Christianitas, the Catholic Church and the Jews

Jews wereconsidered alien within the Christian society,but they wereat the very same time considered both theologically indispensable and useful as part of its socio-economic arrangement, even if belonging to another cultural and religious code. Jews, in turn, looked at themselves as a separate people, treating acivilization surrounding themas a threatto be resisted, the civilizationwhich triumphed, with Christianity consideredfrom their theological perspective as a wayward, false sect of Mosaim (taking a form ofrabbinical Judaismsince 70 C.E.). Any contact except professional one, let alone religious conversion and assimilationto it, was strictly forbidden. From the Catholic Church’s perspective, Judaism was lookedupon as a superseded faith and because of this considered tobe a harmful religion of recal­ citrant Jews,evenif its earthly presence testified to thetriumph ofChristianity. But exactlythat perspective gave Jews a solid and legitimate placewithin the history of Christian redemption. They were the remnant people whorejected Christ, in need of the finalconversion,but in the meantime the witness people tothe triumph of Chris­

tianity. For St. Augustine (354-430), the greatest theologian and philosopherwho

1. Jews and the Middle Age Christian society 27 shaped Christian thinking duringthe first millennium,thebiblical narrative provided a drama of whichtheChristians were part,but so were the Jews,since, as Jesus said,

“salvation isfrom the Jews ”.4

4 John 4:22

5 See Augustine, On the City of God, Penguin, London 2003, b. 18, ch. 46, p. 827.

“TheCityof God”, the most important ofall Augustine’s works,weavedinto its narrative insights about possibilities and limits ofthe human condition, combined with a sensibility of a pilgrim wandering through time, resisting a temptation of despair in the face of history’s tragedies and rejectinga delusion of having arrived at history’s end. Boththe Christians andthe Jews, thought St. Augustine, constituted theologically legitimate parts of history in theirshared exploration ofduties in ex­ ile, far short ofthefinal fulfillment ofthe messianic promise. Butatthe same time, the Jewish position in history was interpreted unequivocally as set apart from the Christianstory, with the latter superseding Judaism and fulfilling its eschatological promise. The supersessionist expectation was ofcourse formulated earlier than St.

Augustine’s exposition of it in “The City of God”. It was St.Paul whoprovidedits essence, but St. Augustine exposed the concept of the supersession as a claim to superiority within Christianitas, demonstrating a need fortolerance of the Jews, at thevery same time stressingtheirtheological inferior position,as a proofofthetrue nature of Christianity.5 Butitis interesting to observe that this supersessionistview was codified relatively late within Christianitas, at the Third and Fourth Lateran Councils in Rome in 1179 and 1215. This processcorrespondedto the questioning ofthe eminent Jewish position in the European finances and their pivotal position inthe banking system based on usury. Only then didJews become subject to many practical restrictions, not all of them necessarilyimplemented inall places, but aim­ ing at keepingthem separate from the Christians and theChurch which superseded theSynagogue.

Looking from the Jewishperspective, if theChurch’s stance was definitelyim­

portantfrom the practical point of view, theologically itwas irrelevant. Jewsconsid­ ered themselves to be the “chosen people”, needing onlytheir sacred law. Relations tootherpeople were essentially beyond theirinterest and concern, in fact just a back­

ground to their religiously unique Covenantwith Yahweh. Theirposition in history was perceived by them, inrelation to others, as theologically exceptional, and for this reason the world outside them was of no special interest. Christianity was for them just a heretical, false sect which simply turned out tobe politically successful for thetimebeing. Onlythis fact required aJewish historical responseso as toretain their uniqueness. It is thus worth stressing that this Jewish isolation stemmed not only from their historical vicissitudes in the Diaspora and the Christian pressure, but first of allfromtheir theological perspective. Ontologically, they were perpetual aliens in the alien and dangerous goim world,thatiswhy aconversion of aJew to any other faith meant,fromthe religious orthodox point ofview, hisinstant spiritual death, as well asan automaticsocial exclusionfrom the Jewish community.

28 1. Jews and the Middle Age Christian society

The Church’s attitude was different. The Church considered itself a vehicle whichbrought theGod of Israel to thenations of the world. Christianitythoughtof itself according to the Church’s interpretation, as universalizing the true message ofthe OldTestament, the universalization demandedandexpectedby it and finally realized by thetrueMessiahJesus Christ. Forthis very reason ofuniversalizationof the one true faith and its extension to all the people oftheworld, the Church had no difficulty bringing together, orrather combining, reason and theological thinking be­ causeit wasvitally interested in bringing all toIsrael’s God. To do this, ithadto con­

front any non-Christiannarrativeand the aliencultural framework. Christians had to stepin into the pagan Agora.Athens had to be met by Jerusalem inRome.Jewish TanakhandGreek philosophy were brought togetherinto a method of extending the Covenant all over the earth. This was a colossal theological operationwith great cultural and civilizational consequences, sincebecause of it both the JewishTanakh and the Greek philosophy were not lost. Christianity absorbed, not destroyed hu­ manthought; it recognized great archetypical stories of other religions and cultures and their intellectual worth; it simply sanctified them, baptizedthem, subordinating everything that was greatin humanexistenceto the Christianeschatologicalstory.

Within thisperspectivetheJewishstorywasnotonly notirrelevant,it wasabsolutely great, although not complete. Thus, from the Christian perspective, Israelwas ale­ gitimate part of history. T amtheLordthy God, Thou shalt haveno other gods before me ’ was a cornerstone of both JudaismandChristianity.But there wasafundamental difference inrelationto reality.

For Jews thisorderwas first of allthe unequivocal demandto be faithfulto the Covenant bywhichYahveh establishedan ¿destructible bond with the people of Is­ rael,His people, althoughsuch a bond was to belater spreadall overthe world. But with the Christians the issue was different. Thatmessage of Yahveh communicated tothe people of Israel became now connected to the indestructible bond promised by Christ, theLogos, the Saviour. And the message wasmuch more radical. “As such it was notsimply a prohibition offoreigncults, butacall to arms, anassault uponthe antique orderof the heavens - a declaration ofwar upon the gods. All the worldwas to be evangelized andbaptized, all idols torn down, all worship givenoverto the one God who, in theselatter days, had sentHis Son into theworldforour salvation.

It wasa longand sometimes terrible conflict, occasionally exacting afearful price in martyr’s blood, but it was [...] avictory: the temple of Zeusand Isis alikewere finally deserted [... ] altars werebereft of their sacrifices, the sibylsfelt silent, and ul­

timately all the glory, nobility, and cruelty of theancient world lay supine at the feet of Christ the conqueror. Nor,forearlyChristians, was this mere metaphor. A convert renounce[d\ the deviland the devil s ministers, [and thus] he was rejecting, and in fact reviling, the gods in bondage to whom he had languished all his life. [... ] He was entrusting himselfto the invincible hero who hadplundered hell ofits captives, over­

thrown death, subdued the powersof the Earth, and been raised the Lordofhistory.

Life, forthe early Church, was spiritual warfare; andno baptized Christian could doubt how great a transformation -of the selfand the world - it was to consent to

1. Jews and the Middle Age Christian society 29 serveno other god than Him whom Christ revealed. [...] [This was] Christianity’s shocking novelty. [...]// alone, in the history of the West, was a rejection and alter­ native to nihilism'sdespair, violence and idolatry ofpower; as such, Christianity shattered the imposing and enchanting façade behind which nihilism once hid, and thereby, inadvertentlycalled it forth into theopen. [...] The Christian God has taken everything into Himself; all the treasures of ancient wisdom, all the splendour of creation, every good thing has been assumed into the story of the incarnate God”.6

6 D. B. Hart, ‘Christ and Nothing’, pp. 48-53.

7 A good overview of St. Augustine’s position on Jews and his striking difference with St. Paul, done from a Jewish perspective see P. Fredriksen, ‘Christian Anti-Judaism: Polemics and Policies’ in S. T. Katz (ed.), The Cambridge History of Judaism, Vol. 4: The Late Roman- Rabbinic Period, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2006, p. 1016.

8 See on that from a Catholic perspective an excellent J. V. Schall, Reason, Revelation, and the Foundations of Political Philosophy, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge 1987, esp. pp. 182-224. From another, liberal and Jewish perspective showing the unbridgeable gap between Athens and Jerusalem see a classical L. Strauss, ‘Jerusalem and Athens’ in idem, Stud­

ies in Platonic Political Philosophy, ed. T. Pangle, University of Chicago Press, Chicago 1983;

Strauss in his analysis of this tension between Reason of Athens and Revelation of Jerusalem disregarded of course Rome and its Revelation through Reason and Reason through Revelation.

In principle, Strauss thought, that this effort brought to perfection by St.Thomas Aquinas, failed.

There was thus a powerful theological rivalry between Judaism andChristianity, andwithin such a vision the “recalcitrant” Jews were not somuch rejecting the true God, theirs wasthesame God asthe Christian one, butbeing persistent in not reveal­ ing and sharing His potential asexposed by Incarnation.Jews, in other words, were

“closed” people, infact egotistical within such atheology, since they refused to take fullresponsibilityfor theworld within the very theology of the First Commandment whichforbade idolatry and in fact banneditfromtheworldasauniversal,nottribal, task. Jews were ofcoursepart of the sameGod’s story and powerfullyso, but ceased to shape it.St. Augustineand the medieval Church thought that wayas well- mediation was only one-dimensional, or pointing in one direction, the supersessionistview.7 Christianself-understanding of theChurch as theagentofGod’s promisein his­

tory did not need to relateto the experience ofthe Jewishpeople but it needed to relate toGreekreason as atool of engagement ofthe worldoutside the Church.8In such a perspective, Jewsconstituted a problemfor the Church in a sense that such a relation to the world neededthem, as “children ofAbraham”, to engage in that theological and rational mediation. But, as indicated, Jews didnot needthe Church or the world outside, since reason was not their way of engagementwith the world but solelya means of deciphering God’s revealedlaw givento them.

The Church in the medieval times had ofcourse a decisive advantage ofa re­

ligious, cultural and political hegemony. It used theology as a way ofapologet­ ics, knowing and purporting to show that Christian revelation was reasonable in a sensethatit understood life in a proper way. Jewsandotherentities were a medium for Christianity to prove this task grounded intheological reason. Simultaneously,

30 1. Jews and the Middle Age Christian society

they wereneeded to testify to a triumph of theChurch, a necessary part of its self--understanding. But Jewshad a unique place in this Christian plan. They were the source of salvation andin thisfundamental sense they wereontologically safe. That is why the safest place within the Christian civilization the Jewshad, with a really very mildpressure to convert, was the papacy. But in general the Catholic Church inthe medieval times neededthe outside world as the community forits self-under-standing inhistory, which could not be encompassed either within theinternalfaith of anyindividualbeliever or a narrow exclusivist community. It hadto relate to other worlds in whichmankind lived. Only through mediations with them couldthis true mission of the Church be realized. Thus,paradoxically, unliketheotheralien, pagan minorities, Jews could not be entirely left alone.Withinthe medieval Christianpaid­

eia they had to be noticed and thery were.

In thissense Jews were indispensable people, but at thesame time atheological nuisance for the Church. Ingeneral, the Church had to showat the very same time both its theologically mediating role and a confrontationist stance to engage reali­

ty.9 Historicallythis could translate itself into political, economic and even physical confrontation, even despite theological prohibitions. Butthere weresimply no tools of translation of this theological, eschatological mediation in the medieval times into a historically secure, non-threateningway for Jews. They, on the other hand, had no need ofthismediation,theirworld wasaworld of separated theological and communalexistence.10 Theworld outsidewas impure, their engagement was gener­ ally impossible not only historicallybut theologically as well. Therewas no bridge from Jerusalem to Athens and through Athensto the world. The world wasanalien universe, what counted was the Covenantand the Temple carried within the com­ munity of faith. Afterthe persecutions of Jews bythemobs marching withthe first crusaderssoutheast throughout Europe, theystrengthened this theological closeness even more. But the historical closenesstowards the surrounding Christian popula­

tion became nearabsolute. The outside world, this time the Christian, especially secular world, was totallyalien,pureevil.11

9 P. Manent, ‘Between Athens and Jerusalem’, First Things, No. 220 (2012), p. 38.

10 As one of the protagonists of Julian Stryjkowski’s short story Azril s Dream remarked: “It's better not to count the church tower clocks strikes (hours). A Jew should not help himself with this. As it is forbidden to mix kosher food with non-kosher one, so it is forbidden to mix their time with our time”, in A. Stryjkowski, SenAzrila (Azril’s Dream), Czytelnik, Warszawa 1995, p. 30.

11 See E. H. Flannery, The Anguish of the Jews..., p. 93.

But whateverdifferencesthere were between the JewishandChristian relations within the immediate historical reality, they were nevertheless rooted in the com­ mon biblical understanding of humanity. They werebothcovenantal people andthey understood anysocial arrangementas an endeavorofcommunal beings,notofinde­ pendent individuals. The Covenant in principle characterized a divinely delineated communityassuch. Itmeant that although it was not perfect, it reflected or participat­

ed inthe perfectKingdom ofGod. Both Jews and Christianscouldthus relate to the

1. Jews and the Middle Age Christian society 31 world in a way that presupposed a workable arrangement, because they were bound bythe Covenant and God’s promise in it, the seminal part ofitalready fulfilled.In this sense, theAugustinian “City ofGod” was different fromthe “City of Man”, and becauseof it,the totalitariantemptationsoftreatingsocialand politicallife asthe end ofhistory were theologically eliminated. “The City ofGod”wasonlydimly inherent in history, but itsexistencewas promised. “The City ofMan” was nota road to Jew­ ish orChristian salvation. Itwas justawaiting stop. Its role was to create conditions to make the moral masterypossible. Both communities theologically knew thatto look to the “City ofMan” for salvation was futile and ultimately a betrayal ofthe Covenant- Abraham left Chaldean Ur not awaiting future politicalimprovement in it.

BoththeJewishandthe Christianunderstanding of their encounter with history, and with any political arrangement in it, entailed an understanding that such an en­

counter hada beginning but also adefinite limit. As a human creation, history was just a rival, if treated in an absolutist way, tothe Covenant. Any historical arrange­

ment into which both Jews and Christians entered was humanly initiated, limited andterminable.God’s Covenant was communicated throughhistorybut history was never treated as a way of realizing it fully. It was understood at most as a wayof moral preparation for the “City of God”, if thatpreparation was the sine qua non condition ofentering iteventually. Such atheological understanding of reality from theChristianperspectivemade Jews anintegral part of Christianitas, evenif it was an inferior part.

Medieval Christian monarchs did not require the “ultimate existential commit­

ment”of the Jews - they offeredthem a secular modus vivendi. In contrast, when the ultimatecommitment was required - as in 1492 in Spain - faithful Jews had to escape from such societies.12 A unique position ofJews in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth manifested itself exactly in this outwardrejectionof a demand put on Jews to force them to make the ultimate existential commitment. The Polish monarchy, and later the Commonwealth with an elective King, had exactly this understanding of the Jewish existential situation in general, whatever instances there were ofChristian zealotry in the estate society at large. It wasexactly this unique political and constitutional structure of the Commonwealth that made it virtually impossible to impose such an ultimate existential situation on Jews by anypoliticalactor.

12 D. Novak, ‘Jews, Christians and Civil Society’, First Things, No. 2 (2002), pp. 31-32.

13 Compare e.g. Byzantine, western secular and ecclesiastical (decretals, conciliar canons and collections) texts collection: A. Linder (ed.), The Jews in the Legal Sources of the Early The immediate medieval Christian understandings of Judaism, polemics and popular images connected with it, as well as official Church pronouncements or institutional arrangements, were ofcourse often contrary to its basic theological un­ derstanding, which excluded this ultimate existential commitment of Jews as the sine qua non conditionof theirlegitimate dwelling within aChristian society.13 Such attitudes and practical actions were also gradually estabilished in Christendom.

32 1. Jews and the Middle Age Christian society

They were also imported into Polish lands, even if modified and filtered by local conditions.