The Marrakesh Dialogues Studies in Jewish History and Culture
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The Marrakesh Dialogues Studies in Jewish History and Culture Edited by Giuseppe Veltri Editorial Board Gad Freudenthal – Alessandro Guetta – Hanna Liss – Ronit Meroz Reimund Leicht – Judith Olszowy-Schlanger – David Ruderman Diana Matut volume 45 The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/sjhc The Marrakesh Dialogues A Gospel Critique and Jewish Apology from the Spanish Renaissance By Carsten L. Wilke leiden | boston Cover illustration: View of Safi, Marrakesh’s seaport. Engraving from Frans Hogenberg, Civitates orbis terrarum, 1572, reedition Cologne: Georg Braun, 1574. Courtesy Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, Sign. Ra 16 Bra 5–1. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wilke, Carsten, 1962- The Marrakesh dialogues : a gospel critique and Jewish apology from the Spanish renaissance / critical edition and study by Carsten L. Wilke. pages cm. – (Studies in Jewish history and culture ; volume 45) Includes bibliographical references and index. Summary: "In sixteenth-century Marrakesh, a Flemish merchant converts to Judaism and takes his Catholic brother on a subversive reading of the Gospels and an exploration of the Jewish faith. Their vivid Spanish dialogue, composed by an anonym in 1583, has until now escaped scholarly attention in spite of its success in anti-Christian clandestine literature until the Enlightenment. Based on all nine available manuscripts, this critical edition rediscovers a pioneering work of Jewish self-expression in European languages. The introductory study identifies the author, Estêvão Dias, locates him in insurgent Antwerp at the beginning of the Western Sephardi diaspora, and describes his hybrid culture shaped by the Iberian Renaissance, Portuguese crypto-Judaism, Mediterranean Jewish learning, Protestant theology, and European diplomacy in Africa"– Provided by publisher. ISBN 978-90-04-20345-7 (hardback : alk. paper) – ISBN 978-90-04-27402-0 (e-book) 1. Dias, Estêvão, 1545- 2. Christianity–Controversial literature. 3. Judaism–Apologetic works. 4. Religious disputations. 5. Spanish literature–Classical period, 1500-1700–History and criticism. I. Title. BM590.W45 2014 296.3'5–dc23 2014009770 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “Brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, ipa, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1568-5004 isbn 978-90-04-20345-7 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-27402-0 (e-book) Copyright 2014 by Koninklijke Brill nv, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill nv incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Global Oriental and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill nv provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, ma 01923, usa. Fees are subject to change. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copy- rights holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Contents List of Figures viii Preface ix Historical Study Introduction 3 1 Retrieving a Jewish Renaissance Classic 10 Portuguese Jews as Literary Pioneers 10 An Anti-Christian Corpus 12 The First Marrakesh Dialogue 14 The Second Marrakesh Dialogue 19 Previous Research 24 Which Date, Which Place? 29 2 Three Portuguese in Marrakesh, 1581 33 Dom Francisco da Costa, Portuguese Ambassador 33 Brother Thomas of Jesus, Augustinian Hermit 42 Rabbi Joseph, alias Estêvão Dias, New Christian Traveler 46 3 The Author’s European Background, 1545–1581 53 Algarve: Reading the Bible at Morocco’s Gate 53 Francophony: Traces of Gallicism 58 Zeeland: The Deep Water Harbour at Arnemuiden 63 Flanders: Radical Reformation in Antwerp 68 Turkey: Jewish Conversion and Re-education 76 Italy: From Tolerance to Repression 79 Lisbon: The Regedor’s Palace 87 4 The History of the Text, 1581–1595 91 The Moroccan Edition of the First Dialogue, 1581 91 The European Edition of the First Dialogue, c. 1582 93 The (Antwerpian?) Complete Edition, 1583 97 The Venetian Revised Edition, c. 1595 106 vi contents 5 Invention of a Literary Genre 113 From Medieval Disputation to Renaissance Dialogue 113 Catechism and its Parody 119 Controversy as Discursive Labor 122 Masculinity as Metaphor 126 Conversion and the Father-Son Conflict 131 Christian Hypocrites and Jewish Impostors 141 From Opprobrium to Glory 145 Conclusion 149 Textual History and Criticism 1 Inventory of Manuscript Sources 153 Direct Transmission 153 Indirect Transmission 166 2 Analysis of the Textual Transmission 171 First Generation: The Archetype Ω2' 171 Second Generation: The Three Hyparchetypes α, β and γ 172 Third to Fifth Generation: Descendence of the β Hyparchetype 176 Stemma codicum 180 3 Editorial Criteria 181 Tasks and Challenges 181 Structure of the Edition 182 Spelling and Morphology 183 Words from Foreign Languages 185 Critical Edition Conspectus Siglorum 199 Codices 199 Fragments 199 Biblical Translations 199 Other Sources 200 Abbreviations 200 contents vii Argumento del primer diálogo de Obadia 202 Al lector 204 Diálogo primero 206 Diálogo segundo 301 Glosses 399 Alphabetical Index in Ms. B 418 Aleixo de Menezes on the Marrakesh Dialogues 423 Notes Notes on the Common Text 427 Notes on the Glosses 489 Bibliography 497 Primary Sources 497 Secondary Literature 505 Index of Biblical Quotations 532 Alphabetical Index 539 List of Figures 1 Anonym, Dialoghi in lingua spagnuola sulla religione cattolica ed ebrea. Courtesy British Library, Ms. Add. 10,719, fol. 1r 189 1a Anonym, Dialogo curioso entre dos hermanos differentes en la Profession de su Ley y arguyentes sobre la verdad de cada qual. Courtesy Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Cod. hebr. 240g, fol. 2v–3r. 190 2 Ludovico Guicciardini, Description de touts les Pays-Bas, autrement appellez, La Germanie Inferieure (Arnhem: Jan Jansz, 1613), p. 182, engraving “Arnemuyden”. Author’s collection 191 3 Christiaan Sgrooten, Descriptio exactissima effluxus Schaldis fluvij in Oceanum Britannicum & insularum quarunctam (1573). Courtesy Bibliothèque royale de Bruxelles, ms. 21.596 D, fol. 18 192 4 Frans Hogenberg, Nach wenig Predication, Die Caluinsche Religion, Das bildenssturmen fiengen an … ([Cologne: Hogenberg, ca. 1570]). Courtesy Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Düsseldorf, Sign. his/b7943 192 5 Franz Christoph Khevenhüller, Annales Ferdinandei, oder Warhaffte Beschreibung Kayser Ferdinandi des Andern, vol. I (Leipzig: Weidmann, [1721]), engraving “Alphonsus Hertzog von Ferrara.” Author’s collection 193 6 Willem Jansz. Blaeu, Africæ nova descriptio (Amsterdam: Ioh. and Cornelius Blaeu, 1642), etching “Marocchi.” Courtesy Sächsische Landesbibliothek, Stadt- und-Universitätsbibliothek Dresden, Sign. A 483 194 7 “Plan de la Ville de Maroc (la Rouge) levé par Paul Lambert, 1867, revu et augmenté par Aug[us]te Beaumier, à Maroc, Février 1868,”Bulletin de la Société de Géographie, 5e série, 16 (1868), pp. 584/585. Courtesy Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart 195 8 Abraham Ortelius, Fessae, et Marocchi Regna Africae Celeberr. ([Antwerp: Officina Plantiniana], 1595). Courtesy Klassik Stiftung Weimar / Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek, Sign. Kt 700-60 L 196 Preface My involvement with the Marrakesh Dialogues started during a research year at the National Library of Jerusalem back in 1988, when I became interested in tracking down the first Jewish religious works written in standard European languages. Research methods during that pre-digital age were at a primitive level, but could sometimes produce unexpected results. While at the Center for Microfilmed Hebrew Manuscripts, I manually searched the slip boxes for uncatalogued items indicated by greenish cards that had only a shelf mark and the word bisfaradit (“in Spanish”) scribbled upon them. This is how I came across three manuscripts of the present text. I found myself immediately captivated by a dialogue which depicted the moving and humorous wanderings of two brothers in early modern Africa, their Judeo-Christian argument being framed by reminiscences from Antwerp, Lisbon, Rome, and Constantinople. The Castilian spoken by the two literary figures had a pre-Cervantine tinge to it. But strangely enough, this masterpiece had no title, no date, no place, no author, and almost no research history. To be sure, scholars before me had been intrigued by this enigmatic work, but had abandoned it presumedly because of the uncertainty in which it was shrouded. I, however, indulged my curiosity and decided to take a break from my doctoral studies when a research grant by the Fondation du Judaïsme Français was offered to me for the academic year 1990–1991 by way of the Hillel Academy headed by Chief Rabbi René-Samuel Sirat. Besides the Bibliothèque Nationale, I frequented a quartet of smaller Parisian libraries belonging respec- tively to the Alliance Israélite Universelle, the Calouste Gulbenkian Founda- tion, the Kingdom