At the end of 1542 he published his “Von den Jüden und jren Lügen,” and in March, 1543, his “Vom Schem Hamphoras.”[1609]
In the first he begins by proving against the Jews the Messianic character of Christ, answers their objections and lays bare their falsehoods, after which he considers how the Jews should be dealt with. In the second he discusses the Jewish legend concerning Christ’s miracles, and in particular scourges the superstitions connected with the use of the “Shem Hammephorash”; he then examines the genealogies of Christ in the Gospels in order to refute the objections of the Jews in this connection, and again discusses the proofs that Christ was the Messias, at the same time defending in detail His birth of a Virgin. Both writings he addresses to the Christians in order to strengthen them in the faith in view of the dangers which threatened from Judaism.
Full of zeal for the defence of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity, the coming and the benefits bestowed by the Messias, he refutes at great length the supposed learned proofs of his Jewish opponents. On the other hand, he thunders furiously against the blasphemies, the unseemly behaviour and the usury of the Jews who stood in high favour at several of the Courts; he even demands with “great earnestness” that their synagogues and private houses, the scene of their blasphemies, be set on fire and levelled to the ground (“Let whoever can, throw brimstone and pitch upon them”[1610]), that their books be taken away from them and “not one page left,” that their Rabbis be forbidden on pain of death to teach henceforth, and that all be hindered from “praising God publicly, thanking Him, praying or teaching”;[1611] further, that the streets and highways be closed against them, that they be forbidden to practise usury, and be expelled from the land unless indeed willing to earn their bread at the sweat of their brow with axe and spade, spindle and distaff. All these counsels were, of course, addressed primarily to the authorities, but, such was their nature, that they might easily have provoked the people to an unchristian persecution of their Jewish fellow-citizens. These writings, with their unmeasured vituperation and their obscenity, also bear painful witness to the deterioration of his language with advancing years.
“Fie on you,” he cries, “fie on you wherever you be, you damned Jews, who dare to clasp this earnest, glorious, consoling Word of God to your maggoty, mortal, miserly belly, and are not ashamed to display your greed so openly.”[1612]—“Whenever you see or think of a Jew, say to yourself: Look, that mouth that I see before me has every Saturday cursed, execrated and spat upon my dear Lord Jesus Christ Who redeemed me with His precious Blood, and also invoked malediction on my wife and child and all Christians that they might be murdered and perish miserably; he himself would gladly do it if he could, if only in order to get hold of our goods; mayhap he has already to-day many times spat on the ground, as it is their custom to do, when the name of Jesus is mentioned, so that his venomous spittle still hangs about his mouth and beard and leaves scarcely room to spit again. Were I to eat, drink or speak with such a devilish mouth, I might as well eat and drink out of a can or vessel brimful of devils, and thus become partaker with the devils who dwell in the Jews and spit at the Precious Blood of Christ. From which may God preserve me.”[1613]
“I, accursed ‘Goi’ that I am, cannot understand whence they [the Jews] have this great art, unless it is, that, when Judas Scharioth hanged himself and his bowels gushed forth, and, as happens in such cases, his bladder also burst, the Jews were ready to catch the Judas-water and the other precious things, and that then they gorged and swilled on the merd among themselves, and were thereby endowed with such a keenness of sight that they can perceive glosses in the Scripture such as neither Matthew, nor Isaias himself, nor all the angels, not to speak of us accursed ‘Goiim,’ would be able to detect; or perhaps they looked into the loins of their God ‘Shed’ and found these things written in that smokehole.”[1614]
“Where are they now, those dissolute Christians who have been made or wish to become Jews? Here for a kiss! The devil has eased himself and emptied his belly again. That is a real halidom for Jews and would-be Jews to kiss, batten on, swill and adore; and then the devil in his turn also devours and swills what these good pupils spue and eject from above and from below. Hosts and guests are indeed well met and the dishes are well-cooked and served.” The devil should have been an angel but “became a devil, who with his angelic snout devours what exudes from the oral and anal apertures of the Jews; this is indeed his favourite dish on which he battens like a sow behind the hedge about St. Margaret’s Day; that is just as he would have it! Therefore the Jews have got their deserts.” They renounced their dignity as the chosen mouthpiece of God, therefore the “devil defiles and bespatters them so much that nothing but devil’s ordure bursts forth from him everywhere; this indeed is quite to their taste, and they wallow in it like the swine.”[1615]
In this way Luther unloads himself of his fury against both devil and Jews; two things are characteristic of his hatred of the Jews; first, that the devil is made to bear the greater share,[1616] though the latter promptly shifts the burden back on to the shoulders of the Jews; secondly, that the presumption of the Jews in seeking to be first everywhere is castigated with all Luther’s native coarseness.
“It is thus that the wicked, scoundrelly foe mocks at his captive Jews; he makes them say ‘Schem Hamphoras’ and believe and expect great things from it; he, however, means ‘Scham Hamperes,’ i.e. ‘hither filth,’ not that which lies in the gutters, but that which forthcomes from the belly.... The devil has taken the Jews captive so that they must do his will (as St. Paul says) and deceive, lie, blaspheme as also curse God and everything that is God’s. In return for this he makes a mock of them with his ‘Scham Hamperes,’ and leads them to believe that this and all their other lying and tomfoolery is something precious.”[1617]
The blinded presumption of the Jews is nevertheless so great that they fancy themselves far superior to the Christians. “Do you think a Jew is so badly off? God in heaven and all the angels must laugh and dance when they hear a Jew ructate, that you, accursed ‘Goi,’ may know for the future how fine a thing it is to be a Jew.” And yet they lie and use bad language if a man ventures to hold up to public obloquy, as an “arch prostitute,” one of his pious cousins.[1618]—“Have I not told you above, what a grand and precious gem a Jew is; he has but to break wind, for God to dance and all His angels, and even were he to do something even grosser, it would still be looked upon as a golden Talmud; what such a man voids, whether from above or from below, that the accursed ‘Goiim’ are forsooth to regard as a holy thing.”[1619]
“Nay, were a Rabbi to ease himself into a vessel under your nose, both thick and thin, and to say: ‘Here you have a delicious conserve, you would have to say you had never tasted a better dish in your life. Risk your neck and say differently! For if a man has the power to say [like the Rabbis] that right is left and left right, regardless of God and all His creatures, he can just as well say that his anus is his mouth, that his belly is a pudding-dish and that a pudding-dish is his belly.”[1620]