December 10, 1537.
To the careful Jesel, Jew of Roßheim, my good friend.
My dear Jesel! I would gladly act for you against my most gracious Lord, both with words and writings, just as my writing has served all of Jewry so much. But because your people so shamefully misuse my service and do things that we Christians do not have to suffer from them, they themselves have taken away from me all the support that I could otherwise have received from princes and lords.
2 For my heart has been, and still is, that mail should keep the Jews friendly, thinking whether God would graciously look upon them and bring them to their Messiah; and not thinking that they should be strengthened and made worse in their error by my favor and encouragement.
3. if God gives me time and space, I will write a booklet, if I can win some of your paternal tribe1 ) of holy patriarchs and prophets, and bring them to your promised Messiah. Although it is altogether strange that we should provoke and entice you to your natural Lord and King, as your forefathers before, when Jerusalem still stood, provoked and enticed the Gentiles to the right God.
(4) Shall ye not think that we Gentiles are so hopeful and disgusting; for without which Gentiles and Jews are always deadly?
1) In the editions "Stammen". Köstlin, Martin Luther, Vol. II, p. 442, in the table of contents of this letter has: "seeds", which may be the correct reading. The sense, by the way, remains the same.
We would not worship even your best king, let alone such a condemned, crucified Jew, if it were not for the power and authority of the right God, who would bring such things to the hearts of us trusting Gentiles, your enemies. For you Jews would never accept a hanged or righteous Gentile after his death for a Lord, you know that.
(5) Therefore, do not take us Christians for fools or geese, and consider for once that God would help you out of the misery that has now lasted for more than fifteen hundred years, which will not happen, because you accept your cousin and Lord, the dear crucified Jesus, with us Gentiles.
(6) For I have also read your Rabbinos, and if it had been2 in them, I would not have been so horned and stoned, it would also have moved me. But they can do no more than cry out that he is a crucified, condemned Jew, when all your ancestors have left no saint or prophet uncondemned, unstoned and unmarred, which [saints and prophets] must also be condemned, if your opinion should therefore be right, that Jesus of Nazareth is crucified and condemned by you Jews; for you have done it before and have done it all the way.
(7) Read how you have dealt with your king David, and with all godly kings, yea, with all holy prophets and men, and do not take us heathen so much as to be
2) "it" i.e. that Jesus is the Messiah.
*) This letter is found in the Wittenberg edition, vol. XII, p. 203; in the Jena edition (1568), vol. VI, p. 508; in the Altenburg edition, vol. VI, p. 1114; in the Leipzig edition, vol. XXII, p. 566; in the Erlangen edition, vol. 55, p. 186, and in De Wette, vol. V, p. 79 (in the latter two with the wrong date: "den 5. November"). Further, in the "Trostschriften", Jena, Rödingers Erben, sheet Ziiij, with the probably wrong date: "Mondags nach Barnabä", that is, the 18th of June. "Barnabä" fell in 1537 on Monday, June 11, so June 18 would probably have been called "Monday after Viti". It must be read: Monday after Barbara. In the "Trostschriften" there are several variants (De Wette VI, p. 513, note 1), some of which we have included. Otherwise, we give the text according to the Jena edition.
Dogs. For you see that your imprisonment will last too long, and yet you find us Gentiles, whom you consider your greatest enemies, favorable and willing to counsel and help, without our being able to suffer that you curse and blaspheme your blood and flesh, who has done you no harm, Jesus of Nazareth, and (if you could) rob all his people of all they are and all they have.
8 I also will be a prophet, though a pagan, as Balaam was; it shall not be that ye hope, for the time appointed of Daniel is long past; and though ye turn it so strangely, and from the
Text do what you want, so the work is available.
(9) These things shall ye kindly receive of me for your admonition. For the sake of the crucified Jew, whom no one shall take from me, I would gladly do the best for all you Jews, except that you should not use my favor to harden yourselves. You know this very well. Therefore, you may present your letters to my most gracious Lord through others. Hereby commanded by God. Date from Wittenberg, Monday after Barbarä in 1537. year.
Mart. Luther.