However, in this thick unsightly crust over-spreading the Kabbala, some rifts and chinks appeared, which indicated disintegration. Here and there were found unprejudiced men, who felt and expressed doubts as to the truth of Judaism in its later Rabbinical and Kabbalistic form. Many went further, and included Talmudical interpretation. Others advanced from doubt to certainty, and proceeded more or less openly against the existing form of Judaism. Such inquirers, of course, were not to be met with among German and Polish, nor among Asiatic Jews; these considered every letter in the Talmud and Zohar, every law in the code (Shulchan Aruch) as the inviolable word of God. The doubters were only in Italian and Portuguese communities, which had relations with educated circles. A pious adherent of tradition, Immanuel Aboab, of Portuguese origin, who had long resided in Italy, felt called upon to compose a defense of the Judaism of the Talmud and the rabbis (Nomologia, composed 1616-1625), showing an unbroken chain of exponents of true tradition down to his own time, a well-meant, but not very convincing work. The confused Kabbalist Naphtali Frankfurter complained of his contemporaries who ridiculed the Talmud. Three or four gifted investigators more or less frankly revealed the scepticism working beneath the surface. These three men, differing in character, mode of life, and position, were Uriel Acosta, Judah Leo Modena, and Joseph Delmedigo; we may perhaps add Simone Luzzatto to the list. They endeavored to lay bare the disadvantages and weaknesses of existing Judaism; but not one of them was able to suggest or apply a remedy. Uriel da Costa (Gabriel Acosta, born about 1590, died April, 1640) was an original character, whose inward unrest and external course of life could not but bring him into conflict with Judaism. He was descended from a Portuguese Marrano family at Oporto, whose members had been made sincere believers in Christ by the terrors of the Inquisition. His father, at least, who belonged to the higher classes in Portugal, had become a strict Catholic. Young Gabriel learnt ecclesiasticism and the accomplishments of a cavalier from his father, was, like him, a good rider, and entered upon a course of education, limited, indeed, but sufficient for that time. He adopted the only career open to young Portuguese of the upper middle class, by means of which the gifted could rise to distinction, and to a certain equality with the nobility. He was prepared for the law, a study which might pave the way to the second rank, the clerical. In his youth the Jesuits had already obtained powerful influence over men's minds, and their methods of exciting the imagination and subduing the intellect by depicting everlasting damnation and the punishments of hell had proved effectual. Nothing but punctilious, mechanical worship and continual confession could overcome the terrors of hell.