BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Furtherqueries
this topic and challenge him to undertake an enterprise bound to fail. All
I needed was to propose the thing, so as to set out my meaning more
clearly. I now move on to the other issues I undertook to discuss, concerning
the fate of these books.
[13] For besides what we have just proved, we must also take account of
the fact that these books have not been preserved by later ages with such
care that no errors have crept in. Ancient scribes noticed several dubious
readings and some mutilated passages, though not all of them. I am not
here discussing whether the errors are serious enough to cause major dif-
¢culty for the reader though I do believe that they are of little signi¢cance
at any rate for those who peruse the Scriptures with a more open mind. I
can certainly say that I have not noticed any error or variant reading concerning
moral doctrine which would render it obscure or ambiguous. But
there are many people who do not allow that any fault has entered in even
on other questions, adopting the stance that by a certain special providence
God has preserved the entire Bible uncorrupted. They assert that
variant readings are indications of the most profound mysteries, and
maintain the same about the twenty-eight asterisks, all of which occur in
the middle of a paragraph, and even insist that fabulous secrets are contained
in the accents on the letters. I do not know whether they a⁄rm this
from foolishness and doddering devotion or from pride and malice, so that
people would believe that they alone know God’s secrets, but this I do
know: I have read nothing in them that sounds like a deep secret, rather it
is all very childish. I have also read, and personally know, some people who 136
dabble in Cabbalism; the stupidity of whom is beyond belief.
[14] As for the fact that errors have crept in, as we said, I think no
sensible person can doubt it if he has read the passage about Saul (which
I cited above from 1 Samuel 13.1) and also 2 Samuel 6.2,‘And David and
the whole people that were with him arose and went from Judah, so that
they might take the ark of God from there’. Anyone can see in this passage
that the place they went to, Kirjat Jeharim, 18 from which they were
to take the ark, has dropped out. We cannot deny that 2 Samuel 13.37
has also been scrambled and mutilated: ‘And Absalom £ed and went to
Talmai, the son of Ammihud, king of Geshur, and mourned for his son
18 Spinoza’s footnote: see Annotation 19.
137