Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity: A Critique of the Scholarly Consensus (review)

This is a “slightly edited version” of a 1991 D. Phil. thesis at Oxford supervised by Dr. Martin Goodman. Taylor “examines the consensus view of the patterns of Jewish-Christian interaction in the early patristic period, and the hypotheses that this view has generated about the sources of and motivations for anti-Judaism within the Church” (1). Reacting to Adolf von Harnack’s interpretation of Christian growth and expansion, Marcel Simon’s Verus Israel (cited only in the 1986 English translation) became the basis for the consensus of scholars, the “conflict theory of Jewish-Christian relations . . . that the vitality of the synagogue resulted in a collision with the church” (2). In an effort to overcome anti-Jewish biases, “scholars have theorized about the religious, social, political and environmental dimensions of what is conceived of as a complex phenomenon rooted in conflict” (3). Taylor makes a sweeping critique of the scholarship on this topic and rejects the approaches which seek to pinpoint the pressures of living Judaism on the Church. Was there rivalry for converts between Church and Synagogue? Jews seem not to have had missionary goals, but this did not make Judaism less vital or dynamic. Success or failure of Judaism was not seen to be dependent on its ability to win over the gentile world (20). Taylor finds that scholars read back from the post-Constantinian era in their effort to understand conflicts of the earlier period. Rather, Ignatius of Antioch and the Didascalia are attacking “Judaizers” within the Church.

Taylor evaluates efforts “to situate church and synagogue within Roman society” (48). Three hypotheses are criticized: 1.) Christians had an inferiority complex in the face of the powerful and secure synagogue. 2.) Their strategy was to take for themselves some of the political privileges enjoyed by the synagogue. 3.) Jews were hostile to the growing Church. In response to # 1 and 2, Taylor uses Melito of Sardis to show the limitations of socio-political speculation about the second century situation. “There is no basis for the widely held claim that second and third century Jews were involved in the persecution of their Christian contemporaries” (114).

Were anti-Jewish ideas in the early Church taken from pagans or adopted from traditions of biblical interpretation? Taylor contends that Christian “objections to Judaism clearly have their source in a peculiarly Christian strain of thought and sentiment” (121). Three main themes can be found in the anti-Jewish writings of the early Fathers: a.) Christ is the promised Messiah, foretold by the prophets. b.) Ritual aspects of the Mosaic Law are abrogated in favor of a new spiritual law. c.) Salvation history is understood in terms of judgment and promise, interpreted in terms of response to Christ; election of the gentile Church contrasts with God’s rejection of sinful Jews (122). Rather than positing conflict as the basis for the persistence of these themes over several generations, Taylor sees “symbolic anti-Judaism,” rooted in theological ideas, to provide the answer.

Taylor next presents theological dimensions of anti-Judaism in early Christian writers, especially Justin, Tertullian, Origen and Lactantius. A long discussion shows the inadequacy of social and cultural analysis by scholars promoting the “conflict theory.”

For Church Fathers, Judaism “occupied the negative side of the dialectical dualism that was so intrinsic to Christian thought. It represented that aspect of scriptural history and tradition which the Church had abandoned or rejected or disowned. It was in the real sense of the word, a theological foil for Christian self-affirmation” (166). The rejection by Marcion of all “Jewish symbols” is refuted by orthodox theologians who said that “the fault lay not with the symbols but with the people” (171). Taylor proposes that “the anti-Judaic corpus became a source of tradition in its own right used in the illustration of intra-mural doctrinal and pastoral issues” (169).

Taylor finishes by reviewing the inadequacies of the “conflict...