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Part I - The Classical Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2022

Edited by
Steven Katz
Steven Katz
Affiliation:
Boston University
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The Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism , pp. 23 - 134
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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References

Further Reading

Chazan, R., From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism: Ancient and Medieval Christian Constructions of Jewish History (Cambridge, 2016). Confines itself largely to early Christian and medieval attitudes toward Jews but makes a useful distinction between anti-Judaism and antisemitism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feldman, L. H., Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World (Princeton, NJ, 1993). A broad-gauged survey of Jews’ relations with non-Jews from the Hellenistic period through late antiquity.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gager, J. G., The Origins of Anti-Semitism (Oxford, 1985). A balanced and intelligent presentation of opinions about Jews by pagans, ancient Christians, and modern scholars.Google Scholar
Gruen, E. S., Diaspora: Jews amidst Greeks and Romans (Cambridge, MA, 2002). Treats the Jewish experience in ancient Alexandria, Asia Minor, and Rome.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruen, E. S., Rethinking the Other in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ, 2011). Discusses Greek and Roman attitudes toward a wide variety of peoples, including Jews.Google Scholar
Isaac, B., The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton, NJ, 2004). A wide-ranging study of “proto-racism” in antiquity, with an important long chapter on the Jews.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nirenberg, D., Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (New York, 2013). Traces the concept of anti-Judaism from antiquity to the Holocaust and finds its roots in ancient Egyptian attitudes.Google Scholar
Schäfer, P. Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA, 1997). Makes a strong argument for widespread hostility toward Jews, stemming from Egypt and spreading throughout.Google Scholar
Sevenster, J. N. The Roots of Pagan Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World (Leiden, 1975). An extended argument tracing antisemitism to the perception of Jews as separatists and xenophobes.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Further Reading

Bieringer, R., Pollefeyt, D., and Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, F., eds., Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (Assen, 2001). The proceedings of a colloquium held in Leuven, Belgium, considering all aspects of the Gospel of John and anti-Judaism. Contributors include James Dunn, Judith Lieu, Alan Culpepper, C. K. Barrett, and many others.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, J., Christ Killers: The Jews and the Passion, from the Bible to the Big Screen (New York, 2007). A history of the deicide myth from the New Testament to the present, including patristic, medieval, and modern theology, as well as art, music, theatre, and film.Google Scholar
Donaldson, T. L., Jews and Anti-Judaism in the New Testament: Decision Points and Divergent Interpretations (Waco, TX, 2010). An introduction to diverse ways in which scholars have interpreted the New Testament in relation to anti-Judaism.Google Scholar
Fredriksen, P., and Reinhartz, A., eds. Jesus, Judaism, and Christian Anti-Judaism: Reading the New Testament after the Holocaust (Louisville, KY, 2002). A collection of essays, by P. Fredriksen, J. G. Gager, E. P. Sanders, A.-J. Levine, and A. Reinhartz, re-evaluating the historical figures and canonical texts that have fostered the negative characterizations of Jews and Judaism.Google Scholar
Levine, A.-J. et al., eds. The Jewish Annotated New Testament, 2nd ed. (New York, 2017). Introductions, annotations, and thematic essays, all by Jewish scholars.Google Scholar
Nirenberg, D., Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (New York, 2013). A comprehensive argument for the view that anti-Judaism is not a marginal phenomenon in western tradition, but foundational to western history and culture.Google Scholar
Reinhartz, A., Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John (Lanham, MD, 2018). A book arguing that the Gospel’s anti-Jewishness is evident both in the Gospel’s hostile comments about the Jews and in its appropriation of Torah, Temple, and Covenant that were so central to 1st-century Jewish identity.Google Scholar
Ruether, R. R., Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, 1974). A book arguing that anti-Judaism is intertwined with Christian theology and Christology from the New Testament to the present.Google Scholar

Further Reading

Bibliowicz, A. M., Jews and Gentiles in the Early Jesus Movement: An Unintended Journey (New York, 2013). Extremely helpful at putting the sectarian polemics between different early Christian groups and mainstream ancient Judaism into historical perspective.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chazan, R., From Anti-Judaism to Anti-Semitism: Ancient and Medieval Christian Constructions of Jewish History (Cambridge, 2016). A long-term approach to the history of Christian anti-Judaism.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davies, A. T., ed., Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity (New York, 1979). Eleven specialists discuss and put into perspective R. Radford Ruether’s main theses on the early Christian origins of antisemitism. It contains, among others, an important essay on patristic authors by D. P. Efroymson.Google Scholar
Gager, J. G., The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (Oxford, 1983). An excellent synthesis written by one of the first proponents of the New Perspective on Paul.Google Scholar
Katz, S. T., ed., The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 4: The Late Roman-Rabbinic Period (Cambridge, 2006). Besides many valuable contributions, this volume contains well-informed overviews of early Christian anti-Judaism by P. Richardson, P. Fredriksen, and O. Irshai.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieu, J. M., Neither Jew nor Greek? Constructing Early Christianity (London, 2002). A useful collection of essays by one of the best specialists of the formation of early Christian identities.Google Scholar
Ruether, R. R., Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, 1974). The influential work of a feminist scholar who exposed the early Christian roots (the “other side of Christology”) of what would later become modern antisemitism.Google Scholar
Schwartz, J., and Tomson, P. J., eds., Jews and Christians in the First and Second Centuries: The Interbellum 70‒132 CE (Leiden, 2018). A collection of up-to-date studies on the critical period between the two Jewish-Roman Wars.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, M., Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (135–425), trans. H. McKeating (Oxford, 1986). A true classic. Simon was among the first historians to argue that Judaism remained a living and active force even after the end of the Second Jewish-Roman War.Google Scholar
Taylor, M. S., Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus (Leiden, 1995). The author emphasizes the rhetorical, identity-building dimension of many early Christian anti-Jewish polemics.Google Scholar
Wilson, S. G., Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70–170 C.E. (Minneapolis, MN, 1995). An extremely well-informed synthesis based on fresh examination of the primary sources.Google Scholar
Wilson, S. G., ed., Anti-Judaism in Early Christianity, vol. 2: Separation and Polemic (Waterloo, Ont., 1986). This volume provides an in-depth survey of 2nd-century Christian authors in relation to Judaism.Google Scholar

Further Reading

Barnes, T. D., Tertullian: A Historical and Literary Study, rev. ed. (New York, 1985). The place to begin serious study of Tertullian.Google Scholar
Cohen, J., Living Letters of the Law: Ideas of the Jew in Medieval Christianity (Berkeley, CA, 1999). An appraisal of Augustine’s theology of Judaism and its influence on medieval Christianity, arguing that the witness doctrine reached maturity only late in Augustine’s career.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Efroymson, D. P., “The Patristic Connection,” in Antisemitism and the Foundations of Christianity, ed. Davies, A. (New York, 1979). An early attempt to situate patristic anti-Judaism within debates over heresy, concentrating on Tertullian’s response to Marcion.Google Scholar
Fredriksen, P., Augustine and the Jews: A Christian Defense of Jews and Judaism (New Haven, CT, 2010). The benchmark in recent appraisals of Augustine’s positive estimation of Jews and Judaism shifted the focus of the field from Augustine’s Adversus Iudaeos to his Against Faustus. A symposium dedicated to this book appears in Augustinian Studies 40, no. 2 (2009), 279–99.Google Scholar
Lee, G. W., “Israel between the Two Cities: Augustine’s Theology of the Jews and Judaism.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 24.4 (2016), 523–51. A recent treatment focusing on The City of God and arguing that Augustine’s estimation of Jews and Judaism was not quite as positive as others have supposed.Google Scholar
Ruether, R. R., Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism (New York, 1974). The influential study contending that anti-Judaism was an integral component in early Christian theology.Google Scholar
Simon, M., Verus Israel: A Study of the Relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire, AD 135–425, trans. H. McKeating (Portland, OR, 1986). The locus classicus for the “conflict theory.” Published in the wake of the Holocaust, Simon seeks to defang the Adversus Iudaeos tradition by locating its origin in Christian competition with a vibrant Judaism.Google Scholar
Stroumsa, G. G., “From Anti-Judaism to Antisemitism in Early Christianity?,” in Contra Judaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and Jews, ed. Limor, O. and Stroumsa, G. G. (Tübingen, 1996). An attempt to situate Adversus Iudaeos literature not in conflict or Christian discourse, but in the demise of paganism in the fourth century.Google Scholar
Swift, L. J., “St. Ambrose on Violence and War,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association 101 (1970), 533–43. A classic study that examines Ambrose’s complicated view of violence, including analysis of the Callinicum affair.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, M., Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus (Leiden, 1995). A refutation of the “conflict theory” on both historical and ethical grounds.Google Scholar
Unterseher, L. A., The Mark of Cain and the Jews: Augustine’s Theology of Jews and Judaism (Piscataway, NJ, 2009). An analysis of Augustine’s witness doctrine with specific emphasis on the interpretation of Cain.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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.Google 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

Further Reading

Bonfil, R., et al., eds., Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (Leiden, 2011). While many of the essays extend beyond our period, several treat the early Byzantine period, including an essay by Amnon Linder (see below) on “The Legal Status of Jews in the Byzantine Empire.”Google Scholar
Horowitz, E. S., Reckless Rites: Purim and the Legacy of Jewish Violence (Princeton, NJ, 2006). A study of the long tradition of imputing violence to Jewish celebrations of Purim, including the long history of the Jewish law of 408 and Socrates Scholasticus’s account.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humfress, C., Orthodoxy and the Courts in Late Antiquity (Oxford, 2007). A detailed and lucid explanation of how law worked in the late Roman Empire, with particular attention to the “forensic” rhetoric that shaped Christian discourses of orthodoxy and heresy.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kraemer, R. S., The Mediterranean Diaspora in Late Antiquity: What Christianity Cost the Jews (New York, 2020). A careful sifting of the literary, documentary, and material evidence for Jewish life under the Christian Roman Empire which surveys the transformations and survivals dimly visible to us.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Linder, A., Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit, MI, 1987). A collection of all extant Roman laws pertaining to Jews and Judaism in their original languages and English translation with introductions, copious notes, and bibliography.Google Scholar
Monnickendam, Y., “Late Antique Christian Law in the Eastern Roman Empire: Toward a New Paradigm,” Studies in Late Antiquity 2 (2018), 40–83. An important essay on comparative legal history bringing together Greek, Jewish, Christian, and Roman legal texts and theories.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tolan, J., et al., eds., Jews in Early Christian Law: Byzantium and the Latin West, 6th–11th Centuries (Turnhout, 2014). “Law” in these essays encompasses state law (under Rome, the successor states, and Byzantium) as well as canon law and other religious regulations. Of particular importance for this period is the lucid contribution of R. W. Mathisen, “The Citizenship and Legal Status of Jews in Roman Law during Late Antiquity (ca. 300–540 CE).”CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Further Reading

Alexander, S. S., “Heraclius, Byzantine Imperial Ideology and the David Plates.” Speculum 52 (1977), 217–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bonfil, R., et al., eds., Jews in Byzantium. Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures (Leiden, 2012).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, A., “Blaming the Jews: The Seventh-Century Invasions of Palestine in Context.” Traveaux et Memoires 14 (2002), 57–78.Google Scholar
De Lange, N. “Jews in the Age of Justinian,” in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, ed. Maas, M. (Cambridge, 2005), 401–426.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haldon, J., Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transformation of a Culture, 2nd rev. ed. (Cambridge, 1997).Google Scholar
Haldon, J., “The Reign of Heraclius: A Context for Change?,” in The Reign of Heraclius (610–641): Crisis and Confrontation, ed. Reinink, G. J. and Stolte, B. H. (Leuven, 2003), 1–16.Google Scholar
Hoyland, R. G., Seeing Islam as Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam (Princeton, NJ, 1977).Google Scholar
Krauss, S., and Horbury, W., The Jewish-Christian Controversy from the Earliest Times to 1789 (Tübingen, 1996).Google Scholar
Lindner, A., “The Legal Status of Jews in the Byzantine Empire,” in Jews in Byzantium, 2012, 149–217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mathison, R. W., “The Citizenship and Legal Status of Jews in Roman Law during Late Antiquity,” in Jews and Early Christian Law: Byzantium and the Latin West, ed. Tolan, John et al. (Turnhout, 2014), 35–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkes, J., The Conflict of the Church and Synagogue: A Study in the Origins of Antisemitism (New York, 1969).Google Scholar
Simon, M., Verus Israel, trans. McKeating, H. (Oxford, 1996).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starr, J., Jews in the Byzantine Empire, 641–1204 (Athens, 1939).Google Scholar
Stoyanov, Y., “Apoctalypticizing Warfare from Political Theology to Imperial Eschatology in Seventh and Early Eighth-Century Byzantium,” in The Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition, ed. Bardakjian, K. B. and La Porta, S. (Leiden, 2014), 379–433. Gives further analysis of propaganda during Zoroastrian and Muslim invasions.Google Scholar
Van Bekkum, W., “Jewish Messianic Expectations in the Age of Heraclius,” in The Reign of Heraclius (610–641), 95–112.Google Scholar

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  • The Classical Period
  • Edited by Steven Katz, Boston University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108637725.002
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  • The Classical Period
  • Edited by Steven Katz, Boston University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108637725.002
Available formats
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  • The Classical Period
  • Edited by Steven Katz, Boston University
  • Book: The Cambridge Companion to Antisemitism
  • Online publication: 05 May 2022
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108637725.002
Available formats
×