The Reformation and the Jewish People: Part III

by Jeffrey Gutterman

    In Part II we discussed how the first century church was Jewish and that the New Covenant was made with the Jewish people. The early church was led by Jews and even the churches outside of Israel had a Jewish mindset based on Jewish beliefs. We began to look at the events that led to the de-Judaizing of the church that ultimately led to the persecution of Jews in history by the established church. We left off with the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70 A.D. and the rift that developed between the believers and their Jewish brothers as a result of the warning prophesied by Jesus in Luke 21:20-24 where Jesus told them to flee the city if “surrounded by armies.” They fled. Jerusalem fell and the believers were blamed. 

    The Jewish believers were gradually tolerated back into society in Jerusalem after 70 A.D. In 132 AD rebellion again broke out and this time the Hebrew Christians fought side by side with their Jewish brothers. Bar Kochba, the leader of the Jewish forces, experienced phenomenal military success. Rome was being beaten back on almost every front. The Roman army was forced to withdraw to re-supply and get reinforcements.  

    As the fighting continued, Rabbi Akiba, the most respected Rabbi of that time, announced that Bar Kochba was the long awaited Messiah. This was a deal breaker for the Jewish believers. The Jewish Christians, who were fighting the Romans, were motivated by nationalism but could not now fight under the banner of a false Messiah. They laid down their swords and eventually the rebellion was brutally crushed by Rome. Jerusalem was savaged with anywhere from 500,000 to 1,000,000 Jews being slaughtered in the streets which literally flowed with blood. Jerusalem was leveled and rebuilt by the Romans who called it Aelia Capitolina. As a result, the only believers of Christ left in Jerusalem were Gentile believers. The Jewish Christians did not desert Jerusalem. In fact,  they were not allowed back in.  

    And yet, Christianity grew and grew with many Jews and Gentiles coming to faith after the defeat in 135 AD. However, the Jewish community was now separated from their Gentile brothers who believed in Messiah. This separation has yet to be fully repaired.  

    When Rome and the church merged under Constantine, Jews who wanted to be part of the church were required to renounce their Judaism and give up all Jewish practices. Rome had become a “de-Judaized Christian” empire. Rome did not tolerate any other faith. The Romans, quite frankly, had had enough of the Jews who had given them such trouble. Jerusalem was now devoid of any Jewish population and the church in Jerusalem consisted only of Gentile believers. Jerusalem was also no longer the major Christian city. The Christian centers became Located in Alexandria, Rome and Antioch.  Christianity was widely being accepted, mostly by Gentiles. It wasn’t long before supersessionism, also known as, Replacement Theology, was the resulting philosophy/theology of Gentile believers.   

   At the time of the destruction of Jerusalem less than ½ of the Jewish population was living in or around Jerusalem. Most Jewish communities had been established for centuries in Babylonia and other parts of the Middle East as well as throughout the Roman Empire. Abba Eban in Heritage: Civilization and the Jews, Summit Books, New York, 1984, writes “..the expulsion of the Jews from their lands had paradoxically saved them from the fate that awaited other civilizations. For the Jews were exiled into survival.” (P. 95) The very fact that this large portion of the Jewish population was not in Jerusalem in 135 A.D., provided for the survival of the Jews as a distinct people.          

    Some ironies arose. In 135 A.D. the Jewish population in Jerusalem had been battered terribly and they were dispersed. This closely coincided with the rapid spread of Christianity.  Before the Jewish revolt under Bar Kochba, the practice of Judaism had never been illegal under Roman rule. Rather, it was the fear of Christianity that caused the Roman Empire to persecute Christians brutally. Rome feared the Christians because they would not bow to the gods of the Romans or worship and offer sacrifices to the Emperor who usually declared himself, god. Besides throwing Christians to the lions and forcing them to fight as gladiators, Nero (who ruled from 54-68 A.D., and seemed to have a thing about fire) would have Christians dipped into pitch and set afire to be used as lighting for his gardens. The Christians were being persecuted while the Jews were not. One mindset that came out of this situation was the result of a Christian appeal to Rome. They stated that Christianity was a part of Judaism, and claimed that they should be accepted as the Jewish population was accepted. When Rome did not acknowledge this, the predominantly Gentile Church began to look at their Jewish roots differently.  

    It was after Constantine had become the first Christian Emperor of Rome that things changed dramatically. Initially, the Jews and the Christians had similar rights to worship in their own way. In 312 A.D. Christianity became the official religion of the Empire and this marked the beginning of persecution of the Jews in the Empire.  

    In 313 the Edict of Mila outlawed synagogues and the rights afforded to the Jews were taken away. Any Jew proselytizing faced death and Jews could not hold high public office nor be in the military. Constantine did not eliminate the pagan rituals of the Roman past, since much of his military were pagans. He declared that no business transactions should take place on “the day of the sun,” which was the first day of the week, thus changing the 7^th day Sabbath. The major Gentile influence on the church was the Greco-Roman mindset that replaced the Hebraic mindset which allowed for heresies in the church, some of which still exist today.  

   In Part IV we will examine how some of the early Church Fathers felt about the Jews.