ABSTRACT
This chapter assesses some of the socio-historical, philosophical and theological influences that shape the respective work of Martin Luther and Niccolo Machiavelli. Both men were contemporaries and reformers in their own right. Special attention is paid to their respective interpretations of the nature of the human being, private piety and public virtue, the roles of secular and religious authorities and relationships between them, the person’s allegiances to both, and the proper end of societal well-being. Of interest in the chapter is the influence of the early Roman moralist philosophers on both reformers, and their intellectual placement in early Modernity, as a force that influences them in similar ways. The essay aims to undermine a strict misconception of Machiavelli as the smoking gun of Modern political coercion, and in like measure aims to view Luther as politically astute in his interpretation of the limits of government that frames his theological project.
