 What did Hobbes see as distinguishing his work in civil philosophy from all predecessors? As points of contrast, Hobbes mentioned the Sophists who “taught … [only how] to dispute” and Christian theologians who introduced “school divinity”, by which Hobbes meant the blending of teachings from Scripture with Aristotle’s philosophy. For the latter, Hobbes saw the best “exorcism” to be the distinction between the subject matters of religion, which were the “rules for honouring God”, and philosophy, which was concerned with the “opinions of private men” (EW I.xi). What distinguished religion from philosophy in this sense, Hobbes continued, is that philosophy provides either demonstrations from definitions or demonstrations from “suppositions not absurd”.