Machiavelli #1 (Historical Context)

In this talk, the speaker discusses the importance of returning to the original commands given by God to Moses as a way to save Western civilization. They argue that the decline of Western civilization is due to a reliance on human reasoning and natural law, similar to the temptation faced by Eve in the Garden of Eden. The speaker also highlights the influence of Machiavelli and his book "The Prince" in promoting a cynical and manipulative approach to politics. They emphasize the need to understand historical context and criticize the Unitarian perspective on religion held by the American founders. The speaker ends by promoting their bookstore and online store, which helps fund their school. Hello everybody, welcome to The Great Bible Reset. This is a reset to the very first set of commands that God gave to Moses in Exodus 20-24. And this, we believe, is our only hope for arresting the history of the decline and fall of Western civilization in America. Only the former can stop the latter, but it's important that we understand the latter in order to reverse engineer the fall that is accelerating around us. And that explains our emphasis on the classical authors, keys to the classics. The only alternative is that which Satan proposed to Eve, and it's very simple. Come on Eve, you shall be as God, knowing good and evil. Come on Eve, just use your common sense and natural law, think for yourself. Natural law is equal to God's law, isn't it? God created that tree, didn't he? God wouldn't create anything evil, would he? And look how natural that tree is, Eve. Beautiful leaves, beautiful fruit. It's just a natural part of the environment here in the garden. It's part of God's created order, God's natural law. Go ahead and have a bite. And that process has been repeated over and over throughout the history of the West. Most recently in a book called In Defense of Christian Nationalism, a bestseller by Canon Press, where the author asserts that we can only construct our political theology on the basis of political theory that we develop through natural principles of natural law and common sense. So it's a problem. Now Machiavelli was another Renaissance scribbler who proposed a secular solution to the internecine warfare of the Italian city states. His suggestions came later in the Renaissance in the form of a cynical handbook for the civil leader entitled The Prince. Machiavelli's ideal prince was a two-faced con artist. The prince is adept at shifting his moral posture and actions to fit the changing situation. Might makes right and the end justifies the means are two very common catchphrases in his philosophy. And of course, we see this everywhere in politics today. So who was Machiavelli? Niccolo Machiavelli lived from 1469 to 1527. He was a diplomat in Florence, the city of his birth for nearly 20 years. He wrote The Prince in 1513 during a nine year exile, 1512 to 21. And Machiavelli was justly critical of the Roman church. He charged that the closer people are to the head of the church, the farther they are away from true religion. However, in putting down the church Machiavelli elevated the state. The prince was raised to a position of dangerous independence from the Bible. And his model in The Prince was a ruthless Cardinal Cesar Borgia. Cesar and his brother Juan and her father Pope Alexander were allegedly all involved in incest with Lucretia, the Pope's beautiful teenage daughter. Cesar rose to power after Juan was found floating face down in the Tiber River. He was the victim of nine garish stab wounds and Cesar was suspect but his guilt could not be proved. In spite of his brutality, he was elegant and learned. He appeared to prosper for a season but was murdered in a brawl. And the Proverbs comes to mind where it says their feet make haste to shed blood. They lay in wait for their own blood. They lurk privily for their own lives. Proverbs 1, 16 and 18. And looking at the historical context, in a biblical government there's very few if any bureaucrats. Biblical law is self-administering. If you obey, you're free within the fence of the law. And it's like the little boy who's told he can play anywhere he wants in the yard but just don't go outside the fence. And it reminds me of, I think I was three years old and grew up on a farm and our house was up on kind of a little knoll, a big front yard and then a gravel road running in front of the yard and there was a creek running in the ditch there between the yard and the road and there was a lot of bull rices and tall grass down there and the sewer from the house actually ran into the creek. But my dad told me, he said, you know, don't go down by the creek and those bull rices down there because Johnny Greenchief lives down there and he'll get you. So I said, okay daddy. But one day I was wandering around in the yard and I didn't realize my dad was down there. I think he was kind of cleaning out the sewer area there and I didn't know he was down there. So I got close to the tall grass down there and all of a sudden I heard this voice. It was a little boy. Yes, yes. What are you doing little boy? What are you doing here? I don't know. Do you know who I am little boy? No. My name is Johnny Greenchief. Oh. Do you know what I like for supper little boy? No. Come a little closer little boy. And you can imagine at that point, you know, little legs running all the way up the hill to mommy. Mommy, Johnny Greenchief almost got me. But anyway, you get the point. Various diplomatic missions gave Machiavelli the chance to observe devious government practices and he himself knew how to exploit power as a Florentine bureaucrat. According to McHugh's Accent on Power, Now, of course, it's hard to imagine anything like that ever happening here in the 20th century, but believe it or not, it actually happened in 15th century Europe, if you can believe that. Well, this added to his alienation from the powerful Medici family. The Medici was a banking and ruling family that controlled Florence for about 300 years and they patronized many of the Renaissance artists, including Michelangelo. They were twice expelled from the city. Two popes were members of the Medici family. Machiavelli took Caesar Borgia as his human model and Imperial Rome as historic model. From them, he derived a set of rules for gaining and holding power. And this was a form of historicism. Historicism being the theory that cultural outcomes are governed by laws of history, apart from the control of God. So, quote, reviewing thus all the actions of the Duke, I find nothing to blame, said Machiavelli. On the contrary, I feel bound, as I have done, to hold him up as an example to be imitated by all, who by fortune and with the arms of others have risen to power. End of quote. Now, the dominant event of the 14th century was the Black Death, which peaked in the mid-century, 1350, wiped out as much as 50% of the population in some areas, unlike the fake pandemic of 2020, which had no reduction of population whatsoever. But it led to a rise in the price of labor and migration to towns and cities and a division of labor with the rise of merchants and skilled artisans. Thomas Acampus fuels the pietistic flame in 1380 with a popular book, popular tome, vastly overrated and extremely spiritually dangerous, in my opinion, due to its doctrine of works righteousness. It's called The Imitation of Christ. In 1376, John Wycliffe emerges as the morning star of the Reformation, with his first English translation of the Bible in 1388. In 1387, Geoffrey Chaucer writes The Canterbury Tales, and Petrarch plants seeds of humanism with his poetry and translation of ancient classical texts during much of the 1300s. But the dominant event of the 15th century was the fall of Constantinople to Islam in 1453, which ironically stimulated European exploration to the West. And some historians cut the Renaissance in half at this point, at this important juncture. Because many scholars fled West, they carried ancient texts and philosophies to cities like Florence and Venice and Rome. The reformer John Hus emerged in 1408 and the famous Battle of Agincourt in 1415. 1429, Joan of Arc rallies France. Henry Tudor defeats Richard III at Bosworth Field Bosworth Field to end 330 years of Plantagenet rule in 1485. Savannah Rolla reforms Florence in 1490, but is tragically burned at the stake in 1498 due to misapplication of the idea of trial by ordeal. Columbus discovers America in 1492. Vasco da Gama sails the other way around Africa. But according to Machiavelli, religion is important, but not because it provides meaning, but because it is social cement. It binds the body politic into a firm and workable unity. Machiavelli thus strongly approved a Roman religion because it was a department of state and an instrument of social order. The fear of the gods, he said, greatly facilitated all the enterprises which the Senate or its great men attempted. Moreover, religion served in the command of the armies and uniting the people, keeping them well conducted. It was this use of religion which gave Rome a social cohesion, good law and order, and success in all its enterprises, end of quote. Now, I know it's heresy to say so, but as Unitarian followers of John Locke, father of the Enlightenment, the left-wing Enlightenment, that's how most of the American founders viewed religion. This Unitarian perspective downplayed the role of Christ as the king of nations. The preamble of the U.S. Constitution is taken directly from chapter 8 of John Locke's second treatise of government. So we might ask, in what ways did Machiavelli's political theory differ from that of Imperial Rome? Well, the Roman ideal of a wise and compassionate leader, a Stoic willing to sacrifice himself for the well-being of his people, is captured in Virgil's Aeneid. This epic poem was commissioned by the Emperor Augustus to put a happy face on his consolidation of power. Virgil created a pastoral ambience of agrarian peace, stability and prosperity under the sway of the benevolent Caesar. After all, he's just doing the best he can to restore the Republic under very trying circumstances. So this was an early example of what we know today as fake news. While this palliative was used to soothe and smooth the transition from Republic to Empire in Rome, it did not go down quite so well with others around other nations around the Mediterranean. For them, Roman compassion and clemency was transformed to the persuasive power of the Roman legions, all of which was not too far off from the Machiavellian approach to things. And it didn't work out so well for Roman in the long run either, which Machiavelli neglects to mention. As Napoleon met his Waterloo, so Rome met Attila the Hun, the Scourge of God. So thank you for being here, being with me today. Please visit the bookstore at kingswayclassicalacademy.com and the Longevity store at boomers-alive.com for incredible deals on Michelin stars quality products. And only a handful of restaurants in any city earn the NSF badge of quality guaranteed. The National Sanitation Foundation. And this, your purchases there helps to fund the school as well. So we've got it all there at boomers-alive.com. So thanks for being with me today and hope to see you tomorrow at the same time where we'll get into a little more depth on Machiavelli's actual teaching. Thank you.