SEVERAL DISCUSSIONS
SHOWING THAT THE REPUBLIC CAN GRANT
FREEDOM OF PHILOSOPHIZING
WITHOUT HARMING ITS PEACE OR PIETY,
AND CANNOT DENY IT
WITHOUT DESTROYING ITS PEACE AND PIETY
By this we know that we remain in God and that God remains in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 1 John 4:131
Hamburg Henry Künraht2 1670
[1] If men could manage all their affairs by a definite plan, or if fortune were always favorable to them, no one would be in the grip of superstition. But often they are in such a tight spot that they cannot decide [5] on any plan. Then they usually vacillate wretchedly between hope and fear, desiring immoderately the uncertain goods of fortune, and ready to believe anything whatever. While the mind is in doubt, it’s easily driven this way or that3—and all the more easily when, shaken by hope and fear, it comes to a standstill. At other times, it’s over-confident, boastful and presumptuous.
[10] [2] Everyone, I think, knows this, though most people, I believe, do not know themselves. For no one who has lived among men has failed to see that when they are prospering, even if they are quite inexperienced, they are generally so full of their own wisdom that they think themselves wronged if anyone wants to give them advice—whereas in adversity they don’t know where to turn,4 and beg advice from everyone. [15] They hear no advice so foolish, so absurd or groundless, that they do not follow it. Now they hope for better things; now they fear worse, all for the slightest reasons. [3] If, while fear makes them turn this way and that, they see something happen which reminds them of some past good or evil, they think it portends either a fortunate or an unfortunate outcome; they call it a favorable or unfavorable omen, even [20] though it may deceive them a hundred times. Again, if, in amazement, they witness something strange, they believe it to be a portent which indicates the anger of the gods or of the supreme divinity. Subject to superstition and contrary to religion, they consider it a sacrilege not to avert the disaster by sacrifices and prayers.5 In this way they invent countless things and interpret nature in amazing ways, as if the whole of nature were as crazy as they are.
[25] [4] Because this is so, we see that the men most thoroughly enslaved to every kind of superstition are those who immoderately desire uncertain things, and that they all invoke divine aid with prayers and unmanly tears, especially when they are in danger and cannot help themselves. Because reason cannot show a certain way to the hollow [30] things they desire, they call it blind, and human wisdom vain. The delusions of the imagination, on the other hand, dreams and childish follies, they believe to be divine answers. Indeed, they believe God rejects the wise, and writes his decrees, not in the mind, but in the entrails of animals; they think fools, madmen and birds predict his decrees by divine inspiration and prompting. That’s how crazy fear makes men.6
[III/6] [5] The reason, then, why superstition arises, lasts, and increases, is fear.7 If anyone wants particular examples of this, beyond those already mentioned, let him consider Alexander, who began to use seers from genuine superstition8 only when he first learned to fear fortune at the [5] Susidan Gates.9 But after he defeated Darius, he stopped consulting soothsayers and seers until an unfavorable turn of events10 once again terrified him. Because the Bactrians had defected, the Scythians were threatening battle, and he himself was rendered inactive by a wound,
. . . he lapsed again into superstition, that mocker of men’s minds, and ordered Aristander, to whom he had surrendered his credulity, to inquire [10] into the outcome of things through sacrifices.11
[6] We could give a great many examples like this which would show most clearly that men are tormented by superstition only so long as they are afraid; that all the things they have ever worshipped in illusory religion have been nothing but apparitions, the delusions of a sad and fearful mind; and finally, that it is when states have been in the greatest [15] difficulties, that seers have had the greatest control over ordinary people, and been most dangerous12 to their Kings. But I think everyone knows these things well enough; so I’ll say no more about them.
[7] Some say that superstition arises from the fact that all mortals have a certain confused idea of divinity.13 My account of the cause of superstition clearly entails, first, that all men by nature are subject to [20] superstition; second, that like all mockeries of the mind and impulses of frenzy, it is necessarily very fluctuating and inconstant; and finally, that it is protected only by hope, hate, anger, and deception, because it arises, not from reason, but only from the most powerful affects.
[25] [8] As easy, then, as it is to take men in with any superstition whatever, it’s still just as difficult to make them persist in one and the same superstition. The common people always remain equally wretched, so they are never satisfied for long. What pleases them most is what is new, and has not yet deceived them. This inconstancy has been the cause of many uprisings and bloody wars. As is evident from what we have [30] just said, and as Curtius aptly noted, “Nothing governs the multitude more effectively than superstition” (Quintus Curtius, IV, x, 7). That’s why they are easily led, under the pretext of religion, now to worship their Kings as Gods, now to curse and loathe them as the common plague of the human race.
[9] To avoid this evil [of inconstancy], immense zeal is brought to [III/7] bear to embellish religion—whether the religion is true or illusory—with ceremony and pomp, so that it will be thought to have greater weight than any other influence, and so that everyone will always worship it with the utmost deference. The Turks have succeeded so well at this that they consider it a sacrilege even to debate religion; they fill everyone’s judgment with so many prejudices that they leave no room [5] in the mind for sound reason, nor even for doubting.14
[10] The greatest secret of monarchic rule,15 and its main interest, is to keep men deceived, and to cloak in the specious name of Religion the fear by which they must be checked, so that they will fight for slavery as they would for their survival,16 and will think it not shameful, but a most honorable achievement, to give their life and blood that one [10] man may have a ground for boasting.17 Nevertheless, in a free republic nothing more unfortunate can be thought of or attempted. For it is completely contrary to the general freedom to fill the free judgment of each man with prejudices, or to restrain it in any way.
[11] As for the rebellions which people stir up under the pretext of [15] religion, they surely arise only because laws are made about speculative matters, opinions are considered crimes and condemned as wicked, and their defenders and followers are sacrificed, not to the public well-being, but only to the hatred and cruelty of their opponents.18 But if, by the legislation of the state, only deeds were condemned and words went unpunished,19 such rebellions could not be clothed in any pretext [20] of right, nor controversies turned into rebellions.
[12] Since, then, we happen to have that rare good fortune20—that we live in a Republic in which everyone is granted complete freedom of judgment, and is permitted to worship God according to his mentality, and in which nothing is thought to be dearer or sweeter than freedom—I believed I would be doing something neither unwelcome, nor useless, [25] if I showed not only that this freedom can be granted without harm to piety and the peace of the Republic, but also that it cannot be abolished unless piety and the Peace of the Republic are abolished with it.
[13] That’s the main thing I resolved to demonstrate in this treatise. To do this it was necessary to indicate the main prejudices regarding religion, i.e., the traces of our ancient bondage, and then also the [30] prejudices regarding the right of the supreme 'powers.21 Many, with the most shameless license, are eager to take away the greater part of that right, and under the pretext of religion to turn the heart of the multitude (who are still at the mercy of pagan superstition) away from the supreme 'powers, so that everything may collapse again into slavery.22 I’ll indicate briefly in what order I show these things; but first I must [III/8] say what reasons have impelled me to write.
[14] I’ve often wondered that men who boast that they profess the Christian religion—i.e., love, gladness, peace, restraint, and good faith toward all—would contend so unfairly against one another, and indulge daily in the bitterest hatred toward one another, so that each man’s faith is known more easily from his hatred and contentiousness than from his [5] love, gladness, etc. Long ago things reached the point where you can hardly know what anyone is, whether Christian, Turk, Jew, or Pagan, except by the external dress and adornment of his body, or because he frequents this or that Place of Worship, or because he’s attached to this or that opinion, or because he’s accustomed to swear by the words of some master.23 They all lead the same kind of life.
[10] [15] What’s the cause of this evil? Doubtless that religion has commonly consisted in regarding the ministries of the Church as positions conferring status, its offices as sources of income, and its clergy as deserving the highest honor. For as soon as this abuse began in the Church, the worst men immediately acquired a great desire to administer the sacred offices; the love of propagating divine religion degenerated [15] into sordid greed and ambition; and the temple itself became a Theater, where one hears, not learned ecclesiastics, but orators, each possessed by a longing, not to teach the people, but to carry them away with admiration for himself, to censure publicly those who disagree, and to teach only those new and unfamiliar doctrines which the common [20] people most wonder at. This had to lead to great dissension, envy, and hatred, whose violence no passage of time could lessen.
[16] It’s no wonder, then, that nothing has remained of the old Religion but its external ceremony, by which the common people seem more to flatter God than to worship him. No wonder faith is nothing now but credulity and prejudices. And what prejudices! They turn [25] men from rational beings into beasts, since they completely prevent everyone from freely using his judgment and from distinguishing the true from the false, and seem deliberately designed to put out the light of the intellect entirely. [17] Piety—Oh immortal God!—and Religion consist in absurd mysteries, and those who disdain reason completely, [30] and reject and shun the intellect as corrupt by nature—this is what’s most unfair—they are the ones who are thought to have the divine light.24 Of course, if they had even the least spark of divine light, they would not rave so proudly, but would learn to worship God more wisely, and would surpass others in love, not, as now, in hate. If they really feared for the salvation of those who disagree with them, and not for their own position, they would not persecute them in a hostile [III/9] spirit, but pity them.
[18] Moreover, if they had any Divine light, it would at least be manifest from their teaching. I grant that they could never have wondered sufficiently at the most profound mysteries of Scripture. But I don’t see that they have taught anything but Aristotelian and Platonic speculations. Not to seem to constantly follow Pagans, they have accommodated [5] Scripture to these speculations.25 [19] It wasn’t enough for them to be insane with the Greeks, they wanted the Prophets to rave with them. This clearly shows, of course, that they don’t see the divinity of Scripture, not even in a dream. The more extravagantly they wonder at these mysteries, the more they show that they don’t so much believe Scripture as give lip service to it.
[10] This is also evident from the fact that most of them presuppose, as a foundation for understanding Scripture and unearthing its true meaning, that it is everywhere true and divine. So what we ought to establish by understanding Scripture, and subjecting it to a strict examination, and what we would be far better taught by Scripture itself, which needs no human inventions, they maintain at the outset as a rule for the [15] interpretation of Scripture.26
[20] When I weighed these matters in my mind—when I considered that the natural light is not only disdained, but condemned by many as a source of impiety, that human inventions are treated as divine teachings, that credulity is valued as faith, that the controversies of the Philosophers are debated with the utmost passion in the Church and in the State, and that in consequence the most savage hatreds and [20] disagreements arise, by which men are easily turned to rebellions—when I considered these and a great many other things, which it would take too long to tell here, I resolved earnestly to examine Scripture afresh, with an unprejudiced and free spirit, to affirm nothing about it, and to admit nothing as its teaching, which it did not very clearly teach me.27
[25] [21] With this precaution I constructed a Method of interpreting the Sacred books, and equipped with this, I began by asking, first of all [in Ch. 1]: what was Prophecy? and in what way did God reveal himself to the Prophets? why were these men accepted by God? was it because they had lofty thoughts about God and nature, or only because of their piety? Once I knew the answers to these questions, I [30] was easily able to determine [in Ch. 2, III/42/26ff.] that the authority of the Prophets has weight only in those matters which bear on the practice of life and on true virtue, but that their opinions28 are of little concern to us.
[22] Knowing this, I next asked [in Ch. 3] why the Hebrews were called God’s chosen people? When I saw that this was only because God had chosen a certain land for them, where they could live securely and [III/10] comfortably, from that I learned that the Laws God revealed to Moses were nothing but the legislation of the particular state of the Hebrews, and that no one else was obliged to accept them, indeed that even the Hebrews were bound by them only so long as their state lasted.
[23] Next, to know whether Scripture implies that the human intellect [5] is corrupt by nature, I wanted to ask [in Chs. 4 and 5] whether universal Religion, or the divine law revealed to the whole human race through the Prophets and Apostles, was anything other than what the natural light also teaches? [and in Ch. 6] whether miracles happen contrary to the order of nature? and whether they teach God’s existence and providence any more certainly and clearly than do things we understand [10] clearly and distinctly through their first causes?
[24] But since I found nothing in what Scripture expressly teaches which did not agree with the intellect, or which would contradict it, and moreover, since I saw that the Prophets taught only very simple things, which everyone could easily perceive, and that they embellished these things in that style, and confirmed them with those reasons, by [15] which they could most readily move the mind of the multitude to devotion toward God, I was fully persuaded that Scripture leaves reason absolutely free, and that it has nothing in common with Philosophy, but that each rests on its own foundation.
[25] To demonstrate these things conclusively,29 and to settle the whole matter, I show [in Ch. 7] how Scripture is to be interpreted, and [20] that our whole knowledge of it and of spiritual matters must be sought from Scripture alone, and not from those things we know by the natural light. From this I pass to showing [in Chs. 8–11] what prejudices have arisen from the fact that the common people, enslaved to superstition and loving the remnants of time more than eternity itself, worship the books of Scripture rather than the Word of God itself.
[25] [26] After this, I show [Chs. 12 and 13] that the revealed Word of God is not some certain number of books, but a simple concept of the divine mind revealed to the Prophets: to obey God wholeheartedly, by practicing justice and loving-kindness. And I show that this is what Scripture teaches, according to the power of understanding and opinions of those to whom the Prophets and Apostles were accustomed to preach this Word of God. They did this so that men would embrace [30] the Word of God without any conflict and with their whole heart.
[27] Having shown the fundamentals of faith [in Ch. 14], I conclude finally that revealed knowledge has no object but obedience, and indeed that it is entirely distinct from natural knowledge, both in its object and in its foundation and means. Revealed knowledge has nothing in common with natural knowledge, but each is in charge of its own [III/11] domain, without any conflict with the other. [In Chapter 15 I show that] neither ought to be the handmaid of the other.30
[28] Next, because men vary greatly in their mentality, because one is content with these opinions, another with those, and because what moves one person to religion moves another to laughter, from these considerations, together with what has been said above, I conclude that [5] each person must be allowed freedom of judgment and the 'power to interpret the foundations of faith according to his own mentality. We must judge the piety of each person’s faith from his works alone. In this way everyone will be able to obey God with an unprejudiced and free spirit, and everyone will prize only justice and loving-kindness.
[29] After showing the freedom the revealed divine law grants everyone, I proceed to the second part of the question: [to show] that this [10] same freedom not only can be granted without harm to the peace of the republic and the right of the supreme 'powers, but also that it must be granted, and cannot be taken away without great danger to the peace and great harm to the whole Republic.
To demonstrate these conclusions, I begin [in Ch. 16] with the [15] natural right of each person, which extends as far as each person’s desire and power extend. By the right of nature no one is bound to live according to another person’s mentality, but each one is the defender of his own freedom. [30] Moreover, I show that no one really gives up this right unless he transfers his 'power to defend himself to someone else, and that the person31 who must necessarily retain this natural right absolutely is the one to whom everyone has transferred, [20] together with his 'power to defend himself, his right to live according to his own mentality.
From this I show that those who have the sovereignty have the right to do whatever they can do, that they alone are the defenders of right and freedom, and that everyone else ought always to act according to their decree alone. [31] But no one can so deprive himself32 of his 'power to defend himself that he ceases to be a man. From this I [25] infer [in Ch. 17] that no one can be absolutely deprived of his natural right, but that subjects retain, as by a right of nature, certain things which cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state. If these things are not expressly agreed on with those who have the sovereignty, they are tacitly granted to the subjects.
From these considerations, I pass to the Republic of the Hebrews [Chs. 17 and 18], which I describe at sufficient length to show how, and [30] by whose33 decree, Religion began to have the force of law; in passing I also show other things which seemed worth knowing. [32] Then I show [Ch. 19] that those who have sovereignty are the defenders and interpreters, not only of civil law, but also of sacred law, and that they alone have the right to decide what is just, what is unjust, what is pious and what impious. And finally [Ch. 20], I conclude that the sovereign [III/12] powers retain this right best, and can preserve their rule safely, only if everyone is allowed to think what he will, and to say what he thinks.34
[33] These, Philosophical reader,35 are the things I here give you to examine. I trust that the importance and utility of the argument, both [5] in the work as a whole and in each chapter, will make it welcome. I might add several more things about this, but I don’t want this preface to grow into a book, particularly since I believe the main points36 are more than adequately known to Philosophers. As for those who are not philosophers, I am not eager to commend this treatise to them. There’s nothing in it which I might hope could please them in any way. I know [10] how stubbornly the mind retains those prejudices the heart has embraced under the guise of piety. I know also that it’s as impossible to save the common people from superstition as it is from fear. And I know, finally, that what the common people call constancy is obstinacy. It’s not governed by reason, but carried away by an impulse to praise or to blame.
[34] I don’t ask the common people to read these things, nor anyone else who is struggling with the same affects as the common people. [15] Indeed, I would prefer them to neglect this book entirely,37 rather than make trouble by interpreting it perversely, as they usually do with everything. They will do themselves no good, but will harm others who would philosophize more freely if they weren’t prevented by this one thought: that reason ought to be the handmaid of theology. For [those who need only to be set free of that prejudice], I’m confident that this work will be extremely useful.
[20] [35] But since many will have neither the leisure nor perhaps the disposition to read through everything I’ve written, I’m constrained to warn here also, as I do at the end of this Treatise, that I write nothing which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and judgment of the supreme 'Powers of my Country. For if they judge that any of the things I say are in conflict with the laws of my country, or harmful to the general welfare, I wish to withdraw it. I know that I am a man [25] and may have erred.38 Still, I have taken great care not to err, and taken care especially that whatever I might write would be entirely consistent with the laws of my country, with piety and with morals.
1. Spinoza will cite this passage again in xiii, 22; xiv, 17; and Letter 76. The preceding verse reads: “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us.” He will call attention to this context in xiii, 11. See also the discussion of “the spirit of God” in i, 25–40. Spinoza normally quotes the New Testament from the translation by Immanuel Tremellius (c. 1510–1580), an Italian Jewish convert to Christianity who translated the Bible into Latin from Hebrew and Syriac. In the sixteenth century some New Testament scholars believed that the Syriac version of the New Testament was older than the Greek texts on which Jerome had based his translation. See Austin 2007, 126–29. Spinoza thinks the Syriac text may be the original and not a translation. See ADN. XXVI at xi, 3, and Gebhardt V, 1.
2. Both the publisher and the place of publication are fictitious. In fact, the TTP was published in Amsterdam by Jan Rieuwertsz.
3. Leopold 1902 noted many allusions in Spinoza’s writings to the plays of Terence, which Van den Enden used as a means of teaching his students Latin (Meinsma 1983, ch. 5). Here the allusion is to Andria 266. For an analysis of the rhetorical structure of the Preface, see Akkerman 1985.
4. Here the allusion is to Terence’s Heautontimorumenos 946. The theme recurs in the Ethics: III P17S, III P50S, and Def. Aff. 1Exp. (ALM).
5. Spinoza’s language recalls Tacitus’ description of the Jews’ response to prodigies before the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 C.E. (Histories V, xiii). Tacitus criticizes the Jews for not performing appropriate religious rituals, because of a superstitious belief that it would be impious to do so (ALM). Jer. 10:2 instructs the Jews not to follow the heathen in being dismayed at signs in the heavens.
6. Spinoza’s rhetoric here—Tantum timor homines insanire facit—echoes a famous line in Lucretius I, 101: Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum, how great the evils religion could persuade men to (ALM).
7. Cf. Hobbes’ analysis of the natural causes of religion in Leviathan xii, 1–11. Hobbes acknowledges no substantive difference between religion and superstition (cf. Leviathan vi, 36 with xi, 26). For the origins in Epicurean thought, see Strauss 1965, ch. 1.
8. The phrase superstitio animi comes from Quintus Curtius V, iv, 1. I believe the intended contrast is between a superstitious belief sincerely held and the manipulative use of the people's superstitious beliefs, by leaders who do not share them. Cf. Quintus Curtius IV, x, 1–8, cited below at III/6/30. ALM note that Curtius acquired a reputation as a “libertine” historian because of his skepticism concerning prodigies. Next to Tacitus, Curtius is the ancient historian Spinoza cites most frequently (Gebhardt V, 7).
9. *See Quintus Curtius V, iv, [1].* “Susidan Gates” was the name the Persians gave to a mountain pass through which Alexander tried to march with his army, suffering his first serious defeat. See Quintus Curtius V, iii, 16–23.
10. temporis iniquitate, an allusion to Quintus Curtius VII, vii, 6.
11. *As Curtius himself says, Bk. VII, §7.* (LCL reads ludibrium where Spinoza has ludibria.) The influence of fortune, both good and bad, on Alexander’s character is a major theme in Curtius, who attributes Alexander’s virtues to his nature, and his vices either to his fortune or to his youth. Cf. X, v, 26–36. Among the vices: his aspiration to divine honors and his trust in oracles.
12. maximeque formidolosos, alluding to Tacitus, Agricola 39 (ALM). That the power of kings is often precarious will be an important theme in the Political Treatise. Cf. TP vii, 14, 20.
13. Cf. Calvin, Institutes I, iii–iv. Calvin cites Cicero’s De natura deorum I, xvi, 43, in support of his claim that God has implanted in all men some understanding of divinity. But he thinks most actual religious practice—both pagan and Roman Catholic—is a superstitious corruption of this knowledge, arising from either ignorance or malice.
14. Cf. Spinoza’s comments on Islam in Letter 76, at IV/322/7–12. Pufendorf wrote in a letter to Thomasius that Spinoza owned a copy of the Quran which he had bound with the New Testament, suggesting a certain equivalence between these works in his mind. See Freudenthal/Walther 2006.
15. The expression Spinoza uses here, regiminis Monarchici . . . arcanum, echoes a phrase in Tacitus, arcana imperii (e.g., in Annales II, 36), as noted by ALM, 698. This language was also used in the title of a book by Clapmarius which Spinoza possessed. Gebhardt V, 4, reproduces Clapmarius’s definition.
16. salus. RT has vrijheid, freedom, a possible translation of salus.
17. An allusion to Quintus Curtius IV, x, 3 (ALM).
18. ALM suggest an allusion to Tacitus, Annals XV, xliv, which attributes the persecution of the Christians under Nero to Nero’s cruelty rather than to any concern for the public good.
19. An allusion to Tacitus, Annals I, lxxii, where the issue is Tiberius’ revival of the law of treason, which had originally applied to official misconduct damaging to the state (such as betrayal of an army), but came to be applied to speech critical of the emperor (ALM).
20. Rara foelicitas. An allusion to a passage in Tacitus (Histories I, i, 4: “in that rare good fortune of the times when it is permitted to think what you like and to say what you think”), which Spinoza will refer to again in §32, in the title of Ch. xx, and in xx, 46. Hume used the same line from Tacitus as the motto for his Treatise, a work from which he excised his own treatment of miracles in the hope of winning the approval of Bishop Butler. See Mossner 1980, 112.
In Letter 14 Oldenburg had made a similar claim about the freedom of the Dutch Republic. That Spinoza’s praise of the Republic is ironic seems clear from Letter 30, explaining his reasons for writing the TTP, from the fact that he felt obliged to conceal his own identity and that of his publisher on his title page, and from §17 of this Preface. Cf. also the comments on xx, 40, and Israel 1995, 675–76, 789–90. I’ve discussed these matters in Curley 2015c.
21. On the meaning of the single quote mark before “powers” see the Glossary entry: POWER, 'POWER.
22. An allusion to Tacitus, Annals i, 7, repeated at TP vii, 2 (ALM).
23. An allusion to Horace’s Epistles I, 1, v. 14 (ALM). Cf. xii, 7.
24. Cf. Calvin, Institutes II, ii, 18–21. Cf. below §23 and xv, 10.
25. Cf. below, i, 19; xiii, 5; and Curley 2002.
26. Cf. Manasseh 1842/1972, I, ix: “The Bible being in the highest degree true, it cannot contain any text really contradictory of another.” Calvin also seems committed to the consistency of Scripture, taking “the beautiful agreement of all the parts with one another” to provide confirmation of the divine origin of its doctrine, from which its truth and consistency would seem to follow. Cf. Calvin, Institutes, I, viii, 1. See also his references to the prophets as taking ‘dictation’ from the Holy Spirit (e.g., in Institutes IV, viii, 6) and to the apostles as “sure and genuine scribes of the Holy Spirit” (Institutes IV, viii, 9). But Calvin’s position on this issue is a matter of dispute among those who study him. See McNeill 1959, and Dowey 1994.
27. The project, then, is fundamentally an extension of Cartesian method into an area where Descartes himself had not dared to tread. I’ve discussed this in Curley 1994.
28. That is, their speculations about God and nature. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan viii, 26.
29. Note that Spinoza presents the argument of the first six chapters as leading (non-demonstratively) to one of the principal conclusions of his work: that philosophy and theology are independent of one another (cf. Ch. xiv). But up to this point he has not explained the new method for interpreting Scripture (mentioned in §21) which equipped him to reach this conclusion. In Ch. vii he will explain the method, and then begin re-arguing the conclusion. His claim is that the revised argument is demonstrative.
30. ALM cite various medieval theologians who had held that philosophy should be subservient to (the handmaid of) theology, most notably Aquinas ST (I, qu. 1, art. 5) and Albertus Magnus (Summa theologiae Bk. I, Part I, Tractatus I, qu. 6). Cf. below §34.
31. “The person” translates a personal pronoun which, as Bennett notes, might refer to either an individual or a collective agent.
32. The first edition has privare. Most editors (e.g., Gebhardt, Akkerman, et al.) emend to se privare; V-L (1914) emended to privari. Cf. xvii, 1, III/201/14–15.
33. Spinoza uses a plural pronoun here, implying that it was by human decree that religion began to have the force of law.
34. A recurrence of the allusion to Tacitus in §12, which also appears at III/239 and III/247.
35. A critical passage for the interpretation of the TTP. Who are the intended audience for Spinoza’s work? For conflicting views, see Strauss 1988, 162–63; Harris 1978, 3; Donagan 1988, 14–15; and Smith 1997, 38–54. I take it that Spinoza is, as he appears to be, addressing the philosophical reader. But this does not necessarily mean that he is addressing only fully formed philosophers. I believe he particularly wants to address those would-be philosophers whose thinking is hampered by a prejudice about the authority of Scripture (see the end of §34, and cf. my comment on his correspondence with Van Blijenbergh, Collected Works, I, 350). I believe that exchange persuaded him that to secure a sympathetic hearing for his own work, he would have to show that in cases of conflict, the teachings of Scripture regarding speculative matters are not to be preferred to the demonstrations of philosophers. Cf. Letter 21 (IV/126) and Letter 23 (IV/145).
36. It would be highly paradoxical to write a book whose main points you took to be already known by its intended audience. But this sentence need not mean (as some have thought) that the main points of the book are already well-known to philosophers, only that the main points Spinoza would make if he extended the Preface are already well-known to philosophers. The best candidate for a philosopher who grasped the main points of the book is Hobbes, but he was unusual for his time both in his critical approach to Scripture and in the secular basis he provided for political theory. On the relation between Hobbes and Spinoza, see Curley 1992, 1994, and 1996.
37. Hence he discouraged translation of this work into Dutch. See Letter 44.
38. Alluding to a line from Terence’s Heautontimorumenos 77. Cf. x, 36; xx, 470.
[5] [1] Prophecy, or Revelation, is the certain knowledge of some matter which God has revealed to men. And a Prophet is one who interprets God’s revelations to those who cannot have certain knowledge of them, and who therefore can only embrace what has been revealed by simple [10] faith. For among the Hebrews a Prophet is called נביא, nabi,1** that is, spokesman and interpreter. But Scripture always uses this term for an interpreter of God, as we can infer from Exodus 7:1, where God says to Moses: See, I make you a God to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron will be your Prophet. This is as if he were to say that since Aaron performs the part of a Prophet, by interpreting what you say to Pharaoh, you will [15] therefore be like a God to Pharaoh, or one who acts in place of God.
[2] In the following Chapter we will discuss Prophets. Here the subject is Prophecy. From the definition just given, it follows that natural knowledge can be called Prophecy. For what we know by the natural [20] light depends only on the knowledge of God and of his2 eternal decrees. But because this natural knowledge is common to all men (depending, as it does, on foundations common to all), the common people, who always thirst for things rare and foreign to their nature, who spurn their natural gifts, do not value it highly. When they speak of prophetic [25] knowledge, they mean to exclude natural knowledge.
[3] Nevertheless, we can call natural knowledge divine with as much right as anything else, since God’s nature, insofar as we participate in it, and his decrees, as it were, dictate it to us.3 It differs from the knowledge everyone calls divine only in two respects: the knowledge people call divine extends beyond the limits of natural knowledge, and the laws [30] of human Nature, considered in themselves, cannot be the cause of the knowledge people call divine. But natural knowledge is in no way [III/16] inferior to prophetic knowledge in the certainty it involves, or in the source from which it is derived, viz. God—unless, perhaps, someone wants to understand (or rather to dream) that the Prophets had, indeed, a human body, but not a human mind, and thus that their sensations [5] and consciousness were of an entirely different nature than ours are.
[4] Though natural 'knowledge is divine, nevertheless those who pass it on cannot be called Prophets.4** For they teach things other men can perceive and embrace with as much certainty and excellence as they do, [10] and not by faith alone. [5] Therefore, since our mind—simply from the fact that it contains God’s Nature objectively in itself, and participates in it—has the power to form certain notions which explain the nature of things and teach us how to conduct our lives, we can rightly maintain that the nature of the mind, insofar as it is conceived in this way, is the [15] first cause of divine revelation. For whatever we clearly and distinctly understand, the idea and nature of God dictates to us (as we have just indicated), not indeed in words, but in a far more excellent way, which agrees best with the nature of the mind. Anyone who has tasted the certainty of the intellect must have experienced this in himself.
[20] [6] But my principal purpose is to speak only of what concerns Scripture. So these few words about the natural Light are enough. Now I’ll discuss in greater detail the other causes and means by which God reveals to men things which exceed the limits of natural knowledge—and even those which do not exceed them. For nothing prevents God from communicating to men in other ways the same things we know [25] by the light of nature.
[7] But whatever can be said about these matters must be sought only from Scripture. For what can we say about things exceeding the limits of our intellect beyond what’s been handed down to us, either orally or in writing, from the Prophets themselves? And because today, [30] so far as I know, we have no Prophets,5 our only option is to expound the sacred books left us by the Prophets. But with this precaution: we should not maintain anything about such matters, or attribute anything to the Prophets themselves, which they did not say clearly and repeatedly.
[8] Here it is to be noted particularly that the Jews never mention—nor do they heed—intermediate, or particular, causes,6 but for the [III/17] sake of religion and of piety, or (as is commonly said) of devotion, they always recur to God. For example, if they have made money by trade, they say that God has given it to them; if they desire that something should happen, they say that God has so disposed their heart; and if they even think something, they say that God has told them this. So [5] we must not regard as Prophecy and supernatural knowledge everything Scripture says God has told someone, but only what Scripture explicitly says was Prophecy or revelation, or whose status as prophecy follows from the circumstances of the narration.
[9] If, then, we run through the Sacred books, we will see that [10] everything God revealed to the Prophets was revealed to them either in words, or in visible forms, or in both words and visible forms. The words and the visible forms were either true, and outside the imagination of the Prophet who heard or saw them, or else imaginary, occurring because the imagination of the Prophet was so disposed, even while he was awake, that he clearly seemed to himself to hear words or to [15] see something.7
[10] It was by a true voice that God revealed to Moses the Laws he willed to be prescribed to the Hebrews, as is evident from Exodus 25:22, where he says ונועדתי לך שם ודברתי אתך מעל הכפורת מבין שני הכרובים and I will be available to you there, and I will speak with you from that part [20] of the cover which is between the two cherubim. This indeed shows that God used a true voice, since Moses used to find God there, available to speak to him, whenever he wanted to. And as I shall soon show, this voice by which the law was pronounced was the only true voice.
[11] I would suspect that the voice with which God called Samuel [25] was a true one, because in 1 Samuel 3:21 it is said: ויוסף יהוה להראה בשלה כי נגלה יהוה אל שמואל בשלו בדבר יהוה and God appeared again to Samuel in Shiloh because God revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of God8—as if he were saying that God’s appearance to Samuel was nothing but God’s revealing himself to Samuel by his word, or was [30] nothing but Samuel’s hearing God speaking. But because we are forced to distinguish between the Prophecy of Moses and that of the rest of the Prophets, we must say that the voice Samuel heard was imaginary.9 We can also infer this from the fact that the voice resembled that of Eli, which Samuel was very accustomed to hearing, and so could also more readily imagine. For although God called him three times, he [III/18] thought that Eli had called him.10
[12] The voice Abimelech heard was imaginary. For Genesis 20:6 says: And God said to him in his dreams etc. So he was able to imagine the will of God, not while he was awake, but only in dreams (i.e., at that time when the imagination is naturally most suited to imagine [5] things which do not exist).
[13] In the opinion of certain Jews, God did not utter the words of the Decalogue.11 They think, rather, that the Israelites only heard a sound, which did not utter any words, and that while this sound lasted, they perceived the Laws of the Decalogue with a pure mind. At one time I too was inclined to think this, because I saw that the words of [10] the Decalogue in Exodus are not the same as those of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy.12 Since God spoke only once, it seems to follow from this [variation] that the Decalogue does not intend to teach God’s very words, but only their meaning.
[14] But unless we wish to do violence to Scripture, we absolutely must grant that the Israelites heard a true voice. For Scripture expressly [15] says, in Deuteronomy 5:4 פנים בפנים דבר יהוה עמכם וגו face to face God spoke to you etc.,13 that is, as two men usually communicate their concepts to one another, by means of their two bodies. So it seems more compatible with Scripture to think that God truly created some voice, by which he himself revealed the Decalogue.14 As for the explanation [20] of why the words and reasons of the one version differ from those of the other, see Chapter 8.15
[15] However, this doesn’t remove every difficulty. For it seems quite unreasonable to maintain that a created thing, dependent on God in the same way as any other, could express, in reality or in words, or [25] explain through his own person, the essence or existence of God, by saying in the first person, “I am the LORD your God, etc.”16 Of course, when someone says orally “I have understood,” no one thinks that the mouth of the man saying this has understood, but only that his mind has. Nevertheless, because the mouth is related to the nature of the man saying this, and also because he to whom it is said has previously [30] perceived the nature of the intellect, he easily understands the thought of the man speaking by comparison with his own. [16] But since these people knew nothing of God but his name, and wanted to speak to him to become certain of his Existence, I do not see how their request would be fulfilled by a creature who was no more related to God than any other creature, and who did not pertain to God’s nature, saying [III/19] “I am God.” What if God had twisted Moses’ lips to pronounce and say the same words, “I am God”? Would they have understood from that that God exists? What if they were the lips, not of Moses, but of some beast?17
[17] Next, Scripture seems to indicate, without qualification, that [5] God himself spoke—that was why he descended from heaven to the top of Mt. Sinai—and that the Jews not only heard him speaking, but that the Elders even saw him. See Exodus 24[:10–11].18
The Law revealed to Moses (to which nothing could be added and from which nothing could be taken away, and which was established as the legislation of their Country) never commanded us to believe that [10] God is incorporeal, or that he has no image or visible form, but only to believe that God exists, to trust in him, and to worship him alone. It did command them not to ascribe any image to him, and not to make any image of him. But this was to prevent them from departing from his worship. [18] For since they had not seen the image of God, they could not make an image which would resemble God, but only [15] one which would resemble some other created thing they had seen. So when they worshipped God through that image, they would think, not about God, but about the thing the image resembled. In the end they would bestow on that thing the honor and worship due to God.
But Scripture clearly indicates that God has a visible form and that it was granted to Moses, when he heard God speaking, to look upon [20] it, though he was permitted to see only the back.19 I do not doubt but what there is some mystery concealed here, which we shall discuss more fully later.20 For now I shall continue to show the places where Scripture indicates the means God used to reveal his decrees to men.
[19] That Revelation [sometimes] happened by images alone is evident [25] from 1 Chronicles 21[:16] where God shows his anger to David through an Angel holding a sword in his hand. Similarly [God showed his anger] to Balaam [in the same way].21 Maimonides and others claim that this story, and likewise all those that tell the appearance of an angel (e.g., to Manoah [Judges 13:8–20], and to Abraham when he was intending to sacrifice his son [Genesis 22:11–18]), happened in a [30] dream,22 because a person could not see an Angel with his eyes open. But that’s nonsense, of course. Their only concern is to extort from Scripture Aristotelian rubbish and their own inventions. Nothing seems to me more ridiculous.
[20] On the other hand, when God revealed his future Dominion [35] to Joseph [Genesis 37:5–10], he used images which were not real, but depended only on the imagination of the Prophet.
[III/20] God used both images and words to reveal to Joshua that he would fight for the [Israelites]. He showed him an Angel with a sword [who came] as commander of the army [Joshua 5:13]. He had [previously] revealed this to him in words [Joshua 1:1–9, 3:7] and Joshua heard it [again] from the Angel [Joshua 5:14].
To Isaiah also, as we are told in ch. 6, it was represented through [5] visible forms that God’s providence was deserting the people: he imagined God thrice holy, seated on a throne on high, and the Israelites stained with the uncleanness of their sins, as if mired in a dung-heap, and indeed, very distant from God. By these [visible forms] he understood that the present state of the people was most wretched. On the [10] other hand, the people’s future calamities were revealed to him in words, pronounced as if by God.23 I could add many other examples of this pattern from the Sacred Texts, if I did not think these matters were well enough known to everyone.
[21] But all these things are confirmed more clearly from the text of Numbers 12:[6–8], which reads:
[15] אם יהיה נביאכם יהוה במראה אליו אתודע בחלום אדבר בו לא כן עבדי משה וכו פה אל פה אדבר בו ומראה ולא בחידת ותמונת יהוה יביט if there is some Prophet of God among you, I shall reveal myself to him in ax vision
(that is, through visible forms and obscure symbols, for of the Prophecy of Moses he says that it is a vision without obscure symbols),
I shall speak to him in dreams
(that is, not with real words and a true voice).
[20] But to Moses (I do) not (reveal myself) in this way, etc.; to him I speak face to face, and in a vision, but not with enigmatic sayings; and he looks upon the image of God,24
that is, he looks upon me as a companion and is not terrified when he speaks with me, as is maintained in Exodus 33:11. So there can be no doubt that the other Prophets did not hear a true voice. This is confirmed still further by Deuteronomy 34:10, where it is said that [25] ולא קם נביא עוד בישראל כמשה אשר ידעו יהוה פנים אל פנים there never existed (strictly, arose) in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom God knew face to face. This must be understood to refer to the voice alone. For not even Moses had ever seen God’s face (Exodus 33[:20]).25
[30] [22] I do not find in the Sacred Texts any other means by which God communicated himself to men.26 So, as we have shown above, we must not feign or admit any others. Of course, we clearly understand that God can communicate himself immediately to men, for he communicates his essence to our mind without using any corporeal means. Nevertheless, for a man to perceive by the mind alone things which [III/21] aren’t contained in the first foundations of our knowledge, and can’t be deduced from them, his mind would necessarily have to be more excellent than, and far superior to, the human mind.
[23] So I do not believe that anyone else has reached such perfection, [5] surpassing all others, except Christ, to whom the decisions of God, which lead men to salvation, were revealed immediately—without words or visions. So God revealed himself to the Apostles through Christ’s mind, as previously he had revealed himself to Moses by means of a heavenly voice. And therefore Christ’s voice, like the one Moses heard, [10] can be called the voice of God. And in this sense we can also say that God’s Wisdom, that is, a Wisdom surpassing human wisdom, assumed a human nature in Christ, and that Christ was the way to salvation.27
[24] But I must warn here that I’m not speaking in any way about the things some of the Churches maintain about Christ. Not that I deny [15] them. For I readily confess that I don’t grasp them.28 What I have just affirmed I conclude from Scripture itself. Nowhere have I read that God appeared or spoke to Christ, but rather that God was revealed to the Apostles through Christ, that he is the way to salvation [John 14:6], and finally, that the old law was imparted by an Angel, but not by God [20] immediately. So, if Moses spoke with God face to face, as a man usually does with a companion (i.e., by means of their two bodies), Christ, indeed, communicated with God mind to mind.
[25] We have asserted, then, that except for Christ no one has received God’s revelations without the aid of the imagination, i.e., without the [25] aid of words or images. So no one needed to have a more perfect mind in order to prophesy, but only a more vivid imagination. I shall show this more clearly in the following chapter.
Now the question is what the Sacred Texts understand by the Spirit of God when they say that the Prophets were infused29 with the Spirit of God, or that the Prophets spoke by the Spirit of God. To investigate this, first we must ask about the meaning of the Hebrew term רוח [30] ruagh, which people commonly translate “Spirit.”30
[26] In its proper sense the term רוח ruagh means wind, as is generally known. But it is quite often used to mean many other things, which are nevertheless derived from the proper sense. For it is taken to mean
1. breath, as in Psalm 135:17, אף אין יש רוח בפיהם there is no Spirit in their mouth.
[III/22] 2. air or breathing, as in 1 Samuel 30:12, ותשב רוחו אליו and his Spirit returned to him, i.e., he recovered his breath.
From this it is taken for
3. courage and strength, as in Joshua 2:11, ולא קמה עוד רוח באיש afterward there was no Spirit left in any man. Similarly, Ezekiel 2:2, ותבא בי רוח ותעמידני על רגלי and a Spirit (or force) came into me, which made me stand upon my feet.
From this it is taken for
[5] 4. excellence and ability, as in Job 32:8, אכן רוח היא באנוש certainly it is the Spirit itself in a man, that is, 'knowledge is not to be sought exclusively among the old, for I find now that it depends on the particular excellence and capacity of the man. So also Numbers 27:18, איש אשר רוח בו a man in whom there is Spirit.
[10] 5. the sentiment of the heart, as in Numbers 14:24, עקב היתה רוח אחרת עמו, since another Spirit was in him, that is, another sentiment of the heart, or another mind. Similarly, Proverbs 1:23, אביעה לכם רוחי I shall express my Spirit (i.e., mind) to you. And in this sense it is used to mean the will, or decision, the [15] appetite, and the impulse of the heart, as in Ezekiel 1:12, אל אשר יהיה שמה הרוח ללכת ילכו where there was a Spirit (or a will) to go, they went. Similarly, Isaiah 30:1, ולנסוך מסכה ולא רוחי for pouring out a libation, but not of my Spirit.31 And in Isaiah 29:10, כי נסך עליהם יהוה רוח תרדמה because God has poured out upon [20] them32 the Spirit (i.e., the appetite) of sleeping. And in Judges 8:3, אז רפתה רוחם מעליו then their Spirit (or impulse) was softened. Similarly in Proverbs 16:32, ומושל ברוחו מלוכד עיר he who rules his Spirit (or appetite) [is better] than he who takes a city. Similarly in Proverbs 25:28, איש אין מעצור לרוחו a man who does not restrain his Spirit. And Isaiah 33:11, רוחכם אש תאכלכם your Spirit is a [25] fire, which consumes you.
[28] Next, this term רוח, ruagh, insofar as it means heart, serves to express all the passions of the heart, and even its endowments, as רוח גבוהה a lofty Spirit, to mean pride; רוח שפלה a lowly Spirit, to mean humility; רוח רעה a bad Spirit, to mean hate and melancholy; רוח טובה a good [30] Spirit, to mean kindness; רוח קנאה a Spirit of Jealousy; רוח זנונים a Spirit (or appetite) of fornications; רוח חכמה עצה גבורה a Spirit of wisdom, counsel and strength, i.e., (for in Hebrew we use substantives more frequently than adjectives), a wise, prudent and strong mind, or the virtue of wisdom, counsel and strength; רוח חן a Spirit of benevolence, etc.
[III/23] 6. It means the mind itself or soul, as in Ecclesiastes 3:19: ורוח אחד לכל the Spirit (or soul) is the same in all,33 and והרוח תשוב אל האלהים the Spirit returns to God.34
7. Finally, it means the regions of the world (on account of the winds which blow from them), and also the sides of each thing, which face those regions [5] of the world. See Ezekiel 37:9, and 42:16, 17, 18, 19, etc.
[29] It should be noted now that a thing is related to God, and is said to be of God,
1. because it pertains to God’s nature, and is, as it were, a part of God, as when one says כח יהוה God’s power, עיני יהוה God’s eyes;
[10] 2. because it is in God’s 'power, and acts from God’s command, as in the sacred texts the heavens are called שמי יהוה the heavens of God, because they are the chariot and the dwelling place of God, Assyria is called the whip of God, and Nebuchadnezzar, the servant of God, etc.;
3. because it is dedicated to God, היכל יהוה temple of God, נזיר אלהים Nazarite of God, לחם יהוה bread of God, etc.
4. because it is imparted through the Prophets, but not revealed through the [15] natural light; for that reason, the Law of Moses is called the Law of God.
5. to express the thing in a superlative degree, הררי אל mountains of God, i.e., very high mountains, תרדמת יהוה a sleep of God, i.e., a very deep sleep; it is in this sense that Amos 4:11 is to be explained, when God himself speaks [20] thus: הפכתי אתכם כמהפכת אלהים את סדום ואת עמורה I have destroyed you, as God’s destruction (destroyed) Sodom and Gomorrah, i.e., as I did in that memorable destruction; for when God himself speaks, it cannot properly be explained otherwise. Even Solomon’s natural 'knowledge is called God’s 'knowledge, i.e., 'knowledge which is divine or beyond common 'knowledge.35 Also, in the Psalms, [certain trees] are called ארזי אל, cedars of God, to express their [25] unusual size. And in 1 Samuel 11:7, to refer to a very great fear, it is said ויפל פחד יהוה על העם and the fear of God fell upon the people.
[30] And in this sense, the Jews used to refer to God everything which surpassed their power of understanding, and whose natural causes they [30] did not then know.36 So, a storm was called גערת יהוה, God’s rebuke, and thunder and lightning were called God’s arrows. For they thought that God kept the winds shut up in caves, which they called God’s treasuries. Their difference from the Pagans was just that they believed it was God, not Aeolus, who was the ruler of the winds.
That’s also why they called miracles works of God, i.e., works to be [III/24] astonished at. For of course, all natural things are God’s works, and exist and act only through the divine power. It’s in this sense that the Psalmist calls the miracles of Egypt God’s powers, because in a situation of extreme danger they opened up the way to deliverance for the Hebrews, who were expecting nothing like them, and hence were amazed by them.
[5] [31] So when unusual works of nature are called works of God, and trees of unusual size are called trees of God, it is no wonder that in Genesis the strongest men, and those of great stature, are called sons of God, even though they are immoral robbers and libertines.37 Hence, [10] the ancients—not only the Jews, but even the Pagans—used to refer to God absolutely everything in which one man surpassed the others. For when the Pharaoh heard Joseph’s interpretation of his dream, he said that the mind of the Gods38 was in him; and again, Nebuchadnezzar said to Daniel that he had the mind of the Holy Gods.39 Furthermore, nothing is more frequent among the Latins. For they say that things which have been made ingeniously have been fashioned by a divine [15] hand. If anyone wished to translate this into Hebrew, he would have to say fashioned by the hand of God, as Hebraists well know.
[32] From these observations, we can easily understand and explain those Passages in Scripture which mention the Spirit of God. In certain places רוח אלהים, the Spirit of God, and רוח יהוה, the Spirit of Yahweh, [20] mean nothing other than a wind which is very violent, very dry and destructive, as in Isaiah 40:7, רוח יהוה נושבה בו the wind of Yahweh blew on it, i.e., a very dry and destructive wind. Similarly in Genesis 1:2, and a wind of God (or a very strong wind) was moving over the water.
[33] Next, [ruagh Elohim or ruagh Yahweh] means a great heart. For [25] the Sacred Texts call Gideon’s heart, and Samson’s, רוח יהוה, the Spirit of God, i.e., a very daring heart, ready for anything.40 Similarly, any extraordinary virtue or force is called רוח יהוה, the Spirit or virtue of God, as in Exodus 31:3, ואמלא אותו רוח אלהים and I shall fill him (viz., Bezalel) with the Spirit of God, i.e., as Scripture itself explains, with understanding [30] and skill beyond the ordinary lot of men. So in Isaiah 11:2, ונחה עליו רוח יהוה and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, i.e., as the Prophet himself declares, explaining it afterward in detail (in a manner very commonly used in the Sacred Texts): the virtues of wisdom, counsel, strength, etc. So also Saul’s melancholy is called רוח אלהים רעה, an evil Spirit of God, i.e., [III/25] a very deep melancholy.41 For Saul’s servants, who called his melancholy a melancholy of God, urged him to call a musician to him, who would revive his spirits by playing the lyre. This shows that by a melancholy of God they understood a natural melancholy.
[5] [34] Next, רוח יהוה, the Spirit of God, means the mind itself of man, as in Job 27:3, ורוח אלה באפי and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils, alluding to what is said in Genesis [2:7], that God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of man. So Ezekiel, prophesying to the dead, says (37:14), ונתתי רוחי בכם וחייתם and I shall give my Spirit to you and you shall live, i.e., [10] I shall restore life to you. And in this sense it is said in Job 34:14, אם ישים אליו לבו רוחו ונשמתו אליו יאסוף if he (viz., God) wishes, he will gather his Spirit (i.e., the mind which he gave us) and his breath back to himself. We must understand Genesis 6:3 in the same way: לא ידון רוחי באדם לעולם [15] בשגם הוא בשר my Spirit shall not reason (or shall not decide) in man for ever, since he is flesh, i.e., after this man shall act from the decisions of the flesh, and not those of the mind, which I gave him to discern the good. So also Psalm 51:12–13 [= KJV, RSV 10–11]: לב טהור ברא לי אלהים ורוח נכון חדש בקרבי : אל תשליכני מלפניך ורוח קדשך אל תקח ממני create a pure [20] heart in me, O God, and renew in me an appropriate (or moderate) Spirit (i.e., appetite); do not cast me away from your sight, nor take the mind of your holiness away from me. Because sins were believed to arise only from the flesh—the mind recommending only the good—[the Psalmist] asks for God’s aid against the appetite of the flesh, but prays only that the [25] mind the Holy God gave him be preserved by God.
[35] Now, because the common people are weak, Scripture usually depicts God as being like a man, and attributes to God a mind, a heart, affects of the heart—even a body and breath. As a result, the Sacred Texts often use רוח יהוה the Spirit of God, for the mind, i.e., the heart, [30] affect, force, and breath of the mouth, of God. So Isaiah 40:13 says: מי תכן את רוה יהוח who has directed the Spirit (or mind) of God? i.e., who, besides God himself, has determined God’s mind to will something? And in Isaiah 63:10, והמה מרו ועצבו את רוח קדשו and they affected the Spirit of his holiness with bitterness and sadness.
[36] That’s how it happens that [the phrase רוח יהוה] is customarily used for the Law of Moses, because it explains, as it were, the mind of [III/26] God—as Isaiah himself says (in 63:11): איה השם בקרבו את רוח קדשו where is he who put the Spirit of his holiness in the midst of them?, i.e., the Law of Moses. This is clear from the whole context of the utterance. Similarly in Nehemiah 9:20, ורוחך הטובה נתת להשכילם and you have given them [5] your good Spirit, or mind, to make them understand. For he is speaking of the time of the Law, and he alludes also to Deuteronomy 4:6, where Moses says: since it (viz. the Law) is your 'knowledge and wisdom, etc. So also in Psalms 143:10, רוחך טובה תנחני בארץ משור your good mind will lead me into a level land, i.e., your mind, revealed to us, will lead me into [10] the right path.
[37] The Spirit of God also means, as we have said, God’s breath, which is also improperly attributed to God in Scripture, just as a mind, heart, and a body are.42 See, for example, Psalm 33:6.
Next, [the Spirit of God also means] God’s power, force, or virtue, as in Job 33:4, רוח אל עשתני the Spirit of God made me, i.e., the virtue, [15] or power of God, or, if you prefer, God’s decree. For the Psalmist, speaking poetically, also says [in Psalms 33:6] by the command of God were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Spirit, or breath, of his mouth, i.e., by his decree, pronounced as if in one breath. Similarly, in Psalms 139:7, אנה אלך מרוחך ואנה מפניך אברח where shall I go (that I [20] may be) outside your Spirit, or where shall I flee (that I may be) out of your sight. That is (as is evident from the verses in which the Psalmist himself proceeds to amplify this), where can I go that I may be outside your power and presence?
[38] Finally, the Sacred Texts also use רוח יהוה the Spirit of God to express God’s affects of the heart, such as his kindness and compassion, [25] as in Micah 2:7, הקצר רוח יהוה is the Spirit of God, i.e., God’s compassion, restricted? are these (cruel) works his? Similarly, in Zechariah 4:6, לא בחיל ולא בכח כי אם ברוחי not by arms, not by force, but only by my Spirit, i.e., only by my compassion. And in this sense I think we must understand [30] the same Prophet’s 7:12, ולבם שמו שמיר משמוע את התורה ואת הדברים אשר שלח יהוה ברוחו ביד הנביאים הראשונים and they made their hearts hard,43 lest they should obey the Law and the commandments which God sent from his Spirit (i.e., from his compassion) through the first Prophets. In this sense also Haggai says (2:5): ורוחי עומדת בתוככם אל תיראו and my Spirit (or my grace) remains among you; fear not.
[III/27] [39] As for Isaiah 48:16, where it is said ועתה יהוה אלהים שלחני ורוחו but now the LORD God sent me, and his Spirit, we can understand this to refer either to God’s heart, and compassion, or to his mind, revealed in the Law. For Isaiah says: from the beginning (i.e., when I first came to you, [5] to preach God’s anger to you, and his judgment against you), I have not spoken in secret, from the time [his judgment] was (pronounced), I was there (as he himself attests in ch. 7), but now I am a joyful messenger, sent by God’s compassion, to sing your restoration. Alternatively, as I have said, we can also understand [God’s Spirit] to refer to God’s mind, [10] revealed in the Law, i.e., that he comes now to warn them, according to the command of the Law, viz. Leviticus 19:17. So he warns them in the same conditions and in the same way as Moses used to. And finally, as Moses also did, he ends by preaching their restoration. Nevertheless, the first explanation seems to me more harmonious.
[15] [40] Let us come back, finally, to the point we have been aiming at. From all these [examples] these phrases of Scripture become clear: the Spirit of God was in the Prophet, God infused his Spirit into men, men were filled with the Spirit of God, and with the Holy Spirit, etc. For they mean nothing other than that the Prophets had a singular virtue, [20] beyond what is ordinary,44** that they cultivated piety with exceptional constancy of heart, and that they perceived God’s mind, or, judgment. [41] For we have shown that in Hebrew Spirit means both the mind and its judgment, and that for this reason the Law itself, because it made known God’s mind, could also be called God’s Spirit or mind. [25] That’s why the imagination of the Prophets could, with equal right, also be called the mind of God, insofar as God’s decrees were revealed through it, and the Prophets could be said to have had the mind of God. And although the mind of God and his eternal judgments are inscribed in our minds also, and consequently, we too perceive the mind of God (if I may speak with Scripture), nevertheless, because [30] natural knowledge is common to all, men do not value it so highly, as we have already said.45 This is particularly true of the Hebrews, who used to boast that they were superior to all others, indeed, who were accustomed to disdain all others, and hence, to disdain the 'knowledge common to all.
[42] Finally, the Prophets were said to have the Spirit of God because men were ignorant of the causes of Prophetic knowledge, were amazed by it, and on that account, were accustomed to refer it to God—as they [III/28] did all other wonders—and to call it God’s knowledge.
[43] We can now affirm, then, without any reservation, that the Prophets perceived God’s revelations only with the aid of the imagination, i.e., by the mediation of words or of images; these [words and [5] images] may have been either true or imaginary.46 For since we find no other means in Scripture except these, we’re not permitted to feign any others, as we have already shown.
[44] By what laws of nature was this [revelation] made? I confess I don’t know. I could say, as others do, that it was made by the power of God. But then it would look as though I was just babbling. That [10] would be like trying to explain the form of a singular thing by some transcendental term. For all things are made through the power of God. Indeed, because the power of Nature is just God’s power itself,47 insofar as we’re ignorant of natural causes, we certainly don’t understand God’s power. So it’s foolish to fall back on that power of God [15] when we don’t know the natural cause of a thing, i.e., when we don’t know God’s power itself. But there’s no need now for us to know the cause of Prophetic knowledge. For as I’ve already indicated, here we’re just trying to learn what Scripture teaches, so that we can draw our conclusions from those teachings as we would draw conclusions from the data of nature.48 We’re not in the least concerned with the causes [20] of the teachings.
[45] Since the Prophets perceived God’s revelations with the aid of the imagination, there is no doubt that they were able to perceive many things beyond the limits of the intellect. For we can compose many more ideas from words and images than we can by using only [25] the principles and notions on which our whole natural knowledge is constructed.
[46] So now it’s clear why the Prophets perceived and taught almost everything in metaphors and enigmatic sayings, and expressed all spiritual things corporeally. For all these things agree more with the nature of the imagination. And now we won’t wonder why Scripture and the [30] Prophets speak so improperly and obscurely concerning the Spirit of God, or his mind, as in Numbers 11:17 and 1 Kings 22:2,49 or why Micaiah saw God sitting [on a throne, in 1 Kings 22:19], while Daniel saw him as an old man clothed in white garments [Daniel 7:9], and Ezekiel saw him as a fire;50 or why those who were with Christ saw the Holy Spirit descending like a dove,51 but the Apostles saw it as fiery [III/29] tongues [Acts 2:3], and finally why Paul, when he was first converted, saw a great light [Acts 9:3]. For all these [visions] agree completely with the common ways of imagining God and Spirits.
[47] Finally, since the imagination is random and inconstant, [we also understand now why] Prophecy did not stay long with the Prophets, and also was not frequent, but very rare. I.e., it happened to very few [5] men, and even to them, very rarely.
[48] As a result, we’re now forced to ask how the Prophets could have come to be certain of things they perceived only through the imagination, and not from certain principles of the mind.52 But whatever we can say about this, we must seek from Scripture. As we have already said, we do not have true 'knowledge of this matter, or we cannot [10] explain it through its first causes. What Scripture teaches concerning the certainty of the Prophets, I shall show in the following chapter, where I have decided to treat of the Prophets.
1. **[ADN. I] If the third letter of the root of a word is quiescent, it is usually omitted and in its place the second letter of the stem is doubled. For example, omitting the quiescent ה from קלה we get קולל, and from that קול, and from נבא [to prophesy] comes נובב, from which we get ניב שפתים [the fruit of the lips] utterance or speech. Thus בזא becomes בזז or בוז (and from שגה comes שגג ,משגה, and המה ;שוג becomes המם; and בלה becomes בלל and בלעל). Therefore, R. Solomon Jarghi [Rashi] has interpreted this word נבא best; but Ibn Ezra, who did not know the Hebrew language so exactly, was mistaken in his criticism of him. Moreover, it should be noted that the term נבואה, prophecy, is quite general, and covers every kind of prophesying, whereas the other terms are more specific and apply chiefly to this or that kind of prophesying. I believe this is well-known to the learned. [Rashi glossed נביא as interpreter. See his commentary on Exod. 7:1, in Rashi 1960, II, 29. Ibn Ezra understood נביא as spokesman. Spinoza had the commentaries of both authors available to him in Buxtorf’s Bible.]
2. It’s worth noting that in contexts like this Spinoza’s Latin uses a pronoun which implies neither gender nor even personality. In principle ejus could be rendered either “his,” “her,” or “its.” In English we must either adopt an ugly neologism or choose one of these pronouns, which makes Spinoza sound more specific than he is. How much should we make of this? Not too much, I think. The next word in this phrase, “decrees,” certainly suggests a personal agent. And even traditional theologians who use the masculine pronoun in relation to God, do not normally think of God as literally having a gender. More significant is Spinoza’s talk of decrees, which reflects a willingness to express his thought in a way he knows may mislead some readers into thinking that he is closer to the tradition than he really is.
3. Gebhardt notes that Meyer expresses a similar view (Meyer 1666, 43, = v, 7). ALM compare Aquinas ST I, qu. 12, art. 11, ad 3.
4. **[ADN. II] That is, interpreters of God. For an interpreter of God is one who interprets God’s decrees to others to whom they have not been revealed, and who, in embracing them, rely only on the authority of the prophet. But if the men who listened to prophets became prophets, as those who listen to philosophers become philosophers, then the prophet would not be an interpreter of the divine decrees, since his hearers would rely, not on the testimony and authority of the prophet, but on revelation itself, and internal testimony. Thus the sovereign powers are the interpreters of the law of their state, because the laws they pass are preserved only by their authority and depend only on their testimony. [This note, as I have translated it, is essentially the version we have in the copy of the TTP Spinoza gave Jacob Klefmann. See the Editorial Preface to the TTP, pp. 60–63, for a discussion of the sources for these notes. We have four other sources for the note, which differ from this version mainly in small ways. The most interesting variation, found in all the other sources, has, instead of the phrase underlined above: “and their certainty depends only on the authority of the prophet and the faith they have in him.” The thought is reminiscent of Hobbes’ Leviathan vii, 7. I propose that since the other four versions are later than the Klefmann version, their consistency suggests that after writing notes in the Klefmann volume, Spinoza decided that this formula expressed his thought more clearly.]
5. Whether prophecy had actually ceased at some point in history has been a matter of dispute in both the Jewish and the Christian traditions. Certainly claims to prophecy did not cease, as the case of Sabbatai Zevi illustrates. See the note on Zevi in Letter 33, IV/178/26, and Goldish 2004. Some seventeenth-century Christian sects also claimed a contemporary power of prophecy (see Kolakowski 1969). These included the Collegiants, with whom Spinoza otherwise had much in common (cf. Nadler 1999, 139–41). But because of the difficulty of distinguishing true prophets from false, and the tendency of prophecy to challenge the religious status quo, religious institutions often opposed them. For a helpful discussion, see Sommer 1996. Talmudic passages on the disappearance of prophecy include Sanhedrin 11a and Sota 48b. Maimonides’ view seems to be that prophecy was taken away during the exile and will be restored when the Messiah comes. Cf. Guide II, 36.
6. For this view Spinoza could have cited the authority of Maimonides’ Guide II, 48. Cf. below, §§30–31. ALM also note Spinoza’s Hebrew Grammar, ch. 12: “The Hebrews are accustomed to refer an action to its principal cause, which brings it about either that an action is done by something/someone, or that a thing fulfills its function” (I/341/18).
7. Insofar as Spinoza emphasizes the importance of the imagination in prophecy, his view is similar to that of Maimonides. Cf. the Guide II, 32–48. Maimonides’ view is that prophecy normally requires intellectual perfection (through study of the speculative sciences), moral perfection (through the suppression of improper desires), and perfection of the imagination. But he does make an exception for Moses, whose prophecy is supposed to have involved only the intellect, not the imagination. See particularly Guide II, 36. The treatment of prophecy in Aquinas ST II-II, qu. 171–74, is quite different. Spinoza’s disagreements with Maimonides will emerge gradually, beginning in i, 43.
8. The first occurrence of “to Samuel” in this quote is lacking in the Hebrew. For the use of the divine name here, see the Glossary entry GOD.
9. Presumably we are forced to this interpretation by the passage from Num. 12:6–8, to be cited at III/20/13. But Numbers forces that interpretation only if we assume that 1 Samuel must be consistent with Numbers. The Preface has warned us (in §19) that this assumption is not safe.
10. See 1 Sam. 3:4–9. Cf. Maimonides Guide II, 44.
11. Maimonides Guide II, 33, argues that at Mount Sinai Moses alone heard God’s words. All the people heard was a great voice, not words. Halevi 1964, I, 87, argues that they heard the words. There are reasons to think that all the people heard the first two commandments, but that Moses alone heard the rest, and then conveyed them to the people. See Kugel 2007, 251–53.
12. This rare autobiographical remark may give us insight into the kinds of concern which led to Spinoza’s break with the synagogue. Manasseh’s Conciliator (I, 170–75) discusses several differences between the two accounts of the Decalogue (in Exod. 20:1–17 and Deut. 5:1–21). Some may strike modern readers as rather minor (unless they are committed to a strong position about the historical accuracy of the two accounts). The most significant difference, probably, occurs in the explanation of the commandment regarding the Sabbath. Exodus instructs the Jews not to labor on the Sabbath in remembrance of God’s having rested on the seventh day of creation. Deuteronomy commands them not to labor on the Sabbath in remembrance of God’s freeing them from bondage in the land of Egypt. Spinoza will return to this topic at the end of viii, 55.
13. These are Moses’ words to the people, so the pronoun, both in the Hebrew and in Spinoza’s Latin, is plural. Prima facie this conflicts with Num. 12:6–8, discussed below, in §21.
14. This was the opinion of Maimonides (Guide II, 33).
15. At the end of Ch. viii (§§55–58) and at the beginning of Ch. ix (§§1–3) Spinoza will return to this topic, explaining that the variations between the two versions of the Decalogue resulted from the history of the composition of the text. Here he is content merely to catalogue some of the difficulties which face more traditional interpreters.
16. Spinoza writes ego sum Jehova Deus tuus. In general I prefer to use “Yahweh” when Spinoza writes Jehova. (See the Glossary entry GOD, YAHWEH.) But in this instance it seemed best to use the language which has been traditional in English versions of the passages Spinoza is quoting (Exod. 20:2 and Deut. 5:6).
17. This was a problem which concerned Spinoza early in his career. Cf. KV II, xxiv, 10. ALM discuss a parallel passage in Balling’s Het licht op den kandelaar, p. 8. For a modern edition of this work, see Klever 1988.
18. Discussed in Manasseh 1842/1972, I, 186–89, because of its apparent conflict with Exod. 33:20.
19. See Exod. 33:20–23. Discussed in Manasseh 1842/1972, I, 201–2, because of its apparent conflict with Exod. 33:11 and Num. 12:8.
20. ALM suggest that Spinoza has in mind the discussion (in Ch. xv) of Alfakhar, who held that because Scripture teaches clearly that God is incorporeal, passages apparently to the contrary must be interpreted metaphorically. But he may also be referring to the discussion of the inadequacy of Moses’ conception of God in ii, 41–46.
21. See Num. 22:22–35. Since Balaam not only saw the angel, but heard him speak, this seems better as an example of a revelation through both words and visible forms.
22. See Maimonides Guide II, 41–42.
23. tanquam a Deo prolatis. Tanquam need not imply that God did not in fact pronounce the words. But the beginning of the next paragraph seems to favor a counterfactual reading.
24. Spinoza will return to this passage in viii, 15–16, where he will cite it as one among many indicating that the true author of the Pentateuch was not Moses, but someone writing at a much later date. HCSB observes that this passage “probably reflects the issues of a later day, when groups who traced their authority to Moses were in a power struggle with groups who traced their authority to Miriam or Aaron.” For a fuller discussion, see Levine 1993, 328–31.
25. Though as Spinoza has noted above (§18), Moses was permitted to see God’s back. On Moses’ unique relationship to God, see Maimonides Guide II, 35; Aquinas ST IIa IIae, qu. 174, art. 4; and Hobbes, Leviathan xxxvi, 11.
26. Spinoza will return to this conclusion at i, 43, and again invoke his principle that we must not ascribe to Scripture doctrines which we do not find clearly stated there. The intervening sections seem intended to deflate the idea of divine inspiration.
27. Since Latin has no articles, the text does not explicitly say that Christ is the way to salvation, but I think no harm is done by supplying the definite article (as Glazemaker did), provided we understand this statement in a way which does not conflict with Spinoza’s fundamental pluralism: not that we can achieve salvation only by believing that the son of God atoned for the sins of mankind through his death on the cross, but that we achieve salvation by living according to Jesus’ central moral teachings: to love God and our neighbors, and to practice justice. The former interpretation would seem to be excluded by v, 46; xv, 44; xvi, 57; and Letters 73 and 76. In Curley 2010, I argued that Spinoza was a pluralist (in the sense of believing that many religions offer a viable path to salvation). In TP ii, 6 Spinoza rejects the doctrine of original sin, a key support for the view that salvation is based on faith in Christ, and not on obedience to the laws of God.
28. In Letter 71 (IV/304/14ff.) Oldenburg reported that some readers of the TTP felt that he was concealing his opinion concerning Jesus Christ, “the Redeemer of the World and only Mediator for men.” When Oldenburg asked for clarification of Spinoza’s views, his response (Letter 73, IV/309/2) went beyond saying merely that he did not understand what certain churches mean when they say that God assumed a human nature in Christ. He said he found that doctrine absurd and contradictory. For further discussion, see Matheron 1971, 256–58.
29. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan ii, 9.
30. Spinoza discusses the scriptural meaning of ruagh in §§26–28. In §§29–31 he proceeds to discuss what it means in Scripture when something is said to be “of God.” Finally, in §§32–39, he concludes by applying the results of this analysis to the complex expressions ruagh Elohim or ruagh Yahweh. The Latin term Spinoza uses for ruagh, Spiritus, has much of the ambiguity of ruagh. Its English cognate does not have so wide a range of meanings. Maimonides had discussed the ambiguity of ruagh in his Guide I, 40.
31. Spinoza’s translation here is more literal than is common in more recent versions. The pouring of a libation was a common ceremony at the conclusion of alliances. Hence, the NRSV translation has “who make an alliance, but against my will.”
32. Spinoza’s Hebrew text reads עליהם upon them, whereas the Masoretic text, which is the basis for most translations, reads עליכם upon you (pl.).
33. I.e. (as the biblical context makes clear): men and animals share the same fate, death. The fundamental similarity between humans and other animals was also a theme in Uriel da Costa’s denial of immortality. Cf. Gebhardt 1922, 66; Osier 1983, 102.
34. Spinoza does not identify the passage from which this quotation comes (Eccles. 12:7), but it, along with Eccles. 3:19, was prominent in the debates about immortality. In Manasseh 1842/1972 (II, 312–15) Manasseh ben Israel had also juxtaposed these two verses, taking 12:17 to be a proof of the immortality of the soul, and 3:19 to be an “apparently contradictory” verse which required explanation. These are passages we would expect to have been of particular interest to the young Spinoza at the time of his departure from the synagogue, given what Lucas and Revah tell us about his religious doubts (Lucas 1927, 45–46; Revah 1959, 18, 36). See also x, 45; Nadler 2001; and Kaplan 1989.
35. Referring, perhaps, to 1 Kings 3:28.
36. Earlier, in §8, Spinoza’s view seemed to be that it was characteristic of the Jews to refer everything to God, even those common things whose natural causes they knew.
37. Probably a reference to Gen. 6:2, “the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives, whomsoever they chose.” Nachmanides, whose interpretation Spinoza perhaps follows, took this to mean that they took their wives by force, even from among those who were already married to others.
38. mentem deorum. A reference to Gen. 41:38, where the Hebrew is רוח אלהים ruagh Elohim, usually translated “spirit of God.” Though plural in form, אלהים (Elohim), is often treated as a singular term. But since Spinoza emphasizes that the Pharaoh was a pagan, he presumably did not want to make him sound like a monotheist.
39. A reference to Dan. 4:8–9. The Hebrew is ruagh Elohin, but in this case biblical translators typically treat Elohin as plural.
40. For example, in Judg. 6:34; 14:6, 19; 15:14 (ALM).
41. The reference is to 1 Sam. 18:10. Modern commentators are apt to see Saul as suffering from some form of mental illness, perhaps manic depression. Cf. Anchor Samuel I, 280–81. In antiquity such illnesses were regularly attributed to the agency of evil spirits. SC observes here that “to the Hebraic mind there was no power of evil independent of and opposed to God. Good and evil equally were in the power of God, and therefore the spirit which afflicted Saul is described as sent by Him.”
42. Note that Spinoza here treats even attributing a mind to God as a form of anthropomorphism. Bennett observes that though few theologians would credit God with having breath or a body, “most would say God has or is a mind.”
43. Following Akkerman, who reads cautem for cautum.
44. **[ADN. III] Although certain men have certain things nature does not impart to others, nevertheless, they are not said to exceed human nature unless the things they have in this singular way are such that they cannot be perceived from the definition of human nature. E.g., the size of a giant is rare, but nevertheless human. To compose poems extemporaneously is given to very few, and nevertheless, it is human [Saint-Glain: and some do it easily]. Similarly, some may, with their eyes open, imagine certain things so vividly that it’s as if they had those things before them. But if there were someone who had another means of perceiving, and other foundations of knowledge, he would surely transcend the limits of human nature.
46. Cf. i, 9, and the annotation there.
47. A recurring and important theme in the TTP. Cf. iii, 9; vi, 9; and xvi, 3. ALM trace it to a passage in Pliny, Natural History II, v, 7. See also TP ii, 2.
48. Here Spinoza anticipates the fuller statement of his methodology which he will make in vii, 6–7.
49. So Gebhardt, ALM, and Glazemaker (among others) give the citation. But it’s hard to see why 1 Kings 22:2 would be apt. ALM’s annotation suggests (more plausibly) that Spinoza may have intended to refer to 1 Kings 22:20–23, where God is said to put a lying spirit into the mouths of Ahab’s prophets (a passage Spinoza will cite in ii, 7–9).
50. Cf. Ezek. 1:4. SC notes (regarding Ezekiel, xii) that Ezekiel’s description of his vision in his first chapter provided a focal point for Jewish mysticism, “from its beginning down to the later study of the Kabbalah.” See Maimonides Guide III, introduction through ch. vii.
51. In John 1:32 this vision is attributed to John the Baptist, but in Matt. 3:16, to Jesus himself.
52. Note that the doubt Spinoza raises here tends to undermine the chapter’s starting point, which had defined prophecy as certain knowledge (i, 1).
[1] From the preceding chapter it follows (as we’ve already indicated) that the Prophets were not endowed with a more perfect mind, but rather with a power of imagining unusually vividly. The Scriptural narratives also teach this amply. It’s clear that Solomon excelled all others in [20] wisdom, but not in the gift of Prophecy. Similarly, those outstandingly wise men, Heman, Darda, and Calcol, were not Prophets. On the other hand, countryfolk, without any education, and even simple women, like Hagar, Abraham’s handmaid, were granted the gift of Prophecy.1 This [25] also agrees with both experience and reason. For those who have the most powerful imaginations are less able to grasp things by pure intellect. On the other hand, those who have more powerful intellects, and who cultivate them most, have a more moderate power of imagining, and have it more under their 'power. They rein in their imagination, as it were, lest it be confused with the intellect.
[2] So those who eagerly search the Prophetic books for wisdom, and [30] knowledge of both natural and spiritual matters, go completely astray. Since the times, Philosophy and, finally, the subject itself demand it, I have decided to show this fully here. I care little for the snarls of [III/30] the superstitious, who hate no one more than those who cultivate true 'knowledge and true life. Sadly, things have come to this: people who openly confess that they have no idea of God, and that they know God only through created things (whose causes they are ignorant of), do not blush to accuse Philosophers of Atheism.2
[5] [3] To show, in an orderly way, [that the books of the Prophets are not a source of wisdom and the knowledge of spiritual and natural matters], I shall show that the Prophecies varied, not only with the imagination and bodily temperament of each Prophet, but also with the opinions they were steeped in. So Prophecy never made the Prophets more learned. Soon I shall explain this more fully; but first I must treat [10] the certainty of the Prophets, both because it concerns the theme of this chapter, but also because it will help in some measure to get to the conclusion we intend to demonstrate.
[4] Unlike a clear and distinct idea, a simple imagination does not, by its nature, involve certainty. So to be able to be certain of things we [15] imagine, we must add something to the imagination—viz., reasoning.3 It follows that, by itself, Prophecy cannot involve certainty. As we’ve shown, it depended only on the imagination. So the Prophets were not certain about God’s revelation by the revelation itself, but by some sign.
[20] Genesis 15:8—where Abraham asked for a sign after he had heard God’s promise—makes this evident. He trusted God, of course, and did not ask for a sign so as to have faith in God. He asked for a sign to know that it was God who had made this promise to him.
[5] Judges 6:17 establishes the same point even more clearly. There Gideon says to God, ועשית לי אות שאתה מדבר עמי make a sign for me [25] (that I may know) that you are speaking with me. Also [in Exodus 3:12] God says to Moses, וזה לך האות כי אנכי שלחתיך and (let) this (be) a sign to you, that I sent you. And Hezekiah, who had known for some time that Isaiah was a Prophet, asked for a sign of the Prophecy predicting his [return to] health [Isaiah 38:1–8]. This shows that the Prophets [30] always had some sign by which they became certain of the things they imagined Prophetically. That’s why Moses warns [the Jews] to seek a sign from [anyone claiming to be] a Prophet, viz. the outcome of some future event (Deuteronomy 18:22). [6] In this respect, then, Prophecy is inferior to natural knowledge, which needs no sign, but of its own nature involves certainty.
Indeed, this Prophetic certainty was not mathematical, but only [III/31] moral, as is evident from Scripture itself. For in Deuteronomy 13[:2] Moses warns that any Prophet who wants to teach new Gods should be condemned to death, even though he confirms his teaching with signs and miracles. For as Moses himself goes on to say, God also uses [5] signs and miracles to test the people. [7] And Christ too gave this same warning to his Disciples, as Matthew 24:24 shows.4 In fact, Ezekiel clearly teaches (14:9) that God sometimes deceives men with false revelations.5 For he says, והנביא כי יפותה ודבר דבר אני יהוה פתיתי את הנביא ההוא and when a Prophet (i.e., a false one) is led astray and has spoken a word, [10] it is I, God, who have led that Prophet astray. Micaiah also testifies to this concerning the Prophets of Ahab (see 1 Kings 22:23).
[8] Although this seems to show that Prophecy and revelation are very doubtful, still, they do, as we have said, have a great deal of certainty. [15] For God never deceives the pious and the elect, but as that ancient proverb says,6 and as the story of Abigail and her speech show, God uses the pious as instruments of his piety, and the impious as executors [20] and means of his anger. [9] The case of Micaiah, which we have just cited, also establishes this most clearly. For although God had decided to deceive Ahab through Prophets, nevertheless he used only false Prophets. To the pious [Prophet] he revealed the thing as it was, and he did not prohibit him from predicting the truth.7
Nevertheless, as I have said, the Prophet’s certainty was only moral, because no one can justify himself before God, or boast that he is the [25] instrument of God’s piety. Scripture teaches this, and the thing itself is plain. For God’s anger seduced David into numbering the people, though Scripture testifies abundantly to his piety.8
[10] The whole of Prophetic certainty, therefore, is founded on these three things:
1) That the Prophets imagined the things revealed to them very vividly, in the way we are usually affected by objects when we are awake;
[30] 2) That there was a Sign;
3) And finally—this is the chief thing—that they had a heart inclined only to the right and the good.
And although Scripture does not always mention a Sign, still, we must believe that the Prophets always had a Sign. For as many have previously noted, Scripture is not in the habit of always narrating all the conditions and circumstances; instead, it sometimes presupposes that they are known.
[III/32] [11] Furthermore, we can concede that the Prophets who prophesied nothing new, but only what was contained in the Law of Moses, did not need a sign, because they were confirmed by the Law. E.g., the Prophecy of Jeremiah concerning the destruction of Jerusalem was confirmed by the Prophecies of the rest of the prophets, and by the [5] threats of the Law. So it did not need a sign. But Hananiah, contrary to all the Prophets, prophesied a speedy restoration of the city. So he needed a sign. Without one he would have had to doubt his Prophecy until the occurrence of the thing he predicted confirmed his Prophecy. See Jeremiah 28:9.9
[10] [12] Because the certainty the Prophets had from signs was not mathematical—i.e., a certainty which follows from the necessity of the perception of the thing perceived or seen—but only moral, and the signs were given only to persuade the Prophet, it follows that the signs were given according to the opinions and capacity of the Prophet. So a sign [15] which would render one Prophet certain of his Prophecy could not at all convince another, who was steeped in different opinions. That’s why the signs varied in each Prophet.
[13] Similarly, the revelation itself varied in each Prophet, as we have said [ii, 3], according to the disposition of his bodily temperament, according to the disposition of his imagination, and according to the [20] opinions he had previously embraced.
First, the revelation varied according to his temperament in this way: if the Prophet was cheerful, what was revealed to him were victories, peace, and the things which move men to joy; for such men usually imagine these things more frequently. On the other hand, if the Prophet was sad, wars, punishments, and all kinds of evil were revealed to him. [25] And as the Prophet was compassionate, calm, prone to anger, severe, etc., he was more ready for one kind of revelation than for another.10
[14] Secondly, the revelation varied according to the disposition of his imagination: if the Prophet was refined, he perceived the mind of God in a refined style; if he was confused, he perceived it confusedly. It varied similarly in the revelations represented through images. If the Prophet [30] was a rustic, bulls, cows, and the like, were represented to him; if he was a soldier, generals and armies; if he was a courtier, the royal throne and things of that kind.11
[15] Finally, Prophecy varied according to differences in the opinions of the Prophets. To the Magi, who believed in the trifles of astrology, Christ’s birth was revealed through the imagination of a star rising [III/33] in the east (see Matthew 2). To Nebuchadnezzar’s soothsayers the destruction of Jerusalem was revealed in the entrails of animals (see Ezekiel 21:26).12 That King also understood this from oracles and from the direction of arrows he hurled up in the air. Again, to Prophets who [5] believed that men act from free choice and from their own power, God was revealed as indifferent, and as unaware of future human actions. We shall demonstrate all these things separately from Scripture itself.13
[16] The case of Elisha (in 2 Kings 3:15) establishes the first point. He asked for an instrument to prophesy to Jehoram; he could not perceive [10] God’s mind until its music had charmed him.14 Then, finally, he predicted joyful things to Jehoram and his companions. This couldn’t happen earlier, because he was angry with the King—those who are angry with someone are ready to imagine evils, but not goods, concerning them.
[17] Some say that God is not revealed to those who are angry or sad.15 [15] They are surely dreaming. For God revealed that wretched slaughter of the first-born to Moses when he was angry at Pharaoh (see Exodus 11:8), without using any musical instrument to do it. Again, God was revealed to Cain when he was in a rage [Genesis 4:6], and the wretchedness and stubbornness of the Jews were revealed to Ezekiel when he was angry and impatient (see Ezekiel 3:14). Jeremiah prophesied the [20] Jews’ calamities when he was very mournful and weary of life. That’s why Josiah did not want to consult him, but instead asked a woman of that time, expecting, from the female mentality, that she would be more ready to reveal God’s mercy to him (see 2 Chronicles 34[:22–28]).16
[18] Also, Micaiah never prophesied anything good to Ahab, though [25] other true Prophets did (as is evident from 1 Kings 20[:13]). But his whole life he prophesied evils (see 1 Kings 22:8, and more clearly, 2 Chronicles 18:7). The Prophets, therefore, were more ready for one kind of revelation than another, according to the variations in their bodily temperament.
[19] As for the second point, the style of the prophecy varied according to the articulateness of each Prophet. For unlike the Prophecies [30] of Isaiah and Nahum, those of Ezekiel and Amos are written, not in a refined, but in a more unsophisticated style.17 And if anyone who is skilled in the Hebrew language wants to examine these matters more carefully, let him compare certain chapters of the different Prophets with one another when they are dealing with the same subject; he will find a great difference in style.
Let him compare, for example, ch. 1 of the courtier, Isaiah, from vs. [III/34] 11 to vs. 20, with ch. 5 of the rustic Amos, from vs. 21 to vs. 24. Let him compare, next, the order and reasons of the Prophecy of Jeremiah which he wrote against Edom in ch. 49 [vv. 7–22] with the order and reasons of Obadiah [vv. 1–16]. Let him compare also Isaiah 40:19–20 [5] and 44:8ff. with Hosea 8:6 and 13:2. And similarly with the others. If you weigh all these things rightly, you will easily see that God has no distinctive style of speaking, but that he is refined, succinct, and severe, unsophisticated, wordy, and obscure, according to the learning and capacity of the Prophet.
[10] [20] Even when the Prophetic representations and symbols signified the same thing, they still varied. For to Isaiah the glory of God leaving the temple was represented differently than it was to Ezekiel [cf. Isaiah 6 with Ezekiel 1]. The Rabbis maintain that each representation was entirely the same, but that Ezekiel, being a rustic, was struck beyond measure with wonder, and therefore described it fully, with all the [15] circumstances.18 Nevertheless, if they didn’t have a certain tradition in support of this—which I don’t for a moment believe—they are making the whole thing up. For Isaiah saw Seraphim with six wings, while Ezekiel saw beasts with four wings. Isaiah saw God clothed and sitting on a royal throne, while Ezekiel saw him as like a fire. There is no doubt that each of them saw God as he was accustomed to imagine him.
[20] [21] Moreover, the representations varied not only in their manner, but also in their clarity. For Zechariah’s representations were too obscure for him to understand them without explanation, as is evident from his account of them [Zechariah 1:9]. And even after Daniel’s representations had been explained to him, the Prophet himself could [25] not understand them [Daniel 8:15–27]. This did not happen because of the difficulty of what was to be revealed—for it was only a matter of human affairs, which do not exceed the limits of human capacity, except insofar as they are future—but only because Daniel’s imagination did not have the same aptitude for prophesying while he was awake as it had while he was dreaming. This is evident from the fact [30] that at the very beginning of the revelation he was so terrified that he almost despaired of his powers. So because of the weakness of his imagination and of his powers, the things represented to him were very obscure, and he could not understand them even after they had been explained to him.
[22] Here it should be noted that the words Daniel heard (as we have shown above)19 were only imaginary. So it is no wonder that, being upset [III/35] at that time, he imagined all those words so confusedly and obscurely that afterward he could not understand anything from them. Some say that God did not want to reveal the thing clearly to Daniel. But they seem not to have read the words of the Angel, who says expressly (see 10:14) [5] that he came to make Daniel understand what would happen to his people in the end of days. So these things remained obscure because at that time no one was found who had enough power of imagination that they could be revealed to him more clearly.
[23] Finally, the Prophets to whom it was revealed that God would take Elijah up [into heaven] wanted to persuade Elisha that he had [10] been brought down in another place, where they could still find him [2 Kings 2:16]. This clearly shows that they had not understood God’s revelation properly.
There is no need to show these things more fully. For nothing is more clearly established in Scripture than that God endowed some Prophets with far more grace for prophesying than he did others.
[24] [As for the third point] I shall now show more carefully and in greater detail—for I think the matter is of great importance—that [15] the Prophecies or representations also varied according to the opinions the Prophets embraced, and that the Prophets had various, and indeed, contrary, opinions, as well as various prejudices. (I’m speaking here only about purely speculative matters, for we must think quite differently about matters which concern integrity and morals.) From [20] these propositions I shall conclude that Prophecy never rendered the Prophets more learned, but left them with their preconceived opinions, that for that reason we are not at all bound to believe them concerning purely speculative matters.
[25] With astonishing rashness everyone has persuaded himself that the Prophets knew everything the human intellect can attain to. And although certain passages of Scripture indicate to us as clearly as possible [25] that the Prophets were ignorant of certain things, they prefer to say that they do not understand Scripture in those passages, rather than concede that the Prophets were ignorant of anything. Or else they try to twist the words of Scripture so that it says what it plainly does not [30] mean. Of course, if either of these [ways of dealing with Scripture] is permissible, the whole of Scripture is undone. If it is permissible to number the clearest passages among those which are obscure and impenetrable, or to interpret them as one pleases, we will strive in vain to show something from Scripture.20
[26] For example, nothing in Scripture is clearer than that Joshua, and perhaps also the author who wrote his story, thought that the sun [III/36] moves around the earth, that the earth is at rest, and that for some period of time the sun stood still.21 Nevertheless, there are many who do not want to concede that there can be any change in the heavens, and who therefore explain this passage so that it doesn’t seem to say anything like that. Others, who have learned to philosophize more correctly, [5] since they understand that the earth moves, whereas the sun is at rest, or does not move around the earth, strive with all their powers to twist the same [truth] out of Scripture, though it cries out in open protest against this treatment. They truly amaze me!
[27] Are we, I ask, bound to believe that Joshua, a soldier, was skilled in Astronomy? and that the miracle could not be revealed to him, or [10] that the light of the sun could not remain longer than usual above the horizon, unless Joshua understood the cause? Both alternatives seem to me ridiculous. I prefer, then, to say openly that Joshua did not know the true cause of the greater duration of that light, that he and the whole crowd who were present all thought that the sun moves with a [15] daily motion around the earth, and that on that day it stood still for a while. They believed this to be the cause of the greater duration of that light and they did not consider that a refraction greater than usual could arise from the large amount of ice then in that part of the air (see Joshua 10:11)—or from some other cause. We are not now concerned to ask what the true cause was.
[28] Similarly, the sign of the backward motion of the shadow was [20] revealed to Isaiah according to his power of understanding, viz. as a backward motion of the sun [cf. 2 Kings 20:8–12 with Isaiah 38:7–8]. For he too thought that the sun moves and that the earth is at rest. As luck would have it, he never thought of parhelia,22 not even in a dream. We are permitted to maintain this without any hesitation because the sign could really happen, and be predicted to the king by Isaiah, even though the Prophet did not know its true cause.
[25] [29] We must also say the same about Solomon’s building the temple (if, indeed, God revealed that to him), viz., that all his measures were revealed to him according to his power of understanding and opinions. Because we are not bound to believe that Solomon was a Mathematician, we are allowed to affirm that he did not know the ratio between the circumference of a circle and its diameter, and that he thought, [30] like ordinary workmen, that it is 3 to 1. But if it’s permitted to say that we do not understand that text—1 Kings 7:23—then I certainly don’t know what we can understand from Scripture. For the building is narrated there simply and purely historically.
[30] If we’re allowed to suppose that Scripture thought otherwise, [III/37] but for some reason unknown to us wished to write in this way, this will completely overturn the whole of Scripture. Everyone will be able, with equal right, to say the same thing about every passage in Scripture. [5] It will be permissible to perpetrate and defend, without harm to the authority of Scripture, whatever absurdity, whatever evil, human malice can think up. But what we’ve maintained contains no impiety. For though Solomon, Isaiah, Joshua and the rest were Prophets, they were still men, and nothing human should be thought alien to them.23
[31] It was also according to Noah’s power of understanding that it was revealed to him that God was destroying the human race [Genesis 6:11–13]. [10] He thought the earth was not inhabited outside of Palestine. There’s also no impiety in supposing that the Prophets could be ignorant, not just of things of this kind, but of other more important things. They really were ignorant of these things. For they taught nothing remarkable about the divine attributes, but had quite ordinary opinions about God, to which their revelations were accommodated.
[15] I shall now show this by many testimonies from Scripture. From this you will easily see that the Prophets are praised, and so greatly commended, not for the loftiness and excellence of their understanding, but for their piety and constancy of heart.
[32] Adam, the first to whom God was revealed, did not know that [20] God is omnipresent and omniscient. For he hid himself from God [Genesis 3:8] and sought to excuse his sin in God’s presence, as if he had a man before him. So God was revealed to him also according to his power of understanding, as one who is not everywhere and who was unaware of Adam’s location and sin. For he heard, or he seemed [25] to hear, God walking through the garden, and calling him, and asking where he was; and when he showed his sense of shame, [he seemed to hear God] asking him whether he had eaten of the forbidden tree.24 So Adam did not know any other attribute of God than that he was the maker of all things.
[33] To Cain also God was revealed according to his power of [30] understanding, i.e., as unaware of human affairs [Genesis 4:9]. For there was no need for him to have a loftier knowledge of God in order to repent of his sin.
To Laban God revealed himself as the God of Abraham, because Laban believed that each nation has its own special God. See Genesis 31:29.
[34] Abraham, too, did not know that God is everywhere and that he foreknows all things. For when he heard the judgment against the [III/38] Sodomites, he begged God not to carry it out before he knew whether they all deserved that punishment. So in Genesis 18:24 he says: אולי יש חמישים צדיקים בתוך העיר perhaps fifty just men are found in that city. And God was not revealed to him differently. For in Abraham’s imagination [5] [God] speaks thus: ארדה נא ואראה הכצעקתה הבאה אלי עשו כלה ואם לא אדעה now I shall go down to see whether they have done as the great complaint which has come to me says; if not, I shall know it [Genesis 18:21]. Also, the divine testimony concerning Abraham (see Genesis 18:19) contains nothing beyond his obedience, and that he recommended the right [10] and the good to his household; it does not say he had lofty thoughts about God.
[35] Even Moses did not perceive clearly enough that God is omniscient and that all human actions are directed by his decree alone. For though God had told him (see Exodus 3:18) that the Israelites would [15] obey him, he still questioned this, and replied (see Exodus 4:1): והן לא יאמינו לי ולא ישמעו לקולי what if they do not believe me and do not obey me?25 And thus God was revealed to him as indifferent and unaware of future human actions. For he gave him two signs and said (Exodus 4:8): if it should happen that they do not believe the first sign, still, they will believe [20] the last; but if they do not believe even the last, take (then) some water from the river etc.
[36] If anyone is willing to assess Moses’ opinions carefully and without prejudice, he will find clearly that his opinion of God was that he is a being who exists, has always existed, and always will exist. For this reason he calls him by the name יהוה Yahweh, which in Hebrew [25] expresses these three times of existing.26 But concerning his nature he teaches nothing except that he is compassionate, kind, etc., and supremely jealous.27 This is established by a great many passages in the Pentateuch. Next, he believed and taught that this being differs so from all other beings that it cannot be expressed by any image of [30] anything seen, nor can it even be seen—not so much because the thing involves a contradiction as because of human weakness.28 Moreover, he also taught that by reason of his power he is singular or unique.
[37] Moses conceded, of course, that there are beings which—doubtless from God’s order and command—are God’s agents, i.e., beings to whom God has given the authority, right and power to direct nations, [III/39] to provide for them and to care for them. But he taught that this being, whom [the Jews] were bound to worship, was the highest and supreme God, or (to use a Hebrew phrase) the God of Gods.29 So in the song of Exodus (15:11) he said: מי כמוכה באלים יהוה who among the Gods is like you, Yahweh? And Jethro [says] (in Exodus 18:11): עתה ידעתי כי גדול יהוה מכל [5] האלהים now I know that Yahweh is greater than all the Gods, i.e., at last I am forced to concede to Moses that Yahweh is greater than all the Gods and uniquely powerful. But it can be doubted whether Moses believed that these beings who act as God’s agents were created by God. As far as we know, he never said anything about their creation and beginning.
[10] [38] In addition, he taught that this being [God] brought this visible world out of Chaos into order (see Genesis 1:2), that he put seeds in nature, and that therefore, he has the highest right and the highest power over all things,30 and (see Deuteronomy 10:14–15) that in accordance with this highest right and power he chose, for himself alone, the [15] Hebrew nation and a certain region of the world (see Deuteronomy 4:19, 32:8–9), but that he left the other nations and regions to the care of the other Gods which he put in his place. That’s why he was called the God of Israel and of Jerusalem (see 2 Chronicles 32:19), while the other Gods were called the Gods of the other nations.
[20] [39] And that’s why the Jews believed that the region God chose for himself required a special worship of God, completely different from that of other regions—indeed that it could not permit the worship of other Gods, which was proper31 to other regions. They believed the peoples the king of Assyria brought into the lands of the Jews were torn to pieces by lions because they did not know the worship of the [25] Gods of that land. (See 2 Kings 17:25, 26, etc.) [40] According to Ibn Ezra,32 that’s why, when Jacob wanted to seek a homeland, he told his sons to prepare themselves for a new worship, and to put aside the alien Gods, i.e., the worship of the Gods of the land where they then were. (See Genesis 35:2–3.) Also when David wanted to tell Saul that [30] his persecution of him was forcing him to live outside his native land, he said that he was driven out of God’s inheritance and sent to worship other Gods. (See 1 Samuel 26:19.)
[41] Finally, [Moses] believed that this being, or God, had his dwelling place in the heavens (see Deuteronomy 33:27),33 an opinion which was very common among the Gentiles.
[III/40] If we attend now to Moses’ revelations, we find that they were accommodated to these opinions. For because he believed that God’s nature admits of all the conditions we have mentioned, compassion, kindness, etc., God was revealed to him according to this opinion and under these attributes. (See Exodus 34:6–7, which tells how God appeared to [5] Moses, and vss. 4–5 of the Decalogue [in Exodus 20].)
[42] Next, [Exodus] 33:18[–23] relates that Moses asked God to be allowed to see him. But since (as has already been said) Moses had not formed any image of God in his brain, and since (as I’ve already shown) God is revealed to the Prophets only according to the disposition of their [10] imagination, God did not appear to him in any image.34 I say that this happened because it was inconsistent with Moses’s imagination.35 For other Prophets testify that they saw God, viz. Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, etc. [43] And for this reason God replied to Moses, לא תוכל לראות את פני you will not be able to see my face [Exodus 33:20]. And because Moses [15] believed that God is visible, i.e., that it implies no contradiction in the divine nature [for God to be seen]—for otherwise he would not have asked anything like that—[God] adds, כי לא יראני האדם וחי since no one shall see me and live. So he gives Moses a reason consistent with Moses’ own opinion. For he does not say that it involves a contradiction on the part of the divine nature [for God to be seen], as in fact it does, [20] but that it cannot happen because of human weakness.
[44] Next, to reveal to Moses that because the Israelites had worshipped the calf, they had become like the other nations, God says (Exodus 33:2–3) that he will send an angel, i.e., a being which would take care of the Israelites in place of the supreme being, but that he does not wish to be among them. For this way left Moses nothing to [25] show him that the Israelites were dearer to God than the other nations, which God also gave over to the care of other beings, or angels. This is shown by Exodus 33:16.
[45] Finally, because God was believed to live in the heavens, he was revealed as descending from heaven to the top of a mountain. Moses [30] also went up the mountain to speak with God. This would not have been necessary at all, if he could, with equal ease, imagine God to be everywhere.
Even though God was revealed to the Israelites, they knew almost nothing about him. They showed this abundantly when, after a few days, they gave to a calf the honor and worship due to God, and believed that the calf was the Gods which had brought them out of Egypt. [See Exodus 32:4.][III/41] [46] And certainly it is not credible that uneducated men, accustomed to the superstitions of the Egyptians, and worn out by the most wretched bondage, would have understood anything sensible about God, or that Moses would have taught them anything other than a way of living—and that not as a Philosopher, so that they might eventually live well from freedom of mind, but as a Legislator, so that they were [5] constrained to live well by the command of the Law.
[47] So the principle of living well, or the true life, and the worship and love of God, were to them more bondage than true freedom, and the grace and gift of God. For he commanded them to love God and to keep his law, that they might acknowledge the goods they had received from God, such as their freedom from bondage in Egypt. Next he terrified them [10] with threats, if they transgressed those commands, and he promised them many goods if they respected them. So he taught them in the same way parents usually do children who are lacking in all reason.36 Hence, it is certain that they did not know the excellence of virtue and true blessedness.
[48] Jonah thought he could flee from God’s sight [Jonah 1:3]. This [15] seems to show that he too believed that God had entrusted the care of the regions outside Judaea to other powers, whom he had assigned to act for him.
There is no one in the Old Testament who spoke about God more rationally than Solomon, who surpassed everyone in his age in the natural light. That’s why he also thought himself above the Law—for [20] it was imparted only to those who lack reason and the teachings of the natural intellect. All the laws concerning the king (there were chiefly three of these; see Deuteronomy 17:16–17), he regarded as of little importance; indeed, he clearly violated them.37 In doing this, however, he erred, and by indulging in sensual pleasures he acted in a way [25] unworthy of a Philosopher. He taught that all the goods of fortune are hollow for mortals (see Ecclesiastes), that men have nothing more excellent than the intellect, and that there is no greater punishment for them than folly (see Proverbs 16:22).38
[49] But let us return to the Prophets, whose differences of opinion [30] we have undertaken to note. The Rabbis who left us those books of the Prophets now extant found the opinions of Ezekiel so inconsistent with those of Moses that—as we are told in the treatise on the Sabbath (ch. I, 13b)—they almost decided not to admit his book among the canonical ones,39 and would have completely hidden it if a certain Hananias had not taken it upon himself to explain it. They say (as the [III/42] story goes there) that he finally did this, with great labor and zeal. But it isn’t clear enough how he did it. Did he write a commentary, which is now, by chance, lost? Or was he so bold that he changed the very words and utterances of Ezekiel and arranged them according to his own mentality? Whatever he did, Chapter 18, at least, does not seem [5] to agree with Exodus 34:7 or with Jeremiah 32:18, etc.40
[50] Samuel believed that when God has decreed something, he never repents of his decree (see 1 Samuel 15:29), for when Saul to repenting of his sin, wanted to worship God, and to ask forgiveness of him, he said to him that God would not change his decree against him. To [10] Jeremiah, on the other hand, it was revealed (18:8–10) that whether God has decreed some harm or some good to a nation, he may repent of his decree, provided that men also, from the time of his judgment, change for better or for worse. But Joel taught that God repents only of harm (see 2:13).
[51] Finally, Genesis 4:7 shows most clearly that man can overcome [15] the temptations of sin and act well. For this is said to Cain, who, however, never overcame them. Both Scripture and Josephus establish this.41 The same thing may also be inferred most clearly from the chapter of Jeremiah just mentioned. For it says that God may repent of a decree issued for the harm or good of men, depending on whether men are [20] willing to change their practices and way of living. On the other hand, Paul teaches nothing more expressly than that men have no control over the temptations of the flesh except by the special calling and grace of God. See Romans 9:10ff.42 Note that when he attributes justice to God in 3:5 and 6:19, he corrects himself, because he is speaking thus [25] in a human way, on account of the weakness of the flesh.
[52] The passages we have discussed establish more than adequately what we proposed to show: that God accommodated his revelations to the power of understanding and to the opinions of the Prophets, and that the Prophets could be ignorant of things which concern only speculation, but not those which concern loving-kindness and how to [30] conduct our lives,43 and that they really were ignorant and had contrary opinions [regarding speculative matters]. So we really should not seek knowledge of natural and spiritual things from them.
[53] We conclude, therefore, that we are not bound to believe the Prophets regarding anything except what is the end and substance of revelation.44 In all other things each person is free to believe as he pleases. For example, the revelation to Cain [Gen. 4:6–7] teaches us [III/43] only that God warned him to lead a true life, for that was the only intent and substance of the revelation, not teach the freedom of the will or Philosophic matters. So even though the freedom of the will is contained very clearly in the words and reasonings of that warning, we are permitted to think the will is not free, since those words and [5] reasonings were only accommodated to Cain’s power of understanding.
[54] Similarly, the revelation to Micaiah [1 Kings 22:19] means to teach only that God revealed to Micaiah the true outcome of the battle of Ahab against Aram. So this again is all we are bound to believe. Whatever else is contained in that revelation, regarding the true and [10] false Spirit of God, and the host of heaven standing on each side of God, and all the other circumstances of that revelation, does not touch us at all. So concerning those things each one may believe what seems more consistent with his reason.
[55] Concerning the reasonings by which God showed Job his power over all things [Job 38–41]—if indeed it is true that they were revealed [15] to Job and that the author [of that book] was concerned to narrate a history, not, as some believe,45 to embellish his conceptions [by giving them a concrete form]—we must say the same thing: that they were adduced according to Job’s power of understanding, and only to convince him, not that they are universal reasons for convincing everyone.
[56] We should maintain the same thing about the reasonings by [20] which Christ convicted the Pharisees of stubbornness and ignorance, and exhorted his disciples to the true life: he accommodated his reasonings to the opinions and principles of each one. E.g., when he said to the Pharisees (Matthew 12:26), if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then should his kingdom stand?, he just wanted to convince the Pharisees [25] from their own principles, not to teach that there are Devils, or that there is a kingdom of Devils.46 Likewise, when he said to his disciples (Matthew 18:10), see that you do not disdain one of those little ones, for I say to you that in the heavens their Angels etc. [always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven]. For he just wanted to teach them not to be proud and not to [30] disdain anyone, but not the rest of the things which are contained in his reasons, which he offers only to persuade his disciples better.
[57] Finally, we must say absolutely the same thing about the reasonings and signs of the Apostles. There is no need to speak more fully about these matters. For if I had to enumerate all those Passages in Scripture which are written only ad hominem, or, according to someone’s [III/44] power of understanding, and which cannot be defended as divine teaching without great prejudice to Philosophy, I would give up the brevity I desire. Let it suffice, therefore, to have touched on a few, universal things. The rest the curious reader may weigh for himself.
[58] Although only the things we have said about the Prophets and [5] Prophecy pertain particularly to my purpose of separating Philosophy from Theology, nevertheless, because I have treated Prophecy generally, I want to ask now whether the gift of Prophecy was peculiar to the Hebrews or whether it was common to all nations. We also need to ask what we must maintain about the calling of the Hebrews. That’s [10] the object of the following chapter.
1. Spinoza now makes his opposition to Maimonides more explicit. Cf. i, 9, and the annotation there. In 1 Kings 4:31 Solomon is said to have been wiser than all other men (including Heman, Darda, and Kalchol). One matter of dispute is whether Hagar was really a prophet. Maimonides denied it (Guide II, 42). But though the two versions of the story of her expulsion (in Gen. 16:1–16 and 21:8–21) differ in numerous details, both agree that an angel spoke to her and revealed that her offspring would flourish.
2. Spinoza may have in mind the controversies over the Cartesian philosophy at Utrecht and Leiden in the 1640s, where Descartes was accused of atheism, partly because he rejected the traditional arguments for God’s existence, and sought to prove God’s existence from our idea of God, an idea the critics thought we could not have. On this see Verbeek 1992. But the accusation was of course one which Spinoza himself had to face. Cf. Letter 42, IV/218/32–34.
3. What reasoning must be added, if an imagination is to become certain? The Treatise on the Intellect suggests that it is an understanding of the nature of the imagination and the laws of nature involved in causing us to perceive things the way we do. Cf. TdIE, 102–3; TTP i, 44, 48 and v, 35; and Curley 1973. The signs which Spinoza says the prophets had would not provide that understanding, and so would not yield more than a subjective feeling of certainty, not objective certainty.
4. In the passage cited Jesus warns that false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, “to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.”
5. Cf. Descartes, the Second and Sixth Replies (AT 1974–86, VII, 125–26, 142–44, 415–16, 428–31).
6. Spinoza refers, without quoting it, to a proverb cited in 1 Sam. 24:13: “Out of the wicked comes forth wickedness, but my hand shall not be against you.” Abigail’s speech is in 1 Sam. 25:24–31.
7. First Micaiah prophesies success, but then, under pressure from Ahab to tell the truth, he prophesies failure. Cf. 1 Kings 22:13–18, 2 Chron. 18:12–17.
8. Spinoza is referring, in the first instance, to 2 Sam. 24:1, according to which God, in his anger against the people of Israel, incited David to count them. It is unclear why numbering the people was a sin. Manasseh 1842/1972, I, 194–98, canvasses several theories, among them the theory that in failing to count the people by collecting half a shekel from each man (cf. Exod. 30:12–13), David risked bringing the Evil Eye upon them. Manasseh accepts the reality of the Evil Eye, but does not think David’s failure to follow Exodus’s prescription explained why his act was sinful.
In any event, David acknowledged having sinned greatly, and the people of Israel were accordingly punished with a pestilence in which seventy thousand people died. Discomfort about this passage seems to go back to biblical times. 1 Chron. 21:1 makes Satan the one who incited David’s sin (perhaps, as HCSB suggests, because the Chronicler is reluctant to make God the author of a sin he proceeds to punish).
David’s piety is attested in 1 Kings 14:8, 15:5, and 11, though 15:5 takes notice of his (many) shortcomings. Manasseh 1842/1972, II, 63–65, provides an interesting account of the medieval debates about David’s character.
9. Jeremiah’s point, however, seems to be somewhat different from the one Spinoza suggests, viz. that the prophet who prophesies an outcome his hearers desire can be known to be a prophet only after his predictions have been realized.
10. This point is developed further in ii, 16–18.
11. This point is developed further in ii, 19–23.
12. In some translations (e.g., the NRSV) the relevant passage appears in verse 21:21. In others (e.g., the NJPS translation) it’s in verse 26.
13. Since Spinoza regards this point as especially important, he devotes several pages to arguing for it, beginning in ii, 24, and extending to ii, 52.
14. HCSB cites 1 Sam. 10:5–6 to show that “Prophets sometimes used music to induce trance or possession by God’s spirit.”
15. Cf. Maimonides Guide II, xxxvi, which cites the Talmud (Shabbath 30b) in favor of this position.
16. Spinoza’s explanation of Josiah’s consultation of Huldah may have been suggested by that offered in the Talmud (Meg. 14b).
17. A point acknowledged in Calvin, Institutes I, viii, 2 (Gebhardt V, 16).
18. Spinoza refers here to a passage in the Talmud (Hagigah 13b), discussed (but not unequivocally endorsed) by Maimonides Guide III, 6.
19. See i, 10–22, where Spinoza argues that only when God communicated the law to Moses did he use a true voice.
20. The target here is the kind of rationalistic interpretation Spinoza associates with Maimonides. He will return to this critique in vii, 75ff.
21. Cf. Josh. 10:12–14. Note the distinction Spinoza makes between Joshua and the author of the book of Joshua, anticipating a claim he will not argue for until viii, 34–38.
22. A parhelion is a bright spot in the sky caused by the reflection of sunlight on ice crystals in the atmosphere. Descartes offered an explanation of them in the final chapter of his Météores (AT 1974–86, VI, 354–66) and Huygens also wrote a treatise on them, De coronis et parheliis.
23. Alluding to Terence’s Heautontimorumenos, 77. Cf. Letter 13, and TTP Pref. 35.
24. The anthropomorphism of these passages naturally attracted the attention of the classical commentators. Rashi (1960) dealt with the questions God asks in Gen. 3:9 by saying “he knew where [Adam] was, but He asked this in order to open up a conversation with him, that he should not become confused in his reply, if He were to pronounce punishment against him all of a sudden.” Similarly for God’s questions to Cain at Gen. 4:9 and to Balaam at Num. 22:9. Ibn Ezra 1988 offers the same solution.
25. Spinoza’s Hebrew text departs from MT here.
26. Spinoza takes the divine name to be derived from the verbal root hayah, he is, which, depending on pointing, prefixes, and context, can refer to past, present, or future existence. This interpretation stems from Exod. 3:14, which has been variously translated: I am that I am (KJV), I am who I am (RSV, NRSV), I am what I am (RSV, NRSV alt), I will be what I will be (RSV, NRSV alt). This passage has occasioned much discussion, on which see Childs 1974. Spinoza will return to the subject of the divine name in xiii, 10ff., where he will take Exod. 6:3 as his text.
27. At Deut. 4:24, Moses says of God that he is “a devouring fire, a jealous God.” HCSB comments that this combination of epithets expresses “the vehement passion of the Lord’s self-defense against idolatry and other acts of profanation.” Rashi 1960 offered a similar gloss on the use of this language in the Decalogue. (See SC at Exod. 20:5.)
28. That is, it is not (according to Moses) intrinsically impossible for God to be seen; it is only impossible for man to see God and survive the experience. Cf. Exod. 33:20–23, and in the TTP, i, 17–18; ii, 42–43; vii, 19.
29. Cf. Deut. 10:17. Mosaic theology, as Spinoza presents it, is a form of what is sometimes called monolatry: it acknowledges the existence of many gods, but calls upon the people of Israel to worship only one, who is represented as superior to the others and particularly concerned with the people of Israel. It appears that Moses may not have conceived these other gods as created by Yahweh, and some passages suggest that the worship of the other gods was thought appropriate for the inhabitants of other lands.
Though Spinoza’s reading of the Hebrew Bible is common today, it seems to have been unusual in Spinoza’s day. Maimonides interpreted language like Elohim of the Elohim to mean “deity of the angels” (Guide II, 6). Medieval commentators like Rashi, Ibn Ezra, and Nachmanides all followed him, as did Manasseh 1842/1972, qu. 188, commenting on Ps. 95:3. Older translations also often followed this interpretation (e.g., both the older and the more recent JPS translations). For more recent discussions, see Freedman 1987, Scullion 1992, and the annotation to Exod. 15:11 in HCSB, which cites Exod. 12:12, among other passages, as illustrating that other gods are assumed to exist, even though they prove powerless in a contest with Yahweh.
30. Note that Spinoza does not describe God’s creative activity in a way which suggests creation out of nothing. Cf. CM II, x.
31. proprium, which can mean either “peculiar” or “appropriate.”
32. Gebhardt V, 20, identifies the passage in Ibn Ezra as occurring in his commentary on Genesis 31:16 (Ibn Ezra 1988, V, 228).
33. Deut. 33:26 would be more accurate.
34. The claim that God didn’t appear to Moses by any image seems contrary to i, 18 and 21.
35. Manasseh, commenting on Exod. 24:11, reports it as the opinion of “the Sages of the Talmud” that “Moses did not make use of imagination in his prophecies, but that his intellectual powers were divested of all corporeal affections” (1842/1972, I, 187). Cf. Maimonides Guide II, 35–36.
36. Gebhardt V, 20, compares this with similar passages in Maimonides (Guide III, 32) and Calvin (Institutes II, xi, 13).
37. 1 Kings combines high praise for Solomon (in 10:23–24) with sharp criticism (in 11:1–13).
38. On the authorship of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, see the notes at x, 5, and xix, 8. Perhaps Spinoza oversimplifies the teaching of Ecclesiastes. It’s true that its author expresses contempt for the goods of fortune in passages like 6:1–6; but sometimes he includes wisdom and knowledge among the things he finds vain—e.g., in 1:16–18, a passage Spinoza quotes in the Ethics (IV P17S). Manasseh’s discussion of the prima facie contradictions in Ecclesiastes (1842/1972, II, 299–324) deserves attention.
39. Arguably Spinoza has misunderstood the passage from the Talmud which he cites. Shabbath 13b reports that: “R. Judah (250–290) said in Rab’s (220–250) name: In truth, that man Hananiah, son of Hezekiah (early first century) by name, is to be remembered with blessing; but for him the book of Ezekiel would have been withdrawn, for its words contradicted the Torah. What did he do? Three hundred barrels of oil were taken up to him, and he sat in an upper chamber and reconciled the contradictions.” I follow the translation given in Leiman 1976, 72. Leiman argues that the term here translated withdraw, גנז, does not imply a denial of canonical status, but only a withdrawal of the book from circulation, on the ground that it contains problematic material, including material which could encourage heretical ideas (p. 79). Cf. X, 43–47.
40. The reference is evidently to Ezek. 18:14–20, which denies that the sins of the fathers will be visited upon their children. Manasseh, commenting on the apparent inconsistency between this verse and Exod. 20:5, observes that “Not only do these verses appear to contradict each other, but on a proper examination of sacred history, it will be found that there are many opposite statements on this point” (1842/1972, I, 164). He canvasses a number of different solutions and claims that the texts can be reconciled by any of them.
The fact that a prima facie inconsistency has been left standing does not seem consistent with Spinoza’s suggestion that Hananiah may have secured Ezekiel a place in the canon by altering his text to make it consistent with the teachings of the other prophets.
41. The reference is to Josephus, Antiquities I, ii, 2.
42. The passage cited here has also been quoted in Volume I, cf. I/264–65, and will recur in the correspondence. The metaphor of the potter and the clay used there by Paul is also used, to an apparently different purpose, by Jeremiah in the chapter cited above. Spinoza’s treatment of Paul as a prophet seems to conflict with the position he takes in Ch. xi.
43. Cf. Maimonides, Guide, II, 38. Spinoza here treats the question of man’s ability to overcome temptation as a speculative matter, but it does seem to bear on practical matters. If we think people can’t overcome temptation, this may affect whether we treat their shortcomings with forbearance.
44. Cf. Maimonides Guide II, 38: “Know that the true prophets indubitably grasp speculative matters” (Gebhardt V, 22).
45. Maimonides is apparently one of the people criticized here. Cf. x, 16–18. I’ve discussed Spinoza’s interpretation of Job in Curley 2002.
46. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan viii, 25–26.
AND WHETHER THE GIFT OF PROPHECY WAS PECULIAR TO THE HEBREWS
[1] The true happiness and blessedness of each person consists only [15] in the enjoyment of the good, and not in a self-esteem founded on the fact that he alone enjoys the good, all others being excluded from it. For whoever views himself as more blessed because things are well with him, but not with others, or because he is more blessed and more fortunate than others, does not know true happiness and blessedness. [20] The joy he derives from that comparison comes from envy and a bad heart—if it isn’t mere childishness.
[2] For example, the true happiness and blessedness of man consists only in wisdom and in knowledge of the truth, not at all in the fact that he is wiser than others, or that others lack true knowledge. For their ignorance does not increase his wisdom at all, i.e., his true happiness. [25] So someone who rejoices for that reason rejoices because of an evil occurring to someone else. He is envious and evil, failing to know either true wisdom or the peace of true life.
[3] To exhort the Hebrews to obey the law Scripture says
[i] that God chose them for himself before the other nations (Deuteronomy 10:15),
[30] [ii] that he is close to them, but not to others (Deuteronomy 4:4–7),
[iii] that he has prescribed just laws only for them (Deuteronomy 4:8), and finally,
[iv] that he has made himself known only to them, the others being treated as inferior (Deuteronomy 4:32), etc.
When it says this, it speaks only according to the power of understanding [III/45] of people who, as we have shown in the preceding chapter, and as Moses himself witnesses (Deuteronomy 9:6–7), did not know true blessedness. [4] For surely they would have been no less blessed if God had called all equally to salvation; God would have been no less well-disposed toward them, if he had been equally close to the others; [5] the laws would have been no less just, and the Hebrew people no less wise, if the laws had been prescribed to all; miracles would have shown God’s power no less if they had been performed for the sake of other nations also; and finally, the Hebrews would have been no less bound to worship God if God had bestowed all these gifts equally on all people.
[5] Moreover, what God says to Solomon—that no one after him [10] would be as wise as he was (1 Kings 3:12)—seems to be only a manner of speaking, to signify exceptional wisdom. However that may be, we must not in any way believe that God promised Solomon, for his greater happiness, that he would not afterward bestow such great wisdom on anyone else. For this would not increase Solomon’s intellect at all, and a [15] wise King would give no less thanks to God for such a great gift, even if God had said that he would endow everyone with the same wisdom.1
[6] But though we say that in the passages of the Pentateuch just cited Moses was speaking according to the Hebrews’ power of understanding, we still don’t wish to deny that God prescribed those laws [20] of the Pentateuch only to them, or that he spoke only to them, or, finally, that the Hebrews saw wonders whose like no other nation ever saw. We mean only that Moses wanted to warn the Hebrews in this way, and especially by these reasons, so that he might bind them more to the worship of God, in accordance with their childish power [25] of understanding. Next, we wished to show that the Hebrews did not excel the other nations in 'knowledge or in piety, but in something altogether different—or (to speak, with Scripture, according to their power of understanding) that, though the Hebrews were frequently warned, they were not chosen by God before all others for a true life and lofty speculations, but for something entirely different. What this [30] was, I shall show here in an orderly fashion.
[7] But before I begin, I want to explain briefly what in the following I shall understand by God’s guidance, by God’s aid (both external and internal), by God’s choice, and finally, by fortune.
By God’s guidance I understand the fixed and immutable order of nature, [III/46] or the connection of natural things.
[8] For we have said above, and have already shown elsewhere,2 that the universal laws of nature, according to which all things happen and are determined, are nothing but the eternal decrees of God, which always involve eternal truth and necessity. Therefore, whether we say that all things happen according to the laws of nature, or that [5] they are ordered according to the decree and guidance of God, we say the same thing.
[9] Next, because the power of all natural things is nothing but the power itself of God, through which alone all things happen and are determined, from this it follows that whatever man, who is also a part of nature, provides for himself, as an aid to preserving his being, or [10] whatever nature supplies him with, without his doing anything himself, it is the power of God alone which provides these things for him, inasmuch as it acts either through human nature or through things outside human nature. Therefore,
whatever human nature can furnish for preserving its being from its own power alone, we can rightly call God’s internal aid, and
whatever in addition turns out for his advantage from the power of [15] external causes, we can rightly call God’s external aid.
[10] From these considerations it is easy to infer what must be understood by God’s choice. For since no one does anything except according to the predetermined order of nature, i.e., according to God’s eternal guidance and decree, it follows that
[20] no one chooses any manner of living for himself, or does anything, except by the special calling of God, who has chosen him before others for this work, or for this manner of living.
by fortune I understand nothing but God’s guidance, insofar as it directs human affairs through external and unforeseen causes.
With these preliminaries, we shall return to our purpose, which was [25] to see why the Hebrew nation was said to have been chosen by God before others. To show this, I proceed as follows.
[12] Whatever we can honorably desire is related above all to these three things:
[i] understanding things through their first causes;
[30] [ii] gaining control over the passions, or acquiring the habit of virtue; and finally,
[iii] living securely and healthily.
The means which lead directly to the first and second of these, and can be considered their proximate and efficient causes, are contained in human nature itself. So acquiring them depends chiefly on our power alone, or on the laws of human nature alone. For this reason we must maintain, without qualification, that these gifts are not peculiar [III/47] to any nation, but have always been common to the whole human race—unless we want to dream that formerly nature produced different kinds of men.
[13] But the means which lead to living securely and preserving the body are chiefly placed in external things, and for that reason they are [5] called gifts of fortune, because they depend for the most part on the governance of external causes of which we are ignorant. So in this matter, the wise man and the fool are almost equally happy or unhappy.
Nevertheless, to live securely, and to avoid injuries from other men and from the beasts, human governance and vigilance can be a great [10] help. [14] To this end reason and experience have taught no more certain means than to form a social order with definite laws, to occupy a definite area of the world, and to reduce the powers of all, as it were, into one body, the body of the social order.
But to form and preserve a social order requires no small talent and vigilance. So a social order which for the most part is founded and [15] directed by prudent and vigilant men will be more secure, more stable, and less subject to fortune. Conversely, if a social order is established by men of untrained intelligence, it will depend for the most part on fortune and will be less stable. [15] If, in spite of this, it has lasted a long time, it will owe this to the guidance of another, not to its own [20] guidance. Indeed, if it has overcome great dangers and matters have turned out favorably for it, it will only be able to wonder at and revere the guidance of God (i.e., insofar as God acts through hidden external causes, but not insofar as he acts through human nature and the human mind). Since nothing has happened to it except what is completely unexpected and contrary to opinion, this can even be considered to [25] be really a miracle.
[16] The only thing which distinguishes one nation from one another, then, is the social order and the laws under which they live and by which they are directed. So the Hebrew nation was not chosen by God before others because of its intellect or its peace of mind, but because [30] of its social order and the fortune by which it came to have a state, and kept it for so many years.
[17] This is also established most plainly by Scripture itself. For if you run through it even casually, you will see clearly that the Hebrews excelled the other nations only in this: they handled their security auspiciously, and overcame great dangers. For the most part this was [III/48] just by God’s external aid. In other things, you will see that they were equal to others, and that God was equally well-disposed to all. [18] As far as the intellect is concerned, it is clear (as we have shown in the preceding chapter) that they had quite ordinary thoughts about God and nature. They were not chosen by God before others for their [5] intellect. But neither were they chosen because of their virtue and true life. For in this respect also they were equal to the other nations and only a very few were chosen. [19] Their election, therefore, and their calling consisted only in the enduring prosperity of their state and in [other temporal] advantages.
Nor do we see that God promised the Patriarchs3** or their successors [10] anything more than this. Indeed, all the Law promises for obedience is the continual prosperity of their state and the other advantages of this life. Conversely, [it threatened] nothing for obstinacy and breaking the covenant except the ruin of their state and the greatest [temporal] disadvantages.4
[20] This is not surprising. For the end of the whole social order and of the state—as is evident from what has just been said and as we shall show more fully in what follows—is to live securely and conveniently.5 [15] Moreover, a state can stand firm only if there are Laws by which each one is bound. But if all the members of a social order wish to abandon the laws, they thereby dissolve the social order and destroy the state. [21] So nothing else could be promised to the social order of the Hebrews, for their constant observance of the laws, except security [20] of life6** and the advantages [security provides]. Conversely, no more certain punishment for obstinacy could be predicted than the ruin of the state, and the evils which commonly follow from that, along with the other evils which would arise especially for them because of the ruin their particular state. But for the present there is no need to treat these things more fully.7
[22] I add only this: the Laws of the Old Testament were revealed [25] and prescribed only to the Jews. For since God chose only them to constitute a particular social order and state, they necessarily had to have special laws. Whether God prescribed special laws to other nations also and revealed himself to their Legislators prophetically, i.e., under [30] those attributes by which they were accustomed to imagine God, that seems to me not sufficiently established. But this, at least, is evident from Scripture itself: that by God’s external guidance the other nations also had a state and their own special laws. [23] To show this I’ll cite just two passages of Scripture.
In Genesis 14:18–20 it is related that Melchizedek was king of [III/49] Jerusalem8 and priest of God, the most high, and that he blessed Abraham, as was the right of the Priest (see Numbers 6:23), and finally, that Abraham, the beloved of God, gave a tenth of all his spoils to the priest of God. [24] All these things show clearly enough that, before [5] God founded the People of Israel, he had established kings and priests in Jerusalem, and prescribed customs and laws for them. Whether he did this prophetically or not—that, as we have said, is not sufficiently clear. But this much, at least, I’m persuaded of: while Abraham lived there, he lived scrupulously according to those laws. For Abraham did not receive any rites specially from God; nevertheless Genesis 26:5 says [10] that Abraham observed the worship, precepts, institutions and Laws of God. Doubtless these must be understood to be the worship, precepts, institutions and laws of king Melchizedek.
[25] Again, Malachi (1:10–11) reproaches the Jews in these words: מי גם בכם ויסגור דלתים ולא תאירו מזבחי חנם אין לי חפץ בכם וגו: כי ממזרח שמש ועד מבואו גדול שמי בגוים ובכל מקום מוקטר מוגש לשמי ומנחה טהורה כי גדול שמי בגוים אמר יהוה צבאות Who is there among you who will close the doors (sc. of the temple), so that the fire shall not be placed on my altar in vain; I take no pleasure in you, etc. For from the rising of the sun to its setting, my name is great among the nations, and everywhere incense is set before me, [20] and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the God of hosts. Unless we want to do violence to these words,9 they can only be taken as referring to the present time. So they testify more than adequately that the Jews of that time were no more beloved of God than the other Nations, indeed, that God had, by miracles, become [25] more known to the other Nations than to the Jews of that time, who had then regained a part of their state without miracles, and finally, that the Nations had rites and ceremonies which were acceptable to God.
[26] But I put these matters to one side. It is enough for my purposes to have shown that the Jews’ election concerned nothing but the temporal prosperity of the body, and freedom, or a state, and the [30] manner and means by which they acquired it, and hence also the Laws, insofar as they were necessary for making that particular state stable, and finally, the manner in which those laws were revealed. In other things, and in those in which the true happiness of man consists, I have shown that they were equal to the other nations.
[27] So when it is said in Scripture (see Deut. 4:7) that no Nation [III/50] has Gods as close to it as the Jews have God, that must be understood only with respect to the state and only concerning that time in which so many miracles happened to them. For with respect to intellect and virtue, i.e., with respect to blessedness, God, as we have said and shown by reason itself, is equally well-disposed to all. This is also sufficiently established by Scripture itself.
[5] [28] For the Psalmist says (Ps. 145:18): קרוב יהוה לכל קוראיו לכל אשר יקראוהו באמת God is near to all who call him, to all who truly call him. Similarly in the same Psalm, vs. 9: טוב יהוה לכל ורחמיו על כל מעשיו God is beneficent to all, and his compassion (is) towards all things which he has made. [10] In Ps. 33:15 it is said clearly that God has given the same intellect to all, in these words: היוצר יחד לבם who forms their heart in the same way. For the Hebrews believed the heart to be the seat of the soul and of the intellect, as I believe everyone knows well enough.
[29] Again, Job 28:2810 establishes that God prescribed this Law to [15] the whole human race: to revere God and to abstain from evil works, or to act well. So although Job was a gentile, he was most acceptable of all to God, since he surpassed everyone in piety and in religion. Finally, Jonah 4:2 establishes most clearly that God is well-disposed, compassionate, [20] long-suffering, full of beneficence, and repentant of evil toward all men and not only toward the Jews. For Jonah says for that reason I decided before to flee to Tarsus because I knew (from the words of Moses in Exodus 34:6) that you are a God who is well-disposed, compassionate, etc. and therefore would pardon the gentiles of Nineveh.
[25] [30] We conclude, then—since God is equally well-disposed to all and chose the Hebrews only with respect to their social order and their state—that each Jew, considered alone and outside that social order and state, possesses no gift of God which would place him above other men, and that there is no difference between him and a gentile.
[31] Since God is equally beneficent, compassionate, etc., to all, and [30] the function of the Prophet was to teach men, not the special laws of their native land so much as true virtue, and to advise them about that, there is no doubt that all the nations had Prophets, and that the gift of Prophecy was not peculiar to the Jews. Indeed, both sacred and profane histories testify to this. Although the sacred histories of the Old Testament [III/51] do not establish that the other Nations had as many Prophets as the Hebrews, or indeed that God sent any gentile Prophet expressly to the nations, that does not matter. For the Hebrews were concerned to write only of their own affairs, and not those of other nations.
[32] It is enough, then, that we should find in the Old Testament [5] men who were gentiles and uncircumcised (like Noah, Enoch, Abimelech, and Balaam) and prophesied, and that God sent the Hebrew Prophets not only to their own nation, but also to many others.11 For Ezekiel prophesied to all the nations then known. Obadiah prophesied, so far as we know, only to the Edomites, and Jonah, principally to the Ninevites.
[10] [33] Isaiah not only lamented and predicted the calamities of the Jews, and sang of their restoration, he also lamented the calamities of other nations. For he says in 16:9 על כן אבכה בבכי יעזר Therefore I shall mourn with the weeping of Jazer; and in ch. 19 he predicts first the calamities of the Egyptians, and afterward their restoration (see 19:19, 20, 21, 25). [15] He says God will send a Savior to them, who will free them, that God will become known to them, and finally, that the Egyptians will worship God with sacrifices and offerings. In the end he calls this nation Blessed Egypt, people of God. All these things are most worthy of being noted.
[34] Finally, Jeremiah is called not only a Prophet of the Hebrew [20] people, but a Prophet of the nations without exception (see 1:5). He too laments when he predicts the calamities of the nations, and predicts their restoration; for he says in 48:31 על כן על מואב איליל ולמואב כלה אזעק Therefore I wail for Moab, I cry out for all Moab etc., and in 48:36 על כן [25] לבי למואב כחללים יהמה Therefore my heart beats for Moab like a drum. And finally he predicts their restoration, as he does also the restoration of the Egyptians, the Ammonites and the Elamites.
[35] So there is no doubt that the other nations had their own Prophets also, as the Jews did, who prophesied to them and to the [30] Jews. Although Scripture mentions only Balaam to whom the future affairs of the Jews and of other nations were revealed, nevertheless it is not credible that Balaam prophesied only on that occasion. For the narrative itself establishes very clearly that he had long been famous for prophecy and other divine gifts. When Balak bids him to come to [III/52] him, he says (Numbers 22:6) כי ידעתי את אשר תברך יבורך ואשר תאור יואר since I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed. So he had that same power which God bestowed on Abraham (see Genesis 12:3).
[36] Again, Balaam replies to the messengers like one who is accustomed [5] to prophecies, saying that they should wait for him until the will of God is revealed to him. When he prophesied, i.e., when he interpreted the true mind of God, he was accustomed to say this of himself: נאם שומע אמרי אל ויודע דעת עליון מחזה שדי יחזה נופל וגלוי עינים the oracle of him who hears the dictates of God, and who knows the 'knowledge (or mind and [10] foreknowledge) of the most high, who sees the vision of the almighty, falling down, but with his eyes open.12 Finally, after he has blessed the Hebrews according to the command of God, he began (as was his custom) to prophesy to the other nations and to predict their future affairs.
[37] All these things indicate more than adequately either that Balaam was always a Prophet, or that he prophesied quite frequently, and [15] (what is still to be noted here) that he had what mainly rendered the Prophets certain of the truth of their prophecy: a heart inclined only to the right and the good. For he did not bless those whom he wished to and curse those whom he wished to, as Balak thought, but only those whom God willed to be blessed or cursed. That is why he replied to [20] Balak even if Balak should give me enough silver and gold to fill his house, I cannot transgress God’s edict, to do good or evil according to my own will; what God speaks I will speak.13
[38] As for the fact that God was angry with him while he was on his journey, that also happened to Moses, when, in accordance with God’s command (see Exodus 4:24), he was setting out for Egypt. As for the [25] fact that he accepted money for prophesying, Samuel did the same (see 1 Samuel 9:7–8). And if he sinned in some matter (concerning this, see 2 Peter 2:15–16 and Jude 11), no one is so righteous that he always acts well and never sins (see Ecclesiastes 7:20). Surely his utterances must [30] always have had great value before God and his power of cursing was certainly very great, since it is found so often in Scripture (in order to show God’s great compassion toward the Israelites) that God would not listen to Balaam and that he turned his curse into a blessing (see Deuteronomy 23:6,14 Joshua 24:10, Nehemiah 13:2). So there is no doubt that he was most acceptable to God. For the utterances and [III/53] curses of impious men do not move God at all.
[39] So since Balaam was a true Prophet and nevertheless Joshua (13:22) calls him קוסם, divine or soothsayer, it is certain that this term is also taken in a good sense: those whom the gentiles were accustomed to call soothsayers and divines were true Prophets, and those whom Scripture [5] often accuses and condemns were Pseudo-divines, who deceived the nations as the Pseudo-prophets deceived the Jews. Scripture clearly establishes this too in other passages. So we conclude that the gift of Prophecy was not peculiar to the Jews, but common to all the nations.
[10] [40] Still, the Pharisees bitterly maintain the contrary, that this divine gift was peculiar to their nation, and that the other nations predicted future affairs by I know not what diabolical power.15 What will superstition not invent? The main passage they cite, to confirm this opinion by the authority of the Old Testament, is Exodus 33:16, where Moses [15] says to God: ובמה יודע אפה16 כי מצאתי חן בעיניך אני ועמך הלא בלכתך עמנו ונפלינו אני ועמך מכל העם אשר על פני האדמה for how shall it be known that I and your people have found grace in your eyes? surely when you go with us, and we are separated, I and your people, from every people on the surface of the earth. [20] [41] From this the Pharisees want to infer that Moses asked God to be present to the Jews, to reveal himself prophetically to them, and to grant this grace to no other nation.
It’s ridiculous, of course, that Moses should envy God’s presence to the nations, or that he should have dared to ask such a thing of God. But the fact is that after Moses knew the mentality and stubborn heart [25] of his nation, he saw clearly that they could not finish what they had begun without the greatest miracles and the special external aid of God—indeed, that they would necessarily perish without such aid. To establish that God wished them to be preserved, he asked this special external aid of God. So he says in [Exodus] 34:9 if I have found grace in [30] your eyes, Lord, may the Lord go among us, since this is a stiff-necked people, etc. [42] The reason, then, why he asked this special external aid of God was that the people were stubborn. And God’s response shows even more clearly that Moses asked for nothing beyond this special external aid of God. For he immediately replied (Exodus 34:10): Behold, I make a covenant, that in the presence of your whole people I shall do wonders which [III/54] have not been done in all the earth, nor in any nation. So Moses deals here only with the choice of the Hebrews, as I have explained it, and does not ask anything else of God.
[43] Nevertheless, in Paul’s epistle to the Romans I find another text which moves me more, viz. 3:1–2, where Paul seems to teach something [5] other than what we do here. For he says what, then, is the superiority of the Jew? or what is the advantage of circumcision? it is great in every way; for the primary one is that the utterances of God were entrusted to him.
But if we attend to the doctrine which Paul mainly wants to teach, we shall find nothing contrary to our doctrine; on the contrary, we shall [10] find that he teaches the same thing we do here. For he says (3:29) that God is the God both of the Jews and of the nations, and in 2:25–26: if he who is circumcised departs from the law, his circumcision will be made a foreskin; on the other hand, if he who has a foreskin observes the commandment of the law, his foreskin will be counted as circumcision. [44] Again, in 3:9 [15] and 4:15 he says that all—the Jews and the nations equally—have been under sin, but that there is no sin without a commandment and a law.
From this it is established with the utmost clarity that the law was revealed to everyone without exception (as we have also shown above from Job 28:28), and that all have lived under the law, i.e., under that law which concerns only true virtue, and not that which is established [20] according to the nature and constitution of some particular state, and is accommodated to the mentality of one nation.
[45] Finally, Paul concludes that since God is the God of all nations, i.e., since he is equally well-disposed to all, and all were equally under the law and sin, God sent to all nations his Christ, [25] who would free all equally from bondage to the law, so that they would no longer act well because of the Law’s commandment, but because of a constant decision of the heart. So Paul teaches exactly what we require.
[46] When Paul says that the utterances of God were entrusted only to the Jews, either we must understand that only to them were the Laws entrusted in writing, but that to the other nations they were entrusted [30] only by revelation and concept,17 or we must say that (since Paul was concerned to rebut an objection which only the Jews could make) he was replying according to the power of understanding of the Jews, and the opinions then received among them. For in order to teach those things which he partly saw and partly heard, he was a Greek with the Greeks and a Jew with the Jews.18
[47] Now all that remains is to reply to certain arguments by which [III/55] they19 want to persuade themselves that the choice of the Hebrews was not for a time, and in relation only to their state, but eternal. For they say: [i] we see that after the loss of their state the Jews have survived for many years, though they were scattered everywhere and separated [5] from all the nations. This has not happened to any other Nation. And [ii] we see that in many places the Sacred Texts seem to teach that God chose the Jews unto himself to eternity. So even if they have lost their state, they remain God’s chosen people.
[48] There are two principal passages which they think teach this eternal choice most clearly: (1) Jeremiah 31:36, where the Prophet [10] testifies that the seed of Israel will remain God’s nation to eternity, evidently comparing them with the fixed order of the heavens and of nature; and (2) Ezekiel 20:32[–44], where [the Prophet] seems to claim that even though the Jews deliberately choose to abandon the worship of God, he will still gather them from all the regions into which they have been dispersed, lead them to the wilderness of the peoples (as he [15] led their ancestors to the wilderness of Egypt), and at last, after he has weeded out the rebels and the transgressors from among them, lead them from there to the mount of his holiness, where the whole house of Israel will worship him.
[49] It’s common—especially among the Pharisees—to bring up other passages besides these. But I think I will satisfy everyone if I reply to [20] these two. This I will do very easily, once I have shown from Scripture itself that God did not choose the Hebrews to eternity, but only on the same condition on which he previously chose the Canaanites. They too, as we have shown above,20 had priests who worshipped God scrupulously. But God still rejected them on account of their extravagant living, their negligence, and their bad worship. [50] For in Leviticus [25] 18:27–28 Moses warns the Israelites that they should not be defiled by abominations, as the Canaanites were, lest the earth vomit them forth, as it vomited forth the nations which inhabited those places. And Deuteronomy 8:19–20 threatens them most explicitly with total ruin. For it says העדותי בכם היום כי אבד תאבדון כגוים אשר יהוה מאביד מפניכם כן תאבדון [30] I declare to you this day, that you will perish without exception; like the nations which God made perish from your presence, so you will perish. Similarly we find other passages in the Law which indicate explicitly that God did not choose the Hebrew nation unconditionally, nor to eternity.
[51] So if the Prophets predicted a new and eternal covenant of the knowledge, love, and grace of God, it is easily proven that this [III/56] was promised only to the pious. For in the chapter of Ezekiel we have just cited, it is said21 explicitly that God will separate the rebels and transgressors from them, and in Zephaniah 3:12–13,22 that God will remove the proud from the midst [of the people of Israel] and will let [5] the poor survive. Because this choice concerns true virtue, we must not think it was promised only to the pious among the Jews, the others being excluded. Rather we must believe that the true gentile Prophets—whom we have shown that all nations had—promised the same thing to the faithful of their Nations, and comforted them with it. [52] [10] So this eternal covenant of the knowledge and love of God is universal.
[The universality of the covenant] is also established with the utmost clarity by Zephaniah 3:10–11. So we must admit no difference in this matter between the Jews and the nations, nor is there any other election peculiar to them, beyond what we have already shown.
Granted, when the Prophets speak about this election, which concerns [15] only true virtue, they mix in many things about sacrifices and other ceremonies, and about the rebuilding of the Temple and the City. But that’s because, as was the custom in prophecy, and its nature, they wanted to explain spiritual matters in figurative expressions. That way they would at the same time indicate to the Jews, whose Prophets they were, that the restoration of the state and of the Temple was to be expected in the time of Cyrus. [53] So today the Jews have absolutely [20] nothing which they could attribute to themselves beyond all the Nations.
It’s true also that they have survived for many years, in spite of being scattered and without a state. But that is nothing to wonder at, after they separated themselves so from all the nations that they have drawn the hatred of all men against themselves, not only by having external customs contrary to the customs of the other nations, but also by the sign of circumcision, which they maintain most scrupulously.23
[25] Moreover, experience has already taught that the hatred of the Nations has done much to preserve them. [54] Previously, when the King of Spain compelled the Jews either to accept the Religion of the Kingdom or to go into exile, a great many Jews accepted the Religion of the priests. But because all the privileges of native Spaniards were [30] granted to those who accepted that religion, and they were thought worthy of all honors, they immediately mixed themselves with the Spaniards. As a result, after a little while no traces of them remained, nor any memory. Just the opposite happened to those whom the King of Portugal compelled to accept the religion of his state. Although they converted to that religion, they always lived separated from everyone [III/57] else, presumably because he declared them unworthy of all honors.24
[55] I think the sign of circumcision is also so important in this matter that I am persuaded that this one thing will preserve this Nation to eternity. Indeed, if the foundations of their religion did not make their hearts unmanly, I would absolutely believe that some day, given the opportunity, they would set up their state again, and God would [5] choose them anew. That’s how changeable human affairs are.
[56] We have another excellent example of [the importance of a distinguishing mark in preserving national identity] in the Chinese. They have most scrupulously kept a kind of tail on their head, by which they separate themselves from everyone else. Thus separated, they have preserved themselves for so many thousands of years that they far surpass [10] all other nations in antiquity. They have not always remained in charge of their state; but they have regained it when it was lost. Doubtless they will regain it again, when the hearts of the Tartars begin to grow feeble from the negligence and extravagant living of wealth.
[57] Finally, if anyone wants to maintain, for this or some other reason, that God has chosen the Jews to eternity, I won’t resist that, [15] provided he maintains that—whether this election is for a time or eternal—insofar as it is peculiar to the Jews, it concerns only their state and the advantages of the body. This is the only thing which can distinguish one Nation from another. In intellect and true virtue no nation is distinguished from any other; so in these matters God has not chosen one in preference to the others.
1. Gebhardt notes a similar passage in Meyer 1666, 22 (iii, 21).
2. The earlier passage where this has been said is probably i, 44. The other work where this has been shown is probably CM II, 9 (I/267/17ff.), though as ALM note, this compromises the anonymity of the TTP. But I do not think Spinoza would be referring to the unpublished Ethics, and as ALM also note, ADN. VI also refers to the CM.
3. **[ADN. IV] In Gen. 15[:1] it’s related that God said to Abraham that he was his defender and that he would give him a very great reward. To this Abraham replied that he could expect nothing which would be of any importance, because, though already in advanced old age, he was childless.
4. In particular, the Hebrew Bible makes no promise of eternal life in return for obedience. Lucas’s biography of Spinoza (1927) reports that one reason for the excommunication was that Spinoza denied the existence of scriptural evidence for immortality (and argued that the evidence for mortality was much stronger). Cf. i, 28. See also Nadler 2001.
5. In xx, 12, Spinoza will claim that the end of the state is really freedom (ALM). See the annotation there for more on this.
6. **[ADN. V] From Mark 10:21 it’s evident that observing the commandments of the Old Testament does not suffice for eternal life. [In Mark 10:17–22 a rich man asks Jesus what he needs to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus first says he must keep the commandments. When the rich man says he has done that, Jesus replies that he lacks one thing: he must sell what he owns, give the money to the poor, and follow Jesus. For useful discussion of the history of the interpretations of this challenging verse, see Anchor Mark, II, 727–30. There are parallel versions, with interesting variations, in Matt. 19:16–22 and Luke 18:18–25.]
7. Bennett notes the shift in this paragraph from talk about goods “promised” for obedience to the laws to talk about “punishments predicted” for disobedience. Given the impersonality of Spinoza’s conception of God, his identification (in iii, 7) of God’s activity with the operation of the laws of nature, and his denial in the next chapter that God can be a lawgiver, the language of prediction can be taken more literally than the language of promises and threats.
8. Kirchmann (1871, 25–26) accused Spinoza of a gross error for identifying Melchizedek as the king of Jerusalem, when Gen. 14:18 identifies him as the king of Salem. He supposed Jerusalem to have been built much later, by David. ALM suggest that Spinoza is relying on a tradition which goes back to Josephus (Antiquities I, x, 2), according to which Salem was later called Jerusalem. But Spinoza may have been relying on the biblical passage which was probably the ultimate basis for Josephus’s claim, Ps. 76:2.
9. Some translations have put verse 11 in the future tense, e.g., the KJV: “my name shall be great among the Gentiles; and in every place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offering: for my name shall be great among the heathen, saith the LORD of hosts.” And some Christian readers have thus interpreted Malachi as prophesying the worldwide worship of the Christian church. The Vulgate, the NRSV, and the NJPS translation put verse 11 in the present tense. For discussion, see Anchor Malachi, 218–19.
10. Gebhardt has 29:28 here, which is clearly wrong. Droetto/Giancotti correct to 28:28, calling attention to III/54/18.
11. ALM point out that support can be found in the Talmud for the possibility of prophets among the gentiles, and of Hebrew prophets to the gentiles. See Baba Bathra 15b. But it seems that there was strong opposition to the idea among Spinoza’s Jewish contemporaries. See iii, 40, and the annotation there.
12. Num. 24:16, cf. 24:4.
13. Num. 24:13, cf. 22:18.
14. Spinoza follows the numbering of the Hebrew Bible here. The reference is to Deut. 23:5.
15. Ibn Ezra (1988) denied that there were heathen prophets and that Balaam was a prophet. See his commentary on Deut. 13:2 and Num. 22:28. He maintains that Balaam was a diviner who made use of astrology. Rashi’s commentary (1960) on Exod. 33:16–17 allows that Balaam was a prophet, and that there were other heathen prophets, but denies that Balaam was able to prophesy because the glory of the Lord rested on him. He contends that the heathen prophets heard God’s message “through a medium.”
16. MT: אפוא.
17. Presumably there is a reference here to the Pauline doctrine that the law is written in the hearts of the gentiles (Rom. 2:15).
18. See 1 Cor. 9:19–23, cited again in vi, 36, and xi, 23.
19. Spinoza does not make his subject explicit here. From §40 we might suppose he is speaking only of the Pharisees. But the beginning of §49 suggests that he means Jews generally, and especially the Pharisees. Gebhardt V, 28, notes that Rabbi Morteira, one of Spinoza’s teachers, had defended the eternity of the Jews’ election in Providençia de Dios con Israel. He thinks the passage to follow must have its origins in the defense of his opinions Spinoza is reported to have written after the excommunication.
20. The reference is probably to iii, 23–24.
21. God is presented as saying this in Ezek. 20:38.
22. As the verses are normally divided now, the reference should be to verses 11–12. Once again it is God who is reported as saying this.
23. Cf. Tacitus on the history of the Jews (Histories V, 2–5).
24. On the history of the persecutions of the Jews on the Iberian peninsula, see Roth 1947 and Kamen 1997. Roth thinks there was more assimilation in Spain because when Ferdinand forced the Jews to choose between baptism and exile, the more devout Jews fled to Portugal; those who remained were the less committed. But Spinoza is mistaken in saying that in Spain the conversos, or “new Christians,” were thought worthy of all honors. As Méchoulan 1984 points out, the purity of blood legislation there made a significant distinction between them and “old Christians.” And as he also notes, it’s surprising that Spinoza makes this mistake, since he should have known about the discrimination against them, if not from his contact with Spanish refugees in the Netherlands, then from one of the stories in Cervantes’ Novelas exemplares, which he had in his library. For a detailed account of the cult of limpieza del sangre, see Kamen 1997, ch. 11.
[1] The word law, taken without qualification,1 means that according to which each individual, or all or some members of the same species, act [25] in one and the same fixed and determinate way. This depends either on a necessity of nature or on a human decision. A law which depends on a necessity of nature is one which follows necessarily from the very nature or definition of a thing. One which depends on a human decision, and which is more properly called legislation, is one which men prescribe for themselves and others, for the sake of living more safely [30] and conveniently, or for some other causes.
[2] For example, it is a universal law of all bodies, which follows from a necessity of nature, that a body which strikes against another [III/58] lesser body loses as much of its motion as it communicates to the other body.2 Similarly, it is a law which necessarily follows from human nature that when a man recalls one thing, he immediately recalls another like it, or one he had perceived together with the first thing. But [the law] that men should yield, or be compelled to yield, the right they have [5] from nature, and bind themselves to a fixed way of living, depends on a human decision.
[3] Though I grant, without reservation, that everything is determined by the universal laws of nature to exist and produce effects in a fixed and determinate way, nevertheless I have two reasons for saying that laws of this second kind depend on a decision of men. First,
[10] because insofar as man is a part of nature, he constitutes part of the power of nature. So the things which follow from the necessity of human nature—i.e., from nature itself insofar as we conceive it to be determinate through human nature—still follow, even though by necessity, from human power.
That’s why we can say quite properly that the enactment of those [15] laws depends on a decision of men: it depends mainly on the power of the human mind, but in such a way that the human mind, insofar as it perceives things as either true or false, can be conceived quite clearly without these laws [that depend on a human decision], although it cannot be conceived without a necessary law, as we have just defined it.
[4] Second, I have also said that these laws depend on a human decision
[20] because we ought to define and explain things through their proximate causes. That universal consideration concerning fate and the connection of causes cannot help us to form and order our thoughts concerning particular things.
Furthermore, we are completely ignorant of the order and connection [25] of things itself, i.e., of how things are really ordered and connected. So for practical purposes it is better, indeed necessary, to consider things as possible. These remarks will suffice concerning law, taken without qualification.
[5] But since the word law seems to be applied figuratively to natural [30] things, and commonly nothing is understood by law but a command which men can either carry out or neglect—since law confines human power under certain limits, beyond which that power extends, and does not command anything beyond human powers—for that reason Law seems to need to be defined more particularly: that it is a principle of living man prescribes to himself or to others for some end.
[6] Nevertheless, since the true end of laws is usually evident only [III/59] to a few, and since most men are almost incapable of perceiving it, and do anything but live according to reason, legislators, to confine all men equally, have wisely established another end, very different from the one which necessarily follows from the nature of laws: they promise those [5] who support the laws what the common people most love, and they threaten those who would break the laws with what they most fear. In this way they have tried, as far as they could, to restrain the common people, as you might rein in a horse.
[7] That’s why law is generally taken to be a principle of living prescribed to men by the command of others,3 and why those who [10] obey the laws are said to live under the law, and seem to be slaves. And really, whoever gives each one his due because he fears the gallows does act according to the command of another and is coerced by evil. He cannot be called just. But the person who gives to each his due because he knows the true reason for the laws and their necessity, that [15] person acts from a constant heart, and by his own decision, not that of another. So he deserves to be called just.4
[8] I think Paul also wanted to teach this when he said that those who live under the law could not be justified by the law [Romans 3:19–20]. For justice is commonly defined as a constant and perpetual will to [20] give to everyone his due.5 So Solomon says in Proverbs 21:15 that the Just man rejoices when a Judgment is made, but the unjust are terrified.6
[9] Since, therefore, Law is nothing but a principle of living which men prescribe to themselves or to others for some end, it seems that Law must be distinguished into human and divine. By human law I understand a principle of living which serves only to protect life and [25] the republic; by a divine law, one which aims only at the supreme good, i.e., the true knowledge and love of God. I call this law divine because of the nature of the supreme good, which I shall show here as briefly and clearly as I can.
[10] If we really want to seek our advantage, then since the intellect [30] is the better part of us, we should certainly strive above all to perfect it as much as we can. For our supreme good must consist in the perfection of the intellect. Next, because nothing can either be or be conceived without God, and because we can doubt everything so [III/60] long as we have no clear and distinct idea of God, all our knowledge, and the certainty which really removes all doubt, depends only on the knowledge of God. It follows that our supreme good and perfection depend only on the knowledge of God, etc.
[11] Next, since nothing can be or be conceived without God, it is certain that all things in nature involve and express the concept of [5] God, in proportion to their essence and perfection. Hence the more we know natural things, the greater and more perfect is the knowledge of God we acquire—or, since knowledge of an effect through its cause is nothing but knowing some property of the cause, the more we know [10] natural things, the more perfectly we know God’s essence, which is the cause of all things. [12] So all our knowledge, i.e., our supreme good, not only depends on the knowledge of God, but consists entirely in it.
That knowledge of God is our supreme good also follows from the fact that a man is more perfect in proportion to the nature and perfection [15] of the thing which he loves before all others, and conversely. Therefore, the man who is necessarily the most perfect and who participates most in supreme blessedness is the one who loves above all else the intellectual knowledge of God, the most perfect being, and takes the greatest pleasure in that knowledge. Our supreme good, then, and our blessedness come back to this: the knowledge and love of God.
[20] [13] We can call the means required by this end of all human actions—i.e., God, insofar as his idea is in us—God’s commands, because God himself, insofar as he exists in our mind, prescribes them to us, as it were. So the principle of living which aims at this end is quite properly [25] called a Divine law. But what these means are, and what principle of living this end requires, and how the foundations of the best republic and the principle of living among men follow from this,7 these matters all pertain to a universal Ethics. Here I shall proceed to treat only of the divine law in general.
[14] Since, then, the love of God is man’s highest happiness and [30] blessedness, and the ultimate end and object of all human actions, the only one who follows the divine law is the one who devotes himself to loving God, not from fear of punishment, nor from love for another thing, such as pleasures or reputation, etc., but only because he knows God, or because he knows that the knowledge and love of God is the highest good.
[15] So the main point of the divine law, and its highest precept, [III/61] is to love God as the highest good, as we have said, not from fear of some punishment or penalty, nor from love of some other thing, in which we desire to take pleasure. For the idea of God dictates this: that God is our supreme good, or that the knowledge and love of God [5] is the ultimate end toward which all our actions ought to be directed.8
[16] In spite of this, the man of the flesh9 cannot understand these things. To him they seem hollow, because he has too meager a knowledge of God, and finds nothing in this highest good to touch or eat or affect the flesh, which is what gives him his greatest pleasure. This good consists only in contemplation and in a pure mind. But those who [10] know that they have nothing more excellent than the intellect and a healthy mind will doubtless judge these things very solid.
[17] We have explained, therefore, what the divine law consists in above all, and what laws are human, viz. all those which aim at something other [than the knowledge of God]—unless they have been enacted by revelation. For as we have shown above, that is another reason why we [15] may refer things to God. It’s in this sense that the law of Moses, although not universal, but accommodated for the most part to the mentality and special preservation of one people, can still be called God’s Law, or divine Law. For we believe it was enacted by the Prophetic light.
[20] [18] If now we attend to the Nature of natural divine law, as we have just explained it, we shall see:
I. that it is universal, or common to all men,
for we have deduced it from universal human nature; and
II. that it does not require faith in historical narratives, no matter what, in the end, those narratives are.10
For since this natural divine law is understood simply by the consideration [25] of human nature, it is certain that we can conceive it just as much in Adam as in any other man, just as much in a man who lives among others as in a man who lives a solitary life.
[19] Furthermore, faith in historical narratives, no matter how certain that faith may be, cannot give us any knowledge of God. So [30] it also cannot give us the love of God. For love of God arises from knowledge of him, and knowledge of God must be drawn from common notions certain and known through themselves. So it is far from true that faith in historical narratives is necessary for us to attain our supreme good.
Nevertheless, though faith in historical narratives cannot give us the knowledge and love of God, we do not deny that reading them is very [III/62] useful in relation to civil life. For the more we have observed and the better we know the customs and character of men—which can best be known from their actions—the more cautiously we will be able to live among them and the better we will be able to accommodate our actions [5] and lives to their mentality, as much as reason allows.
[20] [Again, if we attend to the nature of natural divine law], we see
III. that it does not require ceremonies, i.e., actions which in themselves are indifferent, and are called good only by institution, or which represent some good necessary for salvation, or, if you prefer, actions whose reason surpasses man’s power of understanding.
[10] For the natural light requires nothing that light itself does not reach, but only what can indicate to us very clearly a good, or a means to our blessedness.11 The things which are good only by command and institution, or because they are representations of some good, cannot perfect our intellect and are nothing but mere shadows. They cannot [15] be counted among the actions which are, as it were, the offspring or fruits of the intellect and of a healthy mind. But there is no need to show this more fully here.
[21] Finally, [if we attend to the nature of natural divine law] we see
IV. that the highest reward for observing the divine law is the law itself, viz. to know God and to love him from true freedom and with a whole and [20] constant heart, whereas the penalty for not observing it is the privation of these things and bondage to the flesh, or an inconstant and vacillating heart.
[22] With these things noted, we must now ask:
(i) whether, by the natural light, we can conceive God as a lawgiver, or prince prescribing laws to men?12
(ii) what Sacred Scripture teaches concerning this natural light and natural law?
(iii) to what end ceremonies were formerly instituted? and finally,
[25] (iv) why it matters whether we know the sacred historical narratives and believe in them?
I shall treat the first two of these questions in this chapter [§§23–37 and 38–50], and the last two in the next chapter [§§2–34 and 35–50].
[23] We can easily deduce what we must maintain in answer to the first question from the nature of God’s will, which is distinguished from his intellect only in relation to our reason. That is, in themselves God’s [30] will and God’s intellect are really one and the same; they are distinguished only in relation to the thoughts we form about God’s intellect.13
[24] For example, when we attend only to the fact that the nature of a triangle is contained in the divine nature from eternity, as an eternal truth, then we say that God has the idea of the triangle, or understands [III/63] the nature of the triangle. But afterward we may attend to the fact that the nature of the triangle is contained in the divine nature solely from the necessity of the divine nature, and not from the necessity of the essence and nature of the triangle—indeed, that the necessity of the essence and properties of the triangle, insofar as they too are conceived [5] as eternal truths, depends only on the necessity of the divine nature and intellect, and not on the nature of the triangle. When we do that, then the same thing we called God’s intellect we call God’s will or decree.
[25] So in relation to God we affirm one and the same thing when we say that from eternity God decreed and willed that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, or [when we say] that God [10] understood this. From this it follows that God’s affirmations and denials always involve eternal necessity or truth.14
[26] So, for example, if God said to Adam that he willed him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [Genesis 2:17], it would imply a contradiction for Adam to be able to eat of that tree. So [15] it would be impossible for him to eat of it. That divine decree would have had to involve eternal necessity and truth. But since Scripture nevertheless relates that God did tell Adam not to eat of the tree, and that Adam nevertheless ate of the tree, we must say that God only revealed to Adam the evil which would necessarily befall him if he ate of that tree, but not the necessity of that evil’s following.15
[27] That’s how it happened that Adam perceived that revelation, [20] not as an eternal and necessary truth, but as a law, i.e., as something instituted, which profit or loss follows, not from the necessity and nature of the action performed, but solely from the pleasure and absolute [25] command of some Prince. So that revelation was a law, and God, as it were, a lawgiver or Prince, only in relation to Adam, and because of a defect in his knowledge.
[28] That’s also why the Decalogue was a law only in relation to the Hebrews, because of a defect in their knowledge. For since they did not know God’s existence as an eternal truth, they had to perceive as a law [30] what was revealed to them in the Decalogue: that God exists and that he alone is to be worshipped. If God had spoken to them immediately, without using any corporeal means, they would have perceived this, not as a law, but as an eternal truth.
[29] What we say about the Israelites and Adam must also be said [III/64] about all the Prophets who wrote laws in the name of God: they did not perceive God’s decrees adequately, as eternal truths. For example, we must say even of Moses himself that by revelation, or from the foundations revealed to him, he perceived the way the people of Israel could [5] best be united in a certain region of the world, and could form a whole social order, or set up a state. He also perceived the way that people could best be compelled to obedience. But he did not perceive, and it was not revealed to him, that that way is best—or even that the goal they were aiming at would necessarily follow from the general obedience [10] of the people in such a region of the world. [30] So he perceived all these things, not as eternal truths, but as precepts and institutions, and he prescribed them as laws of God. That’s why he imagined God as a ruler, a lawgiver, a king, as compassionate, just, etc., when all these things are attributes only of human nature, and ought to be removed [15] entirely from the divine nature.16
But I say this only about the Prophets, who wrote laws in the name of God, and not about Christ. [31] For however much Christ too may seem to have written laws in the name of God, nevertheless we must think that he perceived things truly and adequately. Christ was not so much a Prophet as the mouth of God. As we have shown in [20] Chapter 1, God revealed certain things to the human race through the mind of Christ, as previously he had revealed them through Angels, i.e., through a created voice, visions, etc. It would be as contrary to reason to maintain that God accommodated his revelations to Christ’s opinions as to maintain that previously, to communicate the things to be revealed to his prophets, God accommodated his revelations to the [25] angels’ opinions, i.e., those of a created voice and of visions. No one could maintain anything more absurd than that—particularly since Christ was sent to teach, not only the Jews, but the whole human race. So it was not enough for him to have a mind accommodated only to the opinions of the Jews; [he needed a mind accommodated] to the [30] opinions and teachings universal to the human race, i.e., to common and true notions.17
[32] And of course, from the fact that God revealed himself immediately to Christ, or to his mind—and not, as he did to the Prophets, through words and images—the only thing we can understand is that Christ perceived truly, or understood, the things revealed. For what is perceived with a pure mind, without words and images, is understood.
[III/65] Christ, therefore, perceived the things revealed truly and adequately. [33] If he ever prescribed them as laws, he did this because of the people’s ignorance and stubbornness. So in this respect he acted in place of God, because he accommodated himself to the mentality of [5] the people. That’s why, although he spoke somewhat more clearly than the other Prophets, he still taught these revelations obscurely, and quite frequently through parables, especially when he was speaking to those to whom it was not yet given to understand the kingdom of heaven (see Matthew 13:10 etc.).18 [34] But doubtless when he was speaking to those to whom it was given to know the mysteries of the heavens, [10] he taught things as eternal truths and did not prescribe them as laws. In this way he freed them from bondage to the law. Nevertheless, he [didn’t abolish the law for them, but] confirmed and established it more firmly, and wrote it thoroughly in their hearts.
Paul also seems to teach this in certain passages. See Romans 7:6 [15] and 3:28. [35] Still, he too did not wish to speak openly, but as he says (Romans 3:5 and 6:19) he speaks in a human manner. He says this explicitly when he calls God just. Doubtless it is also because of the weakness of the flesh that he ascribes mercy, grace, anger, etc., to God, and accommodates his words to the mentality of ordinary people, or [20] (as he also says in 1 Cor. 3:1–2) of men of the flesh.
[36] For Romans 9:18 teaches without reservation that God’s anger and mercy do not depend on human works, but only on God’s calling, i.e., on his will; next, Romans 3:28 teaches that no one becomes just [25] by the works of the law, but by faith alone, by which, of course, he understands nothing but a full consent of the heart; finally, Romans 8:9 teaches that no one becomes blessed unless he has in himself the mind of Christ, by which he perceives God’s laws as eternal truths.
[i] that it is only because of the common people’s power of understanding and a defect in their knowledge19 that God is described as a lawgiver or [30] prince, and called just, merciful, etc.;
[ii] that God really acts and guides all things only from the necessity of his own nature and perfection; and finally,
[iii] that his decrees and volitions are eternal truths, and always involve necessity.
That is what I had decided to explain and show under the first [of the four headings enumerated in §22].
[38] Let us turn then to the second question, and survey Holy [III/66] Scripture to see what it teaches concerning the natural light and this divine law. The first thing which strikes us is the story20 of the first man, where it is related that God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil [Genesis 2:17]. This seems to [5] mean that God told Adam to do and seek the good for the sake of the good, and not insofar as it is contrary to the evil, i.e., that he should seek the good from love of the good, and not from fear of evil.21 For as we’ve already shown,22 he who does good from a true knowledge and love of the good acts freely and with a constant heart, whereas he who acts from fear of evil is compelled by evil, acts like a slave, and lives under the command of another.
[10] [39] And so this one thing which God told23 Adam to do contains the whole divine natural law, and agrees absolutely with the dictate of the natural light. It would not be difficult to explain that whole story, or parable, of the first man from this foundation. But I prefer to put this to one side, not only because I cannot be absolutely certain that [15] my explanation agrees with the writer’s intention, but also because most people will not grant that this story is a parable, but maintain without qualification that it is a simple record of fact.
[40] It will be better, therefore, to call attention to other passages in Scripture, especially those which were composed by one who spoke from the power of the natural light, in which he surpassed all the other wise [20] men of his age, and whose maxims the people have embraced as being as holy as those of the Prophets. I mean Solomon, who is commended in the sacred writings, not so much for his Prophecy and piety, as for his prudence and wisdom.
[41] In his Proverbs Solomon calls the human understanding the fountain of true life and makes misfortune consist only in foolishness. [25] Thus he says in 16:22 מקור חיים שכל בעליו ומוסר אוילים אולת Understanding is a fountain of life to its lord,24* and the punishment of fools is folly.25 It should be noted here that in Hebrew true life is understood when life is used without qualification, as is evident from Deuteronomy 30:19. Therefore, he made the fruit of understanding consist only in true life, and punishment only in the privation of understanding. This agrees [30] completely with what we have noted above [III/62/17–21] concerning the natural divine law. Moreover, this same wise man teaches expressly that this fountain of life (or, as we have also shown, understanding alone) [III/67] prescribes laws to the wise. For he says in Proverbs 13:14 תורת חכם מקור חיים The Law26 of the wise (is) the fountain of life, i.e., as is evident from the text just adduced, understanding [is the fountain of life].
[42] Again, in 3:13 he teaches very explicitly that understanding makes man blessed and happy, and gives him true peace of mind. For [5] he says אשרי אדם מצא חכמה ובן אדם 27 יפיק תבונה וגו ארך ימים בימינה בשמאלה עשר וכבוד דרכיה דרכי נעם וכל נתיבותיה שלום Blessed is the man who has found 'knowledge, and the son of the man who has brought forth understanding. The reason for this (as he continues in vv. 16–17) is that it gives length of days28* directly, and indirectly wealth and honor; its ways (i.e., those which [10] 'knowledge indicates) are pleasant, and all its paths are peace. According to Solomon only the wise live with a constant and peaceful heart, unlike the impious, whose heart vacillates with opposite affects, to such an extent that (as Isaiah too says in 57:20) they have neither peace nor rest.
[43] Finally, what we must note most in these Proverbs of Solomon [15] are those in the second chapter, which confirm our opinion as clearly as possible. For 2:3 begins thus:
כי אם לבינה תקרא לתבונה תתן קולך וגו אז תבין יראת יהוה ודעת אלהים תמצא כי יהוה יתן חכמה מפיו דעת ותבונה for if you will call out for prudence, and lift up your [20] voice for understanding, etc., then you will understand the fear of God, and you will find the 'knowledge (or rather, love, for the word ידע yadah means both these things) of God; for (NB) God grants wisdom, from his mouth 'knowledge and prudence (flow out).
[44] By these words he indicates very clearly (i) that only wisdom, or understanding teaches us to fear God wisely, i.e., to worship God [25] with true religion; and he teaches (ii) that wisdom and 'knowledge flow from the mouth of God, and that God grants them. This is what we ourselves have shown above,29 viz. that our understanding and our 'knowledge depend only on the idea or knowledge of God, arise only from it, and are perfected only by it.
[45] He proceeds next (in 2:9) to teach very explicitly that this [30] 'knowledge contains the true Ethics and Politics and that they are deduced from it:30
אז תבין צדק ומשפט ומשרים כל מעגל טוב then you will understand Justice, and Judgment, and the right ways, (and) every good path. Not content with that, he continues: כי תבוא חכמה בלבך ודעת לנפשך ינעם מזמה תשמור עליך תבונה תנצרכה [III/68] when 'knowledge shall enter into your heart, and wisdom shall be pleasant to you, then your providence31* will watch over you and prudence will guard you.
[46] All these things are entirely consistent with natural 'knowledge. For that knowledge teaches Ethics and true excellence, after we have acquired knowledge of things and tasted the excellence of 'knowledge. [5] So Solomon agrees that the happiness and peace of one who cultivates the natural understanding does not depend on the rule of fortune (i.e., on God’s external aid), but chiefly on his internal excellence (i.e., on God’s internal aid), because he preserves himself chiefly by being watchful, by acting, and by planning well.
[10] [47] Finally, we must not by any means pass over that passage in Paul (Romans 1:20) where he says (as Tremellius32 translates from the Syriac text): for from the foundations of the world, God’s hidden things are visible in his creatures through the understanding, and his power and divinity, which are to eternity; so they are without escape.33 [48] By this he indicates clearly [15] enough that everyone, by the natural light, clearly understands God’s power and eternal divinity, from which he can know and deduce what he ought to pursue and what he ought to flee. Hence he concludes that no one has any escape and none can be excused by their ignorance, as they certainly could be, if he were speaking of the supernatural light, [20] and of the fleshly passion of Christ and his resurrection etc. [49] That’s why he continues a bit further on (1:24) as follows: for this reason God gave them up to the unclean lusts of their hearts etc. to the end of the chapter, in verses which describe the vices of ignorance, and expound them as punishments for ignorance.
This agrees completely with that Proverb of Solomon we’ve already [25] cited, 16:22, according to which ומוסר אוילים אולת the punishment of fools is foolishness. [50] So it’s no wonder that Paul says that evildoers are inexcusable. For as each one sows, so shall he reap [Galatians 6:7]. From evil deeds evils necessarily follow, unless they are wisely corrected, and from good deeds, goods necessarily follow, if they are accompanied by constancy of heart.34 Scripture, therefore, commends, without reservation, [30] both the natural light and the natural divine law. And with this I have finished the things I had proposed to treat in this chapter.