Judaism and Christianity in the Late Renaissance: Internal Synthesis through Cultural Friction or Cultural Dispossession

Amnon Ratz-Krakotzkin` s revisionist approach to the history of ecclesiastical censorship during the Reformation era focuses on the rise of the Hebraist discourse: the dialectics of censorship was the historical framework within which mutual perception of Jews and Christians was even possible. Nonetheless, the Israeli historian`s argumentation has no other purpose than to demonstrate the recent westernization of the history of the Jews in modern Jewish historiography, a further act of cultural dispossession: according to Ratz-Krakotzkin`s view Jewish identity has been subsumed within Christian identity and, as such, its existence is only justified as a mere functional component of the Christian selfdefinition process. This paper will investigate the phenomenon of cultural encounters within the JewishChristian polemics, illustrating by one very concrete case what Ratz-Krakotzkin mantains, that is, all discrepancies shown in the Christian-Jewish interaction reflect, indeed, the inner contradiction that animates the Christian Hebraist debate from its very beginning. The relationship between a Neapolitan Jesuit and Hebraist, Scipione Sgambati (S.J. 1595-1652), and a Triestine Jew, Menachem Porto (c. 1600-1660) - both involved in the censorship of Hebrew books in Vienna at the Habsburg court of the CounterReformation Emperor, Ferdinand II - will display the structural ambivalence existing within the Hebraist discourse, stemming from the Christian identity crisis, and will simultaneously shed new light on how cultural friction can actually grant a cultural proximity leading to “scientific” scholarship.