Robert Chazan,
THE JEWS OF MEDIEVAL WESTERN CHRISTENDOM
CHAPTER 1 - PRIOR LEGACIES
(Students' excerpt project)
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1B. THE CHRISTIAN LEGACY
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The Islamic Legacy and Jewish Life in Christian Europe
Understanding the Islamic legacy is important for studying Jewish life after the year 1000 in Western Christendom. Many Jews who settled in Christian lands had come from Muslim societies, bringing with them a rich cultural heritage and certain expectations about politics, society, and culture. Comparing how Muslims and Christians treated Jews helps us see both similarities and contrasts. It also helps us understand why the relationship between Jews and Christians was often tense and why Christianity developed such complex attitudes toward its Jewish roots.
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Different Beginnings of Islam and Christianity
 The first difference comes from the way the two religions started.
  • Islam began as both a religion and a political system. Muhammad was not only a prophet but also a military leader, and Islam quickly became tied to government and empire.
  • Christianity, by contrast, began with Jesus, who had no worldly power. He simply sent his followers out to spread a spiritual message. Only centuries later did Christianity grow strong enough to take over the Roman Empire.
Because Christianity did not provide a set political system, Jews in Christian lands lived under two separate authorities:
  1. The Church, which had spiritual and moral authority.
  2. Secular rulers, whose power was more practical and temporary.
This division sometimes gave Jews opportunities to maneuver between competing authorities. But it also meant that church leaders, less tied to economic concerns, could restrict Jews without worrying about the financial consequences.

The Missionary Drive of Christianity
Another key difference was Christianity’s strong emphasis on converting others. Missionary activity was central to Christian identity. Although Jews were a small and often resistant group, they were still considered an important target. The Church saw converting Jews as both an act of love (saving their souls) and a way to remove what Christians viewed as a dangerous influence.

Judaism in Christian and Muslim Perspective
Islam arose in a new setting, with a new prophet and a new holy book (the Qur’an). While it recognized Judaism and Christianity as earlier, authentic revelations, it claimed to replace them. Christianity, however, grew directly out of Judaism. This gave Christianity a more ambivalent relationship: it revered Judaism as its foundation but rejected Jews for not accepting Jesus as the Messiah.
 For centuries this tension was mostly theoretical, since most Jews lived in Muslim lands. But once larger numbers of Jews entered Christian Europe, Christian ambivalence toward Judaism became a practical issue, shaping Jewish history in the West. Jews came to be seen simultaneously as God’s chosen people of the past and as stubborn rejecters of God’s truth in the present.
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Early Christianity and the Jewish Question
To understand this relationship, we must briefly look back to the origins of Christianity.
  • Jesus lived as a Jew in first-century Palestine under Roman rule. His teachings were framed in Jewish language and concerns.
  • After his death, however, the earliest writings about Jesus were not in Hebrew or Aramaic but in Greek. Paul of Tarsus, a diaspora Jew who never met Jesus, spread Christianity to non-Jews. His writings reveal both admiration for Judaism’s past and criticism of Jews who refused to believe in Jesus.
As Christianity spread, it became dominated by non-Jews. The Gospels, written decades after Jesus, reflect this shift. They portray Jews as partly responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion, minimizing the Roman role. This created the idea that Jews had committed a unique and unforgivable sin by rejecting and killing the Messiah.

Canonization and Ambivalence
 When Church leaders decided which writings to include in the Christian Bible, they reinforced this ambivalence. The Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) remained sacred, but Christians reinterpreted it as predicting Jesus, accusing Jews of failing to understand their own scriptures. Unlike Islam, which brought a completely new holy book, Christianity defined itself in constant dialogue (and conflict) with Jewish texts.
As a result, Christians viewed Jews as both witnesses to God’s truth and as blind rejecters of it. This attitude had little impact when Jews were mostly outside Christendom, but once Jewish communities grew in Christian Europe, these ideas shaped daily life, fueling suspicion and hostility.
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From Roman Empire to Christian Empire
 By the fourth century, Christianity had grown strong. The Council of Elvira (early 300s) already placed restrictions on Jews, forbidding close social ties and positions of influence. When Emperor Constantine converted (324–337), Christianity became the religion of the empire. Judaism remained legal but under increasing restrictions: Jews could not convert Christians or circumcise slaves, while Christian converts from Judaism were protected. This mixture of recognition and limitation set the blueprint for Jewish life in medieval Christendom.
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Augustine’s Theory of the Jews
A major turning point came with Augustine of Hippo (354–430), one of the most influential Christian thinkers. Augustine developed a theology that explained why Jews should continue to exist in Christian society:
  1. Jews were witnesses to the truth of Christianity. Their scriptures (the Old Testament) confirmed the prophecies about Jesus, even if they misunderstood them.
  2. Jews were also a living example of divine punishment. By rejecting Jesus, they had lost their land, their Temple, and their independence. Their suffering showed the consequences of disobedience to God.
  3. Yet Augustine also taught that Jews should be preserved, not destroyed, because one day they would repent and embrace Christianity.
This theology allowed Christians to tolerate Jews, but only in a humiliated, minority position. Missionary efforts were seen as both an act of compassion and a way to neutralize a perceived threat.
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Conclusion
Christianity’s legacy toward Judaism was deeply ambivalent. On one hand, it respected the Jewish past and granted Jews the right to exist in Christian society. On the other hand, it imposed restrictions, fostered negative images of Jews, and insisted that Judaism must eventually give way to Christianity. These tensions shaped the difficult and often painful experiences of Jews in medieval Western Christendom.

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