BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts’. 2 After this, he
continued with further accusations, charging them with interpreting the
Laws as they wished and showing respect only for persons and not for God.
But the high priests could assuredly never have accomplished all this, however
cunningly they proceeded, without this being noticed by the wiser sort,
and without their insisting, as the high priests’ audacity mounted, that only
the written laws should be considered binding. All the other rulings called
‘traditions of the fathers’ by the deluded Pharisees ^ who, according to
Josephus, in his Antiquities, 3 mostly came from among the common people ^
should be set aside.
But however that may have been, there can be no doubt whatever that adulation
of the high priests, corruption of religion and the laws, and an incredible
proliferation in the number of rulings, a¡orded ample and frequent occasion for
commotions and disputes which could never be settled. For when men are driven
by the ardour of superstition and begin to quarrel and where the magistrates
then take sides, it is impossible to quieten the people down. Rather they
inevitably divide into factions.
(2) The prophets, who, of course, were private individuals, had more success,
it should be noted, in antagonizing than reforming people by means of the liberty
which they usurped to admonish, scold and rebuke; on the other hand,
those admonished or punished by kings, were readily corrected. Actually, the
prophets were frequently insupportable even to pious kings, owing to the
authority theyhad to judge which actions were pious or impious and rebuke even
the kings themselves, if they persisted in any public or private activity contrary
to the prophets’ view of what was correct. King Asa, who by the testimony of
Scripture ruled piously, put the prophet Hananiah on the treadmill (see 2
Chronicles 16) for daring to reprove and admonish him freely following the
agreement Asa had come to with the king of Aramaea. There are also other
examples, apart from this, showing that religion lost more than it gained as a
224 consequence of such licence, not to mention the fact that serious civil wars arose
because the prophets retained so much authority for themselves.
(3) Also worthy of note is the fact that whilst the people held the sovereign
power, they experienced only one civil war, and this con£ict was brought to a
complete end, the victors evincing so much compassion for the vanquished
that they made every e¡ort to restore them to their former dignity and power.
But after the people, despite having no experience of kings, exchanged their
original [republican] form of government for monarchy, there was practically
no end to civil wars, and the Hebrews engaged in battles of unparalleled
ferocity. In one such encounter ^ this is almost impossible to believe ^ 500,000
2 Malachi 2.7^8.
3 Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 18.12^15.
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