Polemic against a rival religion protected embattled minorities from doubt

Evidence

Yet these legends bear examination, because they show how an embattled, despised religious minority created walls and boundaries between itself and the dominant (Christian or Muslim) majority. Because he had a detailed and disparaging biography of the founder of the majority religion, with derogatory explanations for its principle rites and holidays, the Jew (or Christian) could protect himself from doubt, could construct a wall of contempt between himself and Christianity (or Islam). To the haughty disdain of the majority he would respond with an equal and opposing scorn. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 157

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: This psychological dynamic of contempt-as-defense directly parallels the ‘wall of contempt’ mechanism mapped in Complaints About Immodesty and could support a comparative reading of medieval Jewish anti-Christian and Christian anti-Muslim polemic as identity boundary construction.