Interpretation, Vol 18-3

Interpretation A
A JOURNAL
OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
Spring
323
1991
Volume 18
Number 3
Thomas Hobbes
Translated,
Introduction
with an
1 668 Appendix to Leviathan
and
Notes, by
George Wright
Discussion 415 Michael Piatt Souls Without
Longing
Discussion 467 475 Fuller

The Constitution of 1 787: A
Timothy
J. Jackson Barlow
Commentary,
by
George Anastaplo
Interpretation
Editor-in-Chief
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Interpretation
Spring
Thomas Hobbes
1991
A.
Volume 18
Number 3
1668 Appendix to Leviathan
Translated,
Introduction
Wright
with an
and
Notes, by George
323
Discussion Michael Piatt
Souls Without
Longing
415
Discussion
Timothy
Fuller
J. Jackson Barlow
The Constitution of 1787: A Commentary, George Anastaplo
by
467
Copyright 1991
interpretation
ISSN 0020-9635

Thomas Hobbes
Translated,
with an
Introduction
and
Notes, by
George Wright University

of Wisconsin
Superior
INTRODUCTION
"Leviathan"
in Latin
On December
9, 1667,
the Dutch
publisher
Dr. Joan Blaeu, through his
son
Pierre,
Latin
corresponded with
of a project which edition of
Thomas Hobbes in England, touching some details the three men had undertaken, namely, the publication of a
Leviathan.1
Hobbes'
records
his father's
satisfaction at
thirds of the
mained
work and was
Writing in French, the younger Blaeu having learned that Hobbes had finished twoworking steadily each day to complete what re
recounts
before the
following
Easter. He further
the author's manner of
proceeding in the work, forced upon him by the he had returned from France some sixteen years
employed an
amanuensis,3
paralytic condition with which

earlier.2
Hobbes, it
seems, had
as well as a
ignorant
of
Latin,
to transcribe the text,
second,
assures printed were
well
versed of
in the
care
language,
that he
to reread and correct it. Blaeu
finally
be
Hobbes
the
will
take in correcting the proofs, to
the
admirers'
in the firm's Amsterdam publishing house. Such, in brief compass, material conditions under which Hobbes sought to gratify his foreign wish to have a more accessible text of his political
masterpiece.4
But however
Hobbes'
evident
to us are
reasons and arrangements
for
pro
ducing
or
Latin
edition of
Leviathan, it has
proved a
difficult
question whether
in
what
have have
preceded
form the writing of the Latin text ultimately published in 1668 may that of the English text published in 1651. Three scholars who
the matter,
considered
Lubienski, Hood
and
Tricaud,5
agree on
the prior
ity during the

an
of
that, in France preparing Leviathan, he had at least outline or some chapters of the text in Latin upon which to draw, many parts which eventually appeared in 1668.
of at some portions of a would mean period
in time
least
Latin text. This
Hobbes
resided
Scholars have
support
adduced
several
interesting
but inconclusive hypothetique
arguments
to
the
existence of what
Tricaud terms
un
proto-Leviathan
interpretation,
Spring 1991,
Vol. 18, No. 3
324
Interpretation
more
latin. For one, the English Leviathan is longer and and seems, subjectively at least, to be more
places6
developed in
several
exact.7
Where the English

the
material
text shows fuller treatment of subjects than that of the

added at
Latin,
is
the
ends of
paragraphs, as though
Hobbes,
text
of
confident
in his formula
tions and writing

as
hurriedly, left
Latin text,
an antecedent
largely intact,
supplementing
thus be earlier
further
consideration required.
The tone
the 1651 text is also more pas
sionate than the
whose
date
of composition would
than the egregious outcome of the English Civil
War,
the execution of the
king,
Charles I, in 1649. 8
Further,
or
quotations of ancient authors of as
in the Latin text
are
roughly
verbatim
by
way
paraphrase, whereas the English text records them in indirect
discourse,
himself to
events of refers
though
Hobbes, working from his

to the ancient texts.
own
omit recourse
pre-existing text, allowed Also, the Latin text refers to

text
terms.9
the Civil War
as contemporaneous and
to the period as a past event and in less

Hobbes'
belligerent; the English direct, more ideological
late Latin autobiography, which Frithiof Brandt has shown so accurate and precise in relating details of his scientific development, states, "I finished the book [i.e., Leviathan] in my native tongue so that it could be
Finally,
both
often and
holding
Englishmen."10 usefully read by my fellow Variously editing and back texts in Latin and the vernacular seems to have been a characteris
Hobbes'
tic aspect of
pore made
way
of
working, evidenced in the progress his De CorHobbes'
to publication.
Also, Latin in
philosophic since
day
retained
its
privilege as
claimed a
the
appropriate vehicle
for
expression,
reception
and
Hobbes had
place
among the
philosophers
his
into that brilliant Parisian
circle,
gathered about
the Franciscan friar Marin

mathematician
Descartes."
atomist
Pierre Gassendi, the
Mersenne, which included the Fermat, the libertine Sorbiere, Mar

Hobbes'
tel and Du
Prat,
and
with
ties to
But,
although
the precise relation between
two texts remains unset

ad
tled, textual
placed at
historical
reasons
indicate that the Appendix

and
Leviathan,
publica
the end of the Latin text

was written some
translated here for the

most
first time into
English,
tion.12
time
after
1651,
likely
for the 1668
For one, in line with its intended audience, the Latin Appendix substi tutes for the English text's "Review and an element of interest
Conclusion,"
solely to an English audience, given its focus on the situation following the Civil War.13 For another, the third chapter of the Appendix, a response to Le
viathan's of
critics, clearly postdates the text

arose
published
in 1651
and
the criticisms
it that
from many
appeared
sides.
In both the Appendix

error that
and
the
corresponding Latin text, Hobbes

of
"personified"
corrects an
had
of
in the English text, that

that Moses
discussion birth
of
the
Trinity
apparently suggesting in a God the Father prior to the
Jesus
Christ.14
He defends himself
of
.
on
this point against his critics,

to a
published
specifically the Bishop by Dr. Bramhall
Deny, John Bramhall, in An Answer

(the title
varies
Book,
according
to edition), written in
325
1668,
error
though published for the first time in 1682. 15 There he
states
that the
has been
printed
eliminated
in the Latin text

seas."16
of
Leviathan, by
which
then perhaps al
ready
"beyond the
closest to
Also,
Appendix
ance of
the religious and theological issues
Hobbes takes up in the

period after
lay
his immediate interests in the
the
appear
Leviathan in 1651, more particularly after the return of Charles II to England in 1660 and the agitation against Leviathan that followed upon the seating
of on
the
Cavalier Parliament in
was
1661.17
writing in religious belief
these matters
and
Hobbes'
For, while the general impetus for lifelong, intimate and profound interest
relation
practice, especially in
of
to politics, the specific
impetus
late
change
was
clearly the atmosphere

with
hostility
in
which
he had lived
since
the
1640'
s,
owing to suspicions of his orthodoxy overtly aroused

Bramhall.18
by
the ex
he had had in France
At the instigation
to
of royalist and ecclesiastic

Charles'
alike, Hobbes
had been
the
made
feel
unwelcome at
court
in
exile,"
and,
after
1660,
restored
monarch, while granting his former mathematics tutor an annual pension, none theless placed him
religion.20
under a
ban
not to publish
anything in English
on politics or
Then, in 1666,
as
a result of recriminations
that arose among the people
following
ered
the twin disasters of plague and fire in
London, Leviathan
remedy
was mentions
was
named as a cause of atheism and
blasphemy,
of
whose
to be consid the fear
by
a committee of the at a motion
House
Commons.21
Aubrey
Hobbes felt
brought
by
a number of
the bishops in the House of

heretique."22
Lords to "have the
good old gentleman price of
burn't
as a
Pepys
relates
in
his Journal that the

example, the
ration
a
Leviathan tripled
as a result of
post-
the
uproar.23
The Appendix is thus

answer
Hobbes'
one of a number of ecclesiastical
to
Bramhall, his
and
Restoration texts, for history, the Historical Nar

a
Concerning
Heresie,14
the Dialogue between

which
Phylosopher
(sic)
and
Student of the Common-Laws of England,
include
some treatment of
the nature of orthodoxy, political and ecclesiastical authority, the definition and
punishment of
heresy,
and more
inquiry.25
broadly
And
all
the relation of treat religious
revealed views
religion, polit
of their
ical
power and rational
like those
author, and his
immunity from
a charge of
heresy
is
either argued or
assumed.26
But
while
punishment
Hobbes, at the age of eighty in 1668, surely did not want to suffer as a heretic, as before he in no way abandoned positions he had
of possible
prosecution.27
long
held in the face

heretical
Indeed he did
not
think he
espoused
views.
And it is in the
pages of
the Appendix that he has
made an
important,
sustained effort
to exculpate himself.
Contemporaries'
doubts
of
from the
lation
opprobrium
known; he never issued entertaining evidently heterodox, if sincerely held,

as
to his success are well
opinions.28
Modern doubters dismiss his
protestations of
orthodoxy
may
as
dissimu
and pronounce against

passage of
the possibility of
sincerity.29
But the
time and new
historical
understandings
allow a
ver-
326
diet
our as
Interpretation
to
Hobbes'
purposes and character
different from that

the
of some of
his
and
contemporaries.30
The
passions
that
animated
religious
debates
of that
time have
us.
long
since cooled and
become if
to
not
incredible,
at
least surprising, to
points against a
Also,
new research allows us
check conclusions on
many
more
detailed background in the

more
Renaissance,"
among Protestants and Luther. The "Luther German

and
Christian theology, especially particularly among those influenced by Martin carried on earlier in this century, largely by
history
of
Scandinavian scholars, has been

medieval antecedents of
accompanied moreover
by
inves in
tigations into the
the Reformation. These lines of

with
quiry
now of
are
place of religious
particularly belief in
so
valuable
if
we are
to deal
the vexed question of the

aspects of
Hobbes'
thought.
Because he
his
era seem
both
familiar he
and also so
distant, it may be
easier
to pursue the vagaries
Hobbes'
thought under the presumption that

said.
said what
he
meant and
meant what
Hobbes'
One stumbling block on the path to clearer historical understanding of intentions and accomplishments is the evidently self-hypothecating no
modernity.31
tion of
Hobbes,
as an
"early-modern
thinker,"
has
at times
been
subjected to part
interpretive
retrofit.
Thus,
one editor of one
Leviathan
of
omitted all of
four
and most of part

added
to
him,
those parts
three, approximately little or nothing to
half
the
book, because,
of men and
Hobbes'
Hobbes'
philosophy
government.
Presumably
this excision rested on the judgement that
theory
his
of
the Christian commonwealth and his critique of a distortion of such a
commonwealth could own project as a
be ignored. This
nor can
cannot
have been
Hobbes'
opinion of
capacities of
of
his
audience.
the value of
theorist, To read Hobbes in this way is to his thought, both as historical example
it have been his
view of
the
needs and
obscure a and as
large
part
philosophic
precept.32
Bracketing
his
work
the positive treatment of the religious themes so
conspicuous
in
of
withdraws
from
the
our
consideration
large it
and
complex
body
thought,
together with
era.33
interesting
an
connections
suggests
between the
the
and
and
thinker and his
Such
interpretive
procedure renders unintelligible
very disjunctions
of
knowledge,
citizen,
which
philosophy and religion, reason and feeling, belief Hobbes set up in constructing his system of body, man
an adequate appraisal of we would
thereby thwarting
its theoretical foundations

be
prohibited
and systematic closure.

whether or
On these grounds,
to what extent the religious ideas

or contributed
which
Hobbes had,
from asking or had re his

ac
jected, influenced
count of political
gious
to his political
doctrine,
or whether
life is
not
understandings
and
commitments
systematically impoverished in favor of the reli which he brought to his theoretical impossible that his
religious
task.
Indeed, it is by
no means
formation, in
pre
ceding his philosophic and the latter and determined its
scientific
outcome.
development,
conditioned
the course of

I
would advance
327
of
the argument here that the
Hobbes'
merit of
formulations
religious
themes, in themselves and in relation to his doctrine of political obli gation, is intrinsic to his theoretical project. His views on these matters are less heterodox in context, and more revealing, than often thought. Critics have
failed
ated
to appreciate the full radicalness of the Protestant tradition of which

was a
Hobbes
trenchant
proponent.34
For he
and
addressed
the large issues associ

to them
with
the
rise
of
Protestantism
supplied
furnished
answers
framed This
largely
new
within
the terms
of
by
its
own culture and presuppositions. an
translation
the 1668 Appendix presents
opportunity
briefly
to exam
ine
few
relevant points.
The 1668 Appendix
The 1668 Appendix deals

writings
with
issues that Hobbes had treated
earlier
in his
but
now
in
a somewhat more sustained and
focused way than before. Di
vided
ment of
into three chapters, it takes up the status and meaning of the creedal state the Nicene Fathers in relation to the Bible, the immortality of the created
interpretation
of
soul as an
the Christian
doctrine
of eternal
life,
and
the ques
tion of
can
heresy
and the nature of

ends
orthodoxy in the early
church and
in the Angli
Church. It
with a particularized response
to critics of the English
Leviathan, largely
views.
with reference
to theological objections raised against his
At issue throughout is
concept of and what
with
Hobbes'
desire to
of
vindicate an over
historically
of
rooted
faith,
based
on
he
calls private
the primacy theology, and to
Scripture
both
church tradition
show the
congruity
this concept
the power of civil authority over

again attacked
liturgy
view
and public profession of the
faith.
Hobbes has here
the view that the human soul, once created,
is immortal
guished
and
has defended
again
his
that the soul,
if it is to be distin
from
bodily
existence, dies with the
rection of
the dead at the
body, to await the general resur Last Judgement. This, he believes, is the doctrine
the evidence of the Christian proclamation and
was
preached.35
indicated
the
historically both by
in
which
by
context
the faith
The
stood
witness
to that
proclamation and
the context in
which
it is to be
under of
is the biblical
as the
record.
New Testament writers, in

supplied
describing
Jesus
Nazareth
Messiah, have
context of
the essential content of the
Christian
in its
faith. Their
parts and
proclamation must
be
understood
in the
the
thought- world
way that is in which it

a
in
consistent
spread.36
Scripture then does
is the
positive source of response
doctrine,
with reason
its
negative
criterion.37
Thus, in
not cease
person of
to the
assertion of
Interlocutor A that the
created soul
to exist as a
self-subsistent
entity for the least instant, Hobbes, in the
Interlocutor
B,
states:
328
I
Interpretation
shall tell you
without
stated,
nothing at all on this point apart from that which I find expressly the least ambiguity, in the Scriptures, where no other text is openly
contradictory.38
Hobbes biblical
You
continues
in this
vein and makes explicit of
his
recognition of
the dif
ferences between the thought-worlds

writers:
the Greek
philosophers and
that of the
and almost all others take

part
it from the
philosophers as
that the human soul cannot
die. I for my Scriptures.
have
no
desire to have them
my
masters after the
Holy
He
pursues
the point
by
appealing to Scripture
and
forcing
a contrast
be
tween the Greek

princes of eternal
notion of natural
philosophy as Plato and life, with its emphasis on sin, human mortality
you
immortality, putatively presented by such Aristotle, and the Judaeo-Christian idea of

and
divine
redemption:
Still, if
under
brought is
me a passage
from the Scriptures in

hold
which some
type of
immortality
the
attributed
to the human soul other than that which is
given men
name of eternal
life,
then I too should
with the philosophers.
Clearly, Hobbes has

which
set
himself
against that
understanding
of
reason,
which
is located in the immortal

it to
an extent
in the eternal, noetic reality intuits. Reason for him is instrumental; it is not a means
soul and participates
whereby the for Plato.
soul ascends
from the
sphere of genesis
to that of
being,
as
it
was
Indeed, later in
animals:
the
Appendix, Hobbes
is scarcely
cites scriptural support
for his
view
that the possession of reason
sufficient cause to place man above the
The
soul
(anima), they
say, thinks, remembers, reasons. What
if, denying this, I
were to refute
say that the animal (animal) itself thinks and remembers? How shall they me? And what is it to reason except to place names upon things, to connect
the
names
into
assertions and to
made?
join these
assertions
into the
syllogisms out of
which was
logic is
In paradise, before he had imposed

than the other animals, except
names on
Adam
more rational
by
potential only?
things, how It does
not seem to me then that men are
fact that they discuss
matters
in
words and
substantially distinguished from the brutes brutes do

not.39
by
the
The
claim
that Hobbes here
privileged place
in the
great chain of
denies, namely, that the human soul holds a being, had been made often enough in the
Christian West, especially after the recovery of Aristotelian texts in medieval times and in the wake of the Platonic revival of Ficino during the Renaissance.
Borrowing
the
council of
and
adapting
such
ideas,
theologians had made them
key
aspects of
church's confession.
Both the
medieval council of
Vienne
and the
Lateran
1512 had
articulated somewhat
differing
conceptions of the soul's
329
immortality,
Hobbes
each under the
influence
of classical
second.40
thought, Aristotelianism in Greek thought

and
the case of the
first
and
Platonism in the
rejected what
as
he
considered a combination of
Christian faith
he
faulty
and
misleading, a false
on politics.
witness
to the faith of the early
church and a pernicious

was what
influence
The
specific
focus
of
his
attack
called
the doctrine
of
incorporeal substances, that
is,
the belief
that certain
disembodied, ideal, immortal

mind.
and self-subsistent entities
ted outside the

equated the
In
of
doctrine
striking incorporeal
conflation of
really exis different conceptions, Hobbes
substances with religious teachings on the
immortality of the Importing this tenet

had led to the
soul.4'
of ancient
thought into Christian
theology, he believed,
abuses of the great
bete
noire of the
seventeenth-century English
Protestant,
This
popish superstition:
window
[the doctrine
of
incorporeal substances] it is, that torments;

and and afterwards of places
gives entrance to
and
the dark
doctrine, first,
of the
of eternal
purgatory,
consequently
walking abroad, especially in
consecrated, solitary or
pretences of exorcisme and
dark,
of
of the ghosts of men
deceased;
thereby
to the
conjuration of phantasmes; as also of
invocation
of men
dead;
and to the
doctrine
of
indulgences;
that
purgatory,
wherein
made
is to say, of exemption for a time, or for ever, from the fire these incorporeall substances are pretended by burning to be fit for
heaven.42
cleansed, and
time of our
For,
the
men
being
generally
the
possessed
before the
Saviour
by
contagion of
that the souls of

when the
men were substances
Greeks, daemonology of distinct from their bodies, and therefore that

of an opinion
whether
body
was
dead,
the soule of every man,
godly
or wicked, must
subsist somewhere
by
vertue of
its
own
nature,
without church
supernaturall gifts of
God's;
they
the doctors of the
acknowledging therein any doubted a long time, what
was the
place,
which
were to abide
in,
till
they
should
be
re-united to their
bodies in the resurrection; supposing for a while they lay under the altars; but afterward the church of Rome found it more profitable to build for them this place
of
purgatory;
which
by
some other churches
in this later age, has been
demolished.43
The bodied
more
sences was realized spirits or
evidently deadly, second effect of the doctrine of separated es in politics. For Hobbes believed that it was fear of disem
ghosts, such as the souls of the
departed,
that caused
men
to
turn from their lawful sovereigns to seek solace
from
seditious priests:
say) is such subtilty in a work of this nature, is necessary to the doctrine of government and obedience? It is to this purpose, that men may no longer suffer themselves to be abused by them, that by this doctrine of separated essences, built on the vain
But to
where
what purpose pretend
(may
some men what
to nothing but
philosophy
with
of
Aristotle,
would
fright
them
from obeying the laws

com with an
when a man
of
their countrey,
a
empty
names; as men
fright birds from the

upon
empty doublet,
hat,
and a crooked stick.
For it is
soule
this ground, that
is dead
and
buried, they say his

seen
(that is his
graves.
life)
can walk separated same ground
by
night amongst
the
Upon the
from his body, and is they say, that the figure
330
Interpretation
and colour and tast of a peece of no
bread, has
they
man,
a
being, there,
where
they say
there
other
is
bread;
and upon the same ground
say, that faith and wisdome, and

sometimes
vertues are sometimes powred as
into
blown into him from many
heaven;
if the vertuous,
serve
and their vertues could
be
asunder; and a great the
other
things that
to lessen the dependance

will endeavour
of subjects on
soveraign power of
their countrey. For who
to
obey the laws, if he

a
expect obedience
make
to
God, obey his soveraign; nay than God Himselfe? Or who, that is in fear of ghosts, will not bear great respect to those that can make the holy water, that drives them from him? And this shall suffice for an example of the errors which
be
powred or
blown into him? Or
who will not
priest, that can
rather than
are
brought into the
church
from the
entities and essences of
Aristotle:
which
it
may be he knew to be false philosophy; but

corroborative of their religion; and
writ
it
as a
of
thing
consonant to and
fearing
the
fate
Socrates.44
It is beyond the accuracy

and and
scope of this
Hobbes'
introduction to
examine
in any detail the
justice
of
of
accusations against
the thought of the ancients
the
theology
our
the church. Like Aristotle in ancient times and Martin

conducted an extended conversation with
Heidegger in
philosophic
time, Hobbes
his
and and
forebears, conspicuous, if for no other reason, for its brilliance high commitment. But, as I believe the Appendix shows, like Aristotle
Heidegger in
dealing
with past and
unfair, certainly peremptory
thinkers, he was one sided, in perhaps inaccurate.
some points
Nor is Hobbes
as clear as might
break
with
tradition. As others
be desired in revealing the ground of his have remarked, he rarely acknowledges his in before the
tellectual
debts, especially
to
to thinkers who lived

put
"century
of
genius."45
Hobbes
seems
have been
to some
with
difficulty
nality, for example, in his dealings

obscure
Descartes.46
in vindicating his own origi This may have led him to
his intellectual sources, particularly his reading of medieval thinkers. He himself stressed the revelatory character of the encounter with Euclid's ge
ometry during a trip to the Continent, but even this was possible only against the background of prior understandings. And the conclusions he draws from Euclid
are related
largely
to questions of proof, demonstration and language.
His education, the
interests
But
and aptitudes
to sort out
scholarly certainly shaped his later thought, though precisely how these factors remains
problematic.47
preoccupations of
his era, his
own scientific and
knowing
the sources of an author's thought makes

and
it
easier
to grasp the
character,
uniqueness
significance
of
these are better understood

positive or negative
would
by identifying
and
his intellectual achievement; and studying those who, in either a

of
way, influenced the course

our
his development. Hobbes

the philosophic past
medieval
have facilitated
clearer
had he been
their classical
understanding in specifying the relations of antecedents, to the extent he knew

philosophic or scientific.
of
his
criticism of
theologians
with
them.48
Nonetheless,
merely
or
the burden of his attack on incorporeal substances was not
predominantly
For,
though
laying
the
fear

of
331
theorizing, the conclu he drew from this line of reasoning, in the Appendix as elsewhere, was mainly evangelical. While he allowed for difference of opinion on the point,
souls was a
of political
disembodied
key
feature
his
sion
insofar
as men reflected on his own orthodoxy and on the requirements of the Christian faith, he unwaveringly emphasized God's saving activity in redeem over the ing the soul; that is, he stressed God's "supernatural
gifts"
"natural"
immortality
of the created soul.
Thus, in response to Interlocutor B's hesitation to break with what he takes to be the traditional teaching as to the soul's immortality, Hobbes, in the person
of
Interlocutor A,
Least
of all
states:
do I
censure those who
feel this
way.
For surely he
who
has
such
lofty
thoughts about his own soul is most careful not to defile it through baseness of life.
But, for
that
the rest, I do not concede that he is less careful who steadfastly believes
soul
his
has been
redeemed through the
blood
of
Christ
and made
eternal.49
And he demption
And
remains convinced of
the adequacy
of
his
views on
the soul, re
and
the hope of resurrection:
consider those words of
Christ
on the cross
to the robber:
"Today
you shall
be
with me
in paradise"; do these
and the other words to

words serve except
the disciples: "I am the tree of
life";
great
what purpose
that the
faithful may know that the
flaming
way made plain, through the sacrifice of Christ, to the tree of life, that is, to life eternal? What need is there then for the pious man to attribute his immortality to creation,
sword removed
has been
from the
gate of paradise and the
that is to nature, rather than to
redemption?50
He
Let
concludes
this discussion in the Appendix

what
by
saying:
others
look forward to
immortality they
over
prefer.
I look to that
which
Christ
has
acquired
for
us
by
His victory
death through His blood.
may draw the first of three parallels with the reformer Martin Lu ther, the reluctant founder of one of the churches that had demolished the place of purgatory. Luther's view of the mortality of the soul was like that of Here
we
Hobbes:
gelical
opposition
to the
notion of
"natural
and
immortality"
in favor
of an evan
insistence
upon
human mortality
life.51
dependence
upon
God,
symbolized
in the doctrine
of eternal
Luther developed this

Ecclesiastes: one,
the disadvantage namely, Ecclesiastes
view
in
commentary
on
two passages drawn
from
mentioned above and quoted
in the Appendix,
section
56,
3:19,
nor
where
the Preacher compares the animal and man to

superiority;52
of man's claimed
the second, Ecclesiastes 9:10:

nor
"There is
whither
no
work,
device,
nor
knowledge,
wisdom, in the grave,
goest."
thou
Luther
comments on
the second:
no perseverance or
Another place, proving that the dead have

says
he,
no
device,
no science, no
knowledge,
no wisdom there.
feeling. There is, Solomon judges
332
Interpretation
and
that the dead are asleep

neither
feel nothing
at all.
For
the
dead lie there [counting]

shall seem
days
nor years,
but
when
they
are waked,
they
to have
slept
scarce a moment.
Hell
place,
signifies a pit or
grave, but properly, as I

out of
judge,
the
that secret withdrawing to
where
the dead sleep the souls be
this
life,
whence
soul goes
her place,
whatsoever
it be, for
corporeal
it is not,
so that you
place where
kept, being
know
not.
a certain
may understand hell to be that grave, as it were, of the soul,

sepulcher of the
without this corporeal world, as the earth

manner of place
is the
body. But
what
it is,
we
For they
that
truly
are
holy,
go not
into
hell to
suffer
whatsoever shall
anything there. The dead therefore are out of all place. For is out of this life is out of place. Even as after the resurrection,
we
be
clear
from
place and
time.53
Luther's
soul
councils'
comments
as
to the
position
on
the
immortality
which all
of the
bear
a sarcasm and anger which cannot

experts
be
mistaken:
Hence the
establishes that common
the soul of
in Rome have recently pronounced a holy decree man is immortal, acting as if we did not
everlasting.'
say in
of
our
creed, 'I believe in the life

body,'
And
with
the assistance
the
the
of
mastermind
Aristotle, they decreed further

and
that the soul
is
'essentially
form
the human
many
other splendid articles of a similar nature.
These
decrees
are
indeed
most appropriate
to the
papal
church,
for they
make while
it
possible
for them to hold fast to human dreams

trample upon and
and the
doctrines of devils
of
Christ.54
they
destroy
faith
on
and the
teaching
Although
the
devils,"
an
insistence
of
the mortality of the soul,

as
with
its
condemnation of
"demonology
as
the
Greeks,"
Hobbes
calls
it,
or
the "doctrines of
even same
atheistic
Luther says, has been cited as evidence of heretical, reformer persevered in it for the shared it with the and he views,
the same
evangelical ends.
Hobbes'
reasons and with
second parallel
between these two thinkers is found in their

or superstition.
attitudes
to
ward atheism and
idolatry
he is
For Luther,
man
is naturally
or
religious
in the
sense that
upon
obliged
to worship
in
order
to propitiate powers whose
demands
him he
his
recognizes are
but
cannot not seem
to evade
satisfy.55
Men, in experiencing fear,

eighteenth thesis of grace of
despair, and, as the reformer said in "It is certain that to obtain Catechism, Heidelberg
led to
himself."
the
the
utterly despair of Idolatry, turning to false gods, then, is as difficult to practice. And atheism, that is, outright denial of the
a man must
Christ
avoid as
it is
useless
to
existence of a
higher
of
power,
seems
on
this account
more
a species
of
foolishness in the face

conscience.56
evident and perceived need than a creditable stand of
And Hobbes
the 1651
agrees:57
it is foolish to
fear.58
deny
the existence
of powers
before in
whom men are struck with
This
was a position
Hobbes had
espoused
Leviathan,
and
he
repeats
it in the 1668 Appendix:
A. As for the third doctrine, that
author
[Hobbes]
states
in the
sixth
chapter, [of
Leviathan]
toward the end:

Fear
of power
333
invisible, feigned by
the mind, or imagined
from tales
when
publicly allowed [is] religion; not allowed, superstition. And power imagined is truly such as we imagine, true
religion.59
the
B. The Preacher
says
the same
of
Lord is the
beginning
said
thing, in Ecclesiastes 1:16: "The fear of the wisdom"; as does the Psalmist, in Psalms 13:1:
no
God."60
"The fool has
in his heart, there is
Religions spring from fear; they are ways in which people worship false.61 The gods take their origin from divinities, be they true or
sonal experiences of of the experiences
demonstration.63
their
per
the numinous or from what one imagines at

others.62
hearing
stories
of
Their truth
or
falsity
is
not open
to rational
Superstition according to Hobbes is fear ries is merely lack

and of
of
invisible
powers conceived
from
tales not publicly permitted. What distinguishes them from other religious sto the sovereign's permission to tell them in public
or as a
part of corporate worship.
History
or
has
numerous examples of cults whose political
rites
rituals
were
banned
circumscribed, usually for

of
reasons; the
Bacchantes
of ancient
Greece, devotees
the cult of Cybele in republican

Hobbes'
Rome,
But,
celebrants of
the Roman Catholic mass in
own
day,
and,
later,
the Masons all provide examples

more
of proscribed groups.
fear and classing them implies no denigration of them in general as opinion, knowledge, for Hobbes. Opinion is in this sense more fundamental and important than
broadly, tracing
rather
the origin of religions to
than
knowledge,
opinion.64
and
belief,
of which
faith is
one
type, is for Hobbes
form
of
Thus, any religion, inasmuch as it involves faith, is opinion, which may be illegal, as Hobbes clearly believes in the case of early Christianity, or idolatrous and lawful, as with the false religions established among non-Chris
valid and
tian
peoples.
Hobbes'
tion,
as a
In considering religious belief from the standpoint Given his concern is then appropriately
political.65
of authoriza own
interests
theorist
a
and
his
emphasis on
the mystery of faith in
Christianity,66
he has
furnished
on
definition
to
of religion which allows avoid
him both to
speak
discursively
the
matter and
firmed
as a confession of
asserting on rational grounds what can only be af faith.67 The evangelical understanding of faith which
points
grounds
the
political
definition
of
to a third parallel between Hobbes and
Luther,
their description
agreed new
Christ,
the Logos or Word of
God,
"promise."
as
It is generally
that the
emergence of
Reformation theology is
as
organ
ically
New
on
related
to a
biblical hermeneutic,
pioneered
a new appropriation of
the Old and
Testaments.68
Luther
in this,
beginning,
early
as
the Lectures
the Psalter of
upon
1513-15,
to invest the
biblical text has
with
that intense concen

as
tration
the figure of Jesus which

theology.69
long
been
recognized
a chief
aspect of
his
In the
preface
to these
lectures, Luther
states
that Christ is
literally
the
sub-
334
Interpretation
and speaker of
sensus
ject-matter faith
the Psalter. The true or

the sense of
proper
understanding
of
the
Psalter is thus the
Christi,
Christ, whereby Christ

according to which
as a
speaks of
directly
with
to the believer through the text. This

medieval approach
emphasis evidences
Luther's
as
break
the
to the
was
text,
David,
of
author and speaker of
the
Psalter,
interpreted
type or
figure
the
Christ,
figurative.70 literal, but Later in the preface, Luther describes Christ as faith itself, that is, as confor mity to God's will. Indeed, the ultimate significance of Scripture for Luther is
so
that his relation to Christ
was not
that
it
presents
Christ precisely
nexus of of
as
faith.
Ebeling
states
succinctly, "Christ is the

"Urform"
text."
And in this
Reformation doctrine
Himself.71
text, Christ and faith justification, God's way

not an
appears the
of
of
the to
reconciling the
sinner
Faith for Luther is
intellectual
nor
analysis and approbation of
specific propositions such analysis. which
concerning God,
episode of
do its
claims and effects yield to
It is that
and
hearing
are
and
believing
him"
in the
penitent's
life in
the
history
fate
of
Jesus
"laid
upon situation of
by
God.72
Luther deepens this incarnation is

return of
sense of the
historical
the
believer in coming
to realize that the Old Testament Psalmist's hope for the Messiah prior to His
repeated
in the faith
longing
as
of
the New Testament Christian for the
Christ
following
His
ascension.
Both testaments
give
witness
to
common experience of
hope
and
trust in an active,
benevolent God;
faithful.73
both
evidence
the striving of historical

a
figures to be
and remain
The Psalmist is thus less

privileged made
shadowy
precursor of
Christ, less
witness and
bearer
of
information God's
as
to a future event, than a
living
to a promise
by
God to those
who are promise
faithful to Him. Both Israelite

in the household
of
Christian
are
united through
under
faith. The Psalmist in

sin and
being
as a
own
the law and seeking the Messiah

Christian.74
is like
no
being
asking forgive
ness
for the
The Psalmist thus
longer
speaks
figuratively,
prophet across
time, but
literally,
in his
own
time and words and out of his
faith
and
hope for God's
work of salvation.
The
key
of
ings it behalf
friend
pledges to
understanding here is that the promise of God grants the very bless the faithful. Christ is God's promise, His saving activity on humanity.75 sinful The locus classicus of the doctrine of promise is
of the
Article IV
and coworker
Apology to the Augsburg Confession, Philip Melanchthon:

be divided into these two it
presents the
chief
written
by
Luther's
All Scripture
promises.
should
doctrines,
it
the
law
and the
In
some places
law. In
others
presents the promise of

will come and promises
Christ;
this
it does
of
either when
it
promises that the

and eternal
Messiah
forgiveness
sins,
justification,
Testament,
eternal
the
Christ
who came promises
life for his sake, or when, in the New forgiveness of sin, justification, and
life.76
Hobbes
articulates this same
understanding
of
the
event of
ing
the
"Word"
not as an eternal noetic
not as the
Stoic
principle of reason
entity existing above in the universe, that is,
Christ in describ the flux of history,

not as
the logos-

principle of the witness
Greeks,77
335
given
but
as
the saving
and
action of
the God
of
history,78
by
writers
in both the Old
New Testaments:
A. What did the Fathers B. The

natural
understand as to word verbum?

or
Son
of
God,
Him begotten
of
God, from
the
beginning,
that
is,
from
everlasting.
not word mean some specific
A. But in that passage, does uttered by God?

B.
word, like
a sound
Absolutely
not!
The Fathers
deny
that in several places.

a word
decree
A. What did they believe then? that it was of God for the establishment of the
privately uttered, like the
eternal
world and the redemption of man?
B. I do
not
know
what
the Fathers felt in this matter. But I doubt
they
thought
that, lest they approach too near the doctrine of the Stoics, whose word heimarmene among the Greeks and fatum among the Latins means the eternal decree.
A. Then, B. I do
the very
place of
as
same as
I said,
what
is the understanding in
sacred
of word on the part of the

"word"
Fathers?
not
know,
except that
language
is
often
to be construed as
thing
which was
decreed
or promised.
done,"
For
often
in the Old Testament, in
"what God
done."
promised was am not accustomed to
we read
"the
word of
God
which
He
spoke was
myself.
But if the
passage
expounding Holy Scripture to anyone but in St. John's Gospel is to be understood in this way, is the very thing which God had ordained to had promised in paradise, then it is no Christ. But how "He
He
was made was made
then I should prefer to seek no further concerning the mystery of the Incarnation.
For if
this
the word
in that
place
come
mere
into
world
for
our redemption and
word, but
mine to
a true
man"
thing
and one with
is
not
inquire
after.
It
suffices me that
then? If I believe that He created the

man
earth and all
my Redeemer. And what other things from nothing and
from the dust
of the
except
ground, shall I not also believe that He was able to take
on
human nature,
I know
how?79
It may
seem remarkable
that
Hobbes,
that most plebeian and heretical of
philosophers,
should express views on
theological matters of such depth and
apparent commitment.
But
alongside
the advances
in
political and natural-sci
entific thought with which corded played
he is credited,
some recognition
the originality
and overall soundness of
in approaching the biblical record, researches into classical thought and experience.
may also be ac understanding which he dis especially in relation to his
And, along with the self-confessed timidity that forms part of our picture of Hobbes the man, we should also mark a characteristic determination, disclosed in his perseverance in defending views in which he had a considerable invest
ment of
intellectual
and emotional
energy,
carried
through
generally to his det
riment and at
times to
his
peril. sought an
For throughout, Hobbes has

political
to describe the relation of religious and
life
so as
to
recognize
inviolable, interior
sphere, in
which
the
336
Interpretation
individual
and
was
private
might approach
the divine in the way

adopt.
and on
the terms
which
his faith
This
judgment have led him to
the irreducible freedom that Hobbes claimed to
and
defended,
a
we
and
it
is
not
too
of
much
identify
and
in the
philosopher of
Malmesbury
dogged de hesitate to
fender
inner freedom
the tender conscience. Nor should
in his theorizing an important branch in the stream of political thought that flows from the Protestant Reformation through him into Anglorecognize
American
political and
legal thought.
It is surely also worthy of note that Hobbes dealt with themes and concerns that have engaged the attention of the modern theologian, following their con
cealment
in the ideal
milieu of
the God of
will and absolute
Enlightenment theology, with its protest against power. The historical approach to Scripture, the
justification in Christ, the drive to recover the proclamation of the the coincident urge to demythologize its theology and free it early from the spell of ancient thought may all be mentioned in this connection.
emphasis on
church and
It is my hope that this introduction and the translation and notes which follow may play a part in advancing an understanding of the dire Hobbes that is
more
complex,
more generous and more subtle
than any as yet given.
Notes
1. Blaeu's letter
Hobbes'
was
located
by
Prof. Francois Tricaud
at
Chatsworth,
the ancestral home of
patrons, the Cavendishes. It is discussed
by
him in "Quelques
contained and
questions souvelees par
la
comparaison
du Leviathan latin
avec
le Leviathan
anglais,"
in Reinhart Koselleck
and
Roman
Schnur,
eds., Hobbes-Forschungen (Berlin: Duncker

versions again
41,
n.
7. Tricaud discusses the two
in his French
Humblot, 1969), 237-44, 240edition of Leviathan, Leviathan
Traite de la matiere, de la forme et du pouvoir de la republique ecclesiastique et civile (Paris: Editions Sirey, 1971), xvi-xxix. In what follows, I have cited from Molesworth's nineteenthEnglish and Latin works, put out by John Bohn in London, except for century edition of the English Leviathan, for which I have relied on C.B. Macpherson's widely available Penguin
edition of
Hobbes'
1968. I have
suffered
consulted
both the Blaeu

of
Hobbes'
and
the Molesworth editions of the Appendix.
2. Hobbes
from
shaking
and
his hands
illegible. In his engaging

Dick (Ann Arbor:
edited, is
and
Brief Lives,
life
of
which eventually rendered his long-time friend John Aubrey gives an
handwriting
affectionate
portrait of the philosopher's
University
Brief Lives, ed. Oliver Lawson Michigan Press, 1957), 147-59; this edition, though heavily
circumstances;
see
Aubrey's
more accessible than some others.

well
The life
of
Hobbes
was
the longest in the collection
has been
regarded, although Wood says in his Athenae Oxonienses that
Aubrey
"was
shiftless person,
Wood,
See
roving and magotieheaded, and sometimes little better than erased"; see Anthony a Athenae Oxonienses Life of Wood, 1 (Oxford: Ecclesiastical History Society, 1847), 152.
also
George Croom Robertson's study in biographical form, Hobbes,

and
(Edinburgh: William Blackwood
Sons, 1905),
and
the recent
Cheap Edition (sic) biography by Arnold A. Rogow,
Thomas Hobbes: Radical in Service of Reaction (New York: W. W. Norton and Company, 1986). 3. Perhaps James Wheldon, servant in the last several years of his life, then the executor of his estate and a major beneficiary under his will.
Hobbes'
4. Du Martel had written in 1657, seeking such an edition, followed by du Bose in 1659 and Sorbiere in 1664. In his letter, Sorbiere promoted Blaeu as the publisher of such an edition. But Hobbes had had dealings with Blaeu prior to this; the Catalogus Universalis of Broer Jansz, a record of the Dutch booktrade catalogues of Amsterdam publications in the period lists
by
1640-52,

him
as
-337
the publisher of a French translation
of
De Cive CFondemens de la Politique
par
Thomas
Hobbes de Cive"), presumably Sorbiere's (itself recently reprinted), in 1650. Blaeu was a very active and prominent Amsterdam publisher, having taken over direction of the publishing firm
following
works abreast of
the
death
of
by Grotius,
work
Vossius
the scientific
his father, Willem Janszoon (1571-1638). Willem Blaeu had published and Barlaeus, in addition to a number of works on cartography; he kept discoveries of the era and had been a student of Tycho Brahe. Joan's most
imposing
volumes of
along this line was the 1663 production of the twelve large and lavishly decorated Le Grand Atlas, dedicated to Louis XIV's minister Colbert. The firm suffered a devas
continued
tating fire in 1672,

with
1712, along Dutch publishers, Elzevier. 5. See Zbigniew Lubienski, Die Grundlagen des ethisch-politischen System von Hobbes (Munich: E. Reinhardt, 1932), 254-73; F. C. Hood, The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes: An
the Leyden house of another of
Hobbes'
"Leviathan"
to publish after Joan's death in 1673 but disappeared in
Interpretation of (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964), 54-56; and Francois Tricaud, Translator's Introduction to Leviathan, xvi-xxviii. For a comparison of the Latin and English texts, see also Julius Lips, Die Stellung des Thomas Hobbes zu den politischen Parteien der grossen
englischen
Revolution (Leipzig: Emst
Wiegandt, 1927), 75-82. Tricaud

Hobbes'
refers
to a
suggestion
made
by
Hood that the disclosure in Blaeu's letter

written
of
work methods
bolsters the thesis that
the untrained secretary had a
text to read
from, for it
Hobbes to
recite
in Latin to him. The

as chapter
unfortunate
Henry
would scarcely have been possible for Stubbe has been conjectured as a possible
source of such a proceeded as

an
far
Latin text; it is certain that in 1656 Stubbe had worked on a translation and had 9. Stubbe was a noted Latinist and, though indiscreet and intemperate,
intimate
of
Hobbes. A
display
of
Stubbe's
erudition
in
Hobbes'
defense
against the
Oxford
Wallis may be found in "An Extract the Controversy between Mr. Hobbes and Dr.
mathematician
of a
Wallis."
Letter concerning the Grammatical Part of See volume 7 of the Molesworth edition,
401-28. But the
extant
to Hobbes as desirable
presumably to return Leviathan for fear that "some

in
a
Stubbe had specifically suggested translations, so it is doubted that Hobbes incorporated his efforts, preferring to his own Latin text. Indeed, Hobbes states (4:317) that he
Latin text does
not contain words which
"converted"
other man might
do it
not
to his
liking."
Stubbe's death is
"Dr. Stubbe
recounted physician
letter
of
Andrew Marvell to William

meane
Popple, dated July 15, 1676:

and
atheist
found dead I
drowned betwixt Bath

Deus."
Bristol. 23
guinnies and
3 broad
pieces
in his
Marvell to William Popple, London, July 15, 1676, (sic) The Poems and Letters of Andrew Marvell, ed. H. M. Margoliouth; vol. 2, Letters, revised by Pierre Legouis with the collaboration of E. E. Duncan-Jones, 3d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971), 425. 6. Of course, this may be taken, as Robertson does, to reflect a later desire for greater conci books on politics grew, from the sion; see Robertson, Hobbes, 197. But, as Tricaud notes, Elements, through the versions of De Cive, to the length of the English Leviathan, and, on this
pockett suppost
drunk,
es magne
Hobbes'
measure, the length of the Latin Leviathan

conjecture on other grounds.
would place
it between these last two,

of this point
as one would
7. I be thine
am
unable of
to follow Professor Tricaud's

chapter
analysis
in
one particular.
will
The
English text
Leviathan,
14,
page
194, he
says,
compares two
formulas: "I
dabo."
that this
The Latin text, found also in the English and "I will give it thee and "Cras tibi hoc The formulas are version, bears the following: "Volo hoc tuum esse comment in the Latin text equivalent in both languages. Tricaud notes the incongruity of that the word volo ("I want") does not have the same sense in both formulas. That word, viz. will,
tomorrow" eras"
tomorrow."
Hobbes'
is
present
in the
second
formula only
as a
language, does
"will"
not use
the auxiliary
future auxiliary in the English text; Latin, as an inflected reference is not to indicate the future tense. But
Hobbes' "will" Hobbes'
to the tense of volo, which
is referring to the moment is that the donative intent shown in the first formula in both languages is present, actual and effective, whereas in the second in both languages the words signify merely an empty promise, a future possibility, uncertain of fulfillment and insufficient to transfer a gift. He follows the common law in this
analysis.
in the second formula. He is certainly not signalled by the word point in time when the donor actually purposes to make a gift.
338
Interpretation
of course possible
Hobbes'
8. It is
had in the
that the resumption of the
Stuart line
on
the English throne in 1660
assuaged
anger
same period as the

wisdom of
Still, in his great history of the Civil War, Behemoth, written Latin Leviathan, his emotions are clearly engaged when he both con
by
1668.
demns the
the Parliamentarians as craft and praises the
first Charles Stuart

more than to
as
"a
man
that wanted no virtue, either of
body
or
mind,
nor endeavored
subjects."
anything
discharge his
England,"
duty
towards
God, in
the well governing of his
9. Thus, in the English text, Hobbes refers to the Civil War as the "late troubles in To be sure, the Latin Leviathan whereas the Latin has "the war which is now being
waged."
refers
at points
to the English edition,

volume.
as
in
chapter
47,
where
Hobbes
speaks
briefly
of the
hopes he had
had for that
10. See Frithiof Brandt, Thomas

vin and
Hobbes'
Hobbes'
Munksgaard, 1927), 166, 168, 171-172, 358. See

Latin works, legi. ";
Hobbes'
Mechanical Conception of Nature (Copenhagen: Le volume 1 of the Molesworth edition of

patrio sermone; ut ab
page xcii:
"Perfeci librum
AnglislPosset
saepe meis,
utiliterque
emphasis added.
1 1. On
in
France
England,"
and
French connections, see Quentin Skinner, "Thomas Hobbes and His Disciples Comparative Studies in Society and History 48 (1965): 153-67.
Blaeu
Hobbes'
12. The
volume which
produced contains eight of
works
in Latin, the
Prob-
lemata Physica, the Six Dialogues against Wallis, De Corpore, De Homine, De Cive, De Natura Aeris, De Principiis et Ratiocinatione Geometrarum, and Leviathan. The book itself is well made, bound in leather, with several illustrations, indicating the care and expense Blaeu took with what
was
clearly
an
item
of rather
limited
popular appeal.
Facing
the title page is an engraved portrait of
Hobbes, at age inscription, En

Each
of
seventy-six,
by
the eminent engraver

philosophia
William Faithome (1616-91). Around it is the
quam modice
habitat
the
works
is
preceded
by
its
own out
title page, and each seems to have been set
(Behold how modestly doth philosophy dwell). anew for this in England
under a
edition.
The
same work was
brought
in the
same year
different imprint; I
al
consulted a
copy of the Dutch edition. 13. Hobbes says that he had been
solicited
"from beyond the
sea"
for the Latin volume,
though he surely also welcomed the opportunity to correct the English volume and to present the text to the learned on the Continent. He also states that he omitted "some such passages as strangers
are not concerned
in";
see
4:317.
error,
cf. as
14. This "most

to varying
gion,"
careless"
Hobbes
refers
to it in the
Appendix,
section
185, is
subject
Richard Sherlock, "The Theology of Leviathan: Hobbes on Reli Interpretation 10 (1982): 43-60, 50-51, and Henning Graf Reventlow, The Authority of the Bible and the Rise of the Modern World, trans. John Bowden (Philadelphia; Fortress Press, 1985), 194-222.
interpretations;
15. Hobbes discussed the
problem of
free
will with
Marquis
of
Newcastle both
men set
their results. A student of
down their ideas in 1646, Hobbes is said to have obtained

without permission.
Bramhall in 1645, and without however
at
the request of the
Necessity
whole
and published
it in 1654
a copy of his Bramhall felt deceived
intending to publish essay Of Liberty and

and published
the
controversy in 1655 under the title A Defence of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity. Hobbes responded the following year with Questions concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chance, Clearly Stated and Debated between Dr. Bramhall, Bishop of Derry, and Thomas Hobbes, of Malmesbury Bramhall then brought out his Castigation of
Hobbes'
.
Animadversions
Hobbes'
Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale, in 1658. Bramhall died in 1663, and final word, An Answer. though written in 1668, appeared posthumously. The gap between 1658 and 1668 in this acrimonious exchange was occasioned, Hobbes says in his preface
and
,
The
to the reader,
was of
by
his ignorance
of the existence of
his Lordship's
writings."
See
volume
of
the
Bramhall's last contribution, "so little talk there Molesworth edition, page 282. The debate is
discussed in Professor Leopold Damrosch's path-marking essay, "Hobbes as Reformation Theo logian: Implications of the Free- Will Journal of the History of Ideas, 40 (1979):
Controversy,"
339-53. On these
and related
points,
see also
J. G. A. Pocock's
article
in Politics, Language and Time: Essays on Political chatology in the Thought of Thomas Thought and History (New York: Atheneum, 1971), 148-201; Dorothea Krook, "Thomas
Hobbes,"
"Time, History
and Es-
1668 Appendix
Truth,"
to
Leviathan
339
Hobbes's Doctrine of Meaning and Philosophy 31 (1956): 3-22; and William B. Glover, "God and Thomas Church History 29 (1960): 141-68, reprinted in Hobbes Studies, ed. K. C. Brown (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1965); and Patrick Riley, "Will and Legitimacy in the Philos
Hobbes,"
ophy
of
Hobbes: Is He
Consent
Theorist?"
Political Studies 21 (1973): 500-522. On Bramhall's
life,
18, below. 16. See volume 4,

see n.
pages
316-18. Seven Philosophical Problems, dated 1662

charge of atheism or and presented
17. In the "episcopal

and
Hobbes'
dedicatory
epistle of the
to
an
Charles, Hobbes
he surely
shows some
sensitivity to the
seeks
heresy,
made perhaps
by
man."
The letter clearly

"apology"
Charles'
support
but is
hardly
a retraction of
his views,
least, defense. For details of this period of life, see Leslie Stephen, Hobbes (London: Macmillan and Co., 1904), 1-70, esp. 60-61. 18. Bramhall had been a highly successful administrator of the affairs of the church in Ireland,
means
to mean, equivocally at
where
he had
gone as chaplain with others
Wentworth in 1633. Severe

royalist and
and
conventional, he
the
suffered the accused
reverses of
of
many
holding
his
Anglican
views
during
1640's, being
Cromwell
treason,
losing
the large holdings in land that had made him a rich man,
having to flee
abroad on
various occasions.
Presbyterians hated the

with reference
name of
"Bishop
Bramble,"
and
called
him
of
the "Irish
Canterbury,"
to the hated and condemned William
Laud, Archbishop
Canterbury. It
in Paris then, within a community of political and religious exiles from En gland, that Bramhall met Hobbes and there began the debate with him on liberty and necessity that would be extended in later years. Bramhall returned to England in 1660 with Charles II; defending
was
his property in Jeremy Taylor

Anglo-Catholic
law
suit at
Omagh, he
see
suffered a paralytic stroke and
died
on
preached poet and
his funeral
sermon.
He has found
a modern champion
June 25, 1663. in the royalist,
T. S. Eliot;
"John
Bramhall,"
in Selected Essays 1917-1932 (New York: Queen Henrietta Maria, Charles might infect had been
poised
Harcourt, Brace 19. Indeed,

and others
Company, 1932), 301-9.

De Cive had already
aroused the suspicions of
appointment as mathematics
Hobbes'
had feared that his
tutor to the young
the royal pupil with atheism. Just prior to his return to to arraign Hobbes for his
which
England, French
authorities
by
then famous and unequivocal attack
on papal authority:
he
was
These fellow
movements against
openly showing friends in France, he had called the pope the king him in part explain his wish to return to England, as he
Charles'
in Leviathan, of the fairies.

confided
to
Edward Hyde, later Lord Clarendon, who himself had a part in court. But, as indicated by his correspondence in the period, Hobbes in the eyes of Hobbes had considered a return to England as early as 1646, when Sorbiere's generous but rather
exile
"discountenancing"
clumsy
gland
Hobbes'
in publishing De Cive caused him, he believed, some difficulty. Ironically, seeming closeness to Charles prejudiced his chances of returning unmolested to the En of the Commonwealth. In the event, he entered England in the winter of 1651, made a
assistance
submission to the
and
Council
of
State
and retired
to
an
active, private life in
resuming and Selden. Although

of
gaining the
a
friendship
metaphor,
and conversation of such men as
London, eventually Davenant, Cowley, Harvey

Homer
and a master
friend
of poets and writers and
himself
a translator of
Hobbes, like many thinkers in the seventeenth century, was harshly critical of the role of emotive elements, images, fantasy and rhetoric as aspects of the rational process. On the use of analogy in theology, see Appendix, section 179 and nn.
English
prose and of
20. This ban figures in the Latin

Hobbes'
Hobbes'
editions of some of
works and
in the
posthumous
publication of
Behemoth
and certain of the texts
21. Robertson be impowered to

profaness,
name of one
with
reports
the entry in the Journal of

which
arising from the exchange with Bramhall. the Commons for Wednesday, October 17, Atheism
as and
1666, ordering "that

or against
the Committee to
the
Bill
such
against
Profaness is
committed and
receive
information touching book

of
books
and
tend to atheism,
blasphemy
the
essence and attributes of
God,
in
particular
the book published in the

and
White
and the
Mr. Hobbs
called
'The
Leviathan,'
to report the
matter
House."
their opinion to the
The bill
passed on
January
31 following,
"Leviathan"
was
then referred to a
Lords, dropped, reintroduced but not finally sent on to the House. See (Cambridge: Harvard Robertson, Hobbes, 193-94, and Samuel Mintz, The Hunting of University Press, 1962), 60ff. The Calendar of State Papers, June 9, 1667, records a letter sent by
select committee of the
340
Interpretation
Charles'
Hobbes to Joseph Williamson, secretary to Henry Bennet, Lord Arlington, Secretary of State, in which Hobbes thanks both men for their mediation in the affair, to which he partly ascribed the favorable treatment he had received. Thomas White, to whom the Journal made refer
ence,
was a
Catholic
priest who
had
spoken
in favor
of
the government of the Protectorate. Like
Hobbes,
he knew well, White denied natural immortality. 22. See Aubrey, Aubrey's Brief Lives, 156.
whom
23. See the entry for September 3, 1668, The (New York: Random House, 1953), 927.
of
Diary
of Samuel
Pepys,
ed.
Henry Wheatley, 2
the
24. This text echoes, in some cases, textually, many elements present Appendix. I consulted the version found in
printed with
of
Somers'
Tracts,
especially the second chapter ed. Walter Scott, Esq. 1680

Hobbes'
(1812), 7:373-81,
"Last
Sayings,"
Scargill's 1669 Recantation

editor of
and the
collection of
made
by
Charles Blount. The first
the tract states that it resulted
directly
from the 1666 commotion, as is likely if its size and complexity are compared to the much more account of the Anthropomorphites is detailed and lengthy text appearing in 1668. But
Hobbes'
in the tract; see Appendix, section 179. Also, there is material in the tract that might supplementary to the Appendix. Held back until after his death, thus subject to correc first and last intentions in tion following the 1668 publication, the tract may thus reflect
more correct
be
seen as
Hobbes'
these
areas. were
25. These issues Settlement

passing
of
still
hotly
contested
was a
in the
period
following
views;
the Restoration Church
1662.
Indeed,
"Hobbism'
term of abuse hurled at many who had more than a

see
Hobbes'
acquaintance with of
religious and ecclesiological
Ecclesiology
the Latitude-men 1660-1689:
Stillingfleet, Tillotson
'Hobbism,'"
and
John Marshall, 'The Journal of
Ecclesiological
History 36
(1985): 407-27.
claim on
26. Hobbes based his
the abolition of the High

of
down
by
the
Long
Parliament. See the discussion

.
this point in
Commission, the court of heresy put Appendix, sections 133-34, and
nn., and sections 1 74ff
and nn.
27. I
cannot agree with earned
ideas that had

there are, but
him the hatred later in his
Robertson that Hobbes has here prudentially toned down some of the and contempt of some of his contemporaries. Some differences
Hobbes'
writings
display
rather
little development
of
his
mature views.
Indeed,
there are certain

years at
fixed
points
growth as a
thinker that Hobbes himself linked to his student
owing to the
whom were
Oxford. And in fact, there was little possibility in the 1660's that he would come to harm, protection of his friends, the Earl of Arlington and King Charles himself, both of
dissembling Catholics;
see
above,
n.
21.
28. See J. Bowie, Hobbes and His Critics: A Study in Seventeenth Century Constitutionalism (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1969), and Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan.
29. Thus, for example, Raymond Polin,
following
the lead of
Professor Leo Strauss, has
said
that, rather than attempt a fully thought out program of lying about his beliefs, Hobbes chose to disguise his true thoughts, hoping his sympathetic reader would read between the lines his true intentions; see Raymond Polin, Hobbes, Dieu et les hommes (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1981), 7-10. See

30. Indeed
n.
67, below.
has already been going on, in writings by A. E. Taylor, Howard Warrender, Quentin Skinner, Carl Schmitt, Paul Johnson, Graf Reventlow, Dorothea Krook, Pocock, Glover, Mintz and others. But the opinion about Hobbes dies very hard.
a re-evaluation
"received"
Hobbes'
own polemical
style, that self-confident,
simpliste and often
brash
approach
to difficult
questions, which more than anything rankled his enemies, is now perpetuated among those who Hobbes' calumniate his name in the face of disconfirming and "constant contrary evidence.
undaunted resolution of
maintaining his
who
opinions,"
own
as
it has been called, is

never
now replicated
in
the assertions of those

repudiated.
attribute to
him doctrines he
taught and opinions he always
31. On the "invidious "Tradition

and
comparison
between tradition
modernity,"
and
on
see
Reinhard Bendix, in Em
York: Oxford
Modernity University Press, 1970), 250-314,

on
Reconsidered,"
Embattled Reason: Essays
Social Knowledge (New
reprinted with considerable modification
battled Reason: Essays
Social Knowledge (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Books, 1988),
341
Theory
sance
179-320. Cf. Roberto Mangabeira Unger, Law in Modern Society: Toward a Criticism of Social (New York: Free Press, 1976), 38ff. See also P. O. Kristeller, Preface (1980), to Renais Thought
and the
Arts (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1980),
vii-x.
32. It
of
seems clear that
Hobbes
aspired to a complete system of principles and
ideas, in
the
the style
the great thinkers of the past; that
is, he
sought a system that would embrace
whole of
phenomena
from the
motion of
bodies,
through
biological life, up to
reading
of
and
including
not
political
behav
ior. It is certainly
to the task of
of
possible to
benefit from
the
a selective
Hobbes, but
wholly
upon
adequate
interpreting
his thought. It is
was once
the custom to let one's eyes
fall
the
pages
the Aeneid to gain
a glimpse of
future;
the sortes Virgilianae served the purposes of several

of a
people,
including
Charles I,
who
said to
have turned to Virgil's description
headless
corpse.
But
this
no one should claim
that Charles had gained an adequate understanding of the Roman poet in
fashion.
33. This
outcome
Hobbes'
currency in
time of an evangelical conception of
is particularly deleterious to historical understanding in view of the wide faith, which by its very nature is less furnish
well-grounded reasons
likely
ing
than other such conceptions to

("Evangelical"
assertions.
is intended here
as that which emphasizes salvation
for assenting to its religious by faith in the aton
death
of
with
ritual.) For
it
Jesus Christ, the authority of Scripture and the importance of preaching as contrasted an appraisal of Max Weber's work on the Protestant concept of faith and the for historical understanding, see Reinhard Bendix, Max Weber: An Intellectual University of California Press, 1977), 55-69, 257-81.
problems
poses
Portrait (Berkeley:
seek
34. In pointing out similarities in thought and approach between Martin Luther and Hobbes, I less to establish an historical dependence of one upon the other than to identify a climate of have
seemed
thought within which to explain what
thought. Nor do I wish to blink important
troubling or at least puzzling differences, as in their views on

existence of
Hobbes'
aspects of
the
Eucharist,
or
the
torments of
anger which
hell,
the culpability of
men
original
sin, the
demons
and
devils
the secret the reli
Luther believed
harbor
against
God.
Many
figures
and movements of
gious past ress of
may have influenced Hobbes, and his views on these matters developed with the prog his thought in a characteristically independent way. That he had debts to Socianism, for
was suggested and
example,
by Leibnitz;
Thomas
see
Its Basis
Its Genesis (Chicago:

of
University
Leo Strauss, The Political Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes: of Chicago Press, 1963), 76, n. 3; see also Peter
Religious Studies 17 (1981): 549-58. Possible influ
as
Geach, "The Religion

ences of
Hobbes,"
Libertinism
on
Hobbes bear consideration, Padua. These
do the intellectual
Hobbes'
antecedents of
Galilean
view of
science
in the
school of
questions are pertinent and
interesting, especially in
so much
religion
thought. But the notion of misunderstanding and even calumny with respect to and language which unites Hobbes, Luther and such medievals as William of Ockham in a
of
filiation
and the
ideas, in its
of natural
religious context and with seems
its
complex
ties to current issues in philosophy

Hobbes'
rise
science,
to me to
more
be
of particular
with
physiognomy as in preparation. 35. The

verted.
a thinker.
I hope to deal
fully
importance in considering these issues in a book-length study,
now
question of context cannot
in the interpretation
Hobbes'
Hobbes'
of
thought has been much contro
But it
be inappropriate to
signalled
consider such concepts as context and own philosophic
intentionality
when
they play
pendix,
a central role as aspects of
equipment, both as historian and as

examples offered
analyst of the
intentions
in language. See among the many

writers of
in the
Ap
sections
1-6, 26, 82, 171.

of
influenced
Hobbes'
36. Thus, for example, Hobbes can doubt whether the by Homer, Hesiod and Virgil in their descriptions
adoption of
the New Testament were
The Authority of
questions of
the
hell; see Appendix, section 27. On Humanist techniques of biblical interpretation, see Henning Graf Reventlow, Bible and the Rise of the Modern World, 194-222, esp. 212ff. Apart from
Hobbes'
biblical interpretation,
the
church
itself,
as evidenced several times
historical way of thinking is applied to the practices of in the Appendix, for example, throughout the com
sections 1-103, in his analysis of liturgical practices, such as the mentary on the Nicene Creed, introduction of the Gloria Patri, section 38, and in the very definition of the church, with its emphasis on the historical context and character of the Christian proclamation, sections 182ff.
342
Interpretation
urges
While Hobbes
a similar task of private no
interpretation
of
the Bible
upon
his reader,
are
as
in
Appendix,
to the
section
103, he in
way invites
public expression of private views
if they
contrary Worms
views promulgated
by
political
authorities; see the discussion
following
on superstition.
37. Compare the in 1521: Unless I

either
view espoused
by
Martin Luther in his famous
address to the
Diet
of
am convinced
pope or
by
the
testimony
alone,
of
the
Scriptures
well
or
by
clear reason
(for I do
not
trust
in the
in
councils am
since
contradicted
themselves), I
bound
by
known that they have often erred and the Scriptures I have quoted and my conscience is
anything,
since
it is
captive
to the Word of God. I

go against conscience. of the
cannot and will not retract
it is
neither safe nor
right to
Quoted in "Career
acceptance of
Reformer
II,"
Luther's Works,
ed.
and
trans.
George W. Forell, 32
consistent with an
(Philadelphia: Fortress
Press, 1958), 112. Such

is
not
a view of
Scripture is
fully
the biblical miracles; Hobbes
view, espoused among many others
by
Hume. To be sure, Hobbes affirms the traditional Thomas Aquinas, that claims for miracles should be tested.
power
They
are not
in any
case
the result of special
in the
miracle
worker, but God's direct and
special
related
boon to
make manifest
points, see the recent
his mission; see Leviathan, pp. 473-74. For a discussion of some debate between Professors Gary Habermas and Antony Flew, Did
ed.
Jesus Rise from the Dead?: The Resurrection Debate,

and
Terry
L. Miethe (San Francisco: Harper
Row, 1987).
Hobbes'
dramatis personae in the Appendix are mere conveniences 38. Appendix, section 46. to express and discuss his ideas; they lack a consistent pattern of advocacy or argumentation and are made to appear rather dim by turn. Also, the interlocutors are allowed to retain opposed opin
ions,
rather
than coming to agree
on a
given, disputed
point.
Thus,
the Appendix differs from

a result which stems
dialogues
the other.
which
Hobbes
wrote
in the
same period on natural scientific
matters,
presumably from the
differing
56.
subject
matters, science in the one case, religion, that
is,
opinion, in
39. Appendix,
section
40. See P. O. Kristeller, "The Immortality of the Renaissance Thought and its Sources (New York: Columbia University Press, 1979), 181-96. This essay first appeared in the volume Renaissance Concepts of Man and Other Essays (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1972).
41. As
ancient and aratae).
an
Soul,"
historian
of
ideas, Hobbes
errs
in
failing
and
to recognize the distinction known to

separated substances
medieval and
Angels
philosophy between the demons would also figure

of the
soul
(substantiae
sep-
as ranks within at
the
hierarchy
of separated sub
stances, but Hobbes disposes
first
by
referring to them demons he
times as messengers sent
by
God to
declare His will,
rather
than as the
immaterial, intellectual
4-6
and
substances
Appendix,
calls
sections
188-90. The
existence of
counters
by
described in the tradition; referring to St. Paul, who fail to

give an account of
them nothing;
Appendix,
sections
181. That Hobbes
should
does justice to the traditional way of thinking is not surprising; a good deal originality of his thought stems from the violence he does to that of others.
that
the
vigor and
42. This
against the
notion
is
not
new
in Hobbes. Reginald Scot

and
(15387-99)
makes
the same charge
Roman clergy in his Discourse of Devils

you shall understand
Spirits:
And first
that
they hold
that all the soules in heaven may come downe
and appeare
to
us when
they list,
be
and assume anie
they)
such soules should not
perfectlie
happy.
body saving their owne: otherwise (saie They saie that you may know the good
hath
a
soules
from the bad hath
verie easily.
For
damned
soule
very heavie
and sowre
looke; but
a sainte's soule
a cheerful and a meerie countenance:
these also are white and shining,
the other cole black. And these damned soules also may come
although
up
out of
hell
at
their pleasure,
Abraham
made
Dives beleeve the

soules
contrarie.
They
affirme
that damned soules walke
oftenest: next unto
they
be
saie
that in the old
them, the lawe
soules of purgatory: and most seldome
did
seldom appear; and after

shall
seene more:
in the time
of grace
they
be
most
the souls of saints. Also doomesdaie they shall never frequent. The walking of these souls
1668 Appendix
(saith Michael
to
Leviathan
343
he)
Andraeas) is
a most excellent argument
for the
proof of
purgatory; for (saith
those souls have testified that which the popes have

not onlie such a place of other satisfactorie
affirmed
in that
behalfe;
to wit, that there is masses, and such
purgatory, but that
they
are released
from thence
by
work; whereby the
goodnes of
the masse is also ratified and confirmed.

to
Quoted
by
Illusions
to
Samuel Hibbert, Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions, or An Attempt Their Physical Causes (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1824), 160-61.
Trace Such
43. Emphasis added; Leviathan, pp. 638-39. The impact of these religious ideas on political behavior in the Tudor and Stuart periods cannot be doubted; for example, it was the demolition of purgatory that had served Henry VIII as pretext for the spoliation of the vast property of the
chantries and monasteries of
England.
Hobbes'
691-92. Note Hannah Arendt's to Aristotle for the doctrine of separated essences:
pages
44.
Leviathan,
comment on
offer of an excuse
In the Leviathan (chap. 46) Hobbes explains that "disobedience may lawfully be punished in them, that against the laws teach even true For is not "leisure the mother of philosophy; and Commonwealth the mother of peace and leisure"? And does it not follow that
philosophy."
the
Commonwealth
will act
in the interest
of
philosophy
when
it
suppresses a truth which
undermines peace?
an enterprise which is so necessary for his own peace of body and soul, decides to write what he knows "to be false Of this Hobbes suspected Aristotle of all people, who according to him "writ it
Hence
the
truth-teller, in
order to cooperate
in
philosophy."
as a
thing
consonant
to,
and corroborative of
[the
Greeks']
religion;
Socrates."
fearing
the fate of
It
never occurred
to
Hobbes that
the search
for truth
would
be self-defeating if its
conditions could
be
guaranteed
turn out to
the real
be
liar like
Hobbes'
only by deliberate falsehoods. Then, indeed, everybody may Hobbes' Aristotle. Unlike this figment of logical fantasy,
to leave Athens when he came to fear the
Aristotle
was of course sensible enough
fate
of
Socrates; he
was not wicked enough to write what
stupid enough to solve
his
problem of survival
by destroying
he knew to be false, nor was he everything he stood for.
Quoted from Hannah Arendt, 'Truth and Between Past and Future: Eight Exercises in Political Thought, enlarged ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1968), 297, n. 3. But Hobbes too was sensible, nor did he assert what he knew to be false. And, when he disagreed with the officially
sanctioned
Politics,"
opinion, he
was able
to make his disagreement
known,
all the while
for example, see Appendix, sections 94 and 95. The someone indicates criticism of the adequacy
Hobbes'
sarcastic reference of the scholastic
to virtues
respecting the law; into

"poured"
doctrine
of
infused
grace
(gratia infusa) to account for see below, n. 75.
and
teach obedience, that
is,
to serve as a
basis
of political
obligation;
45. On a contemporary of Hobbes', see Etienne Gilson's study of debts to Thomas Aquinas, Etudes sur le role de la pensee medievale dans la formation du systeme cartesien, 3d ed. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1967). 46. Brandt, Thomas Mechanical Conception of Nature, 129-42, 161 ff
Hobbes'
.
Descartes'
47. The 48.

apart well
studies of
Strauss
and
Robertson
remain
fundamental in this
area.
Hobbes'
polemical opponents some references
from
to
Thomas'
among the schoolmen surely included Thomas Aquinas, but, idea of the nunc stans, there is little evidence as to how
Hobbes knew him he

calls
or other
medievals, though he is always

a
happy
to dismiss school philosophy
as vain and of
Duns Scotus
blockhead. He may have

scholar at
contented
himself
with
the
knowledge
after
these authors that he had gained as a
Oxford,
replied
though he says in his autobiography that,

expanded
while
there, he
preferred
catching
crows
to studying. He continued and
his reading
leaving Oxford,
but
Aubrey
quotes
him
as
having
to the assertion that he was

as
not well read
that, had he read as much as other men, he would have known Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, he says of
the Schoolmen
little
as other men.
Still, in
is
more
the
a certain
problem, "It
than
or metaphysicians can understand; whose writings have troubled my head more than have done, if I had known that amongst so many senseless disputes, there had been so few lucid intervals"; 5:342. The Appendix itself gives some evidence of his reading of the Fathers,
they
should
but unfortunately nowhere does he devote the attention to them or to the medievals that is shown to Bellarmine in Leviathan. In any case, a close reading of Aquinas would have revealed his rejection
344
of
Interpretation
position
presumptive target in discussing the doctrine of incorporeal substances; see R. J. Henle, Saint Thomas and Platonism: A Study of the and Texts in the Writings of Saint Thomas (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1956), esp. 397on
the Platonic
the soul,
Hobbes'
"Plato''
"Platonici"
402. 49. Appendix, 50. Appendix,

section section
56.
54. Nature too is be.
of natural
of course
God's artifact; that is why it

analysis of
cannot
be
known,
51
.
as
geometry
and politics can
Hobbes'
rejection of
the doctrine
should
immortality and the

in the
Arianism
which
he
conducts
in the Appendix
be
understood
context of a
continuing tradition
of
thought. Paul Tillich discusses both in

created out of
respect of
God's
creation of the world ex nihilo:
"Being
nothing means having to return to nothing. The stigma of having originated out of Arius' on every creature. This is the reason why Christianity has to reject is impressed nothing doctrine of the Logos as the highest of the creatures. As such he could not have brought eternal
life. And this

must affirm
also
is the
reason
why
Christianity
life
instead the doctrine

that
of eternal
Tillich, Systematic Theology, 1 (Chicago:

52. It is Scripture in
Hobbes'
the doctrine of natural immortality and by God as the power of being-itself See Paul University of Chicago Press, 1967), 188.
must reject
given
often said
interpretations
of
Scripture
are
unorthodox, but the
assertion
often rests on prior
judgements, usually
unarticulated, as to the nature of orthodoxy and the use of

and
relation
to church tradition. In the light of this common use that Luther
Hobbes
make of a passage
should
yield
in arguing a controversial point, that bald assertion cannot be supported and to better analysis and historical research into contemporary traditions of biblical
hermeneutics. 53. Cited in Norman T. Bums, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton (Cambridge: Har University Press, 1972), 30-31. In saying that hell is a grave or pit, Luther is referring to the
vard
Hebrew
word Gehenna, the name of a ravine, the valley of Hinnon, which served as a place of worship of the Semitic god Moloch; see Luke 12:5. Note that Luther retains a metaphorical element in describing the death of the soul as a Hobbes obviates the metaphorical element.
"sleep."
54. Emphasis added;

28-29. Luther's
cited
mention of vain
in Norman T. Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to Milton, "human recalls his stricture that men are deluded in
dreams"
thinking
doctrine
nature.
that their sins can be forgiven apart from the redemption offered
of natural
by
Christ. For him, the
immortality
stems
from human
pride and
the desire to slip the
bonds
of
human
Lutheranism
55. See Werner Elert, The Structure of Lutheranism: The Theology and Philosophy of Life of Especially in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, trans. Walter A. Hansen (St.
Louis: Concordia
and
Publishing House, 1962), l:20ff.,
and
John S. Dunne, A Search for God in Time
(London: Macmillan Company, Collier-Macmillan Ltd., 1967, 1969), 83ff. 56. Atheism was rarely encountered in Luther's or even Hobbes' day; see G. E. Aylmer, England," "Unbelief in Seventeenth-Century Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-
Memory
century History Presented to Christopher Hill, eds. Donald Pennington Clarendon Press, 1978), 22-46. See also Michael Hunter, "Science
and and
Keith Thomas (Oxford:
Heterodoxy: An Early in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, eds. David C. Lindberg and Robert S. Westman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 437-60. Gassendi 's famous estimate as to the number of atheists in Paris was either exaggerated or based on a popular Modern Problem
Reconsidered,"
meaning of the term. 57. Professor Sherlock is correct, I believe, in asserting that Hobbes recognizes that man is inevitably religious; see Richard Sherlock, "The Theology of Leviathan: Hobbes on Religion," 43-
60,
esp.
46ff. But I
cannot agree
that Hobbes
reinterprets
Christianity
cynically
so as
to make it
more conformable
Hobbes
permit,
to his political designs than any orthodox interpretation would otherwise permit. was more traditional in perspective and conservative in action than that project would
which was
both unnecessary
and
hopeless in any
case.
history
of the church and
philosophy to which Nor does it seem likely that Hobbes

countrymen as
monarchy in England Hobbes aspired, if they did
supplied materials that

not contribute
Both Protestant theology and the fit into the comprehensive its very in
genesis and articulation.
to
presumed so upon the good sense and adn
forbearance
This is
to
of
his
to have
innovated freely, recklessly
hypocritically
religion.
impute
1668 Appendix
to
to
Leviathan
345
Hobbes
an unsupported
degree
of
isolation from his fellows

thinker is not
and an
unreasonably
subversive
purpose.
Hobbes'
project as a political
likely
to have been what reason and experi
ence showed
him he
could not and would not wish to accomplish.

ed.
58. Cf. Hobbes, De Cive, also Leo Strauss, The Political

see
Tillich's essay, "The Two
Philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, Types of a Philosophy of

and note
Howard Warrender (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 234. See 76-78. On the question of atheism,
Religion,"
in
Theology
Oxford
University Press, 1975), 10-29,
the discussion of Hegel's atheism
of Culture (Oxford: by Paul Lake
land in The Politics of Salvation: The Hegelian Idea of the State (Albany: State York Press, 1984), 105-123. 59. In fact,
point and
Hobbes'
University
than
of
New
account of
the origin of religion includes

use of
more motives
"imagine"
fear;
on
this
in this passage, as well as several other valuable insights, see Paul J. Johnson, "Hobbes's Anglican Doctrine of Salva in Thomas Hobbes in His Own Time, eds. Ralph Ross, Herbert W. Schneider and Theodore Waldman (Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1974), 102-25, esp. 114-18.
a of
for
discussion
Hobbes'
the words
"feign"
and
tion,"
60. Appendix,
sophical
sections
182-83. Hobbes had

and
given a
fuller
explanation of
his
of
views
in Philo
Rudiments concerning Government edition, pp. 185ff.:
Society, found in
volume
the Molesworth
Many
it is
object
find fault that I have taken,

as
referred atheism
to
imprudence,
and not to
injustice;
yea,
by
some
so
if I had
not
declared
myself an
further,
that since I
had
elsewhere said
enemy bitter enough against atheists. They that it might be known that there is a God by
natural
and
reason, I ought to have acknowledged that

not
they
sin at
least
against the
law
of
nature,
only guilty of imprudence, but injustice also. But I am so much an enemy to atheists, that I have both diligently sought for, and vehemently desired to find some law whereby I might condemn them of injustice. But when I found none, I inquired next what
therefore are
name
God himself
said
give
to
men so
detested
by
him. Now God
speaks
thus
of
the atheist: The
fool hath
in his
heart,
there is no
God. Wherefore I
placed
their sin in that rank which
God himself
refers
to. Next I show them to be enemies of God. than that of an unjust man.
But I
conceive
the name
of
the enemy to be
under that notion
somewhat sharper
Lastly
affirm that
they may
be
justly
punished
both
by God,
and supreme magistrates; and

might
therefore
by
no means excuse or extenuate this sin. natural reason

might
Now that I have said, that it

as
be known
meant
by
out
that there is
except
know this;
a God, it is so to be understood, not they think, that because Archimedes by
if I had
that all men
natural reason
found
it follows thence, that every one of the vulgar could have found out as much. I say therefore, that although it may be known to some by the light of reason that there is a God; yet men continually engaged in pleasures or seeking of
what proportion
the circle hath to the square,
riches
do It
and honor; also men it; lastly fools, in which
that are not wont to reason aright, or cannot

number are
do it,
or care not
to
atheists, cannot know this.

of a natural conclusion
would
be difficult for Hobbes to

ancient philosophers
point
deny
the possibility
at
knowledge
centuries
of the existence of a of
deity
result.
since
had
arrived
are
this
before the coming
Christ. 61
Hobbes'
here is that few
likely
to spend the mental effort required to reach this
Tillich in
makes a
the point that every religion
is
expressed
religion; see
cannot
of
religion,
Christianity
at
is based on a revelation and that every revelation his Systematic Theology, 3:104. In this sense, even as a revealed be distinguished as such from other religions, and I believe this under
definition
of religion
standing is
emphasis on
Hobbes'
the
root
in the Appendix,
sections
182ff. His
the
proclamation of
the early
church stems
in his
recognition of sections
the wisdom and

and
legitimacy
of
from this realization, which is also implied Roman laws proscribing Christianity; see Ap
pendix,
115,
n.,
and
132-33.
"martyrs"
62. Hobbes often points out that, in the case of Christianity, as miracles and visions ceased, the faith has generally been propagated by the recounting of stories first told by (martyres), that is, as the Greek makes clear, by witnesses. Martyrdom itself is a means of giving witness to one's faith. The mediation of salvation is thus made to depend on preaching of the promise God has
made
to His people, Israel first and then the
nations.
That Hobbes
urges
royal
licensing
of
346
Interpretation
is
consistent with
preachers
historical precedent, and, though
subject
to
error and vagaries of pol
icy, the Christian sovereign's public theology is not likely to require denial of the central tenet of Christianity, namely, that Jesus is the Christ. And, finally, public profession of false doctrine does not bind the Christian, whom Hobbes encourages to seek the Scriptures for his salvation. "For intemall Faith is in its own nature invisible, and consequently exempted from all humane jurisdic tion"; Leviathan, 550.
falsity
63. This is why Hobbes can insist that the definition of heresy in of the disputed doctrine; see Appendix, sections HOff.
no
way
and
pertains
to the truth
or
section
64. See F. C. Hood, The Divine Politics of Thomas Hobbes, 38ff. 15. 65. It is
problematic whether
124ff.;
cf.
Appendix,
early Christianity was a superstition according to this definition; in the Appendix, section 132, had called it a sect. Of course, as Hobbes points out in that discussion, what Roman society reprehended in their behavior was the refusal to
Hobbes
earlier
Christians'
comply
with
the recognized demands of the Roman state,
especially in the
matter of sacrifice
to the
divinity
Roman
of
the emperor. As the emperor Trajan and his magistrate
Pliny
reflect
in their famous
exchange of
letters,
the exclusivity at the
root of
Christian
ruler cult.
monotheism was opposed
in
spirit
to
syncretism and
in
practice
to the Roman
The
miracles
the
Christians
claimed
posed no threat
the ancient world

that
it
was an
Romans; they differed only in some particulars from similar claims made in religions. Certainly, early Christianity was a superstition in this sense, illicit, that is, unauthorized, minority opinion. Its establishment by Constantine as a
to the
by
licit
religion permitted certified
by
the state made it an authorized religious opinion; but his
action
no
more
the truth of its claims than a sovereign's interpretation determines the true sense of
as
Scrip
ture.
For,
Hobbes
said
in his
answer
to
Bramhall, "To obey is
one
thing, to believe is
another;''
4:339-41. 66. See Appendix, 67. On this point,

sections pretive embarrassment creased with section see the
15. discussion
of
heresy
in the
second chapter of
the
Appendix,
as an
esp.
110-11. Professor Strauss in

order
suggests
that Hobbes has sought out this
difficulty
a
inter
to present a "pretended revealed

atheism.
theology,"
tendency
seems
that in
the progress of his thought and, presumably,
This judgement
harsh to
me with regard
both to
Hobbes'
purposes and
his
character.
If
Hobbes'
writings evidence a shift
away from reason toward revelation, I believe it results from the organic development of his thought. But see discussion of the knowledge of God gained through natural reason, given
Hobbes'
above, n.
60,
and the
discussion
of
John Damascene, Appendix,
section
179,
and nn.
68. See James S. Preus, "Old Testament Promissio and Luther's New Harvard Theological Review 60 (1967): 145-61, followed by the same author's From Shadow to Promise: Old Testament Interpretation from Augustine to the Harvard
Hermeneutic,"
Young
is
Luther (Cambridge:
Belknap
Press
of
University Press,
1969).
Preus'
point of view
criticized
by
Scott H. Hendrix, Ecclesia in

and
Via: Ecclesiological Developments in the Medieval Psalms Exegesis

Psalterium"
the
"Dictata
super
(1513-1515) of Martin Luther (Leiden: Brill, 1972). 69. See Werner O. Packull, "Luther and Medieval Mysticism in
Renaissance
and
the
Context
of
Recent Histo
riography,"
Reformation 6 (n.s. 1982): 79-93.

and
70. See
Preus,
"Old Testament Promissio

von
Luther's New
Hermeneutic."
71. Gerhard Ebeling, "Die Anfange

Kirche 48 (1951): 172-230, 147, n. 9.
meneutic,"
Luthers
Hermeneutik,"
Zeitschrift fur Theologie

and
und
cited
by
Preus in "Old Testament Promissio

see
Luther's New Her
72. On the "evangelical
onset"
(evangelischer Ansatz),
Elert, The Structure of Lutheran
ism,
passim.
should in no way be thought to suggest that Luther approximated the ideal historical scholarship, whatever impetus he may have given to its ultimate development. Quite the opposite, he became an important and influential innovator in the apocalyptic interpreta
of modern
73. This discussion
tion of
the future.
and the Prophecy ofElias, the chief texts used by Protestants to foretell See Katharine R. Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530-1645 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979), 9-23.
Revelations, Daniel

74. In his sermons, Jean Calvin
patriarchs, though his characteristic
metaphor of reflects a similar, emphasis
347
high
evaluation of
the faith of the Jewish

rather than
is
on the notion of
election,
Luther's
the household of faith. The accuracy of the interpretation Of law (Torah) given Luther on the basis of his understanding of the Pauline epistles has recently become a subject
rather
by
of
intense interest.
"offering"
75. Elert discusses this aspect of Luther's thought in these terms: "When the Gospel, that is, information concerning Christ, is designated again and again as a promise, the (offerre) and the (promittere) are not something that is then added to the historical information. No, this information itself is the Gospel. The historical indicative becomes a promise by being
"promising"
announced to me.
historica) a Lutheranism, 1:205. The

to the Protestant
(fides
When it turns to me, I hear the "for faith" (fides salvifica)"; emphasis "saving
point
on
me"
which makes of
the historical faith
has
particular reference
See Elert, The Structure of to the doctrine of "infused in relation

added.
grace"
teaching
justification
and
sanctification;
see
above, n. 44.
highly regarded Revelation and Theol ogy: The Gospel as Narrated Promise (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1985), 96 ff. 77. While it is true that the capacity of words to reflect divine truth is deprecated by Hobbes,
and
76. Quoted
discussed
by
Ronald F. Thiemann in his
as
is the
power of reason
itself (see the discussion
above and
Hobbes'
should not
be thought
evidence
for
secularization on of
part.
in the Appendix, section 56), this See Appendix, section 56 and

Century,"
nn.; cf. Margreta de
Grazia, "The Secularization
Language in the Seventeenth

the book of nature from
Journal
was
of the
History
of Ideas 41 (1980): 319-29.
Uncoupling
Holy
Scripture
consistent with the
demands both
with a certain
of natural scientific
knowledge
and of evangelical
faith,
though
surely incompatible
theological naturalism that neither the new science nor Protestant

Things,"
theology
bridge
would support.
See
in Grammatical
Theory University Press, 1976), 111-53,
G.A. Padley, "The Seventeenth Century: Words versus in Western Europe 1500-1700: The Latin Tradition (Cambridge: Cam
also esp.
141ff.
78. Although Hobbes may not be religiously musical, to use Weber's phrase, I am unable to endorse Professor Damrosch's judgement, reached also by Comelio Fabro, that he had no real comprehension of God as an active and personal being, that he realized in thought either a sump
tuous facade or a mere
principle of
attraction, like an unmoved

of the
mover.
"Hobbes
as
Reformation Theologian: Implications
Free-will
Controversy,"
See Leopold Damrosch, Jr., Journal of the
of Ideas 40 (1979): 339-53, and Comelio Fabro, God in Exile: A Study of the Internal to the Present Day, trans. Dynamic of Modern Atheism, from Its Roots in the Cartesian and ed. Arthur Gibson (Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1968). Hobbes, like medieval nominal
History
"Cogito''
ists before him, drew a distinction between God's ordained power (potentia ordinata) and His absolute power (potentia absotuta), precisely in order to vindicate God's absolute sovereignty as creator of the world, as well as His grace and faithfulness after having chosen a way for men to
take to salvation; see
79. Appendix,
sections
Leviathan, 473, and Appendix, sections 61 ff., 183, 19-26; cf. sections 202-3.
and nn.
Appendix to
Leviathan1
CHAPTER 1. ON THE NICENE CREED
[1]A. I
should
like
you to explain
the Nicene Creed to
me.2
ask not so
that
I may grasp the stand how these
matters
themselves
with
my
intellect, but
the
so
that I may under
words of
the faith agree
with
Holy
Scriptures.3
[the Nicene Creed Let Maker begin
as a statement
offaith,
sections
1-6]
the Father almighty,
us
with
these words, "I believe in one
God,
.
of
heaven
all,
and
earth, and of
all
things
invisible."
visible and
.
First
of
what
. .)?
is this expression, Credo in.

For I do
not recall
authors.
or
in Greek,
pisteuo eis
(I believe in.
elsewhere
having
encountered this construction
among the Greek

and credo
read credo alicui and pisteuo
tini (I
believe someone) be
so).4
ita
esse and pisteuo
houtos
einai
(I believe it to
[2]B. That way "to (this
articles of the creed.
point)."
speaking is proper to those expressing agreement as to the For the preposition eis (to) signifies, among other things, Thus, when one reads pisteuo eis theon patera (I believe in
of
God the Father)

that same
signifies a
and so
forth, if, instead

thing), it
of
theon.
(God.
.),
we substituted
the word tauto (the same

point,"
would
be
equal
to as saying, "I believe to
or, "I believe

of the
do."
as much as you
The
preposition eis
thus
setting
boundaries
of
the
articles which one must
believe;
clearly, it shows the extent of the agreement with the Council reached
by
those
subscribing to the It should not surprise

than in the
confession
creed.5
you
then if you have not
read
this locution
as
elsewhere
of
faith.6
For it is the
one and
believe that God exists, that He is

omnipotent and so
forth. You may also read the Gospel); this means, I believe the Gospel, that is, the preachers (to).7 Gospel; except, in this case, the Greek has en (in), not eis
[3]A. "God is the
the logicians
say.
Father,"
saying that you the same, that He is the Father, Credo in evangelio (I believe in
same
thing
of
the
"God is
omnipotent,"
etc.,
are
propositions,
is,"
as
They
have their
each.
subjects and
predicates,
and some name
is
clearly
can
attributed to
God in is
understand what name
being
But in this affirmation, "God I do attributed to God. For I do not think that
not
one
say, that God is

one
is,
and
to say, God
is,"
[4]B. When
says, "God
is God, is the word is

"is"
to no
purpose.8
a substantive verb
(verbum
interpretation,
Spring 1991,
Vol. 18, No. 3
350
Interpretation
which contains
substantiate),
both the
copula and
the
predicate;9
it is found
means the same among the Greeks and Latins alike. Thus the saying, "God thing as that God exists, or, if we resolve the substantive verb to its parts, that
is,"
He is
being (ens), ho
on
(sic);]0
that
is, He is something
is
called a
which
real,
or
not
merely
an
appearance
(phantasma),"
like that
which
specter,
like the
spirits
(daemones)
nothing.12
worshipped
by
the pagans, those
the Apostle Paul calls
[5]A. Yes, I remember that the apostle calls the graven images (idola) noth heathen.13 ing but not that he says the same thing of the spirits (daemonia) of the [6]B. Do you think it is those images graven in gold and ivory and wood
that he calls
under nothing?
It is
rather an
those spirits
(daemonia)
is
that
are worshipped
the images.
Besides,
idol properly
that
so called
not
the material
thing
itself, but
the
apparition
(phantasma),
is,
the idea or conception of the their gods were
thing. It was
in
order to reflect their
ideas
of what
like
that the
Greeks fashioned the images; they rarely adopted the ideas or conceptions of their gods from the images God too is distinguished from names
themselves.'4
by
that word,
being
(ens). For the thing

know that the
man
is
one
thing; the
name
man,
another.
Moreover,
Greeks
ancient
verb.15
"is,"
you should
word
commonly
was
employed
unknown
by
the
and
Latins
as a copula who
in propositions,
were
completely
to the
Hebrews,
And in
accordingly
accustomed
to using a substantive
signal
place of
the copula in every affirmation, to
what
the
grammarians call
predication,
they merely
"is"
added one name
to
another.
For the
as
Greeks
"&"
and
Latins, however,
is
not a
verb, but a
"is"
conjunction.16
For just
[the
ampersand]17
signifies that
the names between which it is placed are
different things, so the conjunction signifies that the names be tween which it is placed are names of the same thing. Thus, the Hebrews could
names of
like essence, entity, being, etc., nor their equivalents. In Latin, one says, "The land was The speaker of Latin does not hear the empty"; in Hebrew, "this empty
neither
have
those
names
that are
derived from the
"is,"
copula
land."
"was"
in the Hebrew
sentence
but only
"something
existing."'8
[God
the
Father,
sections
7-8]
as
[7] A. What
was made
must one
believe
to this word "creator"? Is it that this world
rial.19
not as in Aristotle, from pre-existing mate For it is expressly said in the Holy Scriptures that all things were made from nothing. Even Aristotle, who says the world is contradicts him
eternal,20
from nothing at all? [8]B. Clearly so, from nothing;
self, for one speaks
Thus the
and
only as that out of which something is this, that God is the maker of all things, out of nothing, that, in consequence, He has it in His own power to exist and not from any
made.21
of material
creed says

other
351
entity; hence
also
that He exists from eternity and, inasmuch

existence upon
as
there was
which
no one who
will cause
bestowed His
not
Him,
so shall there
be nothing
God is thus from everlasting to But whatsoever things are created are not from everlasting, precisely be cause they are created. They shall be to everlasting, however, in such form and kind as God wills. For the heaven and the earth shall be made anew, and,
to exist.
everlasting.22
Him
though the world will
bum,
still
it
will not
be brought to
naught:
those things
that are real will endure.
For God,
who was made neither
by
anyone nor
nor
by
Himself,
cannot
be
changed or suffer
alteration,
neither
from Himself
from
any other. Indeed He is changeless and utterly without parts, devoid of that Aristotelian All these attributes, simple, immutable, and eternal, as
mixing.23
they
are
deduced from the
words of
the creed, so are

words.
they
also predicated of
God in the
Holy
Scriptures in those very

sections
[God the Son,

[9]A. "And in
9-35]
only-begotten
one
Lord, Jesus Christ,
Son
God."
of
Why
not
was it necessary to say "only-begotten"? [10]B. Because there were heretics in that time
who
taught that Christ was
the begotten Son
of
taught that Christ
was
God, but His adoptive son. And there were others who called the Son of God in the Sacred Scriptures in a sense
to all the
faithful,24
different from that
applied
even
though He is often said
expressly throughout the Sacred Scriptures to be both

of
begotten
and
God, born
of
His Father before

of
all ages.
Wherefore
one must
believe that Christ is God

not made.
God, Light
(factus)?
Light,
true God of true
God, begotten,
[11]A. What is the difference between

"made"
"begotten"
(genitus)
"made"
and
[12]B. In saying
out of
(factus),
we understand
something
made
by
God
is, a creature. For, although living creatures may be said to be both created (creata) and begotten (genita), when we say they are created (creata), this is understood in relation to God the Creator, who created the first
nothing, that
male and
when we
female in every say

a
species out of the earth which
He had
created.
But
living
creature
relation
is begotten
to the
(genitus) in
the natural way, this
should
be
understood
in
first things that

Virgin.25
were
created, as
matter. of
But
when
Christ is
said of
to be
begotten,
of
this means begotten
(genitus)
God
the Father
Himself,
the matter
of
the
[13] A.
tion
What is "Light
not
Light"? For it If the
seems
to me that light is an appari
(phantasma),
in
something that exists. For example,

surface of the glass
interpose
to
all
you.26
a glass
between
your eye and a candle. a certain one
is
composed of
planes arranged
way, many candles true candle there
will appear
many Still we
know
that there
is only
and
thus that
the others are

noth
empty apparitions ing. And it is not that any
(phantasmata), idols
one of
(idola),
that
is,
as
St. Paul says,
those candles
is truer than the
rest
as
352
Interpretation
appearance; the true candle, the one placed there in the beginning,
regards their
is simply
the
none of the candles
those other
that appear. It remains itself, the cause of all (imagines). For this reason, Aristotle distinguished it from images
apparition
(phantasma) by
the
substance.27
means of
the word
hypostasis,
and
as though
the
thing itself "stood

word
under"
image, lurking. The Latins

Thus both Greeks
turned this
Greek
into the
word
Latins distinguish the
true
thing, standing seems to stand on its
on
its own, from the appearance (phantasma), which own but does not and is not an entity. Is this not the true
(apparentia)?28
distinction between the thing itself and its appearance [14]B. Yes, it is. But the Fathers of the Church in those times, both before and after the Council of Nicaea, seem in their writings to interpret the word
hypostasis in intelligible to
of a
another
all
metaphor
manner, in their desire to make the mystery of the Trinity Christians. And they thought this could best be done by means (similitudo) of fire, light and heat. Considering these three
things as all the same,
they
ascribed
fire to the Father, light to the Son

an apt correspondence
and
heat but
to the
Holy
Spirit.29
This
metaphor would perhaps neither
bear
to the reality
for the fact that

nor
fire
nor
the brightness of light nor heat are substances;
did they
seem so
to the Fathers
among them, Man extinguishes fire

man
unless perhaps and
themselves, especially to the Aristotelians fire is taken to mean the substance being burned.
and
light
heat
as
he
pleases.
But
weak as an agent as
is it credible, to believe that he could extinguish a true, substantial creature, created by God Omnipotent, or reduce it to nothing. Thus, as often as the Fathers themselves drew that comparison in
is,
we are not
commanded,
nor
their writings,
they immediately
For they
31
.
added
that
it
should not
be
accepted as could
though
none
it
were a suitable exposition of

it.30
that great mystery,
but that they

nature of
find
better than
all agreed
in this, that the
God,
that of the
Trinity
and of
the angels and, as Athanasius added, of the rational soul, were
incomprehensible
mystery
and
[15] A. Indeed,
at all.
of
to me it was wrong
what
for them to have
sought to explain that
For
is it to
explain a
nonmystery
it? For
faith,
"Light
changed
mystery if not to destroy it or make a into knowledge, dies, leaving only hope
charity.32
[16]B. This
an aid
Light"
phrase
of
is therefore
its
other
placed
in the
creed
only
as
to the
faith
which must
be
accorded
articles.33
[17]A. There follows then that great article, which brought so many disor ders into the ancient church, so many banishments and killings: "of one sub
stance with
the
Father, by
whom all
things
made."
were
[18]B. And utterly true it is,

1:1): "In the
made manifest
in St John's
clear words
(John
the
beginning
the
was
the
Word,
and
the
Word
was with
it."34
God,
and
Word
was
God";
and, "All things were
made
through
[19] A. What did
Fathers
understand as to word
(verbum)?
1668 Appendix
[20]B. The
ning, that
natural
to
Leviathan
353
Son
of
God,
or
Him begotten
of
God, from
the begin
is, from
everlasting.35
a sound uttered
[21]A. But in that passage, does by God?

[22]B.
not word mean some specific
word, that
is,
Absolutely not! The Fathers deny that in several places. [23]A. What did they believe then? that it was a private word, like the eternal decree of God for the establishment of the world and the redemption of
man?36
[24]B. I do
heimarmene"
not
know
what
the Fathers felt in this
matter.
But I doubt they

whose word means the same
thought that, lest
they
approach too near the
doctrine
of the
Stoics,
among
as
the
Greeks
and
fatum among the Latins
as eternal
decree.38
[25]A. Then,
I said,
what
is the understanding in
sacred
of word on
the part
of
the
Fathers?
[26]B. I do
not
know,
except that
language
word
is
often to
be
very thing which was decreed or promised. For often in the Old Testament, in place of "what God promised was we read "the word done."39 of God which He spoke was 1 am not accustomed to expounding Holy
construed as the
done,"
Scripture to
understood
anyone
but
myself.
But if the
passage
in St. John's Gospel is to be
mystery of God had ordained to
in this way, then I should prefer to seek no further concerning the the Incarnation. For if the word in this place is the very thing which
come
into the is
world
for
a
our redemption and
had
promised
in paradise, then it is how "He was made

was made
no mere
word, but
true
thing
and one with
Christ. But
me
man"
not mine
to inquire after. It suffices
that He
and all other
not also
created the earth my Redeemer. And what things from nothing and man from the dust of the ground, shall believe that He was able to take on human nature, except I know
then? If I believe that He
how?40
[27]A.
"Who for
us men and
for
our salvation came
down from heaven,
and was
incarnate
by
the
Holy
Spirit
of the
Virgin Mary,
and was
and was made
man; was crucified also for
us under
Pontius Pilate; died
buried."
There
are
two difficulties here: the
first is that
we are told
from
what place
He descended, namely, from heaven; but it does not say to what place He Creed states that He descended "to those be descended. I know the
Apostles'
low"
(ad inferos). But those

in heaven,
the Scriptures to be
words
do
not
designate
a place;
in
respect
to those
living
Also,
we men ourselves are give various names going: at one
properly
said
to be "those
below."41
to the place where the enemies of the
church are said
point, to
Gehenna;
at
another, it
says
to the
darkness outside, that
is,
to somewhere outside the church of
God,
given
that
354
Interpretation
of
the light
the church was in
Goshen
when one of
the
plagues sent upon
the
of
Egyptians
was
darkness. In
another
place, Scripture
speaks
both
of a
lake
fire, I think with reference to the punishment of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, and also of a lake of But to my knowledge, the church has not yet decided as to these matters. Some doctors, with Bellarmine, have set the place of the damned near the
pitch.42
center of
the earth, so that it

of
from the heaven
the
blessed.43
from the Greek language, Tartarus.45 And one to be cast into

the earth than
clearly be understood as at a great distance In this they may be harkening back to the term Peter,44 employed by St. namely, tartarizomenos,
might
of course
heaven is farther from the
center of
it is from the
surface of
the earth, taken as one whole point.
But I do
not
think the apostles believed the gentile poets as to the

reckoned
location
of
Tartarus. For Hesiod
it
as
far from the
earth
as
the earth is from
heaven; he
says
that,
after
descending
from heaven for
nine straight
days
and as
many nights, an anvil will reach the earth on the tenth day; then, falling from the earth for nine straight days and as many nights, it will reach Tartarus on the
tenth
as
day.46
Virgil,
on
the other
hand,
puts
the
distance from
earth to
Tartarus
twice that from heaven to
earth.47
My
own view
is that the
word was em
ployed
by
the Apostle Peter in a
many expressions [28]B. However that may be, the church in assembly has not yet reached a conclusion in regard to the place of the damned. At least, our church has not. [29]A. The
second
figurative sense, in Sacred Scripture.
a common practice with
difficulty
concerns the
saying, "He
was
incarnate
by
the
Holy
Spirit."
For the
of
angel sent
to Joseph in
Matthew, 1:20, says, "What is

though the
born in her is
the
Holy
Son,
Spirit."
This
sounds as
Holy
Spirit
were
the progenitor of the
that
is, Christ's
of
Father.48
[30]B. What? Is
not the
Spirit
God
also
God
and
the same God
with
the
Son
and the
Father?
are the
[31]A. How then

names the three
hypostases to be distinguished?
nor
[32]B. Neither the
creed
the Sacred Scripture distinguishes them or
hypostases.
are
[33] A.
But the three hypostases
found in the Athanasian Creed,
which
is
in
part of the
Anglican
liturgy.49
[34]B. In Greek, the
word
is
hypostasis, but in Latin it is
persona and
English
person.
me
[35]A. Allow
subsistentia50
to question you as to these words
hypostasis,
after you
persona,
and numerous others

creed.51
in addition, but only
have
ex
plained the rest of the
And He
rose again on the third and
heaven,
both the
is
seated at the right
day, according hand of God;

kingdom
to the
and
Scriptures,
no end.
and ascended
into
He
shall come again to
judge
quick and the
dead;
whose
shall
have
1668 Appendix
All
of
to
Leviathan
and
355
same
these beliefs I acknowledge

creed.
are
in the Scriptures
in the
sense as
in the
The
phrase
"And is
seated at
the right hand of
God"
I do
and
not understand as
indicating
a comparison of
honor [as between the Father
the
Son] but
as
rendering Christ the highest honor.
[God the Spirit,
sections
35-39]
As for the
proceeds
phrase
"And in the
and
Holy Spirit,
me
Lord
and
Giver
of
life,
and
who
from the Father
the Son": show
from the
Holy
Scriptures that
that
the
Holy
[36]B.
Spirit is the Lord from the
and
Giver
of
life,
that
is,
that
He is God,
of
He
proceeds also
Son.52
First,
the Son of
God Himself is
says
said to
be bom
the Spirit of
God
me;"
(Matthew 1:20). Second, Job

and at
(Job 33:4): "The Spirit

heavens."
of
God
made
26:13: "The Spirit

as
of
God
created
the
Now,
to
whether manifest
the Spirit proceeds
from
"I
the
Son
as well as
from the
Father,
and
this is
what
in
what
Christ
says:
upon
will send you
the
Paraclete;"53
in
He
said when
He breathed
the disciples: "Receive the

Son,"
Holy
Spirit."54
Note that this
expression
"from the
although present as
in the
Bellar
Athanasian
mine
Creed, is
at
thinks,
in the Nicene Creed, having been added, Constantinople.55 the second general Council of
not
with
[37]A. "Who, together
the Father and the
Son, is
worshipped and glori
prophets."
fied,
here?
who spoke
by
the
.
.
Why
is this "... together
glorified
(conglorificatur)
am
placed
[38]B. I do
not
know, but, because it is there, I

Trinity,56
inclined to believe that
the formula for glorifying the
say or sing our praise of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, had been received in the churches of God it.57 either in the time of the creed or before
which we
in
[the
church, the resurrection, the soul, sections
39-56]
[39]A. Perhaps.
"And in
the
one
holy,
catholic and apostolic
Church. I
acknowledge one
baptism for
of
remission of sins.
I look to the
resurrection of
the dead and the
life
the
come."
world
to
Apostles'
Why
held
a
does the
Creed lack the
phrase
"one baptism"?
[40]B. Some seventy

provincial council
years prior
to the Nicene
Council, Saint Cyprian had

where
of the church
accepted
in North Africa,
it
was
decreed
that heretics
should not
be
back
by
the
church except
they be baptized
356
again.
Interpretation
I think this decretal
baptism"
was
being
condemned when the words
"I
acknowl
edge one
were
inserted.58
flesh,"
[41]A. In the
the "resurrection
Apostles'
Creed, it
reads
"the
resurrection of the
will
not
of
dead have flesh, body? in his

body."
the What is the difference? When they rise, bones, blood, hands, feet and the other parts of the human
the
dead."
[42]B. Let St. Paul

each one
answer
you, 1 Corinthians 15:23:

at verse
own
body."59
Then,
44: "A
"They shall rise fleshly body is

shall
and
sown,"
that
is, in my
spiritual
opinion, like
human
body
when
And
so
it is changed,
We
as we
it is dead; "there read at verse 51:

we shall all
arise a
Behold, I
a
tell you a
mystery.
shall not all
sleep, but
be changed, in
shall
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed.60
[43]A. But two difficulties
are apparent to me
here: first,
since to
rise is to
live again, how shall a man in the grave live again unless his soul is added to his body? Will the soul descend from heaven or from some limbo in heaven;
will
it
ascend
from hell
or
purgatory?61
[44] B. What? Will God,

the ground, be
unable
who made man
into
living being
from the dust
of
to
bring
the same back to life when he has returned to
dust? [45]A. Then it

the
resurrection:
seems
to follow that
man will
have two
rational souls after
one, according to which
death from the body, which has migrated or to hell. For all men say that the human
he rises, and another, separated at to heaven or to limbo or to purgatory

soul never
dies
when once
created,
that it does not cease to exist as a self-subsistent entity,
not even
for the least
instant.
[46]B. I shall tell you nothing at all on this point apart from that which I find expressly stated, without the least ambiguity, in the Scriptures, where no other text is openly contradictory. You
the
and almost all other men
die.62
take it from the

no
philosophers as
that the human
soul cannot
1 for my
part
have
desire to have them

me some passage
Holy
Scriptures.63
Still, if
you
brought
is
my masters after from the Scriptures

soul other than
in
which some
type of
immortality
attributed to the
human
that which is given

with
men under
the name of eternal

you
life,
then I too should
hold
the philosophers. But if the passages

sinful men with eternal
souls exist
brought
me were those
in
which
God threatens
of
torments,
you would
be
unable
to infer
from these that their
day judgement, but only after the day of judgement. Further, you cannot argue for the eternity of their torments from the justice of God, who has threatened sinners with eternal torments. For even if he is
and the unjust who
render
in the interim between their deaths
does
not render or
those good deeds

which
which
the evils
injuries
he
might
rightly
render
he ought, he who does is on the contrary
not not

unjust
357
to
but
merciful.
Will
God,
who
is
infinitely
merciful, be much less
able
mitigate out
both the length and severity of the punishments which men merit with violating His own justice? Then also, the Scripture, in Revelation 20,64 says: "Hell itself will be thrown
of
into the lake

appears
fire,
soul
which
death.65
is the
death."
second
The damned
will
thus rise it
to a second
Finally
if the
is
not the same
thing
as
life but
a substance
existing
of
itself, distinct from the body, and the same as the essence seems to follow that, if we count His divine nature, there Christ,
soul which
or nature of are
man, it
three natures in
is contrary to our faith. [47]A. Even if it could not be demonstrated from Scripture that the human is
a substance separate
from the body,
still
it does
not seem that the con
trary
can
be
so proven us see
either.56
[48]B. Let
then what agreement there is in
Scripture, both Old
and
New Testaments, as to the nature of the human soul. For as the preceding articles may be uppermost in the minds of the theologians, still this article
concerning the resurrection to eternal life is uppermost among all Christians. For in it they repose all their hope, a foretaste of the joy to follow the miseries
of the present
life.
to Adam in paradise,
where
God
spoke
there stood two trees, excelling all
others, namely, the tree of
life
and
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: the fruit of the tree of the knowledge
die."67
"On that
good and
day
when you shall eat of your
of
evil, in
"You
are prohibited
good and evil
But the devil said to Eve: death, you shall surely from eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of lest you become as Then, both Adam and Eve, led by
gods."68
ambition, believed the serpent, disbelieved God
and ate of the put
forbidden fruit.
And
so
God
expelled
both from paradise, lest they

understand
their hand to the tree of
life
and
live forever.
that Adam
could
[49]A. From this I

of
have lived forever

made
by
eating
not of
the fruit of the tree

own nature
of
life;
that
is, he
could
have been
immortal,
but solely by virtue of the tree of life. Further I leam that the upon Adam for violation of the divine command was mor inflicted punishment tality; this follows by logical necessity since, having lost the chance of immor his
tality, he could not live forever. I see these things as manifest in the sacred text. But I do not see why Adam did not die as soon as he had eaten, in accordance with the words of God's warning, but instead went on to live nine
hundred
years
longer.
not
[50]B. God did

die"
simply say, "You
die,"
shall
but, "In
your
death,
you
shall will not plains
(moriendo morieris); that is, when you die, you will be dead: you rise again, but you will be dead forever. This is how Athanasius ex
passage and
Hebrews.69 From correctly so, for it is an idiom of the also extended to all the God's that understand this we posterity of warning origin of St. Paul's human race. And this is the saying, Adam, that is, to the
the
358
Interpretation
sin of one
"Through the
man, death
entered the
world."70
Further, it follows
the gift
through
that not only other men but

of
Adam himself had
need of
which
benefitting from
he had lost
Jesus Christ's death to

sin.71
gain the eternal
life
his
own
[51]A.
Why
is this
so?
[52]B. Because
of what
St. Paul says, in
harmonizing
the two
testaments, in
1 Corinthians 15:22:
For, as in Adam, all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive, each one in his own body; first, Christ, then all who are of Christ, in the coming of Christ. Then the
end,
etc.
72
ment.
[53]A. The coming of Christ will be on the same day No one therefore will come back to life before that
think that Adam must surely be saved, but
day.73
as
the
day
of
judge
on
day
but only
that
very day.
Thus, I
gift of alive?
he
will not receive
the
life before the last
If Adam, prior then his soul, if it is in any way a living substance, is living in This is a very hard saying. Then again, the souls of has no
soul.74
In the meantime, how may one say that he is to his ensoulment, is alive in heaven by virtue of his soul,
a men
body which living on
the
earth
in the
day
of
judgement
will
be
raised
to the clouds and thence up to

themselves
heaven;
existing
spiritual
these
same souls will
have
spiritual
bodies,
brought to life
through spiritual souls, provided of course that souls are indeed substances,
on
their own.
So
what
difference
will
there be then between these two
entities, the
body
and the soul?

explained un
[54] A. Clearly
less it is
resurrection.
to me, the difference between them cannot be
conceded that eternal
life does
not
begin for
men
earlier than
the
And
we must also concede
that
life
and soul are the same
thing,
for they
those
are never
words of
clearly distinguished in the Sacred Scriptures. And Christ on the cross to the robber: "Today you shall be
words serve except removed
consider
with me
life";76
in
paradise";75
and
the other words to the disciples: "I am the tree of
what purpose
do these
sword
that the faithful may know that the

gate of paradise and the
great
made
flaming
What
has been
from the
plain, through the

need
sacrifice of
Christ,
to the tree of
man
life,
that
is,
to
way life
eternal?
is there then for the faithful
to attribute his
immortality
to creation, that is to nature, rather than to
redemption?77
[55]B. But I
and
present,
rational soul
greatly affected by the general opinion of all believers, past how ignorant they may be of sacred doctrine, that the is immortal of its own nature, once it has been created.
am no matter of all
[56]A. Least has

such
do I
censure those who
feel
this way.
For surely he
who
it life. But, for the rest, I do not concede that he is less careful who steadfastly believes that his soul has been redeemed through the blood of Christ and made eternal. Nor must I concede to you that the former
through
lofty
thoughts about his own soul is most careful not to defile

of
baseness

belief is
said and
-359
has been generally entertained by all men. For those who have hearts, "Let us eat and drink; tomorrow we surely have not held it, and they nonetheless are not few.78 Further, the beliefs of all those who follow the dictates of their masters without reasoning about them themselves
in their
die,"
are not
with
properly
their own.
Farmers,
craftsmen and others who are occupied
the concerns of
everyday life
are almost never
in the habit
of
thinking
or
about about
the
nature of
their souls but only about striving for

men should not
men
riches
and
honors,
view.
their
bodily
needs; these
be
said
an
to
hold that
And
so, that
general
opinion of all
is
reduced to
agreement
among the
philosophers only.
Then too, there were Sadducees among the philosophers, who in no way believed in the creation of spirits; accordingly they did not recognize the exis
tence of the soul, except as it was called life. totle and Plato
Also,
the sect-followers of Aris

masters and not
believed in it
Thus that
upon
the sole authority of their
from
to
clear
reasonings; these
should not
be
counted as
the authors of any opin

all men
ion they
profess.
number which you said
included
is
reduced
Plato, Aristotle and the few other princes of philosophy. Finally, let us consider the words of Ecclesiastes, the third
interlinear
version:
chapter, toward
the end, in the polyglot,
said
in my heart concerning the
word of the sons of are as the
Adam,
so
that God should test

of
them and that
they may
the
animal
see
they
animal, that the end of the sons
Adam
spirit
and of all.
is the
same thing.
As it
dies,
he dies. There is is nothing, for knows if the

ground?79
also one
in
And the
excellence of man
before the
animal who
all
is
the
vanity,
with each one
going
to the same place.
And
spirit of
sons of man ascends and that of the
beast descends
under the
Where this
version
.
has
"
should
test them
. .
the
Septuagint has
diakrinei (.
word
. . .
distinguishes between them

peri
it has
lalias (.
for "... concerning the the Thus the concerning empty talk
.)
and
sense of
the words is this: "I have spoken of that which men claim, namely,
that God will make an essential difference between the life of man and the
of the man
life
that
brute;
since
the end of man and that of the brute are the same and since
does
not excel
the brute through his essence, how
shall
it be
shown
the soul of
same
man will ascend or
that the soul of the brute will
descend?"81
Yet the
book.82
Preacher
a
often attests
to the judgement of the last
day
in that very
This is
weighty argument against that consensus which you say all men have. Furthermore, lest I seem to you to be stubborn, advance an argument from
or
Aristotle have
elect
Plato
or
any
other philosopher whatever

of
by
which
he openly
of
rea
sons to the
natural
immortality
the soul from natural principles as openly as I
from the Sacred Scriptures that the future eternity has been acquired through Christ; then I will
shown
acquiesce.83
life for the
The
soul were
(anima), they
say, thinks, remembers,
reasons.
What
if, denying
How
this, I
to say that the animal
(animal) itself thinks
and remembers?
360
shall
Interpretation
they
refute me?
And
names
what
is it to
reason except to place
names
upon
things,
to connect the
into
assertions and to
made?
join these
assertions
into the
syllogisms out of which names on
logic is
Adam
not
In paradise, before he had imposed

than the other animals, except
men
things, how
only?84
was
more rational
by
potential
It does
seem to me
then that
are
substantially
distinguished from the brutes
by
the fact that
they discuss
matters
in
words and
brutes do Let Christ has
not.
others
look forward to for

us
what
immortality they
over
prefer.
I look to that
which
acquired
by
His victory
death through His blood.
[Mary,
the Mother of
God,
sections
57-63]
God"
[57]A. What is
your
feeling
ipara),
which
many
attribute
concerning the phrase "Mother to the Holy Virgin?

woman can
of
(De-
[58]B. It
rere) that
seems
to me that a
rightly
be
which she
bears in
childbirth
(in
partu).
bring forth (paNow, Mary bore Christ,

said to
was accomplished conceived
God
and
man, in that the assumption of human nature

and man. of which
in her only
a
womb.
She thus brought forth God

seed, the force
She however
supplied.
man,
without man's
God
[59]A. But then
a new
difficulty
arises, namely, how the
son of
Mary,
of
that
is,
Christ, is not of divine substance. [60]B. Not even in the case of a man born of
his father,
which
the flesh of
man
is his flesh
the sub
seed
stance of
as
unless you
believe that
what
is bom develops from the

the mother alone that
that from
it
grows.
It is the blood
of
is the it is
material of the
fetus
uterus
as
it
grows
by daily
nourishment
till term and delivery.
The
seed
in the
is the
efficient cause of
the woman's
being pregnant;
whether
not the material of the
fetus.85
Thus, if you believe
that a woman could become the same
pregnant
from the
power of
thing
all
could occur
by
human seed, why do you doubt the power of God Almighty?

reasoning,
since
[61]A. But
by
it
and
your
the substance
of
God
flesh,
a
will
not also
be
shown that all other men are
exists equally in like Christ in having
both
human
divine
nature?
even
[62]B. Not
whatever
at all.
where whatsoever
He
He
can.
if God is everywhere omnipotent, doing every in every creature, still He does not do everywhere In the generation of man from man, God desired from ev
For,
wishes
erlasting
from
all
that only men who cannot
do
all
they
wish
be produced; but, in the
generation of man
in
a supernatural
way, through the
Holy Spirit,
He
He desired
that
eternity to
and all
bring
forth
a man who could
do
whatsoever
desired,
is,
a man
God.86
Christians but
nor
Nor is there any place for asking how. For not only peoples who believe that God exists believe Him to be alla
birth.87
do they ask how He gives birth, if powerful, they confess [63]A. Thus far, you appear to me to have explained the
teaching
of
the
1668 Appendix
Nicene Creed in
such a
to Leviathan
361
way
as
to have confirmed the Christian faith rather than

after your own
to have shaken it in any way, though
fashion.
[hypostasis,
Now
essentia, substantia, persona,
body
and
spirit, sections
64-103]
show me what
the Greeks call hypostasis.
[64]B. When
that name though the
or
you consider
something that
you call
white,
you are
imposing
even
upon a substance or
underlying body, say

Thus the
white
marble, for example,
sight of your eyes cannot penetrate of
into the
is
substance of the marble
into that
any
other entity.
of a self-subsistent
body,
not
the name of a color;
it is imposed because
of a certain
fixed
appearance.
The
Greeks
call
this its emphasis (outward appearance)
or phantasma
nothing.88
(image),
something that certainly seems to exist but in reality is quite well that this appearance cannot lack some cause
white cannot exist unless some substance cause as the
underlies
We know
or
basis;
that
is,
the
its really logicians its subject. This subject the Greeks call to on and, say, (that which is; entity), hyphistamenon (basis), hypostas (premise) or hypo (foundation);89 stasis the Latins have ens, subjectum, suppositum, substantia,
the appearance as
basis
to
and
fundamentum. What I have

understood also
said
about cognition through
sight
should an
be
for the
other senses.
Thus,
an
hypostasis is
to
opposed
appearance
(phantasma)
as
cause
is
contrasted
effect,
that
is,
relatively.
In
a similar
way, if three things
are
related, like
father,
son and
grandson,
by
reason of
only one because he is
his double relatedness, the son has two names, even though he is real entity: that of father, because he has offspring; and that of son,
an offspring.
son, though only one entity,
Thus the son, by standing in between his father has two names, which are said to be
subject or
and
"imposed"
(im-posita)
hypostasis
also to
upon
names, their
hyphistamenon,
be
used
him. The entity itself is the the hypostasis in

reference not
(sub-positum)
of
of
the two
basis
the
relation.
And
so
can
only to appearances
(phantasmata) but
and
names.90
[65]A. What then is the difference between
hyphistamenon, hypostas
hypostasis?
[66]B. Between the first two, there is
"existent,"
no other
difference than that the first The Greeks generally
one means use
the second
"presently
existent."91
the
word
hypostasis in
from Peter
word
place of
these words, and the Latins use the word

not
substantia or
essentia, though the Latin Fathers do

Lombard.92
distinguish between the
two,
as
is
clear
[67]A. How is the [68]B. In the

where
hypostasis
understood
in the New Testament?
same
way
the
as other writers understand of
it,
as
Christ is
called
"stamp
is,
the substance of
God."93
in Hebrews 1:3, Hypostasis there

of
is
contrasted
to stamp; that
substance
is
opposed to an
image
the same
362
Interpretation
In the
what same
substance.
passage, Christ is also called the
splendor of
the divine
glory, or,
substance or
substance
is the same, the light of brightness, for the bright subject of the light. Further, in Hebrews 11:1, faith is
of things
object
is the
the
called
hoped for, that is (for the saying is metaphori (hypostasis) basis faith is the (fundamentum) of hope. Third, in 2 Corinthians 9:4, cal), Paul the Apostle, after having boasted among the Macedonians of the kindness
promised
him
by
the
Corinthians,
calls
that promise the "substance
(hypo
stasis)
of
his boast"; that is, it is its basis (fundamentum).

essentia mean? not
[69]A. What does [70]B.
As I have said, the Fathers do

substantia then?
distinguish
essentia
from
substantia.
[71]A. What is
[72]B. The
same
thing
as
entity
(ens),
that
is,
whatever
is truly existent,
well
distinguished from [73]A. What
appearance
(phantasma)
ones,
and name. and
need was
there
for the Greeks
Latins to twist
known
and understood names
into
uncertain
whose equivalents are not
found in
Hebrew,
stasis
and which no
language
needs?
[74]B. When
names are
twisted,
as when ousia
is
made
from
on or
hypo
from hyphistamenon
or essentia
from
ens or substantia
from
substans
or whiteness
Because
ens
of
from white; this twisting is what the philosophers call abstraction. is called abstract; this, the name on is called concrete, while
ousia9*
is concrete, essentia is abstract; white, concrete, and whiteness, abstract. Sometimes however, in place of the abstract word, they use an infinitive, as
when, in
place of
ousia, the Greeks say to
tia,
to
the Latins say esse; in place of leukotes
einai
leukon
not to
(being
white)
or even
(the)
leukon (white) but to
(being); or in place of essen (whiteness), the Greeks say to to leukon (whiteness), referring the article onoma (name) understood. Likewise, from
einai
the
concrete vivens
(living thing),
(living).95
the Latins make not only the abstract vita
(life), but
These
men
also vivere
may indeed be called abstract and with good reason. For when impose diverse names upon something that truly exists because of the diverse appearances it has, calling it great and colored and hard and heavy,
words
they
are
which
considering in that thing at one point that it is of such and such a size, is the concern of geometers; at another point, that it is colored or hard or
the concern of the scientists.
heavy,
crete
And, because
guish one appearance
(phantasma)
whose cause
this, in order to distin they know resides in the con

of of
entity, from
all
the other appearances
(phantasmata)
of names.
the same thing,
they signify it by
no
means of a certain
twisting
The
result
of
is that they
of
longer
of
speak of great and colored and
hard
and
heavy, but
greatness,
color,
hardness
and of weight.
This
abstraction of words,
although
it is
sepa
nothing but the consideration of an appearance (phantasma) or name, rated from all other considerations and names of the same concrete
almost
object, is
necessary for
teaching
as
to
causes.96

If
you understand
363
these things correctly,
you understand
that it is also im
as
possible
for the
might
essence of
any entity to
exist separated
from the entity itself,

whiteness,
if there
where
be
a white object where
there is
no
or whiteness
no mankind. You also know that Aristotle is wrong in asserting, "some essences exist separated from the entities whose essences they And you realize that the soul is thus man where
are."97
there is no white object, or
there is
neither,
being
thing.
he asserts, the essence of a has died. You see that Aristotle

as
living being,
nor
is it
existent when
the
not
erred per consequens
in that he did
distinguish between [75]A. I

causes of
separate
things
and
separate considerations of the
same
understand that abstract words are almost required to

appear
delve into the
things that
but do
not exist outside of our
imaginations. But
unlike
magnitude,
color and
the others, which take their origin
from the five
organs of our
some
senses, the name essence as such was not imposed because of
itself
image (phantasma) of ours. For, as you said above, it is not substance the entity itself that appears, but only its effects, which one calls its appearances (phantasmata). But the essence of an entity as such is not an
nor appearance name?
(phantasma). What then is
essence or
being,
when
it is
used as a
Of
what
thing is it
the name?
[76]B. The
name of
essence of an
the white
itself, but
of an an
considered
entity concretely, take some only insofar as it is

as such
white white.
entity, is the
By
the same
consid
reasoning, the essence

ered
entity
is the
name of
the entity, but
only insofar
when
as
it is
are
entity.98
Generally,
is
white.
abstracts are names of concrete
objects object.
white
they
thought of separately from other names of the same
white
entity, for example,
If
we now were we
to consider the
ped
in
a white object
separately from the entity,

white; or
we
say whiteness, for

entity,
agogical
reasons, in
place of
say,
being
in
white.
[77]A. Thus, when we say essence entity will be synonymous, so that the
[78]B. Indeed so,
and
as such
place of
essence and
word essence
is
superfluous.
inconsistent
with
the truth of
faith;
witness
John Dam
ascene, in the eleventh chapter of his On the Orthodox Faith: after he had said that the Word had been made man, he added, "we in no way took it that human."99 It is clear from divinity itself (Deitas) had been incarnate or made
this
that, in any entity more in concrete
considered
by itself,
entity
and essence
differ
and much
things.100
[79] A.
were
What
caused
the doctors to affirm
that,
except
entity
of
and essence
God, the divine substance would be [80]B. Because a definition, which is the explanation
the same in
called an essence
composite?101
the essence of
Thus, if
something defined, is itself commonly the definition of man is "rational

an essence and
by
call
the philosophers.
animal,"
they
"rational
animal"
They
say that it is composed of animal and rational, as from its parts. thus fail to distinguish between the definition of man, which is a form of
has
as
speech that
its
parts
the names
animal and
rational,
and man
himself,
364
Interpretation
whose parts are a
head,
chest,
limbs,
and other animal
members.102
But,
because
it is a
hard thing to
soften that
call
a concrete rational
an
essence, some,
desiring
to
way
of
speaking, say that the that this same
essence of man
is
not rational animal
but
rational soul and
substance exists
body.103
once
Thus they make essence out to be the integrative and indispensable.
part of man
separately from the human himself that is at
[81]A. Tell
O, amazing
a
sleights of a vain philosophy!
truly and properly means. Latin word, meaning any individual thing, no matter whether acting in accordance with its will or that of another. Thus, Cicero says, "Though one single man, I play three parts (personae), my own, that of the
me now what
the word persona
[82]B. It is
judge
and
that of the
opponent."104
What does this
mean
but that Cicero himself

the minister
took three parts, his own, that of the
judge
and of
his
opponent?
when
Similarly,
catechumen me and
what
does it
mean
in the Anglican Catechism
asks, "What do
chiefly learn from the articles of your faith?", and the responds, "I learn first to believe in God the Father, who created
you
Christ, His Son, who has redeemed who has sanctified me and all the Spirit, Holy chosen people of What does this mean if not that God, in His own person, created all things; in the person of His Son, redeemed mankind; and in the person of the Holy Spirit, sanctified the church? What can be said more
me and all
the whole world; second, in Jesus mankind; third, in the

God."
clearly than this concerning the divine persons or more in accord with the faith? For if, with the Greek Fathers, we used the word hypostasis in place of person,
since
hypostasis
and
persons,
we make three
and
Bellarmine
mean the same thing, in place of the three divine substances, that is, three Gods. almost all the other doctors define person as the first rational substantia
substance, that
is,
an
individual
substance
that is
single
but intelligent, like

these first three sub
God, Christ, Holy Spirit, Gabriel, stances, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, if
the
word
Peter.105
What
are
not
the three divine substances? But

understand
this is contrary to the faith. Bellarmine did not then
the
force
of
the Latin
persona, for, if it meant first substance, would not the word mean the same thing in Greek? And it surely does not, for it means prop
of a
prosoponm
erly the face

the forum and
man, sometimes
natural
one,
sometimes
artificial, or a
mask, sometimes a representation

at church.
of a
face,
not
image
is
or
stamp
of
the
of
Again, what else is a thing represented? And it is in

of
only in the theater, but also in representation of a face but an

this sense that
our
Savior
called the
stamp
the substance
God
by
St. Paul (Hebrews 1:4).
[83]A. What does [84]B.
prosopon mean
in Sacred Scriptures?
Nothing
ever sometimes used
(respect
the
of
persons).107
properly but the face or visage. By synecdoche, it is how in place of man himself, as in the word prosopolepsia But in the creed of our faith, no mention is made either
or of
of person or of
hypostasis
Trinity,
and,
even
though
hypostasis is
only
as a
put
in
Greek
creed of
Athanasius,
the church accepts that creed
para-

phrase of the
nor of
365
Nicene Creed
without the word

could
hypostasis. For
established
except
neither the creed
any individual doctors

the
single article of
the faith
have been
nor even
by
the
whole
church,
by the authority by way of inter
pretation of
Holy
Scriptures.
ancient
[85]B. Then why did the
Fathers
and
many
other more recent men of
learning
tures:
and
give
employ these words? [86]A. Because they could
not otherwise explain the words of all nations words of
the
Scrip
for example, "Go

Spirit";108
and
baptize
in the
name of
the
Father, Son
Holy
similarly, in the
St. John: "There

Spirit";109
are three who
testimony in heaven, Father, Son
and
Holy
and other similar
concerning the divinity of Christ. [87]A. But why was it necessary to explain such things knew to be incomprehensible, that is, inexplicable?
passages
at
all,
which
they
[88]B. The Fathers
of the
Church, both before

Incarnation
of
and after
the Council of
could not
Nicaea, freely
matter
owned that the
the Son of God

were
be
understood, but
they
pleaded
in
excuse
that
they
forced to debate the
heretics. Thus Epiphanius, in his On the Trinity, at the beginning of book:110 "The word of God was sufficient for all believers when He the seventh
by
said, 'Go
of the
now and and of
teach all nations,
baptizing
But
which
them
in the
forced
name of
the
Father,
that
Son
the
Holy Spirit,
to
etc'
we are
by
the errors of the
heretics
which
and
blasphemers to do that
and
is
not permitted and speak of
is ineffable
fall into that

the
error which of
Likewise, Bellarmine, in
not
first book
is the contrary of his On Christ: "Our doctors do

to demonstrate the
theirs."
debate
so that
after
the
manner of philosophers
in
order
Trinity,
but
philosophers."
they
might solve
the riddles of the
And Peter Lombard, in the first book of his Sentences 23, [chapter Trinitate:"' commenting on the seventh book of St Augustine's De
For the Greeks
"one
understand substance
14,]
differently
In
persons."
essence or
substance, three
our
from the Latins. The Latins say, language, essence is properly

so that
understood
[no] differently from

a upon us
substance."2
And
it
might
be
understood at
least "as in
was
mystery,"
whenever someone asked what
the three things were,
it
incumbent
that
some
reply be
made.
Thus,
when asked who or what
the three were, we set about the task of

the three. But nothing occurred to us,
exceeded our power of
finding
some name
by
which
to embrace
for the
supereminence of the
Godhead
customary
speech.
[89]A. Epiphanius wrongly excuses himself, force, no one can be compelled by another's
allowed.
for,
without threats or outright
error to
do that
which
is
not
Nor is Bellarmine's denial

order
true one, viz., that his doctors do not
debate philosophically in
philosophers.
to explain the
Trinity
but to
correct
the errors of
For,
of those very theologians who published explanations of the
Nicene Creed,
physics of
almost all used although

alone.113
definitions
selected
from the Logic
and
Meta
Aristotle,
they
ought
to have explained the

am amazed
Holy Trinity
Fathers,
from Sacred Scripture
In fact, I
that the Nicene
366
Interpretation
many
of
since so sophic
them were philosophers, did not import the technical philo
words,
which
they
[90] B. That is
then,
since
not so
in their explanations, into the creed itself. few amazing to me when I consider that only a
used
of
those present at the great councils could speak

who approved
forcefully
and
debate. The rest,
only those
propositions taken who
from the Sacred
Scripture,
to
win
they
outnumbered
the ones
argued, found it an easy
matter
with their
votes,
with
the result that nothing was taken
into the
creed except
those things
which were clearly inferred from the Scriptures. [91]A. What is body? What is incorporeal? What is spirit?
[92] B. Those
learned
men
names
have
seemed
so
well
known
and understood
to all
that I do not know
whether
any theologian or philosopher

me:
has
thought it worthy to explain them
by
definitions. Tell in
your
the
idea
says
of what
thing do
body?
you
have in
mind when you or someone
hearing
it
the word
[93] A.
now
take
body
to mean something about

and also
which
can
truly be
said
that it really exists, of
itself,
that it has a certain
magnitude.
I say that
it has magnitude, not that it is magnitude itself. I do recall however that at one time I thought that body was only that which met my touch or sight. And so I
thought that
mirror or
body
a
was also or
the
image (species)
of a
body
that appears in a
in
dream
even, to my wonder, in the dark. But then I considered

so
that those species

selves
disappeared,
that their existence did not depend on them

and
but
on some animated
entity,
they
no
longer
seemed real to me
but
only
appearances
(phantasmata)
so
and
the effects of things working on the or

incorporeal."4
I knew that they were As to spirits, I based my judgement on air, which is spirit, and on wind, which I felt with my sense of touch. On this basis I thought that spirit was
gans of sense.
And
indeed body, but thin body; also, that some spirits could be thinner than others and more pure; and that some could differ from others in strength no less than
liquids,
nature
which, though
they may be equally transparent,

in their
powers."5
nonetheless
differ
greatly among
themselves
But I
was unable
to conceive of a
and appearance
(phantasma),
rated
midway between body that is, between "incorporeal is found in the

are not.
and
spirit
or
between It
spirit
spirit and nothing. or
must
therefore be asked
or
whether the phrase

essences"
substance"
"immaterial
substan
"sepa
Holy
Scripture.
of the
[94] B. They
published
But the first
Thirty-nine Articles
of
the
faith,
by the Church of England in the year 1562, expressly states, "God is without body and without And this must not be denied. Also, the for those who do penalty deny is established as excommunication.
parts.""6
will not be denied. Nonetheless, in the twentieth article, it is nothing ought to be enjoined as a belief by the church that could not be derived from the Holy Scriptures. How I wish this first article had been so
[95]A. And it
stated that
derived!"7
For I
still
do
not
know in
what sense
something
born"
can
be
called great
est or great
that is not body.

what
But tell me,
is the difference between "be
and
"proceed"?

[96]B. Look
take
at
367
not
Mary
as your
Matthew 1:20, where the angel wife, for what is born in her is
not or
says
to
Joseph, "Fear
Spirit."
to
of the
[97]A. But I do
of
know
whether this
"is
of
the
Holy Holy
Spirit"
means
"born
the
Holy
Spirit"
"proceeds from the is

part of
Holy
of
Spirit."
[98]B. This
of
passage
the Gospel
Matthew
the
appointed
for the feast
the circumcision, where one reads in the
ward
VI, "What is bom in her is
accomplished
liturgy by
published
in Latin
Spirit,"
by
Ed
Holy
and
it is
I
translated
by
our church as
though it read, "He comes from the

of
Holy
Spirit."
There
think
you see
how the Church

what result? and
England has interpreted the passage,
and
rightly
so.118
[99]A. With is in the creed, text, and both between
Since the
"bom,"
Holy
Spirit
proceeds
the Son also proceeds from the to be
Holy
from the Son, as it Spirit, as it is in this

no
are said
there seems to be
what purpose
difference
at all
being
I do
bom
and proceeding. words? you
To
has the Roman Church
distinguished between these
[100]
not
know. But
know that
at one
time the sphinx spread terror
among the people by means of a riddle. [101]A. What distinction do the Fathers draw between those
words?
[102]B. None that I have

as
seen.
Cyril
says that the
Son is to the
Holy Spirit
so we are clear
the Father is to the
Son.119
[103]A. Then to Cyril it back

once again to
seemed that the

bom"
Son bore the

"to
Holy Spirit,
enough
equating "to be that God's Son was bom of

not seem
proceed."
and
To me, it is
God,
who comprehends
the entire Trinity.
But it does
true to me that the salvation of men turns upon the

quibbles over words.
outcome of such
trifling
No
one
doubts that he
even
who
be
lieves in Jesus Christ

theologian.
and repents of
his
sins will
be saved,
if he is
I
not a
Nor
most
am
deviating
from the teaching
of
the Nicene
Creed,
which
see was
Holy
clearly derived from the Holy Scripture, that the Three, Father, Son and taken in the word's Spirit, are one God in three persons, with
"person"
true and proper meaning, as one
who plays
his
as
own parts or
those of another.
Bellarmine thinks, simply as a like Paul and John, or, what is the same intelligent substance, Peter, singular, thing, in place of hypostasis, then I do not understand how the Father, Son and
Further, if
the
word
persona
is taken
Holy
Spirit
are not three see
Nor do I
neither
how that
individual substances, that is, three Gods in number. view can be proven from the Scriptures, in which
distinguished in God.
namely,
hypostases
nor persons are
They
and
are said
to
be
three only
who give
testimony in heaven,
Father, Son
Holy
Spirit,120
and these three are one.
Those things
ticular
which
the Fathers say beyond the
Holy Scripture
in their
par
explanations
of the
faith do in the his
should seek out
his
salvation of
bind Christians, each one and not because Scriptures, Holy

not
peril.121
of whom of anyone
else's peril,
but because
to
own most profound
Now I
will go on
other matters.
368
Interpretation
CHAPTER 2. ON HERESY
[104]A. What is "heresy"? [105]B. It is [107]B. A

the sciences,
will. a
Greek word, meaning the teaching

a sect?
a number of men who
of
any
sect.
[106]A. What is
sect
is
follow for
one and
the same master
in
whom
they have
chosen
for themselves
by
an act of
their own
so
As
"sect"
comes
from the Latin

word
"following"
word
(secutus),
Lucian
"her
esy"
comes
from the Greek
for
"choosing"
(hairesis).122
of Sam-
osata,
an
impious man, though
a good
authority
on the
Greek
language,
wrote a
book
on choosing a master, entitled On [108]A. What sects have there been,
Choosing
(peri haireseos).
and which men composed them?
[109]B.
They
were
composed
of
philosophers, that
were called
Zeno, Epicurus
Stoics
or of
and
others, though
were
they
is, Plato, Aristotle, Academics, Peripatetics,

the Greek philosophers
and
Epicureans. Such
the principal
sects of
those who required that Plato and
think,
they be esteemed as philosophers. For it is true, I Aristotle, Zeno and Epicurus, the originators, were
sects'
truly
men
philosophers according to the capacity of the pagans; that is, they were devoted to truth and virtue. And it is for this that their names have justly
shone
in the glory
of
their
wisdom
throughout nearly all the world. But I
do
not
think that
opinions
we should call
their sect-followers philosophers,
for,
of
apart
from the
they knew
their masters
of
held,
the
such men
themselves understood noth
ing.
They
the
lacked knowledge
principles
and
lines
reasoning
upon
which
teaching they
after
professed rested.
Nor did they

except that
wore
at all conduct them
selves
in life
the
manner of
philosophy,
and and
they
went about
look For
ing
sad; they let their beards
grow
a thread
bare
pallium.123
the rest,
affection.
they
were
greedy,
haughty
irascible,
complete strangers to civic
[1 10] A. But
so
far
you
have
omitted of a
to speak of the words truth or

not one or
error.
Do
they
not pertain to the
definition
heresy? Does
the
other
inhere
necessarily in every teaching?

[1 1 1]B.
No,
not
in the
slightest. or
Heresy
designates only
accord with or
some
declared
opin
ion,
no matter whether
it be true
false, in
[112]A. If these
not a term of abuse.
men called one another
law. contrary heretics, then it seems that it was

to the
[113]B. Oh, the sects of the Greek philosophers did not call one another heretics, but wretches, defilers of the sacred, thieves, parricides, unclean (miaros), accursed (kataratos) and other names such as men of the lowest sort use when they grow angry and come on to blows. But, after heresies had arisen
within
the church, the greatest reproach there

no
of all was
to be called a
heretic.
of
[114] A. Were
philosophers?
other
heresies
apart
from those
the
the
Greek
[115]B. In Judaea, the
sects of the
Pharisees,
Sadducees
and the Es-
1668 Appendix
sences were also called
to
Leviathan
369
heresies,
as
the New Testament
makes clear. as so
Similarly,
Hellenism, Judaism
sies.124
many here in Galatians 1:8, it and, means any teaching to that of St. Paul, that is, contrary to the Gospel contrary of Christ: "But though we or some angel from heaven preach any Gospel to you
Galatians
Christianity counted includes heresy in a list of

and
in those days
crimes,125
except that one which we athema esto).
have
preached to
you, let him be
anathema"
(an
[116]A. What does [117]B. With

a
"anathema"
(anathema)
mean?
long
-e-
(eta),
anathema means
anything
whatsoever with
that is
-e-
dedicated, consecrated or separated from ordinary use. But (epsilon), anathema sometimes means a person given over to
world
below.126
a short
the shades of the
[118]A. How
can an angel
be
given over
to the shades of the underworld?
no
[119]B. It certainly cannot be burned or killed. But it could be esteemed as angel but as a mere specter and denounced as an accursed deceiver, that is,
Satan.127
Holy Scripture says, handed over to [120] A. In the primitive church, since it had the true faith, what was the cause of heresies?
as the
the
written
Gospel
as
its
rule of
[121]B. It
was
the pride of the philosophers of whom I have just spoken,

at
ignorant
more
upon
men
living
the time of the apostles,
who
had learned to dispute
subtly
and orate more
powerfully than other men. These men, in entering
the way of Christ as elders and
bishops,
were almost of
to defend and propagate the

tian converts,
faith,
and, as
much as
they held fast

and
to the teachings of
necessity chosen in them lay, even as Chris their pagan masters. Accord
so as to preserve at once their
thing.128
ingly they
own
sought
to interpret the
Holy
Scriptures
philosophy [122]A. You have
the Christian
explained
faith,
as though
what a
they
were
the same
clearly
still
do
not
know
what one
primitive
rightly
which
called a
heresy was in heresy in church.

of
philosophy, but I
[123]B. In the
most of
church, up to the time

the
the Council of
Nicaea,
the
the teachings about

of
Christians then disagreed
concerned
held that the mystery of the Holy Trinity was incomprehensible, nonetheless, trusting the philosophy of his mas ters, each man dared to explain it after his own manner.
doctrine
the
Trinity. For
although everyone
From this, there dal

the
order
arose at
first arguments,
then
disorders; then,
to avoid scan
and establish peace of
those in
as
power
in the church, called, but through the voluntary drawing together

synods were
were able with
convoked without of
bishops
and
pastors,
they
the
lessening
of persecution.
In these councils, the participants defined what one was to believe concern ing the faith in any controverted area. That which was defined was called the
catholic
faith;
what was
condemned, heresy.
For,
with respect
to the individual
bishop
cific
or
pastor, the
council also was an
was the catholic
church, that
is,
the whole or
universal church.
So
their opinion the catholic opinion, while a spe

pastor was
teaching held
by
individual
heresy. And it is from this,
as
370
Interpretation
I have
gleaned
much as
Church"
from the historical sources, that the

"catholic"
name
"Catholic
are
"heretic"
derives. And in every church, the

terms.129 Church"
words
and
relative
[124]A. If "Catholic
means
nothing
other than
this,
heads
then there are
indeed many catholic churches in the Christian world. [125]B. There are as many catholic churches as there
And there
are as
commonwealths.131
are
of
churches.130
many heads of churches as there are Christian kingdoms and For in every land (regio), the prince of the Christians of independent of another head on that land is the head of his
subjects,132
earth.133
Thus there
are as
many
visible churches as there are whole
heads
of
churches.134
Scattered throughout the
world,
having
elect
Jesus Christ Himself in
heaven
as
head, because the

creed of our
number of
God's
is
called and
is the true,
to
most catholic and
only church, this is also the church in

faith.135
which we profess
believe in the
catholic
For there is
not nor can there
be
another
church, if, by catholic, we mean all those who are at any one time Christian. For in Christian commonwealths, the kingdom and the church are the same Thus, if it were granted to anyone on earth to be the head of the
people.136
whole
Christian
Church,
to him also
would
it
at
the same time be granted to be
king
of all
kingdoms
and
commonwealths.137
[126] A. Which
[127]B. There
the
of
teachings were called heresies many,
by
the primitive
churches?
were
but the
principal ones pertained

confession of
to the doctrine of
statement
Trinity,
which
is
contained
in the Nicene
ecumenical
faith. This
the faith had its origins at the
Council
of
completed
by
the
following
three ecumenical councils, namely, those
Nicaea [325], but it was held at

rat
Constantinople [381], Ephesus [431] and Chalcedon [451]. Further it was ified by the Roman emperors of those times who had called the councils.
The
dria.138
reason
for calling the Council
of
Nicaea
was
Arius,
said
elder of
Alexan
When the
bishop
that
of
that city,
Alexander, had
substance,
that the Son of God
was
homoousios,m
is,
of the same
with
the
Father, Arius
con
tradicted him. And then,
with a
large
number of elders
present, in the
rising
city.140
heat
of
their argument, he also denied the

civil strife and
divinity
were
of
Jesus Christ. As
a result,
shortly thereafter
bloodshed
bom in Alexander's
Then, in
the
order
to preserve the peace, Emperor Constantine the Great

of
convoked
Nicaea. While in attendance, the Fathers settled the of the creed And to the phrase "I believe in the Holy Spirit. wording up condemned the belief of the Arians and excommunicated him and his they
.
famous Council
followers,
churches.
certain
of
the
bishops
and
elders,
and
expelled
them
from their
But because
so
heresy
cil
could not
many of Constantine 's imperial successors were Arians, the be extinguished. Fifty years passed, and another general coun
at which
Macedonius'
took place at
Constantinople,
at
denial
of
the
the
Holy Spirit
divinity
at
of
was condemned as
heresy.'42
Then,
after
general council
held
fifty
more
years,
the
of
Ephesus,
there issued
a condemnation of
the
doctrine
1668 Appendix
to
Leviathan
371
Nestorius,
Council
of
who, like
Arius, denied
the
Chalcedon
union of
condemned the
Finally, the General divinity of heresy of Eutyches and Dioscorus, who
Christ.143
denied the
the two natures of
Christ,
well
the human and the

was
divine.144
In this way then, the creed which is and the heresies I have mentioned,
condemned.
named as
for Nicaea
finally
completed,
as others similar to
them,
were
[128]A. After these heresies

to life?
were
condemned, did
no new ones
then spring
Roman Church
articles of
[129]B. Oh yes, many more; I do not know how by its decrees arrogated to itself the
the
many.
For
after
that,
the
inability
to err as to the
faith. And then Emperor Phocas

pope.145
granted
bishops to the
and with
And,
as
the power of the empire
supremacy over all in Italy began to wane

the pope, already
upon councils
the Christian princes
seized and
by
fear
of the
Saracens,
general
mightily increased in riches

own
power,
called
his
authority,
of
without even
regard
for the authority
of the
emperors
and king-
lings
Italy. He
dared to
excommunicate some
kings
and emperors as
heretics. As time passed, they condemned seemed either to impede ecclesiastical

that already gained. And
of
as
heresies
all
those doctrines
which
power or
its
growth or
to detract
from
from this
arose
those numerous
heresies,
on account
which,
following
of
the publications of Luther's writings, so many
Christians
until, at
in this kingdom
England
and
in
other places met a
fiery death;
length,
this,
the princes of those places woke up and their subjects were freed from
so grievous
Roman
whom and a
persecution and
servitude.146
[130] A. Those
the Roman Church ordered to be the others,
burned,
the Luther
or pagans?
ans, the Anabaptists
did it
consider them
Christians
[131]B. Without Arians

and all
doubt, Christians,
whom
the others
other
only them, but surely also the the Nicene Synod condemned; nor did it call
and not
them anything
sonings
than heretics.
For,
even
though
they
used philosophic rea about
concerning the nature of the Savior and in

contradiction
felt wrongly
the
Holy
upon upon
Trinity,
Christ
His
to the
Holy Scriptures,
nonetheless
as
the true Messiah and Jesus Christ as the Son of
they looked God and called
name. seems
[132]A. If this is so, it

plains of the
to me that the Roman Church wrongly com the pagan emperors. For the
ancient persecutions of
Christians
of
those times the Roman
were
empire as a
a more grievous
having the same relation to the religion established in heresy today has to the catholic church. But it is surely thing if Christians are tortured by Christians rather than by the
sects,
seems
faithless (infideles).
[133]B. So it
precaution
to
me also.
Then again, it is
altogether
necessary that
be
taken
in kingdoms very
and commonwealths
lest
sedition and civil
wars arise. and
And,
of
since these
frequently
arise out of
doctrinal differences
battles
intellect,147
those
must
certainly be
coerced
by
some punishment
372
Interpretation
public meetings or
who, in
and commonwealths
in books, teach such things have prohibited to be taught.
as the
laws
of princes
For this reason, when our Queen Elizabeth of England succeeded her sister Mary, who had burned many heretics and had menaced even Elizabeth's life,
she accepted
the kingdom and,

the supreme
with
the consent of the Lords and people,
im
mediately
external
removed
powers.148
For
territories.
And
she
right of ruling the Church of England from all supremacy is a natural right owed all kings in their entrusted administration of the church to her bishops under
such
her, together with a few from the Privy Council, by an act under the Great Seal of England, confirming them in it. In her act, she made provision lest the
bishops
pronounce general councils gland as regards
any doctrine heretical not so declared in any of the first four I have Thus the position of the Church of En
mentioned.149
heresy
was
then similar to that of the Roman
Church
under
Constantine the Great. And

year,
so
it
remained until
the seventeenth
year of
Charles I's
reign.150
In that He left
almost
forced to it
by
the entreaties of his subjects who would no longer

rescinded
bear the
great power of the
bishops, Charles
of
Elizabeth's
act.151
the bishops only their ordinary power, namely, that

with
of
making canons, which,

as
the royal assent, become laws
the
church.152
[134]A. Then the

equal
condition of the
Church
of
England,
it
appears
today, is
to that
of
the
church at
the time of Constantine with respect to purity of
doctrine but
superior
to it with respect to the
fairness
of ecclesiastical
laws. For
it is surely unfair that a man, on whose faith rests the peril of his own salva tion, should receive punishment upon the accusation that it is in error, espe cially if the accusation is made by those unharmed by the error. [135]B. To err, to be deceived, to hold a false opinion, these are by nature no crime, nor can error, so long as it held within one's breast, become
crime.
then-
For
what clues will prompt accusation? will
What
witnesses will argue con
viction?
And then how
judgement be
rendered?
But
words can
be
made a
criminal matter, and
ties,
including
legislators may rightly seek to punish them through penal forfeiture of one's life. If blasphemy against the king can be
so much more
punished with
death,
blasphemy
against
God.153
But fairness
requires that such a
law specify openly both

with
what crime
the law
condemns and what the manner of punishment will
that, if the be, wrongdoer knows in advance the he will frightened he be pay, penalty may from his wrongdoing. The end of legitimate punishment is not satiation of anger against a man but the prevention of injuries, as much as can be done to the benefit of mankind. law is unjust which does not first threaten before it Any
the end
wounds, and, however
discretionary the right of supreme powers may be in down the still it is not within their discretion to exact penalties setting laws, laws.154 which have not previously been defined in the
Moreover,
except a
law be declared
and
excuse of
can
ignorance is removed,
not even
that
promulgated, so that any credible which is done against the law
be
rightly
punished or called a crime.

[136]A. But is that [137]B. The
of men. which
373
liable
transgresses the
natural
law
not a crime and
to punishment, even if no
natural are
manner of punishment eternal and
is
provided
for in the
law?155
law is
divine
and
But few
they
who
know how to
peer
inscribed only in the hearts into their own hearts and read
the things
written
there. And so, men leam what to do and what to avoid

written
from
laws that have been

and avoid
only so much as Besides, if something is done
down. And, having seen the penalties, they then do him.156 each one deems useful or harmful to
against the natural
law, it is
not usual to call sins
it
a crime
but
are
sin,
and men consider themselves unless what
forgiven their
immediately
if they
repentant,
commonwealth or to their
they have done involves some harm to the neighbor. And, in that case, they think themselves
than is required to make satisfaction for the dam
consider
liable to
age
no more punishment caused.
they have alone. For if a
But they
the evil itself to
be
punished
by God
sinner punishes a sinner, accusing him of the sin alone, after the law has been satisfied, it is like a state of civil war. [138]A. But why, if someone is an atheist, shall he not pay a penalty, whether or not there is a written law to define the manner of punishment? shall undoubtedly be punished and most severely, but first he be accused, heard and condemned. And he can be accused only because that which he has said and done. But by what deeds will atheism be proven? what
[139]B. He
must
of
For
deed have
you
heard
of so wicked and
impious the like to
which
has
not at some time even
been committed, be
not
by
those who make

will
profession of
deeds that he
adjudged an
only by Christianity? No, it is not from a man's atheist. Thus, because of something said, be
accused of
those not considered atheists but
either uttered or written, a man can
atheism; that
is, if he has
directly
denied that God exists, but in
no other way.
[140]A. But do
we not call anyone an atheist who consequence of which provided
has
said or written some

God?'57
thing, the necessary

[141]B. Oh yes, necessity
words or
with which
is the
he
nonexistence of
that,
when
uttered or wrote
it, he
saw
the
that
consequence
followed. For if the law
prohibits certain
deeds
that
and makes
them liable to punishment, then
they
must
be
so
defined
their
as
everyone whom punishes
that law obliges may know them with specific then
ity. If the law

elements.
deeds,
they
must
be defined in the law
with all
If it is
words that are punished, then
they
must
be
written out
in
the law itself.
For the
man
consequences of words are
has
spoken
contrary to the letter

will excuse
very difficult to judge, so, if an accused of the law in ignorance of good reason
provided no
ing,
this very ignorance
him,
injury
has been done to binds

an
anyone.
But if
judge,
through ignorance of some consequence,

cannot
inno
cent man over
for punishment, then he
be
excused.
But, if he knows
punished.158
that the
words themselves are who exists
Now, he
whether
He
contrary to the law, he can be denies that God exists or openly professes his own doubt or not can be punished even if no manner of punishment has
with
been inserted in the law, but
exile,
even
by
natural
fairness. For
religion
374
Interpretation
divine
power
and recognition of
is
commanded
by
every especially if it is cannot be bound

cause
and
commonwealth must ensure

confirmed
that faith
in
law in every commonwealth; covenants be preserved and
Thus, because an atheist swearing an from the republic, not be must be removed he by an oath, he is contumacious but as a public nuisance. Then, once the public harm
by
oath.159
has abated, I do not see why he converted from his impiety. For,
patience
must
be killed,
since
what can a man
not
he may perhaps be hope for from divine
before he dies? The
same should
be
said
concerning
blasphemy,
which
is
reproachful speech against
God and, if the
mind gives assent
to the speech,
atheism.
[142]A. But why

rather
are
blasphemers to be killed according to the Mosaic

an
law,
than suffer exile?

a
[143]B. Once
a
law has been enacted,
blasphemer from his kingdom. The

was
king
of the
earthly king has the right to expel Israelite people at the time of
Moses
the
whole
God Himself, established so by covenant and also king naturally of world. God therefore had the same right, once the law had been
expel
passed, to
the blasphemer from the earth
itself,
to
that
is,
to
kill him. Of
course,
you must understand
this
response of mine
your question not as an
explanation of a
the cause of God's purpose

once
in setting down the law, but only

down.160
as
defense
of
its fairness
sect, then
it had been
set
[144] A. Now I
ion only of a Christian
I
a
understand what
heresy is,
namely, that it
sect and
was
first
an opin
an opinion of a
Christian
thirdly
an opinion of
sect condemned
would also
like to know
by by
the catholic church.

what power and
in
what
way it became
cus
to punish heresy, from the beginning up to the present. [145]B. Before Constantine the Great, the first Christian emperor, neither the pastors nor even the apostles themselves had the power of inflicting any
tomary
legal
sanction upon
those whom
they had
of
condemned.
They
could neither send
them into exile

molest them.
nor
deprive them
freedom
of movement nor
Such
of
power was
in the
competence of could
the highest
ruler alone
in any way for

could con
the preservation
the peace.
They
excommunicate; that
and shun
is, they
deny
and
their society,
as was
intimacy
and
conversation,
those
whom
they
demned,
it
done to
pagans and publicans.
But this is
not a
punishment, to the
often caused more
inconvenience to the
once
excommunicator than
excommunicate.
At the Council
of
Nicaea,
only
the
ment was established
against the
heretics had been condemned, a punish clerics, namely, that they be deprived of
their churches. But nothing was done against their disciples, perhaps because the laity was scarcely held responsible for deciding about the teachings of their
pastors. served
Or
perhaps
it
was
because
quite a
few
of
them
were soldiers who
had
in the army
under the emperor
himself;
these
were not
to be provoked
without some
danger.
of
Even the learned teachers
the
heresies
were called
before the council;

their reasonings were tures. If then at
375
heard and,
after
argument,
refuted out of
the
Holy Scrip
they
sent
they
refused
to the end to subscribe to the judgement of the church,
length they
were
deprived
of
their churches. their
And, if
afterwards
continued to corrupt
the people
same
with
heresy, they
put their
were sometimes
into
exile.161
But if these he had
men,
having
adhered
to
it, they
were restored given
by
the emperor
contumacy aside, later himself. Thus Arius himself
was restored after

which seemed
the Emperor a written confession of to depart from the

not want
his faith
to the
Emperor
not
judgement
given
by
the
other
Fathers. And Athanasius, who did into exile because of this behavior. 162
to receive him
back,
was sent
[146] A. Did
dience to the
so great a man as
Athanasius
not
think it a sin to refuse obe
command of seems.
the supreme emperor?

passages
[147]B. So it
which obedience not obscure.
Nonetheless the
in the New Testament in
is taught
with
by
Christ
and
the apostles to even pagan powers are
But
that very zeal which he had shortly before employed to

at
fight the Arian

against when
heresy
of
the Nicene
Council, Athanasius
fasten
upon
afterwards set
himself
the emperor's wish to restore Arius. This should not surprise us,
for,
doctors
theology
bear
of
so
intently
either
those passages in the those passages
Holy
which
Scriptures
pertain
which
on a current
debate, they
pass over
to the
rights
princes,
through carelessness or sometimes even
through partisanship,
thereby slighting human laws.

punishments
But,
among
or
to return to the punishments set

ecclesiastical
the
ultimate
up for heretics, you is what is

punishment
should called on
know that
anathema
excommunication,
so
power.163
Now the
cause
every why Constantine

the
that
other
depends
the civil
and
the other Roman emperors
insti
tuted many goods, the
punishments against
burning
of
their
heretics, such as exile, confiscation of their even books, death, though this measure was taken
themselves but against those who failed to
not against the
heretical
writers
bring
the
and
condemned
books to the
flames; I
say, the
cause164
was
lest Chris
tians, particularly soldiers, divide into factions and kill one other. Nonetheless, I can find no imperial law requiring heretics be killed, except whom I consider less as heretics than as feigned ing the Manichaeans
only,165
Christians
men.166
and wicked
I do find
attempted
law according to
which a pagan or
Jew is to be burned if he has
to turn his relative, once converted,
faith.167 But this in no way pertains to the punishment away from the Christian of heretics. I have also heard that Emperor Frederick Barbarossa brought for
ward a
law for the
burning
of
heretics. But
while
I find that Justinian's Code

predecessors'
does
contain a constitution of
that Frederick confirming his

no constitution exists as
con
stitutions as to
punishing
heretics,
to
burning
them.168
And so, as far as I can gather through inference, that manner of punishing heretics began shortly after the time of Pope Alexander III, who, together with that emperor, was the first to trample upon the imperial power (imperium) itself
and
the laws of all
princes.169
However that may
be, it is
certain
that, in
376
our
Interpretation
England, from
almost that
time
until
the time of Queen
Elizabeth, heretics
which
have generally been burned in law.170 passed into
accordance with
a certain custom,
has
[148] A. Thus
this
few
words must a
be
added to
the definition of
catholic
heresy
from
by
time, namely, that it is fire.
teaching
against
the
faith,
to be punished
[149]B. So it is.
[150]A.
By
what
judge
and
by
what
judicial form imperial
were
heretics to be
the em
condemned?
[151]B. Before the

perors, the judges
rescripts
popes
began to
exercise
power against
were
by
and
large those to
to
whom were sent
the
emperors'
concerning
the
punishments meted out
heretics,
namely, the
praetors of
Rome
and
provincial prefects.
But I know nothing

grown
of their procedure
for
convicting heretics.
Then, licly,
after pontifical power
had
strong,
cognizance of the action
lay
with one or more of
the bishops. If the accused,

renounced
having
he
was
been
questioned pub after
twice if necessary,
the doctrine he the court,

or
had taught,
having
if
made penance
in the form
relapsed
prescribed
afterwards
he
into the
was of
by same heresy
over
then absolved. But

some other
fell into
(for they
civil and
were without
number), he
handed
to the
secular power
for burning.
Nor
was
there any power,
chance
pardon, given the division between
ecclesiastical
without
the consent of the pope.

convicted and punished seventeenth year of
[152]A. How
were
heretics to be
reign
beginning
with
the
first
year of
Elizabeth's
to the
Charles'?
all.171
This [153]B. Throughout that time, there appeared very few heretics at was because those to whom the queen had entrusted ecclesiastical government
under
her had
as
were prohibited
by
which
cils;172
previously been is clear from those

not not
law from adjudging any doctrine to be heretical condemned at one of the first four general coun
councils
which
had
been declared
against
the faith
themselves, this means any doctrine set out in the Nicene Creed. But
contrary to the creed very words, in the form in
not
any
who were convicted would

possible
be burned.
or
[154] A. How is it
unless one either which
to know what is
of
is
denies the truth
the creed's
they
were written
down,
or asserts their
falsity?
[155]B. Indeed; no heretic should be punished by the law unless he contra dicts the creed's very words. For it is unjust that someone should say that the faith has been denied in consequence of something and that someone else
should
of
be
of
punished
because
of
it. Is it fair to
seek a man's
life
by
life
means at
cunning
adroitness
in using logical
or even
arguments? or to put one's
risk
the
because
his adversaries',
his judge's,
skill
in logic? Should
for
a
law,
which requires no more than
compliance,
exact retribution
flaw in
reasoning?
The Fathers
of
the
Nicene Council thought otherwise, for,
when
only
some

few
of
377
them hesitated to
subscribe
homoto the creed because of the word
ousios and
demanded
fuller
explanation of
that word, the rest, gratifying their to

mean
wish, declared that the

was of
word should
be
understood
that the
Son
of
God
indeed
of the substance of the
Father,
so
that He
was nonetheless not a part
the Father.
One
of of
those who sought this
explanation
from the Fathers

letter"
was
Eusebius,
to the clergy of all the Caesarea, who wrote the "circular Bishop dioceses.173 In it, he set forth what the council had decided concerning faith in the Holy Trinity, and he explained why he and the others, who had first re fused, later endorsed the creed. He gave as the reason for his action "that a formula was prescribed by the Fathers, by which care was taken lest the mean ing depart from the sense of the true faith, and that on this account he did not
reject
the word
our
homoousios,
namely, because peace
was
the object
constantly
before
eyes."
may understand, that, whenever words are made a crime, according to the opinion of the Nicene Council, they must be reduced to a formula, so that all can be certain without a string of syllogisms which words
one constitute a crime and which
From this,
do
not.
Clearly, in
acts
the same manner, through a that constitute a crime from
formula in the law,

those that do
not.
one
distinguishes those For
All the
popes
have felt
similarly.
when
they
condemn some conciliar
doctrine decretal
as
as
heretical in the many from the

express
general
councils,
as
they
write
down in the
formulas
they foresee
possible consequences which can arise
given
doctrine.
[156] A. You said a moment ago that, in the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the law prohibited those who exercised ecclesiastical government
under
eral councils whether notice

verbal
her from pronouncing anything a heresy had not so condemned. Now I

those throughout
which one of should
the
first four
gen
like to know therefore doctrines
ecclesiastical governors whom she all
then established promulgated

which
the parochial churches as to precisely
and
formulas it
men174
was a capital offense and
to contradict. For I do not believe that
uneducated prescribed
those to
whom
for their
In
salvation were
nothing but the Holy Bible had been obliged to have with them a true transcript of
whether a corrupted
the
councils.
fact,
I do
not
know
true transcript exists, for there

which
are those who claim that the
Arians
the conciliar records,
the
Catholics then
suppressed can
for that
reason.
[157]B. There
be
no
doubt but that,

and the
of the part of the councils
in
which
the creed was established, there exists a true transcript. As for what pertains to
the disputes between the Catholics

whether
heretics, it is hardly
those
of great
interest
that to
part perished.
Now,
which churches:
respond
to your
question about whether
verbal
formulas, by
heresy
no,
was contained under none
Elizabeth,
the royal
were promulgated
throughout the
were, nor
were
letters themselves
published except
378
a
Interpretation
time
afterward.
long
As
result,
a given
defendant
even
could not
know
what was
and was not
heresy
could
before he
was cited.
Thus,
if,
through the royal

so
let
ters,
heresy
of
have been declared to be
whatever
had been
declared
by
the aforesaid councils,
they
was
were not available
to serve that
purpose.
This neg
ligence letters
Elizabeth's
quickly,
ecclesiastical
governors, their
failure
to publish those
more
condemned
by
that most
illustrious jurist Edward
Coke, in
the third book of his
Institutes."5
[158]A. The Anglican

sufficient promulgation of
liturgy
contained
the creed. Was its publication not
the law on heresy?

written
[159]B. Yes, if it had been

of
in
law.176
But
no mention
is
made
there
the
the Nicene
Creed,
and neither the uneducated nor perhaps even some of
clergy
understood what s
that creed had in common

made
with
the councils or how
Constantine'
decretal had been
English
law.177
[160] A. You
tion of
reign.178
said that the governors of the church charged with adjudica
heresy lost their legal authority in the seventeenth year of Charles I's How was it possible that the laws on heresy which existed in the time
Mary
did
not regain
of
Queen
their authority at that point?

abolish all ecclesiastical power other than royal of
[161]B. Because the law to

power
had been
passed
before that
the
ecclesiastical governors was set up.
So,
once
the law was removed,
they
then
had
no power
nor
to punish heretics
such
except power
their ordinary power to excommunicate; today.
do they have any in any way
[162]A.
Today by
then,
heretic
cannot
be
punished
except
by
vir
excommunication; is that
correct?
[163]B. And
those penalties which
follow
upon excommunication
in
tue of the civil laws. He will be called into an
ecclesiastical
court, where, if he
his error, he will be handed over to the secular power to be thrown into prison. There he will remain until he renounces his heresy and does
not condemn
fulfills the penalty established in the laws.'79 [164] A. Who can know whether he has truly
[165]B. No [167]B. He
was
one can not
renounced or not?
[166] A. Can he
in any way know, except God be forced to abjure his heresy?
alone.
cannot.
During
the regime of those
ecclesiastical
governors, it
to their
occasionally interior beliefs.180 But

unjust.181
the practice
the
for heretics to be
power
examined under oath as
bishops'
to do this was taken away with their
Besides, exacting authority as tain to God alone, the searcher of

contumacy.
retribution
for thoughts
seems
notice
to per
thoughts.182
Human law takes
only
of
[168] A. Does
[169]B. None,
resources
the
Gospel
establish
except that
they
were to
any penalty against heretics? be avoided and prohibited from the
communion of saints, who at that time took their meals and sustenance
from
law. Nor do I find that excommunication followed upon one's heresy, but rather from one's life and crimes, those which brought the religion into discredit.184
no secular punishment prescribed
held in
common.183
I find
by
1668 Appendix
to
Leviathan
379
brought to bear
the
part of a
Quite to the contrary, I think that, if the parables of the New Testament are upon Christian doctrine, then the punishment of the heretic on Christian through
civil
penalties
is prohibited,
as
in Matthew
13:27-30:
Another
parable
he
put
before them, saying, "The kingdom

in his
of
heaven may be
compared to a man who sowed good seed
field; but
while men were
sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the
servants of the
householder
came and said to
him, 'Sir, did
you not sow good seed

this.'
in
your
field? How then has it

to
weeds?'
He
said to
them, 'An enemy has done
The
servants said
him, 'Then do
you want us
to go and gather the
weeds?'
But
he said, 'No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow until the time of harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, 'Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the
wheat
into my
bam.'"
Is it
not clear
from this that the weeds, that
is,
the
heresies,
uprooted
are
to
be
re
served until
the last judgement? How are
they
then to
be
in this
world
by
death
or exile?
,
Likewise
1 Corinthians 3:11-15:
to the commission of God given to me
a
According
builder I laid
that which is
with
foundation,
which
and another man upon
(Paul), like a skilled master (Apollos) is building upon it. Let

foundation
one can
each
man take care
how he builds
it. For
no other
any
one
lay
than
laid,
is Jesus Christ. Now if any
builds
on the
foundation
gold, silver, precious stones, wood,
hay,
stubble, each man's work will
become manifest; for the day will disclose it because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any
man
has built
on the
foundation survives, he
will suffer
will receive a reward. as through
If any
man's
work
is burned up, he
means
loss, but only
fire.
This
that
anyone
who
holds to this foundation, that Jesus is the
is truly a Christian, will be saved, even if he builds Christ, is, that or or is, false beliefs. He will lose the work but shall straw, hay up wood nevertheless be saved, though as through fire, that is, once his errors have been
that
anyone who
purged
from his
mind.
Also, 2
Timothy 2:25:
Have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome but kindly to every one, an apt teacher, forbearing, correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may
perhaps grant
that
they
will.
will repent and come
to know the truth,
after
being
captured
by
Him to do His
Is this
not against
those
who cause
the
heretic
who
has twice been
cited as
immediately
to be burned except he
renounce
his doctrine, thereby
doing
380
Interpretation
much as sages
they
can
to block a Christian's way to God's

add the
mercy?185
To these
pas
from the
Holy Scripture,
Christ
who
belief
of all
the theologians that no one

of
death.186
is
received
by
is forced to Him through fear
[170] A. How is blasphemy usually punished? [171]B. Blasphemy, if it comes from a disposition
For
the
who would cure of
of the
mind, is atheism.
exists and works
dare to blaspheme God if he believed that He

affairs?
commonly blasphemy is nothing other than an affected abuse of the divinity by means of unnecessary oaths. Justinian defines the crime in this way in Novella 77: "Blasphemies are, for example, 'by the hair of and 'by His and words like
which men call
God' head,'
them."
human
But that
Then the penalty established is capital punishment. [172]A. Are no oaths of this kind punished by law among us? [173]B. I do not know. But I do not doubt that ecclesiastical
punish them.
controls can
For it is both
of
a scandal
to the church and a most

of
especially impu
dent transgression
the Third
Commandment
sin,
the Decalogue.
Any
unneces are not
sary habituated to lying. Thus believed

and
oath whatsoever
is
no small
one who
taking its origin from this, that men has said the truth, seeing that he is
should swear
lest he
seem not
to have spoken seriously, will swear on God.
And it is surely God
upon whom
he
if it indeed
some
were necessary. wags
Seeing
then
that these oath-takers
receive no
punishment,
immoderate for the His
swearing elty
begin to divide God up after the manner of the upon these parts in an effort to snatch some little
And from this His
hair,"
Anthropomorphites,187
praise
nov
of their oaths.
practice come
those sayings,
"by
body,"
"by
His
nails,"
"by
which are at
the same time blasphemous and
heretical. The
church will see
how these things
should
be
punished.188
CHAPTER 3. CONCERNING CERTAIN OBJECTIONS TO LEVIATHAN
[174]A. In the
year of our
Lord
1651,
there
appeared a certain
book,
written
in the English language, first
entitled
Leviathan
and composed of
four
parts.
The
part concerned the nature of man and of natural
laws. The
second part
concerned the nature of the commonwealth and the
right
and
of the supreme power.
The third dealt

of
with the
Christian commonwealth,
the
fourth,
the kingdom
darkness.
Each
of
these
parts contains certain paradoxical of
arguments,189
both
philo
sophical and
theological. So many
these
run counter to
the power of the

author of
Roman
pontiffs over other princes that
it easily
appears
that the books

as
considered
civil war
differences
was
of opinion over
theological questions
the cause
the
that
This discord had
then,
within
England, Scotland and Ireland. first between the Roman and the English churches, and the Church of England, between its Episcopal and Presbyterian
waged arisen
then
being
throughout
ministers.190

The Civil War had its
origins
381
year
first in the kingdom
of
Scotland, in
the
1639, but
which was
the the
king lifting
put
it down then
by
making
certain
concessions,
one of war
of episcopal power
from that
kingdom.191
But the
quickly sprang to life again in 1640, at the instigation of English In that time, ecclesiastical administration was performed in king's letters through
almost
bishops.193
Presbyterians.192
virtue of
the
Then, too, wholly Presbyterian, for that faction far surpassed the Episcopal faction in power and in the favor of the And so it was in the following year
people.194
there sat a Parliament that was
that the
king,
to placate
Parliament,
was
traordinary
power emerged
ecclesiastical
administration
forced to strip the bishops of all as That accomplished,

well.195
ex
no
remained
among the English any longer to try

of sect of men,
heresies;
there then
every type
writing
and
publishing in
whatsoever
theology
he
wished.
The
of this
author of said
book,
who was now
freedom
well
of
writing
already become so
living
Paris,196
made some use re
common.197
And he defended
king markably while he endeavored to do this from the

the
of the
novelties of
rights
in things temporal
as well as spiritual.
But
Holy Scriptures,
he fell into
certain
and
doctrine,
are
which
many theologians have
accused of
heresy
atheism.
[175]B. What [176]A. Tell
these doctrines?
me
how this
sentence seems
to you; I have taken it from the
second chapter of
Leviathan,
and
toward the
end:198
And for fayries,

purpose, crosses,
either of
walking ghosts, the

or not
opinion of them
has I think been
on
taught,
confuted, to
keep
in
credit
the use of exorcisme, of

men.199
holy
water, and other such inventions of ghostly

sentence will seem
view
[177]B. For my part, that
long
as no one proves
the contrary point of
true, sage and Christian so from the Sacred Scripture.
And in this instance, I read in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 27:52) that, at the death of Christ on the cross, it was in fact dead bodies that were raised from
the tombs,
not souls.
[178]A. Then, in the fourth chapter, at the beginning, our author denies that incorporeal.200 But what does he intend here, to deny that any substances are
God
exists or
to
assert
that God is
asserts
body?
[179]B. Clearly, he
affirmed of
that God is a body. But before
him, Tertullian
heretics but
an
the
same proposition
who
in
an argument against
Apelles
was
and other
his time
taught that our
Savior Jesus Christ

proclaimed
not a
body
apparition
(phantasma).201
Tertullian
this
universal
statement:
body Praxeas, "all substance is body after its own condemned by any of the first four general councils.
not
"Whatsoever is
is
entity."
not
an
Likewise, he
affirmed
against
was not
kind."202
And this doctrine

"immaterial"
Show me, if
tures. But I
really,"203
"incorporeal"
you
can, the
words
or
in the
Scrip
will show
that
is,
as
you, "The fulness of divinity dwells in Christ corpo deity."204 "We all Athanasius explains, "according to His
382
Interpretation have
our
move and
being
in
God"
are the words of
the
Apostle.205
But it is
quantity that we all have. And can there be quantity lacks quantity (in Not
even non quanto)?
(quantum) in
that which
under
"God is
great,"
but it is impossible to
stand greatness apart
from body. Council itself

who were
the Nicene
stated
poreal, though the Fathers
there,
word
perhaps not
explicitly that God was incor all, did feel this way.
that
And Constantine himself

since
approved
the
homoousios,
is,
is
co-essential,
it
seemed
to him to follow from it that God was
incorporeal.206
Nonethe found in
less, they did not want to import the word And in fact, the Scriptures, into the
creed.207
"incorporeal,"
which even
not
if
essence were not

"co-essential."
body,
God's
incorporeality
cannot
be inferred from the
word
The fa
ther of David and the son of Obadiah were co-essential;

same
they
were of
the very
and
man, namely, Jesse. Does it follow from this that the father
were
David
Jesse
incorporeal?
the Fathers present at the Council of Nicaea intended their creed as
Further,
into the
a condemnation not
church after
only of Arianism but of all those heresies that had crept the death of our Lord. One of these was the heresy of the
who
Anthropomorphites,
But they did
the
had
attributed
the limbs of the human
body
to
God.208
not want
to condemn those who had written with Tertullian that
Indeed, those who ascribe purity to true, Him honor. But to attribute thinness to Him, which God do well, for it is to do
real and pure spirit was corporeal.
is something of a step toward nothingness, is dangerous. John Damascene, in explaining the Nicene faith, states in the thirteenth
chapter of
the
first book [of On
the
Orthodox Faith]:
Of the divine names, some are negative, meaning that which is above substance, like anousios, that is, without achronos, that is, without time; anarchos, that is, without beginning. This is not because He is inferior to those
essence;209
things, but because He is lifted up
above all things.
For God is
not to
be
numbered
among the things that are, but He is above all
things.2'0
Here
you see
John
Damascene,
an
Aristotelian philosopher,
as
is
evident
from his work, and also a Father of the Church and a pious and learned man, who, because he is fearful of saying with Tertullian that God is
Dialectica,21'
body,
God,212
seeks
to attenuate
not
bodily
I know
why, and
thickness, which he considers unworthy of thus descends into atheistic words in saying that
exist.213
God is
nothing of those things that [180]A. I think that, in using anousios, he wanted to signify nothing
anousios and
other
than uncreated.
[181]B. Perhaps. But

uncreatedness a
same
after
he had
said enough
few lines
before,214
what need was
concerning the attribute of there for him to say the

nonetheless
such
body,215
thing
again with that name which realized that all
is
not
to be tolerated, anousios?
At length, he
spirit, however thin, is
for
what substance or real
entity
could
he invent for himself
that substance

would seem
383
to
of
the kind
we see
be incorporeal, except those idols or apparitions (phantasmata) in mirrors, in sleep and in darkness, those the Apostle Paul
author states
says are
nothing?216
[182]A. As for the third doctrine, that

toward the end:
in the
sixth
chapter,
Feare
of power
invisible, feigned by
imagine,
true
the
mind,217
or
allowed
[is]
religion; not allowed, superstition. And

religion.218
imagined from tales publiquely when the power imagined is
truly
such as we
[183]B. The Preacher
says
the same
as
thing in Ecclesiastes: "The fear

does the Psalmist: "The fool has
of
the
Lord is the
beginning
of
wisdom";219
said
in
God."220 his heart, there is no [184] A: Fourth, in the sixteenth
chapter:
The
true
God may be
says
personated.
As He was; first
not
by Moses,
in his
who governed the
Israelites (that Moses (Moses

says
were not
his,
but God's people)
own name with
hoc dicit
this) but in God's name, with hoc dicit Dominus (the Lord this). Secondly, by the Son of Man, His own Son our blessed Saviour Jesus
of
Christ, that came to reduce the Jewes and induce all nations into the kingdome His Father, not as of Himselfe but as sent from the Father. And thirdly, by the Holy Ghost, or Comforter, speaking and working in the apostles: which Holy Ghost was a Comforter that came not of Himselfe, but was sent and proceeded
from Them
both.221
[185]B. It
seems
the author wanted to explain the doctrine of the

not name
Trinity
at
wish, but the explanation is wrong. For Moses, because he too bore the person of God in a certain way, as do all Christian kings, seems here to make up one of the persons in the Trinity.
this point, though
he does
it:
a pious
This is very
created the
careless.
If the
author
had
said
that
God, in His
redeemed
own
person,
and
world;
that, in
the person of the
Son, He
mankind;
that, in the person of the Holy Spirit, He sanctified the church; then he would have said nothing other than what the church proclaims in its catechism.
[186]A. But he
repeats
the same
explanation
in
numerous places.
[187]B. Still, we can easily emend it in each place. Or if he had said that God, in His own person, had established the church for Himself through his servant Moses; in the person of Christ, redeemed it; and in the person of the Holy Spirit, sanctified it; then he would not have erred.
[188]A. In the
thirty-fourth chapter, the author

of
denies that it
can
be
shown
from
the canonical books
the Old Testament that angels

apparitions
are real and perma
nent substances, are called angels
but
rather supernatural
(phantasmata); for they

will.222
because God
uses them
for the
[189]B. It is
also that all
certain
that angels have that

of
declaring of His name by virtue of their

we
office and
spirits, because
the
transparency
which
of spiritual substance, are
invis
ible,
except
in the
sense
according to
say that
apparitions (phan-
384
Interpretation
are seen
tasmata)
in
mirror, in sleep or in darkness. And so,

someone
as often as
the
Holy
not
when
Scriptures say that

which
has
seen an
angel, the vision that occurs
is
that
takes place through the eyes. It

angels as
is like
what
Jacob
experienced
slept.223
he
saw
the
The
men
known
ascending and descending the ladder, as he the Sadducees denied that angels were
substances.224
Why? Not because they did not believe in the Old Testament, but because there is no mention of the creation of angels in the Old Testament. Nonetheless, the Jews did
not excommunicate author also
them
for their beliefs. from
Does the
deny
that angels can be shown to be substances
the New Testament?
[190]A. He does
that
not.
But if they are, he
says
it
can
be
shown
from there
they
are corporeal substances.
[191]B. None
nor
of the ancient
of
Fathers found this to be
an
do any of the doctors does not condemn it.
the reformed churches. The
Church
interpretive crux, of England
[192]A. In the thirty-eighth chapter, he denies that the human soul is immor tal of its own nature, that is, by creation itself, but by the grace of God in
furnishing
the fruit
of
the tree of
life to Adam
and
Eve,
provided
they
abstain
from eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and But when they had transgressed God's command concerning this fruit of the tree of
evil.225
the knowledge
of
life
and
remained
of good and evil, then they were cut off from a way to the tree became mortal, they and their posterity. Dying and dead have they until, through the death of Christ for the remission of sins, they shall
rise again to eternal
life in the
general resurrection of the

of
dead.
souls of
One
whether
consequence of
this doctrine is that none

exist
the
the
dead,
faithful
or
unfaithful, may in any way

this view, I
immortal before the
day
of
judgement.
[193]B.
length.226
Concerning
have just
explained
my he
opinion at sufficient
But I
would add
that I do not know how he may be said to sin against
the Christian faith through
who confesses eternal
life,
nor
whether
asserts
it is
received
creation or
through redemption;
how this doctrine in the
can
be
against
Christian teaching
tains that
or
teaching
nor
worship in the liturgy
when neither
Holy
Scripture
which con
which contains
soul."
that Christian worship is

Christ,"
there ever found the
words
"immortal
But "eternal life through
yes, very frequently!
[194]A. In the
resurrection will
same
chapter, he
says
that the kingdom of
God
following
or
the
be
on earth.
[195]B. Does this
assertion
derive from his

passages
at
own
philosophy
from the
Holy
Joel,
Scripture?227
[196]A. He
says as to the
cites quite a
few
which are not well
known,
from the prophets, Isaiah, Obadiah, least to me. And he adduces what St. Peter
burning
add
and renewal of this world.
[197]B. Then 5:9-11.:
to those passages this more obvious one
from Revelation

The four
animals and
385
twenty-four elders
shall
fall before the Lamb,
each
having
they
lyres
shall
and golden vials
full
of
incense,
which are the prayers of
the saints. And
sing a new song, saying, You are worthy to receive the book and open its seals, for You were slain and have redeemed us to God through your blood, from every tribe and language and people and kindred. And You have made us kings
and priests of our
God,
and we shall reign on the
earth.228
What is
clearer than
same
this?
[198]A. In the
also
chapter, he
says
that the punishment
of
the damned
will
take place on earth and that

one can
it
will not
be
eternal.
[199]B. No
saints
militant,
die
a second
they death, then

will
doubt but that, if the damned are to be destroyed by the be destroyed on And if it is true that they will
earth.229
their
destruction
will not
be
eternal.
[200]A. In the thirty-ninth chapter, he defines

I define
a church to
a church
in this
way:
be
company
of men
professing Christian religion,
united
in
the person of one soveraign, at whose command

without whose
they
ought to assemble and
authority they
ought not to
assemble.230
From this definition it follows that, in the time

apostles'
of
the pagan emperors,

councils
nei
ther the
council nor
any
of
the other of the
Christians'
before
the one held at Nicaea met
with permission.
[201]B. There
were quite a
few meetings,
was
or
synods,
of
the Christians under
the pagan emperors. But
by
the word
"church,"
he
understands a synod with
authority to decide,
whose
decrees it
unjust not
to obey. Such synods
cannot take place without the supreme power.
[202] A. In
God"
the forty-third chapter,
he
quotes
John 1:1, "The Word

and
was with
"Word"
and means
John 1:14, "The Word
flesh,"
was made
he
says
as
that
the same
thing
as promise and promise
the same
thing
that which is
promised, namely, Jesus Christ.

40:13,231
Similarly, in Psalms 104 [105]: 19, in Genesis

think that it is this word the
word?
"word"
and other similar places.
[203]B.
made
Why
or
not?
For do
you
that was
flesh
the
thing
world.
signified
words of the same apostle
What is the meaning of those in Revelation 13:8: "The Lamb was slain from the
by
foundation
nate? our
"
of
the
not
Could He have been
slain
before He
and
was
incar
Does it
follow from this that both the incarnation

occurred
the passion of
Lord,
which
dation
of the
world?232
in time, nonetheless took place from the foun surely How can it be otherwise than in the Father's eternal is this decree but the thing decreed? In the same way, is the promise of the Father (Luke 24:43)? Christ
Father."
decree?233
And
what
not
the
Holy
Ghost
also called
says, "I
will send you
the promise of my
question
[204]A. In the [thirty-sixth] chapter, to the is ordered by his legitimate prince to deny
permitted to obey, prophet
as
"What if
some
believer
that it is
Christ?"
the author
responds
in the
example of
said, "Go in
peace."234
Naaman the Syrian, to whom the These words do not seem to me to be a granting
of permission
but
form
of
saying farewell.
386
Interpretation
perhaps
[205]B. And
either
they
would
be, if he had
said
something
more
to
him,
can
to express
approval or
disapproval. But
under
the
circumstances
they
be
granting only You know that, shortly before the Council of Nicaea, there had been quite a few Christians, good ones, certainly, but not very brave, who, in the face of
understood
as a
of permission.
death
and
tortures,
general
renounced at
the Christian faith. What punishments

meted out against
who acted
do
you
think the
council
Nicaea
them? The nineteenth

were
canon of that council requires
that those
in this way before they
faced But
as
with
danger
and
torture had to return to the stage of the
catechumen.235
to those who
not
renounced
in the face
of
Now I do
taken it
deny
but that, in
preach
an apostle or
death itself, it stipulate^ nothing. disciple, that is, in one who had
of
upon
himself to
the
teaching
Christ among the
enemies of
Christ,
this was a sin and
in Peter
a great
one, but one of
weakness and
easily
forgiven
by
Christ.
the same chapter, the author asserts that Christian kings are per
sacraments.236
[206] A. In
mitted
to
administer the
with
[207]B. And
him,
so
felt
almost all of the ministers of the
Church
of
England in the first Queen had
year of
the reign of Queen Elizabeth. For as soon as the

over
vindicated
her supremacy
the church, she issued certain in

Injunctions.237
structions throughout all the
dioceses,
which she called
One
of
those directed that all clerics should recognize
by
oath
that the lawful
suprem
acy over the But there that,

should
church pertained were
to herself and to her successors.
many
who
did
not want
to
swear and gave as
their reason
they
concede
this, they
would also
power to administer
the sacraments, should she

whomsoever resided
be conceding to the Queen the desire. From this it is clear that supremacy
of
the clergy believed that in
the
the church, to
things
this person also was it permitted, as often as he wished, to
administer all
usually done by At that point, the

never
priests.238
Queen,
to remove this scruple,

upon
wrote
back that it had
been her intention to take
than that exercised
by
herself any administration or power other her father Henry and her brother Edward. And by her
power
letter the Queen

arrogated
neither removed such
from her
male successors nor women
any to herself,
whole of
knowing
that it
was prohibited
for
to speak in
the
churches.239
is taken up in proving that the penitent sinner need believe nothing further for his salvation than that which is contained in this one article of faith, that Jesus is the Christ.
chapter
[208] A. The
the forty-third
many things, as that Jesus is the Son of God, Jews, the restorer of the kingdom of God. For, as the Apostle king John testifies (John 20:31), the aim of even the Gospel is none other than that
article contains
[209]B. That
of
the
the
we might
apostle also says

come
know that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. The same (1 John 4:2): "Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ,
God."
into the flesh, is of Testament similar to this one.
There
are
many
other passages
in the New

[210]A. But
against this view
387
is
what we read at
the end of the Athanasian
Creed,
cannot
namely, "This is the catholic
faith,
which, except a man believe
it, he
be
saved."
[211]B. Then
you set
the
words of
Athanasius
against the
Holy
Scripture
and the words of the apostle? The church accepts his creed as
paraphrase
an explanation or
of
the Nicene
Creed, but
Athanasius'
words are not part of
that
creed.
[212]A. There because they

not
are
are of
many other paradoxical arguments in the same book, but, lesser importance than those we have lingered over, I shall But in these instances
church,
although
bring
them up.
you wish.
[213]B. As nothing
the
against the
faith
of our
have brought up, I find there are several which defeat

you
teaching
NOTES
of private
theologians.
1
the
should
like to thank Pat
Lally
and
the anonymous reader of this journal
for
a number of
helpful
suggestions on
support of
greatly facilitated by the Wisconsin Institute for Research in the Humanities. I have derived considerable
improving
the translation that follows.
My
work was
benefit from Professor Francois Tricaud's work, especially from his knowledge of patristic litera ture. text lacks both section numbers and subject headings, whose addition here I have
Hobbes'
signalled with
tors'
brackets. The text
also
speeches
into
more comprehensible units.

retained
lacks paragraphs; to Where
aid
clarity, I have broken the interlocu

point
Hobbes'
involves
some
the Latin
language, I have
His
use of
the Latin word, written in bold print.
Hobbes'
particularity of Greek has been
transliterated and indicated

written out.
by
the use of bold
italics; his ligatures,
syncopes and elisions
have been
italics is inconsistent in the text, as is his use of the Greek and Roman alphabets. Thus, the Greek word hypostasis is at times written in Greek characters and at times in Roman characters, with and without italics. At times, italics are used merely for emphasis. Where I
have thought it useful, I have retained the their use throughout. Where Hobbes has
emphatic use of printed a
italics
word
and
have
attempted
to regularize
Greek
dropped the italics. Capitalization, too, is inconsistent, again followed modern conventions. Hobbes gives fragments of biblical
his
audience would recognize them as
using Roman characters, I have often used for emphasis; here, I have
passages
in the
expectation that
quoting the English Leviathan, I cite use Molesworth's edition of the English
Appendix
against a
texts; I have expanded the quotations. In to C. B. Macpherson's Penguin edition of 1968; otherwise I
familiar
proof
and
Latin
works.
I have
checked
Molesworth's text
of
the
discussion of 1668 edition; differences are noted. issues is somewhat disjointed; topics hang fire and are resumed later, often without explicit ence to what went before. I have used cross-references to draw the pieces together. copy
of the
Hobbes'
some
refer
2. Hobbes
"creed."
uses
the word Latin

of
"symbolum'
word
(symbolon in
Greek) for
the
English
word
The
history
this
term,
to
ed.
regarding its first
application
Early Christian Creeds,

bolum derives from the
3d
interesting conjectures the church's declaratory creeds are discussed by J. N.D. Kelly, (London: Longmans, 1972), 52-61. Kelly concludes that sym
which originated and several
in the West,
name given recitations of
the faith used at baptisms. This result,

some
emphasiz attempt
ing
as
it does the
corporate context of
the confession, casts
doubt
of
Hobbes'
on
to
characterize adherence
to the creedal statements as a matter
largely
individual
choice.
3. This
passage establishes
two assertions whose implications are developed throughout the
Appendix: (1) scripture is the source and norm of doctrine, and (2) religious beliefs are not open to human understanding; though faulty, human reasoning about them may be discerned and corrected
or abandoned.
4.
Hobbes'
point
is
that the use of these verbs with a preposition governing the accusative case,
verb with rather than with the usual construction of the
the dative case, is quite rare and
ought
to
be
388
Interpretation
belief. denoting a meaning different from the usual expression of an attitude of trust or Fathers' With their strong spatial sense, Hobbes argues, the prepositions here signal the Nicene desire to set out certain boundary formulations of key tenets of the Christian faith, as the consensus they felt allowed and required. This interpretation does not reflect current opinion; see n. 6.
taken as
Hobbes'
discussion consistently reflects his awareness of the historical situation which gave rise to its political exigencies and context, especially the role of Constantine as leader of the church and defender of the peace of the empire. Central to his development of this
the
creed and emphasizes
point
a concern to distinguish Greek philosophy from the Christian faith; see, for example, 14-16, 24, 46, 56, 77-81, 88-89, and 120-21. Cf. Leviathan, 132f. 5. In this and what follows, Hobbes stresses the democratic element of majority rule obtaining in the deliberations, as well as their lack of coercive power, a defect supplied only by the command of the sovereign under whose authority they met. In his doctrine of the church, as in that
is
sections
councils'
of
the state,
Hobbes'
recourse
to a primitive
democracy
obviates what
may be termed
classical
an original
participated
universality
as as
the basis for concerted thought and action.
6. In fact, although,
Septuagint
version of
Hobbes says, the
construction
is
not
found in
Greek
or
in the
the Old
Testament,
the construction, pisteuo
with eis
followed
by
an accusa
tive, is found, rarely in a number of New Testament writings, but principally in the Gospel of John, where its use is characteristic. There it is likely an imitation of the correlative Hebrew verbs,
indicating
so
an attempt on the part of the

of
Christian understanding
inevitably
connoted
Gospel writer to import into Greek the early faith. C. H. Dodd states, "It would seem that pisteuein with the dative simple credence, in the sense of an intellectual judgement, that the moral Christian
conception of
Judaeo-
element of personal
trust or reliance inherent in the Hebrew and Aramaic phrase
an element ex
integral to the
primitive
faith in Christ
needed
to
be
otherwise
pressed."
See The Interpretation of
the
Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge stressing that the term martyr,

witnesses on
University Press,
in
1968), 183-86.
7. Hobbes
makes a related point who
by
or martus
erly means witness, one faith is belief, or, better, tion; 555.
see
tells of events he has seen.
Among Christians,
according to
Jesus'
Greek, prop Hobbes,

resurrec
well-founded
Leviathan, 529-30,
point
and
trust, in stories which the Introduction and notes
have told
of
this point. Cf.
Leviathan, 366
and
8.
Hobbes'
is
that the attribution of
being
to an entity is not a proper predicate. Here as to

express
elsewhere, he
states
that languages do
or
not need verbs
predication,
whose
function is
Hobbes'
merely to
point
signal a
joining,
as
copulation,
of
words, that
is,
of names.
by borrowing
Professor Tricaud 's in Socrates

=
convention of mortal.
= =
denoting
We may illustrate this copulative function of the

examples
God,"
verb
with an equal propositions
sign,
Applied to
which
Hobbes'
may be rendered as "God is tautological. On the existential and
copulative
and
is meaningless, and functions of the verb to be,
in the text, these which "God

=
see
Etienne Gilson,
of
"Knowledge
Existence,"
and
in
Being
Some Philosophers (Toronto: Pontifical Institute
Mediaeval Studies, 1949), 190-215. 9. In using the term verbum substantivum, Hobbes from
at
adopts a
terminology
that dates in Latin
least Priscian's Institutiones Grammaticae, in imitation of a Greek conception, given new meaning by medieval and Humanist grammarians. The reading in the text, verbum substantiale is
,
rare or pehaps
here
a misreading.
Used
as a grammatical
term for centuries, the Latin term copula,
"link,"
meaning
as a
proposition,
denotes here the combining of a subject and a predicate in a sentence conceived of which Hobbes elsewhere defines as "a speech consisting of two names copulated,
Hobbes'
by
speaketh signifies he conceives the latter name to be the name of the same thing former is the name"; Molesworth edition, 1:30. The key here is zeal to transform grammatical elements from symbolizations of reality to mere names, that is, to items of lexis. Countering the traditional view that words reflected human understanding of the essences of which
he that
whereof the
the entities under consideration,
Hobbes described words and names as mere expedients for mem ory and communication: "A name is a word taken at pleasure to serve for a mark, which may raise in our mind a thought like to some thought we had before"; 15. Words in connected discourse are speech, "of which every part is a name"; 16. But Hobbes postulates no relationship of truth be
tween name and
thing;
on
this point, see n. 83.
Thus the
possible
truth
of propositions resides
only

in the right ordering
tional
conception of
389
the names
they
contain.
This definition may be
contrasted with
the tradi
noemata, are
truth, occasioned by Aristotle's saying that the soul's experiences, its likenings of things; thus Thomas Aquinas says that truth is the "adequation of the
of
thing,"
intellect
et rei).
and
the
that
is,
the agreement of knowledge
with
its
object
(adaequatio intellectus
See Martin Heidegger, Being and Time, trans. John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), H214ff. Padley points out that it is an aspect of the nominal ism that Hobbes has transmitted to
G. A. Padley, Grammatical bridge: Cambridge 10. Hobbes
must mean modern times that
he does
not relate names and
things.
See
Theory
in Western
Europe, 1500-1700: The Latin Tradition (Cam

.

to on, that
1 4 1 ff
is, something
which
is,
the expression he uses
in
section
64;
the masculine article makes no sense

obviate
Greek thought
proposition
which
as an
here. Note that, while Hobbes seeks in the Appendix to interpretive aid or influence in Christian theology, he is nonetheless
with of
drawn to employ its vocabulary, but in conformity

existential
his
own
intentions. Here, he
a proposition
reinterprets an set of
concerning the
see
existence
God into
regarding the
beings in
God
fits;
below,
word
n.
213.
a
1 1. Hobbes
ance, actual and
uses the
Greek
and
phantasma, as
or
fantastic,
to the ideas
images
of
Latin word, in referring to name, to appear thought. Hobbes denies all of these reality
retained
because they depend on some other entity for their existence. I have indicate the variety of items to which he applies it.
12. The
where world reference
the word in the text to
is to
a passage
in Paul's letter to the
church
in Corinth, 1 Corinthians
8:4,
he discusses eating meat sacrificed to idols: "We know that idols do not really exist in the and that there is no god but the One. And even if there were things called gods, either in the
where
sky
one
or on earth
there certainly seem to be

whom all
'gods'
'lords'
and
in plenty
still
for
us
there is
God,
the
Father, from
things
come and
for
whom we exist.
are no more real than the apparitions of sense and no
less
subject
In arguing that idols to explanation, Hobbes counters

to an extent taken
confidence of
the animism of popular Greek belief and religion,
which
he feels
was
up
by
the
Greek God
philosophers and medieval

writers
theologians;
not exist
and
he
reinforces should
the
Old
and
New
to the
Testament
of
that such
beings do
or, if
own.
they
exist, that
they
are subject
Israel,
who
knows
with
and protects
His
apparitions and
demons
more
the "doctrine of
It is striking that Hobbes consistently links separated attributing this doctrine to Aris
essences,"
totle though it is
discord;
see
the Introduction.
aptly that of Plato. And he sees in this doctrine an important source of civil On the separation of substance in Aristotle, see Donald Morrison, Harvard Studies in Classical
the
"CHORISTOS in
theme of spirit
Aristotle,"
Philology 89
.
(1985): 89-105. The

effect of a vain
recurs throughout of
Appendix; for
example, he considers the

,
philosophy in the deliberations

offense of
the Nicene Council at sections 1 2 1 ff
and, at section
176, in
the
unpleasing priests,
a number of
whose
teaching figured in
of existence.
the
English Civil War. The
question was of
interest to
place
Hobbes'
contemporaries.
for demons
on the great
ladder
For example, the Cambridge Platonists found a Milton, like Hobbes, sought to counter fear of life. And in his 1650 poem, An Horatian combines an old and a new thought in
less."
the supernatural out of
fidelity
to a conception of faithful
Ode
upon
stating,
at
Cromwell's Return from Ireland, Andrew Marvell lines 40-41: "Nature that hateth emptiness/allows
of penetration
See
also sections
178ff,
vine
and nn.
13. Interlocutor A is
strange gods was shaped
failing
to distinguish between the to them. Paul Tillich

of
graven
images themselves
and
the di
beings thought to be
attached
notes
that the Christian attitude toward
in the thought-world
the Old Testament. He states that, in the earlier
Jahexisting among men but inferior to in and the and prayers, in future, executing jus hearing weh, particularly determining foreseeing tice; they were regarded as competing powers. As Jewish religious thought and experience devel loss of power led to a loss of being, for a god without ultimate power is a oped, these as Paul later called them. Jahweh, he says, then came to be esteemed less as a tribal god
Jewish prophets,
pagan gods were recognized as powers
gods'
"nothing,"
than as the
God
of
Israel itself, the between Jahweh

might
nation of
justice, in virtue of which He rules the world. Amos was thus able to threaten Jahweh, in the name of Jahweh, because of its injustice. The covenant
did
not give
and the nation
the nation a claim to Jahweh's championship, and

exclusive monotheism of
he
tum
against
them if
they
violated
justice. The
the prophetic religion
390
was
Interpretation
absoluteness of one particular god as against
thus not due to the

of
the others;
it
was
the universal
was
validity any
justice
which produced
the exclusive monotheism of the God of justice.
Justice
thus
conceived as a principle which transcended

particular religion conditional.
every particular religion, making the exclusiveness of Both Jesus (Matthew 25:31ff.) and Paul (Romans) emphasized
the universality of the event of the Christ and
in
so
doing
freed interpretation
of
its
significance
from
a particularism which would
have
made
Christianity,
Fathers
that
the judgement of other religions
it the property of a single religious group. In early was determined by the idea of the Logos. The Church
emphasized
the universal presence of the
Logos,
the
Word,
the principle of divine
self-
manifestation, in
all religions and cultures.
The
presence of spermatic words
is,
traces
they found in
some of
epochal,
took into
central appearance of
Christianity
divine truth, they viewed historical person, the Christ. Indeed, the Fathers the highest conceptualizations of Greek thought as positive creations,
pagan culture of
(logoi spermatikoi), as preparation for the
the Logos in
an
freely
adopting such words as physis, hypostasis, ousia, prosopon and, above all, logos. But while they developed the universalism implied in an all-inclusive religion, they always applied the un questioned criterion of the image of Jesus as the Christ, as documented in the New and prepared for in the Old Testament. Christian
universalism was
thus not syncretistic. See Paul
Tillich, Chris
tianity
Encounter of the World Religions (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), 3 Iff. It is primarily the work of the Fathers that Hobbes takes up in the chapters of the Appendix, largely to obviate and criticize the residue of Greek philosophic thought and experience he found in
and the
Christian theology, especially the it entailed. 14. The images

tions
of
assertion
concept of
the logos and the
theory
of
ideal
essences
he believed
here is that their ideas
about the gods
them.
Thus, Greek
statues were an attempt
to give
generally led the Greeks in fashioning plastic form to aspects of the concep
statues of
they had
of the gods
they
worshipped, as,
by
giving
Hermes
winged
feet, they
gods'
sought a means of
illustrating
and
their conception of the speed of the

some
messenger.
15. Hobbes
must
have learned De Corpore,
Hebrew in the interval between the
publication of the
English Leviathan
namely, the
since what
is discussed in the first book

the copula, is in the second
as a
existence of a
language
without
logical possibility, attributed to Hebrew.
Hobbes
notes
the
discovery
in his Response had the
to
Bishop Bramhall;
see
English
Works, 4:304.
be. For this
and
16. Port Royale
grammarians
same view of
the function of the verb to
other correspondences
in linguistic matters,
see
Padley, Grammatical Theory in Western Europe

and
1500-1700: The Latin Tradition, 141ff., 151, 186-87 17. The Molesworth edition writes out et,
"and."
228.
18. The Latin
reads:
Latine dicitur "Terra

"erat,"
erat
vacua"; Hebraice "terra existens vacua,

existens."
ubi ab
homine Latino Latin
non audiebatur
sed
"[erat]
aliquid
The
point
is that the
speaker of
recognizes
the convention of using a word, a copula, to indicate predication; he fails to
recognize predication
in the formula far

as
used
by
the speaker of
Hebrew,
who signals
his intentions in
here is to
different doubt Greek
way.
Hobbes draws
he has
so
our attention
to this linguistic fact in order to support the

move prepared
view of cast
predication that
advanced.
But the larger interpretive

understandings,
or at
on the use of and
Greek
philosophic
with their reflection
in the
usages of the
words
Latin languages,
inappropriate
least
suspect means of
interpreting
languages.
descrip
point
tive of the experience and expectations
of speakers of
Hebrew
Hobbes'
and other
involves
a rather sophisticated
meneutics.
In
fact, it
would
understanding of historical linguistics, as applied in biblical her seem doubtful that the unparalleled expressive capacities of one lan
in it inapplicable to
attempt at members of other
guage render the what
truths
contained
Hobbes'
linguistic families, but

made.
is
of
interest here is
word
historical
understanding.
19.
Hobbes'
here is materia, that
is,
that out of which
something is
12ff., 301b31; for is ungenerated, eternal. 21. Hobbes may be referring to Aristotle's discussion of prima materia, matter utterly without form, as in the Metaphysics. In De Corpore, Hobbes explains that, while such a conception is possible as a designation of matter in general, apart from its accidents, nothing of the sort exists or is in any way real.
argues against
20. Aristotle
matter
the creation of the world, as in De Caelo 279b
him,

22. Note that Hobbes
explains the creed's ascription of attributes to asserted that
upon
Hobbes'
"biblicism"
391
to the
God
by
reference
Scriptures. Professor Strauss has

abandoned an earlier
grew more pronounced as
he
dependence
the arguments of natural theology; see Leo

and a
Political
Philosophy
of Hobbes: Its Basis

even
Genesis (Chicago:
University
of
Strauss, The Chicago Press,

of
1963), 76-78. But,

the texts are
if this biblicism is
dissimulation,
Hobbes'
several of
interpretations
well reasoned and
in
relation
to politics, which,
insightful, so that he advances an understanding of biblical religion even if feigned, is worthy of study. See the discussion in the Intro
or
duction
and also section

what must
183
a
and nn.
23. In
be
misunderstanding
"mixture"
distortion, Hobbes
and matter.
seems
to have in
mind
Aristo
tle's notion of substance as the that this was a
of
form
teaching he learned from his

refers
physics professor
The Latin autobiography at Oxford.
mentions
here first to the adoptionists, who denied that Christ was God from all and believed rather that, due to an exemplary life, Christ had been adopted by God as His eternity son. Hobbes propounds the orthodox view that Christ existed pretemporally as God before He 24. Hobbes
appeared on earth and was
Concerning Heresy,
be his
point
already the Son of God prior to His birth. In the Historical Narration Hobbes talks of those who taught that Christ was a mere phantasm; that may
Hobbes'
in this
second reference. prefigures analysis of

was a
25. This discussion

position of
the Son in relation to the Father

glass
key
aspect of
hypostasis later, sections 64ff., in that the the Arian heresy.

an optiscope or
26. The
Hobbes
envisions
here is something like
kaleidoscope.
under."
27. Both the Greek
and
Latin
words are
28. This discussion may refer 395, towards the end, where one reads that, among certain phenomena produced in the air, some exist according to appearance and others in reality. There is an echo of this in the Latin autobiography. See below,
section
compounds, meaning "to stand to the point made by Aristotle in De Mundo,
28.
vol.
29. See, for example, Quaestiones aliae, in Migne, Graeca Patrologia, col. 780, now held a doubtful work of Athanasius. 30. Hobbes
stresses the metaphoric character of attempts to explain
28,
question
IV,
to
the
Trinity
in
order
dissociate this risks
essential
doctrine
of
the Christian
of
depriving
the Trinitarian symbol
faith from any given metaphysics. In so doing, he intelligibility, but this fideism is the result of an impasse
vol.
in his thought. On this point, see below, sections 178ff, and nn. 31. The Quaestiones ad Antiochum ducem, in Migne, Graeca Patrologia, source for views on human understanding. 600, may be
Hobbes'
Athanasius'
28,
cols 598-
32. The
the nature of
reference
here is to St. Paul's discussion

point
of
13:13. Hobbes
made
the same
in De Homine,
not
chap.
faith, hope 14, where he
and
love in 1 Corinthians
stated that
"questions
about adds
God
are all
too curious and are

with
to be
piety."
counted
among the
works of
He
that faith would be done away things
lying
outside of
time or
untimely knowledge, possibly a reference to knowledge of perhaps knowledge sought prematurely, prior to one's death and
by
resurrection.
This,
perhaps
intended, ambiguity finds

expression
an echo
in Holderlin's dictum that

is
nature
hates untimely 33.
growth.
Hobbes'
insistence that this light.
is
metaphoric and
prompted of
by
his
aversion
to the
the metaphysics of
Among Christians, Tertullian

Pseudo-Dionysius'
Clement
Alexandria
prepared
way for Augustine's elaborate and profound combination of Platonic and Plotinian elements in des Hierarchia caelestia became a kind of hand cribing Christ as divine light. book of later Christian light symbolism, and the theory of divine illumination proved immensely
influential,
Alexander
evidenced of
in its use by Avicenna, Isaac Israeli, Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Hales, Bonaventure, Marsilio Ficino, Giordano Bruno, Pico della Mirandola and
Hobbes'
Jacob Bohme.
own studies supported
in in
optics must
have its
made
it
clear to
a
him that
site
such specula
tion could not be

was problematic.
scientifically,
argued
so
that
use
as
productive
Galileo had
a similar
way regarding the
celestial motions
for theology he had dis
covered.
34. John 1:3. 35. A

reference
to the
anti-
Arian
notion of
the
eternal generation of
the Son.
392
Interpretation
notion that the word was a sound uttered
36. The
are
by
God
would seem whom
to involve an anthro
and
pomorphism and entail a
derogation from the

would
nature of
God, in
to think
will.
to accomplish
the same thing; no sound
be necessary to
refers means
effectuate
the divine
37. heimarmene is the

or portion.
perfect passive participle of
meiromai, meaning, to receive as one's due

which
The form to
which
Hobbes
"that
has been
allotted,"
namely, one's
fate,
with that term's
starkly
necessitarian would
implications.
a
38. A theological
as cosmic necessity.
difficulty
be implied for
Christian in the Stoic
notion of providence
the verb "to
say"
or
For the Stoics, with its etymological roots in both Greek and Latin in "to was the invariant expression of order in the universe, that which
decree,''
"fate,"
had been decreed for he

of
all time.
Man
was part of
the structure of the universe in a special way in that
could attune
his thoughts
as
and actions through
his
reason to
the
dictates
of nature
for the benefit
himself
and others.
Appropriating
materials available
in
popular
described Zeus
the great figure
of order
in the
pantheon of
Greek religion, the Stoics had heaven, subordinated however to the
necessity immanent in the cosmos. Both man and the gods were thus beneficiaries of cosmic order; Stoic anthropology and theology were based on cosmology. Hobbes recognizes that to ground God's
work.
being and human happiness in the world in this way was intolerable in the Christian frame As he says, for man, happiness, that is, salvation, results only from the redemption offered in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. And to impute an element of necessity either to the
relation
God,
God's
would
among the divine persons or to God's dealing with His creation, or to deny generation in be similarly impermissible to Hobbes, who seeks rather to vindicate the freedom of
action.
Hobbes is
at pains
to distinguish his point of

or anthropocentric.
view
from
classical models
because his
is theocentric, not cosmological discussion following, on

175ff.
On this point, see the Introduction and the of the Word. See also Hans Blumenberg, understanding The Genesis of the Copernican World, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1987),
Hobbes'
39. See, for example, Isaiah 55:10-13, 40. I doubt

can whether
and
Psalms 33:4-9.
faith
sincerity in making professions of the Christian be resolved, as if that is necessary or would be helpful. Aubrey mentions habitual acts of charity, but the issue may be removed in principle from rational demonstration. See K. C. Brown, "Hobbes's Grounds for Belief in a Philosophy 37 (1962): 336-44. Still it is clear
the question of
Hobbes'
finally
Deity,"
that the positions Hobbes develops here set forth undoubted tenets of Christian belief and social
thought,
his
most
closely linked
with of
the
rise,
spread and
development
sheds on
of
Protestantism,
so
that
even
imposture, if it is that, is
religious
interest for the light it

period. or
his
evaluation of the events and
wrote justifies calling merely conventional. And there is this diffi culty in the dissimulation hypothesis: if it is true, as Hobbes says, that a speaker speaks in the expectation that his audience will understand the signs he uses, then it is difficult to see how
political possibilities of the
Stuart
Certainly, nothing Hobbes himself
his
doctrines
ironic,
absurd, hypocritical
Hobbes'
"knowing"
reader will
know to
read
his dissimulation in this doctrine
of
the
Word,
since
it
is surely
a most recondite sign
by
which
to signal religious unbelief. Or perhaps he signals his

much more likely that, in writing plainly and courageously to palpable dangers for the sake had power to do him harm.
unbelief not
here, but surely in
other
instances. It is
those
who
repeatedly
of
on
these topics, Hobbes exposed himself

not shared
deeply
41.
held beliefs,
point
by
Hobbes'
is that the Latin

on earth as to
expression could with equal
justice
mean
that Christ de
scended to men
living
the shades in hell.
42. Gehenna
to
was a ravine south of
Jerusalem,
associated
by
early Jewish
writers with sacrifices
Moloch,
the god of the Semitic tribes in the area (2 Kings
16:3, 21:6),
and cursed
for that reason (Jeremiah 7:29-34, 19:1-20:6; cf. Isaiah 31:9; 66:24). Equated with the hell of the last judgement in apocalyptic literature from the second century B.C., Gehenna was used in this sense by the writers of the Gospels to indicate the place where the unjust would receive punish ment. Goshen is mentioned in Genesis 47, as the fertile northeast sector of Lower Egypt allotted to the Israelites by Pharaoh, in which there was light, and hence salvation, during the plague of darkness, described in Exodus 10. The name was applied to the church by New Testament writers. Used also in the Old Testament, fire imagery, such as the lake of fire, is a common figure of divine
anger and
by
Jeremiah
judgement,
and a sulfurous
lake
of
fire is
mentioned
frequently
in Revelations.

43. Bellarmine
says as much chap.
393
in De
in his Disputationes, De Christo, bk 4,
chap.
10,
and
Gemitu Columbae, bk 2, 44. 2 Peter 2:4.
2.
the Elysian
as
45. See Leviathan,
chap.
38. The
opposite of
fields, Tartarus
is
was
the name of a
subterranean region regarded
by
the ancient Greeks
the doleful abode of the wicked

most uncommon
dead,
where
they
suffered punishment
for
evil
deeds. Peter's
use of the term
among New
Testament writers, and, in noting the lack of agreement among the Greek and Roman writers who spoke of the place, Hobbes is on firm ground in concluding that its use by the apostle is metaphori
cal and not meant
references
to give information as to a specific place. The aim of

of
Hobbes'
analysis of
biblical
to hell is to dispose of the apparatus of purgatory and
the
harrowing
of
hell legends,
so popular
in
medieval
times,
by
from
pagan
mythology, a conclusion
seeing them as literary conventions, fostered by the Reformation.
metaphors or
borrowings
46. Theogony, 722-25. Born
around
rhapsode, wrote his epic poem as a theological
700 B.C., in Boeotia, Hesiod, the Greek shepherd and justification of the reign of Zeus as the god of
among the Greeks, Hesiod, together with Homer, Greek religious consciousness was shaped. The
of
justice. The first to Hobbes
develop
a poetic persona
established the conceptions of anvil refers to
the gods
by
which
is found in Hesiod's description

as
the distance of the Titans
from heaven:
"[The
Three] drove [the Titans]

earth's surface to
and nine
far
undergound as earth
is distant from heaven./Such is the
distance from
take nine/nights,
days,
gloomy Tartaros. /For a brazen anvil dropping out of the sky would and land on earth on the tenth day,/and a brazen anvil dropping off
nine
the earth/would take nine/nights, and
days,
of
and
land in Tartaros/
on
the tenth
day."
Richmond
Lattimore, Hesiod (Ann Arbor: 47. Aeneid 6:577-79.
Hobbes'
Michigan Press, 1959), 59. University reference is to Virgil's description

search
Aeneas'
of
underground
journey
to visit his father Anchises in

are:
of
the tale of Roman greatness. The lines,
in
Fitzgerald's translation heaven is high/For

48. The (New York: Random
"Then Tartarus itself

on etherial
goes
eyes
fixed
Olympus."
plunging down/In darkness twice as deep as Virgil, The Aeneid, trans. Robert Fitzgerald
to be given a role putatively reserved to
that Interlocutor A would be misled
within
House,
1983), 142.
difficulty
division
here is that the
Holy
Spirit
seems
God
the
Father,
that
namely, that
of paternity.
Hobbes
will show
in
thinking
engages
of roles equates with analysis
division
of
being
the
Trinity;
A's
see section stems
82. He
from
a
in linguistic See below,
in the Greek 64ff.
sections word
that follow to show that
error
confusion over the use of the

persona. sections
hypostasis
as contrasted with that of
the Latin word
49. The Roman

the name Quicunque
Breviary
contains
the
same resume of
the articles
of
the Christian faith
under
vult salvus esse.
Its
attribution
50. In fact, in
substantia,
not
what
follows,
as
Tricaud
as the
points
Athanasius is today abandoned. out, one finds an explication of the Latin

to
equivalent of
word
subsistentia, and, while the
words are often used
interchangeably, in discussing
the
the
Trinity, authors often use subsistentia Blaise, Dictionnaire latin-francais des Meridiens, 1954). 51. This discussion occurs below,
52. This
refers
Latin
Greek hypostasis. See Albert (Paris: Librairie des
auteurs Chretiens, sub voce subsistentia
sections
63-103.
to the
famous
"filioque"
debate.
53. John 15:26. 54. John 20:22, 25. 55. point is that the
Hobbes'
phrase was added
to the Nicene
c.
Creed;
the
original
text did not
have it. He has

seventh general see
misread
Bellarmine (De Christo, I, II,
23),
who says
the phrase was added at the
council, held in
Nicaea,
not
the second council of Constantinople. On the filioque
J. N. D. Kelly, dispute, 56. The Gloria Patri. 57.

Hobbes'
Early
Christian Creeds, 358-67. liturgical

a usages of churches at of
point
is that the
not
creed reflected the

practices
the time of its
adoption; that
is, they did

converted
derive the
from
reading
the creed. the baptism confer

were
58.
second
Hobbes'
red upon
the
phrasing may obscure the point that the problem heretics by heretics had been valid, not
was whether whether
they
in
need of a
baptism.
394
Interpretation
passage
59. The
of
rendering from memory.
in the Authorized Version reads, "But every man in his own the Greek en to idio tagmati (Vulgate: in suo ordine). Hobbes has evidently Latin is
that of the
order,'
as
the
quoted
60.
point
Hobbes'
not
Vulgate,
which scholars
today
think
is incorrect
at
this
in any case. I have followed the Authorized ("King James") Version of the text here. 61. In this section, Hobbes develops his idea that the soul is either the same as life or dies at the end of life. The corporeality of the soul was a key doctrine of the Libertines, one of whose close friend Sorbiere; see Giuseppe Ricuperati, "II probstrongest spirits in France was
Hobbes'
lema della
corporeita
dell'anima dai libertini

Hobbes'
deisti,'
ai
// Libertinismo in Europa
ed.
Sergio
Bertelli (Milan: Riccardo Ricciardi Editore, 1980), 369-415. Still, I believe it will be clear that the thought on the matter, especially the desire to collapse the formulation and tendency of distinction between
soul and
the arguments of Pietro
life, differ from that of the freethinkers. This is Pomponazzi, in his famous treatise De immortalitate
true also in regard to

animae
(1516).
62.
Only
or
doubtful
survival,
Plato among Greek philosophers unquestionably taught the soul's immortality. It is at least uncertain on Aristotelian principles. Stoics before Posidonius admitted a limited
at least to the souls of the wise, but only until the succeeding cosmic conflagration (ekpyrosis). And Epicurus explicitly denied it. Cf. Hebrews 1:1-3, and 2 Corinthians 4:4. Latin here is somewhat obscure, but I believe the sense is clear. 63.
Hobbes'
64. Revelation 20:14.
65. I
with other
cannot
follow Professor Sherlock in understanding this

infinite
gain or
Hobbes'
as
attempt
to do away
the possibly seditious consequences of the Christian doctrine of heaven and hell. In one or the
case, one
experiences an
loss,
so
that the doctrine

of
hardly
on
loses its
power at
hands. See Richard Sherlock, "The pretation 10 (1982): 43-60. 66.

Hobbes'
Hobbes'
Theology
Leviathan: Hobbes
Religion,"
Inter death
marks the total cessation of
inclination is clearly to collapse the distinction of the given human personality in its entirety
soul
until
and
life,
so that
the resurrection.
But, if
is
the distinction is to be maintained, he shows how his explanation of the general

nonetheless the most elegant and rational. replace the
resurrection
Again, Hobbes is led by his reading

corrupted
of
Scripture to
clearly
Greek
philosophic
categories, immortal spirit and
matter,
with more
Jewish
or
Judaeo-Christian human
ideas,
viz., the unity
of
the human personality, human mortality and an
emphasis upon
need
for God's
work of salvation.
67. Genesis 2:17. 68. Genesis 3:5. 69. For Athanasius

on
Genesis,
see
Graeca,
the
of
vol.
25,
col.
101. As in the Response
Oratio de Incarnatione Verbi, in Migne, Patrologia to Bishop Bramhall, Hobbes cites the translation of
Old Testament
made
by
Santes Pagnino
evidently
following
the Hebrew text. view, shared

eternal.
Clearly,
this interpretation
the passage supports
Hobbes'
unorthodox
by
his contemporary Samuel

conceded
Hoard,
that the punishment of the reprobate will not

conception of an afterlife
Hobbes'
be
It is generally
writers.
that the
Christian
is
not
found in Old Testament
70. Romans 5:12.

was mortal and
point
is that,
following
his disobedience
and punishment,
Adam
in
need of
salvation,
the
a characteristic
Hobbes thus touches

one man's
on one of
key
tenets of
affecting not only him but all his progeny. Christianity, humankind's genetic involvement in
also
fall, Adam's,
quantity
as the occasion
for redemption, brought

would
by
one man,
namely,
Jesus
Christ,
the second Adam. As Augustine

of corruption
develop
the notion, inherited sinfulness, as a spe

that evil in the world this
cies-wide
in
men's
hearts,
means
increases
as
constant and not as the
possibly
remediable result of
individual bad acts;
is the theological
presupposition of the so-called

result
prisoners'
dilemma (PD), whereby the
choices of
in
a state of affairs worse

of
for
all.
Hobbes
accepted and radicalized the
free actors may Augustinian doctrine
in the direction
the
cause of a man's affliction.
Reformation in stating, in Leviathan, 398ff., that sin need not be thought the For, according to Hobbes, it cannot be asserted that God might not Job
without regard to
justly
an
have
afflicted the righteous man

as
his
sin.
At the
root of
this
assertion
is
intuition
to the power
of
God,
whose will establishes criteria of

Hobbes'
justice in the world;
see
below,
section
179
and n.
a
possibility that, in
219. Intrinsic to better world, it would be
political
easier
doctrine,
this view,
by
negating the
that on these
to be
better person,
shows

Hobbes'
395
points
thinking is anything but original in tone or progressive in intention. Cf. Hans Blumenberg, The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, trans. Robert M. Wallace (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1983), 52ff.
legends of the Middle Ages and in the "harrowing of called story of the cross. According to the latter, the tree that supplied the wood used at the crucifixion grew from a shoot placed by Seth in Adam's mouth at the time of his burial. Adam's death and burial are portrayed in the famous cycle of frescoes of the Story of the Holy Cross painted in Arezzo's Church of St. Francis by the early Renaissance artist Piero della Francesca.
so-
71. Adam figured in both the
hell"
72. On this text, 73. This
see above, n.
59.
to the belief that Christ led Adam and the other patriarchs
out of
assertion runs counter of
hell in the
hell that followed his death, prior to the resurrection. 74. Hobbes is pointing out some logical inconsistencies that arise if it is
harrowing
not admitted
that
Adam is in fact dead
during
the time between the end of his earthly life and the resurrection, that
is, assuming for
the sake of argument there is a soul, so
long
as
his
soul
is
separated
from his body.
75. Luke 23:43.

76. Hobbes has
conflated a number of scriptural passages
to arrive at this
sentence. or ceased
77. Though
after
never
death,
of
was
widely accepted, mortalism, the belief that the soul shared by a number of contemporaries. Its effect, the
Hobbes'
"slept"
to exist
annulment of
the
doctrine
purgatory, is
fully
consistent with and
in Martin Luther. See the Introduction Milton (Cambridge:
Protestant belief, and it had an important proponent Norman Burns, Christian Mortalism from Tyndale to
Belknap
Press
of
Harvard

is
most
34.
78. Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:32.
79. Ecclesiastes 3:18ff. This

the Biblia
polyglot version and
likely
that of
Bishop Walton,
known
as
Polyglotta.
published
between 1654
1657 in London.
Hobbes'
friend Selden had left
money in his will to pay for its printing. See Harry Carter, A History of the Oxford University Press (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), l:40ff. The translation of the passage reflects its deliberately
Hobbes'
asyntactical style.
thither."
Latin text lacks the sentence, "For

unattested
each arose
from the dust,
and each
returns
80. The 1668 text bears the
form laleias,
rather than
the correct
notes
form,
reported
by
Molesworth, lalias,
in Walton's 81. Hobbes
without notice of
his
apparent emendation.
Tricaud
that laleias is found
edition of
the Bible.
enters
into this
comparison
to
show
that,
whether or not
the Latin manifests the
author's rejection of such rejection.
human
claims
for superiority
over
the animal, the Greek clearly does show

that the
82. is
Hobbes'
point
is that the life

at
author of
Ecclesiastes
says
fate
shared
by
man and animal with
an effective cessation of
death, in
essence one of the teachings on

power
mortalism, together
man's subsequent return
to life through God's
in the final judgement.
of mind
83. See Ecclesiastes, 3:17, 11:9, and 12:17. This is perhaps the clearest indication of that cast according to which Hobbes undercuts the anthropology of the ancient Greeks in favor of
religion.
that implied in biblical

able
from the cunning

to
and skill of
Reason for Hobbes is instrumental in essence, scarcely distinguish the animals. Note his statement, in Objectiones (iii, 4), written
innate ideas,
a world: chance as
Descartes'
as a response
notion of
to the capacity of men to know things in their
essence or of their
languages to embody
But
what shall we
say now, if reasoning
to be nothing more than the uniting and the

word
stringing
this that
together of names and designations
by
"is"? It
will
be
a consequence of
about
reason gives us no conclusion about the nature whether or not
of things, but only
the terms
their
that designate them, namely,
there
is
a convention
(arbitrarily
made about
meanings) according to
which we
join these
names
together.
Emphasis
show that
added.
In their
Hobbes'
valuable
treatment of
as
theory
of
language, Hungerland
and
Vick
Hobbes describes
communication
a. species-wide
phenomenon, observable
in the
grunts and cries of animals as well as the precision and
from Aristotle, Hobbes holds
animals
clarity of the geometer. Indeed, differing have foresight. See Isabel C. Hungerland and George R.
Reasoning,"
Vick,
"Hobbes's
Theory
of
Language, Speech
and
in Thomas Hobbes: Part One of
396
"De
Interpretation
Corpore"
(New York: Abaris Books, 1981). See

Hobbes'
also the more critical
account given
by
Edward Thomas Fitzgerald, "Thomas Philosophy of Language: A Study of Naming and Master's thesis, deposited in the UC, Berkeley, Library, 1961. But, if Hobbes distin guishes sharply between biblical religion and Greek philosophy, it is not in order to leave both
Signifying,"
behind in the he intended
pursuit of progress.
In this section, he
ancient speech
so emphasizes the need of
humans for
salvation
that it is doubtful that, in rejecting the
teaching
as to
language,
symbol and
linguistic sign,
the secularization of man,

of
and world
that has been attributed to

Century,"
him;
see
Margreta de Grazia, "Secularization History of Ideas 40(1980): 319-29.

a conclusion
Language in the Seventeenth
Journal of the
84. The way Hobbes has used the biblical story of the naming of the animals by Adam permits contrary to his own. For it is precisely here, in the potential for reason and language, that man's uniqueness is already evident in that, prior to the imposition of names, man already stands out from his environment in a way which makes truth a common human possession. On the
Adamic
language,
Hobbes'
cf.
Leviathan, 100-101.
the virgin birth reflects his
reduction of
85.
account of
the traditional, four-fold ac
count of
causality, efficient, material, formal and
final,
to efficient and material causality only. It is
consistent with
contemporary medical science. 86. Note the resort to God's power as a
means of
overcoming
an
apparent
difficulty. Cf.
Ancients and Moderns: Essays in the Cropsey, "Hobbes and the Transition to Tradition of Political Philosophy in Honor of Leo Strauss, ed. Joseph Cropsey (New York: Basic Books, 1964), 213-38, esp. 231ff. The ubiquity of God as a material being would somewhat parallel the physical presence of the risen Christ, especially in the Eucharist; on this point, see Heiko Augustinus Oberman, The Harvest of Medieval Theology: Gabriel Biel and Late Medieval Nominalism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1963), 276ff. 87. This suggests pagan birth myths, for example, the birth of the world from Chaos, or the Joseph
Modernity,"
births
of
Dionysus
and
Athena from Zeus. in

connection with
88. These terms

pearance, as
tullian,"
Aristotelian, Stoic and Platonic notions of ap On their use, see G. C. Stead, "Divine Substance in Ter Journal of Theological Studies 14 (n.s., 1963): 46-48. See above, section 28.
were used contrasted with reality. and
89. hyphistamenon
middle and aorist active
hypostas
that
are participial
forms
of
the verb
hyphistemi,
the
present
forms, 90. In opposing hypostasis,

"nothing,"
respectively.
is, something
reveals the
real, to name
of
and
appearance, that
is,
things that
with
are not real or
Hobbes
depth
his
commitment to
nominalism,
its
denial that anything but linguistic terms are predicable of many. Thought is memory, the recollec tion of mnenomic tokens or devices to retrieve thoughts and objects. Imposing names upon sense
impressions
above,
and other
objects,
men construct
propositions, from there to syllogisms, as he has said
reveals nothing certain about the re-uniting the names we have imposed according to the conventions we have arbitrarily constructed in regard to their denotations. Reason concerns names, not an understanding of the essences of things, grasped in thought. So far as section process of
56. But the
reasoning thus described
nature of the objects
themselves, only
about our success at
Hobbes,
line
the sensualist,
knows,
reason can establish no certain underlies the response
link between
to
Descartes'
name and thing.
The
of argument
he takes here
of
he
made
theory
language
of
innate ideas
in the Objectiones many

of
1641. Hobbes lacked the hope for

and
a universal
such as animated
his contemporaries,
he is instinct
with
the desire not to allow metaphysical specula
tion, or, perhaps, metaphysical presumption, to condition thought and experience. See Gigliola Rossini, Nature e artificio nel pensiero di Hobbes (Bologna: II Mulino), 27-35; Marshall Missner, "Skepticism and Hobbes's Political Journal of the History of Ideas 44 (1983): 40727; William J. Courtenay, "Late Medieval Nominalism Revisited, Journal the
Philosophy,"
1977-1982,"
History
of of Ideas 44 (1983): 159-64. From this position, the step to experimentalism might seem small, but it was one Hobbes never took. For an analysis of his rejection of experimentalism, see Steven Shapin and Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experi
mental
Life (Princeton: Princeton
University Press,
1985).

91. Hobbes is
temporal
correct
397
on
in
distinguishing
between the first,
whose
temporal
reference
depends
with
context, and the second, whose temporal reference is understood as
contemporaneous
the
location
of
the speaker.
92. See below, section 88 and n. 111. 93. "Character hypos taseos Dei." character, from charasso, "to engrave or be translated as the noun that which bears the imprint of a seal or stamp,
"impress,"
inscribe,''
may
as a coin or
waxen
tablet with writing on it. Translations of the phrase vary: the Authorized
express
("King James")
Version has, "the
his person"; the Douay Denvir edition has, "the figure of his substance"; the Standard Edition of 1901 has, "the very image of his substance"; the Complete Bible of 1927 has, "the representation of his
of
being."
image
94. The 1668 text

95. Hobbes
prefers a refers
"sia."
reads
here to the
vivere
practice
in Latin
"living,"
and
esse
Greek (to
of
using
an
infinitive
where
English
gerund; thus,
(to live) for
be) for
"being."
Hobbes'
etymology is
of
doubtful.
96. On the
use of and
the abstracts in science, see Hungerland

Reasoning,"
and
Vick, "Hobbes's Theory
Language, Speech
"substance which
lOOff.
97. For example, in Metaphysics, xii, 6-9, Aristotle discusses the unchanging is eternal and immovable and separate from sensible
things."
divinity
as a
98. The Latin
reads:
"Essentia
entis
in concrete
puta entis
albi, est nomen
ipsius albi,
sed
considerati quatenus albi. simpliciter quatenus ens.
Eadem
"
ratione essentia entis simpliciter est nomen of
entis,
sed considerati
Essence here is evidently the thought

and
the thing's existence, that
is,
the thought that the

on
thing
is
exists; cf. Molesworth ed. 1:31. But the truth of such a thought would
depend
the truth
whom
of our
knowledge
naming
of some
entity, a problematic outcome for

what
Hobbes, for
attempt
truth
a matter of names and memory.
Note
Heidegger
Hobbes'
says of
to understand the
proposition as a
purely
verbal artifact:
Hobbes takes the be
assertion as a pure sequence of words.
But
his
nominalism cannot
carried through successfully. a sequence of words.
For Hobbes
cannot persist
in
holding
the assertion to be
merely
some res, condition
but
without
interpreting
of
He is necessarily compelled to relate the verbal sequence to in further detail this specific reference to things and the
this capacity for reference, the significative character of names.
"is"
for the possibility
Despite his
than a
whole nominalistic attack on the
problem, the
means
mere phenomenon of sound or script which
is
somehow
for Hobbes, too, more inserted between the others.
The
copula as a
of
coupling
names
of words
is the index
of
the thought of the cause for the identical

means
referability
which which
two
to the same thing. The
"is"
the whatness of the
thing
about
the assertion is
made.
Thus beyond the

general:
pure verbal sequence
there emerges a manifold to a-thing,
belongs to
assertion
in
identifying
this
the reference
of names
apprehension of the whatness of cause
the
thing in
identifying
reference, the thought of the the phenomena involved in
for the
identifying
approach.
referability.
Subjected to the
constraint of
the interpretation of the
assertion as a sequence of
words, Hobbes more and more surrenders
his
own
initial
This is
characteristic of all nominalism.
Quoted from Martin Heidegger, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), 191-92.
99. This discussion takes
point place
trans. Albert Hofstadter
in the
eleventh chapter of
the third book. The Damascene's
is that
divinity
is
term to be applied only to all three of the persons of the

as
Trinity,
so
that
its
attribution
to Christ alone,
seems
100. Hobbes
of which
incarnated Word, is inappropriate. to be arguing that the essences of words are less
the
closer
removed
from those things
they
are
the essences than are the essences of substantial
things,
man
so that the essence of
being
head,
white, for example, is two arms, two legs

and
to whiteness than the essence of
is to that entity
and essence.
with a
the power of reason.
Franciscans
tial
101. Hobbes is referring to the Scholastic distinction between existence nor Dominicans allowed for a contrast between what they called
Neither
essential and existen
being
in God,
though
both
accepted
that the
world was so split.
The
contrast
is
of ancient
398
Interpretation
considered
origin, already
by
the
by
Heraclitus
and
Parmenides. For
Orphics, the Pythagoreans, Anaximander, and most importantly Plato, existence was the realm of change, opinion, error and
existence, located in the sphere of eternal ideas.
evil; true,
occurs
essential
being
was above
Knowledge
it lived among the ideas, prior to its fall into existence. Aristotle criticized and resisted the theory of ideas in describing all reality in terms of a dynamic interdependence of form and matter, although he too describes a prime mover,
in
the
Platonic
soul as
it
remembers what
it knew
when
wholly
above
the world, whose

that the
self-intuition
commonplace
first
millennium of
Aristotle lesser
dominating
in the
sequel.
is the goal of human contemplation. It is a misleading Christian theology took its inspiration from Plato, with The medieval doctors developed their theology with greater or
awareness of
this background in ancient thought and with varying agreement as to its ade
Hobbes'
quacy in expressing the truths of Christianity. attempt to turn 102. Another evidence of
consideration of
all questions regarding language into a lexis. It is difficult to imagine that Hobbes believed his assertion that medieval
thinkers could not distinguish between a

perhaps an
form
of speech and a concrete man.
The
statement
is
ironic way
an
of
saying that,
following Aristotle,
the essences of
medievals overestimated
the capacity of
"softened"
the human mind to
name and apprehend
its
objects.
Hobbes'
103. As
explanation of medieval
theory
of
naming,
view
that
they
of
(mollire)
their statements is absurd. As an explanation of the medieval

what
description
God
as
that
entity, wholly and eternally
appears, it is
eval
a preposterous of these
it is, in which no distinction between existence and essence distortion. Hobbes has failed to grasp what was at stake in the medi
discussion
and
terms. On the origin of the description of God in terms of essence (essen

Aquinas'
tia)
being (esse)
VExode,"
thought, see Etienne Mediaeval Studies 13 (1951): 223-25.

reference point
in
Gilson, "Maimonide
et
la Philosophie de
104. De Oratore 2:102. 105. The 106.

Hobbes'
is to De Christo, bk 2, chap. 4. is that the Greek word for face or mask, prosopon,
as
cannot
bear the
mean
ing
"substance."
107. prosopolepsia.
period.
in Romans 2:11, is
Hebraism in Greek from the
intertestamentary
108. Matthew 28:19.

109.
1 John 5:7.
no extant work of of
110. I find
112. The
sense of
Epiphanius that
goes under
this name.
with some minor changes. reintroduced to reflect the
111. The text is that

negative
St. Augustine, De Trinitate, bk 7, chap. 4, in this sentence has dropped out and must be
and
the sentence in Augustine

sola scriptura
Peter Lombard.
see below, n. 117. 114. Hobbes is evidently referring to his early espousal of a species theory of perception, that is, the belief that sight was caused in the eye by the casting off of very slight material particles from the things seen hitting the eye.
113. On the
principle,
115. Hobbes may be thinking of acids here. 116. Article 1 of the Thirty-nine Articles concerns the
one
living
and true
God,
everlasting,
without
being of God and reads, "There is body (incorporeus), parts (impartibilis), passions.
but
It is
one of the original articles of
reformers
in the Confession
cles put out
by
1553, and its language is quite close to that of the Lutheran Augsburg. Hobbes is evidently referring to the edition of the Arti Convocation early in 1563 (he has MDLXII, in conformity to the old calendar),
of
though their number was reduced

offense to
of
by
one
by Elizabeth,
to
retain
who struck out an article church.
likely
to give
revision
Roman Catholics,
whom she wished
in the English
In the final
1571,
that article (no.
29)
was
restored,
since all
of
hope
of reconciliation with
Rome had
ended
and
irreconcilable Catholics had left the Church
in excelsis, excommunicating and deposing 1 17. Article 20 concerns the church's
England in Elizabeth.
obedience to
Pius V's bull, Regnans
authority in doctrine
and
and reads:
The Church hath
power to
decree Rites
Ceremonies,
and
Authority
in
controversies of

Faith: And
written,
yet
399
it is
not
lawful for the Church to

so expound one place
ordain
neither
may it
of
any thing that is contrary to God's Word Scripture that it be repugnant to another.
of
Wherefore,
although
the Church be a witness and a keeper

so
Holy Writ,
it
not
yet,
as
it
ought not
to
decree any thing against the same, believed for necessity of Salvation.
besides the
same ought
to enforce any
thing
to be
Except for the opening clause, from "The Forty-two Articles

clause of
Church"
to
"Faith,"
the article derives from the
Archbishop Cranmer,
edition of
signed
by
Edward VI in May, 1553. The opening
probably added by the authority of Convocation in 1571, if not earlier, distinguishes the church's power to legislate external elements of worship and ritual from its authority to adjudicate controver sies touching the doctrine and belief of the Christian faith. In the latter area, the church is said to
appears
first
in the Latin
ratified
1563
and was
Elizabeth. The article,
by
have
is
to recognize or decree new doctrines but simply to declare what the truth of the faith has been; it bears witness that a given teaching is in harmony or not with the message it has received and lives to proclaim. In so doing, it may arrive at formulas that give greater
no power and always
exactness
to the content of its proclamation, but no novelty must be allowed to break the continuity
of apostolic
prescribed
in the Bible
of a
doctrine. Anglican teaching thus differs both from the Puritan view that are forbidden and from what has been a Roman Catholic continuing tradition
of organic
all rituals not

view
that the
church
is the locus
to the
supplement
Scriptures;
on the relation of
doctrinal development, apart from and as a Scripture and tradition, see Oberman, The Harvest his indifferentism, Hobbes too finds worship to
an unimpeachable course of
of Medieval
Theology, 361-422. Consistently
with
be
an
external, subject to
revelation
legislation,
church.
and
he denies that there is
continuing
through
or
in the
Chillingworth,
In applying the sola scriptura principle, possibly known his friend in the Falkland Circle, Hobbes wishes to show that there is little
nothing in the Nicene Creed that is not drawn from the Scriptures; see below, section 103. His arguments undercut the Catholic concept of traditio and license the private interpretation of Scrip
ture that
opinion so
long
Luther too at first enthusiastically urged; on this point, see section 173. Divergence of in theology, a major cause of civil strife in day, presented no problem to Hobbes as the individual complied with the sovereign's legislation in matters of public worship and
Hobbes'
profession.
Hobbes
undercuts all pretense to an
independent basis
wealth
by
recognizing the power of the
sovereign as public
of priestly power in the common interpreter of Scripture and by allowing
for
sacerdotal
functions in the Christian
provides an adequate
118. I
refer
king himself, whose anointing, according to Hobbes, basis for performing such duties. See below, sections 206-7 and nn. reference to the reader to Professor Tricaud's learned explanation of
Hobbes'
Edward's liturgy;
see
Tricaud,
Leviathan Traite de la matiere, de la forme

n.
et
du
pouvoir
de la
republique ecclesiastique et civile
(Paris: Editions Sirey, 1971), 750, 119. Cyril's Thesaurus 23 has a passage like this. 120. Cf. 1 John 5:7.
70.
121. The
peril
Hobbes intends
one's
must
be
eternal
damnation,
as
he
understands
it. There is
subject
also
probably the suggestion that intrusive scrutiny or

persons'
salvation
is
a private
concern,
not
properly
to other
preferences.
122. A
noun
from the is
a
verb
haireomai, meaning
association of
to
choose
for oneself, to
Hobbes'
prefer.
"heresy,"
point
here is that free

act of
a sect
voluntary
persons,
constituted
by
their
that
is,
the
piece of material worn draped, mainly by men, as an outer considered a it was garment; characteristically Greek form of dress. 124. The author of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 6:1, 9:29 and 1 1:20, knows of Hellenizing Jews who spoke Greek, whereas Galatians 2:14 describes the Judaizers, that is, believers in Christ
choosing their own master. 123. The pallium was a rectangular
who required
Jewish
customs
be
retained
by
the new sect. Tricaud notes that Hobbes may have

and
taken the discussion of

and
"Grecism,"
Hellenism
Judaism from
Epiphanius'
response
"Hellenism"
to Acacius
Paul,
perhaps
in
Petavius'
translation of there of
Graecismus. Epiphanius
also speaks
1622, which renders the Pharisees, Sadducees
and
(hellenismos) as Essenes, as had Hippo-
lytus before him.
400
Interpretation
works of
125. Galatians 5:19-21 states, "Now the

adultery,
the flesh
are
manifest,
which are
these: wrath,
fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousy, factions, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings and the like
126. Anathema,
temple. With
an
with an
eta,
epsilon,
anathema and
evil,
and
as
in Leviticus 27:28,
as a tripod or votive offering in a in the Septuagint includes the meaning of being handed over to Deuteronomy 7:26, 13:17. It is applied to persons in Romans 9:3 means which set
"that
is
up,"
1 Corinthians 12:3. Hobbes may also be referring to the Roman notion of devotio. 127. Hobbes may have in mind those angels who have fallen from heaven to be handed
and
over to
Tartarus (Jude 6
"sed
pro non
2 Peter
2:4)
and await
the last
judgement, but
the passage is quite obscure:
in
verbis
the
king
Angelo sed pro spectro tantum, haberi potuit, et ut deceptor execrabilis declari, id est, This may refer to the fact that Satan was described as Sanctae Scripturae, tradi of liars. (In chapter 47 of the Latin Leviathan, Hobbes defines the word (lemur) by
Satanae."
"fairy"
"specter,"
reference
to the word
anticipates
so
the
passage
128. Hobbes
the
nineteenth
may be translated, "as no more than a fairy.") century in attempting to distinguish what is Greek in
the majority that binds the whole; in the church
Christianity
129.
from
Christianity
itself.
will of
"Catholic"
here indicates the
conceived of as a
means
voluntary association, confessing and worshipping

to
whether
"according
to the
whole"
acting in
accordance with
ion,
without regard
the majority will. Heresy is in it is right or wrong. The legality
Hobbes'
sense a minority's opin of such an opinion can
be deter behav
mined
only
following
cannot
the erection of a sovereign competent to legislate and sanction illicit

so
ior. Its truth
be determined,
it is
quite possible
for
men
to be deceived.
130. That is, there are as many churches as there power in them. Such power in the church does not
are groups
having
"sovereign"
persons with
encompass coercive
force,
and,
as
Hobbes
indicated above, section 123, the Nicene Fathers, in meeting voluntarily, required the sovereign power of Constantine to enforce their decisions. The church as such lacks coercive force and is
restricted
in its
remedies
for
unsanctioned
beliefs
and
practices; see
below,
section
145. is is
131. In this 132. The

rendered
section of
the
Appendix, Hobbes develops

picture on
the principle of the national church.
organological metaphor of
the ruler as head of the the title page

of
body
politic,
which
quite old,
visually in the famous

the
"head"
the 1651
Leviathan,
which
is for that
reason called of
edition.
Charles I, Cromwell or Service of Reform (New York 133. This is the

position
Hobbes'
The figure's facial features have variously been identified as those patron; cf. Arnold A. Rogow, Thomas Hobbes: Radical in the London: W. W. Norton VIII
enunciated
and
and
Company, 1986), 158ff.

and
Henry
in the Peter Pence
Dispensation Act (25
Henry VIII,
This
and
c.21):
your
Grace's Realm, recognising

subjection to
no superior under
God, but only

as
your
Grace, has been

made
is free from Grace

and
and obtained within
any man's laws, but only to such this realm for the wealth of the same, or to
of
have been devised,
such other as
by
sufferance of
your
his Progenitors, the People
this your Realm have taken at their free
liberty,
prince
by
their own consent to be used among them, and have bound themselves custom to the observance of the same, not as to the observance of laws of
potentate or
by long
use and
prelate, but
as to
the customed and ancient laws
of
this
any foreign Realm.
Whether the
pope exercised clear
jurisdiction in England
was a point argued
by
Maitland
and
Stubbs,
though it seems
that
royal
interests
were asserted over papal as
(1272-1307). Note what J. Robert Wright says in his careful Crown 1305-1334: A Study Based on the Register of Archbishop Walter Reynauld (Toronto: Pon tifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1980), 153: [P]erhaps in the later Edward II,
the
competence of
early as the reign of Edward I study The Church and the English
years of Edward I and at least certainly by the beginning of the reign of Crown had apparently begun to expand its jurisdiction and to assert the its own courts over those of the church whether within the realm or at Rome.
.
No longer is it simply a matter of prohibition because justice is available but now because cognition of the matter in question pertains to the royal of England, however, did not support this assertion as well as arguments
within
the realm,
courts.
The
privilege
could that were

based
401
upon the royal prerogative and ancient custom, and a more vigorous policy seems to have been gradually formulated. At a time that can not yet be precisely dated, then, the basis of royal prohibition to Rome was changed. Appeals to Rome were no longer said, as in 1233, to be
[against the form of our privilege], but now rather, merely "contra formam privilegi as in 1307, to be "in enervationem juris nostri regii et exheredationem nostram et enormem
nostri"
laesionem dignitatis
and an great
nostrae"
et coronae
[to the destruction
of our royal
right
and our
inheritance
injury
to our
dignity
and crown].
owe
this
reference
to the kindness of Professor Stephan Kuttner.

of
of
134. Hobbes may have in mind the language England (26 Henry VIII, c. 1) of 1534:
Henry
VIH's
claim
to be
"head"
of
the Church
Albeit the King's majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the church of England, and is so recognized by the clergy of this realm in their convocations,
nevertheless
yet
for
corroboration and confirmation

realm of
thereof, be il
and
for increase
of virtue
in Christ's
and other
religion within
this
England,
used
and
to repress and extirp all errors,

same:
enacted
heresies,
enormities and abuses
heretofore
in the
parliament, That the

shall
King
our sovereign
lord, his heirs
and
authority of this present successors, Kings of this realm,

earth of
by
be taken
accepted and reputed the

and shall
called
Anglicana Ecclesia;
this realm,
only supreme head in have and enjoy, annexed
the church of
England,
and united to
the imperial
pre
crown of
as well
the title and style thereof as all
honours, dignities,
eminences,
said
jurisdictions,
of supreme
privileges, authorities,
of
immunities,
profits and commodities
to the
our said
dignity
head
and
the same church
belonging
and
appertaining; and that
sovereign
lord, his heirs

errors,
successors, Kings of this realm, shall have full power
and
authority from time to time, to visit, repress, redress, reform, order, correct,
amend all such
restrain and
whatsoever
heresies,
abuses, offences,
contempts and
enormities,
they
be,
which
by
any
manner spiritual
authority
or
jurisdiction
ought or
may
and
lawfully
for the
be
reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained or amended, most to the

pleasure of of the
Almighty God,
the
increase
of
of virtue
in Christ's religion,
conservation
peace, unity and
tranquility
this realm; any usage, custom, foreign

"governor."
laws, foreign
The
phrase
authority, prescription,
or any other thing or things to contrary hereof Henry's daughter Elizabeth later contented herself with the title
notwithstanding.
in this
act
regarding the imperial crown of Henry's realm, which is found in several contemporary acts, as in the Act of Restraint of Appeals (24 Henry VIII, c. 12), recalls his surprising claim that his crown
that of the emperor
descended from
Polydore
took on
of
Constantine;
see
Richard Koebner, "Constantine the Great
and
Bulletin of the Institution of Historical Research 26 (1953): 29-52. The claim significance when, in the context of the royal divorce and with news of Valla's discrediting
Vergil,"
the Donation of Constantine received in England
by
way
of
Ulrich
von
Hutten,
the imperial this
status could
be
used
to
compass
the
headship
of
both
church and state.
There
are elements of
theory
throughout the
Appendix, especially in its
emphasis on
Constantine
and other
Christian
regard not
emperors
in the life
and reform of
the church, in the juridical
position of
the church and
in
to to
the purity of its doctrine. Hobbes drops the historical
justification,
right
which was always
weak,
say
fanciful,
and sustains the claim on the

while all
basis
of natural
and scripture. universal
135. Thus,
nized on earth
Christians
are members of
the
invisible,
of
church,
they
are orga
in visible,
national churches.
136. The
union of church and state under the
sovereignty
the
royal person was
the goal of
Henry VIII, building on historical precedents in England and Cf. Henry Parker's argument in The Question concerning the
esp.
elsewhere.
It is
not new
in Hobbes.
Divine Right of Episcopacie
(1641),
the
3-4.
137. The
upshot of
this analysis
is to
deny
the primacy of the pope,
for example,
over
English
sovereign's
Christian
subjects. work of
secolo
138. On the Arian heresy, see the impressive (Rome: Institutum Patristicum
Manlio Simonetti, La
crisi ariana nel
IV
"Augustinianum,"
1975).
402
Interpretation
and
139. Both the 1668 text
Molesworth's from
a
edition
bear the
"homousios,"
word
not
the correct
peculiarity of Dutch orthography or of Blaeu's Greek type, for it is surely wrong to think that Hobbes would hope to pass over in silence the distinction between homoousios ("of the same substance") and homoiousios ("of like substance").
form
"homoousios."
This may
stem
140. One
should
probably hear
double
entendre
here,
with a reference to
both
Alexanders,
the Macedonian general and the bishop.

at Nicaea went no farther in writing the third article of creed is attested in "circular letter"; see section 179. 142. The heresy of the Pneutomachi ("Adversaries of the Holy Spirit") is commonly associated with the name of Macedonius, the Bishop of Constantinople appointed by Arians prior to 360,
141
That the Fathers
Eusebius'
when
he
was
deposed
by
that
that both the Son and the

condemnation of
Holy
group for doctrinal differences. It had been part of the Arian creed Fathers' Spirit were subordinated to the Father. With the Nicene
the Arian position on the
Son,
the second part of the program,

not and
Holy Spirit,
work on
was
left to fall
with
the first.
It did
had to be dealt
with
dealing with the by a number of
succeeding councils,
the
143.
the two
most fully by the council of Constantinople, which completed this part of the Trinity begun at Nicaea. The heresy of Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, was a reaction to the confusion of natures in Christ by the Apollinarians. Nestorius insisted so strongly on Christ's human
nature as
to tend to
a separation of
the two natures in
derogation
of
the orthodox
doctrine
of
the
"hypostatic
union,"
the
view
that Christ was one divine person
in
whom
two natures were most
closely and intimately united, but without being mixed or confounded together. The council meet ing at Ephesus condemned the heresy, and Nestorius suffered banishment to Egypt. The status of
Mary
figured in the debate
on
the
heresy
in that Nestorius denied that

that
she was
theotokos. that
is,
mother of
God, but merely Christotokos,

sections
and
is,
mother of
Christ, thereby preferring

Hobbes'
to describe
of
the union of the divine and human natures in Christ as moral only.
term
discussion
the Latin
Deipara,
57-58,
shows a
familiarity
the early
with
this aspect of the problem.
144. Eutyches
one nature
his followers
were
Monophysites, teaching
error was that
that there resulted only
from the unity of the two to be absorbed in the divine.

he
appealed to
of
natures
in Christ. The
the human nature seemed
Eutyches'
opinion was condemned at a synod at
Constantinople, but
the advocacy of
and
Dioscorus its
cil
Emperor Theodosius, Alexandria in

unsatisfactory,
so
who called a general council at
Ephesus
upon
Eutyches'
behalf. The
council's procedures were
evidently unfair,
result was
to meet at
was
Dioscorus 145.
which
further machinations, Marcian summoned another coun Chalcedon. Eutyches, who had been banished by the emperor, was condemned; condemned, deposed and banished. that,
after action
Phocas'
is
mentioned
by
Aubrey
of
mentions
Hobbes
read
between his
John Cluver, in his Historiarum return to London in 1651

with
totius mundi epitome,

and
the Restoration of
was a common
1660. The feature

and
corruption of
the church under
Boniface III in dealings
the emperor
Protestant historiography.
reigns of
146. Hobbes has leapt from early medieval times in the Mediterranean to the Mary Tudor in England by way of the Reformation in Germany. 147. That is, arguments among learned disputants Hobbes' 148. Latin is somewhat obscure at this
which point.
Henry
may lead to controversy and violence. Clearly he refers to the Elizabethan
religious settlement
gion established
because law
of the success of
by
and sustained
by
the
its guiding policies, outward conformity to the reli authority of the Queen. Rather than open windows
into
men's
souls, Elizabeth promoted agreement

or at
might
further,
least
not
impede,
as to externals as a basis of unity, so that religion the course of her government. The wisdom and expediency of
this approach recommended themselves to

Stuarts'
Hobbes, particularly in
The
view of the
failure
of
the early
programs of church
under
Charles II
should not c.
discipline be missed.
and reform.
relevance of these views to the situation
149. 1 Elizabeth
7. Hobbes
seems to
have
confused some of the effects and procedures of
the act and the letters patent.
150. That is, in 1641, in the
context of
Charles'
struggles
with
the Scots and the
Parliament.
Long

151. Legislation
of of
403
Act
July 5, 1641,
the High
see n.
(17 Carolus
I,
c.
11),
repealed
the
eighth section of the
Supremacy,
abolished
Commission,
the court of
action
similar court
in the future;
152. Despite this
heresy, and forbade the erection of a of Parliament, it was not difficult for
Charles II to
empower a similar commission recounted
following
the Restoration.
152. Hobbes has

restored
the
to the crown the ancient
whereby Elizabeth, in her Act of Supremacy of 1559, jurisdiction it asserted over the administration of the church and
history
foreign power contrary to that jurisdiction. The Act similarly inculpated as heretical only those doctrines declared so by the Scriptures, by one of the general councils, relying on the Scriptures, or by the High Court of the English Parliament, with the assent of the convocation of
abolished all
up inspectors in matters of her reign, Elizabeth named six to carry out these functions under letters patent. This group formed the nucleus of the High Commis sion, so called beginning in 1570, or Court of High Commission, as it was known from around
the clergy.
also authorized and
and
The Act
the Queen
her
successors to set
year of
the church, church
discipline
dogma. Later in the first
1576
on. and
It functioned
it
as a
kind
of ecclesiastical court of administration and

Charles'
heresy
and satisfied
troubles with Parliament. Star Chamber got its early on during undeserved, bad reputation from having taken over some of the court's procedures and respon sibilities. Roland G. Usher's pioneering book, The Rise and Fall of the High Commission (Oxford:
few,
was abolished
Oxford

in
a new
remains
emphases contained
introduction
fundamental in this area, with the corrections and changed by Philip Tyler in the 1968 edition. See also Ronald A.
Marchant, The Puritans and the Church Courts in the Diocese of York 1560-1642 (Aberdeen: Longmans, 1960), for the operations of these commissions in that diocese. 153. Hobbes may have the rationale of Justinian's Novella 11 in mind here; see sections 171 ff
.
154. Note
Hobbes'
his
recognition of
very early statement of a utilitarian understanding of punishment, as well as limits upon the powers of the sovereign consistent with the aims to be pursued In
through the criminal law.

sovereign
describing
military
undivided
and
sovereignty, Hobbes did

over
not
intend to
grant
the
wholly arbitrary
powers of
life
death
his subjects,
as
is
clear
from his
views
here
and on self-defense and

"manner"
service.
155. In saying ment, though this is

156. The
the Problem
and prolonged
(modus), Hobbes may intend both

Hobbes'
the form and measure of punish
not clear. moral
place of natural
law theory in controversy; for an overview

Interpretation,''
teaching has been
the subject of intense
of
(Berlin: Duncker
and
Greenleaf, "Hobbes: Hobbes-Forschungen, eds. Reinhart Koselleck and Roman Schnur intuitions as to God's will and Humblot, 1969), 9-32. In view of
of
Hobbes'
the main positions, see W. H.
power, I do not believe it is surprising that he has difficulty in enunciating a clear doctrine of natural law; see David Gauthier, The Logic of Leviathan: The Moral
and coherent
and
Political
Theory
cois
of Thomas Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon Moreau, "Loi divine et loi naturelle selon
and natural
Press, 1969), 35-40, 178ff. See

Hobbes,"
also
Pierre-Fran
Revue internationale de 183

and n.
philosophie
33
in
(1979): 443-51. On Hobbes 157. Comelio Fabro

the
theology,
as
see section
219.
of virtual atheism
refers
to this exchange
the
first
explicit
discussion
history
of
ideas.
point seems
158. The
can err
to be that judges left without explicit instructions
as
to
heretical
words
in reasoning and can wrong an innocent person, whereas, if they had there would be no possibility of error.
explicit
instructions,
with
159. Bacon
of
Hobbes'
reply, that
Hobbes'
religion
is
at
the basis of civil obligation, puts him in line
Francis
and
the Middle Ages against Pierre
Bayle, John Locke
and other proponents of the principle
toleration.
Still,
his
attempt
to
articulate
an objective concept of
observation of given
atheism, based not on actions, but only direct
imputed beliefs
statements,
and
or as a result of
moderation
inferences drawn from
derived
perhaps
from
a respect
regarding punishment, may be cited as evidence of a liberal temper, for the evidentiary procedures of English common law and from his
own experience.
Cf. Leviathan, 201.

who stresses that our
160. Hobbes,
purposes to men.
proper
knowledge of God is negative, is wary of explaining God's For one, he believes that statements about God, except that He exists, are not propositions, given that our finite imaginations can contain no concept of the infinite; they
404
are
Interpretation
evidences of a
merely
desire to
praise
or purpose
in God to be fulfilled through

on
God. Also, he thinks it presumptuous to assert some need action in the world. He says in the critique of Thomas God
established
White's De Mundo, Here it is do

with
the question
what end
whether
the world out
of
His
goodness:
asked:
"To
has God
world?"
established the
Now
whatever men always
do, they
the desire of securing something pleasant; and the
"end"
they
take to be that
which, through the imagination that it generates, moves soon as they have obtained what they sought, then what
or urges
them to secure it. Yet as
was once their goal no one
is
no
longer so,
but they
think
when
press
forward to
other
things, because in his lifetime

own efforts.
is
without
the wish to
acquire things.
No desire
exists except that of
they
He
can gain through
their
reaching a goal, or self-benefit, which people But if anyone ascribed such a purpose to God
established
the universe, clearly such a person has claimed that He has not been the
Most Blessed from
all
time,
and
that He has
appetite and need.
If
such a person wishes to
interpret "purpose in
analogous and above
philosophy,
should and
or
as something human understanding, then the present disputation does not pertain to to any natural theology; it has to do with religion, in which case the argument
conducted not
God"
differently
from "purpose in
animals,"
i.e.,
have been
according to
man's reasons
but according to
Holy
Scripture
the decrees of the Church.

Hobbes'
Quoted from
Thomas White's De Mundo Examined trans. Harold Whitmore Jones (Lon
don: Bradford
University Press, 1976), 400-401. On the question of inference by analogy, see section 200 and nn. Cf. Jeffrey Barnouw, "The Separation of Reason and Faith in Bacon and Journal of the History of Ideas 42 (1981): 607-28, esp. 617. Hobbes, and Leibniz's 161. Very few of the Arians refused to subscribe and were exiled, only Arius, Secundus of
Theodicy,''
Ptolemais, Theonas
162. Athanasius
cil
of
Marmarica
and some priests. against a
was
banished
background
of moves against encouraged
him
made after and
the coun
by
Arians in Alexandria. To discredit
him, they had

called
dissension there him.

of
had
made
complaints about
him to the emperor,
lodging
even a charge of murder against
163.
of
Hobbes'
teaching
an amateur
reflects what
has been
Erastianism,
the doctrine
the subjection
or
the church to the power of the state, named after Erastus (Thomas
Lueber, Lieber
1524-83),
clopedia
Swiss theologian. M. I. Fell,

"Erastus'
"Erastianism,"
sub voce
New Catholic
Liebler, Ency
Church for the
5 (1967), 511-12,
states:
real purpose seems
to
have been to
to any
deny
to the
any right to coercive authority apart from the State. He Church whether that in a theocracy or that of the Church
. .
was opposed as an
political role
[H]e labored to
a perfect
prevent
independent society within the State the Evangelical Church from embracing the Genevan doctrine that the
and
Church is
several
society in
by itself;
512.
Hobbes'
advocacy
of
the
view places
him
with
in
Henry Parker, Selden, Prynne, and earlier Christopher St.-Germaine, describing the role and legitimacy of the national church in England. 164. I have tried to bring out what seems to be anacoluthon.
165. See Constantine's law
of
others, for example,
326, in Justinian's Code, bk 1,

on
title
5, De haereticis
et Mani-
cheis et
Samaritis.
perpetuates
166. Hobbes
verted to
the unsupported attack
the behavior of the Manichaeans. Con
Christianity, Augustine, in arguing vigorously

their behavior. to
reference
against
his former co-religionists, does

title
not
complain of
167. A
Constantine's law
of
315, Code, bk 1,
was
9, De Judaeis
on
et
Coelicolis.
168. The legal

emperor,
science of
the Bolognese Glossators
based
the
theory
that the
German
by
right
of
the translatio
imperi, rightfully
Monorchia. The
stood
in the
place of the
argument at
the root of Dante's De
constitutions of
Roman emperor, an Frederick I and II were thus
regularly included in
cumberendo
was
medieval editions of
the Code. The constitution to which Hobbes refers, De
not often included in medieval editions of the Code, probably because it Pope Lucius III, who in 1184 issued it as the decretal Ad abolendam, confirming the agreement reached in 1177 between the emperor and Pope Alexander III, Lucius' predecessor, in the Treaty of Venice; see n. 169. decretal stresses the offensive contumacy (contumacia) of the heretic and specifies a number of heretical sects and outlines procedures for dealing with both heretical clergy and laity. (On contumacy, cf. section 167.) It differs from earlier
haeretice, is
work of
chiefly the
Lucius'
1668 Appendix
treatment of
to
Leviathan
405
heresy largely lay
fully
with
churchly
authorities.
in its clarity But in

who are
and
in its forceful
requirement
that
lay
authorities cooperate problem of
regard
to penalties. Ad
abolendam
leaves the
criminal action to whether
judges
to act within
heretic to the
it looks forward to the penalty of death secular arm for such punishment as is
locally prescribed legal forms. Thus, while by burning may be disputed, it clearly consigns the
merited.
See Edward Peters, Inquisition (New
York: Free Press, 1988), 47ff. 169. Contrary to his Latin, Hobbes must empire but also the emperor under foot, as he forgiveness
want
to
perhaps
say that Alexander trampled not only the had in Venice as Barbarossa sued for papal
such a
following
his defeat
at
Legnano. Federico Zuccaro depicts

and of
scene, though the
story is disputed. Rolando Bandinelli, the great Sienese theologian his vision of the relations of church and state against a number
canonist, as pope vindicated
princes,
including
England's
Henry
II in the
wake of
the Constitutions of Clarendon and the Becket affair.
Tudor's
people
170. Hobbes is referring to Henry's statute, 2 Henry IV, c. 15. This section recalls Henry position that the pope had exercised no jurisdiction in England except as the king and
had
freely
accepted and mean
taken it upon themselves; see n. 133.

comparison to
171. Hobbe i may

predecessor.
in
those appearing
during
the reign of Elizabeth's
172.
1 Elizabeth,
of
c.
20.
letter''
Caesarea (c. 263-339) seems to have written his "circular only to his own diocese, to explain his subscription to a creed he might have been expected to oppose; Atha nasius reports its text in his discussion of the Nicene Council, De decretis Nicenae Synodi, as do Socrates the historian
after and
173. Eusebius
Theodoret. Eusebius, the first

views.
great
historian
of ecclesiastical antiquities
recent
Luke, had
part and
gone
to Nicaea under the ban of excommunication of the
Council
of
Antioch
due to his
on
espousal of
Arian
His
appearance
before the Nicene Fathers

gain
was
likely
an attempt
his
Constantine's to
rehabilitate
him to
the advantage of his considerable prestige
for
use against the
Arians. See J. N. D. Kelly's
illuminating
discussion
of
the letter in
Early
con
Christian Creeds, 220-26. See below, sections 179ff. A translation of the circular letter is tained in A New Eusebius, ed. J. Stevenson (London: SPCK, 1968), 364-68.
174. Quite
perhaps
apart
known to Hobbes through his
from the uneducated, the ignorance of Elizabeth's clergy was legendary and personal experience: his father had served as a local vicar prior for
parts
to
deserting
family
"beyond
London."
Cartwright
charged
Archbishop
.
Whitgift
with
the fact that "there be

changed out of a
their last
refuge;"
into the ministry those of the basest sort, such as are suddenly serving-man's coat into a minister's cloak, making for the most part the ministry quoted in J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents, 2d ed. (Cambridge:
admitted
.
Cambridge
arrival
University Press, 1930;

of
reprinted
1940), 151. This laxness

colleges established
was also
dangerous
at
after the and
in 1580
learned
priests
from English
in Douai, then
Rheims
Rome.
c.
74,
commissioners'
175. In fact, Edward Coke discusses heresy in the third book of his Institutes; it is in bk four, p. 323, that the discussion Hobbes cites takes place. And in it, Coke complains less of the tardiness than of their presumption and lawlessness. He notes twice that it was
who
Lord Chancellor Ellesmere

the reference is to the
practice of
had forced
publication of
the letters patent, so it seems

reign over the common
clear
that
clash of
jurisdictions that
arose
in
James'
law
courts'
frustrating
in
the operation of the ecclesiastical courts; see
below,
section
167
and n.
The
and
debates
1611
on ecclesiastical
jurisdiction
and practice which
had
on
occurred
between the
years
1607
May 23, 1611, with Coke, the Chief Justice, the main protagonist against Richard Bancroft, the Archbishop of Canterbury, with Lord Chancellor Ellesmere playing a mediating role. Ultimately, the King issued new letters patent which ended the conflict while leaving the commission's powers largely intact. Knafla proposes the
culminated a conference
before the
Privy
Council
work of
Ellesmere Law
as
of ecclesiastical authorities
instrumental in arranging this measure of peace, based on greater acceptance by common lawyers and of prohibitions by the civilians. See Louis A.
Knafla,
Hobbes Act
of
and
bridge: Cambridge
Politics in Jacobean England: The Tracts of Lord Chancellor Ellesmere (Cam University Press, 1972), 123-54, esp. 139-41. The royal letters to which
the letters patent which set
see sections
refers were
Supremacy;
207ff.
Hobbes'
point
up the ecclesiastical commission envisioned in the in this section is that, although the Thirty-nine
406
Articles
Interpretation
of
1563,
amended
in 1571,
stated
the Anglican doctrinal position, this statement had no
legislative authority as such, so that it did not clarify the juridical/legal situation of heresy. implication is that the church lacked power legally to punish heresy without the 176. power of the sovereign. The point was disputed at various times but seems a clear result of Henry
Hobbes'
VIII's
reforms.
Hobbes'
177.
Latin is
obscure
here,
though the sense seems clear.
178. See above,
section
133
and n.
179. Typically, heretics would be cited into the bishop's court, tried and then handed to civil for punishment. On the procedure of the ecclesiastical courts, see Ronald Marchant, The Puritans and the Church Courts in the Diocese of York 1560-1642, 1-7. In James I's reign, the
authorities
burning
of two
heretics, Bartholomew Legate
and
Edward Wightman, for Arianism is recorded;
see
2 Howell's State Trials, col. 727ff. Thomas Fuller mentions that Legate, a native of Essex, was of "person comely, complexion black, age about forty years; of a bold spirit, confident carriage, fluent tongue, excellently skilled in Scriptures; and well had it been for him if he had known them
or understood them better"; from The Church History of Britain, quoted in Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, Penalties upon Opinion: Some Records of the Law of Heresy and Blasphemy (London: Watts and Company, 1912), 12ff. James had Legate brought before him to trick him into confess ing that he prayed to Christ, but Legate, though he admitted having done so once in ignorance, said he had not for the past seven years. "Hereupon the King, in choler, spurned at him with his foot: saith he, 'it shall never be said that one stayeth in my presence that hath 'Away, base never prayed to our Saviour for seven years "; ibid. Legate served time as a prisoner at Newgate but was finally declared an "obdurate, contumacious and incorrigible by a large
less
Fellow,'
together'
heretic"
assembly
sheriff of
of clergymen.
James
gave order
that a writ de haeretico

.
comburendo
be directed to the
comburendo was
London,
and
Legate
was
burned March 18, 161 1
The
writ
de haeretico
Charles II (29 Carolus II, c. 9). If Hobbes were arraigned on the thirteen charges brought against Legate, this Appendix furnishes support for his orthodoxy on every point but one: "10. That Christ by his Godhead wrought no later
abolished
by
miracle."
180. Hobbes is referring to the hated "oath

commission swore
officio,"
ex
by
which an accused called
before the
of either
to
answer
truly
some
and
fully
of
all questions asked
him
without
knowledge
the charges against
him
or,
in
cases,
his accuser, "least
after perusal
(afore his
oath
taken)
he may be drawn by counsell to answere cautelously, indirectly, or wholly to answere: perhaps because he sees they touche him over neerely, as conjecturing by be prooved"; from Richard Cosin, An Apologie: of
ecclesiastical and
refuse whom
to make
they may
of
for
sundrie proceedings
by
jurisdiction
the
England,"
(London, 1591),
upon and
part
II,
p.
50,
cited
by Mary
Hume Maguire, "The Attack
Common Lawyers
Essays in
ard
Oath
ex
Officio
as
Administered in the Ecclesiastical Courts in
History
Political
Theory
in Honor of Charles Howard Mcllwain (Cambridge: Harv
University Press, 1936), 199-229, 215. Fear of the Lollards in England had allowed the bishops to force the enactment of 2 Henry IV, c. 15, the writ de haeretico comburendo, in 1401,
imprison heretics and set secular machinery in motion to stamp out those propagating the heresy. This law also authorized the ex officio oath. During Henry VIII's reign, Christopher St. Germaine and Thomas More had expressed sharply divided views as to its legality under common law. Parliament repealed Henry IV's law (25 Henry VIII, c. 14), but it was restored
which gave them power to
under
Mary
(1
and
Philip
and
Mary,
c.6).
Elizabeth in turn
restored
her father's
repeal of
the
medieval
law (1 Elizabeth,
established church's effective

of
15). But Elizabeth's policy of enforcing outward conformity to the confession and practices made the High Commission and its procedures an
c.
instrument of state policy; the ex officio oath was specially authorized in the letters patent 1583. Late in Elizabeth's reign, the issue of the legal position of the commission rose to promi nence in the context of the clash of ecclesiastical and common law jurisdictions. reign saw Chief Justice Coke, Lord Chancellor Ellesmere and Bancroft law dispute the common Archbishop
James'
courts'
issuing writs of prohibition against ecclesiastical courts, with the effect of stop ping their proceedings, precluding execution of their judgements and releasing those committed by them on writs of habeas corpus; see above, n. 175. On the goal of civil punishment for ecclesiasti
practice of cal offenses, see
below,
n.
188.
181. 17 Carolus I,
c.
11.

182. Perhaps knows
will of what
God."
407
an allusion
mind of
to Paul's statement in Romans 8:27: "And he that searches the hearts
is the
the Spirit because he makes intercession for the saints according to the
183. See Acts 2:41ff.
and
4:32ff.
was more pastoral and social and
184. That the early church's approach to heresy forensic than in later eras is generally conceded.
185.
Hobbes'
less legal
and
Latin is difficult here.

view
186. Hobbes is referring to the

coerced
that faith in Christ
by law,
the position espoused, for example,
by Thomas
must be voluntary and cannot be Aquinas in the Summa Theologiae,
q. 10, art. 8. For a modern statement rejecting coerced religious belief, see the Vatican II document Dignitatis Humanae in Vatican Council 11: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents,
II-I,
ed.
Flannery (Northport,
187. This
name was given
NY: Costello Press, 1975). in the fourth century to those
who said
God
was a
body
with
human
form. See below, section 179. 188. Hobbes makes the case then that, while belief cannot be coerced by law, it is nonetheless in the power of the church, with the support of the coercive power of the state, to proscribe forms of behavior which may have a deleterious effect or influence on others in Christian kingdoms. He
would
banish
or
inhibit those
who advocate
illicit
religious
belief
or practice
in
order to prohibit
them
from propagating
unbelief and
lates the traditional
view
contumacy throughout society; see section 141. He thus articu that conversions to unbelief should be prevented and that the moral tone of
society, its expectations of what is right and normal, should be protected

expressions of unbelief.
by
prohibiting
q.
public
See, for example, Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae II-II,

word paradoxical
11,
art.
3.
189. Hobbes may be using the
here in the
sense used
by
Aristotle in the
Rhetoric, 1412a26,
that is, as diverging from pre-existing opinions (para-doxa). 190. Hobbes is referring here first to events of Tudor England, whereby Henry VIII and his daughter Elizabeth withdrew the church in England from the Roman Catholic Church and estab
lished
a national church organization and confession under royal of the counter
direction. The
second set of events
may be traced to the protracted struggles authority in and through the church and to
early Stuarts to consolidate and extend royal the rise of rival Protestant beliefs and polities,
church government
especially that
ritual,
which
of
Presbyterianism,
was
with
its disdain for
by
bishops
and
for
ornate
they felt
refers
insufficiently
the
purged of corruption and
Roman influence.
engagements
191. This
to the First
of
Bishops'
War,
a series of
brief
1639 between the forces
king
and
Scottish troops
united
in their
support of
occurring early in the Scottish impose

a prayer
Covenant,
book
ever move that
an oath sworn
in 1638. The
upon
Charles'
war arose as a result of
attempt to
conceived
in England
the Scottish church, the

and
Kirk,
through
had
proven read
both futile
dangerous. Riots had
occurred
his Scottish bishops, a in Edinburgh in 1637 when
from it, and calls for the abolition of episcopacy, that is, of church adminis tration by bishops, had led to the demand that the Scottish Assembly itself act as decisive authority in church affairs. Unable to rouse his nobles or pay his soldiers, Charles was
the bishops
Covenanters'
forced to
yield the
For their part, the Scots

return control of
Charles'
Scottish demands in the war; he signed the Treaty of Berwick in July of 1639. pledged to disband their troops, desist from holding seditious meetings and Scottish castles to royal officers. Charles engaged to send back his
a
soldiers and to
issue
declaration assuring his Scottish
subjects that all matters
Kirk
should
be determined
by
the
Assembly
the
and all civil matters
by
parliaments and other
pertaining to the lawful
bodies. Charles knew his

one ruled
signature on
by
presbyters or
elders, in
treaty meant the erection of a Presbyterian church polity, Scotland, rather than by bishops, though he doubtless also
eventual restoration of episcopacy, the system which he and Laud were strengthening in England. Then, to raise money to re-establish royal authority in Scotland, Charles called Parlia ment into session in April, 1640, but dissolved it when Parliamentarians wanted concessions in return for increased revenues. This session is known as the "Short War of 1640, fought in the northern counties of England 192. This was the Second
hoped for the
Parliament."
Bishops'
between covenanting Scots, impatient
of
fruitless
the Earl
negotiations with
Charles,
and
forces loyal to the
king
under
the
command of some
Wentworth,
Scottish army,
25,000 strong,
crossed
Strafford. On the morning of August 20, the the Tweed River at Coldstream and hastened to pass
of
408
Interpretation
There, the king's army under Conway fell back in a rout, and the city was days, Charles, encamped at York, sought the advice and support of his series of riots in London, on September 24, followed the course they had urged
several
the Tyne at Newcastle.
left to the Scots. For
lords,
expel
and,
after a writs
by issuing
for
the
holding
without
of a parliament
to
meet on
November 3
without
of that year.
Unable to
was
the Scottish army

prepared
nevertheless
money to maintain his

Parliament,"
and unable to raise conception of
money
Parliament, Charles
assemble
for
the
"Long
the
allegation,
Appendix, Hobbes describes a made also in Behemoth, does

193.
Charles'
sovereignty against the men who were to Pym, Hampton, Strode, St. John, Holies, Erie and Fiennes. In role for the English Presbyterians in urging on the Scots, but this
not seem
to be supported
by
the evidence.
Archbishop
with
of
Canterbury
throughout this
period was
William Laud. A
strong-
Charles that, once the forces of the anti-episcopal faction within willed man, Laud hoped Calvinism had been put down in England, the Anglican Church might at last both realize the ideals
of
the Reformation and stand clothed in the authority of a
pious
king,
the enlightened guide to
his
people on matters spiritual as well as temporal. system so
It it
was
was
Laud
who sought to strengthen
the episcopal
hateful to Scottish Presbyterians, Laud in 1640
and
he
who of
insisted
on
the high ritual that was so

were
distasteful to English Presbyterians. Fourteen

brought
against
articles
impeachment for high treason

divines'
Commons, but he was executed in 1645, Hobbes says, "for See sections 133, 157 and 167, and nn. On Laudian claim the entertainment of the to office by divine right, see J. P. Sommerville, "The Royal Supremacy and Episcopacy 'Jure Journal of Ecclesiastical History 34 (1983): 548-58. Hobbes undercut the
by
the
Scots."
Divino,'
1603-1640,"
authority
of
the bishops powers; see
by
retaining
teaching
206
office
in the
sovereign and
by
ascribing to him
sacramental
below,
section
and n.
a number of
seeking to sort included the

Hobbes'
194. In this statement, Hobbes has addressed out in understanding the drift to war
"Puritans"
issues
which scholars
have been
following the
so
among the
"Presbyterians,"
that,
clear
at
Scottish troubles. Clearly, he has least as regards the situation of 1642,

was religious and cultural.
account agrees with current opinion
that the
division
As
Conrad Russell has said, "It is almost universally true that Puritans fought for the Parliament, and high churchmen and Catholics for the king"; quoted from The Crisis of Parliaments: English His
tory 1509-1660 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), 343. On the question of Arminianism, see Conrad Russell, Parliaments and English Politics 1621-1629 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1979),
26-32, 428ff.
195. This is
196. Hobbes
an allusion
was
to the
abolition of
the High Commission
by
the
Long
Parliament.
among the first that left England at the advent of the Long Parliament in 1640 for fear of reprisals exacted for his defense of the king in Elements of Law. Also, he had seen Bishop Manwaring taken to the Tower for espousing views like this.
act of September 20, 1649, "Against Unlicensed and Scandalous Books and Pamph for better regulating of lapsed on September 29, 1651, so that, while the law authorizing censorship was not repealed, its enforcement was rendered difficult. But Leviathan was entered at Hall in January of that year and was in the press during the winter and early spring. The dedication is dated April, 1651, and it must have appeared toward the end of that
197. An
and
lets,
Printing,"
Stationers'
month, since it is mentioned in a letter from Robert Payne dated
May
n. s.
"The Publication Date

the window of
earlier removal of
of
Hobbes's
Leviathan,"
Notes is
and not
Queries
6. See B.D. Greenslade, 22 (1975): 310. Clearly,

act
opportunity to
the
bishops'
which power
Hobbes
refers
the lapse in the 1649
but the
much
through abolition of the High Commission.
198. Hobbes
seems
to have translated these quotations into Latin to the
directly
from the English

of
Leviathan
which
of
1651,
without reference
corresponding
not
places
in the Latin text
1668, from
of
they depart substantially in form
though
in
meaning.
I have followed the English text
1651 in reproducing the quotations here. 199. Leviathan, 92. The cynicism that is
was shared
evident as to these practices of the medieval church
Debate
miracles, see Robert M. Bums, The Great Miracles: From Joseph Glanvill to David Hume (Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press, 1981). 200. Hobbes allows for the existence of invisible beings, like God, composed of
question of on
by
all the
Reformers. On the
but material,
diaphanous,
substance.
As
aspects of
his
political
program, materialism
and mortalism serve
to

counter
see
409
the superstitious fear of ghosts that made the the point is

a
people a
prey
of
pope,
priest and
presbyter;
Leviathan, 664. But
difficult
one.
The
key
seems
to be
rejection of
the possibility
physical
of possession
by
immaterial
spirits and unknown

material
agencies, as
if,
assured as to the
actual,
reality bodies
of or
spirits, individual and
minds, the people would
like themselves, and thus incapable of occupying their cease to fear them or seek the remedy of their fears from
princes'
seditious priests. edification
Still,
the mirror he holds up to politics must be for
political and religious
because he is thoroughly realistic in his appraisal of the people's appetite for abstract thought, such as comprehension of his system and of its bases and elaboration would require. On this and related points, see David Johnston, The Rhetoric of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes and the
Politics of Cultural Transformation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986), but also the review of Dennis T. Brennan in The Review of Politics 49 (1987): 448-53. See also D. P. Walker, Unclean Spirits: Possession and Exorcism in the Late Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Phila delphia:
University
of
Pennsylvania Press, 1981).
201. In his essay De came Christi, written in 208, Tertullian wrote against Marcion, who believed that Christ was not actually bom of the flesh but was a phantasm of human form. In
defending
certum
the orthodox
belief in it is
a genuine
incarnation, Tertullian
expressed the
famous paradox,
est, quia impossibile:
certain
article, "Divine Substance in
Tertullian,"
because it is impossible. On Tertullian, see G. C. Stead's Journal of Theological Studies 14 (n.s., 1963): 46-66.
202. Hobbes has
conflated a statement
body
after
its
own
kind; nothing is incorporeal
from Tertullian's De Came Christi, XI, "All that is is except that which does not exist"; with one from
Adversus Praxeam, VII: "Who will deny that God is body even though He is spirit? For spirit is form." In his Considerations upon the Reputation of T. body after its own land and in its own
Hobbes, Hobbes discusses

tullian's]
of the
the materialist conception of
God:
"
that doctrine served

no
[Ter
the
turn to confute the
heresy
of
them that held that
Christ had
body, but
was a
ghost; also
of
soul, he
speaks as of an
invisible body. And there is
an epitome of
the doctrine
Eastern Church, wherein is this, that they thought angels and souls were corporeal, and only called incorporeal, because their bodies were not like ours. And I have heard that a Patriarch of Constan tinople, in
a council
were corporeal.
You
held there, did argue for the lawfulness of painting angels, from this, that they See the Molesworth see what fellows in atheism you join with Mr.
Hobbes."
edition, 4:429. Hobbes may be referring to

patriarch of
a garbled account of as a result of
Nicephorus (c. 758-828), the
Constantinople
who was
deposed
the Iconoclastic Controversy. In his
Antirrheticus, ii. 7, Nicephorus says angels may be painted, not because they are corporeal, but because, in having a beginning and a comprehensible nature, they may be circumscribed; see Paul J. Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople: Ecclesiastical Policy and Image Wor ship in the Byzantine Empire (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958), 206ff.
203. See Colossians 2:9.
204. The commentary De Trinitate,
whose
on the passage
from Paul is found in the third book
of a work entitled
Thapsus;
in Latin.
see
may have been Athanasius, as Hobbes says, or possibly Virgil of Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 62, col. 253. The word dealiter is otherwise unknown
author
205. Acts 17:28.
206. Hobbes has

and
earlier
discussed the
circular
letter
of
Eusebius
of
Caesarea, in
here
as
section
155,
it has led him to
make this assertion.
The
emperor
is
represented
having
taken the
initiative in proposing
did
not
the word to the council,
following by
means
Eusebius'
appearance
sense of
before the council,

an
with the explanation that
"homoousios incorporeal
as
was not used
in the be
bodily
or
affections, for the Son
derive His
existence and
from the Father
of
division
severance, since
im
material, intellectual
things must be
nature could not a
subject
to any
bodily
affection.
These
understood
bearing
divine
and
ineffable signification";
quoted
in J. N. D.
Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 214. In fact, the term's very ambiguity may have suggested it, for it was the rallying point of no party and wide enough to allow as many different schools of
thought as
possible
to embrace it. (In
what
follows,
"co-essential"
"consubstantial"
and
are used
interchangeably.)
207. Hobbes is
against
accurate
as to the objection of not
only Arians but many
others at while
Nicaea
would
the
use of terms not
found in the Bible. The
orthodox countered
that,
they
410
have
Interpretation
preferred
terms
more
Scriptural than
"consubstantial"
and
"from the
substance of
the
Father,"
none of
the Scriptural titles or images had been proof against Arian twisting. Athanasius was later
"consubstantial"
to argue that, if the term

see
Fathers'
was not in the Scriptures, the meaning it stood for was; De decretis Nicaeae synodi, cited in J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Creeds, 239, n. 1. The use of the term was intended to clinch their anti-Arian position that Christ was fully God,
by divinity, truth, origin or he may obscure the real issue underlying the dispute over usage, namely, the Arian devaluation of Christ. No one, either Arian or orthodox, advanced the thesis of the corporeality of God at the council, and obviating the term co-essential as
not a
created, if perfect,
being,
to be distinguished from the Godhead
substance.
While
Hobbes'
objection
is
valid
to a point,
an
inappropriate
use
of
Greek terminology
considered
would not advance
that view. The linchpin
for that
argument
is Tertullian.
this doctrine
208. That the Nicene Fathers
is
not supported
by
of
the reports of their
deliberations, nor is the word itself attested until after their meetings. One was Audaeus, founder of the Audians, a sect that formed in Syria around
Council.
that the
Hobbes'
its early
proponents
the time of the Nicene
view
in the Historical Narration
group
of
arose
during
on
the time of Emperor Valens
Concerning Heresy is more correct, (364-78), some forty to fifty years
namely,
after
the
discrepancy, see the Introduction. The view of the Anthropomorphites differed from that of Tertullian, who, although he believed that God was body, did not assert that the image of God (Phillipians 2:6) entailed possession of the parts of the human body. To Ter tullian, God was material but not figurate. Augustine, in discussing his conversion in the Confes
Council
Nicaea;
this
sions,
mentions
his early in
order
adherence to
tullian and even exonerates him of to cite the
heresy
something like this view; and he does not condemn Ter for holding the view (De Haereticis, 86). Hobbes seems
version of materialism and
heresy
to distinguish
it from his
thereby
vindicate
his
belief that
about
materialism neither entails
this
heresy
nor
is inconsistent
with
the scriptural statements
God.
word anousios
209. The Greek

with an
is
an example of an
alpha-privative, that
"substance"
is,
or
alpha, which indicates the absence or privation of that which the word commonly
"a-symmetrical"
just
as
means
"not
symmetrical."
Ousia
"being"
means
form, beginning denotes, in Greek,

objection to the
so that a-(n)-ousios means
"that
which
lacks
being,'
Hobbes'
and the ground of
Damascene's
is this, that it attributes nonbeing to God. The key debate going on within the pages of the Appendix centers on the relation of Greek thought and (Judaeo-) Christian religion. Hobbes lamented the great price paid by the West for its knowledge of ancient political philosophy,
statement
namely, the blood shed in civil strife tradition imparted from

prior effects on authors
caused
by
the
teaching
on
liberty
which
he believed the
like Aristotle For
and
Western
Hobbes'
religion.
Cicero. In the Appendix, he concentrates on its criticism of John Damascene, see below, n. 213.
210. This text is drawn from John Damascene's De Fide Orthodoxa, found in Patrologia Graeca, vol. 94, col. 845.
211. Hobbes is referring to those

under
chapters of
John's summa, The Fount of Knowledge, known
this name.
chap.
212. In bk 1, God impossible

nature.
11, John discusses
men's gross
flesh,
which makes an
understanding
of
except through the
images,
types and symbols that are
appropriate
to our own
213. Hobbes God

or
reveals
of
here
telling
aspect of
his thought, namely, the
refusal
to conceive
of
among other beings, one substance among other substances, since for him God is real and only individual entities are real. But John Damascene was one in a long train of theologians who have believed that the divine and the human frames, though distinct in essence, are nonetheless related in truth. God, the author of created entities, may indeed be described as the "wholly apart from and above all beings, or as the ground and power of
except as one
other,"
to speak
Him
being
Tillich says, being-itself. But, precisely because they are created, creatures point to that reality beyond themselves in which they nonetheless participate. Thus, while it is true, as the nominalist Hobbes insists, that a portion of finite reality, such as the experience that grounds an
being
or,
as
assertion, proposition or concept, cannot encompass

which
is ineffable, still, because
the
finite
participates
being-itself or supply a definition of that in the infinite, because each being has a
which makes
share of
being-itself,
some relation exists
between the two
language
about
God
possi-
7666*
Appendix to Leviathan
images
which men
-411
ble. Though
not proper
concepts, such symbols,
analogies and
form
on
the basis
of their experience symbolic
may thus be said to be truthful, even if not proper language which both reveals and conceals what humans know
to Hobbes. But this
assertions.
about
This way to a the divine is closed
in
thought, not an indication of a feigned conviction. On the analogia entis, see Paul Tillich, Systematic Theology (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1967), 1:238-41; Paul Ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disci
principle
is
an
interpretive impasse in
Hobbes'
plinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language, trans. Robert Czemy with Kathleen McLaughlin and John Costello, SJ (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977), 259-80; and John
Herman Randall, Jr. Hellenistic Ways of Deliverance and the Making of the Christian Synthesis (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970), 156-58, esp. n. 9. 214. John discusses this 215. In bk two,
respect
chap.
some pages before, in chap. 8. 3, John Damascene admits that even

of
the angels, though incorporeal with
to men,
terial and
have something incorporeal.

reference
thickness and matter
with respect
to
God,
who alone
is imma
216. The
word
that phantasmata
that
is to 1 Corinthians 8:4; are nothing, as he has

believe in the
see said
above, section 12. If one takes Hobbes at his
above,
section
181,
then
it is difficult he
not
to
conclude
he does
not
existence of angels, all
which
he here describes
which
as phan
tasmata. But this
conclusion would
apply equally to
those phenomena
calls phan
of all of
tasmata,
217.
mente,
namely, names, appearances and thoughts. The utility and ontological status
Hobbes'
these are left out of

Hobbes'
account as a result of an edition reads
impasse in his thought;
see n.
213.
rather
Latin in the 1668
timente,
"by
the one who
fears,"
than
mind."
"by
the
phrase
218. Leviathan, 124. The opinion, cannot be true. Also,
"true
religion"
is presumably
misstatement, in that religion,

motives
Hobbes'
account of
of
the origin of religion includes more

use of
than
fear;
on this point and
for
discussion
Hobbes'
the words
"feign"
"imagine"
and
in this
passage,
trine of
and
as well as several other valuable

Salvation,"
insights,
see
Paul J. Johnson, "Hobbes's Anglican Doc
in Thomas Hobbes in His Own Time, eds. Ralph Ross, Herbert W. Schneider Theodore Waldman (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1974), 102-25, esp. 114-
18.
Ecclesiasticus,
219. This saying is found in Psalms (112:10), Proverbs (1:7, 9:10), and in the apocryphal also known as the Wisdom of Sira; I do not find it in Ecclesiastes. It is not acciden tal that Hobbes refers to the Old Testament, here as elsewhere. In stressing God's freedom and
reflect a more principal
decision
graciousness, he is seeking to and promise are the
biblically
rooted thought-world
in
which
deed,
event,
at
categories; that
is, Hobbes
as
Protestant theologian is
whose roots are
tempting
etc.,
to recover the
shift
historical
emphasis on a conception of
God
ultimately
Hebraic. This way things The divine
in
emphasis
complements the are.
away from Greek categories of being, substance, accident, entity, denial that it is possible to gain information about the God of Israel from the
The world, as a contingent creation of God's will, could have been other than it is. is thus equally transcendent of and equally compatible with any of the possi bilities that were excluded when God chose to create this world and its stable nature. Natural
nature
theology, to
the extent that
its
aim
is to describe the divine essence,
rather
than the contingent
divine will, is therefore not only inadequate or partial; it is on this view absurd. Cf. George Croom Robertson, Hobbes Cheap Edition (sic) (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons, 1905), 113, and John L. Farthing, Thomas Aquinas and Gabriel Biel: Interpretations of Thomas
products of the
Aquinas in German Nominalism
on the
Eve of the Reformation (Durham, NC: Duke
University
Press, 1988), 7ff.

220. See Psalms 14:1 221
.
and
Psalms 53:1.
Leviathan, 220.
"induce."
"Reduce"
here
means to
lead back
or
return, as is evident from the verbal
play on 222. Leviathan, 434. The Greek 223. See Genesis 28:11-15.
"messenger."
word aggelos means
Testament,
224. The Sadducees, the aristocratic rivals of the Pharisees and often referred to in the New as in Acts 23:11, denied the doctrines of the resurrection of the dead and of the exis tence of angels, both of which had arisen in Palestine in the years prior to the birth of Jesus.
412
Interpretation
225. Leviathan, 483f. 226. See the first chapter

the third chapter at
of this
Appendix,
sections
41-56. This
crossreference
indicates that
least
was written with conscious reference
to the other.
227. Note the

biblical
religion.
explicit contrast
Hobbes draws between
one's own philosophical position and
228. Hobbes has
written
"124
elders."
229. Hobbes may be referring here to 230. Leviathan, 498. 231. In the first
of these two
passages
in Revelations like 13:7, 20:8-9
and
20:14.
passages, the
psalmist alludes
to a promise made in a story about
Joseph,
gives
which
is
be
related
in the
passage
from Genesis. The

"butler,"
promise
is the
assurance which
Joseph
to his
fellow-prisoner, Pharaoh's
restored
that
is, his
chamberlain, now
fallen into disfavor,

of
that
he
would
by
Pharaoh to
a place of
honor. On this meaning

was a
promise, see the
Introduction.
232. That Christ

church.
was
eternally begotten
see the
of the
Father
tenet of
Origen,
adopted
by
the
233. On "eternal
Syria,"
decree,"
Introduction
and
above, sections 19-26.
234. Leviathan, 528. The episode referred to here between Naaman, "captain of the host of the that is, a Syrian general, and the prophet Elisha is found in 2 Kings 5:1-19. king of Naaman was cleansed of his leprosy by Elisha, who had instructed him to bathe in the Jordan River. But the
corporate
Jesus'
prophet
did
not require with
Naaman,
who then converted to
Elisha's God, to forsake
worship
of
Rimmon
reluctant
disciple,
were often
his sovereign, the king of Syria. Naaman and Nicodemus, cited in this period as examples of licit religious dissimulation
nell'Eu-
in the Bible; see Carlo Ginzburg, // nicodemismo: Simulazione e dissimulazione religiosa ropa del '500 (Turin: Giulio Einaudi Editore, 1970). 235. In fact, the nineteenth canon does not deal with lapsed Christians, though the
sets out a process of reinduction
eleventh
into the
church of
those
who
had
with
weakened without sufficient
cause.
It is the twenty-fifty
canon of
the Nicene Creed that deals

view of great
lapsed Christians.
of
236. Leviathan, 570. This is the incidents of the ruler's powers

of the
Hobbes'
that the
king (rex)
is
priest
(sacerdos),
a conception
antiquity, recalling the Hellenistic
ruler
cults, the
as
Roman emperor, the Lord's anointed (Christus Domini).
divinity
sacred person of
European kings
and
the imperial
dignity
the
Canterbury Provinciate,
of
reflects
William Lyndwood (?1375-1446), in his the discussion that had occurred in France on this point in support
Henry
IV's
minister
the Gallican liberties claimed
by
the French church, with the support of the French

states
king,
not
through
the
Pragmatic Sanction
person
of
Bourges in 1438. Lyndwood
that the anointed
king
is
simply
according to some; see Percy Ernst Schramm, A History of the English Coronation, trans. Leopold G. Wickham Legg (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937), 138. In that the sovereign lacked the cure of souls (cura animarum) and other aspects of the priest's
lay
but
a mixed person,
ordination, Christian
man
writers earlier
Anonymous had
rarely asserted that he held that the king could
could administer offer
the sacraments, but the Nor
the elements in the
Eucharist;
see
George
Huntston Williams, The Norman Anonymous of 1100 A.D.. Toward the Identification and Evalua tion of the So-called Anonymous of York, issued as an extra number of the Harvard Theological
Review, 18 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1951), 168ff. James I believed

of the
that the person

royal martyr
king
was mixed with
that of the priest, and Charles I gained the status of sainted

and
of
in the Anglican Church. In fact, the practice of anointing kings, priests, including the pope, began among the Franks, in imitation
accounts of
only later the emperor and the rite mentioned in biblical
II Kings) in connection with Saul, David, Solomon and others; see Walter Ullmann, The Growth of Papal Government: A Study in the Ideological Relation of Clerical and Lay Power, 3d ed. (London: Methuen and Co., 1970), 24, n. 1; 67; 150ff. But
kingship
(I
and
Hobbes'
assertion
does
Christianity
pontifex
not rest solely upon Judaeo-Christian political theology; rulers before the advent of had had the power to teach and to ordain teachers of religious belief. Caesar had been
maximus, a style which even
Christian
emperors retained,
nian,
ing
brought imperial legislation regarding to Hobbes, the power implicit in the mixed
who
key
aspects of
reaching a nodal point in Justi Christian life and practice. Accord

and priest
person of
king
upon
the sovereign
by
natural
right, for
the preservation of peace; see
(rex-sacerdos) devolves Leviathan, 567-74.

237. For these
Injunctions her
position
-413
royal
instructions,
in
an
see
were means of
implementing
deceived
the Act of
J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Documents, 140. The Supremacy of 1559. Elizabeth's clarification of
published
is
contained
Appendix,
admonition
to simple
men
by
malicious."
contemporaneously with the Act, entitled "An The letters patent addressing the ecclesiastical
no
commission were
dated
of
238. The Act

service
July 19, 1559. Supremacy itself

or
recognized
authority
or power of
ministry
of
divine
in English kings
queens, and the Thirty-nine Articles of 1563 states that no power is
given
to English kings over the administration of the word of God or of the sacraments. See Article
37. 239. An
allusion
to Paul's proscription in 1 Corinthians 14:34.
Discussion
Souls Without
Michael Platt
Longing
Friends of the Republic
"There
are a thousand
hacking
at the
branches
of evil to one who
is striking
at the
root."
Thoreau
Allan Bloom's The difficult to few
Closing Of The American

Both
make
Mind is It is
as
easy to
most
read as
it is
It
understand.
it
attractive.
a pleasure to
read.
crackles with
witty remarks, some
ridiculing, usually justly,

without
disturbing,
something to think about. The most provoking is the discovery that many young people today no longer say "I love and, if they do, no longer desire their love to last. Eternity has disap
and a
excruciating. page
you"
No
is
peared
for them.
They
"love"
by
contract and accident.
The loss
of
troubled
Nietzsche to the depths
of
his soul; many
of
Bloom's
students
eternity find it
unintelligible. abounds with similar discoveries; it not only disturbs and first reading, but promises to do so even more on later reading; as you read, you know you are going to reread it soon; it is sure to give even more of its gifts then. Not that it does not start giving them on first reading. The man
Bloom's book
pleases on
has
say that he is often breathless. His allegro is infectious, instructive. The book is not only about the mind, it shows you a mind
so much to
and also at
work;
it is only
not
only
about
the soul, it shows

shows
you a soul
that knows
longing; it
is
not
about the
University, but
you one of
the things a teacher there
should
be.
with
Bloom's book has three parts; it deals

the
students,
with
teachers,
and with
University, in
that order. The students, drugged with rock music and
drugs,
study nothing
with
longing;
and
the teachers, German-taught relativists, teach the

the
truth "there is no
truth";
University,
are treated
governed
by
weak
adults, panders
to student appetites and acquiesces to the loudest outside

parts go
wills.
How these three

are
together and why

not on
they
in the
order
they
clear
is
not at all
clear, certainly
first
reading.
What is, nonetheless,
is that the book
is
remarkable.
First,
the success of his description of the souls of his students. Bloom

souls of and
describes the
the young
made
so a
bought the book trait, especially Thus his success
it
vividly and in such detail that the parents best-seller. Although this success in turn hostile
reviews questioned
alarmed the academics, still none of their
his
por
some who celebrated as virtues what

with
Bloom
nailed as vices.
the parents stands as strong evidence of the tmth of his
interpretation,
Spring 1991,
Vol. 18, No. 3
416
Interpretation
To have described
children
portrait of the students.
to their own parents, so that

evidence
they buy
The
the book to understand them, is
remarkable
of
Bloom's
powers of perception.
Bloom's book, something he claims to discover, is that the thoughts, indeed the very idioms, in which our students
second remarkable
thing
about
"values,"
"lifestyle,"
"self,"
misunderstand
themselves,
such as
and
turn
out
to
have
a connection
to German philosophy. The connection is twofold and con the pale language in
which
trary. On the one

stand
hand,
these
damaged
souls under
the soul is a dilution of
Nietzsche, in
part
through his philosophic student
Heidegger,
souls
and even more so through a
host
of academic social scientists and
psychoanalysts.
Yet,
on
the other
hand,
of
the best description of these
deformed
is Nietzsche's description
contributed
the
Last Man.
Through his
diluters,
Nietzsche
to their making, yet

one
long
book,
before they existed, he de

another of
scribed them
better than any

remarkable universities
since,
or
before. Bloom's discov

were so delete-
And the third

eries, is that the
thing
about
the
through
which
the German thinkers
riously
the one
connected to
elected
American
students should
have taken
a path so similar
to
by
the German nation in
1933, partly
guided
by
the new think
ing
the
of
the new Rector of
Freiburg University,
Martin Heidegger. What
hap
pened so
dramatically
at
University, turns out in 1933; in both cases the

and
Cornell in 1969, and since then happens routinely at to have been analogous to what happened in Germany
will replaced reason as
University
the principle governing the governing the nation as well. Are Bloom's discoveries genuine? Is it true that German thought has con
in
Germany
tributed to the corruption of America? Short of a very thorough examination of
his
arguments and the matter
itself,
one cannot
say for
sure.
Is it true that the
violent
takeover of Cornell in 1969

and other
is
analogous
to the
violent takeover of
Freiburg
German
universities
in 1933? Did America defeat Hitler
only to see his thoughts defeat us by taking over our universities and our chil dren? Again the matter requires inquiry. However, here again the success of Bloom's description
ary
on evidence of
the young with their parents constitutes strong second
for his
case.
Any
man who can
minds so
accurately
might well
be right
on
describe manners, morals, and their intellectual genealogy and right

malformed.
the agents and institutions
by
which
they have been
Bloom's
single
fully
recommendation, let the students read some great books, is also power supported by his own success. Apparently the reading of four or five great
such as
books,
Bloom himself has
read and
taught,
can
help
a man see things

more closely.
far better than
most of us.
Let
us examine each of
his discoveries
I. THE PARENTS AND THE STUDENTS
Most
readers of
Blooms book
seem
to have been gripped
by
Part
One;
the
get
same readers seem
to find Part Two hard going; I suspect few purchasers
Souls Without
through
Longing
-417
and fewer still stay on through to Part Three; some few Two and read Three. Reading the first part, many parents must probably skip have felt that Mr. Bloom is right. They sense that something is wrong with our
Part Two
universities,
such
that
they may
ask
place?"
send our children

all?"
to such a
They
sity
says count
must
have been
pleased
themselves, "Why pay so much money to And may one day ask, "why pay money at that a professor from a prestigious univer
treats the
things that agree with their parsimonious alarm. Yet that cannot ac
of the
for the popularity
book. Its first
part
University
and
only
their
secondarily; primarily it treats the young, their souls, their
homes,
future. It is not, however, addressed to them; although it might benefit many of them, few students have read it. Instead, the book is addressed to their parents. It is
their
a
kind
of report card
daughters'
to parents of the nation. It is not,
however,
about
sons'
and
competence, their skills, or their achievements, or
the lacks thereof; it is

and about what
children and
about their souls, about what they feel, what they like, if anything. Reading it, many parents recognize their love, they "This Bloom fellow really understands my feel, Many must
son."
feel
grateful. Some may even feel they never knew their children 'til now. Others may feel Bloom is giving their children a well-deserved spanking. Many
told their
friends,
"Read the
book."
Most best-sellers satisfy the public interest in astrology, diet, pornography, and crime; the story of how a fat feminist detective listened to the stars, got beautiful, in flesh-tone detail, and single-
What
else can explain the sales?
foreign power, in bloody detail, and res America, all in asphalt prose, would be a sure hit. Mr. Bloom's is none of these. However, the success of a well-written book on a serious subject is not
handedly
cued
destroyed
male agents of a
as remarkable as
tually
credit
responsible
something else. Although free for his or her own deeds, the Good
while
will means
every
child
is
even
younger
they
are, the more the
parents are responsible.
children are a credit to themselves and also a
to their parents,
bad
children are
first
discredit to their
parents chil
and second also
to themselves. Despite the fact that Mr. Bloom describes

potent criticism of parents read
dren
who are
the most
their parents that there could

with
be,
and
wonder of
wonders, the
Bloom
excitement, approval,
gratitude.
For
years
the American
of
public
has heard
criticism of
higher
education
in
America, especially
such school.
the high
school.1
Without in the least

says almost
disagreeing
with
criticism, Mr. Bloom
eschews
it; he
He knows it is
school about
not
the fundamental problem.

will
nothing about the high The home is. Criticizing

encourage
the high
to
parents, however justly,

students
not
them to do
something
are not
the home. The

of
Mr. Bloom describes
are what
they
have
because
the American high school but because of the American
home. These
stuck
students what
have
never
lived in
home. Even if their
parents
together,
has
stuck them
has
not provided a
home for their
offspring.
together, comfort, contract, and pleasure, Mr. Bloom says, and he is right,
418
Interpretation
home is
reverence
that what makes a

which
for something
greater
than yourselves,
then
who
governs your
lives, by
command, sacrifice,
and
love. These
stu
dents,
have
grown
attention,
are nonetheless
up in lavish comfort, fearless wealth, and abundant orphans, homeless and not likely to establish homes
of
themselves.
Mr. Bloom's description

of
the souls of his students

and
is
not
only
a criticism
the homes
they
come
from
hence
of
the parents so avidly reading
his
book, it is
understands
a criticism of the parents themselves.
After many
realize
Bloom
their children, some few must acknowledge their responsibility, these flat-souled
"Yes,
we recognize
teenagers,
us."
we
have
the
met a
like them, and alas further, "We have

sion of their
we
have
raised
them in our
are
homes."
And
them, we do not very few may go
met them
they
Indeed,
"nice,"
listless, empty
expres
students whom these readers

parents'
deplore
are often a
sulking,
barely-talking
own
empty
souls.
One
wonders whether one should praise
cism or marvel at responsible
how
much
they
can
the parents for welcoming this criti ignore it. Although they are primarily
for these children, for the listless, fearful, emptiness of their souls, these parents buy the book and tell other parents to. A penetrating cynic con
templating
the success of the book might say, "So the Last Man
reads."
suppose one will have to wait and see what they do. Will the parents buying Mr. Bloom's book heed the practical steps it urges: forbid rock music, banish
television,
and
get
off
all
pills?
Mr. Bloom
recommends
these steps
with
consummate
teacherly
A
skill, simply
stroys the soul.
parent moved
by describing by his description,

to say
"no"
how
each of enough
these evils de to say

"no"
to
them,
virtue.
must, Bloom
trusts, be
moved
to them in their own
life,
and
will soon
find that
"yes"
one must
say
to their opposites: music, reverence, and
Bloom
alludes to
mentions some of
these causes of the destruction of the

seem to
family,
and
others; those he may
slight, he really has

and you will at
not. what
Study
the
book,
in the
think about what Bloom

shadows.
are.
highlights,
be led to
he leaves dis
He
who strikes so who strikes at
regularly
the root must know what the
branches
And he
the root teaches well,

will more own.
by leaving
the
covery of the branches to his pupils, as they the happiness of thinking they did it on their
readily do if they have

encourage the parents
Mr. Bloom's description

tion.
of
the young is
of
designed to is
to re-establish the home. The power
his
argument
exerted through
implica
encour
By
showing detailed
pictures of their
homeless children, Bloom
home once again a place to grow up straight in, to leam important things in, to look up to someone. Thus he bids the parents become once again the first and most enduring teachers. Good homes make
ages the parents to make the good
more
schools,
more
than vice versa, and good schools make
a good
nation,
than vice versa.
Thus,
few
discerning
patriotic
souls, reading the
book,
will also
say, "He really understands
America."
Souls Without
One hopes this book found
a
will
Longing 419
-
be
read
by
the
Statesmen,
it
too. It is harder now to
family
and provide
the good things
and almost
it
alone can provide
for its members, and thus for the country, than it was at any time before 1950. Since World War II, America has enjoyed a steady increase in wealth, enor
mous
in its total,
yet a
young
family looking
for
house today faces
a much
harder
market situation
than in 1950. Since World War II almost every piece of
legislation affecting the American family has affected it adversely. The steady decline in the income tax allowance for a family since 1950 is the most obvious
example.
These
economic and
legislative
obstacles
to the
family
are consequences of and
thought. In a
democracy,
customs change soon after
thoughts,
laws follow
soon after customs.

violated
Since 1950
wave on wave of criticism of
the
family
has
the
dren, and family, dream

will raise
home, battered the wife, contemned the father, abused the chil broken up the family. Children have not benefitted. Criticize the
of
weaken parental
replacing it, hinder it, vilify mothers, ridicule fathers, authority, and you will harm children. Harm children and
and you
up the selfish, cautious, listless souls Bloom describes, none of ready to become fathers and mothers, and none of whom are ready to important matters with passion. study generation The beginning to enter college in the next few years is likely to
whom are
be more, will have

were
not
less, listless. Born in
the early seventies, more
and more of
them
who destroy up knowing unskippable like themselves at one vital, indispensable, stage, and exactly but for that parental choice, their living brothers or sisters, to share chores grown
that their own parents chose to
beings
with, to tickle,
students will
and
to talk
with
for the
rest of
their
lives. As
youngsters these
nature
have heard the
reasons
given,
observed
human
in their
parents, wondered whether other reasons might have had something to do with such choices, and asked themselves whether their parents could be counted on
One day a few of these children may sue their parents for their lost None will Others may feel guilty for being "the one who think back to the day of their birth with untroubled gratitude. in
a pinch.
survived."
siblings.
As Bloom's
portrait of
the American child shows,

an
over
the
last
forty
many
years now
the American home has become

advocate government
orphanage, to the
point that
day
care.
What Socrates thought
no parents would ever
to, giving up their children to others at age ten, may very soon become enlightened opinion. Mothers who choose to stay at home and raise their children will soon be vilified, as they are now penalized through the tax willingly
agree
code, their family's taxes going to

to
family
that chooses to
send
their children
day
care
in
order
to get a second income. From State-headed families it is a
short
step to
eugenic control.
with massive
irony,
and
with scientist and glass enforced.
What Hitler only dreamed of, Socrates proposed Goethe laughed at, the replacement of man and wife dish, will soon be possible, then advocated, finally
that
emerge
The homeless
children
from future
state orphanages will
420
not
Interpretation
be better students,
more
vivacious,
more
ardent,
more
adventurous, than
those who
today
must struggle with a past of
home
neglect and
day
care
just
to
be
cheerful.
"well-intentioned"
At the
sive
other end of
life
legislation,
such as comprehen exist.
health
care
care that merely grow children do not meant that has it death, up expecting to care condition of the children is the the age. Here for their parents in their old again,
has it
opened
for the aged, has also made the family a Pandora's box of expenses, by paying for
harder to
Not only
stretches out
parents'
consequence of
their
decision. It
was
the generation of the parents who
voted themselves
this care, as
all
security payments,
their children's that
they did the equally enormous increase in social to be paid for by future generations, their children and
More recently, the
same motive
children.
has led to the idea
children should
What
was once saved children
to their
pay for their own college education throughout their lives. for by the parents and given with love (and supervision) longer. The generations are becoming disconnected. Ac is no
of
quiescence
in the fear
death,
the
passion
at
the root
of
the conquest
of
nature, turns everyone into an individual: weak,
lonely,
and
desperate,
and
thereby destroys every

ily. The "death
of
community,
including
not
the primary community, the fam the greatest event
God"
that Nietzsche
will soon
named as
in the West
these last hundred years
lead,
to the
Last Family. "We have invented
happiness,"
say the parents,

away.2
Surpassing Family, but to the bring out the fast

get
food,
snort
and
turn on the TV. "We are

on
depressed,"
say the children,
in
car,
something, turn
the rock music, and speed
Mr. Bloom's
some great
of
one recommendation to will
fellow teachers, let the

of
students read
the nation,
books, but,
do
much
to improve their souls and thus the public life
since
his description
the students is accurate, something year,

perhaps
else
is
needed as well.
Such
virtual orphans need a
two,
of
good,
orderly, beautiful experiences, before
they
and
get to
the great
experiences
the great
books
most
offer.
As Plato's Republic, the book Bloom tells

says, gymnastic, music,
adventurous philosophy.
us
he has learned the

good
from,
poetry
come
before dialectic,
the
habits before
conform to
Young
souls need to see
beautiful,
discover
the orderly, and partake in the good before
they
set out to
the true. Students who

never
to, dressed neatly, and never sung happily, are seldom ready for pure reason alone. Learning is first in the senses and in the imagination before it is in the
never read aloud
have
been
never
danced gracefully,
intellect; students without the family life that feeds the senses, regulates the habits, and excites the imagination need a catchup course, much like the one Telemachus, who grew up with over a hundred lounge-lizards in his home, got
when
he
visited some other and
homes. I would, then, have them

and, of
read
the
Odyssey,
Huck Finn,
Hamlet,
and
all about orphans
course,
much
more, in Plu
Willa Cather, for example. I would have them read, as tarch, Shakespeare, John Senior says, "a thousand good books before they read a hundred great
ones."3
Souls Without
H. THE SOUL,
Longing
421
STUNTED, HINDERED,
understand
AND
ENRAGED, BEFORE CLASS
One
might
begin to
Allan Bloom's book The

one of
Closing
both the popularity and the teaching of Mr. of the American Mind by noticing that it is
the very few books since World War the

soul.
II,
is
either popular or said
academic, to
author's
speak of
"Souls Without
Longing"
to
have been the
preference
for
a title.
Mr. Bloom
speaks of
the
soul not as
something doubtful,
or
shameful, or a distant object of study, but as something self-evident, desir

and yet also mysterious.
ing, hearty,
desires
To Mr. Bloom the

as
soul
is
evident
in the life
of the
freshman,
to it.
come to
college,
meant to
he
once
is about, to discover
one should choose
who one
is
be,
and
did, what high,
to discover what
adventurous path
No
real teacher can
doubt that his task is to forces
assist
his
pupil to
fulfill human
nature
against all the
deforming
of convention and prejudice.
The
vision of what
that nature is may be clouded, the teacher may be more or less
limited, but his

him
real
activity is
solicited
with a standard
by something for judging his

does
not
beyond him that
at the same time provides
students'
teacher who
in
practice
capacity and achievement. There is no believe in the existence of the soul, or in the
. .
magic that acts on

an awareness of
it through
speech.
Fascination is
with one's students
leads to
the various kinds of soul and their various capacities for truth and
error as well as question:
learning. Such
experience
a condition of
investigating helping
the
"What is
man?,"
in
relation to
his highest
aspirations as opposed to
his
to
low
and common needs.
A liberal
education means
precisely
students
pose this question
to themselves, to become aware that the answer is neither

no serious
obvious nor
is
not a continuous concern.
simply unavailable, that there is (Pp. 20-21)
life in
which this question
In
most
freshmen this
question
is
soon
extinguished;
a major
by
the middle of sopho the specializations
more year answers
have been provided;

of
in
one of
that constitute the chaos
the
present
University
curriculum
has been selected,

accumulated. one's
a path of ambition and comfort
plotted,
and a record
begun to be
The life in have
of
the mind, if it
still
exists, lives in guilt, in doubts about

year and
major,
that
will
comparisons not
between freshman
now, in
memories of questions
been answered,
and vows while
to get back to them someday. All this

a major
happen
with a
unless one
either,
choosing
quire about the most
teacher,
the
such as great most
Among
Rousseau,
important questions, or Allan Bloom, teaching something great. books one might teach, Mr. Bloom concentrates
about
(a niche), continues to in has the good fortune to meet up

on
those
teaching: Socrates, it, in Plato, in himself, and in his students, the soul longs to know. The soul wants to leam, can teach itself, and is grateful for what ever assists it learning: things, itself, or a
that teach the
the soul, the city, and

come
about
and
Nietzsche. As Bloom has
to know
teacher. The
soul can
teach others, and
teaching others, it may
teach itself.
422
Interpretation
Delighting in
a classroom
longing, it may satisfy its own. Souls filled with longing in led by a soul filled with longer longing, longing become a way of
their
life, is
the
measure.
Thus in Part
One, it is from
the point of view of a teacher that Mr. Bloom
describes
what makes
the souls of students at the present time so
flat;
thus in
Part Two it is
as a teacher
that he appreciates how the noble thoughts of teacher
Nietzsche have been blurred

poor
by
lesser students,
such as
Weber,
made crude students
by
students, such
as
Freud,
made
dangerously
wanton
resolute
by deep
like
Heidegger, and latterly in Part Three, it is as

abandoning
capitulated
arms? reason
traduced
by
students,
such as
Derrida.
Finally,
when
a teacher that
Mr. Bloom
accuses
the universities of
itself. What did Cornell teach
everyone
watching
students
it
to the threats of
injury
and of murder made
by
bearing
The
University
that abandons
reason and now even attacks
it
will neces
sarily fail democracy and impoverish the souls of students. Throughout the book the standard, judging students, teachers, philosophers, and institutions alike, is whether they hinder or encourage the soul that longs.
Thus, in
human
the
first part,
so
affirmative action
is wrong because it hinders any
partly tmth. Consider what Should the
being
from undertaking an affirmative action would do in

selected
inquiry
a
guided
by
the
classroom
to tmth.
affirmatively-acted-upon students
in
a class get extra points on each
assignment?
Should their
made
comments
in
a class
be
considered
better than they
are
because they
an
them? Should
ground of
their race? Should an

you are
they be graded only against the back 82 on a final exam mean a C if you are one
B if
you are a
race,
A if
another,
and a
third? Would this be honest

would a
to the student? Would
it be just to
others?
And how
teacher enforce it?

what
For
starter, how
would the
teacher decide who belongs to

action
race,
or
to
what
degree? That
affirmative
requires
racial
courts
shows
how far
America has
moved since see
the days it fought Hitler.

as
It is easy to
rupted
how,
high
Mr. Bloom maintains,

could
affirmative action
meant skills.
has
cor
the classroom.
At its best it
on
have
that the universities
sought out students
desire but
short on
Had the
universities and sent
found
have
such
students, built academies
near
their campuses for
them,
their own teachers to

come
bring
them up to their entrance
levels,
some good might
harm to the University. As it was, it lowered standards not only for those admitted under such programs, but for all students. Faced with the dilemmas I have sketched above, most teachers just
affirmative
from
action,
and no
lowered
for every student; both weariness and justice seemed to agree it was the best course. As a consequence the best students, the ones with the most longing, missed the challenges they need to go as far as their souls might
standards
take them. It is very hard to challenge such students, ask them to bear all
burdens, pay
Nor is
all
prices,
when
the
majority for the
won't
bear any burdens
or even
pay
the old price of admission.

affirmative action good
persons selected
for favorable
treat-
Souls Without
ment.
Longing 423
tion, long. Human beings
and then not
Perhaps they seem helped, for a time, but only towards wealth and posi for long. Even if they reach the goal, it will not please them
are
far
more
hurt
by insults
than injuries. Insofar as the

whether
recipients of affirmative action
wonder they have been preferred whether they deserve what they have. And those few who do not care whether they respect themselves do not go untouched by this evil, for "affirmative ac encourages the spirit of resentment in all who gain or hope to gain by it.
tion"
have self-respect, they must wonder because of something extrinsic. They must
It
encourages a man or a woman small
to
hang
on
to old grievances, to nurse
them, to
ones one griev sets
inflate did
ones, to broadcast large
ones
for effect,
go about
claim
historical
griefs
not suffer
from oneself,
even
and
generally
new
turning
hurts.
of
into it
ances.
It may
tempt some to invent
imaginary
action
Certainly
its
its
of
recipients
looking
for fresh hurts. Or
majors, any
the various
forms
Victim Studies
affirm
now offered.
Affirmative
them to
does
not
help
recipients
to
themselves,
or encourage
improve
themselves. And none of this
promotes or
serenity in solitude, study in the library,

says
friendship
in the classroom, in "affirmative

of skin
civility on campus. Feminism does the same, denies the

natural and
Mr. Bloom. Just

of all
as the racism
action"
humanity
so
human beings,
regardless
color,
hence denies their

to pursue
equal political
opportunity between the sexes, or refuses to recognize their degree, as if the difference between male and female were like the difference between bald and hairy. The denial
of nature
happiness,
rights, especially the fundamental feminism denies the natural differences
in both
makes
inquiry
into nature,
recognition of
the natural
muster.
order of
rank,
and
the self-discipline required for

understand
long
study, hard to
and
Why
work
hard to
the solar system,
life,
yourself,
the ordered
whole when
stressing grades, entrance into

affirmative action
your sex or
the color of your skin will get you good
medical
school, advancement, position and wealth. So
promises,
can
so
feminism promises,
either
and
may in
some
degree
what
deliver, but
would give
sore? which
neither
deliver happiness. Neither

happiness. Does
movement a goal
knows
its
participants
have
beyond staying
revenge,
At
work
in
affirmative action and called the most
in feminism is the
and
spirit of
Nietzsche
ignoble
destructive
even
passion of man.
Al
though it claims its ingratitude to life is
justice,
it
never calls
itself happy.
The joyless
complaint
"I
as
joy"
get no
cannot
advocate a
bring
joy.4
Feminism, insofar
and proposes
it does
customs, measures,
and
laws,
also
way of life, recognizes purposes, impedes the soul in longing. It

women
does
trace
so
by discouraging
of their
courtship.
Feminism tells young
they
should
human suffering, frustration, and vexation to men. The bouquet of flowers, the husband sweating for the family, the with a man young kind grandfather, are denied, or despised. The more they seem good, the more
most
they
nism.
must
be
evil.
They
want
Fortunately, young women are of two minds about femi career and they want a family. Fortunately and
unfor-
424
Interpretation
Feminism may say OK to these two big desires, but does not tell how hard it will be. Is it a marriage if you live in two cities? Do
where your you one of
tunately.
young you know
women
husband is tonight? Even in be
one
city,
can you
lead two
lives? Are
sleep?
those rare human beings who gets along on
four hours
"Mommy"
Finally,
will you
happy
to hear your child at

and not
day
care
say,
to the
replacement
they just hired
to
you?
Feminism is among the ideas that has

sexual relations
swept
courtship from the campus,
and
that in turn makes students less studious. It is not only that the pill makes
less serious, less it

sweeps
adventurous view
much), but
couple
ousy
there
long by accident and contract. They have solved the human problem of jeal by not caring very much. What intensity, attention, and concentration
that
away the
from
(as Bloom emphasizes, too campus. These students
is is
at
the level of sports. You wouldn't care if some one played tennis
with some one else you
tomorrow, why
care
if they
.,
Banish the
long
view and
dishearten the
short as well.
What
was courtship?
Because it looked to the

and
serious united purposes of was a serious
the
family,
That
especially the raising

"beaus"
seriousness even preceded or
educating it. Before a
of
children, it
thing.
spent of
couple started
courting,
they
time with many
"dates."
The
casual
linkings
and
were
light flirtations
dances
gatherings, usually chaperoned, risky Looking ahead to marriage, the young judged each other by small things, morals by manners, character by courtesy, stability in life by the stabil ity of a glass in the hand. Meanwhile, young people had fun together, as they
and other social not
unserious.
less
but
seem never
to
now.
What
read
was courtship?
Those
who
do
not
know may
you must
ask
their grandparents or
The Virginian.
secret of
The
secret of
courtship is the do
not
life; "To be happy,
live
fulfilled life
study.
desires"
with unfulfilled
(Bonhoeffer). And thus it is the
secret of
long for answers to the great questions, find it hard to read books by those who long their whole life, and do not court each other, because they cannot bear having desires that will not be immediately
students
Bloom's
fulfilled. So they have only ones that can be. As all the great souls, especially Socrates and Shakespeare, know, sex and longing are connected. Those who
have
given
are
up
looking
to marriage as a
fulfillment
of
their unfulfilled
sexual
desires
no short
very unlikely to have any ardor for the study of questions that have answers. The best indication of how you will do in college is still
took a
whether you
foreign language far

of readiness
enough to read
it
with pleasure.
The
best
moral
indication
for study in young

a
persons
is
whether
they
look
upon a member of
the opposite sex as a potential partner in pleasures and
duties that
are enduring.
"Marriage is
long
conversation,"
said mind will
Nietzsche.
Students
worth
who
don't
court with
that conversation in
class and out
have very little
saying to
each
other, in
now, to the
world
later,
and to
themselves forever.
Thinking
of souls
he has
met
in
classroom, Mr. Bloom
reaches
back into
Souls Without
their
Longing 425
life before they

that used
for its high

reverence culties.
adventures.
to understand why they are so unprepared The scattering of the family and the weakening of the to be its center make for other more fundamental diffi
came to college
The absence of strong, enduring affection in the family makes it hard to love anything very much later on. People who find it hard to love their parents will find it very hard to love others later, including themselves. Students who
were not asked
find it hard to obey others later; they will not be able to accept orders or obey their own orders. And the absence of reverence in the home, for parents, grandparents, for God, for country, makes it hard for the student to long for anything. Mr. Bloom sees these things and
to obey their parents
will
he
of
makes
perfectly
clear some of
the negative steps

on
parents must must or
take
get
rid
the
TV, forbid Rock
music, insist
chastity
the
but, it
really has nothing to say about how to a father or mother, or how to

that
of a
restore
family
his
needs
be admitted, he religion, how to be

these
matters
worship.5
In the
end
view of
is
teacher who has
belatedly
points
discovered he More
the
not
family
be
for there to
and,
be
souls with
all
longing
the
in his
classroom.
should
expected
to, considering The tension between philosophy and the family and the tension between philosophy and religion are abiding. Both Wittgenstein and Socrates upset the
good
he
need not
be
required.
parents of their
bright students; Nietzsche
said a philosopher who marries who
be
longs to comedy
marriage ancients
(meaning
also
that one
does
not
perhaps one sign of
Socrates
becoming
unlike
the first political
belongs to tragedy); philosopher was his Socrates

and
to
Xanthippe;
esteemed
perhaps
Hegel thought he
sublated
the
he
because he,
them,
was
was
happily
married.
Even
more
successful so
in reconciling
man and
city
Alexis de Tocqueville,
who wrote
affectionately of the steady, regular family affection he found in the Ameri democratic family and the chastity that once meant a woman in America could set on a long journey without fear of unpleasantness. Although Mr.
can
Bloom is
good and
no
Monsieur Tocqueville, his

parents will espouse.
cause
is nearly the
same as
the one
American
Both
will want schools
in
which
inquiry
longing
for his
thrive.
could not arrange
Mr. Bloom
edge
readers without
for the possibility self-knowledge. As you
of such
read
important knowl
the
book,
you
feel he
includes himself. Consider it is, spending

that
of your
what
he
says
in his Preface
about what a strange
life
his
so much
time
with
the young, even preferring their company to

previous
coevals;
on
none of
Mr. Bloom's
which
writings,
including
interpretive essay
as
The Republic, in
strange
dialogue Socrates
spends
his time,
might
usual,
with
the young, not his coevals, suggested that Mr. Bloom knew
students. There are certainly things to be learned from students. When Mr. Bloom writes of courting and of his astonishment at and don't want their love to last the way his students seldom say "I love of the essay on Shakespeare's author forever, one can hardly recognize the
you"
he began teaching how to the teacher, as well as his

when
teaching is
or
how dangerous it
be
426
Interpretation
which
a real he-man knower smelling like a rose compared to the contemptibly innocent Desdemona and the, consequently, con Othello.6 temptibly foolish Or consider Mr. Bloom's praise of the family; although he is not a family
Othello, in
Iago
comes out
man, he
not
only
praises
the
family
with
warmth, but writes

also
with
something
like
the
fatherly
he tells
with
concern
for
students.
So
Bloom's
respect where
for reverence,
the reading of
when
us what
life
was
like in his
parent's
home,
Bible,
its beautiful stories, dread commands,
and stem
love
made
his
grandparents' parents'
and
lives,
so poor
in
wealth and
station, nonetheless so ago, whose essay on As Mr. Bloom himself
very rich. This is not the Mr. Bloom of even ten Shakespeare's Richard II bums with anti-Christian
years
ire.7
tells us, many of the things he now sees are later discoveries.
When he began teaching, he thought the good-natured, if unlearned students arriving at his college classes showed that nature is a blank slate. Only the
readiness to inquire and leam about the most shocking decline in their important things showed Mr. Bloom that nature needs nurture before college,
souls'
the nurture of families with strong affections and the nurture of churches and temples filled
portant with reverence.
Mr. Bloom
confesses
he did
and
not
know how im
these things are, how indispensable
family
piety
are to the possi
bility
its
self
of
philosophy itself,
and
he
confesses
this despite the fact that he
knows
recognition was always
there to be had in Plato's
Republic,
which
he him
translated and has taught for years. Teachers who leam

teach are very rare;
from the books
they
few
professors of
Plato
are students of
Plato; but
perhaps
teachers who leam from paying serious, sympathetic attention to the their students are even rarer. Mr. Bloom is such a
vices and the miseries of

rara avis.
III. A TEACHER THROUGH AND THROUGH
"To my American Mind. The dinner with, talks

at
students"
reads
the
dedication
his
old
of
Allan Bloom's
Closing
up in
a
of the
author means
students, the ones he still sees, has
with on
the phone, years after
they first
showed
class,
Chicago, many of whom are themselves now teachers, out in the universities of North America, and perhaps elsewhere in the West. These students must know who they are, must know that he finds
or or now good
Cornell,
Toronto,
in them,
since
he has
recommended
them, if
not
them,
which ones
he dubs the "most
scholarly,"
"the
deepest,"
exactly how he esteems and "the most No teacher

who
successful."
know entirely showed up for

who came
Yet Mr. Bloom's dedication surely includes who his students are. Perhaps
a
other students. some quiet
can
student
only
read
few classes,
then
or a wild one who was always a
problem,
or one
for
years and
disappeared
without a
word,
or one who
only
Souls Without
Longing
427
one
him, day,
perhaps a
turn out to
young man in Paraguay five hundred years from now, will, have learned the most from his teacher. Who are him
so
Socrates'
students?
The
ones we see with
much, the talkative ones,
good-natured
Glaukon,
retentive
machus, the brilliant

todemus and the
Adeimantus, and pious Polemarchus, the wild Thrasy Alcibiades, the gentle, brave Xenophon, or the quiet Ariseven quieter Plato? Surely all are students. So, too,
Socrates'
Mr. Bloom,
who says no
book has told him
more about
students,
about teach
must show
ing,
also
and about
include future he is,
himself than Plato's Republic. Thus, "To my students as well, either the ones he can expect to
perhaps which
students"
up
wherever
continuing
the
at
Chicago,
will
or at some assumed
American future in ship Bloom
University
have
university of the the double steward
challenges
losophy
of
and of
it to take up in his Conclusion: the stewardship of phi political freedom. And if such universities should arise because
parents and citizens
"students"
this
book, because
would
have become the rich individual
have taken it to heart, then they, too, to whom the book is dedicated. Failing that,
if
some
upon
versity, then what greater,

that
reading the book should found a single such uni fitting honor could he or she receive than to know
"students"
they too were among most teacherly book.
the
to
whom
Allan Bloom dedicated his
Finally, Mr. Bloom
must mean more than
his
good
students, those
long
known to him, many now his fellow teachers, and some his friends; he must that he describes in his book, for also mean all those "souls without
longing"
whom
he
a
also
cares,
and after whom example
Yet
philosopher, for
time
with
going to title the book. Nietzsche, would say it is strange to
he
was
spend
so much with
the
living
when you
have the best
of
the
dead to
converse
(The Dawn, 566). Nietzsche
also
says, as a corollary, that
although a
philosopher will of
love
solitude or
the company of his confreres, he
will
also,
out
the love of
knowledge,
spend time with
honest among them, the cynics. philosopher, why he attends to dirty things, like
most
his inferiors, especially with the Love of knowledge is the motive of the
vice
(Jenseits
or
von
Gut
und
Bose, 26, 29),

he is 409a-e). Is it
motives, but
or
why the doctor gets experience of

gets
disease,
the
judge,
once
well and
securely habituated in virtue,

also
to know criminals (Republic

with such
the
motive of
the teacher? Did the teacher begin
change after they led him to students? One thing is sure, the book is by a teacher. All his adult life Mr. Bloom has been teaching, in class and out, in lectures and in writing, in visits and phone calls. For him teaching is not something he does Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning. It is not limited to the campus or the term. In him his students
but this ready to talk not only about this book and this course postcard from student's with the was whole life. Bloom tells us how pleased he him for inciting him to see such splendid things. He must have Europe
find
someone
thanking
been
even more pleased with
him,
explicitly
or
not, for
the many letters from former students inciting them to see splendid things in life.
thanking
428
Interpretation
writing.
So too Bloom's
this one;
Look
at
the list of his books printed in the them Mr. Bloom
front
of
they
are all
teacherly books; in
What
translates, intro
duces,
leave
and recommends. no room
for the
interpreting he does is never so complete as to inquiring reader. In these books he connects the hard
great
questions and passions of
long
inquiries in the He
books
with
the easy queries and short

confused
all
the
young.
shows the student
how his
desire to
amount
to something, to know
himself,
to satisfy his passions,
the things that
brought him to college, can be books as The Republic together
satisfied as with
with an
nothing else by reading such Allan Bloom and with fellow students
similarly stirred up. By so doing Mr. Bloom either discovers the long questions in the queries and quips, the deep passion in the short crush discovers or midwifes them, or perhaps even begets them. Even Mr. Bloom's essays on Shakespeare have this teacherly intention.9 It is reported that more than a dozen out of sixteen freshmen Mr. Bloom taught in a Directed Studies Seminar at Yale in the '60s Now
men are
leading
of
much
the kind
of
thoughtful
life he introduced them to.

would
in the fullness how
thoughtful or active
owe to
life, they
all
with gratitude
they
him. I
myself
have
seen a
surely declare large audi

gleaming,
to
torium full
each one
be."
of students
listening
to Mr.
Bloom,
attentive,
some
feeling, "Here is
a man who will
help me
become
what
am meant
By inspiring
sions. probes
confidence, Mr. Bloom
also elicits confidences
and confes
How
else could
he leam the things he knows

what music
about students.
. .
As he
the students
("So,
convince them that
ness, is absolutely required

of
knowing by it;
he must really like, c'mon oneself, far from being an impediment to great
you
."),
do
no greatness without self-knowledge.
No
real
study admitting that you, yes even now, hanker after the Roll ing Stones. Confess then. It should not surprise us to hear that when Bloom
without
Plato
gave
his
annual
lecture
on
Madame
Bovary
at
Cornell the
room was
filled
with
faculty
wives.
To him
as
her than the he
pharmacist
and
teacher, Emma lying dead has more longing in Homais or the Priest Boumisien, representatives of the
Regime.10
to his
Enlightenment
understands
the Ancient
Most
people
listening
to Bloom feel
them,
even when
he is
critical of
their vices and opinions.
They
hope that his witty rejoinders and ready ridicule may educate them. Surely few go just to enjoy how his witty remarks educate others. Others, reflecting on
how
much
next victim will about
they just laughed at his caricature of their enemy, guess be, and withdraw from range. Considering this, one
describes
are
who
his
wonders and
the relation between the souls of the students Bloom
the
souls of
Utterly
his best students, whom he presumably knows best; different? Or overlapping? And who would confess
an observer with such an eye
they
the same?
good
things about
themselves to
students
for the
seedy?
If
one of
Bloom's
it may,
really did love his Mr. Bloom could not leam
girl
all
friend,
would
he tell Bloom? Be that

am
as
that he has without keen eyes; I
told that his

no
seminar students used to practice
masking their thoughts in class, but to
Souls Without
avail.
Longing
429
me
("Now
Mark,
...
saw
it,
thought in
your eyes.
Come on, tell
thinking.") From such questions and even more prying and flatter ones ("Tell me, Peter, you seem to know Jim so well, What makes him ing tick?"), Bloom must have learned much, even if other things he might have
what you are
learned
student
those who knew them. For every single quotation from a in the book, there must have been hours of others from which he se lected. As he introduced them to Mozart, they introduced him to their lives,
retreated with
their
fears
a
and
loves,
and well
their ambitions and aspirations.
It is
truth too
teachers do not
said
known to be declared that today most University like the time they spend in the classroom. What Gadamer once
of
to me,
"Yes,
course, the best

on,"
situation
what you are with
writing full pay, upon the condition that they not teach, few teachers now teaching in American higher education would refuse. One of the most alluring things a dean can say to a prestigious candidate is, "We will reduce your teaching
load."
is
not self-evident
for writing is one course, on in America. If offered retirement
(The
can
common use of won't
the word
"load"
Dean
all
croon, "You
have to
all."
teach at
is revealing.) Better yet if the Since World War II almost

and yet
these universities have

stories
added resident
writers,
can
think of only
classroom
two
in
which
the passionate
inquiries that take

Place,"
place and
in the
count: and
Lionel Trilling's "Of that Time, Of this the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Since the declares "Real life is
also
Robert Pirsig's Zen

these
curriculum at most of no surprise
elsewhere,"
universities
it is
that most of the
teachers
teaching it
think so.
This conceded, it is
expansion of
Leo Strauss said, observing the enormous and rapid the universities in America after World War II: "Good teachers,
as
unlike good
farmers,
are not so
easy to
find."
Such
will
teacher will count time

was
spent
in
class as a pleasure
like
no other.
He
know he
bom for this
room as
for few
on
others.
There
with
you can not

good
only
report on your own
inquiries,
into
a
but carry
student
new
ones;
students,
such
inquiries turn
you
again, for always, when you are studying the work of some great mind, that great mind will be in that classroom, teaching you. To his students who
were
departing
and
to become teachers, Dr. Strauss offered a single maxim, "Al
ways suppose there
is
a silent student spent
in
your class who
is
your superior
in
heart
good.
in
mind."
Time
in
a classroom with such an expectation will
almost always
be
more
rewarding than time
spent with colleagues,
however
No
man who
Dr.
Strauss."
Strauss
of
called
has published on something will ever change his mind, said Then again, it is a sheer delight to see the young puppies, as them, coming into their own, becoming dogs, through play and
through its best
friend, learning. Yet

men seem more
while grown
dogs may only be instances
doggishness,
I
suppose
than instances of the idea of man. Some cer
tainly do.
Mr. Bloom
would
say,
and
in
way has said, that he is the
teacher he is because he
was once such a puppy.
Being
student
to that
teacher,
430
Interpretation
meeting Plato through him, and being grateful, have made him what he is. Mr. Bloom is that rare thing, a teacher, and his book is rarer still, a book by a
teacher, because he had Dr. Strauss for a teacher. How does a student repay such gratitude? Well, is not Mr. Bloom's account of the souls of his students
something his teacher, Leo Strauss, would leam something from? I believe it is and that that makes Mr. Bloom one of the few.
Having
of
been
a student of such a
soul satisfied
teacher,
having
had the inchoate
aspirations
his freshman
by being
set on a path of
insatiable high
desire,
he did
Mr. Bloom
not
considers
the impediments his present students
face,
ones
have to face, ones that seem utterly novel, and he wonders whether the experience he was privileged to have and has had the pleasure of encouraging in many others, will not disappear from the face of the earth. To prevent that, he
writes.
IV. THE CAVE BENEATH THE CAVE
Consider for
to stay
a minute all
three tortures. Imagine

small
being
compelled
by
an
injury
indoors
the time, in a
things
room, able to
and
day. What
come
sorts of
would you
do
up only a few hours a think? Pascal says all our troubles

sit
down to the fact that

of us
we cannot sit still
in
a small room.
What
would you
do? All
illness, from having

on all
know something about what we would do from our experience of a long flu. Now imagine the first torture; imagine the radio
you couldn't turn
the time
it off,
you couldn't cut sit
the volume, you to a steady like. Take the
couldn't
select the
station;
you
just have to
there,
listening
and the
stream of popular worst rock
music, news
bulletins,
advertisements,
show, the
and
music, the
most anxious news
most
tisement,
and all
and
the most
inane disc jockey,
think of
discontenting adver listening to that all day

from
your
night,
without end. you would still of
Of course,
world,
of
have images in
your mind
time in the
friends,
second
homes,
of streams and
fields,
and of sunlight.
Let
us
imagine the
torture; imagine being chained into your chair or bed, with your head fixed forward and a TV on: poor sound, poor images, soap operas, sitcoms, news in short bits, pictures to rouse emotions, nothing long enough to
gain
clarity,
announcers
with
with
incomprehensibly
your
excited
with
voices smooth
and
perfect
teeth,
athletes
strong bodies,
advertisements
bodies,
all
streaming in front of you, all without away from it. Of course, when one is
often we greet a read that
book."
choosing it, flu
or
being
will
able to turn
sick with the
one can
read;
indeed,
coming
cold with a certain pleasure:
"Now I
have time to
allowed to read,
U.S.A.
Today
and
Very well, let us imagine our third torture. Imagine being but only allowed to read the most popular newspapers, say and the Washington Post, the most popular magazines, Time,
and
Playboy,
House
Garden say,
and
only the
most popular
books, say
Souls Without
only the
ones
Longing
43 1
listed
on
The New York Times bestseller list. Imagine
yourself
then apprehending the world

and medicine. one
dimly,
not
with
the vivid things
being diet,
ugliness,
self-help,
make more
Would these
more
be tortures? Mind-washings? Enough to

pettiness,
no more no
scream, "No
lies,
no more
self-esteem."
wretched
Or
make one
the wretched, the wicked, and
pray, "Deliver me, Lord, from this city of the And also make one reflect,
contented."
"Why do I remember so little of the real world? Why don't I recall any books I read? Why did I not memorize more songs, stories, and prayers? What did I do
in
college?
What did I do in
life?"
"homes"
These three tortures do not, of course, so many American parents now

I have described. But
need to
be imagined. One lives in
visit
to the
stretch out their
will acquaint
you with what
with
this difference: like my prisoner,
these old people had a
life before
their torture to remember.
Imagine then
something worse. Imagine growing up without any such life before torture. Imagine growing up with parents who instead of protecting you from these three tortures, instead of attaching you to good things, instead of training you
in
good
habits,
and
instructing
you
and your
brothers
and sisters
in virtue,
and
instead
of of
teaching
you
to measure and to guide yourselves

examples with
by
high duties,
instead
you.
setting worthy Imagine growing up

Thus both
themselves,
as your
visit
these three tortures
upon
the radio
mother, the TV as your

on
father,
as
the
newspapers as your
country,
and the
books
The New York Times list

would you not
your school.
orphaned and
incarcerated,
and
be tempted
to escape through sex,
drugs,
rock, rebellion,
a
hate?
Allan Bloom has
written
book
about this. What I have
invited
you
to
imagine
as
three tortures, Mr. Bloom says

youths.
is
the truth about the present genera
tion of college
parents,
they have
left
not
They really lived in homes, they have not had belonged to Churches, and they have not found substi
have
not
tutes for these
good causes of good
in the
schools and colleges

authorities
they
go on to.
The
void
by
the abdication of these
has been filled
by
rock
music,
swollen
appetites,
and chic sophistry.
Their heroes
are savage and crim
inal,
could
their pleasures cmde and
fast,
their minds weak and enraged, and their
souls not even empty,
because only something that longs to be filled but isn't

Plato,12
be described
as empty.
Plainly
account
to the my description of these three tortures is indebted to likens the of education his Socrates offers in The Republic, where he
lives
of most men to
life in
have
cave,
seated as
in
theater,
unable to turn their
heads,
watching
shadows cast on a wall who
by
shadow-makers, themselves unseen
by
the prisoners,
shines outside
the cave or
understanding of the soul requirements is Platonic, he does
anything real, let alone the sun that the many things it shines on. Although Mr. Bloom's and its highest calling, and of the city and its just
never seen not
think that our present situation in America
is the
cave as
Plato's Socrates describes it.

or will
ery city there has been
Every city is a cave. To Socratesevbe, or perhaps is likely to be, might be likened to
432
Interpretation
The only in speech in the
exception
such a cave.
scribes
course of
is Callipolis, the best city, the city he de the night conversation that is The Republic.
to
Although Socrates
would not escape whisk
ing
behind the jail to
him
from Athens, when Crito had horses wait Crete or some other barbaric place, he
"city"
founded by Presumably the and perpet Jay, Hamilton, Franklin, Madison, Jefferson, Washington, Adams, defended and on of our blood Lincoln and uated by forefathers, generously
surely included Athens in his Cave likeness. foreign
ground
since,
would
be
such a cave
to Plato and is one to Bloom.
However,
Socrates
the cave Mr. Bloom thinks America
has become is
not
the one
mentioned.
The
shadow-makers
in the Athenian
and
cave were are
Homer,
the po the the
and
Hesiod, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,

ets
Aristophanes. These
Socrates
quarrels
with.
They
of
were
the poets of the city of
Athens,
of
teachers of the young, the supporters of the

polity.
family,
and the
boosters
In the tragic theaters
that city the citizens sat, looked
forward,
beheld beautiful images body's list

Athens
of
as real.
In
other
words,
minds now
the "great
books"
are makes
and whose
pher chooses
the
every city mled go so far as to suggest that Homer
philoso rulership life of the tyrant (in Hades in the story of Er, in Book X), so by the poets threatens the philosopher. Although Socrates does a
might
it
precisely the ones Cave. Just as everyone but the
included in every Socrates says mle in
be
an
exception,
when
he
calls
him
friend,
cave.
read
as
he does
no other previous
man,
still
he
says one must
honor tmth
other
more than
Homer;
not even a philosophic poet would make a
city
than a
About
including
Homer among the books that
should
be
called great and
by
the young, we may reasonably conceive Socrates to have had doubts.

single explicit recommendation
Since the book is the

are
Mr. Bloom
cannot
makes
in his
whole
adoption of a great
books curriculum, it
should with
be
that
he thinks
we
in
a cave such as cave
Socrates describes. We
cave
have
such
luck! No,
a phrase
we are
in the
beneath the
(to employ,
students
adaption,
of
Leo
Strauss).13
Thus it is that Mr. Bloom
contrasts
counterparts
thirty
years ago.
The
present-day he first taught
students with their came
from homes,
about
with
parents; something had been
required of
them, they knew something

and
beauty,
thing.
about obedience and about
adventure,
America may have been a cave mled by (as Bloom seems to say in one place), but it was not so bad; Mr. Bloom particularly likes it because it did not make longing so rare as to make the life
of
they had looked up to some the shadow-maker John Locke
philosophy back that tion, is

make
cave!"
nearly impossible choice for some of the young. "Let us bring one of Bloom's readers might exclaim. Would Bloom say so?
the youth of
His description
of
today,
and
accordingly his
concern with educa
Socrates does distinctions between peoples, between the barbaric and the civilized, be tween barbarians and Greeks, he also seems to think that the lower limit of human things is fixed. Dimly lit as the Cave is, it has a floor. There is no cave
much more anxious
than Plato's. Although the Platonic
beneath the Cave
and no
Abyss beneath it,
as
Nietzsche felt. For Bloom there
Souls Without
seems
Longing 433
By falling
to be.
or
into
it,
By falling into it, by building it.

of
America has discovered the Abyss.
If
we
inquire
Mr. Bloom how this

abdication of
happened,
we receive
the answer, in
youth-mer
his Part One, that the

chants,
and
the parents, the greed of the
the ambition of the sophists (such as Mick
Jagger)
corrupted
the
souls of the young.
If
we go
further, into Part Three,
we receive
the
answer
that the Universities have fashioned this
unusual and unprecedented
cave, for
they first Churches,

swer ever
spread and
the views that undermined the authority of the parents, the
the country; and if we
inquire
still
further,
we receive
the an
that the intellectuals who mle the Universities are themselves mled, how
imperfectly, by
the philosophers; more specifically that their teachings are

consequence and an evident traduction of the philo
somehow
both the direct
sophizing of Nietzsche and Heidegger. Unresolved in Mr. Bloom's account then is the paradox or contradiction that the thinkers who see most deeply into
our
condition,
who
devoted the
most
deep
thought to nihilism and how to over

most
come
it,
are also
those
who seem
to have contributed the

with zeal
to
its victory,
its
political
and
in the
case of
Heidegger to have joined
in
one of
expressions.
Mr. Bloom
eschews a simple explanation
for the decline
of
America. Plato,
his teacher, might have attributed it to wealth. America won the World War; it emerged from four years of destruction the most powerful nation on earth; in
the
atomic
bomb, it had
It didn't. It
a veritable
ring
of
Gyges; it
of
could enforce
its
will
anywhere.
refused
the temptation
Gyges
on a world scale.
In
stead, it
settled
down to enjoying the fruits

pursuit of
of
war; it
gave
itself up to
com
merce, to the agitating
fruits. It behaved like

It fell to looting.
twelve coats,
and a and
a warrior
Twenty
rings.
and the absorbing enjoyment of its rings from the corpses of its enemies. stripping years after defeating both Germany and Japan, the
wealth,
half
million soldiers who
did
so
in khakis
put on
lounge suits, fur

and
sparkling
It is
an old
story;
you will
find it in Machiavelli
defeat.14
in Ibn Khaldun,
as well as
Plato;
nations go through cycles; virtue brings vic
tory; victory brings wealth; wealth brings vice; vice brings One might add to this a deeper stratum. Serious men, Nietzsche, Churchill,
C. S. Lewis,
of
and
Heidegger for example, have
worried
that the disappearance
pain, the
acceleration
all, the increase
of our
in speed, the domination over

species.
mass effects of modem
science,
above
nature achieved
by
it
would
lead to the
nature,
decline
of
the human
In America the
scientific conquest of
called for by Bacon and Descartes, has been carried further, especially since the Second World War, than in any other land. Will it lead to a decline in the
American
species?
wealth and wealth

our
brings
In this war, too, vice. Bloom
virtue
brings victories;
victories
bring
eschews
this explanation; he thinks that
decline
comes
from the decline

one reason
of our
minds; he seeks a wholly intellectual
explanation.
That is
students'
our
why Part Two exists; it is about the source of Three is about the active agency. Perhaps it Part impoverishment;
434
is
Interpretation
why Bloom is not unhappy with the Enlightenment refashioning of the University; he has no quarrel with its attempt to master nature, as Rousseau
also
did,
and
little
suspicion
that its
attempt
is founded in intellectual error,

was
as
Klein
and others
have
asserted.15
Before there
Heidegger,
there
was
Nietzsche,
before him Locke, before him Bacon, and before them all, there was Ma chiavelli, the founder of modernity, with his anger at God, his dismissal of the
"ideal,"
good
as
his
preference
for
effectual
tmth instead of
tmth,
and
his
to
characterization of nature
first
as a
river to be channeled, then

nature
as a woman
be
beaten.16
The
modem
idea that
is
more
stuff
than standard, more
plastic than nature
pattern, more enemy than
originates
in
which no
traveller will
friend, and thus fit for a just conquest of passionate fear of death, understood as a nothing, to ever go. It is this idea, bom of fear not knowledge, that
society, especially
modem
which
connects
the
modem account of nature with modem
America
with modem
medicine,
the more
it
whispers promises of
bodily
death,
immortality, increases
and weakens
the
deficit, distracts
Mr. Bloom is
the
dying, impedes
a good
the
citizenry.17
concerned with all that
has
orphaned
the souls of
his students,
and
rightly
so, but
makes no connection
between the
fading
of
the
family
and
the
scientific origin of
the inventions that have helped
fade it (TV, the pill, and the fast-feeder microwave) and the future ones that will vaporize it. When genetic engineering can manufacture test-tube children, fathers and mothers will no longer be necessary, and Governments and their
Universities
can raise
their own students, which will allow lesbians to claim

boys.18
first dibs
sity,
on
the girls and homosexuals on the
In this brave
new
Univer
old-style couples will

you.
have to
and
love
And
always,"
will
in secret, brave censorship to say, "I hide their children in the bullrushes. Bloom is
court
right to say
our min
is in
our
ideas, but wrong
to omit the Enlightenment
idea
that a conquest of nature is worth winning. As Nietzsche first saw, the coming
progressive conquest of nature would require the
restraints,
once provided
of
by
nature,
without which
deliberate willing of those there can be no virtues.

spirit,
and
Although Part One
The
Closing
as
is
written with
dismay,
a
some
times even nausea, although arguments are sometimes offered against the cor
ruptions
described,
might
and
although,
consequence, the
steps
family
and
country
take to correct these corruptions are
fairly
clear, nevertheless,
one receives
the impression that nothing can be done. Part Two is chiefly re for this impression, for it tells how it is well-nigh inevitable that the high thought of Nietzsche and the deep thought of Heidegger would lead Amer
sponsible
ica
and
its
youth
Here in this John
part we
to become nihilists, not merely encourage it, but lead to it. hear that the Founders of America built on nothing more
of comfortable self-preservation
elevated than
Locke.19
the pursuit
taught
by
the clever
Viewed
as a
Cave, America today is just

and shadows now
a conflict
between
shadows once
formed
by
Locke
forming by
Nietzsche. The
young
souls who are so
such stuff as
vividly described by Bloom in Part One turn out to be Heidegger has dreamed on! Is it tme that the lives, deeds, and
Souls Without
thoughts of most men are the sole,
Longing 435
thinking
of
direct
consequence of the
the
very few thinkers
of
the first
rank?
Does
nature count
for
so
little? And
even
if
nearly so, would nature count for so little if nurture had not first been with drawn? Some inquiry into this mystery, of how we are made up of both nature
and
thought,
seems to me required
by
the evidence of both that Mr. Bloom
points to.
That these instead

of
"values"
students
speak
of
instead
of of
of
purposes, "life
"relationships"
styles"
of ways of
life,
of appetites of
instead
virtues, the
"self"
instead
bonds,
and
"sex
an
lives"
instead
courtships,
instead
of
the soul,
is certainly
important
of
life,
others,
misunderstanding of themselves, of their impoverished lives and their unjust relation to the
are
cause of their
whole universe.
But
these dark glasses the
long, indirect
consequence of
Nietzsche? To
prove
that Nietzsche and Heidegger devastated the souls of students in

would
America, Bloom
He
might
have to
show
how the language in

and
which
they
under
stand themselves stems
from Nietzsche in
either of
Heidegger. Does Bloom
show
that? the
have done
so
two ways. He might have taken some

amor
of
terms that characterize Nietzsche's thinking:
fati,
the
order of
rank, the
will-
to-power,
mensch),20
eternal return of the or
same, the Last
Man,
he
Surpassing
have
Man (Uber how these
the terms that Nietzsche gives a

and
peculiar
turn to: master morality,

shown speech
slave
morality, values,
history,
and
then
might get
terms,
directly
or
passing through
Heidegger,
or
into the
in
which
young Americans understand themselves, Or Bloom might have started with his
etc., and their
all and
music and
into the
music that moves
them.
students'
language: self, sex,
traced both to Nietzsche and Heidegger.
high, rock, Or, best of is,

that
necessary, he
order of
might
have done both together.

that he attempt the
The
his Parts
would suggest
latter,
that
he
go
from
student speech to philosophic speech.
It
seems
to me that Bloom
does
word
so
only
intermittently
(in
or
"values"
what might
incompletely. The way Bloom shows how the be called the plural of vagueness) glides off our
tongues and
gums
up
our minds
ever, the term

seems
"value"
is
never
is wonderful, both witty and instructive. How tied down at the other end in Nietzsche, who
of
to have been the most important inventor

neither
it. Nietzsche is
mentioned of
course, but
the nobility
of
Good be
and
painters
Evil, No. 34, where use it, nor the consequent difficulty
In
one passage
were
beginning, for example in Beyond Nietzsche tells us he employs it in the sense

the term's
of the
term in his lexicon seem to to a famous episode in
appreciated.
(p.
143)
Bloom
alludes
Zarathustra I
of
as
if it far
"On the Thousand

goals so
and
titled, "On One
the
Thousand
and
One
Values,"
instead
the
Goals."
Tme, Zarathustra
out
claims that all
thousand
placed over man
have turned
to be values, but that
only
the
makes
the search for the one goal necessary and urgent. In The Twilight of
gives
.
.
straight
Idols, Nietzsche line, a goal
the
formula
ein
of
his happiness
eine gerade
as
"A
Yes,
ein
No,
. .
("ein Ja,
Nein,
Linie,
Ziel
.")
436
Never
the
Interpretation
would
Nietzsche have "Could

you
written
"a
value."
Facing
once
the eternal return,

not a value. and
facing
question:
bear
your
life
more?"
is
Zarathustra
himself faces this in his
question at
the climax of Part

Homo.21
Three,
Nietzsche faced it
autobiographical
Ecce
Nietzsche in the brief
compass
This said, it is very hard to write about Bloom chose; Nietzsche has so many levels,
well-tempered over
long ladders,
of
him.22
and
scales, it is hard to stay
the whole scale
If it is tme that Nietzsche's thoughts
were vulgarized
by
various
teaching
One
intellectuals,
like to
would meet
as
Bloom
asserts and
am prepared
to
believe,
then one would
the intermediaries between the philosopher and the students.

see a
like to
tracing
of
the path. And if that path can be
would want
to
know
whether
Bloom thinks the
vulgarization
traced, then one inevitable. Was

which a responsible?
the misunderstanding of the intellectuals a
likely
misunderstanding, for
"tme"
philosopher,
was
who should
have
at
pmdence
among his virtues, is
Or
it
no
misunderstanding
all,
as seems asserted
by
the Left
and
by
If
some
recent even
feminists,
whose recent appropriation of
Nietzsche Bloom
reports?23
American life is like
thoughtful German book poorly translated and
dumbed down, then one would like to see it proved by minute attention to the details of the original German book. Nevertheless, Bloom must have been
astonished of
that things his
the victory of modem German thought to be proven
teacher, Dr. Strauss, said would be the consequences in the University seemed, forty years
speech of
later,
by
the very
students, presidents, and
cabdrivers.24
Nothing could be clearer from Mr. Bloom's book than that he has spent a long time teaching Plato and Rousseau. However, although Nietzsche figures importantly in the book and undoubtedly sharpened Mr. Bloom's eyes for souls
without
longing,
as
through his portrait of the Last
Man, it is
for
not clear that
Bloom
has taught modernity

that
says
courses on
Nietzsche
much.
The
part of
Nietzsche that
characterized
the "substitution
not read
of
daily
newspapers
daily
prayers,"
the part
"one does
Pascal,
one
loves die
Pascal,"
that never ceased to
think not only about Socrates but about

about
Christ,
and
that thought a good deal
death
and what
it
would
mean
to
at the
Nietzsche in the
absence
not
only does
no
not appear
mind of
the author.
in the book, but does Even in Part One where

of
right time, this not seem to be
part of present
or
"religion"
lamented,
except
discussion
course of
death
and our relation
is lauded, to death is
its
men
tioned,
in the
his
curt
dismissal
of the presumption
that his
war.
students might
have been
would
affected
by
the possibility of worldwide nuclear

presumption with the presumer.
I doubt Nietzsche
at
dismiss that
Few hack
the
roots of
evil, fewer
still strike at and
the
tap
root.
As I begin to teach Hamlet

prefer
Lear, I
often ask students
how they
would
to die. A majority, sometimes even a majority of the avowed Christians, say they would prefer to die painlessly while asleep. When Montaigne said he
would
too, he
was
the first
man
in
thousand
years
to say so. Most of my

answer
students are
entirely
unaware of
how extraordinary their
is
and
how
Souls Without
revealing.
Longing 437
-
Cancer has for
long
time been our
most
terrifying death;
second asks: of
perhaps
AIDS has both
lately
superseded
victim
it; both
the
terrorize Americans for the same reason;
command
the
to prepare
on
for death. (The is the form
"Are fear
you
guilty?") Accidental death

and
highway
death
we
least,
precisely because no one needs to prepare for it. It is not necessary for Bloom to tell us whether he has asked questions about death; but to look deeply into one's students perhaps he must be ready to ask them
prevent such questions and to ask
do the least to
them, he
must ask
himself. If
one
taught Pascal
and
or as
Shakespeare instead
well as
of
Plato,
or perhaps
the
Apology, Crito,
out
Phaedo
The Republic,
one
perhaps one would
find
different things from

"free
one's
students, or
attract somewhat
different
students.
Certain it is that to
such as
understand
death?"
Nietzsche
has to face
such questions as
he poses,
(Zarathustra I, 21). The most important Bloom has

and then observed
cause of the
lack
is
hardly
mentioned of
ignored. It is the loss

comes
longing in the souls of the students by him; that is, it is mentioned once eternity. Every insight of Nietzsche into
of noble stmggle
modernity
down to it
and
every
to overcome it. For him

greatest
personally, the thought vided, ultimately, the

at once nity.
of eternal return
brought the
dread
and pro provided
greatest
joy. For
mankind
Nietzsche thought it
the best and the last hope. He hoped eternal return would replace eter
What Bloom describes
so
well, but
without
the name, is a
new
kind
of
human being: the Teenager. There

compare the entries
were no teenagers and
in Webster II (1934)
before World War II; Webster III (1961). The youths of
that earlier time women, fathers
and all previous and
times wanted to grow up, to become men and

were adults:
mothers; their heroes explorers,
warriors, statesmen,
not want
saints, scientists,
doctors,
and patriots.
The Teenager does
to grow up; his heroes
are other
teenagers,
rock stars of whatever age.
The
Teenager
music
wants
to live in the present as much as possible; his food is
fast, his
is ephemeral, attention short, and his life nomadic. The Teenager leads the life most oblivious of eternity, the least concerned with eternal God or the eternal Good, or their worthy images, immortal fame, and living children. Of
all
the lives
a man can
choose, the life

with
of
the Teenager is the one most condu
cive to
conflating Teenager.
Being
Time. The Last
Man, American
are so
style, is the
Is it
present,
accidental
that these
"mutants,"
whose
lives
and
entirely lived in the
came
into
being
after
the
atomic
bomb
the specter of the possible
extinction of
that it sent up into the high, blue sky? Al been thought about, variously, by Nietzsche, though this novel fear had Churchill, Heidegger, and C. S. Lewis, it only haunted the popular mind after
the human
species
the atomic bomb
was
first life
exploded.
inward despair
about
and outward
The contradictory result of that bustle, grave doubt about the
event modem
scientific project and obsessive
delight in its comforts,
and painful misgivings
438
about
Interpretation
America
and
thoughtless
satisfaction at
being
American
appeared
first
in the
gence
no
parents and then
in their
children.
The
generation of parents whose negli
brought the Teenager into

species.
being
were stunned
by
the
idea
all
of
there
being
the
future for the human
The thought "What does it

happens"
matter"
and
contrary anxiety "I hope I get my life in before it their own children. Their children, the first Teenagers,
might ever
detached them from

that
entered a world
disappear utterly in front

with we get our
to grow up
them; they were the first generation on earth this prospect; the first generation to grow up whispering,
of
happens"
"I hope
lives in before it
and
the
first to
wonder
before
of
they had children, if their
children would continue after them.
The loss
of
the
God,
sempitemity the idea
of
the species
loosened their
relation
to the other
forms
eternity,
of
the good, and even tmth. Without some bond to eternity,

and
it is for
hard to die well,

anything.25
those
who
cannot
die
well
are not
likely
to
long
Perhaps the
you never
most
important
pedagogic
deficiency
in Bloom's book is this;
feel that any of the great thinkers Bloom mentions, even the ones he has clearly learned from, are being confronted, or have been recently con fronted. What does he ask them? What do they say to him? Is there a conversa
tion? Bloom certainly praises
them,
and
by
so
doing
does lead
readers
to their
doorstep, but never introduces us to them. Never does he pause over a passage from Nietzsche; the longest passage from a great mind in the book, from Shakespeare, is an undigested lump. Bloom shows us that Heidegger's Rektoratsrede laudation of the Nazis was harmful and even that it was revealing,
but
not
why it
was also sad.
We
never get
to meet Heidegger the thinker of the

class.26
first order;
never spend a slow
hour in his
Granted that
"coming
on
down"
to students and coming way down to the public require putting
masks, don
must
ning motley,
mean
and
acting,
even
giving
oneself over
to an excited
tempo,
it
forgetting
that
from
which
you
have
to the
come
down? In
one place
Bloom
tells
us
he loves to introduce
students
music of
Mozart; his
own excited
or
tempos have other sources, perhaps
Napoleonic Beethoven, uneasy Bartok,
Everything is either allegro or presto; what andante there is only creates the feeling of rubato; nothing is adagio. Nothing seems to come to a resolution; it is excitement without harmony, war without peace, or war that
has
made the warrior
firebird Stravinsky.
forget peace, forget home. Nor
can
I believe that Bloom

upon re
has taught the American

cent
Founding
and
Lincoln;
no
knowledge based
teaching
seems present.
For
that it
most of
what you
us, it is probably tme that, as someone said, you only know have taught in the last two years. The upshot of this observation is
as
is important to teach
noctuque
many
of
the great minds as possible, year after

about
year, Diu
incubando,
he
was also
unto
death. Dr. Strauss taught
including Nietzsche;
as
that rarest exception; although he never, so
thirty, far
I know, taught Heidegger, or the American Founding, and, I believe, taught Pascal, Aquinas, and C. S. Lewis only he knew them, as if he had
once,27
Souls Without
taught them the previous week.
Longing
439
Without
knowing
these things as Dr.
Strauss
did,
should one speak of them?

a vulgarization
overcome
of
More generally, can a popularization of Strauss Nietzsche and Heidegger? In particular, if one his thoughts? Strauss
writes
understood
Strauss,
would one popularize

sit
suggested that
the question of philosophy is: Quid
Deus! Bloom
that the question is:
What is Man? Bloom's incomplete inquiries

of raise another question.
Towards the
beginning
your
his book, he
mentions
how
strange the
life
of a
teacher is. In particular, the
very
own
pleasure of encouraging inquiry in inquiry. As the years go by, there
others can ought to
be
an
impediment to
be
more and more
distance
between
not, then
where you are and where your new students are starting.
what
(If there is
have
you
been doing?) Yet,
each
year, each class, despite the

down"
advances you
have made,
you must once again
"go
to the
freshmen (to
For die
Piraeus,
to the
City
of
the
Motley Cow)
a
and once again start afresh.
sake of the students will you not
have to feign ignorance? And does
not
imitat
we
ing
something, especially for

what we
long time,
soon make
it
habit? Don't
become
you not
imitate,
as
Socrates
have to
so
cultivate some stimulate
in The Republic! Indeed, will ignorance in yourself? And won't that be tempt
explains
ing? It is
easy to
or
freshmen,
to
avoid
their hard questions
by
saying,
which,
"Well,
good,
that's a really important
question,"
and promise a conversation
intentionally
so
harder."
not,
will never occur.
You
can
tell yourself, "It is for their own
they
will work
harder for
an
answer; so
they
will read great
books
reading oneself. Nothing will bear up under the strain of continuous reading for thirty years so well as a great book, continually rewarding fresh study, forcing you to leam more each time, but the
So saying,
one
may
avoid such
temptations should not be
underestimated.
It is
as
Nietzsche
says:
"He
who
is
teacher through
and
through takes everything seriously in

himself."
relation who
to his stu
about
dents
in the end,
one
even who
writes
About
teacher,
one
writes
teaching, and inquires about
about
his students,
who
gets
to know
them,
their private
of
life, draws
conclusions about their
souls, their fami

time spent
lies,
with
and
the state
ever
their country, one would
like to know
which
whether
them
turned
into
a conversation
from
the teacher learned any
thing he did
tions,
not
already know? Or
whether
the teacher began such conversa

that
out of class or
in,
with
the
expectation
he
might
be talking in the
presence of a silent
Mr. Bloom
their souls
cares
and
student, his superior in heart and in mind? Certain it is that for the students he reports about, for the intellectual good of
good of
for the
those remarkably many of them who have be

situation
come teachers.
Indeed, for
is
them and for the
they find
themselves
teaching
in, Bloom
seems more concerned care?
than Plato was for the city.
What kind
of a virtue
Let it
suffice
for the
moment
to note that like

. .
Nietzsche,
and unlike
Plato, Bloom nearly believes
that "use can

out of
change
soul.
really The similarity between the Last Man in Nietzsche
the stamp of
nature."2"
Longing
might
be driven
and
the human
the Democratic Man in
440
Interpretation
pointlessness of
Plato is the
cratic
Man
shifts about
lives; the difference is that while the Demo in his desires, trying this and that, the Last Man doesn't
their
some
try
anything.
The Democratic Man has

on
aspirations,
which
last for
a cou
all.29
ple of
hours,
Thursday, if it doesn't
concern with
rain; the Last Man has
none at
Only
in the Cave beneath the Cave

to side
are
can such souls without souls and
longing
have been
fashioned. In his
such
the cave never mentioned
by
and
Plato, Bloom
seems
with
Nietzsche
as against
Plato.
However,
we can
only say this if Nietzsche would

man
we
sure
that a
long
conversation
between Plato
not result
is less enduring, hence
more malleable than might
in the latter convincing the former that nature in have been supposed, and that
of
therefore the
and
extinction of
philosophy from the face
the earth is a possibility,
of such great concern
to a philosopher that he must
try
to mle the
world,
rather
than shun it. Care
philosopher.
The
premise of
is, then, the virtue that justifies the mle of the Care is that nature is not, or is so malleable as
nearly not to be nature, and this premise strictly understood and thoroughly held renders philosophy impossible. When the gift-giving Zarathustra of Nietzsche discovers that "the best want to he is still not philosophizing.
mle,"
He
who
becomes
a mler through
and
through takes everything seriously in
relation
to the mled
in the
end even
himself.
V. SOULS WITH LONG LONGING AND SMALL CELLS
Although Mr. Bloom

measures crates. sophic.
would not mistake
himself
seems
against
Socrates,
measures all else as

much
himself for Socrates, it is clear he well, indeed loves So

to do
with
It
to me this love has
his book
being
philo
In The
Closing
of the American
as
things around him
he
reads great
Mind, Mr. Bloom looks as seriously books, such as Plato's Republic. To do

It is
also rare.
at so a
is innocent, commonsensical,
and reasonable.
There
must
be
thousand serious teachers of such great books in the
University
today,
good
teachers, good readers, and good citizens. Yet Bloom is one of the very few who has looked at the University, its teachers, and his students with the same interrogative disposition he finds in his books.30 In Part One he looks at the souls of his students, in Part Three he looks at the University; and throughout,
he looks
at
teaching.
Always he looks
at
things
with
Socrates in
mind.
Great
benefits follow.
By
gift
writing The Closing of the American Mind, Mr. Bloom has given a great to a small, important group at the University today. I do believe that the
of
heart
many a young student who so longed to know answers to the important in life that he or she chose teaching as the best way of life to continue that quest and now finds himself in one of the universities or colleges of North
questions
America
must
have been
gladdened
by
reading Mr. Bloom's book.
Souls Without
In it
such
Longing 441
life
teachers will recognize the passions
and
the pleasures of the
they have dedicated themselves to. In it they will find the tmth about the soul that they now know, its longing to know itself, to rise to its natural nobility, and to comprehend the whole. Knowing that and the happiness it alone brings, they take pleasure in assisting others, younger than themselves, to it. They
enter
the classroom seeking them
and at
the same time
finding
themselves.
There is
no place on earth quite
like
think,
their
own
almost so.
Although the young

a
are
classroom; in it you can say what you formed by convention and inclined by
willing to examine its in our confused times, democracy, especially when ordinary folks have to resolve philosophic questions just to live. Al though no young person, being untried, can be said to have character, they do
strong
appetities
to prejudice, no other group
is
as
convictions, especially in
have less baggage.

not a
Try
to talk with adults, say at a dinner party; nothing that is

not
quip, nothing that is not short, nothing that is

also
entertaining,
gets
heard.
The young That way,

more.
have
more
leisure. The best time for only in
classes
is in the
evening.
when
the time comes to an end, the eager students can stay for
as
There in the classroom,
friendship
in fact
with your of
equals, disciple-
ship
to your
betters,
you a place
or solitude with also
yourself, the life

what you
the mind lives natu
rally.
There
may
to
discover
out what
can
do think. In tmth, the

as
classroom
is
find
is to be
be
thought.
No
shared
other
kind
of good
thing
shared as
fully
thought. Ice cream
is ice
cream
divided. Thought
shared
your
is thought
multiplied and some
times
augmented.
In the classroom,
students'
discoveries
are yours as
well,
and yours coincides
nearly
room
may be theirs, too. In the classroom, pursuing the tmth most with imparting it, adventure with charity, wisdom with justice.
will
Reading
is
and
Bloom
then confirm such teachers in the knowledge that the class

where
perhaps
of
the place the city,
the demands
of
philosophy
as a
way
of
life
demands
without which
there could be no philosophy, most
nearly harmonize. Friendships that

are
start
as
in
classrooms need never end.
If they continue, they from the discoveries

as
bound to increase
other,
the younger grows nearer the older. If the one sur
passes the
of
so much the
better,
the teacher
will gain
well.
his superior, once his pupil. Such classes The friendships between students of the
each can
remember
make same
for distant harmonies

teacher are most
efforts
durable,
for
not
only how imperfect his

small and one
and
were, how his
teacher
used not
only to correct them, but how just how
continues to teach them
by being who he is, he sided they are by comparison. Thus
the friends
of
Socrates, from Plato

Nietzsche
make a
Kierkegaard
sons of
and
kind
of
Aristotle, to Montaigne and Pascal, fraternity, brothers because they are

draws to
a
the best.
As
will
a term of good studies

sad.
in
such a classroom
close, the teacher
feel
"Why
not
keep
going?
Why
stop just
when we were
shape?
When
new thoughts and adventures are
beckoning
getting in like the India Alex-
442
Interpretation
his army to
scent of
attempt?"
ander could not persuade
Such
a teacher will
only
cheer alone.
up by carrying Yet if all goes well, the adventuring before the new
writer class
on some of
those adventures in the summer,
in writing,
fall
will
bring
its
own
sadness, stirring the

spdtlese
to gather his thoughts into some

as
rich,
conclusion,
beginning, usual, finds him reluctant to stop writing, and yet willing to, knowing Wer jetzt kein Haus hat, baut sich keines mehr
all goes well
that, if
not
in
class as
before,
this term too will end with him
wanting
to stop.
souls"
Young teachers whose "prophetic destiny cannot but take comfort in Mr.
the students
you
recognize
these pleasures as their

of
Bloom's description
the condition of
today, know different,
their
flatness,
their
lassitude,
good
and their enslavement.
Unless
unless you
have the
fortune to teach
of
at one of the souls of
very few
youths
colleges unaffected
by
the disappearance
longing
in the
you
today, how will you know for sure that things might be different, unless hear from someone like Mr. Bloom that it was not always so. Bloom not
students of
only describes the

and ever
today
with
accuracy, their speech, their
habits,
the secret springs of their souls, but tells you
they
are
peculiar, like nothing
before,
to
read
and
very different from

well remember one of
what
he
met when
he first began teaching.
He is right. I
class
three chapters
Thursday in September telling an opening Montaigne's Essais and then the following Tues
day
noting how thoughtful were the comments of one freshman. Fifteen years later I learned that she hadn't heard that we were to read only three chapters.
From evening that

read chapters would
Thursday
to the morning of the

not so
following Tuesday,
her
comments on
she
had
the whole of the

not
Essais,
skimmed,
or
the three
have been
through.
Hearing
this, I
was
was not surprised read
thoughtful, but read, read through and to hear that she and her husband,
Hegel's
both
vice presidents of
corporations,
Phenomenology
regularly in
the evening. Nor
this Everest without surrounding Himalayas.
my
classes then
there would appear a student or
meeting had
read some work
I had
mentioned
two, or three, in passing. Night
Regularly in who by the next

classes regu
larly
years
went on an
hour beyond the close,
often
hours beyond. At Dartmouth for
ran a
when
Later,
and
reading group on Friday evening, because students asked for it. I taught Russian Novel at the University of Dallas, we read War
and Anna Karenina in fourteen weeks. The weekly quizzes, weekly journals of 4-5 pages, three long papers (10-15 pages), and a final only seemed to add to the happiness; roommates,
students'
Peace, The Brothers Karamazov,
seeing their friend weeping, decided to read the books and audit the class. A year later a senior said, "After graduation, I am going to read War and Peace again. You just don't feel alive when you are not In those times reading
it."
students
regularly did things that

too was
out of
surpassed
my
own capacities.
Competence
in 1972,
the
something
not unusual.
In
one
freshman English
and
class
160
papers
assigned, only
one was one
late,
can well
believe
story that
at some colleges
in the '60s,
misspelling
and one comma
Souls Without
mistake on a paper was enough
Longing 443
were rare.
to
deserve
failure. Complaints
In
my first fifteen years, only one student ever mentioned how his expected grade might mar the record he wanted so as to satisfy his post-graduate ambitions, only how
one student exclaimed
well
"Do
you
know
to
who
am!"
and
only
and
one recited
he had done in high

their
school.31
When
you caught students
cheating,
they hung
except
heads, deans
of
urged you
bring
his
charges,
their parents
such
thanked you. Teachers
beginning
later
will
find it hard to believe

authority.
tales,
could,
for the fact
Bloom's
assertion and
The
man who can
describe
might
your own students
to you, perhaps
better than
you
yourself
just be right that "It
so."
was not always
Mr. Bloom
so."
also
describes the
University
and
again, he says, "It

would not
was not
always
University,32
Although he
acknowledges that
Socrates
teach in the
he
measures
the
inquiry,
and
and
he is right to.
University by how much it promotes Socratic The University is the place where students and
thinking
at,
teachers meet, the one place Americans have a chance to do some the place that has been revolutionized
during
Bloom's teaching
lifetime.33
With Tocqueville explicitly and with his teacher, Leo Strauss, silently, Bloom says that the University ought to be an aristocracy; it ought to judge by
other rank
than democratic standards; it ought to show the
student
the
long
ladder
of
reaching toward
heaven; it
of
ought to tell
him
about other places and
times;
media.
at the
and
University
not
the student ought to
discover
sufferings and
virtues, beauties
or
glories,
kenned
by
the
high school, the marketplace, opposing
the
The
University
ought
to serve
democracy by
the majority
tyranny
that
The Federalist in the
sees as one of
the gravest dangers of popular government. There
University
the life of the mind, the life of
inquiry,
the
vita
contem-
plativa, ought to be at tious bustle of the vast

a
home,
sheltered
commercial republic
from the urgent, self-absorbed, ambi surrounding it, with which it made
in the late '50s, and the glitzy agenda of the enraged media that M has flooded it since 1968. Unstated by Bloom is the argument that only by
pact
financial
being
rights,
an
aristocracy
can
the
University
and
provide
pable of
encouraging
liberty
equality,
democracy with statesmen ca honoring natural right and natural

preserving both
self-government
promoting
virtues and
comforts,
and
and safety.
According
under threat
students'
to Mr.
Bloom,
the
of
University
saw
has it
changed since
he first began
eyes.
teaching. At Cornell in April
1969, he
change
before his its
There,
the
from
armed
students, the
faculty
event
changed
vote and granted
demands. In this dramatic
Bloom is right to
appeases
see revolution. and
Once the its
University Nothing
yields
to student
desires,
tyranny,
be
fails to fulfill
protect teachers whose

mission.
lives have been threatened, it will not can be taught to students who know their threats
able to
will get
their desires gratified,
by
teachers who fear their students, at an
institution that
dramati-
will not support teachers who
do
otherwise.35
What happened swiftly,
444
Interpretation
at
cally, publicly
Cornell in 1969, has happened
over and over again at

reason at
the
University
since.
If
as
Bloom
says
the capitulation of
Cornell
was a
farce, the capitulation since has been a bad novel. Daily corruption, indignity, futility, forlorn patience, and quiet desperation do not make a good story. A generation ago, a good novel about the University, as witty, ironic, and yet charitable as Randall Jarrell's Pictures from an Institution, could be written. I
doubt that
could
be done today. "Mortal

knaves
resolute
fools"
abound as
ever, but there
are
more philosophic
to guy them.
Young
teachers must take comfort
in Mr. Bloom's description
of
the chief
impediments that the
University
of
the present time has put in the way of study.
Here is the way two younger teachers I know (and taught earlier) described some of these impediments upon first contact. Both for a time enjoyed the
chance to
study in a stream, so far out it Bloom first went The first
great must
books
core
curriculum,
at a college out of
the main
when
have been like the Blessed Isles (or Chicago
there).36
was called
to teach
some
of
the same books at an Eastern state
college. of
She wrote, "Students here think having a quiz on Hamlet, at the level is a far more troubling experience than any of 'Name Hamlet's
Mother'
Hamlet's heartaches. A father suddenly

wicked uncle ambition
dead,
a mother
hastily
remarried,
your
prospering, thwarted, inheritance forestalled, loved turned cold, your friends distant none of it much moved these
be
students.
It didn't
move
move them
them
in their
own
in Hamlet and, judging from lunch, similar things don't lives. So far the only thing that rouses them is the
a
desire to showing
get a up.
just grade, meaning
B,
which
they
regard as
their
right, due for
signed reading.
They come to class, most of them, without having done the as They are not ashamed to admit it. The other day in class one
Thucydides.'
blurted out, 'Do you realize there are no Cliff Notes on He is one of the better ones. I think I can win him over. Others fit the description a
teacher here gave, the
'They
don't
want
to
buy
the Cliff
Notes; they
want you
to be
living
Cliff
years
Notes.'
Still,
most seem
to me more sinned against than sin
ning; for
they have been

I'm
ready.
passed on to the next grade whatever

start
their
performance was.
I'll
just
are."
However,
asked with
the news a months
later
was not
step ahead of better. "At
where a
they
meeting, I
faculty
why the student newspaper carries ads for plagiarized papers, complete an 800 number and an invitation to use your VISA card. The Dean jumped
Amendment,'
up, 'Free speech, First

teacher confided, T
do?'
and sat
discovered
I
asked. means
forty
per cent of
down. After the meeting, my class cheating last

no
another
spring.'
'What did
you
'I
announced
that the
ones who confessed would
be
forgiven.'
But this
that there
was
really
a
the wily ones are free to

student might
try
again,
and
in
better
position. got
penalty for cheating; all The first time, a

caught;
now
have
worried what would
happen if they
they
know. No
penalty.
The teacher
across
the hall drew my attention to the Hand
book, how it takes 8
tedious steps to convict a student of
cheating
and one swift
Souls Without
step for
a student to
me
Longing 445
The
other
harass
teacher
with a
formal
complaint.
day
somebody told
there's a
man
papers. read the hour exams. Even though salary writing I've scaled things, half deserve failure. We spent a month on Thucydides, and more
students'
in town, Today, I
who makes
better than
a professor's
than
half
cannot remember who
Alcibiades is.
They
will get
for those who, in addition, cannot write a paragraph without 5 State came I heard this was the 'Swarthmore of the
saw
errors.
only D. F is Before I yesterday I

and
system,'
the President himself passing the
'
Pride,'
out stickers
saying
urg
ing
faculty
to
display
sake of
them on their cars.

when
Fortunately,
passed
some
have
pride
instead."
Later that year,
the Challenger blew up, she wrote, "I feel I

relations,'
know
At
why.
For the
'public
they
duties."
failing
a
O-Rings
and
dismissed
a school maim
from her earthly

another
about
the
same
time,
young teacher I know,
teacher of political
philosophy this time, was visiting an old private school. At first he reported, "What a beautiful setting, beautiful stone buildings, and chapel. And what fa cilities. The cafeteria has the best college food I've ever eaten. Better than many hotels. Unlimited ice cream. However, the book store has no one secured the books I ordered two months ago for one
no
books
and
course."
A little
later, he
and
wrote, "When the students do show up for class, many carry in food
wear
drink. Others
here.'
hats drawn
to.'
over
their
faces, it
seems
to mean 'I'm not
Others wear scowls, as if to say, 'What are you going to ask me to really For days now little slips granting extensions to do today that I don't want
students
in my
classes
has
ever spoken and
have been arriving, signed by deans, not one of whom to me, student or dean. The excuses speak of "emotional prob
like.37
lems'
the vague
These
students are so
incontestably
ported that one paper.
'objective'
hour
even
exam.
Half
got
inattentive, I had to give an honors, most were Freshmen,

scores."
and near a third
failed,
though I scaled the
A little later he
re
there
were some
It
was
wonderful, every
fine papers, "Late last night, sleepless, I picked up word counted. When I told the student after
pleases
class
he
smiled and said

never
'That really
before.'
me,
cause
rewrote
that paper six

now visited
times. I've
me eight
done that
Meanwhile,
his
mind.
the chairman has
times,
always with grades on
His
pressure
is subtle, nothing
of some
to
put
two gloves on; he says he is merely conveying the

'assured'
'concern'
student, he wants to be how some student is doing,

tells a student is "See
that quizzes are
'merely
diagnostic,'
he
asks
relates
'her father
me,'
called
him."
etc.
What he
never
your teacher
first. Ask
and
Recently however,
the
Chairman
4
Ds.'
saw
point,'
wasn't
'getting
the
mental pattern or
in
a course of
this size
simply blurted out 'The Depart [50 students] is no more than 2 Fs and 3
thought
would
This
was a
fact this for
positivist
be
valuable to me.
teacher thetic
never
with a reputation which
being
a tough grader
achieves
has just
written me a sympa
letter, in
he
explains
how he
the departmental pattern,
by
asking a question a committee would not come up with and never giving lectures that the students have to attend to pass the course. Late at night a
446
Interpretation
young teacher told me how he survived his first year; when he heard students were going to do him in on the evaluations, he called them up and begged them not to. All this has official backing. Here any teacher who gives an F or a D
must report
in detail the
reasons
it."
form for it. Students know With

of so much
"support"
why to the administration; they have He enclosed a copy.
a regular
going for the malingering student at this college, in the way from the institution, I suggested to my friend that no adult plagiar
ist
could make a
living
in this letter
college agreed:
town,
with so much competition
from the
college
itself. His
next
"The College has
'Peer-tutoring.'
They
pay
older students to work on other student's papers.

with
student
writing
assignment
to come over
it.'
ideas, here, respected by
talk through a
draft,
revise,
and polish
invites any and they will, 'brainstorm When I asked an old hand
The
placard
good
students, how
a teacher can
distinguish
what
is
your
student's work on such a paper and what you work on your own student's
him how the
student could
is the paid tutor's, he said, 'Wouldn't I asked first draft if they brought it to then sign the honor oath, which says T have neither
you?' paper.'
received nor given aid on this since.
He looked had
pained and
has
avoided me
When I discovered
a senior who
never written
her
papers without
'peer-tutoring'
help,
her
a
who
then
failed the
paper as well as
the hour exam, the
Chairman
gave
my back. I she is now have 'peer

exams as
got wind
drop from the course, the night before the final, behind of this later and protested. To no avail. Students tell me
the dean of the college. I wonder how soon
living
testers'
with
they
will
who are
'brainstorm,
them?"
polish'
coach, revise,
and
other student's
he concluded. writing I didn't hear from either friend for a long while,
they
and
decided I better
write:
"No doubt
feel lonely. You may wonder if you should persist in holding to the standards you've described to your students. You may have been ap proached by someone suggesting it is harsh to do so. Or someone suggesting a
you
little
to.
lying
does
little harm,
and can gain you oh so much.
Do
not
believe
them. Whatever is genuinely studious in your students does not want to be lied
You
can't
invite them to inquire
after
about themselves.
Teaching doing
The
is in
a calling.
tmth, while you tell them untruth You are called to pursue the tmth you
also
don't know
and
to say the tmth you do.

a
Consider
that your better students
will see what you are
them and live with it after.

might gain
flash. Far worse, I know, you will see it before You are more important than any advantage you
attendance, attention,
and competence
in
staying.
standards of
you announced are a minimal. such a
It is
a college's shame when
it
will not adhere
to
minimum,
not yours.
No teacher
could
be
proud
to
belong
to a place
that aims to satisfy, not educate, students and, to that end, will corrupt young teachers such as
yourself."
Time
passed with no word.
It
was midwinter when
bad
news arrived
from
exam
both teachers. At both

scores,
were
schools a
band
of students aggrieved at work
their hour
encouraged
by
deans to
harder
at
complaining, to the
Souls Without
deans
which
Longing
447
cur
complaining the deans then

spring classes,
took as the pretext
for severely
friends'
tailing my
veterans.
including
cancelling
one with
uncomplaining
exulting,
An
enclosed newspaper article reported an aggrieved student
"This
shows and
this college
eviction of
will
not
tolerate professors students are not

office and
happy
with,"
the
the
teacher, from
department.
What do these two

since
reports add
up to? But this: in the American

matter
University
1968,
the lowest desires of students count for more than the reason of the
teachers. Differences between colleges
college, the lowest desires
of
the students
only slightly. At an old private seem to have been gratified, much as

on
they
are at a new state
college, but through pressure
the teachers, so as not

together with
self-
to mar the college's prestige, thus its transcript,

esteem
which
is
what
they
are
selling.
If "We
through,"
get
'em
is the
for
pride
of
the cheap state college, "we get 'em through and make 'em feel
pride of the old private college. at the
good"
is the
suppose
that you do get

at neither
more
your
money
offered
pricey
school
($20,000
year), but
is the
student
being
education.
However,
one
important thing may be better

at which
at a state school.
Just before
the crash, my literature friend reported she had been invited to Chinese dinner
by
two older
teachers,
it to
they
wondered
if
she was
stressed that natural right was she understood shape

mean you
changeable,
a proposition she agreed with
grading too hard and (once getting in
don't
expect an
over-forty
but
not
man to start
by
running
even
ten-minute miles), adding she was quite willing to re
ward progress and even effort without progress,

who cannot remember who
willing to
pass students
Alcibiades is
colleagues
and who also cannot write a para
decided to back her. The story was not so good at the prestige college. There, my political science friend reported that a fellow teacher had assured him, "They had a right, an obligation, to try
graph.
When
she said
that, her
to satisfy themselves that the spring semester would not generate the same
number and
kind
a
complaints."
of
"Who did the

and
generating?
Who but the
credu
lous gossips,
good
spring,"
pressuring chairman,
all satisfied
conspiring deans! And
what about
the
students,
veterans, who signed up to study more Plato
in the
my disappointed friend finished. Two conclusions follow from these reports. Since for
a real
teacher, for
soul with
long longing,
the
University today is
kind
of
prison, the quality of

at a state school
the
fellowship in your some lingering sense

union.
cell makes an of
important difference. And

of
the
fellowship
teachers may survive in the

suppose."
labor
No one not there can Of course, about these reports, I must say "I vouch for the tmth of a report. However, I think these tme. First, I have never met a teacher in the University today who taught before 1968 who did not say
that
students are
less
capable now
than
before.38
Is it
not
tme that twenty-five
years ago students
entering today? Second, I have never
college wrote
met a
better than
students
leaving
who
college
teacher who taught
before 1968
did
not
448
Interpretation
that there has been
effects
massive grade massive
acknowledge
inflation
over
the last
of
twenty-
five
years.
Massive
have
in
and
causes; thousands
year after
decisions
by
one
thousands of teachers,
day
day
out,
year,
no
all
tending in
direction,
mission
and all with one simple cause:

uncontested
the
University
longer believes its

monthly from the
is to teach. Third,
reports reach one
Universities
authorities.
now
of guests prevented
Considering
the treatment
from speaking by rowdy students and weak Henry Kissinger or Jeane Kirkpatrick
get, I find it easy to imagine
how, if they
were
young teachers starting
out
today, they would be treated, by anonymous students, supine chairmen, and righteous deans. The students are not very capable, the University is not much
interested in teaching them,

teachers.
and
has,
accordingly,
made
them the judge of their
The
reports
passed on above are what are called
"horror
stories."
They
are
easily detect the indignation and the strain, and infer the nausea and shame, that my reporters suffered. And they are tedious; I myself could hardly call them foreign. Every serious teacher in the University today
repulsive;
you can
knows his
(threats
most).39
or
her
own
horror
stories
not
only Allan Bloom
and what
he
wit
nessed and on
what, reading between his
reticent
lines,
you suspect
he
endured
his life for
example
which
is probably
not what
he
suffered
with
from
Why
do
such stories repel us?
philosopher might and mean
say,
Aristotle,
feel it.
"Anger is the
reason,"
passion closest as
to
he
should never
Certainly
it is tme,
the statesman Plutarch says, "The consequences of anger than the

causes."
are almost always worse
Nevertheless,
as
and
Socrates
if the
stresses
(Republic 439e), spiritedness sometimes supports reason, be protected, it must needs have warriors to fight for it.
good
is to
Moreover, I
wise.
suspect
the
reasons
we
find these
stories repulsive are other all passions sense of
ing
The Last Man in us, the man from his pleasures. If treated to
without a
purpose, finds
distract
and you
story that touches his

go
and
justice
"What
calls
for
doing something just,

upset,"
the moral coward will respond,

along,"
"I hope
weren't
worry."
advise
"To
get
along,
whisper
me
have been saying such things for quite some time now, and the horror story Bloom's book tells cannot but make them aware of their complicity in the University's destruction. Had the horror story of Cornell or the other takeovers been appreciated at the time, as a horror story,
Professors in the
University
by
the professors, the
University
would not
be in
such a state now.
Aside from this decline

much,
and
fortitude, the stories my reporters told are stories of general personal defeat, but one they told was a small victory, revealing
worth retelling.
and so
"The
other
day
a sub-Dean
called, 'Are
you
Sunday?' planning to have a class on the Republic on Dean: Me: 'It's optional. It's for those who read the book. When I discovered how very few had read it, I told the class to concentrate on the other assigned
'Yes.' 'Why?'
works.
There
that.'
will
be nothing
on
it
on
the
final.'
Dean: 'The
it?'
students
don't
believe
Me: 'Well, that
shows you
free will, doesn't
Dean: isn't it
Souls Without
tme that those
the
about who come
Longing
449
to the class on
guess
of
Sunday
might
have
an advantage over much
others?'
Me: 'Well, I in
they
might; the Republic has
to teach us,
regime.
education, the soul,
the student, of the teacher, and about the
That
might
help
a general way.
But
what
do
you
intend to do? Do
who
you
intend
to prevent students
from using the
library
too much, those those
general advantage over others? you propose order you not
And
what about
who reread
do surely have a the book? Do
to prevent them? Or punish to

meet
them?"
students.'
those
you are
Me: i
am a visitor
Dean: 'Well, I'm going to here. I am not here to

authority, I
shall
change things.
order.
So, if
the
duly
constituted
obey
your
But I think
politeness requires me we're not
to go on
and
Sunday
ask
to
meet whoever
shows
up, to tell them that
meeting,
if they
'Why?'
to report
meet.'
that you ordered us not to

responded:
There
was
short pause,
and
the Dean
'Oh, I
guess
I'll let
meet.'
you
Only
students who
the fear of students in her
office persuaded wanted
her to let those few it

meet with
had
read
the Republic and
me."
to talk
about
Did my friend exaggerate? I do not believe so. What this teacher described could have happened only at this time and only at one of our American univer
sities. vices
Everything
it plants,
that
"openness"
means,
what passion
it is
rooted
in,
what
what
in that dialogue. It
was a small not
infamies it sanctions, and what virtues it hinders is victory in the war of our times.
the same as enjoying the good,
and
evident
Hindering
you
evil
is
would not
have have
believe that
these teachers taught without witnessing victories that
nothing to do
written after
with our
times. One enclosed a copy of a letter from a student,
the final:
I
was
realize now what you
very painful,
and we
fought
have been trying to do this semester, although for us it you the whole way. Rather than trying to impart
you sought
knowledge through instruction,

own.
to
impart it
through
discovery
given
on our us.
Discovery
on our own makes
it richer than if it
were
simply
to
If I
learned nothing else this semester (although I did), I think this was the most important: knowledge through discovery. Like Socrates, you tried to guide us to the
truth rather than
telling
us your
idea
of
it. You
wanted us
to discover
on our own.
Thank
you.
Enclosed
also was a
copy
of
the letter this teacher
sent
in
reply:
Thanks very much for noticed in you the

students the
"surprise"
your
which
I just
noticed.
Although I
never
"fight"
you speak
resist
of, I
noticed what you are expected.
talking
about.
In
inclination to
learning
us
is to be is
It is in
all of us.
The
temptation to fight
whoever
is asking
no more.
always cannot
there, too. To say the

same
see some one give who
in to it is disappointing, but
encourage
One
for those
it in
others.
A letter
such as yours
is
apt
to
keep
teacher
going
quite a
long
while.
Your
450
Interpretation
Socrates is pleasing, but I thank
you
untrue.
mention of
Socrates
never needed
encouragement,
but I do,
and
very
much.
Finally, I
can report that
both teachers
are still
teaching.40
VI. THE OPEN UNIVERSITY AND THE WAR OF OUR TIMES
However tme, these
vivid
details
and anecdotes
describe only the leaves
on
the blighted tree of knowledge today; multitude,
they
are
poisonous,
the
vivid
These teachers
sense there are
report
individually, they are vexatious; in their but they are not branches, let alone the roots. facts, they feel that they go together, they may
not
roots, but
they do
know the branches that hold

secret paths
all
the leaves the
in place, the trunk that

studied
supports
them, the
by
which
sap
nourishes them or the roots that send up that sap. These teachers
have
either not
Aristotle
or
Plato
or
not then
looked
around at what
Tocqueville sufficiently or having done so, have is in front of them, as Bloom has. Thus, they
regimes
do
not appreciate
how the different

shape
hold human
communities
together
through their
form, how they
the manners and morals of the community,
affecting individuals however virtuous, and express the community's deepest convictions about the whole. When bad men combine, the good must think
long
about what
sight
holds the it
seems
combination of
the bad together.
At first
that the present-day

not even a
University
has
no regime at all. all versity.
Certainly
all others
it has
no
unity,
center; there is no
Uni, it is
The
competition of all
departments It
with all
departments
and of all a contest
teachers against
is the
reality.
could
be
high contest,
for the best
stu
dents,
and
therefore a contest to
winner
bring
is he
the best out of them. It

or she who pleases
is, in fact,
even
low,
not and
Hobbesian war; in it the

educates the
so
the
most
students,
the one who strives to teach the best students, so
they become
better,
others,
they
will
too. Such teachers exist,
without
in any way
ago
changing the stupefying
general scene. are
Over both teachers
and
students, play
ing
one against the
other,
the administrators,
most of whom
long
left
the classroom, without regret.
Thus,
without
unity,
without a of
center, the Uni

more than
versity soon comes to be mled the judgment of the teachers.

A
generation ago a
world where
by
the lowest
desires
the students
foreign
the
visitor
to America reported, "It is the only

children."
coun
try in the
only
more than
parents
obey the
Now today
we
have the
colleges
in the
world where
the teachers fear the opinions of the students
the
students respect
the
judgments
of
the teachers. The spread
of
the
elective system over the whole curriculum meant that the college expected to
leam from the

requirements,
students what to resulted
teach; this, together

shaped
with
the abolition
of
many
in
curriculum and
by distracting
anxieties about
jobs,
ephemeral
excitements,
the media.
indignant
the
concerns about remote

post-
injustices,
"student how
as represented
by
Likewise,
is
1968 innovation leam from the
of
evaluations"
means that the teacher
expected to
students
Souls Without
to
Longing
45 1
teach,
what assignments
to make,
what standards
to
demand, how
now
to make
below all, how to grade them. The courses that sprang up in the late sixties are now frowned upon standards by which all students in all courses are graded are set
students
feel good,
"self-graded"
and
that the
desires
of
the students, the desire for a good transcript and a good

.
by the lowest feeling about
themselves
The
old relation of
teacher and student was a covenant; the teacher, more
in knowledge, in the ways of study, and even in wisdom, took it as a to calling help the less advanced. The teacher may have felt the desire to be the loved by student, the attraction of popularity, and the temptation to enter
advanced
tain, but resisted or subordinated these to his self-respecting desire to do right by his calling, by his subject and his discipline, and to seek only a thanks he
deserved,
sometimes years
later, from
the student. The student submitted to the
authority of the teacher and the school; he was there to leam something from both; his tuition paid for the privilege of attending, not the transcript his efforts
and consequent achievements
had
not
justified;
he
was
free
to go elsewhere, to
another
if he didn't like the college, college, or to sea, or west. It was no

and
contract.
The
parties were not supposed equal.
The
chief
instrument
of
this change in the

all are
relation of
teacher and student
is
the "student
evaluation."
Almost
anonymous,
and some are even co
erced;
at one
college,
students
may
not register
for
classes the next
term unless
they have turned them in. It is easy to see how they might be used to settle gmdges; indeed the only correlation that has ever been demonstrated in them is
a
function
of
grade-expectation.41
venge,
they
make
the
better. Such forms

the
strike at
less formed, the heart
Apart from the invitation they give to re less educated, less virtuous the judges of the
of education.
With
one
stroke,
fundamental distinction between
the student and the

standards
teacher,
and
they deny they ex
press contempt
for its highest goal, tmth. The
by
which an
institution lower.
devoted to higher
market
learning
ascertains
any
tmth ought to
be higher than the

not
place, higher than the polity,
and even
higher than the court,
into the polity, they will These forms do teach something, and change many cherished things. Our Fifth Amendment protects us from trials
if
carried
without
due process;
our
Sixth Amendment
no
allows no witness
to
testify
against
us without
confronting us;
American
court allows a witness against us to

evidence at
escape crossquestioning; or admits ple
hearsay
on
all, and all decent peo

yet
ignore the
anonymous
hearsay
bathroom walls;
anonymous, unconfronted, uncross-questioned, unexamined
it is precisely such hearsay that Amer
evaluation"
ican
colleges solicit through such
"student
our
forms. I believe that the
most notable other
institutions in
time to
pass
ing
calumny,
including
says
children against
their parents, are the
laws coercing and encourag Soviet and Chi law
nese regimes.
Machiavelli requiring
the first law of a
republic
is
to
against
a
calumny, one
anyone suffer
badmouthing
another
either
make
public
accusation,
or to shut
ready to
the
proposed punishment
if the
charge proves
untrue,
452
Interpretation
up (Discourses, I, 7). And Thomas shows how all the forms of calumny (vil ification, backbiting, tale-bearing, and derision) fail to promote the good of the person or the community, by going to the person we find error in and speaking
with who
him first before does

not
we speak same
to others, and
by
refusing to listen to
anyone
do the
(Summa
on
usually
opposed
minds
agree
Theologiae, II, II, Q. 72-76). What such might, together with our Constitution, be
worth considering.
find himself
At the present-day University, a young teacher must then again and again or herself asking, "Should I teach this hard book? Should I give
Should I turn in these plagiarizing Again and again, departments will find themselves asking, "Dare of majors what we really think they should study? Dare we have a
mark off
this hard test? Should I

students?"
for
writing?
we require
senior project?
Dare
we
have
final
to
exam?"
comprehensive often possible will
It is very hard to
educate people you where
have for
reason
fear; it is
are
to please
them;
"I
and
the
rewards
flattering
them
great, it
or at
be hard
not to.
"Yes, I
want
students"
will corrupt
my
will seem
justified,
least excused, is
soon
by
to
survive."
It is
already true that some teachers go to students about to
badmouth
them on the evaluations and

groups of students will
tions,"
beg
them not to. The time
blackmail young teachers, threatening

grades
min on
coming when "evalua
will
if they don't get the be impossible and
they
will
want or other
things. Then
teaching
"teaching"
be intolerable
as
without self-deception.
"To do this deed, I
must not
know
myself,"
Macbeth
says. college
The
reversal of
the
relation of
teacher and student

regime.
in the American
are now ran
is
a consequence of a revolution mercial
in the
Colleges
like
com
corporations,
tomers through advertising, and
leges
are
ran
with employees, seeking cus diverse products and services. Col offering like these corporations because they think of themselves as with a and a
CEO
board,
commercial corporations. rulers of sumers
Education is
now understood
"students"
to be a business. The
and their parents con
the present-day
University
consider
to be lured
and
by
smooth words and
images;
the
relation
is contractual,
as
between buyer
relation of
seller,
an exchange relation of
equals,
not
convenantal, a
unequals,
measured
by
a standard above
both, truth,
service, the
virtue,
or wis
dom. Parents from

call
uct.
and students
have
paid
for
product, namely
a good transcript good
a prestigious school and

"wellness,"
have
also paid or
for
feeling,
the
it
"self-esteem,"
"satisfaction,"
or
that goes with this prod
Thus the
as a
mlers of
this
institution
conceive
it to be their
duty
to
pressure
teachers,
as a
large department
store would
its
clerks or a restaurant might

of
its
waitresses, to please the customer. Twenty-five years
thinking
of education
business has
rendered
the graduates of colleges so unskilled,
for
example
in writing, that even businesses, who must hire them, are It used to be that the real corporation of the University first
universities were a guild of even when gan to reside
now alarmed. was
the
faculty. The
the legal corporation be teachers; in nonresident, nonteaching trustees, the faculty still governed the
Souls Without
campus,
set
Longing
453
the standards, and chose the curriculum. Now

mere
most
teachers at the them part

abound: critics
University
have become
employees,
an
increasing
Inroads
number of
time, adjunct,
of
or apprentice
(graduate
students).
upon
tenure
ten-year reviews, merit raises, plus the device of withholding raises
from
the administration; "dead
wood"
man; in ten years the forever tenure still exists, the the things
oak
forest
is the excuse, despotism the ready woods of tenure will be gone. Even where Sometimes they can regain some of labor union, but not the vital center;
faculty
does
not rule. a
they lost
a
of
as a guild
by forming
fringe benefits,
institution,
better dental policy, yes, but not the duties of governing the determining what knowledge is most worth teaching, and of
choosing who is admitted to studies. Few faculties have Senates with sufficient legislative powers; some do not have their own moderator; very, very few elect their own Dean of Faculty. As someone surveying the course of the aristocracy in France from Louis XIV to the Revolution said, "Aristocracies
go
from ful
filling duties,
The
chosen since
to
having
privileges, to clinging to
vanities."
the top, too. Now University presidents are seldom from the faculty, or if they are, it is no loss to students. It is a long time knowledge in a college president counted, in the public world, in his or
change
is
evident at
her selection, or with the board; many presidents would not be qualified to teach in any department in the institution they preside over; most college presi dents today not only do not teach, as some once did a generation but
ago,42
cannot
be imagined in
classroom; few
alone
write
books,
are
those
they do
write sel
dom deserve reading, let books, let alone rereaders
rereading; many
probably
not readers of
of great ones.
Currently
and
the only college presidents I
know
of whose speeches on education
matter, are John
Silber, George Roche,

Deans
whom you
Ron McArthur, Peter Diamondopoulos,

could talk to about
John
Agresto.43
teaching
are as
few.44
I had the
good
fortune to teach in
one of
these colleges in the old style, one
founded serving
by
as
rereaders of great
books. While
and
leading
the
University
of
Dallas,
hus
dual-presidents, Dr. Louise

critic and
Dr. Donald
Cowan,
wife and
band, literary
physicist, taught full
and much else.
It
was a
time, Russian Novel and Physics, Platonic founding, with the best teachers the rulers.
From nothing in the early sixties, this small university rose to the second forty in America, according to Barron's rough Guide. In tmth, it was better than its SAT profile; at Dartmouth the best students Dallas, the best students were looked up to,
said
they felt
envy,
a pause
out of and
place;
at
without
in turn they
looked
student
out
for the
others.
Once in
class,
during
in the
inquiry,
one
thinking."
spoke for the rest, "Janet, we see you are thinking, tell us what you are Students used to ask for extra classes and hold more themselves. All
this
was achieved
Harvard,
and others were
by keeping the language requirement, which busy dropping, and by instituting a

"diversifying"
my
alma
mater,
core curriculum
for the first two years, while Harvard was Good students felt they had discovered the
General Education.
news to
place
for them, told the
454
Interpretation
their younger
brothers,
sisters,
and
friends,
and
to all visitors. Grateful recent
graduates, running admissions,

selves."
were given one
maxim, "Find people like your

scholarships
competitive examination
reached
for full four-year

deliberated
based
on
merit
only 1981 the freshman

other,
others;
class
and
the
faculty
on whom
to admit.
By
had
swelled
to 324. There teachers talked
happily
with
each
about their
dents. At
a good school that
teaching, about their discoveries, and about their stu is what teachers talk about. At a declining school,
place,"
they
talk about "the state of the

of
and when
the decline is perfected,
they
talk only
fringe
benefits.45
There
scribed,
were once quite a

and with
few
colleges
in the West like the
one
I have de
its virtue; I benefited from three, Harvard, many and Yale. At the General Education Program, the Tutorials, Oxford, Harvard, and the Residential House system, where you could dine regularly with your
parts of
Tutor,
stifled
often
just
listening
to him and his
friends talk, there,

a
provided a
without which
the larger classes and Departmentalized curriculum might

returned
conviviality have
inquiry. When I
to lecture
few
years
after
1968, I
noticed, sitting once again in the Adams House dining hall, that there were no tutors and students dining together. When I contrasted this with my experience,
my
student
sign
telling
The
The
hosts remarked, "You were here in those of decline in a community devoted to inquiry has destroyed these
of mission
years."
I know
of no more
and
teaching
that the
decline in
conversation. colleges
cause of the revolution that
is intellectual.
statements of purpose and
declarations
that once stood above
the college, measuring its activities as a standard and animating all, students
and teachers, as Where once the
"Virtue,"
goal,
are now written
by
the public relations department.

"Science," "Knowledge"
college seals said
"Truth,"
"Light,"
"God,"
and
tion,"
they
"Wellness,"
will soon read

"Openness."
"Self-esteem,"
"Satisfac
"Concern,"
"Affirmation,"
and
The
old mottoes encouraged
everyone
journey
the
to know the
in the University, faculty and students alike, to set out on the long tmth, form yourself according to it, and shun error. Now
to everyone who will give up those aspira
motto give
"Openness,"
mottoes promise satisfaction
tions, and, although they bear the new will not look kindly on those who do not bind
one to.
says
these universities
up the standards those aspirations

about
Although Mr. Bloom

customs,
very little in Part Three

the compromises, the
the changes in
that
habits,
rules, the
frauds,
daily indignities,
have sprang up in the universities revolutionized since he first taught in them, none of them can be unknown to him. He who strikes the roots knows where
most of the
branches
are.
Retail
corruption
is
not
the same as wholesale nihil

of
ism, but it is mightily

are now awash
universities Mr. Bloom speaks by in the indifference to important truth that calls itself As Bloom maintains, is a great emptiness. It is a sham virtue; inquiring man will be tolerant, not open. The difference is in the character encouraged
"openness"
it. The
"openness."
an
of
the soul, its purposes. The empty relativist says "I am
open"
because he does
Souls Without
not
Longing
455
does
not
believe there is truth, does not want to take the trouble to find it, want to be measured by it. The inquiring soul is tolerant, because
and
knowing
favorite
that
he is
not
wise,
he
wants
to encounter the best critique of his
conclusions.
If he does
not
he does
"There is Homer
not
have
wisdom
find it, he will try to invent it. His perception that is not to be confused with the Relativist's claim
one might acknowledge that and
none."
Just because
it is hard to decide
and
between the
and
Nietzsche, Shakespeare, Rembrandt and van Gogh, does

claims of
all of search
say, Plato
Buddhism
Christianity,
not mean one must
declare it impossible to decide between

comic
them and the claims of Thor
books. The fact that the
for the
most elevated and and mind
fundamental
truths
is long, that many
of our superiors
in heart
do
not agree with our
each other about their selves or
findings, does
not excuse us either
from searching
acknowledging the
all
bounty
of
truths in front of us.
The Relativist says, "We know

are
all
the truths men
have
ever
held
self-evident
all
equally untrue,
things
they have
a
ever valued are
equally valueless,
and
unstirring."
the standard equally unmeasuring,

content with assert
and all
the purposes equally
If
that, they
giving
call
it
virtue, namely openness,
if cunning, they
their
it to
avoid
reasons
for their desires
and
hearing
criticisms of
More passionate, the Nihilist "says of the world as it is, that it better were not, and with regard to the world as it should be, that it does not and cannot If such a nihilist should reflect on his pleasure in sheer think
ambitions.
exist."46
ing, he
would
lose his
passion
and a
become
Epicurean. And if he
should
world make
prolong his rage, he would become as it is were better not, the world
Militant Nihilist, and declare, "The as it best could be is not, and I will
world."
both
so.
will
destroy
the world and the tme

students could
Mr. Bloom's
students might
"nice"
turn nasty quickly. These open-minded to despise reason, them

on
well, taught
by
misologists
violent,
and
destructive. Then
we might see
become fierce, the campuses of America

go."
dress for combat, start marching, and chant "Logos must denial of the mind that is taking over the University and the
of
Between the
militant
ignorance
it that the Skinheads live, there is a link of self-hatred. For a man to despise reason, to rant against logos, is to hate himself. Whether you understand it as Paris did in the thirteenth century, as the Enlightenment re-understood it later, or as Allan Bloom experienced it as an eager freshman at Chicago in the middle
of our
son
century
and
however it
was
always,
ruled
the
University
is the institution
being human, diluted by unrea by reason, its ways, its habits, its
purposes.
solitude, its conviviality, its standards, and its of the West, the University is the inheritance
not want to
Although the Where
creation
men
of man as man.
do
be men,
where
they despise
reason, it
with
cannot survive.
The Nastiest
Teachers
the
might soon
fill the Last Students
the spirit of revenge, and close
University.47
Openness is the
virtue of
the Last
Man,
and
Deconstruction
the philosophy of
annihilate
the Ugliest Man.
They
may
soon rale
the world, in order to
it.
striking thesis in this
part of
The
most
Bloom's book foresees this
calamity.
456
Interpretation
to Mr.
According
umphed
encouraged
Bloom,
"openness"
the sham
emanate
and a
real
Will that has tri

of
in the
University
Heidegger
from
likely
vulgarization
Nietzsche
the
by
and advanced
by
Derrida. Heidegger's
support of
Nazi In
movement at
Freiburg
in 1933 is
analogous
to events at Cornell in 1969.
both;
the reason of those in authority at the
will of
the least reasonable outside it and in it. If the

since
University was replaced by daily corruption of
the the
University
was a power
bad novel, and the change of vote at Cornell farce, then Heidegger's Rectoral address's heiling of Nazi and student was a tragedy. Put the tenured intellectuals of today together with the
1968
reads
like
images
on
MTV
and set
it to rap
music and you can see
the Nazi
past as our
future.48
Unfortunately
the
reviews of
this
thesis, but slenderly
book, has only

praised
gained evidence since.
Bloom's book it
by University
"Read
it,"
supported and casually advanced in There is, first of all, the tone of the teachers. The first set of reviews, by which was sensible.
journalists,
criticism
and said
One
expected the
later, from the academics; one wanted it, but it never arrived. Vilification, insinuation, name-calling, strong reassertions of conviction, ex pressions of distaste, bogus expressions of proximity ('Although Bloom was
to come
from a former C + student), pretentious my teacher, I have to say comparisons with Aristotle ('Although Allan is my friend, I must choose
. .
truth.'), exclamations of horror, and gobs of ill disguised envy (Bloom might well be forgiven for sighing, "You never know who your friends are until you're up and in.") in the academic reviews there has been everything but
criticism; the best have been the
the
curricular changes at answers
to the vilifiers and
detractors.49
Second,
in
Stanford,
got
where a great
books led
course was curtailed
face
of
the current rages, summarized in the chant in the streets,

go,"
"Hey, hey,
One
ho, ho, Western Culture's

may doubt
to
whether changes supported and such chants

of
by a mob by marches
by
Jesse
Jackson.50
(and the threats they implic
itly
age
contain)
the spirit
(and the hatred they express) are likely to encour high inquiry. A paper by two good young teachers in the old
APSA
program read at the some of their
(S.F.)
suggests
that the public

own
discussion
convinced
"minority"
students to
disavow their
happy
experiences of
the program.
Third, there is the corollary story of the Nazi past of a leading deconstractionist, Paul de Man, and the apologetic interpretations his fellow deconstructionists, especially their leader Jacques Derrida, have offered of their
friend's Nazi
public,
and account of the collaboration and subsequent
career-long deception
appears
of
students,
friends.51
Unnamed, Professor de Man already
in Bloom's
Cornell revolution. All of this tends to support Bloom's conten that, morally and politically speaking, there is very little to distinguish the German Professoriat's collaboration in the destruction of the University by the Nazis and the American Professoriat's collaboration in the destruction of the
tion
University by
what
student
desires
and radical
hatreds. It
will
be
interesting
to see
Mr. Bloom
writes about all
that has
followed his book.
Souls Without
Intellectual clarity
about the war of our times
Longing
457
is indispensable. It is impor
war
tant to know that what you are in
is
war, to know what that
to recognize your enemies, but to win you must also associate with
warriors.
is about, and fellow

will
"When bad
men
combine, the
good must
associate;
else
they
fall,
one
by
one,
an unpitied sacrifice
in
straggle"
a contemptible
(Burke).52
VII. OUR LAST BEST HOPE, MAYBE
The single,
that
explicit recommendation
in the
whole of
Mr. Bloom's book is
University
students
be
allowed
to read some great books. If
heeded, by
branches,
books
those who rule the universities, this will make a decisive difference. Plant the
good seed and you will
have the
good tree soon
enough, roots, trunk,
and
leaves. Students far
who come
to enjoy the life of
inquiry
in
a great
class will meet great
greater
teachers than even Mr. Bloom. In the authors of the

encourage some
books, they will find the teachers who not only Tmth, respect for Nature, and reverence for God, but in
sure
desire for
mea
important
satisfy the soul's longing for truth. It is impossible to imagine such a great books curriculum without the Bible, War and Peace, and Thomas Aquinas, as well as Mr. Bloom's favorites, Plato, Rousseau, and Nietzsche. The fact that
such programs always and
have
great
books that disagree
with each
other,
not
heat
trivially, but profoundly and reasonably, means that reason is the edly soul the hero, and insight the reward. the umpire, It is also hard to imagine it without some attention to the Framers of Amer
ica, to their just Declaration, their Rededicator, Lincoln. Mr. Bloom

America. For Americans
is because it is founded
great
on
well-built
Constitution,
and to the
great
understands
books
are required
"nature"
something important about reading. Our nation is what it
truth,
on
and on
"nature's
God,"
as
the
Declaration declares; our principles are, in principle, the principles of man as man, everywhere he is to be found. Hence, the appeal to their self-evidence in
our
Declaration,
the
assumption of
them in our
Constitution,
been
the Civil War
fought for
their rededication,
and
the national prosperity that flowed from
them. All four
are unprecedented.
There had
never
a rebellion
that ap
pealed to nature and nature's
god; there had
never
been
a written constitution
founded
choice
on nature and reason; never such protection of public

our
deliberation
and
in worship (as in
great
First Amendment),
and never a civil war
dedicated
to
a proposition of natural
right.53
Do the
books have
consequences?
You bet. Until the inquiries
of
Soc
rates could
be
preserved
in writing
by Plato,
there could be no somewhat secure
possession of
the
discovery
of political
philosophy, the
understood
discovery
that human
the
things are best
ordered and
same and everywhere available
by sufficiently to the human mind, not

intellect
and
a power everywhere
by
it
convention,
and not
by
claimed
revelation,
but
by
the nature
arises
from
and
from
458
which
Interpretation
it takes its light. One books
of
long
consequence of this and
discovery,
preserved
in
of
the
great
Plato, Aristotle, Thomas,

that the
war of
others, is the United States
America. Nietzsche
the
rule of said
the
next
century,
our
century,
would
be for in
the planet, and so it has been. Our World Wars and
"peaces"
our
between
want
are part of one
to win? What Imperial
later, it would have Germany, race and will, had nothing in them that should or might appeal to impartial others. Likewise, Imperial Japan, which already had the "Ein Volk, found.54 None of these had an idea worth Hitler hoped to ein Reich, ein
Fiihrer"
long war to see who shall rule the world. Who do we Germany did to Belgium at first and to all shipping done to the world, had it won. The ideas espoused by Nazi
fighting
ideas its idea
for
or
surrendering to.
Only
three polities in this century have
had
with
upon which
the rale of the world might be based: the British self-government, the Soviet
of
Empire,
of civilization and
Empire,
with
its idea
of
future freedom, and the United States British Empire has disappeared, in no
arguments
America,
with
its Declaration. The
small part
because England listened to
that the colonies
Empire
seems to
be
ready to practice its ideas. Lately the Soviet disappearing because Communists themselves have con
were
cluded that the tyrannies
inherent in the idea
of socialism neither advance
hu
manity toward future contentedness, nor compensate for present Gulag misery. That leaves the United States, the one nation on earth, formed by an idea, that,
either through
worthy?
imitation
or
by
federal incorporation,
might rale
the world. Is it
The idea
of
America is
announced
in the Declaration, framed in the Consti
in the Civil War, and hearkened to since. If you compare the United States with ancient Athens or Renaissance Florence, let alone the
tution,
best
rededicated
by Christ, you may well find it inferior in splendor, nobility and beauty, and in goodness, but not, I think, without some of each. If you compare the United States with the ancient
regime
discussed
by
the ancient philosophers or
Rome States
or
Sparta,
its
you will
find it less
stable and
without some chance to match them.

with
less enduring, but not, I think, However, if you compare the United
you must grant
chief
rivals in this century,
that it has been the
cause of
decent,
or more
decent,
government everywhere.
And that
means
that
its departure from its idea, of nature and nature's god, might render the world miserable. It would be truly terrible if at the time that Communism loses the Cold War,
not so
does the West,

pity,
the
practices of socialist
and
only threatened
by
by being conquered by the idea of the will, by the by the idea of race and nation. Today the West is end of history and the Last Man, but by the continu
it.
of
ation of
history
need of
and
the militant Nihilist who aims to write
Thus
most
America,
the leader
in
philosophy.55
West, is of all the nations on earth today the Our nation is the only one founded on abstract,
the
one where one
universal
principles; it is the only
becomes
a citizen
by learning
in the
principles.
Those
principles
appeal
to reason and
they
require reason
Souls Without
citizenry.
Longing
459
Nations
are
destroyed from
within
by
whatever
destroys their founda
tion;
ours
being
soul's
thirst for
in Truth, in Nature and in Nature's God, whatever destroys the truth, its respect for nature, and its reverence for God, will
the consequences of not
destroy
it. In
describing
thirsting for
the
truth,
not
respecting nature, and not revering God, Allan Bloom has served students, parents, and his fellow teachers well, and by so doing, he has also served
America
well.
How Higher Education has impoverished the

and
souls of
its
stu
dents, hindered its best teachers, title for Mr. Bloom's book.
The
souls
thereby
asks
endangered
the West is another
Closing
of the American Mind
its
readers whether
there can
long
be
without
longing, families
without
homes, homes
without
reverence,
teachers without a
universities. sakes
teaching, universities without reason, and a nation without The answer is as evident to the mind, as the stakes are high, the
of
noble, and the response
American
minds as yet uncertain.
In hardback
the book has been bought
by
parents,
who
like
it,
mostly, and
by University
will
teachers,
who
detest it,
mostly.
Now that it is in paperback, it
be bought
by
young people, the children
of
the parents and the students of the teachers.
NOTES
1. Lynn V. Cheney's National Endowment
Report, American Memory,
notes
that, "Between
1960
and
1984,
while
the
number of
teachers
grew
by
25)
57
percent and
the number
of principals and
supervisors
of
by
79 percent, the
was
number of other
staffers, from curriculum specialists to supervisors

and
up by 1960 the American high

of the same
instruction,
almost
500 has
percent"
(p.
concludes,
not
unreasonably, that since
school
ceased
to think
Evidence
rise in
non-teachers at the
teaching matters of substance its mission. University, reported in the Chronicle of Higher
Education (28 March 1990) argue the same abandonment of teaching and may account for the rise in the cost of colleges, far above inflation; between 1975 and 1985, the number of non-teachers
employed
by
colleges and universities rose
41.6 percent,
while
teachers rose
5.9 percent;
Bloom's
by
1985
teachers
up only a third of all those employed. 2. Judging from reviews, even those favorable to the book do
made
not agree with
criticism
public
of rock
music, and, their
judging from
conversations, even friends have not been
persuaded.
No
meltdown of and after
electric guitars and
Stones
records
by
former Bloom
students
has been reported,

questions
Drummer,"
praising the book, William Bennett continued, I am told, to answer rock trivia in his limousine on the way to the Department of Education. My essay, "A Different
gives support and offers one criticism: the
3. That the
cisco:
order of topics
savagery of rock has more to do with thumos than eros. in John Senior's The Restoration of Christian Culture (San Fran
Ignatius Press, 1983) is like Bloom's allows the reader to marvel at the agreement of reason In the Integrated Humanities Program that flourished as the Pearson College at Kansas State (in Lawrence) under the founding supervision of Mr. Senior, Mr. Dennis Quinn, and education as today's orphans need. There others, we have a model of such an elementary
and revelation.
"musical"
legible, pleasing script, and waltz gracefully, along with reading Dante and Plutarch and Plato. Plato would approve. movements on campus hinder 4. Although Bloom has much to say about how various souls in longing, he says little about the homosexual rights movement, I suppose because his
the students learned to read aloud, write
'rights'
criticisms of the others cover

your
it;
while you are
thinking
about your
rights, it
will
be hard to
recall
duties, for
example
to study, if
pleasures
you are a student.
are
thinking
about
petty
like sex,
you will
To immoralist Gide, Bloom says: while you not be sublime; for that you have to sublimate
460
Interpretation
on feminism, mutatis mutandis on homosexuality, Maieutics, No. 2: Winter 1981, pp. 27-42. of the plight of see
(p. 232). For Nietzsche's thoughts
"Nature,
Walter
Woman,
Nietzsche,"
and
5. The best treatment I know

people and
young people,
orphaned or
not, is
by
Trobisch, Living With Unfulfilled Desires

the answers
(Madison:
Intervarsity, 1979);
by
Mr.
and
Mrs. Trobisch
are also available
letters from young in the recent Complete Works

these
Intervarsity, 1987). For both advice to the home-schooling family and a defense of the family, see the works of Mary Pride, including The Way Home, All the Way Home, The Big Book Industry. of Home Learning, Schoolproof, and the warning, The Child Abuse 6. See Shakespeare's Politics (New York: Basic Books, 1964); the book includes an essay by
(Madison:
Harry
V. Jaffa
on
King Lear
our
with suitable acknowledgement on
the title page and a shared
dedica West
tion "To
Leo Strauss
teacher.''
7. See Bloom's essay on Richard II in Shakespeare (Durham: Caroline Academic Press, 1981), pp. 51-62. 8. See the
middle of
as
Political Thinker
ed.
Alvis
and
"Nature
and
the
Order
of
Rank
Nietzsche),"
(according
to
listed below.
different stance, for when Bloom writes of Plato and Rousseau, you know he has learned from them, and when he writes of Shakespeare, you know he has learned from Plato
9. If
a somewhat
and
from Machiavelli.
10. "Nietzsche
on
Flaubert
and
the Powerlessness of
his
Art,"
Centennial Review, II (3): Sum
mer
1976,
pp.
309-13.
seems
on
11. In his life Strauss

who upon
reading Strauss
ask
to have found only one exception to this rule: Willmore Kendall, and sought Locke dismissed his own account as a 'trivial fond
record'
Strauss's friendship.
12. I
13.
Plato's forgiveness that it is
not more
indebted.
to his Philosophie
und
See, for example, footnote 2 Schocken Verlag, 1935).

14. Or
as
sion."
to the
"Introduction"
Gesetz (Berlin:
a good
my friend Roger Masters
once
suggested, "What this country
needs
is
Depres
15. Greek Mathematical Thought
and the
Origin of Algebra trans. Eva T. H. Brann (M. I. T.
Press, 1968) and the work of Kurt Riezler; Michael B. Foster; C. S. Lewis; Charles De Koninick; Vincent Smith; Adolph Portmann; Stanley Jaki; Hans Jonas; and lately David Lachterman, together with the on-going preservation of the mathematical tradition at St. John's College, these fifty and
more years.
16. See "Leo Strauss: Three Quarrels, Three Questions, One in The Crisis of Liberal Democracy: A Straussian Perspective [Corrected Edition], eds. Kenneth L. Deutsch & Walter Soffer (Albany: State University Press of New York, 1987), pp. 17-28; the uncorrected edition has
about
Life,"
1200
errors.
Death?"
17. See "Would Human Life Be Better Without 321-38.

18. The
current alliance of the
Soundings, LXIII (3): Fall 1980,

need not
pp.
lesbians
one
and
homosexuals
last;
while
the womb is still
needed, the lesbians need far less from

order
to propagate those
they
can raise
male, than the homosexuals need from many women, in up into their own unkind. On the complex connections
the
between the
narrative
modern scientific project and
University,
wonderful
see
C. S.
Lewis'
Abolition of Man
the snug
and
its
counterpart, That Hideous

evil and
Strength,
for its
perception of
dovetailing
between little
19.
of the
big,
as
academic manners and affirmed
Admitting
rights
of
that,
Washington rights
and
(in
devilish designs, small cogs and big wheels. 1783), America is built on a new understanding
man,
or what
hence
on a new relation of
And if they did not, were when Americans think back to their foundation in the
orous
calls a new science of politics (Federalist, 9), and duties, did the Founders perceive the knavishness of Locke? they his fools, or did they simply take the good and ignore the evil? And state of nature,
Publius Hamilton
do they become
poor and
tim
Hobbeses, or cautious cupidinous Lockes, or, as often, brave, virtuous Virginians Rangers, ready to protect life and property from designing Machiavels?
20. The
"Superman"
Lone
usual subsequent
"Overman"
or
translate Nietzsche's Ubermensch poorly, I think; the

expunged
former because the
Comic Book has
its nobility; the latter because it
sounds
man so
high-minded,
empty, and static. Since the Ubermensch is over, above, and beyond man,
Souls Without
far, only by being
"passing"
Longing
and
461
elided
one who ever surpasses
himself, I
prefer
the word
"surpassing"; it
its
version
praise
it
bears,"
belong to "passing
the
treasury
and
fair,"
Shakespearsean English: "much surpassing the common (Winter's Tale, 3.1.2; Romeo and Juliet, "passing
of
strange"
.1.
234;
.
Othello, 1.3.160).
Ear?"
21
"What Does Zarathustra Whisper In Life's
Nietzsche Studien, Band XVII: 1988,

Rank,"
pp.
179-94.
22. On the ladder, see my "Nature and the Order of 1988 pp. 147-65; and my attempt at well-tempered, "Nietzsche 23. Much
shows more could
Journal of Value Inquiry, XXII;

the
Consequences."
and
be
said about the abuse of
Nietzsche
by
the Left. The
grossness of
it
in its
left
use of the nonbook after
materials
Will to Power, a fraud which Nietzsche's sister published from he disappeared into madness, materials some of which he asked the landlord at
and the rest of which
Sils Maria to
a
destroy
he had
not the
leisure
either
to
destroy
or to
perfect, into
beautiful order, a book, as he did everything else he published. The fraud is well known, ignored by the Leftists Bloom mentions, and acquiesced to by many North American Nietzsche scholars.
(See Mazzino Montinari, "Nietzsches Nachlass von 1885 bis 1888 oder Textkritik und Wille zur in his Nietzsche Lesen [Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1982].) The Leftist abuse of
Macht"
Nietzsche
Feminist;
effectually in Jacques Derrida's subtle metamorphosis of Nietzsche into a his Spurs (cf. my "Woman, Nietzsche, and Maieutics; Winter, 1981, pp. 27-42). The East Germans and Soviets must be smiling; although two of the three editors of the
appears most
Nature,"
see
Critical Edition
cannot
are
East Germans,
as
follows from their
possession of who
the Nachlass at
call
Weimar,
you
buy
their Critical Edition in East Germany.
Nietzsche,
did
himself dynamite, is for
the West.
24. See Strauss, "The Three Waves of in Political Philosophy: Ten Essays by Leo Strauss edited by Hilail Gildin (Detroit: Wayne State, 1989), pp. 81-98. In his book Bloom mentions Strauss once by name and quotes from him at least three other times (pp. 227, 264, 292);
perhaps
without a
Modernity,"
he
wanted to protect a
Strauss from
approval; it
attack or perhaps
he
wanted
to "fight
his
battles"
own
claiming
mean
dead
man's
is,
after
all, not easy to express the gratitude you feel to
teacher without at the same time seeming to claim him as your
big
backer. However, Bloom's
choice
did
he
would not
Strauss,
of
and
that his account of

appreciation
innocent readers, especially young students, to Chicago lacks its center. Knowing readers will, of course, be aware
be
able to guide
the
discerning
Bloom
elsewhere expresses
for his teacher.

would survive world war
25. Not that

their mountain
we need accept
the premise of this fear: that no one

who can protect
carried on with nuclear weapons.
fastnesses,
eyes,
will
Perhaps the Swiss, inherit the earth.
95
a
percent of their people
in
26. As
replied,
youngster, I once asked Mr.

an elevated
Strauss, "So, is Heidegger

and a near-whistle
philosopher?"
Swiftly
he
with raised
hand,
"Wheew."
27. In
a course at
the New School in the mid forties entitled "Reason and
Revelation"
(accor
ding
to Mr. Richard Kennington).
28. Cf. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 301. 29. Plato's Democratic Man and Nietzsche's Last Man differ in
could exist and even thrive
another
way; while
Socrates
in
regime
made
in the image
of
the former (such as

of the
Athens),
the Last
Nietzsche
would of
find it excruciating to
exist
in
a regime made
in the image
latter (thus the
highest test
the philosopher, the
eternal return of
the same,
includes the
eternal return of
Man). The democratic man, or at least his American version, as Mr. Harvey C. Mansfield, Jr., pointed out in his defense of Bloom, is good natured; when he says democracy is good, he ac
knowledges
a standard of goodness above also one of
democracy.
only three students of Mr. Strauss, that I know of, to propose a great books program to the college he was teaching at (Hilail Gildin is the other). He is also the only one whose student saved an extant great books program (Thomas Pangle, the Directed Studies Program 30. He is
at
Yale, in
which
he had first
met
Bloom). The only

ought
student of
Mr. Strauss I know
of
who,
having
at
considered
the
regime a
University
to
have,
proposed
one, is Mr. Leo Paul S. de
Alvarez,
the
Dallas; nor did he fail to conspire to defend an already pretty good one. 31. When he did, I let him go on and on, finally asked him "So what you are saying is
University
high
of
you
prefer
school and you
intend to
return
to
it?"
and saw
him
get
the point. To Mr. Do-you-
462
Interpretation
another and
know-who-I am, who had burst in the door, interrupting a conference with suggested that for the time being he look in his shirt or jacket for a name tag,
call
student, I
we could
later
the police to see if
they had
Socrates
a picture of
would never
him.
teach
32. When he
himself from the
says
same
in
University, Bloom
include
what
shows
that he looks at
Socratic
vantage
point,
which must
Socrates
would call
lectur
ing
and
lecturers. Even if Socrates

the
accepted a
rogation at
University, he
he has
no
would never
Chair in intellectual midwifery and wiseman-interlecture. Lectures, long speeches, are for sophists.
about the
33. Although Mr. Bloom his tone

suggests
says
he is hopeful
University, he
gives no reason
to
be,
and
expressed the same view
hope. Mr. Jacques Barzun, once the Provost more explicitly, in "Scholarship Versus
of
Columbia University, The Atlantic
Culture,"
Monthly
for November, 1984, saying that for the foreseeable future the University is over with as a home of the life of the mind, as also did his friend, Lionel Trilling, in the American Scholar (Winter, 1975); discussing a great books program I and some friends proposed at Dartmouth (and saw instituted at Queens College,
the chance of
by
teaching in such a Review, Vol X (15) 14 Feb. 1990,

34. Bloom
commerce names
my friend Hilail Gildin), Mr. Trilling said to me, "Everything I am, I owe to The Dartmouth See "Two Roads Diverged in a
program."
Wood,"
pp.
7-9.
and the
could now
the
MBA degree
Economics
named
major as
the instruments
by
which
diverted the University, and he instrument by which the leftist media is
have
loss
the
Student Life Office from its
as the
leading
Of the
diverting
of
the
University
mission.
University's financial
almost
aim of
pact with government and
nothing,
except
to
imply
it
was
in the
to
cards once
its thoughtful independence, Bloom says we accepted the Baconian Enlightenment True enough, but
no reason not
raised
knowledge for the

revolutionary
sake of power
relieve man's estate.
to
notice the
character of
this change. The old notion was that the
University
up
learned men, possibly statesmen, that

notion was that natural
soon
often encourage the moral and public virtues, and that
the
University Kennedy
should
requiring the virtues, intellectual and private, they might that would do the country good; the new do projects for Society, paid for by the Government, first in
by
science, later in everything else. That the Universities contracted

under of
with
the
Government,
an undeclared
dreamed
ruling it,
and
then provided arms research
during
war,
somewhat
justified the later
war protesters
in their decision to
protest on campus rather
than in
war
the polity.
Somewhat be
called can
kicking
do
well
the crutch supporting you (and
keeping
One
you
exempt
from
service)
cannot
the deed of the
free,
the
brave,
or the proud.
more than
souls,
by forgetting
their deeds and

or
living
if nations, any the unexamined life. Bloom

wonders
on campus
barely
tainly
grade
mentions
the Vietnam
War, its justice
injustice,
and
its consequence;
was
it
cer
contributed
to the corruption of standards every time, which
often, a teacher changed a

enough
to
keep
a student exempt
from Selective Service. Perhaps Bloom felt he had knife for

all the
fronts to
fight on; then again, the

the
patient.
surgeon who will not go with the
malignancy
will not save
35. The only reviewer to question the accuracy of his account is Mr. George Anastaplo, but the basis of hearsay not available to any reader of his review, and not subsequently published,
on so
far
its
as
I know. In the Stone

tend as
collection there
is
one
account,
by
long
time publicist for

account. more
Cornell, but
refutations
a whole
to confirm
rather
than
deny
Bloom's
36. Even Blessed Isles College has its
characteristic
defects. The
nearly
great works are
the whole curriculum, the more actively the students need to acquire what
they have merely inher
ited, but
the less
curriculum, the
acquire their
more
likely they will be asked likely the college is
to.
Also,
the more
nearly
great works are the whole
to forget it needs good teachers to
help
the students
at great
inheritance. Both defects
show
up in the
comparative
slighting
of
writing
books
colleges.
convivial
The better the curriculum, the the conversation will be, but the more it
more shared the
studies, the
more coherent and
likely
If
it
will
vated and the exactness of mind

conscious
enforces attained.
you add to
be that writing will be not be culti that the inclination of all self-
minorities, especially if persecuted or contemned, to succumb to the spirit of
righteous
ness,
by identifying
the
formula for
best
and would say.
loss
these are
have a charity and the diminution of self-knowledge. No institution, not even the the best colleges is as worthy of love as the virtues themselves, a philosopher
themselves
with
the great standards
they
should still
look up to,
you
of
Souls Without
37. At the
unteachable
Longing
behavior
all
463
state school
in the West,
teacher of American Government

apologized
reported
to me, "That
heckler I
mentioned
has just
for
all
his
'Euthyphronic'
term,
but
also
suggested,
with medical
memorize
'doctor'
the Declaration of
backing, that Independence, as
an accident
four
years ago means students
the other
Honors
he simply cannot have all done. When the
turned out to
have
this peculiarly specific
higher degree in education, I suggested that he write up the case of disability for the New England Journal of Medicine. No matter, I just
a
discovered the
given
administration erased
Euthyphro from the

student of
class
list
a week
before the final
and
have
him
an
independent
study.
And this
doesn't
football."
even
play
you would
38. This despite the inflation in letters

the
recommendation; to read them

part
think this is
Golden Age. Despite this inflation 39. I believe Allan Bloom is

still
or so
in
because
with
of
it? He for their
delighted
the handout his students passed out at

studies. cared more
Cornell because it
souls
meant
they had
not
been distracted from their better era,
than his own
life.
a
40. For
another such
Lectures,
ment
and
victory at a better college in Addresses (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,

over."
see
Charles E. Garman, Letters,

the teacher who changed
1909); Garman is
President Calvin Coolidge's life; William James

to the pure teacher the
world
said of
this volume, "It should serve as encourage

1987-
41. Max O.
Hocutt, "De-Grading Student

John Kemeny, the
are more. of
Evaluations,''
Academic Questions (Winter:
88),
pp.
55-64.
of mathematician and once a
42. I think
President,
at
Dartmouth.
43. I hope there
Contrariwise, here is
way:
the way the president of my alma mater, Mr.
Derek Bok, talks: "Think than $90 a day. For that Hotel but does have
an athletic
it this
to go to Harvard
perhaps
University
does
amounts to
you get
something that
not compare with
paying a little less the Ritz-Carlton
give you reasonably nice accommodations; you get three meals a day thrown in, you facilities, you have concert halls, you have stages for your play productions, you have enormous library, and thrown in as an added bonus, you have a wonderful faculty and an
enormous value
array
of courses to take.
for
your money,
with
Conversation
the student
When you put it that way, I think you're getting quite a good ("A especially if you compare it to some other prices in the Derek Harvard Alumni Gazette, June, 1990, p. 9) When you put it that
Bok,"
economy."
way, I bet you don't convince the student

who was
does this
ard?")
answer
who longs for something considering applying to Las Vegas and Atlantic the question addressed to Mr. Bok: "Why does it
noble
to come to
Harvard,
or
City
as well as
Harvard. (Nor Harv
cost so much to attend
44. Donald Kagan, Yale University; Joseph Horn,
University
of
Texas
at
Austin; Tom Dillon,
Thomas Aquinas; Glenn Thurow, University of Dallas; Eva Brann, St. John's (Annapolis), and Robert L. Spaeth; see, for example, the latter's Exhortations on Liberal Education (Collegeville,
Minn.: Saint John's University, 1988). Again, I hope there are more and recall with gratitude the first I met, James Patrick. For a comparison with a generation ago, read Jacques Barzun's Teacher in America (1944; 1981 reprint Liberty Press), a book filled with practical wisdom about teaching. Imagine him 45. Alas,
office,
the
as your
dean. in Republic VIH, things declined;

one revolution ousted
almost as
the founders from
a second of
they
and others protested

and
looseness
democracy
resigning their teaching posts, and a third, combining the harshness of tyranny, institutionalized mediocrity. A Self Study
by
stirred always
up Calumny; safer to look
filling
at the
the files
it became Truth;
of
and
Truth then In five
pronounced sentence:
"It is
high in the light just
low."
the
years
the decline that elsewhere
took twenty-five
courageous and
content
or more was accomplished. moderate and
Plato
suggests
the tyrant goes for the wise and the
leaves the
alone
(567c:
"just"
in the lowest sense, those
who are
if their money is not devalued), and so it was that the students resisted far more than the faculty. Both voted with their feet. Yet sometimes the good can disclose more of its nature under going decline, like a peg and trunnel barn standing up to the deconstruction of two hard-hats on a
bulldozer. As they tore this Old Dixie down, you got to see the intelligence designers. 46. Nietzsche, in his Nachlass, Musarion Ausgabe, XIX, 79. 47. For Nietzsche's
account of
of
its
great-hearted
the
Nastiest Man (der hafilichste Mensch)
see
Zarathustra IV.
464
Interpretation
who attended
48. Those
the Madison Center Conference in October of 1989 got a preview, in
lecture, done in rap rhythm; now Second Vice President of the Modern Language Association, Professor Baker will one day deliver its Presidential address. 49. The best, to my mind, are by Mr. Harvey C. Mansfield Jr., answering Rorty and instruct ing Nussbaum, and Mr. Werner Dannhauser, the best riposter in the business, answering every body; both and many more are to be found in a collection edited by Robert L. Stone, Essays on The
Professor Houston A. Baker Jr.'s
Closing
of the American Mind (Chicago: Chicago Review

one
who also
Press, 1989); Mr. Stone
tells
me
that the
best in his opinion,

publisher,
he commissioned, was cut from his collection by the insistence of the insisted on cuts in many others, particularly unfortunate since several snippets
not appear elsewhere make one want
from
essays
that did
to
read
them
whole.
The
collection
contains
Mr. Jaffa's challenging review. 50. At Stanford University, they still talk
march with were
of
the
day
several years ago when some a slogan
on a
the Rev. Jesse
Jackson,
came
up
with
for the
next generation.
500 students, The
students
minorities and women

go,"
got to
celebrating a new course at Stanford, one that would stress the contribution of to Western culture, and they chanted: "Hey, hey, ho, ho, Western culture's reads The New York Times of 19 January 1988. Agreed by all reports I've seen is that
curriculum were supported supported
the changes in the

as racist and petition.
by
arguments
sexist, that Jackson

a
the changes,
article
attacking the West and the course on it joined the marchers, and signed their
quotes
However,
want
later Washington Post

at culture.
(9
May 1988)
supporter of we
the old course, saying that
the
end of
the march Jackson said: "The
Prof. William Chace, a issue is not that
don't
Western
We're from the West. But
other cultures should
be
studied,"
quotation corroborated
by
an at-the-time-of-the-event
(1987)
news release
from the Stanford News

accounts,
after
one of which
Service, but not (Times Tribune)
mentioned
in the two
at-the-time-of-the-event newspaper
says the crowd also chanted

national
"Rainbow
Culture.'
Although
the Times report
the chant became
news, I
have
so
far been
unable
to discover any disavowal of the chant

presidential
by
Rev. Jackson. Is the
day
far
off when
another
American
candidate,
perhaps
smoother
Minister Farrakhan
virtues, nature,
or a relapsed and nature's
reason,
law,
Wizard Duke, will run on a platform that reviles the God that the West has tried to measure itself by?
of modern
51
Until 1968, Derrida

a
grew
was a
thoughtful student
philosophy, especially Husserl and the student

near-revolution
Heidegger, and France, Derrida

take his play the French
interesting
(if
inaccurate)
reader of
Plato;
after
in
playful, but as Gadamer has said, "He
seriously."
Indeed. The
mixture of
hate
and
Aron said, the French nation disappearance rang the bell and the Communists, who are rationalists, saw the students were nihil ists, happy to destroy deep into the night and with no plans to build anything the next day, or
Republic;
as
be very unhappy if we did not play in the students nearly brought down played hooky. Fortunately, de Gaulle's
would
perhaps
out of
those
they judged them not destructive heady, headless days, and to
enough to
want
be
able
to step in
after.
Derrida
seems
to come
would
to perpetuate
them, in
prose and on earth.
He
be very unhappy if we did not take his hatred of logos as 52. One such association is the National Association
reasonable. of
Scholars,
with
its journal, Academic
Questions, Alas, Mr. Bennett

lose
a college
withdrew
to seek other office and Mr. Bloom
in the
making?
Certainly
many
a student would on their

one of
followed suit. Did we have benefitted from the summer
courses
the Center planned, and their
influence
be
been important. Another Stronger Education

such as real at not
association might
the
home colleges, though gradual, could have better students, such as Students for a
out
UT-Austin, formed
to ask
individual teachers to look
for their interests,
textbooks, and to request administrations to stop degrading the degree. Or a reinvigorated Phi Beta Kappa, interested more in better conditions of study for its members (a good for all students) than in honors and ceremonies that serve study with the lips only. 53. See especially Harry V. Jaffa, Crisis of the House Divided and other writings,
books
including
(await
Founding as the Best Regime: the Bonding of Civil and Religious ing publication by the Claremont Institute); and also my "Nature and Nature's Essays, Vol. II, ed. Ralph Mclnemy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990).
54. See Karl Lowith's
and
and
"The American
Liberty"
God,"
Wethersfield
Foundation,"
"The Japanese
Mind,"
Nazi Germany,
since
eyewitness reports, "Japan's Westernization and Moral Social Research (1942-43). Still one hesitates to equate Imperial Japan the former, however racist and cruel, was an aristocracy and the latter,
Souls Without
with
Longing
465
regime
its death camps, was on the way to becoming a total socialism. Totalitarianism, the new brought forth by our century, seems to require militant atheism at its basis. Is it an accident that Soviet Russia, which achieved the totalitarianism Hitler aimed at, was militantly atheistical? Ours is the first century in which militant atheistical states have arisen and the two we've suffered are responsible for crimes greater in both magnitude and quality, than any in all previous centuries.
A lot
of
God's best images have

argument
suffered
from those trying to

a
murder
Him.
served, as the soul is, by inquiry, best arising from engagement with the tradition of great works of the mind and heart, see Eva T. H. Brann, Paradoxes of Education in a Republic (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979); her lucid observations and recommendations, which remind now of Miranda, now of Ariel, now of liberal-artist Prospero, are not, I think, diminished by her insufficient awareness of the Antonios whose spirit has invaded the University since 1968, if not that
55. For the best
America, being
Republic, is best
reflective
(or philosophic)
St. John's. If Bloom's

Aristotelian
or
view of
the academic scene is Platonic
or
Nietzschean
are
or a
mixture, hers is
Jeffersonian
and
or a mixture.
Her text
and
footnotes
from her reading
tips about neglected authors; I am most
generously loaded with gems grateful to have met Mulcaster.
Discussion
George
Anastaplo,
paper
The Constitution of 1787: A
Commentary
xviii
(Baltimore
and
London: The Johns Hopkins
+ 339 pp.,
$35.00,
$10.95
Timothy Fuller
Colorado College
This is
more and other
than just a
"commentary."
Anastaplo himself de
scribes it as "an exercise read not only the Constitution but anything (p. 61). It certainly involves close readings of the seven Articles of the Constitution of 1787, but it is perhaps more revealing to call it an essay evok
serious"
in how to
ing
"spirit"
the
stitution as a
ment.
Anglo-American constitutionalism, using the text of the Con moment of intense crystallization in a long civilizational develop
of gives us a
Anastaplo's text
broad
outline of what
most part
he
understands
the
spirit of the civilization to
details in the
extensive of
be, but for the notes to the book.
leaves
references
to the
A peculiarity
his
method
Constitutionalism,"
which
may be grasped in the chapter "Anglo-American forms an eccentric preface to his discussion of the
executive power
speare's
idea
of political rale as
in Article II, expounding, in too-brief generalities, Shake found in the English history plays. Why An interpolate
of
a
astaplo chooses to
lecture
on
Shakespeare into
the middle of
his
commentary,
instead
discussing
not,
at
in detail the debates
over executive power at of
the
Convention, in
of the
reader
the Federalist
figures The
1780s, is
may be
Papers, or in the correspondence first, altogether clear.
the major
satisfied with
the explanation that Anastaplo repeatedly

of as
cites the
Nations,
the Law of Public

of
Bible, Shakespeare, and the Common Law (as well as the Law Bodies, and English as the "language of liberty")
the
constitutional spirit as
equally revealing
these
are
the political, religious, social,
and moral experience of
eighteenth-century America.
of
Indeed, for Anastaplo,

the others.
all
inseparable
components
the Anglo-American tradition such that
any in Anastaplo's reading,

power,
and
one of the components
may
shed
light
on
any
of
Shakespeare,
exemplifies a republican
for
us to read
Shakespeare
faithfully
understanding is to gain the insight necessary

arguments on
of the executive
to fend off the

often
seductions of a
"regal
Presidency,"
the powers of which are
"extra-constitutional in
character"
(p. 110). But the

were not cast
Shake
about
speare would
be
more powerful about
if they
of
in
generalities such as:
"Much is
suggested
the nature
the judicial process and
hence
interpretation,
Spring 1991,
Vol. 18, No. 3
468
Interpretation
prerogatives
law"
judicial
rule of
in
what
is taken for
one
granted throughout the plays about

ultimate control
the
(p. 80). Or "At times, (p. 83). Can these be

"suspicions,"
suspects,
is
indicated"
called arguments at all?
by They are
the
people
not
definitive textual
"suggestions,"
explications of
Shakespeare,
entered the
and one cannot
how
and
the "taken for
granted"
certainly know exactly in a certain
reading of Shakespeare may have Convention.
thoughts of the
Philadelphia
At any rate, there is, it seems, a "spirit of the Carta to the Fourteenth Amendment, and the properly how to both To
move about
age"
running from Magna
educated person
knows
among its
assembled symbols and
expressions, thus
living
historically
put
and
transhistorically
at
the same time.

a process
it
another
way, Anastaplo thinks the Constitution is really
evolving toward an end,

of
beginning
in the immediate
sense with the
Declaration
Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and reaching a kind of historic climax with the Civil War Amendments.
The Constitution
advance
"Time,"
of
1787
moves us
"toward the
crisis
of
that would considerably

Independence"
the great task
begun
by
the Declaration
side of
a
(p. 72).
The
Founding
four
he suggests, "was on the Moment is actually

score and seven years.
manner of a
freedom in this
and
country"
(p. 176).
lengthy
historically
unified
develop
ment of
In the
nisms of
liberty
and
Hegelian dialectical development, the historic antago equality are to be mediated in the American regime such
this development is redeemed
that their ultimate compatibility can manifest itself in the world in a paradig
matic regime.
The
violence attendant on
by
the
fact that it
was a
achievement.
(particularly
necessary element in the decisive crisis leading to the decisive In this sense, America, by redeeming the constitutional tradition in abolishing slavery), truly becomes the Redeemer Nation.
After Lincoln, the task is, I infer, to maintain our historic achievement of fulfilled republicanism, defending it against the innovations of the twentieth
century, particularly the distortion
tive power. We must,
ter of the
of this agent of
the true
Constitution
"to the
by
the rise of execu the let

people
Anastaplo insists,
a constitution
return
spirit as well as
Constitution,
"
that takes it for granted that the
Country
are the ultimate rulers
here,
with
Congress
as their principal
(p. 116). In rejecting the
contention that a powerful executive
is
essential to the
health
of the
the argument of a generation

and the
nation, Anastaplo's arguments are reminiscent of ago, put forward by James Bumham in Congress
contrast to
American Tradition
(1959) in
to
Richard Neustadt's Presiden

correlation
tial
can
Power
(1960),
which purported
find
direct
between Ameri
to assume
well-being
and
strong Presidents. At that time, it

"liberal."
was normal
Congressional supremacy was and defending Ex ecutive power was But, Anastaplo asks, "Have not the Reagan ad ministration and its partisans shown us that American conservatism, too, is apt,
that
defending
"conservative"
when
'in
power,'
to side with the
Executive
against the
Legislature, thereby
The Constitution of 1 787: A
Commentary
469
disturbing
both
the intended
Constitutional liberals
equilibrium?"
(p.
conservatives and
contribute
to
constitutional
318, n. 85). In short, derangement, and
this means, I take
it,
that there is a better constitutional stance that transcends
both
conservatism and
liberalism.
Today
the proper dialectical rejoinder to Anastaplo's argument is to be
found in Harvey Mansfield's Taming the Prince: the Ambivalence of Modern Executive Power (1989). In Mansfield's account, the spirit and tradition of Anglo-American constitutionalism, going back to Machiavelli, Hobbes, and
Locke, is
tional"
to create a powerful executive but to disguise its "extra-constitu
power
in
order
to make it palatable to those who do not wish to ac
knowledge the necessity of such a power for the safety and well-being of the republican polity. In Mansfield's view, the historic aim has been to combine
the
freedom
of republics with the strength of monarchies.

upon which political
Mansfield thus
re
veals
the philosophic grounds
scientists
like Neustadt,
perhaps not altogether ments
wittingly, have depended in making their realist argu
for the
comparison
need of a strong Presidency. (William T. Bluhm has made the between Machiavelli and Neustadt explicit in his Theories of the
Political
System, 1965.)
of
Mansfield recognizes,
course, that the executive is
also a
formal,
consti
tutional office, circumscribed
by
the rale of
law,
the separation of powers, and
the prominence of the Legislative branch in the constitutional structure.
But, he
be only
argues, it
political
was always understood
by
the philosophic founders of the modem

executive could not
tradition, tutored
"formal"
an administrative adjunct to the

"real"
by Machiavelli, that the lawmaking power;

power, both
it has to be
an artful combi and an
nation of
and
an agent of
Congress
inde
pendent power.
Obviously, Anastaplo knows

his time refuting the ideal in which the
the
"realist" "Prince"
these arguments, as he spends a great deal of
argument
in favor
of
his
version of
the republican
Founding itself,
one
is tmly tamed and not just inhibited. To go back to will find analogous disputes over executive power, say
would
in the difference between Adams's fear that the President

and
be too
weak
Jefferson's that he
would
wonder, then, if the true

not more mits.
spirit of
shortly resemble the British monarch. One must the Anglo-American constitutional tradition is
than Anastaplo's presentation per
constitu
and
internally
divided
and antagonistic not
In this respect, Anastaplo is
tionalism; he is advocating a particular doing so as if it were evidently what the Framers intended. He has
excellent
simply explicating American ideal for the American regime,

avoided
he is
to to
presented an
lawyer's brief for his position, but he has

may be said on the in an openly polemical
mean.
coming
fully
grips with what
other side of
the
issues. This
seems to me
be
permissible
account of what we should understand
the Constitution to this is

what
At the
same
time, it is important to
is
a
see
clearly that
Anastaplo is doing.
our time
One is led to ask, therefore, if
time
of
decline
and corruption.
470
Interpretation
analysis must
Anastaplo's rently
preme equal
lead
us
to this conclusion. He must dislike the cur
operative
American
order.
It is
one
in
which
the Congress is not a su
deliberative
body,
an
citizenry, but
presiding over and refining the informed debates of an irresponsible broker of interests; the Presidency is not
the legislative results of these
the
modest executor of
deliberations, but has

and
seduced us with sinister machinations and public

Liberty"
regality;
the "Blessings of the "politics of
have devolved into the

In short,
we seem
pursuit of self-interest materialist
and
greed."
to have exactly that
order,
lacking
civic
virtue, that the

entertain
old republicans
feared
would come
to pass. Anastaplo does not
the possibility that Lincoln's presidency may have contributed to this

not
development. In this, as in many other of his arguments, he does canvass other interpretations of American political history. Anastaplo
the
original makes clear
fully
of
his ideal in his avowedly
polemical
interpretation
intent
of
the Framers. He contends
they
envisioned unequivocal
legislative supremacy, rejecting anything approaching the modem Presidency which is overblown, dangerous, and seldom likely to produce sound leadership
(pp. 109-10). He
cautions
us,
against
the prejudices of our
time, to
put our
faith in the legislative branch.
Anastaplo staunchly defends the republican tradition of government which he believes is exemplified in the Constitution of 1787. He emphasizes the
"blessings"
of
liberty
as what
follows from in itself.
and
justifies
liberty
a
which cannot
altogether stand
blessings
of
safely liberty. Anastaplo is
as an end
Liberty
is the
precondition of
the
no
libertarian. He believes in
tive power actively concerned for the welfare of the nation. to a certain kind of
Liberty
strong legisla is to be tied
flourishing,
compatible with the rale of
a right ordering of the soul, and to be kept law. He believes this is the teaching of the Consti
tution. Thus the Constitution is the fulfillment and correct interpretation of the
intent
of
the Declaration
of
Independence;
the Constitution fulfills and
does
not
betray
uals:
the
republican spirit powers provided
"the
by fostering for by the Constitution
communal effort were
among free individ intended to be, from

to be in princi
the
ple"
beginning, far more extensive than they are (p. 65). Moreover, had it not been for
yet recognized
the division of
seen this
interpretation
spawned
by
the issue of slavery,
we would
have
far
sooner.
In arguing this way, Anastaplo forecloses the possibility that there was ei ther no clear doctrine of the extent of government power in the Constitution of
irresolvable conflicts that necessitated leaving the issue development according to the contingencies of future experience. For Anastaplo, there is no doubt that the Necessary and Proper clause gave Con
1787,
or else there were
open
to
gress an
"ultimately
power"
comprehensive
(p.
54),
"plenary
authority"
with
both to the economy and foreign relations (p. 55), and commerce power. And "it became increasingly evident as the twentieth century unfolded that only the General Government could govern the economy of the (pp. 58-59). These plausible, but controversial, interpretations of legrespect
"comprehensive"
country"

islative supremacy
the proper
are given metaphysical grounding: of
Commentary
471
reflect
"Congress does
authority,"
(p. 42). logos (or reason) in human authority At the same time, Anastaplo acknowledges that the people are the "ultimate but they must exhibit a "moderate political (pp. 31, 163).
life"
affairs"
There
must
be
some
hesitancy
to be
about
their capacity in this regard, but the "un

people"
derstanding
people on
and the soundness of the are
(p.
deliberations discussion
"likely
decisive"
(p. 91).
115) and the quality of their Indeed, the character of the

common good
is itself the
and
unwritten constitution
(p. 165). The

with
depends
character,
not on
tinkering
the constitutional stmcture
(p. 107). The legislative supremacy is constrained but ultimately unstoppable. The essential mediation, then, is constituted in the relation between the peo
ple and the
Congress. In principle, this

conversation,
removed
requires
that the people enjoy "serious
reflection,"
reading,
extended
and sustained no
dent,
upon
who
is far
from ordinary reality, has
time
exactly what a Presi for (p. 92). "It is
Congressional
elections
that all our self-government, as a
Country, is
made avail
properly grounded, able to us from time to time
not upon whatever
chance"
by
President may happen to be (p. 108).
Occasionally, Anastaplo admits that the Congress is not reading, convers ing, and reflecting either. He certainly cannot be happy with the manner in
which election campaigns are currently conducted. He insists the people should demand that Congress live up to the role he projects for it: We need to get Congress "to conduct itself, and to appear to conduct itself, much better than it
does"
now
(p. 116).
All
of which
leads
one to question whether
the traditional meaning of

undermined
read
ing,
conversation, and reflection
is
not
seriously
"Does
in
an
age
that
seems
bent
on
carrying through the transition from a print to an electronic

problem occurs:
culture.
Allusion to this
power available out
not
the
logical
to and
. .
threatening
is
not
all mankind call
ever-growing techno for more, not less

yes
deliberation
in the
open
(p. 115). The
answer
is,
it does. And
we
can agree also that the solution
"manipulation
and maneuverings
among
a
the
often-faceless advisors of
Presidents, hidden away in

still ask
which seems unable
the recesses of the
White House description

Anastaplo
cipline the
elsewhere"
and
(p. 115). We may
if this is exactly any
fair
of a
White House
to
keep
sort of secrecy.
mentions
the Iran Contra affair as an illustration of the need to "dis
President"
in
order to
"reaffirm the
mle of
law among
us"
(p. 118).
In that case, the President "was deprived of those sound political assessments without which important foreign policy initiatives by this Country are likely to fail, assessments that veteran politicians in Congress would have provided him
consulted"
if they had been properly

perspective, the Reagan
democracy,"
(p.
317,
n.
85). But, from the Reaganite

of
administration accepted
the thesis
the
"deadlock
of
and reduction of
felt
compelled
to move from an original aim of a general
the scope and power of the

more
efficient
the
executive
and
federal government to one of making independent. The latter entailed, perhaps,
472
Interpretation
in the
size of
some reduction
power
government, but for the
purpose of
intensifying
its
to act, not
diminishing
it.
but insulates itself from the full
might call
Anastaplo's commentary
the
currents of
republican
notices
power of
his
contemporary life that ideal. Not least the old
into
question
the viability of
and
question of
the impact of the extent

an
magnitude of
the society on the to take up in
republican
ideal is
are
issue which, it
seems to
me, he
needed
some
detail. What
the means, in a technologi
cal order of the current
scale, that
would retrieve
effectively the possibility for
the
average person
modem
to engage in serious reading, conversation, and reflection?

classical republic
On the
scale, is a
feasible? Perhaps Anastaplo is right

to make what we
that "there
now
is something
demeaning
and of
to a
republican people
do
of our
Presidents
their families
a
and other
intimates";
influence"
and
in is
saying that the contemporary

"subversive
question
of republican
answered
Presidency is
but
are
"corrupting
that
virtue";
we a republican people?
Can this
be
by
resort
to the text of the Constitution? For even if we

presupposes a republican
are convinced that the we need not scribes
text of the Constitution
people,
be
convinced we are and
that the Constitution's presupposition
correctly de
the way
live
now.
One can, for example, to preserve "federal

stave off as
sympathize with
his defense
winners
of
the Electoral College
elements,"
to make
decisively
obvious,
and
to
plebiscitary
democracy
our era.
(pp.
103-6)
and yet still
feel that, important

urgent,
questions
this question may
be, it does
not reach
the heart of the
problems of constitu
tional government
are
in
Certain obvious,
perhaps more
left
aside.
For example, if the Congressional
elections are
the essence of
American republicanism, then what reforms are needed to make these elections conform to the ideal Anastaplo expresses? Should we limit the number of terms
of
Congressmen? Should the two-year term become
four-year term? What

we
about campaign
financing? Should
we need
we require
debates? Should
demand free book
television time? Do
such
as one
to entertain suggestions
for
radical
decentralization
a
finds in Benjamin Barber's

the
Strong Democracy (1984),

for
republicanism of
which acknowledges eties?
inherent
problem
the size of soci the structure
But if
we entertain such
ideas,
are we then
tinkering
about
with
unnecessarily If the Presidency is

the
nature of
or
dangerously?
a
danger,
is
what are we to
do
it? What
alteration
in
the office
possible?
Would
a reduction
in the
adulation of
the
President,
or a stricter circumscription of presidential
power, necessarily lead to
renewed enthusiasm
not obvious that this would follow. In saying these things, I do not mean that the conditions of time and place determine our political ideals. But I do suggest that Anastaplo's argument nec
for the Congress? It is
essarily leads to a whole range of questions that cannot be answered without going further into difficult philosophical-political-historical matters. No doubt he intends his
polemical
Anastaplo
gives
two cheers
commentary to generate such a discussion. for the judiciary. We have made both too
much

and
Commentary 473
Judiciary has
goes played
too little of the Judicial Power (p. 124). The Federal
too small a role in
developing
a more uniform common
law. This
back to
the law
the Southern resistance on questions of slavery and commerce: "[T]his is one
country economically,
of contracts,
and the common

negotiable
sales,
should
and
law, especially with respect to instruments, should reflect that

that is to guide the
fact"
(p.
130). There
common-law
be "one
authoritative court
general
development,"
tested
by
the
national
legislature (p. 133),
by the criticism of scholars and corrected "shaping the general moral sense of the
the United States Supreme
Country"
(p. 138).
be
made against
"activist,"
The
most serious complaint to
Court,
but rather it has not been active therefore, is not that it has been too enough in this respect. That is, the Supreme Court has not been fully aware of
what
it
can and should mean under
the Constitution for a court to be a court,

and as a national
which
court.
It has
been kept from its full
realization as a
teacher of what law
is, by its diversion into

making
that career as a superlegislature
easily follows from
much of a general power of
judicial
review.
(p.
135)
Anastaplo then
view, questioning
ventures a powerful critique of
the doctrine of judicial re
not
easily assent, but also is intelligently set forth to
only its use in the Dred Scott case, to which most will its use in Marbury v. Madison. The critique of the latter
show
that
it is
not at all clear
that the Congress
lacked the
power
to add to the original jurisdiction of the Court through the

evidence
Judiciary
need of
Act
of
1789. In Anastaplo's reading, this is further

supremacy:
for the
legislative
The Dred Scott
case reminds us that whenever the
Congress
and the
Supreme Court
(p.
have differed
on those great matters of
Constitutional interpretation that have

correct,
assumed crisis proportions
in this Country, the Congress has been
142)
But this
paved
argument
includes
Marbury in its
scope, since it is the latter that
the way for the former and for the Court's mistaken resistance, as An
astaplo sees
it,
to the New Deal. Judicial review, he argues, simply was not
intended
by
the 1787 Constitution. The Legislature is

suggested
"by
supreme"
nature
(p.
sophic
would
143). The supremacy insight (the embodiment be the

philosophic ruler. carries
here is something approaching divine philo of logos). In the ideal condition, the Congress
Anastaplo
this theme forward in the discussion of
Article IV,
affirm
ing
here too the issue
general
supervisory
powers of
Congress
whole
of reapportionment was not supervised we
by
and regretting that the Congress rather than the pursued
Court. And later
find that the amending
process
is best
by
"a
pru
people"
dent Congress,
quently.
supported
by
a sensible
(p. 184). On the
general
topic
of amendments,
Anastaplo
seems opposed
to amending the Constitution fre
He thinks ERA
and would
and reapportionment are now moot.
He thinks
abortion
could
have
have been liberalized
without a
Supreme Court decision,
474
and
ize"
Interpretation
he
appears
to think that the logos accepts pro-choice, although to "liberal

as to
is sufficiently indistinct
leave
us
wondering exactly
what
he does
think should happen (p. 185). He opposes a balanced-budget amendment, but

we get no clue as
to what to do if we lack a prudent Congress and a sensible

otherwise.
people to
balance it
the
Thus, I think,
the
real clue
from Anastaplo is to
prods us
reinvigorate emulate
arguments over what we should
do. That is, he
to
him
by
producing
our own
commentaries, creating
a grand new
dialec
tic on the fate
of
the nation, and thus
becoming
the sensible people that could
demand
a prudent
Congress.
are always
"We the People

we are always ries ago.
in
principle equals
[with the
Framers]
.
and
hence
left free to
we
. .
change what was ordained and established
two centu the tested
But
should
be
sensible enough
peers"
to treasure
wisdom of predecessors who are our
(p. 234). We
can and should agree
to
this,
and we should not shrink
government that minds us of the
is its
living
spirit.
from recreating the dialogue of constitutional A noble purpose but its expression re
the actual achievement. We must live as if
strong
odds against
it
were
possible, nevertheless, for
we cannot
know that it is
companion
not possible
to
live
and can
that
way.
Anastaplo
as a vigorous
dialectical
is thus
do
friend to We
a practitioner of not
the responsible
liberty
if,
or
of
of constitutional government.
but be
grateful
of
for that
even
especially if, 1787.
we
not always agree
with
his reading
the Constitution
George
Anastaplo,
paper
Commentary
xviii
(Baltimore
and
London: The Johns Hopkins
+ 339 pp.,
$35.00,
$10.95
J. Jackson Barlow
Commission
on the
Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution
One
dred
might almost
be forgiven the
expectation of
that after more than two hun
years the words of the
Constitution
the United States and their meaning
would
be familiar
and clear
to most Americans. One might expect a sound
system of public education to
bring
the
elementary lessons
of
of
democratic
citi
zenship to virtually the entire population. Specialists in the
law,
adept at mak assist
ing
keen-edged distinctions between the terms in
their art,
would
the
courts
deciding
the meaning of each
word
in the Constitution. Yet despite
the efforts of educators and the dedicated energies of an entire branch of the
federal government, the Constitution remains a subject of ignorance among the general public and dispute among specialists. Will another commentary help?
more or
Professor Anastaplo distinguishes his commentary from others by adhering less strictly to the text of the document written in 1787 and ratified in
and
1788,
to
what might
be known
or conjectured about
the "cultural
literacy"
of those who wrote and ratified
clause, like the
magisterial
Commentaries
it. In form, it treats the Constitution clause by of Joseph Story, published in the
with a political nationalism was
1830s. Justice Story, however, published his interpretations purpose in mind. Nullification had but lately been attempted;
on
the defensive.
states'
Story
wrote
to correct the false interpretations that had led to
the
rights doctrine.
appears
Professor Anastaplo
to have no such political purpose, but this leads
to a question that goes to the heart of his enterprise. The Constitution is both a
document,
of
"text,"
and an
instrument
of government.
It is
subject to the strains
the
daily
give-and-take of politics and
is thus it be
more
than ink on parchment,
more
than food for reflection; it is a guide to,
and a channel
for,
action.
Can
constitution
be
read
like
book? If so,
can
read
like any
other
book? Is its
interpreter
the
entitled
to
pursue
his
communion with
the text to the exclusion of
most urgent questions of

most urgent questions
his day?
lead
us
Our
to wonder if we have
lost
our
way
some
how. The institutions blance to those

we
of government we observe
daily
bear
a superficial resem
vast our
differences,
afresh,
and
find in the Constitution, yet on examination we find we are no longer certain even where to begin finding
we retrace our steps and return our
bearings. Perhaps if
confident
to the origins, we can

offers a
begin
return
in
direction. This commentary
thoughtful
interpretation,
Spring 1991,
Vol. 18, No. 3
476
to the
Interpretation
Constitution's origins; it is less satisfying
as a guide
to contemporary
action.
The Constitution is simultaneously a statement of aspirations, or a best re gime, and a means of getting things done. Politics, and the Constitution, thus
encompass
both
"high"
"low."
and
Its framers
are applauded
for
their wisdom
precisely because they took both high and low into account, estimating with great foresight both the strengths and the frailties of the American character. This commentary has primarily to do idea of the best regime. As such, it
reads
with
the Constitution's reflection of
an
provides a
the document as simply a

out of
reflection of a
balance to commentary that low estimate of human nature by
Hobbes
of
Locke. But left
we must admit
that the Constitution

of
is, in fact,
bit
both,
and we are
with an unclear
understanding
the
relation of
the best
regime
to the Constitution's solid,
feet-on-the-ground
estimate of
the human
character.
The
Constitution, in Professor Anastaplo's

the best regime held
account, is
a reflection of
the
ideas
of
by
the Americans of 1787-88. Its authoritative

more comprehensive
character thus
derives from these

"the Constitutions
ideas that
are present
in
what
he
calls
of
the
Americans"
including
and
the English lan
guage, the
pendence.
common
law,
the British
Constitution,
the Declaration of Inde

"constitutions,"
he
reads
In reading the Constitution under the guidance of the it not as a break from a premodern or prerevolutionary past, but
the
Americans'
rather
understanding of the best regime. In Socratic fashion, then, Professor Anastaplo uncovers this understanding by asking questions of the text. Thus this book is a dialecti cal encounter with a pristine Constitution, one that has been neither amended
as a confirmation and consummation of
interpreted. The results, though instructive, are sometimes surprising, offering interpretations that appear at odds with long-settled practice and judi
nor cial precedent.
Two important differences

powers of section
appear
in the treatments
well
of
the Preamble and the
Congress. The Preamble (as

sets out
8),
the ends to
which
as, for some purposes, Article I, the Constitution is dedicated; it thus

regime.
describes the American
vision of the
best
More
importantly
the
for Pro
govern
fessor Anastaplo, it describes the reach of the ment. The powers of Congress, he maintains,
the broad and noble ends set
powers of are
federal
fully
competent
to achieve
forth in the Preamble.
and
Not only does this reading of the Preamble contradict current legal doctrine commentary dating back at least as far as Joseph Story, it also contradicts
statements of the
as
direct
as
early
the Virginia Report of 1799 and as
Framers themselves. Madison, for example, maintained late as 1824 (by which time he
that "a preamble
was again
reliably
"nationalist")
for the
to
usually
limited
contains the general
motives or reason and
particular regulations or measures which
is
always
understood
be
explained
and
p.
by
them"
follow it, (Marvin
Meyers,
ed., The Mind of the Founder [1st ed.],
326;
cf.
Madison to Robert

S.
Commentary
All
Far-
Garnett, Feb. 11, 1824, in James H. Hutson,
ed., Supplement to Max
The Records of the Federal Convention of 1787, p. 313). Story, whose reading of the Preamble is nearly as expansive as Professor Anastaplo's, agrees with Madison that the powers actually granted in the Constitution are less ex
rand's
tensive than the ends set out in the Preamble (A Familiar Exposition of the
Constitution of the United States [New York, 1876], sections 45, 154, 208). Central to Professor Anastaplo's argument is the contention that "Congress is to have the decisive, or authoritative, voice as to sures of the United States are to (p. 117). He
be"
what
the controlling mea the claim of some argument, that
rejects
recent
scholarly works,
as well as much
contemporary
political
there is a field of discretion for the President and his officers in the formulation
and execution of
policy (cf. Jones and Marini, eds., The Imperial Congress [New York, 1988]). He reads no enhancement of the President's power, for
statement
example, into the
that he is to possess "the executive
power,"
without
qualification or reservation.
This
is,
to be sure, consistent
with
his reading
of
Article III, United

In
which adds no power of judicial review
to "the judicial power of the
It is consistent, but it may not be sufficient. his argument that Congress has primacy in the formation of experience policy, Professor Anastaplo properly raises the issue of with deliberative bodies and the seeming ease with which they have been con
support of
Americans'
States."
structed, before
this
and after
1787. But how
are we
to
understand
the relation of
"constitution"
to the 1787
Constitution? Does the 1787 Constitution freeze

eighteenth century? are are we
the other
"constitutions"
in the
Or
are
they
allowed
to pull
it in
"progressive"
direction? How
bodies"
then able to decide whether

or
changes
in the "law
of public
for the better

manner
for the
than
worse?
The
U.S. Congress
operates
in
a much of
different
today
it did in the
"reforms"
half-century
1974. The
mittee and
from the institution

Congress done
the seniority system to the
of
mles of
now give much greater power
to individual com
subcommittee chairmen
in the
"oversight."
area of
Much
of
the
deliberation
executive
formerly
by
Congress has been delegated to
agencies of the
branch,
under
the watchful eye of the committees and their staffs. to a committee's

of an override.
Proposed
which
rales that are not
liking
are subject to
its veto, for

one
there is no possibility
Professor Anastaplo's
analysis of
the primacy of Congress
leads
to the
conclusion that such a change

would
is
not
illegitimate,
although extent
it is
not clear what
be legitimate in the
deliberation
as the
circumstances.
To the
that the
best
regime
regards
highest
of governmental
activities, may
we not at a
minimum
say that the forum of deliberation has changed? And has this change
the balance of
power?
not altered
May
not such a change ran
foul
of
the protec
tions
against absolute power so
carefully
written
into the Constitution?

executive to
Clearly,
than
what
the Framers intended the

existed under
Constitution's
and stronger
be
stronger
had
the
Articles,
than the chief executives

of
of most states.
The Framers
were well aware of
the
tendency
legislatures in
478
the
Interpretation
new
states to overpower the executive and

argues
judiciary
branches. Professor
and
Anastaplo
for
of
broadly interpreting
the other
the powers of
Congress,
narrowly
branches. The Federalist, publicly, and Madison and other Framers privately, however, argue for a contrary interpretation. To their mind, the legislature is the source of the greatest threat to the blessings of
interpreting
those
liberty, for it is there that alist 48-49, 51, 71, 73).

The Framers
the excesses of
liberty
will soonest appear
(cf. Feder
It
must
therefore be carefully fenced in.
were on record as
very
suspicious of
the
legislatures;
this
was
based
on
their estimate of the character and abilities of the different
branches.
Professor Anastaplo notes, in my view rightly, the great facility displayed by Americans in creating legislative bodies and organizing them for business. I
think, however, he does not made in administration in the

tariats
much with
take sufficiently
years
into
account the great progress
during
and
and after
the Revolution. The Con
federation Congress itself had been for foreign

affairs and
compelled to establish permanent secre
finance
to relinquish to them control over
day-to-day
business. Those
years saw
Americans growing disappointed
legislatures, recognizing the need for good administration, and especially after 1789, showing a sophistication in administrative matters fully the equal of their skill in organizing legislatures (cf. Leonard White, The Federalists: A Study in Administrative History [New York, 1948]). The crucial point here is
that
they
recognized
the limitations
of
responding to information on "the State of the

approach
legislatures in collecting, analyzing, and Alexander Hamilton's

Union."
to
dealing
with
was
the federal
debt,
not
that of Senators
Gramm,
Rud-
man,
and
Hollings,
the procedural model of the eighteenth century. The

finance,"
executive made
basis
of
while Congress "the preparatory plans of (cf. Federalist 72). the information it was supplied
acted on the
The
strengthened executive of
the Constitution was, as we

of
know,
one of
its
more controversial
features. Because
this, it
was also one of we
the more thor
oughly debated
and
thoroughly
explained
features;
took responsibility
tions of the Framers.

original
for organizing the government It is therefore worthy of note that President Washington's
address
may infer that those who in 1789 understood the inten
draft
of
his first inaugural

the
later toned down considerably
by
Madison
tion.
contained a
detailed list in
of measures
demanding
his
congressional ac measures
As
Secretary
a much
of
Treasury, Hamilton
matters of
proposed
to the
House,
which sought
his
advice
tion took
larger
part
in the
finance. In short, the administra formation of policy than Professor Anas
taplo's Constitution would have it do.
and
argument that we make too much of the
President,
Congress's authority needs to be fully acknowledged, if not aug "constitutions" does not seem to square with the of 1787 as understood mented, by those who put the Constitution into effect. It also does not take into account
that
a principle which one presumes
to be a part of the best regime, that of respon
sibility.
The President is
responsible
for his
actions.
He
and
his
officers are

held responsible,
whole.
Commentary 479
the government
numbers allow
as a
rightly
or
wrongly, for the
actions of
Congress is
1787
or
a poor manager
precisely because its

not
indi
vidual members to conceal or evade their responsibility.
Whatever the Constitu

create manage of a plural
tion
of
its
authors
had in mind, they did
intend to
ment
by
committee.
executive:
That is why they rejected the alternative 535 managers would surely be less effective than one.
One
can
disagree
with
argument
for the primacy
of
Congress
and yet profit
deserves thoughtful
reading.
greatly from this book. It is a Certainly it provides an
thoughtful analysis that

alternative
to the more
usual and more elitist utive and
Federalist-mspiied interpretations, especially of the exec judiciary. It is a forthright reading of the Constitution through the
of
Declaration
and
Independence
with an admixture of
Blackstone, Shakespeare,
perhaps
school
the
King
James Bible. Its

give some and
argument
for legislative supremacy may,

account of the
such a regime much
inadvertently,
of
theoretical support to the popular-sovereignty
Judge Bork
Attorney
General Meese. But its
best
regime
according to the Americans of 1787 reminds us that to construct in speech, but more difficult to create,
tice.
Inevitably
we
fall short,
although others.
has fallen less

universal,
short than
many
any measure Nor is it clear that
by
easy less sustain, in prac the American regime

a
is
fairly
widespread,
even
acceptance of
the best regime as a guide to action
would automat
ically
solve some of
another
the more intractable problems posed
by
human
nature.
Will
learning
with
and thoughtfulness could

will
commentary help? If only a little of Professor Anastaplo's be transmitted to his readers, as I think it
will, this commentary

the
help. However familiar book

will reveal new
one might consider oneself
Constitution,
To
this
questions,
new
angles, and
new possibilities.
consider
the Constitution as a
read.
reflection of
the
idea
of
the
best
read
regime
is
to read
it
as
it deserves to be
the
This commentary
and as
should
be
by
every
serious student of
Constitution,
many
of
the casual
ones as possible.
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Interpretation A

1 668 Appendix to Leviathan

Discussion 415 Michael Piatt Souls Without

Discussion 467 475 Fuller

Manuscript Editor Subscriptions

telephone. Please send three clear

1668 Appendix to Leviathan

Discussion Michael Piatt

The Constitution of 1787: A Commentary, George Anastaplo

1668 Appendix to Leviathan

George Wright University

Dr. Joan Blaeu, through his

of a project which edition of

work and was

the author's manner of

paralytic condition with which

to transcribe the text,

to reread and correct it. Blaeu

take in correcting the proofs, to

reasons and arrangements

ity during the

Latin text. This

but inconclusive hypothetique

Vol. 18, No. 3

Where the English

text shows fuller treatment of subjects than that of the

tions and writing

the 1651 text is also more pas

sionate than the

than the egregious outcome of the English Civil

the execution of the

quotations of ancient authors of as

in the Latin text

paraphrase, whereas the English text records them in indirect

Hobbes, working from his

pre-existing text, allowed Also, the Latin text refers to

the Civil War

to the period as a past event and in less

belligerent; the English direct, more ideological

working, evidenced in the progress his De CorHobbes'

into that brilliant Parisian

the Franciscan friar Marin

Pierre Gassendi, the

Mersenne, which included the Fermat, the libertine Sorbiere, Mar

the precise relation between

two texts remains unset

indicate that the Appendix

the end of the Latin text

translated here for the

first time into

for the 1668

critics, clearly postdates the text

In both the Appendix

corresponding Latin text, Hobbes

in the English text, that

apparently suggesting in a God the Father prior to the

this point against his critics,

specifically the Bishop by Dr. Bramhall

Deny, John Bramhall, in An Answer

1668 Appendix to Leviathan

though published for the first time in 1682. 15 There he

in the Latin text

the religious and theological issues

Hobbes takes up in the