Up until 1963 the Catholic Church didn’t think it was ludicrous to blame ordinary humans for the death of Jesus. It is my understanding that traditionalists like Gibson (and his father) have repudiated the Vatican II reforms, which included removing the blame for Jesus death from the Jewish people.

I have to disagree with the picture of Jesus as either a victim or someone engineering his own death. For the issue of blame, however, maybe it is best to quote scripture here:

“And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.” —Luke 23:33,34

Individuals who crucified Jesus are responsible for their own sins. Jesus prayed for them. They are long since dead and buried.

The critical issue is whether collective, not individual, guilt is carried as a burden to this day. It is unclear what either “matt” or Thrasymachus is saying on this issue.

Mr. Auster has eloquently stated the classic Christian position on the matter of who was to blame for Christ’s death - that even assigning such blame is pointless in light of who Christ is. Jesus states in the gospel account of his rebuke to one of his disciples who drew his sword to prevent his arrest “Put you sword back in its place,” Jesus said to him, “for all who draw the sword will die by the sword. Do you think that I cannot call upon my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matthew 26: 52-53). Christ’s death was clearly ordained. Apart from that death there is no hope.

The later passage in Matthew (Ch. 27: 25) “May his blood be on us and on our children” refers to the mob that had assembled in Pilate’s courtyard. The members of that mob and those in the Sanhedrin were directly responsible under the mosaic law. Curiously, they chose to have Pilate and the Roman garrison execute Christ for blasphemy on a day and in a manner proscribed by their own law. I believe that under Mosaic law, a blasphemer would have been stoned to death after Passover - and not at the hands of Romans. I think that most Chrsitians would also assign a broader meaning to this passage in that those who reject Christ with the comprehension of his divine nature and sacrifice bear a similar spiritual responsibility for their actions.

I do not see any reason to suppose that there is collective guilt on the part of the Jews for the death of Jesus other than that guilt which would pertain to all of humanity.

Carl writes: “I think that most Christians would also assign a broader meaning to this passage [‘May his blood be on us and on our children’] in that those who reject Christ with the comprehension of his divine nature and sacrifice bear a similar spiritual responsibility for their actions.”

A fascinating point. Just as, according to Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Christians are the true spiritual heirs of the faith of Abraham, so those who consciously and knowingly reject Christ are the true spiritual heirs of those who called for his death. The “children” are one’s spiritual heirs, not one’s actual children.

Our Lord came to us as fully man/fully God (homoousios, in Constantine’s formulation at the Council of Nicaea, which the Credo translates as consubstantialem or of-the-same-substance-as). He came to atone once and perfectly for the sins of all mankind. His sacrifice was necessary because of the sins of all mankind, from Adam and Eve to the last-born of man, whose births are far in the future. What that means, and what the Church has always taught, is that all men are culpable in the Crucifixion, just as all men may be saved by it.

What to my knowledge the Church has never authoritatively taught, even if demagogues and rabble-rousers have used this slander to incite massacres and hatred of Jews, is that the Jews bear any greater burden of guilt in the death of Jesus Christ than anyone else. A Roman Procurator of Judaea, Roman centurions and legionaries, Jewish scribes and pharisees, and a presumably largely Jewish mob were the immediate agents of his death, but we are all the ultimate cause, as well as the ultimate beneficiaries, of it. Roman and Jewish immediate involvement does not enhance the collective guilt of either race, and I do not believe that the Church has ever taught otherwise. The guilt is that of every sinner (everyone, that is, except His Mother): it is individual. The Church has always blamed ordinary humans - all of them, save one - for the death of Jesus.

That is what the Church clarified after the Second Vatican Council by confirming that in the view of the Church Jews, past, present and future, are no more guilty of His death than anyone else. There was no new teaching on the subject; none was necessary.

I am no theologian, so this is poorly expressed. I think it is accurate, though. HRS

The Rev. Mr. Al Sharpton may be playing a valuable role here. A population hounded for and resisting reparations for what their (possible) ancestors did 200 years ago will be in no hurry to go after another population for what their (possible) ancestors did 2000 years ago.

This is going to be a difficult post to make. First, I agree completely and affirm the statements of everyone here who has noted that each of us is ultimately responsible for the Crucifixion of the Lord Jesus. It was for our sins that he hung on the Cross and bore the shame, the innocent punished in place of the guitly. But in emphasizing this truth, we ought not to overshadow another. God does indeed hold the Jews responsible for the betrayal and death of their rightful King in a way that is _separate and distinct_ from the responsibility that all humanity bears.

Recalling that following Pentacost, the Gospel was preached only the to the Jews, and the church exclusively Jewish, until Peter was led to the house of Cornelius. Consider a few passages leading up thereto.

Peter’s First Sermon: “YE MEN OF ISRAEL, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth … being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, YE have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain … Therefore let ALL THE HOUSE OF ISRAEL know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom YE have crucified, both Lord and Christ.” (Acts 2:22-36)

Peter’s Second Sermon: “YE MEN OF ISRAEL … The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of OUR fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom YE delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go.But YE denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto YOU…” (Acts 3:12-14)

Peter again: ” Ye rulers of the people, and elders of Israel … Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom YE crucified, whom God raised from the dead … This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.” (Acts 4:8-11)

In fact, when the Sanhedrin hauled Peter before them and said, “Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.” Here was Peter’s reply: (!) “We ought to obey God rather than men.The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom YE slew and hanged on a tree.”

Finally, let’s hear Stephen just before his martyrdom: “Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom YE have been now the betrayers and murderers: Who have received the law by the disposition of angels, and have not kept it.” (Acts 7:51-53)

Clearly there is something involved here beyond the guilt of us all in the Lord’s sacrificial death! Christ didn’t come to my people, or to Africans, or to Asians, to present Himself as their King; he came to the Jews, and was rejected. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not.” I submit that it was because of the rejection of Christ that the Jews were sent into dispersion among the nations and have faced such persecution and hardship. This was done in God’s permissive will.

I can understand why we may not want to emphasize this now, but it it is part of the whole picture unfolding before us. What is needed is the proper _perspective_ on it. Just as Babylon was brought against Israel to execute God’s judgment — and then Babylon was brought down, so all those who have dared lay a hand on the Covenant people of God will face His judgment. Those who have cursed them in the name of Christ will answer to Christ. The Scriptures quoted above give no license to persecute the apple of God’s eye. Those who have cited the role of Israel in Jesus death as a pretense to persecute them will be reminded that they too bore the ultimate responsibility.

We should all read Romans 9-11 again and again, and recall: “For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee … I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, UNTIL the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.AND SO SHALL ALL ISRAEL BE SAVED.

In many places in the Bible, God (often speaking through his prophets) holds his people COLLECTIVELY responsible when the majority of them have rebelled against him. Thus, there might well have been some faithful, obedient Jews who were carried off into captivity. An entire generation was not permitted to enter the Promised Land because of the failure of the majority of them to trust God to overcome the Canaanites. Other examples could be given.

It is also made clear that there is a difference between earthly consequences (e.g. Babylonian captivity), which can be collective, and eternal consequences, in which “the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father.”

What we do not find in the Bible is the idea that human beings should judge each other collectively and impose those earthly consequences on groups, as if we were the agents of God’s vengeance. The bone of contention with medieval Passion plays is that some Christians decided that they were God’s avengers. I see the point of this thread being that none of us today feels any anger towards Jews because of the Passion of Christ, and thus it truly is absurd to try to place blame for the death of Jesus. In the absence of God giving me the kind of prophetic message that he gave Peter, Stephen, etc., as you noted, that will be my stance.

As an aside, when talking to the Sanhedrin, the placing of guilt was certainly appropriate and it need not be inferred to refer to all Jews. The sermon at Pentecost was, however, for a Jewish audience broader than the Sanhedrin.

In response to Mr. LeFevre’s idea that the Jews do deserve a special share of blame for rejecting Jesus, let us remember two key facts that most people don’t appreciate.

First, for the Jewish people to have accepted Jesus would have meant their end _as_ the Jewish people. The inner form of the Judaic religion is that the people of Israel as a community come into relationship with God by living according to God’s law. The inner form of the Christian religion is that the Christian as an individual comes into relationship with God through his relationship with Jesus Christ. These two paths to God are radically different and mutually exclusive of each other. For a Jew to become a Christian means that he stops being a Jew in the religious sense, even if he remains a Jew in the ethnic sense.

Second, the Jews were the recipients of God’s first great revelation and the special carriers of his teaching and his mission. To expect them to give up the cherished thing that God gave them, and that God told them to hold on to at all costs, is asking a lot!

So my point is, let’s have some understanding of the special circumstances that the Jews were in, as the recipients of God’s first revelation, who were being asked to give up that revelation, along with the religion and the way of life and the peoplehood stemming from it, and adopt a new revelation.

In my opinion, the Jewish people should get a special dispensation for not becoming Christians. Further, it was a sin of the historic Church that it did not respect the unique circumstance of the Jews as the first chosen people of God who had a right to maintain their special relationship with God through the Mosaic law that God had bestowed on them.

This doesn’t mean that it’s wrong for Christians to seek to convert individual Jews. Christianity is the higher and truer religion that transcends Judaism, even as it is built on it. But those Jews who remain faithful to their Judaism must be respected and not blamed, so long as they respect Christianity.

Bravo to Mr. Coleman for an outstanding addition to this discussion!

Mr. Auster makes excellent and notable points that require careful response. But since I finally put my foot in it I want to think and pray on it further beforehand. I think his post lays out the framework for how this part of the question should be addressed.

The Second Vatican Council stated that “what happened in his passion cannot be blamed upon all the Jews then living, without distinction, nor upon the Jews of today” (Nostra Aetate, 4).

The historical blame for the crucifixion of Jesus falls specifically on the temple establishment and Pilate. However, the larger, theological significance of such blame, viz. the knowing rejection of Jesus Christ, is eloquently stated by Mr. Auster: “Just as, according to Paul’s Letter to the Romans, Christians are the true spiritual heirs of the faith of Abraham, so those who consciously and knowingly reject Christ are the true spiritual heirs of those who called for his death.” Today’s knowing rejecters and opponents of Christ are those who seek to denigrate the Truth and dissuade others from finding salvation in Christ. They are the secularists, the leftists, and the moral degenerates who continually mock Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. That group is truly multicultural and multi-religious.

I do wish to clarify something here, as I’m not in agreement with Mr. Auster’s take on my statements as asserting that the Jews bear “a special share of blame for rejecting Jesus.”

The wording is careful, but I want to make clear that each individual Jew bears no greater or lesser share of blame — whether they were directly involved in His illegal trial or not — than any Gentile, in what placed our Lord on His Cross.

What I am saying is that there is a _separate and distinct_ significance to it where Israel is concerned. But as Mr. Coleman intimated, it is a matter between God and Israel. It is not something into which the rest of us dare intrude as though we are somehow executing God’s judgment on His behalf. And that is the gist of my underlying point — that although there is a peculiar significance to the Jewish rejection of their promised Messiah, this cannot be construed to lend any justification to the persecution of Jews which they have experienced historically at the hands of ‘Christendom.’

Mr. Auster’s remaining points await further consideration.

“So my point is, let’s have some understanding of the special circumstances that the Jews were in, as the recipients of God’s first revelation, who were being asked to give up that revelation, along with the religion and the way of life and the peoplehood stemming from it, and adopt a new revelation.” - Lawrence Auster

This is a very important point that needs to be addressed. The Jews in Jesus’ time were not being asked to give up the revelation, the way of life, or peoplehood. They were being asked to adhere to the true meaning of that revelation, way of life, and peoplehood. Jesus himself stated that not a single minor punctuation mark of the written revelation, the law and the prophets, would become obsolete until he returned to claim his throne and that anyone who advocated and upheld the teachings of the Mosaic law would be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus and his disciples were all observant Jews.

I do believe that Christian churches have been in error as regards reaching out to Jews over the centuries insofar as they demand the converts abandon their holidays, traditions and nationhood. The only thing required, as I see it, of any Jewish convert is the realization that apart from the sacrifice of the Messiah, who was God among us, any attempt to fulfill the requirements of the Divine law is doomed to failure - even to those who have been instructed in the law from childhood. That is not the same thing as stating a Jewish convert must abandon the law. It is instead a change in the purpose of observing the Divine statute - obediance is an expression of one’s love of God rather than an attempt to gain righteousness by one’s own efforts (an utterly futile quest).

Another issue which Mr. Auster mentioned is the fear among Jews that they would lose their nationhood and, becuase of the relatively small numbers, simply vanish into the surrounding sea of gentile peoples. As traditionalists, this is a fear we at VFR should all relate to very much. It is perfectly understandable. Again, Christianity all too often - especially in this day and age - overemphasizes the universalist aspect of the faith. Since all nations and races are Divine creations, especially the Jewish nation whose creation is documented in scripture for a special Divine purpose, a church would be in grave error to advocate the effective extermination of the Jewish nation or any nation, whether by means of violence or by non-violent seductive means.

Mr. Lefevre states:

“The wording is careful, but I want to make clear that each individual Jew bears no greater or lesser share of blame — whether they were directly involved in His illegal trial or not — than any Gentile, in what placed our Lord on His Cross.”

Now, I try to take offense at every statement in order to join the debate, but Mr. Lefevre was very careful to say (if I understand this correctly) that this is an issue that outside of mankind - that whatever God’s design is in this, we aren’t to be involved.

From a Jewish standpoint - the messiah has still yet to come, is that correct? (No theologian, I).

And Carl - your point that all races and nations are Divine creations - you’ve made a strong point.