Benedictus de Spinoza

Benedictus de Spinoza (1632–1677) was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Jewish descent, born in Amsterdam and expelled from its synagogue at twenty-three for opinions the elders would not name. He earned his living grinding lenses, declined a professorship at Heidelberg and lived quietly in The Hague, where he died of a lung disease at forty-four. The Theological-Political Treatise, published anonymously in 1670, argued for freedom of thought and a historical reading of scripture and was banned; the Ethics, which identifies God with nature and seeks freedom through understanding, appeared only after his death. Long treated as an atheist, he was later called by Novalis a God-intoxicated man.