His short autobiography contains many details about his life, but over the past two centuries, documents uncovered in Portugal,
Amsterdam,
Hamburg, and elsewhere have added much to the picture. Da Costa was born Gabriel Fiuza da Costa in
Porto. His ancestors were
Cristãos-novos (
New Christians)—
Jews forcibly converted to Catholicism by state edict in 1497. His father, Bento da Costa, was a well-off international merchant and
tax-farmer. His mother, Branca, "seems to have been a
Judaizer" (i.e., a false convert to Christianity), according to
Nadler. Studying
Catholic canon law at the
University of Coimbra intermittently between 1600 and 1608, he began to read the
Hebrew Bible and contemplate it seriously. Da Costa also held a benefice, an ecclesiastical office, in the Catholic Church. In his autobiography, da Costa depicted his family as devout Catholics. However, they had been subject to several investigations by the
Portuguese Inquisition, suggesting they were
crypto-Jews, more or less observing Jewish customs. Da Costa explicitly supported adherence to
Mosaic law. After his father died, the da Costa family fell into financial difficulty due to unpaid debts. In 1614, they escaped their predicament by leaving Portugal with a significant sum previously collected as tax farmers for
Jorge de Mascarenhas. The family branched off, settling among two major
Sephardic diaspora communities. Newly
circumcised and with new
Jewish names, two brothers migrated to Amsterdam, while two others went with their mother to Hamburg. Da Costa was among the Hamburg group, going by Uriel among his Jewish neighbours and using the alias Adam Romez for outside relations, presumably because he was wanted in Portugal. All resumed their international trade business. Upon arriving in Hamburg, da Costa quickly became disenchanted with the kind of Judaism he saw in practice. He came to believe that the
rabbinic leadership was obsessed with
ritualism and legal posturing. At this time, he composed his earliest known written work,
Propostas contra a Tradição (Propositions against the Tradition). In eleven short theses he called into question the disparity between Jewish customs and a
literal reading of the
Torah, and more generally tried to prove from reason and scripture that this system of law is sufficient. In 1616, the text was dispatched to the leaders of the prominent
Jewish community in Venice. The Venetian rabbinic council ruled against it, prompting the
Hamburg community to sanction da Costa with a
herem, or excommunication. The
Propositions are extant only as quotes and paraphrases in
Shield and Buckler (), a lengthy rebuttal by
Leon of Modena, written in response to religious queries about da Costa posed by the Hamburg Jewish authorities. Da Costa's early work thus resulted in official excommunication in
Venice and Hamburg; it is not known what effect this had on his life. He barely mentioned it in his autobiography and continued his international business. In 1623, he moved to Amsterdam for unknown reasons. The leaders of the Amsterdam Sephardic community, troubled by the arrival of a known
heretic, staged a hearing and sanctioned the excommunication previously set in place against da Costa. At about the same time (in Hamburg or Amsterdam), da Costa was working on a second treatise. Three chapters of this unpublished manuscript were stolen and formed the target for a traditionalist rebuttal published by Semuel da Silva of Hamburg. Da Costa enlarged his book further, with the printed version containing responses to da Silva and revisions to the crux of his argument. took 8 years of work, created a huge backlash, and disappeared shortly after, and is still not extant. In 1623, da Costa published this book under the title of (Examination of Pharisaic Traditions) in Portuguese. The complete printed book was discovered in 1990 at the
Danish Royal Library by
H. P. Salomon; previously, only three chapters had been known. The work runs to over 200 pages and is divided into two parts. In the first part, da Costa develops his earlier
Propositions, considering Modena's responses and corrections. In the second part, he adds novel views that the
Hebrew Bible, especially the Torah, does not support the idea of
immortality of the soul. Da Costa believed that this was not an idea deeply rooted in biblical Judaism but rather had been formulated primarily by the
Pharisees and was a late addition to the
Jewish principles of faith. The work also pointed to supposed discrepancies between biblical Judaism and Rabbinic Judaism. He declared the latter an accumulation of mechanical
ceremonies and ritual practices. He believed it was thoroughly devoid of
spiritual and philosophical concepts. Da Costa was relatively early in arguing before a Jewish readership in favour of the mortality of the soul, and in appealing exclusively to direct reading of the bible. He cites neither rabbinic authorities nor philosophers of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic traditions. The book sparked a controversy among
Jews in Amsterdam, whose leaders reported to the (Christian) city authorities that this was an attack on Christianity as well as on Judaism. The work was
burned publicly, and da Costa was fined a significant sum. By 1627, da Costa was a denizen of
Utrecht, though the Amsterdam community still had an acrimonious relationship with him. For example, they asked a Venetian rabbi, Yaakov Ha-Levi, whether da Costa's elderly mother was eligible for a burial plot in the
Jewish cemetery. The following year, da Costa's mother died, and he went back to Amsterdam. Ultimately, the loneliness was too much for him to handle. Around 1633, he accepted the terms of reconciliation with the Jewish authorities, which he does not detail in his autobiography. He was thus reaccepted into the Jewish community. Shortly after, da Costa was tried again; he encountered two Christians who expressed to him their desire to
convert to Judaism; he dissuaded them from doing so. Based on this and earlier accusations regarding
kashrut violations, he was excommunicated again. As he describes it, for seven years, he lived in virtual isolation, shunned by his family and embroiled in civil-financial disputes with them. In search of legal help, he returned to being "an ape amongst the apes"; he would follow established Jewish traditions and practices but with little real conviction. Seeking reconciliation, he first suffered punishment for his heretical views: he was publicly given 39
lashes at the
Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam, then forced to lie on the floor while the congregation trampled over him. This ordeal left him both demoralized and thirsty for revenge against the man (a cousin or nephew) who initiated his trial seven years previously and marked the final dramatic point of his autobiography. In a document entitled
Exemplar Humanae Vitae (Example of a Human Life), da Costa tells the story of his life, intellectual development, and experiences as a victim of
intolerance. Transmitted to print in Latin some decades after his death and only a few pages long, it also expresses
rationalistic and sceptical views, including doubts about whether biblical law was divinely sanctioned or whether Moses simply wrote it down. Da Costa suggests that all
religion is a human invention, and specifically rejects formalized, ritualized religion. He further sketches an idealized religion to be based only on
natural law, as God has no use for empty ceremony, nor for violence and strife.
Suicide Two reports agree that da Costa committed suicide in Amsterdam in 1640:
Johannes Müller, a Protestant theologian of Hamburg gives the time as April, and Amsterdam
Remonstrant preacher
Philipp van Limborch adds that he set out to end the lives of both his brother (or nephew) and himself. Seeing his relative approach one day, he grabbed a pistol and pulled the trigger, but it misfired. Then he reached for another, turned it on himself, and fired, dying a reportedly terrible death. ==Influence==