M E R I D I A N     M A G A Z I N E

Welcome to Church, Brother Niccolo
By Davis Bitton

Few people in history have a worse reputation than Niccolo Machiavelli.  Author of The Prince, he became in his own lifetime a symbol of cruelty and cynicism.  His little book supposedly served as a handbook for Thomas Cromwell, Napoleon Bonaparte, and eventually Adolph Hitler.  At least that’s the rap.

But not so fast.  What one says and how someone else interprets it may be two different things.  It is not fair to blame Machiavelli for the gas chambers of Auschwitz any more than it is fair to blame the Bible.  I don’t think modern dictators had to read a book from the sixteenth century to form their own ruthless philosophy of rulership.

When I was a graduate student, we gathered one evening to hear a speaker from Columbia University.  Garrett Mattingly, a charming and stimulating man, best known for his later compelling study of the Spanish Armada, talked to us about Machiavelli's life. 

A secretary of the Florentine Republic at the beginning of the sixteenth century, Niccolo Machiavelli worked tirelessly to preserve his small Italian city-state, to prevent its conquest or its domination by superpowers from the outside. 

In 1512, when the papal armies restored the Medici to power in Florence, Niccolo was out of a job. Suspected of a conspiracy to overthrow the Medici and bring back republican government, he suffered turns on the rack.  Then he spent many years in retirement, writing books, hoping to be employed by the government.  In view of all this, Mattingly put forth the possibility that The Prince was a satire.  At the very least, we should be cautious in judging. 

I am not so brash as to pronounce this Renaissance thinker a Latter-day Saint.  It would do the Church no good to be identified with a thinker who, however unfairly, has become associated with evil.

But in imagination I see myself at the front door of our chapel welcoming this visitor from the past.  “Thanks for coming,” I would say.  “I have no idea whether you might find our teachings appealing, but we do have some beliefs and attitudes in common.  At the very least you will understand us better.”

Let us consider just three questions and see whether Machiavelli and the Mormons have anything in common.

The Church of His Day

Machiavelli had the reputation of being irreligious, an atheist.  But many of the “irreligious” passages that won for him the label of being opposed to Christianity turn out, upon closer scrutiny, to be critical of the Catholic Christianity of his day as he knew it.  What he saw in practice, exemplified especially by Pope Julius II, was the supposed head of Christendom corrupted by wealth, heavily involved in Italy’s power politics, and willing to use force, even to lead troops in the field.  If this was Christianity, Machiavelli was not impressed.

Power and gain and priestcraft — those marks of a fatally flawed religion, denounced by the prophets — were dominant in the church as Machiavelli witnessed it.  True enough, this was not the whole story, but Machiavelli was not alone in his gloomy prognostication.  A visitor to Rome who came away with much the same impression was an Augustinian friar named Luther.

Such religion might be said to “teach for doctrine the commandments of men” or, in Isaiah's powerful expression, to “draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.” 

Machiavelli had little respect for such religion.  But what about a pure religion?  We can only guess.        

Human Nature

One of Machiavelli’s most famous pieces of advice to the prince had to do with keeping his word.   “A prudent ruler,” he wrote, “ought not to keep faith when by so doing it would be against his interest, and when the reasons which made him bind himself no longer exist.  If men were all good, this precept would not be a good one; but as they are bad, and would not observe their faith with you, so you are not bound to keep faith with them.”

Year after year, in my Renaissance classes I would solicit student reaction to such Machiavellian advice.  With very few exceptions students agreed with him in saying that he was describing the real world.  To succeed in modern politics or even in business, they said, you have to think and act like this.  I have always resisted this dismal conclusion, but confess there must be some truth to it. 

Not that Machiavelli wanted his ruler to lie, cheat, and steal and use every opportunity to wreak death and destruction.  That would be evil.  That would be immoral.  No.  The prince should keep his word, should be moral in other words, as far as he can be.  But he should also be prepared to be immoral if necessary.  His actions should be governed by the realities of the situation — moral or immoral, as the case required.  Hence, the common description of Machiavelli’s philosophy as “amoral.”

But why?  What does this piece of advice tell us about his view of human nature?   Does it not fit quite well with the recognition that humans — natural man before a spiritual rebirth — are carnal, sensual, and devilish?  The Latter-day Saints who were driven from their homes in Missouri and forced to flee to Illinois might agree with Niccolo.    

Agency

Machiavelli did not see life as totally determined, mechanistically predictable.  Fortune (that which is beyond our control) he likened to “an impetuous river that, when turbulent, inundates the plains, casts down trees and buildings, removes earth from this side and places it on the other; everyone flees before it, and everything yields to its fury.” 

Yet with this river quiet men “can make provision against it by dykes and banks, so that when it rises it will either go into a canal or its rush will not be so wild and dangerous.”  You do what you can. You try to protect yourself.  Then you deal with circumstances as they come.  Brigham Young said about the same thing.

We cannot know how Niccolo Machiavelli would evaluate the Constitution of the United States, but we do know that he favored mixed government.  After discussing Aristotle’s traditional division of governments into three kinds, each of which had its perverted form, Machiavelli said, “When there is combined under the same constitution a prince, a nobility, and the power of the people, then these three powers will watch and keep each other reciprocally in check.” 

Our Founders did not invent the idea of checks and balances.  And Machiavelli did not really advocate monarchy, much less dictatorship, as the best form of government.

Much more can be said about this early modern political thinker.  Machiavelli is interesting because he was involved in important affairs during a crucial generation and reflected on history and human interaction.  He is interesting because he is complex.  One must not stop with The Prince but must read his Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius as well as his other surviving writings.  But I have said enough to suggest that in some areas we Latter-day Saints might find ourselves agreeing with him.

But let’s face it, some of his views do not comport readily with gospel understandings.  I can’t really think it quite right for a ruler to pretend to be religious.  The important thing, said our Florentine, is that he seems to be virtuous and seems to be religious.  Although we can well believe that some political consultants think along these same lines, Latter-day Saints cannot subscribe to such manipulation and deception.

Maybe we’ll just leave the judgment of Machiavelli to God.   “Now it is better that a man should be judged of God than of man, for the judgments of God are always just, but the judgments of man are not always just” (Mosiah 29:12).

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