바뤼흐 스피노자의 파문(破門) 선언문(The Edict of Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza)

[석수]

Edict : 칙령

excommunication
(종교상의 형벌로의) 파문 (선언), 제명

major excommunication
greater excommunication
대파문 (교회에서 완전 추방)

Edict of excommunication of Baruch Spinoza.

The Excommunication of Baruch Spinoza.

Spinoza’s cherem (excommunication) from the Amsterdam Jewish community on 27 July 1656 was effected by
way public denunciation; the following document translates the official record of that denunciation:


The Lords of the ma’amad, having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch
de Spinoza, have endeavord by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil
ways.

But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and born witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of the matter;

and after all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honorable chachamin,
they have decided, with their consent, that the said Espinoza should be
excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. By the decree of the angels,
and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn
Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of
all the Holy Congregation, in front of these holy Scrolls with the six-hundred-and-
thirteen precepts which are written therein, with the excommunication with which
Joshua banned Jericho, with the curse with which Elisha cursed the boys, and with all
the curses which are written in the Book of the Law.

Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down, and cursed be he when he rises up;
cursed be he when he goes out, and cursed be he when he comes in.

The Lord will not spare him; the anger and wrath of the Lord will rage against this man, and bring upon him all the curses which are written in this book, and the Lord will blot out his name
from under heaven, and the Lord will separate him to his injury from all the tribes of
Israel with all the curses of the covenant, which are written in the Book of the Law.

But you who cleave unto the Lord God are all alive this day. We order that no one should
communicate with him orally or in writing, or show him any favor, or stay with him
under the same roof, or within four ells of him, or read anything composed or written
by him.

Strong stuff, echoes of which can be heard in the concluding arguments of Spinoza’s 1670 Tractatus Theologico-

Politicus:
. . . it is impossible for the mind to be completely under another’s control; for no one is
able to transfer to another his natural right or faculty to reason freely and to form his
own judgment on any matters whatsoever, nor can he be compelled to do so.

Consequently, a government that attempts to control men’s minds is regarded as
tyrannical, and a sovereign is thought to wrong his subjects and infringe their right
when he seeks to prescribe for every man what he should accept as true and reject as
false, and what are the beliefs that will inspire him with devotion to God. . . . it follows
that utter failure will attend any attempt in a commonwealth to force men to speak only
as prescribed by the sovereign despite their different and opposing opinions. . . .


Therefore the most tyrannical government will be one where the individual is denied
the freedom to express and to communicate to others what he thinks, and a moderate
government is one where this freedom is granted to every man.






https://youtube.com/shorts/Z13vB1NjMXI?si=-kZaEUHw-XWg_NnS

Why Spinoza Was Excommunicated

by Steven Nadler



Bento de Spinoza was a young merchant in Amsterdam, one of many Sephardic Jews in that city involved in overseas trade in the early 1650s. The specialty of his family’s firm, which he and his brother Gabriel had been running since their father’s death in 1654, was importing dried fruit. Bento (or Baruch, as he would have been called in Hebrew in the Portuguese community’s synagogue—the names both mean “blessed”) was, at this time and to all appearances, an upstanding member of the Talmud Torah congregation. His communal tax payments and contributions to the community’s charitable funds may have been especially low by early 1656, but this could have been a reflection only of the poor condition of his business.

View of red brick buildings overlooking a canal, with a stand of trees on the left hand bank
Photo caption
Or it may have been a sign that something else was amiss. On July 27 of that year (the sixth of Av, 5416, by the Jewish calendar), the following proclamation was issued by the leaders of Talmud Torah from in front of the ark of the Torah in the synagogue on the Houtgracht:

The Senhores of the ma’amad [the congregation’s lay governing board] having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Spinoza, have endeavored by various means and promises to turn him from his evil ways. However, having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and borne witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of this matter. After all of this has been investigated in the presence of the honorable hakhamim [“wise men,” or rabbis], they have decided, with the [rabbis’] consent, that the said Espinoza should be excommunicated and expelled from the people of Israel. By decree of the angels and by the command of the holy men, we excommunicate, expel, curse and damn Baruch de Espinoza, with the consent of God, Blessed be He, and with the consent of the entire holy congregation, and in front of these holy scrolls with the 613 precepts which are written therein; cursing him with the excommunication with which Joshua banned Jericho and with the curse which Elisha cursed the boys and with all the castigations which are written in the Book of the Law. Cursed be he by day and cursed be he by night; cursed be he when he lies down and cursed be he when he rises up. Cursed be he when he goes out and cursed be he when he comes in. The Lord will not spare him, but the anger of the Lord and his jealousy shall smoke against that man, and all the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven. And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law. But you that cleave unto the Lord your God are alive every one of you this day.



A modified version of a translation by Asa Kasher and Schlomo Biderman.



The document concludes with the warning that “no one should communicate with him, not even in writing, nor accord him any favor nor stay with him under the same roof nor [come] within four cubits in his vicinity; nor shall he read any treatise composed or written by him.” (Only a Portuguese version of the document is extant; it can be found in one of the community’s record books in the Portuguese-Jewish Archives in Amsterdam’s Municipal Archives.)

It was the harshest writ of herem (a ban or ostracism) ever pronounced upon a member of the Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam. According to the historian Yosef Kaplan, forty individuals were put under herem by the city’s “Portuguese Nation” between 1622 and 1683. One could receive a ban for a wide variety of offenses: religious (for example, failing to attend synagogue on a regular basis or to properly observe a holiday), ethical (gambling, lewd behavior), social (men engaging in theological discussion with gentiles, women cutting the hair of gentile women), even business and financial (failing to pay one’s communal taxes). However, none of the other bans issued by the ma’amad in this period even approaches the wrath and vitriol directed at Spinoza. The parnassim (or community’s lay leaders) sitting on the board that year dug deep into their books to find just the right words for the occasion.

For the sake of comparison, consider another herem from the same era. The matter-of-fact tone of the ban received in 1639 by Isaac de Peralta, who, upset by a decision of the ma’amad, insulted one of its members and (it is reported) even attacked him in the street, is more typical:


스피노자 파문 글은 1656년 암스테르담 유대인 공동체가 그에게 내린 가혹한 파문 선고문을 의미합니다.

이 선고문은 스피노자가 "신을 부정하고 모독한 무신론자"로 낙인찍혔기 때문이며, 어떠한 유대인도 그와 말하거나 글을 주고받거나 교제해서는 안 된다는 내용을 담고 있습니다. 이로 인해 그는 유대인 공동체에서 추방당했으며, 율법서의 거의 모든 저주를 받은 것으로 알려져 있습니다.

파문 이유: 스피노자의 철학적 사상이 당시 유대교의 교의와 맞지 않았기 때문입니다. 특히, 그는 전통적인 신의 개념을 부정하고 자연 전체가 곧 신이라는 범신론적 사상을 주장했습니다.

파문 내용: 유대교회는 파문 선고를 통해 그를 저주하고 제명했으며, 그와 일상적인 교류를 포함한 모든 종류의 접촉을 금지했습니다.

스피노자의 반응: 스피노자는 이러한 파문에 굴하지 않았고, 침묵으로 일관하며 홀로 철학 연구에 매진했습니다. 그는 안경 렌즈를 깎으며 생계를 유지하며 진리를 추구했고, 결국 은둔 생활을 하며 그의 주저인 《윤리학》을 집필했습니다.



'파문 선고문'은 영어로 다음과 같이 표현할 수 있습니다.

Sentence of excommunication: 가장 직역에 가까운 표현입니다.

Edict of excommunication: 공식적인 '칙령' 또는 '포고문'이라는 의미를 더해주는 표현입니다.

Decree of excommunication: '판결' 또는 '포고'라는 의미로 사용될 수 있습니다.

예시:

The bishop issued a sentence of excommunication against the heretic.
주교는 이단자에게 파문 선고를 내렸다

The pope issued an edict of excommunication to the king.
교황은 왕에게 파문 칙령을 내렸다.