Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes, Chapter 44 summary

What happens

1. The narrator defines spiritual darkness as organized deception and lists four sources, beginning with the misuse of Scripture.
2. He rejects identifying the present Church with God’s kingdom and traces papal authority, clerical privileges, and rival laws to this error.
3. He distinguishes consecration from enchantment and condemns claims about transformed bread, exorcised water, and other ritual substances.
4. He challenges natural immortality and links belief in separate souls to purgatory, apparitions, exorcisms, and indulgences.
5. He answers arguments for Christ’s present kingdom, suggesting that the Transfiguration explains the promise cited by Beza.
6. He contrasts scriptural consecrations with exorcisms and begins examining passages offered as evidence for naturally immortal souls.

In this chapter

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