Religion: Anathema

In the bright light of freedom in 17th century Amsterdam, the little band of Jews from Spain and Portugal still felt afraid and hunted. They were marranos (meaning “swine” or “accursed”), victims of forcible baptism as Christians under the terror of the Inquisition; now that they could practice Judaism openly in their new home, they did so with ferocious tenacity. When in 1656 a young scholar among them dared to range his brilliant mind beyond the confines of the faith—he doubted the existence of angels, the incorporeality of God and the soul’s immortality, later recognized Jesus as a bearer of divine wisdom—the leaders of the Jewish community cast him out.

“With the judgment of the angels and of the saints we excommunicate, cut off, curse and anathematize Baruch de Spinoza . . . in the presence of the Holy Books, by the 613 precepts which are written therein, with the anathema wherewith Joshua cursed Jericho, with the curse which Elisha laid upon the children, 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 in sleeping, and cursed be he in waking . . . And we warn you, there shall no man speak to him, no man write to him nor show any kindness to him . . . nor come within four cubits of him, nor read any paper composed or written by him.”

But the papers composed and written by Spinoza came to be read all over the Western world. When he died in 1677, the man who wrote that “our greatest joy exists in our love of God, and . . . every love, of necessity, results from the acknowledgment of God” had also helped give philosophy a turn that is still felt in many fields. He believed that the churches must be subject to the state, led the way to the “higher criticism” of the Bible and even developed a theory of emergent evolution. He also supplied a collection of phrases that have worn down to cliches: e.g., “Man is a social animal,” “Nature abhors a vacuum.”

Early this year, Israel’s ex-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion called upon Judaism to rescind its excommunication of Spinoza and proposed that, as a kind of atonement, the Hebrew University publish the philosopher’s complete works two years hence on the 300th anniversary of the famous curse.

Last week Salomon Rodrigues Pareira, chief rabbi of the Amsterdam community, announced that the excommunication and anathema must stand. “When I became chief rabbi,” he said, “I accepted the rulings of my predecessors. No rabbinate has the right to review a decision of previous rabbinates unless it is greater in number and wiser. I don’t consider myself wiser than those who came before me.”