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Jewish deicide is the theological position and antisemitic trope that the Jews as a people are collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus, even through the successive generations following his death.[1][2][3] The notion arose in early Christianity, and features in the writings of Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis as early as the 2nd century.[4] The Biblical passage Matthew 27:24–25 has been seen as giving voice to the charge of Jewish deicide as well.
The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed Christian antisemitism[5] and spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal and other places, and torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, ultimately culminating in The Holocaust in Nazi Germany.
In the catechism that was produced by the Council of Trent in the mid-16th century, the Catholic Church taught the belief that the collectivity of sinful humanity was responsible for the death of Jesus, not only the Jews.[6] In the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965), the Catholic Church under Pope Paul VI issued the declaration Nostra aetate that repudiated the idea of a collective, multigenerational Jewish guilt for the crucifixion of Jesus. It declared that the accusation could not be made "against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today".[1]
Most Protestant churches have never given a binding position on the matter; but some Christian denominations, such as the Episcopal Church in the US and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, have issued official declarations against the accusation.[7][8][9]
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
nostrawas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ 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.
- ^ Louis H. Feldman (1996), Studies in Hellenistic Judaism, Brill, ISBN 978-9-004-10418-1 pp.309 ff.
- ^ Rainer Kampling, "Deicide", in Richard S. Levy, ed. (2005), Antisemitism: A Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution, Vol. 1, ABC-CLIO, ISBN 978-1-851-09439-4 pp. 168–169
- ^ Norman C. Tobias (2017), Jewish Conscience of the Church: Jules Isaac and the Second Vatican Council, Springer, p.115.
- ^ "Deicide and the Jews".
- ^ Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (November 16, 1998). "Guidelines for Lutheran–Jewish Relations".
- ^ World Council of Churches (July 1999). "Guidelines for Lutheran–Jewish Relations". In Current Dialogue, Issue 33.