|
| |
IS THE NEW TESTAMENT
ANTI- SEMITIC?
by Professor Veselin Kesich
Spring/Summer 1998
We know of hostility against the Jews in the Roman Empire,
before the rise of Christianity. In Alexandria in the thirties of the first
century, well-documented riots erupted against the Jewish inhabitants.
Alexandria at the time had a large and influential Jewish population. Fear of
Jewish influence in city affairs and their persistent aspirations to hold
administrative and magisterial office aroused the Alexandrians to use violence
against the Jews. The attack took the form of a classic pogrom: the Jewish parts
of the city were attacked, their shops and homes were first looted and then
burned.
The Emperor Claudius (41-54) condemned both parties to the riots
and threatened to punish those responsible. He warned the Alexandrians not to
violate any habitual Jewish rites of worship, but to allow them to practice the
same customs as in the time of the late Augustus, who had guaranteed the Jewish
practice of their own customs according to their traditional law. He warned the
Jews as well not "to force their way into contests for magisterial or
administrative offices, but to enjoy their own profits, reaping the advantage of
an abundance of good things in a foreign city."
Due to their dietary laws, Jews did not associate with their
pagan neighbors, nor would they eat meat offered to idols. This charge is
familiar to Christians; a considerable portion of I Corinthians is devoted to
the food offered to idols (I Cor.8-10). Paul did not require Christians to
abstain from eating this food, but he criticized the attitude of those who
participated in the life of society, as well as of those who tried to avoid any
contact with their pagan neighbors. He warned the first of their destructive use
of freedom, which they exercised without concern for other members of the
community. Without love and responsibility for "the brother for whom Christ
died," they were creating division in the church. Paul also did not spare
those who preferred a life of isolation from contacts with the outside world.
Strict observance of dietary laws separated Jews from their pagan neighbors and
made them a closed society. Jewish exclusiveness, on the one hand, and their
efforts to find political outlets and influence commensurate with their
numerical and economic power, on the other, inspired anti-Jewish feeling that
ended in violence.
Historians have also noted Roman respect for Judaism. Many
Romans were attracted and even converted to it, despite its
exclusiveness. The Roman authorities respected Jewish ancient customs, although
they were uneasy regarding the growing Jewish strength and influence, both
numerical and economic. They insisted on having political control over them.
Certainly, they never planned a "final solution," never asked for
their destruction. Therefore, some historians would not apply the term
"anti-Semitism" to what happened in Egypt in the first century. They
tend to assume a Christian, purely religious origin of anti-Semitism, which led
in our century to the holocaust. Since World War II there has been a prevalent
opinion that the origins of anti-Semitism are located in the New Testament,
especially in the writings of Paul and the evangelists
Matthew and John. The purpose of this article is to briefly examine the passages
in the New Testament which have often been cited as anti-Semitic, not simply in
tone but in content. We shall discuss them in their historical context, which
reveals the meaning of the text.
Paul
The apostle Paul wrote his first extant letter about twenty
years after the death and resurrection of Christ and twenty years before the
destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem (70A.D.) This letter, I
Thessalonians, belongs to the period of history of the Christian church when
small messianic communities in Palestine and the diaspora were struggling for
their very existence and identity. They were not outside Judaism but within this
diverse religion before the destruction of the Temple. Paul was a Jew, and, as
we shall see, his attachment to his people was reflected in his letters. But
those who have questioned his feeling of solidarity with and love for his people
often cite one passage (I Thess. 2:14-16):
For you, brethren, became
imitators of the Churches
of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you
suffered the same things from your own countrymen as
they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus
and the prophets, and drove us out and displease God
and oppose all men by hindering us from speaking to
the Gentles that they may be saved so as always to
fill up the measure of their sins. But God's wrath has
come upon them at last.
The "anti-Jewish" tone of this passage has no parallel with any
other in the Pauline letters. Some therefore have been ready to dismiss this
passage as an interpolation. But we have no evidence for such a solution,
except that the passage offends our sensitivity to its harshness. It most
probably reflects historical circumstances, perhaps a particular event, in
Paul’s relationship with his kinsmen by race during his missionary work in
Thessalonika.
As can be documented based on correspondence with the communities Paul
founded, he was persecuted both by Jews and Gentiles (2 Cor.11:24ff, also
Rom.15:31 and 1 Thess 2:2). Both Acts 17:3,5 and 1 Thess.2: 2,14-16 point to
persecution of Paul in Thessalonika. Acts recounts that the apostle upon his
arrival went to "the synagogue of the Jews," as his custom was,
and "for three weeks" was arguing and interpreting the scriptures
and proclaiming that Jesus is the Christ (Acts 17:2-3). The people revolted;
Paul was hindered in his preaching and expelled from the synagogue, but not
necessarily from the city itself. He most probably stayed longer than three
weeks. In his letter he reminds the brethren about his labor and toil;
"we worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you."
The work that he describes done in the city must have taken more than three
weeks preaching in the synagogue (1Thess.2:9-12). This historical context
helps us to understand the outburst in Thessalonians cited above.
The Thessalonian Christians received the Gospel "in much
affliction" and became "imitators" of Paul and his companions
(1 Thess. 1:6; 3:7). Paul draws a parallel between his own experience in
diaspora and that of the churches in Judea. He accused "the Jews"
of Jesus’ death. The Romans of course bore primary responsibility for the
crucifixion, but the Temple leadership was also involved in removing Jesus,
whom they regarded as a troublemaker. The Passion gospels too point to Roman
responsibility and the role of the Temple authorities. In 1 Thess.2:14-16
Paul had in mind a particular local group who instigated riots against him
and his followers, and not Jews in general or the Jewish people.
This important distinction is reflected in Paul’s use of the term
"Jews," not "Hebrews" or "Israelites." The
term "Jew" (Ioudaioi) was a general, not a racial,
designation. Paul does not use the term "Hebrews," which refers to
the race of Jews, nor "Israelites," a religious term. Paul himself
is an "Israelite" and a "Hebrew" (2 Cor. 11:22). He
opposes and criticizes his "own countrymen" as one who stands
within Judaism. He uses language that was by no means unusual in an
"intra-Jewish" dispute. Antagonistic groups in Judaism employed
terms such as bringing the "wrath (orge) of God" down on
those who "suppress the truth" (1 Cor. 1:18). In another example,
the Qumran sectarians saw themselves as "sons of light," and all
other Jews as "sons of darkness." The outsiders are on Satan’s
side and for that God hates them and will destroy them. The insiders,
members of the settlement near the Dead Sea, unrestrainedly curse all others
and desire revenge. Comparing the harshness of the polemic tone used among
other Jews, Paul’s attacks against those who hindered his preaching were
more controlled.
Paul saw himself as a patriotic Jew, an Israelite, a child of Abraham.
His letters, particularly those autobiographical passages, explicitly
confirmed his Jewishness (Gal. 1:13-17; 2 Cor. 11:22, Rom. 11:1f, Phil.
3:4-6). According to the Book of Acts, Paul observed Jewish feasts and
worshipped in the Temple (Acts 21:26). It is revealing how emotionally
attached he was to the Jewish people. "For I could wish that I myself
were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my
kinsmen by race" and "from their race, according to the flesh, is
Christ" (Rom. 9:3-5). His pain must have been so intense, almost
unbearable, for he also confessed that nothing in all creation would be able
to separate him "from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord"
(Rom. 8:39). In the view of David Flusser, one of the best known Jewish New
Testament scholars, Paul "could feel a solidarity with and love for the
Jewish people," despite his sharp criticism of Jewish rejection of the
Gospel. At the end of his work in Asia Minor, confronting this rejection,
Paul nevertheless concluded that his mission to the Jews was not a complete
or final failure. There is "mystery" in Jewish opposition to the
Gospel. Jews and Gentiles will coexist, but at the end they will be
reconciled "in Christ." This would be like "the resurrection
of the dead." God will be victorious and "will banish ungodliness
from Jacob" (Rom. 11:25-26).
To reveal to Gentile Christians God’s plan of salvation and their place
in it, he uses the metaphor of the olive tree (Rom. 11:17-24), which was
endemic in most places known to him. He compared the Jews to the fruitful
olive tree and the Gentiles to wild olive shoots. Gentiles were grafted onto
the Jewish olive tree in place of the branches that had broken off (Jews who
did not respond to the Gospel), "to share in the richness of the olive
tree" (Rom. 11:17). Gentiles should never forget a historical fact that
the first followers of Christ were Jews and the God of Israel, upon whom
they depend, offers them their salvation. If the God of Israel "did not
spare the natural branches, neither will he spare you" (Rom. 11:21).
Then in the same epistle Paul criticized the Gentile world for corruption of
thought and idolatrous worship and threatened them with God’s judgment
(Rom. 1:18-25). The parable of the olive tree revealed Paul’s love for the
Jewish people and his appreciation of Jewish spiritual achievements.
His faith in Christ, however, had expanded and transformed his notion of
Israel. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus, he saw the realization of
Israel’s hope. The future is inaugurated in the present. Those who believe
and who are baptized in the Risen Christ are children of Abraham. They are
blessed with Abraham (Gal. 3:9). They are now God’s Israel (Gal. 6:16).
For Paul, Christ was the final revelation of God. Christ is telos
(end, goal, fulfillment) of the law (Rom. 10:4). The cross of Christ, the
perfect expression of obedience to God, brought the law to fulfillment. It
is not now the Torah but Christ, love incarnate, who regulates all life. He
is the end of the law as the way of salvation. There are now no different
ways for salvation, one for Jews and another for Gentiles. Salvation comes
by faith in Christ.
By articulating his theological vision and seeing in Christ the
fulfillment of the richness of his own tradition, Paul stands not outside
but within the tradition of Judaism. This brought him into conflict with the
views of other Jewish groups or movements. Paul never planned or desired to
create a new religion that would oppose Judaism. He was interpreting Jewish
sacred history as an Israelite. Some of his kinsmen in Jerusalem as well as
in diaspora opposed him and even resorted to violent means to hinder him in
his ministry of reconciliation between Jews and Gentiles. After his
martyrdom the new leaders of Judaism considered Paul as their enemy, as one
who had burst the boundary lines of Judaism and put himself outside the pale
of Israel. But Paul proclaimed Christ from within Judaism. This is what the
text and our tradition transmit to us. Charges that Paul was an anti-Semite
are baseless.
Matthew
The destruction of the Temple and the Roman conquest of Judaea in 70 AD had
a profound impact with crucial consequences for the relations between Jews and
Jewish Christians. When it became clear that the outcome of the Jewish-Roman
war (66-70) would be catastrophic for the people of Israel, a farsighted
Jewish leader, Yohanan ben Zakkai, decided to found a center outside
Jerusalem. He appealed to the Roman general Vespasian (later emperor, 69-79)
to allow him to organize a school at Jamnia (Yavneh), a place on the coast of
Palestine which was already under Roman control. The main purpose of the
school was to make the Torah applicable to daily life, even without the cult
of the Temple. Confronted with the disruption of ties that had existed between
Jews in Palestine and those in Diaspora, the rabbis and sages of Jamnia
undertook to create worldwide unity in Judaism. To achieve this goal, the
rabbis had to eliminate the diversity that had been the hallmark of pre-Jamnia
Judaism.. The Jamnia teachers added to synagogue worship a petition against
the apostates and heretics: "As for the renegades, let there be no hope,
and may the arrogant kingdom soon be rooted out in our days and the minim
perish as in a moment and be blotted out from the book of life and with the
righteous may they not be inscribed. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who humblest
the arrogant" (Shemoneh Esreh [ The
Eighteen Benedictions] , a prayer of synagogue
worship). Recognizing that they were included in the minim, the
Disciples of Christ would no longer be able to attend the synagogue and recite
this prayer. Several of the New Testament writings, among them the Gospels of
Matthew and John, reveal the reaction of Jewish Christians to the new Jewish
movement toward unification.
The evangelist Matthew wrote his gospel in the eighties, that is, during
the drastic religious development within Judaism that followed the destruction
of the Temple. It reflects the conflicts caused by the determination of the
Jewish religious leaders of Jamnia to define the limits of Judaism. The gospel
offers some insights into the reaction of Jewish Christian communities,
probably located in or around Antioch, to these new trends.
Here we must keep in mind that the evangelists had as their primary task to
narrate the story of Jesus, including his relations and conflicts with the
people and the Jewish sects, and of his last week in Jerusalem. All four close
their gospels with the crucifixion and resurrection. Producing for their
communities these "foundation documents," the evangelists could not
dissociate themselves from the events crucial for the church at the time when
they recorded their witness. When they wrote the Gospel of Jesus, they
necessarily reflected the life of the church. Matthew and John wrote for their
Christian communities to encourage and strengthen their faith while facing
hostility and expulsion from their local synagogues.
When the author of Matthew completed his gospel, the destruction of the
Temple was past history (22:7). Gentiles as well as Jews threatened the church
to which he belonged (Matt. 10:17-18). In their own experience, they had seen
Jesus’ prophetic warnings fulfilled. Previously they had experienced various
forms of harassment, but now expulsion and persecution. We may find the best
expression of the attitude of the Christian leaders toward the successors of
the ancient Pharisees, the rabbis and sages of Jamnia, in Matthew 23. Matthew’s
gospel mirrors the intense dispute between the "scribes and
Pharisees" and the followers of Christ, who had been expelled from Jewish
local synagogues. This appears to be a bitter struggle between two
interpretations of their common sacred tradition. The heritage that both
groups share together forms the basis for Matthew's argument. The Christian
communities to which the gospel was addressed were firm in their conviction
that they too belong to the people of Israel. It is a feud within the family
about the direction Judaism should take after the catastrophe of 70 AD. The
dividing line between them is the answer that they give to the question of who
Jesus is and what place the Torah was to occupy. What we should be aware of
when we read Matthew 23, where the language of denunciation "is neither
charitable nor politically correct," is that this chapter does not depict
a confrontation between two religions, one Jewish and another Christian. What
we have are two groups claiming to be under the umbrella of Judaism. After
Jamnia the separation started, but at the time the Gospel was written Jewish
Christians had not yet cut their ties with other Jews. Reacting to their
expulsion in vitriolic terms, they attacked the Pharisees as hypocritical,
legalistic, blind and murderous. They could not reconcile themselves to their
role as minim, for whom there was no hope and who would be blotted out
from the book of life. By ascribing to Jesus these attacks on the Pharisees,
the evangelist somewhat colored the picture of Jesus, who occasionally had
friendly relations with some Pharisees.
The historical context of Matt. 23 also helps us to understand the reason
why the community of Matthew rejected the title "Rabbi" and
"Father." Christian believers are no longer to apply these titles to
the Jewish sages and rabbis: "Call no man Father on earth, for you have
only one father who is in heaven." In pre-Rabbinical Judaism, the term
"rabbi" was one of particular respect; his disciples called Jesus
"rabbi". Paul claimed to be "the father in Christ Jesus through
the Gospel" to Christian communities he founded and nurtured. It is only
after the Jamnia movement, when "rabbi" became a technical term for
an approved Jewish teacher and "Father" was applied to their sages,
that we find the titles prohibited.
Both Jewish and Christian interpreters of Matthew 23 have recognized that
the language of denunciation we find here has Jewish roots. Not only was the
dispute within Judaism, but the manner in which Matthew expressed his
criticism is rooted in Jewish tradition. "The so-called Woes [
woe to you scribes and Pharisees . . .] of Matt.
23:13-36 are written in a common form of Jewish admonitions," asserts
Moshe Weinfeld. We must understand the "cosmic sentence" on all
Jews, "His blood be on us and all our children" (Matt. 27:5),
ascribed to the priests, elders and the crowds, as a bitter polemical remark
from those expelled from the synagogue.
Matthew was not nor could he have been an anti-Semite. His gospel is far
from being an anti-Semitic book. He wrote his gospel not against Judaism but
against the Jamnia interpretation of the tradition, which he also claimed as
his own. Matthew, like any New Testament text, needs a dispassionate analysis
within its historical context for the benefit of both Jews and Christians. In
later ages, there is no doubt that many Jews saw Matthew as one of the fathers
of Christian anti-Semitism. Many Christians have fed their anti-Jewish
prejudices with Matthew’s list of denunciations. Neither side is interested
in the historical context of this first-century document, but readily
reinterprets the text according to its own premises. A modern scholar has
wittily remarked that treating Matthew 23 without consideration of the
historical forces that shaped it is like "a picnic to which the
evangelist brings his text and we all bring our meanings." Of course, not
every church member can be expected to plunge into historical study in order
to understand these passages. All would gratefully receive guidance in sermons
that would confront these seemingly difficult texts within a perspective that
is historically meaningful and spiritually enriching.
John
What does the latest of the four Gospels reveal about relations between
Jews and Christians in the last decade of the first century? How do we come to
regard this "most Jewish" of the Gospels as the most anti-Semitic,
and John as the "father of anti-Semitism"?
The fourth Gospel had a long period of growth over a period of tumultuous
history. It includes the eyewitness of the Apostle John, a member of the group
of the Twelve. The corner stone of this document is the Palestinian tradition,
originating from the apostolic witness. The gospel incorporated material from
other liturgical and historical sources that had kept the tradition of Jesus.
It attained its final form in the nineties. Apparently, it was the Church at
Ephesus, which approved this Gospel. It reflected various historical periods:
the life and experience of John’s community in Asia Minor at the close of
the century, as well as the time and history of Jesus.
The account of the healing of the blind man in John 9 illustrates this
double perspective. The man healed by Jesus tells his neighbor about the
healer. The Pharisees started an interrogation, as the miracle had occurred on
the Sabbath. When the parents of the healed man were questioned, they denied
knowing the identity of the healer, "because they [
fear] the Jews, for the Jews had already agreed
that if any one should confess him to be Christ, he was to be put out of the
synagogue" (9:22). This extraordinary narrative seems to have combined
two historical happenings: Jesus’ struggle with the Sadducees and Pharisees,
woven together with the contemporary conflict between Christians and the Jews
of Jamnia. Events from the end of the century are fused with those that had
occurred sixty years earlier, all in one text.
The church with which the evangelist John was associated found itself in
great danger. When they confessed who Jesus was (Jn. 5, 10, 9), they were
expelled from the synagogues and were exposed to the threat of the Roman
authorities without this protection. Reorganized Judaism did not want them in
its midst. The Romans, who respected Judaism as an old traditional religion,
were suspicious of new cults and considered them dangerous for the Empire. In
fact, the Christians of Asia Minor regarded themselves as heirs of a very old
tradition, not the nucleus of a new religion. We should stress that only in
this Gospel the term aposynagogos, "put away from the
synagogue," appears not once but three times (9:22, 12:42, 16:2). These
references help us to define the period of the composition of the Gospel and
give us an opening into the life the community in this time of crisis.
The term "Jew" occurs more than seventy times in the Gospel. The
"Jews" we met here are clearly distinguished from the Jewish
followers of Christ. They follow "their law" and belong to "the
realm of darkness." This language recalls that of the Essenes against the
priests in Jerusalem, as we have noted. The Gospel sometimes uses the term
"Jew" almost as a technical designation for Jewish religious
authorities hostile to Christ. Scholars have documented that in the text John
condemns opposition to Jesus, not the race of Jews. The term is also used in a
positive, appreciative meaning; it recalls that "salvation is from the
Jews" (Jn. 4) and refers to the Jewish feasts. The term "Jew"
covered as well both the followers of Jesus and those who rejected him
(11:45-46). Despite the evangelist’s polemic with the Jews provoked by the
conflicts and opposition to Jesus and the expulsion of his followers, he
remained faithful to the historical facts and did not exonerate the Roman
responsibility for the crucifixion.
Like Matthew, we should not denounce the evangelist John as anti-Semitic,
nor can we thus characterize the tradition incorporated into his gospel. We
should judge in its historical context what modern experience might lead some
to interpret as "anti-Semitic." Actually, Wilhelm Marr, an
anti-religious and anti-Jewish German, first used the term
"anti-Semitism" late in the nineteenth century. He regarded race or
national origin, not religion, as the primary reason for separating Jews from
Germans. The idea that race takes priority over religion grew in our century
with the rise of totalitarianism into a glorification of race, ending with the
Holocaust. As for ancient origins of anti-Semitism, we should look again to
the causes of the riots in Alexandria, with their religious, ethnic, political
and economic elements, rather than to Jewish-Christian documents of the first
century. Let us remember the words of Paul: "There is neither Jew nor
Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female, you
are all one in Christ Jesus" (Gal. 3:28).
[Professor Kesich is Emeritus Professor of New Testament at St. Vladimir's
Orthodox Theological Seminary.]
|
