Theologico-Political Treatise — Part 1

(1) It follows from the last chapter that, as I have said, the prophets were endowed with unusually vivid imaginations, and not with unusually perfect minds. (2) This conclusion...

(1) Every man's true happiness and blessedness consist solely in the enjoyment of what is good, not in the pride that he alone is enjoying it, to the exclusion of others. (2) He...

(1) Prophecy, or revelation is sure knowledge revealed by God to man. (2) A prophet is one who interprets the revelations of God to those who are unable to attain to sure knowle...

(1) In the foregoing chapter we have shown that the Divine law, which renders men truly blessed, and teaches them the true life, is universal to all men; nay, we have so intimat...

(1) The word law, taken in the abstract, means that by which an individual, or all things, or as many things as belong to a particular species, act in one and the same fixed and...

(1)Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into stra...

Endnote 1. (1) The word _nabi_ is rightly interpreted by Rabbi Salomon Jarchi, but the sense is hardly caught by Aben Ezra, who was not so good a Hebraist. (2) We must also rema...

Endnote 4. (1) In Gen. xv. it is written that God promised Abraham to protect him, and to grant him ample rewards. (2) Abraham answered that he could expect nothing which could...