In its earliest form, this article was delivered as a paper at a conference on “The Transformation of Jewish Society in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries” at the Van Leer Jerusalem Foundation, Jerusalem, January 1986, and in revised form at the Annual Conference of the Renaissance Society of America, Stanford University, March 26–29,1992. I would like to thank everyone who has commented on it, especially Marvin Becker and Todd Endelman.

1. In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of scholars in the English-speaking world took an interest in the early modern discourse of classical republicanism or civic humanism. See, in particular, Baron, Hans, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance: Civic Humanism and Republican Liberty in an Age of Classicism and Tyranny(1955; rev. ed., Princeton, 1966);Google ScholarFerguson, A.B., The Articulate Citizen and the English Renaissance(Durham, N.C., 1965);Google ScholarBouwsma, W.J., Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter Reformation(Berkeley, 1968);Google ScholarHanson, D.W., From Kingdom to Commonwealth: The Development of Civic Consciousness in English Political Thought(Cambridge, Mass., 1970);CrossRefGoogle ScholarPocock, J.G.A., The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition(Princeton, 1975); and Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought,2 vols. (Cambridge, 1978). The role of classical political thinking among the Dutch was recognized and analyzed by a Dutch scholar: E. H. Kossman, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland(Amsterdam, 1960). Especially since the publication of Pocock's Machiavellian Momentand Skinner's Foundations of Modern Political Thought,a lively debate has emerged about the relationship between humanist rhetoric and Renaissance republicanism, between language and political life. (See, inter alia, Anthony Pagden, ed., The Languages of Political Theory in Early-Modern Europe[Cambridge, 1987] and James Tully, ed., Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics[Cambridge, 1988].) The discussion has also broadened to include political thinking outside Italy, England, and the early American republic. See, for example, the studies in H. Koenigsberger, ed., Republiken und Republikanismus in Europa der Friihen Neuzeit(Munich, 1988). A number of studies have focused on the Netherlands in particular. See E. H. Kossman, “Dutch Republicanism,” in L 'età? dei Lumi. Studi storici sull settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi(Rome, 1985), vol. 1, pp. 453–486; G. O. van de Klashorst, “Metten schijn van monarchic getempert. De verdediging van het stadhouderschap in de partijliteratur, 1650–1686,” in Pieter De la Court in zijn tijd,ed. H. W. Blom and I. W. Wildenberg (Maarssen, 1986), pp. 93–136; Eco Haitsma Mulier, “The Language of Seventeenth-Century Republicanism in the United Provinces: Dutch or European?” in Pagden, Languages of Political Theory,pp. 179–195; and Martin van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt, 1555–1590(Cambridge, 1992).Google Scholar

2. On the background and significance of this term, see Bodian, Miriam, “ ‘Men of the Nation’: The Shaping of Converso Identity in Early Modern Europe,” Past and Present,no. 143 (1994), pp. 48–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3. See Melamed, Avraham, “Aristotle's Politics in Jewish Thought in the Middle Ages and Renaissance” (Hebrew), Pe'amim 51 (1992): 27–69; idem, “Jethro's Advice in Medieval and Early Modern Jewish and Christian Political Thought,” Jewish Political Studies Review 2(1990): 3–41.Google Scholar

4. Commentary on I Samuel 8:4–6.

5. On Abravanel's religio-political interpretation of Ex. 18:13, Deut. 17:14, Judges 18:7, and I Samuel 8:4–6, there is now a considerable literature. Still important is the analysis of Leo Strauss, “On Abravanel's Philosophical Tendency and Political Teaching,” which is careful to place Abravanel's “republicanism” in the context of his exegetical concerns and his overall theological outlook. Benzion Netanyahu's analysis in Don Isaac Abravanel, Statesman and Philosopher(Philadelphia, 1953), pp. 150–194, follows Strauss in many ways, but is more detailed and stresses Abravanel's conviction of the theologically based uniqueness of the Jews' political structures. Both Strauss and Netanyahu regard AbravaneFs antimonarchism as deviating from Jewish traditions and influenced by Christian ideas. In this they are challenged by Gerald Blidstein, who seeks to show that antimonarchic views have solid roots in a rabbinic tradition according to which the Jews, who had God as their king, acted in rebellion against God when they urged Samuel to institute an earthly king. See Gerald Blidstein, “The Monarchic Imperative in Rabbinic Perspective,” AJS Review7–8 (1982–83): 15–39. On Abravanel's “republicanism,” see also Reuven Kimelman, “Abravanel and the Jewish Republican Ethos,” in Commandment and Community: New Essays in Jewish Legal and Political Philosophy,ed. Daniel Frank (Albany, N.Y., 1995), pp. 195–216; Aviezer Ravitsky, “On Kings and Statutes in Jewish Thought in the Middle Ages: From R. Nissim Gerondi to R. Isaac Abravanel,” in Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson(Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 469–491; Avraham Melamed, “Aristotle's Politics”; idem, “Jethro's Advice”; idem, “The Attitude Toward Democracy in Medieval Jewish Philosophy,” in Frank, Commandment and Community,pp. 173–194; and Amos Funkenstein, “The Image of the Ruler in Jewish Sources,” in his Perceptions of Jewish History(Berkeley, 1993), pp. 155–168.

6. A helpful glossary of Venetian institutional terms can be found in Queller, Donald, The Venetian Patriciate: Reality versus Myth(Urbana, 111., 1986), pp. 343–348.Google Scholar

7. On the use of biblical models in early modern political thinking, see Robinson, S. B., “The Biblical Hebrew State as an Example of the Ideal Government in the Writings of Political Thinkers of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries” (Hebrew), in Robinson, , ed., Hinukh ben hemshekhiut u-petihut(Jerusalem, 1975), pp. 13–69.Google Scholar On the ambivalent attitudes to Mosaic law as judicial precedent among Protestant reformers, see Avis, P.D.L., “Moses and the Magistrate–A Study in the Rise of Protestant Legalism,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 26 (1975): 149–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8. On this aspect of English thinking, see Fisch, Harold, Jerusalem and Albion: The Hebraic Theme in Seventeenth Century Literature(New York, 1964)Google Scholar and Mazzeo, Joseph Anthony, “Cromwell as Davidic King,” in Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century Studies(New York, 1964), pp. 183–208.Google Scholar Concerning the Dutch, the phenomenon is discussed in E. H. Kossman, In Praise of the Dutch Republic: Some Seventeenth-Century Attitudes(London, 1963), pp. 12–15, and Schama, Simon, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age(New York, 1987), pp. 93–125. Kossman and Schama differ considerably in their assessments of the national specificity of Dutch conceptions of chosenness (especially relative to the English); Kossman minimizes it, while Schama emphasizes it.Google Scholar

9. Cardoso, , Excelencias,p. 22. And see Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi, From Spanish Court to Italian Ghetto(Seattle, 1981), pp. 383–384.1 have relied on Yerushalmi's translation, as far as it goes.Google Scholar

10. Cardoso's thorough acquaintance with the Renaissance myth of Venice is reflected in the dedication of his Philosophia liberato the doge and Senate of Venice; the dedication has been published in Yerushalmi, Spanish Court,pp. 219–220.

11. See Yerushalmi, , Spanish Court,p. 383. And cf. A. Posnanski, Schiloh, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Messiaslehre(Leipzig, 1904); B. Blumenkranz, Juifs et Chretiens dans le Monde Occidental(Paris, 1960), pp. 227–237; David Berger, The Jewish-Christian Debate in the High Middle Ages(Philadelphia, 1979), p. 251.Google Scholar

12. See Berger, , Jewish-Christian Debate,p. 22 (English trans., pp. 61–62).Google Scholar

13. In fact, Cardoso associates both terms with communal government, distinguishing between the form of community rule (“scepter”) and those entrusted with it (“scribe”).

14. In a memorandum drawn up in 1631 for the Venetian authorities, the Jewish community of Venice was attacked for assuming exclusive jurisdiction over the Jews, thus making itself “una Repubblica da ogn'altro Dominio separata,” an intolerable situation. See Benjamin Ravid, “ 'A Republic Separate from All Other Government': Jewish Autonomy in Venice in the Seventeenth Century” (Hebrew), in Hagut u-maaseh: sefer zikaron le-Shimon Ravidovits,ed. Grinboim and Ivri (Tel Aviv, 1983), p. 56 and Appendix, Document 6; for other examples, see pp. 59, 61.

15. The preamble has been published (along with the statutes) in Bodian, M., “The Escamot of the Spanish-Portuguese Jewish Community of London, 1664,” Michael 9 (1985): 16.Google Scholar

16. It should be noted that “republic” bears a number of meanings in the seventeenth century, and should be understood according to context. It may be used to designate a nonmonarchic regime, but it is frequently used in the wider sense of “commonwealth” and in this sense can be found applied to Catholic France or Spain. In some instances it refers to a social rather than a political entity, as when Isaac Orobio de Castro speaks of the Jews as a “republica esparsida por todo el mundo, mas castigada con la privacion del antigo dominio” (Prevenciones divinas contra la vana Idolatria de las gentes,MS Ets Haim 48D6, fol. 63v).

17. See Hanson, From Kingdom to Commonwealth.

18. On the myth of Venice and its influence on political thinking, seeGilbert, F., Machiavelli and Guicciardini: Politics and History in Sixteenth-Century Florence(Princeton, 1965), pp. 203–301;Google Scholar idem, “The Venetian Constitution in Florentine Political Thought,” in Florentine Studies, Politics and Society in Renaissance Florence,ed. N. Rubinstein (London, 1968), pp. 463–500; W. J. Bouwsma, Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty;idem, “Venice and the Political Education of Europe,” in Renaissance Venice,ed. J. R. Hale (London, 1973), pp. 445–466; M. Gilmore, “Myth and Reality in Venetian Political Theory,” in ibid., pp. 431–444; Z. S. Fink, The Classical Republicans: An Essay in the Recovery of a Pattern of Thought in Seventeenth-Century England(Northwestern University Press, 1962), pp. 28–190; Edward Muir, Civic Ritual in Renaissance Venice(Princeton, 1981), pp. 13–61; Eco Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century(Assen, 1980); Robert Finlay, Politics in Renaissance Venice(New Brunswick, 1980), pp. 14–43.

19. Barrios, Daniel Levi de, Triumpho del govierno popular, y de la Antiguedad Holandesa(Amsterdam, 1683-1684), pp. 1–58 (hereafter cited as TGP).I have used Exemplar B (Ets Haim, 9 E 43). The arrangement and contents of the extant copies of this work vary somewhatGoogle Scholar

20. In particular, we may mention his friendships with the cosmographer Nicolas de Oliver y Fullana and with Tomás de Pinedo, author of a voluminous commentary on the geographical dictionary of Stephen of Byzantium. See Scholberg, Kenneth, “Miguel de Barrios and the Amsterdam Sephardic Community,” Jewish Quarterly Review 53 (1962-1963): 145, 149–150.Google Scholar

21. On De Barrios's difficulties with the community leadership, see especially I. S. Révah, “Les écrivains Manuel de Pina et Miguel de Barrios et la Censure de la Communauté Judéo-Portugaise d' Amsterdam,” Tesoro de los Judios Sefardies8 (1965): lxxxi-xc.

22. It is known that De Barrios received financial aid from the parnassim(see W. Chr. Pieterse, Daniel Levi de Barrios als geschiedschrijver van de Portugees-Israelitische Gemeente te Amsterdam in zijn “Triumpho del govierno popular”[Amsterdam, 1968], pp. 22–23 and Appendix 3, pp. 144–145). For further evidence of his financial difficulties during the period in question, see his “Al muy Inclito Govierno del Kahal Kados de Londres” in TGP,pp. 719–722.

23. TGP,pp. 2, 58.

24. I have used a copy of this quite rare work owned by Columbia University.

25. TGP, p.2.

26. Ibid., p. 22.

27. Ibid., p. 8.

28. Sepher hajaschar, Das Heldehbuch,ed. Goldschmidt, Lazarus (Berlin, 1923), pp. 8–14.Google Scholar

29. Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum,ed. Kisch, G. (Notre Dame, Ind., 1949, pp. 123–130.Google Scholar

30. TGP,p. 8.

31. Ibid., p. 19.

32. In the text, “reciprocro.”

33. The passage appears in TGP,pp. 5–7.

34. See Commentary on I Kings 1 Frankfurt ed., 1736, fol. 196, col. 4.

35. He was perhaps relying on Cardoso's adaptation of Abravanel. See Cardoso, Excelencias,pp. 225–226

36. TGP,pp. 5–7.

37. See Pieterse, , Daniel Levi de Barrios,p. 17.Google Scholar

38. On the currents of Dutch republicanism, see Mulier, Myth of Venice,and Hans Blom, “Virtue and Republicanism: Spinoza's Political Philosophy in the Context of the Dutch Republic,” in Koenigsberger, Republiken und Republikanismus,pp. 204–205.

39. Kossman, , “Dutch Republicanism,” p. 472.Google Scholar

40. TGP,p. 4. In another passage, too, he expressed his general conviction that the people could best govern themselves, since government was for their sake: “Aristotle and Plato have said, 'The people are not made for the sake of the ruler, but the ruler for the sake of the people.' From this I conclude that popular rule is better than that of the nobility and the king” {TGP,p. 7).

41. Ibid., pp. 23–24.

42. De Barrios cited as his source a work by the Franciscan scholar Juan de Pineda, La Monarquia eclesiastia, y Historia universal del Mundo desde su creaión(Salamanca, 1588). I have not seen this work. However, it would appear that Pineda was drawing from the passage in Contra Apionemin which Josephus cited the Egyptian chronicler Manetho, who identified the Jews with the “king-shepherds” expelled from Egypt (Loeb Classical Library ed., I, pp.

43. TGP,pp. 28–33.

44. “Con potestad absoluta como si fuera Republica de por si” {TGP,p. 31). For the passage from Strabo, see M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism(Jerusalem, 1974), vol. 1, p. 278. And cf. Cardoso, Excelencias,p. 17.

45. TGP, p.28.

46. Ibid., p. 35.

47. Ibid., p. 461; and see pp. 461–463. The general theme is reiterated on p. 322.

48. Ibid., p. 642.

49. Ibid., pp. 642–643. The theme recurs in fanciful fashion elsewhere: “El Governador, y Magistrado es una Ley que habla: y la Ley es un Hombre que tiene por huessos los 248 Preceptos Afirmativos: y por nervios y venas sus 365 Preceptos Negativos” (p. 395).

50. Ibid., p. 623. Cf. Cardoso, Excelencias,pp. 14, 33.

51. Ibid., pp. 646–647. Cf. Cardoso, Excelencias,p. 279.

52. That this is what De Barrios meant by the phrase triumpho del govierno popularis revealed most explicitly in a passage describing the early days of the Amsterdam community, in which he alluded to the return to Jewish tradition as the triumpho de la Mosayca Ley (TGP,p. 407). De Barrios was able to depict the community as he did because he did not view its government from the point of view of institutional structure and dynamics, as one would expect if he were actually interested in political theory. It was within a larger historical and theoretical framework that he regarded the Amsterdam community; and this permitted him to view the complex process by which the community came into being as a rather simple act of collective will. Insofar as De Barrios did dwell on the structure of the community and its institutions–and he did so only very briefly–he presented a scheme which appears to have drawn from the classical republican notion of mixed government, and which seems designed to obscure the overwhelming subordination of all other communal institutions in the Amsterdam community to the Mahamad. “The popular Jewish government of Amsterdam,” he wrote, “is divided into four types of government: political, rabbinic, charitable, and academic.” He surveyed each of these separately. While he noted that the political body, the Mahamad, had authority over the rabbinic body (the bet din) “regarding the synagogue and in financial matters,” the overall impression he gave was one of a community in which power was fragmented and balanced far more than was actually the case. (See the opuscule “Govierno popular judayco,” TGP,pp. 488–505.)

53. TGP,pp. 41, 42, 47. See also p. 397.

54. Ibid., pp. 46–47.

55. On the classical humanist roots of the Batavian myth, see I. Schöfer, “The Batavian Myth during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” Britain and the Netherlands5 (1975): 78–101.

56. Pseudo-Philo,pp. 123–130.

57. TGP,pp. 18, 22, 47–48. Alexander Polyhistor relates only that a woman named Moso gave the Law to the Jews (M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors,I, p. 163). Suidas, also cited by De Barrios, gives the same information (Suidae Lexicon,ed. Ada Adler, vol. 1, p. 104 1. 34). In addition, De Barrios cited Tomas de Pinedo's commentary on Stephen of Byzantium as a source. I have not seen this.

58. TGP,pp. 47–48.

59. Ibid., p. 398.

60. Ibid., p. 421.

61. See Ibid., pp. 47, 420.