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October 28, the day before yesterday, was the 40th anniversary of the Roman document which radically reversed the way the Christian Church regards and treats the modern followers of the faith of Jesus of Nazareth.

The encyclical on the Jews put an end to what my colleague Gregory Baum, himself a Jew by birth, has called “the malevolent myth” that all Jews are responsible for the crucifixion. It declares that “while Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ, the crucifixion cannot be charged against all Jews then alive, nor against the Jews of today, nor should the Jewish race be presented as rejected or accursed by God.”

In view of the situation in the Middle East today, it is interesting to recall that Arab diplomats lobbied vigorously against any official document which would minimize anti-Semitism, and even threatened reprisals against Christians in Arab lands, should such a document be issued.

This momentous declaration, which will be celebrated on November 10 at St. Michael’s College with a day-long seminar attended by the Chief Rabbi of Rome, put an end not only to the evil slander that the Jews are “Christ-killers” but also to the belief, supported, we must confess, by certain passages in the New Testament itself, that the coming of Christ has rendered the ancient faith of Judaism obsolete. As the apostle Paul affirms, “the gifts and calling of God are without repentance” (Romans 11:29).

Today’s second reading is from a New Testament book which is so Jewish in character that some scholars have suggested that it is a Jewish text which has been slightly reworked by a Christian scribe. The Letter of James does not contain a single word about Christ’s death and resurrection, and Jesus’ name is mentioned only twice (1:1; 2:1). When the author exhorts his readers to patience, he appeals not to Jesus’ suffering but to the suffering of holy Job (5:11),

The “James” to whom the authorship of this text is attributed can only be “James, the brother of the Lord” (Galatians 1:19). Whether or not James is actually the author of our text, it is significant that he represents the same Jewish Christianity as the letter which bears his name.

As leader of the Christian community in Jerusalem, James was so admired for his strict observance of the Mosaic law that when he was executed by the Sanhedrin in the year 62, Christian and non-Christian Jews alike protested the outrage to the incoming Roman procurator.

It is true that Jewish Christianity has not survived historically—“Jews for Jesus” notwithstanding, and Martin Luther, himself a notorious anti-Semite, rejected the Letter of James as “an epistle of straw” because it contradicted (2:18-26) the doctrine so dear to Luther’s heart of “justification by faith [alone] apart from the works of the law” (Romans 3:28).

Bad habits do die hard, and not even the Pope can put a stop to the bad habit of Christian anti-Semitism, but at least this sin can no longer excuse itself by an appeal to the authority of the church.

October 30, 2005

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