«Como si fuera Republica de por si». La Respublica Divina di Baruch Spinoza tra modello cristiano e tradizione politica ebraica

Journal title RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA
Author/s Guido Bartolucci
Publishing Year 2020 Issue 2020/3
Language Italian Pages 24 P. 461-484 File size 129 KB
DOI 10.3280/SF2020-003005
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

«Como si fuera Republica de por si»: Baruch Spinoza’s Respublica Divina between Christian and Jewish Political Tradition. Spinoza’s analysis of the Hebrew Republic model in his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus is part of a well known debate on the Jewish Institution in the Early-modern time. The peculiarity of this debate is that it developed within both Christian and Jewish milieus, and Spinoza’s work represents a linkage between these two worlds. Scholars have always connected Spinoza’s attitude to the Dutch and English position in this debate. The paper aims to take a different path. I will compare the pages of the TTP to one other moment of this discussion. I will focus on the role that the Hebrew republic model played in the political discussions that the Sephardic Jewish communities developed in the same years, and in particular in Amsterdam and London, as Mirian Bodian, and recently Anne Oravetz Albert have already shown. The comparison between Spinoza’s TTP and the Sephardic Political Literature could contribute to better understand Spinoza’s discussion and interpretation of the Hebrew republic, enlarging the number of his sources and targets.

Keywords: Baruch Spinoza, Jewish Republic, Sephardic Political Literature, Isaac Orobio de Castro, David Levi de Barrios, ma‘amad

  1. - Abolafia 2014: Jacob Abolafia, Spinoza, Josephism and the Critique of the Hebrew Republic, «History of Political Thought», 35 (2014), 2, pp. 295-316.
  2. - Albert 2008: Anne Oravetz Albert, Post-Sabbatian Reflection on Governance among the Spanish and Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam, 1665-1683, PhD dissert., University of Pennsylvania, 2008.
  3. - Albert 2014: Anne Oravetz Albert, “A Civil Death”. Sovereignty and the Jewish Republic in an Early Modern Treatment of Genesis 49:10, in Richard I. Cohen, Natalie B. Dohrmann, Adam Shear and Elchanan Reiner (eds.), Jewish Culture in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honor of David B. Ruderman, Hebrew Union College Press-University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh 2014, pp. 63-72.
  4. - Albert 2014a: Anne Oravetz Albert, Tha Rabbi and the Rebels: A Pamphlet on the “Herem” by Rabbi Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, «The Jewish Quartely Review», 104 (2014), 2, 2014, pp. 171-191.
  5. - Albert 2019: Anne Oravetz Albert, On the Possibility of Jewish Politics in Our Time: Scholem, Exile, and Early Modern Transformation, Kambiz Gnanea Bassiri and Paul Robertson (eds.), All Religion Is Inter-Religion. Engaging the Work of Steven M. Wasserstrom, Bloomsbury Academic, London-New York-Oxford-New Delhi-Sydney 2019, pp. 147-158.
  6. - Barrios 1683: Miguel David Levi de Barrios, Triumpho del govierno popular de la antiguedad holandesa, s.l., Amsterdam 1683.
  7. - Bartolucci 2005: Guido Bartolucci, Venezia nel pensiero politico ebraico Rinascimentale: Un testo ritrovato di David de Pomis, «Rinascimento», n.s. 44 (2005), pp. 225-247.
  8. - Bartolucci 2004: Guido Bartolucci, La repubblica ebraica di Carlo Sigonio. Modelli politici dell’età moderna, Olschki, Firenze 2007.
  9. - Bartolucci 2017a: Guido Bartolucci, The Hebrew Republic in the Political Debate of Sixteenth-Century Europe: The Struggle for Jurisdiction, in Arthur Weststeijn (ed.), Imagining the Ancients. Republics and the Classical Past, 1500-1800, Leiden, Brill, 2017, pp. 214-233. - Bartolucci 2017: Guido Bartolucci, Jewish Thought vs. Lutheran Aristotelism:
  10. Johann Frischmuth (1619-1687) and Jewish Scepticism, «Yearbook of the Maimonides Centre for Advanced Studies», (2017), pp. 95-106.
  11. - Bodian 1985: Miriam Bodian, The “Escamot” of the Spanish-Portoguese Jewish Community of London 1664, «Michael: On the History of the Jews in the Diaspora», (1985), pp. 9-26.
  12. - Bodian 1997: Miriam Bodian, Biblical Hebrews and the Rhetoric of Republicanism: Seventeenth-Century Portoguese Jews on the Jewish Community, «American Jewish Studies», 22 (1997), 2, pp. 199-221.
  13. - Bonfil 1990: Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1990.
  14. - Campos Boralevi, Quaglioni 2002: Lea Campos Boralevi e Diego Quaglioni (a cura di), Politeia Biblica, «Il Pensiero Politico», 35 (2002), 3. - Campos Boralevi 2002: Lea Campos Boralevi, Classical Foundation Myths of European Republicanism: The Jewish Commonwealth, in Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner (eds.), Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2002, 1, pp. 247-261.
  15. - Caporali 2000: Riccardo Caporali, La fabbrica dell’Imperium. Saggio su Spinoza, Liguori, Napoli 2000.
  16. - Cardoso 1679: Isaac Cardoso, Las Excelencias de los Hebreos, David de Castro Tartas, Amsterdam 1679.
  17. - Carlebach 2017: Elisheva Carlebach, The Early Modern Jewish Community and its Institutions, in Jonathan Karp and Adam Sutcliffe (eds.), The Cambridge History of Judaism. Volume 7: The Early Modern World 1500-1815, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2017, pp. 168-198.
  18. - Castro 1670: Isaac Orobio de Castro, Prevenciones Divinas contra la vana idolatría de las gentes, Hamburg, Staats- Universität- Bibliothek, Cod. Levy 122.
  19. - Castro 2013: Isaac Orobio de Castro, Prevenciones Divinas contra la vana idolatría de las gentes, I, edizione critica, con introduzione, note di commento e riassunti parafrasi in italiano a cura di Myriam Silvera, Olschki, Firenze 2013.
  20. - Cohen Skalli 2017: C. Cohen Skalli, Don Isaac Abravanel, The Zalman Shazar, Gerusalemme 2017 (in ebraico).
  21. - Costa 2014: Uriel da Costa, Exame das tradiçoes phariseas. Esame delle tradizioni farisee (1624), saggio introduttivo, testo critico, traduzione e commento a cura di Omero Proietti, eum, Macerata 2014.
  22. - Cunaeus 1996: Petrus Cunaeus, De republica Hebraeorum (The commonwealth of the Hebrews), a cura di Lea Campos Boralevi, CET, Firenze 1996.
  23. - Curley 2015: Edwin Curley, Spinoza’s Lost Defence, in Yitzhak Melamed (ed.), The Young Spinoza. A Metaphysician in the Making, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, pp. 9-32.
  24. - Fubini 2003: Riccardo Fubini, Storiografia dell’Umanesimo in Italia. Da Leonardo Bruni ad Annio da Viterbo, Storia e Letteratura, Roma 2003.
  25. - Goetschel 1997: Roland Goetschel, Don Abravanel. Un ebreo alle corti d’Europa, Ecig, Genova 1997.
  26. - Israel 1633: Menasseh ben Israel, Conciliator sive de convenientia locorum S. Scripturae quae pugnare inter se videtur, Auctoris typis et impensis, Amstelodami 1633.
  27. - Kaplan 1984: Yosef Kaplan, On the Relation of Spinoza’s Contemporaries in the Portoguese Jewish Community of Amsterdam to Spanish Culture and the Marrano Experience, in Cornelius de Deugd (ed.), Spinoza’s Political and Theological Thought. (International Symposium under the Auspices of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences Commemorating the 350th Anniversary of the Birth of Spinoza. Amsterdam 24-27 November 1982), North-Holland Publishing Company, Amsterdam-Oxford-New York 1984, pp. 82-94.
  28. - Kaplan, Méchoulan, Popkin 1989: Yosef Kaplan, Henry Méschoulan, Richard Popkin (eds.), Menasseh ben Israel and his World, Brill, Leiden 1989.
  29. - Kaplan 1989: Yosef Kaplan, From Christianity to Judaism. The Story of Isaac Orobio de Castro, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1989.
  30. - Kaplan 2000: Yosef Kaplan, An Alternative Path to Modernity. The Sephardi Diaspora in Western Europe, Brill, Leiden-Boston-Köln 2000.
  31. - Katz 2000: Jacob Katz, Tradition and Crisis. Jewish Society at the End of the Middle Ages, Syracuse University Press, New York 2000. - Kimelman 1995: Reuven Kimelman, Abravanel and the Jewish Republican Ethos, in Daniel H. Frank (ed.), Commandment and Community. New Essays in Jewish Legal and Political Philosophy, State University of New York Press, New York 1995, pp. 195-216.
  32. - Laplanche 1992: François Laplanche, L’érudition chrétienne aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles et l’État des Hébreux, in Groupe de Recherches Spinoziste, L’Écriture Sainte au temps de Spinoza e dans le système spinoziste, Presses de L’Université de Paris Sorbonne, Paris 1992, pp. 133-147.
  33. - Lieberman 1996: Julia Rebollo Lieberman, El teatro alegórico de Miguel (Daniel Leví) de Barrios, Juan de la Cuesta, Newark (Delaware) 1996.
  34. - Lloyd Jones 1999: G. Lloyd Jones, Paul of Burgos and the ‘Adversus Judaeos’ Tradition, «Henoch. Studi Storico-Filologici sull’Ebraismo», 21 (1999), 3, pp. 313-329.
  35. - Lorberbaum 2001: Menachem Lorberbaum, Politics and the Limits of Law: secularizing the political in medieval Jewish thought, Stanford University Press, Stanford 2001.
  36. - Marchetti 1995: Valerio Marchetti, Sulla degiudaizzazione della politica. In margine alla relazione di Horst Dreitzel in Artemio Enzo Baldini (ed.) Aristotelismo politico e ragion di stato. (Atti del convegno internazionale di Torino 11-12 Febbraio 1993), Olschki, Firenze 1995, pp. 349-358.
  37. - Martinez de Bedoya 2002: J. Martinez de Bedoya, La segunda parte del “Scrutinium Scripturarum” de Pablo de Santa Maria: “El dialogo catequetico”, Romae, Pontificia Universitas Sanctae Crucis, facultas Theologiae, 2002.
  38. - Méchoulan 1994: Henry Méchoulan, Los Judíos de Amsterdam y Spinoza, in Atilano Domínguez, Spinoza y España (Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre «Relaciones entre Spinoza y España»), Ediciones de la Universidad de Castila La Mancha, Murcia 1994, pp. 49-56.
  39. - Melamed 2014: Yitzhak Melamed, Spinoza’s Respublica divina, in Otfried Höffe (ed.), Baruch de Spinozas: Theologisch-politicher Traktat, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 2014, pp. 195-210.
  40. - Nadler 2011: Steven Nadler, A Book Forged in Hell. Spinoza’s Scandalous Treatise and the Birth of the Secular Age, Princeton University Press, Princeton 2011.
  41. - Nelson 2010: Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic. Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought, Harvard University Press, Cambridge MA 2010.
  42. - Netanyahu 1968: Benzion Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, Statesman and Philosopher, Jewish Publication Society, Philadelphia 1968.
  43. - Neuman 2005: Kalman Neuman, Political Hebraism and the Early Modern ‘Respublica Hebraeorum’: On Defining the Field, «Hebraic Political Studies», 1 (2005), 1, pp. 57-70.
  44. - Koekkoek 2017: René Koekkoek, The Hebrew Republic in Dutch Political Thought, c. 1650-1675, in Arthur Weststeijn (ed.), Imagining the Ancients. Republics and the Classical Past, 1500-1800, Leiden, Brill, 2017, pp. 234-258.
  45. - Rosenthal 1997: Michael A. Rosenthal, Why Spinoza chose the Hebrews: the Exemplary Function of Prophecy in the Theological-political Treatise, «History of Political Thought», 18 (1997), pp. 207-241.
  46. - Ruderman 2010: David B. Ruderman, Early Modern Jewry. A New Cultural History, Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford 2010. - Schochet, Oz Salzberger, Jones 2008: Gordon Schoschet - Fania Oz-Salzberger and Meirav Jones (eds.), Political Hebraism. Judaic Sources in Early Modern Political Thought Gordon Schochet, Shalem Press, Jerusalem and New York 2008.
  47. - Scholberg 1962: Kenneth R. Scholberg, Miguel de Barrios and the Amsterdam Sephardic Community, «The Jewish Quarterly Review», 53 (1962), 2, pp. 120-159.
  48. - Scholem 2001: Gershom Scholem, Shabbetay Sevi: il Messia mistico 1626-1676, Torino, Einaudi 2001.
  49. - Selden 1650-55: John Selden, De synedriis et praefecturis iuridicis veterum ebraeorum libri tres, Flesher, Londini 1650-1655.
  50. - Spinoza 2001: Benedetto Spinoza, Trattato Teologico-Politico, a cura di Alessandro Dini, Bompiani, Milano 2001.
  51. - Spinoza 2007: Benedetto Spinoza, Opere, a cura di Filippo Mignini e Omero Proietti, Mondadori, Milano 2007.
  52. - Steenbakkers 2010: Piet Steenbakkers, The text of Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, in Ytzhak Melamed and Michael A. Rosenthal (eds.), Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise. A critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2010, pp. 29-40.
  53. - Swetschinski 1984: Daniel M. Swetschinski, The Portuguese Jews of Seventeenth-Century Amsterdam: Cultural Continuity and Adaptation, in Frances Malino and Phyllis Cohen Albert (eds.), Essays in Modern Jewish History, Herzl Press Publication, New York 1984, pp. 56-80.
  54. - Tábet 1999: Michelangelo Tábet, El diálogo judeo-cristiano en el Scrutinium Scripturarum de Pablo de Santa María, in «Annali di Storia dell’Esegesi», 16 (1999), 2, pp. 537-560.
  55. - Toomer 2009: Gerald J. Toomer, John Selden. A Life in Scholarship, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, 2 voll.
  56. - Totzeck 2019: Markus M. Totzeck, Die politischen Gesetze des Mose. Entstehung und Einflüsse der politia-judaica-Literatur in der Frühen Neuzeit, Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2019.
  57. - Visentin 2001: Stefano Visentin, La libertà necessaria. Teoria e pratica della democrazia in Spinoza, ETS, Pisa 2001.
  58. - Walzer, Lorberbaum, Zohar 2000: Michael Walzer, Menachem Lorberbaum, Noam J. Zohar (eds.), The Jewish Political Tradition, Yale University Press, New Haven and London 2000-2003, 2 voll.
  59. - Wendeler 1695: Michael Wendeler, Disputatio politica de magno Judaeorum synedrio, Wittenberg, Typis Johannes Haken 1659.
  60. - Weinberg 1992: Joanna Weinberg, Azariah de’ Rossi and the Forgeries of Annius of Viterbo in David Ruderman (ed.), Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, New York University Press, New York 1992, pp. 252-279.
  61. - Williams Lukyn 1935: A. Williams Lukyn, Adversus Judeos. A bird’s-Eye View of Chistian “Apologiae” until the Renaissance, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1935.
  62. - Yerushalmi 1991: Chaim Yerushalmi, Dalla corte al ghetto: la vita, le opere, le peregrinazioni del marrano Cardoso nell’Europa del Seicento, Garzanti, Milano 1991.
  63. - Zac 1979: Sylvain Zac, Spinoza e l’État des Hébreux, in Id. (éd.), Philosophie, théologie, politique dans l’oeuvre de Spinoza, Libraire philosophique J. Vrin, Paris 1979, pp. 543-569.

Guido Bartolucci, «Como si fuera Republica de por si». La Respublica Divina di Baruch Spinoza tra modello cristiano e tradizione politica ebraica in "RIVISTA DI STORIA DELLA FILOSOFIA" 3/2020, pp 461-484, DOI: 10.3280/SF2020-003005