Rauschen Band

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Mediating Jewish Knowledge: Menasseh ben Israel and the Christian Respublica litteraria
Author(s): SINA RAUSCHENBACH
Source: The Jewish Quarterly Review, Vol. 102, No. 4 (Fall 2012), pp. 561-588
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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The J EwisH Quarterly Review, Vol. 102, No. A (Fall 2012) 561-588
Mediating Jewish Knowledge:

Menasseh ben Israel and the Christian
Red publica Iliteraria
SINA RAUSCHENBACH
Who can enumerate the number of ours who are renowned by fame,
and learning? The learned R. Moses bar Maimon was Physician to Sal-
adla the King of Aegypt. Moses Amon to Emperor Sultan Bajaseth. Elia*)
Montalto to the most eminent Queen of France, Loysia de Medici)-, and
was also her Counsellor. At Padua, Elias Cretensis read philosophy; and
R. Abraham de Balnuu), the Hebrew Grammar. And how much honour
had Elia*) Grammatics at Rome ? . . . Piciu) Mirandula (who useth to say,
That he had but small understanding, who only looked after hi) owne things,
and not after other mens) and others, had Hebrew teachers. David de Pomià
dedicated his Book to Pope Sextuà the fifth, who lovingly, and courte-
ously received both the Author, and work. So at this day we see many
desirous to learn the Hebrew tongue of our men. Hence may be seene
that God hath not left us; for if one persecute us, another receives us
civilly, and courteously; and if this Prince treats us ill, another treats
us well; if one banisheth us of his country, another invites us by a
thousand priviledges.1
This essay is based on my Judentum für Christen: Vermittlung und Selbstbehauptung

Menasseh ben Israels in den gelehrten Debatten des 17. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 2012). The
first version was written at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, to which I am
deeply indebted. David Ruderman made helpful comments on an earlier version.
Cornelia Niekus Moore and Ana Sobral helped with the final version. Finally, I
am grateful to Abraham Melamed, Zur Shalev, and liana Zinguer, who invited
me to present this work at the conference "Hebrew Aspects of the Renaissance:
Sources and Encounters," held at the University of Haifa, May 2009.
1. "The Hope of Israel," trans. M. Wall, sect. 33, 40-41, reprinted in Menasseh
Ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell: Being a Reprint of the Pamphlets Published by
Menasseh ben Israel to Promote the Readmission of the Jews to England, 1649-1656, ed.
L. Wolf (London, 1901), 50-51. For the original Spanish, see Ben Israel, Miqwe
Yisrael, esto es, Esperança de Israel (Amsterdam, 1650), § XVIII, LXVII, 106- 7.
The Jewish Quarterly Review (Fall 2012)

Copyright © 2012 Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies.
All rights reserved.
562 JQR 102.4 (2012)
When Menasseh ben Israel wrote these words in 1650 he had

attained the pinnacle of his scholarly aspirations. Christian colleagues
from all over Europe frequented his house.2 Others corresponded with
him regarding difficult theological questions. Finally, his coreligionists,
who had tended to neglect him when important decisions were to be
made, granted Menasseh due recognition. The time seemed ripe for a
reassessment. In fact, it was by placing his own efforts in the same con-
text as those of Moses ben Maimon, Moses Hamon, Elijah Delmedigo
( Eliaà CreterwLS), Elijah Levita ( Eliaà Grammaticuà) , David de' Pomis, Eli-
jah Montalto, and Abraham de Balmes that Menasseh clearly expressed
the framework for his life's accomplishments. In spite of the shame Chris-
tians attributed to them as Jews ( con el oprobio de JudioS), these scholars
had been successful in gaining reputation and honor outside the Jewish
world, earning a position among the elites of their countries.3 Further-
more, they had used their influence to help Diaspora Jews in their
respective societies.
Menasseh attempted something comparable. During the seventeenth
century, increasing numbers of Christian scholars turned to Jews to
study Hebrew and Aramaic. They read the Talmud and the medieval
Jewish philosophers, and they reprinted, edited, and translated Hebrew
and Aramaic books.4 Unlike most of their medieval forerunners, many
early modern Hebraists aimed not only at anti- Jewish polemics but also
at something beyond, and this approach opened up new possibilities for
cooperation. Already in the fifteenth century, Christian scholars had dis-
covered the Kabbalah as a possible source for universal wisdom and
knowledge. Others, in the context of humanist scholarship and antiquari-
anism, had drawn new attention to the concept of hebraica veritaà. Accord-
ing to them, hebraica veritaà was an "original truth" that had been lost
during the ongoing corruption of the Christian church. Once rediscov-
ered from the Jewish sources, it would lead to the "correct" understand-
ing of Christianity. After the Reformation some theologians went even
further, assuming that the study of antique and medieval Jewish sources
would help to decide the right and wrong of the most hotly disputed
confessional issues.
2. Ben Israel, Segunda parte del Conciliador, o De la convenencia de loö lugared de la S.

Eàcriptura, que repugnantes entre ài parecen (Amsterdam, 1641), Al Lector, [** 4] r.
3. Ben Israel, Eàperança de Iàrael, § XVIII, LXVT, 102.
4. For the most recent bibliography on early modern Christian Hebraica, see
Anthony Grafton and Joanna Weinberg, "I Have Alwayà Loved the Holy Tongue:"
làaac Caàaubon, the Jewà, arid a Forgotten Chapter in Renaiààance Sc ho tard bip (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 2011), 350-66.
MEDIATING JEWISH KNOWLEDGE -RAUSCHENBACH 563
Menasseh ben Israel was one of the first rabbis to respond systemati-
cally to these new challenges. Only in some Italian states and cities had
individual rabbis - such as some of those named in the epigraph - begun
publishing treatises about Jews and Judaism intended for a Christian
audience. Others such as Leone Modena or Simone Luzzatto influenced
Menasseh even more: Modena published (in 1637) the first Jewish eth-
nography written by a Jewish author for a Christian public.5 Though
Modena's book was primarily directed against Buxtorf's Synagoga judaica
(1603), 6 the Venetian rabbi sought, like Menasseh, to spread knowledge
about Judaism among Christians and thereby improve Jewish- Christian
relationships.7 Equally, Simone Luzzatto, in his Diàcono circa il d tato de
g l' heb rei et in particolar dimoranti nell'inclita città di Venetia (1638), defended
the Venetian Jewish community in a time of crisis and took the opportu-
nity to present Judaism positively to a Christian public. Luzzatto and
Modena, like Menasseh, used Christian frames to structure their descrip-
tions. They also stressed Judaism's universalism and its openness toward
other religions.8 Luzzatto s Discordo was later utilized by Menasseh in his
1655 petition to Oliver Cromwell and the London Parliament.9
More than his Italian predecessors, Menasseh profited from the
Hebraic culture of the seventeenth-century Northern Netherlands, which
was based on two fundamental conditions: first, the "public church'' was
Calvinist, and Calvinist theologians were especially well versed in
Hebrew and Hebraic sources. Second, Dutch scholars linked hebraica veri-
5. See Leone Modena, Historia dei riti hebraici (Paris, 1 637). For the tradition
of writing Jewish ethnographies, see Yaacov Deutsch, '"A View of the Jewish
Religion:' Conceptions of Jewish Practice and Ritual in Early Modern Europe,"
Archiv für Religiondgedchichte 3 (2001): 273-95. For a modern edition of Richard
Simon's seventeenth-century French translation of the Riti , see Led Juifd prédentéd
aux Chrétiend: Cérémonied et coutumed qui ďobdervent aujourd'hui parmi led Juifd par
Léon de Modène, ed. J. Le Brun and G. Stroumsa (Paris, 1998).
6. See Mark R. Cohen: "Leone da Modena s Riti: A Seventeenth-Century
Plea for Social Toleration of the Jews," Jewidh Social Studied 34 (1972): 287-319.
7. See Talya Fishman, "Changing Early Modern Jewish Discourse about
Christianity: The Efforts of Rabbi Leon Modena," in The Lion Shall Roar: Leon
Modena and hid World, ed. D. Malkiel (Jerusalem, 2003), 159-94.
8. See ibid, and Alessandro Guetta, Ebrarsmo come natrone e come rehgrone
universale: Forme del pensiero ebraico in Italia tra '500 e '700," Italia 19 (2009):
25-36.
9. See Benjamin C. I. Ravid, "'How Profitable the Nation of the Jewes are:
The Humble Addresses of Menasseh ben Israel and the Discorso of Simone Luz-
zatto," in Mydticd , PhiLodopherd, and Politicians: Eddayd in Jewish Intellectual History in
Honor of Alexander Altmann, ed. J. Reinharz and D. Swetschinski (Durham, N.C.,
1982), 159-80.
564 JQR 102.4 (2012)
tas not only to religion but also to politics, and they regularly resorted to
the history of ancient Israel to defend the revolt against Spain.10 One of
the most important examples is the reception of the Republica Hebraeorum,
the concept of the state Moses founded on Mount Sinai, in the early
modern Dutch Republic.11 The first and foremost representation is Petrus
Cunaeus's De republica Hebraeorum (16 17). 12
Menasseh deliberately fit his presentation of arguments into the dis-
course of Dutch scholars, and he not only translated his books from
Spanish into Latin but also translated them from his culture into the cul-
ture of his surroundings. For Menasseh, knowledge was cultural capital
and it served the Jews seeking to gain acceptance and to position them-
selves in the Christian societies in which they lived. Menasseh 's project
was facilitated by the hybrid culture of the Amsterdam Sephardim, most
of who had grown up as converjo*) on the Iberian Peninsula.13 Not only
was Menasseh himself entirely familiar with Christianity. He could also
1 0. See Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Richer: An Interpretation of Dutch

Culture in the Golden Age (New York, 19 87), 51-126, and more recently, Theodor
Dunkelgrün, " 'Neerlands Israel:' Political Theology, Christian Hebraism, Bibli-
cal Antiquarianism and Historical Myth," in Myth in History, Hid tory in Myth, ed.
L. Cruz and W. FrijhofF (Leiden, 2009), 200-27.
11. See Lea Campos Boraievi, "La 'Respublica Hebraeorum' nella tradizione
olandese," Il pensiero politico 35.3 (2002): 431-63. For the wider European con-
text, see most recently Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources arid the
Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 2010). Earlier
studies include Adam Sutcliffe, Judaism, and Enlightenment (Cambridge, 2003),
42-57; Sina Rauschenbach, "'De Republica Hebraeorum:' Geschichtsschreibung
zwischen 'hebraica ventas' und Utopie," Zeitschrift filr Neuere Rechtsgeschichte 26
(2004): 9-35; and Kaiman Neuman, "Political Hebraism and the Early Modern
'Respublica Hebraeorum': On Defining the Field," Hebraic Political Studies 1.1
(2005): 57-70.
12. For a modern Latin- English edition of the book, together with a detailed
introduction, see Petrus Cunaeus, De republica Hebraeorum: The Commonwealth of
the Hebrew J, ed. L. Campos Boraievi (Florence, 1996). For a modern English
translation, see Petrus Cunaeus, The Hebrew Republic , ed. A. Eyffinger, trans. P.
Wyetzner (Jerusalem, 2006).
13. See Miriam Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Converjo J an d Commu-
nity in Early Modern Amsterdam (Bloomington, Ind., 1997), 96-131. Yosef Kaplan,
"An Alternative Path to Modernity," in his An Alternative Path to Modernity-. The
Sephardi Diaspora in Western Europe (Leiden, 2000), 16, speaks about an "invented
tradition" in seventeenth-centuiy Amsterdam. Daniel M. Swetschinski, Reluctant
Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam (London,
2000), 315, refers to the Amsterdam Sephardim as a "Jewish Ethnicity in statu
renascendi."
count on a certain interest on part of the Amsterdam Sephardim in his

J ewish- Christian discussions .
Menasseh is well known as a Rabbi, Printer, and Diplomat - to quote the
title of Cecil Roth's 1934 biography -but there is little scholarship on him
as an author. Despite the extensive research on Amsterdam Sephardim in
recent decades and the relevance of Menasseh to seventeenth-century
Dutch and English history, only a few of his works in Spanish and Latin
have been analyzed or published in scientific editions. Neither has Men-
asseh 's involvement in Christian Hebraica before 1640 been sufficiently
studied14; most scholars who have studied Menasseh have either concen-
trated on his connections with Dutch and English philo- Semitic circles
from the late 1640s on,15 or they have examined Menasseh's earlier writ-
ings without taking into consideration his activities that extended well
beyond scholarly circles.16
This essay intends to explain how Menasseh approached his Christian
audiences by placing his arguments within the framework of contempo-
rary discussions and how he finally connected his scholarly efforts with
his struggle to strengthen the position of the Jews in Europe. First, I use
the Conciliador / Conciliator to clarify how Menasseh presented Jewish
biblical commentaries to a Christian public. Second, I examine De la resur-
rección de loé muertos lib rod III / De resurrectione mortuorum libri III (1636) to
see how Menasseh developed the idea of an Abramite theology. Third, I
present De termino vitae libri III (1639) explain how Menasseh dealt with
14. For exceptions see the French translations of and introductions to

Esperança de faraeL and De la fragilidad humana / De fragilitate humana provided by
Heniy Méchoulan and Gerard Nahon (Paris, 1979) and Henry Méchoulan
(Paris, 1996). For De la fragUidad humana , also see Nissim Yosha, "Between The-
ology and Anthropology: An Examination of Menasseh ben Israel's 'De la fragili-
dad humana y Inclinación del Hombre al Peccado" (Hebrew), Tarbiz 61.2
(1992): 273-95. On Menasseh's ConcUiador, see Noah H. Rosenbloom, "Discreet
Theological Polemics in Menasseh ben Israel's 'Conciliador,'" Proceed'uigà of the
American Academy for Jewish Research 58 (1992): 143-91.
15. Note, for example, the late Richard Popkin's numerous and brilliant stud-
ies , which are all focused on Menasseh's contacts with the English millenarians
in the 1640s and treat his earlier scholarly activities as a mere prelude to his
involvement in millenarian projects.
16. See, e.g., Aaron L. Katchen, Christum Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1984), 125-59. An exception is Menahem Dormán 's Hebrew edi-
tion of Menasseh's tracts for England, preceded by an introduction, which
touches upon many important details concerning Menasseh's earlier publications.
See Me nas J eh Ben-Ijrael, ed. M. Dormán (Tel Aviv, 1989), 9-120.
566 JQR 102.4 (2012)
requests from Christian scholars.17 Finally I discuss Esperança de Idrati /

Sped Idraelid (1650) to show how Menasseh participated in discussions
concerning Christian millenarianism and philo- Semitism which led to
Menasseh 's journey to London in 1655. I conclude my essay with a recon-
sideration of Menasseh ben Israel's importance for early modern Jewish-
Christian relations and more generally in relation to cultural exchange
and the transmission of knowledge in the early modern period.
JEWISH COMMENTARIES ON THE BIBLE
Menasseh 's first approaches to the Christian world can be retraced by a

close study of his Conciliador o De la conveniencia de lod lugares de la S. Edcript-
ura que repugnante*) entre ¿i parecen (1632) and its Latin translation by Dio-
nysius Vossius (1633). 18 The Conciliador is a commentary on the Hebrew
Bible written for Sephardic merchants and former converdod not yet com-
pletely familiar with Judaism and still susceptible to Christian theological
arguments. In it, Menasseh juxtaposes seemingly contradictory passages
and presents the solutions that famous rabbis had devised. Probably
Menasseh draw his methodology from Imanuel Aboab's posthumously
published Nomologia o didcurdod legated (1629), in which certain scriptural
"difficulties" (dificultadeS) were listed and resolved through the commen-
taries of rabbinical authorities.19
Still, Menasseh 's approach was somewhat different. Aboab had written
his Nomolog'ui in order to uphold the Oral Law's authority against Jews
who were denying it. He had stressed the importance of the rabbinical
commentaries for correctly understanding the Torah,20 and he had dis-
17. Digitalized versions of the aforementioned Spanish and Latin books by

Menasseh can be found at http://cf.uba.uva.nl/nl/collecties/rosenthaliana/menas
seh/boeken.html (November 29, 2011). Unfortunately, the quality of the scans is
quite poor.
18. Dionysius Vossius was the youngest son of Gerardus Joannes Vossius and
Menasseh's close friend. For his translation of Menasseh 's Conciliador, see Dor-
man, "Mavo," in Menaddeh ben Idrael, ed. Dormán, 51-55; Katchen, Christian
Hebraidtd and Dutch Rab bid, 161-73; and C. S. M. Rademaker, Life and Work of
Gerardud Joannes Voddiud (1577-1649) (Assen, 1981), 252-54.
19. Although Menasseh does not mention Aboab in his Conciliador , it is clear
that he knew him and that he was familiar with his writings, referring directly to
him in The Humble Addredded (1655) and quoting two letters Aboab had written to
a friend in La Bastide and a cousin in Antwerp seeking to convince them to
Judaism. See Cecil Roth, "Immanuel Aboab's Proselytization of the Marranos,"
in his Gleaningd: Eddayd in Jewidh HLf tory, Letterd, and Art (New York, 1967), 159
and 170-73 (first published in JQR 23 [1932/33]: 121-62).
20. See Imanuel Aboab, Nomologia o ďucurdod legated (Amsterdam, 1629), I,
Cap. V, 19-24. For the reconciliation of the seemingly contradictory passages,
MEDIATING JEWISH KNOWLEDGE- RAUSCHENBACH 567
couraged reading his book out of mere curiosity.21 Menasseh discussed

some of the same difficulties as Aboab, but he presented them for the sake
of information. Moreover, Menasseh addressed people with an inquisitive
mind and encouraged crossing the borders of socially or religiously deter-
mined fields of knowledge. This crossing of borders, connected with a
special notion of curiosity, was heavily discussed in seventeenth-century
university contexts.22 For Menasseh it was not an evil but a desideratum .23
Nowhere can his appreciation of it be better seen than in his appraisal of
Pico della Mirandola (JPicud Mirandula ) and his statement (alluded to
above) that it was a sign of narrow-mindedness ' only to look after one's
own things." As Menasseh repeats this appraisal on several occasions, it
is evident that for him, Pico was in fact the scholar who had explored this
curiosity to the fullest and was hence the model for a Christian author
studying Jewish sources.24
In the case of the Conciliador, the borders that Menasseh demanded be
crossed were first of all professional: the readers he addressed were Jew-
ish merchants who rarely considered the theoretical aspect of religion.
As descendents of convergo families, they had to be exposed to exege tical
problems and rabbinical teachings in order to bolster their decision to
see ibid., I, Cap. VI- VIII. For a new edition of Aboab 's book, including a detailed
introduction, see Nomologia o didcurdod legale d, ed. M. Orfali (Salamanca, 2007).
21. Aboab, Nomologia [1629], I, Cap. VI, 24.
22. See Neil Kenny, The Uded of Curiosity in Early Modern France and Germany
(Oxford, 2004), 57-59. Interestingly, one of the harshest condemnations of curi-
osity as a transgression of "disciplinary" borders came from the pietistic scholar
Gottlieb Spizel, who also wrote a book to criticize and refute Menasseh 's Sped
brae lid. See Gottlieb Spizel, Infelix literátu d, labyrint hid et mideriid duid cura podteriori
ereptud, et ad dupremae dalutid domicilium deductud (Augsburg, 1680), 831-42. For his
critique of Menasseh, see Spizel, Elevatio Relationid M on tezin ianae de repertid in
America t rib Lib lu Idraeliticid (Basel, 1661). Regarding the Christian study of Juda-
ism as part of the early modern concept of curioditad , see also Elisheva Carlebach,
Divided Sould: Convertd from Judaidm in Germany (1500-1750) (New Haven, Conn.,
2001), 201-2. For the transgressing and subversive character of curioditad in early
modern Europe, see Barbara Benedict, Curiodity: A Cultural Hid tory of Early Modern
Inquiry (Chicago, 2001), 44-52.
23. Menasseh also praised some of his Christian pupils for a similar attitude of
curiosity (see De la redurreccion de lod muertod lib rod III [Amsterdam, 1636], Epistola
dedicatoria, a4v.^a5r.), whereas he condemned curiosity as an urge leading to
the transgression of traditional norms (see De la redurreccion, Epistola dedicatoria,
a2v.).
24. For other references to Pico, see Menasseh 's De la redurreccion, Epistola
dedicatoria, a4v.- a5r., and his Diddertatio de frag ditate humana ex lapdu Adami
(Amsterdam, 1642), Epistola dedicatoria, 4.
568 JQR 102.4 (2012)
embrace Judaism. But Menasseh also pleaded for a certain openness con-
cerning the crossing of religiouà borders. This becomes clear from the
introduction to the Conciliador , where he states:
I conceive that my work will be acceptable to the learned; for if duly

examined, we shall find that the study and lecture of the Talmud were
not considered unimportant; for, setting aside the solution it gives of
many of the present questions, (some of which, as curious, learned,
and worthy of being known, were asked by the Alexandrians of R.
Joshua ben Hanina, an illustrious and learned sage, as stated in the
Guemara of Mida) we also learn, from Berachot [Bekhorot, S. R.],
Holin, and other parts, that some heathen princes mooted similar
doubts to the ancients, who, as disciples of the prophets, could alone
interpret and solve many passages, which, from their difficulty, would
otherwise have been unintelligible. No little honour will accrue from it
to the Hebrew nation and the Sages of Israel; as the knowledge and
intelligence they possessed will be clearly seen in this work.26
Menasseh 's message is clear: since earliest times, non- Jewish dignitaries
had approached famous rabbis for information and guidelines regarding
theological issues. The Jews, for their part, had greatly profited from
their scholarly contacts with the non- Jewish world, earning them the
honor of their interlocutors and affording them the opportunity to display
their excellence. For Menasseh, it was desirable that these exchanges
continue. In fact, the Conciliador was Menasseh 's first plea for Jewish-
Christian cooperation in biblical study. Although Menasseh 's Spanish
book was not yet addressed to Christian readers, nevertheless he proudly
encouraged his coreligionists to show the importance of their knowledge
to the Christian world around them.
The Christian shape Menasseh gave to his Conciliador was related to
these aims. The book's title seems to allude to such Christian treatises as
Pietro d'Abano' s Conciliatory written in the fourteenth century and first
published in Venice in 1520.26 Its structure, whether taken from Aboab
25. Menasseh ben Israel, The Bible Conciliator: A Reconcilement of the Apparent
Contradictions in Holy Scripture , trans, and ed. E. H. Lindo (Glasgow, 1902; Lon-
don, 1842), X.
26. The title could also refer to juridical compendia such as the Conciliator dive
Aré conciliandorum, quae in jure contraria videntur, utendique iiá quae vere contraria durit
(1 587), authored by the French jurist Jean Mercier (1545-1600), who, it should
be noted, is not identical with the contemporary professor of Hebrew at the Col-
lège Royal. But the connection to Abano is more probable, because Abano also
wrote a commentary on the Problemata of Pseudo-Aristotle, which might have
given Menasseh the title of his De creatione problemata XXX (Amsterdam, 1635).
or not, resembles such scholastic works as Aquinas 's Summa theolog ica
and Abelard's Sic et non. The Latin translation by Dionysius Vossius (d.
1633) and prefaced by Menasseh allowed the Conciliador to penetrate the
Christian scholarly world.27 Still, in the early seventeenth century, Chris-
tian scholars tended to reject Latin translations of Jewish books if their
translators did not add anti- Jewish comments. Christians who did other-
wise were susceptible to attack, as in the case of the Hamburg scholar

Georg Genz (1618- 87), whose reputation among contemporary Oriental-
ists suffered on account of the absence of such comments from his Latin
translation of Solomon ibn Verga's Shevet Yehuda (1651). 28
Both Menasseh and Vossius were well aware of this problem: Vossius,
in a translator's note, sought to anticipate certain criticisms. First, he
pointed out that one of his intentions was to provide Christians with new
arguments for anti- Jewish polemics.29 Second, he claimed that he had
eliminated any anti- Christian content in the text.30 Third, he stressed that
the material Menasseh presented could help Christians to formulate argu-
ments against common enemies of Jews and Christians.31 Menasseh him-
self supported Vossius 's strategy. First, he emphasized that he saw
himself more as a compiler, only expressing his own views when it was
absolutely necessary to do so.32 Second, he presented various Jewish
standpoints for his Christian readership but refrained from combining
them, as he would later do, with Christian positions.33 Third, he interfered
27. See Menasseh ben Israel, Conciliator dive De convenientia locorum S. Script-
urae, quae pugnare inter de videntur (Amsterdam, 1633).
28. See Katchen, Christian Heb raid td and Dutch Rabbu, 261- 68, and Sina
Rauschenbach, "Vernunft und Unvernunft in der jüdischen Geschichte: Ein
Nachwort zur Geschichtsdeutung Salomo ibn Vergas," in Salomo ibn Verga
Schevet Jehuda: Ein Buch über dad Leiden ded jüdidchen Volkes im Exil, trans. M. Wie-
ner, ed. S. Rauschenbach (Berlin, 2006), 249- 57. Genz 's translation, published
under the title Hutoria judaica: Red Judaeorum ab eve rd a aede Hierodoiymitana ad haec
fere tempora ujque complexa (Amsterdam, 1651), was inspired by Menasseh.
29. Vossius, "Interpres Lectori," in Ben Israel, Conciliator. Vossius s note is
preserved in only a few copies of the Latin Conciliator. I translated from the copy
in the Klau Library, Cincinnati, Ohio.
30. Vossius, "Interpres Lectori," in Ben Israel, ConcUiator (copy of the Klau
Library). In reality, Vossius abridged Menasseh 's book, but he did not make
important modifications. Instead, he even translated Menasseh 's comments on
highly controversial passages such as Gen 49.10 into the Latin book. See M. Ben
Israel, Conciliator , Quaestio LXV, 87-92.
31. Vossius, "Interpres Lectori," in Ben Israel, Conciliator (copy of the Klau
Library).
32. See Ben Israel, Conciliador, Al Lector, (a)3r.- (a)3v.
33. For an example illustrating the difference between Menasseh's Conciliador
and his later books, see Menasseh's reconciliation of Gen 2.2 and Gen 2.4, both
570 JQR 102.4 (2012)
with neither Vossius 's translation nor with his abridgment of the book.
Only in the Latin introduction to the Conciliator did Menasseh make an
exception, and this exception hints at his future efforts to suit his informa-
tion to the culture of his readers and to combine Jewish and Christian
sources to create a shared theological subset.34 In fact, the introduction
differs significantly from its Spanish original: it has not only a much more
scholarly veneer but also contains more references to sources considered
authoritative in both Jewish and Christian circles. Finally, it is purged of
commentaries which might offend Christian readers.35
The strategy devised by Menasseh and Vossius proved to be only
partly successful. Many Christians, of course, criticized the Conciliator for
its "Jewish errors." Not only did both the states of Holland and Zeeland
refuse to accept Menasseh's dedication, in line with an opinion furnished
by the Leiden faculty of theology on September 26, 1633, 36 but Menasseh
also failed to receive an invitation to join Amsterdam's recently founded
Athenaeum Illustre.37 Nevertheless, the Latin Conciliator earned its author
respect in the Christian world,38 and this respect encouraged Menasseh to
envision steps in the direction Vossius had also indicated and to compile a
set of teachings common to both Judaism and Christianity.
in the Conciliador (Questio XIV, 32-33), and in De creatione problemata XXX (Prob-
lema X, 45). Whereas Menasseh refers to Christian authors in the latter, he fails
to do so in the former. For Aboab s discussion of the same problem, see Nomo-
logia, I, Cap. V, 19. An exception is Menasseh's discussion of the seeming contra-
diction between Gen 12.13 and Gen 26.5. Here, Menasseh also refers to Christian
theologians and stresses that some of them held positions similar to those that
had previously been ascribed to Jews. See Ben Israel, Conciliador , Questio XXX-
VII, 63-67.
34. See Conciliador, Al Lector, (a)2r., and Conciliator, Lectori S., °2r.
35. A good example of Menasseh's self-censorship is the aforementioned com-
mentary regarding the honor and excellence of the Jews, which is only to be
found in the introduction to the Spanish Conciliador and is omitted in the Latin
translation.
36. Menasseh's dedication survived in only a few copies of the Latin book,
such as that in the Klau Library. For the opinion of the Leiden faculty, see the
comment of Johannes Hoornbeek, Tedhumt Yehudah dive Pro convincendid et conver-
tendo Judaeid (Leiden, 1655), °2r.- °2v. For other theologians criticizing Menas-
seh, see Caspar Barlaeus, Epid tolarům liber pard prior (Amsterdam, 1667), 510-11.
37. See Jeremias Meijer Hillesum, "Bijdrage tot de bibliographie van Menas-
seh ben Israel's geschriften," Het Boek 16 (1927): 361, and Dirk van Miert,
HumanLtm in an Age of Science: The Amsterdam Athenaeum in the Golden Age, 1632-1704
(Leiden 2009; Amsterdam, 2005), 211.
38. In the second part of his Conciliador, Menasseh himself referred to "the
general approval and acceptance not only of my people but also of foreign
nations" that he had garnered. See Segunda parte del Conciliador , Al Lector, °°2v.
THE IDEA OF AN ABRAMITE THEOLOGY
Menasseh 's idea of an Abramite theology was directly connected to De la

resurrección de lod muertos / De resurrectione mortuorum, both published in
1636.39 Of course, one of Menasseh's intentions was to refute Uriel da
Costa, who had just been banished by the leaders of Amsterdam's various
Sephardic communities for his views regarding the Oral Law and the
immortality of the soul.40 But in contrast to such coreligionists and rab-
binical colleagues as Samuel da Silva, Saul Levi Morteira, and Moses
Raphael Aguilar, all of whom had written similar treatises against Da
Costa/1 Menasseh cast his net more widely. He published his book in
both Spanish and Latin, writing the Latin version directly for a Christian
audience, and he continued his refutation of Da Costa - in the guise of
a polemic against the "Sadduccees" - with a general discussion of the
Resurrection, the Last Judgment, and the world's final Restoration.
Taking into consideration the three letters Menasseh attached to his
Latin book, it is clear that he was following and even bolstering the strat-
egy he had earlier employed in the Conciliator. For him, the conflict of the
Amsterdam rabbis with Da Costa was not merely a Jewish problem but
39. See Sina Rauschenbach, "Über die Auferstehung der Toten: Uriel da
Costa, Menasse ben Israel und die christliche Respublica litteraria," in Kritische
Religioruphiloöophie: Eine Gedenkschrift für Friedrich Niewöhner, ed. W. Schmidt-
Biggemann and G. Tamer (Berlin, 2010), 167- 91. For Menasseh's Abramite the-
ology, also see Rauschenbach, Judentum für Christen, 107-14.
40. For Da Costa, see Israel S. Révah, Uriel da Codta et les Marranes de Porto:
Couré au Collège de France (1966- 1972) , ed. C. L. Wilke (Paris, 2004). Also see
Uriel da Costa, Examination of Pharisaic Traditions (Exame das tradições phariseas):
Facsimile of the Unique Copy in the Royal Library of Copenhagen; Supplemented by Sem-
uel da Silva d Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul (Tratado da immortalidade da
alma), trans. H. P. Salomon and I. S. D. Sassoon (Leiden, 1993), 1-50. See also
Dormán, "Mavo," in Menasseh ben Iö rae L, ed. Dormán, 42-44.
41. Saul Levi Morteira finished the manuscript of a Livro da imortalidade d'alma
in 1624, which he referred to in his Tratado da verdade da Lei de Moisés. The book
is no longer extant, but parts of it have been reconstructed. It has also been
proven that Menasseh used passages from Morteira's unpublished manuscript
when he wrote Nishmat hayyim in 1651. See Marc Saperstein, "Saul Levi Mor-
teira's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul," Studia Rosenthaliana 25.2 (1991):
131-48. For an edition of Moses Raphael Aguilar 's treatise on the immortality of
the soul, see M. de Jong, "O 'Tratado da Immortalidade da Alma' de Moses
Rephael de Aguilar," Bibloj 10 (1934): 488-99. On the Amsterdam controversy,
see Alexander Altmann, "Eternality of Punishment: A Theological Controversy
within the Amsterdam Rabbinate in the Thirties of the Seventeenth Century,"
Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 40 (1972): 1-88, and Steven
Nadler, Spinoza à Heresy: Immortality and the Jewish Muid (Oxford, 2001), 157-81.
572 JQR 102.4 (2012)
was of concern to the Christian world as well, because it was of general

interest to have the Resurrection "deeply engraved in the hearts of all
peoples" {penitidďunid edde omnium animid inde rip tarn):42 denial of Resurrec-
tion implied denial of religion as such, and denial of religion implied
denial of law and denial of any ordered human society. Jews and Chris-
tians should therefore support each other to defend the Resurrection,
because we all worship one God, submit to his commandments and

expect a better life after the difficulties of this life on earth. Hence,
the whole intention [lit.: effort] of this first book is to have everyone
understand that in dealing with that most necessary doctrine [i.e., the
Resurrection] we must find a common position altogether against the
Sadducees, who are destroying souls and states. . . ,43
But Jews and Christians not only agreed in fighting against certain prin-
ciples, they also shared some. And the principles they shared - worship
of the same God, following his commandments, and belief in life after
death - could be subsumed under the notion of a common theology. In
fact, as early as in 1635 Menasseh asked David de Willem to read De
creatione problemata with a lenient attitude, never forgetting "that I just
follow the holy teachings of the Abramites" ( dola Abrahamidarum me dacra
dequi).AA Later, in De redurrect'wne mortuorum, he addressed Joachim de
Wicquefort, stating:
You are such a pious person that you won't be offended if I also add
the one teaching we share in common. In fact, everybody who wor-
ships the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob eagerly strives for his
resurrection. Your justice and humanity, too, are such that you know to
distinguish between the duties of a friendship mutually binding human
beings together and profession of a different religion. Hence, even if
we do not agree in everything, what is the hindrance to understand
some things in a broader context, to show God our common knowledge
and to wish everybody well who himself wishes nobody ill?45
Menasseh 's message becomes evident: all people who worship the God of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob share a common knowledge, and this shared
42. Ben Israel, De resurrect io ne mortuorum, Epistola dedicatoria.

43. Ibid. The translation is mine, as are all succeeding translations which are
not otherwise credited.
44. Ben Israel, De creatione, Epistola dedicatoria, #3r.
45. Ben Israel, De reàurrectione mortuorum, D. Ioachimo Wickefortio, a3r.- a3v.
knowledge creates benevolence and a sense of community among them.

But what was the substance of this community? And what was Menasseh
exactly referring to in speaking of "the holy teachings of the Abramites?"
According to Menasseh, Abraham was the first man to spread knowl-
edge of the Creation and Resurrection throughout the world.46 Abramites
were those who followed Abraham in his teachings. Of course, Menasseh
here made use of the rabbinical concept of the Noahides, according to
which God gave seven commandments to Noah after the Flood. Whoever
kept these universalistic commandments was considered a ger toshav (a
foreigner with certain rights) and was guaranteed a place in the World to
Come.47 Maimonides had even called the Noahide commandments Ada-
mite ones - commandments that had been given to men at the dawn of
mankind.48 In Menasseh's times Jewish and Christian scholars linked
Noahide Law with Natural Law.49 Most prominent in the Christian
reception of the Noahide Law was John Seiden 's De jure naturali et gen-
tium jux ta disciplinam Hebraeorum (164 O).50
Menasseh's Abramite theology may have been inspired by David de'
46. Ben Israel, De creatione, Problema VII, 29-30. Already in Problema I, 3,

Menasseh mentioned Abraham as the one "who had been accepted by God due
to his holy life." According to Carsten Lorenz Wilke, the Amsterdam Sephardim
closely identified with Abraham because, like them, he had broken with his roots
when he turned away from idolatry. See Wilke, "Conversion ou retour? La meta-
morphose du nouveau chrétien en juif portugais dans l'imaginaire sépharade du
XVIIe siècle," in Mémoires juives d'Eâpagne et du Portugal , ed. E. Benbassa (Paris,
1996), 59-61.
47. For the Noahide Law in Menasseh's book on resurrection, see De la resur-
rección, II, Cap. IX, 100, and ibid., II, Cap. XI, 182. For the Noahide Law in
Menasseh's book on creation, see De creativne, Problema VIII, 34-35. For the
rabbinical tradition of the Noahide Law, see bSan 56a. See also Maimonides,
M Li h ne h Torah: Sefer dhoftim, Hilkhot melakbim u-mUhanwtehem, chap. 8.10-11 and
chap. 9.1.
48. Ibid., chap. 9.1.
49. In ract, one or the farst Jews to establrsh the connectron between INoahrde
Law and Natural Law was Uriel da Costa. See Da Costa "Uriel da Costa's Own
Account of His life," in his Examination of Pharisaic Traditions , ed. Salomon and
Sassoon, 558-59. For further discussions, see Herman Prins Salomon, "Baruch
Spinoza, Ishac Orobio de Castro and Haham Mosseh Rephael d'Aguilar on the
Noachites: A Chapter in the History of Thought," Arquivod do Centro Cultural Por-
tugués 14 (1979): 253-86. For a summary of the Christian reception of the Noa-
hide Law, see Klaus Müller, Tora für die Völker: Die noachídischen Gebote und Ansätze
zu ihrer Rezeption im Christentum (Berlin, 1998).
50. See Jason P. Rosenblatt, England 'd Chief Rabbi: John Seiden (Oxford, 2006),
135-57, and Gerald J. Toomer, John Seiden: A Life in Scholardhip, 2 vols. (Oxford,
2009), 2:490-562.
574 JQR 102.4 (2012)
Pomis, who had dedicated a chapter to Abraham in his De medico hebraeo .61
But De' Pomis had not gone as far as Menasseh in addressing people as
"Abramites" or in speaking of an "Abramite theology." Therefore, Men-
asseh 's reference is of prime importance: Like Noah, so did Abraham live
in a time before Judaism and Christianity divided, and like Noah, so was
Abraham held in high esteem by Jews and Christians alike. Still, in con-
trast to Noah, Abraham only represented the revealed religions. He cre-
ated a smaller albeit stronger community than Noah, and this community
included Jews, Christians, and Muslims but excluded others such as
Uriel da Costa or any denier of the Creation or the Resurrection. Accord-
ing to Menasseh, Jews and Christians were allied through their obser-
vance of Abraham's teachings. It was possible that they availed
themselves of the intersection of questions and problems raised in both
religions to create a shared theology, which facilitated cooperation while
still allowing Jews and Christians to preserve their otherness. Both Jacob
and Esau truly administered the divine heritage, as Menasseh also
emphasized. God had not repudiated either of them. And each enjoyed
perfection, albeit of different kinds.52
Menasseh 's Abramite theology, while a fascinating construct, was
accepted by few Christian scholars. In the world of Christian Hebraica,
Jewish knowledge was expected to merge into Christian theology. As
soon as it was presented as supplementary information with its own
inherent value, it was rejected. This explains the fierce reaction Caspar
Barlaeus, an Amsterdam philosopher and a poet, provoked by the publi-
cation of an epigram for Menasseh.53 This epigram, composed for the
rabbi's De creati# ne problcmata, ended with a plea for the acceptance of
religious diversity and for the existence of friendship among adherents of
different religions. According to Barlaeus, pious people could always be
united in their veneration of the same God and exchange knowledge to
their mutual profit. But as a condition for such exchanges they had to
51. See David de' Pomis, De medico hebraeo ennaratio apologetica (Venice, 1588),
13-17. For De' Pomis and Abraham, see Alessandro Guetta, "Ebraismo come
natione e come religione universale," 36-39.
52. Ben Israel, De creatione, Problema I, 3. Ever since Late Antiquity, the fight
between Jacob and Esau has been interpreted as the struggle between Judaism
and Christianity. See Gerson D. Cohen, "Esau as Symbol in Early Medieval
Thought," in Jewish Medieval and Renaiddance Studied , ed. A. Altmann (Cambridge,
Mass. 19 67), 19-48, and Israel Jacob Yuval, Two Nations in Your Womb: Perception**
of Je wd and Christiana in Late Antiquity and the Middle Aged (Berkeley, 2006), 1-30.
53. For Barlaeus's epigram and its reception, see Frans F. Blok, "Caspar Bar-
laeus en de Joden: De Geschiedenis van een Epigram," Nederlandd Archief voor
Kerkgedchiedenù NS 57 (1977): 179-209 and NS 58 (1977): 85-108.
cross borders and meet as believers in an open and more "compatible"

variety of Judaism and Christianity. Hence, in the course of his own
exchange with Menasseh, Barlaeus would become a "Christianite" ( Cbrià -
tiadeS) and meet the Amsterdam rabbi as an "Abramite" ( Abramidej ).54
Barlaeus 's respect for Menasseh, as evinced by his statement that a
Jew could be as pious a believer as a Christian, was promptly contested.
Shortly after the publication of the epigram, Nicolaus Vedelius and Mar-
tin Schoock, two pupils of the Utrecht scholar Gisbertus Voetius, accused
Barlaeus of Judaizing. Even worse, they claimed that Barlaeus spread
Socinian teachings and thus betrayed the trust of the Amsterdam regents
who had employed him as a professor of the newly founded Athenaeum
Illustre. Barlaeus defended himself but soon realized the danger of his
situation. Only a few years after the Synod of Dordt, it was too risky for
him to enter into new disputes with powerful Dutch theologians. After
1636, Barlaeus remained mute about both his respect for Menasseh ben
Israel and their mutual friendship.55 Menasseh, for his part, maintained
his gratitude toward Barlaeus,56 but he also changed his strategy after the
outbreak of the affair. During the late 1630s and the 1640s, Menasseh
adopted a more passive stance, refraining from addressing the Christian
world and waiting rather for Christian scholars to consult him about
theological problems they were worried about. The outcome of Menas-
seh s new strategy was ambiguous. On the one hand, the fact that schol-
ars did consult him confirmed that he had managed to make his way into
the Red publica litteraria. On the other hand, Menasseh had to make new
efforts to sustain his idea of an Abramite theology, as I will now demon-
strate, this time making use of another debate among Dutch theologians
of his time and his 1639 response in De termino vitae.
CHRISTIAN DISCUSSIONS
Beginning in 1632 the Dordt physician Johan van Beverwijck (Johannes

Beverovicius) solicited the opinions of internationally renowned scholars
54. Caspar Barlaeus, "Epigramma, in Problemata Clarissimi viri Manassis

Ben-Israel De creatione," in Ben Israel, De creatione.
55. In 1636, Barlaeus composed another epigram for Menasseh s De reàurrecti-
one nwrtiwrum, but this time he refrained from signing it and insisted on it being
published anonymously. At the same time he began to downplay his friendship
with Menasseh. See, e.g., Vindiciae Epigrammatic, viri clariààimi Ccuparió Barlaei
[ . . . ] advertiu improbad tbeologi cujiudam anonymi criminations (Amsterdam,
1636), 7.
56. As late as in Vindiciae Judaeorum , Menasseh still referred to Barlaeus with
words of reverence and respect. See "Vindiciae Judaeorum," 31, in Menajdeb ben
IdraeL'd Aíuàion to Oliver Cromwell, ed. Wolf, 137.
576 JQR 102.-4 (2012)
concerning the question as to whether man's term of life was fixed or

could be altered by good conduct, medical care, or other things. In 1634
he published their replies in his EpLftolica quaestio de vitae termino , fatali, an
mobili ? Cum doctorum respondió. The book proved a great success and was
republished in 1636 and 1639. For the last edition, Van Beverwijck also
inquired of Menasseh as to the Jewish perspective on the question. At
first Menasseh was reluctant to answer. Though Van Beverwijck posed
his problem in the context of an ancient controversy, many in seven-
teenth-centuiy Holland were aware of its highly incendiary potential.
One of those who pronounced what others dared not utter was Simon
Episcopius: Van Beverwijck's book was in fact a continuation of the
debates concerning the "true interpretation" of Calvin's doctrine of Pre-
destination that had split the Dutch Reformed Church since the first dec-
ade of the seventeenth century and that had culminated in the Synod of
Dord (1618-19) and in the condemnation and persecution of Remon-
strant theologians in the Northern Netherlands. The positions ascribed
to the Epicureans in Van Beverwijck's book corresponded to those of the
Remonstrants, while the positions ascribed to the Stoics were those of the
Contra-Remonstrants.57 Accordingly, if a person's term of life was not
fixed and human beings could prolong or shorten their days, then the
Remonstrants were correct in arguing that a person's election was a
conditional matter - if the contrary were true, then it was the Contra-
Remonstrants who carried the day.
For Menasseh, it was not only risky and dangerous to respond to Van
Beverwijck's request.58 It was also difficult. There is and was no predesti-
nation in Judaism, and having to comment upon the Jewish position
with regard to it must also have caused Menasseh serious problems.59
Finally - and in spite of the fact that Van Beverwijck failed to integrate
his statement into the third edition of his i Epbtolica quaestio - Menasseh
found a brilliant solution. In 1639 he published De termino vitae and
divided his book into three parts. In the first part, Menasseh stated that
Jews were of the opinion that all human life had a certain fixed term. In
57. See Episcopius to Van Beverwijck, in Eputolica quaestio de vitae termino,

fatali, an mobili? Cum doctorum rejponjid (Dordrecht, 1634), 109-10.
58. Ben Israel, De termino vitae libri III (Amsterdam, 1639), Epistola dedica-
toria, a2v. For Menasseh 's fear of taking a position on the question De termino
vitae, see his letter to Van Beverwijck dated November 25, 1639, and published in
Heniy Méchoulan, "Le problème du latin chez Menasseh ben Israel et quelques
implications religieuses et politiques à propos d'une lettre inédite à Beverovicius,"
Studia Roéenthaliana 14.1 (1980): 5.
59. See De termino vitae , I, Sectio VI, 39.
the second part, he explained why this term could nevertheless be

deferred. In the third part, he dealt with God's prescience and man's free
will (de praejcíentía, et libero horninu arbitrio), addressing the conundrum as
to how the absolute certainty with which God knows everything could
be reconciled with human freedom and responsibility for one's deeds. The
last problem touched on the issue of predestination that so interested
Dutch theologians, but it could also be commented upon by Jewish
scholars. In fact, it had been prominently discussed in the treatises of
medieval Jewish philosophers. Menasseh could thus structure the third
part of De termino vitae along the lines of his earlier and less difficult
works. He could begin his discussion with a paraphrase of the solutions
by famous rabbis and philosophers, then evaluate these solutions, and
finally he could add that certain Church fathers and Christian theologians
had held the same opinion and were thus in complete agreement with the
Jews.
Menasseh s procedure in De termino vitae was in perfect accord with the

program he proclaimed in his introduction:
Still, I decided not to say anything which contradicts the Christian

religion; all the more, because in this controversy, most of their [i.e.,
Christian] scholars did not hold an opinion that differed from most of
the rabbis, as we will easily prove in the context of this book.60
It was far from Menasseh 's intention to argue against Christian positions;
but it was also unnecessary to do so. Due to his tactically clever transla-
tion of the Christian problem into the shared world of both Jews and
Christians, there was no reason for Menasseh to enter into conflict. And
since the Christian readers of De termino vitae appeared to consent - the
fierce reactions he had feared failed to appear- Menasseh could proceed
to discuss other Christian problems and deploy the identical strategy in
subsequent books. In fact, only a few years later, in De la fragilidad
humana / De frag ditate humana (1642), Menasseh approached the equally
controversial and equally difficult subjects of Original Sin and Divine
Grace by addressing them in a general discussion on sin and human mer-
its and their support by divine intervention (auxilium) .61
60. Ben Israel, De termino vitae, Epistola dedicatoria, a3r.

6 1 . See Menasseh ben Israel, De la fragilidad humana, y inclinación del hombre al
peccado (Amsterdam, 1642) and ben Israel, DLfdertatio de fragäitate humana ex lapóu
Adami (Amsterdam, 1642). The two titles are perfect examples of Menasseh's
strategy of translating Jewish teachings into Christianity and Christian teachings
into Judaism: In the Latin version Menasseh mentions the Fall, in the Spanish
578 JQR 102.4 (2012)
With regard to De fragilitate humana , Menasseh erred. As soon as the

book was known to Christian scholars, it was quoted as Jewish testimony
for the existence of the doctrine of Original Sin. In the eyes of some
Christian readers, Menasseh became one of the most important witnesses
for the claim that there were fewer hindrances for Jews to embrace
Christianity than one would generally suspect. Most outstanding were
the polemics of the Breda and Leiden theologians Antonius Hulsius and
Johannes Hoornbeek.62 But their books were only published in 1653 and
1655. When Menasseh was again asked to comment on the Christian
discussion of the origins of the American Indians in the late 1640s, he
saw no reason to worry and, consequently, did not refuse to respond
to the new request, which was directly linked to developments in the
Amsterdam Jewish community. In 1650, Menasseh composed one of his
most famous books, which would quickly become his entrée billet into
European politics.
MILLEN ARI ANI SM AND "REALPOLITIK"63
Throughout Europe, apocalyptic and millenarian expectations revived

during the first decades of the seventeenth century. Agreeing on a literal
interpretation of the Revelation of John, millenarian theologians ex-
pected Jesus s physical return and his establishing a terrestrial reign of
happiness for a thousand years. Only afterward would the world be
destroyed and mankind be judged. Condemned by the official churches
but upheld by radical post- Reformation theologians, millenarianism
became especially strong in seventeenth-century England and the Neth-
erlands. In both countries, religious renewal and political revolt, com-
bined with the profound desire of the people to inhabit a Promised Land,
merged into an explosive mixture that contributed to highly charged
expectations concerning future events. In the Netherlands, millenarians
furthermore profited from the blossoming of Jewish life in Amsterdam.
Traditionally, apocalypticism and Jewish history were strongly intercon-
nected: since it was prophesied that the world's end would be preceded
one he speaks of the general human disposition to sin. For Menasseh 's discussion
of human merits and divine auxilium, see De fragilitate humana, II, § 14, 116-22.
62. See Antonius Hulsius, Riv Yah we h im Yehudah dive Theolog iae judaicae pard
prima de Mendia (Breda, 1653), 460- 61, and Hoornbeek, Tedhuvat Yehudah, IV, II,
350. For further details, see Rauschenbach, Judentum für Christen, 152-61.
63. For the term "Realpolitik" with respect to Menasseh, see Ismar Schorsch,
"From Messianism to Realpolitik: Menasseh ben Israel and the Readmission of
the Jews to England," Proceedings of the American Academy for Jew id h Research 45
(1978): 187-208.
by the final conversion of the Jews, not a few theologians intensified their
missionary efforts accordingly. Others, and especially millenarians, went
even further.64 As they expected an earthly kingdom of the Savior, they
turned away from differences that separated Judaism and Christianity to
join the Jews in their expectation of the Messiah. According to those
millenarians, Jews and Christians could exchange knowledge to their
mutual profit before the Messiah's arrival. After his coming, the same
millenarians believed that the Messiah would reveal himself as Jesus and
thereby resolve all differences.65
The situation grew acute, when a Jewish traveler, Antonio Montez-
inos, appeared in Amsterdam and claimed to have found one of the Lost
Tribes in the Andes.66 Montezino's news was of prime importance for
Jews, but also for Christians. First there were lively discussions in the
Respublica litteraria about how to fit the "discovery" of the American Indi-
ans into the biblical account of mankind.67 Second, according to an influ-
ential reading of Deut 28.64, the Jews had to be dispersed over the whole
world before the Messiah could arrive. Their rediscovery in the Americas
was considered to be a further step toward the expected end. In 1648,
John Dury, an English theologian heavily engaged in millenarian and
unionist projects,68 wrote to Menasseh asking him for a copy of Montez-
64. For a recent reflection on the state of research between millenarianism

and Jewish history, see Howard Hotson, "Anti-Semitism, Philo-Semitism, Apoc-
alypticism and Millenarianism in Early Modern Europe: A Case Study and Some
Methodological Reflections," in Seeing Thingd Their Way: Intellectual H ùf tory and
Religious Belief, ed. A. Chapman, J. Coffey, and B. Gregory (Notre Dame, Ind.,
2009), 91-133.
65. For an example, see Paul Felgenhauer, who in the title of his Bonum nun-
c'uim Israeli, quod offertur populo Idrael c3 Judae in hisce temporibus nov'udimis de Mesdiah
(Amsterdam, 1655) claimed that the book was "written by some Christian who
expects the arrival of the Messiah together with the Jews."
66. For Montezinos account, see Ben Israel, Edperança de Idrael, 1-16. For
recent studies, see Ronnie Perelis, "'These Indians Are Jews!' Lost Tribes,
Crypto- Jews, and Jewish Self- Fashioning in Antonio de Montezino's 'Relación'
of 1644," in Atlantic Dia¿pora¿: Jewd, Converdod, and Crypto -J em in the Age of Mercan-
tilism (1500-1800), ed. R. L. Kagan and P. D. Morgan (Baltimore, Md., 2009),
195- 21 1, and Jonathan Schorsch, Swimming the Black Atlantic: Judeoconverdod, Afro-
iberians and Ameroindians in the Seventeenth Century, 2 vols. (Leiden, 2009), 2: 379-
478.
67. For a general introduction, see Richard H. Popkin, "The Rise and Fall of
the Jewish Indian Theory," in Menasdeh ben Idrael and his World , ed. Y. Kaplan, H.
Méchoulan, and R. H. Popkin (Leiden, 1989), 63-82.
68. For Dury 's millenarianism, see Richard H. Popkin, "The End of the
Career of a Great Seventeenth-Century Millenarian: John Dury," in ChUiasmus
580 JQR 102.4 (2012)
ino 's account and inquiring about the opinion of Amsterdam's rabbis with
regard to recent events.69
Me nasse h 's answer was his Edperança de Israel / Sped Idraelid published
in 1650 in both Spanish and Latin versions.70 The book consisted of a
brief account of the story of Montezinos, together with a summary of the
Christian debate about the American natives, concluding that it was in
fact impossible that they were of Jewish descent. But Menasseh didn't
stop there, proceeding further to detailed discussions of the Jewish ques-
tions concerning the Lost Tribes, their whereabouts, and the prophecies
announcing the coming of the Messiah and the salvation of the Jews.71
In the course of these discussions Menasseh also touched upon actual
political questions such as the situation of the Jews in Europe and the
persecution of the Iberian conversod by the Inquisition. In contrast to the
prudence and diplomacy of Menasseh 's earlier discussions, his eulogies
of Jewish martyrs in Edperança de Id rael are quite direct and explicit.72
They are, in fact, so direct that Menasseh shied away from including
them in the Latin version, though he could be sure that most Dutch and
his British readers would fully approve of his criticism of the Inquisition.
But in the early 1650s, Menasseh was still hesitant about meddling in
political affairs. Nevertheless, Edperança de Idrael is a sound example of his
growing interest in combining scholarly discourse with political interven-
tion, and it stands to reason that Menasseh pronounced his life-long proj-
í/i Deutschland und England im 17. Jahrhundert , ed. M. Brecht (Göttingen, 1988),
203-20.
69. For Duiy's depiction of the events as well as for transcriptions of the
letters of Menasseh to Dury, see John Duiy, "An Epistolicall Discourse," in
Thomas Thorowgood Jewed in America, or, Probabilities that the Americans are of that
Race (London, 1650), (d)r.- (e4)v.
70. For the Latin version, see Menasseh ben Israel, Migwe Yisrael, hoc edt, Sped
Israelis (Amsterdam, 1650).
71. For the Lost Tribes, see A. Neubauer, "Where Are the Ten Tribes?/' JQR
1 (1889): 14-28, 95-114, 185-201, 408-23, and, more recently, Ariel Toaff, Mostri
giudei L 'immaginario ebraico dal Medioevo alle prima età moderna (Bologna, 1996),
65-77.
72. Ben Israel, Esperança de Israel, § XVII, LXII, 97. For the memorization of
"Jewish martyrdom," see Bodian, Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation, 80-84; and,
again, Bodian, Dying in the Law of Moses: Crypto-Jewish Martyrdom in the Iberian
World (Bloomington, Ind., 2007), 178- 96. Contrary to my interpretation, Bodian,
in her recent publication, stresses the biblical focus and the brevity of the treat-
ment of the Spanish crypto-Jewish martyrs in Menasseh's Esperança de Israel. See
ibid., 188.
ect, quoted at the beginning of this essay, in Esperança de Israel and

nowhere else.
The publication and translation of Eàperança de Israel continued into

Menasseh's direct participation in the debate about the renaturalization
of the Jews in England.73 Since the 1640s, English philo- Semites and
millenarian projectors reflected openly upon a possible return of the Jews
to England. Favorable for their new attitudes were the political turbu-
lences and civil wars in seventeenth-centuiy England which some theolo-
gians saw as belated punishment of the English for their expulsion of the
Jews in 1290. Others were convinced that the Jews had to settle in
England in order to fulfill the prophecy of their total dispersion. In 1651,
an English version of Menasseh's Spes Israeli* was published and dedi-
cated to Oliver Cromwell and the London Parliament.74 In his dedica-
tion - probably written in cooperation with John Dury - Menasseh
explicitly expressed his desire that by presenting his work to the English,
he might create goodwill for the Jewish nation, "now dispersed almost all
over the earth," but not yet into England as one could easily continue.75 In
the same year, Menasseh received his first official invitation to London,
but political and personal circumstances prevented him from accepting.
Only in the fall of 1655 did Menasseh set out for England to present his
Humble Addresses to Cromwell and the Parliament.76 Cromwell, who was
73. For details, see David Katz, Philo-Semitism and the Readmisdion of the Jew to
England (Oxford, 1982), and Hiltrud Wallenborn, Bekehrungdeifer, Judenangdt und
Handels interesse: Amsterdam,, Hamburg und London ab Ziele d efardischer Migration im
17. Jahrhundert (Hildesheim, 2003). Lionel Ifrah's Sion et Albion: Juifd et purita 'uw
attendent le Messie (Paris, 2006) is strongly orientated on Katz 's earlier book. For
the shift of the debate, see Sina Rauschenbach, "Von der gelehrten zur intellek-
tuellen Debatte: Die Indianer und die englische Diskussion über die Wied-
erzulassung der Juden im 17. Jahrhundert," in Kritik in der Frühen Neuzeit:
Intellektuelle avant la lettre , ed. R. Bayreuther, M. von Engelberg, S. Rauschen-
bach, and I. von Treskow (Wiesbaden, 2011), 165-89.
74. In 1652, Wall's translation of Sped Israelis was reprinted in a second edi-
tion, which was included in Menasseh ben Idrael'd Misdion to Oliver Cromwell, ed.
Wolf, 1-72. For a new edition, see Menasseh ben Israel, The Hope of h roe I: The
English Translation by Modes Wall (1652), ed. H. Méchoulan and G. Náhon, trans.
R. George (Oxford, 1987). For Moses Wall, see Richard Popkin, "A Note on
Moses Wall," ibid., 165-70.
75. Ben Israel, "The Hope of Israel," The Epistle Dedicatoiy, A2v., in Menas-
deh ben Idrael'd Missbn to Oliver Cromwell, ed. Wolf, 4.
76. "To His Highnesse the Lord Protector of the Common- Wealth of
England, Scotland, and Ireland: The Humble Addresses," in Menasdeh ben Idrael'd
Mission to Oliver Cromwell, ed. Wolf, 73-103.
582 JQR 102.4 (2012)
well aware of the economic advantages a Sephardic merchant colony

would bring to London, transmitted the petition to the Council of State.
The Council convoked a committee and a conference, planning to make
a final decision by the end of the year.
The Whitehall Conference was opened on December 4, 1655, and con-
vened again four times before the year s end. After the proposals had
been read, it was discussed "1. Whether it be lawful at all to receive in
the Jews. 2. If it be lawful, then upon what Terms is it meet to receive
them?"77 Obviously the counselors had no doubts about the lawfulness of
a renaturalization.78 Still, the second question was problematic. Being not
a case of justice but a case of conscience, the opinions of the counselors
differed heavily.79 In the end, fears outweighed arguments of utility and
justice.80 Anti- Jewish sentiment spread inside and outside the conference
rooms.81 As it became clear that any renaturalization of the Jews would
only be accepted under strong limitations, Cromwell turned away from
his original purpose and decided to close the negotiations. No final deci-
sion was taken, and though many Sephardim remained in London and
began to build up a Jewish community there, they had to wait until the
Restoration and the reign of James II to see their lives and properties in
England officially secured. As for Menasseh, he once again sought to
renew negotiations with Cromwell after the failure of Whitehall Confer-
ence. Furthermore, in 1656, he published Vindiciae Judaeorum (1656), his
famous apology of Judaism, which Marcus Herz translated into German
in the late eighteenth centuiy and for which Moses Mendelssohn wrote a
77. Heniy Jessey, "A Narrative of the Late Proceedings at White-Hall, Con-
cerning the Jews: A Proscript to fill up the following Pages, that else had been
vacant," The Harleian Miscellany: A Collection of Scarce, Curious, and Entertaining
Pamphlet d and Tractd, as well in Manuscript ad in Print. Found in the Late Earl of
Oxford d Library. Interdperded with Historical, Political, and Critical Notes, VII (Lon-
don, 1745): 584.
78. Ibid.: 582.
79. John Duiy, " A Case of Conscience: Whether It be Lawful to Admit Jews
into a Christian Commonwealth?" The Harleian Miscellany 7 (London, 1745):
240-44.
80. Jessey, "A Narrative of the Late Proceedings at White-Hall," 579.

According to Jessey, not only divers of the preachers but also English merchants
feared a return of the Jews for reasons of business and competition. See ibid.,
582.
81. Most relevant was the publication of William Piynne, A Short Demurrer to
the Jewed Long Discontinued Barred Remitter into England (London, 1656). For the
whole debate, see M. Wilensky, "The Literaiy Controversy in 1656 Concerning
the Return of the Jews to England," Proceedingd of the American Academy for Jewish
Redearch 20 (1951): 357-93.
long and detailed introduction.82 But his efforts were in vain. After 1656,
Menasseh fell silent. In 1657, he left for the Netherlands, and he died in
Middelburg along the way.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
Ever since early modern Christian scholars had intensified their search
for hebraica veritaà , rabbis had cooperated with them; yet rabbinical coop-
eration between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries - not including
that of converts - had consisted mainly of oral instruction. Jews had
served as tutors for Christian scholars, they had worked as proofreaders
in Christian publishing houses, and they had participated in the processes
of Christian censorship.83 But they had hardly written anything except
grammars or dictionaries for Christian Hebraists and they had hardly
ever used the Latin language to make Jewish law, literature, or thought
accessible to the Christian Reé publica Utteraria. With only a few excep-
tions, introductions to Judaism had been written by Christians, and these
had been in the context of polemics. Jewish authors who had addressed
Christian readers had done so mostly for apologetic reasons. Others had
participated in nonreligious scientific discourse. The great majority, how-
ever, had failed to grasp the Reformation's impact on finding new forms
of Jewish- Christian cooperation.
But by the seventeenth century significant changes had become mani-
fest. On the one hand, the spread of Calvinism had contributed to the
growing importance of biblical models not only for theology but also for
the study of politics and society. On the other hand, Christian theologians
had become increasingly involved in interconfessional debates, often uti-
lizing Jewish sources to defend their positions against other Christian
theologians and their presumed "heretical" teachings. Both factors were
of prime importance for the history of Christian Hebraica: Christian
scholars still saw Jewish teachings as erroneous. But some adopted a
twofold position and acknowledged that Jewish learning also formed part
82. Menasseh ben Israel, "Rettung der Juden: Aus dem Englischen übersetzt.
Nebst einer Vorrede von Moses Mendelssohn," in Moses Mendelssohn, Schriften
zum Judentum, II, ed. A. Altmann (1782; Stuttgart, 1983), 1-71. For the English
version, see "Vindiciae Judaeorum," in Meneur e h ben là rae I'd M Lm ion to Oliver
Cromwell , ed. Wolf, 105- 47.
83. See Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin, Censorship, Editing, and the Reshaping or
Jewish Identity: The Catholic Church and Hebrew Literature in the Sixteenth
Century," in Hebraica Verità**? , ed. A. R Coudert and J. Shoulson (Philadelphia,
2004), 140- 43. Raz-Krakotzkin not only speaks about converts as censors of
Jewish books but he also mentions Jewish cooperation.
584 JQR 102.4 (2012)
of a broader antiquarian knowledge and that it could contribute to the

defeat of heresy, if one only "purged" it of anti- Christian polemic.
Among the Jewish scholars who had reacted to the new challenges
were first the Italian predecessors that Menasseh mentioned in the epi-
graph to this essay: Elijah Montalto, Elijah Delmedigo, Abraham de
Balmes, Elijah Levita, and David de' Pomis had provided models of pres-
enting Judaism to non- Jews. Others such as Obadiah Sforno, Leone
Ebreo, and Azariah dei Rossi had been the first Jews at all to write philo-
sophical treatises in languages in use in the Christian world around them.
Finally, the already mentioned Leone Modena and Simone Luzzatto took
similar advantage of Christian interest in Judaism to defend Jewish com-
munities of their times. Like these scholars, Menasseh realized the value
of Jewish knowledge in a Christian world split between confessions and
eagerly searching for an original truth. But more than any of his prede-
cessors, Menasseh combined different approaches and intensified them.
First, he published a series of books for Christian readers. Second, he
published most of these in Latin, the language of Christian scholars,
which had only occasionally been used by Jews. Third, he explicitly
linked promoting Jewish knowledge with improving the situation of the
Jews in the Diaspora. Nevertheless, it was no easier for a Jew to partici-
pate in the discussions of the Rejpublica Utteraria in early modern Amster-
dam than in early modern Italy.84 To have Christian scholars accept the
information he provided, Menasseh had to "translate" what he considered
to be important for his Christian readers, and he had to "neutralize" his
information in a manner that would have anticipated the ways that Chris-
tian censors would have neutralized it.
Menasseh performed this task well, but he paid a price too. His transla-
tions made his books successful in Christian circles, but they also left
room for many misunderstandings. Furthermore, and even worse, Chris-
tian scholars of the seventeenth century refused to infer general respect
for the Jews from the special respect they conferred upon Menasseh.
Sometimes they even cast doubt on Menasseh hirmelf, misunderstanding
his ability to mediate Jewish knowledge and still remain a Jew. In the
end, nearly all Christian scholars threw into question Menasseh's position
in a world defined by borders and not adapted to border-crossers: those
who held Menasseh in high esteem perceived him as someone who would
84. See, e.g., Peter van Rooden, "Sects, Heterodoxies, and the Diffusion of
Knowledge in the Republic of Letters," in Commercium litterarium: La communica-
tion danj la république ?e¿ lettre d: Formé of Communication in the Republic of Letten
(1600-1750) , ed. H. Bots (Amsterdam, 1994), 59-60.
eventually convert to Christianity.85 Others misused him as a Jew testify-

ing to Christian truths in their anti- Jewish polemics.86 In both cases, Chris-
tians distinguished Menasseh from Amsterdam's other Jews, thwarting his
effort to gain a better reputation for himself and his coreligionists in the
surrounding Christian world. As for the Jewish world, things were not
entirely different. Although Menasseh was an important figure in Amster-
dam's Sephardic communities (which merged in 1639), his coreligionists
neglected him when important positions were bestowed and found it diffi-
cult to trust him.87 Menasseh himself testified to his difficult relationship
with Amsterdam's Jews in De creatione problemata, where he emphasized
that malevolence existed not only between persons professing different
religions but sometimes to an even greater degree among scholars belong-
ing to the same religious community.88 In fact, only in the eighteenth cen-
tury did Jewish scholars come to reevaluate Menasseh and to regard his
scholarly contacts with the Christian world as one of the rabbi's greatest
merits.89
85. Most striking is the comment of Samuel Sorbière, who met Menasseh in
Amsterdam and was surprised that he still observed Jewish law. See his Sorberi-
ana (Amsterdam, 1694), 124-25. For the wish that Menasseh might also convert,
see Vossius's letter to Van Beaumont, mentioned below. Thomas Pocock, English
translator of De termino vitae , wrote in a similar vein in his biography of Menasseh:
"In Truth, he was a Man of a singular Vertue, and Integrity of Mind, and seem'd
to want no Accomplishment, but the Faith of a Christian." ("The Life of Menas-
seh Ben Israel," in Ben Israel, Of the Term of Life, vz. Whether it is Fix 'd or Alterable,
trans, and ed. T. Pocock [London, 1709], vi.)
86. For a detailed study of Christian reactions to and interpretations of Men-
asseh 's books, see Rauschenbach, Judentum für Christen.
87. Gerhard Johannes Vossius stated in a 1632 letter to Simon van Beaumont
that Menasseh experienced difficulties among Amsterdam's Jews because of his
association with the Christian world. See Gerardi Joan. Voàdu et ciar, virorum ad eum
epistolae, ed. P. Colomesius (Augsburg, 1691), no. 185, 229.
88. Ben Israel, De creatione, Menasseh Ben- Israel Lectori salutem, #4v.- #5r.
Menasseh, in turn, more than once neglected the authority of the community
leaders and was even excommunicated for a day in 1640. See Yosef Kaplan, "The
Social Function of the Herem," in his An Alternative Path to Modernity: The Sep hard i
Diaspora in Western Europe (Leiden, 2000), 140-42.
89. One of the best examples is David Franco Mendes (1713-92), who used
his chronicle of the Amsterdam Sephardic community to praise Menasseh for his
scholarly contacts with Christians. See Menu? rias do estabelecimento e progresso doà
judeoà portuguezes e espanhoes nesta famosa citade de Amsterdam: A Portuguese Chronicle
of the History of the Sephardim in Amsterdam up to 1772 by David Franco Mendes, ed.
L. Fuks and R. Fuks-Mansfeld (Assen, 1975), 22-25. For a further appraisal of
Menasseh by Franco Mendes, see "Toledot ha-Rav Menashe ben Yisrael," Ha-
measef A (1788): 167-72.
586 JQR 102.4 (2012)
To conclude, the story of Menasseh is more than the story of a well-

known Amsterdam rabbi and astute diplomat who became one of the
founders of London's first post-expulsion Jewish community. It is also
the story of a Jewish scholar who consciously mobilized Christian inter-
est in Jewish knowledge to connect scholarly and political activities. It is
the story of a Jew who tried to find a common basis for Jewish- Christian
collaboration without questioning the truth of Judaism or lessening his
adherence to it. And it is the story of an early modern mediator, who
translated information from his own world into the world of "the other,"
only to be retranslated - and often misunderstood - by the audience he
sought to reach. Only if one brings these different facets together can
Menasseh be given his due, and it is these facets which show Menasseh 's
importance beyond the study of the Dutch Sephardim or the history of
early modern Judaism.
As Menasseh's case sheds new light on Jews who collaborated with
Christians without converting, it contributes to a more profound under-
standing of early modern Christian Hebraism and the phenomenon of
"Jewish Christians and Christian Jews."90 Success and failure in the
communication between Menasseh and his Christian readers also help to
illustrate the ambivalence between Christian interests in Jewish knowl-
edge and the strict rules theologians assumed to handle this knowledge
"properly." Finally, Menasseh's story elicits more general reflections on
cultural exchange and the transmission of knowledge in the early modern
period. On the one hand, Menasseh's books can be used to retrace differ-
ent steps and modes of early modern cultural translation.91 Especially
interesting in this context is Menasseh's concept of an Abramite theology.
In fact, it might be interpreted as a "third space," being neither identical
with the original nor with the target culture, but serving as a common
basis for cultural translation.92
90. See Richard H. Popkin and Gordon M. Weiner, eds., Jewiáh Chruftiarw and
Christian Jewd: From the Renaiddance to the Enlightenment (Dordrecht, 1994). The
reference to Menasseh is only in the context of millenarianism. See Richard H.
Popkin, "Christian Jews and Jewish Christians in the 17th Century," in ibid.,
57-72.
91. For recent methodical approaches, see Peter Burke, Cultural Hybridity
(Cambridge, 2009), 55-61, and Doris Bachmann-Medick, Cultural Turnà: Neuor-
ientierungen in den Gejchichtdwiddendchaften (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 2006), 238-83.
92. See Jan Assmann, who distinguishes between "assimilatory," "syncretis-
tic," and "mutual translation" to assert about syncretistic translations that differ-
ent cultures "are not just 'translated' into each other, but into a third and
overarching one which forms something like a common background visible. It
presupposes a fundamental unity beyond all cultural diversities" ("Translating
Gods: Religion as a Factor of Cultural (Un)Translatability," in The Trandlatability
On the other hand, the reactions of Menasseh's readers shed light on

the ability of early modern European societies to understand mediators
who refused to give up their identity. Due to early modern strategies
of witnessing and authorizing knowledge,93 reliable mediators generally
mediated from the foreign context into their own. General tendencies
to listen to "the voice of the other" didn't become accepted before the
Enlightenment. Jewish mediators and many of Menasseh's predecessors,
too, had to free themselves from evil accusations.94 Even missionaries,
who needed to mediate into the world of "the other,'' were suspected of
treason whenever they got too deeply involved with their target cul-
tures.95 Nevertheless, insufficient attention has been paid to the direction
of mediation vis-à-vis the cultural origin of the mediator,96 and the case
of Cultures: Figurations of the Space Between, ed. S. Budick and W. Iser [Stanford,
Calif., 1996], 34).
93. For early modern strategies of witnessing and authorizing knowledge, see
Andrea Frisch, The Invention of the Eyewitness: Witnessing and Testimony in Early
Modern France (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2004), 76- 116. Frisch dedicates her study to
the rise of the "experiental eyewitness" in the late sixteenth century but also
stresses the continuation of the "traditional form" of the "ethical eyewitness." For
a similar statement with regard to the seventeenth century and the "Scientific
Revolution," see Stephen Shapin, "A Scholar and a Gentleman: The Problematic
Identity of the Scientific Practitioner in Early Modern England," History of Science
29 (1991): 279-327.
94. For Christians urging Elijah Levita to convert, see Christoph Daxelmül-
ler, "Zwischen Kabbala und Martin Luther: Elija Levita Bachur, ein Jude
zwischen den Religionen, " in Wechselseitige Wahrnehmung der Religionen im Spätmit-
telalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit, ed. L. Grenzmann, T. Haye, N. Henkel, and T.
Kaufmann (Berlin, 2009), 1: 250. For Simone Luzzatto, see Cecil Roth, "Luz-
zatto, Simone ben Isaac Simhah, " Encyclopaedia Judaica (CD- Rom- Edition; Jeru-
salem, 1996). For Azariah dei Rossi, see Joanna Weinberg, "Azariah dei Rossi:
Towards a Reappraisal of the Last Years of His Life," Annali della Scuola Normale
Superiore di Pisa: Classe di Lettere e Filosofia 3,8,2 (1978): 496. For a further exam-
ple, see Don Harrán, "As Framed, So Perceived: Salamone Rossi Ebreo, Late
Renaissance Musician," in Cultural Intermediaries: Jewish Intellectuals in Early Mod-
ern Italy , ed. D. B. Ruderman and G. Veltri (Philadelphia, 2004), 178-215.
95. Important examples are the early modern Asian Jesuit missions and the
Rites Controversies. For a recent overview with further bibliography, see Joan-
Pau Rubies, "The Concept of Cultural Dialogue and the Jesuit Method of
Accommodation: Between Idolatry and Civilization," in his Travellers and Cosmog-
raphers: Studies in the History of Early Modern Travel and Ethnology (Aldershot, 2007),
237-80.
96. The question of "direction" in studies of cultural exchange has only

become prominent since the rise of postcolonial studies, which have focused on
the reciprocity involved in processes of cultural exchange and have furthermore
highlighted the difference between the receptivity of "transmitting" and "receiv-
588 JQR 102.4 (2012)
of Menasseh might shed light on other mediators, too. Independent of the

question one might be interested in, it is evident that a closer examination
of Menasseh ben Israel might help to understand the dynamics of cultural
translation in early modern Europe, and it might contribute to broader
collaboration between Jewish studies and cultural studies, which is still
a desideratum .9?
ing" cultures. Nevertheless, this is something distinct from examining the direc-
tion of mediation that translators adopt as members of a specific culture. For a
useful exception from the aforementioned rule, see Marie Louise Pratt, Imperial
Eyed : Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, 1992). Pratt's concept of
"autoethnography" (ibid., 7-9) perfectly corresponds to Modena's Riti For Men-
asseh, the concept would have to be changed into something like "autotheology. "
Nevertheless, both concepts would be heavily linked through their inherent
claims for the return of representational authority.
97. For a recent plea to combine Jewish history and intercultural studies, see
Wolfgang Schmale and Martina Steer, eds., Kulturtransfer in der jüdischen Geschichte
(Frankfurt, 2006). David Ruderman proposes to use Sanjaj Subrahmanyam's
concept of "connected histories" for the study of Jewish histoiy. See his Early
Modern Jewry: A New Cultural History (Princeton, N.J., 2010), 12 and 224-25.

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Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania

Center for Advanced Judaic Studies, University of Pennsylvania, University of

Mediating Jewish Knowledge:

This essay is based on my Judentum für Christen: Vermittlung und Selbstbehauptung

The Jewish Quarterly Review (Fall 2012)

When Menasseh ben Israel wrote these words in 1650 he had

2. Ben Israel, Segunda parte del Conciliador, o De la convenencia de loö lugared de la S.

1 0. See Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Richer: An Interpretation of Dutch

count on a certain interest on part of the Amsterdam Sephardim in his

14. For exceptions see the French translations of and introductions to

requests from Christian scholars.17 Finally I discuss Esperança de Idrati /

JEWISH COMMENTARIES ON THE BIBLE

Menasseh 's first approaches to the Christian world can be retraced by a

17. Digitalized versions of the aforementioned Spanish and Latin books by

couraged reading his book out of mere curiosity.21 Menasseh discussed

I conceive that my work will be acceptable to the learned; for if duly

wise were susceptible to attack, as in the case of the Hamburg scholar

THE IDEA OF AN ABRAMITE THEOLOGY

Menasseh 's idea of an Abramite theology was directly connected to De la

was of concern to the Christian world as well, because it was of general

because we all worship one God, submit to his commandments and

42. Ben Israel, De resurrect io ne mortuorum, Epistola dedicatoria.

knowledge creates benevolence and a sense of community among them.

46. Ben Israel, De creatione, Problema VII, 29-30. Already in Problema I, 3,

cross borders and meet as believers in an open and more "compatible"

Beginning in 1632 the Dordt physician Johan van Beverwijck (Johannes

54. Caspar Barlaeus, "Epigramma, in Problemata Clarissimi viri Manassis

concerning the question as to whether man's term of life was fixed or

57. See Episcopius to Van Beverwijck, in Eputolica quaestio de vitae termino,

the second part, he explained why this term could nevertheless be

Menasseh s procedure in De termino vitae was in perfect accord with the

Still, I decided not to say anything which contradicts the Christian

60. Ben Israel, De termino vitae, Epistola dedicatoria, a3r.

With regard to De fragilitate humana , Menasseh erred. As soon as the

MILLEN ARI ANI SM AND "REALPOLITIK"63

Throughout Europe, apocalyptic and millenarian expectations revived

64. For a recent reflection on the state of research between millenarianism

ect, quoted at the beginning of this essay, in Esperança de Israel and

The publication and translation of Eàperança de Israel continued into

well aware of the economic advantages a Sephardic merchant colony

80. Jessey, "A Narrative of the Late Proceedings at White-Hall," 579.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

of a broader antiquarian knowledge and that it could contribute to the

eventually convert to Christianity.85 Others misused him as a Jew testify-

To conclude, the story of Menasseh is more than the story of a well-

On the other hand, the reactions of Menasseh's readers shed light on

96. The question of "direction" in studies of cultural exchange has only

of Menasseh might shed light on other mediators, too. Independent of the

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