ROJAS NIETO, FRANCISCO DE. Vespertinas de los Opprobios de la Passion de Cristo, Causados de la Casi Eternalmente Ingrata Nacion Hebrea [“Sermons for the offenses to the Passion of Christ, caused by the eternally ungrateful nation of the Jews”].

(SPAIN)

Emprenta del Reyno / Royal Printing House,

(Madrid:

1634)

FIRST EDITION. On title, engraved frontispiece by Jean de Courbes, displaying two Jewish men and two Jewish women scourging a crucified Jesus. Royal coat-of-arms

Palau 275799 and 191825; unkown to Kayserling.

VIRULENT ANTI-JEWISH WORK Attacking the PORTUGUESE JEWS OF MADRID. Rare. Only a few copies recorded in Spanish libraries. Not in the British Library. Not in the major Jewish libraries (JNUL, JTS, Hebrew Union College, Rosenthaliana). This work was an essential part of a concerted campaign addressed against the New Christians, that is, Portuguese of Jewish descent. The violent tone of this collection of doctrinal dialogues against the Jews is explicit from the title onwards and pervades almost every one of its pages. Contrary to other works, wherein Jews were invoked to convert to Christianity, the present text does not consider a Jew to ever be anything other than a perfidious enemy. The hatred launched in this work relates to the so-called "Cristo de la Paciencia" affair, when, in 1632, the Inquisition in Madrid, denounced Portuguese Marranos, who, without any bases in reality, were supposed to have celebrated secret anti-Christian rituals, (hence the title-page of the present work). These accusations proved to be convenient, both for the Spanish Inquisition who was desperate to reclaim its power, and to certain political and ecclesiastic factions at the Spanish court, governed by a weak king – Philip IV, and in the midst of all type of political intrigues. The Portuguese New Christian immigrants who had moved to Madrid for economic reasons and among whom there were many successful merchants, would soon fall victim to these intrigues, being a perfect scapegoat in times of economic and political instability. The appeal to anti-Jewish sentiments would prove to be highly effective in distracting attention from more immediate concerns to the Spanish citizenry. The effects of the Cristo de la Paciencia Affair on the Portuguese New Christians were, nevertheless, terrible. In 1632, a huge Auto de Fe was organized by the Spanish Inquisition attended by the King of Spain himself. See Caro Baroja. Los judíos en la España moderna y contemporánea. Madrid (1963)