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and Nag Hammadi documents that were still unknown in the 1930s. Parkes’ work had been preceded by that of several others in the late nineteenth century, such as the pioneering work of Bernard Lazare,34 which many today would find flawed, but nevertheless ahead of its time. In 1903 an English translation was issued as Antisemitism, Its History and Causes.35
Since the time of James Parkes there have been further studies devoted to this topic, but few match his comprehensiveness. Marcel Simon's Verus Israel, first published in French in 1964, has been influential. The latter was to state:
In making this statement he refers to commentaries on the books of the New Testament, especially Acts.37 Again, whether one could call the Christian movement a distinct religion from the outset is open to question. In addition, like many commentators, including the Catholic historian Fr Edward Flannery, he was to appeal to the so-called Birkhat ha-Minim as being a factor in the separation of early Christianity from Judaism at the end of the first century.38 Edward Flannery also commented that ‘Christian antisemitism was rooted, finally, in the survival of a vibrant and often defiant Judaism’.39
E. P. Sanders’ three volumes of the collected essays he edited on the topic of Jewish and Christian self-definition constitute a valuable contribution to the debate.40 The first volume, which focuses on the shaping of Christianity in the second and third centuries, includes Robert Wilken's article ‘The Christians as the Romans (and Greeks) Saw Them’, and Gerd Lüdemann's critical evaluation of the Pella Tradition. The second volume discusses aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman period and includes the comprehensive discussion by Reuven Kimelman, ‘Birkhat ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity’.41 Lawrence Schiffman, on the other hand, argues that the Birkhat ha-Minim was ‘certainly the most important step taken by the Tannaim to combat Jewish Christianity’ and supports the very issues