Jerome's Judaizers: Hillel I. Newman

NEWMAN/JEROME’S JUDAIZERS 421
Jerome’s Judaizers
HILLEL I. NEWMAN
The purpose of this study is to examine the nature and identity of all those
whom Jerome describes, both explicitly and implicitly, as Judaizers. Most of
the alleged oblique references to Judaizers, collected primarily by Samuel
Krauss, are dismissed as irrelevant. Several are shown to be veiled attacks on
Augustine, which are to be understood in light of the controversy over
Galatians 2.14. Explicit evidence of Judaizing found in non-exegetical contexts
is limited at best. The largest mass of material attributes millenarian
interpretations of the Prophets to an anonymous body of iudaizantes (the
passages are listed in an appendix). It is shown that Jerome uses the term
loosely to defame all millenarians (with particular attention to Apollinaris of
Laodicea) and that nothing can be learned from these passages regarding
genuine Judaizing tendencies among Jerome’s contemporaries. Jerome’s attacks
on supposed Judaizers are examined in the context of his own vulnerability to
the charge of Judaizing due to his revolutionary translation of the Hebrew
Bible and his intimate contact with Jews in Palestine.
Judaizing is a phenomenon heavily laden—almost by definition—with

ambiguity. The very act of crossing the boundaries separating Christian-
ity from Judaism blurs the contours of group identity and is hardly
conducive to terminological clarity. Needless to say, such behavior must
have had different meanings and consequences at different stages in the
progressive separation of Christianity from Judaism, as each continued to
define its discrete identity. When John Chrysostom rants against the
Judaizers among his flock in his sermons Against the Jews in late fourth-
century Antioch, we do not expect him to mean exactly the same thing as
Paul did more than three hundred years earlier, when he accused Peter in
the same city of forcing the Gentiles to Judaize (Gal 2.14).1 My intention
1. From the vast literature on Paul and Peter in Antioch see, for example,
D. Flusser, “Paul’s Jewish-Christian Opponents in the Didache,” in Gilgul: Essays on
Transformation, Revolution and Permanence in the History of Religions, ed.
S. Shaked, D. Shulman, and G. G. Stroumsa (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1987), 88–89; P. J.
Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law (Assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: Fortress Press,
Journal of Early Christian Studies 9:4, 421–452 © 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press
422 JOURNAL OF EARLY CHRISTIAN STUDIES
in this paper is to examine the identity and nature of those called Judaizers
in the writings of Jerome of Stridon. In his own day and for many
generations thereafter, Jerome enjoyed a reputation as the preeminent
Christian authority on the Hebrew Bible and Jewish biblical interpreta-
tion, a title for which, one must admit, the competition was not terribly
stiff.2 His grudging but abiding respect for Jewish exegesis makes his
disparaging remarks about those who Judaize all the more striking, and I
shall examine Jerome’s particular sensitivity to the subject of Judaizing in
light of his personal history.
A proper reconstruction of the history of Judaizers and Judaizing is
complicated by the fact that early Christian polemicists did not hesitate to
brand assorted theologians and their followers as Jews and Judaizers if
their Christology or other teachings were deemed unorthodox. Such us-
age reflects at most the perception of superficial similarities to Judaism,
similarities with little or no bearing on the strict and literal meanings of
these labels. Sabellians, Arians, Photinians, Nestorians, and others could
all become Jewish with a few strokes of the pen.3 We need not be sur-
prised, therefore, should we discover that these same epithets may be used
in something less than their literal sense in the hands of Jerome, famous to
this day for his repertoire of invective.4
As if this were not confusing enough, contemporary scholars are not
always more consistent than their predecessors in antiquity in their use of
the term Judaizer. This situation is almost unavoidable, given, as I have
indicated, the many faces of the Judaizer in our sources, though the
1990), 222–30; A. Dauer, Paulus und die christliche Gemeinde im syrischen Antiochia
(Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum Verlag, 1996), 121–22.
2. For Jerome’s contacts with Jews and his knowledge of Jewish life and teachings,
see H. I. Newman, Jerome and the Jews (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, 1997). The
topic of the present paper is not treated systematically in that study because, as I hope
to demonstrate, most of Jerome’s Judaizers have little or nothing to do with Judaism
per se.
3. See J. Juster, Les Juifs dans l’empire Romain (Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1914),
2:283–85; G. W. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1961), 674–75 (s.v. ÉIouda˝zv, ÉIoudaÛkÒw, etc.); M. Simon, Verus Israel, tr. H.
McKeating (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 96; J. E. Taylor, “The Phenom-
enon of Early Jewish-Christianity: Reality or Scholarly Invention?” VC 44 (1990):
323; G. Dagron, “Judaïser,” Travaux et Mémoires 11 (1991): 359–80; M. S. Taylor,
Anti-Judaism and Early Christian Identity (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1995), 26–40. For a
thorough discussion of the semantic range of ÉIouda˝zein, see now S. J. D. Cohen, The
Beginnings of Jewishness (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 175–97
(especially 190–91).
4. See in general D. Wiesen, St. Jerome as a Satirist (Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, 1964); cf. the review of H. Hagendahl, Gnomon 40 (1968): 582–86.
problem is sometimes exacerbated by inadvertent neglect of the nuances

of the material. When push comes to shove, all of Christianity may be
construed as one large Judaizing movement, but few would find that
broad use of the label terribly helpful in the context of the present discus-
sion. Even in a more limited sense, the charge of Judaizing may be brought
against even some of the most aggressively anti-Jewish Christian authors,
if one wishes to be perverse. Take the famous example of Melito of Sardis,
who, for all his abusive rhetoric against the Jews in his Peri Pascha
homily, was also a Quartodeciman, observing Easter on 14 Nisan, the
date of the Jewish Passover.5 Clearly, “Judaizer” is an insufficiently dis-
criminating label for such a figure.6 What about other Christian thinkers
whose teachings have been perceived as being vaguely Jewish in charac-
ter? Was Arius a Judaizer? Lorenz, in his provocatively titled study, Arius
judaizans?, seeks to identify Jewish elements (among other things) in
Arius’ thought and suggests an affirmative—though cautiously qualified—
answer to his own question.7 Yet even before weighing the merits of his
arguments, openly set forth in the light (or shadow) of the charge of
Judaizing brought against Arius in antiquity,8 we should note that when
he speaks of Judaizing, Lorenz means something very different from what
many others do when using the same language, certainly different from
the definition which I shall adopt below. For his purposes, Judaizing may
include the influence exercised by Jewish sources long unmoored from
their origins, appropriated by the Church (or at least by parts of it) and
mediated by centuries of inner-Christian literary tradition. Under the
same rubric comes the suggested influence on Gentile Christianity of
teachings peculiar to Jewish-Christian sects. I do not point all this out in
5. For a critical review of scholarship on Melito and the Jews, see D. Satran, “Anti-
Jewish Polemic in the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis: The Problem of Social
Context,” in Contra Iudaeos: Ancient and Medieval Polemics between Christians and
Jews, ed. O. Limor and G. G. Stroumsa (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck],
1996), 49–58.
6. Feldman has suggested that Melito’s vehement attacks against the Jews are in
fact a diversionary tactic designed to protect himself against well-founded accusations
of Judaizing (L. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World [Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1993], 376–77). This explanation must be rejected as implausible.
The temporal correspondence of the Quartodeciman Easter with the Jewish Passover
is plainly antithetic, not sympathetic, as Melito’s homily clearly demonstrates; it is
misleading to lump this phenomenon together with the participation of Judaizers in
Jewish feasts on Passover or with their partaking of unleavened bread.
7. R. Lorenz, Arius judaizans? Untersuchungen zur dogmengeschichtlichen Einord-
nung des Arius (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1980), 141–79.
8. Lorenz, Arius judaizans, 141 n. 1.
order to pass judgment on the case for or against the identification of

Jewish elements in Arianism, but rather to illustrate how scholarly dis-
course on the subject of Judaizing is colored by a choice made, though
often left unstated, regarding the meaning of the word.
For the purposes of this discussion, I shall define Judaizing as the
conscious and sympathetic adoption by Gentile Christians of certain
practices or doctrines readily identified as Jewish, or the participation of
Gentile Christians in religious ceremonies carried out by Jews. Such a
definition is fairly standard in modern treatments of Judaizing, at least
insofar as it is known to us from sources of the fourth century onward;9 as
I hope to make clear, it is generally—though not always—serviceable in
the case of Jerome’s own usage. This is not to say that those whom he
calls Judaizers necessarily behaved in these ways, simply that this is the
image he hopes to evoke even when using the term in a figurative, nonliteral
sense.
Before addressing the question of the identity of those to whom Jerome
refers explicitly as Iudaizantes, let us lay to rest a collection of passages in
his writings alleged by some scholars to refer obliquely to Judaizers. Most
of these sources were first interpreted in this fashion by Samuel Krauss,
whose influential study on Jerome and the Jews has been quoted and
requoted by generations of historians, for better or for worse.10 According
to Krauss, Jerome testifies in several places to the adherence of certain
Christians to Jewish customs.11 He cites first from the description of
9. For references see below, n. 66, and cf. M. S. Taylor, Anti-Judaism, 26–40, who,
however, questions the applicability of this definition to earlier phenomena going by
the same name.
10. S. Krauss, “The Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,” Jewish Quarterly
Review 6 (1894): 225–61 (I cite only that portion of the article dealing with Jerome).
This study is in part an abridged translation of an earlier paper: S. Krausz [sic], “A
zsidók Szt-Jeromos müveiben,” Magyar-Zsidó Szemle 7 (1890): 267–71, 334–45,
385–403, 449–67, 513–32, 579–88 (I am indebted to Ms. N. Beer and Ms. Z. Gabor
for their translations from the Hungarian). Most of the expositions in the first article
that Krauss passes over in silence in the second may be safely ignored by modern
scholars as well. For a critique of Krauss’s work on Jerome see especially G.
Stemberger, “Hieronymus und die Juden seiner Zeit,” in Begegnungen zwischen
Christentum und Judentum in Antike und Mittelalter (Festschrift für Heinz
Schreckenberg), ed. D.-A. Koch and H. Lichtenberger (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und
Ruprecht, 1993), 347–64; Newman, Jerome and the Jews, passim.
While Krauss’s occasionally outrageous errors (not only in the case of Jerome) set
him up as an easy target for criticism, he deserves to be remembered first and foremost
for his substantial scholarly achievements. He read everything, and he wrote
prodigiously on countless topics; that is more than most of us can say. Unfortunately,
he often wrote in haste even about that which he failed to understand.
11. Krauss, “Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,” 237–38, 260.
Jewish phylacteries in Commentary to Matthew 23.5–7, where Jerome

derides the practice of the “Pharisees,” who put their faith in the apotropaic
power of Scripture worn on the body instead of that borne in the heart. By
way of comparison, Jerome adds: “Among us, superstitious women, who
truly have zeal for God but not in an informed manner, regularly do this
to this day with tiny Gospels, the wood of the Cross, and the like. . . .”12
The plain meaning of this passage is that the Jews’ belief in the amuletic
properties of parchment rolls inscribed with biblical verses and inserted in
their tefillin is analogous to the naive faith of ignorant Christian women
in the power of miniature copies of the Gospel worn as amulets. This
Christian custom is attested also in the writings of John Chrysostom and
Isidore of Pelusium, who, like Jerome, compare it to Jewish use of phylac-
teries.13 There is nothing vague or especially subtle here, and I am far from
the first to render Jerome’s statement in this manner.14 Only by ignoring
context and syntax can Krauss conclude that Christian women, “ascrib-
ing to the Jewish phylacteries an indefinite but vast magical power, cov-
ered up crucifixes, the Gospels, and other sacred relics with them, and
thought they were thus performing a work pleasing to God.” This error
has, however, proven stubbornly resilient, and the claim that Jerome
alludes to Christian veneration of Jewish phylacteries continues to appear
as a standard item in descriptions of Judaizing in antiquity.15
12. CCL 77:212: Hoc apud nos superstitiosae mulierculae in paruulis euangeliis et
in crucis ligno et istiusmodi rebus, quae habent quidem zelum Dei sed non iuxta
scientiam, usque hodie factitant. . . . For an analysis of the entire passage see
Newman, Jerome and the Jews, 150–56 (especially n. 111).
13. John Chrysostom, Homily 72.2 (on Matt 23.1–3), PG 58:669; Isidore of
Pelusium, Letters 2.150, PG 78:604. Cf. J. Tigay, “On the Term Phylacteries (Matt.
23:5),” HTR 72 (1979): 51 n. 32.
14. See Tigay in the previous note, and cf. A.-J. Festugière, Revue des études
grecques 62 (1949): 484 (review of Simon, Verus Israel); Stemberger, “Hieronymus
und die Juden seiner Zeit,” 362 n. 50.
15. See, among others, J. Parkes, The Conflict of the Church and Synagogue (New
York: Atheneum, 1981), 119; Simon, Verus Israel, 354, 361 (cf. idem, Recherches
d’Histoire Judéo-Chrétienne [Paris: Mouton, 1962], 141 n. 5); S. W. Baron, A Social
and Religious History of the Jews (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1966),
2:189; R. R. Ruether, Faith and Fratricide: The Theological Roots of Anti-Semitism
(New York: Seabury Press, 1974), 171; P. W. Harkins, Saint John Chrysostom:
Discourses against Judaizing Christians (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of
America Press, 1977), xxxix n. 81; E. Werner, The Sacred Bridge (New York: Ktav,
1984), 2:198; J. Schwartz, Jewish Settlement in Judaea after the Bar-Kochba War
until the Arab Conquest (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1986), 199 (in Hebrew; Schwartz’s
chapter on Jerome first appeared as “Jerome and the Jews of Judea,” Zion 47 [1982]:
186–91 [in Hebrew]); Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 407. Cf.
B. Brooten, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue: Inscriptional Evidence and
The rest of Krauss’s evidence is no less problematic. From Jerome’s

Commentary to Ezekiel 33.23–33 (CCL 75:479) he learns that “[t]he
rites of the Synagogue were imitated” by the Church.16 The passage in
question contains Jerome’s comments on the words of God to the prophet
in Ezekiel 33.32: “To them you are like a love song, with a pleasant voice
and playing well; they hear your words, but they do not obey them.” On
this Jerome remarks: “Till today there are many such people in the churches
who say: ‘Come, let us hear this one or that one roll out the words of his
sermon with marvelous eloquence,’ and they stir up applause, and shout,
and wave their hands. . . .”17 Yet there are neither Jews nor rites of the
synagogue to be found in this passage, and certainly no implication of
imitation by the Church.18 While in an aside Jerome does compare the
Background Issues (Chico: Scholars Press, 1982), 263 n. 23. In a slightly different
vein: H. Hirschberg, “Once Again—The Minim,” JBL 67 (1948): 313.
In his earliest work on Jerome, Krauss argues further that Jewish phylacteries were
worn by Gentiles in Babylonia and India (“A zsidók Szt-Jeromos müveiben,” 335).
This claim—properly omitted in his later study—derives from Commentary to
Matthew 23.5–7 (CCL 77:211), where, however, the plain meaning appears to be that
such is the practice of the Jews in those countries; cf. Commentary to Ezekiel 24.15–
27 (CCL 75:330) and see Newman, Jerome and the Jews, 62–63, 150–56. In the same
context, Simon, Verus Israel, 354, cites Jerome’s remarks in Letter 75.3 (CSEL 55:32),
regarding Jewish influence on Christian amulets. Jerome speaks there, in a thinly
veiled attack on Priscillianism, of the appeal of pseudo-Hebraic nomina barbara
among the Spanish followers of Basilides. Jewish influence on Christian magic is
indeed widespread, as Simon emphasizes, but it has nothing to do with what Jerome
says about tefillin (see Newman, Jerome and the Jews, 152 n. 111).
16. He is followed by Schwartz, Jewish Settlement in Judaea, 199; Feldman, Jew
and Gentile in the Ancient World, 407.
17. Tales sunt usque hodie multi in ecclesiis, qui aiunt: “Venite audiamus illum et
illum, mira eloquentia praedicationis suae uerba uoluentem,” plaususque commouent
et uociferantur et iactant manus. . . .
18. Krauss thus compounds his earlier error in “Jews in the Works of the Church
Fathers,” 234, where he takes the same passage to refer to the enthusiastic response
of Jews to the synagogal sermon, without suggesting the influence of Jews upon the
Church. As noted by Stemberger, “Hieronymus und die Juden seiner Zeit,” 361–62
(cf. Newman, Jerome and the Jews, 45), not only does Krauss ignore Jerome’s explicit
reference to ecclesiae, he also falsely renders the passage, in what pretends to be a
direct translation, as: “Come, let us listen to this or that Rabbi who expounds the
divine law . . .” (my emphasis); he similarly misrepresents the Commentary to Ezekiel
34.1–31 (CCL 75:488), which is merely an attack on the cheap theatrics practiced by
certain ecclesiastic preachers. Krauss’s reading of the Commentary to Ezekiel has been
adopted by others, such as G. Alon, Studies in Jewish History (n.p.: Hakibbutz
Hameuhad, 1976), 2:261 (in Hebrew); M. Hirshman, “The Preacher and his Public in
Third-Century Palestine,” JJS 42 (1991): 111; D. Brown, Vir Trilinguis: A Study in the
Biblical Exegesis of Saint Jerome (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1992), 181; O. Irshai, “The
Byzantine Period,” in Israel: Land, People, State, ed. A Shinan (Jerusalem: Yad Izhak
daily routine of coenobitic monks to that of the Essenes as described by

Philo and Josephus, he does not suggest that there was any direct connec-
tion between the two groups; for Krauss, of course, this is further proof of
the continued receptiveness of Christianity to the influence of Jewish
law.19 The teachings of the Photinians are described as Jewish by Jerome
in his brief obituary of Photinus, bishop of Sirmium, which appears as an
entry for the year 376 c.e. in his additions to the translation of Eusebius’
Chronicle.20 For Krauss, this was because “[t]hey adhered so closely to
the Jewish Law.”21 Yet “Jewish Law” has nothing to do with this: the
available evidence regarding Photinus indicates that his is a typical case of
“defective” Christology being branded as Jewish.22 Finally, Krauss cites
Commentary to Isaiah 61.4–5 (CCL 73A:709) to prove that in Jerome’s
time, “Jewish birth was considered a weighty factor in the selection of
Heads of the Church.” In fact, that passage makes it quite clear that the
leaders of the Church were overwhelmingly of Gentile origin; if Jewish
birth was a “weighty factor,” it was only as a handicap.
Ben-Zvi, 1998), 118 (in Hebrew); L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First
Thousand Years (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 462, 550. This is not to
deny the theatrical element in Jewish preaching (for which see in general M. D. Herr,
“Synagogues and Theatres [Sermons and Satiric Plays],” in Knesset Ezra: Literature
and Life in the Synagogue, Studies Presented to Ezra Fleischer, ed. S. Elizur et al.
[Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, Ben-Zvi Institute, 1994], 105–19 [in Hebrew]);
Jerome, however, has nothing to say on the subject.
19. Letter 22.35 (CSEL 54:200).
20. Fotinus in Galatia moritur, a quo Fotinianorum dogma Iudaicum (ed. Helm2
[=GCS 47], 248). The equivocal appraisal concluding the notice of Photinus’ death in
several earlier editions (PG 19:597–98=PL 27:699–700: qui multa continentiae et
ingenii bona uno superbiae malo perdidit), construed by Krauss as an admission on
Jerome’s part of the virtues of this alleged Judaizer’s teachings, in fact properly
belongs to the following entry, on Basil of Caesarea (cf. Helm). When weighing the
manuscript evidence, the judgement of previous editors was swayed by their
embarrassment at this unflattering assessment of Basil—an ironic one in and of itself
coming from Jerome. For a combined assault on Photinus and the Jews, see Jerome’s
homily on Psalm 109 (CCL 78:222). Elsewhere, Jerome accuses Photinus of
propagating the Ebionite heresy (On Illustrious Men 107 [ed. Richardson, TU 14,
49]). Cf. Commentary to Galatians 1.1 and 1.11–12 (PL 26:312 and 322);
Commentary to Ephesians 4.10 (PL 26:499).
21. He is followed verbatim by M. D. Donalson, A Translation of Jerome’s
Chronicon with Historical Commentary (Lewiston: Mellen University Press, 1996),
95.
22. On Photinus see in general R. P. C. Hanson, The Search for the Christian
Doctrine of God (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1988), 235–38. For similar accusations
of Judaizing brought against Photinus and his followers see: Juster, Juifs dans l’empire
Romain, 1:284 n. 2; L. A. Speller, “New Light on the Photinians: The Evidence of
Ambrosiaster,” JTS (n.s.) 34 (1983): 103.
Only one of the passages brought by Krauss truly seems to imply that
Jerome is familiar with contemporary Christians sympathetic to Jewish
practices. In his lengthy response to the biblical queries of one Algasia,
apparently a matron of Gaul,23 Jerome provides a running commentary to
Colossians 2.18–23. Following his arguments on the futility of Jewish
observances, Paul notes there that these practices might be reckoned wise
and proceeds to explain why they are not (Col 2.23). After an apologetic
aside on the apostle’s poor diction, Jerome comments: “Thus, among the
ignorant and the common rabble, Jewish observances are seen to have a
semblance of reason and human wisdom, hence their teachers are called
sofo¤, that is, ‘wise men.’”24 Though it may be suggested that this is
merely exegesis of the verse itself and is not intended to describe contem-
porary phenomena,25 we must admit that Jerome, speaking in the present
tense, reads into the verse something that is not there, something indeed
attested by other patristic sources of his day. It may plausibly be argued
that Jerome describes a reality familiar to him, though we have no indica-
tion that he has personally encountered such phenomena, or if so, where.
We need not assume that Jerome—whose travels took him to Rome,
Constantinople, Antioch, and beyond—refers here specifically to the Chris-
23. On Algasia see S. Rebenich, Hieronymus und sein Kreis (Stuttgart: Franz
Steiner, 1992), 275–79. The letter is thought to have been written in 407.
24. Letter 121.10 (CSEL 56:49): uidentur igitur obseruationes Iudaicae apud
inperitos et uilem plebiculam imaginem habere rationis humanaeque sapientiae, unde
et doctores eorum sofo¤, hoc est “sapientes,” uocantur. Following this sentence,
Jerome proceeds to give a fascinating but frustratingly brief description of the
practices of the Jewish sofo¤, according to which the title is patently used by the Jews
themselves to describe their teachers (see Newman, Jerome and the Jews, 49–51).
Therefore, we must consider whether in the previous sentence it is the Jews alone who
refer appreciatively to their own “wise men,” or, as Jerome seems to imply, the
“ignorant and common rabble” do so as well. In any case, we cannot identify the
inperitos et uilem plebiculam themselves as Jewish, both because in the verse in
question Paul addresses Christians and because it would be pointlessly restrictive of
Jerome to limit the appeal of the wisdom of Jewish observances to the lower end of
the Jewish social scale. For a comparison with John Chrysostom’s remarks on the
social profile of Judaizers, see Simon, Verus Israel, 328 (cf. idem, Recherches
d’Histoire Judéo-Chrétienne, 141 n. 5); Harkins, Saint John Chrysostom, xxxix n. 81;
A.-M. Malingrey, “La controverse antijudaïque dans l’oeuvre de Jean Chrysostome
d’après les discours Adversus Judaeos,” in De l’antijudaïsme antique à l’antisémitisme
contemporain, ed. N. Nikiprowetzky (Lille: Presses universitaires de Lille, 1979), 102
n. 53; W. Kinzig, “‘Non-Separation’: Closeness and Co-operation between Jews and
Christians in the Fourth Century,” VC 45 (1991): 38.
25. At the very least, Jerome’s choice of words is predicated on the language of the
verse itself, which he renders: quae sunt rationem quidem habentia sapientiae.
tian community of Palestine. Without use of the word itself, this is the
closest we come in Jerome’s writings to evidence for the existence of
contemporary Judaizers.
Along similar lines, Krauss claims further that persistent devotion to
Jewish ritual was the rule among Jewish converts to Christianity. Taking
characteristic liberties with the simple meaning of his sources, he renders
as follows a passage in one of Jerome’s letters to Augustine: “Take any
Jew you please who has been converted to Christianity . . . and you will
see that he practises the rite of circumcision on his newborn son, keeps
the Sabbath, abstains from forbidden food, and brings a lamb as an
offering on the 14th of Nissan.”26 The context of the passage is the
famous debate between Jerome and Augustine over the proper interpreta-
tion of Galatians 2.11–14, where, as noted above, Paul confronts Peter in
Antioch on the issue of Judaizing.27 In a nutshell: Jerome contends that
the dispute in Antioch was staged by the two parties as a pious fraud for
the purpose of advertising the rejection of Judaizing practices which Peter
never sincerely condoned or encouraged in the first place. Augustine, for
his part, rejects this theory of dissimulation. He argues that when Paul
himself took part on occasion in Jewish observances after his conversion,
he did so out of sincere respect for divinely ordained ancestral practices
which prefigured the faith revealed in the coming of Christ, but he denied
their value as a means of salvation. Voluntary performance of the Jewish
sacraments, says Augustine, was understandable and legitimate among
the first Jews who accepted Christ, yet such observance was by no means
binding, least of all among the Gentiles upon whom Peter sought to
impose it. Jerome responds first by misrepresenting Augustine’s argument
26. Krauss, “Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,” 237. For a similar reading
cf. Simon, Verus Israel, 325. The passage is found in Letter 112.15 (CSEL 55:384),
written in 404. On the correspondence between Jerome and Augustine, see R. Hennings,
Der Briefwechsel zwischen Augustinus und Hieronymus und ihr Streit um den Kanon
des alten Testaments und die Auslegung von Gal. 2,11–14 (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994);
A. Fürst, Augustins Briefwechsel mit Hieronymus (Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlags-
buchhandlung, 1999). For a new English translation of the letters, see C. White, The
Correspondence (394–419) between Jerome and Augustine of Hippo (Lewison:
E. Mellen, 1990). The references to the correspondence in my notes follow the
numbering of Jerome’s collected letters, though the sources appear among the
collected letters of Augustine as well.
27. See n. 1. For an allusion to the controversy in a recently discovered sermon of
Augustine, see Augustin d’Hippone: Vingt-six sermons au peuple d’Afrique, ed.
F. Dolbeau (Paris: Institut d’Etudes augustiniennes, 1996), 47 (cf. comments of
Dolbeau, 39–42).
to mean that Jewish converts to Christianity remain subject to the Law to

the present day and are still obliged to observe it. Next, he challenges his
opponent to a test—the subject of Krauss’s misleading translation. What
Jerome really says is:
in order for you to prove that what you assert is true, accept any Jew who,
having become a Christian, circumcises the son born to him, who observes
the Sabbath, who abstains from “foods which God created to be used with
thanksgiving,”28 who sacrifices a lamb toward evening on the fourteenth
day of the first month;29 and when you do that, or rather, when you don’t
(indeed I know that you are a Christian and that you won’t perform an act
of sacrilege), you will, like it or not, reject your own opinion. . . .30
Jerome challenges Augustine to follow his alleged position through to its
logical conclusion, but since that conclusion is patently absurd, Augustine’s
premise must, argues Jerome, be false. While it is not impossible that
either of these two men may at some time in their lives have encountered
Jewish converts to Christianity who persisted in the observance of Jewish
ritual, Jerome’s challenge neither presumes nor implies that this was a
widespread phenomenon. For that matter, for the purposes of his argu-
ment, the existence of such converts could be purely hypothetical, and
nothing in Augustine’s lengthy rejoinder31 indicates that he ever actually
found himself in the position of confronting this sort of recalcitrant
neophyte. It is doubtful whether such converts constituted a real and
present danger to the rectitude of Gentile Christians, given that Jerome’s
fulminations on this menace are predicated on his own shabby caricature
of Augustine’s position.32 While we need not deny that Jerome’s rhetoric
may play on real fears engendered by general familiarity with the exist-
28. 1 Tim 4.3.

29. On Jerome’s allusion to the sacrifice of the paschal lamb, see Newman, Jerome
and the Jews, 162.
30. ut probes uerum esse, quod adseris, suscipe aliquem Iudaeorum, qui factus
Christianus, natum sibi filium circumcidat, qui obseruet sabbata, qui abstineat a cibis,
“quos deus creauit ad utendum cum gratiarum actione,” qui quarta decima die
mensis primi agnum mactet ad uesperam, et, cum hoc feceris, immo non feceris (scio
enim te Christianum rem sacrilegam non esse facturum), uelis nolis tuam sententia
reprobabis. . . .
31. Letter 116 (CSEL 55:397–422).
32. As part of his maximalist account of the existence of Judaizing Christians,
Feldman highlights Jerome’s concern in Letter 112.13 (CSEL 55:382), that Christians
will become Jews (Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 375, 407). Note, however,
that in context, the warning is based on a condition contrary to fact, i.e., that the
Church first be forced to sanction the ritual observance of Jewish converts to
Christianity.
ence of Judaizing Christians,33 it is likely that an underlying concern for

him in these exchanges with Augustine was his own exposure to a charge
of latent Judaizing because of his new translation of the Hebrew Bible
and his adoption of the Jewish canon. Besides the dispute over Galatians,
his translation is in fact the main subject of the correspondence. Surely it
was not lost on Jerome that the best defense on one front was a good
offense on the other: Augustine, too, could sweat over the insinuation of
Judaizing. I will return to this theme later.
If we learn anything from this last example, it is that Jerome—never
squeamish in a fight—is not above grossly distorting his opponent’s posi-
tion in order to score points. This habit—not of his own invention, of
course—is familiar to us from his many polemical writings. He suffers no
qualms over it: in defense of his scurrilous pamphlet, Against Jovinian, he
appeals to the precedent of eminent Christian polemicists, who “are
sometimes forced to say not what they think, but what is necessary.”34 In
the wake of our discussion of Jerome’s quarrel with Augustine, it is worth
noting several particularly nasty examples of name-calling and rhetorical
abuse relevant to the subject of this paper. Two years after composing
Letter 112 to Augustine, Jerome comments as follows on Amos 2.7
(“. . . a man and his father go to one girl, thereby profaning My holy
name”):
We transgress and commit a crime when we engage in observance of the
sabbath, the injury of circumcision, and the ceremonies of the abolished
Law with our parent, to whom the apostle said: “I, Paul, say to you that if
you are circumcised, Christ is of no avail to you” [Gal 5.2]. And again:
“You who are justified in the Law have fallen from grace” [Gal 5.4].
Whoever enters the Church in this manner, keeping the Law in the Gospel,
“goes to a girl” together with his father and commits an act of debauchery
and violates the name of God. Therefore, those who say that it is not
harmful to the Jews after the advent of Christ if they believe in God in such
a manner, that they also keep the precepts of the Law, contaminate both
father and son by a single act of fornication.35
33. Cf. D. Judant, Judaïsme et christianisme. Dossier patristique (Paris: Editions du

Cèdre, 1969), 43–48; J. G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1985), 188–89.
34. Letter 49.13 (CSEL 54:369). Cf. H. Hagendahl, Latin Fathers and the Classics
(Göteborg: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1958), 158–59.
35. Commentary to Amos 2.6–8 (CCL 76:235–36): Peccamus et scelus committimus,
quando ad obseruationem sabbati, circumcisionis iniuriam, caeremonias legis abolitae
cum parente nostro ingredimur; quibus dicit apostolus: Ecce ego Paulus dico uobis,
quia si circumcidamini, Christus uobis nihil prodest. Et iterum: Qui in lege
Were we not familiar with Jerome’s correspondence with Augustine, we

might be tempted to find here evidence of some unnamed Judaizing
heresy or Jewish-Christian sect which enjoyed the approval of certain
Church theologians. In fact, this is nothing but another round of the old
argument.36 That is not all. In his Commentary to Isaiah, published six
years after the letter to Augustine, Jerome takes up the prophet’s theme of
objection to animal sacrifice and says: “Let the Ebionites, who after the
passion of Christ think that the abolished Law needs to be observed, hear
this. Let the comrades of the Ebionites, who judge that it should be kept
only by the Jews and by those of Israelite stock, hear this.”37 Who are the
“comrades of the Ebionites” (Ebionitarum socii)? Schmidtke is undoubt-
edly correct in finding here an oblique reference to Augustine’s supposed
position on the continued validity of the Law for Jews who have come to
believe in Christ.38 It seems that even now, Jerome could not resist letting
loose a rabbit punch at his old sparring partner. This is apparent from a
later passage in the same commentary, where he writes of the unanimity
of purpose of the apostles and refers explicitly to the exegetical crux in
Galatians:
Hence, those who say that the contrived struggle between Peter and Paul
was really a dispute and a contest—giving satisfaction to the blasphemer
Porphyrius39—and who assert that the ceremonies of the old Law should be
observed in the Church of Christ by the stock of faithful Israel, those
should also look forward to a golden Jerusalem for a thousand years, that
iustificantur, a gratia exciderunt. Qui ita ingreditur Ecclesiam, ut legem seruet in

euangelio, iste cum patre ingreditur ad puellam, et committit stuprum, et uiolat
nomen Dei. Unde qui dicunt non nocere Iudaeis post aduentum Christi, si ita credant
in Deum, ut legis quoque praecepta custodiant, patrem et filium in una fornicatione
contaminant.
36. Besides the obvious parallels to the sources already cited, note also the use of
Galatians 5.2–4 in Letter 112.14 (CSEL 55:383–84) and in Augustine’s response to
Jerome (Letter 116.19 [CSEL 55:410]).
37. Commentary to Isaiah 1.12 (CCL 73:17): Audiant Ebionaei, qui post
passionem Christi abolitam legem putant esse seruandum. Audiant Ebionitarum socii,
qui Iudaeis tantum et de stirpe Israelitici generis haec custodienda decernunt.
38. A. Schmidtke, Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen
Evangelien. TU 37 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1911), 107–8. P. Jay, L’exégèse de Saint
Jérôme d’après son “Commentaire sur Isaïe” (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1985),
321 n. 671, recognizes a connection to the quarrel with Augustine, but falls into the
trap of portraying Augustine’s position on the basis of Jerome’s distortion of it; he
also grants the existence of a genuine heresy of Ebionitarum socii.
39. Cf. Commentary to Galatians, Prologue (PL 26:310) and 2.11–13 (PL 26:341);
Letter 112.11 (CSEL 55:380).
they may offer sacrifices and be circumcised, that they may sit on the
Sabbath, sleep, become sated, drunk, and rise to frolic,40 their amusement
being offensive to God.41
Let us leave aside for the moment the substance of the millenarian
“Judaizing” described in this passage. Suffice it to say that Jerome tries to
tar both Augustine (accused of preaching the authority of the Law for
Jewish converts to Christianity in the present) and the millenarians (ac-
cused of preaching the restoration of the Law in the future) with the same
brush.42 In Jerome’s rhetorical world, not only can Photinus teach Jewish
dogma, but even Augustine can be a champion of the Ebionites. Keeping
40. Cf. Exod 32.6.

41. Cf. no. 24 in appendix. On Augustine as the target of these remarks, see
G. Grützmacher, Hieronymus. Eine biographische Studie zur alten Kirchengeschichte
(Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1906), 3:136; Schmidtke, Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen
zu den judenchristlichen Evangelien, 108; Hennings, Briefwechsel zwischen Augustinus
und Hieronymus, 263. On Jerome’s description of the Jewish Sabbath, see Newman,
Jerome and the Jews, 157. Grützmacher points to another swipe at Augustine and
those who side with him in Commentary to Isaiah 66.3 (CCL 73A:772), where,
following further discussion of the rejection of sacrifice and the annulment of the Law,
Jerome asks: “What will be the answer of those who think that the believers from
among the Jews may carnally offer sacrifices without doing themselves harm?” (Quid
respondebunt, qui credentes ex Iudaeis arbitrantur absque noxa sui posse carnaliter
offerre sacrificia?) See, however, n. 77, for another possible interpretation of this
passage. We may add to this list Jerome’s remarks in Commentary to Ezekiel 33.21–
22 (CCL 75:473). Once again he writes of the abolition of Jewish ceremonies, adding
that “till today some think that they should be observed, not hearing the [words] of
the apostle: ‘You who are justified by the Law have fallen from grace’ [Gal 5.4]. I am
astonished by the obstinacy of men who wish to defend with words that which they
would not dare fulfill by deeds, unless perhaps Jewish wolves are hidden in sheeps’—
that is Christians’—skin. Why should the advocate of the synagogue blare in the
churches of Christ?” (quisdam usque hodie obseruandas putant, non audientes illud
apostoli: A gratia excidistis, qui in lege iustificamini. Mirorque hominum pertinaciam,
id uelle sermone defendere, quod opere implere non audeant, nisi forte sub pelle
ouium, id est Christianorum, lupi celantur iudaici. Quid defensor synagogae in
Christi ecclesiis personat?)
42. J.-N. Guinot, “Théodoret et le millénarisme d’Apollinaire,” Annali di storia
dell’esegesi (=ASE) 15.1 (1998): 179, interprets both parts of the sentence as referring
to millenarian expectations—specifically those of Apollinaris (see below, n. 77); he
does not address the issue of the debate with Augustine, nor does he deal with the
other passages cited here. On Augustine’s own anti-millenarian teachings, see
P. Fredriksen, “Apocalypse and Redemption in Early Christianity from John of
Patmos to Augustine of Hippo,” VC 45 (1991): 151–83; M. G. Mara, “Agostino e il
millenarismo,” ASE 15.1 (1998): 217–30. For the influence of Jerome’s anti-
millenarian polemic on that of Augustine, see M. Dulaey, “L’Apocalypse. Augustin et
Tyconius,” in Saint Augustine et la Bible, ed. A.-M. la Bonnardière, Bible de tous les
temps, 3 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1986), 371–72.
in mind the nonchalance with which Jerome is ready to tag his rivals with
offensive labels not because they are true, but because they may stick, we
can better appreciate the pitfalls of taking even his explicit references to
Judaizers at face value. It is to these references that I now turn.
Jerome’s Judaizers may be divided into two groups: first, those who are
lumped together with the Jews in blanket condemnations of “carnal”
eschatology (or in rare cases, of some other form of “carnal” exegesis),43
and second, all the rest. Let us begin with all the rest.
Paraphrasing or quoting from the language of Galatians 2.14, Jerome
refers on various occasions to the Gentiles compelled by Peter to Judaize
(iudaizare).44 Needless to say, these passages in and of themselves tell us
nothing about the existence of contemporary Judaizers. In fact, it is
precisely Jerome’s silence in his Commentary to Galatians regarding such
practices in his own day which is most striking. In another biblical allu-
sion, Jerome relates that Paul was accused of secretly observing the Law
and of consorting in Jerusalem with those qui judaizabant—in context,
apparently the original members of the Jerusalem church.45 Similarly, he
interprets Paul’s admonition in Romans 14.2 (“One who eats must not
hold in contempt one who does not . . .”) as a reference to Gentile
Christians on the one hand and Christians who were “still Judaizing”
(adhuc judaizabant) on the other.46 Elsewhere, Jerome follows Eusebius in
taking Philo’s On the Contemplative Life to be an account of the first
church founded by Mark in Alexandria, which was “still Judaizing” in
Philo’s day.47 We also find him calling Theodotion and Symmachus—the
second-century translators of the Bible, generally held by him to be
43. See below, n. 57.

44. Commentary to Galatians 2.14 (PL 26:342); Letter 112.8 and 12 (CSEL
55:377, 381).
45. Commentary to Galatians 1.10 (PL 26:321).
46. Against Jovinian 2.16 (PL 23:310).
47. On Illustrious Men 8 (ed. Richardson, 12): Denique Philon, disertissimus
Iudaeorum, videns Alexandriae primam ecclesiam adhuc iudaizantem, quasi in
laudem gentis suae librum super eorum conversatione scripsit. . . . This is an abridged
paraphrase of Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 2.16.2–2.17.2 (GCS 9:140–42). Ac-
cording to Eusebius, the church of Alexandria described by Philo was under the
influence of apostles of Hebrew origin who still observed most of the ancient Jewish
customs. C. H. Roberts, Manuscript, Society and Belief in Early Christian Egypt
(London: Oxford University Press, 1979), 56 n. 3, says that Jerome “gives a further
twist to the story . . . by describing the first church in Alexandria as adhuc
judaizantem, a statement for which there is no independent source.” I do not know
what “twist” Roberts has in mind; essentially, Jerome adds nothing here to what he
found in the work of Eusebius.
Ebionites48—iudaizantes heretici,49 and he describes Theodotion alone as

haereticum et iudaizantem.50
Only once does Jerome use the term Judaizing explicitly in a non-
exegetical context to describe what may be construed as roughly contem-
porary circumstances. Writing in 393 of the food taboos of various peoples,
he mentions an otherwise unknown law from the reign of Valens (364–
78): “Thus the emperor Valens recently proclaimed a law throughout the
East that no one eat calves’ meat, thereby making provision for the
benefit of agriculture and correcting the evil custom of the Judaizing
masses who eat calves instead of fattened fowl and suckling pigs.”51 This
is one of the more puzzling testimonies in patristic literature on the
subject of Judaizing.52 For one thing, it is not clear what abstaining from
fattened fowl has to do with the matter.53 For another, surely not every
veal-eater in the East was a Judaizer. Furthermore, prohibition of the
consumption of veal is an oddly oblique way to battle Judaizers, even if it
were true that under Jewish influence, some Christians were in the habit
of abstaining from pork—a practice known in the East, incidentally,
48. On Theodotion and Symmachus as Ebionites, cf. On Illustrious Men 54 (ed.

Richardson, 33); Commentary to Habakkuk 3.10–13 (CCL 76A:641); prologue to
the translation of Ezra (ed. Weber3, 639) = Against Rufinus 2.28 (CCL 79:66). In his
later works, Jerome seems to have reservations about calling Theodotion an Ebionite.
Cf. Letter 112.19 (CSEL 55:389: hominis Iudaei atque blasphemi); Commentary to
Daniel, Prologue (CCL 75A:774: qui utique post aduentum Christi incredulus fuit,
licet eum quidam dicant Ebionitam, qui altero genere Iudaeus est). In another late
passage, he speaks in general of the hexaplaric recentiores as Iudaei aut Semiiudaei, id
est Ebionitae (Commentary to Isaiah 2.22 [CCL 73:40]), but he does not specify into
which category he places Theodotion. In any case, Theodotion and Symmachus are
called Judaizers only in the earlier writings, where their Ebionite affiliation is taken
for granted.
49. Prologue to the translation of Job iuxta Hebraeos (ed. Weber3, 732) = Against
Rufinus 2.29 (CCL 79:67).
50. Against Rufinus 2.33 (CCL 79:70).
51. Against Jovinian 2.7 (PL 23:295): Unde et Imperator Valens nuper legem per
Orientem dederat, ne quis vitulorum carnibus vesceretur, utilitati agriculturae
providens, et pessimam judaizantis vulgi emendans consuetudinem, pro altilibus et
lactentibus, vitulos consumentis. If we do not assume that the lactentes here are
suckling pigs (for which see Vallarsi’s note c), then the passage becomes even more
puzzling than it already is. For the date see: P. Nautin, “Etudes de chronologie
hiéronymienne (393–397),” REAug 20 (1974): 253–55.
52. This passage is discussed at length in Jerome and the Jews, 59–61, where I take
issue with several of the conclusions of I. Opelt, “Ein Edikt des Kaisers Valens,” Hist
20 (1971): 764–67.
53. Strictly speaking, altiles could be any kind of fattened animal, not just fowl.
among non-Judaizing Gentiles as well.54 Note also that Jerome himself

provides another reason for Valens’ legislation which is purely economic
(prohibiting the slaughter of calves increases the supply of bulls which
may be put to work by farmers as draft animals), and he seems to imply
that the emperor’s opposition to the consumption of veal stemmed ini-
tially from the local practice in his native Pannonia (in the preceding
sentence Jerome explained that “in our province”—apparently a refer-
ence to his own homeland of Pannonia or Dalmatia—eating veal was
considered a crime).55 Finally, from the limited sources at our disposal,
Valens emerges as relatively sympathetic to the Jews, whereas this legisla-
tion would appear to affect not only Judaizers, but Jews as well.56 In the
absence of any independent witness to its contents, we may only wonder
whether Jerome has not, perhaps, embroidered the law’s original ratio-
nale, reflecting at most some general awareness on his part of the exist-
ence of Judaizing and the threat it posed. Even if he in fact faithfully
represents the substance of the law and its intent, he tells us nothing
about the geographical distribution of these Judaizers; once again, there
are no grounds to connect them specifically with Palestine or with the
realm of Jerome’s personal experience.
We now turn our attention to the largest group of sources, those
describing the eschatological interpretations and expectations of the
Judaizers.57 For the sake of convenience, I have appended a complete
54. See, for example, M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism
(Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humaniaties, 1980), 2:676–78.
55. This was noted by W. H. Fremantle, St. Jerome: Letters and Select Works.
NPNF, 2nd ser. 6:393b n. 2.
56. Cf. A. Linder, The Jews in Roman Imperial Legislation (Detroit: Wayne State
University Press; Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1987), 161–
63.
57. With three exceptions (or perhaps four), all of the exegetical iudaizantes
serving as a foil for Jerome’s preferred “spiritual” interpretations are cited in the
context of eschatological interpretation. Krauss’s claim that these Judaizers agreed
with the Jews “on most questions” is unfounded (“Jews in the Works of the Church
Fathers,” 240). The exceptions are numbers 41, 42, 43, and perhaps 29 (cf.
appendix). It is surely not accidental that the first three appear in sequence in Books
2 and 3 of the Commentary to Jeremiah, one of Jerome’s last works, but I do not
know precisely what this tells us about his sources in that section. The first challenges
those who interpret a favorite Christian testimony in Jeremiah 11.19 with respect to
the person of the prophet himself. The second speaks of those who interpret prophecy
according to “history” (and cf. no. 29). The third refers to iudaizantes who may reject
a spiritual interpretation of the allusion to the sabbath in Jeremiah 17.21–27;
Jerome’s conditional locution there suggests, however, that he is not actually familiar
with such a Christian interpretation ad locum, but is merely creating a straw man.
collection of passages, arranged in chronological order.58 Though plenti-

ful, these sources are largely homogeneous, and for the most part I will
treat them collectively. They commonly speak of the hopes of Christian
chiliasts for the restoration of Jerusalem, golden and encrusted with
jewels, and of their anticipation of a millennial earthly kingdom. Jerome’s
language in these passages is so formulaic that he often seems simply to
invoke an exegetical rule of thumb as a reflex. In Commentary to Isaiah
11.15–16 (no. 19) he in fact spells out for us one such regula: “The wise
Christian reader should retain this rule of prophetic promises: whatever
the Jews and our Judaizers—or rather not ours—contend will happen
carnally, we should show to have been accomplished already spiritually,
so that we not be compelled to Judaize, according to the apostle, on
account of these sorts of tales and tangled questions [cf. 1 Tim 1.4].”59
Jerome frequently disparages the Judaizers’ literal interpretation of Rev-
elation and is fond of charging them with being voluptuaries whose
theology is essentially motivated by hedonism. Most striking is the recur-
rent assertion that the Judaizers look forward not only to the pleasures of
the restoration of an earthly Jerusalem, but also to the universal obser-
vance of Jewish ritual, specifically sacrifice in the temple, circumcision,
and celebration of the sabbath.60
At the risk of oversimplification, scholarly opinion regarding the na-
ture of these Judaizers may be divided into three groups. With few excep-
tions, proponents of each position have not found it necessary to grapple
58. My list of sources is similar, though not identical, to that of M. Dulaey,

“Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,” in Jérôme entre l’Occident et
l’Orient, ed. Y.-M. Duval (Paris: Etudes augustiniennes, 1988), 84–85 (see also the
earlier list of J. P. O’Connell, The Eschatology of St. Jerome [Mundelein: Seminarium
Sanctae Mariae ad Lacum, 1948], 64–65). Most of the differences stem from the fact
that Dulaey’s purpose is to cite all sources touching on millenarianism in general,
while mine is to collect all sources on the exegesis of the Judaizers—which of course
comes down to largely the same thing. To complete the picture, I have also included
those passages where Jerome describes the millenarian exegetes as being under the
influence of the Jews, even in the absence of the word iudaizantes itself. These sources
are marked with an asterisk. I have retained throughout the orthography of the
editions cited, though for the sake of clarity I have occasionally tampered with their
punctuation. Though the quotations are highly abridged, I have made a point of
quoting in full those portions of the texts which refer to the imposition of Jewish
practices upon the Christians at the end of days.
59. Compare a similar regula for Jewish interpretation alone in Commentary to
Amos 9.11–12 (CCL 76:346).
60. On the future observance of these practices: nos. 3, 5, 9, 10, 14, 22, 24, 27, 31,
33, 35, 36, 37.
with conflicting explanations. In what follows, I will try to demonstrate

why only one of these explanations is tenable.
1) The Judaizers are Jewish-Christians, i.e., they belong to independent
sects of Jewish origin, which combine idiosyncratic Christology with
continued mandatory observance of selected Jewish practices.61 At first
glance, this explanation is not unreasonable. After all, Jerome speaks
once in his Commentary to Isaiah of the chiliastic exegesis of “the Jews,
the Ebionite heirs of the Jewish error . . . and all who await the delights of
the millennium” (no. 35). Furthermore, in four passages he describes his
millenarians as semiiudaei (nos. 3, 28, 31, 32), a term he uses elsewhere
to describe Ebion and the Ebionites.62 This interpretation must, however,
be rejected. The lone reference in the Commentary to Isaiah is the only
patristic evidence of millenarian tendencies among the Ebionites;63 while
uniqueness is not sufficient reason to dismiss it out of hand, it should at
least make us cautious, as should the fact that Jerome—as we have seen in
the case of Augustine and the Ebionitarum socii—is capable of using the
label rather loosely.64 Yet even if we take the reference to the Ebionites as
it stands, the plain meaning of the passage is that the members of the sect,
together with the Jews, constitute only a portion of the millenarian camp,
leaving the identity of the remainder of these exegetes an open question.
In the final analysis, the Jewish-Christian hypothesis fails for the simple
reason that Jerome really makes no secret of the nature of these Judaizers;
as we shall see, he names names, and these names point us in a different
direction altogether.
2) Jerome means exactly what he says. The millenarian Judaizers are
Gentile Christians who, out of a genuine attraction to Judaism, have
61. See Judant, Judaïsme et christianisme, 39–40; I. Grego, I giudeo-cristiani nel IV

secolo (Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing Presss, 1982), 195; G. G. Stroumsa, “‘Vetus
Israel’: Les juifs dans la littérature hiérosolymitaine d’époque byzantine,” Revue de
l’histoire des religions 205 (1988): 120 n. 17 (=idem, Savoir et salut [Paris: Editions
du Cerf, 1992], 114 n. 17); Dulaey, “Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,”
91, 97 (limited to the semiiudaei and Christiani iudaizantes; against the distinction,
see below, n. 81) ; J. Lieu, “History and Theology in Christian Views of Judaism,” in
The Jews Among Pagans and Christians, ed. J. Lieu, J. North, and T. Rajak (London:
Routledge, 1994), 89–90.
62. Commentary to Galatians 3.14 (PL 26:361); Commentary to Isaiah 2.22 (CCL
73:40).
63. Thus A. F. J. Klijn, G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), 72.
64. See Schmidtke, Neue Fragmente und Untersuchungen zu den judenchristlichen
Evangelien, 107–8; J. E. Taylor, Christians and the Holy Places: The Myth of Jewish-
Christian Origins (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 22.
adopted Jewish beliefs in an earthly messianic kingdom, one in which

even the Gentiles will circumcise themselves, observe the sabbath, and
offer sacrifices in the restored temple. They are, in other words, “real”
Judaizers, and, if so, the frequent remarks about their eschatology be-
come a source of the highest order for the history of Judaizing: they
corroborate, as it were, other putative evidence in Jerome’s writings re-
garding this phenomenon—the same “evidence” I have been taking pains
to dismiss. This is the position not only of Krauss,65 but more signifi-
cantly, it features in Simon’s thorough and influential study of the gravita-
tion of Judaizing Christians towards Judaism well into the fourth century
and beyond.66 For Simon, such Judaizing is a product of active Jewish
proselytism. Along these lines, some have found in these sources a reflec-
tion of conditions characteristic specifically of Palestine, or of one part of
it.67 I do not doubt the existence of Judaizing Christians in Jerome’s day;
this is a sound historical conclusion based on solid evidence.68 Yet the
argument that Jerome has in mind authentic Judaizing millenarians col-
lides with the same brick wall as the previous explanation: he names
names, and if these names cannot be reconciled with what is attributed to
them, we must draw the necessary conclusions about Jerome’s intellectual
honesty and the reliability of his testimony, rather than make apologies
for him by forcibly introducing a foreign category of Judaizers of our own
invention.69
65. “Jews in the Works of the Church Fathers,” 242: “Christians who heard of the
delights in store for pious Jews were so attracted by the picture, that they became
converts to Judaism.” As usual, Krauss overstates an already problematic case.
66. Simon, Verus Israel, 328. Cf. R. L. Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983), 73, 146–47; idem, “The Restoration
of Israel in Biblical Prophecy: Christian and Jewish Responses in the Early Byzantine
Period,” in “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late
Antiquity, ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs (Chico: Scholars Press, 1985), 443–71;
idem, The Land Called Holy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), 306–7 (note
Wilken’s more circumspect conclusions in this third study); Gager, Origins of Anti-
Semitism, 133; Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 375, 407.
67. See M. Avi-Yonah, The Jews under Roman and Byzantine Rule (Jerusalem:
Magnes, 1984), 215 (Palestine); Schwartz, Jewish Settlement in Judaea, 199 (Judea).
On Judaizing in Judea cf. Gager, Origins of Anti-Semitism, 188; Feldman, Jew and
Gentile in the Ancient World, 405.
68. For sources on Judaizing Christians, see the studies listed in n. 66, and cf.
Dagron, “Judaïser.”
69. To their credit, O’Connell (Eschatology of St. Jerome, 70–72) and Wilken (cf.
n. 66), both grapple with the problem of Jerome’s references to particular Christian
authors on the one hand and the ideas attributed to them on the other. Their solutions
are, however, unnecessarily generous to Jerome.
3) Jerome speaks of Christian millenarians of the past and present as

Iudaizantes in the same way as he and his contemporaries use this and
related terms in their struggles against various other Christian movements
or ideologies who are candidates for such a caricature, without signifying
genuine sympathy towards Jews and Judaism.70 We have already encoun-
tered this phenomenon several times in the course of our discussion. We
have also noted that Jerome’s millenarian Judaizers do not remain anony-
mous: he calls a number of prominent Christian authors Judaizers be-
cause of their millenarian interpretations of the prophetic books of the
Bible and of Revelation. Though later generations questioned the ortho-
doxy of some of these figures, none can by any means be considered a
Judaizer in the conventional sense. Thus, for example, Jerome considers
in his Commentary to Isaiah (no. 33), “in what manner should the
Apocalypse of John be understood, which to accept literally is an act of
Judaizing.” He notes:
If we treat it spiritually, as it is written, we will be found to contradict the
opinions of many earlier [interpreters]: from among the Latins, Tertullian,
Victorinus, Lactantius; from among the Greeks, passing over others, I
mention only Irenaeus bishop of Lyons, against whom a most eloquent
man, Dionysius the bishop of the church of Alexandria, wrote a fine book
mocking the tale of the millennium, as well as the golden and bejeweled
earthly Jerusalem, the restoration of the temple, the blood of sacrifices, the
idleness of the sabbath, the injury of circumcision, nuptials, childbirth,
child-rearing, the delights of feasting, and the servitude of all nations, and
once again wars, armies, and triumphs, and the slaughter of the vanquished,
and the death of the hundred-year-old sinner [cf. Isa 65.20]. Apollinaris
responded to him in two volumes, and he is followed not only by men of
his own sect, but also by a great multitude of our own, at least in this
matter, so that I already perceive with foreboding that the anger of many
will be aroused against me. I do not envy them, if they love the earth so
much, that they desire earthly things in the kingdom of Christ, and if after
an abundance of foods and the gluttony of their gullet and belly, they seek
that which is below the belly.
Thus, among the Judaizers we find Tertullian, Victorinus of Petovium,

Lactantius, Irenaeus and Apollinaris. We find the same list of authors in
Commentary to Zephaniah (no. 4), where they are said to follow in the
70. See Schmidtke and Taylor in n. 64, above; A. Luneau, L’histoire du salut chez
les Pères de l’Eglise (Paris: Beauchesne, 1964), 267–70; Dulaey, “Jérôme, Victorin de
Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 83–98; E. Prinzivalli, “Il millenarismo in Oriente da
Metodio ad Apollinare,” ASE 15.1 (1998): 138–51; Guinot, “Théodoret et le
millénarisme d’Apollinaire,” 173–80; Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 190.
wake of Papias and his Jewish millennial deuter≈seiw, that is to say,

Mishna (taken in its broadest sense as an extrabiblical Jewish tradition);71
Jerome also refers there to the lost work of Tertullian, On the Hope of the
Faithful. Again in his Commentary to Ezekiel (no. 36), Jerome names the
same five figures (referring once more to the aforementioned work of
Tertullian, but also to the Divine Institutes of Lactantius and the numer-
ous Expositions of Victorinus), while adding a sixth: Sulpicius Severus,
cited as author of the dialogue Gallus. All these authors are said to
promise the Christians restoration of an earthly Jerusalem, participation
in the sacrificial cult, circumcision, and sabbath observance, in accor-
dance with the “Jewish myths” called deuter≈seiw.72 Jerome’s polemic is
directed in part against literary opponents no longer among the living and
in part against his contemporaries, especially the many millenarian fol-
lowers of his former teacher Apollinaris of Laodicea.73 We may suspect
71. Jerome has paraphrased Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.39.11 (GCS 9:290):
…w §k paradÒsevw égrãfou. On deuterosis in Jerome: Newman, Jerome and the Jews,
99.
72. Compare Commentary to Jeremiah (no. 44), where, in an uncharacteristically
conciliatory tone, Jerome compares the millenarian Christians to the Jews but says of
the former: “Although we do not follow them, neither may we condemn them, since
many ecclesiastics and martyrs have said these things, so ‘let each abound according
to his own opinion’ [Rom 14.5], and let all things be reserved for the judgment of the
Lord.” According to Dulaey (“Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 97),
the “ecclesiastics” here should be identified with the bishops Papias and Nepos, while
the martyrs are Irenaeus and Victorinus.
73. On Jerome and Apollinaris, see P. Jay, “Jérôme auditeur d’Apollinaire de
Laodicée à Antioche,” REAug 20 (1974): 36–41. For a survey of scholarship on
Apollinaris see the article of E. Mühlenberg in Theologische Realenzyklopädie 3:362–
71. Dulaey, “Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 94, may be correct in
identifying an allusion to Apollinaris and his followers in Commentary to Zephaniah
(no. 2), written in 393: “If one of the Christians, especially one of the new sages, over
whose names I pass in silence lest I appear to wound someone, reckons that the
prophecy is not yet completed, let him know that he falsely bears the name of Christ
and that he has a Jewish soul, lacking only circumcision of the body.” A similar
rhetorical conceit regarding an unnamed opponent is found in Letter 22.32, (CSEL
54:193); cf. H. Hagendahl, Gnomon 40 (1968): 586. Dulaey attributes Jerome’s
caution to the fact that Apollinaris was still alive in 393; he may, however, already
have been dead at the time. On the appeal of Apollinaris’ millenarianism well beyond
the immediate circle of his followers, see M. Simonetti, “Il millenarismo cristiano dal
I al V secolo,” ASE 15.1 (1998): 17. We possess a letter of Apollinaris addressed to
the orthodox Egyptian bishops exiled by Valens in 373 to Diocaesarea (Sepphoris) in
Palestine (for the text, see H. Lietzmann, Apollinaris von Laodicea und seine Schule
[Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1904], 255–56). His overtures to the exiles
prompted Basil of Caesarea to send the same group a letter warning against
Apollinaris’ heretical teachings (Letter 265; cf. below, n. 75). For vestiges of
that in some instances Jerome’s Judaizers are any and all millenarian
Christians, regardless of their particular ideology or affiliation.
By simply examining the sources to which he refers us (insofar as they
still exist), we may learn just how unscrupulous Jerome can be in describ-
ing the so-called Judaizers. So far as we know, none of these authors
maintained hopefully that in the millennial kingdom all would offer
sacrifices and keep the sabbath and that all men would be circumcised.
We do find in the writings of Victorinus and Sulpicius Severus the notion
that Antichrist will seek to impose circumcision on the faithful, but if this
is what Jerome has in mind, then his presentation is dishonest, to say the
least.74 The case of Apollinaris is more complicated. Several of his con-
temporaries accused him of preaching the anticipation of a “second Juda-
ism” at the end of days, complete with sacrifices and temple cult, circum-
cision, and sabbath.75 All this is reminiscent of Jerome’s description of his
millenarians, surely not by coincidence. Yet no less an authority than
Epiphanius—hardly charitable when it came to heretics—expressed scep-
ticism over the attribution of these ideas to Apollinaris.76 Since Apollinaris’
orthodox opponents took care to relegate most of his works to oblivion,
we are at something of a loss when trying to reconstruct his thought on
the basis of surviving fragments and the biased reports of his detractors.
Prinzivalli and Guinot have recently proposed a new and plausible inter-
pretation of Apollinaris’ theory of the millennium, which may partially
Apollinarianism in Palestine, see the letter sent to Theophilus of Alexandria by the

members of the Jerusalem synod of the year 400 (=Jerome, Letter 93 [CSEL 55:155]).
See in general Lietzmann, Apollinaris, 22–37. Krauss (“Jews in the Works of the
Church Fathers,” 233) and Juster (Juifs dans l’empire Romain, 1:473 n. 6) claim that
the Jews were familiar with the writings of Apollinaris, but both of them read far too
much into Commentary to Ecclesiastes 12.5 (CCL 72:356).
74. On Antichrist and circumcision: Victorinus, Commentary to Revelation 13.3
(CSEL 49:120–21); Sulpicius Severus, Dialogue 2.14.3 (CSEL 1:197). For a later
example of this motif, see P. J. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 139, 206–7. We possess Victorinus’
Commentary to Revelation in two versions: the original composition and Jerome’s
bowdlerized revision; see C. Curti, “Girolamo e il millenarismo di Vittorino di
Petovio,” ASE 15.1 (1998): 191–203. On Jerome and the Dialogue of Sulpicius
Severus, see C. Stancliffe, St. Martin and His Hagiographer (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1983), 297–98.
75. The loci classici are all in the works of the three Cappadocians: Basil of
Caesarea, Letter 263.4 (ed. Courtonne, 3:124–25); idem, Letter 265.2 (ed. Courtonne,
3:130); Gregory of Nyssa, Letter 3.24 (SC 363:142–45); Gregory of Nazianzus,
Letter 101.63–65 (SC 208:64–65); idem, Letter 102.14 (SC 208:76–79); idem,
Carminum liber 2.1.30 (PG 37:1297).
76. Epiphanius, Panarion 77.36.5 (GCS 37:448–49).
explain why it was susceptible to exaggeration and misrepresentation.

They argue on the basis of the testimony of Theodoret of Cyrrhus in his
Commentary to Ezekiel 48.33 (PG 81:1248) that Apollinaris did indeed
envision the observance of Jewish practices in the millennium—but only
by the Jews who will come to accept faith in Christ and recreate, as it
were, the Church of the Circumcision.77 While we can easily conceive of
Apollinaris’ detractors overstating the case against him, there is no appar-
ent reason to suspect Theodoret, himself a hostile witness, of understating
it. In any case, for the Jews who will not accept Christ the future is bleak,
as we learn from Jerome’s quote from Apollinaris’ remarks on Daniel
9.27. He explains that following the reconstruction of the temple by
Elijah,78 Antichrist will place in it the Abomination of Desolation, and
“there shall come the final devastation and condemnation of the Jewish
people, who, having spurned the truth of Christ, will accept the falsehood
of Antichrist.”79
The image of the Judaizing millenarian in Jerome’s writings is an artifi-
cial conflation of various millenarian positions (including heavy doses of
Cerinthian hedonism),80 some of them exaggerated for polemical pur-
poses. This image, in turn, is conflated in numerous passages with gener-
alizations about Jewish messianism. The fact that Jerome so heavy-
handedly misrepresents the authors he names relieves us of the obligation
77. Cf. Prinzivalli, “Millenarismo in Oriente da Metodio ad Apollinare,” 145–48;

Guinot, “Théodoret et le millénarisme d’Apollinaire,” 167–72, 179. I am not
convinced, however, that there is evidence in Jerome’s commentaries to support this
interpretation. Prinzivalli cites Commentary to Isaiah 40.1–3 (CCL 73A:693), where
Jerome cites the opinion of unnamed interpreters that the prophet’s carnal promises
are intended for the Jews who accept Christ. Prinzivalli assumes that this refers to an
eschatological promise, but in fact, both from the continuation of the passage and
from Commentary to Isaiah 40.6–7 (CCL 73A:699), it would appear that according
to Jerome, the anonymous interpreters refer to an opportunity whose time has already
passed, and to a promise that is now null and void. Guinot cites Commentary to
Isaiah 53.12 (no. 24), for which cf. n. 42. Perhaps more to the point are the remarks
of Jerome in Commentary to Isaiah 66.3 (cf. n. 41), which could conceivably refer to
Apollinaris.
78. Cf. the opinion of the Iudaei et Iudaizantes haeretici in Commentary to
Malachi (no. 11). The latter are plausibly identified by Dulaey (“Jérôme, Victorin de
Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 95), with Apollinaris and his followers; cf. Prinzivalli,
“Millenarismo in Oriente da Metodio ad Apollinare,” 142–43.
79. Commentary to Daniel 9.24 (CCL 75A:879): et erit extrema uastitas et
condemnatio populi Iudaeorum, qui, spreta ueritate Christi, receperunt Antichristi
mendacium.
80. Cf. for example, Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 3.28 (GCS 9.1:256–60);
7.25.1–3 (GCS 9.2:690–92).
to justify all of the oddities of his homogenized millenarian inventions

and highlights the weakness of historical reconstructions of mass move-
ments of Judaizing Christians who anticipated not only the kingdom of
Christ on earth and the restoration of a golden Jerusalem, but also the
universal observance of Jewish ritual.81
The irony—and perhaps part of the underlying logic—of Jerome’s fre-
quent attacks against alleged Judaizers is that in principle no orthodox
Christian of his day was more vulnerable than he to the charge of Judaizing.
Here was a Christian who fraternized with Jews, not for commerce or
recreation, but for the express purpose of learning Hebrew and studying
Jewish biblical interpretation so that he could then pass on his knowledge
to other Christians. The possible implications of these facts were not lost
on his enemies, who did not hesitate to exploit them against him. In the
extended and rancorous dispute between Jerome and Rufinus, Jerome is
often accused of promoting the cause of the Jews; he responds by making
similar charges against his detractors. Perhaps the most outstanding ex-
ample of his vulnerability on this score is the case of a letter forged in his
name and distributed among some African bishops. In it, Jerome suppos-
edly confesses to being enlisted by the Jews in his youth to compose a
deliberately faulty translation of the Hebrew Bible.82 I have already sug-
gested that in his correspondence with Augustine, Jerome goes out of his
way to press the issue of the threat posed to the Church by Augustine’s
understanding of Galatians, in part as a means of deflecting the criticism
of his own translation of the Hebrew Bible and of his stand regarding the
biblical canon. These were matters of particular concern to the African
church,83 and in assessing the exchange with Augustine we must surely
take its geographical context into account as well.
81. Dulaey, “Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 90–92, makes an

artificial distinction among three categories: 1) xiliasta¤/miliarii; 2) semiiudaei/
christiani iudaizantes; 3) iudaizantes. She specifically identifies the second group with
Jewish-Christians and Apollinarians. In fact, those characteristics which she claims
distinguish each category may be found associated with the others as well; cf. the
criticism of Prinzivalli, “Millenarismo in Oriente da Metodio ad Apollinare,” 148–
50.
82. See Against Rufinus 2.24 (CCL 79:60); Letter Against Rufinus 25 (CCL 79:97).
Cf. the correspondence between Jerome and Augustine: Letter 102.3 (CSEL 55:236);
Letter 110.6 (CSEL 55:361), and see P. Lardet, L’Apologie de Jérôme contre Rufin
(Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993), 212–13.
83. The most dramatic demonstration of African resistance to the new translation
is the famous case of the church of Oea, where Jerome’s rendition of Jonah 4.6 almost
caused the exercised congregants to riot. On this incident, see Fürst, Augustins
Briefwechsel mit Hieronymus, 143. On Jerome and the preoccupation of the Africans
One further aspect of Jerome’s battle against the “Judaizers” deserves

our attention: the chronology of his attacks. Dulaey has pointed out that
while a handful of relevant passages appear in works written between
393 and 398, most of Jerome’s antichiliastic forays are found in writings
composed from 406 onward (see the table of sources at the end of this
article). She suggests that the condemnation of the Origenists in 400
strengthened the position of millenarian “fundamentalists,” who aroused
Jerome’s aggressive response.84 As Prinzivalli has noted, this explanation
is problematic. On the one hand, Dulaey herself recognizes that most of
Jerome’s commentaries on the prophets—that is, precisely those works in
which we would expect to find his opinion of millenarian exegesis—did
not appear before 406. Thus, we should not be surprised to find the
greatest concentration of antimillenarian remarks in writings of the later
period. On the other hand, Apollinarianism was in fact in decline in
Palestine after 400, in the very period in which Jerome’s concern with
millenarianism seems most pronounced.85 In general, we should remem-
ber that the late fourth and early fifth centuries were a time of increased
eschatological tension. Various scholars have noted that the period was
burdened with a cluster of eschatological target dates computed by apoca-
lyptic speculators, dates which fueled preoccupation with portents of the
end of the world.86 Perhaps Jerome’s exegetical polemics are in part a
reaction to these contemporary phenomena.87
with the question of the canon, see Hennings, Briefwechsel zwischen Augustinus und
Hieronymus, 203–6. Fürst stresses, however, that for his part, Augustine did not raise
the issue of the canon in his critique of Jerome’s translation (Augustins Briefwechsel
mit Hieronymus, 140 n. 361).
84. Dulaey, “Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 97–98.
85. E. Prinzivalli, “‘Sicubi dubitas, Hebraeos interroga.’ Girolamo tra difesa
dell’Hebraica veritas e polemica antigiudaica,” ASE 14.1 (1997): 197–98. See also
Curti, “Girolamo e il millenarismo di Vittorino di Petovio,” 202–3.
86. For a recent discussion with bibliography see S. Bradbury, Severus of Minorca:
Letter on the Conversion of the Jews (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996), 43–53.
87. Wilken has proposed that the Jewish messianism and attendant “Judaizing”
(taken by him in its conventional sense) among Christians as described by Jerome
were a result of the aborted restoration of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem under Julian
(Wilken, John Chrysostom and the Jews, 73; idem, “Restoration of Israel in Biblical
Prophecy,” 462; cf. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World, 375). The
argument is based in large measure on the mistaken notion that Jerome tells us
something about Jewish hopes of restoration that is absent from Jewish sources (or
Christian sources describing the Jews) prior to Julian. In a later and more thorough
discussion, Wilken gives greater attention to the pre-Julianic evidence of Jewish
messianic expectations; it is perhaps not by accident that in this last study Jerome’s
testimony regarding the Jews is correctly presented as part of a consistent chain of
Where does all this leave the historian investigating the history of
Judaizing Christians in antiquity? After all the efforts of scholars to
uncover in Jerome’s works evidence of the existence of Judaizers, when
the dust settles we find ourselves with at most two passages which speak
more or less concretely about contemporary Christian sympathy towards
Judaism: Letter 121 to Algasia, where we hear of the prestige of Jewish
sages among the Christian masses, and the peculiar passage in Against
Jovinian describing Valens’ legislation against Judaizing veal-eaters. This
is not very much. What is more, we cannot even be certain that these tell
us anything about circumstances in Palestine. The Judaizers in Jerome’s
writings are most often Christian millenarians upon whose beliefs Jerome
wishes to cast aspersions; sometimes they are no more than theological
scarecrows. Jerome’s silence on the subject of genuine Judaizing in Pales-
tine, where opportunities for interreligious contact were certainly not
lacking, is all the more striking when we consider the far more substantial
evidence for the existence of Judaizing Christians elsewhere, most notably
in Antioch. Whether the absence of Judaizing ultimately tells us more
about the Christians of Palestine or about its Jews, I cannot say. Whatever
the reason, it appears that in Jerome’s day, in what was arguably still the
tradition, and not as evidence of resurgent messianism engendered specifically by the

Jewish eschatological fervor surrounding Julian’s program (Land Called Holy, 136
[but cf. 139]). That such fervor existed is not to be denied, but the limited Jewish
evidence at our disposal suggests, not surprisingly, that the failure of Julian’s project
resulted in profound embarrassment among the Jews (cf. S. Lieberman, “The Martyrs
of Caesarea,” Annuaire de l’Institut de Philologie et d’Histoires Orientales et Slaves
7 [1939–1944]: 412–15), and it is not unreasonable to speak of later manifestations
of Jewish messianism arising despite Julian and not because of him. For all his
importance, Julian does not mark the Archimedean point of Jewish messianism and
Christian chiliasm in the fourth and fifth centuries. It is worth noting that no less a
millenarian than Apollinaris wrote an apology—now lost—against Julian.
Incidentally, Wilken is mistaken in concluding from Commentary to Daniel 9.24
(CCL 75A:886) that the Jews envisioned the imminent restoration of Jerusalem
(“Restoration of Israel in Biblical Prophecy,” 449–50; cf. John Chrysostom and the
Jews, 73). The pending restoration in that passage (non post grande tempus
instaurabitur) has nothing to do with Jewish messianic expectations but is rather part
of Jerome’s paraphrase of the Jewish interpretation of Gabriel’s message to Daniel in
Daniel 9.24–27. The angel informs Daniel that Jerusalem and its temple are soon to
be rebuilt—under the Persians. Nowhere does Jerome indicate that the Jews of his day
believe the final redemption to be imminent; the only messianic calculations
mentioned in his writings put these events almost a century in the future (Commen-
tary to Joel 3[4].19 [CCL 76:208]; Commentary to Ezekiel 4.4–6 [CCL 75A:47]). I
hope to discuss these passages at length elsewhere. Note also that the date calculated
by Apollinaris for the coming of Elijah is not 432 c.e. (thus Wilken, “Restoration of
Israel in Biblical Prophecy,” 452) but 482 c.e.
most important of all centers of Jewish life, the boundary separating

Christians from Jews remained far more distinct than some have as-
sumed. These conclusions should be considered in the broader context of
recent scholarly reappraisal of the grand theory of widespread Judaizing
Christianity as a cause of anti-Judaism,88 a theory articulated most force-
fully by Marcel Simon. That model, it appears, indeed holds true in
certain cases but fails to do so in others; it remains the task of the
historian to investigate the nuances distinguishing different times and
places.89
Hillel I. Newman is a Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History at

the University of Haifa
APPENDIX: TABLE OF SOURCES 90

393–398 C.E.
*1) Commentary to Micah 4.1–7 (CCL 76:472): Sciendum quoque, et hoc
capitulum quod nunc exposuimus, et huic simile de Esaia, Iudaeos et eorum
erroris heredes ad mille annorum referre imperium Christi atque sanctorum.
*2) Commentary to Zephaniah 3.14–18 (CCL 76A:706): Iudaei cum Christo,
quem putant esse uenturum, haec sibi omnia repromittunt, quae nos qui
Christum suscepimus, iam cum ipso sumus omnia consecuti. Si quis ergo
Christianorum, et maxime nouorum prudentium, quorum nomina taceo, ne
quemquam laedere uidear, existimat necdum prophetiam esse completam, sciat
falso Christi portare se nomen, et Iudaicam animam, circumcisionem tantum
corporis non habere.
*3) Commentary to Zephaniah 3.19–20 (CCL 76A:708–9): Et hoc synagoga . . .
pollicetur sibi in aduentu Christi sui quem sperat esse uenturum. . . . Et hoc fieri
tempore, quando captiuitas reducta fuerit Hierusalem, et exstructum templum,
et reliquus caeremoniarum ordo seruatus. . . . Nec miror synagogam haec
dicere. . . . Christianos miror, immo Semiiudaeos, qui sibi uidentur esse de
Ecclesia, ita dicere et ea profiteri. . . .
*4) On Illustrious Men 18 (ed. Richardson, 19): Hic [sc. Papias] dicitur mille
annorum Iudaicam edidisse deut°rvsin. Quem secuti sunt Irenaeus et Apollinaris
88. See for example M. S. Taylor, Anti-Judaism; Satran, “Anti-Jewish Polemic in

the Peri Pascha of Melito of Sardis.”
89. I would like to acknowledge that in the course of the preparation of this paper
I enjoyed the support of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, which awarded me a
Kreitman Fellowship for the academic year 1998–99.
90. For the rationale behind the selection of sources, see n. 58. Sources lacking
explicit mention of iudaizantes are marked with an asterisk.
et ceteri qui post resurrectionem aiunt in carne cum sanctis Dominum regnaturum.
Tertullianus quoque in libro de Spe fidelium et Victorinus Petavionensis et
Lactantius hac opinione ducuntur.
*5) Letter 59.3 (CSEL 54:544): . . . omnis ille liber [sc. Apocalypsis] aut
spiritaliter intellegendus sit, ut nos aestimamus, aut, si carnalem interpretationem
sequimur, Iudaicis fabulis adquiescendum sit, ut rursum aedificetur Hierusalem
et hostiae offerantur in templo, et spiritali cultu inminuto, carnales obtineant
caeremoniae.
*6) Commentary to Isaiah 19.23 (CCL 73:200): Quidam nostrorum male haec
ad mille annos referunt, et more iudaico in consummatione mundi futura
pronuntiant. . . .
7) Commentary to Isaiah 23.18 (CCL 73:222): Iudaei cassa in futurum uota
differunt, post antichristum in mille annis haec explenda memorantes. Nec
mirum si ista confingant, qui spreta ueritate Christi, organum diaboli antichristum
recepturi sunt, cum etiam Christiani iudaizantes de mille annorum beatudine
haec dicta contendant.
406–416 C.E.
*8) Commentary to Zechariah 2.1–2 (CCL 76A:763): Alii uero et maxime Iudaei
in mille annorum regno interpretantur, corporales corporalia requirentes.
9) Commentary to Zechariah 14.10–11 (CCL 76A:885–86): Exstructionem urbis
Hierusalem, et aquarum egressum de medio eius, quae ad utrumque defluant
mare, Iudaei et Christiani Iudaizantes, ultimo sibi tempore repromittunt, quando
rursum exercenda circumcisio sit, et immolandae uictimae, et omnia legis
praecepta seruanda, ut non Iudaei Christiani, sed Christiani Iudaei fiant. . . .
Haec Iudaei iuxta litteram somniant, et nostri xiliasta‹. . . . Nec opponant nobis
Ioannis Apocalypsim, quae et ipsa spiritaliter disserenda est.
10) Commentary in Zechariah 14.18–19 (CCL 76A:896–97): Haec omnia . . .
Iudaei et iudaizantes nostri, immo non nostri, quia iudaizantes, sperant futura
corporaliter, utique et circumcisionem sibi, et coniugia in mille annorum imperio
promittentes. . . .
11) Commentary to Malachi 4.5–6 (CCL 76A:942): Iudaei et Iudaizantes
haeretici ante ±leimm°non suum Heliam putant esse uenturum, et restituturum
omnia.
12) Commentary to Hosea 2.14–15 (CCL 76:27): Haec circumcisio et nostri
Iudaizantes ad mille annorum regnum referunt. . . .
13) Commentary to Hosea 2.21–24 (CCL 76:32): Quae omnia Iudaei et nostri
iudaizantes post antichristum in fine mundi corporaliter praestolantur.
14) Commentary to Joel 3.7–8 (CCL 76:202): Haec illi [sc. Iudaei] et nostri
Iudaizantes, qui mille annorum regnum in Iudaeae sibi finibus pollicentur, et
auream Hierusalem, et uictimarum sanguinem, et filios ac nepotes et delicias

incredibiles, et portas gemmarum uarietate distinctas.
15) Commentary to Joel 3.16–17 (CCL 76:206): Haec Iudaei et nostri, ut
diximus, Iudaizantes, ad mille annorum fabulam referunt. . . .
*16) Letter 120.2 (CSEL 55:479–80): Ex hoc loco quidam mille annorum
fabulam struunt, in quibus Christum regnaturum corporaliter esse contendunt. .
. . Si enim panis, qui de caelo descendit, corpus est domini . . . Iudaicas fabulas
repellamus et ascendamus cum domino cenaculum magnum. . . .
17) Commentary to Isaiah 11.6–9 (CCL 73:150–51): Haec quoque Iudaei et
nostri iudaizantes iuxta litteram futura contendunt. . . . Haec breuiter diximus, ut
Iudaizantes nostros grauissimo somno stertere conuincamus.
18) Commentary to Isaiah 11.11–14 (CCL 73:154): . . . iuxta nostros Iudaizantes
in fine mundi, cum intrauerit plenitudo gentium, tunc omnis Israel saluus fiat.
19) Commentary to Isaiah 11.15–16 (CCL 73:157): Prudens et christianus lector
hanc habeat repromissionum prophetalium regulam, ut quae Iudaei et nostri,
immo non nostri Iudaizantes, carnaliter futura contendunt, nos spiritaliter iam
transacta doceamus, ne per occasionem istiusmodi fabularum et inextricabilium
iuxta apostolum quaestionum iudaizare cogamur.
*20) Commentary to Isaiah 30.26 (CCL 73:396): Quae qui recipiunt, mille
quoque annorum fabulam, et terrenum Saluatoris imperium Iudaico errore
suscipient, non intellegentes Apocalypsim Ioannis in superficie litterae medullata
Ecclesiae sacramenta contexere.
*21) Commentary to Isaiah 34.8–17 (CCL 73:421): Hebraei . . . haec de
Romano imperio prophetata contendunt, et in ultionem Sion, uastitatem quon-
dam regni potentissimi praedicari, quod iuxta litteram plerique nostrorum etiam
in Apocalypsi Ioannis scriptum putant.
22) Commentary to Isaiah 35.3–10 (CCL 73:427): . . . Iudaei autem et nostri
Iudaizantes ad secundum [sc. aduentum] referunt, unius occasione uersiculi:
Conuertentur et uenient in Sion cum laude [Isa 35.10], hostiarum sanguinem,
cunctarumque gentium seruitutem, et uxorum pulchritudinem desiderantes.
23) Commentary to Isaiah 49.14–21 (CCL 73A:543): Quarto appellatur
Hierusalem quam Iudaei et nostri iudaizantes iuxta Apocalypsim Ioannis, quam
non intellegunt, putant auream atque gemmatam de caelestibus ponendam. . . .
*24) Commentary to Isaiah 53.12 (CCL 73A:597): Ex quo qui dispensatoriam
inter Petrum et Paulum contentionem uere dicunt iurgium fuisse atque certamen,
ut blasphemanti Porphyrio satisfaciant, et ueteris legis caeremonias in Ecclesia
Christi a stirpe credentis Israel asserunt esse seruandas, debent et auream in mille
annis exspectare Hierusalem, ut uictimas immolent et circumcidantur, ut in
sabbato sedeant, dormiant, saturentur, inebrientur et surgant ludere, qui ludus
offendit Deum.
25) Commentary to Isaiah 54.1 (CCL 73A:601): Hunc locum et cetera, quae
sequuntur, Iudaei et nostri iudaizantes ad Hierusalem referunt, quam dicunt in
mille annorum regno instaurandam. . . . Nec mirandum de Iudaeis, quorum oculi
auresque sunt clausae, si apertam non uideant ueritatem. De Christianis quid
loquar, nescio, qui . . . Iudaeis tradunt manus, terrenarum in mille annis desiderio
uoluptatum.
26) Commentary to Isaiah 54.6–8 (CCL 73A:605): Hic amici Iudaeorum
uilificant mulierem derelictam . . . Hierusalem esse dicentes. . . . Si ergo Iudaei et
nostri iudaizantes dicunt Israel ad modicum derelictum, ut in aduentu Christi
eius misereatur Deus. . . .
*27) Commentary to Isaiah 54.11–14 (CCL 73A:609): Respondeant amatores
tantum occidentis litterae, et in mille annis exquisitos cibos gulae ac luxuriae
praeparantes, quorum Deus uenter est, et gloria in confusione eorum [Phil 3.19];
qui post secundum in gloria Saluatoris aduentum, sperant nuptias, et paruulos
centum annorum [cf. Isa 65.20], et circumcisionis iniuriam, et uictimarum
sanguinem, et perpetuum sabbatum. . . . Ex quo perspicuum est . . . etiam ceteras
uirtutes in aedificationem Ecclesiae debere nos quaerere, nec Iudaica deliramenta
sectari.
*28) Commentary to Isaiah 54.11–14 (CCL 73A:613–14): . . . nequaquam nos
iuxta Hebraeos et nostros Semiiudaeos in terra, sed in caelis, urbem Dei
quaerentes, quae in Christo monte sita latere non potest.
*29) Commentary to Isaiah 58.12 (CCL 73A:672–73): Haec Iudaei et amici
tantum occidentis litterae ad instaurationem referunt urbium Palaestinae, et uel
facta sub Zorobabel et Ezra, et Neemia, uel in ultimo tempore futura contendunt.
*30) Commentary to Isaiah 59.1–6 (CCL 73A:680): Qui igitur audiens traditiones
Iudaicas, ad escas se mille annorum uoluerit praeparare, et repromissionum
deliciis irretitus, manum ad cibum extendere.
*31) Commentary to Isaiah 60.1–3 (CCL 73A:692–93): Iudaei et nostri
semiiudaei, qui auream atque gemmatam de caelo exspectant Hierusalem, haec
in mille annorum regno futura contendunt . . . , et omnes oues Cedar
congregentur, arietesque Nabaioth ueniant, ut immolentur super altare templi,
quod fuerit exstructum. . . . Haec illi dicunt, qui terrenas desiderant uoluptates,
et uxorum quaerunt pulchritudinem, ac numerum liberorum, quorum Deus
uenter est, et gloria in confusione eorum [Phil 3.19], quorum qui sequitur
errorem, sub nomine Christiano Iudaeorum se similem confitetur.
*32) Commentary to Isaiah 62.10–12 (CCL 73A:718): Quod semiiudaei in
ultimo tempore, quando post plenitudinem gentium saluandus est Israel et ad
Dominum rediturus, futurum esse contendunt.
33) Commentary to Isaiah, Prologue to Book 18 (CCL 73A:740–41): . . . qua
ratione intellegenda sit Apocalypsis Ioannis, quam si iuxta litteram accipimus,
iudaizandum est. Si spiritaliter, ut scripta est, disserimus, multorum ueterum
uidebimur opinionibus contraire: Latinorum, Tertulliani, Victorini, Lactantii;
Graecorum, ut ceteros praetermittam, Irenaei tantum Lugdonensis episcopi

faciam mentionem, aduersum quem uir eloquentissimus Dionysius Alexandrinae
ecclesiae pontifex elegantem scribit librum, irridens mille annorum fabulam, et
auream atque gemmatam in terris Hierusalem, instaurationem templi, hostiarum
sanguinem, otium sabbati, circumcisionis iniuriam, nuptias, partus, liberorum
educationem, epularum delicias, et cunctarum gentium seruitutem, rursusque
bella, exercitus ac triumphos et superatorum neces, mortemque centenarii
peccatoris. Cui duobus uoluminibus respondit Apollinaris, quem non solum suae
sectae homines, sed et nostrorum in hac parte dumtaxat plurima sequitur
multitudo, ut praesaga mente iam cernam quantorum in me rabies concitanda
sit. Quibus non inuideo, si tantum amant terram, ut in regno Christi terrena
desiderent; et post ciborum abundantiam, gulaeque ac uentris ingluuiem, ea quae
sub uentre sunt quaerant.
*34) Commentary to Isaiah 65.23–25 (CCL 73A:768): Interrogemus in hoc loco

Iudaeos, et omnes qui sub nomine Christiano adhuc paleas comedunt scriptu-
rarum . . . , quae beatitudo sit aestimanda, ut in mille annorum regno, in Sion
monte . . . lupi et agni, leones et boues, serpentes et homines simul comedant,
pariterque commorentur?
*35) Commentary to Isaiah 66.20 (CCL 73A:792–93): Iudaei et Iudaici erroris
heredes Ebionitae . . . , omnesque mille annorum delicias praestolantes . . . , sic
intellegunt, ut scripta sunt. Quod uidelicet in consummatione mundi, quando
Christus Hierusalem regnaturus aduenerit, et templum fuerit instauratum, et
immolatae Iudaicae uictimae, de toto orbe reducantur filii Israel. . . .
*36) Commentary to Ezekiel 36.1–15 (CCL 75:500): . . . neque enim iuxta
iudaicas fabulas, quas illi deuter≈seiw appellant, gemmatam et auream de caelo
exspectamus Hierusalem, nec rursum passuri circumcisionis iniuriam, nec oblaturi
taurorum et arietum uictimas, nec sabbati otio dormiemus—quod et multi
nostrorum, et praecipue Tertulliani liber qui inscribitur ‘de Spe fidelium’ et
Lactantii ‘Institutionum’ uolumen septimum, pollicetur, et Victorini Pictabionensis
episcopi crebrae ‘Expositiones,’ et nuper Seuerus noster in dialogo cui ‘Gallo’
nomen imposuit, et, ut Graecos nominem et primum extremumque coniungam,
Irenaeus et Apollinaris.
37) Commentary to Ezekiel 37.15–28 (CCL 75:522): Quod si Iudaei et
Christiani iudaizantes haec ad mille annorum uoluerint referre regnum, necessi-
tate cogentur ut suscipiant omnes qui salui fuerint habitaturos in terra Israel,
aedificandam Hierusalem, exstruendum templum, cunctas legis caeremonias
exercendas, obseruandum sabbatum, accipiendam circumcisionis iniuriam,
manducandum et bibendum, et diuitiarum abundantiam pro summa beatitudine
et cunctis opibus aestimandam. . . .
38) Commentary to Ezekiel 38.1–23 (CCL 75:525): Igitur Iudaei et nostri
iudaizantes putant Gog gentes esse Scythicas immanes et innumerabiles . . . et has
post mille annorum regnum esse a diabolo commouendas. . . .
*39) Commentary to Ezekiel 39.1–16 (CCL 75:536): Et haec iudaicae traditionis

heredes et discipuli interminabilium fabularum, post mille annorum regnum
futura contendunt. . . .
40) Commentary to Ezekiel 39.17–29 (CCL 75:543): Omnia autem usque ad
eum locum in quo succedit templi aedificatio, hi quos supra diximus “Iudaeos et
nostros iudaizantes” ad ultimum tempus referunt. . . .
41) Commentary to Jeremiah 11.18–20 (CCL 74:117–18): Iudaei et nostri
iudaizantes haec ex persona Hieremiae dici intellegunt. . . . Sed nescio, quomodo
possint approbare crucifixum esse Hieremiam, cum hoc scriptura non memoret,
nisi forte cogitauerint et non fecerint.
42) Commentary to Jeremiah 13.17c (CCL 74:132): Dicamus Iudaeis et nostris
iudaizantibus, qui simplicem tantum et occidentem sequuntur historiam. . . .
43) Commentary to Jeremiah 17.21–27 (CCL 74:173): Sin autem nostri iudai-
zantes explanationem tropicam repudiarint, aut Iudaei esse cogentur et cum ob-
seruatione sabbati circumcidere praeputia, aut certe reprehendere saluatorem. . . .
*44) Commentary to Jeremiah 19.10–11a (CCL 74:186): . . . quamquam sibi
Iudaei auream atque gemmatam Hierusalem restituendam putent, rursumque
uictimas et sacrificia et coniugia sanctorum et regnum in terris domini saluatoris.
Quae licet non sequamur, tamen damnare non possumus, quia multi ecclesias-
ticorum uirorum et martyres ista dixerunt, ut unusquisque in suo sensu abundet
et domini cuncta iudicio reseruentur.
45) Commentary to Jeremiah, Prologue to Book 6 (CCL 74:289): Vnde et
praesens sextus liber commentariorum in Hieremiam repromissiones mysticas
continebit, quas Iudaei putant et nostri iudaizantes in consummatione mundi
esse conplendas. . . .
46) Commentary to Jeremiah 31.23–24 (CCL 74:314): . . . uel in primo aduentu,
quando spiritaliter haec facta sunt, uel in secundo, quando uniuersa complentur,
iuxta nos spiritaliter, iuxta Iudaeos et nostros iudaizantes carnaliter.
47) Commentary to Jeremiah 31.27–30 (CCL 74:317): Omnes huiuscemodi
repromissiones iuxta Iudaeos et nostros iudaizantes in mille annorum regno
putantur esse complendae.
48) Commentary to Jeremiah 31.38–40 (CCL 74:323): Qui mille annorum in
terra Iudaea regnum Christi recipiunt, Iudaei uidelicet et nostri Iudaizantes . . .
ibi dicunt sanctuarium domini, id est templum, esse condendum mansurumque
in perpetuum. Quod quia post captiuitatem temporibus Zorobabel et Ezrae non
possunt monstrare conpletum, transeunt ad Christi tempora, quem in
consummatione mundi dicunt esse uenturum, ut aurea atque gemmata iuxta
Apocalypsin Iohannis descendat Hierusalem. . . .

Jerome's Judaizers: Hillel I. Newman

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Jerome's Judaizers: Hillel I. Newman

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NEWMAN/JEROME’S JUDAIZERS 421

Judaizing is a phenomenon heavily laden—almost by deﬁnition—with

problem is sometimes exacerbated by inadvertent neglect of the nuances

order to pass judgment on the case for or against the identiﬁcation of

Jewish phylacteries in Commentary to Matthew 23.5–7, where Jerome

The rest of Krauss’s evidence is no less problematic. From Jerome’s

daily routine of coenobitic monks to that of the Essenes as described by

to mean that Jewish converts to Christianity remain subject to the Law to

28. 1 Tim 4.3.

ence of Judaizing Christians,33 it is likely that an underlying concern for

33. Cf. D. Judant, Judaïsme et christianisme. Dossier patristique (Paris: Editions du

Were we not familiar with Jerome’s correspondence with Augustine, we

iustiﬁcantur, a gratia exciderunt. Qui ita ingreditur Ecclesiam, ut legem seruet in

40. Cf. Exod 32.6.

43. See below, n. 57.

Ebionites48—iudaizantes heretici,49 and he describes Theodotion alone as

48. On Theodotion and Symmachus as Ebionites, cf. On Illustrious Men 54 (ed.

among non-Judaizing Gentiles as well.54 Note also that Jerome himself

collection of passages, arranged in chronological order.58 Though plenti-

58. My list of sources is similar, though not identical, to that of M. Dulaey,

with conﬂicting explanations. In what follows, I will try to demonstrate

61. See Judant, Judaïsme et christianisme, 39–40; I. Grego, I giudeo-cristiani nel IV

adopted Jewish beliefs in an earthly messianic kingdom, one in which

3) Jerome speaks of Christian millenarians of the past and present as

Thus, among the Judaizers we ﬁnd Tertullian, Victorinus of Petovium,

wake of Papias and his Jewish millennial deuter≈seiw, that is to say,

Apollinarianism in Palestine, see the letter sent to Theophilus of Alexandria by the

explain why it was susceptible to exaggeration and misrepresentation.

77. Cf. Prinzivalli, “Millenarismo in Oriente da Metodio ad Apollinare,” 145–48;

to justify all of the oddities of his homogenized millenarian inventions

81. Dulaey, “Jérôme, Victorin de Poetovio et le millénarisme,” 90–92, makes an

One further aspect of Jerome’s battle against the “Judaizers” deserves

tradition, and not as evidence of resurgent messianism engendered speciﬁcally by the

most important of all centers of Jewish life, the boundary separating

Hillel I. Newman is a Lecturer in the Department of Jewish History at

APPENDIX: TABLE OF SOURCES 90

88. See for example M. S. Taylor, Anti-Judaism; Satran, “Anti-Jewish Polemic in

auream Hierusalem, et uictimarum sanguinem, et ﬁlios ac nepotes et delicias

Graecorum, ut ceteros praetermittam, Irenaei tantum Lugdonensis episcopi

*34) Commentary to Isaiah 65.23–25 (CCL 73A:768): Interrogemus in hoc loco

*39) Commentary to Ezekiel 39.1–16 (CCL 75:536): Et haec iudaicae traditionis

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