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References
‘Profond et bizarre philosophe, bon citoyen, esprit hardi, ennemi deDescartes...’; quoted from Voltaire, Le Philosophe Ignorant in Mélanges ed. by. J. Van Den Heuvel (Paris: Gallimard, 1961), pp. 918ff.
See Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie ed. by H. Glockner, vol. 2 Sämtliche Werke, vol. 18 (Stuttgart: Frommann, 1927), p. 271, and op. cit., vol. 19, p. 364, cited in Nathan Rotenstreich, ‘Faces of the Social Contract,’ Revue Internationale di Philosophie 33 (1979): 484–505, p. 502.
See EW VI, p. 254.
See Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Airpump: Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1985). See below, n. 20.
See J.G.A. Pocock, ‘Thomas Hobbes: Atheist or Enthusiast?,’ History of Political Thought 11 (1990): 737–749.
Immanuel Kant repeated views he had expressed in the first critique in lectures now recorded as Lectures on Philosophical Theology trans. by Allen W. Wood and Gertrude M. Clark (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1978); see his discussion of ‘ontotheology,’ that is, the consideration of God as the highest being, pp. 44ff.
Martin Heidegger’s view of metaphysics as the ‘obliteration of the withdrawal of Being’ is well-known; see, for instance, Identity and Difference trans. by Joan Stambaugh (NY, NY: Harper and Row, 1969). Like Hobbes and Hegel, Heidegger, though once a Catholic seminarian, read and quoted Luther; see Thomas Sheehan, ‘Heidegger’s Early Years: Fragments for a Philosophical Biography,’ Heidegger, the Man and the Thinker ed. by Thomas Sheehan (Chicago, IL: Precedent, 1981), pp. 10–11, and John Caputo, Demystifying Heidegger (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 5ff., 51, 172ff., et passim. In notes from a course he taught in 1922, ‘Phenomenological Interpretations of Aristotle, Introduction into Phenomenological Research,’ Heidegger claimed that the Protestant scholasticism which followed Luther was the ‘rootbed’ of German idealism; seeGesamtausgabe vol. 61 (Frankfurtam Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1985), p. 7. Heidegger’s knowledge of Luther and his capacity to link philosophy and Protestant theology were selling-points in favor of his candidacy for an academic position at Marburg, as a letter from his teacher Edmund Husserl to Paul Natorp reveals; see Husserl to Natorp, February 1, 1922 Briefwechsel vol. 5 ed. by Elisabeth Schuhmann and Karl Schuhmann (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994), pp. 150–151. I owe this reference to the kindness of Prof. Thomas Sheehan.
On Hegel, see Laurence Dickey, Hegel: Religion, Economics, and the Politics of Spirit, 1770–1807 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). That Hobbes found some of his sharpest critics among the Cambridge Platonists should not be surprising. See within, n. 20.
On thepolitical implications of fanaticism in this period, see Dominique Colas, Civil Society and Fanaticism: Conjoined Histories trans. by Amy Jacobs (Stanford, cA: Stanford Univer sity Press, 1997). Cf. Tracy B. Strong, ‘How to Write Scripture: Words, Authority, and Politics in Thomas Hobbes,’ Critical Inquiry 20 (1993): 128–159.
On Hobbes’s views of the Greek influence upon Judaism following the conquests of Alexander and the establishment of the successor kingdoms, see, for example, Leviathan 3.41.8.519. See below, p. 237.
See Leviathan 4.47.21.712. This language of magic and superstition used against the Roman Catholic Church was a common-place among Protestants in Hobbes’s day; see Johann P. Sommerville, Thomas Hobbes: Political Ideas in Historical Context (NY, NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), pp. 156ff. What is singular, however, is Hobbes’s consistent and philosophically developed use of it as a rhetorical apparatus. It is the convergence point where his science, politics and theology meet and, as such, reveals the shaping intelligence which chose and ordered the metaphoric elements. Moreover, Hobbes viewed Presbyterians as the new ghostly pretender to political power. Again, this was not new; see Sommerville, op. cit., pp. 158ff. But, he uses the parable of the house swept clean of demons (Matthew 12:44ff. and Luke 11:25ff.) to illustrate his point. See also Leviathan 1.12.32.182 and 4.47.34.714.
See Leviathan 3.39.5.498.
On possession in this period, see D.P. Walker, Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in France and England in the Late Sixteenth and Early Seventeenth Centuries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981). Hobbes’s attitudes toward these phenomena were not in advance of his intelligently skeptical contemporaries, religiously minded or not, and of course the Anglican clergy had sought to obliterate vestigial traces of magical and superstitious practices with considerable zeal but not uniform success. See below, n. 16 and Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (NY, NY: Scribner, 1971).Walker says that the doctrine that miracles had ceased, held as a firm principle, was perhaps ‘a fairly recent English invention,’ and one of its uses, in including diabolic phenomena as miracles, was to deny that they occurred. He continues: [The doctrine of the cessation of miracles] makes it possible for a pious Christian to live in a world entirely devoid of any supernatural occurrences; the miracles in the Bible truly happened, but they happen no more; divine providence still rules this world, but only through normal, natural means. Such a world, I suggest, is favorable to the development of early modern science, which is searching for invariable laws of nature; the search can be pursued without upsetting any Anglican’s religious convictions. And it is certainly a world that is unfavorable to witch-hunting and demoniacs. Walker, op. cit. pp. 72ff. A bishop’s laughter at trial might be enough to save some poor fellow who was acting strangely from being executed. On the cessation of miracles in Hobbes, see Leviathan 3.32.9.414.
Suspicion and fear of witchcraft were experiences of which Hobbes’s contemporaries were well aware, for, though often thought characteristic of medieval society, demonology and witch trials were more prominent in the period 1450–1700; see R. Kieckhefer, European Witch Trials: Their Foundations in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1976), and Norman Cohn, Europe’s Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-hunt (NY, NY: Basic Books, 1975). Some particularly virulent witch-hunts occurred during the English Civil War; for example, in 1643, John Hammond published the story of ‘a most certain, strange and true discovery of a witch, being taken by some of the Parliament men as she was standing on a small plank-board and sailing on it over the river of Newbury, together with the strange and true manner of her death, with the prophetical words and speeches she used at the same time.’ Soldiers fighting for the Earl of Essex spotted her going down the river on her board and fired at her, but, the pamphlet says, ‘with a deriding and loud laughter... she caught their bullets in her hands and chew’d them.’ Eventually, one of the soldiers shot and killed her. For the pamphlet’s representation of the witch on her board, see Appendix. fig. 1. Matthew Hopkins, the so-called Witch-finder General of Essex, was active during this period, and it has been estimated that, having begun his work in 1644, he was able to condemn some 200–400 people to death, not by burning, as was done on the Continent, but by strangulation or hanging and then burning. Being the Witch-finder General was financially lucrative; at a time when daily wages were as little as 2.5 pence, Hopkins was making £15 to £23 per town cleansed of witches; he dressed fashionably in Puritan tunic and cloak. See Appendix fig. 2. He obtained his confessions primarily through sleep deprivation; thus, one John Lowe, 70-year-old vicar of Brandeston, was’ swum in the moat,’ kept awake for three days and nights and then forced to walk without rest until his feet were blistered. Denied benefit of clergy, Lowe recited his own burial service on the way to the gallows. Hopkins seems to have specialized in extracting confessions from elderly women with pets. ‘FaithMills, of Fressingham, Suffolk, admitted that her three pet birds, Tom, Robert, and John, were in reality familiars who had wrought havoc by magically making a cow jump over a sty and breaking a cart. She was hanged.’ Eventually, opposition to Hopkins’ bloody persecutions grew, and his activities were curtailed by Puritan minister Reverend John Gaule of Great Staughton, who in 1646 published a pamphlet, called Select Cases of Conscience towards Witches and Witchcraft, an exposé of Hopkins’ methods. Gaule also preached against Hopkins’ brutality from the pulpit. In response, Hopkins published his own pamphlet entitled The Discovery of Witchcraft, but the tide had begun to turn against him. Two accounts exist of Hopkins’ demise: one, that he was himself accused of witchcraft and hanged, and two, that he died of tuberculosis. On the history of witchcraft, see English Witchcraft, 1560–1736, ed. by J.A. Sharpe, 6 voll. (London: Pickering & Chatto, 2003), especially volume 3. See also: http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/H/history/heads/outtakes/gaskill.html
For a description of these events, see www.ed-calbria.com/letradizioni.htm. In Leviathan, Hobbes describes a number of such phenomena, their causes and remedies: Leviathan 1.8.25.142: There was once a great conflux of people in Abdera, a city of the Greeks, at the acting of the tragedy of Andromeda, upon an extreme hot day; whereupon, a great many of the spectators falling into fevers, had this accident from the heat, and from the tragedy together, that they did nothing but pronounce iambics, with the names of Perseus and Andromeda; which, together with the fever, was cured by the coming on of winter; and this madness was thought to proceed from the passion imprinted by the tragedy. Likewise there reigned a fit of madness in another Grecian city, which seized only the young maidens; and caused many of them to hang themselves. This was by most then thought an act of the Devil. But one that suspected, that contempt of life in them, might proceed from some passion of the mind, and supposing they did not contemn also their honour, gave counsel to the magistrates, to strip such as so hanged themselves, and let them hang out naked. This, the story says, cured that madness. But on the other side, the same Grecians, did often ascribe madness to the operation of the Eumenides, or Furies; and sometimes of Ceres, Phoebus, and other gods; so much did men attribute to phantasms, as to think them aereal living bodies; and generally to call them spirits. On how ‘prophetic’ dreams are the product of a bad conscience, see Leviathan 1.2.6.91, and, for other phenomena, chapter 2, passim.
See Leviathan 1.8.23.141. See Karl Schuhmann, ‘Phantasms and Idols: True Philosophy and Wrong Religion in Hobbes,’ Nuove prospettive critiche sul Leviatano di Hobbes ed. by Luc Foisneau and George Wright (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2004), pp. 15–31.
See Pocock, op. cit., for a discussion of its post-Restoration history. The Restoration of 1660, in bringing back both the Stuart monarchy and the Church of England, created a complex religious situation in which Anglicans had to co-exist with a number of nonconformists despite a growing fear of atheism. The witch-hunting hysteria of the 1640’s had discredited such religious prosecutions, though few were willing to deny the possibility of witchcraft, and, in 1662, Thomas Browne, the author of Religio Medici, tentatively supported a diagnosis of bewitchment in the case of the Lowestoft witches, heard before the great common lawyer Sir Matthew Hale at Bury St. Edmunds. See http://www.nd.edu/~dharley/witchcraft/texts/Lowestoftcase. html. The English medical practitioner, John Webster, attacked the trial from the materialist principles of J.B. van Helmont in his Displaying of Supposed Witchcraft. But, the need to combat ‘atheism,’ such as Hobbes was accused of, reinforced the belief that ceasing to believe in witches and the Devil was the first step to ceasing to believe in God. So felt Joseph Glanvill (1611–1680), whose Vanity of Dogmatizing of 1661 used skeptical arguments to show the fallibility of empirical study of the natural world. In 1668, Glanvill told the story of the ‘Demon Drummer of Tedworth’ in his Sadducismus Triumphatus. A local landowner, John Mompesson, owner of a house in the town of Tedworth, had brought suit against a local drummer, whom he accused of extorting money by false pretences. After he had won against the drummer and confiscated his drum, his house was plagued by nightly drumming noises, assumed to be the drummer’s revenge; Samuel Pepys recounts the story in his Diary, entry for June 15th, 1663. Following Glanvill’s death, the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, who also subscribed to the realm of soul and spirit, brought out the final version of Sadducismus triumphatus: or, Full and plain evidence concerning witches and apparitions. In two parts. The first treating of their possibility. The second of their real existence, More/Glanvill argue that denying the reality of ghosts and witches was the first step toward atheism. See Thomas Harmon Jobe, ‘The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Witchcraft Debate,’ Isis 72 (1981): 343–356. Like Glanvill, whom he supported, Robert Boyle (1627–1691) did not believe that everything in nature could be accounted for in purely mechanistic terms; indeed, Boyle expressed interest in ‘books of Magick I have read.’ Boyle’s opposition to Hobbes thus stemmed from more than disagreement over the social construction of knowledge; cf. Shapin and Schaeffer, op. cit.; Luc Foisneau, ‘Beyond the Air-pump,’ Nuovo prospettive critiche sul Leviatano di Hobbes, (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2004), pp. 33–49, and, on the controversy with Wallis, Alexander Byrd,’ squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996): 217–231. For a depiction of Boyle with his air-pump, see William Faithorne’s 1664 engraving in the Appendix fig. 3. Boyle and his fellows were strongly resistant to a wholly materialist philosophy, such as Hobbes had long supported, in that their defense of science was that it was did not lead to ‘atheism’ precisely because it recognized the existence of what they took to be supernatural, that is, extra-material, activity in the world. Hence, Boyle’s interest in cases of witchcraft, leading in 1658 to the publication in English of The Devil of Mascon, an account of a famous poltergeist recorded in France earlier in the century. Clearly, as between the two, Hobbes saw more clearly on what grounds the new science must proceed, for, despite his resistance to experimentalism, his insistence on materialism was nearer the mark than Glanvill’s ‘experimental’ interest in incorporeal spirits. The reference to’ sadducismus’ in Granvill stems from his likening of those skeptical of witches’ power to the Sadducees, members of the Jewish upper class in the time of Jesus who denied the immortality of the soul because it was not taught in the Hebrew scriptures. For the frontispiece to Glanvill’s work, see Appendix fig. 4. The engraving is by William Faithorne, who also made the frontispiece for the 1668 edition of Hobbes’s works by Blaeu. The scene depicts I Samuel 28:7ff., Saul’s visit to the witch of Endor so that he might learn his fate from the ghost of Samuel, which she raises. On the theme of haunting in political philosophy, see Jacques Derrida, Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, theWork of Mourning, & the New International trans. by Peggy Kamuf (NY, NY: Routledge, 1994).
A reference to the discussion of heresies in Matthew 13:24ff.: 24 Another parable put he forth unto them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is likened unto a man which sowed good seed in his field: 25 But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. 26 But when the blade was sprung up, and brought forth fruit, then appeared the tares also. 27 So the servants of the householder came and said unto him, Sir, didst not thou sow good seed in thy field? from whence then hath it tares? 28 He said unto them, An enemy hath done this. The servants said unto him, Wilt thou then that we go and gather them up? 29 But he said, Nay; lest while ye gather up the tares, ye root up also the wheat with them. 30 Let both grow together until the harvest: and in the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, Gather ye together first the tares, and bind them in bundles to burn them: but gather the wheat into my barn....36 Then Jesus sent the multitude away, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Declare unto us the parable of the tares of the field. 37 He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; 38 The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one; 39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. 40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. Hobbes refers to this parable again in the 1668 Appendix, §§169ff., in arguing against prosecution for heresy.
See above, p. 214.
See, for example, Leviathan 3.38.4.481 and 4.44.13.636 et seqq.
In the resurrection of the dead, the damned will rise to a second and final death, whose bitterness stems from their realization of the happiness enjoyed by those who have God as their king: Leviathan 3.38.14.489: Andbecause such felicity inothers, is not sensible but by comparison with their own actual miseries; it followeth that [the damned] are to suffer such bodily pains, and calamities, as are incident to those, who not only live under evil and cruel governors, but have also for enemy, the eternal king of the saints, God Almighty. And amongst these bodily pains, is to be reckoned also to every one of the wicked a second death. For though the Scripture be clear for an universal resurrection; yet we do not read, that to any of the reprobate is promised an eternal life. Following their return to life, the damned will live much as before but without hope of eternal life, so that they will enjoy ‘an immortality of the kind but not of the persons of men: they are not worthy to be counted amongst them that shall obtain the next world, and an absolute resurrection from the dead; but only a short time, as inmates of that world; and to the end only to receive condign punishment for their contumacy.’ Ibid. This strange and stark depiction of a life drawn outwithout hope and joy among one’s family and children, lived in the knowledge of the eternal blessedness of others, seems to me anything but a therapeutic attempt to attenuate the severity of the doctrines of heaven and hell and of God’s omnipotence. Cf. Richard Tuck, ‘The Civil Religion of Thomas Hobbes,’ Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain, ed. by Nicholas Phillipson and Quentin Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 121ff. and Richard Sherlock, ‘The Theology of Leviathan: Hobbes on Religion,’ Interpretation 10 (1982): 43–60.
A reference to II Peter 3:13.
Enoch was a son of Cain and father of Irad (Genesis 4:16–18), but it was Enoch, the son of Jared and father of Methuselah, who ‘walked with God: and he was not; for God took him’ (Genesis 5:24 and Hebrews 11:5). Enos was a son of Seth, grandson of Adam and the father of Cainan (Genesis 5:6, 9–11). For the chariot and horses of fire attending Elijah’s (=Elias) ascension into heaven on the whirlwind, see II Kings 2: 11.
See Leviathan 4.44.40.637.
There is no doubt that the immortality of the soul became a key aspect of the Catholic Church’s confession. But, the late P.O. Kristeller cites only the medieval council of Vienne and the Lateran council of 1512 as authority, both articulating somewhat differing conceptions of the soul’s immortality and each under the influence of classical thought, Aristotelianism in the first instance and Platonism in the second. He counts it a remnant of Platonic thought in Christianity. See P.O. Kristeller, ‘The Immortality of the Soul,’ Renaissance Thought and its Sources (NY, NY: Columbia University Press, 1979), 181–196 (=Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays (NY, NY: Harper Torchbooks, 1972)).
His was in fact a rather limited ideal audience in any case, even, or especially, among those who might have been expected to appreciate the attempt to coordinate the new science with religion. His consistent materialism was the obstacle; as Jobe notes, ‘the success of an Anglican natural theology ultimately depended upon a proper balance between the material and spiritual worlds: [the Cambridge Platonist Henry More and Joseph Glanvill] criticized the Paracelsians for merging the spiritual and material worlds too completely and the Cartesians for separating them too completely.’ Hobbes would have no place among these options. See Thomas Harmon Jobe, ‘The Devil in Restoration Science: The Glanvill-Webster Debate,’ Isis 72 (1981): 343–356, p. 345, and Robert E. Stillman, ‘Hobbes’s Leviathan: Monsters, Metaphors and Magic,’ ELH 62 (1995): 791–819.
See Leviathan 1.2.8.92.
See Leviathan 4.46.22.693: For the meaning of eternity, [the Schoolmen] will not have it to be an endless succession of time; for then they should not be able to render a reason howGod’swill, and preordaining of things to come, should not be before his prescience of the same, as the efficient cause before the effect, or agent before the action; nor of many other their bold opinions concerning the incomprehensible nature of God. But they will teach us, that eternity is the standing still of the present time, a nunc-stans (as the Schools call it;) which neither they, nor any else understand, no more than they would a hic-stans for an infinite greatness of place. For Thomas Aquinas’ development of the ‘nunc-stans,’ see Summa Theologiae, 1.10.2 and 4, quoting Boethius, De Trinitate iv. See Eleonore Stump and Norman Kretzmann, ‘Eternity’ The Journal of Philosophy 78 (1981): 419–458, esp. p. 445, for a modern criticism of it.
The problem of time and the ‘eternal now’ is a theological one, and Hobbes’s discussion invites analysis of his description of God as first cause in terms of its adequacy as theology. In his Systematic Theology, Paul Tillich describes the problem as that of maintaining the transcendence of God if He is described as first cause in a chain of temporally caused events; see, for example, Systematic Theology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1967), vol. 1, pp. 106ff., 208ff., et passim. On God as cause and God as person, see below, ‘Hobbes in Exile.’
See De Cive chap. 17, §13, p. 269.
Though his own lay theology was a conspicuous failure, the irenic tendency in Hobbes’s discussions may have had a significant and helpful impact on subsequent debates. See Samuel Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan: Seventeenth-century Reactions to the Materialism and Moral Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962). But, cf. Robert E. Stillman, ‘Hobbes’s Leviathan: Monsters, Metaphors and Magic,’ English Literary History 62 (1995): 791–819, and David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986).
See Leviathan 2.30.6.378 and 3.32.2.409.
See Leviathan 3.33.21.425. It is not surprising that Hobbes emphasizes the scriptures as theword of God. God’s ‘hand,’Hismighty deeds, that is, miracles, had, by common agreement, ceased; see above, note 15. His’ spirit,’ that is, divine inspiration, was a problem if it led to civil unrest; see below, note 69.
See within, p. 231.
See, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, II.II.6.1.
Hannah Arendt, Between Past and Present: Eight Exercises in Political Thought (NY, NY: Penguin Books, 1977), p. 298.
See Richard Bodéeüs, Aristotle and the Theology of the Living Immortals (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000), for the proposition that Aristotle used ‘the most traditional Greek ideas about the gods’ to develop and defend his physical, metaphysical and ethical teachings.
In comparison with things, words and the markers we use to register our thoughts are unreal, according to Hobbes; that is, they do not exist. The only difference between instances of naming which are veridical and those that are not is that the object named exists in the first instance, whereas it does not in the second. This seems to be true of religion as well, in that the true religion is the one which worships the true God, that is, the deity that exists. There is no way to demonstrate the existence of God, though one may prove it as the postulate of reason, but this truth, like all truth, remains hypothetical. See within, ‘Hobbes in Exile.’ For Hobbes’s proof of God’s existence, see Leviathan 1.11.25.167. For a discussion of the distinction between proof and demonstration, see A.P. Martinich, The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 348ff.
In his Considerations, Hobbes likens them to dream creatures: It is by all Christians confessed, that God is incomprehensible; that is to say, that there is nothing can arise in our fancy from the naming of him, to resemble him either in shape, colour, stature, or nature; there is no idea of him; he is like nothing that we can think on. What then ought we to say of him? What attributes are to be given him (not speaking otherwise than we think, nor otherwise than is fit,) by those who mean to honour him? None but such as Mr. Hobbes hath set down, namely, expressions of reverence, such as are in use amongst men for signs of honour, and consequently signify goodness, greatness, and happiness; and either absolutely put, as good, holy, mighty, blessed, just, wise, merciful, &c., or superlative, as most good, most great, most mighty, almighty, most holy, &c., or negative of whatsoever is not perfect, as infinite, eternal, and the like: and not such as neither reason nor Scripture hath approved for honourable. This is the doctrine that Mr. Hobbes hath written, both in his Leviathan, and in his book De Cive, and when occasion serves, maintains. What kind of attribute, I pray you, is, immaterial, or incorporeal substance? Where do you find it in the Scripture? Whence came it hither, but from Plato and Aristotle, heathens, who mistook those thin inhabitants of the brain they see in sleep, for so many incorporeal men; and yet allowed them motion, which is proper only to things corporeal? Do you think it an honour to God to be one of these? And would you learn Christianity from Plato and Aristotle? See EW IV, p. 426.
See Leviathan 1.2.8.92. Much of this language was not new; as Prof. Springborg notes, ‘Among Elizabethans, Spenser, Marlowe and Kyd pioneered the idea of “Faerieland” as t realm of Aristotelian essences and Platonic daemons which shored up the Evil Empire of the Papacy and its imperial stooges;’ see ‘Hobbes, Heresy and the Historia Ecclesiastica,’ Journal of the History of Ideas 55 (1994): 553–571, p. 566.
See Leviathan 4.47.21.712.
Prof. Martinich stresses the ‘drift toward fideism’ that links Hobbes to figures from the thirteenth century on who sought to’ separate theology from philosophy;’ see Martinich, op. cit., pp. 346ff. The character of their ‘union’ is open to varying interpretations; on apophasis, see Jaroslav Pelikan, Christianity and Classical Culture: The Metamorphosis of Natural Theology in the Christian Encounter with Hellenism (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 36, 40–56, 94, 137–138, 197–198 and 200–214, and his more recent What Has Athens To Do with Jerusalem?: Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint (Ann Arbor, ML: The University of Michigan Press, 1997). Nevertheless, rather than see Hobbes only or largely in terms of the medieval reaction to Aristotle and realism, it seems to me as necessary to consider him in relation to the work of the Fathers. On this point, see ‘Hobbes and the Economic Trinity.’ In this way, we trace his opposition to a filiation of ideas that leads through Erasmus and Arminianism to Laudian Anglicanism. Hobbes is on the other side from these figures, clearly with Luther, less clearly with Melanchthon and Calvin, in repudiating both Greek philosophy biband patristic theology. The debate with Bramhall over the freedom of the will (and, implicitly, the image of God in humans) is only one reference point in this disagreement. Hegel offers a useful foil in that he was far more open to the theological anthropology of the Fathers. For a learned and incisive discussion of this point, see Dickey, op. cit., pp. 13ff., et passim.
See Leviathan 3.38.4.481; 4.44.14.636, and 4.44.32.650.
See especially Leviathan, chapters 40–42; see also above, ‘Hobbes and the Economic Trinity.’
See Leviathan 2.29.15.370, chapter 31, esp. 3.35.13.448, et passim.
See Leviathan 3.35.19.450, esp. 3.41.8.519, and 3.42.49.554.
See Leviathan 3.34.15.433; 3.34.17.435; 3.34.23.438, and 3.35.16.449. Both the Hebrew
(malach) and the Greek ἄγγελος (aggelos) mean both angel and messenger.For Hobbes’s discussion of spirit, see Jürgen Overhoff, ‘The Theology of Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan,’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History 51 (2000): 527–55, esp. pp. 532ff.
See Leviathan, chapter 34 et passim.
See Leviathan 2.26.41.332; 3.42.11.527; 3.43.7.613; 3.43.9.614, and 3.43.19.622.
SeeLeviathan 1.12.28.180; 3.32.7.411; 3.32.8.413; 3.36.20.467; 3.37.2470; 3.37.3.470; 3.37.4. 470; 3.37.5471; 3. 37.6.471; 3.37.7473; 3.37.9.474; 3.37.1.475; 3.37.13.476, and 3.40.12.509
See Leviathan chapter 33 and 3.42.48.554.
To the contrary, his account is meant to safeguard the incarnational claim that God acts in history. On this, see below, note 79.
Hegel discusses the relation between the Enlightenment and the Reformation in several places, for example, in the Philosophy of History, where he attempts to explainwhy the German and French experiences of the Enlightenment were so different and begins by stressing German Protestantism. See. G.W.F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History trans. by J. Sibree (NY, NY: Dover Publications, Inc., 1956), pp. 444ff.
The competence of the political sovereign extends to all public acts, whether by word or deed. This encompasses public worship; see Leviathan, chapter 45, esp. 4.45.13.667. While sovereign laws bind the conscience, they cannot reach to inner conviction, and what Hobbes says regarding miracles (Leviathan 3.37.13.476) applies to any doctrines to which public profession is required: A private man has always the liberty, (because thought is free,) to believe, or not believe in his heart, those acts that have been given out for miracles, according as he shall see, what benefit can accrue by men’s belief, to those that pretend, or countenance them, and thereby conjecture whether they be miracles, or lies. But when it comes to confession of that faith, the private reason must submit to the public; that is to say, to God’s lieutenant.
On the relationship between Independency and tolerance, see Geoffrey F. Nuttall, The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience newly introduced by Peter Lake (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992 [1946]). On freedom of conscience, see Richard Tuck, ‘Hobbes and Locke on Toleration,’ Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory ed. by Mary Dietz (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1990). He quotes T.H. Green: ‘It is as giving a freer scope than any other form of church to this conviction, that God’s spirit is not bound, that independency has its historical interest;’ Nuttall, op. cit., pp. 113ff. That Hobbes should find common ground with the Independents on some points is not surprising; both he and they stressed liberty of conscience. They differed profoundly, however, both in their understandings of the workings of spirit, holy or otherwise, and of conscience, which for Hobbes was under the firm direction of public reason; see, for example, Leviathan 2.29.7.365. Generally, the political behaviors and beliefs that Nuttall describes of the Independents are precisely those against which Hobbes aimed his politics of the spirit. See Johann Sommerville, ‘Hobbes and Independency,’ Nuove prospettive critiche sul Leviatano di Hobbes ed. by Luc Foisneau and George Wright (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2004), pp. 155–173.
See Leviathan 3.42.43.550: When therefore any other man shall offer unto us any other rules, which the sovereign ruler hath not prescribed, they are but counsel, and advice; which, whether good or bad, he that is counselled, may without injustice refuse to observe; and when contrary to the laws already established, without injustice cannot observe, how good soever he conceiveth it to be. I say, he cannot in this case observe the same in his actions, nor in his discourse with other men; though he may without blame believe his private teachers, and wish he had the liberty to practise their advice, and that it were publicly received for law. For internal faith is in its own nature invisible, and consequently exempted from all human jurisdiction; whereas the words, and actions that proceed from it, as breaches of our civil obedience, are injustice both before God and man. (Emphasis added.)
Hobbes has the Inquisition inmind; see Leviathan 4.46.37.700. What must have been his extension of arguments against Catholicism to apply to Presbyterianism seems opportunistic in that they do not fit well since Presbyterian theology did not draw from scholastic distinctions or Aristotelian philosophy. On faith and compulsion, see also Leviathan 3.42.9.526.
See, for example, Leviathan 3.37.13.476.
See Nuttall, op. cit, pp. 115ff.
A reference to I Corinthians 3:7.
Clearly, Hobbes thought materialism as such need not be antagonistic to the tenets of the Christian religion. Indeed, it could be argued that it is congruent with the incarnational claim that history itself, the flux of time, can manifest an epochal meaning. Platonic forms stood above time and change, but the significance of salvation history in Islam, Judaism and Christianity is that God acts in history to effect His purposes. In this sense, Hobbes’s approach represents the victory of Jerusalem over Athens, though it is somewhat qualified by the presence of natural theology. This is true also for Hegel, though Hegel’s approach was not to separate faith and reason, as in Hobbes, but to show their intimate connection. For a discussion of Hegel’s Trinitarianism, see the account given by Cyril O’Regan, The Heterodox Hegel (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). See above, note 53.
On Jewish-Greek interaction, see George Foot Moore Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era The Age of the Taanaim (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962) pp. 401–413, esp. p. 405; Erwin R. Goodenough, By Light, Light (Amsterdam: Philo Press, 1969), pp. 276ff., and, on the influence of Hellenism on Judaism after Alexander, Martin Hengel, ‘The Interpenetration of Judaism and Hellenism in the pre-Maccabean Period,’ The Cambridge History of Judaism vol. 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 167–228. Cf. Leviathan 3.40.14.326 and 4.45.4.437.
A reference to I Timothy 4:1, referred to above, note 23. See also I Corinthians 8–10, where Paul speaks of sacrifice to idols, the ‘devils’ of the Gentiles. Hebrew by this time was less and less the language most Jews spoke, whether living inside or outside Palestine. They had spoken Aramaic during the Exile, and it remained the language of most of Jesus’ contemporaries. So many Jews spoke Greek and so few spoke Hebrew that the Septuagint version of the Hebrew scriptures was produced in the third century to provide a Greek translation.
Hobbes had probably read Josephus, whom he cites at Leviathan 3.33.1.415 and 3.33.20. 422.
See Leviathan 1.8.25.142.
See Leviathan 1.12.16.173: Men, women, a bird, a crocodile, a calf, a dog, a snake, an onion, a leek, [were] deified. Besides that, they filled almost all places, with spirits called demons: the plains, with Pan, and Panises, or Satyrs; the woods, with Fawns, and Nymphs; the sea, with Tritons, and other Nymphs; every river, and fountain, with a ghost of his name, and with Nymphs; every house with its Lares, or familiars; every man with his Genius; hell with ghosts, and spiritual officers, as Charon, Cerberus, and the Furies; and in the night time, all places with larvae, lemures, ghosts of men deceased, and a whole kingdom of fairies and bugbears. They have also ascribed divinity, and built temples to meer accidents, and qualities; such as are time, night, day, peace, concord, love, contention, virtue, honour, health, rust, fever, and the like; which when they prayed for, or against, they prayed to, as if there were ghosts of those names hanging over their heads, and letting fall, or withholding that good, or evil, for, or against which they prayed. They invoked also their own wit, by the name of Muses; their own ignorance, by the name of Fortune; their own lust, by the name of Cupid; their own rage, by the name Furies; their own privy members, by the name of Priapus, and attributed their pollutions, to Incubi, and Succubae: insomuch as there was nothing, which a poet could introduce as a person in his poem, which they did not make either a god, or a devil.
See I Samuel 28:7ff. See also Leviathan 3.36.8.457.
Hobbes distinguishes between the actual possession of occult powers and the claim to possess them. He doubts the possession but would punish those making the claim; see Leviathan 1.2.8.92. For a discussion of contemporary views, including Selden’s, see Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 (Washington: The American Historical Association, 1911), pp. 244ff. The current literature on witchcraft is voluminous; see, for example, www.nd.edu/~dharley/witchcraft.
For a closely argued analysis of the question whether God speaks in the scriptures, see Nicholas Wolterstorff, Divine Discourse: Philosophical Reflections on the Claim that God Speaks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).
For a discussion of this point, see Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament vol. 1 trans. by J.A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961), pp. 210–215, esp. p. 214. Nuttall quotes Gunkel to the effect that spirit (
; ruah) in the Hebrew Scriptures is always ‘stofflich vorgestellt;’ Nuttall, op. cit., p. 170, note 2. The word itself is found there 378 times, plus 11 instances of the Aramaic cognate in Deuteronomy. Its meaning included the notions of wind, breath and such divine power as induced ecstasy and prophetic speech (Numbers 24:2, I Samuel 10:6 and 10; 19:20, 23ff.). In these last instances, the recipients of the Lord’s spirit are promised a change in ‘heart’ or to ‘be turned into another man;’ Balaam is said to fall into a trance, but ‘having his eyes open.’A reference to the clothes which Aaron was to wear as high priest; see Exodus 28:3: 3 And thou shalt speak unto all that are wise hearted, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron’s garments to consecrate him, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. 4 And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office. Special skills which humans possess are neither the product of demonic possession nor of merely human development; like all gifts, they stem from the grace of God.
Presumably a reference to Jeremiah 23.
Cf. Matthew 12:24ff., and Luke 11:14ff.
‘Doubt’ here means ‘fear’ or ‘be suspicious or uncertain’ or ‘apprehend.’ See OED sub voce doubt, II 5ff.
The KJV New Testament commonly has this spelling, which means ‘lord of the flies’ and is perhaps a mocking, Jewish alteration of the proper form, Baal-zebub, which means ‘Prince Baal,’ the name of the deity worshipped by Israel’s neighbors. This name appears in a story that illustrates the prophetic condemnation of divinatory practices. Samarian King Ahaziah was sick, having fallen through a second-story lattice. He sent messengers to Baal-zebub to inquire whether he will recover from his illness. An angel says to Elijah (II Kings 1:2–4), ‘Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to inquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron? 4 Now therefore thus saith the LORD, Thou shalt not come down from that bed on which thou art gone up, but shalt surely die. And Elijah departed.’ Engaging in divinatory practices implicitly denied God’s existence.
A point Hobbes recognizes; see Leviathan 4.45.4.659.
While evidence in Acts and the Pauline epistles for demons and possession is rare, in the Gospels, they are frequent. There, the writers distinguish possession from sickness, as in Matthew (Matthew 4:24), where we read of ‘the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics and paralytics.’
See above, p. 237.
See I Corinthians 8, cited by Hobbes at Leviathan 4.44.18.640.
The preaching and teaching of the gospel utilize means no less material than any other communication; see Leviathan 2.29.8.366. Their efficacy of course depends upon God’s prior election, that is, His predestination; see Leviathan 2.26.41.332.
A reference to the appearance of the resurrected Christ in Luke 24:36–40: 36 Peace be unto you. 37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? 39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
A reference to I Corinthians 15:44.
A reference to Luke 4:25.
A reference to Luke 4:39.
A reference to Luke 8:24.
A reference to the creation account of Genesis I.
Implied here is the traditional understanding that Christ ‘accommodated’ Himself to the understanding of the people. On accommodationism, see Dickey, op. cit., pp. 13ff.; for its presence in Calvin, see Ford Lewis Battle, ‘God Was Accommodating Himself to Human Capacity,’ Interpretation 31 (1977): 19–38.
Compare this statement with one that had come earlier, Leviathan 1.8.26.145: But why then does our Saviour proceed in the curing of them, as if they were possessed; and not as if they were mad? To which I can give no other kind of answer, but that which is given to those that urge the Scripture in like manner against the opinion of the motion of the earth. The Scripture was written to shew unto men the kingdom of God, and to prepare theirminds to become his obedient subjects; leaving theworld, and the philosophy thereof, to the disputation of men, for the exercising of their natural reason.Whether the earth’s, or sun’s motion make the day, and night; or whether the exorbitant actions of men, proceed from passion, or from the devil, (so we worship him not) it is all one, as to our obedience, and subjection to God Almighty; which is the thing for which the Scripture was written. As for that our Saviour speaketh to the disease, as to a person; it is the usual phrase of all that cure by words only, as Christ did, (and enchanters pretend to do, whether they speak to a devil or not.) For is not Christ also said (Matt. 8. 26.) to have rebuked the winds? Is not he said also (Luke 4. 39.) to rebuke a fever? Yet this does not argue that a fever is a devil. And whereas many of those devils are said to confess Christ; it is not necessary to interpret those places otherwise, than that those madmen confessed him. And whereas our Saviour (Matt. 12. 43.) speaketh of an unclean spirit, that having gone out of a man, wandereth through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none, and returning into the same man, with seven other spirits worse than himself; it is manifestly a parable, alluding to a man, that after a little endeavour to quit his lusts, is vanquished by the strength of them; and becomes seven times worse than he was. So that I see nothing at all in the Scripture, that requireth a belief, that demoniacs were any other thing but madmen.
But, cf. David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Quentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and Roger D. Lund, ‘The Bite of Leviathan: Hobbes and Philosophic Drollery,’ English Literary History 65 (1998): 825–855. One can recognize the undoubted rhetorical aspect of Leviathan without losing sight of its more important philosophic and exegetical dimensions.
A reference to I Corinthians 15:44.
(malach) and the Greek ἄγγελος (aggelos) mean both angel and messenger.
; ruah) in the Hebrew Scriptures is always ‘stofflich vorgestellt;’ Nuttall, op. cit., p. 170, note 2. The word itself is found there 378 times, plus 11 instances of the Aramaic cognate in Deuteronomy. Its meaning included the notions of wind, breath and such divine power as induced ecstasy and prophetic speech (Numbers 24:2, I Samuel 10:6 and 10; 19:20, 23ff.). In these last instances, the recipients of the Lord’s spirit are promised a change in ‘heart’ or to ‘be turned into another man;’ Balaam is said to fall into a trance, but ‘having his eyes open.’Rights and permissions
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(2006). The Haunting of Thomas Hobbes. In: Religion, Politics and Thomas Hobbes. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives internationales d’histoire des idées, vol 195. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-4468-2_3
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