BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

On ceremonies and narratives
chronicle s , with the s ame atte n t ion that the c o m mo n p e ople usually g ive
to the ir re ading. On the othe r hand, a s we have s aid, he who is c o mple tely
ig noran t of the m, and n eve r thele s s ha s s alutar y op inions and a tr ue c on -
ce pt ion of living, is tr uly happy and tr uly ha s within hi m the spi r it of
C hr ist.
Howeve r, the Jews hold c o mple tely to the opp o s ite view. They think
that tr ue op inions and a tr ue c once ption of life make no c on tr ibut ion to
happ in e s s whe n eve r p e ople re ceive the m by the natural ligh t of re a s on
alon e and not a s te aching s prophe t ic ally reve ale d to Mo s e s. Mai m onide s
dares op e nly to a s s e r t this (Ki n g ,ch. s 8 , Law 11) 12 in the s e words :
‘Eve r yon e who acce pts the s eve n pre ce pts 13 and dilige n tly pract is e s the m 80
is am ong the p ious of the nat ions and an he ir of the world to c o me ; that
is , if he acce pts the m and pract is e s the m b e c aus e Go d pre s cr ib e d the m
in the Law and reve ale d to us through Mo s e s that the s ame require me n ts
had b e e n pre s cr ib e d to the s ons of No ah b efore. But if he pract is e s the m
b e c aus e he ha s b e e n c onvince d by rea s on that he should, he is not on e of
us , nor do e s he b elong to the p ious or le ar n e d of the nat ions’. The s e are
the words of Mai m onide s. Rabbi Jo s e ph b e n She m Tov, in his b o ok
e n t itle d Kevod Elohim ,or Glor y of God , 14 adds that Ar istotle (who he
supp o s e s ha s w r itte n the supre me Ethics , and who m he e ste e ms ab ove all
othe rs) mis s e d nothing that wa s relevan t to tr ue m orality and exp ou nde d
it all in his Ethics and would have put it all c ons c i e n t iously in to pract ice.
Neve r thele s s , he adds , this would not have help e d hi m towards s alvat ion,
since he did not receive these teachings as divine doctrine prophetically
revealed, but derived them from the dictate of reason alone. I think it is
evident to anyone who reads this attentively that all this is mere fabrication
and does not rest upon the authority of the Bible, and hence one
need only expound it in order to refute it.
Neither do I intend at this point formally to refute the opinion of those
who are convinced that the natural light of reason can yield no sound
12 Mai m o ni de s , Mishneh Torah [Code of L aw] , B o o k of K i ng s , ch. 8 ,law 11.
13 Spinoza’s footnote: N.B. the Jews think that God gave seven commandments to Noah, and the
nations are bound only by these; to the Hebrew people alone he gave many other commandments,
in order to render them happier than the rest.
14 Kevod Elohim printed at Ferrara in 1556,waswrittenin1442 by Joseph ben Shem Tov Ibn Shem
Tov (c.1400-c.1460), a Spanish Jewish physician and philosopher who, in that work, rejects the
equivalence between biblical and Aristotelian ethics argued by Maimonides; nevertheless, he
too was a great admirer of Aristotle and, at Segovia, in 1455, wrote a detailed commentary on
the Hebrew version of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics.
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