Orobio Contra Prado: A Trans-European Controversy

but full of fickleness, pride, arrogance, convinced that they are distinguished scholars in all kinds of matters … by inventing sophistic reasonings without any basis, they search recognition for their genius, acumen, and science.What is worse, they obtain this reputation among certain persons who because of their low age or their evil character boast to be smart, and although they do not understand a word of what the foolish philosopher argues against God ’ s Law, they never-theless pretend to understand him. ⁷ ³

It is not surprising that the inquisitors took ak een interest in these doctors whom they suspected of holding leadership roles in the converso communities,t aking advantage of their mobility and prestige in order to disseminate Judaising practices. The fellow doctors denounced by Orobio can be identified from other sources: DiegoD uarte Serrano, of Bailén in the provinceo fJ aén, is Prado'sb rother-in-law, since he was married to the sister of Isabel Gómez, wife and cousin of Prado since 1638. It seems, moreover,t hat Prado and Duarte weref ellow students at Alcalá, wheret hey are found side-by-sidei nt he records of 1631 and 1633.⁹ Dr.N úñez may have been Duarte Núñez de Acosta, as tudent of Salamanca and later ap hysician of the aristocracy,p robablyf rom ac rypto-Jewishf amily, who participated in 1653 in am edicalc ontroversy at the University of Sevillet hat broughtt ogetherv arious doctors of the region, among them Orobio. But Dr.N úñez can alternatively be identified with JorgeNuñez, astudent in Alcalá belonging to Prado'scircle,who mayperhaps be found around 1649 among the Jews of Livorno.¹⁰ As for Jerónimo Gómez Pereda, he was ar oyal physician linked to the great Portuguesefamilies of Madrid and the diaspora. Educated at the University of Sigüenza,h eb ecame Prado'su ncle by alliance,a nd he had also taken part in the sames tudent circle of Alcala, since Orobio declared that Pereda was the one who converted him to Judaism: Doctor Juan de Prado, aPortuguese physician resident of Antequera, where he was livingwhen the declarant [Orobio] was arrested, is an observer of the said LawofMoses,because duringthe time he has declared about,that is, sixteen years ago, when the declarant was studyinga tt he University of Alcalá, where Doctor Prado'su ncle, the Doctor Pereda, taught and instructed him in the observanceofthe said LawofMoses,the said Prado declared himself with the declarant as an observer of the LawofMoses,because he had known and understood that his said uncle Pereda had become and remained the declarant'steacher.They talkedabout the ceremonies that wereo bligatory to perform for the said observance and salvation of one'ss oul, though he does not remember havingp erformed anyo ft hem together with him.¹¹ One can discover in Orobio'sdeclaration ahint to acrypto-Judaic circle thatseems to have existed duringt he 1630s at Alcalá and, more specifically, among the medical students. Some of its members would laterr econstitute theirc ircle in Andalusia and, once more, in emigration outside Spain,p articularlyi nt he Jewishd iaspora community of Amsterdam. It is very likelyt hat the "Doctor Reynoso" denounced by Orobio is the same person as Miguel Reynoso, who settled in Amsterdam around 1646,whom one finds alongside Prado and Spinoza in 1659,a nd who signs in 1673, jointlywith Orobio, anotarial act concerning awoman patient.¹² This Reynoso seems to be identical with Dr.Abraham Israel Reynoso, who entered the brotherhood Honen Dalim in 1645 -1646,was elected to the mahamad in 1654 and registered in the Collegium Medicum of Amsterdam.¹³ How should we imagine these Andalusian medical tertulias? They probablyr esembled the academic disputations that Orobio used to take part in at the time, such as the one held in Seville, in 1653,a bout bloodletting. Discussions must have easilys lipped from medicine to philosophya nd even theology. As proof,o ne of the participantsinthe bloodletting controversy,Dr. Sebastián Soto, whom the Inquisition of Toledo had accused in 1634 of erroneous propositions (he had alleged that  AHN,I nquisición, leg.2 987 1 : "El Doctor Joan de Prado medicop ortugues vecino de Antequera a donde residia quando este [Orobio] fue preso es observante de dicha ley de Moisen porque el tiempo que ha dicho de diez yseis años que este estava en la Universidad de Alcala donde le enseño ey nstruio como tiene dicho en la observancia de la dicha ley de Moisen el dicho Doctor Pereda tio del dicho Prado este dicho Prado se declarocon este por observante de dicha ley de Moisen porque supo ye ntendio que el dicho su tio Pereda en la dicha observancia de la ley de Moisen avia sido ye ra Maestrodeste [Orobio] no se acuerda hicieran ceremonias juntos pero comunicabanse en las que havian de hacer que heran las convenientes para la dicha observancia yl as alvacion de su alma." Frencht ranslation in Muchnik, Une vie marrane,95.  Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism,2 04.  Stadsarchief Amsterdam [henceforth SAA], PA 334, no. 1186,fol. 58v;no. 19,inthe lists at the beginningofthe volume; SAA, Collegium Medicum, Series nominum doctorum medicinae, no. 16: "Michael Reynosa jam dictus Abraham Reynoso Hebraeus";s ee Muchnik, Une vie marrane,1 73 -174. God did not intervene in secondary causes), evoked the tertulias held every Monday among doctors in order to discuss, in particular, matters of philosophya nd theology.¹⁴ Not incidentally, Orobio first remarked duringt his period thatP rado was harbouring doubts about the religious faith, and he seems alreadyt ob ef ighting his friend'so bjections, as he would again with greater firmness twenty years later,i n Amsterdam.
OrobioC ontraP rado: AT rans-EuropeanC ontroversy Are we facing here the first doubts and the beginnings of the deism that would come to the fore in Amsterdam fifteen years later? During the ratification of his confession, Baltasar pointed out that Dr.D iego Duarte Serrano, Prado'sb rother-in-laww ho, as we have seen, participated in the same tertulias,attended theirconversation and approved of Prado'sreasoning.However,Orobio now presents Prado'swords quite differently: Dr.J uan de Prado, the physician, said to the declarant that he was surethat everyone obtained salvation in the lawthey confessed: the Christian in his one, and those who confess and follow the laws of Moses and Mahomet obtain it through theirs,a nd likewise all others,b ecause all [laws] wered irected towards the finality of knowingG od, which is sufficient for salvation.¹⁷ These two, seemingly irreconcilable versions have posed ap roblem to historiography.¹⁸ They mayl ead to several hypotheses about Prado'st hought: are the laws of religion merelyp olitical and pragmatic, or do all religions aim at the knowledge of God?Does religious faith onlyassure political obedience or can it help in finding speculative certainty? However,one mayanswer this question, it is manifest that alreadyinthe early1640s, Prado nourished heterodoxthoughts and betrayed the first signs of deism, an incredulity thatO robio latera ttributedt o the Godless persuasion of another man of the Hebrew nation, first Christian,then Jewish, then neither Jewish nor Christian, avery short-minded fellow,ameagre philosopherand even less of ap hysician, foolish in his discourse, intrepid in his speech, al over of novelties, ac ultivator of paradoxes, and worst of all, am an of abominable customs.¹⁹ Orobio does not name the crypto-Jewishy et free-thinkingdoctor who had perverted Prado.I .S. Révah identifiedt his third man with ac ertain Juan Piñero, whose name appears in the margin of several copies of the Invective Epistle next to the quoted passage. This Sevillian, who died around 1662, is denounced in the inquisitorial trial of another Judaising doctor,R odrigoE nríquez de Fonseca, who seems to have been his fellow student in Alcala before aprofessor at the University of Valencia con- AHN,Inquisición, leg.2374 1 ,f ol. 3r: "El Dr Joan de Prado medicodijo aeste que teniapor cierto que se salvaba cada uno en la ley que profesava el cristiano en la suia, yenladeMoisen,yMahoma los que las profesavan yseguian como en todas las demas porque como miraban todas aunfin que hera reconoçer aDios eso bastava para salvarse." Révah, Des Marranes àSpinoza,279;Muchnik, Une vie marrane,3 43.  Yirmiyahu Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics, Vol.1.T he Marrano of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 62.  Orobio, Epístola,inRévah, Spinoza,109: "Ysiseinquiereelfundamentodesta mudanza ynueva incredulidad, no es otroque rendirela ntiguoybien fundado dictamen al apersuasiond eotro, Hebreod en acion,primeroC hristiano,despuesJ udio, ydespues ni Judio ni Christiano:h ombre de cortissimo juizio, pocoPhilosopho ymenos Medico, loco en su discur[r]ir,intrepido en su hablar,amigo de novedades,s olicitador de paradoxas y, lo peor,a bominable en sus costumbres." The manuscript Amsterdam, Ets Haim, ms.48C04,fol. 17r, reads "la ympia persuacion de otroHebreo de nascion." verted him to areligion based on the LawofNature.²⁰ Orobio mentions Piñero in another context,when he remembers that he had once borrowed from him the Scrutinium Scripturarum of Pablo de SantaM aria.²¹ One can safelyconclude thatdeist ideas did indeed circulate among New Christian studentsatSpanish universities in the seventeenth century.The schools of Alcalá and Valencia, which wereparticularlynotorious hotbeds of novatores,also became waystationsi nthe biographyofv arious Judaising doctors,s uch as DiegoM ateo Zapata, one of the foremost novatores himself. Historiographyh as repeatedlyp ointed out the link that connected sixteenth-and seventeenth-century crypto-Judaism to medicine and aspecific form of incredulity thathas been categorised as materialism, naturalism or even atheism, at rilogyo fw hich Pradom ay seem to be the very embodiment.H istorians of the Inquisition have observedt hat trials against conversos frequentlyappend chargeso fincredulity to the ordinary accusations of crypto-Judaism.²² The existenceo fr ationalist or "averroist" tendencies among the Jews and, later,the conversos of Spain is manifest since the Middle Ages. According to Yitzhak Baer,S panish rabbis complained of the numerous Jews who affirmed that the soul was mortal, who held the natural laws superior to the Torah, and who pursueds ecular rather than religious knowledge.²³ In the sixteenthcentury,authors such as João de Barros in his Ropicapnefma (1532) attack conversos who reject the dogmas of the immortality of the soul and of the rewards and punishments in the afterlife.²⁴ Many trials against crypto-Judaisers thus involvedoubts about immortality and afterlife. To be sure, such accusations are alsop rolific in the inquisitorial trials opened against Old Christians for "propositions,"" scandalous words," or stereotyped expressions such as "there is nothing in life but to be born and die" or "we are born and die like beasts." However,s imilar manifestations of unbelief werea ssociated with Judaisers, as were blasphemies, scepticism, and other forms of nonconformist thought.²⁵ OrobioC ontraP rado: AT rans-EuropeanC ontroversy In this perspective,incredulity was disseminated in alliance with as ort of crypto-Judaism that one maycertainlyimagine as asecular rather than religious attitude, an attitude for which Prado was characterised as apremature "secular Jew."²⁶ Quite as imilar mindset appears,c oloured with blasphemy, in the words of Fernando de Medina,b orn in 1656 in Peyrehorade in southwestern France and arrested in New Spaini n1 691o na ccusations of Judaising.H em aintained, however: "There is no God, no deity,n oT rinity: the gods are meno ff lesh and blood likea ll others." "Soul is spirit,a nd when the bodydies, … the spirit dies too." Eight yearslater,F ernando concluded, like Prado, that "men can obtain their salvation through anyl aw and anys ect."²⁷ However,these currents also must be located inside Spanish intellectual history. Various sources affirm the existenceo fs o-called "atheist" thinkers who, inspired in part by models from Greek and Roman Antiquity,subscribed to the thesis of the mortality of the soul and did not believei np ost-mortemr ewards. Since the sixteenth century,t he cases of such alleged heretics multiplied. Thought hese people evoked the same slogan of "to be born and to die is all," they had no connection whatsoever with crypto-Judaism. Works such as the TenL amentso nt he Miseryo ft he Atheists of our Time by friar Jerónimo Gracián(1611) attempt to reveal the existenceofthese unbelievers, which the defenders of the faith falselydescribed as atheists.²⁸ In order to confutet hese deviant minds, Quevedo contributed textso fp olitical or ascetic veins such as the Politics of God andGovernmentofChrist and the Providence of God, which Confutes its Deniers and Favoursi ts Confessors,books written around 1617 and 1641, respectively.Inthe Politics of God,Quevedo creates an association between reason of state and atheism, two idols inseparablefrom their two attributes,dissimulation and incredulity.²⁹ Accordingt oh im, the "Godless" (sin Dios)a re "thosew ho do not believeinthe immortality of the soul, those who saythatthere is neither God nor Providence, and those few who confess that therei saGod but denyH is providence."³⁰ Edwards and C. John Sommerville, "Religious Faith, Doubt and Atheism," Past and Present,1 28 (1990): 152-161, here1 56.  Yirmiyahu Yovel, TheO ther Within: TheM arranos,S plit Identity and Emerging Modernity (Princeton: Princeton University Press,2 009), 333.  Nathan Wachtel, La foi du souvenir: Labyrinthes marranes (Paris:S euil, 2001), 240 -244,2 46.  Geronimo Gracian de la Madred eDios, Diez lamentaciones del miserable estado de los Atheístas de nuestros tiempos (Brussels:Roger Velpio and HubertoAntonio, 1611); cf. Caro Baroja, De la superstición al ateísmo,2 58 -260.  Quevedo, Política de Dios ygobierno de Cristo (Buenos Aires: Espasa-Calpe Argentina, 1947), 123.  Quevedo, Providencia de Dios padecida de los que la nieganygozada de los que la confiessan: Doctrina estudiada en los gusanos yp ersecuciones de Job (Zaragoza:P asqual Bueno, 1700), 3: "Estosh ombres se llaman en Griego, sin Dios, con esta palabraA theistas,q ue se han vsurpado las lenguas vulgares.L os que no creen la Immortalidad de la Alma, dizen, que ni ay Dios,n iP rovidencia; ys on muy pocos los que la niegan, que confiessen hayD ios, mas estosn egaron su Providencia." They denythe afterlife and perceive all religions as lies: Quevedo here possiblyhints to certain expressions of the "Three Impostors" topos.³¹ On the Jewishside, Fernando (Isaac) Cardoso claims to have composed a "book on the Six Days [of creation] against the atheists for the defense of the soul."³² He reiteratesh is attacks in his Philosophia Libera,p ublished in Italyb ut partlyw ritten in Spain: "The assertors of the mortalityo ft he soul, whom Ih avem yself known, werewickedmen, devoted to vices, and bound to no law."³³ Similarly,manyliterary writingso ft he Spanish baroque, such as the allegorical Corpus Christi plays (autos sacramentales)byLope de Vega and CalderóndelaBarca, present characters designated as sceptics or atheists, without necessarilyattributing the political motivations of the reason of state to them. Finally, in treatiseso nt heology, one can observet he regular appearance of introductory chapters aimed at demonstrating the existenceof God, ag enre that was stillr are in the sixteenthc entury.³⁴ The Jesuits, in particular, devote much spacet ot his question.³⁵ In sum, the doubts that OrobioperceivedinPrado and that he denouncedtothe HolyO ffice in 1654-1656 fit into aw ell-known dynamic that took place both inside and outside crypto-Judaism. When making his declarations, he probablyk new that Prado wasbyt hen alreadyout of Spain. The latter had become in 1652 the personal physician of DomingoP imentel, Archbishop of Seville, who had just obtained the dignity of Cardinal, and accompanied him on aj ourney to Rome. When Pimentel died in 1653,Prado and his familyhad to make anew start,this time joining the Sephardic community of Hamburg. Juan de Prado, who adopted the first name of Daniel afterhis circumcision, settled in Amsterdam in 1655.Orobio would join him there in 1662.

Orobio ContraP rado: AT rans-EuropeanC ontroversy
The Devices of Prado'sT hought "It is onlytoyou that it so happened,tobeafake Christian and atrue Jewwhereyou could not be aJ ew,and to be afake Jewwhere [finally] youcould be trulyJ ewish."³⁶ In these terms, Orobio lambasts Prado in his Apologetic Letter. He had started his text with the statement that he desired "to accelerate his repentance,towherethe knowledge of the truth that he had previouslyobserved, and that his parents had kept,i s about to bring him, accordingtothe news Ireceived."³⁷ We know indeedthat in July 1656,less than one year after Prado'sarrivalinAmsterdam, he wasexcluded together with Spinoza from the PortugueseJ ewishc ongregation by its authorities.
Prado had met the young Baruch Spinoza before the end of 1655.Certains cholars, such as Carl Gebhardta nd I. S. Révah, have maintained that Spinoza, who had until then been an active member of the congregation, was among the students that Prado "seduced" with his ideas. Thisi sm anifestlyw hat Orobio believed and expressed in his writings; and so did Miguel de Barrios in his famousv erses: "Now thorns (espinas)a re there wherer oses stood yesterday, and the asp that can be seen in its leaves, aims at the one who passes poisonous darts."³⁸ These lines werepublished in Barrios's Corodelas Musas in 1672, two years after Spinoza's Theological-Philosophical Treatise was published; they are still absent from the first version of the poem, which had appeared in the volume Flor de Apolo in 1665. However, in the light of what we know on Spinoza'se arlyl ife, it seems likelyt hatP rado was not reallyamentor for him, but that their encounter was merelyacatalyser for the doubts that he had previouslyh arboured. The samem ay be said for Prado himself. Some scholars, most decidedlyG abriel Albiac and Yirmiyahu Yovel, claim an influence of the marranic experience on Spinoza while downplaying Prado'si ndividual role in it.³⁹ Still more numerous are those scholars who look for heterodoxinfluences from outside the Sephardic community.⁴⁰ Richard Popkin, who ignored the prece- Orobio, Carta apologética,i nRévah, Spinoza,133: "que solo aV md. aconteció ser Christiano fingido yJ udio verdadero en donde no podía ser Judío, yser Judío fingido en donde podía serlo verdadero." Translation quoted from Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics,vol. 1, 63.  Orobio, Epístola invectiva,inRévah, Spinoza,93: "tengo esperanza que le traerà al conocimiento de la Verdad que observe";corrected according to the ms.Ets Haim 48 C04, fol. 4v: "tengonoticias le trae el conocimentod el av erdad que antes observe."  Miguel de Barrios, "Epistola censorial," in Révah, Spinoza,8 0: "Agorae spinas son las que ayer rosas, /yel aspid que en sus hojas se apercibe, /hinca al que passa puntas venenosas." On the common puns linkingt he thorns (espinas)t ot he meadows (prados), see Práxedes Caballero, "La crítica de Orobio de CastroaSpinosa," in Spinoza yE spaña,editedb yA tilano Domínquez (Murcia: Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha, 1994): 229 -237, here 232.  Gabriel Albiac, La sinagoga vacía: Un estudio de las fuentes marranas del espinosismo (Madrid: Hiperión, 1987), and Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics,V ol. 1, 80: "Prado and Spinoza arriveda t their heretical ideas independently."  Koenrad O. Meinsma, Spinoza et son cercle (Paris:Vrin, 1983) (revised version of the original edition of 1896), Filippo Mignini, "Données et problèmes de la chronologie spinozienne entre1 656e t dents of deism in Prado'sSpanish past,supposed that for both men, aturning-point must have been the Amsterdam visit of Isaac La Peyrère, who published his Praeadamitae there in 1655.⁴¹ In this book,h ea rgues that there is no evidence of the world being created; moreover,s ince the historicalr ecords of the Chinese date back more than ten thousand years, it is likelyt hat their origin is earlier thant hat of the Jewish people-an argument thatw ef ind again in Prado.R eferences to "the pre-Adamite sect of Amsterdam" exist in the polemics that werep ublisheda gainst La Peyrèrea fter 1656.I nt he controversy thatp itted Orobio against Philip vanL imborch, the former speculated about ac onnection between "pre-Adamites,"" atheists," and "theological politicians."⁴² Certains tances held by Prado, especiallyh is doubt in the accuracyo fb iblical information, which must have to some extent been shared by the youngS pinoza as well,⁴³ coincide (accordingt oP opkin)w ith the religious scepticism⁴⁴ promoted by La Peyrère. Their stance involves an understanding of the sacredt ext as ad ocument that needs to be understood from itself, following as pecific type of knowledge and establishinga n" archaeology that needs to construct ascience of meaning."⁴⁵ Other historians of philosophyhaveemphasised the impact of Franciscus van den Enden, Spinoza'sL atin teacher,who is thoughttohaveinspired the theoretical foundations of the Spinozist system.⁴⁶ Finally,c ertain scholars insist on the precocious philosophical originality of the young Spinoza (see the biographies of Lucas and Colerus), noting in particular that sources Orobio ContraP rado: AT rans-European Controversy refer to the Dutch masterand his disciples as "atheist Cartesians" and that the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione was written around 1656 -1657.⁴⁷ The herem against Spinoza was pronounced in 1656,while Prado chose to submit to ap ublic act of repentance.A tatime when the two menwerep rovisionallys eparated, Prado opened up to Daniel de Ribera, apriestwho had become aproselyte to Judaism around 1653 and had openedaschool in Amsterdam for the instruction of poor children. We can probablyidentify Riberawith the CatalanDon José Carrerasy Coligo, who was ap reacher in Portugala nd ar oyal columnist in Brazil.⁴⁸ In 1656 -1657,Prado seems to have been in close contact with Ribera(perhaps he even taught at the latter'sschool) to such an extent that their spiritual attitude increasinglyinvited concerns of the congregation and led to its special supervision. Soon, the Jewish leadership conducteda ni nvestigation, which resulted in two files.⁴⁹ Four of Prado's studentsr eportedthat their teacher had ridiculed various precepts of rabbinic ritual law, thathehad doubted the truth of the Mosaicaccounts and dismissed the belief in otherworldlyr etribution. In the remarks attributed to Prado, one findstwo major elementsofhis thought: on the one hand, there is aclaim to rational certainty and the equation of religious tradition with ac himaera( tudo eraf antastico); on the other hand, Prado reflects the historicist interpretation of the Scriptures, as well as sceptic relativism of religious truth claims, that can be found elsewherea mong the freethinkers of the time. By invoking natural reason and logic, Prado takes as tand outside the religious sphere, so that his ideas transcend even the heterodoxc urrents that,i nM aurice Kriegel'sw ords, searched for "an original state of religious life"  OmeroP roietti, "Lettres àL ucilius,u ne source du TIE de Spinoza," in Liree tt raduireS pinoza: Travaux et documents,e ditedb yP ierre-François Moreau (Paris:P resses de l'Universitéd eP aris-Sorbonne, 1989), 9 -39 (who,j usta sA lexandre Matheron, emphasises the Stoic influenceo nS pinoza's thought),and WimKlever, "Spinoza 'corruptor' de Prado olateoría de Gebhardt yRévah invertida," in Spinoza yE spaña: 217-228. These theses werec riticised by Miquel Beltrán, Un espejo extraviado: Spinoza yl af ilosofía hispano-judía (Barcelona: Riopiedras,1998), 12.  Révah, "Auxo rigines de la ruptures pinozienne: nouveauxd ocuments," 369; and Révah, "Aux origines de la ruptures pinozienne: Nouvele xamen des origines,dudéroulement et des conséquencesd el ' affaireS pinoza-Prado-Ribera," Annuaired uC ollège de France 71 (1970de France 71 ( -1971; Annuaired u Collège de France: 562-568; Annuaire du Collège de France 72 (1971)(1972): 574-587; AnnuaireduCollège de France 73 (1972de France 73 ( -1973: 641-653, here71, 563. See also the dedicatory poems of Juan de Prado to Manuel de Pina in Révah, "Auxorigines de la rupturespinozienne: Nouveauxdocuments," 408 -410; and the identificationo fR ibera with José Carreras in the inquiry by the Jewish congregation made in 1658 (SAA, PA 334, no. 882, fol. 3; Révah, "Auxorigines de la rupturespinozienne: Nouveaux documents," 406).  SAA, PA 334, No 882, "Stukkenb etreffende de ban opgelegda an Daniel de Prado en Daniel Ribera" (1658); published by Révah, "Auxo rigines de la ruptures pinozienne: Nouveauxd ocuments," 391-408;s ee Révah, "Auxorigines de la rupturespinozienne: Nouveauxdocuments," 371-372, and Kaplan,From Christianity to Judaism,[139][140][141][142] and proposed ar eformist position, as this was frequentlya dopted by Marranos disillusioned with normative Judaism.⁵⁰ The congregational authorities brought the trials against Prado and Riberat oa swift conclusion.Riberadisappeared from Amsterdam and mayhavefound refuge in London,⁵¹ but Prado was struck with the herem in February 1658. The banishment formula accusesh im of having reverted to his "maliciousa nd false opinions" and of having inculcated them to "some youngstudents." It is proclaimed that no member of the congregation should henceforth communicate with him "by oral conversation or in writing,neither in this city or outside it,except the people of his family."⁵² Prado tried in vain to obtain ac ancelation of the verdict,a nd he even solicited the mahamad (community board) of Hamburg.⁵³ At the same time, his son David de Prado transmittedt ot he mahamad in Amsterdam aL atin apology that his father had written with the intention to have it printed. Prado affirmed his orthodoxy,h is attachment to Judaism, manifested by the fact that he had rejected certain prestigious university appointments thatw ereo ffered to him on the condition that he changed his religion. He had taught his pupils "the norms of certainty" by explaining to them "that we know certain thingsbynatural light,others by syllogistic reasoning, others by experience, and others finallyb yf aith," thus invoking different levels of knowledge that recall Spinoza's "modes of perception."⁵⁴ He recognised thath e had affirmedc ertain heterodoxo pinions, but he had done so without obstinacy, and no one had ever accused him of transgressingt he lawi np ractice. He blamed his errors on his human frailty,p roclaimed his good intentions, and asked that his repentanceb ea ccepted with the same forgiveness with which the Marranos were welcomed back to Judaism. He finallypleaded for his familymembers who, although innocent,suffered the effects of the sanction.⁵⁵ The mahamad decided thatthe herem would onlyb el iftedi fP rado resigned to resettle in aJ ewishc ommunity overseas.⁵⁶ Orobio ContraP rado: AT rans-EuropeanC ontroversy Prado,however,refused to emigrate.Staying in Amsterdam in spite of the herem, he found an ideal companion in Spinoza. The relations between the two banished men seem to have been close, accordingt ot he testimonyt hat aS panish Augustin friar,T omas Solano yR obles, and the soldier Captain Miguel Pérez de Maltranilla gave to the Inquisition about their stayi nA msterdam during the winter of 1658 -1659.Theyfrequented gatherings in the houseofDoctor Abraham Reynoso, acolleaguew hom Prado had alreadyk nown in Andalusia, togetherw ith other members of the Amsterdam Jewish community,n amelyS amuel Pacheco, af ormerc onfectioner, and the barber Abraham Israel, who had botha rrivedf rom Spain some fifteen years earlier.S olano declarest hatP rado and Spinoza "happilyc onfessed the error of atheism, because they thought thatt here was no God except in ap hilosophical sense … that the soul died with the bodies and that they thereforeh ad no need of faith,"⁵⁷ which seems to show thatt he two friends had alreadyb roken with Judeo-Christian theism. The testimonies givenbySolano and Maltranilla, as well as the investigation of 1658, allow us to identify the staple elements of Prado'st hought.H e rejected the doctrine of creation in the name of the eternity of the world; he emphasised the authority of reason and the validityofaCartesian type of proof; at the same time, he distinguished between various coexistent modes of knowledge,f inally affirming the primacy of natural law.
From the years thatfollow,welack traces of Prado in Amsterdam. His departure for Antwerp also brought about his separation from Spinoza, who settled in Rijnsburgn earL eiden. In the spring of 1661, it was rumoured thath el ived as aC atholic in Antwerp after accepting baptism with great pomp. During the following year,h e was said to have frequented "the church of the Lutherans and tried to be one of them, and then the church of the Calvinists and other sects, assuring each one of them thathewishedtojoin its respective religion."⁵⁸ At the end of 1663, rumourscirculated in Amsterdam accordingt owhich Prado was about to repent and wishedto return to Judaism. Orobio, then an ewcomer in the city,v olunteered to answer the "doubts" that retained his formerc o-disciple in the grip of heresy.

Controversyb yC orrespondence withO robio
The onlyr emaininge lements of the correspondence between Prado and Orobio are three texts that were written by Orobio and from wherewemust infer about the contents of the "doubts" formulatedbyPrado. Although the herem excluded in principle anyc ommunication with Prado, the mahamad does not seem to have objected to these exchanges, hoping perhaps thatO robio'si nvectivesa gainst Prado would succeed in extinguishing the influencet hat risked "infecting others who, outside the Jewishcommunity,had givencredit to him and his foolishsophisms."⁵⁹ This mayexplain whythis controversy acquiredsuch awide publicity and whythe InvectiveEpistle circulatedi ns om anym anuscriptc opies.
Orobio'sfirst letter bears in most of its copies the title Invective Epistle against a Physician andP hilosopher,w ho doubted or disbelieved the truth of the Sacred Scriptures,w hile allegedly acknowledging [the existenceo f] God and the law of Nature in order to cover up his malice. We learn here that Prado had initially, probablyi n 1662, sent al etter to Orobio under ap seudonym; when this letter remained unanswered, he wrotea gain, complainingo fO robio'sh esitation to correspond with him. Orobio was not fooled by Prado'sa lleged resolution to repent,but he took advantage of the opportunity to develop his refutation of Prado'sp ropositions into a general apology destinedtoconfront the heterodoxtrends among the Jews of his age.
Historical research has revealed the fact thataheterodoxu ndercurrent crisscrossed the nação (the transnational community of PortugueseJ ews and conversos) and, in particular, the Amsterdam congregation. Thee xistenceo ft his group of freethinkers,f ar beyond Prado'si ndividual case, provoked Orobio'si re and, moreover, the vast polemical and apologetic production that characterised the Sephardic Diaspora. From the works that Leone Modena authored in Venice duringt he 1610s and 1620s, until those of Rabbi David Nieto in London acentury later,Jewish authorsconstantlypolemicised against the "sect" of "atheists,""deists,""students,""Karaites," or possibly "politicians," and "libertines," or,asthey werecalled in Spain, "Machiavellians" and "Sadduceans."⁶⁰ The presenceo ft hese dissenters was alreadya pparent in the insistence with which Grotius, in his Remonstratie (1615) statedthe urgent need to make sure thatthe Jews within the Amsterdam congregation would practice their faith accordingtoits pure orthodoxy.⁶¹ The dedicatory letter of the book On the Resurrection of the Dead (1636) by Menasseh benI srael is no less revealing.⁶² There was, according to these sources, ac ontinuous succession of heterodoxi ndividuals, who, as Orobio writeswith rancor in the prologueo fh is InvectiveE pistle, "try to in- Orobio, Epístola Invectiva,i nR évah, Spinoza,90.  To the "sectarians" whodiffuse "heresies and errors," Abraham Pereyra devotes one chapter (4.1) of his Espejo de la vanidad del mundo (Amsterdam: Alexandro Janse, 1671), 395 -411. Orobio opposes the "politicallym inded" to the "pious" in his Carta al hijo del doctor Prado (in Révah, Spinoza,150: "creen los píos,n ol os politicos"). On this matter,s ee amongothers Jonathan I. Israel, "Philosophy, Deism, andthe EarlyJewish Enlightenment (1655 -1740)," in TheDutch Intersection: TheJews and the Netherlands in Modern History,e dited by Yosef Kaplan (Leiden, Brill, 2008), 173 -202, Yosef Kaplan, Judíos nuevos en Amsterdam: Estudios sobre la historia social ei ntelectual del judaísmos efardí en el siglo XVII (Barcelona: Gedisa, 1996); C. L. Wilke, "That DevilishI nvention called Faith."  JacobM eijer, "Hugo Grotius' Remonstratie," JewishS ocial Studies 17 (1955): 91-104,h ere 97-98 and Y. Kaplan, Judios Nuevos en Amsterdam,3 4, note2 8.  Menasseh ben Israel, De la resurreccion de los muertos (Amsterdam:Encasa, yàcostadel autor, 1636), fol. 4v,25r-27v: "Considerando pues la nesaria maldad de los Zaduceos en todo depravados,y comooyenestemiserable siglo se van algunos persuadiendo alamortalidad de las almas,para mas ar ienda suelta,s ed exaren llevar de sus lassivosa petitos,m ed etermine àe screvir este libro." Orobio ContraP rado: AT rans-EuropeanC ontroversy troduce their malice into the souls of the simple-minded,"⁶³ as this happened apparentlyw ith the students whom Prado and Riberah ad tried to "pervert." These freethinkers were, he wrote, trouble-makers, capable of spreading asortoflatent or passive incredulity,anattitude that Abraham Pereyra,among others, attacks in his Mirror of the Vanity of the World: "Ia mp ainfullyconcerned when Iconsider the superficial religion that so manydisplayu nder the cover of the law. Even though they do not commit anya bominations,t hey bear the title of Jews simply out of reason of state."⁶⁴ Pereyra then details five forms of deviance that pervert the congregation. There is the arroganceo ft hosew ho live apart from the community,t he malignity of those who challenget he authority of the rabbis, the vanity of those who mock the divine precepts, the ambition of thosewho despise the preachers,and the obstinacy of those who persevere in their corrupt ways.⁶⁵ Further,P ereyral ambasts the "double-faced" individuals who hide their true convictions in order to better corrupt their co-religionists.⁶⁶ De Barrios finds similar tones in his "Table of the HolyF raternity of the Kahal Kadosh of Amsterdam" (1683): "There are manyw ho, though shrouded in the garb of the true religion, onlyw eari ti no rder to dissimulate their evil intentions. The swan has whitef eathers to cover his black flesh."⁶⁷ In sum, Orobio's InvectiveE pistle launches as weeping attack on all the heterodoxpositions, and we can certainlynot attribute to Prado each and every standpoint that is refuted therein. Orobio indeedd isplays ab road spectrum of heresies one by one, each calling for ar efutation of its own.⁶⁸ In the first chapter of the third discourse, he distinguishes, for example, three categories among the "followers of impiety,adversaries of virtue,lovers of their own whimsical understanding.""The first category,a nd those of the worst quality,are the heinous atheists, who daringly negate the HolyScripture, though they use to excuse this with acknowledging [the existenceo f] aF irst Cause." Obviously, these "atheists" are in fact deists, whose perfidious belief Orobio denounces tirelessly. The second category are "Israelites who believei nG od, accept the HolyS cripture, but detest the explanation thatG od Himself with supreme providencehas provided to the Law," that is, those who reject the Talmud, such as the Sadduceansa nd the Karaites.T he last, seemingly inoffensive  Orobio, Epístola Invectiva,i nR évah, Spinoza,90.  Pereyra, Espejo de la vanidad del mundo,296;cf. Henry Méchoulan, "Los judíos de Amsterdam y Spinoza," in Spinoza yE spaña: 49 -56.  Pereyra, Espejo de la vanidad del mundo,5 22,c f. Henry Méchoulan "Abraham Pereyra, juge des marranes et censeur de ses coreligionnaires àA msterdam au tempsd eS pinoza," Revue des études juives 138 (1979):391-400,h ere3 95.  Pereyra, Espejo de la vanidad del mundo,3 96.  Miguel de Barrios, Tabla de la sacrales hermandades del Kahal Kados amstelodamo: AbiIetomim, "Academia primera caritativa," in De Barrios, Triumpho del GoviernoP opular (Amsterdam, 1683) [copyBL127 e18], fol. 44: "Muchos ay que, convestirse, de Religion verdadera, solo toman el vestido, para encubrir sus cautelas.E lc isne con blancas plumas, oculta su carne negra," quoted also by H. Méchoulan, "Losj udíosd eA msterdam yS pinoza," 52 -53.  Orobio, Epístola,i nR évah, Spinoza,126-127. See here for the followingq uotations. category,are in fact the most dangerous in Orobio'seyes, preciselybecause they are the least recognisable, namely thosewho observeboththe written and the oral law, "but they are piteouslyl acking in the observance of the holyc ommandments," the rabbinic fences,which they reject "not onlyassuperfluous,but even as contradicting the written law, because they believethat it is an attack on the divine precept to take away or add anything from its decrees." But Iwould see the most interesting element of Orobio'senumeration in the succession between these three categories, which become stages of au nifiedm ental itinerary: The disbelief (discredito)inthe admonitions and fences that our Sages have established for the sake of am orep erfect observanceo ft he Lawl eads them surreptitiouslyt ot he disbelief in tradition and even in Scripture, whence they finallyf all into atheism, as this is confirmed by the continuous experience of manyw ho made this hapless journey,w hich always starts with the contemptf or our Sages and their prudent and holye xhortations,a nd which ends in the most horrendous apostasy.⁶⁹ The process described by Orobio can, for sure, be detected in Uriel da Costa'sb iography,⁷⁰ but it is less clear for Prado, who manifested his first doubts in Andalusia when he wass till ignorant of normative Judaism. We cannot speak here, as with respect to Uriel da Costa, of a "crisis within Judaism"⁷¹ attributable to Karaite inspiration, because Prado had no real familiarity with normative Judaism before his exile. Accordingt oOrobio, Prado'sdevelopment was influenced by NewChristians turned New Jews, persons who, like him, had studied at Spanish universities and weref ull of self-assurance. In the famous prologuet oh is Invective Epistle,⁷² he distinguishes between two types of New Jews: those who "devote all their desire to loveGod'sLaw by endeavouring to learn, as much as theirunderstanding is capable of, what is necessary to observer eligiouslyi ts holyp recepts, statutes, and ceremonies," and who listen humblyt ot hosew ho are born as Jews. "These came sick of ignorance, but as the latter was not aggravated by the pernicious illness of pride, they recovered easily." Others, however,w ho "had studied under idolatry some secular sciences," weren ol ess ignorant about Judaism than the first group,  Orobio, Epístola,inRévah, Spinoza,127: "El descredito alas prevenciones ovallados de nuestros Doctores para la mas perfecta observancia de la ley,tacitamente los conduce al desprecio de la tradiccion, yd espues de los escriptop assandou ltimamentee ne lA theysmo, como lo verifican continuadas experiencias de nuebos [Révah: muchos] que hicieron este Ynfelize viage, principiando por el desprecio de nuestros Doctores, ysus prudentes ysanctas advertencias,hasta llegar alomas horrible de la apostasia."  Révah, Spinoza,1 8; Jean-Pierre, Osier, D'Uriel da Costa àS pinoza (Paris:B ergI nternational, 1983), 141-143.  Jean-PierreO sier, "Un aspect du judaïsme individualiste d'Uriel da Costa," Cahiers Spinoza 3 (1979Spinoza 3 ( -1980, 101-115.  Orobio, Epístola,i nR évah, Spinoza,8 9-90.S ee here for the followingq uotations. but full of fickleness,p ride, arrogance, convinced that they ared istinguished scholars in all kinds of matters … by inventingsophisticreasonings without anybasis,they searchrecognition for their genius,acumen, and science. What is worse, they obtain this reputation among certain persons who because of their low ageortheir evil character boast to be smart,and although they do not understand awordofwhatthe foolish philosopher argues against God'sLaw,they nevertheless pretend to understand him.⁷³ One recognises in this second group ac lear allusion to the would-be scholars who, like Prado, remained walled in their alleged certainties and, stillworse, spread them, mainlyamong youngpeople-areferencetothe students in the trial of 1658 that Orobio had surelyheard about.This type of interpretation resembles in part the reasons givens ince antiquity for the origins of atheism: however unstudied or freethinking they maybe, atheists like to distinguish themselves by theirtaste and their expertise in literature, art,o rp hilosophy, an imaget hat one rediscovers in the seventeenthcentury concept of libertinageérudit (learned libertinism). Having studied in Spanish universities, Orobio certainlyh ad an interest to insist on this fact in order to distinguish himself from this category of "philosophers." The text is divided into four "discourses" (discursos)a nd on as econd level into twenty-nine chapters, each one corresponding to one of Prado's "doubts" or to a counter-argument in Orobio'sa pology.I nh is first discourse, Orobio proves that the Torahi so fd ivine origin and that it does not contradict natural reason, his central line of argument being that the denial of the "written law," the scriptural revelation, is tantamount to adenial of God'sexistence. In the second discourse, he defends the "oral law," without which Scripturecannot be adequatelyfollowed. In the third one, he supports the rabbinic fences that are necessary in order to protect the Torah against transgression in the course of human history.F inally, the last part "defends the purity and honesty of the Talmud against trumped-up and malicious slander."⁷⁴ The morethe reader advances in the InvectiveEpistle,the fewer references there are to Pradoa nd his objections. One mayg enerallys ucceed in identifying Prado's "doubts" in the text,b ut it is impossible to find out which one mayh aveb een inspired by Spinoza'sfirst work, the Apology Justifyinghis Abdication from the Synagogue,a swella sbyhis acquaintance with the youngp hilosopher,a nd to point to the ideas that are duet oP rado in particular.I nt he first discourse, Orobio refers to Prado'sb asicp ostulatei nt he following way: "the deists holdt hat their belief in God's unity and eternity has so much certaintyf or them that it is not ac onjectureo ra n  Orobio, Epístola,inRévah, Spinoza,90: "mas llenos de variedad, de sobervia, de altivez, persuadidos que son doctissimos en todas materias […]c on hacera rgumentos sophisticos sin fundamento alguno, se acreditan de ingeniosos,d ea gudos,d es cientes; Lo peor es, que consiguen esta opinion entrea lgunos que, op or sus pocos años,opor su mal natural, presumen de discretos,yaunque no entienden cosa de lo que dice el nescio philosophocontralaLey de Dios,con todo hacencomoque lo entienden."  Orobio, Epístola,inRévah, Spinoza,128: "Defiendeselapureza ysinceridad del Talmud contra las inventadas ym aliciosas calumnias." opinion, because in this caset hey would admit doubt and not believei ni tw ith infallible certainty."⁷⁵ Prado seems to recognise that God has created the universe but not the "book" that announcest his truth. Prado'sc reator-God is, like that of the French deists, an insensible God who, after having created the universe, abandons it to the naturall aws, which are the onlyw ay in which he exerts his providence: in consequence, therec annot be singular interventionso rm iracles.⁷⁶ Accordingt o Orobio, however,whoever does not acknowledge that particularevents are governed by divinep rovidenced oes not actuallyb elievei nt he existenceo fG od.
One of the most central questions in the InvectiveE pistle deals with the divine electiono ft he Jews.⁷⁷ Whyd id the Creator choose Israel?W hy did the enormous miracles fail to convince the othern ations of Israel'sc hosenness?P rado seems to have argued that Israel was not the onlyn ation that had prophets and ad iviner evelation, athesis that I. S. Révah compares with chapter 3ofSpinoza's Theological Political Treatise, "On the vocation of the Hebrews,and whether the prophetic gift was peculiartothem,"⁷⁸ which mayreflect ideas from his Apology. However,the question of Israel'sc hosenness appears frequentlyi nt he apologetic literature of the Portuguese Jews.⁷⁹ Some historians have highlighted the possibleinfluenceofcertain Hispanic thinkers expressingdisillusion (desengaño), who claimed thatthe political decline of Spain was due to its messianic and mystical delusions, includingt he discrimination against the New Christians and the negative prejudice against the middle classp rofessions that wereu suallya ssociated with them.⁸⁰ The eighth chapter of Orobio'sfirst discourse replies to the objectionsagainst the divineo rigin of the Torah, which is suspected to be the result of am ore recent mystification. Here, Orobio defends the antiquity of the text,which even the Christians have taken as the basis of theirreligion, and whose divine proof consists in the contingent events that are prophesied therein.⁸¹ In the eleventh chapter of the first discourse, Orobio continues by arguing that the belief in the existenceo fG od, even in  Orobio, Epístola,i nR évah, Spinoza,1 19: "afirman los Deistas que tan ciertoc reen la Unidad y Eternidad de Dios que no la conjecturan oo pinan, porqueo pinarlaf uera dudar,yno creer con infalible certeza."  Révah, Spinoza et le Dr Juan de Prado,4 3-44.  Orobio, Epístola,f irst discourse, chapters 7a nd 9, in Révah,Spinoza,[105][106][107][108][109][110][112][113]. the waythe deistsconfess it,isinseparablylinked to the belief in the divinity of the scriptures.⁸² In the second discourse, which extols the rabbinic tradition, we can find elements that bring to mind the inquiry held in 1658 against Prado. Whyh as God not included the content of the oral lawa nd the tradition within the writtenr evelation? And if the written and the oral lawhavethe samevalue, whydid the first one need to be fixed in writing?F inally, whydid God not formulate his lawa nd precepts clearly enough to make further explanations superfluous?⁸³ The third discourse reports Prado'sa ttacks against the derivative commandments or "fences" promulgated by the ancient sages: the latter,h ec laimed, make the observance of the biblical precepts more difficult because they paradoxically give the Jewishbeliever more occasions to commit sins.⁸⁴ The fourth discourse exposes the methods used by Prado and others of his ilk, who isolate apassageoracommandment from its context in order to reject and ridiculise the texts as being contradictory and obscure.
Doctor Prado,stung to the quick, was upset that Orobio accused him of denying the immortality of the soul, and in his response, he insisted upon his belief in anatural religion. Orobio sought to debunk this claim in arejoinder,the Apologetic Letter to Doctor Prado by Doctor Isaac Orobio de Castro,w hich manifests the ambivalent feelingsw ith which he engagedt he controversy with Prado: he was torn between personal affection for the man and the repulsion against the positions that the latter had chosen to defend and, worse, to promotep ublicly. It seems thatP rado was surprised by the connection thatOrobio demanded between reason and faith, and that he urgedt he latter to clarify his thoughts.
Prado'sd eism does not admit the divine revelation that believers find in the Scriptures, while Orobio claims the universal consent of all monotheistic religions for the divinity of the Pentateuch. ForP rado, the very content of certain biblical books, their legendary character,makes it impossible to believeinthem; he declares that he would onlyabide by the lawofNature common to all men. But Orobio denies to him this possibility: "If youdid not know that youare of Abraham'sdescendence, youw ould be allowed to acquires alvation in the lawo fN ature. However,a sy ou  Orobio, Epístola,i nR évah, Spinoza,119 -120.  Orobio, Epístola,i nR évah, Spinoza,123-126.  Orobio, Epístola,inRévah, Spinoza,126: "La piedad juzga el impio sencillez indigna de la racionalidad, el esfuerço se calumnió varias vezes por temeridad, la sagrada justicia por rigor execrable, la verguença por cortedaddeanimo, la obediencia por servil rendimiento, lo religioso por hypocresia y la cuidadosaa tencion en el divino cultop or escrupulosa puerilidad." Révahu nnecessarilyc orrects "escrupulosa puerilidad" into "escrupulos op uerilidad." know well that youare of Abraham'sIsraelite descendants,you can onlyobtain salvation by observing the lawt hat God has commanded to this lineage."⁸⁵ Orobio wroteathird letter to Prado,titled in one of the manuscripts Letter Written by Doctor Isaac Orobio de Castro to aPerson in Antwerp against Doctor Prado,who Lived There, Being Separated from the Nation by Virtue of aHerem [ban] that was Proclaimed in the Synagogue of Amsterdam. This letter wasp robablyc omposed in 1664 and addressed to Prado'ss on David.⁸⁶ Orobio wasp rudent enough to show that the Jewishcommunity did not approveofhis pursuing the controversy.Someone speaking on behalf of Prado had asked him threeq uestions and Orobio had consented to answer them without corresponding directlyw ith his excommunicated friend. These three questions express the gist of Prado'sc ritique of tradition: "How can it be that some persons find ac ertain thing reasonable and agree with ac ertain proposition, while others dislikei ta nd disagree, although all souls are of the samen ature and substance?"⁸⁷ Here, the relativity of opinionsquestions the criteria of truth. The second question "concerns moral philosophyand expresses doubtabout the following: if there are two or more legislators and each one emits and promulgates ad ifferent lawb yclaiming divine origin for it,which is the one that the understanding should follow:t he one thati td isapproves, but that others recommend as the right one, or the one thati ta pproves though others sayt hat it is bad?"⁸⁸ This second question conjures up the issues of free will and individual conscience. The lastquestion refers to the innocenceo fp agans and othern on-Jews who transgress the divinel aw because they do not know the truth.
This letter marks probablyt he final point of the controversy between the two friends, who would henceforth pursue contrary paths. The end of the Letter to Doctor Prado'sS on shows that Orobio has givenu pa ll hope of convincing Prado: "As this subjecttranscends reason so much, Icannot pursue it further than to wherethe lowliness of my argument mayr each."⁹² This was the lasteffort thatany member of the Jewishcongregation of Amsterdamundertook to bring the lost son back to orthodox ways.While Orobio continued his ascension towards the highest ranks of congregational leadership, Prado definitivelym oved away from Judaism. In June 1667, he asked Don Francisco Lugo del Castillo, am ember of elite society in the Canary Islands and perpetual local governor (regidor)o fT enerife, to help him obtain from the Inquisition the permission to settle in the Canaries. Prado wrotet wo texts with the intention of obtaining an Inquisitorial reconciliation without risking imprisonment or confiscation of property.W hen these writingsa rriveda ttheH olyO ffice two years later,t hey aroused manye motions throughout the Peninsula.⁹³ It was then, or soon after,t hat Prado died of af all from his horse, at ragic end on which the Amsterdam poet Miguel de Barrios commented with ironyi n1 672: "The divine Justice punished Doctor Juan de Prado, master of false dogmas,who had not more religion thanw hat was convenient for his body, and no more soul, in his opinion, than ah orse."⁹⁴  Amongo ther studies,s ee the (controversial) analysesb yS tuart Schwartz, AllC an Be Saved: Religious Tolerance and Salvation in the Iberian Atlantic World (New Haven: Yale University Press,2009).  Orobio, Carta al hijo del Doctor Prado,inRévah, Spinoza,147: "Su intencion es provar que no está el hombreobligado auna religion mas que aotra, que es indiferente el camino para agradar aDios y que, consiguientemente, no ay LeyD ivina, sino medios humanos que cada uno tiene por divinos."  Orobio, Cartaalhijo del Doctor Prado,inRévah, Spinoza,153: "En materia tan sobrelarazon, no puedo discurrir mas que hasta donde alcança la poquedad de mi discurso."  Luis AlbertoA naya Hernández, "El Doctor D. Juan de Prado yl aI nquisición canaria," Historia Social,3 2( 1998): 133 -144; Muchnik, Une vie marrane,3 31-336.  Barrios, Corod el as Musas,f ol. 355: "Castigal aD ivina Justicia al Doctor Juan de Prado, maestro de falsos dogmas,q ue no teniam as religion que la que convenia as uc uerpo, ni mas alma en su opinion que de cavallo." Of the threep olemical texts written by Orobio against his free-thinking friend,⁹⁵ the Invective Epistle would be transmitted for generations among the Jews of Amsterdam: at least fifteen copies can still be located today. The Apologetic Letter,w hich survivesi nasingle copy,o wes its scarcec irculation probablyt oi ts more personal and confidential tone. Three copies survive of the Letter to Prado'sS on,t wo in the Ets Haim Seminary and av ery late one, dated from 1731, in the National Library of Paris. The latter manuscript is the onlyt extual witness that offers all three anti-Pradian essays;w ith respect to the Lettert oP rado'sS on,i ts wording also seems to be closer to the original and contain less scribal errors than the manuscriptsk ept at the Ets Haim library.M ost interestingly,t he Paris manuscript contains an umber of anti-Christian remarks thatare missing from the two Amsterdam texts. Forexample, one sentencem entionst he idea that eternal damnation awaitst he Christians, because "they acknowledge the truth of the LawofMoses, yetthey observethe contrary of what is taught in it,a nd they believei nd ogmas contrary to natural reason."⁹⁶ A possessor of the manuscript has apparentlye xpurgated these polemicalr emarks against Christianity;itisevenpossible to imagine that it wasthe mahamad (the community leadership) who examined the text meticulouslyand who censored these and other passages thatrisked scandalising possible non-Jewish readers.Inany case, the transmission of Orobio'st hree works against Prado,w hich covers the period from 1663t o1 731, shows an effort to impose as eparation between twoo verlappingl iteratures,d istinguishingo nt he one hand the apologetic discourse against irreligion and on the other hand the polemical literature against Christianityt hatw as subject to ap articular precaution.

Translated from the French by Carsten Wilke
Works Cited