Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 1
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~31,200 words · 148 passages
Cite this work
- APABaruch Spinoza. (n.d.). Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 1. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/theologico-political-treatise-part-1
- MLABaruch Spinoza. Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 1. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/theologico-political-treatise-part-1.
- ChicagoBaruch Spinoza. Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 1. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/theologico-political-treatise-part-1.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
First part of Elwes's translation: the preface and the chapters on prophecy and the prophets.
Context and history
Published without an author's name in 1670, under a false imprint, and banned in 1674: it was the most dangerous book of its century, and contemporaries understood this at once. The thesis that carries everything is that the freedom to philosophise does not threaten piety or the peace of the state — suppressing it is what destroys them. To get there, Spinoza does something no one had done with such rigour: he reads Scripture as a historical document, written by men for men, in which prophecy is vivid imagination rather than knowledge, and miracles can prove nothing, because nothing happens outside the order of nature. Modern biblical criticism descends from this. The final chapters draw the political consequence: the covenant transfers power but not the capacity to think, and a state that tries to rule over opinions therefore injures itself. The English translation is Elwes's, of 1883, divided into four parts in the corpus.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
time could appease; so that we can scarcely wonder that of the old religion nothing survives but its outward forms (even these, in the mouth of the multitude, seem rather adulation than adoration of the Deity), and that faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices - aye, prejudices too, which degrade man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason! (29) Piety, great God! and religion are become a tissue of ridiculous mysteries; men, who flatly despise reason, who reject and turn away from understanding as naturally corrupt, these, I say, these of all men, are thought, O lie most horrible! to possess light from on High. (30) Verily, if they had but one spark of light from on High, they would not insolently rave, but would learn to worship God more wisely, and would be as marked among their fellows for mercy as they now are for malice; if they were concerned for their opponents' souls, instead of for their own reputations, they would no longer fiercely persecute, but rather be filled with pity and compassion. (31) Furthermore, if any Divine light were in them, it would appear from their doctrine. (32) I grant that they are never tired of professing their wonder at the profound mysteries of Holy Writ; still I cannot discover that they teach anything but speculations of Platonists and Aristotelians, to which (in order to save their credit for Christianity) they have made Holy Writ conform; not content to rave with the Greeks themselves, they want to make the prophets rave also; showing conclusively, that never even in sleep have they caught a glimpse of Scripture's Divine nature.…