Es Dat, ò Fuego Legal. Spanish text. pp. (xii), 169. * Bound With: Eish Dath. Hebrew text. ff. (1), 38.

NIETO, DAVID.

Thomas Ilive

London

1715

Vinograd, London 27-28; Roth London 7; Kayserling, p. 77.

Spanish-Hebrew polemic against crypto-Sabbatian Nehemiah Hiya Hayon. Italian-born David Nieto (1654-1728), Haham of the Spanish-Portuguese community of London, was a master of the dialogical style of writing, which he first employed in 1714 in his comprehensive philosophic work, Mateh Dan-Kuzari Sheni (see previous lot). The present work. Es-Dat, is also structured as a dialogue between “Naphtali” and “Dan.” While Naphtali is caught up in the heretical works of Nehemiah Hayon, Dan is able to clearly judge the pernicious nature within these writings. Nieto originally composed his work in Hebrew and then saw it necessary to translate it into Spanish for the benefit of the laymen of his congregation in London. See E. Carlebach, The Pursuit of Heresy: Rabbi Moses Hagiz and the Sabbatian Controversies (1990), pp. 75-159; and M. Fischheimer, Anyone Who Looks at the Brass Serpent Shall Survive: A New Inquiry into the Thought of Nehemiah Hayon (Hebrew) in: Kabbalah, Vol. 24 (2011) pp. 241-61.