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1 3 6 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2contrast between the teaching of the church hierarchy and its practice. 72 Butsince one cannot blame human nature, it is more reasonable to put the blamefor the contrast on the founder of the Christian religion, who has simplyraised ethical standards too high. So it is no wonder that the church hierarchyis not able to keep up with them. Jesus was an “unarmed prophet.” Unarmedprophets, according to Machiavelli, are fated to be “ruined.” 73 At first sight,it seems that the religion of the unarmed prophet is in power because, instark contrast with Christianity’s official principles, the papacy has taken uparms in Christ’s name, correcting Christ’s strategic mistake, as otherwisesuggested by Dostoyevsky’s Legend of the Grand Inquisitor. There is thenanother reason why the Inquisition appears as the necessary consequenceof the initial victory of Christianity. For, argues Machiavelli, “the nature ofthe peoples is variable; and it is easy to persuade them of something, butdifficult to keep them in that persuasion. And thus things must be orderedin such a mode that when they no longer believe, one can make them believeby force.” 74 Thus, the contrast between church teaching and practice, and itspernicious impact on civic virtue, are the consequence of what, according toMachiavelli, is the aberration of Christianity in power.Apart from this indirect negative influence on virtù, the decline of thelatter is also directly influenced by Christianity’s focus on the other world,which “makes” men “esteem less the honor of the world, whereas the Gentiles,esteeming it very much and having placed the highest good in it, weremore ferocious in their actions.” Thus, Christianity has “rendered the worldweak and given it in prey to criminal men, who can manage it securely, seeingthat the collectivity of men, so as to go to paradise, think more of enduringtheir beatings than of avenging them.” 75 Of course, one could further quotethe continuation of this passage, where Machiavelli stresses the fact thatChristianity properly understood is a religion that “permits us the exaltationand defense of the fatherland,” 76 and thus arrive at the conclusion that theMachiavellian position is more moderate. However, according to Strauss’sinterpretation, “there is hardly a single passage in either the Discourses orthe Prince in which Machiavelli unambiguously reveals his complete breakwith the Biblical tradition.” 77 This would imply that the last part of the para-72Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.12.73Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 6.74Ibid.75Machiavelli, Discourses, 2.2.76Ibid.77Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 142.