Kanibalka Marie. Zkáza Jeruzaléma a zavržení Židů v staročeské literatuře doby lucemburské
Mary the cannibal. The destruction of Jerusalem and the condemnation of the Jews in Luxembourg-era Old Czech literature

Summary/Abstract: Flavius Josephus’s Bellum Judaicum account of the conquest of Jerusalem by Romans and the famine in 70 CE depicts a scene in which the Jewish matron Mary devours her own child. The story, in which this “terrible meal” plays an important symbolic role, also entered the vernacular texts of the Czech Middle Ages through Latin literature. In the eyes of Christian exegetes, who drew detailed information about Titus’s invasion and massacre of the Jews from Flavius Josephus, the sacking of Jerusalem was a punishment for Jewish unwillingness to accept Christ. By analysing Old Czech hagiographic and homiletic texts, I will show how the “fall of Jerusalem” formed the theological concept of the condemnation of the Jews and anti-Jewish rhetoric.

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