Hobbes' Iconoclasm

University of Utah
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
Author(s): Frank Coleman
Source: Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (Dec., 1998), pp. 987-1010
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of the University of Utah
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Hobbes's
Iconoclasm
FRANK COLEMAN, ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
This essay shows that Hobbes's thought rests on biblical foundations,

casting him in an unfamiliar role - that of an iconoclastic prophet, a
Jeremiah. He resembles the later prophets, particularly Jeremiah, in three
ways: first by warring against idolatry, reconceived as the attribution of
sanctity to mental images, "Phantasmes of the Brain," as Hobbes calls

them (Leviathan ch. 45, 449, E.W 3: 651)-as distinguished from limiting such attribution to "graven images" (Deuteronomy 4: 28, Jeremiah 1:
16); second, by viewing iconoclasm, followed by catastrophic intervention, as the path to political regeneration; and third, by being centrally
preoccupied with the implications of the biblical idea of a created nature
for material, cultural, and political artifice. The essay further shows that
the biblical cosmology underlying Hobbes natural and civil philosophy

is not, as might be supposed, in conflict with the premisses of his scientific writings, but is harmonious and coincident with it.
"The freest intellects are not those beginning with unaided reason but
those firmly bound to a story of ideas through time." Eldon Eisenach
NOTE: The research for this article was assisted by a grant from the National Endowment
for the Humanities. All biblical references are taken from the Revised Standard
Version: The New Oxford Annotated Bible (Oxford University Press, 1973). I have
been fortunate in the comments and support received in preparing this manuscript. H. Mark Roelofs introduced me to the Hebraic bible as an appropriate text
for inquiry and research. Thanks to the hospitable invitation of Edwin Curley, I
was enabled to make further progress on this essay at a seminar on Hobbes at
Northwestern University Eldon Eisenach and Joshua Mitchell gave generously of
their talents in an effort to improve the breadth, focus, and coherence of this
latest version. Dennis Crow, Gayne Neurney, perhaps unawares, helped me to test
positions offered here by treating them as worthy of attention. While the help I
have received has been substantial, I am aware that there may remain faults for
which I am solely responsible.
Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 4 (December 1998): pp. 987-1010
987
Political Research Quarterly
OVERVIEW
Here I raise the possibility that Hobbes shares common ground with a
distinctive strand of biblical literature, prophetic iconoclasm, and that we may
acquire insight into the sources of his thought by exploring its connection
with the authors who originate this literature, the later prophets. The Old
Testament prohibits attribution of sanctity to graven images (Deuteronomy 4:
28, Isaiah 39: 18-20, Jeremiah 1:16, 10: 5-6). Hobbes goes further. Idolatry,
he says, is the attribution of sanctity to "an Image, or any Creature, either the
Matter thereof, or any Fancy" (Leviathan ch. 45, 449, 452; E.W 3: 653, 656,
italics mine).' We may speculate that Hobbes makes this change to bring the
"Separated Essences" (Leviathan ch. 46, 465-66; E.W 3: 465-66), i.e., the
"Nesses, Tudes, and Ties" (Leviathan ch. 8, 59; E.W 3: 70), by which Aristotle
and his descendants claimed the world to be ruled within the scope of icono-
clastic attack. These entities are assigned causal force, Hobbes scoffs, even
though lacking the properties of physical embodiment (Leviathan ch. 46).
Nevertheless, an internal difficulty arises in Hobbes's position to which the
present essay calls attention.
At the same time that he adopts the stance of the iconoclast toward Aristotle
and his descendants, Hobbes remains anxious to defend himself against the
charge of idolatry. This anxiety emerges in a lengthy passage (Leviathan ch.
45, 447-55; E.W 3: 647-63) and its occasion is the attribution of sanctity to
the civil sovereign. The sovereign, Hobbes says, is the "living Representant of
God" (Leviathan ch. 45, 454; E.W 3: 658) and the "Image of God" (Leviathan
ch. 45, 448; E.W 3: 650) because s/he is alleged to be in a direct line of
descent from Moses (Leviathan ch. 36, 299 and ch. 44, 419; E.W 3: 605-606
and see Leviathan ch. 30, 234-36; E.W. 3: 326-29). The question arises why
Hobbes should call attention to the Old Testament prophetic literature on
iconoclasm when its premises may be turned against the very institution, the
civil sovereign, in whose behalf he has mounted an extensive philosophic

defense. Hobbes cannot have been unaware that idolatrous worship of kings
is one of the pivotal dramas of the Old Testament. It is severely proscribed by
the later prophets (Hosea 8: 4), an outlook which is foreshadowed in the

former prophets (1 Samuel 10: 17-20).2
1 Chapter and page references are to Leviathan 1991, followed by citation of the standard
edition: The English Works of Thomas Hobbes, edited by Sir William Molesworth (John
Bohn, 1839-45), cited hereafter as E.W followed by volume and page number.
2 One may say, of course, that Hobbes's use of the rhetoric of iconoclasm is just that, a
screen employed to subvert biblical text and to convert an audience steeped in the
tropes of biblical discourse into rational choice actors. But this interpretation of Hobbes
988
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
Underlying the iconoclasm of the later prophets and of Hobbes, is the

biblical idea of a created nature.3 This idea is at the center of a crucial problem
to which the prophets point, one which has a bearing upon the idolatry issue.
It may be stated thus: if, by virtue of the reciprocal effects which artifacts exert
upon their makers, i.e., extending human capacities and shaping consciousness, artifacts may be said to "remake" their authors,4 then might it not be the
case that humanity shares in the otherwise exclusive role assigned God in the
Genesis epic, and elsewhere in the Bible, i.e., as the maker of "worlds," and, if
this is the case, then might it not be that any conventional manner of human
artifice carries within it an implicit challenge to God's role as "maker." This

challenge becomes explicit in the case of idolatry. Idolatry is the impious supposition that a person's powers of making extend beyond the production of
conventional forms of artifice, chairs, tables, lamps, etc., to the manufacture
of likenesses of the divine.5 Jeremiah puts this issue with characteristic bluntness,
"Can man make for himself gods?" and he answers, of course, "Such are no
gods"(Jeremiah 16: 20).

Both the question raised by Jeremiah and the biblical idea of creation
upon which it rests reappear in Hobbes (E.W 1: 1-92; E.W. 3:18). In the
introduction to Leviathan Hobbes compares the task confronting the authors
may commit a solecism, imputing to him motives and perspectives more appropriate to
later times, and to conclude, overhastily, that Hobbes's iconoclasm is solely rhetorical.
See Johnston (1986: 183-84).

3 The first to suggest that the biblical idea of creation may be of importance in interpreting
Hobbes, so far as I am aware, is Oakeshott (1957: iii) who, taking a cue from the introduction to Leviathan, states that the inspiration for Hobbes's thought may be seen to spring
from the Genesis epic, wherein civil society like nature, is the product of creative will.
Following this lead, Greenleaf suggests that Hobbes's place as the head of a biblically
derived tradition of will and artifice be made the basis for further study. (see Greenleaf
1982). Oakeshott's view of Hobbes is also buttressed by Foster (1934, 1935, 1936)
who offers that modern science, as expressed in the philosophies of Hobbes, Descartes,
Bacon and Locke, rests upon an unstated premise, one that derives from the biblical
idea of a created nature. It bears emphasis that in recommending a return to the Bible
for an understanding of Hobbes, I mean, primarily, the Old Testament. Hoffert's (1984)
study makes the point that Hobbes's frequent citation of the Old Testament suggests an
affinity of thought and purpose.
4 The role of human agency in the production of artifacts is easily seen. Not as easily
grasped is the role of artifacts in reconfiguring the identity of their makers. The explanation for this is that the arc of creation is apparent in the former case but in the latter
remains unobserved. Be this as it may, the reciprocal effects of artifacts on their makers
did not escape the attention of Hobbes and the prophets as this essay will make evident.
5 See particularly Elaine Scarry (1985: 223-33). Feuerbach's (1989) discovery, that God
is man's invention, was in fact considered long before by the later prophets and rejected
as idolatrous.
989
of the leviathan state to the task confronting God in the creation epic of Gen-
esis. He begins Leviathan thus; "Nature (the Art whereby God hath made and
governes the World) is by the Art of Man, as in many other things, so in this
also imitated," that man can make government through pacts and covenants
resembling, Hobbes says, "that Fiat, or the 'Let us make man,' pronounced by
God in the Creation," and he can make "automata," or as we would say today,
machines. As the product of artifice, the leviathan state invites attention to
that other artifact in history, Israel. However, unlike Israel, whose maker is
God and whose matter is man, leviathan is derived from man who is both,
"the Matter thereof, and the Artificer" (Leviathan 10; E.W 3: ix). From the
introduction we learn that Hobbes intended the members of a Protestant cul-
ture, to draw upon the Genesis epic for an understanding of their role as
"artificers," or makers, of the state and that he intended a comparison be-
tween the state, a "mortal God" (Leviathan ch. 17, 120; E.W. 3: 158), and
Israel, God's artifact in history. Thus while Hobbes' reflections turn upon the
same question as raised by Jeremiah, "Can man make for himself, gods?" perhaps, he wishes to answer it differently.
The argument showing that Hobbes's thought rests on biblical foundations concludes by casting him in an unfamiliar role - that of an iconoclastic
prophet, a Jeremiah.6 He resembles the later prophets, particularly Jeremiah,
in three ways: first, by warring against idolatry, reconceived as the attribution
of sanctity to mental images, "Phantasme(s) of the Brain," as Hobbes calls

them (Leviathan ch. 45, 449; E.W 3: 651) as distinguished from limiting such
attribution to "graven images" (Deuteronomy 4:28, Jeremiah 1:16); second,

by viewing iconoclasm, followed by catastrophic intervention, as the path to
political regeneration; and third, by being centrally preoccupied with the implications of the biblical idea of a created nature for material, cultural, and
political artifice. Nevertheless, as will be noted later, some qualifications concerning Hobbes's relation to prophetic tradition are necessary.
ARTIFICER(S) AND ARTIFACT
The issue of the relationship between artificer and artifact, as that issue is
posed by idolatry, is the subject of a typology developed by Elaine Scarry. This
typology, drawing on the concerns of the later prophets, illuminates the biblical idea of a created nature, the nature of idolatry, and the tension between
6 Hobbes has been cast in this role before. Nevertheless, no serious effort has been
made to support this linkage. The present essay does make such an effort because it
is believed that biblical influence on Hobbes is foundational. For a view which
places the emphasis upon Calvinist doctrinal influence see Martinich (1992: 64).
Also, see Eisenach (1931: 55-57).
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Hobbes's Iconoclasm
political creation and other, more conventional, forms of material and cultural artifice. It provides an analytical framework within which themes common to the later prophets and Hobbes can be seen and sets the stage for the
discussion of prophetic iconoclasm which is to come. Since the typology helps
to frame the issues to be pursued, it will be given some attention. Following
the use of Scarry for these purposes, the role of iconoclasm in state creation,
as that is presented both in the later prophets and in Hobbes, will be developed. In this later stage of the analysis attention will be shifted from
Scarry's typology to a direct examination of iconoclasm in the prophetic
literature and in Hobbes's writings.
Scarry distinguishes among kinds of artifice on the basis of whether or
not observation of the human component in the creation of the artifact will
interfere with the extension of the capacities of their author, the reciprocal
task which all artifacts are tasked to perform. For example, affixed to category
"a" artifacts such as poems, films, paintings and sonatas is a personal signature. This is so much the case that pointing to two objects in a room a person
may say "This is a Millet and that one is a Van Gogh." About to lower a needle
to a record a person will proclaim "Handel" (Scarry 1988: 314). In this instance identifying the human component in the creation of the artifact not
only does not interfere, it assists in enhancing human capacities. We may say
that the human artifact bears a personal signature and that its nature as an
artifact is not only recognized and recoverable but self-announcing.
A second class of artifacts, Scarry suggests, bears a general, as distinguished
from a personal signature, with the consequence that the human component
in its creation is recoverable, if not recognizable. As one maneuvers through
the dense sea of artifacts which sustain daily life, tablecloths, dishes, lamps,
city parks, streets, language, street lights, armchairs, and so forth, one does
not actively perceive these objects as humanly made. But if one stops for any
reason and thinks about their origins, one can with varying degrees of success
recover the fact that they all have human makers and this recognition will not
diminish their usefulness (ibid. 312-13).

The leviathan state, it is useful to interject, is an example of this variety of
artifact. The imaginative exercise required of us by Hobbes - the removal of

the presence of constituted authority while retaining in the mind the characteristics of the political culture of which one is a member -is intended, pre-
cisely, to call to attention the presence of an unrecognized but recoverable

artifact. Were it not for the state, as Hobbes continually reminds, we would be
returned to "nature" and the life of man, "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and
short" (Leviathan ch. 13, 89, E.W 3: 113). The unrecognized function of the
state is to provide us with security in the enjoyment of the "Contentments of
life" which goes beyond "bare Preservation" to whatever a "man by lawfull

991
Industry... shall acquire to himself (Leviathan ch. 30, 231; E.W 3: 322 and see
ch. 14, 93; E.W. 3: 120). But this office, though unrecognized by a sensibility
which peace has dulled, can be recovered through a suitable reminder of the
horrors of the state of nature (Leviathan ch. 18, 128; E.W 3: 170).
A third classification touches upon the idolatry issue. This class of

artifacts is distinguished by the circumstance that observation of their
human origin will interfere with the reciprocal task implied by the creation of the artifact. In order for the artifact to discharge the function for
which it was created the toil and imagination expended by its human author in the process of its creation must remain undisclosed. Marx alleges
that capital occupies this role in Western society since, though created by
labor, once created it transforms labor into a "commodity," a thing made
by capital (Marx 1988). Concealment of the relationships between artificer and artifact is indispensable to discharging the function for which the
latter was called into being. More recently, McLuhan (1964: 23) has suggested that the "medium" has become "the message". McLuhan assigns the
message to the medium as a way of pointing out that the media usurps
public speech; speech acts originating in human agency are detached from
their source and reassigned to the media, an impalpable, omnipresent deity often thought to control every aspect of contemporary life .
The issue of the relation between artificer and artifact, between (M)aker(s)
and the made, is central to the issue of idolatry. Implicit in idolatry is the view
that not only such straw men as the golden calf (Exodus 32), and the "scarecrows" in the cucumber field (Jeremiah 10: 5) but, scandalously, God, himself, may be a category "c" artifact. In the eyes of the prophets, idolatry is the
major offense of the Old Testament. Hobbes appears to commit this very offense not occasionally and inadvertently but repeatedly and deliberately. As
noted before, the state is a "Mortall God" (Leviathan ch. 17, 120; E.W. 3: 158);
state creation is equivalent to the Genesis epic (Leviathan 10; E.W 3: ix); the
monarch occupies the same place as is afforded God in the decalogue (Leviathan ch. 30, 234-36; E.W 3: 326-28); the sovereign is "the living representant
of God" (Leviathan ch. 45, 445-57; E.W 3: 645-63). Unlike Israel, whose maker
is God and whose matter is man, the state, the "Mortall God," is derived from
man who, as Hobbes emphasizes, is both "the Matter thereof, and the Artificer" (Leviathan 10; E.W 3: ix). Thus man upstages God as the artificer of central importance in the events leading to the generation of the state. Hobbes
appears determined to bring to the fore the very role feared and deplored by
the prophets, man as a creator whose powers rival those of God.
To remove human artifice from the stain of rivaling the powers of God,
indeed to preempt the issue of whether human powers of artifice extend be-
yond categories "a" and "b" to category "c," the Old Testament proceeds by
992
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
showing that in every case artifice which bears divine sanction triumphs,
whereas artifice which lacks approval comes to dust. An example is the building of the tower of Babel and the creation of a native language. Neither of
these forms of human making is authorized by God. Thus in the biblical account this activity is viewed as the product of wicked insolence and the tower
of Babel and its language must be (and is) dealt with in an horrific manner
(Genesis 11:1-9). A greater offence is the making of graven images. These

images offer a tangible substitute for the unrepresentable and unimaginable
God of Israel and thus offer a means of relief for the strained religious imagi-
nation. But they also directly pose the issue of whether or not human making
includes the making of God. Such activity is also, therefore, regarded as auda-
cious and wicked insolence and also meets with a devastating reply (Exodus
32: 20; Leviticus 26:1-2). Finally, the ten commandments make clear that
God's making alone is to be honored as in the keeping of the sabbath, the day
on which he rested from his project of world creation. Man participates in
God's project of world transformation by abstaining from labor on this hal-
lowed day (Deuteronomy 5:12).

From these and like instances one gathers that there is strong presumptive evidence in the Bible against the propriety of any form of human making,
falling within categories "a" and "b," which does not have the express sanction
of God. This precautionary stance is warranted by the danger that Israel, hav-
ing reappropriated its role in the creation process, might come to displace
God's hegemonic position as "maker." Nevertheless, the thought cannot escape attention, as in the quotation from Jeremiah above (Jeremiah 16: 20),
that man's powers may extend beyond categories "a" and "b" forms of artifice
to category "c." When the issue does occur, it is raised in rhetorical form, i.e.,
raised only to dismiss it. Isaiah's question answers itself, "Shall the potter be
regarded as the clay; that the thing made should say of its maker, 'He did not
make me'; or the thing formed say of him who formed it, 'He has no under-
standing'?" (Isaiah 29: 16). As noted, Jeremiah immediately responds to his

own question, "Such are no gods" (Jeremiah 16: 20). The dominant motif is
unmistakable. Israel did not make God. God made Israel. "It is He that hath
made us and we are his" (Psalms 100).

To review: the characteristic stance of the Old Testament stresses God's
role as "maker" and assigns him an exclusive role in the creation process.
Categories of artifice are rigidly separated, defined, and sanctioned because
the task which God must discharge, to make and remake Israel, is threatened
once his exclusive role as an artificer is (perceived as) compromised by acts of
human making. Hobbes, by comparison, valorizes human and divine artifice
differently as we shall see.
993
GENERATION
Consider the idolatry issue and Scarry's typology alongside Hobbes' equally
pronounced concerns with making and its reciprocal effects. Scarry's typology
is implicit in Hobbes's division of Parts I and II of Leviathan into the "Rationall"
kingdom, a product and sponsor of "a" recognized and recoverable forms of

artifice and "b" unrecognized but recoverable forms of artifice as distinguished
from the "Prophetique" kingdom, the subject matter of Parts III and IV, and a
product of category "c" unrecognized and unrecoverable artifice (Leviathan
ch. 12, 79, ch. 31, 246, ch. 35; E.W 3: 98-99, 345; see Eisenach 1981: 5766). This division, the "Rationall" kingdom which is a product of human artifice, and the "Prophetique" which is a product of divine artifice, rests upon
Hobbes's definition of philosophy. Investigation of this definition repays attention because it shows that while Hobbes differs from the later prophets in
valorizing human above divine artifice that, nevertheless, the biblical idea of a
created nature is foundational to both.
Philosophy, Hobbes says, is "the Knowledge acquired by Reasoning, from

the Manner of Generation of any thing to the Properties; or from the Proper-
ties, to some possible Way of Generation of the same; to the end to be able to
produce, as far as matter, and humane force permit, such Effects, as humane
life requireth" (Leviathan ch. 46, 458; E.W. 3: 664). He applies this definition
to the "arts" in the following passage:
Of the arts, some are demonstrable, others indemonstrable; and demonstrable are those the construction whereof is in the power of the artist
himself, who in his demonstration, does no more but deduce the conse-
quences of his own operation .... (C)onsequently where the causes are
known, there is place for demonstration, but not where the causes are to
seek for. Geometry therefore is demonstrable, for the lines and figures
from which we reason are drawn and described by ourselves; and civil
philosophy is demonstrable, because we make the commonwealth ourselves. But because of natural bodies we know not the construction, but
seek it from the effects, there lies no demonstration of what the causes be
we seek for, but only of what may be. (E.W. 1:183)
Several distinguishing features of Hobbes's philosophy are present in

this passage. First, the possible objects of "demonstrable" knowledge are
restricted to those wherein we may conceive of ourselves as artificers, actively engaged in the creation of the object of our understanding, and where
we may thereby (in an act of "pre-cognition") deduce the manner of its

creation from our own activity. "Demonstrable" knowledge, therefore, is
only of such effects as we are competent to produce and this means that
994
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
knowledge claims absent determinate artificers and their products should

be viewed with suspicion for "where there is no generation or property, there
is no philosophy" (E. W. 1: 10). To lay stress, knowledge is only of artifacts and
the manner of their generation. Leviathan as an example, is written from the

perspective of a precognition of the causes of the state because we are both its
"Matter" and its "Maker." But, more extensively, Hobbes cites language (Levia-
than ch. 4, 24-25, 32; E.W. 3: 18-19), commonwealth (Leviathan ch. 17, 120;
E.W 3: 158), and geometry (Leviathan ch. 20, 145; E.W. 3: 195-96) as satisfying this definition of the proper objects of philosophic concern.
By contrast, the subject matter of philosophy does not extend to phenomena
which are ingenerable, such as God (Leviathan ch. 31, 252; E.W. 3: 354), a limitation also applying to His works, i.e., to Nature, although to a lesser extent, for
"there is no effect in nature which the Author of nature cannot bring to pass by
more ways than one" (E.W. 7: 88). Hobbes's view of knowing as "making" (see
Hanson 1991: 637; Funkenstein 1986: 327) has the consequence of privileging
the "synthetic" functions of philosophy, where as artificers we know the cause and
seek the effects, as distinguished from the "analytic" functions, where we know
the effects and seek a probable cause, a preference clearly remarked by Hobbes
(E.W. 1: 66-74) and noted by a number of commentators (Shapin and Schaffer

1985: 148). A proper inference to draw from this definition of philosophy is that
insofar as the state is considered an effect of God or Nature, civil philosophy has
nothing to say about it. But since Hobbes obviously does think civil philosophy
can illuminate the generation of the state, it must be so because its manner of
generation is dependent on human making.
Second, since "demonstrable" knowledge is only of such effects (artifacts) as
we are competent to produce, it is not only possible but desirable to separate civil
from natural philosophy (for a contrasting view see Watkins 1969: 93-94; Sorell
1986: 25-26). It is desirable because knowledge of such effects as we are competent to produce, the subject matter of civil philosophy, occupies an epistemologi-
cally privileged place in comparison to effects where the causes are to be sought,
the subject matter of natural philosophy. The subordinate place occupied by natural
philosophy in Hobbes's hierarchy of knowable things is stated with clarity and

force in the assertion, "(the) Principles of natural Science..are so farre from teaching us any thing of God's nature, as they cannot teach us our own nature, nor the
nature of the smallest creature living" (Leviathan ch. 31, 252; E.W. 3, 354).7
7 According to Sorell (1986: 26), Hobbes is not saying that natural philosophy fails to contribute to our understanding of the state but rather intends a lesser, auxiliary role. But it
remains unclear from Sorell's account what natural philosophy has to contribute to our
understanding of the generation of the leviathan state. He acknowledges that the manner
of generation of the state may be grasped entirely independently of the natural sciences.
995
Third, knowledge must be logically and empirically "demonstrable." Its empirical demonstrability is based on the world of secondary, cause-effect relations
where nature, because created, is real, i.e., non a priori (Leviathan ch. 46, 463;
E.W. 3: 672), and, therefore, counts as evidence, not merely as illustration, of
such propositional statements as we make about the effects of known causes
(see Foster 19: 35: 454). It is true that Hobbes diminishes the importance of
knowledge claims based on experimentation. "Experience concludeth nothing universally," Hobbes says as a way of replying to Boyle (and the Royal
Society) who considered that an internally coherent account of the world could
be built up from the results of laboratory experiment (see Hobbes 1994: ch.4,
p.33; Shapin and Shaffer 1985: 110-54; Martinich 1997: 100-103). But this
does not mean that he denied the value of experimental proof, only that he
regarded such accounts as falling short of the requirements of philosophy.
Logical demonstrability is established through "reckoning," a knowledge of
definitions and their consequences (Leviathan ch. 5, 32-33, 36; E.W. 3: 30-31,
36). Neither logical nor empirical demonstrability may stand on their own
but exist in an interdependent relationship in valid demonstrative accounts of
the manner in which effects (artifacts) are generated.
If we ask what is the derivation of Hobbes's epistemology, Foster's re-
ply is the biblical idea of a created nature.s Such an hypothesis casts an

illuminating light upon the origins of Hobbes's philosophy because the
Bible, like Hobbes, projects a view of nature as artifactual, real, and radically contingent. Hobbes, as is true for the Bible, withdraws intelligibility
from "nature" and ascribes intelligibility solely to those things which are
the product of artifice, God or man, but always and only a determinate
artificer. Further, as created, nature is real and, as such, propositional statements about nature must rely on sensory experience for evidence, not merely
for illustration, of propositional statements about the world (Leviathan ch. 46,
463; E.W. 3: 672; Macpherson 1963: 454-55). Additionally, such propositions as are brought forward by science about nature must be stated in
hypothetico-deductive language (Leviathan ch. 9) because nature, as the product
of creative will, both in the Bible and in Hobbes, harbors a radical element of
contingency (E.W. 7: 3, 88; Macpherson 1963: 463).
See Foster (1934: 448, 453). Contrast Macpherson (1962: 9-46). Macpherson's search
for a natural philosophy which will enable him to account for the physiological and
behavioral premises underlying Hobbes's "possessive market" model of society leads
him to conclude that these premises originate in modem science, particularly the thought
of Galileo. Despite the acknowledged influence of the Bible on 17th century culture,
Macpherson never considers the possibility that modern science, itself, may be rooted
in a biblical cosmology.
996
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
A significant problem for Hobbes is that while he affirms that the proper
object of philosophic concern is category "a" and category "b" artifacts, among
which common-wealth, language, and geometry are to be included (because

these effects all have determinate artificers and manner of generation) and
that while his preference for category "a" and "b" artifacts is unmistakable
(Leviathan ch. 13, 89 E.W 3:113), nevertheless, as Hobbes well knows, in

history, particularly contemporary English history, the state is considered a
category "c" artifact. This circumstance does not bring him satisfaction but
rather occasions the well-known lament, "It is impossible that a Commonwealth should stand, where any other than the Soveraign, hath a power capable of giving greater rewards than Life; and of inflicting greater punishments,
than Death" (Leviathan ch. 38, 306-37; E.W. 3: 437). Religion, he maintains,
whether "natural" religion or "civil" religion (Leviathan chs. 12 and 31), supplies fertile grounds for that "glorying" of mind which foments "Warre" and
the foregoing of the benefits of category "a" and "b" forms of artifice (Leviathan
ch. 13, 88-90; E.W. 3:1 12-14).

On what basis does Hobbes valorize category "a" and "b" artifice over
category "c?" Why does he consider the state an instance of the former but not
the latter? Hobbes's scale of value is a consequence of his definition of philosophy Human artifice, falling within classifications "a" and "b," by Hobbes's
definition, is the proper and exclusive object of philosophic concern because
only these effects are the issue of recoverable human agency The definition of
philosophy contains the corollary that the state is and ought to be the product
of human agency exclusive of category "c" artifice. Additionally, it contains an
implicit valorization of categories "a" and "b" artifice in comparison with category "c." In one of the most remembered passages of Leviathan Hobbes makes
clear that foregoing the benefits of category "a" and "b" artifice is the chief cost
of failing to observe the agreements which constitute the state.

In such condition (of Warre), there is no place for Industry; because
the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture, of the
Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving
and removing such things as require much force; no Knowledge of the
face of the Earth; no account of Time: no Arts; no Letters; no Society;
and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death;
And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. (Levia-
than ch. 13, 89; E.W 3: 113)
Thus Hobbes wishes to assimilate the task of creating the state (an unrecognized but recoverable artifact) to the language of classification "c," but only in
order that further acts of human making falling within category "a" and "b" can
997
occur. By contrast, the later prophets are alarmed over the prospect that cat-
egories "a" and "b" artifice will encourage the conceit that human making
extends to category "c." They wish to keep artifacts falling within classifica-
tion "c" (the issue of God as unrecognized and unrecoverable artifact) separate from those falling within classifications "a" and "b' in order that the former
may avoid being absorbed by the latter.

This difference over the distribution of valorization among the catego-
ries of making, which extends to a difference in ascription of the site of

artifice (i.e.,whether the primary artificer is man or God) conceals an important area of agreement. To the question of what significance is involved
in the attribution of making, both Hobbes and the later prophets both
answer "everything." Hobbes's ascription of the site of artifice to man is of
crucial importance as is the Old Testament attribution of the site of artifice
to God. Hobbes and the later prophets are united by a preoccupation with
the reciprocal effects of made things, i.e., the manner in which artifacts
reconfigure the identity of their makers. This effect is not neutral, as the
prophets observed, because the consequence of such remaking is to induce the belief that man's powers as a maker rival those of God. Idolatry
makes explicit the presumption hidden within all acts of human making
that man's powers as an artificer compare with those of the Maker of Israel. Despite the presence of such a threat, Hobbes values the products of
human artifice at a higher rate. For example, the making of the "Mortal
God," a patently idolatrous act by Old Testament standards, does not cause
Hobbes to shrink from the implicit comparison between human and divine making. The reason that he does not shrink is that Hobbes shares
with the prophets the idea of knowledge as making- for both the world is
made intelligible through artifice.
Although Hobbes and the latter prophets resolve the problem of the
site of artifice (Scarry 1985: 221-33) in a completely different way, one
stipulating God and the other man as the proper site, and although the
categories of artifice are valorized differently, this difference is overshad-
owed by the significance of their agreement on the premise of a created

nature. Since Hobbes's conception of making has common ground with
the prophetic literature of the Old Testament, it becomes reasonable to
investigate this literature, its idea of a created nature, as well as biblical
views of the manner of generation of the state.
BIBLICAL SOURCES
Hobbes restricts the possible objects of knowledge to those which are the
product of our own creation. A typology illuminating this idea of possible

objects of knowledge shows that only category "a" and "b" "recoverable" artifacts
998
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
fall within Hobbes's account of possible objects of knowledge and only those
categories as well promote the useful arts which bring peace. The question to
which we come is whether Hobbes's account of the causal forces driving the
generation of the state is related to the biblical narrative concerning the genera-
tion of Israel. Posed differently, is there a connection between iconoclasm, art,

and political regeneration, in Hobbes and the latter prophets? Or, to put a fine
point on the matter, does Hobbes rely upon a distinctively biblical understanding of the knowledge required to make the state in his many references
to knowledge as making?
The Bible conceives of the world as God's artifact. It begins with a project
of world creation, recording the manner in which a solitary, powerful, procreative will, God, creates the world in the beginning through fiat (Genesis 1, 2).
The world, as the creation epic makes clear, has no independent, physical
existence save as the product of God's creative will. The Bible further records
that God's activity as a powerful, procreative force is duplicated on many sub-
sequent occasions. He makes Adam, a word properly translated from the Hebrew as mankind (von Rad 1961: 55). He makes wombs, formerly barren, to
become fertile (Genesis 17, 25: 21). He covenants with Abraham, promising
him that his descendants will be a mighty nation, as numerous as the sands of
the seashore or the stars of heaven (Genesis 15: 5, 22: 17). This promise is
inherited by and fulfilled in the people of Israel.
The scope of God's power as an artificer in the Bible cannot be exaggerated. Although the world produced in the beginning is pronounced "good," it
is only so because it is God's artifact, and its role thereafter is confined to
serving as a backdrop against which numerous additional acts of artifice may
be displayed. One scholar notes that for the Old Testament mind there truly is
no such thing as nature (natura), there is only creation (creatura), (von Rad
1961: 53). Another notes that there is no word in the Hebrew for "nature" in
its current meaning as the "totality of the processes and powers that make up
the universe" (Kaufman 1972: 349). This omission is significant. The

desacralization of the natural realm enjoined in many Biblical passages
(Exodus 23; 23-24; Deuteronomy 4: 15-32;Jeremiah 3: 6-11), combined with
the reduction of nature to God's artifact, removes every obstacle that might
stand in the way of God's project of world transformation. God's original act,
the creation of the world, conceives of the entire cosmos as the proper domain
for acts of artifice. All forms of material, cultural, and political creation originate
with God, are substantiated by Israel and the world, and are unhindered in
the manner of their expression by a natural realm.
What is the connection between the biblical idea of creation and the generation of the Israelite state? To answer this question we must shift attention
from the narrative of God's redemptive activity in history (see, e.g., Walzer
999
1985 and Roelofs 1988) to the essential relation between Israel and its Maker.
The most essential attribute of Israel in the biblical record, as contrasted with
God, is that it is body. It is one body as in the account where Israel, battling
with the Midianites, smites them "as one man" (Judges 6: 16-18). When
Israel swears to the Mosaic covenant it is "with one voice" (Exodus 24: 3).
Pedersen says that Israel in the biblical account must be regarded as one,
moral, collective, physical person (Pederson 1926: 267-79).
Many biblical passages bring into relief the sentient and perishable nature
of Israel's body by contrasting it with the indomitable, imperishable nature of
its Maker.9 "All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field"
we are reminded (Isaiah 40: 63). Despite this reminder of the fragile, evanes-
cent character of its existence, Israel is proud in the peculiar biblical sense
that it is recalcitrant material from which God can produce a work of artifice.
"I have seen this people and behold, it is a stubborn people" (Deuteronomy 9:
13). "1 know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your
forehead brass" (Isaiah 48: 4). Israel's pride extends to a glorying in its accomplishments and the conceit that its powers rival those of God. All instances of
categories "a" and "b" artifice, the prophets warn, harbor the implicit threat
that they may extend to category "c."
Idolatry is the most complete expression of Israel's pride. The reason this
is so is that the implicit threat that category "a" and "b" artifice may spill over
into "c" becomes overt in idolatry. Here the artifice of Israel rivals and destabilizes
9 "Sentience" is a term of art in Scarry's (1985: ch. 3) interpretive framework. She proposes that the biblical emphasis upon extreme sentience, Israel as a body in pain, takes
place within a narrative structure which enacts an important intuition concerning the
nature of creation. Pain of sufficient obduracy and intensity deprives us of all artifice,
language included, by which the world is known and expressed; it is, therefore,
deworlding. But this condition seeks relief in its opposite - the imagination extended
into its objects. The imagination, which cannot be conceived apart from its objects
according to Scarry, removes us from the condition of pain by seeking extension outward into the object world. While it may offend common sense to view pain as an
intentional state, it may be so considered in the context of work, labor, and creation;
opposite pain, in this same context, is ranged the imagination, its complementary, intentional state. These intentional states, the body in pain and the imagination extended
into its objects, while opposed, are nevertheless, complementary; for while the former
is a state of embodiment without the relief of the objects of imagination, the latter is a
state of objectification (deriving from the nature of the imagination) without the relief
of embodiment. Creation, labor, artifice mediates the tension which exists between
these intentional states because through the aversiveness of work we are lifted out of
the silent, cellular contraction of the body in pain and into the created world. This is
the dynamic which the Old Testament scriptures seek to convey in their narrative treat-
ment of the relationships between Israel, the body in pain, and its Creator, particularly
as they relate to wounding and creation.
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Hobbes's Iconoclasm
God's position as the site of artifice. By the same token, iconoclasm, the destruction of the artifacts which purport to represent God in a catastrophic
event, is the antidote to man's prideful claims and the path to political regeneration. Let us note that iconoclasm is not limited to the smashing of idols; it
includes the breaking of bodies as well. The prophets continually warn of the
consequences following upon Israel's intractable behavior.
Blessed is he who fears the Lord always; But he who hardens his heart
will fall into calamity (Proverbs 28: 14)
He who is often reproved, yet stiffens his neck will suddenly be
broken beyond healing. (Proverbs 29:1)

I have persistently sent my servants the prophets to them day after day,
yet they did not listen to me, or incline the ear, but stiffened their neck ...
Therefore ... the dead bodies of this people will be food for the birds of
the air, and for the beasts of the earth." (Jeremiah 7: 5, 32)
A whiff of calamity is salutary because it reminds Israel of the basic facts of

human sentience, it is mere body, and that God's displeasure may reduce Israel to its essential attribute - a body in pain. God, whose authority over his
creation is complete, may reverse the course of his making and destroy his
creation. In the passage from Isaiah quoted above he concludes, "The grass
withers, the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely
the people is grass" (Isaiah 4: 7).

Let us review this. Idolatry is the premier exemplar of pride because it is by
definition an elevation of human capacities beyond category "a" and "b" forms of
artifice to include category "c." Hence Isaiah (39: 18-20, 41: 29, 42: 8, 44: 9-20,
46: 5-7),Jeremiah (1:16, 2:17, 7: 18, 10, 17: 20), Micah (1: 7-8), and Habakkuk
(2: 18-19) repeatedly express deep shock at the presumption inherent in idolatry that man's powers of artifice are considered to rival those of God. "They
have burned incense to other gods, and worshipped the works of their own
hands" (Jeremiah 1: 16). Faith, by contrast, consists in submission to the will
of God to include his repossession of the sentient body of Israel from which
He has been expelled by rebellious pride.

Iconoclasm prepares the way for the reoccupation of Israel by God because it is attended by cataclysm and consequent to cataclysm is the wounding of Israel. Wounding is an essential element within the trajectory of political
regeneration because only thus is Israel reduced to a body in pain (Scarry

1985: 198-210), hence deworlded, hence in need of having its world restored
through the extensions of artifice made possible by the Artificer. A central
drama of the Old Testament - the crushing of Israel's pride by an event which
demonstrates God's prowess - conflates wounding with divine creation.

1001
Wounding is necessary to the drama of political regeneration, as it is visualized in the Hebraic Bible, because only thus can Israel be reminded that it is
perishable, mortal, sentient-a body in pain-and only thus can Israel achieve
awareness of the role of its Maker in liberating it-through artifice - from its
cell of silent and painful contraction. The conflation of wounding and political creation is so pronounced in the Bible that the most extreme form of pun-
ishment is not the prophesied catastrophe, itself, but the deprivation of

sentience necessary to comprehend its object lesson.
Hear and hear but do not understand;
see and see but do not perceive.
Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy,
and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts,
and turn and be healed. (Isaiah 6: 9-11)
When God wishes to punish pharaoh he not only sends plague but hardens
his heart (Exodus 10). Thus the worst punishment for pride is not necessarily
adversity but deprivation of the characteristics of sentient life and, hence, the
very possibility of regeneration.
Conversely, belief, an intentional state which is the opposite of pride, is

strongly reinforced by Old Testament passages. As pride is a resistance to the
occupation of Israel's body by the Artificer, so belief is characterized by the
malleability of Israel to God's intentions. The objective of the covenant renewal ceremonies of the Old Testament (Exodus 20-24, Deuteronomy 20-24)
is to evoke the circumstances which occasion belief: the contraction of Israel
to embodied pain during its period of bondage and enslavement, its opportunities for self-extension through the activities of the primary Artificer, the
manner in which belief in the Artificer has, in fact, produced this self-extension, the opportunities for further remaking which arise from this.
The intentional states and preoccupations which inform prophetic icono-
clasm in Jeremiah are also present in Hobbes. Hobbes's admonitions to the

"children of Pride," by whom I understand him chiefly to mean religious and
political elites (see Baumgold 1990; Hobbes 1990), is tied to the circumstance
that he relies upon them for an intuitive appreciation of his biblically derived
argument for civil authority. This is an argument which trades upon all the
significant themes of biblical discourse. As Hobbes invokes the powers of the
"Mortall God" as the appropriate response to the children of pride so must the
predicament to which he is responding be seen as biblical as well. This predicament may be stated in terms of the intractable, froward, cranky, stiff-necked
disposition of Israel (and their modem descendants!) toward their Artificer,

1002
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
the vainglorious pride which makes them think themselves his equal, the
forgetting of origins and covenant obligations, the competition among religious and political elites who aim to usurp sovereignty, and thus the need for
a wounding, savage pen, Hobbes!!!, to shatter the idols, and to bring men to
an awareness of their dependence on the Artificer. Thus stated, the perception
of the problem to which Leviathan is addressed is biblically inspired and so is

the proposed I resolution. The penultimate line of Leviathan where the sovereign is pictured overawing "the children of pride" (Leviathan ch. 28, 221: E.W
3: 307) could have been written by Jeremiah because the object of attack is
idolatrous pride, a "vain (i.e., delusional) conceit" that the powers of man
rival those of the mortal God "to which we owe, under the Immortal God,
our peace and defence" (Leviathan ch. 17, 120. E.W. 3: 158).
As noted, iconoclastic attack is, if anything, more generally stated in Hobbes
than in the prophets. It extends beyond the making of graven images
(Deuteronomy 4: 28, Isaiah 39: 18-20, Jeremiah 1: 16, 10: 5-6) to the
attribution of sanctity to, "an Image, or any Creature, either the matter thereof,
or any Fancy" (Leviathan ch. 45, 449, 452, E. W. 3: 653, 656). But while Hobbes
broadens the scope of the attack, the better to embrace the attribution of sanc-
tity to mental images and thus to deal with the vain philosophy of Aristotle
and scholasticism (Leviathan ch. 8, 59: E. W 3:70), the object of attack remains
the same as in Jeremiah, i.e., to remind the prideful of the facts of human
sentience and of their dependence on the great Artificer, the Mortall God, to
whom, under the immortal God peace and defense is owed (Leviathan ch. 17,
120, E.W. 3: 158). Ultimately, the object of iconoclastic attack is to stabilize
the site of artifice now transferred from the Artificer of Israel to man, the
maker and the matter of the leviathan state.
Those who are the object of Hobbes's attack - it is a long list - are the
Catholic Church (Leviathan ch. 46, 47); the Church which has presumed most
of Reformation (Leviathan ch. 12, 86; E.W. 3:109); the hyper conscientious
(Leviathan ch. 7, 48; E.W. 3: 53); vain glorious men (Leviathan ch. 11, 72; E.W.
3: 88); "higher" natures (Leviathan ch. 15, 107; E.W. 3:140); rich and potent
subjects (Leviathan ch. 30, 233; E.W. 3: 324); those taken with a vain conceit
of their own wisdom (Leviathan ch. 13; 87. E.W 3:110 ); the privately inspired (Leviathan ch 8: 55; E.W. 3 : 64).
This listing should not divert attention from the premier object of attack
which is Aristotle and his descendants. And the reason for this may be evi-
dent. First, the attribution of efficacy to mental images, the tudes, ties, and
separated Essences by which Aristotle and his descendants considered the world
to be governed, fits Hobbes's technical definition of idolatry above. Second,

Aristotelianism supplies a gloss upon nature which is the antithesis of Hobbes's
beginning point. Nature, for Hobbes, is not simply those phantasms which
1003
remain to mind following the conceptual exercise of imagining away the

world (E.W. 1: 91-2) but it is the experience of the world's absence. Hence
the obliterating, deworlding force of pain, "the life of man, solitary, poore,
nasty, brutish, and short," is the beginning point for Hobbes and opposed
to this, solely, are the achievements of artifice (Leviathan ch. 13, 89; E.W.
3: 113) through which the world is restored. Aristotle's a priori investigation of nature cannot engage the Hobbesian perspective because to do so
would require surrender of an exclusively conceptual manner of encountering the world. Much stress is laid by Hobbes on the sword of the sover-
eign as a means of defeating pride and securing covenants made (Leviathan

ch. 28, 221; E.W. 3: 307). But prior to the sword of the sovereign is Hobbes's
iconoclasm which, like Jeremiah's, is intended to deworld us, and thus to

put us in a frame of mind to be receptive to the interventions of artifice.
Having proposed Hobbes's filiation with the later prophets, let us acknowledge some qualifications. First, one cannot imagine Hobbes becoming offended, as is true of Jeremiah, about "committing adultery with stone
and tree" (Jeremiah 3: 9). He just assumes that insofar as these impulses
remain they are of such a marginal character as not to constitute an obstacle to the forms of self-extension which the state makes possible. The
desacralization of nature is assumed to be complete. Second, the object of
Jeremiah's iconoclasm is to restore a covenant with the Artificer, whereas
the evident intent of Hobbes's iconoclasm is to enhance opportunities for
categories "a" and "b" forms of artifice. Another way of putting this is that
Hobbes valorizes only category "a" and "b" forms of artifice while the proph-
ets treat these with deep suspicion because of their implied relation with
category "c" issues. Third, Hobbes's elevation of the monarchical sovereign to Mortal God itself invites iconoclastic attack. Hobbes's defense of
monarchy restores a dilemma familiar to the students of the Old Testament. For the installation of the kings as God's representatives on earth
deposes the kingship of God over Israel (1 Samuel 10: 17-20). Hosea makes
a direct link between Israelite kingship and the successive development of
idolatrous worship. He says
They made kings but not through me.
They set up princes, but without my knowledge.

With their silver and gold they made idols for their own
destruction.(Hosea 8:4)
Hobbes pretends to do no more than to restore the biblical solution, the kings
are sanctioned by God. Therefore it cannot be idolatrous (Leviathan ch. 12,

88, E.W 3: 108) to be their obedient subjects. This saves his position. But it is
1004
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
reasonably evident that Hobbes is exposed to iconoclastic attack from the

very sources on which he is dependent and that he knows it (Leviathan ch. 45,
447-55, E.W. 3: 650-58).

Let us return to the question raised at the outset of this essay, "What is
Hobbes's relation to Old Testament prophetic tradition?" This relation is truncated. While he looks back to the iconoclasm of Jeremiah as the inspiration
for his attack on contemporaneous idolatries and while the biblical idea of a
created nature occupies a foundational place in mounting this attack, nevertheless, the object of the attack is not to restore obedience to the Immortal
God, or, at least it would seem, not primarily. The attack is in the service of the
state, an artifact of man, and the forms of self-extension heralded by this arti-
fact.'0 Insofar as prophetic tradition may be invoked to mount an attack on
the state, it is clear that Hobbes regards it as an irrelevant and dangerous,

historical anachronism (Leviathan ch. 32, 258-59, ch. 36, 290, 298, E.W 3:
364-65, 412, 425). A possible explanation for Hobbes's sweeping dismissal of
the prophets is that having revitalized a tradition that may be arrayed against
the monarchy, he wished to put some distance between himself and it. Even
so, insofar as the prophets invoke a judgment in behalf of biblically inspired,
collective values, Hobbes is most certainly a prophet. Eisenach suggests the

term "prophet" of "humane politics" or "prophetic humanism" as apt for the
ambiguous position taken by Hobbes in relation to the scriptures and modem
liberalism."1 More to the point for the view offered here is that Hobbes is a
prophet in the service of category "a" and "b" forms of artifice.
10 Freud catches the spirit of this distinctively modern enterprise of Hobbes in a passage
which bears comparison with the triumphant listing of the extensions of artifice in
Leviathan. He writes: "With every tool man is perfecting his own organs, whether mo-
tor or sensory, or is removing the limits to their functioning. Motor power places gigantic forces at his disposal, which, like his muscles, he can employ in any direction;
thanks to ships and aircraft neither water nor air can hinder his movements; by means
of spectacles he corrects defects in the lenses of his own eye; by means of the telescope
he sees into the far distance; and by means of the microscope he overcomes the limits
of visibility set by the structure of his retina. In the photographic camera he has created
an instrument which retains the fleeting visual impressions, just as a gramophone disc
retains the fleeting auditory ones; both are at bottom materializations of the power he
possesses of recollection, his memory Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic
God (Freud 1961: 42-43; cf. Leviathan ch. 13, 89; E.W 3: 113).
11 Eisenach (1981: 56). Compare Mitchell (1993a: ch. 2 and 1993b: 79-100). The account offered here contrasts with Mitchell's while remaining compatible in other respects. For example, the dilemma of man's prideful nature is said by Mitchell to wait
until St. Paul to receive attention. By contrast, I locate this issue in the later prophets.
1005
CLOSE
Some accounts of Hobbes, in contrast to the view above, reject the idea of
biblical influence,12 other interpretations of Hobbes acknowledge the importance
of biblical influence, while limiting its extent.13 This is unfortunate because it is
Similarly, whereas Mitchell says that the dilemma of man's sinful pride remains unresolved prior to Christ's atonement, I believe the ascription of sentience to God in the
later prophets anticipates the resolution of the New Testament. In Isaiah God is referred
to as crying out "like a woman in travail" (Isaiah 42: 14), in Jeremiah His eyes become
"a fountain of tears" (eremiah 9: 1) and He speaks of himself as grievously "wounded"
(Jeremiah 10: 19). When God takes on the characteristics of human sentience, the
narratives of wounding and creation, so characteristic of the Old Testament, are transformed. Christ, whose body is broken for us, reenacts the familiar body breaking narra-
tives centered on pride; at the same time He acknowledges and legitimizes human
suffering and redirects artifice, therapeutically, toward its alleviation. Interestingly, the
prophets deride the worship of idols precisely because, lacking the properties of sentience, they lack the healing power of God (eremiah 10: 5; Isaiah 44: 9-20). A further
point of contrast is that Hobbes's stress on man as artificer, tirelessly laboring to overcome the adversities of human sentience, and indeed creating his own identity in history, may address man's spiritual need in ways that go beyond the account which Mitchell
provides. Lastly, the limits on political sovereignty arising from the Hobbesian covenant
put in doubt the saving role attributed by Mitchell to the state. For a discussion which
stresses the limits on sovereignty imposed by the covenant relation see Coleman (1977
and 1974: 57-89). Also see Scarry (1985: 210-21, 230-32).

12 For example, Johnston states that Hobbes employs biblical discourse as a cloak within
which is concealed a very different, modem, and scientific message. He contends that
the object of Hobbes's review of important doctrines of Christian teaching in Leviathan
(Pts. III and IV) relating to miracles, prophecy, the authority of scripture, the nature of
God, the status of the soul, is to subject them to rationalistic criteria which subvert their
meaning. The result of this corrosive analysis is that we are transformed into "more
rational and predictable being consistent with the thrust of Parts I and II, rather than
conformed to Christian orthodoxy. This account turns on a distinction between Hobbes's
real and apparent intentions, his esoteric contrast with his exoteric doctrine; it is assumed throughout that Hobbes's hidden agenda is to convert us all into scientific, rational choice actors, a view which commends itself to those who see Hobbes in a similar
light (ohnston 1986: 134). And see Curley (1989-90: 162-249); Hampton (1988). For
an account which, like Johnston's, presents Hobbes as the progenitor of a distinctively
modern idea of "scientific enlightenment" but which, unlike Johnston, views this achievement with foreboding see Kraynak (1990).
13 Following the eschatological version of history presented by Hobbes in Leviathan (ch.

35), Eisenach allows the existence of a biblical influence on Hobbes only in a weak and
epiphenomenal sense. The shortcoming in Eisenach's (and Pocock's) interpretation,

according to the view offered here, is that it limits the scope of biblical influence to
Christian eschatology, perhaps a consequence of focusing upon Hobbes's place in Protestant, post-Reformation, sectarian controversy. See Eisenach (1981) and Pocock (1973: 174).
1006
Hobbes's Iconoclasm
possible that the Bible, correctly used, would assist these same scholars in illumi-
nating their own arguments. Johnston, as an example, refuses to accept Hobbes's
own affirmations that his "materialism" is coincident with and possibly derived
from biblical sources (Leviathan ch. 34, 35). He represents Hobbes as having
wrested biblical text to camouflage a materialistic philosophy arrived at by independent means. Nevertheless, if by "materialism" we mean the transformation of
the world into artifact, there is possibly no major text more materialistic than the
Bible, a view confirmed by a number of authors (Scarry 1985; White 1987;

Kaufman 1972; Foster 1934). It is true that the prophets, as we have noted,
are deeply suspicious of artifice directed to extending human powers and
capacities; but, even so, the principle of transforming the world into artifact
remains and thus becomes available for appropriation and redirection by others (e.g., Hobbes). Hobbes is quite right, therefore, to discover the origins of
his philosophy of artifice in the Bible and his statements to that effect should
be taken as what he meant to say.

It is also unfortunate to restrict the influence of the Bible to Christian
eschatology. The central figure in Eisenach's and Pocock's interpretation

of Hobbes is the Christian protagonist caught between the conflicting claims
of "Rationall" vs. "Prophetique" forms of political rule (Leviathan ch. 246,

E.W. 3: 345) during a period of God's withdrawal from history. Pivotal to
this account are Hobbes's remarks on the "kingdom" of God as variously
conceived in history and his reflections on the manner in these conceptions shape the prospective loyalties of the members of common-wealth
(Leviathan ch. 12, 31, 35). One may concede that God's redemptive intervention in history is central to the scriptures and that Hobbes is wrestling
with the political implications of this in the passages to which these authors point. But God's redemptive activity in history is not the only narra-
tive of significance in the Bible - there is the creation epic - and, it is

possible that the Bible is conceptually more diverse than the Second-Coming- there is the idea of nature as God's artifact and of iconoclasm as the
path to a regenerative politics. The present interpretation has attempted
to retrieve these biblical themes for an understanding of Hobbes.
REFERENCES
Baumgold, Deborah. 1990. "Hobbes's Political Sensibility." In Mary Dietze, ed.,

Thomas Hobbes and Political Theory. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press.
Brown, K. C., ed. 1965. Hobbes Studies. Oxford: Blackwell.
Caton, Hiram. 1988. The Politics of Progress. Gainesville: University of

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Received: February 6, 1977

Accepted: June 4, 1998
coleman.frank@epamail.epa.gov
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Hobbes' Iconoclasm

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University of Utah

This essay shows that Hobbes's thought rests on biblical foundations,

ways: first by warring against idolatry, reconceived as the attribution of

sanctity to mental images, "Phantasmes of the Brain," as Hobbes calls

the biblical cosmology underlying Hobbes natural and civil philosophy

Political Research Quarterly

civil sovereign, in whose behalf he has mounted an extensive philosophic

the later prophets (Hosea 8: 4), an outlook which is foreshadowed in the

Underlying the iconoclasm of the later prophets and of Hobbes, is the

artifice carries within it an implicit challenge to God's role as "maker." This

gods"(Jeremiah 16: 20).

See Johnston (1986: 183-84).

Political Research Quarterly

of sanctity to mental images, "Phantasme(s) of the Brain," as Hobbes calls

attribution to "graven images" (Deuteronomy 4:28, Jeremiah 1:16); second,

diminish their usefulness (ibid. 312-13).

artifact. The imaginative exercise required of us by Hobbes - the removal of

cisely, to call to attention the presence of an unrecognized but recoverable

life" which goes beyond "bare Preservation" to whatever a "man by lawfull

Political Research Quarterly

A third classification touches upon the idolatry issue. This class of

(Genesis 11:1-9). A greater offence is the making of graven images. These

lowed day (Deuteronomy 5:12).

standing'?" (Isaiah 29: 16). As noted, Jeremiah immediately responds to his

made us and we are his" (Psalms 100).

Political Research Quarterly

kingdom, a product and sponsor of "a" recognized and recoverable forms of

Philosophy, Hobbes says, is "the Knowledge acquired by Reasoning, from

we seek for, but only of what may be. (E.W. 1:183)

Several distinguishing features of Hobbes's philosophy are present in

we may thereby (in an act of "pre-cognition") deduce the manner of its

knowledge claims absent determinate artificers and their products should

the manner of their generation. Leviathan as an example, is written from the

(E.W. 1: 66-74) and noted by a number of commentators (Shapin and Schaffer

philosophy in Hobbes's hierarchy of knowable things is stated with clarity and

Political Research Quarterly

If we ask what is the derivation of Hobbes's epistemology, Foster's re-

ply is the biblical idea of a created nature.s Such an hypothesis casts an

contingency (E.W. 7: 3, 88; Macpherson 1963: 463).

which common-wealth, language, and geometry are to be included (because

(Leviathan ch. 13, 89 E.W 3:113), nevertheless, as Hobbes well knows, in

ch. 13, 88-90; E.W. 3:1 12-14).

of failing to observe the agreements which constitute the state.

than ch. 13, 89; E.W 3: 113)

Political Research Quarterly

may avoid being absorbed by the latter.

ries of making, which extends to a difference in ascription of the site of

owed by the significance of their agreement on the premise of a created

product of our own creation. A typology illuminating this idea of possible

tion of Israel. Posed differently, is there a connection between iconoclasm, art,

the universe" (Kaufman 1972: 349). This omission is significant. The

Political Research Quarterly

broken beyond healing. (Proverbs 29:1)

A whiff of calamity is salutary because it reminds Israel of the basic facts of

the people is grass" (Isaiah 4: 7).

He has been expelled by rebellious pride.

regeneration because only thus is Israel reduced to a body in pain (Scarry

demonstrates God's prowess - conflates wounding with divine creation.

Political Research Quarterly

ishment is not the prophesied catastrophe, itself, but the deprivation of

and turn and be healed. (Isaiah 6: 9-11)

Conversely, belief, an intentional state which is the opposite of pride, is

The intentional states and preoccupations which inform prophetic icono-