Jewish deicide

In Christian theology, Jewish deicide is the theological view that the Jews as a people are responsible for the Crucifixion of Jesus.

Overview

The view is said[who?] to have spread in the early days of Christianity when early Christian theologians (Church Fathers) wrote about it. Since the end of the Holocaust, during which at least 6,000,000 Jews were killed, this matter has been discussed by modern historians from different disciplines. Now, Jewish deicide is considered an antisemitic trope and no longer agreed by mainstream churches.

New Testament

Pontius Pilate Washes His Hands

Gospel of Matthew

Matthew the Apostle (St. Matthew)

The view is said[who?] to have been based on Matthew 27:24–25:

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, "I am innocent of this man's blood; see to it yourselves." And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

Gospel of John

John the Evangelist (St. John)

The view is also said[who?] to have been based on John 5:16–18, where John referred to the Jews directly:

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, "My father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working." For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

In the Greek Bible (The New Testament's original Greek text), Ἰουδαῖοι (Ioudaios) was used, meaning "the Jews" or "the Judeans", though some scholars claimed that the passage should be analyzed in the context of how later Christians interpreted it.

First Epistle to the Thessalonians

Paul the Apostle (St. Paul)

In the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul wrote,

For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men.

Church Fathers' views

Ignatius of Antioch

In the early decades of Christianity, Ignatius of Antioch (c. 50–117) claimed that those who followed Jewish custom were "partakers with those who killed Jesus".

Justin Martyr

Justin Martyr (100–165) claimed that God's covenant (also known as the Old Covenant or Mosaic Covenant) with the Jews was no longer valid and that Christians had replaced them because the Jews "[had] slain the Just One [Jesus]", who would deserve exile and persecution in the centuries to come.

Irenaeus

Irenaeus (130–202) claimed that the Jews had been "disinherited from the grace of God" as they had "rejected the Son of God and slew Him".

Tertullian of Carthage

Tertullian of Carthage (155–230) blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus.

Origen of Alexandria

Origen of Alexandria (185–254), along with John Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407), is said[who?] to have been responsible for much of Christian antisemitism. He held the Jews responsible for the killing of Jesus. He believed that Jerusalem deserved to perish and the Jewish nation should be overthrown in order for God's grace to be passed on to Christians.

John Chrysostom

John Chrysostom (c. 347–407) was an important early Church Father who served as the archbishop of Constantinople. He wrote in his homily series Adversus Judaeos (Ancient Greek: Κατὰ Ἰουδαίων Kata Ioudaiōn, "against the Jews"):

[The synagogue is worse than] a brothel and a drinking shop [...] a den of scoundrels, the repair of wild beasts, a temple of demons, the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils, a criminal assembly of the assassins of Christ [. ...] demons dwell in the synagogue and also in the souls of the Jews.

Since there were only two other ordained individuals in Antioch legally recognized as Christian preachers, Chrysostom managed to promote his ideas to most local Christians.

Academic views

Notably, John Chrysostom's Adversus Judaeos is seen by many historians as having inspired antisemites in the following 1,600 years to justify pogroms, expulsions and discriminatory policies against Jews. Such antisemites include Nazi Germany's ruler Adolf Hitler, who reprinted and circulated Chrysostom's text among Germans within Nazi territories to justify the Holocaust.

Amy-Jill Levine

Regarding the Gospel of Matthew, Biblical scholar Amy-Jill Levine said that Matthew 27:24–25 had caused more suffering throughout Jewish history than any other passage in the New Testament.

James Parkes

Anglican priest James Parkes called Chrysostom's antisemitic homilies

the most horrible and violent denunciations of Judaism to be found in the writings of a Christian theologian.

Jules Isaac

French historian Jules Isaac (1877–1963), the author of the 1948 book Jésus et Israël, further mentioned the issue in his 1956 book Génése de l’Anti-Sémitisme ("Has Anti-Semitism Roots in Christianity?"):

[Pagan antisemitism was] directed at a people considered separatist and unassimilable [. ... while] Christianity added theology to historical xenophobia and condemned Jews "as a people of deicides to be cursed, punished, driven into exile.

Steven Katz

American philosopher Steven Katz (1944 – ), the founding director of the Elie Wiesel Center for Judaic Studies at Boston University in Massachusetts, wrote about:

The decisive turn in the history of Christian anti-Judaism, a turn whose ultimate disfiguring consequence was enacted in the political antisemitism of Adolf Hitler.

Walter Laqueur

Walter Laqueur (1921 – 2018), a German-American Jewish historian, said that the conditions for the 4th-century Christian church were "brutal and aggressive" as it was "fighting for survival and recognition". He thought this led to the lack of demand for mercy and forgiveness, particularly due to the anti-Christian Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate (reigned 361 – 363). The three centuries of persecution of Christians did not end until the late 4th century, when the Christian church became the state religion of the Roman Empire under Theodosius I (reigned 379 – 395). Theodosius closed pagan temples in the process.

Modern Christian views

The historical development of major church branches from their roots.

Protestant churches

It is said[who?] that most Protestant churches have never given a binding position[clarification needed] on this theological view. Some, especially the Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), have made official declarations against it.

Roman Catholic Church

The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) held the view until 1965, when the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) passed the Nostra aetate. It includes the declaration that

What happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today.

Since then, the Catholic Church has become divided because of the rise of radical traditionalist Catholics, who are active in current American politics. Vatican II's position was supported by Pope John Paul II, when he led the Catholic Church between 1978 and 2005.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Matthew 27:24–25
  2. ↑ John 5:16–18
  3. ↑ Referred to as Israel in his writings.
  4. ↑ Referred to as the house of Jacob and the people of Israel in his writings.

References

  1. ↑
    • Greenspoon, Leonard; Hamm, Dennis; Le Beau, Bryan F. (1 November 2000). The Historical Jesus Through Catholic and Jewish Eyes. A&C Black. p. 78. ISBN 978-1-56338-322-9.
    • Kiewe, Amos (20 November 2018). "Antisemitism and Communication". Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.633. ISBN 978-0-19-022861-3. The Church correctly identified the charge of eternal guilt of the Jew as the root cause of antisemitism and stated its rejection of the faulty reasoning associated with the charge of eternal deicide.
    • "They Watched It Burn – and Cheered: How Antisemitism Thrives Online". Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM). May 16, 2025. Retrieved May 17, 2025. Throughout history, Jewish suffering has often been interpreted through a religious lens. In Christianity, the notion that Jews were collectively responsible for the death of Jesus fueled nearly two thousand years of persecution. Although repudiated by most mainstream Christian denominations in the 20th century, this belief continues among fringe Christian fundamentalists, white supremacists, and neo-Nazi groups – some of whom celebrated the Jerusalem fires as divine retribution.
  2. ↑ Feldman, Louis Harry (1996-01-01). Studies in Hellenistic Judaism. Brill. p. 309. doi:10.1163/9789004332836. ISBN 978-90-04-33283-6.
  3. 1 2
  4. 1 2
  5. 1 2 3
  6. 1 2
  7. 1 2 "Greek Bible: Matthew". greekbible.com. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  8. ↑ Walker, William O. (1979). "Anti-Semitism in the New Testament? By Samuel Sandmel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1978. xxi + 168 pages". Horizons. 6 (1): 123–124. doi:10.1017/s0360966900015759. ISSN 0360-9669. S2CID 171123190.
  9. 1 2 "Greek Bible: John". greekbible.com. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  10. ↑ Feldman, Louis H.; Evans, Craig A.; Hagner, Donald A. (January 1995). "Anti-Semitism and Early Christianity: Issues of Polemic and Faith". Journal of the American Oriental Society. 115 (1): 115. doi:10.2307/605317. ISSN 0003-0279. JSTOR 605317.
  11. ↑ Jeremy Cohen, Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion from the Bible to the Big Screen, Oxford University Press 2007. p. 55.
  12. ↑ Gilliard, Frank D. (1989). "The Problem of the Antisemitic Comma between 1 Thessalonians 2.14 and 15". New Testament Studies. 35 (4). Cambridge University Press: 481‒502. doi:10.1017/S0028688500015162. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  13. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Dr. David R. Reagan. "The Evil of Replacement Theology: The Historical Abuse of the Jews by the Church". Lamb & Lion Ministries. Retrieved March 1, 2025.
  14. 1 2 3
  15. ↑ Christine C. Shepardson, Controlling Contested Places: Late Antique Antioch and the Spatial Politics of Religious Controversy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), 93)
  16. ↑
  17. 1 2 Walter Laqueur, The Changing Face of Antisemitism: From Ancient Times To The Present Day (Oxford University Press: 2006) ISBN 0-19-530429-2, pp. 47–48
  18. 1 2 3 4 Katz, Steven (1999), "Ideology, State Power, and Mass Murder/Genocide", Lessons and Legacies: The Meaning of the Holocaust in a Changing World, Northwestern University Press, ISBN 9780810109568
  19. ↑ Fredriksen, Paula; Reinhartz, Adele (2002). Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament After the Holocaust. Westminster John Knox Press. p. 91. ISBN 978-0-664-22328-1.
  20. ↑
  21. ↑ Review of Jesus and Israel. Retrieved August 29, 2016.
  22. 1 2 3 4 Spencer, Sidney; Crow, Paul A. (February 28, 2025). "The alliance between church and empire". Britannica. Retrieved March 2, 2025.
  23. ↑
  24. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (November 16, 1998).
  25. 1 2 Wojtyła, Charles (17 November 1980), "3", Meeting of John Paul II with the Representatives of the Jewish Community, Mainz (Google translation), Vatican, Rome, IT: Roman see
  26. ↑
  27. ↑
  28. ↑
  29. ↑