Robert Filmer is traditionally portrayed as a man who held that his contemporary English king has the absolute power and the primogenitary right of Adam by bloodline. However, this view depends on a misunderstanding of the nature and role of Filmer's patriarchalism and divine right theory. Filmer's patriachalism does not mean that his contemporary kings have 'the right of Adam' according to bloodline. It was constructed to destroy the concept of 'natural liberty', on which, Filmer saw, his opponents' political theory depends. But if so, Filmer needed to explain how his contemporary kings acquire the right of Adam. I argue that it was his divine right theory that provided them with this right. In other words, his patriarchalism is concerned with the quality of political power, and his divine right theory is concerned with the source of legitimacy. In turn, I explain what this right of Adam is, comparing it with Bodin's concept of sovereignty. But although Bodin was an advocate of the sovereign's absolute power, he also emphasized the limitation imposed on it. Therefore, I compare Filmer's concept of 'the right of Adam' and Bodin's sovereignty in terms of limitations, and then clarify the features of Filmerian absolute and arbitrary power. By this comparison, I argue that Filmer succeeded in making the sovereign's power absolute and arbitrary, and free from almost all limitations posed on kings, but to do so, he failed to construct the concept of commonwealth or political society which presupposes its 'perpetuity'.