ABSTRACT
Religion was sufficiently important to Hobbes to merit a whole section of Leviathan to itself. Leviathan, entitled 'of a Christian Commonwealth', argues, that the claims of religious organisations to political power are unfounded. Hobbes grinds his way through the scriptures, arguing that they fail to support those who think the state should be subordinated to religious authorities such as priests, bishops or the Pope. Hobbes had to provide reasons for accepting his political theory that his contemporaries would be likely to find compelling. Hobbes emerges as a defender of toleration not merely because of the generally individualist bias of his thought, but also because of the wide divergences in religious practices that he was prepared to accept. Tuck argues that in its essentials, Leviathan's case for toleration was that there was no source of moral or religious judgment in a commonwealth independent of the sovereign.
