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5 - Christians, Jews, and Judaism in the Eastern Mediterranean and Near East, c. 150–400 CE

from Part I - The Classical Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2022

By
Andrew S. Jacobs
Edited by
Steven Katz
Steven Katz
Affiliation:
Boston University
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Summary

The institutional, social, and theological rise of an imperial-episcopal orthodoxy in the 4th-century Roman Empire transformed the productive, if not always genial, scriptural and ritual interactions among Jews and Christians in previous centuries into a discourse of theological difference, enabling violence and exclusion.

Keywords

heresyempireJewish-Christian dialogue
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism , pp. 83 - 99
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Becker, A. J., and Reed, A. Y., The Ways That Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages (Minneapolis, MN, 2007). A collection of essays dealing with the so-called parting of the ways between Christianity and Judaism from diverse theoretical perspectives and engaging with a variety of Jewish and Christian materials; Becker and Reed’s programmatic introduction is an especially useful guide to a fraught but tenacious historical idea.Google Scholar
Drake, S., Slandering the Jew: Sexuality and Difference in Early Christian Texts (Philadelphia, 2013). This book examines the ways embodiment and sexuality were marshaled in anti-Jewish texts (or texts that were later read as anti-Jewish, such as Paul’s letters) from the 2nd through 4th century with special attention to Origen and John Chrysostom.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koltun-Fromm, N., Jewish-Christian Conversation in Fourth-Century Mesopotamia (Piscataway, NJ, 2011). This study of Aphrahat’s Demonstrations places him in conversation with roughly contemporary rabbinic sources to argue for sustained contact and conversation among Christian and Jewish communities in the Sasanian Persian empire.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieu, J., Image and Reality: The Jews in the World of the Christians in the Second Century (London, 1996). A detailed engagement with the earliest explicitly non-Jewish Christian sources (Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Melito of Sardis, and other apologetic and martyr texts) that attempts to discern what, if any, is their historical value and what is heightened rhetoric in the service of Christian self-definition.Google Scholar
Neusner, J., Aphrahat and Judaism: The Christian-Jewish Argument in Fourth-Century Iran (Leiden, 1971). Although somewhat out of date (see Koltun-Fromm above) Neusner’s volume contains English translations of Aphrahat’s “anti-Jewish” Demonstrations along with accompanying essays that place Aphrahat in the context of both Sasanian Persia and early Christian writings about Jews and Judaism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reed, A. Y., Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism: Collected Essays (Tübingen, 2018). Several essays in this collection explore the so-called Pseudo-Clementine writings which seem to envision social and theological compatibility between Christ-veneration and the Israelite covenant. Equally important are Reed’s historiographic essays, which explore the deeply embedded European Protestant roots that drive scholarship on Jewish–Christian difference.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepardson, C., Anti-Judaism and Christian Orthodoxy: Ephrem’s Hymns in Fourth-Century Syria (Washington, DC, 2008). This study of Ephrem’s writings against Jews and heretics argues that anti-Judaism supplies Ephrem with much of his heresiological vocabulary and frameworks; Shepardson also provides a robust comparison with Athanasius’s contemporary anti-Jewish heresiology in Alexandria.Google Scholar
Simon, M., Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Jews and Christians in the Roman Empire, 135–425 (Oxford, 1986). Originally published in French in 1948, expanded in 1964, and translated into English in 1986, this classic work posits that Christian anti-Jewish texts provide evidence for robust Jewish life throughout the Roman Empire during the period in question, including competing attempts by Jews and Christians to convert pagans. Simon was working to countermand earlier theories that post-Temple Judaism was essentially lifeless and dormant during the rise of Christianity.Google Scholar
Taylor, M., Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus (Leiden, 1994). The “consensus” that Taylor is critiquing is that established by Simon (see above) that, as Taylor argues, functionally blamed Jews for provoking Christian anti-Judaism. For Taylor this argument sets a dangerous precedent by blaming victims of intolerance for violence against them.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilken, R., John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late 4th Century (Berkeley, CA, 1983). A classic work that tries to make sense of John Chrysostom’s Homilies against Judaizing Christians by reconstructing both the robust Jewish community of 4th-century Antioch and the oratorical conventions of the day employed by John.Google Scholar
Williams, A. L., Adversus Judaeos: A Bird’s-Eye View of Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1935). Written by a Christian theologian with missionizing ideals, this outdated volume remains one of the only English-language compendia of Christian texts about (usually, as the title suggests “against”) Jews and Judaism. The introductions and comments may usually be skipped.Google Scholar

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