Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T03:29:47.030Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Newtonian, Converso, and Deist: The Lives of Jacob (Henrique) de Castro Sarmento

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Matt Goldish
Matt Goldish
Affiliation:
University of Arizona
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Jacob (Henrique) de Castro Sarmento was a descendent of New Christians in Portugal who made his way to London in the early eighteenth century. There he professed Judaism openly, but he also advanced his scientific and medical pursuits, becoming particularly enamored of the Newtonian world view. This paper argues that Sarmento's attachment to Judaism was essentially a function of his personal relationship with Hakham David Nieto, and that Sarmento's Judaism was never really the full synthesis of scientific outlook and Jewish theology toward which Nieto pushed him. Rather, after Nieto's death Sarmento identified himself with scientific Newtonianism increasingly openly, while his religious identitly waned. Apparently he found science a more useful outlook in approaching the world, as did many Newtonians of that generation.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 10 , Issue 4 , Winter 1997 , pp. 651 - 675
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aiton, E. J. 1955. “The Contributions of Newton, Bernoulli and Euler to the Theory of the Tides.” Annals of Science 11(3):206–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, D. G. C., and Schofield, R. E.. 1980. Stephen Hales: Scientist and Philanthropist. London: Scholar Press.Google Scholar
Antunes, Manuel et al. 1982. Como Interpretar Pombal? Lisbon: Broteria.Google Scholar
Barnett, Richard. 1978–1980. “Dr. Jacob de Castro Sarmento and Sephardim in Medical Practice in Eighteenth-Century London.” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 27:84–114.Google Scholar
Barnouw, Jeffrey. 1978. “Materialism and Freedom: Commentary on Papers by Robert E. Schofield and Aram Bartanian.” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 7:193–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bodian, Miriam. 1994. “Men of the Nation': The Shaping of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe,” Past and Present 14 (May):48–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buchdahl, Gerd. 1961. The Image of Newton and Locke in the Age of Reason. London:Google Scholar
Clark-Kennedy, A. E. 1929. Stephan Hales, D.D., F.R.S.:An Eighteenth Century Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Collins, Kenneth E. 1978–1980. “Jewish Medical Students and Graduates in Scotland, 1739–1862,” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 27 [Miscellanies 12]: 79.Google Scholar
da Costa, Uriel. 1993. Examination of Pharisaic Traditions, Supplemented by Semuel da Silva's Treatise on the Immortality of the Soul, edited by Salomon, H. P. and Sassoon, I. S. D.. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
d'Esaguy, Augusto. 1946. Jacob de Castro Sarmento: Notas Relativas à Sua Vide à Sua Obra. Lisbon: Atica.Google Scholar
d'Esaguy, Augusto. 1946. A Page from the Portuguese History of Medicine: Dr. Jacob or Henrique de Castro Sarmento. Coimbra: Institute de Coimbra.Google Scholar
dos Santos, Carvalho. 1989. “Les intellectuels au Portugal: des Lumières au libéralisme.” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 263:182–84.Google Scholar
Ferrone, Vincenzo. [1982] 1995. The Intellectual Roots of the Italian Enlightenment: Newtonian Science, Religion and Politics in the Early Eighteenth Century. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Force, James E. 1985. William Whiston: Honest Newtonian. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gascoigne, John. 1988. “From Bentley to the Victorians: The Rise and Fall of British Newtonian Natural Theology.” Science in Context 2(2):219–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gascoigne, John. 1989. Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment: Science, Religion and Politics from the Restoration to the French Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gjertsen, Derek. 1986. The Newton Handbook. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Goldish, Matt. 1994. “Jews, Christians and Conversos: Rabbi Salomon Aailion's Struggles in the Portuguese Community of London.” Journal of Jewish Studies 45(2) (Autumn):227–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hales, Stephen. 1733. Statical Essays: Containing Haemastaticks… London.Google Scholar
Hazard, Paul. 1964. The European Mind, 1680–1715. Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin.Google Scholar
Israel, Jonathan I. 1978. “Spain and the Dutch Sephardim, 1609–1660.” Studia Rosenthaliana 12:1–61.Google Scholar
Jacob, Margaret C. 1976. The Newtonians and the English Revolution 1689–1720. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Margaret C. 1981. The radical Enlightment: Pantheists, Freemasons and Republicans. London: George Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
Jacob, Margaret C. 1987. “The Crisis of the European Mind: Hazard Revisited.” In Politics and Culture in Early Modern Europe: Essays in Honor of H. G. Koenigsberger, edited by Jacob, M. and Mack, P., 251–71. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Margaret C. 1991. Review of John Gascoigne, Cambridge in the Age of the Enlightenment. Eighteenth Century Studies 24(3) (Spring):375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Margaret C., and Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. 1995. Newton and the Culture of Newtonianism. Atlantic Highlands, N.Y.: Humanities Press.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Yosef. 1989. From Judaism to Christianity: The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro. London: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaplan, Yosef. 1991. “The Portuguese Community of Amsterdam in the Seventeenth Century: Between Tradition and Change.” In Society and Community, edited by Abraham, Haim, 141–71. Jerusalem: Misgav Yerushalayim.Google Scholar
Kaplan, Yosef. 1992. “The Jewish Profile of the Spanish Portuguese Community of London during the Seventeenth Century.” Judaism 41(3) (Summer):229–40.Google Scholar
Lemos, Maximiano. 1911. Ribeiro Sanches: a sua vida e a sua obra. Porto.Google Scholar
Maxwell, Kenneth. 1995. Pombal: Paradox of the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Newton, Sir Isaac. 1934. Principia (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). Translated by Motte, A., edited by Cajori, F.. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Nicolson, Marjorie Hope. 1946. Newton Demands the Muse: Newton's Opticks and the Eighteenth Century Poets. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Pereira, José Esteves. 1989. Portuguese Enlightenment. Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 263:184–86.Google Scholar
Petuchowski, Jacob J. 1954. The Theology of Haham David Nieto: An Eighteenth-Century Defense of the Jewish Tradition. New York: Ktav.Google Scholar
Poni, Carlo. 1993. “The Craftsman and the Good Engineer: Technical Practice and Theoretical Mechanics in J. T. Desguliers.” History and Technology 10:215–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Popkin, Richard H. 1992. “The Marranos of Amsterdam,” in idem, The Third Force in Seventeenth Century Thought, 149–71. Leiden: E. J. Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Révah, I. S. 1959. Spinoza et le Dr. Juan de Prado. Paris: Mouton & Col.Google Scholar
Roth, Cecil. 1933. “Elie Montalto et sa consultation sur le Sabbat.” REJ94:113–36.Google Scholar
Ruderman, David B. 1995. Jewish nought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Salomon, H. P. 1970. “The Fidanques: Hidalgos of Faith.” American Sephardi 4(1–2) (Autumn): 15–29.Google Scholar
Samuel, E. R. 1964. “Dr. Meyer Schomberg's Attack on the Jews of London, 1746.” Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England 20:83–111.Google Scholar
Sarmento, Jacob (Henrique) de Castro. 1724. Exemplar de Penitencia.Google Scholar
Sarmento, Jacob (Henrique) de Castro. 1728. Sermam Funebre as deploraveis Memorias Do Muy Reverendo, e Doutissimo Haham Asalem Morenu, A.R. David Netto… London.Google Scholar
Sarmento, Jacob (Henrique) de Castro. 1735. Materia Medica.Google Scholar
Sarmento, Jacob (Henrique) de Castro. 1737. Theorica Verdadeira Das Mares.Google Scholar
Sarmento, Jacob (Henrique) de Castro. 1755. Philosophical Transactions. 409–11.Google Scholar
Schofield, Robert E. 1978. “An Evolutionary Taxonomy of Eighteenth Century Newtonianisms.” Studies in Eighteenth Century Culture 7:175–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomons, Israel. 1931. David Nieto: Haham of the Spanish & Portuguese Jews' Congregation Kahal Kados Sahar Asamaim London (1701–1728). London: Spottiswoode, Ballantyne. Reprinted from Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England, vol. 12.Google Scholar
Stewart, Larry. 1992. Rise of Public Science: Rhetoric, Technology, and Natural Philosophy in Newtonian Britain, 160–1750. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Yardeni, Myriam. 1998. Huguenots and Jews. (Hebrew). Jerusalem: The Historical Society of Israel and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Google Scholar
Yerushalmi, Yosef Hayim. 1981. From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto. Seattle: University of Washington Press.Google Scholar