As Brian Harding rightly noted in his recent essay for The Augustine Blog, there is as yet no definitive proof that Machiavelli read Augustine. Although we cannot know for certain that Machiavelli knew Augustine, it is clear that they were both interested in many of the same questions: What is the proper relation between religion and politics? How deeply should we care about our political communities? How should political rulers approach their duties, especially the uglier parts of rule that might require the use of coercive force?

Augustine and Machiavelli might be drawn to some of the same questions, but they do not offer the same answers. They disagree about how we should approach politics because fundamentally they disagree about the status of politics in this world. For Augustine, the City of God is what we long for, but earthly cities matter because we have to live in them during the saeculum. Augustine thinks we have a duty to our neighbors to try to make our cities more loving, just, and peaceful, even if we will always be limited by our imperfections.

The most famous example of how Augustine thinks one should approach political rule appears in his description of the wise judge in book 19 of The City of God.  The human judge lacks God’s omniscience and perfect justice, so he is necessarily forced to pass judgment over those whose consciences he can never truly know. Accordingly, the judge is “compelled to seek the truth by torturing innocent people merely because they are witnesses to the crimes of other men” (ciu 19.6; tr. Dyson). The judge must torture the innocent and guilty alike in order to reach to a verdict. And even after the verdict is given and the guilty party killed, the judge “still does not know whether he has slain a guilty man or an innocent one, even after torturing him to avoid ignorantly slaying the innocent” (ciu. 19.6).

But even though the judge finds the “darkness” surrounding “social life” dismaying and would prefer not to hold a position that requires torture, Augustine contends that the “wise man [must] take his seat on the judge’s bench” (ciu. 19.6). He will do so not because he maliciously desires to harm others or takes delight in the office but because “the claims of human society, which he thinks it is wicked to abandon, constrain him and draw him to this duty” (ciu. 19.6). Augustine here shows that he views political leadership as public service; he claims that “it is under the impetus of love that we should undertake righteous business” (ciu. 19.19). The “righteous business” of ruling benefits those whom one serves, not the individual; the individual is meant to be miserable. The wise judge will wish to “cr[y] out to God ‘From my necessities deliver Thou me’” (ciu. 19.6).

Machiavelli does not depict political rule in this way. In his telling, “It is a thing truly very natural and ordinary to desire to acquire. When men who do it who are capable, they always will be praised or not criticized. But when they are not capable and want to do it anyway, here is the error and the blame” (The Prince 3; tr. Connell). Machiavelli does not think that those who desire political rule undertake it unwillingly or lament about its misery. For him, the earthly city is all there is. Machiavelli either does not believe in or is not willing to risk belief in the City of God after death. Political power therefore is not something rulers reluctantly take on; it is something natural to want.

It is not clear to me that either view correctly captures the variety within human nature. I think Augustine is correct that there are people who do not seek out power, wish to avoid leadership roles if they can, and take on rule only out of a sense of duty. But there are very much also people who do seek rule and view it as an opportunity, not a burden. What accounts for why some people seem to view the prospect of rule the way Augustine does and others like Machiavelli? Is this a matter of natural inclination or can it be taught?

In Plato’s Republic, Socrates tells Thrasymachus that decent men do not pursue rule for the sake of money or honor; only the penalty of knowing that one would have to be ruled by a worse man can make one willing to rule (347b-c). I am not convinced that Socrates ever succeeds in persuading Thrasymachus that this is the case, just as he seems to fail in convincing Thrasymachus that the good ruler, like the good shepherd, cares for his sheep more than he does for himself (343e-345e). Perhaps the conflict between Augustine and Machiavelli resembles that between Socrates and Thrasymachus.

When I teach these ideas to my students, I am struck by how many of the students agree with Socrates and Augustine that ruling is burdensome but disagree that they have an obligation to engage in it. Most of them would prefer to leave ruling to those who like Machiavelli and Thrasymachus seem to desire it. This desire to mind their own business is not inherently malicious, but it does pose a real problem. If those who do not desire rule cannot be persuaded to enter politics, what are the ramifications of having only Machiavels and Thrasymacheans in political office?