- Abraham Cohen de Herrera
Abraham Cohen de Herrera ( _he. רבי אברהם כהן בן דוד דה-הירירה) also known as Alonso Nunez de Herrera or Abaham Irira (c. 1570 – c. 1635) was a religious philosopher and cabbalist. He is supposed by the historian
Heinrich Graetz to have been born in 1570. He is widely supposed to have been descended from aMarrano family: place of birth is unknown but may (according to Barbosa Machado the biographer) have beenLisbon ,Portugal . Other sources link him toItaly , specificallyTuscany , and as the son of the last Chief Rabbi of Córdoba inSpain .He is known to have married a Sara de Herrera in
Amsterdam in 1600; however, it is unlikely that this is the wife's original surname. It is also reasonably certain that he had an uncle, Juan de Marchena, who worked as a factor for the Sultan of Morocco Moulay, Achmed-el-Mansur.While in
Cadiz on theSultan 's business, Herrera is supposed to have been captured by the English, was released again after an exchange of diplomatic correspondence between the Sultan and Queen Elizabeth I, and travelled thereafter to Amsterdam, where he returned toJudaism . His date of death is between 1635 and 1639: Wiener believes it was 1635. According to Rodriguez de Castro he may have died inVienna . He wrote several works, originally in Spanish but later (in accordance with his will) translated to Hebrew.Works
*"Epistle on Shiur Qomah", an attempted reconciliation between
kabbalah and philosophy. However, asAlexander Altmann , writes "Herrera was too much of a genuine philosopher to believe in the possibility of a fusion of the two realms, and he was too much of a genuine kabbalist to wish for it."*"Puerta Del Cielo", a discourse on
kabbalah and religious themes ofJudaism ,Christianity , andIslam , in relation to Occidentalism & Platonic philosophy. Among few texts of the Kabbalah written and directed toward common readership; criticized as such.*Abraham Cohen Herrera, Epitome y Compendio de la Logica o Dialectica, reprinted and edited by Giuseppa Saccaro Del Buffa, with a critical introduction in English, CLUEB, Bologna, 2002.
ources
*Bartleby.com, German Jewish Encyclopaedia, independent genealogical research.
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