BENEDICT DE SPINOZA: Theological-Political Treatise

Theological-Political Treatise
rationale of government. After the passage of many years, though, when
their religion was ¢rst introduced into the government, churchmen had
to instruct the emperors in the religion that they themselves had fashioned.
Hence, they were easily able to ensure that they themselves were
recognized as this religion’s professors and interpreters, as well as being
pastors of the church and vicars, so to speak, of God. Subsequently, to
prevent Christian kings from arrogating this authority for themselves,
ecclesiastics made the very e¡ective move of prohibiting the highest
ministers of the church and supreme interpreter of religion from marrying.
Besides this, they vastly increased the number of religious dogmas
and so utterly intertwined these with philosophy that its highest interpreter
had to be both a consummate philosopher and theologian, and busy
himself with an immense number of useless speculations, something which
is only possible for private men andthose with a great deal offree time.
[21] Among the Hebrews the situation had been completely di¡erent.
Their church began at the same time as their state, and Moses, who held
absolute power, taught the people religion, organized the sacred ministries
and selected the ministers. Thus, it came about among them that it
was the royal authority, by contrast, that had most in£uence with the
people and that in the main kings exercised authority in sacred matters.
After Moses’ demise no one exercised government absolutely, but the
leader had the right to determine both sacred and other matters (as we
have already shown), and for their part the people were obliged to go to
the supreme judge rather than a priest to be instructed in religion and
piety(seeDeuteronomy17.9^11). Finally, although the [Israelite] kings
238 did not possess authority to the same extent as Moses, almost the whole
organization of the sacred ministry and the selection of ministers
depended upon their decree.
It was actually David who designed the structure of the Temple (see
1 Chronicles 28.11^12, etc.).Afterwards,heassigned24,000 Levites to
chant psalms, 6000 Levites from among whom the judges and o⁄cers
were to be chosen, and then 4000 more as porters and another 4000 to
play musical instruments (see 1 Chronicles, 23.4^5). 8 He also divided
8 1 Chronicles 23.4^5: ‘‘‘Twenty-four thousand of these,’’ David said, ‘‘shall have charge of the
work in the house of the Lord, six thousand shall be o⁄cers and judges, four thousand gatekeepers,
and four thousand shall o¡er praises to the Lord with the instruments which I have
made for praise.’’’
248