Spinoza's use of the figure of Christ is one of the most puzzling aspects of his work. It might seem less puzzling if he had ever allied himself to a Christian group after leaving his Jewish roots, but he did not, and the signs are that he no more saw himself as a Christian than as a Jew. Yet his remarks about Jesus were almost entirely positive. He made some favourable comparisons between Jesus and Moses, and between what he represented as Christian and Jewish points of view. The general line of his approach – that Jesus spoke uniquely and universally to the whole of humanity, where Moses had delivered the law only for the Jews – has been a routine Christian claim since the time of St Paul; so we need not be surprised that Spinoza's Jewish readers have often been dismayed by what he said. His use of the name ‘Christ’ and of the Christian title, the ‘Old Testament’, for the Jewish scriptures, cannot have helped.

Before looking at all this, two preliminary points can be made: first, the personal significance of the subject to Spinoza, and secondly, its importance to his philosophical system. Personally, it does not seem that he had much feeling of reverence or attachment to Jesus as man or as a religious figure. He wrote admiringly and with some respect, but with no great affection, inspiration or warmth. Perhaps that was not too remarkable. He was an extraordinarily cool and detached writer. The warmth that he did show at times was usually negative, in the form of scorn or distaste for what he saw as bigotry or superstition.