Eternal Strangers Critical Views of Jews and Judaism through the Ages - Chapter Three

Part One: Critiques from the Old World
Chapter Three : Transition to a Christian Worldview
By Thomas Dalton
“For Christians, Jews were eternal strangers.”
—J. Hood (1995:22)

After 300, the Empire went into steady decline and Christianity began to
assert its power. Emperor Constantine converted in 312, giving the young
religion official endorsement. In 380, emperor Theodosius I effectively
made it the state religion. By this time there was a clear distinction between the Gentile Christian church, and the orthodox Jews. As a result of
this, and due to the ‘family feud’ involved with Christianity arising from
Judaism, and the Jews ‘killing Christ,’ conditions for the Hebrew tribe
worsened.
A series of imperial legislative actions between 329 and 438 specifically
targeted the Jews. We have detailed records of many of these:
– Constantine’s edict of 18 October 329 bars the Jews from punishing
anyone choosing to “escape from their deadly sect.” Conversely, anyone electing to join “their nefarious sect” will be punished.
– His successor, Constantine II, warned against Jews who proselytized
women “in depravity” (turpitudinis).
– On 21 May 383, Gratian warns those who have “polluted themselves
with the Jewish contagions” (Iudaicis semet polluere contagiis) that they shall
be punished.
– Honorius decreed, on 1 April 409, that none shall “adopt the abominable and vile name of the Jews”; no one must accept “the Jewish perversity (perversitatem), which is alien to the Roman Empire.”
– On 31 January 438, Theodosius II referred to “the blindly senseless
Jews,” calling them “monstrous heretics” and an “abominable sect,”
and declared that “no Jew… should accede to honors and dignities”.

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