367 - 376: St. Hilary of Poitiers referred to Jews as a perverse people
who God has cursed forever. St. Ephroem refers to synagogues as brothels.
380: The bishop of Milan was responsible for the burning of a synagogue;
he referred to it as
"an act pleasing to God.
415: St.Augustine wrote "The true image of the Hebrew is Judas Iscariot,who sells the Lord for silver. The Jew can never understand the Scriptures and forever will bear the guilt for the death of Jesus."
418: St.Jerome, who created the Vulgate translation of the Bible wrote of a synagogue:
"If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil's refuge, Satan's
fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable
disaster or whatever you will, you are still saying less than it
deserves."
694: The 17th Church Council of Toledo, Spain defined Jews as the serfs of the prince. This was based, in part, on the beliefs by Chrysostom, Origen, Jerome, and other Church Fathers that God punished the Jews with perpetual slavery because of their responsibility for the execution of Jesus.
1078: The Synod of Gerona forced Jews to pay church taxes
1096: The First Crusade was launched in this year. Although the prime goal of the crusades was to liberate Jerusalem from the Muslims, Jews were a second target.
As the soldiers passed through Europe on the way to the Holy Land, large numbers of Jews were challenged: "Christ-killers, embrace the Cross or die!"
12,000 Jews in the Rhine Valley alone were killed in the first Crusade.
This behavior continued for 8 additional crusades until the 9th in 1272.
1099: The Crusaders forced all of the Jews of Jerusalem into a central
synagogue and set it on fire. Those who tried to escape were forced back into the burning building.
1205: Pope Innocent III wrote to the archbishops of Sens and Paris that "the Jews, by their own guilt, are consigned to perpetual servitude
because they crucified the Lord...As slaves rejected by God, in whose
death they wickedly conspire, they shall by the effect of this very action, recognize themselves as the slaves of those whom Christ's death set free..." thus began the slavery of Jewish people to Catholics in the 13th century.
1215: The Fourth Lateran Council approved canon laws requiring that "Jews and Muslims shall wear a special dress." They also had to wear a badge in the form of a ring. This was to enable them to be easily distinguished from Christians. This practice later spread to other countries (hmmm.... sounds familiar, eh nazis?)
1227: The Synod of Narbonne required Jews to wear an oval badge. This requirement was reinstalled during the 1930's by Hitler, who changed the oval badge to a Star of David.
1347 +: Ships from the Far East carried rats into Mediterranean ports. The rats carried the Black Death. At first, fleas spread the disease from the rats to humans.
As the plague worsened, the germs spread from human to human. In five years, the death toll had reached 25 million. England took 2 centuries for its population levels to recover from the plague. People looked around for someone to blame.
They noted that a smaller percentage of Jews than Christians caught the disease. This was undoubtedly due to the Jewish sanitary and dietary laws, which had been preserved from Old Testament times. Rumors circulated that Satan was protecting the Jews and that they were paying back the Devil by poisoning wells used by Christians. The solution was to torture, murder and burn the Jews.
In Bavaria...12,000 Jews...perished; in the small town of Erfurt...3,000;
Rue Brule...2,000 Jews; near Tours, an immense trench was dug, filled with blazing wood and in a single day 160 Jews were burned." In Strausberg 2,000 Jews were burned.
In Maintz 6,000 were killed...; in Worms 400..."
12,000 Jews were executed in Toledo.
(the list goes on and on and on... sad isn't it)
1543: Martin Luther, distressed by the reluctance of Jews to convert to
Christianity wrote "On the Jews and their lies, On Shem Hamphoras" :
"What then shall we Christians do with this ******, rejected race of Jews?
First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire,...
Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed...
They ought to be put under one roof or in a stable, like Gypsies.
Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer books and Talmuds in
which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught.
Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach
any more...
Fifthly, passport and traveling privileges should be absolutely forbidden
to the Jews...
Sixthly, they ought to be stopped from usury. All their cash and valuables of silver and gold ought to be taken from them and put aside for safe keeping...
(Hitler thanks Luther for the above passage in Mein Kampf)
