Empire, Conscience, and Another Independency in Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan

Leviathan ’s famous pronouncement that England had been ‘reduced to the Independency of the Primitive Christians’ has often been understood to signal support for the newly ascendant Cromwellian Independents in England. This article ventures an alternative reading of the passage by investigating the notion of ‘Independency’ with an eye to wider European political discourses. Scholars such as Francisco Suárez contended for the natural independence of temporal sovereigns while specifying the juridical rights and reach of imperial power. The fact that Christ and the Apostles had eschewed involvement in temporal affairs clarified this initial independency. This original state was especially important in French narratives aimed at securing autonomy against both empire and church. In light of this, Hobbes’s statement may be interpreted as endorsing a time-delimited notion of free conscience given England’s ruinous political state, but one looking forward to the unified rule of a sovereign with civil and ecclesiastical power.