Hebraic
Studies - A Look at Eliyahu - Elijah
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Please Note: On
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Name of the Almighty in Ivrit - - Y-H-V-H, which
we usually pronounce as Adonai or HaShem.
At all times treat the most blessed Name with sanctity and when
we even see the Name, we should say blessed be His
Sanctified Name.
*This is My Name
forever, and this is My memorial to all generations.
Shemot - Exodus 3:15.
On this site I will mostly use a version
based on the Jewish Publication Society Tanach
(JPS).
The Book.
Of the Jews and their lies
Von den Juden und ihren Lügen
Written by Martin Luther
in 1543
Introduction:
This page contains Luthers
entire book, however, it is Part X,
Part XI & Part XII, which are the best known
sections of his evil book. Believe me, it is self scented and a
very long winded book, thus if you wish to by pass some of his
ravings, go directly to part 19 (X) and continue with 11 XI &
12 XII. Also, I write using UK English, this book was translated
from the German into American, what they call English, and those
who love English we know they are sadly incapable of spelling
things correctly!
INDEX
Part VIII - Part
IX - Part X - Part XI - Part XII - Part XIII
Part I:
I had made up
my mind to write no more either about the Jews or against them.
But since I learned that those 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 and 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 Gods word
is absent he has an easy task, not only with the weak but also
with the strong. May God help us. Amen.
Grace and peace in the
Lord. Dear sir and good friend, I have received a treatise in
which a Jew engages in dialog with a Christian. He dares to
pervert the scriptural passages which we cite in testimony to our
faith, concerning our Lord Christ and Mary his mother, and to
interpret them quite differently. With this argument he thinks he
can destroy the basis of our faith.
This is my reply to
you and to him. It is not my purpose to quarrel with the Jews, nor
to learn from them how they interpret or understand Scripture; I
know all of that very well already. Much less do I propose to
convert the Jews, for that is impossible. Those two excellent
men, Lyra and Burgensis, together with others, truthfully
described the Jews vile interpretation for us two hundred
and one hundred years ago respectively. Indeed they refuted it
thoroughly. However, this was no help at all to the Jews, and
they have grown steadily worse.
They have failed to
learn any lesson from the terrible distress that has been theirs
for over fourteen hundred years in exile. Nor can they obtain any
end or definite terminus of this, as they suppose, by means of
the vehement cries and laments to God. If these blows do not
help, it is resonable to assume that our talking and explaining
will help even less.
Therefore a Christian
should be content and not argue with the Jews. But if you have to
or want to talk with them, do not say any more than this: "
Listen, Jew, are you aware that Jerusalem and your sovereignty,
together with your temple and priesthood, have been destroyed for
over 1,460 years? " For this year, which we Christians write
as the year 1542 since the birth of Christ, is exactly 1,468
years, going on fifteen hundred years, since Vespasian and Titus
destroyed Jerusalem and expelled the Jews from the city. Let the
Jews bite on this nut and dispute this question as long as they
wish.
For such ruthless
wrath of God is sufficient evidence that they assuredly have
erred and gone astray. Even a child can comprehend this. For one
dare not regard God as so cruel that he would punish his own
people so long, so terribly, so unmercifully, and in addition
keep silent, comforting them neither with words nor with deeds,
and fixing no time limit and no end to it. Who would have faith,
hope, or love toward such a God? Therefore this work of wrath is
proof that the Jews, surely rejected by God, are no longer his
people, and neither is he any longer their God. This is in accord
with Hosea 1:9, "Call his name Not my people, for you are
not my people and I am not your God." Yes, unfortunately,
this is their lot, truly a terrible one. They may interpret this
as they will; we see the facts before our eyes, and these do not
deceive us.
If there were but a
spark of reason or understanding in them, they would surely say
to themselves: "O Lord God, something has gone wrong with
us. Our misery is too great, too long, too severe; God has
forgotten us! " etc. To be sure, I am not a Jew, but I
really do not like to contemplate Gods awful wrath toward
this people. It sends a shudder of fear through body and soul,
for I ask, What will the eternal wrath of God in hell be like
toward false Christians and all unbelievers? Well, let the Jews
regard our Lord Jesus as they will. We behold the fulfillment of
the words spoken by him in Luke 21:20: "But when you see Jerusalem
surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation has come near
... for these are days of vengeance. For great distress shall be
upon the earth and wrath upon this people."
In short, as has
already been said, do not engage much in debate with Jews about
the articles of our faith. From their youth they have been so
nurtured with venom and rancor against our Lord that there is no
hope until they reach the point where their misery finally makes
them pliable and they are forced to confess that the Messiah has
come, and that he is our Jesus. Until such a time it is much too
early, yes, it is useless to argue with them about how God is
triune, how he became man, and how Mary is the mother of God. No
human reason nor any human heart will ever grant these things,
much less the embittered, venomous, blind heart of the Jews. As
has already been said, what God cannot reform with such cruel
blows, we will be unable to change with words and works. Moses
was unable to reform the Pharaoh by means of plagues, miracles,
pleas, or threats; he had to let him drown in the sea.
Now, in order to
strengthen our faith, we want to deal with a few crass follies of
the Jews in their belief and their exegesis of the Scriptures,
since they so maliciously revile our faith. If this should move
any Jew to reform and repent, so much the better. We are now not
talking with the Jews but about the Jews and their dealings, so
that our Germans, too, might be informed.
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. And Christ himself declares in John
4:22, "Salvation is from the Jews." Therefore they
boast of being the noblest, yes, the only noble people on earth.
In comparison with them and in their eyes we Gentiles (Goyim) are
not human; in fact we hardly deserve to be considered poor worms
by them. For we are not of that high and noble blood, lineage,
birth, and descent. This is their argument, and indeed I think it
is the greatest and strongest reason for their pride and
boasting.
Therefore, God has to
endure that in their synagogues, their prayers, songs, doctrines,
and their whole life, they come and stand before him and plague
him grievously (if I may speak of God in such a human fashion).
Thus he must listen to their boasts and their praises to him for
setting them apart from the Gentiles, for letting them be
descended from the holy patriarchs, and for selecting them to be
his holy and peculiar people, etc. And there is no limit and no
end to this boasting about their descent and their physical birth
from the fathers.
And to fill the
measure of their raving, mad, and stupid folly, they boast and
they thank God, in the first place, because they were created as
human beings and not as animals; in the second place. because
they are Israelites and not Goyim (Gentiles); in the third place
because they were created as males and not as females. They did
not learn such tomfoolery from Israel but from the Goyim. For
history records that the Greek Plato daily accorded God such
praise and thanksgiving-if such arrogance and blasphemy may be
termed praise of God. This man, too, praised his gods for these
three items: that he was a human being and not an animal; a male
and not a female; a Greek and not a non-Greek or barbarian. This
is a fools boast, the gratitude of a barbarian who
blasphemes God! Similarly, the Italians fancy themselves the only
human beings; they imagine that all other people in the world are
nonhumans, mere ducks or mice by comparison.
No one can take away
from them their pride concerning their blood and their descent
from Israel. In the Old Testament they lost many a battle in wars
over this matter, though no Jew understands this. All the
prophets censured them for it, for it betrays an arrogant, carnal
presumption devoid of spirit and of faith. They were also slain
and persecuted for this reason. St. John the Baptist took them to
task severely because of it, saying, "Do not presume to say
to yourselves, "We have Abraham for our father for I
tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham"
[Matt. 3:9]. He did not call them Abrahams 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
3:39 he states: "If you were Abrahams children would
do what Abraham did.... You are of your father the devil.
"It was intolerable to them to hear that they were not Abrahams
but the devils children, nor can they bear to hear this
today. If they should surrender this boast and argument, their
whole system which is built on it would topple and change.
I hold that if their
Messiah, for whom they hope, should come and do away with their
boast and its basis they would crucify and blaspheme him seven
times worse than they did our Messiah; and they would also say
that he was not the true Messiah, but a deceiving devil. For they
have portrayed their Messiah to themselves as one who would
strengthen and increase such carnal and arrogant error regarding
nobility of blood and lineage. That is the same as saying that he
should assist them in blaspheming God and in viewing his
creatures with disdain, including the women, who are also human
beings and the image of God as well as we; more over, they are
our own flesh and blood, such as mother, sister, daughter,
housewives, etc. For in accordance with the aforementioned
threefold song of praise, they do not hold Sarah (as a woman) to
be as noble as Abraham (as a man). Perhaps they wish to honor
themselves for being born half noble, of a noble father, and half
ignoble, of an ignoble mother. But enough of this tomfoolery and
trickery.
We propose to discuss
their argument and boast and prove convincingly before God and
the world not before the Jews, for, as already said, they would
accept this neither from Moses nor from their Messiah himself
that their argument is quite empty and stands condemned. To this
end we quote Moses in Genesis 17, whom they surely ought to
believe if they are true Israelites. When God instituted
circumcision, he said, among other things, "Any
uncircumcised male shall be cut off from his people" [Gen.
17:14]. With these words God consigns to condemnation all who are
born of flesh, no matter how noble, high, or how low their birth
may have been. He does not even exempt from this judgment the
seed of Abraham, although Abraham was not merely of high and
noble birth from Noah, but was also adjudged holy (Genesis 15)
and became Abraham instead of Abram (Genesis 17). Yet none of his
children shall be numbered among Gods people, but rather
shall he rooted out, and God will not be his God, unless he, over
and above his birth, is also circumcised and accepted into the
covenant of God.
To be sure, before the
world one person is properly accounted nobler than another by
reason of his birth, or smarter than another because of his
intelligence, or stronger and more handsome than another because
of his body, or richer and mightier than another in view of his
possessions, or better than another on account of his special
virtues. For this miserable, sinful, and mortal life must be
marked by such differentiation and inequality; the requirements
of daily life and the preservation of government make it
indispensable.
But to strut before
God and boast about being so noble, so exalted, and so rich
compared to other people-that is devilish arrogance, since every
birth according to the flesh is condemned before him without
exception in the aforementioned verse, if his covenant and word
do not come to the rescue once again and create a new and
different birth, quite different from the old, first birth. So if
the Jews boast in their prayer before God and glory in the fact
that they are the patriarchs noble blood, lineage, and
children, and that he should regard them and be gracious to them
in view of this, while they condemn the Gentiles as ignoble and
not of their blood, my dear man, what do you suppose such a
prayer will achieve? This is what it will achieve: Even if the
Jews were as holy as their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob
themselves, yes, even if they were angels in heaven, on account
of such a prayer they would have to be hurled into the abyss of
hell. How much less will such prayers deliver them from their
exile and return them to Jerusalem!
For what does such
devilish, arrogant prayer do other than to give Gods word
the lie, for God declares: Whoever is born and not circumcised
shall not only he ignoble and worthless but shall also be damned
and shall not be a part of my people, and I will not be his God.
The Jews rage against this with their blasphemous prayer as if to
say: "No, no, Lord God, that is not true; you must hear us,
because we are of the noble lineage of the holy fathers. By
reason of such noble birth you must establish us as lords over
all the earth and in heaven too. If you fail to do this, you
break your word and do us an injustice, since you have sworn to
our fathers that you will accept their seed as your people
forever."
This is just as though
a king, a prince, a lord, or a rich, handsome, smart, pious,
virtuous person among us Christians were to pray thus to God:
"Lord God, see what a great king and lord I am! See how
rich, smart, and pious I am! See what a handsome lad or lass I am
in comparison to others! Be gracious to me, help me, and in view
of all of this save me! The other people are not as deserving,
because they are not so handsome, rich, smart, pious, noble, and
high-born as I am. "What, do you suppose, should such a
prayer merit? It would merit that thunder and lightning strike
down from heaven and that sulphur and hellfire strike from below.
That would be just punishment; for flesh and blood must not boast
before God. For as Moses says, whoever is born even from holy
patriarchs and from Abraham himself stands condemned before God
and must not boast before him. St. Paul says the same thing in
Romans 3:27, as does John 3:6.
Such a prayer was also
spoken by the Pharisee in the Gospel as he boasted about all his
blessings, saying, "I am not like other men. "Moreover,
his prayer was beautifully adorned, since he said it with
thanksgiving and fancied that he was sitting on Gods lap as
his pet child. But thunder and lightning from heaven cast him
down to hells abyss, as Christ himself declared, saying
that the publican was justified but the Pharisee condemned. Oh,
what do we poor muck-worms, maggots, stench, and filth presume to
boast of before him who is the God and Creator of heaven and
earth, who made us out of dirt and out of nothing! And as far as
our nature, birth, and essence are concerned, we are but dirt and
nothing in his eyes; all that we are and have comes from his
grace and his rich mercy.
Abraham was no doubt
even nobler than the Jews, since as we pointed out above, he was
descended from the noblest patriarch, Noah who in his day was the
greatest and oldest lord, priest, and father of the entire world
and from the other nine succeeding patriarchs. Abraham saw,
heard, and lived with all of them, and some of them (as for
instance Shem, Shelah, Eber) outlived him by many years. So Abraham
obviously was not lacking in nobility of blood and birth; and yet
this did not in the least aid him in being numbered among
Gods people. No, he was idolatrous, and he would have
remained under condemnation if Gods word had not called
him, as Joshua in chapter 24:2 informs us out of Gods own
mouth: "Your fathers lived of old beyond the Euphrates, Terah,
the father of Abraham and Nahor; and they served other gods. Then
I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led
him," etc.
Even later, after he
had been called and sanctified through Gods word and
through faith, according to Genesis 15, Abraham did not boast of
his birth or of his virtues. When he spoke with God (Genesis 18)
he did not say: "Look how noble I am, born from Noah and the
holy patriarchs, and descended from your holy nation," nor
did he say, "How pious and holy I am in comparison with
other people! " No, he said, "Behold, I have taken upon
myself to speak to the Lord, I who am but dust and ashes"
[Gen. 18:27]. This is, indeed, how a creature must speak to its
Creator, not for getting what it is before him and how it is
regarded by him. For that is what God said of Adam and of all his
children (Genesis 3:19 ), "You are dust, and to dust you
shall return," as death itself persuades us visibly and
experientially, to counteract, if need be, any such foolish,
vain, and vexatious presumption.
Now you can see what
fine children of Abraham the Jews really are, how well they take
after their father, yes, what a fine people of God they are. They
boast before God of their physical birth and of the noble blood
inherited from their fathers, despising all other people,
although God regards them in all these respects as dust and ashes
and damned by birth the same as all other heathen. And yet they
give God the lie; they insist on being in the right, and with
such blasphemous and damnable prayer they purpose to wrest
Gods grace from him and to regain Jerusalem.
Furthermore, even if
the Jews were seven times blinder than they are if that were
possible they would still have to see that Esau or Edom, as far
as his physical birth is concerned, was as noble as Jacob, since
he was not only the son of the same father, Isaac, and of the
same mother, Rebekah, but he was also the firstborn; and
primogeniture at that time conferred the highest nobility over
against the other children. But what did his equal birth or even
his primogeniture by virtue of which he was far nobler than Jacob
benefit him? He was still not numbered among Gods people,
although he called Abraham his grandfather and Sarah his
grandmother just as Jacob did, indeed, as has already been said,
even more validly than did Jacob. Conversely, Abraham himself as
well as Sarah had to regard him as their grandson, the son of Isaac
and Rebekah; they even had to regard him as the firstborn and the
nobler, and Jacob as the lesser. But tell me, what good did his
physical birth and his noble blood inherited from Abraham do
him?
Someone may interpose
that Esau forfeited his honor because he became evil, etc. We
must rejoin, first of all, that the question at issue is whether
nobility of blood in itself is so valid before God that one could
thereby be or become Gods people. If it is not, why then do
the Jews exalt this birth so highly before other children of men!
But if it is valid, why then does God not guard it from falling?
For if God regards physical birth as adequate for making the
descendants of the holy patriarchs his people, he dare not let
them become evil, thereby losing his people and becoming a non
God. If he does, however, let them become evil, it is certain
that he does not regard birth as a means of yielding or producing
a people for him.
In the second place, Esau
was not ejected from the people of God because he became evil
later on, nor was Jacob counted among the people of God in view
of his subsequent good life. No, while they were both still in
their mothers womb the word of God distinguishd between the
two: Jacob was called Esau was not, in accordance with the words,
"The elder shall serve the younger" [Gen. 25:23]. This
was not at all affected by the fact that they were both carried
under the same mothers heart; that they were both nourished
with the same milk and blood of one and the same mother, Rebekah;
that they were born of her at the same time. So one must say that
no matter how identical flesh, blood, milk body, and mother were
in this instance, they could not help Esau, nor could they hinder
Jacob from acquiring the grace by which people become Gods
children or his people; decisive here are the word and calling,
which ignore the birth.
Ishmael, too, can say
that he is equally a true and natural son of Abraham. But what
does his physical birth avail him? Despite this, he has to yield
up the home and heritage of Abraham and leave it to his brother Isaac.
You may say that Ishmael was born of Hagar while Isaac was born
of Sarah. If anything, this strengthens our argument. For Isaacs
birth from Sarah was effected by the word of God and not by flesh
and blood, since Sarah was past the natural age for bearing
children. To discuss the question of birth a bit further,
although Ishmael is Abrahams flesh and blood and his
natural son, still the flesh and blood of such a holy father does
not help him. It rather harms him, because he has no more than
flesh and blood from Abraham and does not also have Gods
word in his favor. The fact that Isaac is descended from the
blood of Abraham does not handicap him even though it was useless
to Ishmael because he has the word of God which distinguishes him
from his brother Ishmael, who is of the flesh and blood of the
same Abraham.
Why should so much ado
be made of this? After all, if birth counts before God, I can
claim to be just as noble as any Jew, yes, just as noble as Abraham
himself, as David, as all the holy prophets and apostles. Nor
will I owe them any thanks if they consider me just as noble as
themselves before God by reason of my birth. And if God refuses
to acknowledge my nobility and birth as the equal to that of Isaac,
Abraham, David, and all the saints, I maintain that he is doing
me an injustice and that he is not a fair judge. For I will not
give it up and neither Abraham, David, prophets, apostles nor
even an angel in heaven, shall deny me the right to boast that
Noah, so far as physical birth or flesh and blood is concerned,
is my true, natural ancestor, and that his wife (whoever she may
have been) is my true, natural ancestress; for we are all
descended, since the Deluge, from that one Noah. We did not
descend from Cain, for his family perished forever in the flood
together with many of the cousins, brothers-in-law, and friends
of Noah.
I also boast that Japheth,
Noahs firstborn son, is my true, natural ancestor and his
wife (whoever she may have been) is my true, natural ancestress;
for as Moses informs us in Genesis 10, he is the progenitor of
all of us Gentiles. Thus Shem, the second son of Noah, and all of
his descendants have no grounds to boast over against his older
brother Japheth because of their birth. Indeed, if birth is to
play a role, then Japheth as the oldest son and the true heir has
reason for boasting over against Shem, his younger brother, and
Shems descendants, whether these be called Jews or Ishmaelites
or Edomites. But what does physical primogeniture help the good Japheth,
our ancestor? Nothing at all. Shem enjoys precedence-not by
reason of birth, which would accord precedence to Japheth, but
because Gods word and calling are the arbiter here.
I could go back to the
beginning of the world and trace our common ancestry from Adam
and Eve, later from Shem, Enoch, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch,
Methuselah, Lamech; for all of these are our ancestors just as
well as the Jews, and we share equally in the honor,
nobility, and fame of descent from them as do the Jews. We are
their flesh and blood just the same as Abraham and all his seed
are. For we were in the loins of the same holy fathers in the
same measure as they were, and there is no difference whatsover
with regard to birth or flesh and blood, as reason must tell us.
Therefore the blind Jews are truly stupid fools, much more absurd
than the Gentiles, to boast so before God of their physical
birth, though they are by reason of it no better than the
Gentiles, since we both partake of one birth, one flesh and
blood, from the very first, best, and holiest ancestors. Neither
one can reproach or upbraid the other about some peculiarity
without implicating himself at the same time.
But let us move on. David
lumps us an together nicely and convincingly when he declares in
Psalm 51:5: "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in
sin did my mother conceive me. Now go, whether you are Jew or
Gentile, born of Adam or Abraham, of Enoch or David, and boast
before God of your fine nobility, of your exalted lineage, your
ancient ancestry! Here you learn that we all are conceived and
born in sin, by father and mother, and no human being is
excluded.
But what does it mean
to be born in sin other than to be born under Gods wrath
and condemnation, so that by nature or birth we are unable to be
Gods people or children, and our birth, glory, and
nobility, our honor and praise denote nothing more and can denote
nothing else than that, in default of anything to our credit
other than our physical birth, we are condemned sinners, enemies
of God, and in his disfavor? 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.
This I wanted to say
for the strengthening of our faith; for the Jews will not give up
their pride and boasting about their nobility and lineage. As was
said above, their hearts are hardened. Our people, however, must
be on their guard against them, lest they be misled by this
impenitent, accursed people who give God the lie and haughtily
despise all the world. For the Jews would like to entice us
Christians to their faith, and they do this wherever they can. If
God is to become gracious also to them, the Jews, they must first
of all banish such blasphemous prayers and songs, that boast so
arrogantly about their lineage, from their synagogues, from their
hearts, and from their lips, for such prayers ever increase and
sharpen Gods wrath toward them. However, they will not do
this, nor will they humble themselves abjectly, except for a few
individuals whom God draws unto himself particularly and delivers
from their terrible ruin.
The other boast and
nobility over which the Jews gloat and because of which they
haughtily and vainly despise all mankind is their circumcision,
which they received from Abraham. My God, what we Gentiles have
to put up with in their synagogues, prayers, songs, and
doctrines! What a stench we poor people are in their nostrils
because we are not circumcised! Indeed, God himself must again
submit to miserable torment if I may put it thus as they confront
him with inexpressible presumption, and boast: "Praised be
Thou, King of the world, who singled us out from all the nations
and sanctified us by the covenant of circumcision! "And
similarly with many other words, the tenor of all of which is
that God should esteem them above an the rest of the world
because they in compliance with his decree are circumcised, and
that he should condemn all other people, just as they do and wish
to do.
In this boast of
nobility they glory as much as they do in their physical birth.
Consequently I believe that if Moses himself would appear
together with Elijah and their Messiah and would try to deprive
them of this boast or forbid such prayers and doctrine, they
would probably consider all three of them to be the three worst
devils in hell, and they would be at a loss to know how to curse
and damn them adequately, to say nothing of believing them. For
they have decided among themselves that Moses, together with
Elijah and the Messiah, should endorse circumcision, yes, rather
that they should help to strengthen and praise such arrogance and
pride in circumcision, that these should, like themselves, look
upon all Gentiles as awful filth and stench because they are not
circumcised. Moses, Elijah, and the Messiah must do an that they
prescribe, think, and wish. They insist that they are right, and
if God himself were to do other than they think, he would be in
the wrong.
Part II:
Now just behold these
miserable, blind, and senseless people. In the first place (as I
said previously in regard to physical birth), if I were to
concede that circumcision is sufficient to make them a people of
God, or to sanctify and set them apart before God from all other
nations, then the conclusion would have to be this: Whoever was
circumcised could not be evil nor could he be damned. Nor would
God permit this to happen, if he regarded circumcision as imbued
with such holiness and power. Just as we Christians say: Whoever
has faith cannot be evil and cannot be damned so long as faith
endures. For God regards faith as so precious, valuable, and
powerful that it will surely sanctify and prevent him who has
faith and retains his faith from being lost or becoming evil. But
I shall let this go for now.
In the second place,
we note here again how the Jews provoke Gods anger more and
more with such prayer. For there they stand and defame God with a
blasphemous, shameful, and impudent lie. They are so blind and
stupid that they see neither the words found in Genesis 17 nor
the whole of Scripture, which mightily and explicitly condemns
this lie. For in Genesis 17:12 Moses states that Abraham was
ordered to circumcise not only his son Isaac who at the time was
not yet born but an the males born in his house, whether sons or
servants, including the slaves. All of these were circumcised on
one day together with Abraham; Ishmael too, who at the time was
thirteen years of age, as the text informs us. Thus the convent
or decree of circumcision encompasses the entire seed of all the
descendants of Abraham, particularly Ishmael, who was the first
seed of Abraham to be circumcised. Accordingly Ishmael is not
only the equal of his brother Isaac, but he might even if this
were to be esteemed before God be entitled to boast of his
circumcision more than Isaac, since he was circumcised one year
sooner. In view of this, the Ishmaelites might well enjoy a
higher repute than the Israelites, for their forefather Ishmael
was circumcised before Isaac, the progenitor of the Israelites,
was born.
Why then do the Jews
lie so shamefully before God in their prayer and preaching, as
though circumcision were theirs alone, through which they were
set apart from all other nations and thus they alone are
Gods holy people? They should really (if they were capable
of it) be a bit ashamed before the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, and
other nations when they consider that they were at all times a
small nation, scarcely a handful of people in comparison with
others who were also Abrahams seed and were also
circumcised, and who indubitably transmitted such a command of
their father Abraham to their descendants; and that the
circumcision transmitted to the one son Isaac is rather
insignificant when compared with the circumcision transmitted to
Abrahams other sons. For Scripture records that Ishmael, Abrahams
son, became a great nation, that he begot twelve princes, also
that the six son of Keturah (Genesis 25:1), possessed much
greater areas of land than Israel. And undoubtedly these observed
the rite of circumcision handed down to them by their
fathers.
Now since
circumcision, as decreed by God in Genesis 17, is practiced by so
many nations, beginning with Abraham (whose seed they all are the
same as Isaac and Jacob), and since there is no difference in
this regard between them and the children of Israel, what are the
Jews really doing when they praise and thank God in their prayers
for singling them out by circumcision from all other nations, for
sanctifying them, and for making them his own people? This is
what they are doing: they are blaspheming God and giving him the
lie concerning his commandment and his words where he says
(Genesis 17:12) that circumcision shall not be prescribed for Isaac
and his descendants alone, but for all the seed of Abraham. The
Jews have no favored position exalting them above Ishmael by
reason of circumcision, or above Edom, Midian, Ephah, Epher,
etc., all of whom are reckoned in Genesis as Abrahams seed.
For they were all circumcised and made heirs of circumcision, the
same as Israel.
Now, what does it
benefit Ishmael that he is circumcised? What does it benefit Edom
that he is circumcised - Edom who, moreover, is descended from Isaac,
who was set apart, and not from Ishmael? What does it benefit
Midian and his brothers, born of Keturah, that they are
circumcised? They are, for all of that, not Gods people;
neither their descent from Abraham nor their circumcision,
commanded by God, helps them. If circumcision does not help them
in becoming Gods people, how can it help the Jews. For it
is one and the same circumcision, decreed by one and the same
God, and there is one and the same father, flesh and blood or
descent that is common to all. There is absolute equality; there
is no difference, no distinction among them all so far as
circumcision and birth are concerned.
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 Gods decree, and that
they cannot on that account be Gods special people.
Something more, different, and greater is necessary for that,
since the Ishmaelites, the Edomites, the Midianites, and other
descendants of Abraham may equally comfort themselves with this
glory, even before God himself. For with regard to birth and
circumcision these are, as already said, their equals.
Perhaps the Jews will
declare that the Ishmaelites and Edomites, etc., do not observe
the rite of circumcision as strictly as they do. In addition to
cutting off the foreskin of a male child, the Jews force the skin
back on the little penis and tear it open with sharp fingernails,
as one reads in their books. Thus they cause extra ordinary pain
to the child, without and against the command of God, so that the
father, who should really be happy over the circumcision, stands
there and weeps as his childs cries pierce his heart. We
answer roundly that such an addendum is their own invention, yes,
it was inspired by the accursed devil, and is in contradiction to
Gods command, since Moses says in Deuteronomy 4:2 and
12:32: "You shall not add to the word which I command you,
nor take from it. "With such a devilish supplement they ruin
their circumcision, so that in the sight of God no other nation
practices circumcision less than they, since with such wanton
disobedience they append and practice this damnable
supplement
Now let us see what Moses
himself says about circumcision. In Deuteronomy 10:16 he says:
"Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no
longer stubborn," etc. Dear Moses, what do you mean? Does it
not suffice that they are circumcised physically? They are set
apart from all other nations by this holy circumcision and made a
holy people of God. And you rebuke them for stubbornness against
God? You belittle their holy circumcision? You revile the holy,
circumcised people of God? You should venture to talk like that
today in their synagogues! If there were not stones conveniently
near, they would resort to mud and dirt to drive you from their
midst, even if you were worth ten Moseses.
He also chides them in
Leviticus 26:41, saying: If then their uncircumcised heart
is humbled," etc. Be careful, Moses! Do you know whom you
are speaking to? You are talking to a noble, chosen, holy,
circumcised people of God. And you dare to say that they have
uncircumcised hearts? That is much worse than having a
seven-times-uncircumcised flesh; for an uncircumcised heart can
have no God. And to such the circumcision of the flesh is of no
avail. Only a circumcised heart can produce a people of God, and
it can do this even when physical circumcision is absent or is
impossible, as it was for the children of Israel during their
forty years in the wilderness.
Thus Jeremiah also
takes them to task, saying in chapter 4:4: "Circumcise
yourselves to the Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men
of Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem; lest my wrath go forth
like fire, and burn with none to quench it. . . . "Jeremiah,
you wretched heretic, you seducer and false prophet, how dare you
tell that holy, circumcised people of God to circumcise
themselves to the Lord? Do you mean to imply that they were
hitherto circumcised physically to the devil, as if God did not
esteem their holy, physical circumcision? And are you furthermore
threatening them with Gods wrath, as an eternal fire, if
they do not circumcise their hearts? But they do not mention such
circumcision of the heart in their prayer, nor do they praise or
thank God for it with as much as a single letter. And you dare to
invalidate their holy circumcision of the flesh, making it liable
to Gods wrath and the eternal fire? I advise you not to
enter their synagogue; all devils might dismember and devour you
there.
In Jeremiah 6:10 we
read, further, "Their ears are uncircumcised, they cannot
listen." Well, well, my dear Jeremiah, you are surely
dealing roughly and inconsiderately with the noble, chosen, holy,
circumcised people of God. Do you mean to say that such a holy
nation has uncircumcised ears? And, what is far worse, that they
are unable to hear? Is that not tantamount to saying that they
are not Gods people? For he who cannot hear or bear to hear
Gods word is not of Gods people. And if they are not
Gods people, then they are the devils people; and
then neither circumcising nor skinning nor scraping will avail.
For Gods sake, Jeremiah, stop talking like that! How can
you despise and condemn holy circumcision so horribly that you
separate the chosen, circumcised, holy people from God and
consign them to the devil as banished and damned? Do they not
praise God for having set them apart through circumcision both
from the devil and from all the other nations and for making them
a holy and peculiar people? Yea, "He has spoken blasphemy!
Crucify him, crucify him!"
In chapter 9:25
Jeremiah says further: "Behold, the days are coming, says
the Lord, when I will punish all those who are circumcised but
yet uncircumcised - Egypt, Judah, Edom, the sons of Ammon Moab,
and all who dwell in the desert... for all these nations are
uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel is uncircumcised in
heart...."
In the face of this,
what becomes of the arrogant boast of circumcision by reason of
which the Jews claim to be a holy nation, set apart from other
peoples? Here Gods word lumps them together with the
heathen and uncircumcised, and threatens the same visitation for
both. Moreover, the best part of Israel, the noble, royal tribe
of Judah, is mentioned here, and after that the entire house of Israel.
Worst of all, he declares that the heathen are, to be sure,
uncircumcised according to the flesh, but that Judah, Edom, and
Israel, who are circumcised according to the flesh, are much
viler than the heathen, since they have an uncircumcised heart;
and this, as said before, is far worse than uncircumcised
flesh.
These and similar
passages prove irrefutably that the Jews arrogance and
boast of circumcision over against the uncircumcised Gentiles are
null and void, and, unless accompanied by something else,
deserves nothing but Gods wrath. God says that they have an
uncircumcised heart. But the Jews do not pay attention to such a
foreskin of the heart; rather they think that God should behold
their proud circumcision in the flesh and hear their arrogant
boasts over against all Gentiles, who are unable to boast of such
circumcision. These blind, miserable people do not see that God
condemns their uncircumcised heart so clearly and explicitly in
these verses, and thereby condemns their physical circumcision
together with their boasting and their prayer. They go their way
like fools, making the foreskins of their heart steadily thicker
with such haughty boasts before God and their contempt for all
other people. By virtue of such futile, arrogant circumcision in
the flesh they presume to be Gods only people, until the
foreskin of their heart has become thicker than an iron mountain
and they can no longer hear, see, or feel their own clear
Scripture, which they read daily with blind eyes overgrown with a
pelt thicker than the bark of an oak tree.
If God is to give ear
to their prayers and praises and accept them, they must surely
first purge their synagogues, mouths and hearts of such
blasphemous, shameful, false, and deceitful boasting and
arrogance. Otherwise they will only go from bad to worse and
arouse Gods anger ever more against themselves. For he who
would pray before God dare not confront him with haughtiness and
lying, he dare not praise only himself, condemn all others, claim
to be Gods only people, and execrate all the others, as
they do. As David says in Psalm 5:4: "For thou are not a God
who delights in wickedness; evil may not sojourn with thee. The
boastful may not stand before thy eyes; thou hatest all
evildoers. Thou destroyest those who speak lies; the Lord abhors
bloodthirsty and deceitful men." But rather, as verse 7
tells us: "I through the abundance of thy steadfast love
will enter thy house, I will worship toward thy holy temple in
the fear of thee."
This psalm applies to
all men, whether circumcised or not, but particularly and
especially to the Jews, for whom it was especially given and
composed - as was all the rest of Scripture also. And they are
more masterfully portrayed in it than all other heathen. For they
are the ones who constantly have pursued godless ways, idolatry,
false doctrine, and who have had uncircumcised hearts, as Moses
himself and all the prophets cry out and lament. But in all this
they always claimed to be pleasing to God and they slew all the
prophets on this account. They are the malicious, stiff-necked
people that would not be converted from evil to good works by the
preaching, reproof, and teaching of the prophets. The Scriptures
bear witness to this everywhere. And still they claim to be
Gods servants and to stand before him. 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 Gods eyes
they rank as his dearest children.
They are real liars
and bloodhounds who have not only continually perverted and
falsified all of Scripture with their mendacious glosses from the
beginning until the present day. Their hearts most ardent
sighing and yearning and hoping is set on the day on which they
can deal with us Gentiles as they did with the Gentiles in Persia
at the time of Esther. Oh, how fond they are of the book of Esther,
which is so beautifully attuned to their bloodthirsty, vengeful,
murderous yearning and hope. The sun has never shone on a more
bloodthirsty and vengeful people than they are who imagine that
they are Gods people who have been commissioned and
commanded to murder and to slay the Gentiles. In fact, the most
important thing that they expect of their Messiah is that he will
murder and kill the entire world with their sword. They treated
us Christians in this manner at the very beginning through out all
the world. They would still like to do this if they had the
power, and often enough have made the attempt, for which they
have got their snouts boxed lustily.
We can perhaps enlarge
on this subject later; but let us now return to their false,
lying boast regarding circumcision. These shameful liars are well
aware that they are not the exclusive people of God, even if they
did possess circumcision to the exclusion of all other nations.
They also know that the foreskin is no obstacle to being a people
of God. And still they brazenly strut before God, lie and boast
about being Gods only people by reason of their physical
circumcision, unmindful of the circumcision of the heart. Against
this there are weighty scriptural examples. In the first place,
we adduce Job, who, as they say, descended from Nahor. God did
not impose circumcision on him and his heirs. And yet his book
shows clearly that there were very few great saints in Israel who
were the equal of him and of his people. Nor did the prophet Elisha
oblige Naaman of Syria to become circumcised; and yet he was
sanctified and became a child of God, and undoubtedly many others
with him.
Furthermore, there
stands the whole of the prophet Jonah, who converted Nineveh to
God and preserved it together with kings, princes, lords, land,
and people, yet did not circumcise these people. Similarly, Daniel
converted the great kings and peoples of Babylon and Persia, such
as Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius, etc., and yet they remained
Gentiles, uncircumcised, and did not become Jews. Earlier, Joseph
instructed Pharaoh the king, his princes, and his people, as
Psalm 105:22 informs us, yet he left them uncircumcised. This, I
say, these hardened and inveterate liars know, and yet they
stress circumcision so greatly, as though no uncircumcised person
could be a child of God. And whenever they seduce a Christian
they try to alarm him so that he will be circumcised.
Subsequently they approach God and exult in their prayer that
they have brought us to the people of God through circumcision -
as though this were a precious deed. They disdain, despise, and
curse the foreskin on us as an ugly abomination which prevents us
from becoming Gods people, while their circumcision, they
claim, effects all.
What is God to do with
such prayer and praise which they bring forth together with their
coarse, blasphemous lying, contrary to all Scripture (as already
stated)? He will indeed hear them and bring them back to their
country! I mean that if they were dwelling in heaven, such
boasts, prayers, praise, and lies about circumcision alone would
hurl them instantly into the abyss of hell. I have already
written about this against the Sabbatarians. Therefore, dear
Christian, be on your guard against such damnable people whom God
has permitted to sink into such profound abominations and lies,
for all they do and say must be sheer lying, blasphemy, and
malice, however fine it may look.
But you may ask: Of
what use then is circumcision? Or why did God command it so
strictly? We answer: Let the Jews fret about that! What does that
matter to us Gentiles? It was not imposed on us, as you have
heard, nor do we stand in need of it, but we can be Gods
people without it, just as the people in Nineveh, in Babylon, in Persia,
and in Egypt were. And no one can prove that God ever commanded a
prophet or a Jew to circumcise the Gentiles. Therefore they
should not harass us with their lies and idolatry. If they claim
to be so smart and wise as to instruct and circumcise us
Gentiles, let them first tell us what purpose circumcision
serves, and why God commanded it so strictly. This they owe us;
but they will not do it until they return to their home in Jerusalem
again - that is to say, when the devil ascends into heaven. For
when they assert that God enjoined circumcision for the purpose
of sanctifying them, saving them, making them Gods people,
they are lying atrociously, as you have heard. For Moses and all
the prophets testify that circumcision did not help even those
for whom it was commanded, since they were of uncircumcised
hearts. How, then, should it help us for whom it was not
commanded?
But to speak for us
Christians - we know very well why it was given or what purpose
it served. However, no Jew knows this, and even when we tell him
it is just like addressing a stump or a stone. They will not
desist from their boasting and their pride, that is, from their
lies. They insist that they are in the right; God must be the
liar and he must be in error. Therefore, let them go their way
and lie as their fathers have done from the beginning. But St.
Paul teaches us in Romans 3 that when circumcision is performed
as a kind of work it cannot make holy or save, nor was it meant
to do so. Nor does it damn the uncircumcised Gentiles, as the
Jews mendaciously and blasphemously say. Rather, he says,
"circumcision is of great value in this way - that they were
entrusted with the word of God" [cf. Rom. 3:1 ff.]. That is
the point, there it is said, there it is found! Circumcision was
given and instituted to enfold and to preserve Gods word
and his promise. This means that circumcision should not be
useful or sufficient as a work in itself, but those who possess
circumcision should be bound by this sign, covenant, or sacrament
to obey and to believe God in his words and to transmit all this
to their descendants.
But where such a final
cause or reason for circumcision no longer obtained, circumcision
as a mere work no longer was to enjoy validity or value, all the
more so if the Jews should patch or attach another final cause or
explanation to it. This is also borne out by the words in Genesis
17: "I will be your God, and in token of this you shall bear
my sign upon your flesh" [cf. Gen. 17:8, 11]. This expresses
the same thought found in St. Pauls statement that
circumcision was given so that one should hear or obey Gods
word. For when Gods word is no longer heard or kept, then
he is surely no longer our God, since we in this life must
comprehend and have God solely through his word. This wretched
life cannot bear and endure him in his brilliant majesty, as he
says in Exodus 36 [33:20]: "Man shall not see me and
live."
There are innumerable
examples throughout all of Scripture which show what cause or
purpose the Jews assigned to circumcision. For as often as God
wanted to speak with them through the prophets whether about the
Ten Commandments, in which he reproved them, or about the promise
of future help they were always obdurate, or as the quoted verses
from Moses and Jeremiah testify, they were of uncircumcised heart
and ears. They always claimed to do the right and proper thing,
while the prophets (that is, God himself whose word they
preached) always did the wrong and evil thing. Therefore the Jews
slew them all, and they have never yet allowed any to die unpersecuted
and uncondemned, with the exception of a few at the time of David,
Hezekiah, and Josiah. The entire course of the history of Israel
and Judah is pervaded by blasphemy of Gods word, by
persecution, derision, and murder of the prophets. Judging them
by history, these people must be called wanton murderers of the
prophets and enemies of Gods word. Whoever reads the Bible
cannot draw any other conclusion.
As we said, God did
not institute circumcision nor did he accept the Jews as his
people in order that they might persecute, mock, and murder his
word and his prophets, and thereby render a service to justice
and to God. Rather, as Moses says in the words dealing with
circumcision in Genesis 17, this was done in order that they
might hear God and his word; that is, that they might let him be
their God. Apart from this circumcision in itself would not help
them, since it would then no longer be Gods circumcision,
for it would be without God, contending against his word; it
would have become merely a human work. For he had bound himself,
or his word, to circumcision. Where these two part company,
circumcision remains a hollow husk or empty shell devoid of nut
or kernel.
The following is an
analogous situation for us Christians: God gave us baptism, the
sacrament of his body and blood, and the keys for the ultimate
purpose or final cause that we should hear his word in them and
exercise our faith therein. That is, he intends to be our God
through them, and through them we are to be his people. However,
what did we do? We proceeded to separate the word and faith from
the sacrament (that is, from God and his ultimate purpose) and
converted it into a mere opus legis, a work of the law, or
as the papists call it, an opus operatum - merely a human
work which the priests offered to God and the laity performed as
a work of obedience as often as they received it. What is left of
the sacrament? Only the empty husk, the mere ceremony, opus vanum,
divested of everything divine. Yes, it is a hideous abomination
in which we perverted Gods truth into lies and worshiped
the veritable calf of Aaron. Therefore God also delivered us into
all sorts of terrible blindness and innumerable false doctrines,
and, furthermore, he permitted Muhammad and the pope together
with all devils to come upon us.
The people of Israel
fared similarly. They always divorced circumcision as an opus operatum,
their own work, from the word of God, and persecuted all the
prophets through whom God wished to speak with them, according to
the terms on which circumcision was instituted. Yet despite this,
they constantly and proudly boasted of being Gods people by
virtue of their circumcision. Thus they are in conflict with God.
God wants them to hear him and to observe circumcision properly
and fully; but they refuse and insist that God respect their work
of circumcision, that is, half of circumcision, indeed, the husk
of circumcision. God, in turn, refuses to do this; and so they
move farther and farther apart, and it is impossible to reunite
or reconcile them.
Now, who wishes to
accuse God of an injustice? Tell me, anyone who is reasonable,
whether it is fitting that God regard the works of those who
refuse to hear his word, or if he should consider them to be his
people when they do not want to regard him as their God? With all
justice and good reason God may say, as the psalm declares [Ps.
81:11 f.]: "Israel would have none of me. So I gave them
over to their stubborn hearts, to follow their own
counsels." And in Deuteronomy 32:21, Moses states,
"They have stirred me to jealously with what is no god....
So I will stir them to jealousy with those who are no
people."
Similarly among us
Christians the papists can no longer pass for the church. For
they will not let God be their God, because they refuse to listen
to his word, but rather persecute it most terribly, then come
along with their empty husks, chaff, and refuse, as they hold
mass and practice their ceremonies. And God is supposed to
recognize them and look upon them as his true church, ignoring
the fact that they do not acknowledge him as the true God, that
is, they do not want him to speak to them through his preachers.
His word must be accounted heresy, the devil, and every evil.
This he will indeed do, as they surely will experience, far worse
than did the Jews.
Now we can readily
gather from all this that circumcision was very useful and good,
as St. Paul declares - not indeed on its own account but on
account of the word of God. For we are convinced, and it is the
truth, that the children who were circumcised on the eighth day
became children of God, as the words state, "I will be their
God" [Gen. 17:7], for they received the perfect and full
circumcision, the word with the sign, and did not separate the
two. God is present, saying to them, "I will be their
God"; and this completed the circumcision in them.
Similarly, our children receive the complete, true, and full
baptism, the word with the sign, and do not separate one from the
other; they receive the kernel in the shell. God is present; he
baptizes and speaks with them, and thereby saves them.
But now that we have
grown old, the pope comes along and the devil with him and
teaches us to convert this into an opus legis or opus operatum.
He severs word and sign from each other, teaching that we are
saved by our own contrition, work, and satisfaction. We share the
experience related by St. Peter in II Peter 2:22: "The dog
turns back to his own vomit, and the sow is washed only to wallow
in the mire." Thus our sacrament has be come a work, and we
eat our vomit again. Likewise the Jews, as they grew old, ruined
their good circumcision performed on the eighth day, separated
the word from the sign, and made a human or even a swinish work
out of it. In this way they lost God and his word and now no
longer have any understanding of the Scriptures.
Part III:
God truly honored them
highly by circumcision, speaking to them above all other nations
on earth and entrusting his word to them. And in order to
preserve this word among them, he gave them a special country; he
performed great wonders through them, ordained kings and
government, and lavished prophets upon them who not only apprised
them of the best things pertaining to the present but also
promised them the future Messiah, the Savior of the world. It was
for his sake that God accorded them all of this, bidding them
look for his coming, to expect him confidently and without delay.
For God did all of this solely for his sake: for his sake Abraham
was called, circumcision was instituted, and the people were thus
exalted so that all the world might know from which people, from
which country, at which time, yes, from which tribe, family,
city, and person, he would come, lest he be reproached by devils
and by men for coming from dark corner or from unknown ancestors.
No, his ancestors had to be great patriarchs, excellent kings,
and outstanding prophets, who bear witness to him.
We have already stated
how the Jews, with few exceptions, viewed such promises and
prophets. They were never able to tolerate a prophet, and always
persecuted Gods word and declined to give ear to God. That
is the complaint and lament of all the prophets. And as their fathers
did, so they still do today, nor will they ever mend their ways.
If Isaiah, Jeremiah, or other prophets went about among them
today and proclaimed what they proclaimed in their day, or
declared that the Jews present circumcision and hope for
the Messiah are futile, they would again have to die at their
hands as happened then. Let him who is endowed with reason, to
say nothing of Christian understanding, note how arbitrarily they
pervert and twist the prophets books with their confounded
glosses, in violation of their own conscience (on which we can
perhaps say more later). For now that they can no longer stone or
kill the prophets physically or personally, they torment them
spiritually mutilate, strangle, and maltreat their beautiful
verses so that the human heart is vexed and pained. For this
forces us to see how, because of Gods wrath, they are
wholly delivered into the devils hands. In brief, they are
a prophet-murdering people; since they can no longer murder the
living ones, they must murder and torment the ones that are
dead.
Subsequently, after
they have scourged, crucified, spat upon, blasphemed, and cursed
God in his word, as Isaiah 8 prophesies, they pretentiously trot
out their circumcision and other vain, blasphemous, invented, and
meaningless works. They presume to be Gods only people, to
condemn all the world, and they expect that their arrogance and
boasting will please God, that he should repay them with a
Messiah of their own choosing and prescription. Therefore, dear
Christian, be on your guard against such accursed, in corrigible
people, from whom you can learn no more than to give God and his
word the lie, to blaspheme, to pervert, to murder prophets, and
haughtily and proudly to despise all people on earth. Even if God
would be willing to disregard all their other sins which, of
course, is impossible he could not condone such ineffable
(although poor and wretched) pride. For he is called a God of the
humble, as Isaiah 66:2 states: "But this is the man to whom
I will look. he that is humble and contrite in spirit, and
trembles at my word." I have said enough about the second
false boast of the Jews, namely, their false and futile
circumcision, which did not avail them when they were taken to
task by Moses and by Jeremiah because of their uncircumcised
heart. How much less is it useful now when it is nothing more
than the devils trickery with which he mocks and fools
them, as he also does the Turks. For wherever Gods word is
no longer present, circumcision is null and void.
In the third place,
they are very conceited because God spoke with them and issued
them the law of Moses on Mount Sinai. Here we arrive at the right
spot, here God really has to let himself be tortured, here he
must listen as they tire him with their songs and praises because
he hallowed them with his holy law, set them apart from other
nations, and led them out of Egypt. Here we poor Goyim are really
despised, and are mere ciphers compared to the holy, chosen,
noble, and highly exalted people which is in possession of
Gods word! They state, as I myself heard: "Indeed,
what do you have to say to this - that God himself spoke with us
on Mount Sinai and that he did this with no other people?"
We have nothing with which to refute that, for we cannot deny
them this glory. The books of Moses are ready to give proof of
it, and David, too, testifies to it, saying in Psalm 147:19:
"He declares his word to Jacob, his statutes and ordinances
to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation; they do
not know his ordinances." And in Psalm 103:7: "He made
known his ways to Moses, his acts to the people of Israel."
They relate that the
chiefs of the people wore wreaths at Mount Sinai at that time as
a symbol that they had contracted a marriage with God through the
law, that they had become his bride, and that the two had wedded
one another. Later we read in all the prophets how God appears
and talks with the children of Israel as a husband with his wife.
From this also sprang the peculiar worship of Baal; for
"Baal" denotes a man of the house or a master of the
house, "Beulah" denotes a housewife. The latter also
has taken a German form, as when we say "My dear Buhle"
[sweetheart], and "I must have a Buhle."
Formerly this was an inoffensive term, designating a young lass.
It was said that a young man courted [buhlte] a young girl
with a view to marriage. Now the word has assumed a different
connotation.
Now we challenge you,
Isaiah, Jeremiah, and all the prophets, and whoever will, to come
and to be bold enough to say that such a noble nation with whom
God himself converses and with whom he himself enters into
marriage through the law, and to whom he joins himself as to a
bride, is not Gods people. Anyone doing that, I know, would
make himself ridiculous and come to grief. In default of any
other weapons, they would tear and bite him to pieces with their
teeth for trying to dispossess them of such glory, praise, and honor.
One can neither express nor understand the obstinate, unbridled,
incorrigible arrogance of this people, springing from this
advantage - that God himself spoke to them. No prophet has ever
been able to raise his voice in protest or stand up against them,
not even Moses. For in Numbers 16, Korah arose and asserted that
they were all holy people of God, and asked why Moses alone
should rule and teach. Since that time, the majority of them have
been genuine Korahites; there have been very few true Israelites.
For just as Korah persecuted Moses, they have never subsequently
left a prophet alive or unpersecuted, much less have they obeyed
him.
So it became apparent
that they were a defiled bride, yes, an incorrigible whore and an
evil slut with whom God ever had to wrangle, scuffle, and fight.
If he chastised and struck them with his word through the
prophets, they contradicted him, killed his prophets, or, like a
mad dog, bit the stick with which they were struck.. Thus Psalm
95:10 declares: "For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, They are a people who err in heart, and they do
not regard my ways." And Moses himself says in
Deuteronomy 31:27: "For I know how rebellious and stubborn
you are; behold, while I am yet alive with you, today you have
been rebellious against the Lord; how much more after my
death!" And Isaiah 48:4: "Because I know that you are
obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass...
." And so on; anyone who is interested may read more of
this. The Jews are well aware that the prophets upbraided the
children of Israel from beginning to end as a disobedient, evil
people and as the vilest whore, although they boasted so much of
the law of Moses, or circumcision, and of their ancestry.
But it might be
objected: Surely, this is said about the wicked Jews, not about
the pious ones as they are today. Well and good, for the present
I will be content if they confess, as they must confess, that the
wicked Jews cannot be Gods people, and that their lineage,
circumcision, and law of Moses cannot help them. Why, then, do
they all, the most wicked as well as the pious, boast of
circumcision, lineage, and law? The worse a Jew is, the more
arrogant he is, solely because he is a Jew - that is, a person
descended from Abrahams seed, circumcised, and under the law
of Moses. David and other pious Jews were not as conceited as the
present-day, incorrigible Jews. However wicked they may be, they
presume to be the noblest lords over against us Gentiles, just by
virtue of their lineage and law. Yet the law rebukes them as the
vilest whores and rogues under the sun.
Furthermore, if they
are pious Jews and not the whoring people, as the prophets call
them, how does it happen that their piety is so concealed that
God himself is not aware of it, and they are not aware of it
either? For they have, as we said, prayed, cried, and suffered
almost fifteen hundred years already, and yet God refuses to
listen to them. We know from Scripture that God will hear the
prayers or sighing of the righteous, as the Psalter says [Ps.
145:19]: "He fulfills the desire of all who fear him, he
also hears their cry." And Psalm 34:17: "When the
righteous cry for help, the Lord hears." As he promised in
Psalm 50:15: "Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will
deliver you." The same is found in many more verses of the
Scripture. If it were not for these, who would or could pray? In
brief, he says in the first commandment that he will be their
God. Then, how do you explain that he will not listen to these
Jews? They must assuredly be the base, whoring people, that is,
no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and
law must be accounted as filth. If there were a single pious Jew
among them who observed these, he would have to be heard; for God
cannot let his saints pray in vain, as Scripture demonstrates by
many examples. This is conclusive evidence that they cannot be
pious Jews, but must be the multitude of the whoring and
murderous people.
Such piety is, as
already has been said, so concealed among them that they
themselves also can know nothing of it. How then shall God know
of it? For they are full of malice, greed, envy, hatred toward
one another, pride, usury, conceit, and curses against us
Gentiles. Therefore, a Jew would have to have very sharp eyes to
recognize a pious Jew, to say nothing of the fact that they all
should be Gods people as they claim. For they surely hide
their piety effectively under their manifest vices; and yet they
all, without exception, claim to be Abrahams blood, the
people of the circumcision and of Moses, that is, Gods
nation, compared with whom the Gentiles must surely be sheer
stench. Although they know that God cannot tolerate this, nor did
he tolerate it among the angels, yet he should and must listen to
their lies and blasphemies to the effect that they are his people
by virtue of the law he gave them and because he conversed with
their forefathers at Mount Sinai.
Why should one make
many words about this? If the boast that God spoke with them and
that they possess his word or commandment were sufficient so that
God would on this basis regard them as his people, then the
devils in hell would be much worthier of being Gods people
than the Jews, yes, than any people. For the devils have
Gods word and know far better than the Jews that there is a
God who created them, whom they are obliged to love with all
their heart, to honor, fear, and serve, whose name they dare not
misuse, whose word they must hear on the Sabbath and at all
times; they know that they are forbidden to murder or to inflict
harm on any creature. But what good does it do them to know and
to possess Gods commandment? Let them boast that this makes
them Gods own special, dear angels, in comparison with whom
other angels are nothing! How much better off they would be if
they did not have Gods commandment or if they were ignorant
of it. For if they did not have it, they would not be condemned.
The very reason for their condemnation is that they possess his
commandment and yet do not keep it, but violate it
constantly.
In the same manner
murderers and whores, thieves and rogues and all evil men might
boast that they are Gods holy, peculiar people; for they,
too, have his word and know that they must fear and obey him,
love and serve him, honor his name, refrain from murder,
adultery, theft, and every other evil deed. If they did not have
Gods holy and true word, they could not sin. But since they
do sin and are condemned, it is certain that they do have the
holy, true word of God, against which they sin. Let them boast,
like the Jews, that God has sanctified them through his law and
chosen them above all other men as a peculiar people!
It is the same kind of
boasting when the Jews boast in their synagogues, praising and
thanking God for sanctifying them through his law and setting
them apart as a peculiar people, although they know full well
that they are not at all observing this law, that they are full
of conceit, envy, usury, greed, and all sorts of malice. The
worst offenders are those who pretend to be very devout and holy
in their prayers. They are so blind that they not only practice
usury not to mention the other vices but they teach that it is a
right which God conferred on them through Moses. Thereby, as in
all the other matters, they slander God most infamously. However,
we lack the time to dwell on that now.
But when they declare
that even if they are not holy because of the Ten Commandments
(since all Gentiles and devils are also duty-bound to keep these,
or else are polluted and condemned on account of them) they still
have the other laws of Moses, besides the Ten Commandments, which
were given exclusively to them and not also to the Gentiles, and
by which they are sanctified and singled out from all other
nations - O Lord God, what a lame, loose, and vain excuse and
pretext this is! If the Ten Commandments are not obeyed, what
does the keeping of the other laws amount to other than mere
jugglery and mummery, indeed, a veritable mockery which treats
God as a fool. It is just as if an evil, devilish fellow among us
were to parade about in the garb of a pope, cardinal, bishop, or
pastor and observe all the precepts and the ways of these
persons, but underneath this spiritual dress would be a genuine
devil, a wolf, an enemy of the church, a blasphemer who trampled
both the gospel and the Ten Commandments under foot and cursed
and damned them. What a fine saint he would be in Gods
sight!
Or let us suppose that
somewhere a pretty girl came along, adorned with a wreath, and
observed all the manners, the duties, the deportment and
discipline of a chaste virgin, but underneath was a vile,
shameful whore, violating the Ten Commandments. What good would
her fine obedience in observing outwardly all the duties and
customs of a virgins station do her? It would help her this
much - that one would be seven times more hostile to her than to
an impudent, public whore. Thus God constantly chided the
children of Israel through the prophets, calling them a vile
whore because, under the guise and decor of external laws and
sanctity, they practiced all sorts of idolatry and villainy, as
especially Hosea laments in chapter 2.
To be sure, it is
commendable when a pious virgin or woman is decently and cleanly
dressed and adorned and outwardly conducts herself with modesty.
But if she is a whore, her garments, adornments, wreath, and
jewels would better befit a sow that wallows in the mire. As Solomon
says [Prov. 11:22]: "Like a gold ring in a swines
snout is a beautiful woman without discretion." That is to
say, she is a whore. Therefore, this boast about the external
laws of Moses, apart from obedience to the Ten Commandments,
should be silenced; indeed, this boast makes the Jews seven times
more unworthy to be Gods people than the Gentiles are. For
the external laws were not given to make a nation the people of
God, but to adorn and enhance Gods people externally. Just
as the Ten Commandments were not given that any might boast of
them and haughtily despise all the world because of them, as if
they were holy and Gods people because of them; rather they
were given to be observed, and that obedience to God might be
shown in them, as Moses and all the prophets most earnestly
teach. Not he who has them shall glory, as we saw in the instance
of the devils and of evil men, but he who keeps them. He who has
them and fails to keep them must be ashamed and terrified because
he will surely be condemned by them.
But this subject is
beyond the ken of the blind and hardened Jews. Speaking to them
about it is much the same as preaching the gospel to a sow. They
cannot know what Gods commandment really is, much less do
they know how to keep it. After all, they could not listen to Moses,
nor look into his face; he had to cover it with a veil. This veil
is there to the present day, and they still do not behold Moses
face, that is, his doctrine. It is still veiled to them [cf. II
Cor. 3:13 ff.; Exod. 34:33 ff.]. Thus they could not hear
Gods word on Mount Sinai when he talked to them, but they
retreated, saying to Moses: "You speak to us, and we will
hear; but let not God speak to us, lest we die" [Exod.
20:19]. To know Gods commandment and to know how to keep it
requires a high prophetic understanding.
Moses was well aware
of that when he said in Exodus 34 that God forgives sin and that
no one is guiltless before him, which is to say that no one keeps
his commandments but he whose sins God forgives. As David also
testifies in Psalm 32:1, "Blessed is he whose transgression
is forgiven, ... to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity." And
in the same psalm [cf. v. 6]: "Therefore let every one who
is godly offer prayer to thee for forgiveness," which means
that no saint keeps Gods commandments. But if the saints
fail to keep them, how will the ungodly, the unbelievers, the
evil people keep them? Again we read in Psalm 143:2: "O
Lord, enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no man living
is righteous before thee." That attests clearly enough that
even the holy servants of God are not justified before him unless
he sets aside his judgment and deals with them in his mercy; that
is, they do not keep his commandments and stand in need of
forgiveness of sins.
This calls for a Man
who will assist us in this, who bears our sin for us, as Isaiah
53:6 says: "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us
all." Indeed, that is truly to understand Gods law and
its observance - when we know, recognize, yes, and feel that we
have it, but do not keep it and cannot keep it; that in view of
this, we are poor sinners and guilty before God; and that it is
only out of pure grace and mercy that we receive forgiveness for
such guilt and disobedience through the Man on whom God has laid
this sin. Of this we Christians speak and this we teach, and of
this the prophets and apostles speak to us and teach us. They are
the ones who were and still are our Gods bride and pure
virgin; and yet they boast of no law or holiness as the Jews do
in their synagogues. They rather wail over the law and cry for
mercy and forgiveness of sins. The Jews, on the other hand, are
as holy as the barefoot friars who possess so much excess
holiness that they can use it to help others to get to heaven,
and still retain a rich and abundant supply to sell. It is of no
use to speak to any of them about these matters, for their
blindness arrogance are as solid as an iron mountain. They are in
the right; God is in the wrong. Let them go their way, and let us
remain with those who pray the Miserere, Psalm 51, that
is, with those who know and understand what the law is, and what
it means to keep and not to keep it.
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, and, despite this, boast
haughtily over against the Gentiles - who really are much better
before God than they, since they do not have such pride of
holiness and yet keep far more of the law than these arrogant
saints and damned blasphemers and liars.
Therefore be on your
guard against the Jews, knowing that wherever they have their
synagogues, nothing is found but a den of devils in-which sheer
self-glory, conceit, lies, blasphemy, and defaming of God and men
are practiced most maliciously and vehming his eyes on them.
Gods wrath has consigned them to the presumption that their
boasting, their conceit, their slander of God, their cursing of
all people are a true and a great service rendered to God - all
of which is very fitting and becoming to such noble blood of the
fathers and circumcised saints. This they believe despite the
fact that they know they are steeped in manifest vices mently,
just as the devils themselves do. And where you see or hear a Jew
teaching, remember that you are hearing nothing but a venomous
basilisk who poisons and kills people merrily by fasten- And with
all this, they claim to be doing right. Be on your guard against
them!
In the fourth place,
34 they pride themselves tremendously on having received the land
of Canaan, the city of Jerusalem, and the temple from God. God
has often squashed such boasting and arrogance, especially
through the king of Babylon, who led them away into captivity and
destroyed everything (just as the king of Assyria earlier had led
all of Israel away and had laid everything low). Finally they
were exterminated and devastated by the Romans over fourteen
hundred years ago - so that they might well perceive that God did
not regard, nor will regard, their country, city, temple,
priesthood, or principality, and view them on account of these as
his own peculiar people. Yet their iron neck, as Isaiah calls it
[Isa. 48:4] is not bent, nor is their brass forehead red with
shame. They remain stone-blind, obdurate, immovable, ever hoping
that God will restore their homeland to them and give everything
back to them.
Moses had informed
them a great many times, first, that they were not occupying the
land because their righteousness exceeded that of other heathen
for they were a stubborn, evil disobedient people and second,
that they would soon be expelled from the land and perish if they
did not keep Gods commandments. And when God chose the city
of Jerusalem he added very clearly in the writings of all the
prophets that he would utterly destroy this city of Jerusalem,
his seat and throne, if they would not keep his commandments.
Furthermore, when Solomon had built the temple, had sacrificed
and prayed to God, God said to him (I Kings 9:3), "I have
heard your prayer and your supplications ... I have consecrated
this house," etc.; but then he added shortly thereafter:
"But if you turn aside from following me ... and do not keep
my commandments ... then I will cut off Israel from the land
which I have given them; and the house which I have consecrated
for my name I will cast out of my sight; and Israel will become a
proverb and a byword among all peoples." With an utter
disregard for this, they stood and still stand, firm as a rock or
as an inert stone image, insisting that God gave them country,
city, and temple, and that therefore they have to be Gods
people or church.
They neither hear nor
see that God gave them all of this that they might keep his
commandments, that is, regard him as their God, and thus be his
people and church. 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. They boast of their circumcision; but why they are
circumcised namely, that they should keep Gods commandments
counts for nought. They are quick to boast of their law, temple,
worship, city, land and government; but why they possess all of
this, they disregard.
The devil with all his
angels has taken possession of this people, so that they always
exalt external things their gifts, their deeds, their works
before God, which is tantamount to offering God the empty shells
without the kernels. These they expect God to esteem and by
reason of them accept them as his people, and exalt and bless
them above all Gentiles. But that he wants his laws observed and
wants to be honored by them as God, this they do not want to
consider. Thus the words of Moses are fulfilled when he says
[Deut. 32:21] that God will not regard them as his people, since
they do not regard him as their God. Hosea 2 [cf. 1:9] expresses
the same thought.
Indeed, if God had not
allowed the city of Jerusalem to be destroyed and had them driven
out of their country, but had permitted them to remain there, no
one could have convinced them that they are not Gods
people, since they would still be in possession of temple, city,
and country regardless of how base, disobedient, and stubborn
they were. [They would not have believed it] even if it had
snowed nothing but prophets daily and even if a thousand Moseses
had stood up and shouted: "You are not Gods people,
because you are disobedient and rebellious to God." Why,
even today they cannot refrain from their nonsensical, insane
boasting that they are Gods people, although they have been
cast out, dispersed, and utterly rejected for almost fifteen
hundred years. By virtue of their own merits they still hope to
return there again. But they have no such promise with which they
could console themselves other than what their false imagination
smuggles into Scripture.
Our apostle St. Paul
was right when he said of them that "they have a zeal for
God, but it is not enlightened," etc. [Rom. 10:2]. They
claim to be Gods people by reason of their deeds, works,
and external show, and not because of sheer grace and mercy, as
all prophets and all true children of God have to be, as was
said. Therefore they are beyond counsel and help. In the same way
as our papists, bishops, monks, and priests, together with their
following, who insist that they are Gods people and church;
they believe that God should esteem them because they are
baptized, because they have the name, and because they rule the
roost. There they stand like a rock. If a hundred thousand
apostles came along and said: "You are not the church
because of your behavior or your many doings and divine services,
even though these were your best efforts; no, you must despair of
all this and adhere simply and solely to the grace and mercy of
Christ, etc. If you fail to do this, you are the devils
whore or a school of knaves and not the church," they would
wish to murder, burn at the stake, or banish such apostles. As
for believing them and abandoning their own devices, of this
there is no hope; it will not happen.
The Turks follow the
same pattern with their worship, as do all fanatics. Jews, Turks,
papists, radicals abound everywhere. All of them claim to be the
church and Gods people in accord with their conceit and
boast, regardless of the one true faith and the obedience to
Gods commandments through which alone people become and
remain Gods children. Even if they do not all pursue the
same course, but one chooses this way, another that way,
resulting in a variety of forms, they nonetheless all have the
same intent and ultimate goal, namely, by means of their own
deeds they want to manage to become Gods people. And thus
they boast and brag that they are the ones whom God will esteem.
They are the foxes of Samson which are tied together tail to tail
but whose heads turn away in different directions [cf. Judg.
15:4].
But as we noted
earlier, that is beyond the comprehension of the Jews, as well as
of the Turks and papists. As St. Paul says in [I Corinthians 1,
"The unspiritual man does not receive the gifts of the
Spirit of God, because they are spiritually discerned" [I
Cor. 2:14]. Thus the words of Isaiah 6:9 come true: "Hear
and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not
perceive." For they do not know what they hear, see, say, or
do. And yet they do not concede that they are blind and
deaf.
Part IV:
That shall be enough
about the false boast and pride of the Jews, who would move God
with sheer lies to regard them as his people. Now we come to the
main subject, their asking God for the Messiah. Here at last they
show themselves as true saints and pious children. At this point
they certainly do not want to be accounted liars and blasphemers
but reliable prophets, asserting that the Messiah has not yet
come but will still appear. Who will take them to task here for
their error or mistake? Even if all the angels and God himself
publicly declared on Mount Sinai or in the temple in Jerusalem
that the Messiah had come long ago and that he was no longer to
be expected, God himself and all the angels would have to be
considered nothing but devils. So convinced are these most holy
and truthful prophets that the Messiah has not yet appeared but
will still come. Nor will they listen to us. 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. Yet they rave
consciously against recognized truth. Their accursed rabbis, who
in deed know better, wantonly poison the minds of their poor
youth and of the common man and divert them from the truth. For I
believe that if these writings were read by the common man and
the youth they would stone all their rabbis and hate them more
violently than they do us Christians. But these villains prevent
our sincere views from coming to their attention.
If I had not had the
experience with my papists, it would have seemed incredible to me
that the earth should harbor such base people who knowingly fly
in the face of open and manifest truth, that is, of God himself.
For I never expected to encounter such hardened minds in any
human breast, but only in that of the devil. However, I am no
longer amazed by either the Turks or the Jews
blindness, obduracy, and malice, since I have to witness the same
thing in the most holy fathers of the church, in pope, cardinals,
and bishops. O you terrible wrath and incomprehensible judgment
of the sublime Divine Majesty! How can you be so despised by the
children of men that we do not forthwith tremble to death before
you? What an unbearable sight you are, also to the hearts and
eyes of the holiest men, as we see in Moses and the prophets. Yet
these stony hearts and iron souls mock you so defiantly.
However, although we
perhaps labor in vain on the Jews for I said earlier that I
dont want to dispute with them we nonetheless want to
discuss their senseless folly among ourselves, for the
strengthening of our faith and as a warning to weak Christians
against the Jews, and, chiefly, in honor of God, in order to
prove that our faith is true and that they are entirely mistaken
on the question of the Messiah. We Christians have our New
Testament, which furnishes us reliable and adequate testimony
concerning the Messah. That the Jews do not believe it does not
concern us; we believe their accursed glosses still less. We let
them go their way and wait for their Messiah. Their unbelief does
not harm us; but as to the help they derive and to date have
derived from it, they may ask of their long-enduring exile. That
will, in deed, supply the answer for us. Let him who will not
follow lag behind. They act as though they were of great
importance to us. Just to vex us, they corrupt the sayings of
Scripture. We do not at all desire or require their conversion
for any advantage, usefulness, or help accruing to us there from.
All that we do in this regard is prompted rather by a concern for
their welfare. If they do not want it, they can disregard it; we
are excused and can easily dispense with them, together with all
that they are, have, and can do for salvation. We have a better
knowledge of Scripture, thanks be to God; this we are certain of,
and all the devils shall never deprive us of it, much less the
miserable Jews.
First we want to
submit the verse found in Genesis 49:10: "The scepter shall
not depart from Judah... until Shiloh comes, and to him
shall be the obedience of the peoples." This saying of the
holy patriarch Jacob, spoken at the very end of his life, has
been tortured and crucified in many ways down to the present day
by the modern, strange Jews, in violation of their own
conscience. For they realize fully that their twisting and
perverting is nothing but wanton mischief. Their glosses remind
me very much of an evil, stubborn shrew who clamorously
contradicts her husband and insists on having the last word
although she knows she is in the wrong. Thus these blinded people
also suppose that it suffices to bark and to prattle against the
text and its true meaning; they are entirely indifferent to the
fact that they are lying impudently. I believe they would be
happier if this verse had never been written rather than that
they should change their mind. This verse pains them intensely,
and they cannot ignore it.
The ancient, true Jews
understood this verse correctly, as we Christians do, namely,
that the government or scepter should remain with the tribe of
Judah until the advent of the Messiah; then "to him shall be
the obedience of the peoples," to him they will adhere. That
is, the scepter shall then not be confined to the tribe of Judah,
but, as the prophets later explain, it shall be extended to all
peoples on earth at the time of the Messiah. However, until he
appears, the scepter shall remain in that small nook and corner, Judah.
That, I say, is the understanding of the prophets and of the
ancient Jews; this they cannot deny. For also their Chaldaean
Bible, which they dare oppose as little as the Hebrew Bible
itself, shows this clearly.
In translation it
reads thus: "The shultan shall not be put away from the
house of Judah nor the saphra from his childrens children
eternally until the Messiah comes, whose is the kingdom, and the
peoples will make themselves obedient to him." This is a
true and faithful translation of the Chaldaean text, as no Jew or
devil can deny.
For Moses Hebrew
term shebet ["scepter"] we use the word Zepter
in German, whereas the Chaldaean translator chooses the word shultan.
Let us explain these words. The Hebrew shebet is the designation
for a virga; it is really not a rod in the usual sense, for this
term suggests to the German the thought of birch switches with
which children are punished. Nor is it a staff used by invalids
and the aged for walking. But it designates a mace held upright,
such as a judge holds in his hand when he acts in his official
capacity. As luxury increased in the world, this mace was made of
silver or of gold. Now it is called a scepter, that is, a royal
rod. Skeptron is a Greek word, but it has now been taken
up into the German language. In his first book, Homer describes
his King Achilles as having a wooden scepter adorned with small
silver nails. From this we learn what scepters originally were
and how they gradually came to be made entirely of silver and
gold. In brief, it is the rod, whether of silver, wood, or gold,
carried by a king or his representative. It symbolizes nothing
other than do minion or kingdom. Nobody questions this.
To make it very clear:
the Chaldaean translator does not use the word shebet,
mace or scepter; but he substitutes the person who bears this
rod, saying shultan, indicating that a prince, lord, or king
shall not depart from the house of Judah; there shall be a sultan
in the house of Judah until the Messiah comes. "Sultan"
is also a Hebrew term, and a word well known to us Christians,
who have waged war for more than six hundred years against the
sultan of Egypt, and have gained very little to show for it. For
the Saracens call their king or prince "sultan,"
that is, lord or ruler or sovereign. From this the Hebrew word schilt
is derived, which has become a thoroughly German word (Schild
["shield"]). It is as though one wished to say that a
prince or lord must be his subjects shield, protection, and
defense, if he is to be a true judge, sultan, or lord, etc. Some
people even try to trace the German term Schultheiss
["village mayor"] back to the word "sultan";
I shall not enter into this.
Saphra is the
same as the Hebrew sopher (for Chaldee and Hebrew are closely
related, indeed they are almost identical, just as Saxons and Swabians
both speak German, but still there is a great difference). The
word sopher we commonly translate into the German by means of Kanzler
["chancellor"]. Everyone, including Burgensis,
translates the word saphra with scriba or scribe. These people
are called scribes in the Gospel. They are not ordinary scribes
who write for wages or without official authority. They are
sages, great rulers, doctors and professors, who teach, order,
and preserve the law in the state. I suppose that it also
encompasses the chancelleries, parliaments, councillors, and all
who by wisdom and justice aid in governing. That is what Moses
wishes to express with the word mehoqeq, which designates
one who teaches, composes, and executes commands and decrees.
Among the Saracens, for instance, the sultans scribes or
secretaries, his doctors, teachers, and scholars, are those who
teach, interpret, and preserve the Koran as the law of the land.
In the papacy the popes scribes or saphra are the canonists
or jackasses who teach and preserve his decretals and laws. In
the empire the doctores legum, the secular jurists, are the
emperors saphra or scribes who teach, administer,
and preserve the imperial laws.
Thus Judah, too, had
scribes who taught and preserved the law of Moses, which was the
law of the land. Therefore we have translated the word mehoqeq
with "master," that is, doctor, teacher, etc. So this
passage, "The mehoqeq, i.e., master, will not be taken from
between his feet," means that teachers and listeners who sit
at their feet will remain in an orderly government. For every
country, if it is to endure, must have these two things: power
and law. The country, as the saying goes, must have a lord, a
head, a ruler. But it must also have a law by which the ruler is
guided. These are the mace and the mehoqeq, or sultan and saphra.
Solomon indicates this also, for when he had received the rod,
that is, the kingdom, he prayed only for wisdom so that he might
rule the people justly (I Kings 3). For wherever sheer power
prevails without the law, where the sultan is guided by his
arbitrary will and not by duty, there is no government, but
tyranny, akin to that of Nero, Caligula, Dionysius, Henry of
Brunswick, and their like. Such does not endure long. On the
other hand, where there is law but no power to enforce it, there
the wild mob will also do its will and no government can survive.
Therefore both must be present: law and power, sultan and saphra,
to supplement one another.
Thus the councillors
who gathered in Jerusalem and who were to come from the tribe of
Judah were the saphra; the Jews called them the Sanhedrin Herod,
a foreigner, an Edomite, did away with this, and he himself
became both sultan and saphra, mace and mehoqeq in the house of
Judah, lord and scribe. Then the saying of the patriarch began to
be fulfilled that Judah was no longer to retain the government or
the saphra. Now it was time for the Messiah to come and to occupy
his kingdom and sit on the throne of David forever, as Isaiah
9:6] prophesies. Therefore let us now study this saying of the
patriarch.
"Judah," he
declares, "your brothers shall praise you," etc. [Gen.
49:8]. This, it seems to me, requires no commentary; it states
clearly enough that the tribe of Judah will be honored above all
of his brothers and will enjoy the prerogative. The text
continues: "Your hand shall be on the neck of your
enemies," etc. This also declares plainly that the famous
and prominent tribe of Judah must encounter enemies and
opposition, but that all will end successfully and victoriously
for it. We continue: "Your fathers sons shall bow down
before you," etc. Again it is clear that this does not refer
to the captivity but to the rule over his brothers, all of which
was fulfilled in David. But not only did the tribe of Judah, in
David, become lord over his brothers; he also spread his rule
beyond, like a lion, forcing other nations into submission; for
instance the Philistines, the Syrians, the Moabites, the
Ammonites, the Edomites.
This is what he
praises in these beautiful words [Gen. 49:9]: "Judah is a
lions whelp; from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He
stooped down, he crouched as a lion, and as a lioness; who dares
to rise up against him? This is to say that he was enthroned and
established a kingdom which no one could overwhelm, though the
adjacent nations frequently and mightily tried to do so.
All right, up to this
point the patriarch has established, ordained, and confirmed the
kingdom, the sultan, the rod, the saphra in the tribe of Judah.
There Judah, the sultan, sits enthroned for his rule. What is to
happen now? This, he says: He shall remain thus until the Messiah
comes; that is, many will oppose him, at tempting to overthrow
and destroy the kingdom and simply make it disappear from the
earth. The histories of the kings and the prophets amply testify
that all the Gentile nations ever earnestly strove to do this.
And the patriarch himself declares, as we heard before, that Judah
must have its foes. For such is the course of events in the world
that wherever a kingdom or principality rises to a position of
might, envy will not rest until it is destroyed. All of history
illustrates this with numerous examples.
However, in this
instance the Holy Spirit states: This kingdom in the tribe of Judah
is mine, and no one shall take it from me, no matter how angry
and mighty he may be, even if the gates of hell should try. The
words will still prove true: Non auferetur, "It shall
not be taken away." You devils and Gentiles may say: Auferetur,
we shall put an end to it, we shall devour it, we shall silence
it, as Psalm 74 bemoans. But it shall remain undevoured, undevastated.
"The shebet or sultan shall not depart from the house of Judah,
nor the saphra from his childrens children," until the
shiloh or Messiah comes-no matter how you all rant and
rage.
And when he does
appear, the kingdom will become far different and still more
glorious. For since you would not tolerate the tribe of Judah in
a little, narrow corner, I shall change him into a truly strong
lion who will become sultan and saphra in all the world. I will
do this in such a way that he will not draw a sword nor shed a
drop of blood, but the nations will voluntarily and gladly submit
themselves to him and obey him. Such shall be his kingdom. For
after all, the kingdom and all things are his.
Approach the text,
both Chaldaean and Hebrew, with this understanding and this
thought, and I wager that your heart together with the letters
will surely tell you: By God! that is the truth, that is the
patriarchs meaning. And then consult the histories to
ascertain whether this has not happened and come to pass in this
way and still continues to do so. Again you will be compelled to
say: It is verily so. For it is undeniable that the sultan and saphra
remained with the tribe of Judah until Herods time, even if
it was at times feeble and was not maintained without the
opposition of mighty foes. Nevertheless, it was preserved. Under Herod
and after Herod, however, it fell into ruin and came to an end.
It was so completely destroyed that even Jerusalem, once the
throne-seat of the tribe of Judah, and the land of Canaan were
wiped out. Thus the verse was fulfilled which said that the
sultan has departed and the Messiah has come.
I do not have the time
at present to demonstrate what a rich fountainhead this verse is
and how the prophets drew so much information from it concerning
the fall of the Jews and the election of the Gentiles, about
which the modern Jews and bastards know nothing at all. But we
have clearly and forcefully seen from this verse that the Messiah
had to come at the time of Herod. The alternative would be to say
that God failed to keep his promise and, consequently, lied. No
one dare do that save the accursed devil and has servants, the
false bastards and strange Jews. They do this incessantly. In
their eyes God must be a liar. They claim that they are right
when they assert that the Messiah has not yet come, despite the
fact that God declared in very plain words that the Messiah would
come before the scepter had entirely departed from Judah. And
this scepter has been lost to Judah for almost fifteen hundred
years now. The clear words of God vouch for this, and so do the
visible effect and fulfillment of these same words.
What do you hope to
accomplish by engaging an obstinate Jew in a long dispute on
this? It is just as though you were to talk to an insane person
and prove to him that God created heaven and earth, according to
Genesis 1, pointing out heaven and earth to him with your hands,
and he would nevertheless prattle that these are not the heaven
and earth mentioned in Genesis 1, or that they were not heaven
and earth at all, but were called something else, etc. For this
verse, "The scepter shall not depart from Judah," etc.,
is as clear and plain as the verse, "God created heaven and
earth." And the fact that this scepter has been removed from
Judah for almost fifteen hundred years is as patent and manifest
as heaven and earth are, so that one can readily perceive that
the Jews are not simply erring and misled but that they are
maliciously and willfully denying and blaspheming the recognized
truth in violation of their conscience. Nobody should consider
such a person worthy of wasting a single word on him, even if it
dealt with Markolf the mockingbird, much less if it deals with
such exalted divine words and works.
But if anyone is
tempted to become displeased with me, I will serve his purpose
and give him the Jews glosses on this text. First I will
present those who do not dismiss this text but adhere to it,
particularly to the Chaldaean version, which no sensible Jew can
deny. These twist and turn as follows: To be sure, they say,
Gods promise is certain; but our sins prevent the fulfillment
of the promise. Therefore we still look forward to it until we
have atoned, etc. Is this not an empty pretext, even a
blasphemous one? As if Gods promise rested on our
righteousness, or fell with our sins! That is tantamount to
saying that God would have to become a liar because of our sin,
and conversely, that he would have to become truthful again by
reason of our righteousness. How could one speak more shamefully
of God than to imply that he is a shaking reed which is easily
swayed back and forth either by our falling down or standing
up?
If God were not to
make a promise or keep a promise until we were rid of sin, he
would have been unable to promise or do anything from the very
beginning. As David says in Psalm 130:3: "If thou, O Lord, shouldst
mark iniquity, Lord, who could stand?" And in Psalm 102
[143:2]: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant; for no
man living is righteous before thee." And there are many
more such verses. The example of the children of Israel in the
wilderness can be cited here. God led them into the land of Canaan
without any righteousness on their part, in fact, with their
great sins and shame, solely on account of his promise. In
Deuteronomy 9:5 Moses says: "Know therefore that the Lord
your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of
your righteousness; for you are a stubborn and a disobedient
people (it seems to me that this may indeed be called sin), but
because of the promise which the Lord gave to your fathers,"
etc. By way of example he often wanted to exterminate them, but Moses
interceded for them. So little was Gods promise based upon
their holiness.
It is true that
wherever God promises anything conditionally, or with
reservation, saying: "If you will do that, I will do
this," then the fulfillment is contingent on our action; for
instance, when he declared to Solomon [I Kings 9], "If you
will keep my statutes and my ordinances, then this house shall be
consecrated to me; if not, I shall destroy it." However, the
promise of the Messiah is not thus conditional. For he does not
say: "If you will do this or that, then the Messiah will
come; if you fail to do it, he will not come." But he
promises him unconditionally, saying: "The Messiah will come
at the time when the scepter has departed from Judah." Such
a promise is based only on divine truth and grace, which ignores
and disregards our doings. That renders this subterfuge of the
Jews inane, and, moreover, very blasphemous.
The others who depart
from this text subject almost every single word of it to severe
and violent misinterpretation. They really do not deserve to have
their drivel and filth heard; still, in order to expose their
disgrace we must exercise a bit of patience and also listen to
their nonsense. For since they depart from the clear meaning of
the text, they already stand condemned by their own conscience,
which would constrain them to heed the text; but to vex us, they
conjure up the Hebrew words before our eyes, as though we were
not conversant with the Chaldaean text.
Some engage in
fantasies here and say that Shiloh refers to the city of that
name, where the ark of the covenant was kept (Judges 21 [cf. I
Sam. 4:3]), so that the meaning would be that the scepter shall
not depart from Judah until Shiloh comes, that is, until Saul is
anointed king of Shiloh. That is surely foolish prattle. Prior to
King Saul not only did Judah have no scepter, but neither did all
of Israel. How, then, can it have departed when Saul became king?
The text declares that Judah had first been lord over his
brothers and that he then became a lion, and therefore received
the scepter. Likewise, before Sauls time no judge was lord
or prince over the people of Israel, as we gather from
Gideons speech to the people in reply to their wish that he
and his descendants rule over them: "I will not rule over
you, and my son will not rule over you; the Lord will rule over
you" (Judges 7 [8:23]). Nor was there a judge from the tribe
of Judah, except perhaps for Othniel [Judg. 3:9], Joshuas
immediate successor. All the others down to Saul were from the
other tribes. And although Othniel is called Calebs
youngest brother, this does not prove that he was of the tribe of
Judah, since he may have had a different father. And it does not
make sense that Shiloh should here refer to a city or to Sauls
coronation in Shiloh, for Saul was anointed by Samuel in Ramath
(I Samuel 10) and confirmed at Gilgal.
In any case, what is
the meaning of the Chaldaean text which says that the kingdom
belongs to Shiloh and that nations shall be subject to it? When
was the city of Shiloh or Saul ever accorded such an honor? Israel
is one nation, not many, with one body of laws, one divine
worship, one name. There are many nations, however, which have different
and various laws, names, and gods. Now Jacob declares that not
the one nation Israel which was already his or was under Judahs
scepter but other nations would fall to Shiloh. Therefore this
foolish talk reflects nothing other than the great stubbornness
of the Jews, who will not submit to this saying of Jacob,
although they stand convicted by their own conscience.
Others indulge in the
fancy that Shiloh refers to King Jeroboam, who was crowned in
Shiloh, and to whom ten tribes of Israel had defected from Rehoboam,
the king of Judah (I Kings 12). Therefore, they say, this is Jacobs
meaning: The scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh,
that is, Jeroboam, comes. This is just as inane as the other
interpretation; for Jeroboam was not crowned in Shiloh but in Shechem
(I Kings 12). Thus the scepter did not depart from Judah, but the
kingdom of Judah remained, together with the tribe of Benjamin
and many of the children of Israel who dwelt in the cities of
these two tribes, as we hear in I Kings 12. Moreover, the entire
priesthood, worship, temple, and everything remained in Judah.
Furthermore, Jeroboam never conquered the kingdom of Judah, nor
did other nations fall to him, as they were to fall to Shiloh.
The third group
babbles thus: "Shiloh means sent, and this term
applies to Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon." So the meaning is
that the scepter shall not depart from Judah until Shiloh, that
is, the king of Babylon, comes. He was to lead Judah into exile
and destroy it. This also doesnt hold water, and a child
learning his letters can disprove it. For Shiloh and shiloch are
two different words. The latter may mean "sent." But
that is not the word found here; it is Shiloh, and that, as the Chaldee
says, means "Messiah." But the king of Babylon is not
the Messiah who is to come from Judah, as the Jews and all the
world know very well. Nor did the scepter depart from Judah even
though the Jews were led captive into Babylon. That was just a
punishment for seventy years. Also during this time great
prophets Jeremiah, Daniel, Ezekiel appeared who upheld the scepter
and said how long the exile would be. Furthermore, Jehoiachin,
the king of Judah, was regarded as a king in Babylon. And many of
those who were led away into captivity returned home again during
their lifetime (Haggai 2). This cannot be viewed as loss of the scepter,
but as a light flogging. Even if they were deprived of their
country for a while by way of punishment, God nonetheless pledged
his precious word that they could remain assured of their land.
But during the past fifteen hundred years not even a dog, much
less a prophet, has any assurance concerning the land. Therefore
the scepter has now definitely departed from Judah. I have
written more about this against the Sabbatarians.
The fourth group
twists the word shebet and interprets it to mean that the rod
will not depart from Judah until Shiloh, that is, his son, will
come, who will weaken the Gentiles. These regard the rod as the
punishment and exile in which they now live. But the Messiah will
come and slay all the Gentiles. That is humbug. It ignores the Chaldaean
text entirely something they may and dare not do and is a
completely arbitrary interpretation of the word shebet. They
overlook the preceding words in which Jacob makes Judah a prince
and a lion or a king, adding immediately thereafter that the scepter,
or shebet, shall not depart from Judah. How could such an odd
meaning about punishment follow right on the heels of such
glorious words about a principality or kingdom? The sins which
provoked such a punishment would have to have been proclaimed
first. But all that we find mentioned here are praise, honor, and
glory to the tribe of Judah.
And even if the word shebet
does designate a rod for punishment, how would that help them?
For the judges or the kings rod is also a rod of
punishment for the evildoers. Indeed, the rod of punishment
cannot be any but a judges or sultans rod, since the
right to administer punishment belongs solely to the authority
(Deuteronomy 32): Mihi vindicatam, "Vengeance is mine."
In any event, this meaning remains unshaken that the scepter or
rod of Judah shall remain even if this rod is one of punishment.
But this arbitrary interpretation of the rabbis points to a
foreign rod which does not rest in Judahs hand but on Judahs
back and is wielded by a foreign hand. Even if this meaning were
possible which it is not what would we do with the other passage
that speaks of the saphra or mehoqeq at his feet? This would then
also have to be a foreign lords mehoqeq and a foreign
nations feet. But since Jacob declares that it is to be Judah
and the mehoqeq of his feet, the other term, the rod, must also
represent the rule of his tribe.
Part V:
Some twist the word donec
("until") and try to make "be cause" (quia)
out of it. So they read: "The scepter of Judah will not
depart donec; that is, because (quia) the Messiah will
come." He who perpetrated this is a precious master, worthy
of being crowned with thistles. He reverses the correct order of
things in this manner: The Messiah will come, therefore the scepter
will remain. Jacob, however, first makes Judah a prince and a
lion to whom the scepter is assigned prior to the coming of the
Messiah; he then, in turn, will give it to the Messiah. Thus Judah
retains neither the principality nor the role of lion nor the scepter,
which Jacob assigned to him. Furthermore, the fool arbitrarily
makes out of the term "until" a new term,
"because." This, of course, the language does not
permit.
And finally there is a
rabbi who twists the word "come" and claims that it
means "to set," just as the Hebrew uses the word
"to come" for the setting of the sun. This fellow is
given to such nonsense that I am at a loss to know whether he is
trying to walk on his head or on his ears. For I fail to
understand the purport of his words when he says that the scepter
will not depart from Judah until Shiloh (the city) goes down
(sets). Then David, the Messiah, will come. Where, to repeat what
was said above, was the scepter of Judah prior to Shiloh or Saul?
But they who rage against their own conscience and patent truth must
needs speak such nonsense. In brief, Lyra is right when he says
that even if they invent these and many other similar glosses,
the Chaldaean text topples all of them and convicts them of being
willful liars, blasphemers, and perverters of Gods word.
However, I wanted to present this to us Germans so that we might
see what rascals the blind Jews are and how powerfully the truth
of God in our midst stands with us and against them.
And now that some have
noticed that such evasions and silly glosses are null and void,
they admit that the Messiah came at the time of the destruction
of Jerusalem; but, they say, he is in the world secretly, sitting
in Rome among the beggars and doing penance for the Jews until
the time for his public appearance is at hand. These are not the
words of Jews or of men but those of the arrogant, jeering devil,
who most bitterly and venomously mocks us Christians and our
Christ through the Jews, as if to say: "The Christians glory
much in their Christ, but they have to submit to the yoke of the
Romans; they must suffer and be beggars in the world, not only in
the days of the emperors, but also in those of the pope. After
all, they are impotent in my kingdom, the world, and I will
surely remain their master." Yes, vile devil, just mock and
laugh your fill over this now; you will still tremble enough for
it.
Thus the words of Jacob
fared very much the same as did these words of Christ in our day:
"This is my body which is given for you." The
enthusiasts distorted each word singly and collectively, putting
the last things first, rather than accept the true meaning of the
text, as we have observed. It is clear in this instance too that
Christians such as Lyra, Raymund, Burgensis, and others certainly
went to great lengths in an effort to convert the Jews. They
hounded them from one word to another, just as foxes are hunted
down. But after having been hounded a long time, they still
persisted in their obstinacy and now set to erring consciously,
and would not depart from their rabbis. Thus we must let them go
their way and ignore their malicious blasphemy and lying.
I once experienced
this myself. Three learned Jews came to me, hoping to discover a
new Jew in me because we were beginning to read Hebrew here in Wittenberg,
and remarking that matters would soon improve since we Christians
were starting to read their books. When I debated with them, they
gave me their glosses, as they usually do. But when I forced them
back to the text, they soon fled from it, saying that they were
obliged to believe their rabbis as we do the pope and the
doctors, etc. I took pity on them and give them a letter of
recommendation to the authorities, asking that for Christs
sake they let them freely go their way. But later, I found out
that they called Christ a tola, that is, a hanged highwayman.
Therefore I do not wish to have anything more to do with any Jew.
As St. Paul says, they are consigned to wrath; the more one tries
to help them the baser and more stubborn they become. Leave them
to their own devices.
We Christians,
however, can greatly strengthen our faith with this statement of
Jacob, assuring us that Christ is now present and that he has
been present for almost fifteen hundred years -- but not, as the
devil jeers, as a beggar in Rome; rather, as a ruling Messiah. If
this were not so, then Gods word and promise would be a
lie. If the Jews would only let Holy Scripture be Gods
word, they would also have to admit that there has been a Messiah
since the time of Herod (no matter where), rather than awaiting
another. But before doing this, they will rather tear and pervert
Scripture until it is no longer Scripture. And this is in fact
their situation: They have neither Messiah nor Scripture, just as
Isaiah 28 prophesied of them.
But may this suffice
on the saying of Jacob. Let us take another saying which the Jews
did not and cannot twist and distort in this way. In the last
words of David, we find him saying (II Samuel 23:2): "The
Spirit of the Lord speaks by me, his word is upon my tongue. The
God of Israel has spoken, the Rock of Israel ...." And a
little later [in v. 5]: "Does not my house stand so with
God?" Or, to translate it literally from the Hebrew:
"My house is of course not thus," etc. That is to say:
"My house is, after all, not worthy; this is too glorious a
thing and it is too much that God does all of this for a poor man
like me." "For he has made with me an everlasting
covenant, ordered in all things and secure." Note well how David
exults with so numerous and seemingly superfluous words that the
Spirit of God has spoken through him and that Gods word is
upon his tongue. Thus he says: "The God of Israel has
spoken, the Rock of Israel," etc. It is as if he were to
say: "My dear people, give ear. Whoever can hear, let him
hear. Here is God, who is speaking and saying,
Listen," etc. What is it, then, that you exhort
us to listen to? What is God saying through you? What does he
wish to say to you? What shall we hear?
This is what you are
to hear: that God made an everlasting, firm, and sure covenant
with me and my house, a covenant of which my house is not worthy.
Indeed, my house is nothing compared to God; and yet he did this.
What is this everlasting covenant? Oh, open your ears and listen!
My house and God have bound themselves together forever through
an oath. This is a covenant, a promise which must exist and
endure forever. For it is Gods covenant and pledge, which
no one shall or can break or hinder. My house shall stand
eternally; it is "ordered in all things and secure."
The word aruk ("ordered") conveys the meaning that it
will not disappoint or fail one in the least. Have you heard
this? And do you believe that God is truthful? Yes, without
doubt. My dear people, do you also believe that he can and will
keep his word?
Well and good, if God
is truthful and almighty and spoke these words through David
which no Jew dares to deny then Davids house and government
(which are the same thing) must have endured since the time he
spoke these words, and must still endure and will endure forever
that is, eternally. Otherwise, God would be a liar. In brief,
either we must have Davids house or heir, who reigns from
the time of David to the present and in eternity, or David died
as a flagrant liar to his last day, uttering these words (as it
seems) as so much idle chitchat: "God speaks, God says, God
promises." It is futile to join the Jews in giving God the
lie, saying that he did not keep these precious words and
promises. We must, I say, have an heir of David from his time
onward, in proof of the fact that his house has never stood empty
no matter where this heir may be. For his house must have been
continuous and must ever remain so. Here we find Gods word
that this is an everlasting, firm, and sure covenant, without a
flaw. but everything in it must be aruk, magnificently ordered,
as God orders all his work. Psalm 111:3: "Full of honor and
majesty in his work."
Now let the Jews
produce such an heir of David. For they must do so, since we read
here that Davids house is everlasting, a house that no one
will destroy or hinder, but rather as we also read here [II Sam.
23:4], it shall be like the sun shining forth, which no cloud can
hinder. If they are unable to present such an heir or house of David,
then they stand fully condemned by this verse, and they show that
they are surely without God, without David, without Messiah,
without everything, that they are lost and eternally condemned.
Of course, they cannot deny that the kingdom or house of David
endured uninterruptedly until the Babylonian captivity, even
throughout the Babylonian captivity, and following this to the
days of Herod. It endured, I say, not by its own power and merit
but by virtue of this everlasting covenant made with the house of
David. For most of their kings and rulers were evil, practicing
idolatry, killing the prophets, and living shamefully. For
example, Rehoboam, Joram, Joash, Ahaz, Manasseh, etc., surpassed
all the Gentiles or the kings of Israel in vileness. Because of
them, the house and tribe of David fully deserved to be
exterminated. That was what finally happened to the kingdom of Israel.
However, the covenant made with David remained in effect. The
books of the kings and of the prophets exultantly declare that
God preserved a lamp or a light to the house of David which he
would not permit to be extinguished. Thus we read in II Kings
8:19 and in II Chronicles 21:7: "Yet the Lord would not
destroy the house of David because of the covenant which he had
made with David, since he had promised to give a lamp to him and
to his sons forever." The same thought is expressed in II
Samuel 7:12.
By way of contrast,
look at the kingdom of Israel, where the rule never remained with
the same tribe or family beyond the second generation, with the
exception of Jehu [65] who by reason of a special promise carried
it into the fourth generation of his house. Otherwise it always
passed from one tribe to another, and at times scarcely survived
for one generation; moreover, it was not long until the kingdom
died out completely. But through the wondrous deeds of God the kingdom
of Judah remained within the tribe of Judah and the house of David.
It withstood strong opposition on the part of the Gentiles round
about, from Israel itself, from uprisings within, and from gross
idolatries and sins, so that it would not have been surprising if
it had perished in the third generation under Rehoboam, or at
least under Joram, Ahaz, and Manasseh. But it had a strong
Protector who did not let it die or let its light become
extinguished. The promise was given that it would remain firm,
eternally firm and secure. And so it has remained and must remain
down to the present and forever; for God does not and cannot
lie.
The Jews drivel that
the kingdom perished with the Babylonian captivity. As we said
earlier, this is empty talk; for this constituted but a short
punishment, definitely confined to a period of seventy years. God
had pledged his word for that. Moreover, he preserved them during
this time through splendid prophets. Furthermore, King Jehoiachin
was exalted above all the kings in Babylon, and Daniel and his
companions ruled not only over Judah and Israel but also over the
Babylonian Empire. [66] Even if their seat of government was not
in Jerusalem for a short span of time, they nonetheless ruled
elsewhere much more gloriously than in Jerusalem. Thus we may say
that the house of David did not be come extinct in Babylon but
shone more resplendently than in Jerusalem. They only had to
vacate their homeland for a while by way of punishment. For when
a king takes the field of a foreign country he cannot be regarded
as an ex-king because he is not in his home land, especially if
he is attended by great victory and good fortune against many
nations. Rather one should say that he is more illustrious abroad
than at home.
If God kept his
covenant from the time of David to that of Herod, preserving his
house from extinction, he must have kept it from that time on to
the present, and he will keep it eternally, so that Davids
house has not died and cannot die eternally. For we dare not
rebuke God as half truthful and half untruthful, saying that he
kept his covenant and preserved Davids house faithfully
from Davids time to that of Herod, but that after the time
of Herod he began to lie and to become deceitful, ignoring and
altering his covenant. No, for as the house of David remained and
shone up to Herods time, thus it had to remain under Herod
and after Herod, shining to eternity.
Now we note how nicely
this saying of David harmonizes with that of the patriarch Jacob:
"The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the mehoqeq
from his feet until Messiah comes, and to him shall be the
obedience of the peoples" [Gen. 49:10]. How can it be
expressed more clearly or differently that Davids house
will shine forth until the Messiah comes? Then, through him, the
house of David will shine not only over Judah and Israel but also
over the Gentiles, or over other and more numerous countries.
This indeed does not mean that it will become extinct, but that
it will shine farther and more lustrously than before his advent.
And thus, as David says, this is an eternal kingdom and an
eternal covenant. Therefore it follows most cogently from this
that the Messiah came when the scepter departed from Judah _
unless we want to revile God by saying that he did not keep his
covenant and oath. Even if the stiff-necked, stubborn Jews refuse
to accept this, at least our faith has been confirmed and
strengthened by it. We do not give a fig for their crazy glosses,
which they have spun out of their own heads. We have the clear
text.
These last words of David
to revert to them once more are founded on Gods own word,
where he says to him, as he here boasts at his end: "Would
you build me a house to dwell in?" (II Sam. 7 [:5]). You can
read what follows there_how God continues to relate that until
now he has lived in no house, but that he had chosen him [i.e.,
David] to be a prince over his people, to whom he would assign a
fixed place and grant him rest, concluding, "I will make you
a house" [cf. II Sam. 7:11]. That is to say: Neither ,you
nor anyone else will build me a house to dwell in; I am far, far
too great for that, as we read also in Isaiah 66. No, I will
build you a house. For thus says the Lord, as Nathan asserts:
"The Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a
house" [II Sam. 7:11]. Everyone is familiar with a house
built by man_ a very perishable structure fashioned of stone and
wood. But a house built by God means the establishing of the
father of a family who would ever after have heirs and
descendants of his blood and lineage. Thus Moses says in Exodus 1
[:21] that God built houses for the midwives because they did not
obey the kings command, but let the infants live and did
not kill them. On the other hand, he breaks down and extinguishes
the houses of the kings of Israel in the second generation.
Thus David has here a
secure house, built by God, which is to have heirs forever. It is
not a plain house; no, he says, "You shall be prince over my
people Israel" [II Sam. 7:8]. Therefore it shall be called a
princely, a royal house -- that is, the house of Prince David or
King David, in which your children shall reign forever and be
princes such as you are. The books and histories of the kings
prove this true, tracing it down to the time of Herod. Until that
time the scepter and saphra are in the tribe of Judah.
Now follows the second
theme, concerning Shiloh. How long shall my house thus stand and
how long shall my descendants rule? He answers thus [II Sam.
7:12-16]: "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down
with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you who
shall come forth from your body (utero -- that is, from your
flesh and blood), and I will establish his kingdom. He shall
build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his
kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son.
When he commits iniquity, I will chastise him with the rod of men
(as one whips children), with the stripes of the sons of men; but
I will not take my steadfast love from him, as I took it from Saul,
whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom
shall be made sure for ever before me; your throne shall be
established for ever." This statement is found almost
verbatim also in I Chronicles 18 [17:11-14], where you may read
it.
Whoever would refer
these verses to Solomon would indeed be an arbitrary interpreter.
For although Solomon was not yet born at this time, indeed the
adultery with his mother Bathsheba had not yet even been
committed, he is nonetheless not the seed of David born after
Davids death, of whom the text says, "When your days
are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up
your seed after you." For Solomon was born during Davids
lifetime. It would be foolish, yes, ridiculous, to say that the
term "raised up" here means that Solomon should be
raised up after Davids death to become king or to build the
house; for three other chapters (I Kings 1, I Chronicles 24 [28],
and I Chronicles 29) attest that Solomon was not only instated as
king during his fathers lifetime, but that he also received
command from his father David, as well as the entire plan of the
temple, of all the rooms, its detailed equipment, and the
organization of the whole kingdom. It is obvious that Solomon did
not build the temple or order the kingdom or the priesthood
according to his own plans but according to those of David, who
prescribed everything, in fact, already arranged it during his
lifetime.
There is also a great
discrepancy and a difference in words between II Samuel 7 and I
Chronicles 24 [28] and 29. The former states that God will build David
an eternal house, the latter that Solomon shall build a house in
Gods name. The former passage states without any condition
or qualification that it shall stand forever and be hindered by
no sin. The latter passage conditions its continuance on Solomons
and his descendants continued piety. Since he did not
remain pious, he not only lost the ten tribes of Israel but was
also exterminated in the seventh generation. The former is a promissio
gratiae ["a promise of grace"], the latter a promissio legis
["a promise of law"]. In the former passage David
thanks God that his house will stand forever, in the latter he
does not thank God that Solomons temple will stand forever.
In other words, the two passages refer to different times and to
different things and houses. And although God does call Solomon
his son in the latter also and says that he will be his father,
this promise is dependent on the condition that Solomon will
remain pious. Such a condition is not found in the former
passage. It is not at all rare that God calls his saints, as well
as the angels, his children. But the son mentioned in II Samuel
7:14 is a different and special son who will retain the kingdom
unconditionally and be hindered by no sin.
Also the prophets and
the psalms quote II Samuel 7, which speaks of Davids seed
after his death, whereas they pay no attention to I Chronicles 24
[28] and 29, which speak of Solomon. In Psalm 89 [:1-4] we read:
"I will sing of thy steadfast love, O Lord, for ever; with
my mouth I will proclaim thy faithfulness to all generations. For
thy steadfast love was established for ever, thy faithfulness is
firm as the heavens. Thou hast said, I have made a covenant
with my chosen one, I have sworn to David my servant: "I
will establish your descendants for ever, and build your throne
for all generations."" These too are clear words.
God vows and swears an oath to grant David his grace forever, and
to build and preserve his house, seed, and throne
eternally.
Later, in verse 19, we
have an express reference to the true David. This verse contains
the most beautiful prophecies of the Messiah, which cannot apply
to Solomon. For he was not the sovereign of all kings on earth,
nor did his rule extend over land and sea. These facts cannot be
glossed over. Furthermore, the kingdom did not remain with Solomons
house. He had no absolute promise with regard to this, but only a
promise conditional on his piety. But it was the house of David
that had the promise, and he had more sons than Solomon. And as
the history books report, the scepter of Judah at times passed
from brother to brother, from cousin to cousin, but always
remained in the house of David. For instance, Ahaziah left no
son, and Ahaz left none, so according to the custom of Holy
Scripture the nephews had to be heirs and sons.
Anyone who would
venture to contradict such clear and convincing statements of
Scripture regarding the eternal house of David, which are borne
out by the histories, showing that there were always kings or
princes down to the Messiah, must be either the devil himself or
whoever is his follower. For I can readily believe that the
devil, or whoever it may be, would be unwilling to acknowledge a
Messiah, but still he would have to acknowledge Davids
eternal house and throne. For he cannot deny the clear words of
God in his oath vowing that his word would not be changed and
that he would not lie to David, not even by reason of any sin, as
the aforementioned psalm [Ps. 89] impressively and clearly
states.
Now such an eternal
house of David is nowhere to be found unless we place the scepter
before the Messiah and the Messiah after the scepter, and then
join the two together: namely, by asserting that the Messiah
appeared when the scepter departed and that Davids house
was thus preserved forever. In that way God is found truthful and
faithful in his word, covenant, and oath. For it is obvious that
the scepter of Judah completely collapsed at the time of Herod,
but much more so when the Romans destroyed Jerusalem and the scepter
of Judah. Now if Davids house is eternal and God truthful,
then the true King of Judah, the Messiah, must have come at that
time. No barking, interpreting, or glossing will change this. The
text is too authoritative and too clear. If the Jews refuse to
admit it, we do not care.
For us it is enough
that, first of all, our Christian faith finds here most
substantial proof, and that such verses afford me very great joy
and comfort that we have such strong testimony also in the Old
Testament. Second, we are certain that even the devil and the
Jews themselves cannot refute this in their hearts and that in
their own consciences they are convinced. This can surely and
certainly be noted by the fact that they twist this saying of
Jacob concerning the scepter (as they do all of Scripture) in so
many ways betraying that they are convinced and won over, and yet
refuse to admit it. They are like the devil, who knows very well
that Gods word is the truth and yet with deliberate malice
contradicts and blasphemes it. The Jews feel distinctly that
these verses are solid rock and their interpretation nothing but
straw or spiderweb. But with willful and malicious resolve they
will not admit this; yet they insist on being and on being known
as Gods people, solely because they are of the blood of the
patriarchs. Otherwise they have nothing of which to boast. As to
what lineage alone can effect, we have spoken above. It is just
as if the devil were to boast that he was of angelic stock, and
by reason of this was the only angel and child of God, even
though he is really Gods foe.
Now that we have
considered these verses, let us hear what Jeremiah says. His
words sound very strange. For we know that he was a prophet long
after the kingdom of Israel had been destroyed and exiled, when
only the kingdom of Judah still existed, which itself was soon to
go into captivity in Babylon, as he foretold to them and even
experienced during his lifetime. Yet despite this, he dares to
say in chapter 33:17: "For thus says the Lord: David
shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of
Israel, and the Levitical priests shall never lack a man in my
presence to offer burnt offerings, to burn cereal offerings, and
to make sacrifices for ever.
"The word of the
Lord came to Jeremiah: Thus says the Lord: If you can break
my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that
day and night will not come at their appointed time, then also my
covenant with David my servant may be broken, so that he shall
not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with the Levitical
priests my ministers....
"The word of the
Lord came to Jeremiah: Have you not observed what these
people are saying, "The Lord has rejected the two families
which he chose"? Thus they have despised my people so that
they are no longer a nation in their sight. Thus says the Lord:
If I have not established my covenant with day and night and the
ordinances of heaven and earth, then I will reject the
descendants of Jacob and David my servant and will not choose one
of his descendants to rule over the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
For I will restore their fortunes, and will have mercy upon
them."
What can we say to
this? Whoever can interpret it, let him do so. Here we read that
not only David but also the Levites will endure forever; and the
same for Israel, the seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is
emphasized that David will have a son who will sit on his throne
eternally, just as surely as day and night continue forever. On
the other hand, we hear that Israel will be led away into
captivity, and also Judah after her, but that Israel will not be
brought home again as Judah will be. Tell me, how does all this
fit together? Gods word cannot lie. Just as God watches
over the course of the heavens, so that day and night follow in
endless succession, so too David (that is, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob),
must have a son on his throne uninterruptedly. God himself draws
this comparison. It is impossible for the Jews to make sense of
it; for they see with their very eyes that neither Israel nor Judah
has had a government for nearly fifteen hundred years; in fact Israel
has not had one for over two thousand years. Yet God must be
truthful, do what we will. The kingdom of David must rule over
the seed of Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham, as Jeremiah states here,
or Jeremiah is not a prophet but a liar.
We shall let the Jews
reconcile and interpret this as they will or can. For us this
passage leaves no doubt; it affirms that Davids house will
endure forever, also the Levites, and Abrahams,
Isaacs, and Jacobs seed under the son of David, as
long as day and night or as it is otherwise expressed, as long as
sun and moon endure. If this is true, then the Messiah must have
come when Davids house and rule ceased to exist. Thus
Davids throne assumed more splendor through the Messiah, as
we read in Isaiah 9:6: "For to us a child is born, to us a
son is given; and the government will be upon his shoulder, and
his name will be called Pele, Joets, El, Gibbor, Abi-gad, Sar
shalom. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will
be no end, upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to
establish it, and to uphold it with justice and with
righteousness from this time forth and for evermore." We may
revert to this later, but here we shall refrain from discussing
how the blind Jews twist these six names of the Messiah. They
accept this verse and admit as they must admit that it speaks of
the Messiah. We quote it because Jeremiah states that Davids
house will rule forever: first through the scepter up to the time
of the Messiah, and after that much more gloriously through the
Messiah. So it must be true that Davids house has not
ceased up to this hour and that it will not cease to eternity.
But since the scepter of Judah departed fifteen hundred years
ago, the Messiah must have come that long ago, or, as we have
said above, 1468 years ago. All of this is convincingly
established by Jeremiah.
Part VI:
However, some among us
may wonder how it is possible that at the time of Jeremiah and
then up to the advent of the Messiah the seed of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob existed and remained under the tribe of Judah or the
throne of David, even though only Judah remained whereas Israel
was exiled. These persons must be informed that the kingdom of Israel
was led into captivity and destroyed, that it never returned home
and never will return home, but that Israel, or the seed of Israel,
always continued to a certain extent under Judah, and that it was
exiled with Judah and returned again with her. You may read about
this in I Samuel, I Kings 10 [11] and 12, and II Chronicles 30
and 31. Here you will learn that the entire tribe of Benjamin
thus a good part of Israel remained with Judah, as well as the
whole tribe of Levi together with many members of the tribes of
Ephraim, Manasseh, Asher, Isachar, and Zebulun who remained in
the country after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel and
who held to Hezekiah in Jerusalem and helped to purge the land of
Israel of idols. Furthermore, many Israelites dwelt in the cities
of Judah.
Since we find so many
Israelites living under the rule of the son of David, Teremiah is
not lying when he says that Levites and the seed of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob will be found under the rule of Davids house. All
of these, or at least a number of them, were taken to Babylon and
returned from it with Judah, as Ezra enumerates and recounts.
Undoubtedly many more returned of those who were led away under
Sennacherib, since the Assyrian or Median kingdom was brought
under the Persian rule through Cyrus, so that Judah and Israel
were very likely able to join and return together from Babylon to
Jerusalem and the land of Canaan. For I know for certain that we
find these words in Ezra 2:70: "And all Israel (or all who
were there from Israel) lived in their towns." And how could
they live there if they had not come back? In the days of Herod
and of the Messiah the land was again full of Israelites; for in
the seventy weeks of Daniel, that is, in four hundred and ninety
years, they had assembled again. However, they did not again
establish a kingdom.
Therefore the
present-day Jews are very ignorant teachers and indolent pupils
of Scripture when they allege that Israel has not yet returned,
as though all of Israel would have to return. Actually not all of
Judah returned either, but only a small number, as we gather from
Ezras enumeration. The majority of them remained in Babylon,
as did Daniel, Nehemiah, and Mordecai themselves. Similarly, the
majority of the Israelites remained in Media, though they perhaps
traveled to Jerusalem for the high festivals and then returned to
their homes again, as Luke writes in the Acts of the Apostles
[2:5 ff.]. God never promised that the kingdom or scepter of Israel
would be restored like that of Judah. But he did promise this to Judah.
The latter had to recover it by virtue of Gods promise that
he would establish Davids house and throne forever and not
let it die out. For as Jeremiah declares here, God will not
tolerate that anyone slander him by saying that he had rejected
Judah and Israel entirely, so that they should no longer be his
people and that Davids throne should come to an end, as if
he had forgotten his promise, when he had promised and pledged to
David an eternal house. Even though they would now have to
sojourn in Babylon for a little while, still, he says, it will
remain an eternal house and kingdom.
I am saying this to honor
and to strengthen our faith and to shame the hardened unbelief of
the blinded and stubborn Jews, for whom God must ever and
eternally be a liar, as though he had let Davids house die
out and forgotten his covenant and his oath sworn to David. For
if they would admit that God is truthful, they would have to
confess that the Messiah came fifteen hundred years ago, so that
Davids house and throne should not be desolate for so long,
as they suppose, just because Jerusalem has lain in ashes and has
been devoid of Davids throne and house so long. For if God
kept his promise from the time of David to the Babylonian
captivity and from then to the days of Herod when the scepter
departed, he must also have kept it subsequently and forever
after, or else Davids house is not an eternal but a
perishable house, which has ceased together with the scepter at
the time of Herod.
But as we have already
said, God will not tolerate this. No, Davids house will be
everlasting, like "day and night and the ordinances of
heaven and earth," as Jeremiah puts it [Jer. 33:25].
However, since the scepter of Judah was lost at the time of Herod,
it cannot be eternal unless the son of David, the Messiah, has
come, seated himself on Davids throne, and become the Lord
of the world. If the Jews are correct, then Davids house
must have been extinct for 1568 years, contrary to Gods
promise and oath. This it is impossible to believe. Now this is a
thorough exposition of the matter, and no Jew can adduce anything
to refute it. Outwardly he may pretend that he does not believe
it, but his heart and his conscience are devoid of anything to
contradict it.
And how could God have
maintained the honor of his divine truthfulness, having promised David
an eternal house and throne, if he then let it stand desolate
longer than intact? Let us figure this out. In the opinion of the
Jews, the time from David to Herod covers not quite a thousand
years. Davids house or throne stood for that length of
time, inclusive of the seventy years spent in Babylon. (We would
add over one hundred years to this total.) From Herods
time, or rather let us say for this is not far from correct from
the destruction of Jerusalem, to the year 1542 there are 1,568
years, as stated above. According to this computation, Davids
house and throne has been empty four or five hundred years longer
than it was occupied. Now inquire of stone and log whether such
may be called an eternal house, especially constructed by God and
preserved by his sublime faithfulness and truthfulness -- a house
that stands for one thousand years and lies in ashes for fourteen
or fifteen hundred years!
Though the Jews be as
hard or harder than a diamond, the lightning and thunder of such
clear and manifest truth should smash, or at least soften, them.
But as I said before, our faith is cheered thereby, it is
strengthened, it is made sure and certain that we do have the
true Messiah, who surely came and appeared at the time when Herod
took away the scepter of Judah and the saphra, so that
Davids house might be eternal and forever have a son upon
his throne, as God said and swore to him and made a covenant with
him.
Some crafty Jew might
try to cast up to me my book against the Sabbatarians, in which I
demonstrated that the word "eternally," le-olam, often
means not really an eternity, but merely "a long time."
Thus Moses says in Exodus 21:6 that the master shall take the
slave who wants to stay with him and bore through his ear with an
awl on the door, "and he shall serve him eternally."
Here the word designates a human eternity, that is, a lifetime.
But I also said in the same treatise that when God uses the word
"eternal," it is a truly divine eternity. And he
commonly adds another phrase to the effect that it shall not be
otherwise, as in Psalm 110:4, "The Lord has sworn and will
not change his mind." Similarly in Psalm 132:11: "The
Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn
back," etc. Wherever such a "not" is added, this
means surely eternal and not otherwise. Thus we read in Isaiah
9:7, "Of peace there will be no end." And in Daniel
7:14, "His dominion is an everlasting dominion... and his
kingdom one that shall not be destroyed." This is eternal
not before men, who do not live eternally, but before God, who
lives eternally.
The promise states
that Davids house and throne shall be eternal before God.
He says: "Before me, before me," a son shall forever
sit upon your throne. In Psalm 89:35-37 he also adds the little
word "not": "Once for all I have sworn by my
holiness, I will not lie to David. His line shall endure for
ever, his throne as long as the sun before me. Like the moon it
shall be established for ever; it shall stand firm while the
skies endure." The last words of David convey the same
thought: "He has made with me an everlasting covenant,
ordered in all things and secure." These words "ordered
and secure" mean the same as firm, sure, eternal, never-failing.
The same applies to the saying of Jacob in Genesis 49:10:
"The scepter shall not depart." "Not depart"
signifies eternally, until the Messiah comes; and that surely
means eternally. For all the prophets assign to the Messiah an
eternal kingdom, a kingdom without end.
But if we assume that
this refers to a human or temporal eternity or an indefinite
period of time (which is impossible), then the meaning would
necessarily be as follows: Your house shall be eternal before me,
that is, your house shall stand as long as it stands, or for your
lifetime. This would pledge and promise David the equivalent of
exactly nothing; for even in the absence of such an oath Davids
house would stand "eternally," that is, as long as it
stands, or as long as he lives. But let us dismiss such nonsense
from our minds, which would occur to none but a blinded rabbi.
When Scripture glories in the fact that God did not want to
destroy Judah because of the sins committed under Rehoboam, but
that a lamp should remain to David, as God has promised him
regarding his house (II Kings 8:19), it shows that all understood
the word "eternal" in its true sense.
Someone might also
cite here the instance of the Maccabees. After Antiochus the
Noble had ruthlessly ravaged the people and the country, so that
the princes of the house of David became extinct, the Maccabees
ruled, who were not of the house of David but of the tribe of the
priests, which meant that the scepter had departed from Judah and
that a son of David did not sit eternally on the throne of David.
Thus the eternal house of David could not be really eternal. We
reply: The Jews cannot disturb us with this argument, and we need
not answer them; for none of this is found in Scripture, because
Malachi is the last prophet and Nehemiah the last historian, who,
as we can gather from his book, lived until the time of Alexander.
Therefore both parties must rely, so far as this question is
concerned, on Jeremiahs statement that a son of David was
to occupy his throne or rule forever. For apart from Scripture,
whoever wants to concern himself with this may regard it as an
open question whether the Maccabees themselves ruled or whether
they served the rulers. As to the reliability of the historians,
we shall have some comments later on.
It seems to me,
however, that the following incident recorded in Scripture should
not be treated lightly. At the time of Queen Athaliah, for fully
six years no son of David occupied his throne; she, Athaliah the
tyrant, reigned alone. She had had all the male descendants of
David slain, with the single exception of Joash, an infant a
quarter or a half year old, who had been secretly removed, hidden
in the temple, and reared by the excellent Jehosheba, the wife of
the high priest Jehoiada, daughter of King Joram and sister of
King Ahaziah, whom Jehu slew. Here the eternal covenant of God
made with David was in great peril indeed, resting on one young
lad in hiding, who was far from occupying the throne of David. At
this time his house resembled a dark lantern in which the light
is extinguished, since a foreign queen, a Gentile from Sidon, was
sitting and reigning on Davids throne. However, she burned
her backside thoroughly on that throne!
Still, all of this did
not mean that the scepter had departed or that Gods eternal
covenant was broken. For even if the light of David was not
shining brightly at this time, it was still glimmering in that
child Joash, who would again shine brightly in the future and
rule. He was already born as a son of David, and these six years
were nothing but a tentatio, a temptation. God often gives the
appearance that he is unmindful of his word and is failing us.
This he did with Abraham when he commanded him to burn to ashes
his dear son Isaac, in whom, after all, Gods promise of the
eternal seed was embodied. Likewise when he led the children of Israel
from Egypt. In fact, he seemed to be leading them into death,
with the sea before them, high cliffs on both sides, and the
enemy at their back blocking their way of escape. But matters
proceeded according to Gods word and promises; the sea had
to open, move, and make way for them. If the sea had not done
this, then the cliffs would have had to split asunder and make a
path for them, and they would have squeezed and squashed Pharaoh
between them, just as the sea drowned the foe. For all creatures
would rather have to perish a thousand thousand times than that
Gods word should fail and deceive, however strange things
may appear. Thus Joash is king through and in Gods word,
and occupies the throne of David before God although he still
lies in the cradle, yes, even if he lay dead and buried under the
ground; for in spite of all he would have to rise, like Isaac,
from the ashes.
In such a manner we
might also account for that story of the Maccabees; but this is
unnecessary, for it has an entirely different meaning. The
Babylonian captivity might be viewed similarly; however, thanks
to splendid prophets and miracles, the situation at that time was
much brighter. But Joash posed a terrible temptation for the
house of David, against the covenant and the oath of God,
although the house and rule of David still flourished; it was
only the ruler, or the head, that was suffering and that faltered
in Gods covenant. But this is the manner of his divine grace,
that he sometimes plays and jokes with his own. He hides himself
and disguises himself so that he may test us to see whether we
will remain firm in faith and love toward him, just as a father
sometimes does with his children. Such jesting of our heavenly
Father pains us immeasurably, since we do not understand it.
However, this is out of place here.
We have been speaking
about a statement of Jeremiah. We will now turn our attention to
one of the last prophets. In Haggai 2:6-9 we read: "For thus
says the Lord of hosts: once again, in a little while, I will
shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land; and
I will shake all nations, so that the consolation of the Gentiles
(chemdath) shall come, and I will fill this house with splendor,
says the Lord of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine,
says the Lord of hosts. The splendor of this latter house shall
be greater than the former, says the Lord of hosts; and in this
place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts."
This is another of
those passages which pains the Jews intensely. They test it,
twist it, interpret and distort almost every word, just as they
do the statement of Jacob in Genesis 49. But it does not help
them. Their conscience pales before this passage; it senses that
their glosses are null and void. Lyra does well when he plies
them hard with the phrase adhuc modicum, "in a little
while." They cannot elude him, as we shall see. "In a
little while," he says, cannot possibly mean a long period
of time. Lyra is surely right here; no one can deny it, not even
a Jew, try as hard as he may. In a little while, he says, the
Consolation of the Gentiles will come, after this temple is built
-- that is, he will come when this temple is still standing. And
the splendor of this latter temple will be greater than that of
the former. And this will happen shortly, i.e., "in a little
while."
For it is easily
understood that if the consolation of the Gentiles, whom the
ancients interpret as the Messiah, did not come while that temple
was still standing, but is still to come (the Jews have been
waiting 1568 years already since the destruction of that temple,
and this cannot be termed "a little while," especially
since they cannot foresee the end of this long time), then he
will never come, for he neglected to come in this little, short
time, and now has entered upon the great, long time, which will
never result in anything. For the prophet speaks of a short, not
a long time.
But they extricate
themselves from this difficulty as follows. Since they cannot
ignore the words "in a little while," they take up and
crucify the expression "consolation of the Gentiles,"
in Hebrew chemdath, just as they did earlier with the
words shebet and shiloh in the saying of Jacob. They insist that
this term does not refer to the Messiah, but that it designates
the gold and silver of all the Gentiles. Grammatically, the word chemdath
really means desire or pleasure; thus it would mean that the
Gentiles have a desire for or take pleasure and delight in
something. So the text must read thus: In a short time the desire
of all Gentiles will appear. And what does this mean? What do the
Gentiles desire? Gold, silver, gems! You may ask why the Jews
make this kind of gloss here. I will tell you. Their breath
stinks with lust for the Gentiles gold and silver; for no
nation under the sun is greedier than they were, still are, and
always will be, as is evident from their accursed usury. So they
comfort themselves that when the Messiah comes he will take the
gold and silver of the whole world and divide it among them.
Therefore, wherever they can quote Scripture to satisfy their
insatiable greed, they do so outrageously. One is led to believe
that God and his prophets knew of nothing else to prophesy than
of ways and means to satisfy the bottomless greed of the accursed
Jews with the Gentiles gold and silver.
However, the prophet
has not chosen his words properly to accord with this greedy
understanding. He should have said: In a little while the desire
of the Jews shall come. For the Jews are the ones who desire gold
and silver more avidly than any other nation on earth. In view of
that, the text should more properly speak of the desire of the
Jews than of the Gentiles. For although the Gentiles do desire
gold and silver, nevertheless here are the Jews who desire and
covet this desire of the Gentiles, who desire that it be brought
to them so that they may devour it and leave nothing for the
Gentiles. Why? Because they are the noble blood, the circumcised
saints who have Gods commandments and do not keep them, but
are stiff-necked, disobedient, prophet-murderers, arrogant, usuers,
and filled with every vice, as the whole of Scripture and their
present conduct bear out. Such saints, of course, are properly
entitled to the Gentiles gold and silver. They honestly and
honorably deserve it for such behavior -- just as the devil
deserves paradise and heaven.
Further, how does it
happen that such very intelligent teachers and wise, holy
prophets do not also apply the word "desire" (chemdath)
to all the other desires of the Gentiles? For the Gentiles desire
not only gold and silver but also pretty girls, and the women
desire handsome young men. Wherever we find among the Gentiles
anything other than Jews (I almost said "misers"), who
will not bestow any good on their bodies, they desire also
beautiful houses, gardens, cattle, and property, as well as good
times, clothes, food, drink, dancing, playing, and all sorts of
enjoyment. Why, then, do the Jews not interpret this verse of the
prophet to mean that such desires of all the Gentiles also will
shortly come to Jerusalem, so that the Jews alone might fill
their bellies and feast on the worlds joys? For such a mode
of life Muhammad promises his Saracens. In that respect he is a
genuine Jew, and the Jews are genuine Saracens according to this
interpretation.
The Gentiles have
another desire. How could these wise, clever interpreters
overlook it? I am surprised at it. The Gentiles die, and they are
afflicted with much sickness, poverty, and all kinds of distress
and fear. There is not one of them who does not most ardently
wish that he did not have to die, that he could avoid need,
misery, and sickness, or be quickly freed from them and secure
against them. This desire is so pronounced that they would gladly
surrender all others for its fulfillment, as experience shows
daily. Why, then, do the Jews not explain that such desire of all
the Gentiles will also come to the temple in Jerusalem in a
little while? Shame on you, here, there, or wherever you may be,
you damned Jews, that you dare to apply this earnest, glorious,
comforting word of God so despicably to your mortal, greedy
belly, which is doomed to decay, and that you are not ashamed to
display your greed so openly. You are not worthy of looking at
the outside of the Bible, much less of reading it. You should
read only the bible that is found under the sows tail, and
eat and drink the letters that drop from there. That would be a
bible for such prophets, who root about like sows and tear apart
like pigs the words of the divine Majesty, which should be heard
with all honor, awe, and joy.
Furthermore, when the
prophet says that "the splendor of this latter house shall
be greater than the former," let us listen to the noble and
filthy (I meant to say, circumcised ) saints and wise prophets
who want to make Jews of us Christians. The greater splendor of
the latter temple compared to the former consists [they say] in
this: that it (that is, the temple of Haggai) stood ten years
longer than the temple of Solomon, etc. Alas, if they had only
had a good astronomer who could have worked out the time a little
more precisely. Perhaps he would have found the difference
between the two to be three months, two weeks, five days, seven
hours, twelve minutes, and ten half-minutes over and above the
ten years. If there were a store anywhere that offered blushes
for sale, I might give the Jews a few florins to go and buy a
pound of them to smear over their forehead, eyes, and cheeks, if
they would refuse to cover their impudent heart and tongue with
them. Or do these ignorant, stupid asses suppose that they are
talking to sticks and blocks like themselves?
There were many old,
gray men and women, very likely also beggars and villains in Jerusalem
when Solomon, a young man of twenty years, became a glorious
king. Should these, for that reason, be more glorious than Solomon?
Perhaps Davids mule, on which Solomon became king, was
older than Solomon. Should he by reason of that be greater than Solomon?
But thus those will bump their heads, stumble, and fall who
incessantly give God the lie and claim that they are in the
right. They deserve no better fate than to compose such glosses
on the Bible, such foolishness and ignominy. This they indeed do
most diligently. Therefore, dear Christian, be on your guard
against the Jews, who, as you discover here, are consigned by the
wrath of God to the devil, who has not only robbed them of a
proper understanding of Scripture, but also of ordinary human
reason, shame, and sense, and only works mischief with Holy
Scripture through them. Therefore they cannot be trusted and
believed in any other matter either, even though a truthful word
may drop from their lips occasionally. For anyone who dares to
juggle the awesome word of God so frivolously and shamefully as
you see it done here, and as you also noted earlier with regard
to the words of Jacob, cannot have a good spirit dwelling in him.
Therefore, wherever you see a genuine Jew, you may with a good
conscience cross yourself and bluntly say: "There goes a
devil incarnate."
These impious
scoundrels know very well that their ancient predecessors applied
this verse of Haggai to the Messiah, as Lyra, Burgensis, and
others testify. [97] And still they wantonly depart from this and
compose their own Bible out of their own mad heads, so that they
hold their wretched Jews with them in their error, in violation
of their conscience and to our vexation. They think that in this
way they are hurting us greatly, and that God will reward them
wherever for his sake (as they imagine) they have opposed us
Gentiles even in open, evident truth. But what happens, as you
have seen, is that they disgrace themselves and do not harm us,
and further, forfeit God and his Scripture.
Thus the verse reads:
"Once again, in a little while, I will shake the heavens and
the earth and the sea and the dry land (these are the islands of
the sea) and the chemdath of all Gentiles shall come"_that
is, the Messiah, the Desire of all Gentiles, which we translated
into German with the word Trost ["consolation"].
The word "desire" does not fully express this thought,
since in German it reflects the inward delight and desire of the
heart (active). But here the word designates the external thing
(passive) which a heart longs for. It would surely not be wrong
to translate it with "the joy and delight of all
Gentiles." In brief, it is the Messiah, who would be the
object of displeasure, disgust, and abomination for the
unbelieving and hardened Jews, as Isaiah 53 prophesies. The
Gentiles, on the other hand, would bid him welcome as their
hearts joy, delight, and every wish and desire. For he
brings them deliverance from sin, death, devil, hell, and every
evil, eternally. This is indeed, the Gentiles desire, their
hearts delight, joy, and comfort.
This agrees with the
saying of Jacob in Genesis 49:10, "And to Shiloh (or the
Messiah) shall be the obedience of the peoples." That is to
say, they will receive him gladly, hear his word and be come his
people, without coercion, without the sword. It is as if he
wished to say: The ignoble, uncircumcised Gentiles will do this,
but my noble rascals, my circumcised, lost children will not do
it, but will rather rave and rant against it. Isaiah 2:2 and
Micah 4:1] also agree with this: "It shall come to pass in
the latter days that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall
be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be
raised above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it
(doubtless voluntarily, motivated by desire and joy) and many
people shall come, and say: Come, let us go up to the
mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he
may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his path. For
out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from
Jerusalem." Thus the prophets speak throughout of the
kingdom of the Messiah established among the Gentiles.
Yes, this is it, this
is the bone of contention, that is the source of the trouble,
that makes the Jews so angry and foolish and spurs them to arrive
at such an accursed meaning, forcing them to pervert all the
statements of Scripture so shamefully: namely, they do not want,
they cannot endure that we Gentiles should be their equal before
God and that the Messiah should be our comfort and joy as well as
theirs. I say, before they would have us Gentiles whom they
incessantly mock, curse, damn, defame, and revile share the
Messiah with them, and be called their co-heirs and brethren,
they would crucify ten more Messiahs and kill God himself if this
were possible, together with all angels and all creatures, even
at the risk of incurring thereby the penalty of a thousand hells
instead of one. Such an incomprehensibly stubborn pride dwells in
the noble blood of the fathers and circumcised saints. They alone
want to have the Messiah and be masters of the world. The
accursed Goyim must be servants, give their desire (that is,
their gold and silver) to the Jews, and let themselves be
slaughtered like wretched cattle. They would rather remain lost
consciously and eternally than give up this view.
Part VII:
From their youth they
have imbibed such venomous hatred against the Goyim from their
parents and their rabbis, and they still continuously drink it.
As Psalm 109:18 declares, it has penetrated flesh and blood,
marrow and bone, and has become part and parcel of their nature
and their life. And as little as they can change flesh and blood,
marrow and bone, so little can they change such pride and envy.
They must remain thus and perish, unless God performs
extraordinarily great miracles. If I wished to vex and anger a
Jew severely, I would say: "Listen, Jehudi, do you realize
that I am a real brother of all the holy children of Israel and a
co-heir in the kingdom of the true Messiah?" Without doubt,
I would meet with a nasty rebuff. If he could stare at me with
the eyes of a basilisk, he would surely do it. And all the devils
could not execute the evil he would wish me, even if God were to
give them leave -- of that I am certain. However, I shall refrain
from doing this, and I ask also that no one else do so, for Christs
sake. For the Jews heart and mouth would overflow with a
cloudburst of cursing and blaspheming of the name of Jesus Christ
and of God the Father. We must conduct ourselves well and not
give them cause for this if we can avoid it, just as I must not
provoke a madman if I know that he will curse and blaspheme God.
Quite apart from this, the Jews hear and see enough in us for
which they ever blaspheme and curse the name of Jesus in their
hearts; for they really are possessed.
As we have already
said, they cannot endure to hear or to see that we accursed Goyim
should glory in the Messiah as our chemdath, and that we are as
good as they are or as they think they are. Therefore, dear
Christian, be advised and do 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. There may perhaps be some
among them who believe what a cow or goose believes, but their
lineage and circumcision infect them all. Therefore the history
books often accuse them of contaminating wells, of kidnaping and
piercing children, as for example at Trent, Weissensee, etc.
They, of course, deny this. Whether it is true or not, I do know
that they do not lack the complete, full, and ready will to do
such things either secretly or openly where possible. This you
can assuredly expect from them, and you must govern yourself
accordingly.
If they do perform
some good deed, you may rest assured that they are not prompted
by love, nor is it done with your benefit in mind. Since they are
compelled to live among us, they do this for reasons of
expediency; but their heart remains and is as I have described
it. If you do not want to believe me, read Lyra, Burgensis, and
other truthful and honest men. And even if they had not recorded
it, you would find that Scripture tells of the two seeds, the serpents
and the womans. It says that these are enemies, and that
God and the devil are at variance with each other. Their own
writings and prayer books also state this plainly enough.
A person who is
unacquainted with the devil might wonder why they are so
particularly hostile toward Christians. They have no reason to
act this way, since we show them every kindness. They live among
us, enjoy our shield and protection, they use our country and our
highways, our markets and streets. Meanwhile our princes and
rulers sit there and snore with mouths hanging open and permit
the Jews to take, steal, and rob from their open money bags and
treasures whatever they want. That is, they let the Jews, by
means of their usury, skin and fleece them and their subjects and
make them beggars with their own money. For the Jews, who are
exiles, should really have nothing, and whatever they have must
surely be our property. They do not work, and they do not earn
anything from us, nor do we give or present it to them, and yet
they are in possession of our money and goods and are our masters
in our own country and in their exile. A thief is condemned to
hang for the theft of ten florins, and if he robs anyone on the
highway, he forfeits his head. But when a Jew steals and robs ten
tons of gold through his usury, he is more highly esteemed than
God himself.
In proof of this we
cite the bold boast with which they strengthen their faith and
give vent to their venomous hatred of us, as they say among
themselves: "Be patient and see how God is with us, and does
not desert his people even in exile. We do not labor, and yet we
enjoy prosperity and leisure. The accursed Goyim have to work for
us, but we get their money. This makes us their masters and them
our servants. Be patient, dear children of Israel, better times
are in store for us, our Messiah will still come if we continue
thus and acquire the chemdath of all the Gentiles by usury and
other methods." Alas, this is what we endure for them. They
are under our shield and protection, and yet, as I have said,
they curse us. But we shall revert to this later.
We are now speaking
about the fact that they cannot tolerate having us as co-heirs in
the kingdom of the Messiah, and that he is our chemdath, as the
prophets abundantly attest. What does God say about this? He says
that he will give the chemdath to the Gentiles, and that their
obedience shall be pleasing to him, as Jacob affirms in Genesis
49, together with all the prophets. He says that he will oppose
the obduracy of the Jews most strenuously, rejecting them and
choosing and accepting the Gentiles, even though the latter are
not of the noble blood of the fathers or circumcised saints. For
thus says Hosea 2:23: "And I will say to Not my people,
You are my people and he shall say, Thou are my
God." But to the Jew he says [in Hos. 1:9]: "Call
his name Not my people (lo-ammi), for you are not my people and I
am not your God." Moses. too, had sung this long ago in his
song [Deut. 32:21]: "They have stirred me to jealousy with
what is no god; they have provoked me with their vain deeds. So I
will stir them to jealousy with those who are no people; I will
provoke them with a foolish nation." This verse has been in
force now for nearly fifteen hundred years. We foolish Gentiles,
who were not Gods people, are now Gods people. That
drives the Jews to distraction and stupidity, and over this they
became Not-Gods-people, who were once his people and really
should still be.
But let us conclude
our discussion of the saying of Haggai. We have convincing proof
that the Messiah, the Gentiles chemdath, appeared at
the time when this temple was standing. Thus the ancients
understood it, and the inane flimsy glosses of the present-day
Jews also testify to this, since they do not know how to deny it
except by speaking of their own shame. For he who gives a hollow,
meaningless, and irrelevant answer shows that he is defeated and
condemns himself. It would have been better and less shameful if
he had kept quiet, rather than giving a pointless answer that
disgraces him. Thus Haggai 2:6 says, "Once again, in a
little while, I will shake the heavens and the earth and the sea
and the dry land; and I will shake all nations, and the desire of
all the Gentiles shall come." This is how I, in the
simplicity of my mind, understand these words: Since the
beginning of the world there has been enmity between the seed of
the serpent and that of the woman, and there has always been
conflict between them, sometimes more, sometimes less.
For wherever the Seed
of the woman is or appears, he causes strife and discord. This he
says in the Gospel: "I have not come to bring peace on
earth, but a sword and disunity" [cf. Matt. 10:34]. He takes
the armor from the strong man fully armed who had peace in his
palace [Luke 11:22]. The latter cannot tolerate this, and the
strife is on; angels contend against the devils in the air, and
man against man on earth -- all on account of the womans
Seed. To be sure, there is plenty of strife, war, and unrest in
the world otherwise too; but since it is not undertaken on
account of this Seed, it is an insignificant thing in Gods
eyes, for in this conflict all the angels are involved.
Since the advent of
this Seed, or of the Messiah, was close at hand, Haggai says
"in a little." This means that until now the strife has
been confined solely to my people Israel, that is, restricted to
a small area. The devil was ever intent upon devouring them and
he set all the surrounding kings upon them. For he was well aware
that the promised Seed was in the people of Israel, the Seed that
was to despoil him. Therefore he was always eager to harass them.
And he instigated one disturbance, dissatisfaction, war, and
strife after another. Well and good, now it will be but "a
little while," and I shall give him strife aplenty. I will
initiate a struggle, and a good one at that, not only in a narrow
nook and corner among the people of Israel, but as far as heaven
and earth extend, on the sea and on dry land, that is, where it
is wet and where it is dry, whether on the mainland or on the
islands, at the sea or on the waters, wherever human beings
dwell. Or as he says, "I will shake all the Gentiles,"
so that all the angels will contend with all the devils in heaven
or in the air, and all men on earth will quarrel over the
Seed.
For I shall send the chemdath
to all Gentiles. They will love him and adhere to him, as Genesis
49 says, "The Gentiles will gather about him," and, on
the other hand, they will grow hostile to the devil, the old
serpent, and defect from him. Then all will take its due course
when the god and the prince of the world grows wrathful, raves
and rages because he is obliged to yield his kingdom, his house,
his equipment, his worship, his power, to the chemdath and
Shiloh, the womans Seed. Anyone can read the
histories that date back to the time of Christ and learn how
first the Jews and Gentiles, then the heretics, finally Muhammad,
and at present the pope, have raged and still are raging
"against the Lord and his Messiah" (Psalm 2 [:2]), and
he will understand the words of Haggai that speak of shaking all
the nations, etc. There is not a corner in the world nor a spot
in the sea where the gospel has not resounded and brought the chemdath,
as Psalm 1819:3-4 declares: "There is no speech, nor are
there words; their voice is not heard; yet their voice goes out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the
world." The devil too appeared promptly on the scene with
murder by the hands of tyrants, with lies spoken by heretics,
with all his devilish wiles and powers, which he still employs to
impede and obstruct the course of the gospel. This is the strife
in question.
I shall begin the
story of this struggle with that great villain, Antiochus the
Noble. Approximately three hundred years elapsed between the time
of Haggai and that of Antiochus. This is the short span of time
in which peace prevailed. For the kings in Persia were very kind
to them, nor did Alexander harm them, and they fared well also
under his successors, up to the time of this filthy Antiochus,
who ushered in the unrest and the misfortune. Through him the
devil sought to exterminate the womans Seed. He pillaged
the city of Jerusalem, the temple, the country and its inhabitants,
he desecrated the temple and raged as his god, the devil,
impelled him. Practically all the good fortune of the Jews
terminated right here. Down to the present, they have never
recovered their former position, and they never will.
This will serve to
supply a proper understanding of the Jews glosses which say
that the "chemdath of all the Gentiles," that is, gold
and silver, flowed into this temple. If the earlier kings had put
anything into it, then this one took it all away again. This
turns their glosses upside down to read: Antiochus distributes
the chemdath of all Jews among the Gentiles. Thus this verse of
Haggai cannot be understood of the Gentiles shirt or coat.
For following these three hundred years, or this "little
while," and from then on, they did not get much from the
Gentiles, but rather were compelled to give them much. Soon after
this, the Romans came and made a clean sweep of it, and placed Herod
over them as king. What Herod gave them, they soon learned.
Therefore, from the time of Antiochus on they enjoyed but a small
measure of peace. Daniers report also stops with Antiochus, as if
to say: Now the end is at hand and all is over, now the Messiah
is standing at the door, who will stir up ever more
contention.
The detestable Antiochus
not only despoiled and desecrated the temple but he also
suppressed the shebet or sultan, the prince in the house of David,
namely, the last prince, John Hyrcanus. None of his descendants
again ascended the throne of David or became ruler. Only the saphra
or mehoquq remained till Herod. From that point on Davids
house looked as if its light had been extinguished, and as if
there were no shultan or scepter in Judah. It had in fact come to
an end, although there were about one hundred and fifty years
left until the coming of the Messiah. Such an occurrence is not
unusual; anything that is going to break will first crack or
burst apart a little. Whatever is going to sink will first
submerge or sway a little. The scepter of Judah went through the
same process toward the end: it became weak, it groaned and
moaned for one hundred and fifty years until it fell apart
entirely at the hands of the Romans and of Herod. During these
one hundred and fifty years the princes of Judah did not rule but
lived as common citizens, perhaps quite impoverished. For Mary, Christs
mother in Nazareth, states that she is a handmaid of poor and low
estate [Luke 1:48].
It is also true,
however, that the Maccabees fought victoriously against Antiochus.
Daniel 11:34 refers to this as "a little help." Those
who in this way ascended the throne of David and assumed the rule
were priests from the tribe of Levi and Aaron. Now one could say
with good reason that the royal and the priestly tribes were
mixed. For in II Chronicles 22:11 we read that Jehoshabeath, the
daughter of King Jehoram and the sister of King Ahaziah, was the
wife of Jehoiada, the high priest. Thus, coming from the royal
house of Solomon, she was grafted into the priestly tribe and
became one trunk and tree with it. Therefore she was the
ancestress of all the descendants of Jehoiada the priest, a true Sarah
of the priestly family. Therefore the Maccabees may indeed be
called Davids blood and children, as viewed from the
maternal lineage. For descent from a mother is just as valid as
that from a father. This is recognized also in other countries.
For instance, our Emperor Charles is king in Spain by virtue of
his descent from his mother and not from his father; and his
father Philip was duke of Burgundy not because of his father, Maximilian,
but because of his mother, Mary.
Thus David calls all
the children of Jehoiada and of Jehoshabeath his natural
children, his sons and daughters, because Jehoshabeath was
descended from his son Solomon. So through the Maccabees, Solomons
family regained rule and scepter through the maternal side, after
it had been lost through Ahaziah on the paternal side. It
remained in Davids family until Herod, who did away with it
and abolished both shultan and saphra or the Sanhedrin. Now
finally, there lies the scepter of Judah and the mehoqeq, there
the house of David is darkened on both the paternal and the
maternal sides. Therefore the Messiah must now be at hand, the
true Light of David, the true Son, who had sustained his house
until that time and who would sustain it and enlighten it from
that point on to all eternity. This conforms to Gods
promise that the scepter of Judah will remain until the Messiah
appears and that the house of David will be preserved forever and
will never die out. But, as we said, despite all of this God must
be the Jews liar, who has not yet sent the Messiah as he
promised and vowed.
Furthermore, God says
through Haggai: "I will fill this house with splendor. The
silver is mine, and the gold is mine. The splendor of this latter
house shall be greater than the former," etc. [Hag. 2:7 f.].
It is true that this temple displayed great splendor during the
three hundred years prior to Antiochus, since the Persians and
the successors of Alexander, the kings in Syria and King Philadelphus
in Egypt, contributed much toward it. But despite all of this, it
did not compare in magnificence with the first temple, the temple
of Solomon. The text must refer to a different splendor here, or
else Solomons temple will far surpass it. For in the first
temple there was also an abundance of gold and silver, and in
addition the ark of the covenant, the mercy-seat, the cherubim,
Moses tablets, Aarons rod, the bread of heaven in the
golden vessel, Aarons robes, also the Urim and Thummin and
the sacred oil with which the kings and priests were anointed (Burgensis
on Daniel 9) . When Solomon dedicated this temple, fire fell from
heaven and consumed the sacrifice, and the temple was filled with
what he called a cloud of divine Majesty [II Chron. 5:13, 7:1].
God himself was present in this cloud, as Solomon himself says:
"The Lord has said that he would dwell in thick
darkness" [II Chron. 6:1]. He had done the same thing in the
wilderness as he hovered over Moses tabernacle.
There was none of this
splendor, surpassing gold and silver, in the temple of Haggai.
Yet God says that it will show forth greater splendor than the
first one. Let the Jews pipe up and say what constituted this
greater splendor. They cannot pass over this in silence, for the
text and the confession of the ancient Jews, their forefathers,
both state that the chemdath of the Gentiles, the Messiah,
came at the time when the same temple stood and glorified it
highly with his presence. We Christians know that our Lord Jesus
Christ, the true chemdath, was presented in the temple by his
mother, and that he himself often taught and did miracles there.
This is the true cloud -- his tender humanity, in which God
manifested his presence and let himself be seen and heard. The
blind Jews may deride this, but our faith is strengthened by it,
until they can adduce a splendor of the temple excelling this chemdath
of all the Gentiles. That they will do when they erect the third
temple, that is to say, when God is a liar, when the devil is the
truth, and when they themselves again take possession of Jerusalem
-- not before.
Josephus writes that Herod
razed the temple of Haggai because it was not sufficiently
splendid, and rebuilt it so that it was equal or superior to the temple
of Solomon in splendor. I would be glad to believe the history
books; however, even if this temple had been constructed of
diamonds and rubies, it would still have lacked the items
mentioned from that sublime, old holy place -- namely, the ark,
the mercy-seat, the cherubim, etc. Furthermore, since Herod had
not been commissioned by God to build it, but did so as an
impious enemy of God and of his people, motivated by vanity and
pride, in his own honor, his whole structure and work was not as
good a, the most puny little stone that Zerubbabel placed into
the temple by command of God. Herod certainly did not merit much
grace for tearing down and desecrating the temple which had been
commanded, built, and consecrated by the word of God, and then
presuming to erect a much more glorious one without Gods
word and command. God permitted this out of consideration for the
place which he had selected for the temple, and so that the
destruction of the temple might have the negative significance
that the people of Israel should henceforth be without temple,
word of God, and all, that it instead would be given wholly to
the splendor of the world, under the guise of the service to
God.
This temple was not
only less splendid than Solomons, but it was also violated
in many ways more terribly than Solomons temple, and was
often completely desecrated. This happened first, against the
will of the Jews, when Antiochus robbed it of all its contents,
placed an idol on the altar, sacrificed pork, and made a regular
pig-sty and an idolatrous desolation of the temple, instituting a
horrible slaughter in Jerusalem as though he were the devil
himself, as we read in I Maccabees 1 and as Daniel11 had
predicted. No lesser outrage was committed by the Romans, and
especially by that filthy Emperor Caligula, who also placed his
mark of abomination in the temple. Daniel 9 and 12 speak of this.
Such ignominy and disgrace were not experienced by Solomons
temple at the hands of Gentiles and foreigners. This makes it
difficult to see how Haggais words were fulfilled, "I
will fill this temple with glory which will exceed the glory of
that temple." One might rather say that it was filled with dishonor
exceeding the dishonor of that temple, that is, if one thinks of
external and outward honor. Consequently, if Haggais words
are to be accounted true, he must be referring to a different
kind of splendor.
Second, the Jews
themselves also desecrated this temple more viciously than the
other one ever was desecrated: namely, with spiritual idolatries.
Lyra writes, and others too, in many passages, that the Jews,
after their return from the Babylonian captivity, did not commit
idolatry or sin by killing prophets as gravely as before. Thereby
he wants to prove that their present exile must be due to a more
heinous sin than idolatry, the murder of the prophets, etc. --
namely, the crucifixion of the Messiah. This argument is good,
valid, and cogent. That they no longer killed the prophets is not
to be attributed to a lack of evil intentions, but to the fact
that they no longer had any prophets who reproved their idolatry,
greed, and other vices. That is why they could no longer kill
prophets. To be sure, the last prophet, Malachi, who began to
rebuke the priests, barely escaped (if indeed he did
escape).
But they did practice
idolatry more outrageously at the time of this temple than at the
time of the other_not the coarse, palpable, stupid variety, but
the subtle, spiritual kind. Zechariah portrays this under the
image of a flying scroll and of an ephah going forth (Zechariah
5:2,6). And Zechariah 11:12 and 12:10 foretell the infamy of
their selling God for thirty pieces of silver and their piercing
him through. More on that elsewhere; is it not shame enough that
the priests at the same time perverted Gods Ten
Commandments so flagrantly? Tell me, what idolatry compares with
the abomination of changing the word of God into lies? To do that
is truly to set up idols, i.e., false gods, under the cloak of
Gods name; and that is forbidden in the second commandment,
which reads: "You shall not take the name of the Lord your
God in vain."
Why, their Talmud and
their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a
Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother
Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to break his oath to a
Gentile. Likewise, they say that it is rendering God a service to
steal or rob from a Goy, as they in fact do through their usury.
For since they believe that they are the noble blood and the
circumcised saints and we the accursed Goyim, they cannot treat
us too harshly or commit sin against us, for they are the lords
of the world and we are their servants, yes, their cattle.
In brief, our
evangelists also tell us what their rabbis taught. In Matthew
15:4 we read that they abrogated the fourth commandment, which
enjoins honor of father and mother; and in Matthew 23, that they
were given to much shameful doctrine, not to mention what Christ
says in Matthew 5 about how they preached and interpreted the Ten
Commandments so deviously, how they installed money-changers,
traders, and all sorts of usurers in the temple, prompting our
Lord to say that they had made the house of God into a den of
robbers [Matt. 21:13; Luke 19:46]. Now figure out for yourself
what a great honor that is and how the temple is filled with such
glory that God must call his own house a den of robbers because
so many souls had been murdered through their greedy, false
doctrine, that is, through double idolatry. The Jews still
persist in such doctrine to the present day. They imitate their
fathers and pervert Gods word. They are steeped in greed,
in usury, they steal and murder where they can and ever teach
their children to do likewise.
Even this is not the
greatest shame of this temple. The real abomination of all
abominations, the shame of all shames, is this: that at the time
of this temple there were several chief priests and an entire
sect which were Sadducean, that is, Epicurean, who did not
believe in the existence of any angel, devil, heaven, hell, or
life after this life. And such fellows were expected to enter the
temple, vested with the priestly office and in priestly garments,
and sacrifice, pray, and offer burnt offerings for the people,
preach to them, and rule them! Tell me? how much worse could Antiochus
have been, with his idol and his sacrifice of pork, than were
these Sadducean pigs and sows? In view of this, what remains of
Haggais statement that this temples glory was greater
than that of Solomons temple? Before God and reason, a real
pig-sty might be called a royal hall when compared with this
temple, because of such great, horrible, and monstrous
sows.
How much more honorably
do the pagan philosophers, as well as the poets, write and teach
not only about Gods rule and about the life to come but
also about temporal virtues. They teach that man by nature is
obliged to serve his fellow man, to keep faith also with his
enemies, and to be loyal and helpful especially in time of need.
Thus Cicero and his kind teach. Indeed, I believe that three of Aesops
fables, half of Cato, and several comedies of Terence contain
more wisdom and more instruction about good works than can be
found in the books of all the Talmudists and rabbis and more than
may ever occur to the hearts of all the Jews.
Someone may think that
I am saying too much. I am not saying too much, but too little-
for I see their writings. They curse us Goyim. In their
synagogues and in their prayers they wish us every misfortune.
They rob us of our money and goods through their usury, and they
play on us every wicked trick they can. And the worst of it is
that they still claim to have done right and well, that is, to
have done God a service. And they teach the doing of such things.
No pagan ever acted thus; in fact, no one acts thus except the
devil himself, or whomever he possesses, as he has possessed the
Jews.
Burgensis, who was one
of their very learned rabbis, and who through the grace of God
became a Christian a very rare happening is much agitated by the
fact that they curse us Christians so vilely in their synagogues
(as Lyra also writes), and he deduces from this that they cannot
be Gods people. For if they were, they would emulate the
example of the Jews in the Babylonian captivity. To them Jeremiah
wrote, "Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you
into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its
welfare you will find your welfare" [Jer. 29:7]. But our
bastards and pseudo-Jews think they must curse us, hate us, and
inflict every possible harm upon us, although they have no cause
for it. Therefore they surely are no longer Gods people.
But we shall say more about this later.
To return to the
subject of Haggais temple, it is certain that no house was
ever disgraced more than this holy house of God was by such vile
sows as the Sadducees and Pharisees. Yet Christ calls it
Gods house, because the four pillars are his. Therefore, to
offset this disgrace a greater and different splendor must have
inhered in it than that of silver and gold. If not, Haggai will
fare ill with his prophecy that the splendor of this temple will
surpass that of Solomons temple. Amid such colossal shame
no splendor can be found here other than that of the chemdath,
who will appear in a short time and surpass such shame with his splendor.
The Jews can produce no other splendor; their mouth is stopped.
Part VIII:
I must break off here
and leave the last part of Haggai to others, the section in which
he prophesies that the Lord, as he says, "will give peace in
this place" [cf. Hag. 2:9b]. Can it be possible that this
applies to the time from Antiochus up to the present during which
the Jews have experienced every misfortune and are still in
exile? For there shall be peace in this place, says the Lord. The
place is still there; the temple and peace have vanished. No
doubt the Jews will be able to interpret this. The history books
inform me that there was but little peace prior to Antiochus for
about three hundred years, and subsequent to that time none at
all down to the present hour, except for the peace that reigned
at the time of the Maccabees. As I have already said, I shall
leave this to others.
Finally we must lend
ear to the great prophet Daniel. A special angel with a proper
name Gabriel talks with him. The like of this is not found
elsewhere in the Old Testament. The fact that the angel is
mentioned by name marks it as something extraordinary. This is
what he tells Daniel: "Seventy weeks of years are decreed
concerning your people and your holy city, to finish the
transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity,
to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and
prophet, and to anoint a most holy place" [Dan. 9:24].
We cannot now discuss
this rich text, which actually is one of the foremost in all of
Scripture. And, as is only natural, everybody has reflected on
it; for it not only fixes the time of Christs advent but
also foretells what he will do, namely, take away sin, bring
righteousness, and do this by means of his death. It establishes Christ
as the Priest who bears the sin of the whole world. This, I say,
we must now set aside and deal only with the question of the
time, as we determined to do, whether such a Messiah or Priest
has already come or is still to come. [This we do] for the
strengthening of our faith, against all devils and men.
In the first place,
there is complete agreement on this: that the seventy weeks are
not weeks of days but of years; that one week comprises seven
years, which produces a sum total of four hundred and ninety
years. That is the first point. Second, it is also agreed that
these seventy weeks had ended when Jerusalem was destroyed by the
Romans. There is no difference of opinion on these two points,
although many are in the dark when it comes to the matter of
knowing the precise time of which these seventy weeks began and
when they terminated. It is not necessary for us to settle this
question here, since it is generally assumed that they were
fulfilled about the time of the destruction of Jerusalem. This
will suffice us for the present.
If this is true, as it
must be true, since after the destruction of Jerusalem none of
the seventy weeks was left, then the Messiah must have come
before the destruction of Jerusalem, while something of those
seventy weeks still remained: namely, the last week, as the text
later clearly and convincingly attests. After the seven and
sixty-two weeks (that is, after sixty-nine weeks), namely, in the
last or seventieth week, Christ will be killed, in such a way,
however, that he will become alive again. For the angel says that
"he shall make a strong covenant with many in the last
week" [Dan. 9:27]. This he cannot do while dead; he must be
alive. "To make a covenant" can have no other meaning
than to fulfill Gods promise given to the fathers, namely,
to disseminate the blessing promised in Abrahams seed to
all the Gentiles. As the angel states earlier [v. 24], the
visions and prophecies shall be sealed or fulfilled. This
requires a live Messiah, who, however, has previously been
killed. But the Jews will have none of this. Therefore we shall
let it rest at that and hold to our opinion that the Messiah must
have appeared during these seventy weeks; this the Jews cannot
refute.
For in their books as
well as in certain histories we learn that not just a few Jews
but all of Jewry at that time assumed that the Messiah must have
come or must be present at that very moment. This is what we want
to hear! When Herod was forcibly made king of Judah and Israel by
the Romans, the Jews surely realized that the scepter would thus
depart from them. They resisted this move vigorously, and in the
thirty years of their resistance many thousand Jews were slain
and much blood was shed, until they finally surrendered in
exhaustion. In the meantime the Jews looked about for the
Messiah. Thus a hue and cry arose that the Messiah had been born_as,
in truth, he had been. For our Lord Christ was born in the
thirtieth year of Herods reign. But Herod forcibly
suppressed this report, slaying all the young children in the
region of Bethlehem, so that our Lord had to be taken for refuge
to Egypt. Herod even killed his own son because he was born of a
Jewish mother. He was worried that through this son the scepter
might revert to the Jews and that he might gain the Jews
loyalty, since, as Philo records, the rumor of the birth of Christ
had been spread abroad.
As our evangelists
relate, more than thirty years later John the Baptist comes out
of the wilderness and proclaims that the Lord had not only been
born but also was already among them and would reign shortly
after him. Suddenly thereafter Christ himself appears, preaches,
and performs great miracles, so that the Jews hoped that now,
after the loss of the scepter, Shiloh had come. But the chief
priests, the rulers, and their followers took offense at the
person, since he did not appear as a mighty king but wandered
about as a poor beggar. They had made up their mind that the
Messiah would unite the Jews and not only wrest the scepter from
the foreign king but also subdue the Romans and all the world
under himself with the sword, installing them as mighty princes
over all the Gentiles. When they were disappointed in these
expectations, the noble blood and circumcised saints were vexed,
as people who had the promise of the kingdom and could not attain
it through this beggar. Therefore they despised him and did not
accept him.
But when they
disdained John and his [Christs] message and miracles,
reviling them as the deeds of Beelzebub, he spoiled and ruined
matters entirely. He rebuked and chided them severely something
he should not, of course, have done for being greedy, evil, and
disobedient children, false teachers, seducers of the people,
etc.; in brief, a brood of serpents and children of the devil. On
the other hand, he was friendly to sinners and tax collectors, to
Gentiles and to Romans, giving the impression that he was the foe
of the people of Israel and the friend of Gentiles and villains.
Now the fat was really in the fire; they grew wrathful, bitter,
and hateful, and ranted against him; finally they contrived the
plot to kill him. And that is what they did; they crucified him
as ignominiously as possible. They gave free rein to their anger,
so that even the Gentile Pilate noticed this and testified that
they were condemning and killing him out of hatred and envy,
innocently and without cause.
When they had executed
this false Messiah (that is the conception they wanted to convey
of him), they still did not abandon the delusion that the Messiah
had to be at hand or nearby. They constantly murmured against the
Romans because of the scepter. Soon, too, the rumor circulated
that Jesus, whom they had killed, had again arisen and that he
was now really being proclaimed openly and freely as the Messiah.
The people in the city of Jerusalem were adhering to him, as well
as the Gentiles in Antioch and everywhere in the country. Now
they really had their hands full. They had to oppose this dead
Messiah and his followers, lest he be accepted as resurrected and
as the Messiah. They also had to oppose the Romans, lest their
hoped-for Messiah be forever bereft of the scepter. At one place
a slaughter of the Christians was initiated, at another an
uprising against the Romans. To these tactics they devoted
themselves for approximately forty years, until the Romans
finally were constrained to lay waste country and city. This
delusion regarding their false Christ and their persecution of
the true Christ cost them eleven times one hundred thousand men,
as Josephus reports, together with the most horrible devastation
of country and city, as well as the forfeiture of scepter,
temple, priesthood, and all that they possessed.
This deep and cruel
humiliation, which is terrible to read and to hear about, surely
should have made them pliable and humble. Alas, they became seven
times more stubborn, viler, and prouder than before. This was due
in part to the fact that in their dispersion they had to witness
how the Christians daily grew and increased with their Messiah.
The saying of Moses found in Deuteronomy 32:21 was now completely
fulfilled in them: "They have stirred me to jealousy with
what is no god; so I will stir them to jealousy with those who
are no people." Likewise, as Hosea says: "I will say to
Not my people, You are my people, but you are not my
people and I am not your God" (Hosea 2:23, l:9). They
stubbornly insisted on having their own Messiah in whom the
Gentiles should not claim a share, and they persisted in trying
to exterminate this Messiah in whom both Jews and Gentiles
gloried. Everywhere throughout the Roman Empire they intervened
and wherever they could ferret out a Christian in any corner they
dragged him out before the judges and accused him (they
themselves could not pass sentence on him, since they had neither
legal authority nor power) until they had him killed. Thus they
shed very much Christian blood and made innumerable martyrs, also
outside the Roman Empire, in Persia and wherever they
could.
Still they clung to
the delusion that the Messiah must have appeared, since the
seventy weeks of Daniel had expired and the temple of Haggai had
been destroyed. However, they disliked the person of Jesus of
Nazareth, and therefore they went ahead and elevated one of their
own number to be the Messiah. This came about as follows: They
had a rabbi, or Talmudist, named Akiba, a very learned man,
esteemed by them more highly than all other rabbis, a venerable, honorable,
gray-haired man. He taught the verses of Haggai and of Daniel,
also of Jacob in Genesis 49, with ardor, saying that there had to
be a Messiah among the people of God since the time fixed by
Scripture was at hand. Then he chose one, surnamed Kokhba, which
means "a star." According to Burgensis his right name
was Heutoliba. He is well known in all the history books, where
he is called Ben Koziba or Bar Koziban. This man had to be their
Messiah; and he gladly complied. All the people and the rabbis
rallied about him and armed themselves thoroughly with the
intention of doing away with both Christians and Romans. Now they
had the Messiah fashioned to their liking and their mind, who was
proclaimed by the aforementioned passages of Scripture.
This unrest began
approximately thirty years after the destruction of Jerusalem,
under the reign of the emperor Trajan. Rabbi Akiba was Kokhbas
prophet and spirit who inflamed and incited him and vehemently
urged him on, applying all the verses of Scripture that deal with
the Messiah to him before all the people and proclaiming:
"You are the Messiah!" He applied to him especially the
saying of Balaam recorded in Numbers 24:17-19, by reason of his
surname Kokhba ("star"). For in that passage Balaam
says in a vision: "A star shall come forth out of Jacob, and
a scepter shall rise out of Israel; it shall crush the forehead
of Moab, and break down all the sons of Sheth. Edom shall be
dispossessed, Seir also, his enemies, shall be dispossessed,
while Israel does valiantly. By Jacob shall dominion be
exercised, and the survivors of cities be destroyed!"
That was a proper
sermon for thoroughly misleading such a foolish, angry, restive mob_which
is exactly what happened. To insure the success of this venture
and guard against its going awry, that exalted and precious Rabbi
Akiba, the old fool and simpleton, made himself Kokhbas
guardsman or armor-bearer, his armiger, as the history
books have it; if I am not translating the term correctly, let
some one else improve on it. The person is meant who is
positioned beside the king or prince and whose chief duty it is
to defend him on the battlefield or in combat, either on horse or
on foot. To be sure, something more is implied here, since he is
also a prophet, a Monzer (to use contemporary terms). So this is
where the scepter of Judah and the Messiah now resided; they are
sure of it. They carried on like this for some thirty years. Kokhba
always had himself addressed as King Messiah, and butchered
throngs of Christians who refused to deny our Messiah Jesus
Christ. His captains also harassed the Romans where they could.
Especially in Egypt they at one time defeated the Roman captain
during the reign of Trajan. Now their heart, brain, and belly
began to swell with conceit. God, they inferred, had to be for
them and with them. They occupied a town near Jerusalem, called Bittir;
in the Bible it is known as Beth-horon [Josh. 10:10].
At this point they
were convinced that their Messiah, King Kokhba, was the lord of
the world and had vanquished the Christians and the Romans and
had carried the day. But Emperor Hadrian sent his army against
them, laid siege to Bittir, conquered it, and slew Messiah and
prophet, star and darkness, lord and armor-bearer. Their own
books lament that there were twice eighty thousand men at Bittir
who blew the trumpets, who were captains over vast hosts of men,
and that forty times one hundred thousand men were slain, not
including those slain at Alexandria. The latter are said to have
numbered twelve times one hundred thousand. However, it seems to
me that they are exaggerating enormously. I interpret this to
mean that the two times eighty thousand trumpeters represent that
many valiant and able-bodied men equipped for battle, each of
whom would have been able to lead large bodies of soldiers in
battle. Otherwise this sounds too devilishly mendacious.
After this formidable
defeat they themselves called Kokhba, their lost Messiah, "Kozba,"
which rhymes with it and has a similar ring. For thus write their
Talmudists: You must not read "Kokhba," but "Kozba."
Therefore all history books now refer to him as Koziban. "Kozba"
means "false." His attempt had miscarried, and he had
proved a false and not a true Messiah. Just as we Germans might
say by way of rhyme: You are not a Deutscher but a Taoscher
["not a German but a deceiver"]; not a Welscher but a Felscher
["not a foreigner of Romance origin but a falsifier"].
Of a usurer I may say: You are not a Borger, but a Worger
["not a citizen but a slayer"]. Such rhyming is
customary in all languages. Our Eusebius reports this story in
his Ecclesiastical History, Book 4, chapter 6. Here he uses the
name Barcochabas, saying that this was an extremely cruel battle
in which the Jews "were driven so far from their country
that their impious eyes were no longer able to see their
fatherland even if they ascended the highest mountains.
Such horrible stories
are sufficient witness that all of Jewry understood that this had
to be the time of the Messiah, since the seventy weeks had
elapsed, Haggais temple had been destroyed, and the scepter
had been wrested from Judah, as the statements of Jacob in
Genesis 49, of Haggai 2, and of Daniel 9 clearly indicated and
announced. God be praised that we Christians are certain and
confident of our belief that the true Messiah, Jesus Christ, did
come at that time. To prove this, we have not only his miraculous
deeds, which the Jews themselves cannot deny, but also the
gruesome downfall and misfortune, because of the name of the
Messiah, of his enemies who wanted to exterminate him together
with all his adherents. How could they otherwise have brought
such misery upon their heads if they had not been convinced that
the time of the Messiah was at hand? And I think this does surely
constitute coming to grief and running their heads (now for the
second time ) against "the stone of offence and the rock of
stumbling," to quote Isaiah 8:14. So many hundreds of
thousands attempted to devour Jesus of Nazareth, but over this
they themselves "stumbled and fell and were broken, snared,
and taken," as Isaiah says [8:15].
Since two such
terrible and awesome attempts had most miserably failed, the
first at Jerusalem under Vespasian, the other at Bittir under Hadrian,
they surely should have come to their senses, have become pliable
and humble, and concluded: God help us! How does this happen? The
time of the Messiahs advent has, in accord with the
prophets words and promises, come and gone, and we are
beaten so terribly and cruelly over it! What if our ideas
regarding the Messiah that he should be a secular Kokhba have
deceived us, and he came in a different manner and form? Is it
possible that the Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth, to whom so many
Jews and Gentiles adhere, who daily perform so many wondrous
signs? Alas, they became seven times more stubborn and baser than
before. Their conception of a worldly Messiah must be right and
cannot fail; there must be a mistake about the designated time.
The prophets must be lying and fail rather than they. They will
have nothing of this Jesus, even if they must pervert all of
Scripture, have no god, and never get a Messiah. Thats the
way they want it.
Since they were beaten
into defenseless impotence by the Romans, from that time on they
have turned against Scripture, and have boldly tried to take it
from us and to pervert it with strange and different
interpretations. They have digressed from the understanding of
all their forefathers and prophets, and furthermore from their
own reason. Because of this they have lost so many hundreds of
thousands of men, land, and city, and have fallen prey to every
misery. They have done nothing these fourteen hundred years but
take any verse which we Christians apply to our Messiah and
violate it, tear it to bits, crucify it, and twist it in order to
give it a different nose and mask. They deal with it as their
fathers dealt with our Lord Christ on Good Friday, making God
appear as the liar but themselves as the truthful ones, as you
heard before. They assign practically ten different
interpretations to Jacobs saying in Genesis 49. Likewise
they know how to twist the nose of Haggais statement. Here
you have two good illustrations which show you how masterfully
the Jews exegete the Scriptures, in such a way that they do not
arrive at any definite meaning.
They have also
distorted in this way the passage from Daniel. I cannot enumerate
all their shameful glosses, but shall submit just one -- the one
which Lyra and Burgensis consider to be the most famous and
widespread among the Jews, from which they dare not depart on
pain of losing their souls. It reads as follows. Gabriel says to Daniel:
"Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people
and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to
sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting
righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a
most holy place, ..." [Dan. 9:24]. This is the text. Now
their beautiful commentary follows:
"It will still be
seventy weeks before Jerusalem will be destroyed and the Jews are
led into exile by the Romans. This will happen so that they may
be induced by this exile to depart from their sins, that they may
be punished for them, pay for them, render satisfaction, atone
for them, and thus become pious eternally and merit the fulfillment
of the messianic promises, the reconstruction of the holy
temple," etc.
Here you perceive, in
the first place, that the Jews immeasurable holiness
presumes that God will fulfill his promise regarding the Messiah
not because of his sheer grace and mercy but because of their
merit and repentance and their extraordinary piety. And how could
or should God, that poor fellow, do otherwise? For when he
promised the Messiah to Jacob, David, and Haggai out of sheer
grace, he neither thought nor knew that such great saints whose
merits would exact the Messiah from his would appear after
seventy weeks and after the destruction of Jerusalem, that he
would have to grant the Messiah not out of grace but would be
obliged to send him by reason of their great purity and holiness,
when, where, and in the way that they desired. Such is the
imposing story of the Jews, who repented after the seventy weeks
and became so pious.
You can easily infer
that they did not repent, nor were they pious before and during
the seventy weeks. As a result the priests in Jerusalem all
starved to death because there was no penance, no sin or guilt
offerings (which the priests needed for sustenance). All this was
postponed and saved for the penance and holiness which were to
begin after the seventy weeks. Where there is no repentance, or
anything to repent for, there is no sin. But where then, we
wonder, did the sin come from for which they have to repent after
the seventy weeks, since they had atoned daily through so many
sacrifices of the priests, ordained by Moses for this purpose,
for all previous sin? Why do they have to begin to do penance now
after the seventy weeks, when temple, office, sacrifice for sins
no longer exist?
But the following even
surpasses this. Gabriel says, according to their gloss, that the
Jews will repent and become pious after the seventy weeks, so
that the Messiah will come on account of their merit. Well and
good, here we have it! If Gabriel is speaking the truth and not
lying, then the Jews have now repented, they have become pious,
they have merited the Messiah ever since the passing of those
seventy weeks. For he says that all of this will be done by the
Jews subsequent to the seventy weeks. What follows now? They
confess, indeed they wail, that the Messiah has not come since
the end of those seventy weeks, that he has not come to date,
approximately 1468 years later; nor do they know when he will
come. So they will also have to confess that they have not done
penance for any sin nor become pious during these 1468 years
following the seventy weeks, nor merited the Messiah. It follows
that the angel Gabriel must be lying when he promises in
Gods behalf that the Jews will repent, be pious, and merit
the Messiah after the seventy weeks.
In Leviticus 26:40 and
in Deuteronomy 4:29 and 30:1, Moses, too, proves very clearly
that they have never sincerely done penance for sin since the
seventy weeks. In many beautiful words he promises that God will
return them to their fatherland, even if they are dispersed to
the end of the heavens, etc., if they turn to God with all their
heart and confess their sin. Moses utters these words as the
spokesman of God, whom one must not accuse of lying. Since the
Jews have not been returned to their country to date, it is
proved that they have never repented for sin with all their heart
since the seventy weeks. So it must be falsehood when they
incorrectly interpret Gabriel as speaking about their
repentance.
We also know that God
is so gracious by nature that he forgives man his sin in every
hour in which man sincerely repents and is sorry for it, as David
says in Psalm 32:5: "I said, I will confess my
transgressions to the Lord: then thou didst forgive the guilt of
my sin." We also read that when the prophet Nathan rebuked
David for his sin and the latter thereupon declared, "I have
sinned against the Lord," he was immediately absolved by
Nathan, who replied, "The Lord has put away your sin"
[II Sam. 12:13]. Even if God in many instances does not remove
the punishment as promptly as he did with David, he nonetheless
assures man of the remission of his sin. And if neither prophet
nor priest were available, an angel would have to appear instead
and announce, "Your sins are forgiven you," so that a
sinner in his sorrow and punishment might not lose heart and
despair. We observe also how during the Babylonian captivity God
graciously and paternally consoles the people who confess their
sins, enabling them to bear the punishment. Nor can the
punishment endure forever; it must have its definite time,
measure, and end wherever genuine contrition and repentance are
found.
But there is no
remission of sin for these Jews, no prophet to console them with
the assurance of such forgiveness, no definite time limit for
their punishment, but only interminable wrath and disfavor,
devoid of any mercy. So it is not only an unmitigated lie but
also an impossibility to understand Gabriels promises in
terms of their repentance, much less of their merit and
righteousness.
But why should we
waste so many words and so much time! The land of Canaan was
hardly as big as a beggars alms or as a crust of bread in
comparison with the empire of the whole world. Yet they did not
merit even this land through their repentance, or righteousness.
Thus Moses declares in Deuteronomy 9:4 that they were not granted
the possession of the land because of their righteousness, but it
was given to them, a stiff-necked and disobedient people, that
is, very sinful and unworthy people, solely by reason of
Gods gracious promise, although Hosea [Hos. 11:1 ff.] and
Balaam (Numbers 24:5) praise them for being at their peak of
piety at that time. They still had Moses, Aaron, the divine
worship, prophets, God himself with his miracles, bread from
heaven, water from the rock, clouds by day, pillars of fire by
night, indestructible shoes and garments, etc. And these dreary
dregs, this stinking scum, this dried-up froth, this moldy leaven
and boggy morass of Jewry should merit, on the strength of their
repentance and righteousness, the empires of the whole world_
that is, the Messiah and the fulfillment of the prophecies_though
they possess none of the aforementioned items and are nothing but
rotten, stinking, rejected dregs of their fathers
lineage!
In brief, Moses and
all true Israelites understood these verses regarding the Messiah
[as signifying that all this would be given them] out of sheer
grace and mercy and not because of penitence and merit. This we
gathered from the cited verses of Jacob, David, and Haggai.
Likewise Daniel does not ask, desire, or think that such a
glorious promise of the seventy weeks should be revealed to him,
but it is granted him out of grace, far, far beyond his
asking.
From this you can
learn that fine repentance the Jews practiced, and still
practice, after those seventy weeks. They began it with lies and
blasphemies, in which they continued and still persist. Whoever
wishes may imitate the Jews example of repentance and say:
"God and his angels are liars, they speak about things that
are not." Then you will merit grace as they merit the
Messiah.
If they werent
so stone-blind, their own vile external life would indeed
convince them of the true nature of their penitence. For it
abounds with witchcraft, conjuring signs, figures, and the tetragrammaton
of the name, that is, with idolatry, envy, and conceit. Moreover,
they are nothing but thieves and robbers who daily eat no morsel
and wear no thread of clothing which they have not stolen and
pilfered from us by means of their accursed usury. Thus they live
from day to day, together with wife and child, by theft and
robbery, as arch-thieves and robbers, in the most impenitent
security. For a usurer is an arch-thief and a robber who should
rightly be hanged on the gallows seven times higher than other
thieves. Indeed, God should prophesy about such beautiful
penitence and merit from heaven through his holy angel and become
a flagrant, blasphemous liar for the sake of the noble blood and
circumcised saints who boast of being hallowed by Gods
commandments, although they trample all of them under foot and do
not keep one of them.
The passage in Daniel
continues: "Know therefore and understand that from the time
when the order goes forth to restore and build Jerusalem to the
coming of the Messiah, the prince, there shall be seven weeks and
sixty-two weeks. It shall be built again with streets and walls,
but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, the
Messiah shall be killed, and shall have nothing" [Dan. 9:25
f.].
Part IX:
Oh, how ridiculous it
seems to these circumcised saints that we accursed Goyim have
interpreted and understand this saying thus, especially since we
did not consult their rabbis, Talmudists, and Kokhbaites whom
they regard as more authoritative than all of Scripture- For they
do a far better job of it. This is what they say: "Know
therefore and understand from the going forth of the word to
restore and rebuild Jerusalem" -- this means, Ponder and
understand it well that the word has gone forth that Jerusalem is
to be restored. That is one point. Further, "To the coming
of the Messiah, the prince" -- this means, until the time of
King Cyrus there shall be seven weeks." That is another
point. Further, "For sixty-two weeks it shall be built again
with walls and streets, but in a troubled time." That is
another point. "And after sixty-two weeks the Messiah (that
means King Agrippa) will be killed and will not be" -- this
means, will be no king, etc.
It is indeed tiresome
to discuss such confused lies and such tomfoolery. But I have to
give our people occasion for pondering the devilish wantonness
which the rabbis perpetrate with this splendid saying. So here
you see how they separate the text where it should be read
connectedly, and join it where it should be separated. This is
the way in which it should be connected:
"Know therefore
and understand that from the going forth of the word about how Jerusalem
is to be restored and rebuilt to the coming of the Messiah, there
shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks." These words, I
say, are to be joined together to form one complete text. Then
follows: "It shall be built again with walls and streets,
but in a troubled time." This sentence, separate though it
is, they connect with the foregoing words about the sixty-two
weeks, so as to convey the meaning that the building of the walls
and the streets will occupy sixty-two weeks.
That is truly a
knavish trick. It reminds me of the rascal of whom I once heard
as a young monk. He hacked the Lords Prayer to pieces and
re-arranged it to read thus: Our Father, hallowed be in heaven;
thy name come; thy kingdom be done; thy will as in heaven, so
also on earth. Or as that ignorant priest read the lesson in the
Vigils from I Corinthians 15: Ubi est mors stimulus, tuus
stimulus autem mortis, peccatum est virtus vero, etc.
That is the way the
Jews tear apart the text wherever they can, solely for the
purpose of spoiling the words of Scripture for us Christians,
although it serves no purpose for them either. For it teaches
them nothing, it does not comfort them, it gives them nothing; it
results in nothing but meaningless words. It is the same as if
the angel had said nothing at all. But they would rather
surrender such comforting, joyous words and suffer the loss than
to have them benefit us. Similarly, Bodenstein maliciously tore
the words of the sacrament apart lest they prove useful to us.
However, this will not help the rabbis, those night herons and
screech owls. With the help of God we will bring their howling
and lying to light. Let us take up the several parts in
order.
First I want to ask
the Hebraists whether the word intellige
["know"] is construed with the word de
["from"] in any other place in Scripture. I have not
found any, and this seems to me quite arbitrary. If it is to mean
de as in the phrase de subjecta materia, the Hebrew
uses the preposition al, just as the Latins use the word super
("Multa super Priamo," etc. [149]). I know very
well, however, that the Jews cannot prove that such a
construction obtains here. The biblical examples agree that it
stands as an absolute, independently. But to ascribe something to
God maliciously of which one is uncertain, and which one cannot
prove, is tantamount to tempting him and giving him the
lie.
Now let us see how
they tear the text apart. "Know therefore and understand,
from the going forth of the word, that Jerusalem will again be
built." This, they claim, does not speak of the beginning of
the seventy weeks but of the word that has gone forth. Then
follows: "To the coming of the Messiah, the prince, there
shall be seven weeks." Now it is in agreement with the
customary usage of all languages that the word donec,
"until" [or "to"], presupposes a beginning.
However, the Jews assign it none; they refuse to have the text
read "from the beginning of the word to the coming of
Messiah." I must draw an analogy.
If some one on St.
Gall Square here in Wittenberg were to tell you: "You have
heard a sermon based on Gods word, declaring that the
church is holy. Ponder this and mark it well." All right,
you look at him expectantly to hear what else he has to say; for
he does have more to say. Then he abruptly blurts out:
"There are still seven weeks till Michaelmas." Or,
"It is a distance of three miles to Halle." Here you
would look at him and say, What sense is there in that? Are you
crazy? Are the seven weeks to begin now on the market-place? Or
are the three miles to begin in Wittenberg? "No," he
would reply, "you must understand this to mean from the Day
of St. Lawrence to Michaelmas, and from Bitterfeld to Halle."
At this point you would be tempted to rejoin: "Go plant a
kiss of peace on a sows rump! Where did you learn to jabber
so foolishly? And what do the seven weeks have to do with your
statement that I should note well the sermon that I heard at Wittenberg?
The rabbis treat the
angel Gabriels words in the same way. They make his speech
read thus: There are seven weeks until the Messiah."
Suppose now Daniel replies, "My dear Gabriel, what do you
mean? Are the seven weeks to begin now that you are speaking with
me?" "No," he says, "you must understand this
to mean that they begin with the destruction of Jerusalem."
Thank you, indeed, you noble, circumcised rabbis, for teaching
the angel Gabriel to speak, as though he were unable to tell of
the beginning of the seven weeks, which is all-important, as well
as of the middle and the end of them. No, Daniel is to assume it.
This is just nonsense. Shame on you, you vile rabbis, to
attribute this foolish talk of yours to the angel of God! With
this you disgrace yourselves and convict yourselves of being
malicious liars and blasphemers of Gods words. But this is
just the grammatical side of the matter. Now let us study the
theological aspect.
These holy,
circumcised ravens say that the seventy weeks begin with the
first destruction of Jerusalem and end with its second
destruction. What better method could they have pursued for
arriving at this conclusion than to close their eyes and ears,
ignore Scripture and the history books, and let their imagination
run freely, saying: "This is the way it seems right to us,
and we insist upon it. Therefore it follows that God and his
angel must agree with us. How could we be wrong? We are the
ravens who are able to teach God and the angels."
Oh, what a base,
vexatious, blasphemous people, that can merit the Messiah with
such penitence! But let us listen to their wisdom. The seventy
weeks begin with the destruction of Jerusalem by the king of Babylon;
from that event until the coming of the Messiah, the prince (that
is, King Cyrus), are seven weeks. Now tell me: Where is this
written? Nowhere. Who has said it? Markolf the mockingbird. Who
else might say or write it?
In the beginning of
this ninth chapter stands Daniels clear and plain statement
that the revelation regarding the seventy weeks had come to him
in the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, who had
conquered the Babylonian kingdom, which event had been preceded
by the first destruction of Jerusalem seventy years earlier. For Daniel
clearly states that seventy years of the devastation had been
fulfilled, in accordance with Jeremiah 29:10. This we also read
in II Chronicles, the last chapter [36:22]. And yet these two
clear passages of Scripture, Daniel 9 and II Chronicles 36, must
be accounted as lies by the rabbis. They insist that they are
right and that the seventy weeks must have begun seventy years
before they were revealed to Daniel. Isnt that great? Now
go and believe the rabbis, those ignorant, untutored asses, who
look neither at the Scriptures nor at the history books and who
spew forth from their vicious mouth whatever they choose against
God and angels.
For they herewith
stand openly convicted of their lies and their erring
arbitrariness. Since the seventy weeks which were revealed in the
first year of the reign of Darius the Mede cannot begin seventy
years previously with the destruction of Jerusalem, all their
lies founded on this are simultaneously refuted, and this verse
of Daniel regarding the seventy weeks must remain for us
undefiled and unadulterated_no thanks to them. Eternal disgrace
will be their reward for this impertinent and patent lie. With
this lie another one also collapses; namely, their claim that the
words about the Messiah, the prince, refer to King Cyrus, who
supposedly appeared seven weeks after the destruction, although
in fact he came ten weeks (that is, seventy years) after the
destruction. This is recorded in II Chronicles 36, Daniel 9, and
Ezra 1.
Even if we would
assume which is impossible that the seventy weeks began with the
destruction of Jerusalem, we could still not justify this stupid
lie. And with this the third lie collapses. For they say that Cyrus
came fifty-two years after the destruction: the equivalent of
seven weeks and three years, or seven and a half weeks. Thus they
tear three years, or half a week, from the sixty-two weeks and
add them to the first seven weeks. It is as though the angel were
such a consummate fool or child that he could not count up to
seven, and says seven when he should say seven and a half. Why do
they do this? So that we might perceive how they indulge in lies
for the purpose of tearing apart and turning upside down
Gods word for us. Therefore they insist that Cyrus came
seven and a half weeks (which they call seven weeks) after the
destruction, whereas (as was said) he really came ten weeks,
i.e., seventy years, later.
Nor does the angel
tolerate that these weeks be mangled and mutilated, subtracting
three years from one and leaving it only four years, and adding
to the one that has seven years three more, making it ten years
or one and a half weeks. For he says that the seventy weeks are
to be taken exactly; they are counted and reckoned
precisely.
Much less does he
tolerate the fourth lie that Cyrus is here called the Messiah
even if the other lies were to be upheld, to the effect that Cyrus
had appeared after seven weeks, that is, after fifty-two years.
For here we find the unmistakable and simple words of the angel:
"Seventy weeks of years are decreed concerning your people
and your holy city" [Dan. 9:24]. He means to say: In other
chapters I spoke of strange people and kings; but in this verse
concerning the seventy weeks I am speaking of your people, of
your city, and of your Messiah. And whoever refers this to a
different people and to different kings is a wanton, incorrigible
liar.
The fourth lie is
followed by the fifth, in which they divorce the seven weeks from
the sixty-two. But these belong together, and there is no reason
to separate them, especially since the lie regarding King Cyrus
miscarried. It was for this reason that they severed the seven
from the sixty-two weeks so that they could give him seven, that
is, seven and a half. In biblical Hebrew it is customary to count
the years thus: first to give the one, then the other number of
years, but with both placed together. We find many illustrations
for this in Genesis 5 and 11, where reference is made to the
deceased fathers. For instance: "When Seth had lived five
years and a hundred years, he became the father of Enosh. Seth
lived after the birth of Enosh seven years and eight hundred
years" [Gen. 5:6 f.]. Similarly Genesis 11 [:17]: "Eber
lived after the birth of Peleg thirty years and four hundred
years." And Genesis 25 [:7]: "Abraham lived one hundred
years, seventy years, and five years." From these
illustrations one can easily see how arbitrary it is to separate
the seven years from the sixty-two years in this verse.
The Latin and German
languages prevent such a disruption nicely, since they do not
repeat the little word "year" so often, but read the
number connectedly, saying: "Abraham lived one hundred
seventy-five years." In that way these words also are to be
taken: "From the going forth of the word to the coming of
the Messiah, the prince, there are seven weeks and sixty-two
weeks." These two numbers belong together and compose one
number, to the coming of the Messiah. The angel has a reason for
designating the entire sum of years as seven weeks and sixty-two
weeks. He might have spoken of nine weeks and sixty weeks, or
found many different ways to name such a sum, such as five weeks
and sixty-four weeks, or six weeks and sixty-three weeks, etc. He
must have the seven weeks for the construction of the walls and
streets of Jerusalem; and he must have the sixty-two, up to the
last week, which is all important, for in it the Messiah will
die, fulfill the covenant, etc.
Then comes the sixth
lie which says that the walls and streets of Jerusalem were
rebuilt for sixty-two weeks (minus three years). That would be up
to the last week, after which as they lie for the seventh time Jerusalem
was again destroyed. For with the last week the seventy weeks are
ended. According to this, Jerusalem had not stood again for
longer than one week, which means seven years. Go ahead, Jew, lie
boldly and unashamedly! Nehemiah stands against you with his book
and testifies that he built the walls, set the gates, and
arranged the city, and that he himself gloriously consecrated it.
Thus the temple was already completed in the sixth year of the
reign of Darius (Ezra 7 [6:16]). Alexander the Great found the
city of Jerusalem already long completed. After him that villain Antiochus
found the city even further restored and the temple full of
wealth, and he plundered them horribly.
The eighth rude lie
follows when they interpret the words of the angel, "And
after sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be killed, and shall have
nothing," as if the Messiah refers to King Agrippa, who was
killed and had nothing after his death; no king succeeded him.
Why would it not be just as true to say that Emperor Nero was the
Messiah? He was killed at that time and left no heirs. I believe
that they would designate Markolf or Thersites as the Messiah
rather than accept the true Messiah. How can God, who loves the
truth and who is the truth himself, tolerate such shameful, open
lies if these are intolerable even to a person who is given to
lies or is untruthful or is at least not so strict a lover of the
truth? And this eighth lie is a multiple one_in the first place,
because they assign different meanings to the word
"Messiah" within such a brief passage: there he has to
be Cyrus after the seven weeks, here Agrippa after the sixty-two
weeks. Just as though the angel were a fool who would point to a
different Messiah with every other word!
As we heard earlier,
the angel is not referring to a foreign people and city, but
says, "I am speaking of your people and of your city."
Therefore we must conceive of the Messiah in this verse not as
two different beings, but as one_namely, the Messiah of this
people and of this city, the Shiloh of Judah who came after the scepter
departed from Judah, the Son of David, the chemdath of Haggai.
This verse indeed refers to him, excluding all others. For Agrippa
was not king in Jerusalem, much less the Messiah, before the last
week (that is, after seven and sixty-two weeks). The Romans had
graciously granted him a little country beyond the Jordan. The Roman
procurators such as Felix, Festus, Albinus, etc., ruled the land
of Judea. Nor was Agrippa killed after the sixty-two weeks. In
brief, all that they say is a lie.
Since they now
confess, and have to confess, that a Messiah was killed after the
sixty-two weeks, that is, in the first year of the last week, and
since this cannot have been Agrippa (as they would like to have
it, in confirmation of their lie), nor anyone else, I am curious
to learn where they might find one. It must be someone who lived
before the expiration of the seventy weeks and who was killed
after sixty-two weeks. 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 Herods time they had
had no king who was a member of their people or race. But, on the
other hand, it is just as certain that Gabriel must be believed,
with his statement regarding a Messiah of their nation. How is
this difficulty to be solved?
And there is more.
They themselves confess that they had no Messiah, that is, no
anointed king ("Messiah" means "the anointed
one"), between the first and the last destruction of Jerusalem,
for the sacred anointing oil, of which Moses writes in Exodus
30:22, with which kings and priests were anointed, no longer
existed after the first destruction. Consequently, Zedekiah was
the last anointed king; his descendants were princes, not kings,
down to the time of Herod, when the scepter departed and Shiloh,
the true Messiah, was to appear.
We want to purge out
their lies completely. With reference to Daniels saying,
"And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one
week" [Dan. 9 27], that is, the last week, they perpetrate
the ninth lie, saying that the Romans agreed to a peace or a
truce for this last week (or seven years) with the Jews; but
since the Jews grew rebellious the Romans returned in three years
and destroyed Jerusalem. Now how does this bear out Gabriel, who
says that the peace or truce (as they interpret the word
"covenant") is to last seven years? If it did not
endure longer than three years, then Gabriel, who speaks of seven
years or the last week must be lying. Thus the mendacious hearts
of these incorrigible liars falsely impugn the truthfulness of
the angel Gabriel. Alas, what truce? What peace? Read Josephus
and the history books and you will learn that the Romans slew
many thousands of Jews a long time before, and that there was no
peace up to the time when they were constrained to destroy Jerusalem
and the country.
The tenth and final
lie concerns the assertion that the destruction of Jerusalem will
last until the end of the strife. They interpret this as meaning:
until the strife of their Messiah, who will kill Gog and Magog
and conquer the whole world. This is a vicious, miserable lie
which is dead before it is born. Let those who maintain that the
Messiah appeared before the expiration of the seventy weeks be
informed that such a lie was discredited as long as fifteen
hundred years ago. Thus the Jews do not retain a single word of Gabriels
statement intact; they pervert all his words into lies, with the
exception of the angels prophecy regarding the destruction
of Jerusalem. But no one need thank them for believing that and
admitting the truth of it now. While they still inhabited
Jerusalem, they believed this prophecy still less than they
believe now in our Messiah, although it was foretold plainly
enough, here in Daniel 9 as well as in Zechariah 14. If they were
still dwelling in Jerusalem today, they would invent a hundred
thousand lies before they would believe it, just as their
ancestors did prior to the first destruction. The latter were not
persuaded by any prophet that the holy city of God would be laid
waste. They harried them, they raved like mad dogs until they
stood face to face with the fulfillment of the prophecy. This has
always been a stiff-necked, unbelieving, proud, base,
incorrigible people, and so it ever remains.
From all of this we
gather that Daniel with his seventy weeks takes our position
against the Jews lies and folly, a position as reliable and
firm as an iron wall and an immovable rock, affirming that the
true Messiah must have come before the termination of the seventy
weeks; that he was killed and made alive again; that he fulfilled
Gods covenant (for why should Daniel here be speaking of
the Gentiles covenant, which, moreover, did not even exist
at the time?) in the last week; that he thereby took leave of the
city and the people at the end of the seventy weeks; that the
city was razed by the Romans shortly after; that the people were
destroyed, with their government and all they had_all of this in
accordance with the angels words: "Seventy weeks of
years are decreed or reckoned concerning your people and your
holy city" [Dan. 9:24], But enough!
No doubt it is
necessary for the Jews to lie and to misinterpret in order to
maintain their error over against such a clear and powerful text.
Their previous lies broke down under their own weight. But even
if they were to lie for a hundred thousand years and call all the
devils in to aid them, they would still come to nought. For it is
impossible to name a Messiah at the time of the seventy weeks, as
Gabriels revelation would necessitate, other than our Lord
Jesus Christ. We are certain, sure, and cheerful about this, as
we snap our fingers at all the gates of hell and defy them,
together with all the gates of the world and everything that
wants to be or might be exalted, smart, and wise against us. I, a
plain insignificant saint in Christ, venture to oppose all of
them singlehandedly and to defend this viewpoint easily,
comfortably, and gladly. However, it is impossible to convert the
devil and his own, nor are we commanded to attempt this. [154] It
suffices to uncover their lies and to reveal the truth. Whoever
is not actuated to believe the truth for the sake of his own soul
will surely not believe it for my sake.
We will limit
ourselves for the time being to these four texts_ those of Jacob,
David, Haggai, and Daniel_wherein we see what a fine job the Jews
have done these fifteen hundred years with Scripture, and what a
fine job they still do. For their treatment of these texts
parallels their treatment of all others, especially those that
are in favor of us and our Messiah. These, of course, must be
accounted as lies, whereas they themselves cannot err or be
mistaken. 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 Gods wrath. As St.
Paul declares in Romans 11, we must fear God and honor his word
as long as the time of grace remains, so that we do not meet with
a similar or worse fate. We have seen this happen in the case of
the papacy and of Muhammad. The example of the Jews demonstrates
clearly how easily the devil can mislead people, after they once
have digressed from the proper understanding of Scripture, into
such blindness and darkness that it can be readily grasped and
perceived simply by natural reason, yes, even by irrational
beasts. And yet they who daily teach and hear Gods word do
not recognize this darkness but regard it as the true light. O
Lord God, have mercy on us!
If I had to refute all
he 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. I stated earlier that they corrupt their
circumcision with human ordinances and ruin their heritage with
their arrogance. In the same manner they also desecrate their
Sabbath and- all their festivals. In brief, all their life and
all their deeds, whether they eat, drink, sleep, wake, stand,
walk dress, undress, fast, bathe, pray, or praise, are so sullied
with rabbinical, foul ordinances and unbelief, that Moses can no
longer be recognized among them. This corresponds to the
situation of the papacy in our day, in which 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.
In conclusion we want
to examine their lies against persons, which, after all, do not
make the doctrine either worse or better, whether the persons are
pious or base. Specifically, we want to look at their lies about
the person of our Lord, as well as those about his dear mother
and about ourselves and all Christians. These lies are such as
the devil resorts to when he cannot assail the doctrine. Then he
turns against the person_lying, maligning, cursing, and ranting
against him. That is what the papists Beelzebub [156] did
to me. When he was unable to refute my gospel, he wrote that I
was possessed of the devil, that I was a changeling, that my dear
mother was a whore and a bathhouse attendant. [157] Of course, no
sooner had he written this than my gospel was destroyed and the
papists carried the day! Similarly, John the Baptist and Christ
himself were charged with having a devil [Matt. 11:18; John 8:20]
and were called Samaritans_and shortly thereafter Johns and
Christs doctrine was shown to be false, and that of the
Pharisees true. The same thing happened to all the prophets.
Recently also, when the stealthy, murdering arsonist of Wolfenbuttell
who, next to the archbishop of Mainz, is the holy Roman
Churchs one relic and jewel shamefully slandered and
defamed the persons of the elector of Saxony and the landgrave of
Hesse, both were instantly doomed; but he, the holy man, king
over all kings, was crowned with a diadem and gold so heavy that
he could not bear it and had to flee.
Therefore, whenever
you wish to win in an evil cause, do as they do and as the glib
babblers do in court when the silver- or gold-fever seizes them.
Scold and lie boldly about the person, and your cause will win
out. It is like the mother who instructed her child: "Dear
son, if you cannot win otherwise, start a brawl." These are
lies in which the liar does not fabricate or err in the chief
question at issue (as happens also in religious disputes), but
nevertheless is well aware that he is lying and wants to lie
against the person. He does not dream of proving his point,
either by appearances or by truth, and is unable to do so.
That is how the Jews,
too, are acting in this instance. They blatantly inveigh and lie
against and curse the person, against their own conscience. In
that way they have long since won their case, so that God had to
listen to them. Already for fifteen hundred years they have been
sitting in Jerusalem, in a golden city, as we can clearly see.
They are the lords of the world, and all the Gentiles flock to
them with their chemdath, their coats, pants, and shoes, and
permit themselves to be slain by the noble princes and lords of Israel,
giving them land and people and all that they have, while the
Jews curse, spit on, and malign the Goyim.
And you can well
imagine that if they would not lie so outrageously, curse,
defame, blaspheme, and revile the persons, God would not have
heard them, and their cause would have been lost long ago; they
would not be lords in Jerusalem today but live dispersed over the
world, without seeing Jerusalem, and making their living among
the accursed Goyim by means of lying, cheating, stealing,
robbing, usury and all sorts of other vices. So effective is it
to curse the person if the cause in question is evil and
therefore doomed! Consequently, if you have a poor cause to
defend, do not overlook this example of the Jews. They are the
noble princes of Israel who are capable of everything. When their
cause is lost, they still can curse the Goyim thoroughly.
Part X:
In the first place,
they defame our Lord Jesus Christ, calling him a sorcerer and
tool of the devil. This they do because they cannot deny his
miracles. Thus they imitate their forefathers, who said, "He
casts out demons by Beelzebub, the prince of demons" [Luke
11:15]. They invent many lies about the name of God, the tetragrammaton,
saying that our Lord was able to define this name (which they
call Schem Hamphoras), and whoever is able to do that,
they say, is also able to perform all sorts of miracles. However,
they cannot cite a single instance of any men who worked a
miracle worth a gnat by means of this Schem Hamphoras. It
is evident that as consummate liars they fabricate this about our
Lord. For if such a rule of Schem Hamphoras were true,
someone else would have employed it before or afterward.
Otherwise, how could one know that such power inhered in the Schem
Hamphoras? But this is too big a subject; after this booklet
is finished, I plan to issue a special essay and relate what Porchetus
writes on this subject. It serves them right that, rejecting the
truth of God, they have to believe instead such abominable,
stupid, inane lies, and that instead of the beautiful face of the
divine word, they have to look into the devils black, dark,
lying behind, and worship his stench.
In addition they rob Jesus
of the significance of his name, which in Hebrew means "savior"
or "helper." The name Helfrich or Hilfrich was common
among the old Saxons; this is the equivalent of the name Jesus.
Today we might use the name Hulfrich -- that is, one who can and
will help. But the Jews, in their malice, call him Jesu, which in
Hebrew is neither a name nor a word but three letters, like
ciphers or numeral letters. It is as if, for example, I were to
take the three numeral letters C, L, and V as ciphers and form
the word Clu. That is 155. In this manner they use the name Jesu,
signifying 316. This number then is to denote another word, in
which Hebel Vorik is found. For further information on
their devilish practices with such numbers and words, you may
read Anthony Margaritha.
When a Christian hears
them utter the word "Jesu," as will happen occasionally
when they are obliged to speak to us, he assumes that they are
using the name Jesus. But in reality they have the numeral
letters Jesu in mind, that is, the numeral 316 in the blasphemous
word Vorik. And when they utter the word "Jesu"
in their prayer, they spit on the ground three times in honor of
our Lord and of all Christians, moved by their great love and
devotion. But when they are conversing with one another they say,
Deleatur nomen eius, which means in plain words, "May
God exterminate his name," or "May all the devils take
him."
They treat us
Christians similarly in receiving us when we go to them. They
pervert the words Seid Gott willkommen [literally,
"Be welcome to God"] and say, Sched wil kem! which
means: "Come, devil," or "There comes a
devil." Since we are not conversant with the Hebrew, they
can vent their wrath on us secretly. While we suppose that they
are speaking kindly to us, they are calling down hellfire and
every misfortune on our heads. Such splendid guests we poor,
pious Christians are harboring in our country in the persons of
the Jews, we who mean well with them, who would gladly serve
their physical and spiritual welfare, and who suffer so many
coarse wrongs from them.
Then they also call Jesus
a whores son, saying that his mother Mary was a whore, who
conceived him in adultery with a blacksmith. I have to speak in
this coarse manner, although I do so with great reluctance, to
combat the vile devil. Now they know very well that these lies
are inspired by sheer hatred and spite, solely for the purpose of
bitterly poisoning the minds of their poor youth and the simple
Jews against the person of our Lord, lest they adhere to his
doctrine (which they cannot refute). Still they claim to be the
holy people to whom God must grant the Messiah by reason of their
righteousness! In the eighth commandment, God forbade us to speak
falsehoods against our neighbor, to lie, to deceive, to revile,
to defile. This prohibition also includes ones enemies. For
when Zedekiah did not keep faith with the king of Babylon, he was
severely rebuked for his lie by Jeremiah and Ezekiel and was also
led into wretched captivity because of it [Jer. 21:1 ff.; Ezek.
12:1 ff.].
However, our noble
princes of the world and circumcised saints, against this
commandment of God, invented this beautiful doctrine: namely,
that they may freely lie, blaspheme, curse, defame, murder, rob,
and commit every vice, however, whenever, and on whom they wish.
Let God keep his own commandment: the noble blood and circumcised
people will violate it as they desire and please. Despite this,
they insist that they are doing right and good and meriting the
Messiah and heaven thereby. They challenge God and all the angels
to refute this, not to speak of the devil and the accursed Goyim
who find fault with it; for here is the noble blood which cannot
sin and which is not subject to Gods commands.
What harm has the poor
maiden Mary done to them? How can they prove that she was a
whore? She did no more than bear a son, whose name is Jesus. Is
it such a great crime for a young wife to bear a child? Or are
all who bear children to be accounted whores? What, then, is to
be said about their own wives and about themselves? Are they,
too, all whores and children of whores? You accursed Goyim, that
is a different story! Do you not know that the Jews are Abrahams
noble blood, circumcised, and kings in heaven and on earth?
Whatever they say is right. If there were a virgin among the
accursed Goyim as pure and holy as the angel Gabriel, and the
least of these noble princes were to say that she is an
arch-whore and viler than the devil, it would necessarily have to
be so. The fact that a noble mouth of the lineage of Abraham said
this would be sufficient proof. Who dares contradict him?
Conversely, any arch-whore of the noble blood of the Jews, though
she were as ugly as the devil himself, would still be purer than
any angel if the noble lords were pleased to say this. For the
noble, circumcised lords have the authority to lie, to defame,
revile, blaspheme, and curse the accursed Goyim as they wish. On
the other hand, they are privileged to bless, honor, praise, and
exalt themselves, even if God disagrees with them. Do you suppose
that a Jew is such a bad fellow? God in heaven and all the angels
have to laugh and dance when they hear a Jew pass wind, so that
you accursed Goyim may know what excellent fellows the Jews are.
For how could they be so bold as to call Mary a whore, with whom
they can find no fault, if they were not vested with the power to
trample God and his commandment under foot?
Well and good, you and
I, as accursed Goyim, wish to submit a simple illustration by
means of which we, as benighted heathen, might comprehend this
lofty wisdom of the noble, holy Jews a little. Let us suppose
that I had a cousin or another close blood relative of whom I
knew no evil, and in whom I had never detected any evil; and
other people, against whom I bore a grudge, praised and extolled
her, regarded her as an excellent, pious, virtuous, laudable
woman, and said: This dunce is not worthy of having such a fine, honorable
woman as his cousin; a she-dog or a she-wolf would be more fit
for him. Then I, upon hearing such eulogies of my cousin spoken,
would begin to say, against my own conscience: They are all lying,
she is an arch-whore. And now I would, though lacking any proof,
demand that everyone believe me, despite the fact that I was well
aware of my cousins innocence, while I, a consummate liar,
was cursing all who refused to believe my lie, which I knew in my
heart to be just that.
Tell me, how would you
regard me? Would you not feel impelled to say that I was not a
human being but a monster, a repulsive fiend, not worthy of
gazing at sun, leaves, grass, or any creature? Indeed, you would
consider me to be possessed by devils. I should rather treat my
cousins disgrace, if I knew of any, as though it were my
own, and cover it up if it threatened to become public, just as
all other people do. But although no one, including myself, knows
anything but honorable things about her, I dare to step to the
fore and defame my cousin as a scoundrel, with false slander,
oblivious to the fact that this shame reflects on me.
That is the type of
human beings if I should or could call them that which these
noble, circumcised saints are. We Goyim, with whom they are
hostile and angry, confess that Mary is not ours but rather the
Jews cousin and blood relative, descended from Abraham.
When we praise and laud her highly, they proceed to defame her
viciously. If there were a genuine drop of Israelite blood in
such miserable Jews, do you not suppose that they would say:
"What are we to do? Can she help it that her son provoked
our ire? Why should we slander her? After all, she is our flesh
and blood. It has undoubtedly happened before that a bad son
issued from a pious mother." No, such human and responsible
thoughts will not occur to these holy people; they must entertain
nothing but devilish thoughts, so that they may in that way do
penance and merit the Messiah soon, as they have, of course,
merited him now for fifteen hundred years.
They further lie and
slander him and his mother by saying that she conceived him at an
unnatural time. About this they are most malicious and malignant
and malevolent. In Leviticus 20:18 Moses declares that a man must
not approach a woman nor a woman a man during the females
menstrual uncleanness. This is forbidden on pain of loss of life
and limb; for whatever is conceived at such a time results in
imperfect and infirm fruit, that is, in insane children, mental deficients,
demons offspring, changelings, and the like -- people who
have unbalanced minds all their lives. In this way the Jews would
defame us Christians, by saying that we honor as the Messiah a
person who was mentally deficient from birth, or some sort of
demon. These most intelligent, circumcised, highly enlightened
saints regard us as such stupid and accursed Goyim. Truly, these
are the devils own thoughts and words!
Do you ask what
prompts them to write this, or what is the cause of it? You
stupid, accursed Goy, why should you ask that? Does it not
satisfy you to know that this is said by the noble, circumcised
saints? Are you so slow to learn that such a holy people is
exempt from all the decrees of God and cannot sin? They may lie,
blaspheme, defame, and murder whom they will, even God himself
and all his prophets. All of this must be accounted as nothing
but a fine service rendered to God. 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? And if he were to go on to do
something coarser than that, they would nevertheless expect it to
be regarded as a golden Talmud. Whatever issues from such a holy
man, from above or from below, must surely be considered by the
accursed Goyim to be pure holiness.
For if a Jew were not
so precious and noble, how would it be possible for him to
despise all Christians with their Messiah and his mother so
thoroughly, to vilify them with such malicious and poisonous
lies? If these fine, pure, smart saints would only concede us the
qualities of geese or ducks, since they refuse to let us pass for
human beings! For the stupidity which they ascribe to us I could
not assign to any sow, which, as we know, covers itself with mire
from head to foot and does not eat anything much cleaner. Alas,
it cannot be anything but the terrible wrath of God which permits
anyone to sink into such abysmal, devilish, hellish, insane
baseness, and arrogance. If I were to avenge myself on the devil
himself I should be unable to wish him such evil and misfortune
as Gods 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.
In his Bible, Sebastian
Monster relates that a malicious rabbi does not call the dear
mother of Christ Maria but haria; i.e., sterquilinium, a dung
heap. And who knows what other villainy they may indulge in among
themselves, unknown to us? One can readily perceive how the devil
constrains them to the basest lies and blasphemies he can
contrive. Thus they also begrudge the dear mother Mary, the
daughter of David, her right name, although she has not done them
any harm. If they do that, why should they not also begrudge her,
her life, her goods, and her honor? And if they wish and inflict an
kinds of disgrace and evil on their own flesh and blood, which is
innocent and about which they know nothing evil, what, do you
suppose, might they wish us accursed Goyim?
Yet they presume to
step before God with such a heart and mouth; they utter, worship,
and invoke his holy name, entreating him to return them to
Jerusalem, to send them the Messiah, to kill all the Gentiles,
and to present them with an the goods of the world. The only
reason that God does not visit them with thunder and lightning,
that he does not deluge them suddenly with fire as he did Sodom
and Gomorrah, is this: This punishment would not be commensurate
with such malice. Therefore he strikes them with spiritual
thunder and lightning, as Moses writes in Deuteronomy 28:18 among
other places: "The Lord will smite you with madness and
blindness and confusion of mind." Those are, indeed, the
true strokes of lightning and thunder: madness, blindness,
confusion of mind.
Although these
terrible, slanderous, blasphemous lies are directed particularly
against the person of our Lord and his dear mother, they are also
intended for our own persons. They want to offer us the greatest
affront and insult for honoring a Messiah whom they curse and
malign so terribly that they do not consider him worthy of being
named by them or any human being, much less of being revered.
Thus we must pay for believing in him, for praising, honoring,
and serving him.
I should like to ask,
however: What harm has the poor man Jesus done to these holy
people? If he was a false teacher, as they allege, he was
punished for it; for this he recived his due, for this he
suffered with a shameful death on the cross, for this he paid and
rendered satisfaction. No accursed heathen in an the world will
persecute and malign forever and ever a poor dead man who
suffered his punishment for his misdeeds. How, then, does it
happen that these most holy, blessed Jews outdo the accursed
heathen? To begin with, they declare that Jerusalem was not
destroyed nor were they led into captivity for their sin of
crucifying Jesus. For they claim to have done the right thing
when they meted out justice to the seducer and thus merited their
Messiah. Is it the fault of the dead man, who has now met his
judgment, that we Goyim are so stupid and foolish as to honor him
as our Messiah? Why do they not settle the issue with us,
convince us of our folly and demonstrate their lofty, heavenly
wisdom? We have never fled from them; we are still standing our
ground and defying their holy wisdom. Let us see what they are
able to do. For it is most unseemly for such great saints to
crawl into a corner and to curse and scold in hiding.
Now as I began to ask
earlier: What harm has the poor Jesus done to the most holy
children of Israel that they cannot stop cursing him after his
death, with which he paid his debt? Is it perhaps that he aspires
to be the Messiah, which they cannot tolerate? Oh no, for he is
dead. They themselves crucified him, and a dead person cannot be
the Messiah. Perhaps he is an obstacle to their return into their
homeland? No, that is not the reason either; for how can a dead
man prevent that? What, then, is the reason? I will tell you. As
I said before, it is the lightning and thunder of Moses to which
I referred before: "The Lord will smite you with madness and
blindness and confusion of mind." It is the eternal fire of
which the prophets speak: "My wrath will go forth like fire,
and burn with none to quench it" [Jer. 4:4]. John the
Baptist proclaimed the same message to them after Herod had
removed their scepter, saying [Luke 3:17]: "His winnowing
fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing-floor and
gather his wheat into his granary, but his chaff he will burn
with unquenchable fire." Indeed, such fire of divine wrath
we behold descending on the Jews. We see it burning, ablaze and
aflame, a fire more horrible than that of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Now such devilish lies
and blasphemy are aimed at the person of Christ and of his dear
mother; but our person and that of all Christians are also
involved. They are also thinking of us. Because Christ and Mary
are dead and because we Christians are such vile people to honor
these despicable, dead persons, they also assign us our special
share of slander. In the first place, they lament before God that
we are holding them captive in exile, and they implore him
ardently to deliver his holy people and dear children from our
power and the imprisonment in which we hold them. They dub us Edom
and Haman, with which names they would insult us grievously
before God, and hurt us deeply. However, it would carry us too
far afield to enlarge on this. They know very well that they are
lying here. If it were possible, I would not be ashamed to claim Edom
as my forefather. He was the natural son of the saintly Rebekah,
the grandson of the dear Sarah; Abraham was his grandfather and Isaac
his real father. Moses himself commands them to regard Edom as
their brother (Deut. 23:71). They indeed obey Moses as true
Jews!
Further, they presume
to instruct God and prescribe the manner in which he is to redeem
them. For the Jews, these very learned saints, look upon God as a
poor cobbler equipped with only a left last for making shoes.
This is to say that he is to kill and exterminate all of us Goyim
through their Messiah, so that they can lay their hands on the
land, the goods, and the government of the whole world. And now a
storm breaks over us with curses, defamation, and derision that
cannot be expressed with words. They wish that sword and war,
distress and every misfortune may overtake us accursed Goyim.
They vent their curses on us openly every Saturday in their
synagogues and daily in their homes. They teach, urge, and train
their children from infancy to remain the bitter, virulent, and
wrathful enemies of the Christians.
This gives you a clear
picture of their conception of the fifth commandment and their
observation of it. They have been blood thirsty bloodhounds and
murderers of all Christendom for more than fourteen hundred years
in their intentions, and would undoubtedly prefer to be such with
their deeds. Thus they have been accused of poisoning water and
wells, of kidnaping children, of piercing them through with an
awl, of hacking them in pieces, and in that way secretly cooling
their wrath with the blood of Christians, for all of which they
have often been condemned to death by fire. And still God refused
to lend an ear to the holy penitence of such great saints and
dearest children. The unjust God lets such holy people curse (I
wanted to say "pray") so vehemently in vain against our
Messiah and all Christians. He does not care to see or have
anything to do either with them or with their pious conduct,
which is so thickly, thickly, heavily, heavily coated with the
blood of the Messiah and his Christians. For these Jews are much
holier than were those in the Babylonian captivity, who did not
curse, who did not secretly shed the blood of children, nor
poison the water, but who rather as Jeremiah had instructed them
[Jer. 29:7] prayed for their captors, the Babylonians. The reason
is that they were not as holy as the present-day Jews, nor did
they have such smart rabbis as the present-day Jews have; for Jeremiah,
Daniel, and Ezekiel were big fools to teach this. They would, I
suppose, be torn to shreds by the teeth of todays
Jews.
Now behold what a
fine, thick, fat lie they pronounce when they say that they are
held captive by us. Jerusalem was destroyed over fourteen hundred
years ago, and at that time we Christians were harassed and
persecuted by the Jews throughout the world for about three
hundred years, as we said earlier. We might well complain that
during that time they held us Christians captive and killed us,
which is the plain truth. Furthermore, we do not know to the
present day which devil brought them into our country. We surely
did not bring them from Jerusalem.
In addition, no one is
holding them here now. The country and the roads are open for
them to proceed to their land whenever they wish. If they did so,
we would be glad to present gifts to them on the occasion; it
would be good riddance. For they are a heavy burden, a plague, a
pestilence, a sheer misfortune for our country. Proof for this is
found in the fact that they have often been expelled forcibly
from a country, far from being held captive in it. Thus they were
banished from France (which they call Tsorfath, from
Obadiah 20), which was an especially fine nest. Very recently
they were banished by our dear Emperor Charles from Spain, the
very best nest of all (which they called Sefarad, also on
the basis of Obadiah). This year they were expelled from the
entire Bohemian crownland, where they had one of the best nests,
in Prague. Likewise, during my lifetime they have been driven
from Regensburg, Magdeburg, and other places.
If you cannot tolerate
a person in a country or home, does that constitute holding him
in captivity? In fact, they hold us Christians captive in our own
country. They let us work in the sweat of our brow to earn money
and property while they sit behind the stove, idle away the time,
fart, and roast pears. They stuff themselves, guzzle, and live in
luxury and ease from our hard-earned goods. With their accursed
usury they hold us and our property captive. Moreover, they mock
and deride us because we work and let them play the role of lazy
squires at our expense and in our land. Thus they are our masters
and we are their servants, with our property, our sweat, and our labor.
And by way of reward and thanks they curse our Lord and us!
Should the devil not laugh and dance if he can enjoy such a fine
paradise at the expense of us Christians? He devours what is ours
through his saints, the Jews, and repays us by insulting us, in
addition to mocking and cursing both God and man.
They could not have
enjoyed such good times in Jerusalem under David and Solomon with
their own possessions as they now do with ours, which they daily
steal and rob. And yet they wail that we have taken them captive.
Indeed, we have captured them and hold them in captivity just as
I hold captive my gallstone, my bloody tumor, and all the other
ailments and misfortunes which I have to nurse and take care of
with money and goods and all that I have. Alas, I wish that they
were in Jerusalem with the Jews and whomever else they would like
to have there.
Since it has now been
established that we do not hold them captive, how does it happen
that we deserve the enmity of such noble and great saints? We do
not call their women whores as they do Mary, Jesus mother.
We do not call them children of whores as they do our Lord Jesus.
We do not say that they were conceived at the time of cleansing
and were thus born as idiots, as they say of our Lord. We do not
say that their women are haria, as they do with regard to
our dear Mary. We do not curse them but wish them well,
physically and spiritually. We lodge them, we let them eat and
drink with us. We do not kidnap their children and pierce them
through; we do not poison their wells; we do not thirst for their
blood. How, then, do we incur such terrible anger, envy, and
hatred on the part of such great and holy children of God?
There is no other
explanation for this than the one cited earlier from Moses,
namely, that God has struck them with "madness and blindness
and confusion of mind." So we are even at fault in not
avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the
Christians which they shed for three hundred years after the
destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have
shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and
their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them. Rather we allow
them to live freely in our midst despite an their murdering,
cursing, blaspheming, lying, and defaming; we protect and shield
their synagogues, houses, life, and property In this way we make
them lazy and secure and encourage them to fleece us boldly of
our money and goods, as well as to mock and deride us, with a
view to finally overcoming us, killing us all for such a great
sin, and robbing us of all our property (as they daily pray and
hope). Now tell me whether they do not have every reason to be
the enemies of us accursed Goyim, to curse us and to strive for
our final, complete, and eternal ruin!
From all of this we
Christians see for the Jews cannot see it what terrible wrath of
God these people have incurred and still incur without ceasing,
what a fire is gleaming and glowing there, and what they achieve
who curse and detest Christ and his Christians. O dear
Christians, let us take this horrible example to heart, as St.
Paul says in Romans II, and fear God lest we also finally fall
victim to such wrath, and even worse! Rather, as we said also
earlier, let us honor his divine word and not neglect the time of
grace, as Muhammad and the pope have already neglected it,
becoming not much better than the Jews.
Part XI:
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.
In Deuteronomy 13:12 Moses
writes that any city that is given to idolatry shall be totally
destroyed by fire, and nothing of it shall be preserved. If he
were alive today, he would be the first to set fire to the
synagogues and houses of the Jews. For in Deuteronomy 4:2 and
12:32 he commanded very explicitly that nothing is to be added to
or subtracted from his law. And Samuel says in I Samuel 15:23
that disobedience to God is idolatry. Now the Jews doctrine
at present is nothing but the additions of the rabbis and the
idolatry of disobedience, so that Moses has become entirely
unknown among them (as we said before), just as the Bible became
unknown under the papacy in our day. So also, for Moses
sake, their schools cannot be tolerated; they defame him just as
much as they do us. It is not necessary that they have their own
free churches for such idolatry.
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 the fact 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.
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) 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 peoples obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and
infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same
way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew
16:18, "You are Peter," etc., inducing us to believe
all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind.
He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he
forfeited the right to teach.
Fifth, I advise that
safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the
Jews. For they have no business in the countryside, since they
are not lords, officials, tradesmen, or the like. Let them stay
at home. I have heard it said that a rich Jew is now traveling
across the country with twelve horses his ambition is to become a
Kokhba devouring princes, lords, lands, and people with his
usury, so that the great lords view it with jealous eyes. If you
great lords and princes will not forbid such usurers the highway
legally, some day a troop may gather against them, having learned
from this booklet the true nature of the Jews and how one should
deal with them and not protect their activities. For you, too,
must not and cannot protect them unless you wish to become
participants in an their abominations in the sight of God.
Consider carefully what good could come from this, and prevent
it.
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 an 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 Gods blessing in a good and worthy
cause.
But when they boast
that Moses allowed or commanded them to exact usury from
strangers, citing Deuteronomy 23:20 apart from this they cannot
adduce as much as a letter in their support we must tell them
that there are two classes of Jews or Israelites. The first
comprises those whom Moses, in compliance with Gods
command, led from Egypt into the land of Canaan. To them he
issued his law, which they were to keep in that country and not
beyond it, and then only until the advent of the Messiah. The
other Jews are those of the emperor and not of Moses. These date
back to the time of Pilate, the procurator of the land of Judah.
For when the latter asked them before the judgment seat,
"Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?"
they all said, "Crucify him, crucify him!" He said to
them, "Shall I crucify your King?" They shouted in
reply, "We have no king but Caesar!" [Matt. 27:22; John
19:15]. God had not commanded of them such submission to the
emperor; they gave it voluntarily.
But when the emperor
demanded the obedience due him, they resisted and rebelled
against him. Now they no longer wanted to be his subjects. Then
he came and visited his subjects, gathered them in Jerusalem, and
then scattered them throughout his entire empire, so that they
were forced to obey him. From these the present remnant of Jews
descended, of whom Moses knows nothing, nor they of him; for they
do not deserve a single passage or verse of Moses. If they wish
to apply Moses law again, they must first return to the land
of Canaan, become Moses Jews, and keep his laws. There they
may practice usury as much as strangers will endure from them.
But since they are dwelling in and disobeying Moses in foreign
countries under the emperor, they are bound to keep the
emperors laws and refrain from the practice of usury until
they become obedient to Moses. For Moses law has never
passed a single step beyond the land of Canaan or beyond the
people of Israel. Moses was not sent to the Egyptians, the
Babylonians, or any other nation with his law, but only to the
people whom he led from Egypt into the land of Canaan, as he
himself testifies frequently in Deuteronomy. They were expected
to keep his commandments in the land which they would conquer
beyond the Jordan.
Moreover, since
priesthood, worship, government with which the greater part,
indeed, almost all, of those laws of Moses deal have been at an
end for over fourteen hundred years already, it is certain that Moses
law also came to an end and lost its authority. Therefore the
imperial laws must be applied to these imperial Jews. Their wish
to be Mosaic Jews must not be indulged. In fact, no Jew has been
that for over fourteen hundred years.
Seventh, I recommend
putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle
into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting
them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, 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 if we are afraid
that they might harm us or our wives, children, servants, cattle,
etc., if they had to serve and work for us -- for it is
reasonable to assume that such noble lords of the world and
venomous, bitter worms are not accustomed to working and would be
very reluctant to humble themselves so deeply before the accursed
Goyim -- then let us emulate the common sense of other nations
such as France, Spain, Bohemia, etc., compute with them how much
their usury has extorted from us, divide, divide this amicably,
but then eject them forever from the country. For, as we have
heard, Gods 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!
I hear it said that
the Jews donate large sums of money and thus prove beneficial to
governments. Yes, but where does this money come from? Not from
their own possessions but from that of the lords and subjects
whom they plunder and rob by means of usury. Thus the lords are
taking from their subjects what they receive from the Jews, i.e.,
the subjects are obliged to pay additional taxes and let
themselves be ground into the dust for the Jews, so that they may
remain in the country, lie boldly and freely, blaspheme, curse,
and steal. Shouldnt the impious Jews laugh up their sleeves
because we let them make such fools of us and because we spend
our money to enable them to remain in the country and to practice
every malice? Over and above that we let them get rich on our
sweat and blood, while we remain poor and they suck the marrow
from our bones. If it is right for a servant to give his master
or for a guest to give his host ten florins annually and, in
return, to steal one thousand florins from him, then the servant
or the guest will very quickly and easily get rich and the master
or the host will soon become a beggar.
And even if the Jews
could give the government such sums of money from their own
property, which is not possible, and thereby buy protection from
us, and the privilege publicly and freely to slander, blaspheme, villify,
and curse our Lord Jesus Christ so shamefully in their
synagogues, and in addition to wish us every misfortune, namely,
that we might all be stabbed to death and perish with our Haman,
emperor, princes, lords, wife, and children -- this would really
be selling Christ our Lord, the whole of Christendom together
with the whole empire, and ourselves, with wife and children,
cheaply and shamefully. What a great saint the traitor Judas
would be in comparison with us! Indeed, if each Jew, as many as
there are of them, could give one hundred thousand florins
annually, we should nevertheless not yield them for this the
right so freely to malign, curse, defame, impoverish by usury a
single Christian. That would still be far too cheap a price. How
much more intolerable is it that we permit the Jews to purchase
with our money such license to slander and curse the whole Christ
and all of us and, furthermore, reward them for this with riches
and make them our lords, while they ridicule us and gloat in
their malice. That would prove a delightful spectacle for the
devil and his angels, over which they could secretly grin like a
sow grins at her litter, but which would indeed merit Gods
great wrath.
In brief, dear princes
and lords, those of you who have Jews under your rule: if my
counsel does not please you, 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, the
blasphemy, the defamation, and the curses which the mad Jews
indulge in so freely and wantonly against the person of our Lord
Jesus Christ, his dear mother, all Christians, all authority, and
ourselves. Do not grant them protection, safe-conduct, or
communion with us. Do not aid and abet them in acquiring your
money or your subjects money and property by means of
usury. We have enough sin of our own without this, dating back to
the papacy, and we add to it daily with our ingratitude and our
contempt of Gods word and all his grace; so it is not
necessary to burden ourselves also with these alien, shameful
vices of the Jews and over and above it all, to pay them for it
with money and property. Let us consider that we are now daily
struggling with the Turks, which surely calls for a lessening of
our sins and a reformation of our life. With this faithful
counsel and warning I wish to cleanse and exonerate my
conscience.
And you, my dear
gentlemen and friends who are pastors and preachers, I wish to
remind very faithfully of your official duty, so that you too may
warn your parishioners concerning their eternal harm, as you know
how to do, namely, that they be on their guard against the Jews
and avoid them so far as possible. They should not curse them or
harm their persons, however. For the Jews have cursed and harmed
themselves more than enough by cursing the Man Jesus of Nazareth,
Marys son, which they unfortunately have been doing for
over fourteen hundred years. 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.
When you lay eyes on
or think of a Jew you must say to your self: Alas, that mouth
which I there behold has cursed and execrated and maligned every
Saturday my dear Lord Jesus Christ, who has redeemed me with his
precious blood; in addition, it prayed and pleaded before God
that I, my wife and children, and all Christians might be stabbed
to death and perish miserably. And he himself would gladly do
this if he were able, in order to appropriate our goods. Perhaps
he has spat on the ground many times this very day over the name
of Jesus, as is their custom, so that the spittle still clings to
his mouth and beard, if he had a chance to spit. If I were to
eat, drink or talk with such a devilish mouth, I would eat or
drink myself full of devils by the dish or cupful just as I
surely make myself a cohort of all the devils that dwell in the
Jews and that deride the precious blood of Christ. May God
preserve me from this!
We cannot help it that
they do not share our belief. It is impossible to force anyone to
believe. 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 acts, especially since they boast
so proudly and despicably when we do help and serve them that God
has ordained them as lords and us as servants. For instance, when
a Christian kindles their fire for them on a Sabbath, or cooks
for them in an inn whatever they want, they curse and defame and
revile us for it, supposing this to be something praiseworthy,
and yet they live on our wealth, which they have stolen from us.
Such a desperate, thoroughly evil poisonous, and devilish lot are
these Jews, who for these fourteen hundred years have been and
still are our plague, our pestilence, and our misfortune.
Especially you pastors
who have Jews living in your midst, persist in reminding your
lords and rulers to be mindful of their office and of their
obligation before God to force the Jews to work, to forbid usury,
and to check their blasphemy and cursing. For if they punish
thievery, robbery, murder, blasphemy, and other vices among us
Christians, why should the devilish Jews be scot-free to commit
their crimes among us and against us? We suffer more from them
than the Italians do from the Spaniards, who plunder the
hosts kitchen, cellar, chest, and purse, and, in addition,
curse him and threaten him with death. Thus the Jews, our guests,
also treat us; for we are their hosts. They rob and fleece us and
hang about our necks, these lazy weaklings and indolent bellies;
they swill and feast, enjoy good times in our homes, and by way
of reward they curse our Lord Christ, our churches, our princes,
and all of us, threatening us and unceasingly wishing us death
and every evil. Just ponder this: How does it happen that we poor
Christians nourish and enrich such an idle and lazy people, such
a useless, evil pernicious people, such blasphemous enemies of
God, receiving nothing in return but their curses and defamation
and every misfortune they may inflict on us or wish us? Indeed,
we are as blind and unfeeling clods in this respect as are the
Jews in their unbelief, to suffer such great tyranny from these
vicious weaklings, and not perceive and sense that they are our
lords, yes, our mad tyrants, and that we are their captives and
subjects. Meanwhile they wail that they are our captives, and at
the same time mock us -- as though we had to take this from
them!
But if the authorities
are reluctant to use force and restrain the Jews devilish
wantonness, the latter should, as we said, be expelled from the
country and be told to return to their land and their possessions
in Jerusalem, where they may lie, curse, blaspheme, defame,
murder, steal, rob, practice usury, mock, and indulge in all
those infamous abominations which they practice among us, and
leave us our government, our country, our life, and our property,
much more leave our Lord the Messiah, our faith, and our church
undefiled and uncontaminated with their devilish tyranny and
malice. Any privileges that they may plead shall not help them;
for no one can grant privileges for practicing such abominations.
These cancel and abrogate all privileges.
If you pastors and
preachers have followed my example and have faithfully issued
such warnings, but neither prince nor subject will do anything
about it, let us follow the advice of Christ (Matthew 10:14) and
shake the dust from our shoes, and say, "We are innocent of
your blood." For I observe and have often experienced how
indulgent the perverted world is when it should be strict, and,
conversely, how harsh it is when it should be merciful. Such was
the case with King Ahab, as we find recorded in I Kings 20. That
is the way the prince of this world reigns. I suppose that the
princes will now wish to show mercy to the Jews, the bloodthirsty
foes of our Christian and human name, in order to earn heaven
thereby. But that the Jews enmesh us, harass us, torment and
distress us poor Christians in every way with the above mentioned
devilish and detestable deeds, this they want us to tolerate, and
this is a good Christian deed, especially if there is any money
involved (which they have filched and stolen from us).
What are we poor
preachers to do meanwhile? In the first place, we will believe
that our Lord Jesus Christ is truthful when he declares of the
Jews who did not accept but crucified him, "You are a brood
of vipers and children of the devil [cf. Matt. 12:34]. This is a
judgment in which his forerunner John the Baptist concurred,
although these people were his kin. Now our authorities and all
such merciful saints as wish the Jews well will at least have to
let us believe our Lord Jesus Christ, who, I am sure, has a more
intimate knowledge of all hearts than do those compassionate
saints. He knows that these Jews are a brood of vipers and
children of the devil, that is, people who will accord us the
same benefits as does their father, the devil, and by now we
Christians should have learned from Scripture as well as
experience just how much he wishes us well.
I have read and heard
many stories about the Jews which agree with this judgment of Christ,
namely, how they have poisoned wells, made assassinations, kidnaped
children, as related before. I have heard that one Jew sent
another Jew, and this by means of a Christian, a pot of blood,
together with a barrel of wine, in which when drunk empty, a dead
Jew was found. There are many other similar stories. For their kidnaping
of children they have often been burned at the stake or banished
(as we already heard). I am well aware that they deny all of
this. However, it all coincides with the judgment of Christ which
declares that they are venomous, bitter, vindictive, tricky
serpents, assassins, and children of the devil who sting and work
harm stealthily wherever they cannot do it openly. For this
reason I should like to see them where there are no Christians.
The Turks and other heathen do not tolerate what we Christians
endure from these venomous serpents and young devils. Nor do the
Jews treat any others as they do us Christians. That is what I
had in mind when I said earlier that, next to the devil, a
Christian has no more bitter and galling foe than a Jew. There is
no other to whom we accord as many benefactions and from whom we
suffer as much as we do from these base children of the devil,
this brood of vipers.
Now let me commend
these Jews sincerely to whoever feels the desire to shelter and
feed them, to honor them, to be fleeced, robbed, plundered,
defamed, vilified, and cursed by them, and to suffer every evil
at their hands -- these venomous serpents and devils
children, who are the most vehement enemies of Christ our Lord
and of us all. And if that is not enough, let him stuff them into
his mouth, or crawl into their behind and worship this holy
object. Then let him boast of his mercy, then let him boast that
he has strengthened the devil and his brood for further
blaspheming our dear Lord and the precious blood with which we
Christians are redeemed. Then he will be a perfect Christian,
filled with works of mercy for which Christ will reward him on
the day of judgment, together with the Jews in the eternal fire
of hell!
That is speaking
coarsely about the coarse cursing of the Jews. Others write much
about this, and the Jews know very well that it is cursing, since
they curse and blaspheme consciously. Let us also speak more
subtly and, as Christians, more spiritually about this. Thus our
Lord Jesus Christ says in Matthew 10:40, "He who receives me
receives him who sent me." And in Luke 10:16, "He who
rejects you rejects me. And he who rejects me rejects him who
sent me." And in John 15:23, "He who hates me hates my
father also. In John 5:23, "That all may honor the Son, even
as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor
the Father who sent him," etc.
These are, God be
praised, clear and plain words, declaring that all that is done
to the honor or to the dishonor of the Son is surely also done to
the honor or to the dishonor of God the Father himself. We
Christians cannot have or countenance any doubt of this. Whoever
denies, defames, and curses Jesus of Nazareth, the Virgin
Marys Son, also denies, defames, and curses God the Father
himself, who created heaven and earth. But that is what the Jews
do, etc.
And if you say that
the Jews do not believe or know this since they do not accept the
New Testament, I reply that the Jews may know or believe this or
that; we Christians, however, know that they publicly blaspheme
and curse God the Father when they blaspheme and curse this Jesus.
Tell me, what are we going to answer God if he takes us to
account now or on the day of judgment, saying: "Listen, you
are a Christian. You are aware of the fact that the Jews openly
blasphemed and cursed my Son and Me, you gave them opportunity
for it, you protected and shielded them so that they could engage
in this without hindrance or punishment in your country, city,
and house." Tell me: What will we answer to this?
Of course, we accord
anyone the right not to believe omissive et privatim
["by neglect and privately]; this we leave to
every ones conscience. But to parade such unbelief so
freely in churches and before our very noses, eyes, and ears, to
boast of it, to sing it, teach it, and defend it, to revile and
curse the true faith, and in this way lure others to them and
hinder our people_that is a far, far different story. And this is
not changed by the fact that the Jews do not believe the New
Testament, that they are unacquainted with it, and that they pay
it no heed. The fact remains that we are acquainted with it and
that we cannot acquiesce in having the Jews revile and curse it
in our hearing. To witness this and keep silent is tantamount to
doing it ourselves. Thus the accursed Jews encumber us with their
diabolical, blasphemous, and horrible sins in our own country.
Part XII:
It will not do for
them to say at this point: "We Jews care nothing about the
New Testament or about the belief of the Christians." Let
them express such sentiments in their own country or secretly. In
our country and in our hearing they must suppress these words, or
we will have to resort to other measures. These incorrigible
rascals know very well that the New Testament deals with our Lord
Jesus Christ, Gods Son, while they claim to be unacquainted
with its contents. My friend, it is not a question of what you
know or what you wish to know, but of what you ought to know,
what you are obliged to know. As it happens, not only the Jew but
an the world is obliged to know that the New Testament is God the
Fathers book about his Son Jesus Christ Whoever does not
accept and honor that book does not accept and honor God the
Father himself. For we read, "He who rejects me rejects my
Father." And if the Jews do not want to know this, then, as
I said, we Christians do know it.
Thus if we ourselves
do not wish to stand condemned by their sins, we cannot tolerate
that the Jews publicly blaspheme and revile God the Father before
our very ears by blaspheming and reviling Jesus our Lord, for as
he says, "He who hates me hates my Father also."
Similarly we cannot tolerate their stating openly and in our
hearing that they have no regard for the New Testament but look
upon it as a pack of lies. This is tantamount to saying that they
care nothing for God the Father and regard him as a liar, for
this is God the Fathers book, it is the word about his Son
Jesus Christ. It will not avail them but rather prejudice their
case if they plead ignorance or rejection of the book. For it is
incumbent on all to know Gods book. He did not reveal it to
have it ignored or rejected; he wants it to be known, and he
excuses no one from this.
It is as if a king
were to instate his only son in his place and command the country
to regard him as its sovereign (although he would also be
entitled to this by right of natural inheritance), and the
country as a whole readily accepted him. A few, however, band
together in opposition, alleging that they know nothing about
this, despite the fact that the king had in confirmation of his
will issued seal and letters and other testimony. They still
insist that they do not want to know this or respect it. The king
would be obliged to take these people by the nape of the neck and
throw them into a dungeon and entrust them to Master Hans, who
would teach them to say, "We are willing to acknowledge
it." The alternative would be to keep them incarcerated
forever, lest they contaminate with their refractory attitude
others who do want to learn it.
This is what God, too,
has done. He instated his Son Jesus Christ in Jerusalem in his
place and commanded that he be paid homage, according to Psalm
2:11-12: "Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in
the way." Some of the Jews would not hear of this. God bore
witness by the various tongues of the apostles and by all sorts
of miraculous signs, and cited the statements of the prophets in
testimony. However, they did then what they still do now; they
were obstinate, and absolutely refused to give ear to it. Then
came Master Hans the Romans who destroyed Jerusalem, took the
villains by the nape of the neck and cast them into the dungeon
of exile, which they still inhabit and in which they will remain
forever, or until they say, We are willing to acknowledge
it."
God surely did not do
this secretly or in some nook or corner, so that the Jews would
have an excuse for disregarding the New Testament without sin. As
we noted above, he gave them a reliable sign through the
patriarch Jacob, namely, that they could confidently expect the
Messiah when the scepter had departed from Judah. Or, when the
seventy weeks of Daniel had expired; or, a short time after the
construction of Haggais temple but before its destruction.
He also informed them through Isaiah that when they would hear a
voice in the wilderness (as happened when the scepter had
departed), that is, when they heard the voice of a preacher and
prophet proclaiming, "Repent, the Lord is at hand, and is
himself coming" then they should be certain that the Messiah
had come [cf. Isa. 40:3 ff.].
Shortly thereafter the
Messiah himself appeared on the scene, taught, baptized, and
performed innumerable great miracles, not secretly but throughout
the entire country, prompting many to exclaim, "This is the
Messiah" [John 7:41]. Also [John 7:31]: "When the
Messiah appears, will he do more signs than this man has
done?" And they themselves said, "What are we to do?
For this man performs many signs. If we let him go on thus, every
one will believe in him" [John 11:47]. When he was on the
cross, they said, "He saved others; he cannot save
himself" [Matt. 27:42]. Should God concede that these
circumcised saints are ignorant of all this, when they already
stand convicted by the four statements cited (Jacobs,
Haggais, Daniels, and Davids), all of which
show that the Messiah must have come at that time? Several of
their rabbis also declared that he was in the world and was
begging in Rome, etc.
Furthermore, he saw to
it that they were warned not to be offended at his person, for in
Zechariah 9:9 he announced that he would come to Jerusalem
"riding on an ass," wretched and poor, but as a
propitious King who would teach peace, who would "cut
off" the chariots, steeds, and bows (that is, not rule in a
worldly manner, as the mad Kokhbaites, these bloodthirsty Jews,
rave), and that this poor yet peaceful, propitious Kings
dominion should extend to the ends of the world. That is, indeed,
a very clear statement, setting forth that the Messiah should
reign in all the world without a sword, with pure peace, as a
King bringing salvation. I am extremely surprised that the devil
can be so powerful as to delude a person, to say nothing of an
entire nation which boasts of being Gods people, into
believing something at variance with this clear text.
He faithfully
forewarned them, furthermore, not to be offended when they see
that such a great miracle-worker and poor King who had ridden in
on an ass, would let himself be killed and crucified. For he had
had it proclaimed in advance (Daniel 9:26 and Isaiah 53:2 and
52:14) that "his Servant, who will startle the kings, will
be smitten and afflicted"; but all of this will occur
because "God laid on him the sins of us all and wounded him
for our transgressions, but he was to make himself an offering
for sin, intercede for the transgressors, and by his knowledge
make many to be accounted righteous." Such the text clearly
states.
But the sun has never
seen or heard anything more disgraceful than the abuse of this
passage by these blasphemous Jews. They apply it to themselves in
their exile. At the present we lack the time to deal with this.
Alas, should they be the ones who were smitten because of our
sin, who bore our transgressions, who made us righteous, and who
intercede for us, etc.? There was never a viler people than they,
who with their lying, blaspheming, cursing, maligning, their
idolatry, their robbery, usury, and all vices accuse us
Christians and an mankind more before God and the world than any
others. By no means do they pray for us sinners as the text says;
they curse us most vehemently, as we proved earlier from Lyra and
Burgensis. Their great slothfulness and malice prompt these
blasphemous scoundrels to mock Scripture, God, and all the world
with their impudent glosses. This they do in accord with their
merit and true worth.
After the crucifixion
of the King, God first presented the proper signs that this Jesus
was the Messiah. Poor, timid, unlearned, unconsecrated fishermen,
who did not even have a perfect mastery of their own language,
stepped forth and preached in the tongues of the whole world. All
the world, heaven and earth, is still filled with wonder at this.
They interpreted the writings of the prophets with power and
correct understanding; in addition they performed such signs and
wonders, that their message was accepted throughout the world by
Jews and Gentiles. Innumerable people, both young and old,
accepted it with such sincerity that they willingly suffered
gruesome martyrdom because of it. This message has now endured
these fifteen hundred years down to our day, and it will endure
to the end of time.
If such signs did not
move the Jews of that time, what can we expect of these
degenerate Jews who haughtily disdain to know anything about this
story? Indeed, God, who revealed these things so gloriously to an
the world, will see to it that they hear us Christians preach and
see us keep this message, which we did not invent but heard from
Jerusalem fourteen hundred years ago. No enemies, no heathen, and
especially no Jews have been able to suppress it, no matter how
strongly they opposed it. It would be impossible for such a thing
to maintain itself if it were not of God.
The Jews themselves in
their fifteen-hundred-year exile must confess that this message
has been preached in all the world before their very ears, that
it was assailed by much heresy and yet survived. Therefore God
cannot be accused of having done all this secretly or in hiding,
or of never having brought it to the attention of the Jews or of
any other people. For they have all persecuted it vehemently and
vigorously these fifteen hundred years. And yet the blasphemous
Jews oppose it so impudently and sneeringly, as though it had
just recently been invented by a drunkard who deserves no
credence. They feel free to revile and damn it with impunity, and
we Christians have to offer them room and place, house and home
in the bargain, we have to protect and defend them all so that
they can confidently and freely revile and condemn such a word of
God. And by way of reward we let them take our money and property
through their usury.
No, you vile father of
such blasphemous Jews, you hellish devil, these are the facts:
God has preached long enough to your children, the Jews, publicly
and with miraculous signs throughout the world. He has done so
for almost fifteen hundred years now, and still preaches. They
were and still are obliged to obey him; but they were hardened
and ever resisted, blasphemed, and cursed. Therefore we
Christians, in turn are obliged not to tolerate their wanton and
conscious blasphemy. As we heard above, "He who hates the
Son also hates the Father" [John 15:23]. For if we permit
them to do this where we are sovereign, and protect them to
enable them to do so, then we are eternally damned together with
them because of their sins and blasphemies, even if we in our
persons are as holy as the prophets, apostles, or angels. Quia
faciens et consentiens pari poena ["Doing and consenting
deserve equal punishment"]. Whether doer, adviser,
accomplice, consenter, or concealer -- one is as pious as the
other. It does not help us (and the Jews still less) that the
Jews refuse to acknowledge this. As has already been said, we
Christians know it, and the Jews ought to know it, having heard
it together with us for almost fifteen hundred years, having
beheld all sorts of miracles and having heard how this doctrine
has survived, by nothing but divine strength, against all devils
and the whole world.
This is certain, borne
out by such an enduring and impressive testimony in all the
world, that "He who does not honor the Son does not honor
the Father," and that he who does not have the Son cannot
have the Father. The Jews ever blaspheme and curse God the
Father, the Creator of us all, just by blaspheming and cursing
his Son, Jesus of Nazareth, Marys Son, whom God has
proclaimed as his Son for fifteen hundred years in all the world
by preaching and miraculous signs against the might and the
trickery of all devils and men; and he will proclaim him as such
until the end of the world. They dub him Hebel Vorik, that
is, not merely a liar and deceiver, but lying and deception
itself, viler even than the devil. We Christians must not
tolerate that they practice this in their public synagogues, in
their books, and in their behavior, openly under our noses, and
within our hearing in our own country, houses, and regimes. If we
do, we together with the Jews and on their account will lose God
the Father and his dear Son, who purchased us at such cost with
his holy blood, and we will be eternally lost, which God
forbid!
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.
Second, that all their
books their prayer books, their Talmudic writings, also the
entire Bible, be taken from them, not leaving them one leaf, and
that these be preserved for those who may be converted. For they
use all of these books to blaspheme the Son of God, that is, God
the Father himself, Creator of heaven and earth, as was said
above; and they will never use them differently.
Third, that they be
forbidden on pain of death to praise God, to give thanks, to
pray, and to teach publicly among us and in our country. They may
do this in their own country or wherever they can without our
being obliged to hear it or know it. The reason for this
prohibition is that their praise, thanks, prayer, and doctrine
are sheer blasphemy, cursing, and idolatry, because their heart
and mouth call God the Father Hebel Vorik as they call his
Son, our Lord Jesus, this. For as they name and honor the Son,
thus they also name and honor the Father. It does not help them
to use many fine words and to make much ado about the name of
God. For we read, "You shall not take the name of the Lord
your God in vain" [Exod. 20:7]. Just as little did it avail
their ancestors at the time of the kings of Israel that they bore
Gods name, yet called him Baal.
Fourth, that they be
forbidden to utter the name of God within our hearing. For we
cannot with a good conscience listen to this or tolerate it,
because their blasphemous and accursed mouth and heart call
Gods Son Hebel Vorik, and thus also call his Father
that. He cannot and will not interpret this otherwise, just as we
Christians too cannot interpret it otherwise, we who believe that
however the Son is named and honored thus also the Father is
named and honored. Therefore we must not consider the mouth of
the Jews as worthy of uttering the name of God within our
hearing. He who hears this name-from a Jew must inform the
authorities, or else throw sow dung at him when he sees him and
chase him away. And may no one be merciful and kind in this
regard, for Gods honor and the salvation of us all,
including that of the Jews, are at stake!
And if they, or
someone else in their behalf, were to suggest that they do not
intend any such great evil, or that they are not aware that with
such blaspheming and cursing they are blaspheming and cursing God
the Father alleging that though they blaspheme Jesus and us
Christians, they nonetheless praise and honor God most highly and
beautifully we answer as we have done before: that if the Jews do
not want to admit this or try to put a better face on it, we
Christians at least are bound to admit it. The Jews
ignorance is not to be excused, since God has had this proclaimed
for almost fifteen hundred years. They are obliged to know it,
and God demands this knowledge of them. For if anyone who hears
Gods words for fifteen hundred years still constantly
remarks, "I do not want to acknowledge this," his
ignorance will provide a very poor excuse. He thereby really
incurs a sevenfold guilt.
To be sure, they did
not know at that time that it was Gods word; but now they
have been informed of it these fifteen hundred years. They have
witnessed great signs. Yet they have raged against this, and
because of it lived in such exile for fifteen hundred years. All
right, let them even now hear and believe it, and all will be
simple. If they refuse, it is certain that they will never
acknowledge it but are bent on cursing it forever, as their
forebears have done for these fifteen hundred years. So we
Christians, who do acknowledge it, cannot tolerate or take upon
everlasting ignorance and blasphemy in out midst. Let them wander
back to their country, be ignorant and blaspheme there as long as
they can, and not burden us with their wicked sins.
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 Gods
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. So
let us beware. In my opinion the problem must be resolved thus:
If we wish to wash our hands of the Jews blasphemy and not
share in their guilt, we have to part company with them. They
must be driven from our country. Let them think of their
fatherland; then they need no longer wail and lie before God
against us that we are holding them captive, nor need we then any
longer complain that they are burdening us with their blasphemy
and their usury. This is the most natural and the best course of
action, which will safe guard the interest of both parties.
But since they are
loath to quit the country, they will boldly deny everything and
will also offer the government money enough for permission to
remain here. Woe to those who accept such money, and accursed be
that money, which they have stolen from us so damnably through
usury. They deny just as brazenly as they lie. And wherever they
can secretly curse, poison, or harm us Christians they do so
without any qualms of conscience. If they are caught in the act
or charged with something, they are bold enough to deny it
impudently, even to the point of death, since they do not regard
us worthy of being told the truth. In fact, these holy children
of God consider any harm they can wish or inflict on us as a
great service to God. Indeed, if they had the power to do to us
what we are able to do to them, not one of us would live for an
hour. But since they lack the power to do this publicly, they
remain our daily murderers and bloodthirsty foes in their hearts.
Their prayers and curses furnish evidence of that, as do the many
stories which relate their torturing of children and all sorts of
crimes for which they have often been burned at the stake or
banished.
Therefore I firmly
believe that they say and practice far worse things secretly than
the histories and others record about them, meanwhile relying on
their denials and on their money. But even if they could deny all
else, they cannot deny that they curse us Christians openly --
not because of our evil life, but because we regard Jesus as the
Messiah, and because they view themselves as our captives,
although they know very well that the latter is a lie, and that
they are really the ones who hold us captive in our own country
by means of their usury, and that everyone would gladly be rid of
them. Because they curse us, they also curse our Lord; and if
they curse our Lord, they also curse God the Father, the Creator
of heaven and earth. Thus their lying cannot avail them. Their
cursing alone convicts them, so that we are indeed compelled to
believe all the evil things written about them. Undoubtedly they
do more and viler things than those which we know and discover.
For Christ does not lie or deceive us when he adjudges them to be
serpents and children of the devil, that is, his and all his
followers murderers and enemies, wherever they find it
possible.
If I had power over
the Jews, as our princes and cities have, I would deal severely
with their lying mouth. They have one lie with which they work
great harm among their children and their common folk and with
which they slander our faith so shameful}y: namely, they accuse
us and slander us among their people, declaring that we
Christians worship more than one God. Here they vaunt and pride
themselves without measure. They beguile their people with the
claim that they are the only people, in contrast to an the
Gentiles, who worship no more than one God. Oh, how cocksure they
are about this!
Even though they are
aware that they are doing us an injustice and are lying on this
point as malicious and wicked scoundrels, even though they have
heard for fifteen hundred years, and still hear, that an of us
Christians disavow this, they still stuff their ears shut like
serpents and deliberately refuse to hear us, but rather insist
that their venomous lies about us must be accepted by their
people as the truth. This they do even though they read in our
writings that we agree with Moses words in Deuteronomy 6
[:4]: "Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God,"
and that we confess, publicly and privately, with our hearts,
tongues and writings, our life and our death, that there is but
one God, of whom Moses writes here and whom the Jews themselves
call upon. I say, even if they know this and have heard and read
it about us for almost fifteen hundred years, it is of no avail;
their lies must still stand, and we Christians have to tolerate
their slander that we worship many gods.
Consequently, if I had
power over them, I would assemble their scholars and their
leaders and order them, on pain of losing their tongues down to
the root, to convince us Christians within eight days of the
truth of their assertions and to prove this blasphemous lie
against us, to the effect that we worship more than the one true
God. If they succeeded, we would all on the self-same day become
Jews and be circumcised. If they failed, they should stand ready
to receive the punishment they deserve for such shameful,
malicious, pernicious, and venomous lies. For, thanks be to God,
we are after all not such ducks, clods, or stones as these most
intelligent rabbis, these senseless fools, think us, that we do
not know that one God and many gods cannot truly be believed in
simultaneously.
Neither Jew nor devil
will in any way be able to prove that our belief that the one
eternal Godhead is composed of three persons implies that we
believe in more than one God. If the Jews maintain that they
cannot understand how three persons can be one God, why then must
their blasphemous, accursed, lying mouth deny, condemn, and curse
what it does not understand? Such a mouth should be punished for
two reasons; in the first place, because it confesses that it
does not understand this; in the second place, because it
nevertheless blasphemes something which it does not understand.
Why do they not first ask? Indeed, why have they heard it for
fifteen hundred years and yet refused to learn or understand it?
Therefore such lack of understanding cannot help or excuse them,
nor us Christians if we tolerate this any longer from them. As
already said, we must force them to prove their lies about us or
suffer the consequences. For he who slanders and maligns us as
being idolatrous in this respect, slanders and maligns Christ,
that is, God himself, as an idol. For it is from him that we
learned and received this as his eternal word and truth,
confirmed mightily by signs and confessed and taught now for
nearly fifteen hundred years.
No person has yet been
born, or will ever be born, who can grasp or comprehend how
foliage can sprout from wood or a tree, or how grass can grow
forth from stone or earth, or how any creature can be begotten.
Yet these filthy, blind, hardened liars presume to fathom and to
know what is happening outside and beyond the creature in
Gods hidden, incomprehensible, inscrutable, and eternal
essence. Though we ourselves can grasp only with difficulty and
with weak faith what has been revealed to us about this in veiled
words, they give vent to such terrible blasphemy over it as to
call our faith idolatrous, which is to reproach and defame God
himself as an idol. We are convinced of our faith and doctrine;
and they, too, ought to understand it, having heard for fifteen
hundred years that it is by God and from God through Jesus Christ.
If these vulgar people
had expressed themselves more mildly and said, "The
Christians worship one God and not many gods, and we are lying
and doing the Christians an injustice when we allege that they
are worshiping more than one God, though they do believe that
there are three persons in the Godhead; we can not understand
this but are willing to let the Christians follow their
convictions," etc. -- that would have been sensible. But now
they proceed, impelled by the devil, to fall into this like
filthy sows fall into the trough, defaming and reviling what they
refuse to acknowledge and to understand. Without further ado they
declare: We Jews do not understand this and do not want to
understand it; therefore it follows that it is wrong and
idolatrous.
These are the people
to whom God has never been God but a liar in the person of all
the prophets and apostles, no matter how much God had these
preach to them. The result is that they can not be Gods
people, no matter how much they teach, clamor, and pray. They do
not hear God; so he, in turn, does not hear them, as Psalm 18 :26
says: "With the crooked thou dost show thyself per
verse." The wrath of God has overtaken them. I am loath to
think of this, and it has not been a pleasant task for me to
write this book being obliged to resort now to anger, now to
satire, in order to avert my eyes from the terrible picture which
they present It has pained me to mention their horrible blasphemy
concerning our Lord and his dear mother, which we Christians are
grieved to hear. I can well understand what St. Paul means in
Romans 10 [9:2] when he says that he is saddened as he considers
them. I think that every Christian experiences this when he
reflects seriously, not on the temporal misfortunes and exile
which the Jews bemoan, but on the fact that they are condemned to
blaspheme, curse, and vilify God himself and all that is
Gods, for their eternal damnation, and that they refuse to
hear and acknowledge this but regard all of their doings as zeal
for God. O God, heavenly Father, relent and let your wrath over
them be sufficient and come to an end, for the sake of your dear
Son! Amen.
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 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. Therefore 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 the their other vices and thus merit Gods wrath and be
damned with them. I have done my duty. Now let everyone see to
his. I am exonerated.
Finally I wish to say
this for myself: If God were to give me no other Messiah than
such as the Jews wish and hope for, I would much, much rather be
a sow than a human being. I will cite you a good reason for this.
The Jews ask no more of their Messiah than that he be a Kokhba
and worldly king who will slay us Christians and share out the
world among the Jews and make them lords, and who finally will
die like other kings, and his children after him. For thus
declares a rabbi: You must not suppose that it will be different
at the time of the Messiah than it has been since the creation of
the world, etc.; that is, there will be days and nights, years
and months, summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, begetting
and dying, eating and drinking, sleeping, growing, digesting, eliminating_all
will take its course as it does now, only the Jews will be the
masters and will possess all the worlds gold, goods, joys,
and delights, while we Christians will be their servants. This
coincides entirely with the thoughts and teachings of Muhamunad.
He kills us Christians as the Jews would like to do, occupies the
land, and takes over our property, our joys and pleasures. If he
were a Jew and not an Ishmaelite, the Jews would have accepted
him as the Messiah long ago, or they would have made him the Kokhba.
Even if I had all of
that, or if I could become the ruler of Turkey or the Messiah for
whom the Jews hope, I would still prefer being a sow. For what
would all of this benefit me if I could not be secure in its
possession for a single hour? Death, that horrible burden and
plague of all mankind, would still threaten me. I would not be
safe from him; I would have to fear him every moment. I would
still have to quake and tremble before hell and the wrath of God.
And I would know no end of all this, but would have to expect it
forever. The tyrant Dionysius illustrated this well when he
placed a person who praised his good fortune at the head of a
richly laden table. Over his head he suspended an unsheathed
sword attached to a silk thread, and below him he put a red-hot
fire, saying: Eat and be merry, etc. That is the sort of joy such
a Messiah would dispense. And I know that anyone who has ever
tasted of deaths terror or burden would rather be a sow
than bear this forever and ever.
For a sow lies down on
her featherbed, on the street, or on a dung-heap; she rests
securely, snores gently, sleeps sweetly, fears neither king nor
Lord, neither death nor hell, neither the devil nor Gods
wrath, and lives entirely without care so long as she has her
bran. And if the emperor of Turkey were to draw near with all his
might and his wrath, she in her pride would not move a bristle
for his sake. If someone were to rouse her, she, I suppose, would
grunt and say, if she could talk: You fool, why are you raving?
You are not one-tenth as well off as I am. Not for an hour do you
live as securely, as peacefully and tranquilly as I do
constantly, nor would you even if you were ten times as great or
rich. In brief, no thought of death occurs to her, for her life
is secure and serene.
And if the butcher
performs his job with her, she probably imagines that a stone or
piece of wood is pinching her. She never thinks of death, and in
a moment she is dead. Neither before, during, or in death did she
feel death. She feels nothing but life, nothing but everlasting
life! No king, not even the Jews Messiah, will be able to
emulate her, nor will any person, however great, rich, holy, or
mighty he might be. She never ate of the apple which taught us
wretched men in Paradise the difference between good and
evil.
What good would the
Jews Messiah do me if he were unable to help a poor man
like me in face of this great and horrible lack and grief and
make my life one-tenth as pleasant as that of a sow? I would say:
Dear Lord God, keep your Messiah, or give him to whoever will
have him. Instead, make me a sow. For it is better to be a live
sow than a man who is eternally dying. Yea, as Christ says:
"It would have been better for that man if he had not been
born" [Matt. 26:24].
However, if I had a
Messiah who could remedy this grief, so that I would no longer
have to fear death but would be always and eternally sure of
life, and able to play a trick on the devil and death and no
longer have to tremble before the wrath of God, then my heart
would leap for joy and be intoxicated with sheer delight; then
would a fire of love for God be enkindled, and my praise and
thanks would never cease. Even if he would not, in addition, give
me gold, silver, and other riches, all the world would
nonetheless be a genuine paradise for me, though I lived in a
dungeon.
That is the kind of
Messiah we Christians have, and we thank God, the Father of all
mercy, with the full, overflowing joy of our hearts, gladly and
readily forgetting all the sorrow and harm which the devil
wrought for us in Paradise. For our loss has been richly
compensated for, and all has been restored to us through this
Messiah. Filled with such joy, the apostles sang and rejoiced in
dungeons and amid all misfortunes as did even young girls, such
as Agatha, Lucia, etc. The wretched Jews, on the other hand, who
rejected this Messiah, have languished and perished since that
time in anguish of heart, in trouble, trembling, wrath,
impatience, malice, blasphemy, and cursing, as we read in Isaiah
65:14: "Behold, my servants shall sing for gladness of
heart, but you shall cry out for pain of heart, and shall wail
for anguish of spirit. You shall leave your name to my chosen for
a curse, and the Lord God will slay you; but his servants he will
call by a different name." And in the same chapter we read:
"I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me; I
was ready to be found by those who did not seek me. I said,
Here am I, here am I, to a nation that did not call
on my name (that is, who were not my people). I spread out my
hands all the day to a rebellious people."
We, indeed, have such
a Messiah, who says to us (John 11:25): "I am the
resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die,
yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall
never die." And John 8:51: "Truly, truly, I say to you,
if any one keeps my word, he will never see death." The Jews
and the Turks care nothing for such a Messiah. And why should
they? They must have a Messiah from the fools paradise, who
will satisfy their stinking belly, and who will die together with
them like a cow or dog.
Nor do they need him
in the face of death, for they themselves are holy enough with
their penitence and piety to step before God and attain this and
everything. Only the Christians are such fools and timid cowards
who stand in such awe of God, who regard their sin and his wrath
so highly that they do not venture to appear before the eyes of
his divine Majesty without a mediator or Messiah to represent
them and to sacrifice himself for them. The Jews, however, are
holy and valiant heroes and knights who dare to approach God
themselves without mediator or Messiah, and ask for and receive
all they desire. Obviously the angels and God himself must
rejoice whenever a Jew condescends to pray; then the angels must
take this prayer and place it as a crown on Gods divine
head. We have witnessed this for fifteen hundred years. So highly
does God esteem the noble blood and circumcised saints because
they can call his son Hebel Vorik!
Part XIII:
Furthermore, not only
do we foolish, craven Christians and accursed Goyim regard our
Messiah as so indispensable for delivering us from death through
himself and without our holiness, but we wretched people are also
afflicted with such great and terrible blindness as to believe
that he needs no sword or worldly power to accomplish this. For
we cannot comprehend how Gods wrath, sin, death, and hell
can be banished with the sword, since we observe that from the
beginning of the world to the present day death has not cared a
fig for the sword; it has overcome all emperors, kings, and
whoever wields a sword as easily as it over comes the weakest
infant in the cradle.
In this respect, the
great seducers Isaiah, Jeremiah, and an the other prophets do us
great harm. They beguile us mad Goyim with their false doctrine,
saying that the kingdom of the Messiah will not bear the sword.
Oh, that the holy rabbis and the chivalrous, bold heroes of the
Jews would come to our rescue here and extricate us from these
abominable errors! For when Isaiah 2:2 prophesies concerning the
Messiah that the Gentiles shall come to the house and mountain of
the Lord and let themselves be taught (for undoubtedly they do
not expect to be murdered with the sword; in this case they would
surely not approach but would stay away), he says: "He (the
Messiah) shall judge between the nations, and shall decide for
many peoples; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up
sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any
more."
Similar sorcery is
also practiced upon us poor Goyim in Isaiah 11:9: "They
shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth
shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord. We poor blind Goyim
cannot conceive of this "knowledge of the Lord" as a
sword, but as the instruction by which one learns to know God;
our understanding agrees with Isaiah 2, cited above, which also
speaks of the knowledge which the Gentiles shall pursue. For
knowledge does not come by the sword, but by teaching and
hearing, as we stupid Goyim assume. Likewise Isaiah 53:11:
"By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make
many to be accounted righteous"; that is, by teaching them
and by their hearing him and believing in him. What else might
"his knowledge" mean? In brief, the knowledge of
the Messiah must come by preaching.
The proof of this is
before your eyes, namely, that the apostles used no spear or
sword but solely their tongues. And their example has been
followed in all the world now for fifteen hundred years by all
the bishops, pastors, and preachers, and is still being followed.
Just see whether the pastor wields sword or spear when he enters
the church, preaches, baptizes, administers the sacrament, when
he retains and remits sin, restrains evildoers, comforts the
godly, and teaches, helps, and nurtures everyones soul.
Does he not do all of this exclusively with the tongue or with
words? And the congregation, likewise, brings no sword or spear
to such a ministry, but only its ears.
And consider the
miracles. The Roman Empire and the whole world abounded with
idols to which the Gentiles adhered; the devil was mighty and
defended himself vigorously. All swords were against it, and yet
the tongue alone purged the entire world of all these idols
without a sword. It also exorcised innumerable devils, raised the
dead, healed an types of diseases, and snowed and rained down
sheer miracles. Thereafter it swept away an heresy and error, as
it still does daily before our eyes. And further this is the
greatest miracle it forgives and blots out all sin, creates
happy, peaceful, patient hearts, devours death, locks the doors
of hell and opens the gate of heaven, and gives eternal life. Who
can enumerate all the blessings effected by Gods word? In
brief, it makes all who hear and believe it children of God and
heirs of the kingdom of heaven. Do you not call this a kingdom,
power, might, dominion, glory? Yes, most certainly, this is a
comforting kingdom and the true chemdath of all Gentiles.
And should I, in company with the Jews, desire or accept
bloodthirsty Kokhba in place of such a kingdom? As I said, in
such circumstances I would rather be a sow than a man.
All the writings of
the prophets agree fully with this interpretation, that the
nations, both Jews and Gentiles, flocked to Shiloh after the scepter
had been wrested from Judah (as Jacob says in Genesis 49);
likewise, that the seventy weeks of Daniel are fulfilled; that
the temple of Haggai is destroyed, but the house and throne of
David have remained until the present time and will endure
forever. On the other hand, according to the mischievous denial,
lying, and cursing of the Jews, whom God has rejected, this is
not the meaning [of these passages], much less has it been
fulfilled.
To speak first of the
saying of Jacob in Genesis 49, we heard before what idle and
senseless foolishness the Jews have invented regarding it, yet
without hitting upon any definite meaning. But if we confess our Lord
Jesus and let him be the "Shiloh" or Messiah, all
agrees, coincides, rhymes, and harmonizes beautifully and
delightfully. For he appeared promptly on the scene at the time
of Herod, after the scepter had departed from Judah. He initiated
his rule of peace without a sword, as Isaiah and Zechariah had
prophesied, and an the nations gathered about him both Jews and
Gentiles so that on one day in Jerusalem three thousand souls
became believers, and many members of the priesthood and of the
princes of the people also flocked to him, as Luke records in
Acts 3 and 4.
For more than one
hundred years after Jesus resurrection, that is, from the
eighteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius until the
eighteenth year of the reign of Emperor Hadrian, who inflicted
the second and last bloodbath of the Jews, who defeated Kokhba
and drove the Jews utterly and completely from their country,
there were always bishops in Jerusalem from the tribe of the
children of Israel, an of whom our Eusebius mentions by name (Eccl.
Hist., Bk. 4, ch. 5). He begins with St. James the apostle
and enumerates about fifteen of them, an of whom preached the
gospel with great diligence, performed miracles and lived a holy
life, converting many thousands of Jews and children of Israel to
their promised Messiah who had now appeared, Jesus of Nazareth;
apart from these there were the Jews living in the Diaspora who
were converted together with the Gentiles by St. Paul, other
apostles, and their disciples. 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.
After Hadrian had
expelled the Jews from their country, however, it was necessary
to choose the bishops in Jerusalem from the Gentiles who had
become Christians, for the Jews were no longer found or tolerated
in the country because of Kokhba and his rebellious followers,
who gave the Romans no rest. Yet the other, pious, converted Jews
who lived dispersed among the Gentiles converted many of the
children of Israel, as we gather from the Epistles of St. Paul
and from the histories. But these always and everywhere suffered
persecution at the hands of the Kokhbaites, so that the pious
children of Israel had no worse enemies than their own people.
This is true today in the instance of converted Jews.
The Gentiles all over
the world now also gathered about these pious, converted children
of Israel. This they did in great numbers and with such zeal that
they gave up not only their idols and their own wisdom but also
forsook wife and child, friends, goods and honor, life and limb
for the sake of it. They suffered everything that the devil and
all the other Gentiles, as well as the mad Jews, could contrive.
For all of that, they did not seek a Kokhba, nor the
Gentiles gold, silver, possessions, dominion, land, or
people; they sought eternal life, a life other than this temporal
one. They were poor and wretched voluntarily, and yet were happy
and content. They were not embittered or vindictive, but kind and
merciful. They prayed for their enemies, and, in addition,
performed many and great miracles. That has lasted
uninterruptedly from that time on down to the present day, and it
will endure to the end of the world.
It is a great,
extraordinary, and wonderful thing that the Gentiles in all the
world accepted, without sword or coercion, with no temporal
benefits accruing to them, gladly and freely, a poor Man of the
Jews as the true Messiah, one whom his own people had crucified,
condemned, cursed, and persecuted without end. They did and
suffered so much for his sake, and forsook all idolatry, just so
that they might live with him eternally. This has been going on
now for fifteen hundred years. No worship of a false god ever
endured so long, nor did all the world suffer so much because of
it or cling so firmly to it. And I suppose one of the strongest
proofs is found in the fact that no other god ever withstood such
hard opposition as the Messiah, against whom alone all other gods
and peoples have raged and against whom they all acted in
concert, no matter how varied they were or how they otherwise
disagreed.
Whoever is not moved
by this miraculous spectacle quite deserves to remain blind or to
become an accursed Jew. We Christians perceive that these events
are in agreement with the statement of Jacob found in Genesis 49:
"To the Shiloh or Messiah (after the scepter has dropped
from the hands of Judah) shall be the obedience of the
peoples." We have the fulfillment of this before our eyes:
The peoples, that is, not only the Jews but also the Gentiles,
are in perfect accord in their obedience to this Shiloh; they
have become one people, that is, Christians. One cannot mention
or think of anyone to whom this verse of Jacob applies and refers
so fittingly as to our dear Lord Jesus. It would have had to be
someone who appeared just after the loss of the scepter, or else
the Holy Spirit lied through the mouth of the holy patriarch Jacob,
and God forgot his promise. May the devil say that, or anyone who
wishes to be an accursed Jew!
Likewise the verse
regarding the everlasting house and throne of David fits no other
than this our Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth [II Sam. 23:5]. For
subsequent to the rule of the kings from the tribe of Judah and
since the days of Herod, we cannot think of any son of David who
might have sat on his throne or still occupies it today "to
preserve his throne eternally." Yet that is what had to take
place and still must take place, since God promised it with an
oath. But when this Son of David arose from the dead, many, many
thousands of children of Israel rallied about him, both in Jerusalem
and throughout the world, accepting him as their King and
Messiah, as the true Seed of Abraham and of their lineage. These
were and still are the house, the kingdom, the throne of David. For
they are the descendants of the children of Israel and the seed
of Abraham, over whom David was king.
That they have now
died and lie buried does not matter; they are nonetheless his
kingdom and his people before him. They are dead to us and to the
world, but to him they are alive and not dead. It is natural that
the blind Jews are unaware of this; for he who is blind sees
nothing at all. We Christians, however, know that he says in John
8:56 and in Matthew 22:32: "Abraham lives. Also in John
11:25: "He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he
live." Thus Davids house and throne are firmly
established. There is a Son occupying it eternally, who never
dies, nor does he ever let die those who are of his kingdom or
who accept him in true faith as King. That marks the true fulfillment
of this verse which declares that Davids throne shall be
eternal. Now let all the devils and Jews, Turks and whoever wants
to concern himself with it also name one or more sons of David to
whom this verse regarding the house of David applies so precisely
and beautifully, since the time of Herod, and we shall be ready
to praise them.
To such kingdom and
throne of David we Gentiles belong, along with all who have
accepted this Messiah and Son of David as King with the same
faith, and who continue to accept him to the end of the world and
in eternity. Jacobs saying in Genesis 49:10 states:
"To him shall be the obedience of the peoples." This
means not only one nation, such as the children of Israel, but
also whatever others are called nations. And later we read in
Genesis 22:18: In thy seed shall all the nations of
the earth bless themselves." In this verse we find the term
"Goyim," which in the Bible commonly means the
Gentiles, except where the prophets also call the Jews this in a
strong tone of contempt. To summarize, the blessing of God
through the seed of Abraham shall not be confined to his physical
descendants, but shall be disseminated among all the Gentiles.
That is why God himself calls Abraham "father of a multitude
of nations" [Gen. 17:5]. There are many more such sayings in
Scripture.
The reason that
Scripture calls this kingdom "Davids throne" and
that it calls the King Messiah "Davids Seed" is
found in the fact that this kingdom of David and the King Messiah
did not come from us Gentiles to the children of Abraham and
Israel, but came from the children of Abraham and Israel, as the
Lord himself says in John 4:22: "Salvation is from the
Jews." Even if we are all descended from Adam and partake of
the same birth and blood, nevertheless all other nations were
shunted aside and solely Abrahams seed was selected as the
nation from which the Messiah would come. After Abraham only
Isaac, after Isaac only Jacob, after Jacob only Judah, after
Judah only David were chosen, and the other brothers, each in his
turn, were pushed aside and not chosen as the lineage from which
the Messiah was to come. But everything, all things, happened for
the sake of the Messiah. Therefore the whole seed of Abraham,
especially those who believed in this Messiah, were highly honored
by God, as St. Paul says in Acts 13:17: "God made the people
great." For it surely is a great honor and distinction to be
able to boast of being the Messiahs relative and kin. The
closer the relationship, the greater the honor.
However, this boasting
must not stem from the idea that Abrahams and his
descendants lineage is worthy of such honor; for that would
nullify everything. It must be based rather on the fact that God
chose Abrahams flesh and blood for this purpose out of
sheer grace and mercy, although it surely deserved a far
different lot. We Gentiles, too, have been honored very highly by
being made partakers of the Messiah and the kingdom and by
enjoying the blessing promised to Abrahams seed. But if we
should boast as though we were deserving of this, and not
acknowledge that we owe it to sheer, pure mercy, giving God alone
the glory, all would also be spoiled and lost. It is as said in I
Corinthians 4:7: "What have you that you did not receive? If
then you received it, why do you boast as if it were not a
gift?"
Thus the dear Son of
David, Jesus Christ, is also our King and Messiah, and we glory
in being his kingdom and people, just as much as David himself
and all children of Israel and Abraham. For we know that he has
been instated as Lord, King, and Judge over the living and the
dead. "If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we
die to the Lord"; that is, we will also live after death, as
we just heard, and as St. Paul preaches in Romans 14:8. We look
for no bloodthirsty Kokhba in him, but the true Messiah who can
give life and salvation. That is what is meant by a son of David
sitting on his throne eternally. The blind Jews and Turks know
nothing at all of this. May God have mercy on them as he has had
and will have on us. Amen.
Neither can one
produce a Messiah to whom the statement in Daniel 9 applies other
than this Jesus of Nazareth, even if this drives the devil with
an his angels and Jews to madness. For we heard before how lame
the lies of the Jews regarding King Cyrus and King Agrippa are.
However, things did come to pass in accord with the words of the
angel Gabriel, and we see the fulfillment before our eyes.
"Seventy weeks of years," he says, "are decreed
concerning your people and your holy city." He does not
mention the city by name, Jerusalem, but he simply says
"your holy city"; nor does he say, "Gods
people," but simply "your people." For this
peoples and this citys holiness are to terminate
after the expiration of the seventy weeks. In its place a new
people, a new Jerusalem, and a different holiness would arise in
which one would no longer have to propitiate sin annually by
sacrifice, worship, and holiness in the temple and yet never
become righteous and perfectly holy, because the atonement had to
be repeated and sought anew by sacrifice every year.
Rather the Messiah
would bring eternal righteousness, make misdeeds of no effect,
check transgressions, atone for sin, fulfill prophecies and
visions, etc. Where sin has been forever removed and eternal
righteousness is found, there sacrifice for sin or for
righteousness is no longer required. Why should one sacrifice for
sin if it no longer exists? Why should one seek righteousness by
service to God if this righteousness is already at hand? But if
sacrifice and worship are no longer necessary, of what use are
priests and temple? If priests and temple are no longer
necessary, why a people and a city who are served by them? It
must develop into a new people and city which no longer needs
such priests, temple, sacrifice, and worship, or it must be laid
low and destroyed together with the useless temple and worship,
priests and sacrifice. For the seventy weeks pronounce the final
judgment and put an end to them together with city and temple,
priests, sacrifice, and worship.
The Christian church,
composed of Jews and Gentiles, is such a new people and a new
Jerusalem. This people knows that sin has been removed entirely
by Jesus Christ, that all prophecy has been fulfilled, and
eternal righteousness established. For he who believes in him is
eternally righteous, and all his sins are forever made of no
effect, they are atoned for and forgiven, as the New Testament,
especially St. Peter and St. Paul, strongly emphasizes. We no
longer hear it said: Whoever offers guilt-offerings or
sin-offerings or other offerings in Jerusalem becomes righteous
or has atoned for his sin; but now we hear: "He who believes
and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will
be condemned" [Mark 16:16], no matter where in the wide
world he may be. He need not travel to Jerusalem; no, Jerusalem
has to come to him.
David, too, proclaimed
this in Psalm 40:6: "Sacrifice and offering thou dost not
desire; but thou hast given me an open ear" (that is, the
ears of the world, that they might hear and believe and thus be
saved without sacrifice, temple, and priests). "Burnt
offering and sin offering thou hast not required. Then I said,
Lo, I come; in the roll of the book it is written of me; I
delight to do they will, O God." Indeed, this is the
Messiah who brought righteousness through his will and obedience.
This is the message of the books of Moses and of all the
prophets. Thus also Gabriel says that the sacrifice will not be
adequate; he declares that the Messiah "shall be cut off and
have nothing" [Dan. 9:26]. Of what will he have nothing?
Find out about what he is talking. He is speaking to Daniel about
his people and his holy city. He will have none of these, so that
their holiness will no longer be with him and in him. Thus Psalm
16:4 says: "I do not want their libations of blood, nor will
I take their names upon my lips."
So also we read in
Isaiah 33: "The people who will dwell in the new Jerusalem
will be called Nesu awon, levatus peccato: a people
forgiven of an sin." And Jeremiah 32 also promises another,
a new, covenant in which not Moses with his covenant shall reign,
but rather, as he says: "I will forgive their iniquity, and
I will remember their sin no more" [Jer. 31:34]. This is,
indeed, a covenant of grace, of forgiveness, of remission of all
sins eternally. That cannot, of course, be effected by the sword,
as the blood thirsty Kokhbaites aspire to do. No, this was
brought into the unworthy world by pure grace through the
crucified Messiah, for eternal righteousness and salvation, as Gabriel
here declares.
As was said before,
this saying is too rich; the whole New Testament is summed up in
it. Consequently, more time and space would be needed to expound
it fully. At present it will suffice if we are convinced that it
is impossible to understand this statement as referring to any
other Messiah or King than our Lord Jesus of Nazareth. This is
true also for the reason that at that time, in the last week; no
other Messiah than this was killed; for as Daniels words
clearly indicate, there must be a Messiah who was killed at that
time.
And, finally, also
Haggais saying fits no one else. For from Haggais
time on there was no one who might with the slightest
plausibility be called "the chemdath of an the
Gentiles," their delight and consolation, except this Jesus
Christ alone. For fifteen hundred years the Gentiles have found
their comfort, joy, and delight in him, as we perceive clearly
and as the Jews themselves confirm with their cursing to the
present day. For why do they curse us? Solely because we confess,
praise, and laud this Jesus, the true Messiah, as our
consolation, joy, and delight, from whom we win not he parted or
separated by weal or woe, in whom and for whom we will
confidently and willingly live and die. And the more the Jews,
Turks, and all other foes revile and defame him, the more firmly
will we cling to him and the dearer we will be to him, as he says
[Matt 5:11 f.]: "Blessed are you when men revile you and
persecute you on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward
is great in heaven." All praise and thanks, glory and honor be
to him, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, the one
true and veritable God. Amen.
So long an essay, dear
sir and good friend, you have elicited from me with your booklet
in which a Jew demonstrates his skill in a debate with an absent
Christian. He would not, thank God, do this in my presence! 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.
Please remember
our motto seen on the logo at the top of this page: The
More Torah, the More Life, for Elohim, blessed be
His Sanctified Name, is the one who gave us our Life!
Rabbi Reuven
Ben-Avraham.
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