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34. - Christ

from C

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 January 2025

By
Clare Carlisle
Edited by
Karolina Hübner  and
Justin Steinberg
Karolina Hübner
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
Justin Steinberg
Affiliation:
Cornell University, New York
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Summary

“It is completely unnecessary for salvation to know Christ according to the flesh,” Spinoza wrote in 1675. “We must think quite differently about that eternal son of God, i.e. God’s eternal wisdom, which has manifested itself in all things, but most in the human mind, and most of all in Christ Jesus. No one can attain blessedness without this” (Ep73). Spinoza was replying to Henry Oldenburg, the Secretary of the Royal Society, who had urged him to “clarify and soften the things in the TTP which caused trouble to your Readers” (Ep71). These letters, exchanged at the end of 1675, began a discussion between the two friends over the course of that winter in which Spinoza provides the clearest statement of his views about Christ.

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Spinoza Lexicon , pp. 86 - 88
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Recommended Reading

Carlisle, C. (2021). Spinoza’s Religion: A New Reading of the Ethics. Princeton University Press. Chapter 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Melamed, Y. (2012). ‘Christus secundum spiritum’: Spinoza, Jesus, and the infinite intellect. In Stahl, N. (ed.), The Jewish Jesus (pp. 140–51). Routledge.Google Scholar

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