Luther and the Jews: Putting Right the Lies

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On the Jews and Their Lies ( German: Von den Juden und ihren Lügen) is a treatise written in January 1543 by Martin Luther, the German theologian, in which he advocated harsh persecution of the Jewish people. Four centuries later, the Nazis used quotations from this pamphlet to justify their Final Solution. Martin Luther forever changed Christianity when he began the Protestant Reformation in 16th-century Europe. Liberal Protestantism, including most Lutherans, is less absolute. In 1994, the 5-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America spoke publicly of Luther’s “anti-Judaic diatribes” and denounced “the violent recommendations of his later writings against the Jews.” The Central Council of Jews in Germany had long asked for a formal statement from Lutherans on the subject of anti-Semitism, and just last year, the Lutheran Church in Germany obliged, condemning Luther’s writings on the Jews and “the part played by the Reformation tradition in the painful history between Christians and Jews.” The state Lutheran churches in Norway and the Netherlands have followed suit. In 1543 Luther published On the Jews and Their Lies in which he says that the Jews are a "base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth." [14] They are full of the "devil's feces ... which they wallow in like swine." [15] The synagogue was a "defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an evil slut ..." [16] He argues that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness, [17] afforded no legal protection, [18] and these "poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. [19] He also seems to advocate their murder, writing "[w]e are at fault in not slaying them". [20] Luther claims that Jewish history was "assailed by much heresy", and that Christ swept away the Jewish heresy and goes on to do so, "as it still does daily before our eyes." He stigmatizes Jewish Prayer as being "blasphemous" and a lie, and vilifies Jews in general as being spiritually "blind" and "surely possessed by all devils." Luther has a special spiritual problem with Jewish circumcision. [21] [ self-published source?] [22] The full context in which Martin Luther appears to advocate that Jews be slain in On the Jews and Their Lies is as follows in Luther's own words:

Martin Luther (1483–1546) was a German professor of theology, priest and seminal leader of the Reformation. His positions on Judaism continue to be controversial. These changed dramatically from his early career, where he showed concern for the plight of European Jews, to his later years, when embittered by his failure to convert them to Christianity, he became outspokenly antisemitic in his statements and writings. Michael has argued that Luther scholars who try to tone down Luther's views on the Jews ignore the murderous implications of his antisemitism. Michael argues that there is a "strong parallel" between Luther's ideas and the antisemitism of most German Lutherans throughout the Holocaust. [60] He writes that Like the Nazis, Luther mythologized the Jews as evil. They could only be saved if they converted to Christianity, but their hostility to the idea made it inconceivable. [60] Luther continued, "However, if they are converted, abandon their usury, and receive Christ, then we will willingly regard them our brothers. Otherwise, nothing will come out of it, for they do it to excess." [27] 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]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.

Paul Halsall argues that Luther's views had a part in laying the groundwork for the racial European antisemitism of the nineteenth century. He writes that "although Luther's comments seem to be proto-Nazi, they are better seen as part of tradition [sic] of Medieval Christian anti-semitism. While there is little doubt that Christian anti-semitism laid the social and cultural basis for modern anti-semitism, modern anti-semitism does differ in being based on pseudo-scientific notions of race. The Nazis imprisoned and killed even those ethnic Jews who had converted to Christianity: Luther would have welcomed their conversions." [46] Therefore we Christians, in turn, are obliged not to tolerate their wanton and conscious blasphemy. 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. But 500 years later, have lessons been learned and wounds healed? Is the world a better and kinder place now because Christians have realized their colossal failures, stemming from one part of the church’s founding figures? It’s a layered answer. The Roman Catholic Church formally rejected its doctrinal anti-Semitism at the Second Vatican Council in 1965, and Catholics have worked diligently and genuinely to build bridges with the Jewish world since then. And outside of fringe conservative movements within the church, Rome has been largely successful. Protestantism is diverse by its very nature. Evangelical conservative Christians frequently adopt a Christian Zionist stance and are passionate supporters of Israel, even if often for mangled reasons; the underlying theology looks to the world’s Jews moving to Israel en masse, thus hastening the second coming and the end times. Lots of fire and mayhem to come—sinners beware.Gavriel, Mardell J. The Anti-Semitism of Martin Luther: A Psychohistorical Exploration. Ph.D. diss., Chicago School of Professional Psychology, 1996. Seventh, I recommend 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 … But if we are afraid that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle, etc., … then let us emulate the common sense of other nations such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., … then eject them forever from the country …"

The Internet Medieval Sourcebook is part of the Internet History Sourcebooks Project. The Internet History Sourcebooks Project is located at the History Department of Fordham University, New York. The Internetcf. 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). He did not call them Abraham’s children, but a “brood of vipers” [Matt. 3:7]. Oh, that was too insulting for the noble blood and race of Israel, and they declared, “He has a demon’ [Matt 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. to give young, strong Jews flail, axe, spade, and spindle, and let them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow 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.

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: 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. On Jews and Their Lies is a pretty explicit title for someone who writes That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew in his youth to defend the idea that Jesus was born of the “seed of Abraham,” that is to say that he was born a Jew (Marius, 1999). Even the title itself: On the Jews and Their Lies, hints at the fact that Luther believes that the Jews are unlikely to convert later in life. He says: The line of "anti-semitic descent" from Luther to Hitler is "easy to draw", [59] according to American historian Lucy Dawidowicz. In her book The War Against the Jews, 1933–1945, she writes that both Luther and Hitler were obsessed with the "demonologized universe" which they believed was inhabited by Jews, with Hitler asserting that the later Luther, the author of On the Jews and Their Lies, was the 'real' Luther. [59] Yet, we will show them Christian love and pray for them that they may be converted to receive the Lord, whom they should honor properly before us. Whoever will not do this is no doubt a malicious Jew, who will not stop blaspheming Christ, draining you dry, and, if he can, killing [you]. [27]An antique print of Martin Luther in his study at Wartburg Castle in Eisenach (lithograph), 1882. (GraphicaArtis/Getty Images) Luther's first known comment about Jewish people is in a letter written to Reverend Spalatin in 1514: Jesus Christ did not call them Abraham's children, but a "brood of vipers" [Matt. 3:7]. Oh, that was too insulting for the "noble" blood and race of Israel, which is Lucifer's name, for they are children of Satan; and these miserable and accursed children of a wretched demon declared, "He (Jesus Christ) has a demon" [Matt 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. Luther's attitude toward Jews took different forms during his lifetime. In his earlier period, until 1537 or not much earlier, 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]