A graça e a desgraça das relíquias do Judaísmo. O sermão de D. Frei Diogo da Anunciação Justiniano, arcebispo de Cranganor e as suas respostas: circulação e reapropriação

Abstract

This paper analyses the unique reaction of the Jewish community of London against a sermon of auto-da-fe. The sermon preached by D. Diogo da Anunciacao Justiniano on the 6th of September of 1705, in Lisbon, led the rabbi David Nieto to write a reply, which was printed after his death in 1728. The same text would generate another reply written by an anonymous Portuguese Jew. This paper will enquire the reasons behind the fact of this sermon have caused two texts without precedent in the context of the Jewish literary production in England, and whose origin and aims are framed within a growth phase of the Jewish community of London, nourished by newcomers fleeing from the Iberian Inquisitions’ persecution. The last part of this paper will approach the path of the sermon and its first reply in England and the United States of America during the first half of the nineteenth century. Then, both works were reprinted and translated, as well as readapted to a different framework: the emergent Christian missions promoted by Protestant organizations and the reaction of the Jewish communities against this new threat.