boast that they are the chosen people of God, after they have been dispersed and rejected for 1500 years! Still they hope to get back there because of their own merits. There is no promise for that on which they could lean for comfort, except what they smear into the Scriptures according to their own imagination … Thus the Jews at last continue in their willfulness, and knowingly want to err and not leave their Rabbis, and therefore we also must leave them to their poisonous blasphemies and lies, and disregard them.
DISHONEST WITH SCRIPTURE
I have also had this experience … Three learned Jews came to me in the hope of finding a new Jew in me, because here in Wittenberg we began to read Hebrew. They also pretended that things would soon improve because we Christians were reading their books. When I disputed with them, they acted according to their kind; gave me their interpretations. When I compelled them to remain with the text, they fell from the text and said they had to believe their Rabbis, as we had to believe the Bishops and Doctors, etc … Then I had mercy on them, gave them a recommendation for safe-conduct to the guides, that they should permit them to pass for the sake of Christ. Later I was informed that they called Christ a “Tola,” i. e., a
—25—
