Miguel de Barrios

Miguel de Barrios
Born1635
Montilla, Spain
Died1701 (aged 65–66)
Amsterdam, Netherlands
NationalitySpanish
Occupation(s)Poet, playwright, historian

Miguel de Barrios (a.k.a. Daniel Levi de Barrios; 1635 – 1701) was a poet, playwright, and historian, born in Montilla, Spain to a Portuguese converso family. He eventually settled in Amsterdam in the Portuguese Jewish community. He was a prolific author, whose best known work is a memorialization of victims of the Inquistion, Contra la verdad no hay fuerza (before 1672), and a laudatory portrayal of Amsterdam's Sephardic community, Triumpho del govierno popular (1683).[1] He was one of several writers to focus on "the [Jewish] Law's perfection, eternity and superiority."[2] In his work, Triumpho del govierno popular (1682) he gave an explanation for the permanent expulsion of Spinoza from the Amsterdam synagogue, saying it was Spinoza's defiance of rabbinic authority and declaration that "the Jews have no obligation to observe Mosaic Law."[3]

  1. ^ Bodian, Miriam. Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation: Conversos and Community in Early Modern Amsterdam. Bloomington: Indiana University Press 1997, 163
  2. ^ Swetschinski, Daniel M. Reluctant Cosmopolitans: The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam. London: Littman Library of Jewish Civilization 2000, 299
  3. ^ Israel, Jonathan I.. Spinoza, Life and Legacy. New York: Oxford University Press 2023, 67