page_title: Baruch Spinoza
section_title: The Hague
hierarchical_section_title: Baruch Spinoza / Biography / The Hague
caption_attribution_description: Nederlands: Grafmonument voor Benedictus de Spinoza bij de Nieuwe Kerk in Den Haag. Latijnse tekst: Terra hic Benedicti de Spinoza In ecclesia nova olim sepulti Ossa tegit (Vertaling: Deze aarde bedekt de botten van Benedictus de Spinoza die ooit in de Nieuwe Kerk begraven werden.) English: The Hague - Nieuwe Kerk - Burial Monument to Benedict de Spinoza. Latin text: Terra hic Benedicti de Spinoza In ecclesia nova olim sepulti Ossa tegit (Translation: This earth covers the bones of Benedictus de Spinoza that once were buried in the Nieuwe Kerk (New Church).)
context_page_description: Baruch Spinoza was a Dutch philosopher of Portuguese Sephardi origin. One of the early thinkers of the Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism, including modern conceptions of the self and the universe, he came to be considered one of the great rationalists of 17th-century philosophy. Inspired by the groundbreaking ideas of René Descartes, Spinoza became a leading philosophical figure of the Dutch Golden Age. Spinoza's given name, which means "Blessed", varies among different languages. In Hebrew, it is written ברוך שפינוזה‎. In the Netherlands he used the name Bento. In his Latin and Dutch works, he used Latin: Benedictus de Spinoza.
  Spinoza was raised in the Portuguese-Jewish community in Amsterdam. He developed highly controversial ideas regarding the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of the Divine. Jewish religious authorities issued a herem against him, causing him to be effectively expelled and shunned by Jewish society at age 23, including by his own family. His books were later added to the Catholic Church's Index of Forbidden Books.
context_section_description: In 1670, Spinoza moved to The Hague where he lived on a small pension from Jan de Witt and a small annuity from the brother of his dead friend, Simon de Vries. He worked on the Ethics, wrote an unfinished Hebrew grammar, began his Political Treatise, wrote two scientific essays ("On the Rainbow" and "On the Calculation of Chances"), and began a Dutch translation of the Bible (which he later destroyed).
  Spinoza was offered the chair of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg, but he refused it, perhaps because of the possibility that it might in some way curb his freedom of thought.
  In 1676, Spinoza met with Leibniz in The Hague for a discussion of the Ethics, his principal philosophical work which he had completed earlier that year. This meeting was described in Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic. His health began to fail that same year, and he died on 21 February 1677 at the age of 44. His premature death was said to be due to lung illness, possibly silicosis as a result of breathing in glass dust from the lenses that he ground. Later, a shrine was made of his home in The Hague.
  Textbooks and encyclopaedias often depict Spinoza as a solitary soul who eked out a living as a lens grinder; in reality, he had many friends but kept his needs to a minimum. He preached a philosophy of tolerance and benevolence. Anthony Gottlieb described him as living "a saintly life." Reviewer M. Stuart Phelps noted, "No one has ever come nearer to the ideal life of the philosopher than Spinoza." Harold Bloom wrote, "As a teacher of reality, he practised his own wisdom, and was surely one of the most exemplary human beings ever to have lived." According to The New York Times: "In outward appearance he was unpretending, but not careless. His way of living was exceedingly modest and retired; often he did not leave his room for many days together. He was likewise almost incredibly frugal; his expenses sometimes amounted only to a few pence a day." Bloom writes of Spinoza, "He appears to have had no sexual life."
  Spinoza also corresponded with Peter Serrarius, a radical Protestant and millenarian merchant. Serrarius was a patron to Spinoza after Spinoza left the Jewish community and even had letters sent and received for the philosopher to and from third parties. Spinoza and Serrarius maintained their relationship until Serrarius' death in 1669. By the beginning of the 1660s, Spinoza's name became more widely known, and eventually Gottfried Leibniz and Henry Oldenburg paid him visits, as stated in Matthew Stewart's The Courtier and the Heretic. Spinoza corresponded with Oldenburg for the rest of his short life.
caption: Burial Monument of Spinoza at the churchyard of the Nieuwe Kerk (The Hague).
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