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To: muawiyah
I understand context. So you're saying that, when he told people to burn the synagogues, he really meant burn the churches?

Or this?

Fourth, I advise that their rabbis be forbidden to teach henceforth on pain of loss of life and limb. For they have justly forfeited the right to such an office by holding the poor Jews captive with the saying of Moses (Deuternomy 17 [:10 ff.]) in which he commands them to obey their teachers on penalty of death, although Moses clearly adds: "what they teach you in accord with the law of the Lord." Thoses villains ignore that. They wantonly employ the poor people's obedience contrary to the law of the Lord and infuse them with this poison, cursing, and blasphemy. In the same way the pope also held us captive with the declaration in Matthew 16 {:18], "You are Peter," etc, inducing us to believe all the lies and deceptions that issued from his devilish mind. He did not teach in accord with the word of God, and therefore he forfeited the right to teach.

He compares the teachings of the rabbis to the "lies and deceptions that issued from a devilish mind", referring to the pope. If he were using the Jews as a kind of code for the Roman Catholic hierarchy, why would he call the pope a liar? These are not the writings of a man in fear of the established church.

I'm sorry. Your theory doesn't wash. Martin Luther was many things, but he wasn't one to mince words. He made public his feelings about the Roman Catholic church and faced death because of it. Here I stand. The majority of the princes around Luther actually approved of the Reformation -- most likely because it promised more local power and authority rather than from religious conviction.

Although most German kings attained imperial coronation, there were often several candidates for the throne. A body of princes, called electors, selected by majority vote both the German king and emperor; the crown, however, was only officially conferred by the pope, who occasionally claimed ultimate authority in the election. Over time, tensions mounted between the emperors and electors who, as one of the three representative groups in the imperial diet (or parliamentary body), kept the power of the monarch in check. The culmination of these tensions came with the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century: while the emperors adhered to Roman Catholicism, the electors generally supported the Reformation. It was, in fact, an elector—Frederick III (the Wise) of Saxony—who gave refuge to Martin Luther upon his excommunication. The Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburgs

518 posted on 08/01/2006 7:21:36 AM PDT by Chanticleer (Courage is not simply one of the virtues but the form of every virtue at the testing point. Lewis)
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To: Chanticleer
Pretty obvious there that Luther contrasted the ignorant village priests with the pope and found both wanting.

There are other Protestant reformers of the same period who condemn the "Jews" for refusing full communion to the people (referring to the "wine"). Yet others ridicule the way the "Jews" undertake the baptism of infants.

In the end, everybody, Reformers, Jews, and dispossessed nobles alike all eventually flee to America and live happily ever after.

532 posted on 08/01/2006 8:06:43 AM PDT by muawiyah (-/sarcasm)
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