Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Tractatus Theologico-Politicus

Baruch, Bento, or Benedictus de Spinoza (1632-77) is one of the most influential thinkers of the modern world. His ideas on God, metaphysics, religion, government, and ethics spread so widely and quickly in the late 1600s, and were so vehemently censured, that he has been called “the supreme philosophical bogeyman of Early Enlightenment Europe”.

After being excommunicated from his Jewish congregation in Amsterdam, he kept to himself and pursued his studies privately. Firmly resolved to philosophize outside the walls of the university, he took a manual day job and exhausted his leisure hours in study and writing.

He published the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Theologico-Political Treatise) anonymously in 1670. In it, he systematically and thoroughly reinterpreted the Bible, refuting every claim to its supernatural origin, or even to an extraordinary valuation of its contents. Modern secular Biblical criticism stems, to a great extent, from this book.

The book argues for a universal religion, whose dogma is simple belief in God, whose worship consists of simple justice and charity. This theme was very important to deists in the later Enlightenment, such as Voltaire.

The second part of the TTP discusses the proper role of government, as deduced from the Bible and from rational principles. The state’s “ultimate aim” is to enable its citizens to “develop their minds and bodies in security, and to employ their reason unshackled”, indeed, the “true aim of government is liberty”.

Naturally, such a book had its critics; it was branded a “godless document”, an “atheistic book”, a “pestilential book”, one “full of studious abominations and an accumulation of opinions which have been forged in hell, which every reasonable person, indeed every Christian should find abhorrent” by early reviewers. Persistent efforts by the Reformed clergy led to a nationwide ban in the Dutch Republic in 1674. And yet it circulated.

By contrast, the Tractatus Politicus (Political Treatise), published posthumously, is more philosophical and less theological. In a somewhat drier manner it addresses questions of political legitimacy and stability, how monarchies, aristocracies, and democracies should be organized to ensure the greatest stability, security, and liberty for their populations. Unfortunately, Spinoza died before he could complete the section on democracy.

This edition is intended as an affordable option for those who wish to consult Spinoza’s writings in their original language. The text follows the 1925 Gebhardt edition of Spinoza Opera, volume III.

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