WHAT!! …Christian Antisemitism’?!?! -3

   Today I get into the nitty-gritty of some of the examples of ‘Christian antisemitism.’ At this point, I can only report on what happened, not why it happened. I want to begin with a quote recorded by Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin on page 120 of their book ‘Why The Jews’ which so tragically sums up ‘Christian’ antisemitism that caused me to weep when I first read it:
“Thus Montesquieu in his essay, ‘The Spirit of Laws’, powerfully denounced ‘Christian anti-semitism’ by condemning the Portuguese Inquisition* through the mouth of a persecuted Jew: “You put us to death, who believe only what you believe, because we do not believe all that you believe. We follow a religion, which you yourselves know to have been formerly dear to God. We think that God loves it still, and you think that He loves it no more; and because you judge this, you make those suffer by sword and fire, who hold an error so pardonable as to believe that God loves what he once loved.””
  
  I have only one response: May God have mercy!!!
 
   Author Edward Flannery says there is debate over the degree of antisemitism prior to the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine who converted to Christianity in 329AD. However, before Constantine’s death in 337AD, ‘Christian’ antisemitism was on the rise. 
   Edward Flannery quotes several church leaders, “In the first half of the fourth century, Eusebius of Caesarea (340AD) in two massive volumes presented a review of Jewish history founded on the distinction between “Hebrews” and “Jews.” The Hebrews were considered primitive Christians, thus the patriarchs; the Jews, a less worthy people from the Law of Moses was a necessity. Hilary of Poiters (367AD) similarly reinterpreted Jewish history for the purpose of proving Jews a perpetually perverse people, despised by God.” “St Ephraim(373AD)…. inserted contemptuous references to Judaism in his liturgical hymns calling the Synagogue, for example, a “harlot.”  “St. Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386AD) an ardent preacher, denounced the Jews from the pulpit and wrote offensively of the Jewish partriarchate, which he considered a shameful institution. And St. Epiphanius (310-403AD), one of the great early heresiologists, in his analysis of Judaeo-Christian heresies did not hide his feeling for one group, the Herodians, who are the “real Jews because they are indolent and dishonest.” (pg49)**
    The first question I have for these ‘Christian leaders’ is…what is the source of your condemnation and hatred? Did you have negative experiences with the Jews in your area? If so, my second question is how are you as Christians to handle such difficult people? Even our enemies? The answer is easy but not simple.  Jesus declared in Matthew 5:44,45: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;45.That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven…” Verse 45 elucidates everything. The text declares to be a child of our Father, we must do verse 44…first!!! In addition, Romans 2:4 declares “…the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?” The Greek word for “goodness” is kindness. In other words, to win the lost to Christ we must often endure their abuse, yet still show them kindness, for the Holy Spirit to lead them to repentance! Did these ‘Christians’ even bother to read Matthew 5:44-45 and Romans 2:4?
   As Christians, we are supposed to read the Bible and apply it to our lives. I would like to conclude by asking the aforementioned ‘supposed Christians’*** a few more questions about the following passages:
 
1.“Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles” (Ps25:22). Did you either pray or act on these words from God?
 
2.“For the LORD’S portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.”  (Deut32:9,10) God calls His people (Israel/Jews) “His portion”; “His inheritance”; and the “apple of His eye”…yet---YOU attack them?!?!
 
3.“O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.” (Ps115:9) God promises to be Israel’s “help and their shield”. I wonder how you will answer God regarding Him being the Jew’s “help and their shield”?

4.In Psalms 83, Israel’s enemies declared: “They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”
 
…in that same chapter…Asaph responded using the prayer of imprecation:
13.O my God, scatter them like tumbleweed, like chaff before the wind!
14.As a fire burns a forest and as a flame sets mountains ablaze,
15.chase them with your fierce storm; terrify them with your tempest.
16.Utterly disgrace them until they submit to your name, O Lord.
17.Let them be ashamed and terrified forever. Let them die in disgrace.
18.Then they will learn that you alone are called the Lord, that you alone are the Most High,  supreme over all the earth.
 
I repeat, may God have mercy upon ‘supposed Christian’*** antisemites’!!!
 
  
*Spain instituted the Spanish Inquisition in 1478 before decreeing the expulsion of all Jews from Spain in 1492. Tens of thousands of Spanish Jews fled Spain, including to Portugal, where King John II granted them asylum in return for payment. However, the asylum was withdrawn after eight months, with the Portuguese government decreeing the enslavement of all Jews who had not left Portugal. Marcus, Jacob (1938). The Jew in the Medieval World: A Source Book, 315-1791. p. 61.
 
**Edward H. Flannery (August 20, 1912 – October 19, 1998) was an American priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, and the author of The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, first published in 1965. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Flannery)
 
***I use the word “Christian” loosely because I do question the salvation of these early so-called Christians for some of the things they did and said.