Tractatus Politicus, Chapter V, Section 4 — Baruch Spinoza

Baruch de Spinoza was born at Amsterdam on the 24th of November, 1632. His parents were members of the Portuguese synagogue, a community established towards the end of the sixteenth century by Jewish exiles from Spain and Portugal, who had turned to the United Provinces as a safe asylum. For at this critical time Holland, it should be remembered to her eternal honor, was the most tolerant commonwealth in Europe. Spinoza was brought up in the course of Hebrew learning then usual, and at the age of fifteen was already distinguished for his knowledge of the Talmud. He was also familiar from his youth up, as his writings bear witness, with the masterpieces of the golden age of modern Jewish literature. From the tenth to the twelfth centuries there flourished at the Mohammedan courts of Spain and Africa a series of Arab and Hebrew philosophers who held a position with regard to the societies in which they lived much like that of the Catholic schoolmen afterwards with regard to western Christendom. Like the schoolmen, they set themselves to effect a fusion of the Aristotelian philosophy with the accepted theology of their churches; and the schoolmen were in fact acquainted with their work to a considerable extent, and referred to it quite openly, and in general with respect. The Jewish schoolmen, if we may so call them, cannot be said to have founded any distinct philosophical doctrine; in philosophy they were hardly distinguishable, if at all, from their Mohammedan compeers. But they gave a distinct philosophical cast to Jewish theology, and thereby to Jewish education. Two names stand out foremost among them. Ibn-Ezra (1088-1166 A.D.) was a traveller, astronomer, grammarian, and poet, in addition to the learning in theology and philosophy which made his commentaries on the Scriptures classical. But the chief of all is Moses ben Maimon (1135—1205 AD.) who became known in Europe as Maimonides, the father of modern Jewish theology. He was regarded with such veneration as to be compared to the great Lawgiver himself, so that it passed into a proverb, "From Moses until Moses there arose none like unto Moses." The Jewish peripatetic school was also represented in Provence, where, in the fourteenth century, Levi ben Gerson, the most daring of all the Jewish philosophers, and Moses of Narbonne were its most conspicuous members. This philosophical treatment of theology was on the whole generally accepted, but did not pass without controversy: in particular R. Chasdai Creskas, of Barcelona (flor. 1410 A.D.), whom Spinoza cites by name, combated the peripatetics with great zeal and ability from an independent point of view. A mind like Spinoza's could not well have found anything more apt to stir it to speculation and inquiry than the works of the men I have named. They handled their subjects with extreme ingenuity, and with a freedom and boldness of thought which were only verbally disguised by a sort of ostentatious reserve. Both Maimonides and Ibn-Ezra delighted to throw out hints of meanings which could not or must not be expressly revealed. Maimonides, in the introduction to his principal work, entreats the reader who may perceive such meanings not to divulge them. Ibn-Ezra says in his commentaries: "Herein is a mystery; and whoso understandeth it, let him hold his peace." The mysteries were, however, not so carefully concealed but that an open-eyed reader like Spinoza might easily find in them the principles of rational criticism which he afterwards developed in the "Tractatus Theologico-Politicus." At the same time Spinoza was far from neglecting secular learning and even accomplishments.