Jesus in the Talmud

Jesus in the Talmud 101We are said to be the most criminal of men (sceleratissimi), on thescore of our sacramental baby-killing and the baby-eating that goeswith it (sacramento infanticidii et pabulo inde) and the incest that followsthe banquet, where the dogs are our pimps in the dark, forsooth,and make a sort of decency for guilty lusts by overturning the lamps.That, at all events, is what you always say about us; and yet you takeno pains to bring into the daylight what you have been saying aboutus all this long time. Then, I say, either bring it out, if you believe allthis, or refuse to believe it after leaving it uninvestigated. 20And even more drastic is Tertullian’s malicious parody of the allegedChristian ritual in the following chapter, ironically inviting the Jewish interlocutorto join in with the Christians:Come, plunge the knife into the baby, nobody’s enemy, guilty ofnothing, everybody’s child; or, if that is another man’s job, do youjust stand by (that is all), by this human creature dying before it haslived; watch for the young soul as it escapes; catch the infant blood,steep your bread with it; eat and enjoy it. Meanwhile, as you reclineon your couch, reckon the places where your mother, your sister,may be; make a careful note so that, when the darkness of the dogs’contriving shall fall, you can make no mistake. You will be guilty of asin, unless you have committed incest. So initiated, so sealed, youlive for ever. ...You must have a baby, still tender, that can know nothing ofdeath, that can smile under your knife; item a loaf, to catch its juicyblood; add lampstands and lamps, a dog or two, and some sops to setthe dogs tumbling the lamps over; above all, you must come withyour mother and sister. 21This story, as Elias Bickerman has demonstrated in a famous article, 22 isnothing but the anti-Christian adaptation of an originally anti-Jewish propagandanarrative that accuses the Jews of ritualistic cannibalism. Its mostprominent anti-Jewish propagandist is Apion, the Greek scholar of Egyptianorigin in first century C.E. Alexandria, who, according to Josephus,