STOIC AND ~EOPLATONIC

SOURCES OF
SPINOZAS ETHIC.!P
PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER~

Spinoza was an independent and original thinker, and we must try to

understand his doctrine in all its detail on the basis of his writings and in terms
of their own meaning and development. This is a difficult task, for his
writings, and especialiy his Ethics, are complicated and hard to understand
and in part even obscure, and their method and terminology impose a difficult
task on a careful and precise reader and interpreter. I am not competent to
attempt a comprehensive interpretation of his thought. and shall limit myself
to a subject which is perhaps less important, but also quite interesting, namely
to the sources of Spinozas Erhics. As all other original thinkers. Spinoza read
many of his predecessors, knew their doctrines, often transformed them, and
occasionally even cited them. The knowledge of his sources may help us to
understand better certain aspects of his thought, and above all, to define
more precisely his place in a philosophical tradition which is not uniform but
fairly continuous and which extends from Greek antiquity down to modern
times. I should like to cite a remark made by Freudenthal with reference to
Spinoza that might be applied also to other leading thinkers: Who wants to
make the significance of a philosopher depend on the narrowness of his
philosophical education?
It has always been known, and it has been much emphasised by the
historians of philosophy during the nineteenth century, that Spinoza was
deeply influenced by the philosophy of Descartes, that he took over without
change many concepts and doctrines of this philosopher, and that his own
views developed out of an effort to resolve certain problems and difficulties of
Cartesian metaphysics, and above all, to overcome his rigid dualism of mind
and body, or more precisely, of thought and extension. More recent scholars, and especially Harry A. Wolfson, have shown that the doctrine of
Spinoza, like that of Descartes, contains many concepts and technical terms
that go back to the Latin, and in the case of Spinoza, also to the Hebrew
scholasticism of the Middle Ages and of the sixteenth century.3 Yet the
studies of Gilson on Descartes scholastic sources have been siipplemented by
Matthias Meier and others who have called attention to the Platonist and
Stoic elements in Descartes. In a similar way, I shall try to show that Spinoza
too had other sources besides Descartes and Aristotle, and that he was also
* This paper is based on a lecture given at the University of Haifa on 22 March 1982,
and at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Hebrew University,
Jerusalem on 2X
March 19X2. An Italian version of the lecture (Fonti antiche e rinuscimentuli &llEtica
&lb Spinoza) was published
in memory of Giorgio Radetti by the Circolo della
Cuitura e delle Arti. Trieste in 1981.
?423 West 120th St., New York, N7 10027, U.S.A.

2
strongly influenced
by Stoic and Neoplntonic
concepts, either in their original
ancient
form. or in the tr~~Ilsf(~rr~~~tion they had undergone
during the
Renaissance.
I hope this attempt, which is by no means completely
new, may
help us to clarify some important
and even central points in Spinozas
thought,
and may serve as a supplement
or antidote
to an exaggerated
emphasis on the Cartesian,
Aristotelian
and scholastic elements in Spinozas
thought whose presence I do not wish to deny or to ignore.
I should like to mention in passing that there arc traces of ancient scepticism in Spinozas
doctrine,
as has been recently shown by Di Vona and
Popkin, and also dements
of Epicureanism
such as the precept that the sage
should avoid sadness and should enjoy with moderation
the innocent
pleasures of life. There are also echoes of Machiavelli
in Spinozas political
writings, and perhaps also in a curious passage of his Ethics where he states
that actions which are called bad according to custom are ~~ccornp~~nie~i by sad
feelings,7 and then stresses the fact that religion and custom arc not the same
for all human beings.
1 shall forego the temptation
further to pursue these scattered
notions,
interesting
as they are, and shall concentrate
instead on the Stoic and Neoplatonic elements of Spinozas thought. I cannot mention all points of detail
that may be related to our topic, but must make a selection,
and deal only
with those thoughts
that seem to me imp(~rt~~nt and to reflect Stoic and
Ncoplatonic
rather than Cartesian or Aristotelian
influences.

I should like to begin with the title of Spinozas major work. ~~~?~~fi.It has
often been observed that this title does not quite seem to fit a work which
deals for the most part with metaphysical
problems and has for its basis and
starting point the doctrine of the divine substance,
of its attributes
and of its
modifications.
As a matter of fact, most readers and commentators
have
concentrated
on the first part of the work which deals with God, and on the
second part which deals in a similar speculative fashion with the human mind.
But in reading Dantes Divine Cumecly, we should not stop with tht: Z~r~ertl~~.
as many readers and critics have done. and in reading Spinozas Etlrics, we
should not stop with the second part. It is the last three parts of the work
which deal with the passions and with the happiness or beatitude of man, that
is. with topics which also traditionally
belong to the realm of ethics. If the
work begins with rn~t~lpllys~cal speculations,
this merely means, as the author
tells us more than once, that a valid system of ethics must be based on
metaphysics
and on physics. Thus we read in one of his letters that a great
part of ethics must be founded on metaphysics
and on physics, as is known to
and in the treatise on The Improvement
of the Intellect the
everybody,
ethical goal of all philosophical
inquiry appears very clearly. In the preface to
the second part of his Ethics Spinoza says explicitly that among the things that
are derived from Gods essence he wants to discuss only those that may lead
us to a knowledge
of the human mind and of its supreme happiness. This
view of the relation between ethics and the theoretical
disciplines of metaphysics and physics is completely
different from that of Aristotle and of his
successors for whom ethics has many connections
with the theoretical
disci-

Sources of Spinozas

Ethics

plines, to be sure, but does not have them for its foundation.
On this point,
Spinoza rather follows the tradition of the Stoics (and also of the Epicureans)
who grounded
their ethics firmly upon their logic and physics although they
considered
ethics as the most important
part of philosophy
for which the
other parts merely serve as foundations
or introductions.
The subject which
Spinoza calls metaphysics
is treated by the Stoics, at least to some extent, as a
part of their logic and physics.
A great difficulty for the understanding
and interpretation
of Spinozas
Ethics derives from the method which he follows in presenting
and developing
his metaphysical
and ethical doctrines.
Spinoza defines his method in the
and he actually presents his reader with
very title of his work as geometrical,
a strict sequence of definitions,
axioms, theorems (propositiones)
and demonstrations that is but occasionally
interrupted
by scholia, corollaries
and appendices.
In this methodological
procedure
the Ethics of Spinoza
is
fundamentally
different from, and even opposed to, the Ethics of Aristotle.
Aristotle
clearly states in the first book of his Nicomachean
Ethics that all
ethical doctrines
are valid but in an approximate
fashion and far removed
from the precision of mathematical
knowledge.
Aristotle also states further
that each discipline has its own particular method which may be more or less
precise, depending
on the subject matter and its exigencies.
This statement
led to the question, often discussed by the commentators
of Aristotle and also
by Galileo, whether the excellence (nobilitas) of a discipline depends on the
excellence of its subject matter or on the precision of its method.
In contrast
to Aristotle,
the Stoics treated also the field of ethics with a precise method
based on definitions
and demonstrations.
Yet Spinoza went even further when he explicitly adopted for his ethics the
method of geometry. He had used this method also in an earlier work, written
in 1663, which he entitled Parts I and II of Descartess Principles of Philosophy, Demonstrated
According
to the Geometrical
Method. He meant to
give to his Ethics a precise and scientific form when he applied to it the
method of the mathematical
disciplines,
and especially of geometry,
which
was considered
by Descartes and by other ancient and modern thinkers as the
most precise of all methods.
If we try to find earlier examples for the application
of the method of
geometry,
that is, of Euclid, to a philosophical
treatise, we do not find it in
the Aristotelian
tradition
and not even in Descartes,
but in the Elements of
Theology and in the Elements of Physics of the Neoplatonist
Proclus who also
composed a commentary
on the first Book of Euclid. The analogy strikes me
as significant,
although
there is no clear evidence
that Spinoza knew or
imitated Proclus.
In applying this method not only to metaphysics
and physics, but also to
ethics. Spinoza even went beyond Proclus. Thus we read in the preface to the
third part of the Ethics as follows: I shall use the same method in discussing
the nature and force of the effects and the power of the mind over them, as I
did in the preceding sections when I dealt with God and the mind, and I shall
consider human actions and desires in no other way than if I had to talk about
lines, surfaces and bodies.
These words show us the wide distance that
separates
Spinoza in his very conception
of ethics from the Aristotelian

Paul Oskur Kristeller

tradition.
However.
I trust most scholars will agree with me when I say that
the geometrical
method of Spinozas Ethics does great honour to his acumen
and to the precision of his reasoning.
but that it constitutes
a rather hard and
artificial crust which we must penetrate
and even crack if we wish to arrive at
a real understanding
of the substance
and coherence
of his thought.

The basic doctrine of Spinoza, which is developed

in the first part of his
Ethics, concerns
the divine substance.
its attributes,
that is, thought and
extension,
and its modi, that is, the particular things which are understood
as
passing and individual expressions and manifestations
of the divine substance.
whereas this substance.
considered
in itself. is infinite
and eternal.
The
concept of a single substance from which all existing things are derived as its
modifications
is quite alien to the doctrine
of Descartes
whose dualism
Spinoza is trying to overcome.
and also completely
alien to Aristotle and to
the Aristotelian
tradition which had always posited a multitude
of corporeal
substances.
The only thinker prior to Spinoza in whose work we find a similar
doctrine is Giordano
Bruno. In his dialogue De lu causa, Bruno posits a single
divine and infinite substance
which comprises
form and matter and from
which all particular
things are derived
as mere passing accidents
and
manifestations.
Ix In order to arrive at his own position, all that Spinoza had to
do was to replace Brunos concepts of form and matter with the Cartesian
notions of thought and extension.
and to use the term modi instead of
Brunos accidents.
something
he had to do anyway since for Spinoza, in
relation to the divine substance.
both the attributes
and the modi are accidents. The term accident thus became ambiguous
for him, and consequently
he made no use of it. A conceptual
affinity between Bruno and Spinoza has
been observed by several scholars, such as Sigwart, Lovejoy and M&eon,
yet they speak in terms of broader notions and do not emphasise this precise
point of agreement
between the two thinkers, namely the relation between a
single substance
and its many accidents or modi.
We have no direct evidence that Spinoza knew or read Brunos work, but
there is a certain probability
that he did; Spinoza had a reading knowledge of
Italian, to judge from certain books in his private library. Brunos writings
were rare and difficult to obtain, to be sure, but they were not prohibited
in
Protestant
Holland as they were in the Catholic countries, and the De lu cuusu
was printed in London in 1584. Moreover, the conceptual similarity is so close
that a direct influence
is more likely than a chance coincidence.
Finally,
Spinoza presents the doctrine of a single substance and of its modi already in
his Short Treatise which was written before the Ethics and has been preserved
only in Dutch, and he appends to this treatise two dialogues, a literary genre
which he does not use elsewhere, and introduces in these dialogues, as a chief
interlocutor
who expresses the views of the author, a certain Theophilus.
In
the De la cuusu, which consists of five dialogues, Bruno uses as a spokesman
for his own views an interlocutor
who from the second dialogue on is called
Teofilo (he appears also in the Cerzu delle ceneri), whereas in the first dialogue
of De la cuusu and in the dialogues De linfinito he is called Filoteo, a name

Sources of S@ozas

Ethics

that has the same meaning and is almost identical.

If we pass from Spinozas metaphysics
to his ethical and moral doctrines
which he presents mainly in parts III and IV of his major work, we observe
again quite easily and on many points that his general outlook is Stoic rather
than Aristotelian.
It is significant that Spinoza had both Seneca and Epictetus
the Stoic writings of Justus Lipsius were widely
in his library. 2X Moreover,
diffused and read during the seventeenth
century, hence it is likely that he
read them, although he did not own them.
We do not read only the books
which we own, and vice versa, we do not read all the books which happen to
be in our library.
Spinoza states in the sixth proposition
of the third part that each thing tends
(~~~2~~~~~)by itself to persist in its existence.5 This principle which doniinates
the entire section that follows, and which is often referred to with a somewhat
less than fortunate abbreviation
as the principle of the conarus, is nothing else
but the impulse of selfpreservation
which occupies a central place in the Stoic
system of ethics.
Spinoza also follows the Stoics when he places the doctrine of the passions
at the centre of his ethics. Aristotle
has comparatively
little to say on the
passions in his Ethics. and deals with them mainly in his Rhetoric, and as a
result, the medieval copyists and commentators
considered
Aristotles
rhetoric as a part of his moral philosophy.2n
It was mainly the Stoics who treated
the theory of the passions as a major part of their ethics. They attempted
above all a classification
of the passions.2 and defined virtue as a victory of
reason over the passions.
However,
Spinoza
modified
the doctrine
and
terminology
of the Stoics on several significant points. Since the word passion
itself (passio) has an overtone of passivity, Spinoza uses for the emotions in
general the term affectus and then distinguishes
between passive affects or
passions and active affects which are actions of the human mind. He then
insists correctly that a passion or passive affect can be overcome
only by
another affect and not by a mere thought. Hence he interprets the victory of
reason over the passions as a victory of the active affects which originate in
the mind over the passive affects which originate in our sense experience
and
not in the mind. In this manner, the philosopher
(the sage of the Stoics) can
free himself from the servitude of the passive affects (which are the subject
matter of the fourth part) and attain the intellectual
freedom
which is
described in the fifth and last part of his work.
Spinoza follows the Stoic
doctrine also in his classification
and description
of the passions although he
modifies it on the basis of some original conceptions.
Spinoza posits three
basic passions which he calls gladness (lueritiu), sadness (rrisritirr) and desire
(cupiditus) . The St oics had added a fourth basic passion. namely fear,
which is omitted by Spinoza and treated by him as a sub-species of sadness?
I
shall not discuss in detail the various definitions
of the individual passions in
which Stoic conceptions
are mixed with Aristotelian,
Cartesian
and original
notions. However,
it is important
to note that Spinoza recognises as active
affects only certain
forms of gladness
(laetitiu) and of desire (cupiditas)
whereas he entirely omits sadness (~r~~fi~iff)in this connection..
Also the
Stoics had a theory of positive affects which is not too well known. They

6
distinguished
three of them, will (volunr~~s), joy (~~~f~j~~) and caution
(cuufio),
which are evidently
the counterparts
of three passions (cnpidiras,
hetitiu and metus), leaving the fourth passion (trisritiu) without a positive
counterpart.3
Spinoza, who may have known this doctrine from Cicero,
omits also caution which would have been the counterpart
of fear (WWUS)
which he had also omitted from the basic passions.
I shall touch only briefly on other Stoic elements in Spinoza. Clearly Stoic
and not Aristotelian
is his radical determinism,
and also his tendency to deny
any form of contingency
and to explain it merely through our ignorance of its
causes3 Spinoza also follows Stoic doctrine when he despises with Epictetus
all goods and evils of fortune because they are not in our power.3I4 when he
rejects compassion
as a mere sentim~nt,~
when he considers reason as the
foundation
of virtue,
and when he insists with Pomponazzi
and Kant that
virtue must be desired for its own sake.* It is also easy to think of Stoic
influences
when Spinoza considers
human reason as a part of the divine
mind, and when he suggests in the last section of his work that not all human
beings but only the sages attain an eternal existence.4
In his Wzics Spinoza speaks rather seldom of political and social problems.
but he deals with them in his other writings, and especially in the Tractatus
theologicn=politicus
and in the Tructutus politicrrs. The doctrine of natural
law which is prominent
in the Tructatus pokricus is quite characteristic
of
Spinoza who also cites and criticises the ideas of ~lachiav~lli
and of Hobbes.
The theory of natural law is ~lnkno~/rl to Aristotle
(although
it has been
attributed
to him again and again, whereas he only states that there is a
naturat justice), and it is clearly of Stoic origin. According to Stoic doctrine,
all human laws have a common
and natural
foundation
and model in a
universal law which is inherent in the soul of the world, the divine principle of
all things. The doctrine of natural law, as it was defended in the seventeenth
and eighteenth
centuries by Hugo Grotius, by Spinoza himself and by many
other thinkers needs much further inquiry and clarification,
not only in its
relation
to medieval
philosophy
and jurisprudence,
but also to the Stoic
doctrine which was widely diffused in the late sixteenth
and in the seventeenth century. It is usually forgotten that the famous words with which the
Stoic philosopher
Chrysippus
began his treatise on Iaw are cited and preserved in their original Greek wording in the Corpus Jtrris R~~~~~i~i, and that
also in the Middle Ages which followed (just as does our time) the rule
Grneca sunt non leguntur, the words of Chrysippus could be read in Latin in
the manuscripts
and editions of the Digest: The law is the queen of all things
human and divine. It must be the prince, leader and head of the good and
bad, and accordingly
the rule of he just and unjust and of those animals that
are by nature social, prescribing
what should be done and forbidding
what
should not be done.J These words and ideas that still had some impact on
the American constitution
have been forgotten or rejected during the last few
decades, and I consider this as a grave loss for our legal system and for our
moral and political thought.
Although Spinozas Ethics placed man as an individual at the centre, as we
shall see the work contains
some interesting
remarks about the relations

Sources of Spinozas

Ethics

which link the individual with other human beings and with the wider political
and social community.
A reasonable
and virtuous person attains his highest
goal, the tranquillity
of the mind, not only for his own benefit, but he is also
well disposed towards all other persons, and willing to join a community
that
Also in this area we recognise a Stoic
is based on just and moral principles.
orientation
when Spinoza defines a human being with Seneca as a social
animal, and not with the Aristotelian
tradition as a political animal.
Stoic is
also the exclusion of the animals from the social community
of men, and
Stoic is the belief that all free persons, that is, all philosophers
and sages, and
they alone, are linked with each other by nature through mutual friendship.

Whereas we may observe in parts III and IV of the Ethics, and especially in
the theory of the passions. a strong Stoic flavour, we find instead a distinct
Neoplatonic
element in Spinozas doctrine of the highest end of our life. as it
is described especially in the fifth part of the Ethics. It is not always possible
for us to determine
with certainty
the specific sources of his doctrine.
The
works of Plato and the Neoplatonists
do not appear in the catalogue
of
Spinozas library. with the exception of Leone Ebreo whose dialogues on love
Spinoza mentions
Plato and the
Spinoza owned in a Spanish translation.
Platonists very rarely in his writings, and when he does mention them his tone
is rather critical or even polemical.
Thus he says in a letter that the authority
of Plato, Aristotle
and Socrates has but little weight for him, but in my
opinion this sentence merely means that he does not recognise the authority
of the three ancient philosophers
when it is opposed to reason. We certainly
cannot deny, on the basis of this statement
alone, that there are many
Platonising
concepts in the thought of Spinoza, if he does not present them as
such or if he is not conscious of their origin. Even if he never read Plato,
Plotinus
or Proclus,
he could not help knowing
many of their thoughts
through other indirect
sources. even through some authors who are not
known to be pure Platonists.
There are Neoplatonic
elements
even in the
thought of most Aristotelians
of the Middle Ages and of the Renaissance,
including Averroes,
Maimonides
and Thomas Aquinas, and in the writings of
those sixteenth-century
Jewish writers whom Spinoza read in his youth, and
of some of the Spanish authors whose works he had in his library.
The concept
of God as a cause of himself which appears at the very
beginning of the Ethics is ultimately
traceable to Proclus, as was noticed long
ago,-2 and the same is true of the famous distinction
between God as natura
nafurans and the sum of all modi as natura nafurata.53 The terms occur in the
medieval Latin versions of Aristotle and Averroes,
and Spinozas immediate
source may have been a passage in Aquinas,,
but the concept itself is no
doubt of Neoplatonic
origin.
Clearly Neoplatonic
is also the distinction
between the various forms of
knowledge as it appears repeatedly
in the Ethics and with minor modifications
also in the early treatise On the Improvement
of the Intellect.
Spinoza
posits as the first form of knowledge,
opinion or imagination
which is based
on a vague experience
or on representations
based on memory. The second

PuihE Uskar Kristefler

form is reason (t-do), that is, the knowledge through general concepts, and
the third form is intuitive
knowledge
through adequate
ideas. From the
corresponding
passage in the treatise On the Improvement
of the Intellect it
appears even more clearly that the second form of knowledge
consists in a
kind of reflection
which proceeds from one thing to another.
whereas the
third kind is a direct knowledge
of its object through its own essence and
cause. Leaving aside the lower form of knowledge
provided by opinion or
imagination,
we thus have two degrees of knowledge in the proper sense of
the word which we may call with Kant discursive and intuitive,
a distinction
which is made also by Aristotle
and more fully developed
in Plato and the
Neoplatonists.
This doctrine
recurs in many medieval
philosophers
who
clearly distinguish
between
reason (r&o)
and intellect
(~~zre~~e~~~~.~).
Both
forms of knowledge
are clearly distinct from the mere opinion and imagination which is based on sense perception
and of which Spinoza does not
think very highly. In the course of his work it becomes quite clear that all
statements
made by Spinoza on the divine substance,
on its attributes
and
modi and on the relation between the human mind and God are based on
intuitive knowledge.
Of great interest is Spinozas doctrine of the slavery and freedom of man, a
contrast that is indicated in the very titles of parts IV and V of the Ethics.5 In
contrast with the entire Aristotelian
tradition,
Spinoza clearly and consistently rejects the idea that man has a free will (fibenrm ~irb~triuin), or a faculty
of willing (vo~~/~r~s) distinct from the intellect.
or a free choice between
several possible actions. This freedom is an illusion. and even God is free
only in the sense that he is not determined
from the outside but depends only
Although
a person has no free choice
on his own nature and essence.
between his actions, he is free in another sense and in two different respects.
We must attribute
to man some freedom
if he can make a basic choice
between the unhappy life dominated
by passions and the happy life ruled by
the intellect and by its active affects. Without this basic freedom of decision
neither the Ethics nor the treatise On the Improvement
of the Intellect
would make any sense, for both works are written with the explicit purpose of
admonishing
and guiding the reader so that he may relinquish the life of the
senses and passions and adopt the life of the intellect and of the active uffccts.
It is this latter kind of life which philosophy
holds out before him and
prescribes to him, and which contains in itself the perfection and happiness of
which he is capable.
Whereas this basic freedom which we might call existential
is presupposed
but not explicitly demonstrated
by Spinoza who does not even apply the term
freedom to it, he distinguishes
explicitly between the slavery of the life of the
passions and the freedom of the life of the intellect. This distinction
appears
in the titles of parts IV and V of the Ethics, as we have seen, in the prefaces to
these two parts, and in the last propositions
of part IV where the person who
follows the intellect and leads the life of the philosopher
and of the sage is
called a free man. Hence there are two basic forms of human life which are
radically different from each other, the unfree life of the passions and the free
life of the intellect. Since we have the choice between these two forms of life.

Sources of Spinozas

Ethics

we are led to the paradoxical

formula which is not found in Spinoza but
implicit in his thought: a human person has the free choice between the free
and the unfree life. This conception
appears almost in the same terms in
Plotinus, as I tried to show more than fifty years ago in my dissertation,
and
it appears also in Augustine,
although with some significant
modifications.
For Augustine,
because of original sin, the basic choice is no longer free, and
we need the intervention
of divine grace in order to restore its freedom to our
to decide whether Spinoza knew the doccorrupt will. I am not prepared
trine of Plotinus directly or indirectly.
or whether he took up the doctrine of
Augustine
and arrived indirectly and unconsciously,
through the omission of
sin and grace, at a doctrine similar to that of Plotinus. But even if Spinoza
arrived independently
at this doctrine,
it remains worthy of note that he
completely agrees on such an important
point with the thought of the founder
of Neoplatonism.
Another basic notion of Spinoza which lends itself to similar considerations
is the doctrine
of eternity.
The concept of eternity
is introduced
at the
beginning of the first part of the Ethics and appears again among the essential
qualities of God and of his attributes
and in the last part among the qualities
that are attributed
to our intellect or at least to a part of it. The same
concept underlies also the important
doctrine according to which our intellect
is able to know all things sclh specie aeterrzitatis. From the context it becomes
clear that this obscure and often cited but rarely explained phrase refers to the
third kind of knowledge,
that is, to intuitive knowledge which grasps all things
in God and through God, but not in themselves
or in their real or temporal
existence.
By eternity Spinoza does not merely understand
an infinite extension in time (duratio),
but rather a quality which transcends
all time and
belongs to the reality of God. This doctrine of an eternity which is not an
infinitely extended time but belongs to a higher reality beyond all time and
which surpasses and transcends
all temporal things was discussed by Plotinus
in a separate
treatise.
and remained
alive in the thought of many later
thinkers.
We may especially
mention
Augustine
who clearly distinguishes
between eternity and time,5 and Boethius who defines eternity as the simultaneously
complete
and perfect possession
of an unlimited
life. It seems
clear to me that Spinoza followed this tradition.
although we cannot determine with certainty
which particular
thinker was his direct source in this
matter. On the other hand, this doctrine acquires in his thought some new
traits, as had been the case with the other traditional
doctrines
which we
discussed before.
Spinozas links with the Neoplatonic
tradition become even clearer when
we consider his doctrine of the love of God which occupies a prominent
place
in the last part of his Ethics. In his first attempt to define love, Spinoza
criticises some unnamed
predecessors
who might be identified
with Leone
Ebreo and who define love as the will of the lover to be united with his
beloved object.
But further on, when Spinoza identifies
the love of the
intellect for God with the highest good common to all human beings, he
follows a broad metaphysical
and theological
tradition that begins with Plato
and includes the Neoplatonists,
many Christian
and Jewish thinkers of the

IO
Middle Ages, and all Renaissance
Platonists
from Ficino to Bruno, and
among them Leone Ebreo.h9 That Spinoza in his theory of love was especially
influenced
by Leone Ebreo has been shown by Gebhardt
and others and
seems to me highly probable,
and I do not agree with Wolfson who tries to
minimise this influence.
We know that Spinoza had a Spanish translation
of
Leone in his library,
and Spinozas doctrine of love does share many traits
with that of the Renaissance
Platonists and especially of Leone Ebreo. In the
Platonist tradition of the Renaissance,
the love for God is always linked with
the knowledge
of God, just as in Spinoza, but the two concepts of love and
knowledge
are always clearly distinguished.
and at the most it is discussed
whether the love for God and the knowledge
of God are parallel or simultaneous acts of the mind, or which of the two acts is superior to the other. The
problem is still related to the debate between the schools of Thomas and
Duns Scotus about the superiority
of intellect and will, and it reappears in a
debate between Marsilio Ficino and the Dominican
Vincenzo Bandello which
I had occasion to study a number of years ago. The formula intellectual
love for God which combines the two acts of intellect and will seems to occur
only in Spinoza71 who firmly opposed a distinction
between will and intellect,
but it happens that just on this point Leone comes closer to him than does any
other Platonist when he uses the term mental love. In contrast to Leone.
however, Spinoza denies that there is a love of God for man,
and insists
instead that God has an intellectual
love for himself, and that the intellectual
love of the human mind for God is derived from this divine love.77 At this last
point, Spinozas doctrine is closer to Ficino than to Leone Ebreo.
The doctrines of freedom, of eternity and of love are different conceptual
expressions
of a deeper basic attitude which pervades the entire thought and
work of Spinozn and which links him not only with Leone. but with the entire
Neoplatonic
tradition,
and especially with Plotinus and Ficino. The knowledge of God and the intellectual
love for God which constitute
the content
and goal of our contemplative
and philosophical
life are based on an immediate spiritual conscience and experience.
We sense and experience that we are
eternal,
as Spinoza states in a characteristic
passage. We are here confronted with the same layer in Spinozas thought that has prompted
some
scholars to call him a mystic. The word mysticism easily makes us think of all
kinds of visions, and of a tradition that is religious rather than philosophical.
Yet we may be permitted
to speak also of a philosophical
and metaphysical
and even of a rational mysticism which opposes an inner experience
of God
and of the intelligible
world to the common external experience
of the daily
and corporeal world, but interprets this inner experience through rational and
philosophical
concepts. It is in this sense that we may call Spinoza a mystical
philosopher
and compare him, not with visionaries
or religious enthusiasts,
but with the contemplative
philosophers
of the Western tradition. that is, with
Plato, Plotinus and many other philosophers
of antiquity, of the Middle Ages,
of the Renaissance
and of modern times. Unlike his predecessors,
Spinoza
managed
to include in his speculative
philosophy
also the metaphysics
of
Descartes,
the physics and mathematics
of the seventeenth
century, and the
political ideas of Machiavelli,
Hobbes and other early modern thinkers. Yet

Sources of Spinozas

I1

Ethics

in addition
to these novel and rnodern elements
in Spinozas thought we
should also pay some attention
to the metaphysical
notions
that are of
Neoplatonic
origin, and to the moral doctrines that are of Stoic provenance.
They have been neglected by most modern interpreters
of Spinoza, but they
are an integral part of his thought, and they make it possible for us to insert
him in the great metaphysical
and ethical tradition which extends from Plato
to Hegel - at least - and which I believe, in spite of recent changes and
innovations,
has not lost its philosophical
validity and relevance.
On the other hand, our philosophical
tradition is not uniform, but complex
and full of contradictions,
and hence philosophers
and historians
of philosophy will continue
to discuss and interpret
it in different ways. I hope this
discussion will go on without interruption,
and in a form that is both serious
and worthy of our tradition.
P. 0. Kristeller
Columbia University

NOTES
1. wer aber moechte die Bedeutung eines Philosophen
von der Beschraenktheit
seiner philosophischen
Bildung abhaengig machen? J. Freudenthal,
Spinoza und
die Scholastik,
in Philosophische
Aufsaetze,
Eduard Zeller zu seinem fuenfzigjaehrigen Doctorjubifaeum
gewidmet (Leipzig, 1887), pp. 83-138 (p. 137).
2. Spinozas first published work is entitled Renati Des Curtes Principiorum
Philosophiae par.s I et II, More Geometric0 demonstratae (1663). See Spinoza, Opera.
Vol. I, ed. C. Gebhardt
(Heidelberg,
lY25), pp. 123-230.
Mass., lY34). Cf.
3. H. A. Wolfson, The Philosophy ofspinoza , 2 ~01s.(Cambridge,
E. Gilson, Etudes sur le r6le de la per&e mkditvale dans la formation du systPme
cartCsien (Paris, 1930); Index sco[astic-cart~sien (Paris, 19 13). See also Freudenthal. lot. cit.; R. Mckeon. The Philosophy ofSpinoza
(New York, 1928). pp. 2152; G.Radetti.
Spinoza, in Questioni di storiografia filosofica. ed. V. Mathieu
(Brescia, 1979). pp. 355-434.
4. M. Meier, Descartes und die Renaissance (Miinster,
1914).
5. P. di Vona, Spinoza e lo scetticismo
classico, Rivista critica di storia della
filoso-Sofia 13 (1958), pp. 29 l-304: R. H. Popkin. The History of Scepticism from
Erasmus to Spinoza (Berkeley,
lY79), pp. 229-48 and 278-99. For the Neoplatonit sources of Spinoza, see a1s.o H. Siebeck. Ueber die Entstehung
der termini
natura naturans und natura naturata. Archiv fuer Geschichte der Philosophie 3
(1890), pp. 37&8; C. Gebhardt.
Spinoza und der Platonismus.
Chronicon Spinozanum 1 (1921). pp. 178-234.
6. Ethica IV. prop. 45, schol. (Opera II, pp. 244-5).
7. Ethica III, Affectuum
definitiones.
27 Explicatio (p, 197): quod omnes omnino
actus, qui ex consuetudine
pravi vocantur, sequatur tristitia.
8. Epistola 27: magnam ethices partem, quae, ut cuivis notum, Metaphysics.
et
Physica fundari debet (Opera IV, pp.16&1).
9. De intellectus emendutione
et de via, quu optime in veram rerum cognitionem
dirigitur. (Opera, pp. 5 ff.).
10. Opera II. p. 84: sed ea solummodo.
quae nos ad mentis humanae,
eiusque
summae beatitudinis
cognitionem,
quasi manu, ducere possunt.

12

Paul Oskar Kristellet

11. Cf. Stoicorurn Veterum Frugtnenta, ed. H. von Arnim I (Stuttgart, 1964), p. 16. fr.
46. Chrysippus places physics after ethics (II. pp. 16-17. fr. 42). but also for him
ethics remains the main part of philosophy.
12. ~~~~cu ordine ~~~~zetri~~ ~~~~~~~~tr~t~i. He had used the same method in an earl&
work. see above, note 2.
13. Aristotle,
Nicomuchean
Ethics I I. 1094 b 11-13 and 19-27.
14. Nobilitas scientiae a quo sumatur. Quaestio est a quo sumatur magia nobilitas
scientiae, an a nobilitate subiecti, an a certitudine
demonstrationis.
vel aequaliter
ab ambobus
(L. Ferri, Intorno atle dottrine
psicologiche
di Pietro Pomponazzi. . , . . Atti della Reale A~~~d~~~~~ldri Lincei. Ser. II. Vol. 3 (~~e~~~~j~ della
Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Fiiologiche. 1876). pp. 333-548 (pp. 423-S).
Cf. Galileo Galilei, Opere, Ed. Naz. 6 (1896), p. 237; 7 (1897), p. 246.
15. See above, note 2.
16. Pro&s,
The Elements of Theology. ed. E. R. Dodds, 2nd edn (Oxford,
1963):
Procli Diadochi Lycii Elementutio Physica, ed.H.Boese
(Berlin, 1958, giving the
Greek text and the medieval Latin translation);
In ~rj~?z~~ ~l~clidi.~ e~e??~e~zt[~rc{~yt
librum co~~zentari~,
ed. G. Friedlein
(Leipzig,
1873). Proclus Elements of
Theology were twice translated
into Latin, first by William of Moerbeke
O.P.
(s.XIII) and again by Francesco
Patrizi. The former translation
survived in a
number of manuscripts
but was printed only in our time (Procli Elementatio
Theologica translata a Guilelmo de Moerbeke,
ed. C. Vansteenkiste,
Tijd.schr@
voor Ph~lo.~o~~hie 13 119511, pp. 263-302 and 49 l-531). Patrizis translation
was
printed in Ferrara in 1583. An Arabic compendium
of the work of Pro&s
was
translated into Latin around 1200 under the title Liber de causis, circulated widely
in manuscripts
but was printed only in 1882 (Die pseudo-aristotelische
Schrift
Ueher das reine Cute, bekannt unter dem Narnen Liber de causis, ed. 0. Bardenhewer,
Freiburg im Breisgau,
1882). This work was commented
upon by
Thomas Aquinas and printed repeatedly
in his collected Opera (Rome,
1570;
Venice, 1593: Antwerp,
1612; Paris. 1660). It is likely that Spinoza read this work
rather than the Elements of Pro&s.
17. Part III, Praefatio (p. 138): de Affectuum
itaque natura. et viribus, ac Mentis in
eosdem potentia eadem Method0 agam, qua in praecedentibus
de Deo, et Mente
egi, et humanas actiones, atque appetitus considerabo
perinde, ac si Quaestio de
lineis, planis, aut de corporibus
esset.
18. G.Bruno, De ia causa, princil~~o e uno. Diulogu setondu. Bruno. Dialogh~ it~liiani,
ed. G. Aquilecchia
(Florence,
195X), pp. 227ff.
19. C. Sigwart, Spinozas neuentdeckter
Tractat von Goft, denr Memchen und dessen
Glueckseligkeit
(Gotha.
1X66), pp. 107-34. A. 0. Lovejoy,
The Diulectic, of
Philosophy
of California
Publications,
Bruno
and Spinoza,
University
l(Berkeley,
1904), pp. 141-74. McKeon, lot. cit.. p. 22.
20. He had in his library an Italian-Spanish
vocabulary (in octave. no. 9) and perhaps
an Italian edition of Machiavelii
(in quarto. no. 14). See K. J. Servaas van
Rooijen,
lnventaire des Livres formant Ia BibliothPque de Benedict Spinoza
(Hague and Paris, 1888), p. 175 and pp. 144-S. Cf. J. Freudenthal,
Die
Urkunden und nicht nmtlichcn
Lebengmchichte
Spinozus in Quellenschriften,
Nuchrichten (Leipzig, 1899), pp. 160-4.
21. Korte Vt~~harzde~ing vat2 God, de Mensch, etz deszelfs We/stand (Opera i,
pp. l-121).
22. Bruno, Dialoghi italiani, pp. 19ff: 19Iff.: 367ff, Cf.Sigwart,
pp. 130-l.
23. In duodecimo,
no.8 (van Rooijen. p. 18X) and in octave. no. 8 (pp. 174-S).
24. L. Zanta. La Renaissance du Stoicisme au XVI E si?cie (Paris. 1914). J. I-.

Sources

25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.

39.
40.
41.
42.

43.

44.

45.

of Spinozus

Ethics

13

Saunders, Justus Lips&:

The Philosophy of Renuissance Stoicism (New York,
1955); G. Abel. Stoizismus und fruehe Neuzeit: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte
modernen Denkens it-n Felde von Ethik und Politik (Berlin and New York. 1978).
Ethica III, prop. 6: unaquaeque
res, quantum in se est, in suo esse perseverare
conatur. Opera II. p. 146.
Arnim III, p. 43, fr. 178, cf. p. 44. fr. 183.
Aristotle,
Rhetorica II, chaps. 1-11.
P. 0. Kristeller, Rtnaissance Thought and Its Sources (New York, 1979), pp. 240
and 322.
Arnim III, pp. 92-133.
Ethica III, def. 3 (p. 139) and passim. As far as I can see, Spinoza shows but a
slight, if any, indebtedness
to Descartes
Trait6 des Passions (1649).
Ethica IV, prop. 7 and 14 (pp. 214 and 219).
Ethica III, prop. 11 schol. (p. 149).
Arnim III, p. 94, fr. 3868.
Ethica III, Affectuum
definitiones
13 (p. lY4).
Ethica III, prop. 59 (p. 188).
Arnim III, pp. 105-7.
Cicero, Tusc. disp. IV, 12, cf. Arnim III, pp. 1067, fr. 438.
Ethica I, prop. 29 (p. 70) and prop. 33, scol. 1(p. 74: res aliqua nulla alia de causa
contingens
dicitur, nisi respectu defectus nostrae cognitionis).
Cf. Arnim II, p.
281, fr. 965-71.
Ethica II, prop. 49, schol. (p. 136: res fortunae, sive quae in nostra potestate non
sunt), cf. Epictetus,
Enchiridion,
chap. 1.
Ethica IV, prop. 50 (p. 247), cf. Arnim III, p. 163, fr. 641 and passim.
Ethica IV, prop. 24 (p. 226).
Ethica IV, prop. 18. schol. (p. 222, line 29: virtutem propter se esse appetendam),
cf. Arnim III, pp. 11-13. P. Pomponazzi,
De immortalitate animae, chap. 14, ed.
G. Morra (Bologna, 1954). p. 202: praemium essentiale virtutis est ipsamet virtus.
Ethica II, prop II, coroll. (p. 94): mentem humanam partem esse infiniti intellectus
Dei. Cf. Arnim I, p. 111, fr. 495 (lines 8-9); II, p. 191. fr. 633 (lines 39-40); p.
217, fr. 774 (line 17) and 776 (line 24).
Ethica V prop. 42, schol. (p. 308): sapiens
sui, et Dei, et rerum aeterna
quadam necessitate
conscius,
nunquam
esse desinit; sed semper vera animi
acquiescentia
potitur. For the Stoics, only the souls of the sage live at least until
the next conflagration.
Arnim II, pp. 223-4.
Lex est omnium divinarum et humanarum
rerum regina. Oportet autem earn esse
praesidem
(etiam praesidere)
et bonis et malis et principem et ducem esse, et
secundum hoc regulam esse iustorum et iniustorum et eorum quae natura civilia
sunt animantium,
praeceptricem
quidem faciendorum,
prohibitricem
autem non
faciendorum
(Dig. 1,3,2). The Greek text is preserved in the Florentine
manuscript of the Pandects and cited without the indication of this source by Arnim III,
p. 77, fr. 314. The Latin translation,
probably by Burgundio Pisanus (s.XII) was
apparently
substituted
in all medieval manuscripts
and early modern editions. I
am indebted for much pertinent information
to Domenico Maffei and to the late
Peter Classen. The first sentence is an adaptation
of two lines of Pindar (fr.169)
quoted by Plato (Gorgius 484 b 4-5), as I was informed by Michael Landmann.
I
do not claim that Spinozas concept of ius naturale or ius naturae (Tractatus
Politicus 2,i; 2,4; Epistola 50; Opera III, pp. 27627 and IV, pp. 238-9) is directly
related to the Stoic Lex naturalis. Yet the influence of the Stoic doctrine on the
Roman law and its tradition can hardly be denied.

14

Paul Oskar

Kristellrr

46. Ethica IV, prop. 37, schol. 2 (pp. 237-Y).

47. Ethica IV, prop. 35, schol. (p. 234. lines 7-8). Cf. Seneca, De heneficiis VII, 1.7
(sociale animal); Aristotle,
Politica I 2, 1253 a 2-3.
48. Ethicu IV, prop. 37, schol.1 (p. 237. line 2: non cum brutis). Cf. Arnim III.
pp. 89-91.
49. Ethicu IV, prop. 71 (p. 263).Cf. Arnim III, p. 161. fr. 63&l.
50. In quarto. no.22 (van Rooijen.
p. 152). L. Ebreo, Dialoghi damore. ed. S.
Caramella (Bari, 1929). A critical edition which makes use of five manuscripts
now known (and unknown to Caramella)
is being prepared by Professor William
Melczer.
51. Epistola 56 (IV, p. 261): non multum apud me Authoritas Platonis. Aristotelis,
ac
Socratis valet.
52. Ethica I, def.1 (II, p. 45). Cf. Siebeck, pp. 371-2.
53. Ethicu I, prop. 20, schol. (p. 71). Cf. Siebeck,
lot. cit.
54. S. Th. I-II. qu. 95, a. 6, Cf. Wolfson I, p. I6 and pp. 253-S.
55. Ethicu II, prop. 40, schol.2 (p. 122) and pussim. De intellectus emendutione
(pp. 1Off.).
56. Part IV (p. 205): de servitute
Humana,
seu de Affectuum
Viribus. Part V
(p. 277): de Potentia Intellectus,
seu de Libertate Humana.
57. Ethicu II, prop. 4X and 49 (pp. 129-30).
58. Ethicu I, definitio 7 (p. 46).
59. Ethicu IV, prop. 67-72 (pp. 261-4): homo liber.Cf.
the prefaces to part IV
(p. 205) and V (p. 277).
60. Plotinus, Em. VI, 8, cf. P.O. Kristeller.
Der Begriff der Se& in der Ethik des
Plorin (Tiibingen,
1929), pp. 78-89.
61. On Augustines doctrine of freedom, see E.Gilson. Introduction LiILtude de Suinr
Augustin (Paris, lY49), pp. 185-216.
62. Ethicu I, def. 8 (p. 46) and prop. 10 (p. 64); V. prop. 23 and schol. (pp. 295-6).
63. Ethicu V. prop. 29-30 (pp. 298-9).
64. Enn. III, 7.
65. Confessiones XI, 11: non autem praeterire
quidquam in aeterno, sed totum esse
praesens. nullum vero tempus totum esse praesens. Cf.also XI 7 and 8.
66. De consolutionr,
V. 6: aeternitas
igitur est interminabilis
vitae tota simul et
perfecta possessio. The words tota simul are often quoted out of context, and thus
the precise meaning of the doctrine becomes vague.
67. Ethicu 111,Affectuum
definitiones
6 (p. 192). In the Explicutio which follows
Spinoza criticises
those qui definiunt
Amorem
esse voluntatem
amantis se
iungendi rei amatae.Cf.
L. Ebreo. Diuloghi dumore, ed. Carama, p. 13: Iamore
the tt affetto volontario
di fruire con unione la cosa stimata buona. Cf. J. C.
Nelson, Renaissance Theory of L,ove (New York, 1958). p. X5.
68. Ethicu V, prop. 15-20 (pp. 290-2) and 33-6 (pp. 30&2), and especially prop. 20.
demonstratio
(p. 292).
69. Nelson, pp. 67-233.
70. C. Gebhardt,
Spinoza und der Platonismus,
Chronicon Spinozunum
I, 1921.
pp. 178-234.
71. Wolfson 71,277.
72. See above, note 50.
73. P. 0. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Mursilio Ficino (New York, 1943). pp. 256-88;
Le Thornisrne et lu pensPe italienne de la Renaissance (Montreal.l968),
93-123;
Medieval Aspects of Renaissance Learning, ed. E. P. Mahoney (Durham, North
Carolina, 1974), pp. 73-YO; A Thomist critique of Marsilio Ficinos theory of will

Sowces

74.
75.
76.
77.
78.

of Spirzozas

Ethics

1.5

and intellect, in Harry Awtryn ~o~fs~~ jubilee Vo~~~~e, Erl~~i.~hSection, Vol. II

(Jerusalem,
1965), pp. 463-94. M. Ficino, The Phi[ebus Co~??~ze?zfur~,ed. and
trans. IM. J. B. Allen (Berkeley.
1975).
Ethica V, prop. 33-6 (pp. 30&2).
Cf. Leone, pp. 44-7 and especially p. 45 for the phrase amore merrtule.
Ethica V, prop. 17 and 19 (pp. 291--Z).
Ethica V, prop. 35-6 (p. 302).
Ethicu.V, prop. 23,schol. (p. 296, line 4): Sentimus, experimurque,
nos aeternos
esse. Cf. Prop. 2 (p. 281). prop. 6, schol. (p. 285) and prop. 27 (p. 297).