Cluny’s spiritual economy defined Jews, Muslims, and heretics as its joint enemies

Evidence

Yet in both his works, Peter attempted to offer a defensive campaign against diabolical error: such polemics could quash the doubts of Catholic readers. For Peter, Cluny was God’s citadel constantly besieged by demons. As Cluny’s spiritual head, Peter was particularly well placed to repulse demonic incursions: through pastoral care of his monks, through doctrinal works such as his De miraculis, and through his trilogy of theological polemics against Jews, heretics, and Saracens.

The three groups were increasingly linked in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and were often seen to represent a common danger. As Dominque Iogna-Prat has shown, all three rejected the spiritual economy that Cluny embodied, where Christians through sacrifice could transform themselves and prepare themselves for the next life. This sacrifice centered around the Eucharist, reenactment of Christ’s ultimate sacrifice for humanity, which was to be performed by priests who had sacrificed their sexual life in order to devote themselves to God; Christian laymen could offer up their lands to God, turning them over to monasteries like Cluny whose monks would pray to shorten their benefactors’ purgatory punishments. The whole was meant to be harmoniously ordered, with the Pope at its head. Muslim, Jews, and heretics were united in their rejection of this system, clinging instead to this world in an irrational obsession with all that was physical and carnal.

— John V. Tolan, Saracens, 872 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval polemic fused Jews, Muslims, and heretics into one spiritual enemy. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 872; Christians clustered Muslims with Jews and heretics as devil-aligned enemies — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 142; Medieval polemicists framed Jews, Muslims, and heretics as one common enemy — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 872 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Christians treated Jews, Muslims, and heretics as a single enemy category #corroborates (0.98)
• Medieval polemicists framed Jews, Muslims, and heretics as one common enemy #corroborates (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 872
• Medieval Christianity treated Jews and Muslims as interchangeable heretics #corroborates (0.95)
• Medieval theology framed Jews and Muslims as heretical collaborators in anti-Christian violence. #corroborates (0.94)
• The categories of Jew and Arab jointly constitute the Western concept of the enemy #corroborates (0.93) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 674
• Medieval polemic fused Jews, Muslims, and heretics into one spiritual enemy. #corroborates (0.92) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 872
• The enemy is a single relational category spanning the Jew-Arab divide #corroborates (0.92) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 209
• Jews served as the accessible template for identifying enemies of Christian society. #complicates (0.75) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 204
• The Crusades used religion to mask social and economic conflicts #complicates (0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 61