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Castro, Adolf de

The 1901 Jewish Encyclopedia

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Spanish historian; member of the Academia de la Historia of Madrid; lived in Cadiz; died there Oct., 1898. He wrote the first short history of the Jews in Spain, based on care ful studies; and this was so impartial and dispassionate that he found it necessary to assure his readers (p. 8): "Escribo esta historia sin pasion, ni artificio, como de cosas que nada me tocán. Ni soi judio, ni vengo de judaizantes" (I write this history dispassionately and without craft, as concerning things that do not touch me. I am not a Jew, nor am I of Jewish descent. De Castro's book was published under the title, "Historia de los Judios en España, desde los Tiempos de su Establecimiento hasta Principios del Presente Siglo," Cadiz, 1847; and was translated into English by Rev. Edward D. G. M. Kirwan, Cambridge, John Deighton, 1851.

Unlike J. Amador de los Rios, who, after him, treated the history of the Jews in Spain, De Castro condemned the Inquisition: "Pues los monarcas bien podran regir con las leyes de la fuerza los cuerpos de sus vasallos; pero no podrán sujetar los animos" (For monarchs can indeed command by forcible laws the bodies of their subjects, but can not subdue their souls).