Tractatus de imposturis et ceremoniis Iudaeorum nostri temporis

deceive. This testimony certainly seems to prove the common German proverb, by which everyone who believes the oaths of a soothsayer, an augur, and a Thalmudist is said to be deceived. Let us now weigh what their attitude is toward us. They call us Gohim gentiles/unbelievers, that is, men abandoned by all piety, honesty, and religion; on the contrary, they exalt themselves and their own to heaven, because they have been elected by the Lord into a holy nation, to whom He has given the Law, the prophets, and the blessed land. Nor would Moses himself, or Elijah, if it were permitted to recall them from the heavens, lead them away from this mental error. But they ought not to carry their ingratitude with impunity, for they hate the Christian magistrate, for whom they wish plague, even though they enjoy his benefit in the common market, tribunal, and hospitality. Let us exclaim with the holy prophet: "Help us, O Jehovah our God, save us according to Your mercy; let them curse, but You bless; let them rise up and be put to shame, but let Your servants rejoice." And as is held in Psalm 120: "O Jehovah, deliver our soul from the lying lip and from the deceitful tongue. What shall the deceitful tongue give to you, and what shall it add to you? It is like the sharp arrow of a mighty man with coals of juniper, etc." Likewise, Psalm 64: "Hide us, O God, from the secret of the malignant, from the congregation of those working iniquity, who have sharpened their tongue like a sword." I therefore wish the faithful and vigilant heralds of the divine word to be warned that, as much as lies in them, they should wish to prevent these horrible blasphemies. For they violate not only divine but also human laws in this way, when they pursue with insults and rend with blasphemies those whom they ought to have commended to the Lord in their prayers. They greet a Christian coming to their house with these words, Schet wilkom a deceptive greeting meaning 'Welcome in the name of the Devil'. The favors they confer upon our people spring from fear and dread rather than from benevolence. Doctor Ludouicus, a master of Hebrew doctrine, moved by these causes, made his profession from the circumcised to the elect of Christ, seeing the laws of nature overturned by the Thalmudists.