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Strauss’s Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor1 5 9an enormous desire for self-glorification, of the same nature with the onethat motivated, from the very beginning, the antitheological rebellion of theprince of darkness.In the end, beyond the comparison between Machiavelli, as interpretedby Strauss, and Dostoyevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, the question that is inevitablyraised concerns the similarities and differences between Dostoyevsky andStrauss. Taking into account the complexity of Dostoyevskyan and Straussianwriting, a thorough treatment of this issue would require a consistent andextended hermeneutical effort that, for obvious reasons of space, must be leftfor another article. Within the limits of this article, I will only limit myselfto a few brief final considerations. Indeed, taking into account Strauss’s reinstatementof the classical distinction between the philosophical minority andthe nonphilosophical majority, from which follows the implicit critique ofdemocracy, the justification of philosophical absolutism, and the legitimationof the noble lie as a political tool, one is entitled to wonder if it is not legitimateto regard Strauss’s thought as a type of “postmodern” Platonism, rediscoveredand reactivated in reaction to the crisis of modernity, a Platonism that thereforeshares many common elements with the worldview of Dostoyevsky’sInquisitor. Strauss’s mysterious suggestion that in the Statesman Platoexpresses his agreement with the Grand Inquisitor’s claim that “the demandfor freedom is not so evidently sound as many present-day lovers of freedombelieve” 167 would seem to encourage such a conclusion. It would then appearthat, despite their common opposition to Machiavelli, Dostoyevsky andStrauss are also, to a great extent, irreducible adversaries. While Dostoyevskyand Strauss both react against the nihilism that results from modernity’santiutopian spirit, the utopias that they defend are different, as are their waysof living the contemplative life. While for Strauss and Plato the contemplativelife means contemplation of the eternal Ideas, or, more precisely, awareness ofthe eternal problems, for Dostoyevsky, the contemplative life means the personalrelation with the personal God of the biblical tradition. Similarly, whilethe utopia of classical philosophy, which implies the critique of democracy, isthe absolute rule of the wise, Dostoyevsky’s utopia is the Christianization ofdemocracy, its transfiguration through brotherly love.There is nevertheless a crucial difference between Strauss and Dostoyevsky’sInquisitor. For what distinguishes the philosopher, as viewed byStrauss, from Ivan’s fictional character is the fact that, while the Inquisitorclaims that his compassion for men is greater than that of the Redeemer,167Leo Strauss, “Plato,” in An Introduction to Political Philosophy, 224.