Page:Short Treatise on God, Man and His Wellbeing.djvu/53

 were incomparably more brutal in effect. The ban pronounced upon William the Silent, for instance, contained nothing less than an urgent invitation to cut-throats that they should murder him, in return for which pious deed they would receive absolution for all their crimes, no matter how heinous, and would be raised to noble rank; and that ban actually accomplished its sinister object! It is, therefore, unjust to single out this ban against Spinoza and judge it by present-day standards. Nor should it be forgotten that if Judaism alone had been concerned, more leniency would have been shown, the whole thing might have been ignored. Elisha ben Abuyah, the Faust of the Talmud, was not persecuted by the Jews, in spite of his heresies. The ban against Spinoza was the due paid to Cæsar, rather than to the God of Israel.

As in the case of da Costa, and for the same reasons, the Jewish authorities officially communicated the news of Spinoza's excommunication to the civil authorities, who, in order to appease the wrath of the Jewish Rabbinate and the Calvinist clergy, banished Spinoza from Amsterdam, though only for a short period.

On the whole there is some reason to suppose that the anathema was not a curse, but a blessing in disguise. It freed him entirely from sectarian and tribal considerations; it helped to make him a thinker of no particular sect and of no particular age, but for all men and for all times.

However reprehensible his heretical utterances and unorthodox doings may have been considered by some of his fellow-Jews, yet there can be no doubt that Spinoza did not really desire to sever his connection entirely with them. This is evident from the fact that he did not ignore, as he might have done, the summons to come before the court of Rabbis in order to defend himself against the charge of heresy. It is true that when informed of his final excommunication he is reported to have said: "Very well, this