Some Christian Churches, Christian groups, and ordinary Christians express antisemitism toward the Jewish people and the associated religion of Judaism. These can be thought of as examples of anti-Semitism expressed by Christians or by Christian communities. However, the term "Christian Anti-Semitism" has also been used to refer to anti-Jewish sentiments that arise out of Christian doctrinal or theological stances. The term "Christian Anti-Semitism" is also used to suggest that to some degree, contempt for Jews and for Judaism inhere to Christianity as a religion, itself, and that centralized institutions of Christian power, as well as governments with strong Christian influence have generated societal structures that survive to this day which perpetuate anti-Semitism. This usage appears particularly in discussions of Christian structures of power within society, which are referred to as Christian Hegemony or Christian Privilege; these are part of larger discussions of Structural inequality and power dynamics.
The persecution of Christians can be historically traced from the first century of the Christian era to the present day. Christian missionaries and converts to Christianity have both been targeted for persecution, sometimes to the point of being martyred for their faith, ever since the emergence of Christianity.
The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity is a diary by Vibia Perpetua describing her imprisonment as a Christian in 203, completed after her death by a redactor. It is one of the oldest and most notable early Christian texts.
Saint Apollonia was one of a group of virgin martyrs who suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians prior to the persecution of Decius. According to church tradition, her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason, she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry and those suffering from toothache or other dental problems. French court painter Jehan Fouquet painted the scene of St. Apollonia's torture in The Martyrdom of St. Apollonia.
The history of antisemitism, defined as hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group, goes back many centuries, with antisemitism being called "the longest hatred". Jerome Chanes identifies six stages in the historical development of antisemitism:
- Pre-Christian anti-Judaism in Ancient Greece and Rome that was primarily ethnic in nature
- Christian antisemitism in antiquity and the Middle Ages that was religious in nature and has extended into modern times
- Muslim antisemitism that was—at least in its classical form—nuanced, in that Jews were a protected class
- Political, social, and economic antisemitism during the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment Europe that laid the groundwork for racial antisemitism
- Racial antisemitism that arose in the 19th century and culminated in Nazism
- Contemporary antisemitism, which has been labeled by some as the new antisemitism
Cherchell is a town on Algeria's Mediterranean coast, 89 kilometers (55 mi) west of Algiers. It is the seat of Cherchell District in Tipaza Province. Under the names Iol and Caesarea, it was formerly a Roman colony and the capital of the kingdoms of Numidia and Mauretania.
Dorothea of Alexandria is venerated as a Christian virgin and saint. Her legend states that the Roman Emperor Maximinus Daia courted her, yet she rejected his suit in fidelity to Christianity and virginity, and fled Alexandria. She died in Arabia around 320.
Reparata was, according to a later tradition, a third-century virgin, who was martyred for her Christian faith in her hometown of Caesarea, Roman Province of Palestine, and later canonised by the Catholic Church.
On the Jews and Their Lies is a 65,000-word anti-Judaic treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader Martin Luther (1483–1546).
The history of the Jews and the Crusades is part of the history of antisemitism toward Jews in the Middle Ages. The call for the First Crusade intensified the persecutions of the Jews, and they continued to be targets of Crusaders' violence and hatred throughout the Crusades.
This timeline of antisemitism chronicles events in the history of antisemitism, hostile actions or discrimination against Jews as members of a religious and/or ethnic group. It includes events in Jewish history and the history of antisemitic thought, actions which were undertaken in order to counter antisemitism or alleviate its effects, and events that affected the prevalence of antisemitism in later years. The history of antisemitism can be traced from ancient times to the present day.
Christians were persecuted throughout the Roman Empire, beginning in the 1st century AD and ending in the 4th century. Originally a polytheistic empire in the traditions of Roman paganism and the Hellenistic religion, as Christianity spread through the empire, it came into ideological conflict with the imperial cult of ancient Rome. Pagan practices such as making sacrifices to the deified emperors or other gods were abhorrent to Christians as their beliefs prohibited idolatry. The state and other members of civic society punished Christians for treason, various rumored crimes, illegal assembly, and for introducing an alien cult that led to Roman apostasy. The first, localized Neronian persecution occurred under Emperor Nero in Rome. A number of mostly localized persecutions occurred during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. After a lull, persecution resumed under Emperors Decius and Trebonianus Gallus. The Decian persecution was particularly extensive. The persecution of Emperor Valerian ceased with his notable capture by the Sasanian Empire's Shapur I at the Battle of Edessa during the Roman–Persian Wars. His successor, Gallienus, halted the persecutions.
The persecution of Christians in the New Testament is an important part of the Early Christian narrative which depicts the early church as being persecuted for their heterodox beliefs by a Jewish establishment in the Roman province of Judea. The New Testament, especially the Gospel of John, has traditionally been interpreted as relating Christian accounts of the Pharisee rejection of Jesus and accusations of the Pharisee responsibility for his crucifixion. The Acts of the Apostles depicts instances of early Christian persecution by the Sanhedrin, the Jewish religious court.
Damnatio ad bestias was a form of Roman capital punishment where the condemned person was killed by wild animals, usually lions or other big cats. This form of execution, which first appeared during the Roman Republic around the 2nd century BC, had been part of a wider class of blood sports called Bestiarii.
Dorothea of Caesarea is a 4th-century virgin martyr who was executed at Caesarea Mazaca. Evidence for her actual historical existence or acta is very sparse. She is called a martyr of the late Diocletianic Persecution, although her death occurred after the resignation of Diocletian himself.
The woman with seven sons was a Jewish martyr described in 2 Maccabees 7. She and her seven sons were arrested during the persecution of Judaism initiated by King Antiochus IV Epiphanes. They were ordered to consume pork and thus violate Jewish law as part of the campaign. They repeatedly refused, and Antiochus tortured and killed the sons one by one in front of the unflinching and stout-hearted mother before eventually killing her as well.
Gaius Annius Anullinus was a Roman senator who was appointed consul in AD 295.
The Myth of Persecution: How Early Christians Invented a Story of Martyrdom is a 2013 book by Candida Moss, an award-winning historian and professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of Notre Dame. Prior to the writing of this book Moss had published two other works on early Christian martyrdom. In her book, Moss advances the thesis that:
- The traditional idea of the "Age of Martyrdom", when Christians suffered persecution from the Roman authorities and lived in fear of being thrown to the lions, is largely fictional. Here she adapts and emends the work of G. E. M. de Ste. Croix.
- There was never sustained, targeted persecution of Christians by Imperial Roman authorities. Official persecution of Christians by order of the Roman Emperor lasted for at most twelve years of the first three hundred of the Church's history. Moss writes: "This does not mean, however, that there were no martyrs at all or that Christians never died. It is clear that some people were cruelly tortured and brutally executed for reasons that strike us as profoundly unjust."
- Most of the stories of individual martyrs amassed by the early modern period are pure inventions. She agrees with Bollandist scholar Hippolyte Delehaye that most martyrdom literature developed in the fourth century and beyond.
- Even the oldest and most historically accurate stories of martyrs and their sufferings have been altered and re-written by later editors, so that it is impossible to know for sure what any of the martyrs actually thought, did or said.
Gilva was a Roman–Berber city in the province of Mauretania Caesariensis. It flourished during the Roman and Vandal empires. It was located to the south of Hippo Regius in present-day Algeria. The town existed from around 300 to 640AD.
Saint Marciana of Toledo is a venerated martyr in Toledo, Spain whose feast day is celebrated by both the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church on July 12.
