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

I find it interesting that you can misread the point of a relatively straightforward statement, intended to illustrate that thinking and statements made must be considered in light of the age and times in which they were made, and seek to interpret it as undermining the wisdom and integrity of the Fathers.

You may wish to seek out others (perhaps in another environment) whose words and thoughts you can attempt twisting to satisfy your agenda. It's neither a game at which I choose to play nor one which I would anticipate losing, if pushed to participate.

Many years,

Neil

Thank you, Alex, for your kind words to me and for your very true, very moving and very inspiring words about the Pascha.

-- John

I would like to note that one can go to hell imitating the vices of the saints...
-Daniel

Dear Latin Trad you said:

"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."

I say:

Actually I'm shocked! I have come across the fact that some crusaders burned a temple in Constantinople so many times...yet it would be impossible for me to go through 'all' my history books to find the words or by whom or which historian. You would have to take my word on it because frankly I'm too lazy to search.

Of course the historians might have been judging something through their own 'lenses'. They assumed the unchristian temple was a synogogue... yet I do recall speaking with an Orthodox Jew and she was pleasantly surprised to find out that the Byzantine Empire was Greek.

Now in contrast to that, she showed me a children's book dipicting the Czechs as monsters persecuting the poor Jews.

You said:

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

I say:

I was thinking of a later era.

You said:

"Thirdly, I'm not sure where you got your information about the "first Crusaders" and their arrival in Constantinople. "

I say:

I believe they were let in a small group at a time. Actually it might not have been the First Crusade...I'm not sure about that one.

Zenovia

Dear Kyivan Catholic you quoted the following:

"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."

I say:

I have always found it pathetic that it was always the poor Jews that died, especially during WW II. The Nazi's not only killed them, but managed to destroy a whole culture as well...and I say this as one that loves to watch and listen to old Yiddish movies, etc. Of course they also tried to destroy other cultures as well, (such as the Polish culture), but were not successful.

The saddest thing is that the Jews that went back to Roumania in order to retain their 'Jewishness' before WW II, are the one's that died. Those that were willing to give it up and remain here, lived.

You quoted the following by Hilaire Belloc:

* that Bolshevism is a Jewish movement, but not a movement of the Jewish race as a whole

I say:

The Jews always end up suffering, not because they are doing something as a group, but because of the actions of individuals among them. Many Jewish intellectuals in Russia gave rise to the Communism of the Soviet Union, and that in turn gave rise to Nazism and their consequent anihilation.

Another reason they were persecuted in Germany, (and other countries as well), is because the nation they were living in felt that the Jews had no allegiance to it...which of course was probably true in many cases since their allegiance would have been to their brother Jews in the neighboring lands. Would they really care where a border started and where it ended. So during a war, the people would automatically turn on the Jews as being traitors.

In Germany though, it was not so. The Jews freely intermarried and tried to assimilate...if one should wonder why the Nazi's had to check on everyone's ancestry so thoroughly.

The Jews also fought willingly for the 'Fatherland'. Frankly, they loved Germany and actually had adopted the German and 'Western' prejudices against their 'inferior' Jewish brethren in Eastern Europe.

It was when the Germans suffered severe economic hardships after the First World War, that the Germans not only assumed that the wealthy Jews of Germany had stabbed them in the back, but that they were trying to turn the German nation into a communist state.

Again there was truth to this, for even in this country the Jews were very active in the Communist party during and after the depression, after all, how can a people without a nation have feelings of 'nationalism'. With Israel of course, all that changed.

It really was the British that caused their eventual persecution. In their underhanded way, they exploited the Zionists desire for a homeland in Palestine during WW I by having leaflets dropped from airplanes telling the Jewish soldiers not to fight for Germany, because they, the English, were their friends...And they, the English, were going to give them Palestine.

You quoted Hillaire Belloc as mentioning:

* the Jewish mentality

I say:

When a Christian is Baptized, he changes. He is now given the ability to acquire 'Grace' It is this ability that differentiates us from all other religions.

I recall speaking to an elderly Jewish woman who told me how her Rabbi had them sitting in a river. He told them that God was like that water running around them; protecting them.

I said we believe God comes within us. She just looked at me.

As for who crucified Jesus, it is everyone that goes along with a group, or with what is politically correct, at some specific time...for these are the same people that would have crucified Jesus then, and are doing so now.

Zenovia

On the Question of the alleged Anti-Semitism of St. John Chrysostom, I recommend the following link: http://www.chrysostom.org/jews.html

I believe that there were reasons why the Jews of Europe became identified with banking and with gold, diamonds, etc.
Until recent centuries it was strictly forbidden for Catholic to practice usury, i.e. the lending of money with interest. Thus, Christians who loaned money were philanthropists because they could not profit from the practice. Many religious societies and Orders were involved in banking.
Since only the Jews could charge interest, they were the money-lenders of the time. This probably explains widespread hatred/jealousy towards the Jews because anyone who was "in hock" probably owed his debts to a Jewish money-lender.
In many places Jews could not own property, which is why their wealth was kept in the form of precious metals and jewels.
I believe it was Tsar Nicholas I who decided to celebrate some victory or anniversary by banishing the Jews of Russia to Western Ukraine. When a group is liable to be exiled en masse with a short notice, it's smart to have your resourses liquid!

Dear Inok,

I agree with you wholeheartedly. Usury was a sin and it was only the Jews that could loan money. For that reason they could rise very quickly in a society...let's say if the king had some financial need, and just as quickly they could be banished. Especially if there were too many Jews in one area, and they owned too much.

Also because they were banished so frequently, in more recent years diamonds became very important to them. They were small and could be smuggled easily. In case anyone's interested, all the Jews work in the diamond exchange in N.Y. and Amsterdam.

They are an amazing people, yet I feel they don't know when to step on the brakes...especially in regards to Israel. I can't help but feel that had they held themselves back in some of their actions, maybe the situation there would not have deteriorated to the point it did.

There's a lot of complexities there because their history is different from ours...and their desire for self preservation sometimes pushes them a little too hard.

As for the early years of the Church, I had read that the Jews encouraged the Roman Empire to persecute the Christians. Now that would be easy to understand if one considers that to most Jews Christianity was a 'heresy'.

Actually it was the Greeks throughout the Near and Middle East that had converted to Judaism that became the first Christians. If one was to take into account the amount of Greco/Roman pagan customs and practices within Christianity, and how alien it was to Judism in it's original form and practice, it becomes more obvious.

There were definitely 'cultural' differences between Judaism and Christianity and there was bound to be problems.

Zenovia

Actually, that's a rather lovely analogy, don't you think? I've heard Christian preachers/priests compare God to the air that we breathe and the ground that supports us. Nothing really "bad" about that rabbi's idea - perhaps incomplete, but still apt.

Dear Friends,

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and others, martyred by the Nazis, always understood any form of anti-semitism to be a form of attack against Christ Himself.

My father was involved in assisting Jews escape during the war as a member of "CARITAS." (My father greatly honoured Pope Pius XII as a great benefactor to many . . .).

And among those Pope John Paul the Great beatified when he was in Ukraine was Fr. Emilian Kovch, a married Ukrainian priest who saved many Jews, including baptising those who came to him to ask to be.

When the Gestapo took him into custody, this was part of the exchange:

Gestapo: Didn't you know it was against the law to baptize Jews?

Fr. Kovch: I didn't know anything . . .

Gestapo: Do you know it now?

Fr. Kovch: Yes.

Gestapo: And will you continue to baptize Jews?

Fr. Kovch. Of course . . .

Fr. Kovch was sent to a death camp (he had six children of his own). He wrote his Presbytera this letter from the camp: "Dearest, yesterday they killed 50 men. Can you imagine - 50 men! At least I was able to be with them and to console them as best as I could. They had no one to be with them in their final hours. God uses us in ways we cannot know . . ."

He himself was gassed and burned at the camp and has been declared by both the Polish and Ukrainian church authorities to be the Patron Saint of Peremysl.

Alex

Dear Alex,

I don't know much about other nations, but I know that Solonika was a Jewish city before WW II. When they were banished from Spain in 1492, many went to the Ottoman Empire. Their relationship to the Turks is still very close. Especially today when one considers the saying, 'that my enemies enemy is my friend'. The Arabs, and especially Syria suffered gravely under the Ottomans. So in that case, the Jews and Turks would definitely be friends.

I don't know exactly what happened in WW II, but all the Jews of Solonika were killed. They were considered to 'puny' to be of service to the Germans. Why the Jews remained in Solonika and didn't leave for the mountains, remains a mystery... at least to me.

In Athens though the story was different. All the Jews managed to escape. The head Rabbi left Athens and that was a message for all the Jews to head for the mountains or Turkey... that is if they would let them in.

I really don't think Turkey allowed them to enter, because I recall bumping into a little old Jewish woman in Rhodes... many, many years ago. She kept repeating, "oh the money that is hidden on this island". She told me that the Jews were very wealthy so I have to assume that Rhodes was taken by the Germans, and the Jews did not manage to survive.

Now Turkey is next to Rhodes, so for the Jews not to be able to escape is quite odd. But then Turkey has always had good relations with Germany.

Now a few years ago, a fuss was being made in Europe about the Greek identity cards. Arch. Christodoulos believed that abolishing the identity cards stating one's religion would be the beginning of the separation of church and state.

He adamantly opposed abolishing them and it became a big political issue, after all the cards came into being by the Greek government under the German occupation. Yet their real purpose was to establish an Orthodox Christian identity for the Jews.

Zenovia

I know this thread is very old, but in doing an online search I found it, and joined so I could reply.

I am from an Orthodox Jewish childhood, but became a Traditional Latin Rite Roman Catholic when I was 18. Due to unavailability of the Mass at times, I became involved in a Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic parish for a few years, so I have had a foot in both halves of the Church, so to speak!

I agree with much of what St John Chrysostom said, and what the Church Fathers and many Popes have said. It is politically correct now, in 2016 to make nice to the Jews, but having known the Jewish community from the inside, I know the reason why they are so disliked. The hatred many have for Gentiles and esp. Christians (unless they are Christian Zionists, of course) helped drive me from them because I could not conceive of a God who only loved one group of people, and regarded the rest as eventual servants of the Jews in the Olam Ha'bah, or World to Come (the Ramchal, Derekh Hashem, as well as many portions of the Talmud, too numerous to list.)

I would also like to add (to my previous post), that only someone unable to read the New Testament would say that only Roman soldiers crucified Christ. The Scriptures plainly state in many places that the Jewish leader and the people they stirred up, called for the death of Our Lord. It is very, very clear no matter how many post-Vatican II clergy or popes try to maintain otherwise. The Word prevails against the political correctness of our time.

However, as the Catechism of the Council of Trent says in the commentary on the crucifixion, the sin of crucifying Christ is greater in Christians than in the Jews because we profess to believe, yet we crucify Him anew each time we sin.