Anti - Christian Semi

32 Pages 7879 Words

The Brief History of Christian Anti-Semitism.

For sixteen hundred years, the Jewish people have been persecuted and murdered by

people who worship a Jewish man as their savior: the Christians. Why did Christian anti-Semitism,

a seemingly illogical belief given that Jesus himself was a Jew, develop? How did it evolve, and

why has it persisted for centuries? In the Biblical gospels, despite three of the four being

ostensibly written by Jews, enemies of Jesus are referred to as “the Jews.” Early Christians found

themselves in a quandary.

The savior they worship, himself a Jew, purportedly was killed by Jews. Since at least the

fourth century, some groups of Christians have actively practiced Anti-Semitism, taking revenge

on Jewish people for “murdering” the God of Christianity.

Christians have called Jews devils, demons and antichrists. Persecution by church officials,

both Catholic and Protestant, was consistent and deadly for over a thousand years. Hundreds of

thousands, possibly millions of Jews, were massacred by so-called Christians centuries before the

Holocaust. Emperor Constantine the Great converted to Christianity in 312 A.D. Attributing his

military successes to God, he issued the Edict of Milan, making Christianity the Roman Empire's

official religion. It was here in the fourth century that open anti-Semitism emerged. A great

number of superficial converts (wanting to be on the winning side) joined the church, which was

placing overwhelming emphasis on the sacraments. The sacraments were thought by many to have

a magical content, supernaturally protecting against attacks from the devil. Those outside the

Orr 2

sacramental community -- primarily unconverted Jews -- became seen as people through whom

the devil could work his evil purposes.

The Jews were thought to be sorcerers, cannibals, and child-murderers. Attacks b...