“My Highest Priority Was to Absolve the Divine Laws”: The Theory and Politics of Hobbes’ Leviathan in a War of Religion
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| Author | Meirav Jones |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032321715619941 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Political Studies
2017, Vol. 65(1) 248 –263
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0032321715619941
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“My Highest Priority Was to
Absolve the Divine Laws”: The
Theory and Politics of Hobbes’
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
619941PSX0010.1177/0032321715619941Political StudiesJones
research-article2016
Article
Jones 249
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
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