ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the complexity of Harrington's interpretation of the commonwealth of the Jews by focusing on his recurring references to Grotius's Erastian analysis of Hebrew politics and ecclesiology. Praise for the Jewish commonwealth was a constant feature in James Harrington's writing from the publication of The Common wealth of Oceana onwards. The commonwealth of the Jews was not a perfect and 'immortal republic as it lacked the mechanisms of voting which allowed the circulation of offices in the republic of Venice. Harrington's references to the commonwealth of jews should be set in the wider context of early modern European interpretations of Hebrew politics and religion. In the early seventeenth century, the political theology of the Respublica Hebraeorum became a key issue in the ideology of the newly established Dutch republic. Harrington's Erastian interpretation of the commonwealth of the Jews remained almost unaltered in successive works, as did his adherence to Hobbes's claim for chirotonia in Israelite theocracy.
