Baruch de Espinosa

Baruch de Spinoza was born in Amsterdam on November 24, 1632, having been one of the main philosophers of the seventeenth century, along with Descartes and Leibniz. He was born into a Jewish-Portuguese family, from the Alentejo village of Vidigueira and fleeing the persecutions of the Inquisition. He was named Benedict of Spinoza by his parents, but signed Baruch in several of his works, due to his condition as a Jew born in Amsterdam. He ended up adopting the name Benedictus, that is, the corresponding Latin word, after the Hebrew excommunication dictated by the Portuguese synagogue in Amsterdam in 1656. Spinoza was a profound scholar of the Bible, the Talmud, and the works of Jewish philosophers such as Maimonides. He studied Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, Lucretius' De Rerum Natura, the Epicureans, and the heterodox thought of Giordano Bruno.
Hermeneut of the Bible, Spinoza considered it a metaphorical and allegorical work that did not express the truth about God. He opposed all kinds of superstitions, being noted for his phrase "Deus sive natura" ("God, that is, nature"). It is not surprising, then, that the expulsion decreed in Portuguese by the synagogue of Amsterdam includes the imprecation that "God will never forgive him his sins" and that "the anger and indignation of the Lord surround him and fall forever on his head". To make a living, Spinoza worked on polishing lenses during the times when he lived in family homes in Outerdek and Rijnsburg. He did, however, receive correspondence from such prominent personalities as the philosopher Leibniz, the physician Ludovico Meyer, Henry Oldenburg, of the Royal Society, and the Dutch scientist Huygens. Louis XIV offered him a pension so that Spinoza could dedicate a book to him, which he refused. In 1670, Spinoza left Amsterdam for The Hague, where he completed his Theological-Political Treatise, which received criticism from the political and religious powers. He refused the invitation of the University of Heidelberg, in order to maintain his independence of thought. He died on Sunday, February 21, 1677, victim of tuberculosis. He was 44 years old, and many years later the writer Jorge Luis Borges would say that he was one of the men with whom he would have liked to talk the most. Ética was published posthumously due to the dedication of his friends.