Theological-Political Treatise

No one, I think, is unaware of this, though I believe most people are unaware of themselves. For no one has lived among human beings without seeing how most people behave. When things go well, however inexperienced they may be, they are so overflowing with wisdom that they feel insulted if anyone tries to give them advice. In adversity, however, they do not know where to turn. They beg advice from everyone they meet, and they hear no advice so foolish, so absurd, or so empty that they will not follow it. Then, for the slightest reasons, they now hope for better things and now fear worse. Praef3 For if, while they are afraid, they see something happen that reminds them of some past good or evil, they think it foretells a happy or an unhappy outcome. So they call it a lucky or an unlucky omen, even though it deceives them a hundred times.

Again, if they see something unusual and are greatly astonished by it, they believe it is a portent revealing the anger of the gods or of the supreme deity. And so people who are in thrall to superstition and hostile to religion consider it a sin not to expiate it with sacrifices and vows. In this way they invent countless fictions, and they interpret nature in strange ways, as though the whole of nature were as mad as they are.

Since this is how things stand, we see above all that those who crave uncertain things without limit are the most devoted to every kind of superstition. We see too that all people, especially when they are in danger and cannot help themselves, implore divine help with vows and with tears and pleading. They call reason blind, because it cannot show them a sure path to the empty things they crave, and they call human wisdom vain. On the other hand, they believe that the delusions of the imagination, dreams, and childish nonsense are answers from God. Indeed, they believe that God turns away from the wise and has written his decrees not in the mind but in the entrails of animals, or that fools, madmen, and birds foretell them by divine inspiration and prompting. That is how mad fear makes people. Praef5 The cause from which superstition arises, and by which it is preserved and nourished, is therefore fear.

Anyone who wants particular examples of this, beyond what has already been said, should look at Alexander. Only when he first learned to fear fortune, at the Susian Gates, did he begin, out of superstition, to employ seers (see Quintus Curtius, book 5, §4). After he had defeated Darius, however, he stopped consulting soothsayers and seers. Then he was again terrified by the hardship of the times. The Bactrians had revolted, the Scythians were provoking him to battle, and he himself lay helpless from a wound. So once more (as Curtius himself says in book 7, §7) he turned back to superstition, that mockery of human minds, and ordered Aristander, to whom he had entrusted his credulity, to discover the outcome of events by sacrifices.note

Very many other examples of this kind could be given, and they show as clearly as possible precisely this. People are troubled by superstition only while their fear lasts. Everything they have ever worshiped in empty religion has been nothing but phantoms and the delusions of a sad and fearful mind. And seers have held the greatest sway over the people, and have been most feared by their kings, when the state was in the gravest straits. But since I think all this is well enough known to everyone, I pass it over.

So it is as difficult to make people persist in one and the same superstition as it is easy for them to be captured by any kind of superstition. Indeed, because the common people always remain equally wretched, they never rest content for long. What pleases them most is only what is new and has not yet deceived them. This inconstancy has been the cause of many riots and savage wars. For, as is evident from what has just been said, and as Curtius also observed very well (book 4, chapter 10), nothing governs the multitude more effectively than superstition. That is why, under the pretext of religion, the multitude is easily led now to worship its kings as gods, and now to curse them and loathe them as the common plague of the human race.

To avoid this evil, then, enormous effort has been devoted to adorning religion, whether true or false, with worship and pageantry. The aim was for it to be held weightier than any other consideration and to be observed by everyone, always, with the utmost reverence. In this the Turks have been most successful. They consider even debate a sin, and they fill each person’s judgment with so many prejudices that they leave no room in the mind for sound reason, not even for doubt.

I will say briefly in a moment in what order all this is shown. But first I will explain the reasons that moved me to write.

As I looked for the cause of this evil, I had no doubt that it arose because the common people have made it part of their religion to regard the ministries of the Church as dignities and its offices as benefices, and to hold pastors in the highest honor. As soon as this abuse began in the Church, the worst people were at once seized by an enormous desire to administer the sacred offices. Love of spreading divine religion degenerated into sordid greed and ambition. And so the house of worship itself degenerated into a theater, where one heard not teachers of the Church but orators. None of these orators was moved by a desire to teach the people. They wanted to carry the people away in admiration of themselves, to criticize dissenters publicly, and to teach only what was new and unusual and what the common people would most admire. From this, surely, great disputes, envy, and hatred were bound to arise, and no passage of time has been able to calm them.

No wonder, then, that nothing of the old religion has remained except its outward worship, by which the common people seem to flatter God rather than adore him. No wonder that faith is now nothing but credulity and prejudices. And what prejudices! They turn people from rational beings into beasts, since they entirely prevent each person from using his own free judgment and distinguishing true from false. They seem to have been deliberately devised to extinguish the light of the intellect altogether. Praef17 Piety and religion—immortal God!—consist in absurd mysteries. And those who utterly despise reason, and who reject and shun the intellect as corrupt by nature, are the very ones believed to possess the divine light. Nothing could be more unjust.

Surely, if they had even a spark of the divine light, they would not rave so arrogantly. They would learn to worship God more wisely, and they would stand out among others for love, as they now do for hatred. Nor would they persecute those who disagree with them so hostilely. Rather, they would pity them, if indeed it is the salvation of others, and not their own fortunes, that they fear for. Praef18 Besides, if they had any divine light, it would at least be apparent from their teaching. I admit that they could never marvel enough at the profound mysteries of Scripture. Yet I see that they have taught nothing but the speculations of the Aristotelians or the Platonists. And they have adapted Scripture to these speculations, so as not to seem to be following the Gentiles.

It was not enough for them to rave with the Greeks. They wanted the prophets to have raved along with the Greeks too. This shows clearly that they do not see the divinity of Scripture even in a dream. The more fervently they marvel at these mysteries, the more they show that they do not so much believe Scripture as flatter it. This is evident also from the fact that most of them assume as a foundation, for understanding Scripture and drawing out its true meaning, that it is everywhere truthful and divine. Yet this is the very thing that ought to be established only at the end, from understanding Scripture and examining it strictly. What Scripture itself, which has no need of human fictions, would teach us much better, they lay down at the very threshold as the rule for interpreting it.

Was it because they had sublime thoughts about God and nature, or only because of their piety? Once I knew this, I could easily determine that the authority of the prophets carries weight only in matters that concern the conduct of life and true virtue, and that otherwise their opinions concern us little. Praef22 Having learned this, I next asked why the Hebrews were called God’s chosen. I saw that this meant nothing other than that God had chosen for them a certain region of the world where they could live securely and comfortably. From this I learned that the laws of Moses revealed by God were nothing but the laws of the Hebrews’ particular state. So no one but the Hebrews ought to have accepted them, and indeed not even the Hebrews were bound by them except while their state stood.

Further, I wanted to know whether it could be concluded from Scripture that the human intellect is corrupt by nature. So I wanted to inquire whether the catholic, or universal, religion is different from the one that the natural light also teaches. By this religion I mean the divine law revealed through the prophets and apostles to the whole human race. Next, I wanted to inquire whether miracles have happened contrary to the order of nature. I also wanted to know whether miracles teach God’s existence and providence more certainly and more clearly than the things we understand clearly and distinctly through their first causes.note

In what Scripture expressly teaches, however, I found nothing that does not agree with the intellect and nothing that contradicts it. I saw, moreover, that the prophets taught nothing but very simple things, which anyone could easily grasp. They adorned these things in the style, and confirmed them with the reasons, that could best move the minds of the multitude to devotion toward God. So I became fully convinced that Scripture leaves reason absolutely free and has nothing in common with philosophy, but that each of them stands on its own feet. Praef25 To demonstrate this conclusively and settle the whole matter, I show how Scripture must be interpreted. I show that all knowledge of Scripture and of spiritual things must be sought from Scripture alone, and not from what we know by the natural light.

From there I go on to show the prejudices that have arisen because the common people worship the books of Scripture rather than the word of God itself. The common people are devoted to superstition, and they love the relics of time more than eternity itself. Praef26 After this I show that the revealed word of God is not some fixed number of books. It is a simple concept of the divine mind revealed to the prophets, namely, to obey God wholeheartedly by practicing justice and charity. And I show that this is taught in Scripture according to the understanding and opinions of those to whom the prophets and apostles used to preach this word of God. They did so in order that people might embrace it without any resistance and wholeheartedly.

Next I show the fundamentals of faith. Then I conclude, finally, that the object of revealed knowledge is nothing but obedience. Revealed knowledge is therefore entirely distinct from natural knowledge in its object, its foundations, and its means, and it has nothing in common with natural knowledge. Each holds its own domain without any conflict with the other, and neither ought to be the handmaid of the other. Praef28 Further, human temperaments vary greatly. One person is more at ease with these opinions, another with those, and what moves one person to religion moves another to laughter. From this, together with what was said above, I conclude that everyone must be left the freedom of his own judgment and the power to interpret the foundations of faith according to his own temperament. Each person’s faith, whether pious or impious, must be judged by his works alone. In this way everyone will be able to obey God with a whole and free heart, and justice and charity alone will be prized by all.

In this way I show the freedom that the revealed divine law grants to everyone. Then I proceed to the other part of the question. This same freedom can be granted, and indeed must be granted, without harm to the peace of the commonwealth and the right of the sovereign powers. And it cannot be taken away without great danger to peace and great harm to the whole commonwealth. To demonstrate this, I begin from each person’s natural right. This right extends as far as each person’s desire and power extend. By the right of nature no one is bound to live according to another’s temperament, and each person is the defender of his own freedom.

Further, I show that no one actually gives up this right except someone who transfers to another the power of defending himself. Each person transfers to another his right to live according to his own temperament, together with his power of defending himself. The one to whom this right is transferred necessarily retains this natural right absolutely. From this I show that those who hold sovereign rule have the right to do everything they are able to do. They alone are the defenders of right and freedom, and everyone else must do everything only by their decree. Praef31 But no one can so deprive himself of his power of defending himself as to cease to be a human being. From this I conclude that no one can be absolutely deprived of his natural right. Subjects retain certain things, as if by right of nature, that cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state. These things are therefore either tacitly granted to them, or else the subjects expressly stipulate them with those who hold rule.

After these considerations I move on to the commonwealth of the Hebrews, which I describe at some length. I do this in order to show how, and by whose decree, religion began to have the force of law, and also, along the way, to show other things that seemed worth knowing. Praef32 After this I show that those who hold sovereign rule are the defenders and interpreters not only of civil right but also of sacred right. They alone have the right to decide what is just and what is unjust, what is pious and what is impious. And finally I conclude that they can best retain this right and safely preserve their rule if only each person is allowed both to think what he wishes and to say what he thinks.

So I do not invite the common people to read this, nor anyone who struggles with the same affects as the common people. Indeed, I would rather they ignored this book completely than made themselves a nuisance by interpreting it perversely, as they interpret everything. That way they would do themselves no good and would harm others. Those others would philosophize more freely were it not for one obstacle: they think that reason must be the handmaid of theology. For them, I trust, this work will be most useful.

That is, unless someone wants to suppose, or rather to dream, that the prophets had a human body but not a human mind, and that their sensations and consciousness were therefore of an entirely different nature from ours. I 4 But although natural knowledge is divine, those who spread it cannot be called prophets∗. What they teach, other people can perceive and embrace with the same certainty and worth as they themselves do, and not by faith alone.

I therefore move on to treat at greater length the other causes and means by which God reveals to people things that exceed the limits of natural knowledge, and also things that do not. For nothing prevents God from communicating to people, in other ways, the very things we know by the light of nature.

they have made money by trade, they say that God provided it for them. If they desire something, as people do, they say that God disposed their heart. And if they so much as think something, they say that God told it to them. So not everything Scripture says God told someone is to be taken as prophecy and supernatural knowledge. Only what Scripture expressly says was prophecy or revelation, or what follows from the circumstances of the narrative to have been such, should be taken that way.

For Genesis 20:6 says, And God said to him in a dream, etc. So he could imagine God’s will not while awake but only in a dream. That is the time when the imagination is most naturally apt to imagine things that do not exist.

So it seems more in keeping with Scripture that God really created some voice by which he revealed the Decalogue. As for why the words and reasons of the one version differ from those of the other, see chapter 8. I 15 But even this does not remove every difficulty. It seems quite contrary to reason to hold that a created thing, depending on God in the same way as all other things, could express or explain God’s essence or existence, in fact or in words, through its own person, namely by saying in the first person, “I am Jehovah your God,” etc.

Granted, when someone says with his mouth, I have understood, no one thinks that his mouth has understood, only the mind of the person saying it. But the mouth belongs to the nature of the person saying it, and the one he says it to has himself perceived the nature of the intellect. So he easily understands the speaker’s mind by comparison with his own. I 16 But the Israelites knew nothing of God before except his name, and they wanted to speak with him in order to become certain of his existence. I do not see how their request was satisfied by a creature saying, “I am God.” A creature is no more related to God than any other created thing, and it does not belong to God’s nature. What, I ask, if God had twisted the lips of Moses (but why Moses? why not some animal?) to pronounce those same words and say, “I am God”? Would they have understood God’s existence from that?

Moreover, Scripture certainly seems to indicate that God himself spoke, which is why he came down from heaven onto Mount Sinai. It also seems to indicate that the Jews not only heard him speaking but that their leaders even saw him (see Exodus 24). Nor did the Law revealed to Moses ever command us to believe that God is incorporeal, or even that he has no image or form. Nothing could be added to this Law or taken away from it, and it was established as the law of the land. It commanded only that God exists, that they should believe in him, and that they should worship him alone. And so that they would not depart from his worship, it commanded them not to invent any image of him and not to make one.

For since they had not seen an image of God, they could not make one that represented God. They could make only one that necessarily represented some other created thing they had seen. So when they worshipped God through that image, they would be thinking not of God but of the thing the image represented, and in the end they would give God’s honor and worship to that thing. Indeed, Scripture clearly indicates that God has a form, and that Moses beheld it when he heard God speaking, yet was allowed to see nothing of God but his back. So I have no doubt that some mystery lies hidden here, and we shall speak of it more fully below. Here I shall go on to show the passages of Scripture that indicate the means by which God revealed his decrees to people.

So there can be no doubt that the other prophets did not hear a real voice. This is confirmed still further by Deuteronomy 34:10, which says, And there never stood (properly, arose) in Israel a prophet like Moses, whom God knew face to face. This must be understood of the voice alone, for not even Moses himself had ever seen God’s face (Exodus 33). I 22 Apart from these means, I find no others in Holy Scripture by which God has communicated himself to people. So, as we showed above, no others are to be invented or admitted.

We clearly understand that God can communicate himself to people immediately, for he communicates his essence to our mind without using any bodily means. Still, for someone to perceive by the mind alone things that are not contained in the first foundations of our knowledge and cannot be deduced from them, his mind would necessarily have to be superior to the human mind, and far more excellent than it. I 23 So I do not believe that anyone else has reached such perfection above others except Christ. To him the decisions of God that lead people to salvation were revealed not in words or visions but immediately. Thus God manifested himself to the apostles through the mind of Christ, as he once did to Moses by means of a voice in the air. And for this reason the voice of Christ, like the voice Moses heard, can be called the Voice of God.

In this sense we can also say that the Wisdom of God, that is, a Wisdom above human wisdom, took on human nature in Christ, and that Christ was the way of salvation.

We maintain, therefore, that apart from Christ no one received God’s revelations except with the help of the imagination, that is, with the help of words or images. So prophesying requires not a more perfect mind but a more vivid imagination, as I shall show more clearly in the next chapter. Now we must ask what Holy Scripture means by the Spirit of God poured into the prophets, or by saying that the prophets spoke from the Spirit of God. To investigate this, we must first ask what the Hebrew word רוח ruagh means, which the common people translate as “Spirit.”

32:8, surely the Spirit itself is in man. That is, knowledge is not to be sought only among the old, for I now find that it depends on a person’s particular virtue and capacity. I 27 So too Numbers 27:18, a man in whom there is Spirit. Next it is taken, fifth, for a way of thinking, as in Numbers 14:24, because he had another Spirit, that is, another way of thinking, or another mind. Likewise Proverbs 1:23, I will declare to you my Spirit (that is, my mind). And in this sense it is used to signify the will, or decree, and the appetite and impulse of the spirit, as in Ezekiel 1:

12, wherever the Spirit (or will) was to go, they went. Likewise Isaiah 30:1, and to pour a casting, and not from my Spirit. And 29:10, because God has poured on them a Spirit (that is, an appetite) for sleep. And Judges 8:3, then their Spirit, or impulse, was calmed. Likewise Proverbs 16:32, he who rules his Spirit (or appetite), than he who takes a city. The same book, 25:28, a man who does not restrain his Spirit. And Isaiah 33:11, your Spirit is a fire that consumes you.

Further, this word רוח ruagh, insofar as it signifies the spirit, serves to express all the passions of the spirit, and also its gifts. Thus a high Spirit signifies pride; a lowly Spirit, humility; an evil Spirit, hatred and melancholy; a good Spirit, kindness. So too a Spirit of jealousy; a Spirit (or appetite) of fornication; a Spirit of wisdom, counsel, strength—that is (for in Hebrew we use nouns more often than adjectives), a wise, prudent, strong spirit, or the virtue of wisdom, counsel, strength; a Spirit of benevolence, and so on. Sixth, it signifies the mind itself, or the soul, as in Ecclesiastes 3:19, the Spirit (or soul) is the same for all, and the Spirit returns to God. Seventh,

and finally, it signifies the quarters of the world (because of the winds that blow from them), and also the sides of any thing that face those quarters of the world. See Ezekiel 37:9 and 42:16–19, etc.

to express something in the superlative degree, as mountains of God, that is, the highest mountains, or sleep of God, that is, the deepest sleep. It is in this sense that Amos 4:11 must be explained, where God himself speaks thus: I overthrew you as the overthrow of God (overthrew) Sodom and Gomorrah, that is, like that memorable overthrow. For since it is God himself who is speaking, the passage cannot properly be explained in any other way. Solomon’s natural knowledge, too, is called the knowledge of God, that is, divine knowledge, or knowledge beyond the ordinary. In the Psalms, too, we read of cedars of God, to express their unusual size. And in 1 Samuel 11:7, to signify a very great fear, it is said: and the fear of God fell upon the people.

In this sense everything that surpassed the Jews’ understanding, and whose natural causes they did not know at the time, was customarily referred to God. So a storm was called the rebuke of God, and thunder and lightning the arrows of God. For they thought that God kept the winds shut up in caves, which they called God’s treasuries. In this opinion they differed from the pagans in believing that the ruler of the winds was God, not Aeolus. For this reason too, miracles are called works of God, that is, astonishing works. For of course all natural things are works of God, and exist and act through divine power alone. In this sense, then, the Psalmist calls the miracles of Egypt the powers of God: they opened a way to safety for the Hebrews in extreme danger, when they expected nothing of the kind, and so the Hebrews marveled at them above all things.note

In some places, then, Spirit of God and Spirit of Jehovah mean nothing other than a very violent, very dry, and deadly wind. So in Isaiah 40:7, the wind of Jehovah blew upon it, that is, a very dry and deadly wind. And in Genesis 1:2, and the wind of God (or a very strong wind) moved over the water. I 33 Next, it signifies a great spirit. For in Holy Scripture the spirit of Gideon and of Samson is called the Spirit of God, that is, a most daring spirit, ready for anything. So too any virtue or power beyond the ordinary is called the Spirit, or the virtue, of God, as in Exodus 31:

3, and I will fill him (namely Bezalel) with the Spirit of God, that is (as Scripture itself explains), with talent and skill beyond the common lot of men. So in Isaiah 11:3, and the Spirit of God shall rest upon him, that is, the virtue of wisdom, counsel, strength, and so on—as the prophet himself makes clear afterward by explaining it point by point, a practice very common in Holy Scripture. So too Saul’s melancholy is called an evil Spirit of God, that is, a very deep melancholy. For Saul’s servants, who called his melancholy a melancholy of God, advised him to summon a musician who might refresh him by playing the lyre; this shows that by a melancholy of God they meant a natural melancholy. I 34 Next, the Spirit of God signifies the very mind of a human being, as in Job 27:note

3, and the Spirit of God is in my nostrils, alluding to what we find in Genesis, namely that God breathed the soul of life into man’s nostrils. So Ezekiel, prophesying to the dead, says in 37:14, and I will give my Spirit to you, and you shall live; that is, I will restore your life to you. In this sense it is said in Job 34:14, if he (namely God) wills, he will gather back to himself his Spirit (that is, the mind he has given us) and his soul. So too we must understand Genesis 6:

3, my Spirit will never reason (or will never decide) in man, since he is flesh. That is, from now on man will act from the decrees of the flesh, and not of the mind, which I gave him so that he might discern the good. So too Psalm 51:12–13, create a pure heart for me, O God, and renew in me a Spirit (that is, an appetite) that is fitting (or moderate); do not cast me from your sight, nor take from me the mind of your holiness. Because sins were believed to arise from the flesh alone, while the mind urges nothing but good, he calls on God’s help against the appetite of the flesh; but as for the mind that the holy God gave him, he prays only that God preserve it.

Now, because of the weakness of the common people, Scripture is accustomed to depict God like a human being and to ascribe to him a mind, a spirit, and the affects of a spirit, as well as a body and breath. So the Spirit of God is often used in Holy Scripture for God’s mind—that is, his spirit, affect, and force—and for the breath of his mouth. Thus Isaiah says in 40:13, who has set in order the Spirit (or mind) of God? That is, who but God himself has determined God’s mind to will anything? And in 63:10, and they afflicted the Spirit of his holiness with bitterness and sorrow. I 36 Hence it comes about that the phrase is commonly used for the Law of Moses, because the Law sets out, as it were, the mind of God. So Isaiah himself, in the same chapter, verse

11, where is (he) who put in its midst the Spirit of his holiness, namely the Law of Moses, as is clearly gathered from the whole context of the passage. And Nehemiah 9:20, and you gave them your good Spirit, or mind, to make them understand; for he is speaking of the time of the Law, and also alludes to Deuteronomy 4:6, where Moses says, for it (namely the Law) is your knowledge and prudence, and so on. So too in Psalm 143:10, your good mind will lead me into level land, that is, your mind revealed to us will lead me onto the right path.

As we have said, the Spirit of God also signifies God’s breath, which Scripture ascribes to God just as improperly as it does a mind, a spirit, and a body, as in Psalm 33:6. Next, it signifies God’s power, force, or virtue, as in Job 33:4, the Spirit of God made me, that is, the virtue or power of God, or, if you prefer, God’s decree. For the Psalmist, speaking poetically, also says that by God’s command the heavens were made, and by the Spirit, or breath, of his mouth (that is, by his decree, uttered as if in a single breath) all their host. Likewise Psalm 139:

7, where shall I go (to be) beyond your Spirit, or where shall I flee (to be) beyond your sight? That is (as is clear from the words with which the Psalmist goes on to amplify this), where can I go to be beyond your power and presence? I 38 Finally, the Spirit of God is used in Holy Scripture to express the affects of God’s spirit, namely God’s kindness and mercy, as in Micah 2:7, has the Spirit of God been straitened (that is, God’s mercy)? are these (cruel things, that is) his works? Likewise Zechariah 4:6, not by an army, nor by force, but by my Spirit alone, that is, by my mercy alone. In this sense too, I think, we must understand verse

12 of chapter 7 of the same prophet, namely: and they made their heart wary, so as not to obey the Law and the commandments that God sent from his Spirit (that is, from his mercy) through the first prophets. In this sense too Haggai says in 2:5, and my Spirit (or my grace) remains among you; do not be afraid. I 39 As for what Isaiah says in 48:

16, but now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit, this can indeed be understood as God’s spirit and mercy, or else as his mind revealed in the Law. For he says: from the beginning (that is, when I first came to you to proclaim God’s anger and the sentence he had pronounced against you) I have not spoken in secret; from the time when it (was pronounced) I was there (as he himself testified in chapter 7); but now I am a joyful messenger, sent by God’s mercy to sing of your restoration. It can also, as I said, be understood as God’s mind revealed in the Law—that is, he has now come to admonish them by command of the Law as well, namely Leviticus 19:17. That is why he admonishes them on the same conditions and in the same way that Moses used to.

And finally, as Moses also did, he ends by foretelling their restoration. Still, the first explanation seems to me more fitting. I 40 To return at last to our purpose: from all this, these phrases of Scripture become clear—the prophet had the Spirit of God, God poured his Spirit into men, men were filled with the Spirit of God and with the Holy Spirit, and so on. For they mean nothing other than that the prophets had a singular virtue beyond the ordinary∗, and that they practiced piety with exceptional constancy of spirit; and further, that they perceived God’s mind, or judgment. I 41 For we have shown that in Hebrew “spirit” signifies both the mind and the mind’s judgment, and that for this reason the Law itself, because it set out God’s mind, is called the Spirit, or mind, of God. With equal right, then, the imagination of the prophets, insofar as God’s decrees were revealed through it, could also be called the mind of God, and the prophets could be said to have had the mind of God.

Our mind, too, has the mind of God and his eternal judgments inscribed in it, and consequently we too perceive the mind of God (to speak with Scripture). Yet because natural knowledge is common to all, it is not so highly esteemed by people, as we have already said—and least of all by the Hebrews, who boasted that they were above everyone, and indeed used to look down on everyone, and consequently on knowledge common to everyone. I 42 Finally, the prophets were said to have the Spirit of God because people did not know the causes of prophetic knowledge, and marveled at it; and so, as with other prodigies, they used to refer it to God and call it the knowledge of God.

For all things have been done through God’s power. Indeed, since the power of Nature is nothing but the very power of God, it is certain that we fail to understand God’s power to the extent that we are ignorant of natural causes. It is foolish, then, to fall back on this same power of God when we do not know the natural cause of something, that is, when we do not know God’s power itself. But we have no need now to know the cause of prophetic knowledge. For, as I have already pointed out, here we are only trying to investigate the teachings of Scripture, so that we may draw our conclusions from them as if from the data of nature. The causes of those teachings do not concern us at all.

Finally, because the imagination is wandering and inconstant, prophecy did not stay long with the prophets. Nor was it frequent. It was very rare, found in very few people, and even in them very rarely. I 48 Since this is so, we are now compelled to ask where the prophets could have gotten their certainty about things they perceived only through the imagination, and not from the sure principles of the mind. But whatever can be said on this matter must also be sought from Scripture, since (as we have said) we do not have true knowledge of this thing, that is, we cannot explain it through its first causes. I shall show what Scripture teaches about the certainty of the prophets in the next chapter, where I have decided to deal with the prophets.

Those, then, who try to seek wisdom and knowledge of natural and spiritual things in the books of the prophets have wandered completely off the road. Since the times, philosophy, and finally the matter itself demand it, I have decided to show this here at length. I care little what superstition snarls, for it hates no one more than those who cultivate true knowledge and the true life. And, sadly, things have now come to such a pass that people who openly confess that they have no idea of God, and know God only through created things (whose causes they do not know), do not blush to accuse philosophers of atheism.

See Judges 6:17. God also says to Moses: and let this (be) a sign to you that I have sent you. Hezekiah, who had long known that Isaiah was a prophet, asked for a sign when Isaiah prophesied his recovery. This shows that the prophets always had some sign by which they were made certain of the things they imagined prophetically. And so Moses warns (see Deuteronomy 18, last verse) that the people should ask a prophet for a sign, namely the outcome of some future event. In this respect, then, prophecy falls short of natural knowledge, which needs no sign and involves certainty by its own nature. Indeed, this prophetic certainty was not mathematical, but only moral. This is also established from Scripture itself.

For in Deuteronomy 13 Moses warns that if any prophet wants to teach new gods, he is to be condemned to death, even if he confirms his teaching with signs and miracles. For, as Moses himself goes on to say, God also performs signs and miracles to test the people. II 7 Christ, too, warned his disciples of this, as is clear from Matthew 24:24. Indeed, Ezekiel 14:9 plainly teaches that God sometimes deceives people with false revelations. For he says: and when a prophet (a false one, that is) is enticed and has spoken a word, I, God, have enticed that prophet. Micaiah (see 1 Kings 22:23) bears witness to the same thing about Ahab’s prophets.

Yet, as I said, the prophet’s certainty was only moral. This is because no one can justify himself before God or boast that he is an instrument of God’s piety, as Scripture itself teaches and in fact shows. For God’s wrath led David astray into numbering the people, though Scripture abundantly attests his piety. II 10 All prophetic certainty, then, was founded on these three things: 1. That they imagined the things revealed very vividly, in the way we are usually affected by objects when awake. 2. A sign. 3. Finally, and chiefly, that their minds were inclined only to what is right and good. Scripture does not always mention a sign. We must nevertheless believe that the prophets always had a sign. For Scripture is not in the habit of recounting all the conditions and circumstances (as many have already noted), but rather assumes them as known.

Moreover, we may grant that prophets who prophesied nothing new, nothing beyond what is contained in the Law of Moses, did not need a sign, because they were confirmed by the Law. For example, Jeremiah’s prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem was confirmed by the prophecies of the other prophets and by the threats of the Law, and so it needed no sign. But Hananiah, who prophesied the speedy restoration of the city against all the prophets, necessarily needed a sign. Otherwise he ought to have doubted his own prophecy until the outcome of what he had foretold confirmed it. II 12 See Jeremiah 28:9.

The certainty that arose in the prophets from signs was not mathematical (that is, the kind that follows from the necessity of the perception of the thing perceived or seen), but only moral. And signs were given only to persuade the prophet. It follows, therefore, that signs were given according to the opinions and capacity of the prophet. Thus a sign that made one prophet certain of his prophecy might fail entirely to convince another who was imbued with other opinions. And so signs varied from prophet to prophet. II 13 In the same way, as we have already said, the revelation itself varied in each prophet according to the disposition of his bodily temperament and his imagination, and according to the opinions he had previously embraced.

It varied according to temperament in this way. If a prophet was cheerful, victories, peace, and whatever else moves people to joy were revealed to him, for people of this kind are apt to imagine such things more often. If, on the other hand, he was sad, wars, punishments, and every kind of evil were revealed to him. And so, in proportion as a prophet was compassionate, gentle, irascible, severe, etc., he was better suited to these revelations than to those. II 14 It also varied according to the disposition of the imagination, in this way. If a prophet was elegant, he also perceived God’s mind in an elegant style; if he was muddled, he perceived it in a muddled way. And so too with revelations represented through images. If the prophet was a countryman, oxen and cows, etc., were represented to him; if a soldier, generals and armies; if, finally, a courtier, a royal throne and things of that kind.

Finally, prophecy varied according to the diversity of the prophets’ opinions. To the Magi (see Matthew 2), who believed in the trifles of astrology, the birth of Christ was revealed through the image of a star risen in the east. To Nebuchadnezzar’s augurs (see Ezekiel 21:26) the destruction of Jerusalem was revealed in entrails. The same king also learned of it from oracles and from the direction of arrows he shot up into the air. Then, to prophets who believed that people act from free choice and by their own power, God was revealed as undecided and as not knowing future human actions. We shall now demonstrate all of this from Scripture itself, point by point.

And Jeremiah, deeply sorrowful and gripped by great weariness of life, prophesied the calamities of the Jews. Josiah would not consult him for this reason, and consulted instead a woman of his time, since, being a woman, she was more apt to have God’s mercy revealed to her (see 2 Chronicles 34). II 18 Micaiah, too, never prophesied anything good to Ahab, as other true prophets did (as is clear from 1 Kings 20). All his life he prophesied evil (see 1 Kings 22:8, and more clearly 2 Chronicles 18:7). The prophets, then, were better suited to these revelations than to those, according to their differing bodily temperaments. II 19 Next, the style of prophecy varied with the eloquence of each prophet. The prophecies of Ezekiel and Amos are not written in an elegant style like those of Isaiah and Nahum, but in a rougher one.note

If anyone who knows Hebrew wishes to look into this carefully, let him compare chapters of different prophets that deal with the same subject. He will find a great discrepancy in style. Let him compare, for instance, chapter 1 of the courtier Isaiah, from verse 11 to verse 20, with chapter 5 of the countryman Amos, from verse 21 to verse 24. Let him then compare the order and reasoning of the prophecy concerning Edom that Jeremiah wrote in chapter 49 with the order and reasoning of Obadiah. Let him further compare Isaiah 40:19–20 and 44:8 onward with Hosea 8:6 and 13:2.

And so with the rest. If all these passages are weighed properly, they will readily show that God has no particular style of speaking of his own. He is elegant, concise, severe, rough, prolix, or obscure only according to the prophet’s learning and capacity. II 21 Prophetic representations and hieroglyphs also varied, even when they signified the same thing. The glory of God leaving the temple was represented one way to Isaiah, and another way to Ezekiel. The rabbis, however, will have it that both representations were exactly the same, and that Ezekiel, being a countryman, marveled at it beyond measure and therefore recounted it in all its circumstances. Yet unless they had a sure tradition about this, which I do not at all believe, they are plainly making it up. For Isaiah saw seraphim with six wings each, while Ezekiel saw beasts with four wings each. Isaiah saw God clothed and seated on a royal throne, while Ezekiel saw him like fire. Each, without doubt, saw God as he was accustomed to imagine him.

The representations varied, moreover, not only in manner but also in clarity. Zechariah’s representations were too obscure for him to understand without an explanation, as is clear from his account of them. And Daniel’s, even when explained, could not be understood by the prophet himself. This happened not because the thing to be revealed was difficult (for it concerned only human affairs, which do not exceed the limits of human capacity, except in being future), but only because Daniel’s imagination was not as strong for prophesying while awake as in dreams. This is apparent from the fact that at the very beginning of the revelation he was so terrified that he almost despaired of his strength. Therefore, because of the weakness of his imagination and of his strength, the things were represented to him very obscurely, and he could not understand them even when they were explained.

And here it should be noted that the words Daniel heard were only imaginary (as we showed above). So it is no wonder that, being troubled at the time, he imagined all those words so confusedly and obscurely that afterward he could understand nothing of them. Those who say that God did not want to reveal the matter clearly to Daniel seem not to have read the words of the angel, who said expressly (see Daniel 10:14) that he had come to make Daniel understand what would happen to his people in the latter days. So those things remained obscure because no one could be found at that time with enough power of imagination for them to be revealed to him more clearly. II 23 Finally, it had been revealed to certain prophets that God would carry Elijah away. Those prophets wanted to persuade Elisha that Elijah had been carried somewhere else, where they could still find him. This clearly shows that they had not rightly understood God’s revelation.

There is no need to show this at greater length. For nothing is clearer from Scripture than that God endowed one prophet with far greater grace for prophesying than another. II 24 But I shall show more carefully and at greater length two further points. Prophecies, or representations, also varied according to the opinions the prophets had embraced. And the prophets held different, indeed contrary, opinions and different prejudices. (I am speaking of purely speculative matters; about what concerns uprightness and good morals one must think quite differently.) I consider this a matter of greater importance. From it I shall finally conclude that prophecy never made the prophets more learned, but left them with their preconceived opinions, and that therefore we are not at all bound to believe them on purely speculative matters.

Yet many people refuse to admit that any change can occur in the heavens, and so they explain that passage in a way that makes it seem to say nothing of the kind. Others, who have learned to philosophize more correctly, understand that the earth moves and that the sun stands still, or at least does not move around the earth. They strain with all their might to wring this same view out of Scripture, even though Scripture openly protests against it. These people truly amaze me. II 27 Are we really obliged, I ask, to believe that Joshua, a soldier, was skilled in astronomy? Or that a miracle could not be revealed to him, or that the sun’s light could not stay above the horizon longer than usual unless Joshua understood its cause?

Both ideas seem to me plainly ridiculous. I prefer, then, to say openly that Joshua did not know the true cause of that longer daylight. He and the whole crowd that was present all thought that the sun moves around the earth in a daily motion and that on that day it stood still for a while, and they believed this to be the cause of the longer daylight. They gave no thought to the possibility that the great quantity of ice in the atmosphere at that time (see Joshua 10:11) could have produced a greater refraction than usual, or something else of the kind, which we will not investigate now. II 28 In the same way, the sign of the receding shadow was revealed to Isaiah in accordance with his understanding, namely through the sun’s moving backward. For he too thought that the sun moves and the earth stands still. And perhaps he never thought of parhelia, not even in a dream.note

We may assert this without the slightest hesitation. The sign really could happen and be foretold to the king by Isaiah, even though the prophet did not know its true cause. II 29 The same must also be said of Solomon’s building, if indeed it was revealed by God. All its measurements were revealed to him in accordance with Solomon’s understanding and opinions. We are not obliged to believe that Solomon was a mathematician, so we may affirm that he did not know the ratio between the circumference and the diameter of a circle, and that, like the common run of workmen, he thought it was 3 to 1. But if we are allowed to say that we do not understand the text at 1 Kings 7:

23, then I honestly do not know what we can understand from Scripture, since the building is described there simply and purely as history. II 30 Indeed, if we may imagine that Scripture meant something else but chose to write this way for some reason unknown to us, the result is nothing less than the complete overthrow of Scripture as a whole. For anyone could say the same, with equal right, of every passage in Scripture. And so whatever absurd and evil thing human malice can devise could be both defended and committed without damage to the authority of Scripture. What we have maintained, by contrast, contains nothing impious. Solomon, Isaiah, Joshua, and the others, though prophets, were only human beings, and nothing human should be thought foreign to them. II 31 It was also revealed to Noah, in accordance with his understanding, that God was going to destroy the human race, because he thought that the world outside Palestine was uninhabited.note

The prophets could be ignorant not only of matters like these but also of others of greater importance without any harm to piety, and in fact they were ignorant of them. They taught nothing special about the divine attributes. Rather, they held quite ordinary opinions about God, and their revelations were adapted to those opinions as well, as I shall now show from many testimonies of Scripture. You will then readily see that they are praised and so highly commended not so much for the loftiness and excellence of their minds as for their piety and steadfastness of spirit.

God revealed himself to Laban as the God of Abraham, because Laban believed that each nation has its own particular god. See Genesis 31:29. II 34 Abraham, too, did not know that God is everywhere and foreknows all things. When he heard the sentence against the people of Sodom, he prayed that God would not carry it out before learning whether they all deserved that punishment. For he says (see Genesis 18:24), perhaps there are fifty righteous people in that city. Nor was God revealed to him in any other way. In Abraham’s imagination God speaks thus: I will go down now, to see whether they have done according to the whole outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know (the matter). The divine testimony about Abraham, too (on which see Genesis 18:

19), contains nothing but his obedience, and that he urged his household toward what is just and good. It does not say that he had lofty thoughts about God. II 35 Moses, too, did not sufficiently grasp that God is omniscient and that all human actions are directed by his decree alone. God had told him (see Exodus 3:18) that the Israelites would obey him, yet Moses calls this into doubt and replies (see Exodus 4:1), what if they do not believe me, and do not obey me? And so God was revealed to him, too, as undecided and as unaware of future human actions. For he gave him two signs and said (Exodus 4:

8), if it should happen that they do not believe the first sign, they will still believe the last; but if they do not believe even the last, take (then) a little water from the river, etc. II 36 Indeed, anyone willing to weigh Moses’ statements without prejudice will clearly find that his opinion of God was that he is a being who has always existed, exists, and always will exist. For this reason Moses calls him by the name יהוה Jehovah, which in Hebrew expresses these three tenses of existing. About his nature, however, Moses taught nothing except that he is merciful, kind, and so on, and supremely jealous, as is clear from a great many passages of the Pentateuch.

Next, he believed and taught that this being differs from all other beings so greatly that it cannot be expressed by any image of a visible thing, and cannot even be seen. This is not so much because seeing it involves a contradiction as because of human weakness. He taught, further, that in power it is singular, or unique. II 37 He did admit that there are beings who (no doubt by God’s ordinance and command) acted in God’s place—that is, beings to whom God gave authority, right, and power to direct the nations and to provide and care for them. But he taught that the being whom they were bound to worship was the highest and supreme God, or (to use the Hebrews’ phrase) the God of gods. That is why in the song in Exodus (15:11) he said, who among the gods is like you, Jehovah? And Jethro said (18:

11), now I know that Jehovah is greater than all the gods. That is: at last I am compelled to grant Moses that Jehovah is greater than all the gods and unique in power. Whether Moses believed that these beings who acted in God’s place were created by God may be doubted, since, as far as we know, he said nothing about their creation and origin. II 38 He taught, moreover, that this being brought this visible world into order out of chaos (see Genesis 1:2) and planted seeds in nature, and therefore has supreme right and supreme power over all things. By this supreme right and power, he taught (see Deuteronomy 10:14–15), God chose for himself alone the Hebrew nation and a certain region of the world (see Deuteronomy 4:19 and 32:

8–9), leaving the other nations and regions to the care of the other gods whom he had appointed in his place. That is why he was called the God of Israel and (see 2 Chronicles 32:19) the God of Jerusalem, while the other gods were called the gods of the other nations. II 39 For this reason, too, the Jews believed that the land God had chosen for himself required a special worship of God, wholly different from the worship of other lands. Indeed, they believed it could not tolerate the worship of other gods proper to other lands. For the nations that the king of Assyria brought into the lands of the Jews were believed to have been torn apart by lions because they did not know the worship of the gods of that land (see 2 Kings 17:25–26, etc.).

And according to Ibn Ezra, this is why Jacob, when he wanted to return to his homeland, told his sons to prepare themselves for a new worship and to put away their foreign gods—that is, the worship of the gods of the land they were then living in (see Genesis 35:2–3). David, too, wishing to tell Saul that his persecution had forced him to live outside his homeland, said that he was being driven out of God’s inheritance and sent off to worship other gods (see 1 Samuel 26:19). II 41 Finally, Moses believed that this being, or God, has his dwelling in the heavens (see Deuteronomy 33:27), an opinion that was very common among the pagans.

If we now turn to Moses’ revelations, we shall find that they were adapted to these opinions. Because he believed that God’s nature admits the qualities we mentioned, namely mercy, kindness, and so on, God was revealed to him in keeping with this opinion and under these attributes (see Exodus 34:6–7, which tells how God appeared to Moses, and verses 4–5 of the Decalogue). II 42 Then, in 33:18, we are told that Moses asked God to let him see him. But since Moses, as already said, had formed no image of God in his brain, and since God (as I have already shown) is revealed to the prophets only according to the disposition of their imagination, God appeared to him in no image. And this happened, I say, because an image of God was contrary to Moses’ imagination. For other prophets testify that they saw God, namely Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and others.

That is why God answered Moses, you cannot see my face. Moses believed that God is visible—that is, that seeing him involves no contradiction with respect to the divine nature, for otherwise he would not have asked for anything of the kind. So God adds, for no one shall see me and live. He therefore gives a reason in keeping with Moses’ opinion. He does not say that it involves a contradiction with respect to the divine nature, as is in fact the case, but that it cannot happen because of human weakness. II 44 Further, to reveal to Moses that the Israelites, by worshiping the calf, had become like the other nations, God says in 33:

2–3 that he will send an angel—that is, a being to take care of the Israelites in place of the supreme being—but that he himself does not wish to be among them. This left Moses nothing by which he could be sure that the Israelites were dearer to God than the other nations, whom God had also handed over to the care of other beings, or angels, as is clear from verse 16 of the same chapter. II 45 Finally, because God was believed to dwell in the heavens, he was revealed as descending from heaven onto the mountain, and Moses went up the mountain to speak with God. He would not have needed to do this at all if he had been able to imagine God as easily in any place. The Israelites knew almost nothing about God, even though he was revealed to them. They showed this more than enough when, a few days later, they transferred his honor and worship to a calf and believed it to be the gods who had brought them out of Egypt.

And we certainly should not believe that people accustomed to the superstitions of the Egyptians, uneducated and worn down by the most wretched slavery, understood anything sound about God. Nor should we believe that Moses taught them anything but a way of living. He did so not as a philosopher, so that they might at last live well from freedom of mind, but as a lawgiver, so that they would be compelled by the command of the law to live well. II 47 For them, therefore, the rule of living well, or the true life, and the worship and love of God were more a servitude than true freedom and the grace and gift of God. He commanded them to love God and keep his law so that they would credit God with the benefits they had received (namely, freedom from slavery in Egypt, and so on). He also terrified them with threats if they should transgress those precepts and, on the other hand, promised them many good things if they observed them. So he taught them in the same way that parents usually teach children who are wholly lacking in reason.

It is certain, then, that they did not know the excellence of virtue or true blessedness. II 48 Jonah thought he could flee from God’s sight, which seems to show that he too believed God had handed over the care of the other lands outside Judea to other powers, though powers he had appointed in his place. No one in the Old Testament spoke of God more in accordance with reason than Solomon, who surpassed everyone of his age in natural light. II 49 And so he also considered himself above the Law (for it was given only to those who lack reason and the teachings of the natural intellect). He set little store by all the laws concerning the king, which consisted chiefly of three (see Deuteronomy 17:

16–17); indeed, he flatly violated them (in which, however, he erred and did something unworthy of a philosopher, namely by indulging in pleasures). He taught that all the goods of fortune are vain for mortals (see Ecclesiastes), that human beings have nothing more excellent than the intellect, and that they are punished by no greater penalty than folly (see Proverbs 16:22). But let us return to the prophets, whose conflicting opinions we have also undertaken to note. The rabbis who left us those books of the Prophets (the only ones that now survive) found Ezekiel’s views so contrary to those of Moses (as is told in the tractate Shabbat, chapter 1, folio 13, pagenote

2) that they almost resolved not to admit his book among the canonical books. They would have hidden it away entirely had not a certain Hananiah undertaken to explain it, which, they say, he finally did with great labor and effort (as is told there). How he did it, however, is not clear enough: whether he wrote a commentary, which has perhaps been lost, or whether, bold as he was, he altered Ezekiel’s actual words and speeches and embellished them according to his own fancy. Be that as it may, chapter 18 at least does not seem to agree with Exodus 34:7, nor with Jeremiah 32:18, and so on. II 50 Samuel believed that once God had decreed something, he never repented of his decree (see 1 Samuel 15:note

29). When Saul repented of his sin and wished to worship God and ask his pardon, Samuel told him that God would not change his decree against him. To Jeremiah, on the contrary, it was revealed (see Jeremiah 18:8, 10) that God, whether he has decreed some harm or some good for a nation, repents of his decree, provided that the people too change, for better or for worse, after the sentence is pronounced. Joel, however, taught that God repents only of harm (see Joel 2:13). II 51 Finally, Genesis 4:7 makes it very clear that a human being can master the temptations of sin and act rightly. This is said to Cain, who nevertheless, as is clear from Scripture itself and from Josephus, never mastered them. The same follows quite evidently from the chapter

of Jeremiah just cited. It says that God repents of a decree pronounced for people’s harm or good according as they are willing to change their ways and manner of life. Paul, on the contrary, teaches nothing more plainly than that people have no power over the temptations of the flesh except by God’s special calling and grace. See the Epistle to the Romans 9:10 and following. And in 3:5 and 6:19, where he attributes justice to God, he corrects himself for speaking this way in human fashion and because of the weakness of the flesh.

We conclude, then, that we are not obliged to believe the prophets in anything except what is the end and substance of the revelation. In everything else, each person is free to believe as he pleases. For example, Cain’s revelation teaches us only that God urged Cain toward the true life. That alone is the aim and substance of the revelation, not to teach freedom of the will or philosophical matters. So although freedom of the will is very clearly contained in the words and reasons of that admonition, we are nevertheless permitted to think the contrary, since those words and reasons were adapted only to Cain’s understanding.

So too Micaiah’s revelation aims to teach only that God revealed to Micaiah the true outcome of Ahab’s battle against Aram, and so this is all we are bound to believe. Whatever else that revelation contains does not concern us at all: what it says about the true and the false Spirit of God, about the host of heaven standing on either side of God, and the remaining circumstances of that revelation. About these things, then, each person may believe whatever seems more in keeping with his own reason. II 55 The same must be said about the arguments by which God showed Job his power over all things. This assumes that they really were revealed to Job, and that the author was trying to tell a story and not, as some believe, to embellish his own ideas. They were offered to suit Job’s understanding and only to convince him, not as universal arguments meant to convince everyone.

We should take the same view of the arguments by which Christ convicts the Pharisees of obstinacy and ignorance and urges his disciples toward the true life: he adapted his arguments to the opinions and principles of each. For example, he said to the Pharisees (see Matthew 12:26), And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then would his kingdom stand? In saying this he wanted only to refute the Pharisees from their own principles, not to teach that there are demons or some kingdom of demons. So too he said to his disciples (Matthew 18:10), See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I tell you that their angels in heaven etc. Here he wants to teach nothing other than that they should not be proud and should not despise anyone. He does not mean to teach the other things contained in his arguments, which he brings forward only to persuade the disciples of the point more effectively.

Finally, the same must be said without qualification about the arguments and signs of the apostles, and there is no need to speak of them at greater length. Some passages of Scripture were written only ad hominem, that is, to suit someone’s understanding, and yet they are defended as divine doctrine, to the great detriment of philosophy. If I had to list them all, I would stray far from the brevity I am aiming for. Let it suffice, then, to have touched on a few general points; the curious reader can weigh the rest for himself. II 58 Only what we have discussed about prophets and prophecy bears chiefly on the goal I have in view, namely, separating philosophy from theology. Still, since I have touched on this question in general terms, I would like to inquire further whether the prophetic gift was peculiar to the Hebrews or common to all nations, and also what we should conclude about the calling of the Hebrews. On these questions, see the next chapter.

So whoever rejoices in this rejoices in another’s misfortune. He is therefore envious and malicious, and knows neither true wisdom nor the tranquility of the true life. III 3 Scripture urges the Hebrews to obey the law by saying that God chose them for himself above the other nations (see Deuteronomy 10:15), and that he is near to them and not to others (Deuteronomy 4:4, 7). It also says that he prescribed just laws to them alone (verse 8 of the same chapter), and finally that he made himself known to them alone, passing over the rest (see verse 32 of the same chapter), and so on. In saying these things it is speaking only to suit the understanding of people who did not know true blessedness, as we showed in the previous chapter and as Moses also testifies (see Deuteronomy 9:

6–7). III 4 For surely they would have been no less blessed if God had called everyone equally to salvation. Nor would God be any less gracious to them if he were equally near to the rest. The laws would be no less just, and they themselves no less wise, if the laws had been prescribed to all. The miracles would have shown God’s power no less if they had also been done for the sake of other nations. Nor, finally, would the Hebrews be any less bound to worship God if God had bestowed all these gifts on everyone equally. III 5 As for what God says to Solomon (see 1 Kings 3:

12), that no one after him would be as wise as he, this seems to be merely a way of speaking that signifies exceptional wisdom. However that may be, we should certainly not believe that God, to increase Solomon’s happiness, promised him that he would never afterward bestow so much wisdom on anyone. That would add nothing to Solomon’s intellect. A prudent king would give God no less thanks for so great a gift even if God had said he would endow everyone with the same wisdom.

Next, the power of all natural things is nothing but the very power of God, through which alone all things happen and are determined. It follows that whatever help a human being procures for himself in preserving his being, since he too is a part of nature, is offered to him by divine power alone. The same holds for whatever nature offers him without any effort on his part. In either case divine power acts either through human nature or through things outside human nature. So whatever human nature can achieve by its own power alone to preserve its being, we may rightly call God’s internal help. Whatever else accrues to its advantage from the power of external causes, we may rightly call God’s external help.

From this it is also easy to infer what we should understand by God’s election. No one does anything except by the predetermined order of nature, that is, by God’s eternal direction and decree. It follows that no one chooses any way of life for himself, or accomplishes anything, except by a special calling of God, who has chosen this person above others for this work or for this way of life. III 11 Finally, by fortune I mean nothing other than God’s direction insofar as he directs human affairs through external and unforeseen causes. With these preliminaries, let us return to our purpose, and see why the Hebrew nation was said to have been chosen by God above the rest. To show this, I proceed as follows.

But the means that serve to live securely and preserve the body lie chiefly in external things. They are called gifts of fortune precisely because they depend mostly on the direction of external causes, of which we are ignorant. In this respect a fool is almost as likely to be fortunate or unfortunate as a wise man. Still, human direction and vigilance can do much to help us live securely and avoid injuries from other people, and from animals too.

Reason and experience have taught no surer means to this than to form a society with fixed laws, to occupy a definite region of the world, and to bring everyone’s strength together into one body, as it were, the body of society. But forming and preserving a society requires no ordinary intelligence and vigilance. For that reason a society founded and directed chiefly by prudent and vigilant people will be more secure, more stable, and less exposed to fortune. By contrast, one made up of people of untutored minds depends for the most part on fortune and is less stable.

If such a society nonetheless lasts a long time, it owes this to someone else’s direction, not its own. Indeed, if it has overcome great dangers and its affairs have prospered, it cannot help admiring and adoring God’s direction. This means God acting through hidden external causes, not through human nature and the mind. Everything that has happened to it was utterly unexpected and beyond all anticipation, and in truth this can even be regarded as a miracle.

As regards intellect, it is established (as we showed in the previous chapter) that their thoughts about God and nature were quite ordinary, so they were not chosen by God above the others with respect to intellect. Nor were they chosen with respect to virtue and the true life, for in this too they were equal to the other nations, and only a very few were elect. III 19 Their election and calling, then, consisted solely in the temporal prosperity and advantages of their state. Nor do we see that God promised the patriarchs∗ or their successors anything besides this. Indeed, in the Law nothing is promised for obedience but the continued prosperity of the state and the other advantages of this life. Conversely, the ruin of the state and the greatest hardships are threatened for obstinacy and breaking the covenant.

Nor is this surprising. The end of every society and state is to live securely and comfortably, as is evident from what has just been said and as we will show more fully later. A state can only subsist through laws by which each person is bound. If all the members of a society chose to bid farewell to the laws, by that very act they would dissolve the society and destroy the state. III 21 So nothing else could be promised to the society of the Hebrews for steadfast observance of the laws but security of life∗∗ and its advantages. Conversely, no surer punishment could be foretold for obstinacy than the ruin of the state and the evils that commonly follow from it. Added to these were other evils that would arise peculiarly for them from the ruin of their particular state. But there is no need to treat these matters at greater length at present.

I add only this: the laws of the Old Testament, too, were revealed and prescribed to the Jews alone. Since God chose them only to establish a particular society and state, they necessarily had to have particular laws as well. Did God also prescribe special laws to other nations and reveal himself prophetically to their lawgivers, that is, under the attributes by which they were accustomed to imagine God? That is not sufficiently clear to me. This at least is evident from Scripture itself: other nations too had a state and particular laws through God’s external direction. III 23 To show this, I will cite just two passages of Scripture. Genesis 14:18–20 relates that Melchizedek was king of Jerusalem and priest of the most high God. It also relates that he blessed Abraham, as was the priest’s right (see Numbers 6:note

23), and finally that Abraham, beloved of God, gave a tenth of all the spoils to this priest of God. III 24 All this shows clearly enough that God, before he founded the Israelite nation, established kings and priests in Jerusalem and prescribed rites and laws to them. Whether he did so prophetically is, as we said, not sufficiently clear. I am at least persuaded that Abraham, while he lived there, lived religiously according to those laws. Abraham received no rites from God in particular, and yet Genesis 26:5 says that Abraham observed the worship, precepts, statutes, and laws of God. This must no doubt be understood of the worship, precepts, statutes, and laws of King Melchizedek. III 25 Malachi 1:

10–11 rebukes the Jews in these words: Who is there among you who would shut the doors (that is, of the temple), so that fire may not be laid on my altar for nothing? I take no pleasure in you, etc.

For from the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and everywhere incense is brought to me, and a pure offering; for my name is great among the nations, says the God of hosts. These words can refer only to the present time, unless we want to do violence to them. With them he testifies more than enough that the Jews at that time were no more beloved by God than other nations. Indeed, God was then making himself known to other nations through miracles more than to the Jews, who had by then partly regained their state without miracles. The passage also shows that the nations had rites and ceremonies by which they were acceptable to God.

But I set these matters aside, for my purpose it is enough to have shown what the election of the Jews concerned. It concerned only temporal bodily prosperity and freedom, that is, their state, and the manner and means by which they gained it. Consequently it also concerned the laws, insofar as they were necessary to establish that particular state, and finally the manner in which those laws were revealed. In other respects, including those in which a person’s true happiness consists, the Jews were equal to the rest. III 27 So Scripture says (see Deuteronomy 4:7) that no nation has gods as near to it as the Jews have God. This must be understood only with respect to the state, and only of the time when so many miracles befell them, etc.

For with respect to intellect and virtue, that is, with respect to blessedness, God is equally gracious to all, as we have already said and shown by reason itself. This is also clear enough from Scripture itself. III 28 For the Psalmist says in Psalm 145:18, God is near to all who call on him, to all who truly call on him. Likewise in verse 9 of the same psalm, God is kind to all, and his mercy (is) over all that he has made. III 29 Psalm 33:15 says clearly that God gave the same intellect to all, in these words: who forms their heart in the same way. For the Hebrews believed the heart to be the seat of the soul and the intellect, which I think is well enough known to everyone. Next, it is clear from Job 29:

28 that God prescribed this law to the whole human race: to revere God and abstain from evil deeds, that is, to act well. And so Job, though a Gentile, was the most acceptable of all to God, because he surpassed everyone in piety and religion. Finally, it is very clear from Jonah 4:2 that God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and one who relents from doing harm, not only toward the Jews but toward all. For Jonah says, That is why I resolved earlier to flee to Tarshish, because I knew (that is, from the words of Moses found in Exodus 34:6) that you are a gracious, merciful God, etc. He knew, therefore, that God would pardon the Gentile Ninevites.

We conclude, therefore, that each Jew, considered alone and apart from that society and state, has no gift of God above others, and that there is no difference between him and a Gentile. This follows since God is equally gracious to all, and the Hebrews were chosen by God only with respect to their society and state. III 31 It is true, then, that God is equally kind, merciful, and so on, toward all. And the prophet’s task was not so much to teach the particular laws of his country as to teach true virtue and to admonish people about it. So there is no doubt that all nations had prophets, and that the prophetic gift was not peculiar to the Jews.

Profane as well as sacred histories in fact attest to this. The sacred histories of the Old Testament do not show that other nations had as many prophets as the Hebrews. Indeed, they do not show that any Gentile prophet was expressly sent by God to the nations. But that makes no difference, for the Hebrews took care to write only about their own affairs, not about those of other peoples. III 32 It is enough, then, that we find in the Old Testament that Gentile and uncircumcised men such as Noah, Enoch, Abimelech, Balaam, and others prophesied. We also find that Hebrew prophets were sent by God not only to their own nation but to many others as well. For Ezekiel prophesied to all the nations then known. Indeed, Obadiah, so far as we know, was a prophet to no one but the Edomites, and Jonah was chiefly a prophet to the Ninevites. III 33 Isaiah not only laments and foretells the calamities of the Jews and sings of their restoration, but does the same for other nations. For in chapter 16, verse 9, he says,

therefore I will lament Jazer with weeping. And in chapter 19 he first foretells the calamities of the Egyptians and afterward their restoration (see verses 19, 20, 21, and 25 of that chapter). He foretells that God will send them a Savior who will set them free, that God will make himself known to them, and finally that the Egyptians will worship God with sacrifices and offerings. At last he calls this nation Blessed Egypt, the people of God. All of this is certainly well worth noting. III 34 Finally, Jeremiah is called a prophet not of the Hebrew nation alone but of the nations without qualification (see Jeremiah 1:5). He too weeps as he foretells the calamities of the nations, and he foretells their restoration. For in 48:31 he says of the Moabites, therefore I will wail for Moab, and cry out for all Moab, and so on. And in verse 36 he says,

therefore my heart resounds for Moab like drums. And finally he foretells their restoration, as he also foretells the restoration of the Egyptians, the Ammonites, and the Elamites. III 35 There is no doubt, then, that the other nations also had their own prophets, just as the Jews did, and that these prophets prophesied to them and to the Jews. Scripture mentions only one, Balaam, to whom the future affairs of the Jews and of other nations were revealed. Yet we must not believe that Balaam prophesied on that occasion alone. The narrative itself makes it perfectly clear that he had long before been renowned for prophecy and other divine gifts. For when Balak sends for him, he says (Numbers 22:6), for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.

So he had the very same power that God bestowed on Abraham (see Genesis 12:3). III 36 Next, Balaam, as one accustomed to prophesying, tells the envoys to stay with him until God’s will is revealed to him. When he prophesied, that is, when he interpreted the true mind of God, he used to say this of himself: the utterance of him who hears the words of God, and who knows the knowledge (or the mind and foreknowledge) of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down, but with his eyes uncovered. Finally, after he had blessed the Hebrews at God’s command, he begins to prophesy to other nations and to foretell their future, as, no doubt, he was accustomed to do.

All this shows more than enough that he was always a prophet, or at least prophesied quite often. It also shows something else worth noting here. He had the very thing that chiefly made the prophets certain of the truth of their prophecy: a mind inclined only to what is right and good. For he did not bless or curse whomever he himself wished, as Balak thought, but only those whom God wished to be blessed or cursed. That is why he answered Balak: even if Balak gave me as much silver and gold as his house could hold, I could not transgress God’s command so as to do good or evil of my own will; what God speaks, I will speak. III 38 As for God being angry with him while he was on his journey, the same thing happened to Moses as he was setting out for Egypt at God’s command (see Exodus 4:24).

As for his accepting money for prophesying, Samuel did the same (see 1 Samuel 9:7–8). And if he sinned in some matter (on this see 2 Peter 2:15–16 and Jude 11), there is no one so righteous that he always does good and never sins (see Ecclesiastes 7:20). Surely his prayers must always have carried great weight with God, and his power to curse was certainly very great. Scripture so often declares, as testimony to God’s great mercy toward the Israelites, that God would not listen to Balaam and that he turned the curse into a blessing (see Deuteronomy 23:6, Joshua 24:10, Nehemiah 13:2). So he was beyond doubt most acceptable to God, for the prayers and curses of the impious do not move God at all.

He was, then, a true prophet, and yet Joshua (13:22) calls him קוסם, diviner or augur. It is therefore certain that this name is also taken in a good sense. Those whom the Gentiles used to call augurs and diviners were true prophets. Those whom Scripture often accuses and condemns were false diviners, who deceived the nations just as false prophets deceived the Jews. Other passages of Scripture also make this clear enough. We conclude, therefore, that the prophetic gift was not peculiar to the Jews but common to all nations. III 40 The Pharisees, however, vehemently maintain the contrary. They hold that this divine gift was peculiar to their nation alone, and that the other nations foretold the future by some diabolical power or other (what will superstition not invent!). The chief passage they bring from the Old Testament to confirm this opinion by its authority is Exodus 33:16.

There Moses says to God: For by what shall it be known that I and your people have found favor in your eyes? Surely when you go with us, and we are set apart, I and your people, from every people that is on the face of the earth. III 41 From this, I say, they want to infer that Moses asked God to be present to the Jews and to reveal himself to them prophetically, and furthermore to grant this favor to no other nation. It is surely absurd to suppose that Moses begrudged the nations God’s presence, or that he would have dared to ask any such thing of God.

The truth of the matter is this. Moses knew the temperament and stubborn spirit of his nation. He saw clearly that they could not carry through what they had begun without very great miracles and God’s special external help, and indeed that without such help they would necessarily perish. So, to make it plain that God willed them to be preserved, he asks for this special external help from God. For he says in 34:9, If I have found favor in your eyes, Lord, let the Lord, I pray, go among us, for this people is stubborn, and so on. III 42 The reason why he asks for God’s special external help, then, is that the people was stubborn. God’s own reply shows still more clearly that Moses asked for nothing beyond this special external help. For he answered at once (verse 10 of the same chapter):

Behold, I make a covenant: before all your people I will do wonders such as have not been done in all the earth, nor among any of the nations, and so on. So here Moses is concerned only with the election of the Hebrews as I have explained it, and he asked God for nothing else. III 43 Yet in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans I find another text which troubles me more. In Romans 3:1–2 Paul seems to teach something other than what we teach here. For he says, What advantage, then, has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way; for the chief thing is that the oracles of God were entrusted to him. But if we attend to the doctrine that Paul chiefly wants to teach, we shall find nothing in it that conflicts with this doctrine of ours. On the contrary, we shall find him teaching the same things we teach here. For he says

in verse 29 of the same chapter that God is the God of both Jews and Gentiles. And in 2:25–26 he says, if a circumcised man falls away from the law, his circumcision will become uncircumcision; and conversely, if an uncircumcised man keeps the commandment of the law, his uncircumcision will be counted as circumcision. III 44 Further, in 3:9 and 4:15 he says that all alike, Jews and Gentiles, were under sin, but that there is no sin without commandment and law. From this it is perfectly evident that a law was revealed to absolutely everyone (as we also showed above from Job 28:28), and that all have lived under it. This is the law that looks only to true virtue. It is not the law that is established according to the character and constitution of some particular state and adapted to the temperament of one nation.

Finally, Paul concludes that God is the God of all nations, that is, equally gracious to all, and that all alike had been under law and sin. For this reason God sent his Christ to all nations, to free all alike from bondage to the law, so that they would no longer do good because the law commands it, but from a constant decision of the mind. Paul, then, teaches exactly what we maintain. III 46 So when he says that the oracles of God were entrusted to the Jews alone, there are two ways to read him. Either we must understand that the laws were entrusted to the Jews alone in writing, while the other nations received them only by revelation and in their minds. Or we must say that Paul is answering according to the understanding and the opinions of the Jews current at the time, since he is trying to fend off an objection that only Jews could raise. For in teaching what he had partly seen and partly heard, he was a Greek with the Greeks and a Jew with the Jews.note

There Ezekiel seems to mean that God will gather the Jews again from all the lands in which they were scattered, even though they deliberately wish to bid farewell to the worship of God. God will lead them into the wilderness of the peoples, as he led their ancestors into the wilderness of Egypt. Then, after separating them from the rebels and the apostates, he will lead them from there to the mountain of his holiness, where the whole house of Israel will worship him. III 49 Other passages besides these are commonly brought forward, especially by the Pharisees, but I think I shall satisfy them all once I have answered these two. This will take little effort once I have shown from Scripture itself that God did not choose the Hebrews forever. He chose them only on the same condition on which he had earlier chosen the Canaanites. The Canaanites too, as we showed above, had priests who worshiped God devoutly, and yet God rejected them for their luxury, their sloth, and their wrong worship. III 50 For Moses, in Leviticus 18:27–28,

warns the Israelites not to defile themselves with incest as the Canaanites did, lest the land vomit them out as it vomited out the nations that inhabited those places. And in Deuteronomy 8:19–20 he threatens them with total ruin in the most explicit words. For he says, I testify against you today that you will utterly perish; as the nations that God makes perish before you, so you will perish. The Law contains other passages of this kind, which show expressly that God did not choose the Hebrew nation absolutely or forever.

The prophets did foretell to them a new and eternal covenant of the knowledge, love, and grace of God. But it is easily shown that this covenant is promised only to the pious. The same chapter of Ezekiel that we have just cited says expressly that God will separate the rebels and the apostates from them. And Zephaniah 3:12–13 says that God will remove the proud from their midst and leave the poor as survivors. Since this election looks to true virtue, we must not think it was promised only to the pious among the Jews, to the exclusion of others. Rather, we must plainly believe that the true Gentile prophets, whom we have shown all nations had, promised the same to the faithful of their own nations and consoled them with it. III 52 So this eternal covenant of the knowledge and love of God is universal, as is also most evident from Zephaniah 3:10–11.

So in this matter no difference is to be admitted between Jews and Gentiles. Nor, therefore, is there any other election peculiar to the Jews beyond the one we have already shown. When speaking of this election, which looks only to true virtue, the prophets mix in much about sacrifices and other ceremonies, and about rebuilding the Temple and the City. They do so because, in keeping with the custom and nature of prophecy, they wished to explain spiritual matters under such figures. They also wished to indicate at the same time to the Jews, whose prophets they were, the restoration of their state and Temple that was to be expected in the time of Cyrus. III 53 Therefore the Jews today have absolutely nothing that they can claim for themselves above all other nations.note

That they have survived so many years dispersed and without a state is not at all surprising. They separated themselves from all nations in such a way as to draw the hatred of all upon themselves. They did this not only by external rites contrary to those of the other nations, but also by the sign of circumcision, which they observe most religiously. And experience has already shown that the hatred of the nations does much to preserve them. III 54 The king of Spain once forced the Jews either to accept the religion of the realm or to go into exile, and a great many Jews accepted the Catholic religion. Those who accepted it were granted all the privileges of native Spaniards and were deemed worthy of every honor. So they at once mingled with the Spaniards so thoroughly that a short time later no remnant of them was left, nor any memory.note

Exactly the opposite happened to those whom the king of the Portuguese forced to accept the religion of his realm. Though converted, they always lived separated from everyone, because the king declared them unworthy of any honor. III 55 I think the sign of circumcision also has such power in this matter that I am persuaded this alone will preserve this nation forever. Indeed, if the foundations of their religion did not weaken their spirits, I would firmly believe that someday, given the opportunity, they would set up their state again, and that God would choose them anew—so changeable are human affairs.note

We have a striking example of this in the Chinese. They too most religiously keep a kind of tuft on the head, which separates them from all others. Separated in this way, they have preserved themselves for so many thousands of years that they far surpass all other nations in antiquity. They have not always held sovereignty, yet they recovered it when it was lost. And they will no doubt recover it again once the spirits of the Tartars begin to grow slack through the luxury of riches and through sloth.note

Finally, someone may wish to maintain that the Jews have been chosen by God forever, for this or some other reason. I will not oppose him, provided he holds the following. Insofar as this election, whether temporary or eternal, is peculiar to the Jews alone, it concerns only their state and bodily advantages, since this alone can distinguish one nation from another. But with respect to intellect and true virtue no nation is distinguished from another, and so in these matters God does not choose one nation over another.

In the same way, that a person who remembers one thing immediately remembers another thing like it, or one that he had perceived together with it, is a law that follows necessarily from human nature. But that people give up, or are compelled to give up, the right they have by nature, and bind themselves to a fixed way of living, depends on human decision. IV 3 And although I grant without qualification that all things are determined by the universal laws of nature to exist and to act in a fixed and determinate way, I still say that these laws depend on human decision. I.

Because a human being, insofar as he is a part of nature, to that extent constitutes a part of nature’s power. So whatever follows from the necessity of human nature—that is, from nature itself insofar as we conceive it as determined through human nature—follows, even if necessarily, from human power. Hence it can very well be said that the enactment of these laws depends on human decision. For it depends chiefly on the power of the human mind, yet in such a way that the human mind, insofar as it perceives things as true or false, can still be conceived very clearly without these laws—but not without necessary law, as we have just defined it. IV 4 II. I also said that these laws depend on human decision because we ought to define and explain things through their proximate causes. That universal consideration of fate and of the chain of causes can be of very little use to us in forming and ordering our thoughts about particular things.

Add to this that we are entirely ignorant of the actual coordination and connection of things—that is, of how things are really ordered and connected. So for the conduct of life it is better, indeed necessary, to consider things as possible. So much for law considered absolutely.

However, the true end of laws is usually plain to only a few, and most people are almost incapable of perceiving it and live anything but by reason. So legislators, in order to bind everyone alike, wisely set up another end, very different from the one that follows necessarily from the nature of laws. They promised those who upheld the laws what the common people love most, and threatened those who broke them with what the common people fear most. In this way they tried to restrain the common people, as far as possible, like a horse with a bridle. IV 7 Hence it has come about that law is taken above all to mean a way of living prescribed to people by the command of others:

and consequently that those who obey the laws are said to live under the law and appear to be in servitude. And in truth, someone who gives each person his due because he fears the gallows acts at another’s command and under the compulsion of evil, and he cannot be called just. But someone who gives each person his due because he knows the true reason for laws and their necessity acts with a steadfast mind, by his own decision and not another’s, and so is rightly called just. IV 8 This, I think, is also what Paul meant to teach when he said that those who lived under the law could not be justified through the law. For justice, as it is commonly defined, is the constant and perpetual will to give each person his right. And so Solomon says in Proverbsnote

21:15 that the just rejoice when judgment is done, but the wicked are afraid. IV 9 Since, then, law is nothing other than a way of living that people prescribe for themselves or for others for some end, it seems that law should be divided into human and divine. By human law I mean a way of living that serves only to safeguard life and the commonwealth; by divine law, one that aims solely at the highest good, that is, the true knowledge and love of God. The reason I call this law divine lies in the nature of the highest good, which I will now set out briefly and as clearly as I can.

Next, since nothing can be or be conceived without God, it is certain that everything in nature involves and expresses the concept of God in proportion to its essence and its perfection. Consequently, the more we know natural things, the greater and more perfect the knowledge of God we acquire. Or (since knowing an effect through its cause is nothing other than knowing some property of the cause): the more we know natural things, the more perfectly we know the essence of God, which is the cause of all things. IV 12 And so all our knowledge, that is, our highest good, not only depends on the knowledge of God but consists entirely in it. This also follows from the fact that a person is more perfect in proportion to the nature and perfection of the thing he loves above all others, and conversely. So the person who loves above all things the intellectual knowledge of God, the most perfect being, and takes the greatest delight in it, is necessarily the most perfect and shares most fully in the highest blessedness.

This, then, is what our highest good and our blessedness come down to: the knowledge and love of God. IV 13 The means that this end of all human actions—namely God himself, insofar as his idea is in us—requires can therefore be called commands of God, because they are prescribed to us as if by God himself, insofar as he exists in our mind. And so the way of living that aims at this end is very properly called the divine law. But what these means are, what way of living this end requires, and how the foundations of the best commonwealth and of the way people live together follow from it, belong to a universal ethics. Here I will go on to treat only of divine law in general.

The carnal person, however, cannot understand these things, and they seem empty to him. His knowledge of God is too meager, and he finds nothing in this highest good that he can touch or eat or, in short, that affects the flesh, in which he takes the greatest delight; for it consists solely in contemplation and in the pure mind. But those who know that they possess nothing more excellent than intellect and a sound mind will no doubt judge these things to be most solid.

We have thus explained what the divine law chiefly consists in, and what human laws are: namely, all laws that aim at some other goal—unless they have been sanctioned by revelation. For in this respect, too, things are referred to God (as we showed above). In this sense the law of Moses, although it was not universal but was especially adapted to the character and particular preservation of one people, can nevertheless be called the law of God, or divine law, since we believe that it was sanctioned by prophetic light. IV 18 If we now attend to the nature of the natural divine law, as we have just explained it, we shall see: I. that it is universal, that is, common to all people, for we have deduced it from universal human nature; II.

that it does not require belief in historical narratives, whatever they may be. For since this natural divine law is understood from the consideration of human nature alone, it is certain that we can conceive it just as well in Adam as in any other person, and just as well in a person who lives among others as in one who lives a solitary life. IV 19 Nor can belief in historical narratives, however certain, give us the knowledge of God, and consequently not the love of God either. For the love of God arises from knowledge of him, and knowledge of him must be drawn from common notions that are certain and known through themselves. So it is far from true that belief in historical narratives is a necessary requirement for reaching our highest good.

Still, although belief in historical narratives cannot give us the knowledge and love of God, we do not deny that reading them is very useful for civil life. For the more we have observed and the better we know people’s characters and circumstances—which can be learned from nothing better than from their actions—the more cautiously we can live among them, and the better we can adapt our actions and our life to their temperament, as far as reason allows. IV 20 III. We see

that this natural divine law does not require ceremonies, that is, actions that are indifferent in themselves and are called good only by institution; or actions that represent some good necessary for salvation; or, if you prefer, actions whose rationale surpasses human understanding. For the natural light requires nothing that the light itself does not reach, but only what it can show us very clearly to be good, or a means to our blessedness. Things that are good only by command and institution, or because they represent some good, cannot perfect our intellect. They are nothing but mere shadows, and cannot be counted among the actions that are, so to speak, the offspring or fruit of the intellect and a sound mind. There is no need to show this at greater length here. IV 21 IV.

Finally, we see that the highest reward of the divine law is the law itself—namely, to know God and to love him in true freedom and with a whole and steadfast mind—and that its penalty is the loss of these things and bondage to the flesh, that is, an inconstant and wavering mind.

For example, when we attend only to the fact that the nature of a triangle is contained in the divine nature from eternity, as an eternal truth, we say that God has the idea of a triangle, or understands the nature of a triangle. But when we then attend to the fact that the nature of a triangle is contained in the divine nature in this way from the necessity of the divine nature alone, and not from the necessity of the essence and nature of the triangle—indeed, that the necessity of the essence and properties of a triangle, insofar as these too are conceived as eternal truths, depends on the necessity of the divine nature and intellect alone, and not on the nature of the triangle—then we call the very thing we called God’s intellect God’s will, or decree. IV 25 So with respect to God we affirm one and the same thing whether we say that God decreed and willed from eternity that the three angles of a triangle should be equal to two right angles, or that God understood this very thing.

From this it follows that God’s affirmations and negations always involve eternal necessity, or truth. IV 26 So if, for example, God told Adam that he did not want him to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, it would be a contradiction for Adam to be able to eat of that tree, and it would therefore be impossible for Adam to eat of it; for that divine decree would have had to involve eternal necessity and truth.

But since Scripture nevertheless relates that God commanded this of Adam, and that Adam ate of the tree all the same, we must necessarily say that God revealed to Adam only the evil that would necessarily befall him if he ate of that tree, but not the necessity with which that evil would follow. IV 27 Hence it came about that Adam perceived that revelation not as an eternal and necessary truth but as a law—that is, as an institution from which gain or loss follows not from the necessity and nature of the act performed but solely from the pleasure and absolute command of some prince. So that revelation was a law only with respect to Adam, and only because of the deficiency of his knowledge; and God was, as it were, a lawgiver or prince.

For this same reason, namely a deficiency of knowledge, the Decalogue was a law only with respect to the Hebrews. Since they did not know God’s existence as an eternal truth, they had to perceive as a law what was revealed to them in the Decalogue—namely, that God exists and that God alone is to be worshiped. But if God had spoken to them directly, without using any bodily means, they would have perceived this very thing not as a law but as an eternal truth. IV 29 And what we say about the Israelites and Adam must also be said about all the prophets who wrote laws in God’s name: they did not perceive God’s decrees adequately, as eternal truths. For example,

it must be said of Moses himself as well that, by revelation or from foundations revealed to him, he perceived the way in which the people of Israel could best be united in a particular region of the world and form a complete society, that is, set up a state; and also the way in which that people could best be compelled to obey. But he did not perceive, nor was it revealed to him, that this way was the best, nor that the goal they were aiming at would necessarily follow from the common obedience of the people in such a region. IV 30 So he perceived all these things not as eternal truths but as precepts and institutions, and he prescribed them as laws of God. Hence it came about that he imagined God as a ruler, lawgiver, king, merciful, just, and so on,

although all these are attributes of human nature alone and must be entirely removed from the divine nature. And this, I say, must be said only of the prophets who wrote laws in God’s name, not of Christ. IV 31 For although Christ too seems to have written laws in God’s name, we must nevertheless hold that he perceived things truly and adequately; for Christ was not so much a prophet as the mouth of God. God revealed certain things to the human race through the mind of Christ (as we showed in chapter 1), just as he had earlier done through angels, that is, through a created voice, visions, and so on.

So it would be just as contrary to reason to maintain that God adapted his revelations to the opinions of Christ as to maintain that God had earlier adapted his revelations to the opinions of the angels—that is, of a created voice and of visions—in order to communicate to the prophets what was to be revealed. Nothing more absurd than that could be maintained. This is all the more so since Christ was sent to teach not the Jews alone but the whole human race. It was therefore not enough for him to have a mind adapted only to the opinions of the Jews; it had to be adapted to opinions and teachings universal to the human race, that is, to common and true notions. IV 32 And certainly, from the fact that God revealed himself to Christ, or to his mind, directly, and not, as to the prophets, through words and images, we can understand nothing other than that Christ perceived, or understood, the things revealed truly. For a thing is understood when it is perceived by the pure mind, apart from words and images.

Christ, then, perceived the things revealed truly and adequately. IV 33 So if he ever prescribed them as laws, he did so because of the people’s ignorance and obstinacy. In this respect he acted in God’s place, in that he adapted himself to the character of the people. And so, although he spoke somewhat more clearly than the other prophets, he nevertheless taught the things revealed obscurely, and quite often through parables, especially when he was speaking to those to whom it had not yet been given to understand the kingdom of heaven (see Matthew 13:10ff.). IV 34 And no doubt he taught those to whom it had been given to know the mysteries of heaven these things as eternal truths, rather than prescribing them as laws. In this way he freed them from bondage to the law, and yet all the more confirmed and established the law, and wrote it deep within their hearts. Paul, too, seems to indicate this in certain passages, namely in the Epistle to the Romans

7:6 and 3:28. IV 35 Yet he too does not want to speak openly; rather, as he himself says in 3:5 and 6:19 of the same epistle, he speaks in human terms. He says so expressly when he calls God just. And no doubt it is also because of the weakness of the flesh that he ascribes mercy, grace, anger, and so on to God, and adapts his words to the character of the people, or (as he also says in 1 Corinthians 3:1–2) of carnal people. IV 36 For in Romans 9:18 he teaches without qualification that God’s anger and his mercy depend not on human works but solely on God’s calling, that is, on his will; and next, that no one becomes just by the works of the law, but by faith alone (see Romans 3:

28). By faith he surely means nothing other than the full assent of the mind. Finally, he teaches that no one becomes blessed unless he has the mind of Christ in him (see Romans 8:9), by which, that is, he perceives the laws of God as eternal truths. IV 37 We conclude, therefore, that God is described as a lawgiver or prince, and called just, merciful, and so on, only to suit the understanding of the common people and because of a defect in their thinking. In reality God acts and directs all things solely from the necessity of his own nature and perfection, and his decrees and volitions are eternal truths and always involve necessity. That is what I had resolved to explain and show in the first place.

For, as we have already shown, whoever does good from true knowledge and love of the good acts freely and with a steady mind. But whoever does it from fear of evil acts under compulsion from that evil, like a slave, and lives under the command of another. IV 39 And so this single command that God gives Adam comprises the whole divine natural law and agrees absolutely with the dictate of the natural light. Nor would it be difficult to explain that whole story, or parable, of the first man on this basis. But I prefer to leave it aside. For one thing, I cannot be absolutely certain whether my explanation agrees with the writer’s meaning. For another, most people do not grant that this story is a parable, but flatly hold it to be a simple narrative.

It will be better, then, to bring forward other passages of Scripture. I mean especially those dictated by a man who speaks from the power of the natural light, in which he surpassed all the wise men of his age, and whose sayings the people embraced as reverently as those of the prophets. I mean Solomon, who is commended in the sacred books not so much for prophecy and piety as for prudence and wisdom. IV 41 In his Proverbs he calls the human intellect the fountain of true life, and he places misfortune in folly alone. For he says in 16:22: A fountain of life (is) the understanding of its lord∗, and the punishment of fools is folly. Note here that in Hebrew “life” without qualification means true life, as is clear from Deuteronomy 30:19.

He therefore places the fruit of the intellect in true life alone, and its punishment simply in being deprived of it. This agrees absolutely with what we noted in the fourth place about the divine natural law. That this fountain of life—that is, the intellect alone, as we have also shown—prescribes laws to the wise is plainly taught by the same wise man. For he says in 13:14: The law of the prudent (is) a fountain of life—that is, as is clear from the text just cited, the understanding. IV 42 Further, in 3:13 he teaches in the most explicit words that the intellect makes a person blessed and happy and gives true tranquility of mind.

For he says: Blessed is the man who finds knowledge, and the son of man who brings forth understanding. The reason, as he goes on in verses 16–17, is that directly it gives length of days∗∗, indirectly riches and honor; its ways (namely, those that knowledge points out) are pleasant, and all its paths are peace. In Solomon’s view too, then, only the wise live with a peaceful and steady mind. They are not like the impious, whose minds waver between contrary affects, so that (as Isaiah also says, 57:20) they have neither peace nor rest. IV 43 Finally, in these Proverbs of Solomon we must take particular note of what is found in the second chapter, since it confirms our view as clearly as possible. For verse 3 of that chapter

begins: For if you call out for prudence, and lift your voice to understanding, etc., then you will understand the fear of God, and you will find the knowledge of God (or rather the love, for the verb ידע Jadah means both); for (note well) God gives wisdom: from his mouth (flow) knowledge and prudence. IV 44 With these words he indicates very clearly, first, that wisdom alone, that is, the intellect, teaches us to fear God wisely—that is, to worship him with true religion. Next he teaches that wisdom and knowledge flow from God’s mouth, and that it is God who gives wisdom. We too have shown this above: our intellect and our knowledge depend on, arise from, and are perfected by the idea, or knowledge, of God alone. IV 45 He then goes on in verse

9 to teach in the most explicit words that this knowledge contains true ethics and politics, and that these are deduced from it: then you will understand justice, and judgment, and uprightness, (and) every good path. Not content with this, he continues: when knowledge enters your heart, and wisdom is sweet to you, then your∗∗∗ foresight will keep watch over you, and prudence will guard you. IV 46 All of this plainly agrees with natural knowledge. For natural knowledge teaches ethics and true virtue once we have acquired knowledge of things and tasted the excellence of knowledge.

So in Solomon’s view as well, the happiness and tranquility of someone who cultivates the natural intellect depend chiefly not on the rule of fortune (that is, on God’s external help), but on his own inner virtue (that is, on God’s internal help). It is by keeping watch, acting, and taking good counsel that he best preserves himself. IV 47 Finally, we must by no means pass over here the passage of Paul in Romans 1:20. There, as Tremellius translates from the Syriac text, he says: For the hidden things of God, from the foundations of the world, are seen in his creatures through the understanding, both his power and his divinity, which is forever, so that they are without escape.note

With these words he indicates clearly enough that everyone clearly understands, by the natural light, the power and eternal divinity of God. From it they can know and deduce what they should seek and what they should avoid. He therefore concludes that all are without escape and cannot be excused by ignorance. They certainly could be, if he were speaking of a supernatural light and of the bodily passion and resurrection of Christ, and so on. IV 49 And so a little further on, in verse 24, he continues: Therefore God gave them up to the unclean lusts of their hearts, and so on to the end of the chapter. There he describes the vices of ignorance and recounts them as the punishments of ignorance. This plainly agrees with that proverb of Solomon, 15:22, which we have already cited: and the punishment of fools is folly.

It is no wonder, then, that Paul says wrongdoers are without excuse. For as each person sows, so shall he reap. Evils necessarily follow from evils, unless they are wisely corrected, and goods from goods, if constancy of mind goes with them. Scripture, then, absolutely commends the natural light and the divine natural law. And with this I have finished what I set out to do in this chapter.

If, then, in the Old Testament they were counted as part of the law of God, that was only because they had been instituted by revelation, or on revealed foundations. But since reason, however solid, carries little weight with ordinary theologians, I would like here to confirm what we have just shown by the authority of Scripture as well. Then, for greater clarity, I will show why and how the ceremonies served to establish and preserve the state of the Jews. V 4 Isaiah teaches nothing more clearly than that the divine law, taken absolutely, means that universal law which consists in the true way of living, and not ceremonies. For in 1:10 the prophet calls his nation to hear the divine law from him. From it he first excludes every kind of sacrifice and every festival, and then at last he teaches the law itself (see verses

16–17). He sums it up in these few things: purification of the mind, the practice or habit of virtue, that is, of good actions, and finally giving help to the needy. V 5 No less striking is the testimony of Psalm 40:7–9. Here the psalmist addresses God: Sacrifice and offering you did not desire∗, you have pierced my ears; burnt offering and sin offering you did not ask for; I have desired to do your will, my God, for your law is in my inmost parts. He therefore calls only that law the law of God which is inscribed in a person’s inmost parts, that is, in the mind, and he excludes ceremonies from it. For ceremonies are good only by institution and not by nature, and so they are not inscribed in minds either.

Besides these, still other passages in Scripture testify to the same thing, but it is enough to have cited these two. V 6 That ceremonies contribute nothing to blessedness, but concern only the temporal prosperity of the state, is also evident from Scripture itself. For ceremonies it promises nothing but bodily comforts and pleasures; blessedness it promises for the universal divine law alone. In the five books commonly called the books of Moses, as we said above, nothing is promised but this temporal prosperity: honors or fame, victories, riches, pleasures, and health. V 7 And although these five books contain many moral precepts besides the ceremonies, these are not contained in them as moral teachings universal to all people. They are there as commands adapted above all to the understanding and character of the Hebrew nation alone, and which therefore also look only to the advantage of the state. For example,

Moses does not teach the Jews, as a teacher or prophet, not to kill or steal. He commands these things as a lawgiver and prince. For he does not support his teachings with reasons; instead he attaches a penalty to his commands, and penalties can and must vary with the character of each nation, as experience has amply shown. V 8 So too the command not to commit adultery concerns only the advantage of the commonwealth and the state. Had he wanted to teach a moral precept concerned not only with the advantage of the commonwealth but with each person’s tranquility of mind and true blessedness, he would have condemned not only the outward act but the very consent of the mind. This is what Christ did, who taught only universal precepts (see Matthew 5:

28). And for this reason Christ promises a spiritual reward, not a bodily one as Moses does. V 9 For Christ, as I said, was sent not to preserve the state and institute laws, but only to teach the universal law. From this we easily understand that Christ by no means abolished the law of Moses. Christ wished to introduce no new laws into the commonwealth, and he cared about nothing more than teaching moral precepts and distinguishing them from the laws of the commonwealth. He did this chiefly because of the ignorance of the Pharisees, who thought that whoever upheld the laws of the commonwealth, that is, the law of Moses, lived blessedly. Yet that law, as we have said, had regard only to the commonwealth, and served not so much to teach the Hebrews as to compel them.

But let us return to our purpose and bring forward other passages of Scripture that promise nothing but bodily comforts for ceremonies, and blessedness for the universal divine law alone. Among the prophets no one taught this more clearly than Isaiah. In chapter 58, after condemning hypocrisy, he commends freedom and charity toward oneself and one’s neighbor, and for these he promises the following: then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your health shall spring up quickly, and your justice shall go before you, and the glory of God shall gather you∗∗, etc.

After this he also commends the sabbath, and for diligence in observing it he promises this: then∗∗∗ you shall delight in God, and I will make you∗∗∗∗ ride upon the heights of the earth, and I will make you eat the inheritance of Jacob your father, for the mouth of Jehovah has spoken. We see, then, that for freedom and charity the prophet promises a sound mind in a sound body, and the glory of God even after death. For ceremonies, however, he promises nothing but the security and prosperity of the state and bodily well-being.

Psalms 15 and 24 make no mention of ceremonies, only of moral precepts. This is because they deal with blessedness alone and set forth blessedness alone, though figuratively. For it is certain that by the mountain of God, his tents, and dwelling in them, they mean blessedness and tranquility of mind, not the mountain of Jerusalem or the tabernacle of Moses. No one lived in those places, and they were tended only by members of the tribe of Levi. V 12 Furthermore, all those sayings of Solomon that I cited in the previous chapter promise true blessedness for the cultivation of the intellect and wisdom alone: namely, that from it the fear of God will at length be understood and the knowledge of God found.

That the Hebrews are not bound to practice ceremonies after the destruction of their state is clear from Jeremiah. When he saw that the devastation of the city was imminent, and foretold it, he said that God loves only those who know and understand that he exercises mercy, judgment, and justice in the world; and so in the future only those who know these things are to be considered worthy of praise (see 9:23). It is as if he were saying that after the devastation of the city God requires nothing special of the Jews, and asks nothing else of them in the future beyond the natural law, by which all mortals are bound.

The New Testament, moreover, plainly confirms this very point. For in it, as we have said, only moral precepts are taught, and the kingdom of heaven is promised for them. The apostles, for their part, abandoned the ceremonies once the Gospel began to be preached to other nations as well, who were bound by the law of another commonwealth. That the Pharisees retained the ceremonies, or at least a large part of them, after the loss of their state was done more in a spirit of opposition to the Christians than to please God.

For after the first devastation of the city, when they were led captive to Babylon, they were not yet divided into sects, so far as I know, and they immediately neglected the ceremonies. Indeed, they bade farewell to the whole law of Moses, consigned the laws of their country to oblivion as quite superfluous, and began to mingle with the other nations, as is abundantly clear from Ezra and Nehemiah. There is therefore no doubt that the Jews, now that their state has been dissolved, are no more bound by the law of Moses than they were before their society and commonwealth began. For while they lived among other nations before the exodus from Egypt, they had no laws of their own. They were bound by no right except natural right—and doubtless also by the law of the commonwealth in which they lived, insofar as it did not conflict with the divine natural law.

As for the patriarchs’ sacrificing to God, I think they did so in order to stir their minds, which had been accustomed to sacrifices since childhood, to greater devotion. For from the time of Enosh all people had been thoroughly accustomed to sacrifices, so that sacrifices above all moved them to devotion. The patriarchs, then, sacrificed to God not at the command of some divine right, nor because they had been taught the universal foundations of the divine law, but solely from the custom of that time. And if they did so at anyone’s command, that command was nothing other than the law of the commonwealth in which they lived, by which they too were bound (as we have noted here and also in chapter 3, when we spoke of Melchizedek).

With this, I think, I have confirmed my view by the authority of Scripture. It remains now to show how and why the ceremonies served to preserve and establish the state of the Hebrews, and I will show this as briefly as I can from universal foundations. V 18 Society is very useful, and indeed most necessary, not only for living securely from enemies but also for sparing ourselves much labor. For unless people were willing to help one another, they would lack both the skill and the time to sustain and preserve themselves as far as possible. V 19 Not everyone is equally suited to everything, and no one on his own would be able to obtain what he most needs.

Everyone, I say, would lack the strength and the time if he alone had to plow, sow, reap, grind, cook, weave, sew, and do a great many other things to sustain life—to say nothing of the arts and sciences, which are also supremely necessary for the perfection of human nature and its blessedness. V 20 For we see that those who live in a rough state without civil order lead a wretched and almost animal life. And yet even the few wretched and crude things they have, they do not obtain without mutual help, such as it is. Now if people were so constituted by nature that they desired nothing but what true reason points to, society would surely need no laws. It would be quite enough to teach people true moral precepts, and they would do what is truly useful of their own accord, with an upright and free mind.

But human nature is constituted very differently. Everyone does seek their own advantage, but hardly by the dictate of sound reason. For the most part people desire things and judge them useful because they are carried away by mere appetite and by the affects of the mind, which take no account of the future or of anything else. V 22 Hence no society can survive without rule and force, and consequently without laws to moderate and restrain people’s appetites and unbridled impulses. Yet human nature will not allow itself to be coerced absolutely. As Seneca the tragedian says, “No one has held violent rule for long; moderate rule endures.” For as long as people act only from fear, they do what they least want to do. They take no account of the usefulness and necessity of what is to be done; their only concern is to avoid incurring death or other punishment.note

Indeed, they cannot help rejoicing at their ruler’s misfortune or loss, even when it also brings great harm to themselves. They cannot help wishing every misfortune on him and bringing it about whenever they can. Moreover, there is nothing people can bear less than to be subject to their equals and ruled by them. Finally, nothing is more difficult than to take freedom away from people once it has been granted. V 23 From this it follows, first, that either the whole society should, if possible, hold power collectively, so that everyone is bound to serve themselves and no one is bound to serve an equal; or, if a few or one alone hold power, that ruler must possess something beyond common human nature, or at least strive with all his might to persuade the common people of this.

Second, laws in any state must be so instituted that people are restrained not so much by fear as by hope of some good they greatly desire; in this way everyone will do their duty eagerly. V 25 Finally, obedience consists in carrying out commands solely on the authority of the one who commands. It follows that obedience has no place in a society where power is held by all and laws are enacted by common consent. In such a society, whether the laws are increased or reduced, the people remain just as free, because they act not on another’s authority but by their own consent.

The opposite happens where one man alone holds absolute power. For everyone carries out the commands of the state on the sole authority of one man. So unless they have been brought up from the beginning to hang on the ruler’s words, he will find it hard, when the need arises, to institute new laws and to take away freedom once it has been granted to the people.

9). So by the divine power he possessed, he established laws and prescribed them to the people. But in doing so he took the greatest care that the people should do their duty not so much from fear as willingly. Two things above all pressed him to this: the stubborn temperament of the people, which will not allow itself to be compelled by force alone, and the imminent war. In war, if things are to go well, soldiers must be encouraged rather than terrified with punishments and threats; for then each of them strives to distinguish himself by courage and greatness of spirit, rather than merely to avoid punishment. V 29 For this reason, then, Moses, by divine power and command, introduced religion into the commonwealth, so that the people would do their duty not so much from fear as from devotion.

Next, he bound them by benefits and promised them many things from God for the future. Nor did he enact very severe laws, as anyone who has studied them will readily grant—especially if he considers the conditions required to condemn an accused person. V 30 Finally, so that the people, who could not be their own masters, would hang on the words of their ruler, he allowed these men, accustomed as they were to slavery, to do nothing at their own discretion. The people could do nothing without being bound at the same time to remember the law and to carry out commands that depended solely on the ruler’s will. They were not allowed to plow, sow, or reap as they pleased, but only according to a fixed and definite command of the law. Likewise they could not eat anything, dress, shave their head or beard, celebrate, or do anything at all except according to the orders and commands prescribed in the laws. Not only that: they were also bound to have certain signs on their doorposts, on their hands, and between their eyes, to remind them always of obedience.

This, then, was the purpose of the ceremonies: that people should do nothing by their own decision but everything at another’s command, and should acknowledge, by constant actions and reflections, that they were in no way under their own right but wholly under another’s. From all this it is clearer than daylight that ceremonies contribute nothing to blessedness, and that those of the Old Testament—indeed the whole law of Moses—looked to nothing but the state of the Hebrews, and consequently to nothing beyond bodily advantages.

As for the ceremonies of Christians—namely baptism, the Lord’s Supper, festivals, outward prayers, and any others there may be that are and always have been common to all Christianity—if they were ever instituted by Christ or by the apostles (which I am not yet sufficiently sure of), they were instituted only as outward signs of the universal Church. They were not instituted as things that contribute anything to blessedness, or that have any holiness in themselves. V 33 So although these ceremonies were not instituted with regard to the state, they were instituted only with regard to the society as a whole. Therefore someone who lives alone is not bound by them at all. Indeed, someone who lives in a state where the Christian religion is forbidden is bound to abstain from these ceremonies, and can nonetheless live a blessed life.

An example of this is found in the kingdom of Japan, where the Christian religion is forbidden, and the Dutch who live there are bound, by order of the East India Company, to abstain from all outward worship. I do not think I need to confirm this by any other authority now. It would not be difficult to deduce this very point from the foundations of the New Testament as well, and perhaps also to show it by clear testimonies; but I gladly leave these things aside, because my mind is hurrying on to other matters. I proceed, then, to the second subject I resolved to treat in this chapter: for whom, and for what reason, faith in the histories contained in Holy Scripture is necessary. To investigate this by the natural light, it seems we must proceed as follows.note

But deducing things solely from intellectual notions very often requires a long chain of perceptions, as well as the greatest caution, sharpness of mind, and great self-restraint, all of which are rarely found in people. That is why people prefer to be taught by experience rather than to deduce all their perceptions from a few axioms and link them together. V 37 It follows that anyone who wants to teach some doctrine to a whole nation—not to say the whole human race—and to be understood by everyone in everything, is bound to confirm his case by experience alone. He must adapt his reasons, and the definitions of the things he teaches, as far as possible to the understanding of the people, who make up the greatest part of the human race. He must not link them together in a chain, nor give definitions in the form best suited to linking reasons together. Otherwise he will be writing only for the learned—that is, he will be understood only by very few people compared with the rest.

Since, then, the whole of Scripture was revealed first for the use of a whole nation, and eventually for the whole human race, what it contains necessarily had to be adapted as far as possible to the understanding of the people, and confirmed by experience alone. Let us explain this more clearly. The things Scripture means to teach that concern speculation alone are chiefly these: that there is a God, a being who made all things and directs and sustains them with supreme wisdom; and that he has the greatest care for human beings—namely for those who live piously and honorably—while the rest he punishes with many penalties and separates from the good. V 39 And Scripture confirms these things by experience alone, namely by the histories it narrates. It gives no definitions of these things, but adapts all its words and reasonings to the understanding of the people.

Experience cannot give any clear knowledge of these things, nor teach what God is and how he sustains and directs all things and cares for human beings. Even so, it can teach and enlighten people as much as is needed to impress obedience and devotion on their minds. V 40 From this I think it is clear enough for whom, and for what reason, faith in the histories contained in Holy Scripture is necessary. For it follows most evidently from what has just been shown that knowledge of them and faith in them are supremely necessary for the common people, whose minds are not capable of perceiving things clearly and distinctly.

It follows, second, that whoever denies them because he does not believe that God exists, or that God provides for things and for human beings, is impious. But whoever is ignorant of them and nevertheless knows by the natural light that God exists, along with the other things we have mentioned, and who also has the true way of living, is wholly blessed—indeed more blessed than the common people, because besides true opinions he also has a clear and distinct concept. V 41 Finally, it follows that whoever is ignorant of these histories of Scripture and knows nothing by the natural light is, if not impious or obstinate, still less than human and almost a beast, and has no gift of God.

But it should be noted here that when we say knowledge of the histories is supremely necessary for the common people, we do not mean knowledge of absolutely all the histories contained in Holy Scripture. We mean only the principal ones—those that by themselves, without the rest, show most evidently the doctrine we have just stated, and can most move people’s minds. V 42 For suppose all the histories of Scripture were necessary to prove its doctrine, and no conclusion could be drawn except from a comprehensive consideration of absolutely all the histories it contains. Then surely the demonstration and conclusion of its doctrine would exceed not only the understanding and powers of the people, but human understanding and powers altogether. For who could attend at once to so great a number of histories, and to all the circumstances and parts of a doctrine that would have to be drawn from so many and such diverse histories?

I at least cannot persuade myself that the men who left us Scripture as we have it were so richly gifted that they could work out such a demonstration. Much less can I believe that the doctrine of Scripture could not be understood without hearing about Isaac’s quarrels, the counsels Ahithophel gave Absalom, the civil war between the Jews and the Israelites, and other chronicles of this kind; or that the doctrine could not be demonstrated from the histories as easily to the first Jews, who lived in the time of Moses, as to those who lived in the time of Ezra. But more on this later. V 44 The common people, then, are bound to know only those histories that can most move their minds to obedience and devotion.note

But the common people themselves are not well suited to judge these histories, since they take more delight in the stories, and in the strange and unexpected outcome of events, than in the doctrine of the histories itself. For this reason, besides reading the histories, they also need pastors, or ministers of the Church, to teach them in a way suited to the weakness of their understanding. V 45 But let us not wander from our purpose. Let us conclude what we chiefly intended to show: that faith in histories, whatever they may be, does not belong to divine law, does not of itself make people blessed, and has no usefulness except with regard to doctrine—the only respect in which some histories can be better than others. V 46 The narratives contained in the Old and New Testaments, then, are better than other, secular ones, and better than one another, in proportion to the salutary opinions that follow from them.

So suppose someone reads the histories of Holy Scripture and believes them in every detail, yet pays no attention to the doctrine Scripture means to teach by them and does not amend his life. For him it is just the same as if he had read the Qur’an, or the stage plays of the poets, or at any rate ordinary chronicles, with the kind of attention the common people usually give. Conversely, as we have said, someone who is wholly ignorant of them and nevertheless has salutary opinions and a true way of living is absolutely blessed, and truly has the Spirit of Christ in him. V 47 But the Jews think quite the opposite. They maintain that true opinions and a true way of living are of no use for blessedness as long as people embrace them by the natural light alone, and not as teachings prophetically revealed to Moses. Maimonides dares to state this openly in these words, in chapter

8 of the Laws of Kings, law 11: Everyone who takes upon himself∗ the seven commandments and diligently carries them out is one of the pious of the nations and an heir of the world to come—that is, if he takes them on and carries them out because God commanded them in the law and revealed to us through Moses that they had previously been commanded to the children of Noah. But if he carries them out led by reason, he is not a resident, nor one of the pious, nor one of the wise of the nations.note

These are the words of Maimonides. To them Rabbi Joseph ben Shem Tov, in his book called Kevod Elohim, or The Glory of God, adds the following. Aristotle, whom he thinks wrote the highest ethics and whom he esteems above everyone else, omitted nothing that pertains to true ethics—which he also embraced in his Ethics—and diligently carried it all out. Even so, this could not help him toward salvation, because he did not embrace what he teaches as divine teachings prophetically revealed, but solely by the dictate of reason.note

But I think it is clear enough to anyone who reads this attentively that all this is mere fiction, supported by no reasons and by no authority of Scripture; so to refute it, it is enough to have reported it. Nor do I intend here to refute the view of those who maintain that the natural light can teach nothing sound about what pertains to true salvation. For they grant themselves no sound reason, and so they cannot prove this by any reason either. And if they boast of having something above reason, it is mere fiction and far below reason, as their usual way of life has already shown well enough. But there is no need to speak more openly about this.

I will add only this: we can know no one except by their works. So whoever abounds in these fruits—charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control, against which, as Paul says in Galatians 5:22, there is no law—whether taught by reason alone or by Scripture alone, has truly been taught by God and is wholly blessed. With this I have completed everything I had resolved to treat concerning divine law.

But what they understand by either power, and what they understand by God and Nature, they certainly do not know—except that they imagine God’s power as the rule of some royal majesty, and nature’s power as a kind of force and impetus. So the common people call unusual works of nature miracles, or works of God. Partly from devotion, and partly from a desire to oppose those who cultivate the natural sciences, they want to know nothing of the natural causes of things; they are eager to hear only what they least understand and therefore most marvel at. VI 4 That is, they can worship God and refer everything to his rule and will only by doing away with natural causes and imagining things outside the order of nature; and they never marvel more at God’s power than when they imagine the power of nature as if subdued by God.

This seems to have begun with the earliest Jews. The pagans of their time worshiped visible gods: the Sun, the Moon, the Earth, Water, Air, and so on. To prove those pagans wrong, and to show them that their gods were weak and inconstant, or changeable, and subject to the rule of an invisible God, the Jews told of their own miracles. Through these miracles they also tried to show that the whole of nature was directed, by the command of the God they worshiped, for their benefit alone. People liked this so much that to this very day they have not stopped inventing miracles, so that they might be believed dearer to God than everyone else, and the final cause for which God created all things and continually directs them.

What will the folly of the common people not claim for itself? It has no sound conception of either God or nature. It confuses what pleases God with what pleases human beings. Finally, it imagines nature to be so limited that it believes man is its chief part! I have now described at sufficient length these opinions and prejudices of the common people about nature and miracles. VI 6 But to set the matter out in order, I will show: I. That nothing happens contrary to nature, but that nature maintains an eternal, fixed, and immutable order; and at the same time, what is to be understood by a miracle. II. That from miracles we can know neither the essence nor the existence of God, and consequently not his providence either, but that all these are far better perceived from the fixed and immutable order of nature. III.

From some examples in Scripture I will show that Scripture itself means by God’s decrees and volitions, and consequently by his providence, nothing other than the very order of nature, which follows necessarily from nature’s eternal laws. IV. Finally, I will discuss how Scripture’s miracles should be interpreted, and the main points to be noted in the narratives of miracles. These are the principal matters that bear on the subject of this chapter, and I think they also contribute not a little to the aim of this whole work.

If, therefore, anything happened in nature that conflicted with nature’s universal laws, it would necessarily also conflict with the divine decree, the divine intellect, and the divine nature. If anyone maintained that God acts against the laws of nature, he would at the same time be forced to maintain that God acts against his own nature, and nothing could be more absurd. The same could also easily be shown from the fact that the power of nature is the divine power and force itself, and that the divine power is the very essence of God. For the present, though, I am glad to leave this aside.

Nothing, then,∗ happens in nature that conflicts with its universal laws. Nor does anything happen that does not agree with them or does not follow from them. For whatever happens, happens by God’s will and eternal decree. That is, as we have already shown, whatever happens, happens according to laws and rules that involve eternal necessity and truth. VI 11 Nature therefore always observes laws and rules that involve eternal necessity and truth, even though we do not know them all, and so it also observes a fixed and immutable order;

nor does any sound reason persuade us to attribute a limited power and force to nature, or to hold that its laws apply only to certain things and not to all. For since the force and power of nature are God’s own force and power, and the laws and rules of nature are God’s own decrees, we must certainly believe that the power of nature is infinite, and that its laws are so broad that they extend to everything conceived by the divine intellect itself. VI 12 Otherwise, what else are we asserting but that God created nature so powerless, and gave it laws and rules so barren, that he is often forced to come to its aid anew if he wants it preserved and wants things to turn out as he wishes? I consider this utterly foreign to reason.

We have established that nothing happens in nature that does not follow from its laws, that its laws extend to everything conceived by the divine intellect itself, and finally that nature maintains a fixed and immutable order. From these points it follows very clearly that the word “miracle” can be understood only in relation to human opinions. It means nothing but a work whose natural cause we cannot explain by the example of some other familiar thing, or at least one that the person who writes or reports the miracle cannot explain in this way.

I could indeed say that a miracle is something whose cause cannot be explained from principles of natural things known by the natural light. But miracles were performed to suit the understanding of the common people, who were wholly ignorant of the principles of natural things. So it is certain that the ancients took for a miracle whatever they could not explain in the way the common people usually explain natural things. That way is by turning to memory, in order to recall some other similar thing that they are used to imagining without wonder. For the common people think they understand a thing well enough when they do not wonder at it. VI 15 The ancients, then, and almost everyone down to the present day, have had no standard for a miracle but this. So there can be no doubt that Holy Scripture narrates as miracles many things whose causes can easily be explained from known principles of natural things. We already suggested this above in chapter

2, when we spoke of the sun standing still in the time of Joshua and going backward in the time of Ahaz. But we will deal with these matters at greater length shortly, when we discuss the interpretation of miracles, which I promised to treat in this chapter.note

Since God’s existence is not self-evident,∗ it must necessarily be inferred from notions whose truth is so firm and unshakable that no power can exist or be conceived by which they could be changed. At least they must appear so to us from the moment we infer God’s existence from them, if we want to infer it beyond all risk of doubt. For if we could conceive that these notions could be changed by some power, whatever it might be, we would doubt their truth. Consequently we would also doubt our conclusion, namely God’s existence, and we could never be certain of anything at all.

Next, we know that something agrees with nature or conflicts with it only when we have shown that it agrees or conflicts with these principles. So if we could conceive that some power (whatever it might be) could bring about something in nature that conflicts with nature, that thing would conflict with those first notions. Then either it must be rejected as absurd, or we must doubt the first notions (as we have just shown), and consequently doubt God and everything we perceive in any way at all. VI 19 So if by a miracle we mean a work that conflicts with the order of nature, miracles are far from showing us God’s existence. On the contrary, they would make us doubt it, when without them we could be absolutely certain of it, namely when we know that all things follow a definite and immutable order of nature.

But suppose that a miracle is whatever cannot be explained by natural causes. This can be understood in two ways. Either it has natural causes that the human intellect cannot discover, or it acknowledges no cause but God, or God’s will. VI 21 But everything that happens through natural causes also happens solely through God’s power and will. So in the end we must necessarily arrive at this: a miracle, whether it has natural causes or not, is a work that cannot be explained by its cause, that is, a work that exceeds human understanding. But from a work, and absolutely from anything that exceeds our understanding, we can understand nothing. For whatever we understand clearly and distinctly must become known to us either through itself or through something else that is clearly and distinctly understood through itself.

Hence from a miracle, or a work that exceeds our understanding, we can understand neither God’s essence nor his existence, nor absolutely anything about God and nature. On the contrary, we know that all things are determined and ordained by God, that the operations of nature follow from God’s essence, and that the laws of nature are God’s eternal decrees and volitions. We must therefore conclude, without qualification, that we know God and God’s will better the better we know natural things, and the more clearly we understand how they depend on their first cause and how they operate according to nature’s eternal laws.

So, as far as our intellect is concerned, the works we understand clearly and distinctly have a far better right to be called works of God, and to be referred to God’s will, than those of which we are wholly ignorant, however much the latter may occupy the imagination and carry people away in wonder at them. For only the works of nature that we understand clearly and distinctly make our knowledge of God more sublime and show God’s will and decrees most clearly. Those who resort to God’s will whenever they do not understand something are therefore simply talking nonsense. It is a ridiculous way, indeed, of confessing one’s ignorance. VI 24 Further, even if we could infer something from miracles, God’s existence could in no way be inferred from them.

For since a miracle is a limited work and never expresses anything but a definite and limited power, it is certain that from such an effect we cannot infer the existence of a cause whose power is infinite. At most we can infer a cause whose power is greater. I say “at most” because many causes acting together can also produce a work whose force and power is less than the power of all those causes combined, but far greater than the power of each single cause. VI 25 But the laws of nature (as we have already shown) extend to infinitely many things and are conceived by us under a certain aspect of eternity, and nature proceeds according to them in a definite and immutable order. To that extent, those laws do in some way indicate to us God’s infinity, eternity, and immutability.

We conclude, then, that we cannot know God, or his existence and providence, through miracles, but that these are far better inferred from the fixed and immutable order of nature. In this conclusion I am speaking of a miracle insofar as nothing is meant by it but a work that exceeds human understanding, or is believed to. For if it were supposed to destroy or interrupt the order of nature, or to conflict with nature’s laws, then to that extent (as we have just shown) it could give us no knowledge of God at all. On the contrary, it would take away the knowledge we naturally have and make us doubt God and everything else.

Nor do I recognize any difference here between a work contrary to nature and a work above nature. By the latter some mean a work that does not conflict with nature but that nature cannot produce or bring about. A miracle happens not outside nature but within nature itself. So even if it is held to be above nature, it must still interrupt the order of nature, which we otherwise conceive as fixed and immutable through God’s decrees. VI 28 If, then, anything happened in nature that did not follow from its laws, it would necessarily conflict with the order that God has established in nature for all eternity through the universal laws of nature. It would therefore be contrary to nature and its laws. Consequently, believing in it would make us doubt everything and lead us to atheism.

With this, I think, I have shown by sufficiently firm reasons what I set out to show in the second place. From these reasons we can conclude once again that a miracle, whether contrary to nature or above nature, is a sheer absurdity. Therefore, by a miracle in Holy Scripture nothing can be meant but a work of nature that, as we have said, exceeds human understanding or is believed to exceed it.

From this it clearly follows that miracles can be performed even by false prophets. It also follows that people who are not well fortified by the true knowledge and love of God can be led by miracles to embrace false gods just as easily as the true one. For Moses adds: because Jehovah your God is testing you, to know whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. VI 32 Again, the Israelites were unable to form any sound conception of God from all those miracles, as experience itself showed. When they persuaded themselves that Moses had left them, they asked Aaron for visible gods. A calf—for shame!—was the idea of God they finally formed from so many miracles. VI 33 Asaph had heard of so many miracles, yet he doubted God’s providence. He would almost have turned aside from the true path had he not finally understood true blessedness (see Psalm 73).note

Solomon too, in whose time the affairs of the Jews were at their height, suspects that everything happens by chance. See Ecclesiastes 3:19–21 and 9:2–3, etc. VI 34 Finally, almost all the prophets found one question very obscure: how the order of nature and the course of human affairs could agree with the conception they had formed of God’s providence. Yet this has always been perfectly clear to philosophers, who try to understand things not from miracles but from clear conceptions. These are the people who place true happiness in virtue alone and in peace of mind, and who strive not to make nature obey them but, on the contrary, to obey nature themselves. They know for certain that God directs nature as its universal laws require, not as the particular laws of human nature require. And so they know that God takes account not of the human race alone, but of the whole of nature.note

It is therefore established from Scripture itself as well that miracles do not give true knowledge of God and do not clearly teach God’s providence. Scripture often says that God performed wonders in order to make himself known to people. In Exodus 10:2, for example, God made sport of the Egyptians and gave signs of himself so that the Israelites might know that he was God. But it does not follow that miracles really teach this. It follows only that the Jews held opinions that made them easy to convince by those miracles. VI 36 For above, in chapter 2, we showed clearly that prophetic arguments, or those formed from revelation, are drawn not from universal and common notions. They are drawn from the assumptions, however absurd, and the opinions of those to whom things are revealed, or whom the Holy Spirit wishes to convince. We illustrated this with many examples, and also with the testimony of Paul, who was a Greek with the Greeks and a Jew with the Jews.

Those miracles could convince the Egyptians and the Jews on the basis of what they already accepted, but they could not give a true idea and knowledge of God. They could only make them grant two things. First, that there exists a deity more powerful than all the things known to them. Second, that this deity cared for the Hebrews above all others, since at that time everything had turned out for them most happily, beyond all hope. They could not make them grant that God cares for all equally, for this only philosophy can teach. VI 38 That is why the Jews persuaded themselves that they were dearer to God than others, as did all who have come to know God’s providence only from the unequal condition of human affairs and the uneven fortunes of human beings. Yet the Jews did not surpass the others in true human perfection, as we have already shown in chapter 3.

1 Samuel 9:15–16 relates that God revealed to Samuel that he would send Saul to him. Yet God did not send Saul to Samuel in the way people usually send one person to another. This sending by God was nothing other than the order of nature itself. As that chapter relates, Saul was looking for the donkeys he had lost. He was already thinking of going home without them when, on his servant’s advice, he went to the prophet Samuel to learn from him where he might find them. Nothing in the whole narrative shows that Saul had any command from God to go to Samuel other than this order of nature. VI 42 Psalm 105:24 says that God changed the hearts of the Egyptians so that they hated the Israelites. This change too was entirely natural, as is clear from Exodus

1, which gives a weighty reason that moved the Egyptians to reduce the Israelites to slavery. VI 43 In Genesis 9:13 God tells Noah that he will set a rainbow in the cloud. This action of God is surely nothing other than the refraction and reflection that the sun’s rays undergo in droplets of water. In Psalm 147:18 the natural action and warmth of the wind, by which frost and snow melt, is called the word of God, and in verse 15 wind and cold are called God’s saying and word. In Psalm 104:4 wind and fire are called God’s messengers and ministers. Many other things of this kind are found in Scripture, and they show most clearly that God’s decree, command, saying, and word are nothing other than the action and order of nature itself.

So there can be no doubt that everything narrated in Scripture happened naturally. It is nevertheless referred to God because, as we have already shown, it is not Scripture’s business to teach things through natural causes. Its business is only to narrate things that powerfully occupy the imagination, and to do so by the method and in the style best suited to make people marvel at things and so to impress devotion on the minds of the common people. VI 45 So if we find things in Holy Scripture whose causes we cannot explain, and which seem to have happened beyond, or even contrary to, the order of nature, they should not hold us up. We must firmly believe that whatever really happened, happened naturally. This is also confirmed by the fact that miracles involved a number of attendant circumstances, even though these are not always narrated, especially when the miracles are sung in poetic style. The circumstances of miracles, I say, clearly show that miracles require natural causes.

For instance, for the Egyptians to be afflicted with boils, Moses had to toss ashes up into the air (see Exodus 9:10). The locusts, too, came into the land of Egypt by a natural command of God, namely an east wind that blew for a whole day and night, and they left it by a very strong west wind (see Exodus 10:14, 19). By the same command of God the sea opened a way for the Jews (see Exodus 14:21), namely by an east wind that blew very strongly all night. VI 47 Again, to revive a boy who was believed dead, Elisha had to lie on the boy several times, until the boy first grew warm and finally opened his eyes (see 2 Kings 4:34–35). So too in the Gospel of John

9, certain circumstances are recounted that Christ made use of to heal the blind man. Many other such things are found in Scripture, and all of them show clearly enough that miracles require something other than God’s absolute command, as they call it. VI 48 So we must believe that, even though the circumstances of miracles and their natural causes are not always recounted, or not all of them, miracles nonetheless did not happen without them. This is also clear from Exodus 14:27, which relates only that the sea swelled back at a mere nod from Moses, and makes no mention of any wind. Yet the Song (Exodus 15:10) says that this happened because God blew with his wind (that is, a very strong wind). So this circumstance is left out of the narrative, and for that reason the miracle seems greater.

But perhaps someone will object that we find a great many things in Scripture that seem in no way explicable through natural causes. Examples are that people’s sins and prayers can cause rain and the fertility of the earth, or that faith could heal the blind, and other things of this kind narrated in the Bible. But I think I have already answered this. For I have shown that Scripture does not teach things through their proximate causes. It only narrates them in the order and in the phrases by which it can most move human beings, and especially the people, to devotion. For this reason it speaks about God and about things very improperly, since its aim is not to convince reason but to affect and occupy people’s fancy and imagination.

For if Scripture narrated the devastation of some state in the way political historians usually do, it would not stir the people at all. It stirs them greatly, by contrast, if it paints everything poetically and refers it to God, as it usually does. So when Scripture relates that the land is barren because of people’s sins, or that the blind were healed through faith, these things should impress us no more than when it relates that God is angered by people’s sins, grieves, and repents of the good he promised and did. The same holds when it says that God remembers his promise on seeing a sign, and of a great many other things that are either said poetically or reported according to the writer’s opinions and prejudices.

Here, then, we conclude absolutely that everything Scripture truly narrates as having happened happened necessarily, as all things do, according to the laws of nature. If anything is found that can be demonstrated apodictically to conflict with the laws of nature, or to be such that it could not have followed from them, we must believe without reservation that it was added to Holy Scripture by sacrilegious men. For whatever is contrary to nature is contrary to reason, and what is contrary to reason is absurd and must therefore be rejected.

This is why people narrate their own opinions in their chronicles and histories more than the events themselves. It is also why one and the same event is narrated so differently by two people with different opinions that they seem to be speaking of two events. And finally, it is why it is often not very hard to discover the opinions of a chronicler or historian from his histories alone. I could bring many examples to confirm this, both from philosophers who have written natural history and from chroniclers, if I did not think it superfluous. From Holy Scripture I shall cite only one, and the reader may judge the rest for himself.

In Joshua’s time the Hebrews, like the common people (as we noted above), believed that the sun moves with what is called a daily motion and that the earth stands still. To this preconceived opinion they adapted the miracle that happened to them when they fought against those five kings. They did not simply narrate that that day was longer than usual. They said that the sun and moon stood still, or ceased from their motion. At that time this could also be of no small use to them in convincing the pagans, who worshiped the sun, and in proving by experience itself that the sun is under the rule of another deity, at whose nod it is bound to change its natural order. VI 56 So, partly from religion and partly from preconceived opinions, they conceived and narrated the event very differently from the way it could really have happened.

Therefore, to interpret the miracles of Scripture and to understand from their narratives how they really happened, we need to know the opinions of those who first narrated them and left them to us in writing. We also need to distinguish those opinions from what their senses could have presented to them. Otherwise we shall confuse their opinions and judgments with the miracle itself as it really happened. And knowing their opinions matters for another reason too: it keeps us from confusing things that really happened with imaginary things that were only prophetic representations. VI 57 For Scripture narrates many things as real, and they were even believed to be real, which were nonetheless only representations and imaginary things. For instance, it says that God (the supreme being) came down from heaven (see Exodus 19:18 and Deuteronomy 5:

19), that Mount Sinai smoked because God had come down upon it surrounded by fire, and that Elijah ascended to heaven in a fiery chariot with fiery horses. All these were surely only representations, adapted to the opinions of those who handed them down to us as they had been represented to them, namely as actual events. VI 58 For everyone who is even a little wiser than the common people knows that God has no right hand or left. He neither moves nor rests, nor is he in a place. He is absolutely infinite, and all perfections are contained in him.

These things, I say, are known by those who judge things by the perceptions of the pure intellect, and not as the imagination is affected by the external senses, which is how the common people judge. That is why the common people imagine God as corporeal and holding royal power. They picture his throne in the vault of heaven above the stars, and they believe the stars to be not very far from the earth. A great many episodes in Scripture have been adapted to these and similar opinions (as we have said), and so philosophers ought not to take them as real. VI 59 Finally, to understand miracles as they really happened, it matters to know the Hebrews’ phrases and figures of speech. Anyone who does not pay enough attention to them will ascribe to Scripture many miracles that its writers never thought of narrating. He will thus be completely ignorant not only of the events and miracles as they really happened, but also of the meaning of the authors of the sacred books. VI 60 For example, Zechariah 14:

7, speaking of a future war, says: and there will be one single day, known only to God, neither (for it will be) day nor night; but at evening time there will be light. With these words he seems to foretell a great miracle. Yet he means nothing more by them than that the battle will be undecided all day, its outcome known only to God, and that at evening they will win the victory. For the prophets used to foretell and describe the victories and defeats of nations in similar phrases. VI 61 So we see Isaiah, who in chapter

13 depicts the devastation of Babylon in this way: for the stars of heaven and its constellations will not give their light; the sun will be darkened at its rising, and the moon will not send forth the brightness of its light. I do not think anyone believes that these things happened at the devastation of that state, any more than what he adds shortly after: therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be moved from its place. VI 62 So too Isaiah, in chapter 48, in the

next-to-last verse, wishing to signify to the Jews that they would return safely from Babylon to Jerusalem and would not suffer thirst on the way, says: and they did not thirst; he led them through the deserts; he made water flow from the rock for them; he split the rock, and the waters gushed out. By these words, I say, he means nothing more than that the Jews would find springs in the deserts, as happens, to relieve their thirst. For when they set out for Jerusalem with the consent of Cyrus, it is agreed that no such miracles happened to them. VI 63 A great many things of this kind occur in Holy Scripture which were merely ways of speaking among the Jews, and there is no need to review them all here one by one. I would only have this noted in general: the Hebrews were accustomed to use these phrases not only to speak ornately but also, and indeed above all, to speak devoutly.

This is why Holy Scripture says to bless God in place of to curse (see 1 Kings 1:10 and Job 2:9). For the same reason they referred everything to God, and that is why Scripture seems to narrate nothing but miracles, even when it speaks of the most natural things. We have already given several examples of this above. So we must believe that when Scripture says that God hardened Pharaoh’s heart, it means nothing more than that Pharaoh was obstinate. And when it says that God opens the windows of heaven, it means nothing more than that a great deal of rain fell, and so on.note

Anyone who pays proper attention to these points, and to the fact that many things are narrated very briefly, without any circumstances, and almost in mutilated form, will find almost nothing in Scripture that can be demonstrated to conflict with the natural light. On the contrary, with moderate reflection he will be able to understand and easily interpret many things that have seemed very obscure.

But here, concerning miracles, I needed nothing of the kind, since what we are investigating is plainly philosophical: namely, whether we can grant that something happens in nature that conflicts with its laws, or that could not follow from them. Indeed, I thought it wiser to unravel this question from foundations known by the natural light, as being the best known. I say I thought it wiser, because I could also have easily solved it from the doctrines and foundations of Scripture alone. To make this clear to everyone, I shall show it here briefly. VI 67 In some places Scripture affirms of nature in general that it keeps a fixed and immutable order, as in Psalm 148:6 and Jeremiah 31:35–36. Moreover, in his Ecclesiastes 1:10 the Philosopher teaches very clearly that nothing new happens in nature, and in versesnote

11–12, illustrating the same point, he says that although something sometimes happens that seems new, it is not new. It happened in ages that went before, of which there is no memory. For, as he says, there is no memory of those of old among people today, nor will there be any memory of people today among those who come after. VI 68 Next, in 3:11 he says that God has duly ordered all things for their time, and in verse

14 he says he knows that whatever God does will endure forever, and that nothing can be added to it or taken away from it. All of this teaches most clearly that nature keeps a fixed and immutable order. It teaches that God has been the same in all ages, both those known and those unknown to us, and that the laws of nature are so perfect and fruitful that nothing can be added to them or taken from them. Finally, it teaches that miracles seem something new only because of human ignorance. VI 69 These things, then, are expressly taught in Scripture. But nowhere does it teach that something happens in nature that conflicts with its laws or cannot follow from them, and so this should not be ascribed to Scripture either.

Add to this that miracles require causes and circumstances (as we have already shown). They follow not from some royal command or other, such as the common people ascribe to God, but from the divine command and decree—that is (as we have also shown from Scripture itself), from the laws of nature and its order. And finally, miracles can also be performed by deceivers, as is proved from Deuteronomy 13 and Matthew 24:24. VI 70 From all this it follows most evidently that miracles were natural events. They must therefore be explained so that they seem neither new (to use Solomon’s word) nor contrary to nature, but, as far as possible, as close as can be to natural things. And so that everyone can do this more easily, I have set out certain rules drawn from Scripture alone.

Still, although I say that Scripture teaches these things, I do not mean that it teaches them as doctrines necessary to salvation. I mean only that the prophets embraced them, just as we have. Everyone is therefore free to think about them as he judges best for himself, so that he may take up the worship of God and religion with his whole heart. VI 72 Josephus thinks so too, for he writes as follows at the end of Book 2 of the Antiquities:note

Let no one disbelieve the word “miracle” if to people of old, free of malice, a way of salvation was opened through the sea, whether by the will of God or of its own accord. For those too who were once with Alexander, king of Macedon, found that the Pamphylian Sea, which of old resisted, was divided; and when there was no other way, it gave them passage, by God’s will, to destroy through it the rule of the Persians. And all who have written of Alexander’s deeds admit this. Concerning these things, then, let each think as he pleases. These are Josephus’s words, and this is his judgment on belief in miracles.note

We see, I say, that theologians have mostly been concerned with how to wring their own fictions and opinions out of Holy Scripture and fortify them with divine authority. There is nothing they do with less scruple and greater rashness than interpret the Scriptures, or the mind of the Holy Spirit. And if anything worries them while they do it, it is not the fear of ascribing some error to the Holy Spirit and straying from the way of salvation. It is the fear of being convicted of error by others, so that their own authority would be trampled underfoot and they would be held in contempt.

If people sincerely meant what they profess in words about Scripture, they would live in an entirely different way. Their minds would not be troubled by so many quarrels. They would not fight one another with so much hatred. Nor would they be gripped by so blind and rash a desire to interpret Scripture and to devise novelties in religion. On the contrary, they would not dare to embrace anything as the teaching of Scripture that Scripture itself did not teach them as clearly as possible. And finally, those sacrilegious people who have not shrunk from corrupting Scripture in a great many places would have guarded most carefully against so great a crime, and would have kept their sacrilegious hands off it.

But ambition and wickedness have at last become so powerful that religion is placed not so much in obeying the teachings of the Holy Spirit as in defending human inventions. Indeed, religion has come to consist not in charity but in spreading discord among people and propagating the bitterest hatred, which they disguise under the false name of divine zeal and ardent devotion.

To these evils was added superstition, which teaches people to despise reason and nature, and to admire and venerate only what is contrary to both. VII 5 So it is no wonder that people, in order to admire and venerate Scripture all the more, try to explain it so that it seems as contrary as possible to these two, reason and nature. That is why they dream that the most profound mysteries lie hidden in Holy Scripture. They wear themselves out investigating them—that is, investigating absurdities—while neglecting everything else that is useful. Whatever they invent in this delirium they ascribe wholly to the Holy Spirit, and they try to defend it with the utmost force and with all the violence of their affects. For this is how people are made: whatever they conceive by pure intellect, they defend by intellect and reason alone; whatever, on the other hand, they believe because of the affects of the mind, they defend by those same affects.

The method of interpreting nature consists chiefly in putting together a history of nature, from which, as from certain data, we infer the definitions of natural things. In just the same way, to interpret Scripture we must prepare a faithful history of it, and from this, as from certain data and principles, infer the mind of the authors of Scripture by legitimate inferences. VII 8 For in this way everyone will always proceed without any danger of error—provided, of course, that he admits no other principles or data for interpreting Scripture and discussing what it contains than those drawn from Scripture itself and its history. He will be able to discuss things that surpass our grasp just as safely as things we know by the natural light.

This way is not only certain but also the only one, and it agrees with the method of interpreting nature. To make that clear, we should note that Scripture very often deals with things that cannot be deduced from principles known by the natural light. For the greatest part of it is made up of historical narratives and revelations. VII 10 The narratives consist mainly of miracles, that is (as we showed in the previous chapter), accounts of unusual things in nature, adapted to the opinions and judgments of the historians who wrote them. The revelations, too, were adapted to the opinions of the prophets, as we showed in the second chapter, and they genuinely surpass human grasp. Therefore knowledge of all these things—that is, of almost everything contained in Scripture—must be sought from Scripture alone, just as knowledge of nature must be sought from nature itself.

As for the moral teachings that the Bible also contains, they can indeed be demonstrated from common notions. But it cannot be demonstrated from those notions that Scripture teaches them. That can be established only from Scripture itself. Indeed, if we want to testify to the divinity of Scripture without prejudice, it must be established for us from Scripture alone that it teaches true moral teachings. For only from this can its divinity be demonstrated. We have shown that the certainty of the prophets was established chiefly by the fact that they had minds inclined to what is right and good. So this same thing must also be established for us, if we are to put our faith in them. VII 12 And we have already shown that God’s divinity cannot be proved from miracles—to say nothing of the fact that miracles could also be performed by a false prophet. Therefore the divinity of Scripture must be established from this alone: that it teaches true virtue.

But this can be established only from Scripture. If it could not, we would be embracing Scripture and testifying to its divinity out of great prejudice. So all knowledge of Scripture must be sought from Scripture alone. VII 13 Finally, Scripture does not give definitions of the things it speaks about, any more than nature does. So just as the definitions of natural things must be inferred from the various operations of nature, these definitions must likewise be drawn out from the various narratives about each thing that occur in the Scriptures. VII 14 The universal rule for interpreting Scripture, then, is to attribute nothing to Scripture as its teaching that we have not perceived with the utmost clarity from its history. What sort of history this must be, and what it must chiefly relate, I must now explain.

To make all this clearer, I will illustrate it with an example. VII 18 These statements of Moses, that God is fire and that God is jealous, are as clear as can be, so long as we attend only to the meaning of the words. So I place them among the clear statements, even though with respect to truth and reason they are very obscure. Indeed, even though their literal meaning conflicts with the natural light, that literal meaning must still be retained, unless it is also clearly opposed to the principles and foundations drawn from the history of Scripture. Conversely, if these statements, taken literally, were found to conflict with principles drawn from Scripture, then however well they agreed with reason, they would still have to be interpreted otherwise (that is, metaphorically).note

So, to know whether or not Moses believed that God is fire, we must in no way infer it from whether this opinion agrees with reason or conflicts with it. We must infer it only from other statements of Moses himself. Moses also clearly teaches in many places that God has no likeness to visible things in the heavens, on the earth, or in the water. From this we must conclude that either this statement or all those others must be explained metaphorically. VII 20 But since we must depart from the literal meaning as little as possible, we must first ask whether this single statement, God is fire, admits any meaning other than the literal one—that is, whether the word fire signifies anything other than natural fire.

If usage showed that the word signifies nothing else, then this statement could not be interpreted in any other way either, however much it conflicts with reason. On the contrary, all the other statements, however consistent with reason, would have to be accommodated to it. VII 21 And if even this could not be done according to the usage of the language, then these statements would be irreconcilable, and we would have to suspend judgment about them. But the word “fire” is also used for anger and jealousy (see Job 31:12). So the statements of Moses are easily reconciled, and we legitimately conclude that these two statements, God is fire and God is jealous, are one and the same statement. VII 22 Further, Moses clearly teaches that God is jealous, and nowhere teaches that God lacks passions, or emotions of the mind. So we must plainly conclude that Moses believed this very thing, or at least wished to teach it, however much we may believe that this statement conflicts with reason.

For, as we have already shown, we may not twist the mind of Scripture to fit the dictates of our reason and our preconceived opinions. All knowledge of the Bible must be sought from the Bible alone.

Next, so as not to confuse eternal teachings with those that could be useful only for a time or to only a few, it also matters to know on what occasion, at what time, and for what nation or age all the teachings were written. VII 25 Finally, it matters to know the other things we mentioned. Then, besides the authority of each book, we may also know whether or not it could have been defiled by corrupting hands, whether errors have crept in, and whether these have been corrected by men sufficiently skilled and trustworthy. All this is very necessary to know. Otherwise we will be carried away by blind impulse and embrace whatever is thrust upon us, instead of embracing only what is certain and beyond doubt.

In examining natural things, we try first of all to investigate the most universal things, those common to the whole of nature—namely, motion and rest, and their laws and rules, which nature always observes and through which it continually acts. From these we proceed step by step to other, less universal things. In the same way, we must first seek from the history of Scripture what is most universal: what is the basis and foundation of the whole of Scripture, and what, finally, all the prophets commend in it as an eternal teaching most useful to all mortals. For example, that there exists a God, one and omnipotent, who alone is to be worshiped, who cares for all, and who loves above all those who worship him and love their neighbor as themselves, and so on.

These and similar things, I say, Scripture teaches everywhere so clearly and so explicitly that no one has ever been in doubt about its meaning on these points. But what God is, and in what way he sees all things and provides for them—these and similar things Scripture does not teach expressly, as an eternal doctrine. On the contrary, we have already shown above that the prophets themselves did not agree on these matters. So nothing on such subjects should be laid down as the teaching of the Holy Spirit, even though it can be determined very well by the natural light.

Once this universal teaching of Scripture is properly known, we must then proceed to other, less universal things. These nevertheless concern the common conduct of life and flow from this universal teaching like streams—such as all the particular outward actions of true virtue, which can be exercised only when the occasion arises. Whatever is found obscure or ambiguous about these in the Scriptures must be explained and determined from the universal teaching of Scripture. And if any passages are found that contradict one another, we must see on what occasion, at what time, or for whom they were written. VII 30 For example, when Christ says, Blessed are those who mourn, for they will receive comfort, we do not know from this text what kind of mourners he means. But he later teaches that we should be anxious about nothing except the kingdom of God alone and its righteousness, which he commends as the highest good (see Matthew 6:note

33). It follows that by mourners he means only those who mourn that the kingdom of God and its righteousness are neglected by people. For only those who love nothing but the divine kingdom, or equity, and utterly despise the other gifts of fortune can mourn this. VII 31 So too when he says, But whoever strikes you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also, and what follows. If Christ were commanding this to judges, as a lawgiver, he would have destroyed the law of Moses by this precept. Yet he openly warns against that (see Matthew 5:17). So we must see who said this, to whom, and at what time. VII 32 It was Christ who said it, and he did not institute laws as a lawgiver but taught teachings as a teacher, because (as we showed above) he wanted to correct not so much outward actions as the mind.note

Moreover, he said this to oppressed people, who were living in a corrupt commonwealth where justice was utterly neglected, and whose ruin he saw to be imminent. And we see that this very thing which Christ teaches here, when the city’s ruin was imminent, Jeremiah also taught at the first destruction of the city, that is, at a similar time (see Lamentations 3, letters

Teth and Yod). VII 33 The prophets taught this only in times of oppression, and it was nowhere laid down as a law. Moses, on the contrary, did not write in a time of oppression, but—note this—worked to establish a good commonwealth; and although he too condemned revenge and hatred of one’s neighbor, he nevertheless commanded that an eye be paid for an eye. From the foundations of Scripture alone, then, it follows very clearly that this teaching of Christ and Jeremiah about tolerating injury and yielding to the wicked in everything applies only where justice is neglected and in times of oppression, not in a good commonwealth. Indeed, in a good commonwealth, where justice is upheld, everyone who wishes to be considered just is bound to bring injuries before a judge (see Leviticus 5:1), not for revenge (see Leviticus 19:note

17–18), but with the intention of defending justice and the laws of his country, and so that it may not profit the wicked to be wicked. VII 34 All of this also agrees completely with natural reason. I could bring forward many other examples of this kind, but I think these suffice to explain my meaning and the usefulness of this method, which is all I am concerned with at present. Up to this point, however, we have taught how to investigate only those statements of Scripture that concern the conduct of life, which can therefore be investigated more easily. For in fact there has never been any controversy about them among the writers of the Bible.

The other things that occur in the Scriptures, which belong solely to speculation, cannot be traced so easily, for the path to them is narrower. In speculative matters the prophets disagreed among themselves (as we have already shown), and the narratives of events are very much adapted to the prejudices of each age. So we are by no means permitted to infer the mind of one prophet from clearer passages of another, or to explain one by the other, unless it is established beyond all doubt that they held one and the same opinion.

Above, in the appropriate places, I have shown with many examples what caution we must use here, so that we do not confuse the mind of the prophets and historians with the mind of the Holy Spirit and with the truth of the matter. So I need not treat this at greater length. But one thing must be noted about the meaning of revelations. This method teaches us to investigate only what the prophets really saw or heard, not what they meant to signify or represent by those hieroglyphs. That we can guess at, but we cannot deduce it with certainty from the foundations of Scripture. VII 38 We have thus shown the way to interpret Scripture, and at the same time demonstrated that it is the only way, and the surest, to discover its true meaning.

I admit, of course, that some people would be more certain of its meaning, if any such people exist: those who possess a sure tradition of it, that is, a true explanation received from the prophets themselves, as the Pharisees claim; or those who have a pontiff who cannot err in interpreting Scripture, as the Roman Catholics boast. VII 39 Yet since we can be certain neither of this tradition nor of the pontiff’s authority, we can build nothing certain on them either. The earliest Christians denied the pontiff’s authority, and the most ancient sects of the Jews denied the tradition. Other points aside, look at the series of years that the Pharisees received from their rabbis, by which they trace this tradition back to Moses. We will find that series to be false, as I show elsewhere.

Such a tradition, then, ought to be highly suspect to us. Our method does oblige us to assume that one tradition of the Jews is uncorrupted, namely the meaning of the words of the Hebrew language, which we received from them. But we doubt the other tradition, and not this one. For it could never have been of use to anyone to change the meaning of a word, though it has quite often been useful to change the sense of a passage. VII 41 Indeed, changing a word’s meaning would be extremely difficult. Whoever tried it would at the same time be forced to deal with every author who wrote in that language and used that word in its accepted meaning. He would have to explain each of them according to that author’s own character and mind, or else corrupt them with the greatest care.

Moreover, the common people preserve the language along with the learned, but only the learned preserve the meaning of passages and the books themselves. So we can easily conceive that the learned could have altered or corrupted the meaning of a passage in some very rare book in their keeping. They could not have done the same to the meaning of words. Add to this that someone who wanted to change the accustomed meaning of a word into another could not easily keep to the change afterward, whether speaking or writing. VII 43 For these and other reasons, then, we are easily persuaded that it could never have occurred to anyone to corrupt a language. It has often occurred to people to corrupt the mind of some writer, by altering his statements or interpreting them wrongly.

The ancient students of the Hebrew language left nothing to posterity about its foundations and principles. At any rate, we have absolutely nothing from them: no dictionary, no grammar, no rhetoric. The Hebrew nation has lost all its ornaments and all its glory, which is no wonder after it has suffered so many disasters and persecutions. It has kept only a few fragments of the language and of a few books. Almost all the names of fruits, birds, fish, and a great many other things have perished through the ravages of time. Then too, the meaning of many nouns and verbs that occur in the Bible is either completely unknown or disputed. VII 46 We lack all this, and above all we lack the phraseology of the language. All-devouring time has erased from human memory nearly all the idioms and turns of speech peculiar to the Hebrew nation.

So we will not always be able, as we would wish, to investigate every meaning that a passage can bear according to the usage of the language. Many passages will occur that are expressed in perfectly familiar words, yet whose meaning will be very obscure and quite incomprehensible. VII 47 We cannot have a complete history of the Hebrew language. On top of this comes the very structure and nature of the language, from which so many ambiguities arise that it is impossible to find a method∗ that would teach us to discover with certainty the true meaning of every passage of Scripture. Besides the causes of ambiguity common to all languages, this language has others of its own, which give rise to a great many ambiguities. I think it worthwhile to note them here.

Those who do not know this cannot see how to excuse the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. In Hebrews 11:21 he interpreted Genesis 47:31 very differently from the pointed Hebrew text, as if the apostle had been obliged to learn the meaning of Scripture from the punctuators! To me, certainly, it is rather the punctuators who seem to be at fault. So that everyone may see this, and see also that the discrepancy arises solely from the lack of vowels, I will set out both interpretations here. VII 54 The punctuators, by means of their points, interpreted the verse as and Israel bowed himself upon, or (changing ע hgain into א aleph, a letter of the same organ) toward the head of the bed. But the author of the epistle has and Israel bowed himself upon the head of his staff. He read מטה mate where the others read מטה mita, a difference that arises solely from the vowels.note

That narrative deals only with Jacob’s old age, not with his illness, as the following chapter does. So it seems more likely that the historian meant that Jacob bowed himself upon the head of his staff, not of his bed, since very old people need a staff to support themselves. This is all the more likely because this reading requires us to assume no substitution of letters. VII 55 With this example I wanted not only to reconcile that passage of the Epistle to the Hebrews with the text of Genesis. Above all, I wanted to show how little trust should be placed in the modern points and accents. Anyone who wants to interpret Scripture without prejudice is therefore bound to doubt them and examine them afresh.

from the mind of another, except in matters concerning the conduct of life, as we have already clearly shown. We cannot do so when they speak about speculative matters, or when they narrate miracles or histories. VII 57 I could also show by some examples that the Holy Scriptures contain many passages that cannot be explained. For the present, however, I would rather pass over them. I will go on to note the remaining points: what further difficulties this true method of interpreting Scripture involves, and what it lacks.

Suppose we read a book that contains incredible or incomprehensible things, or is written in very obscure terms. If we know neither its author nor when or on what occasion he wrote it, we will try in vain to become certain of its true meaning. VII 60 For while all this remains unknown, we cannot possibly know what the author intended or could have intended. When we do know these things well, we can direct our thoughts so that no prejudice takes hold of us. We will then attribute neither more nor less than is just to the author, or to the person for whom he wrote. We will also think only of what the author could have had in mind, or what the time and occasion required. This, I think, is plain to everyone. VII 61 It very often happens that we read very similar stories in different books and judge them very differently, according to our different opinions of their writers.

I remember once reading in a certain book about a man named Orlando Furioso. He used to ride a winged monster through the air and fly over whatever regions he pleased. Single-handed, he slaughtered a huge number of men and giants. The book contained other fantasies of this kind that are entirely incomprehensible to the intellect. VII 62 I had read a very similar story about Perseus in Ovid. I had also read others in the books of Judges and Kings, about Samson, who alone and unarmed slaughtered thousands of men, and about Elijah, who flew through the air and at last went up to heaven with horses and a chariot of fire. These stories, I say, are entirely similar, yet we judge each of them very differently. We decide that the first writer meant to write nothing but trifles, the second political matters, and the third sacred ones. We persuade ourselves of this for no other reason than the opinions we hold about their writers.note

It is clear, then, that if we want to interpret the writings of authors who wrote about obscure things, or things incomprehensible to the intellect, we must above all know who those authors were. For the same reasons, we need to choose the true readings from among the various readings of obscure stories. To do so, we must know in whose copy these variant readings were found. We must also know whether many other readings were ever found among other people of greater authority. VII 64 Finally, interpreting certain books of Scripture by this method meets one more difficulty: we do not have them in the language in which they were first written. According to common opinion, the Gospel according to Matthew, and no doubt the Epistle to the Hebrews as well, were written in Hebrew, yet those Hebrew texts do not survive. As for the book of Job, it is disputed in what language it was written.

Ibn Ezra asserts in his commentaries that it was translated into Hebrew from another language, and that this is the cause of its obscurity. I say nothing of the apocryphal books, since their authority is of a very different kind. VII 65 These, then, are all the difficulties that I had undertaken to set out. They face this method of interpreting Scripture from such history of it as we can have. I consider them so great that I do not hesitate to affirm the following: in very many places we either do not know the true meaning of Scripture, or we can only guess at it without certainty.

But on the other hand it must be noted again that all these difficulties can only prevent us from attaining the mind of the prophets about incomprehensible things, things we can only imagine. They cannot prevent us from attaining it about things that we can also grasp with the intellect and of which we can easily form a clear concept∗. Things that are by their nature easily perceived can never be expressed so obscurely that they are not easily understood. As the proverb says, a word to the wise is enough.

Euclid wrote only about very simple and highly intelligible things, and so anyone can easily explain him in any language. To attain his mind and be certain of his true meaning, we do not need a complete knowledge of the language in which he wrote. A very ordinary, almost schoolboy knowledge is enough. Nor do we need to know the author’s life, pursuits, and character, or in what language, for whom, or when he wrote. We need not know the fortunes of the book or its various readings, or how, or by whose council, it was accepted. VII 68 What is said here of Euclid must be said of everyone who has written about things that are by their nature comprehensible. So we conclude that we can easily attain the mind of Scripture about moral teachings from such history of it as we can have, and be certain of its true meaning.

The teachings of true piety are expressed in the most ordinary words, since they are very common, no less simple, and easy to understand. True salvation and blessedness consist in true contentment of mind, and we are truly content only with what we understand most clearly. VII 69 From this it follows most evidently that we can attain with certainty the mind of Scripture about the things that bring salvation and are necessary for blessedness. So there is no reason for us to be so anxious about the rest. For the most part we cannot embrace those other things with reason and intellect, and so they hold more curiosity than usefulness.

Compare them, if you like, with the explanations of those who candidly admit that they have no light but the natural one, and they will be found to be exactly alike: human, that is, long pondered and arrived at with effort. VII 73 Their claim that the natural light is not sufficient for this is plainly false. It is false, first, because we have already demonstrated that the difficulty of interpreting Scripture has not arisen from any lack of power in the natural light. It has arisen only from the negligence (not to say malice) of people who neglected the history of Scripture while they could still have put it together. It is false, second, because (as everyone, unless I am mistaken, admits) this supernatural light is a divine gift granted only to the faithful. VII 74 But the prophets and apostles used to preach not only to the faithful but above all to unbelievers and the impious, who were therefore capable of understanding the meaning of the prophets and apostles.

Otherwise the prophets and apostles would seem to have been preaching to little boys and infants, not to men endowed with reason. And Moses would have prescribed his laws in vain if they could be understood only by the faithful, who need no law. So those who seek a supernatural light in order to understand the meaning of the prophets and apostles seem truly to be in need of the natural light. I am therefore very far from thinking that such people possess a supernatural divine gift.

More Nebuchim [The Guide of the Perplexed]. For he says: *Know that it is not on account of the texts in Scripture about the creation of the world that we shrink from saying that the world has existed from eternity.note

For the texts that teach that the world was created are no more numerous than those that teach that God is corporeal. Nor are the ways of explaining the texts found on this matter of the world’s creation closed to us, or even obstructed. We could have explained them just as we did when we removed corporeality from God. And perhaps this would have been much easier to do: we could have explained them more conveniently and established the eternity of the world than we could when we explained the Scriptures so as to remove the claim that God, blessed be he, is corporeal. But that I do not do this, and do not believe this (namely, that the world is eternal), two reasons move me. First, because it is established by clear demonstration that God is not corporeal, and it is necessary to explain all those passages whose literal sense contradicts the demonstration, for it is certain that, in that case, an explanation (other than the literal one) necessarily exists for them.

But the eternity of the world is not shown by any demonstration. So it is not necessary to do violence to the Scriptures and explain them away for the sake of a merely plausible opinion, toward the contrary of which we might incline if some reason persuaded us. The second reason is that believing God to be incorporeal does not contradict the fundamentals of the Law, etc. But to believe in the eternity of the world, in the way Aristotle thought of it, destroys the Law from its foundation,* etc. VII 77 These are Maimonides’ words, and from them what we just said clearly follows. For if it were established for him by reason that the world is eternal, he would not hesitate to twist and explain Scripture until in the end it seemed to teach this very thing.

Indeed, he would at once be certain that Scripture, even though it everywhere openly protests against it, had nevertheless meant to teach this eternity of the world. So he cannot be certain of the true meaning of Scripture, however clear it is, as long as he can doubt the truth of the matter, or as long as that truth is not established for him. For as long as the truth of a thing is not established, we do not know whether it agrees with reason or contradicts it. Consequently, for just as long, we also do not know whether the literal sense is true or false. VII 78 If this view were true, I would grant without reservation that we need something besides the natural light to interpret Scripture.

For almost nothing found in the Scriptures can be deduced from principles known by the natural light (as we have already shown). So nothing about the truth of these things can be established for us by the power of the natural light, and consequently nothing about the true meaning and intention of Scripture either. For this we would necessarily need another light.

Next, if this view were true, it would follow that the common people, who for the most part know nothing of demonstrations or have no time for them, could accept nothing about Scripture except on the sole authority and testimony of those who philosophize. Consequently, they would have to suppose that philosophers cannot err in interpreting Scripture. That would certainly be a new authority of the Church, and a new kind of priests or pontiffs, which the common people would laugh at rather than revere. VII 80 Our method, it is true, requires a knowledge of the Hebrew language, which the common people likewise have no time to study. But no similar objection can be raised against us. For the common people among the Jews and Gentiles, to whom the prophets and apostles once preached and wrote, understood the language of the prophets and apostles, and through it also grasped the meaning of the prophets. What they did not understand were the reasons for the things the prophets preached—which, on Maimonides’ view, they would also have had to know in order to grasp the prophets’ meaning.

So it does not necessarily follow from the nature of our method that the common people must rely on the testimony of interpreters. For I can point to a common people who understood the language of the prophets and apostles. Maimonides, however, will point to no common people who understood the causes of things, from which they could grasp the prophets’ meaning. VII 82 As for the common people of today, we have already shown that everything necessary for salvation, even if its reasons are unknown, can easily be grasped in any language, because it is so ordinary and familiar. It is in this grasp, and not in the testimony of interpreters, that the common people rest content. As for everything else, in these matters they share the same fortune as the learned. VII 83 But let us return to Maimonides’ view and examine it more closely. First, he supposes that the prophets agreed with one another in everything and were consummate philosophers and theologians, for he holds that they drew their conclusions from the truth of the matter. But we showed in chapter 2 that this is false.

Next, he supposes that the meaning of Scripture cannot be established from Scripture itself. For the truth of things is not established from Scripture itself, since Scripture demonstrates nothing and does not teach the things it speaks of through their definitions and first causes. Hence, on Maimonides’ view, its true meaning cannot be established from it either, and so must not be sought from it. But the present chapter shows that this too is false. For we have shown, both by reason and by examples, that the meaning of Scripture is established from Scripture alone, and must be sought from it alone, even when it speaks of things known by the natural light. VII 85 Finally, he supposes that we are permitted to explain and twist the words of Scripture according to our preconceived opinions, and to deny the literal sense, however obvious or explicit, and change it into any other sense we please.

This license is diametrically opposed to what we have demonstrated in this chapter and in others. Beyond that, everyone can see that it is excessive and reckless. VII 86 But let us grant him this great freedom: what does it achieve in the end? Nothing at all. For the things that cannot be demonstrated, which make up the greater part of Scripture, we shall not be able to investigate in this way, nor to explain or interpret them by this rule. By following our method, on the other hand, we can explain many things of this kind and discuss them with confidence, as we have already shown both by reason and by actually doing it. And as for the things that are by their nature perceptible, their meaning, as we have also shown, is easily drawn from the context of the passages alone. So this method is entirely useless.

Add to this that it completely takes away all the certainty about the meaning of Scripture that the common people can have from a straightforward reading, and that anyone can have by following another method. We therefore dismiss this view of Maimonides as harmful, useless, and absurd.

But since they show us no such evidence, their authority remains highly suspect. And lest anyone, misled by the example of the high priest of the Hebrews, should think that the catholic religion also needs a pontiff, it should be noted that the laws of Moses were the public law of the country, and so they necessarily required some public authority to preserve them. For if everyone had the freedom to interpret public law at his own discretion, no commonwealth could survive. It would be dissolved at once by that very fact, and public right would become private right. VII 90 But the case of religion is quite different. Since it consists not so much in external actions as in simplicity and sincerity of heart, it does not fall under any public right or authority.note

For simplicity and sincerity of heart are not instilled in people by the command of laws or by public authority, and absolutely no one can be compelled by force or by laws to become blessed. What this requires is devout and brotherly counsel, a good upbringing, and above all one’s own free judgment. VII 91 The supreme right to think freely, even about religion, belongs to each person, and it is inconceivable that anyone could give up this right. Therefore each person will also have the supreme right and the supreme authority to judge freely about religion, and consequently to explain and interpret it for himself. VII 92 For the supreme authority to interpret the laws, and the supreme judgment on public affairs, rest with the magistrate for no other reason than that they are matters of public right. So for the same reason the supreme authority to explain religion and to judge about it will rest with each individual—namely, because it is a matter of each individual’s own right.

It is therefore very far from being the case that, from the authority of the high priest of the Hebrews to interpret the laws of the country, one could infer the authority of the Roman pontiff to interpret religion. On the contrary, it is far more easily inferred from the former that each person has this authority in the highest degree. VII 94 From this too we can show that our method of interpreting Scripture is the best. For since the greatest authority to interpret Scripture lies with each person, the rule of interpretation must be nothing but the natural light common to all—not any light above nature, nor any external authority. Nor must it be so difficult that only the sharpest philosophers can apply it. It must be suited to the natural and common intelligence and capacity of people, as we have shown ours to be. For we have seen that the difficulties it now has arose from people’s negligence, not from the nature of the method.

But I fear that I am undertaking this too late. Things have now almost reached the point where people will not allow themselves to be corrected on this matter, and instead stubbornly defend whatever they have embraced under the guise of religion. No room seems to be left for reason, except among very few (compared with the rest), so widely have these prejudices taken hold of people’s minds. Still, I will make the effort and will not stop trying, since there is no reason to despair of this altogether.

if only you understand the mystery of the twelve, and also “and Moses wrote the law,” and “the Canaanite was then in the land,” “on the mount of God it will be revealed,” and also “behold, his bed was a bed of iron,” then you will know the truth.* VIII 6 With these few words he indicates, and at the same time shows, that it was not Moses who wrote the Pentateuch but someone else who lived long afterward, and finally that the book Moses wrote was a different one. To show this, I say, he notes, first, the very preface of Deuteronomy, which could not have been written by Moses, since Moses did not cross the Jordan. VIII 7 He notes, second, that the whole book of Moses was written out very distinctly on the circumference of a single altar alone (see Deuteronomy 27 and Joshua 8:

37, etc.), which, according to the account of the rabbis, consisted of only twelve stones. From this it follows that the book of Moses was far smaller in size than the Pentateuch. This, I say, is what I think this author meant by “the mystery of the twelve.” Perhaps, though, he meant the twelve curses found in the chapter of Deuteronomy just mentioned, which he may have believed were not written in the book of the Law. His reason would be that Moses, besides having the law written out, also orders the Levites to recite those curses, so as to bind the people by oath to observe the laws that had been written out. Or perhaps he meant the last chapter of Deuteronomy, on the death of Moses, which consists of twelve verses. But there is no need to examine these guesses, and the others people make, any more closely here. VIII 8 He then notes, third, that it is said in Deuteronomy 31:

9, and Moses wrote the law. These words cannot be Moses’ own; they must belong to another writer, who is narrating what Moses did and wrote. VIII 9 He notes, fourth, the passage Genesis 12:6, where, in narrating that Abraham was traveling through the land of the Canaanites, the historian adds that the Canaanite was then in that land. By these words he clearly excludes the time at which he was writing.

So this must have been written after the death of Moses, when the Canaanites had already been driven out and no longer held those regions. Ibn Ezra indicates the same thing in his commentary on this passage, in these words: “And the Canaanite was then in that land”: it seems that Canaan (Noah’s grandson) took the land of the Canaanite, which had been held by someone else; and if this is not true, there is a mystery in this matter, and let whoever understands it keep silent. That is, if Canaan invaded those regions, the sense will be that the Canaanite was already then in that land, which excludes, of course, the earlier time when it was inhabited by another nation. But if Canaan was the first to settle those regions (as follows from Genesis 10),

then the text excludes the present time, namely the writer’s own. So it is not by Moses, since in his time they still held those regions. And this is the mystery he advises us to keep silent about. VIII 10 Fifth, he notes that in Genesis 22:14 Mount Moriah∗ is called the mountain of God. It did not have this name until after it had been dedicated to the building of the temple, and this choice of the mountain had not yet been made in Moses’ time. Moses does not point to any place chosen by God. On the contrary, he foretells that God will one day choose some place, which will be given the name of God. VIII 11 Sixth and finally, he notes that in Deuteronomy 3 these words are inserted into the account of Og, king of Bashan: Only Og king of Bashan remained of the rest of the∗∗ giants; behold, his bed was a bed of iron, that (bed), surely, which is in Rabbah of the children of Ammon, nine cubits long etc.

This parenthesis shows very clearly that the writer of these books lived long after Moses. This way of speaking belongs only to someone who is narrating very ancient events and who points to their surviving relics in order to win belief. And no doubt this bed was first found in the time of David, who subdued this city, as is narrated in 2 Samuel 12:30. VIII 12 And not only here. A little further on, too, the same historian inserts into Moses’ words: Jair the son of Manasseh took the whole jurisdiction of Argob, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maacathites, and called those places, together with Bashan, by his own name, the villages of Jair, to this day.

The historian adds this, I say, to explain the words of Moses he had just reported, namely: and the rest of Gilead and all Bashan, the kingdom of Og, I gave to the half-tribe of Manasseh, all the jurisdiction of Argob under all Bashan, which is called the land of the giants. VIII 13 In this writer’s time the Hebrews no doubt knew which were the villages of Jair, of the tribe of Judah, but not by the name of the jurisdiction of Argob or of the land of the giants. So he was compelled to explain which places these were that had been so called in ancient times. At the same time he had to give the reason why, in his own day, they bore the name of Jair, who was of the tribe of Judah and not of Manasseh (see 1 Chronicles 2:21–22). VIII 14 With this we have explained Ibn Ezra’s view, together with the passages of the Pentateuch he adduces to confirm it. But he did not note all of them, nor the most important. Many more remain to be noted in these books, and of greater weight. VIII 15 First,

the writer of these books not only speaks of Moses in the third person but also bears witness to many things about him. For example: God spoke with Moses. God spoke with Moses face to face. Moses was the humblest of all men (Numbers 12:3). Moses was angry with the commanders of the army (Numbers 31:14). Moses, the man of God (Deuteronomy 33:1). Moses the servant of God died. There never arose a prophet in Israel like Moses etc. VIII 16 In Deuteronomy, by contrast, where the law that Moses had explained to the people and had written down is set out, Moses speaks and narrates his own deeds in the first person: God spoke to me (Deuteronomy 2:1, 17, etc.), I prayed to God etc.

The exception is the end of the book. There, after reporting Moses’ words, the historian again speaks in the third person. He goes on to narrate how Moses delivered this law (the one he had explained) to the people in writing, how he admonished them for the last time, and how at last he ended his life. All of this—the way of speaking, the testimonies, and the very context of the whole history—plainly suggests that these books were composed by someone else, not by Moses himself. VIII 17 Second, we should also note that this history does more than narrate how Moses died, how he was buried, and how he plunged the Hebrews into thirty days of mourning. It also compares him with all the prophets who lived afterward and says that he surpassed them all.

There never arose, it says, a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom God knew face to face. Such testimony surely could not have been given by Moses about himself, nor by someone who came immediately after him. Only someone who lived many centuries later could have given it, especially since the historian speaks of past time: “there never arose a prophet,” etc. And he says of the burial that no one has known it to this very day. VIII 18 Third, we should note that certain places are not referred to by the names they bore in Moses’ lifetime but by others they were given long afterward. For example, Abraham pursued his enemies as far as Dan (see Genesis 14:14), a name this city did not receive until long after Joshua’s death (see Judges 18:29). VIII 19 Fourth, the histories sometimes extend even beyond the span of Moses’ life.

Exodus 16:34 narrates that the children of Israel ate manna for forty years, until they came to an inhabited land, until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. That is, up to the time spoken of in Joshua 5:12. Again, Genesis 36:31 says: These are the kings who reigned in Edom before a king reigned over the children of Israel. There, no doubt, the historian is recording which kings the Idumaeans had before David subdued them∗∗∗ and set governors over Idumaea itself. VIII 20 (See 2 Samuel 8:14.)

Exodus 24:4, 7 also attests another book, called ספר הברית∗, the book of the covenant, which Moses read before the Israelites when they first entered into the covenant with God. But this book, or letter, contained very little: namely, the laws or commands of God narrated from Exodus 20:22 to chapter 24 of the same book. No one will deny this who has read that chapter with any sound judgment and without partisanship. VIII 23 For it is narrated there that as soon as Moses learned the people’s mind about entering into a covenant with God, he immediately wrote down God’s words and laws. At daybreak, after certain ceremonies had been performed, he read out to the whole assembly the terms of the covenant to be entered into. When these had been read out, and no doubt understood by all the people, the people bound themselves with full consent.

So it follows, both from the short time in which this book was written and from the nature of the covenant to be entered into, that it contained nothing beyond the few things I have just mentioned. VIII 24 Finally, it is established that in the fortieth year after the exodus from Egypt Moses explained all the laws he had given (see Deuteronomy 1:5) and bound the people to them anew (see Deuteronomy 29:14). At last he wrote a book that contained these laws as explained, together with this new covenant (see Deuteronomy 31:9). This was called the book of the law of God. Joshua later added to it an account of the covenant by which the people bound themselves afresh in his time, the third covenant they entered into with God (see Joshua 24:25–26).

But we have no book that contains this covenant of Moses together with the covenant of Joshua. So we must necessarily grant that this book has been lost—or else rave along with the Chaldean paraphrast Jonathan and twist the words of Scripture as we please. Troubled by this difficulty, he preferred to corrupt Scripture rather than admit his ignorance. VIII 26 These words of the book of Joshua (see 24:26), and Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, he translated into Chaldean as follows: and Joshua wrote these words and kept them with the book of the law of God. VIII 27 What can you do with people who see nothing but what they please? What else is this, I ask, than to deny Scripture itself and to forge a new one out of one’s own head?note

We conclude, therefore, that this book of the law of God which Moses wrote was not the Pentateuch but something quite different, which the author of the Pentateuch inserted into his work in its proper place. This follows most evidently both from what has just been said and from what is about to be said. VIII 28 When the passage of Deuteronomy already cited narrates that Moses wrote the book of the law, the historian adds that Moses handed it over to the priests and also ordered them to read it aloud to the whole people at a fixed time. This shows that the book was much smaller than the Pentateuch, since it could be read through in a single assembly in such a way that everyone understood it. VIII 29 Nor should we pass over the fact that, of all the books Moses wrote, this one alone, the book of the second covenant, was the one he ordered to be scrupulously preserved and guarded, together with the song (which he also wrote afterward so that the whole people might learn it by heart).

By the first covenant he had bound only those who were present, but by the second he bound all their descendants as well (see Deuteronomy 29:14–15). That is why he ordered the book of this second covenant to be scrupulously preserved for future ages, and also, as we have said, the song, which looks chiefly to future ages. VIII 30 Consider, then, the following. It is not established that Moses wrote any books besides these. He himself commanded nothing else to be scrupulously preserved for posterity except the little book of the law together with the song. And finally, many things occur in the Pentateuch that could not have been written by Moses. It follows that no one can affirm with any foundation, but only wholly against reason, that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch. VIII 31 But here someone may perhaps ask: did Moses not also write down the laws, apart from these, when they were first revealed to him?

That is, in the space of forty years did he write down none of the laws he had given, except the few that I said were contained in the book of the first covenant? VIII 32 To this I reply as follows. Even if I granted that it seems reasonable that Moses wrote down the laws at the very time and place at which he happened to communicate them, I still deny that this entitles us to affirm it. For we showed above that in such matters we must assert nothing except what is established from Scripture itself, or what is drawn by legitimate inference from its own foundations alone—not what merely seems reasonable. VIII 33 Besides, reason itself does not compel us to assert this. Perhaps the senate communicated Moses’ edicts to the people in writing, and the historian later collected them and inserted them in their proper order into the history of Moses’ life.

So much for the five books of Moses. VIII 34 Now it is time to examine the rest as well.

and the expression to this very day also shows that the writer is narrating something long past. Very similar to this is the text of the last verse of chapter 15 about the sons of Judah, and the story of Caleb from verse 13 of the same chapter. VIII 37 The incident narrated in chapter 22, from verse 10 on, about the two and a half tribes who built an altar beyond the Jordan, also seems to have happened after Joshua’s death. In that whole story Joshua is never mentioned. The people alone deliberate about going to war, send envoys, await their reply, and finally approve it. VIII 38 Finally, it follows evidently from 10:14 that this book was written many centuries after Joshua. For it testifies: there was no other day like that one, before or after, on which God (so) obeyed anyone etc.

If, then, Joshua ever wrote a book, it was surely the one cited in 10:13, in this very same history. VIII 39 As for the book of Judges, I do not believe anyone in his right mind can persuade himself that it was written by the Judges themselves. The summary of the whole history in chapter 2 clearly shows that all of it was written by a single historian. Moreover, since its writer often remarks that in those times there was no king in Israel, there is no doubt that it was written after kings had come to rule. VIII 40 Nor is there any reason to dwell long on the books of Samuel, since the history extends far beyond his lifetime. I would only like to note that this book too was written many centuries after Samuel. For in 1 Samuel 9:9

the historian remarks in a parenthesis: formerly in Israel, whenever anyone went to inquire of God, he would say, Come, let us go to the seer; for he who is now called a prophet was formerly called a seer. VIII 41 Finally, the books of Kings, as they themselves make clear, were excerpted from the books of the acts of Solomon (see 1 Kings 11:41), from the chronicles of the kings of Judah (see 14:19–29 of the same book), and from the chronicles of the kings of Israel. VIII 42 We conclude, therefore, that all the books we have reviewed so far are copies, and that the events they contain are narrated as things of the past.

To this book he attaches the book of Ruth as a kind of appendix, in this way: And it came to pass in the days when the judges judged, that there was a famine in the land. In the same way he attaches the first book of Samuel to Ruth, and when that is finished he passes on to the second with his usual transition. To this, before the history of David is finished, he joins the first book of Kings, and, continuing to narrate David’s history, he at last attaches the second book to it with the same connective. VIII 45 The arrangement and order of the histories also show that there was only one historian, who had set himself a definite aim. He begins by narrating the first origin of the Hebrew nation. Then he tells in order on what occasion and at what times Moses gave laws and made many predictions to them. Next he tells how, in accordance with Moses’ predictions, they invaded the promised land (see Deuteronomy 7), and how, once they possessed it, they turned their backs on the laws (Deuteronomy 31:

16), and many evils followed for them as a result (31:17). He then tells how they wanted to choose kings (Deuteronomy 17:14), and how things went well or badly for them according to how far those kings had cared for the laws (Deuteronomy 28:36 and the last verse), until at last he narrates the ruin of the state, just as Moses had foretold it. VIII 46 Everything else, which does nothing to confirm the law, he either passes over entirely in silence or refers the reader to other historians for it. All these books, then, work together toward one end: to teach the sayings and decrees of Moses and to demonstrate them through the outcome of events.

10), that he applied his zeal to seeking out the law of God and setting it forth, and that he was a ready scribe (same chapter, verse 6) in the law of Moses. So I cannot suspect anyone but Ezra of having written these books. VIII 50 Next, in this testimony about Ezra we see that he applied his zeal not only to seeking out the law of God but also to setting it forth. And in Nehemiah 8:9 it is also said that they read the book of the law of God explained, and applied their understanding, and understood the Scripture. VIII 51 Now the book of Deuteronomy contains not only the book of the law of Moses, or the greater part of it, but many things are also found inserted in it for fuller explanation. Hence I conjecture that the book of Deuteronomy is that book of the law of God, written, set forth, and explained by Ezra, which they read at that time.

That many things are inserted parenthetically in this book of Deuteronomy for fuller explanation we showed with two examples when we were explaining Ibn Ezra’s view. Many others of the same kind are found—for example, in 2:12: And in Seir the Horites dwelt formerly, but the sons of Esau drove them out and destroyed them from before them and dwelt in their place, just as Israel did in the land of its inheritance, which God gave to it. That is, he is explaining verses 3–4 of the same chapter: the sons of Esau did not take possession of Mount Seir, which had come to them as an inheritance, as an uninhabited land; they invaded it and drove out and destroyed the Horites who had previously lived there, just as the Israelites did to the Canaanites after the death of Moses. VIII 53 Verses 6–9 of chapter 10 are also inserted parenthetically into the words of Moses. For everyone sees that verse

8, which begins at that time God separated the tribe of Levi, must necessarily be referred to verse 5, and not to the death of Aaron. Ezra seems to have inserted that death here for no other reason than that Moses, in this narrative of the calf the people had worshiped, had said (see 9:20) that he had prayed to God for Aaron. He then explains that at the time Moses is speaking of here, God chose the tribe of Levi for himself, in order to show the reason for the choice and why the Levites were not called to a share of the inheritance. Having done this, he goes on following the thread of the history in Moses’ words.

Add to these the preface of the book and all the passages that speak of Moses in the third person. Besides these, he no doubt added, or expressed in other words, many other things that we can no longer detect, so that they would be more easily grasped by the people of his own age. VIII 55 If, I say, we had Moses’ own book of the law, I do not doubt that we would find great differences, both in the wording and in the order and the reasons of the commandments. For when I compare just the Decalogue of this book with the Decalogue of Exodus (where its history is expressly narrated), I see that it differs from it in all these respects. The fourth commandment is not only enjoined in a different way but is also spelled out at much greater length, and the reason given for it is worlds apart from the one offered in the Decalogue of Exodus. Finally, the order in which the tenth commandment is set out here is also different from that in Exodus.

These changes, then, both here and elsewhere, as I have already said, I take to have been made by Ezra, because he explained the law of God to the people of his time. I take this, accordingly, to be the book of the law of God set forth and explained by him. And I think this book was the first of all those I have said he wrote. I conjecture this because it contains the laws of the country, which the people most need, and also because this book is not attached to the one before it by any connective, as all the others are, but begins without any link: These are the words of Moses, etc.

But after he had finished this and taught the people the laws, I believe he then applied himself to writing a complete history of the Hebrew nation, from the creation of the world down to the utter destruction of the City, and inserted this book of Deuteronomy into it in its proper place. Perhaps he called its first five books by the name of Moses because they contain chiefly his life, taking the name from the principal subject. VIII 58 For the same reason too he named the sixth after Joshua, the seventh Judges, the eighth Ruth, the ninth and perhaps also the tenth Samuel, and finally the eleventh and twelfth Kings. As for whether Ezra put the finishing touches to this work and completed it as he wished, see the next chapter.

But the fact itself, although we lack the ancient historians of the Hebrews, is perfectly evident even from the very few fragments of them that we have. IX 4 For the history of Hezekiah from 2 Kings 18:17 on was copied from Isaiah’s account, as it was found written in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah. We read this whole story in the book of Isaiah, which was contained in the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah (see 2 Chronicles 32, second-to-last verse), told in the same words as here, with only a very few exceptions∗. From these, however, nothing can be concluded except that different readings of this narrative of Isaiah were found—unless someone would rather dream up mysteries here too. IX 5 Next, the last chapter of this book is contained in the last chapter of Jeremiah and in chapters 39 and 40. Further, we find 2 Samuel 7 copied in 1 Chronicles

17, but the words are found in various places so remarkably altered∗∗ that it is very easy to see that these two chapters were taken from two different copies of the history of Nathan. IX 6 Finally, the genealogy of the kings of Edom given in Genesis 36 from verse 31 on is also set out in the same words in 1 Chronicles 1, although it is clear that the author of that book took what he narrates from other historians, and not from these twelve books that we attribute to Ezra. IX 7 So there is no doubt that if we had the historians themselves, the matter would be established directly. But since, as I said, we lack them, all that remains for us is to examine the histories themselves—their order and connection, their various repetitions, and finally the discrepancies in the reckoning of years—so that we can judge about the rest.

But no one will be able to conceive that so many things could have happened in this interval: that Judah had three children, one after another, by the one wife he married at that time; that the eldest of them, as soon as he was old enough, married Tamar; that after his death the second took her in marriage, and he died too; and that long after all this had happened, Judah himself unknowingly had relations with his own daughter-in-law Tamar, by whom he again had two children, though at a single birth, one of whom also became a father within the time just mentioned. IX 11 Since, then, all these things cannot be referred to the time dealt with in Genesis, the passage must necessarily be referred to another time, one that was being dealt with immediately before in another book. Consequently Ezra simply copied this history too and inserted it among the rest without having examined it.

But it must necessarily be admitted that not only this chapter but the whole history of Joseph and Jacob was excerpted and copied from different historians, so little do we see it agree with itself. Genesis 47 relates that Jacob, when Joseph first brought him to greet Pharaoh, was 130 years old. If from these we subtract the twenty-two years he spent in grief because of Joseph’s absence, then the seventeen years of Joseph’s age when he was sold, and finally the seven years he served for Rachel, he will be found to have been of very advanced age—eighty-four years old—when he married Leah. Dinah, on the other hand, will have been barely seven years old∗∗ when she was violated by Shechem, and Simeon and Levi barely twelve and eleven when they plundered that whole city and put all its citizens to the sword. IX 13 Nor do I need to review the whole Pentateuch here.

If one only attends to the fact that in these five books everything—commandments and histories alike—is narrated indiscriminately and without order, that no account is taken of chronology, and that one and the same story is often repeated, sometimes in different ways, one will easily recognize that all these things were collected and heaped together indiscriminately so that they could later be more easily examined and put in order. IX 14 And not only the material in the five books, but also the remaining histories down to the destruction of the city, contained in the other seven books, were collected in the same way. For who does not see that in Judges 2, from verse 6 on, a new historian is brought in (one who had also written about the deeds of Joshua) and that his words are simply copied out?

For our historian had related in the last chapter of Joshua that Joshua died and was buried, and in the first chapter of this book had promised to narrate what happened after his death. How, then, if he wanted to follow the thread of his own history, could he have attached to what preceded the things he here begins to narrate about Joshua himself? IX 15 So too chapters 17, 18, etc. of 1 Samuel were taken from another historian, who thought that the reason David began to frequent Saul’s court was very different from the one narrated in chapter 16 of the same book. IX 16 For he did not think that David went to Saul because Saul had summoned him on the advice of his servants (as is narrated in chapter

16), but that, having been sent by chance by his father to his brothers in the camp, he first became known to Saul on the occasion of his victory over Goliath the Philistine, and was then kept at court. I suspect the same of chapter 26 of the same book: namely, that the historian there seems to narrate the same story found in chapter 24, following another writer’s version. But I set this aside and go on to examine the reckoning of years. In 1 Kings 6 it is said that Solomon built the temple in the 480th year after the exodus from Egypt; but from the histories themselves we arrive at a much larger number. IX 17 For

3

Tola son of Puah judged: 23

And Jair: 22

The people were again subject to the Philistines and the Ammonites: 18

Jephthah judged: 6

Ibzan of Bethlehem: 7

Elon the Zebulunite: 10

Abdon the Pirathonite: 8

The people were again subject to the Philistines: 40

Samson judged∗∗: 20

And Eli: 40

The people were again subject to the Philistines, before they were freed by Samuel: 20

David reigned: 40

Solomon, before he built the temple: 4

All these added together make a total of years: 580

Then we must add the years of Saul’s reign. I left them out of the reckoning above because it is not sufficiently clear from his history how many years he reigned. It is indeed said in 1 Samuel 13:1 that he reigned two years, but that text is mutilated, and from the history itself we infer a larger number. IX 21 That the text is mutilated no one who has so much as greeted the Hebrew language from its threshold can doubt. For it begins thus: Saul was a year old when he began to reign, and he reigned two years over Israel. Who, I ask, does not see that the number of years of Saul’s age when he obtained the kingdom has been left out? IX 22 And I believe no one doubts, either, that the history itself points to a larger number. For in chapter 27, verse

7 of the same book we read that David stayed for a year and four months among the Philistines, to whom he had fled because of Saul. By this reckoning, then, everything else would have had to happen within eight months, which I think no one believes. Josephus, at least, at the end of the sixth book of the Antiquities, corrected the text thus: So Saul reigned eighteen years while Samuel was alive, and two more after his death. IX 23 Indeed, this whole story in chapter 13 in no way fits with what comes before it. At the end of chapter 7 it is related that the Philistines were so thoroughly defeated by the Hebrews that they did not dare to enter the borders of Israel while Samuel lived. But here we are told that the Hebrews (while Samuel was alive) are invaded by the Philistines, who had reduced them to such misery and poverty that they had no weapons to defend themselves with, nor even the means of making them.

I would certainly have my work cut out for me if I tried to reconcile all the stories in this first book of Samuel so that they all seemed to have been written down and arranged by a single historian. But I return to my purpose. The years of Saul’s reign, then, must be added to the reckoning above. IX 25 Finally, I have also not counted the years of the Hebrews’ anarchy, because they are not established from Scripture itself. It is not clear to me, I mean, when the events narrated from chapter 17 to the end of the book of Judges took place. IX 26 From all this it follows most clearly that the true reckoning of the years cannot be established from the histories themselves, and that the histories do not agree on one and the same reckoning but presuppose very different ones. We must therefore admit that these histories were collected from different writers and have never yet been put in order or examined.

Nor does there seem to have been any less discrepancy over the reckoning of years between the books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah and the books of the Chronicles of the Kings of Israel. The Chronicles of the Kings of Israel recorded that Jehoram son of Ahab began to reign in the second year of the reign of Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat (see 2 Kings 1:17). But the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah recorded that Jehoram son of Jehoshaphat began to reign in the fifth year of the reign of Jehoram son of Ahab (see 8:16 of the same book). IX 28 Anyone who goes on to compare the histories in Chronicles with those in the books of Kings will find many similar discrepancies. I need not list them here, and still less the inventions by which commentators try to reconcile these histories. The rabbis simply rave. The commentators I have read dream, invent, and in the end utterly corrupt the language itself. IX 29 For example, when in 2 Chronicles

it is said, Ahaziah was forty-two years old when he began to reign, some invent the idea that these years are counted from the reign of Omri, not from Ahaziah’s birth. If they could show that this was what the author of Chronicles intended, I would not hesitate to say that he did not know how to speak. And in this way they invent many other things. If these were true, I would say outright that the ancient Hebrews were completely ignorant both of their own language and of how to order a narrative. I would then recognize no method or rule for interpreting Scripture, and anyone would be free to invent anything at will.

If anyone, however, thinks that I am speaking here too generally and without sufficient grounds, I ask him to take up the task himself. Let him show us some definite order in these histories that historians could follow in their chronologies without error. And while he interprets the histories and tries to reconcile them, let him observe the phrases and idioms, and the ways of arranging and connecting sentences, so strictly, and explain them in such a way, that we too could imitate them in our own writing by following his explanation∗. If he manages this, I will surrender to him at once, and he shall be my great Apollo. IX 31 For I confess that, though I have searched for a long time, I have never been able to find anything of the kind. Indeed, I add that I write nothing here that I have not long and carefully pondered. And although from boyhood I was steeped in the common opinions about Scripture, in the end I could not help admitting these things.note

But there is no reason to detain the reader long over these matters, or to challenge him to a hopeless task. Still, it was necessary to set out the matter itself in order to explain my meaning more clearly. IX 32 I therefore pass on to the other points I undertook to note concerning the fortunes of these books. Besides what we have just shown, it should be noted that later generations did not preserve these books so carefully that no errors crept in. The older scribes noticed a number of doubtful readings, and also some mutilated passages, though not all of them. Whether these errors are of such a kind as to cause the reader great difficulty I will not now dispute. I believe, however, that they are of rather slight importance, at least to those who read the Scriptures with a freer judgment. And this I can affirm with certainty: I have noticed no error and no variant reading concerning moral teachings that could make them obscure or doubtful.

Most people, however, will not concede that any fault has crept in even in the rest. They maintain that God, by a special providence, has preserved the whole Bible uncorrupted. The variant readings, they say, are signs of the deepest mysteries. They argue the same about the asterisms found in twenty-eight places in the middle of a paragraph. Indeed, they claim that great secrets are contained in the very tips of the letters. IX 34 Whether they have said these things out of foolishness and credulous devotion, or out of arrogance and malice, so as to be thought the sole possessors of God’s secrets, I do not know. This much at least I know: in their writings I have read nothing that smacks of a secret, only childish notions. I have also read, and moreover known personally, some Kabbalist triflers, whose madness I could never wonder at enough. IX 35 That errors have crept in, as we said, I do not think anyone of sound judgment can doubt who reads that text about Saul (which we have already cited from 1 Samuel 13, versenote

1) and also 2 Samuel 6:2, namely: and David arose and went, with all the people who were with him, from Judah, to carry away the ark of God from there. Here too no one can fail to see that the place they had gone to in order to carry the ark away, namely Kiriath-jearim∗∗, has been left out. IX 36 Nor can we deny that verse 37 IX 37 of 2 Samuel 13 is garbled and mutilated, namely: and Absalom fled and went to Talmai son of Ammihud, king of Geshur, and he mourned his son all the days; and Absalom fled and went to Geshur and stayed there three years. And I know that I have noted other things of this kind before, which do not come to mind at present.

In the same way very many IX 38 others arose from the use of the letters called quiescents, whose pronunciation is very often not heard at all, so that one is used indiscriminately for another. For example, Leviticus 25:30 has and the house that is in a city that has no wall shall be confirmed, but the margin has אשר לו חומה, that has a wall, etc.

It runs like this. Errors crept into the manuscripts not on purpose but by chance, and what happens by chance happens in varying ways. Yet in the five books the noun נערה, girl, is always written defectively, against the rule of grammar, without the letter ה he, with only a single exception; in the margin, however, it is written correctly, according to the universal rule of grammar. Could this, too, have happened because the copyist’s hand slipped? By what fate could the pen have hurried every single time this noun occurred? Besides, they could easily, and without any scruple, have supplied and corrected this defect from the rules of grammar. IX 41 Since, therefore, these readings did not arise by chance, and the scribes did not correct such obvious faults, they conclude that these things were done deliberately by the original writers, in order to signify something by them.

But we can easily answer these arguments. What they argue from the practice that prevailed among them does not trouble me. IX 42 I do not know what superstition may have prompted. Perhaps it came about because they judged both readings equally good, or at least tolerable, and so, lest either be neglected, they wanted one to be written and the other read. They were afraid, that is, to settle their judgment in so weighty a matter, lest in their uncertainty they choose the false reading instead of the true. So they did not want to prefer either one to the other, which is exactly what they would have done had they ordered only one to be written and read—especially since marginal notes are not written in the sacred scrolls. IX 43 Or perhaps it came about because there were some passages which, though correctly copied, they nevertheless wanted read differently, namely as they had noted in the margin. And so they laid down as a universal rule that the Bible should be read according to the marginal notes.

I will now explain what moved the scribes to mark certain words in the margin expressly to be read. Not all the marginal notes are doubtful readings: the scribes also marked things that had fallen out of use, namely obsolete words and words that the accepted manners of their time did not allow to be read in a public assembly. IX 45 The ancient writers were free of malice, and they used no courtly circumlocutions but called things by their proper names. But once malice and luxury came to reign, things the ancients had said without any obscenity began to be counted as obscene. This was no reason to change Scripture itself. Yet, to make allowance for the weakness of the people, the scribes introduced the practice of reading the words for intercourse and excrement more decently in public, namely as they had marked them in the margin.

Finally, whatever the reason custom led them to read and interpret the Scriptures according to the marginal readings, it was at least not that the true interpretation must follow them. The rabbis themselves in the Talmud often depart from the Masoretes and had other readings that they approved, as I will show shortly. Beyond that, some marginal readings seem less well supported by the usage of the language. IX 47 For example, 2 Samuel 14:22 has because the king has acted according to the counsel of his servant. The construction is perfectly regular and agrees with that of verse 15 of the same chapter. The marginal reading, עבדך of your servant, does not agree with the person of the verb. IX 48 So too in the last verse of chapter

16 of the same book the text reads as when one consults (that is, as when there is consultation of) the word of God, and in the margin איש someone is added as the subject of the verb. This does not seem to have been done with enough care. As grammarians know very well, the common usage of this language is to express impersonal verbs by the third person singular of the active verb. Many notes of this kind are found that can in no way be preferred to the written reading.

As for the Pharisees’ second argument, it too is easily answered from what I have just said: besides doubtful readings, the scribes also marked obsolete words. There is no doubt that in Hebrew, as in other languages, later usage made many words obsolete and antiquated. The last scribes found these in the Bible and, as I said, marked them all, so that they might be read before the people according to the usage then accepted. IX 50 This is why the noun נער nahgar is found marked everywhere. In ancient times it was of common gender and meant the same as the Latin juvenis, “young person.”

Similarly, the ancients used to call the Hebrews’ capital ירושלם Jerusalem, not ירושלים Jerusalaim. I think the same about the pronoun הוא, he and she. Later writers changed the ו vau into a י jod (a frequent change in Hebrew) when they wanted to signify the feminine gender, whereas the ancients used to distinguish the feminine of this pronoun from the masculine only by the vowels. IX 51 Likewise, the irregularities of certain verbs were of one kind among the earlier writers and of another among the later ones. And finally, the ancients used the paragogic letters האמנתיו with an elegance peculiar to their own time. I could illustrate all this here with many examples, but I do not want to detain the reader with tedious reading. IX 52 But if someone asks how I know these things,

I answer that I have often found them in the most ancient writers, that is, in the Bible, and that later writers chose not to imitate them. This is the only way obsolete words are recognized in other languages too, even those that are now dead.

The Talmud records many that the Masoretes neglected, and it departs from them so openly in many places that the superstitious corrector of the Bomberg Bible was finally forced to admit in his preface that he did not know how to reconcile them. Here we do not know how to answer, he says, except as we answered above, namely, that it is the habit of the Talmud to contradict the Masoretes. So we have no sufficient grounds for holding that there were never more than two readings of a single passage. IX 55 Nevertheless I readily grant, and indeed I believe, that no more than two readings of a single passage were ever found, and I have two reasons. First, the cause from which, as I have shown, this variety of readings arose cannot allow more than two. I showed that the variants arose chiefly from the similarity of certain letters.note

So the doubt almost always came down in the end to which of two letters should be written: ב Bet or כ Kaf, י Jod or ו Vau, ד Dalet or ר Res, and so on. These letters are used very often, so it could often happen that either one gave a tolerable sense. Or else the doubt was whether a syllable was long or short, since its quantity is determined by the letters I have called quiescent. Add to this that not all the notes are doubtful readings. As I said, many were added for decency’s sake, and also to explain obsolete and antiquated words. IX 57 The second reason I am persuaded that no more than two readings of a single passage are found is that I believe the scribes found very few copies, perhaps no more than two or three. In the tractate of the Scribes, סופרים Soferim, chapter 6,note

only three are mentioned. They make up a story that these were found in Ezra’s time, because they would have us believe that Ezra himself added these notes. IX 58 Be that as it may, if the scribes had three copies, we can easily conceive that two always agreed at any given place. Indeed, anyone might well have been surprised if three different readings of one and the same passage had been found in only three copies. Anyone who has read even chapter 1 of 1 Maccabees, or Josephus, Antiquities, book 12, chapter 5, will stop wondering how there came to be such a scarcity of copies after Ezra. It seems almost a miracle that they were able to keep even those few after so great and so long a persecution. No one, I think, who has read that history with even moderate attention will doubt this. IX 59 So we see the reasons why nowhere are there more than two doubtful readings.note

It is therefore far from true that, because there are never more than two, one can conclude that the Bible was deliberately miswritten at the marked places in order to signify mysteries. IX 60 As for the second point, that some passages are written so wrongly that the scribes could not have doubted they went against the usage of writing in every age, and so ought to have corrected them outright rather than noting them in the margin: this hardly troubles me. I am not obliged to know what scruple kept them from doing so.

Perhaps they acted out of sincerity. They wanted to hand the Bible on to posterity just as they had found it in the few originals, and to note the discrepancies among those originals as variant readings, not as doubtful ones. And I have called them doubtful only because I really do find almost all of them such that I cannot tell at all which should be preferred to the other. IX 62 Finally, besides these doubtful readings, the scribes also marked a number of mutilated passages by leaving a blank space in the middle of paragraphs. The Masoretes record their number: they count twenty-eight places where a blank space is left in the middle of a paragraph. I do not know whether they believe some mystery lies hidden in the number as well. The Pharisees, moreover, religiously observe a fixed size for the space. IX 63 An example of these (to give just one) is found in Genesis 4:8, which is written thus: *And Cain said to Abel his brother . . .

and it came to pass, while they were in the field, that Cain* etc. Here a blank space is left at the very point where we expected to learn what Cain had said to his brother. In this way the scribes left twenty-eight such places (besides those we have already noted). Yet many of them would not look mutilated if the space had not been inserted. But enough of this.

Indeed, I cannot wonder enough that they were received among the sacred books by the very people who struck the book of Wisdom, Tobit, and the other books called apocryphal out of the canon of sacred books. I do not intend, however, to belittle their authority. Since they are accepted by everyone, I leave them as they are.

It is lamentable indeed that sacred and excellent things depended on these men’s choice. Still, I congratulate them for having been willing to share even these books with us. But I cannot help doubting whether they handed them down in good faith, a question I do not wish to subject to strict examination here.

Add to this that the rabbis hold that this prophet also prophesied in the reign of Manasseh, who finally put him to death. Although they seem to be telling a fable, they nevertheless seem to have believed that not all his prophecies survive. X 9 Next, the prophecies of Jeremiah that are told as history were excerpted and collected from various chroniclers. They are heaped together in confusion, with no regard for chronology, and the same story is also repeated in different versions. In chapter 21 the book gives the cause of Jeremiah’s arrest: he foretold the destruction of the city to Zedekiah when the king consulted him. Then it breaks off this story and passes, in chapter 22, to his denunciation of Jehoiachin, who reigned before Zedekiah, and his prediction of that king’s captivity. Then in chapter 25 it describes what was revealed to the prophet before these events, namely in the fourth year of Jehoiakim.

Next, it describes what was revealed in the first year of this king, X 10 and so on. It goes on heaping up prophecies with no chronological order observed, until at last in chapter 38 (as if these fifteen chapters had been a parenthesis) it returns to what it began to relate in chapter 21. The conjunction with which that chapter begins refers back to verses 8, 9, and 10 of chapter 21. Then it describes Jeremiah’s last arrest quite differently, and gives a quite different reason for his long detention in the court of the guard from the one related in chapter 37. So you can clearly see that all this was collected from different historians and can be excused in no other way. X 11 The remaining prophecies, contained in the remaining chapters where Jeremiah speaks in the first person, seem to have been copied from the scroll that Baruch wrote at Jeremiah’s own dictation. That scroll (as chapter 36, verse 2

shows) contained only what had been revealed to this prophet from the time of Josiah to the fourth year of Jehoiakim, which is also the point at which this book begins. What we have from 45:2 to 51:59 also seems to have been copied from the same scroll. X 12 That the book of Ezekiel is likewise only a fragment, its first verses indicate very clearly. Who does not see that the conjunction with which the book begins refers to other things already said and connects what follows with them? And not only the conjunction but the whole context of the passage presupposes other writings. X 13 The thirtieth year, with which this book begins, shows that the prophet is continuing his narrative, not beginning it. The writer himself also notes this in a parenthesis in verse 3,

where he says, the word of God had often come to Ezekiel the son of Buzi, the priest, in the land of the Chaldeans, etc. It is as if he were saying that the words of Ezekiel he had transcribed up to this point refer to other things revealed to him before this thirtieth year. Further, Josephus, Antiquities, book 10, chapter 7, relates that Ezekiel foretold that Zedekiah would not see Babylon. We do not read this in the book of his that we have. On the contrary, chapter 17 says that he would be led captive to Babylon∗. X 14 Of Hosea we cannot say for certain that he wrote more than is contained in the book that bears his name. Yet I am surprised that we do not have more from a man who, on the writer’s testimony, prophesied for more than eighty-four years.

This much at least we know in general: the writers of these books did not collect the prophecies of all the prophets, nor all the prophecies of the prophets we have. Of the prophets who prophesied in the reign of Manasseh, mentioned in general terms in 2 Chronicles 33:10, 18, 19, we have no prophecies at all. Nor do we have all the prophecies of these twelve prophets. Of Jonah, only the prophecies about the Ninevites are recorded, though he also prophesied to the Israelites; on this see 2 Kings 14:25.

For Ezekiel 14:14 names him among others. X 18 I believe that Job’s changing fortune and his steadfastness of mind gave many people occasion to argue about God’s providence, or at least gave the author of this book occasion to compose a dialogue. For its contents, like its style, seem to belong not to a man sitting wretchedly sick among the ashes, but to one meditating at leisure in his study. Here I would agree with Ibn Ezra that this book was translated from another language, since it seems to imitate the poetry of the Gentiles. For the Father of the gods twice calls a council, and Momus, who is here called Satan, criticizes God’s words with the greatest freedom, and so on. But these are mere conjectures, and not firm enough.note

To this book of Daniel the first book of Ezra is attached in such a way that one can easily recognize the same writer, who goes on to narrate the affairs of the Jews in order from the first captivity. And I have no doubt that the book of Esther is attached to this one, for the conjunction with which that book begins cannot refer to any other. Nor should we believe that it is the same book that Mordecai wrote. X 22 For in Esther 9:20–22 someone else relates of Mordecai himself that he wrote letters, and what they contained. Then, in verse 31 of the same chapter, he relates that Queen Esther confirmed by edict the matters relating to the Feast of Lots (Purim), and that it was written in the book—that is (as the Hebrew means), in a book known to everyone at that time (namely, when these things were written). Ibn Ezra admits, and everyone is bound to admit, that this book perished along with others.

Finally, the historian refers the rest of Mordecai’s deeds to the chronicles of the kings of Persia. X 23 So there can be no doubt that this book too was written by the same historian who narrated the affairs of Daniel and Ezra; and the book of Nehemiah∗ as well, since it is called the second book of Ezra. We therefore affirm that these four books—Daniel, Ezra, Esther and Nehemiah—were written by one and the same historian. But who he was, I cannot even guess.

Now, in order to know where this historian, whoever he was, got his knowledge of these histories, and perhaps even copied the greater part of them, we should note the following. The governors or princes of the Jews under the second Temple, like their kings under the first, had scribes or historiographers who wrote their annals, or chronology, year after year. The chronologies or annals of the kings are cited here and there in the books of Kings, while those of the princes and priests of the second Temple are cited first in Nehemiah 12:23 and then in 1 Maccabees 16:24. X 25 And this is without doubt the book (see Esther 9:31) we spoke of just now, in which Esther’s edict and those writings of Mordecai were recorded, and which, as we said with Ibn Ezra, has perished.

From this book, then, everything contained in these four seems to have been taken or copied. For their writer cites no other, nor do we know of any other of public authority. X 26 That these books were written neither by Ezra nor by Nehemiah is clear from the fact that in Nehemiah 12:10–11 the genealogy of the high priest Jeshua is carried down to Jaddua. Jaddua was the sixth high priest, the one who went out to meet Alexander the Great when the Persian empire had already been almost subdued (see Josephus, Antiquities, book 11, chapter 8), or, as Philo Judaeus says in his book on chronology, the sixth and last high priest under the Persians. X 27 Indeed, in this same chapter of Nehemiah, namely in verse 22, this very point is clearly indicated.

The Levites, says the historian, in the time of Eliashib, Joiada, Jonathan and Jaddua∗∗ were recorded above the reign of Darius the Persian—namely, in the chronicles. I do not think anyone believes that Ezra∗∗∗ or Nehemiah lived so long that they outlived fourteen kings of Persia. Cyrus, the first of them all, granted the Jews permission to rebuild the Temple, and from that time down to Darius, the fourteenth and last king of the Persians, more than 230 years are counted. X 28 So I have no doubt that these books were written long after Judas Maccabeus restored worship in the Temple. They were written because at that time false books of Daniel, Ezra and Esther were being published by certain ill-disposed people, who were undoubtedly of the sect of the Sadducees; for the Pharisees never accepted those books, so far as I know.

And although certain fables are found in the book called the fourth of Ezra which we also read in the Talmud, these books are not for that reason to be attributed to the Pharisees. For apart from the very dullest of them, there is none who does not believe that those fables were added by some trifler. I also believe that some people did this in order to make their traditions a laughingstock for everyone. X 29 Or perhaps these books were copied out and published at that time to show the people that Daniel’s prophecies had been fulfilled, and in this way to strengthen them in religion, so that amid such great calamities they would not despair of better times and of future salvation. X 30 But although these books are so recent and new, many errors have nevertheless crept into them, owing, unless I am mistaken, to the haste of the copyists. For in these, as in the rest, there are a good many marginal notes of the kind we discussed in the previous chapter,note

and, besides, certain passages which cannot be excused in any other way, as I shall now show. But first I want to note something about their marginal readings. If we must grant the Pharisees that these readings are as old as the writers of these books themselves, then we will necessarily have to say that the writers themselves (if there were perhaps several) noted them because they found that the very chronicles from which they copied were not written accurately enough; and that, although certain errors were obvious, they still did not dare to correct the writings of the ancients and their forebears. I have no need to deal with this again at greater length here. X 31 I pass on, then, to point out the errors that are not noted in the margin. First, I do not know how many I should say have crept into chapter 2 of Ezra. For in verse 64

the grand total is given of all those who are counted group by group throughout the chapter, and they are said to have numbered 42,360 altogether. And yet if you add up the partial sums, you will find no more than 29,818. So the error here lies either in the total or in the partial sums. But the total seems to deserve belief as correctly transmitted, since everyone no doubt kept it in memory as something memorable, whereas this was not so with the partial sums. So if an error had slipped into the total, it would have been obvious to everyone at once and easily corrected. X 32 This is fully confirmed by the fact that in Nehemiah 7, where this chapter of Ezra (which is called the Letter of Genealogy) is copied out, as is expressly stated in verse 5 of that same chapter of

Nehemiah, the grand total agrees exactly with the one in the book of Ezra, but the partial sums differ greatly. You will find some larger and some smaller than in Ezra, and all of them together come to 31,089. So there is no doubt that many errors have crept into the partial sums alone, in the book of Ezra as well as in Nehemiah. X 33 As for the commentators who try to reconcile these evident contradictions, each of them invents whatever he can, as far as his ingenuity allows. And meanwhile, while they adore the letters and words of Scripture, they do nothing else, as we have already pointed out, but expose the writers of the Bible to contempt, so that they would seem not to have known how to speak or how to set in order what they had to say. Indeed, they do nothing but thoroughly obscure the clarity of Scripture. For if it were permissible to interpret Scripture everywhere in their manner, there would truly be no statement whose true sense we could not doubt.

But there is no reason for me to dwell long on these matters. For I am convinced that if some historian wanted to imitate everything that they devoutly allow the writers of the Bible, they themselves would ridicule him in many ways. And if they think that anyone who says Scripture is faulty in some place is a blasphemer, what name, I ask, shall I give them, who attribute to Scripture whatever they please? Who so degrade the sacred historians that they are believed to stammer and confuse everything? Who, finally, deny the plain and most evident meanings of Scripture? X 35 For what in Scripture is clearer than that Ezra and his companions, in the Letter of Genealogy recorded in chapter 2 of the book called his, set down group by group the number of all those who set out for Jerusalem? After all, that letter gives the number not only of those who could show their genealogy but also of those who could not.

What, I say, is clearer, from Nehemiah 7:5, than that Nehemiah simply copied this same letter? X 36 Those who explain these things otherwise, therefore, do nothing but deny the true sense of Scripture, and consequently Scripture itself. As for their thinking it pious to adjust some passages of Scripture to others—a ridiculous piety indeed, which adjusts clear passages to obscure ones and correct ones to faulty ones, and corrupts the sound with the rotten. Far be it from me, however, to call them blasphemers, since they have no intention of speaking ill; to err is, after all, human. But I return to my subject. X 37 Besides the errors that must be granted in the sums of the Letter of Genealogy, in Ezra as well as in Nehemiah, many others are noted in the very names of the families, many more in the genealogies themselves and in the histories, and, I fear, even in the prophecies themselves. For certainly Jeremiah’s prophecy in chapter 22

concerning Jeconiah seems in no way to agree with his history (see the end of 2 Kings, and Jeremiah, and 1 Chronicles 3:17–19), and especially the words of the last verse of that chapter. X 38 Nor do I see how Jeremiah could say of Zedekiah, whose eyes were put out as soon as he had seen his sons killed, “you shall die in peace,” and so on (see Jeremiah 34:5). If prophecies are to be interpreted by their outcome, these names would have to be exchanged: Jeconiah would seem to be meant in place of Zedekiah, and conversely Zedekiah in place of Jeconiah. But this is too paradoxical, and so I prefer to leave the matter as beyond understanding, especially since, if there is some error here, it must be attributed to the historian and not to faulty manuscripts.

As for the other errors I mentioned, I do not think I should point them out here, since I could not do so without greatly wearying the reader, especially as they have already been noticed by others. X 40 For Rashi, because of the glaring contradictions he observed in the genealogies recorded, was driven to burst out in these words (see his commentary on 1 Chronicles 8): that Ezra (whom he takes to have written the books of Chronicles) *calls the sons of Benjamin by other names, and traces his genealogy differently from the way we have it in the book

of Genesis, and finally that he lists most of the Levites’ cities differently from Joshua, comes from the fact that he found originals that disagreed. And a little further on: that the genealogy of Gibeon and others is recorded twice, and in different ways, is because Ezra found several different letters for each genealogy, and in copying them followed the greater number of copies; but when the number of disagreeing genealogies was equal, he copied the copies of both*. X 41 In this way he concedes outright that these books were copied from originals that were neither sufficiently corrected nor sufficiently certain. Indeed, the commentators themselves very often do nothing more, while they strive to reconcile passages, than point out the causes of the errors. Finally, I do not think anyone of sound judgment believes that the sacred historians deliberately chose to write in such a way that they would seem to contradict themselves at every turn.

But perhaps someone will say that in this way I completely overturn Scripture, since in this way anyone may suspect that it is faulty everywhere. On the contrary, I have shown that in this way I am safeguarding Scripture, so that its clear and pure passages are not adjusted to faulty ones and corrupted. Nor, because some passages are corrupt, may we suspect the same of all of them; for no book has ever been found without errors. Has anyone, I ask, ever suspected on that account that books are faulty everywhere? Certainly no one, especially when the language is clear and the author’s meaning is plainly grasped.

the resurrection of the dead is foretold, which the Sadducees denied; and second, that the Pharisees themselves clearly indicate it in the Talmud. For in the tractate Shabbat, chapter 2, folio 30, side 2, it is said: Rabbi Judah said in the name of Rab: The sages sought to hide away the book of Ecclesiastes, because its words contradict the words of the law (N.B. the book of the law of Moses). Why, then, did they not hide it away? Because it begins in accordance with the law and ends in accordance with the law. X 46 And a little further on: and they also sought to hide away the book of Proverbs, and so on. And finally, in chapter 1 of the same tractate, folio 13, side 2:

Truly, name that man with kindness, whose name was Hananiah son of Hezekiah; for had it not been for him, the book of Ezekiel would have been hidden away, because its words contradicted the words of the law, and so on. X 47 From this it follows very clearly that the experts in the law held a council to decide which books should be accepted as sacred and which excluded. Whoever wants to be certain of the authority of all of them, therefore, should hold the council over again and demand the reason for each one.

For the prophets made a constant practice of declaring at every turn that they spoke by God’s decree: thus says God, says the God of hosts, the decree of God, and so on. This seems to have held not only in the prophets’ public addresses but also in letters that contained revelations, as is clear from the letter Elijah wrote to Jehoram (see 2 Chronicles 21:12), which likewise begins Thus says God. XI 3 But in the apostles’ epistles we read nothing of the kind. On the contrary, in 1 Corinthians 7:40 Paul speaks according to his own opinion. Indeed, in a great many places we meet expressions of a hesitant and uncertain mind, such as therefore we judge∗ (Romans 3:28), for I judge (8:18), and many more of this sort.

Besides these, we find other expressions that are far removed from prophetic authority: But I say this as one who is weak, and not by command (see 1 Corinthians 7:6), and I give my advice as a man who, by God’s grace, is faithful (see 7:25), and many others like them. It should also be noted that when, in that same chapter, he says he does or does not have a precept or command of God, he does not mean a precept or command revealed to him by God. He means only the teachings of Christ, which Christ taught his disciples on the mount. XI 4 Furthermore, if we also consider the manner in which the apostles hand down the gospel teaching in these epistles, we shall see that it too differs greatly from the manner of the prophets. For the apostles reason everywhere, so that they seem not to be prophesying but arguing.

Prophecies, by contrast, contain nothing but bare doctrines and decrees. In them God is presented as speaking, as it were, and God does not reason but decrees by the absolute command of his nature. Moreover, a prophet’s authority does not allow of reasoning: whoever wants to confirm his doctrines by reason thereby submits them to the free judgment of each and every person. Paul, because he reasons, seems to have done just this, when he says in 1 Corinthians 10:15, I speak as to wise men; judge for yourselves what I say. Finally, prophecies contain no reasoning because the prophets did not perceive the things revealed to them by virtue of the natural light—that is, not by reasoning—as we showed in chapter 1. XI 5 And although in the Five Books too some things seem to be concluded by inference, anyone who looks at them closely will see that they can in no way be taken as conclusive arguments. For example,

when Moses said to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 31:27, If you have been rebels against God while I have lived among you, how much more after I am dead. This must in no way be understood to mean that Moses wants to convince the Israelites by reason that after his death they will necessarily turn aside from the true worship of God. For the argument would be false, as could be shown from Scripture itself: the Israelites persevered steadfastly while Joshua and the elders lived, and afterward too, while Samuel, David, Solomon, and others lived. XI 6 So those words of Moses are only a moral manner of speaking, by which he foretells the people’s future defection rhetorically, in the way he had been able to imagine it most vividly. The reason I do not say that Moses said this on his own account, to make his prediction plausible to the people, rather than as a prophet from revelation, is that in verse 21 of the same chapter

we are told that God revealed this very thing to Moses in other words. Moses certainly did not need to be convinced of this prediction and decree of God by plausible reasons. What was necessary was that it be vividly represented in his imagination, as we showed in chapter 1. And this could be done in no better way than by imagining the people’s present obstinacy, which he had often experienced, as future. XI 7 All of Moses’ arguments found in the Five Books must be understood in this way: they are not drawn from the storehouse of reason, but are only ways of speaking by which he expressed God’s decrees more effectively and imagined them vividly.

Still, I do not want to deny absolutely that the prophets could argue from revelation. I affirm only this: the more legitimately the prophets argue, the closer their knowledge of the thing revealed comes to natural knowledge. And the prophets are recognized as having knowledge above the natural chiefly from the fact that they speak pure doctrines, or decrees, or pronouncements. That is why Moses, the greatest of the prophets, made no legitimate argument. Conversely, I by no means grant that Paul’s long deductions and argumentations, such as are found in the Epistle to the Romans, were written from supernatural revelation.

Thus both the apostles’ ways of speaking and their ways of arguing in the epistles show very clearly that the epistles were written not from revelation and divine command, but only from the apostles’ own natural judgment. They contain nothing but brotherly admonitions mixed with courtesy, something prophetic authority entirely shuns. An example is Paul’s apology in Romans 15:15: I have written to you rather boldly, brothers. We can also conclude the same thing from the fact that we nowhere read that the apostles were ordered to write, but only to preach wherever they went and to confirm their words with signs. For their presence and their signs were absolutely required to convert the nations to religion and to confirm them in it, as Paul himself states expressly in Romans 1:11:

For I greatly long, he says, to see you, so that I may impart to you the gift of the Spirit, that you may be strengthened. XI 9 But here it might be objected that by the same reasoning we could conclude that the apostles did not preach as prophets either. For when they went off to preach here or there, they did not do so by express command, as the prophets once did. In the Old Testament we read that Jonah went to preach at Nineveh, and at the same time that he was expressly sent there and that what he was to preach there was revealed to him. So too we are told at length that Moses set out for Egypt as God’s envoy, and at the same time what he was to say to the people of Israel and to King Pharaoh, and what signs he was bound to perform before them to win their belief. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel are expressly commanded to preach to the Israelites.

And finally, the prophets preached nothing that Scripture does not attest they had received from God. XI 10 But about the apostles, when they went here or there to preach, we read nothing of the kind in the New Testament, except very rarely. On the contrary, we shall find some passages that expressly show that the apostles chose the places to preach by their own decision—for instance, the dispute between Paul and Barnabas that went as far as a split (see Acts 15:37–38, etc.). We also find that they often tried in vain to go somewhere, as the same Paul testifies in Romans 1:13: I have wanted to come to you many times, and have been prevented; and in 15:22: For this reason I have been hindered many times from coming to you; and finally in 1 Corinthians 16:12:

Now as for our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to go to you with the brothers, and he was quite unwilling to come to you; but when he has the opportunity, etc. XI 11 So from these ways of speaking and from the apostles’ dispute, as well as from the fact that Scripture does not attest, as it does of the ancient prophets, that they went by God’s command when they went somewhere to preach, it seems I ought to conclude that the apostles also preached as teachers and not as prophets. But we shall easily resolve this question if only we attend to the difference between the calling of the apostles and that of the Old Testament prophets. The prophets were called to preach and prophesy not to all nations but only to certain particular ones, and so they required an express and specific command for each. The apostles, however, were called to preach to absolutely everyone and to convert all to religion.

Wherever they went, therefore, they were carrying out Christ’s command, and they had no need to have the things to be preached revealed to them before they went. They were, after all, the disciples of Christ, to whom he himself had said, But when they hand you over, do not worry about how or what you will speak; for what you are to say will be given you in that hour, etc. (see Matthew 10:19–20). XI 12 We conclude, therefore, that the apostles had from special revelation only what they preached by word of mouth and at the same time confirmed by signs (see what we showed at the beginning of chapter 2). What they taught simply, in writing or by word of mouth, without calling on any signs as witnesses, they spoke or wrote from knowledge—natural knowledge, that is. On this see 1 Corinthians 14:6.

Nor are we held up here by the fact that all the epistles begin with a confirmation of apostleship. For, as I shall show shortly, the apostles were granted not only the power to prophesy but also the authority to teach. XI 13 In this sense we grant that they wrote their epistles as apostles, and that this is why each began with a confirmation of his apostleship. Or perhaps, to win the reader’s goodwill more easily and rouse his attention, they wanted above all to testify that they were the very men who had become known to all the faithful through their preaching, and who had then shown by clear testimonies that they taught the true religion and the way of salvation.

For whatever I see said in these epistles about the apostles’ calling, and about the Holy and divine Spirit they had, I see referred to the preaching they had done. The only exceptions are those passages in which “the Spirit of God” and “the Holy Spirit” are taken to mean a mind that is sound, blessed, devoted to God, and so on (we discussed these in chapter 1). For example, in 1 Corinthians 7:40 Paul says, But she is blessed if she remains as she is, in my opinion; and I think that the Spirit of God is in me too. Here by the Spirit of God he means his own mind, as the very context of the passage shows. For what he means is this: “I judge a widow who does not want to marry a second husband to be blessed, in my opinion—I who have decided to live unmarried, and consider myself blessed.”

Other passages of this sort can be found, but I judge it superfluous to cite them here. XI 14 Since, then, we must hold that the apostles’ epistles were dictated by the natural light alone, we must now see how the apostles could teach, from natural knowledge alone, things that do not fall within its scope. But if we attend to what we said about the interpretation of Scripture in chapter 7 of this treatise, there will be no difficulty here. For although the things contained in the Bible for the most part surpass our grasp, we can still safely discuss them, provided we admit no principles other than those drawn from Scripture itself. In just the same way the apostles could conclude and draw out many things from what they had seen, what they had heard, and finally what they had from revelation, and could teach these things to people if they so pleased.

Next, although religion as the apostles preached it—namely, by narrating the simple story of Christ—does not fall within the scope of reason, its sum, which consists chiefly of moral teachings, as does the whole of Christ’s doctrine, can easily be grasped by everyone through the natural light. Finally, the apostles did not need supernatural light to adapt religion, which they had previously confirmed by signs, to people’s common understanding, so that everyone might readily accept it from the heart. Nor did they need it to admonish people about that religion. XI 16 And this is the aim of the epistles: to teach and admonish people in the way each of the apostles judged best for confirming them in religion. Here we should note what we said a little earlier: the apostles had received not only the power to preach the story of Christ as prophets, by confirming it with signs, but also the authority to teach and admonish in whatever way each judged best. Paul clearly indicates both these gifts in

2 Timothy 1:11, in these words: for which I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher of the nations. And in 1 Timothy 2:7: of which I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I speak the truth through Christ, I am not lying), a teacher of the nations in faith (NB) and truth. XI 17 In these words, I say, he clearly indicates both confirmations, that of apostleship and that of teaching. And he signifies his authority to admonish anyone at all, whenever he wished, in Philemon 8, in these words: Although I have much freedom in Christ to command you what is fitting, yet, etc. Here it should be noted that if Paul had received from God, as a prophet, what he needed to command Philemon, and had been obliged to command it as a prophet, then he certainly would not have been permitted to turn God’s command into entreaties.

So we must necessarily understand him to be speaking of the freedom to admonish that was his as a teacher, and not as a prophet.

Surely, if they all had the same way of teaching, and all had built the Christian religion on the same foundation, Paul could in no way have called another apostle’s foundations “another’s,” since they would have been his own as well. But since he does call them another’s, we must necessarily conclude that each built religion on a different foundation. In their teaching, then, the apostles experienced what happens to other teachers who have their own particular method of teaching: they always prefer to teach those who are wholly untaught and have not begun to learn languages or sciences—even mathematics, whose truth no one doubts—from anyone else. XI 21 Next, if we run through the epistles themselves with some attention, we shall see that the apostles agree, indeed, on religion itself, but differ greatly on its foundations.

For Paul, in order to confirm people in religion and show them that salvation depends on God’s grace alone, taught that no one can boast of works, but only of faith, and that no one is justified by works (see Romans 3:27–28); and, further, the whole doctrine of predestination. James, on the other hand, teaches in his epistle that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone (see James 2:24), and, setting aside all those disputations of Paul, sums up the whole doctrine of religion in very few words.

Finally, there is no doubt that from this—from the apostles’ having built religion on different foundations—arose the many disputes and schisms by which the church has been troubled without cease ever since the apostles’ times. And it will surely be troubled forever, until at last religion is separated from philosophical speculations and reduced to the very few and very simple doctrines that Christ taught his followers. XI 23 This was impossible for the apostles, because the gospel was unknown to people. So, lest the novelty of its teaching offend their ears too much, they adapted it, as far as they could, to the mentality of the people of their time (see 1 Corinthians 9:19–20, etc.), and built it on the foundations best known and most widely accepted at that time. XI 24 That is why none of the apostles philosophized more than Paul, who was called to preach to the nations.

The others, however, who preached to the Jews—people, that is, who despised philosophy—likewise adapted themselves to their mentality (on this see Galatians 2:11 ff.) and taught religion stripped of philosophical speculations. Our own age would truly be fortunate if we saw religion freed from all superstition as well.

30:6) and Jeremiah (31:33) proclaim to them a time to come when God will write his law on their hearts. So it was once fitting only for the Jews, and above all for the Sadducees, to fight for a law written on tablets, but not at all for those who have it inscribed on their minds. XII 4 Anyone, then, who is willing to attend to this will find nothing in what has been said above that conflicts with the word of God, that is, with true religion and faith, or that could weaken it. On the contrary, he will find that we confirm it, as we also showed toward the end of chapter 10. Were this not so, I would have resolved to say nothing at all about these matters. Indeed, to escape every difficulty, I would gladly have granted that the deepest mysteries lie hidden in Scripture. But an intolerable superstition has arisen from this belief, along with other most pernicious harms, which I spoke of in the preface to chapter 7;note

so I judged that I must by no means pass over these matters—especially since religion needs no superstitious ornaments; on the contrary, its splendor is diminished when it is adorned with such fictions. XII 5 But they will say that, although the divine law is written in hearts, Scripture is nonetheless the word of God, and so it is no more permissible to say of Scripture than of the word of God that it is mutilated and corrupted. I, on the contrary, fear that they are too eager to be holy and are turning religion into superstition—indeed, that they are beginning to worship likenesses and images, that is, paper and ink, in place of the word of God. XII 6 This much I know: I have said nothing unworthy of Scripture or of the word of God, since I have maintained nothing that I have not demonstrated to be true by the most evident reasons. For this reason I can also affirm with certainty that I have said nothing impious, nothing that smacks of impiety.

I admit that some profane people, for whom religion is a burden, could take from this a license to sin, and, with no reason at all but merely to give in to their pleasures, conclude that Scripture is faulty and falsified throughout, and consequently has no authority either. XII 7 But there is no remedy against such people. As the familiar saying goes, nothing can be said so rightly that it cannot be twisted by bad interpretation. Those who want to indulge their pleasures can easily find any excuse whatever. Nor were the people of old, who had the originals themselves, the ark of the covenant, indeed the prophets and apostles in person, any better or more obedient. All of them, Jews and Gentiles alike, were always the same, and in every age virtue has been very rare.

Nevertheless, to remove every scruple, I must show here in what sense Scripture, and any other mute thing, ought to be called sacred and divine; then what the word of God really is, and that it is not contained in a fixed number of books; and finally that Scripture, insofar as it teaches what is necessary for obedience and salvation, could not have been corrupted. From this anyone will easily be able to judge that we have said nothing against the word of God and have given no room to impiety.

Words have a definite meaning only from usage. If, in accordance with that usage, they are so arranged as to move those who read them to devotion, then those words will be sacred, and so will a book written with such an arrangement of words. But if the usage later dies out, so that the words have no meaning, or if the book is wholly neglected, whether out of malice or because people no longer need it, then both the words and the book will be of no use and no holiness. Finally, if the same words are arranged differently, or if usage has come to take them in the opposite sense, then both the words and the book, which were sacred before, will be impure and profane. XII 12 It follows that nothing is sacred, profane or impure absolutely, outside the mind, but only in relation to it. This is also most evident from many passages of Scripture.

Jeremiah (to cite one or two) says in 7:4 that the Jews of his time wrongly called Solomon’s temple the temple of God. For, as he goes on to say in the same chapter, the name of God could be in that temple only as long as it was frequented by people who worship him and defend justice; if it were frequented by murderers, thieves, idolaters and other wicked people, it would rather be a den of transgressors. XII 13 What became of the ark of the covenant Scripture does not tell us at all, which has often surprised me. This much is certain, though: it perished, or was burned along with the temple, even though nothing was more sacred or held in greater reverence among the Hebrews.

In this way, then, Scripture too is sacred, and its words divine, only as long as it moves people to devotion toward God. But if they wholly neglect it, as the Jews once did, it is nothing but paper and ink; it is utterly profaned by them and left exposed to corruption. So if it is then corrupted or perishes, it is wrong to say that the word of God is corrupted or perishes—just as in Jeremiah’s time it would have been wrong to say that the temple, which was then the temple of God, had perished in the flames. XII 14 Jeremiah says the same about the law itself. For this is how he rebukes the impious people of his time: *How can you say, “We are wise, and the law of God is with us”?

Surely it was adorned in vain; the pen of the scribes (was made) in vain*—that is, you are wrong to say that you have the law of God, even though Scripture is in your hands, after you have made it void. XII 15 So too, when Moses broke the first tablets, it was by no means the word of God that he hurled from his hands in anger and broke (for who could suspect such a thing of Moses and of the word of God?), but only stones. These had been sacred before, because on them was inscribed the covenant under which the Jews had bound themselves to obey God. Yet since the Jews had afterward made that covenant void by worshiping the calf, the stones then had no holiness at all. For the same reason the second tablets, too, could perish along with the ark.

It is not surprising, then, if the first originals of Moses no longer survive, or if what we described above has happened to the books we have, since the true original of the divine covenant, the holiest thing of all, could perish entirely. So let them stop accusing us of impiety. We have said nothing against the word of God, nor have we defiled it. Let them rather turn their anger, if they can have any just anger, against the ancients, whose malice profaned the ark of God, the temple, the law and everything sacred, and subjected them to corruption. XII 17 Further, if, as the Apostle says in 2 Corinthians 3:3, they have within them the letter of God, written not with ink but with the Spirit of God, not on tablets of stone but on fleshly tablets of the heart, let them stop worshiping the letter and being so anxious about it.

that is, the religion that is universal to the whole human race, or catholic. On this see Isaiah 1:10 ff., where he teaches the true way of living, which consists not in ceremonies but in charity and a sincere heart, and calls it indifferently the law and the word of God. XII 20 Next, the phrase is used metaphorically for the order of nature itself and for fate (since this in fact depends on and follows from the eternal decree of the divine nature), and especially for what the prophets had foreseen of this order. This is because they did not perceive future things through natural causes, but as God’s decisions or decrees. XII 21 It is also used for every pronouncement of any prophet, insofar as he had perceived it by his own singular power, or prophetic gift, and not by the common natural light. This is chiefly because the prophets did in fact usually perceive God as a lawgiver, as we showed in chapter 4.

For these three reasons, then, Scripture is called the word of God: first, because it teaches true religion, of which God is the eternal author; second, because it relates predictions of future things as decrees of God; and finally, because those who were really its authors mostly taught not by the common natural light but by a light peculiar to themselves, and introduced God as saying these things. And although Scripture contains much besides these that is merely historical and perceived by natural light, the name is taken from the more important part. XII 23 From this we easily see in what sense God is to be understood as the author of the Bible: namely, because of the true religion taught in it, and not because he wanted to communicate a fixed number of books to human beings.

From this we can also know why the Bible is divided into the books of the Old and New Testaments. It is because before the coming of Christ the prophets used to preach religion as the law of their country, binding by virtue of the covenant entered into in the time of Moses; after the coming of Christ, however, the apostles preached the same religion to all as a universal law, binding solely by virtue of Christ’s passion. It is not that the books differ in doctrine, nor that they were written as documents of a covenant, nor, finally, that the universal religion, which is supremely natural, was new—except in relation to people who had not known it. He was in the world, says John the Evangelist (1:10), and the world did not know him.

So even if we had fewer books of the Old and New Testaments, we would still not be deprived of the word of God (by which, as we have already said, true religion is properly meant). In the same way, we do not think ourselves deprived of it now, although we lack many other excellent writings—such as the book of the Law, which was religiously kept in the temple as the document of the covenant, and also the books of the Wars, the Chronicles and very many others, from which the books of the Old Testament that we have were excerpted and compiled. XII 26 This is confirmed, moreover, by many other reasons. First, because the books of both Testaments were not written by express command at one and the same time for all ages, but by chance, by certain individuals, as their time and particular circumstances required. This is plainly shown by the callings of the prophets (who were called to warn the impious people of their own time), and also by the letters of the apostles. XII 27 Second,note

because it is one thing to understand Scripture and the mind of the prophets, and another to understand the mind of God, that is, the very truth of the matter, as follows from what we showed about the prophets in chapter 2. We showed in chapter 6 that this also holds for the histories and miracles. But this can by no means be said of the passages that deal with true religion and true virtue. XII 28 Third, because the books of the Old Testament were chosen from many and finally collected and approved by a council of Pharisees, as we showed in chapter 10. The books of the New Testament, too, were admitted into the canon by the decrees of certain councils, and by their decrees as well many other books, which many people held to be sacred, were rejected as spurious.

But the members of these councils (Pharisaic as well as Christian) were not prophets, only teachers and learned men; and yet it must necessarily be admitted that in making this choice they took the word of God as their standard. So before approving all the books, they must necessarily have had knowledge of the word of God. XII 29 Fourth, because the apostles wrote not as prophets but (as we said in the previous chapter) as teachers, and chose the way of teaching they judged would be easier for the disciples they then wished to teach. It follows (as we also concluded at the end of that chapter) that their writings contain much that we can now do without as far as religion is concerned. XII 30 Fifth and last, because there are four evangelists in the New Testament—and who will believe that God wanted to tell the story of Christ four times and communicate it to human beings in writing?

And although some things are contained in one that are not found in another, and one often helps in understanding another, it should not be concluded from this that everything narrated in these four was necessary to know, and that God chose them to write so that the story of Christ might be better understood. XII 31 For each preached his gospel in a different place, and each wrote down what he had preached, simply in order to tell the story of Christ clearly, not to explain the others. If they are sometimes understood more easily and better by comparing them with one another, that happens by chance and only in a few passages; even if these passages were unknown, the story would be just as clear, and people no less blessed.

For this, as we have said, takes nothing away from the divinity of Scripture; Scripture would be just as divine if it had been written in other words or in another language. XII 34 So no one can doubt that we have received the divine law uncorrupted in this sense. For from Scripture itself we perceive without any difficulty or ambiguity that its sum is to love God above all things, and one’s neighbor as oneself. And this cannot be a forgery, nor written by a hasty and erring pen. For if Scripture ever taught anything else, it must necessarily have taught everything else differently too, since this is the foundation of all religion; remove it, and the whole structure collapses at a stroke. XII 35 Such a Scripture, therefore, would not be the same one we are speaking of here, but an altogether different book.

It stands unshaken, then, that Scripture has always taught this. Consequently, no error capable of corrupting the meaning could have crept in here without being noticed at once by everyone, nor could anyone have corrupted it without his malice being immediately exposed. XII 36 Since this foundation must therefore be held to be uncorrupted, the same must necessarily be admitted of the other things that follow from it beyond any dispute and are also fundamental: that God exists, that he provides for all, that he is omnipotent, that by his decree it goes well with the pious and badly with the wicked, and that our salvation depends on his grace alone. For Scripture everywhere plainly teaches all these things, and must always have taught them; otherwise everything else would be empty and without foundation. XII 37 No less must the rest of the moral teachings be held uncorrupted, since they follow most evidently from this universal foundation.

Namely, to defend justice, to help the needy, to kill no one, to covet nothing that belongs to another, and so on. None of these, I say, could human malice corrupt or time erase. Whatever of them had been erased, their universal foundation would immediately have dictated again, and above all the teaching of charity, which is commended in the highest terms everywhere in both Testaments. XII 38 Add to this that no abominable crime can be devised that someone has not committed, yet no one tries to erase the laws to excuse his crimes, or to introduce something impious as an eternal and saving teaching. For we see that human nature is so constituted that everyone, whether king or subject, who has done something shameful tries to dress up his deed with such circumstances that he may be believed to have done nothing contrary to what is just and proper.

We conclude, therefore, without qualification, that the whole universal divine law which Scripture teaches has reached our hands uncorrupted. XII 39 Besides these there are still other things that, we cannot doubt, have been handed down to us in good faith: namely, the main substance of the histories of Scripture, because these were very well known to everyone. The common people of the Jews used in former times to sing the antiquities of their nation in psalms. The main substance of what Christ did, and his passion, were also spread at once throughout the whole Roman Empire. So we should by no means believe that later generations handed down the chief part of these histories otherwise than they had received it from the first, unless the greater part of mankind had agreed in doing so—which is incredible.

Whatever is adulterated or faulty, then, could have occurred only in the rest: in one or another detail of a history or a prophecy, to stir the people to greater devotion; or in one or another miracle, to vex the philosophers; or finally in speculative matters, after schismatics began to introduce these into religion, so that each might prop up his own inventions by abusing divine authority. But it matters little for salvation whether such things have been corrupted or not. I will show this expressly in the next chapter, although I think it is already clear from what has been said, and especially from chapter 2.

Add to this that the prophets preached not to the learned but to all Jews without exception, while the apostles used to teach the gospel doctrine in churches, where all assembled in common. XIII 4 From all this it follows that the teaching of Scripture contains no lofty speculations and no philosophical matters, but only the simplest things, which even the slowest mind can grasp. I cannot wonder enough, then, at the ingenuity of those I spoke of above. They see in Scripture mysteries so profound that no human language can explain them, and they have then introduced into religion so many matters of philosophical speculation that the Church looks like an Academy, and religion like a science, or rather a quarrel. XIII 5 But why should I wonder if men who boast of having a light above nature refuse to yield in knowledge to philosophers, who have nothing but what is natural?

I would indeed wonder at it if they taught anything new, anything purely speculative, that had not long been a commonplace among the Gentile philosophers (whom they nevertheless call blind). For if you ask what mysteries they see hidden in Scripture, you will find nothing at all but the fictions of Aristotle or Plato or someone like them—things any unlettered person could often dream up more easily than the most learned man could dig them out of Scripture. XIII 6 We do not wish to assert absolutely that nothing purely speculative belongs to the teaching of Scripture; in the previous chapter we cited some things of this kind as fundamentals of Scripture. I mean only that such things are very few and very simple.

What these are, and how they are determined, I have resolved to show here. This will now be easy for us, since we know that it was not the aim of Scripture to teach the sciences. From this we can easily judge that Scripture demands nothing from men but obedience, and condemns only obstinacy, not ignorance. XIII 8 Next, since obedience toward God consists solely in love of one’s neighbor (for whoever loves his neighbor with the aim of obeying God has, as Paul says in the Epistle to the Romans 13:8,

fulfilled the law), it follows that Scripture commends no knowledge other than what all men need in order to obey God according to this precept—knowledge without which men must necessarily be obstinate, or at least lack the discipline of obedience. All other speculations, which do not lead directly to this end, whether they concern the knowledge of God or of natural things, do not touch Scripture, and must therefore be separated from revealed religion.

where God, to show Moses the singular grace granted to him, says: and I was revealed to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Sadai, but by my name Jehovah I was not known to them. To explain this better, note that El Sadai in Hebrew means “God who suffices,” because he gives each person what suffices for him; and although Sadai is often used on its own for God, there is no doubt that the name El, “God,” is everywhere to be understood. XIII 11 Next, note that in Scripture no name except Jehovah is found that indicates the absolute essence of God, without relation to created things.note

That is why the Hebrews maintain that this alone is God’s proper name, while the others are common nouns. XIII 12 And indeed the other names of God, whether substantives or adjectives, are attributes that belong to God insofar as he is considered in relation to created things, or is manifested through them. Such is אל El, or, with the paragogic letter ה He, אלה Eloah, which, as is well known, means simply “powerful one.” It applies to God only by way of eminence, as when we call Paul “the Apostle.” Otherwise the particular virtues of his power are spelled out, as in El (powerful) great, awesome, just, merciful, and so on; or, to include them all at once, this name is used in the plural with a singular meaning, which is very frequent in Scripture.note

Now since God tells Moses that he was not known to the fathers by the name Jehovah, it follows that they knew no attribute of God that expresses his absolute essence, but only his effects and promises, that is, his power insofar as it is manifested through visible things. XIII 14 Yet God does not tell Moses this to accuse them of unbelief, but on the contrary to extol their trust and faith. Although they did not have as singular a knowledge of God as Moses, they nevertheless believed God’s promises to be fixed and sure. Not so Moses: though he had loftier thoughts about God, he still doubted the divine promises, and complained to God that instead of the promised salvation he had changed the Jews’ situation for the worse.

Since, then, the fathers did not know God’s singular name, and God tells Moses this to praise their simplicity of heart and their faith, and at the same time to recall the singular grace granted to Moses, it follows most evidently—as we stated in the first place—that men are not bound by command to know God’s attributes, and that this is a special gift granted only to some of the faithful. Nor is it worth showing this with further testimonies from Scripture. XIII 16 For who does not see that knowledge of God has not been equal among all the faithful? And that no one can be wise by command, any more than he can live and exist by command? Men, women, children—all can equally obey by command, but not be wise.

If anyone says that there is indeed no need to understand God’s attributes, but only to believe them quite simply, without demonstration, he is surely talking nonsense. For invisible things, which are objects of the mind alone, can be seen with no other eyes than demonstrations. Those who lack demonstrations therefore see nothing of these things at all. Whatever they repeat of what they have heard about such matters touches or reveals their mind no more than the words of a parrot or an automaton, which speak without mind or sense. XIII 18 But before I go further, I must explain why Genesis often says that the patriarchs preached in the name of Jehovah, which seems plainly to contradict what has just been said. If we attend to what we showed in chapter 8, we can easily reconcile these things. For in that chapter

we showed that the writer of the Pentateuch does not designate things and places by exactly the names they had at the time he is speaking of, but by those by which they were better known in the writer’s own time. XIII 19 So in Genesis God is said to have been preached by the patriarchs under the name Jehovah, not because the fathers knew him by this name, but because this name was held in the highest reverence among the Jews. This, I say, must necessarily be said, since our text of Exodus states expressly that God was not known by this name to the patriarchs, and also because in Exodus 3:13 Moses wishes to know God’s name; had it been known before, it would at least have been known to him too. We must conclude, then, as we wished: the faithful patriarchs did not know this name of God, and knowledge of God is a gift of God, not a command.

namely: but in this alone let everyone glory, that he understands and knows me, that I, Jehovah, practice charity, judgment, and justice on the earth; for in these I delight, says Jehovah. The same is also gathered from Exodus 34:6–7, where God, when Moses desired to see and know him, reveals no attributes other than those that express divine justice and charity. Finally, the passage of John, which we will discuss later as well, deserves particular notice here: since no one has seen God, John explains God through charity alone, and concludes that whoever has charity truly has and knows God.note

We see, then, that Jeremiah, Moses, and John sum up in a few words the knowledge of God that everyone is bound to have, and place it, as we wished, in this alone: that God is supremely just and supremely merciful, that is, the one model of the true life. XIII 24 Add to this that Scripture nowhere expressly gives a definition of God, does not prescribe that any attributes of God be embraced other than those just mentioned, and does not expressly commend any others as it does these. From all this we conclude that intellectual knowledge of God—which considers his nature as it is in itself, a nature that men cannot imitate by a certain way of living, or take as an example for establishing a true way of living—in no way pertains to faith and revealed religion. Consequently, men can be utterly mistaken about it without any wickedness.

It is no wonder at all, then, that God accommodated himself to the imaginations and preconceived opinions of the prophets, or that the faithful have held different views about God, as we showed with many examples in chapter 2. XIII 26 Again, it is no wonder at all that the sacred books everywhere speak so improperly of God. They attribute to him hands, feet, eyes, ears, a mind, and local motion, and emotions as well, such as being jealous, merciful, and so on; and finally they depict him as a judge, sitting in the heavens as on a royal throne, with Christ at his right hand. They speak, of course, according to the understanding of the common people, whom Scripture strives to make not learned but obedient. XIII 27 Yet the ordinary run of theologians have maintained that whatever of these things they could see by the natural light to be inconsistent with the divine nature must be interpreted metaphorically, and whatever escaped their understanding must be taken literally.

But if everything of this kind found in Scripture had necessarily to be interpreted and understood metaphorically, then Scripture would have been written not for the people at large and the unlearned common people, but only for the most expert, and above all for philosophers. XIII 28 Indeed, if it were impious to believe these things we have just recounted about God piously and in simplicity of heart, the prophets would surely have had to take the greatest care, at least because of the weakness of the common people, to avoid such phrases. On the contrary, they would have had to teach first of all, expressly and clearly, God’s attributes as everyone is bound to embrace them—which is done nowhere.

So we must by no means believe that opinions, considered absolutely and without regard to works, contain anything of piety or impiety. A man should be said to believe something piously or impiously only insofar as his opinions move him to obedience, or he takes from them license to sin or to rebel. Thus if someone becomes obstinate by believing what is true, his faith is in fact impious; and if, on the contrary, he becomes obedient by believing what is false, his faith is pious. For we have shown that true knowledge of God is not a command but a divine gift, and that God has asked of men no knowledge other than that of his divine justice and charity—knowledge necessary not for the sciences but only for obedience.

For the sacred books were written not by one man alone, nor for the common people of a single age, but by very many men of different temperaments and different periods; if we wished to reckon the span of them all, it would come to almost two thousand years, and perhaps much longer.

Yet we do not wish to accuse these sectarians of impiety merely because they accommodate the words of Scripture to their own opinions. For just as Scripture itself was once accommodated to the understanding of the common people, so everyone may also accommodate it to his own opinions, if he sees that in this way he can obey God, in matters of justice and charity, with fuller consent of mind. XIV 4 We accuse them, rather, because they refuse to grant this same freedom to others. All who do not think as they do, however honest and devoted to true virtue they may be, they persecute as enemies of God; while those who flatter them, however lacking in self-control, they love as God’s elect. Nothing more wicked, surely, or more harmful to the commonwealth can be imagined.

To establish, then, how far each person’s freedom to think what he wishes extends with respect to faith, and whom we are bound to regard as faithful even though they think differently, we must determine faith and its fundamentals. This I have resolved to do in this chapter, and at the same time to separate faith from philosophy, which was the chief aim of the whole work. To show these things in order, let us recall the highest aim of the whole of Scripture, for this will show us the true standard for determining faith. XIV 6 We said in the previous chapter that the aim of Scripture is only to teach obedience. No one can deny this. For who does not see that both Testaments are nothing but a training in obedience, and that neither aims at anything other than that men should obey with a sincere heart?

For, to pass over what I showed in the previous chapter, Moses did not try to convince the Israelites by reason. He tried instead to bind them by a covenant, by oaths, and by benefits. He then threatened the people with punishment if they did not obey the laws, and urged them to obey with rewards. All these are means not to knowledge but to obedience alone. XIV 8 The teaching of the Gospel, for its part, contains nothing but simple faith: to believe in God and to revere him, or, what is the same thing, to obey God. So I have no need, in demonstrating so obvious a point, to heap up the texts of Scripture that commend obedience, of which a great many are found in both Testaments.

Next, Scripture itself also teaches very clearly, in many places, what each person must do in order to obey God: the whole law consists in this alone, namely love of one’s neighbor. Hence no one can deny that whoever loves his neighbor as himself, by God’s command, is truly obedient and blessed according to the law. Nor can anyone deny that whoever, on the contrary, hates or neglects his neighbor is rebellious and obstinate. XIV 10 Finally, everyone agrees that Scripture was written and published not for the learned alone but for people of every age and kind. From these points alone it follows most evidently that, by Scripture’s command, we are bound to believe nothing except what is absolutely necessary for carrying out this commandment.

Therefore this very commandment is the sole standard of the whole catholic faith. By it alone must all the dogmas of faith be determined—those, that is, which everyone is bound to embrace. XIV 11 Since this is perfectly obvious, and since everything can be legitimately deduced from this foundation alone, or by reason alone, let everyone judge how it could have happened that so many dissensions have arisen in the Church. Could there have been any causes other than those stated at the beginning of chapter 7? XIV 12 It is these very causes, then, that compel me to show here the manner and method of determining the dogmas of faith from the foundation we have found. For unless I do this, and settle the matter by definite rules, I shall rightly be thought to have made little progress so far. Anyone will be able to bring in whatever he likes under this very pretext—that it is a necessary means to obedience—especially when the question concerns the divine attributes.note

For we said that if obedience is posited, faith is necessarily posited as well. The same Apostle says this expressly in 2:18, in these words: Show me your faith without works, and I will show you my faith by my works. And John, in his First Epistle, 4:7–8: Whoever loves (that is, his neighbor) is born of God and knows God; whoever does not love does not know God, for God is charity. XIV 16 From this it follows, again, that we can judge no one faithful or unfaithful except by his works. If his works are good, he is faithful, even though he differs from other faithful people in his dogmas. Conversely, if they are bad, he is unfaithful, even though he agrees with them in words. For if obedience is posited, faith is necessarily posited, and faith without works is dead. XIV 17 The same John also teaches this expressly in verse 13note

of the same chapter. By this, he says, we know that we abide in him and he abides in us, because he has given us of his Spirit—namely, charity. For he had said earlier that God is charity. From this (that is, from the principles accepted in his day) he concludes that whoever has charity truly has the Spirit of God. Indeed, because no one has seen God, he concludes that no one perceives or is aware of God except through charity toward one’s neighbor alone. And so no one can know any attribute of God other than this charity, insofar as we share in it. XIV 18 Even if these arguments are not conclusive, they explain John’s meaning clearly enough. But the passage in 2:3–4 of the same Epistle explains it far more clearly, for there he teaches in the most explicit words what we are claiming here.

And by this, he says, we know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says, I know him, and does not keep his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. XIV 19 From this it follows, again, that those who persecute honest people who love justice, because these people disagree with them and do not defend the same dogmas of faith, are truly Antichrists. For we know that those who love justice and charity are faithful by this alone, and whoever persecutes the faithful is an Antichrist. XIV 20 It follows, finally, that faith requires not so much true dogmas as pious ones, that is, dogmas that move the mind to obedience. Many of them may not have even a shadow of truth, provided that whoever embraces them does not know them to be false. Otherwise he would necessarily be a rebel.

For how could someone who strives to love justice and to obey God worship as divine what he knows to be foreign to the divine nature? XIV 21 But people can err through simplicity of mind, and Scripture, as we have already shown, condemns not ignorance but only obstinacy. Indeed, this follows necessarily from the definition of faith alone. All the parts of that definition must be drawn from the universal foundation already shown and from the single aim of the whole of Scripture, unless we choose to mix in our own preferences. And that definition does not expressly require true dogmas. It requires dogmas that are necessary to obedience—those, namely, that strengthen the mind in love of one’s neighbor. Only by reason of this love is each person in God (to speak with John), and God in each person.

Each person’s faith, then, is to be judged pious or impious only by reason of obedience or obstinacy, and not by reason of truth or falsity. No one doubts, moreover, that the common character of human beings is highly varied, that not everyone is equally content with everything, and that opinions govern people in different ways: the very opinions that move one person to devotion move another to laughter and contempt. It follows that no dogmas over which honest people can disagree belong to the catholic, or universal, faith. XIV 23 For dogmas of that kind can be pious with respect to one person and impious with respect to another, since they are to be judged by works alone.

To the catholic faith, therefore, belong only those dogmas that obedience to God absolutely posits, and without knowledge of which obedience is absolutely impossible. As for the rest, each person, since he knows himself best, should think whatever he sees is best for him for strengthening himself in the love of justice. XIV 24 In this way, I think, no room is left for controversies in the Church.

For devotion, admiration, and love arise solely from the excellence of one above all the rest. XIV 26 Third, that he is present everywhere, or that all things are open to him. If things were believed to be hidden from him, or if people did not know that he sees all things, they would doubt the fairness of the justice by which he directs all things, or would be ignorant of it. Fourth, that he has supreme right and dominion over all things, and does nothing because he is compelled by right, but acts from his absolute good pleasure and singular grace. For all are bound to obey him absolutely, but he obeys no one. XIV 27 Fifth, that the worship of God and obedience to him consist solely in justice and charity, or love of one’s neighbor. Sixth, that only those who obey God by this way of life are saved, while the rest, who live under the rule of pleasures, are lost. If people did not firmly believe this, there would be no reason why they should prefer to obey God rather than their pleasures. XIV 28 Seventh,

and finally, that God forgives the sins of those who repent. For there is no one who does not sin. So if this were not laid down, everyone would despair of their salvation, and there would be no reason to believe God merciful. But whoever firmly believes this—that God forgives people’s sins out of the mercy and grace by which he directs all things—and is on this account more kindled in the love of God, truly knows Christ according to the Spirit, and Christ is in him. XIV 29 No one can fail to see that all these things must above all be known if people, without exception, are to be able to obey God as the law explained above prescribes. For if any one of them is taken away, obedience too is taken away.

But what God, or that model of true life, is—whether, say, he is fire, spirit, light, thought, and so on—has nothing to do with faith. Nor does the question of how he is the model of true life: whether, say, because he has a just and merciful mind, or because all things exist and act through him, so that we too understand through him, and through him see what is true, fair, and good. It makes no difference what anyone decides about these things.

Again, it has nothing to do with faith whether one believes that God is everywhere in essence or in power; that he directs things freely or by necessity of nature; that he prescribes laws as a prince or teaches them as eternal truths; that a human being obeys God from freedom of the will or from the necessity of God’s decree; and finally, that the reward of the good and the punishment of the wicked are natural or supernatural. XIV 32 It makes no difference, I say, as far as faith is concerned, how anyone understands these and similar things, provided he draws no conclusion from them with the aim of taking greater license to sin, or of becoming less obedient to God.

On the contrary, as we said above, each person is bound to adapt these dogmas of faith to his own understanding. He is bound to interpret them for himself in whatever way makes it easier for him to embrace them without any hesitation and with the full assent of his mind, so that he may consequently obey God with the full assent of his mind. XIV 33 For, as we have also already pointed out, faith was once revealed and written down in accordance with the understanding and opinions of the prophets and of the common people of that time. In the same way, each person is now bound to adapt it to his own opinions, so that he may embrace it without any resistance of mind and without any hesitation. For we have shown that faith requires not so much truth as piety, and that it is pious and saving only by reason of obedience. Consequently, no one is faithful except by reason of obedience.

So it is not the one who displays the best arguments who necessarily displays the best faith, but the one who displays the best works of justice and charity. XIV 34 How salutary this doctrine is, and how necessary in a commonwealth if people are to live in peace and harmony—how many and how great the causes of disturbance and crime, I say, it cuts off—I leave everyone to judge. XIV 35 Here, before I go further, it should be noted that from what has just been shown we can easily answer the objections we raised in chapter 1, when we discussed God speaking with the Israelites from Mount Sinai. XIV 36 The voice the Israelites heard could not give those people any philosophical or mathematical certainty of God’s existence. Even so, it was enough to carry them away in admiration of God, as they had known him before, and to stir them to obedience. That was the purpose of that spectacle.

For God did not wish to teach the Israelites the absolute attributes of his essence (he revealed none at that time). He wished to break their obstinate spirit and draw them to obedience. That is why he assailed them not with arguments but with the blare of trumpets, with thunder, and with lightning. XIV 37 (See Exodus 20:20.)

Faith therefore grants everyone the greatest freedom to philosophize, so that each may think whatever he likes about any matter whatever without committing a crime. It condemns as heretics and schismatics only those who teach opinions that urge obstinacy, hatred, strife, and anger. Conversely, it regards as faithful only those who urge justice and charity as far as their reason and abilities allow. XIV 40 Finally, since what I have shown here is the chief thing I intend in this treatise, I wish, before I go further, to ask the reader most earnestly to be kind enough to read these two chapters with special attention and to weigh them again and again. And let him be persuaded that we wrote not with the intention of introducing novelties, but of correcting what has been corrupted, which we hope to see corrected at last one day.

But whoever, on the other hand, makes reason and philosophy the handmaid of theology is bound to accept the prejudices of the common people of antiquity as divine things, and to fill and blind his mind with them. So both will be mad—the latter without reason, the former with it. XV 4 The first among the Pharisees to state openly that Scripture must be adapted to reason was Maimonides (we reviewed his view in chapter 7 and refuted it with many arguments). Although this author had great authority among them, most of them part company with him on this point and go over to the view of a certain Rabbi Judah Alfakhar. Wishing to avoid the error of Maimonides, Alfakhar fell into the opposite one.note

He held, namely,∗ that reason must be the handmaid of Scripture and wholly subject to it. He thought that nothing in Scripture should be explained metaphorically because its literal sense contradicts reason, but only because it contradicts Scripture itself, that is, its clear dogmas. From this he formed a universal rule: whatever Scripture teaches dogmatically∗∗ and affirms in express words must be accepted as absolutely true on its authority alone. Nor, he held, will any other dogma be found in the Bible that directly contradicts such a teaching. There will be contradiction only by implication, because Scripture’s ways of speaking often seem to presuppose something contrary to what it has expressly taught, and only for this reason are those passages to be explained metaphorically. XV 6 For example, Scripture clearly teaches that God is one (see Deuteronomy 6:4)

and no other passage is found anywhere that directly affirms that there are several gods. There are, to be sure, many passages where God speaks of himself, and the prophets speak of God, in the plural. But this way of speaking only presupposes that there are several gods; it does not indicate that this is what the statement itself intends. All these passages must therefore be explained metaphorically—not because it contradicts reason that there should be several gods, but because Scripture itself directly affirms that God is one. XV 7 So too, because Scripture in Deuteronomy 4:15 directly affirms (as he thinks) that God is incorporeal, we are bound to believe that God has no body on the authority of this passage alone, and not of reason. Consequently, on the authority of Scripture alone, we are bound to explain metaphorically all the passages that attribute hands, feet, and so on to God, whose way of speaking alone seems to presuppose a corporeal God.

This is that author’s view. Insofar as he wants to explain Scripture by Scripture, I commend him; but I am amazed that a man endowed with reason should strive to destroy it. It is true, of course, that Scripture must be explained by Scripture so long as we are working out only the meaning of its statements and the mind of the prophets. But once we have dug out the true meaning, we must necessarily use judgment and reason in order to give it our assent. XV 9 And if reason, even when it protests against Scripture, must nonetheless be wholly subjected to it, I ask: are we to do this with reason, or without reason, like the blind? If the latter, we certainly act foolishly and without judgment. If the former, then we embrace Scripture solely at reason’s command, and so we would not embrace it if it contradicted reason. XV 10 And I ask, who can embrace anything in his mind while reason protests? For what else is it to deny something in the mind than for reason to protest against it?

Truly, I cannot wonder enough that they want to subject reason, the greatest gift and a divine light, to dead letters, which human malice could have corrupted. They think it no crime to speak contemptuously of the mind, the true original document of the word of God, and to declare it corrupt, blind, and lost; yet they hold it the greatest crime to think such things of the letter, the idol of the word of God. XV 11 They think it pious to trust nothing to reason and their own judgment, but impious to doubt the reliability of those who handed down the sacred books to us. This is sheer folly, not piety. But I ask, what troubles them? What do they fear? Can religion and faith not be defended unless people deliberately remain ignorant of everything and bid reason farewell altogether? Surely, if that is what they believe, they fear Scripture more than they trust it.

But far be it that religion and piety should want reason as their handmaid, or reason want religion as its handmaid, or that each should be unable to hold its own realm in the greatest harmony. I will speak of this shortly; for here, before anything else, I want to examine this rabbi’s rule. XV 13 As we said, he holds, first, that we are bound to embrace as true, or reject as false, everything that Scripture affirms or denies; and second, that Scripture never expressly affirms or denies anything contrary to what it has affirmed or denied in another place. No one can fail to see how rashly both these claims are made.

I will pass over the fact that he did not notice that Scripture consists of different books, written at different times, by different people, and finally by different authors. I will also pass over a second point: that he lays these things down on his own authority, while neither reason nor Scripture says anything of the kind. For he ought to have shown that all the passages which conflict with others only by implication can be readily explained metaphorically from the nature of the language and the context of the passage, and further that Scripture has come into our hands uncorrupted. XV 15 But let us examine the matter in order. Regarding the first claim, I ask: if reason protests, are we nevertheless bound to embrace as true, or reject as false, whatever Scripture affirms or denies? Perhaps he will add that nothing is found in Scripture that conflicts with reason. But I press the point: Scripture expressly affirms and teaches that God is jealous (in the Decalogue itself, in Exodus 4:

14, in Deuteronomy 4:24, and in many other places). Yet this conflicts with reason; and still it must be posited as true. Indeed, if there were passages in Scripture presupposing that God is not jealous, they would necessarily have to be explained metaphorically, so that they would not seem to presuppose any such thing. XV 16 Likewise, Scripture expressly says that God came down onto Mount Sinai (see Exodus 19:20, etc.), and it attributes other movements from place to place to him, and nowhere does it expressly teach that God does not move. So this too would have to be accepted as true by everyone. And what Solomon says, that God is not contained in any place (see 1 Kings 8:27), would necessarily have to be explained so that it does not seem to deny God motion from place to place, since Solomon does not expressly state that God does not move; it merely follows from what he says.

In the same way, the heavens would have to be taken as God’s dwelling place and throne, because Scripture expressly affirms it. And so with a great many things said in accordance with the opinions of the prophets and of the common people, which reason and philosophy alone, not Scripture, teach to be false. Yet on this author’s view all of them would have to be assumed true, since in these matters reason is not consulted. XV 18 Next, he falsely asserts that one passage conflicts with another only by implication, never directly. For Moses directly affirms that God is fire (see Deuteronomy 4:24), and directly denies that God has any likeness to visible things (see Deuteronomy 4:

12). And if he retorts that this second passage denies that God is fire not directly but only by implication, and so must be adapted to the first so as not to seem to deny it, very well: let us grant that God is fire. Or rather, so as not to go mad along with him, let us drop the matter and bring forward another example. XV 19 Samuel∗∗∗ directly denies that God repents of his decision (see 1 Samuel 15:29), while Jeremiah, on the contrary, affirms that God repents of the good and the evil he had decreed (see Jeremiah 18:8, 10). What then? Are these not directly opposed to each other? Which of the two, then, does he want to explain metaphorically? Both statements are universal, and each is the contrary of the other: what one directly affirms, the other directly denies. So by his own rule he is bound to embrace this very thing as true and at the same time reject it as false.

Further, what does it matter that a passage conflicts with another not directly but only by implication, if the implication is clear and the context and nature of the passage do not allow metaphorical explanations? A great many such cases are found in the Bible. On these, see chapter 2 (where we showed that the prophets held different and contrary opinions), and above all, all those contradictions we showed to exist in the historical books (in chapters 9 and 10). XV 21 I need not review them all here, since what has been said is enough to show the absurdities that follow from this view and rule, as well as its falsity and the author’s haste. So we reject both this view and that of Maimonides, and we lay it down as unshakable that neither is theology bound to be the handmaid of reason, nor reason of theology, but each holds its own realm.

As we said, reason has the realm of truth and wisdom, theology that of piety and obedience. XV 22 For the power of reason, as we have already shown, does not extend so far as to be able to determine that people can be blessed through obedience alone, without understanding things. Theology, on the other hand, dictates nothing but this and commands nothing but obedience, and it neither wants nor is able to do anything against reason. XV 23 For it determines the dogmas of faith (as we showed in the preceding chapter) only so far as suffices for obedience. How exactly they are to be understood with respect to truth, it leaves for reason to determine; and reason is truly the light of the mind, without which the mind sees nothing but dreams and fictions.

By theology here I mean precisely revelation insofar as it indicates the aim that we said Scripture has in view (namely, the method and manner of obeying, or the dogmas of true piety and faith)—that is, what is properly called the word of God, which does not consist in a fixed number of books (on this see chapter 12). For you will find that theology so understood agrees with reason if you consider its precepts or teachings for life, and conflicts with it in nothing if you consider its intent and end; and for that reason it is universal to all. XV 25 As for Scripture as a whole, we have also already shown in chapter 7

that its meaning must be determined solely from its own history, and not from the universal history of Nature, which is the foundation of philosophy alone. Nor should it hold us back if, after investigating its true meaning in this way, we find that here and there it conflicts with reason. For whatever of this kind is found in the Bible, or whatever people can be ignorant of without harm to charity, we know for certain does not touch theology, or the word of God; and consequently everyone may think whatever he likes about such things without wrongdoing. We therefore conclude absolutely that neither must Scripture be accommodated to reason, nor reason to Scripture.

To this I reply that I maintain absolutely that this fundamental dogma of theology cannot be discovered by the natural light, or at least that no one has ever demonstrated it, and that revelation was therefore supremely necessary. Nevertheless, we can use our judgment so as to embrace, at least with moral certainty, what has already been revealed. XV 28 I say moral certainty, for there is no reason to expect that we can be more certain of it than the prophets themselves, to whom it was first revealed, and whose certainty was nonetheless only moral, as we showed in chapter 2 of this treatise. XV 29 Those, then, who try to establish the authority of Scripture by mathematical demonstrations are entirely on the wrong track.

For the authority of the Bible depends on the authority of the prophets, and so it cannot be demonstrated by any stronger arguments than those by which the prophets once used to convince the people of their own authority. Indeed, our certainty about it can rest on no other foundation than the one on which the prophets based their certainty and authority. XV 30 For we showed that the whole certainty of the prophets consisted in these three things: first, a distinct and vivid imagination; second, a sign; third and most important, a mind inclined to what is right and good. They rested on no other grounds, and so they could not demonstrate their authority on any other grounds either to the people, whom they once addressed in person, or to us, whom they address in writing. XV 31 But the first, that they imagined things vividly, could be evident only to the prophets themselves. So all our certainty about revelation can and must be founded on the other two alone, namely the sign and the teaching.

Moses, too, expressly teaches this. XV 32 For in Deuteronomy 18 he commands the people to obey the prophet who has given a true sign in the name of God, but to condemn to death a prophet who has predicted something falsely, even in the name of God; and likewise anyone who has tried to lead the people away from the true religion, even if he confirmed his authority by signs and wonders (on this see Deuteronomy 13). XV 33 From this it follows that a true prophet is distinguished from a false one by his teaching and by miracle together. Such a prophet Moses declares to be true, and he commands the people to believe him without any fear of deception. And he says that those are false and deserve death who have predicted something falsely, even in the name of God, or who have taught false gods, even if they performed true miracles. XV 34 Therefore we too are bound to believe Scripture, that is, the prophets themselves, for this reason alone: because of their teaching confirmed by signs.

For since we see that the prophets commend charity and justice above all things and aim at nothing else, we conclude that they taught sincerely, without intent to deceive, that people become blessed through obedience and faith. And because they also confirmed this by signs, we are persuaded that they did not say it rashly and were not raving when they prophesied. XV 35 We are confirmed in this still further when we note that they taught nothing moral that does not agree most plainly with reason; for it is no accident that the word of God in the prophets agrees entirely with the very word of God speaking within us. And these things, I say, we conclude from the Bible with the same certainty with which the Jews of old concluded them from the living voice of the prophets. XV 36 For above, at the end of chapter 12, we showed that Scripture has come down to us uncorrupted as regards its teaching and its principal narratives.

Therefore, although this foundation of all theology and Scripture cannot be shown by mathematical demonstration, we nonetheless embrace it with sound judgment. XV 37 For it is surely ignorance to refuse to accept something that is confirmed by the testimony of so many prophets, that gives great comfort to those not strongly endowed with reason, that brings no small benefit to the commonwealth, and that we can believe absolutely without risk or harm—and to refuse it for this reason alone, that it cannot be demonstrated mathematically. As if, in order to live wisely, we should admit as true nothing that can be called into doubt by any reason for doubting; or as if most of our actions were not highly uncertain and full of chance.

I grant, indeed, that those who think philosophy and theology contradict each other—and therefore believe that one or the other must be driven from its realm, and that we must bid farewell to one or the other—are not without reason in striving to lay firm foundations for theology and in trying to demonstrate it mathematically. For who but someone desperate and mad would want to bid reason a rash farewell, despise the arts and sciences, and deny the certainty of reason? XV 39 Yet we cannot excuse them entirely, since they want to call on reason for help in order to drive reason away, and try by sure reasoning to make reason unsure. Indeed, while they strive to show the truth and authority of theology by mathematical demonstrations, and to strip reason and the natural light of authority, they are doing nothing but dragging theology itself under the rule of reason. They plainly seem to presuppose that theology’s authority has no luster unless it is illuminated by the natural light of reason.

And if, on the other hand, they boast that they rest entirely on the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, and call on reason for help only for the sake of unbelievers—to convince them, that is—even so, no credence should be given to what they say. For we can easily show that they say this either from their affects or from vainglory. XV 41 It follows most evidently from the preceding chapter that the Holy Spirit bears witness only to good works, which is why Paul, too, in Galatians 5:22, calls them the fruits of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit itself is in fact nothing other than the contentment of mind that arises in the mind from good actions. XV 42 But to the truth and certainty of things that are purely matters of speculation, no Spirit bears witness except reason, which alone, as we have shown, has claimed for itself the realm of truth.

So if they claim to have some other Spirit besides this one, which makes them certain of the truth, their boast is false and they speak only from the prejudice of their affects; or else, in great fear of being defeated by philosophers and exposed to public ridicule, they take refuge in sacred things. But in vain: for what altar can someone prepare for himself who offends against the majesty of reason?

But I leave them aside, since I think I have done what my case requires. I have shown how philosophy is to be separated from theology, what each chiefly consists in, and that neither is the handmaid of the other, but each holds its own realm without any opposition from the other. Finally, wherever the occasion arose, I have also shown the absurdities, disadvantages, and harms that have resulted from people’s confusing these two faculties with each other in remarkable ways, and not knowing how to distinguish accurately between them and separate one from the other. XV 44 Now, before I go on to other matters, I want to state expressly here∗ (although it has already been said), regarding the usefulness and necessity of Holy Scripture, or revelation, that I hold it to be very great.

For since we cannot perceive by the natural light that simple obedience is a path to salvation∗∗, and only revelation teaches that this comes about by a singular grace of God that we cannot grasp by reason, it follows that Scripture has brought very great comfort to mortals. XV 45 Absolutely everyone can obey, whereas there are only very few, compared with the whole human race, who acquire the habit of virtue under the guidance of reason alone. So if we did not have this testimony of Scripture, we would doubt the salvation of nearly everyone.

For it is certain that nature, considered absolutely, has the supreme right to everything it can do. That is, the right of nature extends as far as its power extends, for the power of nature is the very power of God, who has the supreme right to everything. XVI 4 But the universal power of the whole of nature is nothing but the power of all individuals taken together. It follows that each individual has the supreme right to everything it can do, or that the right of each extends as far as its determinate power extends. And the highest law of nature is that each thing strives, as far as it can by its own power, to persevere in its own state, and does so with regard not to anything else but only to itself. It follows that each individual has the supreme right to this—that is (as I said), to exist and to act as it is naturally determined to do.

Here we recognize no difference between human beings and the other individuals of nature. Nor do we distinguish between human beings endowed with reason and others who do not know true reason, or between the foolish, the delirious, and the sane. For whatever each thing does by the laws of its own nature, it does by supreme right, simply because it acts as it is determined by nature and can do nothing else. XVI 6 So among human beings, as long as they are considered as living under the rule of nature alone, the one who does not yet know reason, or does not yet have the habit of virtue, lives by supreme right by the laws of appetite alone, just as much as the one who directs his life by the laws of reason.

That is, the wise man has the supreme right to everything that reason dictates, or to living by the laws of reason. In the same way the ignorant person, who lacks mastery of himself, has the supreme right to everything that appetite urges, or to living by the laws of appetite. And this is just what Paul teaches: he acknowledges no sin before the law—that is, as long as human beings are considered as living under the rule of nature.note

Whatever, therefore, anyone considered as under the rule of nature alone judges useful to himself, whether by the guidance of sound reason or by the impulse of his affects, he may seek by the supreme right of nature. He may take it by any means—by force, by deceit, by entreaty, or by whatever way he can most easily manage. And consequently he may regard as an enemy anyone who wants to stop him from having his way.

Whatever in nature seems to us ridiculous, absurd, or evil, then, comes from the fact that we know things only in part and are for the most part ignorant of the order and coherence of the whole of nature, and from the fact that we want everything to be directed in the way that suits our reason. Yet what reason declares evil is not evil with respect to the order and laws of universal nature, but only with respect to the laws of our own nature.

we will see very clearly that, in order to live securely and as well as possible, human beings necessarily had to unite into one body. They thus brought it about that they held collectively the right each had by nature to everything, and that this right was no longer determined by the force and appetite of each individual but by the power and will of all together. XVI 14 Yet they would have attempted this in vain if they had wanted to follow only what appetite urges, for by the laws of appetite each person is pulled in a different direction. So they had to resolve most firmly, and agree by pact, to direct everything by the dictate of reason alone (which no one dares to oppose openly, lest he seem to have lost his mind). They had to restrain appetite insofar as it urges anything to another’s harm, to do to no one what they would not want done to themselves, and finally to defend another’s right as their own. XVI 15 But how this pact must be entered into so that it may be valid and stable, we must now consider.

For it is a universal law of human nature that no one neglects anything he judges to be good except in the hope of a greater good or out of fear of a greater harm, and that no one endures any evil except to avoid a greater one or in the hope of a greater good. That is, of two goods each will choose the one he himself judges greater, and of two evils the one that seems lesser to him. I say expressly “what seems greater or lesser to the one choosing,” not that the thing is necessarily as he judges it. XVI 16 And this law is so firmly inscribed in human nature that it must be counted among the eternal truths, which no one can fail to know. From it, however, it necessarily follows that no one will promise without deceit∗ to give up the right he has to everything, and that absolutely no one will keep his promises except out of fear of a greater evil or hope of a greater good.

To understand this better, suppose a robber forces me to promise to give him my goods whenever he wants. Now, as I have already shown, my natural right is determined by my power alone. So it is certain that if I can free myself from this robber by deceit, promising him whatever he wants, I am permitted by natural right to do so—that is, to agree deceitfully to whatever he wants. XVI 18 Or suppose I have promised someone in good faith that for twenty days I will not taste food or any nourishment, and afterward I see that I promised foolishly and cannot keep the promise without the greatest harm. Since by natural right I am bound to choose the lesser of two evils, I can break faith with such a pact by supreme right, and treat what was said as unsaid.

And this, I say, is permitted by natural right whether I see by true and certain reasoning that I promised badly, or merely seem, in my opinion, to see it. For whether I see it truly or falsely, I will fear the greatest evil, and I will therefore strive by every means to avoid it, as the established order of nature directs. XVI 20 From this we conclude that a pact can have no force except by reason of its utility. When that is removed, the pact is removed with it and is left void. It is therefore foolish for anyone to demand another’s faith forever unless he also tries to ensure that breaking the pact to be made will bring the one who breaks it more harm than advantage. This principle should carry the greatest weight in founding a commonwealth.

If all human beings could easily be led by the guidance of reason alone and recognize the supreme utility and necessity of the commonwealth, there would be no one who did not utterly detest deceit. All would keep their pacts completely and in perfect good faith, out of desire for this highest good, namely the preservation of the commonwealth. They would maintain good faith, the chief safeguard of the commonwealth, above everything. XVI 22 But it is far from true that all can always easily be led by the guidance of reason alone. For each is drawn by his own pleasure, and the mind is very often so taken up with greed, desire for glory, envy, anger, and the like that no room is left for reason. XVI 23 So although people promise with sure signs of sincerity, and agree to keep faith, no one can be certain of another’s good faith unless something is added to the promise. For by the right of nature each person can act deceitfully, and is not bound to keep pacts except in the hope of a greater good or from fear of a greater evil.

But we have already shown that natural right is determined by each person’s power alone. It follows that, however much of the power he has a person transfers to another, whether by force or voluntarily, so much of his right he necessarily yields to the other as well. It also follows that whoever has supreme power, by which he can compel all by force and restrain them by fear of the ultimate penalty, which everyone universally fears, has supreme right over all. He will retain this right, however, only as long as he preserves this power of carrying out whatever he wishes. Otherwise his rule will be precarious, and no one stronger than he will be bound to obey him unless he wishes to.

For if they wanted to keep anything for themselves, they ought at the same time to have secured a means of defending it safely. But they did not do this, and could not have done it without dividing, and consequently destroying, the state. By that very fact they submitted themselves absolutely to the will of the sovereign. And they did this absolutely, and (as we have already shown) both under the compulsion of necessity and at the urging of reason itself. It follows that, unless we want to be enemies of the state and to act against reason, which urges us to defend the state with all our strength, we are bound to carry out absolutely all the commands of the sovereign, even if it commands the most absurd things. For reason bids us carry out even such commands, so that we may choose the lesser of two evils.

Add to this that each person could easily run this risk of submitting himself absolutely to another’s rule and will. For, as we have shown, sovereign powers have this right of commanding whatever they wish only as long as they actually hold supreme power. If they lose that power, they lose at the same time the right of commanding everything, and it passes to the one or ones who have acquired it and can keep it. XVI 29 It can therefore very rarely happen that sovereign powers command the most absurd things. For it is very much their own concern, in order to look out for themselves and retain power, to consult the common good and direct everything by the dictate of reason; for, as Seneca says, no one has held violent rule for long. XVI 30 Moreover, absurd commands are less to be feared in a democratic state.note

For it is almost impossible for the majority of a single assembly, if it is large, to agree on one absurdity. Second, there is the foundation and end of democracy, which, as we have also shown, is nothing other than to avoid the absurdities of appetite and to keep human beings, as far as possible, within the bounds of reason, so that they may live in harmony and peace. If this foundation is removed, the whole structure will easily collapse. XVI 31 To provide for these things, then, is the concern of the sovereign alone. The subjects’ part, as we have said, is to carry out its commands and to recognize no right other than what the sovereign declares to be right.

But perhaps someone will think that in this way we make subjects into slaves, since people think that a slave is one who acts on command and a free man is one who does as he pleases. This is not absolutely true. For in fact the one who is so drawn by his own pleasure that he can neither see nor do anything useful to himself is the greatest slave, and only he is free who lives wholeheartedly by the guidance of reason alone. XVI 33 Action on command, that is, obedience, does indeed take away freedom in some way, but it does not of itself make a person a slave; the reason for the action does.

If the end of the action is the advantage not of the agent himself but of the one commanding, then the agent is a slave and useless to himself. XVI 34 But in a commonwealth and state where the welfare of the whole people, not of the ruler, is the supreme law, the one who obeys the sovereign in everything should be called not a slave useless to himself but a subject. And so that commonwealth is most free whose laws are founded on sound reason, for there each person can be free whenever he wishes∗, that is, can live wholeheartedly by the guidance of reason. XVI 35 So too children, though bound to obey all their parents’ commands, are nevertheless not slaves, for the parents’ commands look above all to the children’s advantage.

We recognize, then, a great difference between a slave, a son, and a subject, who are accordingly defined as follows. A slave is one who is bound to obey the commands of a master, which look only to the advantage of the one commanding. A son is one who does what is useful to himself at the command of a parent. A subject, finally, is one who does what is useful to the community, and consequently to himself as well, at the command of the sovereign. XVI 36 With this I think I have shown the foundations of the democratic state clearly enough. I have preferred to treat it above all others because it seemed the most natural, and the closest to the freedom that nature grants to each person. For in it no one transfers his natural right to another so completely that he has no say thereafter; he transfers it to the majority of the whole society, of which he is one part. In this way all remain equal, as they were before in the state of nature.

Second, I chose to treat this form of state alone expressly because it best serves my purpose, since I had set out to discuss the benefit of freedom in the commonwealth. I therefore pass over the foundations of the other forms of power. Nor do we need to know, in order to understand their right, where they arose from and often still arise; for that is more than clear from what has just been shown.

For whoever holds supreme power, whether it is one person, a few, or finally all, it is certain that the supreme right of commanding whatever it wishes belongs to that holder. Moreover, whoever has transferred to another his power of defending himself, whether voluntarily or compelled by force, has wholly given up his natural right, and has consequently resolved to obey that other absolutely in everything. And he is altogether bound to do so as long as the king, or the nobles, or the people preserve the supreme power they received, which was the basis of the transfer of right. There is no need to add more to this.

A wrong occurs when a citizen or subject is compelled to suffer some harm from another contrary to civil right, that is, contrary to an edict of the sovereign. A wrong can be conceived only in the civil state. Nor can any wrong be done to subjects by the sovereign powers, to whom everything is permitted by right. So it can take place only between private persons, who are bound by right not to harm one another. XVI 42 Justice is a steadfast disposition of mind to render to each person what belongs to him by civil right. Injustice, by contrast, is taking from someone, under a show of right, what belongs to him by the true interpretation of the laws. These are also called equity and inequity, because those appointed to settle lawsuits are bound to show no favor to persons but to treat all as equal, and to defend each person’s right equally, neither envying the rich nor despising the poor.note

Allies are the people of two states who contract with each other not to harm one another, and on the contrary to help one another when necessity compels. They do so to avoid the danger that comes with the hazards of war, or for some other advantage, and each state retains its own sovereignty. XVI 44 This contract will remain valid as long as its foundation, namely the consideration of danger or of advantage, is present. For no one makes a contract, or is bound to stand by a pact, except in hope of some good or fear of some evil. If this foundation is removed, the pact falls of itself—as experience teaches more than enough.

For although different states contract with each other not to harm one another, they nonetheless try as hard as they can to prevent either from growing more powerful. Nor do they put any trust in words unless they have seen clearly enough the purpose and advantage each has in making the contract. Otherwise they fear deceit, and not without reason. For who will rely on the words and promises of one who retains sovereign power and the right to do anything at all, and for whom the safety and advantage of his own state must be the supreme law? Who, unless a fool ignorant of the right of sovereign powers?

And if we also consider piety and religion, we shall see in addition that no one who holds power can keep his promises to the harm of his state without committing a crime. For whatever he has promised that he sees turning to his state’s harm, he cannot perform without breaking the faith he has pledged to his subjects. He is bound by that faith above all, and rulers commonly promise most solemnly to keep it. XVI 47 Further, an enemy is anyone who lives outside the state in such a way that he acknowledges its sovereignty neither as an ally nor as a subject. For it is not hatred but right that makes someone an enemy of the state. The right of the state against one who does not acknowledge its sovereignty by any kind of contract is the same as its right against one who has done it harm: it may rightfully compel him, by whatever means it can, either to surrender or to enter an alliance.

Lastly, the crime of treason applies only to subjects or citizens, who by a tacit or express pact have transferred all their right to the state. A subject is said to have committed this crime when he has attempted, by any means whatever, to seize the right of the sovereign or to transfer it to another. XVI 49 I say “has attempted,” because if people could be condemned only after the deed was done, the state would usually be acting too late, once its right had already been seized or transferred to another. I say, further, without qualification, “whoever attempts by any means to seize the right of the sovereign.” That is, I recognize no difference whether harm or growth for the whole commonwealth would most clearly follow from it.note

For whatever means he used in the attempt, he has injured the sovereign’s majesty and is rightly condemned. In war, everyone admits that this is done with the fullest right. Suppose someone does not keep his post but goes against the enemy without his commander’s knowledge. Even if he undertook the action with good intent, though on his own counsel, and defeated the enemy, he is still rightly condemned to death, because he has violated his oath and his commander’s right. XVI 51 Not everyone sees as clearly that all citizens without exception are always bound by this same right. Yet the reasoning is exactly the same. For the commonwealth must be preserved and directed by the counsel of the sovereign alone, and people have agreed without qualification that this right belongs to it alone. If anyone, then, has undertaken on his own judgment alone, without the knowledge of the supreme council, to carry out some piece of public business

—even if, as we said, growth for the state would certainly follow from it—he has nonetheless violated the right of the sovereign and injured its majesty, and he is rightly and deservedly condemned.

Therefore before revelation no one is bound by divine law, of which he cannot help being ignorant. Hence the state of nature must by no means be confused with the state of religion. It must be conceived as without religion and law, and consequently without sin and wrong, as we have already done and confirmed by the authority of Paul. XVI 55 We conceive the state of nature as prior to revealed divine law, and as without it, not only because of ignorance but also because of the freedom with which all people are born. For if people were bound by divine law by nature, or if divine law had the force of law by nature, it would have been superfluous for God to enter into a contract with people and to bind them by pact and oath.note

It must therefore be granted without qualification that divine law began from the time when people promised God, by an express pact, to obey him in all things. By this pact they gave up, as it were, their natural freedom and transferred their right to God, just as we said happens in the civil state. But I shall treat these matters at greater length in what follows. XVI 57 It may still be objected that sovereign powers are bound by this divine law just as much as subjects are, whereas we said that they retain natural right and that everything is permitted to them by right. This difficulty arises not so much from the nature of the state of nature as from the nature of natural right. To remove it entirely, I say that everyone in the state of nature is bound by revealed law for the same reason that he is bound to live by the dictate of sound reason: namely, because it is more useful to him and necessary for salvation. But if he refuses, he is permitted to do so, at his own peril.

And so he is bound to live by his own decree alone, not by another’s, and he is not bound to acknowledge any mortal as judge, or as an avenger by right of religion. I affirm that the sovereign has retained this right. It can indeed consult others, but it is not bound to acknowledge anyone as judge, or any mortal besides itself as the champion of any right. The only exception is a prophet expressly sent by God who has shown this by indubitable signs. XVI 59 Yet even then it is compelled to acknowledge as judge not a man but God himself.

If the sovereign refuses to obey God in his revealed law, it is permitted to do so at its own peril and loss, since no civil or natural right stands in the way. For civil right depends on its decree alone. XVI 60 Natural right, in turn, depends on the laws of nature. These laws are adapted not to religion, which aims only at human advantage, but to the order of the whole of nature, that is, to God’s eternal decree, which is unknown to us. Others seem to have grasped this more obscurely—those, namely, who hold that a person can sin against God’s revealed will, but not against his eternal decree, by which he has predetermined all things. XVI 61 But suppose someone now asks: What if the sovereign commands something contrary to religion and to the obedience we have promised God by express pact? Should we obey the divine command or the human one?

Since I shall treat these matters at greater length in what follows, here I say only briefly that God must be obeyed above all things when we have a certain and indubitable revelation. XVI 62 But people are especially prone to error about religion, and they invent a great many things with great contention according to their different temperaments, as experience more than sufficiently attests. So it is certain that if no one were bound by right to obey the sovereign in matters he himself thinks belong to religion, the right of the state would depend on the varying judgment and affect of each individual.

For no one would be bound by that right who judged a decree to have been made against his faith and superstition, and so each person could, on this pretext, claim license to do anything. Since this destroys the right of the state entirely, it follows that the sovereign has the supreme right to decide whatever it judges concerning religion. By divine as well as natural right, the duty of preserving and protecting the rights of the state falls on the sovereign alone. And all are bound to obey its decrees and commands on religion, by virtue of the faith they have pledged to it, which God commands to be kept without exception.

If those who hold sovereign power are pagans, there are two cases. People should either make no contract with them and resolve to suffer the worst rather than transfer their right to them. Or, if they have made a contract and transferred their right to them, they have by that very act deprived themselves of the right to defend themselves and their religion. In that case they are bound to obey these rulers and keep faith with them, or they may be compelled to do so. The only exception is someone to whom God has promised, by certain revelation, special help against the tyrant, or whom he has willed to exempt by name. XVI 65 Thus we see that, of all the Jews who were in Babylon, only three youths, who did not doubt God’s help, refused to obey Nebuchadnezzar. The rest—with the further exception of Daniel, whom the king himself had worshiped—no doubt obeyed, compelled by right. Perhaps they reflected that they had been handed over to the king by God’s decree, and that the king held supreme power and preserved it by divine direction.note

Eleazar, by contrast, while his country was still standing after a fashion, wished to give his people an example of steadfastness. He wanted them to follow him in enduring anything rather than allow their right and power to be transferred to the Greeks, and to try everything rather than be compelled to swear allegiance to pagans. Daily experience also confirms this. XVI 67 Those who hold power over Christian states do not hesitate, for their greater security, to make treaties with Turks and pagans. They order their subjects who go to live there not to take greater freedom in practicing anything human or divine than has been expressly contracted for, or than that state allows. This is evident from the contract between the Dutch and the Japanese, which we mentioned above.note

Experience itself, I think, also teaches this very clearly. People have never given up their right and transferred their power to another so completely that they ceased to be feared by the very people who received their right and power. Nor did the state ever cease to be in greater danger from its citizens, though deprived of their right, than from its enemies. XVII 4 And indeed, if people could be so deprived of their natural right∗ that thereafter they could do nothing except with the consent of those who held supreme right, then it would surely be permitted to rule subjects with the utmost violence and with impunity. That, I believe, could occur to no one. It must therefore be granted that each person reserves many things to his own right, which therefore depend not on anyone’s decree but on his own alone.

However, to understand correctly how far the right and power of the state extend, we must note that the power of the state does not consist strictly in its ability to compel people by fear. It consists, without qualification, in everything by which it can bring people to obey its commands. For it is not the reason for obeying, but obedience itself, that makes a subject. XVII 6 Whatever a person’s reason for resolving to carry out the sovereign’s commands—whether he fears punishment, or hopes to gain something, or loves his country, or is moved by some other affect—he still resolves on his own counsel, and he nonetheless acts by the sovereign’s command.

So we must not immediately conclude, from the fact that a person does something on his own counsel, that he does it by his own right and not by the right of the state. Whether he is bound by love or compelled by fear to avoid an evil, he always acts on his own counsel and decision. Either, then, there would be no state and no right over subjects, or that right necessarily extends to everything by which people can be brought to resolve to yield to it. Consequently, whatever a subject does that conforms to the sovereign’s commands, he does by the right of the state, not by his own. This holds whether he is bound by love, or coerced by fear, or (more frequently) moved by hope and fear together, or by reverence—a passion composed of fear and wonder—or led by any other reason whatever.

This is also very clear from the fact that obedience concerns not so much the outward action as the inward action of the mind. So the person most under another’s rule is the one who resolves wholeheartedly to obey all his commands. It follows that the one who reigns over the minds of his subjects holds the greatest rule. If those who are most feared held the greatest rule, then surely the subjects of tyrants would hold it, since tyrants fear their own subjects most of all. XVII 9 Further, although minds cannot be commanded in the same way as tongues, minds are still in some measure under the rule of the sovereign. In many ways it can bring a very large part of the people to believe, love, hate, and so on, whatever it wishes.

So even though these things do not happen by the direct command of the sovereign, they often happen, as experience abundantly attests, by the authority of its power and by its direction, that is, by its right. Hence we can conceive, without any contradiction of the intellect, of people who believe, love, hate, despise, and are seized by every affect whatever solely by the right of the state.

Indeed, those who have experienced how changeable the temperament of the multitude is nearly despair of it. It is governed not by reason but by affects alone, rushes headlong into everything, and is very easily corrupted by greed or by luxury. XVII 15 Each person thinks that he alone knows everything and wants to regulate everything according to his own temperament. He considers a thing fair or unfair, right or wrong, only insofar as he judges that it brings him gain or loss. Out of vainglory he despises his equals and will not allow himself to be directed by them. Out of envy of another’s greater praise or fortune, which is never equal, he desires the other’s harm and takes pleasure in it. There is no need to list everything. XVII 16 Everyone knows what crimes are often prompted in people by weariness with the present and the desire for change, by headlong anger, and by poverty that is despised, and how much these occupy and agitate their minds.

To forestall all these things, then, and to set up the state so that no room is left for fraud—indeed, to arrange everything so that all people, whatever their temperament, put public right before their private advantage—this is the task, this the toil. XVII 17 Necessity has indeed forced people to devise many things. Yet things have never reached the point where the state was not more endangered by its citizens than by its enemies, and where those who hold it did not fear the former more than the latter. XVII 18 Witness the Roman Republic: unconquerable by its enemies, yet so often conquered and most miserably oppressed by its own citizens, especially in the civil war of Vespasian against Vitellius. On this see Tacitus at the beginning of Book 4 of the Histories, where he paints a most wretched picture of the city. XVII 19 Alexander, as Quintus Curtius says at the end of Book 8, judged renown more candidly in an enemy than in a fellow citizen, since he believed that his greatness could be destroyed by his own people, etc.note

And fearing his fate, he entreats his friends: Only keep me safe from treachery within and from plots among my own household, and I will face the dangers of war and battle without fear. Philip was safer on the battlefield than in the theater; he often escaped the hands of his enemies, but he could not escape those of his own people. If you consider the deaths of other kings as well, you will count more killed by their own people than by the enemy (see Quintus Curtius, Book 9, section 6). XVII 20 For this reason, then, kings who in the past had usurped power tried—to make themselves secure, of course—to persuade people that they traced their lineage from the immortal gods. Clearly they thought that if only their subjects and everyone else did not regard them as equals but believed them to be gods, they would willingly allow themselves to be ruled by them and would readily surrender themselves to them.note

Thus Augustus persuaded the Romans that he traced his origin from Aeneas, who was the son of Venus and was believed to be among the gods. He wanted to be worshiped with temples and images like those of the gods, by flamens and priests (Tacitus, Annals, Book 1). XVII 22 Alexander wanted to be hailed as the son of Jupiter. He seems to have done this from policy, not from pride, as his reply to the invective of Hermolaus shows. It was almost laughable, he says, that Hermolaus demanded that I reject Jupiter, by whose oracle I am acknowledged. Is it also in my power what the gods answer? He offered me the name of son; to accept it (NB) was not at all foreign to the very things we are doing. Would that the Indians, too, believed me to be a god. For wars depend on reputation, and often what was falsely believed has taken the place of truth (Curtius, Book 8, section 8).note

With these few words he shrewdly goes on persuading the ignorant of something feigned, and at the same time hints at the reason for the pretense. XVII 23 Cleon did the same in the speech in which he tried to persuade the Macedonians to fall in with the king’s wishes. He first gave the pretense the look of truth by recounting Alexander’s praises with admiration and listing his merits. Then he moved on to its usefulness, as follows: The Persians worshiped their kings among the gods not only piously but also prudently, for the majesty of rule is the safeguard of safety. And finally he concluded that he himself, when the king entered the banquet, would prostrate himself on the ground; the others ought to do the same, and especially those endowed with wisdom (see the same author, Book 8, section 5). XVII 24 But the Macedonians were more prudent. Unless people are utterly barbarous, they do not allow themselves to be so openly deceived and to be turned from subjects into slaves useless to themselves.note

Others, however, were able more easily to persuade people that majesty is sacred and holds the place of God on earth; that it is established by God, not by the vote and consent of men; and that it is preserved and defended by a special providence and by divine aid. XVII 25 Monarchs have devised other things of this kind for the security of their rule, all of which I pass over. To reach what I intend, I will, as I said, note and weigh only those things that divine revelation once taught Moses to this end.

This promise, or transfer of right to God, was made in the same way as we conceived above that it happens in an ordinary society, when people decide to give up their natural right. For by an express covenant (see Exodus 24:7) and by an oath they gave up their natural right freely—not compelled by force or frightened by threats—and transferred it to God. XVII 29 Next, so that the covenant would be ratified, firm, and free of any suspicion of fraud, God made no covenant with them until they had experienced his wonderful power, by which alone they had been preserved and by which alone they could be preserved in the future (see Exodus 19:4–5). For by the very fact that they believed they could be preserved by God’s power alone, they transferred to God all their natural power of preserving themselves, which they had perhaps previously thought they had of themselves, and consequently all their right.

God alone, therefore, held sovereignty over the Hebrews. So this state alone, by virtue of the covenant, was rightly called the Kingdom of God, and God was rightly also called the King of the Hebrews. Consequently, the enemies of this state were enemies of God; citizens who wished to usurp it were guilty of treason against the divine majesty; and finally, the laws of the state were the laws and commands of God. XVII 31 Hence in this state civil law and religion—which, as we have shown, consists solely in obedience to God—were one and the same. That is, the doctrines of religion were not teachings but laws and commands; piety was regarded as justice, impiety as crime and injustice. Whoever defected from religion ceased to be a citizen and by that alone was considered an enemy; whoever died for religion was reckoned to have died for his country. In short, civil law and religion were held to be absolutely without distinction.

For this reason this state could be called a theocracy, since its citizens were bound by no law except that revealed by God. But in truth all this was so more in opinion than in fact. For in reality the Hebrews retained the right of sovereignty absolutely, as will become clear from what is about to be said—namely, from the manner and method by which this state was administered, which I have decided to explain here.

So you go near and hear all that our God says, and you (not God) will speak to us; whatever God speaks to you, we will obey and carry it out.* XVII 36 By these words they clearly abolished the first covenant and transferred absolutely to Moses their right to consult God and to interpret his edicts. For here they promised to obey not, as before, everything God would speak to them, but what God would speak to Moses (see Deuteronomy 5, after the Decalogue, and 18:15–16). XVII 37 Moses, therefore, remained the sole giver and interpreter of the divine laws, and consequently also the supreme judge, whom no one could judge. He alone among the Hebrews held the place of God—that is, supreme majesty—since he alone had the right to consult God, to give the people God’s answers, and to compel them to carry them out.

He alone, I say. For if anyone wished to preach anything in God’s name while Moses was alive, even if he was a true prophet, he was nevertheless guilty, a usurper of the supreme right (see Numbers 11:28)∗. XVII 38 And here it should be noted that, although the people had chosen Moses, they could not rightfully choose a successor in his place. For as soon as they transferred to Moses their right to consult God, and promised absolutely to regard him as a divine oracle, they lost all their right entirely, and had to accept whomever Moses chose as his successor as though chosen by God.

Suppose he had chosen someone who, like himself, would have had the whole administration of the state: namely, the right to consult God alone in his tent, and consequently the authority to make and repeal laws, to decide on war and peace, to send envoys, to appoint judges, to choose a successor, and in short to discharge all the functions of the sovereign power. Then the state would have been purely monarchical. There would have been no other difference than this: an ordinary monarchy is, or should be, governed by God’s decree hidden even from the monarch himself, whereas the Hebrew one would be governed in a definite way by God’s decree revealed to the monarch alone. XVII 40 This difference does not diminish the monarch’s dominion and right over everyone, but on the contrary increases it.

As for the people of either kind of state, both are equally subject and equally ignorant of the divine decree. For both hang on the monarch’s lips and learn from him alone what is right and wrong. And because the people believe that the monarch commands nothing except by God’s decree revealed to him, they are not less but, on the contrary, more truly subject to him. XVII 41 But Moses chose no such successor. Instead he left the state to his successors to be administered in such a way that it could be called neither popular, nor aristocratic, nor monarchical, but theocratic. For the right to interpret the laws and to communicate God’s answers lay with one person, and the right and power to administer the state according to the laws already explained and the answers already communicated lay with another. On this see Numbers 27:21∗∗.

If, along with these powers, he had also had the right to command, nothing would have been lacking for him to be an absolute monarch. But he was deprived of that right. Indeed, the whole tribe of Levi was so completely excluded from the common government that it did not even have a share alongside the other tribes which it could own by right and on which it could at least live. Instead, Moses arranged for it to be supported by the rest of the people, but in such a way that it was always held in the greatest honor by the common people, as the only tribe dedicated to God. XVII 45 Next, once an army had been formed from the other twelve tribes, they were ordered to invade the dominion of the Canaanites, divide it into twelve parts, and distribute these to the tribes by lot. For this task twelve princes were chosen, one from each tribe; together with Joshua and the high priest Eleazar, they were given the right to divide the lands into twelve equal parts and distribute them by lot.

Joshua was chosen supreme commander of the army. He alone had the right to consult God in new situations—not, like Moses, alone in his tent or in the tabernacle, but through the high priest, to whom alone God’s answers were given. He also had the right to enact God’s commands communicated through the priest and to compel the people to obey them, to devise and apply the means of carrying them out, to choose from the army as many men as he wished and whomever he wished, and to send envoys in his own name. In short, the whole right of war depended on his decree alone. XVII 47 No one lawfully succeeded to his place, nor was anyone chosen for it except by God directly, and only when the necessity of the whole people required it. Otherwise all matters of war and peace were administered by the princes of the tribes, as I will soon show.

Finally, Moses ordered everyone from the age of twenty to sixty to take up arms for military service, and armies to be formed from the people alone. These swore allegiance not to the commander nor to the high priest, but to religion, or to God. So they were called the armies or ranks of God, and God, in turn, was called among the Hebrews the God of armies. For this reason, in great battles, on whose outcome the victory or defeat of the whole people depended, the ark of the covenant went in the middle of the army, so that the people, seeing their King as if present, would fight with their utmost strength. XVII 49 From these instructions that Moses gave his successors, we easily gather that he chose administrators of the state, not its masters.

For he gave no one the right to consult God alone and wherever he wished. Consequently he gave no one the authority that he himself had: to make and repeal laws, to decide on war and peace, and to choose administrators both of the temple and of the cities—all of which are functions of whoever holds sovereign rule. XVII 50 The high priest did indeed have the right to interpret the laws and to give God’s answers, but not, like Moses, whenever he wished—only when asked by the commander, the supreme council, or the like. Conversely, the supreme commander of the army and the councils could consult God whenever they wished, but could receive God’s answers only from the high priest. So God’s words in the mouth of the priest were not decrees, as they were in the mouth of Moses, but only answers. Only once Joshua and the councils had accepted them did they have the force of a command and a decree.

Furthermore, this high priest, who received God’s answers from God, had no army and did not possess sovereignty by right; conversely, those who possessed the lands by right could not rightfully make laws. Moreover, the high priests—both Aaron and his son Eleazar—were each chosen by Moses; but after Moses died no one had the right to choose the high priest, and the son lawfully succeeded the father.

The commander of the army was also chosen by Moses, and he assumed the role of commander not by the right of the high priest but by the right given to him by Moses. So when Joshua died, the priest chose no one in his place, nor did the princes consult God about a new commander. Instead, each of them retained Joshua’s right over the army of his own tribe, and all of them together over the entire army. XVII 53 And it seems there was no need for a supreme commander except when they had to fight with combined forces against a common enemy. This was chiefly the case in Joshua’s time, when they did not all yet have a fixed place and everything was held in common;

but once all the tribes had divided among themselves the lands they held by right of war, along with those they had been commanded still to take, and everything no longer belonged to everyone, the reason for a common commander ceased by that very fact. From that division onward, the different tribes had to be regarded not so much as fellow citizens as confederates. XVII 54 With respect to God and religion they had indeed to be considered fellow citizens. But with respect to the right that one tribe had against another, they were only confederates, in much the same way (if you set aside the common temple) as the High and Mighty Confederated States of the Netherlands. For dividing a common possession into parts means nothing other than this: each now possesses his own part alone, and the others give up the right they had over that part.note

For this reason, then, Moses chose princes of the tribes, so that after the state was divided each would have charge of his own part. That is, each was to consult God through the high priest about the affairs of his tribe, command its army, found and fortify cities, appoint judges in each city, attack the enemy of his own particular state, and in short administer every matter of war and peace. Nor was he bound to recognize any judge but God∗, or a prophet whom God had expressly sent. Otherwise, if he had fallen away from God, the other tribes were not to judge him as a subject. They were to attack him as an enemy who had broken the faith of the contract. XVII 56 We have examples of this in Scripture.

For after Joshua’s death it was the children of Israel, not a new supreme commander, who consulted God. When they learned that the tribe of Judah was to be the first of all to attack its enemy, Judah made a contract with Simeon alone, so that the two might attack the enemy with their combined forces. The other tribes were not included in this contract (see Judges 1:1–3). Instead each waged war separately against its own enemy (as the same chapter relates) and received into its dominion and protection whomever it wished, even though it had been commanded to spare no one on any terms of a pact but to exterminate them all. For this sin they are indeed rebuked, but no one calls them to judgment.

Nor was there any reason for them to begin waging war on one another on that account, or to meddle in one another’s affairs. XVII 57 But against the Benjaminites, who had offended the rest and so broken the bond of peace that none of the confederates could safely find lodging among them, they made war as enemies. After three battles they were at last victorious, and by the right of war they slaughtered all alike, guilty and innocent. Afterward they lamented this with a late repentance.note

But it matters little to our purpose to know this for certain. It is enough that I have shown that after the death of Moses no one held all the offices of supreme commander. Nothing depended on the decree of one man, or of one council, or of the people. Some things were administered by one tribe and others by the rest, each with equal right. It follows most evidently that from the death of Moses the state remained neither monarchic, nor aristocratic, nor popular, but, as we have said, theocratic. First, because the royal house of the state was the temple, and only by reason of it, as we have shown, were all the tribes fellow citizens. Second, because all the citizens had to swear allegiance to God, their supreme judge, whom alone they had promised to obey absolutely in all things. And finally, because the supreme commander of all, when one was needed, was chosen by no one but God alone. XVII 61 Moses expressly foretells this to the people in God’s name (Deuteronomy

18:15), and the actual choice of Gideon, Samson, and Samuel bears it out. So there is no doubt that the other faithful leaders were chosen in a similar way too, even if their history does not make this evident.

5). The Levites had no part in the administration of the state and no share with the others, and their whole fortune and honor depended on the true interpretation of the laws. Further, the whole people was commanded to assemble every seven years in a certain place, where the high priest would teach them the laws. Besides this, each person was to read and reread the book of the law by himself, continually and with the greatest attention (see Deuteronomy 31:9ff. and 6:7). XVII 65 So the princes had to take the greatest care, for their own sake at least, to administer everything according to laws that were laid down and well known to all, if they wished to be held in the highest honor by the people. The people would then revere them as ministers of God’s state and as acting in God’s stead. Otherwise they could not escape the most intense hatred of their subjects, as theological hatred usually is.

There was another factor of very great importance in restraining the unbridled license of the princes. The army was formed from all the citizens (none excepted from the twentieth to the sixtieth year of age), and the princes could not hire any foreign soldier for pay. XVII 67 This, I say, was of very great importance. For it is certain that princes can oppress the people only by means of an army to which they pay wages. Moreover, there is nothing princes fear more than the freedom of citizen soldiers, by whose courage, toil, and great expense of their own blood the freedom and glory of the state were won. XVII 68 That is why Alexander, when he had to fight Darius a second time and heard Parmenio’s advice, rebuked not the man who gave it but Polyperchon, who sided with him. For, as Curtius says in book 4, sectionnote

13, Alexander could not bring himself to reprove Parmenio again, since he had recently rebuked him more sharply than he wished. Nor could he crush the freedom of the Macedonians, which, as we have said, he feared above all, until he had raised the number of soldiers drawn from captives far above the number of Macedonians. Only then could he give free rein to his ungovernable spirit, long held in check by the freedom of the best citizens. XVII 69 This freedom of citizen soldiers restrains the princes of a human state, who usually claim all the credit for victories for themselves alone. If so, it must have restrained the princes of the Hebrews all the more, since their soldiers fought not for the prince’s glory but for God’s, and joined battle only after receiving God’s answer.

22). After this, they could abhor nothing more than swearing allegiance to some foreigner and promising him obedience. Nor could they conceive of any greater outrage, or anything more execrable, than betraying their country, that is, the very kingdom of the God they worshiped. XVII 78 Indeed, even going to live somewhere outside the country was held to be a disgrace. The worship of God, to which they were always bound, could be practiced only on their native soil, since that land alone was held to be holy and the rest unclean and profane.

That is why David, forced into exile, complains thus before Saul: If there are those who stir you up against me, they are men, and they are cursed, because they shut me out so that I may not walk in God’s inheritance, and they say, Go and worship other gods. For this reason too—and this should be especially noted here—no citizen was ever condemned to exile. One who sins deserves punishment, but not disgrace. XVII 80 The Hebrews’ love for their country, therefore, was not simple love but piety. This piety, together with hatred toward the other nations, was so fostered and nourished by daily worship that it must have turned into their nature. For their daily worship was not only entirely different from that of others (which made them wholly singular and completely separate from the rest), but also absolutely contrary to it.note