Benedictus de Spinoza

“ In other matters, and particularly as regards the people, whether in a monarchy as usually constituted, or in that of the Jewish nation, they are alike subject in each, and uninformed of the divine decree; for in each all depends on the will of the monarch; and what is right or wrong is what he decrees to be one or other; nor are the people, because they believe that the sovereign commands nothing that is not revealed to him by God or by the command of God, the less, but, on the contrary, the more under the hand of authority. ”

“ So much I think is clearly demonstrated by experience; for never have men so entirely abandoned their rights, so effectually ceded these to another, that they themselves came no longer to be considered and feared by him to whom they were confided, and who by this confidence was raised to the sovereign power in the state; so true is it that despotic rulers have mostly lived in as much fear of their subjects, though stripped of their rights, as of foreign enemies. ”

“ Would men indeed so completely divest themselves of their natural rights, as thenceforward to have no will or choice left save as he or they who held the supreme power commanded, then truly might governors rule tyrannically and cruelly with impunity. ”

“ It is not so difficult however to persuade many persons that royalty is something sacred; that kings are God's vice-gerents on earth; that they reign by the grace of God, not by the suffrage and consent of man, and are upheld and protected by a special providence. Many other devices of the same sort have been imagined by monarchs for the security of their persons and the increase of their authority; but these I pass by, and proceed to what I have said I had particularly in view, viz. the things to these ends that were taught to Moses by divine revelation. ”

“ Nature, however, does not create a nation, but only individuals, who are only associated into nations by specialities of language, of laws, and of manners; and diversities in laws and manners can only arise because each nation has a genius of its own, is peculiarly circumstanced, and entertains certain singular prejudices. If, therefore, it were necessary to concede that the Jews had proved themselves more rebellious than the rest of mankind, this must be imputed to some vice in their laws, or in their manners and customs. ”

“ Whatever a subject does, consequently, that harmonizes with the commands of the sovereign power, whether he be moved by love or driven by fear, or disposed by love and fear at once, or by respect, a feeling composed of fear and admiration, or, in short, by any other motive, he then acts not of his own right alone, but by the right also of the supreme power. ”

“ The love of the ancient Hebrew for his country, therefore, was not simple love; it was piety, it was religion, which, as well as contempt and hatred of other nations, was cherished by the daily religious service, and so fostered that it became a second nature. For the daily worship of the Jews was not merely different from, but was opposed to, that of every other people, whereby they became altogether singular and distinct from other nations. From the daily denunciations of the heathen, a persistent hatred of them was necessarily engendered ”

“ Whence proceeded great changes, great licence in all things, luxury and idleness, whereby everything began to go from bad to worse, until after the nation had been several times subdued and enslaved, they entirely broke with the divine institution, and clamoured for an earthly king, desiring a royal palace, not the temple, as the seat of their government, and that the several tribes should continue to be fellow-citizens or subjects in their respect for the sovereign, not for the divine law and high priest of Jehovah. ”

“ The several tribes would certainly have felt themselves much more closely united, had all been held alike in every respect, had all especially had equal rights in the administration of the religious system of the nation. There would even have been nothing to fear had the election of the Levites to the sacred function had any other ground than anger and revenge. But, as we have seen, the Jews had aroused the anger of their God, who, to repeat the words of Ezekiel, polluted them in their own gifts, causing them to pass their firstborn through the fire to make them desolate. ”

“ Once received, however, Joshua had absolute authority to proclaim the decrees of God, and to enforce obedience to them. He had also the right to advance and distinguish those whom he chose and as many as he chose, from among the militia, to send ambassadors, &c., — in a word, the whole of the war administration lay with Joshua, as commander-in-chief of the army. No one, however, could legitimately succeed to this important office; nor could a successor be chosen in any other way than immediately by God, when the necessities of the nation seemed to require the appointment. ”

“ For it is not the reason or motive for the obedience yielded, but the obedience itself, which gives the sovereign authority its right and power of command. Whether subjects obey from fear of punishment or hope of reward, from love of their country, or moved by any other affection or impulse, they still resolve of their own proper motion to obey, and in so doing act in conformity with the decrees or commands of the highest power in the state. ”

“ Nor would there have been any difference, in fact, save that a monarchy is usually said to be governed by the grace or will of God, which is not conspicuously manifested, whilst the Hebrew monarchy under Moses was ruled and governed, or was ordered to be ruled and governed, in a certain way by the decrees of God immediately and openly revealed to him. This difference, however, does not lessen the right and authority of the ruler in any respect; on the contrary, it rather increases them. ”

“ Lastly, all males from the age of twenty to sixty were required to take arms, so that the army was the people, the people were the army, which swore fealty to no commander or high priest, but to their religion, or their God, Jehovah. The army, consequently, was called the host or ranks of God, and God himself among the ancient Hebrews was styled the Lord of Hosts. This was the reason why the ark of the covenant was always borne in the midst of the army during great battles, on the issue of which depended the fate of the nation for good or for evil. ”

“ No one, for example, could ever so completely transfer his power, and consequently his rights, to another as to cease himself from feeling as a man; nor was there ever any sovereign power in the world that could dispose absolutely, and at its will and pleasure, of everything belonging to the state and the people. ”

“ This position is greatly confirmed by the fact that obedience bears reference to an internal mental condition rather than to an outward act; so that he is truly most under the authority of another who obeys all his commands with hearty good will; as he bears the most absolute sway who reigns in the hearts of his subjects, and he who is greatly feared by his subjects is a tyrant in his state,- and mostly lives in dread of those over whom he is set. ”

“ That the safety of the commonwealth mainly depends on the faith of subjects, on their courage and constancy of purpose in carrying out the orders of the ruling powers, is sufficiently proved both by reason and experience. But it is not so readily seen by what means subjects are to be induced to repose unswerving faith and trust in their rulers. All alike, rulers and ruled, are men, indisposed to labour, greatly disposed to sensual indulgence. They who have had much experience of the fickle and uncertain temper of the multitude have almost despaired of humanity ”

“ Then, although it is impossible to command the mind like the tongue, still are the minds of subjects in some sense under the control of the sovereign power, which can generally and in various ways bring it to pass that the great majority of those over whom it exercises authority shall like, dislike, and do whatever it desires. ”

“ Always inconsiderate, they are easily led by their greediness and their love of indulgence; arrogant, each thinks that he alone knows all, and desires to arrange everything in his own way; selfish, he judges this and that to be just or unjust, right or wrong, as he believes it to square or not to square with what he thinks his interest; vainglorious, he despises his equals, and refuses to be guided by them; envious, he grudges to others greater honour and better fortune than fall to himself ”

“ These surmises are amply confirmed by the facts of Jewish history: as soon as the people began to have a little leisure in the wilderness, many, and these not men of the common order, were found to complain of the preference shown the Levites, and from this to hint that Moses did not deliver his decrees from the divine dictation, but of his own arbitrary fancy: had he not preferred his own tribe to all the others, and given the office of high priest as an eternal inheritance to his brother? ”

“ In such a state of things, popular discontent and distaste were never to be feared; for no one dared to form or express any opinion of his own on divine matters; all alike were held bound to give unreasoning assent and obedience to whatever was commanded by divine authority, as received in responses within the temple, or as written and contained in the laws established by God. Thus, briefly, but I trust satisfactorily, have I explained the grand features of the Jewish Polity. ”

“ For this reason did Moses choose chiefs of tribes; in order that after the division of the country each chief might have the particular care of the portion of territory belonging to his tribe and its immediate affairs, viz. the privilege of consulting Jehovah on the concerns of the tribe by the medium of the high priest, of commanding its militia, of founding and fortifying towns, of establishing judges in each city, of attacking the enemies of the tribe, and of administering all its concerns absolutely and without control, both in peace and in war. ”

“ These matters premised, it is time that we saw what influence this constitution of the state had in securing moderation on the part both of rulers and the ruled, so that these were not rebels and those were not tyrants.
They who rule, or possess authority, whatever iniquity they perpetrate, still strive to give their acts a colour of justice, and endeavour to persuade the people that all they do is well and honestly done ”

“ Jehovah alone, therefore, was sovereign over the Jews, and was properly entitled their king, as the Jewish empire was rightly called the kingdom of God. By an extension of this idea the enemies of the Jews were regarded as the enemies of God; and the citizen who attempted to usurp the supreme power was guilty in the act of treason to the rights of the realm, to the divine majesty, to the authority and decrees of Jehovah. ”

“ If, therefore, we see the freedom of the citizen controlling chiefs and princes who are wont to arrogate to themselves the whole credit of victories won in states where the human element alone is considered, how much more must it have availed in the Hebrew state, where the soldiers fought not for the honour of their chief but for the glory of the Lord, and only engaged in battle when the favourable answer of Jehovah had been received! ”

“ For this reason it was that all at first approached Jehovah of themselves that they might know his commands. But in their earliest interview the people were so much alarmed, and heard the voice of God speaking with such terror and amazement, that they thought the end of all things had come. Full of their fears, therefore, they besought Moses anew, saying, "Behold, the Lord our God hath showed us his glory and his greatness, and we have heard his voice out of the midst of the fire; we have seen this day that God doth talk with man, and he liveth. Now, therefore, why should we die? ”

“ The Levites, too, must always have found something to find fault with among the mass of the nation. Among so many thousands there were doubtless occasional heretical theologians discovered, men with peculiar views [always objects of suspicion to a priesthood] , and, on the other hand, the people must have been not indisposed to watch narrowly the lives and conversation of the Levites, who after all were mere men, and, as always happens, to impute the failings or improper conduct of one among them to the whole body ”

“ We have now seen how religion came to be introduced into the Hebrew commonwealth, and in what way this empire might have been eternal if the rightful anger of the lawgiver had suffered it to continue. But as this was not permitted, the Jewish empire necessarily came to an end at last. And here I speak of the first empire only; for the second was scarcely a shadow of the first, the state being then governed by the laws of the Persians, whose subjects the Jews had now become ”

“ To foresee and forestall disturbance in a state from such causes, to leave no room for disorder to creep in, so to arrange matters that every one, whatever his temper and disposition, shall prefer the public good to his private advantage, this is the task undertaken, this the work to be achieved by the patriot ruler. ”

“ For a partition of a common thing is but an arrangement whereby each participant henceforth holds his own share distinctly and alone, the others interested ceding the rights they formerly had over that part to the possessor. ”

“ Nowhere else in the ancient world did the citizens hold their possessions by so secure a tenure as in Jewry, where the meanest subject possessed a portion of land of the same extent as the greatest chief, and each was proprietor in perpetuity of his portion ”

“ In these few words does the great conqueror show his own sense of the divinity that was imputed to him by the ignorant populace, and at the same time indicate his reasons for suffering himself to be addressed as a god. ”