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50 Language: Latin Critical edition: WABr 1:23–24 (Nr. 7b) english translation: Smith/Jacobs, 1:28–291 Text #2 Letter to George Spalatin (1514) At the time of the writing of this letter, George Spalatin (1484–1545) was in the service of elector Frederick the Wise in the Saxon court, and among his many duties he served as laison to the University ofWittenberg.Luther and Spalatin developed a lifelong friendship,and over the course of his career Luther would write more letters to Spalatin than to anyone else. The occasion of this letter centers around a major, long-lasting controversy between the humanist defenders of academic freedom and ancient sources, on the one hand,and the religious defenders of Christian orthodoxy,on the other.A central figure targeted by both sides was Johannes Reuchlin, the father of sixteenth-century Christian hebraism and a distant relative of Philip Melanchthon (who would become Luther’s closest colleague).A student of rabbinic texts both for philological reasons and because of his interest in kabbalah,the Jewish mystical tradition,Reuchlin positioned himself as a defender of academic freedom generally and Jewish books specifically, and argued that as Christians gained linguistic competency in Jewish literature this would create the “possibility of bringing the Jews amicably into the bosom of the true faith.”2 Johannes Pfefferkorn, a Jewish convert, published several treatises, some directed specifically against Reuchlin whom he accused of “Judaizing ,” while himself lobbying with the emperor for the authority to confiscate and even burn Jewish books (especially volumes of Talmud) as harmful for Christian wellbeing. On the grounds that such texts contained lies and blasphemies against Christ and the church and thus served as a major hindrance to desired Jewish conversion to Christianity, Pfefferkorn’s cause gained initial support from major faculties consulted and from the emperor, who eventually let the case be resolved and dismissed in secular and papal courts.The debate continued in public, however, and brought Jewish rights in general under consideration. In this letter, Luther weighs in on the side of Reuchlin but for reasons that Reuchlin himself would not necessarily have recognized. Luther argues that it is Letter to George Spalatin 51 a biblically based fact that the Jews will always be blasphemers of Christ, and any attempt to stop Jewish blasphemy (for example, by confiscating their books) actually constitutes working against the Bible and the will of God.Any conversion of Jews can only come from God and not from human effort.This letter is of significance because it demonstrates that “[n]ot the ‘late’ or the ‘middle,’ but even the ‘youngest’ Luther known to us believed that the Jews as Jews had no future.”3 On the other hand, whether or not Luther knew that the Cologne debate potentially extended from the fate of Jewish books to Jewish lives, it is notable that Luther did take the side of the single man labeled in this major controversy as a “Jew-friend.” In addition, he would later remember this debate well when he found himself a target of censorship. Luther to George Spalatin {Smith/Jacobs, 1:28–29} {Jesus} Peace be with you, Reverend Spalatin! Brother John Lang has just asked me what I think of the innocent and learned John Reuchlin and his prosecutors at Cologne, and whether he is in danger of heresy.You know that I greatly esteem and like the man, and perchance my judgment will be suspected, because, as I say, I am not free and neutral; nevertheless as you wish it I will give my opinion, namely that in all his writings there appears to me absolutely nothing dangerous. I much wonder at the men of Cologne ferreting out such an obscure perplexity, worse tangled than the Gordian knot as they say, in a case as plain as day. Reuchlin himself has often protested his innocence, and solemnly asserts he is only proposing questions for debate, not laying down articles of faith, which alone, in my opinion , absolves him, so that had he the dregs of all known heresies in his memorial, I should believe him sound and pure of faith. For if such protests and expressions of opinion are not free from danger, we must needs fear that these inquisitors, who strain at gnats though they swallow camels, should at their own pleasure pronounce the orthodox heretics, no matter how much the accused protested their innocence. What shall I say?That they are trying to cast out Beelzebub but not...

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