His pantheism is distinguished from that of the Cabalists by its rejection of the doctrine of emanation, and from Bruno's, which nevertheless may have influenced him, by its anti-teleological character. When with Greek philosophers, Jewish theologians, and the Apostle Paul he teaches the immanence of God (_Epist. 21_), when with Maimonides and Crescas he teaches love to God as the principal of morality, and with the latter of these, determinism also, it is not a necessary consequence that he derived these theories from them. That which most of all separates him from the mediaeval scholastics of his own people, is his rationalistic conviction that God can be known. His agreement with them comes out most clearly in the _Tractatus Theologico-Politicus_. But even here it holds only in regard to undertaking a general criticism of the Scriptures and to their figurative interpretation, while, on the other hand, the demand for a special historical criticism, and the object which with Spinoza was the basis of the investigation as a whole, were foreign to mediaeval Judaism--in fact, entirely modern and original. This object was to make science independent of religion, whose records and doctrines are to edify the mind and to improve the character, not to instruct the understanding. "Spinoza could not have learned the complete separation of religion and science from Jewish literature; this was a tendency which sprang from the spirit of his own time" (Windelband, _Geschichte der neueren Philosophie_, vol. i. p. 194). [Footnote 1: J. Freudenthal, _Spinoza und die Scholastik_ in the _Philosophische Aufsätze, Zeller zum 50-Jährigen Doktorjubiläum gewidmet_, Leipsic, 1887, p. 85 _seq_. Freudenthal's proof covers the _Cogitata Metaphysica_ and many of the principal propositions of the _Ethics_.] [Footnote 2: The Spanish Jesuit, Francis Suarez, lived 1548-1617. _Works_, Venice, 1714 Cf. Karl Werner, _Suarez und die Scholastik der letzten Jahrhunderte_, Regensburg, 1861.] [Footnote 3: M. Joël, _Don Chasdai Crescas' religions-philosophische Lehren in ihrem geschichtlichen Einfluss_, 1866; _Spinozas Theo.-pel. Traktat auf seine Quellen geprüft_, 1870; _Zur Genesis der Lehre Spinozas mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des kurzen Traktats_, 1871.] [Footnote 4: _Spinozas neu entdeckter Traktat eläutert u. s. w_., 1866; _Spinozas kurzer Traktat übersetzt mit Einleitungen und Erläuterungen_, 1870.] [Footnote 5: _Ueber die beiden ersten Phasen des Spinozistischen Pantheismus und das Verhältniss der zweiten zur dritten Phase_, 1868.] [Footnote 6: _Spinozana_ in Fichte's _Zeitschrift für Philosophie_ vols. xxxvi., xlii., lvii., 1860-70.]