BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
manner for many thousands of years, so that they far surpass all nations in
antiquity. Nor have they always had their own state. They have lost it and
then recovered it, and without doubt will recover it again, when the
Tartars become demoralized through luxury and idleness.
[13] A last point: if anyone wants to insist that the Jews have been chosen
for this or any other reason by God for ever, Iwill not argue with him, if he
will accept that this election, whether temporal or eternal, in so far as it is
merely peculiar to the Jews, regards only their polity and their material
interests (since this is all that can distinguish one nation from another),
and that no people is distinguished from another with regard to understanding
and true virtue, and hence in these spheres God does not choose
one nation above any other.
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