You would think that Holy Week is not the time to attack Early Church Fathers, but some Christian outlets disagree, namely Christian Post taking a swipe at John Chrysostom in an argument against eating ham on this day. Luke Moon writes the succinctly titled, Don’t eat ham for Easter, and while he’s not a full Judaizer, he does denounce historic Christianity like they do.
As a non-Jewish Christian, I recognize that I am not bound by the Kosher laws, which would forbid me from a whole host of dietary restrictions like mixing dairy and meat or eating pork or shellfish. When the first gentile (the description for all non-Jews in the New Testament) became a follower of Jesus, the Apostle Peter was so surprised that he had to ask the elders of the early church in Jerusalem what the requirements were for gentiles. The answer in Acts 15 was that gentiles were supposed to “abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality.” From this passage, it is clear that gentiles are not obligated to keep kosher. And yet, it seems an affront to celebrate Easter by eating ham.
If anything, pretending to observe Passover without the Temple, priests, or lamb sacrifice seems an affront to Christ.
Nor are gentiles required to follow the feasts that Jesus kept. As the gentiles became the majority of those who followed Jesus as Messiah, the feasts and practices that Jesus did were ignored or outright mocked. One of the early church fathers, John Chrysostom, raged against Christians who celebrated the Jewish feasts: “The festivals of the pitiful and miserable Jews are soon to march upon us one after the other and in quick succession: the feast of Trumpets, the feast of Tabernacles, the fasts. There are many in our ranks who say they think as we do. Yet some of these are going to watch the festivals and others will join the Jews in keeping their feasts and observing their fasts. I wish to drive this perverse custom from the Church right now.”
It is men like John Chrysostom who drove the wedge between Jews and gentiles, which paved the way for nearly 2000 years of Christian antisemitism. They make a mockery of our Christian faith by cutting us off from the very root that sustains us. There is a particular arrogance that is reasserting itself among Christians — perhaps for the first time in a generation. This arrogance denies the Jewishness of Jesus and the disciples. It rejects the promise of God to Abraham that the land belonged to his people, the Jews, and they would be a blessing to the whole earth. It’s this antagonism that made me wonder if the choice of ham for Easter was an intentional rejection of the Jewish part of the story. Fortunately, it seems this is not the case.
The Book of Hebrews was about not going back to the old ways, particularly in light of the coming destruction of Jerusalem. But as previously mentioned, these festivals and holidays are not properly observable post 70 AD. And John Chrysostom was awesome and did not create any wedge between Christians and Jews, as this is a historically asinine statement that ignores the New Testament and early Christian martyrs.
3 Responses
” It rejects the promise of God to Abraham that the land belonged to his people, the Jews,”
The land promise to Abraham was to everyone in the middle east BUT the Jews.
Genesis 15:18-21 “On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates: to the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”
“It’s this antagonism that made me wonder if the choice of ham for Easter was an intentional rejection of the Jewish part of the story.”
The antagonism of Jews to Christ resulted in there being ZERO Jewish Christians in existence by the time it was decided what to eat on Easter. What Jewish “Christians” there were turned into Ebionism that denied the Deity of Christ and tried to keep keeping the Law, and that fell apart by the 5th century and they just became Talmudist trash. Because without belief in the Deity of Christ, your Christianity WILL NOT last, and will not transmit to your kids.
Dave, your Genesis 15:19-21 is mistranslated. The Hebrew marks each of those tribes with “et” which indicated direct object. Those tribes (their land) are what is given. The indirect object is what receives it, which are Abram’s descendants.
Also, those tribes are not Abram’s descendants, so your interpretation would contradict verse 18.
(I complimented you recently on your translation of that New Testament passage with the phrase “without natural affection”, so I’m not against you.)
Nope. The et is marking that they are the descendants of Abraham. Mostly by Keturah, some through Hagar via Ishamel. Thus the prophecy has always been fulfilled as these Arabish peoples have inhabited all that the land every since Abraham spawned them via his concubines, and still do.