Discourses Against Judaizing Christians

Catholic University of America Press
St. John Chrysostom
ISBN: 0813209714
price: $34.95   paperback

St. John Chrysostom's Discourses Against Judaizing Christians are eight homilies or sermons with a unifying theme: the correction of certain abuses in a fourth-century Christian community. In Antioch in the late fourth century two highly divisive forces contributed to deteriorating Judaeo-Christian relations: very successful Jewish proselytising, and Christian Judaizing. Both activities profoundly disturbed a vigilant leader and eloquent preacher such as Chrysostom was.
These Discourses, frequently interrupted by applause from the audience, present in their historical context one facet of the deteriorating relations. Antedating Chrysostom by some two centuries, emerging views that the Jews were a people cursed and dispersed in punishment for their unbelief were gaining credence. In the course of time certain passages of sacred Scripture began to be reinterpreted, when occasion presented itself, in such a way as to endow the polemics with divine authority.
A simplistic view of the complex problem of anti-Semitism raised the cry that the Church nurtured hatred against the Jews and at the same time protected them from the fury she had unleashed. However, on October 28, 1965, Vatican Council II issued a decree: Declaration of the Church's Attitude Toward Non-Christian Religions (cf. Acta apostolicae sedis 58 (1966) 740-44). Therein the Council officially reaffirmed the common religious patrimony of Jews and Christians. It clearly rejected any alleged collective guilt of the Jewish people for the death of Christ and their alleged rejection of God.