As we have seen the rhetoric against the Jews is quite defamatory in places in the New Testament. As Christianity was developing its self-identity separate from Judaism, its older more established parent religion, New Testament writers didn't hesitate to defame the Jews in the aftermath of Jesus' crucifixion, the destruction of the Temple in the Jewish-Roman war, and Jewish opposition to the emerging faith. One way for Christians, like the author of John in chapter 8, to discredit those who pose a challenge to their faith and way of reading Scripture was to ascribe a satanic character to those with whom they disagree. This "demonization" (literally) of the Jews had disasterous consequences, however, in the subsequent history of Jewish-Christian relationships, especially after Constantine de-criminalized Christianity and it became the dominant religion in the West. The power balance shifted between Jews and Christians from those early years of Christianity, yet the "demonizing" slander remained and it had the effect of helping legimate any acts of violence towards Jews from Christians. An example of a particularly offensive type of slander is found in the Judensau motif that developed in Europe. Consider the page below from the first half of the seventeenth century of the "Frankfurt Judensau' which combines a picture of the "Jewish pig" with the motif of of ritual murder (the image of Simon of Trent and the belief that Jews killed Christian babies to use their blood for religious purposes).

Image scanned from H. Schreckenberg, The Jews in Christian Art: An Illustruated History, transl. J. Bowden (NY: Continuum, 1996)

In the Judensau depictions Jews are pictured as doing obscene things in partnership with the devil (who himself has a Jewish physiognomy). The dress and the the emblems on the clothes identify the characters as Jews as they suckle from the sows teats and eat feces. The Jewess sits on a he-goat, one symbol of the devil. The effect of such defamatory images is that it helps portray Jew as the "other" who stands outside not only Christian society and the realm of Christian compassion, but also on the borders of being fully human. Nazi propaganda sought to represent Jews as the "Other" but there also exists in the Christian theological tradition an image of Jews as satanic. To explore some examples of this tradition and interpretation, follow the links below.

 John Chrysostom, 4th century.

 Martin Luther, 16th century.

 Nazi Propaganda