Hobbes's Biblical Beasts: and Author(s): Patricia Springborg Source: Political Theory, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1995), pp. 353-375 Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/191883 . Accessed: 19/02/2014 11:36

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This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions HOBBES'SBIBLICAL BEASTS Leviathan and Behemoth

PATRICIASPRINGBORG Universityof Sydney

Beyond the actual works of nature a poet may now go; but beyond the conceived possibilityof nature,never. I can allow a Geographerto make in the Sea, a Fish or a Ship, which by the scale of his map would be two or threehundred mile long, andthink it done for ornament,because it is done withoutthe precinctsof his undertaking;but when he paints an Elephantso, I presentlyapprehend it as ignoranceand a plain confession of Terraincognita. Hobbes'sAnswer to Sir WilliamDavenant's DedicatoryPreface to Gondibert,1651, 81.

(1) HOBBES'SBEAST, THEBIBLICAL LEVIATHAN

In Hobbes'slittle discussed published response to Davenant'spreface to Gondibert,dedicated to him, Hobbes reproves Davenant, the rigorous acolyte who claims to have learnedhis epistemologyfrom Hobbes.Ghosts and spooksare one thing,Hobbes suggests, but to abandonthe entireWestern fabuloustradition of rhetoricand poesy was to abandonwhat distinguished civilizationfrom the rude culture of theAmericas. Civilization is thework of theimagination, "fancy," and the only restrictions on its exercisewere those of appropriateness.There is, aswe shallshow, symptomatic irony in Hobbes's choiceof themetaphor of theelephant. In theseventeenth century, Leviathan was takenfor a greatship, a crocodile,or a whale,and Behemoth for an elephant.The O4ordEnglish Dictionary credits Hobbes with lexical inno- vation,as the first to use the termLeviathan-the biblical serpent or sea monster,a hugeship or personof immensepower and the "greatSatan" of Isaiah27:1 -as the synonymfor a commonwealth.'Hobbes's Leviathan is

POLITICALTHEORY, Vol. 23 No. 2, May 1995 353-375 ( 1995 Sage Publications,Inc. 353

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 354 POLITICALTHEORY / May 1995 indeeda workof the imagination,a creatureof artificerather than nature, a mortalGod, and scripture vouches for it. Commentatorshave focused considerable attention on theiconography of the engravedfrontispiece to Leviathan,believed to havebeen produced by the printerAndrew Crooke, under Hobbes's supervision, and perhaps the workof Hobbes'sacquaintance and Charles's former tutor in drawing,the engraverWenceslaus Holler.2 The frontispiece depicts an image of Leviathan, a kinglikefigure wielding sword and crozier, his giganticbody composed of thesmall bodies of thepeople of hisrealm. Overhead flies the banner headline fromthe Book of Job41:334, "Thereis no powerover earth than compares to him,"the conclusion of whichis reservedfor the text: "a creature without fear... kingover all the sons of pride."Much less attentionhas been focused on the significanceof the biblicalnames Leviathan and Behemoth, in what would,in theseventeenth century, have been a moststartling usage. Hobbes, in choosingLeviathan and Behemoth as histitles, drops enough hints to make it clearto his audiencethat he refersto noneother than the beastsof the ,familiar from the Hebrew Theogony and associated in chiliastic thoughtwith the SecondComing. How does he meanthe names then?3 And whatis theirsignificance for his religiousdoctrine? In a recentarticle, Tracy Strong argues, correctly I believe,that "- givengeometry is [Hobbes's]model of andfor power to whichnone on earth compare,"because men cannot only readit butsee it. He cites Job38:1-7, the beginningof thepassage that leads to Hobbes'sheadline epigraph:

Then the Lord answeredJob out of the tempest:who is this whose ignorantwords cloud my design in darkness?Brace yourself andstand up like a man;I will ask questions,and you shall answer.Where were you when I laid the earth'sfoundations? Tell me, if you know and understand.Who settled its dimensions? Surely you should know. Who stretchedthis measuring-lineover it? On what do its supportingpillars rest? Who set its comer-stone in place, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted aloud?( 38:1-7)4

Theinvention of geometryis creditedto theancient Egyptians as a rapid methodto recalculateproperty boundaries washed away by the annual innundationof the Nile. It was appropriatethat God shouldhave used the languageof geometryin theHebrew theogony to establishhis proprietorship in anantediluvian world-and trumpthe Egyptians. It wasequally appropri- atethat Hobbes should have taken geometry as proofof his epistemology.If geometry,which laid the foundationsof the world,belonged to the designs of Godthat could be seen, the Bible belonged to a dispensationof sacredtexts thatcould be read,rendering superfluous the interventionsof philosophers

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Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even in the sight of him? None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to standbefore me? Who hath preventedme, that I shouldrepay him? whatsoeveris underthe whole heaven is mine.

Leviathanmay be an image of theabsolutist state, projected as a necessary, almost natural,work of creation.But as a work of creationit is not self-generatingand, like Job, we mustturn to its authorfor the sourceof its power.Absolute governments, the Leviathansof this world,from their archetypesin ancientEgypt and Babylon to theirearly modem types in the papacy,Spain, and France, were also constructed. Let us see howthey were built,Hobbes says, andthen ask the questionwhence their power derives. Leviathanand Behemoth, as perhapsGod's answer to Jobwas intendedto imply,are mortal who have a rolein thescheme of theimmortal God. Theyhave their own cycles of generationand decay and their maintenance is also a workof art. Leviathanis the state,created by manin his imageas manis createdin the imageof God,with divine sanction, indirectly as a continuationof the workof creation,or directlyas an extensionof the originalFiat, by which the worldwas made.Hobbes embroidered the metaphor,focusing on the "artificiality"of the stateby creatinga figurefor the stateas a speciesof Automata,with a spring,string, and wheels as heart,nerves, and joints, and Soveraigntyas the "ArtificiallSoul," "giving life andmotion to the whole body."6In the importantfirst chapter of part2 of Leviathan,chapter 17, "Of the Causes, Generationand Definitionof a COMMON-WEALTH,"Hobbes notedof thecovenants by whichthe artificial unity of thestate is createdand its sovereignauthorized: "the Multitude so unitedin one Person,is calleda COMMON-WEALTH,in latine CIVITAS. This is thegeneration of thatgreat LEVIATHAN,or rather(to speakemore reverently) of thatMortall God, to whichwee owe underthe ImmortalGod, our peace and defence."7 At this point,Leviathan is no longerthe body politic but the sovereign who personi- fies it. Returningin chapter28 to theimage of theautomaton and "the nature of Punishment,and Reward; which are, as it were,the Nerves and Tendons, thatmove the limbes and joynts of a Common-wealth,"8Hobbes concluded:

HithertoI have set forth the natureof Man ... together with the great power of his Governour,whom I comparedto Leviathan,taking that comparisonout of the two last verses of the one and fortieth of Job; where God having set forth the great power of Leviathan, calleth him King of the Proud. There is nothing, saith he, on earth to be

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comparedwith him. He is madeso as notto be afraid.Hee seeth every high thing below him; and is King of all the childrenof pride. But because he is mortall,and subject to decay, as all otherEarthly creatures are; and because thereis thatin heaven, (thoughnot on earth)that he should stand in fear of, and whose Lawes he ought to obey; I shall in the next following Chaptersspeak of his Diseases, and the causes of his Mortality;and of what Lawes of Naturehe is boundto obey.9

This is a startlinginnovation in the readingof the biblicalLeviathan, especiallyin an age in whichallegorical interpretations were eschewed in favourof a literalreading of thebible. How precisely did Hobbes expect his audienceto receivehis Leviathan?And how wasit received? A wordof cautionmight be introducedhere about the distinction between a literaland an allegoricalreading of theBible. In his surveyof Protestant writing,Tracy Strong in "Howto WriteScripture," rightly points out the epistemicsignificance of theReformers' claim to "know"the Bible and not merelyto "interpret"it." Interpretationas an epistemicrule is post-Kantian, or moreaccurately, post-Buber. It restsmost generally on theclaim that we cannever know how farour perceptual categories and limitations skew our ideas.Following a lineof thoughtinitiated by Hobbesto explainhow we can positthe existence of God,as Strongrightly points out, thinkers from Locke to thepresent claimed that we mayinfer the existence of somethingif we can nameit." However,the faith-for thatis whatit was-that we canknow the Biblelay undisturbedby theseconsiderations, which represented precisely a philosophicextension of the Protestantepistemic posture, until the great hermeneuticwatershed introduced by MartinBuber, Paul Tillich, and Rein- holdNiebuhr, members of the Germancritical school of the latenineteenth andearly twentieth centuries. (It is anopen secret that current hermeneutical andphenomenological schools owe theirinsights once again to a seachange in biblicalcriticism, once again from the German school.) A finalword of caution:to claimthat Reformation commentators believed thatone could"know" the Bibleis notto suggestthat they lacked sophisti- cationabout what they were doing-which was essentiallya workof "rein- terpretation."Reformation exegetes, including Hobbes, knew exactly what they were doing becausefor the most partthey were activistsand their methodologywas institutionallydriven. Up to and includingLocke, their epistemologywas designedto cut the Churchin general,and the clergyin particular,out of theloop between the authorized version and the authorizing civil authority.'2 Forthis reason, particularly problematic exegesis of obscure andancient texts, like the ,was eschewed; texts where, ironically, Hobbes,whose purposes were not so different,found his best proving ground for thenew Leviathan.

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(2) REFORMATIONCOMMENTARY ON LEVIATHANAND BEHEMOTH

If Hobbeshad spun his constructionof the mechanicalLeviathan out of the Book of Job,among the mostcited and most glossed books of the Old Testamentin the Reformation,it was surelynot doneinnocently. He must certainlyhave been aware that the purpose of Reformationretranslation and reinterpretationwas to rejectallegorical in favourof a literalreading of scripture.The Book of Jobwas favouredprecisely because it addressedthe theodicyproblem: how a beneficentGod may be reconciledwith the power of . It provided,at the same time, a text enjoiningpatience on those afflictedor persecuted.But commentatorscautioned against making too muchof themore difficult parts of thebook, allegorical as theyclearly are. Job Expovndedby TheodoreBeza, partly in manner of a Commentary, partly in manner of a paraphrase (1589?) is addressedto Queen Elizabeth on behalfof theFrench Protestants who sought her protection. It is therefore one of the mostpolitical readings. It verybluntly states Behemoth to be an elephantand Leviathanto be a crocodile.Beza, concedingthe peculiar difficultiesof theBook of Job,makes the case for a literalreading by referring to appropriatestandards of biblicalcriticism: "But this booke, then the which thereis nonein all theBible, if I be notdeceiued, no notMoses himselfe, of greaterantiquitie, is in manieplaces made verie obscure to vs andhard to be vnderstood,partly by reasonof the profoundnesof the thingesthemselues heredebated among most wise men,and not to be conceauedof eueryone, partly by diuers straunge words & also phrases differing from the pure Hebrue.""3He cautionsagainst presuming "to be ouerwise . . . wise aboue thatwhich is meete,"expressing the view that: "the wise men of othernations, whome the Greekescall Philosophers,haue, touching the true vse, merveilouslieprophaned it." Striking a darknote, he observes:"moreouer . . . the abuseof this Sciencehath bred that detestable Art Magick, which is the welspringof al mischeife,as also that false diviningAstrologie, which hauing brokenthe boundsof trueNatural knowledge, entreth into the verysecrets of God,and at thisday hath bewitched the whole world."14 Beza, one of the most sophisticatedand well readof the Reformation biblicalcommentators, is as committedto theabandonment of theallegorical interpretationof scriptureas themost fundamentalist preacher. And for just the reasonsthat Hobbes would otherwise endorse: because allegorical con- structswere abstractions,they createda host of monstersand phantasms inhabitingthe darkregions of superstitionand magic,the terrainof the papacy,the Spanish,heretics, and relics of gentilism.

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Herbertof Cherbury,in a pioneeringEnglish study of "Gentilism,"had includedthe enigmaticstatement: "As far as I can find,the great Leviathan wasknown to theJews only, tho' I questionwhether the Rabbins have left us any Descriptionof it. Thereare severalReasons may be given, why Fish shouldexceed all otherAnimals in Magnitude."'"Quite plainly in thiswork, writtenby an antiquarianand diplomat whom Hobbes knew and admired, Leviathanwas a monsterand nothing more. Othersagreed with him. Nathaniel Culverwell, in hisElegant and Learned Discourse of the Light of Nature of 1646, addressingthe question whether theLaws of Natureare binding on beasts,had asked "What are those Lawes that are.observedby a rendingand tearingLion, by a devouringLevia- than?"'16-likeHerbert, plainly taking Leviathan for a beast,and no extraor- dinaryone in thiscase. Reformation commentaries on thebooks of Joband Isaiahare uniformly condemnatory of allegoricalinterpretations, inparticular of thesepassages of scripture,insisting that Leviathan and Behemoth are simplybeasts, although often differing on whatbeasts they might be. Beza statedflatly "I omit that custome which hath continued euer since Origenes time,I say notof inuertingthe natural sence of thesacred text to theframing of certainestraunge allegories, but euen of marringand peruerting it.""7 Thebeasts of theBook of Jobwere regularly interpreted as demonstrations of divineomnipotence and nothing more."8 So GeorgeAbbott simply exhorts, "Considerthe Elephant[Behemoth].... considerwell the Whale[Levia- than]""John Oecolampadius (Halschein), to whomBeza refers,heads up his commentson Job40:10, "Voici l'elephant."20 He hopesto lay alternative possibilitiesto restwith a reviewof theHebraists as well as theReformers on the subjectof Job'sbeasts, finding no exceptionto theirtreatment as animals,even by such diversefigures as the HebraistsRabbi Aben Ezra, RabbiLevi, Rabbi Moshe, Moshe the Egyptian, Zwingli, Luther, and Thomas Aquinas.2'Oecolampadius makes certain observations on the use of the Hebrewplural, Behemoth, for the elephant, singular, noting the derivation of Leviathanfrom the Hebrewverb "Lauah," signifying "addition." He is one of the few to commenton Behemoth's"tail stiff like a Cedar,"22attributing themetaphor, rather unconvincingly, to a "hyperbolicmode of speaking."23 JohnCalvin, in his SermonsofMaister Iohn Calvin, vpon the Booke of Iob,24 addressingthe questionof Behemoth,noted also that"the worde Behema signifiethsimply a Beast,and vnder that name are Oxen and all other beastes comprehended";Behemoth is simplythe plural of Behema."Neuertheles it cannot be coniecturedwhat kinde of beast it is that hee speakethof, except it bee an Elephant, by reason of the hugenesse of that beastes body."The

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Springborg/ HOBBES'S BIBLICAL BEASTS 359 hugenessserves a purpose:"if we werewise ynough,we needednot to goe outof ourselues to beholdthe maiestie of God:howbeit men must be sentto thebeasts bicause of theirvnthankfulnesse, in thatthey know not God as he shewethhymselfe vnto them"; for thisreason the unregenerate"haue need of suchemirrours as areset before vs herein respectof theElephants & other likebeasts."25 Calvin, like other Reformation commentators reads Leviathan andBehemoth as simpledemonstrations of unfathomabledivine power: "it is purposely said, that these Elephantswere created with us . . . so as men mustbe rauishedbesides themselues when they thinke thereon."26 He adds, Leviathanis simplyanother "like beast," in thiscase a whale.It is a reading of theBook of Jobon whichHobbes's extrapolation to thesecular sovereign Leviathandepends, as we haveargued here. Calvinquickly forestalls any other possible interpretation, with a lengthy discursuson thenecessity of a literalinterpretation.27

Thereis one peremptoriereason to shewevs thatwe musttake this text simplyas it standeth,& notshiftingly. For we haveseen heretofore how it wasGods intent to teach menafter a grosseand homely maner, according to theirowne small capacitie, and that his doingthereof is to theend that his mightiepower should be thebetter proued vnto them.28

About Leviathanhe is even more emphatic:"As touchingthe worde Leuiathan,through the whole scripture it signifietha Whale."But he makes some concessionto allegoricalinterpretation, in allowingmen to inferthe powerof thedevil from the strengthof thesebeasts.29 Calvincertainly concedes that allegorical interpretations abound,30 but so stronglywas the new Protestant biblical criticism committed to disposingof them, as relics of Catholicismand the powerof the Churchto interpret scripture,that he enjoinshis congregationto reflecton the whale,"is it not anincredible thynge to see so hugea creature,liuing in thewater? Who were ableto fashionthe moulde of so great,huge, and strong a beast."31 In fact, in his Commentaryvpon the Prophecie of Isaiah, dedicated to Henry,Prince of England,son of JamesI, andPrincess Elizabeth, his wife, andperhaps intended for a differentaudience, Calvin does give an allegorical interpretation,making of Leviathannot only a figurefor the Devil butalso forthe King of Egypt.Commenting on Isaiah27:1 ("In that day the Lord will visit Leuiathanthat pearcing Serpent, and Leuiathan that crooked Serpent, withhis soreand great and mightie sword: and will kill theDragon that is in the sea"),he remarks:"For mine owne part I makeno questionbut by way of Allegoriehe speakeshere of Satanand his wholekingdome, describing it

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 360 POLITICALTHEORY/ May 1995 underthe figure of somemonstrous beast." The signification of Leviathanas a figurefor tyrants, Egypt, and is quiteexplicit:32

The Prophetspeakes heere of Gods iudgementin generall,and so comprehendsthe whole kingdomof Satan.For hauingspoken before of the vengeanceof God againsttyrants and vnbeleeuerswhich had shed innocentblood, he now passethon further,and publisheth the edict it selfe. The word Leuiathan is diuerslieexpounded, but generallie it signifies a serpent,or the whales and fishes of the sea, which are as monstersin regardof their excelliue greatnes.Now howsoeuerthis descriptionagrees to the king of Egypt,yet vnder this one he meantto comprehendall the enemies of the Church.

MartinLuther understood full well theallegorical force of Leviathanand Behemoth.In his Magnificat,33he shows how the Bible demonizes"the proud,those "forlorn people" of theBook of Job:"Sometimes it callsthem adderswho stoptheir ears lest theyhear;34 sometimes stubborn unicorns;35 sometimesroaring lions;36 sometimes great immovable rocks;37 sometimes dragons;3'and much else besides."Leviathan and Behemoth are demoniza- tionstoo: "Equally well arethey depicted in Job40 and41, wherethe same kindof peopleare called Behemoth [Job 40: 10ff, 41: 10ff]. Behema means a singleanimal, but behemoth means a numberof suchanimals, in otherwords, a racewhich has an animal mind, and does not allow the spirit of Godin it."39 In the sixteenthcentury, Luther had alreadygiven a racialreading of the terms:"The Bible describes them [Behemoth] as havingan eye like thered of dawn,for there is no measureto theircunning, and their skin is so tough thatthey only scoff at a stabor a sting."Referring now to Leviathan,he continued:"the monsters" scales overlap, and leave no interveningspace; for thesepeople hold closely together, and the spirit of Godcannot enter them."40 (A famoussexual harrassment case at the University of Pennsylvaniain 1993 turnedon whetherthe Hebrewword for "water-buffalo"constituted a racial slur;the wordin questionwas "behema.") It seems then thatReformation commentators were well awareof the allegoricalreferents for Leviathanand Behemoth in the powerfulstates of ancientEgypt and Assyria. But perhaps because these allusions implied an immanentcritique of secularnation states-already alarmingly fragile, and thereadier to persecute,the more fragile they were-or becausethe Reform- ersdiscouraged apocalyptic speculation-and these were apocryphal texts- theyfound it politicto playthem down. This Hobbes was notwilling to do, findingfertile material in the Book of Job for his mortalcommonwealth, personifiedby the sword-wieldingsovereign, a workof artificeboth fear- someand fragile, mandated by Godto reignin historicaltime, that sliver of temporalitycreated in theinterstices of eternity.

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(3) BRAMHALLCATCHING LEVIATHAN

It was quitea sheerperversity on Hobbes'spart to makesuch play of the beastsof the Book of Job, and,true to form,he seemedto intendit as a provocation.When, in a seriesof exchangeswith Bishop John Bramhall, Hobbeschallenged Bramhall to put in printhis objectionsto his religious doctrine,he offered him the title "Behemothagainst Leviathan."4'Bramhall, whosesystematic rebuttal of thetheological chapters of Leviathanhas never been surpassed,and who referredto thatwork as "Monstrumhorrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum,"countered with, "The catching of LEVIATHAN,or the Great Whale."42 The irony was not lost on Bramhallthat Hobbes,who arguedso systematicallyagainst phantasms, should have resortedto a mythicalmonster to characterizehis commonwealth.43 Bramhall was notthe only critic to remarkon thispeculiarity, the subject of Alexander Ross's,Leviathan Drawn out witha Hook(1653), but he was certainlythe most thorough.He daredHobbes to show thathe himselfwas not Levia- than-a possibilityon which subsequentcommentators, pointing to the resemblancethat Leviathan's head in one of the versionsof thefrontispiece bears to the author,have speculated.44Bramhall taunts Hobbes, whose Leviathan,he says, is a man-fish,like the Palestinianidol Dagon,45rather thana whale-fish,the biblical original:

his Leviathan,or mortalGod, is a meer phantasmeof his own devising, neitherflesh nor fish, buta confusionof aman anda whale,engendered in his own brain:not unlike Dagon the Idol of the Philistims, a mixture of a god and a man and a fish. The true literall Liviathanis the Whale-fish.

Bramhallchallenges Hobbes the rhetor, who tried to summoninto existence a polityby persuasion,invoking classical heroes, , Pericles, and the proverbialPythagoras. No one saw moreclearly than Bramhall the brazen- ness of Hobbes'sheresy. He who in work afterwork had damnedthe opinionatedphilosophers of the Greekschools for contaminatingearly Christianitywith theirteachings, dared himself to offer an opinionon the Christiancommonwealth that convicted him as an heresiarch-"asecond Pythagoras,at least." Hobbes himself was the monster, among all the children of pride,the greatLeviathan incarnate:

And for a metaphoricalLeviathan, I know none so properto personatethat huge body as T H. himself. The Leviathandoth not take his pastime in the deep with so much freedom, nor behave himself with so much height and insolence, as T H. doth in the Schooles, nor domineerover the lesser fishes with so much scorn and contempt,as he

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doth over all other authours,censuring, branding, contemning, proscribing whatsoever is contraryto his humour;bustling and bearingdown before him whatsoevercometh in his way, creatingtruth and falsehood by the breathof his mouth, by his sole authority, without other reason; A second Pythagorasat least. There have been self-conceited personsin all Ages, but none thatcould ever King it like him over all the chldrenofpride. (Job 41.34.) Ruit, agit, rapit,tundit & prostemit.46

Bramhallhas Hobbes'smeasure and knows that he can convicthim of inconsistency:

I have providedthree good harpingirons for my self to dart at this monster, and am resolvedto trymy skill andfortune, whether I can be as successfulagainst this phantastick Leviathan,as they are againstthe trueLeviathan.47

Bramhall'sdiscursus on the whale-fish Leviathan is shapedto thestructure of theologicalrebuttal, each line of argumenta harpoonwith which to spear Hobbes,more vulnerable than he thinksto thesmall fry who assail him. The passagemay also be readas an elaborateallegory of the threatposed to the unitarystate by nonconformists,namely the Protestantsects. Hobbes's heterodoxyopens the door, ironically, to thevery proliferation of opinionhe is most concernedto forestall.Bramhall paints frightful images of the consequencesin the littlemouse that "stealeth up thoroughthe Elephants trunketo eathis brains,making him die desperately mad"; the Indian rat that "creepethinto the belly of the gapingCrocodile, and knaweth his bowels asunder";and the sword-fishand the thrasher-fishthat join forceswith the Greenlandfishermen to overwhelmLeviathan, "at last to drawthis formida- ble creatureto the shore,or to theirship, and slice himin piecesand boile himin a Cauldron,and tun him up in oil."48The metonymy of Leviathanwas the synecdocheof thestate. Hobbeshad offered to his criticsthe intolerableprovocation of an alle- goricalinterpretation of scripture, against which they so heavilyenveighed- evenas he deniedthe spiritual and ghostly beings to whichthey, inconsistent by turn,subscribed in notionsof the soul,angels and demons.49 Leviathan's pointwas the spectreof countervailingpower. The ghostlypowers of the pope, as King of Fayrieland,were real enough;just as real had been the demonizedpower of pharaonicEgypt and Assyria to the fledglingIsraelite state.Is the commonwealththen a Leviathanby inversionto renderthe papacyanti-Leviathan? Perhaps Hobbes saw himself as Leviathanwith respectto the Church,fish-man and demon in the serviceof the state,and revelledin it, just so long as it did not cost him his head.In the Historia Ecclesiastica,his enchiridionin elegaicprose, he nicelyturns the metaphor of Leviathan.The ancientimperial states, those mightybeasts, Egypt,

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Assyria,and Rome, have all beenhooked; and snares are being prepared for the rest.The Historia Ecclesiastica includes a longdiscursus on the serpent andthe ensnaring arts of thepapacy, its hooksand lures of manycolours:50

But now the Pope his end compleatlygains, And leads the People, and their Prince,in Chains: Now vast Leviathanthe Hook receives, And Behemothhis woundedNostrils grieves: All gently own the Pope's ImperialSway Where'rthe Romaneagles wing theirWay.... No craftyAngler will his Art despise, Thoughin his Nets a scanty Profitlies; And ever busy'd in his small Affairs, He mends his Nets, or strictlyviews his Wares, His Lines new models, or his Hooks surveys, And ev'ry Thing in decent Orderlays; Gay gaudyFlies of ev'ry Sort are seen, The brightCarnation and the lovely Green..... There skimmingcross the Streams,with sov'reign Skill, The pointedHooks th'unwaryFishes kill.

Theinversion of Leviathanwas now complete: the Papacy usurps the role of ancientIsrael, "draw[ing] out Leviathan with an hooke or his tonguewith a corde,"piercing the nostrilsof Behemoth.Those pitiable (but Satanic) monsterspersonifying the ancient Egyptian and Assyrian states, respectively, havegiven way to the greatwhale, the Christiancommonwealth, and now thePope acts the role of Godthe Father. Hobbes's play on thebeasts of Job goes farbeyond allegory and enters the realm of blasphemy.Is it anywonder theman was accusedof heresy?

(4) LEVIATHANAND THEGALLIC HERCULES

But perhapswe arelooking in the wrongplace to establishthe meaning of Leviathan.The kinglyfigure wearing the four-archedcrown, wielding scepterand sword,naked, his bodycomposed of the manypersons of his realm,may not be "thecoiled one" at all. Presidingalmost benignly over a modeltown spreadout beforehim, the spiresof churchesand the orderly streetsa modelof civility,Leviathan, if thatis whothis figure is, wouldseem a guardianof civilizationand no monster.51Arrayed under the insigniaof powercivil andecclesiastical, respectively, are symmetrical cameos. A castle is juxtaposedto the arkas seatof power;the crown versus the mitre,potent symbols.Over againstthe canonstands the divine thunderbolt;and the

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 364 POLITICALTHEORY/ May 1995 bannersand battle standards of jostlingcivil powersare pitted against the threepronged, Trinitarian forks, and the two horneddilemmas of ecclesias- ticalcontroversy. The denouement is in eachcase different: war, the outcome of civil strife;the court of excommunication,the outcomeof doctrinal malfeasance.Who is theguardian of cities,villages, shires, and fields, shown in the frontispiece?Is it the Godly Prince,and if so, how could he be Leviathan?52 Thedepiction of Leviathanin thefrontispiece is counterintuitive.Neither a shipnor a whale,it is muchmore an imagedrawn from medieval organic theoriesof kingshipthan a biblicalimage. There is a moreobscure tradition to whichHobbes may be appealing,one to whichhe makesallusion in the body of the text, and thatis the GallicHercules, mentioned by Diodorus Siculus,53alluded to by Apuleius,and of whomthe Syrian Rhetor Lucian tells sucha strangestory.54 Named by the Celts"Heracles Ogmios," he was old, bald,naked except for lion's skin, wrinkled, and "burned as blackas canbe, like an old sea-dog."But he carriesthe equipment of Heracles,the club and thequiver, and "is Heracles from head to heelas faras thatgoes."55 He differs fromthe classicalHeracles in a surprisingrespect: "That old Heraclesof theirsdrags after him a greatcrowd of menwho areall tetherdby the ears" to his tongue.56Lucian reports a Celticstranger, fluent in Greek,who offered to "read[him] the riddle of thepicture":57

WeCelts do not agree with you Greeks in thinking that Hermes is Eloquence:we identify Heracleswith it, becausehe is far morepowerful than Hermes.... In general,we considerthat the real Heracles was a wise manwho achieved everything by eloquence andapplied persuasion as his principalforce. His arrowsrepresent words, I suppose, keen,sure and swift, which make their wounds in souls.

Not by chance,Hobbes invokes the image of the Gallic Herculesto describehis "ArtificiallMan, which we call a Common-wealth,"tied by "ArtificiallChains, called CivillLawes, which [citizens]themselves, by mutualcovenants, have fastnedat one end, to the lips of that Man, or Assembly,to whomthey have given the Soveraigne Power; and at theother end to theirown Ears."58With this allusion,Hobbes demonstrates not only hisclassical knowledge but also his acquaintance with traditions of monarchy learnedat firsthand in France.Henry II, forhis carefullyscripted triumphal entryinto Paris in 1549,had chosen the GallicHercules as an effigy of the king.Clad only in an animalskin, his pedimentwas a ship,flanked by two nakedmen raisinga cartouchewith the legend:"trahimur, seqvimurque volentes."59Referring to thefour accompanying statues that personified the

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Estates,their ears chained to thelips of theking, it translated:"we are pulled andwe followfreely."60 The messagethat rhetor Lucian reports: "you know the kinshipbetween earsand tongue,",61 is onethat Henry II hadlearned well. Eloquence was the lesson that the Renaissancerhetoricians and authorsof mirrorstaught. GaullaumeBude had first proposedthe model of the Gallic Herculesto FrancisIin his 1518Institution du Prince.62 Jean Bodin, who in theMethodus observed that "before the time of Henry II . . . we never used the word 'Majesty'in addressingthe king,"63in De la Republiquedeclared, "there is nothingmore natural, than for the sujectsto conformethemselves unto the manners,unto the doingsand sayings of theirprince . . . havingtheir eyes, theirsenses, and all theirspirits, wholly bent to the imitationof him."64He thentook the liberty of advisingthe prince on his propercomportment:

Whereforea princethat is wise is, so oft as he shouldshow himself unto the people (whichhe shouldmost seldom do) shouldso preparehimselfe, as thathe mayunto all men seemeeven in his face andcountenance to carrywith him a certainestate and majestieyet still mixtwith modestie, but especially in his speech,which should always be maiesticalland sententious.

TheHeracles who taught by eloquenceforsaking the club, his arrowswords, became a Renaissanceimage for lex animata,the king as animatelaw. While Petrarchspoke of "healingspeech," and Francis I aspiredto "doulceelo- quenceet royalbonte," the eloquence of whichBodin was mindfulwas the languagewith which Francis I hadin factdealt with the rebels of LaRochelle: "withthe maiesite of his speech[he] terrified them" into obedience.65 Nor was eloquencethe only lesson the Gallic Herculestaught. The classicalhero took over the characteristics of his rival Hermes, as the civilizer of peoples,who taught agriculture, protected cities. His Easternprovenance creptback in GeofreyTroy's 1510 edition of thefalse Berosus [Babylonicus]; andin 1529Champfleury made him "not only King of Gaulbut also a great magician,astronomer, and even founder of Paris."66Henry II himselfat his 1550ceremonial entry into Rouen had been greeted by a pageantdepicting the Christianking as the antiqueHercules, slaying the hydra,accompanied by Orpheusand the nine muses.67The bestiaryof the Book of Job relates etymologicallyto the hydraand other monsters of the EastMediterranean mythcycle, Leviathan among them. Hercules'nakedness, as portrayedin the 1649royal entry statue, at firsta potent classicalpagan symbol, was both an evocationof the medieval doctrineof theKing's Two Bodies and a satireupon it. It evokedthe man, as

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 366 POLITICALTHEORY / May 1995 distinctfrom the king, who in theclassical "double funeral" was represented quitesimply as an old man'sbody in a shroud.68In France,the of theking, decked out in royalregalia, represented the office of kingshipunder a specialaspect: the king-in-parlement as opposed to oneman rule. It wasto thisideal of therobed king that the ceremonial statue of thenaked king Henry II, drawingthe four estates in tow,bound by theirears to thelips of theking, was a directaffront. It suggesteda ruptureof traditionalpatterns of consul- tancy,of listeningand speaking,between king andpeople, and a turnto governmentbased upon imperial edicts and fear associated with Hispano- Papalism,the courts of CharlesV andPhilip 11.69 What could the Gallic Herculeshave meantto Hobbes,whose only mentionsof the classicalhero by nameare disparaging? In book 1 chapter 12 of Leviathanon Religion,Hobbes refers to Herculeswith Bacchusas "mongrillGods," added by the "Legislatorsof theGentiles" for thebenefit of theignorant to thepanoply of "ministeriallGods," anthropomorphized and "endowed.. . withlands, and houses, and officers, and reveunues, set apart fromall otherhumane uses; that is, consecrated,and made holy to thosetheir Idols."70Hercules appears again in book2 chapter30, devotedto the"Office of the SovereignRepresentative," in a discussionof the psychologyof rewardsand punishments as levers of powerthat might well have been written by the greatcommentator on theRoman Empire, Polybius. Preferment and beneficesare signs not "of Gratitude,but of Fear:[nor] does it tendto the Benefit,but to theDammage of thePublique"':71

It is a contentionwith Ambition, like that of Herculeswith the MonsterHydra, which havingmany heads for every one that was vanquished, there grew up three. For in like manner,when the stubornnesseof one Popularman, is overcomewith Reward, there arisemany more (by theExample) that do the sameMischief, in hopeof like Benefit: andas all sortsof Manifacture,so alsoMalice encreaseth by beingvendible.

Althoughapparently observations in passing,Hobbes's references are reliableclues to theGallic Hercules as celebratedin sixteenthcentury France. Hiscareer did not end with Henry II, who aspired both to unfetteredone-man rule of Polybianmonarchia72 and the territorialambitions of civilizing Hercules,who turnedswords into ploughshares and spearsinto pruning forks.73Henry IV, the former Protestant Henry of Navarre,who, judging Paris wortha Mass, convertedto Catholicism,fathered the CatholicHenrietta Maria,Queen consort of CharlesI, andlater, with Sully, authored the Edict of Nantes,could be said to demonstratethe sort of religiosityof which Hobbesapproved.74 Succeeding Henry III (1551-89),whose reign oversaw bittercivil warbetween Protestants and Catholics, the latter united in a holy

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Springborg/ HOBBES'S BIBLICAL BEASTS 367 leagueunder the Duc de Guise,Henry IV, in thefailing days of theEmperor RudolfII, harbouredambitions to becomeKing of theRomans and take up the cudgelsof Christianityagainst the Turks, whose success in the Balkans at the battleof Kanizsahad shamedthe Hapsburgs.7"Henry's marriage to Mariade' Medici brought with it vistasof a Christendom,from the dominions of Austriato Italyand Spain, united against Islam, seen to heralda renovatio of Christianempire in whichthe Gallic Hercules was radically redeployed. HenryIV, who in 1594had entered Paris as Perseus,who slew the dragon Spain,the Medusa, as it threatenedto devoura chainedvirgin, was portrayed variouslyas Caesar,Alexander, Augustus, Constantine, and Charlemagne.76 Buthis mostsymptomatic personifications were as theGallic Hercules, just becauseof thesymbolic complexity that the legendary progenitor of so many princelylines permitted.77 In 1592 at the heightof the civil war,Henry as Hercules,armed with a club,was portrayed"dragging the [three-headed]dog Cerberusup fromthe under-worldwith a rope,signify[ing] that by his resplendent virtue the Prince subduesand expels vices fromhis nationwith just andhallowed laws," the VenetianAntonio Ricciardo Brixiano, reported.78 His armamentswere strik- ing.On medal after medal, Henry IV is portrayedas Hercules-Hermes,bearer of peace,his weaponsa caduceusand a club.The caduceus, Hermes' wand surmountedby entwinedserpents, conflates images of the serpentstaff of Mosesand the ecclesiasticalscepter, of whichit wasperhaps the prototype. Of thesethe equipmentof Hobbes'sLeviathan is noticeablysimilar. By no accident,Henry IV as GallicHercules aspired to unitethe two heads of theeagle, ecclesiastical and civil, longa dreamof theGallican Church, in whichthe king was salutedas founderof theChurch of France,protector of cities,and "Empereur dans son Royaume."79The imperial renovatio was to combinethe classical civilizing mission of Heracles-Hermeswith a Christian peacein whichthe French king ruled as priestand prince. Vanquisher of the Medusaand the infidel abroad, he conquered"par la ceduceede sa clemence et vertu"at home,80an imageexquisitely crafted by engraversof medals, architects,and designers of royalentries, humanist historians, philologists, andpoets. Isaac Casaubon, who dedicated his commentarieson Polybiusto HenryIV, hailed him as "mightyauthor of peace,haven for those who are in dangerand sole anchorof a Europelong storm-tossedand blownoff her course."'8'Honore d'Urfe's famous allegorical-pastoralnovel L'Astree, whichtells of theHerculean travails of a youngprince, finally admitted into the companyof the divineAstraea, heralding a new age of civilizationand peace,was dedicated to HenryIV, to whomthe monumental work of Olivier de Serres,Le Theitred'Agriculture of 1601, was also dedicated.82These

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 368 POLITICALTHEORY/ May 1995 pastoraland pacific allegories were dedicated to eloquence,rule by theword insteadof by theclub. Hobbes'sanswer to Davenant'sPreface to Gondibert,dedicated to him andhis theories,shows the mastermuch more attuned than his acolyteto Frenchliterary and rhetoricaltrends. For all thathe campaignedagainst fairiesand fantasms, Hobbes had no desireto extinguishthe imagination: "fancy,"and its works.It is from"fancy," "whenceproceed those grateful similies,metaphors and other tropes, by whichboth poets andorators have it in theirpower to makethings please or displease,and show well or ill to others,as theylike themselves."83 Leviathan's success lies in theeconomy of rhetoric.The sword-wieldingLeviathan must combinethe emblemsof churchand state on a missionof peace.If theproject of theGallic Hercules was a Counterreformationimperial dream, Hobbes's Leviathan was its antithesis:Protestant Prince, vanquisher of the many-headedpapal and Presbyterianhydra, who would finally bring peace. Now we see why Hobbesthe materialistand crusader against fantasms daredto invokeimages of Joband the Apocrypha, setting allegorical riddles officiallyruled out by his theoryfor his followers to solve.Leviathan walked a tightropebetween the Godly prince of protestantismand the God-king of pagantradition. Multiple in its appeals,this synthetic figure, Gallic Hercules, OldTestament king, evocation of thehumanist prince and the Bookof Job, was as offensiveto one traditionas it was attractiveto another.Hobbes had overdoneit. If "thetongue of manis a trumpetof warre,and sedition," the spectreof a Frenchabsolute monarch ruling like Pericles, who "by his elegant speechesthundered and lightend, and confounded whole Greece t'selfe,"84 was morethan the seventeenth century Englishman was prepared to take. Hobbesindulged in insolentirony in invokingLucian the rhetor, author of thenotorious Philsophiesfor Sale.85 Hepaints "rhetors, a vile race,drawn by greedof moneyand fanning ears to peopleproud but poor,who take nothingseriously unless told themby beardedphilosophers with austere faces,their whole lives an affront to theirown teachings."86 Lucian, historian of the GallicHercules and rhetor who deploresall rhetoricians,is Hobbes, andHobbes, author of Leviathan,is Lucian.If Leviathanis theFrench King, the SpanishEmperor, the Pope, and the Counterreformationleague, that makesthe English parliament, that nest of Presbyterians,Behemoth. Hobbeshad effected a setof startlingreversals that only contrived to make him more heretical,more politicallydangerous, and more theologically controversial.Given his irrepressibledisposition, this could have been more or less intentional.For he hadserious philosophical reasons for naminghis booksthe way he did,which controversy sometimes obscured. Memory of theOld Testament creator God, the God of fear,could not be expungedfrom

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Springborg/ HOBBES'S BIBLICAL BEASTS 369 the dispensationof the New Testament,he maintained;not only becauseof the realityof powerpolitics-old statesand old scoresto settle-but, more seriously,due to the hermeneuticsof power.Leviathan, as an awefulfigure of might,personated the Old Testament God who hadbuilt the worldlike a templepoised between worlds. Its stormwalls and its starryroof were open for all to see. By sucha showof strength,the creator God assailed men, who couldnot deny him or the who personified his power-the latter like Beelzebubwere beasts,but somehowpart of the divinedesign. That Hobbesshould have designated his own Christiancommonwealth a Levia- thanis as muchan expressionof his relentlesshonesty as it is of his desire to provoke.Like the kingdoms of old-as thecreation of menno betterand no worse-it wasthe sort of stateone might expect a HenryIV to leador, at one time,a CharlesI.

NOTES

1. The OxfordEnglish Dictionary (OED, 1989ed., vol. 8, 869)gives several meanings for the term up to and including the seventeenth century including, firstly, a monster, in the seventeenthcentury meaning of marvel:"the name of an aquaticanimal (real or imaginary)of enormoussize, frequentlymentioned in Hebrew poetry,"as in 1382, Wyclif, Job xl[1.] 20 [21] Whethermaist thou drawenout leuyethanwith an hoc? 1535 CoverdalePs ciii[i.] 26, There is that Leuiathan,whom thou hast made,to take his pastymetherin. 1555, Eden, Decades, To Rdr. (Arb.) 51 The greate serpenteof the sea Leuiathan,to haue such dominionin the Ocean. 1591, Spenser,Vis. World'sVan. 62, The huge Leuiathan,dame Natureswonder; secondly, "a man of wast and formidablepower or enormouswealth": 1607, Dekker,Knts Conjur. 60, The lacquy of this greatleuiathan promisde he shouldbe maister.c. 1630, Sanderson,Serm. 11.310, So can the Lord deal ... with the great. . . leviathansof the world;thirdly, "After Isaiah xxvii.I.) The great enemy of God, Satan":1382 Wyclif, Isa. xxvii.I, In that dai viseten shal the Lord in his harde swerd . . . vp on leuyathan. . . a crookidwounde serpent.c. 1400 Destr.Troy 4423, This fende was the first thatfelle for his pride... thatlyuyaton is cald. 1412-20, Lydg. Chron.Troy, II. xvii, The vile serpentthe Leuiathan.1447 Bokenham,Seytnys (Roxb.) 150, By the envye deceyvyd of hys enmy Clepyd serpentbehemoat or levyathan.1595, B. Barnes,Spir. Sonn. li, Breakethou the jawes of old Levayathan,Victorious Conqueror; and fourthly,"attrib. passing into adj. when sense: Huge, monstrous:1624, Middleton,Game at Chess, II. ii, This leviathan-scandalthat lies rolling Upon the crystal waters of devotion. The OxfordEnglish Dictionary (OED) acknowl- edges that after 1651 the meaningof the termwas changedforever, by Hobbesuse of it to mean "The organismof political society, the commonwealth"(OED, 1989 ed., 869). 2. See KeithBrown, "TheArtist of the LeviathanTitle Page,"British Library Journal 4, no. 2 (1978): 24-36; ArnoldA. Rogow, ThomasHobbes: Radical in the Service of Reaction (New York:W. W. Norton, 1986), 156-60; A. P. Martinich,The TwoGods of Leviathan(Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1992), 362-5; and TracyStrong, "How to WriteScripture: Words, Authority,and Politics in Thomas Hobbes," CriticalInquiry, 20 (Autumn 1993): 128-59, esp. 128-30. I wish to express my sinceregratitude to the Folger Instituteof the Folger Shakespeare

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Libraryand its staff, whereI beganthis workand from whom I was the recipientof a grant-in-aid; to LarryBryant, Alan Cromartie,Johann and Margaret Sommerville, and Patricia Harris Staiblein, my colleagues there, for useful discussion and assistance; to the Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington,D.C., where as a Fellow for the 1993-4 academic year I have had the pleasure of completing it; and to the Editorand anonymousreaders of this journal. I am indebtedto Alan Cromartiefor specific informationon Herbert,Culverwell and the biblical commentaries;to LarryBryant for his excellent work on the Gallic Hercules;and to PatriciaHarris Stablein for sources on big fish stories, includingher own (unpublished)"No Whale Is an Island." 3. Iconographicinvestigations are less fruitful.Of the books consulted on monsters and marvellousbeasts: Christopher Hill, Antichrist in SeventeenthCentury England (Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress,1971); C.J.S. Thompson, The Mystery andLore ofMonsters (London: Williams and Norgate, 1930); Heinz Mode, Fabulous Beasts and Monsters (London:Phaidon, 1975); Claude Kappler,Monstres et Demons et Merveillesa lafin du MoyenAge (Paris:Payot, 1980), only Mode makes mention of Leviathan or Behemoth. Mode (1975, 118, 119, 120, 153) reproducesthe text of Isaiah 27:1, setting it in the context of a brief discussion of Tiamatand dragonfigures of earlierMesopotamian and Near Easternliterature, accompaniedby an excellent line drawingof Leviathan(a dragon)and Behemoth(a hippopotamus)by WilliamBlake, 1825, too late for ourpurposes. Even the compendiouswork of P.Gaspar Schott, S. J., Physica Curiosa, sive Mirabilia naturae et artis (1667), ranging from angels and demons to biological and astronomicalmarvels, includes no mentionof Leviathanor Behemoth.This despite mention of Egyptianconjurors turning rods into serpents(Schott, 1667, bk. 1, chap. 20, 58); brief mention of Job 1:3 of the Book of the Apocalypse on the precursorto Antichrist(Schott, 1667, bk. 1, chap. 19, 51) and Isaiah 13:5, 20 on the exterminationof the Babyloniansand their place being takenby dragons(Schott, 1667, bk. 3, chap. 2, 360); anda chapterdevoted to Egyptianmonsters and deformities(Appendix to bk. 12, chap. 6, 1377-8), mattersof relatedinterest to Hobbes. 4. Strong,"How to WriteScripture," 147. VictoriaSilver, in her"Critical Response, I: AMatter of Interpretation,"Critical Inquiry 20 (Autumn, 1993): 160-71, arguesagainst Strongthat the Leviathanis a figure for "theworld's fundamental intransigence-its resistanceto explanation" (p. 164). This is, I think,quite wrong,if only, as I shall show, on the groundsof anachronism. 5. Quoted in Silver, "CriticalResponse," 164-5, as evidence of God flexing his muscles in the creation of Leviathan, symbol of the intransigence of the world and resistance to explanation. 6. Leviathan,1, 1991 ed., 9. 7. Ibid., chap. 17, 87, 1991 ed., 120. 8. Ibid., 166, 1991 ed., 220 9. Ibid., 166-7, 1991 ed., 220-1. 10. Strong,"How to WriteScripture," 132-3, 149. 11. Ibid. It is importantto emphasizethat Reformation epistemic revisions to the allegorical traditionof Catholicismrepresented an institutionalchallenge in the first instance, and philo- sophic changes only as a consequence.Allegorical interpretation had openedup a vast terrainof possible meanings, giving the Churchthe scope it needed to claim institutionalauthority over the sacredbooks. The Protestantattempt to claim the scripturesback for the common readerhad its analogue in Hobbes's attemptto claim back civil society and its full arrayof institutions, includingphilosophy and government,from the domainof an imperialchurch. It representedat once a democraticappeal to the equalityof all believersand an institutionalcounterclaim against the Church.For this reason, I think that Tracy Strongis right to see the Protestantposition on the question of how we can know the scripturesas Hobbes's paradigmfor how we can know God and, further,how we can know thatcivil governmentis divinely sanctioned.In each of these cases, "know"is the operative word, the "leap of faith"that Silver objects to and that Strong

This content downloaded from 46.18.27.5 on Wed, 19 Feb 2014 11:36:00 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Springborg/ HOBBES'S BIBLICALBEASTS 371 reasserts. (See Strong's "CriticalResponse II: When Is a Text not a Pretext?A Rejoinderto Victoria Silver," CriticalInquiry 20 (Autumn1993): 172-8, esp., 172-4). Seventeenthcentury propositionsconcerning matters for which we have even fewer guidelinesthan for understanding scripturedo not lend themselves to redescriptionas, for instance, " 'interpreting'the existence of God," or " 'interpreting'the legitimacy of the sovereign." Semantically incongruousand politically dangerous, they offer no warrantfor the redescription" 'interpreting'the Bible," either, languagethat exegetes are carefulnot to use. 12. For Hobbes's preoccupationwith disempoweringthe Church,see PatriciaSpringborg, "Hobbeson Religion,"in the CambridgeCompanion to Hobbes,ed. by Tom Sorrell(Cambridge, forthcoming);and "Hobbes,Heresy and the Historia Ecclesiastica,"Journal of the History of Ideas (October 1994). On anti-clericalismas the obsession in the age of Locke, see J.A.I Champion,The Pillars of PriestcraftShaken: The Churchof England and its Enemies, 1660- 1730 (Cambridge:Cambridge University Press, 1992). 13. TheodoreBeza, Job Expovndedby TheodoreBeza, Partly in Mannerof a Commentary, Partly in Manner of a Paraphrase (Cambridge,1589, STC 2020), Dedicatorie,4. 14. Ibid., 8-9. 15. EdwardHerbert, The Ancient Religion of the Gentiles and Causes of ErrorsConsidered (London: 1705 ed.; Folger Library,153296), 134. English translationof De religione gentilis, errorumqueapud eos causis (Amsterdam,1663; Folger Library:150363.B 1805). 16. NathanielCulverwell, An Elegantand LearnedDiscourse of the Lightof Nature(1646), ed. by RobertA. Greenand High MacCallum(Toronto: University of TorontoPress, 1972), 41. 17. TheodoreBeza, Job Expovnded,Dedicatorie, 4-5. 18. Hugh Broughton,an Hebraistand scholar,noted in his title the time he expended on interpretationcompared with translation:Hugh Broughton, Iob. Tothe King.A Colon-Agrippina studie of one moneth,for the metricall translation.But of Many Yeres,for Ebrew Difficulties. Part 2 is Iob. Broughton tofamiliardialogue and paraphrasefor easier entendement(n.p., 1610, STC 3868). He skips over Job, chapters38 to 42, with the general comment that God's point here is to teach people: on the one hand, that his demonstrationsof power are visible; on the other,that probing them too deeply for meaningis a show of prideof just the sort for which Job took our punishment. Broughton's comment amounts to a confession of failure with this particularset of "'ebrew difficulties,"which is to say that he is more open than most of his contemporarycommentators (Ibid., 144). This translation,with a politicalpurpose no doubt,had been made for King James I. Earlier,in his translationof The Lamentationof Ieremy(1606, 34), dedicatedto "Henry,Prince of GreatBritany," Broughton had cross-referencedthe dragonand ostrich of chapter4:3 of the Lamentations("Even the Dragonsopen theirbreast, they give suck to their whelps: the daughterof my people is like the cruell:as the ostrichin the wildernes")to the unicornof Job 39:14, suggestingsome unfathomableassociation between these apocalyptic beasts. The choice of Job and the Lamentationsof Jeremiahas texts for royal dedicationcould, as in the case of Beza, simply be to exhortthe Princeto constancyand couragein times of trial, with no particular,or negative, focus on the apocalypticcontent, as the Broughton'ssubtitle for the Lamentations(1606), which "Stirrethall to attention of God's Ordered Providence in Kingdomes confusion,"would suggest. 19. George Abbott, The Whole Booke of lob Paraphrased, or Made easie for any to understand(London, 1640, STC 41), 256, 259. 20. Jean Oecolampadius,Exposition de M. Iean Oecolompadesvr le Livrede Iob. Traduit de Latinen Fran,ois (Editionpremiere, Geneve, 1562, Floger Library218-628q), 487. 21. Ibid., 488-9. Oecolampadius'account is one of the most comprehensivesurveys of interpretatonsof Behemothand Leviathanin Bible commentaries. 22. Job 40:17.

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23. Behemoth's tail stiff like a Cedarin the Book of Job, would have been read as a figure for Lebanon. 24. John Calvin, Sermons of Maister John Calvin, vpon the Booke of Iob, trans. Arthur Golding (London, 1584 STC 4447), 730b, 43ff. 25. Ibid., 731a, 4-11. 26. Ibid., 731a, 16-21. 27. Ibid., 732b, 33ff. 28. Ibid., 732a, 53ff: "Howbeitbefore I goe any further,wheras here is so long a discourse vpon the said king of beasts of the land whiche I said was an Elephant,(albeit that it bee named here by the generalterme of Behemoth)& also vpon the Leuiathan:we haue to marketherupon how men haue bin of opinion, thatby an allegory the diuel is spoken of here, ratherthan either the Elephantor the Whale, andthat they hauegone abouteto prouethat fanastical deuise of theirs by this, that in the end is said, thatthe said whale is the king of the childrenof pride." 29. Ibid., 733a, 6-11: "Neuerthelestruely, by conueying the discourse from the one to the other,a man mightas wel vse this similitudeof the Whalesand Elephantes, to makemen perceiue how greatly the power of the Deuil ought to fray vs, seeing he is termedthe prince of the ayre and of the world." 30. The most common usage of the words "allegory,""allegorical" up to and includingthe sixteenthcentury, was to designatea particulartradition of biblicalinterpretation, Tyndale in his Obedienceof a ChristianMan, of 1528 (Works,vol. 1, 303) declaring:"They divide the scripture in four senses, the literal, tropological, allegorical and analogical." Wyclif, on Gal. 4:24, remarkedeliptically, "The whiche thingis ben seid by allegorie, or goostly undirstandinge." W. Fulke (Heskins.Parliament, 1579, 11) referredto "wickedallegorizing vpon the scriptures"; and, in the same vein, Jortin(Serm, 1571, 1771 ed., I.i.2,) declared:"The Pagan Philosophers fell into the Allegorizing way,"Oxford English Dictionary, 1989 ed., vol. 1, 333. 31. Calvin, 1584 ed., 733b, 11ff, 28ff; "If we beare away this singlenes, it will stand vs in better steed then all curious expositions that canne be deuised, as when these Allegorimakers serched out his ribs & backbones,& treatedalso of his skin & of this & that,& to be short,there was not that peece of him, whereinthey found not some toy or other.But this is as it were to make the holy scripturea nose of waxe, by transfourmingit from the naturalsense." 32. John Calvin, A Commentary vpon the Prophecie of Isaiah (Translated ovt of French. . . by C. C. London (1609, STC 4396), 260b. 33. The Reformation Writingsof Martin Luther. Translatedfrom the definitive Weimar edition by BertramLee Wolf (London:Lutterworth Press. 1956, 2 vols.), vol. 2, 231. 34. Ps. 58:4. 35. Ps. 22:21. 36. Ps. 7:2. 37. Jer.5:3. 38. Ps. 74:13 39. Luther,The ReformationWritings, 1956 ed., vol. 2, 232. 40. Ibid. 41. Hobbes's challenge is issued in his "Animadversionsupon the Bishop's Epistle to the Reader,"in The English Worksof ThomasHobbes, ed. by Sir William Molesworth(London, 1839-45; 11 vols, referredto as E.W.),vol. 5,25-6, prefacingThe Questions ConcerningLiberty, Necessity and Chance, ClearlyStated and Debatedbetween Dr Bramhall,Bishop of Derby and Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbury(1654). It is interestingto speculate at what point Hobbes decided to use the title Behemothhimself, the work that was completedin 1668 and published only in 1679. Hobbes is mute on the significanceof its title, at which we can only guess. Did the

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Long Parliament in any way resemble Behemoth as a figure for the Assyrians, land of Nebuchadnezzarand the Towerof Babel? 42. John Bramhall, Castigations of Mr Hobbes his Last Animadversions,in the Case ConcerningLiberty and UniversalNecessity. Withan ApprendixConcerning the Catching of LEVIATHAN,or the Great Whale(London, 1658, STC B4215), Preface,ii. 43. Ibid., iii: "I do believe there never was any Authour Sacred or Profane, Ancient or Moderne,Christian, Jew, Mahumetan, or Pagan, thathath inveighed sofrequently and so bitterly against allfeignedphantasmes,with theirfirst devisers,maintainers, and receivers, as T.H. hath done, excluding out of the natureof things the souls of Men, Angels, Devils, and all incorporeal Substances,as fictions,phantasmes, and groundlesse contradictions. Many menfearthemeaning of it is not good, thatGod himself mustbe gone for company,as being an incorporealsubstance, except men will vouchsafe by God to understandnature. So much T. H. himself seemeth to intimate." 44. Brown, "TheArtist of the Leviathan";Strong, "Howto WriteScripture." 45. OED: sea monster,half man half fish. There was a long traditionof big fish stories, in Norse, French Romance, Celtic, and Old English legend, and other folklore far afield. See, CorneliaCatlin Coulter, "The 'GreatFish' in Ancient andMedieval Story,"Transactions of the American Philological Association 57 (1926): 32-50; Michael N. Nagler, "Beowulf in the Contextof ,"in Old EnglishLiterature in Context,ed. by J. D. Niles (Totowa,NJ: Rowman and Little field, 1980), 143-56; S. J. Parsons,"Lest Men Like Fishes . . . ," Traditio3 (1946): 381-8. 46. Bramhall,Castigations of Mr.Hobbes, iv. 47. Ibid. Bramhallexpands on his image: "My first dartis aimed at his heart,or Theological partof his discourse,to shew thathis principlesare not consistenteither with ,or any otherReligion. The second dartis aimed at the chine [OED: backbone],whereby this vast body is united and fitted for aminalmotion, that is, the politicalpart of his discourse;to shew that his principlesare perniciousto all formes of Government,and all Societies, and destroyall relations between man and man. The thirddart is aimed at his head or rationalpart of his discourse;to shew that his principlesare inconsistentwith themselves, and contradictone another.Let him take heed, if these three darts do pierce his Leviathanhome, it is not all the Dittany [OED: pepperwort,cure for monsters]which groweth in Creetthat can make them drop easily out of his body, withoutthe utteroverthrow of his cause." 48. Ibid. 49. For more detailed studies of Hobbes on these particularreligious doctrines see the following pieces by PatriciaSpringborg, "Leviathan and the Problemof EcclesiasticalAuthor- ity," Political Theory 3, no. 3 (1975): 289-303; "Leviathan,the ChristianCommonwealth Incorporated,"Political Studies 24, no. 2 (1976): 171-83. 50. ThomasHobbes, Historia ecclesiastica carmineelegiaco concinnata,ed. with a preface by Thomas Rymer(London: Andrew Crooke, 1688). English paraphrase,A TrueEcclesiastical History FromMoses to the time of MartinLuther, in Verse(London, 1722), lines 1225-35, 1688 ed., 57, 1722 paraphrase,pp. 97-100. 51. This is the spirit of Tracy Strong's descriptionof the frontispiecein "How to Write Scripture,"130. 52. Henry VIII claimed a super-kingrole in medieval mystical body language"We as head and you as members,we are conjoinedand boundtogether in one body politic,"cited by Ernst H. Kantorowicz,The King's Two Bodies: A Studyin MedievalPolitical Theology(Princeton, NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1957), 228; but even he does not quite qualify for the might and terrorof Leviathan.

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53. DiodorusSiculus, Libraryof History,trans. C. H. Oldfather(London: Heinemann, Loeb ed., 1935), 4.19, 405. 54. Cited by CorradoVivanti, "Henry IV, The Gallic Hercules,"Journal of the Warburgand CourtauldInstitutes 30 (1967): 185. 55. Lucian, "Heracles,"in Works,ed. by A. M. Harmon(London: Heinemann, Loeb ed., 1913), vol. 1, 63. 56. Ibid., 65. 57. Ibid., ?3-6, 1913 ed., 65-7. 58. Leviathan, 1991 ed., 147; noted by QuentinSkinner, "Thomas Hobbes on the Proper Significationof Liberty,"Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 40 (1990): 121-51. 59. Forthis accountof HenryIV as the GallicHercules, I am indebtedto LawrenceM. Bryant, "Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments of Majesty in Henry II's France," in European Monarchy,its Evolutionand Practicefrom RomanAntiquity to ModernTimes (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1992) 127-54. 60. Ibid., 136-7. 61. Lucian, "Heracles,"5, 1913 ed., 67. 62. Bryant,"Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments," 140. 63. Ibid., 136. 64. JeanBodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale,trans. R. Knolles (Cambridge: Press, 1962), 503, 506, cited Bryant, "Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments," 135-6. 65. Bodin, TheSix Bookes,3.3, 378, cited Bryant,"Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments," 141-2. 66. R. E. Hallowell, "Ronsardand the Gallic HerculesMyth," Studies in the 9 (1962); cited Bryant,"Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments," 141 n. 47. 67. Bryant,"Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments," 150. 68. Emst H. Kantorowicz,The King'sTwo Bodies: A Studyin Medieval Political Theology (Princeton,NJ: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1957), 498 n. 6. 69. Bryant,"Politics, Ceremonies, and Embodiments," 144-5. 70. Leviathan,1991 ed., 80-1. 71. Ibid., 241. 72. Polybius, 6.7.9-6.9.1. 73. Vivanti, "HenryIV, The Gallic Hercules,"190. 74. As TracyStrong has pointedout. 75. Vivanti, "HenryIV, The Gallic Hercules,"177-8. 76. Ibid., 179-83. 77. See Jean Seznec, La Survivancedes dieux antiques (Paris, 1940), 28ff, cited Vivanti, "HenryIV," 183. 78. Antonio Ricciardo Brixiano, CommentariaSymbolica..in quibus explicanturarcana pene infinitaad mysticam,naturalem etoccultam rerumsignificationem autinentia (Venice 1591, 33), cited Vivanti, "HenryIV," 184. 79. Antoniola Penna,Orazio e l'ideologia delprincipato (Turin,1963), 180-1; ErnstBloch, Les Rois Thaumaturges(Paris, 1961), cited Vivanti, "HenryIV," 180-1. Rousseau referredto Hobbes as that "Christianauthor," who unitedthe two heads of the eagle, The Social Contract, 1762, bk. 4, chap. 8, trans.Maurice Cranston (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1968), 180. 80. Vivanti, "HenryIV," 190. 81. Isaac Casaubon,Epistolae...eiusdem deicationes, praefationes,prolegomena (Rotter- dam, 1709), vol. 1, 87; cited Vivanti, "HenryIV," 193-4. 82. Vivanti, "HenryIV," 194-5.

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83. See Hobbes's Answerto "TheAuthor's Preface to his much honour'dFriend Mr Hobs," by Sir William D'Avenant, and Hobbes's Answer, in Gondibert:an Heroick Poem (London, 1651, STC D325), 78-9. 84. Hobbes, De Cive, chap. 5, on Imperium,in The English Worksof ThomasHobbes, ed. by Sir William Molesworth(11 vols, London, 1839-1845, referredto as E.W.), vol. 1, 88. 85. I thank the anonymousreader of this journalfor remindingme of the title of Lucian's other famous work. For the Lucianictradition more generally,see D. Duncan,Ben Jonson and the LucianicTradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). 86. Hobbes added, while "anyonewho decries the priests is hunteddown as a blasphemer, atheist, heretic."Historia Ecclesiastica, lines 385-460, 1688 ed., 19-22; 1722 ed., 28-33.

Patricia Springborg teaches in the Departmentof Governmentat the University of Sydney.A WoodrowWilson International Scholar in 1994-95, she is now a GuestFellow at the BrookingsInstitution as the recipientof a MacArthurFoundation Research and WritingGrant.

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