 Spinoza’s metaphysics of God is neatly summed up in a phrase that occurs in the Latin (but not the original Dutch) edition of the Ethics: “God, or Nature”, Deus, sive Natura: “That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts from the same necessity from which he exists” (Part IV, Preface). It is an ambiguous phrase, since Spinoza could be read as trying either to divinize nature or to naturalize God. But for the careful reader there is no mistaking Spinoza’s intention. The friends who, after his death, published his writings left out the “or Nature” clause from the more widely accessible Dutch version, probably out of fear of the reaction that this identification would, predictably, arouse among a vernacular audience.