The excommunication of Spinoza
February 14th 2007 01:17
"The writ itself, which is dated the sixth of Ab, 5416 -- July 27, 1656 -- and is in Spanish, is still to be found in the synagogue archives" (says Browne).
The incident has been used as a cautionary tale for philosophers -- "Look at what those Greek bastards did to Socrates, what those Catholic arseholes did to Galileo and Giordano Bruno; and check out how those Jewish extremists reacted to Spinoza."
So here's the story, and here's why it's less of a cautionary tale than it's taken to be...
***
The story
The ceremony
Different versions are circulating. For some reason, this passage from Lucas (who might be Spinoza's earliest biographer) is popular:
| When the people have assembled in the synagogue, the ceremony which they call Herim begins with the lighting of a quantity of black wax-candles and the opening of the ark where the books of the Law are kept. Then the precentor, standing on a slightly raised place, intones the words of the excommunication in a doleful voice, while another precentor blows a horn, and the wax-candles are turned upside down so as to make them fall drop by drop into a vessel full of blood. Thereupon the people, animated with a holy horror at the sight of the black spectacle, respond Amen in a furious tone, which bears witness to the good service which they believe they would render to God if they could tear the excommunicated to pieces; as they would do without doubt if they met him at that moment or when leaving the synagogue. |
The statement of excommunication
More accurate translations can be found in Gullan-Whur and Nadler. But I think the following, from Wolf 1910, is amusing:
| The members of the council do you to wit that they have long known of the evil opinions and doings of Baruch de Espinoza, and have tried by divers methods and promises to make him turn from his evil ways. As they have not succeeded in effecting his improvement, but, on the contrary, have received every day more information about the horrible heresies which he practised and taught, and other enormities which he has committed, and as they had many trustworthy witnesses of this, who have deposed and testified in the presence of the said Spinoza, and have convicted him; and as all this has been investigated in the presence of the Rabbis, it has been resolved with their consent that the said Espinoza should be anathematised and cut off from the people of Israel, and now he is anathematised with the following anathema:
"With the judgment of the angels and with that of the saints, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and of all this holy congregation, before these sacred Scrolls of the Law, and the six hundred and thirteen precepts which are proscribed therein, we anathematise, cut off, execrate, and curse Baruch de Espinoza with the anathema wherewith Joshua anathematised Jericho, with the curse wherewith Elishah cursed the youths, and with all the curses which are written in the Law: cursed be he by day, and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lieth down, and cursed be he when he riseth up; cursed be he when he goeth out, and cursed be he when he cometh in; the Lord will not pardon him; the wrath and fury of the Lord will be kindled against this man, and bring down upon him all the curses which are written in the Book of the Law; and the Lord will destroy his name from under the heavens; and, to his undoing, the Lord will cut him off from all the tribes of Israel, with all the curses of the firmament which are written in the Book of the Law; but ye that cleave unto the Lord your God live all of you this day!" We ordain that no one may communicate with him verbally or in writing, nor show him any favour, nor stay under the same roof with him, nor be within four cubits of him, nor read anything composed or written by him. |
***
Some notes from early biographies
Lucas specifically denies the ceremony description after giving it:
| [T]he sound of the horn, the reversed wax-candles, and the vessel full of blood are circumstances which are only observed in the case of blasphemy, that otherwise they are content merely to fulminate the excommunication, as was done in the case of Mr. Spinosa, who was not convicted of blasphemy, but only of want of respect for Moses and for the Law. |
Colerus was influential in propagating the story. He mentions three types of excommunication. Citing the opinion of "the learnd'd Dr. Lightfoot", he gives the following description of the cherem:
| The Curfes inferted into it were taken from the Law of Mofes, and pronounced in a folemn manner againft the guilty person, before the Jews, in one of their publick Affemblies. They lighted then fome Wax Candles that burnt all te time they were reading the Sentence of Excommunication; which being ended, the Rabbin put out the Wax Candles, to fignify hereby that the unhappy Man was given over to his reprobate Mind, and altogether deprived of the Divine Light. |
But the three types are described in Colerus without any implication that this was in fact what happened in Spinoza's case.
Bayle describes no ceremony at all:
| It is said that the Jews offered to tolerate him, if only he would outwardly conform to their rites, and that they even promised him a yearly pension; but that he could not reconcile himself to such hypocrisy. Nevertheless, he only withdrew from their Synagogue gradually, and maybe he would to some extent have long continued to show regard for them, if he had not been treacherously attacked, on leaving the theatre, by a Jew who stabbed him with a knife. The wound was slight, but he believed that it was the assassin's intention to kill him. After that he entirely severed his connection with them, and that was why they excommunicated him. I have investigated the circumstances, but have not succeeded in unearthing them. He composed in Spanish an Apology for his exit from the Synagogue. |
***
The history
There are no reliable records of Spinoza himself saying anything about the excommunication.
Some quotes (mainly from Nadler and Popkin): --
Speculates Popkin: "[P]robably... the excommunication statement [was] read out in a small council chamber... and was only witnessed by the parnassim and the rabbis."
-- The severity of excommunication. Nadler gives a list of excommunicable offences. Popkin notes that excommunication "was not rare among the members of the Amsterdam congregation. In its first hundred years, the community pronounced herems against over two hundred and eighty people. These were usually to force people to pay their dues, to carry through marriage contracts, or because of adultery. One person was excommunicated for buying a kosher chicken from an Ashkenazi butcher rather than a Sephardic one."
Nadler: "There has alawys been much disagreement among halachic authorities, the arbiters of Jewish law, over terminology, definition, sequence, and degree of punishment."
-- The forcefulness of the denunciation. On the one hand, the anathema is more vehement than any other surviving anathema of the period. On the other hand...
Nadler: "The formula for Spinoza's cherem seems to have come from Venice... adapted... from chapter 139 of the Kol Bo ('The Voice Within'), a late thirteenth or early fourteenth century compilation of Jewish lore and customs printed in Naples around 1490."
Wolf 1910: "It must be remembered... that the actual anathema was a traditional formula, and (unlike the preamble and conclusion) was not specially written for the occasion."
Browne: "The awful maledictions which they heaped on Baruch's head were largely conventional. They heaped them no less fulsomely on the heads of men who committed quite trivial crimes, for the language of the herem was literally a formula inherited from the early Middle Ages."
-- The apology. Popkin: "According to the inventory of materials that he possessed at the time of his death, there was a work called The Apology, presumed to be an answer in Spanish to the charges made against him... but no copy of it has yet been found." Nadler notes that "there is no reason to think that Spinoza made or even contemplated any attempt formally to address those who excommunicated him" and suggests that the apology, if it did exist, was in fact a draft of Spinoza's political treatise.
-- Reasons for the excommunication. The reason is unknown, though there has been considerable speculation over the direct motive, and the surrounding events. Given what Spinoza later wrote, it's quite possible it was ideas that got him anathematized, but it's unlear which. He doesn't seem to have written anything up to this point. His first piece of writing, years later, was on Cartesian philosophy; but Cartesianism doesn't seem to have been a special problem within the Jewish community.
-- The authenticity of the writ itself. Popkin writes: "It is important to note that nobody at the time knew the actual statement of condemnation... This statement is first published by Jacob Freudenthal in his book Spinoza: Sein Leben und seine Lehre. The text of the communication, which now seems so ferocious and barbaric, was supposedly sitting in a closet from... 1656... until it emerged in the 1840s. It has now become the best-known thing about Spinoza and is repeated by Bertrand Russell among others as evidence of how intolerant and ruthless religious groups can be."
***
Bibliography
- Bayle, Pierre; Historical and critical dictionary, 1697, 1702; in Abraham Wolf, The oldest biography of Spinoza, 1927
- Browne, Lewis; Blessed Spinoza, 1932 -- a good summary of the early sources, pointing out some of their differences
- Colerus, John (Johann Kohler); The life of Benedict de Spinosa, 1706
- Gullan-Whur, Margaret; Within reason: a life of Spinoza, 1998
- Lucas, Jean Maximilian; The life of the late Mr De Spinosa, c 1677-1688; in Abraham Wolf, The oldest biography of Spinoza, 1927
- Nadler, Steven; Spinoza: a life, 1999 -- probably the best analysis; discusses the development of the practice of excommunication, and the various historical sources of the anathema text
- Popkin, Richard H; Spinoza, 2004
- Wolf, Abraham; Spinoza's short treatise on God, man, and his well-being, 1910
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia articles Baruch Spinoza and Ethics (book). The image of excommunication came from this website. The image of the black mass came from this website. The image of the Dutch knife came from this website.
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Comment by katyzzz
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A very learned document, not really for the likes of me. I'm more into the practical things.
But, very well done, for a specialist audience.
katyzzz
Comment by Damo
So after all of that was he excommunicated or not and what were the grounds?
I am in confussion over this but it does not surprise me.
Many times histry has become a football to kick about in times of trouble. It has been called the happy hunting ground for the unscrupulas.
The question of whether it took place and how it took place are crucial to an objective historian only looking for facts. However if I have an axe to grind they become weapons.
I have a similar problem when reading accounts of the Spanish writen by English historians from Elizabethan times. The Spanish could do no good and the English could do no wrong. Yet Don Quiote portrays a different Spain of honorable and educated people.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
As to the grounds for it, the bottom line is that no one knows. I've heard any number of theories.
You know, the idea of an objective history might be something that one has to give up on for at least these three reasons:
(1) history is always rendered into story form, and is rarely a dry listing of facts;
(2) facts are very disputable, and will almost always involve issues of interpretation and evidence -- which documents to rely upon, etc.
(3) the historian is always historically situated. You always come from a particular culture and time, with all the attendant biases and shortsightedness that that implies, and you always write with an eye to what is interesting and relevant to you.
When you look back on the history of history-writing, the history of histories, do you regard any of them as objective?
Comment by Ronald
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So if we can't reliably be sure of what happened yesterday, how much more does this apply to events of the distant past?
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Thanks for visiting!
In general, I think you're obviously right -- that the further you go back into the past, the more uncertain things are. But note that this idea of "uncertainty" itself implies an idea of mind-independent reality. That is, there is some standard of what did in fact happen that you're judging with respect to.
Comment by Rob Parker
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