The Price of Conversion: Francisco de San Antonio and Mariana de los Reyes (1624)

In this second installment of Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics, we discuss the tale of "The Price of Conversion: Francisco de San Antonio and Mariana de los Reyes"

Avraham Rubén was a Sefardic Jew born in the North African city of Fez. In 1603, at the age of 25, Rubén decides to leave his land. Traveling as an itinerant rabbi, he reaches Antwerp and the Netherlands, where he decides to undergo baptism in 1616 by the bishop of Antwerp. Thereafter, as a New Christian, going by the baptismal name of Francisco de San Antonio, he moves to Lisbon, where he educates the "secret Jews" he meets there in the Hebrew alphabet, kosher food laws, and Jewish prayers. The Portuguese Inquisition arrests him twice for practicing Judaism surreptitiously as a baptized Christian. Escaping town, he stops at Santarem, where at a bar one night he meets María González, a twenty-some-year old Spanish Catholic woman who had been abandoned by her husband, whom she would later claim she presumed he was dead. Under the influence of "something to drink," the pair concocts a plan — María would pretend to be an unmarried Jewish woman named Cafira, she would join the church, and they would get married in return for a grant of land from the King of Spain. The plan began to enfold: the couple performed wedding vows before a city offical in an inn in Lisbon, and then continued on their way to Madrid, where María was (re-)baptized in the Royal Chapel of Madrid and took the baptismal name Mariana de los Reyes ("of the kings"). They were granted a royal estate in La Coruña. The pair lived happily for two or three years, and he continued his work as a clandestine rabbi. The plan may have worked out, if not for the fact that both lovers fell sick, and while teetering on the brink of death in a Madrid, she confessed the entire plan to the priest at the hospital. 

It’s hard to know what role of dissimulation vs. authentic religious faith is present in the case of Avraham Rubén and Mariana de los Reyes. First of all, in some regards, this case is a failure of ecclesiastical discipline — the case shouldn’t have come to this point, because there are some elements that should not have occurred. For one thing, the bishop who married Mariana and Francisco should have done due diligence to make sure that Mariana had not been previously married to Pedro Ribero, and if so, ensured that Pedro had died so she was free to remarry. As it is, the charge of bigamy is not necessarily her fault, because she believed that her husband was dead. These issues are very important in the Catholic church, and the priests should have done due diligence before allowing them to marry.

Secondly, the Church failed to catechize either Abraham or Mariana properly. While Mariana was raised Catholic, she claims innocence: “I’m so stupid that when they baptized me the second time, I didn’t realize what it meant” (103). It’s hard to know whether she’s lying, but given the state of the church, it seems that she was not properly instructed in the faith and did not realize that they had committed an error. The other catechetical error in Ruben’s case was the fact that he was baptized by the bishop of Antwerp, but was never confirmed, yet he partook of communion (p. 91). For new catechumens to the church, they must follow the process of (1) baptism after catechism, (2) confirmation, (3) communion. The fact that he skipped step 2 meant he should never have received communion. And usually the process of catechism takes one to two years — a substantial commitment, similar in duration to conversion to Judaism. During that time, Avraham should have been thoroughly instructed in the doctrines of the faith. If the priests had followed these basic church protocols, then perhaps this case would not have been as severe. This issue seems like it crops up repeatedly in these cases — the New Christians, especially those who were baptized overnight in Portugal — were never properly instructed or educated in the faith, and therefore should not be held responsible for things they did not know. The entire issue is a failure of the Church at the deepest level. The New Christians were held responsible for things they never signed up for, or simply did not know.

Also, the entire plot for Mariana to pretend to be Jewish, join the church, marry Avraham, and steal money reminds me of one of those road movies where the man and the women plan a run away from the law (a la Thelma/Louise, Natural Born Killers or True Romance - both of which were written by Quentin Tarantino, the newly minted Zionist). It is hard to imagine under what circumstances these two desperate lovers thought this was a good plan. Let’s get out of town, Cafira.