Mediaeval Attempt to Burn Talmud Brought on Reformation, Says Scholar

Thunder over Europe which ended in nothing less than the splitting of the Catholic Church was the result of a proposed burning of Jewish books in Germany in 1510. Professor Alexander Marx of the Jewish Theological Seminary recalled this important footnote in European history apropos of the scheduled bonfie of works of Jewish and radical authorship and influence in Germany on Wednesday. The 16th century auto-da-fe of books never took place, but the controversy which it aroused, according to Professor Marx, paved the way for the successful revolt of Luther against the Church. It was responsible for the Protestant Reformation to a greater degree, he asserts, than any other single cause.

The Middle Ages in general were well acquainted with the practice of burning Jewish books, Professor Marx pointed out. Hitler is merely re-introducing the Middle Ages. In 1242, Paris was the scene of a Jewish literary auto-da-fe. Twenty wagon loads of the Talmud and other Hebrew works were then and there destroyed. In Spain, shortly before the expulsion of the Jews, thousands of Jewish books went up in smoke.

Professor Marx believes that the Spanish book bonfires did bring about the destruction of much previous Jewish literature. We have only, he pointed out, some fifty books as surviving relics of the Spanish-Jewish period, an ear which we know was especially rich in Jewish literary effort. The Inquisition’s search for Jewish literature in Spain was drastic and thorough.

BOOKS SAVED FROM THE BRAND

“We have a few books, which we know were saved from destruction by being snatched from the bonfires at the last moment,” said Professor Marx. “We don’t know exactly how this was done, whether through stealth or whether some of the zealots gathering the books had along with their religious zeal, itchy palms for bribes from the salvage of these books.

“We have the record of one Jewish writer in Portugal who buried his literary treasures in an olive tree.

“In Italy, in the period stretching between 1553 and 1559 there were many burnings of Jewish books by the Church. The act in this case seems strangely enough to have been precipitated by a controversy between two non-Jewish publishers—both of whom got out issues of the Talmud. The ensuing attack on Jewish books was fomented by Jewish apostates. In fact, these converts played a conspicuous part in most of the book burnings.”

Of the proposed burning of Jewish books in Germany in 1510, Professor Graetz writes in his “History of the Jews”: “We can boldly assert that the war for and against the Talmud aroused German consciousness and created a public opinion, without which the Reformation would have died in the hour of birth or perhaps would never have been born at all.

The proposal to burn the Talmud at that time was sponsored by the Dominicans, led by fanaticism and perhaps also, it is suspected, by the belief that they could, by means of this threat, wring money from the Jews. The Dominicans put forward this attack, a Jewish apostate with an unsavory past—Johann Pfefferkorn, a butcher by trade and a man who had served a term in prison for burglary. Under Pfefferkorn’s name, a book was published, charging the Talmud, among other things, with blasphemies against Christianity, and with being primarily responsible for the Jews’ obstinacy against baptism.

EMPEROR’S COMMITTEE

The Emperor submitted the question to a committee, one of whom was John Reuchlin of Pforzheim, or Capnion, as he was called by his admirers.

“Reuchlin,” as Graetz pointed out, “had devoted himself to the study of Hebrew to acquire mastery of the language, blessed by God and thus emulate his pattern, the Church Father Jerome. His love for Hebrew grew into enthusiasm. He wrote a small work, “The Wonderful Word”, a spirited panegyric of the Hebrew language. Later he compiled a Hebrew grammar. “A number of disciples of Reuchlin followed in his footsteps and raised the Hebrew language to the level of the Greeks.”

On the question whether “it was godly, laudable and advantageous to Christianity to burn the Jewish writings,” Reuchlin answered that the Jewish writings were not to be treated “as a homogenous literature.” There were, he pointed out, a great class of books entirely indifferent to all theological themes. Further, there was a class of religious and exegetic works, such as Rashi, Ivn Ezra and Levi ben Gerson “which far from being detrimental to Christianity, were indispensable to Christian theology, the most learned Christian commentators of the Old Testament having taken their best work from them.”

“With regard to the Talmud, Reuchlin confessed his inability to understand it, but other learned Christians understood no more of it. He was acquainted with many who condemned the Talmud without understanding it. But he was against burning.” “If the Talmud,” he wrote, “were deserving of such condemnation, our ancestors of many hundreds of years ago, whose zeal for Christianity was much greater than ours, would have burnt it. The baptized Jews, Peter Schwarz and Pfefferkorn, the only persons who insist on its being burnt, probably wish it for private reasons.”

Reuchlin concluded by advising that instead of burning the Hebrew books, there be instituted at every German University courses in Hebrew, in which rabbinical as well as Biblical Hebrew should be taught and that through this gentle means, perhaps Jews would be led to accept Christianity.

The Dominicans were in a fury against Reuchlin—and soon all Germany was divided into two camps, the Reuchlinists and the anti-Reuchlinists. Their hatred of each other at times brought them to blows. The motto of the one was “Rescue of the Augenspiel” (Reuchlin’s defense of the Jewish writings) and the Preservation of the Talmud, and of the other “Damnation and Destruction for both.” Involuntarily, the Reuchlinists became friends of the Jews and sought grounds on which to defend them. The reports of the contest spread all over Europe.

“The discussion aroused by the Talmud created an intellectual medium favorable to the germination and growth of Luther’s reform movement.” The attempted burning of the Talmud,” concludes Graetz, was “the fuse that started the conflagration.”