Page:Short Treatise on God, Man and His Wellbeing.djvu/37

Rh among the Jews to speak of Latin as &quot;the priests' language.&quot; Hence the knowledge of Latin was not a common accomplishment of Jews then. A certain Mochinger, writing to Manasseh ben Israel in 1632, complained that in Bohemia and Germany he had not come across any Jew who had learnt even the rudiments of Latin ; and he goes on to en courage Manasseh to persevere with his Latin and to teach it also to others. Even in Amsterdam, where, as the same writer states, there were a number of Jews who knew Latin well, it was regarded with misgiving as the medium of a worldly wisdom, which, like the &quot;Greek wisdom&quot; of old, was suspected, not without reason, of leading to an estrangement from Judaism. And Spinoza's schoolfellow, Moses Zacuto, to whom reference has already been made above, and who began as a poet and ended as a mystic, actually fasted for forty days by way of penance for his early devotion to Latin. If, therefore, Spinoza studied Latin, it may be taken for granted that he also pursued other secular studies, especially mathematics (which he is reported to have studied under an Italian), and physics, both of which he soon required for optical work, and which may actually have disposed him to learn the art of polishing lenses ; probably also the later scholastic philosophy as expounded about that time, in the works of Burgersdijck, Professor of Philosophy at Leyden (died 1632), and by his successor, Heereboord (died 1659). In 1652 Francis van den Enden, an ex-Jesuit, ex-diplomat, ex-bookseller, doctor, and classicist, opened a school in Amsterdam, and Spinoza went there to complete his secular studies. Van den Enden was certainly unorthodox, and was strongly suspected of atheism. Colerus relates that some of the past students of Van den Enden &quot;blessed every day the memory of their parents, who took care in due time to remove them from the school of so pernicious and impious a master.&quot; But he was admittedly an able teacher, and Spinoza, no doubt, owed to him his mastery of Latin, also