ABSTRACT
Rousseau wrote the chapter on the back of the chapter on the Lawgiver, and that is because it constitutes the natural complement to that chapter. Rousseau ends the chapter on the Lawgiver by raising the problem of the relations between religion and politics. Civil religion provides a solution to that problem. In formulating ‘a purely civil profession of faith’, Rousseau is really proposing to reinforce the authority of the laws with that of religion.2
