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

I agree with the Fathers in their discussion of theology. I disagree with them where their words support hatred. Hate the sin and love the sinner is the guiding rule of Christian morality. Otherwise, I doubt that Jesus would have prayed for those who crucified Him --including myself, by my sins-- while He was nailed and dying on the Cross.

-- John

Amen. And I think that applies to us all, not just the Jews. I don't know what all the Church has taught wrong, but I do know what it has taught right. That verse and the Paschal Mystery which it shrouds summarizes everything that the Church has taught and still teaches right. Blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus is the same as denying our own sins and our own culpability in His death . . . and it also denying our share in His forgiveness and His resurrection. The only lesson of the Cross should be, "I killed Jesus, but Jesus loves me and waits to forgive me anyway."

-- John

Then don't read any of the writings of the Fathers in which they confront heresy, because in all of those types of texts they speak as St. John Chrysostom does in the homilies against the Judaizing heretics.

Anyone familiar with St. Athanasios' writings against the Arians, or St. Cyril's writings against the Nestorians knows what I am talking about.

Blessings to you,
Todd

Yeah, not to mention some of the stuff written about the Orthodox by the Catholics, and vice versa.

Thank you, I agree.

It should be noted that upholding this view does not automatically mean you want to kill all Jews or anything, unlike what the media saids.

The Orthodox Church still upholds this position to this day, for example.

But that does not mean Jews should get a free pass. It tires me to no end how Jews use the Holocaust and charges of anti-semitism as a way to deflect anykind of criticism(however justified) against them.

GK Chesterton knews this all too well, as Dale Alqhuist explains:

http://www.chesterton.org/discover/lectures/35newjerusalem.html

Chesterton was puzzled by the charge of anti-Semitism in his own lifetime. He thought it strange that he could criticize everyone except the Jews. (And he did criticize everyone, most of all, himself. And his criticisms of the Jews are lightweight compared to what he said about Moslems, Buddhists, Christian Scientists, Germans, and, more surprisingly, Americans.)
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His initial point is that it is absurd to say that Jews have only been oppressed and have never been the oppressor. His main argument about Jews being the oppressor is the consequences of usury in the Middle Ages. It is an issue no one ever wants to discuss. In fact, no one ever dares to discuss the reason why Jews were historically unpopular in Europe. The problem is epitomized by the literary discussions of Shakespeare and Shylock that never mention the word "usury." Chesterton insists that Shylock is not disliked because he is a Jew but because he is a usurer.

Chesterton is frank in his criticism of wealthy international banking firms run by Jewish families that have a huge influence on European political and commercial affairs in his own day. But again, his attack on them is not that they are Jewish but that they are too rich and too powerful and make for an unjust world. Chesterton is always a defender of the poor and always a gadfly of the rich. The chief character in the New Testament was much the same way.

Chesterton's friend, Hilaire Belloc also wrote an interesting book pertaining to the Jewish question from a Catholic perspective. Here's an outline of such offered by Angelus press:


http://www.angeluspress.org/social_doctrine3.htm

The Jews
Hilaire Belloc

An attempt by the author to present a frank and open discussion of the Jewish question giving many of the issues involved with the problem. From the Preface, "The object of this book is�the relation between the Jews and the nations around them�" Belloc skips over ad hominem attacks and focuses on the undeniable reality of the problem of Jews living in a Christian culture.

Belloc's fairness and even-handedness is surprising. He speaks of:

• the Jewish control of banking yet does not fail to point out that the average European Jew is poor
• that Bolshevism is a Jewish movement, but not a movement of the Jewish race as a whole
• the Jewish mentality
• the failure of gentiles to be honest about the Jewish question
• Anti-Semitism (an evil to be deplored but hard to oppose because it exploits the truth so often denied by liberal gentiles), the only two forces capable of opposing industrial capitalism �the Jews and the Church�divergent paths
• the interplay of the four most important forces in the world: the Catholic Church, the Jews, Islam and industrial capitalism
• the history of the Jews in England (fascinating �control of money-lending in the Middle Ages, their exile under Edward I, their return under the Protestant Cromwell and their alliance against their mutual enemy, the Catholic Church, attempts to form an Anglo-Judaic state in Palestine (if this isn�t pertinent reading for today, then we don�t know what is!)
• Zionism and much more!

I guess the question I would have is, why are we spending what seems to be an inordinate amount of time focusing the shortcomings and sins of the Jews, instead of our own?

WHO GATHERED AGAINST THE LORD AND HIS ANNOINTED?

CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH (#597-598)

There is a big distinction between confronting errors (on the one hand) and hating people or inciting people to hatred (on the other hand).

The motive of the former is love. It is an attempt to correct errors out of a genuine compassion and desire to help. Parents, pastors and anyone (including you and many people who post on this forum) know that. You and others can carefully make the distinction between the person and the person's errors.

Recognizing the writings of the Fathers for their errors is just as valuable as learning from their wisdom. When they failed to display selfless love, when they instead displayed hatred, especially in materials that affected future generations -- this is very useful for us today to learn, in order to avoid.

Here is a contemporary example: abortion. How many times are people excoriated with the most bitter hatred for committing that sin? Yes, abortion is an abomination; yes, it must be condemned in no weak terms. But, that doesn't mean we should hate people who commit this sin nor incite others to hatred. (And, no, I'm not accusing you of doing that.) Instead, while condemning the sin, we must welcome the sinner with genuine love and compassion. Otherwise, we will simply harden the sinners in their sin by our hatred.

I don't have the learning that you do, Todd. But I know what I read in those excerpts of the sermons by St. John Chrysostom against the Jews / Judaizers. What he wrote was inexcusable. That language did nothing to inspire or instill the selfless love of Jesus. There was just hate, and that was just wrong. It didn't solve problems; instead, it probably just exacerbated them by instilling the seeds of anti-semitism to his and future generations. That is not the Gospel.

-- John

You missed my point. The Fathers attacked the errors of their day and those who promoted them. Read St. Athanasios against the Arians, he doesn't simply attack the errors; rather, following in the rhetoric of the time, he attacks those who promote the errors as well. St. Gregory of Nazianzus and St. Basil the Great (as just two other examples) did the same thing in fighting against the Eunomians.

You are judging the Fathers and the method of discourse that they used, by standards that did not exist at that time. In other words, you are being anachronistic. The various heretical groups -- including the Judaisers -- attacked the Fathers in the same manner, because that was the type of rhetorical discourse common during that era.

Blessings to you,
Todd

I don't really trust anything from Angelus Press. They're basically the official publishing house of the schismatic SSPX. And I notice the same Fathers who criticized the Jews had similar harsh words for schismatics.

Dear John,

Thank you. I think this is the heart of the matter. Every single person has contributed to the death of Jesus. The Jews certainly killed Jesus. But so did the Christians, and the Germans, and the Chinese, and the Africans. The list does not end.

I too have murdered Jesus in a way that is no less real than if I had physicially crucified him. Every time I sin, I hammer a nail into his holy hands and feet. And even if the rest of the world were wholely innocent of sin, even if I were the only sinner in this entire world, Jesus would still have died, for me alone, out of a love that we can never fully comprehend. I bear fully the responsibility for having killed Jesus. And so does everyone else.

Thank you also to Woody, Incognitus, Neil, Daniel, Brian, Theist Gal, Michael, and any others who have offered even-handed and insightful comments.


Yours in the Peace of Christ,
Alex NvV


Lord, my loving God, have mercy on me, a sinner!

Hey guys,

I haven't posted in a long, long time, but I just wanted to chime in on this thread in the interest of historical accuracy.

Umm, Zenovia, this is not historically accurate at all. In the first place, the laws of the Eastern Empire related to Jews were exactly the same as those in the Western Empire. There was no difference in policy between East and West, vis-a-vis Jews, as long as the Roman Empire was intact.

Secondly, the Jews were persecuted in Rome, by the Junio-Claudian emperors, as recounted in the Annals of Tacitus.

Thirdly, I'm not sure where you got your information about the "first Crusaders" and their arrival in Constantinople. I have been engaged in graduate studies on the crusades for quite a while now and I have never heard such a statement or encountered it in the sources.

In fact, as you probably know, the only reason the "first Crusaders" came to Constantinople was because the emperor Alexius invited them, and was personally responsible for transporting them accross the Bosphorus into Anatolia. Moreover, the armies of the First Crusade NEVER SET FOOT inside the Theodosian walls--they were camped outside the city the entire time. The only crusaders to enter Constantinople were some of the top leaders, including the general Hugh "the Great," and the Norman leader Bohemond, who were strong-armed by Alexius into taking an oath of fealty and a pledge that all conquests would revert to the Empire.

In fact, it would have been pretty dumb for Alexius to allow a huge army of foreigners into his city, even if they were his "friends." Seeing as the armies never entered the city, it would seem highly improbable that they burned half of it.

LatinTrad

Nice to see you again Latin Trad...guess the LA Angels burst your bubble...don't fret...those south siders burst mine...now we are in turmoil...

PAX,
james

Dear Friends,

Shalom!

Just a note on this topic.

The references to the "Jews" by St John Chrysostom has NOTHING whatever to do with ethnic/racial hatred.

Nothing, period.

It has everything to do with opposition to an heretical sect that were called the "Jews" - in effect, Christians that were trying to lead the Church to Judaism.

There were also Jews who proselytized Christians in trying to convert them. You wouldn't hear about that today, but in those times you did. This was also at the root of St John's references - disagreements, even harsh ones, over religious/philosophical doctrines that didn't only extend to Jews and Christians.

Let's remember that in this time period, religous arguments sometimes ended in fisticuffs and even in the deaths of people (Mar Dioscoros and St Flavian of Constantinople . . .).

And St Nicholas of Myra was so enraged against Arius that he felt he just HAD to punch him out (the icon of St Nicholas with Our Lord and the Mother of God on either side of him is actually based on a vision the Fathers of the First Council had after they punished Nicholas for his physical violence against the arch-heretic as an action unbecoming a bishop).

The sect of the Judaizers was also prominent in the 16th century in Orthodox Russia - there were bishops who belonged to it, as well as members of the Russian aristocracy. This sect was very iconoclastic - and secret.

The Orthodox Church of the day condemned this sect as the "sekta zhydovstvuyuschykh" or "sect of the Judaizers." For this reason alone, the East Slavic languages never use the term "Zhid" to describe a Jew - that term, which means "a Jew" is reserved to the members of the excommunicated sect of the Judaizers.

It became an offensive term to East Slavic Jews and it is not used out of courtesy to this day ("Yevrey" is used instead).

The roots of modern anti-semitism constitute a separate discussion.

But the religions in the time of St John Chrysostom were ALL guilty of excessively abusive language in reference to one another and one another's religious traditions and beliefs. That doesn't make it right, but it is, as has already been pointed out, a part of the ancient tradition of "debate" and religious antagonism that was common in the Middle Ages as well.

One more example was the debates between the Czech reformer Jan Hus and his opponents.

His opponents regularly made fun of him during public, university debate (!) and were particularly fond of calling him a silly "goose" on the basis of his surname which means "goose" in many Slavic languages.

When Hus was arrested at Constance on the charge of heresy, the Emperor Sigismund wrote him a letter expressing to him the people's worry about his safety (also knowing that he could be burned as an heretic).

Hus wrote back and said the famous words, "Don't worry, Sir, your 'goose' (Hus) is not cooked yet!"

I just had to throw that in . . .

Alex