Luther Examined and Reexamined: A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for RevaluationDau, W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore)
Religion
Luther Examined and Reexamined: A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation
Dau, W. H. T. (William Herman Theodore)
Luther, Martin, 1483-1546
influence of the Jews on the public life and morals, he declares that
they ought to be expelled from the country, and their synagogs ought to
be destroyed, that is, they have deserved this treatment. But it is a
remarkable fact that even in these terrible denunciations of the Jews
Luther moves on Bible ground, as any one can see that will examine his
exposition of an imprecatory psalm, like Psalm 109 and 59. If these
words of God mean anything and admit of any application to an apostate
and hardened race, the Jews are that race, and a teacher of the Bible
has the duty to point out this fact. But Luther has not been a
Jewbaiter; he has not incited a riot against then, nor headed a raid
upon them, as Prof. Worman tells us that Catholic priests in the Middle
Ages occasionally would do. What Luther thought of persecuting the Jews
for their religion can be seen from his exposition of Psalm 14. He did
not believe in a general conversion of the Jews, but he held that
individual Jews would ever and anon be won for Christ and would be
grafted on the olive-tree of the true Church. "Therefore," he says, "we
ought to condemn the rage of some Christians--if they really deserve to
be called Christians--who think that they are doing God a service by
persecuting the Jews in the most hateful manner, imagining all manner of
evil about them, proudly and haughtily mocking them in their pitiful
misery. According to the statement in this Psalm (Ps. 14, 7) and the
example of the Apostle Paul in Rom. 9, 1, we ought rather to feel a
profound and cordial pity for them and always pray for them. . . . By
their tyrannical bearing these wicked people, who are nominally
Christians, cause not a little injury, not only to the cause of
Christianity, but also to Christian people, and they are responsible
for, and sharers in, the impiety of the Jews, because by their cruel
bearing toward them they drive them away from the Christian faith
instead of attracting them with all possible gentleness, patience,
pleading, and anxious concern for them. There are even some theologians
so unreasonable as to sanction such cruelty to the Jews and to encourage
people to it; in their proud conceit they assert that the Jews are the
Christians' slaves and tributary to the emperor, while in truth they are
themselves Christians with as much right as any one nowadays is Roman
Emperor. Good God, who would want to join our religion, even though he
were of a meek and submissive mind, when he sees how spitefully and
cruelly he is treated; and that the treatment he can expect is not only
unchristian, but worse than bestial? If hating Jews and heretics and
Turks makes people Christians, we insane people would indeed be the best
Christians. But if loving Christ makes Christians, we are beyond a doubt
worse than Jews, heretics, and Turks, because no one loves Christ less
than we. The rage of these people reminds me of children and fools, who,
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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