The Biblical Concept of Covenant and the Political Theory of Thomas Hobbes

Abstract

Scholars recognize the importance of the concept of covenant to Thomas Hobbes’s theory of the state and suggest that he borrowed it from the Bible. In this article, I argue that Hobbes radically transformed the biblical notion of covenant. I show how commonwealth-generating covenants function within Hobbes’s mature theory and clarify why the biblical concept of covenant cannot function in this way. Hobbes, I suggest, conceptualized a commonwealth-generating covenant as a set of reciprocal conditional authorizations. Hobbes’s covenant does not involve promises to be fulfilled in the future, mechanisms for guaranteeing their fulfillment, nor divine sanction, which are key elements of the biblical concept. But Hobbes shares with the Bible the notion of a covenant as an agreement made in historical time – not in the mythological time of origins – that converts a multitude of individuals into a polity.