Thanks for the thoughful, history based reply.
"But while the ECF whose writings have been preserved for us were anti-Torah, we have evidence in their writings that a Torah-observant yet Messiah-believing Jewish remnant still remained, from the perplexed tolerance of Justin Martyr in the second century to the anti-Semitic screed of John Crysostom in the fourth. Indeed, the mere fact that so many of the Fathers found it necessary to write missives condemning keeping the Torah as "Judaizing" tells us that it was a persistent phenomenon through the ante-Nicean church."
This is consistent with what I have been taught over the years by a former Chief Rabbi of Budapest, a 90 year old rabbi who tried manfully to teach me hebrew 35 years ago and a very wise and holy Greek archimandrite down in the old country. By the way, the connection was not only with messianic Jews (not a good one at all), but with "regular" Jews (a much more irenic one), at least well into the 3rd century. The connection was so close that in Sardis, the main church structure was connected to the synagogue by a simple door in the wall. Greek and Antiochian Orthodoxy has always laid great stress on it Jewish "roots", which are most apparent in our liturgical forms and the endless use of the Psalms in our devotions and services. The old chief rabbi regularly remarks to me that when he attends a Greek Orthodox liturgy or service, he feels as if he is at a Temple ceremony.
I won't get into what +John Chrysostomos was sermonizing against save to say it wasn't the Jews, it was the Judaizers which I suspect in his times meant the messianic jews based on what you have said. His sermons seem quite well based in NT scripture, B, though I don't doubt for a minute that given the nature of the Eastern Roman state, the power of that state was behind him with all it meant to those who crossed the state, as +John himself found out.
I won't get into what +John Chrysostomos was sermonizing against save to say it wasn't the Jews, it was the Judaizers which I suspect in his times meant the messianic jews based on what you have said.
That was in fact what set him off: Apparently, quite a few Gentile Christians were joining their Jewish brethren in keeping God's Appointed Times. Since by this point the definition of "Judaizing" had morphed from the Biblical definition of "formally undergoing the ritual of circumcision to become a Jew in order to be saved" to "keeping the Torah"--which would of course make the Messiah and all of the Apostles Judaizers and heretics by the fourth-century Church's standards.
Therefore, the so-called "Golden-Mouthed" wrote his eight Homilies Against the Jews, which you can read here if you'd like. We can see his purpose in his opening homily:
(I.4) . . . Another very serious illness calls for any cure my words can bring, an illness which has become implanted in the body of the Church. We must first root this ailment out and then take thought for matters outside; we must first cure our own and then be concerned for others who are strangers.Interesting, isn't it, that the mere thought of Christians keeping the same Feasts that their Lord kept, doubtless wanting to know more about Him and the way He lived, set him off so?(5) What is this disease? 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.
Read his work. Isn't it evident that in his mind the very concept of "Messianic Jew" is an oxymoron? It's not surprising. In his day the Church had adopted a stance of reconciliation towards the Roman Empire and hostility towards the Jewish people--even those who were believers in the Messiah Yeshua.
He calls the Jews demons (Homily I.vi.3), and repeatedly condemns them as the slayers of Christ--it apparently misses his attention that Yeshua Himself said, "No one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself" (John 10:18) and "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do" (Luke 23:34). He takes that which God commanded them to do, like the daily sacrifices, and twists it into a sin upon them. He acts as if those in the Bible who were righteous weren't Jews themselves.
In other words, he twists the Scriptures into an anti-Semitic parody of themselves. So I have no respect for him, and it saps my respect for the fourth-century church that they dubbed such a twit "the Golden-Mouthed."