Short Treatise on God/Life of Spinoza/1

by Baruch Spinoza

THE LIFE OF SPINOZA

§ 1. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS

Baruch or Benedict^[1] 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; 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 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,^[2] 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 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.

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 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 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," 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.

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 1596. They 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.

1. Benedicius is simply the Latin equivalent of the Hebrew Baruch.
2. 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 I Corinthians, xvi. 22: If any man loveth not the Lord, let him be anathema maranatha.