Christian art associated Jews with barking dogs and cannibal violence

Evidence

Jew-dogs were viewed as filthy, contaminating Christians, a belief that generated a number of rules surrounding Christian relations with Jews. Citing Paul [I Corinthians 6:12], Christian theologians argued that sharing a meal with Jews was paramount to “fornicating against one’s own body.” In Renaissance paintings, dogs are often shown barking and sneering at Christ—symbolizing Jews. … Even though the blood libel mythology attached to Jews was not applied to Muslims, the two appear side by side in artistic depictions of gruesome scenes in which a Christian, often a child, is tortured, killed, and eaten. The Muslims portrayed in some of the later paintings depicting such scenes of horror wear Turkish clothing and, in some cases, include a Black Turk. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 231

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s Muslim-monster thesis: Jews and Muslims as interchangeable infidel dogs in one shared visual vocabulary of demonization.