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Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 3 9has been an unfortunate synthesis that is at the origin of the problems thatMachiavelli is trying to tackle. If, on one hand, a Christianity transformedinto an imperial civil religion becomes a caricature that progressively losesits initial force of conviction, on the other hand, the Christianization ofthe empire accounts for the progressive decay of the political and militaryvirtues that Machiavelli wants to resuscitate. Otherwise said, Christianitydestroys the ancient order and itself together with it, preparing the groundfor Machiavelli’s new order. I would argue then that for Machiavelli the trueproblem with Christianity was a fateful reflection of the problem which thepapal state posed to Italian unity. Just as the papal state was strong enoughto prevent Italy’s unification under the rule of any other Italian state, by callingforeign powers in its defense, but not strong enough to unify Italy underits own authority, 88 likewise, Christianity was not strong enough to impose,politically, its order of things on the world and betrayed its otherworldlyprinciples when it tried to do so, and yet was strong enough to destabilizethe old pagan order of things, and to prevent, for the time being, “the newprince” from imposing the new order of things. Or, if we are to believe CarlSchmitt, a realist like Machiavelli and an open partisan of the Grand Inquisitorin his confrontation with Christ, 89 it would then seem that, suspendedbetween Incarnation and Apocalypse, Christianity appears as an essentiallyanarchic and destabilizing force. For, according to Schmitt, “if the politicalpower of a class or of a group…is sufficiently strong to hinder the waging ofwars” against the enemy, “but incapable,” or rather unwilling, in this case,“of assuming the state’s power” itself, “then the political entity is destroyed.” 90While the cultivation of lukewarm Christianity is the means throughwhich Machiavelli seeks to speed up the collapse of the church, the process ofdecay is nevertheless opposed by a counterforce that periodically rejuvenatesthe church, thus prolonging its existence. So Machiavelli argues that “withpoverty and with the example of the life of Christ,” Saint Francis and SaintDominick have revived the Christian religion, saving it from being destroyedby “the dishonesty of the prelates and of the heads of the religion.” 91 But ifwe accept Strauss’s interpretation of Machiavelli, we are forced to concludethat, despite his sincere admiration for the two saints, Machiavelli must also88Machiavelli, Discourses, 1.12.89Théodore Paléologue, Sous l’œil du Grand Inquisiteur: Carl Schmitt et l’héritage de la théologiepolitique (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2004), 51–52.90Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political, trans. George Schwab (New Brunswick, NJ: RutgersUniversity Press, 1976), 38.91Machiavelli, Discourses, 3.1.