[15] Influenced by Stoicism, Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes,[16] Ibn Tufayl,[17] and heterodox Christians, Spinoza was a leading philosopher of the Dutch Golden Age.

In his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, described by Steven Nadler as "one of the most important books of Western thought", Spinoza questioned the divine origin of the Hebrew Bible and the nature of God while arguing that ecclesiastic authority should have no role in a secular, democratic state.

By advocating for individual liberty in its moral, psychological, and metaphysical dimensions, Spinoza helped establish the genre of political writing called secular theology.

Michael's third wife, Esther, raised Spinoza from age nine; she lacked formal Jewish knowledge due to growing up a New Christian and only spoke Portuguese at home.

[39] Da Costa questioned traditional Christian and Jewish beliefs, asserting that, for example, their origins were based on human inventions instead of God's revelation.

Amsterdam's Jewish communities long remembered and discussed da Costa's skepticism about organized religion, denial of the soul's immortality, and the idea that Moses didn't write the Torah, influencing Spinoza's intellectual journey.

[43] Spinoza attended the Talmud Torah school adjoining the Bet Ya'acov synagogue, a few doors down from his home, headed by the senior Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira.

[48][49] Spinoza's father died in 1654, making him the head of the family, responsible for organizing and leading the Jewish mourning rituals, and in a business partnership with his brother of their inherited firm.

[54] Though he was released of all debts and legally in the right, his reputation as a merchant was permanently damaged in addition to violating a synagogue regulation that business matters are to be arbitrated within the community.

[62] Other evidence indicates a concern about upsetting civil authorities, such as the synagogue's bans on public weddings, funeral processions, and discussing religious matters with Christians, lest such activity might "disturb the liberty we enjoy".

[81] Though a few prominent people in Amsterdam discussed the teachings of the secretive but marginal group, it was mainly a testing ground for Spinoza's philosophy to extend his challenge to the status quo.

[83] Throughout his life, Spinoza's general approach was to avoid intellectual battles, clashes, and public controversies, viewing them as a waste of energy that served no real purpose.

[96] Samuel Maresius attacked Spinoza personally, while Thomas Hobbes and Johannes Bredenburg criticized his conception of God and saw the book as dangerous and subversive.

[104] Nearly all the contents are philosophical and technical because the original editors of Opera Posthuma—a collection of his works published posthumously—Lodewijk Meyer, Georg Hermann Schuller, and Johannes Bouwmeester, excluded personal matters and letters due to the political and ecclesiastical persecution of the time.

[106][107] Through his pursuits in lens grinding, mathematics, optics, and philosophy, Spinoza forged connections with prominent figures such as scientist Christiaan Huygens, mathematician Johannes Hudde, and Secretary of the British Royal Society Henry Oldenburg.

[109] Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz outwardly described Spinoza's work negatively but privately wrote letters to him and desired to examine the manuscript of the Ethics.

In response, Spinoza, at the request of Burgh's family, who hoped to restore his reason, wrote an angry letter mocking the Catholic Church and condemning all religious superstition.

[124] The work has been associated with that of Leibniz and René Descartes as part of the rationalist school of thought,[125] which includes the assumption that ideas correspond to reality perfectly, in the same way that mathematics is supposed to be an exact representation of the world.

[157] The Tractatus Theologico-Politicus explains the lessons of ancient Israelite history, the moral core of Jesus's teachings, and the purpose of God's commandments, all tailored to current Dutch politics.

A few decades after the philosopher's death, Pierre Bayle, in his famous Historical and Critical Dictionary (1697) pointed out a link between Spinoza's alleged atheism with "the theology of a Chinese sect", supposedly called "Foe Kiao",[174] of which he had learned thanks to the testimonies of the Jesuit missions in Eastern Asia.

A century later, Kant also established a parallel between the philosophy of Spinoza and the thinking of Laozi (a "monstrous system" in his words), grouping both under the name of pantheists, criticizing what he described as mystical tendencies in them.

Many of these philosophers "used Spinoza to erect a bulwark against the nominally irrationalist tendencies of phenomenology", which was associated with the dominance of Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and Edmund Husserl in France at that time.

Antonio Negri, in exile in France for much of this period, also wrote a number of books on Spinoza, most notably The Savage Anomaly (1981) in his own reconfiguration of Italian Autonomia Operaia.

[126] More recently Jonathan Israel argued that, from 1650 to 1750, Spinoza was "the chief challenger of the fundamentals of revealed religion, received ideas, tradition, morality, and what was everywhere regarded, in absolutist and non-absolutist states alike, as divinely constituted political authority.

[203] In the Tractatus Spinoza said, in passing, about the Jews that "were it not that the fundamental principles of their religion discourage manliness, I would not hesitate to believe that they will one day, given the opportunity, [...] establish once more their independent state, and that God will again choose them".

[214] A conference was organized at the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research in New York entitled "From Heretic to Hero: A Symposium on the Impact of Baruch Spinoza on the 350th Anniversary of His Excommunication, 1656–2006".

[215] There have been calls for Spinoza's cherem to be rescinded, but it can only be done by the congregation that issued it, and the chief rabbi of that community,[d] Haham Pinchas Toledano, declined to do so, citing Spinoza's "preposterous ideas, where he was tearing apart the very fundamentals of our religion",[216] the Amsterdam Jewish community organised a symposium in December 2015 to discuss lifting the cherem, inviting scholars from around the world to form an advisory committee at the meeting.

[224] Also in Argentina and previously to Borges, the Ukrainian-born Jewish intellectual Alberto Gerchunoff wrote a novella about philosopher's early sentimental life, Los amores de Baruj [sic] Spinoza (lit.

"The loves of Baruj Spinoza", 1932), recreating a supposed affair or romantic interest with Clara Maria van den Enden, daughter of his Latin teacher and philosophical preceptor, Franciscus.

[226] Some other novels of biographical nature have appeared more recently, such as The Spinoza Problem (2012; a parallel story between the philosopher's formative years, and the fascination that his work had on the Nazi leader Alfred Rosenberg) by psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom, or O Segredo de Espinosa (lit.