Vom Schem Hamphoras - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Vom Schem Hamphoras, full title: Vom Schem Hamphoras und vom Geschlecht Christi (Of the Unknowable Name and the Generations of Christ), was a book

Tract (literature)

A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They are...

written by German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

Reformation

Protestant Reformation

The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...

leader Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

in 1543, in which he equated Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

with the Devil

Devil

The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...

and described them in vile language.

Schem Hamphoras is the Hebrew rabbi

Rabbi

In Judaism, a rabbi is a teacher of Torah. This title derives from the Hebrew word רבי , meaning "My Master" , which is the way a student would address a master of Torah...

nic name for the ineffable name of God, the tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton

The term Tetragrammaton refers to the name of the God of Israel YHWH used in the Hebrew Bible.-Hebrew Bible:...

. Luther's use of the term was in itself a taunt and insult to Jewish sensitivities. He wrote the tract several months after publishing On the Jews and Their Lies.

In the book he wrote:

Here in Wittenberg, in our parish church, there is a sow carved into the stone under which lie young pigs and Jews who are sucking; behind the sow stands a rabbi who is lifting up the right leg of the sow, raises behind the sow, bows down and looks with great effort into the Talmud under the sow, as if he wanted to read and see something most difficult and exceptional; no doubt they gained their Shem Hamphoras from that place...

Luther argued that the Jews were no longer the chosen people but "the devil's people."An English translation of Vom Schem Hamphoras was first published in 1992 as part of The Jew In Christian Theology by Gerhard Falk. Historians have noted Luther's writings contributed to anti-Semitism within the German provinces during his era. Historical evidence shows that the Nazi Party in the 1930s and 1940s used Luther's writings to build up anti-Semitism under their rule, by exerting pressure on schools to incorporate it into the curriculum, and the Lutheran church to incorporate it into sermons. Whether or not Luther's writings were a leading force for antisemitism in Europe over the past 500 years is currently being debated by historians. Nevertheless, it is clear that his writings were used extensively by the Nazis.

See also