BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

The Hebrew state in the time of Moses
in their worship which, though divine, was demeaning to them as well as
suspect in itself, and if they looked around for a new cult.What wonder too
if the leaders, who always alone hold the sovereign right to rule, gave in to
the people and introduced new cults, in order to win their allegiance for
themselves and turn them away from the priests.
[27] But if their republic had been set up according to its ¢rst design,
all the tribes would have retained equal right and honour, and everything
would have proceeded in complete security. For who would wish to violate
the sacred right of his kin What would they want more than to
support those of their own blood, their brothers and parents, as religious
piety required What would they have wanted more than to learn from
them how to interpret the Law and hear from them the divine responses
In this way, all the tribes would have remained far more closely
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bound to each other, that is, if all had had an equal right to administer
the sacred things. Indeed, there would have been nothing to fear had His
choosing the Levites had any other cause than anger and vengeance. But
as we said, God was angry, and he made them impure by their gifts, to
repeat again the words of Ezekiel, by rejecting the ¢rst opening of the
womb in order to destroy them.
[28] This is con¢rmed by the histories. No sooner had the people, still
in the desert, found they had some time to spare, than many of them
(not from the common folk) began to resent this priestly election and to
foment the view that Moses was setting up these institutions not by
divine command but simply as he pleased, since he had chosen his own
tribe over the others and conferred the right of priesthood for ever on
his own brother. So they instigated a commotion and went to see him,
claiming they were all equally sacred and that it was not right that he
should be elevated above all the rest. 19 Nor was there any way that he
could pacify them; however, via a miracle which he invoked as a token of
his high standing with God, they were all annihilated. From this arose a
new and more general sedition of the whole people; for the people
believed that those men had been destroyed not by God who was their
judge but rather by the craft of Moses. He did not ¢nally subdue them
until a terrible disaster, that is a pestilence, left them so worn down that
19 Numbers 16.
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