ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how Spinoza's naturalization of religion impacted upon John Toland's thought. In terms of the specific issue of Toland's intellectual relationship with Spinoza, Jonathan I. Israel's scholarship is probably the best known promulgation of a Spinozistic imprint on Toland's thought: for Israel, Toland is an important part of that vanguard emanating directly from Spinoza and in turn disseminating an unadulterated Spinozism. The Origines Judaicae offers an intensified Spinozism, and it does this by way and as part of a full-on assault upon one of the most renowned anti-Spinozists of the era, Pierre-Daniel Huet. Pierre-Daniel Huet's direct and contrary response is to present Moses, not as a type, but more as an archetype – an archetype of all human wisdom, philosophy included. As Toland's ferocious opponent, William Warburton, would spend so much of his career trying to demonstrate, the confrontation with Huet makes manifest the particular intensification of Spinozism that Toland's radical position entails.
