Could Spinoza have known Bodin's coloquium Heptaplomares?

Abstract

In Shlomo Pines' fascinating_ essay, "The Jewish Religion, after the Destruction of Temple and State: The Views of Bodin and Spinoza," the author shows some startling similarities between the views voiced by Bodin's Jewish protagonist, Salomo, and those of Uriel da Costa, Juan de Prado and Spinoza concerning the invalidity of Jewish ceremonial law after the Fall of the Temple and the ancient Jewish state, and the universal validity of natural law, before Moses, and up to the present. 1 At the conclusion of his essay, Pines stressed that Bodin's, or his character, Salamo's views, on Judaism ought to be studied in the context of Marrano thought. Spinoza raised in such a milieu, may have, according to Pines, read Bodin's Heptaplomares, and taken over some of its views, or Spinoza may have been influenced by someone who had read Bodin. z In his final footnote, 58, Pines considered whether Spinoza could have known the contents of the Heptaplomares. 3 The prevailing scholarly opinion both of Chauvir6, who edited a French translation of the work, 4 and Marion Daniel Kuntz, who edited the English, is that copies were rare in the first half of the seventeenth century. Queen Christina had difficulty in obtaining a copy. Later on, post Spinoza, copies were most easily obtainable. We are told that Grotius had a copy. John Milton had one, as did Henri de Mesmes and Johannes Cordesius in Paris. The latter's copy is thought to be the source of both Grotius's copy and Christina's. Queen Christina apparently borrowed a copy in 1654, and returned it in 166 l, and then had her own copy, which is in the Vatican Library. 5 Spinoza, as far as we know, was not acquainted with any of the persons mentioned above, and probably had no access to their libraries. However, a close friend and personal acquaintance of Spinoza, Henry Oldenburg, not only knew the text, and apparently had a copy, but was anxiously trying to get the leader of the