Theological Origins of Modernity

humanism and the apotheosis of man 91
and exiting evil divinely comprehended, go postmortem by God’s immediate
and fi nal judgment directly to the dwelling place of heroes. 72
Machiavelli imagines that God recognizes that princes must commit evil in
order to establish and maintain a well-regulated state, the highest earthly
good. God therefore must recognize the essential goodness of the prince.
Despite the “evil” the prince does, he thus does not burn in hell and is in
fact welcomed into heaven. 73 Machiavelli’s humanism is thus Christian in
the broadest sense of the term, but it is a Christianity that is subordinated
to the very human needs of this world. 74
In his depiction of such legislators, Machiavelli portrays them as selfmaking
Promethean fi gures, drawing heavily on Pico, whom he greatly
admired. In his view, they exist in a certain sense outside of ordinary
human society and develop an independence and resourcefulness that
sets them apart from other human beings. Th eir utter self-reliance better
equips them to deal with the exigencies of life and consequently the
exigencies of politics. Such independence is manifest in Machiavelli’s four
great examples of successful founders, Moses, Cyrus, Th eseus, and Romulus.
All of them were fatherless children and thus had to rely on their own
arms almost from birth. Th is point is reemphasized by Machiavelli’s discussion
of Cesare Borgia, who was perhaps as great in all other respects
as Machiavelli’s four heroes but who failed to secure his power because he
had and relied upon a father.
In contrast to Pico and Ficino, however, Machiavelli recognized that
the powers of even the greatest human beings were fi nite. From their more
aesthetic and theoretical perspective, Pico and Ficino could imagine that
the truly creative human being could mimetically re-create the world. Machiavelli’s
experience of political life convinced him that all human beings
were constrained by a whole variety of unpredictable factors. Even at their
most profi cient, humans in his view can succeed only half the time.
In his pessimistic realism, Machiavelli is closer to Petrarch than to
Ficino. As we have seen, Petrarch was convinced that chaos and war were
the natural state of things. He hoped that a new Scipio could bring order
to this chaos, but short of that he was convinced that happiness could be
obtained only by retreating into solitude with a small group of friends.
Beginning with Ficino and drawing on Plato, humanists began to believe
that there was an innate principle in all things, an order of love that pulled
everything toward the good and thus toward God. In Machiavelli we see
the ultimate rejection of this idea. At least since the time of Cain, he tells
us, the loving harmony of the world has been disrupted by anger and