Aquinas and the Jews

166 Pages·1995·8.68 MB·English

by  John Y. B. Hood

Aquinas and the Jews
University of Pennsylvania Press
MIDDLE AGES SERIES
Edited by
Edward Peters
Henry Charles Lea Professor
of Medieval History
University of Pennsylvania
A listing of the available books
in the series appears at the
back of this volume
Aquinas and the Jews
JohnY. B. Hood
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia
Copyright © 1995 by the University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hood, John Y. B., 1962-
Aquinas and the Jews / John Y.B. Hood,
p. cm. — (Middle Ages series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8122-3305-0. — ISBN 0-8122-1523-0 (pbk.)
i. Judaism—Relations—Christianity. 2. Christianity and other religions—Judaism.
3. Christianity and antisemitism—History. 4. Thomas, Aquinas, Saint, 1225?—1274—Views
on Judaism. 5. Judaism (Christian theology)—History of doctrines—Middle Ages,
600—1500. I. Title. II. Scries.
BM535.H63 1995
26l.2'6'092 dc20 95-5296
CIP
ForDebm
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Contents
Introduction ix
1. The Theological Tradition I
2. The Thirteenth-Century Context 19
3. People of the Promises, People of the Law 38
4. Gravissimum Peccatum: The Crucifixion of Christ and the
Guilt of the Jews 62
5. The Jews in Christian Society 77
6. Aquinas and the Persecution of European Jews 106
List of Abbreviations 113
Notes 115
Bibliography 137
Index 141
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Introduction
In 1965, the Catholic Church revised its traditional teaching on the Jews and
their place in history. In their "Declaration on the Relation of the Church
to Non-Christian Religions" (Nostm Aetate) the bishops of the Second
Vatican Council rejected the idea that all Jews were guilty of the Crucifixion
of Jesus, declared persecution of Jews to be immoral, and informed cate-
chists and other religious educators that "the Jews should not be spoken
of as rejected or accursed."1 These statements were brief and undramatic;
the section on Jews in Nostm Aetate is only two pages long. The bishops
did not overtly acknowledge that they were altering traditional doctrine,
nor did they strike a penitential note. When the decree was promulgated,
however, it was immediately recognized that the Church had repudiated
more than fifteen hundred years of theory and practice.
Prior to Vatican II, no theologian was more closely identified with
traditional Catholic teaching than Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224—1274). A
controversial figure during his lifetime, Aquinas was accepted as the official
philosopher of the Dominican Order within a generation of his death, and
by the end of the Middle Ages he had eclipsed such rivals as Duns Sco-
tus to become the Church's most influential theologian. At the Council of
Trent his Summa Theologiae lay on the altar next to the Bible. Over the next
three centuries, Aquinas's popularity waxed and waned, and the Church
did not follow his teaching on every issue (the doctrine of the Immacu-
late Conception, which was promulgated by Pope Pius IX in 1854, despite
the fact that Thomas had denied it, is a case in point), but his theologi-
cal method and many of his substantive ideas remained regnant. His star
shone even more brightly after 1879, when Pope Leo XIII promulgated the
encyclical Aeterni Pcitris, which lavished praise on Aquinas and called for a
greater emphasis on the Angelic Doctor's teaching. Catholic philosophers,
theologians, and historians enthusiastically responded to Leo's challenge
and made the period from 1880 to 1960 a golden age of Thomism. Aqui-
nas became virtually the Church's official philosopher and theologian, and
countless books, articles, and dissertations were published on every aspect
of his thought.