History of the Jews, Vol. 5 (of 6) - Graetz Heinrich

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the terrors of the Inquisition. His father, at least, who belonged to the higher classes in Portugal, had become a strict Catholic. Young Gabriel learnt ecclesiasticism and the accomplishments of a cavalier from his father, was, like him, a good rider, and entered upon a course of education, limited, indeed, but sufficient for that time. He adopted the only career open to young Portuguese of the upper middle class, by means of which the gifted could rise to distinction, and to a certain equality with the nobility. He was prepared for the law, a study which might pave the way to the second rank, the clerical. In his youth the Jesuits had already obtained powerful influence over men's minds, and their methods of exciting the imagination and subduing the intellect by depicting everlasting damnation and the punishments of hell had proved effectual. Nothing but punctilious, mechanical worship and continual confession could overcome the terrors of hell.

      Gabriel da Costa, in spite of his punctilious ecclesiasticism, did not feel quieted in his conscience. Daily mechanical exercises failed to influence his mind, and continual confession to obtain absolution from the lips of the priest pleased him less as he became more mature. Somewhat of the subtle Jewish spirit remained in his nature, and shook the strongly built Catholic system of belief to its foundations. The more deeply he plunged into the Catholic Jesuitic teaching, the more did doubts trouble him, and disturb his conscience. However, he accepted a semi-ecclesiastical office as chief treasurer to an abbey about 1615. To end his doubts, he investigated the oldest records of Holy Scripture. The prophets were to solve the riddles which the Roman Catholic Church doctrines daily presented to him. The fresh spirit which breathed from out of the Old Testament, disfigured though it was in its Latin guise, brought repose to his mind. The doctrines of Judaism appeared the more certain, as they were recognized by the New Testament and the Church, while those of Catholicism were rejected by Judaism; in the one case there was unanimity, in the other, contradiction. Da Costa formed the resolution to forsake Catholicism and return to Judaism. Of an impulsive, passionate temperament, he sought to carry his resolution into effect quickly. With great caution he communicated his intention to his mother and brothers – his father was already dead – and they also resolved to expose themselves to the danger of secret emigration, to leave their hearth and home, give up a respected position in society, and exchange the certain present for an uncertain future. In spite of the Argus-eyed espionage of Marranos by the Inquisition and the secular authorities, the Da Costa family succeeded in gaining a vessel and escaping to Amsterdam (about 1617–18). Gabriel da Costa and his brothers were admitted to the covenant of Abraham, and Gabriel changed his name to Uriel.

      Of a hot-blooded nature, an enthusiast whose imagination overpowered his judgment, Uriel da Costa had formed for himself an ideal of Judaism which he expected to meet with in Amsterdam, but which had never been realized. He thought to see biblical conditions, supported by pure Pentateuchal laws, realized in the young Amsterdam community, and to find an elevation of mind which would at once clear up the puzzles that the Catholic Church could not solve. What the Catholic confessors could not offer, he thought that he would be able to obtain from the rabbis of Amsterdam. Da Costa had built religious and dogmatic castles in the air, and was annoyed not to meet with them in the world of reality. He soon found that the religious life of the Amsterdam community and its established laws did not agree with Mosaic or Pentateuchal precepts, but were often opposed to them. As he had made great sacrifices for his convictions, he thought that he had the right to express his opinion freely, and point to the gap which existed between biblical and Rabbinical Judaism. He was deeply wounded, embittered, and irritated, and allowed himself to be completely overpowered by his feelings. He did not stop at mere words, but regulated his conduct accordingly, openly disregarded religious usages, and thought that in opposing the ordinances of the "Pharisees" (as, in the language of the Church, he called the rabbis), he was recommending himself to the favor of God. He thereby brought upon himself unpleasantnesses destined to end tragically. Were the Amsterdam Jews, who had suffered so much for their religion, quietly to see one of their members openly assail and ridicule Judaism, become so dear to them? Those born and brought up in the land of the Inquisition had no idea of toleration and indulgence for the conviction of others. The rabbis, perhaps Isaac Uziel and Joseph Pardo, threatened Da Costa with excommunication, i. e., expulsion from the religious community and severance of all relations with it, if he persisted in transgressing the religious ordinances of Judaism. This opposition only served to increase Da Costa's passion; he was ill-content to have purchased new fetters by the sacrifices he had made. He continued to disregard the laws in force, and was eventually excommunicated. Uriel's relatives, who had more easily adapted themselves to the new faith, avoided him, and spoke not a word to him. Thus Da Costa stood alone in the midst of a great city. Separated from his race, friends, and relatives, a stranger amongst the Christian inhabitants of Amsterdam, whose language he had not yet learnt, and thrown upon himself, he fell more and more into subtle speculation. Acting under excessive irritation, he resolved to publish a work hostile to the Judaism of the day, and bring out particularly the glaring contrast between it and the Bible. As irrefragable proof, he intended to emphasize that the former recognized only bodily punishments and rewards, and taught nothing as to the immortality of the soul. But he discovered that the Bible itself observes silence about a purely spiritual future life, and does not bring within the circle of religion the idea of a soul separated from the body. In short, his investigations led him away not only from Catholicism and Rabbinical Judaism, but from the Bible itself. It is not known how it was circulated that the excommunicated Da Costa intended to give public offense, but he was anticipated. Samuel da Silva, a Jewish physician, in 1623 published a work in the Portuguese language, entitled "A Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, in order to confute the Ignorance of a certain Opponent, who in Delusion affirms many Errors." In the course of the work the author plainly named Uriel, and described him as "blind and incapable." Da Costa thought his opponents, especially the rabbis, had hired Da Silva's pen to attack him. Hence he hastened to publish his work, also in Portuguese (1624–1625), entitled "An Examination of the Pharisaic Traditions, compared with the written Laws, and Reply to the Slanderer Samuel da Silva." The fact of his calling his opponent a slanderer shows his confusion, for he actually asserted what Da Silva had reproached him with, that the soul is not immortal. As he now had unequivocally declared his breach with Judaism, he had to take the consequences. Before, he had been openly scorned by young people in the street as an excommunicant, a heretic, an Epicurean (in the Talmudical sense); he had been pelted with stones, disturbed and annoyed in his own house (as he thought, at the instigation of the rabbis). Now, after the appearance of his work, the official representatives of the Amsterdam community complained to the magistrates that by denying the immortality of the soul, he had attacked not only the teaching of Judaism, but also of Christianity, and had published errors. Da Costa was arrested, kept for several days in prison, at last fined 300 gulden, and his work condemned to the flames. The freest state of that time believed that it had the right to keep watch over and limit freedom of thought and writing; its distinction was merely that it kindled no funeral piles for human beings. Da Costa's brethren in race could not have persecuted him very severely, for he was able to bear excommunication during the long space of fifteen years. Only his isolation was a heavy burden; he could not endure to be avoided by his family as one infected with the plague. Da Costa was not a strong-minded man, a thinker of the first order, who could live happily in his world of ideas as in boundless space, unconcerned about the outer world, and glad of his solitary freedom; he could not do without the world. He had invested his capital with one of his brothers, and he thought that it would be endangered if he continued the war against the community. He thought of taking a wife, which was impossible so long as he was excommunicated. Hence he at last yielded to the urgency of his relatives to become reconciled with the community. He was willing, as he said, "to be an ape among apes." He confessed Judaism with his lips at the very time when he had in his heart thoroughly fallen away from it.

      Da Costa, in his philosophical inquiries, had come upon a new discovery. Judaism, even in its pure biblical form, could not have been of divine origin, because it contradicts nature in many points, and God, the Creator of nature, can not contradict Himself in revelation. He cannot command a principle in the Law, if He has implanted in nature an opposing principle. This was the first step to the deistic tendency then appearing in France and the Netherlands, which acknowledged God only in nature, not in the moral law, and in religious and political development. Da Costa's theory supposed a religion of nature inborn in man, which produced and built up the moral law, and culminated in

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