OF THE VOCATION OF THE HEBREWS[6]
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. He who thinks himself the more blessed
because he is enjoying benefits which others are not, or because he is
more blessed or more fortunate than his fellows, is ignorant of true
happiness and blessedness, and the joy which he feels is either childish
or envious and malicious. For instance, a man's true happiness consists
only in wisdom, and the knowledge of the truth, not at all in the fact
that he is wiser than others, or that others lack such knowledge: such
considerations do not increase his wisdom or true happiness.
Whoever, therefore, rejoices for such reasons, rejoices in another's
misfortune, and is, so far, malicious and bad, knowing neither true
happiness nor the peace of the true life.
When Scripture, therefore, in exhorting the Hebrews to obey the law,
says that the Lord has chosen them for Himself before other nations
(Deut. x. 15); that He is near them, but not near others (Deut. iv. 7);
that to them alone He has given just laws (Deut. iv. 8); and, lastly,
that He has marked them out before others (Deut. iv. 32); it speaks only
according to the understanding of its hearers, who, as we have shown in
the last chapter, and as Moses also testified (Deut. ix. 6, 7), knew not
true blessedness. For in good sooth they would have been no less blessed
if God had called all men equally to salvation, nor would God have been
less present to them for being equally present to others; their laws
would have been no less just if they had been ordained for all, and they
themselves would have been no less wise. The miracles would have shown
God's power no less by being wrought for other nations also; lastly, the
Hebrews would have been just as much bound to worship God if He had
bestowed all these gifts equally on all men.
When God tells Solomon (1 Kings iii. 12) that no one shall be as wise as
he in time to come, it seems to be only a manner of expressing
surpassing wisdom; it is little to be believed that God would have
promised Solomon, for his greater happiness, that He would never endow
any one with so much wisdom in time to come; this would in no wise have
increased Solomon's intellect, and the wise king would have given equal
thanks to the Lord if every one had been gifted with the same faculties.
Still, though we assert that Moses, in the passages of the Pentateuch
just cited, spoke only according to the understanding of the Hebrews, we
have no wish to deny that God ordained the Mosaic law for them alone,
nor that He spoke to them alone, nor that they witnessed marvels beyond
those which happened to any other nation; but we wish to emphasize that
Moses desired to admonish the Hebrews in such a manner and with such
reasonings as would appeal most forcibly to their childish
understanding and constrain them to worship the Deity. Further, we
wished to show that the Hebrews did not surpass other nations in
knowledge, or in piety, but evidently in some attribute different from
these; or (to speak like the Scriptures, according to their
understanding), that the Hebrews were not chosen by God before others
for the sake of the true life and sublime ideas, though they were often
thereto admonished, but with some other object. What that object was I
will duly show.
But before I begin, I wish in a few words to explain what I mean by the
guidance of God, by the help of God, external and inward, and lastly,
what I understand by fortune.
By the help of God, I mean the fixed and unchangeable order of nature or
the chain of natural events: for I have said before and shown elsewhere
that the universal laws of nature, according to which all things exist
and are determined, are only another name for the eternal decrees of
God, which always involve eternal truth and necessity.
So that to say that everything happens according to natural laws, and to
say that everything is ordained by the decree and ordinance of God, is
the same thing. Now since the power in Nature is identical with the
power of God, by which alone all things happen and are determined, it
follows that whatsoever man, as a part of Nature, provides himself with
to aid and preserve his existence, or whatsoever Nature affords him
without his help, is given to him solely by the Divine power, acting
either through human nature or through external circumstance. So
whatever human nature can furnish itself with by its own efforts to
preserve its existence, may be fitly called the inward aid of God,
whereas whatever else accrues to man's profit from outward causes may be
called the external aid of God.
We can now easily understand what is meant by the election of God. For
since no one can do anything save by the predetermined order of Nature,
that is by God's eternal ordinance and decree, it follows that no one
can choose a plan of life for himself, or accomplish any work save by
God's vocation choosing him for the work or the plan of life in
question, rather than any other. Lastly, by fortune, I mean the
ordinance of God in so far as it directs human life through external and
unexpected means. With these preliminaries I return to my purpose of
discovering the reason why the Hebrews were said to be elected by God
before other nations, and with the demonstration I thus proceed.
All objects of legitimate desire fall, generally speaking, under one of
these three categories:--
1. The knowledge of things through their primary causes.
2. The government of the passions, or the acquirement of the habit of
virtue.
3. Secure and healthy life.
The means which most directly conduce towards the first two of these
ends, and which may be considered their proximate and efficient causes
are contained in human nature itself, so that their acquisition hinges
only on our own power, and on the laws of human nature. It may be
concluded that these gifts are not peculiar to any nation, but have
always been shared by the whole human race, unless, indeed, we would
indulge the dream that Nature formerly created men of different kinds.
But the means which conduce to security and health are chiefly in
external circumstance, and are called the gifts of fortune because they
depend chiefly on objective causes of which we are ignorant; for a fool
may be almost as liable to happiness or unhappiness as a wise man.
Nevertheless, human management and watchfulness can greatly assist
towards living in security and warding off the injuries of our fellow
men, and even of beasts. Reason and experience show no more certain
means of attaining this object than the formation of a society with
fixed laws, the occupation of a strip of territory, and the
concentration of all forces, as it were, into one body, that is the
social body. Now for forming and preserving a society, no ordinary
ability and care is required: that society will be most secure, most
stable, and least liable to reverses, which is founded and directed by
far-seeing and careful men; while, on the other hand, a society
constituted by men without trained skill, depends in a great measure on
fortune, and is less constant. If, in spite of all, such a society lasts
a long time, it is owing to some other directing influence than its own;
if it overcomes great perils and its affairs prosper, it will perforce
marvel at and adore the guiding Spirit of God (in so far, that is, as
God works through hidden means, and not through the nature and mind of
man), for everything happens to it unexpectedly and contrary to
anticipation, it may even be said and thought to be by miracle. Nations,
then, are distinguished from one another in respect to the social
organization and the laws under which they live and are governed; the
Hebrew nation was not chosen by God in respect to its wisdom nor its
tranquillity of mind, but in respect to its social organization and the
good fortune with which it obtained supremacy and kept it so many years.
This is abundantly clear from Scripture. Even a cursory perusal will
show us that the only respects in which the Hebrews surpassed other
nations, are in their successful conduct of matters relating to
government, and in their surmounting great perils solely by God's
external aid; in other ways they were on a par with their fellows, and
God was equally gracious to all. For in respect to intellect (as we have
shown in the last chapter) they held very ordinary ideas about God and
Nature, so that they cannot have been God's chosen in this respect; nor
were they so chosen in respect of virtue and the true life, for here
again they, with the exception of a very few elect, were on an equality
with other nations: therefore their choice and vocation consisted only
in the temporal happiness and advantages of independent rule. In fact,
we do not see that God promised anything beyond this to the patriarchs
or their successors; in the law no other reward is offered for obedience
than the continual happiness of an independent commonwealth and other
goods of this life; while, on the other hand, against contumacy and the
breaking of the covenant is threatened the downfall of the commonwealth
and great hardships. Nor is this to be wondered at; for the ends of
every social organization and commonwealth are (as appears from what we
have said, and as we will explain more at length hereafter) security and
comfort; a commonwealth can only exist by the laws being binding on
all. If all the members of a state wish to disregard the law, by that
very fact they dissolve the state and destroy the commonwealth. Thus,
the only reward which could be promised to the Hebrews for continued
obedience to the law was security and its attendant advantages, while no
surer punishment could be threatened for disobedience, than the ruin of
the state and the evils which generally follow therefrom, in addition to
such further consequences as might accrue to the Jews in particular from
the ruin of their especial state. But there is no need here to go into
this point at more length. I will only add that the laws of the Old
Testament were revealed and ordained to the Jews only, for as God chose
them in respect to the special constitution of their society and
government, they must, of course, have had special laws. Whether God
ordained special laws for other nations also, and revealed Himself to
their lawgivers prophetically, that is, under the attributes by which
the latter were accustomed to imagine Him, I cannot sufficiently
determine. It is evident from Scripture itself that other nations
acquired supremacy and particular laws by the external aid of God.
If any one wishes to maintain that the Jews ... have been chosen by God
for ever, I will not gainsay him if he will admit that this choice,
whether temporary or eternal, has no regard, in so far as it is peculiar
to the Jews, to aught but dominion and physical advantages (for by such
alone can one nation be distinguished from another), whereas in regard
to intellect and true virtue, every nation is on a par with the rest,
and God has not in these respects chosen one people rather than
another.
FOOTNOTES:
[6] From the _Tr. Th.-P._, ch. iii, same title.