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Home Publications	A Dutch Adaptation of Elias Montalto's Tractado sobre o principio do Capitulo 53 de Jesaias. Text, Introduction and commentary.* Peter van Rooden Lias16 (1989), 189-204 The personal papers of Constantijn L'Empereur (1591-1648), now in the Bibliotheca Thysiana, include a Dutch translation of a Jewish polemic against Christianity which was originally written in Portuguese. The manuscript bears the title: Tractaet over het Drijenvijftighste capittel van | den Propheet Esaias | Gemaeckt door den Doctor Montalto, Raed ende | Medecijn des Coninghs ende Coninginne van Vranckrijk.[1] The manuscript, in 4° (21,5 x 28,5 cm), consists of eighteen numbered folios (1-18), with writing on both sides. The paper bears no watermark. The number of lines on a page varies between thirty and forty. It is provided with a cover on which ‘Constantini l'Empereur’ and the letter “h” is written in a different hand. L'Empereur, Professor of Hebrew at Leiden from 1626 to 1648, entered the manuscript in the catalogue of his library together with another Jewish polemic against Christianity, the Vichouah Hadath contra Christianos, authore Abrahamo Judaeo.[2] He was in possession of the latter in 1637,[3] possibly in 1633.[4] It seems highly probable that L'Empereur acquired the Tractaet between 1626, when he began the serious study of Hebrew and rabbinical literature, and 1637. This makes the Dutch version the oldest textual witness of the Tractado, as the oldest surviving Portuguese MS dates from 1652. The manuscript in the Bibliotheca Thysiana possesses another interesting feature. The Portuguese text was not only translated, but has also undergone small changes. These were meant to allow the translation to be used in theological debates between Christians. 1. Eliah Montalto. Felipe Rodrigues de Montalto was the third child of António and Caterina Aires. They were New Christians, that is to say, the descendants of Iberian Jews who had been forcibly converted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was baptized on the 6th of October 1567 in Castelo Branco, Portugal.[5] He studied medicine, possibly also some theology, at the university of Salamanca. After returning to Portugal he became a doctor in Lisbon. He left Portugal in 1602, a year after the New Christians had been officially permitted to leave the country,[6] and pursued a successful career as a doctor in Italy. In 1606 he published a book on optics, which he dedicated to Cosimo II, the son of the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1606 or 1607, staying for a short while in Paris when returning from a journey to the Low Countries, he made the acquaintance of Maria de Medici, cousin of his Tuscan patron, and her lady-in-waiting Leonara Galigaï, the wife of Concino Concini. In the autumn of 1612, he settled in Paris. On 19 September of that year the Queen appointed him ‘Consiliarus et Medicus Ordinarius’. After his death, on 19th February 1616 in Tours, his embalmed body was transported by his son Moses and his pupil Saul Levi Mortera to the Dutch Republic, to be buried in the Jewish cemetery in Ouderkerk-aan-de-Amstel.[7] Mortera became a rabbi with the Amsterdam Jewish community, becoming their most important spiritual leader over the years.[8] These bare facts of his life are certain. They mainly stem from the records of two heresy trials in which he was indirectly involved. It is harder to use these sources to ascertain the date and manner of his conversion or return to Judaism. On 17 August 1609 Montalto send a letter to Thomas da Fonseca, his wife's brother, who was a doctor in Portugal. Four days after the receipt of this letter, on 21st November, Fonseca was arrested by the Inquisition.[9] Montalto had invited his brother-in-law to settle in Italy, where he would be able to live safely and without worries. The consequences of his suggestion dramatically proved Montalto to be right. The Inquisition considered the letter a veiled invitation to Fonseca publicly to profess Judaism outside Portugal and consequently suspected him of crypto-Judaism. Until he was declared guilty on 1st May 1611, Fonseca persistently denied any inner adherence to Judaism. After this verdict had been reached, however, the usual mechanism of these trials took over. The only sure way for Fonseca to survive was by confessing and accusing others of Jewish practices.[10] During the first half of June he denounced sixteen, mostly female, relatives for judaizing, Montalto among them. During the interrogations of those arrested on the basis of Fonseca's confession, Montalto was even said to have been the spiritual leader of a group of crypto-Jews long before his departure from Portugal.[11] Of course, it is impossible to determine whether these denunciations had a basis in fact or were meant solely to satisfy the Inquisition by accusing someone who was safe from its persecution. In any case, Montalto became an openly professing Jew some time between 1606 and 1613. The title page of his Optica, published in 1606, still contained his Christian name; in 1613, on the title page of the second edition of this same work, he called himself Philothei Eliani Montalto.[12] In these years he proved himself a fervent defender of Judaism in private letters to Pedro Rodrigues. Rodrigues, a New Christian doctor, was — like Montalto — married to a sister of Thomas da Fonseca. The latter, though pressed by the Inquisition to do so, had not denounced him. Yet Rodrigues, who quite understandably had taken fright, fled the Iberian Peninsula with his wife. In the first week of July 1611 they settled in Saint-Jean-de-Luz, among a small colony of Portuguese refugees. Between August 1611 and May 1612 he received four letters from his brother-in-law Montalto, who tried to convince him of the truth of Judaism.[13] The letters burn with a fierce hatred of Christianity. Despite the suffering inflicted upon their family and the manifest injustice of the persecution by the Inquisition, Pedro Rodrigues and his wife, like most of the New Christians fled to France, remained loyal Catholics. Most of the information on Montalto's stay in Paris derives from the trial of the wife of Concini, the favourite of Maria de Medici, conducted in the wake of the coup d'état of April 1617 which inaugurated Louis XIII's personal reign.[14] She was accused of sorcery. Her former contacts with the Jewish physician Montalto, by then deceased, were interpreted within the scope of this accusation, the result of thinly disguised political motives. In the course of this trial, Maria de Medici was said by the defence to have obtained permission from the Pope to let Montalto, a professing Jew, stay at court. Without corroborating evidence this statement, like the one that Montalto had intervened in favour of Jews arrested in France, does not seem to be very trustworthy. On the question of whether Montalto had already professed Judaism during his first stay in Paris, in 1606 or 1607, the records of the trial contradict each other.[15] 2. The Tractado sobre o principio do Capitulo 53. de Jesaias The manuscript preserved among L'Empereur's papers and edited here is the oldest textual witness of Montalto's best-known work against Christianity.[16] It consists of a short introduction, followed by twelve objections to the conceptions concerning original sin, the Trinity and the Two Natures of Christ, which form the principles of the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 53. These twelve points are of greatly differing length. The shortest (4 and 5) run to no more than ten sentences each, the longest (9) to eleven pages (8v-14r). The three longest together (8,9,10) take up two-thirds of the whole work. A short summary reads as follows. This first of the three parts which will make up the tractate is devoted to a confutation of the principles of the Christian interpretation of Isaiah 53. These consist of the conceptions that (1) through the sin of Adam the whole human race has lost the divine grace and has been subjected to corporal and spiritual death; (2) this infinite guilt could only be redeemed by an infinite atonement, which (3) could only be offered by the Second Person of the Trinity, incarnating Himself and dying for the human race. These conceptions contradict reason and Scripture. 1. Scripture nowhere states that Adam was punished with spiritual death for his transgression . 2. It is contrary to reason to assume that Adam's descendants are subjected to spiritual death as a consequence of his sin. Scripture shows that everyone receives his soul directly from God and is held responsible by Him only for his own deeds. 3. God, as appears from His revelation, is not only just but also merciful. He accepts sincere repentance as a reparation for sin. 4. It is philosophically impossible for Adam's sin to have had an infinite effect. 5. When one qualifies his sin as infinite because it was directed against God, any obedience to His commandments also has an infinite effect. 6. God's mercy appears from His instituting sacrifices and the Day of Atonement. By these means He enabled man to obtain reconciliation. 7. It appears from Scripture that God was present in a special way in the Tabernacle and the Temple. The offerings made there were agreeable to Him. The same is not true of the Eucharist, which can be profaned with impunity. 8. Even before the coming of the Messiah the divine glory can be acquired, as appears from what Scripture says about Enoch, Elijah, Moses and many others. The scriptural promise of life for those who obey the commandments of God, concerns the spiritual life. 9. Scripture does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity. The argument that it is absent because Israel, being an uncivilised people, would have been unable to understand it, is contrary to Scripture. The Gospels also do not contain the doctrine of the Trinity. The scriptural prophecies predict the final recognition by all peoples of the unity of God, the emergency of a heresy in the Holy Land, the exile of the Jews and their serving strange gods. Ultimately, they were exiled because of their transgressions against the divine commandments, yet the punishment was occasioned by the emergence of Christianity. Moreover, the concept of a single God with one substance and three persons implies numerous philosophical contradictions. 10. The concept of the Incarnation also leads to philosophical contradictions. Scripture distinguishes sharply between God and man. The promised Messiah is not God, but an earthly prince. The Christian conception of a Son of God stems from ancient paganism. 11. The concept of an expiatory death of the Son of God conflicts with the divine justice. Had such a death been necessary, God should have let the Romans execute the sentence. In any case the Jews are wrongfully blamed for the death of Christ. 12. If the death of Christ really had brought redemption, the consequences of the Fall should have been reversed. This has not been the case. The condition of the world has steadily grown worse, while Scripture predicts a Messiah who will bring numerous earthly blessings. The Dutch manuscript in the Bibliotheca Thysiana consists only of the first of the three parts announced in the first lines of the tractate. The last sentence also indicates only the end of the first part. It seems highly probable that Montalto never carried out his design. Most Portuguese MSS do include a second and third part, but these do not correspond to the outline sketched in the introduction. Instead of a detailed refutation of the Christian exegesis of Isaiah 53, followed by a correct interpretation confirming the truth of Judaism, they contain a general attack against Christianity, which in some places prefigures the first part,[17] and a review of the contradictions between the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. The lack of a second and a third part in some Portuguese MSS is decisive.[18] For the following edition all three Portuguese MSS present in Dutch libraries were collated with the manuscript of the Bibliotheca Thysiana. The one which contains only the first part offers the best text by far.[19] It thus seems highly probable that Montalto only finished the first part, and that the versions with three parts were compiled from other works of his. This could have occured after his death, on the basis of the first lines of the Tractado.[20] The confusing titles which were given to the work by later copyists indicate their uncertainty and uneasiness about the nature of the different parts of the Tractado.[21] If this hypothesis is correct the Dutch manuscript of the Bibliotheca Thysiana, the oldest textual witness, does not offer a partial translation, but the whole of the original work, insofar as it was completed. Even the editing of the first part does not seem quite finished. In the last paragraph of the second point the Tractaet makes an odd change from the third to the second person, which does not seem to serve any rhetorical purpose and is not consistently sustained.[22] Textual criticism also throws doubt on the authenticity of the foreword which some Portuguese MSS contain. According to this foreword, the Tractado had its origin in an oral discussion held between Montalto and a Dominican in Venice. The Dominican suddenly had to leave and it was decided to continue the discussion in writing. Yet the Dutch manuscript of the Bibliotheca Thysiana and the oldest Portuguese MS do not contain this foreword, while the other MSS offer rather different versions.[23] Probably, it does not stem from Montalto, but derives from a passage in his letters to Rodrigues, where he mentions a discussion with a Dominican. This discussion took place in Padua, at the turn of the year from 1611 to 1612; it was not continued in writing, and ended with a complete victory for Montalto.[24] As the Tractado is unfinished, yet is closely related to all the other known anti-Christian works of Montalto, offering their arguments in a more polished form,[25] it seems probable that he compiled the Tractado from older materials, possibly at the end of his life. The nature of Montalto's anti-Christian works can best be characterized as a lay theology based on scholastic presuppositions. In his eyes, the central issue in the debate between Christianity and Judaism is the truth of the explanation of revelation which each religion offers. He understands Judaism as it had been depicted by its Christian adversaries since the Middle Ages, viz. as a competing doctrine, deriving its truths from revelation.[26] The debate is about the correct exegesis of Scripture, containing this revelation. To verify biblical interpretation Montalto does not appeal to rabbinical literature, as was usual in learned Jewish or Christian polemics,[27] but to reason which in his works is not the scholarly judgement of the trained theologian, but common sense. Montalto derived his biblical knowledge from the Vulgate and the Spanish translation of Ferrara, which he corrected against each other.[28] He did not know much Hebrew. During the trial of Leonora Galigaï a statement was taken from Philippus Aquinas, a converted Jew from Carpentras who was to become Professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France.[29] He testified that he had translated Hebrew works on behalf of Montalto, and declared the latter's Hebrew knowledge to be much less complete than that of his pupil Mortera — who in 1612 was about sixteen years old.[30] Montalto's rabbinical knowledge was scanty.[31] The Tractado contains no more than five references to rabbinical literature, all of them in the vague form of an appeal to “our sages”.[32] Two of these references are to Bereshit Rabba, three to the Talmud. One of the latter is plainly wrong, while a second derives from Maimonides' Moreh Nevukhim. The third is coupled with a scriptural passage also cited in the Tractado, as are both references to the Midrash. Montalto probably derived these from a Jewish biblical commentary. Montalto's lack of traditional Jewish or Christian theological erudition[33] reinforced the lay rationalism which is such a prominent trait of the Tractado. In a clear, direct style the work tackles great theological problems, resolutely solving them in short argumentations. It was probably this character, rather than Montalto's fierce pride in the Jewish people or his bitter hatred of Catholicism and the Inquisition, which attracted the Dutch translator. 3. The Dutch adaptation. The Dutch manuscript preserved in the Bibliotheca Thysiana is written in a very clear hand. Scriptural passages are in roman script. The twelve parts of the argument are separated from each other by a blank line. Within each passage subdivisions are marked by a wider interspace between sentences. Punctuation and capitalization are used with care. The manuscript lacks any indication that it was meant to be printed and is more polished than one would expect in the case of its intended use as copy. It was probably meant to circulate in manuscript form. The manuscript of the Bibliotheca Thysiana was copied from a Dutch text, as one can see from a few elided words.[34] The incorrect attribution of the citation of Dtn 11:26-28 to the first chapter of Deuteronomy on f. 11r can also be explained on the basis of a faulty reading of the Dutch “eerste” for “elfste”.[35] The translation is of a very high quality, with no outstanding mistakes, and it is written in a vigorous Dutch style. It is a characteristic of the translator that he has a tendency to explicate. He renders “penitençia” as “remorse and regret”, “instrinsico” as “internal and immediate”, “influencia” as “influence and pouring in”, “principio” as “principle and origin ”.[36] The philosophical passages, which were often misunderstood by Jewish copyists, are adequately rendered. The numerous scriptural passages are translated directly from the Portuguese and were not adapted to an existing Dutch translation of the Bible. Only in one case does such a translation offer a clue as to the Bible the translator was accustomed to using. The Portuguese “edificando edifiquey” from I Kings 8:13 is rendered as “timmerende heb ik getimmert”.[37] All Reformed Dutch translations of the Bible offer “bouwen”. Only the Catholic translation by Van Winghen and the Mennonite Biestkensbible use “timmeren”. The most striking aspect of the translation is the adaptation the Tractado has undergone. Some twenty-five small changes alter the tone of the work drastically. Almost all the bitter, sharp remarks against Christianity are softened or suppressed. Montalto does not mention Christ by name, alluding to him as “aquele homem”. The translation always offers Jesus, in small capitals.[38] The qualification of Jesus as “hum seductor” is replaced by “a man”,[39] and the “depravadores da Divina Ley” of Montalto become “Christians”.[40] The numerous disparaging remarks concerning Christian beliefs and dogma are suppressed. “Falço proposito” becomes “conception”, “pseudotheologia” “theology”, “vanissima ceita” “doctrine”[41], “fingimentos que inventasteis” “foundations”[42], “pestifera seita” “sect”,[43] “pernicios Sophismos” “sophisms”,[44] the “monstruoza chimera segamente de vos creida” (the Trinity) “phantasy”[45], the “quimera da emcarnaçao” “the incarnation”[46]. These changes mitigate the tone, not the content of the Tractado. The translation preserves its character of a fundamental attack on the Anselmian doctrine of satisfaction and the orthodox concepts of the Trinity and Incarnation. Three small changes, however, alter the text as regards content. They throw light on the theological convictions of the translator. In his sixth point Montalto deals with the means by which the Israelites could obtain redemption., the first of these being circumcision. In the “Pacto da Circonsiçaõ” God has allied himself with Abraham and his descendants, which is rendered as “the Alliance of our circumcision”. The translator probably wanted to emphasize the particular character of circumcision, considering it to be an obligation only for Jews, not for all believers.[47] In the ninth point Montalto opposes the dogma of the Trinity. In the course of his argument he refers to Mark 13:32, where Christ says about the Day of Judgement: “of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.” Arguing that this verse implies that Jesus was not God, he mentions in passing that, as it lacks a reference to the Holy Spirit, it also proves that the author of the Gospel had as yet no concept of the Spirit as a third person in God. The manuscript of the Bibliotheca Thysiana offers the curious translation “the Author of the Gospels”, which must refer to the divine inspiration of the New Testament.[48] Directly following this passage Montalto cites the polemics of Isaiah 44 against idols, characterizing the chapter as a depiction of “Vosa Idolatria”. The translator rendered this as “the present idolatry”, probably considering that the chapter and Montalto are refering to the Catholic worship of saints.[49] On the basis of these changes a hypothesis can be formulated concerning the purpose of the translation and the milieu in which it originated.[50] We can reject the possibility that L'Empereur or another Christian hebraist commissioned a translation of the Tractado in order to edit the work together with a refutation. Christian hebraists refused to edit Jewish polemics against Christianity even in Latin, fearing they would be used by heterodox Christians.[51] Neither the translation into Dutch nor the changes can be satisfactorily explained if one supposes L'Empereur to have engaged someone to make a translation for his own personal use. It seems highly unlikely that a member of the Amsterdam Jewish community had the translation made in order to diffuse it among Christians.[52] In 1642 a short Dutch translation of a Jewish attack on the Christian exegesis of Gen 49:10, a verse traditionally used to argue that the Messiah had already come, circulated among some Amsterdam friends of the Mennonite preacher Gerebrand Anslo.[53] Yet this work, of which only a few words have been preserved, belonged to the tradition of Jewish apologetics, confining itself to a defence of the legitimacy of the Jewish interpretation of the Old Testament. Montalto's work is more radical. Even the Dutch version contains an outspoken attack on the central truths of Christian orthodoxy. The only Amsterdam Jew to address a Christian public in writing during the first half of the seventeenth century, Menasseh ben Israel, carefully abstained from all polemics.[54] In view of its language and the nature of the changes, it seems most likely the translation was made by a Dutchman who had a Christian public in mind. Among the different Christian groups in the Dutch Republic only the Socinians could find arguments in Montalto's work to support their theological position. Since the beginning of the seventeenth century Socinianism had penetrated the Republic.[55] Montalto's Tractado, opposing the Anselmian doctrine of satisfaction and the orthodox trinitarian and christological conceptions, contained the three points characterizing the Socinian polemic against orthodoxy.[56] Montalto's use of reason to chose between different revelations is closely related to Socinian argumentation concerning religious certainty.[57] Such a hypothesis regarding the translator's theological opinions explains the nature of the changes he made, especially the reverence for Jesus, the introduction of “the author of the Gospels”, and the implicitly acknowledged possibility of obtaining salvation by means other than circumcision. It is certain that a Socinian could endorse at least parts of the Tractado. In point 9, on f. 13r-v Montalto develops, to the point of absurdity, a concept of the Son as the substantialized image by which the Father understands Himself, and of the Spirit as a similar result of the love between Father and Son. He argues that these concepts lead to an infinite multiplication of persons within God, as the Son must necessarily also understand himself by an image, and so on. One finds precisely this same argument in the book De uno Deo Patre by the famous Socinian Johannes Crellius, published in 1631.[58] It seems highly unlikely that Crellius, who spent the whole of his active life in Poland, knew of the unpublished work of Montalto. Probably the use of the same argument by a Portuguese Jew, living in Italy and France, and a German Socinian, teaching in Poland, can be explained by a common source. However, I have not been able to trace this.[59] The supposition that the Tractado was translated by a Socinian invites one to hazard a guess at the identity of the translator. He should: (1) know Portuguese; (2) have contacts with the Amsterdam Jewish community; and (3) have been sufficiently trained in theology and philosophy to make an accurate translation of the Tractado. The most obvious candidate is Daniel van Breen. Van Breen, born in 1594 or 1599, studied at the Haarlem Latin School from 1606 to 1610 and at the Leiden theological faculty from 1611 to 1618 on a stipend from the city of Haarlem.[60] He was secretary to the Arminian defendants at the Synod of Dordt, lived for two years in Strassbourg, and after a short stay in Haarlem settled in Amsterdam until his death in 1664. In Amsterdam he moved in dissenting circles. He was a millenarian and at the end of the 1640s was one of the founders of the Amsterdam Collegiants.[61] He was closely involved in the propagation of Socinianism in the Republic. As early as 1624 and 1625 he was importing Socinian books by the dozen.[62] From the 1650s until his death in 1664 he took care of the arrangement and correction of the works in the great Socinian publishing venture, the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum.[63] Van Breen's own works also bear a marked Socinian character. His Opera Theologica, posthumously published in Amsterdam in 1664, were sometimes assumed to be part of the Bibliotheca.[64] In the exegetical works in his Opera he interprets Isaiah 53 and John 1 in a markedly Socinian sense. In 1644 Van Breen published, anonymously, an Amica Disputatio adversus Iudaeos continens Examen scripti iudaici a lusitanico in Latinum versi, which was a translation of a curious work by Saul Levi Mortera.[65] In 1631 the latter had received a Spanish letter from a priest of Rouen, asking him for information about Judaism in the form of twenty-three questions. The priest had been ordered by his bishop to ascertain the orthodoxy of the Rouen community of Portuguese New Christians. To acquaint himself with the concepts they could held, he had written to Mortera who answered in Portuguese in September of the same year. The questions and answers are an illuminating source for the widely varying religious choices which could be made by the New Christians. In 1640 Mortera added forty-six polemical counter-questions (attacking the reliability of the New Testament and the reasonableness of Christianity) to the original twenty-three questions and answers. These new questions were also written in Portuguese. Van Breen translated this work of Mortera's into Latin and published it as the Amica Disputatio. He provided some of Mortera's answers and counter-questions with his own refutations. The selection of Jewish arguments to be refuted is consistent with the theological position of the Dutch translator of the Tractado. Van Breen's Amica Disputatio does not comment on Mortera's answers attacking the Trinity (question 1), the Two Natures of Christ (question 4) and original sin (question 23). On the other hand Van Breen argues at length against Mortera's propositions that the Messiah has not yet come, that Mosaic Law has not been abrogated and is necessary for man's reconciliation with God, and that the New Testament is unreliable. In his answers Van Breen puts forward his millenarian conceptions in a detailed way. His reaction to Mortera's interpretation of Isaiah 53 unfolds a Socinian concept of Jesus' mission. Van Breen thus knew Portuguese, translated a Jewish work to propagate his own Socinian and millenarian concepts, and in the early 1640s was, directly or indirectly, in contact with Mortera, who had been Montalto's pupil.[66] It seems reasonable to assume that he was involved with the translation and adaptation of Montalto's Tractado. Nothing is known about the circulation of the Dutch translation. In the course of the seventeenth century the Portuguese MSS of Montalto's works were for the most part unknown to Christian scholars. In the second edition of his Histoire des Juifs Basnage mentions the Tractado and offers a short summary. He had acquired a Portuguese MS from the library of his son-in-law De Sarrau.[67] In one of his polemical writings against Richard Simon, Isaac Vossius refers to a conception of Montalto's which seems to stem from the work which has been passed down as the second part of the Tractado.[68] 4. The edition To give an impression of the high quality of MS Thysiana 170bis, the following text is the result of diplomatic editing. The wider interspaces between sentences, which in the MS mark subdivisions within each point, are represented here as paragraphs. In all other aspects, such as spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and indication of biblical passages, the edition follows all particulars of the MS. The notes to the text identify all biblical citations and the rare direct allusions to other works. Notes to some philosophical terms offer the original Portuguese wording. To indicate that such notes do not possess a text-critical character, they are not preceded by a reference to a MS. The manuscript edited here, Thysiana 170bis, now in the Library of the Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden, has been collated with the following three Portuguese MSS. BR: The MS described as number 277 in L. Fuks & R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections I. Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana University Library of Amsterdam, Leiden 1973, which bears the shelf number Hs Ros 76; an undated MS, probably from the late seventeenth century. EH214: The manuscript described as number 214 in L. Fuks & R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections II. Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ets Haim/Livraria Montezinos Sephardic Community of Amsterdam, which bears the shelf number EH 49 A 1; a MS copied in 1740 from a MS of 1670. EH198: The manuscript described as number 198 in L. Fuks & R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections II. Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ets Haim/Livraria Montezinos Sephardic Community of Amsterdam, which, contrary to its description in this catalogue, bears the shelf number EH 48 D 8. An undated MS from the seventeenth century. The different readings of these MSS, offered in the notes to the edition, are meant to throw light on the character of the Dutch MS Thysiana 170bis. Therefore, not all differences between the Dutch text and one or more of the Portuguese MSS have been noted. In principle, the notes indicate: 1. all differences which are the result of deliberate changes made by the Dutch translator, and 2. a number of different readings which are the result of textual corruption or deliberate changes made by Jewish copyists. These are meant to ascertain the reliability of the different MSS. Wherever a note is provided, all three Portuguese MSS have been consulted. If a note does not explicitly mention a MS, it offers the same reading as Thysiana 170bis. The collation makes clear that EH 198 is by far the best Portuguese MS. In most cases it offers, together with Thysiana 170bis, the best reading.[69] In two cases it offers a worse reading;[70] in two others a better one.[71] EH 198 must be very closely related to the Portuguese MS which formed the basis for the Dutch translation. Two important conclusions follow from the result of this collation. Firstly, EH198, like Thysiana 170bis, contains only the first part of the Tractado. Secondly, the close relation between both MSS makes it almost certain that in all cases where EH198, together with the other two Portuguese MSS, offers a different reading from Thysiana 170bis, the latter is the result of a change made by the Dutch translator.	Printer friendly format (PDF) Related articles: Edition The Early Enlightenment and Judaism: the Civil Dispute between Philippus van Limborch and Isaac Orobio de Castro (1687) Views of Judaism as a Religion in the Seventeenth-century Dutch Republic Constantijn L'Empereur's Contacts with the Amsterdam Jews and his Confutation of Judaism

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[1] Thysiana 170bis. The MSS of the Bibliotheca Thysiana are conserved in the Library of the Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden.

[2] Thysiana 164,3, 20r. For the nature of the catalogue in which L'Empereur noted down the additions to his library, see Peter T. van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies in the Seventeenth Century: Constantijn L'Empereur (1591-1648) Professor of Hebrew and Theology at Leiden, Leiden etc. 1989 (Studies in the History of Leiden University 6), 36-7,46.

[3] He mentioned the work in his edition of the Mishnaic tractate Bava Kamma: De Legibus Ebraeorum forsensibus Liber singularis. Ex Ebraeorum pandectis versus et commentariis illustratus, Leiden 1637, 70-1. The MS has not been preserved among his personal papers.

[4] It can possibly be identified with the anti-Christian work he mentioned in a letter to Ussher in November 1633: The Whole Works of James Ussher, 17 vols., Dublin 1847-1864, XV, 576.

[5] For the most important information about Montalto, see: Harry Friedenwald, The Jews and Medicine, 2 vols., Baltimore 1944, II, 468-97; Jean-Marc Pelorson, “Le Docteur Carlos García et la colonie Hispano-portugaise de Paris (1613-1619), Bulletin Hispanique 71 (1969), 518-576; H.P. Salomon, “Une lettre jusqu'ici inédite du docteur Felipe Rodrigues Montalto (Castelo Branco, 1567 - Tours, 1616” in: Les rapports culturels et litteraires entre le Portugal et la France: Actes du Colloque Paris, 11.-16. octobre 1982, Paris 1983, 151-169; Jonathan I. Israel, European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism 1550-1750, Oxford 1985, 83-85. For his family ties see: Jonathan I. Israel, “Duarte Nunes da Costa (Jacob Curiel), of Hamburg, Sephardi Nobleman and Communal Leader (1585-1664)”, Studia Rosenthaliana 21 (1987), 14-34.

[6] Salomon, “Une lettre inédite”, 158-9.

[7] The epitaphs on his grave are reproduced in Friedenwald, The Jews and Medecine.

[8] Cf. H.P. Salomon, Saul Levi Mortera “Traktaat betreffende de waarheid van de Wet van Mozes”. Inleiding, transcriptie en aantekeningen, Braga 1988, xxxi-lxxix.

[9] The letter and extracts of the interrogations in Salomon, “Une lettre inédite”.

[10] For the way in which the Inquisition could “produce Jews” see Salomon, Mortera, lxix-lxx and the literature mentioned there.

[11] Israel, “Duarte Nunes”, 16 n. 11.

[12] Philippi Montalto, Optica, intra Philosophiae, & Medicinae aream, de visu, de visus organo, & obiecto theoreiam accurate complectens, Florence 1606; second edition Geneva 1613. Cf. his second great Latin work: Philothei Eliani Montalto, Archipathologia, Paris 1614. The dedication of the Archipathologia to Maria de Medici was translated into French and published separately.

[13] The letters have been published as “Cartas de Doitor Eliau Montalto que Deos tem ao Doitor Pedro Rodrigues que Deos perdoe a Juan de Luz” by Cecil Roth in his “Quatre lettres d'Elie de Montalte, Contribution à l'histoire des Marranes”, Revue des Etudes Juives 87 (1929), 137-165: 148-65.

[14] For Concini's downfall see: A. Lloyd Moote, Louis XIII: The Just, Berkeley etc. 1989, 88-100; for the trial of Léonara see : Georges Mongrédien, Léonora Galigaï: Un procès de sorcellerie sous Louis XIII, Parijs 1968; Extracts of the interrogations have been published in Fernand Hayem, Le Maréchal d'Ancre et Léonora Galigaï, Parijs 1910, 217-312.

[15] Hayem, Maréchal, 243, 311: During his second stay in Paris Montalto, together with his family, openly professed Judaism. The first time Henri IV would not let him stay “à cause de sa religion”. Both statements were made by enemies of Galigaï. Galigaï stated that Maria de Medici had obtained permission from the Pope to let Montalto attend to the royal family (Hayem, Maréchal, 273). She also declared that Montalto during his first stay had not professed Judaism and during his second stay never talked with her about religious matters. He had been invited by the Queen, who hoped “le faire chrestien et en avoit faict quelque promesse à lad. dame R.M.”

[16] The following Portuguese or Spanish MSS are mentioned in catalogues or the secondary literature.

1. The oldest dated Portuguese MS is the one belonging to the Library Company of Philadelphia, 195 Q 2. It was copied in 1652 in Amsterdam by Ischack Navarro. (Salomon, “Lettre inédite”, 162 n. 42).

2. The Portuguese MS of the Jewish Institute of Warschau was copied in 1670 in Amsterdam by David de Aron Uziel Cardozo. (D.S. Loewinger & B.D. Weinryb, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Library of the Juedisch-Theologisches Seminar in Breslau, Wiesbaden 1965, no 70).

3. British Library, MS OR 8698; fols. 145-174 contain the first part of the Tractado, fols. 223-254 the supposed second part. Fols. 255-74 contain the four letters of Montalto to Rodrigues. (Salomon, “Lettre inédite”, 162 n. 42).

4. British Library, Harl 4634 probably contains the Tractado. (Pascal de Gayangos, Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Spanish Language in the British Museum, 2 vols., Londen 1877, II, 531).

5. Bodleian 24813, fols. 23-40: “Tratasse sobre o capitulo 53 do Propheta Jesaya em rezao do fundamento que nele fazem os Xtanas para sua fee.” (A. Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford 1886).

6. Bodleian 2479, “Tratado hecho por el Doctor Montalto sobre el capitulo 53 de Ischias” is a Spanish translation ( A. Neubauer, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford 1886).

7. Columbia University Library possesses “Livro em que mostra averdade de diversas textos y cazos, que alegão as gentilidadez para confirmar suas seicta” (Friedenwald, The Jews and Medecine, 495).

8. Jewish Theological Seminary, Ms Adler 1384 (Alexander Marx, “The Polemical Manuscripts in the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America” in: A.S. Freidus Memorial Volume, New York 1929, 247-78, no 64 ).

9. Königliche Bibliothek, München (M. Kayserling, Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica. Dictionnaire bibliographique, Straatsburg 1890, 72-3); Kayserling himself possessed a Portuguese MS (M. Kayserling, “Drei Controversisten”, Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judenthums 17 (1868), 321-36, 323 noot 1).

10. Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana, Amsterdam Hs Ros 76; a Portuguese MS, undated but probably from the late seventeenth century (L. Fuks & R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections I. Catalogue of the Manuscripts of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana University Library of Amsterdam, Leiden 1973, no 277).

The four MSS of the library Ets Haim/Livraria Montezinos, Amsterdam, are, as all its MSS , on loan in Jerusalem. The library possesses films of the loaned MSS. On the films the MSS carry their old shelf numbers.

11. EH 49 A 1, a Portuguese MS copied in 1740 from a MS of 1670. (L. Fuks & R.G. Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew and Judaic Manuscripts in Amsterdam Public Collections II. Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Ets Haim/Livraria Montezinos Sephardic Community of Amsterdam, no 214).

12. EH 48 D 27, a Portuguese MS. This is not the MS described by Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld as no. 225, but the MS they have described as no. 198 and to which they have wrongly attributed the shelf mark EH 48 D 8.

13. EH 48 B 3, 18th-century Portuguese MS (Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld 226)

14. EH 48 D 8, a Spanish translation described by Fuks & Fuks-Mansfeld as no 198. The film offers some other work with this shelf mark.

15. A Jewish Tract, on the Fifty-third Chapter of Isaiah, written by Dr. Montalto, in Portuguese, and Translated from his Manuscript, by Philo-Veritas, London 1790 (“une piètre traduction anglaise faite d'après une mauvaise copie portugaise”: Salomon, “Lettre inédite”, 162 n. 42.)

[17] The last part analyses the seventy weeks of Daniel. The following passages from the second part of the MS of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana offer more simple versions of the first part of the Tractado edited here: BR 36r-Th 15r; BR 37v- Th 15v. BR 38v-39v repeats the argument of point 4 and 5 in Th 3r-v; BR 39v the argument of point 3 in Th 2v - 3r; BR 40r is closely related to point 6, Th 3v; BR 52r to Th 15r, BR 54r to Th 18v.

[18] The MSS described in note 16 above as no. 5 and 12. MS OR 8698 (note 16 above no. 3) contains both the first and the second part, but they are separated by some other work.

[19] See below: “The edition”

[20] Another fragment was published in M. Caplan (ed), Danielillo o Respuestas a los Christianos, Bruxelles 1868, 104-32, of which there is a copy in the library of Ets Haim. This is a somewhat suspect edition of a nineteenth-century MS from the collection Van Hulthem in the Royal Library of Bruxelles. The work consists of a dialogue on the truth of Judaism and contains a short tractate with the title “Razonamiento del Señor Haham Montalto en Paris”. The dialogue presents the tractate as an oration, held by Montalto before all the theologians of the court of Henri IV. The work has some relation to the Tractado. On page 104 it offers an argument against the Trinity which is also to be found in point 9 of the Tractado. For other similarities see M. Kayserling, “Drei Controversisten”, 326-7.

Montalto's work against the Trinity, which he mentions in the Tractado (see note 127 to the text) should probably be identified with the anonymous “Disputandi gratia contra fidem catholicam Romanam”, which in EH 198 directly follows the first part of the Tractado (fols. 38r-59v). On 58r it offers, in a somewhat less developed form, the original argument against the Trinity which the Tractaet puts forward on Th 13r-v.. The second part of this anonymous work is provided with extensive Latin marginal notes, which summarize the line of the argument. They were written by a Christian, probably a Protestant theologian (Cf. for example fol. 44v “Cath. Thomistae ab hebraeis reiicitur” and fol. 45v, where “nossa theologia” is rendered in the margin as “Theologia Hebraica”). The provenance of the MSS of Ets Haim is unknown; most of them were added to the library only in the nineteenth century (Fuks en Fuks-Mansfeld, Hebrew Manuscripts II, introduction).

[21] Cf note 16 above. The MS of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana bears the general title: Livro Feito Plo Ilustrissimo Haham Elia Montalto De G.M. Emque Mostra a Verdade de diversos Textos e Cazos, que alegao as Gentilidadez para Confirmar Suos Sectas. The three different parts bear the titles (Segunda/Terceira Parte do) Tractado do Doctor Montalto sobre o Principio (sic) do Capitulo 53 de Jesaias. Such a double title is born by more MSS and explains the use of both titles in bibliographies, which mention both a Livro Feito and a Tractado, sometimes suggesting the existence of two different works. Cf. J.C. Wolfius, Bibliotheca hebraea, 4 vols., Hamburg & Leipzig, 1715-1733, III, 104-5; G.B. de Rossi, Bibliotheca Judaica antichristiana, Parma 1800, 71; M. Kayserling, Biblioteca Española-Portugueza-Judaica. Dictionnaire bibliographique, Strassbourg 1890, 72-3.

[22] Cf. note 31 and 80 to the text. The letters to Rodrigues also hesitate between the use of the second and third person, as Montalto directly addresses Rodrigues, attempting to convince him of the mistakenness of the Christian dogmata, which Rodrigues apparently defended in his letters, now lost.

[23] Salomon, “Lettre inédite”, 162 n. 42

[24] Roth, “Quatre lettres”, 159. Salomon assumes that the text, handed down as the second part of the Tractado, was originally a fifth letter to Rodrigues: Salomon, “Lettre inédite”, 162 n. 42.

[25] Cf. note 17 and 20 above. The Tractado is also related to the letters to Rodrigues. Cf. for instance Roth, “Quatre lettres”, 150-1 and Th 11v, Roth, “Quatre lettres”, 152 and Th 12r, Roth, “Quatre lettres”, 156, 160 and Th 3v, Roth, “Quatre lettres”, 164 and Th 16r. This survey is not exhaustive.

[26] Cf. Van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies, 102, 165-8.

[27] For an analysis of the traditional polemics: P.T. van Rooden & J.W. Wesselius, “The Early Enlightenment and Judaism: The Civil Dispute between Philippus van Limborch and Isaac Orobio de Castro (1687)”, Studia Rosenthaliana 21 (1987), 140-153, 143-8.

[28] Montalto's other works quite often contain Latin citations from the Vulgate, next to citations from the Ferrara Bible, which Montalto more or less translated into Portuguese. The Portuguese MSS of the Tractado do not contain Latin, but not all biblical passages stem from the Ferrara Bible. Some are translated from the Vulgate. The biblical names probably derived from the Vulgate in Th 170bis, like Noe and Moyses, are original, while the Hebraizing names in the Portuguese MSS, such as Ribca en Jahacob, go back to Jewish copyists. Decisive is Montalto's citation from Ps 73:24 (see note 88 to the text). Th 170bis reads here: “ende daer nae sult ghij mij [tot] glorie nemen”. The square brackets stem from the Ferrara Bible, which in this way indicates the lack of a proposition in the Hebrew text. The translation “tot” stems from the Vulgate, which renders “in gloria”, while the Ferrara translates “(con) honra”.

[29] Pedersen, “Carlos García”, 532 n. 38, 536

[30] Cf. Hayem, Maréchal, 245-50, especially 246 and 249.

[31] The Hebrew consultation, edited by Cecil Roth, which supports its argument that on the Sabbath Montalto may visit his Parisian patients in a carriage, with numerous references to the Talmud, was not written by Montalto, as Roth wrongly supposed. (“Elie Montalto et sa consultation sur le sabbat”, Revue des Etudes Juives 94 (1935), 113-136) The consultation was composed by Mortera: Salomon, Mortera, xxxiii, lxxvi.

[32] Cf. notes 21, 39, 74, 82, 107 to the text. In the second part of the Tractado Montalto cites the Targum Onkelos in Latin, probably from the Antwerp Polyglot: BR, 47v.

[33] The philosophical arguments against the Trinity and the Incarnation developed in point 9 and 10 are clever. Nothwithstanding the references to Thomas (cf. note 188, 190, 192 to the text), they do not, however, reach the technical level of scholastic discussions.

[34] Cf. for instance Th 6v, 9v,

[35] Cf. note 161. The confusion about Hosea 11:9 on fol 15r (note 197 to the text) has to be explained in a similar way.

[36] Cf. note 30, 44, 62, 82 to the text.

[37] Cf. note 60 to the text.

[38] Cf. note 5, 207, 230 to the text.

[39] Cf. note 170 to the text.

[40] Cf. note 2,4 to the text. Thus Montalto consequently speaks in the letters to Rodrigues.

[41] Cf. note 29, 139, 152 to the text.

[42] Cf. note 123 to the text. Cf. als note 42, 51, 124, 137.

[43] Cf. note 171 to the text. Cf. also note 195.

[44] Cf. note 160 to the text.

[45] Cf. note 126 to the text.

[46] Cf. note 222 to the text.

[47] Cf. note 47 to the text.

[48] Cf. note 154 to the text.

[49] Cf. note 155 to the text. Montalto himself considered Protestantism in its different forms as idolatry: Roth, “Quatre lettres”, 153.

[50] The younger Portuguese MSS also contain various readings which are the result of deliberate changes in the Tractado. Later Jewish copyists suppressed Montalto's suggestion that even in his day the Eucharist was sometimes secretly desecrated (note 66), and his citation from the non-canonical II Maccabees (note 73). They added some insults (note 97, 109). Unlike Montalto they used concepts such as “Judaism” and “the Jews” (note 117, 227). They lost sight of Montalto's careful scholastic description of miracles as being “above nature” (note 95) and explicated his Latin phrases (note 181, 191).

[51] Cf. Van Rooden, Theology, Biblical Scholarship and Rabbinical Studies, 168-174.

[52] Almost certainly in the 1630s no Amsterdam Sephardic Jew knew Dutch well enough to be able to make such an excellent translation.

[53] Cf. P.T. van Rooden & J.W. Wesselius, “J.S. Rittangel in Amsterdam”, Nederlands Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis 65 (1985), 131-152, 150v.

[54] Cf. A.J. Saraiva, “António Vieira, Menasseh Ben Israel et le Cinquième Empire”, Studia Rosenthaliana 6 (1972), 25-56.

[55] W.J. Kühler, Het Socinianisme in Nederland, Leiden 1912; J.C. van Slee, De Geschiedenis van het Socinianisme in de Nederlanden, Haarlem 1914.

[56] For an excellent characterization see Kühler, Socinianisme, 11-20.

[57] Cf. Otto Fock, Der Sozinianismus, Kiel 1847, 374-413.

[58] I. Crellius, De uno Deo Patre libri duo, Racovae 1631, 547-50. The short biography of Crellius by Joachim von Hirtenberg in the third volume of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum has been translated and annotated in G.H. Williams (ed.), The Polish Brethren, 2 vols, Harvard 1980, I, 131-148.

[59] A very short version of the argument — no longer than one sentence — appears in A. Dudithius, Epistola ad Ioh. Lasicium. This letter from 1571 was published in Cracow in 1590. This edition remained almost unknown, as in 1656 the editors of the first volume of the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonorum who republished the letter (p. 510-14), thought they were the first to do so.

[60] Joke Spaans, Haarlem na de Reformatie. Stedelijke cultuur en kerkelijk leven, 's-Gravenhage 1989, 291; Van Slee, Geschiedenis, index i.v.; J.C. van Slee, De Rijnsburger Collegianten, Haarlem 1895, index i.v; K.O. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kring, 's-Gravenhage 1896, 95.

[61] Leszek Kolakowski, Chrétiens sans Eglise. La conscience religieuse et le lien confessionel au XVIIe siècle, Paris 1969, 199-206.

[62] Van Slee, Geschiedenis, 202 n. 2.

[63] Van Slee, Geschiedenis, 245.

[64] Earl Morse Wilbur, A History of Unitarianism I: Socinianism and its Antecedents, Cambridge (Mass.) 1947, 561 n. 4.

[65] Cf. Salomon, Mortera, lxvi-lxvii, lxxii-lxxiii.

[66] As early as the 1630s Mortera had contacts with Socinians: Henry Méchoulan, “Morteira et Spinoza au carrefour du Socinianisme”, Revue des Etudes Juives 135 (1976), 51-65; Salomon, Mortera, lxxxi, lxxxiv-lxxxv.

[67] Cf. R.H. Popkin, “Jacques Basnage's Histoire des Juifs and the Bibliotheca Sarraziana”, Studia Rosenthaliana 21 (1987), 154-62.

[68] I. Vossius, Tertias P. Simonii Objectiones Responsio, Londen 1686, 95.

[69] Cf. note 6, 8, 16, 23, 40, 56, 59, 65, 68, 70, 73, 74, 91, 95, 108, 111, 113, 117, 130, 131, 163, 167, 169, 178, 185, 186, 188, 211, 217, 223, 224, 226, 227, 232.

[70] Cf. note 183 and the harmonization in note 77, where Th 170bis, BR, and EH 214 offer the lectio difficilior.

[71] Cf. note 161, 197.