Amazing Grace: Fortune, God, and Free Will in Machiavelli's Thought

Nederman, Cary J.

doi:10.1353/jhi.1999.0042

Cited by 20 publications

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References 25 publications

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“…7. Machiavelli's relationship to Christianity is complex but certain. For various scholarly treatments, see Alderisio (1950), Berlin and Hardy (1980), de Grazia (1989), Gillespie (2009), Manent (1998), Mansfield (1979, 1996), Nederman (1999), Orwin (1978), Parel (1992), Patapan (2008), Strauss (1995), Sullivan (1993, 1996), Viroli and Shugaar (2010), Warner and Scott (2011), and Wolin (2006).…”

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Humility and humanity: Machiavelli's rejection and appropriation of a Christian Ideal

Menchaca-Bagnulo

2015

European Journal of Political Theory

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Though Machiavelli is famous for advising the mere 'appearance' of certain Christian and classical virtues (P XVIII), Machiavellian virtù inherits the legacy (though neither the content nor the telos) of the Christian virtue of humility, a virtue that is not present in pagan Roman accounts of heroism. I am not contending that Machiavelli is a Christian nor that he is continuing a Christian principle. Rather, I am asserting in this article that Machiavelli secularises the distinctly Christian virtue of humility, particularly in its affinity with the virtue of compassion, and that this is particularly true in his Discourses on Livy. To demonstrate how this is so, I compare Machiavelli's treatment of the Roman hero Brutus in the Discourses on Livy to the retelling of the life of Rome's liberator in Augustine's City of God.

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