99857688-Devil-and-the-Jews-the-Medieval-Conception-of-the-Jew

Home | TOC | Index“Devil Incarnal”23a number of mysteries coming from England, France, and Germany.26This same theme is pursued, with many variations, in themiracles, plays which portrayed the lives of the saints and themiraculous deeds accredited to them. When a Jew is apprehendedand condemned for mutilating a host, it is to the devil that hecries out for succor; while the Jew expires in agony at the stake,and this occurs in several of the plays, devils rush in upon thestage to carry off his soul. 27 Time and again the Jews are describedin these plays as “devils from Hell, enemies of the humanrace.” 28 In the Chaumont Christmas play Jews are introducedupon the stage in the guise of devils, strenuously exerting themselvesto prevent the entrance of the religious procession into thecity. 29The earliest German version of the Faust legend pits a Jewagainst the devil, to whose wiles, of course, the Jew succumbs.The author does not fail to point his moral: “Thus can the devillead into error the minds of those whose hearts do not cleave toGod’s word.” 30 Here it is the Jew’s refusal to accept the truedoctrine that renders him defenseless against Satan. But theTheophilus legend, one of the most popular in the Middle Ages,which occurs in every language and in every literary form, andwhich strongly influenced the Faust legend if it did not indeedserve as its model and source, puts the matter in another light.There are several dramatic versions of this tale, each presentingthe situation with a somewhat different emphasis but all agreeingon the essential point: the intimate relations joining devil andJews. If one, the Low German version, appears to offer a surprisinglyfavorable picture of the Jew, this may be ascribed to itsanticlerical motivation. Here the pious archdeacon, Theophilus,who has suffered disgrace, turns for help to a magician with theplea that he direct him to the devil; instead the magician sendshim to the Jews. But when he enters a synagogue and expressesa desire to join them, they decline to accept him, with the double-edgedcontention that a bad Christian makes a bad Jew and