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On the Jews and Their Lies

On the Jews and Their Lies (German: Von den Jüden und iren Lügen; in modern spelling Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) is a 65,000-word anti-Judaic and antisemitic treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader Martin Luther (1483–1546).[1]

On the Jews and Their Lies
Title page of Martin Luther's On the Jews and Their Lies
AuthorMartin Luther
CountryHoly Roman Empire
LanguageGerman
SubjectsReligious antisemitism, antisemitic canard
GenreReligion
Published1543
Original text
On the Jews and Their Lies at Google Books
TranslationOn the Jews and Their Lies at Wikisource

Luther's attitude toward Jews took different forms during his lifetime. In his earlier period, until about 1537, he wanted to convert Jews to Lutheranism (Protestant Christianity). In his later period when he wrote On the Jews and Their Lies, he denounced them and urged their persecution.[2]

In this treatise, he argues that Jewish synagogues and schools be set on fire, prayer books be destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, Jewish homes burned, and property and money confiscated. Luther demanded that no mercy or kindness be given to Jews,[3] that they be afforded no legal protection,[4] and "these poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled forever.[5] He also advocates murder of all Jews, writing "[W]e are at fault in not slaying them".[6]

The book may have had an impact on creating later antisemitic German thought.[7] With the rise of the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany, the book became widely popular among Nazi supporters. During World War II, copies of the book were commonly seen at Nazi rallies, and the prevailing scholarly consensus is that it may have had a significant impact on justifying the Holocaust.[8] Since then, the book has been denounced by many Lutheran churches.[9]

Content edit

In the treatise, Martin Luther describes Jews as a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth".[10] Luther wrote that they are "full of the devil's feces ... which they wallow in like Jewish swine",[11] and the synagogue is an "incorrigible whore and an evil slut".[12]

In the first ten sections of the treatise, Luther expounds, at considerable length, upon his views concerning Jews and Judaism and how these compare to Protestants and Protestant Christianity. Following the exposition, Section XI of the treatise advises Protestants to carry out seven remedial actions, namely:[13]

  1. to burn down Jewish synagogues and schools and warn people against them
  2. to refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians
  3. to take away Jewish religious writings
  4. to forbid rabbis from preaching
  5. to offer no protection to Jews on highways
  6. for usury to be prohibited and for all Jews' silver and gold to be removed, put aside for safekeeping, and given back to Jews who truly convert
  7. to give young, strong Jews flail, axe, spade, and spindle, and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow

Luther's essay consistently distinguishes between Jews who accept Christianity (with whom he has no issues) and Jews who practise Judaism (whom he excoriates viciously).[14][15][16]

The tract specifically acknowledges that many early Christians, including prominent ones, had a Judaic background.[17]

Evolution of Luther's views edit

Medieval Church and the Jews edit

Early in his life, Luther had argued that Jews had been prevented from converting to Christianity by the proclamation of what he believed to be an impure gospel by the Catholic Church, and he believed they would respond favorably to the evangelical message if it were presented to them gently. He expressed concern for the poor conditions in which they were forced to live, and insisted that anyone denying that Jesus was born a Jew was committing heresy.[18]

Luther's first known comment about Jewish people is in a letter written to Reverend Spalatin in 1514:

Conversion of the Jews will be the work of God alone operating from within, and not of man working – or rather playing – from without. If these offences be taken away, worse will follow. For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation, that they may become incorrigible, as Ecclesiastes says, for every one who is incorrigible is rendered worse rather than better by correction.[19]

In 1519, Luther challenged the doctrine Servitus Judaeorum ("Servitude of the Jews"), established in Corpus Juris Civilis by Justinian I in 529. He wrote: "Absurd theologians defend hatred for the Jews. ... What Jew would consent to enter our ranks when he sees the cruelty and enmity we wreak on them – that in our behavior towards them we less resemble Christians than beasts?"[20]

In his commentary on the Magnificat, Luther is critical of the emphasis Judaism places on the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament. He states that they "undertook to keep the law by their own strength, and failed to learn from it their needy and cursed state".[21] Yet, he concludes that God's grace will continue for Jews as Abraham's descendants for all time, since they may always become Christians.[22] "We ought ... not to treat the Jews in so unkindly a spirit, for there are future Christians among them."[23]

In his 1523 essay That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew, Luther condemned the inhuman treatment of Jews and urged Christians to treat them kindly. Luther's fervent desire was that Jews would hear the gospel proclaimed clearly and be moved to convert to Christianity. Thus he argued:

If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith, I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian. They have dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings; they have done little else than deride them and seize their property. When they baptize them they show them nothing of Christian doctrine or life, but only subject them to popishness and monkery ... If the apostles, who also were Jews, had dealt with us Gentiles as we Gentiles deal with the Jews, there would never have been a Christian among the Gentiles ... When we are inclined to boast of our position [as Christians] we should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord. Therefore, if one is to boast of flesh and blood the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are ... If we really want to help them, we must be guided in our dealings with them not by papal law but by the law of Christian love. We must receive them cordially, and permit them to trade and work with us, that they may have occasion and opportunity to associate with us, hear our Christian teaching, and witness our Christian life. If some of them should prove stiff-necked, what of it? After all, we ourselves are not all good Christians either.[24]

Against the Jews edit

In August 1536, Luther's prince, John Frederick, Elector of Saxony, issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his realm. An Alsatian shtadlan, Rabbi Josel of Rosheim, asked a reformer, Wolfgang Capito, to approach Luther in order to obtain an audience with the prince, but Luther refused every intercession.[25] In response to Josel, Luther referred to his unsuccessful attempts to convert Jews: "I would willingly do my best for your people but I will not contribute to your [Jewish] obstinacy by my own kind actions. You must find another intermediary with my good Lord."[26] Heiko Oberman notes this event as significant in Luther's attitude toward Jews: "Even today this refusal is often judged to be the decisive turning point in Luther's career from friendliness to hostility toward the Jews";[27] yet, Oberman contends that Luther would have denied any such "turning point". Rather he felt that Jews were to be treated in a "friendly way" in order to avoid placing unnecessary obstacles in their path to Christian conversion, a genuine concern of Luther.[28]

Paul Johnson writes that "Luther was not content with verbal abuse. Even before he wrote his anti-Semitic pamphlet, he got Jews expelled from Saxony in 1537, and in the 1540s he drove them from many German towns; he tried unsuccessfully to get the elector to expel them from Brandenburg in 1543."[29]

Michael Berenbaum writes that Luther's reliance on the Bible as the sole source of Christian authority fed his later fury toward Jews over their rejection of Jesus as the messiah.[18] For Luther, salvation depended on the belief Jesus was Son of God, a belief that adherents of Judaism do not share. Graham Noble writes that Luther wanted to save Jews, in his own terms, not exterminate them, but beneath his apparent reasonableness toward them, there was a "biting intolerance", which produced "ever more furious demands for their conversion to his own brand of Christianity". (Noble, 1–2) When they did not convert, he turned on them.[30]

History since publication edit

The prevailing scholarly view since the Second World War is that the treatise exercised a major and persistent influence on Germany's attitude toward its Jewish citizens in the centuries between the Reformation and the Holocaust.[7][31][32] Four hundred years after it was written, the Nazis displayed On the Jews and Their Lies during Nuremberg rallies, and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius Streicher, editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer, the newspaper describing it, on Streicher's first encounter with the treatise in 1937, as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published.[8]

Against this view, theologian Johannes Wallmann writes that the treatise had no continuity of influence in Germany, and was in fact largely ignored during the 18th and 19th centuries.[33] Hans Hillerbrand argues that to focus on Luther's role in the development of German antisemitism is to underestimate the "larger peculiarities of German history".[34]

In May 1948, antisemite Gerald L. K. Smith put out an English translation called "The Jews and Their Lies", which was published under the name "Christian Nationalist Crusade".[35]

Since the 1980s, some Lutheran church bodies have formally denounced and dissociated themselves from Luther's vitriol about Jews. In November 1998, on the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria issued a statement: "It is imperative for the Lutheran Church, which knows itself to be indebted to the work and tradition of Martin Luther, to take seriously also his anti-Jewish utterances, to acknowledge their theological function, and to reflect on their consequences. It has to distance itself from every [expression of] anti-Judaism in Lutheran theology."[9]

See also edit

References edit

Notes

  1. ^ "M. Luther, Von den Juden und ihren Lügen, WA 53, 417-552" (PDF). pthu.nl (in German).
  2. ^ Deutsch, Gotthard (1906). "Luther, Martin". www.jewishencyclopedia.com. pp. 213–215. Retrieved 4 March 2024. See also the note supra referring to Robert Michael.
  3. ^ Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46:4, (Autumn 1985), p. 342.
  4. ^ Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46:4, (Autumn 1985), p. 343.
  5. ^ Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Luthers Werke. 47:268–271; Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971).
  6. ^ Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, cited in Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46 (Autumn 1985) No. 4:343–344.
  7. ^ a b Wallmann, Johannes. "The Reception of Luther's Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century", Lutheran Quarterly, n.s. 1 (Spring 1987) 1:72–97. "The assertion that Luther's expressions of anti-Jewish sentiment have been of major and persistent influence in the centuries after the Reformation, and that there exists a continuity between Protestant anti-Judaism and modern racially oriented antiSemitism, is at present wide-spread in the literature; since the Second World War it has understandably become the prevailing opinion."
  8. ^ a b Ellis, Marc H. "Hitler and the Holocaust, Christian Anti-Semitism" 2007-07-10 at the Wayback Machine, Baylor University Center for American and Jewish Studies, Spring 2004, slide 14. Also see "Nuremberg Trial Proceedings" 2006-03-21 at the Wayback Machine, Vol. 12, p. 318, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, April 19, 1946.
  9. ^ a b "Christians and Jews: A Declaration of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria" 2018-10-04 at the Wayback Machine, 24 November 1998, also printed in Freiburger Rundbrief, 6:3 (1999), pp.191–197. For other statements from Lutheran bodies, see:
    • "Q&A: Luther's Anti-Semitism" 2003-12-26 at the Wayback Machine, Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod;
    • "Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community" Archived 2012-07-29 at archive.today, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 18 April 1994;
    • "Statement by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada to the Jewish Communities in Canada" 2016-03-13 at the Wayback Machine, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, 12–16 July 1995;
    • "Time to Turn" 2016-03-11 at the Wayback Machine, The Evangelical [Protestant] Churches in Austria and the Jews. Declaration of the General Synod of the Evangelical Church A.B. and H.B., 28 October 1998.
  10. ^ Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, 154, 167, 229, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 111.
  11. ^ Oberman, Heiko. Luthers Werke. Erlangen 1854, 32:282, 298, in Grisar, Hartmann. Luther. St. Louis 1915, 4:286 and 5:406, cited in Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 113.
  12. ^ Michael, Robert, Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, p. 112.
  13. ^ Luther, Martin. The Jews and Their Lies, (Publisher: Christian Nationalist Crusade, 1948).
  14. ^ Luther, Martin (1543). Von den Jüden und iren Lügen [On the Jews and their lies]. Christianity-Revealed.com (published 2011). Retrieved 2019-04-05. If God is to become gracious also to them, the Jews, they must first of all banish such blasphemous prayers and songs, that boast so arrogantly about their lineage, from their synagogues, from their hearts, and from their lips, for such prayers ever increase and sharpen God's wrath toward them [...]. However, they will not do this, nor will they humble themselves abjectly, except for a few individuals whom God draws unto himself particularly and delivers from their terrible ruin.
  15. ^ Luther, Martin (1543). Von den Jüden und iren Lügen [On the Jews and their lies]. Christianity-Revealed.com (published 2011). Retrieved 2019-04-05. I advise that [...] all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping. [...] Such money should now be used in no other way than the following: Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted, he should be handed one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred florins, as personal circumstances may suggest.
  16. ^ Luther, Martin (1543). Von den Jüden und iren Lügen [On the Jews and their lies]. Christianity-Revealed.com (published 2011). Retrieved 2019-04-05. [...] they did not know at that time that it was God's word; but now they have been informed of it these fifteen hundred years. [...] All right, let them even now hear and believe it, and all will be simple.
  17. ^ Luther, Martin (1543). Von den Jüden und iren Lügen [On the Jews and their lies]. Christianity-Revealed.com (published 2011). Retrieved 2019-04-05. For more than one hundred years after Jesus' resurrection [...] there were always bishops in Jerusalem from the tribe of the children of Israel, a[ll] of whom our Eusebius mentions by name (Eccl. Hist., Bk. 4, ch. 5). He begins with St. James the apostle and enumerates about fifteen of them, a[ll] of whom preached the gospel with great diligence, performed miracles and lived a holy life, converting many thousands of Jews and children of Israel to their promised Messiah who had now appeared, Jesus of Nazareth; apart from these there were the Jews living in the Diaspora who were converted together with the Gentiles by St. Paul, other apostles, and their disciples. This was accomplished despite the fact that the other faction, the blind, impenitent Jews the fathers of the present-day Jews raved, raged, and ranted against it without letup and without ceasing, and shed much blood of members of their own race both within their own country and abroad among the Gentiles [...]. The peoples, that is, not only the Jews but also the Gentiles, are in perfect accord in their obedience [...]; they have become one people, that is, Christians.
  18. ^ a b Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, pp. 8–9.
  19. ^ Martin Luther, "Luther to George Spalatin" 2007-07-02 at the Wayback Machine, in Luther's Correspondence and Other Contemporaneous Letters, trans. Henry Preserved Smith (Philadelphia: Lutheran Publication Society, 1913), 1:29.
  20. ^ Luther quoted in Elliot Rosenberg, But Were They Good for the Jews? (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1997), p. 65.
  21. ^ Martin Luther, The Magnificat, trans. A. T. W. Steinhaeuser, in Luther's Works (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1956), 21:354.
  22. ^ Russell Briese, "Martin Luther and the Jews", Lutheran Forum 34 (2000) No. 2:32.
  23. ^ Luther, Magnificat, 21:354f.
  24. ^ Martin Luther, "That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew", trans. Walter I. Brandt, in Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), pp. 200–201, 229.
  25. ^ Martin Brecht, Martin Luther (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985–1993), 3:336.
  26. ^ Luther's letter to Rabbi Josel as cited by Gordon Rupp, Martin Luther and the Jews (London: The Council of Christians and Jews, 1972), 14. According to . Archived from the original on 2005-11-04. Retrieved 2017-03-21.. This paragraph is not available in the English edition of Luther's works.
  27. ^ Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (New York: Image Books, 1989), p.293.
  28. ^ cf. Luther's "Warning Against the Jews (1546)" (1546); original German text: Weimar Ausgabe 51:194–196; J. G. Walch, Dr. Martin Luthers Sämmtliche Schriften, 23 vols. (St. Louis: Concordia, 1883), 12:1264–1267).
  29. ^ Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews, p. 242.
  30. ^ Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews", Encounter 46 (Autumn 1985) No. 4:343–344.
  31. ^ Michael, Robert. Holy Hatred: Christianity, Antisemitism, and the Holocaust. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; see chapter 4 "The Germanies from Luther to Hitler", pp. 105–151.
  32. ^ Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007. "[H]is strident pronouncements against the Jews, especially toward the end of his life, have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German antisemitism. Although many scholars have taken this view, this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history."
  33. ^ Wallmann, Johannes. "The Reception of Luther's Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century", Lutheran Quarterly, n.s. 1, Spring 1987, 1:72–97.
  34. ^ Hillerbrand, Hans J. "Martin Luther", Encyclopædia Britannica, 2007.
  35. ^ Luther, Martin (May 1948). "The Jews and Their Lies" (PDF). Christian Nationalist Crusade. Retrieved 21 June 2020.

Bibliography

  • Bainton, Roland. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1978. ISBN 0-687-16894-5.
  • Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther, 3 vols. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1985-1993. ISBN 0-8006-0738-4, ISBN 0-8006-2463-7, ISBN 0-8006-2704-0.
  • Gavriel, Mardell J. The Anti-Semitism of Martin Luther: A Psychohistorical Exploration. Ph.D. diss., Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 1996.
  • Goldhagen, Daniel. Hitler's Willing Executioners. Vintage, 1997. ISBN 0-679-77268-5.
  • Gritsch, Eric W. Martin Luther's Anti-Semitism: Against His Better Judgement. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8028-6676-9.
  • Halpérin, Jean, and Arne Sovik, eds. Luther, Lutheranism and the Jews: A Record of the Second Consultation between Representatives of The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation and the Lutheran World Federation Held in Stockholm, Sweden, 11–13 July 1983. Geneva: LWF, 1984.
  • Johnson, Paul. A History of the Jews. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1987. ISBN 0-06-091533-1.
  • Kaennel, Lucie. Luther était-il antisémite? (Luther: Was He an Antisemite?). Entrée Libre N° 38. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1997. ISBN 2-8309-0869-4.
  • Kaufman, Thomas. Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes trans. Luther's Jews. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. ISBN 978-0-19-873854-1.
  • Kittelson, James M. Luther the Reformer: The Story of the Man and His Career. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1986. ISBN 0-8066-2240-7.
  • Luther, Martin. The Jews and Their Lies. Los Angeles: Christian Nationalist Crusade, 1948.
  • Oberman, Heiko A. The Roots of Anti-Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation. James I. Porter, trans. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. ISBN 0-8006-0709-0.
  • Rosenberg, Elliot, But Were They Good for the Jews? (New York: Birch Lane Press, 1997). ISBN 1-55972-436-6.
  • Roynesdal, Olaf. Martin Luther and the Jews. Ph.D. diss., Marquette University, 1986.
  • Rupp, Gordon. Martin Luther: Hitler's Cause or Cure? In Reply to Peter F. Wiener. London: Lutterworth Press, 1945.
  • Siemon-Netto, Uwe. The Fabricated Luther: the Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth. Peter L. Berger, Foreword. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995. ISBN 0-570-04800-1.
  • Siemon-Netto, Uwe. . The Lutheran Witness 123 (2004) No. 4:16–19. (PDF)
  • Steigmann-Gall, Richard. The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919-1945. Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-82371-4.
  • Tjernagel, Neelak S. Martin Luther and the Jewish People. Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1985. ISBN 0-8100-0213-2.
  • Wallmann, Johannes. "The Reception of Luther's Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century." Lutheran Quarterly 1 (Spring 1987) 1:72–97.
  • Wiener, Peter F. Martin Luther: Hitler's Spiritual Ancestor, Hutchinson & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 1945;

External links edit

jews, their, lies, german, jüden, iren, lügen, modern, spelling, juden, ihren, lügen, word, anti, judaic, antisemitic, treatise, written, 1543, german, reformation, leader, martin, luther, 1483, 1546, title, page, martin, luther, authormartin, luthercountryhol. On the Jews and Their Lies German Von den Juden und iren Lugen in modern spelling Von den Juden und ihren Lugen is a 65 000 word anti Judaic and antisemitic treatise written in 1543 by the German Reformation leader Martin Luther 1483 1546 1 On the Jews and Their LiesTitle page of Martin Luther s On the Jews and Their LiesAuthorMartin LutherCountryHoly Roman EmpireLanguageGermanSubjectsReligious antisemitism antisemitic canardGenreReligionPublished1543Original textOn the Jews and Their Lies at Google BooksTranslationOn the Jews and Their Lies at Wikisource Luther s attitude toward Jews took different forms during his lifetime In his earlier period until about 1537 he wanted to convert Jews to Lutheranism Protestant Christianity In his later period when he wrote On the Jews and Their Lies he denounced them and urged their persecution 2 In this treatise he argues that Jewish synagogues and schools be set on fire prayer books be destroyed rabbis forbidden to preach Jewish homes burned and property and money confiscated Luther demanded that no mercy or kindness be given to Jews 3 that they be afforded no legal protection 4 and these poisonous envenomed worms should be drafted into forced labor or expelled forever 5 He also advocates murder of all Jews writing W e are at fault in not slaying them 6 The book may have had an impact on creating later antisemitic German thought 7 With the rise of the Nazi Party in Weimar Germany the book became widely popular among Nazi supporters During World War II copies of the book were commonly seen at Nazi rallies and the prevailing scholarly consensus is that it may have had a significant impact on justifying the Holocaust 8 Since then the book has been denounced by many Lutheran churches 9 Contents 1 Content 2 Evolution of Luther s views 2 1 Medieval Church and the Jews 2 2 Against the Jews 3 History since publication 4 See also 5 References 6 External linksContent editIn the treatise Martin Luther describes Jews as a base whoring people that is no people of God and their boast of lineage circumcision and law must be accounted as filth 10 Luther wrote that they are full of the devil s feces which they wallow in like Jewish swine 11 and the synagogue is an incorrigible whore and an evil slut 12 In the first ten sections of the treatise Luther expounds at considerable length upon his views concerning Jews and Judaism and how these compare to Protestants and Protestant Christianity Following the exposition Section XI of the treatise advises Protestants to carry out seven remedial actions namely 13 to burn down Jewish synagogues and schools and warn people against them to refuse to let Jews own houses among Christians to take away Jewish religious writings to forbid rabbis from preaching to offer no protection to Jews on highways for usury to be prohibited and for all Jews silver and gold to be removed put aside for safekeeping and given back to Jews who truly convert to give young strong Jews flail axe spade and spindle and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their browLuther s essay consistently distinguishes between Jews who accept Christianity with whom he has no issues and Jews who practise Judaism whom he excoriates viciously 14 15 16 The tract specifically acknowledges that many early Christians including prominent ones had a Judaic background 17 Evolution of Luther s views editMain article Martin Luther and antisemitism Medieval Church and the Jews edit Early in his life Luther had argued that Jews had been prevented from converting to Christianity by the proclamation of what he believed to be an impure gospel by the Catholic Church and he believed they would respond favorably to the evangelical message if it were presented to them gently He expressed concern for the poor conditions in which they were forced to live and insisted that anyone denying that Jesus was born a Jew was committing heresy 18 Luther s first known comment about Jewish people is in a letter written to Reverend Spalatin in 1514 Conversion of the Jews will be the work of God alone operating from within and not of man working or rather playing from without If these offences be taken away worse will follow For they are thus given over by the wrath of God to reprobation that they may become incorrigible as Ecclesiastes says for every one who is incorrigible is rendered worse rather than better by correction 19 In 1519 Luther challenged the doctrine Servitus Judaeorum Servitude of the Jews established in Corpus Juris Civilis by Justinian I in 529 He wrote Absurd theologians defend hatred for the Jews What Jew would consent to enter our ranks when he sees the cruelty and enmity we wreak on them that in our behavior towards them we less resemble Christians than beasts 20 In his commentary on the Magnificat Luther is critical of the emphasis Judaism places on the Torah the first five books of the Old Testament He states that they undertook to keep the law by their own strength and failed to learn from it their needy and cursed state 21 Yet he concludes that God s grace will continue for Jews as Abraham s descendants for all time since they may always become Christians 22 We ought not to treat the Jews in so unkindly a spirit for there are future Christians among them 23 In his 1523 essay That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew Luther condemned the inhuman treatment of Jews and urged Christians to treat them kindly Luther s fervent desire was that Jews would hear the gospel proclaimed clearly and be moved to convert to Christianity Thus he argued If I had been a Jew and had seen such dolts and blockheads govern and teach the Christian faith I would sooner have become a hog than a Christian They have dealt with the Jews as if they were dogs rather than human beings they have done little else than deride them and seize their property When they baptize them they show them nothing of Christian doctrine or life but only subject them to popishness and monkery If the apostles who also were Jews had dealt with us Gentiles as we Gentiles deal with the Jews there would never have been a Christian among the Gentiles When we are inclined to boast of our position as Christians we should remember that we are but Gentiles while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ We are aliens and in laws they are blood relatives cousins and brothers of our Lord Therefore if one is to boast of flesh and blood the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are If we really want to help them we must be guided in our dealings with them not by papal law but by the law of Christian love We must receive them cordially and permit them to trade and work with us that they may have occasion and opportunity to associate with us hear our Christian teaching and witness our Christian life If some of them should prove stiff necked what of it After all we ourselves are not all good Christians either 24 Against the Jews edit In August 1536 Luther s prince John Frederick Elector of Saxony issued a mandate that prohibited Jews from inhabiting engaging in business in or passing through his realm An Alsatian shtadlan Rabbi Josel of Rosheim asked a reformer Wolfgang Capito to approach Luther in order to obtain an audience with the prince but Luther refused every intercession 25 In response to Josel Luther referred to his unsuccessful attempts to convert Jews I would willingly do my best for your people but I will not contribute to your Jewish obstinacy by my own kind actions You must find another intermediary with my good Lord 26 Heiko Oberman notes this event as significant in Luther s attitude toward Jews Even today this refusal is often judged to be the decisive turning point in Luther s career from friendliness to hostility toward the Jews 27 yet Oberman contends that Luther would have denied any such turning point Rather he felt that Jews were to be treated in a friendly way in order to avoid placing unnecessary obstacles in their path to Christian conversion a genuine concern of Luther 28 Paul Johnson writes that Luther was not content with verbal abuse Even before he wrote his anti Semitic pamphlet he got Jews expelled from Saxony in 1537 and in the 1540s he drove them from many German towns he tried unsuccessfully to get the elector to expel them from Brandenburg in 1543 29 Michael Berenbaum writes that Luther s reliance on the Bible as the sole source of Christian authority fed his later fury toward Jews over their rejection of Jesus as the messiah 18 For Luther salvation depended on the belief Jesus was Son of God a belief that adherents of Judaism do not share Graham Noble writes that Luther wanted to save Jews in his own terms not exterminate them but beneath his apparent reasonableness toward them there was a biting intolerance which produced ever more furious demands for their conversion to his own brand of Christianity Noble 1 2 When they did not convert he turned on them 30 History since publication editThe prevailing scholarly view since the Second World War is that the treatise exercised a major and persistent influence on Germany s attitude toward its Jewish citizens in the centuries between the Reformation and the Holocaust 7 31 32 Four hundred years after it was written the Nazis displayed On the Jews and Their Lies during Nuremberg rallies and the city of Nuremberg presented a first edition to Julius Streicher editor of the Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer the newspaper describing it on Streicher s first encounter with the treatise in 1937 as the most radically antisemitic tract ever published 8 Against this view theologian Johannes Wallmann writes that the treatise had no continuity of influence in Germany and was in fact largely ignored during the 18th and 19th centuries 33 Hans Hillerbrand argues that to focus on Luther s role in the development of German antisemitism is to underestimate the larger peculiarities of German history 34 In May 1948 antisemite Gerald L K Smith put out an English translation called The Jews and Their Lies which was published under the name Christian Nationalist Crusade 35 Since the 1980s some Lutheran church bodies have formally denounced and dissociated themselves from Luther s vitriol about Jews In November 1998 on the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria issued a statement It is imperative for the Lutheran Church which knows itself to be indebted to the work and tradition of Martin Luther to take seriously also his anti Jewish utterances to acknowledge their theological function and to reflect on their consequences It has to distance itself from every expression of anti Judaism in Lutheran theology 9 See also edit nbsp Judaism portal nbsp Christianity portalMartin Luther and antisemitism Antisemitism in Christianity On the Jewish QuestionReferences editNotes M Luther Von den Juden und ihren Lugen WA 53 417 552 PDF pthu nl in German Deutsch Gotthard 1906 Luther Martin www jewishencyclopedia com pp 213 215 Retrieved 4 March 2024 See also the note supra referring to Robert Michael Michael Robert Luther Luther Scholars and the Jews Encounter 46 4 Autumn 1985 p 342 Michael Robert Luther Luther Scholars and the Jews Encounter 46 4 Autumn 1985 p 343 Luther Martin On the Jews and Their Lies Luthers Werke 47 268 271 Trans Martin H Bertram in Luther s Works Philadelphia Fortress Press 1971 Luther Martin On the Jews and Their Lies cited in Michael Robert Luther Luther Scholars and the Jews Encounter 46 Autumn 1985 No 4 343 344 a b Wallmann Johannes The Reception of Luther s Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century Lutheran Quarterly n s 1 Spring 1987 1 72 97 The assertion that Luther s expressions of anti Jewish sentiment have been of major and persistent influence in the centuries after the Reformation and that there exists a continuity between Protestant anti Judaism and modern racially oriented antiSemitism is at present wide spread in the literature since the Second World War it has understandably become the prevailing opinion a b Ellis Marc H Hitler and the Holocaust Christian Anti Semitism Archived 2007 07 10 at the Wayback Machine Baylor University Center for American and Jewish Studies Spring 2004 slide 14 Also see Nuremberg Trial Proceedings Archived 2006 03 21 at the Wayback Machine Vol 12 p 318 Avalon Project Yale Law School April 19 1946 a b Christians and Jews A Declaration of the Lutheran Church of Bavaria Archived 2018 10 04 at the Wayback Machine 24 November 1998 also printed in Freiburger Rundbrief 6 3 1999 pp 191 197 For other statements from Lutheran bodies see Q amp A Luther s Anti Semitism Archived 2003 12 26 at the Wayback Machine Lutheran Church Missouri Synod Declaration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to the Jewish Community Archived 2012 07 29 at archive today Evangelical Lutheran Church in America 18 April 1994 Statement by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada to the Jewish Communities in Canada Archived 2016 03 13 at the Wayback Machine Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada 12 16 July 1995 Time to Turn Archived 2016 03 11 at the Wayback Machine The Evangelical Protestant Churches in Austria and the Jews Declaration of the General Synod of the Evangelical Church A B and H B 28 October 1998 Luther Martin On the Jews and Their Lies 154 167 229 cited in Michael Robert Holy Hatred Christianity Antisemitism and the Holocaust New York Palgrave Macmillan 2006 p 111 Oberman Heiko Luthers Werke Erlangen 1854 32 282 298 in Grisar Hartmann Luther St Louis 1915 4 286 and 5 406 cited in Michael Robert Holy Hatred Christianity Antisemitism and the Holocaust New York Palgrave Macmillan 2006 p 113 Michael Robert Holy Hatred Christianity Antisemitism and the Holocaust New York Palgrave Macmillan 2006 p 112 Luther Martin The Jews and Their Lies Publisher Christian Nationalist Crusade 1948 Luther Martin 1543 Von den Juden und iren Lugen On the Jews and their lies Christianity Revealed com published 2011 Retrieved 2019 04 05 If God is to become gracious also to them the Jews they must first of all banish such blasphemous prayers and songs that boast so arrogantly about their lineage from their synagogues from their hearts and from their lips for such prayers ever increase and sharpen God s wrath toward them However they will not do this nor will they humble themselves abjectly except for a few individuals whom God draws unto himself particularly and delivers from their terrible ruin Luther Martin 1543 Von den Juden und iren Lugen On the Jews and their lies Christianity Revealed com published 2011 Retrieved 2019 04 05 I advise that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping Such money should now be used in no other way than the following Whenever a Jew is sincerely converted he should be handed one hundred two hundred or three hundred florins as personal circumstances may suggest Luther Martin 1543 Von den Juden und iren Lugen On the Jews and their lies Christianity Revealed com published 2011 Retrieved 2019 04 05 they did not know at that time that it was God s word but now they have been informed of it these fifteen hundred years All right let them even now hear and believe it and all will be simple Luther Martin 1543 Von den Juden und iren Lugen On the Jews and their lies Christianity Revealed com published 2011 Retrieved 2019 04 05 For more than one hundred years after Jesus resurrection there were always bishops in Jerusalem from the tribe of the children of Israel a ll of whom our Eusebius mentions by name Eccl Hist Bk 4 ch 5 He begins with St James the apostle and enumerates about fifteen of them a ll of whom preached the gospel with great diligence performed miracles and lived a holy life converting many thousands of Jews and children of Israel to their promised Messiah who had now appeared Jesus of Nazareth apart from these there were the Jews living in the Diaspora who were converted together with the Gentiles by St Paul other apostles and their disciples This was accomplished despite the fact that the other faction the blind impenitent Jews the fathers of the present day Jews raved raged and ranted against it without letup and without ceasing and shed much blood of members of their own race both within their own country and abroad among the Gentiles The peoples that is not only the Jews but also the Gentiles are in perfect accord in their obedience they have become one people that is Christians a b Berenbaum Michael The World Must Know United States Holocaust Memorial Museum pp 8 9 Martin Luther Luther to George Spalatin Archived 2007 07 02 at the Wayback Machine in Luther s Correspondence and Other Contemporaneous Letters trans Henry Preserved Smith Philadelphia Lutheran Publication Society 1913 1 29 Luther quoted in Elliot Rosenberg But Were They Good for the Jews New York Birch Lane Press 1997 p 65 Martin Luther The Magnificat trans A T W Steinhaeuser in Luther s Works St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1956 21 354 Russell Briese Martin Luther and the Jews Lutheran Forum 34 2000 No 2 32 Luther Magnificat 21 354f Martin Luther That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew trans Walter I Brandt in Luther s Works Philadelphia Fortress Press 1962 pp 200 201 229 Martin Brecht Martin Luther Minneapolis Fortress Press 1985 1993 3 336 Luther s letter to Rabbi Josel as cited by Gordon Rupp Martin Luther and the Jews London The Council of Christians and Jews 1972 14 According to Luther and the Jews Archived from the original on 2005 11 04 Retrieved 2017 03 21 This paragraph is not available in the English edition of Luther s works Heiko Oberman Luther Man Between God and the Devil New York Image Books 1989 p 293 cf Luther s Warning Against the Jews 1546 1546 original German text Weimar Ausgabe 51 194 196 J G Walch Dr Martin Luthers Sammtliche Schriften 23 vols St Louis Concordia 1883 12 1264 1267 Johnson Paul A History of the Jews p 242 Michael Robert Luther Luther Scholars and the Jews Encounter 46 Autumn 1985 No 4 343 344 Michael Robert Holy Hatred Christianity Antisemitism and the Holocaust New York Palgrave Macmillan 2006 see chapter 4 The Germanies from Luther to Hitler pp 105 151 Hillerbrand Hans J Martin Luther Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 H is strident pronouncements against the Jews especially toward the end of his life have raised the question of whether Luther significantly encouraged the development of German antisemitism Although many scholars have taken this view this perspective puts far too much emphasis on Luther and not enough on the larger peculiarities of German history Wallmann Johannes The Reception of Luther s Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century Lutheran Quarterly n s 1 Spring 1987 1 72 97 Hillerbrand Hans J Martin Luther Encyclopaedia Britannica 2007 Luther Martin May 1948 The Jews and Their Lies PDF Christian Nationalist Crusade Retrieved 21 June 2020 Bibliography Bainton Roland Here I Stand A Life of Martin Luther Nashville Abingdon Press 1978 ISBN 0 687 16894 5 Brecht Martin Martin Luther 3 vols Minneapolis Fortress Press 1985 1993 ISBN 0 8006 0738 4 ISBN 0 8006 2463 7 ISBN 0 8006 2704 0 Gavriel Mardell J The Anti Semitism of Martin Luther A Psychohistorical Exploration Ph D diss Chicago School of Professional Psychology 1996 Goldhagen Daniel Hitler s Willing Executioners Vintage 1997 ISBN 0 679 77268 5 Gritsch Eric W Martin Luther s Anti Semitism Against His Better Judgement Grand Rapids MI William B Eerdmans Publishing Company 2012 ISBN 978 0 8028 6676 9 Halperin Jean and Arne Sovik eds Luther Lutheranism and the Jews A Record of the Second Consultation between Representatives of The International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultation and the Lutheran World Federation Held in Stockholm Sweden 11 13 July 1983 Geneva LWF 1984 Johnson Paul A History of the Jews New York HarperCollins Publishers 1987 ISBN 0 06 091533 1 Kaennel Lucie Luther etait il antisemite Luther Was He an Antisemite Entree Libre N 38 Geneva Labor et Fides 1997 ISBN 2 8309 0869 4 Kaufman Thomas Lesley Sharpe and Jeremy Noakes trans Luther s Jews Oxford Oxford University Press 2017 ISBN 978 0 19 873854 1 Kittelson James M Luther the Reformer The Story of the Man and His Career Minneapolis Augsburg Publishing House 1986 ISBN 0 8066 2240 7 Luther Martin The Jews and Their Lies Los Angeles Christian Nationalist Crusade 1948 Oberman Heiko A The Roots of Anti Semitism in the Age of Renaissance and Reformation James I Porter trans Philadelphia Fortress Press 1984 ISBN 0 8006 0709 0 Rosenberg Elliot But Were They Good for the Jews New York Birch Lane Press 1997 ISBN 1 55972 436 6 Roynesdal Olaf Martin Luther and the Jews Ph D diss Marquette University 1986 Rupp Gordon Martin Luther Hitler s Cause or Cure In Reply to Peter F Wiener London Lutterworth Press 1945 Siemon Netto Uwe The Fabricated Luther the Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth Peter L Berger Foreword St Louis Concordia Publishing House 1995 ISBN 0 570 04800 1 Siemon Netto Uwe Luther and the Jews The Lutheran Witness 123 2004 No 4 16 19 PDF Steigmann Gall Richard The Holy Reich Nazi Conceptions of Christianity 1919 1945 Cambridge University Press 2003 ISBN 0 521 82371 4 Tjernagel Neelak S Martin Luther and the Jewish People Milwaukee Northwestern Publishing House 1985 ISBN 0 8100 0213 2 Wallmann Johannes The Reception of Luther s Writings on the Jews from the Reformation to the End of the 19th Century Lutheran Quarterly 1 Spring 1987 1 72 97 Wiener Peter F Martin Luther Hitler s Spiritual Ancestor Hutchinson amp Co Publishers Ltd 1945 External links edit nbsp Wikisource has original text related to this article The Jews and Their Lies This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Gotthard Deutsch 1901 1906 Martin Luther In Singer Isidore et al eds The Jewish Encyclopedia 1906 ed New York Funk amp Wagnalls Luther s Letter to Bernhard a Converted Jew 1523 On the Jews and Their Lies Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title On the Jews and Their Lies amp oldid 1215464785, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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