Martin Luther the writer was popular. Super popular. From 1520-26 alone, Hans-Joachim Köhler has estimated that "conservatively" there were 6.6 million copies of pamphlets and longer texts by Luther avalanching off German printing presses. Luther's words, in short, were everywhere.

And these words included, in 1523, the pamphlet Das Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sey, in which Luther asserts that Jews are the true relatives of Christ: "they are blood friends, fathers, and brothers of our Lord." Christians, meanwhile, can only be "foreigners" and "brothers-in-law." In the context of late medieval hatred of Jews, contemporaries perceived this as a bold and courageous statement. The late Middle Ages into the early modern era, recent scholarship has demonstrated, witnessed the creation of anti-Semitism out of anti-Judaism--that is, a change from hatred rooted in Jewish religion to a racialized, biological hatred of Jews as a people. Notably, Christians were believing more and more that even Jews' conversion to Christianity could not truly "take"--if they weren't already doing so just for show, they would inevitably slide back into Judaism; they couldn't help it. In this passage, on the other hand, Luther follows up a strident belief and desire for the conversion of individual Jews to Christianity with the thundering statement that Jews are blood brothers and Gentiles are foreigners to Christ himself.

But already in Luther's lifetime, people were making a critical interpretative mistake when reading his texts that continues to dog the man today: they failed to consider his remarks in the immediate context and purpose of the particular text he was writing. I don't want to say "more so than others," because to a historian everyone's words only make sense in context, but the issue is particularly pertinent for Luther because of how public and highly charged his writing was already treated as in his own time. You can find in Luther's writing from around 1530 beautiful words of support for women as part of the priesthood of all believers and "your sons and daughters will prophesy" from the prophet Joel; you will also find him railing against women daring to speak in public, not least about religion. The difference is that in the first, Luther is attacking the Catholic concept of a sacral priesthood; the second, evangelical women and their husbands need to learn proper Christian behavior.

And so in Das Jesus Christus ein geborner Jude sey, it's absolutely vital to understand this is (1) Luther defending himself against accusations from his opponents that he has denied Mary's virginity even to the point of saying Joseph was Jesus' biological father (2) Luther evangelizing to Jews. No, really. To Luther, in this treatise, the newfound freedom of the Gospel from the clutches of Roman idolatry is also a brilliant new beginning for Jews: they can convert truly to Christianity, real Christianity, now. Their earlier failure to convert was because of the heretical trappings built up by the medieval Church.

Unfortunately, Luther's contemporaries--Christians and Jews alike--got stuck on the positive notes expressed here (Jews are Christ's blood-brothers; Christians should "deal with Jews in a friendly way") and missed that the whole point was so Jews can become Christians because that's right and Judaism is wrong.

So in 1536, when then-Duke of [Electoral] Saxony Johann Friedrich declared a sweeping expulsion of all Jews from his territory (standard practice cascading across Europe), Jews and their Christian practical-allies saw Luther as a powerful ally. Wolfgang Capito, the key Straßburg reformer, put well-known and brilliant Jewish leader Josel von Rosheim in touch with Luther to ask for intercession with the prince. The hope and expectation on both men's parts, and obviously the community the one represented, was absolutely that Luther would want to help.

But Luther said no.

Capito's angle in levying the request, as a scholar of the Hebrew language (for Christian purposes, of course), was the contributions of Jews to local intellectual life and scholarship. In this time period, Christian willingness to not kick Jews out always, always, always depends on how Christians benefit. What Capito failed to recognize was that for Luther, the scales of "Christian benefit" had tipped into the negative from his famous 1523 polemic.

Luther's earlier "friendliness," remember, hinged on his belief that with the shackles of popery cast off Christianity, Jews would turn towards the light of the Gospel. Throughout his life, he continued to full-heartedly accept Jewish converts to Christianity when he was convinced they were sincere about it. But what Luther's theological-biographer Heiko Oberman has called the apocalyptic "Darkness at Noon" had set in by the 1530s with the maturation of evangelical reform--in particular, realization of its limits. The early exultation of the success of das wort gottes over the land ossified into either recognition or reconstruction of pockets of Catholic resistance, lack of Christians' knowledge of basic tenets of the faith, perceived failures of local preaching and education. The entire Reformation proceeded under the purview of imminent Armageddon. For Luther, the threat only grew stronger over the course of his life and the unarguable--to everyone else--success of the movement he launched.

This affected his recommendations on how to deal with Jews for two reasons. First, the hope that Jews would convert to Christianity simply because of evangelical reform had dimmed and died. Completely. Second, the late medieval mythology of Jews as the "forerunners of Antichrist" occupied a more prominent place in Luther's apocalypticism, as did the Turks creeping closer to Vienna. One pattern that scholars have pointed out is that Luther's apocalyptic polemic shifted its primary focus from the pope/Rome to peasants to Jews over the course of his life. That is, the intensity of his opprobrium darkened and lightened, while never vanishing. For Luther passing through the 1530s into the 40s, yes, his rhetoric against Jews reaches feverishness.

To be clear, though, we are talking about Luther's views on how to treat Jews in the immediate present. By 1536, and spiraling further from there, Luther saw Jews as largely a failed mission ground. They had not converted; current Jews threatened Christians' own belief. As Oberman argues, Luther's actual views of Jews--his understanding of Jews and Judaism in light of Christian theology and 16th century society--had not changed. But with developing societal circumstances, his views of how to deal with Jews sure had. And devastatingly:

Firstly, that their synagogues or schools should be burned down, and what will not burn should be razed adn covered with earth, that no man will ever see a stone or cinder of it again...

Next, that their houses should be broken and destroyed in the same way...They can be put under a roof or stable, like the gypsies. [you read that right -sun]

Third, that all their prayer books and Talmuds, in which such idolatrous lies, curses, and blasphemies are taught, should be taken from them...

Fourth, that their rabbis should be forbidden, at risk of life and limb, to teach from now on...

Fifth...they have no reason to be in the country.

Sixth...all their cash and fortunes in silver and gold should be taken from them and put in safekeeping.

Seventh, that young, strong Jewish men and women should be given flail, axe, hoe, spade, distaff, spindle, and be left to earn their bread by their sweat...

For as all can see, God's wrath over them is so great that gentle mercy will only make them worse and worse, and harsh treatment little better. So away with them at all costs.

Medieval and early modern rhetoric in religion and politics often seems sharp enough to cut skin on its own, it's true. But it's impossible to deny that what Luther prescribes in Von den Jüden und iren Lügen (1543) "can be safely termed a pogrom", as Oberman carefully puts it. ("Safely termed"--yeah, he's aware.)

What's still evident amidst the abhorrent virulence and violence, which make no mistake would be mobilized in support of actual violence for centuries to come, is Luther's underlying belief in the hope of Jewish conversion to Christianity--and the crushing of that hope:

We must exercise harsh mercy with fear and trembling, in the hope that we could save some from the flames and embers [of hell]. We must not avenge ourselves.

This is worn out, worn down, but always firey Luther's apocalypticism taking over. The failure of Jews to convert is to him a sign of the devil's triumph over the earth. Luther impresses Christians to serve as God's agents against the Jews as the devil's, for the protection of Christians and in hopes of saving one, two, any Jews at all through fear and trembling if friendliness would not work. Even the 1544 Wittenberg Hymnal had a hymn reminding Christians that Christ's crucifixion was the result of Gentile sin and depravity that Christ wanted to redeem out of love--not the fault of Jews. "The guilt is ours," runs the hymn, about the Passion. Unfortunately, when it came to stoking the metaphorical and literal fires of anti-Semitism, the guilt is also that of Luther and his interpreters.