ABSTRACT
Susan James calls the beatific person the ‘true philosopher’, who obtains ‘a kind of knowledge in which our ideas merge with those of God’. To explain this cost, she first notes that Spinoza regards Jesus as ‘the philosopher who has so far achieved the greatest level of intuitive knowledge’. James provides a Spinozist interpretation of this sadness by turning to the first two novels of J.M. Coetzee’s ‘Jesus trilogy’: The Childhood of Jesus and The Schooldays of Jesus. Since Spinoza claims that the source of external pressure binds the rulers as well as the ruled, he cannot mean to identify it with mere political authority. The beatific individual requires no moral pressure from the community because she poses no threat to the community and her virtue is perfect.
