The seventeenth century English physician and polymath Sir Thomas Browne is an interesting figure who deserves to be studied more than he has hitherto been. What I want to focus on in this article is Browne’s views on the subject of jews and Judaism not his contributions to science and philosophy, which are considerable and better known.
There is no lack of source material on this point since Browne frequently mentions the jewish people and their religious ideas in his various works. These range from citing jewish authors of whose opinion he approved such as one he named as Marcus Leo (1) and Moses Maimonides (the Rambam), (2) remarking on certain Cherubim being of ‘jewish type‘ (3) and jews of antiquity having long hair (4) as well as discussing the intricacies of dating Biblical events via the Hebrew calendar and astrology. (5)
Browne was very aware of jewish thought as he routinely cites jewish sources, but was also very aware of jewish critiques of Christianity. (6)
If we are to conceive of anti-Semitism – as is intellectually fashionable at the moment - as an irrational uneducated ideology that is based on ignorance of jewish ideas and texts. (7) Then Browne presents a startling contradiction to this narrative, because – as we have seen – he was intimately familiar with the opinions of jewish writers, prominent rabbis and anti-Christian texts. Yet his condemnation of both jews and Judaism was consistent, educated and brutal all at the same time.
He argued that the jews should be ashamed of their poor interpretation of the Old Testament, because Judaism was – in his estimation - itself inherently idolatrous and a form of ethnic supremacist superstition. (8)
This superstitious and ethnic supremacist nature lead them to make mistakes such as viewing King Herod as the Messiah, (9) because they were busy trying to apply the Old Testament prophecies to the ‘literal and temporal situation‘. (10) Browne argued that the jews applied this logic to their dealings with Jesus; who they deliberately reinterpreted Old Testament prophecies falsely to attack and undermine. (11) While also directly contradicting themselves in both their attacks on Jesus’ teachings as well as against those of non-jewish pagans. (12)
It is to the jews and not the Romans that Browne assigns the fault for the crucifixion of Jesus and he also makes it very clear that he views the jews as the eternal enemies of Christianity. (13) Despite outwardly professing not to hate them for their ‘idolatries’ and ‘blasphemies’. (14)
Yet Browne also celebrated as well as advocated that Christians should take jewesses to wife and make them ’good women’ by both Christian example and also impregnating them with Christian children. (15) The resultant ‘extermination by assimilation’ rather belies Browne’s assertion that he did not hate them for their ‘idolatries’ and ‘blasphemies’. (16)
Thus to him; the elimination of the jews as a people by intermarriage and assimilation is but a natural consequence of the jewish crime of Deicide. (17)
Browne also correctly deduced that Islam shares an awful lot of commonality with jews (18) as it is but a bastardised copy of Judaism. Hence he sees Judaism and Islam as being almost interchangeable religiously – despite their obvious ritual differences – because Islam is but Judaism with a summarised version of the Old Testament in the form of the Quran and the addition of a new prophet in the form of Mohammed. (19)
Therefore to Browne both jews and Muslims are the invertebrate enemies of Christianity, but are also closely related theologically which would suggest that Browne’s view was that Islam was the product of jewish inspiration and could be argued to be a jewish conspiracy to destroy Christianity and the West once and for all.
Thus we can see that so learned a man as Sir Thomas Browne advocated a worldview that many today would consider both anti-Semitic – which it is in a broad sense – and reminiscent of German reformer Martin Luther’s views on the subject as well as those common among Europeans before 1945.
References
(1) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 3:17 (6th Edition)
(2) Ibid., 4:12; 5:22
(3) The Garden of Cyrus, 4 (1st Edition)
(4) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 5:7 (6th Edition)
(5) Ibid., 5:23
(6) Ibid., 5:6
(7) For example see Robert Wistrich, 1991, ‘Anti-Semitism: The Longest Hatred’, 1st Edition, Methuen: London, pp. xvi-xxvi
(8) Religio Medici, 25 (2nd Edition); also Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 5:22 (6th Edition)
(9) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 1:3 (6th Edition)
(10) Ibid., 1:4
(11) Ibid., 1:4; 6:1
(12) Religio Medici, 29 (2nd Edition)
(13) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 1:4 (6th Edition); Miscellany Tracts, 1 (1st Edition)
(14) Religio Medici, 1 (2nd Edition)
(15) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 4:10 (6th Edition)
(16) Religio Medici, 1 (2nd Edition)
(17) Miscellany Tracts, 8 (1st Edition)
(18) Pseudodoxia Epidemica, 6:7 (6th Edition)
(19) Religio Medici, 25 (2nd Edition)