BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
with the order and arguments of Obadiah. Let him also compare Isaiah
40.19^20 and 44.8 ¡. with Hosea 8.6 and 13.2. And so for the rest; and if all
these passages are duly examined, they will readily show that God has no
particular speaking style, but that he is elegant, concise, severe, rough,
prolix or obscure according to the learning and capability of the prophet.
[10] Prophetic visions and images, even when referring to the same
thing, varied markedly: the glory of God departing the Temple was
made apparent to Isaiah di¡erently from how it was represented to Ezekiel.
The Rabbis insist that both revelations are exactly the same except that
Ezekiel, as a country fellow, was completely overwhelmed by it and therefore
narrated it fully in all its circumstantial detail, but they are obviously
making this up ^ unless they had a reliable tradition for it, which I do not
believe. For Isaiah saw seraphim with seven wings each, while Ezekiel saw
beasts with four wings each; Isaiah saw God clothed and seated on a royal
throne, while Ezekiel saw him as a ¢re. Each undoubtedly saw God as he
was accustomed to imagine him.
[11] Revelations di¡ered, moreover, not only in form but also in clarity.
What was revealed to Zechariah was too obscure for him to be able to
understand it himself without explanation, as is clear from his account of
it, andwhat was revealed to Daniel could not be understood by the prophet
himself even when it was explained to him. This was not because of the
di⁄culty of what had to be revealed (for these were only human matters,
not beyond the limits of human understanding except in being in the
future), but merely because Daniel’s imagination was not as able to prophesy
when he was awake as when he was asleep. This emerges from the
fact that when his visions began, he was so terri¢ed that he almost despaired
of his capacities. Owing to the debility of his imagination and his
incapacity, things were revealed to him which seemed very obscure to him,
and he could not grasp them even when they were explained to him. Here
35 we should note that the words that Daniel heard (as we showed above) were
only imaginary; hence it is not surprising that, in his disturbed state at that
time, he imagined all these words in such a confused and obscure manner
that he could make nothing of them afterwards. Those who say that God
did not want to give Daniel a clear revelation seem not to have read the
words of the angel, who explicitly said (see 10.14) that ‘he had come to make
Daniel understand what would happen to his people in the latter days’. It
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