Saul

Saul is invoked by Thomas Paine as a biblical example that undermines hereditary succession: he was chosen by lot, yet his accession did not establish a hereditary line. Paine uses Saul’s case to distinguish the selection of a king from the supposed right of a king’s descendants to rule, making the story part of a wider argument that political authority cannot be permanently transferred by the choices of an earlier generation.

Saul as a Biblical Example

Paine places Saul within a discussion of how kings first came to power. He offers three possible origins for a country’s first king: selection by lot, election, or usurpation. Saul serves as the example of the first. Paine says he was chosen by lot, but that the succession did not become hereditary and that the episode gives no indication of an intention to make it so.

The point is not a narrative of Saul’s reign. Paine mentions no particular act or personal quality of Saul; he treats the manner of his selection, and the absence of hereditary succession afterward, as the relevant evidence. Saul’s significance lies in what his accession does not establish: choosing one king does not itself authorize a permanent royal family.

The Argument Against Hereditary Right

Paine argues that if the first king was selected by lot, that method sets a precedent for choosing the next ruler and excludes hereditary succession. He considers election in similar terms: the first electors, he reasons, could not rightfully dispose of the authority of all future generations by choosing a king and a family of kings forever. Saul’s case thus supports a general challenge to the claim that an initial act of selection can bind posterity to a dynasty.

This reasoning forms part of Paine’s larger political theology. He maintains that the biblical record disapproves of government by kings and points to the examples of Gideon and Samuel as evidence. Saul is not presented as the central actor in those episodes, but his selection by lot supplies a separate historical example in the case against hereditary monarchy. Paine contrasts the limited fact of a king’s selection with the much broader claim that his descendants possess a right to rule.

Narrative and Political Significance

Saul’s brief appearance is argumentative rather than biographical. Paine compresses the reference to a single institutional fact—selection by lot without hereditary succession—and gives that fact the force of a counterexample. Against the asserted continuity of royal inheritance, Saul’s accession suggests that kingship and hereditary right are distinct arrangements, not inseparable parts of one political order.

The example also sharpens Paine’s concern for posterity. Even if an earlier generation could choose a ruler, he argues, that choice could not justly remove the political authority of generations to come. Saul therefore functions as a hinge in Paine’s reasoning: the biblical instance helps turn a question about the origin of kings into a challenge to the lasting legitimacy of dynastic rule.