The scrupulously maintained traditions of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish congregation in London, where I worship, still forbid the rabbi from pronouncing the name ‘Spinoza’ from the pulpit. London, as the sister Jewish community of Amsterdam, inherited the same customs, and in both congregations, Baruch Spinoza continues to be regarded with a lingering sense of abhorrence on account of the herem, or excommunication, pronounced against him in 1656.

In secularist philosophy, that excommunication has acquired an almost mythical status. Along with the trial of Galileo and the excesses of the Inquisition, it is often seen as one of the great episodes in the battle to emancipate western thought from religious obscurantism and intolerance.

Spinoza was arguably the first wholly secular man

Spinoza was arguably the first wholly secular man

But the myth is misleading. As Steven Nadler’s 2018 updated biography of Spinoza makes clear, Amsterdam was, by the standards of 17th-century Europe, a remarkably tolerant city. It permitted an unusual degree of religious freedom and granted the Jewish community considerable autonomy in the conduct of its affairs. But that tolerance came with conditions. Jews enjoying this privileged status were expected to affirm belief in one God, creator and ruler of the universe; to accept the divine inspiration of Moses and the prophets; and to acknowledge reward and punishment in the life to come.

This was not an age in which theological disputes remained merely theological. The Dutch Republic contained Calvinists, Mennonites, Remonstrants,........

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