When Martin Luther first began the Reformation, he was
sympathetic towards the Jews:
The Jews are blood-relations of our Lord; if it were proper to
boast of flesh and blood, the Jews belong more to Christ than
we. I beg, therefore, my dear Papist, if you become tired of
abusing me as a heretic, that you begin to revile me as a Jew.
But it seems this sympathy only went so far as the Jews opposed the
Catholic Church by not converting. He thought that once he got
rid of all of the
cruft from
Catholicism, the Jews would see the
obviousness of "true Christianity" and convert
en masse to
Protestantism. When they didn't, he seemed to become bitter about
the Jews'
rebuke of Protestantism by their non-conversion; the
cumulation of this can be seem in his booklet, "The Jews and Their
Lies", written in 1543, towards the end of his life.
The text of this is copied from the Medieval Sourcebook,
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/luther-jews.html
I had made up my mind to write no more either about the Jews or
against them. But since I learned that these miserable and
accursed people do not cease to lure to themselves even us, that
is, the Christians, I have published this little book, so that I
might be found among those who opposed such poisonous activities
of the Jews who warned the Christians to be on their guard against
them. I would not have believed that a Christian could be duped by
the Jews into taking their exile and wretchedness upon himself.
However, the devil is the god of the world, and wherever God's
word is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but
also with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
---
He did not call them Abraham's children, but a "brood of vipers"
Matthew 3:7 Oh, that was too insulting for the noble blood and
race of Israel, and they declared, "He has a demon" Matthew
11:18. Our Lord also calls them a "brood of vipers"; furthermore
in John 8:39,44 he states: "If you were Abraham's children ye
would do what Abraham did.... You are of your father the devil. It
was intolerable to them to hear that they were not Abraham's but
the devil's children, nor can they bear to hear this today.
---
Therefore the blind Jews are truly stupid fools...
---
Now just behold these miserable, blind, and senseless people.
---
...their blindness and arrogance are as solid as an iron mountain.
---
Learn from this, dear Christian, what you are doing if you permit
the blind Jews to mislead you. Then the saying will truly apply,
"When a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into the pit"
cf. Luke 6:39. You cannot learn anything from them except how to
misunderstand the divine commandments... [I believe
that this is a reference to New Testament scripture which says
the Jews were blinded to the truth and meaning of Jesus and the
New Testament; I'm not enough of a Biblical scholar to find the
exact verses...]
---
Therefore be on your guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever
they have their synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils
in which sheer self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and
defaming of God and men are practiced most maliciously and
veheming his eyes on them.
---
Moreover, they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat
no morsel and wear no thread of clothing which they have not
stolen and pilfered from us by means of their accursed
usury. Thus they live from day to day, together with wife and
child, by theft and robbery, as arch-thieves and robbers, in the
most impenitent security. [Many people have long
considered making money through lending or being a middleman to
be theft, because the lenders and middlemen weren't actually
working ("honest", physical labor), so the money they made
rightfully belonged to the physical laborers they dealt
with.]
---
However, they have not acquired a perfect mastery of the art of
lying; they lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a
little observant can easily detect it. But for us Christians they
stand as a terrifying example of God's wrath.
---
If I had to refute all the other articles of the Jewish faith, I
should be obliged to write against them as much and for as long a
time as they have used for inventing their lies-- that is, longer
than two thousand years.
---
Did I not tell you earlier that a Jew is such a noble, precious
jewel that God and all the angels dance when he farts?
---
Alas, it cannot be anything but the terrible wrath of God which
permits anyone to sink into such abysmal, devilish, hellish,
insane baseness, envy, and arrogance. If I were to avenge myself
on the devil himself I should be unable to wish him such evil and
misfortune as God's wrath inflicts on the Jews, compelling them to
lie and to blaspheme so monstrously, in violation of their own
conscience. Anyway, they have their reward for constantly giving
God the lie.
---
No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their
pants.
---
...but then eject them forever from this country. For, as we have
heard, God's anger with them is so intense that gentle mercy will
only tend to make them worse and worse, while sharp mercy will
reform them but little. Therefore, in any case, away with them!
---
Over and above that we let them get rich on our sweat and blood,
while we remain poor and they such the marrow from our bones.
---
I brief, dear princes and lords, those of you who have Jews under
your rule-- if my counsel does not please your, find better
advice, so that you and we all can be rid of the unbearable,
devilish burden of the Jews, lest we become guilty sharers before
God in the lies, blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which
the mad Jews indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person
of our Lord Jesus Christ, this dear mother, all Christians, all
authority, and ourselves. Do not grant them protection,
safe-conduct, or communion with us.... .With this faithful counsel
and warning I wish to cleanse and exonerate my conscience.
---
Let the government deal with them in this respect, as I have
suggested. But whether the government acts or not, let everyone at
least be guided by his own conscience and form for himself a
definition or image of a Jew.
---
However, we must avoid confirming them in their wanton lying,
slandering, cursing, and defaming. Nor dare we make ourselves
partners in their devilish ranting and raving by shielding and
protecting them, by giving them food, drink, and shelter, or by
other neighborly
---
Therefore we Christians, in turn, are obliged not to tolerate
their wanton and conscious blasphemy.
---
Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter
but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save
our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal
death.
---
What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned
people, the Jews? Since they live among us, we dare not tolerate
their conduct, now that we are aware of their lying and reviling
and blaspheming. If we do, we become sharers in their lies,
cursing and blasphemy. Thus we cannot extinguish the unquenchable
fire of divine wrath, of which the prophets speak, nor can we
convert the Jews. With prayer and the fear of God we must practice
a sharp mercy to see whether we might save at least a few from the
glowing flames. We dare not avenge ourselves. Vengeance a
thousand times worse than we could wish them already has them by
the throat. I shall give you my sincere advice:
First to set fire to their synagogues or schools and to bury and
cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever
again see a stone or cinder of them. This is to be done in honor
of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are
Christians, and do not condone or knowingly tolerate such public
lying, cursing, and blaspheming of his Son and of his
Christians. For whatever we tolerated in the past unknowingly -
and I myself was unaware of it - will be pardoned by God. But if
we, now that we are informed, were to protect and shield such a
house for the Jews, existing right before our very nose, in which
they lie about, blaspheme, curse, vilify, and defame Christ and us
(as was heard above), it would be the same as if we were doing all
this and even worse ourselves, as we very well know.
Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and
destroyed. For they pursue in them the same aims as in their
synagogues. Instead they might be lodged under a roof or in a
barn, like the gypsies. This will bring home to them that they are
not masters in our country, as they boast, but that they are
living in exile and in captivity, as they incessantly wail and
lament about us before God.
Third, I advise that all their prayer books and Talmudic writings,
in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be
taken from them. (remainder omitted)
Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach
henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly
forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews
captive with the saying of Moses (Deuteronomy 17:10 ff.) in
which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death,
although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with
the law of the Lord." Those villains ignore that. They wantonly
employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord
and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the
same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in
Matthew 16:18, "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all
the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did
not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he
forfeited the right to teach.
Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished
completely for the Jews. For they have no business in the
countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or
the like. Let they stay at home. (...remainder omitted).
Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all
cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put
aside for safekeeping. The reason for such a measure is that, as
said above, they have no other means of earning a livelihood than
usury, and by it they have stolen and robbed from us all they
possess. 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. With this he could set himself
up in some occupation for the support of his poor wife and
children, and the maintenance of the old or feeble. For such evil
gains are cursed if they are not put to use with God's blessing in
a good and worthy cause.
Seventh, I commend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a
distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and
Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their
brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam (Genesis 3:19).
[As noted above, money made from non-physical labor is
considered "dishonest" and theft] For it is not fitting that
they should let us accursed Goyim toil in the sweat of our faces
while they, the holy people, idle away their time behind the
stove, feasting and farting, and on top of all, boasting
blasphemously of their lordship over the Christians by means of
our sweat. No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat
of their pants.
---
But what will happen even if we do burn down the Jews' synagogues
and forbid them publicly to praise God, to pray, to teach, to
utter God's name? They will still keep doing it in secret. If we
know that they are doing this in secret, it is the same as if they
were doing it publicly. for our knowledge of their secret doings
and our toleration of them implies that they are not secret after
all and thus our conscience is encumbered with it before God.
---
Accordingly, it must and dare not be considered a trifling matter
but a most serious one to seek counsel against this and to save
our souls from the Jews, that is, from the devil and from eternal
death. My advice, as I said earlier, is:
First, that their synagogues be burned down, and that all who are
able toss in sulphur and pitch; it would be good if someone could
also throw in some hellfire. That would demonstrate to God our
serious resolve and be evidence to all the world that it was in
ignorance that we tolerated such houses, in which the Jews have
reviled God, our dear Creator and Father, and his Son most
shamefully up till now but that we have now given them their due
reward.
---
I wish and I ask that our rulers who have Jewish subjects exercise
a sharp mercy toward these wretched people, as suggested above, to
see whether this might not help (though it is doubtful). They must
act like a good physician who, when gangrene has set in,
proceeds without mercy to cut, saw, and burn flesh, veins, bone,
and marrow. Such a procedure must also be followed in this
instance. Burn down their synagogues, forbid all that I enumerated
earlier, force them to work, and deal harshly with them, as Moses
did in the wilderness, slaying three thousand lest the whole
people perish. They surely do not know what they are doing;
moreover, as people possessed, they do not wish to know it, hear
it, or learn it. There it would be wrong to be merciful and
confirm them in their conduct. If this does not help we must drive
them out like mad dogs, so that we do not become partakers of
their abominable blasphemy and all their other vices and thus
merit God's wrath and be damned with them. I have done my
duty. Now let everyone see to his. I am exonerated."
---
My essay, I hope, will furnish a Christian (who in any case has no
desire to become a Jew) with enough material not only to defend
himself against the blind, venomous Jews, but also to become the
foe of the Jews' malice, lying, and cursing, and to understand not
only that their belief is false but that they are surely possessed
by all devils. May Christ, our dear Lord, convert them mercifully
and preserve us steadfastly and immovably in the knowledge of him,
which is eternal life.
Amen.