While we speak of the tenuous relationship between Christians and Jews dating back to the time of Christ, the seeds of schism within Judaism may have been planted more than 500 years earlier. Jeremiah was part of a group of distinguished prophets whose works became part of the Old Testament canon. The Jewish “wisdom” prophets lectured, warned, and blamed all who listened about the sins of their own people, the resulting punishments God had prescribed for them, and what they needed to do to get back into God's good graces. Some prophets targeted The Jewish monarchs as an idolatrous distraction that prevented the people from properly hearing the Word of God. Other prophets still maintained that the Jews should continue to believe that God would not abandon his chosen people. Regardless of the specific message, it was clear that the overall prophetic approach to God's covenant with the Jewish people was changing. "A good century after the return from exile... the doctrine of retribution, of God's justice, which rewards and punishes. ..had been destroyed,” said Catholic theologian Hans Kung in his book Judaism: Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (Kung 113). In the passage cited by Jeremiah above, the prophet predicts that a new covenant would be formed between God and his people, one that would replace the covenant made between Moses and God at Sinai and the Red Sea. The first covenant, Jeremiah indicated, would become null and void because of the sins of the Jewish people. The new covenant would absolve these sins and reaffirm God's faithfulness to his people. “This famous prophecy provides the foundation and core of the central theological teaching of the New Testament,” states the Collegeville Old Testament Bible Commentary. "It underlies, but does not explicitly reference, much of St. John's 'new life' theology and is central to the teaching of Jesus in John's Last Supper discourse." (Collegeville 469). While Jeremiah is interpreted from many perspectives, some early Christian apologists took his words to mean that the Jews had been set apart by God because they had not remained faithful to Him and His Mosaic covenant. Jesus of Nazareth was the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecies, so some claimed, and the Jews would remain shunned and condemned... middle of paper... 0/18/97). In fairness, in the first 1900 years after the Jewish Schism, not all Catholic and Christian attitudes towards Jews were uniformly oppressive. For limited periods of time, conditions in some countries were tolerable for people of the Jewish faith. There were also some Catholic leaders who found ways to show tolerance and understanding toward Jews. It should also be noted that there was, on the contrary, contempt in the words, writings and actions shown by Rabbinic Judaism towards Christians even during these centuries. Recent efforts by Jewish historians such as David Biale of Berkeley emphasize the success, accomplishments, and power bases that Jews had at various points during this time period (Kung page 159). Although it dominates its history, the Jewish legacy is not simply one of continued suffering, persecution, and subjugation. Nonetheless, most of the available historical evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that theologically fueled anti-Semitism prevailed during the nineteen centuries following the death of Christ, and many of these attitudes and persecutions provided logical consequences that led to European anti-Semitic atrocities of the 20th century..