Abstract

CHUECAS SALDIAS, Ignacio. Felippa Cardosa and the Sefer Toledot Yeshu: Women’s agency, Judaizing practices and anti-Christian controversy in a case before the Inquisition of Lima (1588-1603). memorias [online]. 2022, n.47, pp.8-42.  Epub Aug 03, 2022. ISSN 1794-8886.  https://doi.org/10.14482/memor.47.272.2.

This article shares in the growing interest within Inquisitorial studies towards the issue of female agency in Judaizing circles. Indeed, a large number of the women prosecuted in the various jurisdictions of the Holy Office, were charged with the crime of Judaizing. At the same time, the large amount of information on these subjects, preserved in the proceedings, allows us to enter a complex world of practices and knowledge where these women acted proactively. Far from being passive subjects they were protagonists and promoters of their religious faith. The global nature of this information, a product of the global migration patterns of Iberian New Christians, offers some surprising findings. This is the case of the present study, focused on the analysis of the agency deployed by Felippa Cardosa in order to convert one of her brothers to the Law of Moses. In her endeavor to formulate an irrefutable argument, Felippa draws on a long-standing textual tradition, found among the Jewish communities of the East and West, of virulent anti-Christian connotation. These stories originated in an ancestral apologetic praxis against the principles that identified Christianity, practically from the moment of its split from the original Judaic root.

Keywords : New Christian women; Judaizers; female agency; anti-Christian polemic.

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