Hobbes and Sacred History: Two Political Covenants and a Covenant for Salvation

Abstract

Hobbes asserts that political power no longer needs to be founded on religious charisma (as argued by Machiavellians and libertines), because this power can be justified only by covenant, that is by the consent of people deciding voluntarily, on the basis of an utilitaristic calculation of benefits, to subject themselves to a sovereign. In the sections of Elements of law natural and politic, De cive and Leviathan dedicated to religion, Hobbes demonstrates that the sacred history corroborates his political theory. He uses skilfully chosen literal quotations to demonstrate that the power of Abraham and Moses, who ruled over their people as divine lieutenants, and even that of Yahweh as king of Israel, were based on a special covenant. In Hobbes's reading, the figures of Moses and Christ no longer proceed as a pair, as in the cliché of the religious imposture theory: the figure of the prophet Moses is strongly politicised, whereas Christ makes no new laws to administer earthly justice, but teaches the way of salvation. Religion loses the political centrality of a founding element of human society and is referred to an individual, internal and psychological dimension.Keywords: Hobbes, causes of religion, sacred history, unity of religious and civil power, religious imposture theory The Causes of ReligionsReligion and sacred history occupy the central space in the writings of those free thinkers of the 17th century who, from René Pintard onwards, have been identified as «erudite libertines» 1 . These authors -such as François La Mothe Le Vayer, Gabriel Naudé, Hector Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac, Pierre Gassendi, or the anonymous compiler of the clandestine treatise Theophrastus redivivus -, heirs to the naturalism of Pietro Pomponazzi and the political theories of Niccolò Machiavelli, present religion under two aspects: as a product of the passions and credulity of man, and as a utilisation of this product by astute politicians that have deceived men in order to build new societies and empires on a solid base 2 . The phenomenology of religion delineated by the libertine critique starts from an attentive analysis of belief-formation mechanisms, makes interesting references to mass psychology and reformulates the Averroistic and Renaissance idea of religion as imposture and instrumentum Regni. What it constantly reconfirms is the essentially practical, non-theoretical dimension of historic religions, serving as educators of peoples about good conduct and born to satisfy a need for order and stability.