Martin Luther, the Bible, and the Jewish People: A Reader

Chronology

206 Chronology It can be argued that the very basics of the Christian belief system incorporate anti-Jewish perspectives that have been tragically acted out in Christian tradition from liturgy to social order.Through the centuries, Jewish people have been subjected to random and organized violence—pogroms, trials, massacres and burnings, destruction of property, synagogues, books and lives—at the hands of the Christian majority in europe. At a Glance The Middle Ages brought the Crusades, forced baptisms, and ritual murder accusations (two of the earliest and most famous being the 1144 case ofWilliam of Norwich and the 1475 case of Simon ofTrent). In addition to the frequent defamation of the Jews in Christian art and literature (including the Judensau in thirteenth-century German churches), organized efforts were made to separate Jews from their Christian neighbors with distinct clothing or a badge and requiring Jews to live in separate walled areas, known as ghettoes (Fourth Lateran Council of 1215). Forced baptism continued to take place, regardless of the church’s caution against it (as articulated in the papal bull “Sicut Judaeis,” from the twelfth century onward). Special “Jewish laws” were issued to organize, restrict and, also, protect the lives and rights of Jews. Local and nationwide expulsions were a common occurrence in the centuries leading up to the Reformation century, with several peaks: 1380–1391, 1420–1429, 1440–1459, 1470–1479, 1490–1499, 1510–1519. earlier, Jews were expelled from France in 1182,in 1290 from england,and in 1306,1322,1394 from France. In 1491 Jews were expelled from Geneva, and in 1492 from Spain. The sixteenth-century reforms brought no change in this regard,as revealed by the following examples from the history of expulsions. In the fourteenth-fifteenth centuries, Jews were expelled from Palatine, Goslar, Austria, Brandenburg, Cologne, Saxony, Speyer, Mainz,Augsburg, Bavaria, Frankonia ,Hildesheim,Göttingen,Mainz,Tirol,Helmstadt,Hesse,Salzburg,Mainz,Saxony, Chronology 207 Magdeburg, Württemberg, Würzburg, Mecklenburg, Magdeburg, Nürnberg, esslingen , and Ulm.1 In the sixteenth century, Jews were expelled from, for example, Berlin, Braunschweig , Strasbourg, Regensburg, Zurich, Freiburg, Hagenau, Saxony, Württemberg, Hesse, Goslar, Genova, Bavaria, Prague, Papal States, Brunswick, Hannover. In the seventeenth-eighteenth centuries, Jews were expelled from, for example, Worms, Kiev, Ukraine, Hamburg, Lithuania,Vienna,Vilna, Russia, Bohemia, Moravia, Bordeaux,Warsaw,Alsace, Lübeck,Austria, Romania, Slovakia, Bavaria. In the fourteenth through the twentieth centuries, different violent acts (burning , slaughter, mob attacks, pogroms, and large-scale discrimination) took place in, for example, Posen, Poland, Prague, Rome, Austria,Toledo, Cracow, Southern Germany, Venice,Seville,Vilna,Lisbon,Kiev,France,Munich and Breslau,Uzbekistan,Bucharest. The Holocaust in europe took place in 1938–1945. The timetable below maps out selected anti-Jewish acts and other significant events parallel to Luther’s lifespan and (some of his) activities. Timetable 1475 The case of missing Simon of Trent: ritual murder accusation against the Jews 1491 Jews expelled from Geneva 1492 Jews expelled from Spain 1509 The Reuchlin–Pfefferkorn Affair: confiscation of Jewish Books in Cologne 1510 Josel of Rosheim: spokesperson for Jewry in Lower Alsace 1510 Trial and temporary expulsion of Jews in Braunschweig; host desecration charges 1510 expulsion of Jews from Berlin Pfefferkorn’s Der Juden Spiegel 1507, Handt Spiegel 1511, Brantspiegel 1512, Reuchlin’s Augenspiegel 1511 1400s 1500–1519 Luther would come to know of this and similar stories; his archopponent Johann eck would write about this particular case 1483 Martin Luther born These mass expulsions were “big news” and something Luther would become aware of 1505 Luther joins the Augustinian Order in erfurt (from where Jews were expelled in 1458, and 900 Jews had burned themselves in 1349) Luther knew about the controversy, taking later the side against the confiscation Luther would come to know only from distance about Josel, who later used his influence to prevent publication of Luther’s damaging works Luther knew of these slandering descriptions of Judaism 1512 Luther to Wittenberg: Professor of Bible Luther’s Life and Works Years Contextual Developments 208 Martin Luther, the Bible, and the Jewish People 1520–1530 1531–1540 1513–1515 Lectures Dictata super Psalterium 1515–1516 Lectures on Romans 1516–1517 Lectures on Galatians 1517–1518 Lectures on Hebrews 1517 Disputation against Scholastic Theology 1517 Ninety-FiveTheses 1518 Heidelberg Disputation and debate with Cajetanus 1519 Leipzig debate with eck, and Karlstadt 1518–1521 Operationes in Psalmos 1520Three reformation treatises: To Christian Nobility of the German Nation...