Pure blood: the beginnings of racial antisemitism in fifteenth-century Spain

In theory, Christianity is a non-racist, or even anti-racist doctrine. Paul’s famous pronouncement stresses this: ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus’.31 This pronouncement entails that any Jew who becomes converted to Christianity loses altogether his Jewish identity, which is obliterated entirely by his new Christian identity.