'Secret Synagogues': Fact and Fantasy from Portugal to Macau

Abstract

Ideas and fantasies about Jews and Judaism have constituted an integral part of the cultural matrix though which Christians in the Western World have fashioned their understanding of the world. This article examines the claims made by the Jesuit Francisco de Meneses and inquisitor Rui Sodrinho de Mesquita concerning the existence of a large community of Judaizing conversos established in Macau and seeking to operate a secret synagogue. When analyzed against the well established trend amongst early modern Spanish and Portuguese writers to vastly exaggerate the size of converso communities and the extent of judaizing, a necessary note of caution must arise in the way that such claims about Judaizing conversos are treated by historians.