The Conflict Between Christianity and Judaism: A Contribution to the History of the Jews in the Fourth Century (review)

This small volume of 96 pages (plus 28 pages giving the original Greek or Latin of all Patristic quotations, a short bibliography, a general index) was published under the title Zur Geschichte der Juden im Vierten Jahrhundert (Berlin: Mayer & Mueller, 1910). The author had served as a rabbi in a small town in eastern Germany and then taught Jewish studies in Berlin. He died in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt in 1943. The presentation of the book in English garb (with the Patristic citations now in translation) is a laudable work of filial piety. Franz D. Lucas wishes that his father’s learning provide a key to understanding an age of Jewish-Christian confrontation.

In chapter 1 a very brief sketch of the life and writings of Basil, Athanasius, John Chrysostom, Jerome, Ambrose and Augustine focuses almost exclusively on their anti-Jewish polemic. The reader should persevere to subsequent chapters where the times are presented more adequately.

“The motives and course of the struggle” is three times the length of chapter 1. The motives for Christian hostility are internal (Christology, asceticism) and external (Jewish propaganda and hostility). This attempt to place the issues in context could be refined considerably, but it does portray the reality of tensions coming from both sides. Jews would at times enter into alliance with groups opposed to Catholic Christianity. While this may have served political goals under certain emperors, the cost in the long run was enormous. The Church leaders composed treatises that reflected the animosities of the day and these writings were incorporated into the literature of the Church for centuries to come. Although the privilegia granted to the Jews were honored in the legislation of Christian emperors, new and restrictive laws appeared in canon and civil codes.

How did Judaism survive? Lucas points to religious and political aspects of the community’s preservation. No Roman legislation affected Jewish monotheism, Torah practice or eschatological expectation. Augustine and others emphasized the role of Jews as “witness people,” testifying to the veracity and antiquity of the Old Testament. Roman legislation prohibiting a Christian from marrying a Jew helped Judaism to survive. Ironically, though Christians and Jews struggled so vehemently, the two faith communities were closer to each other than to the Hellenistic culture in which most of them lived. Roman decrees stipulated that Jews may not be personally harmed or insulted; bishops such as Augustine advised their faithful not to harm the Jews but to pray for them (pp. 88–89). Tragically, the virulent attacks of Church writers on the validity of Judaism after A.D. 70 were incorporated into the heritage. These texts were used to foment hatred of Jews in later times, and became part of anti-Semitic attacks in this century.

Although the reader must supplement this study by more recent works, its erudition is a reminder of an age when Jewish scholars were very much at home in the Greek, Latin and Syriac heritage of the Church.