VICTOR KARBEN: THE LIFE AND CUSTOMS OF THE JEWS
Victor
Karben (1422-1515), a German Jew, converted to Christianity and was ordained priest
in 1486. In 1504 he wrote a treatise on The Life and Customs of the Jews (De
vita et moribus Iudeorum -- an enlarged version was published under the title Opus Aureum). His introduction manifests the
fanaticism typical of a convert:
There is no more stubborn
and wrong-headed race than the Jews. Nothing in the world can turn them from
their traditional faith. If you were to offer someone of the Jewish faith a
thousand gulden if he was willing to renounce his faith, you would find it
easier to hollow out the hardest rock than convincing him to adopt your
views. And it would be a greater miracle! Likewise, if you put a thousand
gulden at the foot of a cross and said to one of them, even the poorest man:
Look, I will give you these thousand gulden if you fall on your knees when you
pick them up from the ground, the man [would rather stay poor] than accept the
condition and bow down before the image of the cross. Indeed, even if you
threatened a Jew with capital punishment unless he was willing to become a
Christian, he would rather be burned at the stake a thousand times than
willingly profess the name of Christ once. [And if you suggest to Jews that they might
convert in future] they will grow hot and angry beyond belief. All day long
they will not be able to show a calm face. Indeed they will remember what you
said all their life. Whenever they meet the Christian who proposed such things
to them, they will roundly curse him, if not openly, then tacitly….In brief: The Jews are a people more wrong-headed than any other and more
inclined to utter curses, indeed a people that tends to be furious and (as I
said) vexed and irritated by the very name “Christian”. I speak from
experience. For it happened to me too [when I was a Jew and someone] exhorted
me to abandon the Jewish error and become a Christian.
But
Karben had to admit that Jews who converted were not received with open arms by
their Christian brethren. They met with a great deal of prejudice:
Many are of the
opinion that it is next to impossible for an ex-Jew to become a good and
faithful Christian. And I don’t deny that this is sometimes the case, but
conversely it often happens that Jews become very good Christians and remain so to the end of their lives. …A Jew who has recently become a Christian
deserves compassion. Getting used to things is always hard, and it is also
difficult to forget your past – friends and comrades with whom you spent much
time and who were your school fellows, not to speak of the possessions you left
behind. …Thus many converted Jews are obliged to beg for their bread…and no one
feels sorry for them. On the contrary, people mock them, laugh and point a finger
at them, saying: “Look, there goes that baptized Jew!” …Is that not adding
insult to injury?
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