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The Jesuit Order as a Synagogue of Jews: Jesuits of Jewish Ancestry and Purity-of-Blood Laws in the Early Society of Jesus. By Robert Aleksander Maryks. [Studies in Medieval and Reformation Traditions, Vol. 146.] (Boston: Brill. 2010. Pp. xxxiv, 281. $147.00. ISBN 978-90-04-17981-3.) The Jesuit Order as a
Synagogue of Jews is a superb study of the relationship between Jesuits and New Christians-converts from Judaism and their descendants-during the three generations after the founding of the Society of Jesus in 1540. It has long been known that many New Christians joined the Society in the sixteenth century. The opposition that this influx of New Christians inspired both within and outside the Society, however, is something of which only a few specialists have been aware until recently. James W Reites and Francisco de Borja Medina have written important studies of St. Ignatius of Loyola's philosemitism and of the divisions within the Society that developed after Ignatius's death. Maryks, however, does some-thing that no one has attempted until now-he investigates the genealogical roots of dozens...