Anton Margaritha

Der gantz judisch Glaub (1530)

Anton Margaritha (Latin: Anthonius Margaritha; c. 1492 – 1542) was a Jewish convert whose work Der gantz judisch Glaub is a kind of "revelatory literature" with anti-Jewish aims. It was used as a source for early modern anti-Jewish writings. Despite its polemical character, however, Der gantz judisch Glaub ("The Entire Jewish Faith") is also a source for the everyday life of Jews in the early 16th century and is evaluated in this sense by historians. Margaritha's book contains the first translation of a Jewish prayer book into German.

He was a possible source for some of Martin Luther's conception of Judaism.

Biography

Family background

Anthonius Margaritha came from a family of rabbis. His grandfather Jakob Margoles (Margolith) was the last chief rabbi of Nuremberg before the expulsion of the Jews from the city in 1499. Before that, he had served as rabbi in several southern German cities and was considered an expert on divorce law. As a rabbi, Jakob Margoles was also the intermediary between Christians and the Jewish community. Johannes Reuchlin asked him if he could get him some Kabbalistic texts, but Margoles replied that they were not available in Nuremberg. After being expelled from Nuremberg, he became rabbi in Regensburg, a post he held until his death in 1501.

He was married twice and had three sons Isaac (d. 1525), Samuel (d. 1551), and Shalom Shachna (d. 1573), Isaac and Samuel presumably children from his first marriage, and the much younger Shalom Shachna a son from Jacob's second marriage. While Samuel succeeded his father as rabbi of Regensburg, the other two brothers moved to Prague, where they were engaged, among other things, in editing the work on divorce law that their father had written.

Samuel Margaritha married Saidia Straubinger. His wife belonged to the old-established and wealthy Straubinger-Veiflin family in Regensburg. The couple lived in Nuremberg until 1499, and their son Anthonius was born there. His Jewish name is not known, but the consonants of his baptismal name Anthonius (N-Th-N), suggest the Hebrew names Nathan or Jonathan. Two brothers named Baruch and Moses Mordecai are known; Baruch officiated as a hazzan in Regensburg and later in Italy, and Moses Mordecai became a rabbi in Cracow.

Regensburg

The Entrance Hall of the Regensburg Synagogue, by Albrecht Altdorfer (1519)

Anthonius Margaritha's conversion was preceded by experiences he had as a child and youth in Regensburg. This community was in economic decline in the 15th century, had a lower tax income, which made its security situation increasingly precarious. The Regensburg City Council enacted anti-Jewish regulations, such as a ban on Christian midwives assisting a Jewish woman in childbirth in 1462. Ritual murder indictments occurred twice in the 1470s. In Trento, a wandering Jew was arrested on charges of murdering a Christian child (Simon of Trent).

He was baptized and accused several Regensburg Jews of having committed a ritual murder. Among them was Rabbi Eisik Stein, a relative of Saidia Straubinger. These individuals were arrested, but eventually released in exchange for monetary payments. In 1499, the Regensburg Jewish community complained to Duke George of Bavaria-Landshut that Christian bakers were refusing to sell them bread and that their children were suffering hardship. Duke George caused the city council to put a stop to this behavior by the bakers.

The sources are largely silent on how the Jewish minority reacted to all this strife; here Margaritha's work is an exception. Margaritha assumes constant hostility: "In sum, no Jew wants to be a Christian." This is contradicted by the experiences of Johann Böschenstein, a professor of Hebrew, who was treated respectfully in the Jewish community of Regensburg in the early 16th century.

The Regensburg Jewish community, as in other cities, was socially divided into two groups: on the one hand, the wealthy families, who almost alone bore the financial burdens imposed by civil authorities on the entire Jewish community and in return had limited legal security — on the other hand, the poor, who, from the point of view of the authorities, had no right of residence in the city and were merely tolerated. Their share of the Jewish population is estimated at 25 to 50% for Erfurt and Nuremberg in 1485. A part of them migrated from one city to the next and lived off the charity of their richer co-religionists. Conversions of Regensburg Jews to Christianity are known as early as the late 15th century. Then in 1500/01 Asher Lämmlein appeared in Venice and proclaimed the imminent appearance of the Messiah; the enthusiasm this caused in Germany was followed by disappointment, and out of this crisis came further conversions.

The hostility of the Christian population against the Jews increased more and more, culminating in the expulsion of the Jews from Regensburg in 1519. As early as 1518, the city council petitioned Emperor Maximilian to expel all Jews from the city with the exception of 15 families who were under special imperial protection. In response, the Jewish community complained to the emperor that Regensburg bakers refused to sell them bread. The emperor rejected the city of Regensburg's request, but he died in January 1519, and during the interregnum that followed, the city council enforced the expulsion of 600 to 800 Regensburg Jews in a matter of days. The preacher Balthasar Hubmaier acted as an agitator in this.

Wasserburg

At the end of Der gantz jüdisch Glaub, Margaritha dated his baptism and related it to the publication of his book (1530): "Outgone in the ninth year of my revenge / to be done in Wasserburgk." According to this, he was baptized in Wasserburg am Inn in 1521/22. His wife also took this step.

Anthonius Margaritha was described by Josel of Rosheim as a Lutheran, and his buzzword-like use of the term "gospel" as well as individual phrases such as "Christian hearts" suggest that he at the time assigned himself to the Reformation movement; by the end of his life, however, as a teacher of Hebrew at the University of Vienna, he was undoubtedly a member of the Roman Catholic Church.

Augsburg

In 1530, he arrived in Augsburg, where he published Der gantz judisch Glaub in the same year. Margaritha spent the duration of the Imperial Diet, which took place in the same year, in prison. The reason for his arrest is unclear. However, a decisive influence might have been a debate with Josel of Rosheim, who had faced Margaritha in a public disputation over his book. Only at the instigation of the Viennese bishop Johann Faber was he released from prison and banished from Augsburg.

Leipzig

Expelled from Augsburg, Margaritha went to Leipzig, where two editions of a revised version of Der gantz jüdisch Glaub appeared in 1531. In it, the author describes himself as a teacher of Hebrew at Leipzig University. Only the title of another book by Margaritha is known, which was written during his time in Leipzig: Psalterium Hebraicum cum radicibus in margine. It is the Hebrew text of the Psalms with additions. In Leipzig, Margaritha taught Hebrew to Bernhard Ziegler, who later became known as a professor of theology and as a Hebraist. The account book from the Leipzig Easter market in 1534 indicates that Anthonius Margaritha had already left Leipzig the following year and that his family had remained there in poverty.

Vienna

In Vienna, a chair of Hebrew had been established in 1533 as part of a university reform. Margaritha accepted a call to Vienna, initially leaving his wife and young children behind in Leipzig, where they relied on public support. The permanent position did little to improve Margaritha's precarious financial situation, as the university was delinquent in paying his salary. He was criticized for not being able to teach his classes in Latin. Yet Margaritha continued to be in contact with his family of origin. The latter offered him to repent, return to Judaism and take up a well-paid teaching position abroad.

Writings

Margaritha's main work, Der gantz jüdisch Glaub, is an early ethnography of Judaism, but from the polemical perspective of the convert. As the son a rabbi, Margharita presented himself to Christian readers as a "competent revealer of Jewish secrets." Margaritha was less concerned with making his conversion plausible or with converting other Jews through his book; his addressees were Christians who lived in the neighborhood of Jews, as well as Christians who thought "the jews are good / the jews keep their law better than we do." Voices expressing a positive opinion of Judaism, however, are rare in 16th century Christian writing. The closest thing to such a position is an anonymous opinion by Andreas Osiander.

Margharita inculcated in his readers that dealing with Jews was dangerous for them. He warned, for example, against consulting Jewish physicians, "henceforth a standard theme of Protestant fear of Jews in the early modern period."

Margaritha drew a very negative picture of the Jewish Sabbath:

"After this the Jews do nothing all day. When they need to heat, light, milk cows, etc., they take a simple, poor Christian to do it for them. They boast of this, imagining that they are masters and the Christians their servants, saying that they still have the true rule and dominion, because the Christians serve them in all their work and they lie idle."

Also a popular and for Jews incendiary pattern of argumentation is found in Margaritha — Jews as secret allies of the distant military opponent:

"The Jews rejoice greatly when a war arises in Christendom, especially through the Turk. Then they continue to pray against all the authorities of the Christians. They cannot deny that their curses are on the present Christian kingdoms and empire."

Margharita pursued a political intention with this accusation: princes and emperors should deprive the Jews in the Holy Roman Empire of legal security and protection. He imagined that if the Jews lived in misery, they would give up their faith in election, and then they would convert to Christianity. In the early days of the Reformation, many aspects of the previous social order came under scrutiny, and this brought particular attention to Margharita's anti-Jewish proposals.

Church historian Thomas Kaufmann notes that a new view of Judaism prevailed around 1530: Now it was no longer a matter of conversion attempts or reflection on why they failed. Christian authors portrayed Judaism as a threat; fear of the "word-magical" Jewish prayer practice had replaced the "blood-magical" late medieval fear of Jews. It fits to this paradigm shift that accusations of ritual murder and sacrilege no longer played a role and were not represented or rejected by neither Margaritha and contemporary converts. In contrast to earlier authors, Margaritha did not criticize individual Jewish prayer texts as hostile to Christianity, but the entire Jewish worship as such was directed against Christianity.

Reception

Der gantz judisch Glaub was especially well received by Protestant theologians and thereby coarsened and polemically exaggerated. Until the 18th century, a distinct image of Jewish religion and Jewish customs emerged, backed up by the information of an insider, as whom Margaritha presented herself. The following authors depended on Margaritha's work for their knowledge of Judaism:

• Martin Luther, On the Jews and Their Lies (1543)
• Martin Bucer, Kasseler Ratschlag (1538)
• Marcus Lombardus
• Johann Buxtorf, Juden Schul (1603)
• Johann Christoph Wagenseil
• Johann Jacob Schudt
• Johann Andreas Eisenmenger

Works

• Der gantz Jüdisch Glaub mit sampt ainer gründtlichen vnd warhafften anzaygunge aller Satzungen, Ceremonien, Gebetten, Haymliche vnd offentliche Gebreüch, deren sich dye Juden halten, durch das ganzt Jar. Mit schönen und gegrundten Argumenten wyder jren Glauben. Durch Anthonium Margaritham ... beschriben und an tag gegeben (1530)
• Der Hebrayschen zungen ... Lector, erklerung, wie aus dem heylligen, 53. Capittel, des fürnemigisten Propheten Esaie grüntlich außgefüert, probiert, das der verhaischen Moschiach (wellicher Christus ist) schon khomen, die Juden auff khainen anndern mer wartten sollen, Zu trost allen frumen Christen, ... ; Auch ein khurtze vergleychung Bayder Testament (1534)

Also see

• Gerónimo de Santa Fe
• Nicholas Donin
• Paul of Burgos
• Victor von Carben

External links

• Works by Anton Margaritha at Gallica
• Works by Anton Margaritha at German National Library
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: