Jewish deicide is the theological position and the antisemitic trope that as a people, the Jews are collectively responsible for the killing of Jesus, even through the successive generations following his death. The notion arose in early Christianity, and it features in the writings of Justin Martyr and Melito of Sardis as early as the 2nd century. The Biblical passage Matthew 27:24–25 has been seen as giving voice to the charge of Jewish deicide as well.
The accusation that the Jews were Christ-killers fed Christian antisemitism and spurred on acts of violence against Jews such as pogroms, massacres of Jews during the Crusades, expulsions of the Jews from England, France, Spain, Portugal and other places, and torture during the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions.