it's amazing the amount of ignorance concerning martin luther early in his life he was a stalwart defender of the jews saying we ought not to treat the jews in so unkindly a spirit luther magnificat f and absurd theologians defend hatred for the jews what jew would consent to enter our ranks when he sees the cruelty and enmity we wreak on them that in our behavior towards them we less resemble christians than beasts luther quoted in elliot rosenberg but were they good for the jews new york birch lane press p what people fail to put together is that luther suffered a tremendous decline in health in his old age iversen oh martin luther's somatic diseases a short life history years after his death in norwegian tidsskr nor laegeforen and decayed into senility it was in this state that he challenged the canonicity of the book of james and even recanted his faith on his death bed he lost his mind in his old age medicine had simply failed to progress to the point where they could diagnose it at that point in history his later comments should not be privileged any more than the average institutionalized individual it's very sad that people who wish to defame luther take such a narrow minded view of his illness and comments in order to discredit him truly it was a tragedy that such a great man was so utterly destroyed by illness i have experienced this personally as i have watched relatives descend into incoherency and in some cases vicious hate it is a very sad reality