So we’ve demolished Alfakhar’s position as well as that of Maimonides. [20] We’ve established, unshakably, that Theology is not bound to be the handmaid of reason, nor reason the handmaid of Theology, but that each rules its own domain. As we’ve said: reason’s domain is truth and wisdom; Theology’s is piety and obedience. [22] For as we’ve shown, the power of reason does not go so far as to enable it to determine [25] that men can be blessed by obedience alone, without understanding things. But Theology teaches nothing but this, and does not command anything but obedience. It neither wills nor can do anything against reason. [23] For as we showed in the preceding chapter, it determines the doctrines of faith only so far as is sufficient for obedience. But precisely [30] how those doctrines are to be understood, with respect to their truth, it leaves to be determined by reason, which is really the light of the mind, without which it sees nothing but dreams and inventions.
[24] By Theology here I understand, in brief, revelation, insofar as it indicates the goal we said Scripture aims at: the principle and manner of obedience, or the doctrines of true piety and faith. This is what [III/185] is properly called the word of God. It does not consist in a certain number of books. On this see Ch. 12. For if you consider the precepts of Theology taken in this sense, or its teachings concerning life, you will find that it agrees with reason; if you consider its intent and end, you will find that it contains nothing contrary to reason. That’s why [5] it is common to everyone.
[25] As for the whole of Scripture in general, we’ve already shown in Ch. 7 that its meaning is to be determined only from its history, and not from the universal history of Nature, which is the foundation only of Philosophy. If, after we have discovered its true meaning [10] in this way, we find that here or there it is contrary to reason, this should not give us any pause. For whatever we find in the Bible of this kind, whatever men can fail to know without detriment to their loving-kindness, we know with certainty does not touch Theology or the word of God. So anyone can think whatever he likes about these matters, without wickedness.19 We conclude, therefore, unconditionally, [15] that Scripture is not to be accommodated to reason, nor reason to Scripture.
[26] Nevertheless, we cannot demonstrate by reason whether the foundation of Theology—that men are saved only by obedience—is true or false. So someone may raise against us too the objection: why then do we believe it? If we embrace it without reason, like blind men, [20] then we too act foolishly and without judgment. [27] On the other hand, if we want to maintain that we can demonstrate this foundation rationally, then Theology will be a part of Philosophy, and ought not to be separated from it.
To this I reply that I maintain unconditionally that the natural light [25] cannot discover this fundamental tenet of Theology—or at least that no one yet has demonstrated it. So revelation has been most necessary. Nevertheless, I maintain that we can use our judgment, so that we accept what has already been revealed with at least moral certainty. [28] I say with moral certainty, for we should not expect to be able to be more certain of it than the Prophets were. As we’ve already shown [30] in Ch. 2 of this Treatise, those who first received the revelation had a certainty which was only moral.
[29] So those who try to show the authority of Scripture by mathematical demonstrations are completely misguided.20 For the authority of the Bible depends on the authority of the Prophets. So it can’t be [III/186] demonstrated by any stronger arguments than those the Prophets used long ago to persuade the people of their own authority. Indeed, our certainty about this can’t have any other foundation than the one on which the Prophets founded their own certainty and authority.
[30] We’ve shown [ii, 4–10] that the whole certainty of the Prophets is based on three considerations:
[5] (i) a distinct and vivid imagination,
(ii) a Sign, and finally (and principally),
(iii) a heart inclined toward the right and the good.
The certainty and authority the Prophets themselves had were not based on any other reasons. So they could not demonstrate their authority by any other reasons—not even to the people to whom they previously spoke orally, much less to us, to whom they now speak in writing.
[10] [31] But the first consideration, that they imagined things vividly, could be established only for the Prophets [themselves]. So our whole certainty about revelation can and must be founded only on the other two considerations, the Sign and the Doctrine.
And indeed Moses too explicitly teaches this. [32] For in Deuteronomy 18[:15–22] he commands the people to obey the Prophet who [15] has given a true sign in the name of God, but to condemn him to death if he has predicted something falsely, even if [he made that prediction] in the name of God. He also commands them to condemn to death the Prophet who has tried to seduce the people away from true religion, even if he has confirmed his authority by signs and wonders. On this see Deuteronomy 13[:1–5].
[33] From this it follows that a true Prophet is distinguished from a false one by doctrine and miracle taken together. For Moses declares [20] a Prophet who satisfies these conditions to be a true one, and he commands the people to trust him without any fear of fraud. And he says that they are false Prophets, punishable by death, who have predicted something falsely, even if in the name of God, or who have taught false Gods, even if they have performed true miracles.
[34] So we too are bound to believe Scripture, i.e., the Prophets themselves, only for this reason, i.e., because of their teaching, confirmed [25] by signs. Since we see that the Prophets commend Loving-kindness and Justice above all, and aim at nothing else, we conclude from this that they did not teach with an evil intent, but from a true heart, that men become blessed by obedience and faith. And because they confirmed this in addition with signs, we’re persuaded that they did not say this [30] rashly, and were not insane when they were prophesying.
[35] In this we’re even more confirmed when we pay attention to the fact that they taught no moral doctrine which does not agree fully with reason. It’s no accident that the word of God in the Prophets agrees completely with the word of God speaking in us. We’re as certain of these things from the Bible as the Jews once were when they inferred the same things from the living voice of the Prophets. [36] For we [III/187] have shown above, toward the end of Ch. 12 [§§38–39], that, in its teaching and principal historical narratives, Scripture has reached our hands uncorrupted.
So even though this foundation of the whole of Theology and Scripture cannot be shown by a mathematical demonstration, we can [5] still embrace it with sound judgment. [37] For it’s sheer stupidity to be unwilling to embrace what has been confirmed by so many testimonies of the Prophets—and what, moreover, is a great comfort to those whose powers of reason are not strong, what brings no slight advantage to the Republic, and what we can believe with absolutely no risk or [10] harm—merely because it can’t be mathematically demonstrated. This would be as if, to organize our lives wisely, we should admit nothing as true which can be called in doubt by any reason for doubting, or as if most of our actions were not uncertain and full of risk.21
[38] I confess, of course, that people who think Philosophy and [15] Theology contradict one another, who therefore think that one or the other must be toppled from its throne, and that it’s necessary to say goodbye to one or the other—these people have some reason to want to lay down firm foundations for Theology, and to try to demonstrate it mathematically. Who but someone desperate and mad would want to recklessly say goodbye to reason, or to scorn the arts and sciences, [20] and deny the certainty of reason?
[39] But we can’t completely excuse them. They want to call upon reason to repudiate reason, and by a certain reason make reason uncertain. While they’re trying to show the truth and authority of Theology [25] by mathematical demonstrations, and to take away the authority of reason and the natural light, all they’re doing is dragging Theology under the control of reason. They clearly seem to suppose that Theology has no brilliance unless it’s illuminated by the natural light.
[40] On the other hand, if they boast that they trust completely in [30] the internal testimony of the Holy Spirit, and call reason to their aid only to convince nonbelievers, we can’t trust what they say. For we can easily show that they say this either from the affects or from vain-glory. [41] For from Chapter 14 it follows as clearly as can be that the Holy Spirit gives testimony only concerning good works. That’s why even [III/188] Paul calls them the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22).
Really, the Holy Spirit is nothing but a satisfaction which arises in the mind from good actions. [42] The only Spirit which gives testimony concerning the truth and certainty in speculative matters is reason. [5] As we’ve already shown, only reason has laid claim to the domain of truth for itself. If anyone says he has a Spirit other than [reason] which makes him certain of the truth, he’s making a false boast. He’s speaking only from a prejudice stemming from his affects—or else he’s fleeing for protection to sacred things, fearing that he’ll be defeated by the [10] Philosophers and exposed to public ridicule. But it won’t work. What refuge can he make for himself if he commits treason against reason?
[43] But let’s put these people to one side. I think I’ve said enough in defense of my cause. I’ve shown how Philosophy is to be separated from Theology, what each principally consists in, and that neither should be the handmaid of the other, but that each has charge of its own domain [15] without any conflict with the other. Finally, when the opportunity presented itself, I’ve also shown the absurdities, disadvantages, and harms which have followed from the strange ways men have confused these two faculties, and have not known how to distinguish accurately between them, and to separate them from one another.
[20] [44] Before I proceed to other things, I want to remind you—even though I’ve said this already22**—that I judge the utility, even necessity, of Sacred Scripture, or revelation, to be very great. We can’t perceive by the natural light that simple obedience is a path to salvation.23** Only revelation teaches that this happens, by a special grace of God, which [25] we cannot grasp by reason. It follows that Scripture has brought great comfort to mortals. [45] Everyone, without exception, can obey. But only a very few (compared with the whole human race) acquire a habit of virtue from the guidance of reason alone. So, if we didn’t have this testimony of Scripture, we would doubt nearly everyone’s salvation.
1. Echoing Terence’s Eunuchus I, 63 (ALM).
2. Judah Alfakhar (d. 1235), a doctor in the court of Ferdinand III of Castile, was one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Toledo, who opposed Maimonides’ use of Greek philosophy to interpret Scripture. The letter Spinoza cites was addressed to David Kimchi, a prominent thirteenth-century defender of Maimonides. For a translation of the letter and helpful background, see Adler 1996. Preus 1995 has argued persuasively that in criticizing “Alfakhar” Spinoza is really attacking certain contemporary opponents, orthodox Calvinists, whose views it was safer for Spinoza to discuss under the cover of representing them as the views of a Jewish philosopher.
3. *I remember having once read these doctrines in a Letter against Maimonides, included along with the Letters attributed to Maimonides. [The first two sentences of this paragraph fairly represent Alfakhar’s position as articulated in the letter translated in Adler 1996, 151.]
4. **[ADN. XXVIII] See Philosophy the Interpreter of Scripture, p. 75. [This adnotation occurs only in Marchand’s copy of the adnotations, and is probably his own note, not Spinoza’s. See the discussion in the Editorial Preface to the TTP, p. 62, and Preus 1995. On that assumption, Marchand is calling attention to a similarity between Alfakhar’s position, as articulated by Spinoza, and the position of an unnamed Calvinist opponent, as articulated by Meyer. The passage Marchand refers to occurs in Meyer 1666, 75 (Meyer 2005, 169–70). The letter of Alfakhar translated in Adler 1996 contains no such universal rule, and Adler has suggested (in personal correspondence, April 2015) that if Alfakhar had stated a rule, it would no doubt have been Rule 13 of Rabbi Ishmael: “When two passages [seem to] contradict each other, [they are to be elucidated by] a third passage that reconciles them” (Jonathan Sacks, The Koren Siddur [Jerusalem: Koren Publishers, 2009], 54). Adler observes that “these thirteen rules are found in the introduction to the Sifra, a midrash on the book of Leviticus. When he was still an observant Jew, Spinoza would have recited these rules every morning as part of the daily prayers. They are found, for example, in the prayer book Seder Tefilot (Amsterdam: Menasseh Ben Israel, 1626), p. 37b.” Adler conjectures that Alfakhar is likely to have been a mask for Jacobus du Bois, a Calvinist preacher in Leiden. Whatever the identity of Meyer’s opponent, Spinoza’s characterization of this position seems to owe more to Meyer than it does to Alfakhar.]
5. As I translate dogmatice, Spinoza formulates the rule as applying only to things which Scripture teaches as doctrine, i.e., as propositions the faithful are required to believe. This would allow that statements which don’t rise to the level of doctrine (the details of historical narratives, perhaps) don’t fall under the rule. I see no such distinction in Alfakhar. Arguably the idea that Scripture teaches certain things as doctrines which must be accepted is “a very un-Jewish manner of speaking about scripture” (Preus 1995, 371–72). Nor does Alfakhar think Scripture never explicitly contradicts its teachings. He allows that there are several scriptural passages which contradict one another on the subject of God’s corporeality.
6. Cf. ii, 36–40.
7. One passage where God apparently speaks of himself in the plural number would be Gen. 1:26, discussed by Manasseh 1842/1972, I, 13–15. An example of a passage where a prophet speaks of God in a way implying plurality might be Isa. 48:16, discussed by Manasseh, 1842/1972, II, 162–63. Malet suggests that Spinoza may have in mind those passages in which Elohim is used as the divine name with a plural verb. Grammatically, Elohim is plural, but normally it takes a singular verb, suggesting that in those passages the term was understood to be singular in meaning. Malet cites a number of exceptions to this rule, where the combination of Elohim with a plural verb raises doubts about the way the subject was understood. See Malet 1966, 231n.
8. Deut. 4:15–16 reads: “For your own sake, therefore, be most careful—since you saw no shape when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the fire—not to act wickedly and make for yourselves a sculptured image in any likeness whatever.” This is not one of the passages Alfakhar cites in his discussion of God’s corporeality.
9. The subject of God’s corporeality was a major topic in Maimonides’ Guide, whose first seventy chapters provide many examples of the kind of passage referred to here. Some of these were previously discussed in ii, 42–43, where the subject is the related topic of God’s visibility.
10. Cf. the Preface, §§17 and 23. Spinoza’s position in this paragraph seems to illustrate the position on the relation between will and intellect developed in E II P49S (and discussed in Curley 1975).
11. Alfakhar does not make the distinction Spinoza relies on here: between what Scripture says explicitly and what it says by implication.
12. Accepting V-L’s (1914) emendation. The first edition, which Gebhardt follows, reads 4:14.
13. Maimonides gives numerous examples in the Guide I, 36.
14. Discussed in Manasseh 1842/1972, I, 152–53.
15. Maimonides’ Guide discusses numerous examples (e.g., in I, 10, 12, 18, 21, etc.).
16. For examples of the kinds of passage at issue, see Maimonides, Guide I, 8, 9, 11.
17. Spinoza returns to the example discussed in vii, 18–22.
18. **[ADN. XXIX] See Philosophy the Interpreter of Holy Scripture, p. 76. [March-and refers here to Meyer 1666 (Meyer 2005, 171–72). Meyer uses somewhat different examples to make the same point. E.g., he cites both 1 Sam. 15:29 and Num. 23:19 to illustrate Scripture’s claim that God does not repent or change his mind, and Gen. 6:6 and Exod. 32:14 as examples of passages where God is said to do just that. He seems clearly to be aware that there are other passages he might have cited, e.g., Gen. 18:22–33; 1 Sam. 15:35; Jon. 3:9–10; Amos 7:3. The problem is discussed in Manasseh 1842/1972, I, 35–36, II, 200–201.]
19. So, for example, even though it’s clear that Joshua believed that the sun moves around the earth (ii, 26), we are nonetheless free to accept a Copernican theory of the solar system.
20. Giancotti (following Meli) suggests that Faustus Socinus is under attack here. His De auctoritate S. Scripturae (1580) defends the position Spinoza attacks. For an English translation of this work, see Socinus 1580.
21. ALM note several allusions to Terence in this passage. Specifically, to Phormio I, 77; Andria I, 67; Eunuchus I, 61–63.
22. **[ADN. XXX] See Philosophy the Interpreter of Scripture, p. 115. [Marchand refers again to Meyer 1666. In Meyer 2005 the page reference would be to 235–41].
23. **[ADN. XXXI] That is, revelation can teach that it’s enough for salvation or blessedness to embrace the divine decrees as laws or commands, and that it’s not necessary to conceive them as eternal truths. Reason can’t teach this. This is evident from what was demonstrated in Ch. 4. [The “extra text” Gebhardt adds to this note from the version in Saint-Glain seems to reflect just a (trivially) different way of translating the Latin rather than a genuinely alternative text.]
On the Foundations of the Republic; on the natural and civil right of each person; and on the Right of the Supreme 'Powers
[1] So far we’ve taken care to separate Philosophy from Theology and [5] to show the freedom of philosophizing which [Theology]1 grants to everyone. Now it’s time for us to ask how far this freedom of thought, and of saying what you think, extends in the best Republic. To examine this in an orderly way, we must discuss the foundations of the Republic, [10] and first, the natural right of each person, without attending yet to the Republic or to Religion.
[2] By the right and established practice of nature I mean nothing but the rules of the nature of each individual, according to which we conceive each thing to be naturally determined to existing and having [15] effects in a certain way. For example, fish are determined by nature to swimming, and the large ones to eating the smaller. So it is by the supreme right of nature that fish are masters of the water, and that the large ones eat the smaller.
[3] For it’s certain that nature, considered absolutely, has the supreme right to do everything it can, i.e., that the right of nature extends as far [20] as its power does. For the power of nature is the power of God itself, and he has the supreme right over all things.2 [4] But the universal power of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individuals together. From this it follows that each individual has a supreme right to do everything it can, or that the right of each thing extends [25] as far as its determinate power does. Now the supreme law of nature is that each thing strives to persevere in its state, as far as it can by its own power, and does this, not on account of anything else, but only of itself. From this it follows that each individual has the supreme right to do this, i.e. (as I have said), to exist and have effects as it is [30] naturally determined to do.3
[5] Nor do we recognize here any difference between men and other individuals in nature, nor between men endowed with reason and those others who are ignorant of true reason, nor between fools and madmen, [III/190] and those who are sensible and sane. For whatever each thing does according to the laws of its nature, it does with supreme right, because it acts as it has been determined to do according to nature, and cannot do otherwise.
[6] So among men who are considered as living only under the rule of nature, one who does not yet know reason, or does not yet have a [5] habit of virtue, has a supreme right to live according to the laws of appetite alone—just as much as one who guides his life according to the laws of reason. I.e., just as the wise man has the supreme right to do everything which reason dictates, or to live according to the laws of reason, so also the ignorant and weak-minded have the supreme right to do everything appetite urges, or to live according to the laws [10] of appetite. This is just what Paul teaches, when he recognizes no sin before the law,4 i.e., so long as men are considered as living only according to the rule of nature.
[7] The natural right of each man is determined not by sound reason, but by desire and power. For not all men are naturally determined to [15] operate according to the rules and laws of reason. On the contrary, everyone is born ignorant of everything. Before men can know the true principle of living and acquire a virtuous disposition, much of their life has passed, even if they have been well brought up. Meanwhile, they are bound to live, and to preserve themselves, as far as they can by [20] their own power, i.e., by the prompting of appetite alone. Nature has given them nothing else. It has denied them the actual power to live according to sound reason. So they’re no more bound to live according to the laws of a sound mind than a cat is bound to live according to the laws of a lion’s nature.
[8] Whatever anyone who is considered to be only under the rule [25] of nature judges to be useful for himself—whether under the guidance of sound reason or by the prompting of the affects—he is permitted, by supreme natural right, to want and to take—by force, by deception, by entreaties, or by whatever way is, in the end, easiest. Consequently, he is permitted to regard as an enemy anyone who wants to prevent him from doing what he intends to do.
[30] [9] From these considerations it follows that the Right and Established Practice of nature, under which all are born and for the most part live, prohibits nothing except what no one desires and what no one can do: not disputes, not hatreds, not anger, not deception. Without qualification, it is not averse to anything appetite urges.
[10] This is not surprising. Nature is not constrained by the laws of [III/191] human reason, which aim only at man’s true advantage and preservation. It is governed by infinite other laws, which look to the eternal order of the whole of nature, of which man is only a small part. It is only by the necessity of this order that all individuals are determined to exist and have effects in a definite way. [11] So when anything in nature seems [5] to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, that’s because we know things only in part, and for the most part are ignorant of the order and coherence of the whole of nature, and because we want everything to be directed according to the usage of our reason—even though what reason says is evil is not evil in relation to the order and laws of nature as a whole, [10] but only in relation to the laws of our nature.5
[12] Still, no one can doubt how much more advantageous it is to man to live according to the laws and certain dictates of our reason. As we’ve said, these laws and dictates aim only at the true advantage of men. There’s no one who does not desire to live securely, and as [15] far as possible, without fear. But this simply can’t happen so long as everyone is permitted to do whatever he likes, and reason is granted no more right than hatred and anger. [13] There is no one who lives among hostilities, hatreds, anger and deceptions, who does not live anxiously, and who does not strive to avoid these things, as far as he can.
Also (as we showed in Ch. 5 [§§18–20]), if we consider that without [20] mutual aid men must live most wretchedly and without any cultivation of reason, we shall see very clearly that to live, not only securely, but very well, men had to agree in having one purpose. So they brought it about that they would have collectively the natural right each one had to all things. It would no longer be determined according to the [25] force and appetite of each one, but according to the power and will of everyone together.
[14] Nevertheless, they would have tried this in vain if they wanted to follow only what appetite urges. For according to the laws of appetite each person is drawn in a different direction. So they had to make a [30] very firm resolution and contract to direct everything only according to the dictate of reason. No one dares to be openly contrary to that, for fear of seeming mindless. They had to agree to rein in their appetites, insofar as those appetites urge something harmful to someone else, to do nothing to anyone which they would not want done to themselves, and finally, to defend another person’s right as if it were their own.
[15] And now we cannot fail to see how they had to enter into this contract, to make it valid and lasting. For it’s a universal law of human nature that no one neglects to pursue what he judges to be good, unless [III/192] he hopes for a greater good, or fears a greater harm. Nor does anyone submit to any evil, except to avoid a greater one, or because he hopes for a greater good. Between two goods, each person chooses the one he judges to be greater; between two evils, the one which seems to him lesser.
I say explicitly: the one which seems to the person choosing to be [5] greater or lesser. It does not follow that things must be as he judges them to be. [16] This law is so firmly inscribed in human nature, that it ought to be numbered among the eternal truths, which no one can fail to know.
From this it follows necessarily that no one will promise to give up the right he has to all things except with intent to deceive,6** and that [10] absolutely no one will stand by his promises unless he fears a greater evil or hopes for a greater good. [17] To understand this better, suppose a Robber forces me to promise him that I’ll give him my goods when he wishes.7 Since, as I’ve already shown, my natural right is determined only by my power, it’s certain that if I can free myself from this Robber [15] by deceptively promising him whatever he wishes, I’m permitted to do this by natural right, to contract deceptively for whatever he wishes.
[18] Or suppose that without intent to deceive I’ve promised someone that for twenty days I won’t taste food, or any nourishment at all, and that afterward I see that this promise was foolish, that I can’t keep it without very great injury. Since, by natural law, I’m bound to choose [20] the lesser of two evils,8 I can, with supreme right, break faith with such a contract, and treat what I have said as if I hadn’t said it. [19] And I say that natural right permits this, whether I see by a true and certain reason that I made a bad promise, or merely seem to see this by opinion. For whether I see this truly or falsely, I shall fear a very great evil, and according to the established practice of nature, strive to avoid it in every way.
[25] [20] From these considerations we conclude that a contract can have no force except by reason of its utility.9 If the utility is taken away, the contract is taken away with it, and remains null and void. For that reason it’s foolish to demand of someone that he keep faith with you forever, unless you try at the same time to bring it about that breaking the contract you’re entering into brings more harm than utility to the one who breaks it.
[30] This is especially applicable to the institution of the Republic. [21] If all men could easily be led just by the guidance of reason, and could recognize the supreme utility and necessity of the Republic, there would be no one who would not absolutely detest deceptions. With the utmost good faith, everyone would stand by their contracts completely, out of a desire for this supreme good, the preservation of the Republic. Above [III/193] all else, they would maintain trust, the chief protection of the Republic.
[22] But it’s far from true that everyone can always be easily led just by the guidance of reason. Everyone is drawn by his own pleasure.10 Most of the time the mind is so filled with greed, love of esteem, envy, anger, etc., that there’s no room for reason. [23] That’s why, though men [5] may promise with definite signs of an ingenuous intention, and contract to maintain trust, still, no one can be certain of another’s good faith unless something else is added to the promise.11 For by natural right each person can act deceptively, and is bound to stand by the contract only by the hope of a greater good or the fear of a greater evil.
[24] Because we’ve already shown that [each person’s] natural right is [10] determined only by his power, it follows that as much of his power as he transfers to another, whether because he’s forced to, or voluntarily, so much of his right does he also necessarily give up to the other person. It follows also that if a person has the supreme 'power, which enables him to compel everyone by force, and restrain them by fear of [15] the supreme punishment (which everyone, without exception, fears),12 then that person has the supreme right over everyone. He will retain this right just so long as he preserves this power of doing whatever he wishes. Otherwise he will command by entreaty; no one stronger will be bound to obey him unless he wishes to.
[20] [i] a social order can be formed consistently with natural right, and
[ii] every contract can always be preserved with the utmost good faith—
if each person transfers all the power he has to the social order, which alone will retain the supreme right of nature over all things. That is, the social order alone will have sovereignty, and each person will be bound to obey it, either freely, or from fear of the supreme punishment. [26] [25] The right of such a social order is called Democracy. This is defined, then, as a general assembly of men which has, as a body, the supreme right over everything in its power.
From this it follows that no law binds the supreme 'power. Everyone must obey it in everything. For everyone had to agree to this, either tacitly or explicitly, when they transferred to the supreme 'power all [30] their power to defend themselves, i.e., all their right. [27] If they wished to keep anything for themselves, they ought at the same time to have taken care that they could defend it safely. Since they did not do that—and could not do it without dividing, and thereby destroying, the sovereignty13—by this act they submitted themselves absolutely to the will of the supreme 'power. Since they did this unconditionally, [III/194] and (as we’ve already shown) were both compelled to it by necessity and urged to it by reason, it follows that unless we want to be enemies of the state, and act contrary to reason, which urges us to defend the state with all our powers, we’re bound to carry out absolutely all the commands of the supreme 'power—even if it commands the greatest absurdities. For reason commands that we carry out even those orders, [5] so as to choose the lesser of two evils.
[28] Moreover, everyone was easily able to run the risk of submitting himself absolutely to the command and will of another. For as we’ve shown, this right of commanding whatever they wish belongs to the supreme 'powers only so long as they really have the supreme 'power. [10] If they should lose [that 'power], they also lose, at the same time, the right of commanding all things. [The right] falls to him or those who have acquired it and can retain it.
[29] So only very rarely can it happen that the supreme 'powers command great absurdities. To look out for their own interests and retain their sovereignty, it is incumbent on them most of all to consult [15] the common good, and to direct everything according to the dictate of reason. As Seneca says,14 no one continues a violent rule for long.
[30] To this we may add that in a democratic state, absurdities are less to be feared. If the assembly is large, it’s almost impossible that the majority of its members should agree on one absurd action.15 Again, [20] as we’ve also shown, its foundation and end are precisely to avoid the absurdities of appetite, and to confine men within the limits of reason, as far as possible, so that they may live harmoniously and peacefully. If this foundation is removed, the whole structure will easily fall. [31] It’s incumbent only on the supreme 'power, then, to provide for these things, and on the subjects, as we have said, to carry out its commands, [25] and not to recognize any other right than that which the supreme 'power declares to be right.
[32] Perhaps someone will think that in this way we make subjects slaves, because he thinks someone who acts according to a command is a slave, whereas someone who governs his conduct according to his own heart is a free man.
But this is not absolutely true. Really, the person who is drawn by his [30] own pleasure, and can neither see nor do anything useful to himself, is most a slave. The only free person is the one who lives wholeheartedly according to the guidance of reason alone.
[33] An action done on a command—obedience—does, in some measure, take away freedom. But that isn’t what makes the slave. It’s the reason for the action. If the end of the action is not the advantage of the agent himself, but of the person who issues the command, then the agent is a slave, useless to himself. [34] But in a Republic, and a state [III/195] where the supreme law is the well-being of the whole people, not that of the ruler,16 someone who obeys the supreme 'power in everything should not be called a slave, useless to himself, but a subject.
So that Republic is most free whose laws are founded on sound reason. For there each person, when he wishes, can be free,17** i.e., live [5] wholeheartedly according to the guidance of reason. [35] Similarly, even though children are bound to obey all the commands of their parents, they are still not slaves. For their parents’ commands are primarily concerned with the advantage of the children.
We recognize a great difference, then, between a slave, a son, and a subject. We define these as follows:
[10] a slave is someone who is bound to obey the commands of a master, which are concerned only with the advantage of the person issuing the command;
a son is someone who does what is advantageous for himself, in accordance with a parent’s command; and
a subject, finally, is someone who does what is advantageous for the collective body—and hence, also for himself—in accordance with the command of the supreme 'power.
[15] [36] With this I think I have shown sufficiently clearly what the foundations of the democratic state are. I preferred to treat it before all others, because it seemed the most natural state, and the one which approached most nearly the freedom nature concedes to everyone. In it no one so transfers his natural right to another that in the future there is no consultation with him. Instead he transfers it to the greater part [20] of the whole Society, of which he makes one part. In this way everyone remains equal, as they were before, in the state of nature.
[37] Again, I wanted to treat in detail only this state because it was most suitable for my purpose, since I had decided to discuss the utility of freedom in a Republic. I pass over the foundations of the other forms of 'power. For us to recognize their right, it’s not necessary now [25] to know what their origin is or how they often arise. That’s established more than clearly enough by what we have just shown. [38] For whoever has the supreme 'power, whether it’s one person, or a few, or everyone, it’s certain that he possesses the supreme right to command whatever he wishes. Moreover, it’s certain that whoever has transferred his 'power to defend himself to another, whether voluntarily or because [30] compelled by force, has completely yielded him his natural right, and consequently has decided to obey him in absolutely everything. He is bound to make good this decision so long as the King, or the Nobles, or the People, keep the supreme 'power they received, which was the basis of the transfer of right. I need add no more.
[39] Now that we have shown what the foundations and right of the [III/196] state are, it will be easy to determine what private civil right, injury, justice and injustice are in the civil state; and again, who is an ally, who an enemy, and what the crime of treason is.
[40]18 By private civil right we can understand nothing but the freedom [5] each person has to preserve himself in his state, which is determined by the edicts of the supreme 'power, and is defended only by its authority. For after each person has transferred his right to live according to his own good pleasure, a right which used to be limited only by his own 'power—that is, has transferred to another his freedom and power to defend himself—he is bound to live now solely by that other’s reason, [10] and to defend himself solely by its protection.
[41] An injury occurs when a citizen or subject is forced to suffer a harm from someone else, contrary to the civil law, or to an edict of the supreme 'power. For an injury cannot be conceived except in a civil state; and the supreme 'powers (to whom, by right, all things are permitted) cannot do an injury to their subjects. An injury can occur only among [15] private persons who are bound by law not to harm one another.
[42] Justice is a constancy of mind in apportioning to each person what belongs to him according to civil law. Injustice is taking away from someone, under the pretext of right, what belongs to him according to the true interpretation of the laws. Justice and injustice are also called equity and inequity, because those who are established to settle disputes [20] are bound to have no regard for persons, but to treat everyone as equals, and to defend the right of each person equally, without envying the rich, or disdaining the poor.
[43] Allies are men of two states, which, to avoid the danger of war, or to gain some other advantage, contract with one another not to harm [25] one another, but to come to one another’s aid when in need, though each retains its own sovereignty. [44] This contract will be valid just as long as its foundation, the principle of danger, or of advantage, is present. For no one makes a contract or is bound to stand by a contract, except out of hope for some good, or anxiety about some evil. If [30] this foundation should be removed, the contract is removed of itself.
Experience also teaches this, as clearly as one could wish. [45] For though two different states may contract with one another not to harm one another, they still strive, as far as they can, to prevent the other from becoming too powerful. And they don’t trust what’s been said, unless they’ve seen clearly enough the end and advantage for which each one contracts. Otherwise, they fear deception, and not without [III/197] just cause. For who trusts what someone else has said and promised, when the other person continues to have the supreme 'power and right to do whatever he pleases, and is someone whose supreme law must be the well-being and advantage of his state? Who but a fool, who does not know the right the supreme 'powers have?
[46] Moreover, if we attend to piety and religion, we’ll see that when [5] keeping a promise would be harmful to his state, no ruler can stand by his promises without wickedness. If he sees that a promise he’s made is harmful to his state, he can’t keep that promise without breaking the promise he made to his subjects, a promise which binds him most firmly, a promise rulers usually undertake most sacredly to honor.
[47] Next, an enemy is whoever lives outside the state without recognizing [10] the state’s sovereignty, either as an ally or as a subject. For it’s not hatred which makes an enemy of the state, but right. The state’s right against whoever does not recognize its sovereignty by any kind of contract is the same as its right against someone who’s done it harm. Indeed, it can rightly compel him, in whatever way it can, either to surrender or to become an ally.
[15] [48] Finally, the crime of treason can be committed only by subjects or citizens, who have transferred all their right to the state, either by a tacit or by an explicit contract. A subject is said to have committed this crime if he has tried in any way to seize the right of the supreme 'power, or to transfer it to another.
[20] [49] I say “has tried,” because if they were not to be condemned until after the deed had been done, for the most part the state would try this too late, after its right had been seized or transferred to another.19 I say one who tries “in any way” to seize the right of the supreme 'power, without qualification, because I make no distinction between cases where the attempt would clearly harm the whole Republic and those where it would clearly benefit the whole Republic. [50] However [the traitor] [25] tried to do this, he’s committed treason and is rightly condemned.
Everyone acknowledges that in war this is done with the most valid right. If someone doesn’t maintain his station, but attacks the enemy without his commander’s knowledge—even if he’s done it with a good plan, and driven the enemy back—so long as he was acting merely on his own initiative, he’s still rightly condemned to death, because he’s [30] violated his oath and the commander’s right.20
[51] But not everyone sees equally clearly that all citizens, without exception, are always bound by this same law, though the reason for it is exactly the same. For the Republic must be preserved and directed by the policy of the supreme 'power alone, and the citizens have agreed unconditionally that this right belongs only to the supreme 'power. So if any citizen has undertaken to carry out any public business solely [III/198] by his own decision, without the supreme council’s knowledge, he’s violated the right of the supreme 'power, has committed treason, and is rightly condemned. As we’ve said [xvi, 49], it doesn’t matter how much advantage this would certainly bring to the state.
[52] To remove any misgiving, it remains now for us to answer this [5] question: isn’t it plainly contrary to the revealed divine law to maintain, as we have above [xvi, 6], that anyone in the state of nature who doesn’t have the use of reason lives, by the supreme right of nature, according to the laws of appetite? For since everyone is equally bound by the divine command—unconditionally, whether they have the use of reason or not—to love his neighbor as himself, we can’t bring harm [10] to another person, and live by the laws of appetite alone, without a violation of right.
[53] We can easily reply to this objection if only we attend to the state of nature. For it’s prior, both in nature and in time, to religion. No one knows, by nature,21** that he’s bound to obey God. This knowledge [15] is something he can’t acquire by reason at all, but only by revelation, confirmed by signs. [54] So before revelation no one is bound by a divine law he can’t help but not know. We mustn’t confuse the state of nature with the state of religion, but must conceive it as being without religion or law, and hence without sin or violations of right. We’ve already done this,22 confirming our conception by the authority of Paul.
[20] [55] It’s not only because no one knows the divine law in a state of nature that we conceive that state as being prior to revealed divine law, and without such a law. It’s also because everyone is born in freedom. If, according to nature, all men were bound by divine law, or if the divine law were a law by nature, it would’ve been superfluous for God [25] to enter into a contract with men and to bind them by an agreement and an oath.23 [56] So we must grant, without qualification, that divine law began when, in an explicit agreement, men promised God to obey him in everything. By this they, as it were, surrendered their natural freedom, and transferred their right to God, as we’ve said happens in the civil state. But I’ll treat these matters in more detail later.
[30] [57] Someone may still insist that the supreme 'powers are bound by this divine law just as much as subjects are. We’ve said, on the contrary, that they retain their natural right, and that by right everything is permitted to them.
This whole difficulty arises not so much because of the state of nature as because of the right of nature. To remove it I say that in the state of nature each person is bound by revealed law in the same [III/199] way he’s bound to live according to the dictates of sound reason: it’s more advantageous to him and necessary for his salvation. If he doesn’t want to do this, he’s permitted to act at his own risk. [58] So he’s only bound to live according to his own decision, not anyone else’s, and isn’t bound to recognize any mortal as his judge, or as by right the defender of religion.
[5] I say that the supreme 'power has retained this right. It can, indeed, consult men, but it is not bound to recognize anyone as a judge, nor any mortal other than itself as a defender of any right, except a Prophet, whom God has expressly sent, and who has shown this by indubitable signs. [59] And not even then is he compelled to recognize the man as judge, but only God himself.24
[10] But if the supreme 'power doesn’t wish to obey the God revealed in his law, he may do this at his own risk and to his own loss, without any conflict with either civil or natural law. For the civil law depends only on his own decree. [60] And the natural law depends on the laws of nature, which are accommodated, not to Religion (which aims only at what is useful to man), but to the order of the whole of nature, i.e., [15] to the eternal decree of God, which is unknown to us. Some people seem to have had a conception of this, though rather obscurely, when they maintained that man can, indeed, sin against the revealed will of God, but not against his eternal decree, by which he predetermined all things.25
[61] But suppose someone were now to ask: what if the supreme [20] 'power commands something contrary to religion and to the obedience we’ve promised to God in an explicit covenant? Must we obey the divine or the human command?26
I’ll discuss these matters in more detail later. Here I’ll only say briefly that, when we have a certain and undoubted revelation, we must obey God above all others. [62] But as experience testifies only [25] too well, men are apt to make great mistakes in matters of religion, and to compete vigorously in inventing many things, according to the differences in their mentality. So it’s certain that if no one were bound by law to obey the supreme 'power in the things he thought pertained to religion, then the right of the state would depend on the varying judgment and affect of each person. [63] For no one would [30] be bound by a statute which he judged was contrary to his faith and superstition. So under this pretext everyone could assume a license to do anything.
In this way, the right of the state would be completely violated. From this it follows that the supreme 'power, which, both by divine and by natural law, has the sole responsibility of preserving and protecting the rights of the state, has the supreme right to maintain whatever it [III/200] judges concerning religion. Everyone is bound to obey its decrees and commands about this matter, according to the assurance they’ve given to it, which God commands them to honor in every case.27
[64] But if those who have the sovereignty are Pagans, we should not enter into any contracts with them, but should resolve to suffer the greatest distress rather than transfer our right to them. And if [5] we have entered into a contract, and transferred our right to them, since we have thereby deprived ourselves of the right of defending ourselves and our religion, we are bound to obey them, and to keep faith, or to be forced to do that—unless by a certain revelation God has promised his special aid against a Tyrant or specifically willed an exception.
[10] [65] So we see that of all the Jews who were in Babylon, only three young men, who did not doubt God’s aid, were unwilling to obey Nebuchadnezzar [Daniel 3:12]. But with the further exception of Daniel, whom the King himself revered [Daniel 6:15], the rest no doubt obeyed, when they were compelled by the law, perhaps reflecting in their heart that it was in accordance with God’s decree that they had been delivered to the King, and that the King held his sovereignty and preserved it by God’s guidance.
[15] [66] On the other hand, Eleazar [2 Maccabees 6:18–31], while his Country was still standing as best it could, wanted to give his people an example of constancy, so that his followers would be prepared to bear anything rather than allow their right and 'power to be transferred to the Greeks, and would undergo anything so as not to be forced to swear loyalty to the Gentiles.
This is also confirmed by daily experience. [67] For those who rule [20] as Christian sovereigns do not hesitate, for the sake of their greater security, to conclude treaties with the Turks and Pagans, and to command their subjects, who go to live among them, not to assume a greater freedom in their practices, whether secular or religious, than they have explicitly agreed to or than that state has granted. This is [25] evident from the agreement of the Dutch with the Japanese, which we have previously spoken about [v, 33].
1. Spinoza has a demonstrative pronoun here (haec, this). Some translators have taken haec to refer to the separation between philosophy and theology; but most take it to refer to theology. Ch. xiv, 39, supports that interpretation.
2. In ii, 38, Spinoza had made God’s supreme right over all things a central point of Mosaic theology, deriving it from his creative activity. Here the Mosaic idea is combined with one which goes back to Pliny, that the power of God and the power of nature are identical. Cf. i, 44; iii, 9; and vi, 9.
3. Cf. Hobbes, DCv I, 7–10.
4. At III/54/14–15 Spinoza had cited Rom. 4:15—“where there is no law, there is no violation”— in support of attributing to Paul the idea that there is no sin without a commandment and a law. Perhaps Rom. 5:13 would have been clearer support for Spinoza’s view: “sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned where there is no law.” I take this to mean that the appetites and actions the law subsequently condemned as sinful existed prior to the promulgation of the law, but that those appetites were not genuinely sinful until there was a law which prohibited them. That seems consistent with Spinoza’s position here.
5. §§10–11 will be repeated in the TP, ii, 8.
6. **[ADN. XXXII] In the civil state, where there is a common law which decides what is good and what is evil, we rightly distinguish between a good and an evil intent to deceive. But in the state of nature, where everyone is his own judge, and has the supreme right to prescribe and interpret laws for himself, indeed, even to disregard them, as he judges it to be more advantageous for himself, there it cannot be conceived that anyone acts in bad faith.
7. Spinoza’s position here contrasts interestingly with that of Hobbes (cf. DCv ii, 16; Leviathan xiv, 27). See also Grotius, De jure belli III, xix.
8. “Natural law” here translates jus naturale, a phrase discussed in the Glossary under LAW, RIGHT, where this passage is cited as illustrating an apparently prescriptive use of jus naturale. Also relevant, the Glossary entry BOUND. But in the first sentence of the next section jus naturale is translated “natural right.”
9. Wernham suggests that reflection on this conclusion may have helped convince Spinoza that the contract was superfluous. Perhaps this is why there is less emphasis on a contract in the TP.
10. An allusion to Virgil’s Eclogues ii, 65 (ALM).
11. Wernham cites Hobbes, DCv v, 4–5. Those who think Spinoza has read some version of Leviathan might think xvii, 2, of that work also relevant. What must be added to the promise is the probability of punishment for breaking it. “Covenants without the sword are but words, and of no strength to secure a man at all.”
12. It seems to have been quite traditional to make the right to inflict the death penalty one of the essential marks of sovereignty. Cf. Grotius, De jure belli I, iii, 6; Hobbes, DCv ii, 18; Pufendorf, De jure naturae VIII, iii, 1; Locke, Two Treatises II, 1.
13. I take it that Spinoza here accepts the logic of the argument of Hobbes and Bodin, that sovereignty is indivisible. Cf. DCv vi, 6–11; Leviathan xviii, 16.
14. Troades 258, previously cited in v, 22 (ALM).
15. Like Machiavelli (Discourses I, 54), Spinoza believes in the wisdom of crowds. Cf. TP vii, 5.
16. An allusion to Cicero, De legibus III, 3: salus populi suprema lex esto (ALM).
17. **[ADN. XXXIII] No matter what state a man is in, he can be free. For certainly a man is free just insofar as he is led by reason. But (contrary to Hobbes) reason urges peace in all circumstances; moreover, peace cannot be obtained unless the common laws of the state are maintained without infringement. So the more a man is led by reason, i.e., the more he is free, the more will he steadfastly maintain the state’s laws and carry out the commands of the supreme 'power to which he is subject. [Laird (1934, 300) criticized Spinoza’s grasp of Hobbes in this note. But Spinoza’s comment does say something contrary to what Hobbes says in DCv ii, 2, where the first law of nature is “to seek peace where it can be had, and where it cannot, to seek the helps of war.” In Leviathan Hobbes’ position is different, but still contrary to Spinoza’s. The first law is to seek peace, “as far as he has hope of attaining it,” but when it cannot be obtained, the right of nature permits him “to seek and use all the helps and advantages of war” (xiv, 4).]
18. Reading quod for quo in Gebhardt l. 7, and se defendere for defendere in l. 10. (ALM)
19. A bit of political wisdom which Akkerman traces to Sallust’s War with Catiline lii.
20. Spinoza is apparently thinking here of the case of Manlius Torquatus, cited below in xix, 23.
21. **[ADN. XXXIV] When Paul says [Rom. 1:20] that men are without escape, he’s speaking in a human manner. For in ch. 9 [Saint-Glain: v. 18] of the same Letter he explicitly teaches that God has mercy on those on whom he will have mercy, and hardens those he will harden, and that men are inexcusable, not because they’ve been forewarned, but only because they’re in God’s power as the clay is in the power of the potter, who makes, of the same mass, one vessel for honorable purposes, another for dishonorable ones.
As for natural divine law, whose chief precept we’ve said is to love God [iv, 12–14, 21], I’ve called it a law in the same sense philosophers call laws the common rules of nature, according to which all things happen. For the love of God is not obedience, but a virtue which is necessarily in the man who rightly knows God. Obedience is concerned with the will of the one commanding, not with the necessity and truth of the matter. Moreover, since we’re ignorant of the nature of God’s will, and on the other hand, know with certainty that whatever happens, happens only by God’s power, it’s only by revelation that we can know whether God wills that men should worship him with some honor, as they would a prince.
Moreover, we’ve shown that the divine laws seem to us to be laws, or things instituted, just as long as we do not know their cause. But when this is known, they thereby cease to be laws, and we embrace them not as laws, but as eternal truths. That is, obedience passes into love, which proceeds from true knowledge as necessarily as light does from the sun.
So under the guidance of reason we can love God, but not obey him. For we cannot embrace the divine laws as divine so long as we are ignorant of their cause; and we cannot, by reason, conceive God as establishing those laws like a prince.
22. The reference is apparently to xvi, 6, where Spinoza seems to interpret Paul’s teaching differently than he had in iv, 47–50. I take it that ADN. XXXIV is intended to address this prima facie inconsistency by recommending a reading of Rom. 1:20 which removes its endorsement of traditional natural law.
23. The issue raised in this section also arises in Hobbes. The covenantal theology of the Pentateuch is not easy to reconcile with the conception of God’s sovereignty in the book of Job. I've explored these issues in Curley 2002 and 2004.
24. Like Hobbes, Spinoza is concerned to rule out the possibility that private citizens might seek to challenge the authority of the sovereign because they have a higher obligation to God. Cf. Leviathan xxxi, 1; xxxiii, 1; xliii, 1; and the comment on these passages in the preface to my edition of Leviathan, xli–xliv. For a recent and useful treatment of the Erastian tradition in early modern political theory, see Nelson 2010.
25. Cf. Thomas (Aquinas ST I-II, cix–cxiv) and Grotius (De jure belli I, i, 10, §2) (Giancotti).
26. A version of the question raised classically in Acts 5:29, where the answer is that we must obey God rather than man. The question is also central for Hobbes. See my introduction to his Leviathan, xli–xliv.
27. Perhaps we have an allusion here to Rom. 13:1–7, a text prominently cited as authorizing (unconditional) obedience to the state.
That no one can or need transfer everything to the Supreme 'Power; on the Hebrew Republic during the life of Moses, and after his death, before they elected Kings; on its excellence; why it could perish, and could hardly survive without rebellions
[1] In the last Chapter we considered the right the supreme 'powers [10] have to do everything, and the natural right each person has transferred to them. Though the view expressed there agrees in no small measure with practice, and a practice could be established which approached more and more closely to the condition we described, still, it will never happen that this view does not remain, in many respects, merely theoretical.
[2] No one will ever be able to transfer to another his power, or [15] consequently, his right, in such a way that he ceases to be a man. And there will never be a supreme 'power who can get everything to happen just as he wishes. The supreme 'power would act in vain if he commanded a subject to hate someone who had joined the subject to himself by a benefit, or to love someone who had harmed him, or not [20] to be offended by insults, or not to desire to be freed from fear, and many other things of this kind, which necessarily follow from the laws of human nature.
[3] I think experience also teaches this very clearly. Men have never surrendered their right and transferred their power to another in such a way that the people who received the right and power from them did not fear them, and that the state was not in greater danger from [25] its own citizens than from its enemies (even though those citizens had deprived themselves of their right).1**
[4] Admittedly, if men could be so deprived of their natural right that subsequently they could do nothing, except by the will of those who held the supreme Right, then the latter would be permitted to reign over their subjects most violently and with absolute impunity. But I believe it could never occur to anyone to think that. So it must [30] be granted that each person reserves to himself many things of which he remains the master, things which therefore depend on no one’s decision but his own.
[5] Nevertheless, to understand rightly how far the right and 'power of the state extend, we must note that its 'power is not limited [III/202] to what it can compel men to do from fear, but extends to absolutely everything it can bring men to do in compliance with its commands. It’s obedience which makes the subject, not the reason for the obedience. [6] For whatever reason a man resolves to carry out the commands of the supreme 'power, whether because he fears [5] punishment, or because he hopes for something from it, or because he loves his Country, or because he has been impelled by any other affect whatever, he still forms his resolution according to his own judgment, notwithstanding that he acts in accordance with the command of the supreme 'power.
[7] So we must not infer simply from the fact that a man does something by his own judgment, that he does it by his own right, [10] and not by the right of the state. For since he always acts by his own judgment and decision—both when he is bound by love and when he is compelled by fear to avoid some evil—if there is to be a state and a right over subjects, political authority must extend to everything which can bring men to decide to yield to it. So whatever a subject does which [15] answers to the commands of the supreme 'power—whether he’s been bound by love, or compelled by fear, or (as indeed is more frequent) by hope and fear together, whether he acts from reverence (a passion composed of fear and wonder) or is led by any reason whatever—he acts by the right of the state, not his own right.
[8] This is also established as clearly as possible from the fact that [20] obedience concerns not so much the external action, as the internal action of the soul. So that person is most under another’s control who resolves wholeheartedly to obey all the other’s commands. Consequently, that ruler has the greatest authority who reigns over the hearts of his subjects. But if those who were most feared had the greatest authority, [25] then the subjects of Tyrants would surely have it. For they are most feared by their Tyrants.2
[9] Though hearts cannot be commanded in the same way tongues can, still hearts are to some extent under the control of the supreme 'power, which can bring it about in many ways that most men believe, love, and hate whatever it wants them to.3 [10] Even if these things [30] don’t happen by the direct command of the supreme 'power, still experience abundantly testifies that they often happen by the authority of its power and by its guidance, i.e., by its right. So without any intellectual incoherence, we can conceive men who believe, love, hate, disdain, or are overcome by any kind of affect whatever, solely in accordance with [III/203] the right of the state.
[11] In this way we conceive the right and 'power of the state to be ample enough. Still, it will never be so great that those who hold it have an absolute power to do whatever they wish. I believe I’ve already shown this clearly enough. [12] I’ve said that I don’t intend to show [5] how a state could be formed so that it might, in spite of everything, always be preserved securely. However, to achieve what I want to, I’ll note the things divine revelation once taught Moses to this end. Then we’ll consider the development of Hebrew history.4 From this we’ll see the main things the supreme 'powers ought to grant to subjects, for [10] the greater security and advantage of the state.
[13] Both reason and experience teach, as clearly as can be, that the preservation of the state depends chiefly on the loyalty of its subjects, on their virtue, and on their constancy of heart in carrying out commands. But it’s not so easy to see how they must be led so that they [15] constantly maintain their loyalty and virtue. [14] All men, whether they rule or are ruled, tend to prefer pleasure to difficult work.5 Those who’ve experienced how changeable the mentality of the multitude is almost despair about it. They’re governed only by affects, not by reason. [20] Rushing headlong toward everything, they’re easily corrupted either by greed or by extravagant living. [15] Everyone thinks that he alone knows everything, and wants everything to be done according to his mentality. He thinks a thing fair or unfair, permissible or impermissible, just to the extent that he judges it brings him profit or loss. From love of esteem, he disdains equals, and will not put up with being ruled by [25] them. From envy for the greater praise or better fortune someone else receives—these things are never equal—he wishes the other person ill, and is delighted when bad things happen to him.
There’s no need to go over all this. [16] Everyone knows how it goes—a disgust with the present, a craving to make fundamental changes, uncontrolled anger, a scorn for poverty—these affects lead men to wickedness. Everyone knows how much they fill and disturb men’s hearts.
[30] To prevent all these things, and to establish the state so that there’s no place for fraud—to establish things so that everyone, whatever his mentality, prefers the public right to private advantage, this is the task, this is our concern.6 [17] Though the necessity of solving this problem has compelled people to invent many solutions, we’ve never reached the point where a state is not in more danger from its own citizens [III/204] than from its enemies, and where the rulers don’t fear their citizens more than their enemies.
[18] Witness the Roman Republic, unconquerable by its enemies, but so often conquered and wretchedly oppressed by its own citizens, particularly in the civil war between Vespasian and Vitellius. On this, see Tacitus, at the beginning of book IV of his Histories, where he [5] describes how pitiful the city was [after Vespasian defeated Vitellius].7
[19] And as Curtius says at the end of book viii, Alexander viewed a formidable reputation in an enemy with fewer qualms than he did one in a citizen. He believed his greatness could be destroyed by his own citizens [but that the greater those he conquered, the brighter would be his own fame].8 Fearing what his fate might be, he implored his friends to
Make me secure from treachery within and domestic plots, and I shall [10] face unafraid the crises of war and of Mars. Philip was safer on the battlefield than in the theater.9 Often he avoided the hand of the enemy, but he could not escape that of his own people. If you think about the deaths of other Kings, you will find more killed by their own people than by the enemy.10*
[20] That’s why, when Kings assumed the rule in earlier times, to [15] make themselves secure they tried to persuade people that they were descended from the immortal Gods. They thought that if only their subjects (and everyone else) didn’t look on them as equals, but believed them to be Gods, they would easily surrender to them, and willingly submit to their rule.
[21] So Augustus persuaded the Romans that he was descended [20] from Aeneas, who was believed to be the son of Venus and one of the Gods. He wanted to be worshipped in temples, with sacred images, by flamens and priests.11*
[22] Alexander wanted to be hailed as the son of Jupiter. He seems to have done this as a matter of policy, not out of pride, as his reply to Hermolaus’ reproaches indicates:
[25] It was almost enough to make me laugh when Hermolaus asked me to reject Jupiter, by whose oracle I’m recognized [as his son]. Are even the answers of the Gods in my 'power? He offered me the name of son. To accept it [note this well] was hardly unhelpful to the affairs we’re engaged in. Would that the Indians also believed me to be a God. For wars depend on reputation, and often a false belief has been just as effective as a true one.12*
[30] In these few words he shrewdly proceeds to persuade the ignorant that he is what he pretends to be, and at the same time hints at the reason for the pretense.
[23] Cleon also did this in the speech he gave, trying to persuade the Macedonians to flatter the King by agreeing.13 For after he gave an appearance of truth to the pretense, reciting the praises of Alexander with admiration, and recounting his merits, he proceeded to point out [III/205] the utility of this arrangement:
The Persians, in fact, are not only pious, but also prudent to worship their Kings as Gods. For the majesty of the state is the guardian of its safety . . .
And in the end he concludes
when the King goes in to a banquet, I will prostrate my body on the ground. Everyone else ought to do the same, especially those who are wise.
[5] [24] But the Macedonians were too prudent for that. Only men who are complete barbarians allow themselves to be deceived so openly and to turn from subjects to slaves, of no use to themselves. But others have had better success than Cleon in persuading men that Majesty is sacred, God’s representative on earth, that it has been established, not by men’s vote and consent, but by God, and that it is preserved and [10] defended by God’s particular providence and aid.14 [25] And in this way Monarchs have devised other means to secure their rule, which I’ll omit. To get to the conclusions I want to reach, I shall, as I’ve said, note and weigh only those things divine revelation once taught Moses for this purpose.15
[15] [26] We’ve already said in Ch. 5 [§§26–31] that after the Hebrews escaped from Egypt, they were no longer bound by any law to another nation, but were permitted to institute new laws for themselves, as they pleased, and to occupy whatever lands they wanted to. For after they’d been freed from the intolerable oppression of the Egyptians, and were not attached to any mortal by any contract, they regained their [20] natural right to do anything they could. Each of them could decide again whether he wanted to keep it, or to surrender it and transfer it to someone else.
[27] When they’d been placed in this natural condition, they decided to transfer their right only to God, not to any mortal. That was Moses’ advice and they had the utmost trust in him. Without further delay [25] they all promised equally, in one voice, to obey all God’s commands absolutely, and not to recognize any other law except what he would establish as law by Prophetic revelation. [28] And this promise, or transfer of right, to God, was made in the same way as we’ve conceived it to be [30] done in ordinary society, when men decide to surrender their natural right. For by an explicit covenant and an oath they freely surrendered their natural right and transferred it to God, without being compelled by force or terrified by threats.16*
[29] To make the covenant valid, lasting, and free of any suspicion of deception, God didn’t undertake to give anything to them until after they experienced his wonderful power, by which alone they had been preserved, [III/206] and by which alone they could be preserved in the future (see Exodus 19:4–5). By the very fact that they believed they could be preserved by the power of God alone, they transferred to God all their natural power to preserve themselves, which previously they perhaps had thought they [5] had of themselves. As a result, they transferred all their right.17
[30] God alone, then, had sovereignty over the Hebrews. By the force of the covenant this [state] alone was rightly called the Kingdom of God, and God was rightly called also the King of the Hebrews. As a result the enemies of this state [were rightly called] enemies of God, and citizens who18 wanted to usurp his authority [were rightly held] guilty of treason against God’s majesty. And finally, the laws of the state [were rightly called] laws and commands of God.
[10] [31] That’s why in this state civil law and Religion (which, as we’ve shown, consists only in obedience to God) were one and the same thing. The doctrines of Religion were not teachings, but laws and commands. Piety was regarded as justice, and impiety a crime and an injustice. Anyone who failed in Religion ceased to be a citizen. For this [15] alone he was considered an enemy. Anyone who died for Religion was thought to have died for his Country. Absolutely no distinction was made between civil law and Religion.
[32] For that reason this state could be called a Theocracy.19 Its citizens weren’t bound by any law except the one revealed by God. But all these things consisted more in opinion than in fact. Really the [20] Hebrews retained the right of the state absolutely, as we’ll establish in what follows, from the way this state was administered, which I’ve decided to explain here.
[33] The Hebrews didn’t transfer their right to anyone else, but everyone surrendered his right equally, as in a Democracy, and they [25] cried out in one voice “whatever God says” (without any explicit mediator) “we will do.”20 It follows that everyone remained completely equal by this covenant, that the right to consult God, and to receive and interpret his laws, was equal for everyone. Everyone held the whole administration of the state equally, without qualification. [34] That’s [30] why everyone equally went to God the first time to hear what he wanted to command.
But at that first greeting they were so terrified, so stunned by thunder and lightning when they heard God speak, that they thought their end was near. [35] Full of fear, then, they approached Moses again, saying:
behold, we have heard God speaking in the fire, and there is no reason why we should wish to die; certainly this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of God again, we shall certainly die; so you go near [III/207] and listen to everything our God says, and you [not God] shall speak to us; and everything God says to you, we will obey and carry out.21
[36] With these words they clearly abolished the first covenant and transferred to Moses, unconditionally, their right to consult God and [5] to interpret his edicts. For here they promised to obey, not (as before) whatever God said to them, but whatever he said to Moses (see Deuteronomy 5, after the Decalogue, and 18:15–16).
[37] Moses, then, remained the sole promulgator and interpreter of the divine laws, and hence, also the supreme Judge, whom no one could judge. He was the sole representative of God among the Hebrews, i.e., [10] he had the supreme majesty, since he alone had the right to consult God and to give God’s replies to the people, and to compel the people to carry them out. He alone, I say; for if anyone wanted to preach anything in God’s name while Moses was alive, even though he was a true Prophet, he was still guilty of usurping the supreme right (see Numbers 11:28).22**
[15] [38] We should note here that even though the people chose Moses, they could not, by law, choose a successor in his place. As soon as they transferred their right to consult God to Moses, and promised unconditionally to regard him as a divine oracle, they completely lost all right, and were obliged to accept as God’s choice whomever Moses chose as [20] his successor. [39] If he had chosen someone who would have, as he did, the whole administration of the state, i.e., the right to consult God alone in his tent, and hence the authority to make and repeal laws, the right to decide about war and peace, to send ambassadors, establish judges, choose a successor, and administer absolutely all the functions of the supreme 'power, the state would have been nothing more than [25] a monarchy. There wouldn’t have been any other difference [between it and other monarchies] except that generally a monarchic state is governed according to a decree of God hidden even from the Monarch himself, whereas the state of the Hebrews would have been governed (or ought to have been governed) in a certain way by a decree of God revealed only to the Monarch.
[40] This difference does not diminish the Monarch’s dominion and [30] right over everyone. On the contrary, it increases it. As for the people of each state,23 each is equally subject and ignorant of the divine decree. For each depends on what the Monarch says and only from that does he understand what is permissible and impermissible. Moreover, the people are not less, but more subject to the Monarch insofar as they believe that he commands nothing but what has been revealed to him by a decree of God.
[III/208] [41] But Moses chose no such successor. Instead he left the state to be administered by his successors in such a way that it couldn’t be called either popular, or aristocratic, or monarchic, but Theocratic. For one person had the right of interpreting the laws and of communicating God’s replies, and another had the right and 'power to administer the [5] state according to the laws already explained and the replies already communicated. On this see Numbers 27:21.24**
[42] For a better understanding of these matters, I’ll explain in an orderly way how the whole state was administered.
First, the people were ordered to build a dwelling-place,25 which was, as it were, the court of God, i.e., of the supreme Majesty of that state. [10] This dwelling-place was to be built, not at the expense of one person, but from the resources of the whole people, so that the dwelling-place where God was to be consulted would be subject to the control of the community.
[43] [Next,] the Levites were chosen as the courtiers and administrators of this divine court.26 Aaron, Moses’ brother, was chosen the chief of these and, as it were, second to God the King. The law prescribed that his sons would succeed to his position. As nearest to God, he was [15] the supreme interpreter of the divine laws, who gave the people the replies of the divine oracle, and finally, who petitioned God on behalf of the people. [44] If he [Aaron or whichever his successors was the chief priest] had had, along with these [powers of interpreting the law], the right to command [that the laws be obeyed], he would have needed nothing else to be an absolute monarch. But he was barred from this [by Numbers 27:18–21], and the whole tribe of Levi, without exception, was so deprived of the command of the whole community [20] that it did not even have its own share [of the land] along with the other tribes, which it would possess by right, and from which it could at least live. But [Moses] established that the tribe of Levi would be fed by the rest of the people, in such a way that it would always be held in greatest honor by the common, ordinary people, as the only tribe dedicated to God.27
[45] Next, an army, formed from the rest of the twelve tribes, was [25] commanded to invade the domain of the Canaanites, to divide it into twelve parts, and to distribute it to the tribes by lots. For this task twelve leaders were chosen, one from each tribe. These leaders, along with Joshua, and the high priest Eleazar, were given the right to divide the lands into twelve equal parts and to distribute them by lot.28
[46] Joshua was chosen supreme commander of this army [Numbers [30] 27:15–21]. He alone had the right to consult God in new matters, but not (as Moses had) alone in his tent, or in the tabernacle. He did this through the high Priest, who alone received God’s replies. [Joshua was also granted] the right to establish the commands God communicated to him by the priest, to compel the people to obey them, to devise and use means of carrying them out, to choose from the army as many as he wanted, and whom he wanted, and to send [III/209] ambassadors in his own name. Absolutely every right of war depended only on his decree.
[47] On the other hand, no one succeeded to his post by any legal prescription; his successor was chosen immediately by God; and this happened only when the necessity of the whole people required it. Otherwise all matters of war and peace were administered by the leaders of the Tribes, as I shall soon show.
[5] [48] Finally, [God] commanded everyone from age twenty to age sixty29 to take up arms for military service, and to form armies only from the people, armies which swore loyalty not to the commander, nor to the high priest, but to Religion or God. These armies, then, were called the armies or hosts of God, and God, among the Hebrews, was [10] called the God of hosts. That’s why in great battles, on whose outcome either the victory or the defeat of the whole people depended, the ark of the covenant used to go in the middle of the hosts so that the people, seeing their King, as it were, present among them, would fight with the utmost force.30
[49] From Moses’ commands to his successors we easily infer that [15] he chose administrators, not rulers, of the state. For he gave no one the right to consult God alone and when he wanted to; so he gave no one the authority he himself had of making and repealing laws, deciding concerning war and peace, and choosing administrators both of the temple and of the cities. All these are functions of someone holding sovereignty.
[20] [50] For the high priest had the right to interpret the laws and give God’s replies, but only when asked by the commander, or the supreme council, or the like, not (as Moses had) whenever he wanted to. On the other hand, the supreme commander of the army and the councils could consult God when they wanted to, but could receive God’s replies [25] only from the high priest. So in the mouth of the priest God’s dictates were not decrees, as they were in Moses’ mouth, but only replies. Only when they had been accepted by Joshua and the councils, did they have the force of a command and decree.
[51] Again, this high priest, who received God’s replies from God, didn’t have an army, and didn’t have the command by law. On the other [30] hand, those who had the right to possess lands did not have the right to make laws. The high priest—this was as true of Aaron as it was of his son Eleazar—was indeed chosen by Moses. But when Moses was dead no one had the right to choose the priest. As the law prescribed, the son succeeded to the father.31
[52] The commander of the army was also chosen by Moses, and he took on the role of commander, not from the right of the high priest, [III/210] but from the right of Moses, given to him. Therefore, when Joshua died, the priest did not choose anyone in his place, nor did the leaders [of the tribes] consult God concerning a new commander, but each one retained Joshua’s right over the army of his own tribe, and collectively they had that right over the army as a whole.
[53] It seems there was no need of a supreme commander except [5] when they had to fight a common enemy with their combined forces. This in fact happened mainly in the time of Joshua, when they did not yet all have a fixed place and when everything was subject to the control of the community. But after all the tribes divided among themselves the lands they possessed by right of war, and those they were still under [10] orders to possess,32 and everything was no longer everyone’s, by that very fact the reason for a common commander ceased, since by that division the different tribes had to be considered not so much fellow citizens as allies. [54] In relation to God and Religion, of course, they had to be regarded as fellow citizens. But in relation to the right one [15] had against another, they were only allies, almost in the same way as the Sovereign Federated States of the Netherlands are (if you discount the common temple).33 For dividing common property into shares is just each person’s possessing, alone now, his share, and everyone else’s surrendering the right they had to that share.
[55] That’s why Moses chose the leaders of the tribes,34 so that after [20] the command was divided each leader would have responsibility for his own share, i.e., the responsibility for consulting God through the high priest about the affairs of his own tribe, for commanding his own army, for founding and fortifying cities, for establishing judges in each city, for attacking the enemy of his own particular state, and of administering all matters of war and peace without exception. Nor were the leaders [15] bound to recognize any other judge except God,35** or a prophet whom God had explicitly sent. Otherwise, if he defected from God, the others were obliged, not to judge him as a subject, but to attack him as an enemy who had annulled the assurance of the contract.
[56] We have examples of this in Scripture. When Joshua died, it was [30] the children of Israel, not a new supreme commander, who consulted God. When it was understood that the tribe of Judah had to attack its enemy first of all, that tribe alone contracted with Simeon that their combined forces would attack each one’s enemy [in turn]. The rest of the tribes were not included in this contract (see Judges 1:1–3), but each one waged war separately against its own enemy (as is related in [III/211] this chapter), and received into subjection and allegiance whomever it wished, even if it had been commanded not to spare anyone, under any condition of a covenant, but to exterminate everyone. Because of this sin they were indeed censured, but no one called them to judgment.36 It was not for this reason that they began to wage war against one [5] another and some began to meddle in the affairs of others.
[57] On the other hand, [the other tribes] attacked the Benjaminites as enemies, because they had offended them and broken the peace accord in such a way that none of their allies could securely have ties of hospitality with them.37 When the other tribes had done battle with the Benjaminites three times, and were finally victorious, they slaughtered everyone alike, the guilty and the innocent, by the right of war. [10] Afterward, repenting too late, they grieved at what they had done. [58] These examples completely confirm what we have just said about the right of each tribe.
But perhaps someone will ask: who chose the successor to the leader of each tribe? About this I can infer nothing certain from Scripture [15] itself; I conjecture, though, that since each tribe was divided into families, whose heads were chosen from the elders of the family, the one among these who was senior succeeded by law to the position of leader. [59] For Moses chose from the Elders seventy assistant judges, who formed a supreme council with him [Numbers 11:16–25]; those who had the administration of the state after Joshua’s death are called elders [20] in Scripture [Joshua 23:2, 24:1, 31]; and finally, among the Hebrews nothing is more frequent than to understand by elders judges. I think everyone knows this.
[60] But for our purposes it doesn’t much matter whether we can know this with certainty. It’s enough that I’ve shown that after Moses’ death no one had all the functions of the supreme commander. These [25] things didn’t all depend on the decision of one man, or of one council, or of the people. Some were administered by one tribe, and others by the other tribes, with equal right for each one. From this it follows most clearly that after Moses’ death the state was neither monarchical, nor aristocratic, nor popular, but, as we have said, Theocratic: I) because [30] the temple was the royal house of the state and, as we’ve shown, it was the only reason why all the tribes were fellow citizens; II) because all the citizens had to swear allegiance to God as their supreme judge; he was the only one they had promised to obey absolutely in everything; and finally, III) because, when it was necessary to appoint a supreme commander over everyone, only God chose that commander. [61] Moses explicitly proclaims this to the people in the name of God in Deuteronomy [III/212] 18:15, and the choices of Gideon [Judges 6:11–40], Samson [Judges 13:2–25], and Samuel [1 Samuel 3] are witnesses to it. So we ought not to doubt that the other faithful leaders were also chosen in a similar way, even if the historical narrative concerning these leaders does not establish it.
[62] Now that we’ve explained [what sort of state the Israelites had [5] after the death of Moses], it’s time to see how far this way of constituting the state could moderate people’s hearts, and restrain both the rulers and the ruled, so that the ruled did not become rebels and the rulers did not become Tyrants.
[63] Those who administer the state or have the rule always try to cover up whatever crimes they commit under the appearance of [10] legality and to persuade the people that they’ve acted honestly. They can easily do this when the whole interpretation of the law depends only on them. For there’s no doubt that in this way they acquire the utmost freedom to do whatever they want, whatever their appetite urges. On the other hand, if someone else has the right to interpret the laws, they lose that great freedom; the same thing happens if the [15] true interpretation [of the laws] is so evident to everyone that no one can doubt it.
[64] This makes it clear that giving the whole right to interpret the laws to the Levites (see Deuteronomy 21:5) took a great opportunity for crimes away from the Hebrew leaders. The Levites had no administration of the state and no share [of the land] with the other [tribes]. Their [20] whole fortune and honor depended on their interpreting the laws truly.
Again, the people as a whole were commanded to gather every seven years in a certain place, where the Priest instructed them in the laws. Moreover, each one was commanded to read and reread the book of the law by himself, continuously and with the utmost attention (see [25] Deuteronomy 31:9[–13] and 6:7).
[65] So if the leaders wanted the people to cherish and honor them, they had to be very careful (if only in their own interest) to administer everything according to the prescribed laws, and to see that everyone was well aware of this. If they did that, the people would venerate them as the ministers of God’s sovereignty and as God’s agents. If not, they [30] could not escape their subjects’ greatest hatred. For there is, as a rule, no hatred like Theological hatred.38
[66] To these means of restraining the unbridled lust of the Leaders, we may add another which was very important:
[I.] the army was formed from all the citizens (all from age twenty to age sixty, with no exceptions) and the Leaders could not hire any foreign soldiers as mercenaries.
[III/213] [67] I say that this was very important because it’s certain that Leaders can oppress the people only with an army to whom they pay a salary, and that they fear nothing more than the freedom of soldiers who are their fellow citizens, who by their excellence, hard work, and readiness to shed their own blood, bring about the freedom and glory of the state.
[5] [68] That’s why, when Alexander had to fight Darius a second time, and he heard Parmenio’s counsel, he didn’t reproach Parmenio, who had given the counsel, but Polypercon, who was taking [Parmenio’s] side. As Curtius says (IV, xiii, [1–10]), he didn’t dare to reprimand Parmenio again, when he had recently criticized him more sharply than he wished [Curtius IV, xi, 10–15], and he could not suppress the [10] freedom of the Macedonians—which, as we’ve said [xvii, 19], he was very afraid of—not until after he’d increased the number of soldiers who had formerly been captives far beyond the number of Macedonian soldiers.39 Then, he was able to indulge his weak character, long restrained by the freedom of the best citizens.
[69] If this freedom of citizen soldiers holds in check the leaders [15] of a human state, who are accustomed to take for themselves all the praise for victories, how much more must it have restrained the Hebrew leaders, whose soldiers fought, not for the glory of their Leader, but for the glory of God, and joined battle only when they had received an answer from God.
[70] A second means of restraining the Hebrew Leaders was that
[20] [II.] they were all joined only by the bond of religion.
So if any of them defected from their religion and began to violate the divine right of each person, the rest could consider him an enemy and rightly silence him.
[71] A third means of restraint was
[III.] the fear of a new Prophet.
For if someone whose life was provably commendable showed by [25] certain accepted signs that he was a Prophet, by that very fact he (like Moses) had the supreme right to command, in the name of a God revealed to him alone, not (like the leaders) in the name of a God consulted only through the priest. [72] There’s no doubt that such men could easily draw an oppressed people to them, and [even] by slight signs persuade them of whatever they wanted to.
On the other hand, if the leader was administering things properly, [30] he could take precautions in time. The Prophet would first have to submit to his judgment, so that the leader could examine whether his life really was commendable, whether he had certain and indubitable signs of his commission, and finally, whether what he wanted to say in the name of God agreed with the accepted teaching and ordinary laws of the country. But if either the signs were not sufficient or the teaching [III/214] was new, he could rightly condemn him to death.40 Otherwise, he was accepted only by the authority and evidence of the leader.
[73] The fourth means was that
[IV.] the Leader was not superior to the others in nobility or in hereditary right; the administration of the state was his only because of his [5] age and excellence.
[V.] the Leaders and the whole army could be swayed no more by a desire for war than by a desire for peace.
As we’ve said, the entire army was made up of citizens.41 So the same men administered both the affairs of war and those of peace. Whoever [10] was a soldier in the camps was a citizen in civilian life; whoever was an officer in the camps was a judge in the court; and whoever was the commander in the camps was the leader in the state. [75] So no one could desire war for the sake of war, but only for the sake of peace, and to protect freedom. As it happened, the Leader abstained as much [15] as he could from novelties, so that he would not be obliged to go to the high Priest and stand before him in a way contrary to his dignity.
These are the reasons which kept the Leaders within limits. [76] Now we must see how the people were checked. The foundations of the state show this very clearly. For anyone who attends to them even casually will immediately see that these arrangements had to produce [20] in the hearts of the citizens a love so special that the hardest thing for them to think of would be betraying their country or defecting from it. On the contrary, everyone had to be moved so strongly that they would suffer death42 rather than live under foreign rule. [77] After they transferred their right to God, they believed that their kingdom was God’s kingdom, that they alone were God’s children, and that the other [25] nations were God’s enemies. As a result, they felt the most savage hatred toward the other nations—a hatred they also believed to be pious (see Psalm 139:21–22).43 Nothing could be more repugnant to them than swearing loyalty to a foreign power and promising obedience to it. They could imagine nothing more disgraceful or detestable than betraying [30] their country, the kingdom of the God they worshipped.
[78] Indeed, they considered it disgraceful even for someone to live outside his country, because they believed that their country was the only place they could practice the worship of God they were always bound to. They considered only that land sacred; they thought the others were unclean and profane. [79] That’s why, when David was [III/215] forced to live in exile, he complained to Saul in this manner: If it is men who incite you against me, they are cursed, because they cut me off from walking in the heritage of God, but say: Go, and worship foreign Gods [1 Samuel 26:19]. What’s especially notable here is that it was also for this reason that no citizen was condemned to exile. For one who sins deserves punishment, indeed, but not disgrace.
[5] [80] So the love of the Hebrews for their country was not a simple love, but piety. Their daily worship so encouraged and fed this piety, and this hatred of other nations, that [these affects] had to become a part of their nature. For the daily worship was not only completely different from that of the other nations (which made them altogether individual and completely separated from the others), but also absolutely contrary [10] to it. [81] That daily condemnation [of foreigners] had to produce a continual hatred; no other hatred could be lodged more firmly in their hearts than this. As is natural, no hatred can be greater or more stubborn than one born of great devotion or piety, and believed to be pious. And they did not lack the usual cause which invariably inflames [15] hatred more and more: its reciprocation. For the other nations were bound to hate them most savagely in return.
[82] Reason teaches as clearly as possible how much all these things—freedom from human dominion, devotion to their country, an absolute right in relation to all others, a hatred not only permitted, but even pious, regarding everyone as hostile, the particularity of customs and rites—reason, I say, teaches, and experience itself has been a witness, [20] how much all these things would strengthen the hearts of the Hebrews to bear everything with special constancy and virtue, for the sake of their Country. While the city was standing, they could never endure being under the rule of a foreign power. That’s why they frequently called Jerusalem the rebellious city (see Ezra 4:12, 15).
[25] [83] Though the second state, after the Priests took for themselves the right to rule,44 was hardly a shadow of the first, it was very difficult for the Romans to destroy it. Tacitus gives evidence of this in his Histories:
Vespasian had broken the back of the Jewish war, except for the siege of Jerusalem, [30] a task made harder and more troublesome because of the mentality of the people and the persistence of their superstition than because adequate forces were available to the besieged for the difficulties they had to endure (II, 4).
[84] But beyond these factors, whose evaluation depends only on opinion,45 there was something else very unyielding in this state, which must have been the most important factor to prevent its citizens from thinking of defection or wanting to desert their country: the principle of advantage, the mainstay and life of all human actions. That force was [III/216] exceptionally strong in this state. [85] Nowhere did the citizens possess their property with a greater right than did the subjects of this state, who, with the leader, had an equal share of the lands and fields.46 Each one was the everlasting lord of his own share. If poverty compelled [5] anyone to sell his estate or field, it had to be restored to him once again when the jubilee year came.47 They instituted other similar practices, so that no one could be alienated from his real property.
[86] Nowhere could poverty be more bearable than where the people had to cultivate, with the utmost piety, loving-kindness toward their [10] neighbor (i.e., toward their fellow citizens), so that God, their King, would favor them. The Hebrew citizens could prosper only in their own country; outside it they faced great harm and dishonor.
[87] Something else helped greatly, not only in keeping the people in their native country, but also in avoiding civil war and removing [15] causes for dispute: no one was subject to his equal; everyone was subject only to God, and loving-kindness and love toward one’s fellow citizen were valued as the height of piety. The hatred they had for other nations, which other nations reciprocated, encouraged this in no small measure.
[88] Especially conducive [to promoting loyalty to their country] was the extreme training in obedience they were brought up with. They were obliged to do everything according to a definite legal prescription. They [20] weren’t permitted to plow as they pleased, but only at certain times and in certain years, and only with one kind of animal at a time.48 Similarly, they could only sow and reap in a certain way and at a certain time.49 Without exception their life was a continual cultivation of obedience. (On this see Ch. 5, concerning the use of Ceremonies [§§30–31].) [89] To those who had become completely accustomed to it, this regime must [25] have seemed no longer bondage, but freedom. The inevitable result was that no one desired what was denied, but only what was commanded.
To achieve this it seems to have been quite helpful that at certain times of the year they were bound to devote themselves to leisure and joy, not to obey their heart, but to obey God from the heart. [90] Three times a year they had a feast in the presence of God (see Deuteronomy [30] 16[:16]); on the seventh day of the week they had to stop work and devote themselves to leisure [Exodus 35:1–3]; in addition, other times were designated at which honorable acts of joy and feasts were not just granted, but commanded. I don’t think anything more effective can be devised for steering people’s hearts in a certain direction. Nothing wins hearts more than the joy which arises from devotion, i.e., from [III/217] love and wonder together. [91] They couldn’t easily be wearied by the familiar practice of these things, because the worship designated for festive days was rare and varied.
To this we have to add their extreme reverence for the temple, a reverence they always preserved most scrupulously because of the special [5] worship conducted there and the things they were bound to observe before anyone was permitted to go there. To this day they can’t read without great horror about Manasseh’s disgraceful conduct, how he dared to place an idol in the temple itself [2 Kings 21:3–9].
[92] The people also had no less reverence for the laws, which were kept most scrupulously in the inmost sanctuary. So there was no need at [10] all to fear murmuring and prejudices among the people. No one dared to make a judgment about divine matters. They were obliged to obey, without ever consulting reason, in everything they were commanded to do, on the authority of a divine answer received in the temple or of a law established by God.
With this I think I have explained the guiding principle of this state clearly enough, even if briefly.
[15] [93] Now we must ask why the Hebrews so often failed to obey the law, why they were so often subjugated, and why, in the end, their state could be completely destroyed.
Perhaps someone will say that this happened because the people were stiff-necked. But this is childish. Why was this nation more stiff-necked than others? Was it by nature? Surely nature creates individuals, not [20] nations, individuals who are distinguished into nations only by differences of language, laws and accepted customs. [94] Only the latter two factors, laws and customs, can lead a nation to have its particular mentality, its particular character, and its particular prejudices.50 So if we have to grant that the Hebrews were more stiff-necked than other [25] mortals, we must ascribe that either to a vice of the laws or to a vice of the accepted customs.
[95] And of course this much is true: if God had wanted their state to be more stable, he would have established its rights and laws differently, and set up another way of administering it. So what else can [30] we say, except that they made their God angry, not only (as Jeremiah says, in 32:31) from the establishment of the city, but ever since the establishment of the laws.
[96] Ezekiel (20:25[–26]) also testifies to this, saying
Moreover, I gave them statutes which were not good, and laws by which they would not live, for I defiled them with their own gifts, by rejecting everything which opened the womb (i.e., the first-born), so that I might destroy them, that they might know that I am Yahweh.51
To better understand these words, and the reason for the destruction [III/218] of the state, we must note that [God’s] first intention was to hand over the whole of the sacred ministry to the first-born, not to the Levites (see Numbers 8:17). [97] But after everyone except the Levites worshipped the calf [Exodus 32:25–29], the first-born were rejected and defiled, and [5] the Levites were chosen in their place (Deuteronomy 10:8).
The more I consider this change, the more it compels me to burst out in the words of Tacitus: at that time God’s concern was not with their security, but with vengeance [see Tacitus, Histories I, 3]. I cannot wonder enough that there was so much anger in the heavenly heart52 that he established the laws, which always aim only at the honor, well-being [10] and security of the whole people, with the intention of taking vengeance on and punishing the people—so that the laws seemed not to be laws, i.e., the salvation of the people, but rather penalties and punishments. [98] For all the gifts they were obliged to give the Levites and priests, as well as the fact that they had to redeem the first-born and give money to the Levites on a per capita basis [Numbers 3:44–51], [15] and finally, the fact that only the Levites were permitted to approach the sacred things [Numbers 16:9–10]—all these things continuously accused them of defilement and rejection.
[99] Again, the Levites constantly had something to reproach them with. Doubtless among so many thousands [of Levites] there were many troublesome, foolish Theologians. As a result the people were [20] anxious to keep an eye on the deeds of the Levites—who were, after all, men—and as happens, to accuse them all because of one’s offense. So there was continual murmuring, and a weariness with feeding men who were idle, envied, and not related to them by blood (especially when food was expensive).
[100] What is so strange, then, if in times of tranquillity, when evident miracles stopped, and there were no men of the most meticulous [25] authority, the people’s spirit, angered and niggardly, began to lose its resolve, so that finally they failed in their loyalty to a form of worship which, although divine, had still been discredited among them and was suspect, and desired a new worship? What is so strange if the Leaders, to get the supreme right of command exclusively for themselves, constantly sought ways to bind the people to themselves, and turn them from the high Priest, and so granted the people everything and [30] introduced new forms of worship?
[101] But if the Republic had been constituted in accordance with [God’s] first intention, the right and honor would always have been equal among all the tribes, and everything would have been arranged most securely. For who would wish to violate the sacred right of their own blood-relatives? What else would they prefer to feeding their own blood-relatives, brothers and parents, from Religious piety? and to being taught the interpretation of the laws by them? and finally, to [III/219] waiting for divine answers from them?
[102] Next, in this way—that is, if the right of administering sacred affairs had been equal among all the tribes—they would have remained much more closely united. Indeed, even if the Levites had been chosen to administer sacred matters, there would have been nothing to be feared, [5] provided that choice had a cause other than anger and vengeance. But as we’ve said, they had angered their God, who (to recall again the words of Ezekiel [20:25]) defiled them with their own gifts, rejecting everything which opened the womb, in order to destroy them.
[103] Moreover, the historical narratives themselves confirm this. As soon as the people began to flourish in tranquillity in the desert, [10] many men, not from the ordinary people, began to be bitter about this choice, and from this they took the occasion to believe that Moses had instituted nothing by divine command, but had done everything according to his own pleasure, because he’d chosen his own tribe before all others, and had given the right of priesthood to his own brother forever. With a great commotion, they approached him claiming that [15] everyone was equally holy and that he was unjustly raised above everyone else.53 [104] He could not quiet them in any way, but when he used a miracle as a sign of his good faith, all the rebels were annihilated [Numbers 16:31–35]. This gave rise to a new and general rebellion of the whole people [Numbers 16:41–50], who believed that the first rebels had been annihilated, not by God’s judgment, but by Moses’s cunning. He finally quieted them after they had been worn out by a [20] great calamity or plague, but in such a way that they all preferred death to life. So at that time it was more that the rebellion had ended than that harmony had begun.
[105] Scripture is a witness to this in Deuteronomy 31:21, where God, after predicting to Moses that after his death the people would defect from divine worship, says this to him: for I know the appetite of this people, and what it is planning today, when I have not yet led it to [25] the land I swore [to give to it]. A little later [31:27] Moses says to the people: for I know your rebelliousness and your stubbornness. If you have been rebels against God while I lived among you, how much more will you be rebels after my death.
[106] And that’s what happened, as everyone knows. That’s why there were great changes, and a great license to do anything, and extravagant [30] living, and negligence, with everything going from bad to worse, until, having often been subjugated, they completely broke away from the divine law, and wanted a mortal king [1 Samuel 8:4–5], so that the royal house of the state would not be the Temple, but the court, and so that the tribes would all remain fellow citizens, not any longer in virtue of divine law and the priesthood, but in virtue of the Kings’ law.
[107] This greatly encouraged new rebellions, and led in the end to the complete ruin of the state. For nothing is more intolerable for [III/220] a King than ruling at someone else’s pleasure and allowing a state within a state.54 The first [kings], chosen from the private citizens, were content with the degree of dignity to which they had risen.55 [108] But after their sons took possession of the rule by right of succession, they began to gradually change everything, so that they alone would hold [5] the whole right of command. For the most part they lacked this so long as the right over the laws did not depend on them, but on the high Priest, who guarded the laws in the sanctuary and interpreted them to the people. They were bound by the laws, as their subjects were, and could not legally repeal them or make new laws with equal authority.
[Other factors encouraging rebellions:] The law of the Levites treated [10] both the Kings and their subjects as profane, and prohibited them equally from administering sacred matters. Moreover, the whole security of [the king’s] rule depended only on the will of one person, who was seen as a Prophet. [The people] had seen examples of [the king’s dependence on the will of a Prophet]: the great freedom Samuel had to give orders to Saul about everything, and how easily Samuel could transfer the right to rule to David because of one instance of wrongdoing.56 So they had [15] a state within a state, and ruled at someone else’s pleasure.
[109] To overcome these obstacles, then, they permitted other temples to be dedicated to the Gods, so that there would be no further consultation with the Levites.57 Next, they sought out a number of people who would prophesy in the name of God, so that they might have Prophets whom they could oppose to the true Prophets.58
[110] But whatever they tried to do, they could never be granted their [20] wish. For the Prophets, who were prepared for everything, waited for an opportune time: the rule of a successor (which is always precarious as long as the memory of his predecessor is strong). Then they could easily use their divine authority to induce someone hostile to the King and renowned for his virtue to defend divine right and to take legal control of the state, or of a part of it.
[25] [111] But the Prophets weren’t able to make any progress in this way. For even though they removed a Tyrant from their midst, nevertheless, the causes [of tyranny] remained. So all they accomplished was to buy a new Tyrant at the cost of much citizen blood.59 There was no end to dissension and civil wars. In fact, the causes for violations of divine right were always the same. The only way they could be removed was [30] by removing the whole state from their midst at the same time.
[112] So now we see how Religion was introduced into the Hebrew Republic, and how its sovereignty could have been everlasting, if the just anger of the lawgiver had permitted it to stay the same. But because this could not happen, in the end it had to perish.
I’ve spoken here only about the first state. [113] The second60 was [III/221] hardly a shadow of the first, since [the Hebrew people] were subjects of the Persians, and bound by Persian law. After they acquired their freedom, the High Priests took for themselves the right to rule, by which they obtained absolute control. This created among the Priests an intense desire to rule and to attain the high priesthood. [114] So [5] there was no need to say more about the second state.
But whether the first, insofar as we’ve conceived it to be durable, can be imitated, or whether it’s pious to imitate it as much as possible, will be evident from what follows. [115] Here I should like to note only, as a kind of conclusion, what we have already hinted at above: the things we have shown in this Chapter establish that divine right, [10] or the right of religion, arises from a covenant, without which there is only natural right. So the Hebrews weren’t bound by a religious command to any piety toward nations which weren’t participants in a covenant with them; they were bound in that way only toward their fellow citizens.
1. **[ADN. XXXV] Two common soldiers undertook to transfer the rule of the Roman people, and they succeeded. See Tacitus, Histories, I. [Histories I, xxv, also cited at TP vii, 14. See also TP vi, 6. ALM call attention to a similar passage in Machiavelli, Discourses III, vi, 1. Spinoza will return to this theme in §§8 and 17. Gebhardt places this note in the following sentence, but it seems to attach more logically where I have placed it.]
2. Cf. the aphorism Spinoza quotes from Antonio Pérez in TP vii, 14: “The use of absolute power is very dangerous for kings, very hateful to their vassals, very offensive to God and to nature, as a thousand examples show” (Pérez 1644, 287).
3. Cf. Quintus Curtius VIII, v, 5–6, where Alexander is described as wishing to be, not only called, but believed to be, the son of Jupiter, “as if he could rule men’s minds as well as their tongues” (ALM). Cf. xvii, 22. Spinoza does not claim that rulers are absolutely powerless to control their subjects’ beliefs (as Locke does in his Letter, p. 69), only that their powers to do this are very limited, that there are certain things rulers cannot try to take from their subjects without (as he puts it in the Preface, §31) “great danger to the state.” This view may be influenced by Spinoza’s knowledge of the history of the Jews in Iberia. Cf. iii, 54, and the annotation there. Spinoza will return to this theme in xx, 1–5.
4. Hebraeorum historias et successus. I accept the suggestion in Akkerman 1997 that this is a hendiadys for “development.” As Totaro notes, there’s a similar expression in xviii, 6 (Totaro 667, n. 12).
5. An allusion to Terence, Andria 77–78. Cf. TP vii, 1.
6. Borrowing, once again, from Vergil’s Aeneid vi, 129.
7. The civil war between Vespasian and Vitellius occurred in the year of the four emperors, 69 A.D. Book IV of Tacitus’ Histories begins with a description of the slaughter and looting which followed the defeat of Vitellius.
8. The beginning of this sentence is a virtual quotation from Quintus Curtius VIII, xiv, 46. Spinoza evidently expects his readers to know the passage well enough to complete it, because he ends with an “etc.” What I’ve supplied in brackets completes the quotation.
9. Where he was assassinated by Pausanias. See Diodorus XVI, lciv, 1–3.
10. *See Quintus Curtius IX, vi [24–25]. [Spinoza makes his reference to Curtius in the text.]
11. *Tacitus, Annals I, x. [Spinoza makes his reference to Tacitus in the text.]
12. *Q. Curtius VIII, viii [14–15]. [Spinoza makes his reference in the text. Hermolaus was a young Macedonian nobleman who conspired to assassinate Alexander. When the conspiracy was discovered, Alexander permitted Hermolaus to voice his grievances before having him tortured and executed, along with most of his co-conspirators. See Quintus Curtius VIII, vi–viii. I’ve added the first bracketed phrase from the Loeb translation, for clarity. The second bracketed phrase is Spinoza’s addition, for emphasis.]
13. Cf. Quintus Curtius VIII, v, 5–12. As Curtius describes the events, the purpose of Cleon’s speech (and of Alexander’s policy) was to get the Macedonians to worship Alexander as a god.
14. ALM call attention to a passage in Machiavelli (Discourses I, xi; Wootton 1994, 113–16) which makes a similar comment on the political utility of religion. The theme is also present in Hobbes (Leviathan xii, 12, 20, 21) and in Livy, an important source for both Machiavelli and Hobbes, as the annotations in the cited editions of their works make clear.
15. Reminiscent of Machiavelli’s comment on Moses in ch. vi of The Prince (Wootton 1994, 19).
16. *Exodus 24:7. [Spinoza might also have cited Exod. 19:8 and 24:3 (ALM). The question remains why the covenant was necessary when they were transferring their natural rights to a God who by nature has the right to do all things. Cf. xvi, 3, 55.]
17. In §28 Spinoza said that the Hebrews’ transfer of right to God was made in the same way as when men decide to surrender their natural right to the social order. In the human case the transfer of right is effected by a transfer of power (xvi, 24–25). It’s difficult to see how there can be a transfer of power from man to God, whose omnipotence before the transfer presumably gives him nothing to gain from their surrender. The last two sentences of §29 look like they might be intended to deal with that problem.
18. Quid in Gebhardt III/206/8 is a typographical error, corrected silently in ALM.
19. Spinoza is here echoing a passage in Josephus which argued that the constitution of the Jewish state could be called a theocracy because “it placed all authority and sovereignty in God” (Against Apion II, 165, cited by ALM).
20. Spinoza is evidently referring to Exod. 19:8 (though similar words recur in Exod. 24:3). Moses does act as a mediator in both instances, but the need for him to play that role is not made explicit until Exod. 20:18–21. The question whether it’s possible to make a covenant with God without a mediator was an issue in Hobbes’ Leviathan, discussed in Curley 2004.
21. Spinoza does not immediately say where this quote comes from, and some editors have assumed that he is continuing to quote from Exodus (specifically, 20:18–21). But as the next paragraph indicates, Spinoza has shifted to the account of the covenant in Deuteronomy 5, quoting vv. 24–27 (with some omissions). These verses make his point more clearly than any of the Exodus passages, none of which says explicitly “everything God says to you we will do” (my emphasis). Cf. also xix, 10.
22. **[ADN. XXXVI] In this passage two men are accused of prophesying in the camp. Joshua thinks they should be kept in custody. He would not have done this if everyone had been permitted to give the people divine answers without Moses’ command. But it pleased Moses to absolve them of guilt; he reproves Joshua for urging him to press his royal right at a time when he found his right of ruling so wearying that he preferred dying to ruling alone. This is evident from Numbers 11:14[–15], where he replies to Joshua: Are you hot with anger for my sake? Would that all of God’s people were Prophets! I.e., would that the right of consulting God would return to the people, so that the rule would be with them! So it wasn’t that Joshua didn’t know what was right, but only that he didn’t know what was suitable at that time. That’s why Moses chastised him, as David did Abishai when Abishai advised the king to condemn Shimei to death, Shimei being certainly guilty of treason. See 2 Samuel 19:22–23.
23. That is, of the Hebrew, theocratic monarchy, and other monarchies.
24. **[ADN. XXXVII] The interpreters I’ve had the chance to see translate vv. 19 and 23 of this chapter badly. For Numbers 27:19 and 23 do not mean that he gave him precepts or furnished him with precepts, but that he created or constituted Joshua as the leader. This is common in Scripture. Cf. Exodus 18:23, 1 Samuel 13:15, Joshua 1:9, 1 Samuel 25:30, etc. [Saint-Glain has an expanded version of this note, adding: “The more the interpreters strain to render Numbers 27:19 & 23 word for word, the less intelligible they make it. I’m sure very few people understand its true meaning. For most imagine that in vs. 19 God commands Moses to instruct Joshua in the presence of the Congregation, and that in vs. 23 [Moses] lays his hands on [Joshua] and instructs him. They don’t note that this way of speaking is very common among the Hebrews to declare that the choice of the leader is legitimate and that he is confirmed in his appointment. This is how Jethro speaks when he advises Moses to choose subordinate judges who would assist him in judging the People: if you do this (he says), then God will command you, as if he said that his authority would be firm and that he would be able to last. On this see Exodus 18:23 and 1 Samuel 13:15 and 25:30 and especially Joshua 1:9, where God says to him have I not commanded you, take courage and show yourself a man of heart, as if God said to him is it not I who have made you the Leader; so do not be afraid of anything, for I will be with you everywhere.”]
25. That is, the tabernacle, or mobile dwelling, which the Israelites were instructed to build to serve as a shrine for worship and an oracular source (see Exod. 25–27).
26. Apparently a reference to the establishment of the priesthood in Exod. 27:21–28:5. See the Glossary entry LEVITES.
27. On the special rights of the Levites (and the special limitations of their rights), see Num. 27:12–21, 18:8–32, 35:1–8; Deut. 10:8–9, 18:1–8.
28. Numbers 1–2 describes the formation of the army which was to invade Canaan. The directions for the conquest of Canaan and the division of the land occur in Num. 33:50–35:8.
29. In Num. 1:1–3, God commands Moses and Aaron to enroll “every male from twenty years old and upward, everyone in Israel able to go to war,” without specifying that those over sixty are not required to serve. This formula is repeated frequently in Num. 1 and again in Num. 26:2. It’s unclear where Spinoza gets his upper limit.
30. See Josh. 3:2–6; 1 Sam. 4:3–11.
31. See Exod. 28:41; Num. 20:25–29, 25:10–13.
32. Cf. Josh. 13:1–7.
33. Gebhardt (V, 96–97) comments that Spinoza here assumes a view of the constitutional arrangements in the Dutch Republic characteristic of the Regents Party. On the complex nature of those arrangements, see the entries under “sovereignty in the United Provinces,” in Israel 1995.
34. Num. 34:16–29.
35. **[ADN. XXXVIII] The Rabbis hypothesize that Moses established what they commonly call the Great Sanhedrin. They’re not alone in this. Most Christians, as foolish as the rabbis, agree. Moses did, of course, choose seventy assistant judges, who shared with him responsibility for the republic, because he could not bear the burden of the whole people alone [Num. 11:16–17]. But he never made any law establishing a council of seventy men. On the contrary he commanded that each tribe should establish judges in the cities God had given it, who would resolve disputes according to the laws he had given them [Deut. 1:9–18; but cf. Exod. 18:13–27]. And if it happened that the judges themselves were in doubt about the law, they would go to the high priest (who was the supreme interpreter of the laws) or to a judge to whom they were at that time subordinated (for he had the right to consult the priest), so that they might settle the dispute according to the high priest’s explanation [Deut. 17:12].
But if it happened that a subordinate judge maintained that he was not bound to give judgment in accordance with the opinion of the high priest, which he had received either from the priest himself or from the supreme 'power, he was condemned to death by the supreme judge, whoever he was at that time, who had made him a subordinate judge. See Deuteronomy 17:9. [This might be] either the supreme commander of the whole people of Israel, as Joshua was, or the leader of one of the tribes (who, after the division, had the right to consult the high priest about the affairs of his tribe, to decide about war and peace, to fortify cities, and to appoint judges, etc.), or the king, to whom some or all of the tribes had transferred their right.
To confirm this I could cite many testimonies from the histories, but of many I shall mention only one, which seems to be the main one. When the Shilonite Prophet chose Jeroboam to be king [1 Kings 11:29–39], he thereby gave him the right to consult the high priest and to establish judges, and absolutely every right which Rehoboam kept over his two tribes, Jeroboam obtained over the ten. So Jeroboam could establish the supreme council of the state in his own court with the same right Jehoshaphat could in Jerusalem (see 2 Chronicles 19:8). For it’s certain that Jeroboam, insofar as he was king by God’s command, was not bound by the law of Moses to stand before Rehoboam as a judge. So neither were his subjects, since they were not Rehoboam’s subjects. Much less were they bound to stand before a court in Jerusalem appointed by Rehoboam and subordinate to him.
So in proportion as the Hebrew state was divided, there were many supreme councils in it. Those who do not attend to the varying condition of the Hebrews, but mix their different conditions into one, tangle themselves up in many snares. [For the rabbinic claim concerning the Great Sanhedrin, see Tractate Sanhedrin I, 2a. Gebhardt V, 130, cites Grotius (De imperio summarum potestatum circa sacra) as an example of a Christian author who accepted the rabbinic theory. For a helpful survey of modern discussions, see Mantel 2007.]
36. The Israelites are censured in Judg. 2:1–5 for making covenants with the Canaanites, violating a commandment given in Exod. 34:11–16. Neither of these passages suggests a command to exterminate the Canaanites, though extermination is commanded in Deut. 20:16–18.
37. See Judges 19. In a story reminiscent of Genesis 19, a Levite from Israel, traveling in Judah with his concubine, is given shelter for the night by an old man. The men of the city, members of the tribe of Benjamin, surround the house, demanding that the Levite be given to them for intercourse. The old man and the Levite offer them the concubine instead, whom they rape and leave to die. Judges 20 describes the vengeance the Israelites took on the Benjaminites. Judges 21 describes their reconciliation with the Benjaminites who survived.
38. For more on this theme, see below, §§76–81.
39. See Quintus Curtius X, iii, which describes how, after a mutiny among his Macedonian troops, Alexander entrusted his protection to members of the defeated Persian army.
40. Cf. above, ii, 4–6, citing particularly Deut. 13:1–5. Spinoza has somewhat toughened the requirements for being regarded as a true prophet by emphasizing the leader’s obligation to determine whether the signs of prophecy were sufficient.
41. Machiavelli also favored relying on citizen armies, though on different grounds than Spinoza invokes. Cf. The Prince xii–xiii, and Discourses II, 20. See also TP vi, 10, and vii, 7.
42. Spinoza uses an idiom here which is found in Virgil’s Aeneid I, 219 (ALM).
43. The psalm cited expresses hatred of those who hate God: “Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? And do I not loathe those who rise up against you? I hate them with a perfect hatred; I count them as my enemies.” The psalmist does not say explicitly that this hatred is pious. But Maimonides quoted this passage to justify his claim that a Jew is required to hate and destroy anyone who doubts the foundations of the Torah. Cf. Kellner 2004, 16. Some expressions of this attitude may make a modern reader uncomfortable. Ps. 137:8–9 pronounces a blessing on one who pays the Babylonians back for what they did to Israel by seizing their babies and dashing them against the rocks. This issue resurfaces in xix, 29.
45. A suggests (502, n. 19) that Spinoza has in mind specifically the opinion of Tacitus, who accepts a theory that different nationalities have different mentalities which Spinoza will not accept. See below §§93–94. But Spinoza seems to have in mind the several factors enumerated in §82, not just the one in §83.
46. Spinoza’s language has suggested to some translators that each of the subjects had a share of the land equal to the leader’s, but it seems unlikely that Spinoza intended this. I can find no passage in Scripture which supports it. Totaro cites several examples indicating that in ancient Israel the king was expected to possess more than his subjects. See Totaro 687, n. 114. The system of land distribution did aim at a kind of equity, but what that seems to have meant was that initially land was distributed to tribes, and within the tribes to clans and households, in proportion to their size. See Num. 26:52–56; Josh. 13–21; and ABD III, 1025–30. (The tribe of Levi was an exception.) There were injunctions against the king’s exalting himself above other members of the community, but these seem to be intended mainly to prevent his possessing too many wives and horses (Deut. 17:14–20).
47. On the Jubilee year, see Lev. 25:8ff. and the analysis in ABD III, 1025–30.
48. Perhaps a reference to Deut. 22:10 (Totaro).
49. Perhaps a reference to Deut. 22:9 (Totaro).
50. As Bennett observes, Spinoza tacitly dismisses language as playing any role in the formation of national character. This is surprising given what he had said in vii, 15.
51. Atypically, Spinoza does not give us the Hebrew of the passage he translates here, and Akkerman calls his translation of a key phrase “completely inaccurate” (A 502, n. 22). Indeed, it’s difficult to see how Spinoza gets this translation out of the Masoretic text, which modern translations generally render quite differently. For example, the NJPS translation reads: “I gave them laws that were not good and rules by which they could not live. When they set aside every first issue of the womb, I defiled them by their very gifts—that I might render them desolate, that they might know that I am the LORD.” (A note suggests the possibility of emending the text so that it would have “guilty” instead of “desolate.”) ALM observe that Spinoza may be influenced by Tremellius’s Latin translation (772, n. 76). Totaro has a similar, but more extended, discussion (690–91, n. 126).
I take the central issue about the passage in Ezekiel to be whether the prophet represents God as saying that he commanded the people of Israel to sacrifice their first-born children to him, or whether Ezekiel merely says that at some point the Israelites (incorrectly) thought he had issued such a command. Exod. 13:1–2 and 22:28–29 might be regarded as loci of such a command, but the interpretation of these passages is controversial. Akkerman seems to favor a negative answer to the first question (citing Lev. 18:21–30), and an affirmative answer to the second (citing Ezek. 20:31). He might also have cited Jer. 19:4–6 in favor of this position.
Akkerman’s reading of Ezekiel would probably be dominant among biblical scholars. See, for example, Anchor Ezekiel, 368–69. However, I find Levenson’s arguments persuasive: though Ezekiel regards the sacrifice of the first-born as an abomination, he nevertheless asserts that God commanded it, because this suited his larger purposes. (See Levenson 1993, ch. 1.)
What I find most striking about Spinoza’s treatment of this text is that he doesn’t seem to think it has anything to do with the question of child sacrifice. From his translation and subsequent discussion, it looks as though he thinks Ezekiel did not say that God commanded the sacrifice of the first-born (understanding Exod. 34:20 to call instead for their redemption). He seems to take the bad laws Ezekiel attributes to God to be those rejecting the first-born as priests, and establishing the Levites in their place. This does not seem to be the most natural reading of the text.
52. An allusion to Vergil, Aeneid I, 11 (Wernham).
53. Spinoza is referring to the revolt described in Numbers 16, which initially involved two hundred and fifty Israelite men, said in 16:2 to be “leaders of the congregation, chosen from the assembly, well-known men” (NRSV) or “chieftains of the community . . . men of repute” (NJPS). It is unclear in the text just who is rebelling and for what reason. Modern scholars generally attribute this to an editor’s attempt to combine different traditions. In one members of the formerly dominant tribe of Reuben were struggling to regain their leadership; in the other members of the tribe of Levi who were not Aaronids were protesting the special position of the Aaronid priesthood. For discussion see Kugel 2007, 330–34. The annotation in HCSB is also helpful.
54. imperium in imperio. Gebhardt (V, 99–100) notes the frequent occurrence of this expression in politico-religious controversies in the seventeenth century, citing (among others) passages from Hobbes and De la Court, where the issue is whether religious authorities within a state are juridically independent of the political authority. It occurs in a different context in E III Pref. and TP ii, 6.
55. Referring to Saul and David (ALM).
56. Presumably the one instance of wrongdoing is Saul’s failure to completely exterminate the Amalekites, as commanded by God in 1 Sam. 15:3. Samuel transfers the rule from Saul to David in 1 Sam. 16:13.
57. See 1 Kings 12:26–32 (ALM).
58. Perhaps a reference to the prophets of Baal and Asherah who opposed Elijah in 1 Kings 18.
59. ALM note a strikingly similar passage in De la Court, I, 32, p. 113.
60. See the Glossary entry SECOND STATE. Spinoza here gives an account of the Second Temple Period whose brevity makes it somewhat misleading. He jumps from the era of Persian rule to the revolt of the Maccabees, without mentioning the intervening Hellenistic period. The biblical sources themselves are rather sketchy. See 1 Macc. 1, helpfully annotated in HCSB. Spinoza’s source for the high priest Simon’s assumption of absolute power is probably 1 Macc. 14:25–49, an event not covered in Josephus, his other main source for this history. His verb for that act is usurpare, which I do not here (or in §83) translate by “usurp,” for reasons explained in the Glossary.
[1] Though the Hebrew state, as we’ve conceived it in the preceding Chapter, could have lasted forever, nevertheless no one can imitate [20] it now. Nor is this even advisable. Whoever wanted to transfer their right to God would have to make an explicit covenant with God, as the Hebrews did. So not only would the will of those transferring their right be required, so also would that of God, to whom the right would have to be transferred.1 [2] God, however, has revealed through his Apostles that his covenant is no longer written with ink, or on stone tablets, but [25] written on the heart, by the spirit of God.2 Moreover, such a form of state could be useful, perhaps, only for those who are willing to live by themselves, alone, without any foreign trade, shutting themselves up within their own boundaries, and segregating themselves from the rest of the world. It couldn’t be at all useful for those to whom it’s necessary to have dealings with others. So it could be useful only for a very few people.
[3] Though [the form of this state] can’t be imitated in every respect, [30] still, it had many excellent features, which are at least well-worth noting, and perhaps imitating. Because my intention, as I mentioned [xvi, 36–37; xvii, 12], is not to treat a Republic in detail, I’ll put most of [III/222] those things to one side and note only those which serve my purpose:
First, it is not contrary to God’s Kingship to choose a supreme majesty which has the supreme right of command.
[4] For after transferring their right to God, the Hebrews handed over the supreme right of command to Moses. So he alone had the [5] authority to make and repeal laws in God’s name, to choose the ministers of sacred affairs, to judge, to teach, to punish, and to command absolutely all things to all people. [5]
Second, though the ministers of sacred affairs were the interpreters of the laws, it was still not their function to judge the citizens or to excommunicate anyone.
[10] This was only in the jurisdiction of the judges and the leaders chosen from the people (see Joshua 6:26, Judges 21:18, and 1 Samuel 14:24).3
[6] In addition to these points [about the form of the state], if we attend to the course of Hebrew history, we’ll find others also worth noting, e.g., that
[15] I. there were no sects in their Religion until after the high Priests in the second state had the authority to make [religious] decrees and to handle the affairs of the state.
To make this authority permanent, they took for themselves the right to rule, and in the end wanted to be called Kings.
[7] The reason [why sects arose after the priests acquired this authority] is easy to see. In the first state no [religious] decree could derive its validity from the high Priest, since they had no right to make [religious] [20] decrees, but only to give God’s answers when asked to do so by the rulers or the councils. And for that reason they could not then have any itch to decree novelties, but only to administer and defend familiar and accepted decrees. The only way they could safely preserve their own freedom when the rulers were opposed to them was to preserve [25] the laws uncorrupted. [8] But after they had acquired the 'power to handle the affairs of the state, and had joined the right to rule to that of priesthood, each one began to seek the glory of his own name both in religion and in other matters, determining everything by priestly authority and daily issuing new decrees, concerning ceremonies, the faith, and everything else, decrees they wanted to be no less sacred [30] and to have no less authority than the laws of Moses. [9] The result? Religion declined into a deadly superstition and the true meaning and interpretation of the laws was corrupted.
Another reason: while the priests were trying to get the rule at the beginning of the restoration, to get the ordinary people on their side they gave lip service to everything, approving what the ordinary people [III/223] did, even if it was impious, and accommodating Scripture to their worst customs. [10] Malachi testifies to this in the most explicit terms: after he reproached the priests of his time,4 calling them men who despise God’s name [Malachi 1:6], he proceeds to criticize them as follows: [5] The priest’s lips keep 'knowledge safe, and the law is sought from his mouth, because he is God’s messenger; but you have departed from the path, and have made the law a stumbling-block for many; you have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the God of hosts [Malachi 2:7–8]. And so he goes on to charge them with interpreting the laws as they pleased, and taking no account of God, but only of persons.
[10] [11] But certainly the High Priests were never able to do this so discreetly that the wise did not notice it. So they5 claimed, with growing boldness, that they were not bound by any laws except written ones. Otherwise it was not at all obligatory to observe the decrees the Pharisees mistakenly called traditions of their forefathers. As Josephus says in his Antiquities, the Pharisees had their support mainly from the ordinary people.
[15] [12] However that may be, we cannot have any doubt that the flattery of the Priests, and the corruption of religion and of the laws, and the incredible increase in the number of laws gave a very great and frequent opportunity for arguments and disputes, which could never be settled. For where men begin to argue with the fierce heat of superstition, [20] and the magistrate aids one or the other side, they can never be calmed, but must be divided into sects.
[13] The second point worth noting is that
II. the Prophets, as private men, aggravated people more than they corrected them by the freedom with which they warned, reproached, and censured [25] them. On the other hand, when these same people were warned or criticized by their Kings, they were easily set right.6
Indeed, the Prophets were often intolerable even to pious Kings because of the authority they had to judge what it would be pious or impious to do, and even to criticize the Kings themselves, if they were bold enough to treat some public or private business in a way which conflicted with the judgment of the Prophets.
[30] [14] King Asa, who, according to the testimony of Scripture, reigned piously [2 Chronicles 14:2, 1 Kings 15:14], put the Prophet Hanani in prison (see 2 Chronicles 16[:10]) because he dared to censure and reproach him freely for the pact he made with the King of Aramaea. Moreover, there are other examples which show that religion derived more harm than good from such freedom [to criticize], not to mention [III/224] that the Prophets’ retention of so much right for themselves was a source of intense civil wars.
[15] It’s also worth noting that
III. so long as the people had sovereignty, they had only one civil war. And even [5] it was completely stamped out. The winners took such pity on the losers that they were careful to restore them to their former status and power.7 But after the people, who were by no means accustomed to kings, changed the first form of the state into a monarchical one, there was hardly any end to civil wars, and they engaged in battles so fierce that they surpassed the reputation of all others.
[10] [16] In one battle—this is almost beyond belief—the men of Judah killed five hundred thousand men of Israel;8 in another, the men of Israel slaughtered many men of Judah (Scripture does not say how many), seized the King himself, almost destroyed the wall of Jerusalem, and (to show that there was no limit to their anger) completely plundered [15] the Temple itself. Loaded down with enormous spoil taken from their brothers, their thirst for blood satisfied, they took hostages, left the King in a kingdom already almost destroyed, and put down their arms, made secure not by the good faith of the men of Judah, but by their weakness [2 Chronicles 25:21–24].
[17] A few years later, when the men of Judah had rebuilt their [20] strength, they went to war again; and again the men of Israel were the winners, slaughtering a hundred and twenty thousand men of Judah, taking up to two hundred thousand of their women and children captive, and again seizing a great many spoils [2 Chronicles 28:5–15]. Exhausted by these and other battles, related casually in the histories, in the end they fell prey to their enemies.
[25] [18] Next, if we want to consider the times when they were permitted to enjoy absolute peace, we’ll find a great difference. Before they had kings, they often passed forty years [Judges 3:11, 5:31, 8:28]—and once eighty years [Judges 3:30], a greater period than anyone might have expected—harmoniously, without any war, either external or internal. [19] But after Kings got sovereignty, we read that they all waged wars—because people had to fight for glory,9 and not (as before) for [30] peace and freedom. The only exception was Solomon, whose virtue, wisdom, could show itself better in peace than in war. Moreover, the deadly lust to rule generally made the path to the throne very bloody.
IV. while the people’s rule lasted, the laws remained uncorrupted and were observed more constantly.
For before the kings there were very few Prophets who warned the [III/225] people. But after a King was chosen,10 there were many at the same time. Obadiah, for example, delivered a hundred prophets from slaughter, and hid them so that they would not be killed with the others [1 Kings 18:4, 13]. And we don’t see that the people were ever deceived by false Prophets until after they gave sovereignty to kings, whom most [5] of them were eager to flatter by agreeing.
[21] Moreover, the people, whose spirit is generally either confident or humble, depending on how things are going,11 easily corrected itself in disasters, turned to God, and revived the laws. In this way it extricated itself from every danger. The kings, on the other hand, whose spirit was [10] always equally elevated and could not be altered without disgrace, clung stubbornly to their vices right up to the final destruction of the city.
[22] From this account we see very clearly:
i) how ruinous it is, both for religion and for the Republic, to grant the ministers of sacred affairs the right to make [religious] decrees or to handle the business of the state; and how much more stable everything [15] is if these people are held in check, so that they don’t give any answers except when asked, and in the meantime teach and put into practice only doctrines which have already been accepted and are very familiar.
[23] [Secondly, we also see clearly]
ii) how dangerous it is to make purely speculative things a matter of [20] divine right and to make laws concerning opinions, which people usually debate about, or can debate about.
For that government which makes it a crime to hold opinions—which each person has a right to hold, a right no one can surrender—is the most violent of all. Indeed, when this happens, what rules most is the anger of the mob.
[24] So Pilate, to defer to the anger of the Pharisees, ordered Christ to be crucified, though he knew him to be innocent.12 And the Pharisees, to [25] dislodge the rich from their positions of status, began to raise questions about religion, and to accuse the Sadducees of impiety.13 Following the Pharisees’ example, the worst hypocrites, stirred up by the same madness (which they call zeal for divine right), have everywhere persecuted men distinguished for their integrity, famous for their virtue, and on that account, envied by the mob—publicly denouncing their opinions and [30] inflaming the savage multitude in their anger against them.14
[25] It’s not easy to restrain this impudent license, because the deceptive appearance of religion masks it. This is especially true when the supreme 'powers have introduced some sect, in which they themselves do not hold a position of authority.15 Then they’re not thought of as the interpreters of divine right, but as the followers of a sect, i.e., as people who recognize the learned men of that sect as interpreters of [III/226] divine right. That’s why the authority of the magistrates about these matters is usually not worth much with the mob, whereas the authority of the learned, to whose interpretations they think even kings must submit, is very great.
[26] To avoid these evils, then, the safest thing for the Republic is to locate piety and the practice of Religion only in works, i.e., only in [5] the practice of loving-kindness and justice, and for the rest, to leave everyone’s judgment free. But more of this later [xx, 30–32, 42–46].
iii) how necessary it is, both for the Republic and for religion, to grant the supreme 'powers the right to distinguish between what is permissible and what is not.
[10] For if this right to distinguish concerning deeds could not be conceded to the divine Prophets themselves without great harm both to the Republic and to Religion, much less should it be conceded to those who do not know how to predict the future and cannot perform miracles. But I’ll discuss this in detail later.16
iv) how fatal it is to choose a Monarch when the people are not accustomed [15] to live under kings, and have laws already established.
For the people will not be able to bear so much control, and the royal authority will not be able to allow the laws and rights of the people to be established by someone else of lesser authority. Much less will the royal authority consider defending them, especially because in establishing them no thought could have been given to the King, but [20] only to the people or the council which thought it had the rule. So if the King defended the former rights of the people, he would seem to be its slave, rather than its master. [29] A new Monarch will strive, with the greatest eagerness, to establish new laws, to transform the rights of the state to his own advantage, and to reduce the people to the point where it cannot take status away from the Kings as easily as it gave it.17
[25] [30] But here I can’t ignore the fact that
[v] it’s also no less dangerous to remove a Monarch from your midst, even if it’s clear in every way that he’s a tyrant.18
For a people accustomed to royal authority, and held in check only by that authority, will disdain a lesser authority and mock it. So if the people removes one monarch from their midst, they will have to choose [30] another in his place (as long ago the Prophets had to).19 And this new monarch will be a tyrant, not because he wants to, but because he must. [31] For how can he look at the hands of the citizens, stained with blood from murdering a king, and see them glorying in their assassination, as in a deed well done, when they have done it only to set an example for him. If he wants to be a King, and does not want to acknowledge the people as the judge of Kings, and his master, or to [III/227] rule at their pleasure, he must avenge the death of his predecessor and set a contrary example for his own benefit, so that the people will not dare to commit such a crime again. [32] But he will not easily be able to avenge the death of the tyrant by killing citizens unless at the same time he defends the cause of the former tyrant, endorses his deeds, and [5] so follows completely in the footsteps of the former tyrant.
That’s how it happens that the people can often change the tyrant, but can never destroy him, or change a monarchic state into another, of a different form.20 [33] The English people have given us a deadly example of this truth, when they sought reasons for removing a monarch from their midst with an appearance of right.21 When they had [10] removed him, they were completely unable to change the form of the state. After much blood had been spilled, they reached the point where they hailed a new monarch under another name, as if the whole issue had only been about the name! The new monarch could survive only if he completely destroyed the royal family, killed the king’s friends, or [15] anyone suspected being his friend, and upset the tranquillity of peace, so suitable for generating murmurings, with a war, so that ordinary people, preoccupied with new crises, would turn its thoughts about royal murder in a different direction. [34] Too late the people realized that the only thing they had accomplished for the well-being of their country was to violate the right of a legitimate king and change [20] everything for the worse. So as soon as they could, they decided to retrace their steps; they did not rest until they saw things restored to their original condition.22
[35] Perhaps someone will object that the example of the Romans shows that a people can easily remove a tyrant from their midst.23 I myself, however, think this example completely confirms our opinion. For though the Roman people were far more easily able to remove [25] a tyrant from their midst and to change the form of the state—they themselves had the right to choose the king and his successor, and they had not yet become accustomed to obeying kings—rebellious and infamous men, they killed three of the six kings they had before—still all they accomplished was to elect a number of tyrants in place of one, [30] tyrants who always had them torn apart wretchedly by both external and internal wars, until in the end the state gave way again to a monarchy, changed only in name, as in England.24
[36] As for the States of Holland, so far as we know they never had Kings, but only counts, to whom the right to rule was never transferred. [III/228] For as the Sovereign States of Holland themselves made generally known in the document they published at the time of the count of Leicester,25 they have always reserved for themselves the authority to remind the counts of their duty, and retained for themselves the 'power to defend this authority of theirs and the freedom of the citizens, to [5] avenge themselves on the counts if they degenerated into tyrants, and to check them in such a way that they could accomplish nothing without the permission and endorsement of the states. [37] From this it follows that the states always had the right of supreme majesty, a right the last count tried to usurp.26 So by no means did they fail in their duty to [10] him when they restored their original state, which had almost been lost.
These examples completely confirm what we have said:
[vi] that the form of each state must necessarily be retained and that it cannot be changed without a danger that the whole state will be ruined.
These are the things I thought worth noting here.
1. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan xiv, 23, and xviii, 3. I have discussed this and other Hobbesian passages related to the covenant with God in Curley 2004.
2. An allusion to Paul, 2 Cor. 3:3.
3. Though Spinoza was himself subjected to a proceeding, cherem, commonly referred to as excommunication, what that term referred to in the Amsterdam Sephardic community was rather different from what “excommunication” has normally meant in Christian communities. And cherem has a very different meaning in the biblical context. For discussion, see the Glossary entry EXCOMMUNICATION. As ALM note, Spinoza here takes a position on issues controversial in the Protestant milieu of his day. Calvin, for whom excommunication was an important means of church discipline, regarded this as a spiritual power, residing in the church, and completely separate from the right of the sword (Institutes IV, xi, 5). But he also assumed that in Christian societies the civil government had a duty “to cherish and protect the outward worship of God, to defend sound doctrine of piety and the position of the church . . . [and] to form our social behavior to civil righteousness” (Institutes IV, xx, 2). For helpful discussion, see Höpfl 1982. Hobbes thinks the Jews practiced excommunication only after the Babylonian captivity (Leviathan xlii, 20 [OL]). He granted that by commission from Jesus Christian pastors had the power to excommunicate, but argued that without the assistance of the civil power, excommunication “is without effect, and consequently, ought to be without terror” (xlii, 31).
4. Malachi’s time seems to have been the period shortly before Nehemiah’s return, c. 445 B.C.E. (HCSB 1284). So Spinoza is now talking about an earlier period than the one following the Maccabees’ revolt. This seems to be the only place in the Hebrew Bible where the priests are described as God’s messengers.
5. The reference of the pronoun is disputed. Some have thought it possible, and perhaps clear, that Spinoza is accusing the high priests of growing boldness. In that case we might wish to translate crescente audacia by “growing impudence (or audacity).” Cf. ALM, 776; Totaro, 698; Silverthorne-Israel, 232. But I think Shirley was right to take the reference to be to “the wise.” It helps to understand this passage if we realize that the passage in Josephus Spinoza cites is Antiquities XIII, x, 6, and not (pace Gebhardt et al.) XVIII, i, 3.
6. Spinoza will return to this point in xix, 45, as part of his argument for secular control of religion (ALM).
7. Spinoza is presumably referring to the war against the Benjaminites, discussed above (xvii, 57).
8. According to 2 Chron. 13:17. The Chronicler’s numbers do strain credulity. HCSB notes that the total of all U.S. casualties in World War II was about four hundred thousand. IB comments (III, 342–43) that Chronicles “exaggerates numbers and amounts out of all possibility . . . it is not history in our sense of the word at all.” This may be one reason for the hostility toward Chronicles expressed at x, 2.
9. Echoing a theme from the Preface, §10.
10. A decision vigorously opposed at the time by Samuel (1 Sam. 8). Hobbes’ discussion of Samuel’s diatribe against monarchy in Leviathan xx, 16, makes it an explanation of the rights of kings.
11. ALM note an echo of Terence’s Mother-in-law, 380. We might also recall the Preface, §§1–3.
12. Spinoza accepts what the gospels seem agreed on: Jewish responsibility for the death of Jesus. Cf. Matt. 27:11–26; Mark 15:1–15; Luke 23:1–25; John 18:28–19:16. Nowadays this topic is controversial, as a comparison of Brown 1994 with Crossan 1996 will demonstrate. See also Letter 67, IV/287/30–35.
13. ALM (followed by Totaro) cite two passages from Josephus as a likely source for this claim about the conflict between Pharisees and Sadducees: The Jewish Wars II, 8, and The Antiquities of the Jews XVIII, 1. Neither passage seems to me quite satisfactory support for the historical claim Spinoza is making here.
14. Zac (1965, 163n.) argues that Spinoza here has in mind the persecution of the Remonstrants by the Counter-Remonstrants, calling attention to the discussion of the controversy coming up in xx, 41.
15. cujus ipsae authores non sunt. Some have translated this as “of which they themselves were not the authors/founders.” This is possible linguistically, but if Spinoza is thinking of the Remonstrant controversy, the translation in the text seems more likely.
16. The terms here translated “permissible” (fas) and “impermissible” (nefas) in the statement of the third point, make it clear that Spinoza intends the sovereign’s authority to extend to questions of religious right and wrong. His Erastianism has already been announced in xvi, 57ff., and will be developed further in the next chapter.
17. Gebhardt notes that Spinoza’s observations here are aimed at the monarchical ambitions of the Orangist party (V, 101). His analysis is reminiscent of Machiavelli’s Prince v (or Discourses I, 26). Cf. TP v, 7.
18. Gebhardt notes similar observations in Machiavelli (Discourses I, 16, III, 6) and refers us also to TP v, 7, as showing that Spinoza was aware of the similarity (V, 101). Droetto/Giancotti has a helpful treatment of the discussion of tyrannicide in Bodin (Republic II, 5), Grotius (De jure I, iv), and Hobbes (Leviathan xviii).
20. An allusion to a slogan in Van Hove 1661, I, iii, 1 (p. 232): mutatio tyranni non tyrannidis ablatio, changing the tyrant does not take away the tyranny. Spinoza will cite this motto again in TP viii, 9 (Wernham).
21. At the end of the English Civil War the victorious parliamentary leaders tried and beheaded Charles I in 1649. During a period of ineffective rule by a Parliamentary Council, Cromwell, the leader of the army during the war, gradually took control, assuming the title of Lord Protector in 1653 but rejecting the title of king.
22. Once again Spinoza invites comparison with Machiavelli (e.g., in Discourses III, 4). But his account of British history in the period after the execution of Charles seems rather misleading. Cromwell survived without destroying the royal family, whose heir returned to the throne in 1660. He did have to put down royalist revolts in Ireland and Scotland, and the war in Ireland was especially bloody. But he died of natural causes in 1658, and was succeeded by his son, who might have ruled longer had he possessed his father’s ability. The war against the Dutch in this period seems to have been motivated primarily by conflicts over trade and a concern that the Dutch not interfere in British politics, not by a desire to distract the people with new crises. (See Firth 1947, Ch. 18) Gebhardt has an interesting discussion (V, 101–3) of the sources which may have helped to form Spinoza’s judgment: De la Court’s Polityke Weegschaal, and a Dutch translation (Historie van zijn Majesteyt, Karel de II) of an ‘ultramonarchist’ English history of the period.
23. Here Spinoza differs from Machiavelli, who held (Discourses I, 17) that the Roman people were easily able to get rid of tyrants when (as under the Tarquins) the people were not yet corrupt, but that after the deaths of Caesar, Caligula, and Nero, the people were too corrupt to return to freedom. ALM have instructive annotation.
24. Apparently a reference to the fact that Augustus was called princeps rather than rex, and Cromwell Lord Protector rather than King.
25. In 1575, the States General of the emerging Dutch Republic offered sovereignty over the Netherlands to Queen Elizabeth, in return for England’s assistance in the revolt against Spain. Elizabeth declined to accept sovereignty, but did offer aid, on the condition that her nominee, Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester, be the military and political leader of the Republic, with the title of “governor-general,” and that England be allocated seats in the Council of State. Though this arrangement lasted only until 1587, Israel (1995, 220) has described it as “a formative episode in the history of the Dutch Republic.” The document Spinoza refers to, “A Short Exposition of the rights exercised by the knights, nobles and towns of Holland and West Friesland,” was first published in 1587, and republished in 1650 by Van den Enden (ALM). Gebhardt quotes most of it (V, 104–8). Kossman and Mellink provide an English translation of the whole document (Kossman and Mellink 1974, 274–81).
26. The reference is to Philip II of Spain (Gebhardt V, 109). For more on this, see TP ix, 14, and the annotation there. Grotius had argued for the sovereignty of the States in his De antiquitate Reipublicae Batavicae (ALM), on which see Israel 1995, 421–22.
[1] When I said above that only those who have sovereignty have a [20] right to do all things, and that all law depends solely on their decree, I meant not only civil law, but also sacred law. For they must be both the interpreters and the defenders of this law also. I want to note this explicitly here, and to treat it in detail in this Chapter, because a great many people flatly deny that this right concerning sacred matters [25] belongs to the supreme 'powers, and don’t wish to recognize them as the interpreters of divine law.1 [2] That’s why they assume for themselves a license to censure them, to expose them to scorn, and even to excommunicate them from the Church (as Ambrose once did to the emperor Theodosius).2 But in doing this they divide the sovereignty. Indeed, they’re looking for a way to become sovereign themselves, as [30] we’ll see later in this Chapter.
First, though, I want to show that Religion receives the force of law only from the decree of those who have the right to rule, that God has no special kingdom over men except through those who have [III/229] sovereignty, that Religious worship and the exercise of piety must be accommodated to the peace and utility of the Republic, and hence, must be determined only by the supreme 'powers, who must also be its interpreters.
[3] Note that I’m speaking specifically about the exercise of piety and about the external practice of religion, not about piety itself and [5] the internal worship of God, or the means by which the mind is disposed, internally, to worship God wholeheartedly.3 For (as we showed at the end of Chapter 7) each person is his own master with respect to the internal worship of God and piety itself. He cannot transfer that control to anyone else.
[4] Furthermore, I think what I understand here by God’s Kingdom [10] is established sufficiently by Chapter 14. For there we showed that a person fulfills God’s law if he practices justice and loving-kindness according to God’s command. From this it follows that God’s Kingdom exists wherever justice and loving-kindness have the force of law and of a command. [5] I see no difference here whether it’s by the natural light or by revelation that God teaches and commands the true practice [15] of justice and loving-kindness. It doesn’t matter how that practice is revealed, so long as it obtains the supreme right and is the supreme law for men.
[6] Suppose I now show that justice and loving-kindness can acquire the force of law and of a command only from the right of the state. Then since the right of the state belongs only to the supreme 'powers, [20] it will be easy for me to conclude that Religion acquires the force of law only by the decree of those who have the right to rule, and that God has no special kingdom over men except through those who have sovereignty.
[7] That the practice of justice and loving-kindness acquires the force of law only from the right of the state is evident from what we’ve said above. For we’ve shown in Chapter 16 that in the state of nature reason has no more right than appetite, but that both those who live [25] according to the laws of appetite and those who live according to the laws of reason have the right to do whatever they can. [8] That’s why we couldn’t conceive of sin in the natural state, nor of God as a judge punishing men for their sins, but could only conceive that all things [30] proceed according to laws common to the whole of nature, that (as Solomon puts it)4 the same outcome happens to both the righteous and the impious, the pure and the impure, and that there is no place there for justice or for loving-kindness. But for the teachings of true reason, i.e. (as we showed in Chapter 4, concerning the divine law), the divine teachings themselves, to have the force of law absolutely, it [III/230] was necessary for each person to surrender his natural right, and for everyone to transfer it either to everyone, or to some, or to one. Not till then did we come to know what justice and injustice, equity and inequity were.
[9] Justice, then, and all the teachings of true reason, without exception [5] (and hence, loving-kindness toward one’s neighbor), acquire the force of law and of a command only by the right of the state, i.e. (by what we showed in the same Chapter), only by the decree of those who have the right to rule. And because (as I’ve already shown) God’s kingdom consists only in the law of justice and loving-kindness, or of true Religion, it follows, as we claimed, that God has no kingdom over [10] men except through those who have sovereignty.
It doesn’t matter, I say, whether we conceive Religion to be revealed by the light of nature or by the Prophetic light. [10] For the demonstration is universal, since religion is the same, and has equally been revealed by God, no matter what way we suppose that men become aware of it. So even for Prophetically revealed religion to have the [15] force of law among the Hebrews, it was necessary for each of them to surrender first his natural right, and for everyone to resolve, according to a common agreement, that they would obey only those commands which were revealed to them Prophetically by God, in exactly the same way as we have shown happens in a democratic state where everyone resolves, by a common agreement, to live only according to the dictate [20] of reason.5 [11] And though the Hebrews in addition transferred their right to God, they could do this more in thought than in deed. For really—as we’ve seen above [xvii, 32–36]—they retained the right of command absolutely until they transferred it to Moses. After that he remained king absolutely and only through him did God reign over the Hebrews.
[25] [12] Again, the fact that religion acquires the force of law only from the right of the state also explains why Moses was not able to inflict any punishment on those who violated the Sabbath before the covenant, and hence, while they were still their own masters (see Exodus 16:27). After the covenant (see Numbers 15:36), i.e., after each person surrendered [30] his natural right, the Sabbath acquired the force of a command from the right of the state.
[13] Finally, this is also the reason why revealed Religion ceased to have the force of law when the Hebrew state was destroyed. For we can’t have any doubt that as soon as the Hebrews transferred their right to the King of Babylon, God’s kingdom and the divine right immediately ceased. [14] For by that act they completely abolished the covenant by which they had promised to obey God in everything he told them to [III/231] do. This had been the foundation of God’s kingdom. They could no longer stand by that covenant, because from that time on they were no longer their own masters (as they had been in the wilderness or in their own land), but were under the control of the King of Babylon, [5] whom they were bound to obey in everything (as we showed in Ch. 16).
Jeremiah also explicitly warns them of this: “Take thought for the peace of the city to which I have led you as captives,” he says, “for its welfare will be your welfare” (Jeremiah 29:7).6 [15] Because they were captives, they couldn’t look after the peace of that city as ministers of [10] state, but only as slaves,7 by showing themselves to be obedient in all things, to avoid rebellions, and by observing the rights and laws of the state, even if they were very different from the laws they had become accustomed to in their own country, etc.
[16] From all these considerations it follows most clearly that among the Hebrews Religion acquired the force of law only from the right of the state. Once the state was destroyed, [religion] could no longer [15] be considered the command of a particular state, but only a universal teaching of reason. “Of reason,” I say, for Universal Religion had not yet come to be known from Revelation. [17] We infer, then, without qualification, that, whether religion is revealed by the natural light or by the Prophetic light, it acquires the force of a command only by the decree of those who have the right to rule, and that God has no [20] special kingdom over men except through those who have sovereignty.
[18] This also follows, and is understood more clearly, from what we said in Ch. 4 [§§22–37]. For there we showed that all God’s decrees involve eternal truth and necessity, and that God cannot be conceived as giving laws to men like a prince or a lawgiver. [19] Hence, the divine [25] teachings, whether revealed by the natural light or by the Prophetic light, don’t get the force of a command directly from God, but must get it from (or by the mediation of) those who have the right to rule and make decrees. It’s only by their mediation that we can conceive God as reigning over men and directing human affairs according to justice and equity.
[30] This is also confirmed by experience itself. [20] We don’t find any traces of divine justice except where the just rule. Otherwise (to repeat again the words of Solomon),8 we see that both the just and the unjust, the pure and the impure, get the same result. Indeed, this has caused doubts about divine providence among a great many people who thought that God reigns directly over men and directs the whole of nature to [III/232] their use.
[21] Therefore, since both experience and reason establish that divine law depends only on the decree of the supreme 'powers, it follows that they must also be its interpreters. We’ll now see in what way this is true. It’s time for us to show that external religious worship and every [5] exercise of piety must be accommodated to the peace and preservation of the republic, if we want to obey God properly. Once we’ve demonstrated this, we’ll easily understand how the supreme 'powers are the interpreters of religion and piety.
[22] It’s certain that piety toward a person’s country is the supreme [10] piety he can render. For if the state is destroyed, nothing good can remain, but everything is at risk. Only anger and impiety rule, and everyone lives in the greatest possible fear. From this it follows that you can’t do anything pious to your neighbor which doesn’t become impious if some harm to the republic as a whole follows from it. Conversely, you can’t do anything impious to anyone which shouldn’t be ascribed [15] to piety if it’s done to preserve the republic.9
[23] So, if someone quarrels with me and wants to take my tunic, it’s pious to give him my cloak also [Matthew 5:40, Luke 6:29]. But when one judges that this is harmful to the preservation of the Republic, it is, on the contrary, pious to call him to judgment, even if he’s to be condemned to death. That’s why Manlius Torquatus is honored: because [20] he valued the well-being of the people more than piety toward his son.10
[24] Since this is so, it follows that the well-being of the people is the supreme law.11 All laws, both human and divine, must be accommodated to this. But since it’s the duty of the supreme 'power alone to determine what’s necessary for the well-being of the whole people [25] and the security of the state, and to command what it has judged to be necessary, it follows that it’s the duty of the supreme 'power alone to determine in what way each person must devote himself to his neighbor in accordance with piety, i.e., in what way each person is bound to obey God.
[30] [25] From these considerations we understand clearly in what way the supreme 'powers are the interpreters of religion, and again, that no one can obey God rightly if he does not accommodate to the public advantage the practice of piety by which everyone is bound, and hence, if he does not obey all the decrees of the supreme 'power. [26] For since we are bound by God’s command to cherish everyone, without exception, in accordance with piety, and to harm no one, it follows that no one is permitted to aid one person at the expense of another, much less [III/233] at the expense of the whole state. So, in keeping with God’s command, no one can cherish his neighbor in accordance with piety, unless he accommodates piety and religion to the public advantage. [27] But no private person can know what is useful to the republic except by the decrees of the supreme 'powers, who are the only ones whose job it is [5] to treat public business. Therefore, no one can practice piety rightly, nor obey God, unless he obeys all the decrees of the supreme 'power.
[28] This is also confirmed by practice. For if the supreme 'power has judged someone punishable by death or an enemy—whether a citizen or a foreigner, a private person or someone who has command [10] over others—it is not permissible for any subject to give aid to that person. So though the Hebrews were told that each person should love his neighbor as himself (see Leviticus 19:17–18), nevertheless they were bound to inform the Judge of anyone who had broken the law (see Leviticus 5:1 and Deuteronomy 13:8–9),12 and to kill him if he was [15] judged to be punishable by death (Deuteronomy 17:7).
[29] Again, for the Hebrews to be able to preserve the freedom they had acquired, and have absolute control over the lands they occupied, it was necessary (as we’ve shown in Ch. 17 [§§76–81]) for them to adapt religion only to their own state, and to separate themselves from the other nations. Therefore it was said to them: love your neighbor and hate [20] your enemy (Matthew 5:43).13 [30] But after they lost their sovereignty and were led into captivity in Babylon, Jeremiah taught them to look after the welfare (even) of that city to which they had been led as captives.14 And after Christ saw that they were to be dispersed throughout the whole world, he taught them that they should treat absolutely everyone [25] with piety. All these things show, with utmost clarity, that religion was always adapted to the advantage of the republic.
[31] Suppose someone asks now “By what right could Christ’s disciples, who were private men, preach religion?” I say they did this by right of the 'power they’d received from Christ over unclean Spirits [30] (see Matthew 10:1). [32] At the end of Ch. 16, I explicitly warned that everyone is bound to keep faith even with a Tyrant, except someone to whom God, by a certain revelation, had promised special aid against the Tyrant. So no one is allowed to take this as an example, unless he also has the 'power to perform miracles. This is also clear from the [III/234] fact that Christ told his disciples that they shouldn’t fear those who kill the body (see Matthew 10:28). [33] If he’d said this to everyone, the state would be established in vain, and that saying of Solomon—my son, fear God and the king (Proverbs 24:21)—would have been impious. [5] That’s far from true. So it must be confessed that the authority Christ gave his disciples he gave to them only, and that others cannot take them as an example.
[34] I won’t pause to discuss the arguments of my opponents,15 by which they claim to separate sacred right from civil right, and contend that the supreme 'power possesses only the latter, whereas the universal [10] church possesses the former. Those arguments are so frivolous they don’t deserve to be refuted. [35] One thing, though, I can’t pass over in silence: how wretchedly they’re deceived when they try to confirm this seditious opinion (if I may be excused for speaking rather harshly)16 by appealing to the example of the high Priest of the Hebrews, who previously possessed the right of administering sacred matters—as if [15] the Priests had not received that right from Moses. As we’ve shown above, he kept the supreme authority for himself alone, and they could also be deprived of that right by his decree. [36] For he himself chose not only Aaron, but also his son, Eleazar, and his grandson, Phinehas, and gave them the authority to administer the priesthood.17 Afterward [20] the Priests kept this authority, but in such a way that they seemed to be representatives of Moses, i.e., of the supreme 'power. For as we’ve already shown [xvii, 38], Moses did not choose any successor to the sovereignty, but distributed all his functions so that his successors seemed to be his deputies, who were administering the state as if the king were absent, not dead.
[25] [37] In the second state the Priests held this right absolutely, after they had acquired the right to rule along with the priesthood. So the right of the priesthood always depended on the edict of the supreme 'power, and the Priests didn’t have the right of priesthood unless they also had the right to rule. [38] Indeed, the right concerning sacred matters was absolutely in the possession of the Kings (this will be evident from what I’ll say shortly, at the end of the Chapter), except for [30] one thing: they were not permitted to engage in administering sacred rites in the temple, because everyone who did not descend from Aaron was considered unconsecrated. But this, of course, has no place in a Christian state.
[39] So we can’t doubt that now sacred matters—whose administration requires a special moral character, but does not require membership in a particular family, so that the rulers are not excluded from it as [III/235] unconsecrated—are subject only to the right of the supreme 'powers. Without their authority or permission no one has the right and 'power to administer these things, to choose their ministers, to determine and stabilize the foundations of the Church and its teaching, to judge concerning [5] morals and acts of piety, to excommunicate someone from or receive someone into the Church, nor, finally, to provide for the poor.
[40] These things are demonstrated, not only to be true—we’ve already done that—but also to be most necessary to the preservation of religion itself, and to that of the republic. For everyone knows how [10] highly the people value the right and authority regarding sacred matters, and how much weight everyone attaches to the utterances of the one who has it. So we can say that the person who has this authority has the most powerful control over their hearts.
[41] Anyone who claims to take this authority away from the supreme 'powers is trying to divide the sovereignty. This will necessarily give [15] rise to quarrels and disagreements which can never be restrained, as happened before between the Kings and Priests of the Hebrews. Indeed, anyone who wants to take this authority away from the supreme 'powers is trying (as we’ve already said) to make himself sovereign. [42] For what can the supreme powers decide, if this right is denied to them? [20] Certainly nothing concerning war and peace, nor any other business, if they are bound to wait for the opinion of someone else, who is to tell them whether what they judge to be advantageous is pious or not. On the contrary, everything will happen according to the decree of that person who has the right of judging and deciding what is pious or impious, sacrilegious or not.
[43] Every age has seen examples of this. I’ll discuss only one, which [25] is a paradigm for all.18 Because this right was conceded unconditionally to the Roman Pontiff, after a while he gradually began to get all the Kings in his 'power, until he rose to the peak of sovereignty. Afterward the monarchs, and especially the German Emperors, could do nothing to diminish his authority even the slightest bit. On the contrary, [30] what they did increased it many times. [44] But this thing which no Monarch could do, either with iron or with fire, Ecclesiastics could do just by the might of their pens. From this example we can easily see the force and power of this authority, and see how necessary it is for the supreme 'powers to reserve it for themselves.
[45] But if we want to consider the things noted in the preceding [III/236] Chapter, we’ll see that this [right of the supreme 'powers in sacred matters] is also conducive, in no small measure, to the increase of religion and piety. For we’ve seen above that though the Prophets themselves were endowed with a divine virtue, still, because they were private men, the freedom they showed in warning, chiding and reproaching [5] people aggravated them more than it corrected them. On the other hand, when the Kings warned or criticized the people, they were easily turned in a different direction. And again, we’ve seen that kings—and with them, almost the whole people—often turned away from religion merely because this right did not belong to them unconditionally. It’s well-known that for the same reason this happened quite often even in Christian states.
[10] [46] But here perhaps someone will ask me: “Who, then, will there be to defend piety with right when those who have sovereignty are willing to be impious? Are those same people even then to be considered its interpreters?” In reply I ask him: “What if the Ecclesiastics—who are also men and private persons, responsible only for taking care of their own affairs—or the others whom he wants to have the right concerning [15] sacred matters—are willing to be impious? Are they even then to be considered its interpreters?”
[47] Indeed, it’s certain that if those who have sovereignty want to follow their own interests, everything will deteriorate, sacred affairs and secular ones, whether the authorities have control over sacred matters or not. But this will happen far more quickly if private men are prepared [20] to defend divine right seditiously. [48] So absolutely nothing is gained by denying this right to the supreme 'powers; on the contrary, it only makes matters worse. For denying them this right makes them necessarily impious (as were the Kings of the Hebrews to whom this right was not absolutely permitted). A harm and evil to the whole Republic, which would have been uncertain and contingent, becomes certain and necessary.
[25] [49] Therefore, whether we consider the truth of the matter, or the security of the state, or the increase of piety, we’re forced to maintain that even divine right, or the right concerning sacred matters, depends absolutely on the decree of the supreme 'powers, and that they are its interpreters and defenders. From this it follows that those people [30] are ministers of the word of God who teach the people piety by the authority of the supreme 'powers, as it’s been accommodated, by their decree, to the public advantage.
[50] What remains now is to indicate the reason why there’s always been a dispute about this right in Christian states, although, so far as I know, the Hebrews never quarreled about it. Certainly it could seem very unnatural that there’s always been a question about something so [III/237] evident and necessary, and that the supreme 'powers never had this right without controversy, indeed, never had it without great danger of rebellions and harm to religion. [51] Undoubtedly, if we could not assign any definite cause for this, I might be easily persuaded that everything [5] I have shown in this Chapter is only theoretical, or, an example of that kind of speculation which could never have any use.
But anyone who considers the origins of the Christian religion will find the cause of this completely clear. [52] It was not kings who first taught the Christian religion, but private men who were accustomed for a long time—against the will of those who had sovereignty and [10] whose subjects they were—to address meetings in private Churches, to establish and administer sacred offices, to manage everything by themselves, and to make decrees without any concern for the sovereign.
[53] Moreover, when religion began to be introduced into the state, after many years had passed, it was Ecclesiastics who had to teach the [15] Emperors this religion, as they had defined it. That’s why they were easily able to succeed in being recognized as its teachers and interpreters—and moreover, as the pastors of the Church, and as it were, the deputies of God. And the Ecclesiastics looked out very well for their own interests by prohibiting marriage to the supreme ministers of the Church and the supreme interpreter of religion, so that afterward Christian Kings would not be able to take this authority for themselves.19
[20] [54] Furthermore, they had increased the doctrines of Religion to such a great number, and confused them so much with Philosophy, that the supreme interpreter of Religion had to be a supreme Philosopher and Theologian, and had to have time for a great many useless speculations, which can fall to the lot only of private men who have abundant leisure.20
[25] [55] But among the Hebrews the situation was very different. For their Church began at the same time their state did, and Moses, who had the rule absolutely, taught the people religion, ordained sacred ministries, and chose the ministers for them [cf. xix, 36]. That’s why royal authority was valued so highly among the people, and why the [30] Kings had such a great right concerning sacred matters. [56] For though no one after Moses’ death had absolute sovereignty, still the ruler (as we’ve already shown)21 had the right to make decrees both about sacred matters and about all others. From then on, to be taught religion and piety, the people were no more bound to go to the Priest than to the supreme Judge. (See Deuteronomy 17:9, 11.)
[III/238] [57] Finally, though the Kings did not have a right equal to that of Moses, still almost the whole system and selection of the sacred ministry depended on their decision. For David organized the whole process of building the Temple (see 1 Chronicles 28:11–12 etc.), and then chose from all the Levites 24,000 to have charge of the temple services, and [5] 6,000 from whom Judges and officers were chosen, 4,000 gatekeepers, and finally, 4,000 to play on instruments. (See 1 Chronicles 23:4–5.) [58] Next he divided them into units (whose leaders he also chose) so that each unit would perform its functions in its own time, taking turns with the others. (See 1 Chronicles 23:6.) Similarly he divided the [10] priests into as many units.
[59] But so that I don’t have to recount all these things separately, I refer the reader to 2 Chronicles 8:13, where it is said that the worship of God, as Moses had established it, was administered in the temple according to Solomon’s command, and in v. 14, that he (Solomon) established units [15] of priests for his ministries, and of Levites, etc., according to the command of the man of God, David. And finally, in v. 15 the Historian testifies that they did not depart from the command imposed by the King on the priests and Levites in any respect, not even in administering the treasures. From all this, and from the other histories of the Kings, it follows with utmost clarity that the whole practice of religion and the whole sacred ministry [20] depended entirely on the King’s command.
[60] But when I said above that the Kings did not have, as Moses did, the right to choose the high priest, or to consult God directly, or to condemn the Prophets who prophesied to them during their lifetime, I said this only because the Prophets had the authority to choose a new [25] King, and forgive regicide, but not because they were permitted to call the King to judgment, or had a legal right to act against him, if he dared to do something against the laws.22** [61] So, if there had been no Prophets who, by a special revelation, could safely grant forgiveness for regicide, they would have had a complete right over absolutely all matters, both sacred and civil. [62] Hence, today’s supreme 'powers, who [30] have no Prophets and are not bound by law to accept any (for they are not subject to the laws of the Hebrews), have this right absolutely, even if they are not celibate; and they will always retain it, provided only that they do not allow the doctrines of Religion to be increased to a great number or to be confused with the sciences.
1. Early in the seventeenth century the Dutch Republic was torn apart by a bitter controversy between the Remonstrants and the Counter-Remonstrants. The primary issue involved questions of grace and predestination, but the parties also disagreed over the proper role of the state in religious matters, with the Remonstrants advocating the state’s authority in the appointment of ministers, the calling of synods, and the resolution of religious disputes, and the Counter-Remonstrants advocating a policy which gave the church the right to operate independently of the state. In evaluating Spinoza’s support for the Remonstrant position it’s important to realize that both parties accepted the status of the Dutch Reformed Church as the publicly supported religion of the Republic, membership in which was required of those holding public office. The difference was that the Remonstrants did not wish, as their opponents did, to require strict adherence to Calvinist teachings for the ministers and members of the church. See Israel 1995, 421–32; Nelson 2010, ch. 3; and Voogt 2009.
2. According to a story in de Voragine’s thirteenth-century Legenda aurea (kept alive in seventeenth-century paintings by Rubens and Van Dyck), in 390 Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, refused communion to Theodosius until the emperor did penance for the massacre of five thousand rebellious citizens in Thessalonica. In fact, it seems, this is indeed a legend. On that occasion Ambrose behaved more diplomatically. (See Drake 2000, 441–48.) The story conflates what happened in 390 with an incident in 388 when a mob, led by the local bishop and a group of monks, destroyed a synagogue in Callinicum. Theodosius ordered that the rioters be punished, and the bishop be made to pay for rebuilding the synagogue. Ambrose challenged this order, arguing that it was no crime to burn a synagogue (“a site of perfidy, a house of impiety, a refuge of madness, which God himself has condemned”) and that it would violate the offenders’ religious liberty if they were made to rebuild the synagogue. This was his ground for refusing the emperor communion. See Ambrose 2005, 95–123. Calvin approved Theodosius’ act of submission, though it’s unclear that Ambrose’s action met his criteria for legitimate excommunication. Cf. Institutes IV, xii, 7, with IV, xi, 6.
3. A standard Erastian qualification of the state’s rights in matters of religion. See Grotius 1647, III, 1; and Hobbes, Leviathan xxvi, 41; xl, 2; xlii, 11.
4. A recurring theme in Ecclesiastes (e.g., 2:14b–15, 7:15, 8:14, 9:1–3), whose attribution to Solomon Spinoza typically accepts, though in x, 5, where he might have been expected to discuss the question of authorship, he does not defend the attribution. Perhaps he prefers to leave the traditional attribution standing because he wants to invoke, in favor of potentially controversial propositions he wishes to see accepted, the authority of a king noted for his wisdom.
5. Cf. xvii, 33–36. Both Exod. 19:7–8 and Deut. 5:27 represent the covenant at Mount Sinai as involving the people’s promising obedience.
6. The Jewish people have often taken Jeremiah’s letter to the captives in Babylon (Jer. 29:4–23) as a guide to their proper conduct in the Diaspora. Cf. SC, Jer. 29:4ff. Jeremiah, though, prophesied an exile limited to seventy years, not permanent exile. Zac (1965, 159; 1979, 149) argued forcefully that Spinoza takes the passage in Jeremiah out of context, that it does not show that the covenant with God was abolished when the people went into captivity, or that they were obliged to change their religion in their new state. Calvin used this text to defend an apparently unconditional duty of obedience to kings, even if they were “abominable and cruel tyrants” (ALM, citing Calvin, Institutes IV, xx, 27–28).
7. The Latin term used here, servus, is ambiguous between “slave” and “servant.” Though Spinoza clearly thinks of the Babylonian captives as slaves here, it’s not equally clear that he’s right to do so, given his definition of slavery in xvi, 32–33. The SC comment on Jer. 29:5 points out that “the exiles in Babylon did not suffer the restrictions . . . imposed upon Jews in many countries in later times. They were permitted to own land and engage in agriculture.”
8. Eccles. 9:2, previously cited in vi, 33, and xix, 8.
9. Agreeing with Machiavelli, Discourses III, 41 (ALM).
10. Manlius Torquatus here is Titus Manlius Imperiosus Torquatus, who was a consul in 340 B.C.E., and had his son executed for disobeying orders in battle (Cicero, De finibus I, vii, 23). Wernham cites Livy VIII, vii. ALM note that his example was cited also in Sallust (Catiline 9 and 52), Valerius Maximus II, vii, 6, and De la Court, Politieke Discoursen, 60. To this list we may add Machiavelli, Discourses III, 22 and 34.
11. Cf. xvi, 34. By the seventeenth century, this Ciceronian maxim had become a commonplace of political theory (endorsed by, among others, Hobbes in Leviathan xxx, 1).
12. Deut. 13:8–9 does not seem good support for the point Spinoza is making here. It is concerned not with law-breaking in general, but with incitement to idolatry, and prescribes, not merely reporting the offender, but killing him (or her). Deut. 17:7 also seems to be concerned with idolatry (the act itself, not mere incitement).
13. Arguably it’s problematic to cite New Testament criticism of the Old Testament as an authority on the OT teachings. There’s no problem finding OT evidence that the Hebrews were commanded to love their neighbors (including resident aliens and strangers). See Leviticus 19:17–18, 19:34, Deut. 10:18–19. The problem, as ALM note, is to find a passage in which the Hebrews were commanded to hate their enemies. But it would appear that Spinoza thought there were passages in the Psalms which encouraged hatred of other nations. See xvii, 77, and the annotation there. Deut. 30:6–7 seems similar in spirit.
14. Jer. 29:7, discussed above in §§14–15.
15. The primary opponents would have been the orthodox Calvinists (Counter-Remonstrants) who maintained the independence of the spiritual authority (see Renier 1944, I, 45). But as Wernham notes, this was also the position of the Roman Catholic Church. He suggests that Spinoza may have felt it unnecessary to respond to these opponents because he thought Grotius had already done so satisfactorily.
16. Wernham calls attention to Hobbes’ use of similar language in DCv xii.
17. Cf. Exod. 28, 29; Lev. 8–10. But in both passages God seems to make the choice, not Moses.
18. ALM note that Spinoza is here using a traditional argument which can be found in the Remonstrant author Johannes Uytenbogaert, who used it to show that the power of the Pope could be deduced from Counter-Remonstrant theses. See Uytenbogaert 1610, 37ff.
19. Cf. Hobbes, Leviathan xii, 32; xlvi, 33–34; xlvii, 10.
20. Cf. the criticism of mixing philosophy and religion at the end of Ch. xi (§§21–24).
21. Presumably the reference is to xvii, 37–61 (though it’s not clear that the history recounted there supports as extensive an authority for political leaders as Spinoza wishes to argue for in this chapter).
22. **[ADN. XXXIX] Here you should attend especially to what we have said about right in Ch. 16.
[1] If it were as easy to command men’s minds as it is their tongues,2 [5] every ruler would govern in safety and no rule would be violent. Everyone would live according to the mentality of the rulers; only in accordance with their decree would people judge what is true or false, good or evil, right or wrong. [2] But as we noted at the beginning of Chapter 17 [xvii, 2], it can’t happen that a mind should be absolutely [10] subject to the control of someone else. Indeed, no one can transfer to another person his natural right, or faculty, of reasoning freely, and of judging concerning anything whatever. Nor can anyone be compelled to do this. [3] That’s why rule over minds is considered violent, and why the supreme majesty seems to wrong its subjects and to usurp [15] their rights whenever it tries to prescribe to everyone what they must embrace as true and reject as false, and, further, by what opinions everyone’s mind ought to be moved in its devotion to God. These things are subject to each individual’s control. No one can surrender that even if he wants to.
[4] I confess that someone can get prior control of another person’s [20] judgment in many ways, some of them almost incredible. So though that person does not directly command the other person’s judgment, it can still depend so much on what he says that we can rightly say that to that extent it is subject to his control.3 But whatever ingenuity has been able to achieve in this matter, it has never reached the point where men do not learn from experience that each person is plentifully supplied with his own faculty of judgment and that men’s minds differ [25] as much as their palates do.4 [5] Though Moses had gotten the greatest prior control of the judgment of his people, not by deception, but by a divine virtue, with the result that he was believed to be divine, and to speak and do everything by divine inspiration, still he was not able to escape murmuring and perverse interpretations.5 Much less are other Monarchs able to do this. If this were conceivable at all, it would be [30] in a monarchic state, not in a democratic one, where all the people, or a great many of them, govern as a body. I think the reason for this is evident to everyone.
[III/240] [6] Therefore, however much the supreme 'powers are believed to have a right over all things, and to be the interpreters of right and piety, they’ll still never be able to stop men from making their own judgment about everything according to their own mentality, and from having, [5] to that extent, this or that affect. It’s true, of course, that by right they can consider as enemies anyone who doesn’t think absolutely as they do in every matter. But what we’re discussing now is not what their right is, but what’s advantageous. [7] I grant that by right they can rule with the utmost violence, and condemn citizens to death for the slightest of [10] reasons. But everyone will deny that they can do these things without detriment to the judgment of sound reason. Indeed, because they can’t do these things without great danger to the whole state, we can also deny that they have the absolute power to do such things. So we can deny also that they can do them with absolute right. For we’ve shown that the right of the supreme 'powers is determined by their power.
[15] [8] If, then, no one can surrender his freedom of judging and thinking what he wishes, but everyone, by the greatest natural right, is master of his own thoughts, it follows that if the supreme 'powers in a republic try to make men say nothing but what they prescribe, no matter how different and contrary their opinions, they will get only [20] the most unfortunate result. Not even the wisest know how to keep quiet, not to mention ordinary people. [9] It’s a common vice of men to confide their judgments to others, even if secrecy is needed.6 So a government which denies everyone the freedom to say and teach what he thinks will be most violent. But when a government grants everyone this freedom, its rule will be moderate.
[25] [10] Still, we can’t deny that majesty can be harmed by words as well as deeds. So if it’s impossible to take this freedom away from subjects completely, it’s also disastrous to grant it completely. Our task here, then, is to inquire how far this freedom can and must be granted to each person consistently with the peace of the republic and the right [30] of the supreme 'powers. As I noted at the beginning of Chapter 16, pursuing this inquiry is my main purpose in these final chapters.
[11] From the foundations of the Republic explained above it follows most clearly that its ultimate end is not to dominate, restraining men by fear, and making them subject to another’s control, but on the [III/241] contrary to free each person from fear, so that he can live securely, as far as possible, i.e., so that he retains to the utmost his natural right to exist and operate without harm to himself or anyone else.
[12] The end of the Republic, I say, is not to change men from rational beings into beasts or automata, but to enable their minds and [5] bodies to perform their functions safely, to enable them to use their reason freely, and not to clash with one another in hatred, anger or deception, or deal inequitably with one another. So the end of the Republic is really freedom.7
[13] Next, we saw [xvi, 37–38] that to form a Republic this one thing was necessary: that either everyone, or some people, or one [10] person, possessed the whole 'power of making decrees. For since the free judgment of men varies a lot, and everyone thinks he alone knows everything, and it can’t happen that they all think alike and speak with one voice, people could not live peaceably together unless each one has surrendered his right to act solely according to the decision of his [15] own mind.
[14] Each person, then, surrenders only his right to act according to his own decision, but not his right to reason and judge. So no one can act contrary to the decree of the supreme 'powers without infringing on their right. But anyone can think, and judge, and consequently also speak, without infringing on their right, provided just that he only speaks or teaches, and defends his view by reason alone, not with deception, [20] anger, hatred, or an intention to introduce something into the republic on the authority of his own decision.
[15] For example, if someone shows that a law is contrary to sound reason, and therefore thinks it ought to be repealed, if at the same time he submits his opinion to the judgment of the supreme 'power (to whom alone it belongs to make and repeal laws), and in the meantime [25] does nothing contrary to what that law prescribes, he truly deserves well of the republic, as one of its best citizens. But if he does this to accuse the magistrate of inequity, and make him hateful to the common people, or if he wants to nullify the law, seditiously, against the will of the magistrate, he’s just a troublemaker and a rebel.
[16] We see, then, how everyone can say and teach what he thinks, [30] without detriment to the right and authority of the supreme 'powers, i.e., without detriment to the Republic’s peace: viz. if he leaves to them the decision about what’s to be done, and does nothing contrary to their decree (even if he must often act contrary to what he judges—and openly says—is good). He can do this without harm to justice and piety. Indeed, he must do this if he wants to show himself to be just and pious.
[III/242] [17] As we’ve already shown,8 justice depends only on the decree of the supreme 'powers. So no one can be just unless he lives according to the decrees received from them. But by what we’ve shown in the preceding Chapter,9 the height of piety is what’s done with regard to [5] the peace and tranquillity of the Republic. That can’t be preserved if each person is allowed to live according to the decision of his own mind. So it’s also impious to do something from your own decision contrary to the decree of the supreme 'power to whom you’re a subject. If this were permitted to everyone, it would necessarily lead to the downfall [10] of the state. [18] But really, a subject can’t do anything contrary to the decree and dictate of his own reason so long as he acts according to the supreme 'power’s decrees. It was at the urging of reason itself that he decided, without reservation, to transfer to the supreme 'power his right of living according to his own judgment.
[19] We can also confirm this conclusion by considering practice. [15] For in councils, both of the supreme 'powers and of lesser 'powers, it’s rare for anything to be done by the common vote of all the members; nevertheless everything is done according to the common decision of all, both of those who voted for it and of those who voted against.
[20] But I return to my subject. From the foundations of the republic [20] we’ve seen how each person can use his freedom of Judgment without detriment to the right of the supreme 'powers. From those same foundations we can determine no less easily which opinions are seditious in a Republic: viz. those which, as soon as they are assumed, destroy the agreement by which each person surrendered his right to act according to his own decision.
[21] For example, if someone thinks that the supreme 'power isn’t [25] its own master, or that no one ought to keep his promises, or that each person ought to live according to his own decision, or something else of this kind, directly contrary to the agreement mentioned above, he is seditious. This isn’t so much because of the judgment and opinion as because of the action such judgments involve. For by the very fact [30] that he thinks such a thing, he cancels the assurance he’s given, either tacitly or explicitly, to the supreme 'power.
Other opinions, which don’t involve an act such as breaking the contract, taking vengeance, venting one’s anger, etc., aren’t seditious—except perhaps in a Republic somehow corrupted, e.g., where superstitious and ambitious men, who can’t endure people who think in a manner worthy of a free man, achieve such a great reputation that ordinary people value their authority more than that of the supreme 'powers.
[III/243] [22] Still, we don’t deny that there are some opinions, apparently concerned only with truth and falsity, which are nevertheless stated and spread abroad in an unjust spirit.10 We’ve already set limits to these in Chapter 15, in such a way that reason still remains free.
[5] [23] Finally, if we attend also to the fact that the loyalty of each person to the Republic, like his loyalty toward God, can be known only from his works, from his loving-kindness toward his neighbor, we’ll have no doubt at all that the best republic concedes to everyone the same freedom to philosophize as we’ve shown that faith does.
[10] [24] I confess, of course, that sometimes such freedom has its disadvantages. But what was ever so wisely instituted that nothing inconvenient could come from it? Anyone who wants to limit everything by laws will provoke more vices than he’ll correct.11 What can’t be prohibited must be granted, even if it often leads to harm. [25] How many evils [15] come from extravagant living, envy, greed, drunkenness, and the like? Still, we endure these things, because the laws’ command can’t prohibit them, even though they’re really vices. How much the more must we grant freedom of judgment, which not only can’t be suppressed, but is undoubtedly a virtue. [26] Moreover, as I’ll show at once, it doesn’t [20] lead to any disadvantages which can’t be avoided by the magistrates’ authority—not to mention the fact that this freedom is especially necessary for advancing the arts and sciences. Only those who have a free and unprejudiced judgment can cultivate these disciplines successfully.
[25] [27] But suppose this freedom could be suppressed, and men so kept in check that they didn’t dare to mutter anything12 except what the supreme 'powers prescribe. This would surely never happen in such a way that they didn’t even think anything except what the supreme 'powers wanted them to. So the necessary consequence would be that every day men would think one thing and say something else. The [30] result? The good faith especially necessary in a Republic would be corrupted. Abominable flattery and treachery would be encouraged, as would deceptions and the corruption of all liberal studies.
[28] But it simply couldn’t happen that everyone spoke within prescribed limits. On the contrary, the more the authorities try to take away this freedom of speech, the more stubbornly men will resist. Not the greedy, of course, or the flatterers, or the rest of the weak-minded, [III/244] whose supreme well-being consists in contemplating the money in their coffers13 and having bloated bellies. Resistance will come instead from those whom a good education, integrity of character, and virtue have made more free.
[29] For the most part men are so constituted that they endure [5] nothing with greater impatience than that opinions they believe to be true should be considered criminal and that what moves them to piety toward God and men should be counted as wickedness in them. The result is that they dare to denounce the laws and do what they can against the magistrate; they don’t think it shameful, but quite honorable, to initiate rebellions and attempt any crime for the sake of this cause.
[10] [30] From what we’ve just established about the dispositions of human nature, it follows that laws made concerning opinions aren’t concerned with the wicked, but with people who act like free men, that they aren’t made to restrain the malicious, but to aggravate honest men, and that they can’t be defended without great danger to the state.
[31] Moreover, such laws are completely useless. The people who [15] believe that the opinions the laws condemn are sound will not be able to obey them. But the people who think the condemned opinions false will accept the laws as privileges, and triumph in them so much that afterward the magistrate won’t be able to repeal them even if he wants to.
[32] To these considerations we add what we deduced from the history of the Hebrews, in Chapter 18, under the second heading [§§13–14].
[20] Finally, how many schisms in the Church have been produced by the magistrate’s willingness to use laws to settle controversies among the learned? If men were not possessed by the hope of getting the laws and the magistrate on their side, of triumphing over their opponents through the general applause of the mob, and of acquiring honors, [25] they’d never contend so unfairly. Their minds would not be excited by such a great frenzy.
[33] It’s not only reason which teaches these lessons; so does experience, with daily examples. Laws of this kind, which command what everyone is to believe, and prohibit people from speaking or writing something contrary to this or that opinion, have often been instituted [30] to make a concession to—or rather to surrender to—the anger of those who can’t endure free minds and who can, by a certain grim authority, easily change the devotion of a seditious mob to madness, and rouse it against whomever they wish to.
[34] How much better it would be to restrain the anger and frenzy of the mob than to pass useless laws, which can be violated only by those who love the virtues and the arts, and to reduce the Republic to [III/245] such narrowness that it can’t endure men who act like free men? [35] What greater evil can be imagined for the Republic than that honest men should be exiled as wicked because they hold different opinions and don’t know how to pretend to be what they’re not? What, I ask, can be more ruinous than that men should be considered enemies [5] and condemned to death, not because of any wickedness or crime, but because they have a mind worthy of a free man? Or that the scaffold, the scourge of the evil, should become the noblest stage for displaying the utmost endurance and a model of virtue, to the conspicuous shame of the majesty?14 [36] For people who know themselves to be [10] honorable don’t, like criminals, fear death or plead to be excused from punishment; they’re not tormented by repentance for a shameful deed; on the contrary, they think it honorable, not a punishment, to die for a good cause, and glorious to die for freedom. What kind of precedent is established by the death of such men, whose cause those lacking in spirit and weak-minded know nothing about, whose cause the seditious [15] hate,15 whose cause the honorable love? No one can take any example from this death, except to imitate it, or else to be a flatterer.
[37] So if good faith, not flattering lip service, is to be valued, if the supreme 'powers are to retain their sovereignty as fully as possible, and not be compelled to yield to the rebellious, freedom of judgment must [20] be granted. Men must be so governed that they can openly hold different and contrary opinions, and still live in harmony. There can be no doubt that this way of governing is best, and has the least disadvantages, since it’s the one most compatible with men’s nature. [38] For we’ve shown that in a democratic state (which comes closest to the natural [25] condition) everyone contracts to act according to the common decision, but not to judge and reason according to the common decision. Because not all men can equally think the same things, they agreed that the measure which had the most votes would have the force of a decree, but that meanwhile they’d retain the authority to repeal these decrees when they saw better ones. The less we grant men this freedom [30] of judgment, the more we depart from the most natural condition, and the more violent the government.
[39] The next thing to establish is that this freedom has no disadvantages which can’t be avoided just by the authority of the supreme 'power, and that the only easy way to restrain men from harming one another, even though they openly hold contrary opinions, is by this authority.
Examples are readily available; I don’t need to look far to find them. [III/246] [40] Consider the city of Amsterdam, which, from its great growth and the admiration of all nations, knows by experience the fruits of this liberty.16 In this most flourishing Republic, this most outstanding city, all men, no matter what their nation or sect, live in the greatest [5] harmony. When they entrust their goods to someone, the only thing they care to know is whether the person is rich or poor, and whether he usually acts in good faith or not. They don’t care at all what his Religion or sect is, for that would do nothing to justify or discredit their case before a judge. Provided they harm no one, give each person [10] his due, and live honestly, there is absolutely no sect so hated that its followers are not protected by the public authority of the magistrates and their forces.
[41] But before, when the religious controversy between the Remonstrants and the Counter-Remonstrants17 was being stirred up by the Politicians and the Estates of the provinces, in the end it degenerated into a schism, and many examples made it manifest that laws passed to settle [15] Religious controversies aggravate people more than they correct them, that some people take unlimited license from them, and moreover, that schisms don’t come from a great zeal for truth (a source of gentleness and consideration for others), but from an overwhelming desire for control.18
[42] These examples show, more clearly than by the noon light, that [20] the real schismatics are those who condemn the writings of others and seditiously incite the unruly mob against the writers, not the writers themselves, who for the most part write only for the learned and call only reason to their aid. Again, the real troublemakers are those who want, in a free Republic, to take away freedom of judgment, even [25] though it can’t be suppressed.
(1) that it’s impossible to take away from people the freedom to say what they think;
(2) that this freedom can be granted to everyone, without detriment to the right and authority of the supreme 'powers, and that everyone can [30] keep it, without detriment to that right, provided he takes no license from that to introduce anything into the Republic as a right, or to do anything contrary to the accepted laws;
(3) that everyone can have this same freedom, and the peace of the Republic still be preserved, and that no disadvantages come from this which can’t easily be limited;
(4) that everyone can have this freedom without detriment to piety; and
(5) that laws made about speculative matters are completely useless.
[III/247] [44] Finally, we’ve shown
(6) not only that this freedom can be granted without detriment to the peace of the Republic, and to the piety and right of the supreme 'powers, but that it must be granted, if we are to preserve all these things.
Where people try to take this freedom away from men, and bring [5] to judgment the opinions of those who disagree with them—but not their hearts, which alone can sin—they make examples of honest men, who seem rather to be martyrs. They aggravate the others more than they terrify them, and move them to compassion, if not to vengeance.
[45] Again, liberal studies and trust are corrupted, flatterers and traitors [10] are encouraged, and the opponents [of liberal studies and trust] exult, because a concession has been made to their anger, and because they’ve made those who have sovereignty followers of the doctrine whose interpreters they are thought to be. That’s how it happens that they dare to usurp their authority and right, and don’t blush to boast that they’ve been chosen immediately by God, and that their own decrees are divine, whereas those of the supreme 'powers are human, and [15] therefore should yield to divine decrees, that is, to their own decrees. No one can fail to see that all these things are completely contrary to the well-being of the Republic.
[46] So here, as above (in Ch. 18), we conclude that nothing is safer for the republic than that piety and Religion should include only the practice of Loving-kindness and Equity, and that the right of the [20] supreme 'powers concerning both sacred and secular matters should relate only to actions. For the rest, everyone should be granted the right to think what he wants and to say what he thinks.
[47] With this I’ve finished the matters I had decided to discuss in this Treatise. It remains only to note explicitly that I’ve written nothing here which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and [25] judgment of the supreme 'Powers of my Country. For if they judge that anything I’ve said is incompatible with the laws of the country or contrary to the general welfare, I wish it unsaid. I know that I’m a man, and may have erred. But I’ve taken great pains not to err, and especially to write nothing which wouldn’t be completely consistent with the laws of my country, with piety and with morals.
1. Another allusion to Tacitus, Histories I, i, 4. Cf. III/12, 247.
2. An allusion to Quintus Curtius VIII, v, 5: Alexander “wished, not only to be called, but to be believed to be, the son of Jupiter, as if he could command minds just as he could tongues” (ALM).
5. The Pentateuch repeatedly reports the people as complaining about the hardships of their life in the wilderness. Cf. Exod. 15:22–25, 16:2–3, 17:2; Num. 11:1–6, 16:12–14, 20:2–4, 21:4–5. We may have a reminiscence here of ch. vi of Machiavelli’s Prince, where Moses is cited as an example of someone who acquired a new principality by his skill (virtù).
6. Proietti has noted allusions here to various passages in Terence: Adelphi 342, 953; Eunuchus 128 (ALM).
7. ALM note that though Spinoza is highly critical of More elsewhere (TP i, 1), here his thought is reminiscent of Utopia: “The establishment of this republic has one aim above all: that as far as public needs allow, all citizens should be granted as much time as possible from the service of the body to the freedom and cultivation of the mind” (More 1995, 134). Prima facie this conflicts with iii, 20, which makes “the end of the whole social order and of the state . . . to live securely and conveniently.” For the TP, see the annotation at i, 6.
8. Akkerman suggests that the reference is to xvi, 2–6, and xix, 7–8. Perhaps we should add xvi, 42.
10. Probably these opinions would include those which affirm the superiority of revelation to reason (cf. xv, 5ff.). These might be taken to imply that religious authority has precedence over secular, showing clerical resentment of political authority.
11. An allusion to Ovid, Amores III, iv, 11. The theme will recur in TP x, 5 (ALM).
12. An allusion to Terence’s Andria 505, where the words are those of a slave to a master who suspects him of deception. Other allusions to Terence in this passage occur at 243/33 (praefinito loqui, from Hecyra 94) and 244/3 (humanam naturam sic comparatam esse from Heautontimorumenos 503) (ALM).
13. Here the allusion is to Horace’s Satires 1.1, 67.
14. Spinoza uses the term catasta (“scaffold”) only in this passage. I presume he means to refer to any place of execution, and has in mind such examples of heroic resistance as Don Lope de Vera y Alarcon (also known as Judah, the faithful), burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1644, and celebrated in Menasseh ben Israel’s Hope of Israel (a book Spinoza owned). For further detail, see the annotation to Spinoza’s reply to Albert Burgh, Letter 76, IV/322.
15. Bennett was understandably puzzled by this. Why would rebels hate men willing to die for their beliefs? I think the seditious here are religious leaders who “can’t endure free minds” (above §33) and therefore pressure the civil authorities to take repressive measures which, left to their own concerns, those authorities would not be disposed to take. Spinoza assumes the civil authorities will normally allow greater liberty than the religious leaders would. He would no doubt have cited the history of the Remonstrant controversy as evidence for this view. Cf. xix, 1, above, and xx, 41, below, along with the annotation given in those passages. See also Letter 30, IV/166/27–29, and the critique of the clergy in the Preface to the TTP, §§15–19. He regards the preachers as seditious because they deny the civil authorities rights which are essential to their sovereignty.
16. In his Lettres philosophiques, Voltaire will write similarly about London (6th Letter). In a letter to Mme. de Bernières, he has parallel remarks about Amsterdam and The Hague (7 October 1722). Meinsma thought that we should take Spinoza’s praise of Amsterdam here as devilishly ironic (Meinsma 1983, 375). Recent commentators have generally disagreed, sometimes citing the testimony of contemporary observers to the exceptional freedom of the Dutch Republic. (Cf. Gebhardt V, 115; ALM; Gebhardt/Gawlick; Totaro; Bartuschat 2012.) No doubt Meinsma went too far in his criticism of Amsterdam when he claimed that in no other city in the republic was it so dangerous to express dissent. But Spinoza also goes too far when he claims that all men in Amsterdam live in the greatest harmony. §40 reflects Spinoza’s hopes for Amsterdam, not a realistic assessment of the situation there in his day, as the persecution of Adriaan Koerbagh illustrates.
17. For the history of this controversy see Israel 1995, chs. 18–20.
18. In 1619 the Synod of Dordrecht (Dort) deprived about two hundred Remonstrant preachers of their livings and right to preach. Some were rehabilitated when they complied with a formula of submission. Others were permanently stripped of their pulpits but allowed to live as private citizens, provided they didn’t preach or engage in theological disputes. The rest were banished, on pain of imprisonment if they sought to evade their expulsion. Maybe this doesn’t, compared with the practices of the Inquisition, count as “unlimited license,” but it does suggest a strong desire for control.