马基雅维利的摩西和文艺复兴时期政治（英文版）

/phpcms/2010/0603/658.php北大法治研究中心马基雅维利的摩西和文艺复兴时期政治2010-06-03 17:35:51 作者：John H. Geerken Machiavellis Moses and Renaissance Politics John H. Geerken Within the almost Dantesque array of humanity that populates the pages of Machiavellis canon, Moses occupies a special place. He first appears in chapter six of The Prince concerning those who acquire new princedoms by dint of their own virt and military self-sufficiency. He last appears in the Discourses as one who was forced to kill a host of envious opponents. There is some irony in these representations: in The Prince, with its tyrannical overtones, Moses appears as Gods friend; but in the Discourses, with its republican associations, Moses is an executioner. Machiavelli captures some of the ambiguity that attends on Moses when he declares that Moses should not be discussed, since he was a mere executor of things laid down for him by God, nevertheless he ought to be exalted, if only for the grace that made him worthy to speak with God. 1 Are we to exalt Moses, but not discuss him? Then, too, why bother with either God or Moses? Why complicate the search for the effectual truth of things by invoking metaphysical elements or inimitable biblical figures? How are we to understand these references? Are these ironic as sometimes asserted？But what are the heuristic possibilities in a non-ironic approach? If Moses had so great a teacher, what was his curriculum? Since no other figure in the Machiavellian census is so associated with slavery, was Moses a vehicle for making an assertion about slavery and liberation, or about politics and religion, or about the morality of politics? Then, too, how did Machiavellis Moses compare to the Moses who was so prominent in Renaissance iconology? These are the questions which this study addresses. I. Of the several references to Moses, the most telling is the last one in the Discourses. Machiavelli writes: He who reads the Bible intelligently sensata-mente End Page 579 sees that if Moses was to put his laws and regulations into effect, he was forced to kill countless men who, moved by nothing else than envy, were opposed to his plans. 2 A great deal is compressed into this passage: the confrontation of Moses virt with the necessity imposed by his opposition, the need to use violent means to achieve lawful ends, and the implied sanction of sacred Scripture. But the Bible, Machiavelli asserts pointedly, must be read intelligently-presumably not in a devotional, liturgical, or exegetical manner, but in effect politically. Machiavelli wrote that he himself read in order to learn the reasons for human actions. 3 Indeed, one of his reasons for writing history was to convey his conviction that f any reading is useful to citizens who govern republics, it is that which shows the causes of the hatreds and factional struggles within the city, in order that such citizens having grown wise through the sufferings of others, can keep themselves united. 4 In a word reading can be political. References to biblical figures in his works indicate that for Machiavelli the Bible was not exempt from a political reading; it, too, could yield the reasons for human actions and the causes of hatred and factionalism. 5 We can assume, therefore, that he read the Book of Exodus with these concerns in mind even as he invited his own readers to read the Bible. What, therefore, can the Book of Exodus show us？II. The Book of Exodus records at least forty-three conversations between God and Moses, thirty-three of which were initiated by God in order to instruct, command, announce, predict, threaten, remind, warn, and legislate. It records Gods determination to rescue his convenanted people despite pharaohs sustained resistance. 6 It records as well the instructional conversations dealing with the plagues, the sacrifices, the Passover, the plundering of Egypt, the escape routes and the encampments. 7 And of course there is the account of the crossing of the Red Sea which no Egyptian pursuer survived. 8 Noteworthy, too, is the fact that, for his part, Moses initiated ten conversations with God, declaring his personal doubts and inadequacies, offering his excuses, complaining about the hardships of his mission, reporting on the grumbling of the people, and confessing Israels sin. 9 But in the most important of End Page 580 these conversational initiatives Moses interceded on behalf of both Israel and Egypt. In each instance of Moses pleading for the lifting of a plague, God complied: the Lord did what Moses asked reads the text, revealing a significant measure of reciprocity in this most extraordinary of relationships. 10 But it is the conversations about the golden calf at Mount Sinai that are the most revealing for our purposes. While Moses was receiving the Decalogue, his followers fashioned a golden calf-shaped idol. 11 In reaction, God declared his intent to destroy the Israelites and to re-start the nation out of Moses. 12 Moses response would have been worthy of Renaissance diplomacy: knowing Gods desire to impress the Egyptians, he dissuaded him from a destruction that would have done for the Egyptians what they had been unable to accomplish for themselves. Then the Lord relented, reads the text, and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened. 13 However, if God did not punish, Moses did. After his descent from Mount Sinai and his division of the people, Moses declared to the rallied Levites (in the passage cited by Machiavelli): These are the words of the Lord the God of Israel: Arm yourselves, each of you, with his sword. Go through the camp from gate to gate and back again. Each of you kill his brother, his friend, his neighbor. The Levites obeyed, and about three thousand of the people died that day. 14 One impression emerges early from this account: the God who is Moses mentor and friend is a formidable force indeed, a vengeful, wrathful deity, jealous of any challenge to his power and glory, not neutral, indifferent or distant, but a very active partisan presence saturating every aspect of Israelite life. A second impression is that of Moses. At the time of his first conversation with God at the burning bush Moses would have been at or near eighty years of age. 15 He had been born a displaced person under a genocidal sentence of death. 16 Exposed as an infant to the elements (like Romulus), he was retrieved by Pharaohs daughter and adopted into the Egyptian royal family. 17 In essence his training and conditioning had made him an Egyptian, and we can presume that his career in Egypt was secure; indeed, he was widely regarded as a very great man. 18 Nevertheless, when he had occasion to see an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people, he killed the Egyptian and hid his body. 19 In other words, on impulse, he jeopardized his life and career for the sake of an anonymous compatriot. End Page 581 Whether or not the act proved him patriotic, it did prove him a murderer, and he became a refugee. He fled to Midian, where he became a shepherd, a married man, and a father. 20 It is not surprising, therefore, that a no-longer youthful Moses greeted Gods words of commissioning with uncertainty, self-doubt, inadequacy, and a protestation that God find another. But God promised divine help and tutelage: I will help you speak and teach you what to say. 21 If we ask after the causes of human action in this account, we must note two very important elements. In the first place, in killing the Egyptian, Moses acted on his own volition and initiative. At that point he was manifestly not under Gods auspices (though he may have been under his surveillance); he had no assurances of assistance, success, or protection. In the second place, it is also clear that Moses nature trumped his nurture; his Hebrew blood was thicker than his Egyptian upbringing. He so identified with the oppressed who were his people that he was willing to step out of his elitist cocoon of royal family privilege, security, and renown to take a personally risky action, thereby proving that the condition of his people meant more to him than his own best interest. Also noteworthy is the fact that in his interview with God before the purge of the three thousand, Moses declined Gods offer of a new nation starting from him, and after the purge Moses offered to have himself blotted from the divine book. 22 When all of these actions are taken together, they disclose a pattern of great significance: Moses was a man, like Machiavelli himself, who loved his patria more than his own soul. At least psychologically, despite his age, this alone would have made him a good recruit for the cause of national liberation. It is also clear from the Exodus conversations that Moses was not merely the divine errand boy that Machiavelli seems to dismiss in The Prince but also a significantly free and independent individual. After all, he argued with God, disagreed with God, interceded with God, and succeeded in changing Gods mind. He also interpreted Gods mind to meet an immediate crisis at Sinai. For in the episode of the golden calf, as has been indicated, Moses dissuaded God from destroying the Israelites and starting afresh. Yet when Moses descended from the mountain, he went down with no divine mandate to conduct a purge. Therefore, when he told the Levites that God had specifically ordered the killings, Moses was imposing so radically different an interpretation on his summit conference as to make the purge his own idea. What does this tell the politically inquisitive reader? Unquestionably, the episode instances the primacy of national survival, about which Machiavelli wrote that when it is absolutely a question of the safety of ones country, there must be no consideration of just or unjust, of merciful or cruel, of praiseworthy End Page 582 or disgraceful; instead, setting aside every scruple, one must follow to the utmost any plan that will save her life and keep her liberty. 23 In the second place, the episode instances the strategic necessity of using force to maintain unity. Moses had learned that people are fickle in their loyalty, they become rebellious, they disbelieve. If belief can only be restored by force, then force is justified. As Machiavelli would put it, quoting Livy, when there is no hope except in arms, they too become holy. 24 Moses, in a word, had sacralized violence at Sinai, thereby showing his indebtedness to and collusion with his divine instructor. Prior to this episode all bloodletting had been initiated and conducted by God. Moses purge, therefore, was historic both for its magnitude and for its human agency. In the third place, it is clear that Moses-a murderer in his own right, as we have seen-was not squeamish, or even hesitant, about resorting to so drastic a bloodbath. His conscience was clear: he knew the mind of his divine friend and teacher; having received the law, he knew what was sanctioned and what was forbidden. Furthermore, Exodus records no Mosaic agenda that was not also Gods, so Moses had no reason to conduct a purely personal vendetta (one of the marks of a tyrant). The magnitude of the crisis before him-the very survival of the community under covenant-therefore mandated that he take the law into his own hands. He had done something very like this before when he had killed the Egyptian, but this time he could claim divine sponsorship and authority, and so this time he could take full and open responsibility for the outcome. Finally, in the warfare that follows after Sinai, Moses the conqueror is shown in the Exodus narrative to be repeatedly following a divine blueprint established when God announced angelic guidance into the land of the Amorites, Hittites, Perizzites, Canaanites, Hivites, and Jebusites. Of these God had said, I will wipe them out, and he had commanded the destruction of their sacred structures. 25 Prior to the crossing into Canaan, God would call for a similar extermination. 26 The lesson was clear: God himself mandates the abolition of surviving remnants if a new order is to be successfully established. III. How much of this violent, partisan, and intrusive deity carried over into Machiavellis mind and milieu? What can we construct out of Machiavellis observations about God and Moses? Regarding God the need arises to distinguish Machiavellis own voice from those of others whom he reports, and by the need to determine what his use of the term Heaven-as opposed to God-signifies. Taking this latter issue first, it has been argued that Machiavellis End Page 583 frequent use of Heaven bespeaks, in opposition to Christian orthodoxy, a premise of astrological naturalism. 27 To be sure, much of what Machiavelli writes in Book One of the Discourses about Roman religious practice is in terms of heavenly agency, and there are a number of passages, here and elsewhere, dealing with signs and omens. 28 But to hold that astrological naturalism is the exclusive or dominant element in Machiavellis cosmology is unnecessarily constricting. Some passages show God and Heaven used interchangeably. For example, Machiavelli refers in two successive sentences to the gift of Heaven, the glorious road shown by Heaven, and the blessings God has given to the Medici house and to Leo in person. 29 In one place he refers to a hidden power which sustains itself in the heaven which sets men at war, 30 while in another he refers to God as the giver of war. 31 In a carnival song it is Heaven that avenges 32 ; in his history it is God. 33 Such passages suggest if not a conceptual identity, at least a degree of conceptual overlap-of the sort likely still tolerable in the relatively easy-going eclectic intellectual milieu that preceded the Protestant and Tridentine Reformations. With regard to the former issue, it is to be noted that in The History of Florence, where God is mentioned forty times, Machiavelli is almost always reporting in a constructed speech the opinion of some citizen, noble, pope, or ambassador. These see God now protecting Florence, 34 for example, or willing her defeat; 35 now aiding Volterra, 36 abandoning the Count of Poppi, 37 or impeding Sforzas victory. 38 Machiavelli quotes Lorenzo de Medici as saying that God has never deserted our house, has still preserved us and taken up the defense of our just cause 39 -an opinion Machiavelli later echoes in his own voice. 40 If we take such views as an aggregation of public opinion, God emerges as an interactive, partisan deity who receives petitions and prayers, is offended by certain acts of violence, is often wrathful; who intervenes to avenge and to punish, to give or withhold military victory, and to guard, aid, and preserve favored political supplicants. In his own voice Machiavelli describes in great detail an End Page 584 unprecedented windstorm of 1456 before concluding that the purpose of God without doubt was to threaten rather than punish Tuscany. But God purposed at this time that this slight example should suffice to refresh among men the memory of his power. 41 No less notable for Machiavelli was Gods engineering of the Turkish capture of Otranto as a way of militarily relieving Florence, for whom he always had special care. 42 In The Prince, where Machiavellis voice is least in doubt, God, in addition to being Moses teacher, is the judge of princes, 43 ordainer and maintainer of ecclesiastical principalities, 44 controller (with Fortuna) of human affairs, 45 ordainer and director of Italys redemption, 46 and friend to state-founders and to the Medici. 47 One of the reasons for the worthlessness of mercenaries is that they have no fear of God. 48 In the last chapter of The Prince Machiavelli stresses the imperative of human action: God does not do everything, he writes, so as not to take from us free will and part of the glory that pertains to us. 49 Conversely, in the Golden Ass he speaks to the consequences of human inaction-God will not intervene: To believe that without effort on your part God fights for you, while you are idle and on your knees, has ruined many kingdoms and many states. There is assuredly need for prayers; and altogether mad is he who forbids people their ceremonies and their devotions;.But there should be no one with so small a brain that he will believe, if his house is falling, that God will save it without any other prop, because he will die beneath that ruin. 50 In sum, it would appear that the God of Moses was still active in Machiavellis Italy. The lessons of history were clear: those who were politically or militarily idle-even if of the utmost piety-would receive no divine assistance in matters of politics and war. For Machiavelli as for Cosimo de Medici, more than paternosters were required for the governance of states. 51 The history of Moses had made that clear: among the Hebrews in captivity the fear of God had been operative for centuries-a fact which merely demonstrated that piety and slavery could End Page 585 coexist. What therefore was indispensable was the intervention of a man of virt. When such a one appeared, God would appear as well: to become involved, to befriend, to instruct, to protect, to direct, and to provide. Such an understanding also adds to the trenchancy of Machiavellis exhortation in the last chapter of The Prince. For Machiavelli the preconditions of history had been met in his own time: as slavery had been necessary for virt to emerge among the Hebrews in the person of Moses, so then was Italy currently exhibiting even greater slavery, so that virt could emerge in the person of a Medici, favored as he was by both God and the Church. If Moses could seize the opportunity presented to him, so could a Medici. And the time was at hand. How did