Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 2
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 1 illegible passage, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~33,100 words · 157 passages
Cite this work
- APABaruch Spinoza. (n.d.). Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 2. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/theologico-political-treatise-part-2
- MLABaruch Spinoza. Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 2. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/theologico-political-treatise-part-2.
- ChicagoBaruch Spinoza. Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 2. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/baruch-spinoza/theologico-political-treatise-part-2.
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
Second part of Elwes's translation: divine law, ceremonies, and the chapters on miracles.
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 To get there, Spinoza does something no one had done with such rigour: he reads Scripture as a historical document, written by men for men, in which prophecy is vivid imagination rather than knowledge, and miracles can prove nothing, because nothing happens outside the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.
sun moves with a daily motion, and that the earth remains at rest; to this preconceived opinion they adapted the miracle which occurred during their battle with the five kings. (96) They did not simply relate that that day was longer than usual, but asserted that the sun and moon stood still, or ceased from their motion - a statement which would be of great service to them at that time in convincing and proving by experience to the Gentiles, who worshipped the sun, that the sun was under the control of another deity who could compel it to change its daily course. (97) Thus, partly through religious motives, partly through preconceived opinions, they conceived of and related the occurrence as something quite different from what really happened. (98) Thus in order to interpret the Scriptural miracles and understand from the narration of them how they really happened, it is necessary to know the opinions of those who first related them, and have recorded them for us in writing, and to distinguish such opinions from the actual impression made upon their senses, otherwise we shall confound opinions and judgments with the actual miracle as it really occurred: nay, further, we shall confound actual events with symbolical and imaginary ones. (99) For many things are narrated in Scripture as real, and were believed to be real, which were in fact only symbolical and imaginary. (100) As, for instance, that God came down from heaven (Exod. xix:28, Deut. v:28), and that Mount Sinai smoked because God descended upon it surrounded with fire; or, again that Elijah ascended into heaven in a chariot of fire, with horses of fire; all these things were assuredly merely symbols adapted to the opinions of those who have handed them down to us as they were represented to them, namely, as real.…