Medieval Jews on Christianity

By Kenneth Stow

Rivista di storia del cristianesimo, Vol.4 (2007)

Introduction: Whatever medieval Jews said, or thought, about Christianity, one may be sure that very little of it was good. Even at the time of Christian origins, Jews quickly understood that the new religion’s claim to have succeeded to the title of the «True Israel» challenged Judaism at its heart. Moreover, Jews may have been able to live with what they viewed as Christianity’s wayward beliefs. However, they could only view as subversive Christianity’s rejection of Jewish law. It was that law’s collective observance that guaranteed the Jews’ free practice of their religion in the Roman Empire and exempted them from participation in local (pagan) cults. Jews had to be even more concerned when Christianity came to power in the fifth century. Various churchmen challenged Jewish privilege, and the Emperors, from the time of Constantine, began to issue discriminatory laws detrimental to Jewish civic rights. These same churchmen were also suspicious of Jewish acts, which they saw as potential threats to Christian purity. Over time, these suspicions grew and spread to lay circles. In the Middle Ages, they sometimes resulted in violence.

It was not that Jews in medieval Europe lived in a state of perpetual tension or in fear of daily attack. The many known examples of peaceful contact and interchange,including cultural interplay, do not admit an interpretation of medieval Jewish life as an unremitting vale of tears. At the same time, underlying feelings and emotions, tell a different story. Christians of all stripes accepted unfounded accusations. They were especially susceptible to claims that Jews murdered Christians or defiled the Host; and these charges led to hostility and even violence. In their writings, Jews never refuted these charges head on, but they did speak of the circumstances that gave them birth, especially anxious as they were about the support instigators received from lay or ecclesiastical leaders, who sometimes themselves invented the libels. Jews did speak of the Eucharist, and they spoke of it disparagingly; they correctly understood, and this we shall see, that the Eucharist lay at the heart of all the accusations that too often ended in the loss of Jewish life.


By contrast Jews and Christians thought much alike about a second source of friction. Both agreed that there was little, if any justification for lending at interest. No matter how readily Jews engaged in this practice and no matter how much they knew it was indispensable for earning a living –by the twelfth century very little else was left them, especially in the European north – Jews still were uneasy about lending. Their reservations were halachic, derived from Jewish law itself. The eleventh century Joseph Tov Elem spoke sharply against those who mocked the Torah, saying: «If Moses had known that {lending} was profitable, his Torah would not have prohibited it». No doubt,this was didactic exaggeration, but indeed the halachah did forbid Jews to take interest, not only from each other, but also from Gentiles.

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