“Der verkehrte und doch widerbekehrte Thomas”: Ambiguities of Jewish Conversions and Christian Hebraism in Nuremberg around 1700

1 Introduction

In the Early Modern Period, sermons were a key instrument for informing communities about important events of their social lives and for conveying religious as well as political and social norms.^[1] Special events in church and social life usually included a sermon as part of the corresponding ritual. Those sermons often were printed.^[2] The funeral sermon is justifiably regarded as a particularly successful example of this type of use of sermons.^[3] Conversions, however, attracted particular attention throughout the Early Modern Period. The Reformation, especially in Lutheranism, had demonstrated a prominent hostility to Judaism and Islam, not least in a particularly sharp form by Martin Luther.^[4] From the perspective of the Christian confessions, conversion was an impressive way of emphasizing the superiority and attractiveness of one’s own faith. Baptismal sermons, therefore, offer insights into the self-perception of the new religion and the rhetorical strategies used to convey this view.

The imperial city of Nuremberg had a highly ambivalent relationship with Judaism in the Early Modern Period. The city does not come to mind when thinking of attractiveness or a particularly welcoming climate for people of other faiths. On the one hand, Nuremberg brutally expelled the Jewish community from their territory at the end of the Middle Ages with the expulsion of 1499. On the other hand, the university in Altdorf became a centre of “philosemitism,” Christian Hebraism and scholarship on Judaism in the seventeenth century.^[5] This article examines this ambiguity using the example of a Jewish conversion and baptism from the end of the seventeenth century. The focus is on a baptismal sermon by Nuremberg preacher Daniel Wülfer (1617–1685), which reveals, through a close reading, insights into the normative regime of the city’s society.^[6]

2 Ambivalent Views on Judaism in Nuremberg and Altdorf in the Seventeenth Century

The history of Judaism and Nuremberg has few bright spots. The problematic history of the treatment of Jews in Nuremberg stretches from their forcible expulsion in 1499 to the twentieth century and the National Socialist claim to Nuremberg as the “City of the Reichsparteitage.”^[7] Fürth, on the other hand, not even ten kilometres away, became the “Franconian Jerusalem” with a large and vibrant Jewish community.^[8] This meant that a considerable number of Jews were always in the vicinity of Nuremberg, so that a variety of contacts could not be avoided. The state of research for the period after the Reformation, however, is desolate. In his 1968 book on the history of the Jews in Nuremberg, Arnd Müller covered the period between 1550 and 1700 in just thirty pages.^[9] Significant for Nuremberg’s dealings with the Jewish community in the seventeenth century were the events that took place during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), in which the Jews, especially from Fürth, repeatedly asked to be protected within the city walls. However, although they offered large sums of money for this protection, the city’s council repeatedly denied it. They had, in Müller’s words, “no place where they could have waited for the end of the horrors under reasonably secure protection.”^[10]

If Jews tried to settle in Nuremberg territory, the city authorities expelled them as soon as they found out about it. Nevertheless, with Nuremberg being such a large and important trading centre, Jews were frequently present in the city. However, even in these contexts, especially in the sixteenth century, Jewish merchants were the victims of significant discrimination and disadvantages. In the seventeenth century, especially after the end of the Thirty Years’ War, reports of the rich supply of goods offered by Jewish merchants also mention difficulties and their precarious situation. The display of Jewish wealth and mercantile success repeatedly brought the local merchants to act against the Jews, who were always and remained a vulnerable minority in Nuremberg and were in danger of being targeted. Economic as well as religious motives were central in this context.^[11]

However, there was a great interest in Judaism, especially among Altdorf theology professors. Altdorf was part of Nuremberg’s territory and the place of its Academy, founded in 1575. It received its university privileges from Emperor Ferdinand II in 1622.^[12] In the seventeenth century, this Christian Hebraism at Altdorf is largely associated with the person of Johann Christoph Wagenseil (1633–1705).^[13] He showed a certain willingness to engage in dialogue and openness towards Jews. Nathanael Riemer has claimed that in many of his works Wagenseil criticized with strong words the injustices to which the Jews in the German lands were exposed. Based on extensive Jewish sources, Wagenseil had used rational arguments to counter traditional anti-Jewish prejudices. However, the following also applies to him:

While Wagenseil is considered by some scholars to be one of the few Christian scholars who, even before the Enlightenment, resolutely fought the spread of anti-Jewish prejudices and stood up for Jews out of philosemitic interests, others describe him as hostile to Jews and an anti-Semite, or at least view him critically.^[14]

Wagenseil’s assessments, therefore, oscillate between that of a friend of the Jews and that of an enemy of the Jews.^[15] However, such a polarized evaluation is not necessarily helpful. In the end, both are probably valid: he showed a great interest in Jewish literature and mentality and also the first signs of a more tolerant attitude towards Jews.^[16] However, Wagenseil did not move away from the conviction that salvation could only be found in Christianity and that it therefore had to be conveyed to Jews as the more attractive and true religion.^[17] At any rate, the end-time hopes associated with the conversion of the Jews in the last three decades of the seventeenth century are typical of the time, as they became virulent in Pietism.^[18] The closer the year 1700, the more intense these hopes became.^[19] The sermon and the interpretation of a Jewish conversion are also to be seen in the context of these theological developments. However, Wagenseil’s work makes it clear that there was an interest in Judaism and an increasing openness to Jewish topics in Altdorf and that this would certainly have had an impact on the imperial city of Nuremberg. The University of Altdorf’s interest in relevant expertise was also reflected in the recruitment of Jewish lecturers, especially in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.^[20] In all cases, however, they were proselytes who had converted to Christianity through baptism and thus were able to secure employment at the university as Hebrew teachers (Lektoren).^[21]

But is that enough to speak of the existence of philosemitic ideas in the Nuremberg context around 1660? Indeed, the use of the concept of philosemitism is rather problematic. It is also quite anachronistic. It only emerged towards the end of the nineteenth century as a politically instrumentalized counter-concept to “antisemitism.” It was intended to discredit a certain positive attitude of non-Jews towards Jews with a pejorative intention.^[22] More precisely, therefore, we can talk about ambiguous views on Jews and Judaism, that were intensely debated by theologians in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Genuine interest in Jews as Jews as such hardly existed in the seventeenth century, at least in Nuremberg. Even in Wagenseil’s case, they were a means to an end, to obtain expertise on the Hebrew Bible or to proselytize. An encounter at eye level was not the interest of the Christians. Based on Wagenseil’s correspondence, Nathanael Riemer persuasively argued that economic aspects played a major role for Wagenseil and that he was also keen to accumulate symbolic capital through his contact to Jewish scholars.^[23]

Such methodological challenges must also be considered if, like Riemer and others, one wants to examine historical philosemitism.^[24] Here, for example, one could follow Hans-Joachim Schoeps, who recognizes five types of philosemitism across time: a Christian-missionary, a biblical-chiliastic, a utilitarian, a liberal-humanitarian and finally a religiously motivated philosemitism, which could ultimately even lead to conversion to Judaism.^[25]

The religious climate in Nuremberg at the time the baptismal sermon was written, around 1660, must be considered more closely when analysing the source. The Norma Doctrinae, which was passed in 1573 and to which all clergymen in the territory of the imperial city committed themselves by signature, was decisive for what was to be considered correct doctrine in Nuremberg, although this repeatedly led to conflicts.^[26] The Norma itself was a compromise between different factions within the Nuremberg clergy, who either sympathized more strongly with Luther or with Melanchthon and their respective successors.^[27] At times, the adoption of the Saxon Corpus Doctrinae Philippicum was considered, but this did not find a majority and, in particular, the city’s leading clergyman Johannes Saubert the Elder (1592–1646), opposed this proposal.^[28] The Formula of Concord was not adopted because of the “Philippist”^[29] character of Nuremberg, which is not particularly surprising in view of the virulent late humanism in the city, especially among the urban upper classes.^[30] In Nuremberg thus they tended to favour Melanchthon and his disciples, while at the same time the local ministers were interested in the “purity” of Lutheran doctrine. The Norma was able to reconcile these tendencies to some extent, even if there were repeated disputes as to whether Nuremberg was “orthodox” enough, leading to ambivalences in the confessional orientation of the imperial city and its territories. Recent research has shown that one should not be misled by such attributions as “orthodoxy,” because they construct unambiguities, by suggesting a clarity that did not actually exist.^[31]

Ernst Riegg points out that “the humanist character of the Nuremberg council elite and Philippism were held responsible for the tolerance that was practised in Nuremberg towards sectarians and the Dutch Calvinists living in the city.”^[32] This tolerance certainly cannot be attributed to the prevalence of humanist thought alone, but it may also be linked to the city’s character as a centre of mobility and communication, as well as a certain flexibility that stemmed from the city’s numerous trade relations.^[33]

The openness with which Johann Arndt’s writings were received was particularly influential for Nuremberg’s theological profile in the seventeenth century. At the beginning of the century, Arndt was an ardent advocate of a renewal of piety. His Vier Bücher vom wahren Christentum (1610) were among the most successful devotional books of the Early Modern Period. In them and in his other writings, Arndt was concerned with providing guidance for a spiritual life characterized by sanctification. The concept of spiritual rebirth is therefore of central importance to him.^[34] The aforementioned Johannes Saubert, the city’s leading theologian and clergyman, studied Arndt’s writings thoroughly and made the renewal of piety his own goal. In sermons and numerous publications from 1620 onwards, Saubert called for an active, vibrant life of faith among Christians.^[35] Arndt’s orthodoxy, however, remained controversial, despite the efforts of Jena Theology Professor Johann Gerhard and others in this matter. Saubert took the view that there could be no pious life without the right doctrine. Socianism and “Weigelianism” should have no place in Nuremberg, but Saubert and others endeavoured to preserve and promote the legitimate concerns of a “reformation of life.”^[36] In his rejection of the mystical spiritualist Christian Hoburg’s criticism of the church, he should also be able to say that it is wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater, even in the case of fundamentally justified concerns.^[37] Saubert therefore disliked Hoburg’s far reaching criticism of the church in particular, but not his radical call to repentance and a renewal of the individual life of faith. He therefore published a “reading guide” for Hoburg’s writings so that they could be properly understood.^[38]

However, Saubert also ensured that the Confessio Augustana invariata of 1530 became the only valid confessional standard from 1646 onwards. This was combined with the efforts described above to revitalize spiritual life.^[39] His successor, who can be considered the most fascinating personality from the ranks of the Nuremberg clergy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, continued this work: Johann Michael Dilherr (1604–1669), whose concerns have been described, not entirely convincingly, as “pre-pietistic church reform.”^[40] However, a more thorough characterization of his work is still pending, as is a scholarly biography of him.^[41] The large number of devotional writings that Dilherr and other contemporaries produced from the 1640s onwards, including the funeral sermons, is striking.^[42] Dilherr’s influence lived on in a considerable circle of students, all of whom worked as pastors in Nuremberg, such as Johann Leonhard Frisch (1604–1673), Justus Jakob Leibnitz (1653–1705), Johann Fabricius the Younger (1618–1676) and Daniel Wülfer (1617–1685), the author of the baptismal sermon which is the focus of this article.^[43]

Despite the political and economic decline that Nuremberg slowly but surely experienced, the decades after the Thirty Years’ War brought with them a considerable literary and cultural heyday. The activities of the Pegnesian Order of Flowers, for example, which cultivated close links with the local clergy, are a prime example for this development.^[44] Nevertheless, unlike other southern German cities, Nuremberg did not become a centre of Pietism.^[45] As already indicated, the impulses of this piety movement were certainly taken up, and the reception of Arndt’s writings continued to have an effect on the religious life of the city.^[46] However, the typical characteristics of pietistic community forms, such as collegia pietatis, i.e. conventicles in Spener’s sense, only existed very occasionally in Nuremberg.^[47] The religious context thus contributed to the fact that the topic of conversion was very present among the theologians of Nuremberg and Altdorf. This also occurred without a decided turn to Pietism, which is further proof that the topic also played a genuine role in “orthodoxy.”

3 Michael of Prague’s Conversion and Baptism in December 1665 – A Close Reading

Before we discuss a baptism of a Jewish person in Nuremberg in this time, it is important to define the phenomenon of conversion. This paper follows Ute Lotz-Heumann, Jan-Friedrich Missfelder and Matthias Pohlig who have shown that Early Modern identities were often socially bound, socially participatory and relationally situated.^[48] These identities constituted themselves through power relations and gender differences as well as by social differences and regional divisions. On this basis, they plead for an analytical distinction between conversion as a change of faith and the formal aspects of its social implementation. Conversion and its social and cultural “implementation” must be considered together as two sides of the same analytical model.^[49] However, not every case allows us to analyse a conversion in all its facets, which is usually due to a lack of sources, or their bias. However, the circumstances in Nuremberg and Altdorf described above, particularly the professional opportunities for converted Jews at the university in Altdorf, are probably of greater significance for the following case. This is also linked to the fact that conversions from Judaism to Christianity often took place as a deliberate step to gain greater freedom of action and increased mobility, which would not have been possible for a Jew otherwise. A religious conviction of Christianity in the narrower dogmatic sense need not always have been the main or only reason for a conversion.^[50] Therefore, it is important not to over-emphasize the implications of the “ecclesiastical gaze,” but also to consider other possible interpretations appropriately.^[51] A close reading of an important and rare conversion story from Nuremberg will show the possibilities, but also the limitations, of researching baptismal sermons in the context of conversions.

Daniel Wülfer, one of the leading clergymen in Nuremberg and Professor of Theology at Nuremberg’s university in Altdorf, published a printed version of his baptismal sermon for Michael of Prague and a description of the ritual itself.^[52] Apart from these professional positions and the high offices he held, little is known about Wülfer himself that would allow a more precise theological profiling, apart from the fact that he was influenced by Johann Michael Dilherr.^[53] He is an intriguing example for the religious climate in Nuremberg described above. He is not known to have promoted Pietist circles, although he was not regarded as their persecutor either. Wagenseil’s influence on him cannot yet be discerned in the baptismal sermon, as Wagenseil was not called to Altdorf until 1667; it is not known whether they knew each other from their time studying together.

The baptismal sermon has a programmatic title that refers to the selected biblical passage on which Wülfer had preached before the baptism, John 20:24, and which also tells the story of the Doubting Thomas, who only comes to faith when the risen Christ appears visibly to him.^[54] The baptism was scheduled for St John’s Day, 21 December 1659. For a full understanding of the print’s intention, it is essential to analyse it completely. The middle part of the sermon reports that the baptism was preceded by a profession of faith made by the person being baptized and a renunciation of his previous ways. As an appendix, the print also contains a “Relation deß gantzen Actus publicus.” The baptism of a Jew is therefore a specific and special type of public act. The title page offers in a typical way for printed sermons all the necessary information.

Even before the beginning of the actual sermon, a full-page reference shows Romans 11:22–28. Thus, the text begins programmatically with a reference to the “blindness of the Jews,” but also with the hope that Paul expresses in Romans 11, namely that at the end of time all Israel will come to faith in Jesus Christ.^[55] Then follows the actual biblical passage from John’s Gospel about the Doubting Thomas, which he quotes at length. Wülfer compared the conversion of Thomas to a “Moor,” i.e., a black person and a Parthian who has brown spots. Thomas was both a black person and a Parthian, stained with unbelief and doubt. In Jesus Christ, however, everything could be transformed. Paul, therefore, urges that if someone like Thomas is among them, he should open the eyes of his heart to Jesus. The way in which the preacher argues with skin colour here has only recently attracted increased research interest. As is becoming more common in this period, the condition of the skin is qualified with certain cognitive and spiritual characteristics.^[56] Being white was equated with purity and therefore also understood in a spiritual way as freedom from sin.^[57]

Following this appellative passage, Wülfer examined two aspects more closely in his actual interpretation. The falsity of Thomas on the one hand and his identity as one who changes fundamentally through his conversion on the other hand. The former expressed itself inwardly in his heart and outwardly in his speech.^[58] In Thomas, everyone could recognize a fundamental problem that has always had grave consequences: unbelief.^[59] This is intricately linked to the carnal disposition of man, which attaches to his corporeality. However, faith in Jesus Christ is the most important gift that can be given to a person during his lifetime because the question of how his soul will spend eternity depends on it.

But Wülfer also explained in detail that the Christian life is not synonymous with a life without spiritual and physical challenges and bad experiences. But perseverance is valuable and rewarded in the end. After his description of Doubting Thomas, Wülfer exclaimed

Now we want to see him turned around. The grace of the Holy Spirit makes a completely different person out of him. Before there was unbelief and ignorance, but now let what the apostle said come to pass, that if a man believes with his heart he is justified, and if he confesses with his mouth he is saved, Romans 10:10.^[60]

From the process of transformation of the apostle Thomas one could derive the doctrine, “that God will not deny his grace to anyone who seeks it in holy devotion. For it is certainly true that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners and to make them blessed.”^[61]

God’s grace is available to all, but it must not remain inconsequential in the lives of Christians. Therefore, Wülfer then adds an ethically oriented section. Much more than the sacrificial blood in the Old Covenant had freed from bodily impurities, the blood of Christ would cleanse the conscience of believers from all dead works to enable them to serve the living God. Wülfer refers here to the Old Testament account of the bronze serpent that Moses set up (Numbers 21:6–9) to keep harm away from the people of Israel. In the Christian interpretation, this is regarded as a prophecy of the crucified Christ, and is explained accordingly in John 3:14–15.^[62] Wülfer links this, as he does more often in the sermon, with anti-Jewish invectives, calling them a “stiff-necked” people with Exodus 33:2, because they do not recognize Jesus Christ as Messiah.^[63] He praises God’s patience and mercy even more when, as in the current case, a Jew does find his way to him. The importance of faith could already be emphasized by the people of Israel in the Old Testament. If they fell away from him, as in the time of the judges, God punished them accordingly and gave them into the hands of their enemies. But if they confessed their sins to him in faith, God was always ready to show mercy.^[64]

Wülfer then repeats that it is never too late for repentance in the sense of a sincere return to God: “But God never wants to reckon the old wrong time/ and accept the new/ Christian conversion/ as if it had been all time. This means that His mercy is as great as He Himself is! Sir. 2/22.”^[65] Such statements are found frequently in sermons and were presumably intended to dispel doubts about the validity of conversion. In any case, they emphasize the goodness and omnipotence of God and his gracious care for mankind.

Before the actual baptismal ritual, the preacher first exhorts his congregation to observe holy silence and devotion in the performance of the baptism and not to disturb it. We can only assume that such an admonition was necessary. Furthermore, he appeals to the kind of love described by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 when listening to the Actus for “[w]ho would have thought that our Thomas would become so much different. The words do not give it away/ that he led from the beginning. It is not his own mind! Nor did the disciples imagine it; and then see what God does!”^[66] God is the miraculous operator in such conversions as that of the Jew Michael. There are no limits to God’s means of working such a conversion and bringing a person to rebirth. There is hardly anything in heaven that brings greater joy than a person who sincerely repents and turns from his evil ways.^[67] Wülfer then concludes the sermon with the following words of encouragement: “So rule now you Spirit and Lord of souls! Over those who will now seek your holy order of Christian baptism; strengthen them in the right faith; strengthen them in piety; strengthen them in patience/ as we/ as Christians hope/ for eternal life! And whoever desires it/ say with me from the bottom of his heart Amen!”^[68]

Repentance and rebirth are central themes in the sermon and they are discussed extensively by the preacher. Such aspects were of great importance for Pietist piety, even if the connection between baptism and rebirth was not an invention of Pietism.^[69] In this case, however, it was probably mainly the influence of Johann Arndt’s thoughts and writings that was reflected in the corresponding interpretations of baptism and its life-changing implications, which Wülfer may have adopted from Dilherr.^[70]

The second part of the print includes the “Historical Report of the Entire Course of Events.”^[71] In this, we learn that Michael was sent to Nuremberg in October of that year at the age of twenty-three. He had caught the eye of a Regensburg clergyman because of his profound knowledge of Hebrew, who then sent him to Nuremberg. The council paid for his living expenses during this time, not least because he had expressed his intention to become a Christian. According to Wülfer, the corresponding catechism lessons quickly bore fruit and further strengthened this desire to convert.^[72]

A brief time later, an examination of his knowledge determined that it would be sufficient for the “bath of rebirth,” i.e., baptism. Several Nuremberg notables and clergy offered to support this act and function as “sponsors of the Christian faith,” or Godparents. The baptismal sponsors included several of the leading patricians from Nuremberg and the author lists them all by name.^[73] Taking on the role of godparenthood for a Jew who was baptized was, it seems, not only a Christian duty and an honorary position, but apparently also an opportunity to accumulate symbolic and social capital.^[74]

Following this section is a detailed “examination report” similar to those examined by Michael J. Halvorson for the late sixteenth century.^[75] The preacher asked Michael sixteen questions about the Christian faith, all of which he answered in detail. In the context of several questions, however, it was important that he expressed repeatedly a clear distance to his previous religion. In the third question, the preacher asked him to give an account of what had moved him to renounce Judaism. He answered: “That I do not trust to be saved in the Jewish religion and am certain, because of the fulfilment of all prophecies, that the Messiah has come and that he is Jesus Christ, in whom all things will be fulfilled.”^[76] Later he was asked why he called himself a lost and damned man. He replied that “[n]ot only because I was stuck in Jewish blindness and if I had remained in it, I would have been lost for all time, but also because since Adam all people are by nature children of wrath through original sin, and we can all only be saved through Jesus Christ, not by our own merit.”^[77] The commitment to Christianity always takes the form of a firm rejection of Judaism, in which nothing positive remains. The purpose of the examination is therefore to establish alterity to the previous faith and to ensure that the baptized person has adopted a minimum level of commitment to Christianity.

After a series of positive statements about the Christian faith and the corresponding dissociations from Judaism, including another round of questions in which he renounces the devil and all his powers, Michael is finally baptized. In this context, he was given a new name, decided by his godparents: Burkhard Christopher Leonhard, which were the first names of the three most prominent patricians.^[78] At the end, Michael/Burkhard received gifts from his godparents, including a baptismal golden shilling. This once again emphasizes the economic dimension of the event. The report then concludes with a long prayer. With the new name, the transition to the new Christian identity has been successfully completed, at least ideally. This is especially true in the sense that the baptized person’s salvation as a believing Christian seems to be assured.

4 Michael’s/Burkhard’s Return to Judaism via the Jesuits

Michael’s story does not end with his successful conversion and baptism, as we know from sources of the eighteenth century. In 1755 the Nuremberg scholar Andreas Würfel published his History of the Jewish Community in Nuremberg until their exculpation in the year 1499 which includes a chapter on the “Lives of some of the Jews who were baptized in Nuremberg and the related documents.”^[79] Würfel largely recounts the act that had also been recorded in the sermon. Then, he claims, one wanted to send Michael to Altdorf university because of his impressive command of Hebrew. This was, as has been shown, quite a common procedure. But then Würfel explains: “But his zeal soon waned. As early as October 1660, he ran to Amberg under the guidance of the Jesuits and apostatized there. In the end, the fraudster reconverted to Judaism.”^[80] From Würfel’s point of view, without us knowing his sources, Michael was an imposter who never really converted to Christianity.

Elisheva Carlebach describes Michael’s case in her seminal book as evidence that

[s]ome converts from Judaism proceeded from one denomination to the other, claiming that they had not found their true place in the first. The competition between denominations brought benefits to potential converts, allowing them more spiritual latitude. On the other hand, Christian converters now began to view Jewish converts as potential defectors to others, so they could never be regarded as truly converted.^[81]

This corresponds with other observations of converts, as observed by Hillard von Thiessen, who described the readiness to convert as a means for gaining a livelihood.^[82] It cannot be ruled out that this economic component also may have played a role in Michael’s case, as it provided him with gifts from his godparents as well as the prospect of studying and being employed at the University of Altdorf. This is not to say, however, that the convert had no serious intentions in the first place. Regardless, this example shows how complicated such conversions were perceived to be by contemporaries. The considerable effort made by the preacher Daniel Wülfer to affirm the credibility and legitimacy of this endeavour makes this very clear.^[83]

5 Conclusion

The case of Michael of Prague is exceptional for Nuremberg, and a telling example of how conversions offer insights into the normative regimes of a society.^[84] However, what strikes me are the normative intentions expressed in Wülfer’s publication. On the one hand, the superiority of the Christian faith was made clear. On the other hand, this related to the demand that this faith should have consequences in people’s lives. Baptismal sermons were therefore also used as an opportunity to convey the central tenets of the Christian faith and were certainly customized to the specific individual case. However, it also becomes clear that the ambivalence of Nuremberg’s confessional framework in the seventeenth century was reflected in Michael von Prag’s conversion as well. Had he really been made a Lutheran? The questions he was asked in the context of his baptism tended to emphasize basic Christian insights and were primarily interested in his turning away from Judaism. His conversion was supposed to stress the superiority of Lutheranism.

This short episode is not suitable for a history of philosemitism, especially since the person of Michael of Prague hardly seems to be of interest. He is a means to an end for the author of the publication. Of interest were, above all, his skills of Hebrew – to deepen the understanding of the Old Testament – and his willingness to become a Christian and thus increase the capital in the broadest sense of the Nuremberg church and patricians. Yet, Wülfer’s remarks also show how great the reservations against Jewish converts were that he wanted to counter in his printed sermon. However, there is no real interest in Judaism beyond its usefulness for dealing with the Bible in this example, which, however, is not uncommon for this time. The hegemony and cultural superiority of the Christian faith was never in question for the majority of society in Nuremberg.^[85] Through its aftermath, however, this case also offers an important insight into the independence and agency with which people in the seventeenth century were able to utilize the possibilities of the religious market.