Luther walks through the market. Although still alive, the trace of the painful illnesses that have not killed him in the past few years is present all over his face. He is almost unrecognizable with the deep wrinkles that have developed around his eyes and after all the weight that he has lost. He is agitated with no apparent reason, which is now the norm for Luther.
The shops in the market can be divided into two general categories. The first are the ones that sell locally produced goods such as food, leather, coal, salt, and fish. The second are the ones that sell goods from further afield, such as wool, wine, cloth, and luxuries. Luther is the man of God and the buyer of none. He is just passing through, trying to find his way to the church through the relatively dense crowd.
Among the many people in the market, there is one who carries the Bible. Luther can spot a Bible from a mile away. He smiles. The smile is a stranger on his unhappy face. Luther looks up to see who is the blessed man who carries the Bible. He is Uwe, Luther’s current friend and former pupil. Uwe is bearded now, wearing the expression of a man who practices piety.
Excited to see a friend, Luther calls his name. “Uwe. Uwe.” Uwe, however, doesn’t seem to notice. Luther follows Uwe while calling him.
Uwe stops by in front of a tiny shop whose owner wears a yarmulke. He looks like a Jewish version of Luther: roughly the same age, the same confident look, and the same uncompromising eyes. Good, Luther thinks. Perhaps Uwe wants to convert him; This might be way overdue but never late.
The smile, however, disappears from Luther’s face, when Uwe hands over a ring. Putting on his jewelers’ loupe, the Jewish man examines it. That makes no sense, Luther thinks. Eyes narrowed, Luther moves a bit to the left to have a better visual on Uwe and the owner.
The world collapses on Luther when the Jewish owner extends a moneybag. Uwe borrowing money! The ring also must be the collateral, Luther figures. After all the years of devoting his life to reform and purify the church, his own student, a Christian scholar, is committing usury; and in broad daylight!
Uwe receives the moneybag from the lender. While holding it, Uwe hears an angry voice calling his name. He looks back, and finds his mentor, Professor Martin Luther, right behind him, giving him a disappointed look. Without thinking, his gaze falls at the moneybag in his hand. Eyebrows raised and pulled together, Uwe feels like a criminal caught in the midst of the crime.
His heart stops beating when Luther’s rising hand approaches Uwe’s face. Luther tilts Uwe’s chin up with his index finger. His heart leaped into his throat, Uwe shivers the moment his eyes fall on Luther’s questioning look. The mentor says nothing; his blinding glare, however, demands an explanation.
Filled with shame, Uwe swallows hard against the lump in his throat and makes a desperate attempt to explain himself. “Needed the money… medicine… my… my… my mother, yeah, my mother is sick and needs medicine. Yeah.”
Luther shows no leniency in his furious glare. The improvised lie doesn’t seem to have fooled him. Breathing angrily, he turns his gaze down. Following Luther’s eyes, Uwe notices the Bible in his hand and, without thinking, hurriedly hides it behind him. He is too embarrassed to look up at Luther again.
The Jewish moneylender clearing his throat grabs everyone’s attention. Making a bored face, he shows his indifference towards the interaction between the two Christian scholars.
Uwe takes a relaxed breath when Luther turns his demanding glare off him and onto the moneylender. The Jewish moneylender, however, seems unimpressed, his eyes reflecting Luther’s glare back at him. He shows such a level of confidence that Uwe has only seen in Luther.
The staring contest continues for a few moments. None of the two men blink. Luther breathes angrily like a raging bull.
His gaze wandering between the two, Uwe takes a step back to safety.
Finally, Luther breaks the silence. “Have faith,” he growls.
“I do!” the Jewish moneylender responds immediately, making a surprised face.
“Lending money is a sinful act in faith,” Luther states authoritatively, teeth grinding.
“Oh… well… not in mine,” the Jewish moneylender responds, his voice relaxed and casual.
Filled with explosive rage, Luther tries to say something but cannot find the right response. The more he thinks, the more agitated he becomes. This situation would not have existed in the first place if everyone had the same faith, the true faith, the way Luther had envisioned for Saxony.
Luther comes back to attention. The Jewish moneylender is still maintaining eye contact. To Luther, his unjustified confidence is more intolerable than the usury.
Failed to find the words, Luther finally gives up and angrily turns away. As he turns, he bumps into another Jew; stares at him for a moment, and then shoves him out of his way.
From the above, there are quite a few Jews recognizable in the crowd by their yarmulke. Luther pushes out of his way the Jews that are going in the opposite direction.
It is the year 1536. Katharina runs many small businesses in Black Cloister, ex-monastery and their present home, which was gifted to them by Prince Fredrick III.
Thanks to her management, the business is good; Katharina wishes she could say the same about her life.
She has been agitated ever since this morning. She has a bad feeling that a tragedy is near. She could tell by the way her sick husband was staring at the wall. But, she does not have time to worry about that now. Business cannot wait.
Katharina tightens the lid on the brewery machine. “The lid was loose,” she complains to a servant while cleaning her hand with a white sheet on her shoulder. “You have to pay attention. Most of the beer goes to waste if the lid—”
“Ma’am,” a nervous servant interrupts, hastily running toward her. “A new student has arrived.”
“So? Admit him.”
“Where?! We have no empty room.”
“Okay, I’m coming,” Katharina responds. “And don’t burn all the wood at once. A slow fire,” she says to the brewery servant before leaving.
“Yes, ma’am.”
When troubles come, they come together, Katharina thinks while walking with the nervous servant toward the building. “Wash the hands,” she talks to herself, “then admit the student, then wash the hands, then…” Her agitation is not improving by the unexpected incidents that come one after another. She stops talking to herself when notices the servant looking at her as if she is losing her mind.
“Has he paid yet?” she asks.
“Half. He says he’ll get the rest when—”
“Ma’am. Ma’am. Bella just gave birth,” a hysterical servant screams, coming out of nowhere.
“Is she well?” Katharina asks, her eyes tight and worried.
“Yeah, but the calf… I don’t know… It’s just—”
“Oh, God. Alright, I’m coming,” Katharina says and turns to the other servant. “Admit the student with one of the other guests, until I come.”
“But—”
“Just do it,” Katharina yells, turning back to the hysterical servant. “You go help him.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she responds.
Katharina, who is now completely on edge, leaves the two servants alone and hurries toward the stable. She is an inch away from a nervous breakdown.
Facing the window, Luther sits in his rocking chair in the living room. The black cross necklace shines on his church outfit. He is frustrated that his vision for the Jews converting to Christianity has not finally worked out. One way or another, he has to fix this disharmony once forever. He bites his nails, thinking of a solution.
Behind Luther, sitting on the floor, two toddlers play together. They build a castle out of small stones that they have collected from the yard. The toddlers’ innocence and happiness give the room a sense of serenity—for a while at least.
Luther springs up. Angry and frustrated, he marches toward the kids. Passing right through them, his feet destroy their castle. The kids burst out crying.
In front of the door frame, Hans, who is now a young boy, stands. Luther’s shadow casts over his terrified face. Luther extends his hand toward the boy. He pushes the frightened kid away and leaves the room.
“Mom!” Hans screams while running away.
Katharina, already on edge, hurries toward the stable. The ground is covered with animal feces here and there.
“Save Bella’s calf,” she says to herself, “then admit the student. No, I’ve to first wash my hands, then I—”
Hearing Hans’s scream from the back, she pauses for a moment but does not turn to the building. The tragedy begins, she thinks. Her face flushed, she bites her lips and continues toward the stable. Her hand directly lands on a pile of excrement, when she stumbles and falls on the ground.
She does not have the strength, or the motivation, to get up. Sitting on the dirty ground, she takes a long look at her hand that is covered with feces. Seeing her shitty life before her eyes, she fists her hand and angrily pounds it against the ground multiple times. Tears of sadness are released shortly after the anger.
Luther marches through the market, like a man going to war. The confused people in the market stop their work and stare at him.
He brushes past an old man with a cane, striking fear into his step. He ignores the salutation of a bread seller that he has always been kind to.
The ground shakes from fear with his every step.
Getting butterflies in her stomach, Esther stops swirling the chicken soup with the ladle and turns her worried face onto the door of their home. The door is not making a sound. She stares at it for a few moments more, but nobody seems to be behind it. Weird! She can swear she heard something.
“CLIP CLOP, CLIP CLOP”
Her 5-year-old son, sitting on the ground, plays with his wooden toy. Apparently, the small, brown piece of wood is a horse in the imagination of the carefree kid.
Her husband also does not seem to have noticed anything. Sitting behind the dinner table, he is immersed in studying the book of Torah. Perhaps Esther is worried for nothing, but the bad feeling does not leave her alone.
“All’s well,” Esther hears. She looks to the right. A smile appears on her face. She remembers her first encounter with Martin Luther 14 years ago, and that image temporarily calms her. She was defenseless, shoved to the ground by a fanatic churchgoer, when Luther, a kind stranger to her at the time, came and helped her. “All’s well,” he told her. “You’ll be safe.” That was 1523. It has, however, been many years since the last time she heard any word from Martin Luther that is softened by a touch of mercy.
She hears a screech and turns her distraught gaze to the left. Her face slacked, the hope melts off her look in a matter of a second. She is distressed by the image of 1537 Luther, who is frustrated with the Jews being an exception to his faith-only doctrine. The stony-hearted man that he has become, he himself is now more of an imminent threat to the safety of the Jewish family. A part of Esther, nevertheless, does not want to give up on the image she remembers from the early Luther. Deep in her heart, she believes 1523, merciful Luther will be resurrected at some point, becoming the savior she awaits—perhaps now is about the right time.
Esther senses something is about to happen but does not know what yet. The life of her family hangs in the balance by Luther’s next deed, but she does not know yet which Luther is going to act now: stony-hearted Luther or merciful Luther, which makes his mission saving the Jews from Christian cruelty.
Flashback to 1523: Luther, the compassionate.
Luther stands in a garden, surrounded by beautiful flowers. Singing birds celebrate the spring. A few white pigeons descend and sit on a branch near him. Saxony has not seen many heavenly days like this.
With a kind, sincere smile on his face, Luther delivers the ‘That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew’ speech from the early years of his reformation.
“We should remember that we are but Gentiles, while the Jews are of the lineage of Christ. We are aliens and in-laws; they are blood relatives, cousins, and brothers of our Lord. Therefore, if one is to boast of flesh and blood, the Jews are actually nearer to Christ than we are…”
“If we really want to help them, we must be guided in our dealings with them not by papal law but by the law of Christian love. We must receive them cordially, and permit them to trade and work with us, that they may have occasion and opportunity to associate with us, hear our Christian teaching, and witness our Christian life. If some of them should prove stiff-necked, what of it? After all, we ourselves are not all good Christians either.”
Flash-forward to 1537: Luther, the stony-hearted.
The fierce thunderstorm outside the church is not comparable to the storm that Luther is creating inside. The sound of crashing thunder joins Luther’s speech to make his words harsher and scarier. Uttering the words with strong emphasis accompanied with hatred, he is giving the ‘Smalcald Articles’ speech from the later years of his reformation. His face covered in the pain of everlasting illnesses, there is no space left for mercy on his look.
“The first and chief article is this: Jesus Christ, our God and Lord, died for our sins and was raised again for our justification. He alone is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world (John 1:29), and God has laid on Him the iniquity of us all (Isaiah 53:6). All have sinned and are justified freely, without their own works and merits, by His grace (Eph 2v8-9), through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, in His blood. This is necessary to believe. This cannot be otherwise acquired or grasped by any work, law, or merit. Therefore, it is clear and certain that this faith alone justifies us. Nothing of this article can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth and everything else falls.”
Esther is terrified, feeling that something is about to happen but does not know which Luther—Early or Late—is going to act now.
Walking toward a door, Luther opens it with a strong, rather violent, pull.
Hearing that, Esther turns to the door, frightened.
Luther enters and meets Pfaffinger inside! “How is my favorite priest?” Pfaffinger asks.
Although looks similar, this was not the door to the home of the Jewish family. They are safe and sound back in their home. Esther was worried for nothing.
The door closes behind Luther. We can barely hear what he says behind the closed door. For what is worth, our beloved reformer did not make his hands dirty. But does it make much difference? What if something did happen to the Jewish family? To that innocent kid playing on the ground, to that restless mother worried for her family’s safety at every second. Would not the words that had facilitated the injustice by building a theological foundation for discrimination be as guilty as the hands that eventually performed the wrong deed?
The door stands silent before us. We cannot see nor hear what happens behind it. It might be Luther campaigning for good, reviving the 1523 version of himself. Whatever those words are, good or bad, they’ll lead to good and bad deeds accordingly; that’s a given.
The door gets busted open with a kick. This time it is indeed the door to the Jewish home.
Esther screams.
Two soldiers rush in with their spears pointed at the defenseless family.
Esther panics, jumping herself on the kid.
The shocked father slowly stands up.
After the soldiers, a non-military official slowly enters through the door. His black cape slightly touches the door frame. Although the cape seems fine, he gets furious as if the worst has happened. He tries to clean the cape by sweeping his hand against it over and over.
The horrified father, while hearing his heart pounding, watches the official worrying about the little dust on his cape. Barely able to stand, he holds a grip on the chair handle. His trembling hand shakes the chair accordingly. He can hear the sound of the wobbly chair shaking against the wooden floor.
In an obsessive manner, the official is still trying to clean his cape. Even the soldiers are losing their patience.
The official finishes with his cape situation, finally. He looks up and takes a condescending look at the house and its frightened residents. In no rush, he slowly takes a paper out of his bag, and reads: “By the mandate of Prince John Frederick III, the Elector of Saxony, Jews are prohibited from inhabiting, engaging in business in, or passing through his majesty’s realm.”
Esther is shocked and petrified. Her son is whining in her arms. Tears flowing down her face, she looks up at us, her terrified look begging for help. However, what could passive readers do but learn from history?
It is the year 1543. The illnesses that Luther has been through have not left much life in his body, and the choices he has made have not left much light in his heart. The cruel person that he has become, he feels obliged to get his sick body, which is soaked in sweat, off the bed and use the last bits of strength that are left in him to protect his true faith against the ones that have not converted to it.
Groaning and coughing, he manages to drag his feeble body behind his desk. Taking the pen from the black ink jar, he writes the title of his last article: ‘On the Jews and Their Lies’.
“I have received a treatise in which a Jew engages in dialog with a Christian. He dares to pervert the scriptural passages which we cite in testimony to our faith, concerning our Lord Christ and Mary his mother, and to interpret them quite differently! With this argument, he thinks he can destroy the basis of our faith… This is my reply to you and to him. It is not my purpose to quarrel with the Jews, nor to learn from them how they interpret or understand Scripture; I know all of that very well already. Much less do I propose to convert the Jews, for that is impossible…”
Hold your breath, dear reader. You need to be sitting to read the following horrible excerpts from the article.
“… So we are even at fault in not avenging all this innocent blood of our Lord and of the Christians, which they shed for three hundred years after the destruction of Jerusalem, and the blood of the children they have shed since then (which still shines forth from their eyes and their skin). We are at fault in not slaying them…”
“What shall we Christians do with this rejected and condemned people, the Jews… First, to set fire to their synagogues or schools… This is to be done in honor of our Lord and of Christendom, so that God might see that we are Christians. Second, I advise that their houses also be razed and destroyed…”
‘On the Jews and Their Lies’ is embossed on the cover of a leather-bound book with gold gilt edges. Pfaffinger, smiling, puts the book back in the bookshelf as he says: “What a great man!”
He turns back to the room. There is barely any space left on the dinner table that is filled with fish, chicken, pork, and a whole roasted lamb in the middle. There is enough food to feed an entire platoon. The guests include a couple of priests, some military men, and some from the king’s court.
“Gentlemen, where were we?” Pfaffinger says and approaches the guests.