German Catholic bishops have entered the latest controversy over the nature of the Christian religion with a pamphlet to combat the neo-pagan attacks on Christianity as a Jewish religion, the Associated Press reports from Berlin.
The controversy in religious circles was given new impetus recently, the A.P. said, by the publication of a retranslation of the Gospel of St. John in which Christ is held the first great enemy of the Jews.
The Catholic reply was published in a widely distributed eight-page pamphlet entitled “Catechism Truths,” containing such questions and answers as:
“What was the greatest honor of the Jewish people?”
“The greatest honor of the Jewish people was that the Saviour came forth from them. It was in this sense that Christ said, ‘Salvation come from the Jews.’
According to the Associated Press, General Erich von Ludendorff’s fortnightly magazine, expressing the neo-pagan viewpoint, seized on this with zeal as a vindication of its position that all Christianity must go because of its Jewish origin.
“In other words,” the magazine was quoted as saying, “whoever does not consider his salvation as coming from Jews cannot be a Christian.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
