The Destruction of Jerusalem and Anti-Jewish Commonplaces in Model Sermon Collections (1100–1350)

This book analyses the diffusion of anti-Judaic stereotypes and topoi in the thirteenth- and early fourteenth-century model sermon collections. It concentrates on the sermons on Luke 19.41-48 where Jesus foretells the Destruction of Jerusalem. The preachers took the view that the Destruction of Jerusalem was divine vengeance for the Jews because they killed Jesus. Thus, these sermons were a good venue for those preachers who wanted to preach against the Jews.

Model sermon collections were the closest thing to modern mass media. Consequently, their role in the diffusion of anti-Judaic attitudes was significant. The anti-Judaic writings of the early Church Fathers were only read by few literate church men, whereas model sermons reached the illiterate masses all over the Christianity. Therefore, they played a major role in diffusing anti-Judaic attitudes amongst the population at large and thus contributed to the marginalization of the Jews, to various libels, expulsions, violence, and eventually to large-scale pogroms.

Introduction. The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Christian Church

Chapter 1. The Destruction of Jerusalem and its Earliest Representations
1.1. Contemporary Sources on the Jewish War
1.2. The Apostolic Period and Patristic Literature
1.3. The Post Patristic Sources

Chapter 2. Sermons and Anti-Judaic Literary Topoi
2.1. Murderers of Christ
2.2. Thirty Silver Pieces
2.3. The Jews as Cannibals
2.4. Obdurate Jews
2.5. What is left unsaid

Chapter 3. One Pericope, Many Approaches
3.1. The City of the Soul
3.2. The Theology of Tears
3.3. Domus mea domus orationis est — Two Houses of God
3.4. Erat quotidie docens in templo — An Exhortation to Preach
3.5. Choosing the Epistle Instead

Conclusions

Bibliography

Index of Manuscripts

Index nominum et locorum