Abstract The persistent debate over Hobbes’s political and religious views may be explained by the fact that scholars come to their texts with different networks of beliefs, arising from different experiences and dispositions. Although the networks of people overlap, especially those from the same culture, they may not overlap with regard to the beliefs relevant to the interpretation of crucial passages. These differences are not overcome even when an interpretation has substantial interpretive virtues such as conservatism, frugality, palpability, and generality. Other properties, such as simplicity, consistency, completeness, connectedness, and defensibility, are more successful in this regard. The author refers to them to defend his interpretation of Hobbes as a Jacobean, that is, as a supporter of absolute sovereignty, episcopacy, high liturgy, orthodoxy, and English Calvinism.