Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 59:2 (Fall 1997)
Article: From Judgment to Salvation: The Image of the Jews in the English Renaissance
Author: Avihu Zakai

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WTJ 59:2 (Fall 97) p. 213

From Judgment to Salvation: The Image of the Jews in the English Renaissance

Avihu Zakai

The return of the Jews to England at the height of the Puritan Revolution in the middle of the seventeenth century has long attracted the historians’ imagination. Under Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate, 1653–1658, over three hundred and fifty years after 18th July 1290 when Edward I had signed the royal decree expelling the Jewish community from England, Jews were again allowed to enter the British Isles.1 Historically, the expulsion was just the climax of a long and painful process continuing through out the thirteenth century, during which the Jews had suffered many outbursts of persecution. For the next three centuries any thoughts of England aroused only bitter memories amongst the Jews of Europe and, although from 1492 there was, in fact, a fluctuating and inconsequential Marrano community in London, they renounced any hope of return.2 However, with the rise of a unique apocalyptic tradition during the Protestant Reformation, negative attitudes in England toward the Jews changed considerably, and this trend culminated during the Puritan Revolution in the mission of Menasseh Ben Israel and the Whitehall debates of 1655 on the readmission of the Jews. These extraordinary debates had a profound impact not only on the Christian commonwealth in England but also on the nature of Jewish life and existence.3

The process which eventually brought about the re-admission of the Jews to England has been discussed in many important studies.4 Today we know a great deal about the social, religious and political factors which

WTJ 59:2 (Fall 97) p. 214

influenced and facilitated this reversal in English policy toward the Jews. So far, however, little attention has been given to an important ideological aspect associated with this historical event: the ideological transformation of English views regarding the destiny of Israel within the confines of Christian philosophy of salvation history and the unique role assigned to the Jew as a positive agent within English apocalyptic interpretation of history. Between the middle of the sixteenth and the middle of the seventeenth century, the Jew became an important apocalyptic agent in Protestant and Puritan apocalyptic thought; Protestant and Puritan writers systematically worked out the ideological premises of this new attitude towards the Jews, leading to a revolutionary transformation in England concerning the role of Israel in providential history. Analysis of the English Protestant and Puritan universe of sacred ap...

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