ABSTRACT
In his still influential study of 'The relations between Christians and Jews in the Roman Empire (ad 135-425)' M. Simon pinpointed the heart of the issue in the following terms: 'The problem of Jewish expansion and of the spread of its influence is bound up with that of anti-Semitism' (Simon 1948/64: 395). These words, written in the postscript fifteen years after the first publication of the book, were reaffirming, against the rejection by some of the term 'anti-Semitism', his earlier assertion - 'the most compelling reason for anti-Semitism was the religious vitality of Israel' (p. 232). In his own context Simon was forcefully countering the prevalent view which saw the Judaism of the period as turned in on itself and, as far as any external impact went, moribund - 'strangers in a pagan world'. 1 His arguments for the religious vitality of Judaism were sufficiently persuasive to have become increasingly familiar in modern discussions of the world of early Christianity. Perhaps equally significant is Simon's interpretation of the Christian polemic in terms of 'anti-Semitism' or anti-Judaism; this is rarely found in earlier discussions of Christian-Jewish polemic in the patristic period whereas now it is regularly proposed as in this judgement by Hruby: 'the attitude of the church fathers to Jews and Judaism is synonymous with anti-Jewish polemic and with Christian anti-Judaism' (Hruby 1971: 6). Simon himself saw no difficulty in defending the term 'anti-Semitism', even while acknowledging that, in contrast to its modern form, it had relied neither on a theory of race nor on an economic basis (p. 203) and while also firmly distancing himself as a historian from any attempt 'to connect the Nazis' anti-Jewish persecutions too closely with Christian teaching' (p. 397). This last quotation comes from the 1964 postscript: the issue of modern anti-Semitism rarely surfaces in the first publication of the book, and then only in contrast with that of the first centuries or when labelling the attempt to present an 'Aryan' Christianity rid of its Jewish heritage as a renewal of the 'Marcionite' heresy (p. 238).
