JEW-BASHING
FROM A SAINT
Christianity-Revealed
(Saint)
John Chrysostom, Bishop of Antioch: The strongest attacks on Jews and Judaism
by the Church Fathers are to be found in the homilies of Chrysostom (344-407)
in his
Chrysostom
is considered to be among the most beloved and admired in Catholic Church
history. Besides his proclamation of Jews as 'god-less, idolaters, pedicides,
stoners of prophets (Matthew
23:37-38), and committers of 10,000 horrors. Chrysostom declared the
following in his work Orations Against
The Jews:
“The
Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, rapacious, greedy.
They are perfidious murderers of Christ. They worship the Devil. Their religion
is a sickness. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God
there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never
cease vengeance, and the Jew must live in servitude forever. God always hated
the Jews. It is essential that all Christians hate them' (year 379). Furthermore: 'The Jews sacrifice their
children to Satan. They are worse than wild beasts. The Synagogue is a brothel,
a den of scoundrels, the temple of demons devoted to idolatrous cults, a
criminal assembly of Jews, a place of meeting for the assassins of Christ, a
house of ill fame, a dwelling of iniquity, a gulf and abyss of perdition.
The
Jews have fallen into a condition lower than the vilest animal. Debauchery and
drunkenness have brought them to a level of the lusty goat and the pig. They
know only one thing: to satisfy their stomachs, to get drunk, to kill, and beat
each other up like stage villains and coachmen. The Synagogue is a curse,
obstinate in her error, she refuses to see or hear, she has deliberately
perverted her judgment; she has extinguished with herself the light of the Holy
Spirit.' He elaborated further on God's punishment of the Jews: 'But it was
men, says the Jew, who brought these misfortunes upon us, not God. On the
contrary, it was in fact God who brought them about. If you attribute them to
men, reflect again that even supposing men had dared, they could not have had
the power to accomplish them, unless it had been God's will. Men would
certainly not have made war unless God had permitted them. Is it not obvious
that it was because God hated you [Jews] and rejected you once for all?”
On
yet another occasion Chrysostom is quoted as saying; "I hate the
Jews because they violate the Law. I hate the synagogue because it has the Law
and the prophets. It is the duty of all Christians to hate the Jews."
Chrysostom's homilies were used in seminaries and schools for centuries as
model sermons, ensuring his message of hate would be passed down to succeeding
generations of theologians.
"I
know that many people hold a high regard for the Jews and consider their way of
life worthy of respect at the present time... This is why I am hurrying to pull
up this fatal notion by the roots ... A place where a whore stands on display
is a whorehouse. What is more, the synagogue is not only a whorehouse and
a theater; it is also a den of thieves and a haunt of wild animals ... not the
cave of a wild animal merely, but of an unclean wild animal ... When animals
are unfit for work, they are marked for slaughter, and this is the very thing
which the Jews have experienced. By making themselves unfit for work,
they have become ready for slaughter." (Carroll, J. (2002). Constantine's
Sword: The Church and the Jews
The
nineteenth century Protestant cleric R.S. Storr called him (Chrysostom) “…one
of the most eloquent preachers who ever, since apostolic times, have brought to
men the divine tidings of truth and love.” A contemporary of Storr, the great
theologian John Henry Cardinal Newman, described Chrysostom as a “bright,
cheerful, gentle soul; a sensitive heart.”
Perhaps
this “Saint” was not a REAL Christian.
Really?
But
if he was not a real Christian, why is he so highly respected?
Now
the common nonsense answer is that he, who is clearly anti-Semitic, would not
have been real Christians in today’s world. Real Christians are not Jew haters?
Perhaps Martin Luther, the leader of the Protestant movement was not a real
Christian. Perhaps Billy Graham, the number one Evangelist preacher today is not a real Christian. Maybe
the Pope is not a real Christian.
Getting
back to Bishop Chrysostom, Christians should really think about this; he was
one of the founding fathers of Christianity.
If
he was not Christian, then Christianity actually does not exist at all.
"Christianity
is the most perverted system that ever shone on man." -Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)