298 Crusades Lecture 3 Jan 31

Question 1

The emergence of Christianity

Opposition to Judaism
The people of the time, both Romans and Jews, saw the Jesus movement as a reform sect of Judaism.

Answer 1

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Question 2

Some Myths
Constant persecution
Moneylenders and rich

Answer 2

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Question 3

Constant persecution

Long stretches of peace

Varies from place to place

Answer 3

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Question 4

Not all Jews were upperclass or moneylenders
Farmers, artisans, shopkeepers.

Jewish and Christian similar in gender relations.
Jewish-Christian relations mediated by gender and class as well as by religion

Answer 4

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Question 5

Spain is its own special case

Will see this more when we talk about the Reconquista

Answer 5

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Question 5

The destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and the expulsion of the Jews from Jerusalem in 135
CE, both punishments by the Romans for Jewish revolts,

helped Christian efforts to separate themselves from the Jews,

later seen as God’s punishments on the Jews for not recognizing Jesus as the Messiah.

Answer 5

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Question 6

380 Christianity made the official religion

Jews now in a decidedly inferior position

Answer 6

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Question 7

What were the early Christians worried about?
They proclaimed that their faith corresponded to a universal truth:
it wasn’t just a belief in a subjective sense, validated by the intensity of their belief, but a belief that matched the way the world really was.

But in that case, how could Jews hear the word and yet not believe?

Answer 7

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Question 8

constant threat to Christian confidence in the truth of their faith,
that world and Scripture could be read in a number of different ways, and a possible example to Gentile prospects that Christianity was not necessary for a good, pious, monotheistic life.

Answer 8

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Question 9

Early church leaders and thinkers dealt with the Jews in various ways

Answer 9

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Question 10

Paul’s strategy in his preaching and conversion of the Gentile population was the turning point.

No need to be a Jew first in order to be a Christian

Answer 10

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Question 12

Paul argued that Judaism had been superceded by Christ, that faith was more important than the Law.

However, when the Jews come to accept Christ, as they refuse to do now, they would be redeemed and salvation would be complete.

Answer 12

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Question 13

Tertullian and Origen, writing in the early 3rd C,
Typological exegesis

the Hebrew Bible becomes the Old Testament, mere prefiguring not to be taken literally, but matter for spiritual interpretations that point forward to Christ.

Answer 13

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Question 14

Augustine.
Jews’ unbelief actually helped Christians
First, since the Temple was destroyed and the Jews scattered, their existence as exiles was proof God has switched his favor from them to the Christians.

Second, if no Jews, why would the pagans believe the Old Testament, and without that, why should they believe that Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament?

Answer 14

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Question 15

While Augustine found a reason to tolerate the Jews as witnesses to the truth of christianity,
others spewed invectives of devil worship and worse (Jerome; John Chrysostom)

Answer 15

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Question 16

Pope Gregory the Great, about 200 years later (600 CE), set the tone for the official Church position,
tolerance within limits.
Jews were not to be able to own Christian slaves, and they were not to attempt to convert Christians or pagans,

On the other hand, Jews were to be protected by the law from violence, which at this time often took the form of burning of synagogues.

Answer 16

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Question 17

Early governmental relations
With the exception of a Visigoth attempt to forcibly convert Jews in 7th C Spain

Jews enjoyed the protected status granted them by Roman law-the codes of Theodosius and Justinian

Cohen reading

Answer 17

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Question 18

Protected, but restricted in rights and privileges, and overseen by a special official, the
magister iudaeorum, the “master of the Jews.”

Grows into the “chamber Jews” Cohen talks about

Answer 18

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Question 19

Population distribution of Jews in Europe

At first, Jews were found only along the Mediterranean coast, Sicily, Spain and Southern France.

Answer 19

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Question 20

Small settlements of Jews came north following trade routes and began entering northern France, Germany and England as time went by.

Their numbers were always very small, never more than 1% of the total population, except in Spain.

Answer 20

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Question 21

Increasing marginalization of Jews

Positives of economic revival: carrying them north into previously backward country, only now becoming worthy of trade.

Answer 21

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Question 22

Negatives:
Rather than small-scale Jewish merchants in the luxury trade, big Christian companies in Venice and Genoa began taking a larger share of the market

Answer 22

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Question 23

growing Christian solidarity in the towns began to take the shape of artisan guilds, which, modeled as they were on cathedrals and monasteries, excluded Jews

Answer 23

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Question 24

Usury became the main option for Jews to use the mostly modest
capital built up by the family trading business over the generations.

Most of the lending was very small-scale stuff, often by Jewish women.

Most small lending was done with pledges of goods, much like modern pawnbrokers

Answer 24

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Question 25

Why the hate?

Three things inflamed medieval Christians about the neighbor Jews:
that they lent money at interest (usury);
that they were responsible for the death of Christ;
that they sacrificed Christian children. Blood libel

Answer 25

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Question 26

Usury
It’s sometimes said the Jews had to be usurers because they could not own land and hence could not farm.
only half true: they could own land, but the problem was they couldn’t use Christian slaves or serfs to farm it
This inability to find cheap labor was a major factor in growing Jewish urbanization

Answer 26

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Question 27

Once in towns poor Jews were small shopkeepers and artisans, while richer Jews were larger merchants

Answer 27

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Question 28

Once the guilds took hold in the early 13th C, Jews were shut out of their humbler occupations, and moneylending became one of the few options open.

Answer 28

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Question 29

many Jewish moneylenders were actually quite popular with their clients:
they had to be: moneylending was a very competitive business
and one couldn’t afford a monstrous reputation.

Answer 29

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Question 30

usury had to have been a volatile topic in medieval society,

Answer 30

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Question 31

, usury served to intensify the flow of money that was in the process of changing every aspect of medieval society.
Faster and faster money turnover meant faster and faster fortunes could be made and more and more luxury goods could be bought.
Both these changed the flows of bodies: new fortunes meant different flows of money and prestige in the body politic, while new luxury goods meant new flows of pleasure and qualitatively different sensations in individual bodies.

Church ambivalence about wealth

Answer 31

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Question 32

Deicide:
that the Jews rather than the Romans were responsible for the death of Jesus was an old Christian charge

Jews last tormenter of Christ. Vinegrar sponge

Answer 32

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Question 33

Contemporary Jews were also guilty, as their refusal to accept Jesus repeated the very rejection that lead to his death on the cross

Answer 33

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Question 34

not just the cultural system, but the very feeling of bodily integrity and well-being of medieval Christians was bound up with the image of Christ, and the idea of his murder sent unbearable waves of energy through the system

Answer 34

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Question 34

Blood libel

Jewish ritual murder of Christian
children.

Ritual killing of the eucharist

Reenacting the killing of Christ

Answer 34

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Question 35

How do we explain the hatred?

Answer 35

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Question 36

Institutional Explanation
, the Church’s official position of humanitarian tolerance, as established by
Gregory the Great, and the rabid hate-mongering and murderous invective of individual clerics, as exemplified by John Chysostom, must be seen in systematic inter-relation

Answer 36

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Question 37

the fundamental antipathy of the Church could be expressed by “extremists” who did the dirty work,
while the official position was one of humanitarian concern and tolerance

In other words, “cultural climate”
Or, hypocrisy

Answer 37

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Question 38

Onto-theological
West is driven to unity due to fundamental cultural “decisions”
expressed best by Platonism: identity over difference, stability over change,

The Jews were constant incarnations of difference and diversity in the midst of a desired unity, and so had to be hated and despised

Answer 38

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Question 39

Structuralist
Jews were the “other” that allowed Christians to form their self identity by differentiation.

identity through difference

Europe’s Jews thus had to be hated and despised, but not destroyed, for structural reasons, for Christian society to hold itself together.

Answer 39

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Question 40

Problem:

lack of specific explanatory power: we know that the Jews as “other” had to be periodically harassed, but have no way of knowing how and why any one particular harassment occurred;

Answer 40

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Question 41

Marxist
after their early utility in rebuilding the European economy, the Jews came to express the contradictions of the early capitalist system, as the need for available capital, held back by religious tradition, was solved by Jewish usury.

This crucial role left them in a vulnerable position though, and they became targets of violence by victims of the economic revival

Answer 41

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Question 42

classic example of displaced anger,

poor fell upon certain visible representatives of the system rather than targeting the system itself through concerted class action aimed at systematic change

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Question 43

Polemics

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Question 44

As early as 2nd century
Testimonia (Testimonies)
Compilations of OT citations intended to show how NT was foretold in the Hebrew scripture

Answer 44

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Question 45

Could also take the shape of dialogues

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Question 46

Treatises. Adds proofs to the lists of citations in the testimonia.

Answer 46

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Question 47

Constant conversations between real Jews and Christians

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Question 48

Gilbert Crispin

Bishop of Westminster

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Question 49

Serene atmosphere. Amicability.

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Question 50

Polemics used to teach and entertain, less to persuade

Answer 50

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Question 51

In-Class Writing

What do you think is the most important thing you learned for today as it applies to the crusades?

What do you expect for the relationships of Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule?

Answer 51

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