{
    "schema": "prokopton42-public-passage-v1",
    "id": "spinoza.letters_en",
    "canonical_url": "https://prokopton42.com/en/works/spinoza/letters-en/reference-section-0014/",
    "language": "en",
    "title": "Spinoza’s Correspondence: Spinoza-Authored Letters, English Manifestation",
    "author": "Baruch Spinoza",
    "date": "surviving correspondence, 1661-1676",
    "summary": "These letters written by Spinoza answer questions about God, infinity, freedom, the Bible, optics, and works in progress. Epistolary form reveals thought adjusted to particular correspondents rather than a continuous treatise.",
    "learning": "Distinguish Spinoza’s voice from correspondents, contextualize a reply, and compare epistolary formulation cautiously with published work.",
    "long_summary": "Spinoza clarifies a definition, refuses an objection, recommends an experiment, or explains disagreement with a friend. Correspondence connects metaphysics, science, and political caution while showing concepts before or after published formulation.\n\nThis projection preserves Spinoza’s letters and should not assign correspondents’ questions to him. Absent addressees, documentary loss, and translation limit context. A familiar or polemical sentence does not automatically have the status of a proposition demonstrated in the Ethics.",
    "historical_context": "The corpus manifests do not yet establish the precise place and circumstances of composition. The images below document the author’s world or the text’s transmission. They do not claim to show the exact scene of writing.",
    "material_world_label": "Europe and the Atlantic, 15th-17th centuries",
    "material_world": {
        "technology": "Printing, artillery, clocks, ocean-going sail, and navigational instruments change the scale of states, trade, and travel.",
        "science": "Instrumented observation, calculation, anatomy, and astronomy gradually challenge inherited frameworks. Practice remains mixed with ancient authority.",
        "medicine": "Dissection, surgery, plants, and pharmacopoeias expand, but infection, pain, and epidemics remain poorly controlled.",
        "transport": "Walking, horses, coaches, river boats, and great sailing ships. Crossing an ocean takes weeks or months and remains dangerous.",
        "agriculture": "Grain, livestock, and gardens predominate; Atlantic exchange moves maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sugar, and animals with major consequences.",
        "communication": "Printed books, broadsheets, letters, and regular posts speed circulation without making it instant.",
        "clothing": "Doublets, breeches, structured dresses, caps, ruffs, and cloaks use wool, linen, silk, and lace; rank strongly controls silhouette."
    },
    "material_world_scenes": [
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-01.webp",
            "title": "Technology, science, and care",
            "description": "Printing, artillery, clocks, ocean-going sail, and navigational instruments change the scale of states, trade, and travel. Instrumented observation, calculation, anatomy, and astronomy gradually challenge inherited frameworks. Practice remains mixed with ancient authority. Dissection, surgery, plants, and pharmacopoeias expand, but infection, pain, and epidemics remain poorly controlled."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-02.webp",
            "title": "Travel and communication",
            "description": "Walking, horses, coaches, river boats, and great sailing ships. Crossing an ocean takes weeks or months and remains dangerous. Printed books, broadsheets, letters, and regular posts speed circulation without making it instant."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-03.webp",
            "title": "Farming and food",
            "description": "Grain, livestock, and gardens predominate; Atlantic exchange moves maize, potatoes, tomatoes, sugar, and animals with major consequences."
        },
        {
            "asset": "/assets/timeline/landmarks/19-1610-ce/world-04.webp",
            "title": "Clothing, women and men",
            "description": "Doublets, breeches, structured dresses, caps, ruffs, and cloaks use wool, linen, silk, and lace; rank strongly controls silhouette."
        }
    ],
    "intellectual_tradition": {
        "id": "modern-philosophy",
        "label": "Modern and contemporary philosophy"
    },
    "period": {
        "id": "modern",
        "label": "Modern era"
    },
    "languages": [
        "en",
        "fr"
    ],
    "manifestations": [
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/spinoza/letters_en/representations/en.ndjson",
            "language": "en",
            "records": 114,
            "role": "complete_source_selection",
            "sha256": "cc2ed3e9377f16911b0e73279be0227e741c3146b54e9728d6041feb73311fee",
            "source_id": "letters_en"
        },
        {
            "coverage": "complete",
            "file": "data/corpus/normalized/spinoza/letters_en/representations/ai-generated/fr-gpt-5-6-sol-corpus-passage-translation-v1.ndjson",
            "generated_on": "2026-09-11",
            "language": "fr",
            "model": "gpt-5.6-sol",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "prompt_version": "corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "provider": "codex_subscription",
            "records": 114,
            "role": "ai_generated_translation_non_official",
            "sha256": "4d6830a619437164f74de4b6cb82dadafb5f31b4f142c4d65d146a670e176543",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation"
        }
    ],
    "concepts": [
        {
            "id": "anger",
            "label": "Anger"
        },
        {
            "id": "attribute",
            "label": "Attribute"
        },
        {
            "id": "charity",
            "label": "Almsgiving and charity"
        },
        {
            "id": "community",
            "label": "Community"
        },
        {
            "id": "discipleship",
            "label": "Discipleship"
        },
        {
            "id": "education",
            "label": "Education"
        },
        {
            "id": "ether_field",
            "label": "Ether and field"
        },
        {
            "id": "faith",
            "label": "Faith"
        },
        {
            "id": "family",
            "label": "Family"
        },
        {
            "id": "freedom",
            "label": "Freedom"
        },
        {
            "id": "god",
            "label": "God"
        },
        {
            "id": "holiness",
            "label": "Holiness"
        },
        {
            "id": "human_wisdom",
            "label": "Human wisdom"
        },
        {
            "id": "knowledge",
            "label": "Knowledge"
        },
        {
            "id": "love",
            "label": "Love"
        },
        {
            "id": "messiah",
            "label": "Messiah"
        },
        {
            "id": "mindfulness",
            "label": "Mindfulness"
        },
        {
            "id": "mode",
            "label": "Mode"
        },
        {
            "id": "nature",
            "label": "Nature"
        },
        {
            "id": "necessity",
            "label": "Necessity"
        },
        {
            "id": "reason",
            "label": "Reason"
        },
        {
            "id": "revelation",
            "label": "Revelation"
        },
        {
            "id": "salvation",
            "label": "Salvation"
        },
        {
            "id": "spirit",
            "label": "Spirit"
        },
        {
            "id": "substance",
            "label": "Substance"
        },
        {
            "id": "truth",
            "label": "Truth"
        },
        {
            "id": "wisdom",
            "label": "Wisdom"
        }
    ],
    "source_work_ids": [
        "spinoza.letters_en"
    ],
    "passages": 114,
    "word_count": 34964,
    "word_counts_by_language": {
        "en": 34964,
        "fr": 34642
    },
    "editorial_status": "gpt_5_6_semantic_draft_v1",
    "structure": {
        "citation_scheme": "source-section-v1",
        "kind": "native",
        "levels": [
            {
                "key": "section",
                "label_fr": "Section",
                "label_en": "Section"
            }
        ],
        "leaf_fr": "Section",
        "leaf_en": "Section"
    },
    "canonical_passage_id": "passage:spinoza.letters_en:section-0014",
    "canonical_ref": "section-0014",
    "canonical_parent_ref": null,
    "canonical_parent_id": null,
    "representations": [
        {
            "language": "en",
            "text": "As regards miracles, I am of opinion that the revelation of God can only be\nestablished by the wisdom of the doctrine, not by miracles, or in other words by\nignorance. This I have shown at sufficient length in Chapter VI. concerning miracles.\nI will here only add, that I make this chief distinction between religion and\nsuperstition, that the latter is founded on ignorance, the former on knowledge; this, I\ntake it, is the reason why Christians are distinguished from the rest of the world, not\nby faith, nor by charity, nor by the other fruits of the Holy Spirit, but solely by their\nopinions, inasmuch as they defend their cause, like everyone else, by miracles, that is\nby ignorance, which is the source of all malice; thus they turn a faith, which may be\ntrue, into superstition. Lastly, in order to disclose my opinions on the third point, I\nwill tell you that I do not think it necessary for salvation to know Christ according to\nthe flesh: but with regard to the Eternal Son of God, that is the Eternal Wisdom of\nGod, which has manifested itself in all things and especially in the human mind, and\nabove all in Christ Jesus, the case is far otherwise. For without this no one can come\nto a state of blessedness, inasmuch as it alone teaches, what is true or false, good or\nevil. And, inasmuch as this wisdom was made especially manifest through Jesus\nChrist, as I have said, His disciples preached it, in so far as it was revealed to them\nthrough Him, and thus showed that they could rejoice in that spirit of Christ more than\nthe rest of mankind. The doctrines added by certain churches, such as that God took\nupon Himself human nature, I have expressly said that I do not understand; in fact, to\nspeak the truth, they seem to me no less absurd than would a statement, that a circle\nhad taken upon itself the nature of a square. This I think will be sufficient explanation\nof my opinions concerning the three points mentioned. Whether it will be satisfactory\nto Christians you will know better than I. Farewell.\n\nLETTER_BOUNDARY\n\nLETTER XXIII. (LXXV.)",
            "translator": "R. H. M. Elwes",
            "source_id": "source-1",
            "translation_type": "historical_translation"
        },
        {
            "language": "fr",
            "text": "Quant aux miracles, je suis d'avis que la révélation de Dieu ne peut être établie que par la sagesse de la doctrine, non par les miracles, autrement dit par l'ignorance. Je l'ai montré assez longuement au chapitre VI, consacré aux miracles. J'ajouterai seulement ici que j'établis entre la religion et la superstition cette distinction principale : la seconde est fondée sur l'ignorance, la première sur la connaissance ; telle est, je crois, la raison pour laquelle les chrétiens se distinguent du reste du monde, non par la foi, ni par la charité, ni par les autres fruits du Saint-Esprit, mais par leurs seules opinions, puisqu'ils défendent leur cause, comme tous les autres, par les miracles, c'est-à-dire par l'ignorance, qui est la source de toute malice ; ils transforment ainsi en superstition une foi qui peut être vraie. Enfin, afin de vous découvrir mes opinions sur le troisième point, je vous dirai que je ne pense pas nécessaire au salut de connaître le Christ selon la chair ; mais il en va tout autrement du Fils éternel de Dieu, c'est-à-dire de l'éternelle Sagesse de Dieu, qui s'est manifestée en toutes choses, spécialement dans l'esprit humain et, par-dessus tout, en Jésus-Christ. Car sans elle, nul ne peut parvenir à l'état de béatitude, puisqu'elle seule enseigne ce qui est vrai ou faux, bon ou mauvais. Et puisque, comme je l'ai dit, cette sagesse s'est manifestée tout particulièrement par Jésus-Christ, ses disciples l'ont prêchée dans la mesure où elle leur avait été révélée par lui, et ont ainsi montré qu'ils pouvaient se réjouir de cet esprit du Christ plus que le reste des hommes. Quant aux doctrines ajoutées par certaines Églises, comme celle selon laquelle Dieu a revêtu la nature humaine, j'ai expressément dit que je ne les comprends pas ; en fait, à dire vrai, elles ne me paraissent pas moins absurdes que l'affirmation selon laquelle un cercle aurait revêtu la nature d'un carré. Cela suffira, je pense, à expliquer mes opinions sur les trois points mentionnés. Vous saurez mieux que moi si elles satisferont les chrétiens. Adieu.\n\nLETTER_BOUNDARY\n\nLETTRE XXIII. (LXXV.)",
            "translator": "Codex gpt-5.6-sol",
            "edition": "Prokopton42 non-official AI translation, 2026-09-11",
            "source_id": "prokopton42-codex-translation:gpt-5.6-sol:corpus-passage-translation-v1",
            "translation_type": "ai_generated_translation",
            "official_status": "non_official",
            "generation_model": "gpt-5.6-sol"
        }
    ],
    "content_checksum": "a708e157f1187db19f8d96a423cf4b72588551401a0f704fc75ead64b14e2858"
}