Manasseh in 1636, and illustrated one of his books (the Piedra Gloriosa, published in 1655). Moreover, in the Hermitage at St. Petersburg, there is a Rembrandt painting of a Rabbi, aged and worn, and believed to be Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel. If so, we must suppose that Rembrandt, hearing of the return and illness of his old friend of twenty years or more, hastened to him to Middelburg, and, deeply impressed by the tragic change which had come over the once hand some but now prematurely aged and broken-down Rabbi, embodied his impression in that portrait. Perhaps it was the art of Rembrandt which stimulated young Spinoza to try his hand at drawing. For we are told that Spinoza was an amateur draughtsman, and his early biographer, Colerus, actually possessed a number of ink and charcoal sketches which Spinoza had made of his friends, also one of Spinoza himself in the costume of Mas Anjellos[1] (Thomas Aniellos), who in 1647 led the Neapolitan revolt against Spain, and was murdered soon afterwards. In any case, it is known that Spinoza had a number of Christian acquaintances and friends at a very early stage in his career, and that he helped some of them in the study of the Hebrew Bible, and it is not improbable that he was first introduced to some of them by Manasseh ben Israel, the courteous and easily accessible Rabbi, whom they at first consulted when they took up the study of Hebrew. And it is probably more than a mere accident that Spinoza knew and corresponded with Isaac, the son of Gerhard Vossius, and possessed copies of some of the works of both, as also of Grotius, and even of Delmedigo, all of them friends of Manasseh, whose own book, The Hope of Israel, Spinoza also possessed.
Last, though by no means least, there was the moral earnestness of Manasseh. He was an earnest disciple of an earnest master. His teacher and predecessor in office, Rabbi Uzziel, was known for his moral courage. It was
- ↑ "A fishrman in his shirt with a net over his right shoulder"(Colerus).
