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PSX0010.1177/0032321715619941Political StudiesJones

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Political Studies

“My Highest Priority Was to 1­–16

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DOI: 10.1177/0032321715619941
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Leviathan in a War of Religion

Meirav Jones

Abstract
In his autobiography, Thomas Hobbes stated that he wrote his most influential work of political
theory, Leviathan, to “absolve the divine laws” in response to “atrocious crimes being attributed
to the commands of God.” This article attempts to take Hobbes seriously, and to read Leviathan
as a contribution to the religious politics of the English Civil War. I demonstrate Hobbes’
appropriation of the religious terms and sources characterizing civil-war political discourse, and
explore these terms and sources both in Hobbes’ response to religiously motivated politics and in
the foundations of his most important political ideas. Hobbes emerges from this account as a critic
of Christian politics and enthusiasm broadly conceived, as a political philosopher who employed an
Israelite political model, and as an erstwhile ally of some of those usually considered his deepest
opponents.

Keywords
Hobbes, Leviathan, religion, English Civil War, contextual

Accepted: 2 October 2015

In his autobiography, Thomas Hobbes (1839) claimed that he was compelled to write
Leviathan, his most important work of political thought, in the late 1640s “because I
could not tolerate so many atrocious crimes being attributed to the commands of God, and
decided that my highest priority was to absolve the divine laws” (Skinner, 2008: 125).
While four decades ago such a profession of religious intention by Hobbes might easily
have been dismissed as insincere (Pocock, 1971: 162n27), today we must reckon with
Hobbes’ correspondence during the English Civil War, and the support it lends his auto-
biographical statement (e.g. Collins, 2000; Malcolm, 1994: v. 1, p. 120). But Hobbes did

The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

Corresponding author:
Meirav Jones, The MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies, Yale University, Henry R. Luce Hall,
34 Hillhouse Avenue, PO Box 208206, New Haven, CT 06520-8206, USA.
Email: meiravjo@gmail.com
2 Political Studies 

not convey his arguments to readers in personal correspondence. If Leviathan was meant
as a contribution to the religious politics of the English Civil War, then the text must have
spoken to this context.
This article attempts to read Leviathan as Hobbes’ response and contribution to the
religious political discourse of his time. It traces Hobbes’ appropriation of the terms of
this discourse and his employment of these terms as integral to his politics and philoso-
phy. It further considers how appreciating Hobbes’ participation in the religious context
of the English Civil War affects our understanding of his political theory and what it was
up against.
By considering Leviathan in the religious context of the English Civil War, I do not
mean to diminish the importance of other contexts that have been presented to date. I
certainly do not claim the primacy of the religious context over others. I suggest only that
Hobbes, like other seventeenth-century thinkers, might best be understood as having writ-
ten from within a mosaic of contexts. The more fully we grasp this mosaic, the better we
might understand Hobbes’ work and the more we might glean from it.

Hobbes and the Religious (Discursive) Context of the

English Civil War
The English Civil War has been portrayed as a war of religion (Hill, 1993; Morrill, 1995),
a revolution of saints (Walzer, 1982), and part of a struggle for Godly rule (Lamont,
1969). But when this period is characterized by various religious motivations at play—
including the striving for Presbyterianism, millenarian aspirations, or the struggle to pro-
tect the Church of England—Thomas Hobbes is notoriously difficult to place.1 His
religious outlook and its relation to seventeenth-century movements has generated much
controversy and continues to elude scholars, as perhaps Hobbes intended (Springborg,
1996: 269). But if we shift our view away from the religious motivations behind the
English Civil War and toward the religious language and imagery characterizing its dis-
course, Hobbes might be more easily placed in the religious civil-war context, enriching
our grasp of the contextual foundations of his thought.
This requires some unpacking. It is my understanding of Hobbes’ general methodology
that in engaging his opponents, he adopted their language and imagery, making his own
case in their terms. Historians of political thought have emphasized Hobbes’ appropriation
of the terms of neo-Roman republican discourse and his redefinition of these terms such
that they served his own argument (Pettit, 1995, 2008; Skinner, 1998, 2008). Another intel-
lectual context in which Hobbes participated, appropriating its language and imagery, was
the scientific community of his time. John Wallis, in a sympathetic letter to Robert Boyle
whose claim to have created a vacuum had been challenged by Hobbes, wrote:

Mr. Hobs is very dexterous in confuting others by putting a new sense on their words rehearsed
by himself: different from what the words signifie with other Men. And therefore if you [Boyle]
shall have occasion to speak of chalk, he’ll tell you that by chalk he means cheese: and then if
he can prove that what you say of chalk is not true of cheese, he reckons himself to have gotten
a great victory (Shapin and Schaefer, 1985: 118).

If indeed Hobbes appropriated and redefined the terms of his opponents on various issues,
then this method may be revealing with regard to the discursive contexts in which he
participated.2
Jones 3

To understand Hobbes’ place in the religious discursive context of the English Civil
War, I explore his appropriation of two features of its language and imagery, and what he
achieved by this.
The first is the “kingdom of God,” which was a commonly invoked image, but which
was employed by Hobbes more than by any other thinker.3 I demonstrate below that
Hobbes both criticized contemporary understandings of the “kingdom of God”—and par-
ticularly understandings promoted by Protestant Divines—and redefined this phrase such
that it became, in its new definition, integral to his political theory.
The second feature is the Hebraic language and imagery of the civil-war discourse.
Although there were few if any Jews living in England in 1640–1660, identity and
politics were tied up with an Israelite imagination: Parliament was addressed as lead-
ing the Israelites (Guibbory, 2010: 101); the exodus from Egypt was a common unify-
ing image (Hill, 1993: 113–115; Smith, 1994: 123); millenarian hopes were couched
in terms of a new Jerusalem (Tuveson, 1964); Oliver Cromwell compared himself to
Hebraic figures (Morrill and Baker, 2001);4 John Selden argued at Westminster about
the meaning of biblical Hebrew terms (Tuck, 1993: 218); and Hebraic references were
scattered throughout monumental pamphlets, speeches, and sermons (Guibbory, 2010:
89–121; Nelson, 2010: 23–56). This is quantifiable: 40% of 16,950 searchable texts
published in England in 1640–1660 contain one or more of the terms “Hebrew,”
“Israel,” “Jew,” “Zion,” or “Jerusalem.”5 Hobbes used Hebraic terms throughout
Leviathan, but his “Israel” was not the “Israel” of those whose politics he critiqued, as
will be discussed below.

Hobbes’ Kingdom-of-God Critique of Enthusiasm

I argue here that Hobbes’ employment and redefinition of the “kingdom of God,” includ-
ing his association of this kingdom with the historical people of Israel, was meant pri-
marily as a critique of English Civil War “enthusiasm.”6 In Hobbes’ time, the term
“enthusiasm” was commonly but “rather loosely used by reformation theologians … to
designate … claims made by some of their radical opponents (prophecy, apocalyptic
prediction, direct divine inspiration unmediated by Scripture) as well as certain behav-
ioral patterns” (Heyd, 1995: 22). Hobbes (1651a) used “enthusiasm” for supernatural
inspiration, for the idea that God speaks inside man, and for the possession by spirit of
delusional mad-men (1:8, p. 38; 1:12, p. 56; 3:32, p. 198). He acknowledged the rela-
tionship of enthusiasm to private zeal (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:34, pp. 209–210),7 but turned
his attention mostly to enthusiasm in the body politic,8 whereby the Commonwealth is
dangerously understood as possessed by spirit:

As there have been Doctors, that hold there be three Soules in a man; so there be also that think
there may be more Soules, (that is, more Soveraigns,) than one, in a Common-wealth; and set up
a Supremacy against the Soveraignty, Canons against Lawes; and a Ghostly Authority against
the Civill; … that there walketh (as some think invisibly) another Kingdome, as it were a
Kingdome of Fayries, in the dark … And this is a Disease which not unfitly may be compared
to the Epilepsie, or Falling-sicknesse (which the Jewes took to be one kind of possession by
Spirits) in the Body Naturall. For as in this Disease, there is an unnaturall spirit, or wind in the
head that obstructeth the roots of the Nerves, and … causeth violent, and irregular motions
(which men call Convulsions) in the parts;9 … [S]o also in the Body Politique, when the
Spirituall power, moveth the Members of a Common-wealth, by the terrour of punishments, and
hope of rewards (which are the Nerves of it,) otherwise than by the Civill Power (which is the
4 Political Studies 

Soule of the Common-wealth) they … either Overwhelm the Common-wealth with Oppression,
or cast it into the Fire of a Civill warre (Hobbes, 1651a: 2:29, pp. 71–72).

Enthusiasm in the body politic occurs, then, when men are moved by the hope and fear
generated by the presumption that another kingdom exists, or may exist, simultaneously
with civil sovereignty. While this idea of a dual kingdom—a worldly and an otherworldly
kingdom, a civil commonwealth and a kingdom of God—reflected Catholic politics,
Hobbes (1651a) was adamant that the “kingdome of fairies in the dark” was not exclusive
to Catholicism (4:47, p. 387).10 Indeed, Hobbes (1651a) may have considered Catholic
enthusiasm less dangerous than Protestant enthusiasm, as he both specifically targeted the
“kingdom of God” promoted by Divines during the English Civil War, and implied that
the murder of Charles I was the result of private zeal disguised as divine inspiration
(Review and Conclusion, pp. 392–394).
Hobbes’ (1651a) response to enthusiasm—and indeed enthusiasm in the body poli-
tic—was an elaborate treatment of the “kingdom of God,” preceded by a statement, in
chapter 35, of what he was up against:

The Kingdome of God in the Writings of Divines, and specially in Sermons, and Treatises
of Devotion, is taken most commonly for Eternall Felicity, after this life, in the Highest
Heaven, which they also call the Kingdome of Glory; and sometimes for (the earnest of that
felicity) Sanctification, which they terme the Kingdome of Grace; but never [is The
Kingdome of God taken] for the Monarchy, that is to say, the Soveraign Power of God over
any Subjects acquired by their own consent, which is the proper signification of Kingdome
(3:35, p. 216).

Certainly, Protestant Divines in the English Civil War employed “the kingdom of
God” with the meanings Hobbes enumerated. Tens of hundreds of texts from 1640 to
1660 mention a “kingdom of God,” with a variety of common meanings, including the
Church, or the true Church which admits only the reborn (e.g. Ashe, 1656: 30; Baxter,
1658: 11; Dell, 1651: 153; Dewsbury, 1655: 22; Fenwick, 1642: 23–24; Love, 1652:
103), the imminent end of days or a messianic spiritual kingdom (e.g. Alsted, 1643;
Andrewes, 1648; Gillespie, 1646: 243), a sanctuary within man or within a people (e.g.
Blackborow, 1659: 3; Gilbert, 1658: 6),11 the place of the righteous after death (e.g.
Bacon, 1648: 91; Calamy, 1658: 22), and generally a kingdom of grace or spiritual king-
dom (e.g. Fenwick, 1642: dedication; Lightfoot, 1645: 12, 44; Lyford, 1652). In no
cases, as Hobbes pointed out, was “kingdom of God” used by Divines to point to an
actual historical kingdom. In all cases, calls to action leaning on the authority of the
kingdom of God implied reward and punishment from a source external to the civil sov-
ereign. A rival force.
Yet while the “kingdom of God” of the Divines was not the historical kingdom of God
over Israel, discussing a “kingdom of God” almost invariably meant employing Israelite
imagery.12 In the texts referenced here, readers and listeners were encouraged to seek
justice in their Israel (Bacon, 1648: 16), to consider themselves true Israelites (Ashe,
1656; Fenwick, 1642), to look away from Israel of the flesh and toward Israel of the spirit
(Horton, 1656: 12–13), to consult ancient Israel for a model of Church government
(Gillespie, 1646), to seek life in the new Jerusalem (Baxter, 1658: 272), and to read bibli-
cal promises to Israel as directed to them (Alsted, 1643: 39–40; Andrewes, 1648;
Dewsbury, 1655: 9).
Jones 5

Hobbes’ alternative understanding of the “kingdom of God,” presented immediately

after the passage from chapter 35 cited above, directs his opponents, through their own
Israelite imagery and sources, to what Hobbes (1651a) considers the correct extension of
the “kingdom of God”:

To the contrary, I find the KINGDOME OF GOD, to signifie in most places of Scripture, a
Kingdome properly so named, constituted by the Votes of the People of Israel in peculiar
manner; wherein they chose God for their King by Covenant made with him, upon Gods
promising them the possession of the land of Canaan; and but seldom metaphorically; and then
it is taken for Dominion over sinne; (and only in the New Testament;) because such a Dominion
as that, every Subject shall have in the Kingdome of God, and without prejudice to the Soveraign
(3:35, p. 216).

Despite their Israelite imagery, then, Hobbes faults his contemporaries for failing to truly
engage “Israel,” the historical people.
In chapter 44, we again find Hobbes juxtaposing his understanding with those of his
contemporaries, clarifying that for him, “Israel” was interchangeable with “the Jews
onely” (compare Ashe, 1656: 16–19; Horton, 1656: 33–35). The passage reads:

The greatest, and main abuse of Scripture … is to prove that the Kingdome of God, mentioned
so often in the Scripture, is the present Church, or multitude of Christian men now living, or that
being dead, are to rise again at the last day.

Followed by Hobbes’ (1651a) alternative, which reads:

whereas the Kingdome of God was first instituted by the Ministery of Moses, over the Jews
onely; who were therefore called his Peculiar People; and ceased afterward, in the election of
Saul, when they refused to be governed by God any more, and demanded a King after the
manner of the nations … After that time, there was no other Kingdome of God in the world, by
any Pact, or otherwise, than he ever was, is, and shall be King, of all men, and of all creatures,
as governing according to his Will, by his infinite Power (4:44, pp. 334–335).

Hobbes urged his readers to accept that the only true kingdom of God found in their own
sources was the historical kingdom over the Jews. This followed from the fundamental
political principle, established in the early chapters of Leviathan, that kingdoms are
founded on the consent of subjects. It also related to Hobbes’ materialism: his emphasis
of the material nature of the kingdom of God, and his denial of “spiritual kingdom,” is in
line with his greater philosophical outlook. Yet the idea that Hobbes’ materialism may
have drawn him closer to worldly Jewish readings rather than Christian spiritual ones is
not usually considered. Indeed, the New Testament account was presented in chapter 35
as metaphorical, but it is not consistently presented as such. To this I will return.
Hobbes’ placing the kingdom of God in the past, in Israelite history, resolved
“enthusiasm” both in the sense of spiritual forces overcoming the Commonwealth, and
in the sense of private zeal leading to political action. In Hobbes’ kingdom of God over
Israel, there was no competition between spiritual and civil, as God was civil sover-
eign. Similarly, in his reading of the Old Testament there was no room for private zeal
commanding political action, as all action was commanded by God. Finally, God
spoke directly to Israelite prophets—as one man speaks to another—and not as an
embodied spirit.
6 Political Studies 

Natural and Spiritual Kingdoms, and the Limits of

Christianity in Politics
There is an obvious problem with the above account: while Hobbes may have responded
to enthusiasm by confining the term “kingdom of God” to the historical Israelite kingdom
prior to Saul, this was not the only kingdom of God he discussed. In chapter 12, he pre-
sented a kingdom of God by nature and a kingdom of God by covenant, and later he dis-
cussed a second covenant and the renewal of the kingdom of God through Christ.
Surprisingly, however, Hobbes’ discussion of these kingdoms of God does not weaken his
critique of enthusiasm presented above, but the contrary. The schema he presents of three
kingdoms of God—over all men by nature, over Israel in history, and over Christians in
the world to come—ultimately minimizes the role of Christianity in politics and elevates
the status of the Old Testament as a source for grounding non-enthusiastic politics. This
claim will be substantiated here, as I follow Hobbes’ account of the three kingdoms of
God: by nature, by the old covenant through circumcision, and by the new covenant
through baptism.13
The division of the kingdom of God into natural and covenantal reflects Leviathan’s
presentation of God, who has a dual role in Hobbes’ system—as natural and universal,
and as political and particular.
As natural and universal, God appears in the first sentence of Leviathan as governor of
nature, and he is also the first author of speech and prime mover (Hobbes, 1651a:
Introduction, p. 1; 1:4, p. 12). Science is impossible without God, both because he is the
first mover (Hobbes admits that “heathen philosophers” concede this), and because
Hobbes (1651a) finds speech—of which God is author—to be the foundation of science
and knowledge to the extent these are available to man (1:12, p. 53; 1:4, p. 15). However
ambiguous Leviathan is about whether God’s dominion over the entire world should
properly be called kingdom (compare Hobbes, 1651a: 2:31, p. 186; 1:12, p. 58), ulti-
mately “laws of nature” required the existence of a “kingdom of nature,” or else these
laws would be absent a legislator and would not properly be laws (Hobbes, 1651a: 1:15,
p. 80; 2:26, p. 139; 3:42, p. 286). Hobbes thus defended a position he himself problema-
tized—that the laws of nature are properly laws—by appealing to the conditions under
which these precepts satisfy the term “law”: when they are imagined as having been
legislated by God in his natural kingdom, or when they are run through sovereign inter-
pretation in a commonwealth (Hobbes, 1651a: 1:15, p. 38; 2:26, pp. 138, 143).
As political and particular, God appears as an actor in history and sovereign in the
Israelites’ kingdom. To a degree, God’s particular historical role depended on his natural
role as legislator: his rule over the Israelites was established by covenant, and covenants
are built on (sanctioned) trust and supported by the third law of nature that covenants must
be kept (Hobbes, 1651a: 1:14, p. 66; 2:26, p. 138; 1:15, p. 71). The covenant that estab-
lished the kingdom of God over Israel was first set up with Abraham, when God promised
him the land of Canaan.14 At that point, there was no particular kingdom, only a promise
to establish one. This same covenant was then renewed at the cosmic event of Mount Sinai,
when God gave laws and established his kingdom properly so-named. This kingdom lasted
until the Israelites rejected God as their king, choosing Saul—a flesh-and-blood king—
over him (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:40, p. 254). Since the election of Saul and the cessation of
God’s kingdom over Israel, there has been no other kingdom of God established.
Here enters Hobbes’ eschatology and his third—specifically Christian—kingdom of
God: at the time of Christ there was a new covenant which would, in the future,
Jones 7

re-establish God’s kingdom. Yet the covenant with Christ remained at the stage of the
covenant with Abraham before Moses’ time, and will not progress to the next stage—the
establishment of a kingdom—in the world as we know it. Indeed, while Christ established
a covenant through baptism, equivalent to circumcision for Abraham, this did not estab-
lish a kingdom but rather promised a kingdom. Until a new world populated by spiritual
bodies comes into being at Judgment Day, remote from the world of physical bodies, the
political demands of Christianity are minimal, and pertain mostly to civil obedience
(Hobbes, 1651a: 3:35, p. 216).
Two elements at play here warrant further discussion. The first is the similarity, or mir-
roring, of the future kingdom of God and the historical kingdom of God, which had the
effect of disenchanting and demystifying the Christian kingdom. Enhancing this familiar-
ity, Hobbes (1651a) presented a passage from Isaiah—an oft-cited source for describing
the mysteries and chaos surrounding messianic times—to render messianic times plain
and familiar:

The state of Salvation is described at large, Isaiah 33 … wee have the place from whence
Salvation is to proceed, Ierusalem, a quiet habitation; the Eternity of it, a tabernacle that shall
not be taken down, &c. The Saviour of it, the Lord, their Iudge, their Lawgiver, their King, he
will save us; … it is evident, that Salvation shall be on Earth, then, when God shall reign, (at the
coming again of Christ) in Jerusalem; and from Jerusalem shall proceed the Salvation of the
Gentiles that shall be received into Gods Kingdom … And the same is also confirmed by our
Saviour (3:38, pp. 246–247).

In this passage, the future kingdom of God mirrors the historical kingdom: its place and
its institutions are familiar. There are no dates for its arrival and no imminence (Springborg,
1975: 295). When Christ is depicted as a second Moses a few chapters later, this is with
regard to his office, not his person (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:41, p. 264; Tuck, 1992: 128). It
reflects a historical and not a typological reading that Moses filled a political position that
exists both in this world and in the next.15
The other element at play in Hobbes’ eschatology, at tension with familiarity, is
remoteness. However closely the future kingdom of God will mirror the historical king-
dom, and though its location will be the same, Hobbes stressed an essential difference
separating the two: the kingdom of God under Moses was of this world, and that through
Christ is not of this world (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:41, pp. 262–263). The otherworldly nature
of the Christian kingdom is so significant that Hobbes mentioned it every time he dis-
cussed this kingdom. This otherworldliness is with respect to the most fundamental aspect
of personhood—the body—and the transition to the remote world is a transition in time
which could be literally termed “transubstantiation.” This world, transformed in sub-
stance, will have become the next world promised by Christ:

But Spirituall Common-wealth there is none in this world: for it is the same thing with the
Kingdome of Christ; which he himselfe saith, is not of this world; but shall be in the next world,
at the Resurrection, when they that have lived justly, and beleeved that he was the Christ, shall
(though they died Naturall bodies) rise Spirituall bodies … In the mean time, seeing there are no
men on earth, whose bodies are Spirituall; there can be no Spirituall Commonwealth amongst
men that are yet in the flesh (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:42, p. 317).

The materialist foundations of Leviathan render the future kingdom of God and its world
of spiritual bodies almost unimaginable and remote in the most extreme sense (Hobbes,
8 Political Studies 

1651a: 2:21). The implications are striking: Ministers of Christ have no right in com-
manding, what is required of Christians for salvation is minimal, and there can be no
binding Christian laws or anything undermining or limiting the absolute nature of civil
sovereignty (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:42, p. 270; 3:43, p. 322; 3:42, p. 284; Tuck, 1992: 126).
Hobbes was unrelenting: the kingdom of God preached by the Apostles was not of this
world, and they that have no Kingdom can make no Laws (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:42, pp. 281,
286). Even in the time of Christ, no demands were made by Christianity that would dis-
rupt the civil order (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:41, p. 263).
In sum, Hobbes’ kingdom of God over Israel—through which he critiqued enthusiasm
in politics—is one of three kingdoms of God in Leviathan. The other two are the natural
kingdom of God existing at all times, and the eschatological kingdom of God which is set
in the future. Hobbes depicted all of Christianity—as distinct from Judaism—as dealing
with the eschatological kingdom of God, which though familiar and unenchanted, is
remote in time and substance. The remoteness of the Christian kingdom rendered
Christianity irrelevant to politics and political thought, bar its demand of obedience to
sovereigns. By contrast, the accessible and historical kingdom of God over Israel, with its
laws and institutions, was utilized by Hobbes as a source of ideas not only about king-
doms of God, but about commonwealths more generally. To this we now turn.

The Kingdom of God over Israel: A Model Leviathan

Hobbes’ kingdom of God over Israel was not only his alternative to politically dangerous
notions of the kingdom of God, but it also played a constructive role in his political thought:
it provided a model commonwealth. Indeed, while Hobbes portrayed Israel as a unique
historical kingdom, his interest was not in its exceptional or peculiar aspects, but in the
general conclusions that could be drawn from it. This brings Hobbes into line with other
political theorists of his time—including key republican thinkers (Nelson, 2010)—who
preferred an Israelite political model to more traditional humanist ones: Hobbes specifi-
cally preferred Israel over classical Greece or Rome which he found encouraged rebellion
against monarchy and civil war (Hobbes, 1651a: 2:29, pp. 170–171).16 Employing Israel
as an exemplary model also distanced Hobbes from those who identified “Israel” with
election, chosenness, and exception. Here I explore the Israelite model in Hobbes’ con-
structive political thought and consider the work it was made to do.
Like Renaissance humanists and republican theorists, Hobbes’ political theory aimed
to recover principles of government that could make commonwealths everlasting, mean-
ing that they would not be destroyed except by external force (Hobbes, 1651a: 2:30, p.
176; 1:18, p. 93). The principles Hobbes proposed were a social contract established out
of the state of nature, the bestowal of complete power (legislative, civil, and religious) on
the sovereign in a voluntary covenantal speech-act, and the establishment and mainte-
nance of civil religion to prevent internal division. While these principles could be con-
sidered principles of reason, Hobbes bolstered their legitimacy by presenting them all as
having existed in the kingdom of God over Israel.17 This was, notably, his only historical
example of these principles at work.
After having been promised a kingdom but living always under foreign rule, the
Israelites found themselves in the absence of sovereignty, and in the unbound liberty
which Hobbes equates with the state of nature in Leviathan 1:13, after their exodus from
Egypt (Hobbes, 1651a: 2:26, p. 149, 1651b [1642]: 16:8, p. 268).18 Hobbes admitted that
he did not consider the state of nature ever to have existed everywhere in the world
Jones 9

(Hobbes, 1651a: 1:13, p. 63), yet he found it to exist among the “savages of America,”
among those in civil war after rebelling against authority, and between states. The
Israelites were thus a rare example of a people in a state of nature and the only example
Leviathan provides of a people who exited a state of nature and established a common-
wealth by covenant.
The covenant establishing God’s sovereignty over Israel which allowed them to exit
the state of nature and enter their commonwealth—the kingdom of God—was a renewal
of the covenant God had made with Abraham, renewed with Isaac and Jacob, and “after-
wards no more, till the Israelites were freed from the Egyptians, and arrived at the Foot of
Mount Sinai: and then it was renewed by Moses” (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:40, p. 250). In
renewing their covenant at Mount Sinai, the Israelites exited their state of nature via a
voluntary speech-act. They “chose God for their king,” emphasizing the voluntary nature
of the binding covenant, and they promised obedience to Moses as one voice (Hobbes,
1651a: 2:26, p. 149; 3:40, pp. 250–251; Harvey, 2006: 317–318, Exodus 20:15, 19:8),
recalling Hobbes’ idea that commonwealths or artificial persons are created with speech-
acts resembling God’s own speech-act, “that Fiat, or the Let us make man” (Hobbes,
1651a: Introduction, p. 1; 3:36, p. 223).
In exiting their state of nature at Mount Sinai and entering God’s kingdom, the Israelites
resolved a paradox in Hobbes’ depiction of the transition from the state of nature to sov-
ereignty. In the natural state, there is overwhelming fear due to a war of every man against
every man, and a necessary lack of trust such that no man can trust another to keep his
covenants. In this situation, covenants cannot be binding, and sovereignty cannot be
established (Hobbes, 1651a: 1:14, p. 68; 1:15, p. 71). The Israelite case is unique, in that
before the exodus from Egypt (their state of nature), a covenant already existed—in the
form of a pact between God and Abraham that required only faith—that established a
relationship of trust between the people and between them and their sovereign. This ena-
bled the Israelites to exit the state of nature and enter the kingdom of God. We may learn
from this that while “American savages” are unlikely to exit their state of nature and enter
a sovereign state, Christians who keep their covenant of faith, even as “masterless men,”
will not be barred from establishing sovereignty.19
To continue tracing the manner in which Hobbes’ presented his political principles as
mirroring and even anchored in the Israelite kingdom of God, we may observe that after
the Israelites’ foundational speech-act, and in line with Hobbes’ critique of enthusiasm,
sovereign God was to hold absolute power without distinction between religious and
civil realms:

But where God himselfe, by supernaturall Revelation, planted Religion; there he also made to
himselfe a peculiar Kingdome; and gave Lawes, not only of behaviour towards himselfe; but
also towards one another; and thereby in the Kingdome of God, the Policy, and lawes Civill, are
a part of Religion; and therefore the distinction of Temporall, and Spirituall Domination, hath
there no place (Hobbes, 1651a: 1:12, pp. 57–58).

Furthermore, the religion contained in the Ten Commandments, in Deuteronomy, and

in supporting institutions—from the arc of the covenant, through reading of the law in
public, to the reverence for the written laws, and even the division of the land between the
tribes—served as a form of civil religion reinforcing God’s absolute sovereign rule
(Hobbes, 1651a: 3:42, pp. 282–283). Hobbes found even the most particular aspects of
the Israelite laws and institutions, such as the Sabbath, to exemplify the civil religion that
reinforces sovereignty and serves stable commonwealths. In a striking passage in
10 Political Studies 

Leviathan 2:30, “On the Sovereign Representative,” Hobbes presented four of the Ten
Commandments which he considered to be particular laws of the Israelites (as opposed to
the other six which he considered to be natural law) as expressing principles all sover-
eigns should adhere to:

… the People are to be taught, First, that they ought not to be in love with any forme of
Government they see in their neighbour Nations … This desire of change, is like the breach of
the first of Gods Commandements …

Secondly, they are to be taught, that they ought not to be led with admiration of the vertue of any
of their fellow Subjects … fitly be compared to the violation of the second of the ten
Commandements.

Thirdly … they ought to be informed, how great a fault it is, to speak evill of the Soveraign
Representative … Which doctrine the third Commandement by resemblance pointeth to.

Fourthly, seeing people cannot be taught this, nor … remember it … without setting a part from
their ordinary labour … It is necessary that some such times be determined, wherein they may
assemble together, and (after prayers and praises given to God, the Soveraign of Soveraigns)
hear those their Duties told them, and the Positive Lawes, such as generally concern them all,
read and expounded, and be put in mind of the Authority that maketh them Lawes. To this end
had the Jewes every seventh day, a Sabbath, in which the Law was read and expounded; and in
the solemnity whereof they were put in mind, that their King was God; that having created the
world in six dayes, he rested the seventh day; and by their resting on it from their labour, that
that God was their King, which redeemed them from their servile, and painfull labour in Egypt,
and gave them a time, after they had rejoyced in God, to take joy also in themselves, by lawfull
recreation.

That the Sabbath was a model political institution for Hobbes, as it had been for
Grotius (1655 [1625]: 1:9, p. 12), may be related to the parallel Hobbes draws between
God’s creation of the world and the creation of Leviathan: Leviathan is an artificial man
created by man with words, just as the world is God’s artifice, made with words. Hobbes
placed human industry in a principle position: not only was Leviathan man’s creation,
but sovereignty was necessary in the first place because of the uncertainty of life and
industry in the state of nature. The Jewish Sabbath is a public commemoration of God’s
creation in which man sets aside time from his own creative industry, acknowledges
God as higher-order creator, and engages in “lawfull recreation.”20 Setting aside time to
acknowledge the creation and the protection offered by sovereignty, thus perpetuating
the founding myths of the Commonwealth, is invaluable in Hobbes’ system. The
Sabbath is thus the civil and religious institution which supports the primacy of indus-
try and creation. For Hobbes, it is also a model institution for preserving sovereignty
made with words.
Hobbes concludes his description of the first four commandments with a statement,
again echoing Hugo Grotius’ (1655 [1625]) sentiment in Laws of War and Peace, that
while Jewish law is not binding on Christians, it may guide legislators to devise good laws
(1:9, p. 12):

So that the first Table of the Commandements, is spent all, in setting down the summe of Gods
absolute Power; not onely as God, but as King by pact, (in peculiar) of the Jewes; and may
therefore give light, to those that have Soveraign Power conferred on them by the consent of
Jones 11

men, to see what doctrine they Ought to teach their Subjects (Hobbes, 1651a: 2:30, pp. 177–178,
emphasis added).

Earlier in Leviathan, Hobbes (1651a) had found other particular Jewish institutions
exemplary for their utility in preserving the sovereign’s laws:

The Law of Nature excepted, it belongeth to the essence of all other Lawes, to be made known
… And for the same reason Solomon adviseth a man, to bind the ten Commandements upon his
ten fingers. And for the Law which Moses gave to the people of Israel at the renewing of the
Covenant, he biddeth them to teach it their children, by discoursing of it both at home, and upon
the way; at going to bed, and at rising from bed; and to write it upon the posts, and dores of their
houses; and to assemble the people, man, woman, and child, to heare it read (2:26, p. 141).

In expressing the idea that the law, which is the will of another, needs to be made known,
and in instructing on how this might be done, Hobbes made interesting choices: he
referred to such particular Jewish practices as Tefillin and mezuzah, both material and
public, in addition to the public reading of the law. Furthermore, he cited, verbatim, the
most important prayer in Jewish liturgy: the Shema.
Perhaps the sharpest criticism that could be directed against reading Hobbes as having
constructed a political model from Israelite laws and institutions is that while he sought
to establish lasting sovereignty which would not be destroyed except by external force,
yet he portrayed the kingdom of God over Israel as eventually destroyed from within,
with the deposition of God and election of Saul. Hobbes protected his model against such
criticism by explaining that what brought down the Israelite kingdom of God was the
convergence of unchanging human nature with the political principles of Israel’s neigh-
bors. As the corrupting principles came from outside the kingdom of God (the Israelites
in I Samuel 8:20 asked for a king like the other nations), it could be considered an exter-
nal force:

And as False Doctrine, so also often-times the Example of different Government in a

neighbouring Nation, disposeth men to alteration of the forme already setled. So the people of
the Jewes were stirred up to reject God, and to call upon the Prophet Samuel, for a King after
the manner of the Nations … And I doubt not, but many men, have been contented to see the
late troubles in England, out of an imitation of the Low Countries … For the constitution of
mans nature, is of it selfe subject to desire novelty: When therefore they are provoked to the
same, by the neighbourhood also of those that have been enriched by it, it is almost impossible
for them, not to be content with those that solicite them to change; and love the first beginnings,
though they be grieved with the continuance of disorder (Hobbes, 1651a: 2:29, pp. 169–170).

Hobbes thus retained the perfection of the principles of the Israelite kingdom of God,
while at the same time allowing the demise of the Commonwealth to serve as a generaliz-
able warning to contemporary England about the pitfalls of human nature and the nature
of external threats to sovereignty that need not be military.

Leviathan in a New Light and Some Historical Reflections

This article has attempted to read Hobbes’ most influential work of political philosophy
in the religious context of the English Civil War, and to explore what difference such a
reading makes to our understanding of Leviathan and what Hobbes was up against in
12 Political Studies 

writing it. To place Hobbes in the civil-war religious context, despite his elusive and
questionable religious agendas, I proposed a discursive context delineated by language
and imagery rather than by religious motivation. Appeals to the “kingdom of God” and
Hebraic terms were chosen as characteristic of civil-war religious public discourse, and
Hobbes’ redefinition and employment of these terms provided a new perspective on his
work. Hobbes emerged from this account as a critic of enthusiasm, where “enthusiasts”
included Catholics, but focused more on Calvinists, Millenarians, Presbyterians, and
others who appealed to the kingdom of God to justify political action in England during
the Civil War. His critique extended to an elaborate effort to minimize the relevance of
Christianity for politics, achieved through the religious sources of his opponents. Hobbes
also emerged from this account as a political theorist who employed an Israelite model in
his constructive political theory, such that he promoted particular Jewish laws and institu-
tions as containing generalizable political wisdom.
This contextual reading has not tried to replace or undermine other contextual or tex-
tual approaches to Leviathan, but only to enrich our understanding of Hobbes’ work by
providing access to yet another context in which Hobbes took part by taking on and rede-
fining its terms. Hobbes himself drew attention to this context when he claimed to have
written Leviathan in the mid-seventeenth century in response to “atrocious crimes attrib-
uted to the commands of God” and intent on absolving the divine laws. But certainly this
context—and indeed any single context considered alone—fails to do justice to other
discourses and genres in which Hobbes participated. In this case, our reading overly
reduces Hobbes’ critique of Catholicism to a critique of enthusiasm, sidesteps appeals to
neo-Greek and neo-Roman discourses, and prefers contextual over textual comparisons.
Yet three achievements of this article support the value of its approach to Leviathan
alongside other approaches, complementing them:

1 The article has demonstrated how Hobbes’ employment of religious terms and
sources can be taken seriously without his religious beliefs being determined. Past
research has considered the indeterminacy of Hobbes’ religious beliefs an obsta-
cle to placing him in a religious context.
2 The reading presented here has tied the four parts of Leviathan together: a proper
understanding of the limits of Christianity in politics and the kingdom of God over
Israel is essential—in this account of Hobbes’ system—to the sustenance of prop-
erly established commonwealths. Books 3 and 4 thus become necessary for the
fulfillment of books 1 and 2.
3 The article suggests some unconventional alliances held by Hobbes during the
English Civil War which could shed light on the development of political theory
in this volatile yet formative period. Hugo Grotius was mentioned above as shar-
ing Hobbes’ perspective on the value of Israelite laws for informing lawmakers of
commonwealths. Grotius was, of course, a republican and founder of modern
international law, so this was an unlikely alliance for Hobbes in some respects.
Even more unlikely in the English context was surely Hobbes’ alliance with John
Milton, who while sharing Hobbes’ perspective on the kingdom of God as being
past and future but not present, also justified the regicide. Indeed, when viewed in
the neo-Roman republican context, Hobbes, who would preserve monarchy, is
clearly opposed to Milton. Yet as participants in the religious discursive context of
their time, Hobbes and Milton were erstwhile allies, working to build lasting
political theory through traditional religious sources, claiming the only true
Jones 13

kingdom of God in history to have been the kingdom of God over the Old
Testament people of Israel, and attempting to minimize the role of Christianity in
contemporary politics.

That Hobbes sided with republican theorists as he argued with Divines on the proper
place of the kingdom of God and the proper interpretation of Israel seems to have dis-
turbed Hobbes. Eric Nelson noted this accidental agreement with Milton as the reason for
Hobbes’ removal of the discussion of the Israelites rejecting the kingdom of God from the
1668 Latin translation of Leviathan (Nelson, 2010: 24–25). Further work is needed to
explore how Hobbes’ debates with Divines fared through translations, later editions, and
political developments. Yet I would argue that the unlikely agreement in the English Civil
War years between Hobbes, Milton, Grotius, and other political theorists, and particularly
their shared willingness to take seriously and even adopt the language and imagery of
religiously motivated politics, may be significant. Indeed, it may have contributed to the
success of these thinkers in establishing the modern state out of the theological-political
climate of post-Reformation Europe.

Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Yaron Ezrahi, David Nirenberg, Jeffrey Collins, the late Michael Heyd, and three meticu-
lous anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier versions of this article. While I am certain that the input
of these scholars greatly improved my work, all mistakes are my own.

Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes
  1 While debates surrounding Hobbes’ religion are beyond the scope of this article, it is worth noting the vari-
ety of ways Hobbes has been placed on the spectrum of civil-war religious beliefs: as orthodox or affiliated
with a particular theology (e.g. Geach, 1981; Hood, 1964; Lessay, 2007; Martinich, 2002 [1992], 2009),
as a heterodox believer (Nelson, 2010: 195n198; Pocock, 1971; Tuck, 1992), and as an atheist cloaked in
religious texts (Collins, 2009; Skinner, 1996; Strauss, 1963: 74ff.).
  2 Garsten (2009) adds another piece to the “mosaic of contexts” in which Hobbes participated by showing
how Leviathan employs humanist rhetoric to make the case against rhetoric. This piece, after Skinner
(1996), had described Hobbes’ change of heart, from De Cive to Leviathan, in favor of some rhetoric,
where redefining or redesignating terms is a feature of classical rhetoric.
  3 A total of 1960 of 16,950 searchable texts from 1640 to 1660, which is almost 12%, contain the term
“kingdom of God” (http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search. Search date: 25 August 2015). The phrase appears
109 times in Leviathan. I have yet to find another work with this frequency of citation.
  4 Including—according to Morrill and Baker—around the 1649 regicide of Charles I, surely key among
“atrocious crimes being attributed to the commands of God.”
 5 Search conducted on http://eebo.chadwyck.com/search, 25 August 2015. The number of digitalized
sources has increased steadily over recent years, and the percentage of digitalized sources containing
Israelite imagery has hovered between 37% and 42% since 2008. With more than half the print sources
from the period now digitalized, I believe these numbers withstand the criticism of source bias.
  6 In presenting one of Hobbes’ key targets to have been enthusiasm, I problematize J.G.A. Pocock’s (1990)
finding that Hobbes may profitably be read as an enthusiast (p. 748).
  7 See also Hobbes (1651a), Review and Conclusion, pp. 392–393. For a discussion of Zealots in John
Selden’s work which gives context to Hobbes’ condemning zealotry, see Rosenblatt (2008: 121–128). On
Selden providing context for understanding Hobbes and the discussion of ius zealotorum in his time, see
Tuck (1981: 107–108).
  8 My reading that Hobbes is less bothered by private zeal (kept private) than with public expressions of
enthusiasm is in line with Abizadeh’s (2013) argument that Hobbes favored some degree of toleration for
14 Political Studies 

dissenting private belief in the interest of uniform public worship. The discussion below of Jewish Sabbath
practices emphasizes uniform public worship.
  9 The convulsions and numbing of senses mentioned here is mirrored in the definitive description of enthu-
siasm in Casaubon (1655: 57–58).
10 Here, after a 12-point comparison between belief in fairies and belief in the papacy, Hobbes claims that not
only the “romane clergy” believe in a simultaneous kingdom of God (in the 1668 edition this is rendered
that not only the Romans believe in government by Church based on divine right). Protestants in Hobbes’
time are thus charged with an enthusiasm fitted to Catholicism.
11 “The kingdom of God is within you” was particularly common in writings of Westminster Divines.
12 Of 1960 digitalized texts published in England 1640–1660 containing the phrase “kingdom of God,” only
123 (6%) do not contain any of the terms “Israel,” “Jerusalem,” “Zion,” “Hebrew,” or “Jew” (http://eebo.
chadwyck.com). This may be related to millenarianism (broadly conceived) which permeated England and
Parliament in the civil-war period (Capp, 1972: 157) and which has long been associated with Hebraism
(Goldish, 1998; Popkin, 2001).
13 Interestingly, Hobbes’ emphasizing baptism alienated Anabaptists, the group most commonly called
“enthusiasts.”
14 I differ here from Lessay, 2007, who finds Hobbes to present “Covenant Theology.” Lessay relies on a
covenant with Adam (which Hobbes does not mention), and on the Covenant with Christ being a renewal
of the Covenant with Abraham as opposed to the new covenant Hobbes describes (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:41,
p. 263). That Hobbes considered the covenant with Christ distinct from the covenant with Abraham, and
found both these covenants to have been with peculiar people and not with all mankind (or with Adam) is
central to my understanding.
15 In general, I do not consider Hobbes to have read the Bible typologically. While he often suggested that
the Old Testament could assist with interpreting the New Testament or Christian events, he never proposed
using the New Testament to interpret the Old (e.g. Hobbes, 1651a: 3:35, p. 221; 3:37, p. 235; 3:38, p. 244).
Johnston concurs (Johnston, 1986: 167–168). Neither did Hobbes deprive the Old Testament of any of its
historical value in favor of a prophetic role. Hobbes did appeal to typological images, such as the image
of Christ as the sacrificial lamb (Hobbes, 1651a: 3:41), but drew from this that Christ takes the role of the
lamb, affecting our understanding of Christ’s office and not our understanding of Old Testament sacrifice.
Lessay (2007) offers an alternative perspective.
16 I differ here from Schwartz (1985), who finds Hobbes’ kingdom of God over Israel no less corrupt and
corrupting than Greece or Rome. Our disparate interpretations may result from Schwartz’s reliance on De
Cive. Schwartz’s account may even be correct regarding De Cive, and Hobbes’ perspective on Israelite
politics and its pedagogic value may have changed in light of civil-war discourse.
17 Hobbes depicted scripture as a legitimate and legitimating source not because it was revealed, but because
it was a narrative accepted when people place their trust in the Church, as in his own time (Hobbes,
1651a: 1:7, 32).
18 Spinoza (2007 [1670]) elaborated on the Israelites’ “natural state” after their exodus from Egypt, describing
their exiting from this state through the covenant with God who became their sovereign (ch. 17, p. 213).
19 This raises the question whether a state of nature which can be exited in favor of a commonwealth is
truly a state of nature. It certainly contains foundations for trust, otherwise absent from the natural
state. Yet if these foundations are requisite for establishing commonwealths, and if Hobbes conceived
the state of nature to consider the establishment of commonwealths, then rather than search for a more
natural state, we should seek to better understand the state out of which commonwealths are founded. It
is not a faithless state. Indeed, it works best when a legislator-God is imagined, such that laws of nature
are truly obligatory.
20 The resonance of Hobbes’ “making with words” with Jewish law, and particularly with the Sabbath which
Hobbes reveres, is not generally picked up in scholarship. Philip Pettit acknowledges Hobbes’ idea of
“making with words” as a theological—and even Hebraic—allusion, but finds this an allusion to the con-
temporary controversy over whether there was an Adamic language (Pettit, 2008: 2, 157n1).

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Author Biography
Meirav Jones completed her PhD at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 2013, with a dissertation entitled
“The Image of Israel and the Development of Political Ideas in England, 1640–1660.” She was formerly
Associate Editor of Hebraic Political Studies (2004–2010), held a post-doctoral fellowship at Tel Aviv
University (2014–2015), and is currently a Visiting Scholar at New York University’s Skirball Department of
Hebrew and Judaic Studies, and a Lecturer at the MacMillan Center at Yale University.