Medieval Christian identity simultaneously modeled itself on Judaism and eradicated it

Evidence

The purpose of such parodic identification is not so much to identify the Jews with Christians (and thus to humanize them), but rather to identify the Christians with the Jews, in order to articulate a notion of Christian identity that both takes Judaism as its model and eradicates it utterly. The fate of the Jews in the Siege of Jerusalem is therefore, paradoxically, double: on the one hand, they must be annihilated so that the superiority of Christianity can be clearly demonstrated; on the other, they must be preserved in order to maintain the authenticity of the model they offer for Christians. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228 (#expands, via linked claim)

Because the Jews, unlike the Muslims, were seen as permanently in exile, belonging nowhere yet found everywhere, the climate-based explanation of the nature of the Oriental body could not simply be transferred to the Jewish body. “Placing the Jews”—both temporally and spatially—would prove central to medieval attempts to define the nature of non-Christians and, by their exclusion, to define Christian identity. Jewish identity was used as a template to delineate both what features might be embraced as prefigurations of Christian identity, and what features must necessarily be excluded from the imagined community of the Church. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 232 (#expands, via linked claim)

From this brief account, it is clear that Judaism was used as the template with which a distorted representation of Islam could be constructed. Yet, as we shall see in the case of the Siege of Jerusalem, the template could be applied the other way: Muslim identity could be used, at least in part, as the basis for the representation of Jewish identity. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 235 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Christian identity is built on rising above its own oriental Jewish origins; Medieval Christians used Jewish identity as a template to define themselves by exclusion — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 232; Christian identity both needs and exterminates its Jewish model — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Christian identity both needs and exterminates its Jewish model #expands (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228
• Medieval Christians used Jewish identity as a template to define themselves by exclusion #expands (0.93) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 232
• Medieval Christians constructed Islam and Judaism as mutual templates #complicates (0.76) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 235
• Even Jewish theology adopted the systematic form of surrounding Christian culture #complicates (0.72) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 328