BENEDICTUS de SPINOZA
(1632? -1677)

Dr. A Wolf's 1910 Introduction to his Translation of

Spinoza's "Short Treatise on G-D,

Man and his Well-Being" (ST)



 

Notes by JBY:

1.  The text of the Wolf's Introduction—the "Life of Spinoza" and "History of the Short Treatise",
     was taken from Book XXIII. Page Numbers given refer to this book.  

    For Wolf's unabridged translation of the Short Treatise see Terry Neff's Web Site.
    For a translation and commentary of the Short Treatise by Edwin Curley see Bk.VIII:46. 

2.  For Runes' abridged version of Spinoza's "Short Treatise on G-D, Man, and His Well-Being"       see Book XXII scanned herein.  


 3.Symbols:  


4.  See Short Treatise Notes 4, 5, and 6.


5. I have changed "Old Testament" to "Hebrew Bible" throughout where Torah is intended.


6.  For note to Encyclopædia Britannica links given herein, see here.
      "Spinoza, Benedict de" on Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
 

Book XXIII Title Page


Page V - See Note 1.
PREFACE

[i-1]   THIS volume is primarily intended to be an introduction to the philosophy of Spinoza. The Short Treatise, though by no means free from difficulties, is well adapted for the purpose. It contains the essentials of Spinoza's philosophy in a less exacting form than the Ethics with its rigid geometric method. 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.

[i-2]   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; notice is taken of all variant readings and notes which are likely to be of any importance; even peculiarities of punctuation and the lavish use of capital letters are for the most part reproduced here from the Dutch manuscripts. And the Introduction and the Commentary, though largely superfluous for the advanced student, will, it is hoped, also be found to contain something that may be interesting and helpful even to him.

[i-3]   The Translation was, in the first instance, based on the Dutch text contained in Van Vloten and Land's second edition of Spinoza's works. Subsequently, however, I spent a very considerable amount of time and trouble in going through the manuscripts themselves, with the result that the present version may, I think, claim to be more complete than any of the published editions or translations.

[i-4]   The Life of Spinoza, which forms the greater part of the Introduction, is based on an independent study of all the available material. This material has been considerably increased in recent years by the researches of the late Prof. Freudenthal, Dr. K. O. Meinsma, and Dr. W. Meyer, so that the older biographies of Spinoza require correction in some respects. I have also utilised to a greater extent than has been done hitherto all that is known of contemporary Page VI Jewish history and Jewish life, and have devoted more attention to Manasseh ben Israel than he has so far received in this connection. It has not been thought necessary to give detailed references to authorities, because the earliest biographies and all the available documents relating to Spinoza have been edited by Prof. Freudenthal in a single volume under the title of Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas, and the evidence can easily be found there. For the general history of the period I consulted Motley, Blok, and the Cambridge Modern History; and Graetz, for his History of the Jews.

[i-5]   In the second part of the Introduction I confined myself to such a general statement of the history, &c., of the Short Treatise as may be followed without any previous knowledge of the Treatise itself, leaving details for the Commentary, where they are dealt with as occasion arises. By the aid of facsimiles {not reproduced herein} the reader is enabled to judge for himself on various matters which would otherwise have to be taken on trust. In the preparation of this part and of the remainder of the volume I found the writings of Prof. Freudenthal, Dr. W. Meyer, and C. Sigwart very helpful, and I am also indebted more or less to the other writers mentioned on pp. cxxviif., or in other parts of the volume.

[i-6]   In conclusion, I desire to acknowledge my obligations to all who have helped me in any way. Dr. Byvanck (Librarian of the Royal Library, The Hague) and Mr. Chambers (Librarian of University College, London) have enabled me to consult the MSS. with as little inconvenience as possible. The Royal Society has given me permission to reproduce the facsimile on p. Ix. Prof. S. Alexander, of the University of Manchester, has read the Introduction in proof, and made valuable suggestions. I wish to thank them all very cordially, and I hope that the usefulness of the result may in some measure compensate for all the trouble given and taken in the preparation of this volume.

                                                                                                     A. WOLF
Harrow, November 1909
 
 


 

                               CONTENTS

                                                                                       Page # of Book XXIII

INTRODUCTION                                                                                ix

TRANSLATION OF THE SHORT TREATISE.                Bk.XXII Translation is given herein.
                   (See Separate Table of Contents, pp. 9, 10.                       1   Not Scanned

COMMENTARY                                                                                  163   Not Scanned

INDEX                                                                                                 241     Not Scanned

JBY ENDNOTES


 

Page xl
THE LIFE OF SPINOZA
 

§ I. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS

[I-1]   BARUCH or Benedict (Benedictus is simply the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew Baruch) 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 {Crypto—a person who secretly supports or adheres to a group, party, or belief.}, in constant dread of the Inquisition {see Note 6}.

[I-2]   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; and as the Church was not very nice or scrupulous about the methods employed, there commenced a series of intermittent barbarities which stained the annals of medieval Christianity for many centuries. Fortunately for the Jews these persecutions were neither universal nor constant. Bad blood broke out now here, now there, but there were usually also healthy spots, and healthy members, immune from the fell disease. While the fanaticism of the mob was often irritated by envy, the fanaticism of princes was, as a rule, overcome by their personal interests. 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  Page xii their devotion to literature, science, and philosophy. They produced eminent poets, celebrated doctors and astronomers, and most influential philosophers. Indeed the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries have come to be regarded as the golden age in the history of the Jews since the dispersion, and that chiefly through the distinction achieved by the Jews of Spain. But fanaticism neither slumbered nor slept. And the climax was reached in the year 1492, when, under the baneful influence of Torquemada, the Jews were expelled from Spain, in spite of the golden promises made by Ferdinand and Isabella so long as they needed Jewish aid against Moorish foes. Baptism or banishment—such were the alternatives offered to the Jews. And those who preferred the wanderer's staff to the baptismal font were prohibited from taking away their gold or silver with them. 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. Some fifty thousand, however, chose baptism, and remained in Spain. Many of them remained Jews at heart, fighting the Jesuits with their own weapons, until an opportunity should present itself of making good their escape with what worldly goods they possessed. Some of these crypto-Jews (or Maranos, (The etymology of the name Marano is uncertain. But it seems to have been applied to the New Christians in the sense of "the damned," possibly in allusion to 1 Corinthians, xvi. 22: If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema maranatha.) as they were called), as also many of the original exiles of 1492, found refuge for a time in Portugal. But only for a short time. Soon the hounds of the Inquisition were on the scent for the Jewish blood of the New Christians, in Portugal as well as in Spain. The most frivolous pretext served as sufficient evidence. Countless converts, or descendants Page xiii of converts, were condemned to the dungeon, the rack and the stake without mercy, while princes and priests shared the spoils without scruple. No wonder that the eyes of Spanish and Portuguese Maranos were ever strained in search of cities of refuge. About a century after the expulsion from Spain, good tidings came from the revolted Netherlands.

[I-3]   Not content with the wholesale expulsion and slaughter of Jews and Moors, the Spanish Inquisition turned its attention to all Christians who were in any way suspected of the slightest disloyalty to Roman Catholicism. And the work of this "holy office" was vastly extended in scope when the religious policy of Ferdinand and Isabella was adopted by their grandson, the Emperor Charles V., who desired nothing less than the entire extermination of all heresies and heretics, so that the world and the fulness thereof might be reserved for the exclusive enjoyment of Roman Catholics, with the Emperor at their head. In accordance with his policy he issued various edicts for the extirpation of sects and heresies, and introduced the Inquisition into the Netherlands, with which alone we are here concerned. On the abdication of Charles in 1555, his son, King Philip II., continued his religious policy, only with far greater zeal. Within a month of his accession to the throne he re-enacted his father's edicts against heresy, and four years later he obtained from Pope Paul IV, a Bull for an ominous strengthening of the Church in the Netherlands. Instead of the four Bishoprics then existing, there were to be three Archbishoprics with fifteen Bishoprics under them, each Bishop to appoint nine additional prebendaries, who were to assist him in the matter of the Inquisition, two of these to be inquisitors themselves. Four thousand Spanish troops were stationed in the Netherlands, the government was more or less in the hands of Anthony Perrenot, Archbishop of Mechlin (better known as Cardinal Granvelle), a kind of Torquemada after Philip's own heart, and his underling the Page xiv inquisitor Peter Titelmann, who rushed through the country like a tempest, and snatched away whole families to their destruction, without being called to account by any one. Fortunately for the Netherlands, William of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland and Utrecht, had learned from King Henry of France the whole extent of Philip's bloody schemes for the extirpation of dissenters. Though at that time a Catholic himself, he revolted from such heartless inhumanity in the guise of religion, and determined to watch and wait. In the meantime, the holy inquisitors had ample opportunity to slake their unholy thirst. Wedged in between France and Germany, the Netherlands were naturally influenced by the Calvinism {the doctrines and teachings of John Calvin or his followers, emphasizing predestination, the sovereignty of God, the supreme authority of the Scriptures, and the irresistibility of grace} 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. The people were furious. Various leagues and confederacies were formed. The position of affairs seemed for a time so threatening that the Regent, Margaret of Parma, a worthy disciple of Loyola, granted an Accord in 1566 in which the Inquisition was abolished. But this was only done to gain time by duping the rather tactless malcontents. The following year, 1567, there appeared on the scene Alva, the most bloodthirsty and unscrupulous villain even of his generation. He brought with him ten thousand veteran troops to purge the Netherlands of heretics. And now commenced the grim struggle for existence which was to last eighty long years (1567-1647). 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." The united provinces managed to hold their own under the leadership of "Father William," Page xv  the silent but sleepless guardian of his country's fortunes. Commerce also soon revived, for Dutch sailors were more than a match for the Spaniards, whom the English also helped to cripple, notably by the destruction of the great Armada in 1588.

[I-4]   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. The consul's name was Samuel Pallache, and he was a Jew. He commenced negotiations with the magistrates of Middelburg, in Zeeland, for the settlement of Portuguese Maranos there. The religious temper of the clergy made the negotiations fruitless. But the Portuguese Maranos were in such straits that some of them resolved to seek refuge in Holland without any preliminary arrangements, relying simply on the natural sympathy of the Dutch with all fellow-victims of Philip and the Inquisition. Accordingly, in 1593 there arrived in Amsterdam the first batch of Marano fugitives. They had sailed from Oporto, and had had an adventurous voyage. They were captured by English buccaneers and taken to London. They owed their release chiefly to the bewitching beauty of one of their number, the fair Maria Nunes, who had an audience of Queen Elizabeth, and actually drove with her in an open carriage through the streets of London. An English Duke offered her his hand, but the beautiful Marano declined the honour, being determined to return to the religion of her ancestors. Such was the spirit of these fugitive Maranos who settled in Amsterdam, and secretly returned to Judaism. The secret leaked out in I596. They Page xvi were celebrating the Day of Atonement, at the house of the above-mentioned Pallache, when their mysterious gathering aroused the suspicion of neighbours. Armed men thereupon arrived on the scene, and arrested the surprised worshippers who were suspected of being Papists. But when it was explained that they had fled from the Inquisition, that they had brought considerable wealth with them, and would do their utmost to promote the commercial prosperity of Amsterdam, they were set free and left in peace. Two years later, in 1598, they were allowed to acquire their first place of worship, though it was not till 1619 that formal permission was given to the Jews to hold public worship, nor were they recognised as citizens till 1657. At all events the first Jews settled in Amsterdam in 1593, and others soon followed from Spain, Portugal, France and elsewhere. What interests us here is that among these early arrivals were Abraham Michael d'Espinoza and his son Michael, who was to be the father of our philosopher, Benedict Spinoza.

§ 2. THE HOME OF SPINOZA

[2-1]   The name Spinoza (also written variously as Espinosa, d'Espinoza, Despinoza, and De Spinoza) was most probably derived from Espinosa, a town in Leon. The Spinozas lived originally in Spain. During the persecutions there some of them seem to have outwardly embraced Christianity. (As late as 1721 eight descendants of theirs, living in or near Granada, were condemned to life-long imprisonment as Judaising heretics.) Some fled to Portugal, others to France, but they met again in Amsterdam as soon as it became known that Jews were tolerated there. Benedict's grandfather is twice described in the Synagogue archives as Abraham Espinosa of Nantes, from which it Page xvii 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.

[2-2]   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. If not rich, he was probably well-to-do. In 1641, it is true, we still find him living in the Vloyenburgh, but this was probably not at that time the poor quarter which it became subsequently. Soon afterwards, however, he moved into the Houtgragt (now the Waterlooplein), and the house in which he lived the closing years of his life looks substantial even now. It is numbered 41, and can also be identified by a stone tablet (placed there in 1743) which bears the inscription "'t Oprechte Tapijthuis" (the upright tapestry house). But, whatever his worldly fortune may have been, Michael had more than his share of domestic sorrow. His first wife died in 1627. His second wife, Hannah Deborah, the mother of Benedict, died in 1638. He married again in 1641; but his third wife, a Lisbon lady, also predeceased him in 1652. The year before, in 1651, his daughter, Miriam, died at the age of 22, and but a little more than a year after her marriage to Page xviii Samuel de Casseres. Michael had also lost three other children, and only two of his six children, namely, Benedict and a daughter, Rebekah (born of the first marriage), survived him when he died shortly afterwards, in 1654.

[2-3]   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. According to traditional custom, three cakes of fine flour and honey were baked for the boy by a young maiden, and fruit was provided in profusion. 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. And then into his mother's arms!

[2-4]   Unfortunately his mother died when Baruch was barely six years old, and, for the next three years or so, he was left to the care of his stepsister, Rebekah, who may not have been more than twelve years of age herself. To judge by subsequent events, there was probably not much love lost between Rebekah and Baruch. For, when their father died in 1654, she did her utmost to prevent Benedict from receiving his share of the inheritance, and he went to law, though he let her keep nearly everything after he had won the lawsuit. At his death also her conduct was not Page xix exemplary; she hastened to the Hague to claim her inheritance, but made off again as soon as she learned that the property left was hardly enough to cover his debts and funeral expenses. All this, however, belonged as yet to the future. In the meantime one may well imagine the pathetic picture of the child standing by his mother's grave and lisping the mourner's prayer in Hebrew, which he had but just commenced to learn. For nearly a whole year afterwards he might be seen twice or three times each day in the neighbouring Synagogue, reciting aloud that same mourner's prayer, with a mysterious feeling of awe and solemnity, yet glad withal to be doing something for his poor mother. Each anniversary of her death would be commemorated by a special light that was kept burning at home for twenty-four hours in memory of a light that had failed, but was believed to be still shedding its rays in another sphere. 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."

[2-5]   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. Like so many Maranos she may have been half Catholic in her training, from the necessity of outward conformity to Roman Catholicism. Still, she was probably kind to the children, and the home would resume its normal tone. The Jewish calendar, moreover, has its joyous Festivals, even its frivolous carnival; and a good Jew like Michael Espinosa was not likely to neglect his religious duty to be and to make merry on these occasions. First, there was the weekly Sabbath and Sabbath eve (Friday evening) so often and so justly celebrated in verse—even by Heine, in his Page xx Princess Sabbath. The spirit in which it was celebrated is perhaps best expressed in the following verses from one of the later Sabbath hymns:

[2-6]

(Translated by I. Myers (see I. Abrahams: Jewish Li/e in the Middle Ages, p. 136)

[2-7]   Then there were the three Pilgrim Festivals, Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles, all of them essentially joyous in character. On the first two evenings of Passover especially, children play an important role. One can easily imagine the important air with which little Baruch opened the domestic celebrations on these occasions by asking the meaning of such strange dishes as bitter herbs, a yellow-looking mixture of almonds, cinnamon and apples, &c. By way of answer his father would then relate to the assembled household the old, yet ever new story of the bitter lives which the Israelites had lived in Egypt, of the bricks and mortar with which they had to build Pithom and Ramses under cruel taskmasters, until God delivered them from Page xxi their oppressors. And the familiar story of ancient Egypt and its tyrants would soon lead up to the more recent barbarities in Spain and Portugal. {What would Wolf say of the barbarities of Germany?} Possibly, nay most probably, there were strangers, guests at table—for hospitality had become, not a luxury, but a necessity among the wandering Jews. Perhaps some recent arrival, fresh from the hell-fires of the Inquisition, would relate the latest story of martyrdom. On such an occasion it may have been that Spinoza heard of the martyrdom of "a certain Judah, called the Faithful, who in the midst of the flames, and when he was already believed to be dead, commenced to chant the psalm To thee, O God, I commit my Soul, and died singing it.'' (Epistle 76. The incident took place at Valladolid on the 25th of July 1644.) But the ground-notes of the Passover evening celebrations were those of courage, and faith that the Guardian of Israel neither slumbered nor slept.

[2-8]   There were also other celebrations of Israel's deliverance in the past. There was the Feast of Lights, or of the Rededication of the Temple (Chanukah) in memory of the brave Maccabees. A whole week was more or less spent as a half-holiday, and given to games and merriment. The spirit of the holiday is well expressed in a gay table-hymn composed by Ibn Ezra, the poet and commentator of whom Spinoza thought so highly. The following are the opening stanzas:

" Eat dainty foods and fine,
                           And bread baked well and white,
      With pigeons, and red wine,
                           On this Sabbath Chanukah night.

       CHORUS.

       " Your chattels and your lands
                      Go and pledge, go and sell!
     Put money in your hands,
                    To feast Chanukah well !"

                   See I. Abrahams, op. cit. p. 135'.)

Page xxii
[2-9]   Then there was the Feast of Lots (Purim) in celebration of Israel's escape from the evil designs of Haman, as told in the Book of Esther. As the life of the Jew would become intolerably solemn if all his persecutors were taken seriously, Haman was treated more like a clown than a villain, and the half-holiday associated with his name was celebrated as a kind of carnival, when it was deemed wrong to be staid, and when wits were readily indulged in parodying even Rabbis and prayers, and had ample licence to make fools of themselves and of others. Above all it was the occasion for plays, Purim plays, as they were called. At that time these were not yet set plays, but informal buffooneries linked to the story of Ahasuerus and Haman, or, by way of variety, turning on the story of the Sale of Joseph, or David's encounter with Goliath, and the like. On one such occasion Spinoza may have witnessed a play written by one of his senior school-fellows, Moses Zacuto, whose L'Inferno Figurato (written in Hebrew) expressed the writer's scorn of the Inquisition. The hero of the story was Abraham, whose steadfastness against Nimrod and legendary escape from the fiery furnace were meant to typify the Jewish fortunes in Spain.

[2-10]   Lastly, mention may also be made of what may roughly be described as a kind of Confirmation ceremony when Spinoza completed his thirteenth year. On that Sabbath he would chant aloud in the Synagogue a portion of the Law, or Pentateuch, and possibly also the portion from the Prophets appointed to be read on that day. After the service in the Synagogue, his father would entertain all his friends at home in honour of the occasion, and young Baruch would, according to custom, make a speech at table. This speech would, of course, have been carefully prepared by him for the occasion, not without the assistance of his teacher; and filial gratitude for the past and lavish promises for the future would begin and end a more Page xxiii or less learned discourse. One would like to know what he actually did say, and what he thought of it all afterwards!

[2-11]   In the meanwhile his time must have been fully occupied. He was at school from 8 till 11 each morning, and from 2 till 5 in the afternoon on weekdays; and some of the hours when he was not at school were occupied in school preparation, and also in the study of secular subjects under a private teacher or teachers. 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. He preferred to seek the means of support in some occupation that would keep him in touch with science and scholarship. This probably determined him to learn the art of polishing lenses, which was taken up by many learned men of his generation. By that time he may already have shown some of his heretical tendencies, and these may have given rise to some little friction at home. Possibly this was the reason why his half-sister Rebekah and his brother-in-law de Casseres tried soon afterwards to exclude him from his share of the property which his father left when he died. Spinoza, however, could scarcely have been so inconsiderate as to cause his father unnecessary pain, and most probably he kept most of his doubts to himself, and remained in his father's house so long as his father lived, that is to say, till March 1654, when he was in his twenty-second year.


Page xxiv

§ 3. THE EDUCATION OF SPINOZA
 

[3-1]   The general features of Spinoza's early education it is not difficult to delineate. The Amsterdam Jewish community had their own boys' school, which was founded about 1638, and which all Jewish boys would attend as a matter of course. The general curriculum of this school is known from contemporary accounts. We also know the names and characters of some of its most important teachers in the time of Spinoza. There were seven classes in the school. In the lowest class little boys were taught to read their prayers in Hebrew. In the second class they learned to read and chant the Pentateuch in Hebrew. In the next class they were taught to translate parts of the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Spanish (which for a long time continued to be the mother-tongue of many Amsterdam Jews, notwithstanding the worse than step-motherly treatment which had been meted out to them and their fathers in Spain). Here also they commenced to study Rashi's Hebrew Commentary on the Pentateuch—a commentary written in the eleventh century, but sober far beyond its age. The boys in the fourth class studied the Prophets and the Hagiographa. In the remaining higher classes they studied Hebrew Grammar, portions of the Talmud and of the later Hebrew Codes, the works of Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, and others, according to the discretion of the Rabbi who instructed and advised them. The school hours were from 8 till 11 A.M. and from 2 till 5 P.M. (or earlier during the winter months). We are explicitly informed that during the hours that the boys were at home they would receive private tuition in secular subjects, even in verse-making. The school also possessed a good lending library.

[3-2]   Of the teachers under whose influence Spinoza must have come during his school-days, the most important Page xxv undoubtedly were Rabbi Saul Morteira and Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel. Saul Morteira was the senior Rabbi of Amsterdam. Born in Venice about 1596 he studied medicine under Montalto, the Marano Court physician of Maria de' Medici. Montalto died suddenly while accompanying Louis XIII. to Tours, in 1616, and it was the desire to bury Montalto in a Jewish cemetery that brought Saul Morteira to Amsterdam, where the Jews had only recently (1614) acquired a cemetery in Ouwerkerk (also called Ouderkerk), not very far from the city. While in Amsterdam, Morteira accepted a call to the Rabbinate of the older of the two Synagogues there (the House of Jacob). A third Synagogue came into existence two years later, but in 1638 the three Synagogues were amalgamated, and Morteira acted as the senior or presiding Rabbi till his death, in 1660. Morteira had had a taste of Court life, and was not altogether wanting in philosophical appreciation; but he was essentially medieval, strait-laced, prosy, and uninspiring. It is related that when Spinoza was but fifteen years old Morteira marvelled at the boy's acumen. By an irony of fate he also presided over the court of Rabbis who issued the ban against Spinoza in I656.

[3-3]   In Manasseh ben Israel we have a different type of character altogether. He was born in 1604, and had a tragic infancy. His father, Joseph ben Israel, was one of a hundred and fifty Jews whom the Inquisition in Lisbon was about to consign to the flames, in 1605, when Mammon was successfully enlisted against the priests of Moloch. A million gold florins, eight hundred thousand ducats, and five hundred thousand crusados were paid to King Philip III., a hundred thousand crusados to the saintly ecclesiasticst and they became reconciled to spare their victims the flames of hell on earth even if it should entail their loss of heaven hereafter. At the auto-da-fe in January 1605 the unhappy Jews were paraded in penitential garb and Page xxvi made a formal confession of their secret and most sinful loyalty to the religion of Jesus and of the Prophets. The King graciously obtained papal absolution for their heinous crime, and they were dismissed—alive, it is true, but wrecked in health by torture, and robbed of their possessions by Catholic king and holy priests. Joseph ben Israel naturally fled, at the very first opportunity, with his wife and their infant son Manasseh. They went to Amsterdam, where Manasseh lived nearly all his life. He succeeded his teacher, Rabbi Uzziel, as Rabbi of the second Amsterdam Synagogue (the Habitation of Peace) in 1622, when he was barely eighteen years old; started a Hebrew printing-house about the year 1627; and in 1640 he was about to emigrate to Brazil when he received an important appointment in the senior department of the Amsterdam Jewish School, where Spinoza must have come under his influence. Manasseh was not a great thinker, but he was a great reader, and made up in breadth of outlook for what he lacked in depth of insight. 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 {childishly foolish; immature; silly} 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. What he conceived to be the mission of his life is indicated in the Biblical verse with which he headed the dedication of his Hope of Israel (1650). The book, it is interesting to observe, was dedicated to Spinoza's father and the other Wardens of the Jewish school. At the head of the dedication is the first verse from Isaiah xli.: To preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken-hearted. Page xxvii in 1655 Manasseh came to England on a special mission to Oliver Cromwell for the readmission of the Jews into England. Two years later he returned to the Netherlands, carrying with him the corpse of his eldest son. His great schemes seemed shattered. Poor, prematurely aged, and full of sorrows he died, at Middelburg, in 1657.

[3-4]   Manasseh ben Israel was a prolific writer, and his books show undeniable evidence of very wide reading and extraordinary industry. He cites not only Jewish writers like lbn 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." On a portrait engraved in 1642 he is described as "Theologicus et Philosophus Hebraeus." (Over this portrait, it is interesting to note, are also the words Peregrimando Quoerimus, which formed the motto or trade-mark of Manasseh's press; in the top left corner there is a small shield with a picture of a pilgrim carrying a staff and lamp, while in the right corner are the Hebrew words for Thy word is a !amp unto my feet (Psalm cxix. 105)). Moreover he had numerous Christian acquaintances and friends, and corresponded with learned men and women in all parts of Europe—even with Queen Christina of Sweden, and Hugo Grotius, the famous statesman, jurist and historian. In various letters to Vossius, Grotius expressed his great and sincere esteem of Manasseh. Gerhard Vossius, "the greatest polyhistor {very learned} of the Netherlands," was on intimate terms with Manasseh, and visited him often. Nor was Manasseh at all intolerant. He was very friendly with Caspar Barlaeus, the Amsterdam Professor of Philosophy and Rhetoric, who was rather suspected of being a free-thinker. Barleaus was a noted Latin scholar and poet, and prefixed to one of Manasseh's books (De Creatlone) a Latin poem which was Page xxviii scarcely orthodox. We also hear of Manasseh's presence at a merry gathering in the house of Episcopius in honour of Sobierre, a noted French wit. On occasion, Manasseh would also introduce some of his Jewish friends to his Christian acquaintances. In one of his letters to a professor at Leyden, Vossius mentions that Manasseh had just paid him a visit, and brought with him a Portuguese Jew, whom he desired to recommend for the medical degree. It does not seem unreasonable to suppose that Manasseh ben Israel exercised a potent personal influence over Spinoza, who must have studied under him for a number of years. Not that Manasseh was competent to make any direct contribution towards the development of Spinoza's philosophy. But his indirect influence must have been considerable. After all, the greatest service which even the best teacher can render does not consist so much in the actual information which he imparts as in the stimulus which he gives, and the love of truth which he inculcates. And Manasseh, we have seen, was a man of wide culture, of broad sympathy, and really devoted to scholarship. What is more likely than that he should use his influence with Spinoza's father so that Baruch might be taught Latin and other secular subjects? And what is more natural than that Manasseh who encouraged and helped his young Christian friend, a son of Gerhard Vossius, to study and translate Maimonides, should have been even more eager to urge his Jewish students to study their own Hispano-Jewish literature, of which they were justly so proud?

[3-5]   At the house of his Rabbi, Spinoza would occasionally meet Christians who were interested in Judaism, or in the Jewish interpretation of the {Hebrew Bible}. Here also he may have met Rembrandt, who, between 1640 and 1656, lived in the very heart of the Jewish quarter and was probably on friendly terms with "The Amsterdam Rabbi," as Manasseh was called. For Rembrandt etched a portrait of Page xxix Manasseh in 1636, and illustrated one of his books (the Piedra Gloriosa, published in 1655). Moreover, in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, there is a Rembrandt painting of a Rabbi, aged and worn, and believed to be Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel. If so, we must suppose that Rembrandt, hearing of the return and illness of his old friend of twenty years or more, hastened to him to Middelburg, and, deeply impressed by the tragic change which had come over the once handsome but now prematurely aged and broken-down Rabbi, embodied his impression in that portrait. Perhaps it was the art of Rembrandt which stimulated young Spinoza to try his hand at drawing. For we are told that Spinoza was an amateur draughtsman, and his early biographer, Colerus, actually possessed a number of ink and charcoal sketches which Spinoza had made of his friends, also one of Spinoza himself in the costume of Mas Anjellos (A fisherman'in his shirt with a net over his right shoulder" (Colerus).) (Thomas Aniellos), who in 1647 led the Neapolitan revolt against Spain, and was murdered soon afterwards. In any case, it is known that Spinoza had a number of Christian acquaintances and friends at a very early stage in his career, and that he helped some of them in the study of the Hebrew Bible, and it is not improbable that he was first introduced to some of them by Manasseh ben Israel, the courteous and easily accessible Rabbi, whom they at first consulted when they took up the study of Hebrew. And it is probably more than a mere accident that Spinoza knew and corresponded with Isaac, the son of Gerhard Vossius, and possessed copies of some of the works of both, as also of Grotius, and even of Delmedigo, all of them friends of Manasseh, whose own book, The Hope of Israel, Spinoza also possessed.

3-6]   Last, though by no means least, there was the moral earnestness of Manasseh. He was an earnest disciple of an earnest master. His teacher and predecessor in office, Rabbi Uzziel, was known for his moral courage. It was Page xxx his outspoken condemnation of the moral laxity of a portion of Amsterdam Jewry that led to a schism {a formal division within, or separation from, a church or religious body over some doctrinal difference} in the young community, and the formation of a third congregation in 1668. For reasons already explained, some of the members of the community had been Roman Catholics for several generations, and had grown dangerously accustomed to the habit of obtaining priestly absolution for moral delinquencies. Rabbi Uzziel would have none of it. Like the prophets of old he would make no truce with immorality, and denounced it without respect of person. Manasseh ben Israel also had the reputation of being an earnest and eloquent preacher, and probably passed on some of his master's moral earnestness to his pupil Spinoza. No doubt young Spinoza could and did draw from the wells of the living waters; no doubt he could and did draw moral inspiration from the prophetic books themselves. Still, a living example of their moral tone could not fail to intensify his susceptibility to that spirit of the prophets which Spinoza's own writings still breathe. (For fuller information about Manasseh ben Israel, see Kayserling's essay in the Miscellany of Hebrew Literature (second series), and L. Wolf's Manasseh ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell.)

[3-7]   The school curriculum, though fairly encyclopaedic in range of subjects, was all in Hebrew. Other languages and the more modern sciences, or the more modern treatment of them, had to be studied outside the school. Spanish and Portuguese he learned from his parents; Dutch, from his environment. 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. It was too intimately associated with Roman Catholicism and the Inquisition. In fact it was usual Page xxxi among the Jews to speak of Latin as "the priests' language." Hence the knowledge of Latin was not a common accomplishment of Jews then. 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 encourage 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. And Spinoza's schoolfellow, Moses Zacuto, to whom reference has already been made above, and who began as a poet and ended as a mystic, actually fasted for forty days by way of penance for his early devotion to Latin. If, therefore, Spinoza studied Latin, it may be taken for granted that he also pursued other secular studies, especially mathematics (which he is reported to have studied under an Italian), and physics, both of which he soon required for optical work, and which may actually have disposed him to learn the art of polishing lenses; probably also the later scholastic philosophy as expounded about that time, in the works of Burgersdijck, Professor of Philosophy at Leyden (died 1632), and by his successor, Heereboord (died 1659). In 1652 Francis van den Enden, an ex-Jesuit, ex-diplomat, ex-bookseller, doctor, and classicist, opened a school in Amsterdam, and Spinoza went there to complete his secular studies. Van den Enden was certainly unorthodox, and was strongly suspected of atheism. Colerus relates that some of the past students of Van den Enden "blessed every day the memory of their parents, who took care in due time to remove them from the school of so pernicious and impious a master." But he was admittedly an able teacher, and Spinoza, no doubt, owed to him his mastery of Latin, also Page xxxii what little knowledge he had of Greek, the advancement of his medical and physical knowledge, and most probably also his first introduction to the philosophy of Descartes, whose recent death, in 1650, must have attracted renewed attention to his writings. Van den Enden, as we shall see, was also kind to Spinoza in other ways, and certainly deserved something better than the tragic fate which befell him.  

[3-8]   In March 1654 Spinoza's father died. Spinoza had now to provide for his own maintenance. His "schooling" was finished. A new period commenced for him.

 

§ 4. SPINOZA'S ALIENATION FROM THE SYNAGOGUE—1654-1656
   

[4-1]   Spinoza had an inborn passion for clear and consistent thinking. And the great intellectual gifts with which fortune had unstintingly endowed him were abundantly exercised and sharpened in the prolonged study of the Hebrew legal and religious codes. These abound in subtle problems and subtler solutions. And whatever Spinoza may have subsequently thought of their intrinsic merits, yet their value as a mental discipline was undeniable. But this power of penetration was slowly but inevitably bringing him into antagonism with the very sources from which it had drawn strength. Moreover, even quite apart from this sharpening of his reasoning powers, his Hebrew studies provided him also with ample material and stimulus for the exercise of his critical acumen. The spirit of rationalism pervades the whole literature of the Jews of the Spanish period, (See the writers Aristotle in Medieval Jewish Thought.) and the masterpieces of that literature were the pride of the Jewish refugees from the Peninsula, indeed, of all Jews. In the commentary of Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167) he found many bold and suggestive hints. In the Preface, Page xxxiii Ibn Ezra states that he "will show no partiality in the exposition of the Law," and although the promise seems bolder than the fulfilment, yet now and again one meets with "a word to the wise" which is just sufficient to direct attention to some inconsistency in Scripture, to the post-Mosaic authorship of certain passages in the so-called Five Books of Moses, or to the different authorship of the first and of the second parts of Isaiah. These hints, obscure as they may seem, justify Ibn Ezra's claim to be called "the father of the Higher Criticism of the Bible," and they certainly led to Spinoza's subsequent important contributions to this kind of Biblical criticism. In the Guide of the Perplexed of Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) his attention was drawn to certain crudities and inconsistencies in Biblical theology, which Maimonides, indeed, tried to explain away, or to reconcile with the requirements of reason, though apparently, in the judgment of Spinoza, with little success. And Maimonides' treatment of the institution of sacrifices as merely a temporary concession or device to wean Israel from idolatry could not but suggest to Spinoza that other religious customs, too, were only temporary in character and validity. In the writings of Gersonides (1288-1344) he saw rationalism encroaching on miracles and on prophecy, so as to explain away their supposed supernatural character. Maimonides had already boldly asserted that any passage in the Bible which appeared to conflict with reason must be so reinterpreted as to be in harmony with it. This method of "interpreting" Scripture into conformity with reason still seemed to save the priority of the Bible over human reason— though only in appearance. Gersonides went further than that. 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 Page xxxiv 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. He was well versed in philosophy, medicine, physics, and mathematics, as well as in Hebrew literature, and he had also studied astronomy under Galileo. He seems to have stayed several years in Amsterdam, where Manasseh ben Israel published a selection of his works for him. He was a remarkable product of that age of conflict between the old and the new. Unsettled by the new spirit of the age, yet faithful to the old, his mind inclined now towards scepticism and again towards mysticism, and his nomad life was at once typical and expressive of a restless, vacillating mind seeking in vain to regain its equilibrium. And, to judge from contemporary complaints, Amsterdam Jewry had not a few of such religious malcontents, and the leaders had to cope with the trouble as best they could. Already in 1623 Samuel da Silva, a Jewish physician at Amsterdam, was called upon to write a defence of the immortality of the soul, and the inspiration of the Bible, against the sceptical views aired by Uriel da Costa. In 1632 Manasseh ben Israel published the first part of his Conciliator, wherein he sought to reconcile the apparent inconsistencies of Scripture. The Marano refugees, like others who threw off the yoke of Roman Catholicism, turned back to the Bible, and the difficulties which some of them encountered there may have been one of the causes which prompted Manasseh's enterprise. Spinoza, no doubt, knew this book. But he probably appreciated the problems which it attacked much more than the solutions which it offered. And if the Bible already presented difficulties, how extravagant and unwarranted must have appeared that elaborate superstructure which the Rabbis had reared upon it "line upon line and precept upon precept"! At all events, Spinoza's difficulties, Page xxxv in so far as they turned on the narrower problems of the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish ceremonial, were by no means new. They had been clearly realised, and partly dealt with, by others long before him.

[4-2]   As regards the wider philosophical questions, it is difficult to say what Spinoza's philosophy was like at that epoch of his life. One can scarcely suppose that his thought was already systematised into a definite philosophic theory. Most likely his views were as yet but loosely connected, and, in the main, negative rather than positive in tendency. And these views also were, in very large measure, if not exclusively, suggested to him by Jewish writers. These more philosophical problems, too, were not altogether new, they had been realised, and grappled with, by other Jews before him. The popular conception of Creation (creatio ex nihilo) had been denied by both Ibn Ezra and Gersonides, who maintained the eternity of matter. Crescas (1340-1410) had maintained that G-D 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.

[4-3]   Spinoza, however, felt the accumulated burden of all these problems, and he may already have been sufficiently influenced by Cartesian {pertaining to Descartes, his mathematical methods, or his philosophy} thought to refuse to accept any unproved assertions. Moreover, Spinoza lacked the power (one is almost inclined to call it a gift) which his Jewish predecessors possessed, namely, the power of detaching their theories from their practical everyday life. However advanced or heterodox their views may have been, yet they were conservative in feeling, and conservative in practice, and observed religious customs just like the most orthodox. Such an attitude may easily be accused of duplicity; but Page xxxvi we do not really explain it by calling it bad names. It is often perfectly honest, and it is to be met with in all creeds, at the present no less than in the past. And, after all, the difference is mostly one of degree rather than of kind. Even Spinoza's feeling remained to the end more conservative than his thought. That was why he could not help using the language of religion {Endnote 4-3a} long after his thought seemed to have emptied it of its religious meaning. At all events he made no secret of his views, and he grew lax in the matter of ceremonial observances, whose theoretic basis no longer appealed to him. The elaborate dietary laws of orthodox Judaism must have been something of an obstacle in his intercourse with Christian friends, and although he, no doubt, observed these laws for a time from sheer force of habit, even when their raison d'etre had already lost its hold on him, still he probably got weary of excusing his apparent unsociability on the ground of a custom in which he no longer believed. Moreover, the comparatively liberal religion of his Mennonite and Collegiant (See p. xli on the character of these sects.) friends, their Quaker-like simplicity, their brotherly equality, their humanitarian repudiation of strife and war, the plain decorum of their prayer-meetings—all this must have tended to make him increasingly dissatisfied with the over-elaborated ceremonial of his own community, and the comparative indecorum of their Synagogue services. On the other hand, his Jewish neighbours were beginning to feel scandalised by this breach of ritual observances, his frequent absence from the Synagogue, and the reports of his attendance at Christian prayer-meetings, especially so, considering that his father and grandfather had held office in the Synagogue, and Baruch himself had been looked upon as a promising "light of the Exile." Mutual distrust developed into mutual antipathy. The conservatives could not understand how any one could, merely on account of personal inconvenience, deliberately ignore divinely ordained Page xxxvii 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. And Spinoza himself was almost equally unsympathetic when he failed to realise that customs which seemed a burden to him were nevertheless felt to be a blessing and a privilege by those who sincerely regarded them as divine ordinances, as opportunities of serving God; while the apparent indecorum of the Synagogue was largely the outcome of Israel's feeling of familiarity with God. Such mutual misunderstandings neither began nor ended in the days of Spinoza. At all events trouble was brewing. After his father's death Spinoza probably became less cautious than before. He did not entirely sever his connection with the Synagogue, for the Synagogue accounts show that he was present in the Synagogue on the Sabbath, the 5th of December 1655, and made an offering. It was the Sabbath of the Feast of Lights, in memory of the Maccabean uprising against Antiochus Epiphanes, and Spinoza had a warm admiration for all enemies of tyranny—did he not actually picture himself in the guise of Aniellos, the Neapolitan rebel against the tyranny of Spain? That Spinoza should have kept up his connection with the Synagogue stands to reason. He could hardly resist the call of filial piety to recite the mourner's prayer for his father, even as, in the days of his childhood, he had done for his mother. The prayer was innocent enough. Though a "mourner's prayer," it was not a prayer for the dead, in fact it contained no reference whatever to the dead. It was a prayer for peace, and its ground-note was that of praise of God, which, coming at the moment of profoundest sorrow, was regarded as the finest expression of resignation and faith. Spinoza could scarcely have taken any serious objection to it, at that time, and on such Page xxxviii an occasion, and he would thus remain attached to the Synagogue during his year of mourning. In the months of September, October, and November fell the anniversaries of the deaths of his sister Miriam, his stepmother, and his mother respectively. He would be expected to attend Synagogue on these occasions, and hardly be disinclined. We need not, therefore, be surprised to find him again in the Synagogue on the 5th of December. In all probability that was not the last occasion either on which he was seen in Synagogue—the anniversary of his father's death, in March 1656, most likely saw him there again. What exactly happened in the interval between March and July 1656 is not certain, though it may not be difficult to conjecture. Possibly some of his young Jewish friends spoke to him on the subject of death—a subject natural enough under the circumstances—and may have been surprised and shocked to hear from him that in his view the Bible did not teach the doctrine of the immortality of the soul, and that, in the Bible, "soul" was simply synonymous with "life." This might have led up to the more general question of the existence of disembodied spirits or angels, which Spinoza then described as unreal, and mere phantoms of the imagination. But what about God? would be the natural rejoinder. G-D, said Spinoza, was also not incorporeal, but extended {Nature, body, thought - pantheism}. At all events, it was these heretical views which were soon afterwards made the ground of his excommunication; but they were not really the whole ground—there were other reasons.

[4-4]   Reference has already been made to the fact that, on the death of their father, Rebekah endeavoured to keep her half-brother from his share in the inheritance. Her idea no doubt was that Spinoza might earn his livelihood, whereas she had nothing wherewith to support herself, and ought therefore to be provided for. Possibly her brother-in-law, de Casseres, a prospective Rabbi, learned in the Page xxxix Law, and uncommonly shocked by Spinoza's religious lapses, of which Rebekah probably knew much and told him more, advised her that according to strict Jewish law Spinoza's delinquencies disqualified him from inheriting his father's property. Spinoza naturally resented such high-handed methods, and appealed to the law of the land, which of course took no notice of the subtleties of Rabbinic legislation. Spinoza won his lawsuit, but, realising the moral claims of his sister's position, he refrained from taking anything beyond a bedstead, and that very likely as a memento quite as much as an article of value, or of which he had need. This appeal to the secular arm against his sister hardly tended to make him more popular with his people, however little some of them may have sympathised with her peculiar methods. Moreover, the report of his heresies, on which Rebekah had based her exclusive claims, got abroad and was duly magnified as it passed from mouth to mouth.

[4-5]   Meanwhile Spinoza had to earn his bread. He could hardly think of staying with his sister, or with any other relative, after this family quarrel, and he had nothing very definite to fall back upon for his support. Fortunately Van den Enden, realising his pupil's plight, came to his rescue. Spinoza assisted him in his school, and, in return, Van den Enden provided him with a home and all necessaries at his own house. This, of course, entailed a complete breach with the Jewish dietary laws. But this was not all. Van den Enden, as already remarked, had an evil reputation, and his school was strongly suspected of being a centre for the teaching of atheism. Whether Van den Enden really merited his ill repute is by no means certain. That he was not particularly orthodox in his views may be granted; he knew too much to satisfy the requirements of the zealots. On the other hand, it must be remembered that when Dirck Kerckrinck wooed Clara Maria Van den Enden, he had to turn Roman Catholic before her father consented to
Page xl the marriage (1671). Be that as it may, the school had a bad name, and Spinoza's reputation did not improve by his more intimate connection with it. Possibly some of the fathers, who subsequently earned the daily blessings of their sons for taking care in due time "to remove them from the school of so pernicious and impious a master" as Van der Enden was reputed to be, were not slow in fastening some of the blame on his Jewish assistant; and Spinoza, who was as yet too inexperienced to appreciate the wisdom of discretion, may have given utterance to many a heterodox thought. 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.

[4-6]   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. In practice, the cry for religious toleration has all too often amounted to this: you have persecuted me long enough now, let me persecute you for a change. At the very commencement of their long struggle against the tyranny of the Inquisition, the mutual intolerance of the various religious sects in the Netherlands caused infinite trouble to William the Silent, and very nearly wrecked their enterprise. As their fortunes improved and the need of union became somewhat less urgent, intolerance became increasingly manifest. The Calvinists, who were in the majority, regarded their Church more or less as the established Church, to which the Reformed clergy tried their utmost to compel all others to conform. When Philip III. made a twelve years' truce with the United Netherlands in 1609, he did so, it is said, in the sinister hope that mutual religious persecutions among the different religious sects Page xli would bring about that fall of the Netherlands which the Spanish troops had failed to effect. Sooth to say, there was considerable justification for that sinister hope. In 1610 the followers of Arminius (Professor of Theology at Leyden, died 1609) presented to the provincial parliament of Holland and West Friesland their Remonstrance {remonstrate—to reason or plead in protest, objection, or complaint} (The "five points" of the Remonstrance were (i) conditional election; (ii) universal redemption through Christ; (iii) salvation by grace; (iv) the irresistibleness of grace; and (v) the possibility of falling from a state of grace.) against extreme Calvinism, and the struggle between the Arminians (or Remonstrants) and the extreme Calvinists (or Contra-Remonstrants) culminated in 1619, when the Synod of Dordrecht excommunicated the Arminians, closed their places of worship, and brought about the expulsion of Remonstrant preachers from most of the States. Barneveldt, the political head of the Remonstrants and reputed to have been the greatest statesman of the Netherlands, was executed; Hugo Grotius, one of their most eminent scholars, was thrown into prison, and only escaped from it through the bold ingenuity of his wife. One interesting result of the banishment of Arminian pastors was the formation of the Collegiant sect, which simply decided to dispense with the clerical office altogether, and held more or less informal gatherings (collegia) for prayers and religious discussions conducted entirely by laymen. (The Mennonites, with whom also Spinoza stood in friendly relations, had come into existence under very similar circumstances during the sixteenth century). The events of 1619 show clearly enough the temper of the dominant religious sect in the United Provinces. Fortunately, enlightened statesmen and magistrates generally managed to resist the persecuting zeal of the Reformed or Calvinist clergy. But not always; nor did the zealots relax their efforts in spite of repeated discouragement. In 1653 the clerical Synods forced the States-General to issue a strict edict against the Socinians {Any follower of Faustus and Laelius Socinus, who rejected the divinity of Christ, original sin, etc.} Page xlii or Unitarians {A person who maintains that God is one being, rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity.}, many of whom consequently went over to the Collegiants.

[4-7]   After all, then, the decree of toleration embodied in the Union of Utrecht did not secure very much in the way of real toleration. Non-Calvinist Christians were allowed to live in the Netherlands without suffering in person or property