Holy Enemies of Freedom: How Martin Luther Unleashed the Beast of Anti-Semitism

By A.J. Deus

Holy Enemies of Freedom lays bare the criminal conspiracy that is unleashed upon ordinary people by organized religion.

The German Martin Luther was the founder of the Protestant Church. He wanted to throw the Jews out of Germany. In his time, the interactions between leaders of Jews, Christians, and Muslims fueled a march toward a re

• Language: English
• Publisher: Missing Element Corporation
• Release date: Jan 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9781999527020

A.J. Deus

A. J. Deus is a researcher in economics and writes political economics articles. His research focuses on social economics and history of economics. Deus earned an economics degree from the University of Applied Sciences in Economics and Business Administration, Zürich, Switzerland, and a master’s degree from the University of Ottawa, Canada. More background information and mission statement at www.ajdeus.org.

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Holy Enemies

of Freedom

How Martin Luther Unleashed the Beast of Anti-Semitism

A.J. Deus

Student Edition

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Holy Enemies of Freedom

How Martin Luther Unleashed the Beast of Anti-Semitism

Copyright © 2020 by A.J. Deus (V19.11)

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ISBN: 978-1-9995270-0-6 (hardcover – academic edition)

ISBN: 978-1-9995270-1-3 (paperback – academic edition)

ISBN: 978-1-9995270-4-4 (paperback – student edition)

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To future generations…

My friend, it is not a question of what you know or what you wish to know, but of what you ought to know, what you are obliged to know.

– Martin Luther –

You wish to know my experiences while disentangling truth lost in the medley of sects and divergencies of thought, and how I have dared to climb from the low levels of traditional belief to the topmost summit of assurance […]

Each sect, it is true, believes itself in possession of the truth and of salvation, ‘each party,’ as the Qur’an saith, ‘rejoices in its own creed;’ but as the chief of the apostles, whose word is always truthful, has told us, ‘My people will be divided into more than seventy sects, of whom only one will be saved.’ This prediction, like all others of the Prophet, must be fulfilled.

– Imam Ghazali, twelfth century¹ –

Table of Contents

Introduction: Juden-Sow

I: Compassion

In the Ghetto

The Vatican’s Banker

Holy Lord of Wars

Another Reformation

Inclination to Evil from Youth

The Monk’s Concubine

A Word from God

Censor Librorum

Denial of Reality

The City of God

Knight George

Pitchfork Rebels

II: Grandeur

A Land Grab

A New World Order

Dynamics of Self-Destruction

The Iron Rod

Perfect Treachery

The Rapture

Monsters at War

A Wakeup Call

III: Messiah

The Butcher Pope

Heap of Ruins

Another Forerunner

Spinning the Web

Free Will

A Deal with the Devil

War is Love

IV: Revolt

The Antichrist

Radicalizing Children

The Messiah in Luther-land

Rise of Hatred

Turning Up the Heat

V: War

Jews and Their Lies

Bind Him Up in Hell

Table Talk

The Mahdi’s Last Words

Dying in Hatred

VI: Destruction

Hadrian’s Choice

The Holocaust

It Is Just History

Charity, Love, and Peace

Exit

Bibliography

Internet Research Sites

Copyright Notices for the Holy Bible and the Koran

The author has made reasonable efforts to locate and contact rights holders to copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful, the publisher welcomes communication from copyright holders so that the appropriate acknowledgments can be made in future editions and to settle other permission matters. Some quotations have been slightly edited for style.

Introduction: Juden-Sow

Imagine that those speaking against Jews were heroes. Here is what one such man had to say:

***

[The Jews] boast of being the noblest, yes, the only noble people on earth. In comparison with them and in their eyes, we Goyim [non Jewish] are not human; in fact we hardly deserve to be considered poor worms by them. For we are not of that high and noble blood, lineage, birth, and descent. […]

They live among us, enjoy our shield and protection, they use our country and our highways, our markets and streets. Meanwhile our princes and rulers sit there and snore with mouths hanging open and permit the Jews to take, steal, and rob from their open money bags and treasures whatever they want. […]

Why, their Talmud and their rabbis record that it is no sin for a Jew to kill a Gentile, but it is only a sin for him to kill a brother Israelite. Nor is it a sin for a Jew to break his oath to a Gentile. […] they cannot treat us too harshly or commit sin against us, for they are the lords of the world and we are their servants, yes, their cattle [...].

What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews?

First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools [...]

Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed. […]

Third, I advise that all their prayer books […] be taken from them.

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb […].

Fifth, I advise that safe-conduct on the highways be abolished completely for the Jews. [...]

Sixth, I advise that usury be prohibited to them, and that all cash and treasure of silver and gold be taken from them and put aside for safekeeping […].

If they wish to apply Moses’ law again, they must first return to the land of Canaan [Israel] [...].

Seventh, I recommend putting a flail, an ax, a hoe, a spade, a distaff, or a spindle into the hands of young, strong Jews and Jewesses and letting them earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, as was imposed on the children of Adam.² […] No, one should toss out these lazy rogues by the seat of their pants.

[…] compute with them how much their usury has extorted from us, divide this amicably, but then eject them forever from the country. […]

Therefore, in any case, away with them! […]³

***

Such hate speech is outlawed in many countries today. There is, however, an exception where diatribes like this continue to be tolerated: in places of worship, where sacred texts are being read that are protected by freedom of religion. How do I know? The author is Martin Luther,⁴ who was the founding father of the Protestant Reformation, ‘the Reformer’.

Even those who are otherwise well acquainted with history might be surprised to find Martin Luther cited in the foundation of Adolf Hitler’s anti-Jewish thought framework.⁵ In ‘Mein Kampf,’ the Führer admired Luther as one of the few great reformers.⁶ The rebellious theologian became a role model for the Nazis’ wrath against Jews. Long before Hitler was democratically elected, he had published how he would fight against perceived Jewish manipulation of Germany’s democracy. Parroting the Reformer, the German leader declared that Jews were determined to wipe out humanity for their own gain. Hitler was standing with the will of God to fight against them.⁷

The Führer – a monster – thought that he was saving the world from destruction by Jews. Hitler’s accusations against them echoed their historic predecessors: Jews engaged in treachery, infiltration, and financial enslavement. He pointed out that Jews had already bankrupted the Bavarians and the Prussians through their financial machinations.⁸

His answer was National Socialism and anti-Semitism.⁹

This reasoning creates an inconvenient bond between the Holocaust, during which six million Jews lost their lives, and the Protestant churches – Hitler’s partners. The Lutheran agenda was for centuries set against Jews and other religious groups.

Hitler mirrored Luther. Luther foreshadowed Hitler.

Germans did not elect Hitler despite his well-known hatred of Jews. With the support of Protestants, they elected him because his policy promised their destruction, the same fate fervently preached by their founder and from the pulpits of Protestant churches. It was part of the political package deal that German Protestants then embraced. Documentary footage of the rise of Hitler shows in chilling brutality how the masses saluted the alienation of their mutually hated Jewish contemporaries. The age-old tactic that the Führer employed was to dehumanize Jews while lifting his nation above all: Germany first.

The German race was to be set above all others.

Hitler had learned from history. Executions of the public enemy were conducted in secret. Atrocities took place far away from scrutiny. This was meant to prevent a backlash to the otherwise effective propaganda machinery. Otherwise, compassion would have thwarted Hitler’s plans. It eventually did.

Since a few Western nations are in the process of tearing down safeguards against religious passions, this book embarks in answering a simple question about the Holocaust:

Why?

The reasons for the Holocaust or for hatred of Jews cannot be explained in simple terms, but Martin Luther’s era provides valuable insights into the mechanisms at play.

In all fairness, Lutheran sects today are typically embarrassed by their founder’s anti-Semitic teachings. The living memory of the Holocaust compels religious organizations to emphasize a message of charity, peace, and love. This was not always the case, however, and Luther’s sermons and books were widely used until the Second World War. Many of them contained anti-Semitic statements, even though they typically relied on the Bible.

They will be used again.

The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century sparked a radical break from the authority of the Catholic papacy in Rome. The tragic legacy of the Reformer is 500 years of religious wars that cost millions of lives. In between the fronts, one holocaust after another took place.

Deeply-rooted distrust between Catholics, Protestants, and Jews endures today.

The inter-Christian conflicts since Luther’s era devastated half the world. They were about differences in religious dogma and rituals that are so minute that they cannot easily be extracted from the Bible, which is almost identical for both Catholics and Protestants. The exceptions are a couple of books that have a strong negative influence on the economic motivation of Catholics but do not otherwise merit discussion here.

It is little wonder that sectarian wartimes also brought forth a series of civilization-shattering famines and diseases that indiscriminately decimated populations. History has shown that these are part of the devastating collateral damage inflicted on weakened populations. Through the effects of warfare, people succumb to the silent violence of hunger and vermin. 

As time progressed, the advancement of humanism and secularism entered the conflicts in an attempt to liberate societies from the grip of organized religion. The churches were then not hesitant to inject their disciples’ blood into the struggle for freedom from religion in an attempt to hold on to their tyrannical rule. They were enemies of freedom.

The centuries were filled with external conflicts as well, markedly those that were connected to the religious madness of missionizing and colonizing distant lands around the world. The human toll is mind-boggling. It was based on the belief that savages needed to be enlightened with the teachings of Christ.

Sectarian fights were extended under the guiding hand of missionaries into the new territories in America. In fact, religious violence forms the very foundation of (religious) liberties in the Constitution of the United States of America.

A geographical demarcation line at the intersection of Muslim and Christian civilizations has moved little over the centuries. The consequence were never-ending beheadings between disciples of the two great Abrahamic religions. Still today, devout Christians hate Muslims and devout Muslims hate Christians. They view one another as infidels. At least, these two religions have some fundamental differences over problems such as whether Jesus, the founder of Christianity, was a divinity or whether Muhammad, the founder of Islam, can be accepted as a prophet. These issues are earth-shattering. Literally. Only prophets are acceptable as recipients of divine inspiration. And popes. Or supreme imams. Or high-priests.

The internal sectarian flexibility was always enormous. The external stubbornness remains without bounds.

The ‘other’ side can be witnessed today. The fire between Sunnis and Shi’tes in the Middle East has refused to burn out. It may take another few centuries to do that.

To be sure, there are black sheep within every nation and ethnicity. But it is unique that Jews are looked at collectively as some sort of menace. Modern Muslims find it easier to hate them by the existence of the state of Israel alone. In addition, Jews are singled out by the Koran as one of the groups that deserves the deadly wrath of followers of Islam. But, to use one of the politically incorrect stereotypes about Jews, if anything, they are an industrious and intelligent people. Except for extremist Ultra-Orthodox zealots, most of them work hard and strive for social and economic advancement. In particular in America, they are so well integrated that many Jews have to communicate Jewishness to be recognized as ‘not one of us.’ Ordinary Jews blend in perfectly.

Not so many Ultra-Orthodox Jews. We will have a close look at their zealous machinations.

Neither Christians nor Muslims had a nation of Israel to hate before the twentieth century. It simply did not exist. Jews were dispersed and formed their busy minority communities all over the world. Yet, they were often segregated from non-Jewish populations. That created easy targets for hatred.

Could Christians hate Jews for having killed Jesus? The question itself is offensive. Absolutely not. Because they did not. The Romans did. At least according to the Christian Gospels. That one Jew betrayed Jesus Christ might at that time have warranted a death sentence for the individual responsible. However, convicting entire communities collectively for any specific crime is outrageous by any measure. In particular, if it was committed 2,000 years ago.

Further, that one Jew, Judas, was among the first twelve followers of Jesus. In other words, technically, Judas was already a former Jew. A very early Christian. In addition, the betrayal of Jesus is part of prophecy. Without its fulfillment, there is no salvation – and no Christianity.

Whichever the case, the argument is circular. The accusation of having killed Jesus is an expression of already simmering hatred that was stoked through the churches, rather than a biblical ‘fact-based’ rejection of Jews. However, according to the Gospels, Jews acted like a lynch mob, shouting for the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. They proclaimed ‘let his blood be on us and on our children!’¹⁰ Unfortunately, this is an expedient exit door for extremists. It justifies hatred for all generations to come.

In his last writings, Luther made a heart-wrenching remark that the responsibility has come to find them.¹¹

History disagrees even with the basics of the alleged murder and the successive crucifixion or resurrection of Jesus Christ. Muslims say that Jesus is still alive, like their Mahdi, their own kind of savior who lives on. The two are just hidden away, waiting for their moment – undead, so to speak. It may be true that Muslims entered the theater of religious history 600 years after Jesus. But they relied on traditions that are just as old as those used by the Catholic Church. Instead, Christianity and Islam pretend to have lived through sharply differing religious world histories, even though both evolved as enemies in the same cultural environment. However, only one can be true.

I know. Yours.

Moreover, Jewish biblical texts form the foundation of Christianity. They are like the foundation upon which a house is built. Except for some minor deviations that are irrelevant for the layman, the base is the same. It has worked both ways. Large Jewish groups have embraced Jesus Christ as the Messiah as well as sections of the Christian scripture.¹² The Koran does this as well.

One foundation. Different floors. Same house.

On the other hand, the Bible contains unusual self-portrayals of the Israelites as a hated nation from the moment Hebrews stepped into the limelight of the biblical story. This self-representation as a castaway group serves as an unfortunate binding mechanism for the Jewish people. It compels them to stick together for an imaginary struggle against everybody else for survival. However, this line of thought has not been advocated for hating Jews.

There is one exception: the argument that the god of the Israelites abandoned the Jews 2,300 years ago. He despised them for their disobedience. This claim is one of the preferred spins for Christian-Jewish animosities that have frequently re-emerged. But again, it rationalizes negative attitudes that were already present. It is not the cause for hating Jews. 

In order to answer this question – why? – I will guide you through Luther’s intellectual evolution. I am not going to present a lineup of the usual religious terrorists-turned-folk-heroes – martyrs, as they are called in all Judaic sects. In its place, I will put the spotlight on the religious leadership itself.

Martin Luther’s story can provide incredible insight into a mechanism that has been repeated many times through the ages. It takes place in one of the darkest religious eras of our past. Accordingly, I discuss the events along the evidence of the historical record.

In light of the difficult topic, one important point needs to be clarified upfront: now as then, every human being is equipped with the extraordinary gifts of intellect and reason. No man can exonerate himself from the responsibility of injuring or killing another human being, with the exception of self-defense. Religious madness has nothing to do with defense. The survival of humanity lies in global cooperation, not in the democratization of nuclear weaponry or in religious urges for bloody revenge.

Religious leaders understand the world through the Bible, the Gospels, the Koran, or whichever scripture or role models they follow. And they comprehend those books in different ways than a critical mind would. Therefore, we need to get into their heads. In order to drill down to the heart of religious hatred and violence against Jews, we will need to look at scripture itself. Many scholars will object to including the biblical narrative. They will point out that its historicity is in doubt. That it should be taken metaphorically.

Their excuses are infinite.

In educating ourselves about the sources of anti-Semitism, moderns do not need to understand how Judaism, Christianity, or Islam came about. The underlying beliefs as understood at the time of Luther, however, are essential. The evidence leaves no room to overlook his calls to violence and to robbing his followers of all their freedoms.

While this book investigates events in Luther’s lifetime, I am trying to make sure that the contemporary interactions between organized religions and their sects and also with governments are made visible. In fact, without the contextual mutual involvements, little about the causes of religious hatred and violence can be learned. Without full understanding, humanity is unable to recognize that yet another holocaust is approaching. We are otherwise incapacitated to prevent the next tidal wave of religious terrorists.

All three Judaic religions present themselves in the public eye as being peaceful, loving, reconciliatory, and charitable. It may be viewed as unfair to single out religious violence over political brutalities. Indeed, the world has plenty of poke marks from fatal political events that were frequently self-inflicted. They were a factor even before the first signs of Judaism. However, there is an important difference between political follies and religious passions. The former are temporary and typically heal within a couple of generations, even though some of these have risen to near-religious creeds.

As a contrast to organized religions, the atrocities committed by Stalin’s atheist communist regime in Russia are just one of countless examples of grandiose leadership gone rogue. However, it cannot be overlooked that communism also resembles a quasi-religion with an indoctrinated, faithful following. Nationalism falls into the same class. We need only consult a map that depicts income levels to realize that there is a relationship between religiosity and systemic poverty. The correlation to economic and intellectual mass poverty – one of the most effective forms of religious and quasi-religious violence – in South America, Africa, Asia, as well as the Middle East, and Islam as well as Catholicism is obvious to the naked eye.

Communist China, I need to emphasize in this context, has grown richer and will soon be the world’s number one economic power not through its own success, but rather with the help of a worldwide development effort through free trade. This concerted effort of humanity has been hugely successful, brought over a billion people out of extreme poverty, and today constitutes the foundation of global growth and welfare. The successful effect of globalization is slowly eroding the quasi-religion of communism. Now, ignorant leaders have forgotten how we got here and lash back at our planet’s most significant peaceful achievement in history instead of eliminating loopholes of abuse. 

The difference with violence through organized religion is its longevity and its permanent hierarchy that subverted and continues to subvert the internal bond and peace of entire civilizations. Unless humans understand its causes and effects, religious violence will bring suffering to generations for thousands of years into the future, as it has for thousands of years in the past. Not a single century has gone by without atrocities by any of the three Judaic religious organizations that have been orchestrated from the highest authorities, despite their claims to peace, love, charity, and reconciliation.

In Luther’s story, we will see how religious leaders pulled the strings, notwithstanding typical attempts by mainstream historians to attribute all responsibility at the political class.

In the spotlight, the shadows of spiritual leaders’ crimes are long enough for us to recognize the gravity of the disease: Without checks and balances, man relies on faith and force alone. 

Indeed, little details in creeds about matters beyond the understanding of ordinary people have created the religious division between East and West today. Can you tell the difference in how Islam views Jesus compared to Christianity? If you can explain how the two religions relate the Word of God to Jesus’ humanity, you might count yourself among experts. The point is that no person in their right mind goes about killing other people over such issues as whether or not the divinity of its leaders rests on a spirit or on the leader itself. Instead, the divination of emperors, kings, or religious bosses was common practice throughout history. It is hardly conceivable that the question of divination could have been taken by common folks of the past as a justification for ramming pitchforks into their neighbors’ chests. There were ringleaders who stood behind the scenes without getting blood on their hands.

These guiding hands are at the center of our interest in answering this most pressing question of our time – why? 

There is a tangible difference between secular and religious violence. Indeed, quite frequently, secular violence has found its roots in holding back religious aggression. In its very essence, the secular fight for freedom is a fight against the tyrannies of organized religion and despots. The enjoyment of religious freedoms is the happy consequence for the faithful. But since religious oppressors intend to push back on liberties won, secular freedom fighters need to resist and move forward with peaceful ‘militancy’ and resolve.

It is self-evident and confirmed by a large body of data that secular social organization has outdone theocracies in wisdom, welfare, social advancement, and wealth.

To take the wind out of the counter-argument, the contemporary destructive impact of social media on the mental health of populations is an evolutionary anomaly of this generation, secular or religious, that seeks its solution. Future seculars will learn how to exploit technologies for further social advancements rather than for evil manipulation of elections and democracies. Fanatic religionists have discovered these new tools for their global terror rampage. The fallout is just a minor setback compared to the systemic intellectual and economic poverty that was the norm for organized religions for thousands of years. After all, if individuals freely decide that their time is best invested in watching cats playing the piano, so be it. It is certainly preferable over praying for the destruction of the whole world in order to bring about a religious renewal. And that is exactly what our organized Judaic religions encourage. Those who disagree will need to wait just a few pages more until the evidence starts pouring in.

Some will criticize the approach here as an oversimplification of complex issues and will claim that it jeopardizes peace efforts. Quite the contrary. It is a matter of perspective: addressing the issue head-on, where religious leaders are involved, renders the complexities rather clear and straightforward. The bosses are in command. There is no excuse for the originators of the violence. Can a secular narrative ever understand a religious mindset? It must be erroneous. Perhaps it is the opposite: a religious mind is selective. It understands its own beliefs in favor of an apologetic pacifist view. Its competitors represent unbelief and sin. The sad reality is that a religious mind of any faith has a hard time looking beyond its own sectarian beliefs and distinguishing between fact and fiction. If it were able to do that, it would lose its faith within hours of studying the source material.

Give it a try.

Put faith aside for just one page of the Bible, any page. Perhaps the very first. The one starting with ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’¹³ is a good example. Mark what is likely fiction, what needs evidence, and what could be historical facts. The latter will come up short even before you know what kind of rich evidence we actually possess today about ancient civilizations. And the search for evidence in support of the biblical narrative will turn out to be a surprise: there is none. None at all. Examine just one page.

Any. Please. 

A secular mind that is well trained in the subject matter experiences less difficulty in assessing sectarian differences. When it comes to history and religion as well as many other issues of life, final truths have come too easy. Any finding has to remain subject to continued scrutiny, criticism, and evolution. Evidence, opinions and judgement in any one issue remain in flux.

However, as a researcher, it may help that I have been taught in a Franciscan Catholic convent.¹⁴ Admittedly, I may have been an apocalyptic nightmare for the Capuchin monks. Why? Why, and why again.

This Franciscan monastic order was established in Luther’s time. Originally, Capuchins were not allowed to touch money, had to live in extreme austerity and survive exclusively from begging. They were to go bare-footed and to preach among the underprivileged.

They missionized poverty upon the poor!

Of course, the secular mind might be tempted to turn a mosquito into an elephant, just for the sake of sensation and fame. By methodologically focusing on the leadership, this presentation can be immunized from that bias, without losing the perspective that a mosquito can indeed bring down an elephant. Bear this in mind. It is an omen for the progression of this book.

Seculars can appreciate that the vast majority of religious people and of those free from religion on this planet are repulsed by violence. However, I will demonstrate that the peaceful majority is irrelevant.

The commands for the feet to march come from the head.

A cautious approach is sought out here for the scriptural foundations. The educated reader must refuse to either selectively look the other way or to see something where there is nothing.

The bone holds plenty of beef for common men to get a taste of the juice. 

The topic is uncomfortable, and bears the risk of attracting hatred, literally from every direction. But not to have an honest conversation about this defining problem of humanity is disingenuous, even self-destructive. 

In organized religion, only one Truth can be true. There cannot be a competition in Truths or compromises with half the Truth. The one who owns the Truth has to defend against all untruths and not cooperate with these untruths. After all, only the religious disciples with the correct Truth will find salvation. Organized religion did not spread because of silent prayer. Inter-sectarian violence acted as the billboards of the time, forcing otherwise peaceful populations to take sides. Often, leaders would make those decisions for entire communities.

Martin Luther had this to say:

For there are other beliefs which the world calls faith. The Jews, the Turks [Muslims], the Papists [Catholics], claim they also believe in God who created heaven and earth. That such belief is not the true faith, however, is proved by the fact of its ineffectiveness. It does not contend and overcome, and it permits the believer to remain as he is, in his natural birth and under the power of the devil and sin.

But the faith which believes Jesus is the Son of God is the true, triumphant sort. It is an invincible power wrought in the hearts of Christians by the Holy Spirit. It is a sure knowledge that does not gaze and vacillate hither and thither according to its own thoughts. It apprehends God in Christ the Son sent from heaven, through whom God reveals his will and his love and transfers us from sin to grace, from death to a new and eternal life; a refuge and trust that relies not upon its own merit or worthiness, but upon Christ the Son of God, and in his might and power battles against the world and the devil. Therefore, the Christian faith is not the cold, ineffective, empty, lifeless conception which Papists and others imagine it to be; no, it is a living, active power, ever followed by victories and other appropriate fruits. Where such fruits are lacking, faith and the new birth are not there.¹⁵

Luther agrees – except when it concerns his own Truth. Bear in mind, when Luther wrote this, he represented a new ‘religion,’ one that had just broken away from the Catholic Church. His words are particularly troublesome, because the experts who could tell how the Word of God relates to Jesus in Islam and in Christianity are now in trouble: how in heaven does the Protestant Church preach the Truth about the Son of God while the Catholic Church does not? The same claims about the Truth can be found in the scriptures of both, Jews and Muslims. These are just different Truths.

Each of them is worth dying for?

A quick note to diligent students is opportune: evidence constitutes the guiding principle of this book’s storyline. There is plenty to talk about where there is no dispute, and where there is, I will make the reader aware of it. The narrative is simplified for popular language and reduced to the most important events. Academic details are published in the notes of the Academic Edition or in the separate Source Book for fact checking with the Student Edition.

Now, we embark in finding answers.

Why?

I: Compassion

In the Ghetto

1492.

After Ottoman-Turkish Muslims conquered Constantinople,¹⁶ modern day Istanbul, the traditional transportation route for goods through the Silk Road to Europe became too dangerous. In the quest to find an alternative trade route from Europe to India and China, a potential course around the Cape of Good Hope of South Africa was found by the Portuguese.

Based on a proposal by an astronomer¹⁷ from the Italian city-state of Florence, Christopher Columbus and his brother were determined to attempt a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in order to reach the Indies. But because Portuguese authorities thought that sailing around Africa might be easier, they rejected the brothers’ ambitions. Neither England nor the Italian city-states of Genoa and Venice showed interest. A feasibility study by the Catholic Monarchs of Spain¹⁸ concluded that the Columbus brothers significantly underestimated the distance to the Indies and advised against supporting such an exploration.

The breakthrough for Columbus came in April 1492. Against the opposition of the top functionary of the Catholic Church in Spain, Christoph Columbus finally received the blessing of the Spanish monarchs to prepare for his journey from Spain across the Atlantic Ocean.

One man – stubborn beyond the reason of conformity – would come to beat all odds that were stacked against him. This one man’s perseverance to achieve the impossible, as thumbed down by learned men of the time, marks the dawn of unbelievable discoveries on unknown continents that brought new opportunities to European white Christian men. His errors in sound judgement, his underestimation of risks, or his willingness to lose his life did not matter. The accomplishment of his vision would come to speak for itself, even though he missed it by the margin of a full continent plus another ocean. An era of exploration began that led to the migration of streams of white settlers into the American continents. An escape route for religiously persecuted families opened. At the same time, a road to hell for non-white people was paved. The period symbolizes the seed of the free world and the establishment of the United States of America, the land of the free.

It did not come easy.

A month before entering into an agreement with Columbus, the Catholic monarchs of Spain issued the Alhambra Decree, ordering the expulsion of all practicing Jews from Spain within four months. Jews in Spain had previously prospered for centuries under Muslim rulers. However, with the re-conquest of the Iberian Peninsula (the Spanish Reconquista) under the leadership of the Catholic Church, forced conversions became the norm. Involuntarily converted Jews were known by the demeaning term Marranos – literally sows – and force-converted Muslims were called Alpujarras. The decree accused Jews of subverting the Catholic Church with covert Jewish practices and of attempting to convert Marranos back to Judaism.¹⁹ Now that the Spanish Reconquista came to a close, Jews were given three choices: convert to Christianity with conviction, leave, or face ‘summary execution.’²⁰

As for Martin Luther’s path to radical anti-Semitism, it was a pan-European practice of the Catholic Church to collectively dehumanize Jews and to brand them as sows. Anti-Semitism was part of the cultural Zeitgeist, which was under the control of the Catholic Church.

The man behind the decree was the Catholic Cardinal Cisneros.²¹ Cardinals are the second highest ranked officials in the Catholic Church, second only to the pope. Their assembly, the College of Cardinals, primarily elects the pope from its own ranks and advises him in all matters of church business.

At this time, Cisneros was not yet a cardinal. But the barbaric Alhambra Decree followed immediately after he became the Spanish Queen’s Catholic confessor.²² This was the religious ‘counselor’ in state and private affairs to the queen – the man who pulled the strings of royal puppets. At the time, the Vatican retained the sole right to nominate royals.

The Catholic Church was in control of the culture, including its anti-Semitism.

With this power behind him, Cisneros arranged the royal marriage in Spain between Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon.

His predecessor had also been confessor to the queen. This was the Grand Inquisitor Tomás de Torquemada²³ – the hammer of heretics – whose family appears to have been Jewish conversos. Torquemada was a radical zealot who managed the growth of the Spanish Inquisition from one tribunal to an entire network of ‘Holy Offices.’ Inquisitors were part of the religious police that had been deployed by the Catholic Church all over Europe in order to persecute crimes of thought and imagination – heresies, which deviated from the ideas that the Catholic Church approved of. The role of inquisitors can be envisioned today by looking at the religious police in Saudi Arabia, only much worse. It was state sponsored terrorism by the Papal States of the Catholic Church. Under Torquemada’s direction, Spain was to be cleansed of all heresy. This targeted Muslims, Jews, and non-Catholic Christians.

He was the boss of the Spanish Inquisition when a twelve-year-old daughter of a shoemaker, Ines of Herrera, was burned for announcing Elijah as the forerunner of the Jewish Messiah.

According to the court records of the Inquisition, she announced that the Jews would return to the Promised Land. There, they would find all they needed.²⁴ The souls of those who had been burned by Torquemada were now living there in abundance and glory.²⁵ The ‘clarity’ – the Holy Spirit – started to reveal visions to her in the fall of 1499, and she was arrested by the Inquisition in the coming spring.

Similar stories occurred in Chillon, about 100 miles north of Herrera, and Valencia, further to the north-east. In Chillon, a peasant girl by the name of Maria made trips to heaven, announcing that the conversos should return to Judaism in order to be carried off to the Promised Land. In Valencia, one Miguel Vives was himself reincarnated as Moses.²⁶

Jews had gone undercover, keeping the knowledge of the Talmud alive in the remotest regions of Spain. This was evidenced in the thorough biblical knowledge that was apparent in Ines’ prophecies.²⁷ Even today, the Talmud continues to be the primary source of Jewish learning.

Previously force-converted Jews believed that their redemption would begin on March 9, 1500. That day, ‘the conversos will leave behind all their businesses [and their jewelry], and the old Christians will quarrel and kill each other in the fight to possess them.’²⁸ The superstitious looked for heavenly signs – a comet, for example – that are typically associated with messianic hopes.

Many children of conversos joined the movement,²⁹ playing, singing, and dancing.³⁰ Some of them had been led to believe that a deceased parent or someone close to them would rise from the dead if they fasted. And fast they did.

Girls as young as nine or ten were tried by the Inquisition for having followed Ines’ lead. Many were handed over to a faithful Christian family for reeducation. That was the best case. The idea was to brainwash the brainwashed. Rape the raped. In the worst case, children, girls and boys, were sentenced to life in prison or to be burned at the stake. At Herrera, Chillon, and Valencia, the Inquisition put an efficient end to it all.

This Torquemada had no moral compass.

This is the reward for parents when they raise fundamentalist children: they never make it out of imaginary role plays. The father of Ines of Herrera had managed the silly scheme. He should have been tried for child abuse and conspiracy in his daughter’s assassination.

These children were dangerous, all right, brought up to become the terrorists of their time – or perhaps freedom fighters.

Ines’ father had no moral compass.

As Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada was the national leader of an army of thought exterminators. Soon thereafter, Cisneros became Grand Inquisitor himself. He was now the boss of Catholic thought control.

Just wait for what was in store from this barbarian. 

Also involved in the engineering of the royal wedding was the Sephardi Jew, Rabbi Abraham Senior,³¹ a banker and member of the most important tax farming dynasty for the Crown of Castile. Tax farming was widely used in feudal Europe and in the Ottoman Empire of Martin Luther’s time. The idea of the Catholic Church was to stabilize revenue streams in the absence of a bureaucracy – illiterate as Christians were. They leased out entire provinces to individuals who then raked in tremendous profits by extorting taxes from the population by the principle of whim. That was not Senior’s only source for cash flow. He also supplied provisions to the royal army. In other words, he was a weapons dealer. And he was treasurer of the Holy Brotherhood, a militia that policed the towns under its influence and ensured that the income streams continued flowing.

This man had his bed made.

Senior was also the chief rabbi of Castile. Probably in this function, he was involved in the permission for Christoph Columbus’ voyage. One of Senior’s sons³² appears to have been aboard Columbus’ second voyage. This son would become Constable of the Indies.

Rabbi Senior chose to convert to Catholicism upon the execution of the Alhambra Decree. He retained his privileges with a new, Catholic identity, chosen after his godfather (!), King Ferdinand, himself of marrano heritage.³³ Senior morphed from the loftiest Jewish ranks to Spanish Catholic nobility. He was transfused from officially being of the blood of sows to blue blood. His Catholic name was now Coronel.

His ‘house’ in Segovia tells a jaw-dropping story of income inequality and of the immense riches that could be amassed through tax farming. Emperors would have felt right at home in the neo-noble’s not-so-humble dwelling.

The forced conversions of Jews amounted to a massive brain gain for the otherwise uneducated Christians. This is perhaps why the latter were largely unable to manage the financial affairs of a tax farming operation. At the same time, Christianity invited itself to be subverted through this process.

Jews were – and still are – a religiously and economically ambitious people. It may have been their intention to continue their ritual adherence in secret. Who could blame them? Since there was no freedom of conscience under the yoke of the Catholic Church, they were repeatedly charged for doing so and were dragged in front of the Inquisition’s courts for religious show trials. And convicted to burn at the stake.

Many conversos ended up in top positions in the Catholic Church and even in the ranks of the Inquisition. For example, Senior’s brother was secretary to none other than Cardinal Cisneros, the Grand Inquisitor. This makes no sense for someone who was just force-converted. Perhaps we are dealing here with ulterior motives. I lack the understanding how the persecuted could have turned into the persecutor. The simple answer may be that there was just too much money at stake for a tax farmer to stick with the ‘wrong’ religion. But why become killers? For show? Or were they indifferent to those against whom the habitual killings were carried out? Was it perhaps shameless vanity?

Staying close to the Inquisition was probably an economically shrewd choice. I would not be surprised to find Jewish converts on the throne of the papacy in Rome or on more thrones of European royalty than just in Spain. Advances in genetics will bring about a sea-change in our understanding of how Jewish and Muslim brain-gain penetrated Europe’s elite.

Rabbi Abraham Senior had a close friend: Isaac Abrabanel,³⁴ an even more important Jew.

His name alone bears a heavy burden. It literally means high-priest of God: ‘Ab’ (father); ‘Rabban’ (priest); ‘El’ (of God). This renders him of the highest Babylonian Rabbinic authorities. His family identified itself as direct successors of King David. This is the royal originator of the tribe that is believed to be entitled to bring forth a messiah, the savior who is to come to snatch Israel from its owners.

In the late thirteenth century, one of Abrabanel’s ancestors³⁵ had become a treasurer and tax farmer for the Spanish crown of Castille. In his role as top rabbi, he also financed wars³⁶ but eventually fled to Portugal, where he ‘reverted back’ to Judaism. In his absence, Abrabanel’s family retained high positions in Spain. One was royal treasurer in Andalusia and later comptroller in Castille.³⁷

Like Senior who had turned into Coronel, Abrabanel was among those who were in charge of raising tax revenues for Portugal and the Catholic Church. Similar to his ancestor, he had risen into this position through the rewards of financing wars. This Jewish career in high finance does not seem to have been the exception. It was repeated throughout European history and territories³⁸ but appears particularly strong in the formerly Muslim areas of Spain, Portugal, and southern France.

Saying that the riches of these high-flyers provoked considerable resentment by those at the bottom of the food chain would be putting it prudently. The injustice was obvious in particular for the illiterate and penniless, meaning the entire population with the exception of the top one percent of the noble strata.

Abrabanel was not only the successor to David – the king of the world in waiting – but also the treasurer of the King of Portugal. This was an important man; so important, indeed, that he had to flee from Portugal to Toledo in Spain when the Portuguese King died. His co-conspirator was executed. In his new home of his ancestors in Spain, he rose to again become a tax farmer for Queen Isabella of Castile. Together with Rabbi Abraham Senior, he also was supplier of provisions for the royal army (another arms dealer), and he helped to send Columbus abroad.

Abrabanel, had three sons: Samuel, Joseph, and Judah Abrabanel Leone Ebreo – the Hebrew Lion. The latter happened to become the personal doctor of the royal family. How did his clan and Senior’s become so intermingled with Portuguese and Spanish royalty?

Isaac Abrabanel chose not to convert.

In the wake of the Alhambra Decree, he and his family had to flee for Naples, Italy, where Jews still found protection for a short period. There, again, he became a ‘financial advisor’ to the King of Naples. When this royal family had to flee to Messina in Sicily, Abrabanel was among them.

Given the loss of Abrabanel’s and the Jewish people’s homes and fortunes and his position as the King of the Jews, it is little wonder that he advocated the Coming of the Jewish Messiah. His messianic works incorporated Christian interpretations and were consequently widely used in Jewish and Christian scholarship alike. The books focused mainly on salvation, meaning the redemption of Israel, and the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem. When this time came, the dead would be resurrected, the Temple would be rebuilt, and God would again sanctify the people of Israel, Abrabanel predicted. Finally, the entire world would come to accept Judaism under the rule of a king of the Jews. He prophesied the arrival of the Messiah in the year 5263 AM (Anno Mundi, calculated from God’s Creation of the universe). The Messianic Age was to commence with the fall of Rome, which he predicted to occur in 1531,³⁹ a year chosen not by chance but by the anticipated passing of Halley’s Comet. It almost appears as if Abrabanel predicted himself as the Messiah and hoped to be recognized as the King of the Jews.

It would not be difficult for Christians to understand this as an intention by Jews to subvert Rome and to bring about its collapse. That Christians would take a violent stand could be expected. On the other hand, Jews could not have understood the prediction in any other way than being obliged to subvert Rome politically and economically.

Without Rome’s fall, the Messianic Age could not begin. 

After short stays in Greece and southern Italy,⁴⁰ Abrabanel finally settled in Venice in 1503, which happened to fall together with the prophecy of the arrival of the Messiah in the year 5263 AM. There, he made a name of himself as a negotiator for a commercial treaty between Venice and Portugal. He would die in Venice five years later.

Abrabanel’s burial place in Padua was next to Mahari Minz.⁴¹ The latter died in the same year. His full name was Judah ben Eliezer ha-Levi Minz, a German immigrant and then the most prominent Italian rabbi. His name identifies him as the leader of the Palestinian Rabbinic creed. These two were likely members of a Sanhedrin substitute, which was a council with the authority to approve messianic missions. These men were among a few select who were holding command over the worldwide Jewry. One of his granddaughters would come to be known as a descendant of King David.⁴²

We will hear more about Abrabanel shortly.

We need to come back to the Grand Inquisitor Cardinal Cisneros for just a moment longer. Cisneros was a notorious extremist.

Legend has it that this guy was such a radical ascetic that he doubled his fasts and slept on the bare floor of his cell in the convent. Nevertheless, he would become regent of Spain – twice – a position that was second in command after the king. He was the man of Catholic royalty standing behind the veil.

A few years after the Alhambra Decree, the grand Cisneros commanded the Franciscan Order’s members to become celibate. As a consequence of his enforcement, 400 monks and friars fled with their concubines to Africa and converted to Islam.

I will discuss the issue of celibacy a little later. For now, let us understand it as a concept that rests on the misogynist idea that any contact with women defiles men. This is why monks did not marry.

Regardless of the imagined consequences, they had plenty of sex with their concubines, partners out of wedlock. However, for most of these monks, we do not need to imagine a whorehouse with revolving doors. Because marriage was not allowed for monks, they formed their relationships outside of the bond of Catholic Canon Law. They were similar to modern common law couples. But there were others, those who would turn into sexual predators. And they would not fail to make it into the news of the historical record. I will come back to them.

Cisneros also guided the brutal suppression of the First Rebellion of the Alpujarras that arose after he ordered forced mass conversions of Granada’s Muslims and the burning of all their Arabic manuscripts.⁴³ He had overruled a less violent approach to conversion by the archbishop in charge.⁴⁴ The latter was dragged before the court of Cisneros’ Inquisition for having been the bastard son of a Jewess.

After Cisneros was through with applying his style of conversion, in his own words, there were no longer non-Christians left in the city of Granada and all mosques were converted to churches.⁴⁵ This cardinal in the top rank of the Catholic Church was out of control. We can feel the pride that the cardinal expressed for having conducted a successful ethnic cleansing operation. Such over-confidence can typically be found in extremists of faith who believe that they are doing the ‘right thing’ in the name of God. The people of Granada could choose to convert, to leave, or to die. What Cisneros unleashed was just another holocaust among many.

Sent by the Vatican in Rome,⁴⁶ this man was a terminator. Could the pope in Rome have stopped Cisneros? Of course.

He did not. 

It was not an accident that Cisneros arrived in this position. He was a born inquisitor. In his early twenties, he became an advocate for the Catholic Church in the Vatican. There, his inquisitorial successes already attracted the attention of the pope so much that he was sent back to Spain with a papal benefice. This is an endowment of a territory to those who ensure submission to the Catholic Church and transfer the church revenues to the Vatican. Holders of benefices were typically also the military rulers of their areas. These people were called nobles. In the realm of the Catholic Church, the feudal system was in total control over Europe’s land holdings. So was the creation and confirmation of nobles.

Cisneros’ mission was to cure souls for money. Souls who needed the cure were not in line with the official doctrines and beliefs of the Catholic Church, first and foremost Jews and Muslims but also Christians of other sects. A cut from the cash flow was for himself. He was set for life. Everybody else was stuck in dung – and dependent on Cisneros’ charity, as they called the bread crumbs that were thrown back at the cheated population – those who survived the ordeal.

This guy was a radical thoroughbred, trained and deployed by the pope of the Catholic Church.

History is full of irony, and this is one of these incredible coincidences. Cisneros’ deadline for Jews to leave or die fell within one week of Columbus’ first voyage. The start of the journey that would lead to one of humanity’s greatest accomplishments fell together with one of man’s darkest hours.

Jews were forced to depart penniless, prohibited from bringing ‘gold or silver or minted money’⁴⁷ on their journey to nowhere. It would take Spain 500 years to acknowledge the ‘shameful events in the country’s past.’⁴⁸ The Catholic Church never did. A few years later, Jews would also be expelled from Portugal. For better understanding, we will have a closer look at the ethnic cleansing in that place.

Through the intervention of the chief rabbi of Turkey, Moses Capsali,⁴⁹ the Ottoman Navy sent a relief mission to Jewish refugees. Muslims were ordered to welcome the new arrivals as citizens of the Ottoman domain. Anyone who abused a Jew would be punished with death. The Ottoman ruler knew that it was prudent to appreciate the economic value of Jews.⁵⁰ However, this created friction with Muslims who had learned from the Koran and the Hadiths, their religious traditions, how to hate and mistreat Jews.

During the next two decades, Spanish Jews in Turkey became an important factor in an enormous expansion of Sunni Ottoman rule. Essentially, Ottoman-Turks came to swallow the competing Muslim nations in the Middle East, except for Iran. With the surrender of the Mamluk Sultanate, Egypt, the eastern part of modern day Libya, the eastern coastal area of the Red Sea down to Mecca, and the Levant up to modern-day Turkey were soon joined to the empire. Because the expanding Portuguese Empire aimed at controlling the trade routes to India, it was necessary for Muslims to prepare for the defense of Mecca, Islam’s holiest place.

Out of the concerns about a rising Christian world power, Mecca fell to the Ottomans without a shot being fired.⁵¹

In the face of Portuguese Christian aggression and with the help of Jews, the next Ottoman-Turkish leader became the first caliph over the entire Sunni Muslim world. This happened against the will of Shia Islam, the remaining Muslim main competitor, which was centered in Persia (Iran).

The Catholic Church and its subservient rulers across Europe were horrified by the news of Ottoman-Turkish expansion.

Rabbi Capsali was in extraordinarily good standing with Ottoman rulers. He held a seat next to the grand mufti of Islam, its highest leader in religious ‘law.’ Capsali’s couch next to the leader should probably be called ‘Throne of David.’

Unfortunately, Capsali’s leading Rabbinic successors at the Ottoman court fall into obscurity despite the fact that their positions would be important to Luther’s story. Not to worry, though, there is plenty of smoke for us to see through.

Capsali seems to have played a role in the capture of Constantinople (Istanbul) by Ottoman-Turks, where he had been chief Rabbi of the then- Christian city.

The fall of Constantinople marks the end of the Byzantine Empire. The city was then the capital of the last fragment of the ancient Roman Empire. Symbolically, Ottoman-Turks had conquered Rome. This had tremendous biblical and koranic consequences. For all three – Christians, Muslims, and Jews – it was understood as a warning that the End of the World was near.

When Constantinople was under siege, the Byzantine Emperor had managed too late to submit to the conditions for assistance by the Catholic Church. The age-old enmity between the two Christian churches in Greece and Rome was ridiculous. A Greek priest would ‘not approach an altar upon which a Latin priest has celebrated the sacred mystery unless he has first provided for repeated ablutions of the altar.’⁵² It was a disgusting public demonstration of sectarian hatred. The pope preferred to have a Christian empire go up in flames rather than sending his forces to the city’s defense, unless the Orthodox churches submitted to the Vatican.

This tells us quite a bit about how the Catholic Church may have been able to rise to become the dominant force in Europe. Through granting or refusing assistance in warfare, the pope could have managed to slowly encroach over entire continents. He would win either way. In entering an alliance, he could play Catholic Monopoly. In rejecting it, he could parade the love of Christianity.

Sword or word, the Catholic Church had figured out how to bring about totalitarian control over its regional leaders and their subjects.

Another destination that welcomed Sephardi Jews was Amsterdam. The city became a New Jerusalem from where they would lead reform movements. 

Many Jews also found a home in the Berber Kingdom of Tlemcen, which was situated south of Spain on the North African coastal areas, stretching from modern day Algiers to Morocco under the little known Zayyanid dynasty. This clan ruled the Berber Kingdom between the middle of the thirteenth and the middle of the sixteenth centuries. Under the advice of a Jewish viceroy,⁵³ Tlemcen welcomed Jews and Muslims fleeing from Spain.

The capital city Tlemcen lies about 50 km inland, approximately half way between modern day Algiers and Tangier, which is situated near the Strait of Gibraltar. It was regarded by Jews as the Jerusalem of the West⁵⁴ and was also the main trading place in the central Maghreb (North Africa, west of Egypt), as well as its intellectual center. There, Jews found respect as a protected minority.

For a while.

Around the turn of the sixteenth century, the Kingdom of Tlemcen’s Muslim religious authority, the fanatic Al-Maghili,⁵⁵ targeted Jews with inexplicable hatred. Apparently, Jews were associated with the Muslim ruling class, and they were too successful in their gold trade.

Indeed, the caravan routes carrying African gold and merchant goods through the Sahara to Europe passed through Tlemcen.

We can perhaps sense that the arrangement between the Rabbinic leadership and royalty might not have been unusual. We have already seen a similar high level of Jewish involvement in Spain, Portugal, and Turkey.

With the appearance of Al-Maghili, Jews were persecuted once more. The Muslim leader had previously converted the ruling class to Islam and was now engaged in eliminating his Jewish competition.

He thought that they subverted the royals.

Was it not he who just subverted the royals with fundamentalist Islam?

Al-Maghili made it legal to kill Jews and to plunder their property⁵⁶ through his religion of peace. Their synagogue in the capital city Tlemcen was destroyed. Henceforth, Jews were humiliated, beaten, deported, thrown out of their homes, and wanted nowhere that Al-Maghili’s preachers showed their enlightened faces.

Within just a few years, the kingdom was transformed from being a welcoming home to Jews to triggering a holocaust. An open immigration policy had enabled right wing religionists to exploit the social fears of ordinary citizens.

Moderns are current witnesses to this process.

Tlemcen was in chaos. The Catholic Church under the personal command of Cardinal Cisneros, the radical Spanish Grand Inquisitor, took advantage of the situation and captured the kingdom’s north-western trading city of Oran shortly thereafter.⁵⁷

At around the same time as the Tlemcen expulsion and for a few years prior to that, Jews in Germany were ousted from the area of Nuremberg for reasons that are not investigated here. It appears to be connected with the orders for ethnic cleansing in Spain and elsewhere. While many Sephardi Jews were rescued by Ottoman-Turks, a significant number of German Ashkenazy Jews seem to have found a home in northern Italy, in particular Milan, which was then under the protectorate of the Kingdom of France.⁵⁸

Venice.

The elegant city in the Adriatic lagoon, is famous for its canals and romantic gondolas, for good Italian food on a warm evening, and for strolls among its treasures of architecture and art. Tightly aligned with the now-defunct Byzantine Empire in Constantinople (Istanbul), the Republic of Venice had been a tremendously successful naval and trading power. During the previous