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Old April 16th, 2011 #53
Mike Parker
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Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 3,311
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Christianity viewed the Cathars as a true enemy, and the enemy was exterminated forthwith. The jews, in contrast, were “elder brothers in Christ,” disappointing but indispensable to Christian theology. In addition, they didn’t proselytize and didn’t threaten Christianity in that way. For these reasons, the jews were kept around in a painful codependency relationship, the only such widely tolerated minority in Christian Europe. The most bizarre feature of the relationship was that Christians but not jews were barred from the usury business; the jews were going to hell anyway. In the meantime, Christian anti-Semitism made the jews very wealthy. Christinsanity strikes again.