Leviathan

Hobbes identifies a series of flaws related to the Catholic Church, both across history and in contemporary times. Many of these flaws are rooted in the Catholic Church’s practice of introducing into Christianity heathen demonology, by which Hobbes means Greek and Roman traditions. Furthermore, the Catholic Church argues that it represents the kingdom of God itself, which would make the pope God’s sovereign lieutenant over all of Christendom. This contradicts both Hobbes’s earlier assertion that the true kingdom of God will only be restored with the second coming of Christ as well as his argument that the pope has no natural right to subordinate sovereign leaders of other nations. In particular, Hobbes bemoans the extent to which the Catholic Church’s canon laws have superseded some civil laws.

Finally, Hobbes takes issue with a number of rituals and concepts introduced by the Catholic Church which he argues have no precedent in the Bible, including transubstantiation and the existence of purgatory.

Expanding on an argument laid out in the previous chapter, Hobbes details the extent to which the Catholic Church has wrongly adopted various relics of Gentile religions. Though the idea of incorporeal spirits—which Hobbes rejects at length in previous chapters—is rooted in the religion and philosophy of ancient Greece, the Catholic Church has embraced this so-called “doctrine of devils” (308) through its extensive practice of exorcisms.