Uriel da Costa

Uriel da Costa (uɾiˈɛl dɐ ˈkɔʃtɐ; also Acosta or d'Acosta; c. 1585 – April 1640) was a Portuguese philosopher who was born a New Christian but returned to Judaism and ended up questioning the Catholic and rabbinic institutions of his time. Many details about his life appear in his short autobiography, but over the past two centuries documents uncovered in Portugal, Amsterdam, Hamburg and more have changed and added much in the picture. Costa was born in Porto with the name Gabriel da Costa Fiuza. His ancestors were Cristãos-novos, or New Christians, converted from Judaism to Catholicism by state edict at 1497. His father was a well-off international merchant and tax-farmer. Studying canon law in the University of Coimbra intermittently between 1600 and 1608, he began to read the Bible and contemplate it seriously. Costa also occupied an ecclesiastical office. In his autobiography Costa pictured his family as devout Catholics. However they had been subjects to several investigations by the Inquisition, suggesting they were Conversos, more or less close to Jewish customs. Gabriel explicitly supported the adherence to Mosaic prescriptions as well as traditional ones. After his father died, the family came into greater financial difficulties due to some debts that had not been paid. In 1614 they changed this predicament as they sneaked out of Portugal with a significant sum of money they previously collected as tax-farmers for Jorge de Mascarenhas. Then the family headed to two major Sephardic diaspora communities. Newly circumcised, and with new Jewish names, two brothers settled in Amsterdam, and two with their mother in Hamburg. Gabriel was in the latter city, and became Uriel for the Jewish neighbors, and Adam Romez for outside relations, presumably because he was wanted in Portugal. All resumed their international trade business.Upon arriving there, Costa quickly became disenchanted with the kind of Judaism he saw in practice. He came to believe that the rabbinic leadership was too consumed by ritualism and legalistic posturing.