The frequent expulsions and the constant oppressions fostered Messianic hopes. In 1507 a Messianic pretender arose in Northern Italy. His name was Asher Lemlein. Of the particulars of his career we know nothing. Of greater importance is the appearance of a man who called himself David Reubeni in Venice, 1522. He pretended to be the brother of the reigning king of the tribe of Reuben, living in Arabia, and planned an alliance of the Christian powers against the Mohammedans. For this he pledged the aid of the ten tribes living there. The Pope sent him to Portugal, where he made the acquaintance of Solomon Molcho, a young Marrano, who returned with Reubeni to Italy, preached and prophesied there and became a favorite of the Pope. The Jews feared the results of his eccentricities and denounced him to the authorities as an apostate from Christianity, but the Pope shielded him. Finally both went to Germany in 1530, where they hoped to win Charles V to their plans. They were imprisoned; Molcho, as an apostate, was burned at the stake and Reubeni sent to Portugal, where every trace of him was lost. Who he was is not known. He seems to have travelled in the East, and probably was an Arab. The Reformation of 1517 at first influenced the condition of the Jews for the better. The accusations that the Jews desecrated hosts ceased. As late as 1492 a number of Jews were burned for this supposed crime at Sternberg in Mecklenburg. In 1510, thirty-nine Jews were burned at Berlin for the same cause. But aside from this Protestantism in itself stood for religious toleration. Luther, in the beginning of his career, spoke of the Jews as “cousins of our Lord,” who should be treated with kindness. He thought that his purified Christianity would win them over, but, toward the end of his life, when he had failed in his efforts and was embittered for other reasons, he wrote two pamphlets filled with invective against the Jews. In these he advocated the confiscation of their property, the destruction of their synagogues, and the forcible baptism of their children. Still more bitter than Luther’s attacks were those of John Eck, his Catholic opponent. It seems, however, that the Reformation increased the number of Jewish converts. Prominent among these was Emanuel Tremellius, an Italian, who first became a monk and then a Protestant. He was a friend of Calvin, and translated the Bible for him into Latin. He also translated Calvin’s Catechism into Hebrew. Another convert was Luke Helic, who assisted the Moravian Brethren in translating the Bible into the Slavic language. A calumniator of Judaism was Antonius Margaritha, the son of a rabbi of Ratisbon, named Jacob Margaliot, who in 1530 wrote a libel on Judaism. Characteristic was the act of the Protestant Landgrave, Louis of Hesse, who advised the suppression of an anti-Jewish book, “Jüdenfeind,” by Nigrinus (1570) saying that the same arguments might just as well be used by Catholics against Protestants.