I AM IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING THE PENULTIMATE EDITS ON MY MY BIBLE INTRODUCTION.  TODAY I HAD TO REVIEW AN EXCURSUS ON EARLY JEWISH-CHRISTIAN RELATIONS IN WHICH I DISCUSS THE RISE OF ANTI-JUDAISM IN THE EARLY CHURCH, IN CLUDING THIS BIT ON MELITO OF SARDIS.  I THOUGHT IT MIGHT BE WORTH POSTING HERE.

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Melito was a bishop of the city of Sardis in Asia Mino in the mid to late second century.  Today he is best known for a sermon he wrote that lambasts the Jews for the role they played in the death of Jesus.   In it we find the first instance of a Christian author claiming that since the Jews killed Jesus, and since Jesus was God, the Jews are guilty of deicide – the murder of God.   This charge was used, of course, to justify all sorts of hateful acts of violence against Jews over the centuries.  In part, the rhetorical eloquence with which the charge was sometimes leveled has contributed ot the emotional reaction that it produced.  Consider Melito’s own gripping, if terrifying, rhetoric:

This one was murdered.  And where was he murdered?  In the very center of Jerusalem!  Why?  Because he had healed their lame and had cleansed their lepers, and had guided their blind with light, and had raised up their dead.  For this reason he suffered…. (ch. 72).

Why, O Israel, did you do this strange injustice?  You dishonored the one who had honored you.  You held in contempt the one who held you in esteem.  You denied the one who publicly acknowledged you.  You renounced the one who proclaimed you his own.  You killed the one who made you to live.  Why did you do this, O Israel? (ch. 73)

It was necessary for him  to suffer, yes, but not by you; it was necessary for him to be dishonored, but not by you; it was necessary for him to be judged, but not by you; it was necessary for him to be crucified, but not by you, not by your right hand, O Israel! (chs. 75-76)

Therefore, hear and tremble because of him for whom the earth trembled.  The one who hung the earth in space is himself hanged; the one who fixed the heavens in place, is himself impaled; the one who firmly fixed all things, is himself firmly fixed to the tree.  The Lord is insulted, God has been murdered, the king of Israel has been destroyed, by the hand of Israel…. (chs. 95-96).