The Heretic
Book Details
Author(s)Lewis M. Weinstein
PublisherLewis M. Weinstein
ISBN / ASINB0032UY4MA
ISBN-13978B0032UY4M9
MarketplaceIndia 🇮🇳
Description
For Jews living in Seville when crusading Dominican priests swept through the city in 1391 and again in 1412, the choice was clear: Accept baptism, or die!
Although Isaac Catalan yielded to this cruel ultimatum when he was just a youth of 18, giving up his Jewish religion and living out his life as a Christian, in the end it did not save him. In the startling prologue of The Heretic, long-simmering animosity toward Seville’s conversos erupts into violence, and a rioting mob of converso haters stabs, clubs, stones, and stomps the old man to death.
From that moment on, his son Gabriel silently embraces the religion his father had been forced to renounce. A prosperous converso, Gabriel Catalan becomes one of Spain’s secret Jews, and, despite the terrified objections of his wife Pilar, enlists the aid of his son Tomas in this hidden life of danger.
Set in Castile on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition, author Lewis Weinstein looks at the tragic plight of those brave, clandestine Jews, whose heresy was viewed by militant Church leaders as a mortal threat that must be eradicated. The novel’s central character, Gabriel Catalan, is a devoted husband and father who grows somewhat reluctantly into his heroic stature. As his influence continues to grow, within the converso community and at court as a royal confidant of King Enrique and then of Queen Isabel, Gabriel realizes that the awesome responsibilities thrust on him also offer unique opportunities to help his people.
Against the backdrop of political and religious upheaval, inexorably drawing Spain toward the treason trials of the Inquisition, the novel dramatizes, in fascinating detail, the extraordinary impact of the Gutenberg printing press. Gabriel, a goldsmith by trade, watches the German printer Johann Gutenberg demonstrate his remarkable new printing method, and agrees to take on a perilous new mission: he and his son Tomas will print copies of rare Hebrew manuscripts and holy books, in hopes of preserving the precious texts before they can be destroyed.
Although Isaac Catalan yielded to this cruel ultimatum when he was just a youth of 18, giving up his Jewish religion and living out his life as a Christian, in the end it did not save him. In the startling prologue of The Heretic, long-simmering animosity toward Seville’s conversos erupts into violence, and a rioting mob of converso haters stabs, clubs, stones, and stomps the old man to death.
From that moment on, his son Gabriel silently embraces the religion his father had been forced to renounce. A prosperous converso, Gabriel Catalan becomes one of Spain’s secret Jews, and, despite the terrified objections of his wife Pilar, enlists the aid of his son Tomas in this hidden life of danger.
Set in Castile on the eve of the Spanish Inquisition, author Lewis Weinstein looks at the tragic plight of those brave, clandestine Jews, whose heresy was viewed by militant Church leaders as a mortal threat that must be eradicated. The novel’s central character, Gabriel Catalan, is a devoted husband and father who grows somewhat reluctantly into his heroic stature. As his influence continues to grow, within the converso community and at court as a royal confidant of King Enrique and then of Queen Isabel, Gabriel realizes that the awesome responsibilities thrust on him also offer unique opportunities to help his people.
Against the backdrop of political and religious upheaval, inexorably drawing Spain toward the treason trials of the Inquisition, the novel dramatizes, in fascinating detail, the extraordinary impact of the Gutenberg printing press. Gabriel, a goldsmith by trade, watches the German printer Johann Gutenberg demonstrate his remarkable new printing method, and agrees to take on a perilous new mission: he and his son Tomas will print copies of rare Hebrew manuscripts and holy books, in hopes of preserving the precious texts before they can be destroyed.
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