It is a well-known fact that in 1492 after nearly 800 years of war, the Christian troops of Isabel de Castilla and Fernando de Aragón conquered the city of Granada and put an end to Muslim dominion in Spain. It is also well-known that that same year, the Reyes Católicos, eager to foster political and religious unity, expelled those Muslims and Jews who did not accept conversion to Christianity.
Although the majority of Sephardim Jews left right away, during the next centuries Spain saw a constant emigration of well-educated professionals of Jewish descent. These professionals left Spain for the Protestant nations of Central and Northern Europe thinking that they might find in them a greater religious freedom. Some of them did, some did not. For instance, in 1697 the Sephardim community of Hamburg left for Denmark and Holland as a result of the extremely high taxes that they were expected to pay.
What characterizes the Spanish Jewish community, besides the zeal to uphold their own Jewish traditions and keep their language, is a movement to show that they are “men of their times,” knowledgeable in all recent technological and philosophical advances. These Jews are well-versed in Greek and Latin, medicine, mathematics, astronomy and astrology and use any occasion to show that.
A representative of this community is Jacobo Rosales (1588-1662), who describes himself as Jewish, doctor in Mathematics, Philosophy and Medicine.
Rosales wrote poetry in Spanish, Portuguese and Neo-Latin to expound his theories about the human and divine knowledge as well as in praise of his friends and colleagues.
We have a letter from Rosales under his real name Manuel Bocarro y Francés directed to the Prince Elector of Braunschweig, dated in Hamburg on the 12
th of August 1644.
In the letter Rosales explains how he was in the service of the king of Spain for 22 years as a teacher of mathematics to the king’s brother and hopes that now the prince would subsidize the publication of his next mathematical - astrological treaty.
The presence of a Jew at the court of the King of Spain about 150 years after supposedly there were no Jews in Spain, certainly puts the society of the time in a different light.
It is also amazing that Rosales would look for religious freedom in the unstable Germany of the
Thirty Years War.
Certainly, Rosales was an ingenious and resourceful man, able to make his way in an ideologically, religiously and socially very changeable world.
His poetry offers good examples of a newly created mythology “replete with fresh martyrs and heroes – a second Moses, a Jewish Apollo, a new Isaac.
It is an attempt to guide the forgotten sons of the Israelites into a renewed preeminence.”
The Epos Noeticon sive Carmen Intellectuale is a long poem (340 verses) in which Rosales describes how all knowledge was given to men by God. In spite of the title, it is not sure whether Rosales had any knowledge of Greek, but certainly his Latin is outstanding. The poem is written in elegiac meter, the prosody is based in alternation of short and long syllables and with only small exceptions Rosales follows strictly the Classical Latin prosodic patterns. The poem is intended to defend the Jewish faith at a time of religious wars in Europe. Although he thinks that the Greeks were in error, he adopts Platonic ideas in explanation of the structure of the world and considers that through wisdom men achieve immortality, for this is a link with God and the time previous to the expulsion from paradise. The Carmen Intellectuale is a very religious poem with a mention of God (simply Deus, or Omnipotens, Rector Poli, Tonans) at least once every ten lines. However, Rosales’ ideas could hardly stand any trial of orthodoxy, either Christian or Jewish. From the epithets given to God we see how he continues medieval Judeo-Christian traditions as well as pagan ones. The tradition of religious poems follows a general tendency in baroque aesthetics and especially in Counter-reformation Spain, where many of the most important poets of the time wrote poems to God or about God, praising God’s marvelous creation, asking for forgiveness of sins or declaring their love to God.
The Epos Noeticon is divided into ten sections. It starts by describing the beginning of the world without sin. There was knowledge because God opened the door of wisdom to human beings. Ignorance came into the world as an act of rebellion and arrogance. Only Abraham remained faithful and obedient to God, which implies that only the Jews can achieve true knowledge because they recognize their dependence on God. After the fall, knowledge disappeared and man has to work in vain to achieve it. A confirmation of the fruitlessness of the work is the religious wars of Europe. For Rosales these wars are a result of the truth having lost its legitimate place to the false opinions (dogmata falsa). Non est, qui agnoscat verum, antisophismate mundus/ obruitur falso (45-46) "There is no one who recognizes the truth, the world falls apart because of the false antsophisma "- complains Rosales bitterly. From the darkness, comes ignorance and death: Hinc sectae venere omnes sub Palladis umbra / quae se interficiunt dogmate, et ense suo. / hincque superstitio et fidei simulatio fictae, / ausa, loco Domini, ponere turpe Nihil. (55-58) – "From this all the cults came under the shadow of Pallas, cults which kill each other with dogma and sword. From this superstition and simulation of fictitious faith arose, and they dare to put a shameful Nothing in God's place.
Although some verses above God was associated with the pagan world through the use of the epithet Tonans, now that same pagan world is associated with the darkness of the wrong knowledge that gives birth to cults. Rosales sees a reason for all this darkness in the individualism that makes man trust in himself rather than in God. How much of this is a criticism to the individualistic tendencies rising up in the Protestant countries? And if it is a criticism to those tendencies, what is Rosales doing in Hamburg? With the present chaotic situation, the author contrasts the faith of Abraham who did not trust his own mind (qui menti haud fidens propriae, 69). Again he continues attacking rationalism some verses later [Gigantes] omnia librari propria ratione trahuntur, 83 "The Giants try to solve everything with their own mind. " The scholars who have abandoned the faith of Abraham are compared to the Giants, perhaps those who attempted to attack Olympos, perhaps those at the beginning of the world (Genesis 6:4). Only obedience to the old covenant guarantees knowledge. The Jewish character is evident throughout, but his life among Christians makes him speak of the law as Haec lignum est vitae aeternae (135) – haec est quae absterget peccatum ab origine vestrum / restaurans hominem, conciliansque Deo (137/8). "This is the wood (cross) of eternal life, this is what cleanses your original sin, restoring man and conciliating him with God." The Christian phraseology is evident in these verses, just as in verse 145 when he speaks of Sanctus Jacob as the father of the Jewish people. Another Sanctus Jacob, however, comes to mind: Santiago or Saint James, patron saint of Spain. It is not a coincidence that Rosales mentions Jacob with the epithet of saint after using the Christian terminology. In the same confusing manner, Rosales talks in verses 115 – 127 about God’s marriage with his wife, the Jewish people, but it could also be interpreted as Jesus’ marriage with the church, the new covenant. Rosales continues with a reference to the oral tradition as well as the written one. 154-7: Lex ori, scriptae vox, quasi lingua, datur:/ lex oralis adest, oris quae crimina solvat,/ quae corpus reddat Mentis ubique capax,/ haec est, scriptura, quae nobis explicat alta/ secreta. "The law is given to the mouth, to the written [law] a voice, as it it were a language. The oral law is present to undo the crimes of the word, to render the body entirely able to serve the mind. This law is the scripture which explains to us the deep secrets." Is Rosales commenting on the Protestant principle of Sola Scriptura? Or is he acknowledging his own Talmudic tradition? Towards the second half of the poem, Rosales criticizes Greek philosophy. He asserts that the Greek scholars made the waters of knowledge ugly with their profound errors and now the gigantic little scholars (giganteos sciolos 211) follow them. The Jews alone are free from this error. This criticism, however, takes place right before Rosales uses Neo-Platonic philosophy to explain why there are innate ideas in man. The internal principle of knowledge carries the image of God. Rosales talks about images, ideas and species as an immanent principle of knowledge that was sown by God in human minds. The original sin was responsible for the cessation of infuse knowledge and from then on humans could only perceive shadows but the law and the tradition give form to what is true and what is good. Rosales continues the scholastic tradition and as he unites faith with philosophy, he concludes that the sacred law produces life and by bringing forth knowledge it also produces health (or maybe salvation?) (285- 6: quapropter Lex sancta potest producere vitam,/ nam sapere adducens, est quoque vita, salus.) In conclusion, knowledge brings life, but knowledge is only attainable through obedience to God’s law. Men who do not abide by God’s law have lost the privilege of knowledge and also of life. Rosales concludes his poem with the hope that the Muse may remember his words and in a very baroque world conception he finishes: stat sua cuique Dies, non fato, ast undique factis,/ Terminus his vitae, et pendet ubique necis. "There is a day for everyone, not by destiny, but by the actions anywhere,/ this is the end of life. Death awaits everywhere."
Rosales’ identification as Jew at the beginning of the poem is then a way of self-promotion and a warranty of him speaking the truth. This is one of only a few of his works that he starts by mentioning his Jewish background. The poem attempts to strengthen the whole community, affirming their God-chosen character and their intellectual superiority. It is probably a work directed to the community of Sephardim Jews in the northern countries and not to a general public. Most of his poems have a concrete addressee, this one mentions a Beverovicus at the very end, but this person has not been yet identified. The name seems rather East European, which could be an indication of an attempt to contact the Ashkenazi Jews, since relations between Sephardim and Ashkenazi do not seem to have been very cordial at many times. The poem paraphrases in part the Biblical books of Wisdom and Ecclesiasticus, accepted as part of the canon by the Jewish and Catholic traditions, but not by the Protestant one. However, the poem was composed in Protestant Hamburg. It is possible that the poem was meant to be read only by his own Sephardim community, but if so, why write in Latin and not in Spanish? The use of Latin implies not only a desire to show his own intellectual abilities, but as well probably a desire to be read by members of the non-Jewish intellectual community, perhaps in the hope that his fellow intellectuals would realize the truth of the Jewish faith amid the Catholic-Protestant conflict.
Another of Rosales’ poems in Neo-Latin,the Sapphic Ode , is very different in character. It is a poem in praise of his colleague Zacutus from Portugal of whom we have an autographic letter from Amsterdam in 1637. The poem is composed in Sapphic meter, again following very strict metrical patterns. There are abundant references to Greek mythology with the intention to equate Zacutus to prominent Greek characters or even make clear that he has surpassed them. The poem starts and ends with an invocation to the Muse, Clio, and also ends with a kind of seal, the sphragis, of Greek lyric poetry.
Ergo mi Clio, cane, plectra sume, dic virum tantum, dominum, ac amicum tolle magnatem, sapientem, ametque ipse Rosalem. – "therefore, for me, Clio, sing, take up the lyre, tell about such a man, lord, and friend, in such a way magnificent, wise and that he may love Rosales."
The poem uses a mythological background to express Zacutus’ advances in medicine. Apparently, a new type of fever broke out and only Zacutus was able to avert it with his new approach. Rosales insists on the newness and that is why he describes Zacutus as Apollo, who was able to stop Phaeton from burning the earth. The topic of Phaeton was common in Baroque literature. There is a long poem on the theme by Juan de Tassis (1582 –1622), contemporary of Rosales and well-known poet at the court of Spain, with whom Rosales might have been acqainted, as we can see in the correspondence of certain images and verses. What characterizes Rosales is that he uses the myths not just by themselves, but to contradict them using the personal experience, much like for instance Ovid in his Tristia. The mythological knowledge and background is necessary to present himself as a man of the times, however, Rosales is very conscious and defensive of his own culture. That is why he insists on the newness and new responses to the situations. As much as Rosales knows the poetic conventions and the myths, so Zacutus knows the traditional medicine: Galen, Celsus, Arabic physicians. But Zacutus is superior to all of them because he was able to solve the new challenge, so is Rosales superior to other poets, because in his poetry, he is able to unite the myths with reality. His poem is not a poem about how Phaeton endangered the earth, but how the fever was successfully healed by Zacutus. In Rosales’ production in honor of his colleagues, there is a mixture between daily medical procedures and mythology, between practicality and culture. For instance, Rosales has a sonnet in which he praises Zacutus as the new Pelops and also because he can cure the pains of a constipation.
Rosales’ poems fall on the general tendencies of Spanish poems of his times, however, he tries to be original and create a new language that responds to the needs of his own community of Sephardim Jews, but also to the needs of the very selected group of physicians and philosophers of which Rosales was member.
25 Mar.: Israel's AMAN military intelligence director, Maj. Amos Yadlin informed the Knesset foreign affairs and security committee Wednesday, March 25, that Iran is only months away from a capacity to make a nuclear bomb and has attained a warhead capability. Yet Tehran has decided not to cross the threshold for two compelling reasons, outlined by DEBKAfile's military sources:
