Abstract

Thomas Hobbes argued for absolute sovereignty, and claimed that in Christian countries the sovereign was fully empowered to govern the church as well as the state. There are grounds for seeing Hobbes as a staunch opponent of religious toleration, and a number of scholars support some variation of this position. This chapter examines the case for and against the idea of the tolerant Hobbes, beginning with his views on the clergy, and the historical context of those views, especially in the debates on church–state relations that preoccupied his English contemporaries. Hobbes noted that clerics were commonly funded by tithes, which were a tenth of the incomes of the laity to whom they catered. Many English Protestant supporters of toleration drew the line at tolerating Roman Catholicism. Hobbes contended that “there is Publique, and Private Worship”. The precept that states should establish the uniform, public worship of God stemmed, in his opinion, from reason and nature.