"He was in world, and the world did not know him". Spinoza's Christ and the Freedom of Philosophy

Scholars have studied the figure of Christ within the Theological-Political Treatise for quite some time, as a symbol of the riddle that runs through Spinoza’s reflection on freedom of thought. Christ is placed by Spinoza at the centre of a specific problem in the Treatise, also reflected in the Ethics, which is: if freedom consists in adequately understanding our nature and the nature in which we are included, why is this understanding so difficult to reach for most of mankind? What kind of philosophical and political obstacles stand in the way of reaching intellectual perfection? As we shall see, Spinoza’s Christ incarnates this riddle, which is individual and collective at the same time, and corresponds to the distinction between the philosopher and common people.