The Amsterdam synagogue had at that moment passed through a severe crisis. When little Baruch was fifteen years old, another Portuguese exile by the name of Uriel Acosta had arrived in Amsterdam, had forsworn Catholicism, which he had accepted under a threat of death, and had returned to the faith of his fathers. But this fellow Acosta had not been an ordinary Jew. He was a gentleman accustomed to carry a feather in his hat and a sword at his side. To him the arrogance of the Dutch rabbis, trained in the German and Polish schools of learning, had come as a most unpleasant surprise, and he had been too proud and too indifferent to hide his opinions. In a small community like that, such open defiance could not possibly be tolerated. A bitter struggle had followed. On the one side a solitary dreamer, half prophet, half hidalgo. On the other side the merciless guardians of the law. It had ended in tragedy. First of all Acosta had been denounced to the local police as the author of certain blasphemous pamphlets which denied the immortality of the soul. This had got him into trouble with the Calvinist ministers. But the matter had been straightened out and the charge had been dropped. Thereupon the synagogue had excommunicated the stiff-necked rebel and had deprived him of his livelihood. For months thereafter the poor man had wandered through the streets of Amsterdam until destitution and loneliness had driven him back to his own flock. But he was not re-admitted until he had first of all publicly apologized for his evil conduct and had then suffered himself to be whipped and kicked by all the members of the congregation. These indignities had unbalanced his mind. He had bought a pistol and had blown his brains out. This suicide had caused a tremendous lot of talk among the principal citizens of Amsterdam. The Jewish community felt that it could not risk the chance of another public scandal. When it became evident that the most promising pupil of the “Tree of Life” had been contaminated by the new heresies of Descartes, a direct attempt was made to hush things up. Baruch was approached and was offered a fixed annual sum if he would give his word that he would be good, would continue to show himself in the synagogue and would not publish or say anything against the law. Now Spinoza was the last man to consider such a compromise. He curtly refused to do anything of the sort. In consequence whereof he was duly read out of his own church according to that famous ancient Formula of Damnation which leaves very little to the imagination and goes back all the way to the days of Jericho to find the appropriate number of curses and execrations. As for the victim of these manifold maledictions, he remained quietly in his room and read about the occurrence in next day’s paper. Even when an attempt was made upon his life by an over zealous follower of the law, he refused to leave town.