Imperio de Dios en la Harmonia del Mundo [”God’s Empire in the Harmony of the World.”]

<<Exceedingly rare work by the Marrano poet Daniel Levi/Miguel de Barrios. Considered by the poet to be his magnum opus. With the very rare allegorical portrait of the poet and his family.>> De Barrios here presents a Jewish messianic vision of the future of the world, related to the Twelve Years War in which he viewed the Ottoman Empire and the French King Louis XIV as the last oppositional forces before the End of Times - the Gog and Magog of the Scriptures. This is a unique work in the production of the poet, as he presents himself with his Christian name and as a Captain of the Spanish Army in Flanders (today, Belgium), while at the same time he no longer conceals his Jewish identity and pre-occupations from a Christian audience. Although the present work does not bear an imprint, it has generally been assumed that it was indeed printed in Brussels. There are several reasons to assume this: Barrios was well aware that an imprint with Antwerp or Brussels helped to spread his work among a Spanish reading, Christian audience who associated these locations with heterodoxy and Judaism. Barrios’ intention of publishing for a Christian, as well as a Jewish audience, is also evident by the use of his Christian name, the title ‘Don’, and the fact that he recorded his military title. The rabbis of the Jewish community of Amsterdam, on the other hand, had on several occasions criticized Barrios for writing on profane subjects, for praising Christian kings and princes, and using mythological imagery in his works. Although the present work has a religious subject, it is also filled with classical and mythological references, and Barrios wrote in a generic religious mode on the Bible, which could in his opinion be shared by both Jewish and Christian readers. Yet rabbis and pious members of his community who did not agree with what they regarded as a profane interpretation of the Torah attacked Barrios. The poet was deeply affected by this criticism, as he considered the present work to be his most ambitious achievement. This could also explain, Barrios chose to avoid Amsterdam, and had his work printed in the Spanish Low Countries. The central part of the text of Barrios’ Imperio de Dios is a poem of 125 stanzas in which Barrios sings the glory of the world created by God in the “Chorus of Differences,” in other words, a choir with differing voices yet together producing harmony. It is a symbolic effort by the poet to reconcile the internal division between his Spanish identity (born as a Christian in Southern Spain) and his Jewish identity (living as a professing Jew in Amsterdam). At the same time, through the image of the archangels or voices in the choir of worldly harmony, he seeks to discern a spiritual equilibrium in a world divided by wars, political conflicts and religious differences which marked his time, the second half of the 17th century. In a further part entitled “Piedra derribadora sobre la estatua de Nabucodonosor” Barrios openly writes about prophetic visions, and combining Scriptures with the interpretation of his dreams, speculates on the coming of a Jewish Messiah which he calculates to be in the year 5500 (1740). Yet Barrios met with obstacles in the realization of his project. He lacked the required funding, although he boasted to have acquired the support of some of Europe’s princes. More significantly, he met with opposition from the Jewish community he belonged to who criticized him for converting the Bible into profane entertainment and De Barrios was made to beg forgiveness from the pulpit of the Amsterdam synagogue. At a time when spies of the Spanish lnquisition abounded everywhere, when those left behind in Spain ran grave risks whenever it became known which Spanish names were associated with the active members of the Amsterdam Jewish congregation, and when spiritual confusion endangered the development of the young, strict observance was a prerequisite of cohesion and often of survival, which also helps to explain the fate of Uriel da Costa and Baruch Spinoza. Yet despite their complaints, the Parnassim of Amsterdam recognized the value of a man who had not only celebrated so many important family events in their congregation but had also recorded the history of their proud community in flowing verse, not least in his celebrated Triumpho del govierno popular y de la antigüedad holandesa (1683-4). One of the most eminent exiles of Spanish-Jewish literature, Miguel de Barrios (1635-1701) was born in Montilla, Spain to Marrano parents. Following an Auto da Fe in 1655 when a family-relative, Marco (Isaac) de Almeyda Bernal was killed, the Barrios family fled Spain. In 1659 young Miguel publicly embraced Judaism in Livorno (then a safe haven for Spanish Marranos) and assumed the Jewish name “Daniel Levi” After a brief stint in Tobago in the West Indies, he returned to Europe in 1662 and entered military service, becoming a Captain in the Spanish cavalry, living outwardly as a Christian in Brussels, while simultaneously maintaining a connection with the Jewish community in Amsterdam. In 1674, Barrios renounced his military commission and thereafter lived openly as a professing Jew in Amsterdam where he became a leading literary figure and founding member of Amsterdam’s literary salons: The Academia de los Sitibundos and the Academia de los Floridos. During the eruption of Messianic fervor surrounding the person of Shabthai Tzvi, Barrios was a fervent believer and often fasted for long periods. This so alarmed his wife that she hurried to R. Jacob Sasportas on the first day of Passover, 1675, and pleaded for his assistance. Sasportas found Barrios prepared for the Messiah’s advent before the New Year, convinced that the Christians, headed by the Dutch monarch, would convert to Judaism. As he dryly records in his Tzitzat Novel Tzvi (1737), Sasportas found it necessary to remind the deluded poet of his immediate family obligations and of the perilous state of his health. Of related interest, Barrios’ fascination with the New World re-appeared in 1681 when he contributed to Alexandre Exquemelin’s “Piratas de la America,” a lengthy descriptive poem entitled “Descripción de las islas del mar athlántico y de América” in which he displayed an extensive geographical knowledge of the Atlantic and Caribbean isles. One of the earliest extended works specifically devoted to America by a Jewish writer. <<No copy of the Imperio de Dios has appeared at public auction for more than a century.>>