Anti-Judaism versus anti-Semitism: The racialization of Jews in late antiquity

Abstract

This article interrogates the arbitrary distinctions made between “anti-Judaism” and “anti-Semitism” by contextualizing the treatment of Jews in Roman late antiquity within the broader framework of premodern critical race studies. It illustrates the value of employing models such as racialization and monstrification when reconstructing the various iterations of anti-Jewish prejudice that populate the long history of Christianity. More specifically, it outlines the modes of racialization utilized in two fourth-century Christian writings: Eusebius's two-part apology and the Pseudo-Hegesippus. While Eusebius's work serves as an example of the racialization of Jews through ethnographic mythmaking, the so-called Pseudo-Hegesippus demonstrates the use of monstrification in the service of creating an affective culture of fear and hatred toward Jews. Such examples of Christian race-making in late antiquity contribute to the task of tracing the developments of premodern race beyond the medieval period and disrupts the arbitrary and limiting distinctions made between anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism.