ABSTRACT
In 1656, a twenty-four-year-old Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) sat before a panel of judges in a wooden warehouse that served as the Amsterdam synagogue of Jewish descendants expelled from Portugal by the Inquisition. Witnesses testified about his numerous heresies. They alleged that he believed that the books of Moses were a human creation, the soul is mortal, and the corporeal world is part of God. 1
