“At Nantes, the Portuguese were divided in the late sixteenth century,” as one authority has put it, “between judaisers and Catholics. Thanks to research in Portuguese Inquisition archives, we know Spinoza’s own family figured among the active ‘judaizers’ in France, at Nantes, as well as in Portugal. Faced by this crisis and disaster in Portugal, and marked intensification of persecution of all New Christians that followed, neither Portuguese crypto-Jews remaining in Portugal, nor those dispersed to other lands, remained politically inert. One ominous consequence of this 1580 ‘revolution’ in Portugal for the ‘New Christians’, or conversos of Jewish descent, was that the powers of the Inquisition in Portugal, as might have been expected, were further extended. 341).Īfter the battle for Lisbon, the historic liberties and privileges of Portugal, like those of Aragon subsequently, in 1591-1592, were ruthlessly suppressed by the Spanish monarch. Appropriately, Philip’s army of invasion was commanded by the same duke of Alba who was championing a militantly intolerant, forthright Castilian imperialism more generally and had previously subjected the Low Countries to a reign of terror between 15, as part of a brutal and bloody drive to overwhelm the Dutch rebels, resulting in numerous Calvinists, Lutherans and other religious dissidents being brought “to all kinds of martyrdom,” as Spinoza vividly expresses it, in his letter to Albert Burgh ( Spinoza, 1995, p. Conquering Portugal was consciously viewed in Madrid as a step to gaining world mastery. Acquiring Portugal, observed one of Philip’s advisors, would be a major strategic gain, also “be the principal, most effective, and decisive instrument and remedy for the reduction of the Netherlands to obedience, as well as a useful means of controlling England” (Quoted in Parker, 1998, p. Palabras clave: Felipe II, tiranía, persecución religiosa de los disidentes, revolución, contexto histórico del pensamiento de Spinoza.Īfter sending in an army to conquer Portugal, in the year 1580, Philip II of Spain made himself also ‘king of Portugal’ against the wishes of most of its inhabitants. Este artículo muestra que las tres principales revueltas en Occidente (las de Holanda, Portugal y Aragón) contra Felipe II (que para él era el principal símbolo y personificación de la tiranía, del gobierno arbitrario e ilícito, de la intolerancia y de la represión de las libertades básicas) llegaron a estar en algún sentido entrelazadas y estuvieran presentes intensamente en su vida, lo que nos ayuda a entender que Spinoza fue un auténtico revolucionario. Key words: Philip II, tyranny, religious persecution of dissenters, revolution, historical context of Spinoza’s thought.Įl estilo sumamente abstracto de la filosofía de Spinoza ha alentado algunas interpretaciones en las que se afirma que tenía poco contacto con el ajetreo de los asuntos sociales y culturales a su alrededor. This article shows that all three major Western revolts - those of the Netherlands, Portugal and Aragon - against Philip II (his principal symbol and embodiment of tyranny, arbitrary and illicit governance, intolerance and repression of basic liberties) became in some sense internationally entwined and were intensely present in his life, which helps to understand that Spinoza was indeed a revolutionary. The highly abstract style of Spinoza’s philosophy has encouraged some interpretations of him as a thinker with little immediate connection with the whirl of social and cultural affairs around him.
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