his outspoken condemnation of the moral laxity of a portion of Amsterdam Jewry that led to a schism in the young community, and the formation of a third congregation in 1618. For reasons already explained, some of the members of the community had been Roman Catholics for several generations, and had grown dangerously accustomed to the habit of obtaining priestly absolution for moral delin quencies. Rabbi Uzziel would have none of it. Like the prophets of old he would make no truce with immorality, and denounced it without respect of person. Manasseh ben Israel also had the reputation of being an earnest and eloquent preacher, and probably passed on some of his master s moral earnestness to his pupil Spinoza. No doubt young Spinoza could and did draw from the wells of the living waters ; no doubt he could and did draw moral inspiration from the prophetic books themselves. Still, a living example of their moral tone could not fail to intensify his susceptibility to that spirit of the prophets which Spinoza s own writings still breathe.[1]
The school curriculum, though fairly encyclopædic in range of subjects, was all in Hebrew. Other languages and the more modern sciences, or the more modern treatmentof them, had to be studied outside the school. Spanish and Portu guese he learned from his parents ; Dutch, from his envi ronment. Morteira, who was a Venetian by birth, may have taught him some Italian ; and Manasseh ben Israel, some French. Latin, we are informed, he learned from a German scholar, possibly a certain Jeremiah Felbinger, a man of rather unorthodox reputation, who may also have taught him German. The study of Latin was not popular among the Jews at that time. It was too intimately associated with Roman Catholicism and the Inquisition. In fact it was usual
- ↑ For fuller information about Manasseh ben Israel, see Kayserling's essay in the Miscellany of Hebrew Literature (second series), and L. Wolf's Manasseh ben Israel's Mission to Oliver Cromwell.
