Some commenting on Luther posts, his "alleged anti-semitism" and his alleged approval of lying.

James Swan had some helpful posts recently on Luther, which I commented on.

To cross reference, they are:

On Luther and alleged anti-semitism.

On Luther and lying.

Edward I and the Jews in 1290 / Chesterton

Wikipedia tells us something interesting:  

Chesterton faced accusations of anti-Semitism during his lifetime, as well as posthumously.^[23] In a work of 1917, titled “A Short History of England,” Chesterton considers the year of 1290, when by royal decree, Edward I expelled Jews from England, an edict not rescinded until 1655. In writing of the official expulsion and banishment of 1290, Chesterton writes that Edward I was “just and conscientious” a monarch never more truly representative of his people than when he expelled the Jews, “as powerful as they are unpopular.” Chesterton writes Jews were “capitalists of their age” so that when Edward “flung the alien financiers out of the land,” he acted as “knight errant,” and “tender father of his people.”^[24] In The New Jerusalem, Chesterton made it clear that he believed that there was a "Jewish Problem" in Europe, in the sense that he believed that Jewish culture (not Jewish ethnicity) separated itself from the nationalities of Europe.^[25] He suggested the formation of a Jewish homeland as a solution, and was later invited to Palestine by Jewish Zionists who saw him as an ally in their cause.

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We learn here, that Edward I expelled Jews from England in 1290.  This edict was not rescinded until 1655.  Chesterton approves of this edict because the monarch was protecting his people from powerful, capitalistic and unpopular people.  He did right to fling "alien financiers out of the land."

I hadn't heard this before.  Nor is it often mentioned that Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain cruelly had expelled the Jews from their land which caused untold misery to the affected families.  They were not allowed to take any goods with them and often perished.  (The other day, I read a book by a Roman Catholic apologist on the inquisition.  He never mentioned the treatment of the Jews.)

All of these expulsions happened before Luther let himself be carried away into his famous tirade.  However, the circumstance related to Jews in Europe during the centuries were always complicated due to segregation and money lending.

Please refer back also to this previous post on the subject. 

Once more: Luther and anti-Semitism

Just to have this here, and in case it gets deleted or abused, I will paste what I wrote on Naked Pastor about Luther's so-called anti-Semitism.  A man who goes anonymously by "Godless Monster" in a discussion about sin and the Ten Commandments, in his infinite fair-mindedness, felt it pertinent to quote all the most vicious sections of Luther on "The Jews and their Lies" to me at great length. (--Great argument to support your line of thinking, Godless Monster!)  NP, himself had to weigh in, not with a moderating comment restraining Godless Monster, but to say that he had read the thing in "seminary" of all places.  Anyhow, in spirit of thinking that explaining might help, I posted all the below, which received no other comment than "Luther is a turd."  Which is fine.  Luther is a "turd."  He said worse about himself.

Dear NP and dear GM: I will set things aside and make a long answer to this, especially since this comes up often. I could make it short, but please take it as my love and respect for you, that I will try and answer it as thoroughly as I can.

Firstly, we note that we have gone off topic, which was to show that we should look at our own sins, of which our own heart as well as the written down law accuse us, invariably, and that the Christian message is that forgiveness can be had for those. Free for the taking. But now we have wandered again to look at the sins of others.

Secondly, we note that the last commandments are not about making women chattels, but they naturally lead into the Sermon on the Mount, that simply the matter of the heart, such as coveting and scheming are already sins, not just the outward doing. Many a person consoles himself with his justification based on not having murdered anyone,  etc. How many times is it said, that people don’t need to go to church because they have not committed any heinous crimes, and that, yet, in the same sentence as saying the people in church are all hypocrites. (Something gives again.)

Thirdly, we note that the moral law which we know about, and which is summarized in the  Ten Commandments and which we learn as children and adults from the catechism, has nothing to do with Luther’s so-called anti-Semitism.

Fourthly, as a German by birth and a Lutheran by confession (not that they go together; most Germans are secular, or Roman Catholic and what goes as Lutheran is really a Forced United church with Reformed. Real German Lutherans I have only met among those who emigrated to America a very long time ago) I do feel called to make some kind of defense of what is being alleged here. I do not take it personally, but since I have looked into it, I will try to set things into context, which is only fair.

Fifthly, the document quoted a great length above, is nowhere found in any teachings or confessions or catechisms of the “Lutheran” church. Luther wrote hundreds of books and thousands of sermons and who knows how many pamphlets. He was such a giant in his own time, that he commented or was asked to comment on just about anything. Everything he said at table  was written down, the visitors thought it so important it should not be lost. Obviously, not all of it is kosher or confessional. The pamphlet  "On the Jews and Their Lies"  was written very late under a certain set of stresses and not promulgated much or far, nor included in any important collections. It is a nasty piece of work that would not edify anyone. So sadly, now those who want to denigrate biblical teaching love to drag this out and plaster it all over in detail, as we see displayed here.

Sixthly, regarding the quoting of this: if this is such nasty business, someone tell me why those who oppose historical Christianity and confessional teaching need to spread this far and wide? What is the purpose? To have a smear campaign? To victimize Jews all over again?–Why roll in the mud? If it is so objectionable, why quote it at length, why read it in seminary? Have you nothing better to read and post?

Seventhly, Luther gets dragged in for every single thing people like to imagine. Under the communists he was the leading communist, under the Nazis he was the leading Nazi. Under Naked Pastor, he becomes the first Naked Pastor… We only had him invoked quite recently.

The the substance of the issue:

1. A man who deals with these issues with passion to detail and with incredible depth is an American Reformed Christian, James Swan, on his blog, http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/ He is neither Lutheran nor German. His work has become the debunking of all the ways Luther is abused in current discussions and apologetics of various kinds. He has collated much material on this particular matter here: http://tquid.sharpens.org/luther_Jews.htm

2. For those who want to read some writings of Luther which people of various denominations find valuable, James had in interesting link to a collection available free online, here:http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/11/works-of-martin-luther-with.html

3. The modern Lutheran churches responses to the question are found for example here:http://www.appleofhiseye.org/Questions/FAQs/LCMSOnMartinLuthersantiSemiticstatements/tabid/864/language/en-US/Default.aspx James has further comments on the LCMS statement here:http://beggarsallreformation.blogspot.com/2011/10/lcms-on-martin-luthers-anti-semitic.html

The above is material from people who know what they are talking about. I will use up one more comment box to deal with it from my own reading and understanding.

1. This has been my own reading:
   
   1. Brecht’s Luther Biography in three volumes is according to James Swan the currently definitive one:http://www.amazon.com/Martin-Luther-1521-1532-Defining-Reformation/dp/0800628144/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323205420&sr=8-1
   It is quite a project and I am about 50% through.
   
   2. “The Jews of Germany, A Historical Portrait” by Ruth Gay. http://www.amazon.com/Jews-Germany-Historical-Portrait/dp/0300060521/ref=sr_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323205578&sr=1-10 This was a book I picked up used in an Edmonton Cafe/bookshop. It traced this history of the Jews and various streams of anti-Semitism through the centuries and millennia. It was extremely interesting to see the whole set of issues in their full historical development.
   
   3. This one is a Canadian book, on which I have only got a slow start “The Nazis and the New Religions”http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=the+nazis+and+the+new+religions&x=0&y=0
   
   4. “The Fabricated Luther”, which I have blogged through: http://www.amazon.com/Fabricated-Luther-Refuting-Connections-Modern/dp/0758608551/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323206000&sr=8-1
   There are other books, which connect more or less and these are the blog posts I have made myself on the subject: http://thoughts-brigitte.blogspot.com/search/label/Luther%20and%20the%20Jews
   
   
   To summarize the main points from my own mind:
   
   1. The Jews had for some time been relegated to living in ghettos, one notable one being the Frankfurt ghetto. They lived in unfair conditions for some time. They were not “emancipated” and were not allowed to live as others were suffering under restrictions of where to live and what kinds of occupations to engage in. This state of affairs also arose because of their own needs of keeping a Jewish butcher, synagogues, springs and pools for ritual bathing, schools, hospitals, having a rabbi, etc. The Holy Roman Emperor even forced them to wear the first sign of exclusion, the yellow circle.
   
   2. Because Jews could not live in the empire like other individuals they seemed to engage in much money lending. Money lenders are never popular and the situation during Reformation times were recently exacerbated by the concessions a Jewish advocate for Jews gained from the Emperor. What Josel of Rosenheim was able to gain was that Jewish lenders were able to extract higher interest rates from their clients than before, with the end result that they could pay more taxes to the Emperor. This worked for everyone involved except for the average, poor Christian peasant, artisan, etc. who was in any kind of debt. As one would imaging this did not endear the Jewish population who became viewed as heartless blood suckers, not unlike the current outrage of the world against Wall street and the clout of financial institutions. More could be said about Jewish influence at the courts of princes, etc. because of their financial savvy. This would make them both needed for advice but also easily despised. So, there is a whole lot of politics involved.
   
   3. During the Reformation many Jews were baptized and became Christians, specifically “Evangelical” Christians (as the Lutherans would call themselves). These baptisms were sometimes viewed with suspicion, as they were thought to be often insincere and done for worldly not spiritual reasons. Luther, therefore, while he befriended and supported Jewish converts himself, also warned other pastors that they carefully examine any potential converts for honest intent.
   
   4. During the Reformation, many intense and thorough debates were held regarding Biblical content, translations, texts, and meaning. Some of these debates were had with Roman Catholics, and some of them were had with Jewish Rabbis. As the learning of the original languages had recently blossomed (as we know Luther translated the entire Bible into German), we know that Luther also had his battles with the Rabbis who did not want to acknowledge scripture passages that were to him clearly Christ-centered and Messianic, such as “the virgin will conceive”, etc. This was a very hot topic for him and his annoyance at intractable Rabbis was significant. So when he speaks against “the Jews”, it is at times simply against rabbinic scholarship, or lack thereof, as he viewed it, as well as malintent leading simple Christian people into confusion and error.  Ever Luther was out to protect the "simple".
   
   5. In terms of Jewish conversions to Christianity, we have another huge issue arising: converts are often very zealous for their new religion and not very charitable toward the one they have departed. In the Jewish context they are then viewed as “apostates”. (Thus here on NP our “deconverted” atheists are often the most “anti-Christian” in their speech of all.) So it happened that there was a man, named Anthony Margaritha, a convert from Judaism, who wrote a very scathing book about Jews and their customs. From this book, The Whole Jewish Faith, Together with a Thorough and Truthful Account of All the Regulations, Ceremonies, and Prayers Both for Family and Public Worship, as Observed by the Jews throughout the Year, with excellent and Well-founded arguments against their Faith Luther got many of his opinions of what goes on in Jewish communities. The worst kinds of accusations, including ritual slaughter of Christian children, were included.
   
   6. During Reformation times, expulsions of Jews had become the way to deal with the perennial “Jewish question”. Previously Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain had cruelly expelled all their Jewish citizens in the most heartless way. The Jews were forced to sell all their goods and were not even able to transfer to proceeds into gold to take with them, as gold represented the riches of the country. Most of the families perished at sea and other ways. But still expulsion was seen as the merciful way of dealing with the issues, as opposed to straight annihilation. Extremely sad chapter in history.
   
   To summarize this section, no one here is covered in glory, sad to say. The hysteria over the Jews and their practices was considerable, the rumors abominable, their sincerity questioned, and Luther, though he otherwise often advocated for and pleaded with the Jews to put their trust in their own “cousin”, as he would say, and believe in Jesus Christ, was at one point carried away to write this awful piece. This runs contrary to many other things he said and wrote and to his usual more laissez-faire approach (the Word ran its course while he drank beer). Occasionally, he said things to help the princes with their polictics and this would include the advice on when to use force.
   
   However, there is no one to really try and explain this properly, and I am probably not up to the task. And the Holocaust was such a horror, that any attempts at explaining anything look like misguided in the first place. Still, some Roman Catholics delight to make Luther look like the devil incarnate; I can see why Jewish individuals would not be inclined to be charitable; and atheists often work at making Christians look like the barbarians they occasionally were and are. And yet, as we began, again, as per usual, nobody wants to look at the faults that they bear themselves.
   
   In terms of the Nazis: their use of Luther was manipulative and propagandizing. Their aims had to do with eugenics arising out of a completely different ideology. Eugenics is really an anti-Christian movement. Supposedly, because of Christianity we have coddled the weak and interfered with natural selection, ruining our genetic pool, so we have to get rid of the undesirables, beginning with forced sterilizations. The churches can be faulted for not saying more sooner and more effectively, but they were themselves not anti-Semitic in heart or speech, at least not in a significant way. Some pro-Nazi people were put in place to run things and some people obviously fell in step with them. Dissidents themselves were quickly, easily and systematically dispensed with with along with the infirm and the Jewish population.
   
   When Hitchens, et al. try to pin the Nazi ideology on Christianity they are poorly informed and very irresponsible with history. Nazi ideology arose from completely (COMPLETELY) different quarters. This bears reading up on more.
   
   I’ll quit here. Luther’s business with the Jews does not impact what we confess about Jesus Christ. There is no benefit or point to keep rehashing his stupid pamphlet.
   
   To the contrary: Jesus is a Jew. We believe in a Jew. We have a Jewish God. This is how God communicates.
   
   I am not sure that I should post all this as I am not sure that anybody really wants to know it and I am probably just inviting a bunch of derision, getting accused of defending something indefensible. I am not defending the pamphlet at all. I personally could not, in the past, understand how someone like him could write such a thing. It seemed out of character with everything else. I needed to set it into some kind of context and this is how I did it for myself. I just don’t want anyone to miss the genuine gospel so clearly articulated during the Reformation because of this oft-mounted assault on credibility and reputation.
   
   
   

Luther and the Jews, Part 4, Evidence that Jesus Christ is the Messiah

In the last post we indicated that Luther's disagreements with the Rabbis over Messianic prophesies were very intense and disappointing for him.  In the end the Rabbis would retreat to tradition on top of it.  Hopeless for him in the end.

I am landscaping while the weather is good, but I'll post one of Rev. Fisk's videos here which I thought was very good, as most of them are.  It deals with the disciples on the road to Emmaus.  They had lost their faith in Jesus and were very sad.  He chastised them and opened their eyes proving to them from scripture what the Messiah was like.  This is, of course, the right thing to do, especially with Jewish people and the method Paul also employed everywhere he went.

Luther and the Jews, Part 3, Jews harming Christians?

One of the things Luther complains about to Josel of Rosheim  in his letter is the oppression of Christians by Jews-- the reverse of what we usually hear.  My guess is that largely we are talking about money matters, as illustrated in the image in the last post, but also possibly because of supposed interference with converts and the preaching of evangelical freedom.  

Since Jews were restricted from land ownership and participating in the guilds, they tended to be involved in money-lending, medicine and begging, we also heard already.  The right to charge high interest was obtained from the emperor who exacted fees from the Jews in return.  This obviously could and must have led to some very bad situations and enmity, putting the Jew into predatory lending practices. 

How this is viewed is illustrated by Ruth Gay quoting Hans Sachs “Eigentliche Beschreibung aller Staende auf Erden” (True Description of all the Classes on the Earth),  Frankfurt , 1568:

It is not for nothing that I am called a Jew.

I lend only half the money against a pledge.

And if the pawner cannot redeem it in time

Then I get that as well.

In this way I ruin the loose-living mob

That wants only to feast, to gorge, and to drink.

Yet my trade does not diminish

Since I have many brothers like me.

 Hans Sachs’s True Description of all the Classes on the Earth (1568) shows where the Jew stood in sixteenth-century society.  The ranking begins with the pope and descends through kings, emperors, princes, merchants, craftsmen, and agricultural laborers, ending with a representation of three fools.  Somewhere near the end of this catalog we find “the Jew”, who is depicted as a moneylender.  Although he may have been regarded with scorn, the poem attributed to him reveals that he had his own low opinion of his clients.
 (Ruth Gay, p. 166.) 

This "low opinion" of the clients is interesting.  It reveals disdain that needs to be present to have such a relationship of lending at high price.  You cannot be a compassionate pawner or loan shark.

Wikipedia simply has this on “loan-sharks”: 

.

A loan shark is a person or body that offers unsecured loans at high interest rates to individuals, often enforcing repayment by blackmail or threats of violence.

Throughout history, usury laws made loan sharks commonplace.^{[clarification needed]} Many moneylenders skirted between legal and extra-legal activity. In the recent western world, loan sharks have been a feature of the criminal underworld, but are otherwise rare. Loan sharks are common in theUK^{[citation needed]}and among the Sicilian Mafia^{[citation needed]} and Triads in China.^{[citation needed]}

We see that “clarification is needed” in connection with "usury", but I think we have provided some here.  One does wonder what were the means employed for actually collecting money.  We recall also the story of Lippold, (who was tortured and quartered in the end).  He had oppressed and ruined his own family and community members with his practices.

So, no doubt, whether more or less legitimate, and if even practiced in a reputable manner, the arrangement was obviously open to profound abuse.  And even if the reputation might have been good, the change of favour of a noble could destroy your life.  On both sides, the unfairness in the system could spill over into very bad blood. Neither side could easily carry much love for the other.  What a predicament.  Too bad Josel of Rosheim could not negotiate something else from the emperor rather than this permission to charge high interest rates.

One can even imagine that a kingdom such as Saxony would strive to keep such individuals out of its territory for simply such reasons or rumors. Every which way the kingdom was being gouged. I am thinking also of the church with its money grabbing theology of indulgences, masses and so on.  The country was virtually being plundered.  Saxony did not even have such fair rules and protection from the papal church as France had.  (I've read this several times, but don't know the details of this.)  

Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain had already before this time expelled the Jews from their lands.  Luther was not the first one to suggest expulsion.  Expulsion was something less severe than simply killing, but many were killed by these expulsions.  It seems like none wanted to see how serious expulsion is.  Reading about the Jews of Spain made me cry.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/expulsion.html

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/jewish/1492-jews-spain1.html

The Spanish Jews, gleaning from the second report, were land owners and artisans, thus one would expect that they were not money-lenders.  The reason given by Isabella and the Inquisition  for the expulsion was that the Jews were interfering with converts to Christianity and preventing them from becoming good Christians.  God had put the idea into the King's head and therefore the expulsion was right, said Isabella.

Luther cites a similar concern for Christians and worry over Judaising.  We read about this in Brecht.

“In the fall of 1532 Luther had already learned, probably from Joachimsthal, that a new sect had arisen in Moravia, which insisted on keeping the Sabbath instead of the Sunday.  Presumably, its adherents came from circles of the biblicistic Anabaptists.  Nothing is known about a direct connection between the Sabbatarians and the Jews.  Neither can any proselytizing by the Jews be established.  It is possible that Luther may have received exaggerated reports.  For him, the action of the Sabbatarians was a relapse into Jewish legalism.  His rejection of Josel of Rosheim’s request for support with the elector was connected with the spread of the Sabbatarians in Moravia, who reportedly were practicing circumcision as well.  This was significant proof for Luther of the aggressive obduracy of the Jews.  In February 1538 Luther was lecturing on Genesis 17, the institution of circumcision.  The significance of this eternal covenant of God with Israel was a problem for him.  In this context he had to take issue with the Sabbatarians in order to respond to their agitation.  Out of this exegetical work grew his letter Against the Sabbatarians, published in March.  It was intended for Count Wolf Schlick of Falkenau (near Karlsbad), who had asked Luther to supply arguments with which to refute the Sabbatarians.  Luther advised against a direct exegetical confrontation with the Jews, which could hardly win the Jews, for in Luther’s experience of years past, they would when necessary retreat from the text of the Bible to the rabbinic interpretations.  What was necessary, therefore, was to strengthen Christians. “ (p. 337, 338.)

Hence we see that Luther’s perception was that one could not reason with the Jews, since that had been tried, and that Christian teaching was under attack by them.  He had lost hope of discussing these matters with the Rabbis.

In the next post, we will look at Luther’s frustrations with the Rabbis and the disagreements over Biblical interpretation, especially Messianic prophecies.  This was, of course, the centre of the problem theologically. 

Luther and the Jews, Part 2, Josel of Rosheim

Josel of Rosheim seems to have been an accomplished man of great courage and influence who was able to help the Jews of Europe before and during Luther's time.

Ruth Gay has this about him on p. 84:

The model of the court Jew was Josel of Rosheim.  Although he was born in Alsace, Josel's powers of persuasion were so efficacious that he was importuned for help by Jewish communities in places as distant as Bohemia, Saxony, Silesia, and Hungary.  Born Joseph Ben Gershom at the end of the fifteenth century (ca. 1478), he lost his father at the early age of six.  The family had paid bloody dues to the superstitions of the time:  three of Josel's uncles were condemned to a grisly execution in 1470 following a blood libel in a celebrated case in Endingen.  We can only conjecture about the effect of this somber background, but we know that Josel must have had a remarkable presence, because he was early prevailed upon to intercede for Jewish communities in trouble.  In 1520, at the coronation of Charles V, Josel managed to procure a letter of protection from the new emperor for the Jews in German lands.  Accorded honorary titles by grateful Jewish communites, he became their single most important spokesman against the recurrent blood libels, the ever more violent denunciations of Luther, and the calumnities that regularly threatened the continuity of Jewish settlements.
During the sixteenth century a rather more indirect form of attack--staged disputations between learned Christians and Jews--was at the height of its popularity...
While Josel earned his living as a money-changer, his commercial activities fade against his lifelong service as an intercessor.  He was also, as we have seen, an intellectual representative of Jewish thought and belief to the Christian world as well as a scholar securely within the Jewish tradition.  He wrote philosophical works on ethics and even an autobiography shortly before his death in 1554.  Both in his influence and in the use of his powers, this remarkable man, who won such favor with Charles V that he and his family were given permission to travel and settle where ever they chose, was unique among court Jews.

Ruth Gay also presents information about the lives of two, not as illustrious court Jews,  Lippold and Joseph Suesskind.  We will quote her regarding Lippold and leave you to look up Suesskind's story.

Unfortunately, Josel's memory neither improved the character nor protected the life of the court Jew Lippold, the rapacious accomplice of the elector Joachim II of Brandenburg, who came into prominence at the time of Josel's death. Lippold moved to Berlin from Prague around 1550 as mint master for Joachim, collector of his taxes, and manager of the privy purse.  He also charged extortionate sums for private loans--sometimes as much as 50 percent.
As the confidant of Joachim, he was appointed governor of the Jewish community.  He tyrannized over the Jews, extorted money from them and did not scruple to rob the widow and children of his brother.  Although he managed to accumulate a great fortune, whether by legitimate or illegitimate means, he was not the richest of the bankers or purveyors to the court; he was only the most hated.
It was Lippold's intimate personal relationship with Joachim that caused his downfall.  On the night of the prince's sudden death (January 3, 1571) witnesses testified that they had seen Lippold hand him a goblet of wine.  Johann, the prince's son and successor, who had reason to loathe Lippold for what he perceived as his pernicious influence over his father, needed no better evidence.  On that very night he ordered th gates to Berlin barred to prevent Lippold's escape.  Lippold was arrested and charged with murder;  a rich arsenal of torture instruments produced a confession.  Although he subsequently retracted his words, it was too late;  on January 28, 1573, he was drawn and quartered in the presence of an avid multitude, and the Jews of Berlin were once again banished from the city.  The fate of the court Jew was, then, no private matter; a fallen court Jew could carry a whole community down to destruction with him.  However execrated he may have been, Lippold dead brought a worse fate on the heads of his fellow Jews than Lipppold alive.

As mentioned before the position of "court Jew" brought with it responsibilities, powers, dangers and prominence which affected the individual and community alike for serious good or bad.  The intercession of a respected individual could defend from allegations and intended evil, whereas a fallen or disrespected individual could bring great harm.

The fact that Jewish individuals were so limited in what occupations they could engage in, caused many to be involved in money-lending.  We can imagine all the negative feelings which could be aroused by this occupation where Christians were not allowed to participate in "usury".  Josel had obtained permission from Charles V that Jews would be allowed to charge much higher interest rates than Christians because they could not engage in other work and were required to pay higher taxes.  Here we see the bind:  Jews need to make a living.  They made it often through money-lending, since they were limited in their options.  They had to charge this interest to people who worked hard physically and also tried to make a living, perhaps at times squeezing it from stones, so to speak, so they could hand their own taxes to the Emperor.  We can see that the Emperor who protected the Jews also was rewarded through this arrangement.  This worked, in a way, for all involved, except for those who paid the high interest rates.  One can understand their feeling of oppression.

This image appears later on on Ruth Gay's book.  I am sure I have no copyright, so I will print it the smallest I can.  It says:  "O God, thou giver of the good and true, Save me from this very Jew."  We see the farmer with his scythe, obviously a hard working family man, in front of the farm which has crosses on top of the roof, (so now we know it is a hardworking Christian man) with the Jew approaching, well dressed in black, in aggressive posture.  It looks like he is going to force money out of the hard working, Christian, family man, farmer.

This is just to illustrate the chain of pressures placed on people.  And this is just one of the complexities.

To illustrate this a little further, again from Ruth Gay, pp. 165 and 166:

How the Jews made their living by the time of the empire [Prussian] had been determined long before by a history of permissions and prohibitions.  Their exclusion from landownership had made them traders rather than cultivators in rural districts, and their exclusion from the guilds had made them middlemen rather than craftsmen.  Above all, Jews had been identified with the lending and exchange of money, as Hans Sachs showed in his True Description of All the Classes on Earth, published in 1568.  It was a place in the world that had endured for a very long time.  Even Moses Mendelssohn wrestled with these constraints as he confided to a friend about his son Joseph.  "He has no inclination for medicine," he wrote in 1785, "and as a Jew he must become a physician, a merchant, or a beggar."  Begging was, indeed, a fixture in Jewish life.  For centuries the Jewish condition had insured that there were a very small number of rich Jews and an overwhelming number of poor ones.  The beggars, in fact, formed a caste unto themselves with carefully apportioned territories, rights, and expectations.  The schnorrer, as he was called in Yiddish, who was the subject of endless jokes and legends, was at once a beggar and more than that.  In his circuit of villages and houses, he brought news of the world, gossip, and commercial information...  As late as the mid-nineteenth century, half the Jews of Germany were either beggars or a step away from it, without a permanent right of residence.

These prohibitions had been in place for a long time.  The money-lending could never be popular.  The medicine could be suspicious, and all this before modern medicine and a scientific approach.   A beggar and a wandering "schnorrer" would really be a kind of vagabond.  Thus we understand that the Jew was forced into an unenviable position of severe limitation, inviting ostracism, abuse and anger.

The Jew was also under the protection of the Emperor rather than the local nobles.  This would cause other frictions and understandably in Lutheran lands, who were under threat of Charles V themselves. During the Schmalkadic war, the Jews provided sustenance to Charles V's troops.

Back to Josel of Rosheim:  this is what Martin Brecht has regarding his interactions with Luther.

In 1533 Luther showed an understanding of why the Jews had not been won by the papacy, and he hoped to convince many of them by preaching the gospel.  In contrast, however, he thought debating with them held no promise. Since 1432 Jews had been forbidden to take up permanent residence in Electoral Saxony.  It is unclear why Elector John Frederick issued a mandate at the beginning of August 1536 that prohibited them from staying there, engaging in business, or passing through...
In 1537 Josel of Rosheim, who at the time served as sort of a spokesman for Jews in Germany, tried to persuade Elector John Frederick to rescind the mandate of the previous year.  A recommendation from Luther would gain him an audience with the elector.  Wolfgang Capito interceded with Luther on Josel's behalf.  this may ot have beenthe first time that Josel had written to Luther.  Luther declined to support Josel's cause with the elector because his advocacy of the Jews in That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew had  been misused and the Jews had called Christians "apostates".  Luther was still in favor of benevolent treatment of the Jews, in order to win them for the Messiah, but he would no nothing to confirm them in their error.  He mentioned that he was intending to write a new pamphlet for this purpose.  He had been asked to do so years earlier.
Luther attempted to explain to Josel that the Gentiles, who were enemies of the Jews, would not worship the Jewish king, not to mention a crucified Jew, if God had not done this.  The Jews' suffering would come to an end only if they joined with the Gentiles in accepting this Christ, their "cousin and Lord."  Luther mentioned the rejection of Christ in the rabbinic writings.  For him, this was a continuation of the persecution of the saints and prophets in the Old Testament by their own people.  It was unmistakable for Luther that the messianic prophecies could refer only to Christ.  Finally, Luther maintained:  "For the sake of the crucified Jew, whom no one will take from me, I gladly wanted to do my best for you Jews, except that you abused my favor and hardened your hearts."
Luther's letter to Josel has been seen as a turning point in his attitude toward the Jews, but this is hardly accurate.  A little later Luther praised the advantages of the chosen people, although he did not fail to mention that they were of no avail before God.  In the letter to Josel itself he stated his positive interest in winning the Jews to the Messiah.  Alongside this was a polemic against the rabbis who rejected the Messiah.  He also mentioned negative experiences of Jewish agitation against Christians.  This situation must have existed for several years.  Thus the letter to Josel did not indicate a break.  Incidentally, the elector's mandate of 1536 was modified in 1539 through Josel's intervention, so that Jews were again permitted to travel through Electoral Saxony.  (Brecht.  Luther:  The Preservation of the Church.  p. 336, 337.)

So much for today.  More can be found about Josel of Rosheim on wikipedia and other places.
On this site, a little further down are pictures of the synagogue and the church in Rosheim, Alsace.  The church of the middle ages features a figure of a Jew with the moneybag. This is both indicative and sad.
Josel of Rosheim's autobiography might be very good reading, if it is available.

Luther and the Jews, Part 1, "Anthony Margaritha"

We will be looking at Luther and the Jews because this topic comes up all over the internet.  This is very sad to me personally in regard to Luther-studies because Luther is really about the Gospel and not  about vitriol against Jews--but yet wrote what he wrote.  It is apparently undeniable.  I have myself wondered how he could say such horrible things.  And based on my own interest in the subject this investigation is justified though some might ask me why I don't occupy myself with more enjoyable subjects.

I think getting Luther's words into some kind of context, helps us know more about anti-Semitism through the centuries.  Also, while understanding the context will not mean condoning his words and their impact or possibility of impact, it will make things make more sense.  Just the idea, that "anti-Semitism" could in any way shape or form make any sense at all will be offensive to some.  I have no intention of offending anyone and I will take your commentary.  However, opening one's eyes to more of history and more of human thoughts and trying to understand is always useful, even with such a subject.  Personally, I am not an anti-Semite nor a holocaust denier or anything in this vein.

I will be relying mostly on Martin Brecht and on Ruth Gay, whose books I have in front of me.

I will be using the word "Jew" freely instead of going to words such as "Israelite", "Hebrew", etc., mostly because the books I am reading are not avoiding it and because I do not see it negatively myself.

In Ruth Gay's book we are introduced to Gabriel Risser, a Jewish political thinker active during the first half of the19th century in Germany.  He had this to say about the word "Jew":

"Risser's boldness in political thinking showed itself as early as 1832, when he founded a magazine with the daring title 'Der Jude' .  At a point when Jews were attempting to substitute less pejorative terms such as 'israelisisch' or 'mosaisch', Riesser's title elicited a flood of letters to the editor.  He acknowledged the hatred that was bound up with the use of the name, but it was the anti-Semite, not the Jew, who needed to change.  'Is it not the responsibility of those who hate,' he asked, 'to fight against the hatred and cast it off, if it is ever to end?  Should we [Jews] deny this ancient and honorable name in order to please those who hate it?" (The Jews of Germany, Ruth Gay, p. 148.)

This makes sense to me.  I will use the word "Jew" and I will use it with all love and respect.  My Luther professor says "Hebrews".  But this seems stilted to me.

I will not go here into any mea culpas about the holocaust, as a German by birth and a Lutheran by faith.  Anti-Semitism is a nasty product of human sinfulness and fear resulting in told, untold and profound suffering.  I condone none of it none of which I have read about.  It is simply not justified or justifiable.   I am sorry about it the way we are all sorry about human suffering and injustice.

In real life, I have not known many Jews because neither where I grew up in Germany nor in Edmonton simply have I met many.  During my University years I had one Jewish girl friend.  She was from Russia, but non-observant.  The only other connection I have is the synagogue in the town where I was born.  There are no more Jews there and my Aunt Christa belongs to a society which takes care of the synagogue.  Here is a picture of it from my last trip to Germany.

It is unspeakably sad that only the building is there in and the people are gone.  At the very least it is being kept in good repair.

So much by way of introduction.  Only, one more thing:  it is the words of Jesus Christ which stick in my head, that "this generation" will not pass away until the end of the days.  This is most certainly true.  Against all kind of odds this community has continued to exist and to thrive.

I do not wish to offend anyone, but no doubt some will take offense.  I am sorry about it in advance.

For a start lets have a look at the "convert" Anthony Margaritha, who influenced Luther's views significantly.  From the Christian perspective he is called a "convert", from the Jewish perspective an "apostate".   There have been such individuals all through history, and often these individuals have contributed to a negative view of Jewry.  As former "insiders" of a close-knit community they have their own point of view and have written books to inform others about Judaism.  Whether these views are fair or not are not easy for others to assess.  In a way it is understandable that the group to which they have moved would be eager to read and digest any criticisms. Anthony Margaritha wrote a book, which I would not mind reading, if I came across it, to just see what exactly he wrote.  In any case, Luther read him several times and before he wrote "On Jews and Their Lies"  and "Against the Sabbatarians"  (we already read about the Sabbatarians in the last post).

"The task of Christians, therefore, was to lead Jews out of their errors and show them the right way.  Jonas believed that Luther's work did this, and it had even impressed duke George of Saxony.  Jonas therefore wanted the work to be regarded as serving a missionary purpose, not an apologetic one.  Nevertheless, Luther fails to demonstrate the positive interest in the Jews that Jonas expressed in his preface.
Sentiments of this sort were not unknown to Luther at that time, but he emphasized in this context that the Jews had condemned themselves by rejecting the Messiah.  For him, Jesus 'prophecy of the destruction of the Temple was proof that the worship of the Jews and their reign had come to an end, but the Jews would not accept this.  In 1539 Luther read a book published in 1530 by the Jewish Christian, Anthony Margaritha, The Whole Jewish Faith, Together with a Thorough and Truthful Account of All the Regulations, Ceremonies, and Prayers Both for Family and Public Worship, as Observed by the Jews throughout the Year, with excellent and Well-founded arguments against their Faith, out of which in part he drew his critical arguments against the Jews.  Reading it confirmed for him their blindness, which wanted nothing to do with faith and justification through faith, thus making them like the papists.  He thought it dangerous for Christians to have Jewish doctors treat them."  (Brecht, p. 339)

Ruth Gay has this about Anthony Margaritha, which makes me wonder about the man and his motivations:

"During the 16th century a rather more indirect form of attack--staged disputations between learned Christians and Jews --was at the height of its popularity.  Entertainment and trial rolled into one, these disputations had begun in the fourth century, in the time of Constantine, and were often a ceremonial prelude to expulsions and the destruction of Jewish life and property.  In 1530 a learned apostate, Antonius Margaritha, published a book describing Jewish belief and practices in which he claimed, among other strange distortions, that the Jews of the German lands prayed three times a day, and especially on the Day of Atonement, for the destruction of the Holy Roman Empire and the letting of Christian blood.  Charles V ordered a disputation to be held in June of the same year, on the occasion of an assembly of the court in Augsburg, and Josel was bidden to appear to defend his fellow Jews and Jewish practices against the slanders of Margaritha.  Unlike most disputations, this one ended with Margaritha, rather than the Jewish community,l banished from Augsburg at the behest of Charles V."

Josel is someone else we may need to talk about sometime.  Anyhow, Margaritha seems to have promulgated the blood libel accusations against the Jews, which has been a favorite throughout the centuries and to which I don't give any credence for a moment.  This does make one wonder about Margaritha.

The convert/apostate has always found himself in a strange position belonging not to either camp completely meaningfully.  Famous literary converts of the 19th century gave expression to this.

"Boerne who committed his life to political polemics, is now largerly forgotten, as are his essays.  But he represents many Jews who believed that the adoption of Christianity erased memory.  Baptized Jews soon found themselves in a no-man's land, outside the Jewish community and yet never entirely members of the larger world.  They remained Jewish Christians to the end of their days, forming almost a caste as they socialized and married among themselves.  Heinrich Heine was no less matter-of-fact than Boerne when he underwent baptism, also secretly, in June 1825, a month before his final examination for his degree in law at the University of Goettingen.  In many Jewish families in the early nineteenth century, it was understood that sooner or later their sons would accept baptism.  Yet Heine agonized most publicly over the step, and his description of conversion as the equivalent of buying an entry ticket to European culture transformed it from a religious into a secular act.
As Heine discovered, however, although the conversion might have made a difference in a university appointment (which he never seriously sought), to the world at large he remained a Jew.  Six months after his baptism, he wrote to his friend the Berlin banker Moses Moser:  I am now hated by Christian and Jew alike.  I much regret that I have had myself baptized;  I don't perceive that things have gone better fror me.  On the congtrary, I have since had mothing but misfortune.  As with Boperne, his enemies continued to taunt him with his origins, and he could not divorced himself from his profound sense of connection with Judaism.  When his friend Eduard Gans converted several months after he did, he responded to the news with a violent poem, "To an apostate."  It was not published in his lifetime, but its passion suggests the turbulent emotion this even elicited in him: 

As for that holy youthful spirit:
How quickly you've been suppressed
And in cold blood
You have reached an understanding with the good lords
And you have crawled to the cross,
The cross that you despised
That only a few weeks ago
You had thought of treading into the dust.

His prose and poetry alike are sprinkled with Jewish allusions and Jewish characters...  Conversion, even for the illustrious and even for the true believers, did not bring rest but doubt.  Rahel Varnhagen wrestled with is meaning even on her deathbed.  And Boerne and Heine found in it neither relief nor honor.  Yet these were the great and visible figures in the world who could give expression to what the less articulate might feel.  Ordinary people who converted, married, had children, and lived in communities did not engage in public debate.  it took a journalist and a poet to declaim in public what others were experiencing in private, to shout out loud what the ordinary only whispered...
The group of converts who turned on their former brothers and sisters did less damage in the nineteenth century than earlier, but when they were powerfully placed they could sow needless discord and set back the cause of Jewish emancipation.  One such was Friedrich Julius Stahl, who converted to Lutheranism in 1819.  He not only embraced Christianity but allied himself with that mythical entity, the German folk, and denounced the Jews as morally inferior to the Germans.  Succeeding Gans as professor of law at the university in Berlin in 1840, he expounded his ideas in a book published in 1847 which argued against the possibility of the emancipation of the Jews in a Christian State.  Although Stahl refrained from the call for physical violence that marked the work of earlier apostates, his position in the university and later in politics gave him the ear of policy makers and lawgivers, to the detriment of the Jews. ( The Jews of Germany, Ruth Gay,  p. 141.)

This gives us some insight into the complexity of the situation in spiritual, emotional, economic, social and political terms. We also see how much damage a "convert/apostate" could afflict on the Jewish community.

This will do for today.

More reading, less blogging

The internet was not working, then we had a power outage for half a day--and now the internet works again...

So, reading wise I finished the end of Brecht's third book on Luther on the "Jews, Turks and Pope".  This was instructive.  This section dovetails with a book I am also reading about the history of the Jewish people in Germany:

For a little idea I will tell you that the last bit I read was about the Shabbatean mysticism, which was a movement that calculated the arrival of the Messiah to a particular year, led by Shabbetai Zevi.  Calculating the year of  arrival of the Messiah was a pre-occupation of some streams of  Judaism, utilizing secret knowledge of numbers, etc. The Shabbatean movement swept across Jewish communities in Europe, including those in Germany, inducing individuals to sell their goods and make plans to go to Palestine:

After dividing up the kingdoms of the world among his followers, Shabbetai Zevi set sail in December for Constantinople.  But when his ship arrived there in February 1666, he was arrested and held by order of an alarmed vizier.  Undeterred, pilgrims came from afar to visit him, while preparations for the messianic age continued through the diaspora.  Shabbetai Zevi, brought before a court attended by the Sultan, was accused of having represented himself as the Messiah and was given a choice between death and conversion to Islam. In a mood of deep dejection, he agreed to submit to the Islamic faith, in which he nominally remained until his death in 1676.

Even this betrayal did not burst the bubble of Jewish ardor.  While the rabbinate tried to hush up the whole affair, true believers sought higher justifications for these stunning events, and the powerful effect of that intense messianic year, 1666, survived in Jewish culture as the core of an underground mystical doctrine that lasted into the eighteenth century.  It became a public scandal in 1751, when Jacob Emden, a rabbi in Emden, accused Jonathan Eybeschuetz, the eminent rabbi of Hamburg, of distributing secret amulets with Shabbatean inscriptions.  Although an international council of rabbis exonerated Eybeschuetz, the aura of shabbateanism clung to him...  p. 83

So much.  After that comes a section on "The Court Jew", who was apparently a richer individual "who served a prince or noble lord, most often as financial advisers and bankers but also as tax administrators, suppliers of military materiel [sic?] like horses, provisions, and weapons, or purveyors of jewels, antiquities, and other luxuries.  These Jews, who profited immensely from their opportunities, also lived in two worlds.  Dressed in the latest fashion, exempt from the onerous badge and other marks of Jewish dress, speaking several languages and well educated, they enjoyed the advantages of their wealth.  Yet serving at the pleasure of a prince who might prove fickle, whose mind might be turned against hem, who might suddenly die, made theirs a hazardous occupation.  Always the outsider and dependent on the goodwill of his patron, the court Jew was easy game for a discontented prince and a visible target for his subjects."  (p. 84)

 -- Ok, that's it for today.  (Since Luther's time the emperor had required the Jews to wear distinctive clothing featuring a yellow ring as an unmistakable sign of identification--or rather stigmatization.  Another result was the creation of  ghettos.)

I am also reading Heiko Oberman's "The Dawn of the Reformation:  Essays in Late Medieval and Early Reformation Thought".  This one has many untranslated sections in German, French and Latin, which I am very happy to report I can read, since I spent my entire childhood, so it seemed at the time, memorizing vocabulary in all those languages.  Now I know what all this torture was for ("aha" moment)--so one can read books such as this one. (Between my mother and the nuns it was language study and more language study. --  It's just I've never read a book like this, spiked through and through with not so short quotes in various languages.)

These essays are very precise.