After Jerusalem’s destruction there is evidence that anti-Judaism, anti-Jewish sentiments. Whatever its source, became a prominent aspect of Christian thought and life.
The Deicide charge is deeply in the anti-Judaism that began to infect through the church, in the early centuries of Christianity. “In the earliest centuries of the Christian era, preexisting pagan antagonism toward the Jew was replaced by the conviction that Jews, all Jews, were forever responsible for murdering God. This anti-Jewish attitude became a permanent element in the fundamental identity of Western Christian civilization.”
Some examples of anti-Jewish attitudes of this period: The emperor Constantine adopted a policy of Jewish segregation so that faithful Christians “would not be polluted by Jewish false teachings.” The church father Origen declared that “… the blood of Jesus falls not only on the Jews of that time, but on all generations of Jews up to the end of the world.” John Chrysostom, (344-407 A.D.) – One of the "greatest" of church fathers; known as "The Golden Mouthed." a bitterly anti-Jewish church father, A missionary preacher famous for his sermons and addresses. The synagogue is worse than a brothel… it is the den of scoundrels and the repair of wild beasts… the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults… the refuge of brigands and debauchees, and the cavern of devils. It is a criminal assembly of Jews… a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ… a house worse than a drinking shop… an den of thieves, a house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, the refuge of devils, a gulf and an abyss of perdition."…"I would say the same things about their souls… As for me, I hate the synagogue… I hate the Jews for the same reason. From "The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism" by Malcolm Hay.
St. Augustine (c. 354-430 A.D.), Confessions, 12.14 How hateful to me are the enemies of your Scripture! How I wish that you would slay them (the Jews) with your two-edged sword, so that there should be none to oppose your word! Gladly would I have them die to themselves and live for you!
Peter the Venerable – known as "the meekest of men, a model of Christian charity." Yes, you Jews. I say, do I address you; you, who till this very day, deny the Son of God. How long, poor wretches, will ye not believe the truth? Truly, I doubt whether a Jew can be really human… I lead out from its den a monstrous animal, and show it as a laughing stock in the amphitheater of the world, in the sight of all the people. I bring thee forward, thou Jew, thou brute beast, in the sight of all men. From "The Roots of Christian Anti-Semitism" by Malcolm Hay
Martin Luther – 1543 On The Jews and Their Lies. What then shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we can not tolerate them if we do not wish to share in their lies, curses, and blasphemy. In this way we cannot quench the inextinguishable fire of divine rage nor convert the Jews. We must prayerfully and reverentially practice a merciful severity. Perhaps we may save a few from the fire and flames of hell. We must not seek vengeance. They are surely being punished a thousand times more than we might wish them. Let me give you my honest advice.
First, their synagogues should be set on fire, and whatever does not burn up should be covered or spread over with dirt so that no one may ever be able to see a cinder or stone of it. And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity in order that God may see that we are Christians, and that we have not wittingly tolerated or approved of such public lying, cursing, and blaspheming of His Son and His Christians. Translated by Martin H. Bertram, "On The Jews and Their Lies, Luther's Works, Volume 47"; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.
John Calvin. A Response To Questions and Objections of a Certain Jew Their the Jews rotten and unbending stiffneckedness deserves that they be oppressed unendingly and without measure or end and that they die in their misery without the pity of anyone. Excerpt from "Ad Quaelstiones et Objecta Juaei Cuiusdam Responsio," by John Calvin; The Jew in Christian Theology, Gerhard Falk, McFarland and Company, Inc., Jefferson, NC and London, 1931.
To be sure, the early days of Christianity did not tread a smooth path. It wrestled with internal dissension (such as shall the just live by faith) and eschatological disputes, especially over the ("doubts about the imminence of the Lord’s return ) So begins the thinking of a physical body of Jesus desending out of the sky for a second coming??!!!
And theological disputes, over how to describe and define Christ. . Even the settlement of some of those matters — such as whether Christ had one or two natures and whether he was God the Father’s first creation or, rather, was co-eternal with the Father — produced schisms and dissension that threatened to atomize the church.
Now Listen to Kurt Aland another will know Church father as we discover a decisive turning point in the second half of the second century of how the Gentiles tampered with the clear understand of scripture about the return of the Lord and the expectation of that return by the first century saints a watershed decisive for the development of the Christian church.
It was the definite conviction not only of Paul, but of all Christians of that time, that they themselves would experience the return of the Lord; The Apocalypse expresses the fervent waiting for the end withing the circles in which the writer lived-not an expectation that will happen at some unknown point in time, but one in the immediate present. If we browse through the writings of that period we observe that this expectation of the end continued. In fact, we also find ti the writing of the first half of the second century sufficient evidence to indicate that the expectation of the Parousia was by no means at an end then.
At the end of the Didache ("the teaching of the twelve apostles"), from the time shortly after 100, there is, for example, an apocalyptic chapter which corresponds completely in its outline to the Synoptic apocalypse in Mark 13 (and the parallel chapters in the other Synoptic Gospels.); here we can only very cautiously say that it used the same words, but that its content is imperceptibly in the process of change. It quite similar to the Epistle of Barnabas which was written a little later that the Didache, where we read: (The day is near in which everything will perish together with the evil. The Lord ans his recompense are near).
Again and again the old expressions echo. They echo apparently almost unchanged, but ("doubt about the imminence of the Lord’s return is increasingly mixed with them until around the middle of the second century when the Shepherd of Hermas thinks he has found a solution and expresses it with great thoroughness and emphaisi: the Parousia-the Lord’s return-has been postponed for the sake of Christians them selves. The building of the tower has not been stopped,) it is only temporarily suspended. Therefore and this is the warning of the Shepherd of Hermas, on account of which the entire work was really written do good works for your purification, for if you delay too long, the construction of the tower may be finished and you will not be included as stones built into it.
The thought of a postponement of the Parousia appears all through 2 Clement but here it is expressly mentioned for the first time. Thus, about the middle of the second century, a decisive turning point occurs one which can be compared in significance to all other great turning points, including the Reformation. Obviously, we cannot fix this turning point precisely at the year 150, for it took a while until the though caught hold everywhere. But a development does begin with the Shepherd of Hermas which could not be stopped-a development at the end of which we stand today. As soon as the thought of a postponement of the Parousia was uttered once and indeed not only incidentally, but thoroughly presented in an entire writing-it developed its (own life and power).
At first, people looked at it as only a brief postponement, as the Shepherd of Hermas clearly expresses. But soon, as the end of the world did not occur, it was conceived of as a longer and longer period, until finally-this is today’s situation nothing but the thought of a postponement exists in people’s consciousness. (Kurt Aland. A History of Christianity. (2 vols.) Fortress Press: 1985. Vol. 1,pp.89-102
Sense the Gentile’s entered into their "new faith" in Christ directly from the pagan Roman world, full of its anti-Jewish prejudices, and were never associated with the Synagogue were they teach the Torah and prophetical writing such as the apocalyptic and metaphorically language. And Christianity, hostility toward Jews and Judaism became central to religion and the Church for the first time. It would be foolish to think the early Gentile Church took the time to ask any Jew how they understood their Jewish apocalyptic and metaphorically language.
If they were wrestling with a simple concept like the (The just shall live by faith) we know they were also wrestling with the timing of Christ because of the NATURE of his coming/Parousia. So begins the thinking of a physical body of Jesus descending out of the sky for a second coming??!!!
Well they missed the NATURE of the Parousia when Jesus promised the High Priest, Caiaphas, that (he would) "see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven. This prophecy is cut from the same cloth as those in the Old Testament which speak of God in the clouds. No wonder Caiaphas, tears his garment an outward expression of extreme anger towards Jesus. You have heard His blasphemy! (Matthew 26:59-65)
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