Original scientific paper

Marulić and the Anti-Jewish Issue

Branko Jozić orcid.org/0000-0003-2490-148X ; Marulianum, Split

Abstract

A topic that is always current is the issue of anti-Jewishness or anti-Judaism, a phenomenon that has a number of dimensions. On the one hand it involves an ideological and theological battle about faith, and on the other hand there is the economic and social dimension. Even in ancient times, the Jews were accused of atheism and exclusiveness, diversity and hostility to the rest of the world.
From the very beginning Christianity waged a pitiless polemics with Judaism, accusing it of murder of the “originator of life”. Paul’s statements that God had not rejected His chosen people and that their fall meant salvation for the pagans, and that finally the whole of Israel would be saved, were only able partially to assuage the ferocity of anti-Judaism. On the basis of the Old Testament, from the New Testament writers and apologists, Christians throughout their history have shown that Christ is the promised Messiah, and that the Church is the new Israel; having forfeited its filial rights, the Jewish people had become the servant to the younger people of the Christians.
As well as theological reasons, the source of the acrimony of the polemics can be found in the competitiveness of Jewish proselyte activities to the Christian missions among the pagans, and nor should economic motivations be neglected. The involvement of the Jews in trade and money increased their influence in society, as well as the antagonism of their Christian fellow-citizens.
In the Middle Ages, in spite of the national and political diversity, the West was nevertheless united in a single faith in Christ and in the universal Church. Religiously determined reality was for the ordinary mind coeval with Christianity, and everything that was non-Christian was experienced as a threat. In particular, the Crusades resulted in toleration being replaced by increasingly frequent outbursts of euphoria and abuse: the enemies of Christ needed vanquishing in their own country as well.
Two social and historical phenomena had a considerable effect on the attitude to the Jews. The first was the development of urban centres with the new class of burghers dedicated to commerce, with which almost only the Jews dealt. The second was church reform, which resulted in the appearance of the mendicant orders and the Inquisition. In the endeavour to homogenise society, and to provide for the inclusion of the Hebrews, sermons were resorted to, but they were more often framed against the Jews and Jewish usury than aimed at their conversion. But conversions were anyway rare because of the loyalty of the Jews to the faith of their fathers and their tradition, and because of the missionary methods, but most of all because their conversion would have been against the financial interests of secular princes and bishops (having them remain in the faith of their fathers was a source of revenue deriving from the right to protection), whose laws made conversion practically impossible (for revocation of the faith also included the obligatory renunciation of property).
The presence of the Jews in Split started to become more significant during the time of Marulić, after they had been expelled from Iberia. How well they were accepted in the milieu of Split is shown by their being the main intermediaries of trade between the West and the Ottoman Empire, that they were the founders of the first bank in Split, and that the Split ghetto was founded only in 1738 (the Dubrovnik ghetto was created in 1546).
Just how interested Marulić was in the issue of Judaism is shown by his col-lection of excerpts from various parts of the Repertorium, where he recorded condemnatory opinions about the Jews. However, resorting to typology, he did not refrain from presenting the Old Testament, i.e., Jewish, figures, as New Testament personalities and as models of virtue for Christians.
Still, with the Christian vision of the history of salvation, some chapters directly addressed to the Jewish issue are toned apologetically. Here Marulić represents the commonplaces from the age-old Christian-Jewish polemics. Obstinate Jews are ungrateful to God; the failure to accept and the condemnation of Christ were the causes of their current hard lot, and they were faced with future pains, the hardest of all. But Marulić did not blame just the Jews, but in the same con-text brought out the infidelity of the Christians themselves, clearly showing that his criteria for judgment and the intention of his writing was to promote a correct attitude to and relation with God.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

11879

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/11879

Publication date:

22.4.2007.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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