n his work entitled
"Apologet. advers. gentes" (chap. 8), of the adherents to the religion
to which he himself belonged being accused of sacrificing and eating
children. Upon which, Pamelius, in his commentary on the same chapter
(which he dedicated to Philip II. and Pope Gregory VIII.), observes,
that the accusation has its origin in the misunderstanding of the
sense of all those passages in the New Testament which refer to the
Agapes. These verses have been taken by the uninitiated in their
literal sense.

The heathens at that time asserted that the Christians used human
blood at their Passover. Thus we find the origin of that horrible
accusation in the first three centuries of the Christian era; not
until the thirteenth century was it brought against the Jews, viz., in
the year 1235 in Fulda, 1250 in Spain, 1264 in London, 1283 in
Bachrach, Moravia, 1285 in Munich.

If these charges were true, it might be asked, how is it that the
Jews, who celebrated the Passover festival fifteen hundred years
before the Christian era, had never been accused of such a crime
before? The answer to this question is to be found in the history of
the thirteenth century.

It was in this century, when fanaticism and hatred of race prevailed,
and when persecutions for witchcraft and the burning of heretics and
sorcerers were of frequent occurrence, that it appeared opportune to
bring against the Jews the same accusation which had been formerly
brought against the ancestors of their accusers, viz., the using of
Christian blood for the Passover. The wealth of the Jews in several
parts of Europe, as well as the high position to which they were
raised in Spain by the rulers of the land, had aroused the jealousy of
their adversaries. The unfounded nature of the accusation against them
was so palpable that the heads of the Church deemed it necessary to
defend and protect them. Thus Pope Innocent IV. published a Bull on
the 5th of July 1247, addressed to the heads of the Church in France
and Germany, officially refuting the demoniacal accusation (S.
Baronitas Annales eccles. ad annum 1247, No. 84). I give here a
translation of it in order to afford the reader the opportunity of
acquainting himself with the contents of that important document:--

"Lyons, _3rd July 1248_.

"Pope Innocent, the servant of the servants of God,
sends his apostolic greeting and blessing to the right
reverend Fathers, Bishops, and Archbishops in Germany.