Jews and Judaism in the early church

The Jewish people, Judaism, and Christian–Jewish relations and controversy, as the writers present them.

To the Magnesians 8.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Do not go back to Jewish practice, as if grace had not come.
To the Magnesians 10.3Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · It is absurd to confess Christ and live as a Jew; Judaism has found its fulfillment in Christianity.
To the Philadelphians 6.1Ignatius of Antioch · ca. 110 (range ca. 105–135) · Do not listen to those who teach Judaism instead of Christ.
To Diognetus 3.1Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Why Christians do not worship as the Jews do.
To Diognetus 3.2Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · The Jews rightly worship one God but err in offering sacrifice.
To Diognetus 4.1Anonymous · ca. 150–200 (disputed) · Jewish food laws, sabbaths, circumcision, and fasts are dismissed.
Apology 14Aristides of Athens · ca. 125–145 · The Jews descend from the patriarchs and were delivered by God from Egypt, but turned to idols, killed the prophets, and rejected Christ.
First Apology 32Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · Moses' prophecy of Judah's ruler and the foal bound to the vine, and Isaiah's star and flower from Jesse, point to Christ.
First Apology 47Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The prophets foretold the desolation of Jerusalem, now forbidden to Jews by Roman law.
First Apology 49Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The Gentiles, who did not expect Christ, received him; the Jews, who expected him, did not.
First Apology 63Justin Martyr · ca. 150–155 · The one who spoke to Moses from the bush was the Son, the Word, who is also God; the Jews wrongly think it was the Father.
Dialogue with Trypho 12.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · The Jews have rejected the new covenant, though its lawgiver has come.
Dialogue with Trypho 16.4Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin charges that Christians are cursed in the synagogues.
Dialogue with Trypho 17.1Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Justin accuses the Jewish leaders of spreading slanders against Christians throughout the world.
Dialogue with Trypho 47.2Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Some Christians shun law-keeping Jewish believers; Justin says they should be welcomed as brothers.
Dialogue with Trypho 47.3Justin Martyr · ca. 155–160 · Jewish believers who compel Gentiles to keep the law, or refuse fellowship, are not accepted.
Diatessaron, section 20Tatian · ca. 160-180
Against Heresies 3.12.6Irenaeus of Lyons · ca. 180–190 · The apostles did not adapt their teaching to the Jews' existing beliefs; had they known a higher God, they would have proclaimed him as boldly as they denounced idols.
Hortatory Address to the Greeks 13Anonymous · 2nd–3rd century (disputed) · The Jewish scriptures, preserved in the synagogues, belong to the Christians' teaching, and their Jewish custody guards against charges of forgery.
Miscellanies 7.18.109Clement of Alexandria · ca. 198–203 · Clement closes with an allegory of the food laws: clean animals both divide the hoof (faith in the Father and the Son) and chew the cud (meditating on Scripture); animals with only one sign stand for most Jews and for the heretics.
Octavius 33.3Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · While the Jews obeyed God they prospered and were delivered, as at the Red Sea.
Octavius 33.4Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · Jewish and Roman writers show that the Jews' fall was foretold for their disobedience.
Octavius 33.5Minucius Felix · ca. 197–250 · The Jews were not captured with God but handed over by him for abandoning his law.
Apology 18Tertullian · ca. 197 · God has also revealed himself through the prophets, whose writings were translated into Greek for Ptolemy Philadelphus and are read openly by the Jews every Sabbath.
Apology 21Tertullian · ca. 197 · Tertullian explains the relation of Christians to the Jews and sets out who Christ is: the Word and Son of God, God from God, born of a virgin, crucified, risen, and ascended.
Against the Jews 1Tertullian · ca. 197–207 · After a public debate with a Jewish proselyte, Tertullian sets out in writing that the Gentiles are admitted to God's law, reading the oracle to Rebecca (“the greater will serve the lesser”) of Israel and the church.
To the Nations 1.11Tertullian · 197 · The slander that Christians worship an ass's head comes from Tacitus, who contradicts himself, and pagans themselves worship asses and all kinds of animals.
Didascalia 5.15–16Anonymous · first half of the third century
On the Psalms, fragment 5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Ps 59:11: the Jewish people no longer has king, high priest, prophet, scribes, Pharisees or Sadducees.
On the Psalms, fragment 6Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Ps 59:11: the Jews were not destroyed but scattered among the nations, so that seeing the church they might be moved to zeal for godliness.
On Proverbs, fragment 1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 200–235 · On Prov 1:11: the plot to hide the righteous man in the earth refers to the Jews' killing of Christ.
Arabic Pentateuch fragment XXVI (on Deut 27)Hippolytus of Rome · unknown (transmitted in a medieval Arabic catena) · The catena retells the blessings and curses on Gerizim and Ebal, with notes on Shechem (Nablus), the Samaritans, and events of Genesis and John that took place there.
Against the Jews 2Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The preacher traces God's covenants from Adam to Noah, Abraham, and Moses, and charges Israel with rejecting God and persecuting the prophets who foretold Christ.
Against the Jews 5Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · God rejected the festivals in which Christ was killed, and the risen Christ opened his new testament and invited all nations and all kinds of people to the inheritance.
Against the Jews 7Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · The kingdom has passed from Jerusalem to the Gentile church, which carries Christ's cross, while Israel has lost its temple treasures and land and wanders in exile.
On Mount Sinai and Mount Zion 8Anonymous · 3rd cent. (disputed) · At the crucifixion some wept and others mocked, until the signs in heaven and earth turned the feast into mourning, fulfilling Amos.
Prescription against Heretics 8Tertullian · ca. 203 · “Seek and you will find” was spoken early in Christ's ministry chiefly to the Jews, who had the law and prophets to seek him in; Christians receive the teaching through the apostles.
Fragment 7 on Genesis (Gen. 49, 3. 4)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · Reuben's blessing is read as a prophecy of the people of the circumcision, which hardened itself, laid hands on the Lord, and still plots against the church.
Fragment 8 on Genesis (Gen. 49, ὅ)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · Simeon and Levi stand for the scribes and priests who together killed the Lord.
Fragment 14 on Genesis (Gen. 49, 72)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · The curse of Simeon and Levi falls not on the whole people but on those who rose against Christ.
Fragment 15 on Genesis (Gen. 49, 74)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · “Israel” means one who sees God; the people who rejected him will be scattered among the nations that see God.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, fragment 3 (Song 1:7)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · The synagogue, left behind as Christ goes to the Gentiles, asks where he pastures his flock.
Commentary on the Song of Songs, fragment 5 (Song 1:8)Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-235 · Christ warns the bride who does not know her beauty to go out and tend the kids, the souls of sinners; the sheep and goats of the judgment, and Jacob's flock, show that Israel is no longer counted among his sheep.
4.49Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 202-204 · The Antichrist foretold by all Scripture will conquer Tyre, Egypt, Libya and Ethiopia, rebuild Jerusalem and the temple, gather the Jews and be worshipped as the Christ by the disobedient.
Against Marcion 2.15Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · Punishing children for their fathers' sins was a remedy for a hard-hearted people, later replaced by individual responsibility; and the Jews who cried “His blood be on us and on our children” brought that sentence on themselves.
Against Marcion 3.6Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The Jews' rejection of Jesus does not prove he was a stranger to their God, for the Creator's prophets foretold that they would fail to recognize their own Christ.
Against Marcion 3.23Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · The ruin of Judea, the scattering of the Jews, and the end of prophecy among them were foretold as punishment for rejecting the Creator's Christ, so he must be the one who came.
Against Marcion 5.15Tertullian · 207/208 (third edition, completed later) · In 1 Thessalonians the Jews' guilt for killing both the prophets and the Lord, the call to holiness in marriage, the rapture to meet the Lord, the command not to quench the Spirit, and the prayer for spirit, soul, and body all fit only the Creator.
On Modesty 8Tertullian · ca. 210–220 · The prodigal son cannot stand for a Christian sinner, since the elder son does not fit the Jewish people; parables must be read by their own subject, not bent as the heretics bend them.
On First Principles 4.1.3Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · The prophecy that rule would not fail from Judah until the expected one came is fulfilled, since kingship, temple and priesthood have ceased and the nations believe through Christ.
On First Principles 4.2.1Origen · ca. 220–230 (Rufinus's translation 398) · Misreading Scripture by the letter led the Jews to reject Christ, the heretics to divide the just Creator from the good God, and some simple believers to think unworthily of God.
Eclogae on Exodus-Judges, column 401Origen · ca. 220-254 · The leper's cleansing read of Christ: water and blood, the wood of the cross, scarlet for his blood, hyssop for the Spirit; the leprous house is the synagogue, for which the prophets plead.
PG 12:1579 (Ps 117 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 118:22–27 (LXX 117): the rejected stone as Christ, the day the Lord made as the day of reconciliation, and the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
PG 12:1601 (Ps 118 LXX)Origen · ca. 220-254 · Notes on Psalm 119:91–98 (LXX 118): the ant not under a master, meditation on the law as a preparation for martyrdom, day and night in the life of the beginner and of the perfect, and wisdom above one's enemies.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.8.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Contents: the Ebionites and their Jewish customs.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.28.5Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Saturnilus made the God of the Jews one of the angels, whom Christ came to overthrow while saving those with the spark of life.
Refutation of All Heresies 7.34.2Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · The Ebionites keep the Jewish law, saying Jesus became Christ by keeping it perfectly and that they too can become Christs.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.5.1Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Contents: Jewish customs and sects.
Refutation of All Heresies 9.12.7Hippolytus of Rome · ca. 222–235 · Unable to repay, Callistus sought death by disrupting a synagogue service, and the Jews dragged him before the prefect.
Commentary on John 10.139Origen · ca. 230–248 · After Jesus drove out the animals, Jewish sacrifice did not long continue.
Commentary on John 28.86Origen · ca. 230–248 · The leaders feared that faith in Jesus would end the temple worship and give Rome a pretext to destroy the nation.
Commentary on John 28.97Origen · ca. 230–248 · The same conflict continues in those who uphold literal Judaism against Christ.
Homily on Luke 5Origen · ca. 233–250 · Zechariah’s silence prefigures the silence of prophecy in Israel, whose observances without the Word are like his mute nods, a warning to Gentile believers not to prove unworthy of their adoption.
Homily on Isaiah 9Origen · ca. 235–250 · Origen returns to Isaiah's commission, reports a Hebrew teacher's view that the prophet grew reluctant after hearing his grim message, and explains the fat heart as one choked by worldly cares; the homily breaks off unfinished.
Homilies on Exodus 7.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The order of the journey, Marah before Elim, is the order of faith: from the letter of the law, sweetened by the cross, to the twelve springs of the apostles and the seventy palms of the seventy disciples.
Homilies on Joshua 26.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The altar built beyond the Jordan as a copy of the true one shows that the righteous before Christ knew their altar was only a figure and are brothers of Christians; Aaron standing between the dead and the living figures Christ, whom part of the Jewish people received and part rejected.
Homilies on Leviticus 3.3Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Touching the unclean signifies contact with sin (desire, greed) and following those dead in sin, whether 'men', 'clean animals' of the church, or those seized by the devil; literal corpse-impurity is rejected.
Homilies on Numbers 28.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Since the Jews no longer possess the land, the boundaries of Numbers 34 cannot be meant merely literally; following wisdom, Origen reads them as a shadow and image of the heavenly inheritance.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 1.1Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · Origen calls Psalm 36 (37) wholly moral and explains “do not emulate”: neither lead others into wickedness nor imitate the wicked; from Deut 32:21 and 1 Cor 10:22 he shows that “emulate” means to provoke jealousy.
Homilies on Psalms 36-38 5.2Origen · ca. 238–250 (Rufinus's translation ca. 400–410) · The tongue of the righteous speaks judgment by speaking with right judgment or about the coming judgment, and will fully speak God’s judgments when we see face to face; the law must be rooted in the heart, not only on the lips.
Homilies on Jeremiah 4.1Origen · ca. 240 · Literally, the passage recalls how Israel, the northern kingdom, was exiled first for its sins, while Judah, instead of learning from it, sinned still worse.
Homilies on Jeremiah 18.9Origen · ca. 240 · The three waters of the text, from the rock, from Lebanon, and driven by the wind, are Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit; Jews, heretics, and despisers of prophecy each fail to drink because they thirst for only one or two, and God never withdraws from us, but we from him.
Lines 215–236Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · Israel killed the prophets sent to correct it and did not recognize Christ, who came in humble flesh and healed by his word.
Lines 669–692Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · The Jews, who rejected the Son of God foretold by the prophets, admit Gentiles by washings that cannot cleanse the heart.
Instructions 1.37Commodian · 3rd century (disputed) · Commodian warns pagans who attend the synagogue that Jewish teachers cannot lead them to salvation.
Letter to Africanus 11Origen · ca. 240–245 · Origen argues that Jewish leaders removed passages discrediting elders and judges from public Scripture, citing the sawing of Isaiah, Jesus’ words on the prophets, Stephen, and Paul.
To Vigilius, on Jewish Unbelief 1Anonymous · 3rd century (disputed) · The author laments the persistent unbelief of the Jewish people, though God always calls sinners to return.
To Vigilius, on Jewish Unbelief 8Anonymous · 3rd century (disputed) · The author introduces his Latin translation of the Greek dialogue of Jason and Papiscus and asks Vigilius to check it and receive him as a disciple.
Against Celsus 1.14Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus trusts the ancient histories of every nation but the Jews, and leaves the Jews out of his list of wise peoples.
Against Celsus 1.15Origen · ca. 248 · Numenius, Hermippus, and Hecataeus, unlike Celsus, recognized the wisdom of the Jews.
Against Celsus 1.16Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus counts obscure peoples and poets like Linus and Orpheus among the ancient sages but leaves out the Jews and Moses, whose antiquity Josephus and Tatian proved and whose laws a whole nation still keeps.
Against Celsus 1.26Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus falsely says the Jews worship angels and practice sorcery; and the swift spread of Christ's teaching, which has transformed many lives, shows that it is from God.
Against Celsus 1.52Origen · ca. 248 · Habit and prejudice explain why many Jews rejected clear prophecies, just as Egyptians cling to their animal gods.
Against Celsus 2.1Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's Jew accuses Jewish Christians of abandoning the law, but Jewish believers such as the Ebionites keep it, as Peter did for a long time and as Paul did among Jews.
Against Celsus 2.8Origen · ca. 248 · No one like Jesus has appeared; the Jews' rejection of him was foretold by Isaiah, and Origen sees their loss of Jerusalem as a consequence.
Against Celsus 2.34Origen · ca. 248 · Origen answers Celsus's taunts drawn from Euripides' Bacchae, pointing to the miraculous freeing of Peter and Paul, the judgment on the Jewish nation, Pilate's wife's dream, and Jesus' patient endurance of mockery.
Against Celsus 2.74Origen · ca. 248 · Answering the claim that no god present among people is disbelieved, Origen points out that Israel disbelieved God's own manifest presence in the Exodus and made the golden calf, so their unbelief toward Jesus is in character.
Against Celsus 2.75Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Jews' rejection of Jesus matches their ancestors' unbelief in the wilderness, fulfilling Jesus' words and the prophecy of Deuteronomy about “your life hanging before your eyes.”
Against Celsus 3.1Origen · ca. 248 · Opening Book 3, Origen addresses Celsus's own claim that the dispute between Jews and Christians over whether the prophesied Savior has come is a quarrel over nothing.
Against Celsus 3.5Origen · ca. 248 · Origen rejects Celsus's claim that the Jews were rebel Egyptians, replying that the Egyptians oppressed the Hebrew guests, were punished by God, and slandered Moses, who was a pious lawgiver and truthful historian.
Against Celsus 3.6Origen · ca. 248 · Origen argues that the Hebrews cannot have been rebel Egyptians, since they had their own language and script before going to Egypt, in which Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
Against Celsus 4.2Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks both Christians and Jews for expecting a divine judge to come to earth, but he never engages the actual prophecies about Christ; and Jews do not say the coming Messiah is God.
Against Celsus 4.22Origen · ca. 248 · Origen sees the destruction of Jerusalem about forty years after the crucifixion, and the Jews' long exile from their temple worship, as evidence of Jesus' divine significance and of God's call passing to the Christians.
Against Celsus 4.34Origen · ca. 248 · The power of the patriarchs' names in exorcism can only be explained from Genesis, and their Hebrew names prove that the Jewish nation truly descends from them.
Against Celsus 4.35Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus should have argued properly against the Jewish genealogy instead of hinting; no one can prove the patriarchs contemptible or claim their Hebrew names for another people.
Against Celsus 5.6Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus charges the Jews with worshipping heaven and angels but not the sun and stars; Origen replies that the Law forbids worshipping any created thing, heavenly bodies and angels alike.
Against Celsus 5.26Origen · ca. 248 · Origen asks Celsus who allotted the nations to their overseers: if Zeus, did he approve Jewish law or not? And if no one did, providence is denied.
Against Celsus 5.41Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus says the Jews have no special claim: others worship the heavens as God under different names, and others also practise circumcision and food taboos; their ruined state shows God has no special favor for them.
Against Celsus 5.42Origen · ca. 248 · Against Celsus, Origen praises the ancient Jewish commonwealth: no games or prostitution, children taught to seek God beyond the material world and to believe in the soul's immortality and judgment, and prophecy instead of divination.
Against Celsus 5.50Origen · ca. 248 · The Jews were once favored and protected by God, as Alexander's homage to the high priest shows; that favor has now passed to Christians, whom Rome cannot destroy because God defends them.
Against Celsus 8.42Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus's vengeful gods prove wicked; and it is false that Jesus' killers went unpunished, since Jerusalem, where he was condemned, was soon besieged and destroyed.
Against Celsus 8.53Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus cautiously leaves open several views of why souls are imprisoned in bodies, quoting Empedocles; Origen says he should have been equally cautious before reviling Moses, the prophets, and Jesus, whose followers God surely did not ignore.
Against Celsus 8.69Origen · ca. 248 · Celsus mocks the hope that God would defend a Christian Rome, pointing to the Jews' loss of their land and the persecution of Christians; Origen answers that if all Romans prayed together, God would fight for them as for Moses, and God's promises were conditional.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 101Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Peter, not yet grasping the gospel's patience, struck with the sword; the cutting off of the servant's right ear figures the loss of the Jewish people's right hearing of the law, which they now hear only in its shadow, as Isaiah foretold.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 105Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Caiaphas figures the teaching of the Jewish service that opposes the truth of Jesus, the true priest; the scribes preside over the letter that kills, and the elders rest in its oldness.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 124Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · Pilate tried to shame the crowd, which demanded not only the murderer's release but the righteous man's crucifixion; he washed his hands, but they took the blood of Christ upon themselves and their children, which Origen applies to all later generations; Pilate then handed Jesus over to be crucified.
Commentary on Matthew, Latin Series 1.144Origen · ca. 244–249 (Latin translation, 4th–5th century) · The chief priests' request for a guard shows that they knew Jesus had spoken of his bodily resurrection and so condemns their own false testimony; the charge that he planned a theft is incredible; like Pharaoh, they hardened their hearts even against the guards' report and bribed the soldiers to lie, yet God bore with them so that salvation might come to the Gentiles.
Commentary on Matthew 10.22Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen reads Herodias’s dancing daughter as the vicious teaching that pleased Herod and silenced prophecy among the Jews, notes that no righteous man in Scripture keeps a birthday, and warns that not every oath should be kept.
Commentary on Matthew 11.11Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen sets out Isa 29:9–15 in full and applies the sealed book and the lip-service to the Jews who do not believe in Jesus, whose wisdom and prophecy God has removed.
Commentary on Matthew 14.19Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen reads Deuteronomy's law of divorce allegorically of the synagogue, divorced by Christ for unfaithfulness, with the fall of Jerusalem and the end of the temple worship as the bill of divorce.
Commentary on Matthew 16.3Origen · ca. 246–248 · Origen links the Passion to the fall of Jerusalem and the end of its priesthood and temple, reads the earthly temple as a shadow replaced by the heavenly, and applies the Passion figuratively to the Jews of his own day, while the nations see Christ the great light.
Commentary on Matthew 16.10Origen · ca. 246–248 · The two blind men by the road are Israel and Judah before Christ’s coming, sitting by the law and the prophets without seeing their meaning, and knowing Jesus only as son of David according to the flesh.
Commentary on Matthew 16.12Origen · ca. 246–248 · Literally, the blind men in Matthew, Mark, and Luke may be different healings; figuratively, Bartimaeus is the Israelite remnant, and the Ebionite who believes Jesus a son of Joseph is rebuked by Gentile believers in the virgin birth, yet is healed when he calls him Rabbouni.
Commentary on Romans 1.14Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Paul is not ashamed of the Gospel, God's saving power (his 'right hand'), perhaps Christ himself; his order 'Jew, Greek, barbarian' improves on the Greeks' division, since the Jews had laws first, and from God.
Commentary on Romans 2.7Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Jews come first for both punishment and reward because they knew God's will; Origen distinguishes Christians, who alone have eternal life, from unbelieving Jews and Gentiles, whose good works will still receive glory, honor, and peace, since believers too are judged for their deeds.
Commentary on Romans 2.11Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · Origen notes that Paul, like the prophets, shifts the speaking and addressed persons; he applies Rom 2:17–24 first to the one who is a Jew only in name, then to church leaders whose lives contradict their teaching, and finally to heretics who steal the meaning of Scripture.
Commentary on Romans 8.1Origen · ca. 244–246 (Rufinus's translation ca. 405–406) · The Jews have zeal for God but not according to knowledge, and the same can be true of Christians' fear, love, faith, chastity, almsgiving and fasting; yet zeal without knowledge is better than none, and Paul prays for Israel's salvation.
That Idols Are Not Gods 9Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 246–250, if by Cyprian · God is invisible, incomprehensible, needs no temple or name, and is confessed even in the ordinary speech of the common people.
To Quirinus 1.3Cyprian of Carthage · ca. 248–250 (book 3 perhaps later) · The prophets foretold that Israel would not know, understand, or receive the Lord, as John's Gospel records.
Martyrdom of Pionius and Companions 4Anonymous · 250 (the text may be later) · Pionius's speech to the Greeks and Jews of Smyrna on mockery, apostasy, and the coming judgment by fire.
13Anonymous · 250 (the text may be later) · Pionius warns the lapsed against Jewish invitations and answers the charge that Christ was a mere man who died a violent death.
On Jewish Foods 1Novatian · ca. 250–258 · Novatian thanks his congregation for their letters, explains why he writes during his absence, and introduces this third letter against the Jews, on the food laws.
Symposium 4.4Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd century · The willows are self-control; singing the Lord's song in a foreign land means profaning the gospel or reading the law in an earthly sense.
Sang. 9Methodius of Olympus · late 3rd cent. (disputed) · In Psalm 19 day is the apostles and the church, night the prophets and the Law with their dark sayings; after the resurrection the apostles' preaching went out to all the earth.
Canon 16Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · Catholic girls are not to be married to heretics or Jews; parents who do so are excluded from communion for five years.
Canon 49Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · Christian landowners must not have their crops blessed by Jews.
Canon 50Anonymous · ca. 306 (disputed, ca. 295–314) · Clergy or faithful who eat with Jews are excluded from communion until corrected.
Church History 4.2.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · While the church flourished, a new Jewish revolt in Trajan's eighteenth year brought great destruction.
Church History 4.6.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · When the Jews revolted again under Hadrian, the governor Rufus crushed them mercilessly.
Church History 4.6.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · After the fall of Beththera, Hadrian banned Jews even from approaching Jerusalem, as Ariston of Pella relates.
Church History 4.18.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Justin (quoted) accuses the Jewish leaders of sending envoys everywhere to slander Christians.
Church History 4.22.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 300–325 · Hegesippus (quoted) lists seven Jewish sects: Essenes, Galileans, Hemerobaptists, Masbothei, Samaritans, Sadducees, and Pharisees.
Recognitions 9.28Anonymous · Greek original 3rd–4th century; Rufinus's Latin translation before 407 · Jews everywhere circumcise on the eighth day, keep one name, never expose infants, and rest on the Sabbath, showing that law, not birth-fate, governs conduct.
Prophetic Extracts 1.8Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius applies Jacob's blessing of Judah to Christ: the lion's whelp, the end of Jewish rulers with Herod, and the church's leaders, who will not fail even in the present persecution.
Prophetic Extracts 1.15Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius identifies the prophet like Moses as Jesus, lawgiver of the new covenant, and sees the promised vengeance in the fate of the generation that rejected him.
Prophetic Extracts 3.10Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · On Hosea's “I am like a panther,” Eusebius quotes Didymus on the panther's fragrance and turns the text against the Jewish slander that Jesus was born of “a panther.”
Prophetic Extracts 3.11Eusebius of Caesarea · before 325 (probably ca. 310–320) · Eusebius reads Hosea's “out of Egypt I called my son,” with Aquila's version, as fulfilled in Christ's return from Egypt and the end of the Jewish kingdom.
Divine Institutes 4.2.4Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Pythagoras and Plato visited Egypt and Persia but not the Jews, who alone had wisdom.
Divine Institutes 7.1.24Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · Christ's second coming, which the Jews await in vain.
Divine Institutes 7.1.26Lactantius · ca. 303–311 · A separate work against the Jews is promised.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.5.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius admits that Christians have left Greek religion and use the Jewish books without living as Jews.
Preparation for the Gospel 1.5.12Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius will show the excellence of the Hebrew books, why Christians do not live as Jews, and what Christianity is: neither Hellenism nor Judaism.
Preparation for the Gospel 7.6.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Eusebius distinguishes the ancient Hebrews from the later Jews.
Preparation for the Gospel 7.6.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · Jews are named from Judah, Hebrews from Eber.
Preparation for the Gospel 7.8.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 313–324 · The patriarchs were neither Jews nor Greeks but Hebrews.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.1.11Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius insists that his book is not against the Jews but confirms both the Christian case and the truth of the Jewish prophecies.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.1.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The second charge, from the Jews, is that Christians use their scriptures without keeping their way of life.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.1.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The Demonstration will answer the second charge, that of the Jews.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.2.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christianity is neither Hellenism nor Judaism but the ancient piety of the godly men before Moses.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.2.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Job cannot be called Jews, since the law of Moses did not yet exist.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.2.10Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christianity is the ancient piety of the patriarchs renewed by Christ, a middle way between Hellenism and Judaism.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.7.6Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Christians do not keep Jewish observances but accept the Jewish prophecies; Christ fulfills the law in another way too.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.7.17Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The rejected stone is Christ, rejected by the Jewish leaders but made head of the new covenant.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.7.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Moses warned that whoever did not heed the prophet would be destroyed, which Eusebius sees fulfilled in the Jews’ fate.
Demonstration of the Gospel 1.7.21Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Rejecting Christ and unable to keep the law, the Jews fall under Moses’ curse.
Demonstration of the Gospel, Book 2, preface 1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Book 2 opens by answering the Jewish objection that the prophetic promises belong to Israel alone.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.1.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius will show that the promises are equal for Jews and Greeks, and further that the prophets foretold Israel’s rejection, apart from a remnant, and the fall of Jerusalem.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.2.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius turns to his third point: prophecies of judgment on Israel at Christ’s coming.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Israel refused God’s way, so the nations heard; next heading: Jeremiah 16.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.3Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Judah’s sin is engraved on its heart; it will be plundered and lose its inheritance.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Judah will be enslaved in a foreign land; next heading: Amos.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · God rebukes Israel for its sins and empty worship.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.53Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Since Christ’s coming, Isaiah’s prophecy of desolation has been fulfilled in the fall of the temple and the land.
Demonstration of the Gospel 2.3.86Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Isaiah’s “tenth” and later plunder refer to the sieges under Vespasian and Hadrian, after which Jews were barred from Jerusalem.
Demonstration of the Gospel 3.5.108Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Acts and history attest many Jewish believers and a great Jewish church in Jerusalem until Hadrian.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.16.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · If the Jews apply the psalm to a future Messiah, they must accept that he too will be persecuted, which they deny.
Demonstration of the Gospel 4.16.33Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Eusebius takes Amos’s lament as a lasting sentence on Jerusalem and the Jewish community.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.82Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · The dogs and evildoers are the Jewish rulers who stirred the crowd to call his blood upon themselves.
Demonstration of the Gospel 10.8.83Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 314–324 · Isaiah calls Israel’s leaders dumb dogs; instead of guarding the flock they barked at the chief shepherd.
On the Incarnation 33.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Athanasius turns to answer Jewish unbelief and Greek mockery.
On the Incarnation 33.2Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Jews and Greeks object to the cross and the incarnation; Athanasius will answer both.
On the Incarnation 39.1Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Jewish critics may say the prophecies are still awaiting fulfillment.
On the Incarnation 40.8Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 318–325 · Athanasius concludes his argument against Jewish objections.
On the Paschal Feast 5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337 · Eusebius explains that during the fifty days of Pentecost Christians neither kneel nor fast, as an image of the rest of the resurrection ending with the Ascension, and that Christ suffered at Passover because the Jewish lamb was a type of him.
On the Paschal Feast 9Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337 · Eusebius argues from John and Luke that Jesus ate his Passover with the disciples on Thursday, a day before the Jews ate theirs on the day of his death, so that the Christian Pascha is new and distinct from the Jewish one.
Theophany 3.26Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.18Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Theophany 4.22Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 325–337
Against Marcellus 1.1.13Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Knowledge of Father, Son and Spirit marks off Christians from Judaism.
Against Marcellus 1.1.16Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 336–337 · Any Jew grants that God has a word, but not that he has a Son.
Demonstration 12.2Aphrahat · 337-345 · The Passover could be kept only at Jerusalem; scattered Israel cannot lawfully keep it, as the prophets foretold, and God has provoked them through the believing nations.
Demonstration 12.11Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat argues against the Jews' keeping of the Passover and restoration of the ark, citing Jeremiah's new covenant and God's promise to Abraham of many nations.
Demonstration 13.1Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat introduces the sabbath commandment and his reply to Jewish pride in keeping it.
Demonstration 13.12Aphrahat · 337-345 · Joshua fought on the sabbath, the Maccabees chose to fight on it, and the priests worked on it in the temple without sin, so the Jews boast in vain of keeping it.
Demonstration 16.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · The prophets called unfaithful Israel and Judah Sodom, the fornicating and adulterous wife, and a burned vine, while the name Jacob and pure offerings pass to the faithful people of the nations.
Demonstration 16.8Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat answers Jewish claims to be Abraham's children with John the Baptist, Christ, and Paul's olive tree, warning Gentile believers too against boasting.
Demonstration 19.1Aphrahat · 337-345 · God brought Israel out of Egypt and back from Babylon, but many chose to stay in Babylon, as they would have stayed in Egypt had they not been driven out.
Demonstration 19.3Aphrahat · 337-345 · Moses and the prophets, especially Hosea, Jeremiah, and Micah, repeatedly condemned Israel and announced its rejection.
Demonstration 19.6Aphrahat · 337-345 · God delivered Israel twice, from Egypt and from Babylon; the restoration prophecies of Haggai and Zechariah were fulfilled in the return under Zerubbabel, not in a future gathering.
Demonstration 19.11Aphrahat · 337-345 · Aphrahat interprets the seventy weeks: forty-nine years of rebuilding (Zechariah's lampstand with forty-nine spouts) and 434 years to Christ's death, after which Jerusalem's desolation is final.
Demonstration 19.12Aphrahat · 337-345 · This instruction is meant to equip the reader to answer Jewish arguments, though Scripture shows they will not be persuaded.
Demonstration 21.3Aphrahat · 337-345
Demonstration 21.5Aphrahat · 337-345
On Ecclesiastical Theology 1.17.8Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus introduces a Jewish dogma, insisting that before the world there was only God.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.2.1Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus agrees with the Jew that only God existed before the world; the church confesses the Lord through whom all things exist.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.14.20Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus agrees with the Jew on God alone before creation and with Sabellius on one Father-Son.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.18.7Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus hides behind the Old Testament's teaching of one God, given to idolatrous Israel.
On Ecclesiastical Theology 2.22.5Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Marcellus offers what a synagogue teacher could say and distorts the true theology of Christ.
Life of Constantine 3.18.2Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · The letter rejects dating Easter by the Jewish calendar, in harshly anti-Jewish language.
Life of Constantine 3.18.4Eusebius of Caesarea · ca. 337–339 · Constantine accuses the Jews of error in their calendar, which could place Passover twice in one year.
Oration II Against the Arians 16Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Athanasius paraphrases Peter's argument to the Jews: the Scriptures announce a divine, life-giving Christ, fulfilled in the crucified and risen Jesus, and God made the Word become man so that we would not worship a mere man.
Oration II Against the Arians 42Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Grace comes from the Father in the Son; those who deny the true Son, like the Jews who rejected him, endanger even baptism, which requires right faith together with the names.
Oration II Against the Arians 73Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Wisdom, by whom the earth was founded, was “founded” for us as the foundation of the new creation; the decisive question, which even the devil asked, is whether he is the Son.
Oration III Against the Arians 27Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · The Arians, stumbling at Christ's human experiences, repeat the objections of those who rejected him in the Gospels, and both deny the Word's Godhead because of his flesh.
Oration III Against the Arians 28Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 339–346 · Athanasius urges the Arians to stop echoing Christ's opponents and to read the Gospels by the rule of the church's faith: the Son is eternal as the Father's own offspring.
Oration IV Against the Arians 23Athanasius of Alexandria · 4th century (disputed) · The author argues that if the Word became Son only at the incarnation, no one could have known the Father before, and rejects the claim that the Son is later because the Old Testament speaks of the Word.
Canon 37Anonymous · ca. 343–381 · Christians are not to accept festival gifts from Jews or heretics or keep their feasts.
Canon 38Anonymous · ca. 343–381 · Christians are not to accept unleavened bread from Jews.
Catechetical Lecture 7.2Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · Unlike the Jews, Christians confess the one God as Father of Christ, as the Psalms foretold; faith in the Father prepares for faith in the Son.
Catechetical Lecture 15.15Cyril of Jerusalem · ca. 350 · The Antichrist will seat himself in the ruined Jewish temple, claiming to rebuild it as David's heir, and will persecute the saints.
On the Opinion of Dionysius 8Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 350–356 · The apostles first spoke of Christ’s humanity to persuade the Jews he had come, and then taught his divinity.
Long recension, Magnesians 8Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius warns against Jewish practices and teaches that the prophets lived according to Christ, the substantial Word of God.
Long recension, Magnesians 10Anonymous · later 4th century (probable) · Ignatius urges the Magnesians to live up to the name Christian, first given at Antioch, and to put away Judaism.
Commentary on Matthew 24Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 353–355 · Hilary expounds the woes against the scribes and Pharisees: obey the law they teach but not their deeds, the shut kingdom, the proselyte made a son of Gehenna, oaths by the temple, tithing herbs, the whitewashed tombs, the killing of the prophets, and the lament over Jerusalem, with Christ as a hen gathering her chicks.
On Not Agreeing with Heretics 10Lucifer of Cagliari · ca. 356–361 · Lucifer quotes Hebrews 3:2–4:13 on the unbelief that kept Israel from God's rest, and Peter's call to escape a crooked generation, to show that the faithful must withdraw from the Arians.
Letters to Serapion 4.16Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · The Pharisees, like Israel with the golden calf, ascribed God’s works to another and so passed from pardonable weakness to unpardonable blasphemy.
Letters to Serapion 4.22Athanasius of Alexandria · ca. 357–360 · The Pharisees, worse than Pharaoh’s magicians, and the Arians alike deny Christ’s Godhead and incur the unpardonable sin; the pious, confessing him God and man, will reign with him.
On the Holy Spirit 48Didymus the Blind · Greek ca. 360-390; Latin 387-391 · Applied to the Jews who crucified Christ, God's fighting against them is their defeat and exile under Rome, yet God leaves them a place for repentance until all Israel is saved.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.7.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Cain and Abel prefigure the Jewish people's hostility to the Christians.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.7.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Hilary applies Cain's punishment to the Jewish people after the fall of Jerusalem and links the names to Christ's woes and beatitudes.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.7.3Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · Jesus links Abel's blood to the guilt of his own generation.
Treatise on the Mysteries 1.7.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–366 · The blood of Abel and of Christ's body is required of those who cried, "His blood be on us."
Tractates on the Psalms 2.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The peoples who meditated vain things are the Jews from many nations who studied the law without recognizing Christ in it.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Doeg stands for Israel, mighty through God's gifts in the exodus and conquest yet mighty in wickedness, from the golden calf to the crucifixion.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.10Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The verse distinguishes loving wickedness from refusing even to speak righteousness, which is Christ, of whom Hilary's Jewish contemporaries will not hear.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.14Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Having chosen Caesar over God as king, the people lost their city and tabernacle and were scattered.
Tractates on the Psalms 51.15Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Plucked from the tabernacle, the people lost its prophecy, sacrifices, Passover, and festivals.
Tractates on the Psalms 58.7Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · After the diapsalma the fate of the people is foretold: temple destroyed, city forbidden by imperial edict, they circle it hungry for God's word.
Tractates on the Psalms 58.12Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Meanwhile the scattered people hunger for their lost temple worship, imitate it elsewhere without satisfaction, and murmur as in the wilderness.
Tractates on the Psalms 68.19Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The table of Scripture, which reveals Christ throughout the law and prophets, becomes a snare to those who crucified him, darkening their eyes and burdening them with the law.
Tractates on the Psalms 91.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalm says nothing of weekly rest; the rest God swore the impious would not enter cannot be the Sabbath day, which they keep.
Tractates on the Psalms 118.13.4Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The psalmist's real enemies are those who keep the law's Sabbath and Passover without knowing Christ, whom they put to death.
Tractates on the Psalms 121.8Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The nations confess Christ as God, a testimony against Israel, which received every gift yet rejected the law, the prophets, and Christ himself.
Tractates on the Psalms 131.1Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · This psalm concerns the Son of God's incarnation; the Jews refer it to David, though the prophets long after David promised a future 'David'.
Tractates on the Psalms 131.2Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The promised 'David' is Christ, shepherd, king, righteous judge, and light, who took David's name with his flesh; the psalm fits him, not Jesse's son.
Tractates on the Psalms 131.11Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · Neither the histories nor the psalm support the Jewish reading; Ephrata and the fields of the wood do not match the threshing floor in Jerusalem, and the temple is gone.
Tractates on the Psalms 139.6Hilary of Poitiers · ca. 360–367 · The snares, ropes, and stumbling blocks are the plots of the Jewish leaders and the trick questions of Sadducees and Pharisees about resurrection, tribute, the law, and divorce.
Commentary on Ephesians 0Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Victorinus states the two themes of Ephesians, theology and precepts for living, and its purpose of correcting Ephesians who were adding Judaism to the Christian teaching.
Commentary on Galatians 0Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Victorinus states the purpose of Galatians: to call the Galatians back from adding Judaism, understood bodily, to faith in Christ, by first establishing Paul’s authority as an apostle taught by revelation.
Commentary on Galatians 1.13Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Victorinus outlines Paul’s autobiographical argument in Gal 1–2, that he learned his gospel from no one, including his rebuke of Peter, whom he says James’s envoys had swayed, and then explains Paul’s former zeal in Judaism.
Commentary on Galatians 2.11Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Paul publicly rebuked Peter at Antioch for withdrawing from table fellowship with Gentiles out of fear of men from James; Victorinus holds that Peter only pretended, but sinned by acting from fear and by leading Gentiles to judaize.
Commentary on Galatians 4.9Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Turning back to “weak and needy elements” could mean pagan worship of the elements, but Victorinus takes it chiefly of the Galatians’ fleshly reading of the Jewish law, which serves the ever-needy flesh, after they had been known by God.
Commentary on Philippians 3.1Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Paul warns against the “dogs” and evil workers, whom Victorinus identifies with the Jews relying on works and on a circumcision that is mere cutting, while Christians are the true circumcision of the heart, serving God by the Spirit.
Commentary on Philippians 3.4Marius Victorinus · ca. 360–363 · Paul could boast in the flesh more than anyone, by circumcision, race, tribe, law, zeal, and blameless legal righteousness, yet counts it all loss for Christ, from whom Christians now have righteousness.
Oration 5.2Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory passes over the judgments that struck persecutors to tell of Julian's plan to rebuild the Jerusalem temple.
Oration 18.5Gregory of Nazianzus · ca. 362–383 · Gregory tells how his father came from the Hypsistarian sect, a mix of pagan and Jewish practices, and gave up family and property for the truth.
Tractates 1.13.6Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno cites the prophets and Moses against the Jews to show that God requires circumcision of the heart.
Tractates 2.22.3Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno expounds 'I have begotten and exalted sons' of God's favours to Israel in the exodus, and 'they despised me' of the crucifixion.
Tractates 2.60.1Zeno of Verona · ca. 362-380 · Zeno argues that the Jews cannot celebrate a lawful Passover, since the temple, priesthood and sacrifices have been taken away.
Hexaemeron 9.6Basil of Caesarea · ca. 370 · Faith overcomes wild beasts; turning to man, Basil argues from "Let us make man in our image" that God spoke to his Son, the one image of the Father, against Jewish and Anomoean interpretations.
Commentary on 1 Thessalonians 2:14–16Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The Thessalonians shared the sufferings of the Judean churches; Paul denounces the persecuting Jews, explains why he longs to see the Thessalonians in person though Satan hindered him, and calls them his crown.
Commentary on 2 Corinthians 11:26Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul lists dangers from rivers, robbers, Jews, gentiles, at Damascus, in ambushes, at sea, and from Judaizing false brothers.
Commentary on Galatians 1:10Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul pleases God, not men, unlike the Judaizers who sought Jewish approval; the law was God's will until Christ came, but keeping it now opposes him.
Commentary on Galatians 1:13Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul, once a zealous persecutor trained by Gamaliel, left the law for grace; gentiles have even less reason to take it up.
Commentary on Philippians 3:5–7Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul surpassed others in Jewish privilege and zeal for the Law but counts it loss for Christ; Ambrosiaster derives 'Hebrew' from Abraham rather than Heber.
Prologue to the Commentary on RomansAmbrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster’s prologue explains that the Roman Christians had received Christ from Jewish believers who kept the law, and outlines the four ways in which Paul argues that salvation comes through faith in Christ, not the law.
Commentary on Romans 1:16Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster explains that the gospel is God’s power because it was confirmed by signs, that it saves Jew and gentile alike through faith, and that the name “Jew” dates from Judas Maccabaeus.
Commentary on Romans 2:12Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Gentiles who refuse both Moses and Christ will perish; a gentile who keeps the natural law still needs faith to be perfect; Jews who reject what their law promised will be judged by it.
Commentary on Romans 3:17Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster explains the lack of the fear of God and argues that Paul’s “all” means the wicked part of the people, since there are always two peoples in one nation.
Commentary on Romans 10:1–2Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Paul shows his love for the Jews and their zeal, while teaching that the time for keeping the law has passed.
Commentary on Romans 11:11Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Ambrosiaster distinguishes Jews blinded for ever because they rejected known truth from malice, and those blinded only for a time through zeal for ancestral tradition, who will return; Israel’s fall has enriched the gentiles, and their fullness will enrich the world more.
Commentary on Titus 1:5–11Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · Titus is to appoint holy and able presbyter-bishops who can refute the judaizing teachers, who seek both money and converts to circumcision.
Commentary on Titus 1:14Ambrosiaster · ca. 366–384 · The judaizers’ ritual rules, including those on foods and marriage, were not good commands but a yoke given as punishment for Israel’s stubbornness, now relaxed by God’s mercy in Christ.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 1.0Anonymous · ca. 370 · The author explains that he continues Scripture's history of the Jews beyond the books of Kingdoms and Maccabees, correcting Josephus's unbelief and asking whether the rule of Judah failed before Christ.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 5.2Anonymous · ca. 370 · The author laments Jerusalem's self-destruction, calls on Moses, Aaron, Joshua, David and Elisha, and attributes the city's ruin to its rejection and crucifixion of Christ.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 5.32Anonymous · ca. 370 · The author attributes John's obstinacy and the final, irreparable destruction of the temple to the Jews' crucifixion of Christ.
On the Destruction of Jerusalem 5.41Anonymous · ca. 370 · Horrified by Mary's deed, Titus declares himself innocent before heaven and, mocking the Jews' belief in their miraculous history, resolves to end the war quickly.
Question 44, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Isaiah spoke of something new: God would open his house to the nations in place of the unrepentant Jews, who would lose the promised grace.
Question 64, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Christ’s passion begins with night, the image of death, so that the Lord of light might enter death’s domain and destroy it; the reversal of day and night marks the Jews’ crime as a deed of darkness.
Question 81, section 1Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Answering why Jews are born Jews but Christians are not born Christians, Ambrosiaster says Jewishness passes by birth under devotion to the Creator, while one becomes a Christian only by faith, which adds a real dignity to nature.
Question 98, section 3Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Ambrosiaster says the Jews, imitating Cain, killed the Lord and called his blood down on their children.
Question 108, section 2Ambrosiaster · ca. 370–384 · Ambrosiaster argues that the Hebrews were named after Abraham, not Eber, since Scripture first calls his descendants Hebrews and he was the founder of a renewed people.
Letter 21.1Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome restates Damasus's questions about the parable of the prodigal son, especially how the elder brother can represent either the Jews or the righteous.
Letter 65.17Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome argues against a Jewish interpretation that the psalm distinguishes the speaker from the divine king.
Letter 67.6Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Augustine argues that Paul rejected only the Jews' errors, not the rites themselves, and became 'all things to all' by compassion, not pretence.
Letter 74.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome reads the story of the two mothers as the church and the synagogue, the dead child standing for the law's observance and the living child for the church's converts.
Letter 112.13Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome objects that Augustine's view would revive the heresy of Cerinthus, Ebion, and the Nazarenes, who mixed the law's ceremonies with the gospel.
Letter 112.14Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome insists that Jewish ceremonies are deadly to Christians of any origin, citing Scripture that Christ is the end of the law and that the new covenant replaces the old.
Letter 121.10Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome paraphrases Col 2:16-23, explains Paul's Cilician idioms, and reads the passage as a warning against Jewish-Christian observance of food laws, festivals, and traditions.
Letter 129.4Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome measures the small extent of the land Israel actually held and mocks the Jewish boast in it.
Letter 129.7Jerome · ca. 370–419 · Jerome recounts Israel's past captivities and deliverances and attributes the present long ruin of Jerusalem to the rejection of Christ, until all Israel is saved.
Ancoratus 27.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · The Jews knew Christ only as a man.
Ancoratus 27.6Epiphanius of Salamis · 374 · Like the Jews, these misunderstand what was fulfilled in Christ.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 29.7.1Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Nazoraeans are in all respects Jews.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 29.9.2Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Jews curse the Nazoraeans in their daily prayers.
Panarion (Adversus Haereses), Haer. 1-64 33.9.4Epiphanius of Salamis · 374-377 · The Jewish 'deuteroses' are four collections of tradition, outside the Law.
Apostolic Canon 70Anonymous · ca. 380 · Sharing Jewish fasts and festivals is forbidden.
Apostolic Constitutions 2.60.3Anonymous · ca. 380 · Even the Jews faithfully keep the sabbath assembly, though the author says they have lost the meaning of their name.
Apostolic Constitutions 6.24.2Anonymous · ca. 380 · The Romans keep the Jews subject, a slavery the Jews chose when they rejected Christ.
On the Christian Faith 3.5Ambrose · ca. 378–380 · Ambrose shows that “made” in Scripture often means “became” by grace, not creation, as in 1 Cor 1:30, where Christ was made wisdom for us through the cross; he warns against following the bare letter.
On Noah 45Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · God blots out the flesh like letters erased from a tablet, so that better may be written; Ambrose contrasts the broken tablets of the law with the Spirit's writing in the church.
On Noah 70Ambrose · ca. 378-384 · The dove's final departure signifies that virtue, once the passions subside, becomes a common good shared by many; Ambrose contrasts the believers who run to the fountain with Jews who refuse it.
Book of Heresies 155.3Philastrius of Brescia · ca. 380s · The passage also foretells the unbelief of the Jews.
Second Apology of David 21Ambrose · ca. 384-397 · Against the Jews: David, an adulterer and murderer, cannot be the Son of God, who is without sin.
Altercatio, chapter 2, speech 22Evagrius of Gaul · ca. 400 · Theophilus argues that Christ is God’s wisdom and power, that Daniel’s seventy weeks and Isaiah 45 point to him, and that Isaiah 7:14 foretells his virgin birth.
Altercatio, chapter 3, speech 2Evagrius of Gaul · ca. 400 · Theophilus answers that the Sabbath was a figure, broken at Jericho and by the Maccabees and rejected by Isaiah, that the food laws forbid sinful deeds rather than foods, and he turns the charge of unclean wine against the Jews.
Catechetical Oration 4Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · Against the Jew, Gregory argues from Psalm 33:6 that Scripture itself teaches a substantial Word and a Spirit existing in hypostasis.
Catechetical Oration 18Gregory of Nyssa · ca. 385–390 · The end of idolatry, the spread of churches and of martyrs' contempt for death, and the ruin of the Jerusalem temple are offered as present proofs that God has come.
Exposition of Psalm 118 1.8.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · One must walk the way to its end, Christ; Jews stop short and Manichees reject the law, but the true faith goes on.
Exposition of Psalm 118 5.37.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Fear of God must be according to knowledge; Ambrose says the Jews keep circumcision and sabbath literally without grasping their spiritual sense.
Exposition of Psalm 118 8.61.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Those who deny Christ, the author of knowledge, cannot have the key to the Scriptures.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.6.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The enemies are heretics and the Jews, who keep the letter of the law but miss its mystery in Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.6.4Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The spiritual meaning of unleavened bread is purging the old man; the Christian heard what the Jew could not.
Exposition of Psalm 118 13.6.5Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Rejecting the fullness of time in Christ, the Jew remains a slave.
Exposition of Psalm 118 15.14.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Rejecting its head, the synagogue lost its counselors, head and tail.
Exposition of Psalm 118 17.28.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Jews veiled themselves; God has enlightened the nations in the face of Christ.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.13.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Zeal passed from the learned but cold Jewish people to the untaught gentiles.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.18.3Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Forgetting God’s precepts cost Adam paradise and the Jewish people their election.
Exposition of Psalm 118 18.27.2Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · Those who ate manna died; the Jews did not receive the true bread.
Exposition of Psalm 118 19.31.1Ambrose · ca. 386-397 · The Jews recite Scripture night and day; Christians, taught by Christ, are shamed by their sloth.
Letter 40.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine explains that Paul's becoming 'as a Jew' was an act of compassion, not pretence, and that he kept the Jewish rites without hope of salvation in them.
Letter 75.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome cites Paul’s purification and offering in the temple at James’s advice as a further pretence for the sake of the Jewish believers.
Letter 75.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jerome argues that Augustine’s view revives the heresy of the Ebionites and Nazarenes, who mixed the law with the gospel.
Letter 121.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks what Psalm 16 means by the “saints in his land,” suggesting it refers to the Jews who glory in descent and the law, like the Pharisee in the parable.
Letter 121.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks why Psalm 59 prays that the Jews not be killed lest they forget the law, and suggests reasons from the honor of the law and the elect of Israel in Revelation.
Letter 121.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paulinus asks how the Jews can be both enemies for the Gentiles' sake and beloved for the sake of the fathers, as Romans 11:28 says.
Letter 140.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Under the Old Testament God delivered the fathers from earthly dangers, as with Isaac, Job, Daniel, and the three youths; the Jews expected the same for Christ and did not see that eternal goods were now revealed.
Letter 149.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Augustine reads Psalm 59:11 ('Do not kill them … scatter them') as foretelling the preservation and dispersion of the Jews, who keep the Scriptures as witnesses to the prophecies of Christ.
Letter 196.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul taught in Galatians that Christians, especially Gentiles, must not Judaize, since justification is by faith in Christ.
Letter 196.8Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · To avoid Judaizing one must drop the ceremonial observances, which were shadows, and keep the moral law of love, attributing all progress in it to grace.
Letter 196.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · A Christian may be called a Jew or Israelite only spiritually, as Paul's 'Jew inwardly' in Rom 2 shows, but should not use the name in ordinary speech.
Letter 196.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Jews who do not believe in Christ are not Abraham's sons in Paul's sense, while believing Gentiles are spiritual Jews and Israelites grafted into the olive tree.
Letter 196.15Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Paul's own usage, distinguishing Jews, Greeks and the Church and calling himself an Israelite by descent, shows that 'Jew' and 'Israel' properly name physical descendants.
Letter 196.16Augustine of Hippo · ca. 386–430 · Aptus, who calls himself a Jew and urges Christians to keep the food laws, does so carnally; Christians keep the moral law by grace and hold the names Jew and Israel only in the spiritual sense.
Homilies on Matthew 3.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Matthew omits Esau's line because the Arab peoples have no share in Israel; he names Tamar to show that Christ was not ashamed of our sins and to humble Jewish pride in ancestry; the patriarchs born of slave women show that only virtue counts.
Homilies on Matthew 5.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Matthew's 'all this took place' marks the fulfillment of Isa 7:14; the angel refers Joseph to Isaiah; 'Emmanuel' names what the event revealed, as Isa 8:3 and 1:26 show; against Jewish objections, the Septuagint's 'virgin' is more credible than later translations' 'young woman'.
Homilies on Matthew 6.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The star was given to leave the Jews without excuse and to call the Gentiles by what was familiar to the magi, as God condescended to the Philistine diviners; God moved the magi without forcing their will; Jerusalem's alarm showed sluggishness and envy.
Homilies on Matthew 7.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Homily 7 opens with Matt 2:4–5: the Jews and the magi teach each other; the scribes omit the end of Micah's prophecy to flatter Herod; the forty days in Bethlehem and the events Luke records left the Jews without excuse, before Christ was revealed again at the Jordan.
Homilies on Matthew 11.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Homily 11 opens with Matt 3:7: the Pharisees came to John with hostile intent and did not truly believe; John, knowing their hearts, rebuked their pride in ancestry, mixing praise with rebuke, and first spoke to them of the wrath to come.
Homilies on Matthew 43.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The queen of the south will also condemn this generation; the parable of the returning unclean spirit foretells worse calamities for the Jews after AD 70, and warns baptized Christians who relapse; Chrysostom describes the fire of Gehenna and rejects the comfort of being punished with many.
Homilies on Matthew 56.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · To strengthen the disciples facing death, Christ shows the three leading apostles the glory of his kingdom at the Transfiguration; Moses and Elijah appear to show the difference between servants and Master, and that he neither broke the law nor wrongly claimed equality with the Father.
Homilies on Matthew 57.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ resolves the scribes’ teaching that Elijah must come first by distinguishing his two comings: John, called Elijah for sharing his ministry, preceded the first, and Elijah the Tishbite will come before the second, fearful coming to turn the Jews to faith.
Homilies on Matthew 74.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ’s woe on those who build the prophets’ tombs exposes their pretended condemnation of their fathers: by killing him and his messengers they will fill up their fathers’ measure, and because they learned nothing from earlier punishments their own will be the heaviest.
Homilies on Matthew 74.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ’s lament over Jerusalem is that of a rejected lover who has tried again and again to gather her; the desolation of her house and the fulfillment of his other predictions guarantee his second coming, when repentance will come too late.
Homilies on Matthew 75.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ foretells the total destruction of the temple and, answering the disciples’ question, warns first of deceivers, the Jewish war and persecutions, assuring them that the gospel will be preached in the whole world before the end of Jerusalem, which the abomination spoken of by Daniel will signal.
Homilies on Matthew 75.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The apostles’ success in preaching amid the Jewish war, universal hatred and every kind of danger, like untrained sailors overcoming a fleet in a storm, shows Christ’s power; Josephus records the calamities Christ foretold.
Homilies on Matthew 76.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · The flight from Judea and the unequaled tribulation refer to the Roman siege of Jerusalem, which Josephus, a Jew and no believer, describes as surpassing every calamity, a wrath Chrysostom ascribes to the crime of the cross; the days were cut short lest all the Jews perish.
Homilies on Matthew 79.3John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Christ softened the news of his betrayal by joining it to the Passover; the many chief priests show the decay of the Jewish order, and their plot proceeds from anger and blindness; Christ’s love for his crucifiers, whom he made sons of God, should shame us out of envy and revenge.
Homilies on Matthew 85.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Mark’s second cock-crow agrees with Matthew; Judas repented only when his sin was complete, and his suicide, the devil’s work, condemns the priests, who in turn are troubled only after the crucifixion, while their “See to it yourself” convicts them.
Homilies on Matthew 86.1John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Before Pilate Christ, accused of claiming to be king, acknowledges only a heavenly kingship and is otherwise silent; Pilate, impressed and warned by his wife’s dream, tries to release him under the feast-day custom, but is weak, while the chief priests persuade the crowd to ask for Barabbas.
Homilies on Matthew 86.2John Chrysostom · ca. 390 · Pilate tries to save Christ by offering him under the feast-day custom, but the crowd, corrupted by the priests, prefers a notorious murderer and calls his blood on themselves and their children; yet Christ did not ratify that curse, but received those of them who repented, while Pilate, weak, scourged him and handed him over.
Hexameron (Exameron) 6.40Ambrose · ca. 387-390 · God's “Let us make” is addressed not to angels but to the Son, against Jewish and Arian objections.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 35.4.2Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · Christ is servant from his mother's womb, not by divine nature, against Jews and Arians.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.41.3Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The Jews' light is veiled; Christians see God's glory unveiled.
Explanation of Twelve Psalms 37.41.4Ambrose · ca. 387-397 · The torches and weapons foreshadowed the destruction of Jerusalem.
On True Religion 5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 389–391 · Augustine contrasts the philosophers, who kept rites in common with the people while disagreeing in doctrine, with the Church, which does not share the sacraments with heretics, and concludes that true religion is found only among catholic Christians.
Sermon 5.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · "The elder shall serve the younger" was fulfilled not in Esau and Jacob but in the Jews, who keep the Scriptures for Christians; yet any Jew who believes throws off the yoke and becomes a brother.
Sermon 71.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The hard saying about blasphemy against the Spirit seems to leave no hope for pagans, Jews, and heretics, all of whom in some way speak against the Holy Spirit.
Sermon 74.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The old things of Scripture are not discarded but understood through the new when one turns to Christ and the veil is removed.
Sermon 77.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jews converted at Pentecost were the lost sheep to whom Christ was sent; even the killing of Christ was forgiven those who repented.
Sermon 89.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The mountain cast into the sea is Christ preached to the Gentiles by the apostles, and the withered tree is the unbelieving Jewish nation.
Sermon 91.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jews could not explain how the Christ is both David’s son and David’s Lord because they saw only his humanity; they have stumbled on the stone and will be crushed at his coming unless they believe.
Sermon 92.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jews, who read in the prophets both that the Christ would come and that they would kill him, could not answer how he is David’s son and Lord; Christians, taught by Christ, can.
Sermon 122.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Christ’s promise that Nathanael would see angels ascending and descending on the Son of Man recalls Jacob’s ladder; the stone Jacob anointed signifies Christ, the rejected stone on which unbelievers stumble.
Sermon 136.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Healing by a word was no breach of the Sabbath, but making clay was work: the Lord set aside the Sabbath, a shadow of things to come, because he himself, the Light, had come; the Jews who kept it carnally remained blind.
Sermon 169.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Paul lists his fleshly grounds for confidence: eighth-day circumcision, the tribe of Benjamin, Pharisaism, and zeal in persecuting the Church; his name changed from Saul the tall to Paul the little.
Sermon 169.10Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Struck down and healed, Paul rejected his own righteousness for God's; Israel stumbled over Christ, and Paul prays for their conversion, which itself needs God's help, since they had zeal without knowledge.
Sermon 199.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Magi believed and sought Christ; the Jewish leaders pointed the way to Bethlehem from Scripture but, like milestones, did not go themselves.
Sermon 200.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jewish leaders named Bethlehem from Scripture without seeking Christ; their Scriptures now serve as independent witness to the pagans that the prophecies were not invented by Christians.
Sermon 201.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Augustine explains the survival of the dispersed Jews, like the mark of Cain, as God's way of preserving the Scriptures as witness to Christ for the Gentiles.
Sermon 204.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The wall from Israel joined to Christ is not the unbelieving majority but the apostles, Stephen, the first thousands of believers, and the churches of Judea: Jacob both lame and blessed.
Sermon 218.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Pilate's refusal to change the title shows that the Gentiles, grafted into Israel's olive, believe in Christ as King of the Jews, who remains Israel's king.
Sermon 315.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · Unlike Christ, who kept silence as the lamb before its shearer, Stephen preached from the housetop by treading down his flesh; he recounted Israel's history and showed in Moses, rejected yet a deliverer, a figure of Christ, who will one day free the Jews who rejected him.
Sermon 315.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 391-430 · The Jewish people will be delivered through Christ in the end, but not those who blaspheme him now, just as the Gentiles are now being saved while their idol-worshiping ancestors perished.
Against Jovinianus 2.16Jerome · 393 · Jerome explains that Paul's condemnation of those who forbid foods is aimed at heretics who despise creation, and that Romans 14 concerns Jewish food laws, not fasting.
On Christian Doctrine 3.6Augustine of Hippo · Books 1–3 ca. 396–397; completed 426–427 · The Jews' observance of signs bound them to the one God, though many rejected Christ for disregarding them; those who believed formed the Jerusalem church, which was ready for the Spirit.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads Cain and Abel as a figure: Abel’s accepted sacrifice as the faith of the New Testament, and Cain, who killed his brother, as the unbelieving Jewish people who rejected Christ.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the curse on Cain as the church’s judgment on the unbelieving Jewish people, who keep the law’s outward observances without the grace of Christ hidden in them.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.12Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads God’s protection of Cain as meaning that the Jewish people would not be destroyed but would survive, scattered, through all time as a witness.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.13Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine reads the mark of Cain as the Jewish law, which has kept the Jewish people distinct and preserved under pagan and Christian rulers, and applies Cain’s wandering also to the Manichaeans.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 12.44Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine cites Daniel’s Son of Man and seventy weeks, the cessation of the temple sacrifice and anointing, and the Jewish expectation of the Messiah as proof that Christ was prophesied.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 13.11Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine says the Jews' rejection of the gospel was itself foretold, and that their blindness is a just punishment for hidden sins.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 15.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus says the Manichaeans reject the Old Testament because the church, Christ's bride, needs nothing from the God of the Hebrews, whom he portrays as a poor and deceitful lover.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine invites the Jew to see in Joshua a figure of the living Jesus, and argues that a Gentile too would be moved by Hebrew books that named Jesus so long before.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 16.21Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine argues that the Jews, who keep the prophetic books while rejecting Christ, are unwilling witnesses that the prophecies were not forged by Christians, and that their unbelief was itself foretold.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 20.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine denies that the Jews kept pagan worship minus idols: they offered sacrifice only to the one Creator, prefiguring Christ, unlike demons who feed on human error.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 22.84Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Augustine interprets Tamar as the Jewish people, Judah's sons Er and Onan as harmful and useless kings, and Shelah as the time when no king came from Judah, under the foreign Herods.
Against Faustus the Manichaean 31.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 398–400 · Faustus argues that no religion, including Catholic Christianity, holds that nothing is unclean, and so Titus 1:15 cannot be Paul’s.
Tractates 4Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · The Passover lamb 'from the lambs and the kids' signifies Christ's flesh taken from just and sinners alike; Gaudentius warns the newly baptized against idolatrous foods, magic, and drunken feasts for the dead.
Tractates 9Gaudentius of Brescia · ca. 397-410 · Continuing on Cana: Mary, called 'woman' by sex, remained a virgin in giving birth as Christ entered through closed doors; the six stone jars are the dead senses of the Gentiles filled by baptism, the steward of the feast is Moses, and the Spirit's gifts show the equal power of the Trinity.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.20Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · God let the Jews be subjugated for their sins, and the end of their kingdom, temple, priesthood, and anointing showed that these existed to foretell Christ.
The Harmony of the Gospels 1.22Augustine of Hippo · ca. 399–400 · The scattered Jews keep the prophetic books as witness to Christ, and the forging of magical books in his name only shows how great that name is.
Commentary on Daniel 10, scholion 7Polychronius of Apamea · ca. 400-430 · Polychronius argues that Daniel's fast ran through Passover and the days of unleavened bread, rebuking contemporary Jews.
Questions and Answers to the Orthodox 108Anonymous · 5th century (disputed) · The answer argues that the Jews' ignorance in crucifying Christ was excusable only until the resurrection exposed it; persisting in unbelief afterward, they did not receive the pardon Christ prayed for, which is given only to those who acknowledge their sin.
Apology against Rufinus 1.13Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome answers Rufinus's mockery of his Jewish teacher Baranina, whom Rufinus called "Barabbas," and cites Origen and others who learned from Jews.
Apology against Rufinus 2.25Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to Genesis, which defends translating from the Hebrew because the apostles quote Hebrew passages missing in the Septuagint, and rejects the legend of the seventy cells.
Apology against Rufinus 2.30Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome quotes his preface to the Psalter from the Hebrew, made to help Sophronius answer a Jew who disputed the Septuagint's Psalms.
Apology against Rufinus 2.33Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome defends his preface to Daniel: he reported the Jewish objections to Susanna, the Song of the Three Young Men, and Bel and the Dragon, and followed the churches in reading Theodotion's Daniel.
Apology against Rufinus 3.25Jerome · ca. 401–402 · Jerome replies to Rufinus's denial that he forged the letter of retractation circulated in Africa, and defends translating from the Hebrew to answer the Jews.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 15.26Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · “Salvation is from the Jews” refers not to the reprobate but to the faithful of Israel, the wall joined with the Gentiles in Christ the cornerstone.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 35.7Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Christians answer pagans from the prophets, using the Jews' own books, which foretold the passion and the pure sacrifice offered among the nations.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 41.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Jews boasted that as Abraham's seed they had never been slaves, though their history and their tribute to Rome proved otherwise.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 42.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Jews were Abraham's sons by the flesh but not by faith; Christ's word, like a hook, did not take hold in them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 42.5Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Gentile Christians, not descended from Abraham, have become his sons by imitating his faith; God raised them from the stones of idolatry, as John the Baptist warned.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 48.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The Jews, cold in heart, demanded that Jesus say plainly whether he was the Christ, thinking of him only as David's son; Christ is truly David's son but also David's Lord.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 89.1Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The sin those who heard Christ would not have had without his coming is unbelief, the sin by which all other sins are retained.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 90.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · One can unknowingly love the good in a person and hate what one wrongly takes him to be; so Christ's enemies hate the truth, and its Father, without knowing them.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 93.2Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · Expulsion from the synagogues showed that those who rejected Christ put out those who would not leave him; had they received Christ, synagogue and church would have been one.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 93.3Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · "But the hour is coming" announced the apostles' success: they would win so many that their opponents, thinking to serve God, would kill them, as they had killed Christ.
Tractates on the Gospel of John 114.4Augustine of Hippo · ca. 406–420 · The accusers' claim that they may not put anyone to death does not clear them, for by their demand they killed Christ through Pilate.
City of God 4.34Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine shows that God gave Israel every earthly good without the Roman gods, and that the dispersion of the Jews serves as a witness to prophecy.
City of God 6.11Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine reports Seneca's scorn for the Jewish sabbath and his grudging admission that the Jews knew the reasons for their rites, and defers the question of the Jewish rites to another place.
City of God 17.19Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Psalm 69's prophecy of gall and vinegar and of darkened eyes explains why many Jews did not accept the fulfilled prophecies.
City of God 18.46Augustine of Hippo · 413–426 · Augustine dates Christ's birth to the reign of Herod and Augustus and argues that the Jews, dispersed among the nations with their Scriptures, bear unwilling witness that the prophecies of Christ were not invented by Christians.
On Faith and Works 44Augustine of Hippo · ca. 413 · Rom 2:12 concerns Gentiles and Jews, both needing Christ's grace, not good and bad Christians.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.24Jerome · ca. 414-419 · Jerome sees the threatened stumbling fulfilled in the Jews of his day who reject Christ and read the law only by the letter.
Commentary on Jeremiah 2.43Jerome · ca. 414-419 · God foretells that Judah will not listen and calls it a nation, not his people; Jerome sees this fulfilled when Christ was rejected.
Commentary on Jeremiah 4.8Jerome · ca. 414-419 · The plot against Jeremiah prefigures the plot against Christ and heretics' slanders of his servants; Jeremiah's imprecations are fulfilled in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem for the killing of Christ (Jer 18:18–22).
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 3.7.6Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Artaxerxes Ochus deported Jews to Hyrcania.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 6.6.2Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Pompey comes to Jerusalem.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 6.6.3Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Pompey takes the temple.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.3.8Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Titus closes Janus after taking Jerusalem.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.4.16Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Disasters of the Jews after the passion.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.4.17Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Tiberius expels the Jews from Rome.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.5.6Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Philo's embassy to Caligula.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.5.7Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Caligula orders his statue in the temple.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.6.15Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Claudius expels the Jews from Rome.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.6.16Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Whether Christians were also expelled is unclear.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.9.2Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The Jewish revolt begins.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.9.5Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The temple was to be removed by God's judgment.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.9.8Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The Flavian triumph over the Jews.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.12.6Orosius · ca. 417–418 · The Jewish revolt in Libya.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.13.4Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Hadrian crushes Bar Kokhba.
Seven Books of History against the Pagans 7.13.5Orosius · ca. 417–418 · Jerusalem becomes Aelia.
Against Two Letters of the Pelagians 3.9Augustine of Hippo · ca. 420–421 · Augustine describes those who belong to the Old Covenant of slavery: those who trust in the letter of the law and keep it from fear or desire, not love.
The Conferences 2.8John Cassian · ca. 426–429 · A Mesopotamian ascetic, led by visions that showed the Jews in glory and the Christians in darkness, fell away into Judaism and was circumcised.
Part 11Eutherius of Tyana · ca. 431-440 · The author answers the argument that the Jews' guilt requires that God was killed, insisting that the Godhead is impassible and that the insult to the united manhood reaches God, so that the Jews are still culpable.
Part 12Eutherius of Tyana · ca. 431-440 · The author turns back the charge that those who deny that God was crucified are Jews, arguing that calling the Godhead passible is worse than Judaism, close to Manichaeism, and bolder than the devil.
Against Five Heresies 4Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 437-450 · Against the Jews (and the Sabellians and Arians) the preacher reads the angel-theophanies of Exodus 23, Genesis 19, Exodus 3, and Joshua 5 as appearances of the Son, and Isaiah’s words on God’s begetting and the word that goes out from his mouth.
Part 1, chapter 6Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Cain and Abel prefigure the Jewish people and Christ the shepherd killed by them; Enoch, taken up with Elijah, will be one of the two witnesses at Christ’s return.
Part 2, chapter 35Quodvultdeus of Carthage · ca. 445-450 · Daniel’s ninth to twelfth visions (the lions’ den, the seventy weeks, the end time, Bel and the Dragon) figure Christ delivered from his enemies, mark the time of his coming against the Jews, and show the overthrow of idols.