Theologico-Political Treatise P3(神学与政治专题研究3).pdf

A Theologico-Political Treatise A Theologico-Political Treatise Part III - Chapters XI to XV Baruch Spinoza 1 A Theologico-Political Treatise CHAPTER XI AN INQUIRY WHETHER THE APOSTLES WROTE THEIR EPISTLES AS APOSTLES AND PROPHETS, OR MERELY AS TEACHERS; AND AN EXPLANATION OF WHAT IS MEANT BY AN APOSTLE. (1) No reader of the New Testament can doubt that the Apostles were prophets; but as a prophet does not always speak by revelation, but only, at rare intervals, as we showed at the end of Chap. I., we may fairly inquire whether the Apostles wrote their Epistles as prophets, by revelation and express mandate, as Moses, Jeremiah, and others did, or whether only as private individuals or teachers, especially as Paul, in Corinthians xiv:6, mentions two sorts of preaching. (2) If we examine the style of the Epistles, we shall find it totally different from that employed by the prophets. (3) The prophets are continually asserting that they speak by the command of God: Thus saith the Lord, The Lord of hosts saith, The command of the Lord, c.; and this was their habit not only in assemblies of the prophets, but also in their epistles containing revelations, as appears from the epistle of Elijah to Jehoram, 2 Chron. xxi:12, which begins, Thus saith the Lord. (4) In the Apostolic Epistles we find nothing of the sort. (5) Contrariwise, in I Cor. vii:40 Paul speaks according to his own opinion and in many passages we come across doubtful and perplexed phrase; such as, We think, therefore, Rom. iii:2