Reformation Day: 7 lesser-known facts about Martin Luther
4. Initially sympathetic to Jews
In recent times, the controversial works that Luther wrote later on in life about the Jewish people have become increasingly known, where the Reformation leader espouses anti-Semitic ideas.
What is probably lesser-known is that, initially, Luther was sympathetic toward Europe’s Jews, having denounced the Catholic Church’s longstanding mistreatment of the community.
“In his earlier work, That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew (1523), Luther was somewhat more measured, arguing against expulsion and harsh treatment of Jews in hope that some would be converted,” noted Columbia University Libraries.
“He described them as ‘cousins and brothers of our Lord,’ acknowledged past mistreatment at the hands of Christians, and conceded that had he himself been Jewish and ‘seen such idiots and thickheads in charge of and teaching the Christian faith’ he himself would not have been converted.”
Unfortunately, after failing to win many converts among German Jews, Luther began to write anti-Judaic content, most infamously the 1543 work On the Jews and Their Lies, which would later be extensively quoted and cited by the Nazis.
