Yerushalmi.marranos in the 17th Century Pgs. 1-26

8/3/2019 Yerushalmi.marranos in the 17th Century Pgs. 1-26

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i, Yosef; From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto; Columbia University Press; 1971; Pgs, 1-25

Chap ter

MARRANOS IN THESEVENTEENTH CENTURY

And what will it profit our lord and kito pour holy water on the Je ....S, callithem by our names, 'Pedro,' or 'Pablowhile they keep their faith like AkibaTarfon ? ... Know, Sire, that Judaism


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A 1.a rr anos in th e S ev ent ee nth Centuryall significance in Portugal a F i = u th~ mass m-11Q$mQ(-J-}7. In thesixteenth and seventeenth oen~uriJ'!S~aridl ~n latCF, Peninsularpresses still sent forth books and. tracts. ,directeQ QlllWa "A Y judfos denue s tr o s t iempo s (agail'lsf ,t!hcJ~ oFQur ili'~ r I D . A l l e g o o Judaizerscontinued to be p!;nancoo 'I'll" ,,~Jru.;td fQl" burning b" [he- inQuisitorialtribunals, and the MPy]a.;;~ f l _ o c _ k e d to *publie s~ta.C-,.I;c of thea~!o-~a-ji.Lo~g aitl!J' m e I~j ~~CSj had, ~ dl!di~. to theVr rgrn, Spanish and ,Plllrt1lJU~ pulPlb nmg lIrith ~nl1nClatIOIlS ofthe J ewish perfidy, Th-c' ! 'jcw" W3'S itiU: au objeet of,satire on thestage and in the d~n!rrdQ(~, ill~ SIftftL Il-.....:n o(Jcwishplots to subvert Spain ,00000dyet pall s W i W y dIraagh Itb ~os ofMadrid. A Spaniard: 'OIi' iPoJf~r who upi.ned G Q I Io non , o r officeshad very much tlEiWO!lY1 'm ~nUng 'his gen~ (or inspection,lest a Jew be found~I~.tmgingIl(iii a . I'e~ lJranc::'hJrthf: !amily tree,The sambenuos W : f l\ c h !had been wpro by those n!OOIlciled by theInquisition hung aft~rwams tlbroyg'ft~ade ,and generations inthe churches where their- gfandchildttn pr ay"td . ,Br oadi ido postedin public places still di_spIa,ea a list oreharacteristic J t : M s h cere-monies, and called upon the ra'ithful -toae-nounce'~ 'whom theyknew to be following the cxe(rablre' ri~ of m e l . a w ~ci ~. .To a Spaniard or Po]"tugucs~ Qfd1~~~ C C D l ' W " J m i ! : Iphrase

"Jews of our times" was neitn~r an ra:batract: iannar a w~~m-Itmight well apply to SOme of his own DC"Chbars, even though theybore authentic Iberian Christian nar~~ WId,he u,w them regul;uflyat Mass in the cathedral, and the wa,US(lfthtir MttlCS wercad~rLl(.


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M arra nos in th e Se ve nte enth C entur ycentury onward, the Spanish Inquisition turned increasingly fromthe prosecution of J udaizers to that of Protestant and other heresies.Those nonconformist impulses which still retained some vitalityamong the offspring of the Converses seem to have found an outletin mvstical or Erasrnian currents within Spanish Catholicism itsdPWhil:: the presence of this leaven is of considerable interest for theintellectual history of Spain, the fact remains that in the course ofI the sixteenth ccnturv the Spanish Conversos disappear, progres-Isivcly, from the ken ~f Je\"ish history.

If Spain in the seventeenth century was obsessed once again witha Judaizing heresy, that was due to the massive influx, beginningafter 1580, of the Portuguese New Christ ians.Both the genesis and the development of the Converso problem

in Portugal differed significantly from that of Spain. LusitanianJewry had not suffered the slow dcbiliiative process of erosion whichtheir Hispanic brethren had endured from 1391 to 1492. Their innerstrength had not been sapped by periodic massacre, waves ofconvcrsionisr panic, and a culminating expulsion of those who hadremained constant. When, in 1497, the death knell sounded for openr The New Christian share in the propagation of !6th-cenlUr)"Erasmian and

allied tendencie s has been fully demonstra ted by ~tar


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_ j\Ja rr anos m th e S ev Ctltccm h C e ntllr }community had remained throughout, even though eroded anddiminished in number, outside the pale of conversion. Schematically.we mip;hl outline the progression in both countries as follows:In Spain: a) Before 1391

b) 1391- [492c) After I.t92

The Jewish community.Conver~osplu5 the jewish community.Converses minus the expelled Jcwishcommuniry.The Jewish community .A converted Jewi~h community, mi-nus individual exiles.

In Portugal: 1 ) Before [497b) After 1497

In effect, Portugal skipped the intermediate phase through whichSpain had passed: the existence, side by side, of Converses and anormative Jewish community. Consequently, the intervals betweenconversion and the establishment of the Inquisition (1391-1478 inSpain, 1497-1536 in Portugal) are, although superficially parallel,not at all analogous in the two countries. We must try to envisionat least some ofthe implications of this fundamental datum. Itmeansfirst that in Portugal, unlike Spain, there was no period of tensionbetween Con versos and professing Jews, for after Lf97 all who hadbeen Jews .....re suddenly converts. Portuguese Jewry thus evadedthe corrosive intracommunal and intrafamiiial ruptun:'s which con-version had brought to Spanish J


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M ana nos in th e Se ve nte en th C e nturyargument that Judaizers hardly exist in the Spain of his time." Byt6.fo the royal chronicler jose Pelliccr y Tovar cries out in frustrationthat "one of the calamities which must be considered with thegreatest attention and grief is to sec Spain filled on all sides withJews, enemies of our Holy Catholic Faith !"lO His voice is only oneamong many. A Spain which, in the late sixteenth century, hadthought itself largdy freed of Jewish concerns, now found itself inthe seventeenth century obsessed once more with the age-old prob-lem. The pendulum, after completing its are, had swung back toits point of origin. The incursion into Spain of Portuguese NewChrist ians was of such dimensions and impact that, to the Spaniardsof the seventeenth century, "Portuguese" was virtually synonymouswith "Jew." So close was the identification that in r646 the JesuitSebastian Gonzales could describe several Portuguese, who had beenarrested by the Inquisition in Madrid, as having been imprisonedsimply fo r what l h C )' a r e .ll The Portuguese people themselves com-plained that often, when traveling abroad, they were automaticallystigmatized as Judaizers, simply became of their land of origin.12

"PUc> quien no v" en quan difcrente ," 't.ado se halla ahora d reyno, y quantascguridad hay en gen.:ral de 11'.genre qu" ticnc alguna raza ?" in Augustin Salucio,[)il~lm(J( Ju rc a d e l a j us ti ci a y b [ "" g a i Ji n- no ,u E sp aiia e n /05 estatutos ,u l im p in :: a d " s an gr e ,printed in Snm,IJIMtr , (TUd,l/J. XV (.\!adrid, 1788). 165.

10 "lk vordad, una d. la-, desdichas que SC debcn rcparar con mas atenciony lasrima, ~.,ver a Espana tan llena por todos ]ados deJudios, enernigos de nuestruSanta r I O Catolica," in J a s . c . Pellicer y Tovar. ,k~J!>.f JdJ t dy icQ$ , q u e comp, thm4nt la smJ~ii:-jas.'1 !f1K"MlJJ jAfff'1li:;~/


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Marranos In th e S ev ente enth C e ntur yranos" wen: a p a r t of the Kew Christian !;roup, but were notcoextensive with it. Only if we bear this distinction in mind canwe hope to arrive at an appreciation of Marranisrn itself, especiallyas it was manifested in the seventeenth century.

THE ({AfEN OF THE NATION)}Let us first examine the larger entity.Against the background of Peninsular life in the seventeenth

century the New Christians confront us, before all else, as a socialclass which had been compelled, through the generations, to bearthe curse and stigma of its Je w -ish origins. While individual familiesof Converso descendants in this period could be absorbed success-fully into the Old Christian society, the majority remained a sepa-rate, unintcgratcd group. The basic pattern had already crystallizedin the fifteenth century with the formulation in Spain of the firststatutes of so-called lim pit

scholars has seenfit 10 discuss the Visiaorhic leqislation in this conge.n",ml insjxtance on the break in continuity betwee-n \ i ,igolhChristian Spain does not .1ft"'ct the importance of Vi,ignthic kgaUnfortunarelv, beyond the treatment or the J"",, in Visieorhic lalmost nothing ofJrwi.,h lift"in Spain durinl( Ih:1I period. For;, suc


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M arra nos in ,be Sevente enth C enturyinvalidate all the former legal disabilities. The Jewish chroniclerSolomon ibn Verga, himself an exile from Spain, undoubtedlyreflects the mood of many Spanish Christians in his day when, ina fictitious dialogue, he records the advice allegedly given by acourtier to a king of Spain:There is nothing to be gained by their conversion. They will ratherbecome overweening against the true Christians, without fear, once theyare held to appear as Christians. And the laws of the kingdom whichused to be given while they were Jews will no longer be issued. ISThe statutes of limpicza must be understood in this context. Theyoriginated as an attempt, ultimately successful , to find new juridicalmeans to impose legal restrictions against the Converso, now thatthe old laws which had been formulated against professing Jews nolonger applied. Thus they mark the ironic retaliation of Iberiansociety against the intrusion of the Jew through a conversion towardwhich that same society had labored so assiduously.The older Jewry laws had been predicated on a distinction inreligion. The Jew belonged to a different community of faith which

was tolerated within the Christian state, but for which a specialbody oflegislation was necessary and justifiable. If new barriers wereto be erected they could no longer be based on a divergence offaith which, theoretically at least, no longer existed. Though itmight conceivably be embellished with theological rationales, theonly foundation remaining for special legislation against the Con-verso and his descendants was necessarily an ethnic one. Not faithbut blood was to be the decisive factor. In subsequent centuriesapologists for the statutes would try to justify them by generalallegations concerning the heretical proclivities of the descendan tsof the Jews. But significantly, anJonc of known Jewish ancestry,regardless of his personal piety, belonged automatically to the classof those subject to the statutes. Lim pie ; d e sangre came to over-shadow lim pie ea d e ft.

The ((M en'?!accept the statutes of l impiee in the initial phases.which had come into the world proclaiming its indifdistinction between Jew and Greek, the theological oobvious. In addition, some authorities sensed immeditential dangers of such laws for a land in which Chriand Moorish blood had mingled for centuries. WhenEstatuto, excluding persons of Jewish extraction frooffices in Toledo, was passed in 1449 at the instigation1n0'or Pedro Sarmiento, the subsequent outcry causedabeyance. It was opposed by the king, by the Pprominent clergy and statesmen. But although the col imp i a . .a de sangre was to continue for centuries in boPortugal, the progress of the statutes was inexorable.following 1,149 saw a gradual multipl ication of the statsporadically by various corporate bodies in SpanishThe most serious impetus came in 15'P, when a

instituted by the archbishop J uan Martinez Silicco,gat~'d in the Cathedral Chapter of Toledo. Again, aswas considerable vocal opposition. But this statute wstand and, indeed, to serve as the classic model. Inratified by Pope Paul VI and a year later it was upheldrhus setting the seal of royal and papal approval on awas already firmly cstablishcd.s? It is noteworthy thatmcnt took place just at the time when the last discerof crypto-judaism were disappearing and the Spanishtians seem to have been on the threshold of completeYet from this point on lim picr de sa ng re rapidly becamrequirement for entry into almost any important hoin Spain. As the network of statutes multiplied, it wasa Significant area of Spanish public life which did nthe candidate p r ue h as d e l im p ie t: a, certifying him to be frof Jewish or Moorish blood. From Spain the statut


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Afarranos in t he S ev en te en th C e nt ur yPortug-al. When the Portuguese New Christians began to flow intoSpain after 1580, they found the statutes rampant everywhere. Bythe ~evcnteel1th century the corporations in Spain with requirementsof l impieza included: the military orders (Santiago, Calatrava, A1-c.intara, and others) ; judicial tribunals, among them the Inquisitionitself; cathedrals and Chapters; various religious orders; the colegiosma)"OT(S at the universities; certain provinces and towns; public andmunicipal offices ; brotherhoods and confraternities.The statutes, and the mentality they repn:sented, perpetuated the

distinction between New and Old Christians for centuries. They thushelped to maintain a class consciousness even among those descen-dants of the original Converses whose Jewish awareness had atro-phied. The fact is that few of them were able to forget their originscompletely, even if they may have wished to do so. The statuteswert: as forceful a reminder of their Jewish extraction as the insultsto which they were often subjected in daily life. For the term "NewChristian" was both a social stigma and a legal categ-ory. The twopre~sun:s reinforced one another sufficiently to mark the entire groupas a classapart.But there was also another factor which contributed significantlyto the self-awareness of this class. If legal disabilities and socialbarriers provided the negative impulses, the economic sphere pro-vided a positive catalyst.It is no accident that in sixteenth- and seventeenth-ccntury Por-

tugal one of the recurring synonyms for cristaos I'!OWJ is h om cns derzcg'Jrios--"\kn of Affairs." The phrase is a terminological witnessto the bet that in the Portuguese mind the New Christians were,above all, the men of business and cornmcrcc.s! This appraisal wasnot unjustified, for in these centuries the New Christians wereubiquitous in every area of Portug-uese commerce and high finance.

~I. }\ "lriki.ng parallel is (0Ix found in Southern Italy scyeral centuries earlier.

Th e ( 'Men oj t hAt times, indeed, they seemed in a position of almost totMuch of overseas trade was in their hands. They virtupolized the traffic in sugar, slaves, spices, and other comoditics.P Their commercial links extended to the mercnics of New Christian lmigrls scattered throughout tht: was to the Jl:wish centers of Europe and the Ncar East.also proved to be family ties. Various members of the sacould be found Ji\'ing in Portugal as New Christians, i"Portuguese," and in Holland, Italy, or the OttomanJews. Far from being an obstacle, the dispersion and diveraffiliations of the various relatives often gave them aladvantage over their commercial rivals in the internationalWithin Portugal itself the New Christians of the six

seven tccnth centuries may be regarded as approximating

u "Porque ~S~ poco 0 mucho dinero que ticne "I Reyno, "]]0'Christians] 10 manejan ... " writes Duaru- Gumez Solis in I(j22s . -d ! r; r W I (0_'. d ~ l$$ d f ) S I n i . i a . s . "d. M""""" Bensabat /\nnah,k (Lp. 20. Speaking of till" Portuguese empire, hecontinues: "~Vde 1nerbio el corncrcio, qu .1010 J(sustmta mtr /OJ m"C(ld"i;~ de la easta HSU'> industrias 1 0 ilustraron, )' sin ellos quedavan todos los comercy a. :;ahados, porque I... nobleza de 10 ' cri st ianos viejos 110 se precia dni quando 10 s ea 1\0 riene la industria de 10:


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h fa rr ano5 in t h e S e vent e en th Centurygcoisie. They were, classically, the urban middle class.26 Aft~r theunion of 1580 they came to occupy a similar position in Spam. Inboth countries the New Christians were particularly suited to fillthe vacuum between a peasantry which could not rise and anaristocracv whose disdain for all forms of commercial activity waspro verbial. From this vantage point, w e :hould also understa~d anaspect which has perhaps not been suffiCl~ntly str~ss~d-that in thesixteenth and seventeenth centuries the New Chnsuans pcrfonnedan economic function and occupied a socioeconomic position some-what analogous to [hat of their Jewish forebean in the Middle Ages.The homcm d e rlcg6dos, whether a modest tradesman, tax fanner,or court financier. was descended by more than blood alone fromthe JC\o,'of the aljamo.26Bonds of economic interest and endeavor must have enhancedsignificantly the sense of group cohesion among the New ?hristiansof the Peninsula. Though representatives of all occupatIons. wereto be found among them, and a considerable number were Simpleartisans and petty merchants, they were on the whole a p~osperousclass. Some, indeed, amassed huge fortunes. Although t~elr wea.l thwas a perpetual subject for attack and propaganda by their enermes,~~On the ~cncrally urban and bourgeoi


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A [a rra nos in th { Scwnlle nth C enturywas necessary. Everyone understood what was meant. If the termo r n t O O , s UOIlI@ had a theological ring to it, and IWmCt1I dtr.r.eg6ciosemerged directly from the economic realm, the phr:tsl' l / 1 J m ~ r f . . J r i aIIGfao had an exclusively ethnic impact. The "Nation" is the Jewishnation, understood in Portugal as including anyone of Jewish orig-in.No more eloquent testimony is needed to demonstrate for us thatthe primary category with which we arc dealing is an ethnic one,though it is conditioned by socioeconomic factors.H Here, then, isthe profoundcr meaning of that conversion of the total communityin Portugal, whose significance in anot hcr COIIIext we have alreadyremarked. As the medieval Jewish community represented a "na-tional" unit of a nation in exile, so the convcrn-d community is110l a mere agglollleration of individuals, It continues in the eyesof the Portuguese to pussess a national characteristic, which indeedit bequeath, to su bsequcnt generations. ao

IN~rid~: r fO!.rmdi14M do tJWfio r f , : /1f'(}G/!,j.rr r I " , brqu,mfl iCI tQ,~"

lv [a r ra nism: S om e A fe t/J od olo gi(aIt should be stressed that this survival of the ethnic

group provided the very ground on which Marranism mand that without it the phenomenon of Marrano rehave been ephemeral at best. In other words, it was thexistence in the Peninsula of a me tamo rp h o se d } tl J.


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MRn-QJIOS in t b e S f1 .I tn tc entb Cen turysn.Jy would derive scant benefit from a detailed polemic on thereality of Marranism in the fifteenth century.az Even if it weredemonstrated conclusively that the Spanish Marranos had effcc-tivcly shed their Jewish identity prior to the establishment of theInquisition, this would by .no means rule out the existence of aclandestine Judaism in subsequent periods. Conversely, I assumethat no array of evidence for a genuine Marranisrn in the seventeenthcentury will necessarily persuade the proponents of the thesis asto its existence in the fifteenth. For the fact is that any crypto-Jewish phenomenon after [478 is automatically attributed by themto the stimulus of the Inquisition itself.33Nonetheless, the thesis dOL"Shave implications for the later periods as well. Despite the obviousdifferences between the fifteenth- and seventeenth-century situa-t ions, such methodological problems as the comparative reliabil ityof rabbinic rcsponsa and inquisitorial documents arc common toboth.3~ Above all, the question of defining so essentially vague aconstruction by Revah, "Les marranes," pp. 4:)-47. The most serious andthorough attempt to sustain such a thesis ! . s . B. Netanyahu's exhaustive study ofT IY ...larr01IOJ oj Spa in jrom IIY Late XIV t h 10 IIIL Ea rly X Vlth C (f!iW )' A ccording 10C o nlr mf > Cr ar ;' H eb rn o S ou rc es (New York, 1966). A companion volume on non-Hebrew sources is in preparation.

3J The reader is referred to the review of Nctanyahu's book by Ger-ton D. Cohenin J=isir Social Studies, XXIX (1967), 17S--S4, with whose strictures my 0"71generally coincide." E. g. , :' \c tanyahu, Mar r ano s of SPain, p. 3' "It was not a powerful Marrano

movement that provoked the establishmenc of the Inqutsieion, but it "as theInquisition that caused the temporary resurgence of the Spanish Marranomovement." Cf. infra, n. 62.,_,Nctanyahu recognizes that the forced conversion of Portuguese Jewry in L~97

introduced a new configuration to the Marrano problem, Ho .....ver, since hemakes no real distinction between Spanish and Portuguese Marranisrn, he argue:"that this new "cycle" of Marranisrn ended "a century later with the same evalua-lion of ~he Portuguese Marranos that ..... found expressed regarding the ir Spanish

Mar ra nism : S om e M etbodolog icaterm as the "Jewishness" of the Marranos meri ts our ci('Qnly because it forces us to consider the nature of Marand the peculiar circumstances of Marrano life.Let us recognize at the outset that few phenomena

dusive of historical scrutiny than a secret religionranean life has been documented largely by its antagoesse of Marranism we are, of course, largely depeninquisitorial dossiers preserved in the Spanish and Pdrives. Here arc recorded myriad interrogations andNew Christians which arc replete with the most mconcerning their Jewish beliefs and practices. On thethere exist abo a considerable number of rcsponsa wriof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which impucharacter of the Marranos, or regard them as total Chare these conflicting testimonies to be properly evaluconciled?The basic credibility of the inquisitorial documentseasily established, and to do so it is not necessary to

controversy on the original aims of the Spanish InqWe can easily concede that its purposL~ were not exclusbut were mixed with certain polit ical and pragmatic cStill, one fact is germane: the archival records of thwere kept in the very strictest secrecy for the usc of inqand remained so until the abolition of the Holy Officteenth century, To regard these documents as a meansthe fiction of crypto-] udaism for propaganda purposstrange dilemma. It would mean that, in recordingJudaizing practices into the dossiers of the accused,were purposely transcribing a tissue of lies for the peinquisitors who were engaged in the same conspiracymanifestly absurd. Certainly we must approach thecritically, bearing in mind the possibility of false d


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,M ar ra nos in th e S ev ente enth C e ntur ythe ....I,;sl. Of distortions there may be many, but the recording of.Judaizing confessions was nut an intramural game.J5 To view theinquisitors as involved in what amounts tu a universal conspiracyof fabrication is to ignore the mentality of men of a bygone day,and to flatter them with Machiavellian intentions aucl capabilitiessomewhat beyond their reach. Idced, in one seventeenth-centurycase which I shall analyze in detail in chapter III, that of theso-called Cristo If f /a Pacicnda, there seems to be little doubt thatthe victims were innocent of the specific charge on which they Wereconvicted. However, that conclusion is ro be derived not from ageneric dismissal of the rcliahility of inquisitorial documents but,quite to the contrary, by examining the internal evidence containedin the comprehensive dossiers so meticulously assembled in the case.As we shall sec, the inquisitorial notaries did not level the recordedtestimonies of witnesses to conform to one another, nor did theyomit or disguise the douhts which even some of the inquisitorsthemselves entertained as to the guilt of the accused. Even in thiscase, where justice was perverted, the documents were not.The prohlcm of the rabbinic Rcsponsa is more complcx.t" One. can certainly present an array of rabbis, from Spanish exiles of thefifteenth ceut urv to Turkish authorities of the seventeenth, whoexpressed their dismay at the Mar ranos of Spain and Portugal anddenied that they were to he any longer considered as Jews. Onecan also point to ,1 significant number who thought othcrwisc.F But"' For" similar approach to the reliability of Jewish information recorded in

the 13th and r4th ceruuries by the Papa Inqui-i tion, see my study, "TheInquisition and the J"", of France in 'he Time of Bernard Gui," RUI.~I~TJHebra icS# ..di~" 1 (196;5) , ' :~p~"Ci" lly pp. 3f -6u (on th. . . Jewi ,h information in Cui " Praau:alrJ'I""i5itioFI.iJ).~

,I., The st;",da,rd surveys .)f the Re>I)On~ litcmtuy


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M ar ra nos in th e Se ve nte enth C entur yTurkish Je wish community and desire to remarry. Should therabbinic authorities put forth the view that the Converses of Spainand Portugal were st ill considered asJews, the results for this womancould be disastrous. for then she would still be subject to leviratemarriage with the brother of her deceased husband. If he shouldrefuse to leave {he Peninsula and perform the ceremony of release(hali{ah), she might remain an


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.j\{a rr anos in t he S ev ent ee nt h C e ntur yc) failure to emigrate from the Peninsula at those times whe-nthe means and opportunity Were present.The artificiality of these criteria is readily apparent. The-y an:

based on fixed categories from which the human and psychologicaldimensions are entirely absent. Undoubtedly, within the frame workof that which the Jewish halakha expects of a professing Jew, theCOl1\'ctsOS and their descendants were very poor Jews indeed. Butis observance of precepts a realistic standard by which to judge-them? Surely, if they were renegades from the point of view of acontl:mporary rabbi, this still dOLO;:not mean that they could notalso have been heretics in the cycs of an Inquisitor. "Public" and"private" also hard I)' providi. an illuminating distinction in anatmosphere of universal fear w here even children intentionally orlltlwittitlgh' betrayed their own parents to the Holy Office. As forthe pragmatic test of emigration and flight, we can apply it onlyill rct rospec! to those who actually took the step. For those whoremained behind this test is inadequate. It glosses over the com-plexity of human motivations, and displays little tolerance for humanfrailties.\Ve have but to apply the rabbinic standards to Marrano figures

in thc seventeenth century of whose .Jt:wish aspirations there is nodoubt. Thus, it is relatively easy to perceive the "Jewishness" ofrhose who had already emigrated, simply by considering theirsubsequent Jewish careers. But how ....ould the rabbinic criteria availus in assessing the life of the vcry same persons prior to theiremigration? Had Uricl da Costa been apprehended before reachingAmsterdam, could these standards enable us to make any positivestatement about his Jell'ish character? We should find nO externalmanifestation of Jewish behavior in the young man who was treas-urer of a church in Oporto and who, as he himself later wrote,was "educated in the Catholic Faith and observed all its precepts."!"

Mana nis rn : S om e lV l et ho do lo gicBo t at the same time we should al~() han: 110 inkling ofilnd y(;arnin,g-s i ll h is trou hlcd soul, which finally led'Chri5>timI1ity and fle~tu Holland. By the same token. I~mcrgJ('s. in the ghcuo of Verona as a major Jewish fDr. 111'el'liilandoCardoso in Madrid he would hardly ba J C'\!l', if tested by the norms of some of (he Responsa.

Whoan are we to say then, of the thousands of Newwho did' not lake the decisive step of emigrating from thHoW' many other Da Costas or Cardosos wen. ' therehave Ih(t courage to leave? Surely this docs not ofan\'thif~~' as to their secret belief>; and hopes. There wef,lCl!Jr~ behind th is reluctance (0 depart which, thouinadequate in t 1 H ' vie-w of many rabbis, were still realuniversal hesitation of human bcin~s to uproot themselvesthe ursknown is too obvious to require comment. TIll:mcnt l)'f rhe Spanish ami Portuguese :'\ew Christiansof th>:icr birth should abo come as no surprise when wtcnaeity and nostalgia with which Scphardicjcwry itselfits ]bcl1i~11lheritage through the centuries and throughoutBur there were abo mundane problems which must

serious 4CCOU[lI. The. real dangers to be faced in attempthe :re'ninsula are underscored both by those w hu tookby some of the rabbis thcmsclvcs.!" So pervasive was

" Abravanci c


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Mar ra nos in th e S eve nte enth C entur yinquisi torial reprisal that, even at those times when royal permissionto emigrate was granted, we hear that some did not take advantageof the opportunity lest it prove a deliberate trap to expose themas judaizers.'13 Considerations of livelihood and family were evenmore important. There WITe New Christians who desired to leave,but who persuaded themselves that it would be best first to amassa sum of money, so they would later have the means with whichto bcjrin a new life in another land. \Ve hear even of some who,through their commercial contacts, managed periodical ly to transferfunds to Italy or Holland in preparation for their eventual depar-ture.4~ We may regard their caution as misguided and their pru-dencc as lacking idealism, but such behavior isessentially no differentfrom that manifested by jews in other times and places. Certainlythe faruily problem provided the most emotional and heartbreakingalternatives, especially when the impulse to flee was not shared byall. Sometimes the spouse was of Old Christian stock, and theproblem all the more acute. In a Responsum of the seventeenthcentury we read of a Converso whom "they requested to come threetimes, and he could flee without fear, but he docs not desire tocome, saying, 'Ilove my wife and children who arc Christian.' "4b

OJ Assaf, & -' oh ol r; l ', ,' aJ ,: ob , p _ 16j.HThe physician Felipe de Najera, reconciled for Judaizing by the Inquisition

of Toledo in 1610, affirmed that the goal of many Portuguese New Christians , , ' : L ,to make a fortune of eight or ten thousand ducats in Spain, and then to flee toa Je .....sh community abroad. Sec Caro Baroja, ] l J . d [ o . r , I, 4! i8. His trial is discu;ssedibid., II. 197-~06- On Marranos transferring funds to Italy see the R~-p01L


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M arranos in tbe Sevente enth C entur),time of their arrival their Jewish knowledge was often minimal anddistorted. Yet the yeaming which -irupclled them to seck the Godof Israel in Amsterdam, Venice, or Constantinople, remains difficultto understand unless thi-n- existed a continuing crypto-j ewish tra-dition in the Peninsula itself. Ie bclW(TIl orrc hundred and twohundred vcars after th(: extinction of t hc last vestiges of otg;;t,nizcdJ c-wjsh Iit~ ill Spain and Portugal, this force was still strong enoughto graft these withered branches back onto the trunk of the Jewishpeople, it must have been considcrablc.:'?This .urd more. 1f the emigration of :-";ewChristians was motivated

solely by fear or convenience, we should expect that, once acrossthe border, the emigrants would have been content to live in thevarious Christian lands as Catholics. Clearly, there were manyindividuals ....ho chose this path. Beyond the Peninsula there wereno statutes of l i m p i c Z l J to vex thcm.t?II. In th is connection we should ;1 l1~oconsider the ' dramarlc discover)' in the

twentieth centurv of Marrano communiues in northern Por tuga l. Howeveratropbied Or dbt~rl ed their jl:wish bcHd~ and pract ices. the \'cr)l existence ofthese p1tlilc.(ion, nor ~)nly in "Fl'anders," but in Veniceitself:

:"1":S:'l ""~ 'J( ':"'lK~D~ " " J " ' n 1 : 1 1 . . , . " ' ; " ' 1 ' : 3 r :r "o ua r. r ~ :' I'I''''~i~ r , ] , 1 l'J~'O p!'tJacob Sasportas ldb of" Marrano who fled "jlh hi, th rte- ,~~ to Amsterdam.130111, ht; and the [,,'0 younge,.l rerurned (0 judai~m .. Tit!: oldest son, however,remained /.I Chris tian even then. Sot>.Susp(.rta. 1 . < meses, oLitrOSe qua .


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j\-fa rr anos in th e Se ve nue nth C enturyThe New Christian panorama, however, was as large and varie-

gated as life itself, Within the Peninsula the situation differedaccording to time and place. The Spanish Converses of the fifteenthcentury, recently baptized, and in contact with open Jewish com-munities, can hardly be equated with those of a century or twoafter the Expulsion. The Portuguese New Christians in the earlysixteenth century, prior to the introduction of the Inquisition, faceda different array of forces than did their contemporaries in Spain.At any time, the life of the New Christians in the large cities wasdifferent from that in the more remote rural areas where theyformed smaller but more compact clusters.Onc can also broadly distinguish several different types among

the descendants of the original Con versos with reference !O thedegree of their assimilation. Many New Christians in the seventeenthccnturv were convinced Catholics and sought nothing more thanto fuse' quietly into the general population. Others, though equallysincere in their Catholic convictions, were subjected to inq uisitorialpressures and fled abroad, where they continued by choice to liveas Christians. Some were simply opportunists, indifferent to religiousor ideological issues, whose actions were determined exclusively bypract ical self-interest. Of this category some even left to join Jewishcommunities and later, having failed to make their fortunes, returnedto Spain or Portugal to be reconciled to the Church. Both amongthe convinced Catholics, at home and abroad, and among thecynics there wen: always those who did not hesitate to serve asinformants for the Inquisition.P

Geschichtc der portugiesi schen juden in Hamburg, " Zritschriftfiir dit C..sclrichv fin]udn! in Deutschland, III (1931), 58 ff.: Cecil Roth, "Neue Kunde von d.".}'brr;HlL-n-Gemt'indc in Hamburg," ibid., II (1930), :2:28ff.: further liter ature inthe rich bibliography to Kellenbenz S,pMrdim OJ! der UTI/am Elk For Leghorn:Cecil Roth, "~ot"" sur les marranes de Livourne," RE], XCI (193r), 1-~7. ForBordeaux: Theophile ;"bl ,'C'"~ in , His to ire des jui jf de Bordeaux (Bordeaux, 1875).

Persis tence o jFinally, many New Christians were" Marranos." B

II!e are not dealing with a uniform or static image. Tis ,himself a complex; variable. What has been termedthe Marranos" displays only a fe\\' fundamental traiisolated. 50 One may speak at best of common condit

~rimarily, the need for secrecy, the general absencbooks or actual models of normal Jewish life, and.... uence of generations of Christian education and.As for expression, one can point to an inner deprecatiotianity as idolatrous and a consequent rejection of itdaims; the atrophy or disappearance of traditional Jw:a.nces;a fairly obvious syncretism, natural under the ci reliance on the Old Testament as the most rcadileElbook of Judaism; a tendcncv toward tnessianisrn.P9int it becomes increasingly difficult to generalize, adiat e...en the characteristics already mentioned must1 01 take account of many individual cases which do"Utems. My study of Cardoso, for example, ultimately- open afresh the question of how much postbiblicalc 1 ation was available to certain Mananos in the P

'. way that I did not at all anticipate when I beganJlRcisely, lies the value of studying the individual Mar'For Marranism, though arising out of a COmmon

apparently subject to a given set of limitations, expresI y ways. We can all too readily concede that by the

:century most Marranos ......re completely cut off from:Jcwish tradition. But we arc thereby ignoring thoseaposcd to some Jewish life and teaching during bu

tw Union Colleg Annual, XVIn ([9:14-++), ~21-45. In 161iJiP!:Rnh;d to the Inquisition or Lisbon a denunciation or Portugu~ in Venice, Hamburg, and ."'.mstcrdam, with a detailed list

~mJX>rtam denunc iations given ill 1635 to the Inquisition of Tol


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.I.\ Ja rr an os in t he S ev en te e nth Cen tu ryabroad. ~I The Marrano prayer,; which have come down [0 us showthat. while there WLS a heavy reliance on the Psalms, other prayersseem to have been crcuted by Marranos themselves, and then: werealso some praycrs which mirrored various texts of tho: traditionalJewish litul"!S-Y.;2 In Ihe midst of the decay of J cwish ObSCIYim('('s,S(llTH' rituals showed a surprising rcsiliency, at times I O I l g - after their

" The possibi li L i e - . inherent in such excursions are vividly illustrated by thetrst imonv of Dicco l'\u,k1. Silva hcfore the Inquisition ofToledo in ,661. l'\uf,ezSilva ! : ;,PGlSl'd[a similar experiences when visiting citi~ whichcontained Jt:wi$h cornrnunitles. That there w , . , corJ.$J~ablc mobility back andfor lh aero ecthe French bordc,r can be amply docl ,lme,ntc:d,. Cf ., in !hl~ connection,Z. S;"'1'ilto"",ki. "Trade Relationsof Ma,r~i' InOl in Fr,anQe with the Iberian Pcnin-. 1 . l : I . a i~ the 161h : I n o 17th Centuries." JQR (N.S.). L (195!}-6()). 69-78.

~* In hi, deposition of 16'~4 \0 the Inq\lisition of Goa. Anronio Bocarro Frances~'Utt~'d tblU Ib" P"-'~n1:>',"d Ihl,)'"SQ~g of the Three Cbjl,d['t"i"" ("tril,lm pucrorurn,'r rom the al)()cryphal Addi tions 10 Daniel, placed in the Vulgate: aftc~ ch. 3} arepopular praY\:fS;lITlong thr l'onu.:g'u!;;51! Marrunos, Sec Pedro 1\. d'At~"t'.&o,"0 Bocnrro fmnd~ ,~ Ifi JI,I'ck~ti de Cochirn (; Hnmburgo." A'lIuf.t,,, IfistMw1X!.rruf!.~lr,VIII (1910), 18g. From the same testimony \''-C have an example of an,origi~al Marr: . ., 'LO prayer. to be recited in Church while the Host \,'a.~ raised("Solo altissirno domino Dco brad deberur ernnis honor ~I gloria" quill ips" ...,1Deus super ornnvs Deos . , ." etc. (liJi4i., p, I8j.) Cf. al,o tl-l( moving pra yeN ofBrires Henriques, ,.. twenty-one-vcar-old g i ' r l , recorded im I I tG 7 4 bY' tll" I n : q I Y i ~ i t l O nof Lisbon. (Scb"';mc, Os dlmt.d{)~ 1'l~'OS.PI'. 9:J-105,,) The ('1!ljOi).",in~r-l\Y,'iI'Ie;,be

Persistence ojaiginal mean ing had been f(,rgotlcn.53 The rite ofrep.-~':ScnteJ the utmost dang;nanl.

~4 The ~r"\'c ri~,k..incurred through rircumci-ion in th Peninevident . Certainlv every -uspcctcd .Judai' -"r brought before the I,physi:C.Rily~x"tl lincd '" " matter of routine ln Ihn:" cnscs beforeof Toledo, during a ~P"tl of some ,~jgh!l'en years. ,,'e find the namexaminer. which $\]gg'L':!~~hat Ihi., may have been pun of.hj,l: permanThus in ]65'2 the ,urgeon Pablo Collaco (or Colla~os) ' : )


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M arra nos in th e Seve nte enth C enturySome Marranos kept their Jewish feelings locked in their hearts.Others appear to have met together for regular liturgical services. UThere were Marranos who managed successfully to rationalize theirreligious position by evolving what might be termed a theology ofsccrccy.s? On the other hand, others were prey to an overwhelming

name of Antonio de Aguiar and allegedly received much money for his services.For further information along these lines see Roth, Mar r a n o s , p, 390, n. I.Thatsome Marranos circumcised ....hile still "in the land of their foe>" ....& " asserted int601 by joseph Trani (R t sponsa , 'Eben ha- rezer , no. 18) a lthough they transgressedmany other commandments became they read the Bible without its oral inter-pretation. Cf .. 0 \ 5 .saI, Bt- 'olwlq Ta'akob, p. 147, n. 13; Zirnmels, /.:farrwtnt, p. 79.n. I;Solomon Amarillo (d. 1722), K e re m S lr dm T lo (Salonika, (719), no. 27, on aneight-day-old child circumcised in the Peninsula despite the great danger. Onemust, however, also entertain the possibility that, due to the risk. involved, somecircumcisers may not have performed an actual circumcision, but may havemerely dra ....n a drop of blood thatafa: dam btril). For allegatiom concerning sucha practice i.n receiving adult proselytes in 14th-century France, see my study ofBernard Cui, pp. 58-60.HSuch w~, the group discovered in Coirnbra in the early [7th century, in a

case which achieved wide notoriety. In 1619 Antonio Homem.famous as a preacherand proku.or of canon I a.... at the university. was imprisoned by the Inquisi tionand accused of being the high priest of a crypto-]e ......h congregation formed sincethe Pardon of 1605. The: alleged practices of the group sho . ....an extreme de-gre:e ofsvncretisrn, and included 01 confraternity patterned after the Catholic cult of thesaints, to revere the martyred Judaizer Fray Diogo da Assurnpcilo. Homern ....asgarroted and burned in 1624. The case has been studied extensively. See especiallyAntonio J~ Texeira, A l I / O > 1 ; o Hommr t" Irtquisipw (Coimbra , 1895), and AntonioBaido, f . ) iP jJwI 'dmmatWM f ia I nq u is id i' o p o r tu g ue s a , I (Porto, IgI9), 109-29.UThis rationalization assumed var ious forms. According to Diego de Sirnancas

(Pseud.: Didaco \,di.squez), D ef en sio s ta tu ti T ole ta ni (Ant we-rp, 1575), fol. 70 [,th . .. Converses explained their not having chosen martyrdom by citing Deut. 5: 30("~o that ye may live") ..... -hich is indeed a l o cu s c la s s icu s, More elaborate wasthe typological usc of the Book of Esther ....hich transformed the Je....ish queen,hiding her true faith in order to save her people, into the archetypal Marrano.See Roth, "Religion of the Man-ano," pp. ~6 f.

Pers is t ence ojsense of guilt which accompanied them even long areturned to Judaism elsewhere in the world. S7The "religion of the Marranos" thus ran the entire

the most attenuated awareness of Jewish roots, 10endure martyrdom for the "Law of Moses."~K Perhfelicitous term for the phenomenon as a whole hasby I.S. Revah, He has called Marrano religion "a potewhich entry into a Jewish community transformed ma real Judaism."u This characterization is certainlydeficiency lies in beginning at the point when the Marr''Judaizing'' in one form or another. I believe that,shift of emphasis, we should go back farther. ParaphrasRevah's statement, it is perhaps even more fundamentalthat, even before he began to Judaize, every New C

and vigorously combated by Immanuel Aboab in his Nomologi162g), Pt. II. ch, [8, pp. 213-17. That, given conditions in Spaof religion ....as a necessity, is categorically maintained by anJe.. .. i.h figure . .. .ho had undergone the Marrano experience,Orobio de Castro. See Limborch, D~ UT;:aU r ( l ig i oJ1 i s chr i s t ianae ,~'On penances sought by former Marranos see the r ...e

B ~ 'OMU y Y ,, > a ko b. pp. 179 [ C[ tbe example of the: former MNahmias ....ho habitually sign ..xl his name as ba'al u.,hubah (TheLXXXV]]. 216.The penitential pcrsonalitv is particularly manifest in the ..

Israel Pereyra (d. tt)gg). at one time president of the Porrugucse ]ein Amsterdam, ....ho w :c. born Thomas Rodrlguez Pereyra inmoving invocation in hi, 1.-11ce r t e ca de ! cami'lo .. t:kdiuula a l Sri< ' T I lug


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Afa rra nos in th e Scventunth C enlUr}potential Marrano, whom any of a variety of circumstances couldtransform into an active Marrano.An examination of [he lives of seventeenth-century Marranos

reveals how different the stimuli could be. Even ~ew Christianswho were, from childhood, the products of a thoroughly Catholiceducation, and who regarded themselves as Catholics, could besuddenly awakened to reclaim their J ewish birthright. The Inquisi-lion itself certainly had a ramified effect in this regard. ~lany whomight have been content to live und isturbcd as Christians weremoved to despise the Christian faith after they had experiencedinquisitorial persecution. In his poetic paraphrase of the Psalms,written in the safe haven of Amsterdam, David Abcnarar Mclo(d. ca. 1646) declared that the Inquisition and its prisons were "theschool where he was taught the knowledge of God."60 The grimdrama of the au tos -da . .i : , though a festive occasion for most of thecrowd, could well lead the more sensitive to reject a religion in whosename such horrors might be unleashed. There were also many who,finding their way into the mainstream of Spanish society blockedby the statutes of limpit;:a or by other forms of discrimination,proceeded out of this negative collision to a positive examinationand acceptance of their ancestral roots. Others rejected the Christianfaith on intellectual and ideological grounds. Once this occurred,it was natural for these );ew Christians at least to entertain thepossibility of the Jewish faith as a viable alternative.Finally, there were those who possessed an active family tradition

(If crypto .. udaisllI. The poet Joao (J\loseh) Pinto Delgado speaksmovingly of his parents in Portugal, w ho "planted in my soul thetrees of the Most Holy Law, whose fruit, were late in co!Tling."~1

"La Inquisicion habia sido para el


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M a rr anos in tbe S ev en te en th C e ntur yhad compared the Je ws to the olive which only when beaten andcrushed yields its oil. While such adages may serve a homileticpurpose, they do not really illumine a specific historical situationwhich, when it confronts us with the concrete individual, seems bothto sustain and confute the rule.

THE E j\{lG RANTSThe vicissitudes of those Marranos who emigrated to other lands

were quite as variegated as their experience in the Peninsula itself,and had ramified effects on the jewish communities which attemptedto integrate them.For the !;eneral history of the seventeenth century, the extreme

importance of exiles has long been appreciated. "In every countryin Europe," writes Sir George Clark, "were men driven from horneby the persecution of their religious beliefs ... with their 0....11 ideasstriking against those the)' found in their foreign homes like steelon flint." Within Jewry, the great era of exiles and wanderers hadcommenced even earlier with the cataclysm of the Spanish expulsion,and was augmented during the next two hundred years by anongoing exod us of Spanish and Portuguese Marranos. While someof these became the \'anguard of Jewish resettlement in WesternEurope or the pioneers of Jewish colonization in the New World,thousands of others were absorbed by the established communitiesof the now far-flung Scphardic diaspora.In the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries the arrival of the

Spanish exiles and their interaction with local Jewries had oftenbeen fraught with difficulties. Wherever they carne, the SephardicJews constituted a new and dynamic clement which generatedconsiderable friction and generally gained a rapid ascendancy. But,after all, those exiles had been professing Jews who arrived andmingled with other Jews !,rom whom they differed only in custom

T h eenvironment, but from a life lived in a totally gentile wtbrough these emigrants that Marranism became a cin Jewish history.For Jewry, no less than for Christendom, the seventeen

was an era of profound ideological ferment, in whichof forces unleashed during the previous century becamemanifest. The great trauma of the Spanish expulsionspiritual as well as physical, and had affected not only thJ(;\.,.5 but the entire people. At the vcry COre it hadperennial problem of Jewish exile and suffering to aurgency. Jews in the sixteenth century had groped for astanding of the ancient enigmas, and had respondeddepartures in historiography, mysticism, and messianismseventeenth century the messianic passion stimulated easpread, of Lurianic Kab~alah would finall~ er~pt in theexplosion of the Sabbatian movement, with us concomnornian clements. In the social and economic spheres wchants with international horizons and allegiances alreat the provincial limitations of a corporate Jewish commuretained its medieval structure and character. Nor wasmune to the raging intellectual conflicts of the age.communities of Holland, France, and Italv were indivsmall groups ofJt:\\,s who had been deeply affected by theand skeptical currents of the limes, though they did noexcommunication by avowing their ideas in public. Atime even those who remained firmly within the boundsand community often revealed a decidedly modern intellcultural orientation. The secular culture of many DutchJews an ticipated the Berlin Haskalah of the eighteenth cwas, in some respects, more naturallv acquired. mature, abased. 6~~3 For- 'orne of these developments see Baer, Galur, pp. 69 f


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A fa rr anos in r h e S e ve nt ee nt h C e n tu rIn all the welter of cornpcung ideas the :-'Iarrano emigrants played

an unusually vital role. Against the backdrop of an ag-e whichproduced a number of significantly "modern" developments inJnn: .:, they stand out (.L~ perhaps the first modern J ews. 1 3 y virtueof the ye,lls each had spent in the Peninsula, these former Marranosconstitut cd the fiT5t considerable group of European Jcw~ to havehad their most extensive and direct personal experiences completclvoutside tht: organic Jewish community and the spiritual universeof normative J cwish tradition. Moreover, as nominal Christians inSpain and Portugal they had enjoyed full access to the mainspringsof Western theological, philosophic, and scientific learning, In a timewhen Jews were barred from most European uni vcrsities, or allowedonly sporadic attendance at some, many former Marranos werealumni of Coimbra, Salamanca, Alcala, or even Toulouse and Paris.Their emotional, religious, and educational experiences as Marranoswere hardly calculated to prepare them for life in a Jewish societywhich, despite the cracks and breaches in its spiritual ramparts,still preserved brgely intact the integrity of its traditions. In thereturn of Marranos to open J cwish life these antitheses were boundto produce interesting, and sometimes violent, repercussions.The problema tics inherent in the reaction of Marrano emigrants

to J cwish life were clearly perceived bv Orobio de Castro, and statedby him with the force of one who had himself stepped forth fromMarranism into Judaism :6.;

had Me,o,[I1Gmore and more marked in Ita I,.and Holland long before Mendelsohn."See his S~I ~i'l.rlMigicw Hi;I"'; of th ]ar;. s .pmo~t l .d I~Dr, J ~ < f J f dt Prado (Pari" [9Y)1 . In mfollow Revah's Spanish 'ex '! (ibid. pp. 89 f.).For a 'l.riking'ly similar: p=.tlg''' in a k[[n of Ahraharn Cardo

ch. \"II.


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M ar ra nos in th e Se ve nte enth C e ntur yarrive no less ignorant of the Law of God than the first, but they arefu ll of vanity, pride, and haughtiness, convinced that they are learnedin all matters, and that they know everything; and even though theyarc ignorant of that which is most essential, they believe they know itall, They enter under the felicitous yoke of Judaism and begin to listento those who know that of which they arc ignorant, [but] their vanityand pride do not permit them to receive instruction so that they mayemerge from their ignorance. It seems to them that their reputation aslearned men will diminish if the)' allow themselves to be taught by thosewho are truly learned in the Holy Law. They make a show of greatscience in order to contradict what they do not understand, even thoughit be all true, all holy, all divine. It seems to them that, by makingsophistic arguments without foundation, they are reputing themselvesto be ingenious and wise. And the worst of it is that they also spreadthis opinion among some who, because of either their youth or bad nature,presume themselves clever, and who, even though they don't understanda thing of that which the foolish philosopher says against the Law ofGod, act nonetheless as if they understood him, in order not to admitthat they do not understand him, and thus still (0be regarded as under-standing. These succeed in making such a philosopher even more prideful.His pride grO\\'5, and so does his impiety. so that without much effortthe ignorant philosopher, as well as those who hold him in affection,fall, into the abyss of apostasy and heresy.So much for the basic cleavage. In reality, however, the responses

of Marrano emigrants betrayed a number of additional subtleties.Orobio himself goes OIl to enumerate three subdivisions among theheretics. The worst are labeled "atheists, It and defined as those "whodare deny Sacred Scripture, although they exculpate themselves byadmitting- a First Cause." Then there are JCW3 who "believe in God,give their assent to the Sacred Text, but hold in abomination theexplanation which God Himself, in His supreme providence, hasgiven to the Law." Finally, those who believe in both the writtenand the Oral Law, but who reject the "hedges" of ordinances which

T h espiritual affinity with Jewish mysticism. most notablymysticism of the Sabbatian movernenr.wOrobio's observations were made in the heat of a pol

there was no room for empathy with those he attackattempt to evaluate their underlying motivations. It ithat he fails us. For the collision of many Marrano emtraditional Judaism was clearly due to more than mperverse obstinacy. If we recall their Peninsular bacmust recognize that the problem of adjusting to thwithin the Jewish community was truly enormous. Twho arrived as an adult had not only to undergo circualso to acquire rapidly a large fund of Jewish skills anwithout which even minimal participation in the lifemunity would be impossible. The habits, ideas, and attother Jews had inherited naturally, and in which theducated during their formative years, had now to band assimilated by mature men in a very short time.To help meet this critical need there arose in the s

sevcnrccnrh centuries an extensive literature whose cento make the storehouse of J ewish knowledge available inand Portuguese languages.?" It was the first large corp.. On the Marrano element in Sabbatian ideology, especially

version of th.. messiah, sec infra, ch. VII .10 Since the pioneaing efforts in the mid-19th century of Ama

(E stud ios h i.,M rU QJ, p olit lcos..l / iln ar itJs sa br e los ju dio s ~ " EjPaifa) a(Sp lundim) . both antiquated in many n:spcct$, there has been ncomprehensive study of Hispano-Por.tll.!~esc Jewish literature. Mstill needs to be done even in bibliogl'aphy. An exhaustive anordered bibliography of printed boob and pamphlets witb comwould be a boon to


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M arra nos in th e Se ve nte enth C entur ythought to be rendered by Jo.:W$ into a modern European tongue,and covered a wide range of material. Included were translationsof the Bible, of classical rabbinic literature, and of the majorphilosophic works of the Midd lc Agcs. From Jewish law and l iturgythere were translations of the praycrbook, treatises on the 6[3 com-mandmcnts, halakhic manuals, and abridgments of the Shulhan'Arukh. In general we may regard the ends to which this literaturewas addressed and the method it applied as the reverse of thosewhich were later to characterize the Berlin Haskalah. For if thedisciples of Mendelsohn employed Hebrew as a means to spreadsecular enlightenment among the Jo.:ws of Germany, here the secularSpanish and Portuguese vernaculars were being used to spreadJewish enlightenment among the returning Marranos,

The Hispano-Portugucse literature of the sixteenth and seven-teenth centuries was not confined to translations and summaries ofclassics. Origin al works were produced in history and theology.Belles-lcttrcs were represented by poetry and drama on Jewishthemes. But by far the most important creation was in the area ofpolemics and apologetics. Here the needs of the day and the specialqualities of Marrano experience combined to produce a contributionof unusual force and relevance, The polemics were aimed sirnul-tancouslv in several directions. While actually intended to refutethe clai;m of Christian itv and often addressed to Christian ad-versaries, thcv could serve at the same time as an arsenal from whichto convince wavering Marranos of the need to embrace Judaismfully and opcn ly. If the writer ....a s himself a former Marrano, hiscritique of Christian ity was in essence also a personal testimonial,a justification of his own choice of Judaism. The defense of Judaismwas also conducted on two planes, for while it was important tovindicate the Faith in the eyes of the outside world, it was sometimeseven more imperative to defend the Oral Law from the attacks towhich it \,';1S subjected within Jl'\,'ry itself. In any case, the issueswhich were ham me-red Ollt in Spanish and Portuguese were not the

T h ebetween Jewry and Christendom to a new pitch of inintimacy. The Jew who had been burn in Lisbon andin the Amsterdam Jndcn brecst raat , or he who had spenhood in Madrid and now worshiped in the Scuola Spthe Venr-tian Ghetto, spanned both worlds. Certainly therJewish apologists and polemicists in the past who disperudition in Christian sources (though not quite comparabof seventeenth-century Marranos who had studied theoSpanish Jesuits). But the novelty of Marra no apologeticlemics goes far beyond the relative degree of its ChristianThe knowledge which these writers had of Christianitynut merely from books, but from their own personal exChristian lift'. ritual. and liturgy, They are thus the fJewish writers cont r a Cn -r l st ia rwJ to have known Christiawithin, and it is this which endows their tracts with specIn Marrano apologetics and polemics we have a mi

turbulence of the age and the difficul tics of the \Iarranoto Jewish life. Orohio de Castro was dismayed that theengendered heretical reactions among the emigrants, Wat the matter differently. That these Marr.mos oftenimpossible to make the transition to ;1 Judaism alienrespects to their experience and cxpcctarions is in no wayThe real marvel is that some Marranos were abh-, dbackground, to embrace a complete Jf:wish orthodoxy,themselves thoroughly in Jewish tradition. and to becomeand communal leaders in seventeenth-century Jewry. Oument should be elicited not by the discontented, the dithe "heretics," but rather by those who managed "[0direwill [0Ion: the Divine Law."Isaac Cardoso is a prime case in poin t , and in choosi

the object of mv study J need hardlv emphasize thatscntauvc of only one scgmcnr in rhe broad spectrum of scentury Marranism. :"evenhdcss, thc stage on which hi,


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Marra nos in th e Sevente enth C enturyand philosophy, of courtly and literary circles in the Spanish capof Jewish messianism, of ghetto life in the city of Romeo and JulWe shall encounter Spanish grandees and men of letters, rabbisantiscmitcs, and Marranos whose Iives followed different cou(han his. Throughout, we shall try to keo.:pattuned to the changnuances in Cardoso's personal evolution, and yet bear in mindhe who ultimately wrote One of the most eloquent and passionof Jewish apologia is the same man who in his youth had cmemorated, in elegant Castilian verse, the death of a bull inarena. Insofar as we arc able, we must try to uncover the facof continuity which made the transition possible. It is an intricway from the one to the other. Let us beg-in the journey.

Yerushalmi.marranos in the 17th Century Pgs. 1-26

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