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Article: Saints and fanatics: the problematic connection between religion and spirituality.
- Article from:
- Judaism
- Article date:
- September 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 American Jewish Congress. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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1. Religion Produces Both Saints and Fanatics
In my research on the history of Christian anti-Semitism, I came across some who seem to have been both. The best known example is St. John Chrysostom, the great preacher of Byzantine Christianity, who was called the "golden mouth" for his eloquent sermons. Yet in the same sermons, so much praised up to the present day for their spirituality, he called the Jews deicides, killers of God, blaming them for all sorts of imaginary crimes, and describing their synagogues as whorehouses. In the mediaeval period, Franciscan saints who wrote eloquently about Christian love led the assault on the Jews, claiming that they were ...