Anton Margaritha
"Anton Margaritha" was a sixteenth-century Jewish Hebraist and convert to Christianity. He was a possible source for some of Martin Luther's conception of Judaism.Biography
Anton Margaritha's father, Jacob Margolioth, was a Rabbi in Ratisbon, Germany. Anton converted in 1522, being baptized at Wasserburg am Inn, and later became a Lutheran. He suffered imprisonment and then expulsion from Augsburg due to complaints from the Jewish community there and action by Charles V.
Anton Margaritha was a teacher of Hebrew at Augsburg, Meissen, Zell, Leipzig and from 1537 until his death at the University of Vienna. He published the Psalms and through in Hebrew in Leipzig. He is best known for the 1530 book Der gantze Jüdisch Glaub. The 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia commented:
He had a public debate in the same year with Josel of Rosheim before Charles V and his court at Augsburg. The dispute terminated in a decisive victory for Josel who obtained Margaritha's expulsion from the realm.
Despite this legal decision, this work would be repeatedly reprinted and cited by anti-semites over the coming centuries. Martin Luther read Der Gantze Jüdische Glaube in 1539 before writing his own anti-semitic tract On the Jews and Their Lies in 1543. The book was reprinted in 1705 and was cited in Synagoga Judaica by Johannes Buxtorf.
