In 1523, Luther wrote that Jesus Christ was born a Jew which discouraged mistreatment of the Jews and advocated their conversion by proving that the Old Testament could be shown to speak of Jesus Christ. However, as the Reformation continued, Luther began to lose hope in large-scale Jewish conversion to Christianity. In his later years, Luther grew more hostile toward the Jews, writing against them with the kind of venom he had already unleashed on the Anabaptists, Zwinglianism, and the papacy. His 1543 treatise Von den Juden und ihren Lügen (On the Jews and Their Lies) took its place among other anti-Jewish literature of the times, although historians acknowledge that this treatise was particularly extreme, even by the standards of sixteenth century Europe. In it, he takes a hardline against Judaism, writing that synagogues and Jewish homes should be destroyed, their money confiscated, and liberty curtailed. These statements and their influence on antisemitism have contributed to his controversial status.