On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen, 1543)
⚠️ Content warning
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~56,800 words · 270 passages
Cite this work
- APAMartin Luther. (n.d.). On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen, 1543). Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/martin-luther/on-the-jews-and-their-lies-von-den-juden-und-ihren-lugen-1543
- MLAMartin Luther. On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen, 1543). Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/martin-luther/on-the-jews-and-their-lies-von-den-juden-und-ihren-lugen-1543.
- ChicagoMartin Luther. On the Jews and Their Lies (Von den Juden und ihren Lügen, 1543). Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/martin-luther/on-the-jews-and-their-lies-von-den-juden-und-ihren-lugen-1543.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
On the Jews and Their Lies (1543): an antisemitic text by Luther.
Context and history
**Warning: this text calls for the burning of synagogues and Jewish homes, the confiscation of their books and their expulsion.** This is not a tendentious reading: it is written there. It is in the catalogue because the rule of the house is that **no work is removed for its content**, and because hiding it would be pretending it does not exist. Luther wrote it at sixty, after decades of expecting Jews to convert; the Nazis reprinted and displayed it, and the Lutheran churches of Germany and the United States have formally repudiated it. Anyone who wants to understand Luther has to know it. Anyone who cites it must cite it knowing what it is.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
This I wanted to say for the strengthening of our faith; for the Jews will not give up their pride and boasting about their nobility and lineage. As was said above, their hearts are hardened. Our people, however, must be on their guard against them, lest they be misled by this impenitent, accursed people who give God the lie and haughtily despise all the world. For the Jews' would like to entice us Christians to their faith, and they do this wherever they can. If God is to become gracious also to them, the Jews, they must first of all banish such blasphemous prayers and songs, that boast so arrogantly about their lineage, from their synagogues, from their hearts, and from their lips, for such prayers ever increase and sharpen God's wrath toward them. However, they will not do this, nor will they humble themselves abjectly, except for a few individuals whom God draws unto himself particularly and delivers from their terrible ruin. The other boast and nobility over which the Jews gloat and because of which they haughtily and vainly despise all mankind is their circumcision, which they received from Abraham. My God, what we Gentiles have to put up with in their synagogues, prayers, songs, and doctrines! What a stench we poor people are in their nostrils because we are not circumcised! Indeed, God himself must again submit to miserable torment if I may put it thus as they confront him with Martin LUTHER : On the Jews and Their Lies inexpressible presumption, and boast: "Praised be Thou, King of the world, who singled us out from all the nations and sanctified us by the covenant of circumcision!" And similarly with many other words, the tenor of all of which is that God should esteem them above an the rest of the world because they in compliance with his decree are circumcised, and that he should condemn all other people, just as they do and wish to do. In this boast of nobility they glory as much as they do in their physical birth.…