III.D10: Devotion Defined

Devotio est amor erga eum quem admiramur.

Devotion is love towards one whom we admire.

EXPLICATIO: Admirationem oriri ex rei novitate ostendimus propositione 52 hujus. Si igitur contingat ut id quod admiramur sæpe imaginemur, idem admirari desinemus atque adeo videmus devotionis affectum facile in simplicem amorem degenerare. 

We demonstrated in IIIP52 that admiration arises from some novelty. Thus, if it happens that we often imagine whatever we admire, we will cease to admire the same and to such an extent we see that the feeling of devotion devolves easily into simple love.

Spinoza continues his careful reading of emotions related to awe, wonder, veneration and devotion as simply aberrations based on strangeness or newness. So, these aberrations are not desirable or lofty, but are temporary experiences on the way to understanding. Religion, in contrast, holds the highest regard for such feelings. Spinoza's careful approach to this category of emotions gives weight to the argument that the power of "the intellectual love of God" is fundamentally anti-religious and rational in its nature, rather than an overpowering "spiritual experience" in support of a rational decision. The priority of such anti-religious and rational basis is its durability, because novelty fades and, as he points out here, with it the overpowering nature of the religious emotions.