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1 5 2 I n t e r p r e t a t i o n Volume 41 / Issue 2Ivan’s famous statement—for the one who “believes neither in God, nor inhis own immortality…all things [are] lawful” 141 —shows that he is perfectlyaware of the theologico-political problem of modernity: moral authority collapsestogether with religious authority, and political chaos naturally follows.The Grand Inquisitor’s solution is, then, the solution for continuingthe initial modern secular project, as first elaborated, in Strauss’s view, byMachiavelli, in the circumstances in which the modern mind has arrived atthe full awareness of its predicament, or otherwise said, in the circumstancesin which it has arrived at the awareness of the inescapable nihilistic consequencesof its premises. Practically speaking, this presupposes the allianceof socialism and Catholicism, or a universal socialist state led by the pope. 142In this sense, of course, the modern project suffers a drastic modification, tothe point that it looks more like a countermodern project. But whereas thedialectical unity between Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment hasbeen noted by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, the solution of theGrand Inquisitor can be justified, by virtue of the Enlightenment’s historicalevolution, with the Machiavellian argument that only the one “who adaptshis mode of proceeding to the qualities of the times” will be successful. 143The continuation of the modern project, in the conditions of the new revelation,requires the highest possible Machiavellian political abilities. We couldwell argue that it would be wise to conceal the new, terrible truth from themany, for the sake of their own happiness and of political stability. And theinquisitorial practices are those that prevent the dissemination of dangerousconceptions. Moreover, together with Machiavelli, the Grand Inquisitorjustifies his decision to burn “nearly a good hundred heretics,” 144 in the nameof Christ, by reminding the latter of the fickleness of human devotion, owingto which he has already been crucified once. “The same people,” the GrandInquisitor tells Jesus, “who today kissed your feet will tomorrow at one waveof my hand rush to rake up the embers on your bonfire.” 145 Like Machiavelli,141Ibid., 94.142The formula is described in Demons by the nihilist socialist Pyotr Verkhovensky: “The pope ontop, we all around, and under us” a political system that presupposes the division of humanity into“two unequal parts. One-tenth is to receive personal freedom and unlimited rights over the remainingnine-tenths. The latter are to lose their individuality and turn into something like cattle and with thisunlimited obedience attain, through a series of regenerations, a primordial innocence.” “All that’sneeded,” Verkhovensky concludes, “is that the Internationale should come to an agreement with thepope, and that’s just what will happen” (Dostoyevsky, Demons, 446–49, 464).143Machiavelli, The Prince, chap. 25.144Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov, 324.145Ibid., 326.