For sixteen hundred years, the Jewish people have been persecuted and
murdered by people who worship a Jewish man as their savior: the
Christians. Why did Christian anti-Semitism, a seemingly illogical belief
given that Jesus himself was a Jew, develop? How did it evolve, and why has
it persisted for centuries? In the Biblical gospels, despite three of the four
being ostensibly written by Jews, enemies of Jesus are referred to as "the
Jews." Early Christians found themselves in a quandary. The savior they
worship, himself a Jew, supposedly was killed by Jews. Since at least the
fourth century, some groups of Christians have actively practiced anti-
Semitism, taking revenge on Jewish people for "murdering" the God of
Christianity. Christians have called Jews devils, demons and antichrists.
Persecution by church officials, both Catholic and Protestant, was consistent
and deadly for over a thousand years. Hundreds of thousands, possibly
millions of Jews, were massacred by so-called Christians centuries before the
Holocaust. Emperor Constantine the Great converted to Christianity in 312
A.D. Attributing his military successes to God, he issued the Edict of Milan,
making Christianity the Roman Empire's official religion. It was here in the
fourth century that open anti-Semitism emerged. A great number of
superficial converts (wanting to be on the winning side) joined the church,
which was placing overwhelming emphasis on the sacraments. The
sacraments were thought by many to have a magical content, supernaturally
protecting against attacks from the devil. Those outside the sacramental
community -- primarily unconverted Jews -- became seen as people through
whom the devil could work his evil purposes. (1) Jews were thought to be
sorcerers, cannibals, and child-murderers. Attacks by "church fathers"
became increasingly venomous. Gregory of Nyasa, a Cappadocian bishop,
wrote that Jews are "Companion...