From 1530, the reformer, initially benevolent towards the Jews, expressed fierce and clearly anti-Semitic hostility. A critical edition allows us to understand Luther’s polemic against the Jews, but also the Christians “ Judaizers “, the Turks, the papists and others “ fanatics “.
As the great jubilee of 2017 approaches, which will mark the 500the anniversary of the birth of the Lutheran Reformation, publications devoted to the Wittenberg reformer are multiplying in Germany and are slowly beginning to appear in the French editorial landscape. One of the first studies to appear on this theme is all the more interesting because it confronts one of the most controversial aspects of Martin Luther’s career: his fierce hostility towards Jews and the influence that his writings had in the history of German anti-Semitism, until its disastrous recovery by Nazi ideology.
The study in question is the critical edition of a small treatise written by the German reformer in 1543 and published under the title Of the Jews and their lies. For the first time, this text is translated into French by Johannes Honigmann and presented and annotated by Pierre Savy, lecturer in medieval history at Paris-Est University and specialist in Jewish and Christian identities in the medieval West. .
From the Middle Ages to the Third Reich
Savy’s introduction sheds light on the internal structure of the treatise, the concatenation of arguments mobilized by the reformer and the particular rhetoric, playing on scholarly postures, polemical turns of phrase and slanderous accusations, used in turn by Luther to discredit his adversaries.
But it also provides information on the context in which the work was disseminated, not only within the abundant production of Lutheran work, but also in the intellectual and theological framework of the anti-Jewish polemic at the end of the Middle Ages and until the middle of XVIe century. Finally, the study traces, beyond the conditions of socio-historical production of this work, the decisive influence that it acquired from the middle of the XIXe century, in the creation of a German cultural anti-Semitism which was then largely exploited by the Nazi ideology of the Third Reich.
This, however, could only rely on the Judenschriften late Luther, because Savy rightly points out that the reformer’s position was not always hostile towards the Jews. Lutheran studies have in fact highlighted a real divide in the reformer’s thinking, which is generally located around 1530, and which gives way to a friendly, benevolent, even philo-Semitic attitude of Luther, with a fierce, violent and clearly hostile hostility. anti-Semitic.
Many theses circulate on this “ turnaround “. Savy focuses especially on the best known, the one which postulates that Luther, after having spent several decades trying to rally the Jews to the evangelical cause, ended up abandoning all hope of conversion and, giving up speaking with the Jews, ended up speak against them (p. 20). Therefore, his treatise Jews and their lies is not conceived as a dialogue, even if polemical, with the Jews, but is addressed to “ true Christians “, who are called to distrust the Jews and, by opposing them, to strengthen their own faith in the message of Christ.
Jews, Turks and Papists
However, it would have been useful to complete this point of view by evoking other elements which contributed to Luther’s reversal of attitude. It indeed seems essential to us to recall that it was precisely around the year 1530 that we witnessed, within the Lutheran camp itself, a theological quarrel opposing Luther and those we call the “ Judaizers “. The latter insist, while adopting the doctrine of justification by faith alone, on fundamental respect for the Mosaic Law. Johannes Agricola, who defends this position, comes up against Luther’s fundamental anti-legalism, which arises from the clear distinction that the latter establishes between the Law and the Gospel, experienced as two times of the alliance of God with men. .
This intra-Lutheran controversy, which ended with the exile of Agricola and the strengthening of Luther’s position, undoubtedly explains the change of heart made by Luther with regard to the Jews. In any case, while Luther, before 1530, did not take a dim view of the rapprochement of his doctrine with certain points of Judaism, he then stormed against the ritualism and legalism of the Jewish religion.
Jews and their lies ranks well among the late writings of the German reformer, after the period of theological, ecclesiological and homiletical production determining, in the formation of the evangelical doctrine of the years 1515-1530. THE “ old Luther “, if he has the feeling of having completed his doctrinal work, nevertheless remains voluble, as proven by the Tischreden (Table talk) which transcribe the clear, heterogeneous words and sentences, often savory, sometimes moralizing, other times obscene, of the “ Pope of Wittenberg “.
In the last years of his life, Luther constantly took a stand against the Jews. His treatise is thus, Savy believes, only the best-known testimony to this late obsession. But Savy forgets, in my opinion, to recall that Luther’s anti-Jewish pamphlets from the 1540s must be considered together with the equally angry and polemical pamphlets that the reformer published against the Turks (for example his Exhortation to prayer against the Turksin 1541), against the papists (like his Image of the papacy published in 1545) and “ all the sectarians and fanatics » which, from his point of view, are stuck in error.
If Luther persists in slaying the enemies of the Church and servants of the Antichrist, these are in no way limited to the Jews, but identify with all the adversaries of the true doctrine. We can, on the other hand, suggest that this frenetic polemical activity of Luther from 1540 corresponds to an accentuation, in his thought, of the feeling of apocalyptic urgency and the imminence of the end of the world.
L'” Jewish pride »
In any case, Pierre Savy is not wrong to recall that Luther’s hostility towards the Jews is not limited to anti-Judaism of a religious nature, but also adopts all the anti-Semitic prejudices conveyed about the Jews. In the first part of his work, Luther attacks the “ Jewish pride », which, according to him, would be manifested in the constant reminder of their lineage (going back to Abraham), on the meaning given to circumcision as a symbol of the unique alliance of God with his people, on the reception of the Law by Moses and on their right to a Promised Land.
The reformer then takes the time to develop classic arguments already proven by medieval literature against the Jews. These are not only the members of a deicidal people, puffed up with pride and constantly disobeying Yahweh, but also impious men distinguished by their greed, their animality, their dirt, their stench, their cruelty, etc. . Treatises of “ children of the devil “, of “ sows » or “ jewish dogs “, they are constantly subjected to a process of dehumanization characteristic of the most hateful anti-Semitic discourse.
Furthermore, Savy recalls to what extent the effectiveness of these arguments owes to the powerful rhetoric and verve of the reformer. Skilled in arousing emotion, playing with forms of orality capable of capturing the attention of his audience, Luther produces here an unclassifiable text, both “ learned and vulgar, serious, but not devoid of humor » and biting irony, which comes at the expense of the Jewish people (pp. 20-21).
Posterity of Luther
Luther’s position ultimately raises the question of his influence, but also of his responsibility in the success of anti-Semitism from the second half of the XIXe century, and even more in XXe century, in the ideological form of National Socialism. Can we, Savy wonders, really establish a direct line between Luther and the Shoah, or put the latter in the dock, alongside the other Nazi executioners tried at Nuremberg (p. 9) ?
Savy discusses at length the positions of certain researchers, inclined either to absolve Luther of any moral responsibility in the Holocaust, under the pretext that the latter’s position would only be a reflection of the spirit of his time, and that the “ mental tools » men of XVIe century cannot be compared to that of the men of the XXe ; or to overwhelm the reformer who, through his influence, cannot emerge unscathed from the anti-Semitism trial directed against him (p. 36-40).
Savy ends up deciding himself in favor of a middle position allowing “ refute any mechanical link between a book published in 1543 and massive and complex facts that occurred in XXe century ; without in any way minimizing the violence of the theologian’s positions » (p. 39). It is therefore a question of avoiding Charybdis like Scylla, simplistic historical causalism like the refusal to link together ethics and history in the understanding, over the long term, of the Sonderweg German.
Questions about Luther’s responsibility in the Jewish tragedy of XXe century remain in any case at the heart of contemporary German academic debates. The proof of this is the recent controversy sparked by the thesis of Notger Slenczka, professor of dogmatic theology at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin, according to which the Old Testament has, from the point of view of Lutheran orthodoxy, no canonical value. , because relating to the time of the Old Covenant of God with the Jewish people, Covenant dethroned by the time of the Gospel of Christ.
This thesis quickly generated accusations of anti-Judaism in associative circles, but also in academic circles. Christoph Markschies, Lutheran theologian and former president of the Humboldt, was angry with the positions of his colleague, which he considers to have been defended before him by the “ Nazi theologians “. The debate is therefore far from being closed in Germany and the historical light provided by Savy on Luther’s attitude towards the Jews will allow the French reader to discover a little-known aspect of the reformer’s thought, as well as to learn about the specific problems of German intellectual life.