reconciliation must be preceded by a thorough examination of how religion has historically contributed to the birth of social prejudice. Any comprehensive examination a to

Western Christianity's defense of the fundamental inferiority of women and slaves. "Christian biblical theology must recognize," she insists, "that its articulation of anti-Judaism in the N[ew] T[estament] goes hand in hand with its gradual adaptation to Greco-Roman patriarchal society." 2 This anti-Judaism conferred a religious legitimacy on the subjugation of certain groups of people. When Christianity became wedded to an Aristotelian philosophy, its original anti-Judaism, the pool of inferior people expanded to include women and slaves. In Fiorenza's view this early anti-Judaism destroyed the far more egalitarian impulse of the Jesus movement, whose roots lay in the Pharisaic social revolution that promoted enhanced equality within Second Temple Judaism, as Ellis Rivkin and others have noted. 3 So, following Fiorenza, we can posit an interest connection between anti-Semitism in the Christian churches and the wider question of religion and hatred looked at from the perspective of Christianity.
This centuries-long social disease of antisemitism has been described as a "shadow" over the cross. Recent Catholic documents have spoken in even stronger language. In 1989 the Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace insisted that "harboring racist thoughts and entertaining racist attitudes is a sin." 4 Furthermore, it clearly included antisemitism in its list of continuing manifestations of anti-racist ideologies that are to be regarded as sinful. In point of fact, it terms antisemitism "the most tragic form that racist ideology has assumed in our century." 5 During a visit to Hungary in 1991, conscious of the post-Communist era resurgence of antisemitism in certain parts of Central and Eastern Europe, the Pope spoke of the urgent task of repentance and reconciliation. "In face of a risk of a resurgence and spread of antisemitic feelings, attitudes, and initiatives," he said, "we must teach consciences to consider antisemitism, and all forms of racism, as sins against God and humanity." 6 And in his book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, the Holy Father repeats this theme as he calls antisemitism "a great sin against humanity." 7 Recently the issue of a rising, new form of antisemitism, particularly in parts of Europe, has been widely discussed in the media. A recent volume by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, two historians who have collaborated on the study of antisemitism over several decades, does an excellent job of bringing the historical reality of antisemitism, especially its Christian form, into the present day. 8 This book is a welcome successor to the groundbreaking volume by the late Fr. Edward Flannery titled The Anguish of the Jews, which first appeared in the mid-sixties. 9 This rising form of antisemitism in Europe has generated several strong responses from religious leaders. British Chief Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks was joined by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams, and the Cardinal, Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, in their capacity as joint Presidents of the Council of Christians & Jews, in warning of the potential danger of this new antisemitic trend. 10 And in a late December 2003 interview with the prominent Italian newspaper La Stampa, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, former President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, expressed concern that "there is a return of antisemitism in our Europe. . .. Not to recognize it, not to call it by its name is an unwitting way of accepting it." 11 The Cardinal urged constant vigilance and frank solidarity with Jewish communities to combat the trend. Clearly, antisemitism is a problem that continues to demand attention in our day.
We can now turn to an overview of Christian antisemitism as an example of how hatred can corrupt a religious tradition that in principle has the notion of love of neighbor as a central tenet. There is some scholarly dispute regarding the question of whether Christian antisemitism has its roots in the New Testament itself. I believe the issue is rather complicated, and I have addressed it in other writings. 12 Whatever the final scholarly determination of that question, and certainly there are some grounds for arguing for possible New Testament roots in passages in the gospel of John in which Jews are associated with the forces of darkness and with the devil, 13 it is evident that Christian leaders and preachers often interpreted New Testament text in an antisemitic fashion. When we come to the immediate post biblical era known as the Patristic period, there is little doubt that antisemitism becomes a core component of Christian identity. A number of Christian scholars, including Robert Wilken, David Efroymson, and Rosemary Radford, have uncovered a prevailing anti-Judaic bias at the core of the writings of the Church Fathers. While notable exceptions such as Clement of Alexandria can be found, 14 the great patristic writers such as Tertullian, Origen, Irenaeus, and Eusebius all made antisemitism an integral part of stating the fundamental meaning of the Christian faith.
In many of his writings, but especially in those directed against Marcion, who wanted to eliminate the Old Testament from the church's biblical canon, Tertullian presented Jesus as the messiah who ought to have been recognized by the Jewish people but was not. As a result, he argued, the Jews were subjected to God's wrath. For Tertullian, Jesus' severity towards Jews was completely in line with the antagonism expressed by his Father, the Creator. As David Efroymson puts it, What seems significant here is not the negative picture of the Jews of Jesus' time, which was, of course, already firmly embedded in the tradition. It is rather the heavy emphasis on the appropriateness of the opposition between Jesus and the Jews, or between Jesus and the Jews, or between God and Jews. . . . Not only was there an emphatic heightening of an anti-Jewishness ascribed to Jesus; there was the additional element, apparently now crucial against Marcion, of a God who for some time had "opposed" Israel and had wanted to rid himself of the "old" covenant in the interest of something new and better. 15 Origen's approach was marked by a particular emphasis on what he called the "spiritual sense" of the scriptures. Reading the biblical texts in this way, he insists in On First Principles, is the solution to the problem of the "hardhearted \\server05\productn\G\GHS\3-1\GHS103.txt and ignorant members of the circumcision" (that is, Jews), who "refused to believe in our Savior" because they could not get beyond the literal sense of the text (4.2.1). Irenaeus explained Jewish law as necessary for a time because of human sinfulness. But the coming of Jesus and the destruction of Jerusalem signaled that the time of the Jews and their law was over. According to Irenaeus, Jesus was attacking the Jewish claim to be able to know the Father without accepting the Son. He relied on the parables of the wicked tenants (Mt 21:33-34) and the wedding feast (Mk 22: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14] to "prove" that God had destined the Gentiles to replace unresponsive Jews in the kingdom.
The most important and complete Christian document of the patristic era was Justin's Dialogue with Trypho. It became a model for discussions about Judaism in the ancient church. Justin's writings were the first real expression of the idea that Jewish social misfortunes are the consequence of divine punishment for the death of Jesus. As a result, Justin explains, Jews will never be able to escape suffering in human society. Having made references to the expulsion of Jews from Jerusalem, their desolate lands and burned out cities, Justin assures his rabbinic dialogue partner that these sufferings were justly imposed by God in light of Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. Here we have the seeds of an attitude that would come to dominate the thinking of the church by the fourth century and greatly contribute to the spread of antisemitism.
Finally, Eusebius, in his early fourth century Ecclesiastical History, confines the role of Jews to that of witnessing to divine justice. That was especially true in the first century, when Jews were being punished at the hands of the Romans while the Christian church was flourishing.
Over the centuries this original patristic adversus Judaeos tradition exercised a sometimes direct, sometimes more subtle anti-Judaic impact on Christian theological formulation of the meaning of Jesus' ministry, death, and resurrection. But it also was the basis for increased social legislation against Jews. And the transfer of the adversus Judaeos tradition into Christian art, comprehensively depicted in Heinz Schreckenberb s The Jews in Christian Art, 16 further assisted the implantation of the negative image of Jews and Judaism into the prevailing ethos of Christian societies.
No century was more decisive for Jewish-Christian relations than the fourth. The Edict of Milan issued by Emperor Constantine in A.D. 313 granted freedom of worship to all religious groups, including Jews. But Christianity quickly was to become the chief beneficiary of this decree, while Jewish fortunes were to sink to a new low.
In A.D. 323 Christianity was granted a special position within the empire. Judaism theoretically continued as a legal religion, but it was frequently abused by Christian preachers and people without any action being taken by the imperial government. By the time Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity on his deathbed in 329, the imperial government had already begun to institute \\server05\productn\G\GHS\3-1\GHS103.txt restrictive measures against Jewish privileges. By the end of the fourth century, the civil status of Jews was in serious danger and their image had greatly deteriorated. The Jew was now seen as a semi-satanic figure, cursed by God, and specially set apart by the civil government. It was in the fourth century that Christian preachers turned upon Judaism with great force. Foremost among these preachers was John Chrysostom. His denunciations of the Jewish people are found in six sermons he delivered in Antioch, where Jews were numerous and influential and where apparently some Christians were attending synagogues and visiting Jewish homes. He accused the Jews of all imaginable crimes and vices. The devil lived in Jewish homes, according to John Chrysostom, and the synagogue was an assembly of animals. This was so because of the Jews' assassination of Jesus. God has always hated the Jews, John Chrysostom insisted, and they will forever remain without temple or nation.
In addition to the teachings of Christian preachers and teachers, the legislative measures taken by both the church and the empire, sometimes in concert, proved crucial for the situation of the Jews. Church councils in this period did everything possible to prevent any contact between Christians and Jews, fearing that the Christians' faith would suffer as a result. The imperial legislation went even further and directly interfered with the life of the Jewish community through a series of new laws. The culmination of this process took place with the publication of the Theodosian Code in 438. Some of the laws in this code actually protected Jews from violence and asserted their basic rights and freedom. But the largest section restricted Jewish cult and activities.
As a result of this legislation Jews were generally forced out of agriculture and industry and into smaller trades and crafts. The pattern of Jewish life for centuries to come was being formed. Jews were also barred from public functions in the empire, and marriage to Jews was considered shameful; those who engaged in it were subject to the death penalty. All Jewish rights to govern their own communities were abolished by the beginning of the fifth century. While in some respects this imperial legislation tried to maintain the freedom of worship granted the Jews in older Roman law, it reflected the spirit and frequently the letter of the decrees of church councils.
The Christian picture of Judaism developed in the fourth and fifth centuries gave the churches for centuries a pseudo-religious basis for countless persecutions of the Jews. Misguided Christians considered themselves chosen to assist God in fulfilling the curse upon the Jews and felt they were free to engage in attacking Jews, as they had a divine seal of approval. As the ecclesial political power increased, a terrible cancer gnawed at its basic spirit. This caused many Jews to flee to Babylonia, which became the national and cultural center of Judaism.
Despite the Theodosian Code's protection of Jewish rights in theory, these rights were often violated in the ensuing centuries. Matters were made worse \\server05\productn\G\GHS\3-1\GHS103.txt for Jews in the sixth century when Emperor Justinian I decided to redo the Theodosian Code. His substantive revision, which came to be known as the Justinian Code, basically eliminated many of the protective clauses regarding Jews in the original version, including the provision that guaranteed Jews the right to practice their religion. The Justinian Code imposed new restrictions on the Jews in nearly all areas. The most critical restriction was the transfer of power to the Emperor to regulate Jewish worship. All was not total darkness for Jews in the Medieval society. In West Europe the conquering peoples, such as the Goths and the Lombards, generally accepted the protections accorded Jews in the original version of the Theodosian Code. And Pope Gregory the Great (590-604), while intent on converting Jews, added his public support for these articles in the Code. The so-called Golden Age in Spain gave Jews unprecedented access to public life, even though some restrictions remained in force. And subsequently in Poland, after the collapse of the Golden Age, which occasioned extensive Jewish migration to that country, Jews were accorded a measure of toleration and even political freedom by Polish princes, despite opposition from some church leaders. Charlemagne and his son Louis the Pious also committed themselves to the legal protection of the Jewish community.
A strong reaction against these efforts at giving Jews a measure of equality eventually took hold. St. Agobard (779-840) returned to the rhetoric of John Chrysostom. The civil situation quickly worsened. With the death of Charles the Bald, Jewish rights practically vanished in the quicksand of feudalism. The ninth century produced new forms of Jewish persecutions. Jews were accused of treason on a number of occasions. In addition, a custom developed whereby on every Good Friday, in punishment for their supposed part in Christ's death, Jews received a facial blow.
In the Medieval period, the preaching associated with the birth of the Crusader movement spelled even greater difficulties for the Jews. It seemed unreasonable to the Crusaders to travel great distances to liberate the Holy Land and not attack the people they held responsible for Christ's death along the way. The first Crusade in 1096 saw bloody attacks against Jews in various parts of the Rhineland in Germany. Massacres of the Jews were part and parcel of each subsequent Crusade.
During the years between the first and second Crusades, Jews were forced into occupations distasteful or forbidden to the Christian community. Many of these occupations were connected with finance. It would be false to suppose that all Jews were money lenders. Yet Jews became identified with this occupation, a stereotype that has not completely disappeared even in our own time. The identification of the Jews as money lenders led to a suppression of their rights as time went on.
In the second half of the twelfth century there arose another libel that fanned flames of hatred against the Jews-unverified accusations of ritual mur- der. It was charged that each Holy Week Jews killed a Christian, usually a child, as a sacrificial offering for Passover. The murder of a young man named William in the English town of Norwich in 1144 was the first example of this accusation by Christians against Jews. Subsequently, the charge was widened to include other religious purposes for which Jews supposedly murdered Christians. Jews were also charged with attempts to profane Hosts in England, France, and Germany, where these false accusations led to the execution of Jews despite papal edicts denying such charges.
With the establishment of the Inquisition by the church in the thirteenth century and the ensuing struggle with heretics, Jewish writings were censored and suppressed. The Talmud was condemned and St. Albert the Great ordered the burning of all copies. During the thirteenth century, the wealth of Jews was often confiscated and their financial position became more and more precarious. By the end of the thirteenth century, the mass murder of Jews had become a common occurrence in Germany and France. It is estimated that some 100,000 Jews died as a result of persecution during that century.
The now-entrenched pattern of the marginalization and killing of Jews continued throughout the remaining centuries of the pre-modern era. Jews were blamed, among other things, for famine in Europe and for causing the Black Death. They were increasingly confined to specific areas of cities, a process that eventuated into the creation of formal ghettos. While there were some periods in which pressure on the Jewish community was relaxed to an extent as the result of protests by several popes and political leaders, the basic antisemitic framework remained firmly in place.
The coming of the modem era with its theme of social liberation did result in a measure of political freedom for individual Jews in certain countries, such as France and Germany, but not for the Jewish community as a body. Antsemitism was still widespread among the Christian masses and frequently surfaced in connection with performances of Passion plays, which were commonly held. And in Russia, home to about fifty percent of the Jewish population, the situation remained as it had been for the previous centuries. In fact, antisemitism in Russia was intensified with the appearance in 1905 of the so-called Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. Written by Russian antisemites, it claimed the existence of a Jewish cabal that was plotting to take control of global society. The Protocols still circulate today in some countries.
In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries antisemitism took on yet another form in many parts of Christian Europe such as France, Germany and Poland. The churches now felt themselves to be under attack from modernist forces, including the liberal social philosophies emerging from the French Revolution as well as the rising forms of socialism. To many Christians, the entire Christian-based social structures in Europe seemed to be in danger of collapsing. A scapegoat was needed, and once again Jews were selected.
Christian leaders now began to accuse Jews of being supporters of what was termed freemasonry, which advocated religious freedom, a notion strongly condemned by the popes of the period. They were charged with being the source of immorality in society as purveyors of pornography. The antisemitism of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries took on a biological and racial dimension that moved it beyond the earlier forms of antisemitism. This new form of antisemitism reached its peak during the Holocaust. While I would want to maintain a certain distinction between classical Christian antisemitism and the Nazi variety, one cannot make the total separation between the two found in such documents as We Remember, the Vatican document on the Shoah issued in 1998. 17 I continue to maintain that classical Christian antisemitism served as an indispensable seedbed for the indifference and even support that many in the churches gave to the Hitlerian attempt to annihilate the Jewish community in Europe and beyond.
It was only with the emergence of Nostra Aetate at Vatican II and the strong statements of Pope John Paul II during the course of his long papacy that the foundations for antisemitism have been decisively destroyed. But in light of this dark history of antisemitism at the center of Christianity for centuries, Christians cannot relax their guard on this matter. Any possibility that this grave sin will resurface must be firmly resisted.
This brief overview of Christian antisemitism demonstrates how hatred can take over a religious tradition and render it a force for violence rather than reconciliation. Once such hatred becomes embedded in a religious tradition it becomes difficult to root it out, as we know from the persistence of religiouslybased antisemitism in our day. Symbolic gestures are an important component of cleansing a religious tradition of hatred. That is why the gestures of Pope John Paul II on the first Sunday of Lent in 2002, followed by his visit to Jerusalem and its Western Wall, assume such significance. On both occasions the Pope expressed penitence for the Church's sinful attacks on Jews over the centuries.
We have also seen during the Holocaust somewhat of a validation of Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza's point of a link between antisemitism and other forms of religiously-based hatred. To the extent that classical antisemitism provided a seedbed for Christian acquiescence or even outright support of the Nazi attack on the Jewish people, it also flowed over into support for the Nazi onslaught against other victims of its attempt at biological purification.
As we reflect on antisemitism as a primal example of religiously-based hatred, we need to ask how we might transform religion into an instrument of social reconciliation. The first requirement must be to follow the example set by Pope John Paul II and candidly acknowledge those situations, such as the apartheid period in South Africa and the genocidal era in Rwanda (the most Catholic country in Africa) and in Bosnia, where religion clearly was used to generate human violence.
If religious communities fail to cleanse their language and practice of \\server05\productn\G\GHS\3-1\GHS103.txt religious violence toward the other, they will eliminate themselves as effective agents of humanization and solidarity in the global era. Hans Kung's often quoted dictum that there cannot be peace in the world without peace among religions remains as true as ever. Violent religious language can greatly contribute to softening a society for genocide. Religion remains a powerful force in most present-day societies. If religious language in a given society continues to demean people who do not share the dominant faith system and even denies them full rights of citizenship, it certainly opens the door for physical assaults on such groups in times of social tension. On the contrary, positive religious language about the "religious other" can serve as a barrier against such assaults. It is especially needed in the complex national societies that globalization has produced.
Religion also has a role to play in insuring that groups in a society are not "neutralized" in terms of their fundamental humanity. The Holocaust scholar Henry Friedlander showed some years ago how the neutral language in reporting daily death counts in the Nazi extermination camps paralleled the language used by the United States military in reporting Vietnamese casualties during the Vietnam War. 18 Religion must always fight against such neutralization, even of an enemy. For if neutralization of particular groups in society is allowed a foothold, it exposes these groups to the possibility of more violent attacks, which again, in times of social crisis, can turn into genocidal or near-genocidal actions against them.
For Catholics, the Document on Religious Liberty from Vatican II, inspired by Pope John XXII, can serve as a foundational resource. It argued for the basic divinity of every human person expressed in the freedom of conscience, even to the point of protecting the right not to believe in human dignity. Human dignity, not right belief, became the fundamental cornerstone of any just society. All other identities, though important, became secondary. They may be used as the basis for a massive assault on human life.
On the Catholic side, but with global impact, Pope John XXIII certainly began the process of removing violence from the Church's expression. He did this both by text and gesture. In the face of a century of attack against the notion of human rights and religious freedom within the European Catholic community in particular, John XXIII proclaimed human rights and religious freedom as integral to the Catholic faith perspective in the Charter of Human Rights in his encyclical Pacem in Terris. In so doing he settled the dispute taking place at the II Vatican Council regarding the proposed document on religious liberty. Unfortunately, the current Catholic Catechism failed to include this powerful Charter in its text, and there are those within the Catholic leadership today who would love to relegate Vatican II's Document on Religious Liberty to obscurity, something that must be strongly resisted by the global Catholic community. A religious institution that does not model concern for human rights both in its internal operations and as a fundamental global con- cern cannot be a legitimate actor in the current struggle to humanize globalization. Pope John XXIII also contributed significantly to the eradication of violence in Christian expression through gesture and language. He greeted those who a few years before had been labeled as heretics and systematics, as unbelievers, as Communists, with an outstretched hand. Even if he continued to have disagreements with them, even profound ones, he never failed to acknowledge their basic humanity. He demonstrated a keen sensitivity toward the impact of negative language by the religious community. His approach to the Jews is a prime example. He changed liturgical language that he regarded as dehumanizing. He initiated a fundamental change of perspective on Jews and Judaism, which his successors have enhanced both in text and gesture. He thus began one of the most profound turnabouts in interreligious understanding, one that I am convinced can serve as support and model for other historically antagonistic interreligious relations.
Following the example of John XXIII, an essential challenge for religions in the face of globalization is to continue to bring to the global community an example of the centrality of affirmation of the religious and secular "other" at a time when media, and even an increasing number within the religious communities, are adopting an attack mentality, an "in your face" approach to national and religious identity. This affirmation of the "other" must be done through text, language, and gesture.
In conclusion, I strongly believe that religion today stands at a decisive turning point in this age of ever-increasing globalization. Religious communities can withdraw into an isolated spirituality that cares little about what goes on beyond their self-defined borders. They can continue to be, as they have so often been in the past, sources of social tension rather than forces for social healing. But if religion follows such a path, it will squander its most precious gift-the power to transform hatred into love, the power to turn indifference into concern, that is at the heart of the Torah and Talmud, the Christian gospel, the Qur'an and the teachings of the other great world religions. What will energize our enhanced technological capacity in directions that lead to social harmony rather than oblivion? Religion, I remain convinced, is central to the answer to that question. It has the potential to penetrate hardened hearts in ways that secular ideology and mere technical competence cannot. It can combine commitment and knowledge in ways that will overpower the forces of exploitation and destruction. We have seen outstanding examples of that power in the lives of Dr. Martin Luther King, Pope John XXIII, Nelson Mandela, and Elie Wiesel.
But religion will not contribute in its fullness to global society unless it draws from the depths of its spiritual tradition, a tradition that is continually reenergized and refined in light of developing human understanding. Engagement with the world about us cannot become a substitute for a spirituality rooted in tradition. Rather, such engagement must always be the fruit of our spiritual \\server05\productn\G\GHS\3-1\GHS103.txt tradition and, above all, it must be concretely embodied in the people of that tradition. Tradition does not reside first and foremost in texts and sacred books, as important as these remain. We are the carriers of our respective tradition. We learn it in the classroom and in the library. It becomes the very fiber of our being in prayer and worship. We express it in our active concern and commitment to human dignity. None of these three elements of authentic religion can ever be separated from the rest without religion's suffering a loss of its very soul. Become convinced that until the tradition is embodied in you, it remains text rather than a force for human transformation. Let me close with a question. It is a question raised by a powerful film, partially based on the Holocaust, that I viewed at the Slovak Pavilion at Expo 2000 in Hanover, Germany. The film's title asked a question that remains our question in this challenging time of increasing religiously based violence: Quo Vadis Humanity?