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167 THE

167

ACOSTA, DUARTE NTJNES at Haiiihuri; duriiiv' llic

liall nl

D'

.lEWISI!



Jrcn

liaiit

stvcntiMMitli <cutuiy; <1(-S(cti(lanl cif a |iniiiiiMciit .Maraiio faiiiilv fnim Portugal. AVlicn, alKiut KitO, King .Iciliii I'. <if Portugal estatilishwl liis agi-iicy at llainhurg, ho iiiadf

Acosta the

first

liisl

incumbent of

tin-

tlu; otlice,

with

the title of " noble of the house," in sjiite of local prejudice against the Jews due to the propaganda against them led by .loitx Mti.i.Ei;. Throughout the existence of theagency. to the year ITKo, other members of the Acosta fainily held "the oltice. BiBLiouRAPiiv: Gratz. (IcmIi. d. Ju(kii, x. ai; Kavserlliisr. (Jench. d. Juden in Fortuyal, p. 3ia; Idem, StiilKiriliiii, p. iJa. AV. M.

ACOSTA. GERONIMO NUiJeZ also

Moses

See

Curiel).

L'l

Achmetha

ENCYCLOPEDIA In

Acosta, TJriel

Amsterdam they abjured

Christianity;

and Ga-

and

his four brothers (Ivayserling,'"Gesch. d. Portugal," p. '.i^iT) entered the Abrahamic covenant, Galiriel discarding his name for Uriel. Full of enthusiasm for .ludaism an enthusiasm that had fed upon his dreams and fancies of Ihe unknown faith and the bygone history of his people it was almost in the nature of things that Acosta should be doomed to suffer severe disenchantmout through the realities he encountered. The days of .Moses and Isaiah uo longer existed; in place of their broad i)rinci|)les and declarations he found in the briel

.luilin in

—

—

Judaism of Amsterdam a

rigid,

cumbersome, and

D' (called

kill, Mosios.

JOAN

ACOSTA, D' : Jester at the court of Peiir the (ircal of Itussia in the first half of the eighteenth century. Originally he was a broker at Humburg. but met with such small success that he removed to Russia, and received an ajipointment as jester. Ills ujipearance was droll; lie isdescribed as liaving been very clever and witty, and niasterof almost all Eurojiean languages. According to Doran ("History of Court Fools"), Peter met him among the patients at the "U'aler Cure" at Alonait/ in 1719. Ivostomarov calls him Lyacosta. It is sjjid that Czar Peter enjoyed discussing theological questions with him, and that these discussions often led to heated arguments. As a reward for his services the c/.ar gave him the sandy and iminhabited island of Sanuner, in the Gulf of i'itdand. lie retained his position as court jester under Empress Anne. Buu.KMiii.M'HV: UTn.iliM-li.d. Imiih W.i/Ki. lHnlurii

III'

ShuliliLskl. M..ri(/i. >7,n (hliniii.p.'t; SlernJtiiliii ill I'liliii. p. Il'.l; Kiwtoiimruv, Iliisxed. p. 14:i. St. Petersburg. IsiB; Derail, Ciiuii Fmih, ]>. :m, L<iiidim, 1*58.

M

II.

ACOSTA,

LTJIS

D'



R.

Alarano of VillaFlor, At llieageof forty-five.

Portugal; born in l.'iST. he was condemned to the galleys liecause been secretly following the law of Moses. Bnii TiKMMiMrv: KMvsiilinir. .Stj)/i«nJi;H,

p. att.

lie

-i.-

liad

-r

ACOSTA, URIEL

(originally, Gabriel da Noted writer and rationalist; born at |)orto. l.")i)(l: died at Amsterdam, April. ItUT. Horn and reare<l in a Marano family, all of whose members had liecome strict Catholics— his father held an ecclesiastical position young Gabriel seems lo have pondered secretly on ilie nice and failh of his fttlheis.lo which he fell himself powcrfullv attracted. When apprenticed lo the IcLral prolVssioii he fnund time lo study the l,aw and the I'rophels. anil he e.porienced the inllui'iK-e of their broad humanitarian views and of Iheir noble coneeplions of the Deilv.

Costa*):

—

pisisatisfaclion

icism

was

with the formal routine of Cathol-

responsible for his spiritual uneasiness, as suggested liv (triltz Religious ("(iesch. d. .ludeii," x. l*!). " In I(il."> Scruples, force of circumstaiM'es compelled him lo accept the semi legal. .Mini clerical olllce of treasurer of an endowed church in Oporto; Ills father being dead, Ihe support of his motherand young sister and brothers dcvolvi'd upon him. Cautiously revealing lot hese rilali ves Ids liearl 's longinir for.Iudaism, hv found them ai(|uiescent anil in KilT or Kiis, after running great danger of detection and punishment, Ihe family emii.'rated from I'orlugal lo .msterdam, where they coidil openly live as .lews, proliiibly



^_

"Tlio Ijiiln and iiinn' rninllliir fiirm of iho siinimiii' N . wln," iiHi'd l)y (Jiiizkmv In Mit well known dniniii di'voled i.f ihlMiinlile: rrlel lilin.-«'lf idirneil "ilii Ciwtii."

I" Ihe Miihjwi

prosaic accumulation of ritual and observance, "line line, and precept upon prece|it." This was very dillerent from the free and liberal religion which his inexjierienced fancy had iiictured to him in his native laud. Feeling the inspiration of his high

upon

ideals,

his

he was frank enough to express outspokenlv with the formal Judaism of the dav.

disgust

Something of his Christian Irainiiig may have shaped his i>liniseology pointment when he openly spoke against "the at Amstor- Pharisees" of the Amsterdam synadam. gogue: but he naturally knew nothDisaji-

ing of the fierce heat of sufTering faith of Isaiah, and welded it into the rigid forms he found extant. On their side the Amsterdam Jews, who had known jierscculion and were grateful even for the tacit tolerance of the Netherlands, were not dispo.sed calmly to see an impetuous and ill-informed young eiithusiast openly assail the ancestral faith. By his criticisms against Judaism, Acosta thus condemned himself to a life of severe isolation almost from the hour of his arrival in Anisterdam. When it got abroad that he was preparing a book which should set forth his grave doubts as to the immorlalily iif the soul and the reality of future reward or punishment, and should. moreoir. point out Iheilisiiepaucies be-

which had fused the

tween the Bible and rabbinical Judaism— soundly rating the latter foritsaccumulation of mechanical ceremonies and ]diysical observances in lieu of spiritual maxims anil jihilosophic conieptions he was answered I'ven before he had spoken, as It were, by the ]iubliiation of a work in Portuguese, written bv a certain physician, Samuel da Silva. in HiOU. "I'ni tado da Immortalidade da Alma. Composlo pelo Doutor! em i|Ue Tambem se .Mosira a Igno rancia de Cerlo Conlniriador," etc. But this onlv

—

.

.

.

served lo expedite Acostas work, which appeared in lli34, also in Portuguese, under the title "Kxamen dos Tradicoens Phariseas Conferidas con a Ley Ks crita por I'riel. .lurista Ilebreo. com Reposia a hum Semuel da Silva. sen Falso Caluiuniador. " Acosta's lack of eliarness, either of expression or of hough I, or of both, is shown by the fact thai in this work he reiterates thai the soul of man is not jinmortal the verv heresy of which Da Silva had accused him. mailer had now become .so public that the 'I he ollicials of the .msterdam Jewish coinmiinily could not but take notice of it. Accordingly, .costa was indicted befon' the magistracy for Ihe iiltenince of views subversivB of Ihe foundations not only u{ Jewish, but of Clirisliaii, failh; and judgment was I

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