ACOSTA (DA COSTA), URIEL. - Jewish rationalist, b. in Oporto between 1580 and 1585, d. in Amsterdam in 1640. From a wealthy Marrano family, he studied philosophy and canon law at the University of Coimbra (1604-1608). Appointed treasurer of a collegiate church in Oporto (1610), he resigned around 1615 and, no longer admitting anything but a vague deism, fled with his family to Amsterdam, where he converted to Judaism along with his mother and four brothers, changing his baptismal name Gabriel to Uriel.

Dissatisfied also with the Jewish religion, A. soon began to deny the immortality of the soul and future retribution, as excluded by the Hebrew Bible. On 14 Aug. 1618 he was excommunicated for the first time in Venice and Hamburg. The physician Samuel da Silva rose up against him with the Tratado da immortalidade da alma (1623); A. then published the Examen das tradições phariseas conferidas com a ley escripta (Amsterdam 1624), which combats the doctrines and customs of rabbinism, advocating a return to Sadduceeism. He was therefore expelled as an atheist from the synagogue of Amsterdam, imprisoned by the civil court, which commuted his imprisonment to a fine of 300 florins; his book was destroyed. A. then took refuge for some years in Hamburg. After nine years of isolation even from his family, who abhorred him, he made a public amends and was readmitted into the community (1633), but he soon proved obstinate in his errors; he also openly denied the divine origin of the Mosaic law. Excommunicated again, after six years (1639) he submitted once more in the synagogue of Amsterdam, where he underwent flagellation; but shortly thereafter, after having attempted the life of a relative of his, he killed himself (Apr. 1640), leaving his autobiography under the title Exemplar humanae vitae.

The restless A. foreshadows Spinoza. He aroused many reactions in the Jewish circles of the time: in Italy Leone Modena (d. 1648) wrote two works in Hebrew to refute him, on behalf of the Sephardic community of Venice, to which A. had sent his writing against the Pharisaic traditions.

Bibliography6 works

BIBL.: C. Gebhardt, Die Schriften des U. da Costa in Bibliotheca Spinozana, II, Amsterdam 1922; C. Michaelis de Vasconcellos, U. da Costa, Coimbra 1922; A. B. Duff and P. Kaan, Une vie humaine, par U. da Costa, Paris 1926. - The Exemplar vitae humanae was published in 1687 by the Dutchman Filippo Limborch, who refutes it, in an appendix to the book De veritate religionis christianae: amica collatio cum erudito Judaeo; subsequently by H. Jellinek, U. A.'s Selbstbiographie, lateinisch und deutsch, Leipzig 1847; the most recent editions are those of A. Klaar (Berlin 1909), O. Jancke (Aachen 1923), Duff and Kaan. - The tragic fate of this free thinker was bound to appeal to men of letters: K. Gutakow dedicated to him the novella Die Sadduzder von Amsterdam, 1834, and the tragedy Uriel A., Leipzig 1847, translated into Hebrew by Salomon Rubin, Vienna 1856; I. Zangwill, a chapter of Dreamers of the Ghetto, Philadelphia 1898, pp. 68-114.

Antonino Romeo

@incollection{ec1_acosta_da_costa_uriel, author = {Romeo, Antonino}, title = {Acosta (Da Costa), uriel}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {I}, pages = {230}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1948}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/acosta-da-costa-uriel} }

One of some 20,000 entries brought back from the twelve printed volumes (1948–54). Spotted something? Help us improve it.

Acosta (da Costa), Uriel

About this entry