Spinoza’s Critique of Religion: Reading the Low in Light of the High

Abstract

Strauss’s early studies of Spinoza, including his first book, Spinoza’s Critique of Religion (1930; henceforth SCR), have been largely neglected in favor of his later work. Such neglect is understandable: Strauss’s work on Spinoza spans his entire career as a scholar and thinker, and includes his discovery of esotericism—which played a critical role in his most authoritative analysis of Spinoza. In addition, Strauss privately conceded problems with the work. In a letter to Gerhard Krüger in 1930, Strauss conceded that he had been compelled to remain silent in public about the presuppositions that were the point of departure for SCR.¹ Later he criticized the work publicly for not taking seriously the possibility of return to premodern philosophy (¶¶21, 42). It is somewhat surprising then that more than 30 years later, after its publication in German, Strauss decided to have the book translated into English. Ostensibly to explain his decision, Strauss prefaces the translation with an autobiographical account of the genesis and development of his early views as well as the inclusion of a later essay on Carl Schmitt (1932). One can recognize many of the themes in SCR—for example, the tension between Athens and Jerusalem, the inadequacy of the Enlightenment’s critique of religion, and the development of Epicureanism, and others—which would preoccupy Strauss over the course of his career. Still, Strauss’s decision to resurrect this early work is puzzling.

Strauss published two editions of the autobiographical preface: the first as a preface to the translation of SCR and the second as part of a collection of essays in LAM. The two versions are nearly identical except that in the latter version Strauss divides several of the longer paragraphs into shorter ones so that where there are 42 paragraphs in the original essay, while there are 54 paragraphs in the later edition. Another important difference is that in the later edition, Strauss refers to himself as being in the “grips” of a theologicopolitical problem. This change, from “grip” is discussed below (see note 22). This essay uses the paragraph numbering from the original essay in SCR. My thanks to Professors Terence Marshall, Thomas Meyer, Richard Polt, Timothy Sean Quinn, John Ray, and Martin D. Yaffe for their thoughtful comments (and objections) to this essay.