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140-481: Baruch ( de ) Spinoza (24 November 1632 – 21 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza , was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenment , Spinoza significantly influenced modern biblical criticism , 17th-century rationalism , and Dutch intellectual culture, establishing himself as one of the most important and radical philosophers of

280-607: A New Christian and only spoke Portuguese at home. The marriage was childless. Spinoza's sister Rebecca, brother Gabriel, and nephew eventually migrated to Curaçao , and the remaining family joined them after Spinoza's death. Through his mother, Spinoza was related to the philosopher Uriel da Costa , who stirred controversy in Amsterdam's Portuguese Jewish community. Da Costa questioned traditional Christian and Jewish beliefs, asserting that, for example, their origins were based on human inventions instead of God's revelation. His clashes with

420-608: A decade earlier in 1478), they were ultimately linked, as the Inquisition eventually also led to the fleeing out of Iberia of many descendants of Jewish converts to Catholicism in subsequent generations. Despite the fact that the original Edicts of Expulsion did not apply to Jewish-origin New Christian conversos —as these were now legally Christians— the discriminatory practices that the Inquisition nevertheless placed upon them, which were often lethal , put immense pressure on many of

560-523: A dedicated circle of followers who gathered to discuss his writings and joined him in the intellectual pursuit of truth. Spinoza published little to avoid persecution and bans on his books. In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus , described by Steven Nadler as "one of the most important books of Western thought", Spinoza questioned the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of God while arguing that ecclesiastic authority should have no role in

700-462: A dominant influence on Spinoza's philosophy. While boarding with Van den Enden, Spinoza studied in his school, where he learned the arts and sciences and likely taught others. Many of his friends were either secularized freethinkers or belonged to dissident Christian groups that rejected the authority of established churches and traditional dogmas. Spinoza was acquainted with members of the Collegiants ,

840-479: A group of disaffected Mennonites and other dissenting Reformed sects that shunned official theology and must have played some role in Spinoza's developing views on religion and directed him to Van Enden. Jonathan Israel conjectures that another possible influential figure was atheist translator Jan Hendriksz Glazemaker , a collaborator of Spinoza's friend and publisher Rieuwertsz, who could not have mentored Spinoza but

980-626: A home-made Judaism with practices peculiar to themselves, while those in group 2 had a purely intellectual conception of Judaism based on their reading of ancient Jewish sources preserved by the Church such as the Vulgate Old Testament , the Apocrypha , Philo and Josephus . Both groups therefore needed extensive re-education in Judaism after reaching their places of refuge outside the peninsula. This

1120-496: A kind of mass or corporeal matter), they are quite mistaken". For Spinoza, the universe (cosmos) is a mode under two attributes of Thought and Extension . God has infinitely many other attributes which are not present in the world. Spanish and Portuguese Jews Spanish and Portuguese Jews , also called Western Sephardim , Iberian Jews , or Peninsular Jews , are a distinctive sub-group of Sephardic Jews who are largely descended from Jews who lived as New Christians in

1260-437: A large-scale phenomenon mainly dates from that time. Conversos, whatever their real religious views, often (but not always) tended to marry and associate among themselves. As they achieved prominent positions in trade and in the royal administration, they attracted considerable resentment from the " Old Christians ". The ostensible reason given for issuance of the 1492 Alhambra Decree for the conversion, expulsion or execution of

1400-449: A leading Oporto commercial family, and his maternal grandfather was a foremost merchant who drifted between Judaism and Christianity. Spinoza was raised by his grandmother from ages six to nine and probably learned much about his family history from her. Spinoza's father Michael was a prominent and wealthy merchant in Amsterdam with a business that had wide geographical reach. In 1649, he was elected to serve as an administrative officer of

1540-538: A lesser form of blessedness, namely, that of pure understanding of oneself as one really is, i.e., as a definite modification of Substance in a certain set of relationships with everything else in the universe. That this is what Spinoza has in mind can be seen at the end of the Ethics , in E5P24 and E5P25, where Spinoza makes two final key moves, unifying the metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical propositions he has developed over

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1680-520: A link with Spain, the distinguishing feature of the Western subgroup was the added link with Portugal. Thus, as a subset of the Sephardim, "Portuguese" and "Spanish and Portuguese" could be used interchangeably. Finally, almost all organised communities in this group traditionally employed Portuguese rather than Spanish as their official or working language. In Italy , the term "Spanish Jews" ( Ebrei Spagnoli )

1820-459: A merger, the Talmud Torah at Houtgracht served until 1675. Judah Leon Templo lived on Vlooienburg, Menasseh Ben Israel , Baruch Spinoza and family lived at Houtgracht opposite the island. Rembrandt settled for a while in a former sugar refinery but moved in 1639 to Jodenbreestraat . After a year of plague Daniel Stalpaert became the architect of orphanage along the waterfront;

1960-558: A powerful incentive for the descendants of B'nei Anusim to re-discover their Sephardic ancestry, and it spurred a wave of genealogical inquiry and even genetic research. The law remained in force until 2019, therefore applications for Spanish citizenship on the basis of Sephardic ancestry are no longer accepted by the Spanish authorities. Spanish and Portuguese Jews were originally descended from New Christian conversos (i.e. Jews converted to Roman Catholic Christianity) whose descendants later left

2100-477: A relatively high proportion of the families in question had Portugal as their immediate point of departure from the Iberian peninsula, even when their remoter family background was Spanish rather than Portuguese, since Portugal was the first place of refuge and transit point for many Spanish Jews immediately following their expulsion from Spain. As the term "Sephardim" (when used in its ethnic sense) necessarily connotes

2240-748: A result of the religious anti-Jewish persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in prior years, it is estimated that of Spain's total Jewish origin population at the time, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism, and initially remained in Spain. Between 40,000 and 80,000 did not convert to Catholicism, and by their steadfast commitment to remain Jewish were thus expelled. Of those who were expelled as unconverted Jews, an indeterminate number nonetheless converted to Catholicism once outside Spain and eventually returned to Spain in

2380-439: A secular, democratic state. Ethics argues for a pantheistic view of God and explores the place of human freedom in a world devoid of theological, cosmological, and political moorings. Rejecting messianism and the emphasis on the afterlife, Spinoza emphasized appreciating and valuing life for oneself and others. By advocating for individual liberty in its moral, psychological, and metaphysical dimensions, Spinoza helped establish

2520-441: A sense of Jewish identity; he argued that without adherence to Jewish law, the Jewish people lacked a sustaining source of difference and identity, rendering the notion of a secular Jew incoherent. Sometime between 1654 and 1657, Spinoza started studying Latin with political radical Franciscus van den Enden , a former Jesuit and atheist, who likely introduced Spinoza to scholastic and modern philosophy, including Descartes, who had

2660-504: A short time, four blocks of houses with a total of two hundred residential buildings arose here. In 1605 timber traders arrived. The name Vlooienburg first appeared in 1609. The Brownists settled there as well. For the Jewish population the change came in 1614 through a diktat from the States of Holland. The library Ets Haim was founded in 1616. From 1618 onwards, three small synagogues and schools were established in private houses, and after

2800-598: A synagogue existed in Saint-Esprit as early as 1660. Vlooienburg Not much is known about the early history of Vlooienburg, surrounded by three canals and the Amstel river. The island was expanded considerably to the south and was filled with rubble, shards , and unusable ship parts. The first sale of a house in the area dates back to June 1603. This means that the issuance of empty lots must have taken place in Winter 1602. In

2940-709: A synagogue regulation that business matters are to be arbitrated within the community. Amsterdam was tolerant of religious diversity so long as it was practiced discreetly. The community was concerned with protecting its reputation and not associating with Spinoza lest his controversial views provide the basis for possible persecution or expulsion. Spinoza did not openly break with Jewish authorities until his father died in 1654 when he became public and defiant, resulting from lengthy and stressful religious, financial, and legal clashes involving his business and synagogue, such as when Spinoza violated synagogue regulations by going to city authorities rather than resolving his disputes within

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3080-486: A teenager, he certainly heard discussions about him. Steven Nadler explains that, although da Costa died when Spinoza was eight, his ideas shaped Spinoza's intellectual development. Amsterdam's Jewish communities long remembered and discussed da Costa's skepticism about organized religion, denial of the soul's immortality, and the idea that Moses didn't write the Torah, influencing Spinoza's intellectual journey. Spinoza attended

3220-659: A thread of "attending to the highest good" (which also is the highest truth) and thereby achieving a state of peace and harmony, either metaphysically or politically. In this light, the Principles of Philosophy might be viewed as an "exercise in geometric method and philosophy", paving the way for numerous concepts and conclusions that would define his philosophy (see Cogitata Metaphysica). Spinoza's metaphysics consists of one thing, substance, and its modifications (modes). Early in The Ethics Spinoza argues that only one substance

3360-465: Is "attributed" to reality by intellect. Spinoza defined God as "a substance consisting of infinite attributes, each of which expresses eternal and infinite essence", and since "no cause or reason" can prevent such a being from existing, it must exist. This is a form of the ontological argument , which is claimed to prove the existence of God, but Spinoza went further in stating that it showed that only God exists. Accordingly, he stated that "Whatever is,

3500-460: Is a part of God. This view was described by Charles Hartshorne as Classical Pantheism . Spinoza argues that "things could not have been produced by God in any other way or in any other order than is the case". Therefore, concepts such as 'freedom' and 'chance' have little meaning. This picture of Spinoza's determinism is illuminated in Ethics : "the infant believes that it is by free will that it seeks

3640-632: Is absolutely infinite , self-caused, and eternal. He calls this substance " God ", or " Nature ". He takes these two terms to be synonymous (in the Latin the phrase he uses is "Deus sive Natura" ). For Spinoza, the whole of the natural universe consists of one substance, God, or, what is the same, Nature, and its modifications (modes). It cannot be overemphasized how the rest of Spinoza's philosophy—his philosophy of mind, his epistemology, his psychology, his moral philosophy, his political philosophy, and his philosophy of religion—flows more or less directly from

3780-472: Is by universal egoism ". Spinoza's notion of blessedness figures centrally in his ethical philosophy. Spinoza writes that blessedness (or salvation or freedom), "consists, namely, in a constant and eternal love of God, or in God's love for men. Philosopher Jonathan Bennett interprets this as Spinoza wanting "'blessedness' to stand for the most elevated and desirable state one could possibly be in." Understanding what

3920-475: Is clearly disappointed by Spinoza's only statement on women. "It is unfortunate that the very last words we have by him, at the end of the extant chapters of the Political Treatise , are a short digression … on the unsuitability of women to hold political power." Likewise Jonathan I. Israel says that Spinoza's views are "hugely disappointing to the modern reader" and that most that can be said in his defense

4060-634: Is derived from Sepharad , a Biblical location. The location of the biblical Sepharad is disputed, but Sepharad was identified by later Jews as Hispania , that is, the Iberian Peninsula . Sepharad still means "Spain" in modern Hebrew . The relationship between Sephardi-descended communities is illustrated in the following diagram : "Sephardim" properly refers to all Jews whose families have extended histories in Spain and Portugal , in contrast to Ashkenazi Jews and all other Jewish ethnic divisions . However, Mizrahi Jews , who have extended histories in

4200-493: Is frequently used, but it includes descendants of Jews expelled as Jews from the Kingdom of Naples , as well as "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" proper (i.e. Jews descended from former conversos and their descendants). In Venice , Spanish and Portuguese Jews were often described as "Ponentine" (Western), to distinguish them from "Levantine" (Eastern) Sephardim from Eastern Mediterranean areas. Occasionally Italian Jews distinguish between

4340-449: Is in God, and nothing can exist or be conceived without God". This means that God is identical with the universe, an idea which he encapsulated in the phrase " Deus sive Natura " ('God or Nature'), which some have interpreted as atheism or pantheism . Though there are many more of them, God can be known by humans either through the attribute of extension or the attribute of thought. Thought and extension represent giving complete accounts of

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4480-407: Is just the substance of the universe by first stating that substances do not share attributes or essences and then demonstrating that God is a "substance" with an infinite number of attributes, thus the attributes possessed by any other substances must also be possessed by God. Therefore, God is just the sum of all the substances of the universe. God is the only substance in the universe, and everything

4620-521: Is meant by "most elevated and desirable state" requires understanding Spinoza's notion of conatus ( striving , but not necessarily with any teleological baggage) and that "perfection" refers not to (moral) value, but to completeness. Given that individuals are identified as mere modifications of the infinite Substance, it follows that no individual can ever be fully complete, i.e., perfect, or blessed. Absolute perfection, is, in Spinoza's thought, reserved solely for Substance. Nevertheless, modes can attain

4760-423: Is that "in his age rampant tyrannizing over women was indeed universal." He goes on to say, "one may legitimately wonder why did Spinoza, if he was to be consistent, not apply his highly sceptical and innovative, for his time uniquely subversive, de-legtimizing general principle likewise to men's tyrannizing over women." One scholar has attempted to rationalize Spinoza's views excluding women from full citizenship. But

4900-498: Is that all three are descended from conversos. "Western Sephardim" are descendants of former conversos of earlier centuries; "Sephardic Bnei Anusim" are the still nominally Christian descendants of conversos; and "Neo-Western Sephardim" are the increasing in number modern-day former conversos currently returning to Judaism from among the Sephardic Bnei Anusim population. The distinguishing factor between "Western Sephardim" and

5040-682: The Belmonte Jews in Portugal, and the Xuetes of Spain. In the case of the Xuetes, the entire community of converso descendants was extended a blanket recognition as Jews by Rabbinical authorities in Israel due to their particular historical circumstances on the island which effectively resulted in a strict social isolation of the Xuetes imposed upon them by their non-Jewish-descended neighbors up until modern times. In

5180-711: The British Royal Society Henry Oldenburg . Huygens and others notably praised the quality of Spinoza's lenses. Spinoza engaged in correspondence with Willem van Blijenbergh , an amateur Calvinist theologian, who sought Spinoza's view on the nature of evil and sin. Whereas Blijenbergh deferred to the authority of scripture for theology and philosophy, Spinoza told him not solely to look at scripture for truth or anthropomorphize God. Also, Spinoza told him their views were incommensurable. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz outwardly described Spinoza's work negatively but privately wrote letters to him and desired to examine

5320-628: The Ethics , this work was published posthumously by his circle of supporters in Latin and in Dutch. The subtitle is " In quo demonstratur, quomodo Societas, ubi Imperium Monarchicum locum habet, sicut et ea, ubi Optimi imperant, debet institui, ne in Tyrannidem labatur, et ut Pax, Libertasque civium inviolata maneat ." ("In which it is demonstrated how a society, may it be a monarchy or an aristocracy , can be best governed, so as not to fall into tyranny , and so that

5460-575: The Greater Middle East and North Africa, are often called "Sephardim" more broadly in colloquial and religious parlance due to similar styles of liturgy and a certain amount of intermarriage between them and Sephardim proper. The main factor distinguishing "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" (Western Sephardim) from other "Sephardim proper" is that "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" refers specifically to those Jews who descend from persons whose history as practising members of Jewish communities with origins in

5600-455: The Iberian Peninsula during the few centuries following the forced expulsion of unconverted Jews from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1497 . They should therefore be distinguished both from the descendants of those expelled in 1492 and from the present-day Jewish communities of Spain and Portugal. The main present-day communities of Spanish and Portuguese Jews exist in the Netherlands,

5740-829: The Iberian peninsula was interrupted by a period of having been New Christians (also known as conversos , the Spanish term for "converts" to Catholicism; or cristãos-novos , "new Christians" in the Portuguese equivalent) or anusim (Hebrew for those "forced" to convert from Judaism to another faith). During their period as New Christians, many conversos continued to practise their Jewish faith in secrecy as best they could. Those New Christian conversos of Jewish origin who maintained crypto-Jewish practices in secret were termed marranos (Spanish "swine") by Old Christian Spaniards and Portuguese. Conversely, those New Christian conversos who have remained as conversos since that time, both those in

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5880-499: The Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon , including from all its territories and possessions, by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose of the expulsion was to eliminate the influence of unconverted Jews on Spain's by then large Jewish-origin New Christian converso population, to ensure that the prior did not encourage the latter to relapse and revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jewish origin population had converted to Catholicism as

6020-612: The Nieuwe Kerk four days after his death, with six others in the same vault. At the time, there was no memorial plaque for Spinoza. In the 18th century, the vault was emptied, and the remnants scattered over the earth of the churchyard. The memorial plaque is outside the church, where some of his remains are part of the churchyard's soil. Spinoza's friends rescued his personal belongings, papers, and unpublished manuscripts. His supporters took them away for safekeeping from seizure by those wishing to suppress his writings, and they do not appear in

6160-800: The Portuguese and Spanish Inquisitions , the early community continued to be augmented by further New Christian emigration pouring out of the Iberian Peninsula in a continuous flow between the 1600s to 1700s. Jewish-origin New Christians were officially considered Christians due to their forced or coerced conversions; as such they were subject to the jurisdiction of the Catholic Church's Inquisitorial system, and were subject to harsh heresy and apostasy laws if they continued to practice their ancestral Jewish faith. Those New Christians who eventually fled both

6300-524: The Theologico-Political Treatise , his works appeared in print after his death. Because the reaction to his anonymously published work, Theologico-Political Treatise , was unfavorable, Spinoza told supporters not to translate his works and abstained from publishing further. Following his death, his supporters published his works posthumously in Latin and Dutch. His posthumous works– Opera Posthuma –were edited by his friends in secrecy to prevent

6440-489: The city council of Porto. As mentioned, these communities of modern-day returnees to Judaism are among the first in the emergence of the nascent Neo-Western Sephardim. Neo-Western Sephardim are the modern returnees to Judaism throughout Iberia and Ibero-America emerging from among the population of Sephardic Bnei Anusim, and are distinct from Western Sephardim (those termed "Spanish and Portuguese Jews"). Even more recent examples of such Neo-Western Sephardim communities include

6580-511: The early modern period . Influenced by Stoicism , Thomas Hobbes , René Descartes , Ibn Tufayl , and heterodox Christians, Spinoza was a leading philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age . Spinoza was born in Amsterdam to a Marrano family that fled Portugal for the more tolerant Dutch Republic . He received a traditional Jewish education, learning Hebrew and studying sacred texts within

6720-463: The principle of sufficient reason is commonly associated with Gottfried Leibniz , Spinoza employs it in a more systematic manner. In Spinoza's philosophical framework, questions concerning why a particular phenomenon exists are always answerable, and these answers are provided in terms of the relevant cause. Spinoza's approach involves first providing an account of a phenomenon, such as goodness or consciousness, to explain it, and then further explaining

6860-481: The rationalist school of thought, which includes the assumption that ideas correspond to reality perfectly, in the same way that mathematics is supposed to be an exact representation of the world. The Ethics , a "superbly cryptic masterwork", contains many unresolved obscurities and is written with a forbidding mathematical structure modeled on Euclid's geometry. The writings of René Descartes have been described as "Spinoza's starting point". Spinoza's first publication

7000-426: The "God-intoxicated man". Spinoza inspired the poet Shelley to write his essay " The Necessity of Atheism ". It is a widespread belief that Spinoza equated God with the material universe. He has therefore been called the "prophet" and "prince" and most eminent expounder of pantheism . More specifically, in a letter to Henry Oldenburg he states, "as to the view of certain people that I identify God with Nature (taken as

7140-575: The "Portuguese Jews" of Pisa and Livorno and the "Spanish Jews" of Venice, Modena and elsewhere. The scholar Joseph Dan distinguishes "medieval Sephardim" (15th and 16th-century Spanish exiles in the Ottoman Empire who arrived as Jews) from "Renaissance Sephardim" (Spanish and Portuguese former converso communities who arrived as New Christians), in reference to the respective times of each grouping's formative contacts with Spanish language and culture. The term Sephardi means "Spanish" or "Hispanic", and

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7280-458: The "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" to distance themselves from Spain in the times of political tension and war between Spain and the Netherlands in the 17th century. Similar considerations may have played a role for ethnic Sephardic Jews in the French regions of Bayonne and Bordeaux , given their proximity to the Spanish border. Another reason for the terminology of "Portuguese" Jews may have been that

7420-659: The "apostle of the Marranos". In 1921, realizing that there were less than twenty Ashkenazi Jews living in Porto, and that recent returnees to Judaism like himself were not organized and had to travel to Lisbon for religious purposes whenever necessary, Barros Basto began to think about building a synagogue and took initiative in 1923 to officially register the Jewish Community of Porto and the Israelite Theological Center in

7560-597: The 16th and early 17th centuries, conversos were also seeking refuge beyond the Pyrenees , settling in France at Saint-Jean-de-Luz , Tarbes , Bayonne , Bordeaux , Marseille , and Montpellier . They lived apparently as Christians; were married by Catholic priests; had their children baptized, and publicly pretended to be Catholics. In secret, however, they circumcised their children, kept Shabbat and feast-days as best they could and prayed together. Henry III of France confirmed

7700-571: The Catholic Church. Burgh attacked Spinoza's views as expressed in the Theological-Political Treatise and tried to persuade Spinoza to embrace Catholicism. In response, Spinoza, at the request of Burgh's family, who hoped to restore his reason, wrote an angry letter mocking the Catholic Church and condemning all religious superstition. Spinoza published little in his lifetime, and most formal writings were in Latin, reaching few readers. Apart from Descartes' Principles of Philosophy and

7840-706: The Iberian Peninsula and those who moved to the Iberian colonial possessions during the Spanish colonization of the Americas , became the related Sephardic Bnei Anusim . Sephardic Bnei Anusim are the contemporary and largely nominally Christian descendants of assimilated 15th century Sephardic Anusim, and are today a fully assimilated sub-group within the Iberian-descended Christian populations of Spain, Portugal, Hispanic America and Brazil. For historical reasons and circumstances, Sephardic Bnei Anusim have not returned to

7980-515: The Iberian cultural sphere and jurisdiction of the Inquisition were able to officially return to Judaism and open Jewish practice once they were in their new tolerant environments of refuge. As former conversos or their descendants, Western Sephardim developed a distinctive ritual based on the remnants of the Judaism of pre-expulsion Spain, which some had practiced in secrecy during their time as New Christians, and influenced by Judaism as practiced by

8120-670: The Iberian cultural sphere. Although Jewish communities were re-established in Spain and Portugal in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely with the help of communities of Spanish and Portuguese Jews such as that in London, these present-day Jews in Portugal and Jews in Spain are distinct from "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" as, for the most part, the modern Jewish communities resident in Spain and Portugal also include other Jewish ethnic divisions recently immigrated to Spain and Portugal, such as Ashkenazi Jews of Northern Europe. In modern Iberia, practicing Jews of Sephardic origins, such as

8260-555: The Iberian peninsula and reverted to Judaism. Although legend has it that conversos existed as early as the Visigothic period, and that there was a continuous phenomenon of crypto-Judaism from that time lasting throughout Spanish history, this scenario is unlikely, as in the Muslim period of Iberia there was no advantage in passing as a Christian instead of publicly acknowledging one was a Jew. The main wave of conversions, often forced, followed

8400-452: The Inquisition in the 19th century, and this time frame necessitated their migration out of the Iberian cultural sphere. Conversely, the converso descendants who are today becoming the nascent Neo-Western Sephardim have been reverting to Judaism between the late 20th and early 21st centuries, they have been doing so at a time after the abolition of the Inquisition in the 19th century, and this time frame has not necessitated their migration out of

8540-457: The Jewish community of Oporto , however, are also not Western Sephardim, but are Neo-Western Sephardim, as they were re-established in the 20th century and early 21st centuries with a campaign of outreach to the crypto-Jews of Sephardic Bnei Anusim origins. The Oporto community's return to Judaism was led by the returnee to Judaism Captain Artur Carlos de Barros Basto (1887–1961), known also as

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8680-437: The Jewish community. He acted as an intermediary for Spinoza's correspondence, sending and receiving letters of the philosopher to and from third parties. They maintained their relationship until Serrarius died in 1669. Through his pursuits in lens grinding, mathematics, optics, and philosophy, Spinoza forged connections with prominent figures such as scientist Christiaan Huygens , mathematician Johannes Hudde , and Secretary of

8820-477: The Jewish faith over the last five centuries, In modern times, some have begun emerging publicly in increasing numbers, especially in the last two decades. For "Spanish and Portuguese Jews" (Western Sephardim), their historical period as conversos has shaped their identity, culture, and practices. In this respect, they are clearly distinguishable from those Sephardim who descend from the Jews who left Iberia as Jews before

8960-677: The Jewish religion; they and their descendants are known as Eastern Sephardim . During the centuries following the Spanish and Portuguese decrees, some of the Jewish-origin New Christian conversos started emigrating from Portugal and Spain, settling until the 1700s throughout areas of Western Europe and non-Iberian realms of the colonial Americas (mostly Dutch realms, including Curaçao in the Dutch West Indies, Recife in Dutch areas of colonial Brazil which eventually were regained by

9100-538: The Jewish-origin Christians to also emigrate out of Spain and Portugal in the immediate generations following the expulsion of their unconverted Jewish brethren. The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain ( Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon ) ordering the expulsion of all unconverted practicing Jews from

9240-511: The Jews were again issued with a similar decree just a few years later in 1497, giving them the choice of exile or conversion. Unlike in Spain, however, in actual practice Portugal mostly prevented them from leaving, thus they necessarily stayed as ostensible converts to Christianity whether they wished to or not, after the Portuguese King reasoned that by their failure to leave they accepted Christianity by default. For this reason, crypto-Judaism

9380-514: The Livorno synagogue – considered to be the most important building in town – was destroyed in the Second World War: a modern building was erected on the same site in 1958–1962. Many merchants maintained a presence in both Italy and countries in the Ottoman Empire, and even those who settled permanently in the Ottoman Empire retained their Tuscan or other Italian nationality, so as to have

9520-469: The Massacre of 1391 in Spain. Legal definitions of that era theoretically acknowledged that a forced baptism was not a valid sacrament, but the Church confined this to cases where it was literally administered by physical force: a person who had consented to baptism under threat of death or serious injury was still regarded as a voluntary convert, and accordingly forbidden to revert to Judaism. Crypto-Judaism as

9660-685: The Ottoman Empire, where a complete culture change would be required. On the other hand, in Italy they ran the risk of prosecution for Judaizing, given that in law they were baptized Christians; for this reason they generally avoided the Papal States. The Popes did allow some Spanish-Jewish settlement at Ancona , as this was the main port for the Turkey trade, in which their links with the Ottoman Sephardim were useful. Other states found it advantageous to allow

9800-460: The Portuguese Jewish community, where his father was a prominent merchant. As a young man, Spinoza challenged rabbinic authority and questioned Jewish doctrines, leading to his permanent expulsion from the Jewish community in 1656. Following his excommunication, he distanced himself from all religious affiliations and devoted himself to philosophical inquiry and lens grinding. Spinoza attracted

9940-516: The Portuguese Nation." The term "Western Sephardim" is frequently used in modern research literature to refer to "Spanish and Portuguese Jews," but sometimes also to "Spanish- Moroccan Jews ". The use of the terms "Portuguese Jews" and "Jews of the Portuguese Nation" in areas such as the Netherlands , Hamburg, Scandinavia , and at one time in London, seems to have arisen primarily as a way for

10080-566: The Portuguese, and New Amsterdam which later became New York) forming communities and formally reverting to Judaism. It is the collective of these communities and their descendants who are known as Western Sephardim , and are the subject of this article. As the early members of the Western Sephardim consisted of persons who themselves (or whose immediate forebears) personally experienced an interim period as New Christians, which resulted in unceasing trials and persecutions of crypto-Judaism by

10220-725: The Sephardic Jewish communities under Ottoman rule provided spiritual leadership to the dispersed Sephardim through their contributions to the Responsa literature . These Sephardic communities offered refuge to all Jews, including the Sephardi Jewish-origin New Christian conversos fleeing the Inquisition across Europe, as well as their Eastern European Ashkenazi coreligionists fleeing pogroms. The common feature shared by Western Sephardim ("Spanish and Portuguese Jews") to Sephardic Bnei Anusim and Neo-Western Sephardim

10360-470: The Spanish and Portuguese community worldwide, as it was among the earliest to be established, and the first prayer book was published there. Later communities, such as in Amsterdam, followed its lead on ritual questions. With the decline in the importance of Venice in the 18th century, the leading role passed to Livorno (for Italy and the Mediterranean) and Amsterdam (for western countries). Unfortunately,

10500-832: The Stoics before him, in contrast to the Epicurean belief in the probabilistic path of atoms, which is more in line with contemporary thought on quantum mechanics . One thing which seems, on the surface, to distinguish Spinoza's view of the emotions from both Descartes' and Hume's pictures of them is that he takes the emotions to be cognitive in some important respect. Jonathan Bennett claims that "Spinoza mainly saw emotions as caused by cognitions. [However] he did not say this clearly enough and sometimes lost sight of it entirely." Spinoza provides several demonstrations which purport to show truths about how human emotions work. The picture presented is, according to Bennett, "unflattering, coloured as it

10640-606: The Talmud Torah school adjoining the Bet Ya'acov synagogue, a few doors down from his home, headed by the senior Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira . Instructed in Spanish, the language of learning and literature, students in the elementary school learned to read the prayerbook and the Torah in Hebrew, translate the weekly section into Spanish, and study Rashi 's commentary. Spinoza's name does not appear on

10780-528: The United Kingdom, the United States and Canada, and several other Jewish communities in the Americas have Spanish and Portuguese Jewish roots though they no longer follow the distinctive customs of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Although the 1492 and 1497 expulsions of unconverted Jews from Spain and Portugal were separate events from the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions (which were established over

10920-449: The authorities, leading to his imprisonment and eventual death in prison. Anticipating the reaction to his ideas, Spinoza published his treatise in 1670 under a false publisher and a fictitious place of publication. The work did not remain anonymous for long. Samuel Maresius attacked Spinoza personally, while Thomas Hobbes and Johannes Bredenburg criticized his conception of God and saw the book as dangerous and subversive. Spinoza's work

11060-540: The benefit of the capitulations of the Ottoman Empire . Thus, in Tunisia there was a community of Juifs Portugais , or L'Grana (Livornese), separate from, and regarding itself as superior to, the native Tunisian Jews ( Tuansa ). Smaller communities of the same kind existed in other countries, such as Syria, where they were known as Señores Francos . They were generally not numerous enough to establish their own synagogues, instead meeting for prayer in each other's houses. In

11200-452: The bounds of political and religious authority while arguing for a secular, democratic state. Before the publication of the Theological-Political Treatise , Spinoza's friend Adriaan Koerbagh published a book that criticized organized religion, denied the divine authorship of the Bible, and asserted that miracles were impossible—ideas similar to those of Spinoza. His work attracted the attention of

11340-511: The breast; the angry boy believes that by free will he wishes vengeance; the timid man thinks it is with free will he seeks flight; the drunkard believes that by a free command of his mind he speaks the things which when sober he wishes he had left unsaid. … All believe that they speak by a free command of the mind, whilst, in truth, they have no power to restrain the impulse which they have to speak." In his letter to G. H. Schuller (Letter 58), he wrote: "men are conscious of their desire and unaware of

11480-421: The causes by which [their desires] are determined." He also held that knowledge of true causes of passive emotion can transform it into an active emotion, thus anticipating one of the key ideas of Sigmund Freud 's psychoanalysis . According to Eric Schliesser, Spinoza was skeptical regarding the possibility of knowledge of nature and as a consequence at odds with scientists such as Galileo and Huygens. Although

11620-626: The communities (including Sephardic Jews of the Ottoman Empire and Ashkenazi Jews ) which assisted them in their readoption of normative Judaism; as well as by the Spanish-Moroccan and the Italian Jewish rites practiced by rabbis and hazzanim recruited from those communities to instruct them in ritual practice. A part of their distinctiveness as a Jewish group, furthermore, stems from the fact that they saw themselves as forced to "redefine their Jewish identity and mark its boundaries [...] with

11760-454: The community to free himself from paying his father's debt. On 27 July, 1656, the Talmud Torah community leaders, which included Aboab de Fonseca , issued a writ of herem against the 23-year-old Spinoza. Spinoza's censure was the harshest ever pronounced in the community, carrying tremendous emotional and spiritual impact. The exact reason for expelling Spinoza is not stated, only referring to his "abominable heresies", "monstrous deeds", and

11900-478: The concept of an anthropomorphic, fatherly God who cares about humanity. In 1785, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi published a condemnation of Spinoza's pantheism, after Gotthold Lessing was thought to have confessed on his deathbed to being a "Spinozist", which was the equivalent in his time of being called an atheist . Jacobi claimed that Spinoza's doctrine was pure materialism, because all Nature and God are said to be nothing but extended substance . This, for Jacobi,

12040-607: The confiscation and destruction of manuscripts. He wore a signet ring to mark his letters, engraved with the Latin word Caute , meaning "Caution", and the image of a thorny rose. Spinoza's health began to fail in 1676, and he died in The Hague on 21 February 1677 at age 44, attended by a physician friend, Georg Herman Schuller. Spinoza had been ill with some form of lung affliction, probably tuberculosis and possibly complicated by silicosis brought on by grinding glass lenses. Although Spinoza had been becoming sicker for weeks, his death

12180-427: The conversos to settle and mix with the existing Jewish communities, and to turn a blind eye to their religious status. In the next generation, the children of conversos could be brought up as fully Jewish with no legal problem, as they had never been baptized. The main places of settlement were as follows: On the whole, the Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained separate from the native Italian rite Jews , though there

12320-488: The course of the work. In E5P24, he links the understanding of particular things to the understanding of God, or Substance; in E5P25, the conatus of the mind is linked to the third kind of knowledge ( Intuition ). From here, it is a short step to the connection of Blessedness with the amor dei intellectualis ("intellectual love of God"). This unfinished treatise in Latin expounds Spinoza's ideas about forms of government. As with

12460-510: The death of Rachel, Michael married Hannah Deborah, with whom he had five children. His second wife brought a dowry to the marriage that was absorbed into Michael's business capital instead of being set aside for her children, which may have caused a grudge between Spinoza and his father. The family lived on the artificial island on the south side of the River Amstel, known as the Vlooienburg , at

12600-483: The end of the 18th century. They were generally accepted by the host Jewish communities as anusim (forced converts), whose conversion, being involuntary, did not compromise their Jewish status. Conversos of the first generation after the expulsion still had some knowledge of Judaism based on memory of contact with a living Jewish community. In later generations, people had to avoid known Jewish practices that might attract undesired attention: conversos in group 3 evolved

12740-785: The expiration date for the Alhambra Decree , resulting in the 1492 expulsion from Spain and 1497 expulsion from Portugal of all Jews who had not been baptised into the Catholic faith. These expelled Jews settled mainly around the Mediterranean Basin of Southern Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, namely, Salonika , the Balkans and Turkey , and they became the Eastern Sephardim and North African Sephardim respectively. For centuries,

12880-529: The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and from the Kingdom of Naples in 1533, these areas were an obvious destination for conversos wishing to leave Spain and Portugal. The similarity of the Italian language to Spanish was another attraction. Given their Christian cultural background and high level of European-style education, the new emigrants were less likely to follow the example of the 1492 expellees by settling in

13020-561: The fifth house along the Houtgracht canal. The Jewish quarter was not formally divided. The family lived close to the Bet Ya'acov synagogue, and nearby were Christians, including the artist Rembrandt . Miriam was their first child, followed by Isaac who was expected to take over as head of the family and the commercial enterprise but died in 1649. Baruch Espinosa, the third child, was born on 24 November 1632 and named as per tradition for his maternal grandfather. Spinoza's younger brother Gabriel

13160-410: The generous contributions of his friends to support himself. In 1663, Spinoza moved to Voorburg for an unknown reason. He continued working on Ethics and corresponded with scientists and philosophers throughout Europe. In 1665, he began writing the Theological-Political Treatise , which addresses theological and political issues such as the interpretation of scripture, the origins of the state, and

13300-424: The genre of political writing called secular theology . Spinoza's philosophy spans nearly every area of philosophical discourse, including metaphysics , epistemology , political philosophy , ethics , philosophy of mind , and philosophy of science . His friends posthumously published his works, captivating philosophers for the next two centuries. Celebrated as one of the most original and influential thinkers of

13440-505: The intellectual tools they had acquired in their Christian socialization" during their time as New Christian conversos. The main 'Western Sephardic Jewish' communities developed in Western Europe, Italy, and the non-Iberian regions of the Americas. In addition to the term "Western Sephardim", this sub-group of Sephardic Jews is sometimes also referred to also as "Spanish and Portuguese Jews," "Spanish Jews," "Portuguese Jews," or "Jews of

13580-657: The inventory of his possessions at death. Within a year of his death, his supporters translated his Latin manuscripts into Dutch and other languages. Secular authorities and later the Roman Catholic Church banned his works. Despite being published in Latin rather than a vernacular language, this 1670 treatise published in Spinoza's lifetime caused a huge reaction described as "one of the most significant events in European intellectual history." The Ethics has been associated with that of Leibniz and René Descartes as part of

13720-618: The last five to ten years, "organized groups of [Sephardic] Benei Anusim have been established in Brazil, Colombia , Costa Rica , Chile, Ecuador , Mexico, Puerto Rico , Venezuela , and in Sefarad [the Iberian Peninsula] itself". Some members of these communities have formally reverted to Judaism. In 2015, the Spanish government enacted a law conceding Spanish nationality to the descendants of Sephardic Jews of Spanish origin . The law created

13860-406: The latter being evident in every finite mode (he gives examples of "motion" and "rest"). The traditional understanding of an attribute in philosophy is similar to Spinoza's modes, though he uses that word differently. To him, an attribute is "that which the intellect perceives as constituting the essence of substance", and there are possibly an infinite number of them. It is the essential nature that

14000-622: The manuscript of the Ethics . In 1676, Leibniz traveled to The Hague to meet Spinoza, remaining with him for three days to converse about current events and philosophy. Leibniz's work bears some striking resemblances to parts of Spinoza's philosophy, like in Monadology . Leibniz was concerned when his name was not redacted in a letter printed in the Opera Posthuma . In 1675, Albert Burgh, a friend and possibly former pupil of Spinoza, wrote to him repudiating his teachings and announcing his conversion to

14140-421: The manuscript of  Ethics , reworking part Three into parts Four and Five, and composed a Hebrew grammar for proper interpretation of scripture and for clearing up confusion and problems when studying the Bible, with part One presenting etymology, the alphabet, and principles governing nouns, verbs, and more. Part Two, unfinished before he died, would have presented syntax rules. Another unfinished work from 1676

14280-537: The metaphysical underpinnings in Part I of the Ethics . Spinoza sets forth a vision of Being, illuminated by his awareness of God. They may seem strange at first sight. To the question "What is?" he replies: "Substance, its attributes, and modes". Following Maimonides , Spinoza defined substance as "that which is in itself and is conceived through itself", meaning that it can be understood without any reference to anything external. Being conceptually independent also means that

14420-409: The nascent "Neo-Western Sephardim" is the time frame of the reversions to Judaism, the location of the reversions, and the precarious religious and legal circumstances surrounding their reversions, including impediments and persecutions. Thus, the converso descendants who became the Western Sephardim had reverted to Judaism between the 16th and 18th centuries, they did so at a time before the abolition of

14560-405: The original editors of Opera Posthuma —a collection of his works published posthumously—Lodewijk Meyer, Georg Hermann Schuller, and Johannes Bouwmeester, excluded personal matters and letters due to the political and ecclesiastical persecution of the time. Spinoza corresponded with Peter Serrarius , a radical Protestant and millenarian merchant, who was a patron of Spinoza after his expulsion from

14700-574: The peace and liberty of the citizens remain unviolated"). Although Spinoza's political and theological thought was radical on many ways, he held traditional views on the place of women. In the TP, he writes briefly on the last page of the TP that women were "naturally" subordinate to men, stating bluntly his women are "by nature" not by "institutional practice" subordinate to men. Both his major biographers in English remark on his view of women. Biographer Steven Nadler

14840-525: The phenomenon in terms of itself. For instance, he might argue that consciousness is the degree of power of a mental state. Spinoza has also been described as an " Epicurean materialist", specifically in reference to his opposition to Cartesian mind-body dualism. This view was held by Epicureans before him, as they believed that atoms with their probabilistic paths were the only substance that existed fundamentally. Spinoza, however, deviated significantly from Epicureans by adhering to strict determinism, much like

14980-429: The privileges granted them by Henry II of France , and protected them against accusations. Under Louis XIII of France , the conversos of Bayonne were assigned to the suburb of Saint-Esprit . At Saint-Esprit, as well as at Peyrehorade, Bidache, Orthez , Biarritz , and Saint-Jean-de-Luz , they gradually avowed Judaism openly. In 1640 several hundred conversos, considered to be Jews, were living at Saint-Jean-de-Luz; and

15120-482: The propositions of the Ethics while it was in draft and Spinoza's second text, Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being . Though a few prominent people in Amsterdam discussed the teachings of the secretive but marginal group, it was mainly a testing ground for Spinoza's philosophy to extend his challenge to the status quo. Their public reputation in Amsterdam was negative, with Ole Borch disparaging them as "atheists". Throughout his life, Spinoza's general approach

15260-457: The recently united congregation Talmud Torah . He married his cousin Rachael d'Espinosa, daughter of his uncle Abraham d'Espinosa, who was also a community leader and Michael's business partner. Marrying cousins was common in the Portuguese Jewish community then, giving Michael access to his father-in-law's commercial network and capital. Rachel's children died in infancy, and she died in 1627. After

15400-489: The registry after age fourteen, and he likely never studied with rabbis such as Manasseh ben Israel and Morteira. Spinoza possibly went to work around fourteen and almost certainly was needed in his father's business after his brother died in 1649. During the First Anglo-Dutch War , much of the Spinoza firm's ships and cargo were captured by English ships, severely affecting the firm's financial viability. The firm

15540-405: The religious establishment led to his excommunication twice by rabbinic authorities, who imposed humiliation and social exclusion. In 1639, as part of an agreement to be readmitted, da Costa had to prostrate himself for worshippers to step over him. He died in 1640, reportedly committing suicide. During his childhood, Spinoza was likely unaware of his family connection with Uriel da Costa; still, as

15680-419: The responsibility of paying debts owed by his late father, Spinoza appealed to the city to declare him an orphan; since he was a legal minor, not understanding his father's indebtedness would remove the obligation to repay his debts and retrospectively renounce his inheritance. Though he was released of all debts and legally in the right, his reputation as a merchant was permanently damaged in addition to violating

15820-418: The same thing is ontologically independent, depending on nothing else for its existence and being the 'cause of itself' ( causa sui ). A mode is something which cannot exist independently but rather must do so as part of something else on which it depends, including properties (for example color), relations (such as size) and individual things. Modes can be further divided into 'finite' and 'infinite' ones, with

15960-408: The secrecy surrounding their situation, the question is not easy to answer: probably the conversos themselves were divided, and could be ranged at different points between the possible positions. The suggested profiles are as follows: For these reasons, there was a continuous flow of people leaving Spain and Portugal (mostly Portugal) for places where they could practise Judaism openly, from 1492 until

16100-524: The seventeenth century, Rebecca Goldstein dubbed him "the renegade Jew who gave us modernity." Spinoza's ancestors, adherents of Crypto-Judaism , faced persecution during the Portuguese Inquisition , enduring torture and public displays of humiliation. In 1597, his paternal grandfather's family left Vidigueira for Nantes and lived outwardly as New Christians , eventually transferring to Holland for an unknown reason. His maternal ancestors were

16240-445: The synagogue's bans on public weddings, funeral processions, and discussing religious matters with Christians, lest such activity might "disturb the liberty we enjoy". Before the expulsion, Spinoza had not published anything or written a treatise; Steven Nadler states that if Spinoza was voicing his criticism of Judaism that later appeared through his philosophical works, such as Part I of Ethics , then there can be no wonder that he

16380-462: The testimony of witnesses "in the presence of the said Espinoza". Even though the Amsterdam municipal authorities were not directly involved in Spinoza's censure, the town council expressly ordered the Portuguese-Jewish community to regulate their conduct and ensure that the community kept strict observance of Jewish law. Other evidence indicates a concern about upsetting civil authorities, such as

16520-547: The theologians, synods, and city magistrates. The Short Treatise , a long-forgotten text that only survived in Dutch translation, was first published by Johannes van Vloten in 1862. While lodging with Herman Homan in Rijnsburg, Spinoza produced lenses and instruments to support himself and out of scientific interest. He began working on his Ethics and Descartes' Principles of Philosophy , which he completed in two weeks, communicating and interpreting Descartes' arguments and testing

16660-414: The timber traders disappeared. After the first wave of Sephardim immigration, many Ashkenazi from Central and Eastern Europe settled there. For many years it was the location of a covered ballgame or tennis court , and a fish-market at the waterfront. Around 1840 Coster Diamonds was established on the island. In 1874 and 1882, the Houtgracht and Leprozengracht were filled in, meaning that Vlooienburg

16800-515: The topic has not attracted major consideration in Spinoza studies. Spinoza was considered to be an atheist because he used the word "God" [Deus] to signify a concept that was different from that of traditional Judeo–Christian monotheism. "Spinoza expressly denies personality and consciousness to God; he has neither intelligence, feeling, nor will; he does not act according to purpose, but everything follows necessarily from his nature, according to law...." Thus, Spinoza's cool, indifferent God differs from

16940-482: The unconverted Jews from Spain was that the unconverted Jews had supported the New Christian conversos in the crypto-Jewish practices of the latter, thus delaying or preventing their assimilation into the Christian community. After the issuance of Spain's Alhambra Decree in 1492, a large proportion of the unconverted Jews chose exile rather than conversion, many of them crossing the border to Portugal. In Portugal, however,

17080-498: The water for his metaphysical and ethical ideas. Spinoza's explanations of essential elements of the Cartesian system helped many interested people study the system, enhancing his philosophical reputation. This work was published in 1663 and was one of the two works published in his lifetime under his name. Spinoza led a modest and frugal lifestyle, earning income by polishing lenses and crafting telescopes and microscopes. He also relied on

17220-462: The world in mental or physical terms. To this end, he says that "the mind and the body are one and the same thing, which is conceived now under the attribute of thought, now under the attribute of extension". After stating his proof for God's existence, Spinoza addresses who "God" is. Spinoza believed that God is "the sum of the natural and physical laws of the universe and certainly not an individual entity or creator". Spinoza attempts to prove that God

17360-631: The years following the expulsion due to the hardships many experienced in their resettlement. Many of Spain's Jews who left Spain as Jews also initially moved to Portugal, where they were subsequently forcibly converted to the Catholic Church in 1497. Most of the Jews who left Spain as Jews accepted the hospitality of Sultan Bayezid II and, after the Alhambra Decree, moved to the Ottoman Empire , where they founded communities openly practising

17500-473: Was Tractatus Politicus , which concerns how states can function well and intended to show that democratic states are best. Spinoza refused an offer to be the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg , perhaps because of the possibility that it might curb his freedom of thought . Few of Spinoza's letters are extant, and none before 1661. Nearly all the contents are philosophical and technical because

17640-473: Was achieved with the help of There are still Jewish communities in the North African exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla . These places, though treated in most respects as integral parts of Spain, escaped the Inquisition and the expulsion, so these communities regard themselves as the remnant of pre-expulsion Spanish Jewry. As Sephardic Jewish communities were established in central and northern Italy, following

17780-522: Was born in 1634, followed by another sister Rebecca. Miriam married Samuel de Caceres but died shortly after childbirth. According to Jewish practice, Samuel had to marry his former sister-in-law Rebecca. Following his brother's death, Spinoza's place as head of the family and its business meant scholarly ambitions were pushed aside. Spinoza's mother, Hannah Deborah, died when Spinoza was six years old. Michael's third wife, Esther, raised Spinoza from age nine; she lacked formal Jewish knowledge due to growing up

17920-416: Was considerable mutual religious and intellectual influence between the groups. In a given city, there was often an "Italian synagogue" and a "Spanish synagogue", and occasionally a "German synagogue" as well. Many of these synagogues have since merged, but the diversity of rites survived in modern Italy. The Spanish Synagogue ( Scola Spagnola ) of Venice was originally regarded as the "mother synagogue" for

18060-423: Was far more prevalent in Portugal than in Spain, even though many of these families were originally of Spanish rather than Portuguese descent. Over time, however, most crypto-Jews both of Spanish and Portuguese ancestry had left Portugal by the 18th century. Scholars are still divided on the typical religious loyalties of the conversos, in particular on whether they are appropriately described as "crypto-Jews". Given

18200-423: Was his 1663 geometric exposition of proofs using Euclid 's model with definitions and axioms of Descartes' Principles of Philosophy . Following Descartes, Spinoza aimed to understand truth through logical deductions from 'clear and distinct ideas', a process which always begins from the 'self-evident truths' of axioms . However, his actual project does not end there: from his first work to his last one, there runs

18340-538: Was in a unique position to introduce Spinoza to Cartesian philosophy, mathematics, and lens grinding. After learning Latin with Van Enden, Spinoza studied at Leiden University around 1658, where he audited classes in Cartesian philosophy. From 1656 to 1661, Spinoza's main discussion partners who formed his circle and played a formative part in Spinoza's life were Van den Enden, Pieter Balling , Jarig Jelles, Lodewijk Meyer , Johannes Bouwmeester and Adriaan Koerbagh . Spinoza's following, or philosophical sect, scrutinized

18480-470: Was no longer an island. The Waterlooplein was designed in the resulting space. The Blauwbrug dates from 1884. After the Shoah , there was hardly anyone left to return to the homes. Vlooienburg and the adjacent islands of Uilenburg and Rapenburg are synonymous with poor houses, large families, poor hygiene and dilapidation. The badly dilapidated houses of Vlooienburg were demolished and nothing remained of

18620-439: Was praised by many, but was considered by some to be alarming and dangerously inimical. Spinoza's "God or Nature" ( Deus sive Natura ) provided a living, natural God, in contrast to Isaac Newton 's first cause argument and the dead mechanism of Julien Offray de La Mettrie 's (1709–1751) work, Man a Machine ( L'homme machine ) . Coleridge and Shelley saw in Spinoza's philosophy a religion of nature . Novalis called him

18760-410: Was saddled with debt by the war's end in 1654 due to its merchant voyages being intercepted by the English, leading to its decline. Spinoza's father died in 1654, making him the head of the family, responsible for organizing and leading the Jewish mourning rituals, and in a business partnership with his brother of their inherited firm. As Spinoza's father had poor health for some years before his death, he

18900-599: Was safer than Koerbagh's because it was written in Latin, a language not widely understood by the general public, and Spinoza explicitly forbade its translation. The secular authorities varied enforcing the Reformed Church in Amsterdam's orders to ban the distribution of the blasphemous book. In 1670, Spinoza moved to The Hague to have easier access to the city's intellectual life and to be closer to his friends and followers. As he became more famous, Spinoza spent time receiving visitors and responding to letters. He returned to

19040-579: Was severely punished. Unlike most censures issued by the Amsterdam congregation, it was never rescinded since the censure did not lead to repentance. After the censure, Spinoza may have written an Apologia in Spanish defending his views, but it is now lost. Spinoza's expulsion did not lead him to convert to Christianity or belong to a confessional religion or sect. From 1656 to 1661, Spinoza found lodgings elsewhere in Amsterdam and Leiden, supporting himself with teaching while learning lens grinding and constructing microscopes and telescopes. Spinoza did not maintain

19180-447: Was significantly involved in the business, putting his intellectual curiosity on hold. Until 1656, he continued financially supporting the synagogue and attending services in compliance with synagogue conventions and practice. By 1655, the family's wealth had evaporated and the business effectively ended. In March 1656, Spinoza went to the city authorities for protection against debts in the Portuguese Jewish community. To free himself from

19320-400: Was sudden, and he died without leaving a will. Reports circulated that he repented his philosophical stances on his deathbed, but these tales petered out in the 18th century. Lutheran preacher Johannes Colerus wrote the first biography of Spinoza for the original reason of researching his final days. By the time of his death, he had never married and had no children. Spinoza was buried inside

19460-532: Was the result of Enlightenment rationalism and it would finally end in absolute atheism. Moses Mendelssohn disagreed with Jacobi, saying that there is no actual difference between theism and pantheism. The issue became a major intellectual and religious concern for European civilization at the time. The attraction of Spinoza's philosophy to late 18th-century Europeans was that it provided an alternative to materialism, atheism, and deism. Three of Spinoza's ideas strongly appealed to them: By 1879, Spinoza's pantheism

19600-470: Was to avoid intellectual battles, clashes, and public controversies, viewing them as a waste of energy that served no real purpose. Between 1660 and 1661, Spinoza moved from Amsterdam to Rijnsburg , allowing for a quiet retreat in the country and access to the university town, Leiden, where he still had many friends. Around this time, he wrote his Short Treatise on God, Man, and His Well-Being , which he never published in his lifetime, thinking it would enrage

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