L | A
By Trent Horn
On May 2, 2024, the House of Representatives passed the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” partly in response to an uptick in antisemitic displays at U.S. college campuses in recent years. The act could help students file civil complaints if they feel they have been victims of antisemitic discrimination.
The Catholic Church condemns all unjust discrimination, and Pope Francis even said this past February that the Church “rejects every form of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, unequivocally condemning manifestations of hatred towards Jews and Judaism as a sin against God.”
Some critics are concerned that the bill’s definition of antisemitism, which is drawn from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, is too broad and would make basic Catholic doctrine antisemitic. They focus on one part that says it is antisemitic to “[use] the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.” In response, they say that the Bible and many Church Fathers speak about “the Jews” killing Jesus.
So is it accurate to say “the Jews killed Jesus”? Is it antisemitic?
The Second Vatican Council taught that “the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today” (Nostra Aetate 4). Some Catholics, however, argue that all the unconverted Jews in the time of Christ (thus exempting the Blessed Virgin and the apostles) were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. Some even claim that all unconverted Jews in history since the Crucifixion carry a unique guilt for Christ’s death that other sinners do not share.
It is obviously false that all non-Christian Jews at the time of Christ’s death were responsible for his crucifixion, for the simple reason that not all of them were consulted! Only a tiny portion of the Jewish population called for his death. Further, many Jews who did not formally become Christian still had a positive attitude toward Jesus and his movement (see Acts 2:47) and almost certainly would not have approved of Jesus’ death.
When it comes to later Jews being responsible, this idea comes from an interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel, which describes Pilate washing his hands, saying, “I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Matthew then says the crowd answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (27:25).
What do we make of this “blood curse”? To start, the biblical text never says God honored it. Nor would such a curse, even if it was honored, apply to every future Jew, since nearly all of them are not descended from the small crowd present at Jesus’ sentencing.
In the second volume of his work Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes:
Historically, some Catholics, including through medieval regional councils and in papal documents, did argue that Jewish hardships throughout history represented a similar kind of punishment for Jewish involvement in the Crucifixion. However, these assertions did not rise to the level of definitive magisterial teaching. In fact, the sixteenth-century Catechism of the Council of Trent rejects the idea that Jews bear more guilt for Jesus’ crucifixion than non-Jews:
The Catechism of the Council of Trent refers to “the Jews” killing Jesus, and several Scripture passages (John 5:18, Acts 10:39) use similar language. In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15, St. Paul says, “For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men.”
Paul’s phrase “the Jews” is a reference not to all Jews, but to a particular group of Jews in Palestine who were persecuting the Church. Other scholars have proposed that the Greek word Ioudaiōn in the New Testament can also be translated Judeans and that in some verses, this context makes more sense than the broader term “Jews.”
John 7:1 says, “After this Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.” But there were plenty of Jews in Galilee, so what is meant in this passage is not “Jews”—i.e., non-Christian followers of Yahweh—but rather Judeans, and specifically the Jews loyal to political leadership in Jerusalem. This interpretation also makes sense of Paul’s exhortation to imitate the Christians in Judea who withstood persecution at the hands of the persecutors in that area, the Judeans (a role Paul once held before his conversion).
The Catechism also gives this insight into how we ought to understand Jewish responsibility for Christ’s death:
By Trent Horn
On May 2, 2024, the House of Representatives passed the “Antisemitism Awareness Act,” partly in response to an uptick in antisemitic displays at U.S. college campuses in recent years. The act could help students file civil complaints if they feel they have been victims of antisemitic discrimination.
The Catholic Church condemns all unjust discrimination, and Pope Francis even said this past February that the Church “rejects every form of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, unequivocally condemning manifestations of hatred towards Jews and Judaism as a sin against God.”
Some critics are concerned that the bill’s definition of antisemitism, which is drawn from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, is too broad and would make basic Catholic doctrine antisemitic. They focus on one part that says it is antisemitic to “[use] the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.” In response, they say that the Bible and many Church Fathers speak about “the Jews” killing Jesus.
So is it accurate to say “the Jews killed Jesus”? Is it antisemitic?
The Second Vatican Council taught that “the Jewish authorities and those who followed their lead pressed for the death of Christ; still, what happened in his passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today” (Nostra Aetate 4). Some Catholics, however, argue that all the unconverted Jews in the time of Christ (thus exempting the Blessed Virgin and the apostles) were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion. Some even claim that all unconverted Jews in history since the Crucifixion carry a unique guilt for Christ’s death that other sinners do not share.
It is obviously false that all non-Christian Jews at the time of Christ’s death were responsible for his crucifixion, for the simple reason that not all of them were consulted! Only a tiny portion of the Jewish population called for his death. Further, many Jews who did not formally become Christian still had a positive attitude toward Jesus and his movement (see Acts 2:47) and almost certainly would not have approved of Jesus’ death.
When it comes to later Jews being responsible, this idea comes from an interpretation of Matthew’s Gospel, which describes Pilate washing his hands, saying, “I am innocent of this righteous man’s blood; see to it yourselves.” Matthew then says the crowd answered, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (27:25).
What do we make of this “blood curse”? To start, the biblical text never says God honored it. Nor would such a curse, even if it was honored, apply to every future Jew, since nearly all of them are not descended from the small crowd present at Jesus’ sentencing.
In the second volume of his work Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI writes:
For another interpretation, the crowd’s exclamation in Matthew 27:25 may refer to the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 as being part of a divinely appointed punishment upon those who rejected Jesus. It was not uncommon in Israel’s history for future generations to be afflicted because of the sinful actions of Israel’s rulers, such as Solomon’s idolatry (1 Kings 11) being the catalyst for the division of the kingdom and the Jews’ subsequent exile into Babylon.
Historically, some Catholics, including through medieval regional councils and in papal documents, did argue that Jewish hardships throughout history represented a similar kind of punishment for Jewish involvement in the Crucifixion. However, these assertions did not rise to the level of definitive magisterial teaching. In fact, the sixteenth-century Catechism of the Council of Trent rejects the idea that Jews bear more guilt for Jesus’ crucifixion than non-Jews:
But even if Jews throughout history are not uniquely responsible for the death of Jesus, what about “the Jews” of Jesus’ time?
The Catechism of the Council of Trent refers to “the Jews” killing Jesus, and several Scripture passages (John 5:18, Acts 10:39) use similar language. In 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15, St. Paul says, “For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus which are in Judea; for you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all men.”
Paul’s phrase “the Jews” is a reference not to all Jews, but to a particular group of Jews in Palestine who were persecuting the Church. Other scholars have proposed that the Greek word Ioudaiōn in the New Testament can also be translated Judeans and that in some verses, this context makes more sense than the broader term “Jews.”
John 7:1 says, “After this Jesus went about in Galilee; he would not go about in Judea, because the Jews sought to kill him.” But there were plenty of Jews in Galilee, so what is meant in this passage is not “Jews”—i.e., non-Christian followers of Yahweh—but rather Judeans, and specifically the Jews loyal to political leadership in Jerusalem. This interpretation also makes sense of Paul’s exhortation to imitate the Christians in Judea who withstood persecution at the hands of the persecutors in that area, the Judeans (a role Paul once held before his conversion).
The Catechism also gives this insight into how we ought to understand Jewish responsibility for Christ’s death:
It is inaccurate to say, as some critical scholars might allege, that the Romans were completely responsible for Christ’s crucifixion. Scripture clearly teaches that some members of the Jewish leadership saw Jesus as being such a grave threat to the social order that he needed to be killed (John 11:50). However, as we saw in the teaching of the Second Vatican Council quoted earlier, this guilt cannot be laid upon all unconverted Jews at that time, and much less so on Jewish people throughout history. Indeed, we must remember humanity’s collective involvement, through our sins, in Christ’s death on the cross. This is why the Catechism states that
in her magisterial teaching of the Faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that “sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured.” Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone (59.
