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Heretic, Lens Grinder

Steven Nadler, PhD

Arch Ophthalmol. 2000;118:1425-1427.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

On July 27, 1656, the following text was read in Hebrew in front of the ark of the Portuguese-Jewish synagogue on the Houtgracht in the Vlooienburg quarter of Amsterdam where the Sephardic Jews (as well as their poorer Ashkenazic neighbors) tended to reside:

The Lords of the Ma'amad, having long known of the evil opinions and acts of Baruch de Spinoza, they have endeavored by various means and promises, to turn him from his evil ways. But having failed to make him mend his wicked ways, and, on the contrary, daily receiving more and more serious information about the abominable heresies which he practiced and taught and about his monstrous deeds, and having for this numerous trustworthy witnesses who have deposed and born witness to this effect in the presence of the said Espinoza, they became convinced of the truth of this matter; and after all of . . . [Full Text of this Article]