Preface xix
culpability for christ’s death. This encyclical—an attempt to examine more closely
the church’s relationship with all non-christian religions—stated:
as Holy scripture testifies, Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor
did the Jews in large number, accept the Gospel; indeed not a few opposed its spread-
ing. nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers; He does
not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues—such is the witness of the
apostle. in company with the Prophets and the same apostle, the church awaits that
day, known to God alone, on which all peoples will address the Lord in a single voice
and ‘serve him shoulder to shoulder’ (soph. 3: 9).
since the spiritual patrimony common to christians and Jews is thus so great, this
sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect
which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies as well as of fraternal
dialogues.
true, the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the
death of christ; still, what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all
the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today. although
the church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected
or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy scriptures. all should see to
it, then, that in catechetical work or in the preaching of the word of God they do
not teach anything that does not conform to the truth of the Gospel and the spirit
of christ.
Furthermore, in her rejection of every persecution against any man, the church,
mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons
but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti- semitism,
directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.The pontificate of Montini as Paul Vi (1963–1978) oversaw and implemented the
reforms of Vatican ii, while his successor Karol Jozef wojtyla as John Paul ii
(1978–2005), affected by memories of his childhood and the loss of neighbours
and friends during the Holocaust, continued the process of reforming the church’s
attitude to the Jewish people.
why is this glance at modern papal–Jewish relations pertinent to medieval
popes? what John Paul ii was concerned to contradict was the idea, which began
to circulate in christian circles particularly in the thirteenth century and was then
repeated until the twentieth century, that talmudic, rabbinic Judaism was a cor-
ruption and a deviation from genuine Judaism, that Jews were to be protected only
in so far as they adhered to the old testament—because this, it was believed,
would lead them to the new—but that they sinned when they chose the talmud
over the new testament. as this book will argue, that idea was indeed present in
medieval papal pronouncements because in response to increasing complaints about
the talmud, thirteenth-century popes saw it as a hindrance and a stumbling block
to the Jews’ eventual reconciliation with the christological message of the Gospel
and believed it was their apostolic duty to show the necessary spiritual leadership
to bring about such reconciliation. it is equally important to remember, however,
that these popes, like their eleventh- and twelfth-century predecessors, at the same
time also continued to oppose violence and the levying of populist charges against