Francisco Maldonado da Silva (Jewish name: Eliahu Hanazir; 1592 in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

– 23 January 1639, in

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

)http://franciscomaldonadodasilva.blogspot.nl/ Francisco Maldonado da Silva, Retrieved August 17, 2017. was an

Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

marrano Marranos were Spanish and Portuguese Jews living in the Iberian Peninsula who converted or were forced to convert to Christianity during the Middle Ages, but continued to practice Judaism in secrecy. The term specifically refers to the char ...

'' physician who was burned at the stake with eleven other Jews in

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...

Peru , image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg , image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg , other_symbol = Great Seal of the State , other_symbol_type = National seal , national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...

, in the largest ''

Auto-da-fé An ''auto-da-fé'' ( ; from Portuguese , meaning 'act of faith'; es, auto de fe ) was the ritual of public penance carried out between the 15th and 19th centuries of condemned heretics and apostates imposed by the Spanish, Portuguese, or Mexi ...

'' recorded in history. His life has been novelized by Argentine best selling author

Marcos Aguinis Marcos Aguinis (born 13 January 1935) is an Argentine writer. Trained in medical studies, music and psychoanalysis, his work and his thoughts are focused on the notions of independence, democracy and rejection of authoritarianism. He is a propone ...

in the book Against the Inquisition.

Early life

Francisco was born in

San Miguel de Tucumán San Miguel de Tucumán (; usually called simply Tucumán) is the capital and largest city of Tucumán Province, located in northern Argentina from Buenos Aires. It is the fifth-largest city of Argentina after Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Argentina, ...

to a healthy Argentine marrano family of Portuguese

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

background. He learned about his Jewishness through his father Diego Nuñez da Silva, who was a European

physician.

Medical life

Francisco studied the scriptures and Kabbalah while he was a medical student. After a few years he took a medical posting in

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

, during that time, he decided to assume fully his Jewishness and stop living as a Christian converse (marrano converso), regaining his family's depressed Jewish tradition by performing circumcision and adopting the name ''Eliahu Hanazir'', also called popularly Eli Nazareno or Elijah the Nazarite. He grew his hair and beard and started signing his name "Heli Nazareo, unworthy servant of God of Israel, alias Silva". He was abducted at night and taken to

where he was held in the secret prisons of the Inquisition for six years. During those years, he was confronted 13 times by Catholic theologians who tried to help him find the "True Faith". His astounding knowledge made him valuable even to his enemies. He was held accountable for the

heresy Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important relig ...

of honoring the "Law of Moses", totally objectionable to the

Holy Inquisition The Inquisition was a group of institutions within the Catholic Church whose aim was to combat heresy, conducting trials of suspected heretics. Studies of the records have found that the overwhelming majority of sentences consisted of penances, ...

His martyrdom

At the time of his death, he had been imprisoned since 1627 and taken to the Colonial Inquisition Court of Lima, Peru. According to a 2010 book, he was imprisoned because he tried to convert his two sisters, who had converted to Catholicism, and as such he was denounced. The rodent '' Oecomys franciscorum'' was named after him and

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013 ...

References

Bibliography

*http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=715&letter=S * Aguinis, Marcos. '' Against the Inquisition''. AmazonCrossing, 2018. *Kohut, George Alexander. "The Trial of Fransisco Maldonado De Silva." In ''Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society'' Vol. 11 (1903), pp. 163–189. 1639 deaths Argentine Sephardi Jews Executed Chilean people 17th-century Chilean people Chilean Sephardi Jews Conversos Victims of the Inquisition Victims of antisemitic violence 17th-century executions by Spain People executed by the Spanish Inquisition People executed for heresy Jewish martyrs Argentine people of Portuguese-Jewish descent Executed Argentine people 1592 births People executed by Spain by burning People executed for refusing to convert to Christianity People from San Miguel de Tucumán {{Argentina-med-bio-stub

Early life

Medical life

His martyrdom

Further reading

References

Bibliography