does not force me to do anything which I would not have done of my own accord, had I not been afraid of a scandal." But the last words of this expression of his natural resentment only seem to confirm the suggestion about his previous anxiety to avoid a complete rupture, if he could do so honestly. It was partly perhaps also for this reason that even after his excommunication he addressed to the Synagogue authorities an Apology (written in Spanish) in which he probably sought to defend his heretical views by showing that they had the support of some of the most eminent Rabbis, and to condemn the iniquity of fastening on him "horrible practices and other enormities" because of his neglect of mere ceremonial observances. Unfortunately, this document has not yet been recovered, though some of its contents are said to have been subsequently incorporated in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus. It would throw a flood of light on Spinoza's mental history. However, the Apology did not mend matters. Cut off from his community, without kith or kin, he stood alone, but firm and unshaken. Unlike da Costa, he never winced. He seems to have got into touch with Jews again afterwards; but it was they who had to seek him.
§5. THE LAST YEARS OF SPINOZA'S STAY IN
AND NEAR AMSTERDAM—1656-1660
Banished from Amsterdam, Spinoza went to live in Ouwerkerk, a little village to the south of Amsterdam. Possibly he had some Christian friends there who had influence with the civil authorities; and apparently he meant to return to Amsterdam at the earliest opportunity. Maybe also he was not altogether uninfluenced by the thought that the Jewish cemetery was there, and that his mother, his sister, his father,
