[Angelino97]

Red herring. You were talking about the Jews.

You were talking about the Beatitudes, which apply to all people; Jews, Muslims, pagans, everyone.

Do you really try to justify the church using the sword

I said the antagonism was mutual. At times Jews also directed violence against Christians. Such as when they opened the gates of Toledo for the Muslim invaders in 711.

[af_vet_1981]

I said the antagonism was mutual. At times Jews also directed violence against Christians. Such as when they opened the gates of Toledo for the Muslim invaders in 711.

Perhaps the Moslem invaders were more righteous to the Jews than the alternative. Everybody's gotta eat. And here is the rest of the story.

1. In 409 CE, the Vandals captured the Iberian Peninsula from the collapsing Roman Empire, and three years later, the Visigoths conquered the Peninsula. Under these Germanic Christians, laws were instituted that persecuted the Jews.
2. Following the conversion of King Recared to Catholicism in 587, and his declaration at the third Council of Toledo that his kingdom would be officially Catholic, the situation deteriorated for the Jews. Going forward, the Jews would be the only group that did not join in the religious unity of the country, and this distinction would repeatedly lead to their persecution
3. In 612 C.E., in a horrific declaration, Visigoth King Sisebut ordered that all Jews submit to baptism within the year or undergo “scourging, mutilation, banishment, and confiscation of goods.”
4. In 711 C.E., Muslim soldiers known as Moors crossed over from North Africa to the Iberian Peninsula. They were led by General Tariq ibn Ziyad, who advanced his army of nearly ten thousand men across the strait and landed at a location he called Jabal Tariq (Mount Tarik), today known as Gibraltar. The Moors engaged in battle with the Christian Visigoth soldiers and eventually killed their monarch, King Roderick, thus beginning Muslim rule in Spain.
5. Since the Christians had persecuted the Jews so severely, the Jews welcomed the Muslim conquerors in the 8th century, so much so that it was said that the Jewish population of Toledo “opened the gates” of the city and welcomed the Muslim invaders. Incredibly, the conquered cities of Córdoba, Málaga, Granada, Seville, and Toledo were, for a time, even placed under the control of the Jewish inhabitants that the Moorish invaders had armed.

[metmom]

It shouldn’t have been mutual.

Retaliation is not an option for Christians, even when self-defense is. Self-defense is not retaliation.