Book Description

Examines the origins of the deicide accusation, the claim that the Jews killed Jesus, which has always been the main antisemitic cliché. Although St. Paul, who made the sacrifice of God's son a centerpoint of the new religion, can be regarded as the inventor of Christian antisemitism, he did not level the accusation of deicide against the Jews. Argues that it was the authors of the Synoptic Gospels, who wanted both to placate the Roman rulers by diverting the guilt from them and to dissociate themselves from Jewish nationalism after 70 CE, who accused the Jews. The image of Abraham's sacrifice always lurked behind the Crucifixion in Christian theology; Isaac was regarded as a spiritual ancestor of Christians. Abraham's sacrifice which was thwarted by God posed a theological problem for Christianity: if God prohibited the sacrifice of children, how could He sacrifice His own son? The problem was solved by diverting the accusation of infanticide from God to His people. In the Middle Ages, the notion that the Jews were capable of killing children was transformed into the belief in ritual murder. Scenarios of many blood libels included crucifixion of the victim. In the views of that epoch, the Jews needed to consume Christian blood because it was their only substitute for the Eucharist, essential for salvation. The image of the Jew as a ritual murderer, and at the same time the devil's henchman and a traitorous Judas, was adopted by classical English literature, the most striking example of which is Shakespeare's Shylock.