F ilo z o fs k i v e s t n ik
V o lu m e /L e tn ik XXIV • N u m b e r/Š te v ilk a 2 • 2003 • 139-168
BEHEMOTH:
DEMOCRATICALS AND RELIGIOUS FANATICS
T
omaž
M
a stn a k
T h e see d o f th e “m e m o ra b le civil war in his M ajesty’s do m in io n s from 1640
to 1660,” H o b b e s w ro te in th e Epistle D edicatory to Behemoth, w ere “certain
o p in io n s in divinity a n d politics,” o u t o f w hich grew “declarations, re m o n ­
strances, a n d o th e r w ritings betw een the King a n d P arliam en t.” Actions tak­
e n in th a t p e rio d w ere w hat h e called “the war itself.” H e a p p o rtio n e d the
first two, o u t o f four, d ialo g u es o f his Behemoth to discussing those “certain
o p in io n s ” a n d th e p a m p h le t war, h e explained, a n d re p re se n te d the second,
slightly sh o rter, h a lf o f th e b o o k as “a very sh o rt ep ito m e o f the war itself,
draw n o u t o f Mr. H e a th ’s c h ro n ic le . ” 1 This b rie f dedication raises questions.
Florus or M a ch ia u el
T h e division b etw een th e two m ain parts o f Behemoth is n o t as n ea t as
H obb es w ould m ak e us think. T h e re is n o reason to assum e th at his knowl­
ed g e o f th e “w ar its e lf’ re ste d o n H e a th ’s chronicle alone. H obbes was u n ­
d o u b ted ly q u ite well a c q u ain ted with the civil war literature, as h e h im self in­
dicated. In Leviathan, fo r exam ple, h e re ferred to “divers English Books lately
p rin te d ” a n d in Behemoth h e m e n tio n e d “divers m en that have w ritten the his­
tory . ” 2 W hy d id h e , th e n , re p re se n t H eath as his source? O n e reason may have
b e e n practical. B aro n A rlington, th e Secretary o f State an d Behemoth’s dedica­
tee, h a d given H e a th perm ission to p rin t his A Brief Chronicle in 1663 a n d
co u ld th u s reasonably b e ex p e cted to g ran t - o r h elp obtain - H obbes license
1 Behemoth, Epistle Dedicatory. I used the reprint of the T onnies’s edition, Behemoth, or
the Long Parliament, with an Introd u ctio n by S. Holmes (Chicago: T he University of Chica­
go Press, 1990), and consulted Béhémoth ou le Long Parlement, ed. an d trans. Luc Borot,
vol. 9 o f Oeuvres by T hom as H obbes, ed. Y. Ch. Zarka (Paris: Vrin, 1990).
2 Leviathan, ed. R. Tuck (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 484; Behemoth,
45; and cf. Borot, Béhémoth, 264.
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T o m a ž M a stn a k
to pu b lish an epitom e o f th a t c h ro n ic le .3 B ut such co n sid eratio n s aside,
H eath was n o t th e Livy o f the English civil war. A m ong his c o n tem p o raries h e
was re p u te d fo r having h a d “a co m m an d o f his Engl, a n d Lat. p e n , b u t w ant­
ed a h e a d for a ch ro nologer.” O n e c o m m e n ta to r fo u n d his chronicles faulty:
“mostly com piled from lying p am phlets, a n d all sorts o f new s-books,” a n d full
o f “in n u m era b le errors...especially as to n a m e a n d tim e.”4D id H o bbes really
w ant to be seen as H e a th ’s Floras?'’ If we accep t w hat H obbes w rote in th e d e d ­
ication, only p a rt o f the m an u scrip t h e h a n d e d over to A rlington was an epit­
om e o f H eath. B ut w hat H obbes re p re s e n te d as th e division betw een th e two
m ain parts o f Behemoth was ra th e r a distinction betw een two levels o f th e book,
co rresp o n d in g to two types o f know ledge - know ledge o f events a n d scientif­
ic know ledge o f causes 6 —b o th p re s e n t th ro u g h o u t the text. I believe H obbes
actually w anted to suggest how his “bo o k e o f th e Civili W arr ” 7 was to b e read:
th at th e re a d e r was to consider as p ro p erly H o b b e s’s own —a n d im p o rta n t th a t w hich was n o t th e “ep ito m e o f th e w ar itself . ” 8
3 Cf. Geoffrey Vaughan, B ehem oth Teaches Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Political Educa­
tion (Lanham : Lexington Books, 2002), 104 n. 61. O n H obbes’s difficulties to publish u n ­
der the Licensing Act, see N oel M alcolm, Aspects o f Hobbes (O xford: C larendon, 2002),
348-49. H eath was expelled from his studentship at O xford by th e P arliam entarians and
jo in e d the royalist exiles in Paris, b u t w hether political affinities had played a role in
H obbes’s choice o f the Brief Chronicle rem ains a question. Cf. Jo h n Aubrey, Brief Lives, ed.
A. Clark (Oxford: C larendon, 1898), 1: 306; A nthony W ood, Athenae oxonienses: A n exact
history of all the trnters and bishops who have had their education in the University o f Oxford, ed.
Ph. Bliss (London: Printed for F. C. and J. Rivington et al., 1813-20), 3: cols. 663-64. On
A rlington, see especially Philip M ilton, “H obbes, H eresy an d L ord A rlington,” History of
Political Thought 14, no. 4 (1993): 525 ff.
4 Wood, Athenae oxonienses, 3: col. 664. For W ood, Behemoth too co n tain ed “m any faults”
— and “several things against religion, an cien t learning, universities, &c.” Ibid., col. 1213.
5 O n Hobbes and Florus, see Karl S chuhm ann, “H obb es’s co n cep t o f history,” in Hobbes
and History, ed. G. A. J. Rogers and T. Sorell (L ondon: Routledge, 2000), 3-4, 20 nn. 6, 7.
O n the popularity o f Florus in the early S tuart E ngland, see D. R. Woolf, The Idea o f His­
tory in Early Stuart England: Erudition, Ideology, and “The Light of Truth ”from the Accession of
James I to the Civil War (Toronto: University o f T oronto Press, 1990), 173-74.
b Cf. M. M. Goldsmith, Hobbes’s Science of Politics (New York: C olum bia University Press,
1966), 232 ff., especially 233.
7 H obbes to jo h n Aubrey, 18 {/28] A ugust 1679, in The Correspondence of Thomas Hobbes,
ed. N. Malcolm (Oxford: C larendon, 1997), 2: 772.
8 This assertion contradicts the arg u m en t th a t th e book we call Behemoth was actually en ­
titled by H obbes as Epitome of the Civil Wars. See S chuhm an n , “H obbes’s co n cep t o f histo­
ry,” 4; “Thom as H obbes, Oeuvres," British Journal for the History of Philosophy 4, no. 1 (1996):
156; and Hobbes: Une chronique (Paris: Vrin, 1998), 198. “E pitom e” is m en tio n ed in
François du V erdus’s letter to H obbes, [3 /] 13 April 1668, Correspondence, 2: 697; H ugh
M acdonald and Mary Hargreaves, Thomas Hobbes: A Bibliography (London: T h e Biblio­
graphical Society, 1952), xv, and no. 88; an d Aubrey, Brief Lives, 1: 363. T h ere is no evi­
dence that H obbes him self ever used th at title.
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B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig i o u s F a n a t ic s
H o b b e s ’s own w o rk - n o t th e epitom izing h e said he h a d d o n e - was n o t
a co n v e n tio n a l history. T rue, o n c e - probably in the last m o n th s o f his life H o b b es re fe rre d to Behemoth as “a history o f th e English Civil War betw een
King C h arles a n d his P a rlia m e n t,” w hich h e w rote “[i]n o r a ro u n d his eight­
ieth year . ” 9 B ut a t a b o u t th e sam e tim e h e com plained th a t a pirated 1679
e d itio n h a d “a foolish title set to it ” 10 T he title o f the first th re e u n au th o riz ed
p rin tin g s was The History o f the Civil Wars of England, From the Year 1640, to
1660.u H istories w ere n o t m e a n t to explain causes o f events. H o b b es’s am bi­
tio n in Behemoth was precisely that. Toward the e n d o f the first dialogue the
c h a ra c te r B has co m e to u n d e rs ta n d th at th e pu rp o se o f his o ld er in terlo cu ­
to r A was “to a c q u a in t m e with th e history, n o t so m uch o f those actions th at
passed in th e tim e o f th e late troubles, as o f th eir causes, a n d o f the councils
a n d artifice by w hich they w ere b ro u g h t to pass.” To this B ad d e d th at
“ [t]h e re b e divers m e n th a t have w ritten th e history, o u t o f w hom I m ight
have le a rn e d w h at they d id, a n d som ew hat also o f the contrivance; b u t I find
little in th e m o f w h a t I w ould ask . ” 12
O th e rs have p lace d Behemoth in the co n tex t o f co n tem p o rary historiog­
ra p h y o r d o n e th e p re p a ra to ry w ork for such an e n te rp rise . 13 H ere, I w ant to
9 T. Hobbes Malmesburiensis Vita, O L 1: xx; trans, in The Prose Life, in Thom as Hobbes, The
Elements of Law Natural and Politic, Part I Human Nature, Part II De Corpore Politico, with Three
Lives, ed. J. C. A. Gaskin (O xford: O xford University Press, 1994), 252; cf. François Tricaud, “Eclaircissem ents sur les six p rem ière biographies de H obbes,” Archives de Philosophie
48, no. 2 (1985): 280 ff. See n. 7 and H obbes to William Crooke, 19 [/2 9 ] Ju n e 1979, and
18 [/2 8 ] A ugust 1679, Correspondence, 2: 771, 774, where Hobbes spoke o f “my Dialogue
o f the Civil Wars o f E ngland” and “my Book concerning the Civil Wars of England, &c.”.
Cf. C rooke’s “Bookseller’s A dvertisem ent” in Considerations upon the reputation, loyalty, man­
ners, and religion of Thomas Hobbes of Malmsbury (1680), EW 4: 411-12.
10 H obbes to J o h n Aubrey, 18 [/2 8 ] A ugust 1679, Correspondence, 2: 772.
11 M acdonald an d H argreaves, Bibliography, nos. 86-87a. If the edition in question was
th e fo u rth pirated edition from th a t year, Behemoth, or A n epitome o f the Civil Wars of Eng­
land, from 1640, to 1660 (ibid., no. 88), H obbes could as well have been unhappy with “Be­
h e m o th ” (o r “An E pitom e”). In th a t case, “the O riginal” referred to by H obbes in his let­
te r to Crooke, 19 [/2 9 ] J u n e 1679, Correspondence, 2: 771, was n ot th e St J o h n ’s College,
O xford, m anuscript, entitled Behemoth, as it is com monly assumed.
12 Behemoth, 45. C onsonant with this explanaition is the title H obbes’s p rinter and book­
seller William Crooke gave to th e work when he printed it “from the A u th o r’s true Copy”
in 1682: h e entitled it Behemoth, the history of the Causes of the Civil-Wars of England, And of
the Councels and Artifices by which they were carried on, from the year 1640. to the year 1660. Mac­
d o nald an d H argreaves, Bibliography, no. 90.
13 See especially Fritz Levy, “T h e background of H obbes’s Behemoth," in The historical immagination in early modem Britain: History, rhetoric, and fiction, 1500-1800, ed. D. M. Kelley
an d D. H. Sacks (C am bridge: C am bridge University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center,
1997); see also F. Sm ith Fussner, The Historical Revolution: English Historical Writing and
Thought, 1580-1640 (L ondon: R outledge and Kegan Paul, 1962), esp. 170 ff.; Royce
141
T o m a ž M a stn a k
tu rn to w hat was, fo r H obbes, th e q u estio n o n e w ould w an t to ask re g a rd in g
th e English civil war. H obbes answ ered th e q u estio n b efo re th e c h a ra c te r B
o r the re a d e r co u ld even have asked it. In th e Epistle D edicatory, h e ex­
p lain ed th at “[t]h e re can be n o th in g m o re instructive tow ards loyalty a n d ju s ­
tice th a n will be th e m em ory, w hile it lasts, o f th a t war . ” 14
T h e sim plicity o f this p ro n o u n c e m e n t is as a p p a re n t as its objectivity.
M em ory —b e g o tten by ex p erien ce, “bits o f re m e m b e re d sense-data” c o n tin ­
ually u n d e r assault fro m new waves o f se n sa tio n 15 - n e e d e d re in fo rc e m e n t to
last. It co uld b e revivified by p ro d u c tio n o f im ages a n d ex em p la, w hich was
seen as th e task o f history w riting. H o b b e s w a n te d th e m em o ry o f th e civil w ar
to last a n d instruct, a n d u n d e rto o k to revivify th e past “fo r th e p u rp o se s o f
th e p re s e n t . ” 16 H e accep ted th e id ea th a t history has to teach - a co m m o n
topic in h u m an ists’ discussions - early in his life. In his tran slatio n o f T hucy­
d id es’s Peloponnesian War, th e earliest p u b lic a tio n o n w hich H o b b e s ’s n am e
ap p e are d , H obbes w rote th at “th e p rin cip a l a n d p ro p e r w ork o f history” was
“to in stru c t a n d en a b le m en , by th e know ledge o f actions past, to b e a r th e m ­
selves p ru d e n tly in th e p re se n t a n d providently tow ards th e fu tu re . ” 17
H obbes p raising T hucydides as fo rem o st a m o n g historians a n d as th e “m o st
politic h isto rio g rap h e r th at ever w rit,” especially a d m ire d his ability to in­
stru ct “secretly” th ro u g h the “n a rra tio n itself,” n o t by digressing to m o ral o r
MacGillivray, Restoration Historians and the English Civil War (The H ague: M artinus Nijhof,
1974); R. C. Richardson, The Debate on the English Revolution Revisited (L ondon: Routledge,
1988), chap. 2; Woolf, The Idea of History in Early Stuart England', Blair W orden, “Ben Jo n son am ong the H istorians,” in Culture and Politics in Early Stuart England, ed. K. S harpe and
R Lake (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1993); David W ootton, “T hom as
H obbes’s Machiavellian m om ents,” in Kelley an d Sacks, The historical immagination; J. G. A.
Pocock, “Thom as May and the narrative o f Civil War,” in Writing and Political Engagement
in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. D. H irst and R. S trier (Cam bridge: C am bridge U niver­
sity Press, 1999); idem, “Medieval Kings at the C ourt o f Charles I: T hom as May’s Verse His­
tories,” in Perspectives on Early Modem and Modern Intellectual History: Essays in Honor o f N an­
cy S. Struever, ed. J. M arino and M. W. Schlitt (Rochester, NY: University o f R ochester Press,
2000); essays in Rogers and Sorell, Hobbes and History, especially Jo h a n n P. Sommerrville,
“Hobbes, Seiden, Erastianism, and th e history o f th e Jews”; David N orbrook, “T h e English
Revolution and English historiography,” in The Cambridge Companion to Writing o f the Eng­
lish Revolution, ed. N. H. Keeble (Cam bridge: C am bridge University Press, 2001); Vaugh­
an, Behem oth Teaches Leviathan, especially 92 ff.
14 Behemoth, Epistle Dedicatory.
15 “T he Answer o f Mr. H obbes to Sir Will. d ’A venant’s Preface before G o ndibert,” in
Willaim Davenant, Gondibert, ed. D. F. Gladish (Oxford: C larendon, 1971), 49; Patricia
Springborg, “Leviathan, mythic history, an d national historiography,” in Kelley an d Sacks,
The historical immagination, 284.
16 Ibid.
17 Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War: The Complete Hobbes Translation, ed. D. G reene
(Chicago: T he University o f Chicago Press, 1989), xxi; EW 8: vii.
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B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
political lectu res o r “o th e r such o p e n conveyances o f p re cep ts . ” 18 This is n o t
w hat H o b b e s d id in Behemoth, n o r h a d his w riting o f Behemoth co n fo rm ed to
w hat h e c o n sid e re d th e virtues o f h istoriography tow ard th e e n d o f his liter­
ary career, w h en h e was b ack to tran slatin g an c ie n t G reek . 19 In Behemoth, he
was n e ith e r im p artial - as h e w rote in the preface to his translation o f H om er
th a t a h isto ria n o u g h t to be, desisting from speaking evil o f any m an - n o r
was his h istory “wholly re la te d by th e writer.” In d eed , the dialogue form m ade
Behemoth clo ser to a h e ro ic p o em , w here the n arratio n is “p u t u p o n som e o f
th e p erso n s in tro d u c e d by th e p o e t . ” 20
In Behemoth, it was n o t th e n a rra tio n o f th e history o f th e civil war th at
was instru ctiv e; ra th e r, H o b b e s in stru c te d th ro u g h a dialogical discourse on
th a t history, th ro u g h v o icin g his o p in io n s o f the o p in io n s th at, in his view,
cau sed th e war. Behemoth in d e e d can b e re g a rd e d as w h a t B acon called
“RVMINATED HISTORY,” th a t is, “a sca tte red H istory o f those actio n s” w hich
w ere “th o u g h t w o rth y o f m e m o rie , w ith p o litiq u e discourse a n d obseruatio n th e r e u p o n ,” a n d “m o re fit to place am o n g st Bookes o f policies” th an
civil h isto ry . 21 T h e m a s te r o f su ch “discourse vpon Histories or Examples" was
“M ac h ia u el . ” 22
Since H o b b e s m a d e th e m em o ry o f the civil war “instructive towards loy­
alty a n d ju s tic e ,” Behemoth can b e re a d as a lesson in civic e d u c a tio n . 23 T h e
w ar ta u g h t by negative exam ple: If o n e were to observe, “as from th e Devil’s
M o u n ta in ,” th e actio n s o f E nglishm en in th at p erio d , one “m ig h t have h ad a
p ro sp e c t o f all .kinds o f injustice, a n d o f all kinds o f folly, th a t the w orld could
18 Thucydides, xxii, 577; EW 8: viii, xxii.
19 See Luc Borot, “H istory in H obbes’s thought,” in The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes,
ed. T. Sorell (Cam bridge: C am bridge University Press, 1996), especially 321 ff.
2° “i ’0 [ђе Reader: C oncerning th e Vertues o f an H eroic Poem," EW 10: v-vi. On the in­
tricate issues o f th e relation am ong history, rhetoric, and philosophy, see, especially, David
Jo h n sto n , The Rhetoric o/Ueviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the Politics of Cultural Transformation
(Princeton, N.J.: P rinceton University Press, 1986); Q uentin Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric
in the Philosophy of Hobbes (Cam bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); idem, Hobbes
and Civil Science, vol. 3 o f Visions o f Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002) ;
and Springborg, “Leviathan, mythic history, and national historiography.”
21 This is convincingly argued in Levy, “T he background o f H obbes’s Behemoth." Earlier,
the question o f w hether Behemoth belongs to what Bacon in his classification called histo­
ry o r to political histories with com m entary at the margins of historical genre was asked
by Borot, “In tro d u c tio n ” to Béhémoth, 15. See Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, ed. M.
K iernan, vol. 4 o f The Oxford Francis Bacon (Oxford: C larendon, 2000), 70.
22 Bacon, The Advancement of Learning, 162. Wootton, “Thom as H obbes’s Machiavellian
m om ents,” 228, defines Behemoth as “a study in Machiavellian politics.”
23 See Mary G. Dietz, “H o b b es’s Subject as Citizen,” in Thomas Hobbes and Political Theo­
ry, ed. M. G. Dietz (Law rence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1990); and Vaughan,
B ehem oth teaches Leviathan.
143
T o m a ž M a stn a k
affo rd . ” 24 B ut th e c h a rac te r B a n d th e re a d e r w ere n o t tak en to th e D evil’s
M o u n tain to be te m p te d with glory a n d a u th o rity 25 b u t to b e ta u g h t civil d u ­
ty a n d o b ed ien ce. T h a t positive lesson was ta u g h t by H o b b e s ’s “science o f ju st
a n d unjust," th e science th a t in stru c te d m e n how, by follow ing th e “rules o f
ju st” a n d su b m ittin g “to the laws o f th e c o m m o n w ea lth ,” they co u ld live “in
peace am o n g st them selves . ” 26
T h e utility o f H o bbes’s science o f politics lay in teach in g m en how to
avoid evil. “All calam ities which h u m a n industry can avoid arise from war, es­
pecially from civil war, for from this com e m assacres, loneliness, a n d shortage
o f all things,” H obbes explained in De corpore. “B ut th e cause o f these things is
n o t th a t h u m an s w ant them ; for th e re is n o will ex c ep t fo r th e good, at least
for w hat appears so; an d it is n o t th a t they d o n o t know th a t these things are
evils; fo r who is th ere who does n o t realize th a t m assacres a n d poverty are evil
a n d h arm fu l fo r themselves? T h erefo re, th e cause o f civil w ar is th at p e o p le are
ig n o ran t o f th e cause o f wars a n d peace a n d th a t th ere are very few w ho have
learn ed th eir responsibilities, by w hich peace flourishes a n d is p re se rv e d . . . ” 27
Speaking concretely, E nglishm en w ere n o t stupid, ju s t ig n o ran t. It was
“n o t w ant o f wit, b u t w ant o f th e science o f ju stice, th a t b ro u g h t th em into
these tro u b les . ” 28 B ut w hat b ro u g h t th e m in to tro u b les was n o t sim ply th e ab ­
sence o f “infalible rules a n d the tru e science o f equity a n d ju s tic e . ” 20 W h at led
th em to war was th e presence, a n d prevalence, o f false opinions, do ctrin es,
a n d beliefs, m ad e possisble by th e absence o f th e tru e science o f justice.
Seducers o f the People
F or H obbes, o p inions w ere o f p rim ary im p o rta n c e . M e n ’s actions origi­
n ated in th e ir o p in io n s an d , consequently, “th e pow er o f th e m ighty h a th n o
fo u n d a tio n b u t in th e o p in io n a n d b e lie f o f th e p e o p le . ” 30 T h e re is n o th in g
24 Behemoth, 1; cf. 119, H obbes’s speaking o f those who destroyed m onarchy: “I in te n d ­
ed only the story o f their injustice, im pudence, and hypocrisy.”
25 T he devil led Christ “up and showed him in an instant all the kingdom s o f the
w o rld ./ A nd the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give th eir glory and all this au th o rity ’” etc.
Lk 4.5-6. Cf. Mt. 4.8-10: “the devil took him to a very high m o u n tain ” etc.
28 Behemoth, 39, 44, 159-60.
27 De corporel,i,7 (OL 1: 7; I cite English translation in T hom as H obbes, Computatio Sive
Logica: Lope, translation and com m entary A. M artinich, ed. I. C. H u n g erlan d and G. R.
Vick [New York: Abaris Books, 1981], 185).
28 Behemoth, 159.
29 Behemoth, 70.
30 Behemoth, 16; cf. Leviathan (Tuck), 124. See R obert R Kraynak, History and Modernity
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B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
su rp risin g in th e p ro m in e n c e in Behemoth given to taking issue with opinions
subversive o f th e co m m o n w ealth . Surprisingly, however, in th e som ew hat
ju m p y o p e n in g o f th e d ialo g u e, H obbes does n o t directly p ro c eed to opin­
ions. In stea d , h e id en tifies th e p rotagonists o f the rebellion first, only later to
ex p lain th e ir actio n s th ro u g h exposition o f th eir o pinions a n d doctrines. In
this, th e tre a tm e n t o f th e causes o f the dissolution o f g o v ern m en t in Behemoth
differs fro m th a t in his e a rlie r treatises . 31
T h e p ro tag o n ists e n te r th e stage as seducers a n d the seduced. O n e en ­
co u n te rs th e im ag e o f se d u c tio n as early as the translation o f Thucydides.
H o b b es r e n d e re d th e o p e n in g o f th e M elian D ialogue, in w hich the dem o­
cratic A th en ian s scoff a t th e aristocratic M elians, as follows: “Since we may
n o t sp eak to th e m u ltitu d e , fo r fear lest w hen they h e a r o u r persuasive an d
u n an sw erab le arg u m e n ts all a t o n ce in a c o n tin u ed o ration, they should
c h a n ce to b e sed u c ed (for we know th at this is the scope o f your brin g in g us
to au d ie n c e b e fo re th e few ) . ” 32
T h e c o n te x t in w hich th e possibility o f seduction ap p ears is highly sig­
nificant. S ed u ctio n o f th e m u ltitu d e is the resu lt o f rhetoric, a n d the p o in t
h e re is th a t d em o cratic p ersu asio n , dismissive o f the adversary’s political con­
stitu tio n , takes p lace a t g u n p o in t (as we w ould say today), with the stronger
— th e A th en ian s —re fu sin g to discuss “e ith e r the ju stic e o f th eir d em an d or
any subs tan dve a rg u m e n ts th e M elians m ay wish to offer . ” 33
T h e sed u c ed , in H o b b e s’s analysis o f the English civil war, were the p eo ­
ple. T h ey c o n trib u te d to th e d estru c tio n o f the m onarchical governm ent be­
cause they re fu sed to pay taxes, so th a t the king, w ho d id n o t lack virtue,
lack ed soldiers u n d e r his co m m an d . M ore fatally, h e was u n ab le to keep the
in the Thought of Thomas Hobbes (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990); William R. Lund,
“Hobbes on Opinion, Private Judgem ent and Civil War,” History of Political Thought 13,
no. 1 (1992).
31 This does not mean that there is no continuity in Hobbes’s view o f what — and es­
pecially which opinions — was destructive of government. Cf. Tom Sorell, Hobbes (Lon­
don: Routledge, 1986), 128 ff. See The Elements of Law Il.xxvii; De cive xii (I cite On the Cit­
izen, ed. and tr. R. Tuck and M. Silverthorne [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998] ); Leviathan xxix.
32 Thucydides, 364; EW 9: 97-98. In a modern translation, the passage reads: “So we are
not to speak before the people, no doubt in case the mass o f the people should hear once
and for all and without interruption an argument from us which is both persuasive and
incontrovertible, and should so be led astray. This, we realize, is your motive in bringing
us here to speak before the few.” Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War V,85 (trans.
R. Warner and ed. M. I. Finley [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974]), 400-1.
33 See Finley’s note in Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 614; the importance
o f the Melian Dialogue for our study o f Hobbes is emphasised in Wootton, “Thomas
Hobbes's Machiavellian m oments.”
145
T o m až M a stn a k
p eo p le “from u n itin g in to a body able to o p p o se h im . ” 34 B ut why sh o u ld p e o ­
ple be m oved to u n ite against th e king? T h ey w ere “c o rru p te d generally,” it
is true, b u t a t least the co m m o n so rt o f th e m d id n o t care m u ch “fo r e ith e r
o f th e causes, b u t w ould have tak en any side fo r pay o r p lu n d e r.” T h ey w ere
seduced. T h e reader, who has n o t h e a rd an y th in g yet a b o u t th e “causes” a n d
th e “sides” o f th e conflict, begins to le a rn a b o u t th em th ro u g h le a rn in g “w hat
k ind o f p eo p le w ere they th a t co u ld so s e d u c e ” th e p e o p le . 35
T h e seducers w ere, first, “m inisters, as they called them selves, o f
C hrist,” w ho are later discussed as th e P resbyterians; seco n d , th o se “know n
by th e n am e o f Papists”; th ird , th e In d e p e n d e n ts a n d o th e r sectarian s (An­
abaptists, Fifth M onarchists, Q uakers, A dam ites a n d o th e rs w hose n am es fo r
H o b b es w ere n o t w orth re m e m b e rin g ); fo u rth , th e ad m ire rs o f “th e a n c ie n t
G recian a n d R om an co m m o n w ealth s,” e n a m o re d w ith p o p u la r go v ern ­
m en t; fifth, th e city o f L o n d o n a n d o th e r g re a t tow ns o f trad e ; sixth, th e
w ould-be war p ro fitee rs who h a d w asted th e ir fo rtu n e s a n d “saw n o m ean s
how ho n estly to g et th e ir b re a d ” (“m ultis u tile B ellu m ”) 36; a n d sev en th , “th e
p eo p le in g e n e ra l” w ho w ere alm o st co m p letely ig n o ra n t o f th e ir du ty a n d
h ad “n o ru le o f equity, b u t p re c e d e n ts a n d c u sto m . ” 37 T h e first th re e cate­
g ories are religious groups, w hereas th e fo u rth a n d seventh are p e o p le in
d o ctrin al e rro r . 38 T h e fifth, th e city o f L o n d o n a n d towns o f tra d e , are, in
H o b b e s’s analysis (d isp u ted by o u r c o n te m p o ra ry re se a rc h ), dissolved in to
religious a n d d o ctrin a l g ro u p s .39 T h e w ar p ro fite e rs are th e only g ro u p th a t
falls o u t o f th e larger, if h e te ro g e n e o u s, m ass o f th o se h o ld in g d a n g e ro u s
o p in io n s “in divinity a n d politics,” b u t c o u ld easily be c o u n te d a m o n g those
“ig n o ra n t o f th e ir duty.”
34 Bacon noted that whatever causes seditions “joyneth and knitteth” people “in a Com­
mon Cause,” in his essay “O f Seditions and Troubles,” to which Behemoth almost inevitably
bears some resemblance. The Essayes or Counsels, Civili and Morali, ed. M. Kiernan (Cam­
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985), 46.
35 Behemoth, 2.
36 Lucan 1,182, cited by Bacon in “O f Seditions and Troubles,” 45.
37 Behemoth, 2-4.
38 For a different interpretation, cf. Royce MacGillivray, “Thomas Hobbes’s History of
the English Civil War: A Study of Behemoth,”Journal oj the History o f Ideas 31, no. 2 (1970):
187; Borot, Introduction to Béhémoth, 16.
39 See Behemoth, 22-23, 25, 104, 121, 126, 142; cf. Valerie Pearl, “L ondon’s Counter-Rev­
olution,” in The Interregnum: The Quest for Settlement 1646-1660, ed. G. E. Aylmer (Hamden,
Connecticut: Archon Books, 1972); James F. Farnell, “The Social and Intellectual Basis of
London’s Role in the English Civil Wars,”Journal oj Modem History 49, no. 4 (1977); Roger
Howell, “Neutralism, Conservatism and Political Alignment in the English Revolution:
The Case o f Towns, 1642-9,” in Reactions to the Civil War, 1642-1649, ed. J. Morrill (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), especially 67, 77, 87.
146
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig i o u s F a n a t ic s
H av in g cate g o rize d th e sed u cers o f the peo p le, H obbes w rote a section
o n th e Papists w ho w ere o f m arg in a l im p o rtan ce for the o u tb re a k o f the civ­
il war, its u n fo ld in g , a n d th e search for a settlem en t b u t —as the co n tem p o ­
rary obsession w ith P o p ish plots indicate - m ost im p o rta n t to the “P uritan
m in d . ” 40 If H o b b es, like m any o th e r co n tem p o rary historians o f the civil war,
in d e e d d e sire d to “ex p o se th e Papists as a cause o f this catastrophe, o r a t least
to c o n n e c t th em w ith its o rig in s,” h e failed, an d his tre a tm e n t o f the R om an
C atholics m ay b e ju d g e d “u n re aso n ab le a n d un fair . ” 41 A nd unless H o b b e s’s
c ritiq u e o f th e Papists is re a d as a m odel for critique o f any o th e r C hristian
g ro u p ’s re la tio n to civil authority, th e section is also uneconom ical.
H o b b es th e n tu rn e d his a tte n tio n to the Presbyterians, b u t the discus­
sion so o n lost its focus, spilling over into an ac co u n t o f events, som e o f which
called fo r fu rth e r th e o re tic a l ex p lanations a n d asides, a n d th e list o f seduc­
ers definitively ceased to b e an organizing prin cip le for th e n arratio n . In ­
stead, a t th e p o in t o f tran sitio n fro m the inventory o f seducers to the discus­
sion o f th e Papists, a new q u estio n em erged: “from w hence, a n d w hen, crep t
in th e p re te n c e s o f th a t L o n g P arliam ent, fo r a dem ocracy.”4" N or did this
qu estio n , q u ite ab ru p tly asked, b ecom e the guideline for H o b b e s’s discus­
sion. B ut H o b b es re tu r n e d to th e question o f dem ocracy as soon as h e com ­
p le te d th e sectio n o n th e Papists a n d he k ep t tackling it, especially u n til the
narrativ e re a c h e d th e in stitu tio n o f the R um p. I w ant to arg u e th at the ques­
tion o f d em o cracy is a c e n tra l q u estio n in Behemoth a n d th a t it is th e discus­
sion o f d em o cracy in Behemoth th a t is n o t only generally consistent with, but
also ad d s to, th e views d ev elo p ed in H o b b es’s earlier, m o re m ethodical b u t
n o t m o re th eo re tic al, w orks . 43
40 William Lamont, Puritanism and historical controversy (London: UCL Press, 1996), 2,
has warned against historians’ “underrating the force of anti-Catholicism in the seven­
teenth century.” Cf. Michael G. Finlayson, Historians, Puritanism, and the English Revolution:
the Religious Factor in English Politics before and after the Interregnum (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1983), chap. 4. On the Catholics’ inactivity in the civil war, see Keith Lindley, “The Part Played by the Catholics,” in Politics, Religion and The English Civil War, ed. B.
Manning (London: Edward Arnold, 1973); on the “popish threat,” see especially Peter
Lake, “Anti-popery: the Structure o f a Prejudice,” in Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies
in Religion and Politics, 1603-1642, ed. R. Cust and A. Hughes (London: Longman, 1989).
41 MacGillivray, “H obbes’s History,” 190-91; idem, Restoration Historians, 74.
42 Behemoth, 5.
43 For this distinction, cf. Onofrio Nicastro, “Le vocabulaire de la dissolution de l’Etat,”
in Hobbes et son vocabulaire: Etudes de lexicographie philosophique, ed. Y. Ch. Zarka (Paris: Vrin,
1992), 261.
147
T o m a ž M a stn a k
Democracy: Forms o f Government
In his earlier treatises, H o b b es as a ru le tre a te d dem o cracy as a form o f
g o v ern m en t . 44 S eeing dem ocracy th a t way h a d b e e n an e le m e n t in, a n d a re ­
sult of, th e process o f “dom estication o f th e classical-hum anist co n stitu tio n a l
term inology,” a n d a co m m o n p lace in English political treatises a n d histo ri­
o g raphy from at least early six teen th ce n tu ry o n w ard .4' In Behemoth, by c o n ­
trast, th e th eo ry o f form s o f g o v ern m e n t was o f little im p o rtan ce . H e re , m o st
o f w hat H o b b es h a d to say a b o u t dem o cracy h a d b ee n said b efo re h e even
m e n tio n e d th e th re e distinctive form s o f g o v ern m en t. T h e first substantial
re fere n ce to th e form s o f g o v ern m e n t a p p e a re d only at th e b e g in n in g o f th e
fo u rth dialogue, a n d was used fo r p o lem ical purposes. To B 's q u estio n o f
w hat “k in d o f g o v ern m e n t” was th e R um p, A re p lied : “It is do u b tless an oli­
garchy. F o r th e su p re m e au th o rity m u st n ee d s b e in o n e m a n o r in m o re. If
in o ne, it is m onarchy; the R um p th e re fo re was n o M onarch. If th e a u th o ri­
ty were in m ore th a n o n e, it was in all, o r in few er th a n all. W h en in all, it is
dem ocracy; fo r every m an may e n te r in to th e assem bly w hich m akes th e Sov­
ereign C ourt; w hich they could n o t d o h ere. It is th e re fo re m anifest, th a t the
au th o rity was in a few, a n d con seq u en tly th e state was an oligarchy . ” 46
W h en “m onarchy, aristocracy, o r dem o cracy ” are first m e n tio n e d , as
form s o f “co m m o n w ealth,” it alm ost seem s as th o u g h H o b b es does n o t care
en o u g h to be consistent. F or in th e very n e x t p a ra g ra p h , “c o m m o n w ea lth ”
transform s from a g eneric into a specific term a n d is cited as d istin c t from
m onarchy: “T h e G reeks h ad for aw hile th e ir petty kings, a n d th e n by sed itio n
cam e to b e petty com m onw ealths; a n d th e n grow ing to b e g re a te r co m m o n ­
wealths, by sed itio n again becam e m o n a rc h ie s . ” 47 Elsew here, th ese d istinc­
tions are a n o b ject o f derision, as w hen H o b b es alludes to th o se “m e n o f th e
b e tte r s o rt” w ho, in th e ir youth, re a d fam ous G re ek a n d R o m an a u th o rs a n d
“b ecam e th ereb y in love with th e ir form s o f g o v e rn m e n t . ” 48
T h e p ro b lem with those “fine m e n ” was th at, o n ce e n a m o re d with the
form s o f g o v ern m en t a n d averse to “absolute m onarchy, as also absolute
44 See Elements of Law II,xx,3; xxi,l-2; xxiv,l; De civev i, 1-2, 7-11; Leviathan (Tuck), 12930, 133, cf. 378-79
45 Michael Mendle, Dangerous Positions: Mixed Government, the Estates o f the Realm, and the
Making of the Answer to the xix propositions (University, Alabama: The University o f Al­
abama Press, 1985), 59. I am much indebted to this study. For historiography, cf. Fussner,
The Historical Revolution, 166-67,169.
46 Behemoth, 156; cf. 75, 155, where the same point was made en passant.
47 Behemoth, 70.
48 Behemoth, 3.
148
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig i o u s F a n a t ic s
d em o cracy o r aristocracy, all w hich governm ents they estee m ed tyranny,”
they fell “in love w ith mixarchy. ” 49 T h e pro b lem with the form s o f g o v ernm ent
th e o ry was th a t it h e lp e d those g e n tlem en articulate b o th th e ir aversion to
sim ple - “a b so lu te” - form s o f g o v ern m e n t an d th e ir liking o f a m ixed gov­
e rn m e n t, co m b in in g , as they believed, the good qualities o f the sim ple form s.
H o b b es was n o t im p ressed. “M ixarchy” stood for a m ixed m o n arc h y a n d this,
even if ad v o cated by royal counselors, was u n d e rm in in g royal authority. Be­
sides b e in g politically d an g e ro u s, th e idea o f m ixed m onarchy was philo­
sophically u n te n a b le : It m e a n t division o f sovereignty .50 B ut sovereignty, for
H obb es, was indivisible.
T h e form s o f g o v e rn m e n t w ere basically irrelevant for th e form ulation o f
this c e n tra l c o n c e p t o f H o b b e s’s “science o f ju stic e .” Or, looking from the
o th e r e n d , sovereignty was in d iffe re n t to the form s o f governm ent. In fact, at
least in H o b b e s ’s own p re se n ta tio n , his idea o f sovereignty - a n d thus his civ­
il science - was a rtic u la te d against th a t an c ie n t “vain philosophy,” in p articu ­
lar A risto tle’s, o f w hich th e d o c trin e o f form s o f g o v ernm ent h ad b een an es­
sential elem e n t. H o b b e s ’s ju d g e m e n t, th a t “scarce any th in g ” could be “m ore
r e p u g n a n t to G o v e rn m e n t” th a n th e Politics, ap p lied to th e form s o f consti­
tu tio n discussed th e re (as H o b b es h ad m ade clea r ) . 51 Yet anti-A ristotelian
d ec la ratio n s n o tw ith stan d in g , th e form s o f g o v ern m en t re ta in ed a h o n o ra b le
place in Leviathan. In Behemoth, th e ir standing d eterio rated . T h e ir relevance
now lay p rin cip ally in th e ir having b een em ployable, and actually em ployed,
fo r d o c trin a l subversion o f sovereignty. Seen from this perspective, dem o cra­
cy was in th e final analysis n o t so m u ch a form o f g o v ernm ent th at re p re ­
sen te d an altern ativ e to th e kingly ru le o f o n e as a th rea t to g o v ern m en t as
such. H o b b e s ’s m o st rad ical ch a rg e against the Presbyterians, w hom h e saw
as th e p rin cip a l a g e n t o f d isorder, was th at they “red u ced this gov ern m en t in­
to an arch y .” A n d th e re su ltin g p ro b lem , w hich they were u n ab le to solve, was
to establish th e g o v e rn m e n t in any fo rm .52 D em ocracy was a set o f ideas di­
re ctin g a n d legitim izing th e u n d o in g o f the governm ent a n d civil order: a
p ractice o f anti-governm entality.
49 Behemoth, 116.
50 Behemoth, 33, 112, 114, 125.
51 Leviathan (Tuck), 461-62, 470 (manners of commonwealth). SeeJ. Laird, “Hobbes on
Aristotle’s Politics,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 43 (1942-43); William
Mathie, ‘Justice and the Question o f Regimes in Ancient and Modern Political Philoso­
phy: Aristotle and Hobbes,” Canadian journal of Political Science 9, no. 3 (1976); Curtis
Johnson, “The Hobbesian Conception o f Sovereignty and Aristotle’s Politics,” Journal of
the History of Ideas 46, no. 3 (1985).
52 Behemoth, 109.
149
T o m a ž M a stn a k .
Democracy in Practice: From Thucydides to Leviathan Latinus
H obbes did n o t dwell o n form al d istin ctio n s a m o n g th e th re e kinds o f
g o v ern m en t in Behemoth, ex c ep t w here it pro v ed useful fo r d e n o u n c in g E ng­
lish dem ocrats. R ather, h e focused o n dem o cracy in action. T h e re are som e
p re c e d e n ts fo r such an ap p ro ach in his e a rlie r works.
T h e m ost fam ous case is H o b b e s’s tran slatio n o f th e Peloponnesian War.
In his in tro d u c tio n to th a t tran slatio n , H o b b es p o in te d o u t th a t T hucydides
show ed th e A th en ian dem ocracy as “th e e m u latio n a n d c o n te n tio n o f the
d em agogues for re p u ta tio n a n d glory o f w it.” T h o se d em ag o g u e s crossed
“each o th e r’s counsels, to th e d am age o f th e p u b lic .” W hat also ch a rac te rized
th a t dem ocracy was “th e inconsistency o f re so lu tio n s, cau sed by th e diversity
o f en d s a n d pow er o f rh e to ric in th e orators; a n d the d esp e rate actions u n ­
d e rta k e n u p o n th e flattering advice o f su ch as d e sire d to attain , o r to h o ld
w hat they had attain ed , o f au th o rity a n d sway am o n g st th e c o m m o n p e o p le .”
T h ro u g h th e w orking o f dem ocracy it “cam e to pass am o n g st th e A th en ian s,
who th o u g h t they w ere able to d o anything, th a t w icked m e n a n d flatterers
drave th e m h e a d lo n g in to those actions th a t w ere to ru in th e m .” Sm all w on­
d e r th e n that, in T h u ch y d id es’s “o p in io n to u c h in g th e g o v e rn m e n t o f th e
state, it is m anifest th a t h e least o f all liked th e dem ocracy . ” 53
H obbes m anifestly sym apthized with T hucydides. His ju d g m e n t o f the
G reek h istorian a n d th e im p o rtan ce o f his w ork was n o t to change. In his own
biography, p u b lish ed fifty years after th e ap p e ara n ce o f th e translation,
H obbes sum m arized T hucydides’s history as follows: “In it th e weaknesses a n d
eventual failures o f th e A thenian dem ocrats, to g e th e r with those o f th e ir city
state, w ere m ade clear .” 54 H e reasserted his sh arin g with T hucydides o f his
aversion to dem ocracy: “T h e re ’s n o n e th a t p leas’d m e like Thucydides./ H e
says D em ocracy’s a Foolish T h in g ,/ T h a n a R epublick wiser is o n e K ing . ” 55
M o d ern historians have follow ed H o b b e s’s lead w hen they c o n sid ered his
“distrust o f dem ocracy” influenced by “th e lessons o f T hucydides,” o r d e ­
scribed his translation o f the Peloponnesian War as, fo r exam ple, m o u n tin g “a
sustained arg u m e n t against re p u b lic an dem ocracy . ” 56 If this com es n e a r to
53 Thucydides, 572 (EW 8: xvi-xvii).
54 The Prose Life, trans, in The Elements of Law etc. (Gaskin), 246.
55 The Verse Life (anonymous contemporary translation), in The Elements o f Law etc.
(Gaskin), 256; cf. T. Hobbes Malmesburiensis Vita, OL 1: lxxxviii: “Sed mihi prae reliquis
Thucydides placuit./ Is Democratia ostendit mihi quam sit in ep ta,/ Et quantum coetu
plus sapit unus homo.”
56 George Klosko and Daryl Rice, “Thucydides and H obbes’s State o f Nature,” History of
Political Thought 6, no. 3 (1985): 405; David Norbrook, Writing the English Republic: Poetry,
Rhetoric and Politics, 1627-1660 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 62.
150
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
m akin g to o m u c h o f H o b b e s’s (som etim es m isleading) statem ents ab o u t his
ow n work, we can rely o n th e grow ing know ledge o f the p ro fo u n d im pact o f
T hucydides o n H o b b e s’s th in k in g .57
T h e re are ech o s o f T h u cy d id es in the Elements of Law. In the Pelopon­
nesian War, fo r ex am p le, A th en s is described as “dem ocratical in nam e, b u t
in effect m o n a rc h ic a l u n d e r P ericles,” w hereas in H o b b e s’s own treatise
dem o cracy is c h a ra c te riz e d as, “in effect, no m o re than a n aristocracy o f or­
ators, in te rru p te d so m etim es w ith th e tem porary m onarchy o f one o ra to r . ” 58
In De cive, a fe a tu re o f d em o cracy is that, u n d e r “popular control [dominatio],
th e re m ay b e as m an y Neros as they are Orators w ho fawn o n the people. For
every O ra to r wields as m u c h pow er as the people itself, an d they have a kind
o f tacit a g re e m e n t to tu rn a b lin d eye to each o th e r’s greed (my turn today,
yours tomorrow), a n d to cover u p fo r any o f them who p u t in n o c e n t fellow cit­
izens to d e a th arb itrarily o r b ecau se o f private feu d s . ” 59 In Leviathan, H obbes
re m e m b e re d how d estru ctiv e o f peace a n d safety were the factions o f “Aristocraticalls a n d D em ocraticalls o f old tim e in Greece," an d how seditions fi­
nally u n d e rm in e d th e “a n tie n t R om an C om m on-w ealth . ” 60
B ut th e closest H o b b es com es to his Behemoth-like take o n dem ocracy is
in th e L atin v ersion o f Leviathan, published in 1668 and probably at least
partly w ritten in th e sam e p e rio d as Behemoth,61 H ere dem ocracy, in its prac­
tical im m ediacy, is an E nglish pro b lem . In the substantially rew ritten Latin
v ersion o f th e last L eviathans chapter, th ere is th e following lapidary charac­
teriz atio n o f th e E nglish civil war: “T h e dem ocrats won, a n d they established
a dem ocracy; b u t they p a id th e price o f th eir g reat crim es by losing it in no
tim e a t all . ” 62 T h e dow nfall o f dem ocracy - first b ro u g h t ab o u t by th a t “sin­
gle ty ran t” w ho seized co n tro l o f E ngland, Scotland, an d Irelan d a n d “con­
fo u n d e d th e ir [th e d e m o c ra ts’] dem ocratic p ru d e n c e (both th a t o f the laity
57 Recently stated in Jonathan Scott, “The peace o f silence: Thucydides and the English
Civil War,” in Rogers and Sorell, Hobbes and History, a pioneering study is Richard Schlat­
ter, “Thomas Hobbes and Thucydides,” Journal of the History of Ideas 6 (1945). It is inter­
esting to note that Clifford W. Brown, Jr., “Thucydides, Hobbes, and the Derivation of An­
archy,” History of Political Thought 8, no. 1 (1987), does not even refer to Behemoth. See al­
so his “Thucydides, Hobbes and the Linear Casual Perspective,” History ofPolitcal Thought
10, no. 2 (1989); and Gabriella Slomp, “Hobbes, Thucydides and the Three Greatest
Things,” History of Political Thought 11, no. 4 (1990).
58 Thucydides, 573 (EW 8: xvii); Elements of Law II,xxi,5.
59 De cive x,7.
60 Leviathan (Tuck), 164, 222.
61 On the composition date see Curley’s note in Leviathan: with selected variants from the
Latin edition of 1668, ed. E. Curley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), lxxiii-iv.
62 OL 3: 509; I cite Curley’s translation, Leviathan (Curley), 488.
151
T o m a ž M a stn a k
a n d th a t o f th e ecclesiastics),” a n d c o m p le te d by th e re sto ratio n o f th e “le­
gitim ate k ing,” w hom the p eo p le “asked fo r p a rd o n (i.e., acknow ledged th e ir
foolishness ) ” 63 - was w hat m ade th a t seq u e n ce o f events a re v o lu tio n . 64
T h a t rev olution was p a rt o f a b ro a d e r p h e n o m e n o n : “o f th o se civil wars
c o n c e rn in g religion in Germ any, F rance, a n d E n g la n d .” T h e o rigin o f those
wars in g en e ral a n d th e b eg in n in g o f English tro u b les in p a rtic u la r w ere
d em o cratic “p rin cip les,” derived fro m “th e ethical a n d political p h ilo so p h y
o f A ristotle and o f those R om ans w ho have follow ed A ristotle.” H o b b e s’s own
teach in g was th e ir o p p o site .65 Leviathan was b o th th e e x p o u n d in g o f th e
so u n d , a n d rejectio n o f seditious, d o c trin e , w ritten “a t th e tim e w hen civil
war, b o rn in S cotland over th e issue o f ecclesiastical discipline, was rag in g in
E n g lan d also a n d in Ireland, w hen n o t only th e bishops, b u t also the king,
th e law, religion a n d honesty h a d b e e n abolish ed, a n d treachery, m u rd er,
a n d all th e foulest crim es d o m in a te d (b u t m ask ed as so m eth in g else ) . ” 66 B ut
H o b b e s’s en g ag em en t, as h e n o te d in restro sp ect, “was o f little b e n e fit th e n .”
H e h o p e d , however, “th at it w ould b e o f m o re b e n e fit a fte r th e w ar was over.”
F o r this reason h e translated Levaithan in to Latin: “W ho will believe th at
those seditious prin ciples are n o t now com pletely destroyed, o r th a t th e re is
anyone (e x cep t th e dem ocrats) w ho wishes th e su p p ressio n o f a d o c trin e
whose ten d en cy tow ard peace is as g re a t as th a t o f m y teaching? So th a t this
w ould n o t h a p p e n , I w anted it to b e available in L atin. F or I see th a t m e n ’s
disag reem en ts a b o u t opinions a n d in tellectu al excellence c a n n o t be elim i­
n a te d by arms. In w hatever way evils o f this k in d arise, they m u st b e destroyed
in th e sam e way. ” 67
T h e victory over the dem ocrats m ay have b ee n won b u t it n e e d e d to be
con so lid ated since th e dem ocratic th re a t h a d n o t b e e n elim inated. If the
Latin tran slatio n o f Leviathan was d ec la red a c o n trib u tio n to th e struggle
against th e dem ocrats, I am tem p ted to re g a rd Behemoth as well as p a rt o f the
sam e p e rm a n e n t struggle: as a tex t w hose aim it was to h e lp wash away “th a t
d em o cratic ink . ” 68
63 Ibid.
64 Cf. Behemoth, 204.
65 Leviathan (Curley), 476, 488; OL 3: 502, 509.
h6 In the conclusion o f this sentence, an observer “brought here from a remote part o f
the world” fulfills the function of the view from the Devil’s Mountain in Behemoth.
Leviathan (Curley), 488; OL 3: 508-9; cf. Appendix ad Leviathan III, OL 3: 559-60;
Leviathan (Curley), 538-39.
67 Leviathan (Curley), 488; OL 3: 509.
68 “Itaque atramentum illud democraticum, praedicando, scribendo, disputando eluendum est.” OL 3: 509-10; cf. Leviathan (Curley), 488.
152
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
Democracy in Practice: Behemoth
A clo ser lo o k a t H o b b e s ’s tre a tm e n t o f dem ocracy in Behemoth shows th at
tre a tm e n t to be n o t system atical a t all, which actually m akes it interesting.
H o bb es d id n o t sta rt w ith a d e fm ito n o f dem ocracy b u t rather, in the course
o f his discorsi, p ro d u c e d a n u m b e r o f equivalences a n d oppositions th a t d e­
te rm in e o u r u n d e rs ta n d in g o f dem ocracy, an d which I will try to organize for
th e clarity o f my a rg u m e n t.
T h e d em o crats m ak e th e ir m o st m em orable ap p e ara n ce as the “dem oc­
ratical g e n tle m e n .” W ho w ere they? T h e first a n d easiest answ er is th at they
w ere p arlia m e n ta rian s. T h e P a rliam en t was a specim en o f “dem ocratical as­
sem blies ” 69 a n d was, fro m a n o th e r perspective, an assembly in te n t on estab­
lish in g a d em o cracy , ' 0 in w hich it eventually succeeded . ' 1 As such, the d e­
m ocrats w ere e ith e r to b e m e t in th e P arliam ent - like those g en tlem en who
m ad e th e p e o p le “in love with dem ocracy” by th e ir “h aran g u es in the Parlia­
m e n t ” 72 —o r else w ere striving to get th ere, p ressu rin g th e King to call the
P arliam en t. A case in p o in t w ere those English “dem ocraticals” who, w hen
th e e n fo rc e m e n t o f th e new Scottish Prayer Book in 1637 led to rebellion in
S cotland, e n c o u ra g e d th e Scottish Presbyterians in th eir attack on the
C h u rc h estab lish m en t. T hey knew th a t the King could only h o p e to suppress
th e re b e llio n if h e w ere able to raise an army, fo r w hich h e lacked money. To
collect m oney, h e n e e d e d th e co n se n t o f the P arliam ent, b u t h e h ad dis­
solved it years ago. In H o b b e s’s own words, “the thing which those d em ocra­
ticals chiefly th e n a im ed at, was to force th e king to call a P arliam ent, which
h e h a d n o t d o n e fo r te n years before, as having fo u n d n o help, b u t h in ­
d ra n c e to his designs in th e P arliam ents h e h a d form erly called . ” 73
T h e crucial d efin in g e le m e n t o f the “dem ocraticals” is the Presbyterian
co n n e ctio n . As a ru le, they a p p e a r coupled with the Presbyterians. T h at
stro n g rela tio n sh ip , however, is n o t uniform ly defined. W hen H obbes attrib­
utes “this late re b e llio n ” to “the presbyterians an d o th e r dem ocratical m e n , ” 7'1
the P resbyterians are a subset o f th e dem ocrats. T he dem ocrats are also re p ­
re se n te d as an in c o rp o ra tin g category w hen H obbes com m ents on the 1628
P arliam en t. T h e n , th e “d em ocratical gentlem en had received” the Presbyteri­
ans “in to th eir counsels fo r th e design o f changing the governm ent from
69 Behemoth, 68.
70 Ibid., 5, 89.
71 Ibid., 155-56.
72 Ibid., 23; cf. 68, 89, 155.
73 Ibid., 28-29.
74 Ibid., 20.
153
T om až M a stn a k
m onarchical to popular, which they called liberty . ” 75 Q uite co n sisten t with this
co m m en t is H o b b e s’s portrayal o f th e P resbyterians as th e orig in ato rs o f the
vices a n d crim es o n w hich the m ajority o f th e m em bers o f th e L ong P arlia­
m e n t rested th eir dem ocracy .76
M ost often, however, H obbes sees th e re la tio n sh ip b etw een th e “d e m o c ­
raticals” an d Presbyterians as o n e b etw een equals. T h e P resbyterians, fo r ex­
am ple, “h ad th e co n c u rre n c e o f a g re a t m any g e n tle m e n , th a t d id n o less d e ­
sire a p o p u la r g o v ern m e n t in th e civil state th a n these m inisters did in th e
C h u rc h . ” 77 T h e re was a clear affinity a n d a g re e m e n t b etw een th e aim s o f the
two groups, a n d b o th “those p re a c h e rs a n d d em o cratical g e n tle m e n ” w ere
teach in g “reb ellio n a n d tre a so n . ” 78 T h ey favored, a n im a te d , a n d assisted
each o th er, like “th e English P resbyterians a n d d em o craticals” - o r “th e d e ­
m ocratical a n d P resbyterian E nglish” - a n d th e Scottish C o v en an te rs . 79 To
th e d e g re e they w ere distinct groups, th e d em o cratical g e n tle m e n a n d Presb yterains w ere allies, w orking to g e th e r a n d e x e rtin g in flu e n c e to g e th e r .80
T h e “d em o craticals” a n d P resbyterians w ere e ith e r jo in tly o p p o se d o r
su p p o rte d each o th e r in th eir o p p o sitio n to th e E lizabethan religious settle­
m en t, ecclesiastical governm ent, a n d episcopacy , 81 o n th e o n e h a n d , an d , o n
th e o th er, to th e governm ent, th e King, a n d K ing’s in te re sts .82 T hey w ere in ­
veighing against tyranny a n d extolling liberty, w hich they e q u a te d with p o p ­
u lar g o v ern m e n t . 83 Striving in reality fo r th e ir own ab so lu te g o v ern m en t,
they w ere the cause o f d istu rb an ce o f th e co m m o n w ea lth . 84 T hey fo u n d e d
th eir dem ocracy o n vices, crim e, a n d folly, estab lish ed it w ith an army, a n d ul­
tim ately failed b ecause they h a d n o arm y to m ain tain it .85
Republicanizing the Democraticals
If th ese w ere th e dem ocrats, w h a t was dem ocracy? It was th e o u tco m e o f
th eir action, indelibly m ark ed by th o se w ho gave it b irth . D em ocracy was th e
work o f religious fanatics a n d classicizing fine g e n tle m e n , a synthesis o f w hat
75 Ibid., 26.
76 Ibid., 155.
77 Ibid., 23.
78 Ibid., 39.
79 Ibid., 30-31.
80 Cf. Ibid., 193.
81 Ibid., 20, 22-23, 30, 88-89.
82 Ibid., 22-23, 28, 88-89.
83 Ibid., 23, 26.
84 Ibid., 22, 68.
85 Ibid., 155.
154
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
today we w ould call religious fu ndam entalism a n d republicanism . In the
m o re th a n th re e h u n d r e d years th a t divide us from H obbes, the fo u n d a tio n ­
al p h ilo s o p h e r o f o u r po litical in stitu tio n s , 86 such a view o f dem ocracy - in­
d e e d , any view in w hich dem o cracy is a “foolish th in g ” o r even an ugly o n e has b ec o m e co u n terin tu itiv e. In his own tim e, H o b b es’s view o f dem ocracy
was n o t u n iq u e a n d was likely to upset, b u t n o t to puzzle, his contem poraries.
Nowadays, it goes ag ain st o u r political sensibilities. It is alien to o u r political
th in k in g . A n d it is h a r d to sq u are with w hat has becom e th e d o m in a n t in ter­
p re ta tio n o f p o litical th o u g h t o f H o b b e s’s period.
It ap p e a rs th a t H o b b e s’s view o f civil war is h a rd to fit in w hat is deem ed
th e co n sen su s a m o n g to d ay ’s h istorians o f English political thought. T he
consen su s is a b o u t th e c e n tra l im p o rtan ce o f republicanism a n d its acme:
“T h e co n sen su s is th a t re p u b lic a n th o u g h t only cam e o f age in E ngland with
th e a p p e a ra n c e o f Jam es H a rrin g to n ’s The Commonwealth o f Oceana in 1656.
H ow can H o b b e s ’ claim s a b o u t th e headw ay m ade by republicanism before
th e w ar b e re c o n c ile d w ith th ese findings o f its belatedness?”8'
H o b b es th u s claim ed th a t “two groups above all” were to be blam ed for
“th e ca ta stro p h e o f th e 1640s”: th e Presbyterians a n d the dem ocratical gen­
tle m e n .88 W h ereas th e fo rm e r are o f n o g reat interes within the consensus,
the la tte r ca n briefly be id e n tifie d as m em bers in the H ouse o f C om m ons o r
as th e g en try . 89 Such historical identification is a step tow ard conceptual
classification. O n e can see this well in the only o n e re c e n t a ttem p t I know o f
to give m o re th o u g h t to “th e g ro u p o f m alco n ten ts... stigm atised by H ob­
bes ... as th e ‘D em o cratical G e n tle m e n .’” H ere, H obbes is re p resen te d as
havin g b e e n b o th w ro n g a n d right. H e gave the m isleading im pression th at
“th e g en tle m e n in q u estio n w ere self-conscious ex p o n en ts o f a radical ideol­
ogy d esig n ed to lim it th e pow ers o f th e crow n” (while in fact they w ere only
c o n c e rn e d a b o u t u p h o ld in g “th e ir traditional privileges”); an d h e was right
to see “th a t th e ir relia n ce o n classical arg u m en ts ab o u t freedom an d servi­
tu d e eventually p u s h e d th e m in to ad o p tin g a stan d p o in t so radical as to be
virtually re p u b lic a n in its co n stitu tio n al allegiances . ” 90
86 Richard Tuck, Philosophy and government, 1572-1651 (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer­
sity Press, 1993), xvii.
8' Martin Dzelzainis, “Ideas in conflict: political and religious thought during the Eng­
lish Revolution,” in Keeble, The Cambridge Companion to Writing of the English Revolution, 36.
88 Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, 431-32; cf. Martin Dzelzainis, “Milton’s classical republi­
canism,” in Milton and Republicanism, ed. D. Armitage, A. Himy, and Q. Skinner (Cam­
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 3-4.
89 Skinner, Reason and Rhetoric, 432, 433; Dzelzainis, “Milton’s classical republicanism,” 3.
90 Quentin Skinner, “Classical Liberty and the Coming of the English Civil War,” in
155
T o m a ž M a stn a k
I fin d th e lan g u age o f radical ideology an a ch ro n istic (on b o th accounts,
o f “ideology” a n d “radical,” even if I th in k o f th e “R oot a n d B ra n c h ” ) . 91 B ut
my m ain m isgiving is ab o u t the tran slatio n o f H o b b e s’s dem o craticals in to re ­
pub lican s . 92 R epublicanism is re p re se n te d as th e re su lt o f ideological radicalization, w here royal pow er was b e in g ch a lle n g ed o n th e basis o f th e p rin ­
ciples draw n —even “entirely draw n” —fro m th e “legal a n d m o ral p h ilo so p h y
o f a n c ie n t R o m e . ” 93 Since royalism is e q u a te d w ith m onarchy, re p u b lic an ism
becom es anti-m onarchism an d , as such, a c o n stitu tio n a l position. T h e slogan
expressing th at p o sition is: “the p e o p le o f E n g lan d never, never, n ev e r shall
be slaves . ” 94
T h a t em blem atic slogan was m a d e in th e 1990s a n d seem s a n u n e x p e c t­
ed conclusion o f an analysis th a t to o k H o b b es fo r a startin g p o in t. O n e can
easily im agine H o b b es ag reeing with em p h asizin g th e im p o rta n c e o f classical
political sensibilities a n d ideas in E n g la n d ’s troubles. B ut u n lik e a n u m b e r o f
today’s historians, h e spoke o f th e “d e m o c ra tic a l” —n o t re p u b lic a n —“p rin c i­
p les . ” 95 Does this m atter?
Before the re p u b lican tu rn in th e history o f political th o u g h t, at least
from E d u ard B ernstein a n d G. P. G ooch to an early w ork o f a still active schol­
ar , 96 H o b b e s’s ch aracterization o f ideas h e criticized as d em o cratic w ould fall
within th e histo rio g raphical m ainstream . T rue, sp eak in g o f th e E nglish civil
war o r its p articu lar aspects a n d p ro tag o n ists in d em o cratic term s h as m o re
often th a n n o t b ee n an act o f ap p ro p ria tio n . T h a t fits th e g en e ral p attern :
“M uch m o d e rn historical discussion o f th e E nglish revolution has b e e n gov­
e rn e d by attem p ts to ap p ro p ria te it.” B ut th e rep u b lic an izin g historians
nowadays have n o t b ro k e n the p attern : “To this g en eralizatio n th e h isto rio g ­
raphy o f English republicanism , d esp ite its quality, is n o e x c e p tio n . ” 97 T h e
quality in d e e d is adm irable, b u t sp eak in g o f rep u b lican ism w h ere historical
actors them selves d id n o t seem s a d e p a rtu re fro m m eth o d o lo g ic al g u idelines
vol. 2 o f Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, ed. M. van Geldern and Q,. Skinner
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 15.
91 Cf. Conal Condren, The Language of Politics in Seventeenth-Century England (New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1994), chap. 5, especially 149.
92 Cf. n. 87.
93 Skinner, “Classical Liberty,” 14-18.
94 Ibid., 28.
95 Behemoth, 43 (naming Aristotle and Cicero).
96 Eduard Bernstein, Sozialismus und Demokratie in der Grossen Englischen Revolution
(Berlin: Dietz, 1895); G. P. Gooch, English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century (New
York: Harper & Row, 1959; first published 1898); Perez Zagorin, A History o f Political
Thought in the English Revolution (Bristol: Thoem m es Press, 1997; first published 1954), es­
pecially p. 2.
97Jonathan Scott, England’s troubles, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 290.
156
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
o n w hich th a t quality o f re searc h has b ee n built. T h e translation o f H o b b es’s
dem o craticals in to re p u b lic a n s allows assum ptions th a t w ere n o t p re sen t in
th e histo rical situ atio n a n d b lin d s us to im p o rta n t aspects o f H o b b es’s cri­
tiq u e o f dem ocracy.
As to th e assum ptions, it is probably co rrect to accept th at w hat is re­
g a rd e d as a n increasingly re p u b lic an P arliam entary position h ad n o t m uch to
d o with “th e p e o p le .” A t th e ir m o st active, H obbes saw the peo p le as helpers:
W ith th e ir h e lp th e P arliam en tarian s were to set u p dem ocracy .98 W hen the
p e o p le e n te re d d em o cratic politics, they did so as “h ands.” T hey “understood
n o t th e reaso n s o f e ith e r party.” But, paradoxically, those “hands were to de­
cide th e controversy . ” 99 T h a t is why the p eo p le h ad to be seduced and, as an
“ig n o ra n t m u ltitu d e ,” co u ld b e sed u c ed . 100 U sed by the seducers as they de­
sired a n d saw fit, th e (c o m m o n ) p eo p le ap p e ar on the scene and act as a “tu­
m u ltu o u s party,” “in so le n t rab b le o f the p eo p le,” o r “great m ultitudes o f clam­
o ro u s p e o p le ,” ch a rac te rized by th e ir “fury . ” 101 Parliam entary declaration that
“th e p eo p le, u n d e r G od, are th e original o f all ju s t power , ” 102 which H obbes
was h ap p y to cite, was an enjeu, a stake in the gam e played by am bitious, glo­
ry-seeking m e n . 103
H o b b es d id n o t ju d g e highly o f the people in politics, b u t som e dem oc­
ratical g e n tlem en d isd ain ed them . H enry Parker, for exam ple, who figures as
a m a rk e r in th e e m erg in g neo-classical/R om an d en ounciation o f royal poli­
cy, 101 m ay have h a d “a n alm ost mystical sense o f the identity o f people an d par­
lia m e n t , ” 105 b u t h e s h u d d e re d at th e idea th at “M echanicks, b re d up illiterately
to h an d y crafts,” w ould be “placed at the h elm ,” th at “ignorance, and sordid
98 Behemoth, 89.
" Ib id ., 115-16.
100 Ibid., 68, 116, 188.
101 Ibid., 64, 69, 7 1 ,8 8 ,9 7 , 98.
102 Ibid., 152.
103 See Deborah Baumgold, Hobbes’s political theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), chap. 7; idem, “H obbes’s Politica] Sensibility: The Menace of Political Am­
bition,” in Dietz, Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory, cf. Dietz, “Hobbes’s Subject as Citi­
zen,” 97; Gabriella Slomp, Thomas Hobbes and the Political Philosophy of Glory (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 2000), especially chap. 5. For Hobbes’s frequently used language o f acting
and gaming, cf. Behemoth, 24, 38, 136-37, 159.
104 Skinner, “Classical Liberty,” 15-16, 21 ff. But see Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment:
Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1975), 369, who denies Parker the title of a classical republican and
speaks, instead, o f an “Aristotelian populism.” Michael Mendle, “Parliamentary sover­
eignty: a very English absolutism,” in Political discourse in early modem Britain, ed. N. Phillipson and Q. Skinner (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 118, also speaks of
Parker’s populism.
105 Mendle, Dangerous Positions, 132.
157
T o m a ž M a stn a k
birth...be lifted u p to th e em in e n t offices, a n d places o f pow er,” th a t th a t
“which was the F oot” w ould be m ad e “th e H e a d ,” “a n d th at th e foot, w hich was
the H e a d . ” 106 N edham , to take a n o th e r exam ple, saw dem ocracy - because it
“puts th e whole m u ltitu d e into an equal exercise o f th e su p re m e authority, u n ­
d er preten se o f m aintaining liberty” - as th e “greatest enem y o f liberty . ” 107
O n e could n o t form ulate it b etter th a n a p a m p h le te e r did shortly b efo re th e
P rid e’s purge: “It is n o t vox, b u t Salus populi th a t is th e su p ream law . ” 108
T h a t anonym ous anti-royalist saw th e p e o p le as dim eyed a n d dull a n d
knew th a t they w ere n o t to be tru sted . B ecause th e p eo p le, o r th e m ajority o f
them , w ere a “giddy m u ltitu d e,” “sensual, ig n o ra n t, a n d in c o n sid e ra te ,” fool­
ish a n d “m ad m e n ,” ex p ected to b e “bestial in th e ir V otes” (because they sup­
p o rte d th e King), th e reasonable, tyranny-hating a n d liberty-loving m in o rity
was n o t to su b m it to them : “it is m ajo r re a s o n .. .a n d n o t th e m a jo r voice” th a t
was to ru le . 109 Vox populi has a c o n n e c tio n w ith populus, th e p eo p le; salus pop­
uli is d ecid ed by th e voice o f th e sovereign, w h e th e r p e o p le o r not. T h e safe­
ty o f th e p eo p le, th e p a m p h le te e r d e c la re d , is “th e ch iefest L o rd , R ule, R ea­
son, a n d Law . ” 110 H e did n o t say th a t th e p e o p le w ere “th e chiefest L o rd .”
T h ere is n o th in g in h ere n tly re p u b lic a n - o r radical o r d em o cratic - in the
salus populi fo rm u la . 111 H obbes a c c e p te d it as happily as th e a u th o r o f th e
Salus populi solus rex (who in tu rn sh a re d H o b b e s ’s a b h o rre n c e at th e
p ro sp ect o f th e absence o f g o v e rn m e n t ) . 112 F or H obbes, salus populi weis a
gu id elin e for royal policy o r for policy o f any su p re m e power, a n d h e d e ­
n o u n c e d th e L o n g P a rliam en t’s use o f it as a p re te x t fo r re b e llio n . 113
Salus populi is a p o o r fo u n d atio n fo r constitutionalism , since salus populi is
100 A letter of due censure, and redargution to Lieut: Coll: John Lilburne (London, 1650), 21,
22; cf. W. K. Jordan, Men of Substance: A Study of the Thought o f Two English Revolutionaries,
Henry Parker and Henry Robinson (Chicago: The University o f Chicago Press, 1942), 156.
11,7 Marchamont Nedham, The Case of the Commonwealth of England, Stated, ed. Ph. A.
Rnachel (Charlottesville: The University Press o f Virginia, 1969), 99.
108 Salus populi solus rex: The peoples safety is the sole soveraignty, or The royalist out-reasoned
(London, 1648), 19; see David Underdown, Pride’s Purge: Politics in the Puritan Revolution
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 266.
109 Salus populi solus rex, 1, 18, 19.
110 Ibid., 18.
111 Skinner, “Classical Liberty,” 12, cites first “salus populi suprema lex esto” from Cic.
Leg. Ill,iii,8 as one o f the golden rules o f a “free state,” and then (ibid., 18 ff.) frequent
references to that rule in the parliamentary documents o f the early 1640s to demonstrate
the process o f radicalization leading to republicanism.
112 “[BJetter is the Government of the great Turk, than no Government, because with­
out all Government, homo homini demon, one man will be a devil to another.” Salus populi
solus rex, 18.
113 Behemoth, 68, 73, 108, 180, 198.
158
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig i o u s F a n a t ic s
the lan g u ag e o f em erg en cy - a n d necessitas knows no law. 114 F or H obbes, civil
war was n o t a b o u t co n stitu tio n al issues. O n the o n e hand, h e highlighted the
base m otives fo r w hat h e saw as dem ocratic politics 113 and b ro u g h t o u r atten­
tion closer to th at field in w hich English “radicalism ” mainly played itself out,
nam ely practical m orality . 116 O n th e o th e r h an d , h e was sceptical o f the n o tio n
o f fu n d a m e n ta l law. H e s p u rn e d th e R u m p ’s declaration o f its resolution to
m ain tain “ the fundam ental laws o f the nation, as to the preservation of the lives, liber­
ties, and properties o f the people," as n o th in g b u t an “abuse of th e p e o p le . ” 117
Classicizing Democraticals
S om e o f th e g e n tle m e n w hom H obbes called “dem ocraticals” would
have o b jecte d to th a t n am e. In his polem ics with the royalists, H enry Parker,
fo r ex am p le, “d id all h e co u ld to m inim ize the im p u tatio n o f dem ocracy to
th e H o u se o f C o m m o n s.” F o r h im , dem ocracy was “the greatest irrita n t .” 115
H a d H o b b e s directly e n g a g e d in th e p a m p h le t war o f the early 1640s, calling
m e n like P ark e r d em o cratical g en tlem en w ould have b e e n an effective
p o lem ical device. B ut why did H o b b es do th a t in retrospect? Why did he
ch o o se this lan g u ag e fo r his civic education?
A re aso n m ay lie in g re ater precision o f the language o f democracy, as
c o m p ared with th e lan g u age o f republicanism , w hen it com es to talking about
public authority. D em ocracy is a fo rm o f governm ent (even if o f secondary im­
p o rta n c e fo r H o b b es). R epublic is not. It may m ean, am ong o th e r things, a
kingless g o v ernm ent. B ut w hat was true for sixteenth-century England held
generally tru e in a t least a good p a rt o f the seventeenth century as well: respublica d id n o t m ean “a type o f constitution incom patible with m onarchy” and
was “an acceptable term for a variety o f political systems .” 119 T hom as S m ith’s
114 Analysis o f the same historical material as Skinner’s (see n. I l l ) led Mendle, “Par­
liamentary sovereignty,” 118-19, to identify Parliamentary sovereignty as absolutism based
on perm anent emergency.
See Stephen Holmes, “Political Psychology in Hobbes’s Behemoth," in Dietz, Thomas
Hobbes and Political Theory, 121 ff., and his Introduction to Behemoth, xi ff.
116 See especially Scott, England’s troubles, part II.
117 Behemoth, 157-58 (italics in Borot’s ed.).
118 See Mendle, Dangerous Positions, 182; and [Henry Parker,] Observations upon some of
his Majesties late Answers and Expresses (London, 1642), 22-23. Cf. Jordan, Men of Sub­
stance, 155, that Parker made it plain that the civil war was not to inaugurate the evil of an
“irresponsible democracy.”
119 Patrick Collinson, “The Monarchical Republic o f Queen Elizabeth I,” Bulletin of the
John Rylands Library of Manchester 69, no. 2 (1987): 400-1.
159
T o m a ž M a stn a k
Republica anglorum, fo r exam ple, tran slated as th e Commonwealth of England a n d
was d efin ed as a re p u b lic /C o m m o n w ealth governed by th e m o n arc h , “King
o r Q u e e n . ” 120 R epublic was the generic term fo r a body politic or, as Sm ith
wrote, ech o in g Cicero, for “a society o r co m m o n d o in g o f a m u ltitu d e o f free
m en collected to g eth er an d u n ite d by co m m o n acco rd a n d covenauntes
am o n g themselves, for the conservation o f them selves aswell in peace as in
w arre , ” 121 o f w hich m onarchy, aristocracy, a n d dem ocracy w ere species.
N otable diversions from this usage w ere few. T h o m as Elyot w anted to
m ake su re th at Respublica n o t be u n d e rs to o d as th e ru le o f th e m u ltitu d e o n ­
ly, th a t is o f plebs, w hich “in englisshe is called th e c o m m u n a ltie ” a n d c o n ­
tain ed “th e base a n d vulgare in h a b ita n te s n o t a u a n c e d to any h o n o u r o r dign itie,” b u t as th e ru le o f the public, publike, w hich “is d iriu ie d o f p e o p le ,”
m ean in g “all th e in h ab itan tes o f a re alm e o r citie.” H e p ro p o s e d a distin ctio n
b etw een a publike weale a n d a commune weale, c o rre s p o n d in g to th e L atin Res
publica n a d Res plebeia respectively . 122 W alter R alegh n a m e d “m o n arc h y o r
k in g d o m ,” aristocracy, a n d “a free state o r p o p u la r sta te ” th e form s o f the
state. H e reserved th e n am e com m o n w ealth “o r g o v ern m e n t o f all th e co m ­
m o n o r baser so rt” for th e d e g e n e ra te d fo rm o f th e p o p u la r state . 123 B ut in
his Cabinet-Council, pu b lish ed by M ilton in 1658, R alegh w en t b ack to th e
m o re co n v en tio n al usage: “All co m m o n w ealth s are e ith e r m o n arc h ies, aris­
tocracies, dem o cracies” (also called p o p u la r g o v e rn m e n t ) . 124 T h a t was th e
usage co n fo rm in g to the classical R om an sources, even th o u g h they lacked
uniform ity, as T h o m as Sm ith h ad o b serv ed . 125
Since Cicero defined kingdom as a rep u b lic in w hich the su p re m e au ­
thority is in th e k in g ’s h a n d s , 126 a n d called th e authority o f th e p eo p le civitas
popularis, H obbes was tru er to th e neo-R om an literary conventions th a n are
120 De Republica Anglorum by Sir Thomas Smith, ed. M. Dewar (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1982), I,i, vii, x; II,iii.
121 Ibid., I,x; cf. Cic. Rep. I,xxv,39.
122 The Boke Named the Gouemourl,\.
123 Walter Ralegh, Maxims of State, in vol. 8 o f The Works o f Sir Walter Ralegh, kt, noxu first
collected, to which are prefixed the lives of the author, by Oldys and Birch (Oxford: The Universi­
ty Press, 1829), 1-2.
124 The Cabinet-council: Containing the Chief Arts of Empire and Mysteries o f State, in vol. 8 of
The Works, 37. In a note that “all monarchies are principalities, but all principalities are
not monarchies” (ibid., 44), one can see an allusion to Machiavelli’s catregorization o f sta­
ti into republiehe and principati, but this distinction is not operative in Ralegh’s work.
125 “ [ T ] h e r u ]e of the multitude which the Greeks called Децократш: the Latines some
Respublica by the generali name, some populi potestas, some census potestas, I cannot
tell howe latinely.” De Republica Anglorum I,xiv.
12b “quare cum penes unum est omnium summa rerum, regem ilium unum vocamus et
regnum eius rei publicae statum.” Cic. Rep. I,xxvi,42.
160
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
som e o f o u r co n te m p o ra ry historians. O n e can get an intim ation o f how
stro n g w ere th o se term in o logical conventions from a parliam entary d o cu m en t
issued after th e b e h e a d in g o f th e King, in the perio d w hen all o u r contem po­
rary h isto rian s ag ree rep u b lican ism did exist in E ngland. T h e R um p req u ired
“e n g a g e m e n t” by th e m em b ers o f the C ouncil o f State to “a Republic, w ithout
King o r H o u se o f L o rd s . ” 1“ 7 N o t Republic “senza nulla addizione” (as D ante
w ould say), b u t a re p u b lic th a t h a d u n d e rg o n e “unkinging” (as B axter would
say ) . 128 N o t a tran sitio n fro m m o n arch y to republic b u t a transform ation o f re­
public. T rue, p arlia m e n ta ry language was vacillating in that period. Let m e cite
ju s t a few exam ples: E n g lan d was defin ed as a nation whose governm ent was
“now settled in th e way o f a C om m onw ealth”; it was famously declared to be
“a C o m m onw ealth a n d F ree S tate”; b u t the engagem ent to be taken by “all
m e n o f th e age o f e ig h te e n ” spoke, again, o f the “C om m onw ealth o f England,
as it is now established, w ith o u t a King o r H ouse o f Lords . ” 129
H obbes, o f course, d id n o t th in k m uch o f the “C om m onw ealth an d Free
S tate.” T h a t p h ra se sim ply m eant, h e explained, th a t “n eith er this king, n o r
any king, n o r any single p e rso n ,” b u t only the R um p them selves “would be the
p e o p le ’s m asters . ” 130 T h e adjective “free” is easy to use an d does n o t n eed to
m ean m u ch since it can m ean so m any d ifferent things. W hen King Jam es I,
fo r ex am ple, w rote a b o u t “free m onarchies,” he was explaining his idea ab o u t
th e tru e m onarchy: a Common-wealth'm the “trew p atern e of D iuinitie” in which
th e king thinks h im self “onely o rd a in e d ” for the weal o f his people who, in
tu rn , are his “lo u in g a n d o b e d ie n t subiects . ” 131 “F ree” is certainly n o t a consti­
tutio n al term in itself. But, m e an in g different things to different m en, it can
b e em otionally ch a rg ed a n d express strong political sentim ents, ju s t like the
vocabulary, im ages, a n d m odels conveyed by the classical literature in general.
H o b b es, as m u st b e clear by now, th o u g h t th a t classical learn in g h ad
played a fateful ro le in th e o u tb re a k o f the civil war. H e did n o t give particu127 The Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution, 1625-1660, ed. S. R. Gardiner,
2nd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon, 1899), 384.
128 Baxter cited in William Lamont, Richard Baxter and the Millenium: Protestant Imperial­
ism and the English Revolution (London: Croom Helm, 1979), 98; for Dante, cf. Convivio IV,
iv,6-7.
129 Gardiner, The Constitutional Documents, 387, 388; further instances o f “Common­
wealth” at 390-99.
130 Behemoth, 164. Cf. ibid., 157, Hobbes’s comment on the Rump’s calling themselves
Custodes Libertatis Angliae. “B. I do not see how a subject that is tied to the laws, can have
more liberty in one form o f government than in another. A. Howsoever, to the people that
understand by liberty nothing but leave to do what they list, it was a title not ingrateful.”
131 The Trew Law of Free Monarchies: or the Reciprock and mvtvall Dvetie betwixt a Free King,
and His Natural Subjects," in The Political Works of James 1, ed. Ch. H. Mcllwain (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1918).
161
T om a ž M astn ak
lar c red it to th e neo-R om an leg itim atio n o f P a rlia m e n t’s claim s. H e re g u la r­
ly spoke o f G recian a n d R om an political lite ra tu re an d , in Behemoth, n a m e d
A ristotle m o re o ften th an any o th e r classical au th o r, C icero in c lu d e d .13" T h e
p o in t H o b b es rep eated ly m ade was th a t re a d in g th e “glorious histories a n d
th e sen ten tio u s politics o f th e a n c ie n t p o p u la r g o v ern m en ts o f th e G reeks
a n d R om ans, am o n g st w hom kings w ere h a te d a n d b ra n d e d with th e n am e
o f tyrants, and p o p u la r g o v ern m e n t (a lth o u g h n o try a rn t was ever so cru el as
a p o p u la r assembly) passed by th e n a m e o f liberty,” led to re b e llio n .133
T h e p rinciples draw n from th e classical lite ratu re , however, w ere n e ith e r
necessarily n o r exclusively d em o cratic o r re p u b lic an . Classicism was u sed fo r
“rid icu lin g p arlia m e n ta rian apologists,”134 a n d it o ffered m ean s fo r a rg u in g
th e royal cause as well. T h e Answer to the xix propositions is a p ro m in e n t exam ­
ple. It has b een in te rp re te d as using th e lan g u ag e o f classical rep u b lican ism
to “su p p o rt th e den ial th a t E n g lan d was a re p u b lic .”135 In th e 1650s, th e roy­
alists cam e to praise n o o th e r th a n W illiam P ry n n e as th e “C ato o f his A ge.”136
E xam ples can b e m u ltip lied .137 T h e y o u n g H o b b es h im self so u g h t to “enlist
th e intellectu al trad itio n o f G reece a n d R om e b e h in d a m o n a rc h ist p h ilo so ­
phy” in o rd e r to “c o u n te r enthusiasm fo r dem ocracy.”138
In Behemoth, H obbes n o lo n g e r fo u g h t w ithin th a t sh a re d discursive field.
C o u n terin g th e w artim e pathology o f la n g u a g e ,139 h e a b a n d o n d e d th e lan ­
132 Cf. Scott, England's troubles, 293: “Aristotle was the m ost ubiquitous renaissance clas­
sical source and there is a republican Aristotle. It is because Aristotle was a key source for
English hum anist m oral philosophy th a t H obbes aim ed his criticism particularly in this di­
rection.” Among today’s historians o f seventeenth-century English republicanism , Scott in
particular insists on the im portance o f th e G reek ingredient. See his England’s troubles,
chap. 13; “Classical Republicanism in S eventeenth-century E ngland an d th e N ether­
lands,” in vol. 1 o f Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage, 61-62, 66.
133 Behemoth, 3, 23 (the citation), 43, 56, 95, 158.
134 Nigel Smith, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640-1660 (New Haven: Yale U ni­
versity Press, 1994),103.
35 Mendle, Dangerous Positions, 15; idem, “Parliam entary sovereignty,” 116.
136 Lam ont, Puritanism and historical controversy, 23.
137 See, e.g., Smith, Literature and Revolution, 102 ff., 207 ff.; Malcolm Smuts, “Court-Centred Politics and th e Uses o f Rom an Historians, c. 1590-1630,” in Sharpe an d Lake, Cul­
ture and Politics in Early Stuart England, especially 39 ff.; David N orbrook, “Lucan, T hom as
May, and the Creation o f a Republican Literary C ulture,” ibid., especially 56 ff.; cf. idem,
Writing the English Republic, chap. 1.
188 Smuts, “Court-Centred Politics,” 42; cf. N orbrook, “L ucan, T hom as May,” 58; idem ,
“T he English Revolution and English historiography,” 246-47; and, generally, Skinner,
Hobbes and Civil Science.
139 “T he received value o f nam es im posed for signification o f things, was changed into
arbitrary.” Thucydides, 204; EW 8: 348. See Nicastro, “Le vocabulaire de la dissolution de
l’État,” 260.
162
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ic io u s F a n a t ic s
guag e th a t h a d su cc o m b e d to pathology. T h a t was a pathognom ic language.
L e a rn in g a n d sp eak in g th a t lan g u ag e paved the way to the rebellion because
o n e co u ld n o t b e “a g o o d subject to m o n arch y ” if one to o k his principles
fro m “th e en em ies o f m onarchy, such as were C icero, Seneca, Cato, a n d o th ­
e r po litician s o f R om e, a n d A ristotle o f A thens, who seldom speak o f kings
b u t as o f wolves a n d o th e r ravenous beasts.”140 Moreover, w hat the English­
m e n drew o u t o f a n c ie n t books was n o t ju s t a particular political sensibility,
it was also political sentences: “arg u m en ts for liberty ou t o f th e works o f Aris­
totle, Plato, C icero, S eneca, a n d o u t o f the histories o f R om e an d G reece,”
fu rn ish e d th em “fo r th e ir d isp u tatio n against th e necessary pow er o f th eir
sovereigns.”141
State Democracy a n d Church Democracy
In his m em o irs, R ich ard B axter re m e m b ered th at “m any h o n est M en o f
w e a k ju d g m e n ts a n d little a c q u ain tan ce with such M atters, h a d b een seduced
in to a d isp u tin g vein, a n d m a d e it too m u ch o f th eir Religion, to talk fo r this
O p in io n a n d fo r that; som etim es for State Democracy, a n d som etim e for
C h u rc h D em ocracy.”142 B axter lo ath ed H obbes, b u t this passage could be
w ritten by e ith e r m an (o r m any o th e rs ). W hat the passage m akes clear is th at
th e d e b a te a b o u t d em o cracy was taking place within “R eligion.” It also shows
th a t th e d e b a te m o v ed freely fro m considering State D em ocracy to C h u rch
D em ocracy. It describ es forcefully th e religious em b eddedness o f dem ocracy.
T his aspect, u n n o tic e d o r p u sh e d aside by m any o f the h istorians o f English
re p u b lic a n ism ,143 is h ard ly ever o u t o f H o b b es’s sight.
R eligious fanatics, w hom H obbes may call irreligious,144 a n d d em o crati­
cal g e n tle m e n d o n o t stan d fo r distinct secular a n d religious spheres. They
are h ard ly d istin g u ish ab le in th e ir actions a n d ideas. At first sight, th e re is a
140 Behemoth, 158.
141 Ibid., 56.
142 Reliquiae Baxterianae, or, Mr. Richard Baxters narrative of the most memorable passages of his
life and times, ed. M. Sylvester (London, 1696), 53.
143 Scott, England’s troubles, 252: “the greatest shortcom ing of th e m odern analysis of
English classical republicanism [is] th a t it has failed adequately to explain th at religious
dim ension which was alm ost as central to the republican as to the civil war phase of the
revolution.” Cf. M arkku P eltonen, Classical Humanism and Republicanism in English Political
Thought, 1570-1640 (Cam bridge: Cam bridge University Prerss, 1995), 13, choosing n ot to
look at “expressly p u ritan or Calvinist m odes o f argum ent.”
144 See Behemoth, 155.
163
T o m až M astn ak
parallelism betw een the endeavours o f th e religious fanatics, m o st o ften p e r­
sonified by the Presbyterians, a n d th e d em o cratical g en tlem en . T h e latter
“did n o t less desire a p o p u la r g o v ern m e n t in th e civil state th a n th ese m inis­
ters d id in the C h u rch. A nd as these d id in th e p u lp it draw the p e o p le to
th eir op in io n s, a n d to a dislike o f th e C h u rch -g o v ern m en t, C anons, a n d
C om m on-prayer-book, so did th e o th e r m ake th e m in love with d em o cracy
by th e ir h aran g u es in th e P arliam en t, a n d by th e ir discourses a n d c o m m u n i­
cation w ith p eo p le in the country, continually ex to llin g liberty a n d inveigh­
ing against tyranny, leaving the p eo p le to collect them selves th a t this tyranny
was the p re se n t g o v ern m en t o f th e state.”145
Such parallelism collapses w hen H o bbes ap p o rtio n s m o st o f th e b lam e
to o n e side. T h u s it was the design o f th e P resbyterian m inisters, “w ho taking
them selves to be, by divine right, th e only lawful governors o f th e C h u rch , e n ­
deav o u red to b rin g the sam e form o f G o v e rn m en t in to th e civil state. A nd as
th e sp iritual laws w ere to be m ad e by th e ir synods, so th e civil laws sh o u ld b e
m ade by th e H ouse o f C om m ons; w ho, as they th o u g h t, w ould n o less be
ru led by th em afterw ards, th an they form erly h a d b e e n .”146 O r: “To th e e n d
th at th e State b eco m in g popular, th e C h u rc h m ig h t be so too, a n d g o v ern ed
by an Assembly; a n d by co n seq u en ce (as they th o u g h t) seein g politics a re
su bservient to religion, they m ig h t govern, a n d th ere b y satisfy n o t only th e ir
covetous h u m o u r with riches, b u t also th e ir m alice with pow er to u n d o all
m en th a t ad m ire d n o t th eir w isdom .”147
B ut th a t parallelism was only an a p p a re n t one. Firstly, th e re was n o sub­
stantial d ifference betw een the two sets o f rebels in th e ir psychological m ak e­
up. As to the Presbyterians, “every m in ister shall have th e d e lig h t o f sh arin g
in th e g o v ern m en t, a n d consequently o f b e in g able to b e re v e n g e d o n those
th a t d o n o t ad m ire th eir learn in g a n d h e lp to fill th e ir purses, a n d win to
th eir service those th a t d o .”148 Similarly, “those fine m en, w hich o u t o f th e ir
re ad in g o f Tully, S eneca, o r o th e r an ti-m onarch ics, th in k them selves suffi­
cien t politics, a n d show th eir d isc o n te n t w hen they are n o t called to th e m a n ­
ag e m e n t o f the state, a n d tu rn from o n e side to a n o th e r u p o n every n eg lec t
they fancy from the King o r his en e m ie s.”149 Secondly, a n d m o re im p o rta n t­
ly, th e ir actions h a d th e sam e source. Intellectuallly, they all e m b ra c e d d e m ­
ocratic p rinciples th at H obbes id en tified at th e ro o t o f E u ro p e a n “civil wars
145 Ibid., 23.
146 Ibid., 75.
147 Ibid., 159.
148 Ibid., 89.
149 Ibid., 155-56. H obbes denounces Cicero him self as being moved in his actions “o u t
of love to himself.” Ibid., 72.
164
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
c o n c e rn in g re lig io n .”150 Instititutionally, they were all b re d at the universi­
ties. T h e d em o cratical g e n tle m e n le a rn e d th e ir classics th e re , an d “[f]rom
th e U niversities also it was, th a t all p reach ers p ro c e e d e d .” T h e “curious ques­
tions in divinity” as well as “all those politic questions co n c ern in g the rights
o f civil a n d ecclesiastic g o v e rn m e n t” w ere “first started a t th e U niversities,”
th e “co re o f re b e lio n .”151 Thirdly, th eir actions were m utually reinforcing.
W hile P resbyterianism was “th e very fo u n d a tio n o f the P arliam en t’s treach­
ero u s p re te n s io n s ,” it was b o th th e “seditious Presbyterian m inisters” and
“am b itio u s ig n o ra n t o ra to rs” w ho, ones from th e pulpits a n d others in the
P arliam en t, “re d u c e d this g o v ern m e n t in to anarchy.”13"
In a P ro te s ta n t country, w h ere the King was h ead of th e C hurch a n d re­
ligion a law o f th e co m m o n w ea lth ,133 any challenge to, o r change in, the re­
ligious e sta b lish m e n t was an u n settlin g o f the civil g o v ern m en t as well. T hat
was n o tic e d a n d fe a re d lo n g b e fo re the civil war. W hen H obbes was o n e year
old, fo r ex am p le, B ishop C ooper, in response to a P uritan attack on episco­
pacy, a rg u e d th a t P u rita n p rin cip les o f ecclesiastical organization an d au­
thority m ay have b e e n g o o d “w here the ch u rch was in persecu tio n vnder
tyrants; b u t w h ere th e assistance may bee h ad o f a C hristian P rince o r Mag­
istrate, it is n e ith e r necessarie, n o r so co n u e n ie n t, as it m ay be otherw ise.”
C o m m e n tin g o n c o m m o n elec tio n o f m inisters, C ooper n o te d th at “their
w hole drift...is to b rin g th e G o u e rn m e n t o f the C hurch to a Democracieo r Aris­
tocratie.” If th e c o m m o n p e o p le w ere m ade fam iliar with such principles, he
w arn ed , “ [i] t is greatly to b e e feared , th at they will very easily transferre the
sam e to th e G o u e rn m e n t o f th e com m on w eale.”154 H e disliked Presbyterian
schem es b ecau se th e convulsion they w ould cause in the state would be dam ­
aging to religion: “T h e re aso n th a t m o o u eth vs n o t to like this platform e o f
g o u e rn e m e n t, is, th a t w h en wee o n th e o n e p a rt consider th e thinges th at are
re q u ire d to b e re d ressed , a n d o n th e other, the state o f o u r countrey, people,
a n d co m m onw eale: we see euidently, th at to p lan t those things in this
C h u rch , wil draw e w ith it, so many, a n d so great alterations o f the State o f
g o u e rn m e n t, a n d o f th e lawes, as th e attem p tin g th e re o f m ight b rin g ra th e r
th e o u erth ro w e o f th e G ospel a m o n g vs, th e n th e en d th at is desired .”155
150 See n. 65. Aristotle, for exam ple, was an “ingredient in religion,” and the clergy was
versed in the babbling philosophy o f Aristotle. Behemoth, 41, 95.
151 Ibid., 41, 56, 58.
152 Ibid., 82, 109.
153 Ibid., 46, 53.
154T [hom as] C [o o p er], [Bishop o f W inchester], An Admonition to the People of England,
1589, ed. E. A rber (Birm ingham : English Scholar’s Library, 1883], 70. Partly cited in Men­
dle, Dangerous Positions, 82.
155 Cooper, A n Admonition, 65.
165
T o m a ž M a stn ak
A nti-episcopalians them selves re flected o n th e hom o lo g y betw een th e
ecclesiastical a n d civil governm ent, m ak in g them selves v u ln era b le to th e
charge o f subverting m onarchy. T h o m as C artw right, o n e o f th e m o st le a rn e d
six teenth-century P u ritan s/P resb y terian s d e n ie d th a t th e c h u rc h was “p o p u ­
lar” only in the first centuries o f C hristianity, b efo re th e re h a d b e e n C hrist­
ian m agistrates to establish it: “F or th e c h u rc h is g o v ern ed with th a t k in d o f
g o v ern m e n t w hich th e p h ilo so p h ers th a t w rite o f th e com m onw ealths affirm
to be th e best. For, in resp ect o f C h rist th e h e a d , it is a m onarchy; a n d , in re ­
spect o f th e an cien ts a n d pastors th a t govern in co m m o n a n d w ith like au ­
thority am o n g st them selves, it is a n aristocraty, o r th e ru le o f th e b est m en;
an d , in resp ect th a t the p eo p le are n o t seclu d ed , b u t have th e ir in te re st in
ch u rch-m atters, it is a dem ocraty, o r a p o p u la r estate. A n im age w h e re o f app e a re th also in th e policy o f this realm ; fo r as, in re sp e c t o f th e q u e e n h e r
majesty, it is a m onarchy, so, in re sp e c t o f th e m o st h o n o u ra b le council, it is
an aristocraty, and, having re g ard to th e p arlia m e n t, w hich is assem bled o f all
estates, it is a dem ocraty.”156
T h a t was d an g ero u s th in k in g , fo r it im p lied th e d en ial o f th e su p re m e
pow er o f th e p rin ce , as J o h n W hitgift, th e fu tu re a rc h b ish o p o f C anterbury,
did n o t hesitate to expose. “I know th a t all th ese th re e kinds o f g o v e rn m e n t
m ay b e m ixed to g e th e r after divers so rts,” h e re p lie d to C artw right, his fel­
low at th e Trinity C ollege, “yet still th e state o f g o v e rn m e n t is n a m e d ac­
c o rd in g to th a t w hich m ost ru le th , a n d b e a re th th e g re a te st sway: as, w hen
m atters are m o st com m only g o v ern ed by th e c o n se n t o f th e m o re p a rt o f th e
p eo p le, th e state is called p o p u lar; w h en by divers o f th e b e st a n d th e wisest,
it is called optimorum status', w hen by o n e , it is called m o n arc h y .” T h e c o n ­
clusion W hitgift w an ted to m ake was th a t “in this re a lm ” “th e state is n e ith e r
‘aristocraty,’ n o r ‘dem ocraty,’ b u t a ‘m o n a rc h y .’”157 M aking “th e go v ern ­
m e n t o f th e c h u rc h p o p u la r” w ould be an im p e d im e n t to civil g o v ern m en t:
if “th e p e o p le (who are com m only b e n t to novelties a n d to factions, a n d
m ost re ad y to receive th a t d o c trin e th a t see m th to b e co n tra ry to th e p re s­
e n t state, a n d th a t in clin eth to lib e rty )” w ould e lec t th e m inisters, they
w ould “usually elect such as w ould fe e d th e ir h u m o u rs ,” a n d as a co n se­
q u en c e “th e p rin ce n e ith e r sh o u ld have q u ie t g o v ern m e n t, n e ith e r c o u ld be
able to preserve th e p eace o f th e c h u rc h , n o r yet p la n t th a t re lig io n th a t h e
156 Cited by W hitgift in his The Defense of the Aunsvvere to the Admonition, against the Replie
ofT.C. (L ondon, 1574), in The Works of John Whitgift, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Dean of
Lincoln, & c., Afterwards successively Bishop of Worcester and Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. J.
Ayre, T he Parker Society (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1851), 1: 390. Cf. M endle,
Dangerous positions, 64-68.
167 The Works of John Whitgift, 1: 393.
166
B e h e m o t h : D e m o c r a t ic a l s a n d R e l ig io u s F a n a t ic s
in co n sc ie n ce is p e rs u a d e d to b e sin cere.”158 In su p p o rt o f his view th a t the
p o p u la r g o v e rn m e n t is “th e w orst k in d o f g o v ern m en t th at can b e ,” W hitgift
cited C alvin’s p o in t th a t “th e fall from a p o p u la r state into a sedition is o f all
o th e r m o st easy.”159
Given his serio u s in telle ctu al en g a g em en t with the ch u rch , theology, and
relig io n a n d c o m m itm e n t to th e “Calvinist C hristianity o f Jaco b ean Eng­
la n d ,”160 H o b b es m u st have b e e n ac q u ain ted with the lite ratu re a n d the kind
o f arg u m e n ts I have ju s t cited. It m ay be a p u re coincidence th a t Elizabethan
B ishop Sandys a n d H o b b e s b o th discredited dem ocracy as a fruit o f em ula­
tio n a n d c o n te n tio n , b u t it is a co in cid en ce w orth noting. F o r Sandys, dem oc­
racy s p ru n g o u t o f em u la tio n a n d co n ten tio n — “g reat a n d pestilent infec­
tions o f th e h e a r t” — g e n e ra te d by pride: “P ride causeth em ulation, an d of
em u la tio n c o m e th strife; so th a t th e cursed gen eratio n o f vice is fruitful,” he
p re a c h e d b efo re th e Q u e e n . “P ride m ade the devilish an g el envy th at his
L o rd a n d G od sh o u ld b e above him ; it m ade A dam desire to be as full o f
know ledge as his C reato r; A bsolon to em ulate his father, a n d to thirst after
his kin g d o m . C aesar was so p ro u d , th a t h e could n o t abide a superior; Pompey co u ld n o t b e a r an e q u a l.” A fter this n o t unusual m ixture o f Scriptural
a n d R o m an e x e m p la illu stratin g p ride and rebellion in general, Sandys
tu rn e d specifically to dem ocracy: “C orah, D athan, a n d A biram , in the pride
o f th e ir h earts, so u g h t to displace Moses a n d A aron, th e c h ie f m agistrate an d
th e c h ie f m inister. T h ey set dow n a han d so m e platform o f equality; a n d m any
o f th e m u ltitu d e allow ed o f it, as well pleased with a p o p u la r estate, w here the
w orst o f th e m m ig h t b e as g o o d as th e best. B ut G od b ro u g h t th eir device and
them selves to n o u g h t.”161 H o b b es used the story o f K orah, D athan an d Abi158 Ibid., 466-67.
159 Ibid., 467. See Calvin, Institutes of the Chrtistian Religion IV,xx,8 (Allen’s translation,
G rand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdm ans, 1949, 2: 778, has “dem ocracy” a t this place). W hitgift’s
reference is m isleading, for Calvin states that, of the “forms of government, which are stat­
ed by philosophers,” aristocracy or a m ixture of aristocracy and democracy was the best to
his m ind, an d that th e “vice and im perfection of m en...renders it safer and more tolerable
for the governm ent to be in the hands o f many,” since they can assist, admonish, censor,
an d restrain each other. (Ibid.) Cf. The Decades of Henry Bullinger, minister of the Church of
Zurich, translated by IT. I., ed. Th. H arding, The Parker Society (Cambridge: At the Univer­
sity Press, 1849 [originally published 1587]), 1: 311: “none can deny, b u t that great perils
an d infinite incom m odities are in the aristocracy, but far m ore many in the democracy.”
160 See A. P. M artinich, The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics
(Cam bridge: C am bridge University Press, 1992).
161 The Sermons of Edwin Sandys, D.D., Successively Bishop of Worcester and London, and Arch­
bishop of York; to which are Added Some Miscellaneous Pieces, by the Same Author, ed .J. Ayre, T he
P arker Society (Cam bridge: At the University Press, 1841), 138-39. (Originally published
in 1585.)
167
T o m až M a stn ak
ram to illustrate reb ellio n against th e sovereign, th a t is, against th e a u th o rity
to in te rp re t th e W ord o f G od and su p re m e civil authority, th e n u n ite d in
Moses, in all his m ajor political treatises.162 A nd in his co m m en tary o n T hucy­
dides, “em u latio n a n d c o n te n tio n ” w ere th e sp rin g o f d em ocracy.163
D em ocracy can b e co n tem p lated as a fo rm o f g o v ernm ent. B ut in Behe­
moth, it is re p re se n te d as the offspring o f th e c h ild re n o f p rid e w ho, as
H obbes shows, m an ag ed to destroy th e ir king. W hat destroyed L eviathan was
an explosive m ix tu re o f G reco-R om an political sen tim en ts a n d ideas, a n d re ­
ligious fanaticism fueling am bitious, gain a n d glory-seeking elites a n d p u llin g
the com m on p eo p le into th e vortex. T h e d estru c tio n o f th e state was a u th o r­
ized by th e W ord o f G od to establish th e re ig n o f G od. In th e P resbyterians’
self-image, “w here they reign, it is G od th a t re ig n s.”164 T h e sovereign was
killed because “th ere o u g h t n o n e to b e sovereign b u t K in g jesu s, n o r any gov­
ern u n d e r him b u t th e saints,” as believed th e F ifth-m onarchy-m en, “o f w hom
th ere w ere m any” in the P arliam en t.165 T h e reb ellio n against sovereignty was
a dem ocratic holy war. If we choose to call classicizing political sen tim en ts
a n d ideas republicanism , th a t was a rep u b lican ism covered w ith th e cloak o f
godliness. But th a t cloak was n o t a disposable cover: it was N essus’s shirt.
Postscript
W riting this article, I could n o t h e lp th in k in g o f th e c u r re n t A m erican
policy. T h e pern icio us co m b in atio n o f m ilitaristic rep u b lican ism a n d C hrist­
ian fun d am en talism , with th eir drive to sp re ad dem ocracy w orldw ide, m akes
th e USA o u r g reat behema. Leaving n o sto n e u n tu rn e d , these c h ild re n o f
p rid e have n o t even left H obbes alone. T hey are laying claim to him . B ut w hat
they are do in g ru n s against the core ten ets o f H o b b e s’s political th o u g h t.
W hat they are creating, tu rn in g H o b b es up sid e dow n, is a w orld w here the
life o f ever m o re p eo p le is b ec o m in g ever m o re d em ocratic, free, nasty,
brutish, a n d short: homo homini wolfowitz.
162 Elements of Law II,xxvi,2; De civexv i,13; Leviathan (Tuck), 325-26; cf. N um 16.
163 EW 8: xvi (see n. 53). O n em ulation, cf. Elements of Law I,ix,21; L eviathanV1,48; on
contention, Leviathan XI,3; on pride, V III,19.
184 Behemoth, 50, 167.
165 Ibid., 182.
168