As we study the documents before us in their total historical context including parts not directly relevant to the very protest and therefore not printed in this volume, we are impressed with the following fact; while the Church raised its voice against the persecution of the Jews out of human motives, as well as in the hope of thereby strengthening its own members, the traditional, dogmatic concept of the Jew continued to be dominant. According to this view the persecution of the Jews constitutes an error, not only for reasons of humanity, but mainly because persecution prevents the Jew from seeking redemption among his persecutors. It prevents the Jew from turning to Jesus as the Messiah and from seeking in the New Testament that salvation which not only is promised him, but without which Christianity itself is doomed to remain unfulfilled. From the theological point of view regarding the right of Judaism to exist, the Church in its protest against the Nazis reverted to the original attitude of Luther, as expressed in "Das Jesus Christus eyn geborener Jude sey" of 1523. When Luther protested against the anti-Jewish policy of the Church, claiming that the Church treated the Jews "als waren es hunde", and that under such circumstances he himself would: "...ehe eyn saw geworden denn eyn Christe", this very protest was also not based on an acknowledgment of the right of Judaism to exist as an independent, autonomous religion. The motive that inspired this protest was the hope that Christianity would mitigate the persecution of the Jews and apply to them instead the Christian Commandment of love and tolerance, as written by Luther: <xx> "...Ob etliche halsstarrig sind was ligt daran? Sind wyr doch auch nicht alle gute Christen...". In that case, and only in that case, Christians might be hopeful that the Jews would return in penitence and believe in the salvation brought to them by their own Messiah. Against this historical background [30] it seems that even during the Holocaust, Christianity continued to identify the Jew not in his own, authentic, terms, but according to the classical traditions. The Jew is one who persists in the impenitent rejection of Christ, but must be saved, for it is the Jew who has to complete the eschatological process of the Heilsgeschichte. Therefore Jews, and especially converts, have to be rescued from racial discrimination. Moreover, since Judaism continues to be an integral part of Christianity, the very notion of the Jews as a race can have no basis whatsoever in Christian theology. [31] This has been stated as early as September 1933 by the theological faculty of the University of Marburg in its statement against the "Arierparagraph". Similar statements were issued by theologians such as Rudolf Bultmann and the members of the Bekenntnis der Vaeter und die bekennende Gemeinde (Betheler Bekenntnis), 1934 [32].