Note 32 — Chapter III · THE JEW OF THE HOLY LAND AND HIS DESTINY
Reading edition
It is interesting to read what the inspired Jew Spinoza wrote upon the Jews: “The rite of circumcision, I am fain to persuade myself, is of such moment in this matter (i.e. of isolating nations) that it alone, methinks, were enough to preserve this people distinct for ever; indeed, unless the fundamentals of their religion bring upon them effeminacy of mind and character, I am inclined to believe that, with the opportunity afforded, since human affairs are notoriously changeable, they may again recover their empire, and God elect them to Himself anew.... To conclude, were any one disposed to maintain that the Jews, for the cause assigned, or for any other cause whatsoever, had been especially chosen by God to all eternity, I should not gainsay him, provided he allowed that this choice was most in respect of nothing but empire and personal advantages (in which only one nation can be distinguished from another), for as regards understanding and true virtue no nation is more remarkable than another, and so cannot on such grounds be looked on as elected by God” (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chap. iii.).
It is instructive to compare with the sage’s text two commentaries of his editions. One of them assures us that, no longer persecuted by Pope and Kaiser or Christian community, “with no mark of civic distinction denied the Jews, they will soon become absorbed into the larger Christian communities, surrounded by whom they now dwell in all the countries of Europe; they will finally disappear, and leave only historical records of their existence.” At present, however, Judaism bids fair to rise above and to survive Christianity. In B. Auerbach’s Leben Spinozas we are told that the immediate cause which to Spinoza suggested this “curious persuasion” (the restoration of the Jews) may have been this, that a certain Sabbathai Zewi,[33] who had lately appeared in Greece, caused such a commotion amongst his co-religionists as at one time to make their regeneration and reconstitution into a sovereignty appear not impossible.