BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

The Hebrew state in the time of Moses
very powerful restraint, for it is certain that princes can oppress a people 213
simply by making use of a mercenary armed force, and they fear nothing
more than the liberty of their soldier-citizens, whose courage, toil and
expenditure of blood have won the state its freedom and glory. When
Alexander was about to encounter Darius in battle for the second time,
Parmenio o¡ered him [unacceptable] advice; 13 Alexander did not
rebuke Parmenio who had given this advice but Polyperchon who supported
Parmenio. For as Curtius says at 4.13, he did not dare to rebuke
Parmenio again, since he had recently chastised him in stronger terms
than he would have wished. Neither was he able to suppress the liberty of
the Macedonians which he very much feared, as we have already said,
until he had more captives in his army than native Macedonians. Only
then could he give rein to his own headstrong temperament, which had
long been restrained by the liberty of the best citizens. If therefore this
liberty of citizen-soldiers restrains the leaders of a merely human state,
accustomed to appropriate for themselves all the credit for victories, how
much more must it have restrained the leaders of the Hebrews, whose
soldiers fought not for the glory of their leaders but the glory of God,
and engaged in battle only when they had received a response from God.
[19] To this should be added that all the Hebrew leaders were united only
by the bond of religion. If any of them therefore rejected it and began to
violate the divine right of each person, the others would consider him an
enemy on this ground alone and rightly suppress him.
[20] There was also, thirdly, the fear of a new prophet. If a man who
lived a blameless life showed by certain accepted signs that he was a
prophet, he had by this fact alone the supreme right of command like
that of Moses ^ which he exercised in the name of God who was
revealed to him alone ^ and not merely like the chiefs, who consulted
God through the high priest. There is no doubt that such men could
easily draw the oppressed people to themselves, and persuade them of
whatever they wanted even by trivial signs. On the other hand, if things
were well-run, the leader could stipulate beforehand that any prophet
should ¢rst appear before him so as to be examined by him, as to
13 On this occasion Alexander rejected the advice of Parmenio, his senior general, but thought it
more politic to rebuke one of Parmenio’s junior supporters for o¡ering bad counsel, rather than
risk rebuking Parmenio himself.
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