#christians and jews

[themedievalproject]

What's up with that? Ecclesia and Synagoga

Close up of Ecclesia and Synagoga flanking the Fürstenportal or Princely Portal of Bamberg Cathedral, July 2022

My first trip to Germany, my first encounter with Ecclesia and Synagoga. I had never seen these statues before and once I learned their names it was clear which one was which. But why are these female figures personifying the Church and the Jewish Synagogue on a Church? That led me to this post.

Ecclesia and Synagoga, the ones that survive today anyway, are most often represented by young and attractive females. Ecclesia, the Church, stands strong and confident wearing a crown and carries a chalice and staff with a cross. Synagoga is blindfolded and/or looking down and carrying a broken spear and torah scrolls.

The original Ecclesia and Synagoga from the portal of Strasbourg Cathedral now in Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame

My Ecclesia at Bamberg did not have the telltale signs of the staff with a cross or the chalice. But even with that, not knowing this symbolism, I wouldn't have put together the opposing woman as the Synagogue. It seemed to me to just depict someone blind to the faith of Christianity, not everything must be about Jews..right?

According to her book on the subject The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteenth Century, Nina Rowe explains that Ecclesia and Synagoga are generally found on the cathedrals of larger cities in northern Europe that had significant Jewish communities, especially in Germany(!) It was meant to remind Jews of their place (as if they needed the reminder) in a Christian dominated society. She notes most portal figures are from the 13th century.

So when did the Ecclesia and Synagoga depictions start?

Wikipedia says around 830, in a Crucifixion from the Drogo Sacramentary. Pic is in the public domain.

How and Why?

Ecclesia's characteristics on Christ's right hand side are already defined, the chalice collecting his blood but the Synagoga is an old gray haired man looking up. Synagoga stayed in this form, while rare, until 12th century when she became blindfolded with a broken lance. At this later time, the emphasis of Synagoga being defeated by the Church is the main objective of its symbolism and becomes a woman.

Rowe notes this timing coincides with the increasing Jewish populations in Germany and other place in Europe. There were increasing interactions between Christian and Jewish scholars and notably their different interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. The figures became a tool to reinforce the power dynamic of the Church.

Before Ecclesia met Synagoga

For centuries before her "coupling with Synagoga," Ecclesia had her own things going on. She had long been represented as the Bride of Christ taking the form of a queen. The Book of Revelation mentions "the Bride" many times and the Gospel of John talks of Christ as a "bridegroom."

Judith Glatzer Weshler expounds in A Change in the Iconography of the Song of Songs in 12th and 13th century Latin Bible, that Ecclesia imagery was sometimes conflated with the Virgin Mary, where Mary herself was depicted as the Church.

This timing is in line with the shift Nina Rowe talks about, when the portal figures appear on cathedrals. In general the 13th century was a particularly shitty time for Jews. But that's a whole other post.

Ecclesia enthroned, Prüfening Abbey, Bavaria, 12th century

There is a precedence in the Old Testament for the symbolism between God and people, via the Song of Songs, a poem that celebrates sexual love between a man and a woman.

Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, the Jewish people. 

Christianity interprets it as an allegory of Christ and his bride, the Church.

In her incredible book, "Mother of God, A History of the Virgin Mary," Miri Rubin writes about a Christian theologian, Origen (c 185- c 254) who advised early Christian followers to market and substantiate their new religion to potential Jewish converts. He thought by focusing on the Jewish Bible, the one they already knew, they could position "Christianity truth" as the revealing of new, necessary, inescapable reinterpretation of the text they thought they knew.

Origen engrossed himself particularly in the Jewish commentary of the Songs of Songs where he found messaging to fit a Christian paradigm, and replaced the Church as the bride of Christ.

Links for more:

Ecclesia and Synagoga

Wikipedia - Song of Songs

[bleakbluejay]

you motherfuckers have no concept of what "land back" or "decolonize" even mean. you're too busy demonizing entire groups of people, terrified, shitting yourselves, that they'll do even half of the horrors to you that you've done to them for decades or centuries. this shit comes off as hella racist for real. you hate arabs so much. you hate first nations people so much. you hate black people so much. even if you sympathize with them, you can't fucking bear the idea of them gaining freedom, independence, autonomy, safety, because you're so, so scared they'll hurt you back and cause chaos in the streets. these same people who just want to rebuild. who just want to go home. who just want to see their families again. who just want food. who just want medical care. who just want dry, warm shelter. you're so focused on the ideas of colonization, of "us vs. them", of one people displacing the other for a state to exist, that you cannot comprehend coexistence, and your only idea of peace is if an entire group of people were just gone and dead.

grow the fuck up. for the love of GOD, grow the fuck up.

[moonmoonthecrabking]

happy pride month to religious queer people, who feel like they’re contradictions, or told that they’re contradictions, but stay true to these important parts of themselves anyway. happy pride to the queer religious people who have to explain their identities, and who have to defend their faith or their queerness in either circle.

i love you, i am one of you, thank you for being in this community with me.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

[Original Washington Post Article]

It's really, really important to remember that the US doesn't support Israel because it just does whatever The Jews™ tell it to. Christian Zionism is extremely powerful and worth reading up on and understanding if you want to end US support for Israel.

(PS. in these prophecies, at the end, the Jews either convert or die)

[chelledoggo]

there's too much animosity towards queer people who want to practice their faith/spirituality, both within their respective religions and within the LGBTQIA+ community.

we need to protect and lift up our queer siblings of faith.

our queer Christians.

our queer Jews.

our queer Muslims.

our queer Hindus.

our queer Buddhists.

our queer Sikhs.

our queer Baháʼís.

our queer Wiccans/Pagans.

our queer Shintos.

our queer siblings of indigenous/folk faiths.

our queer SBNR siblings.

our queer siblings of whatever religion/spiritual systems they observe.

you're all beautiful and valid and loved and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 💖

[thetourguidebarbie]

goyim stop saying "judeochristian" challenge 🫠

[genderfluid-jew]

I think one of the easiest ways for me to mistrust a book and all it’s saying is to see how wrong it gets history about Jews.

This came about because I’m reading a book on indigenous activism and theory and it’s really good!

Too bad I can’t trust anything about it because I’m their little “history of colonialism” section they went “the three largest religions of the world-Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (collectively called the Abrahamic religions”.

Bestie. Jews are .2% of the global population. If you’d done a basic google search it would’ve told you the largest religious groups are Christianity, Islam, irreligion, Hinduism, and Buddhism, each of which have over 5% of the global population as adherents. It takes about five seconds to check that and see if you’re being accurate.

If your book is trying to be a reputable source of information and you can’t even put 5 seconds of effort into basic factual double-checking, you are not worthy of my trust about anything else you say.

[etz-ashashiyot]

I know I'm gonna regret posting this, but I just can't not say something: I'm so sick of people who are actively contributing to the ongoing oppression of and violence against Palestinians calling themselves "pro-Palestinian."

In the same way that so many people in the anti-abortion movement are actually pro forced birth rather than pro-child, there are a lot of you who aren't pro-Palestinian, you're just violently antisemitic or in it for yourselves.

If you aren't:

Also angry with the other countries that abuse their Palestinian populations, refuse them citizenship, keep them in displaced person camps under horrific conditions, and/or close their borders entirely to them;

In support of genuine grassroots movements that aim to create some kind of stability, peace, and safety through diplomatic relationships and community building, because that's ""normalization"";

Willing to condemn antisemitism in the diaspora, which helps fuels right-wing rhetoric in Israel;

Willing to shut down lies, propaganda, and disinformation even if it "supports" Palestinians in theory, because lying repeatedly associates the Palestinian movement with lying and makes it harder for survivors to tell their actual stories and be believed outside of the far left movements (and also the truth is bad enough - there's no need to lie);

Willing to focus on practical problem solving over political posturing, especially when it will save Palestinian lives;

Willing to condemn Hamas, which started this most recent disaster, steals aid meant for civilians, uses civilians as human shields, and has been torturing dissenters for years;

Willing to work with Israeli leftists who hate their current government and want peace and full equality for Arab Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors, and also have the best shot at making that change happen; and/or,

Willing to learn about Palestinians as living human beings and value their lives over using them as a political cudgel, whatever that looks like on the ground;

.............then maybe you're more interested in looking radical and jerking off to some fantastical version of The Revolution, and/or hurting Jews than you are in promoting peace, safety, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinians.

Like seriously with "friends" like these, do they even need enemies??

Anyway you should call out the Israeli government for its very real abuses of Palestinians and nothing in this post should be construed otherwise. But if you genuinely care and aren't just in it for internet cool points or leftist cred or feeding your Jew-hate boner or whatever, you gotta prioritize solutions that have a realistic shot at short-term relief and long-term possibility over whatever fits some idealistic goal that will only ever end with more dead Palestinians.

[jessicalprice]

Sorry, Christian atheists, but “Christianity traumatized me” is not a get-out-of-accountability-free card for upholding Christian supremacy through your treatment of members of minority cultures, reiterating Christian evangelism and colonialism but for your WASP brand of atheism, promoting Christian purity and hierarchy but with the serial numbers filed off, insisting that the Christian model of culture is the only one that exists and shouting down members of non-Christian cultures about their own cultures and experiences, etc.

Oh, you don’t like members of non-Christian cultures pointing out the ways in which your behaviors continue to normalize and uphold Christian hegemony?

THEN MAYBE STOP ACTING LIKE CHRISTIANS.

[nonbinary-vents]

I know this is such a doomer kind of attitude but I genuinely cannot stand it when people go around talking about the ‘silent majority’ when it comes to Jew hatred. There’s two main problems I have with this statement

— Sure, these people might support Jews now, but it’s probably safe to say the majority of people in the world have deeply ingrained biases against Jews. Those biases are easily exploited, easily brought out, and easily radicalised into rabid hatred. See: large swaths of leftist spaces, who honestly seemed like sleeper agents with how fast they openly admitted raping Jews is a moral thing. There’s also the issue of a lot of these silent majority people not supporting Hamas or believing in the Aryan race or thinking that Jews have no culture and we’re just stealing it from everyone else, but still tolerating those ideas being held in other people— it shows that these people neither understand nor care about the gravity of these views, which then makes those precious biases much, much easier to show

and

— The entire point of the silent majority is that they are silent. Sure, they might chat with their Jewish friends about how bad things are, they might express sympathy in private, things like that. But when push comes to shove, when Jews are being actively murdered wide scale, they don’t show up. They leave us in the dirt. They watch quietly as the Gestappo drags their neighbours away. They look away politely as their Dhimmi shopkeeper is beaten in the street for walking on the wrong side of the pavement. They close their blinds when their friend is tied to the stake and burned alive

I know it’s comforting to think of this vague concept of the silent majority, but it’s not actually reality. I know it sucks feeling like you need to have your guard up all the time (and you don’t, just be careful), it’s going to suck a whole lot more if you put yourself into a false sense of security. The silent majority are not our friends. The silent majority are not there for us. The silent majority don’t care. We can’t just live in a nebulous idea of people who quietly tut to themselves whenever they see someone saying ‘glory to the resistance’ or ‘Jews are trying to taint the Aryan race’, we need to focus on the tangible reality, and the people who are actually present

I think this is also why I, and so many other Jews, absolutely love non-Jewish allies. There’s something so indescribably amazing to see people in this world that’s been so horrible to us standing up for us, listening to us, helping us. Allies go through a lot of shit from others because they care about us, I’ve seen it so much— they’ll get vicious hate for just associating with Jews. And they still do it. They still stick with us. Because they care, and it’s just so wonderful

Spread the love to non-Jewish allies, you are so amazing. And to the silent majority, I hope you can become the help that we desperately need

[undergiants]

@ all the religious queers who follow me (or don't lol), y'all should reblog this with what your favorite part of your religion is. it could be a particular ritual, an item, a belief within it, an experience you had, anything!

we should share some good against all the bad that we get <3

[whereserpentswalk]

Fellow pagans. Remember that the pagan experience is not purely an ex Christian experience. That experience is worth talking about, but please don't talk about the pagan experience as if leaving Christianity is universal to being neopagan.

Ex atheist pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Ex Muslim pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Non practicing Jewish pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Pagans who have been pagan for most or all of their life deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

I am once again begging you not to say "Abrahamic" when you mean "Christian." Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are very different religions with very different theologies, philosophies, and histories.

[notaplaceofhonour]

[screamingfromuz]

Listen. LISTEN, the longer I spend in the academic world, I am more convinced that describing Judaism and Jews as a religion/ethnic grope/ethnoreligion is unhelpful outside of Academic circles.

The best way to explain Judaism is using the tribe model. A lot of times Judaism is a community first and a religion second, i.e., your level of religiousness is rarely a thing that alienate you from the community.

Think of other tribes, like the Sámi, Aboriginal Australians, Māori, Yurok, Inuit ect. Each have their own unique religion, but we do not think of them as a religious group, because the tribal identity is more important, and the religion is considered part of the culture, not the opposite.

IMORTANT SIDENOTE: I am aware that many of those tribes, and other tribes have a big chunk of Christians in them, usually more Christians than those who follow the indigenous religion of the tribe. BUT for the sake of discussion, I am equating Judaism to the section that does follow the indigenous religion of the tribe.

So, despite the fact that the religious structures of Judaism is very integral to Judaism, it is partly because of the community based focus of Judaism. The most basic example is the Minyan, the fact that prayer is preferred to be done in a group. Or the fact that the Sader is meant to be a celebrated in a group. and so on.

SO, ethnoreligion is a great academic term, but for outside that world? A tribe is a much better term to explain Judaism.

[ladyphlogiston]

Part of what makes Christianity at large not a cult is there is no Secret Knowledge. It's all there. You can't level up.

My sister, discussing gnostic heresies