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1 3 8 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2through fighting against the army” of “Christ.” 83 Machiavelli seeks to defeatChristianity through the same means that Christianity has defeated paganism:propaganda. But unlike Christ, who spoke “openly to the world” (John18:20), a sincerity that led him to the cross, Machiavelli carefully crafts hispropaganda in order to avoid the cross. Through his shrewd and deceptivewriting technique, Machiavelli seeks to delude “believers whose charity isgreater than their perspicacity,” 84 and at the same time to recruit the futurecaptains of his army from “the lukewarm Christians,” those who are “morefavorable to the earthly fatherland than to the heavenly fatherland.” 85 Thecultivation of this type of lukewarm attitude is the recipe for enervatingChristianity until full secularization is accomplished, and if that is notpossible, or until that becomes possible, a perverted Christianity, devoid ofsubstance, which betrays its principles and is made to serve the worldly interestsof the fatherland, represents Machiavelli’s second best.Strauss underlines the apparent contradiction between Machiavelli’s contentionconcerning the certain defeat of unarmed prophets, and the fact thatMachiavelli himself is an unarmed prophet who fights against the religion ofan unarmed prophet that now rules the Western world. One wonders: “howcan [Machiavelli] possibly hope for the success of his more than daring ventureif unarmed founders necessarily fail?” 86 The fact, already discussed, thatthe religion of the unarmed prophet ultimately maintains its power throughthe force of arms suggests the most obvious answer: from the very beginning,the triumph of Christianity over paganism was brought about not bythe preaching of the Christians, but by Constantine’s political decision. Butaccording to Strauss, such a view is too simplistic, and therefore it is unreasonableto believe that such a subtle intellect as Machiavelli’s would havesubscribed to it. For “Christianity,” Strauss insists, “must…already have beena power in order to become an attraction or a tool for a politician.” 87 Besides,if one accepts the thesis that the purpose of the Empire’s conversion has beento neutralize and therefore compromise Christianity through its cooptationand transformation into the imperial civil religion, that is, through its transformationfrom an ever stronger enemy of the empire into its supporter, oneis faced nevertheless with the fact that, according to Machiavelli, the result83Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 171.84Ibid., 142.85Strauss, “What Is Political Philosophy?,” 46.86Ibid., 45.87Strauss, Thoughts on Machiavelli, 84.