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Historical Perspectives

Theologico-political Issues in Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan

Le théologico-politique chez Richard Hooker (Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity) et Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan)
Pierre Lurbe
p. 8-19

Résumé

Hooker et Hobbes ont tous deux été amenés à défendre la suprématie royale contre ses adversaires presbytériens. Une certaine ressemblance de formulation ne doit toutefois pas masquer de profondes divergences, portant à la fois sur l’ampleur de la prérogative royale en matière religieuse et sur la nature de la religion elle-même.

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Texte intégral

1It may seem very uncongenial to broach such an arcane subject as the one I propose to deal with: theologico-political issues in Hooker and Hobbes. As subjects go, one can certainly think of more glamorous ones. However, we have little choice but to begin at the beginning, and since in England, the relation between Church and State was drastically redefined by the Henrician Reformation of the 1530s, this is where we ought to start. The main effect of the Reformation was to transform the English monarch into the Head of his national Church, thus combining in a single man —or woman— the two distinct functions of Head of State and Head of the Church. Perhaps we tend to forget that this is still the case today, and that the present Queen Elizabeth has inherited the mantle of Governor of the Church of England from her predecessor and namesake, the first Queen Elizabeth. At any rate, even the heir to the throne seems at times oblivious to the fact that, supposing he becomes the next king, he too will become the Supreme Governor of the Church. He may be oblivious to this, but the Church certainly is not. Only a few weeks ago, Prince Charles aired the highly unorthodox view that he would like his Coronation to take the form of a multi-faith ceremony, taking into account the various religious strands of contemporary Britain. This apparently innocent and well-meaning wish immediately brought a sharp rebuke from the Primate of England, the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, who let it be known in no uncertain terms that he fully expected the Prince to conform to his role as Head of the Church of England. The added piquancy of this recent spat is that Archbishop Sentamu was born in Uganda, a fact that was made much of at the time of his elevation and was hailed as a kind of triumph for multicultural Britain. His enthronement ceremony also bore all the hallmarks of a multicultural society, with Church of England hymns and music mingling with the beating of African drums, which the Archbishop himself was not above playing. Yet when it came to the crunch —the defence of the proper relation between Church and State—, the Primate of England stood his ground and made it clear that the Act of Supremacy is as relevant today as it was over four hundred years ago.

2There is little doubt that Richard Hooker (1554-1600), the 16th century divine who wrote the most systematic and compelling case for the supremacy, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, would have approved; and there is little doubt either that Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the 17th century philosopher and author of Leviathan, would have felt the same. Each in his own way, both were involved in the task of providing a philosophical and theological justification for the royal supremacy, which was under severe attack at the time they wrote their respective masterpieces. To state this is not to claim that there had been no attempts at justifying the supremacy at an earlier period: when Henry VIII broke with Rome, a number of such justifications rolled from the presses, such as Stephen Gardiner’s De Vera Obedientia (1535). But then these early justifications were about salving the consciences of Roman Catholics who felt uneasy at this change. Far more worrying was the challenge to the supremacy that emerged in the late 16th century, and continued well into the 17th. This time, the challenge did not come from disgruntled Catholics outside the Church of England, but from within, from these staunchest of Protestants collectively known, rather loosely, as Puritans, but more precisely as Presbyterians.

  • 1  Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Preface. Book I. Book VIII, edited by Arthur (...)

3Both in Hooker’s Laws and in Hobbes’s Leviathan, the polemical intent and tone are unmistakable, although Hooker seems to be more optimistic about his chances of winning the Presbyterians over to his side of the argument: Laws is explicitly addressed “To them that seek (as they term it) the reformation of Laws, and Orders Ecclesiastical, in the Church ofEngland”.1 Hobbes’s tone is far less sanguine, more bitter and more combative; but then, writing as he was after the execution of the king in 1649, he had good reason to feel sour:

  • 2  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited with an introduction by C. B. Macpherson, Harmondsworth: Penguin, (...)

But in those places where the presbytery took that Office, though many other Doctrines of the Church of Rome were forbidden to be taught; yet this Doctrine, that the Kingdome of Christ is already come, and that it began at the Resurrection of our Saviour, was still retained. But cui bono? What Profit did they expect from it? The same which the Popes expected: to have a Soveraign Power over the People.2

4In spite of this difference in tone, Hooker and Hobbes look like and sound like kindred spirits. Both faced, in their own times, a similar challenge to the supremacy; both argued that the Presbyterians, if given free rein, would destroy civil peace, subvert the laws of the kingdom, and plunge the country into civil war and anarchy, which they duly did in the 1640s; both defended, in quasi-similar terms, the view that Church and State formed one body that should be endowed with just one head, for a two-headed body was a monster both in nature and in the body politic:

We hold that seeing there is not any man of the Church of England, but the same man is also a member of the Commonwealth, nor any man a member of the Commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England, therefore as in a figure triangular the base doth differ from the sides therof, and yet one and the selfsame line, is both a base and also a side; a side simply, a base if it chance to be the bottom and underlie the rest: So albeit properties and actions of one kind do cause the name of a Commonwealth, qualities and functions of another sort the name of a Church to be given unto a multitude, yet one and the selfsame multitude may in such sort be both and is so with us, that no person appertaining to the one can be denied to be also of the other. (Laws, VIII, 1.2, 130)

And therefore a Church, such a one as is capable to Command, to Judge, Absolve, Condemn, or do any other act, is the same thing with a Civil Common-wealth, consisting of Christian men; and is called a Civill State, for that the subjects of it are Men; and a Church, for that the subjects thereof are Christians. (Lev., III, 39, 498)

  • 3  See A. S. McGrade’s introduction for further comments on this point.

5From these identical premises, there follows the logical conclusion that power over the Church should be entrusted to the same sovereign who wields power over the commonwealth: “[…] it followeth necessarily that Kings may have supreme power not only in civil but also in Ecclesiastical affairs […]” (Laws, VIII, 3.3, 148); “In summe, he [the Civill Soveraign] hath the Supreme Power in all causes, as well Ecclesiasticall, as Civill […]” (Lev., III, 42, 576). The almost identical nature of these pronouncements begs the larger question of whether Hobbes was at all influenced by Hooker’s much earlier work. Since Hobbes was a boy of twelve when Hooker died in 1600, whatever influence there may have been can only have depended on Hobbes’s knowledge of Hooker’s Laws. The history of the publication of Laws is an intricate subject in itself;3 suffice it to say that the publication of the book that really matters for our purpose, Book VIII —concerning the disputed issue of the power of ecclesiastical dominion—, was delayed until 1648, long after Hooker’s death, but just in time for Hobbes to take notice of it as he was about to set to work on his own Leviathan. Too much should not be made of the coincidence of dates, but it is reasonably safe to assume that this publication could not have escaped the notice of such an alert mind as Hobbes’s. However, even if it were proved beyond doubt that Hobbes had read Hooker, this would not significantly alter the case I have to make. For one thing, the phrasing about the supremacy adopted by both Hooker and Hobbes is certainly the least original part of their respective arguments, and could be traced back to earlier exponents of the doctrine of the royal supremacy —again, a coincidence in expression is no proof of influence. For another, the philosopher most commonly associated with Hooker is not Hobbes, but John Locke, whose Treatises of Government are full of laudatory references to “the judicious Hooker”. In other words, we should be wary of setting too much store by the fact that at a certain level of their argument, Hooker and Hobbes use the same language and the same type of expressions to defend the royal supremacy. In this respect, they do no more than use the political idiom that was widely current at the time, which is hardly an index of anything. Before we hasten to conclude that Hobbes was no more than a latter day Hooker, it is therefore highly advisable to take a much closer look at the precise arguments used by each to back up claims which on the face of it look remarkably similar.

6Perhaps the best place to begin this enquiry is to read again, or to listen again to Hooker’s magnificently sweeping description of the world in terms of an ordered, hierarchical whole:

Without order there is no living in public society, because the want therof is the mother of confusion, whereupon division of necessity followeth, and out of division inevitable destruction. The Apostle therefore giving instruction to public societies requireth that all things be orderly done. Order can have no place in things unless it be settled amongst the persons that shall by office be conversant about them. And if things or persons be ordered, this doth imply that they are distinguished by degrees. For order is a gradual disposition. The whole world consisting in parts so many so different is by this only thing upheld, he that frames them hath set them in order. Yea the very deity itself both keepeth and requireth forever this to be kept as a law, that wheresoever there is coagmentation of many, the lowest be knit to the highest by that which being interjacent may cause each to cleave unto other and so all to continue one. This order of things and persons in public societies is the work of polity and the proper instrument therof in every degree is power, power being that ability which we have of ourselves or receive from others for performance of any action. If the action which we are to perform be conversant about matter of mere religion, the power of performing it is then spiritual. And if that power be such as hath no other to overrule it, we term it dominion or power supreme; so far as the bounds therof do extend. (Laws, VIII, 2.1, 139)

7This text would deserve a far longer commentary than I have time for. What it does bring out is the intimate connection between three notions, those of dominion, order, and power, which are central to Hooker’s thought and are distinctly inherited from medieval scholastics. The notion of dominion (dominium in Latin) is built on the fundamental theological premise that God, as Creator of the world, can properly be called Dominus or Lord of the whole Creation, which can therefore be viewed as the Dominion (domain) over which he exercises his Lordship (dominion). But since the Creator is wise and good, his Creation is an ordered whole, so that God’s dominium manifests his wisdom for all to see. Marie-France Renoux-Zagamé makes this point with crystal-clear clarity:

  • 4  Marie-France Renoux-Zagamé, Origines théologiques du concept de propriété, Paris/Genève : Droz, 19 (...)

Dieu n’a pas seulement tiré le monde du néant, il l’a créé ordonné, et il continue à tout instant à le soutenir dans cet ordre et à le gouverner, c’est-à-dire à l’orienter vers sa fin. C’est alors à la raison de Dieu que la contemplation du monde renvoie de nombreux théologiens, et ils vont traduire ce lien en faisant du dominium l’expression de la sagesse par laquelle Dieu met chaque chose à sa place dans l’ordonnancement de l’univers.4

8But as Renoux-Zagamé makes it clear, and as Hooker himself suggests, order is not given once and for all; it has to be sustained and actively kept so as to prevent both the Creation in general, and society in particular, from lapsing back into chaos: to take up Hooker’s own expression, “the proper instrument” to maintain order “is power, power being that ability which we have of ourselves or receive from others for performance of any action”. As a result of this connection between dominion and power, the term dominion came to refer equally to a power of government:

  • 5 Ibid., 46.

[…] le terme domaine prend un sens particulier, puisqu’il désigne plus spécialement la puissance qui permet de gouverner les êtres. À ce titre, il est intégré, chez un grand nombre d’auteurs, à une vision hiérarchique de l’univers, à l’intérieur duquel il se confond avec le lien unissant de degré en degré les formes les moins parfaites aux formes les plus parfaites.5

9Hooker was undoubtedly one of those authors, and it is only within the context of this all-encompassing theological framework that his argument in defence of the royal supremacy can be properly understood.

10In Hooker’s account, the notion of supremacy only makes sense if it is related to the apparently contradictory notion of bound, or limit: there is no such thing as absolute supremacy —the expression would have sounded oxymoronic to his ears—, because supremacy remains tied to conditions that duly circumscribe it and limit its scope. As Hooker argues, and this bears repeating, “if that power be such as hath not any other to overrule it, we term it dominion or power supreme, so far as the bounds thereof do extend”. So far as, but no further, could be an appropriate gloss on this passage. If kings therefore “are said to have spiritual dominion, or supreme authority in Ecclesiastical affairs and causes, the meaning is, that within their own precincts and territories they have authority and power to command […] and that there is no higher, nor greater […] where they are placed to reign as kings” (Laws, VIII, 2.1, 139-140; italics mine). This is pure Hooker: the king’s supremacy is never conceptualized apart from the conditions and restrictions that give it its proper place. The king does wield supreme power, but only “where [he] is placed to reign as king”, i.e., only in the proper place that is allotted to him in the great, hierarchical, ordered whole, that is God’s dominion. Supreme as it may be, the king’s power is nevertheless strictly circumscribed: by God above, by the laws of society, but also by society —or to use the medieval word, the universitas— taken as a whole:

In Kingdoms therefore of this quality the highest Governor hath indeed universal dominion, but with dependence upon that whole body over the several parts whereof he hath dominion so that it standeth for an axiom in this case, The king is major singulis universis minor [greater than each subject taken individually, but smaller than the whole taken collectively]. (Laws, VIII, 3.2, 143)

11Needless to say, this conception of supremacy is no less valid in the case of the king’s ecclesiastical dominion than in the case of his dominion over the commonwealth. In particular, this implies that however extensive the king’s power is recognized as being over the government of the Church, it is nevertheless framed and controlled by the ecclesiastical laws. Furthermore, the power of order remains the preserve of the Church and is explicitly denied to kings:

Touching that which is now in hand we are on all sides fully agreed […] (2) Secondly that some kinds of actions conversant about such affairs are denied unto Kings, as namely actions of the power of order and of that power of jurisdiction which is with it inseparably joined, power to administer the word and Sacraments, power to ordain, to judge as an Ordinary, to bind and loose, to excommunicate and such like. (Laws, VIII, 3.3, 149-150)

  • 6  Both together make up the plenitudo potestatis ―the plenitude of power― of the Church.

12In Hooker’s view, the royal supremacy does not obliterate the autonomy of the Church: nowhere is this concern for the Church’s autonomy more visible than when he stresses that the classic distinction between the power of jurisdiction (potestas jurisdictionis) and the power of order (potestas ordinis)6 still holds, and that the king’s encroachment on the former must be strictly limited and circumscribed. The relation between Church and commonwealth is not one of complete subordination of the former to the latter, but could best be described in terms of a balanced, harmonious partnership under the aegis of a godly prince, whose duty it is to take care of religion (cura religionis) and of his subjects’ souls:

A gross error it is to think that regal power ought to serve for the good of the body and not of the soul, for men’s temporal peace and not their eternal safety; as if God had ordained Kings for no other end and purpose but only to fat up men like hogs and to see that they have their mash?  (Laws, VIII, 3.5, 154)

13Hobbes’s vision could hardly be more different. For a start, the “Common Power” (Lev., II, 17, 227) that men erect over themselves to escape the terrors of the state of nature, and from which they expect protection, is not simply their representative, as in Hooker’s view. He is, quite literally, their embodiment, incorporating them all and transforming the multitude into one body: “This is more than Consent, or Concord; it is a reall Unitie of them all, in one and the same Person […]” (Lev., II, 17, 227). If such is the case, if the Sovereign is the incorporation of all and sundry “in one and the same Person”, Hobbes concludes that

[…] there is little ground for the opinion of them, that say of Soveraign Kings, though they be singulis majores, of greater Power than every one of their Subjects, yet they be Universis minores, of lesse power than them all together. For if by all together, they mean not the collective body as one person, then all together, and every one, signifie the same; and the speech is absurd. But if by all together, they understand them as one Person (which Person the Sovereign bears,) then the power of all together, is the same with the Soveraigns power; and so again the speech is absurd […]. (Lev., II, 18, 237)

  • 7  In Biblical imagery, Leviathan symbolizes a powerful sea monster which it is not in man’s power to (...)

14Hobbes no longer thinks or writes in terms of supremacy, a notion that makes sense in the medieval framework of dominium; he argues in terms of sovereignty, a notion that he has not invented, but to which he gives the widest possible scope. Sovereign power is not simply indivisible, it is “unlimited” (Lev., II, 20, 260), it knows no bounds —at least as far as words and actions are concerned— it “is as great, as possibly men can be imagined to make it” (Lev., II, 20, 260). It is therefore so great, so formidable, that the only way of giving some idea of what it is like is to draw analogies, with Leviathan,7 but also with God himself: “This is the Generation of that great LEVIATHAN, or rather (to speak more reverently) of that Mortall God, to which wee owe under the Immortall God, our peace and defence” (Lev., II, 17, 227).

  • 8  “Of that law which God from before the beginning hath set for himself to do all things by” (Laws, (...)

15This analogy between the commonwealth and God is far more than a particularly vivid image, made to strike the imagination (although this is also what it is); it points to the far deeper theological background of Hobbes’s notion of sovereignty. For Hobbes unmistakably belongs to that theological tradition, commonly associated with the names of Duns Scotus and William of Occam, for which God is first and foremost to be thought of in terms of potentia, of omnipotence. He is pre-eminently the almighty, and his omnipotence is not tied to any law which he might have set himself prior to the Creation —as Hooker, as heir to a different theological tradition, believed.8 The description of the sovereign power in terms of a “mortall God” is therefore meant to underline the very serious point that the sovereign enjoys a power over the commonwealth that is no less extensive than the power God wields over His Creation, a power which knows virtually no bounds.

16It would have been very odd indeed if such a conception of sovereignty had had no effect on Hobbes’s view about the royal supremacy. Predictably enough, the sovereign’s power in causes ecclesiastical goes much further than anything Hooker had contemplated. In Hobbes’s scheme, even the power of order is taken up by the sovereign:

But if every Christian Soveraign be the Supreme pastor of his own Subjects, it seemeth that he hath also the Authority, not only to Preach (which perhaps no man will deny;) but also to Baptize, and to Administer the Sacrament of the Lords Supper; and to Consecrate both Temples, and Pastors to Gods service; which most men deny; […]. (Lev., III, 42, 570)

17The autonomy of the Church is utterly destroyed, its ministers, mere holders of ministerial offices, like lawyers or university lecturers, whose authority is held from the sovereign. With Hobbes, the fine balance carefully nurtured by Hooker between Church and commonwealth is swept away. The Church is not so much submitted to, as absorbed by the commonwealth; the prince, no longer the godly prince called for and praised by Hooker, but a hard-headed statesman whose business is simply “to defend them [his subjects] from the invasion of Forraigners, and the injuries of one another, and thereby to secure them in such sort, as that by their owne industrie, and by the fruites of the Earth, they may nourish themselves and live contentedly; […]” (Lev., II, 17, 227).

18“That they may nourish themselves and live contentedly”: this sounds suspiciously like Hooker’s portrayal of those kings who “fat up men like hogs […] and see that they have their mash” (Laws, VIII, 3.5, 154). The end of Hobbes’s commonwealth is certainly not to promote a highest good, for according to him there is simply no such thing: “For there is no such Finis ultimus, (utmoste ayme,) nor Summum Bonum, (greatest Good,) as is spoken of in the Books of the old Morall Philosophers” (Lev., I, 11, 160). The end is the pragmatic, but by no means ignoble one, of providing protection, in exchange for obedience on the subjects’ part. These are almost Hobbes’s parting words: “And thus I have brought to an end my Discourse of Civill and Ecclesiasticall Government, occasioned by the disorders of the present time, without partiality, without application, and without other designe, than to set before mens eyes the mutuall Relation between Protection and Obedience” (Lev., “A Review, and Conclusion”, 728).

19The surface similarity between Hooker and Hobbes has therefore turned out to be just that: a surface similarity, thinly veiling substantial differences. But we are still left with an issue that has not been examined but is now inescapable. So far, we have dealt with the relation between the Church and the State, i.e., between two institutions, hardly at all with religion, as distinct from the institutions that give it its visible shape. In Hooker’s case, the issue is hardly one at all; it might simply be stated that for him, the true religion is the Christian one, and that the Church that best embodies it is none other than the Church of England. The case with Hobbes is far more intricate. I am certainly not going to try and answer such an intractable question as that of Hobbes’s religion or Hobbes’s religious beliefs, but what does emerge from a reading of Leviathan is that in order to preserve civil peace and prevent the disaster of civil war, it is vital that the sovereign should retain the undiluted right to define what doctrines are to be believed:

For it is evident to the meanest capacity, that mens actions are derived from the opinions they have of the Good, or Evill, which from those actions redound unto themselves; and consequently, men that are once possessed of an opinion, that their obedience to the Soveraign Power, will bee more hurtfull to them, than their disobedience, will disobey the Laws, and thereby overthrow the Common-wealth, and introduce confusion, and Civill war; for the avoiding whereof, all Civill Government was ordained. (Lev., III, 42, 567)

  • 9  “First, from his desire of knowing Cause”, “From the consideration of the Beginning of things”, “F (...)
  • 10  “The true Religion, and the lawes of Gods kingdome the same” (Lev., I, 12, 178, marginal title).

20That these opinions are of a moral and religious nature is clear both from the text itself (which deals with opinions of good and evil) and from its wider context, the extended discussion “Of a Christian Commonwealth” that forms Part III of Leviathan, and culminates in the indictment of Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism. On one reading, this might be interpreted in terms of a loyal defence of Anglican supremacy, with the Church of England cast in the role of defender of the true faith against superstition, or the “kingdome of darknesse” (Lev., IV, 627), as represented by these apparently unlikely twins, Rome and Geneva. Yet on another reading it is difficult to escape the nagging feeling that Hobbes used Roman Catholicism and Presbyterianism as straw figures to cast doubt on religion itself. Hobbes’s analysis of the “seed of Religion” (Lev., I, 12, 168) focuses mostly on its natural causes,9 although revelation is dutifully mentioned as the source of true religion.10 As to the famous distinction between Religion and Superstition, it is a moot point whether it is fish or flesh: “Feare of power invisible, feigned by the mind, or imagined from tales publiquely allowed, RELIGION; not allowed, SUPERSTITION. And when the power imagined, is truly such as we imagine, TRUE RELIGION” (Lev., I, 6, 124).

21Significantly, this passage is part of the sixth chapter of Part I of Leviathan, entitled “Of the Interiour Beginnings of Voluntary Motions; commonly called the PASSIONS. And the Speeches by which they are expressed”: this is as much as to say that religion is first and foremost a passion, which as such is not amenable to the power of reason, and must be subdued by the authority of the state. Which leads me to my concluding remarks, in which I shall simply contrast Hooker and Hobbes about the issues under discussion in order to bring out their differences.

22For Hooker, religion is a set of beliefs that is so beneficial that it is the duty of the commonwealth to promote it through the agency of a state church.

23For Hobbes, religion is a passion that is so dangerous that it is the duty of the commonwealth to hold it in check through the agency of a state church.

24Both Hooker and Hobbes wrote a very long time ago. In spite of this, and even if we make due allowance for the very different conditions we live under, I am not certain that their views are totally irrelevant to our contemporary concerns.

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Bibliographie

HOBBES Thomas, Leviathan, edited with an introduction by C. B. Macpherson, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 [1651].

HOOKER Richard, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Preface. Book I. Book VIII, edited by Arthur Stephen McGrade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 [1593 (Preface and Books I-IV); 1648 (Books VI and VIII)].

RENOUX-ZAGAMÉ Marie-France, Origines théologiques du concept de propriété, Paris/Genève : Droz, 1987.

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Notes

1  Richard Hooker, Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. Preface. Book I. Book VIII, edited by Arthur Stephen Mc Grade, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 [1593 (Preface and Books I-IV); 1648 (Books VI and VIII)], 1. All the references to Hooker’s Laws will be taken from this edition, and given directly after each quotation in the following sequence: abridged title, book, chapter, section, page number.

2  Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, edited with an introduction by C. B. Macpherson, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985 [1651], Part IV, Chapter 47, 705-706. All the references to Hobbes’s Leviathan will be taken from this edition, and given directly after each quotation in the following sequence: abridged title, part, chapter, page number.

3  See A. S. McGrade’s introduction for further comments on this point.

4  Marie-France Renoux-Zagamé, Origines théologiques du concept de propriété, Paris/Genève : Droz, 1987, 41.

5 Ibid., 46.

6  Both together make up the plenitudo potestatis ―the plenitude of power― of the Church.

7  In Biblical imagery, Leviathan symbolizes a powerful sea monster which it is not in man’s power to catch or tame. On of the most significant references to Leviathan is to be found in Job 41: “Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? Or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down? 2- Canst thou put a hook into his nose? Or bore his jaw through with a thorn? […]” (Authorized King James Version).

8  “Of that law which God from before the beginning hath set for himself to do all things by” (Laws, I, 2.1, 54).

9  “First, from his desire of knowing Cause”, “From the consideration of the Beginning of things”, “From his observation of the Sequell of things”, “The naturall Cause of Religion, the Anxiety of the time to come” (Lev., I, 12, 168-169, marginal titles).

10  “The true Religion, and the lawes of Gods kingdome the same” (Lev., I, 12, 178, marginal title).

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Pierre Lurbe, « Theologico-political Issues in Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan »Revue LISA/LISA e-journal, Vol. IX - n°1 | -1, 8-19.

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Pierre Lurbe, « Theologico-political Issues in Richard Hooker’s Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity and Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan »Revue LISA/LISA e-journal [En ligne], Vol. IX - n°1 | 2011, mis en ligne le 01 avril 2011, consulté le 28 mars 2024. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/lisa/4050 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/lisa.4050

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Pierre Lurbe

Pierre Lurbe is Professor at the Université Paul-Valéry, Montpellier. He specialises in the study of religious and political ideas in the 17th and 18th centuries.

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