GERMANY. Sachsen, Thüringen und Schlesien (Śląsk). Medal 1687 (Tin, 43 mm, 26.50 g, 11 h), so-called 'Kamelschluckermedaille' mocking the scribes and Pharisees. By C. Wermuth. 'der wieder auff-gestandene Phariseer' A Jew standing facing, his tallit drawn over his head, 'Matth:xxiii•' below. Rev. 'Mücken Säuger und Kamel= Schlucker' A Black man walking left catches gnats, which he collects in a jar set on a small table before him, while swallowing a camel. Antoine-Feill, II, 3928. Goppel 1222 (this piece). Domanig (1907) 840 var. (slightly differing reverse). Kirschner 4. Stern 216. Wohlfahrt 87003. Very rare. Light marks and some deposits, otherwise, very fine.



This very rare 'Kamelschluckermedaille' (‘camel-swallower medal’ in German) illustrates Christ’s rebuke of the Pharisees in Matthew 23:23–24, where He condemns religious leaders for obsessing over minor ritual details while neglecting the weightier demands of justice, mercy, and faithfulness.

The reverse depicts the biblical image of one who ‘strains out a gnat and swallows a camel,’ symbolizing a person who scrupulously avoids trivial faults while remaining blind to far greater moral failings. On the obverse, a Jewish scholar is shown with deliberately exaggerated phylacteries and garment fringes, alluding to Matthew 23:5 and Christ’s criticism of outward displays of piety.

Issued in 1687 and attributed to Christian Wermuth of Gotha, the medal belongs to a group of Pietist moralizing medals that used biblical imagery to advocate personal religious reform. Particularly popular in Silesia, it reflects early modern Protestant criticism of what was perceived as empty formalism in matters of faith.

At the same time, however, the medal is unmistakably anti-Judaic in its visual language. Although its immediate polemical target was religious hypocrisy and formalism, it employs the visibly practicing Jew as a negative embodiment of the ‘Pharisee,’ thereby transferring a New Testament polemic onto contemporary Jewish religious life. The exaggerated depiction of specifically Jewish ritual observance turns Judaism itself into a visual shorthand for misguided or insincere piety.

In this sense, the medal is an instructive example of early modern Christian anti-Judaism: its message is theological rather than based on the racialized concepts characteristic of modern antisemitism, yet it nevertheless reinforces a long-standing tradition of portraying Judaism as spiritually deficient and opposed to ‘true’ Christian faith.