ANTI-SEMITISM AND CHURCH 1/3

EUROPEAN ANTI-SEMITISM AND CHURCH

By Didier BERTIN – 15 APRIL 2010 – PART1/3 – TO BE CONTINUED

I-INTRODUCTION

We have recently mentioned in our last essay “The Roots of Israel”, that the European Anti-Semitism was the generator of the need to create a Jewish Home land and indicated last events of anti-Semitism before the independence of Israel. We would like   to present through a wider scope of European anti-Semitism illustrated by a few examples classified by nature and chronology, a synthesis aiming to identify its main root. Despite the word Anti-Semitism was created in the 19th century in Germany, we will utilize it from its effective beginning.

In this text the words Christianity will refer to Jesus’ philosophy and Church to Western and Eastern Churches (Roman and Orthodox) since the link between the two is far to be evident.

The mentioned events are not at all exhaustive but only illustrate the chronologic and geographic evolution.

II- ORIGIN: ROMAN EMPIRE

The Roman Empire created the ground for Anti-Semitism development with Diaspora; the latter and its preceding actions in Judea might also be considered as first acts of Anti-Semitism committed by European People.

66-73 - In the frame of Roman Period, which started in 31 BCE, the repression of Jews is organised by Vespasian and then by Titus following an uprising in Judea. And in 70 Titus destroyed the temple of Jerusalem.

135 – After the Revolt of Bar-Kokhba: Hadrian expelled the Jews from Judea.

The Jews were considered thereafter as virulent rebels in the whole Roman Empire.

II- OPINIONS OF ANCIENT GREEKS

On 1^st Century the Greeks of Minor Asia criticized the Jews for observing the Shabbat day and being absolved from the official idolatrous Religion.

Plutarch was very critical regarding Shabbat and Jewish food, and other traditions regarded as superstition and thought that the Tabernacles Feast has a Dyonisian character.

In 38, there were anti-Semitic riots in Alexandria under reign of Caligula. Apion was elected by the people of Alexandria in order to convince Caligula of the justification of anti-Semitism riots as this was reported by Flavius  Josephe.

Other authors thought that Jews were atheists since their God was not visible.

III –THE CHURCH FAR FROM JESUS’ BELIEFS AND MAJOR TOOL OF ANTI-SEMITISM

The Judeo-Christian beliefs were close in many aspects of those of Essenes as for example by messianic belief, baptism renouncement to material goods, sharing of goods according to individual needs. Jesus ‘philosophy was described by four witnesses; their testimonies were written between 65 and 110 years after the events. According to them his guidelines were clear and  simple: generosity, brotherly love in the larger extent, compassion with the effective lot of people  whatever they could expect in paradise, abandon of any aggressiveness, equality of all people, distance from material goods and critical view of rich people, sharing of goods in favour of those who are needing, high tolerance regarding all people without any prudery and forgiveness especially if it requests an effort.

We will see that unfortunately the Church over centuries and dishonestly in his name built an organization close of paganism supporting violence, intolerance, hatred and massacres.

Church was built far later after Jesus ‘death by people, who took initiatives to transform Christianity according to their own criteria.

Paul advocated the divorce with Jewish roots and a simplification of access to Christianity in order to make it more attractive to pagans; he finally imposed his opinion and the Church started to be much more Paulinian than Christian. In addition asceticism and high mysticism were also added to Church doctrine under the influence of Greek philosophers as Plato.

Thereafter the Church went to the extreme by questioning the nature of Jesus himself and decided to determine who Jesus was by its own decision.

1800 disagreeing bishops (1000 from East and 800 from west) met in the first council of Nicea in 325 to decide of Jesus’ nature.

Roman Emperor Constantine aware of the contradictions in the doctrine of the Church and ordered the organization of Nicea’s Council.

Contradictory proposals were made and the Council finally decided that Jesus was himself God and son of God and also to finish with the Jewish calendar followed by Jesus.

A second Council called the first Council of Constantinople and a third Council called the Council of Ephesus took place respectively in 381 and 431 to adopt the controversial belief in Trinity including Holy Spirit and declared for the first time that and since it was decided in 325 that Jesus was God, his mother should be with prudery considered as a “virgin” disserving veneration.

In 787 the second council of Nicea authorized after hesitations in the past, the adoration of Icons.

With trinity and Iconophily Church was becoming progressively a pagan current and divorced with Christianity; this situation will only be reconsidered in 1962 after two millennium of intolerance and violence inspired by the Church’s doctrine.

Among the additives, which drive Church far away from Christianity we may thus note the (i) Mariology (Cult of Mary), (ii) Saintology (Cult of Saints),(iii) Iconophily (adoration of representations),(iv) Trinity which is “a clear tritheism”; Church wanted however to remain arbitrary a monotheism  and thus explained officially that tritheism is monotheism as logic result of a “Mystery.” – Trinity idea was introduced for the first time 180 years Jesus ‘death-, (iv) “God murder” concept as a consequence of the decision taken in the first Nicea Council as such and as a major source of hatred and slaughters , (v) Theophagy “viewed as real” through the Eucharist and (vi) culture of mysticism and which was also a source of slaughters, (vii) Cult of small miracles. Small miracles are negligible magic events convincing the mob of divine presence and are due to collective or individual auto suggested hallucinations or to misinterpretations. Virgin whose divine part was a late choice of Bishops and not of Jesus as closer to simple humans, is often preferred to Jesus in matter of hallucinations - Church was itself sometimes annoyed by these hallucinations and was more follower than initiator. This belief may come from assumed magic made by Jesus but this was reported by witnesses and written a century later by people who might have wished to magnify the events – and (viii) asceticism and distorted view of sexuality- Priests and clerical orders should practice asceticism and abstinence –Saint-woman are preferably virgins as a signal of purity, in Catholic Church Priests are forced to Celibacy and Divorces are forbidden  – this has a frustration and guilt effect on human natural and may generate pathologies and prevented the Church from understanding many major and existential issues.

In 313 and 380, Church doctrine was imposed as the belief and then exclusive belief of the whole Roman Empire a strong temporal power support.

Church adopted the highly centralised and hierarchic model of the Roman Empire and created dioceses on the basis of Roman Provinces governed by bishops under the authority of the Patriarch of Roma or Pope. Rome became the centre of Church (before the East-West Schism of 1054) and Latin its language because Church was comfortably living in the Roman Empire until its fall. The fact that the fist Pope Shimon Bar Yona from Galilee nicknamed Peter and disciple of Jesus would have died in Rome is due to the assumption that Babylon means Rome in the Bible.

After the fall of Rome in 476, Church exercised a vast campaign of conversion of Barbarians and their leaders to maintain its power on the new masters. The conversion of Clovis and Francs in 496 was a bright start followed by Visigoths, Anglo-Saxons, Germanics, Slavic people, Celts, Vikings...

Church exercised a substantial influence on the new Christian Kings and then remained a strong temporal Power up to the point that later Kings were under the authority of Inquisitors.

The Churches are often luxurious palaces by external architecture and richness of inside decorum, with many icons and human representations aiming to impress and frighten since they valued “death of Jesus and Saints in high painful conditions.”

The huge representations of Jesus crucified presented to the mob, is a real call to murder of the assumed Jewish God killers.

Pain, suffering, abstinence were assumed to compensate faults on earth and open paradise and this was why the painful lot of poor people on earth was not an important issue for the Church, which prefer to remain close of Kings and later of dictators.

Following the model of the Temple of Jerusalem, Churches are sanctuary places and include an altar in front of which the sole sacrificial act is the theophagy through Eucharist; Eucharist is organized by Clergymen wearing liturgical clothes resembling to those of high Priests of the Temple of Jerusalem.

Eucharist is not a symbolic act of theophagy - digestion of the body and blood of Jesus and then of God - but “real” according to the Church as a result of the assumed miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit.

Eucharist ceremony was inspired by the last Passover meal of Jesus, which included Matsa (Unleavened bread) and wine. Jesus would have probably as a symbol, shared the Matsa as his body and the wine as his blood.

The fact that Church declared Matsa and wine as real body and blood led the Christian mob to many anti-Semitic murders. Jews were killed because they were accused to have broken the host (name of Matsa in Eucharist) and then to have attempt to kill God. Similarly Jews were accused to utilise real Christian blood to make Matsa for Passover.

This accusation was still the reason taken in 1903 for the assassination of 49 Jews in Kishinev (Russia).

Initially the propagation of Christianity probably aimed to bring monotheism and Moral rules to Pagan world and even the accommodation monotheism with adaptations to pagan made by Paul against the advice of the first Christians were not made to make of Christianity a tool of hatred.

Reformed Churches were born on 16^th century as a result of dissatisfaction from official Church and are not centralised. They were a minor part of Christian world but represent today 39% of Christians spread over 800 different currents. They intended to return to initial values of Christianity but this was often in vain and with a lack of substance. The founders of Reform Luther and Calvin were clearly hostile to Judaism.

USA, which is a reformed country, was a clear shelter for Jews out of Europe and mostly for reasons arising from American History.

The fact that Church was not Christian was also illustrated in the context of the paroxysm of WW2; the Holy See remained totally neutral before and during the War easing then the Holocaust process in the middle of Christian countries.

The proof that the Church is not Christian is the fact that the Church decided to organize the Council Vatican 2 in 1962 in an attempt to Christianize itself after a History of hatred and violence.

Jews lived more quietly in Muslim countries since Islam is a religion keeping severely its monotheist heritage far from Paganism. The situation of Jews deteriorated in Muslim countries mainly as the result of the contemporary territorial conflict in the Middle East.

The practice of Church doctrine is progressively disappearing in western countries as a result of Education and information and because it is clear that the advanced social Democracies took the best of Jesus’ Philosophy on the contrary to the Church in a civil frame cleaned of any form of Religion.

IV – THE TIME OF CRUSADERS FAR FROM JESUS’ BELIEFS:

1095-1291

The crusades are the fight to conquest Holy Land by the way of arms requested by the popes.

With the wish of conquest of Holy Land, the Crusader spirit appeared and with it the good Christian became the Christian Knight.

The Christian Knight was a fighter intending to kill non-Christian people far from Jesus’ principles.

This new spirit increased slaughters and expelling of Jews. The first Crusade of 1095 involved the fleeing of Jews to avoid forced baptism and massacres and the phenomenon the Jewish homeless wanderer assumed to suffer for his sins grew.

In France the Jews of Rouen were slaughtered by the crusaders and those of Orleans and Limoges were expelled. In Germany slaughters under Crusades were more systematic e.g. in Mainz more than 1000 Jews were killed.

V - LIFE IN MIDDLE AGE

Life of Jews worsened in Middle Age because of virulent beliefs spread by Churches:

- Jews poisons wells and spread the black plague

- Jews conspired against Church

- Jews sacrifice Christian children during Passover (Easter), this belief remained in force until the twentieth century.

RESTRICTED ACTIVITY

 Jews ‘activities were often limited by law to money lending, which was considered as  improper for Christians and by the same token their assets  were easier to seize by the Kings. For example in 1182, the French King Philippe Auguste seized the whole assets of Jews and expelled them from France; after this act of delinquency, he authorised them to come back.

VISIBLE SEGREGATION

In 1215 the 4^th Christian Council of Latran obliged Jews to be visibly differentiated of Christians. The Jews were obliged to wear pointed hats or a yellow round piece of fabric on their clothes. The yellow colour represented the betrayal e.g. Judas was often illustrated in yellow and the round form represented the coins received by Judas. This yellow round piece of fabrics was the ancestor of the yellow star of 1941.

In 1516 the closed district of Venice, where Jews were obliged to remain was named “Ghetto” because of the presence of a foundry called Ghetto in Italian language.

SLAUGHTERS AND EXPULSIONS

Among many we may note the following events in France and Germany:

In 1289, Charles of Anjou (France) expelled the Jews from the French Provinces of Maine and Anjou.

In 1298 heavy massacres of Jews occurred in Rintfleisch in the German province of Franconia.

On 17 September 1394, Charles VI expelled all Jews from France.