Nicolas Antoine
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Nicolas Antoine (c.1602 – April 20, 1632) was a French Protestant theologian and pastor who attempted to convert to Judaism, although he was never officially admitted to Judaism, due to fears by the Jewish community that persecutions would happen if it became known that he was an apostate of Christianity. He was advised instead to live the life of a crypto-Jew. He suffered martyrdom by being burned at the stake in Geneva on April 20, 1632.
Nicolas Antoine was born of Catholic parents in 1602 or 1603 at Briey, a small town of Lorraine. Among his ancestors were a Jewish family who had converted to Christianity.[1] For five years he attended the college at Luxemburg, and was then sent to Pont-à-Mousson, Treves, and Cologne for higher instruction under the Jesuits. They seemed to have little influence over him, as by the time he returned to Briey, at the age of twenty, he was no longer an ardent Catholic.
The doctrines of Protestantism attracted him, and he allowed himself to be converted by the fervent eloquence of Paul Ferry,[2] a preacher of reputation, and pastor of the Reformed Church in Metz. The young convert then attended the academies of Sedan[3] and Geneva in order to study the Reformed faith, but the deeper he delved into the study of Protestantism the less fervent became his enthusiasm; and he very soon arrived at the most unexpected conclusion; namely, that the Old Testament alone contained the truth.[4]
Crypto-Judaism
The rabbinate of Metz refused to receive the young man into Judaism, offering as an excuse the fear of reprisals on the part of the authorities, and Antoine was advised to go to the Netherlands or to Italy, where Jews enjoyed more liberty.[3] Accompanied by a Christian clergyman whom he had known in Sedan, and whom he attempted to convert to Judaism on the way, he traveled to Venice. There he found that the prevailing conditions had been too favorably depicted. The Jews were tolerated by the Venetian Republic merely for commercial reasons; they lived in the Venetian Ghetto and were obliged to wear a yellow disk. The Venetian Jews could offer Antoine no more encouragement than their brethren of Metz. At Padua he met with a similar check. According to the documents produced at his trial, the Italian Jews gave him the "diabolical advice" to pursue the life of a pious Jew under the cloak of the Church. Antoine proceeded to Geneva, where he accepted a position as tutor in the family of the pastor and professor Diodati. For some time he also taught the upper class of the college, but, being an apostate from Catholicism, he was not considered sufficiently orthodox to be entrusted with the chair of philosophy at the Academy of Geneva.
