A Theologico-Political Treatise part 3 | Page 9

inconceivable, either of Moses or of God's
Word - he only broke the tables of stone, which, though they had before
been holy from containing the covenant wherewith the Jews had bound
themselves in obedience to God, had entirely lost their sanctity when
the covenant had been violated by the worship of the calf, and were,
therefore, as liable to perish as the ark of the covenant. (28) It is thus
scarcely to be wondered at, that the original documents of Moses are no
longer extant, nor that the books we possess met with the fate we have
described, when we consider that the true original of the Divine
covenant, the most sacred object of all, has totally perished.
(29) Let them cease, therefore, who accuse us of impiety, inasmuch as
we have said nothing against the Word of God, neither have we
corrupted it, but let them keep their anger, if they would wreak it justly,
for the ancients whose malice desecrated the Ark, the Temple, and the
Law of God, and all that was held sacred, subjecting them to corruption.
(30) Furthermore, if, according to the saying of the Apostle in 2 Cor.
iii:3, they possessed "the Epistle of Christ, written not with ink, but
with the Spirit of the living God, not in tables of stone, but in the fleshy
tables of the heart," let them cease to worship the letter, and be so

anxious concerning it.
(31) I think I have now sufficiently shown in what respect Scripture
should be accounted sacred and Divine; we may now see what should
rightly be understood by the expression, the Word of the Lord; debar
(the Hebrew original) signifies word, speech, command, and thing. (32)
The causes for which a thing is in Hebrew said to be of God, or is
referred to Him, have been already detailed in Chap. I., and we can
therefrom easily gather what meaning Scripture attaches to the phrases,
the word, the speech, the command, or the thing of God. (33) I need not,
therefore, repeat what I there said, nor what was shown under the third
head in the chapter on miracles. (34) It is enough to mention the
repetition for the better understanding of what I am about to say - viz.,
that the Word of the Lord when it has reference to anyone but God
Himself, signifies that Divine law treated of in Chap. IV.; in other
words, religion, universal and catholic to the whole human race, as
Isaiah describes it (chap. i:10), teaching that the true way of life
consists, not in ceremonies, but in charity, and a true heart, and calling
it indifferently God's Law and God's Word.
(35) The expression is also used metaphorically for the order of nature
and destiny (which, indeed, actually depend and follow from the eternal
mandate of the Divine nature), and especially for such parts of such
order as were foreseen by the prophets, for the prophets did not
perceive future events as the result of natural causes, but as the fiats
and decrees of God. (36) Lastly, it is employed for the command of any
prophet, in so far as he had perceived it by his peculiar faculty or
prophetic gift, and not by the natural light of reason; this use springs
chiefly from the usual prophetic conception of God as a legislator,
which we remarked in Chap. IV. (37) There are, then, three causes for
the Bible's being called the Word of God: because it teaches true
religion, of which God is the eternal Founder; because it narrates
predictions of future events as though they were decrees of God;
because its actual authors generally perceived things not by their
ordinary natural faculties, but by a power peculiar to themselves, and
introduced these things perceived, as told them by God.
(37) Although Scripture contains much that is merely historical and can
be perceived by natural reason, yet its name is acquired from its chief
subject matter.

(38) We can thus easily see how God can be said to be the Author of
the Bible: it is because of the true religion therein contained, and not
because He wished to communicate to men a certain number of books.
(39) We can also learn from hence the reason for the division into Old
and New Testament. (40) It was made because the prophets who
preached religion before Christ, preached it as a national law in virtue
of the covenant entered into under Moses; while the Apostles who
came after Christ, preached it to all men as a universal religion solely in
virtue of Christ's Passion: the cause for the division is not that the two
parts are different in doctrine, nor that they were written as originals of
the covenant, nor, lastly, that the catholic religion