Routledge History of Philosophy Volume IV

254 RENAISSANCE AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY RATIONALISM
Spinoza was deeply read in Talmudic lore in his youth, and that he was intended
to be a rabbi. Rather, it seems to have been Michael de Spinoza’s intention that
Spinoza should concentrate on a career in business; and indeed, when Michael
died in 1654 Bento and his brother Gabriel carried on the family business for a
time.
The mature Spinoza displays far more knowledge of Jewish thought and
history than could have been acquired by a twelve-year old, however precocious;
and in fact when Spinoza left school he continued his Jewish studies as a
member of a ‘Yeshivah’, a kind of study-circle, led by the famous rabbi Saul
Levi Morteira. Spinoza, however, proved to be a rebellious pupil, and on 27 July
1656 he was formally excommunicated on account of what were called his
‘wrong opinions’ and ‘horrible heresies’. 5 The exact nature of these heresies is
not certain. It can be said with certainty that they were not the philosophical
views for which Spinoza later became famous; it is very improbable that they were
even Cartesian views, which at that time were being keenly discussed in the
Netherlands—so keenly, indeed, that in 1656 Dutch university professors were
required to take an oath that they would not propound Cartesian doctrines that
were found offensive. 6 The slender evidence that is available suggests that
Spinoza was already taking up a critical attitude towards the Bible, that he
disbelieved in the immortality of the soul, and that his views about God were
deistic in character. These doctrines suggest, not so much the ideas of Descartes,
as those of the French ‘libertins’ or free-thinkers of the period. 7
There is much that is obscure about the next five years of Spinoza’s life, but it
is certain that they were a decisive period in his philosophical development. By
the time that his surviving correspondence begins (26 August 1661) Spinoza
appears as a man who has a philosophy of his own, which is treated with respect
by such men as Henry Oldenburg, who was to become the first secretary of the
Royal Society in London. At this stage, Spinoza was already critical of
Cartesianism, but this is not to say that he owed nothing to Descartes. Rather (as
a friend of his remarked) ‘The philosophical writings of the great and famous
René Descartes were of great service to him.’ 8 What is not certain is just when
and in what way Spinoza obtained his knowledge of Descartes’s philosophy.
There is reason to believe that Spinoza may have attended philosophy lectures,
on an informal basis, at the University of Leiden at some time between 1656 and
1659; if he did so—and the evidence is inconclusive 9 —he would almost certainly
have studied Descartes there. It is also possible that it was a common interest in
Descartes which led Spinoza to associate with members of some of the smaller
Christian sects of the period, the Collegiants and the Mennonites. The
Collegiants were a group of people who tried to dispense with clergy, and who met
together in groups, collegia, for the purpose of worship. The Mennonites were
followers of the Dutch Anabaptist Menno Simons (1496–1561); holding
themselves aloof from politics, they did not suffer the persecution that many
Anabaptists did.