Carles Lillo Botella

Resumen: La literatura cristiana aduersus iudaeos tuvo su contrapartida por parte judía en el vasto corpus de la llamada literatura talmúdica o rabínica, elaborado a lo largo de los primeros siglos de la era cristiana. La pluralidad de sectas que caracterizaban al judaísmo en época del Segundo Templo acabó con las dos derrotas contra Roma, los años 70 y 135. A partir de entonces los cristianos pasaron a ser considerados herejes por la nueva ortodoxia rabínica y como tal aparecen reflejados en las páginas del Talmud. Con especial dureza fue tratada la figura de Jesús, equiparado por los sabios a los grandes pecadores de la historia de Israel. En este artículo se exponen y analizan algunos de los pasajes dedicados a Jesús y a los cristianos en el Talmud y el reflejo que estas críticas tuvieron en la separación entre el judaísmo y el cristianismo.
Abstract:  Christian literature aduersus iudaeos had its counterpart within the great corpus of the so called Talmudic or rabbinic literature, developed during the first centuries of the Christian era. The plurality of sects that characterized Judaism during the Second Temple period ended with the two defeats against Rome, in 70 and 135 AD. Thereafter, Christians became heretics according to the rabbinic orthodoxy and this is the view reflected by the Talmud. The figure of Jesus was treated particularly harshly by the sages, who compared him to the greatest sinners of the history of Israel. In this article we expose and analyze some of the passages dedicated to Jesus and the Christians within the Talmud and the consequences these critiques had in the separation between Judaism and Christianity.

En els seus tres primers segles d’existència, el cristianisme va aconseguir deixar de ser una de les moltes sectes messiàniques del convuls judaisme del segle I per esdevenir un element perillós que l’Imperi romà primer va combatre i amb el qual posteriorment es va aliar, donant inici a l’aliança entre el tron i l’altar. En aquest lapse de temps, els Pares de l’Església van elaborar una identitat pròpia –una “proto-ortodòxia”, construïda sobre la base del pensament de Pau de Tars- allunyada tant del judaisme rabínic que rebutjava la figura de Jesús, com de la doctrina de Marció, que negava la validesa de l’Antic Testament i, amb ell, de tota l’herència jueva del cristianisme en tant que obra d’un déu menor, diferent d’aquell que Jesús havia predicat. Tot aquest procés va deixar preparat el camí per l’elaboració d’una autèntica ortodòxia cristiana afavorida per l’aliança amb el poder polític des d’època de Constantí.
During its first three centuries, Christianity could stop being one of the many messianic sects within the tumultuous Judaism of the 1st century, becoming a dangerous element which the Roman Empire tried to destroy and with which subsequently allied, beginning the bond between the altar and the throne. In this time lapse, Church Fathers developed an own identity –a “proto-orthodoxy”, based on Paul of Tarsus’ thought- far both from Rabbinic Judaism, which refused the figure of Jesus, and the doctrine of Marcion, which rejected the validity of the Old Testament and all the Jewish heritage within Christianity because it came from a minor god, different from that preached by Jesus. All this process prepared the way for the making of a true Christian orthodoxy favoured by the alliance with the political power since Constantine’s reign.

After Constantine’s victory at the Milvian Bridge, the Christian Church could rely on the help of the State to make her doctrine a civil law. For members of rival religions, that is to say pagans and Jews, as well as for groups considered heretics, there began a period of gradual loss of rights. This paper analyses the change that the so-called “Constantinian revolution” implied for Judaism through the testimony of Joseph of Tiberias, presented by Epiphanius of Salamis in his Aduersus haereses. In the 19th century it was affi rmed that baptism provided Jews the “entry passport” to European society. In Joseph’s case, his conversion allowed him to reach the highest administrative positions in the State with the title of comes. He is a clear example of the destiny of Israel’s people, forced to choose either a wretched existence or a fulfi lling life in exchange for giving up their roots.

A la vez que declinaba el judaísmo como realidad política, la existencia del Imperio romano permitió al culto mosaico atraer a numerosos prosélitos a su seno. Este fenómeno, que tanto llamó la atención de los autores de época clásica, se testimonia igualmente en las inscripciones epigráficas. Tradicionalmente se ha considerado que el proselitismo judaico cesó a raíz de las dos derrotas contra Roma, en los años 70 y 135, que se saldaron con la liquidación del Estado judío. No obstante, en época tardoantigua todavía se documentan algunas conversiones esporádicas al judaísmo, incluso de cristianos, a pesar de que se hallaban prohibidas por ley de manera explícita. Destacan los ejemplos del diácono Leoncio y el monje Abraham durante la última guerra que enfrentó a Persia con Bizancio, entre los años 603 y 628. Asimismo, la epigrafía revela un dudoso caso de conversión al judaísmo por parte de un godo de nombre Sigismundus en la Italia de Teodorico.

While Judaism went into decline as a political reality, the existence of the Roman Empire allowed it to attract a large number of proselytes. This fact, narrated by classical authors, is also attested in epigraphy. Traditionally, scholars have considered that Jewish proselytism stopped because of the two defeats against Rome (70 and 135), when the Jewish state disappeared. However, despite the laws against Judaizers, we still can observe some rare cases of people who converted to Judaism during Late Antiquity, even some Christians did it. The examples of deacon Leontius and Abraham the monk, during the last war between Byzantium and Persia (603-628), are paradigmatic. In addition, epigraphy also reveals a questionable case of a Goth who embraced Judaism, Sigismundus, in Theoderic’s Italy.

Jean-François Jarrige – Gonzague Quivron – Catherine Jarrige, con la colaboración de Jérôme-François Haquet y Aurore Didier, Nindowari. La culture de Kulli. Ses origines avec la civilisation de l’Indus / The Kulli Culture. Its origins and its relations with the Indus Civilization, Paris, Gingko éditeur, 2011.
Review appeared in "Gerión, Revista de Historia Antigua" (2013).

Tesis de Doctorado / PhD Thesis.
Since J. Parkes invented it in 1934, the expression “Parting of the Ways” has deeply rooted in the scholarship to study the distance between Jews and Christians during Antiquity. Indeed, issued from the same common background, which was the Second Temple Judaism, Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism became two opposing orthodoxies which excluded each other and, largely, based their own identity in opposition to the other one, in a process started by the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem in the year 70. This doctoral thesis analyses how this parting of the ways happened throughout the first three centuries of the Common Era in the different regional realities of the Roman Empire, taking as a main source the literature of the Church Fathers, though also other ones, as the rabbinic literature, the so-called “cycle of the Talmud”. So, despite their rivalries, Judaism and Christianity form a large spectrum where, in an extreme, we find the Rabbinic Judaism, for which Jesus represents nothing, and, in the other, different forms of Gnostic Christianity, which fully denied the identification between the Jewish Jahveh and the God Father preached by Jesus Christ and, because of that, refused all the Jewish heritage of Christianity. Between both extremes became established the self-proclaimed Orthodox Christianity, over the basis of the anti-legalistic thought of the Apostle Paul. This form of Christianity also felt obliged to harmonize Hebrew Scriptures as a part of the history of salvation with the idea that the Mosaic Law had been abrogated with the coming of the Messiah. This proto-Orthodox Christianity found in the method of allegory applied to the interpretation of the Old Testament the legitimation of its doctrine and its universalistic and uniformist wishes. On the other hand, the rabbis, with the Patriarch as their leader, got the decisive support of the Roman authorities in their purpose to proclaim themselves as the leaders of Judaism, which was decapitated after the disappearance of the Temple. This Judaism found its way of expression in the so-called Talmudic literature, where the Rabbis systematized an orthodoxy that excluded from the people of Israel all those who did not share their doctrines, as we can see, for example, in the Birkat ha minim, imprecation which, included in the liturgy of the synagogue worship, was pronounced against the Followers of Jesus of Nazareth.