BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
rights and laws di¡erently and instituted a di¡erent form of state. What
else can be said, then, than that their God was angry with them not
merely, as Jeremiah 32.31 says, from the foundation of the city but right
from the laying down of the Laws. Ezekiel too attests to this at 20.25
saying, ‘I also gave them statutes which were not good and edicts by
which they might not live; I made them impure by their very gifts by
rejecting every ¢rst opening of the womb’ (i.e., the ¢rst-born), ‘so that
I might destroy them, so that they would know that I am Jehovah’.
218 So as to understand these words and the cause of the destruction of
the state, one should note that the original intention was to entrust the
sacred ministry to the ¢rst-born, and not to the Levites (see Numbers
8.17). But after everyone but the Levites had worshipped the golden calf,
the ¢rst-born were rejected and declared unclean and the Levites chosen
in their place (Deuteronomy 10.8). The more I ponder this, the more
I must exclaim, in Tacitus’ words, that at that time ‘God did not wish to
save them but to punish them’. 17 Nor can I su⁄ciently express my
amazement that there was so much anger in the divine mind, 18 that He
should actually make laws (which are normally designed to protect the
honour, safety and security of all the people) to avenge himself and
punish them, and thus the laws seemed to be not laws (i.e., a protection
for the people) but penalties and punishments. Everything always
reminded them of their impurity and rejection: all the gifts they were
obliged to donate to the Levites and the priests, their obligation to
redeem their ¢rst-born and pay a poll-tax in silver to the Levites, the
exclusive privilege of the Levites to approach whatever was sacred.
Furthermore, the Levites always gave them opportunities for criticism.
For undoubtedly, among so many thousands of Levites, there must have
been numerous narrow-minded clerics who made a nuisance of themselves.
In retaliation, the people kept an eye on the activities of the Levites
who, after all, were only men, and would blame them all for the misdeeds
of just a few: that is the way of things. Thus, there would constantly be
protests ^ especially if the price of corn was high ^ and unwillingness to
continue supporting a non-labouring elite whom they resented and were
not even related to them by blood.What wonder, then, if in times of peace
when manifest miracles had ceased and there were no men of outstanding
authority, people became indignant and envious, and began to grow stale
17 Tacitus, Histories, 1.3.
18 An echo of Virgil, Aeneid, 1.11: ‘tantaene animis coelestibus irae’
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