Abraham vs Abraham

Part I – A brief history of the “Chosen People” and the murder of the “Just One” -

According to the Book of Deuteronomy 7:6, God chose the Jews to be his treasured possession out of all the peoples on the earth, granting them a special relationship as well as a special responsibility.

Whether or not this claim is about a perceived superiority, Jews faced persecution as early as 605 BCE when a significant number of Jews were forcibly relocated from Judah to Babylonia.

In response to King Jehoiakim's rebellion against Babylonian rule, Emperor Nebuchadnezzar II besieged Jerusalem, leading to the destruction of Solomon's Temple and to the forced relocation of many thousands of Jews .

The Neo-Babylonian Empire however did not persecute the Jews in the sense of systematic oppression or violence, but merely sought to ensure political stability and to prevent further Jewish rebellions.

In pagan Rome, Jews were legally citizens of the Roman Empire, however they were often seen as a threat to the state due to their continued refusal to worship local and imperial gods. This led to tensions and, at times, persecution and attacks.

For instance, in 70 CE, the Romans, led by Titus, crushed a Jewish revolt against Roman rule in the province of Judaea and destroyed the Second Temple in Jerusalem during the siege of the city.

A little more than 60 years later , Hadrian was an Emperor known to be against costly military operations and wars. For instance, he decided to grant parts of Dacia to the Roxolani Sarmatians and to withdraw troops from the Dacian plains. Yet, when almost 60 years old, content to live in his beautiful ‘Villa Adriana’ in Tivoli ( the most imposing and complex Roman villa that can still be visited nowadays), he was forced to march to Jerusalem due to a large-scale armed rebellion by the Jews of Judaea.

In a nutshell, Jews were not new to rebellion, nor to persecution. However until this point in history, violence against the Jews almost always began as a result of a Jewish rebellion , be it against Babylonian or Roman rule.

But then came the first Christian Emperor of Rome, Constantine I , ‘ the great’. Since Jews and Christians both recognize the God of Abraham, with the main difference between the two religions being whether or not God became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth, one could expect mutual respect, after centuries of Pagan ignorance and superstition, right?. Wrong.

Constantine I, in fact, adhered to a belief first put into words by Justin Martyr a couple of centuries earlier . A simple quote from Justin provides a clear perspective of his views about Jews : “tribulations were justly imposed upon you, for you have murdered the Just One” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho).

True to this view ,Constantine himself decreed the following about Jews:

“If any of them dares to attack with stones or some other manifestation of anger another who has fled their dangerous sect and attached himself to the worship of God [Christianity], he must speedily be given to the flames and burn, together with all his accomplices”.

The Jewish religion was described by Constantine as “dangerous” and “abominable”, and the Jews as “polluted wretches, having stained their hands with a nefarious crime”

So, for the first time in history, anti Jewish sentiments became codified into the very laws of the Roman Empire. Abraham vs Abraham , but the worst was still to come.

After Emperor Julian's death in 363, Christian persecutions of Jews once again intensified. Julian was the only emperor to reject Christianity after the conversion of Constantine and had allowed Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple. However, his death led to a reversal of these policies.

Subsequent Christian emperors persecuted their Jewish subjects and further restricted their rights, continuing the trend of religious intolerance set by Constantine.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, this trend continued : the Black Death in the 14th century led to massacres of Jews, who were often blamed for the plague. The Spanish monarchy, , expelled Jews in 1492, and similar expulsions occurred in other parts of Europe .

All this, not at the hands of barbaric , ignorant pagans, but by devoted Christian rulers, who still perpetuated the belief that Jews had to be punished, for they murdered the “Just One”.

Abraham vs Abraham.