Already
Martin Luther
knew and wrote in 1523 in his essay, "Das Jhesus Christus eyn geborner Jude sey
(That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew)."
Referring to the bad treatment the Old
Church was bestowing on the Jews, he wanted to convert the "blood friends,
cousins, and brothers of our Lord" to his reformed religion. He argued all
you need is for them to hear the Gospel proclaimed clearly.
No chance! Luther became furious, and when the famous Rabbi
Josel of Rosheim
asked him in 1537 to influence the
Elector of Saxony Frederick III
to lift the ban on Jews settling in Saxony, Luther replied, "Dear Josel, I would
willingly do my best for your people. Still, I will not contribute to your
[Jewish] obstinacy by my kind actions. You must find another intermediary with
my good lord."
Eventually, Luther wrote 1543 his treatise, "
Von den Jüden und jren Lügen
(On the Jews and Their Lies)" and an anti-Semitic pamphlet, "
Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (Of the Unknowable Name and the Generation of Christ)."
The façade of the
Stadtkirche in Wittenberg - the church where Luther
preached - shows a
Judensau (Jews' sow) from 1305. In 1570 after the reformer's death, the parish
supplemented the sculpture with the inscription
Schem HaMphoras right from his pamphlet.
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The Nicholas window of the Freiburg Minster church.
A Jew with his funnel
hat is waving a stick standing there for his bond?
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Without commenting further, what is important in this context are those hats
the Jews wear. The funnel shape is the "classical" way to identify the bearer
as a Jew ...
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Jew in the Middle Ages wearing a yellow ring.
He carries a bunch
of garlic and the obligatory purse.
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... but other forms are typical, like a bonnet or hood called Gugel.
On those Jewish hats, Professor
Michael Bachmann
had based his talk "The Freiburg Minster and Its Jews." He spoke in the
framework of the Jewish Cultural Days Freiburg's active Jewish community had
organized.
Professor Bachmann pointed out the interesting fact that there are
"friendly" Jewish hats in and around the Minster church, as in the nativity
scene in the tympanum of the main entrance hall.
Joseph sitting
at the foot of the crib in a daze wears the funnel head. Indeed,
in an earlier blog, I wrote, "Joseph, not being Jesus' bodily father, is an embarrassing figure for
the teaching Church. Medieval paintings of the Holy Family frequently show
the carpenter as a small, unimportant, and hidden figure sometimes placed in
a corner." The same here. Note the festively dressed shepherd to the right wearing a
Gugel hat.
Here comes a discovery. The Crucifixion scene of the tympanum shows
the righteous people at the right of the cross.
On the cover of Professor Bachmann's book, you recognize enlarged on
the right
Constantine the Great. On his side is his mother,
Helena, who allegedly discovered the Holy Cross at Golghata. The correct one of the three unearthed crosses was identified by a miracle. Here a
Jewish workman wearing a hat found the inscription I.N.R.I. (Jesus of
Nazareth, King of the Jews) belonging to the Holy Cross.
Another Jewish friendly example is the Tree of Jesse, where the
ancestors of Jesus' mother, Mary (up in the middle), wear crowns, hats, and
funnel hats.
And with Luther, we know that Jesus was born a Jew. This fact is dramatically
illustrated in the resurrection trilogy above: Near the tomb, Jesus appears
to Mary Magdalene, the unbelieving Thomas lays his hand into Jesus' wound,
and two disciples on the road to Emmaus recognize Jesus wearing a funnel hat
while breaking the bread.
Here is a presentation in the keystone of a vault barely visible to the occasional visitor. It shows the child Jesus
teaching the elders in the Temple. The scribes wear hats. Note to the left of the scene the Austrian "lark" coat of arms, to the right the Austrian barred shield
red-white-red, and at the bottom the cross of St. George, one of Freiburg's
patrons.
Here is the "classical" confrontation of the Church and the Synagogue. On
the one side, the triumphant Church, a chalice, and a lance in hands riding a
horse showing head and feet of the four evangelists. On the other side, the
Synagogue blindfolded - not recognizing Christ as the Messiah - with a
broken lance carrying a billy goat's head and riding a donkey.
Did Luther not recognize the Jews as "blood friends, cousins and brothers of our Lord?" Judaism is the precursor of Christendom. So at the end of his talk,
Professor Bachmann wanted to prove that St. Paul, who opened the
Christian faith to the non-Jews, gave it to the world but never lost his Jewish roots.
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