ANTONIO ISIDORO DA NOBREGA

Officina Sylviana, da Academia Real.

Lisbon

1738

Discurso Catholico, no qual um Christão Velho, zeloso da nossa Santa Fé, falla com os Judeos, convencendo-os dos erros, em que vivem…[“Catholic Discourse, in which an Old Christian, Zealous of our Holy Faith, Speaks with the Jews, Convincing them of the Errors in which they Live.”]

When there were no longer Jews left in the Iberian Peninsula, the wrath of the Church was turned against the New Christians, i.e. Christians whose ancestors however distant, had been Jewish converts to Christianity. Unless one could prove by genealogical documentation one's "limpieza de sangre" (Spanish) or "limpeza de sangue" (Portuguese) ["purity of blood"], qualifying one as an "Old Christian," one could expect to be subjected to the persecution of the Inquisition. One sermonist preached: "…in order for these [the Marranos] to be born enemies of Christ by ancestry and blood, it is by no means necessary that both parents be practicing Jews. It seems that one is enough. It is not necessary that this be the father, but the mother is sufficient. And even she does not have to be a full-blooded Jewess, one-half Jewish ancestry is sufficient. Not even that much is required, as a fourth of Jewish ancestry suffices, and indeed less is required for our times have shown that one eighth is adequate…" (João de Ceita, Sermão [Evora, 1624]; cited in Edward Glaser, "Invitation to Intolerance: A Study of the Portuguese Sermons Preached at Autos-da-fé," HUCA, Vol. XXVII [1956], p. 365). Glaser aptly summed up the canard of this book and others of its genre: "…the Portuguese avoid as a rule references to specific persons or incidents. The object of their attacks is a nebulous, vast social entity, vaguely defined as Os Judeus. But in this ambiguity lies the strength of their broadside, for, by virtue of this generalization, their speeches become dragnets of defamation from which there is no escape for anyone defiled by Jewish blood" (op. cit., p. 384)