Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:10, 15 June 2006

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

On the Jews and Their Lies (Template:Lang-de) is a treatise written in January 1543 by Martin Luther, the German theologian, in which he advocated harsh persecution of the Jewish people, including that their synagogues and schools be set on fire, prayerbooks destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes razed, and property and money confiscated. They should be shown no mercy or kindness, should have no legal protection, and these "poisonous envenomed worms" should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. Four centuries later, the Nazis used quotations from this pamphlet, which was cited by the publisher of the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer during the Nuremberg trials, to justify the Final Solution.

Background and synopsis

Further information: Martin Luther and the Jews

Heiko Oberman states that earlier in his career, Luther had appeared to sympathize with the Jews, especially regarding their treatment under the Papacy, declaring that "he Jews are blood-relations of our Lord, the Jews belong more to Christ than we" in the hope of converting them to Christianity, although historian Paul Halsall has disagreed with that view, stating that "Luther's hatred of Jews ... was present very early on" and was "not some affectation of old age." Referring to Martin Luther’s purported “sympathy toward the Jews,” in the introduction to On The Jews and Their Lies in Luther's Works, the editors state: “It may be, however, that there was not so great a change in Luther’s attitude toward the Jews as has commonly been thought. A closer inspection of his utterances on the question throughout his career reveals that he was never so unambiguously positive toward them as a reading of his 1523 treatise in isolation would suggest.” They go on to cite Wilhelm Maurer, claiming that he "has demonstrated, in fact, that Luther's earliest lecturers-those on the Psalms, delivered in 1513-1515-already contained in essence the whole burden of his later charges against the Jews."

In On the Jews and Their Lies, published three years before Luther's death in 1546, he expressed his fear that Jews were successfully converting Christians to Judaism and wrote that he wished to be identified among those in opposition to them: "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."

Luther stated in his introductory remarks to On the Jews and Their Lies that he was writing in response to an anti-Christian pamphlet, unidentified by historians, written by an unidentified Jew or Jews, sent to him by Count Wolfgang Schlick of Falkenau.

In the treatise, Luther wrote that Jews are devils, blasphemers, and liars who "lie so clumsily and ineptly that anyone who is just a little observant can easily detect it," a "miserable, blind and senseless" people, "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." "God and all the angels dance when farts." They should be "toss out ... by the seat of their pants," and "eject ... forever from this country." 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!"

Their synagogues and schools must be set on fire to "bury and cover with dirt whatever will not burn, so that no man will ever again see a stone or cinder of them." Their houses must be "razed and destroyed," their "prayer books and Talmudic writings, in which such idolatry, lies, cursing and blasphemy are taught, be taken from them ... their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb," their money, gold and silver confiscated, and no safe conduct on the highways be available to them, because they have "no business in the countryside, since they are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay at home ..."

Jerusalem was destroyed over 1400 years ago, and at that time we Christians were harassed and persecuted by the Jews throughout the world for about 300 years ... During that time they held us captive and killed us ... So we are even at fault for not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians which they shed for 300 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then ... We are at fault in not slaying them.

Four centuries after it was written, the Nazis cited Luther's treatise to justify the Final Solution. Some scholars have attributed the Final Solution directly to Luther. Others oppose this point of view.

Luther's sources

According to Martin Bertram, who translated On the Jews and their lies for the American Edition (vol. 47), Luther used the following sources:

• Burgos, Paul of. Scrutinium Scripturarum ("Investigation of the Scriptures").
• Lyra, Nicholas of. Pulcherrimae quaestiones Iudaicam perfidam in catholicam fide improbantes ("Most Excellent Inquiries Rejecting Judaic Falsities by the Catholic Faith").
• Margaritha, Anthony. Der gantz Jüdisch glaub ("The Entire Jewish Faith").
• Porchetus, Salvagus. Victoria adversus impios Hebraeos ("Victory over the godless Hebrews")

In the text itself Luther makes mention of these sources by naming their authors.

Influence on modern anti-Semitism

Anti-Semitism and race

Bernard Lewis, in “Identifying the Historical Roots of Racism” points to the “purity of blood” doctrine of the 15th century by which it was believed “the purity of the faith and of Christian society could be achieved.” Lewis identifies it as a “historically recognizable source” of “modern ideological racism.” “ In this we may see the beginnings of anti-Semitism, properly so-called; that is to say, a new kind of hostility to Jews” which is based on “racial or ethnic differences.”

In reply to Albert Lindemann, who said, "*The concept of "race" developed in the nineteenth century; to place its origins in seventeenth century Spain makes little sense," Robert Michael replies: “Not only did institutionalized racism begin in 15th-century Spain,” but “a Christian racism can be detected as early as the 4th century in Sts. Augustine and John Chrysostom.” “Moreover, is not the belief in inherent and inherited traits what characterizes 19th-century racism as well, the same emphasis on evil vs good blood occurs among the Spanish, and is implied in Luther, as well as 19th-century writers.”

In a later H-Antisemitism post, Michael also states:

"Luther wrote of the Jews as if they were a race that could

not truly convert to Christianity. Indeed, like so many Christian writers before him, Luther, by making the Jews the devil's people, put them beyond conversion. Trying to convert the Jews, he argued, was like 'trying to cast out the devil . . ..' 'They have failed to learn any lesson from the terrible distress that has been theirs for over fourteen hundred years in exile. . . . If these blows do not help, it is reasonable to assume that our talking and explaining will help even less. . . . Much less do I propose to convert the Jews, for that is impossible.' In a sermon of 25 September 1539, Luther tried to demonstrate through several examples that individual Jews could not convert permanently, and in several passages of The Jews and Their Lies, Luther appeared to reject the possibility that the Jews would or could convert. 'Speaking to them about [the Law, aside from the Ten Commandments] is much the same as preaching the gospel to a sow.' 'From their youth they have imbibed such venomous hatred against the Goyim from their parents and their rabbis, and they still continuously drink it. . . . It has penetrated flesh and blood, marrow and bone, and has become part and parcel of their nature and their life.' 'Dear Christian, be advised and so not doubt that next to the devil, you have no more bitter, venomous, and vehement foe than a real Jew who earnestly seeks to be a Jew. . . . Their lineage and circumcision infect them all.' 'It is impossible to convert the devil and his own, nor are we

commanded to attempt this.' "

Religious basis of Luther's anti-Semitism

A number of theologians and Reformation scholars assert that Luther's anti-Semitism as expressed in On the Jews and Their Lies is based on religion. Luther historian Roland Bainton stresses the religious component to Luther's position: "His position was entirely religious and in no respect racial. The supreme sin for him was the persistent rejection of God's revelation of himself in Christ. The centuries of Jewish suffering were themselves a mark of the divine displeasure. They should be compelled to leave and go to a land of their own. This was a program of enforced Zionism. But if it were not feasible, then Luther would recommend that the Jews be compelled to live from the soil. He was unwittingly proposing a return to the condition of the early Middle Ages, when the Jews had been in agriculture. Forced off the land, they had gone into commerce and, having been expelled from commerce, into money lending. Luther wished to reverse the process and thereby inadvertently would accord the Jews a more secure position than they enjoyed in his day." Uwe Siemon-Netto has written: "Anti-Semites are racists, and racists appeared on the scene much later in history — after the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Luther did not think of Jews in ethnic terms; his bias was religious. Just before his death he admonished the princes to treat converts from Judaism as brethren." Dr. Paul Halsall makes the same point: "The Nazis imprisoned and killed Jews who had converted to Christianity: Luther would have welcomed them." Luther historian Mark Edwards adds: "Luther identified a Jew by his religious beliefs, not by his race. (Identification of a Jew by his race is, in any case, a concept foreign to the sixteenth century.) If a Jew converted to Christianity, be because a fellow brother or sister in Christ."

In On The Jews and Their Lies, Martin Luther repeatedly attacks Jews. For example, in his widely cited English language translation Luther states:

"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 he states: 'If you were Abraham's children, you 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."

"There, Jew, you have your boast, and we Gentiles have ours together with you, as well as you with us. Now go ahead and pray that God might respect your nobility, your race, your flesh and blood."

"They boast of their race and of their descent from the fathers, but they neither see nor pay attention to the fact that he chose their race that they should keep his commandments."

"Therefore it is not a clever and ingenious, but a clumsy, foolish, and stupid lie when the Jews boast of their circumcision before God, presuming that God should regard them graciously for that reason, though they should certainly know from Scripture that they are not the only race circumcised in compliance with God's decree, and that they cannot on that account be God's special people."

"There is one thing about which they boast and pride them selves beyond measure, and that is their descent from the foremost people on earth, from Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, and from the twelve patriarchs, and thus from the holy people of Israel. St. Paul himself admits this when he says in Romans 9:5 Quorum patres, that is, 'To them belong the patriarchs, and of their race is the Christ,' etc."

"They are the boastful, arrogant rascals who to the present day can do no more than boast of their race and lineage, praise only themselves, and disdain and curse all the world in their synagogues, prayers, and doctrines. Despite this, they imagine that in God's eyes they rank as his dearest children."

"They turned a deaf ear to us in the past and still do so, although many fine scholarly people, including some from their own race, have refuted them so thoroughly that even stone and wood, if endowed with a particle of reason, would have to yield.

"Furthermore, as Gabriel says, he must have come from among their people, undoubtedly from the royal tribe of Judah. Now it is certain that since Herod's time they had had no king who was a member of their people or race."

"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, as was related earlier also of Kokhba."

Regardless of the nature of Luther's hostility towards the Jews, his views laid the groundwork for the racial European anti-Semitism, which emerged in the 19th century. Halsall argues that "there is little doubt that Christian anti-Semitism laid the social and cultural basis for modern anti-Semitism... based on pseudo-scientific notions of race." Richard Marius, one of Luther's biographers, writes that: "Roland Bainton in his effort to make the best of Luther declared that Luther's view of the Jews 'was entirely religious and by no means racial.' True: the crackpot version of social Darwinism that gave rise to 'racial' anti-Semitism was a creation of the ninetheenth and twentieth centuries. Luther hated the Jews because they rejected Christ. But his fury was no less cruel and vicious because its underlying motives were different or because his suggestions for carrying his cruelty to some final solution were less comprehensive and efficient." Dr. D. G. Myers, Professor of Religious Studies at Texas A&M University writes that the treatise "goes beyond theological anti-Judaism," and calls for "state-sponsored violence against the Jews." It therefore "contributed to a historical climate of German opinion in which genocide was conceivable."

Impact on Nazi ideology

Robert Michael, Professor Emeritus of European History at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, has argued that there is a "strong parallel" between Luther's ideas about Jews and Judaism and the anti-Semitism of most German Lutherans throughout the Holocaust. He argues that Luther scholars who try to defend Luther's views on the Jews ignore the implications of what Michael calls Luther's anti-Semitism: "Suffused with theological myth, his writings were viciously antisemitic, his language libelous, abusive, and filthy, his proposals cruel and potentially deadly." He writes that the parallels between Luther's program and Hitler's are clear. "No one can rationally deny the parallels between Luther's program for the Jews and Hitler's. Many have denied that Luther advocated death for Jews. These people have not read The Jews and Their Lies."

Julius Streicher, the Nazi publisher of the anti-Semitic Der Stürmer, cited On the Jews and Their Lies during the Nuremberg trials: "Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In the book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them ..."

Martin Bertram, the 20th century Lutheran scholar who translated the treatise in Luther's Works into English notes that "t is impossible to publish Luther's treatise today ... without noting how similar to his proposals were the actions of the National Socialist regime in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. On the night of November 9-10, 1938, the so-called Kristallnacht, for example, 119 synagogues in all parts of Germany, together with many Jewish homes and shops, were burned to the ground."

The first physical violence against the Jews under Hitler's government came on November 9-10 on Kristallnacht (Crystal Night) where the Nazis killed Jews, shattered glass windows, and destroyed hundreds of synagogues, just as Luther had proposed. In Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book, Hitler's Willing Executioners, he writes:

"One leading Protestant churchman, Bishop Martin Sasse published a compendium of Martin Luther's antisemitic vitriol shortly after Kristallnacht's orgy of anti-Jewish violence. In the foreword to the volume, he applauded the burning of the synagogues and the coincidence of the day: 'On November 10, 1938, on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany.' The German people, he urged, ought to heed these words 'of the greatest antisemite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews'".

Many of the events of Kristallnacht echoed material in The Jews and Their Lies:

• "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. ..."
• "Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. ..."
• "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. ...".

Finally, Walter Buch, the head of the Nazi Party court, admitted Luther's influence on Nazi Germany, in Richard Steigmann-Gall's The Holy Reich, "When Luther turned his attention to the Jews, after he completed his translation of the Bible, he left behind "on the Jews and their Lies" for posterity". Buch then said, "Many people confess their amazement that Hitler preaches ideas which they have always held.... From the Middle Ages we can look to the same example in Martin Luther. What stirred in the soul and spirit of the German people of that time, finally found expression in his person, in his words and deeds".

Alex Bein writes however in his The Jewish Question: Biography of a World Problem": "This is not the place to document in detail the influence which Luther's anti-Jewish opinions and writings exercised on his contemporaries and subsequent generations-and moreover sufficient scholarly research is lacking in this area"'. In the annotations to his work, Bein again expresses this opinion: "There has not been, as far as I know, a scholarly study of the influence of Luther's portrayal of the Jews which considers all aspects of the question has argued that there has been insufficient scholarly research into the influence of Luther's writings about the Jews. Others argue that Luther's anti-Judiasm or anti-Semitism may have exercised a formative influence on Protestantism, if not directly on National Socialism. Franz Heinrich Philipp writes that: "It is true that Luther's suggestions concerning the treatment of the Jews were ignored or expressly rejected by the Protestant princes. Yet his attitude on the Jewish question continued to be the decisive factor in determining the standpoint of the Lutheran Church in the succeeding centuries, and a one-sided selection of his opinions formed a standard part of polemic anti-Semitic literature well into the 20th century". Haim Hillel Ben Sasson writes in A History of the Jewish People that "it was rather the Luther of 1523 than the Luther of 1543 who remained predominant in the view of large segments of the Protestant world until well into the 20th century".

See also

• Anti-Semitism
• History of the Jews in Germany
• Martin Luther
• Martin Luther and the Jews
• On the Jews and Their Lies (excerpts)

Notes

1. Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46:4, (Autumn 1985), p.342.
2. Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46:4, (Autumn 1985), p.343.
3. ^ Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971)
4. ^ Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, Vol. 12, p. 318, Avalon Project, Yale Law School, April 19, 1946)
5. Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man Between God and the Devil (New York: Image Books, 1989), p.293.
6. Martin Luther, "That Jesus Christ was Born a Jew," Trans. Walter I. Brandt, in Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1962), 200-201, 229.
7. ^ Halsall, Paul. "Internet Medieval Sourcebook" (Retrieved January 4 2005).
8. Luther's Works, Martin Bertram, trans., Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, 47:126
9. Luther's Works, Martin Bertram, trans., Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, 47:137
10. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies quoted in Michael 1985, pp. 343-4. The original German of this quotation is: "So ists auch unser schuld, das wir das grosse unschüldige Blut, so sie an unserm Herrn und den Christen bey dreyhundert jaren nach zerstoerung Jerusalem, und bis daher, an Kindern vergossen (welchs noch aus jren augen und haut scheinet) nicht rechen, sie nicht todschlahen"
11. William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990), 91, 236
12. Uwe Siemon-Netto, The Fabricated Luther: The Rise and Fall of the Shirer Myth, (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995), 17-20.
13. ^ Pelikan, Jaroslav & Lehmann, Helmut (eds). Luther's Works. Vol. 47: "The Christian in Society" IV, Sherman, Franklin (ed) (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 121-306, especially, 130-31, 137-38.
14. Brecht, Martin, James L. Schaaf, trans., Martin Luther, 3:346.
15. Lewis, Bernard, "The Historical Roots of Racism," American Scholar 67 (1998) no. 1:17-25.
16. Michael, Robert. . 21 Apr 1997.
17. Michael, Robert, "Christian racism, part 2", H-Net Discussions Networks, 2 Mar 2000.
18. Bainton, Roland. Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (Nashville:Abingdon Press, 1978), 299.
19. Siemon-Netto, Uwe. "Luther and the Jews." Lutheran Witness 123 (2004) no. 4:19.
20. Mark U. Edwards, Jr., Luther's Last Battles: Politics and Polemics 1531-46. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1983), 139.
21. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.141.
22. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.149.
23. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.174.
24. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.152.
25. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.140.
26. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.156.
27. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.176.
28. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.250.
29. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works Vol. 47, The Christian in Society, IV, ed. Franklin Sherman, Helmut T. Lehmann. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971, p.299.
30. Marius, Richard. Martin Luther : The Christian between God and Death, Belknap Press, 1999. ISBN 0674550900, p. 377
31. D. G. Myers, ""Luther's antisemitism, IV", H-Net Discussions Networks, February 18, 1998.
32. Michael, Robert. "Luther, Luther Scholars, and the Jews," Encounter 46:4, (Autumn 1985), pp. 339-56.
33. ^ Michael, Robert. Internet discussion log entry: "Luther's murderous program for the Jews", H-Antisemitism, February 24, 1998.
34. Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies, Trans. Martin H. Bertram, in Luther's Works (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971), 47:268, note 173.
35. Goldhagen , Daniel Jonah. "Hitler's Willing Executioners". p.178
36. Steigmann-Gall, Richard. "The Holy Reich". p.226
37. ^ 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)No. 1:72. p.72. Cite error: The named reference "Wallmann18" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
38. Wallmann, Johannes. p.73.
39. Wallmann, Johannes. p.74-75.

English-language translations

• Luther, Martin. On the Jews and Their Lies (1543). Translated by Martin H. Bertram. Luther's Works Volume 47: The Christian in Society IV. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971.
• The Jews and Their Lies, Liberty Bell Publications, 2004. ISBN 1593640242

External links

• On the Jews and their Lies (excerpts) at Medieval Sourcebook

• 1543 books
• Philosophy books
• Anti-Semitism