Christian Response
Christian polemicists from the 9th through 20th centuries have used the Toledot to inflame Christian hostility towards Jews.
In 1405, the Toledot was banned by Church authorities. A book under this title was strongly condemned by Francesc Eiximenis (d. 1409) in his Vita Christi. But in 1614 it was largely reprinted by a Jewish apostate, Samuel Friedrich Brenz, in Nuremberg, as part of his book vilifying his former religion, titled "Skin Shed by the Jewish Snake".
An indirect witness to the Christian condemnation of the book can be found in one manuscript of the Toledot, which has this cautionary note in its introduction:
should be shown only to people of discretion, for one never knows what the morrow may bring. ... I copied it from three different pamphlets from three different countries, not just one, The contents of all these pamphlets were identical, except that I wrote it in the language of prudence .
Martin Luther quoted the Toledot (evidently the Strassburg version) at length in his general condemnation of Jews in his book Vom Schem Hamphoras in 1543.
Read more about this topic: Toledot Yeshu
Famous quotes containing the words christian and/or response:
“If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There are situations in life to which the only satisfactory response is a physically violent one. If you don’t make that response, you continually relive the unresolved situation over and over in your life.”
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