www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Eight Homilies Against the Jews by Saint John Chrysostom

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/chrysostom-jews6.html

I have read that an alternate title is "Against The Judaizers". The tone is extremely harsh at times and (apparently) anti-semitic - which bothers me greatly, having read his other homilies with much profit.

Any explanation, authenticity, translation, apologetics on the background of these writings, etc.? Also, any response from the Church on these and similar writings in light of the Church's renewed relationships with the Jewish people and interest in her Hebraic roots?

Thank you!

Woody

Wow. I just read the introduction of that article, filled with quotes from the sermons of St. John Chrysostom. Wow. The breadth and depth of hatred is . . . remarkable. Can anyone comment on how so revered and eloquent a saint could apparently despise the kinsmen of our Lord?

Well to begin with....Jews killed Jesus....Jews persecuted the early church(and killed St. Stephen, the first martyr)....Jews allied themselves with the pagans against Christianity once Constantine converted the Empire....and so on.

Besides, St. John Chrysostom's views were hardly the exception to the Church's attitude to the Jews, as these quotes show.

"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him�you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
--St. Stephen, Acts 7: 51-53

"The Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and have persecuted us, do not please God, and they are adversaries to all men, prohibiting us from speaking to the Gentiles that they may be saved, to fill up their sin always: for the wrath of God has come upon them to the end."
-- St. Paul, I Thessalonians ii.14-16

"Jews prefer to persist in their stubbornness rather than to recognize the words of their prophets and the mysteries of the Scriptures and thus arrive at a knowledge of the Christian faith and salvation."
-- Bl. Pope Gregory X

"Crucifiers of Christ ought to be held in continual subjection."
-- Pope Innocent III

"It would be licit, according to custom, to hold the Jews in perpetual servitude because of their crime."
-- St. Thomas Aquinas

"Let the Gospel be preached to them and, if they remain obstinate, let them be expelled."
-- Pope Leo VII

"One who dies a Jew will be damned."
-- St. Vincent Ferrer

"The Jews were unworthy to perceive the meaning of the divinely-inspired Scriptures which speak of the mystery of Christ. And because they had taken no notice of the truth, they made themselves unworthy of the salvation which flows from Christ."
-- St. Cyril of Alexandria

"The Jews are enemies of God and foes of our holy religion."
-- Padre Pio

"Jews are slayers of the Lord, murderers of the prophets, enemies and haters of God, adversaries of grace, enemies of their fathers' faith, advocates of the devil, a brood of vipers, slanderers, scoffers, men of darkened minds, the leaven of Pharisees, a congregation of demons, sinners, wicked men, haters of goodness!"
-- St. Gregory of Nyssa

"If someone should kill the beloved son of a man, and then stretch forth their hands still stained with blood to the afflicted father, asking for fellowship, would not the blood of his son, visible on the hand of his murderer, provoke him to just anger instead? And such are the prayers of the Jews, for when they stretch forth their hands in prayer, they only remind God-the-Father of their sin against His Son. And at every stretching-forth of their hands, they only make it obvious that they are stained with the blood of Christ. For they who persevere in their blindness inherit the blood-guilt of their fathers; for they cried out: "His blood be upon us, and upon our children" (Matthew xxvii.25)."
-- St. Basil the Great


"Poor Jews! You invoked a dreadful curse upon your own heads in saying: "His blood be on us and our children"; and that curse, miserable race, you carry upon you to this day, and to the End of Time you shall endure the chastisement of that innocent blood. O my Jesus! ... I will not be obstinate like the Jews. I will love Thee forever, forever, forever!"
-- St. Alphonsus Maria Liguori

"We order all our brother bishops absolutely to suppress the blasphemy of Jews in your dioceses, churches, and communities, so that they do not dare raise their necks, bent under eternal slavery, to revile the Redeemer."
-- Pope Gregory IX.

"It is known that the Jewish people are polluted with wickedness, blasphemy, and the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ so that their wickedness has no limit."
-- St. Felix of Toledo

And there's plenty more where these came from!

Dear Woodman,

We have to take St. John Chrysostom's sermons in context of the time he lived in. These were not the Jews that crucified Jesus, but those that aroused the pagans into hatred for the Christians. The Christians in the early century were gravely persecuted because of the Jews. Actually, I think they had an obsession against the Christians.

Now the Eastern Roman Empire, (Byzantine Empire), never persecuted the Jews. Only the West did. Neither were they persecuted in Rome. The Jews were free to have their synogogues in Constantinople, and when the first Crusaders came, they were horrified and immediately set fire to one of them burning half the city.

Then there is the difference in culture. We have a spiritual side to us. I recall reading a Jewish magazine once out of curiousity and realized that every action within their faith was a physical activity. It made me realize that the constant activity on their part was the root of their success in this material world.

They were basically a 'unique' culture within a culture based on a different value system, especially in Western Europe. In the Near and Middle East, they were culturally more similar and rarely if ever persecuted. So I think the concept that the Saints aroused 'hatred' in them, is seriously in error. I think they were speaking because of the sufferings of the Christians under the Pagan emperors because of the Jews. It was also a time when people spoke more freely, and weren't worried about being politically 'correct'.

As for me, I just recently realized that the Jews are truly the chosen people. It was the Jews that God 'chose' to give us the 'Word' (Logus). God chose them, and knew that they would suffer for 2000 years because of it. We should be forever grateful, and should pray, (because of our gratitude), that their eyes will be opened to our Lord's saving Grace...no matter how much they annoy us when they sometimes grapple over every cent.

Now I know that they lack the sense of being a 'good sport', something that is so common to us. I attribute it to their belief that they value and concern themselves on providing for their family above and beyond all. I say this because their exceptional charity contradicts whatever steriotype we have formed. So it can't be the money, but rather the idea that if one cares about their family they will do the utmost to provide for them.

Also it seems that the Jews believe that the more one is able to achieve and accomplish in this world tends to have precedence over everything else. As I stated, the very faith of Judaism is one of continuous 'activity'.

I love to be analytical.

Zenovia

Are you serious? Do you seriosuly claim that the Jews killed Jesus?

I recall that a pagan Roman named Pontius Pilate condemned Jesus to death. I further recall that it was pagan Roman soldiers who carried out that order.

I also recall that while some Jews did want Jesus to be killed, other Jews did not want Jesus to be killed. Namely, His mom, His aunt, Mary Magdalene, 11 of His 12 apostles, the women of Jerusalem who were weeping, Nicodemus and His other disciplies, the people whom He cured, and so on: these were Jews who did not want Jesus to be killed.

Finally, I recall that the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus took on all of our sins through His crucifixion so that we all may be saved. For one of many examples of this idea from Scripture, see 1 Peter 2: 24: "He bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed." Thus, in a very real sense, we all killed Jesus by our sins. Put another way, Jesus saves us all by His cross and resurrection.

I find the idea that Jews are solely or mostly responsible for the death of Jesus to be appalling. It is this idea, in my opinion, which is the historical origin of the Christian anti-semitism which resulted in the deaths of untold numbers of people down through the last 16 centuries or so: physically (by killing) and spiritually (by causing hatred in the heart).

-- John

The passage in Acts was spoken in the presence of the council (i.e. gathered Jewish leaders and high priest). The apostle Paul in I Thessalonians uses the term �Jews� and narrows down exactly which ones he is talking about � ��prohibiting us from speaking to the Gentiles� � obviously people who had the authority to do so � the leaders. The parent�s of the man born blind (who was healed by our Lord) stood back and let their son testify because the Jewish leaders had decided that if anyone confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, they would be cut off from the synagogue. The greater blame and denunciations are directed at the corrupt leadership � rather than the Jewish people as a whole. Who was it that our Lord pronounced the �woes� against? Was it not the scribes, Pharisees and lawyers? The ones who covered land and sea to make a convert and make him twice the child of hell that they were? Our Lord did use very harsh language - toward the hard-hearted leadership. Was He not addressing THE LEADERS when He said the blood all the way from righteous Abel, etc would be required of that generation. Did not our Lord say, �Father, forgive them THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO�? and Steven asked the Lord to not lay this sin to their account? Peter mentions, ��Now I know, brothers, that YOU ACTED OUT OF IGNORANCE, just as your leaders did�� (Acts 3:14-20). The Apostle Paul says of himself,"I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man, but I have been mercifully treated because I ACTED OUT OF IGNORANCE in my unbelief." (1 Timothy 1:13 NAB).

Our Lord wept over Jerusalem. The Lord did bring judgment upon that generation � the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, etc. It was approximately a space of 40 years (same amount of time that Israel wandered in the wilderness) that the Gospel went out � to the Jew first and also to the Greek. The Lord had predicted that there would be divided households � some believing on Him, while others rejected Him. The apostle Paul loved his people so much that he wished that he himself would be accursed if that is what it would take for them to be saved! Wow - Talk about love and mercy!

Thank you, Kyivan Catholic, for the additional quotations provided by fathers, Popes, etc. I am familiar with some of these - I do find them as shocking as the messages by Chrysostom. As Zenovia has mentioned (thanks Zenovia!) it helps a bit to understand the times in which Chrysostom wrote. Can anyone recommend a resource which touches on what was occuring in Chrysostom's day? Perhaps this may vindicate (a little) of what he has said - or maybe some of his words were just plain un-Christlike and need to be recognized as such. I think some of the apologies the Church has made involve these sort of things - past words and deeds. Are we not instructed, "Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God - just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved."(I Cor 10:32-33 NAB).

Lastly, thanks, John, for your response to the idea that the Jews killed Jesus and what that has led to historically.


Please continue with your exellent input so that all may benefit!

Woody

I have a suspicious mind - how much research has been done to verify the attribution of these homilies to Saint John Chrysostom?

Incognitus

Woodman et al,

For some perspective and reaction to the posting of these in Fordham's Medieval Sourcebook site, see Notes on Reaction to the Posting of the Chrysostom Text on the Jews [fordham.edu]

As appalling as these words attributed to the Golden-Mouthed Saint are to us, I think one must consider that as holy and blessed and treasured as are his words and those of the Early Church Fathers, no one has ever asserted that he or any of them were so divinely inspired as to lead us to believe that their words always and everywhere surpassed the foibles of humanity. That is to say that, their opinions, beliefs, and words unquestionably, at times, reflected the prejudices, misconceptions, etc. of their day and age.

If one were to present us with a quote from an Early Church Father which suggested that he believed the world to be flat, we would not be apprehended by any shock or disbelief that one so pious, so learned, so inspired by God could believe such. Consequently, I think it is somewhat disingenuous to think that holy men of another era could not have been seized of beliefs that we would today consider to be biased, uncharitable, hateful, or even anti-Semitic. Time marches on and we are the better for the insights gained, the societal development (sometimes), and the abandonment of ideology that was based on preconceived and stereotypical notions of what it means to be a ______ (fill in the blank - with any noun descriptive of someone by their race, ethnicity, nationality, culture, or religion).

That a purpose is served by continuing to analyze these texts seems to me unlikely; as is, it has generated a few comments here that themselves smack of a latent (and not far-removed from blatant) anti-Semitism offered in the guise of being analytical.

Many years,

Neil

Neil- Welcome back; we've missed you and your always thoughtful posts.
Holiness does not imply inerrancy and holy people in every age have held to various errors; think of saints supporting antipopes in the Western Middle Ages, or endorsing forced conversions. God overlooks our blindness, which is a good thing for American Christians, who tend to idolatrous nationalism [arguably the anti-Semitism of our age.]
-Daniel

Well said, Neil - EXCELLENT POINT - if not careful, we do tend to endorse EVERYTHING someone says based on their status/reputation - isn't that why they pick baseball players, etc to do shaving commercials? I have learned to keep the wheat and blow away the chaff.

Daniel, you bring up a good point with your "suspicious mind". In the bibliography for Chrysostom, (New Advent, etc) this work is mentioned. Now, whether or not the online version is accurate or if there is something better available online - I do not know - perhaps it would be too much of a "hot potato" to have available - this was kind of part of my original question/request - verification by those scholars among us.

As to the "new anti-semitism" - my own opinion is that it is (judging from the portrayal by the today's media) - anti-Catholicism (West,East and yes - separated brethren, too). It seems perfectly acceptable to mock/slam clergy, portray Christians as superstitious "kooks" who are out of touch with the modern world, etc. The sins/faults of a few is "the face" the media broadcasts as "The Church". However, when something REALLY BAD happens (life/death issues) - more clergy are interviewed - why did this happen - what does this mean, Fr. So and So?

Pardon my rambling!

God Bless you,

Woody

I believe that some of us need yto look back at the life of John XXIII, of blessed Memory, Paul VI of blessed memory, and John Paul II of blessed memory as well as reread "Nostra Aetate" and rexamine attitudes towards Jewish people. The quotes given above are disgraceful and shows that even saints are not impeccable.

Several points:

Woody,

Your post was right on point and edifying ! Thank you.


Neil,

I agree with this part of your post:

People, even holy people can be sinners. Their sin can be a product of their times, or purely chosen or (probably most often the case) a mix of the two. St. John Chrysostom's holy works and writings are not diminished by his anti-semitism. Nevertheless, the anti-semitism in his writings (like the writings of others) is a fact.

Hence, my next point:

I would tend to agree with this, and I would add one thing more. Valid analysis of past sins by Christians (and anti-semitism is surely one of the biggest sins of Christians historically) potentially helps we of the present to better see our own sins. If we can be shocked that an otherwise gifted and holy man such as St. John Chrysostom was so ensnared by the sin of anti-semitism (perhaps because it seemed normal or natural in his era), what sins are we ensnared by in our era?

In this instance and in so many other instances, I am reminded to not trust fully in the holiness of anyone (least of all, my prideful self-assessment of my own "holiness"), but rather to only fully trust in Jesus Christ. He taught that, on the Day of Judgement, the first shall be last and the last shall be first. As Thomas Merton once wrote: on the Day of Judgement, there will be surprises. And much of that surprise will be seeing, for the first time clearly, how much sin is my own.

-- John

It is also important when reading these types of homilies to differentiate between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism. Clearly, St. John Chysostom exhibits the former, but he does not exhibit the latter, and this is true of all the Fathers. In fact it is quite easy to read texts in the Fathers where they are anti-Jewish, anti-Arian, anti-Anomian, anti-Nestorian, anti-Apollinarian, et al., because the Fathers were concerned about theological orthodoxy, and in the defense of it they would often vilify their opponents. That being said, if a Jew, or a heretic, or a pagan, came to the true faith, the animosity of the Church Fathers ceased, and surely that would not be the case if their hatred were centered upon a man's ethnicity, i.e., as some kind of �racial� hatred. Ultimately the Fathers were concerned only with protecting and advancing the faith of the Church.

Now, a man today may disagree with the way that the Fathers of the Church did this, and he may disagree with the type of rhetoric that they used, but it is important to put their comments into a proper historical and theological context.

What I am saying is supported by St. John�s homilies themselves, because in the very first homily he makes mention of the Anomian heretics -- who he intends to preach against at a later date -- and the similarities between them and the Judaizers. Clearly these homilies, even if they offend against modern sensibilities, are concerned with the theological errors of the Jews and their rejection of Christ, and not some type of blind �racial� hatred.