The Faith of Christians and Hostility to Jews

Abstract

There is a fundamental question that any historical analysis of the relations between Christianity and Judaism must face. What is the relation between the hostility that Christians have directed at Jews and their faith as Christians? It is a hard question to answer for both conceptual and evidential reasons. The conceptual problem is that historians may be misled by some of the theological categories which are so deeply embedded in the languages of Western culture. Let me give an example close to home. At the first conference of the Society, C. N. L. Brooke spoke of the Christian religion and of the Church with a capital ‘C’. Similarly, several titles of the volumes of Studies in Church History and many of the contributions in them have used ‘the Church’ as if there was such a thing as the universal Christian Church. Indeed, the style sheet for Studies in Church History states that a capital is required for ‘the Church’ where the universal Church is implied and gives as an example the sentence, ‘The Church preaches tolerance’—an assertion that may seem passing strange in the context of this year’s conference.