Page:Auerbach-Spinozanovel.djvu/466

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SPINOZA.

Those who are of thy race have rejected thee, they have attempted thy life; those who are not of thy race have betrayed thee, they have embittered thy sweetest feeling. Thou knowest no anger, thou rewardest them with the truth."

The vision bent again over the sleeper and kissed him. It was a kiss of the dying Ahasuerus, who bore on himself the doom of that Israel which slew Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Spinoza went to Rhynsberg, and from there to Voorburg and the Hague, and wrote the "Theologico-Political Tractate" and the "Ethics." There, alone and deserted, he ended his days. The five books of the "Ethics" came out after his death.

He died on February 21st, 1677, in his forty-fourth year.

No thinker, arisen since Spinoza, has lived so much in the eternal as he did.

THE END.