On this day Bernard of Clairvaux (c. 1090–1153), Cistercian abbot, mystic, preacher of the Second Crusade and one of the most influential churchmen of the Middle Ages, died at Clairvaux. His legacy for Jewish disciples of Yeshua is problematic. Bernard courageously defended Jewish communities against crusading violence, yet his theology regarded Judaism as defeated and Jewish suffering as evidence of Christian truth. More disturbingly, he could use Jewish ancestry itself against a fellow Christian.

“Slay them not”

Bernard’s finest hour in Jewish-Christian relations came during the preaching of the Second Crusade in 1146. The Cistercian monk Radulf (Ralph or Raoul) travelled through the Rhineland stirring hostility against Jewish communities. The massacres accompanying the First Crusade in 1096 were still painfully remembered.

Bernard intervened decisively. He rejected Radulf’s authority and insisted that crusading did not authorize Christians to murder their Jewish neighbours. Drawing on Psalm 59:11, “Slay them not, lest my people forget,” Bernard argued that Jews were not to be killed or driven away.

Both an activist and a mystical contemplative, Bernard travelled to Germany, confronted Radulf and compelled him to return to his monastery. Jewish sources remembered his intervention positively. Ephraim of Bonn’s Sefer Zekhirah (Book of Remembrance) preserves the memory of Bernard’s opposition to anti-Jewish preaching.

At a time when religious rhetoric could become murderous violence, Bernard used his immense authority to restrain it. Jewish lives were probably saved and that should be remembered with gratitude.

Protection without equality

Yet Bernard’s reasons for protecting Jews present a problem. His theology largely followed Augustine’s understanding of the Jewish people as a continuing “witness people.” Jews should survive because their Scriptures, dispersion and existence testified to Christian truth.

Bernard could interpret Jewish dispersion and humiliation as punishment for rejecting Christ. Jews were to be preserved, but subordinated. Their existence served the Christian story rather than possessing theological integrity in its own right.

There was nevertheless an important qualification. Bernard took seriously Paul’s declaration that “all Israel shall be saved” (Romans 11:26). Israel therefore retained an eschatological future in God’s purposes.

We might call this protective supersessionism: Israel has not disappeared, but Israel’s significance is defined almost entirely through the Church’s interpretation of Israel.

Bernard and the “Jewish Pope”

For Jewish disciples of Jesus, another episode is particularly troubling.

During the papal schism beginning in 1130, Bernard supported Innocent II against Anacletus II, Pietro Pierleoni. The Pierleoni were an established Roman Christian family, but Anacletus was descended from a Jewish great-great-grandfather.

Bernard exploited this ancestry. Writing to Emperor Lothar in 1134, he declared:

“It is clear that it is an insult to Christ that the offspring of a Jew has occupied the chair of Peter.”

“Sicut enim constat iniuriam esse Christo, quod soboles Iudaica sedem Petri occupaverit…”

The contradiction is striking. Anacletus was a baptized Christian and senior churchman whose Jewish ancestor had a Christian generations earlier. Yet soboles Iudaica—“Jewish offspring”—could still be presented as an iniuria Christo, an “insult” or “injury to Christ.”

Bernard could therefore defend living Jews against persecution while simultaneously treating Jewish ancestry as capable of discrediting a Christian.

This exposes a recurring problem in the history of Jewish disciples of Jesus: what happens to Jewish identity after baptism? If Jewishness should disappear through incorporation into a predominantly Gentile Church, why could it reappear generations later as a stigma?

Christianity could demand that Jewish disciples of Yeshua relinquish Jewish identity whilst still perpetuating negative perceptions of Jewishness.

Remembering Bernard truthfully

Bernard therefore resists simple judgement. We should not turn him into a modern advocate of Jewish-Christian dialogue. His theology remained supersessionist and contained elements of Christian anti-Judaism that must be rejected.

Nor should we erase the moral significance of 1146. When another monk preached hatred, Bernard opposed him. When Jews were threatened, he defended them.

His legacy challenges Christians to go further: from protection to respect, from toleration to relationship, and from the conversion of Jews into a Gentile Christian identity towards recognition of Jewish life in Messiah, and affirm it within the Church.

Bernard protected Jews while his theology subordinated them. We can honour his courage without following his theology.

Prayer

Hebrew

אָבִינוּ שֶׁבַּשָּׁמַיִם, אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם יִצְחָק וְיַעֲקֹב,
סְלַח לָנוּ עַל חֶטְאֵי הַשִּׂנְאָה וְהַבּוּז נֶגֶד עַמְּךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל.
תֵּן לָנוּ אֹמֶץ לְהָגֵן עַל הַנִּרְדָּפִים וְחָכְמָה לִדְחוֹת תּוֹרוֹת שֶׁל בּוּז.
שְׁמוֹר עַל תַּלְמִידֵי יֵשׁוּעַ הַיְּהוּדִים בְּזֶהוּתָם וּבְעֵדוּתָם,
וַעֲשֵׂה אֶת קְהִלַּת הַמָּשִׁיחַ מָקוֹם שֶׁל שָׁלוֹם, אֱמֶת וּפִיּוּס.
בְּשֵׁם יֵשׁוּעַ הַמָּשִׁיחַ. אָמֵן.

Transliteration

Avinu shebashamayim, Elohei Avraham, Yitzchak ve-Ya’akov,
selach lanu al chata’ei ha-sin’ah veha-buz neged amcha Yisrael.
Ten lanu ometz lehagen al ha-nirdafim ve-chochmah lidchot torot shel buz.
Shmor al talmidei Yeshua ha-Yehudim be-zehutam uve-edutam,
va’aseh et kehilat ha-Mashiach makom shel shalom, emet ve-fiyus.
Be-shem Yeshua ha-Mashiach. Amen.

English

Our Father in heaven, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, forgive us for the sins of hatred and contempt against your people Israel. Give us courage to defend the persecuted and wisdom to reject teachings of contempt. Preserve Jewish disciples of Yeshua in their identity and witness, and make the community of Messiah a place of peace, truth and reconciliation. In the name of Yeshua the Messiah. Amen.

Latin

Pater noster, qui es in caelis, Deus Abraham, Isaac et Iacob, dimitte nobis peccata odii et contemptus adversus populum tuum Israel. Da nobis fortitudinem ad persecutos defendendos et sapientiam ad doctrinas contemptus repudiandas. Custodi discipulos Iudaeos Iesu in identitate et testimonio eorum, et fac communitatem Messiae locum pacis, veritatis et reconciliationis. In nomine Iesu Messiae. Amen.

Further reading

• Bernard of Clairvaux, Letters 363 and 365, on the Second Crusade and the Jews.
• Bernard of Clairvaux, correspondence concerning the papal schism and Anacletus II.
• Ephraim of Bonn, Sefer Zekhirah (Book of Remembrance).
• David Berger, “The Attitude of St. Bernard of Clairvaux toward the Jews,” in Persecution, Polemic, and Dialogue.
• Mary Stroll, The Jewish Pope: Ideology and Politics in the Papal Schism of 1130.
• James Kroemer, “Vanquish the Haughty and Spare the Subjected,” Medieval Encounters 18 (2012): 55–92.
• Paula Fredriksen, Augustine and the Jews – https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300166286/augustine-and-the-jews/
• https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/1449-anacletus-ii-pietro-pierleoni