ABSTRACT
Martin Luther and most of his fellow reformers believed they lived at the end of days. By casting the papacy in the role of the apocalyptic figure of Antichrist, Luther turned away from a centuries-old tradition that identified Antichrist as a Jew. “A Jew has come from Latin parts, supported by letters that were sent to my gracious Lord of Triest, which report that a good number of days ago, letters and genuine accounts sent from Jerusalem and Damascus and elsewhere reached cousins of his in his country. The scholastics have spent much time on the question whether the [individual] faith of each person will save that person. There are many reliable signs that the Turk will rise no higher, and that he will soon fall. Medieval world views, Christian apocalypticism, anti-Jewish theology and legend, and Protestant theology all cross paths in these texts.
