Atias, Isaac. Thesoro de Preceptos a Donde Se Encierran Las joyas de los Seys cientos y treze Preceptos [“Thesuarus of the Commandments. Where are Locked the Jewels of the Six Hundred and Thirteen Commandments.”]

(SEPHARDICA)

Semuel ben Israel Soero

Amsterdam

1649

Second Edition. Spanish text. Two parts in one volume. With Menasseh ben Israel’s device (see Yaari, Printer’s Marks, no. 58)

Palau 19334; Kayserling, p. 15; Cat. Menasseh, 60; Den Boer, Spanish and Portuguese Printing 34; Not in Steinschneider. Not in JNUL, nor the British Library

Isaac Atias was a disciple of Isaac Uziel in Amsterdam. He became Haham of the Portuguese Synagogue of Hamburg, before accepting in 1622 the call to serve as rabbi of Venice, where he later died. Following the lead of Maimonides in his Sepher ha-Mitzvoth, the author has divided the book into two parts, the first an enumeration of the 248 positive precepts, and the second an enumeration of the 365 negative precepts. The work was intended for the Spanish and Portuguese Marranos who reverted to their ancestral faith in such places as Amsterdam, Venice and Hamburg, but did not know Hebrew and were largely ignorant of the orthodox practice of Judaism. In its prologue, Athias explicitly refers to his Marrano brethren as the "noblest nation of Spain" who had been punished with "exile, calamities, death and excessive suffering...and whose major part had been miserably buried in the darkness of perdition, until the Lord assisted them and they returned to adore his blessed service." See JE, Vol. II, p. 268