URIEL DA COSTA was born in Oporto in 1585. After much soul-searching, he decided to flee to Amsterdam, only to discover that his version of Judaism was at variance with that of the Dutch community. He ultimately was incapable of reconciling his concepts of the Jewish faith with the accepted norms of the rabbis. He criticized the "Pharisees of Amsterdam" as rigid and ritualistic. He was eventually excommunicated and publicly humiliated and he left the Jewish community. His autobiography, the "Examplar Humanae Vitae," gives us a moving account of his unsuccessful efforts to return to Judaism. He apparently committed suicide soon after writing this work.

"I was born in Portugal, in a city of the same name, but commonly called Oporto. My parents were of the nobility, originally descended from those Jews who were forced to embrace Christianity in that kingdom. My father was a true Christian and a man of unquestioned honor and integrity. I received a good education at home. I studied liberal arts as young gentlemen generally do and I applied myself to the study of law. As to my character and disposition, I am by nature very pious and compassionate? I always had an aversion to that insolent tribe of men who are inclined to despise and trample upon others, and I therefore took every opportunity to defend the oppressed and to make their cause my own.

Religion has brought incredible suffering in my life. I was raised in Roman Catholicism but the dread of eternal damnation always made me anxious to observe all its doctrines punctiliously. I used my leisure time to read the Gospels, the Breviaries of the Confessors and other religious literature. But the more time I devoted to them, the more perplexed I became. This caused me so much anguish, doubts and inner conflicts that I was overwhelmed with grief and melancholy...

I found it difficult, however, to shake off the religion in which I had been educated from childhood on. When I was twenty years old, I began to question the teachings concerning the afterlife. I asked myself whether or not they were forgeries and whether belief in them was consistent with reason?

In my twenty fifth year, I obtained an ecclesiastical benefice as treasurer in the Church, but I was unable to find satisfaction in the Catholic Church. I wanted, however, to attach myself to a religion and so, I studied the Books of Moses and the Prophets. I found that there were some sharp contradictions with some of the doctrines of the New Testament? Hence I decided to become a convert to the Law of Moses and make it the rule of my life. Having made this decision and finding it unsafe to profess this religion in Portugal, I began to think of leaving my native home. I resigned from my ecclesiastical benefice?

I observed in Amsterdam that the customs and ordinances of the modern Jews were quite different from those commanded by Moses. If the law was to be observed to the letter as it expressly declares, the Jewish interpreters are not justified in adding to it interpretations that are quite contrary to the original text. And this led me to oppose them openly. The modern rabbis are an obstinate group of men?vigorous advocates of the teachings of the Pharisees?They could not bear my differing with them?

Besides, I thought it both sinful and beneath the dignity of man, to be a slave with respect to matters pertaining to the conscience. Therefore I resolved to suffer the worst they would inflict upon me from their congregation. Even my own brothers who before had looked upon me as their teacher, dared not take any notice of me as they passed me in the street, for fear of the rabbis?"