The foundations of modern political thought, presumed secular, were laid in conversation with theologically motivated politics and in negotiation with Jewish ideas
Mid-seventeenth-century England was a hotbed in which crucial ideas of modern politics were conceived: Thomas Hobbes presented his social contract; John Selden wrote major treatises which were foundational for modern natural and international law; and England participated in the wave of republicanism that swept over Europe. This was also the period of the English Civil War—which has been portrayed as a “war of religion” and a “revolution of saints”—and was characterized by religious ends and motivations guiding politics and politicians.
In England’s Israel and the Foundations of Modern Political Thought, Meirav Jones proposes that the foundational political theory conceived in this period was significantly related to the theological politics of the time. Through an examination of the language and imagery shared by theorists and saints, Jones finds that, in the twenty-year period between 1640 and1660, when Hobbes, Selden, and their contemporaries published, over 40 percent of all texts published in England contained one or more of the terms “Hebrew, ” “Israel, ” “Jerusalem, ” “Zion, ” or “Jew.” Further, all known works of political theory from the period employed these terms. While preachers in English parliament addressed and understood England as “Israel, ” foundational theorists of the modern state employed ancient Israel as a political model and explicitly preferred Hebrew over Greek wisdom.
Modern politics did not develop solely from within a conversation among elites, neither was it conceived as a Godless enterprise, even by its most renowned secular architects. Instead, as the book demonstrates, it spoke the language of religiously motivated politics and was conceived in its terms. Ultimately, Jones argues that it was through a sweeping revival of Hebrew in early modern Europe that the foundations of modern politics were laid in conversation with theological politics and in negotiation with Jewish ideas and ideas of the Jews.
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Meirav Jones is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Mc Master University. She has published articles in journals including Journal of the History of Ideas and Political Studies.
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