Character guide

Jesus Christ

major

Also known as Jesus, Christ, the Lord Jesus, our Lord Jesus Christ, Saviour

Hobbes reads Christ's threefold office — redeemer, teacher, and future king — as a timeline that keeps the kingdom of God strictly in the future, not in the present Church. That single move dismantles the Pope's claim to speak in Christ's name and to unmake a king's authority over his own subjects. Every argument about obedience in the middle chapters runs through this figure, whether Hobbes is honoring him or fencing him off from earthly politics.

Moses

major

In Hobbes's reading, Moses is not merely a prophet but a civil ruler whose word from God was the law, and whose seventy elders prophesied only by a spirit subordinate to his. The Sinai boundary — approach to behold, but not to interpret — becomes the model for every Christian commonwealth, where the sovereign stands in Moses's place. This is the load-bearing analogy of the whole book: get Moses wrong, and the argument for sovereign interpretation of Scripture collapses.

St. Paul

supporting

Also known as Paul

Hobbes leans on Paul's letter to Titus to argue that Israel was God's "peculiar" people not by power alone but by their own covenant, making the kingdom of God a political institution rather than a mystical one. Paul also supplies the proof-text that the Church is a congregation called forth by lawful authority, not a hierarchy ruling over it. For Hobbes, Paul is less a theologian of grace than a witness to the contractual logic of sovereignty.

Peter

supporting

Also known as St. Peter, Simon Peter, Simon

Hobbes cites Peter to insist the kingdom of God is a civil commonwealth where God reigns by a vicar, and that immortality comes by promise rather than by nature. Peter's name also anchors the book's long excavation of the word "church" — a congregation summoned by authority, not a standing government over princes. The stakes are political: if Peter's church is an assembly, no bishop inherits a throne from him.

Abraham

supporting

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses believed God himself; later Christians, Hobbes argues, believe only the pastors and sovereigns who recommend the Scriptures to them. That distinction lets Hobbes locate the authority to determine doctrine in the supreme pastor — the civil sovereign — rather than in private spirit or church infallibility. Abraham is the hinge: once faith is shown to rest on a person one has heard speak, the question of who speaks now becomes the whole quarrel.

Adam

supporting

Hobbes uses Adam's fall to argue that death entered the world by sin, yet God could justly have afflicted even a sinless Adam — a subtle move that keeps divine sovereignty grounded in nature, not merely in punishment. From Adam he pivots to the natural laws of equity, justice, and mercy, and to worship as cultivated honor rather than coerced ritual. Adam matters less as a fallen figure than as the first subject whose obedience defines what sovereignty means.

David

supporting

Also known as king David

David matters less as a psalmist than as a precedent: Hobbes argues that God's kingdom was a real civil kingdom, and that Israel's demand for a king in Samuel's day interrupted it. When Gabriel promises Christ 'the throne of His father David,' Hobbes reads the phrase as a territorial, earthly claim — the same claim that got Jesus crucified under the title 'King of the Jews.' For a reader entering Leviathan, David is the proof-text that Scripture's kingdom language is political, not merely spiritual.

Joshua

minor

Also known as Josh

Successor to Moses who led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

Aaron

minor

Brother of Moses and first high priest of the Israelites.

Saul

minor

Also known as king Saul

First king of Israel, later rejected by God for disobedience.

Job

minor

Righteous man tested by Satan with suffering, known for his patience and faith.

Samuel

minor

Prophet and last judge of Israel who anointed both Saul and David as kings.

John the Evangelist

minor

Also known as St. John the Evangelist, St. John

Apostle and author of the Gospel of John, Revelation, and epistles.

Solomon

minor

Also known as king Solomon

Wise king of Israel who built the Temple in Jerusalem.

Aristotle

supporting

Hobbes inherits Aristotle's vocabulary of causes, motion, and the first mover, then quietly rewrites it: the endless chain of causes leads to one eternal cause, but fear and ignorance are what actually breed the gods men worship. Aristotle stands behind Hobbes's account of how invisible powers get imagined — as thin aerial bodies, dream-shapes, ghosts — rather than as immaterial spirits, a notion Hobbes insists no natural mind could form. Reading Leviathan means watching Hobbes both lean on and dismantle the philosopher he can't stop quoting.

St. Matthew

minor

Also known as Matt

Apostle and author of the Gospel of Matthew, formerly a tax collector.

Satan

minor

Adversary and tempter, often discussed in the context of evil and temptation.

Cardinal Bellarmine

supporting

Also known as Bellarmine

Bellarmine defended the papacy's claim to indirect temporal power, the position Hobbes treats as the great rival to sovereign authority. Hobbes's counter-move is to redefine the kingdom of God as a civil kingdom, restored by Christ and proclaimed by the apostles — a reading he admits 'gives too much light to Christian kings to see their right of ecclesiastical government.' Bellarmine is the shadow opponent: every time Hobbes insists the sovereign, not the pope, holds the keys, he is answering him.

Julius Caesar

minor

Also known as Caesar, Julian

Roman general and dictator, used as an example of sovereign power.

Naaman

minor

Also known as Naaman the Syrian

Syrian commander healed of leprosy by the prophet Elisha.

Timothy

minor

Also known as Tim

Companion and protégé of St. Paul, recipient of two New Testament epistles.

Luke

minor

Also known as St. Luke

Physician and evangelist, author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts.

Marcus Brutus

minor

Also known as Mark

Roman senator and assassin of Julius Caesar, discussed in political context.

Josiah

minor

King of Judah who instituted religious reforms and rediscovered the Book of the Law.

Augustus Caesar

minor

Also known as Caesar

First Roman emperor, used as an example of sovereign authority.

Cicero

minor

Roman orator and philosopher, cited for political and legal theories.

Constantine the Great

minor

Also known as Constantine

First Christian Roman emperor, who legalized Christianity.

Micaiah

minor

Prophet who foretold disaster for King Ahab.

Antichrist

minor

Figure of evil and deception, opposing Christ in eschatology.

Plato

minor

Greek philosopher, founder of the Academy, frequently referenced in political theory.

Judas Iscariot

minor

Also known as Judas

Apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ for thirty pieces of silver.

Jupiter

minor

Also known as the same Jupiter

Chief Roman god, used as an example of pagan religion.

Holy Ghost

minor

Also known as the Holy Ghost, Holy Ghost, Comforter

Third person of the Trinity, often discussed in theological contexts.

William the Conqueror

minor

Norman king who conquered England in 1066, used as a historical example.

Ptolomaeus Philadelphus

minor

Ptolemaic king of Egypt who commissioned the Septuagint translation.

Elijah

minor

Also known as Elias, some Elias

Prophet who performed miracles and was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.

Pilate

minor

Roman governor who presided over the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

Uriah

minor

Hittite soldier whose wife Bathsheba was taken by King David.

Alexander the Great

minor

Also known as Alexander

Macedonian conqueror who built a vast empire, used as a historical example.

Mercury

minor

Also known as Mercury a Paul

Roman messenger god, sometimes identified with Paul in Lystra.

St. Jerome

minor

Church father who translated the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate).

Homer

minor

Ancient Greek poet, author of the Iliad and Odyssey, cited as an authority.

Pope Zachary

minor

Also known as Zachary, the Pope

Pope who corresponded with Boniface and sanctioned the deposition of Childeric III.

Jephtha

minor

Judge of Israel who made a rash vow to sacrifice his daughter.

Eleazar

minor

Son of Aaron who succeeded him as high priest of Israel.

Levi

minor

Third son of Jacob and Leah, ancestor of the priestly tribe of Levi.

Noah

minor

Righteous man who built the ark and survived the great flood.

Pope Innocent III

minor

Also known as Innocent

Powerful medieval pope who asserted papal supremacy over secular rulers.

Sir Edward Coke

minor

Also known as Coke

English jurist and politician, known for his legal writings and common law.

Pontifex Maximus

minor

Also known as the Pontifex Maximus

Title for the chief priest of ancient Rome, later used by the Pope.

Pope Adrian

minor

Pope who sent a crown to King John and asserted papal authority.

John the Baptist

minor

Also known as John Baptist, St. John the Baptist, John

Prophet who baptized Jesus and prepared the way for his ministry.

Jacob

minor

Patriarch, son of Isaac, father of the twelve tribes of Israel.

Pharaoh

minor

Also known as Pharaoh - Necho

Egyptian king who opposed Moses and the Israelites.

Joseph

minor

Also known as Joseph the Just

Husband of Mary and earthly father of Jesus Christ.

Philip

minor

Apostle and evangelist who preached in Samaria and baptized the Ethiopian eunuch.

Barnabas

minor

Also known as St. Barnabas

Early Christian missionary and companion of St. Paul.

Isaac

minor

Son of Abraham and Sarah, father of Jacob and Esau.

Esdras

minor

Scribe and leader who helped restore Jewish law after the Babylonian exile.

Daniel

minor

Also known as Dan

Prophet in Babylon known for his visions and interpretation of dreams.

Jonah

minor

Prophet who was swallowed by a great fish and later preached to Nineveh.

Isaiah

minor

Major prophet who foretold the coming of the Messiah.

Enoch

minor

Antediluvian patriarch who walked with God and was taken without dying.

Julius Proculus

minor

Roman senator who claimed to have seen the deified Romulus.

King James

minor

Also known as James, King James

King of England who authorized the King James Version of the Bible.

Jeremiah

minor

Prophet who warned of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Babylonian exile.

Jesus of Nazareth

minor

Also known as Jesus

Historical figure from Nazareth, often distinguished from the divine Christ.

Beza

minor

Reformed theologian and biblical scholar, successor to Calvin in Geneva.

Mordecai

minor

Jewish leader in Persia who saved the Jews from Haman's plot.

Zacchaeus

minor

Tax collector who climbed a sycamore tree to see Jesus.

Jonathan

minor

Son of King Saul and close friend of David.

Zechariah

minor

Prophet who wrote about visions and the rebuilding of the Temple.

Joel

minor

Also known as the prophet Joel

Prophet who spoke of the day of the Lord and the outpouring of the Spirit.

Agar

minor

Egyptian handmaid of Sarah, mother of Ishmael.

Lot

minor

Nephew of Abraham who escaped the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Gabriel

minor

Angel who announced the births of John the Baptist and Jesus.

Virgin Mary

minor

Mother of Jesus Christ, conceived by the Holy Spirit.

Abiathar

minor

High priest who served under King David and later supported Adonijah.

Rehoboam

minor

Son of Solomon whose harsh rule led to the division of Israel.

Hezekiah

minor

King of Judah who instituted religious reforms and trusted in God.

Ananias

minor

Disciple who restored Paul's sight and baptized him in Damascus.

Martha

minor

Sister of Lazarus and Mary, who served Jesus in Bethany.

Carneades

minor

Greek skeptic philosopher who argued against dogmatic certainty.

Henry VIII

minor

English king who broke with the Roman Catholic Church and established the Church of England.