Part II - Historical Case Studies

3 Apocalyptic Hope’s Appeal: Machiavelli and Savonarola

By the end of 1494, Girolamo Savonarola was at the height of his powers. The Dominican friar, known for apocalyptic preaching, had established himself as a political force in Florence since arriving in 1490. His reputation had grown after he purportedly predicted the invasion of Charles VIII in 1494 and then negotiated the French king’s departure from Florence without ruin coming to the city. This episode led some in Florence to believe Savonarola’s claim that he was God’s chosen prophet, bolstering his political influence. When the French invasion brought an end to the regime of Piero de’ Medici, Savonarola used the opportunity to help usher in to Florence a brief but memorable period of republican rule. He revived republicanism and surprised many by bringing moral renewal to the city.¹ One contemporary observer, Francesco Guicciardini, explains the friar’s impact in glowing terms: “The work he did in promoting decent behavior was holy and marvelous; nor had there ever been as much goodness and religion in Florence as there was in his time.”² Savonarola’s role in the political and spiritual life of Florence during the 1490s left a lasting impression.³

Among those impacted by Savonarola was Florence’s most influential political thinker, Niccolò Machiavelli. From his early correspondence to his mature works, Machiavelli shows an enduring interest in the friar who was at the center of Florentine politics.⁴ Like so many political figures Machiavelli analyzes, Savonarola’s success did not last. After Pope Alexander VI excommunicated him in 1497, Savonarola’s power declined and he was executed in 1498. Upon the pyre, Savonarola’s brief but spectacular political career met a sad end. His failure became for Machiavelli a lesson in the opportunities and perils of political life.

But what exactly Machiavelli takes that lesson to be remains the subject of much debate.⁵ Sometimes Machiavelli criticizes Savonarola’s hypocrisy,⁶ while in other places he speaks of his greatness.⁷ This ambivalent evidence gives rise to sharply different interpretations. Perhaps Machiavelli dismisses Savonarola as a religious fanatic who is hopelessly naïve about politics. Or perhaps he admires Savonarola and draws on his thought. Common to this debate are interpretations of Machiavelli that try to explain away the ambivalence in his writings, making his attitude toward Savonarola seem more one-sided than it actually is. That tendency has the unfortunate effect of obscuring important insights into his political thought. In particular, recognizing Machiavelli’s ambivalence toward the apocalyptic figure of Savonarola is key to understanding his ambivalence more generally toward apocalyptic thought.

This chapter explores that ambivalence and how Machiavelli wrestles with Savonarola’s adroit use of apocalyptic concepts in politics. On the one hand, Savonarola harnesses religious ideals to advance earthly ends – a fruitful strategy according to Machiavelli, who stresses that religion and politics must work hand in hand.⁸ Savonarola takes initially rival concepts – the Eternal City from pagan thought and new Jerusalem from Christian thought – and fuses them together to offer a hopeful vision for Florence. In this vision, Florence plays a key role in God’s plan for history, which calls on the city to engage in conquest and to expand its power. Most importantly from Machiavelli’s perspective, Savonarola interprets apocalyptic doctrines to encourage bold action in the political sphere, not withdrawal from it.

Yet on the other hand, Savonarola’s apocalyptic vision ultimately proves too utopian for Machiavelli. Despite desperately hoping for Florence’s redemption and return to power,⁹ Machiavelli cannot accept Savonarola’s view that political renewal takes the form of an eternal polity. This point becomes evident in the Discourses as he considers whether a “perpetual republic” (republica perpetua) is possible.¹⁰ Though drawn to the idea of a republic that endures forever, Machiavelli concludes in his Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence that it is a goal that remains always out of reach, even for the great who strive for it. In particular, his understanding of the world as subject to continual change and decay prevents him from embracing hope in a perpetual republic.¹¹ Machiavelli’s attitudes toward Savonarola and the notion of a perpetual republic show why, despite recognizing the political power of apocalyptic hope, he must reject it. Without faith in divine intervention to wipe away the ills plaguing politics and forever keep them at bay, Machiavelli sees no path to the ideal that in his mind surpasses all others – a perpetual republic.

The Prince’s Final Chapter

In our examination of how Machiavelli engages with Savonarola and apocalyptic thought, it makes sense to begin with a popular approach to this question. Many interested in Machiavelli’s views on apocalyptic thought, Savonarola, or both focus on the final chapter of The Prince.¹² This chapter, entitled “Exhortation to Save Italy and Free Her from the Barbarians,” features Machiavelli’s plea to Lorenzo de’ Medici to seize the opportunity before him, redeem Italy, and save it from foreign forces.

Curiously, this chapter has gained its status as a source of insight into Machiavelli’s attitudes toward Savonarola and apocalyptic thought despite never explicitly mentioning the friar or any apocalyptic texts. What attracts scholars to the chapter is its perceived apocalyptic rhetoric and tone, which represents a marked shift from the rest of the work. Throughout The Prince, Machiavelli takes a detached and scientific approach to understanding how a prince should govern in different circumstances. In the Exhortation, however, Machiavelli casts aside dispassionate analysis and makes an urgent call for Lorenzo to take decisive action to liberate Italy. More than just a prince, Lorenzo can become a “redeemer” who drives out of Italy the “barbarian domination [that] stinks to everyone.”¹³ The crisis caused by foreign invasion created an opportunity for Lorenzo to effect a new political order, increase his power, and secure a lasting reputation.¹⁴ No longer content to simply analyze politics, Machiavelli concludes The Prince by urging dramatic intervention aimed at reshaping Italy’s political future.

Many see Machiavelli as employing in the Exhortation language and imagery drawn from Savonarola. Donald Weinstein is an early interpreter to suggest this connection, though he ultimately concludes that apocalyptic thinkers like Savonarola are “a foil” for Machiavelli, who places his hope in bold men rather than God to bring about redemption.¹⁵ Others go further than Weinstein, arguing that the Exhortation shows Machiavelli’s embrace of apocalyptic thought and Savonarola in particular. Patricia Zupan argues that Machiavelli concludes The Prince by abandoning his scientific approach to politics in favor of Savonarola’s prophetic voice,¹⁶ a move that “attempts resolution and closure through projecting a millenarian vision of unity and concord.”¹⁷ Taking a similar view, Alison McQueen writes: “The final chapter of The Prince … is an apocalyptic exhortation that reiterates the Savonarolan message in a secular way.”¹⁸ Likewise, Mark Jurdjevic claims: “Machiavelli was thinking about the Savonarolan example when he wrote that chapter and intended his audience to see that connection.”¹⁹ So for a number of scholars, Savonarola and his apocalyptic message serve as a source of inspiration for The Prince’s final chapter.

Though a popular way of linking Machiavelli’s thought to Savonarola, this interpretation runs into several problems. Let’s start with the claim that Machiavelli specifically has Savonarola in mind and wants his audience to think of the friar’s example when they read the Exhortation. It is difficult to square this view with textual evidence found in the chapter and elsewhere in The Prince. Machiavelli spends much of the chapter urging Lorenzo to assemble a strong army.²⁰ In light of that advice, Savonarola – an unarmed prophet as an earlier passage from The Prince describes him²¹ – seems like the last person Machiavelli would want to evoke for his audience in the Exhortation. Moreover, it is far from clear why Machiavelli would think that an apocalyptic prophet who ended up executed would be a compelling example to the Medici, The Prince’s stated audience. At the time Machiavelli wrote the work, the Medici regime was cracking down on apocalyptic preachers and followers of Savonarola.²² This combination of historical and textual evidence casts doubt on the theory that one goal of the Exhortation is to direct readers’ attention to the example of Savonarola.

Another possibility is that The Prince’s final chapter appropriates elements from the preaching of Savonarola, even if it does not intend to evoke his memory. To be sure, there are some similarities between the Exhortation and Savonarola’s thought. The latter draws on apocalyptic texts and themes to craft a narrative that emphasizes crisis as a vehicle for bringing about the redemption of Florence. Likewise in the Exhortation, Machiavelli hopes for redemption as the ultimate outcome of the crisis facing Italy at the time. “[T]o know the virtue of an Italian spirit,” argues Machiavelli, “it was necessary that Italy be reduced to the condition in which she is at present, which is more enslaved than the Hebrews, more servile than the Persians, more dispersed than the Athenians, without a head, without order, beaten, despoiled, torn, pillaged, and having endured ruin of every sort.”²³ Similar to many authors of apocalyptic texts, Machiavelli infuses crisis with meaning by interpreting it as a path to redemption.

But despite a few similarities, the Exhortation departs in significant ways from the Christian apocalyptic tradition embraced by Savonarola. That tradition entails more than just hope for a better future following crisis. It espouses a truly utopian vision for the future – the perfect kingdom of God, which will surpass anything in human history. In contrast, Machiavelli does not anticipate such a radical break from the past. He instead frames the opportunity to redeem Italy as similar to opportunities faced by past founders. After discussing the examples of Moses, Cyrus, and Theseus, Machiavelli urges Lorenzo “to follow those excellent men who redeemed their countries” by establishing a strong army.²⁴ Rather than hope for something radically novel, Machiavelli wants history to repeat itself and for Lorenzo to imitate the boldness and virtue of past founders.

By overlooking this point, some interpreters exaggerate the utopian nature of the political vision outlined in the Exhortation. For instance, McQueen argues that the redemption of Italy envisioned by Machiavelli “marks an end to the variability, contingency, and contestation that define the political world,” which shows his reliance on “a Savonarolan set of rhetorical maneuvers.”²⁵ Though Savonarola certainly preached a future for Florence free from contingency and political strife (as will be discussed further), the Exhortation stops short of such utopian hope. Machiavelli never suggests in The Prince that the political renewal he calls for will endure forever. In making the case to Lorenzo to seize the opportunity before him, Machiavelli stresses the honor, love, and reputation that will come to him, not that his new orders will last forever.²⁶ Machiavelli expresses optimism that a leader will rise up and assemble an army capable of driving foreign troops out of Italy. This optimism, however, remains distinct from the utopian prediction that a new political order founded by Lorenzo can permanently escape contingency and variability – a claim Machiavelli avoids.

For this reason, a more accurate characterization of the closing of The Prince is as a redemption narrative rather than an apocalyptic one. Maurizio Viroli makes this point, noting that the Exhortation “shares some features of millenarianism” but that the more apt comparison is with the story of Exodus.²⁷ The redemption narrative found in Exodus details how God empowers a political and spiritual leader, Moses, to lead his people out of slavery and into the Promised Land. There is strong textual evidence supporting this interpretation of the Exhortation. In it, Machiavelli specifically compares the Italians to “the people of Israel … enslaved in Egypt” and praises Moses as an “excellent [man]” to follow.²⁸ He uses imagery directly from Exodus to describe the opportunity before Lorenzo: “[T]he sea has opened; the cloud has escorted you along the way; the stone has poured forth water; here manna has rained; everything has concurred in your greatness.”²⁹ Like Moses who led the Hebrew people out of bondage, the founder hoped for by Machiavelli will lead the Italians in emancipating themselves from foreign domination. But even in these flights of optimism, Machiavelli steers clear of the utopian hope characteristic of apocalyptic beliefs – a permanent end to woe for an elect group of people. Such hope is conspicuously absent from the Exhortation.

In sum, the Exhortation’s links to Savonarola and apocalyptic thought end up being more tenuous than many claim. It is necessary to look elsewhere in Machiavelli’s writings to understand his attitudes toward Savonarola and apocalyptic thought. Notably, Machiavelli shares with Savonarola a deep interest in the possibility of a polity that would endure forever. Their reflections on this possibility reveal affinities between them, but also why they ultimately must part ways over whether to embrace apocalyptic hope, as we explore later.

The Eternal City and New Jerusalem

Machiavelli brings up the concept of the perpetual republic at two separate points in the Discourses. The first time he concludes that it would be impossible to realize a republic that lasts forever. Five chapters later, he strikes a slightly less pessimistic tone and expresses the faint hope that a perpetual republic would be possible under certain rare conditions.³⁰ In these passages, Machiavelli gives voice to a hope going back to ancient Rome – the idea of the “Eternal City” (urbs aeterna). It was common for ancient writers to refer to Rome as eternal. One notable example is Livy, whose History of Rome is the focus of Machiavelli’s Discourses.³¹ Like the ancients he closely studies, Machiavelli entertains the notion of a polity that endures forever.

This hope for a city or kingdom that will last forever also appears in Christian apocalyptic thought. Whereas the Roman tradition places its hope in Rome as the Eternal City, the Christian tradition anticipates the coming of the kingdom of God or new Jerusalem, which will endure forever. These two concepts – the Eternal City and new Jerusalem – eventually merged together in the world that Machiavelli and Savonarola both inhabited, Renaissance Florence. The result was what Weinstein calls the “myth of Florence”: the idea that Florence was chosen by God, imbued with eschatological importance, and destined to flourish like ancient Rome in wealth and power.³²

That myth developed long after the concepts of the Eternal City and new Jerusalem first emerged. The reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus, which began in the first century B.C.E., inaugurated the Pax Romana, helped allay anxieties that Rome would be destroyed, and gave way to the hope that Rome would endure forever.³³ Formulations used to express Rome’s immortality took various forms, but the term that initially came into widespread use was urbs aeterna or “Eternal City.”³⁴ Praising Rome as the Eternal City was especially common in Roman poetry.³⁵ Perhaps most famously, Virgil in the Aeneid proclaims Rome to be “an empire that will know no end.”³⁶ In the second century C.E., during the reign of Hadrian, Roma aeterna or “eternal Rome” emerged as another expression alongside urbs aeterna.³⁷

Belief in Rome as the Eternal City initially existed in tension with Christian beliefs, especially its apocalyptic doctrines. Early Christians anxiously anticipated the coming of God’s kingdom – the only kingdom, in their view, that would last forever. From this perspective, the notion of Rome as the Eternal City stood in direct opposition to God’s divine plan for history. In the book of Revelation, one finds that the promise of God’s everlasting kingdom goes hand in hand with fierce attacks on the Roman Empire’s belief in its invincibility. As New Testament scholar Adela Yarbro Collins notes, Revelation’s criticism of Rome’s arrogance “was probably a response to Roman propaganda regarding the eternity and universality of Roman dominance.”³⁸ The early Christian apocalyptic tradition took a hostile view toward the myth of the Eternal City because, if Rome ruled forever, that stood in the way of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

John, the author of Revelation, specifically attacks the myth of the Eternal City by pointing to Rome’s coming destruction. It is not a city destined to rule forever, and instead enjoys only fleeting glory. John emphasizes this point through a voice from heaven announcing Rome’s fate: “As she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so give her a like measure of torment and grief … . [H]er plagues will come in a single day – pestilence and mourning and famine – and she will be burned with fire” (Revelation 18:7–8).³⁹ In its vision of Rome’s destruction, Revelation describes the shock of those who see that such a great city “in one hour … has been laid waste” (Revelation 18:19). Revelation closes with the vision of the new Jerusalem coming down from heaven to earth, which marks the establishment of God’s earthly rule and an end to all suffering (Revelation 21). Rome’s greatness pales in comparison to the perfection of the new Jerusalem – a kingdom, unlike the Roman Empire, destined to endure forever.

So the Christian apocalyptic tradition offered its own vision of an everlasting kingdom, which competed with the idea of Rome as the Eternal City. In the words of theologian Barbara Rossing, beliefs in the Eternal City and new Jerusalem represented “dueling eschatologies.”⁴⁰ Both the Roman and Christian traditions voiced hope in an eternal kingdom, but looked for it in different places.

Christianity’s dim view of Rome as the Eternal City largely persisted throughout the Middle Ages.⁴¹ Augustine in the City of God makes the case for the superiority of the heavenly city compared to Rome. Notably, he takes Virgil’s famous description of Rome in the Aeneid – “an empire without end” – and instead applies it to the heavenly city.⁴² In this way, Christian writers subverted the intended meaning of the Eternal City so as to downplay Rome’s greatness and glorify God’s kingdom.

With time, though, Rome’s designation as the Eternal City came back into use as it lost its blasphemous connotations. For intellectual and political leaders in Italy and the Holy Roman Empire, identifying Rome as the Eternal City was a way to express pride in their historical connection to the ancient Romans.⁴³ In The Banquet, Dante approvingly quotes Virgil’s description of Rome as an “empire without end,” with the added twist that the Christian God chose Rome as the empire that would endure with unrivalled power.⁴⁴ Rather than an affront to Christ’s kingdom, the designation of Rome as the Eternal City comes from God. For Dante, the Eternal City and new Jerusalem no longer stand in conflict with one another – a marked shift away from Augustine’s view that only the heavenly city could be eternal.

Dante, a native of Florence, gave voice to a view that became prevalent during the Renaissance. For many elites in Florence, republican Rome was a model for their city to follow. This view emerged in a context where apocalyptic preaching flourished and identified Florence as the new Jerusalem described in Revelation. As Weinstein explains, “The myth that celebrated Florence both as the New Jerusalem and as the New Rome in a dual mission of spiritual and political leadership was one with which Florentines of every class would have been familiar.”⁴⁵ This idea helped shape Florentine political and religious thought at the time when Machiavelli became active in politics. Savonarola in particular represented this fusion of Christian and Roman thought, which sparked hopes for an eternal, expansive, and flourishing city.

Savonarola’s Apocalyptic Vision for Florence

Throughout his ministry in Florence, Savonarola displayed a strong interest in Christian apocalyptic doctrines and their relevance to contemporary events. After arriving in Florence in 1490 to become the lector of the monastery of San Marco, Savonarola preached a series of sermons on the book of Revelation. These sermons emphasized that the events foretold in Revelation were imminent: a divine scourge was coming to wipe away corruption in the Church and society at large. Even before Florence’s political revolution of 1494, great crowds flocked to hear Savonarola and his apocalyptic preaching.⁴⁶

As his apocalyptic message developed, Florence took an increasingly central role in it. Weinstein describes this shift, which had major ramifications for Savonarola’s political thought:

At a certain point Savonarola’s apocalyptic vision of future tribulations became millenarian and this-worldly, his ascetic piety made room for a materialistic promise of riches and power. At a certain moment his Christian universalism narrowed to a partisan civic focus, with Florence taking shape in his mind as the New Jerusalem and the future of her government and worldly fortunes becoming part of the divine plan.⁴⁷

The idea that Florence’s greatness is part of God’s plan for history is largely absent from the early apocalyptic preaching of Savonarola. If he had remained wedded to an apocalyptic vision that left little role for political renewal in advancing God’s plan, his religious message would have had limited significance for politics. But his message underwent a transformation, which became especially evident with the fall of the Medici regime in 1494.

At this critical juncture, Savonarola took to the pulpit to emphasize that God wanted the people of Florence to adopt republican rule. With this change, a righteous republic would emerge, flourish, and take on divine importance. On December 12, 1494, shortly after the end of Medici rule, Savonarola preached a sermon making the case that in Florence “government by the majority is better than that of a single leader.”⁴⁸ Partly in response to Savonarola’s preaching, the government implemented republican measures modeled after those in Venice. Savonarola proclaimed that these reforms, combined with spiritual renewal, would make Florence more glorious than ever before:

[E]veryone go to confession and be purified of sins, and let everyone attend to the common good of the city; and if you will do this, your city will be glorious because in this way she will be reformed spiritually as well as temporally, that is, with regard to her people, and from you will issue the reform of all Italy. Florence will become richer and more powerful than she has ever been, and her empire will expand into many places.⁴⁹

Rather than simply focus on heavenly rewards, Savonarola details the earthly greatness that God has in store for Florence. In his vision for republican rule and a renewed spiritual life, Florence has the opportunity to greatly expand its earthly power.

Though it would be inaccurate to call Savonarola the author of the republican government implemented in 1494, it is important not to underestimate his role in its adoption. He persuaded many in Florence to see the new government as divinely inspired. As John Najemy puts it, “While the constitution of 1494 was not Savonarola’s invention, its identification with sacred history and with divine will was indeed his, and of momentous consequence.”⁵⁰ Savonarola used his religious authority to confer added significance to the political changes Florence implemented in 1494. Florence’s political revolution without bloodshed was, in Savonarola’s words, “a divine miracle.”⁵¹ Many in Florence, thankful for the peaceful transition, saw no reason to argue with him.

Savonarola’s message and political vision bear the marks of cataclysmic apocalyptic thought. As is characteristic of this perspective, he sees pervasive corruption in the world, but has faith that God will wipe it away in a coming crisis, which will lead to a lasting utopia. Savonarola repeatedly identifies the Church as a source of corruption, which “has reached the dregs” and is in desperate need of renewal.⁵² Savonarola also condemns “the haughtiness, pride, and countless hateful sins of [Italy’s] princes and captains.”⁵³ Spiritual and political corruption is leading to a crisis point, which will result in God’s wrath and upheaval. “God’s dagger will strike, and soon,” warns Savonarola in a sermon from January 13, 1495.⁵⁴ With God’s guidance, the coming crisis will remove the corrupt from power and realize his perfect kingdom.

The political significance of this vision is difficult to miss, since Savonarola singles out Florence as the city divinely chosen to fulfill it. Drawing on an end-times prophecy from the book of Matthew, Savonarola stresses that the gospel “must be preached throughout the whole world” to realize God’s eternal kingdom.⁵⁵ He adds to this prophecy the twist that Florence “is loved by God more especially than other” cities, and has been chosen by him to “propagate [his divine word] throughout the world.”⁵⁶ For this reason, Florence is destined to increase in wealth and power, which are necessary to spread the gospel. Savonarola places special importance on Florence’s establishing itself not just as a righteous republic, but also as a wealthy and expansive one. Indeed, Savonarola goes so far as to claim that these predictions of Florence’s temporal greatness come directly from the Virgin Mary. He reports a heavenly vision where Mary tells him: “May the city of Florence become more glorious, more powerful, and richer than it has ever been before. May it stretch its wings farther than it ever has done before … . May it fully recover whatever it had … . May it acquire things that till now have never come within its power.”⁵⁷ In short, divine and temporal goals become unified in Savonarola’s vision for Florence.

Ancient Rome also plays a significant role in this vision. In his most explicitly political work, Treatise on the Rule and Government of the City of Florence, Savonarola urges the citizens of Florence to perfect their government by emulating the ancient Romans. The “Romans greatly expanded their empire,” he writes, “because they loved the common good of the city so much … . God gave such great power to the Romans, because they loved each other and remained at peace with each other in the beginning.” Just as God rewarded the Romans for their virtue, he “will multiply both [Florence’s] spiritual and temporal goods,” so long as its citizens also uphold these virtues.⁵⁸ From Savonarola’s perspective, the ideal embodied by ancient Rome is not in conflict with his vision for Florence. Rather, this vision incorporates Rome as an exemplary model for Florence to follow in perfecting its government.

According to Savonarola, Florence ultimately will exceed Rome’s greatness because it represents the new Jerusalem, a concept that comes from the apocalyptic text of Revelation. He assures the people that, if they turn to God, “blessed will you be, Florence, for you will soon become that celestial Jerusalem (quella Jerusalem superna).”⁵⁹ Here Savonarola’s apocalyptic hopes for Florence come through most explicitly. By identifying Florence with the celestial Jerusalem described in Revelation that comes down to earth, Savonarola sets forth his vision of Florence as God’s perfect kingdom. Given these divine plans for Florence, the only true king for the city could be Christ. “Take Christ as your King,” urges Savonarola, “and place yourself under His law.”⁶⁰ God has a special relationship with Florence and will bless it unlike any other city, as his eschatological promises are fulfilled.

As the new Jerusalem, Florence will embody perfection and endure forever. For Savonarola, the upheaval plaguing Italy is a necessary but temporary step in God’s plan. From these difficulties, God’s kingdom will emerge in Florence. Savonarola outlines this utopian future near the end of his Treatise on the Rule and Government of the City of Florence:

[I]n a very short time, the city shall return to such devotion that it will be like a terrestrial paradise, and will live in jubilation and in songs and psalms; boys and girls will be like angels, and they will be brought up to live both as Christians and as good citizens. In time, through these practices, the government of the city will become more heavenly than earthly, and the happiness of the good will be so great that they will enjoy a kind of spiritual felicity even in this world.⁶¹

This hope pervades Savonarola’s writings and sermons during the turbulent years following the return to republican rule in 1494. In the midst of turmoil, he assures the people of Florence that unparalleled greatness lies ahead – spiritual righteousness, territorial expansion, wealth, and happiness. His message found a sympathetic audience among many in Florence, who came to believe his apocalyptic vision for their city. As one of his followers put it, when Savonarola led the city, “Florence was happy and blessed and seemed a new Jerusalem.”⁶²

The vision for Florence embraced by Savonarola and his followers is thoroughly utopian. He embraces a utopian ideal from the Christian apocalyptic tradition, the new Jerusalem, and claims that God has chosen Florence to embody it. But despite the utopian nature of Savonarola’s message, it is not merely otherworldly and unconcerned with politics. To fulfill its destiny as the new Jerusalem, Florence must become great by expanding in wealth and power like ancient Rome. Savonarola thus fashions an apocalyptic vision for Florence uniquely suited to advance political goals because it infuses them with divine meaning.

Reassessing Machiavelli’s View of Savonarola

The general consensus among scholars, notes Jurdjevic, is that Machiavelli “had a rather dim view of Savonarola.”⁶³ As an apocalyptic preacher who met political ruin, Savonarola is not a figure that many would expect Machiavelli to admire. In his discussions of politics, Machiavelli is brutally honest. It seems that he would have little patience for someone who relies on Christian eschatology to make far-fetched claims about politics. Well after Savonarola’s death, Machiavelli does express exasperation with prophets in his city who preach doom and destruction, calling Florence “a magnet for all the world’s pitchmen.”⁶⁴ So when scholars argue that Machiavelli finds aspects of Savonarola’s thought appealing, it is not surprising that they rarely point to the friar’s apocalyptic message as the reason why.⁶⁵ The few who do focus on the last chapter of The Prince as evidence,⁶⁶ but that interpretation runs into problems because this chapter never embraces Savonarola’s apocalyptic message and its utopian hope, as discussed earlier. Since that line of interpretation fails, it is tempting to jump to the conclusion that Machiavelli “loathed” Savonarola’s apocalyptic message.⁶⁷

There are reasons, though, to resist this conclusion. The various remarks regarding Savonarola in Machiavelli’s writings prove far more ambivalent than how many interpreters characterize them. At some places Machiavelli criticizes the friar, yet at others he praises him. When viewed together, this evidence reveals an important point: Machiavelli’s criticisms of Savonarola do not stem from concerns over his apocalyptic vision for Florence but from other concerns. A likely reason why is that Savonarola avoids a message entirely filled with doom, which treats politics as futile and something to retreat from. Instead, he crafts an apocalyptic message full of hope for Florence’s future – one that encourages political action and, for that reason, proves far harder for Machiavelli to dismiss.

Machiavelli’s first remarks on Savonarola come in a letter to Ricciardo Becchi on March 9, 1498.⁶⁸ Becchi was an ambassador for Florence stationed in Rome. This role put Becchi in a tough spot: Florence still officially supported Savonarola, but at a time when Rome was increasingly frustrated with him, due to the friar’s return to preaching after Pope Alexander VI had excommunicated him in 1497.⁶⁹ In response to a request by Becchi, Machiavelli provides in his letter a summary and analysis of Savonarola’s sermons during February and March 1498.⁷⁰

At times in the letter, Machiavelli takes a critical tone toward Savonarola. Because of Savonarola’s shifting criticisms of the pope and Florentine government, Machiavelli writes that, “in my judgment, he acts in accordance with the times and colors his lies accordingly.”⁷¹ Here Machiavelli’s attitude toward Savonarola is the most dismissive that one finds in his writings.⁷² In his analysis, Machiavelli ultimately concludes that Savonarola’s sermons reveal his hypocrisy, as well as his increasingly tenuous political position.

It makes sense why Machiavelli came to this conclusion at the time. In 1498 when Machiavelli wrote to Becchi, Savonarola’s political power was in sharp decline, and his maneuverings to regain his grip on it only made the situation worse. The first major event precipitating this decline was the pope’s excommunication of Savonarola in 1497. Though not the death knell of his political career, it certainly hurt his support in Florence. His support took another hit in 1497 when he failed to speak in favor of the law of appeal in the case of Medici conspirators, who were sentenced to death for trying to overthrow the republic. The law of appeal empowered the most democratic element of Florence’s government, the Great Council, to make the final decision on severe sentences like death.⁷³ Previously, Savonarola had championed adoption of the law and praised it as a key reform that provided stability to Florence and helped restore its glory.⁷⁴ By not wanting to apply the law when it proved inconvenient, Savonarola looked hypocritical and alienated some of his own supporters with Medici sympathies – a point Machiavelli makes in the Discourses.⁷⁵ Savonarola’s fortunes continued to wane in March 1498 with the arrival of new members to the Signoria, Florence’s ruling body, which resulted in a government more hostile to him.⁷⁶

The opposition Savonarola faced was starting to overwhelm him. During the couple of months after Machiavelli’s letter, Savonarola would be imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned. It is important to keep this context in mind when drawing conclusions from Machiavelli’s letter. Its dismissive comments toward Savonarola in 1498 – right before his downfall – reflect his weakness at the time, but need not imply that Machiavelli consistently held this view without ever revising it.

Over time, Machiavelli’s assessment of Savonarola became more nuanced and even reverential in tone, as he reflected on the friar’s career with the benefit of time.⁷⁷ In numerous places, Machiavelli uses terms of respect for Savonarola – so frequently, in fact, that it is difficult to chalk his comments up to irony. When first mentioning him in the Discourses, Machiavelli refrains from judging Savonarola’s claim that he spoke with God and adds: “one should speak with reverence of such a man.”⁷⁸ Later, Machiavelli praises Savonarola’s writings, which “show the learning, the prudence, and the virtue of his spirit.”⁷⁹ And in his poem the First Decennale on Florentine history, he speaks of the “great Savonarola.”⁸⁰

This reverential language shares much in common with that used by Machiavelli’s friend Guicciardini. Like Machiavelli, he refuses to say whether Savonarola “was a true prophet.” Either way, Savonarola was an impressive figure from Guicciardini’s perspective: “[I]f he was good, we have seen a great prophet in our time; if he was bad, we have seen a great man.” Guicciardini continues by noting that, “if he was able to fool the public for so many years on so important a matter without ever being caught in a lie, he must have had great judgment, talent, and power of invention.”⁸¹ In line with Guicciardini’s judgment, Machiavelli also describes Savonarola as a great man from Florence’s recent past.

Admittedly, Machiavelli’s praise of Savonarola often comes with caveats, as he points out failures and constraints that ultimately forced the friar from power. Unfortunately, interpreters too often restrict their focus to these caveats while failing to take seriously remarks praising Savonarola.⁸² That approach hinders an honest assessment of Machiavelli’s views of Savonarola, in all their nuance and complexity. It thus is important to consider both Machiavelli’s praise and criticism of Savonarola, with the goal of understanding how they fit together in his political thought.

Chapter 6 of The Prince proves key for understanding the tensions in Machiavelli’s reflections on Savonarola. The chapter focuses on “new princes” who acquire principalities through their “own arms and virtue.” Machiavelli begins it by explaining that he will “bring up the greatest examples” of new princes.⁸³ He proceeds to examine an impressive list of founders: Moses who founded Israel, Cyrus who founded Persia, Romulus who founded Rome, and Theseus who founded Athens. In the context of discussing these great men, Machiavelli includes the example of Savonarola. He makes clear that Savonarola fell short of achieving the greatness of founders like Moses. For unlike Moses, Savonarola was an unarmed prophet, which led to his ruin and prevented him from maintaining the principality he had acquired.⁸⁴

Despite Savonarola’s ultimate failure in politics, Machiavelli still sees him as a founder of new orders. For this reason, Savonarola counts as a great man in the eyes of Machiavelli, and one who had the potential to achieve even more. Indeed, throughout his writings, Machiavelli exhibits a deep admiration for founders. The most famous example is his plea at the end of The Prince for Lorenzo to seize the opportunity to found new political orders. Such action, stresses Machiavelli, will establish for him a reputation of lasting greatness.⁸⁵ In a less well-known passage from A Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence, Machiavelli makes clear that no human achievement can rival the act of founding new orders:

[N]o man is so exalted by any act of his as are those men who have with laws and with institutions remodeled republics and kingdoms; these are, after those who have been gods, the first to be praised. And because they have been few who have had opportunity to do it, and very few those who have understood how to do it, small is the number who have done it. And so much has this glory been esteemed by men seeking for nothing other than glory that when unable to form a republic in reality, they have done it in writing, as Aristotle, Plato, and many others, who have wished to show the world that if they have not founded a free government, as did Solon and Lycurgus, they have failed not through their ignorance but through their impotence for putting it into practice.⁸⁶

This passage illustrates Machiavelli’s profound respect for founders, who according to him are second only to gods. No glory compares with that of founding a government. In fact, Machiavelli identifies this desire for glory as the motivation behind philosophers who outline new orders for the ideal government, but whose impotence in politics prevents them from realizing their visions.

In conjunction with Chapter 6 of The Prince, Machiavelli’s praise of founders in A Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence brings into sharper focus why he sees greatness in Savonarola. Like Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers, Savonarola wrote about new orders in works such as his Treatise on the Rule and Government of the City of Florence. But Savonarola went beyond just writing about new orders: he worked to realize them by using his pulpit to call for republican rule in Florence. By taking action to put new orders in place, Savonarola surpassed in greatness philosophers who only contemplated new orders. When the opportunity presented itself, Savonarola aimed for great things – in fact, the greatest achievement possible. And his bold action succeeded in establishing new orders, at least for a period of time. Understanding the immense challenges that face anyone attempting to found new orders, Machiavelli treats Savonarola’s achievement as no small feat and cannot help but admire him.

This admiration, of course, comes with important qualifications since Savonarola represents a failed founder. The republican form of government that he championed did not endure, nor did Savonarola, who met his demise four short years after rising to power. Machiavelli studies Savonarola’s example to pinpoint the causes behind why some founders fail.

He consistently identifies two shortcomings that doomed Savonarola. First, the friar lacked arms to guarantee continued support for the measures he helped introduce in Florence. Machiavelli makes this point both in The Prince and the Discourses.⁸⁷ Second, Savonarola exhibited political hypocrisy, which undermined his authority as a religious leader committed to the common good, making him instead look like a political partisan.⁸⁸ His political duplicity is a target of Machiavelli’s criticism in the letter to Becchi, as well as in a passage from the Discourses that discusses Savonarola’s shifting support for the law of appeal. By championing the law of appeal but then not calling for its observance in the case of the Medici conspirators, Savonarola irreparably damaged his reputation. “This exposure of his ambitious and partisan spirit,” writes Machiavelli, “took away reputation from him and brought him very much disapproval.”⁸⁹ Wary of those pursuing partisan ends, Machiavelli is quick to criticize this tendency in Savonarola, which undermined his ability to unite Florence behind the republican government established in 1494.

Interestingly, none of Machiavelli’s criticisms of Savonarola focus on his religious views – contrary to what one expects from reading the secondary literature on Machiavelli. After all, a common view among scholars is that Machiavelli finds little value in Savonarola’s religious message. But in fact, the textual evidence suggests that Machiavelli admires Savonarola’s approach to religion, most notably his ability to harness its power to advance political ends. This point comes out even in Machiavelli’s earliest remarks on Savonarola, the 1498 letter to Becchi. In addition to criticizing him, Machiavelli notes Savonarola’s prediction that Florence would “prosper and be dominant in Italy.”⁹⁰ From an early time, Machiavelli recognized the political vision at the heart of Savonarola’s religious message: God’s plan for Florence to flourish and expand in wealth and power.⁹¹

By no means, then, does Savonarola’s Christianity represent those forms that Machiavelli criticizes – namely, a weak Christianity counseling retreat from politics. In the Discourses, Machiavelli famously attacks Christianity for glorifying “humble and contemplative more than active men” and asking them “to be capable more of suffering than of doing something strong.”⁹² Some commentators believe that Machiavelli has figures like Savonarola in mind when making these remarks. John Geerken, for instance, writes that Savonarola “represented the effort to replace vigor with delicacy. In place of glory-seeking virtù, physical action, and vengeance, Savonarola sought humility, contemplation, suffering, and patience.”⁹³ This characterization of Savonarola deeply misreads him.

It is true that Savonarola urged the people of Florence to practice traditional Christian virtues, such as doing penance and accepting suffering as a way to purify themselves.⁹⁴ At the same time, though, his apocalyptic worldview never counseled retreat from the world. Savonarola believed that Florence must expand its power and engage in conquest to fulfill God’s plans for the end times. His sermons assure Florence that it will retake Pisa as one of its territories and take control of other possessions it had never had before.⁹⁵ Florence had to expand in wealth and power so that it could spread the Christian faith across the world and bring about the kingdom of God. This apocalyptic vision championed by Savonarola, which sanctifies conquest and expansion, hardly sounds like the type of Christianity that comes under withering criticism from Machiavelli.

Furthermore, Machiavelli’s suggestions for religious reforms share much in common with views embraced by Savonarola. In the Discourses and the Art of War, Machiavelli explains that religion is essential for political life. Once people lose respect for religion, they soon will lack unity, military valor, and a strong state.⁹⁶ When discussing how to foster strong religious commitments in society, Machiavelli notes the central role of belief in miracles: “[T]he prudent enlarge upon [miracles] from whatever beginning they arise, and their authority then gives them credit with anyone whatever.”⁹⁷ It is doubtful that all miracles are true, implies Machiavelli, but the prudent know how to interpret events as miracles so as to bolster their authority. No one in Florence embodied this strategy better than Savonarola, who constantly reminded the city of predicting the arrival of the French King Charles VIII to Italy – one of his many prophecies that purportedly were fulfilled.⁹⁸

Machiavelli notes Savonarola’s effectiveness in making sure that all of Florence knew that his prophecies came true. “[E]veryone,” he writes, “knows how much had been foretold by Friar Girolamo Savonarola before the coming of King Charles VIII of France into Italy.”⁹⁹ Machiavelli is not prepared to say that God actually told Savonarola of the coming French invasion, but he credits Savonarola with persuading the people of Florence “that he spoke with God.”¹⁰⁰ Founders must cultivate such myths to establish their authority. Savonarola did exactly that in becoming known as a prophet and using that reputation to found new orders. In this way, he exemplified Machiavelli’s recommendation on how to use religion to advance political ends.

In addition, Machiavelli makes specific recommendations for Christianity that echo themes found in Savonarola’s sermons and writings. Like Savonarola, he bemoans the corruption plaguing the Catholic Church. Though some believe that the Church promotes Italy’s well-being, Machiavelli disagrees. He draws attention to “the wicked examples of that court” in Rome, which have caused Italy to lose “all devotion and all religion – which brings with it infinite inconveniences and infinite disorders.”¹⁰¹ Savonarola levels similar criticisms against the Church, calling it an institution “full of simony and wickedness.”¹⁰² One of the consistent themes throughout his ministry was calling for and predicting the renewal of the Church, which would soon arrive and eliminate entrenched corruption.¹⁰³

There is further evidence of Machiavelli’s sympathies with Savonarola in his emphasis on the importance of religious renewal. Machiavelli specifically cites Saint Francis and Saint Dominic as figures who strengthened religion by fostering such renewal. Their Christ-like examples “brought back into the minds of men what had already been eliminated there.” That is, they reversed the erosion of faith caused by “the dishonesty of the prelates and of the heads of religion.”¹⁰⁴ Similarly, Machiavelli identifies “Savonarola’s life” as one of the factors that strengthened people’s faith in his religious message, suggesting that his exemplary nature bolstered the friar’s influence.¹⁰⁵

This view of Savonarola as a virtuous figure, whose godly life contributed to his religious and political authority, was common in Florence and appears in other accounts. Guicciardini describes Savonarola’s virtue in the following terms: “Those who observed his life and habits for a long time found not the slightest trace of avarice, lust, or of any other form of cupidity or frailty. On the contrary, they found evidence of a most devout life, full of charity, full of prayers, full of observances not of the externals but of the very heart of the divine cult.”¹⁰⁶ For Machiavelli, this reputation for piety was an asset for Savonarola, since it enabled him to promote the sort of religious renewal needed for political renewal.

So when Machiavelli discusses Savonarola, he consistently avoids criticizing the friar’s religious message and instead expresses admiration for it. The one passage that stands as a potential exception is Chapter 6 of The Prince. Here Machiavelli notes that Savonarola “was ruined in his new orders as soon as the multitude began not to believe them.”¹⁰⁷ Savonarola’s apocalyptic message, which merged religion and politics together, proved persuasive when republican institutions were founded in 1494, but eventually the people of Florence began to doubt it. In making this point, does Machiavelli intend to criticize Savonarola’s religious message as ill-suited for commanding durable belief, which politics demands?

If one looks at the context of this passage, it quickly becomes clear that Machiavelli is not criticizing Savonarola’s approach to religion. The people did not grow skeptical of Savonarola because his religious message was defective. Rather, Machiavelli explains, doubts always arise in response to new orders introduced by founders, even those most revered:

Moses, Cyrus, Theseus, and Romulus would not have been able to make their peoples observe their constitutions for long if they had been unarmed, as happened in our times to Brother Girolamo Savonarola … . Men such as these … find great difficulty in conducting their affairs; all their dangers are along the path, and they must overcome them with virtue. But once they have overcome them and they begin to be held in veneration, having eliminated those who had envied them for their quality, they remain powerful, secure, honored, and happy.¹⁰⁸

Great founders all run into the same problem Savonarola did: inevitably, at some point, challengers arise who try to cast doubt on the new religious and political orders introduced. When such doubt gains strength, only coercion through arms can combat and prevent it from overturning new orders. What separates Savonarola from successful founders, according to Machiavelli, is his lack of arms. Importantly, it is not his apocalyptic message that made him ill-suited for politics. Far from it – his apocalyptic preaching and prophecies helped establish his authority among the people of Florence and found new orders. But without arms, these orders could not endure.

Even in identifying this shortcoming in Savonarola, Machiavelli is careful to avoid characterizing him as politically naïve and unaware of his need for arms. His analysis of Savonarola’s downfall in the Discourses begins by citing the slaughter of 3,000 Israelites carried out by Moses and his men against those who worshipped the golden calf (Exodus 32:19–28). In Machiavelli’s interpretation of this story, “Moses was forced to kill infinite men … opposed to his plans” to ensure that “his laws and his orders” went forward. Machiavelli then adds: “Friar Girolamo Savonarola knew this necessity very well.” Unfortunately, Savonarola was unable to use arms against his opponents, as did Moses, “because he did not have the authority to enable him to do it … and because he was not understood well by those who followed him, who would have had the authority.”¹⁰⁹ According to Machiavelli, Savonarola understood that he needed arms to preserve the new orders he founded. Since his position as a friar prevented him from directly taking up arms, he had to encourage his supporters to do so.

When making this observation, Machiavelli may have had in mind some of the bellicose language common to Savonarola’s sermons. In a 1513 letter to Francesco Vettori, Machiavelli says that he agrees “with the friar [Savonarola] who said, ‘Peace, peace, there will never be peace!’ ”¹¹⁰ A similar remark appears in one of Savonarola’s sermons discussed by Machiavelli in his 1498 letter to Becchi. In the sermon, Savonarola proclaims: “I do not ask for peace, my Lord, but I call out ‘War! War!’ ”¹¹¹ His followers, though, failed to heed his calls to take up arms. So despite his shrewd use of religion to found new orders, Savonarola fell victim to constraints that doomed hopes for these orders to continue.

To summarize, Machiavelli’s attitude toward Savonarola turns out to be more complex than is often assumed. Rather than portray this apocalyptic figure as an object of scorn, Machiavelli casts him in a different light: Savonarola possesses many of the qualities he admires in leaders who found new orders through religious renewal. Machiavelli does criticize Savonarola – specifically, for his lack of arms and political duplicity – but not for his religious message and apocalyptic vision for Florence. In fact, Savonarola uses religion in just the ways Machiavelli recommends for politics. After criticizing Savonarola in his early correspondence, Machiavelli with time sees the friar as an example of religion’s power to persuade people to embrace new orders. If Savonarola had had the benefit of arms to preserve his new orders, he may have joined Machiavelli’s pantheon of great founders. Still, Savonarola remains a “great man” – what should be read as a sincere compliment by Machiavelli – because he used his religious authority to aim at the greatest achievement possible, the founding of new orders.

Machiavelli’s Ambivalence toward Apocalyptic Thought

Given Machiavelli’s appreciation for the power of Savonarola’s religious message, how should we understand his view of apocalyptic thought? At the very least, the seriousness with which Machiavelli treats Savonarola shows that he does not dismiss apocalyptic thought as bizarre and wholly unsuited for politics. Machiavelli recognizes the power of apocalyptic thought to shape politics, sometimes in positive ways. More than anyone, Savonarola made that point clear in the context of Florence.

Beyond this implicit respect for apocalyptic thought, Machiavelli develops his political philosophy in ways that bear some resemblance to it. Drawing on apocalyptic texts like the book of Revelation, Savonarola preached that there was pervasive corruption in the world, especially within the Church, and that this corruption had reached a crisis point. Out of this crisis, Florence would establish its greatness and usher in the new Jerusalem. Likewise, Machiavelli in his analysis of politics sees crisis as creating conditions from which greatness can emerge. He most famously makes this case at the end of The Prince. A similar argument appears in the Florentine Histories when discussing how conditions within states evolve: “once they have descended and through their disorders arrived at the ultimate depth, since they cannot descend further, of necessity they must arise.”¹¹² As is often the case in apocalyptic narratives, Machiavelli identifies crisis as a vehicle for renewal.

It is important, though, to recognize what distinguishes Machiavelli’s political thought from Savonarola’s vision for politics. Because of his faith in Christian apocalyptic doctrines, Savonarola proclaimed the coming of a perfect and eternal government to Florence. God would assure this outcome. Machiavelli does not allow himself the luxury of such faith. In contrast to Savonarola, Machiavelli sees a limited role for divine intervention in establishing new orders – that task ultimately falls to human beings. At the end of The Prince, Machiavelli tells Lorenzo that God has made conditions favorable for founding new orders and redeeming Italy, but the “remainder you must do yourself. God does not want to do everything, so as not to take free will from us and that part of the glory that falls to us.”¹¹³

Machiavelli lacks Savonarola’s faith that divine intervention will take care of the difficult task of establishing and preserving new orders. Nevertheless, the utopian ideal of an eternal polity, which occupies a central role in Savonarola’s apocalyptic vision, clearly tempts Machiavelli. His interest in an eternal polity is closely linked with his interest in founders, who hope that their new orders will last forever. This point comes out in the Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence, where Machiavelli urges Pope Leo X to institute new orders. Machiavelli explains the challenge facing Leo: “to give the city [Florence] institutions that can by themselves stand firm.”¹¹⁴ Achieving this goal, according to Machiavelli, would be Leo’s greatest achievement and make him “immortal.”¹¹⁵ If new orders preserve a polity long after the founder is gone, they serve as an enduring sign of the founder’s greatness. The most lasting institutions imaginable, of course, are those that continue without end. So the greatest act a founder could achieve is crafting institutions that preserve a state and its people forever. It is this daunting goal that founders aim for.

When Machiavelli considers the possibility of an eternal polity, he faces the challenge of reconciling his strong desire for this ideal with its implausibility. In Book III of the Discourses, he addresses the prospect of achieving a perpetual republic. At first he makes clear his doubts about ever achieving this ideal: “[I]t is impossible to order a perpetual republic, because its ruin is caused through a thousand unexpected ways.”¹¹⁶ Five chapters later he returns to the subject, and here he allows himself to speculate about the possibility of a perpetual republic. He writes: “[I]f a republic were so happy that it often had one who with his example might renew the laws, and not only restrain it from running to ruin but pull it back, it would be perpetual.”¹¹⁷ So after first rejecting any hope for a perpetual republic, Machiavelli later finds himself looking for some scenario to keep that hope alive. Perhaps if a republic benefitted from a long series of wise founders – an unlikely scenario, given their rarity – they could preserve and keep strong a republic’s institutions forever.

In A Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence, similar considerations emerge in Machiavelli’s discussion of what is necessary to found firm orders. Using language reminiscent of the Discourses, Machiavelli argues that, under its current government, Florence faces the risk of “a thousand dangers.”¹¹⁸ New orders are necessary to eliminate these dangers. Machiavelli outlines an initial set of reforms that Leo should implement in Florence, and expresses confidence that these reforms will benefit and sustain the city. He tempers this confidence, though, with a caveat: these new orders’ effectiveness may wane after the founder (Leo) dies. The new orders could persist indefinitely if Leo “were going to live forever,” but as Machiavelli bluntly points out, at some point he “must cease to be.”¹¹⁹ In response to this unavoidable challenge, Machiavelli outlines additional reforms, with the hope that a slightly altered set of new orders will continue even after Leo’s death. Throughout this discussion, Machiavelli is acutely aware of the dangers that government institutions face after a founder dies and tries to offer solutions in response. Notably, Machiavelli avoids the claim that the new orders he recommends can last forever. Leo’s reputation could become immortal if he successfully implements new orders, but Machiavelli never uses this language for the orders themselves, even as he tries to think of ways to prolong them.

These discussions in the Discourses and A Discourse on Remodeling the Government of Florence reveal Machiavelli’s desire for a perpetual republic, but also his resistance to embracing this hope. This reluctance stems from his cyclical view of history and time, which precludes human institutions from ever achieving a permanent state of perfection. Rather than embrace a linear conception of time in which history moves inexorably toward perfection, as found in Christian eschatology, Machiavelli sees history as confined to a pattern that continually alternates between degeneration and progress. Good governments inevitably degenerate into bad ones until they reach a low point from which they must improve, and the cycle starts anew.¹²⁰

Machiavelli expresses this general principle in his play The Golden Ass where he writes: “[I]t is and always has been and always will be, that evil follows after good, good after evil.”¹²¹ Such constant flux means that perfection, if ever achieved, can only be fleeting. As Machiavelli emphasizes in the Florentine Histories, “worldly things are not allowed by nature to stand still. As soon as they reach their ultimate perfection, having no further to rise, they must descend.”¹²² Machiavelli makes a similar comment about “worldly things” (cose del mondo) at the start of Book III of the Discourses: “It is a very true thing that all worldly things have a limit to their life.”¹²³ So throughout his writings, a basic tenet of Machiavelli’s thought is that nothing on earth is immune to decay, especially those things that have achieved perfection. When he applies this rule to republics, Machiavelli finds himself unable to embrace Savonarola’s utopian hope in one that would last forever.

Machiavelli’s explicit use of the phrase “worldly things” brings attention to the limits of his secular vision for political renewal – that is, secular in the sense that it does not rely on divine intervention to achieve it. Savonarola places his faith in God to ensure the apocalyptic vision for Florence detailed in his preaching. Machiavelli, on the other hand, lacks this apocalyptic faith. He recognizes the power of apocalyptic thought in establishing new orders, and for this reason respects Savonarola. But he cannot fully embrace Savonarola’s apocalyptic vision because political renewal occurs entirely within the realm of worldly things for Machiavelli. New orders will always be mortal, subject to decay. This foundational principle in Machiavelli’s political philosophy stands in tension with his desire for a perpetual republic – the ultimate achievement for any founder. Given this tension for Machiavelli, perhaps part of Savonarola’s appeal lies in the friar’s ability to wholeheartedly place his faith in the ideal of a perpetual polity – something Machiavelli desires but cannot expect because of his realism. Machiavelli shares Savonarola’s hope for renewal in the midst of crisis, but not the totality of his apocalyptic vision, which culminates in an eternal and perfect kingdom. Such a tantalizing ideal ultimately has no place in Machiavelli’s political universe. Here human founders are the creators of new orders, which, like the founders themselves, at some point must cease to be.

The Pyre of Savonarola

In his earliest writings, Machiavelli takes a mostly negative view of Savonarola. His 1498 letter to Becchi notes the power of Savonarola’s preaching but criticizes his hypocrisy at a time when his power was in rapid decline. With the benefit of time and distance to assess Savonarola’s impact on Florence, Machiavelli comes to have a greater respect for him. From his perspective, Savonarola stands out as that rare contemporary figure who used religion’s power to found new orders. Savonarola specifically achieved this goal through preaching an apocalyptic vision for Florence, which merged heavenly and earthly hopes together. Machiavelli’s writings on religion suggest his recognition of the power that Savonarola’s apocalyptic message had in advancing political ends. Still, Machiavelli cannot fully accept Savonarola’s vision – specifically, its utopian belief in a perfect and enduring polity to come.

As Machiavelli’s views evolved, one wonders whether the image of Savonarola’s fiery execution came to mind. It is unknown whether Machiavelli witnessed Savonarola’s death, though it would not have been surprising if he did. Savonarola’s execution was a spectacle: officials built a scaffold and pyre in the middle of the bustling Piazza della Signoria, where many came to watch the execution (see Figure 3.1). Machiavelli was curious enough about Savonarola to attend his sermons – he very well may have made his way to the Piazza della Signoria on May 23, 1498, to watch his final moments. Even if he did not, he at least would have read some of the vivid accounts of the execution. Luca Landucci, a follower of Savonarola, paints the scene:

When all three were hung, Fra Girolamo [Savonarola] being in the middle … a fire was made on the circular platform round the cross, upon which gunpowder was put and set alight, so that the said fire burst out with a noise of rockets and cracking. In a few hours they were burnt, their legs and arms gradually dropping off; part of their bodies remaining hanging to the chains, a quantity of stones were thrown to make them fall, as there was a fear of the people getting hold of them; and then the hangman and those whose business it was, hacked down the post and burnt it on the ground, bringing a lot of brushwood, and stirring the fire up over the dead bodies, so that the very least piece was consumed.¹²⁵

It was a pitiful end to a short life that left its mark on Florentine politics.

Figure 3.1 Execution of Savonarola

Painting by Filippo Dolciati at the Museum of San Marco in Florence¹²⁴

This image of Savonarola on the pyre may not have evoked much sympathy from Machiavelli as a young man, if his 1498 letter to Becchi shortly before the execution is any indication. At the time, Machiavelli described a political figure who was losing his grip on power and resorting to ineffective tactics that only worsened the situation. But later on, Machiavelli came to express a deeper appreciation for the challenges faced by those who fail while attempting great things in politics. His direct experience with political failure may have contributed to this shift. When a new regime came to power in Florence in 1512, Machiavelli found himself tortured, imprisoned, and stripped of his political post.¹²⁶ He knew all too well the vicissitudes of politics and that no one is immune to their dangers.

So though Savonarola failed in politics, Machiavelli’s later writings treat him with greater sympathy, as someone who endeavored to bring political renewal to Florence despite the perils involved. In the same chapter of The Prince that identifies Savonarola as a founder, Machiavelli emphasizes the incredible dangers founders face: “[N]othing is more difficult to handle, more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to manage, than to put oneself at the head of introducing new orders.”¹²⁷ The image of Savonarola upon the pyre illustrates in dramatic fashion the dangers that always loom for those who take on the task of founding new orders. Despite these risks, Savonarola took action to advance republican rule and his apocalyptic vision for Florence.

For this reason, the image of Savonarola likely became more for Machiavelli than just a symbol of failure. Yes, Savonarola’s burnt corpse hung for all to see as an example of a failed founder. But at the same time, the scene represented the perils that great individuals are willing to accept in pursuit of glorious ends. By using his religious authority and apocalyptic message to found new orders – at great risk to himself – Savonarola represents for Machiavelli a figure who merits respect.

4 Tempering Apocalyptic Ideals: Hobbes and Pretenders to God’s Kingdom

Throughout his writings, Thomas Hobbes makes clear his disdain for apocalyptic prophecy, especially when used to further rebellion. His early work The Elements of Law criticizes “learned madmen” who “determine … the time of the world’s end.”¹ Later in Behemoth, Hobbes calls the Fifth Monarchy Men – the most explicitly apocalyptic sect of the English Civil War – “fanatics.”² In his view, they and other religious sects were among the diverse “seducers” whose agitation plunged England into civil war.³ Similarly, in Historia Ecclesiastica, Hobbes lists the Fifth Monarchy Men as one of several sects that “sated savage Mars with much blood.”⁴

Quentin Skinner perhaps best sums up Hobbes’s attitude toward these sects and those who reaped political benefits from them during the English Civil War. He describes Hobbes as understanding the period between 1640 and 1660 as “an era of collective insanity.”⁵ Though this reaction by Hobbes occurred within a specific historical context, it is recognizable to anyone who has ever been skeptical of apocalyptic claims. The notion that the English Civil War signaled the imminent arrival of Christ’s kingdom on earth, as some of his contemporaries claimed, struck Hobbes as sheer madness.

Beyond its far-fetched claims, what troubles Hobbes about apocalyptic thought is its potential to spur continuous political upheaval. Apocalyptic thought anticipates nothing short of perfection – a divine kingdom breaking into the present to wipe away corruption. Political movements motivated by such utopian goals have difficulty living up to them, and almost invariably end in disappointment. Even if new rulers come to power, they like their predecessors fall short of achieving the perfection promised. The failure to realize utopia breeds an endless cycle of dissatisfaction, disruption, and instability that plagues politics.

Hobbes is keenly aware of the destabilizing effects that utopian visions – like those found in apocalyptic thought – can have on politics. To counter this danger, he opts against the most straightforward option: making the case to abandon the pursuit of apocalyptic ideals altogether. Sensitive to the power that apocalyptic ideals have in politics, he co-opts them instead – most notably, the concept of the kingdom of God from Christian eschatology.

This strategy is on display in Leviathan, where Hobbes singles out subversive interpretations of the kingdom of God as “the greatest, and main abuse of Scripture.”⁶ Religious sects claim to represent God’s kingdom, and in turn believe that this status gives them authority over civil matters. This interpretation of the kingdom of God creates continual conflict with the civil sovereign. Hobbes responds by dedicating numerous passages in Leviathan to reinterpreting the doctrine of the kingdom of God so that it is safe for politics. He arrives at an interpretation that denies, at present, all claims to represent God’s kingdom made by prophets and sects challenging the sovereign’s authority. For now, the kingdom of God can only take one form – what Hobbes calls the natural kingdom of God. Importantly, the Leviathan state is a manifestation of the natural kingdom of God, where God rules through principles of reason rather than his prophetic word. By identifying God’s kingdom with the Leviathan state, Hobbes transforms a Christian doctrine used to justify rebellion into one that bolsters the sovereign’s authority.

So apocalyptic ideals have a place in Hobbes’s political philosophy, but only after he tempers their utopian hopes. Hobbes advises those looking for God’s kingdom to stop chasing after utopia and instead look for it in the civil commonwealth already before them. Far from perfect, commonwealths sometimes command idolatry and kill the innocent. Hobbes frankly admits these shortcomings. To equate God’s perfect kingdom with such imperfection strikes some as deeply unsatisfying and even downright blasphemous. But wary of attempts to achieve perfection in politics, Hobbes sees value in an ideal emptied of its utopian content. When outlining his vision for politics, he concedes that “life shall never be without Inconveniences.”⁷ Efforts to eliminate all inconveniences end up leading to far greater ones: political upheaval when perfect rulers and institutions never come, followed by dissolution of the commonwealth and the perilous existence found outside of it. Worried about these dangers, Hobbes uses the concept of the kingdom of God to defend the Leviathan state and all its imperfections, as well as discredit the utopian aspirations of the prophets and revolutionaries of his day.

The Apocalyptic Context in which Hobbes Wrote

The widespread nature of apocalyptic thought in seventeenth-century England is well documented.⁸ What stands out about apocalyptic thought in this context is the extent to which it motivated those in political power. There is a tendency to characterize apocalyptic belief as primarily taking hold among the outcasts and marginalized in society.⁹ Yet in seventeenth-century England, apocalyptic hopes captured the imagination of soldiers, scholars, members of Parliament, and even kings.¹⁰

Many in England began to see their king as a “godly prince” divinely chosen to defeat the Antichrist, understood as the papacy. James I embraced this role to a certain extent, writing in 1609 that he had established from Revelation that the pope was the Antichrist. James ultimately would disappoint Puritan hopes of destroying the Antichrist, as would his successor Charles I. In fact, under Charles there was growing concern that the Church of England was the Antichrist.¹¹ The monarchy’s transformation from God’s instrument for furthering his kingdom into the Antichrist shows how quickly political allegiances influenced by apocalyptic belief could shift.

Scholarly study of Revelation and Christ’s return helped legitimize and spur interest in apocalyptic thought. Joseph Mede, a Cambridge theologian, in 1627 published Clavis Apocalyptica, one of the most influential apocalyptic works at the time. As one of the “learned madmen” (to use Hobbes’s words) advancing apocalyptic prophecies, Mede provided an intellectual framework to interpret contemporary events. Like James, he understood the papacy as the Antichrist and believed it was destined to fall. A member of Parliament translated Clavis Apocalyptica into English in 1643, and its publication received official government approval.¹²

When pastors in the 1640s came before Parliament to preach, apocalyptic themes often were prominent in their sermons.¹³ For many clergy, the upheaval of the civil war was clear evidence that they were living in the end times foretold by Revelation. Thomas Goodwin notes in his 1646 sermon before Parliament that “as the shorter time Satan hath, the more is his rage; so the shorter time Christ hath, and the nearer he is to the possession of his Kingdome.”¹⁴ He cites Revelation 17:14 – “These [kingdoms] shall make war with the Lambe, and the Lambe shall overcome them” – to emphasize that “it is certaine, we are in the last times of these kingdoms.”¹⁵ In John Maynard’s sermon before Parliament, he argues that England is living in the time of the seventh trumpet discussed in Revelation 11:15, when “[t]he kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever.”¹⁶ Another minister, Henry Wilkinson, uses vivid apocalyptic imagery to describe the task facing members of Parliament:

[S]ince your businesse lies professedly against the Apocalypticall beast, and all his complices; you must expect that the militia of Hell and the trayned bands of Satan, (i.e.) those that have received the mark of the beast, shall be put into a posture of warre, furnished with all their traines of Artillery, and the whole Magazine of Satan, to put in execution their black Commission, which breathes forth nothing but blood, and slaughter, and ruine of our persons and our Religion.¹⁷

According to this view, Parliament’s work had eschatological significance because it furthered God’s plan for the end times. As these sermons highlight, the 1640s was a time when clergy and political leaders alike embraced an apocalyptic vision to interpret their world and the turmoil within it.

Apocalyptic ideas reached the height of their political influence during the English Civil War with the rise of the Fifth Monarchy Men. This movement began in the late 1640s, shortly before the publication of Leviathan. In his later work Behemoth, Hobbes describes the Fifth Monarchy Men as a sect whose central tenet was “that there ought none to be sovereign but King Jesus, nor any to govern under him but the saints.”¹⁸ The movement took its name from Daniel 7, which outlines four different monarchies that rise and fall before a final fifth monarchy establishes its everlasting rule over all. The Fifth Monarchy Men viewed events of their day through the lens of cataclysmic apocalyptic thought. That is, they interpreted the upheaval of the English Civil War as evidence that God was intervening to wipe away corruption and set up Christ’s perfect kingdom on earth, where his saints would rule.

So according to the Fifth Monarchy Men, the chaos surrounding Charles I’s downfall was no reason to fear. It rather served as a sign that the fifth monarchy, Christ’s kingdom, was near. This view comes out in a Fifth Monarchist petition from 1649: “[T]he great design of God in the falls and overthrows of worldly powers, that have opposed the kingdom of His Son, is … to lift up Him on high, far above all principality, and powers, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named in this world, that He may be PRINCE of the kings of the earth.”¹⁹

William Aspinwall’s Brief Description of the Fifth Monarchy, though published in 1653 after Leviathan, provides insight into this movement that emerged while Hobbes wrote his masterpiece.²⁰ Aspinwall celebrates the execution of Charles – “a fierce & arrogant Tyrant & persecuter of the Saints”²¹ – as the fulfillment of the apocalyptic prophecies of Daniel and a sign that the fifth monarchy would soon rise.²² Whereas it horrified Hobbes that the English people executed their own king, the Fifth Monarchy Men saw the event as reason to believe that God’s kingdom was near (see Figure 4.1).

Figure 4.1 Execution of King Charles I

Etching by an unknown artist from 1649²⁴

Though the Fifth Monarchy Men’s views struck Hobbes and others as bizarre, this sect exerted no small influence over politics during the early 1650s. Disgusted by the Rump Parliament’s perceived inability to realize apocalyptic hopes, Major-General Thomas Harrison led the Fifth Monarchy Men in pressuring Oliver Cromwell to dissolve the Rump and establish in its place what became known as the Barebones Parliament. Eventually Cromwell would dissolve Barebones to set up the Protectorate, at which point the Fifth Monarchy Men’s influence declined.²³ Their sway lasted for only a short time, yet they demonstrated apocalyptic thought’s power to impact politics.

Hobbes clearly took notice of the apocalyptic beliefs that pervaded religious and political life during the civil war period. As Kinch Hoekstra notes, “[A]fter 1640 it became obvious that the learned madness of eschatology was not an easily dismissed fringe phenomenon. Together, these reasons explain why Hobbes strove to discredit eschatological excess from the commonly accepted basis of scripture.”²⁵ One finds throughout Hobbes’s works enduring concerns over the misinterpretation of Christian eschatology and its ramifications for politics. In The Elements of Law, he expresses disdain for “madmen” who try to predict the world’s end.²⁶ Then in Leviathan he warns against subversive understandings of a key concept from Christian eschatology – the kingdom of God – and condemns “Authors … of this Darknesse in Religion” for encouraging political strife.²⁷ Concerns over the abuse of Christian eschatology persist in Hobbes’s posthumously published works, evident in his criticism of the Fifth Monarchy Men in Behemoth and Historia Ecclesiastica.²⁸ Confronted with the disruptive effects of apocalyptic thought on English politics, Hobbes repeatedly returns to the subject, determined to neutralize its dangers.

The Danger of Looking for God’s Kingdom

Christian eschatology takes diverse forms, yet one feature is universal to almost all of them: faith that the kingdom of God will be realized. History, according to the Christian view, is moving inexorably toward its ultimate goal – God’s perfect kingdom. Hobbes does not deny the coming of God’s kingdom, but has grave worries about churches and sects claiming to represent this kingdom now. In fact, of all the theological doctrines that Hobbes finds fault with in Leviathan, he singles out misinterpretations of the kingdom of God as the most dangerous. “The greatest, and main abuse of Scripture,” he writes, “and to which almost all the rest are either consequent, or subservient, is the wresting of it, to prove that the Kingdome of God, mentioned so often in the Scripture, is the present Church, or multitude of Christian men now living, or that being dead, are to rise again at the last day.”²⁹ As believers anticipate God’s kingdom, they often look for some form of it in the present. For Hobbes, such speculation takes a subversive turn when it equates God’s current kingdom with any entity distinct from the civil sovereign.

A letter from 1662 provides further evidence that this worry was at the forefront of Hobbes’s mind when he wrote Leviathan. After the Civil War had ended and the monarchy had been restored, Hobbes explained to England’s new king his motivations for writing Leviathan. His letter assures Charles II that, despite the controversy sparked by the theological views expressed in the book, his motives for writing it were blameless:

It was written in a time when the pretence to Christ’s kingdom was made use of for the most horrid actions that can be imagined; and it was in just indignation of that, that I desired to see the bottom of that doctrine of the kingdom of Christ, which divers ministers then preached for a pretence to their rebellion: which may reasonably extenuate, though not excuse the writing of it.³⁰

So Hobbes understood Leviathan as an attempt to correct subversive understandings of the kingdom of God. Today, that motivation for Hobbes’s masterpiece is often overlooked. With Leviathan, he hoped to wrest the kingdom of God away from those using it as a pretext for “the most horrid actions that can be imagined,” and show that this doctrine – when properly understood – never justifies rebellion.

Who in Hobbes’s view were distorting the doctrine of the kingdom of God to encourage rebellion? Leviathan identifies the primary culprits as “the Romane, and the Presbyterian Clergy.”³¹ For Hobbes, belief that the church represents God’s kingdom began with the Catholic Church, before then spreading to the Presbyterians and other Protestant sects. Since Catholic theology is the root source of this error, Hobbes gives special attention to addressing it, evident from his extensive critique of this and other Catholic doctrines in Chapter 42 of Leviathan.

It is easy to see why Hobbes has such problems with the Catholic view of God’s kingdom. In Catholic thought, the pope is understood as the head of Christ’s spiritual kingdom on earth. From this belief stems the concept of the pope’s “indirect power” (potestas indirecta), which refers to his authority to intervene in temporal matters when they have ramifications for Christ’s spiritual kingdom.

This idea is most closely associated with the Catholic theologian Robert Bellarmine, whom Hobbes directly addresses and critiques in Leviathan.³² Though Bellarmine denies that the pope has supreme temporal authority, attributing that instead to civil sovereigns, he does argue that the pope’s responsibility to safeguard souls as the head of Christ’s kingdom sometimes requires intervention in politics. Christ’s spiritual kingdom takes precedence over any civil kingdom, especially since it offers eternal life, the supreme end that all individuals should strive for. So if civil sovereigns lead souls astray by, say, commanding heretical practices, the pope has the authority to depose them in the interest of protecting Christ’s spiritual kingdom. Bellarmine’s understanding of the kingdom of God leads him to the view that “the temporal authority of the princes is subject and subordinate to the spiritual authority of the Popes.”³³ This claim challenges the authority of civil sovereigns, and for Hobbes poses grave dangers to political life.

Unfortunately from Hobbes’s perspective, Catholic beliefs about the kingdom of God made their way into Protestant thought, particularly Presbyterian theology. The Presbyterians prided themselves on rejecting “popish” practices and doctrines. But with regard to the kingdom of God, Hobbes notes, they conveniently chose to hold on to Catholic doctrine: “[I]n those places where the Presbytery took that Office, though many other Doctrines of the Church of Rome were forbidden to be taught; yet this Doctrine, that the Kingdome of Christ is already come, and that it began at the Resurrection of our Savior, was still retained.”³⁴ This doctrine provided a basis for claiming spiritual authority, which in turn led to claims of political authority.

As a case in point, during the English Civil War Presbyterians played a lead role in calling the Westminster Assembly in defiance of Charles I. This move was part of an effort to reform the Church of England, abolish episcopacy, and bring it in line with their model of church government.³⁵ Notably, the Westminster Confession that came out of this assembly of clergy explicitly identifies the church as “the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ.”³⁶ To ensure Christ’s kingdom on earth, the Presbyterians intervened in politics and asserted their authority over religious matters. In this way, Hobbes warns, Presbyterians embraced an understanding of God’s kingdom that fostered rebellion and political upheaval during the civil war.³⁷

Subversive understandings of God’s kingdom eventually found their way into apocalyptic sects like the Fifth Monarchy Men, which only exacerbated the turmoil plaguing England. Hobbes sees the Fifth Monarchy Men as partly a consequence of Presbyterian theology, calling them a “brood of their [the Presbyterians’] own hatching.”³⁸ Not content with Presbyterian attempts at religious and political reform, other sects took more extreme positions. The Fifth Monarchy Men also believed that they represented the kingdom of God, with the twist that “Christ’s kingdom was at this time to begin upon earth.”³⁹ Belief in the imminent arrival of Christ’s literal kingdom on earth helped justify what for Hobbes was the greatest crime of the English Civil War, executing the king. For the Fifth Monarchy Men, such action was necessary to eliminate a corrupt ruler and make way for God’s kingdom.

In short, the civil war period made clear to Hobbes the explosive and disruptive effects of claiming to represent God’s kingdom. As he emphasizes in Leviathan, “points of doctrine concerning the Kingdome of God, have so great influence on the Kingdome of Man” that they must be determined “by them, that under God have the Soveraign Power.”⁴⁰ The civil sovereign needs to exercise tight control over this doctrine because of the immense power associated with claiming to represent God’s kingdom – namely, the power to block or grant access to a kingdom that promises eternal life. According to Hobbes, Christ placed the keys of his kingdom in the hands of his “Supreme Pastors” – namely, “Christian Civill Soveraignes.”⁴¹ So in this vision for Christian commonwealths, civil sovereigns have ultimate say over the doctrine of the kingdom of God, as they are God’s appointed officials for overseeing this kingdom.

If, though, a church opposed to the sovereign comes to represent the kingdom of God, political allegiances can shift and throw a commonwealth into turmoil. Once the church is perceived as God’s kingdom, it acquires a power exceeding any power possessed by the civil authority, since it becomes in the people’s eyes the body that determines entrance into God’s kingdom. Consequently, people fear the church more than the civil authority – a disastrous development in Hobbes’s view. He writes: “[M]en that are once possessed of an opinion, that their obedience to the Soveraign Power, will bee more hurtfull to them, than their disobedience, will disobey the Laws, and thereby overthrow the Common-wealth, and introduce confusion, and Civill war.”⁴² Ultimately, for Hobbes, claims about representing God’s kingdom are attempts by ministers to exercise “Soveraign Power over the People.”⁴³

Not surprisingly, Hobbes directs harsh language against those who pervert Christian teaching in an effort to augment their power, calling them a “Kingdome of Darknesse” and “Confederacy of Deceivers.” These enemies of peace advance “dark, and erroneous Doctrines” so as to “obtain dominion over men in this present world.”⁴⁴ What results is confusion among the people regarding their political obligations. Misinterpretations of the kingdom of God have just this effect, says Hobbes: “[T]his Errour, that the present Church is Christs Kingdome … causeth so great a Darknesse in mens understanding, that they see not who it is to whom they have engaged their obedience.”⁴⁵ By sowing such confusion, this teaching erodes the sovereign’s authority and poses grave risks to the commonwealth.

Subversive teachings concerning the kingdom of God create perceived conflicts between God’s commands and the civil sovereign’s. For Hobbes, such conflicts are the “most frequent praetext of Sedition, and Civill Warre, in Christian Common-wealths.”⁴⁶ Challenges to sovereign authority can plunge society into the horrors of war, while undermining efforts to establish peace well into the future. For whenever sovereignty dissolves due to an act of rebellion, it becomes more difficult for subsequent sovereigns to hold on to their authority and exercise it effectively. If a faction gains sovereignty through rebellion, cautions Hobbes, “others are taught to gain the same in like manner.”⁴⁷ In other words, rebellion encourages further rebellion and perpetual instability. Hobbes thus sees grave dangers in challenging the sovereign’s religious authority, which is why he singles out understandings of God’s kingdom for criticism. Use of this doctrine to challenge the sovereign’s authority opens up a Pandora’s box, resulting in a continuous cycle of regimes rising to and falling from power.

This account of continuous instability is reminiscent of the English Civil War, a period when religion played a prominent role in bringing down the king and various manifestations of Parliament. No one coming to power could fulfill apocalyptic hopes. Such disappointment quickly transformed rulers from servants chosen by God into agents of the Antichrist.⁴⁸ Religiously motivated attacks against the sovereign released a cannibalizing force adept at destruction, but ill-suited to establish anything of permanence. Hobbes brings attention to this aspect of the civil war in Behemoth: “[F]rom the beginning of the rebellion, the method of ambition was constantly this: first to destroy, and then to consider what they should set up.”⁴⁹ The leaders of the rebellion acted like “fools which pull down anything which does them good, before they have set up something better in its place.”⁵⁰ The havoc they inflicted fell far short of achieving perfection, and instead brought long-lasting harm to the commonwealth.

So in many ways, the English Civil War embodied the dangers of looking for God’s perfect kingdom. Fervent religious hopes never ushered in this kingdom, but rather weakened existing political institutions. As new sovereigns came to power, they failed to meet the lofty expectations preceding them, which bred dissatisfaction as a result. Writing in the midst of these failed expectations, Hobbes understood all too well the close connection between apocalyptic hope and political instability.

Discrediting Divine Revelation

In response to the problems that stem from misinterpreting the doctrine of the kingdom of God, Hobbes offers a two-part solution: (1) discredit the legitimacy of those who claim to represent God’s kingdom and (2) offer his own interpretation of the kingdom of God as an alternative. This section focuses on the first part of Hobbes’s solution, while the following section focuses on its second part.

Throughout his political writings and especially Leviathan, Hobbes radically severs the link between God and humanity in the present time. This move has the effect of “disarming the prophets,” as Hoekstra puts it.⁵¹ Hobbes casts so much doubt on divine revelation in the present that he leaves no room for purported revelation to guide politics. It is important to remember that he took aim at prophecy’s authority at a time when apocalyptic prophecy in particular was widespread and leaving its mark on English politics. When Hobbes sought to discredit the prophets of his day, the target of his attacks clearly included those madmen boldly proclaiming the world’s end and using such claims to acquire political power.

In his case against such imposters, Hobbes avoids denying that God can communicate directly to his servants, since that would contradict much of scripture. For instance, Hobbes describes Moses as a prophet “in the sense of speaking from God to the People.”⁵² Moses had a unique relationship with God, in which God directly communicated to him commands for the Israelites.⁵³ But God’s practice of speaking with Moses stands out as a rare exception because it took place at a time when God ruled directly over his people through a chosen representative. Today, Hobbes stresses, it is impossible to decipher true from false prophecy, and therefore we should not expect God to convey his commands through means plagued by such uncertainty.

Hobbes’s view that we no longer can distinguish true from false prophecy ultimately rests on his claim that, in the present, God no longer empowers individuals to perform miracles. Referencing Deuteronomy 13:1–5, Hobbes says that scripture sets forth two requirements to establish someone as a true prophet: performance of miracles and only teaching religious doctrines that are established by God and avoid encouraging revolt against the sovereign. Neither condition by itself is sufficient to show that a prophecy is from God. Miracles are insufficient since false prophets can perform them, like the Egyptian sorcerers described in Exodus 7 and 8. Likewise, someone who teaches the established religion but fails to perform miracles provides no credible evidence for their prophecy, since we cannot be expected to trust prophetic predictions that lie far in the future and cannot be verified now.⁵⁴ After establishing these points, Hobbes asserts that “Miracles now cease,” which allows him to conclude: “we have no sign left, whereby to acknowledge the pretended Revelations, or Inspirations of any private man; nor obligation to give ear to any Doctrine, farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures.” In a world without miracles, we lack grounds for believing prophetic claims. Hobbes assures his readers that this aspect of the current world is no reason for concern, since scripture provides all the revelation necessary to guide Christians in their “duty both to God and man.”⁵⁵

This argument establishes for Hobbes that individuals have no obligation to accept revelation merely on the grounds that someone claims to be divinely inspired. Hobbes is skeptical of purported prophecy, which is clear from his dismissive comment that the best prophet is simply the “best guesser.”⁵⁶ Nevertheless, Hobbes avoids characterizing all present revelation as necessarily false. His point is more modest: prophecy in the present is possible – nothing could prevent God from communicating directly to someone now if he chooses – but it is impossible to verify its validity. Given this uncertainty, an authority is needed to determine which revelations and religious doctrines are true and which are false. For Hobbes, a Christian sovereign makes these determinations and is the only one deserving of the title “Gods Prophet.”⁵⁷ If Hobbes were to claim that no prophecy in the present could be valid, he would deprive the sovereign of its authority to determine which religious doctrines, including purported revelation, are true – a conclusion he wishes to avoid.

Hobbes’s case against the legitimacy of revelation, at least when it lacks the civil sovereign’s approval, applies equally to the doctrine of the kingdom of God. Whenever a sect claims to embody the kingdom of God, it purports to have a unique covenant with God. Such a covenant, says Hobbes, “is impossible, but by Mediation of such as God speaketh to, either by Revelation supernaturall, or by his Lieutenants that govern under him.”⁵⁸ In other words, covenants with God only come via direct communication with him. Though in the past God communicated with Abraham and established a covenant with the Jewish people, Hobbes emphasizes that now it is impossible to verify anyone’s claims that God spoke to them. As a result, any claims about representing God’s kingdom on the basis of a divine covenant are necessarily beyond verification.

During the civil war period, some did appeal to a purported covenant with God to justify defying the civil sovereign. A key event in the lead-up to the war was the National Covenant of 1638 signed by the Scottish Covenanters. These Presbyterians joined the covenant to declare their opposition to religious practices introduced in Scotland by the Anglican Archbishop William Laud and backed by Charles I. They grounded their opposition in the belief that the Church of Scotland had a covenant with God, and the obligations of this covenant required them to oppose religious practices in conflict with the true church.⁵⁹ Beyond just rejecting this idea, Hobbes attacks it as a ruse for wresting authority away from the civil sovereign. He writes: “[S]ome men have pretended for their disobedience to their Sovereign, a new Covenant, made, not with men, but with God … . [T]his pretence of Covenant with God, is so evident a lye, even in the pretenders own consciences, that it is not onely an act of an unjust, but also of a vile, and unmanly disposition.”⁶⁰ For Hobbes, there is nothing redeeming in the motivations of those challenging the sovereign on the grounds that they have a special covenant with God.

Hobbes further undermines such claims by relegating all manifestations of God’s kingdom founded on a pact or covenant to the distant past or end of time. In his view, the kingdom of God takes two forms:

1. (1) the prophetic kingdom of God or kingdom of God by pact, covenant, or agreement (terms he uses interchangeably)

2. (2) the natural kingdom of God or kingdom of God by nature (also terms he uses interchangeably)⁶¹

Hobbes believes that only the natural kingdom of God exists today. In this form of God’s kingdom, the law of nature – accessible to all through reason – governs God’s subjects. In contrast, God communicates law much differently in his prophetic kingdom. Here God uses his prophetic word to establish a covenant with a chosen people and communicate his laws to them. Unlike the natural kingdom of God, which exists today, the prophetic kingdom of God existed only once in history according to Hobbes – the nation of Israel until it elected Saul as king.⁶² Besides ancient Israel, the only other prophetic kingdom of God lies in the future and will be realized upon Christ’s return.⁶³ By limiting the prophetic kingdom of God to these two instances, Hobbes adopts an understanding of sacred history that rejects any current claims to represent God’s kingdom that appeal to a revealed covenant.

In line with Hobbes’s materialism, both the historic and future prophetic kingdoms of God are earthly kingdoms. For “the Nation of the Jews,” writes Hobbes, the kingdom of God “properly meant a Common-wealth, instituted … for their Civill Government … which properly was a Kingdome, wherein God was King, and the High priest was to be (after the death of Moses) his sole Viceroy, or Lieutenant.”⁶⁴ Similarly, Christ’s kingdom “is a reall, not a metaphoricall Kingdome.”⁶⁵ Citing Revelation’s account of the new Jerusalem descending from heaven to earth, Hobbes argues that “the Paradise of God, at the coming again of Christ, should come down to Gods people from Heaven” rather than “they goe up to it from Earth.”⁶⁶ That Christ’s kingdom is still to come strikes Hobbes as obvious, and he points to language from the Lord’s Prayer – “Thy Kingdome come” – to back up this view.⁶⁷

Hobbes admits that interpreting the kingdom of God as a literal earthly kingdom existing at two distinct points in time goes against how many understand it. Clergy often interpret the kingdom of God as existing “in the Highest Heaven” and never as an actual monarchy where God has sovereign power over his subjects “acquired by their own consent, which is the proper signification of Kingdome.”⁶⁸ According to Hobbes, many opt for a metaphorical understanding of God’s kingdom instead of his because the latter gives Christian kings too much power over “Ecclesiasticall Government.”⁶⁹

Hobbes’s interpretation of the kingdom of God grants kings so much power because of the role they play in its current manifestation. For Hobbes, there is no prophetic kingdom of God at present. But despite being cut off from this kingdom, people still can join the natural kingdom of God. Here the principles of reason dictate that the civil sovereign has absolute authority, including over religion. By denying the possibility of God’s prophetic kingdom and identifying his natural kingdom as the only option now, Hobbes advances a view that leaves little room to challenge the sovereign’s authority in religious matters, as the next section explains.

The Leviathan as God’s Kingdom

Discussion of the natural kingdom of God comes at a significant juncture in Leviathan – the final chapter of Part II. The argument in Leviathan moves in a systematic fashion: Part I outlines the nature of man and principles of reason; Part II draws on Part I to set forth the principles to govern the ideal commonwealth; Part III applies these principles to Christian commonwealths; and Part IV examines perverse understandings of Christian commonwealths. Within this schema, Chapter 31, “Of the Kingdome of God by Nature,” represents the culmination of Parts I and II. If individuals follow the dictates of reason as outlined by Hobbes, without reliance on divine revelation, they will cede authority to a sovereign and enter a manifestation of the natural kingdom of God – the Leviathan state.

In making this argument, Hobbes refashions the concept of the kingdom of God so that it is no longer a source of political disruption. By giving a prominent place in his political philosophy to the concept of the kingdom of God, Hobbes directly draws on Christian eschatology. But while maintaining a connection to this tradition, his concept of the natural kingdom of God also departs from it in important ways.

First off, Hobbes chooses a term – the kingdom of God by nature – that never appears in scripture and was not in wide use. Though rare, the term does appear prior to Hobbes in Catholic thought. The Catechism of the Council of Trent from 1566 uses the term, and Bellarmine also uses it when discussing the teachings of the Catechism.⁷⁰ These Catholic texts outline a threefold understanding of God’s kingdom: the kingdom of nature, the kingdom of grace, and the kingdom of glory.⁷¹ Hobbes likely was familiar with this typology since he read Bellarmine, evident from his extensive critique of him in Chapter 42 of Leviathan. But in Hobbes’s hands, the natural kingdom of God ends up looking much different from the Catholic understanding of it.⁷²

According to the Catholic view, the kingdom of nature refers to God’s rule over all creation.⁷³ Hobbes explicitly rejects this view when describing the natural kingdom of God in Leviathan:

[T]o call this Power of God, which extendeth it selfe not onely to Man, but also to Beasts, and Plants, and Bodies inanimate, by the name of Kingdome, is but a metaphoricall use of the word. For he onely is properly said to Raigne, that governs his Subjects, by his Word, and by promise of Rewards to those that obey it, and by threatning them with Punishment that obey it not. Subjects therefore in the Kingdome of God, are not Bodies Inanimate, nor creatures Irrationall; because they understand no Precepts as his.⁷⁴

For Hobbes, the natural kingdom of God does not refer to his reign over all creation – the dominant view at the time – but rather to his reign over human beings who understand his commands, as well as the rewards and punishments tied to them.

Hobbes calls this form of God’s kingdom the natural kingdom of God because of the type of law governing it. God rules subjects in his natural kingdom through the “naturall Dictates of Right Reason,” by which Hobbes means the law of nature.⁷⁵ That feature distinguishes God’s natural kingdom from his prophetic kingdom, where he instead communicates law in the form of prophecy. Such divine revelation is unnecessary in the natural kingdom of God, since individuals should be able to comprehend the law of nature through reason alone.⁷⁶

Hobbes worries, though, that self-interested interpretations of the law of nature cause confusion over its meaning and render it “of all Laws the most obscure.”⁷⁷ Such confusion poses a threat to the natural kingdom of God, especially given the importance Hobbes places on commands’ being “manifestly made known” in order to count as laws. Otherwise, he writes, “they are no Lawes: For to the nature of Lawes belongeth a sufficient and clear Promulgation, such as may take away the excuse of Ignorance.”⁷⁸ If uncertainty plagues the law of nature, the natural kingdom of God rests on shaky ground and is potentially in jeopardy.

What is needed, says Hobbes, is someone to clearly interpret the law of nature and ensure its status as law. In De Cive’s chapter on the natural kingdom of God, he points to the civil sovereign as the one chosen by God to carry out this role:

[T]he interpretation of natural laws, both sacred and secular, where God reigns through nature alone, depends on the authority of the commonwealth, i.e. of the man or council which has been granted sovereign power in the commonwealth; and whatever God commands, he commands through its voice. And, conversely, whatever commonwealths command both about the manner of worshipping God and about secular matters, is commanded by God.⁷⁹

This passage makes clear the critical function that the civil commonwealth serves in the natural kingdom of God. It is the entity responsible for communicating to individuals God’s law in his natural kingdom. When most people come in contact with the natural kingdom of God, it is through their civil commonwealth. So for Hobbes, the Leviathan state is a manifestation of God’s kingdom – specifically, the natural kingdom of God.⁸⁰

Since the laws governing this kingdom are based on reason rather than divine revelation, it is not necessarily a Christian kingdom. As Hobbes explains in the opening to Part III of Leviathan, when turning to the principles of a Christian Commonwealth, God’s word never contradicts reason but aspects of it are “above Reason.”⁸¹ Since reason does not conflict with Christian beliefs, the natural kingdom of God can take the form of a Christian commonwealth, but that is not guaranteed. Many Christian beliefs, including the one most fundamental for Hobbes – “Jesus is the Christ”⁸² – come from a source beyond reason: revelation preserved by the Christian tradition. Hobbes dedicates Part III to explaining how to interpret revelation recorded in scripture when determining the responsibilities of Christian sovereigns and subjects. For most of Hobbes’s readers, the only commonwealth imaginable is a Christian commonwealth, and for that reason he singles it out for analysis. But despite Hobbes’s focus on Christian commonwealths, he sees reason as insufficient to establish the doctrines of Christianity, and therefore the principles of reason do not lead inevitably to a Christian commonwealth.

The dictates of reason do exclude, in Hobbes’s view, atheists as potential subjects in the natural kingdom of God. Hobbes sees belief in God as grounded in reason, since it explains “a First, and an Eternall cause of all things.”⁸³ In the natural kingdom of God, individuals recognize God’s authority and honor him due to his “Irresistible Power.”⁸⁴ It is in line with reason to fear God and submit to him given his omnipotence – opposing him is futile. Atheists are enemies of the natural kingdom of God because they fail to acknowledge God’s power.⁸⁵ There are limits, then, to how much Hobbes departs from the biblical concept of the kingdom of God. Though Christian faith is not a requirement in the natural kingdom of God, belief in God is.

Yet what ultimately stands out about Hobbes’s natural kingdom of God is how it diverges from traditional understandings of God’s kingdom. When opening Leviathan’s chapter on the natural kingdom of God, Hobbes frames it as a guide to navigating one’s obligations to obey both the civil and divine law. By properly understanding these obligations and their relation to each other, individuals can “avoyd both these Rocks” of either offending God through “too much civill obedience” or transgressing “the commandements of the Common-wealth” through “feare of offending God.”⁸⁶ Hobbes proceeds to present a description of the natural kingdom of God in which obeying God almost never requires disobeying the sovereign and the civil law. In fact, he references Acts 5:29 – “It is better to obey God than man” – to point out that this precept “hath place in the kingdome of God by Pact, and not by Nature.”⁸⁷ In the natural kingdom of God, subjects obey God by obeying the civil sovereign, the authoritative interpreter of God’s natural law. That authority extends to matters of worship. Since a commonwealth is to worship God as “one Person,” according to Hobbes, public worship in the natural kingdom of God is to be uniform and determined by the sovereign.⁸⁸ The sovereign can command non-Christian forms of worship – after all, reason does not require the natural kingdom of God to be Christian – and subjects would have an obligation to participate in such worship.

Hobbes emphasizes this point when addressing how Christians should respond to civil authorities who command subjects to confess doctrines contrary to Christianity. Such outward professions of faith should not cause concern, reassures Hobbes, “because Beleef, and Unbeleef never follow mens Commands. Faith is a gift of God, which Man can neither give, nor take away by promise of rewards, or menaces of torture.” Regardless of the command or threat, the sovereign cannot rob individuals of their internal beliefs. Hobbes backs up his point by citing the Old Testament story of Naaman, whom God pardons for bowing before an idol (2 Kings 5:17–18).⁸⁹ Like Naaman, Christians must be willing to publicly confess other gods if authorities demand it, while maintaining their inner faith. For Hobbes, the only exception is missionaries called to convert nonbelievers. Even in this case, missionaries should not violently oppose the ruling authority but instead accept martyrdom as a witness to Christ.⁹⁰

Hobbes’s transformation of the ideal of the kingdom of God thus leads to a possibility radically different than how it is described in scripture. The natural kingdom of God as outlined by Hobbes could consist of a people worshipping non-Christian gods. Christians in such a kingdom would have to hide their faith and participate in the public worship of these gods.⁹¹ This scenario creates a jarring juxtaposition: the worship of false gods in the kingdom of God, or at least Hobbes’s modified version of it. His attempt to downplay the sin of worshipping false gods exists in tension with the standard Christian view, which condemns worship of anything but the one true God (e.g., Exodus 20:1–6).⁹²

The position staked out by Hobbes also stands in sharp contrast to how the ideal of the kingdom of God is imagined in Christian eschatology. The book of Revelation urges Christians to resist the worship of false gods as they await God’s ideal kingdom. The arrival of this kingdom will decisively put an end to such sinful practices, replacing them with the continual, public, and exclusive worship of the Lamb.⁹³ In Leviathan, Hobbes does affirm the coming prophetic kingdom of God where Christ will rule on earth.⁹⁴ But in conjunction with this orthodox belief, Hobbes adopts the more controversial view that the precursor to the coming prophetic kingdom – or, put another way, the current embodiment of God’s kingdom – is the natural kingdom of God. Hobbes’s description of this kingdom makes room for the worship of non-Christian gods, a view directly at odds with the biblical ideal of God’s kingdom.

Regardless of what religious practices it commands, the natural kingdom of God plays a key role in God’s plan for history according to Hobbes. The natural kingdom of God manifests itself as civil commonwealths, which protect individuals until Christ returns to establish the final prophetic kingdom of God. Unlike others who call for dramatic political action to help realize Christ’s kingdom, Hobbes does not believe that subjects of the natural kingdom of God can hasten the arrival of Christ’s kingdom. Cataclysm will visit the earth upon Christ’s return when a “Conflagration” consumes the wicked and refines the elect.⁹⁵ But Hobbes never indicates that God’s people will war against the godless as a prelude to Christ’s return. It is God alone who will bring about his kingdom on earth.⁹⁶

In line with this view, Hobbes uses the phrase “quiet waiting” in Behemoth to describe the period before Christ’s return⁹⁷ – an apt description for the Leviathan state given its role as the natural kingdom of God. With authority unified, the natural kingdom of God quietly safeguards individuals until Christ’s return. This arrangement represents the full manifestation of God’s kingdom in the present, in contrast to societies plagued by divided authority, instability, and civil war. Hobbes makes the hopeful point that the promise of peace is not delayed until Christ’s prophetic kingdom arrives, but is possible now through the natural kingdom of God.

With his concept of the natural kingdom of God, Hobbes seeks to transform and rehabilitate a Christian ideal long associated with political instability. In his view, those who claim that God’s kingdom will come through war and violence not only err in their prediction, but also set themselves up as enemies against God’s current kingdom. In response to those anxiously expecting, predicting, and trying to realize God’s kingdom, Hobbes says that it already exists in a real way on earth. It is standing right before them in the form of the civil commonwealth. The Leviathan is thus more than a vehicle for overcoming conflict between individuals: it takes on eschatological significance as a manifestation of God’s current kingdom.

Idealism without Perfection

The ideal of the kingdom of God plays a prominent role in Leviathan, which raises questions about idealism’s role in Hobbes’s thought. The kingdom of God represents the ultimate ideal that history is moving toward. By equating the Leviathan to God’s kingdom, Hobbes transports a divine ideal into the realm of human politics. Such language suggests a hope and idealism for politics that, at least on its surface, goes against the standard interpretation of Hobbes as the consummate realist.

Hobbes’s idealism has captured the interest of a number of scholars.⁹⁸ They include Richard Tuck, who goes so far as to argue that there is a utopian element in Leviathan.⁹⁹ In his view, Hobbes sets forth a political philosophy and theology designed to free individuals from fear’s paralyzing effects, and in this sense the work is utopian. Tuck is partly correct. Hobbes does cast doubt on sources of fear with destabilizing effects and seeks to ease readers’ concerns at various points in Leviathan. For instance, the laws of nature do not require great sacrifices but are easy to observe;¹⁰⁰ people need not live in constant threat of death but can find security within the Leviathan state;¹⁰¹ those damned will not face everlasting torment but the milder penalty of destruction;¹⁰² salvation does not demand mastering theology’s finer points but simply faith in Christ and obedience to the civil law;¹⁰³ and God rarely demands heroic acts of martyrdom but rather a quiet inner faith.¹⁰⁴ Through such principles, Hobbes aims to make the world less frightening.

It is important, though, to distinguish between how Hobbes embraces and rejects idealism. Often an imprecise term, idealism can mean “pursuit of an ideal.”¹⁰⁵ When the ideal pursued is a perfect polity, idealism has a meaning synonymous with utopianism. But utopian is the wrong term for Leviathan’s political philosophy, for it implies a level of perfection in politics that Hobbes rejects. In fact, at the end of Chapter 31 in the Latin edition, he dismisses utopian works like Plato’s Republic, Thomas More’s Utopia, and Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis, implying that it would be a mistake to associate Leviathan with such works.¹⁰⁶ This remark highlights Hobbes’s unease with utopian thought. Its political ambitions prompt concern because the relentless striving after utopia can lead to discontentment, instability, and even rebellion, which Hobbes observed on full display during the English Civil War.

So a more plausible reading of Leviathan is that it reveals Hobbes’s wariness toward utopian ideals that risk going unrealized and breeding dissatisfaction. Far from utopian, his idealism consists of adopting ideals that undermine political aspirations aimed at perfection. Rather than dismiss people’s ideals and utopian hopes as foolish or irrelevant to politics, Hobbes recognizes their power. As Sharon Lloyd points out, Hobbes formulates his political philosophy with the conviction that, to be successful, it must take seriously people’s ideals – especially religious ones – and find a place for them.¹⁰⁷ Hobbes accomplishes this goal by recognizing the ideals that motivate people, transforming them, and incorporating them into his political philosophy.

His concept of the natural kingdom of God reflects this strategy. Many hope for God’s perfect kingdom yet differ on what form it will take and how to achieve it. Competing visions of perfection lead to conflict, which Hobbes seeks to prevent by pointing to a more modest goal – the Leviathan state, understood as a form of God’s kingdom. Hobbes co-opts this biblical ideal in an effort to redirect utopian aspirations toward a more feasible vision of politics.

When describing the Leviathan state, Hobbes indicates in numerous places that his political ideal falls well short of perfection. One example comes from his explanation for choosing the term Leviathan to describe the sovereign. For Hobbes, the Old Testament beast known as leviathan symbolizes unparalleled greatness on earth, but also vulnerability. Quoting the description of the leviathan from Job 41:33, he writes, “There is nothing … on earth, to be compared with him. He is made so as not to be afraid.” Hobbes, however, adds that the leviathan “is mortall, and subject to decay, as all other Earthly creatures are.”¹⁰⁸ Though it aims for immortality, the sovereign faces numerous threats that render it mortal.¹⁰⁹ Even at his most hopeful, when suggesting that the principles of reason could make a commonwealth’s constitution “everlasting,” Hobbes concedes that external violence can frustrate this hope.¹¹⁰ In politics, individuals hope to construct a commonwealth that provides lasting security, and some commonwealths do endure for long periods. But on earth, at least at this point in history, no structures prove immortal.

The Leviathan’s imperfections go beyond its mortality. It also risks errors in governance, which can manifest themselves in egregious ways. Because of Hobbes’s understanding of sovereignty, it is impossible for the sovereign to break the civil law. The sovereign has absolute authority over the law and cannot be bound it. This idea comes with troubling implications for Hobbes’s political philosophy. The sovereign on a whim could put an innocent subject to death, robbing them of the very thing the sovereign is entrusted to protect – their life.

Hobbes does not try to explain away this possibility but admits it as a potential consequence of his concept of sovereignty. He writes: “[N]othing the Soveraign Representative can doe to a Subject, on what pretence soever, can properly be called Injustice, or Injury; because every Subject is Author of every act the Soveraign doth … . [T]he same holdeth … in a Soveraign Prince, that putteth to death an Innocent Subject.” To illustrate this point, he references the Old Testament story of Uriah, whom King David had killed in battle so as to take Uriah’s beautiful wife Bathsheba as his own (2 Samuel 11). In Hobbes’s view, when David killed Uriah, he committed no injury against Uriah but did commit an injury against God, since David was still God’s subject.¹¹¹ There is no guaranteed remedy in the Leviathan state to protect innocent subjects who find themselves under threat of death from their sovereign. In De Cive, Hobbes brings up figures far more reviled than David – Caligula and Nero – and similarly maintains their authority to kill subjects without cause.¹¹²

That danger casts a shadow over the Leviathan and its purported promise of peace. Hobbes attempts to allay concerns about arbitrary executions by arguing that vicious sovereigns usually only target those involved in political intrigue. If subjects avoid political agitation and live a quiet life, they usually escape persecution.¹¹³ That advice is somewhat ironic coming from Hobbes, given the controversy sparked by his writings and his need to cross the English Channel on multiple occasions to flee persecution.¹¹⁴ Moreover, such assurances ring somewhat hollow in light of the Uriah example. Uriah dutifully obeyed his sovereign to the point of risking his life in battle. In return, the sovereign stole Uriah’s wife and killed him. As Hobbes implicitly admits with this example, sovereigns can be petty and cruel, and sometimes there is little that obedient subjects can do to protect themselves.

Hobbes does allow subjects to resist the sovereign when their life is threatened, for they can never be obligated to willingly cede their right to life.¹¹⁵ But this point by Hobbes hardly implies that resistance is likely to succeed. With power unified in Hobbes’s ideal state, resistance has little chance of attracting others’ support and succeeding.¹¹⁶ The permission to resist when the sovereign threatens a subject’s life is a logical consequence of Hobbes’s political psychology, which treats self-preservation as the most fundamental motivation. But this concession should not be understood as a fail-safe mechanism to protect subjects from vicious sovereigns.

Ultimately, Hobbes permits a great deal of imperfection in his “ideal” state. He avoids whitewashing over all the Leviathan’s possible problems and instead sets forth an ideal with its fair share of warts. A more perfect ideal would be unattainable, and thus would encourage instability and a political situation far worse than the occasional evils plaguing the Leviathan. Rather than striving for heaven in the political sphere, Hobbes is more interested in an ideal that keeps hell at bay. Indeed, he rejects that there is any summum bonum (greatest good) that individuals can obtain, and treats it as a foolish goal to chase after.¹¹⁷ While philosophers and theologians endlessly debate the greatest good, Hobbes sees greater potential for agreement on the worst possible evil – anarchy, war, and violent death. People readily recognize this evil and its gravity, which makes it more promising as a starting point for political action.¹¹⁸ Hobbes therefore grounds his political philosophy in identifying the state of nature’s violence and insecurity as the worst possible evil that must be avoided above all else.

This mindset helps explain the enduring concern with apocalyptic thought in Hobbes’s writings. He condemns such thought, with its constant pursuit of perfection, for its destabilizing effects on politics. There is no better illustration for this point than the English Civil War. Recognizing the danger and power of apocalyptic ideals, Hobbes chooses to transform the ideal of the kingdom of God and incorporate it into his political philosophy. His concept of the natural kingdom of God links the Leviathan state with the apocalyptic ideal of God’s perfect kingdom.

What results is incongruence between the reality of the Leviathan and the biblical ideal it represents. Hobbes’s decision to identify the Leviathan state with the kingdom of God evokes the virtues of divine governance: permanence, unassailable authority, and perfect justice. Yet what Hobbes actually offers is a far more modest political arrangement: one that does not last forever and whose justice is imperfect. Worried about the disruptive consequences of chasing after utopia, he co-opts apocalyptic ideals to instill reverence for political structures that fall well short of perfection. It is only by tempering our visions of perfection, argues Hobbes, that politics has a chance to deliver on its promise of security.

5 Reimagining God’s Kingdom: Engels and Müntzer

It is a curious development that Thomas Müntzer came to occupy such a place of honor in Marxist thought.¹ Müntzer strikes a somewhat sad figure as a historical hero. He led a revolt that ended in disaster and the deaths of thousands of German peasants. In 1525, Müntzer managed to escape the bloody Battle of Frankenhausen with his life, but survived for only a short period thereafter. Following his defeat, the authorities tracked down Müntzer, coerced a confession from him through torture, beheaded him, and put his body on display as a warning to anyone else contemplating rebellion.² Müntzer met this fate while fighting for greater equality in the distribution of property, which is the primary reason for his appeal in the Marxist tradition. During his short revolutionary life, he relentlessly attacked those with wealth and power. Yet intermingled with this rhetoric was a deep religiosity at odds with Marxism’s avowed atheism. Still, a no less canonical figure than Friedrich Engels lauds Müntzer as a forerunner to Marxism, whose one fatal flaw was leading a revolution far ahead of its time.

Engels easily could have dismissed Müntzer as a religious fanatic. Hope in the imminent arrival of Christ’s kingdom pervades Müntzer’s writings and helped motivate his revolutionary actions. When he took up arms, he did so with the conviction that God would lead the peasants to victory over the corrupt ruling authorities and, in the process, realize his kingdom on earth. Such religious baggage fails to deter Engels from taking a keen interest in Müntzer, most notably in his 1850 work The Peasant War in Germany.³

Müntzer’s transformation into a Marxist hero, largely spurred by Engels’s praise of him, offers an example of how Christian apocalyptic thought becomes secularized. Here a secular thinker directly engages with a figure in the Christian apocalyptic tradition, as well as texts from that tradition like the book of Revelation.⁴ Engels’s study of apocalyptic thought leads him to conclude that aspects of it prove valuable for interpreting politics. His writings thus provide fertile ground for exploring apocalyptic thought’s appeal for politics, even to thinkers without strong religious commitments.

Toward that end, the first step is to understand Müntzer’s vision for apocalyptic change and its parallels to Marxism. In his writings, Müntzer espouses a cataclysmic understanding of apocalyptic thought, in which God uses crisis to wipe away earthly corruption and usher in his perfect kingdom. Related beliefs are found in Marxist thought, with the twist that economic rather than divine forces guide crisis to the ideal society where the proletariat will rule. Through his interpretation of Müntzer, Engels strengthens the parallels between Marxism and Christian apocalyptic thought. According to Engels, when Müntzer seeks after the kingdom of God, he is actually pursuing a communist ideal that emphasizes economic rather than spiritual renewal.

It is important to exercise caution when identifying links between Marxism and Christian apocalyptic thought. Some try to undermine Marxism’s credibility by dismissing it as a secularized version of Christian eschatology.⁵ Such criticisms often lack textual evidence and resort to extraordinary interpretive leaps to make their case. In response, some argue that we would be better off abandoning the premise behind the criticism – that Marxism is indebted to apocalyptic thought for its theory.⁶

Ultimately, that view proves less than satisfying. It is true that interpretations motivated by ideology sometimes use the concept of secular apocalyptic thought as a weapon to undermine Marxism rather than as a tool to better understand it. But denying any meaningful connection between Marxism and Christian apocalyptic thought also has drawbacks. That interpretation fails to make sense of why thinkers like Engels repeatedly return to Christian apocalyptic thought as an interpretive lens for understanding politics.

Here the goal is to stake out a more compelling approach. Though Karl Marx and Engels do not draw directly on Christian apocalyptic belief to develop Marxism, these two systems of thought share key features with each other. Specifically, the concept of crisis plays a key role in resolving a tension inherent in Marxism: its dual commitment to offering a theory that is both utopian and feasible. In Marxism and the Christian apocalyptic tradition, crisis brings utopia within reach. That shared feature helps explain why Engels finds elements of Christian apocalyptic thought appealing, and why such thought interests secular thinkers engaged in the task of imagining a path to the ideal state.

Müntzer’s Vision for Apocalyptic Change

When writing about Müntzer, Engels stresses that much of his thought was at odds with Christian orthodoxy. He certainly has good reason to see many aspects of Müntzer’s thought as radical. But, as we will see, Engels goes beyond just arguing that Müntzer pushes the bounds of orthodoxy. He claims that Müntzer may have left Christianity behind altogether. Müntzer’s own writings fail to back up this interpretation, however, and make clear that his apocalyptic vision remains thoroughly Christian in its assumptions.

Within the context of the Reformation, Müntzer is part of what is called the Radical Reformation. This movement believed that initial reformers, like Martin Luther, did not go far enough in their calls for religious and political change. The Radical Reformation was incredibly diverse, consisting of figures who often disagreed with each other.⁷ This diversity has led to confusion over Müntzer’s thought, with the labels applied to him ranging from atheist to Anabaptist.⁸

Müntzer’s ties to the Anabaptists are tenuous. It is true that he rejects the practice of infant baptism, thus embracing a core tenet of Anabaptism.⁹ But there is no evidence that Müntzer participated in the practice of believers’ baptism – the most distinctive feature of the Anabaptist movement – where one would be baptized as an adult in a public profession of faith and sign of joining the church.¹⁰ A 1524 letter to Müntzer from Conrad Grebel and the Swiss Brethren, who initiated the practice of believers’ baptism, reveals the differences between them. Though Grebel and his companions praise some of Müntzer’s teachings, like his rejection of infant baptism and condemnation of church corruption, they find fault with his endorsement of violence and other aspects of his theology.¹¹ The Swiss Brethren certainly had an interest in Müntzer, but some of his beliefs – most notably his reliance on the sword to advance God’s kingdom – differ in important respects from those of the mostly pacifist Anabaptists.

The historian William Estep uses the term “inspirationist” to describe Müntzer, which provides some clarity in distinguishing him from the Anabaptists.¹² Müntzer does not reject the Bible’s authority, but does emphasize the Holy Spirit as a source of inspiration and revelation that continues to speak to God’s elect. For inspirationists like Müntzer, relying solely on the Bible proves insufficient for learning God’s truth in all its fullness.

This feature of Müntzer’s thought comes under harsh criticism from Luther and other contemporaries. Luther scoffs at the idea that a heavenly spirit inspires Müntzer’s teachings, calling any spirit in him “evil,” whose fruits are “the destruction of churches and cloisters.”¹³ Despite this criticism, it is important to keep in mind that Müntzer understands his belief in inspiration as wholly compatible with scripture. Indeed, his writings are littered with scriptural references offered as evidence for his claims. Scripture from his perspective shows that God’s spirit, not theologians, must be the source of truth for believers. In his Manifest Exposé of False Faith, Müntzer writes: “Everyone must receive the knowledge of God, the true Christian faith, not from the stinking breath of the devilish biblical scholars, but from the eternal, powerful word of the father in the son as explained by the holy spirit … Eph[esians] 3.”¹⁴ By carefully listening to and sharing the message of God’s spirit, Müntzer believes that he is one of the faithful few following the Lord and not deaf to his voice.

For Müntzer, it is clear that God’s spirit is communicating to him an apocalyptic vision for society. This idea pervades both his early and late writings. In Müntzer’s view, he is among God’s elect living at a critical juncture in history. Soon God will no longer tolerate earthly corruption and will intervene to cast down the wicked to establish his kingdom. This basic insight appears in the Prague Manifesto from 1521, Müntzer’s first major work. There he writes: “[E]rrors [in the church] had to take place so that all men’s deeds, those of the elect and those of the damned, could flourish freely until our time when God will separate out the tares from the wheat.”¹⁵ Müntzer infuses this parable from Matthew 13:24–30 with added urgency by proclaiming that it will be realized in “our time.” He also believes that he has a special role to play in the upcoming harvest: “The time of harvest has come! That is why he [God] himself has hired me for his harvest. I have sharpened my sickle, for my thoughts yearn for the truth and with my lips, skin, hands, hair, soul, body and life I call down curses on the unbelievers.”¹⁶

So Müntzer sees himself as God’s chosen agent to advance his kingdom, whose violent arrival is imminent. In fact, his vision for societal transformation embodies all the elements of cataclysmic apocalyptic thought – beliefs in present corruption, impending crisis, a divine force guiding crisis, and finally utopia in the form of the kingdom of God.¹⁷

Müntzer’s writings make clear that he views society as plagued by deep and entrenched corruption. A letter from 1521 proclaims that the “time of the Antichrist is upon us.”¹⁸ For Müntzer, the world has entered a period of corruption foretold by scripture, where the godless rule both inside and outside the church. People find themselves living under “unintelligent rulers who offend against all equity and do not accept the word of God.”¹⁹ False priests exude an air of learning, but in fact are “lacking in judgment,” as they lead many astray with their sham authority to teach scripture.²⁰ Given its pervasiveness among those in authority, the corruption of Müntzer’s day puts enormous pressure on people to turn away from God.

In his bleak account of society, Müntzer sees a silver lining. Present corruption provides an opportunity for the elect to sharpen their faith and prove their commitment to God. Indeed, in Müntzer’s view, true faith only comes through enduring severe trials and persecution. As he puts it in On Counterfeit Faith, “Hell has to be endured, before one can take due precautions against its engulfing gates, with all their wiles.”²¹ Similarly, in a letter from 1524, he writes: “One has to walk in the mortification of the flesh every single moment; in particular our reputation has to stink in the nostrils of the godless. Then the person who has been tested can preach.”²² This vivid imagery emphasizes to the elect that they must leave behind creature comforts and dreams of gaining respect from society’s ruling powers. God uses evil in the world to break the faithful until they wholly submit to him. He “makes the tyrants rage more,” stresses Müntzer, “so that the countenance of his elect is covered in shame and vice and they are driven to seek the name and glory and honour of God alone.”²³ In the midst of such corruption, the elect ultimately reach a point where nothing – from “tyrants” to a “sack of gunpowder” – can stop them from venturing their “body, goods and honour for the sake of God.”²⁴

This conflict between the elect and the godless gives birth to crisis and violence. The coming crisis will be bloody and plunge society into great upheaval, but is necessary according to Müntzer. Corrupt rulers currently in place lack legitimacy, and God will not allow them stay in power forever. “A true Christianity for our days,” writes Müntzer, “will soon be in full swing despite all the previous corruption.”²⁵ Before true Christianity arrives, the authority of corrupt rulers will crumble – a prediction Müntzer makes by drawing on the apocalyptic book of Daniel. The demise of the final corrupt empire foretold in Daniel “is now in full swing.”²⁶ The event that deprives the wicked of authority once and for all has already begun in Müntzer’s view.

His enthusiasm for societal upheaval elicits the rebuke of his contemporaries. The reformer Johann Agricola condemns him for breathing out “nothing but slaughter and blood.”²⁷ Luther, never shy in his criticism of Müntzer, calls him the “archdevil who rules at Mühlhausen, and does nothing except stir up robbery, murder, and bloodshed.”²⁸ In Müntzer’s defense, there are instances where he counsels restraint. For example, in a 1523 letter to followers at Stolberg, he urges them to refrain from rebellion.²⁹ Nevertheless, despite the occasional calls for peace, violent language runs throughout Müntzer’s writings. In a 1524 letter he proclaims: “[T]he time has come when a bloodbath will befall this obstinate world because of its unbelief.”³⁰ His celebration of violence alarms rulers fearful that the Reformation will turn into widespread rebellion. Müntzer, though, sees no reason to fear the violent crisis beginning to engulf society, for he is assured that it will bring the elect to power.

His optimism about the coming crisis stems from his conviction that it is part of a divine plan. The violence and upheaval starting to break out during his lifetime are not without purpose, but signs that God is intervening to make way for his kingdom. In this final stage of history, Müntzer emphasizes that the elect will be active participants in making God’s kingdom on earth a reality. Initially, he believes that a few righteous rulers will rise up to defend the elect, dispatch the wicked, and help bring about God’s kingdom. Yet if the princes fail to seize this opportunity, God will find others to do his work.

Müntzer communicates this warning to Frederick III, Elector of Saxony: “[T]he people … should love princes rather than fear them: Romans 13. Princes hold no terrors for the pious. But should that change, then the sword will be taken from them and will be given to the people who burn with zeal so that the godless can be defeated, Daniel 7; and then that noble jewel, peace, will be in abeyance on earth. Revelation 6.”³¹ Whereas Luther cites Romans 13 – “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities … [which] have been instituted by God” – as a general command for subjects to obey their rulers,³² Müntzer focuses on what he sees as the conditional nature of this command.³³ The people should obey only if their rulers act as God’s servants and, in Paul’s words, “are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad” (Romans 13:3).³⁴ Princes are called as God’s servants to implement his plan for the end times, yet if they fail to, God will empower others to carry it out.

Müntzer expresses this point most forcefully in his Sermon to the Princes, preached to Duke John of Saxony and his son John Frederick in 1524. The sermon makes an urgent plea for the princes to delay no longer in taking action. The time has come for them to “sweep aside those evil men who obstruct the gospel” and to take “them out of circulation!”³⁵ Violent imagery runs throughout the sermon, as Müntzer argues that it is the duty of godly princes to slaughter corrupt religious authorities.³⁶ He offers himself to the princes as a “new Daniel” who will help them “grasp the plight of the Christian people” persecuted by false clergy and criminals.³⁷ If the princes truly comprehend the depths of current corruption, they will embrace their role as God’s chosen instruments to drive “his enemies away from the elect.”³⁸ Godly princes are best positioned to carry out “in a fair and orderly manner” this important task. But if they fail to do so, cautions Müntzer, “the sword will be taken from them.”³⁹

This attempt to rally the princes to action ultimately fails. As a result, Müntzer loses all hope that they will lead the way in fulfilling God’s plan for apocalyptic change. The princes become part of the corruption he sees all around him: “they do violence to everyone, flay and fleece the poor farm worker, tradesman and everything that breathes,” while hanging the poor who “commit the pettiest crime.”⁴⁰ One of his later letters uses vivid imagery from Ezekiel 39 to describe the fate awaiting corrupt rulers: “God instructs all the birds of the heavens to consume the flesh of the princes.”⁴¹ Such disillusionment leads Müntzer to place his hope in the people and conclude it is God’s plan “that power should be given to the common man.”⁴² But the people must seize the opportunity before them, and not let the “sword grow cold” in dispatching the godless.⁴³

On the other side of all this bloodshed lies utopia, God’s perfect kingdom. This aspect of Müntzer’s apocalyptic vision is the one least developed in his writings. He dedicates most of his energy to urging the elect to take dramatic action to topple corrupt rulers and bring about God’s kingdom. Assured of the kingdom of God’s imminent arrival and its worthiness as an object of sacrifice, Müntzer feels little need to speculate at great length on what it will look like. He does predict that, when the elect sacrifice and suffer for God’s sake, they will “lay hold on the whole wide world, which will acquire a Christian government that no sack of gunpowder can ever topple.”⁴⁴

Engels on Religion and Apocalyptic Thought

So despite his radicalism, Müntzer remains thoroughly Christian in his worldview and vision for the future – his writings leave little doubt on this point. Shortly we will turn to how Engels interprets and transforms Müntzer. But before doing so, it is important to examine Engels’s own views on religion and apocalyptic thought, for they serve as the interpretative lens through which he studies Müntzer.

It comes as little surprise that, as an atheist, Engels is often dismissive toward religion. Nonetheless, his articles “The Book of Revelation” and “On the History of Early Christianity” show a genuine interest in apocalyptic belief. These different currents in Engels’s thought result in a perspective that rejects religion’s truth while recognizing its power, especially when it takes apocalyptic form.

Historical materialism provides the foundation for how Engels understands religion. This perspective sees economic relations as producing moral and religious beliefs that usually legitimize existing political and economic structures.⁴⁵ In the hands of the oppressed classes, morality and religion can become an outlet to express discontent with existing power relations. These beliefs, however, lack a feasible program to transform power relations so that they benefit the poor.⁴⁶

As the capitalist system comes under increased strain and history marches toward a world embodying Marxist ideals, Engels is confident that religion eventually will become a vestige of the past. Religion, he argues, “will be no lasting safeguard to capitalist society. If our juridical, philosophical, and religious ideas are the more or less remote offshoots of the economical relations prevailing in a given society, such ideas cannot, in the long run, withstand the effects of a complete change in these relations.”⁴⁷ This position aligns with an idea advanced by Marx early in his writings: “To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of the people is to demand their real happiness.”⁴⁸ In short, the realization of Marxist principles will render religion obsolete by meeting people’s real needs, which religion has repeatedly failed to do.

Though Marx and Engels fundamentally agree in their views on religion, the latter’s writings reveal greater engagement with and curiosity in the subject. Notably, Engels exhibits an enduring interest in apocalyptic thought. Beyond just his study of Müntzer, he repeatedly returns to apocalyptic texts like the book of Revelation.

Based on the research available to him at the time (later discredited),⁴⁹ Engels takes Revelation to be the earliest Christian literature to survive.⁵⁰ To him, Revelation represents “with the most naïve fidelity” the ideas at the core of early Christianity.⁵¹ He sees much in Revelation to commend, which is lost in later forms of Christianity. As he argues in “On the History of Early Christianity,” Revelation is gritty and combative, a feature it shares with modern socialists:

Here we have neither the dogma nor the morals of later Christianity, but instead a feeling that one is struggling against the whole world and that the struggle will be a victorious one; an eagerness for struggle and a certainty of victory which are totally lacking in the Christians of today and which are to be found in our time only at the other pole of society, among the socialists.⁵²

Engels also conveys this idea in “The Book of Revelation,” where he notes that early Christianity and modern socialism both captivate the attention of the masses through a message “opposed to the ruling system, to ‘the powers that be.’ ”⁵³

So Engels’s affinity for Revelation is evident from the parallels he draws between early Christianity and modern socialism. Both appeal to the oppressed and persecuted by offering a path to salvation that previously seemed beyond reach. Engels strikes a hopeful tone when noting that socialism looks destined to follow and surpass Christianity in its ability to spread throughout the world:

[I]n spite of all persecution, nay, even spurred on by it, [Christians and socialists] forge victoriously, irresistibly ahead. Three hundred years after its appearance Christianity was the recognised state religion in the Roman World Empire, and in barely sixty years socialism has won itself a position which makes its victory absolutely certain.⁵⁴

Engels recognizes in early Christianity, especially in its apocalyptic beliefs, the power to spur a worldwide movement. This appeal resembles what drives people to join the growing socialist movement, even in the face of persecution.

It is important not to overstate Engels’s appreciation for and interest in Christian apocalyptic thought. Engels never implies that the claims in Revelation are valid. In fact, he takes a dismissive attitude toward much of the book. He scoffs at commentators who “expect [Revelation’s] prophecies are still to come off, after more than 1,800 years,” given that its author thought the realization of his predictions were “at hand.”⁵⁵ Engels also argues that biblical criticism has revealed the origin of all John’s images and signs, showing his “great poverty of mind” and “that he never experienced even in the imagination the alleged ecstasies and visions he describes.”⁵⁶ While noting some redeeming aspects of Revelation and early Christianity, Engels never deviates from his underlying skepticism toward religion.

The greatest limitation that Engels identifies in Christian apocalyptic thought is not its bizarre imagery and prophecies, but its failure to prioritize the transformation of this world. Practices resembling socialism did appear in early Christianity, notes Engels. Yet these practices remained limited because early Christianity focused not on accomplishing “social transformation in this world, but in the hereafter, in heaven, in eternal life after death, in the impending ‘millennium.’”⁵⁷ From Engels’s perspective, any ideology that downplays the importance of addressing injustice in the present is impoverished and should be rejected.

In sum, Engels does find value in Christian apocalyptic thought – specifically, in its power to inspire challenges to those in power. But this tradition of thought, like other forms of religious thought, ultimately falls short in specifying a concrete program to remedy the ills that prompt people to turn to religion in the first place.

Reinterpreting the Kingdom of God

Given Engels’s view that Christian apocalyptic thought fails to provide meaningful guidance in the present, it seems that he would find little value in its ideal of the kingdom of God – the ultimate end toward which history is moving according to the Christian perspective. Yet when Engels turns his attention to Müntzer, he comes across a conception of the kingdom of God that intrigues him. As Engels interprets him, Müntzer reimagines the kingdom of God as a communist ideal that inspires societal transformation. By using apocalyptic thought to fight economic exploitation, Müntzer overcomes a common concern with such thought – its purported lack of concern for addressing injustices here on earth. Engels thus finds in Müntzer’s thought an apocalyptic vision that earns his respect.

In his work The Peasant War in Germany, Engels opts for an understanding of Müntzer that heightens his appeal within Marxism. According to this view, Müntzer largely abandons Christianity and comes close to embracing atheism. Engels paints a portrait of Müntzer no longer bound by Christianity and the Bible, but guided by reason alone:

His philosophico-theological doctrine attacked all the main points not only of Catholicism, but of Christianity generally. In the form of Christianity he preached a kind of pantheism, which curiously resembled modern speculative contemplation and at times even approached atheism. He repudiated the Bible both as the only and as the infallible revelation. The real and living revelation, he said, was reason, a revelation that has existed at all times and still exists among all peoples. To hold up the Bible against reason, he maintained, was to kill the spirit with the letter, for the Holy Spirit of which the Bible speaks is not something that exists outside us – the Holy Spirit is our reason.⁵⁸

This convenient interpretation makes it easier for communists to identify with Müntzer. Engels himself makes this connection: “As Münzer’s religious philosophy approached atheism, so his political programme approached communism.”⁵⁹ The more atheist Müntzer appears, the more appealing his thought becomes from a Marxist perspective. And toward that end, Engels transforms Müntzer from a religious zealot confident he was fulfilling biblical prophecies into a Marxist hero guided by reason in his fight against irrationality and economic exploitation.

With this carefully crafted interpretation, Engels portrays Müntzer as a visionary, one of the few Reformation figures who pinpointed the real sources of the conflict. According to Engels, the religious wars of the sixteenth century were in reality “class struggles … clothed in religious shibboleths.”⁶⁰ In the midst of this struggle, Müntzer represents for Engels the first to give voice to those factions in society without property. Whereas his contemporaries were concerned with protecting the status quo or pursuing apocalyptic fantasies, only in Müntzer’s teachings does one find “communist notions” calling for radically altered property relations.⁶¹

When emphasizing Müntzer’s egalitarian commitments, Engels does bring attention to a real element of his thought. In his writings, Müntzer passionately condemns existing property relations and their immense harms on the peasant class, which explains why Engels is drawn to him. According to Müntzer, princes fall into the same category as robbers and thieves because they steal from the poor and claim all creatures on earth to be their property.⁶² Such views elicited the ire of authorities, evident from the charges against him. These included starting a revolt “with the aim of making all Christians equal” and creating a community where all “things are to be held in common and distribution should be to each according to his need.”⁶³ Engels may exaggerate in places, but he is correct in stressing Müntzer’s concerns with the oppressive nature of existing property relations.

These concerns lead Engels to conclude that Müntzer understands the kingdom of God differently from his predecessors. It is here that Engels takes the most liberties in his interpretation of Müntzer. Engels starts from the assumption that Müntzer equates faith and reason. He then proceeds to argue that, for Müntzer, reason makes individuals “godlike and blessed. Heaven is, therefore, nothing of another world and is to be sought in this life. It is the mission of believers to establish this Heaven, the kingdom of God, here on earth. Just as there is no Heaven in the beyond, there is also no Hell and no damnation.”⁶⁴ Müntzer, as construed by Engels, sweeps away Christianity’s otherworldly distractions to focus on the heart of the matter: creating a radically new society that realizes heaven in the here and now.

In addition to locating Müntzer’s vision for God’s kingdom on earth, Engels claims that this kingdom embodies communist ideals. Müntzer’s political program, writes Engels, is “a brilliant anticipation of the conditions for the emancipation of the proletarian element that had scarcely begun” during his life. This program specifically takes the form of a call for “the immediate establishment of the kingdom of God on Earth, of the prophesied millennium.” By kingdom of God, continues Engels, Müntzer “meant a society with no class differences, no private property and no state authority independent of, and foreign to, the members of society. All existing authorities, insofar as they refused to submit and join the revolution, were to be overthrown, all work and all property shared in common, and complete equality introduced.” Müntzer is not content just to pray and hope for this ideal, but commits to “overthrow or kill” all who stand in its way.⁶⁵ For Engels, Müntzer transforms the kingdom of God into an ideal that promotes revolution on earth.

For Engels, Müntzer’s ideas were ahead of his time – in fact, too far ahead of his time. During the Reformation, property relations had not developed and reached a point of crisis where a figure like Müntzer could successfully launch a revolution in line with Marxist principles. As Engels puts it, “Not only the movement of his time, but also the age, were not ripe for the ideas of which [Müntzer] himself had only a faint notion. The class which he represented was still in its birth throes. It was far from developed enough to assume leadership over, and to transform, society.”⁶⁶ Müntzer stands as an early harbinger of the modern proletarian movement.⁶⁷ Yet the “chasm between his theories and the surrounding realities” proved too great for Müntzer, which is why his revolutionary program ultimately failed.⁶⁸

Engels’s interpretation of Müntzer has proven incredibly influential, ensuring the German reformer a place of honor in the communist tradition. Statues, stamps, and other imagery from the communist era in East Germany, for instance, celebrate Müntzer as a hero and patriot (see Figure 5.1). Though successful in bringing greater attention to Müntzer, Engels’s account has the weakness of putting forward a portrait of Müntzer at odds with the reformer’s own writings. Engels asserts that the dominant culture at the time forced Müntzer to conceal his doctrines in “Christian phraseology.”⁶⁹ But he offers no evidence for this claim, and it is difficult to square with Müntzer’s heavy reliance on scripture and claims to be God’s chosen servant. If Müntzer’s faith is an act, it certainly is an elaborate one, for he never shows any hints of deviating from it in his public life or private writings.

Figure 5.1 East German stamp of Thomas Müntzer

This stamp from the communist era portrays Müntzer as a “German patriot”⁷⁰

A more parsimonious explanation is that Müntzer’s frequent references to God and scripture stem from sincere Christian beliefs. As the earlier overview of Müntzer’s thought makes clear, a Christian apocalyptic worldview permeates his writings. It is true that Müntzer calls for radical change on earth, as Engels notes. But for Müntzer, such change is possible only because God is empowering the elect to realize his kingdom. Nothing in Müntzer’s writings suggests that he abandons his Christian faith in favor of atheism. So rather than give the most accurate account of Müntzer’s thought, Engels molds it to make it compatible with Marxism.

The Inadequacy of Utopian Socialism

Engels secularizes Müntzer by downplaying the Christian elements in his thought and reinterpreting his conception of the kingdom of God. Below we will explore why Engels would interpret Müntzer in this way. But to answer that question, first it is important to understand parallels between Marxism and Christian apocalyptic thought. The goal here is not to repeat the facile criticism that Marxism lacks originality and just repackages Christian apocalyptic beliefs. It rather is to identify points of convergence between Marxism and apocalyptic thought so as to highlight what makes Müntzer’s thought appealing to Engels.

The parallels between Marxism and cataclysmic apocalyptic thought emerge most prominently in Marx and Engels’s criticism of what they call utopian socialism. In the Communist Manifesto, they describe utopian socialists as rejecting “all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavour, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel.”⁷¹ In their view, utopian socialism takes a naïve understanding of social change: someone just needs to come up with the right idea and implement it peacefully and gradually, starting with small experiments, then the ideal society will follow. This approach, warn Marx and Engels, ignores the decisive role that economic forces play in shaping history.

In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, Engels contrasts utopian socialism with scientific socialism, which for him is Marxism. He dismisses utopian socialists for seeing no connection between their theories and “the chain of historical development.” From their perspective, they “might just as well have been born 500 years earlier, and might then have spared humanity 500 years of error, strife, and suffering.”⁷² This understanding of social change, which takes a reformer’s eureka moment as the impetus for such change, strikes Engels as hopelessly simplistic. He instead stresses that society advances toward the ideal as a result of changing economic forces. For theorists committed to scientific socialism, their duty is to understand those forces, how they develop, and what impact their future development will have. When economic forces are examined through a Marxist lens, the transition to the ideal society ceases to be as convenient and smooth as utopian socialism suggests.

Marxism offers a scientific approach to understanding socialism and its development, argues Engels, grounded in two concepts: historical materialism and surplus value.⁷³ Historical materialism expresses the idea that “the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men’s brains, not in man’s better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.”⁷⁴ Importantly, Marxism takes economic and political crisis as an inescapable part of the transition to socialism.

Why is crisis inevitable? The answer lies in the other concept Engels singles out: surplus value. Capitalists amass wealth by extracting surplus value from their workers – that is, the value of workers’ labor that exceeds their pay.⁷⁵ Competition puts pressure on capitalists to increase their profits and technology makes each worker more productive, which together lead to the extraction of more and more surplus value from the workers. This exploitation ensures an increasingly impoverished proletariat relative to the bourgeoisie, as the wealth gap and antagonism between the two classes grow. These economic developments set in motion a crisis for capitalism – the rise of the bourgeoisie’s “own grave-diggers,” as the Communist Manifesto puts it.⁷⁶ The growing wealth gap that comes with modern industry produces a proletariat more acutely aware of its exploitation. Moreover, proletarians work closely together in factories, which makes it easier for them to organize. Eventually, the power of the proletariat overwhelms the capitalist system, resulting in a revolution where the “proletariat seizes political power and turns the means of production into State property.”⁷⁷

There is, of course, much debate in Marxist theory on what exactly the crisis and revolution leading to capitalism’s collapse will look like. At the time of the Communist Manifesto in 1848, Marx and Engels envisioned socialism coming “only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”⁷⁸ Within Marxism, Vladimir Lenin’s theory of revolution – outlined on the eve of the Russian Revolution in The State and Revolution – argues perhaps most strongly that socialism only comes through violence. The “liberation of the oppressed class,” writes Lenin, is possible only with a “violent revolution” and “the destruction of the apparatus of state power which was created by the ruling class.”⁷⁹ The crisis giving birth to the communist state, in Lenin’s view, is necessarily a violent revolution led by the vanguard of the proletariat. Regardless of whether Leninism is a perversion of Marxism or its fullest realization, it is hard to deny that there are resources in Marx and Engels’s writings – which Lenin cites at length – for making the case that the communist revolution comes violently.

A few passages by Marx and Engels leave open the possibility of a peaceful transition to socialism, at least in some places. Speaking in 1872, Marx identifies several nations – America, England, and perhaps Holland – “where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means.”⁸⁰ Similarly, Engels speaks glowingly of advances made by communism in the wake of universal suffrage. He notes the irony of communists – “the ‘revolutionaries,’ the ‘overthrowers’ ” – “thriving far better on legal methods than on illegal methods and overthrow.”⁸¹ So there also are resources in Marxist theory for the view that nonviolent revolution can bring about socialism.

Still, granting the possibility of nonviolent revolution does not eliminate crisis’s role in Marxism. According to Marxist theory, human welfare does not improve gradually and steadily. Instead, social, political, and economic conditions must worsen before they can get better. Exploitation of the workers increases as capitalism develops, before culminating in a crisis that brings the communist ideal within reach. Regardless of whether the revolution is peaceful or violent, crisis is unavoidable in the Marxist understanding of how history unfolds.

Marxism’s reliance on crisis to explain social change gives it a structure with similarities to cataclysmic apocalyptic thought. From the Marxist perspective, corruption infects capitalist society in the form of widespread exploitation of the working class. This exploitation ultimately proves unsustainable, as the antagonism between the proletariat and bourgeoisie reaches a crisis point that sets in motion capitalism’s collapse. What ensues is more than mere chaos, since economic forces empower the proletariat to take the reins of political power. The dictatorship of the proletariat ends economic exploitation and brings to a close the long history in which one class oppressed another. With the arrival of communism, the state eventually withers away and the Marxist vision of utopia becomes a reality. In sum, the Marxist understanding of social change – corruption, crisis, economic forces guiding crisis to its intended end, and utopia – contains all the elements of cataclysmic apocalyptic thought in secular form.

Engels, Marxism, and Apocalyptic Hope

To suggest that Marxism shares features with Christianity – in particular, apocalyptic thought – is by no means a new claim. Numerous interpreters make this claim, which often serves the goal of criticizing Marxism. With varying levels of sophistication, political theorists, theologians, and others make the case that Marxism’s ties to religion are deep and inescapable. The diverse charges leveled against Marxism include that it is a philosophy motivated by apocalyptic hope,⁸² the exhortations of a prophet,⁸³ a secularized religion,⁸⁴ a Christian heresy,⁸⁵ and the god that failed.⁸⁶ Abraham Friesen sums up the perceived connection between Marxism and Christian apocalyptic thought, evident in the former’s fascination with figures like Müntzer: “The ultimate goal of Müntzer and Marx were identical, but the means of arriving at the goal were different. Would God or man overcome tensions in society and establish the Kingdom of God on earth? … One could quibble over the means, but the goal remained the same.”⁸⁷ At its heart, argues Friesen, Marxism is a utopian philosophy like apocalyptic Christianity. It only departs from Christianity in its belief that human forces, not divine ones, will realize the ideal society.

Some object to this characterization of Marxism. Roland Boer rejects the notion that there are significant ties between Marxism and apocalyptic thought.⁸⁸ This “infamous” charge (in Boer’s words) certainly catches people’s attention.⁸⁹ As “soon as one raises the question of Marxism and religion in a gathering,” writes Boer, “at least one person will jump at the bait and insist that Marxism is a form of secularised eschatology … . These proponents argue that Jewish and Christian thought has influenced the Marxist narrative of history, which is but a pale copy of its original.” That argument, he continues, usually “is used as ammunition in the hands of conservative and liberal critics.”⁹⁰

In Boer’s reading of Marx and Engels, such criticism has little textual basis. Of the two, Engels shows more interest in apocalyptic thought, evident in his writings on Revelation and Müntzer. But once you dig into these texts, contends Boer, it becomes clear that “Engels was not the conduit for eschatological or apocalyptic themes in Marxism.” As evidence, Boer cites Engels’s conclusions on the book of Revelation: “By the 1850s, Engels … argued that [Revelation] was a purely historical text, giving us a window into early Christianity.”⁹¹ So according to Boer, Revelation for Engels amounts to nothing more than a historical artifact, which has little influence on his philosophy.

Boer makes several compelling points when casting doubt on the idea that Marxism is apocalyptic Christianity in secular garb. He is right that such criticisms often are reactionary attacks with little interest in better understanding Marxism.⁹² Given Marxism’s claims to be scientific, comparing it to religious belief is an easy way to discredit it. Boer is also right to emphasize that there is no evidence that Marx and Engels appropriate elements from Christian apocalyptic thought when formulating Marxism. The suggestion that Christian apocalyptic thought provides the foundation for Marxism is speculation with little textual evidence. Marx and Engels never explicitly draw on Revelation or other apocalyptic writings when developing Marxism’s core concepts. There are good reasons, then, for Boer’s skepticism.

But in expressing this skepticism, Boer defends conclusions that prove too strong. He argues that the apocalyptic beliefs of Revelation are merely historical artifacts with little relevance to Engels’s understanding of politics in the Industrial Age. For Boer, Engels’s real interest in Revelation lies in identifying the book as the earliest Christian writing, which best captures Christianity’s revolutionary nature.⁹³ It is here that Boer’s interpretation goes awry, for he assumes that Engels sees the revolutionary elements in Revelation and early Christianity as distinct from their apocalyptic elements. If Revelation best captures the heart of early Christianity in Engels’s view, that suggests he understands early Christianity as fundamentally apocalyptic in its outlook.

In fact, for Engels, it is precisely Christianity’s apocalyptic outlook that made it revolutionary. He makes that argument in “On the History of Early Christianity.” This work notes that Revelation relentlessly attacks the ruling powers, whose corruption stands in sharp contrast to God’s ideal kingdom. By urging people to reject the corrupt present and set their sights instead on the ideal to come, early Christianity inspired masses of followers in the midst of crisis and persecution. This feature of early Christianity, argues Engels, resembles the process by which modern socialism achieves explosive growth. Despite being persecuted, socialists – like the early Christians – are thriving and positioning themselves to take over society.⁹⁴

He echoes this point in his introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France, one of Engels’s last writings before his death in 1895. The text concludes by discussing Christianity’s ability to flourish in the midst of crisis, while suggesting that the socialist movement has this same strength. The passage captures Engels’s fascination with the power of apocalyptic hope:

It is now, almost to the year, sixteen centuries since a dangerous party of overthrow was likewise active in the Roman empire. It undermined religion and all the foundations of the state; it flatly denied that Caesar’s will was the supreme law; it was without a fatherland, was international; it spread over the whole empire, from Gaul to Asia, and beyond the frontiers of the empire. It had long carried on seditious activities underground in secret; for a considerable time, however, it had felt itself strong enough to come out into the open. This party of overthrow, which was known by the name of Christians, was also strongly represented in the army … . The Emperor Diocletian … stepped in with vigour, while there was still time. He promulgated an anti-Socialist – I beg your pardon, I meant to say anti-Christian – law. The meetings of the overthrowers were forbidden, their meeting halls were closed or even pulled down, the Christian emblems, crosses, etc., were, like the red handkerchiefs in Saxony, prohibited. Christians were declared ineligible for holding public office; they were not to be allowed to become even corporals … . Christians were forbidden out of hand to seek justice before a court. Even this exceptional law was to no avail. The Christians tore it down from the walls with scorn; they are even supposed to have set fire to the Emperor’s palace in Nicomedia in his presence. Then the latter revenged himself by the great persecution of Christians in the year 303 A.D. It was the last of its kind. And it was so effective that seventeen years later the army consisted overwhelmingly of Christians, and the succeeding autocrat of the whole Roman empire, Constantine, called the Great by the priests, proclaimed Christianity the state religion.⁹⁵

Engels highlights how socialism mirrors early Christianity. Despite constant attacks from the ruling powers, Christianity’s apocalyptic message found a way to triumph. Socialism will also triumph, but its victory will be far more complete and lasting. For Engels, the key difference between these movements is that modern socialism, unlike early Christianity, is correct in its prescriptions and vision for social change. Whereas early Christianity ultimately failed, modern socialism will succeed in realizing its ideal.

If we are going to take seriously Marx and Engels’s thought and not read into their writings Christian influences that are never mentioned, as Boer rightly suggests, we also have to take seriously their texts that do directly engage with Christian thought. Though Engels understands Christian apocalyptic beliefs as myths that generate false predictions, he also goes out of his way to draw parallels between such beliefs and socialism. It is not an offhand observation he makes once and quickly abandons. Rather, he repeatedly returns to this idea, from his account of Müntzer in 1850 to his writings on early Christianity in the 1890s just before his death. Clearly, Engels finds in Christian apocalyptic thought insights relevant to modern socialism.

Despite its errors, apocalyptic thought contains a kernel of truth from Engels’s perspective: it identifies crisis as the vehicle through which the oppressed and powerless will finally triumph. This idea from early Christianity inspires many, but ultimately fails because Christianity sets its focus on heaven above rather than on earth below. In contrast, Engels finds in Marxism a scientific explanation for how crisis will liberate the oppressed classes. Marxism fully embodies a truth that only appears in incomplete and mistaken form in early Christianity.

So Christian apocalyptic thought does not serve as a hidden source of inspiration for Marxist thought – a position that Boer rightly rejects. A more accurate interpretation is that apocalyptic Christianity’s understanding of social change shares features with Marxism. Engels appreciates these similarities without subordinating his philosophy to Christian thought.

Some may see Engels’s interest in the Christian apocalyptic tradition as having little importance to his overall thought and Marxism generally – it represents little more than an idiosyncratic curiosity. But it is a mistake to dismiss Engels’s engagement with apocalyptic thought too quickly, for it offers insights into Marxism. A vision for social change with parallels to apocalyptic thought offers a strategy for reconciling competing goals within Marxism – outlining a political theory that is both utopian and feasible. Marxism purports to present a vision of the ideal society that is actually achievable. Marxism, like Christian apocalyptic thought, solves the problem of the vast gap between the corrupt present and ideal future by identifying crisis as the vehicle for radically transforming society and bringing the ideal within reach.

Ultimately, hope in the power of crisis, like that found in apocalyptic thought, is an inescapable element of Marxism. Engels seems to recognize this point, noting the seeds of Marxism’s truth and power in inchoate form in early Christianity. Engels sees within apocalyptic thought the power to inspire dramatic political action in pursuit of an ideal, even when it seems hopelessly far away. Perhaps for this reason, he continually returns to Christian apocalyptic thought as a source of insight for understanding the socialist movement of his day. When encountering such thought, he refuses to entirely reject it or temper its utopian aspirations. Instead, he transforms apocalyptic thought – most obvious in how he reinterprets Müntzer’s understanding of the kingdom of God – and puts its ideas in the service of earthly rather than heavenly aims.