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Blasphemy and Leo Strauss's Machiavelli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Dante Germino
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Extract

In 1966, I published a review article hailing Leo Strauss's Thoughts on Machiavelli as an instant classic. I also expressed some reservations or “second thoughts” about its conclusions. In the intervening years my appreciation for the profundity and originality of Strauss's interpretation has only increased, but many of my doubts have also remained. Here I wish to restate both my admiration and reservations with particular attention to parts of Strauss's chapter on Machiavelli published in the 1972 edition of his History of Political Philosophy, co-edited with Joseph Cropsey.

Let me at the outset state the obvious: Strauss's interpretation of Machiavelli is well — indeed overwhelmingly — supported by textual evidence, given Strauss's manner of reading between the lines. No interpreter, therefore, is entitled to dismiss it out of hand, even if he or she disagrees with Strauss's methodology, in whole or in part. In this respect, Claude Lefort has provided a model for scholars whose philosophical orientation differs widely from that of Strauss. Strauss has given us a truly fresh look at the great Florentine.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , Winter 1991 , pp. 146 - 156
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1991

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References

1. “Second Thoughts on Leo Strauss's Machiavelli,“ Journal of Politics 37 (1966): 794–817. Without in any way implying his assent to my arguments, I would like to express my gratitude to my friend Prof. Harvey Mansfield for his comments on an earlier version of this article.Google Scholar

2. Strauss, Leo and Cropsey, Joseph, eds., History of Political Philosophy, 2nd ed. (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1972), pp. 271–92.Google Scholar

3. Lefort, Claude, Le travail de I'oeuvre: Machiavel (Paris: Gallimard, 1972), pp. 259–309.Google Scholar By contrast, Gennaro Sasso, one of Italy's premier Machiavelli scholars, refused even to discuss Strauss's conclusions because he did not want to spend the time necessary to understand Strauss's teaching. Machiavelli e gli antichi, 2 vols. (Milan – Naples: Riccardo Ricciardi, 1987), 1: 4–5.Google Scholar

4. See Strauss, Leo, Thoughts on Machiavelli (Glencoe, IL: The Free Press, 1958), p. 231.Google Scholar

5. Strauss, and Cropsey, , Political Philosophy, p. 286.Google Scholar

6. Machiavelli, Niccolo's, Tutte le opera (Florence: Sansoni, 1971), pp.25–26Google Scholar. The conclusion of Discourses I, 25Google Scholar reads: “ma quello che vuole fare una potestà assoluta, la quale dagli autori è chiamata tirannide, debbe rinnovare ogni cosa, come nel seguente capitolo si dirà” (but he who desires an absolute power, which the authors call tyranny, must make everything new, as is explained in the following chapter).

7. Strauss, and Cropsey, , Political Philosophy, pp. 287–88.Google Scholar

8. See Burd, Le A., Il Principe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1895), p. 55Google Scholar, which is Strauss's source for the following remark by Gentillet. “C'est atheiste … a bien osè vomir ce blasphéme …”(Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 334, n. 72).Google Scholar

9. Strauss, , Thoughts on Machiavelli p. 13.Google Scholar

10. Ibid., pp. 322, n. 133 and 332, n. 47. Strauss's first footnote refers to the Exhortation as comparable to the three “sermons”—or discourses on a Latin text — found in the Discourses (ibid., p. 138) The second footnote begins with a reference to Discourses I, 30Google Scholar, which demonstrates that the vice of ingratitude (in a prince, toward his victorious general, for example) is “the effect of a natural necessity” (ibid., p. 194). Strauss continues: “As for the significance of the subject of gratitude, see Machiavelli's, Esortazione alla penitenza”Google Scholar (ibid, p. 332). These cryptic remarks seem to me to suggest that Machiavelli views any profession of gratitude, especially toward one's “Lord” (signore), as feigned, and that therefore his counsel of contrition for ingratitude toward God and one's neighbor in the Exhortation is also feigned. Strauss's only textual reference to the Exhortation—and his only direct quotation from it —occurs in Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 201Google Scholar, toward the end of his discussion of Discourses III, 6 on conspiracies. Noting Machiavelli's observation that the dangers of conspiracies “surpass by far every other kind of danger,” Strauss interprets this phrase as intended to include “the danger of damnation.” He continues with the following qualification: “Or did Machiavelli believe that the danger of damnation can be averted by repentance, and perhaps even repentance on the death bed? ‘Penitence,’ he says in his Exhortation to Penitence, ‘is the sole remedy which can wipe out all evils, all errors of men.’”1 Neither David nor Saints Peter, Jerome, or Francis (all mentioned in the Exhortation) repented on their deathbeds.Google Scholar

11. All references to the “Exhortation to Penitence”—entitled “Exortatione alla penitenza”— rather than “Esortazione alia penitenza” as used by Strauss and many others—are from Martelli, Mario, ed., Niccló Machiavelli: Tutte le opere (Florence: Sansoni, 1971), pp. 932–34.Google Scholar The title was not Machiavelli's own; his autograph manuscript left it untitled. An English translation is in Gilbert, Alan, Machiavelli: The Chief Works, 3 vols. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1965), 1: 170–75. I have used my own translation, however.Google Scholar

12. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985), 1: 200Google Scholar; Webster's Dictionary of the English Language (New York, 1952), pp. 90, 879.Google Scholar

13. Machiavelli, , Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito LivioGoogle Scholar, in Martelli, , Machiavelli: Tutte le opere, p. 109.Google Scholar

14. Machiavelli, , [Exortatione alia penitenza] in Martelli, , Tutte le opere, 933.Google Scholar

15. Machiavelli, in Hell (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 58.Google Scholar

16. Machiavelli, , [Exortatione alia penitenza], p. 934.Google Scholar

17. Cf. Thoughts on Machiavelli, pp. 48–53Google Scholar. After observing that “in taking seriously the number 26, we are on the right path” to understanding Machiavelli's intention, Strauss, compares Prince 26Google Scholar, Discourses I, 26Google Scholar, and Discourses II, 26Google Scholar. (Discourses III, 26 is not mentioned, however). He then notes that Machiavelli “speaks of twenty-six emperors from Caesar to Maximinus, and adds: “This is not the place to give further examples of Machiavelli's use of the number 26 or, more precisely of 13 and multiples of 13” (p. 52)Google Scholar. Apparently the proper “place” for Strauss tomention these further examples is in his chapter in Strauss and Cropsey. See footnote 5 above. This is not to say that Strauss did not give numerous examples of multiples of 13 in Thoughts on Machiavelli. None of these places seems to qualify as “the place” when he discusses the significance of the number 26, however.

18. Strauss, and Cropsey, , Political Philosophy, p. 286. So far as I know, in Thoughts on Machiavelli Strauss does not mention that the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton in Jewish law is 26.Google Scholar

19. “To do justice to Machiavelli requires one to look forward from a pre-modern point of view toward an altogether unexpected and surprising Machiavelli who is new and strange, rather than to look backward from today towards Machiavelli who has become old and our own, and therewith almost good” (Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 12).Google Scholar

20. Ibid., pp. 49–52, Strauss defends his use of the term blasphemy not only with regard to Discourses I, 26Google Scholar but to Machiavelli's entire teaching. The blasphemy of I, 26 is said to be “only the spearhead of a large column” (p. 49).Google Scholar Indeed, Machiavelli of necessity, so to speak, had to commit blasphemies and had to commit them covertly, because in his time the authority of the Bible was “generally recognized and supported by law.” To bring forth what moderns call his innerworldly humanism, he had to challenge that authority by impugning its alleged source — i.e., God —and for fear of persecution he had to do it covertly (p. 52).Google Scholar

21. Machiavelli, , letter to Francesco Vettori, 10 December 1513 in Tutte le opere, p. 1160. “Et se vi piacque mai alcuno mio ghiribizoy. …”Google Scholar

22. “The kinds of unbelief with which we are most familiar today are respectful indifference and such a nostalgia for lost faith as goes with an inability to distinguish between theological truth and myth” (Thoughts on Machiavelli, p. 51)Google Scholar. This is not one of Strauss's better “thoughts.” See Germino, Dante, Political Philosophy and the Open Society (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982)Google Scholar, for a discussion of myth, philosophy, revelation, and mysticism as modes of openness toward transcendent Being, the Being that revealed itself to Moses in Exodus 3 as “I AM THAT I AM.” I shall reserve exploration of this complicated matter for another place. See the forthcoming Strauss-Voegelin Correspondence edited by Cooper, Barry, University of Calgary, for Eric Voegelin's alternative understanding of philosophy and revelation.Google Scholar

23. Given Strauss's splendid mastery of Italian, it is appropriate that the best book I have read on Strauss on modernity is in Italian: Cubeddu, Raimondo, Leo Strauss elafilosqfia politica moderna (Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1983)Google Scholar. See the whole part II: “La modernità: Storia di una decadenza,” pp. 165–315.Google Scholar

24. Strauss, and Cropsey, , Political Philosophy, p. 292.Google Scholar See also Thoughts on Machiavelli: “Machiavelli's claim that he has taken a road not yet trodden by anyone implied that in breaking with the Socratic tradition he did not return to an anti Socratic position…” (p. 291).Google Scholar

25. See Strauss's, Jerusalem lecture on “The Mutual Influence of Theology and Philosophy,” in V Ivyun — Hebrew Political Quarterly, no. 1 (Jerusalem. 1954)Google Scholar and “Jerusalem and Athens“ in The City College, no. 6 (New York, 1967).Google Scholar In “Mutual Influence” he declares the Bible and philosophy to be “alternatives and antagonists in the drama of the human soul” (pp. 113–14).Google Scholar Strauss's overall conclusion is that philosophy can never refute revelation nor can revelation ever refute philosophy. Philosophy as the search for the just way of life is incompatible with the biblical teaching which claims to possess the truth about the just way of life. “Strauss's teaching does not lead to a subordination of philosophy to revelation. As a Jew, although distanced from the Synagogue, he does not refuse to speak of faith in an atheist world” or as a philosopher “to indicate to the believer those rational conclusions of philosophy which are antithetical to the faith. The tertium non datur … remains his secret position” Cubeddu, , Leo Strauss, pp. 44–45).Google Scholar