In early chapters of The Prince, Machiavelli is critical of the Church's deleterious effect on Italian politics. The scholarship demonstrates this amply. It devotes less attention, however, to the explicitly anti-Christian teachings of these chapters. This book attends especially to those anti-Christian teachings. While scholars universally identify Machiavelli's critique of European princes and their ill-advised subservience to the pope, they direct less attention to Machiavelli's critique of several of Christ's most important directives in the first part of The Prince. There, he begins to disclose his disagreements with Christ—which are far more radical than most of the current scholarship suggests, and which outstrip his concern with the political influence of the papacy that informs, but is not identical to, his broadest politico-philosophical project: the rejection of Jesus Christ as a model for human beings.

Among the questions Machiavelli addresses are: Should human life be consumed with acquisition? Should men act expeditiously to secure their interests or be confident in providence? Is Christlike friendship possible for human beings? What can faith accomplish? As I shall argue, Machiavelli's response to each of these questions reveals the radically unchristian ground on which he will construct the argument of The Prince. Indeed, his efforts in the early chapters of The Prince may be understood as a rejection of the Apostle Paul's advice in 1 Corinthians. In his famous ode to Christian love, Paul identifies “faith, hope and love” (13:13) as most crucial to Christianity. Machiavelli explicitly rejects the first and last of these dispositions in these early chapters, while problematically appropriating the second. While Christ enjoins men to exhibit faith in their fellow man, Machiavelli will encourage doubt and suspicion; while Christ recommends that men trust in hope, Machiavelli will praise skepticism, preemption, and calculation; while Christ commands men to exhibit love and mercy, Machiavelli will cite hatred and revenge as superior bonds for communities. This largely implicit critique of crucial Christian teachings prepares the reader for Machiavelli's rejection of Jesus Christ as a founder.

Machiavelli dedicates The Prince to Lorenzo de Medici, a hereditary prince who owes his position to a fellow Medici, Pope Leo X. Machiavelli presents himself as an office-seeker, and engages in flattery, referring to Lorenzo throughout as “your Magnificence” (P DL).