I. Against the Jews.
In the first years of the Reformation, Luther believed that many Jews would be converted to the Gospel if it were brought to them with true Christian love and gentleness. Just as the Word of God had been obscured in the papacy by all kinds of human statutes, so it was still obscured among the Jews by the false interpretations and lies of the Talmudists. Moreover, they were not treated as human beings but as dogs, they were not allowed to do any trade, so that they were forced to proliferate. The example given to them by the false Christians could also not serve to improve the Jews. Therefore, in order to make the Jews aware of the Gospel, which was shining brightly again in all countries, and to convert some of their number, Luther wrote in 1523 the scripture that Jesus Christ was born a Jew (No. 48a in this volume). In it, he most sweetly explains that Jesus is the promised Seed of the woman, the Seed of Abraham, in whom the Gentiles were to be blessed, the King who is to sit on the throne of David forever, the Virgin Son, of whom God had proclaimed through Isaiah. Now he also proves that the Jews wait in vain for another Messiah, if they do not receive the Lord Jesus, Abraham's and David's son from the tribe of Judah, as their Savior. The time when he came was the right time, because he is the Shiloh who was to come when the scepter of Judea was stolen, to reign eternally, not as a worldly but as a spiritual king. The same is proved by the account of Daniel's seventy weeks. Attached to this writing is a very readable letter of Jonas to Andreas Rem (No. 48b), in which he speaks about the excellence of this writing, which he translated into Latin, so that it could be spread among all peoples.
The same is true of a letter from Luther to Bernhard, a converted Jew (No. 48c), together with which he sends the preceding scripture so that Bernhard may fortify himself in the Gospel and spread it among his people.
Luther's writing seems to have had a favorable influence on the external conditions of the Jews, in that he advised "that one should keep the Jews friendly," but with regard to their conversion he was completely mistaken. He expresses this on December 10, 1537, in a letter to the Jew Jesel at Roßheim (No. 49 in this volume): "My writing has served all Jewry [Judenschaft] very much," and complains that the Jews disgracefully misuse such of his ministry "and do such things that we Christians do not have to suffer from them," even using Luther's favor "for their obduracy. For this reason, he also rejects his request that Luther intercede on his behalf with the Elector. The Jews, he said, had brought about by their obstruction that he would not be able to promote their affairs with princes and lords. Nevertheless, Luther also added a glorious testimony about the promised Messiah to this letter. He reminds him that the Jews have now waited in vain for the Messiah for over fifteen hundred years in misery, while the time determined by Daniel is long over, and exhorts him to accept the crucified Jesus, "their cousin and Lord", with us Gentiles.
About the same time 1) Luther received an inquiry from a good friend, namely Count Wolf Schlick of Falkenau, 2) as to how one could protect oneself against the pretence of the Jews from the Holy Scriptures that the law of the Jews must remain eternally, the Chri-
1) As we can see from the beginning of Scripture No. 50, Luther hesitated for some time with the answer.
2) Thus Mathesius, Luther's Life, St. Louis Edition, p. 62.
The sabbaths had to let themselves be circumcised, and the like. Luther responded to this in his letter against the Sabbathers to a good friend (No. 50 in this volume), which went out in March 1538. Luther gave this answer no longer for the sake of the Jews, because they do not believe the Scriptures but their rabbis, but to strengthen the Christians. To the Jews one should bring out the old argument, which they cannot answer for: They are now 1500 years in misery. About this one should ask them: what is the sin for which God has punished them so horribly? They cannot indicate any such sin. According to God's promise, Messiah must have come 1500 years ago, when the throne of David, the principality of Judah, the priesthood of Israel, the Temple and Jerusalem were still standing. Their sin could not endure God's promise. All their kingdom, worship, etc. is destroyed, and they are scattered among all nations, because they have not accepted the Lord Jesus, the true Messiah. Their law is over, because Moses alone was to last until the Messiah, but Messiah was to establish a new and better thing for the people of Israel and the throne of David. But if the Jews refer to the ten commandments, one should answer them: "If the ten commandments should be called Moses' law, then Moses came much too slowly, [has] also taken much too few people before him, because the ten commandments did not only go before Moses, but also before Abraham and all patriarchs over the whole world. For even if Moses had never come, nor Abraham been born, the ten commandments should have ruled in all men from the beginning, as they did and still do." Seckendorf (Hist. Luth., lib. Ill, p. 200, § 68) judges this writing to be worthy of being regarded as one of the most splendid testimonies to Luther's high talent because of the power of the reasons and the excellence of the writing.
Now Luther had resolved to write nothing more either about the Jews or against the Jews; but because they did not cease to lure the Christians to themselves, Luther, "in order to resist such poisonous activity on the part of the Jews and to keep the Christians safe," had the Jews write a letter to him.
At the beginning of the year 1543, he published his work on the Jews and their lies (No. 51 in this volume) and soon after, in March 1543, his work on the Shem Hamphoras and the lineage of Christ, Matth. 1 (No. 52 in this volume). The former, an extensive work, has four parts. In the first, Luther shows that circumcision and the glory of the noble blood (because of their bodily belonging to the people of Israel) are of no use to them without faith in the true Messiah Jesus Christ. In the second part he proves, especially against the horrible lies of the rabbis, that the Messiah has already come, and that Jesus is this true Messiah. In the third part he deals with the horrible blasphemies of the Jews against Jesus, his mother and all Christians, and gives the advice that by protecting and shielding the Jews, one should not make oneself a party to the public lying, cursing and blasphemy of the Son of God, but 1) burn their synagogues, destroy their houses, take away their prayer books and Talmudists, forbid their rabbis to teach, prevent them from usury and urge them to work. In the fourth part, Luther contrasts the Messiah, as the Jews desire him in earthly riches, power and glory, and that of the Christians, who is outwardly poor, lowly and despised, but nevertheless, according to God's promise, the peaceful, salvific King, who reigns without a sword with peace in all the world, who forgives sins, who is the resurrection and the life, who saves from death and gives eternal life and bliss to all those who believe in him. - Luther had already promised the other scripture of the Shem Hamphoras in § 270 of the previous scripture. He wanted to counter the lie of the Jews, as if the Lord Jesus had been a sorcerer, who through the interpretation
1) Here Luther, although, as we see from § 315 of this writing, it is only the authorities to whom this advice is given, goes too far in his zeal for God's honor by advising to intervene in matters of religion with the fist. But we assume that this was only a shot in the dark to ward off the great insolence of the Jews; for we do not hear that such a thing was carried out, at least in Luther's time, which would certainly have happened if Luther had insisted on it with all seriousness.
of the name of God (Tetragrammaton) has done all kinds of miraculous works. In the 11th chapter of the Book of Purcheti, which he translates into German, he shows how the Jews believe and must believe even the most insincere lies of their rabbis, and take in all the filth of the devil, because they do not want to accept the right one God in Jesus Christ, His Messiah, with right faith. Especially interesting is the closer explanation of what the Shem Hamphoras actually is, through which supposedly all kinds of miracles can be performed. In the second part of this writing, Luther proves that Christ is descended from the family of David, and brings the genealogical registers of Matthew and Lucas into agreement with each other.
The last writing of this section by Walch: D. Luthers Vermahnung wider die Juden, we have omitted here, because it forms the conclusion of the last four sermons of Luther, which he held at Eisleben, and has already been communicated in the 12th volume of the St. Louis edition, Col. 1264 ff.
II. Against the Turks.
In the late year of 1528, there was a rumor that the Turk was preparing for a new campaign against Germany (in 1529, the Turks were outside Vienna); Luther was asked by his friends to write against the Turk. He complied with this request in his writing on the war against the Turks (No. 53 in this volume), which he sent to Landgrave Philip of Hesse on October 9, 1528. The text would have been published in February 1529 or earlier, if the first sheets had not been lost through the negligence of the servants. Luther had to write it again. 1) Therefore, it did not go out until April 1529. 2) The cause for
1) Cf. Luther's letter to Hausmann of February 13, 1529. Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1369. There sexterniones is wrongly translated by "six sheets". - "Sextern" is a sheet of six leaves.
2) On March 13, 1529, Luther wrote to Hausmann (Walch, old edition, vol. XXI, 1148): "The book Wider den Türken will be ready about Palmarum (March 21)." However, the first printing of the book took place on
Luther himself states: "Especially because there are some clumsy preachers among us Germans, who imagine to the people that one should not and must not wage war against the Turks, but some are also so foolish that they teach that it is not fitting for a Christian to wield the secular sword or to rule. In the Scripture itself, Luther states that the Turks have no just cause to start and wage war against the Christians. They only sought to plunder the Christians and to rob and damage other countries as the sea robbers and highwaymen. Against this, by God's command, two men shall now wage war against the Turk, Christianus and Emperor Carolus. The Christian should first of all strike the devil, the god of the Turks, and pray diligently against the Turk, the rod of God and the devil's servant, who not only destroys land and people with the sword, but also seeks to devastate Christ's kingdom. The emperor, however, as the highest authority, is obliged to protect his own and must therefore resist the Turk, in which all princes should also give him strong support, and Luther exhorts them to do the same.
After the Turks had to leave Vienna again, Luther, in order to exhort the army against the Turks (Walch, old edition, vol. XVII, 2377, § 5, hence the title "Army Sermon"), let his Army Sermon against the Turks go out at the end of October 1529 (No. 54 in this volume). Because probably (says Luther) "my dear Germans, the full swine, will again sit down according to their ways and with good courage in all security celebrate and live well and forget such great grace, shown, and think: Ha! the Turk is now gone and fled, what do we have to worry about?" etc., Luther wants to do what he can, so that God will not be provoked to let the well-deserved punishment pass over us. Therefore comforts
the title the date: "den 16. April". Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 122 places the writing in the month of March, probably due to the letter just mentioned. But as the completion of the writing, which was already in print on March 3 (De Wette, III, 426), had to be postponed already once from Judica (March 14) to circa Palmarum (March 21), so it seems that Luther had to put up with a rather long postponement until April 16.
And Luther exhorts the devout Christians through this sermon to the army. In the first part, he instructs the consciences by interpreting the seventh chapter of the prophet Daniel that they not only can and should fight against the Turks with a good conscience, but also die as martyrs if they perish in the war. In the second part, he exhorts them to put body and soul into it, to gladly give an estimate if the authorities demand it for this fight, and also to run toward their commandment with body or person, because God has commanded obedience.
On the occasion of Luther's exhortation to prayer against the Turk (No. 55 in this volume), which was published about the end of
August 1541, the necessary has already been said in the note to the superscription of No. 55. Similarly, in Brother Richard's publication of the Alkoran, written in 1300, translated by Luther, with his preface and attached warning (No. 56), which went out about the end of April 1542.
The last writing of this section, Luther's admonition to the pastors in the superintendency of Wittenberg to exhort the people to repentance and prayer against the Turk (No. 57 in this volume), was written by Luther on the orders of the Elector John Frederick. It appeared in February 1543.