The Marrano Factory argues that the Portuguese Inquisition's stated intention of extirpating heresies and purifying Portuguese Catholicism was a monumental hoax; the true purpose of the Holy Office was the fabrication rather than the destruction of "Judaizers." The caste or "race" of the New Christians was in reality synonymous with the Portuguese mercantile middle class which conservative Portuguese society would not tolerate. Most or nearly all of the New Christian Inquisitorial victims (some 40,000 between 1540 and 1765) were unremarkable Catholics who often had minimal Jewish...