A.D. 1600-1700.
THE JEWS IN HOLLAND.—DA COSTA, SPINOZA.
The reader has already learned that, towards the close of the
last century, many of the Portuguese exiles found a refuge from
persecution in Holland. In truth, of all the countries of Europe, at
this period of their history, none showed them such kindness as the
republic of the Low Countries. If the Reformation had done the race
of Israel no other service than that of opening to them this place
of shelter, they would still have been largely indebted to it. No
dream of the imagination could exceed the wretchedness of the Jews
in Spain and Portugal at the outset of the seventeenth century. They
had to choose between ruin, torture, and death on the one hand,—not
for themselves only, but for their wives and children also,—or the
surrender of their cherished faith, which was, in their eyes, the
surrender of all hope, here and hereafter. Their only escape from
these stern alternatives lay in a life-long duplicity and imposture,
which must needs degrade them in their own eyes to the very dust. Of
the three terrible issues thus offered them, we have seen that many
of them did choose this last; but our contempt is disarmed, and only
our pity is awakened, as we peruse their melancholy history. The
toleration, however, that prevailed in Holland afforded a means of
escape alike from the humiliation and the danger in which they were
living. As the century advanced, increasing numbers of New Christians
made their escape to the Low Countries, where they renounced the
false profession they had made, and returned openly to their ancient
worship. It has been already mentioned that in 1598 the first Jewish
synagogue was built in Amsterdam. Ten or twelve years afterwards the
numbers had so increased that a second became necessary, and in 1618
a third.
But it was not only the exiles from Spain and Portugal who crowded
into Holland as a harbour of refuge. From many parts of Germany
and the contiguous countries, whenever the flame of persecution
broke out, as it was ever apt to do on the slightest provocation,
the Jews, who had heard of the justice and favour shown to their
countrymen by the Dutch, came to partake of it themselves. From
Poland and Lithuania, again, thousands of Jews emigrated, driven
from their homes by the ravages committed by the Cossacks, who,
under Chelmnicki, had risen against their Polish masters. A large
proportion of these settled in the United Provinces. One company,
which consisted of three thousand, landed at Texel, and there were
many others almost as numerous. After some inquiry they were received
at Amsterdam, and permission given them to build a synagogue.
Thus the Jews of Holland were divided into two societies which
might be called the Spanish and the German synagogues.[183] Their
religious tenets were doubtless in complete harmony. But they had
different usages and historical traditions, and they are said to have
entertained mutual jealousies and enmities. Possibly the imposture of
Rabbi Zeigler, one of the numberless adventurers who have claimed to
be the Messiah, or His forerunner, may have done something to create
this severance. Zeigler professed to have seen the promised deliverer
at Strasburg, and assured his countrymen that, as soon as they had
declared their readiness to accept him, he would appear, destroy the
kingdom of Christ (as he called the supremacy of the Gentiles), and
extend his own from one end of the world to the other. The Messiah
was also to hold a council at Constance, which would last for twelve
years, and all religious difficulties would be composed at it. As the
Messiah did not appear, Zeigler’s followers were so far undeceived;
but the mischief which his imposture had occasioned lasted long
afterwards.
This epoch is remarkable for a demonstration of intolerant
bigotry—not, as heretofore, evinced by the Christians against the
Jews, but by the Jews against some of their own brethren. One would
certainly have thought that they had had such convincing proof of
the folly, to use no harsher term, of endeavouring to compel men
by the infliction of disgrace and suffering to adopt or renounce a
religious belief, that they would have abstained from such a course
themselves. Yet their dealings with the two celebrities of this age,
Uriel da Costa and Baruch Spinoza, exhibit an amount of harshness and
injustice which their own persecutors could hardly have exceeded.
Both these men were of Portuguese extraction, and belonged to
families which went by the name of New Christians. Both were
remarkable for great mental activity and an unusually speculative
turn of mind. This natural tendency was doubtless fostered by their
own early experience—the truth or falsehood of every dogma of their
belief having been, as it were, forced upon them as a matter of
logical inquiry. It required little knowledge of human nature to
understand that the opinions entertained by men like these could be
influenced only by calm reasoning and reflection. Yet a course was
pursued towards them which could only have been successful in the
instance of the weakest or the most timid of men.
Uriel da Costa had belonged to a family of Maranaos, or New
Christians, in Spain, where he had not only professed Christianity,
but had been ordained a priest. Like so many of his countrymen, he
had fled from Spain, and at Amsterdam threw off his pretended belief.
But his early experiences had taught him distrust; and he was not
disposed to acquiesce implicitly in the Rabbinical interpretation of
the Scriptures. After a protracted controversy he composed a work,
which he entitled _An Examination of Pharisaical Tradition_. The book
does not appear to have been published, or even printed, but was
circulated in manuscript among the members of the Jewish community.
An eminent Rabbi, Samuel da Silva, took up the controversy, and
published a reply to Da Costa’s work, which he called _A Treatise
on the Immortality of the Soul_. To this Uriel replied by a review
of his own essay, enlarged by a refutation of Da Silva’s argument.
This gave great offence, and severe measures were taken. He was
thrown into prison, on the charge of having denied the immortality
of the soul. He was with difficulty released, on condition of paying
a heavy fine, and suppressing the obnoxious writings. The effect of
this harshness was, not to silence, but rather to provoke him to
more determined antagonism. He was soon publicly excommunicated,
and became, both in opinion and practice, a pronounced Deist. But,
after fifteen years of suffering, wearied out by a controversy in
which he found himself forsaken by all his friends, he twice sought
a reconciliation with his synagogue. Now was the time when he might
have been won from his errors. Tenderness and mercy would probably
have had their effect on a nature which had much that was noble and
generous intermingled with its pride and virulence. But unhappily a
different course was pursued. On the second occasion he only obtained
readmission to communion by consenting to undergo a public scourging
in the synagogue,[184] the shame and degradation of which so
affected him that a few days afterwards he destroyed himself.
Da Costa’s history has doubtless its moral lesson and its melancholy
interest. But in neither particular can it compare with that of
Spinoza. In a work like this, neither a lengthened biography of this
man nor an analysis of his philosophy can be inserted. Nevertheless,
considering the vast influence which his peculiar opinions have had
on modern thought,[185] he cannot be dismissed without some notice.
He was born at Amsterdam in 1632. His father had emigrated from
Lisbon some years previously, driven thence by religious persecution.
Young Spinoza was instructed in Hebrew literature by Mosteira, Chief
Rabbi of his synagogue, and in Latin by Van Ende, a physician, for
whom he conceived a warm affection. He soon grew dissatisfied with
his teachers; and, his revolt from Rabbinical authority attracting
notice, remonstrances and threats followed. These failing of effect,
he was publicly excommunicated,[186] and his life attempted.
Thereupon he retired to Rhynsburg, where he supported himself by
grinding optical glasses. Afterwards he removed to Voorburg, and
again to the Hague. At all these places he led a quiet, studious,
very pure and beautiful life, keeping up a correspondence with some
of the greatest philosophers of the day, and more than once refusing
offers of advancement. No man was more highminded or unselfish. His
favourite pupil, De Vries, who knew that his own hours were numbered,
proposed to make Spinoza his heir. But De Vries had a brother living,
and Spinoza insisted that the money should be left to him. At his
father’s death his sisters claimed the whole property, on the ground
of Spinoza’s excommunication. Spinoza vindicated his right in a court
of law, but voluntarily gave up the property in dispute. He died, as
calmly as he had lived, of consumption, A.D. 1677, in the forty-fifth
year of his age.
No man has ever been more fiercely assailed or more enthusiastically
defended. He has been denounced as an Atheist, a Pantheist, a
blasphemer, and a fatalist. He has been upheld as a man eminently
holy, a devout lover of God and of Christ.[187] Strange as it may
seem, all these statements may be said to be true, though of course
in different senses of the terms employed. For his Atheism—he seems
to have been repelled, from the first, by the anthropomorphism of
the Scriptures. It was not merely that God was there represented as
possessed of an eye, a hand, etc., but as performing human actions,
and influenced by human feelings. This was, in his view, absolute
falsehood,[188] and the result was that he entirely rejected the
God of revelation, and with Him, of course, the whole scheme of
salvation as propounded in the Bible. Thus, then, he may be styled an
Atheist. But, on the other hand, he constructed a system in which he
affirmed that there exists but one substance, though with infinite
attributes, and that this substance is God, who is either absolutely
or in some modified form everything. The man who holds this cannot,
it may be said, be an Atheist.[189] He is, again, no Pantheist, for
he distinguishes between God and the universe;[190] yet the Christian
Pantheists, as they may be called, claim him as their own, if not
their founder. For the other charges, he no doubt affirms that, as
nothing can be done, either directly or indirectly, except by God,
all human acts, however wicked, may be said to be done by Him. This,
according to our ideas, is both blasphemy and fatalism. Yet Spinoza
attributes the _act_ only, not its moral wickedness, to God. When
pressed to say whether the atrocious murder of Agrippina by Nero was
due to God, he answered that it must be so due, so far as the act was
concerned. But no act is good or evil in itself, and it was Nero’s
evil mind, not God’s, that made the crime.[191] So with his fatalism.
When he denies that man can act otherwise than as God wills, he
appears to enunciate the plainest fatalism;[192] nor do I see how
any other conclusion can logically be drawn from his premisses. But
then Spinoza also teaches the beauty, the happiness, the necessity
of holiness, of moral culture and self-discipline—things not merely
inconsistent, but irreconcilable, with fatalism. He holds language
which an apostle might endorse. ‘Justice and charity,’ he writes,
‘are the one infallible sign of the catholic faith, the genuine
fruits of the Holy Spirit. Where they are found, there is Christ.
Where they are wanting, Christ is not. For by the Spirit of Christ
are we led to justice and charity.’ We are _led_—so, too, the
Scriptures teach—_led_, if we will follow; not blindly driven, as the
fatalist must believe.
On the whole, a wise man will hardly speak otherwise than with
respect and tenderness of Spinoza. No doubt, notwithstanding the
depth and acuteness of his intellect, in which respects he has never
probably been exceeded by any of human kind, his system is full
of inconsistencies, and has little practical value. How could it
be otherwise, when he has attempted that which Revelation itself
has with difficulty effected? But he was honest, patient, humble,
beneficent, as few men have been; and his desire to attain to truth
was earnest and unselfish. As in the case of pious heathens, like
Aurelius, we cannot be sure that Christianity was ever put before him
in its true aspect. The frivolities of the Talmud, the traditions of
the Inquisition, the Church of Roderic Borgia and his successors—were
none of them likely to lead him to Christ, as revealed in His blessed
Word. Let our sentence on him be, what every good man says of those
whom he respects, and yet from whom he is constrained to differ: ‘Cum
talis sis, utinam noster esses.’[193]
Besides the eminent writers of this century already mentioned, Da
Costa, Spinoza, Orobio da Castro, Thomas—or, as he is called by his
countrymen, Isaac—de Pinedo, one of the most eminent Greek scholars
of the day, deserves mention not only for his classical learning, but
for the unusually mild and charitable tone he uniformly employs when
speaking of the religion of Christ. To this date also belong David
Lara, the lexicographer; Benjamin Musafia, the naturalist; and Isaac
Uziel, Emanuel Gomez, and Enrique Enriquez, the poets.
In the earlier part of the century considerable numbers of Jews
sailed for the Brazils from the various ports of Holland, under the
leadership of two Rabbins, to found a Jewish colony. It throve and
attained a considerable amount of prosperity until, in 1654, the
Portuguese obtained possession of Brazil. Under these new masters,
free exercise of their religion was not allowed the Jews. They
therefore quitted the country, some returning to Holland, others
settling in Cayenne or Surinam.
FOOTNOTES:
[183] The Sephardim and the Ashkenazim, as indeed is the case in
other countries also.
[184] It is added that he was afterwards compelled to lie on the
ground, while the whole of the congregation walked over him.
[185] All the great modern thinkers speak with reverence of Spinoza,
with the single exception, perhaps, of Leibnitz. Lessing was one
of the first to recognise his profound ability. S. T. Coleridge
and Goethe express the greatest admiration for him, the latter
affirming that he was one of his three great teachers. Later, Herder,
Schleiermacher, Hegel, and others have spoken to the same effect.
But though his opinions have exercised a wide and most important
influence on the minds of others, he has established no school of
adherents to his own peculiar philosophy. It may be doubted whether
he ever made one genuine convert.
[186] The sentence of excommunication against him ran thus: ‘Cursed
be he by day, and cursed be he by night; cursed in going out, and
cursed in coming in. And we warn you, that none may speak with him
by word of mouth, nor by writing, nor show any favour to him, nor
be under one roof with him, nor come within four cubits of him, nor
read anything written or composed by him.’ And this sentence was
pronounced by men who had themselves experienced the enormities of
religious persecution!
[187] Some have declared him to have been actually a Christian. But
though certain passages in his writings may seem to favour that idea,
his unhesitating rejection of the doctrine of the Incarnation renders
it impossible.
[188] It should be here observed that the Scriptures do not teach
anthropomorphism of any kind as actually true, but as the only mode
by which man, in the bounded and darkened condition of his intellect,
during his present state of being, can apprehend God at all. The
Scriptures contain the most distinct denials of anthropomorphism,
considered otherwise than as metaphor. Thus, Exod. xxxiii. 20: ‘Thou
canst not see My face, for there shall no man see Me, and live,’
_i.e._, ‘He must be wholly _out of the body_, in order to apprehend
Me’—apprehend Me, that is, with the eye of the spirit, not of the
body. See the use of the two words expressing bodily and spiritual
vision (John i. 18; John xvi. 16; Rev. iv. 2, etc.). Again, ‘God is
not a man, that He should lie,’ or ‘that He should repent’ (Num.
xxiii. 19). In the anthropomorphic images of Scripture, ‘God is seen
only through a glass, _darkly_,’ as St. Paul says.
[189] We have in more than one of his writings a distinct denial of
his Atheism. ‘His critics,’ he says, ‘do not know him, or they would
not so easily have persuaded themselves that he taught Atheism.’ See
also his Treatise, _De Deo et Homine_.
[190] ‘Those,’ he says also in the same epistle, ‘who would identify
matter with God _totâ errant viâ_.’
[191] It is again proper to remark that this theory is wholly
untenable. The operations of the human will are as much acts, as the
operations of the human hand. Nero, if Spinoza’s view were correct,
could be no more free mentally to conceive wickedness, contrary to
God’s will, than he was free manually to perpetrate it.
[192] There are, indeed, passages in his works where he denies, or
seems to deny, the free will of God Himself.
[193] ‘In Spinoza,’ says an eminent historian of the Jews, ‘were
to be found the seeds of a Pascal, if he could only have received
Christianity, of which, indeed, he always spoke with respect.’ But he
had no faith in it, and is only one more illustration of St. Paul’s
saying: ‘Without faith it is impossible to please God.’