- Political trouble—he's writing in the middle of the Civil War, which makes his obsession with the security of sovereign power and the rights of subjects not to be abused by their sovereign make more sense.
- Religious conflict—the reason for this political trouble, Hobbes suggests, is in conflicts about the role of the church in running the state. In this way, he seems to be arguing for the English Civil War as just an aspect of larger Continental religious conflicts.
- Signification—the reason that people fight about religion, Hobbes argues, is that they don't understand how to read the Bible. There is ONE appropriate reading of anything in the Bible, and that reading is Hobbes'. So he spends a long time setting up the reason why St. Peter is the 'foundation of the Church,' or why, stylistically, it is impossible that any of the Old Testament was written down by the characters in it. The secret to everything, Hobbes suggests, is in proper interpretation—although the Pope isn't the Antichrist (he spends some time on this), he can't read properly and so isn't of whatever weird variety of Anglicanism (I guess?) that Hobbes belongs to. Also inside the focus on meaning/definition/interpretation is a conviction that all political conflict is caused by people misunderstanding the power of the sovereign and the duties and rights of the subjects. So he defines this too, at great length, in the first book.
Although this bit is pretty rational, Hobbes also writes some Very Wacky Shit. So, for example, here's the end of Book IV ("Of the Kingdom of Darkness"):
When the fairies are displeased with anybody, they are said to send their elves to pinch them. The ecclesiastics, when they are displeased with any civil state, make also their elves, that is, superstitious, enchanted subjects, to pinch their princes, by preaching sedition; or one prince, enchanted with promises, to pinch another.
The fairies marry not; but there be amongst them incubi that have copulation with flesh and blood. The priests also marry not.
The ecclesiastics take the cream of the land, by donations of ignorant men that stand in awe of them, and by tithes: so also it is in the fable of fairies, that they enter into the dairies, and feast upon the cream, which they skim from the milk.
What kind of money is current in the kingdom of fairies is not recorded in the story. But the ecclesiastics in their receipts accept of the same money that we do; though when they are to make any payment, it is in canonizations, indulgences, and masses.To this and such like resemblances between the papacy and the kingdom of fairies may be added this, that as the fairies have no existence but in the fancies of ignorant people, rising from the traditions of old wives or old poets: so the spiritual power of the Pope (without the bounds of his own civil dominion) consisteth only in the fear that seduced people stand in of their excommunications, upon hearing of false miracles, false traditions, and false interpretations of the Scripture.
According to Hobbes, Catholics are evil fairies who will pinch you, make you raise their illegitimate incubus children, steal your cream, and make you believe in them by getting old women to lie to you about their existence. What are you DOING, Hobbes? Where did the rationality go???
