Parity between Jew and outsider was both asserted and anxiously erased by Christian theology.

Evidence

It was thought of as theologico-political and as separating the theological from the political. “Christian theological discourse came to discern a qualitative parity between the Jews and other outsiders,” yet invested an enormous energy in disrupting or erasing such parity, buttressing the fragile borders that separated theology from politics. … Hence, when Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-II53) condoned fighting “the Ishmaelites” who, with the Jews, constituted “our enemies,” he insisted precisely on this crucial distinction: “It is good that you go against the Ishmaelites. But whosoever touches a Jew to take his life, is like one who harms Jesus himself … for in the book of Psalms it is written of them ‘Slay them not, lest my people forget.”’ — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 221

Categorization

• DEFINE: Anidjar’s key claim that ‘theologico-political’ names a distinction the tradition itself struggled to secure, not a stable given.
• XREF: Bernard of Clairvaux distinguishes crusade-violence against Muslims from the protected status of Jews — precise parallel to modern differential treatment central to the antisemitism-Islamophobia discussion.
• ADDENDUM: Bernard of Clairvaux’s differential mandate — kill Ishmaelites, spare Jews — is a direct medieval precedent for the sacrificial/inviolable boundary treated in ‘On Sacrifice’.