ANTISEMITISM. - Aversion to the Jewish people, occurring in ancient and modern times, based on social rather than religious grounds. The term is very improper (one ought to say "anti-Judaism"), also because the Jews are traditionally hated by the largest modern Semitic people, the Arabs; coined - it seems - by W. Marr in 1880 and spread in Germany and Austria on the basis of ethno-social antitheses, it now usually means hostility toward the Jews, deriving from any motive whatsoever. "The word is new, but the thing is old... It designates a state of mind, a sociological theory (conflict of races and class struggle), a political party, principally a legislation" (S. Deploige, p. 6).
1. ANTISEMITISM IN THE ANCIENT WORLD
The phenomenon of A. extended wherever the Jews established themselves in communities among other peoples. "Judaism and the hatred of the Jews have traversed the centuries of history as inseparable companions" (L. Pinsker, p. 29). With the Jewish diaspora, from the 5th century B.C., begins the "ever-present question" (D. Goldstein).
The first known episode of A. is narrated by Esther, under Ahasuerus (Xerxes I). At the end of the same century an anti-Jewish popular uprising produced the plundering, then the destruction of the temple of Elephantine (from 412 to about 404 B.C.), in upper Egypt, and the killing of the Jewish colony together with the high priest Jedoniah. The Hellenistic world opposed the Jews, for the reason already expressed in Esth. 3, 8, "when it saw that that strange race was spreading over the whole inhabited earth, but without merging with the various environments" (G. Ricciotti, p. 231). The texts of Greek and Roman writers (collected by Th. Reinach) concerning the Jews manifest an antipathy in which contempt and distrust dominate before a people that appears too different. "A. corresponds to Jewish exclusivism" (E. Zolli, p. 32).
From the 3rd to the 1st century B.C. the Hellenistic writers Manetho, Mnaseas of Patara, Posidonius of Apamea, Apollonius Molon, combat the Jews. These are reproached for their exclusivism (ἀμιξία), whether religious (Hecataeus of Abdera, Strabo, Varro, Cassius Dio, Petronius, Martial; Pliny, Hist. nat., XIII, 4, 46 "gens contumelia numinum insignis"; Tacitus, Hist., V, 4-8; Juvenal, Satire 6, 542-47; 14, 96-106), or social and national (Posidonius, Trogus Pompeius, Seneca, Persius, Tacitus), on account of which they are esteemed "contrarii ceteris mortalibus, inimici generis humani" (Tacitus), "perniciosa ceteris gens" (Quintilian, Inst. Orat., III, 7, 21). Slanderous legends were therefore formed concerning immoral and atrocious practices of the Jews; in the time of Caligula the Alexandrians Chaeremon, Lysimachos and above all Apion (v.) spread them, and Philo had to refute these accusations of inhumanity (ἀπανθρωπία). Already economic rivalry looms: Trogus Pompeius denounces their riches. Against the closed and impenetrable islands of these Orientals who clashed with the classical and patriotic sense of the civilized world of that time, unpopularity grew; already for Cicero (Pro Flacco, 28) "Jew" was equivalent to "troublemaker," almost to "seditious"; it was recalled that in 139 B.C. the praetor Hispalus had expelled "Judaeos, qui Sabazii (= Sabaoth) Jovis cultu Romanos inficere mores conati sunt" (Valerius Maximus, I, 3, 2). "Racial pride inspired in the Jews feelings and attitudes of hatred, of contempt, of separation, whose injury the pagans keenly felt and to which they responded with a fairly general anti-Judaism" (J. Bonsirven, Le Judaïsme palestinien, I, Paris 1934, p. 104).
Julius Caesar was a friend of the Jews, who at his death honored him with funeral lamentations for several nights. The official attitude, in the Empire, was generally benevolent toward them, also because many rich Jews were influential at court. But the people abhorred them, also on account of the privileges they enjoyed, among which exemption from military service and from certain tributes, and on account of their proselytism among high-ranking people.
In Alexandria they were often manhandled and harassed, especially under the governor of Egypt A. Avillius Flaccus (32-37/38 A.D.; Philo, Contra Flaccum), and Philo (Legatio ad Caium) led the Jewish embassy to Caligula (winter 38/39). Claudius sent the letter (discovered in 1924) to the Alexandrians (41 A.D.) to bring them back to calm. In Rome they were expelled (4000 deported to Sardinia) under Tiberius (19 A.D.), whose minister Sejanus, who hated them, left Pontius Pilate at the head of Judea for ten years. Claudius, who owed the throne to Agrippa I (v.), was favorable to them, but could not prevent a new expulsion from Rome (Act. 18, 1-2) of the Jews (who had returned under Caligula) "assidue tumultuantes" (Suetonius, Claud., 25, 4). Nero protected them; Vespasian and Titus, after having put down the Jewish revolt (66-70), did not act with cruelty, but the last of the Flavians, Domitian, who, with his successors Trajan and Hadrian, remained in execration in the rabbinic books as a persecutor.
Anti-Jewish hostility was therefore widespread in the world long before the Crucifixion. The pagans remained anti-Jewish, from Justin and Plutarch (De superstitione) to Ammianus Marcellinus and Rutilius Namatianus (4th century); the latter reproaches Pompey and Titus for having conquered Judea, and concludes: "Latius excisae pestis contagia serpunt-Victoresque suos natio victa premit" (Itinerarium, V, 385 ff.).
2. ANTISEMITISM IN THE CHRISTIAN WORLD
Christians, mindful of the precept of charity, held no social prejudice of nation or race with regard to the Jews; they opposed rather the evangelical-Pauline universalism to their particularism. But, after Calvary, Jewish hatred against Christians was very active, as attest, besides the sacred books of the New Testament (I Thess. 2, 15-16; B. Allo, L'Apocalypse, Paris 1921, p. IV: "Les ennemis les plus actuels sont encore les Juifs"), the Martyrium Polycarpi 12, 2; 13, 1; 17, 18; Ad Diognetum 5, 17; Justin, I Apol., 31, 36; C. Tryph. 16, 95, 110 ("to no Christian do you leave life"). 133; whence Tertullian, Scorpiace, 10 (cf. Apol. 7), calls the Jewish synagogues "fontes persecutionum." In the 2nd century "Judaism preserved its ancient attitude of enmity, while on the other hand its doctrine and its customs penetrated here and there into the Christian circle, making necessary an activity of defense and clarification" (B. Altaner, Patrologia, Ital. trans., Turin 1940, p. 66). Therefore from the 1st century the divine reprobation of Israel was emphasized (Epist. Barnabae 4, 6-8; 14, 1-4; etc.). Around 200 the Clementine Homilies IV, 6: PG 2, 161, praise the Alexandrian Apion for having defended Hellenic culture against "Jewish impiety." The anti-Jewish polemic of the Fathers (well set out by F. Vernet and by A. L. Williams) was continuous, from St. Justin to the priest Evagrius in Gaul (430).
Origen, St. Ephrem, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. John Chrysostom, St. Jerome (In Isaiah 2, 8), complain of persecutions and outrages on the part of the Jews. In the time of St. Ambrose "the wealth and the proselytism of the Jews provoked, more or less everywhere, antisemitic reprisals" (A. Paredi, S. Ambrogio, Milan 1940, p. 377); when the synagogue of Callinicum on the Euphrates was burned down by the people, Theodosius I ordered the bishop of Callinicum to rebuild it; but Ambrose (Epist. 40-41 to Theodosius, to Marcellina) forced the emperor to grant impunity to all. The synagogue of Rome was burned around 595. Augustine accuses them (Sermo 62, 17-18) of instigating pagans and heretics against the Catholics, and he often speaks of the distrust of Christians toward the Jews (e.g. Contra adversarios legis et prophet.: PL 42, 600 ff.). In 415 the patriarch St. Cyril did not oppose their expulsion from Alexandria. Theodosius II suppressed the Palestinian rabbinic schools (425). Under the Goths the atrocities of the last years of Theodoric were attributed to the Jews (A. Amelli, Cassiodoro e la Volgata, Grottaferrata 1917, p. 14 f.). In 521 the persecutions against the Jews flared up again in Rome, and they appealed to Allgero, legate of Theodoric.
The restrictive laws, issued by Theodosius II (between 425 and 439) and by Justinian (Novella no. 146 of 553; Code I, 8: De inducis et coelicolis), remained in force in the Christian nations down to modern times.
In the Middle Ages, as always, the Church, attentive only to moral and religious principles, openly protected the Jews against persecutions, but forbade them to exercise influence in Christian society; "she prevented, as far as she could, any violence being used against them; she prevented, as far as she could, any trust being placed in them" (M. Landrieux, p. 86). The Third Council of Toledo (589) forbade them every public office and the possession of Christian slaves, decreeing the confiscation of the goods of converts who returned to Judaism; the Sixth Council of Toledo (633), presided over by St. Isidore of Seville, confirmed this, but censured King Sisebut, who forced the Jews to become Christians; the Tenth (656) and the Seventeenth (694) increased the severities. Paul Alvarus (d. 861) remains in this line.
In the East St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662) and St. John Damascene (679-749), in the West St. Gregory of Tours (520-93) and Ratherius of Verona (896-974) denounced grave dangers coming from the Jews. The bishops of Lyon Amulo (Contra Judaeae ad Carolum regem: PL 116, 141-184, in 846, asks Charles the Bald to apply the laws of the Council of Meaux of 845) and above all his predecessor Agobard (d. 840) opposed the growing Jewish influence; the latter sent the emperor Louis the Pious four learned writings to this effect (the De Iudaicis superstitionibus was drafted together with other bishops) and to Nebridius bishop of Narbonne the De casendo consciu et societate iudaica (PL 104, 9-353). But after various grave crimes against the Jews (in the first crusade [1096], massacres of Jews at Cologne, Speyer and Mainz; in 1147 the monk Radulf stirs up the people of Mainz to massacre the Jews, and these are killed by the crusaders departing at Carentan and elsewhere), St. Bernard (Epist. 333 to the archbishop Henry of Mainz, Epist. 363 ad clerum et populum Galliae orientalis) rose up condemning these ferocious methods, recommending that the Jews be converted, but not killed.
Unfortunately the cruelties continued, and Innocent IV published two bulls (to the archbishop of Vienne in France, 28 May 1247; to the archbishops and bishops of Germany, 5 July 1247) to forbid any raging against Jews not guilty of personal crimes. Meanwhile in Paris (1244), in Toulouse (1248) and elsewhere the Talmudic books were burned.
Canon Law forbade (Decretals of Gregory IX, l. V, tit. VI, chaps. 1-18), that Jews exercise public offices, that they keep Christian servants, that they build new synagogues; it imposed on them the wearing of a special garment or badge. But it also prescribed: " Principes saeculares excommunicari debent, qui Iudacos baptizatos suis bonis spoliare praesumunt " (chap. 5) and: " Iudaci inviti non sunt baptizandi, nec ad hoc cogendi, vel in suis festivitatibus molestandi, nec ipsorum coemeteria violanda " (chap. 9).
From the 12th century the anti-Jewish legislation grows progressively more severe. The Jews are, according to public civil law, " perpetuae servituti addicti ".
In France, St. Louis IX (Ordonnance of Melun, Dec. 1230, art. 2) sanctioned the provisions of Philip Augustus and of Louis VIII: the Jews were considered serfs, and could not move. St. Thomas, De regimine Iudaeorum ad comitissam Flandriae (o ad Ducissam Brabantiae), around 1270, admits these laws, but interprets them in the most benign way.
Passions and selfish interests, however, prevailed; Edward I expelled the Jews from England (1290), where they would be able to return, but with difficulty and in isolation, only under Cromwell (1653). The chronicles of the time record mass killings of Jews at Fulda, Mainz, Munich, Oberwesel, Boppard, Koblenz and in Thuringia (MGII, Scriptores, XV, 31; XVII, 77, 255; XVIII, 415; XXV, 717); similar massacres were frequent in Spain from 1390 to 1473. Thomas of Cantimpré, then Peter of Ilinis (Contra perfidos Iudaeos), Berthold of Regensburg, St. Vincent Ferrer present to the people the dangers of Jewish coexistence. The people defended themselves from the sects by which they felt threatened (e.g. the Cathars) by lynching, considering them a social danger all the more grave the more they were closed in on themselves, secret and elusive; this barbarous practice (Lex Visigothorum, nov. tit. II) was energetically reproved by the Church. Nicholas V (Bull of 2 Nov. 1447) condemns the anti-Jewish riots of Spain; Paul III (Bull of 12 May 1540) those of Hungary, Bohemia and Poland.
The papacy was an essentially moderating power, as appears from the Bull of Innocent III Licet perfidia iudaeorum (15 Sept. 1199: Bullarium Romanum, III, Turin 1858, pp. 330-31), and from various letters in which it recommends repressing their " insolentia " but forbids harassing them merely because they are Jews (Pl. 214, 864 f.; 215, 501 ff., 617 f., 694 ff.). But " lay society gave the most pitiable spectacle of unintelligence, incoherence, inhumanity, a few and occasional exceptions made... While the brutal masses knew nothing but to throw themselves on the synagogues and the ghettos, putting them to fire and blood when some graver provocation came from a Jewish center or when economic hardship pressed too hard, the constituted powers, great and small, seigneurial or communal, wavered between mass expulsions, with complete unpreparedness of the economic environment from which the Jewish financial market was abruptly withdrawn, and the most improvident transactions with the ghetto, more master than ever of the economic situation. There is in all this the improvidence and impulsiveness proper to the barbarian " (U. Benigni, p. 108). " The Jewish policy of the medieval world, both of governments and of the masses, is sometimes a crime, is almost always a colossal mistake... notwithstanding the insistent appeals of the ecclesiastical authority for a policy as much more prudent as it was more humane " (id., p. 113).
"The Jewish question presented, in the Middle Ages, a highly important economic aspect, because of the concentration of the money trade in the hands of Israel" (S. Deploige, pp. 34-48). Between Jews and non-Jews there was a continual seesaw of mutual reprisals. Philip the Fair and Louis X aggravated the condition of the Jews in France, whence Charles VI definitively expelled them on Sept. 17, 1394. The Middle Ages closed with the expulsion of the Jews from Spain (1492) and from its dependent territories (Sardinia), who had to hand over all their wealth. John II of Portugal received them into his kingdom, whence Emanuel I then drove them out (1496). In 1510 they were expelled from the kingdom of Naples; but the physician "mastro Leone" (v. ABRAHNEI, GIUDA) obtained from the viceroy that Fra Francesco de l'Agnelina should no longer preach "contra zudei." Cosimo I de' Medici expelled them from Tuscany (Oct. 1541), St. Pius V from the Papal State except Rome and Ancona (1569); around 1650 Brazil expelled them.
The Popes defended Christians against Jewish usury (Fourth Lateran Council, chap. 67: "Brevi tempore christianorum exhauriunt facultates") by encouraging the Monti di pietà, promoted in the 15th century by the Franciscans Blessed Bernardino da Feltre, St. James of the March, and Michele da Milano; they recommended avoiding the Jews, but forbade mistreating them; indeed they forbade preachers to concern themselves too much with them (Martin V, Bull of Feb. 3, 1429). However, when Joh. Reuchlin praised the Jewish books, his Augenspiegel (1511) was condemned by Leo X as "dangerous, suspect, full of partiality for the Jews" (1520). Julius III had the Talmud burned (1554), and Paul IV (Bull of July 14, 1555) ordered its destruction: at Cremona the converted Jew Sixtus of Siena destroyed a great number of copies, and so did Salomone Romano (from 1552 to 1558) in Rome and the Marches. Clement VIII also adopted harsh measures (1593).
The Popes complained of the Jews, from Gregory IX, deploring that, "ingrati gratiae ac beneficiorum obliti," they had made themselves unbearable (Bull of March 5, 1233 to the German bishops: Bull. Romanum, III, Turin 1858, p. 479), to St. Pius V (Bull Hebraeorum gens, Feb. 26, 1569): "Cognitum satis et exploratum habemus quam indigne Christi nomen haec perversa progenies ferat, quam infesta sit omnibus qui hoc nomine censentur" (Bull. Romanum, VII, Turin 1862, p. 740). The dangers for Christians are enumerated by J. Balmes, Il protestantesimo paragonato col Cattolicismo nelle sue relazioni con la civiltà europea, Italian trans. A. Orioli, 2nd ed., Naples 1849, I, pp. 217-20; II, pp. 231-42, 301-10. Cf. G. Fabiani, Gli Ebrei e il Monte di pietà in Ascoli Piceno, Ascoli 1942.
The compulsory ghetto, begun in 1412, spread; in Rome it remained until 1870 (L. Wirth, The Ghetto, Chicago 1928). The laws that forbade Jews intimate relations with Christians were in the interest of both parties. The Jew J. Darmesteter (Essais orientaux, Paris 1883, pp. 262-70) nevertheless dares to affirm: "The hatred of the people against the Jew is the work of the Church," and continues: "Yet only the Church in the Middle Ages protected the Jew... The fact is that it has, at the same time, need of the Jew, and fear of him" (cited by U. Benigni, p. 102, n. 1). This thesis that the Church is responsible for the injustices suffered by the Jews is very widespread among modern Jews (H. Graetz, Th. Reinach, I. Loeb, Bernard-Lazare, down to A. Spire, Quelques Juifs et demi-Juifs, II, Paris 1928, p. 183), and Freemasonry denounces anti-Semitism as a "clerical maneuver" (P. Nourrisson, Le Club des Jacobins sous la 3me République, Paris 1900, p. 13). Yet they ought to remember that anti-Jewish hatred existed before the Church and exists outside the Church (D. Goldstein, p. XII: "The anti-Semitic spirit has never been absent where Jews abide"). Papal Rome was always hospitable to the Jews, and so was papal Avignon, as C. F. Heman well demonstrates in Realenc. für prot. Theol. u. Kirche, IX (1901), pp. 500-502, while the severe judgment of G. J. Hoogewerff, Felix Roma, Zutphen 1928, is unjust.
3. ANTISEMITISM IN THE MODERN WORLD
The civil emancipation of the Jews, begun with the edict of toleration of Joseph II (1782), was promulgated by the French Revolution. "Breaking with the policy of the entire Christian Middle Ages, the French Revolution resolved the Jewish question with liberty, that is, by practically denying its existence" (S. Deploige, p. 50). The abbé Grégoire, on Sept. 27, 1791, had the Constituent Assembly vote their full equality of civil rights. But emancipation did not diminish anti-Jewish hatred. On the contrary, from H. Heine to I. Zangwill, to L. Pinsker and Th. Herzl, representative Jews have deplored the opposite. The cause of this was the sharpening of national feeling in much of Europe, and the reaction, among Catholics and Protestants, against liberalism and materialism. "Jewish emancipation amplified the propaganda of revolutionary theories" (R. Lambelin, in DFC, IV [1920], col. 1015); the chief rabbi J. Weill proclaims: "Le Messie, c'est le triomphe de la Justice, le règne de la Liberté et de la Fraternité. Ce règne a commencé avec la Révolution Française" (cited by P. Loewengard, La splendeur catholique, Paris 1910, p. 99). "Anti-Semitism, moreover, is one of the ways in which the principle of nationality manifests itself" (Bernard-Lazare, L'Antisémitisme, II, p. 137). Anti-Semitism is indeed a product of the 19th century, insofar as it is a doctrinal system tending to justify scientifically, apart from religious considerations (which remained only among the Islamic peoples and the "Orthodox" Russians), the traditional aversion. An anti-Semitic "Weltanschauung" arose in the Slavic and German world, where contacts with the Jews were broader and social crises more frequent. International laws imposed civil equality between Jews and other citizens (Treaty of Berlin 1878, art. 44); but, in practice, Russia, Romania, Hungary, and Poland applied them only in part.
The dissident Russian Church, in the time of the tsars, fomented a theological anti-Semitism: the Jewish people would incarnate evil, the satanic powers, against which the blind and brutal pogrom (Russian: "devastation") was unleashed, from 1882 until the most ferocious one of 1905. The rise of Pan-Slavism strengthened this anti-Semitism with politico-social motives, Judaism being held to be the inspirer of anarchic democracy, and of capitalism and mechanical industrialism.
In Germany, with the rise of German nationalism in contrast with revolutionary ideology, anti-Semitism was based on the concept of race, already with J. G. Fichte (cf. E. L. Schaub, Fichte und Anti-Semitism, in The Philosophical Review, 1940, pp. 37-52), with F. Rühs and J. F. Fries (Berlin 1816), then with H. H. E. Paulus (1830), K. Streckfuss (1843), Br. Bauer (Die Judenfrage, Braunschweig 1843), H. Wagener (1857); above all E. Renan (Histoire générale et système des langages sémitiques, Paris 1855; Le Judaïsme comme race et comme religion, ibid. 1883) furnished weapons to this racist "science." In the years of nationalist enthusiasm following the victories of 1866-70, and in the grave economic crisis of 1873, anti-Semitism was strengthened (O. Glagau, H. von Scharff-Scharffenstein, M. Busch, principally Wilhelm Marr, H. von Treitschke, Paul de Lagarde, Ad. Wahrmund). The theories of Count de Gobineau, of H. St. Chamberlain, of O. Weininger, exalting the Aryan race, were favorable to it. In Austria (and Bohemia) too, anti-Semitism spread greatly between 1875 and 1900.
Preceded by G. F. Daumer (d. 1875), the antisemitism of the "social Christians" developed: in Germany with the Catholic newspaper Germania and with the Lutheran Ad. Stöcker (Das moderne Judenthum in Deutschland, besonders in Berlin, Berlin 1880; his follower E. Böhme, Berliner Briefe, Hagen 1902), a court preacher in Berlin; in Austria with the Catholics G. von Schönerer (with the newspaper Deutsches Volksblatt), K. Lueger, mayor of Vienna, and Prince Alois of Liechtenstein. The exegete A. Rohling reinforced it with erudite anti-rabbinic writings, Der Talmudjude (Münster 1871, 7th ed. 1924, French trans. enlarged by M. de Lamarque, Le Juif talmudiste, Paris 1888) and various others (the last being Das Judentum, 1903), sustaining polemics for over 30 years, also against Franz Delitzsch and H. L. Strack. After the fall of Bismarck (1890), antisemitism grew further despite some official prohibitions (in Vienna, in July 1896, seizure of Franz Deckert's pamphlets, Pater Noster and Credo). The Bielis trial for ritual murder (1913-14) fed anti-Jewish hostility.
Meanwhile a baleful pagan antisemitism made headway with K. Eugen Dühring (from whom H. St. Chamberlain took much), Judenfrage als Frage der Rassenschädlichkeit, 1881; Der Ersatz der Religion durch Vollkommeneres und die Ausscheidung des Judentums durch den modernen Völkergeist, Karlsruhe 1883, 2nd ed. 1906 (cf. A. M. Weiss, Riforme della religione, Italian trans., Florence 1905, pp. 19-27).
Of this current, tempering some of its blasphemous aspects, Th. Fritsch became the great theorist (Antisemitischer Catechismus, 1893; Der falsche Gott, 1911; Die Rechtfertigung des Antisemitismus, 2nd ed. Munich 1924; Handbuch der Judenfrage, 33rd ed. ibid. 1933). The "Deutsche Christen" of that tendency go so far as to revile, as Marcion and the Manicheans once did, the sacred books of the Old Testament (cf. H. Kaupel, Die antisemitische Bekämpfung des A. T., 1932). The extravagances about "Aryan" nobility became, in the hands of some impious men, weapons against the Christian religion.
From 1919, through the work of the deutsch-völkisch (populist) party, antisemitism spread in Germany, where the defeat and the chaos were attributed to Jewish factors (A. Hitler accuses them in Mein Kampf, Munich 1925, more than 300 times). While even the Catholic press of the post-war years 1919-24 protested against the conduct of various Jews (Reichspost, Das neue Reich, Schönere Zukunft), antisemitism gave rise to ever more absurd and baleful forms: a new Dühring, A. Steiger (Die neudeutsche Herde im Kampfe gegen Christen und Juden, 1924) founded German "neo-paganism," and other syntheses of racial delusions arose, such as the occultist religion founded (1924) by the former Cistercian Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels and by H. Reichstein ("ariosophy"), then the "religion of blood" of E. Ludendorff and his wife Mathilde.
This warlike couple founded in Munich a publishing house that fought the Bible. Cf. O. Eissfeldt, E. Klostermann, F. K. Schumann, Die Zuverlässigkeit der Bibel, ein Gutachten über die neuesten Angriffe über sie, in Theol. Studien u. Krit., 107 [1936], pp. 354-70; E. Aland, Wer fälscht? Die Entstehung der Bibel, Berlin 1936; H. von Soden, Hat Ludendorff Recht?, Marburg 1936; H. Strathmann, Saladin-Ludendorff im Kampf gegen die Bibel, Essen 1936; K. Pieper, Ludendorff und die Hl. Schrift: Antwort,
Munich 1937. Though not going to the excesses of the neo-pagans, some Catholics admitted an antisemitism that sometimes ended in anti-Jesuitism (J. A. Koller, Katholische Kirche und Judentum, 1929).
National Socialism sanctioned antisemitism, introducing it into its program, and sought to justify anti-Jewish hatred with two arguments: 1) the inferiority of the Jewish race, formulated by F. K. Günther (Rassenkunde des jüdischen Volkes, Munich 1919, 16th ed. 1933) as a mixture of races according to two main types (Oriental Judaism, an Asiatic-Mongoloid-N mixture, and Southern Judaism, a mixture of similar elements in a different order); 2) the ethical danger of capitalist social organization and of the anarchic-subversive drive, which would derive from the Jews (on this A. Rosenberg insists, Der Mythus des XX. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1930, placed on the Index in 1934: departing from purely biological consideration, he regards Judaism as a disintegrating "spiritual type": mechanistic-hedonistic in morals, liberal-communistic in politics, rationalistic-atheistic in religious line); to this he adds social-economic and historico-national motives. Two characteristic works of the kind are: G. Feder, Die Juden, 4th ed., Munich 1933; F. O. H. Schulz, Jude und Arbeiter. Ein Abschnitt aus der Tragödie des deutschen Volkes, Berlin 1934. This absurd and iniquitous theory was clearly condemned by the Church (Pius XI and Pius XII in many speeches against hatred and violence, and on the respect owed to the human person). Numerous massacres of innocent and peaceful Jews were its monstrous effect during the war of 1939-45.
In modern Italy antisemitism has never existed. But, while international disputes favored ideological excesses, the Fascist government, in 1938, in imitation of the National Socialist one, raised the "race" question which gave rise to the restrictive laws on Jews (R. D. L. 17 Nov. 1938). Among these was the prohibition of marriage (even for converted Jews) with "Aryans," which Pius XI condemned as a "vulnus" inflicted on the Concordat between Church and State of 1929. The journals La difesa della razza and La vita italiana, the dailies Regime Fascista and Tevere, repeated anti-Jewish commonplaces to satiety, but did not influence the Italian mentality, generally well-balanced. During the war of 1940-45, the Italian occupation authorities protected Jews in France against the severities of the German and French Vichy governments (L. Poliakov, La condition des Juifs en France sous l'occupation italienne, Paris 1946).
Much more heated had been French antisemitism between 1880 and 1914. The anticlericalism of the government of the Third Republic, the scandals of the failure of the "Union générale" bank (1882), of the Panama Canal company, induced many Catholics to denounce the Jews as the cause of so many evils (E. A. Chabauty, Les Juifs, Paris 1882; Gougenot des Mousseaux, Le Juif, le judaïsme et la judaïsation des peuples chrétiens, Paris 1869, 2nd ed. 1886; Léon Bloy, Le salut par les Juifs, ibid. 1892); the most impetuous was Ed. Drumont (La France Juive, 2 vols., Paris 1885) in the newspaper La libre parole, which he founded in Paris in 1893. The Dreyfus affair (1897-1902) gave rise to violent anti-Jewish polemics, in which La Croix of Paris participated. As usually happens, the retaliation was to the detriment of Christianity: from the great national crisis that was the "affair" came the anticlerical laws of 1903-1908 (J. Brugerette, Le prêtre français et la société contemporaine, II, Paris 1935, pp. 415-524). The mentality of anti-Jewish distrust of many "right-wing" Catholics, such as P. Bourget, A. Monniot, A. Retté, G. Bernanos, Ph. Henriot, X. Vallat, is found in Gabriel Malglaive, Juif ou Français, Vichy 1942, invoking "defense laws" without the Jews being persecuted or humiliated. The Jews accuse the Vichy government of having cruelly persecuted them (J. Weill, Contribution à l'histoire des camps d'internement dans l'Anti-France, Paris 1946).
In Romania, the greatest national poet, Mihail Eminescu, had already been fighting the Jews since 1877; Professors Tura and Iorga founded the Universal Antisemitic Alliance (1895); C. Z. Codreanu organized the "Legion of the Archangel Michael" in 1927, and A. C. Cuza (1922) the "League for Rational Christian Defense"; antisemitism was also a foundation of the newspaper Porunca Vremii and of Codreanu's "Iron Guard"; Prince Cantacuzene and O. Goga adhered to it, along with a large part of the "Orthodox" clergy. Marshal Antonescu's restrictive laws (Aug. 9, Oct. 3 and 14, 1940) were hailed as a gesture of patriotism.
The European literatures themselves were hostile to the Jews: English literature in particular, from Shakespeare (whose Merchant of Venice, with the satanic figure of Shylock, has been removed from the curricula in many American public schools because of protests by the Jewish Anti-Defamation League) down to G. Byron and C. Dickens (M. F. Modder, The Jew in the Literature of England. To the End of the 19th Century, Philadelphia 1939). For French literature, cf. I. Schapira, Der Antisemitismus in der französischen Literatur, Berlin 1927, and J. Kaplan, Témoignages sur Israël dans la littérature française, Paris 1938.
4. ANTISEMITISM AND CATHOLIC MORALITY
Anti-Semitism, insofar as it implies hatred and foments, or even merely justifies, violence, is contrary to Christian morality, and entails grave dangers for the faith (errors of racial inequality, contempt for the Old Testament), which many of its forms reject. The Church therefore condemns «odium illud quod vulgo «antisemitismi» nomine nunc significari solet» (Decretum S. Officii, 25 March 1928: AAS, 20 [1928], p. 104). A religion of love, Christianity forbids that any man be harmed or vilified, even one who might be thought to have injured or offended it. Still less does it authorize the persecution of a people or a race as a whole, because in this way there is violated, beyond charity, the justice owed to very many innocents; the masses, as such, can never be judged responsibly. Absolute respect for every human personality, sacred and inviolable, is at the basis of social and international coexistence.
« La giustizia e la carità non escludono la prudente e moderata difesa » (Civ. Catt., [1945, II], p. 274; cf. [1937, II], pp. 418, 497; [1938, II], p. 76; [1938, III], p. 146; [1938, IV], p. 3). Non è a. parlare di difetti o pericoli del giudaismo (D. Goldstein, pp. 118-20). Chi ritiene che gli ebrei sono a capo della massoneria (Civ. Catt., 13ª serie, 12 [1888, IV] pp. 520-32; H. Delassus, Il problema dell'ora presente, trad. ital., I, Roma 1907, pp. 630-59; La Massoneria [Civ. Catt.], Roma 1920, pp. 43-45; H. Belloc, trad. ital., p. 20; D. Goldstein, pp. 96-99; L. de Poncins) e del bolscevismo (H. Belloc, pp. 28-39; L. Massoutié, Judaïsme et Marxisme, Parigi 1939; G. Manacorda, Il bolscevismo, 4ª ed., Firenze 1942, p. 84 sg.) non può però, senza grave ingiustizia, accusare tutti. Chi condanna un sistema o un'organizzazione non può odiare le persone che vi aderiscono. Si può anche rilevare che « in linea di fatto gli ebrei hanno nel loro complesso oggi, nel mondo occupato dalla razza bianca, un potere del tutto eccessivo » (H. Belloc, p. 148; E. Eberlin, p. 31 sg.). Ma la risposta è ovvia: « Se un uomo non può tollerare il contrasto tra la razza ebrea e la nostra, ovvero considera questa razza in possesso di energie che invariabilmente lo sconfiggono nelle competizioni commerciali, allora si astenga dallo strin-
any alliance with Jews. It is the simplest system. But to meddle in the commercial activity of Jews and then to be indignant at the results is an unworthy thing" (H. Belloc, p. 107). The Catholic, however, cannot, on grounds of blood or race, shun Jews regenerated by Baptism, but must embrace them fraternally. And as for the others, there can be no moral and religious defense except on the basis of understanding and love.
Only on these bases, excluding all hatred for persons, is a n.[1] in the realm of ideas legitimate, aimed at the vigilant protection of the religious-moral and social heritage of Christendom (G. Gundlach, s. v. in LThK, I, col. 504 f.). Such is the attitude of St. Temman: "No hostility, but defensive measures; freedom for the Jews, but protection for Christians" (S. Deploige, pp. 7, 14-23, 49-51). Therefore the Hungarian law of 1926, for example, which sets the quota of Jewish students at universities at a maximum of 6.2%, may be considered just (P. Delattre, L'organisation catholique des univers. en Hongrie, in Messager du Cœur de Jésus, 69 [1929], pp. 293-300).
The Catholic Church, while imposing respect for the Jews, in order to prevent dangers and misunderstandings recommends to Christians not to depart from their age-old tradition of caution; "both in the domain of faith and in the domain of the interior life, the differences between the two religions are such that there is no place for a reciprocal competence" (L. Escoula, p. 73; cf. J. Bonsirven, in Etudes 209 [1931, IV], p. 69). The Holy Office therefore condemned (25 March 1928) the association of the "Friends of Israel" because it "rationem agendi invisse ac loquendi a sensu Ecclesiae, pa mente ss. Patrum et ab ipsa sacra Liturgia abhorrentem" (AAS, 20 [1928], p. 104). The more objective Jews justify this attitude of Catholics (L. Pinsker, Th. Herzl, B. Lazare, E. Eberlin), which has nothing in common with the contemptuous "social n.", widespread from Poland to the United States, which tends to exclude the Jew, converted or not, from higher schools, from certain clubs or administrations (A. Siegfried, Les Etats-Unis d'aujourd'hui, Paris 1927, p. 25 ff.).
It is to be hoped that antisemitic hatred will disappear; but it is to be feared that it will remain, latent or erupting, until the "Jewish question" is settled, for which scholars and politicians, Jews as well as Christians, propose ingenious solutions, unfortunately discordant (assimilation, a national territory or "Zionism", international protection of minorities). Meanwhile the Jews A. L. Sacher (A History of Jews, 1930, p. 335) and E. Ovazza declare that nationalist Zionism proves the antisemites right. "The a. that arose after emancipation is definitive," wrote Th. Herzl to the chief rabbi Gudemann. The solution will have to come from the triumph of Christian brotherhood in the world, so that Jews are not persecuted or humiliated, while awaiting their conversion to Christ (Rom. 11, 20-32); every other plan seems illusory (L. Escoula, p. 75 ff.). As for the past, mutual wrongs should be forgotten; "the reciprocal recriminations should by now cease, because it is these that make understanding difficult: they are oil poured on the fire; hands must meet, and hearts must meet too, because the time of tribulations is not yet over" (Kalman Molnar to the converted Jews, in Magyar Kurir, Rome ed., 15 Nov. 1947, p. 2).
The principles of violence, however one may attempt to justify them, are anti-Christian. It must be a matter of concern to the Catholic that the Jews be converted and live. There exist in the world today many problems, no less vital, concerning far more numerous peoples; but the "Jewish question" is perhaps the gravest, because of the importance of the 17 million men involved in it; it is one of those that most lend themselves to confusions and abuses, since Judaism and nation and religion. "As in past times, the eternal problem that is called the Jewish question agitates men even today. It remains unsolved like the squaring of the circle, with the difference that it continues to be still the most burning problem among the problems of the day" (L. Pinsker, p. 23). To want to "liquidate" it through the arbitrariness of force is a mad design, as well as a criminal undertaking.
Bibliography16 works
Sull'a. medievale: S. Deploige, S. Thomas et la question juive, Lovanio 1897; M. Landrieux, L'Inquisition, trad. ital., Torino 1916, pp. 84-90; U. Benigna, Storia sociale della Chiesa, IV, 1, Milano 1922, pp. 94-113; F. Murawski, Die Juden bei den Kirchenzütern und Scholastikern, Berlino 1925; G. Pearce, Twelve Centuries of Jewish Persecution, Hull 1927; J. Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and the Synagogue, A Study in origins of Antisemitism, Londra 1934; W. Grau, Antisemitismus im späten Mittelalter (1930 bis 1940), Monaco 1934, 2e ed. aum., Berlino 1939; M. Haller, La question juive dans le premier millénaire chrétien, in Revue d'hist. et de phil. rel., 15 (1935), pp. 293-334; A. L. Williams, Adversus Judaism: A bird's eye view of christian Apologie until the Renaissance, Londra 1935; H. T. Obbink, Middlesexisch theologisch antiinduzion en excerte van het O. Test., in Neuve Theol. Studieu, 20 (1937), pp. 77-87; P. Brown, Die Judenbekämpfung im Mittelalter, in Zeitschr. f. hatte Theologie, 62 (1938), pp. 106-231, 340-82; id., Die Judenmission im Mittelalter und die Püpste (Miscellanea Historica Pontificia P. Univ. Gregori, VI, 8), Roma 1942; A. Vihyo González, S. Martín de León y su apologética antijudía, Madrid 1948.
Sull'a. moderno: 1) Opere di ebrei: Bernard-Lazare, L'Antisemitisme, son histoire et ses causes, Parigi 1894, ed. definitiva in 2 voll., ivi 1934; id., Le Jupiter de Job, ivi 1928; G. G. Fox, Judaism, Christianity and the modern social ideals, Fort Worth 1910; I. Breuer, Judenproblem, 4e ed., Francoforte a. M. 1922; E. Eberlin, Les Juifs d'aujourd'hui, Parigi 1927; E. Fleg, Pourquoi je suis juif, Parigi 1928; B. Hagani, L'émancipation des Juifs, Parigi 1928; B. Jacob, M. Balaban e altri, A., in Enc. Judaica, II (1928), coll. 956-1104; E. Ovazza, Sionismo bifronte, Roma 1935; H. J. Schoeps, Jüdisch-christliches Religionsgespräch in 19 Jahrhundert, Geschichte einer theologischen Auseinandersetzung, Berlino 1936; L. Pinsker, Auto-emancipazione ebraica (1882), riedito da D. Lattes e M. Bellinson, Roma 2, a. [1938]; M. Samuel, The great hatred, Nuova York 1940; E. Orrei, Intorno alla questione ebraica, L'innocenti di storia e di dottrina, Roma 1942; J. Trachtenberg, The Devil and the Jews, The medieval conception of the Jews and its relation to modern anti-Semitism, New Haven 1943; J.-P. Sartre, Ebrei (trad. it.), Milano 1948.
2) Opere di cristiani: L. Chiarini, Theorie du Judaïsme apolique à la réforme des Israélites de tous les pays d'Europe, 2 voll., Parigi 1830; H. Delassus, La question juive, Lilla 1911; L. Besse, Les religions laïques, Parigi 1913, pp. 101-15; F. Vernet, Juifs et chrétiens, in DFC, II, 1651-1704; id., Juifs (Controverses avec les), in DThC, VIII, coll. 1870-1914; A. Bea, Antisemitismus, Rassenfuehrle und A. Test., in Stimmen der Zeit, 100 (1920), pp. 171-83; R. Lambelin, Le règne d'Israël chez les Anglo-Saxons, Parigi 1921; J. e J. Tharaud, Quand Israël est roi, ivi 1921; id., Quand Israël n'est plus roi, ivi 1934; id., Le chemin d'Israël, ivi 1948; G. Batault, Le problème juif, ivi 1921; id., Israël contre les nations, ivi 1939; R. N. Coudenhove-Kalergi, Des Wenes des Antisemitismus, 1922 (critica di Th. Fritsch); H. Belloc, The Jews, Londra 1924, trad. ital., Gli ebrei, Milano 1934; Fr. Stelfen, Antisemitismus und deutsch-völkische Bewegung im Lichte des Katholizismus, Berlino 1925; G. K. Chesterton, La nouvelle Jérusalem (trad. fr.), Parigi 1926, pp. 267-302; L. Thieben, Che cos'è l'Ebraismo ? (1930), trad.
ital., Milano 1937, pp. 16-33; 189-230; L. Escoula, Quelques aspects de problème juif, in Revue Apologetique, 52 (1931, 1), pp. 53-76; J. Bonsirven, Racismes, in Etudes (1934, 1), pp. 351-367; id., S-a-t-il en France un réveil de l'Antisémitisme?, ibid. (1935, 1), pp. 97-116, 226-38; id., Juifs et chrétiens, Parigi 1936; id., Les Juifs et Rans, 1937, pp. 170-205; id., Problèmes juifs et le mystère d'Israël, in Etudes (1938, 1), pp. 811-825; E. Rosa, La questione gindaica e l'antisemitismo nazional-socialista, in La Civiltà Catt., (1934, 1), pp. 126-36, 276-85; G. Kittel, Die Judenfrage, 3ª ed., Stoccarda 1935; L. Massouillé, Judaïsme et histerisme, Parigi 1935; A. Drexel, Die Judenfrage in soeverschaftlicher Beleuchtung, Innsbruck 1936; L. de Poncins, La mystérieuse internationale juive, Parigi 1936; L. J. Levinger, Anti-Semitism Yesterday and To-morrow, Nuova York 1936; P. Claudel e J. Bonsirven, Les Juifs, Parigi 1937; W. Eichrodt, Antisemitismus in alter und neuere Zeit, Zurigo 1937; G. Sottschies, Sotto la maschera d'Israele, Milano 1937; P. Orano, Gli ebrei in Italia, Roma 1937 (2ª ed., 1938); M. Barbera, La questione gindaica e il sionismo. La questione gindaica e la conversion. La questione gindaica e l'apostolato catalico, in La Civiltà Catt., (1937, 1), pp. 418-31, 407-510; (1937, 1), pp. 27-30; J. Parkes, The Jew and his Neighbour. A Study of the cause of Anti-Semitism, Londra 1938; B. Hartmann, Der Glaubensgegenzitz zwischen Judentum und Christentum, Paderborn 1938; A. Leroy-Braulieu, Les Juifs et l'Antisémitisme. Israël chez les nations, 16ª ed. (1ª, 1892) a cura di L. Renier, Parigi 1938; R. Trotoni, L'antisemitismo risorgente e la Palestina, in Oriente Moderno, 18 (1938), pp. 255-271; V. Eichstädt, Bibliographie zur Geschichte der Judenfrage, I (1750-1848), Amburgo 1938; H. De Vries de Heekelingen, Israël, son passé, son avenir, Parigi 1937 (trad. ital., Roma 1937); id., L'organité juif, 1938; id., Juifs et Catholiques, 1939; id., L'antisémitismo italiano, Firenze 1939; L. J. Dantinne, La questione juive, Liege 1939; J. Martain, Antisémitism, Londra 1939; C. Cecchelli, La questione ebraica e il sionismo, Roma 1939; G. E. Closen, 'Quantità Judocorum' a quanto aiam effatis S. Scriptura illustrata, in Verbum Domini, 19 (1939), pp. 120-117; J. E. Ross, Catholics and Anti-Semitism, in Ecclesiast. Review, 100 (1939), pp. 416-23; A. Amse, Die Judenfrage, Lucerna 1939; L. Rood, En steeds het probleem: de Jodex, in Studieu, 133 (1940), pp. 369-82; D. Goldstein, Jewish Panorama, Boston 1940, pp. 111-29; J. Meinvielle, El judío, 2ª ed., Buenos Aires 1940; W. Grundmann (con altri), Germanium, Christentum und Judentum, 3 voll., Lipsia 1940, 1942 e 1943; E. Picard, Synthèse de l'antisémitisme, nuova ed., Bruxelles 1941; G. Preziosi, Giudaismo, Esoterismo, Platocrazia, Massoneria, Milano 1941, pp. 19-51; W. Grau, Welthampf. Die Judenfrage in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 2 voll., Monaco 1941; Ch. Journet, Vues chrétiennes sur la politique, Montréal 1942, cap. 10; K. S. Pinson (con altri), Essays on Antisemitism, Nuova York 1942; E. Zolli, L'antisémitisme, Roma 1945; P. Catrice (e altri), Situation d'Israël, Judaïsme et christianisme, Antisémitisme, Sionisme (Collez. «Catholicité»), Lilla 1948.