Abstract
Since the time of their publication in the 17th century, the writings of Baruch Spinoza have occasioned a rather unique predicament. Few other philosophical teachings have produced such diametrically opposed interpretations of their meaning. On the one hand, there is Pierre Bayle’s famous pronouncement that Spinoza was “a Systematical Atheist who brought his Atheism into a new Method.”1 On the other hand, however, there is the renowned acclamation of Spinoza as “der Gottvertrunkener Mann” by Novalis. During the Pantheismusstreit of the late 1780s, Lessing declared his acceptance of Spinozism and its pantheistic religious orientation while Jacobi denounced Spinoza’s teaching as devoid of any authentic religious significance and he persisted in the conviction that “Spinozism was Atheism.”2 An obvious question presents itself to thoughtful people. How could astute thinkers, like Bayle and Novalis or Lessing and Jacobi, arrive at contradictory verdicts about the same teaching? Reflection on their own works suggests that is was not for lack of sophistication or probity. Rather what differentiates the two opposing perspectives is their literary focus. Typically, those who sponsored the atheistical interpretation of Spinoza’s teachings came to their judgment because they detected inconsistencies in Spinoza’s writings. Based on them, it was determined that Spinoza frequently did not mean what he said.
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References
Pierre Bayle, An Historical and Critical Dictionary, 4 vols. (London, 1710) 4:2781. Also see A.L. Motzkin, “Spinoza and Luzzatto: Philosophy and Religion,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 17 (January 1979) p. 43: “During the greater part of the eighteenth centuryChwr(133) Bayle’s judgment of Spinoza was not generally disputed, and the philosophy of Spinoza, whether for this or for other reasons, did not enjoy a huge following. Those who did consider themselves followers of Spinoza usually did not admit to it in the open, and the term `Spinozist’ had a pejorative ring to it.”
F.H. Jacobi, “Ueber die Lehre der Spinoza,” Werke, 4 bände (Leipzig, 1812–20) 4:54–65; 180–205; 216–20. On the degree to which Lessing’s avowal of Spinoza’s doctrines contributed to an increase in their respectability, see Otto Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of Religion in the Basis of its History, 4 vols., trans. Allan Menzies (Edinburgh: Williams and Norgate, 1888) 1:144–46; T.W. Rolleston, Life of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (London, 1889) pp. 195–200; Jacob Freudenthal, “On the History of Spinozism,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 8 (1895–1896) pp. 65–70; W.S. Lilly, Many Mansions being Studies in Ancient Religions and Modern Thought (London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd., 1907) pp. 179–82; and Motzkin, “Spinoza and Luzzatto: Philosophy and Religion,” pp. 43–44.
The letters between Oostens and van Velthuysen appear as Epistles 48 and 49 in the Opera posthuma BDS and in Samuel Shirley’s translation of the correspondence of Spinoza they appear as Epistles 42 and 43: see Opera posthuma BDS ([Amstelodami] 1677) p. 553ff; and The Letters, trans. S. Shirley with introduction and notes by Steven Barbone, Lee Rice, and Jacob Adler (Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995) pp. 225–42. The Shirley edition of Spinoza’s correspondence will be cited throughout this essay.
M. Stouppe, La religion des Hollandois (Cologne: Chez Pierre Martineau, 1673) pp. 65–67. Apropos Stouppe’s allegation, I.S. Révah reports the testimony of an Inquisition spy present at Collegiant meetings attended by Spinoza. According to Fr. Tomas Solano y Robles’ account of 10 August 1659, Spinoza professed his atheism at that private meeting in this way: “estaban contentos en tener el herror de el ateismo, porque sentian que non havia Dios sino es filosofalmente (como he declarado)”: see Spinoza et le Dr. Juan de Prado (Paris: Mouton, 1959) pp. 31–32 and 64.
Bayle, An Historical and Critical Dictionary, 4:2789–90. For examples of Kortholt’s discovery of“shifts and equivocations” in Spinoza’s TTP, see De tribus impostoribus magnis liber (Kiloni, 1680) pp. 72–75,96–99,144–48.
J. Hancock, “Arguments to Prove the Being of God with Objections against it Answered,” in A Defense of Natural and Revealed Religion: Being a Collection of Sermons Preached at the Lecture founded by Sir Robert Boyle,Esq. 1691–1732, 3 vols. (London, 1739) 2:253. The skepticism to which the author refers is limited to theological questions.
The Principles of Deism Truly Represented and Set in a Clear Light (London, 1720 [5th edition]) p. 32. On protection from persecution or harm as a motive for simulation or dissembling, compare John Toland, “The Origin and Force of Prejudices,” Letters to Serena (London: Bernard Lintot, 1704) pp. 13–14: “I know some [religions] profess to allow a Liberty of examining, but their Proceedings not seldom show their want of Sincerity: for let any of their Doctrines be call’d in doubt or deny’d after such an Examination, and the Person that does it will pass his time very ill. If he’s not put to Death, sent into Banishment, depriv’d of his Employment, fin’d, or excommunicat’d, according as his Church has more or less Power; yet the least he may expect, is to be abhorr’d and shun’d by the other Members of Society (a thing in all People’s power) which every man has not Fortitude enough to bear for the sake of the greatest Truths; and the very Dearness of Acquaintance has often retain’d Men of admirable Understanding, in the external Expression of the most absurd and ridiculous Errors.”
J. Roberts, The Christian Free-Thinker: Or an Epistolary Discourse on Freedom of Thought (London, 1740) pp. 58–60. The book proposes a defense of the kind of freethinking that avoids the extreme forms of it which lead to deism or atheism, see pp. 64–66. For Roberts, Spinoza represented the culmination of a tradition of excessive freethinking that was promoted in the teachings of Cardin, Bruno, and Vanini. About the latter figure, Roberts concluded this: “[Vanini] railed at Atheists, wrote Books to confute them, and scattered seeds of Atheism in those very Books” (p. 55).
Freudenthal, “On the History of Spinozism,” p. 35.
James Martineau, A Study of Spinoza (London: Macmillan and Company, 1882) pp. 349–50: “Though Spinoza is anti-theistic and has no valid excuse for retaining the name `God’, there may have been something congenial to Spinoza in the continued use of consecrated language which could never quite lose its glow”; and p. 371: “How far, in such enigmatical propositions [e.g., ”Christ beheld the Divine Law intuitively“], he speaks in accommodation to Christian feeling and prepossession it is difficult to decide.”
A.J. Watt, “Spinoza and the Use of Religious Language,” The New Scholasticism 66 (Summer 1972): pp. 286,293–94,307.
Efraim Shmueli, “The Geometrical Method, Personal Caution, and the Ideal of Tolerance,” Spinoza: New Perspectives, eds. R.W. Shahan and J.I. Biro (Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978) p. 210.
Abbé Sabatier de Castres, Apologie de Spinoza (Paris, 1766). Also see, Freudenthal, “On the History of Spinozism,” pp. 58–59.
A.E. Renthe, Probatio quod B. de Spinoza graviter errans non fuerit atheus (Coethen, 1766); and A.W. Rehberg, Treatise on the Nature of Forces (Berlin, 1779).
See E.E. Powell, Spinoza and Religion (London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trübner & Company, 1906) pp. 45–53; Pfleiderer, The Philosophy of Religion, 1:207ff; 235–44; 303–306.
H.G. Hubbeling, Spinoza’s Methodology (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1967) pp. 58–59.
E.E. Harris, “Is There an Esoteric Doctrine in the Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus?” Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis 38 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1978) pp. 8–14. The purpose of Harris’s essay is to refute the interpretation of the TTP offered by Leo Strauss in “How to Study Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” Persecution and the Art of Writing (Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, 1952). Harris’s repudiation of Strauss’s thesis rests on his purported demonstration that the allegedly inconsistent or contradictory statements detected in the TTP by Strauss are not in fact discrepant propositions. Elsewhere I have argued that Spinoza does in fact contradict himself on one of the most pivotal teachings of the TTP and in that respect, as well as in other concerns, Harris’s argument against Strauss is defective: see “Harris, Strauss, and Esotericism in the Tractatus theologico-politicus,” Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 23 (Spring 1996):387–415.
Y. Yovel, Spinoza and Other Heretics: The Marrano of Reason (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989) pp. 141–50.
Alexandre Matheron, Le Christ et le salut des ignorants chez Spinoza (Paris: Aubier, 1971); André Tosel, Spinoza, ou le crepuscule de la servitude: essai sur le Traité Théologico-politique (Paris: Aubier, 1984); Herman de Dijn, “Knowledge, Anthropocentrism, and Salvation,” Studia Spinozana 9 (1993); and Lee C. Rice, “Faith, Obedience, and Salvation in Spinoza,” Lyceum 6 (1994).
See Speculum Spinozanum 1677–1977, ed. S. Hessing (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1978): Plate 12 (facing page 283) is a facsimile of Spinoza’s letter to Leibniz that carries the imprint of Spinoza’s seal. The design of the seal was also chosen for the cover of A. Wolf’s edition of The Correspondence of Spinoza (London: Frank Cass, 1928). The design also appears on publications of the Vereniging het Spinozahuis in The Netherlands and it used as the insignia of the North American Spinoza Society.
Strauss, “How to Study Spinoza’s Theologico-Political Treatise,” pp. 178–80; and Harris, “Is There an Esoteric Doctrine in the Tractatus TheologicoPoliticus?” pp.14–15.
While citing the page numbers from the Gebhardt and Shirley editions of the TTP, the translations of the TTP in the text of this essay are those of its author.
See Epistle 13, The Letters, p. 110; and compare Lodewijk Meyer’s preface to Spinoza’s Renati des Cartes principiorum philosophiae, Spinoza opera, ed. Gebhardt, 1:129–30.
Wolf, The Correspondence of Spinoza pp. 441–42; and K.O. Meinsma, Spinoza en zijn kreig (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1896) pp. 406–409. On 16 February 1673, J. Louis Fabritius, a Professor of Philosophy and Theology at the University of Heidelberg, wrote to Spinoza on behalf of the Elector Palatine to whom he was also a councillor. His intention was to offer Spinoza “a regular Professorship of Philosophy in [the Elector’s] illustrious University.” Wolf has opined that it is uncertain whether the post was tendered to Spinoza as the author of the book on the philosophical principles of Descartes or as the author of the Tractatus theologicopoliticus but Meinsma argues that the latter work prompted the invitation.z4 Still, the appointment was dependent upon the satisfaction of one
Oldenburg’s correspondence with Spinoza on 27 September 1661 corroborates the kind of secrecy that obtained among Spinoza’s friends. After expressing confusion about propositions in a draft copy of Part One of the Ethica, Oldenburg asked Spinoza for greater clarification of the definition of “Substance” as causa sui. Moreover, he made this promise: “[The definition of Substance as causa sui] I willingly confess I cannot grasp, unless you do me the kindness of disclosing to me somewhat more simply and more fully your opinion regarding this high matter, explaining what is the origin and production of substances, the interdependence of things and their subordinate relationships. I entreat you, by the friendship on which we have embarked, to deal with me frankly and confidently in this, and I urge you most earnestly to be fully convinced that all these things which you see fit to impart to me will be inviolate and secure, and that I shall in no way permit any of them to become public to your detriment or injury” (Epistle 3, The Letters, p. 65).
Such a conclusion also has been advanced by E.E. Powell who notes that even with respect to Casaerius Spinoza may have suggested heterodox views to him, albeit obliquely. See Spinoza and Religion,p. 59: “It is quite certain therefore that, in touching matters of religion, Spinoza was disposed indirectly to introduce his own ideas into the mind of his pupil while formally teaching opposite views.”
The suggestion that the Pentateuch was not a single whole work written by Moses brings into question the authority of those books, their divine inspiration, and the doctrine or laws they imparted. Prior to Spinoza’s verdict on the authorship of the Pentateuch, Isaac La Peyrère had advocated the same conclusion, see Men before Adam (London, 1656) p. 208: “I need not trouble the Reader much further to prove a thing in itself sufficiently evident, that the first five books of the Bible were not written by Moses as is thought. Nor need anyone wonder after this, when he reads many things confus’d and out of order, obscure, deficient, many things omitted and misplaced, when they shall consider with themselves that they are a heap of Copie confusedly taken.” It is known that the 1655 edition of La Peyrère’s Praeadamitae was owned by Spinoza and remained in his personal library at the time of his death: see Jacob Freudenthal, Die Lebensgeschichte Spinozas: Quellenschriften, Urkunden and nichtnamlichen Nachrichten (Leipzig, 1899) pp. 160–64. It is also the case that Thomas Hobbes expressed suspicion about the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch: see Leviathan: or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, ed. Edwin Curley, (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1994) p. 252. Indeed, both Hobbes and Spinoza cite Genesis 12, verse 6 as evidence that Moses could not have writte all the passages contained in the Pentateuch. Compare Leviathan p. 252 with TTP G3:119/S 109.
Spinoza maintains at the outset of Chapter 10 that he does not aim at disparaging the authority of the Books of Chronicles. But it must be realized that his conclusion about the post-restoration origin of a canon of sacred books has the precise effect of calling into question the legitimacy of the influence of those works. For Chronicles, like the other canonical
The Jerome Biblical Commentary, 2 vols., eds. R.E. Brown, J.A. Fitzmeyer, & R.F. Murphy (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1968) 1:404.
No page numbers are provided in either the 1660 Holy Bible or the 1657 Annotations.
Biblia dat is, de Gantsche Heylige Schrifture, van vat Alle de Canonijke Boeken des Ouden en des Nieuwen Testaments, 2 vols. (Leiden, 1637) 1:185; and in the 1663 edition, which bears the same title, see volume 1, page 192.
I have in mind here the description of “the exoteric and the esoteric distinction” articulated in the full title of John Toland’s essay, “Clidophorus or of the Exoteric and Esoteric Philosophy, that is, of the External and Internal Doctrines of the Ancients: the one open and public, accommodated to the popular Prejudices and the established Religions; the other private and secret, wherein, to the few capable and discrete, was taught the TRUTH stripped of all disguises,” Tetradymus (London, 1720). Whereas Toland’s definition of “the exoteric and the esoteric distinction” portrays the teachings as being materially separate from each other, Spinoza’s treatise is constructed in such a way that it contains an exoteric, or “accommodated,” doctrine as well as an esoteric, or unaccommodated, one. In other words, the TTP is an example of “exoteric/esoteric literature.” I have discussed the characteristics of such literature in “On the Practice of Esotericism,” Journal of the History of Ideas 53 (April-June 1992):231–47.
The practice of exoteric teaching is interrelated with the practice of esoteric teaching. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “esoteric” in this way: “Of philosophical doctrines, treatises, modes of speech, etc.: Designed for, or appropriate to, an inner circle of advanced or privileged disciples; communicated to, or intelligible by, the initiated exclusively.” In recounting Lessing’s appreciation of the ancients’ distinction between their exoteric and their esoteric teachings, Leo Strauss offers this instructive comment on the point of exotericism: “How was Lessing led to notice, and to understand, the information about the fact that `all ancient philosophers’ had distinguished between their exoteric and their esoteric teaching? If I am not mistaken, he rediscovered the bearing of that distinction by his own exertion after having undergone his conversion, i.e., after having had the experience of what philosophy is and what sacrifices it requires. For it is that experience which leads in a straight way to the distinction between the two groups of men, the philosophic men and the unphilosophic men, and therewith to the distinction between the two ways of presenting the truth”: see “Exoteric Teaching” in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989) p. 69; also see, “Leibniz von den Ewigen Strafen,” Lessing Werke, 8 bände, eds. H.G. Göpfert, et al (Darmstadt, 1970–79) 7:180–85.
The final sentence of the passage recommends the simulation of accepted opinions rather than suffer the penalty of death for believing and expressing heterodox ones: “Quid ergo talium nece exempli statuitur, cujus causam inertes, & animo impotentes ignorant, seditiosi oderunt,& honesti amant? Nemo sane ex eadem exemplum capere potest,nisi ad imitandum, vel saltem ad adulandum.” Admittedly, the sentence poses difficulties for the translator. In the Elwes translation, the sentence reads: “The only lesson we can draw from such scenes is to flatter the persecutor, or else to imitate the victim”; see TTP,trans. R.H.M. Elwes (New York: Dover Publications, 1951) p. 263. On the other hand, Shirley’s translation is more benign: “The only lesson to be drawn from them is to emulate them, or at least revere them,” TTP (S236). He renders the Latin verb adulari as “to revere” rather than the more customary, though negative, sense of flatter“ or ”to fawn“ which is the typical significance of the word in other passages from the TTP. Three considerations support the interpretation of the passage I have proposed. (1) Chapter 20 of the TTP is devoted to demonstrating that in a free republic ”one is allowed to think as he wishes and to say what he thinks.“ In the passage cited, Spinoza denounces situations where there is punishment of those who think differently than the authorities but who do not know how to simulate the authorized views. Spinoza does not condemn simulation. Instead he condemns the political or religious circumstances that force men to simulate. (2) The sentence immediately following the passage cited explains that the alternative to compelling the kind of simulation practiced by those seeking to avoid persecution is to allow full freedom of judgment and expression in all matters. That liberty, says Spinoza, will foster authentic speech and action by the citizens. But where such liberty is not conceded then simulation and deceit remain necessary or reasonable alternatives, even though they are socially and politically undesirable. (3) The disjunctive character of the grammatical construction vel supports our translation rather than the Shirley one. For Spinoza intends to confront the reader with these alternatives. Either there must be free speech and inquiry without persecution; or where persecution exists individuals will learn to practice simulation of accepted opinions rather than suffer the penalties prescribed for embracing unorthodox views.
I have discussed the issue involved here at length in “Spinoza, Biblical Criticism, and the Enlightenment,” Modern Enlightenment and the Rule of Reason, ed. John McCarthy (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998) pp. 124–49.
Undoubtedly, for those to whom it was given to know the mysteries of heaven, [Jesus] taught matters as eternal truths and he did not prescribe them as laws, for this reason he liberated them from servitude to the law and nevertheless confirmed and stabilized it by writing it in their hearts. This Paul also may be seen to indicate in certain places: such as the Epistle to Romans 7:6 and 3:28.
There are numerous consequences to be drawn from Spinoza’s account of the teaching of Paul the Apostle. Much of it turns on Paul’s confession that he speaks “human more” and Spinoza’s identification of that kind of discourse with the phenomenon of speaking “ex captu Judaeorum” or speaking “ad captum vulgi.” Leo Strauss examines these connections in “How to Study Spinoza’s Theologico- Political Treatise”; and I have endeavored to demonstrate the authentic meaning of Spinoza’s precept “ad captum vulgi loqui” in “Harris, Strauss, and Esotericism in Spinoza’s Tractatus theologico-politicus.”
However, he also does not wish to speak of this openly, but at the same Epistle 3:5 and 6:19 he expressly says that he speaks in human fashion in calling God just, and without doubt it is also because of the weakness of the flesh that he
According to Spinoza, the proclivity of the Hebrews to construe extraordinary events that tended to their advantage as evidence of God’s special care for them only enhanced their conviction in their unique election by God. On this point compare Chapters 3 and 12 of the TTP. Of course Spinoza’s repudiation of the Hebrew election also implies a rejection of the Calvinist notion of predestination.
Compare “On the Practice of Esotericism,” pp. 245–47.
The inconsistency between Moses’ statements, of course, becomes the conduit for Spinoza’s own renunciation of the doctrine of God’s jealousy in Chapter 15 of the TTP. There Spinoza asserts that the attribution of jealousy to God is simply “repugnant to reason” (G3:183/S 173). If one thinks about Spinoza’s repudiation of that opinion, this consequence seems inescapable. In Chapter 7, Spinoza reconciled the statements “God is fire” and “God is jealous” by arguing that in other Scriptural passages the anger of God is connected with fire. But if Spinoza denies that God is jealous on the grounds that such a view is absurd, and God’s jealousy has been identified with God’s appearance as fire, even on Spinoza’s account, then it would follow by implication that the attribution of materiality to God, as a fire, also must be denied by Spinoza. If that consequence is agreed to follow, then Spinoza’s dismissal of God’s jealousy has the effect of negating God’s appearance as a fire. But therewith the election of the Hebrews, the presentation of the Decalogue to them at Sinai, and Moses’ appointment as chief prophet and legislator all fall under dire suspicion: compare, above, note 27.
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Bagley, P.J. (1999). Spinoza, Philosophic Communication, and the Practice of Esotericism. In: Bagley, P.J. (eds) Piety, Peace, and the Freedom to Philosophize. The New Synthese Historical Library, vol 47. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-2672-6_11
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