With the 500th anniversary of the publication of Machiavelli’s The Prince, Ron White makes a telling comparison
Machiavelli’s The Princeis a controversial book.
2013 sees, and perhaps reluctantly acknowledges rather than celebrates, the 500th anniversary of the writing and circulation of early versions of the work. It was not actually printed until 1532, five years after Machiavelli’s death.
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527) was ‘one of the outstanding figures of the Renaissance’.1 Nevertheless, Macaulay was able to write: ‘We doubt whether any name in literary history be so generally odious as that of the man [Machiavelli] whose character and writings we now propose to consider’.2 Inspired by the devil, or so many thought when Machiavelli’s The Princefirst appeared, ‘Machiavellian’ is still current in English as meaning: elaborately cunning, scheming, unscrupulous; one who believes that the ends justify the means.
Why so disturbing?
What is it about The Princethat is so darkly disturbing? After all he is only saying and taking to a logical conclusion Jeremiah’s declaration some 2,000 years earlier that ‘the heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure’.3 Jesus had no rose-tinted view of human nature, teaching: ‘Out of a person’s heart... evil thoughts come — sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside ... a person’.4So why does Machiavelli shock us when all he does is spell out what the Bible said years before him?
He shocks because of a major difference. Jeremiah wept over what he saw. Jesus came to give his life as a ransom for us. Machiavelli made no such response. He saw the corruption of human nature very clearly, but he showed how it should be exploited to obtain and retain power. He advocated for rulers the appearance of virtue, but urged the avoidance of it in practice. He would have refuted Lord Acton’s dictum, ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’5, by pointing out that power merely exposes the corruption that is already there. Today Machiavelli ‘is still a scandal ... The scandal lies in the fact that Machiavelli himself is not scandalised by the bitter truth he tells’.6‘He wrote as a political realist, conveying lessons learnt by observing the world as it is.’7
Conflicts between cities
Modern Italy was in Machiavelli’s day a number of city states. The year of Machiavelli’s birth in Florence was the year in which Lorenzo de’ Medici, a powerful and successful ruler of the city state, came to power. Following Lorenzo’s death in 1492 the city went into decline. Throughout Machiavelli’s life there were conflicts between the city states and invasions by Spain and France. Machiavelli served Florence as a senior official and wanted Florence to thrive again. He saw the need for a strong ruler, a prince who could achieve and hold on to power: a man utterly determined, strong and no believer in half measures. Machiavelli was not the first to hold that, ‘When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe’8, thus, ‘From the pages of The Prince strides the figure of the autocrat, the new man, ruthless, efficient, and defiant’9. What, then, were some of the characteristics that Machiavelli thought that such a prince should have and how does Jesus compare?
Virtue leads to grief?
Machiavelli said that such ‘a prince, therefore, should have no other object or thought, nor acquire skill in anything, except war, its organisation, and its discipline’.10In short, a Prince of War. But in Jesus we have the Prince of Peace: ‘For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this’.11 Machiavelli’s prince was motivated by the love of power; God’s by the power of love.
‘The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not so virtuous. Therefore if a prince wants to maintain his rule he must learn how not to be virtuous.’12Jesus was absolutely virtuous. A close observer of him over some three years confirmed: ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth. When they hurled their insults at him, he did not retaliate; when he suffered, he made no threats. Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly’.13Yes, he came to grief; however, for God’s prince, death was not the end, for he rose bodily from the dead. Perfectly virtuous death could not hold him.
Truth and lies
‘Contemporary experience shows that princes who have achieved great things have been those who have given their word lightly, who have known how to trick men with their cunning, and who, in the end, have overcome those who abide by honest principles.’14‘One must know how... to be a great liar and deceiver.’15Jesus had a reputation for telling the truth and, indeed, claimed to be the Truth16, a claim God the Father authenticated when he raised Jesus bodily from the dead. In Revelation 19.11 John saw ‘a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war’ successfully!
‘He should appear to be compassionate, faithful to his word, guileless and devout ... Everyone sees what you appear to be, few experience what you really are.’17 Recent accusations about Jimmy Savile and Lance Armstrong, to name but two, would seem to confirm the accuracy of Machiavelli’s chilling conclusion. One who was close to Jesus wrote: ‘We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth’.18
Change of nature
The strength of Machiavelli’s approach is that it is based on knowledge gained from close observation of the political world in which he worked, a knowledge informed by extensive study of political history. Machiavelli’s policies could be expected to work.
For the Bible’s vision of the Prince of Peace who reigns in righteousness to be no more than a collection of pious platitudes, clearly something more is needed: human nature has to be radically changed. As Athanasius observed, and he was not the first, it is not only our status before God, but our nature that needs to change, a change that God is delighted to effect in all those who are born again by the Spirit and made new creations in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Psychiatrists recognise Machiavellian egocentricity as a characteristic of a psychopathic personality. Whereas in Jesus we see one, ‘who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, he humbled himself —even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him ... that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow’.19
It needs but a slight acquaintance with the lives of Adolf Hitler and Saddam Hussein to see the considerable extent to which they matched Machiavelli’s specifications. But in Jesus we look forward to one who ‘will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth’.20
FOOTNOTES
Quotations from Machiavelli’s The Princeare from The Folio Society’s 1972 edition, fourth printing 2007 of Geoffrey Bull’s translation with a preface by Tim Parks. Biblical quotations are from the NIV. 1.Oxford Encyclopedia of World History(1998) 2.Thomas Babington Macaulay, Essay on Machiavelli, 1850, from Fordham University Internet ModernHistory Sourcebook. 3.Jeremiah 17.9. 4.Mark 7.21-23. 5.Oxford Dictionary of Quotations 6.Tim Park’s preface, p.9. 7.Oxford Encyclopedia of World History(1998). 8.Luke 11.21 9.George Bull Introduction, p.24. 10.The Prince, p.83. 11.Isaiah 9.6-7. 12.The Prince, p.86. 13.1 Peter 2.22-23. 14.The Prince, p.93. 15.The Prince, p.94. 16.John 14.6. 17.The Prince, p.95. 18.John 1.14. 19.Philippians 2.5-11. 20.Isaiah 42.3-4.
