ABSTRACT
Immanuel Tremellius made a significant contribution to the religious and intellectual culture of the sixteenth century. He enjoyed a long and prestigious career as a teacher of Hebrew in various Reformed universities and academies of northern Europe. He was sensitive to the changing political and religious world around him, and adapted accordingly. Tremellius' attitude to the Jews was at worst neutral; he seems to have envisaged their ultimate conversion through persuasion rather than coercion, and authored one work which could well have served that end. His views of Judaism were more positive, however, and rested primarily on the intellectual benefits it could contribute to Christian understanding. Tremellius must have anticipated hostility from Christians because of his conversion and his former association with Jews. Marranism was a term used by Christians, especially in the Iberian context, to refer to Jewish converts who, despite public conversion, continued to worship as Jews in secrecy.
