Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements

This work is a study of a few typical “Reform Movements” or heresies in the history of Catholicism during the Middle Ages and of Protestantism during the Reformation era. It has been undertaken with a view to describing and analyzing the contributions by Jews and Judaism to the rise and development of these movements. [The author has] selected for detailed investigation the Iconoclastic Controversy of the ninth century, the Catharist, Waldensian, Passagian and Judaizing heresies of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth centuries, because they typify “Reform” tendencies within Catholicism. To illustrate similar tendencies in Protestantism, [the author has] chosen the Hussite movement during the fifteenth century, the Pre-Reformation period; the Lutheran movement in Germany and the Swiss revolt led by Zwingli, both during the Reformation period; the Unitarian movement promoted by Michael Servetus during the sixteenth century, and the Puritan movement in England and America, both during the Post-Reformation era. The book aims to answer three main questions: First: Of what nature and how important is the content of the contribution of Judaism to the rise and development of Christianity? [The author has] already begun a study in connection with the preparation of this volume. Second: Have the Reform movements in Christendom arisen through the aid of Jewish literary and personal influence? This present work is an attempt in part to answer this question. Third: Is Christianity “returning to Judaism”? or: Is there a modern rapprochement between the two religions?