  The argument against ecclesiastical power here depends upon the supposition that there is no transcendental standard of piety. Of course, a sovereign could delegate authority to religious functionaries, but Spinoza cautions against this, using the case of the Hebrews to illustrate the dangers of priestly authority. The decisive turn that precipitated the decline of the first Hebrew state came with the ascendance of a priestly order. On Spinoza’s account, under Moses, civil law and religion “were one and the same thing” (TTP 17, 213) and the Jews lived peaceably.  However, when the priests—chiefly the Levites—were given the right to interpret divine law, “each of them began seeking glory for his own name in religion and everything else...As a result religion degenerated into fatal superstition” (TTP 18, 231). The message here had clear application in the Dutch context, where, as we’ve noted, Calvinist theocrats—who formed a menacing alliance with the house of Orange—were increasingly wielding power to the detriment of peace and stability (see Nadler 1999, 283–4).