Baruch Spinoza

“ Manasseh ben Israel was a prolific writer, and his books show undeniable evidence of very wide reading and extra ordinary industry. He cites not only Jewish writers like Ibn Gabriol and Maimonides, but also Euripides and Virgil, Plato and Aristotle, Duns Scotus and Albertus Magnus. Poets and legalists, mystics and rationalists—he had an appreciation for all, if not always a very intelligent appreciation. And he rather prided himself on his secular knowledge, and felt flattered when he was described, not simply as a "theologian," but also as a "philosopher" and "Doctor of Physics." ”

“ Crescas (1340-1410) had maintained that God had extension, and the Jewish Mystics taught that Nature was animated. Maimonides had denied that man was the centre of creation, maintaining that each thing exists for its own sake, and Crescas denied the validity of final causes. Maimonides also had suggested the relativity of good and evil, and Ibn Ezra and Crescas had maintained a thoroughgoing determinism.
Spinoza, however, felt the accumulated burden of all these problems, and he may already have been sufficiently influenced by Cartesian thought to refuse to accept any unproved assertions. ”

“ And the solemn days of the Jewish calendar were only made more solemn for him by tender memories of "the touch of a vanished hand, and the sound of a voice that was still."
We must not, however, exaggerate the sad side of young Spinoza's life—though it certainly had its sad side. When he was in his ninth year he received a stepmother. Being but a recent Marano refugee from Lisbon she may not have been exactly the kind of woman to inspire young Spinoza with any specially warm attachment to Judaism. ”

“ This amiable document of the "holy congregation" is nothing less than a blasphemy. It must be remembered, however, that the actual anathema was a traditional formula, and (unlike the preamble and conclusion) was not specially written for the occasion. No doubt it shows a greater familiarity with the phraseology of the Bible than with its best teaching. But the Jews who excommunicated Spinoza were no worse than their neighbours in this respect. These awful curses were but the common farewells with which the churches took leave of their insubordinate friends. ”

“ And if the Union of Utrecht did not secure real toleration for all Christian sects, much less did it guarantee anything to the Jews, who had not been contemplated in it at all, who had not even been formally admitted into the Netherlands, but whose presence had been more or less connived at. Even in 1619, when the Jewish question was definitely raised in the Netherlands, it was decided to allow each city to please itself whether it would permit Jews to live there or not. ”

“ After various fortunes and misfortunes the seven northern provinces, more or less deserted by the ten southern provinces, leagued themselves together by the Union of Utrecht, in 1579, to defend one another "with life, goods, and blood" against the forces of the King of Spain, and they decreed, at the same time, that "every citizen shall remain free in his religion, and that no man shall be molested or questioned on the subject of divine worship." ”

“ So threats were tried next; but the threat of excommunication had no effect on Spinoza. They had reached the end of their tether. The only course open to them, as they felt, was to put him under the ban. The feeling against him was, no doubt, so strong that a fanatic might have tried to do him some physical violence. And it may be that such an attack gave rise to the story of an attempt to assassinate Spinoza with a dagger, as he was leaving the Synagogue or the theatre. ”

“ A certain Mochinger, writing to Manasseh ben Israel in 1632, complained that in Bohemia and Germany he had not come across any Jew who had learnt even the rudiments of Latin ; and he goes on to en courage Manasseh to persevere with his Latin and to teach it also to others. Even in Amsterdam, where, as the same writer states, there were a number of Jews who knew Latin well, it was regarded with misgiving as the medium of a worldly wisdom, which, like the "Greek wisdom" of old, was suspected, not without reason, of leading to an estrangement from Judaism. ”

“ For the Jews of Spain numbered some of the bravest soldiers, some of the ablest Ministers of State, and, above all, some of the most resourceful financiers. The Kings of Spain and Portugal, accordingly, took the Jews under their protection, though they could not always prevent outbreaks which involved the loss of thousands of Jewish lives. During periods of respite, Jews outvied their neighbours in their devotion to literature, science, and philosophy. They produced eminent poets, celebrated doctors and astronomers, and most influential philosophers. ”

“ Yet they must not incur the responsibility for Spinoza s heresies. So at first they tried to bribe Spinoza. They promised him a considerable annuity if he would only keep quiet, and show some amount of outward conformity to his religion. They must have known well enough that silence and partial outward conformity do not alter a man's views; they were surely shrewd enough to realise that a heretic does not cease to be a heretic by becoming also a hypocrite. If their sole object had been to suppress heresy in their midst, that was not the way to gain their end. ”

“ If the Jewish community in Amsterdam felt it necessary to repudiate, in such drastic manner, their responsibility for Uriel da Costa's heresies, so as to avoid giving offence to their Christian neighbours, there was every reason why they should feel even greater discomfort on account of Spinoza's heresies in 1656. It was a critical period in the annals of Jewish history. During the Muscovite and Cossack invasion of Poland (1654-1656) entire Jewish communities were massacred by the invaders; nor did the Poles behave much better towards the Jews during the war. ”

“ If so, the scandalised fathers who repeatedly tried to persuade the city magistrates to close Van den Enden's school, and who actually did succeed in driving him out of Amsterdam eventually, would not keep very quiet about Spinoza, and the Jewish authorities would have good reason to take alarm.
Except by the select few, religious toleration was scarcely understood in those days, even in the Netherlands. That the persecuted turn persecutors has become a truism; it is sad, but it is true. ”

“ Like so many contemporary theologians he was inclined towards mysticism, it is true, but there was a touch of romance in his character, and, urged by an irresistible yearning to help his suffering brethren, his very mysticism with all its puerilities played a useful part: it prompted him to schemes which may indeed appear quixotic, which certainly brought his life to an untimely end, but which bore fruit nevertheless, and were well adapted to bear fruit in an age in which religion and superstition, the flame and the smoke, were so curiously intermingled. ”

“ Frankly admitting the possibility of a real conflict between Reason and Revelation, he openly declared that the Bible "cannot prevent us from holding that to be true which our reason prompts us to believe." Moreover, the tendency towards free thought was very much in the air ever since the Renaissance, and it affected young Jews as it affected others. For example, in 1628 there arrived in Amsterdam a Jewish scholar, Joseph Delmedigo by name, who had studied at the University of Padua. ”

“ Most probably he continued to study at the Jewish school or academy until he was eighteen, so as to give him an opportunity to develop that uncommon ability of which he showed unmistakable signs at the age of fifteen in the perplexing questions which he asked of Rabbi Morteira. At eighteen it was high time to think of a means of livelihood. His brother, or half-brother, Isaac died just about that time. His father may have thought of taking him into business. But Spinoza's tastes did not lie in the direction of business. ”

“ The Short Treatise cannot, of course, take the place of the Ethics, but it prepares the way for a much easier and more profitable study of it than is otherwise possible. The Introduction and the Commentary provide all the help that the reader is likely to require.
At the same time, the Short Treatise has a special interest for more advanced students of Spinoza as the most important aid to the study of the origin and development of his philosophy. And their needs have not been overlooked. Every care has been taken to give a faithful version of the Treatise ”

“ Benedict s grandfather is twice described in the Synagogue archives as Abraham Espinosa of Nantes, from which it would appear that he lived there some time. On the other hand, it seems that Michael (his son, and the father of Benedict) stayed at one time in Figueras, near Coimbra, and that his third wife hailed from Lisbon. And as tradition unanimously describes Spinoza as of Portuguese descent, it seems reasonable to suppose that his father and grandfather came from Spain or Portugal, and that their stay in France was only brief. ”

“ The childhood of Spinoza was no doubt happy enough. Until he was five he would be entirely under his mother's care, as was the Jewish custom. Then his school-life would begin, with its quaint introductory ceremonial. The ceremony connected with the little boy s entrance into school-life was probably one of the last, and happiest, of the poor mother's experiences. It was performed partly in school and partly in the Synagogue, of which his father was Warden at the time. ”

“ Very little is known of Spinoza's father and grandfather. They were merchants, and were evidently held in high esteem. For, already in 1622, we find Abraham Espinosa filling an important honorary office in the Amsterdam Jewish community, of which he seems to have been the recognised head in 1628. His son, Michael Espinosa, held office even more frequently. He was Warden of his Synagogue in 1633, 1637-8, 1642-3, and again in 1649-50, when he was also one of the Wardens of the Amsterdam Jewish School, and presided over the charity for granting loans without interest. ”

“ The conservatives could not understand how any one could, merely on account of personal inconvenience, deliberately ignore divinely ordained precepts—except from sheer perverseness. They failed to realise that any one who did not accept the divine origin of such customs, and did not see any very obvious moral purpose in them, would simply not think it worth while sacrificing time or anything else on their account. ”

“ Naturally, whosoever could tried to escape from the scene of slaughter. There was consequently a considerable influx of Polish Jews into Amsterdam. Now, even in the twentieth century, when countless missionaries are sent to spread the Gospel from China to Peru, Jewish refugees have been shown but scant Christian charity under similar circumstances, so we have every reason to suppose that the condition of the Amsterdam Jewish community did not gain in security through this influx of destitute refugees. ”

“ The Netherland revolt against Spain and the Inquisition was, we may be sure, followed with keen interest by the Spanish and Portuguese Maranos, who had their relatives and agents in all the European centres of commerce. The decree of toleration included in the Union of Utrecht seemed to hold out some promise to them; and the lot of the Maranos was not likely to improve (indeed their needs only became more urgent) when Portugal was conquered by Spain in 1579. About the year 1591 there arrived in Amsterdam a new consul from the King of Morocco. ”

“ One of his father's learned friends would carry him in his arms to the Synagogue, where he would be placed on the reading-dais while the Ten Commandments were read from the Scroll of the Law. Then he would be taken to school to receive his first lesson in Hebrew. Some simple Hebrew verses would be smeared on a slate with honey, and little Baruch would repeat the Hebrew letters, and eat the honey and other dainty things, so that the words of the Law might be sweet to his lips. ”

“ Spinoza was born of Jewish parents, on the 24th of November 1632, at Amsterdam. At that time the Jews of Amsterdam consisted almost entirely of refugees, or the children of refugees, who had escaped from Spain and Portugal, where they had lived as crypto-Jews, in constant dread of the Inquisition.
Spain had been the home of Jews long before the introduction of Christianity. Under non-Christian rule they enjoyed considerable power and prosperity. With the introduction of Christianity, however, came the desire to convert the Jews ”

“ Other languages and the more modern sciences, or the more modern treatmentof them, had to be studied outside the school. Spanish and Portu guese he learned from his parents ; Dutch, from his envi ronment. Morteira, who was a Venetian by birth, may have taught him some Italian ; and Manasseh ben Israel, some French. Latin, we are informed, he learned from a German scholar, possibly a certain Jeremiah Felbinger, a man of rather unorthodox reputation, who may also have taught him German. The study of Latin was not popular among the Jews at that time. ”

“ Some two hundred thousand Jews or more paid the penalty for their religious loyalty, and wandered forth from their native land, the home of their fathers and forefathers for centuries; many thousands of them only to meet with an untimely death owing to the hardships of their wanderings. ”

“ Wedged in between France and Germany, the Netherlands were naturally influenced by the Calvinism of the one and the Lutheranism of the other. Under the circumstances, to give unlimited power to the Inquisition meant practically to condemn a whole people to death. ”