August Rohling (15 February 1839 at Neuenkirchen, Province of Westphalia,

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an ...

– 23 January 1931 in

Salzburg Salzburg (, ; literally "Salt-Castle"; bar, Soizbuag, label= Austro-Bavarian) is the fourth-largest city in Austria. In 2020, it had a population of 156,872. The town is on the site of the Roman settlement of ''Iuvavum''. Salzburg was founded ...

) was a German Catholic theologian, student of anti-Semitic texts, and

polemical Polemic () is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called ''polemics'', which are seen in arguments on controversial topics ...

author. He studied at

Münster Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state di ...

and Paris, and became professor successively at the

University of Münster The University of Münster (german: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, WWU) is a public research university located in the city of Münster, North Rhine-Westphalia in Germany. With more than 43,000 students and over 120 fields of stud ...

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee ...

, and

Charles University in Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

, retiring in 1901. He wrote polemics against

Protestantism Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...

and

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in t ...

. Of his anti-Jewish works ''Der Talmudjude'' (Münster, 1871) became a standard work for anti-Semitic authors and journalists. It is a faulty abstract of the ''Entdecktes Judenthum'' of

Johann Andreas Eisenmenger Johann Andreas Eisenmenger (1654 in Mannheim – 20 December 1704 in Heidelberg) was a German Orientalist from the Electorate of the Palatinate, now best known as the author of ''Entdecktes Judenthum'' (''Judaism Unmasked''), which was published i ...

. The book first appeared when Bismarck inaugurated his anti-Catholic legislation, as a retort to the attacks made by liberal journals on the dogma of

papal infallibility Papal infallibility is a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope when he speaks '' ex cathedra'' is preserved from the possibility of error on doctrine "initially given to the apos ...

and on Jesuitic textbooks.The origin of Der Talmudjude is narrated in Allg. Zeit. des Jud. 1871, p. 674; and material on the lawsuits in which Rohling became involved by his polemical writings is found in Joseph Kopp, Zur Judenfrage nach den Akten des Prozesses Rohling-Bloch, Leipsic, 1886, and in the Jüdische Presse, 1902, No. 46. The book was extensively quoted by the Catholic press, but it did not become a political force until the appearance of anti-Semitism, and the

Tiszaeszlár Affair The Tiszaeszlár Affair was originally a murder case which was represented in journals as a blood libel that led to a trial that set off anti-semitic agitation in Austria-Hungary in 1882 and 1883. After the disappearance of a local girl, Eszter ...

in 1883.

Franz Delitzsch Franz Delitzsch (23 February 1813, in Leipzig – 4 March 1890, in Leipzig) was a German Lutheran theologian and Hebraist. Delitzsch wrote many commentaries on books of the Bible, Jewish antiquities, Biblical psychology, as well as a history of ...

defended Judaism against the attacks of Rohling. At the same time Josef Samuel Bloch wrote articles in which he accused Rohling of ignorance and of forgery of the texts. Rohling sued Bloch for libel, but withdrew the suit at the last moment. Later on he greeted the appearance of

Zionism Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after '' Zion'') is a nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is known in Je ...

as the solution of the

Jewish question The Jewish question, also referred to as the Jewish problem, was a wide-ranging debate in 19th- and 20th-century European society that pertained to the appropriate status and treatment of Jews. The debate, which was similar to other " national ...

and wrote a pamphlet against Güdemann's "Das Judenthum in Seinen Grundzügen," etc. Those of Rohling's works which concern the Jews are, in addition to "Der Talmudjude": *"Katechismus des 19. Jahrhunderts für Juden und Protestanten," Mayence, 1878 *"Franz Delitzsch und die Judenfrage," Prague, 1881 *"Fünf Briefe über den Talmudismus und das Blutritual der Juden," ib. 1881 *"Die Polemik und das Menschenopfer des Rabbinismus," Paderborn, 1883; *"Die Ehre Israels: Neue Briefe an die Juden," Prague, 1889 *"Auf nach Zion," ib. 1901 *"Das Judenthum nach Neurabbinischer Darstellung der Hochfinanz Israels," Munich, 1903. Of the polemical literature against Rohling the oldest work is Kroner's "Entstelltes, Unwahres und Erfundenes in dem Talmudjuden Professor Dr. August Rohling's," Münster, 1871. Distinguished by scholarship are the two pamphlets of Delitzsch, "Rohling's Talmudjude Beleuchtet" (Leipzig, 1881) and "Schachmatt den Blutlügnern Rohling und Justus" (2d ed., Erlangen, 1883).

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* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rohling, August 1839 births 1931 deaths 19th-century German Catholic theologians Late modern Christian antisemitism Academic staff of Charles University People from Steinfurt (district) People from the Province of Westphalia Academic staff of the University of Münster University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee faculty

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