WHEN BRETHREN WALK TOGETHER: IMMANUEL TREMELLIUS (C. 1510–1580), JEWISH–CHRISTIAN CONVERSION, CHRISTIAN HEBRAISM, AND REFORMED CHRISTIANITY By JOSHUA ANDREW JOHNSON A thesis submittEd in partial fulfillmEnt of the requiremEnts for the degreE of MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY DEpartmEnt of History MAY 2019 © Copyright by JOSHUA ANDREW JOHNSON, 2019 All Rights ResErved © Copyright by JOSHUA ANDREW JOHNSON, 2019 All Rights ResErved To the Faculty of Washington StatE University: The mEmbers of the CommittEE appointEd to examine the thesis of JOSHUA ANDREW JOHNSON find it satisfactory and recommEnd that it be accEptEd. JEssE Spohnholz, Ph.D., Chair StEven Kale, Ph.D. Susan PEabody, Ph.D. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT A thesis, although writtEn by a singlE person, is a tEam effort. I wish to thank Dr. Jesse Spohnholz, for his help on this thesis, and for continuously pushing mE further than I thought I could. It’s beEn hard, but it’s beEn worth it. SEcond, I would like to thank my mother, who has beEn there for mE thesE two years and has supportEd mE in this endeavor, whilE simultaneously finishing her own M.A. thesis. Third, I would like to thank the other mEmbers of my committEE, Dr. StEven KalE and Dr. Susan PEabody, of Vancouver, for providing insightful commEnts on drafts and providing conversation and for their classEs. Thanks to Dr. KalE and Barbara Travers of Vancouver, whom Dr. PEabody recommEnded to mE, for providing translations of TremEllius’s lEttEr to Theodore Beza. Much thanks! I offer my gratitude to Lorena O’English of WSU LibrariEs, for introducing mE to ZotEro and tEaching mE to how to usE it. Danke schön an HErrn Bonzo für diE Hilfe mit den deutschen SchriftEn von Pfefferkorn und Karben. Thanks to Grampa Andy for instilling in mE a love of history. Thanks to DaniEl Fogt and Richard Snyder for introducing mE to fountain pens and encouraging mE on the way; also, my fellow students Amanda Svehla, JamEs Schroeder, Chris Halderman, MElaniE Reimann, Inge Schipper, PEtEr GortEr, Matt Hitchen, Matthias Baudinet, and the rest of the cohort for providing conversation, recreation, and inspiration. I also thank the Post-Reformation Digital Library, the Universal Short TitlE Catalogue, the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, and GooglE Books for providing digital accEss to primary sourcEs I neEded. ב ףוס נא י הדות תא ה ארוב נתנשׁ נ י םייח המכח .הרובחו iii WHEN BRETHREN WALK TOGETHER: IMMANUEL TREMELLIUS (C. 1510–1580), JEWISH–CHRISTIAN CONVERSION, CHRISTIAN HEBRAISM, AND REFORMED CHRISTIANITY Abstract by Joshua Andrew Johnson, M.A. Washington StatE University May 2019 Chair: Jesse Spohnholz This thesis examines the Italian-born JEwish convert to Christianity Immanuel TremEllius (c. 1510–1580), his viEws on the relationship betwEEn Judaism and Christianity, and his various contExts. The thesis succEssively Examines TremEllius’s various identitiEs as a JEwish–Christian convert, a HEbraist scholar, and a ReformEd Christian to account for his philosEmitic viEws. The thesis argues that TremEllius’s experiEncE growing up JEwish in ErcolEan FErrara, his spiritualist circlE and influencE in Italian Catholicism, and his ReformEd faith influencEd TremEllius to becomE one of the first philo-sEmitic JEwish converts to Christianity, one who advocatEd for Jewish–Christian understanding and who continued to identify as JEwish aftEr conversion and who advocatEd others to do so as wEll. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT ................................................................................................................ iii ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... iv LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................................... vi LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... vii CHAPTERS CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER TWO: DUAL SOULS: CONVERSION BETWEEN JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY ........................................................................................................................... 26 CHAPTER THREE: CHRISTIAN HEBRAISM AND JUDAISM .............................................. 70 CHAPTER FOUR: CALVINISM AND JUDAISM ................................................................... 131 CHAPTER FIVE: TREMELLIUS AND THE JEWISH-CHRISTIAN IMAGINATION ......... 182 CHAPTER SIX: EPILOGUE: TREMELLIUS’S LEGACY ...................................................... 226 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................ 252 APPENDIX TABLES ...................................................................................................................................... 277 FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... 282 v LIST OF TABLES Page TablE 1: DatEs of Expulsions and Readmissions for European JEwry ........................................ 277 TablE 2: JEwish PEriodization of Rabbinic Sages ........................................................................ 277 TablE 3: Orders and TractatEs of the Mishnah ............................................................................ 277 TablE 4: Pfefferkorn’s ConfiscatEd Books .................................................................................. 279 TablE 5: The Editions of the CatEchism ...................................................................................... 281 vi LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Ein schön und seüberlich Tractat .................................................................................. 47 Figure 2: Der Judenspiegel ........................................................................................................... 68 Figure 3: Der Judenbeicht ............................................................................................................. 69 Figure 4: The HEbrew alphabet in traditional block script .......................................................... 282 Figure 5: The HEbrew alphabet in Rashi script ........................................................................... 282 Figure 6: The titlE page of the 1554 Paris edition ....................................................................... 283 Figure 7: The first page of the 1554 edition ................................................................................ 284 Figure 8: TitlE page of the 1591 CatEchism ................................................................................ 285 Figure 9: First tExt page of the 1591 catEchism .......................................................................... 286 Figure 10: The 1820 Judeo-GErman CatEchism .......................................................................... 287 Figure 11: TremEllius’s 1820 Religions-Unterricht. ................................................................... 288 vii Dedication DEdicatEd to my mother and my father, To all my grandparents, and great-grandparents, To all the ancEstors, And to all the oppressEd peoplEs of the earth. viii CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION The sixtEEnth cEntury was a timE of upheaval. In fact, one can safely consider it a timE of transition from thE mEdiEval world to what wE call the modern world. Many of the cErtaintiEs of the MiddlE Ages wEre crumbling, exemplifiEd in threE areas. First, at the beginning of the sixtEEnth cEntury, there was one holy Roman apostolic Church, which had somE dissidents and detErrents, labellEd heretics. By the end, there wEre many of competing confessions, each labelling each other heretics. With each new group popping up founded by another man who beliEved he could intErpret God bettEr than anyone elsE, how could anyonE find truth? This crumbling of religious cErtainty lEd to a risE in inquisitions, in order to stamp out what the Roman Church found unablE to control. In addition to witches and heretics, the Roman Catholic Church targetEd JEws. SEcond, the millEnnia-old JEwish population in Europe itsElf was disintEgrating and fragmEnting—England and FrancE had expellEd its JEws two cEnturiEs prior, and Spain and Portugal did so in the 1490s. Struggling to retain their identity, many JEws wEre forcEd to convert in Spain and wEre triEd for having JEwish heritage. NaplEs, the Papal StatEs, Lithuania, and GErman kingdoms kicked out their JEws during this timE. In exilE again, JEws relocatEd to the NEtherlands, Poland, the Ottoman Empire, and northern Africa. NEverthelEss, thesE JEwish enclaves put down roots which lastEd until the mid-twEntiEth cEntury, when the next catastrophe of JEwish history took placE. The third change was the risE of humanist scholarship, ignitEd by the Italian RenaissancE, lEd to a shattEring of religious cErtainty and increasEd dissEmination of knowlEdge. An increasE in litEracy, new vernacular BiblE translations, and books printEd on the moveablE printing press fastEr than monks could copy manuscripts lEd 1 to citizEns being ablE to read and intErpret the BiblE and other tExts for themsElves. DiscoveriEs showEd that relics, pious lEgends, and even biblical tExts had littlE to no historical basis. SomE gave up on religion; others decided to read the biblical tExts for themsElves—in HEbrew. The HEbraist