Historical Setting, 626 C.E. The secular church near Annegray
Mater Doe, our priest, shared with me her concern with answering the question of the vintners with her explanation of baptism, it puts the Jewish settlers coming to the lands in danger as outcasts. She is realizing now, after they left, that the real concern they had wasn’t about who is allowed to be baptized, but that baptism is only an outward sign and the Jewish families that follow the requirement of baptism won’t really be changed into Christian by it.
“I know a vintner who lives on the Moselle River,” I tell Mater Doe, “So you needn’t worry about any misunderstanding left with the arguing vintners. I will just ride up there tomorrow and find out about the source of this controversy. I agree with you, that someone needs to assure these worried Christians that God also loves their Jewish neighbors regardless of the rule made by kings against them. They need to know the Christians aren’t being replaced.”
Thinking this through on my way home I know it’s been centuries since Gaul made its enemies based on ancient Roman ideas of intolerance. But now, in these times, fear of Jews is being dredged up for convenience of the politics in the East. Maybe the intolerance already lay deep and unspoken among the grape growers or maybe it is just spreading anew. But I believe this was this same intolerance that crucified Jesus, then the Romans turned around and blamed the murder of Christ on the Jews themselves.
That is the ugliest variety of political deception. It happens when an autocratic emperor or simply an abusive parent or spouse commits a cruelty against a person or a nation in their care, then blames this same victim as though the child or the abused tribe or people had crucified their own rabbi.
Now this ugly stain is in the vineyards of Trier. It is the unhealed wound between Christian and Jew which really is only about the severance between ancient Rome and ancient Judaism. It should be buried in the rubble of the destroyed temple and left deep in the ruins of Rome. But the ruin and the rubble of Rome is all around us here. Why do we keep trying to make churches out of it?
First thing tomorrow I will borrow a horse from Luxeuil and ride to the vineyards on the river, hopefully, to stifle the murmurs of hate.
(Continues Tuesday, February 13)
Lazarus Ink 