Why has Machiavelli name synonymous with evil? There are several reasons and all can be found in the book, The Prince, by Machiavelli. The Prince is an interpretation of how Machiavelli believes one should live their lives and accomplish their goals. One can achieve their answer to the question through the evaluation of Machiavelli on the religion of Christianity and Machiavelli on Classical Thought. Some often perceived Machiavelli’s teachings as evil, but Machiavelli thought otherwise.
Machiavelli begins the search for his answer with the evaluation of Christianity. In Machiavelli’s opinion, Christianity’s downfall is that it teaches people to not value the worldly things and themselves, but to place value in a divine order and a divine being that cannot help them in this world. To support his argument of abandoning Christian thought, Machiavelli refers to the successes of Alexander the VI. Machiavelli often praises Alexander the VI for using the platform of Christian pope to further his agenda while not truly acting by
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Machiavelli lived in a time dominated by Christian thinkers and his thought was outside the boundaries of their beliefs. Machiavelli teachings focused on how one could achieve worldly success and valuing the things of the earth without Christian thinking. To further support his argument, Machiavelli says “Our experience has been that those princes who have done great things have held food faith of little account”. The princes that he believed to have done great things are those such as Alexander the XI and Chiron the Centaur. Machiavelli’s teachings focused on worldly figures instead of religious figures. Machiavelli’s thinking troubled a tremendous amount of people and his challenge to the status quo was interpreted as evil. It was interpreted as evil because it was different from the status