As a Reformation historian, I find Richard Landes' definition of
judaizing intriguing, as those qualities -- "no split btwn clergy and
laity, dignity of manual labor, access to sacred text for all, no
mediation in salvific relationship to god, iconoclasm, suspicion of
relics" - would certainly apply, with some qualifications, to
Protestantism as well. Yet, while the Reformers often quite consciously
harkened to apostolic times in justifying their reforms, I don't recall
that either they or their attackers ever made much of the Jewish aspect
of the apostolic communities. On the other hand, the reformers did often
attack the "papists" as being "pharisiticall," but I don't think the
connotation there was exactly "judaizing," in Landes' sense, but rather
an accusation of exalting religious forms over religious meaning.
Sharon Arnoult
History Dept.
Southwest Texas State Univ.
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