ABSTRACT
Let us start with prayer – to wit with Spinoza's Prayer, as found in an anonymous manuscript of 1678–79: ‘Think with the learned, speak with the vulgar; the world wants to be deceived, amen.’ 1 The text is, of course, spurious, but it does give us a glimpse of Spinoza as seen by his contemporaries. The manuscript is a notebook for private use, with unconnected and slapdash, barely readable jottings on a range of topics, mainly politics (passionately anti-Orange), religion and – most importantly – sex; our author has a marked fascination for perversities and monstrosities in this area. The choice of subjects suggests average pub talk, 2 yet there is method in it. The author, whom I have been unable to identify so far, 3 was a friend and follower of Hadrian Beverland (1650–1716). 4 In 1678, this young Utrecht libertine had just published his controversial ‘philological treatise’ Peccatum originale (On Original Sin), which revealed the sexual drive to be the unique and supremely powerful motive force behind the workings of Nature. The original sin that besets the human race and informs all our actions is the craving for sexual intercourse (coeundi pruritus). Beverland's vitalism may be considered an unsophisticated foretaste of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. Given the mechanistic consensus of the period, he certainly qualifies as an original thinker. Though Beverland pays lip service – albeit with ill-concealed sarcasm – to orthodoxy by branding Spinoza as a sly deceiver (vafer impostor) 5 and an atheist, his critique of religion and his metaphysics owe a great deal to the philosopher. What makes Beverland unique and interesting is the way he connects biblical criticism with his own theory of Nature as a blind procreative force. Many of these insights have found their way into the commonplace book of 1678–79; hence the amount of space devoted to sex. In this perspective there is a strong connection with religion: like classical paganism and religions generally, Judaism originally was a fertility cult, and the Bible should be read from that perspective. The author's language is at times rather smutty – undoubtedly on account of the privacy a notebook affords. He obviously admires Spinoza, and refers to his views on religion several times, as in this quote:
From Beverland 6 – The Bible as we read it is not the true Bible, as can be shown from the Hebrew language, and as Spinoza also states. True is only that it secures the covenant made by the Israelites with God. The rest, which was added by Joshua and others, was written and invented by the Jews. 7
