Medieval theologian Holcot justified killing Muslims while sparing Jews for prophetic reasons
Evidence
Holcot distinguishes between infidels (pagans, Jews, Muslims, idolators, heretics). Those that submit to the Church may be tolerated like the Gabaonites (AV: Gibeon), as hewers of wood and drawers of water, provided there be no contumelia Creatoris, and in the hope of their conversion. Muslims who do not submit qualify as rebels and persecutors, heretics par excellence. It is lawful and sometimes meritorious to attack them with the prior authority of the Church — ‘to despoil them and kill them and devote their goods to the faithful’. Some Jews must be left unkilled to fulfil the prophecy of the final conversion of a remnant, but this does not apply to Muslims who have unjustly occupied the land promised to Abraham and his seed, and other Christian lands, by force, and who kill missionaries who attack Islam. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1820
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- SEED: Article angle: how medieval Christian theology built a legal-theological scaffold for total war on Muslims while preserving Jews — the doctrinal mechanics of a selectively genocidal worldview.
- QUESTION: Worth chasing: Holcot’s argument that Muslims ‘unjustly occupied the land promised to Abraham’ predates crusade just-war theory in striking ways — how does this relate to the development of Christian ‘holy war’ doctrine?
Related
- Medieval canonists set Jews apart from Muslims by their prophesied conversion (similarity 0.86)
- Medieval theologians reframed Scripture to justify killing infidels in war (similarity 0.84)
- Medieval theologians used scriptural exegesis to justify killing heretics and sinners (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Christian theology could glorify enemy deaths as service to Christ (similarity 0.78)