Early Christian Anti-Judaism

Abstract

I would like to start my reflections with a quote from Isaac Asimov. In the first of his Foundation novels, this Russian-born American biochemist and science fiction writer has one of his characters remark that “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.”1 It is a keen observation—one that, I believe, can be of use when studying the anti-Jewish sentiments that surface frequently in early Christian literature of first few centuries of the Common Era.2 Now, of course, it goes without saying that it would be wrong generically to qualify the emergence of the advanced literary culture that accompanies the rise of Christianity and that, in fact, is one of its defining characteristics, as a sign of incompetence. Even so, there is no denying that there is something deeply unsettling about this literature all the same, specifically in the way it deals with others in general, and with Jews and Judaism in particular. Early Christian discussions in this area raise fundamental questions. Such questions do not just concern the rationale for the invectives that emerge over the course of early Christian discussions that deal with Jews and Judaism. They also prompt us to reflect on the larger mechanisms that underlie these debates, as well as on the social ramifications of the rhetoric strategies that characterize early Christian thinking on the Jews. Before trying to highlight what I believe to be the crucial features in all of this, let me begin by stating that in this paper my thinking on these matters