TY - JOUR
T1 - Imaginary Controversists
T2 - Abraham Gómez Silveyra and the Theologians of the Huguenot Exile
AU - Wilke, Carsten L.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 CSIC.
PY - 2021/12/30
Y1 - 2021/12/30
N2 - In the Huguenot refugee community in The Netherlands, known as a hotbed of the early Enlightenment, literary interest in Judaism was ubiquitous, yet actual Dutch Jews were relegated to a marginal position in the exchange of ideas. It is this paradoxical experience of cultural participation and social exclusion that a major unpublished source allows to depict. The ex-converso Abraham Gómez Silveyra (1651–1741), a merchant endowed with rabbinic education and proficiency in French, composed eight manuscript volumes of theological reflections in Spanish literary prose and poetry. This huge clan-destine series, which survives in three copies, shows the author’s insatiable curiosity for Christian thought. While rebutting Isaac Jacquelot’s missionary activity, he fraternizes with Pierre Jurieu’s millenarianism, Jacques Basnage’s historiography, and Pierre Bayle’s plea for religious freedom. Gómez Silveyra, however, being painfully aware of his voicelessness in the public sphere, enacts Bayle’s utopian project as a closed perform-ance for a Jewish audience.
AB - In the Huguenot refugee community in The Netherlands, known as a hotbed of the early Enlightenment, literary interest in Judaism was ubiquitous, yet actual Dutch Jews were relegated to a marginal position in the exchange of ideas. It is this paradoxical experience of cultural participation and social exclusion that a major unpublished source allows to depict. The ex-converso Abraham Gómez Silveyra (1651–1741), a merchant endowed with rabbinic education and proficiency in French, composed eight manuscript volumes of theological reflections in Spanish literary prose and poetry. This huge clan-destine series, which survives in three copies, shows the author’s insatiable curiosity for Christian thought. While rebutting Isaac Jacquelot’s missionary activity, he fraternizes with Pierre Jurieu’s millenarianism, Jacques Basnage’s historiography, and Pierre Bayle’s plea for religious freedom. Gómez Silveyra, however, being painfully aware of his voicelessness in the public sphere, enacts Bayle’s utopian project as a closed perform-ance for a Jewish audience.
KW - Amsterdam
KW - Enlightenment
KW - Jewish-Christian Polemics
KW - Tolerance
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85122777813&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3989/sefarad.021-014
DO - 10.3989/sefarad.021-014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85122777813
SN - 0037-0894
VL - 81
SP - 449
EP - 475
JO - Sefarad
JF - Sefarad
IS - 2
ER -