BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Divine law and the word of God
in so far as the Bible teaches what is requisite for obedience and salvation, it
could not have been corrupted. Everyone will readily be able to see from
this that we have said nothing against God’s word, nor given any licence to
impiety.
[5] Something intended to promote the practice of piety and religion is
called sacred and divine and is sacred only so long as people use it religiously.
If they cease to be pious, the thing in question likewise, at the
same time, ceases to be sacred. If they devote that thing to impious
purposes, the very object that before was sacred will be rendered unclean
and profane. For example, a certain place was called by the patriarch
Jacob ‘the house of God’, because there he worshipped the God that had
been revealed to him. But the very same place was called ‘the house of
iniquity’ by the prophets (see Amos 5.5 and Hosea 10.5), because in their
time, following the practice of Jeroboam, the Israelites were accustomed
to sacri¢ce to idols there.
Here is another example that brings all this out very clearly. Words
acquire a particular meaning simply from their usage.Words deployed in
accordance with this usage in such a way that, on reading them, people are
moved to devotion will be sacred words, and any book written with words
so used will also be sacred. But if that usage later dies out so that the words
lose their earlier meaning, or if the book becomes wholly neglected, whether
fromwickedness or because people no longer need it, then bothwords
and bookwill then likewise have neither use nor sanctity. Lastly, if the same
words are di¡erently deployed or it becomes accepted usage to construe
the [same] words in the contrary sense, then both words and book which
were formerly sacred will become profane and impure. From this it follows
that nothing is sacred, profane, or impure, absolutely and independently of
the mind but only in relation to the mind.
[6] This is entirely evident from many passages of Scripture. Jeremiah 7.4
(to take an example at random) holds the Jews of his time to be wrong in
calling Solomon’s temple the temple of God, for, as he goes on to say, in the 161
same chapter, God’s name could only be present in that temple as long as it
was frequented by men who worshipped him and defended justice. But
once frequented by murderers, thieves, idolaters and other wrongdoers
instead, it was then rather a den of sinners. I have often wondered why it is
that Scripture says nothing about what became of the ark of the covenant.
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