Luke's Gospel & Machiavelli's 'The Prince'

5 Pages 1266 Words

Distilling a literary work to find its author’s greatest influence on, not only his

era, but future eras as well, stands as a task that can only be completed with the dealing of

timeless masterpieces. Throughout Core Humanities Seminar, we have as a class, in fact,

discussed books that regardless of when they were written, are still popular in the twenty

second century, thus are deemed worthy of such interrogation.


Centuries Removed, Their Views are Still Relevant

The Gospel according to Luke is a depiction of Jesus’ life on Earth from Jesus’

conception to his resurrection. “The Prince” by Nicolo Machiavelli is a poltical view on

how an individual might gain, maintain, and expand the power over the state or states in

which a ruler has authority. With such radically different topics, how is it that I can

possibly find some kind of correlation between the two books? This is done by breaking

down their themes, understanding their eras, and examining their communities.

The Gospel according to Luke centers on a few primary rules that a follower of

God should live by in order to achieve placement within the Kingdom of God. ‘Love thy

neighbor as thyself’ stands atop the list. Luke, or the unknown author of this Gospel,

knew that God’s message of spreading love was centered around this idea of individuals

treating those around them exactly how they themselves would want to be treated. Jesus

spent his time on Earth preaching of God through stories, parables and even his personal

acts of healing through miracles. Luke’s Gospel writes that Jesus made it clear to his



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followers that God wished to have this idea spread to everyone bringing total peace, unity

and love among the people of the world. Machiavelli strived, like Jesus, for something as

well, though what Machiavelli sought was not what Jesus had.

In “The P...