Description
Book SynopsisThis exploration of a Jewish-born Catholic missionary in the Ottoman Empire is ideal for students, scholars, and anyone interested in gaining a better understanding of the experiences of converts in the early modern Mediterranean and beyond, and the larger implications of conversion for the identities of individuals and societies.
Trade Review'Robert Clines's informed and sensitive reconstruction of Gian Battista Eliano's life asks critical questions about early modern conversion: how it was felt, constructed, and revisited. This case study comprehends the full complexity of early modern conversion and the many anxieties, enthusiasms, and suspicions it engendered. It shows how conversion remained a lifelong event, requiring converts to negotiate and renegotiate their past lives and also their new selves, constantly proving loyalty amid unstable circumstances and shifting affiliations. In examining how Eliano crossed many borders of faith, region, and community, Clines also shows us more broadly how to see early modern selfhood.' Emily Michelson, University of St Andrews
'… Clines tells a remarkable story based on original sources, chiefly Eliano's letters.' P. Grendler, Choice
Table of Contents1. Becoming a Jewish Jesuit: Eliano's early years; 2. Jesuit missionary or Jewish renegade? Eliano's confrontation with his Jewish past; 3. Jesuit anti-Judaism and the fear of Eliano's Jewishness on the first mission to the Maronites of Lebanon; 4. Textual transmission, pastoral ministry, and the re-fashioning of Eliano's intellectual training; 5. Revisiting Eliano's Jewishness on his return to Egypt; 6. The Coptic mission, Mediterranean geopolitics, and the mediation of Eliano's Jewish and Catholic identities; 7. Eliano's reconciliation with his Jewishness in his later years.
