Martin Luther: The Jews and
Their Lies
(extracts
from the Jewish Virtual Library)
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" [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.
***
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...
***
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 selfglory, 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 archthieves and
robbers, in the most impenitent security.
***
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.
***
...Christ and his word can hardly
be recognized because of the great vermin of human
ordinances. However, let this suffice for the time
being on their lies against doctrine or faith.
***
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, safeconduct, 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 safeconduct
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 (Gen 3[:19]}. 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.
From Luther's Works, Volume 47: The Christian in
Society IV, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971). pp
268293. |
