I also noted on Friday that it is the unusual, not the usual, which is often most interesting to the historian. Luther’s 1543 treatise is not unusual; but this was not the only book he wrote on the Jews; and the other book, the earlier one, is much more unusual. That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (1523) is a remarkable piece of work. In it, far from calling for the Jews to be incinerated in their own places of worship, Luther calls on Christians to be good and loving neighbours to them, to help them, to extend hospitality to them, to reach out to them with the love of Christ. In the context of the times, this is what we would now call an incredibly progressive position. So why the change? From enlightened gentlemen to foaming at the mouth extremist in just 20 years?
The reason lies with Luther’s understanding of the times in which he was living. Scholars have become increasingly aware over the years that Luther is part of a late medieval culture of eschatological expectancy. To put it simply: he thought his rediscovery of the gospel was a sign that history was about to end, with the triumph of the church and the return of Christ.
This connects to his early attitude to the Jews. The 1523 treatise was written in the context of great hope for the gospel, and his advice then is to reach out to them as positively as possible, to win them for Christ. When we move forward to 1543, by contrast, Luther is old, ill, and, above all, disillusioned both by the divisions among the Reformers and the way in which the gospel has not carried all before it. In such a context, he looks for those who are responsible; and, among them, he sees the Jews, those who have the Holy Scriptures but who adamantly refuse to see Christ therein. It is this that drives him to write such a bombastically bitter and hateful treatise against them.
Carl Trueman | “Luther and the Jews III: Lessons” | August 28, 2010
RESOURCES
- Trueman: Luther and the Jews (1)
- Trueman: Luther and the Jews (2)
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