BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
[11] First the people were commanded to construct a building to be as it
were the palace of God, i.e., the palace of the supreme authority of this
state.This was to be built at the expense of all the people, not of one man,
so that the house where God was to be consulted should belong to all.The
Levites were chosen as the o⁄cials and administrators of this divine
palace. Aaron, Moses’ brother, was chosen as the highest of these, and to
be second, as it were, to God the king; and his sons legitimately succeeded
him. As the man closest to God, therefore, he was the supreme interpreter
of the divine Laws; he issued the responses of the divine oracle to the
people and prayed to God on their behalf. If along with these powers he
had also possessed the right of command, nothing would have distinguished
him from an absolute monarch. But he was not given this
power, and the whole tribe of Levi was so lacking the ordinary powers of
government that it did not even have a portion of land, as the other tribes
did, as its own rightful possession and means of subsistence. Moses
ordained rather that this tribe should be maintained by the rest of the
tribes, so that it would always be held in the greatest honour by the common
people since it alone was dedicated to God.
[12] An armed force was formed from the other twelve tribes and
ordered to invade the territory of the Canaanites and divide it into twelve
parts and distribute it by lots among the tribes. For this task twelve chiefs
were chosen, one from each tribe, and they were given the right, along with
Joshua and the high priest Eleazar, to divide the territories into twelve
equal parts and distribute them by lot. Joshua was chosen supreme commander
of the armed force. He alone had the right to consult God in times
of crisis ^ not, however, like Moses, alone in his tent or in the tabernacle,
but rather through the high priest to whom alone the responses of God
were given. Likewise, he had the right to proclaim God’s commands
which had been communicated through the high priest, of compelling the
people to obey them, and of devising and applying means for carrying
them out. He also had the right to choose from the army as many men as
209 he wished and whoever he wished and to send out envoys in his name;
broadly, every right of war depended upon his decree alone. No one automatically
succeeded to his position, nor was his successor directly chosen
by anyone except God, and then only when a crisis a¡ecting the whole
people required it. Apart from this, all matters of war and peace were
administered by the chiefs of the tribes, as I shall shortly show.
216