Theological-Political Treatise

A treatise in twenty chapters, published anonymously in 1670 under a false imprint and soon banned in the Dutch Republic. Spinoza's stated aim is to show that freedom to philosophise does no harm to piety or public peace, and that taking it away would destroy both. The first chapters argue that the prophets were distinguished by vivid imagination and moral seriousness, not by superior knowledge, and that miracles, understood as breaks in the order of nature, are impossible. Chapter 7 sets out a method for reading the Bible from its own language and history, and the following chapters argue that Moses did not write the Pentateuch and that the books were assembled much later. Scripture, Spinoza concludes, teaches obedience and love of neighbour, not philosophy, so faith and reason have separate domains. The last chapters ground the state in natural right, understood as power, give the sovereign authority over public religion, and defend freedom of thought and speech.

It is a founding text of modern biblical criticism and of the case for a secular state with free speech, and it shows how much of the Enlightenment began with Spinoza.