When Spinoza first published his work advancing these ideas, he did so anonymously. The book’s innocuous title was Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (1670).2 The book’s content was not so benign. The Tractatus met with immediate hostility and was formally banned in 1674.3 Even before then, it was an illegal text whose publication was hindered.4 In 1670, for example, the government ordered a raid on the bookshops of Leiden in a search-and-destroy mission against the Tractatus.5 Before the publication