A popular sermon fabricated a dying doctor’s confession of mass murder

Evidence

In one of his firebrand sermons, the formidable Dominican preacher Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350–1419), who exerted himself to incite strong anti-Jewish sentiments among his Christian audience, warned the latter to avoid Jewish doctors, surgeons and apothecaries precisely because of the danger that they represented to their patients: They wish a greater evil upon us Christians than we wish upon the Devil …. A certain Jewish doctor who was about to die said [the following] to those who were present and weeping: ‘Do not cry, for it does not pain me to die. This is because I have caused the death of over five hundred Christians thanks to my medicine.’ — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 366

Categorization

• SHARE: This fake deathbed confession accusing a Jewish doctor of killing 500 Christians is a vivid early example of fabricated confession rhetoric worth sharing with someone studying antisemitic tropes.