SANZENBACHER, CAROLYN K., M.A., Early Christian Teachings on Jews: A Necessary Cause of the Antisemitism that Informed the Holocaust. (2010) Directed by Dr. Karl A. Schleunes, 215 pp. The idea that Christianity was related to the antisemitism that informed the Holocaust was widely resisted in the early years following WW II discovery of Nazi exterminations of Jews. Yet before the end of the Holocaust century the major bodies of Christianity had labeled traditional Christian attitudes toward Jews as the fuel for “fires of hatred,” declared the Church “sinful and in need of conversion,” and called for the Church to “submit her own history to critical examination.” By the turn of the millennium, formal confessions had not only been made throughout western Christendom for atrocities perpetrated against Jews historically but also for what was said to be a necessary causal relation between Christian teachings and the Nazi antisemitism that informed the Holocaust. In light of these admissions, and the growing scholarly consensus that it is no longer tenable to claim that Christian teachings on Jews are unrelated to the Holocaust, this study traces a triad of foundational teachings embodying the doctrines of Christian dominion, Jewish subservience, and perpetual Jewish suffering from their inception through the Third Reich. Not only were these teachings, along with their attendant ideas, terms, and concepts, the single most important weapon-group in early Christianity’s supersessionist arsenal, they were the means by which clusters of mutually dependent ideas about Jews were sealed with divine authority and delivered to modern western culture. The history of this complex development not only helps us to understand how ancient Christian theological claims became modern secular weapons to use against Jews in the twentieth century, it explains how the former can justly be called a necessary cause of the Holocaust some nineteen hundred years later. EARLY CHRISTIAN TEACHINGS ON JEWS: A NECESSARY CAUSE OF THE ANTISEMITISM THAT INFORMED THE HOLOCAUST by Carolyn K Sanzenbacher A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Greensboro 2010 Approved by _______________________________________ Committee Chair © 2010 Carolyn K. Sanzenbacher APPROVAL PAGE This thesis has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair ______________________________________________ Karl A. Schleunes Committee Members ______________________________________________ Marc Bregman ____________________________________________ Steven Ruzicka ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The research for this study has been encouraged over many years by Dr. Karl A. Schleunes, who has spent untold hours reading and commenting on my work. This project has also been encouraged in stages by a UNCG Undergraduate Research Assistantship under Dr. Schleunes, the Roger Schwirck Award for Excellence in Philosophy, and the Josephine Hege Phi Beta Kappa Award. These deeply appreciated acknowledgements have not only provided supporting funds for research and study in Switzerland, Poland, and Germany, they have also served as cherished reminders of my responsibility to the ideals of excellence invested in those awards. I am indebted to Dr. Gary Rosenkrantz for his invaluable critiques and critical insights, Dr. Joshua Hoffman for an indelible impression of the importance of analysis, Dr. Robert Rosthal for years of insightful discussions on the power of ideas, and Dr. Cheryl Junk for unfailing and long-term support. I am particularly beholden to the post-Holocaust scholarship on which this work stands, and especially grateful to those scholars who labored to collect and translate ancient and medieval primary source documents. My gratitude to the Interlibrary Loan Department of UNCG is immense. Not only did the staff willingly find obscure texts, microfilm, and collections of primary sources, they patiently arranged for me to work through extensive but borrowing- restricted archives, five microfiche at a time, over the course of several years. I would also like to recognize the archivists at both the World Council of Churches Library in Geneva, Switzerland and Special Collections at the Yale Divinity Library, who went out of their way to meet my every need during periods of work at their remarkable institutions. It is my great honor to thank Dr. Marc Bregman and Dr. Steven Ruzicka, who generously gave of their time to serve on my Thesis Committee. My greatest debt remains with my Committee Chairman, Dr. Karl Schleunes, whose inspiration, scholarly excellence, historical acumen, and kindness are unsurpassed. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF FIGURES.........................................................................................................................................v CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: BEFORE THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST CENTURY...............................1 II. THE HIDDEN MEANINGS: A THEOLOGY OF CHRISTIAN DOMINION AND PERPETUAL JEWISH SUFFERING...........................................................................................10 III. THE MAKING OF GOD’S ENEMY: A CHRIST-KILLING PROTOTYPE ................................45 IV. A MODERN CONVOLUTION: THREAT OF THE JUDAIZING ACCURSED TO ESTABLISHED DOMINION ................................................................................................89 V. THE NAZI SOLUTION: DOMINION AND DEJUDAIZATION ...............................................126 VI. CONCLUSION: THE SILENCE OF NON-INTERFERENCE ...................................................170 BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................................190 iv LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. Allegorical Christianization of Hebrew Scriptures in Epistle of Barnabas...................................20 Figure 2. Perpetual Jewish Servitude as Divine Punishment: Papal Teachings, 1198-1268 .......................32 Figure 3. Perpetual Servitude / Do Not Slay: Papal Teachings, 1198-1268................................................40 Figure 4. Divine Desolation of Jews: Chapter Descriptions, Douay-Rheims Bible, 1610 ..........................98 Figure 5. The Racial Foundation Continuum in Mein Kampf .....................................................................134 Figure 6. Major Judentum Research Institutes in Germany, 1935-1945 ....................................................146 Figure 7. Judentum Research Institutes, 1935-1945, Occupied Countries .................................................158 v CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: BEFORE THE END OF THE HOLOCAUST CENTURY The idea that Christianity was in any way related to the antisemitism that informed the Holocaust was widely resisted in the early years following WWII discovery of Nazi exterminations of Jews. Christian apologies issued forth from the arms of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant, in efforts to distinguish the antiJudaic attitude of Christianity from Nazi racial ideology. Statements condemning antisemitism called attention to its unChristian nature and godless irreconcilability to Christianity, while stressing that the Church had always judged harshly all forms of injustice and hatred. Admission of antiJewish attitudes in ancient Christian writings was tempered by the Catholic claim that such would have been the attitudes of individuals and not the official position of Christianity. Catholic apologists, in particular, went to great lengths to distinguish between official positions of the Church and those of individuals, insisting that antiJewish teachings were the distortions, misunderstandings, and misinterpretations of unofficial minority traditions. Coextensive with such apologies was a series of European Protestant admissions which reinforced the idea that individual expression of antiJewish attitudes in no way reflected fault with Christian doctrine. While openly confessing that many had fallen prey to antisemitism under Nazi rule, it was with the understanding that such ‘poison’ had infiltrated and weakened Christians and local churches from without. The Church itself, in both apologies and admissions, was portrayed as the divinely established institution of Christianity, resting on a holy foundation and irrefutably distanced from the antisemitic ideology that underwrote the state sanctioned murder of six million Jews. 1 Yet before the end of the Holocaust century the major bodies of Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, had labeled traditional Christian attitudes toward Jews as the fuel for “fires of hatred,” declared the Church “sinful and in need of conversion,” and called for the Church to “submit her own history to critical examination.”1 By the turn of the millennium formal confessions had been made throughout western Christendom for atrocities perpetrated against Jews historically, as well as for remaining silent in the face of Nazism antisemitism, and for what was said to be a necessary causal relation between Christian teachings and the Nazi antisemitism that informed the Holocaust.2 In the case of this latter confession, while continuing to distinguish between Christian antiJudaism and Nazi racial antisemitism, the United States National Conference of Catholic Bishops openly admitted in February 2001 that Christian