BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
subject to the emotions we have spoken of ^ mercy, kindness, etc. ^ and
therefore God was revealed to him in conformity with this belief of his
and under these attributes: see Exodus 34.6^7, which tells how God
appeared to Moses, and verses 4 and 5 of theTen Commandments. Again
at 33.18 we are told how Moses beseeched God to allow him to see him;
but as Moses, as already said, had formed no image of God in his mind,
and God (as I have already shown) is only revealed to the prophets
according to the tenor of their own imagination, God did not appear to
him in an image. The reason for this, I say, is that it con£icted with
Moses’ own imagination; for other prophets ^ Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel,
etc. ^ testify that they have seen God. It was also for this reason that God
replied to Moses,‘you will not be able to see my face’. Because Moses
believed that God was visible, i.e., that this implies no contradiction on
the part of the divine nature ^ for otherwise he would not have made any
such request ^ God adds,‘since no one shall see me and live’, thus giving a
reason which ¢ts in with Moses’ own belief. He does not say that it
implies a contradiction on the part of the divine nature, as in fact it does,
but rather that it cannot be done because of human incapacity. Afterwards,
when God revealed to Moses that in worshipping a calf the Israelites
had become like other nations, He says at 33.2^3 that He will send
an angel (i.e. a being that would take care of the Israelites in place of the
supreme being) and does not wish to be with them Himself. Consequently,
Moses had nothing left to prove that the Israelites were dearer to
God than other nations, since God also entrusted them to the care of
other beings, or angels, as is clear from verse 16 of the same chapter.
Finally, because He was believed to reside in the heavens, God was
revealed as descending from heaven on to a mountain, and Moses even
ascended the mountain to speak with God, which he would have had no
need to do had he been able to imagine God readily everywhere.
The Hebrews knew almost nothing of God, despite His having been
revealed to them, as they made very plain a few days later when they
transferred to a calf the honour and worship due to Him, and identi¢ed
this with the gods they believed had brought them out of Egypt. In fact it is
41 hardly likely that people accustomed to Egyptian superstition, who were
primitive and reduced to the most abject slavery, should have any sound
conception of God, or that Moses taught them anything other than a way
of life, and that not as a philosopher, so that they might eventually live well,
from liberty of mind, but as a legislator obliging them to live well by
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