In a previous article, I outlined the Eternal Witness concept formulated by Augustine, who was a major founder of the Christian Church around 400 CE. Apart from Eternal Witness, Augustine shaped Christianity with doctrines involving original sin and divine grace. His ‘Just War Theory’ provided a Christian moral construct where war had to be justifiable to achieve peace and attain a just cause i e preventing greater evil rather than pure conquest. The aim was focussed on restoring peace. While these concepts are laudable, Augustine’s Eternal Witness on the other hand, has been disastrous for Jews.
Eternal Witness was designed to force Jews into pariah status. They would be made homeless, impoverished and unloved. Various measures were thus taken to ostracise Jews, prohibiting social contact or dining with them, as well as banning them from almost all professions. In this way they would be seen as the “losers” while Christians would enjoy their status as having superseded the Jews who had not accepted Christianity.
Over time, Jews were cast into ghettoes, expelled , executed for refusing to convert .or for converting but not considered sincere about the forced conversion, such as with the Anusim / Conversos. Pariah status supported by a tailwind of conspiracy theories, blood libels, accusations such as “causing” the Black Death and expulsions from many European countries became rife in England, Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Germany and other countries.
While most Europeans had never met a Jew, despising Jews became part of European socio-political discourse ,(e g banishment) the arts ( e g Jews depicted as unsavoury characters with hooked noses, hooded eyes, pointed teeth), literature (e g Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, and Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre) opera (e g Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman where the ship never finds sanctuary -a metaphor for the wandering Jews. )
Over the centuries, Jews experienced pogroms and incitement to violence-often at Easter.
In 1543 Martin Luther advised the destruction of synagogues, Jewish schools, homes, and books . Four hundred years later, Luther’s wish would be fulfilled during Reichspogromnacht (Kristallnacht) in 1938. Many clergy such as Bishop Martin Sasse, openly supported this pogrom.
Augustine’s Eternal Witness could have been officially repudiated at Luther’s 500th anniversary celebration in 2017.
Sadly, it was a deliberately missed opportunity.
In 1904 Herzl approached Pope Pius X in the Vatican to request support for a Jewish Homeland in Turkish administered Palestine. The Pope, aware of the Dreyfus Affair and popular antisemitism in Catholic France nonetheless strongly rejected that idea and reiterated that Jews should be converted, especially in Jerusalem.
During a visit to Jerusalem in 1964, Pope Paul VI refused to greet Israel’s President Shazar. How could Jews have a national homeland when Eternal Witness advocated homelessness?
While strongly rejecting religious Zionism the Vatican nevertheless recognised Israel in 1993 as a political reality. In today’s parlance-“it is what it is.”
The relationship has mostly been tepid at best. Popes tend to refer to Israel as the Holy Land, rather than referring to it by its official name Israel which implies a sovereign national state with a Jewish identity. Not infrequently, history is falsified, such as with the infant Jesus being wrapped in a Palestinian keffiyeh during Christmas. The late Pope Frances found that depiction in a Nativity Scene rather touching.
Eternal Witness has been the basis for the contempt of Jews, ostracising them, as well as mass expulsions, conspiracy theories, pogroms and finally the Holocaust. Millions of Jews have been murdered for over a thousand years-much of it incited by the church. Jew hatred in European culture continues to persist.
The Eternal Witness legacy has meandered and morphed into various forms with the Gaza war being the latest manifestation as well as attacks on Jews and synagogues outside of Israel.
The time is long overdue for the church to repudiate and reject Augustine’s Eternal Witness concept. Interfaith dialogues have been more social get together events than dealing with issues of substance.
The Christian Bible believes in the Ten Commandments. It includes the prohibition of murder, theft, bearing false witness and coveting .The church needs to stop turning a blind eye to its hypocrisy and act. We see Eternal Witness out of control throughout the western world. The Pope who himself is an Augustinian, should lead the world to repudiate this disgraceful dogma. He would surely follow Jesus the Jew who promoted love for all humankind, and not make his own people the exception. Instead, Pope Leo blessing a block of ice for” climate justice” -on Yom Kippur when Jews were murdered at a Manchester synagogue- is sadly more important to him.
According to the Christian Bible, Jesus exclaimed on the cross in Aramaic, the common language spoken by Judean Jews at the time, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" This Aramaic phrase, similar to Hebrew, means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
With Europe and other western countries experiencing out of control Jew hatred, assaults and murder, the time for the church to act is overdue, starting with a public repudiation of the Eternal Witness doctrine.
Ron J Hutter is the author of the satirical novel on antisemitism ”The Trombone Man: Tales of a Misogynist.”, The Kristallnacht Cantata: A Voice of Courage” and the satirical play “BEST”