Thesoro de preceptos adonde se encierran las joyas de los Seys cientos y treze Preceptos, que encomendó el Senor a su Pueblo Israel. Con su declaracion, razon, y dinim, conforme a la verdadera Tradicion, recebida de Mosè: y enseñada por nuestros sabios de gloriosa memoria [...]

4to (202x160 mm). [12], 129, [9] leaves. Collation: §-§§§⁴ A-Ll⁴ Mm². Woodcut printer's device on title page. Roman, italic and Hebrew types. Contemporary stiff vellum with overlapping edges, inked title on spine, blue sprinkled edges (worn and stained). Slightly uniformly browned, light waterstain to the upper part of most of the volume, all in all a genuine copy.

Rare second edition of this commentary in Spanish on the 613 Commandments of Judaism. The first part is devoted to the 248 positive commandments; the second to the 365 negative commandments. Isaac Athias was hakham of the first Portuguese-Jewish congregation in Hamburg and after 1622 at Venice, where the first edition of the Thesoro was first printed in 1627 and where he died. The work was intended for Spanish and Portuguese Marranos in places such as Amsterdam, Venice and Hamburg, where they had returned to their ancestral faith not knowing Hebrew and ignoring most of the traditional practices of Judaism. In the preface, Athias explicitly refers to his Marrano brethren as “the noblest nation in Spain”, who had been punished with “exile, disaster, death and excessive suffering [...] the greater part of whom were miserably buried in the darkness of perdition until the Lord came to their rescue and they returned to worship Him”.

Palau, 19334; Sephardic Editions, 1550-1820 Online.

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