8 Popes and Jews, 1095–1291
Medieval interpretations of Pauline views about the Jews, heavily influenced by
patristic writing, and in particular by St Augustine, formed the theological frame-
work within which popes composed their letters. Papal correspondence reiterated
these concepts, as befitted the spiritual authority of the papacy. Monarchs and
emperors might—and frequently did—employ theological rhetoric to justify their
activities; yet popes by reason of their office spoke with special authority on behalf
of the whole Christian faithful. At the end of days the Remnant of the Jews would
be reconciled with Christianity.^36 Meanwhile, since Jews were blind to the Truth,
their position in society must reflect the servile status of Judaism.^37 Augustine’s
writing about the Jews was in general much more tempered than that of another
Father of the Church—John Chrysostom (c.349–407), Patriarch of Constantinople.^38
Yet in contrast with the works of Augustine, there is no evidence that John
Chrysostom’s Contra Iudaeos—eight sermons aimed at Judaizing Christians in
fourth-century Antioch—had any influence on papal correspondence during the
High Middle Ages.^39 Historians have cited these sermons as an example of negative
rhetoric about Jews and Judaism circulating in this period, which might lead us to
believe that they had a direct influence on papal thought.^40 It is certain that imme-
diately after his death Chrysostom became a universally acknowledged theological
authority in the West.^41 But it was not until the twelfth century that Burgundio of Pisa
( –1193) translated many of his works, including his commentary on Genesis, and
36 For discussion of the idea of a remnant of the Jews in both the Old and New Testament see, for
example, Vocabulary of the Bible, ed. J.-J. von Allmen (London, 1958), pp.354–7; Supplement
Dictionnaire de la Bible ‘Reste d’Israel’, Fascicle 55 (1981), cols 414–37.
37 See Grayzel, Vol. 1, p.41. Grayzel argues that the Church’s ‘policy’ was to prove unmistakably that
God had spurned Judaism. I would suggest rather that papal pronouncements reflected this ancient
idea. It was the canonists who then gathered together and sought to make sense of a whole range of
papal pronouncements about the Jews; see for example, X.5.6, cols 771–8.
38 Simonsohn, The Apostolic See and the Jews. History, pp.289–92.
39 John Chrysostom, ‘Contra Judaeos et Gentiles quod Christus sit Deus’, PL 48, cols 813–88; ‘In
libros octo contra Iudaeos Monitum’, PL 48, cols 839–42; ‘Adversus Iudaeos Orationes’, PL 48, cols
843–942; translated in St John Chrysostom, Contra Iudaeos, The Fathers of the Church, ed. B. Dombart,
A. Kalb, Vol. 68 (Washington D.C, 1977). See Lukyn Williams, Adversus Iudaeos: A Bird’s Eye View of
Christian Apologiae until the Renaissance (Cambridge, 1935), pp.132–40; Chrysostomus Baur, John
Chrysostom and His Time. Vol. 1: Antioch, trans. M. Gonzaga (London, 1959), pp.330–6; John Kelly,
Golden Mouth. The Story of John Chrysostom—Ascetic, Preacher, Bishop (London, 1995), pp.62–6;
Wendy Mayer, Pauline Allen, John Chrysostom (London, New York, 2000), pp.55–8. For a summary
of Chrysostom’s influence, see Robert Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews. Rhetoric and Reality in the
Late Fourth Century (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1983), pp.161–4.
40 For negative rhetoric of John Chrysostom about the Jews see, for example, Kenneth Stow, Jewish
Dogs: An Image and Its Interpreters. Continuity in the Catholic Jewish Encounter (Stanford, California,
2006), p.8; p.13. For the idea that such rhetoric might have had an influence on papal thought, see
Stow, ‘The Church and the Jews: St Paul to Pius IX’, pp.9–10, especially at p.10: ‘In 774, Pope
Stephen IV, citing Matthew chapter 15, followed John Chrysostom and likened Jews to dogs’ (my
italics); Stow also suggests that the clergy of Visigothic Spain who attended the Fourth Toledan
Council ‘spoke in unambivalent terms reminiscent of John Chrysostom’ (my italics), see p.14.
41 In the ninth century Alcuin of York wrote a commentary on Hebrews based almost entirely on
Chrysostom; Hincmar of Rheims frequently refers to him in his treatise De praedestinatione. In the
tenth century Rathier of Verona drew inspiration from his teachings on wealth and poverty. See
Chrysostomus Baur, John Chrysostom and His Time. Vol. 2: Constantinople, trans. M. Gonzaga
(London, Glasgow, 1960), pp.469–75; Walter Berschin, Greek Letters and the Latin Middle Ages: from
Jerome to Nicholas of Cusa, trans. J. Frakes (Washington D.C., 1988), p.55; p.64; pp.77–8; p.83;
p.223; pp.227–30; Kelly, Golden Mouth, pp.286–90. I am grateful to Marcus Plested’s paper