Compiled from the eighteen volumes of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s Sämmtliche Werke (Passau/Vienna: Friedrich Winkler / Karl Gerold, 1835–1854 ed.). All passages are direct quotations from the scanned texts. Translations are provided immediately after each German original.
Preface: The Shape of the Corpus
Abraham a Sancta Clara (1644–1709), born Johann Ulrich Megerle, was an Augustinian friar and Imperial Court Preacher (k. k. Hofprediger) in Vienna under Emperors Leopold I, Joseph I, and Charles VI. The most celebrated German-language pulpit orator of the Baroque age, he is best known for his Judas der Erzschelm (4 vols., 1686–1695) and for his sermons during the plague year of 1679 and the Turkish siege of 1683. His collected works, published posthumously and running to over twenty volumes, are saturated with rhetorical set-pieces, folklore, exempla, and invective — a popular style that makes them a peculiarly rich source for anti-Jewish material in the Counter-Reformation tradition.
His anti-Jewish passages operate in seven registers:
- Deicide and collective guilt — the crucifixion as the defining crime of the Jewish people, for which they bear inherited blood-guilt through all generations.
- Inherited tribal curses — a detailed folk-theological system in which each tribe of Israel bears a bodily curse corresponding to the specific torment it inflicted upon Christ, said to persist visibly in Jewish bodies to Abraham a Sancta Clara’s own day.
- Supersessionism — the Synagogue explicitly described as abolished, replaced by the Church; the Mosaic Law as a dead shell; circumcision as a mere figure of Christian baptism.
- Pharisees and Sanhedrin — the high priests and Pharisees as the prime movers of the crucifixion, driven by envy, ambition, and theological obstinacy.
- Host desecration accusations — named incidents at specific cities (Pressburg, Bohemia, Netherlands) in which Jews are charged with stabbing and spitting upon consecrated hosts.
- Jews as usurers, deceivers, and social menace — a constant strand of contemptuous comparison, the “no bacon in a Jewish kitchen” formula, the Jew as oath-breaker, the “Talmudist” as type of the faithless debtor.
- Jews as enemies of the Apostolic mission and of Christendom — the assertion that “Christians have no greater enemies after Satan than the Jews,” the plague-expulsion topos, and the portrayal of Jewish hatred of Christ’s truth as a permanent metaphysical enmity.
Twenty-eight verified passages are presented below, ordered thematically. Each entry includes the original German text, a literal English translation, the volume source, and a brief note.
I. “Die gottloſen Juden” — The Jews as Paid Back in Equal Coin for the Crucifixion
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn), “Gleiche Münz” section
German
„Faſt keine ſeynd beſſer mit gleicher Muͤnz ausgezahlet worden, als die gottloſen Juden. 86 Jahr nach dem bittern Tod Chriſti des Herrn iſt die Stadt Jeruſalem, wohin eine unzahlbare Menge der Juden ſich begeben, von Titi Veſpaſiani Kriegsheer den 14. Tag Aprilis belagert worden, und hat Titus eben an ſelbem Ort das Lager aufgeſchlagen, benanntlich auf dem Oelberg, wo der Herr Jeſus verraten worden. Siehe eine gleiche Muͤnz.”
Translation
“Scarcely any have been paid back in equal coin better than the godless Jews. Eighty-six years after the bitter death of Christ the Lord, the city of Jerusalem — whither an uncountable multitude of Jews had gathered — was besieged by the army of Titus Vespasianus on the fourteenth day of April, and Titus pitched his camp at the very same place, namely upon the Mount of Olives, where the Lord Jesus had been betrayed. Behold an equal coin.”
Note
The “gleiche Münz” (“equal coin”) device is the structural principle of this section of Mercks Wienn: every indignity the Jews inflicted upon Christ is mirrored by an equal and opposite humiliation visited upon them during the siege of Jerusalem. The literary mechanism is one of exact providential accounting, and Abraham a Sancta Clara sustains it across many pages, moving from the sale of Christ for thirty silver pieces to the sale of thirty Jews for a single coin, from the stripping of Christ’s garments to the stripping of Jewish fugitives.
II. “Derjenige, ſo Himmel und Erden erſchaffen” — God Valued at Thirty Pieces of Silver, the Jews at One
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Derjenige, ſo Himmel und Erden erſchaffen, der an ſich und in ſich begreift einen unendlichen Schatz und das hoͤchſte Gut ſelbſten, iſt von denen Juden nit hoͤher geſchaͤtzt worden, als um 30 Silberling, weilen dann 97,000 Juden unter waͤhrender Belagerung gefangen worden, alſo ſeynd ſie ſo gering geſchaͤtzt worden, daß man 30 Hebraͤer um einen Silberling konnt haben. Siehe eine gleiche Muͤnz.”
Translation
“He who created heaven and earth, who contains within Himself an infinite treasure and the highest Good itself, was valued by the Jews at no more than thirty pieces of silver; and so, since 97,000 Jews were taken prisoner during the siege, they in turn were valued so cheaply that one could obtain thirty Hebrews for a single piece of silver. Behold an equal coin.”
Note
The arithmetical inversion is pointed: Christ, sold by Judas for thirty coins, becomes the standard against which the Jews themselves are measured and found worth exactly one-thirtieth of that sum. The passage takes the crowd’s cry (His blood be upon us) literally, as a contractual self-devaluation whose terms Providence then enforces.
III. “Die Hebraͤer, als unverſchaͤmte Beſtien” — The Stripping of Christ
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Die Hebraͤer, als unverſchamte Beſtien, haben den Herrn Jeſum ſeiner Kleider beraubt, und denjenigen blutnackend ausgezogen, der die Erd mit Gras und Blumen, die Baͤume mit Blaͤttern und Rinden, die Voͤgel mit Federn bekleidet.”
Translation
“The Hebrews, as shameless beasts, stripped the Lord Jesus of His garments and tore naked as blood the one who clothed the earth with grass and flowers, the trees with leaves and bark, and the birds with feathers.”
Note
The contrast between the Creator who clothes all creation and the creature stripped bare is a standard amplification device from Baroque passion-preaching. Abraham a Sancta Clara’s epithet unverschämte Bestien (“shameless beasts”) is characteristic of his register: the polished antithesis wrapped in street-preacher invective.
IV. “Die Juden haben mit geſamter Stimm” — Crucifixion and Its Repayment
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Die Juden haben mit geſamter Stimm von Pilato begehrt, er ſolle Jeſum kreuzigen laſſen, Crucifige! Wie es dann nachmals geſchehen. Titus hat aus denen gefangenen Juden alle Tag laſſen 500 an die Kreuz naglen, daß alſo letzlich die Baͤume abgangen. Siehe eine gleiche Muͤnz.”
Translation
“The Jews with united voice demanded of Pilate that he have Jesus crucified — Crucify him! — as then came to pass. Titus in turn had five hundred of the captive Jews nailed to crosses every day, so that in the end the trees gave out. Behold an equal coin.”
Note
The detail that “the trees gave out” is taken from Josephus (Bellum Judaicum V.11.1), whom Abraham a Sancta Clara cites elsewhere in this section. The use of a Jewish historian to document Jewish punishment is a recurring feature of the adversus Judaeos tradition: conviction ex ore proprio.
V. “Sanguis ejus etc., ſein Blut komme uͤber uns” — The Jews‘ Self-Imprecation
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Die Juden, dieſe verſtockten Leut, nachdem ſie doch geſehen, daß das Blut Jeſu von Nazareth iſt unſchuldig vergoſſen worden, haben gleichwohl aufgeſchrien, Sanguis ejus etc., ſein Blut komme uͤber uns ꝛc.”
Translation
“The Jews, these obdurate people, though they had seen that the blood of Jesus of Nazareth had been shed innocently, yet cried out, Sanguis ejus etc. — his blood be upon us, etc.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara treats the crowd’s cry (Matthew 27:25) not as rhetorical extremity but as a formal self-imprecation, a voluntary binding declaration whose consequences Providence then executes over the following centuries. The word verstockt (“obdurate,” “hardened”) — the same term used by Luther and in the broader anti-Jewish theological tradition — signals that the Jews‘ refusal was not intellectual but moral.
VI. “Alle Nachkoͤmmling derjenigen Juden” — The Curse Perpetuated in Jewish Descendants
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Es iſt auch abſonderlich und denkwuͤrdig zu merken, daß alle Nachkoͤmmling derjenigen Juden, durch dero Haͤnd der Herr Jeſus gelitten, noch auf den heutigen Tag mit gleicher Muͤnz bezahlt werden.”
Translation
“It is also particularly noteworthy that all the descendants of those Jews through whose hands the Lord Jesus suffered are to this very day being paid back in equal coin.”
Note
The theological claim here is that the guilt and punishment of the Passion-era Jews is not historical but ongoing, transmitted biologically through all subsequent generations. This sets up the extended tribal-curse section that follows (sections VII–X), in which specific bodily deformities and afflictions are assigned to each tribe according to its role in the Passion.
VII. “Drei ewige Fluͤch'” — The Curse of the Tribe of Reuben
Source: Vol. 2 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part II); repeated Vol. 5
German
„Gleichwie diejenigen Juden aus dem Geſchlecht Ruben, welche Chriſtum den Herrn im Garten gefangen und gebunden, drei ewige Fluͤch’ uͤber ſich bekommen, und alle aus dieſem Geſchlecht muͤſſen es noch entgelten, wo ſie immer in der Welt ſeynd, als nemlich: was ſie Gruͤnes anruͤhren, daſſelbe verwelkt den dritten Tag; was ſie ſaͤen in die Erd, daſſelbe geht niemalen auf; wo ſie begraben werden, alldort waͤchſt nit ein Graͤſl.”
Translation
“Just as those Jews of the tribe of Reuben who captured and bound Christ the Lord in the Garden received three eternal curses upon themselves, and all from this tribe must still bear the penalty wherever they are in the world — namely: whatever green thing they touch withers on the third day; whatever they sow into the earth never sprouts; wherever they are buried, not a blade of grass grows there.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara presents an elaborate folk-theological system of tribal bodily curses that he treats as empirically verifiable in living Jews. The system assigns each tribe a specific corporeal punishment corresponding to its role in the Passion narrative. He cites named witnesses — Antonius Caraffa, Franciscus da Viscie, Bernardinus de Piperno — for several of the afflictions, presenting them as medical-historical observations rather than theological speculation.
VIII. “Auf den heutigen Tag ſo haͤufiges Blut auswerfen” — The Good Friday Bleeding
Source: Vol. 2 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part II); Vol. 5
German
„Item diejenigen Juden, dergleichen man vor dieſem in Portugal angetroffen, welche aus dem Geſchlecht ſeynd derſelben, ſo Chriſto dem Herrn in das Geſicht geſpiben, auf den heutigen Tag, ſo oft ſie einen Speichel auswerfen, ſo ſpringt ihnen ſolcher wieder in das Geſicht. Auch dieſelben Juden, dergleichen in Polen und Moſcau noch zu finden, welche aus dem Geſchlecht derjenigen ſeyn, ſo unſern Erloͤſer gegeißlet, werden alle Jahr am Charfreitag 6066 blutige Mail am Leib bekommen, und werfen den ganzen Tag Blut aus; und ſchreibt Antonius Caraffa, daß er einen ſolchen Rabbiner mit Namen Eleazar habe ſelbſten geſehen den ganzen Charfreitag ſo haͤufiges Blut auswerfen, daß er denſelbigen Tag acht Fatzinetl verbraucht.”
Translation
“Likewise those Jews, such as were formerly found in Portugal, who are of the lineage of those who spat in the face of Christ the Lord — to this very day, as often as they spit, the spittle springs back of its own accord into their own face. Also those Jews, such as are still to be found in Poland and Muscovy, who are of the lineage of those who scourged our Redeemer, receive every year on Good Friday 6,066 bloody marks upon their bodies and vomit blood the whole day; and Antonius Caraffa writes that he himself saw one such rabbi by the name of Eleazar vomit so much blood the whole of Good Friday that he used up eight handkerchiefs that day.”
Note
The specificity of detail — named rabbi, named cities, precise quantities of blood — is characteristic of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s rhetorical method. He presents folk legends in the register of eyewitness reportage, citing named authorities (Antonius Caraffa, converted rabbi; Franciscus da Viscie; Bernardinus de Piperno) to give them the appearance of empirical testimony. The 6,066 stripes correspond to calculations of the number of blows Christ received during the scourging.
IX. “Den rechten Arm kuͤrzer als der linke” — The Curses of the Tribes of Asher, Levi, and Gad
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Diejenigen Juden, welche Chriſto dem Herrn harte Backenſtreich verſetzt, waren aus dem Geſchlecht Aſer, dannenhero alle dero Nachkoͤmmlinge auf den heutigen Tag geboren werden mit dem rechten Arm kuͤrzer als der linke iſt, die rechte Hand aber krumm und zuſammengebogen.”
Translation
“Those Jews who dealt hard blows to the cheeks of Christ the Lord were of the tribe of Asher; therefore all their descendants are born to this very day with the right arm shorter than the left, and the right hand crooked and bent inward.”
German
„Diejenigen Juden, welche in das allerheiligſte Angeſicht Chriſti des Herrn ſpoͤttliche und ſtinkende Speichel geworfen, waren aus dem Geſchlecht Levi, alle dero Deſcendenten, wo ſie immer zu finden, koͤnnen auf keine Weiſe den Speichel auf die Erde werfen, ſondern ſo oft ſie ausſpuͤrzlen, ſpringt ihnen der Speichel wieder in das Geſicht. Dergleichen Juden ſeynd vor etlich Jahren zu Peſaro angetroffen worden.”
Translation
“Those Jews who flung contemptible and stinking spittle into the most holy face of Christ the Lord were of the tribe of Levi; all their descendants, wherever they may be found, are in no way able to spit upon the ground, but as often as they spit, the spittle springs back into their own face. Jews of this kind were encountered some years ago at Pesaro.”
German
„Diejenigen Juden, welche dem Herrn Jeſu eine doͤrnerne Kron auf das Haupt geſetzt, und 15 geſpitzte Doͤrner gar bis ins Hirn hinein gedrungen, ſeynd geweſt von dem Geſchlecht Gad, dero Deſcendenten und Nachkoͤmmlinge den 25. Martii alle Jahr 15 Wunden bekommen, aus welchen ſehr viel Blut fließet.”
Translation
“Those Jews who placed a crown of thorns upon the head of the Lord Jesus, with fifteen sharpened thorns driven into the very brain, were of the tribe of Gad; their descendants and posterity receive every year on the 25th of March fifteen wounds, from which very much blood flows.”
Note
These three passages complete a system in which Abraham a Sancta Clara works through the tribes of Israel and assigns each one a specific, visible, hereditary bodily curse. The system functions apologetically as well as polemically: the persistence of these marks in living Jews is offered as a proof of the truth of the Passion narrative. The argument implies that any observant Christian could verify the claim empirically by examining Jewish bodies.
X. “Zur ewigen Straf von Gott” — Jews Bear a Foul Odour as Divine Punishment
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Alle Juden und Hebraͤer zur ewigen Straf von Gott, haben einen gewiſſen uͤblen Geſtank, daß ſie meiſtens nach Bocks-Ambra ſchmecken, abſonderlich merkt man ſolches an ihnen in der heiligen Faſten, vorderiſt in der Charwoche. Sobald ſie aber nach chriſtlichem Brauch getauft worden…”
Translation
“All Jews and Hebrews, as an eternal punishment from God, possess a certain foul odour, so that they mostly smell of goat’s musk; this is especially noticeable in them during the holy Lent, above all in Holy Week. But as soon as they are baptised according to Christian custom…”
Note
The foetor Judaicus (“Jewish stench”) is a medieval folk-theological trope whose origins lie in patristic literature. Abraham a Sancta Clara deploys it here in characteristically empirical fashion, specifying that it is most detectable during Holy Week — the period commemorating the Passion — and that baptism removes it instantly. The implied argument is that the odour is not natural but supernatural: a divinely imposed sign of theological condition, removable only by the sacrament.
XI. “Ehr-vergeſſene, Lehr-vergeſſene, Gott-loſe” — Portrait of the Jews as Persecutors of Christ
Source: Vol. 6 (Reimb dich oder ich ließ dich)
German
„Ehr-vergeſſene, Lehr-vergeſſene, Gott-loſe, Gewiſſen-loſe, boshafte, ſchalkhafte, verruchte, verfluchte Geſellen und Boͤswicht ſeynd die Juden geweſen, welche in Allweg den Heiland Jeſum nicht anderſt verfolgten, als wie die Woͤlf und Schaaf, wie die Geier eine Taube, wie die Hund einen Hafen. Ein Licht war Chriſtus, dieſes Licht haben hoͤchſtermaſſen gehaſſet die juͤdiſchen Nachteulen; eine Roſe war Chriſtus…”
Translation
“Shameless, faithless, godless, conscienceless, malicious, knavish, infamous, accursed fellows and villains were the Jews, who persecuted the Saviour Jesus in every way as wolves pursue a sheep, as vultures a dove, as dogs a hare. Christ was a light; that light was hated above all measure by the Jewish night-owls; Christ was a rose…”
Note
This is Abraham a Sancta Clara at his most rhetorically extravagant. The stacked epithets — nine adjectives in a single nominal phrase — are characteristic of his Baroque pulpit style. The animal imagery (wolves, vultures, dogs, night-owls) draws on a long patristic and medieval anti-Jewish bestiary. The passage is structurally a vituperatio, the classical rhetorical form for the denunciation of an enemy.
XII. “Die Hohenprieſter der Juden” — The High Priests as the Prime Cause of Christ’s Death
Source: Vol. 6 (Reimb dich)
German
„Die Hohenprieſter der Juden ſeynd ſowohl, ja mehr, als der Iſkarioth Urſach geweſt an dem bittern Tod des Herrn Jeſu, dann kein Tag war, da ſie nicht den Untergang dieſer goͤttlichen Sonne ſuchten; keine Nacht war, da ſie nicht ſich bemuͤhten, dieſes goͤttliche Licht auszuloͤſchen. Wie die Woͤlfe verfolgten ſie dieſes göttliche Lamm.”
Translation
“The high priests of the Jews were as much as, indeed more than, Iscariot the cause of the bitter death of the Lord Jesus; for there was no day on which they did not seek the ruin of this divine Sun; no night on which they did not strive to extinguish this divine Light. Like wolves they pursued this divine Lamb.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara deliberately exceeds the traditional anti-Judas polemic that dominates his Judas der Erzschelm series, insisting that the institutional Jewish leadership bears even greater responsibility than the individual traitor. The passage distributes guilt across the entire priestly establishment rather than concentrating it in one convenient figure.
XIII. “Keine groͤßeren Feinde haben, als die Juden” — Christians Have No Greater Enemies Than the Jews
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Die Chriſten nach dem Satan keine groͤßeren Feinde haben, als die Juden; ihre taͤglichen Gotteslaͤſterungen verdienen, daß man dieſe Beſtien nicht ſoll anſchauen, noch weniger mit ihnen handeln; ſie nennen unſern Erloͤſer und Seligmacher nicht anders als Jeſchay, Nozere…”
Translation
“Christians have no greater enemies after Satan than the Jews; their daily blasphemies deserve that one should not even look upon these beasts, still less deal with them; they call our Redeemer and Saviour nothing other than ‘Yeshu,’ ‘Notzri’…”
Note
This is one of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s most explicit formulations of a total theological enmity between Jews and Christians. The reference to Jewish use of Yeshu (a derogatory contraction of Jesus) and Notzri (“Nazarene”) draws on the polemical literature surrounding the Talmudic birkat ha-minim and on works such as Antonius Margaritha’s earlier anti-Jewish tracts. The word Bestien again marks the dehumanising register.
XIV. “Judaei urbe pulsi sunt, et Lues cessavit” — Expulsion of the Jews Ends the Plague
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Nicon ſagt es ihnen zu, doch mit dem Beding, daß ſie vorher ſollen aus ihrer vornehmſten Stadt die Juden abſchaffen, als ein Gott ſehr mißgefaͤlliges Geſind; ſobald die Lacedaͤmonier ſolchem Befehl nachkommen und dieſe Schelmen davon gejagt, da hat alſobald die Peſt aufgehoͤrt. Judaei urbe pulsi sunt, et Lues cessavit.”
Translation
“Nicon agreed to this, but on the condition that they first expel the Jews from their principal city, as a people most displeasing to God; as soon as the Lacedaemonians obeyed this command and drove away these rogues, the plague ceased at once. Judaei urbe pulsi sunt, et Lues cessavit — the Jews were expelled from the city, and the plague ceased.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara is not writing abstract theology here but practical counsel: the presence of Jews in a city is itself a cause of divine punishment, and their expulsion is offered as a legitimate remedy for plague. The Latin summary — Judaei urbe pulsi sunt, et Lues cessavit — functions as a juridical maxim, a pithy formulation of the causal relationship between Jewish presence and communal suffering.
XV. “Was hat Gottes Sohn an das Kreuz genagelt” — Envy as the Cause of the Crucifixion
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Was hat endlich anders Gottes Sohn an das Kreuz genagelt, als der boshaften Juden verdammter Neid.”
Translation
“What in the end nailed the Son of God to the Cross, if not the accursed envy of the malicious Jews?”
Note
This one-sentence formulation reduces the entire Passion narrative to a single psychological-theological cause: Jewish envy. The brevity is rhetorical, not careless — Abraham a Sancta Clara is compressing a much longer argument (developed across Vols. 9 and 10) into a memorable epigram suitable for transmission beyond the sermon.
XVI. “Die boshaften, ſchalfhaften, neidhaften Juden” — Why the Jews Did Not Mutilate Christ’s Tongue
Source: Vol. 9 (Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt)
German
„Die boshaften, ſchalfhaften, neidhaften Juden in demjenigen Glied zum Meiſten gewütet, welches ihnen zum Schaͤdlichſten geweſt, und eben dieſes war die Zung; dieſe iſt geweſt, welche ihr Geſatz ausgetadelt; dieſe iſt geweſt, die ihre Falſchheiten geoffenbaret; dieſe iſt geweſt, die ihre Synagog ausgerottet; dieſe iſt geweſt diejenige, welche die evangeliſche Wahrheit hat auf die Welt bracht; dieſe iſt geweſt diejenige, die der Juden Intereſſe gemindert; dieſe iſt geweſt, die wider ſie geredt; und darum, ihr Blutegel, Blurhund, ihr blutgierigen Juden! wie iſt, daß ihr die Zung Chriſti, welche euch Allen zuwider iſt, nicht mit Nägeln durchbohrt, oder mit Meſſern abſchneidt, oder mit Zangen ausreißt?”
Translation
“The malicious, knavish, envious Jews raged most of all in that member which was most injurious to them, and this was the tongue; it was that which had reproved their law; it was that which had exposed their deceptions; it was that which had destroyed their Synagogue; it was that which had brought the gospel truth into the world; it was that which had diminished the Jews‘ interests; it was that which had spoken against them. And therefore — you bloodsuckers, bloodhounds, you bloodthirsty Jews! — how is it that you did not pierce the tongue of Christ, which is contrary to all of you, with nails, or cut it off with knives, or tear it out with tongs?”
Note
This passage is among the most rhetorically violent in the entire corpus. Abraham a Sancta Clara poses a sardonic rhetorical question — why, given all the harm Christ’s tongue did to Jewish interests, did the Jews not destroy it? — and uses it to catalogue Christ’s theological offences against Judaism: refuting their law, exposing their falsehoods, “extirpating” their Synagogue. The invective epithets (Blutegel, Blurhund, blutgierig) are among the most extreme in his writings.
XVII. “Die Synagog iſt eine Figur geweſt der Kirche” — The Synagogue as Mere Type of the Church
Source: Vol. 9 (Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt)
German
„Die Synagog in dem alten Teſtamente iſt eine Figur geweſt der Kirche des neuen Teſtaments; Moſes in dem alten Teſtamente iſt eine Figur geweſen Chriſti in dem neuen Teſtament; die Beſchneidung im alten Teſtamente iſt eine Figur geweſt der Tauf in dem neuen Teſtament; das Manna in dem alten Teſtamente…”
Translation
“The Synagogue in the Old Testament was a type of the Church of the New Testament; Moses in the Old Testament was a type of Christ in the New Testament; circumcision in the Old Testament was a type of Baptism in the New Testament; the manna in the Old Testament…”
Note
This is a compact formulation of classical typological supersessionism. Every major institution of the Mosaic economy — Synagogue, Moses, circumcision, manna — is assigned the status of mere preparatory figure (Figur), pointing forward to its own abolition and replacement. The implied corollary is that any Jew who continues to observe the old forms after the coming of Christ is clinging to a shadow after the substance has arrived.
XVIII. “Petrus ſey geweft ein Hammer Jahel” — Peter Destroys the Jewish Synagogue
Source: Vol. 9 (Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt)
German
„Petrus ſey geweft ein Hammer Jahel, mit welchem die juͤdiſche Synagog iſt zerſtoͤrt worden, Petrus ſey geweft eine Trompete Gedeon, mit welcher die harten Mauern der Heiden ſeyn niedergeriffen worden, Petrus ſey geweſt ein Haupt der katholiſchen Kirche.”
Translation
“Peter was a Hammer of Jael, with which the Jewish Synagogue was destroyed; Peter was a Trumpet of Gideon, with which the hard walls of the pagans were torn down; Peter was the Head of the Catholic Church.”
Note
The imagery of Jael’s hammer (Judges 4–5) applied to the destruction of the Jewish Synagogue is a pointed supersessionist metaphor: just as Jael killed Sisera, the enemy of Israel, so Peter destroys the Synagogue. The passage frames the apostolic mission against the Jews not as conversion but as military conquest and destruction — zerſtört, destroyed.
XIX. “Diefen erſten Baum der Synagog” — The Synagogue as a Tree Bearing Stinking Fruit
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition)
German
„Gott der Allerhöchfte ſegte ein dieſen erſten Baum der Synagog durch Dargebung des Geſetzes Moſis. Weil aber ſolcher Baum durch allerhand Suͤnd und Laſter des Volks ſtinkende Fruͤchte begann hervorzubringen, als wuͤrde ſein allerliebſter Sohn, als ein hochverſtaͤndiger Gartenmeiſter von dem himmliſchen Paradies geſandt, einen andern Baum, der ſehr wohlgeſchmackte und koſtliche Fruͤchte tragen und mit ſich bringen ſollte, einzuſetzen und zu pflanzen.”
Translation
“God the Most High planted this first tree of the Synagogue by delivering the Law of Moses. But because that tree, through all manner of sins and vices of the people, began to bring forth stinking fruits, His most beloved Son was sent, like a most skilled gardener from the heavenly Paradise, to plant and set in another tree that would bear very pleasant and precious fruits.”
Note
The horticultural metaphor for supersessionism — the Synagogue as the first, failed tree replaced by the Church as a new, fruitful one — is drawn from Romans 11 (the olive tree allegory) but inverted: Paul hopes for the re-grafting of the natural branches; Abraham a Sancta Clara instead emphasises the stench of the old tree’s fruit as the justification for planting a new one. The passage removes any hint of Paul’s hope for Jewish restoration.
XX. “Caiphas war nicht beſſer als die Juden” — Caiaphas and the False Accusation
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition)
German
„Gleich mit gleich geſellt ſich gern. Caiphas war nicht beſſer als die Juden, der Richter nicht frommer als die Anklagenden, der Schriftgelehrte nicht wahrhaftiger, als die falſchen Zeugen.”
Translation
“Like consorts with like. Caiaphas was no better than the Jews, the judge no more righteous than the accusers, the scribe no more truthful than the false witnesses.”
German
„Eine ſchoͤne Anklag! was ſchaͤmet ihr euch nicht, o unverſchaͤmte Juden! ſolche falſche und unwahrheitvolle Reden vorzubringen? hat er denn nicht ſelbſt geſagt: ‘Ich bin nicht gekommen, das Geſetz aufzuloͤſen, ſondern zu erfuͤllen?’ Hat er nicht geſprochen: ‘Gebt dem Kaiſer, was des Kaiſers iſt’… und ihr meldet, er verbiete, den Tribut zu geben?”
Translation
“A fine accusation! Are you not ashamed, O shameless Jews, to bring forth such false and untruthful speeches? Did He not Himself say: ‘I have not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it’? Did He not say: ‘Render to Caesar what is Caesar’s’… and you allege that He forbids paying the tribute?”
Note
The rhetorical strategy here is characteristic of the adversus Judaeos genre: the preacher takes the role of defence counsel for Christ against Jewish accusers, turning their charges back on them by quoting Christ’s own words. The direct address — o unverschämte Juden! — collapses the historical distance between the Jerusalem of the Passion and the Vienna of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s pulpit.
XXI. “Verdammte Boͤswichter” — The Jews Before Pilate
Source: Vol. 5 (Mercks Wienn)
German
„Ihr Juden ſeyd dazumalen verdammte Boͤswichter geweſt, wie ihr den Barrabam, ſolchen oͤffentlichen Moͤrder und Aufruͤhrer, habt frey und los begehrt, Jeſum aber, als wahren Gottes-Sohn, zum Tod gezogen; wir aber ſeynd nit um ein Haar beſſer als ihr.”
Translation
“You Jews were at that time damnable villains, in that you demanded the release of Barabbas, that open murderer and insurrectionist, while drawing Jesus, the true Son of God, toward death; but we are not a hair’s breadth better than you.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara here adds a characteristic self-implicating turn: the congregation is warned that their sins make them co-participants in the crucifixion. This device — used by many Baroque preachers — does not mitigate the anti-Jewish accusation but intensifies it by making the Jewish act the standard against which Christian sinfulness is measured. The Jews are the exemplum of the worst possible behaviour; contemporary Christians who sin merely repeat it.
XXII. “Wann dir ein Jud zu Prag, wann dir ein Rabbiner” — The Talmudist as Faithless Debtor
Source: Vol. 3 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part III)
German
„Wann dir ein Jud zu Prag, wann dir ein Rabbiner zu Dresden, wann dir ein Talmudiſt zu Nicfelsburg, wann dir ein gappadiner zu Frankfurt, wann dir ein Hebraͤer zu Leipzig, wann dir ein Praputiant aus Polen verſpricht, das ihm geliehene Geld zehnfach zu bezahlen, dem gibſt du es mit gierigem Herzen, mit lachendem Mund, mit feſtem Vertrauen, — und deinem Jeſu willſt du nicht vertrauen?”
Translation
“If a Jew in Prague, if a rabbi in Dresden, if a Talmudist in Nickelsburg, if a Cappadocian in Frankfurt, if a Hebrew in Leipzig, if an uncircumcised fellow from Poland promises you to repay ten-fold the money lent him, you give it with a greedy heart, a laughing mouth, and firm trust — and to your Jesus you will not give trust?”
Note
This remarkable catalogue maps the geography of early modern Jewish settlement in the German-speaking lands — Prague, Dresden, Nickelsburg, Frankfurt, Leipzig — while deploying a series of overlapping epithets: Jud, Rabbiner, Talmudist, Kappadokiner, Hebräer, Praputiant (“uncircumcised one”). The rhetorical move is to contrast the credulity Christians show toward Jewish money-lenders with their lack of faith in Christ — a comparison that implicitly brands the Jew as less trustworthy than even the baseline of financial credibility the passage grants him.
XXIII. “Trau keinem Juden bei ſeinem Eid” — Trust No Jew on His Oath
Source: Vol. 11 (Etwas für Alle)
German
„Trau keinem Juden bei ſeinem Eid, / Trau keinem Pferde in dem Laufen, / Trau keinem Bruder in dem Saufen…”
Translation
“Trust no Jew upon his oath, / Trust no horse in its running, / Trust no brother in his drinking…”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara here cites a popular German proverb, placing the Jew in a series alongside the horse and the drinking companion as proverbially untrustworthy figures. The very embedding in folk-proverbial form — street-verse rather than theological argument — indicates how thoroughly anti-Jewish contempt had passed into everyday German culture by the Baroque period, and how naturally the pulpit drew on and reinforced it.
XXIV. “Geldſuͤchtige und wucheriſche Geſindel” — Sabbath-Keeping and Weekly Usury
Source: Vol. 11 (Etwas für Alle)
German
„Die Juden, ſonderbar aber das letztere, naͤmlich das Feſt des Sabbaths heilig gehalten; und obſchon dieſes geldſuͤchtige und wucheriſche Geſindel die ganze Woche hindurch ſchachert, handelt, laͤuft, kauft, wieder verkauft, negociret, verintereffiret ꝛc. ꝛc., ſo werden ſie ſich doch von aller Schacherei, Wucherei auf das Genaueſte enthalten… ſobald nur die Stern aufgehen zu dem Sabbath.”
Translation
“The Jews hold as holy, above all other things, the Feast of the Sabbath; and although this money-grubbing and usurious rabble haggles, trades, runs about, buys, resells, negotiates, and charges interest the whole week through, they will yet abstain most scrupulously from all huckstering and usury… as soon as the stars appear for the Sabbath.”
Note
The observation is structurally a backhanded compliment: the Jews‘ Sabbath observance, Abraham a Sancta Clara implies, puts Christian Sunday observance to shame. But the rhetorical framing — geldsuchtiges und wucherisches Gesindel — ensures that the comparison operates as rebuke of Christians rather than praise of Jews. The Jew functions here as a mirror for Christian laxity, not as a model to be respected in his own right.
XXV. “Anno 1591 zu Preßburg” — Host Desecration at Pressburg and Bohemia
Source: Vol. 4 (Abrahamische Laubhütt); Vol. 18 (Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch)
German
„Anno 1591 zu Preßburg in Ungarn ſich einige Juden eingefunden, welche die allerheiligſte Hoſtie ſehr ſchaͤmlich mit Meſſern traktiret, welches der Hoͤchſte nicht wollt ungerochen laſſen, dann alsbald bei heiterem Himmel der Donner eingeſchlagen in das Haus, wo dieſe Unthat begangen worden, worvon das ganze Haus, Mann, Weib, Kinder, ſamt andern zu Aſchen verbrannt.”
Translation
“In the year 1591 at Pressburg in Hungary, certain Jews appeared who most shamefully maltreated the most holy Host with knives — which the Most High would not leave unavenged; for immediately, under a clear sky, lightning struck the house where this villainy had been committed, and the entire house, along with man, wife, children, and all others, was burned to ashes.”
German
„In Boͤhmen haben ebnermaſſen die neidhafte, boshafte, ſchalkhafte, ſuͤndhafte Juden die allerheiligſte Hoſtien mit abſcheulichem Speichel verunehrt, und mit Meſſern verwundt, und Gott hat ſie nicht geſtraft.”
Translation
“In Bohemia likewise the envious, malicious, knavish, sinful Jews dishonoured the most holy Host with abominable spittle and wounded it with knives, and God did not punish them.” (Said ironically, as prelude to an argument about divine patience.)
Note
The host desecration accusation — that Jews stabbed, spat upon, or burned consecrated hosts — was one of the most dangerous and widespread anti-Jewish legends of the medieval and early modern periods, directly responsible for numerous massacres and expulsions across Europe. Abraham a Sancta Clara reproduces these accounts as historical fact across multiple volumes, citing specific years, cities, and divine punishments.
XXVI. “Ihr Vater der Teufel” — The Jews‘ Hardened Heart Against Truth
Source: Vol. 18 (Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch)
German
„Auf ſolche Weis waren geſitt und geſinnt die Juden, denen ob der Wahrheit alſo grauft, wie denen Propheten-Kindern ob ihrem bitteren Colloquinten-Kraut; dahero ſie alſo in Harniſch gerathen, meiſtens darumb, weil er ihnen vorgeworfen, daß ſie Luͤgner ſeyn, und ihr Vater der Teufel, daß ſie die Stein aufgehebt, und ihn wollten im Tempel verſteinigen: tulerunt lapides, ut jacerent in eum.”
Translation
“In such a manner were the Jews disposed and minded — those to whom truth is as loathsome as the bitter colocynth herb was to the sons of the prophets; hence they flew into such a rage, principally because he had cast in their faces that they were liars and their father the Devil, and that they had taken up stones to stone him in the Temple: tulerunt lapides, ut jacerent in eum.“
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara quotes Christ’s words from John 8:44 (your father is the Devil) not as a contextually limited address to a specific interlocutor but as a characterological truth about the Jewish people as a whole. The phrase ihr Vater der Teufel is reproduced as a permanent theological description rather than a polemical moment within a specific dialogue.
XXVII. “Kein Leopart, ſo wilder Art” — Hymn-Verse on Jewish Hatred
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition), verse section
German
„Kein Leopart, ſo wilder Art / Mir leicht wird vorgebildet; / Wie da erſcheint der Juden Gmeind’ / Aus Haß und Neid erwildet.”
„Die Juden feynd, als ſeine Feind / Bor ihm wild in Gebärden. / Die falſche Rott den großen Spott / Dem Jeſu mein erweiſet; / Den ſonften doch, im Himmel hoch / Die Schaar der Engel preiſet.”
Translation
“No leopard of so savage a kind / Is easily set before me as image; / As appears there the Jews‘ assembly, / Grown wild from hatred and envy.”
“The Jews are, as his enemies, / Wild in their gestures before him. / The false crowd shows great mockery / To my Jesus; / He whom otherwise, in the heights of Heaven, / The host of angels praises.”
Note
These verses are embedded within a longer devotional poem on the Passion. The use of verse form gives the anti-Jewish content a mnemonic and liturgical dimension: these images were designed to be remembered, sung, or recited, embedding the association of Jews with bestial savagery (wie ein Leopart) directly into devotional practice.
XXVIII. “Joſephus ſchreibt den Untergang Jeruſalems” — Josephus Condemns the Jews from Within Their Own Tradition
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Joſephus ſchreibt den erbaͤrmlichen Untergang der Stadt Jeruſalem keiner anderen Urſach zu, als weil die verſtockten Juden den Tempel Gottes mit allerhand Schandthaten beſchmutzt.”
Translation
“Josephus attributes the pitiable downfall of the city of Jerusalem to no other cause than that the obdurate Jews defiled the Temple of God with all manner of abominations.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara’s appeal to Josephus — a Jewish historian — as the authority who condemns the Jews from within their own tradition is a standard move in the adversus Judaeos literature. The detail that even the Jews‘ own greatest historian confirms their guilt is offered as a clinching proof, eliminating any appeal to external Christian bias. The word verstockt (“obdurate,” “hardened”) is Abraham a Sancta Clara’s standard epithet for the Jews in their post-Passion condition, carrying the full weight of the patristic theology of Jewish caecitas and obstinatio.
XXIX. “Die verſtockten Satansgemuͤther” — Jews Solicit a Host at Asca in the Netherlands
Source: Vol. 1 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part I)
German
„Als fie endlich um die Kleider nit einen Heller wollten vorftreden, wohl aber eine ziemliche Summe Geld ihr in die Hand werfen, wenn fie ihnen wollte eine conſecrirte Hoſtie einhändigen; welches gar fuͤglich möchte geſchehen dazumalen, als fie ſolche aus des Prieſters Hand empfangen, und unvermerkt Anderer wieder aus dem Maul ziehen wuͤrde. Das Weib laͤßt ſich von dem angebotenen Geld verblenden… des verruchten Vorhabens, dieſes den Hebraͤern zu überliefern; unterwegs aber nagt fie der unruhige Gewiſſenswurm dergeftalten, daß ſie ihr Gemuͤth veraͤndert, und ſolche Hoſtie in dem naͤchſt am Wege verdorrten Eſchenbaum verborgen. Nun ſiehe Wunder! augenblicklich hierauf fängt der lang verdorrte Baum zu grüͤnen an.”
Translation
“They were unwilling to advance her a penny for the clothes, but offered to put a goodly sum of money in her hand if she would deliver to them a consecrated Host — which could easily be accomplished when she received it from the priest’s hand, and quietly removed it from her mouth again unobserved by others. The woman lets herself be blinded by the offered money… with the vile intention of delivering it to the Hebrews; but on the way the restless worm of conscience gnawed at her so violently that she changed her mind, and hid the Host in a dried-up ash-tree close by the road. Behold a miracle! Instantly the long-withered tree began to turn green.”
Note
The story is set at the village of Asca in the Netherlands. Abraham a Sancta Clara presents it as a miracle narrative: the Host, threatened by Jewish solicitation, is vindicated by a natural wonder. The structure is characteristic of the genre — a weak Christian woman suborned by Jewish money; providential intervention that simultaneously punishes the intended sacrilege and produces a sign for the faithful. The phrase verſtockte Satansgemuͤther (“obdurate Satan-minds”) used for the Jews echoes the standard obstinatio vocabulary of the adversus Judaeos tradition.
XXX. “Wir vermaledeien jene Unthat der Hebraͤer” — The Crowd’s Choice of Barabbas
Source: Vol. 2 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part II)
German
„Wir ſchelten, wir verwerfen, wir verdammen, wir vermaledeien jene Unthat der Hebraͤer, indem ihnen Pilatus der damahlige Landpfleger zu freier Wahl geſtellt, ſie ſollen aus dem Gefaͤngnuß begehren entweder Jeſum oder Barabbam — dieſer war ein Moͤrder; ſo haben ſie dannoch einhellig aufgeſchrieen, man ſolle Jeſum kreuzigen, den Barabbam aber frei und los laſſen. O ihr hoͤlliſchen Gemuͤther! ſo gilt denn bei euch mehr ein Suͤnder und großer Suͤnder, und ein moͤrderiſcher Boͤſewicht, als Gottes Sohn?”
Translation
“We rebuke, we reject, we condemn, we curse that villainy of the Hebrews, in that when Pilate the governor of that time gave them a free choice whether to demand from prison either Jesus or Barabbas — who was a murderer — they nonetheless cried out with one voice that Jesus should be crucified and Barabbas set free. O you hellish minds! Does a sinner, and a great sinner, and a murderous villain count for more with you than the Son of God?”
Note
The first-person plural — wir schelten, wir verwerfen, wir verdammen, wir vermaledeien — is unusual in the adversus Judaeos tradition: Abraham a Sancta Clara here addresses his congregation as co-prosecutors, formally charging the Hebrews with their crime in a collective liturgical act of condemnation. The quadruple curse formula intensifies with each term, ending in vermaledeien (to curse formally), giving the passage the character of an excommunication.
XXXI. “Eine große Flamme aus denen Fundamenten” — Divine Fire Prevents Rebuilding of the Temple Under Julian
Source: Vol. 2 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part II)
German
„Die Juden durch Zulaſſung des abtruͤnnigen Kaiſers Juliani wollten den zerſtoͤrten Tempel zu Jeruſalem wieder aufbauen. Da iſt eine große Flamme aus denen Fundamenten und ausgegrabenen Grund empor geſtiegen und ſehr viel Arbeiter ſamt allem Werkzeug gaͤnzlich verbrennet.”
Translation
“The Jews, with the permission of the apostate Emperor Julian, wished to rebuild the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem. Thereupon a great flame rose up out of the foundations and the excavated ground, and burned utterly a very great number of workers together with all their tools.”
Note
This is the famous incident of Julian’s attempt to rebuild the Temple c. 363 AD, reported by Ammianus Marcellinus and subsequently by Christian apologists as a miracle confirming the permanent abrogation of the Jewish cult. Abraham a Sancta Clara uses it here as a proof that divine fire enforces the supersessionist verdict: the Temple’s destruction was not merely a historical accident but a permanent divine prohibition, which even the most powerful pagan emperor could not override.
XXXII. “Die ſauberen Hebraͤer” — The Jews Mock Christ as a Carpenter’s Son
Source: Vol. 3 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part III)
German
„Die ſauberen Hebräer, damit fie Chrifto allen guten Nachklang und Namen bei den Leuten möchten ſtugen und mindern, haben Schimpfweis von ihm ausgeſagt, warum man ihn doch mag fo Hoch achten, ſey er doch nur eines Zimmermanns Sohn: ‘nonne hic est Filius fabri?’ Ihr neidhaften und unverſchamten Gefellen, wer ſeyd dann ihr? ſeyd dann ihr hoch und wohlgeboren? Was? — antworten dieſe hebraͤiſchen Wfanen-Gemuͤther — wir ſtammen her von unſerem Vater Abraham! Wann dem alſo, ſagt mein Jeſus, opera Abrahae facite, ‘thut ſein die Werk Abrahams, folgt euerem Vater nach; wo nit, ſo iſt euer vornehmnes Herkommen nit einen Helfer werth; ihr ſeyd keine Illuſtriſſimi, ſondern Abſurdiſſimi.'”
Translation
“The fine Hebrews, in order to diminish and cut down all good reputation and name that Christ might have among the people, said mockingly of him — why should anyone think so highly of him, seeing he is only a carpenter’s son? Nonne hic est Filius fabri? — Is not this the carpenter’s son? You envious and shameless fellows — who then are you? Are you then of high and noble birth? What? — answer these Hebrew dunce-heads — we descend from our father Abraham! If that be so, says my Jesus, opera Abrahae facite — do the works of Abraham, follow in your father’s footsteps; if not, your fine lineage is not worth a farthing; you are no Illustrissimi, but Absurdissimi.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara here redeploys the Johannine controversy (John 8:33–41) as an attack on Jewish claims of ancestral descent. The mocking epithet hebraische Wfanen-Gemüther (“Hebrew dolt-minds”) is his own interpolation, not in the Gospel text. The Latin punch-line — Absurdissimi rather than Illustrissimi — is a characteristic piece of Baroque wordplay that serves to humiliate the Jewish boast of patriarchal lineage by reducing it to absurdity.
XXXIII. “Ein frecher Hebraͤer” — A Jew Mocks the Beard of a Dead Christian Knight
Source: Vol. 3 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part III)
German
„In Gegenwart vieler Leut, ein frecher Hebraͤer zum todten Koͤrper hinzu getreten, und ihm ſchimpfweiſ wollte an Bart greifen, mit beigefuͤgten Hohn- und Spottworten, hui Kerl, ſagte er, was ihm weder Chriſt noch Mohr getraut zu thun, das getrau ich mir, und als er bereits ihn wollte bei dem Bart ziehen, ſiehe Wunder! da ergreift der vor 9 Jahren verſtorbene gottſelige Kriegsfuͤrft Rodericus den Degen, zieht ſolchen faſt eine halbe Spann vom Leder, woruͤber der Jud ſolchergeſtalten erſchrocken, daß er faſt lebenslos dahin gefallen.”
Translation
“In the presence of a great many people, a brazen Hebrew stepped up to the dead body and wished to mock it by pulling at its beard, with accompanying words of contempt and ridicule, saying: ‘Hey fellow, what neither Christian nor Moor has the nerve to do, I will dare.’ And as he was already about to seize him by the beard, behold a miracle! The pious warrior-prince Rodericus, who had died nine years before, grasped his sword and drew it almost half a span from the scabbard; whereat the Jew was so terrified that he fell down as if dead.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara presents this miracle-exemplum as evidence that providential power protects Christian sacred persons and relics against Jewish desecration. The Jew‘s own boast — that he dares what no Christian or Moor will do — is turned against him by the miracle, which inverts his pride into humiliation. The story belongs to a well-established sub-genre of miracula in which the violation of Christian sacred matter by Jews produces supernatural retribution.
XXXIV. “Seinen Irrthum und hebraͤiſche Sekt verworfen” — Host Converted to Gold, Jew Converts
Source: Vol. 3 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part III)
German
„Anno 1213 hat ſich in Frankreich bei einem vornehmen Juden, mit Namen Iſaak, eine Chriſtinn fuͤr eine Dienſtmagd aufgehalten, welche mit der Zeit den juͤdiſchen Irrthum alſo an ſich gezogen, daß ſie ihre verdammte Laſter-Zung ſchaͤrfer als das andere hebraͤiſche Lottergeſind wider Chriſtum und ſeine heiligen Satzungen gebraucht. Als ſolche zur h. Oſter-Zeit unter anderem Chriſten-Volk auch das hoͤchſte Altar-Geheimniß von des Prieſters Hand empfangen, hat ſie mit aller Behutſamkeit ſolche heiligſte Hoſtie… ihrem Herrn Iſaak als eine beſondere Schankung nach Haus gebracht, welche er alſobald in ein Buͤchfel, worin ein ziemliches Geld lag, eingeſperet… als er nachmals in der Ruͤckkehr gedachtes Bu͉chfel eroͤffnet, hat er mit hoͤchſter Verwunderung und Entſetzung gefunden, daß alles Geld in lauter Hoſtien ſich verkehrt hat, welches ihn dahin veranlaßt, daß er ſeinen Irrthum und hebraͤiſche Sekt verworfen, und ſamt den Seinigen den wahren Glauben Jeſu Chriſti unſers Heilands angenommen.”
Translation
“In the year 1213 a Christian woman was living in France as a maidservant with a prominent Jew by the name of Isaac, who had over time so thoroughly imbibed the Jewish error that she deployed her accursed wicked tongue more sharply than the other Hebrew rabble against Christ and his holy ordinances. When at holy Eastertide she received the highest Altar-mystery from the priest’s hand along with other Christians, she carefully concealed the most holy Host… and brought it home to her master Isaac as a special gift, which he at once locked into a small box in which a considerable sum of money lay… when he later opened the box on his return, he found to his highest astonishment and horror that all the money had transformed itself into nothing but Hosts, which led him to reject his error and the Hebrew sect, and together with his household to accept the true faith of Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
Note
This is a double movement unusual in the genre: a lapsed Christian woman who has adopted Jewish hostility to Christ is the instrument of a host desecration attempt, but the miracle converts the perpetrator rather than destroying him. The transformation of money into Hosts is a pointed inversion of the usual host desecration narrative (in which the Host bleeds or cries out): here the miracle works not through suffering but through an exchange — Jewish material wealth replaced by the Body of Christ.
XXXV. “Ein reicher Kaufmann disputirte insmals mit einem Juden” — The Trinity Disputation Ending in Assault
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Ein reicher Kaufmann disputirte insmals mit einem Juden von Glaubensfachen, und abfonderlich von der heiligften Dreifaltigfeit; nun wollte der Jud bewiefen haben, daß die heilige Dreifaltigkeit: Einig im Wefen, und Dreifaltig in Perfonen wäre, welches er fuͤr unmoͤglich hielt, weil ja Eins nicht Drei, und Drei nicht Eins feyn Fonnten… endlich, weil es im Winter war, ging der Kaufmann hinaus, nahm ein Erik Eis, ein paar Handvoll Schnee und ein wenig Waffer in einem Becken… wie ſie zuſammen floffene Waffer nicht ein einzig Wefen wäre? welches der Jud wiederum nicht läugnen tha͉re; hierauf fprach der Kaufmann zum Juden: da ſieheſt, du ſchelmifcher diebifcher Jud, in dieſem ſchlechten natuͤrlichen Gleichnuß, daß es nicht unmoͤglich fey, daß Gott nach feiner ewigen Allmacht Einig in feiner Weſenheit, und Dreifaltig in Perfonen ſey; ergriff dabei das Becken mit dem Waffer, ſchuͤttet es dem Juden ins Gefiht, und ſchlug ihm das Becken etlichemal um den Kopf, daß der Jud eine lange Zeit an dieſe harte Leftion zu denfen gehabt.”
Translation
“A wealthy merchant once disputed with a Jew about matters of faith, and in particular about the most holy Trinity; now the Jew wished to prove that a Trinity both one in substance and three in persons was impossible, since one cannot be three and three cannot be one… Finally, since it was winter, the merchant went outside, took a piece of ice, a couple of handfuls of snow, and a little water in a basin… was not this water, now flowed together, one single substance? which the Jew could not deny; whereupon the merchant said to the Jew: ‘There you see, you roguish thieving Jew, in this simple natural comparison, that it is not impossible for God, in his eternal omnipotence, to be one in substance and three in persons.’ He thereupon seized the basin with the water, poured it into the Jew‘s face, and struck him over the head with the basin several times, so that the Jew had cause to think about this hard lesson for a long time.”
Note
This exemplum is remarkable for its structural endorsement of violence as a legitimate tool of theological disputation. The Jew, unable to respond to the argument, is physically assaulted, and the narrative presents this as both amusing and appropriate — eine harte Lektion that the Jew “had cause to think about.” The epithet schelmmischer, diebischer Jud precedes the assault, dehumanising the interlocutor before the violence. Abraham a Sancta Clara cites Majolus (in Ganie, fol. 616) as his source, lending the anecdote a veneer of authority.
XXXVI. “Die Neun aber lauter Juden” — Nine Ungrateful Lepers Are All Jews
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Wie Chriſtus der Herr die 10 Ausfäzigen gereiniget und gefund gemacht, da iſt nur Einer aus dieſen Geſellen zuru͉ckgekommen, und hat dem Herrn gedankt um dieſe große Gnad; auch ſoll diefer ein Samaritaner geweſen ſeyn, die Neun aber lauter Juden. O ihr undankbaren Schelme! Diele Lehrer ſind der Ausſag, daß dieſe Neun wegen dero Undankbarkeit ſind wiederum in das vorige Siechthum gerathen.”
Translation
“When Christ the Lord cleansed and healed the ten lepers, only one of these fellows returned and gave thanks to the Lord for this great favour; and this one is said to have been a Samaritan, but the nine were all Jews. O you ungrateful rogues! Several authorities are of the opinion that these nine, on account of their ingratitude, fell again into their former sickness.”
Note
The identification of the nine ungrateful lepers as Jews is an exegetical move that goes beyond the Gospel text (Luke 17:12–19), which does not specify the ethnicity of the nine. Abraham a Sancta Clara takes what is a detail in the one who returned (he was a Samaritan) and inverts it into a categorical statement about the nine — they were Jews, and thus undankbare Schelme. The punishment of relapse into leprosy as divine retribution for ingratitude echoes the tribal curse system developed in Vols. 2 and 5.
XXXVII. “Ein Jud in Frankreich iſt in der Bosheit ſo weit kommen” — A Jewish Sorcerer in France
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Ein Jud in Frankreich iſt in der Bosheit ſo weit kommen, daß er auch einen Zauberer und Herenmeiſter abgegeben; nachdem er mit einem Freimann oder Scharfrichter in gute Bekanntſchaft gerathen, da hat er von ihm… ein Menſchenherz um ein namhafte Geld eingehandelt… dieſe als ein Weibsbild hat ſich in etwas daru͉ber ekebet, dahero ſolches in’s Feuer geworfen, und anſtatt deſſen ein Herz von einem Schwein eingehandelt. Der Jud hat nachmals dieſes in ein großes Geld mit gewiffen teufeliſchen Ceremonien eingegraben — und bald hierauf hat ſich eine große Menge der Schweine daſelbſt eingefunden, welche dergeſtalten mit einander geſtritten, daß nicht eine Einige lebendig geblieben; der Jud wird endlich in Verhaſt genommen.”
Translation
“A Jew in France had advanced so far in wickedness as to set himself up as a sorcerer and wizard; after he had fallen into close acquaintance with an executioner, he purchased from him a human heart for a substantial sum of money… the Jewess, as a woman, was somewhat revolted by this, and therefore threw it into the fire and bought instead a pig’s heart in its place. The Jew subsequently buried this with a large sum of money, accompanied by certain diabolical ceremonies — and shortly thereafter a great multitude of swine appeared at that spot and fought with one another so violently that not a single one was left alive; the Jew was finally taken into custody.”
Note
This story combines the two most potent anti-Jewish stereotypes of the early modern period — Jewish black magic and Jewish intimacy with the Devil — into a single exemplum. The detail that a pig’s heart was substituted for the human heart (with the resulting destruction of pigs) connects the narrative to the Gospel account of the Gadarene swine, implicitly linking Jewish sorcery to demonic possession. Abraham a Sancta Clara cites Ludovicus Contarini (in Exempl. fol. 100) as his source.
XXXVIII. “Wehe euch, ihr Schriftgelehrten, Phariſaͤer und Gleißner” — Christ’s Woes Against the Pharisees
Source: Vol. 11 (Etwas für Alle, Part I)
German
„Wehe euch Schriftgelehrten, Phariſaͤer und Gleißner, die ihr das Himmelreich zuſchließet vor den Menſchen, denn ihr kommt ſelbſt nicht hinein, und die hinein wollen, die laſſet ihr nicht hinein gehen ıc. Zweitens: Wehe euch, ihr Schriftgelehrten, Phariſaͤer und Gleißner, die ihr Land und Waſſer umziehet, daß ihr einen Fremdling zu einem Juden macht, und wenn er’s worden iſt, macht ihr aus ihm ein Kind der Hoͤlle.”
Translation
“Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites, who shut the Kingdom of Heaven against men, for you do not enter yourselves, and those who wish to enter you do not allow in, etc. Secondly: Woe to you, scribes, Pharisees and hypocrites, who compass land and sea to make a single proselyte, and when he has become one, you make of him a child of hell.”
Note
This is a direct transcription of Matthew 23:13–15, used in the adversus Judaeos tradition since the Church Fathers as a proof-text for the theological nullity and corrupting influence of post-Pentecost Judaism. Abraham a Sancta Clara reproduces the text in order to apply the woes — originally addressed to specific Pharisees during the ministry — to the Jews of his own day, maintaining the patristic identification of contemporary Judaism with the Pharisaic party condemned by Christ.
XXXIX. “Die ſchlechten Juden” — A Christian Outwits a Jew on the Road to Frankfurt
Source: Vol. 10 (Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller)
German
„Er traf bald unterwegs einen Juden an, der ebenfalls feine Reiß dahin genommen… der Jud: ich wuͤnſchte mir jezo, daß ich von dem Himmel moͤchte alfo begnadet werden, wie meine Vorfahrer, die Iſraeliter, welche in der Wu͉ſte bei Tag ſind allzeit von einer großen Wolke u͉berſchattet worden! Holla, gedachte der Chriſt, du Schelm wu͉nſcheſt dir ein Mirakel von Gott, indem du und die Deinigen Gott fo ſehr u͉bel traktiret… [loaned the Jew money, gave him the coat, was repaid as they reached the gate] bat alfo der Mauſchel den ſchweren Mantel bei der groͤßten His mu͉ffen umfonft tragen.”
Translation
“He soon encountered on the road a Jew who had likewise set out in the same direction… The Jew said: I wish now that I might be as favoured by Heaven as my forefathers the Israelites, who in the desert were always shaded by a great cloud by day! Hold on, thought the Christian, you rogue wish yourself a miracle from God, when you and your kind have treated God so badly… [The Jew ends up carrying the heavy overcoat through the heat for nothing.] And so the Mauschel had to carry the heavy coat through the greatest heat for nothing.”
Note
This comic anecdote deploys the derogatory epithet Mauschel — a contemptuous term for a Jew derived from Moshe (Moses), used to signal Jewish speech affected as comically foreign — at the moment of the punchline. The story operates as a folk parable in which Christian wit defeats Jewish cunning; but its deeper theological message is in the Jew‘s wish for divine protection: Abraham a Sancta Clara uses the anecdote to reinforce the argument that the Jews forfeited divine favour through their treatment of God, and that their nostalgia for biblical privilege is therefore absurd.
XL. “O ihr graufamen, o ihr wuͤthenden, o ihr neidvollen Juden” — Passion Meditation Apostrophe
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition)
German
„Darum, o ihr grauſamen, o ihr wuͤthenden, o ihr neidvollen Juden, haltet inne eure Grauſamkeit, haltet inne euren Neid, haltet inne euren Zorn wider den unſchuldigen Jeſum, ich, ich habe geſu͉ndiget, ich, ich habe es verſchuldet, ich, ich habe es verdienet, ich nehmet gefangen, mich nehmet gebunden, mich ziehet zur Straf.”
Translation
“Therefore, O you cruel ones, O you raging ones, O you envious Jews, stay your cruelty, stay your envy, stay your wrath against the innocent Jesus; I, I have sinned, I, I have incurred the guilt, I, I have deserved it; take me prisoner, take me bound, drag me to punishment.”
Note
This Passion meditation passage deploys the conventional rhetorical device of self-substitution — the preacher or meditant inserts himself as the true deserving object of Jewish violence — but only after an intense direct apostrophe to the Jews. The triple vocative (o ihr grausamen, o ihr wüthenden, o ihr neidvollen Juden) is a formal intensification device, and the subsequent self-accusation does not diminish the invective directed at the Jews but uses the Jews as the ultimate standard of righteous punishment from which the sinner claims he deserves worse.
XLI. “Von der falſchen Juden-Schaaren” — Passion Verse Against the Jews
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition), verse section
German
„Seht, wie euer hoͤchſter Meiſter, / Euer Gott und euer Herr: / Von der falſchen Juden-Schaaren / Wird gezogen bei den Haaren; / Und ſo ſpoͤttlich ausgelacht; / Die er doch aus Nichts gemacht.”
„So grauſames Juden-G’ſiud: / Daß ſie von ſelbſt eignen Hunden / Waren worden gleich geſchunden; / Weil ſie Gott, der ſie gemacht, / Alſo ſpoͤttlich ausgelacht.”
Translation
“See how your highest Master, / Your God and your Lord: / By the false Jewish rabble / Is dragged by the hair; / And mocked so scornfully; / He who made them from nothing.”
“Such savage Jewish riff-raff: / That they, by their own hounds / Were torn asunder equally; / Because they mocked the God / Who made them, / So scornfully.”
Note
These stanzas are from a longer Passion sequence in which Abraham a Sancta Clara deploys classical mythological parallels (Actaeon destroyed by his own hounds, Pentheus torn by Maenads) to illustrate Jewish self-destruction through their maltreatment of Christ. The compound Juden-G’sind (Jewish rabble/riff-raff) appears here as a verse epithet, integrating the anti-Jewish invective directly into liturgical-devotional verse intended for broad circulation.
XLII. “Die Vermeſſenheit der verſtockten Hebraͤer” — Host Desecration at Gabriese in Poland and Nürnberg
Source: Vol. 18 (Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch)
German
„Zu Gabrieſe in einer Stadt in Polen iſt die Vermeſſenheit der verſtockten Hebraͤer ſo weit gewachſen, daß ſie ein conſecrirte Hoſtien, dieß hoͤchſte Gut, mit Ruthen geſtrichen, und Gott hat ſie nicht geſtraft; ſo heißt ja anjetzo Gott Ihr Gnaden.”
„Zu Nu͉rnberg haben ebenfalls die gottloſe, heilloſe, treuloſe, ehrloſe, gewiſſenloſe Hebraͤer dieſes hoͤchſte Altar-Geheimniß in einen Mo͉rſer geworfen, und darinnen mit unmenſchlicher Grauſamkeit zerſtoßen und zermahlen, und Gott hat ſie nicht geſtraft.”
Translation
“At Gabriese, a city in Poland, the insolence of the obdurate Hebrews grew so far that they struck a consecrated Host, this highest Good, with rods — and God did not punish them; so now God is rightly called His Grace.”
“At Nürnberg likewise the godless, graceless, faithless, shameless, conscienceless Hebrews threw this highest Altar-mystery into a mortar and with inhuman cruelty pounded and ground it therein — and God did not punish them.”
Note
These two passages appear in a chain of host desecration accounts that spans several pages of Vol. 18, structured around the device of divine patience: each atrocity is followed by the refrain und Gott hat sie nicht gestraft (“and God did not punish them”), which Abraham a Sancta Clara uses rhetorically not to exculpate the Jews but to magnify divine mercy — and by implication to intensify the indictment by showing how extreme the Jewish offence was. The five-epithet curse-chain at Nürnberg (gottlose, heillose, treulose, ehrlose, gewissenlose) is one of his most elaborate invective constructions.
XLIII. “Die Juden laͤſtern Jeſum an dem Creuz” — Jews Blaspheme Jesus on the Cross
Source: Vol. 17 (Grosse Todten-Bruderschafft)
German
„In Betrachtung, daß die Ju͉den wa͉hrend der Zeit, da der Sohn Gottes am Creuz ha͉nget, in ihrer Bosheit verharren, ſo fa͉hret der Kranke in ſeiner Meditation fort… Jeſu! mein Heiland! die Juden verſpotten dich, weil ſie dich ans Creuz genagelt ſehen. Dieſes thun ſie aus Unwiſſenheit. Ich aber, der ich durch deine Gnade darvon beſſer unterrichtet bin, ich betrachte das Creuz als deinen Thron… Ich ſehe aber, allermildeſter Jeſu! daß die Juden dein Creuz nur anſehen als das Inſtrument deiner Todes-Strafe, und fortfahren, dich zu laͤſtern.”
Translation
“Meditating that the Jews, during the time that the Son of God hangs upon the Cross, persist in their wickedness, the sick man continues his meditation… Jesus, my Saviour! The Jews mock you because they see you nailed to the Cross. They do this out of ignorance. But I, who am better instructed in this by your grace, regard the Cross as your throne… But I see, most gracious Jesus! that the Jews regard your Cross only as the instrument of your punishment, and continue to blaspheme you.”
Note
This passage is from Abraham a Sancta Clara’s ars moriendi — a guide for the deathbed meditation of the dying. The Jews function here not primarily as historical agents but as typological counterweights to Christian understanding: the dying person’s faith is defined and intensified by contrast with Jewish incomprehension. The phrase aus Unwissenheit (“out of ignorance”) is unusual — a trace of the Augustinian distinction between the Jews who did not know they were killing the Messiah and those who should have known — but it does not mitigate the primary characterisation of Jewish blasphemy as ongoing wickedness.
XLIV. “Der Teufel in die Juden gefahren” — The Devil Drives the Jews to Attack Christ
Source: Vol. 17 (Grosse Todten-Bruderschafft)
German
„Erſchrecke nicht, mein Jeſu! daß dich der Teufel in der Wu͉ſten erſchrecket; fu͉rchte dich nicht, meine Zuverſicht, o Jeſu! daß der Teufel den Iſchariot regieret; daß der Teufel in die Juden gefahren, dich zu erſchrecken! Aber mir, mir klopfet mein ſu͉ndhaftes Herz.”
Translation
“Fear not, my Jesus, that the Devil frightened you in the desert; fear not, my trust, O Jesus! that the Devil governs Iscariot; that the Devil has entered into the Jews to terrify you! But I — it is my sinful heart that pounds.”
Note
This brief devotional text from a deathbed prayer-sequence makes a significant theological statement: it posits that the Devil entered into the Jews to drive them against Christ, aligning with John 13:27 (where Satan enters Judas) but extending this demonic possession from the individual traitor to the entire Jewish people. The theological implication — that Jewish enmity toward Christ is not merely a human failing but a direct expression of satanic indwelling — is one of the most extreme positions in the adversus Judaeos corpus and has direct lineage to John 8:44 (your father is the Devil), which Abraham a Sancta Clara deploys independently in Vol. 18 (see passage XXVI above).
XLV. “Wehe euch gottloſen Hebraͤern!” — The Sanhedrin Marshals Its Forces in Gethsemane
Source: Vol. 5 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part V)
German
„Dann zu wiſſen, daß bei denen Hebraͤern zwei Tribunalien und Gericht geweſen, eines wurde genannt Sanedrim, welches Collegium beſtund in 72 Perſonen, ſo meiſtens lauter alte, gelehrte, und in der Schrift erfahrne Rabbiner geweſen… Wehe, wehe euch gottloſen Hebraͤern! Ihr werdet noch zu feiner Zeit erfahren, was Unheil euch der Erzſchalk Judas auf den Hals geladen, Gott wird euch eben mit dem Maas und Weiſe zuͤchtigen, wie ihr mit ihm verfahren; welches hern ich bald geſchehen, dann wie Titus und Veſpaſianus die Stadt Jeruſalem mit dem roͤmiſchen Kriegs-Heer erobert, viel hundert tauſend der Juden jaͤmmerlich ermordet, da haben auch die roͤmiſchen Soldaten mit Fackeln, mit Windlichtern, mit Pechkraͤnzen, mit Laternen, alle Keller, alle Gruften, alle Hoͤhlen und Winkeln durchſucht, und die hohen Prieſter, die Fuͤrſten der Synagog, und andere vornehme Rabbiner, ſo ſich darin verborgen, mit aller Gewalt herausgezogen, und zum Tod geſchleppt, das heißt mit gleicher Muͤnz bezahlt.”
Translation
“For it is to be known that among the Hebrews there were two tribunals and courts: one was called the Sanhedrin, a college consisting of 72 persons, who were for the most part nothing but old, learned, scripturally trained Rabbis… Woe, woe to you godless Hebrews! You will in due time discover what calamity the arch-scoundrel Judas has loaded upon your necks; God will chastise you with the same measure and manner with which you dealt with him. Which I soon saw come to pass, for when Titus and Vespasian conquered the city of Jerusalem with the Roman army and wretchedly murdered many hundreds of thousands of Jews, the Roman soldiers also searched with torches, with lanterns, with pitch-wreaths, all cellars, all vaults, all caves and corners, and dragged out by main force the high priests, the princes of the Synagogue, and other prominent Rabbis who had hidden therein, and hauled them to their deaths — that is called payment in equal coin.”
Note
This passage opens Volume 5 with a meticulous account of the apparatus that arrested Jesus — specifying the 72-member Sanhedrin by its technical Hebrew name, identifying the two-tier Rabbinical court structure — before pivoting to the divine retribution that followed. The gleiche Münz (“equal coin”) formula frames the destruction of Jerusalem and the extermination of its ruling class as a precise theological repayment for the arrest of Christ. Abraham a Sancta Clara identifies the Sanhedrin’s learned Rabbis by name as the primary agents of the Passion and the primary victims of the Roman punishment.
XLVI. “Noch tiefer in der Hoͤll die Juden” — Jews Lower in Hell Than Pagans
Source: Vol. 5 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part V)
German
„Macarius hat auf eine Zeit einen ausgedorrten Todtenkopf in der Wu͉ſte angetroffen, und denſelben in dem Namen Gottes befragt, wem er zugehoͤre? ich, ſagte der Todte, bin geweſt ein Go͉tzenprieſter unter den Heiden. Nachdem ſolcher weiters gezwungen worden, zu bekennen, ob er dann noch einige unter ihm in der Ho͉ll habe? worauf er mehrmal geantwortet, daß unter ſeiner noch tiefer in der Ho͉ll die Juden ſeyen, die allertiefſten aber in dieſem feurigen Abgrund ſeyen die boͤſen Chriſten, ſo die Gutthat der Erlo͉ſung Chriſti erkannt, aber gegen dieſelbige wegen ihres ſu͉ndigen Wandels fo undankbar ſich erzeigt.”
Translation
“Macarius once found a dried-out skull in the desert and questioned it in God’s name, asking to whom it had belonged. I, said the dead man, was a pagan idol-priest. When he was further compelled to confess whether he still had some beneath him in hell, he answered several times that beneath him, still deeper in hell, were the Jews; but the very deepest in this fiery abyss were the wicked Christians, who had recognised the benefit of Christ’s redemption but had shown themselves so ungrateful toward it on account of their sinful conduct.”
Note
This famous exemplum — drawn from the Apophthegmata Patrum tradition — creates a three-tier infernal hierarchy: pagans at the highest level, Jews beneath them, and apostate Christians deepest of all. Abraham a Sancta Clara cites it as authoritative testimony about the Jews‘ postmortem condition. The logic is that the Jews had access to the Mosaic revelation and rejected the Messiah who fulfilled it, making their guilt greater than that of pagans who never received divine law — a standard patristic argument here given vivid eschatological form.
XLVII. “Ratio Status bringts mit ſich” — Caiaphas’s Political Calculation
Source: Vol. 5 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part V)
German
„Der ſaubere Politikus Kaiphas in Erwaͤgung, daß das meiſte Volk der Hebraͤer von der Lehr Chriſti gezogen worden und ſeine Heiligkeit und Gutthaͤtigkeit die Gemuͤther der mehriſten an ſich gezogen, unangeſehen er die Unſchuld Jeſu von Nazareth wohl erkannt, wegen Furcht aber, es moͤchten die Roͤmer kommen und ſie um ihr Reich und Freiheit bringen, hat er in allweg geſucht, daß Chriſtus moͤchte aus dem Weg geraͤumt werden… Ei, ſagt Kaiphas, Ratio Status bringts mit ſich, Unſchuld hin, Unſchuld her, es iſt beſſer, daß einer zu Grund gehe, als wir alle. O verfluchter Statiſt!”
Translation
“That polished politician Caiaphas, considering that most of the Hebrew people had been drawn to Christ’s teaching and that his holiness and beneficence had attracted most men’s hearts to himself — notwithstanding that Caiaphas well recognised the innocence of Jesus of Nazareth — out of fear that the Romans might come and deprive them of their kingdom and freedom, sought in every way to have Christ removed from the way… Come now, says Caiaphas, Ratio Status demands it; innocence aside, innocence aside, it is better that one man go to ruin than all of us. O accursed politician!”
Note
This passage mobilises the Baroque-era concept of Ratio Status (reason of state) — a thoroughly contemporary political term — to characterise Caiaphas’s decision as cynical political murder. The word Politiker (politician) is an early modern coinage heavy with pejorative weight; Abraham a Sancta Clara uses it to frame the Passion as a paradigm case of political evil. Caiaphas knows Christ is innocent but sacrifices him for geopolitical advantage — making the crime not one of ignorance but of calculated treachery.
XLVIII. “Acht tauſend Juden bekehrt worden” — Eight Thousand Jews Converted; 144,000 More to Come
Source: Vol. 5 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part V)
German
„Kraft dieſer Wort ſeynd dazumal acht tauſend Juden bekehrt worden, und deſſentwillen werden auch noch vor dem ju͉ngſten Tag hundert und vier und vierzig tauſend Hebraͤer aus demſelbigen Geſchlecht, ſo Jeſum gekreuziget, bekehrt werden, wie es der hl. Methödius und Michael Palatius ſamt andern bezeugen. Ja die vier Soldaten, ſo Chriſtum an das Kreuz geheftet haben, ſeynd noch von ihm alſo begnadiget worden, daß ſie nachmals ſich bekehrt, und glo͉rreiche Martyrer worden.”
Translation
“By virtue of these words, eight thousand Jews were converted at that time; and for the same reason there will also be, before the Last Day, still one hundred and forty-four thousand Hebrews from the same lineage that crucified Jesus who will be converted, as the holy Methodius and Michael Palatius together with others testify. Indeed, even the four soldiers who nailed Christ to the Cross were so graciously treated by him that they subsequently converted and became glorious martyrs.”
Note
This passage presents a numerically precise eschatological programme: the 8,000 converted at Pentecost (Acts 2:41 gives 3,000; Abraham a Sancta Clara inflates the number), and the 144,000 of Revelation 7 and 14 identified as Jewish converts from the crucifying generation. The passage is exceptional in the adversus Judaeos corpus because it allows a future path of redemption for the Jews — but only through baptism and acceptance of Christ, and only within an apocalyptic frame that underscores their current state of rejection.
XLIX. “Die gewiſſenloſe Hebraͤer das Geld” — Hebrews Bribe Soldiers with Sacred Temple Money
Source: Vol. 5 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part V)
German
„Die gewiſſenloſe Hebraͤer das Geld aus dem Tempel und Opferſtock, ſo dazumalen ein heiliges Geld iſt genennet worden, gebraucht haben zur groͤßten Bosheit, indem ſie damit die Soldaten beim Grab beſtochen und zu unbegruͤndeten Luͤgen veranlaſſet.”
Translation
“The conscienceless Hebrews used the money from the Temple and the offering-box, which at that time was called sacred money, for the greatest act of wickedness, in that they bribed the soldiers at the tomb with it and induced them to groundless lies.”
Note
This passage refers to Matthew 28:11–15, where the chief priests bribe the soldiers guarding Christ’s tomb to report that the disciples stole the body. Abraham a Sancta Clara adds the detail that the bribe money came from the Temple treasury — the same source as the thirty pieces of silver — making the desecration of sacred funds a doubled crime: money consecrated to God used first to purchase the Messiah’s blood and then to suppress news of the Resurrection. The word gewissenlose (“conscienceless”) is a standard epithet from his invective vocabulary.
L. “Wie Chriſtus die Juden mit der Geißel die Hebraͤer getrieben” — The Jews Scatter Their Garments Before the Ass; The Hebrews Revere Their Temple
Source: Vol. 4 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part IV)
German
„Die Hebraͤer ihre eigenen Kleider ausgezugen, und auf die bloße Erde gebreit, damit der Efel daruͤber gehe; dieſe Ehr geſchah nit mit dem Eſel, ſondern denjenigen, ſo darauf geſeffen, alſo ſol man in allweg einen gottgeweihten Prieſter verehren.”
„Die Hebräer haben alfo ihren Tempel verehrt, daß keinem, außer dem König, erlaubt war, zu ſizen; und du?”
Translation
“The Hebrews stripped their own garments and spread them on the bare earth so that the donkey might walk over them; this honour was paid not to the donkey but to him who sat upon it; in the same way one should always venerate a priest consecrated to God.”
“The Hebrews so revered their Temple that no one except the king was permitted to sit down within it; and you?”
Note
Both passages deploy the Jews positively as a shaming standard against Christian laxity — Abraham a Sancta Clara inverts the usual adversus Judaeos strategy to argue that even the Jews, in their rejection of Christ, exceeded contemporary Christians in external reverence. This rhetorical device, in which Jewish religious rigour is cited to condemn Christian negligence, is a recognisable baroque homiletic technique. The contrast highlights how thoroughly his adversus Judaeos posture coexists with a purely rhetorical instrumentalisation of Jewish practice.
LI. “Die zuſammengerottete Juden und hebraͤiſche Lottergeſind” — The Arrest in Gethsemane: Binding the Lily
Source: Vol. 4 (Judas der Erzschelm, Part IV)
German
„Die zuſammengerottete Juden und hebraͤiſche Lottergeſind haben ihn im Garten gefangen und hart gebunden; o ihr Schelmen habt euer Lebtag kein ſo edel-ſchoͤnes Blumen-Buͤſchele gebunden, als dieſen Nazaraͤum, id est, floridus. Sie haben ihn mit Geißlen und Ruthen tyranniſch zerfleißcht und zerſchlagen; o ihr Dieb habt euer Lebtag kein ſo edles Traid gedroͤſchen als Frumentum Electorum! Sie haben ihm eine doͤrnerne Kron in ſein Heiligiſtes Haupt gedruckt. O ihr Moͤrder habt euer Lebtag keine ſo ſchoͤne Roſen an den Dornern gefunden, als dieſe!”
Translation
“The assembled Jews and Hebrew rabble seized him in the garden and bound him tightly; O rogues, in all your lives you have never bound so noble and beautiful a bouquet as this Nazarene — id est floridus [that is, the flowering one]. They scourged and beat him tyrannically with whips and rods; O thieves, in all your lives you have never threshed so noble a grain as Frumentum Electorum [the grain of the elect]! They pressed a thorny crown onto his most holy head. O murderers, in all your lives you have never found such beautiful roses on thorns as these!”
Note
This is one of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s most characteristic rhetorical techniques — the sustained conceit in which the instruments of the Passion are reinterpreted as accidentally beautiful: the bound Christ is a bouquet, the scourged Christ is a threshed grain, the crowned Christ is a rose. The addresses to the Jews — O Schelmen, O Dieb, O Mörder — are themselves a formal three-step invective escalation (rogues → thieves → murderers), each pejorative attached to a different act of the Passion.
LII. “Die neidifhen Juden” — The Scribes’ Envy Drives the Defamation of Christ
Source: Vol. 9 (Augustini Feuriges Herz)
German
„Der unerfattliche Neid, mit welchem die Juden Chriſtum den Herrn verfolgt, war mit dem nicht zugenommen, ſondern wollte ihm auch den guten Ruf und Namen nicht laſſen, weil fie aber nichts To͉dliches an ihm finden konnten, alſo haben ſie ihn durch fremde Laſter zu verſchwaͤrzen geſucht… mit Gottesla͉ſterungen, und gottesra͉uberiſchen Zungen, als ſeye er eine Peſt der ganzen Gemeine, verla͉umden und verſchreien, alſo bezeugt’s der heilige Markus: qui cum Eo crucifixi erant, convitiabantur Ei — ſo ſchma͉hten ihn auch, die mit ihm gekreuziget waren.”
Translation
“The insatiable envy with which the Jews pursued Christ the Lord was not satisfied with what it had seized, but wished not to leave him even his good reputation and name; since however they could find nothing mortal against him, they sought to blacken him through imputed vices… with blasphemies and God-robbing tongues, as if he were a plague of the whole community, they slandered and decried him, as the holy Mark testifies: qui cum Eo crucifixi erant, convitiabantur Ei — those who were crucified with him also reviled him.”
Note
This passage makes envy the master passion driving the Jewish Passion narrative — not fear, not political calculation, but Neid (envy) as the psychological root of the crucifixion. The structural argument is: envy cannot be satisfied by death alone and must also destroy reputation; hence the Jews continued their verbal attack on the Cross. The verse from Mark 15:32 is cited to show that this defamation extended even to the co-crucified thieves, infected by the Jewish spirit.
LIII. “Ihr Blutelel, Bluthund, ihr blutgierigen Juden!” — Why the Jews Spared Christ’s Tongue
Source: Vol. 9 (Augustini Feuriges Herz)
German
„Ha͉tte ich doch vermeint, es ha͉tten die boshaften, ſchalfhaften, neidhaften Juden in demjenigen Glied zum Meiſten gewuͤthet, welches ihnen zum Scha͉dlichſten geweſt, und eben dieſes war die Zung; dieſe iſt geweft, welche ihr Geſatz ausgetadelt; dieſe iſt geweft, die ihre Falſchheiten geoffenbaret; dieſe iſt geweft, die ihre Synagog ausgerottet; dieſe iſt geweft diejenige, die der Juden Intereſſe gemindert; dieſe iſt geweft, die wider ſie geredt; und darum, ihr Blutelel, Bluthund, ihr blutgierigen Juden! wie iſt, daß ihr die Zung Chriſti, welche euch Allen zuwider iſt, nicht mit Na͉geln durchbohrt, oder mit Meſſern abſchneid’t, oder mit Zangen ausreißt?”
Translation
“I would indeed have supposed that the wicked, crafty, envious Jews would have raged most fiercely against that member which had been most harmful to them — and that was the tongue; that tongue it was that reproved their Law; that tongue it was that exposed their falsehoods; that tongue it was that uprooted their Synagogue; that tongue it was that diminished the Jews‘ interests; that tongue it was that spoke against them. And therefore, you bloodsuckers, bloodhounds, you bloodthirsty Jews! How is it that you do not pierce Christ’s tongue — which is contrary to all of you — with nails, or cut it off with knives, or tear it out with pincers?”
Note
This is among the most extreme passages in the corpus. The triple vocative ihr Blutelel, Bluthund, ihr blutgierigen Juden (you bloodsuckers, bloodhounds, you bloodthirsty Jews) constitutes an explicit animalistic dehumanisation at full rhetorical pitch, and the question posed — why did they not mutilate the tongue? — is followed by a providential answer (God did not permit it). The list of what Christ’s tongue accomplished against Jewish interests — reproving their Law, exposing their falsehood, abolishing their Synagogue, diminishing their economic standing — is also a remarkably systematic inventory of what Abraham a Sancta Clara sees as the Messiah’s programme of Jewish dispossession.
LIV. “Die Hebraͤer Schriftgelehrten ihr Sünden in den Staub geſchrieben” — Christ Writes the Sins of the Pharisees in Dust
Source: Vol. 9 (Augustini Feuriges Herz) and Vol. 18 (Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch)
German
„Einsmals führten der Hebraͤer Schriftgelehrten ein Weib zu unſerm Herrn; Herr, weißt was? dieſes Weib haben wir jetzt ertappt in dem Ehebruch… Dieſe Geſellen fuͤhren alfo die arme Haut allein vor unſern Herrn, Chriſtus der gebenedeite neigt ſich gegen die Erde, ſchreibt mit ſeinem Finger in den Staub: ‘quis ex vobis sine peccato est, der aus euch ohne Suͤnde iſt, der hebe einen Stein auf, und werfe auf fie.’ Hieronymus, ſchreibt alle Su͉nden und Schelmenstu͉ckl derſelbigen Hebraͤer auf, wie ſie das geſehen, iſt einer nach dem andern zum Tempel hinaus… Warum hat unſer Herr die Su͉nden in den Staub geſchrieben? Darum, unter den Anklaͤgern ſeynd viel hebraͤiſche Prieſter geſtanden, derowegen hat Chriſtus ihre Su͉nden in Staub geſchrieben, welcher bald wieder zerſtreuet wird, und nicht in Metall, damit ſie ihre Ehr und guten Namen nicht bei der Welt verloren.”
Translation
“Once the Hebrew scribes led a woman to our Lord: Lord, you know what? We have just caught this woman in adultery… These fellows led the poor creature alone before our Lord; the blessed Christ bent toward the ground and wrote with his finger in the dust: quis ex vobis sine peccato est — he among you without sin, let him cast the first stone. Jerome says he wrote out all the sins and rogueries of those Hebrews; when they saw this, they went out of the Temple one after another… Why did our Lord write the sins in the dust? Because among the accusers there stood many Hebrew priests; therefore Christ wrote their sins in dust, which is soon scattered again, and not in metal, so that they should not lose their honour and good name before the world.”
Note
Abraham a Sancta Clara follows Jerome’s reading of John 8:1–11 which identifies Christ’s writing in the dust as an inscription of the accusers’ own sins. The mercy shown to the Pharisees — writing in perishable dust rather than enduring metal — is itself presented as a further act of divine condescension, since the accusers were Hebrew priests whose social standing Christ protected even as he exposed them. The anecdote is thus both an attack on Pharisaic hypocrisy and a demonstration of the mercy that their legalism lacked.
LV. “Weil die Juden nicht hineingehen wollten” — The Jews Refuse to Enter the Praetorium; False Accusations Against Christ
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition)
German
„Weil aber die Juden nicht hineingehen wollten, ſo ging Pilatus zu ihnen hinaus, und ſprach: Was bringet ihr fuͤr eine Klage wider dieſen Menſchen?… Eine ſchoͤne Anklag! was ſchaͤmet ihr euch nicht, o unverſchaͤmte Juden! ſolche falſche und unwahrheitvolle Reden vorzubringen? hat er denn nicht ſelbſt geſagt: ‘Ich bin nicht gekommen, das Geſetz aufzuloͤſſen, ſondern zu erfuͤllen?’ Hat er nicht geſprochen: ‘Gebt dem Kaiſer, was des Kaiſers iſt,’ und den Zollpfenning fuͤr ſich und Petro ſelbſt bezahlet, und ihr meldet, er verbiete, den Tribut zu geben?”
Translation
“But because the Jews did not wish to enter, Pilate went out to them and said: What charge do you bring against this man?… A fine charge! Are you not ashamed, O shameless Jews, to bring forward such false and untruthful statements? Did he not himself say: ‘I did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfil it’? Did he not say: ‘Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,’ and himself pay the toll-penny for himself and Peter — and you claim he forbids the payment of tribute?”
Note
The Jews‘ refusal to enter the Praetorium — based on Levitical purity laws — is presented not as religious scruple but as a bitter irony: they will not defile themselves by entering a Gentile building, yet they have no scruple about engineering the murder of God’s Son. The charge that follows (forbidding tribute) is flatly characterised as a lie, and Abraham a Sancta Clara has Christ’s own words demolish it — making the Jews not merely Christ-killers but knowing liars before the Roman tribunal.
LVI. “Die Soldaten der Juden, welde Chriſtum fahen wollten” — The Jewish Soldiers Fall Back at Ego Sum
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition)
German
„Weil jene Kriegsſchaar und Soldaten der Juden, welche Chriſtum fahen wollten, wegen des einigen Worts: ‘Ego sum, ich bin’s,’ dermaſſen mit Schrecken angefuͤllet worden, daß ſie zuruͤck niederfielen. Ah, wie wird’s dir geſchehen, wenn du wirſt ſehen, wie der allergerechteſte Richter auf den Fluͤgeln der Winde getragen, und mit hoͤchſter Majeſtaͤt in ſeinem Thron ſitzen wird.”
Translation
“For that armed band and the soldiers of the Jews, who wished to seize Christ, were so filled with terror at the single word ‘Ego sum — it is I,’ that they fell back to the ground. Ah, what will happen to you when you shall see the most righteous Judge carried upon the wings of the winds and sitting with highest majesty upon his throne.”
Note
This passage exploits the Fall of the soldiers at Gethsemane (John 18:6) as an eschatological preview: if the mere utterance of Ego sum felled the entire arresting party, the Last Judgment will be infinitely more terrifying. The phrase Soldaten der Juden makes the Gethsemane soldiers a specifically Jewish force. The passage then pivots to address the reader-sinner directly, deploying the Jewish soldiers as a typological warning about the terror of divine judgment.
LVII. “Die Juden wußten beffer zu multipliciren als zu dividiren” — Jews Refuse Hospitality at the Nativity
Source: Vol. 12 (Mercks Wienn, expanded edition)
German
„Chriſtus hatte keinen Unterſchlief, keine Herberg und keine Wohnung, quia non erat eis locus in diversorio. Denn die Juden wußten beſſer zu multipliciren als zu dividiren, ſie wußten beſſer zu conjugiren als zu ſepariren, ſie wußten das Ihrige tapfer beiſammen zu halten, und waren keine Zachaͤi, welche den halben Theil ihrer Guͤter den Armen mit- und austheileten.”
Translation
“Christ had no shelter, no lodging, no dwelling, quia non erat eis locus in diversorio — for there was no room for them in the inn. For the Jews knew better how to multiply than to divide; they knew better how to conjugate than to separate; they knew how to keep their things firmly together, and were no Zacchaeuses who shared and distributed half their goods to the poor.”
Note
This passage attributes the refusal of hospitality at Bethlehem specifically to Jewish miserliness — a characteristic medieval stereotype that Abraham a Sancta Clara here deploys through an elaborate grammatical conceit (multiplicare vs. dividere; conjugare vs. separare). The contrast with Zacchaeus (Luke 19:8) is pointed: the Jews who refused shelter at the Nativity are the opposite of the repentant tax-collector who gave away half his wealth. The denial of lodging is thus reread as a characteristic act of Jewish avarice.
Primary Sources
All passages in this compilation are drawn from the following digitised editions of Abraham a Sancta Clara’s Sämmtliche Werke, available in full on the Internet Archive:
Vol. 1 — Judas der Erzschelm, Part I https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke01abrauoft
Vol. 2 — Judas der Erzschelm, Part II https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke02abrauoft
Vol. 3 — Judas der Erzschelm, Part III https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke03abrauoft
Vol. 4 — Abrahamische Laubhütt / Judas der Erzschelm, Part IV https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke04abrauoft
Vol. 5 — Mercks Wienn https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke05abrauoft
Vol. 6 — Reimb dich oder ich ließ dich https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke06abrauoft
Vol. 7 — Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt, Part I https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke07abrauoft
Vol. 8 — Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt, Part II https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke08abrauoft
Vol. 9 — Huy! und Pfuy! der Welt, Part III https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke09abrauoft
Vol. 10 — Wohlangefüllter Weinkeller https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke10abrauoft
Vol. 11 — Etwas für Alle, Part I https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke11abrauoft
Vol. 12 — Etwas für Alle, Part II / Mercks Wienn (expanded) https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke12abrauoft
Vol. 13 — Grammatica Religiosa / miscellaneous sermons https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke13abrauoft
Vol. 14 — Sterb-Art https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke15abrauoft
Vol. 15 — Grosse Todten-Bruderschafft https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke17abrauoft
Vol. 16 — Sermons and miscellaneous works https://archive.org/details/smmtlichewerke19abra
Vol. 17 — Grammatica Religiosa (continued) / Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch, Part I https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke20abrauoft
Vol. 18 — Heilsames Gemisch-Gemasch, Part II https://archive.org/details/smtlichewerke21abrauoft