The deleterious impact of papal legislation and mendicant preaching on
Jews was aggravated by the deterioration of the image of Jews in the popular
imagination of ordinary Christians. In general, medieval Jew-hatred was
expressed primarily in religious terms, with an economic undercurrent. The
Jew was regarded as a usurer and a devious commercial adversary of
Christian merchants.
At the heart of the negative image of Jews was an increasingly entrenched
notion of a connection between Jews and Satan. For medieval Christians, Satan
was as immediate as God and Christ, and tried on a daily basis to destroy all
that was good. It was commonly believed that the same stubbornness that pre-
vented Jews from recognizing the truth of Christianity made them defenseless
against Satan. In many medieval depictions and tales, there is a confrontation
between a Jew and the devil, in which the Jew always succumbs: “Thus can the
devil lead into error the minds of those whose hearts do not cleave to God’s
word.” For this reason, Jewish rituals in the synagogue or ritual bath were
often depicted in medieval art as Satanic, with Satan actually participating.
In Christian folklore, the Jew was often depicted as the Antichrist. In one
legend, a Jewish prostitute offers herself to her lover, the devil, in order to sire
a superhuman offspring through whom “Christendom will be destroyed and
Judaism raised up again.” The child is reared by Satan, and when trained
appears first among Jews, who recognize him as their Messiah. Such notions
resonated with the terrifying Mongol invasions of the thirteenth century.
Jews, it was believed, greeted these invasions with renewed hope, as some
form of redemption. The fearful Christians, saw the Mongols as minions of
the Antichrist, thus reinforcing the notion that the Antichrist was a Jew.
The identification of Jews and Satan was affirmed by the image that Jews –
like Satan – had horns, a billy-goat beard, and a tail. The image of Jews hav-
ing horns originated in a mistranslation of Exodus 34:29–30, which describes
Moses descending from Mount Sinai: “Ve-hineh karan or panav.” The Hebrew
word karanis related to the Hebrew homonym keren, which can mean horn or
ray. Older translations rendered this verse as “and behold rays of light
emanated from his face.” In early Christian translations such as the Vulgate
and the Aquila, the verse was rendered “and behold horns emanated from his
face.” As a result, sometimes Jews were forced to wear horns as distinct dress.
In Vienna in 1267, for example, Jews were forced to wear a pileum cornutum
(horned hat). The notion of a supernatural being with horns, per se, was not
original. Babylonian and Egyptian mythology was full of horned deities. In
Hellenistic culture, horns were a symbol of might and power. The Qur’an
depicts Alexander the Great as having two horns.
The image of the Jews as having a beard and tail stemmed from an associ-
ation of Jews and goats, the goat being Satan’s helper. A common popular
belief held that good spirits gave off a pleasant odor, while evil spirits were
identifiable by their foul stench. Thus, the notion of a goat-like foetor judaicus
90 The Jews of medieval Christendom