A Theologico-Political Treatise.
Part I
by Benedict de Spinoza
PREFACE.
(1)Men would never be superst.i.tious, if they could govern all their circ.u.mstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune"s greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very p.r.o.ne to credulity. (2) The human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over - confident, and vain.
(3) This as a general fact I suppose everyone knows, though few, I believe, know their own nature; no one can have lived in the world without observing that most people, when in prosperity, are so over-br.i.m.m.i.n.g with wisdom (however inexperienced they may be), that they take every offer of advice as a personal insult, whereas in adversity they know not where to turn, but beg and pray for counsel from every pa.s.ser-by. (4) No plan is then too futile, too absurd, or too fatuous for their adoption; the most frivolous causes will raise them to hope, or plunge them into despair - if anything happens during their fright which reminds them of some past good or ill, they think it portends a happy or unhappy issue, and therefore (though it may have proved abortive a hundred times before) style it a lucky or unlucky omen.
(5) Anything which excites their astonishment they believe to be a portent signifying the anger of the G.o.ds or of the Supreme Being, and, mistaking superst.i.tion for religion, account it impious not to avert the evil with prayer and sacrifice. (6) Signs and wonders of this sort they conjure up perpetually, till one might think Nature as mad as themselves, they interpret her so fantastically.
(7) Thus it is brought prominently before us, that superst.i.tion"s chief victims are those persons who greedily covet temporal advantages; they it is, who (especially when they are in danger, and cannot help themselves) are wont with Prayers and womanish tears to implore help from G.o.d: upbraiding Reason as blind, because she cannot show a sure path to the shadows they pursue, and rejecting human wisdom as vain; but believing the phantoms of imagination, dreams, and other childish absurdities, to be the very oracles of Heaven. (8) As though G.o.d had turned away from the wise, and written His decrees, not in the mind of man but in the entrails of beasts, or left them to be proclaimed by the inspiration and instinct of fools, madmen, and birds. Such is the unreason to which terror can drive mankind!
(9) Superst.i.tion, then, is engendered, preserved, and fostered by fear. If anyone desire an example, let him take Alexander, who only began superst.i.tiously to seek guidance from seers, when he first learnt to fear fortune in the pa.s.ses of Sysis (Curtius, v. 4); whereas after he had conquered Darius he consulted prophets no more, till a second time frightened by reverses. (10) When the Scythians were provoking a battle, the Bactrians had deserted, and he himself was lying sick of his wounds, "he once more turned to superst.i.tion, the mockery of human wisdom, and bade Aristander, to whom he confided his credulity, inquire the issue of affairs with sacrificed victims." (11) Very numerous examples of a like nature might be cited, clearly showing the fact, that only while under the dominion of fear do men fall a prey to superst.i.tion; that all the portents ever invested with the reverence of misguided religion are mere phantoms of dejected and fearful minds; and lastly, that prophets have most power among the people, and are most formidable to rulers, precisely at those times when the state is in most peril. (12) I think this is sufficiently plain to all, and will therefore say no more on the subject.
(13) The origin of superst.i.tion above given affords us a clear reason for the fact, that it comes to all men naturally, though some refer its rise to a dim notion of G.o.d, universal to mankind, and also tends to show, that it is no less inconsistent and variable than other mental hallucinations and emotional impulses, and further that it can only be maintained by hope, hatred, anger, and deceit; since it springs, not from reason, but solely from the more powerful phases of emotion. (14) Furthermore, we may readily understand how difficult it is, to maintain in the same course men p.r.o.ne to every form of credulity. (15) For, as the ma.s.s of mankind remains always at about the same pitch of misery, it never a.s.sents long to any one remedy, but is always best pleased by a novelty which has not yet proved illusive.
(16) This element of inconsistency has been the cause of many terrible wars and revolutions; for, as Curtius well says (lib. iv. chap. 10): "The mob has no ruler more potent than superst.i.tion," and is easily led, on the plea of religion, at one moment to adore its kings as G.o.ds, and anon to execrate and abjure them as humanity"s common bane. (17) Immense pains have therefore been taken to counteract this evil by investing religion, whether true or false, with such pomp and ceremony, that it may rise superior to every shock, and be always observed with studious reverence by the whole people--a system which has been brought to great perfection by the Turks, for they consider even controversy impious, and so clog men"s minds with dogmatic formulas, that they leave no room for sound reason, not even enough to doubt with.
(18) But if, in despotic statecraft, the supreme and essential mystery be to hoodwink the subjects, and to mask the fear, which keeps them down, with the specious garb of religion, so that men may fight as bravely for slavery as for safety, and count it not shame but highest honour to risk their blood and their lives for the vainglory of a tyrant; yet in a free state no more mischievous expedient could be planned or attempted. (19) Wholly repugnant to the general freedom are such devices as enthralling men"s minds with prejudices, forcing their judgment, or employing any of the weapons of quasi-religious sedition; indeed, such seditions only spring up, when law enters the domain of speculative thought, and opinions are put on trial and condemned on the same footing as crimes, while those who defend and follow them are sacrificed, not to public safety, but to their opponents"
hatred and cruelty. (20) If deeds only could be made the grounds of criminal charges, and words were always allowed to pa.s.s free, such seditions would be divested of every semblance of justification, and would be separated from mere controversies by a hard and fast line.
(20) Now, seeing that we have the rare happiness of living in a republic, where everyone"s judgment is free and unshackled, where each may worship G.o.d as his conscience dictates, and where freedom is esteemed before all things dear and precious, I have believed that I should be undertaking no ungrateful or unprofitable task, in demonstrating that not only can such freedom be granted without prejudice to the public peace, but also, that without such freedom, piety cannot flourish nor the public peace be secure.
(21) Such is the chief conclusion I seek to establish in this treatise; but, in order to reach it, I must first point out the misconceptions which, like scars of our former bondage, still disfigure our notion of religion, and must expose the false views about the civil authority which many have most impudently advocated, endeavouring to turn the mind of the people, still p.r.o.ne to heathen superst.i.tion, away from its legitimate rulers, and so bring us again into slavery. (22) As to the order of my treatise I will speak presently, but first I will recount the causes which led me to write.
(23) I have often wondered, that persons who make a boast of professing the Christian religion, namely, love, joy, peace, temperance, and charity to all men, should quarrel with such rancorous animosity, and display daily towards one another such bitter hatred, that this, rather than the virtues they claim, is the readiest criterion of their faith. (24) Matters have long since come to such a pa.s.s, that one can only p.r.o.nounce a man Christian, Turk, Jew, or Heathen, by his general appearance and attire, by his frequenting this or that place of worship, or employing the phraseology of a particular sect - as for manner of life, it is in all cases the same. (25) Inquiry into the cause of this anomaly leads me unhesitatingly to ascribe it to the fact, that the ministries of the Church are regarded by the ma.s.ses merely as dignities, her offices as posts of emolument - in short, popular religion may be summed up as respect for ecclesiastics. (26) The spread of this misconception inflamed every worthless fellow with an intense desire to enter holy orders, and thus the love of diffusing G.o.d"s religion degenerated into sordid avarice and ambition. (27) Every church became a theatre, where orators, instead of church teachers, harangued, caring not to instruct the people, but striving to attract admiration, to bring opponents to public scorn, and to preach only novelties and paradoxes, such as would tickle the ears of their congregation. (28) This state of things necessarily stirred up an amount of controversy, envy, and hatred, which no lapse of time could appease; so that we can scarcely wonder that of the old religion nothing survives but its outward forms (even these, in the mouth of the mult.i.tude, seem rather adulation than adoration of the Deity), and that faith has become a mere compound of credulity and prejudices - aye, prejudices too, which degrade man from rational being to beast, which completely stifle the power of judgment between true and false, which seem, in fact, carefully fostered for the purpose of extinguishing the last spark of reason! (29) Piety, great G.o.d! and religion are become a tissue of ridiculous mysteries; men, who flatly despise reason, who reject and turn away from understanding as naturally corrupt, these, I say, these of all men, are thought, 0 lie most horrible! to possess light from on High. (30) Verily, if they had but one spark of light from on High, they would not insolently rave, but would learn to worship G.o.d more wisely, and would be as marked among their fellows for mercy as they now are for malice; if they were concerned for their opponents" souls, instead of for their own reputations, they would no longer fiercely persecute, but rather be filled with pity and compa.s.sion.
(31) Furthermore, if any Divine light were in them, it would appear from their doctrine. (32) I grant that they are never tired of professing their wonder at the profound mysteries of Holy Writ; still I cannot discover that they teach anything but speculations of Platonists and Aristotelians, to which (in order to save their credit for Christianity) they have made Holy Writ conform; not content to rave with the Greeks themselves, they want to make the prophets rave also; showing conclusively, that never even in sleep have they caught a glimpse of Scripture"s Divine nature. (33) The very vehemence of their admiration for the mysteries plainly attests, that their belief in the Bible is a formal a.s.sent rather than a living faith: and the fact is made still more apparent by their laying down beforehand, as a foundation for the study and true interpretation of Scripture, the principle that it is in every pa.s.sage true and divine. (34) Such a doctrine should be reached only after strict scrutiny and thorough comprehension of the Sacred Books (which would teach it much better, for they stand in need no human factions), and not be set up on the threshold, as it were, of inquiry.
(35) As I pondered over the facts that the light of reason is not only despised, but by many even execrated as a source of impiety, that human commentaries are accepted as divine records, and that credulity is extolled as faith; as I marked the fierce controversies of philosophers raging in Church and State, the source of bitter hatred and dissension, the ready instruments of sedition and other ills innumerable, I determined to examine the Bible afresh in a careful, impartial, and unfettered spirit, making no a.s.sumptions concerning it, and attributing to it no doctrines, which I do not find clearly therein set down. (36) With these precautions I constructed a method of Scriptural interpretation, and thus equipped proceeded to inquire - what is prophecy? (37) In what sense did G.o.d reveal himself to the prophets, and why were these particular men - chosen by him? (38) Was it on account of the sublimity of their thoughts about the Deity and nature, or was it solely on account of their piety? (39) These questions being answered, I was easily able to conclude, that the authority of the prophets has weight only in matters of morality, and that their speculative doctrines affect us little.
(40) Next I inquired, why the Hebrews were called G.o.d"s chosen people, and discovering that it was only because G.o.d had chosen for them a certain strip of territory, where they might live peaceably and at ease, I learnt that the Law revealed by G.o.d to Moses was merely the law of the individual Hebrew state, therefore that it was binding on none but Hebrews, and not even on Hebrews after the downfall of their nation. (41) Further, in order to ascertain, whether it could be concluded from Scripture, that the human understanding standing is naturally corrupt, I inquired whether the Universal Religion, the Divine Law revealed through the Prophets and Apostles to the whole human race, differs from that which is taught by the light of natural reason, whether miracles can take place in violation of the laws of nature, and if so, whether they imply the existence of G.o.d more surely and clearly than events, which we understand plainly and distinctly through their immediate natural causes.
(42) Now, as in the whole course of my investigation I found nothing taught expressly by Scripture, which does not agree with our understanding, or which is repugnant thereto, and as I saw that the prophets taught nothing, which is not very simple and easily to be grasped by all, and further, that they clothed their leaching in the style, and confirmed it with the reasons, which would most deeply move the mind of the ma.s.ses to devotion towards G.o.d, I became thoroughly convinced, that the Bible leaves reason absolutely free, that it has nothing in common with philosophy, in fact, that Revelation and Philosophy stand on different footings. In order to set this forth categorically and exhaust the whole question, I point out the way in which the Bible should be interpreted, and show that all of spiritual questions should be sought from it alone, and not from the objects of ordinary knowledge. (43) Thence I pa.s.s on to indicate the false notions, which have from the fact that the mult.i.tude - ever p.r.o.ne to superst.i.tion, and caring more for the shreds of antiquity for eternal truths - pays homage to the Books of the Bible, rather than to the Word of G.o.d. (44) I show that the Word of G.o.d has not been revealed as a certain number of books, was displayed to the prophets as a simple idea of the mind, namely, obedience to G.o.d in singleness of heart, and in the practice of justice and charity; and I further point out, that this doctrine is set forth in Scripture in accordance with the opinions and understandings of those, among whom the Apostles and Prophets preached, to the end that men might receive it willingly, and with their whole heart.
(45) Having thus laid bare the bases of belief, I draw the conclusion that Revelation has obedience for its sole object, therefore, in purpose no less than in foundation and method, stands entirely aloof from ordinary knowledge; each has its separate province, neither can be called the handmaid of the other.
(46) Furthermore, as men"s habits of mind differ, so that some more readily embrace one form of faith, some another, for what moves one to pray may move another only to scoff, I conclude, in accordance with what has gone before, that everyone should be free to choose for himself the foundations of his creed, and that faith should be judged only by its fruits; each would then obey G.o.d freely with his whole heart, while nothing would be publicly honoured save justice and charity.
(47) Having thus drawn attention to the liberty conceded to everyone by the revealed law of G.o.d, I pa.s.s on to another part of my subject, and prove that this same liberty can and should be accorded with safety to the state and the magisterial authority - in fact, that it cannot be withheld without great danger to peace and detriment to the community.
(48) In order to establish my point, I start from the natural rights of the individual, which are co-extensive with his desires and power, and from the fact that no one is bound to live as another pleases, but is the guardian of his own liberty. (49) I show that these rights can only be transferred to those whom we depute to defend us, who acquire with the duties of defence the power of ordering our lives, and I thence infer that rulers possess rights only limited by their power, that they are the sole guardians of justice and liberty, and that their subjects should act in all things as they dictate: nevertheless, since no one can so utterly abdicate his own power of self-defence as to cease to be a man, I conclude that no one can be deprived of his natural rights absolutely, but that subjects, either by tacit agreement, or by social contract, retain a certain number, which cannot be taken from them without great danger to the state.
(50) From these considerations I pa.s.s on to the Hebrew State, which I describe at some length, in order to trace the manner in which Religion acquired the force of law, and to touch on other noteworthy points. (51) I then prove, that the holders of sovereign power are the depositories and interpreters of religious no less than of civil ordinances, and that they alone have the right to decide what is just or unjust, pious or impious; lastly, I conclude by showing, that they best retain this right and secure safety to their state by allowing every man to think what he likes, and say what he thinks.
(52) Such, Philosophical Reader, are the questions I submit to your notice, counting on your approval, for the subject matter of the whole book and of the several chapters is important and profitable. (53) I would say more, but I do not want my preface to extend to a volume, especially as I know that its leading propositions are to Philosophers but common places. (54) To the rest of mankind I care not to commend my treatise, for I cannot expect that it contains anything to please them: I know how deeply rooted are the prejudices embraced under the name of religion; I am aware that in the mind of the ma.s.ses superst.i.tion is no less deeply rooted than fear; I recognize that their constancy is mere obstinacy, and that they are led to praise or blame by impulse rather than reason. (55) Therefore the mult.i.tude, and those of like pa.s.sions with the mult.i.tude, I ask not to read my book; nay, I would rather that they should utterly neglect it, than that they should misinterpret it after their wont. (56) They would gain no good themselves, and might prove a stumbling-block to others, whose philosophy is hampered by the belief that Reason is a mere handmaid to Theology, and whom I seek in this work especially to benefit. (57) But as there will be many who have neither the leisure, nor, perhaps, the inclination to read through all I have written, I feel bound here, as at the end of my treatise, to declare that I have written nothing, which I do not most willingly submit to the examination and judgment of my country"s rulers, and that I am ready to retract anything, which they shall decide to be repugnant to the laws or prejudicial to the public good. (58) I know that I am a man and, as a man, liable to error, but against error I have taken scrupulous care, and striven to keep in entire accordance with the laws of my country, with loyalty, and with morality.
CHAPTER I. - Of Prophecy (1) Prophecy, or revelation is sure knowledge revealed by G.o.d to man. (2) A prophet is one who interprets the revelations of G.o.d {insights} to those who are unable to attain to sure knowledge of the matters revealed, and therefore can only apprehend them by simple faith.
(3) The Hebrew word for prophet is "naw-vee"", Strong:5030, [Endnote 1]
i.e. speaker or interpreter, but in Scripture its meaning is restricted to interpreter of G.o.d, as we may learn from Exodus vii:1, where G.o.d says to Moses, "See, I have made thee a G.o.d to Pharaoh, and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet;" implying that, since in interpreting Moses" words to Pharaoh, Aaron acted the part of a prophet, Moses would be to Pharaoh as a G.o.d, or in the att.i.tude of a G.o.d.
(4) Prophets I will treat of in the next chapter, and at present consider prophecy.
(5) Now it is evident, from the definition above given, that prophecy really includes ordinary knowledge; for the knowledge which we acquire by our natural faculties depends on knowledge of G.o.d and His eternal laws; but ordinary knowledge is common to all men as men, and rests on foundations which all share, whereas the mult.i.tude always strains after rarities and exceptions, and thinks little of the gifts of nature; so that, when prophecy is talked of, ordinary knowledge is not supposed to be included.
(6) Nevertheless it has as much right as any other to be called Divine, for G.o.d"s nature, in so far as we share therein, and G.o.d"s laws, dictate it to us; nor does it suffer from that to which we give the preeminence, except in so far as the latter transcends its limits and cannot be accounted for by natural laws taken in themselves. (7) In respect to the certainty it involves, and the source from which it is derived, i.e. G.o.d, ordinary, knowledge is no whit inferior to prophetic, unless indeed we believe, or rather dream, that the prophets had human bodies but superhuman minds, and therefore that their sensations and consciousness were entirely different from our own.
(8) But, although ordinary knowledge is Divine, its professors cannot be called prophets [Endnote 2], for they teach what the rest of mankind could perceive and apprehend, not merely by simple faith, but as surely and honourably as themselves.
(9) Seeing then that our mind subjectively contains in itself and partakes of the nature of G.o.d, and solely from this cause is enabled to form notions explaining natural phenomena and inculcating morality, it follows that we may rightly a.s.sert the nature of the human mind (in so far as it is thus conceived) to be a primary cause of Divine revelation. (10) All that we clearly and distinctly understand is dictated to us, as I have just pointed out, by the idea and nature of G.o.d; not indeed through words, but in a way far more excellent and agreeing perfectly with the nature of the mind, as all who have enjoyed intellectual certainty will doubtless attest. (11) Here, however, my chief purpose is to speak of matters having reference to Scripture, so these few words on the light of reason will suffice.
(12) I will now pa.s.s on to, and treat more fully, the other ways and means by which G.o.d makes revelations to mankind, both of that which transcends ordinary knowledge, and of that within its scope; for there is no reason why G.o.d should not employ other means to communicate what we know already by the power of reason.
(13) Our conclusions on the subject must be drawn solely from Scripture; for what can we affirm about matters transcending our knowledge except what is told us by the words or writings of prophets? (14) And since there are, so far as I know, no prophets now alive, we have no alternative but to read the books of prophets departed, taking care the while not to reason from metaphor or to ascribe anything to our authors which they do not themselves distinctly state. (15) I must further premise that the Jews never make any mention or account of secondary, or particular causes, but in a spirit of religion, piety, and what is commonly called G.o.dliness, refer all things directly to the Deity. (16) For instance if they make money by a transaction, they say G.o.d gave it to them; if they desire anything, they say G.o.d has disposed their hearts towards it; if they think anything, they say G.o.d told them. (17) Hence we must not suppose that everything is prophecy or revelation which is described in Scripture as told by G.o.d to anyone, but only such things as are expressly announced as prophecy or revelation, or are plainly pointed to as such by the context.
(18) A perusal of the sacred books will show us that all G.o.d"s revelations to the prophets were made through words or appearances, or a combination of the two. (19) These words and appearances were of two kinds; 1.- real when external to the mind of the prophet who heard or saw them, 2.- imaginary when the imagination of the prophet was in a state which led him distinctly to suppose that he heard or saw them.
(20) With a real voice G.o.d revealed to Moses the laws which He wished to be transmitted to the Hebrews, as we may see from Exodus xxv:22, where G.o.d says, "And there I will meet with thee and I will commune with thee from the mercy seat which is between the Cherubim." (21) Some sort of real voice must necessarily have been employed, for Moses found G.o.d ready to commune with him at any time. This, as I shall shortly show, is the only instance of a real voice.
(22) We might, perhaps, suppose that the voice with which G.o.d called Samuel was real, for in 1 Sam. iii:21, we read, "And the Lord appeared again in Shiloh, for the Lord revealed Himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of the Lord;" implying that the appearance of the Lord consisted in His making Himself known to Samuel through a voice; in other words, that Samuel heard the Lord speaking. (23) But we are compelled to distinguish between the prophecies of Moses and those of other prophets, and therefore must decide that this voice was imaginary, a conclusion further supported by the voice"s resemblance to the voice of Eli, which Samuel was in the habit of hearing, and therefore might easily imagine; when thrice called by the Lord, Samuel supposed it to have been Eli.
(24) The voice which Abimelech heard was imaginary, for it is written, Gen. xx:6, "And G.o.d said unto him in a dream." (25) So that the will of G.o.d was manifest to him, not in waking, but only, in sleep, that is, when the imagination is most active and uncontrolled. (26) Some of the Jews believe that the actual words of the Decalogue were not spoken by G.o.d, but that the Israelites heard a noise only, without any distinct words, and during its continuance apprehended the Ten Commandments by pure intuition; to this opinion I myself once inclined, seeing that the words of the Decalogue in Exodus are different from the words of the Decalogue in Deuteronomy, for the discrepancy seemed to imply (since G.o.d only spoke once) that the Ten Commandments were not intended to convey the actual words of the Lord, but only His meaning. (27) However, unless we would do violence to Scripture, we must certainly admit that the Israelites heard a real voice, for Scripture expressly says, Deut. v:4," G.o.d spake with you face to face," i.e. as two men ordinarily interchange ideas through the instrumentality of their two bodies; and therefore it seems more consonant with Holy Writ to suppose that G.o.d really did create a voice of some kind with which the Decalogue was revealed. (28) The discrepancy of the two versions is treated of in Chap. VIII.
(29) Yet not even thus is all difficulty removed, for it seems scarcely reasonable to affirm that a created thing, depending on G.o.d in the same manner as other created things, would be able to express or explain the nature of G.o.d either verbally or really by means of its individual organism: for instance, by declaring in the first person, "I am the Lord your G.o.d."
(30) Certainly when anyone says with his mouth, "I understand," we do not attribute the understanding to the mouth, but to the mind of the speaker; yet this is because the mouth is the natural organ of a man speaking, and the hearer, knowing what understanding is, easily comprehends, by a comparison with himself, that the speaker"s mind is meant; but if we knew nothing of G.o.d beyond the mere name and wished to commune with Him, and be a.s.sured of His existence, I fail to see how our wish would be satisfied by the declaration of a created thing (depending on G.o.d neither more nor less than ourselves), "I am the Lord." (31) If G.o.d contorted the lips of Moses, or, I will not say Moses, but some beast, till they p.r.o.nounced the words, "I am the Lord," should we apprehend the Lord"s existence therefrom?
(32) Scripture seems clearly to point to the belief that G.o.d spoke Himself, having descended from heaven to Mount Sinai for the purpose - and not only that the Israelites heard Him speaking, but that their chief men beheld Him (Ex:xxiv.) (33) Further the law of Moses, which might neither be added to nor curtailed, and which was set up as a national standard of right, nowhere prescribed the belief that G.o.d is without body, or even without form or figure, but only ordained that the Jews should believe in His existence and worship Him alone: it forbade them to invent or fashion any likeness of the Deity, but this was to insure purity of service; because, never having seen G.o.d, they could not by means of images recall the likeness of G.o.d, but only the likeness of some created thing which might thus gradually take the place of G.o.d as the object of their adoration. (34) Nevertheless, the Bible clearly implies that G.o.d has a form, and that Moses when he heard G.o.d speaking was permitted to behold it, or at least its hinder parts.
(35) Doubtless some mystery lurks in this question which we will discuss more fully below. (36) For the present I will call attention to the pa.s.sages in Scripture indicating the means by which G.o.d has revealed His laws to man.
(37) Revelation may be through figures only, as in I Chron:xxii., where G.o.d displays his anger to David by means of an angel bearing a sword, and also in the story of Balaam.
(38) Maimonides and others do indeed maintain that these and every other instance of angelic apparitions (e.g. to Manoah and to Abraham offering up Isaac) occurred during sleep, for that no one with his eyes open ever could see an angel, but this is mere nonsense. (39) The sole object of such commentators seems to be to extort from Scripture confirmations of Aristotelian quibbles and their own inventions, a proceeding which I regard as the acme of absurdity.
(40) In figures, not real but existing only in the prophet"s imagination, G.o.d revealed to Joseph his future lordship, and in words and figures He revealed to Joshua that He would fight for the Hebrews, causing to appear an angel, as it were the Captain of the Lord"s host, bearing a sword, and by this means communicating verbally. (41) The forsaking of Israel by Providence was portrayed to Isaiah by a vision of the Lord, the thrice Holy, sitting on a very lofty throne, and the Hebrews, stained with the mire of their sins, sunk as it were in uncleanness, and thus as far as possible distant from G.o.d. (42) The wretchedness of the people at the time was thus revealed, while future calamities were foretold in words. I could cite from Holy Writ many similar examples, but I think they are sufficiently well known already.
(43) However, we get a still more clear confirmation of our position in Num xii:6,7, as follows: "If there be any prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision" (i.e. by appearances and signs, for G.o.d says of the prophecy of Moses that it was a vision without signs), "and will speak unto him in a dream " (i.e. not with actual words and an actual voice). (44) "My servant Moses is not so; with him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of the Lord he shall behold," i.e. looking on me as a friend and not afraid, he speaks with me (cf. Ex x.x.xiii:17).
(45) This makes it indisputable that the other prophets did not hear a real voice, and we gather as much from Deut. xxiv:10: "And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses whom the Lord knew face to face,"
which must mean that the Lord spoke with none other; for not even Moses saw the Lord"s face. (46) These are the only media of communication between G.o.d and man which I find mentioned in Scripture, and therefore the only ones which may be supposed or invented. (47) We may be able quite to comprehend that G.o.d can communicate immediately with man, for without the intervention of bodily means He communicates to our minds His essence; still, a man who can by pure intuition comprehend ideas which are neither contained in nor deducible from the foundations of our natural knowledge, must necessarily possess a mind far superior to those of his fellow men, nor do I believe that any have been so endowed save Christ. (48) To Him the ordinances of G.o.d leading men to salvation were revealed directly without words or visions, so that G.o.d manifested Himself to the Apostles through the mind of Christ as He formerly did to Moses through the supernatural voice. (49) In this sense the voice of Christ, like the voice which Moses heard, may be called the voice of G.o.d, and it may be said that the wisdom of G.o.d (,i.e. wisdom more than human) took upon itself in Christ human nature, and that Christ was the way of salvation. (50) I must at this juncture declare that those doctrines which certain churches put forward concerning Christ, I neither affirm nor deny, for I freely confess that I do not understand them. (51) What I have just stated I gather from Scripture, where I never read that G.o.d appeared to Christ, or spoke to Christ, but that G.o.d was revealed to the Apostles through Christ; that Christ was the Way of Life, and that the old law was given through an angel, and not immediately by G.o.d; whence it follows that if Moses spoke with G.o.d face to face as a man speaks with his friend (i.e.