The early Church Fathers develop laws concerning the Jews in this first lecture in the series, “The Church and The Jews”. (52 min.)
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The history of the relationship between the Christian Church and the Jewish People is, essentially, the history of Western Civilization. Christianity, in its earliest period, was a sect within Judaism whose views differed from those of the majority of the Jewish People. After the vigorous presentation of the basic principles of the new faith preached by St. Paul and other apostles of Christianity, a point was reached where Christianity defined itself as separate from Judaism, yet still an outgrowth of the older faith. As St. Paul stated it, “Christianity is the branch and Judaism is the root.” In the course of time it was firmly established that faith in Christ was based on the Hebrew Bible, called the OldTestament, and on the teachings of the Evangelists and St. Paul, in the New Testament.
In the fourth century Christianity, under the Emperor Constantine, became the official religion of the Roman Empire, in which the Jews played an important role. Thus, over the course of the subsequent 1500 years, Jews and Christians as people, and Judaism and Christianity as faith communities, developed a symbiotic relationship. The history of this union is, in essence, the history of Europe during the subsequent millenium and a half.
Anyone who seeks to learn about the history of the Jews must, unavoidably, learn about the history of the Church and will inevitably find in that story, the relationship between the Church and the Jewish People.
In this series of lectures Dr. Neiman deals with events in Church History as they affected the Jewish People. Certainly, the history of the Church is wider and more comprehensive that its relationship to Judaism and the Jewish People. Nonetheless, there are critical moments in the history of Eirope in which the paths of Judaism and Christianity intersect with serious consequences for both communities.
