St. Simon of Trent: Part 1

            My introductory blog stated that I would be examining various truth claims to determine the proper methodology for determining whether they were factual or false.  The first case illustrating this principle will be the claims surrounding St. Simon of Trent, a  1475 Christian martyr.  This is how a contemporary Catholic website tells the story entitled “THE TORTURE AND DEATH OF SAINT SIMON OF TRENT.”  These Catholics claim that the “Jews of this town [Trent] wanted to celebrate their Passover in their own way; so they secretly abducted the small boy and carried him to the house of the Jew Samuel.  During Holy Week on Maundy-Thursday, the day before Good Friday . . . the Jew Tobias approached the child, who was not quite 30 months old, and while speaking kindly and offering the boy a piece of money, picked him up and carried him at once to the house of the Jew Samuel.  When night fell, the twin brothers Saligman and Samuel, with Tobias, Vitalis (Veitel), Moses, Israel and Mayr, undressed the little boy and unmercifully butchered him. While Moses strangled him with a handkerchief as he lay across Samuel’s knee, pieces of flesh from his neck were cut with a knife and the blood collected in a bowl. At the same time, they punctured the naked offering with needles and murmured Hebrew curses. They then cut pieces of flesh from the boy’s arm and legs and collected the blood in pots.  Finally the torturers imitated the crucifixion by holding the twitching body upside down and the arms outstretched and during this horrible act they spoke the following:

‘Take this, crucified Jesus. Just as our forefathers did once, so may all

Christians by land and sea perish.'

They then rushed to their meal. When the child had died they threw his body in the river which flowed by their house. After this, they joyously celebrated Passover.” 

            In sum, contemporary Catholics, and the highest Catholic ecclesiastical authorities at the time, claimed that Jews, being murderers of Christ, were required by their religion to reenact Christ’s crucifixion vicariously in the person of a innocent Christian toddler.  It was mandatory that they bake his blood into their ritual Passover bread.  Thus, for Christians, baby Simon became Christ crucified afresh-- and Jews were guilty of murdering both Christ and  Simon

           Does this sound like a credible belief?  What kind of evidence would convince you to believe this?  Can you believe that thousands of Christians believed this and many similar tales over centuries.  To find out what the Bishop of Trent, the Pope and the Emperor did to the Jews that allegedly ritually murdered Simon, to find out how Simon became St. Simon, return to this blog for St. Simon, Part 2