How did lawyers in Vichy France manage to reconcile their fundamental principle of egalitarianism with the anti-Jewish measures enacted by the Vichy regime on 2 June 1941? By, it is here suggested, a process of double-think that allowed them during the following four years to betray their heritage while persuading themselves they did not. The Catholic Church paid lip service to equality but offered no objection to offcial French anti-Semitism. The author suggestively traces these attitudes back to early Christian distortions - particularly in St John's gospel - of the Hebrew Bible to make it appear to foreshadow the coming of Jesus as the Messiah.