Hobbes - Leviathan.pdf

word of God, but ruled according to their own discretion, or by the
direction of such as each of them esteemed prophets.
-
* I Kings, 14. 26
-
From hence we may infer that the Scriptures of the Old Testament,
which we have at this day, were not canonical, nor a law unto the
Jews, till the renovation of their covenant with God at their return
from the Captivity, and restoration of their Commonwealth under
Esdras. But from that time forward they were accounted the law of
the Jews, and for such translated into Greek by seventy elders of
Judaea, and put into the library of Ptolemy at Alexandria, and
approved for the word of God. Now seeing Esdras was the high priest,
and the high priest was their civil sovereign, it is manifest that the
Scriptures were never made laws, but by the sovereign civil power.
By the writings of the Fathers that lived in the time before that
Christian religion was received and authorized by Constantine the
Emperor, we may find that the books we now have of the New Testament
were held by the Christians of that time (except a few, in respect
of whose paucity the rest were called the Catholic Church, and
others heretics) for the dictates of the Holy Ghost; and
consequently for the canon, or rule of faith: such was the reverence
and opinion they had of their teachers; as generally the reverence
that the disciples bear to their first masters in all manner of
doctrine they receive from them is not small. Therefore there is no
doubt but when St. Paul wrote to the churches he had converted; or any
other Apostle or Disciple of Christ, to those which had then
embraced Christ; they received those their writings for the true
Christian doctrine. But in that time when not the power and
authority of the teacher, but the faith of the hearer, caused them
to receive it, it was not the Apostles that made their own writings
canonical, but every convert made them so to himself.
But the question here is not what any Christian made a law or
canon to himself, which he might again reject by the same right he
received it, but what was so made a canon to them as without injustice
they could not do anything contrary thereunto. That the New
Testament should in this sense be canonical, that is to say, a law
in any place where the law of the Commonwealth had not made it so,
is contrary to the nature of a law. For a law, as hath been already
shown, is the commandment of that man, or assembly, to whom we have
given sovereign authority to make such rules for the direction of
our actions as he shall think fit, and to punish us when we do
anything contrary to the same. When therefore any other man shall
offer unto us any other rules, which the sovereign ruler hath not
prescribed, they are but counsel and advice; which, whether good or
bad, he that is counselled may without injustice refuse to observe;
and when contrary to the laws already established, without injustice
cannot observe, how good soever he conceiveth it to be. I say he
cannot in this case observe the same in his actions, nor in his
discourse with other men, though he may without blame believe his
private teachers and wish he had the liberty to practise their advice,
and that it were publicly received for law. For internal faith is in
its own nature invisible, and consequently exempted from all human
jurisdiction; whereas the words and actions that proceed from it, as
breaches of our civil obedience, are injustice both before God and
man. Seeing then our Saviour hath denied his kingdom to be in this
world, seeing he hath said he came not to judge, but to save the