I have been reading Hankins, Plato in the Italian Renaissance, and want to try him out as an authority. Much of the book is not in Google Books, at least not that I can find. His general perspective is to minimize Plethon’s influence. However he is enough of a scholar (as opposed to a polemicist) to provide facts; and these facts lead me in the opposite direction. One line of thought, from Plethon to the Milan-based tarot, goes through Filelfo and would include Alberti, Malatesta, and others not versed in Neoplatonism. Another goes through Bessarion, Ficino and the revival of Proclus, Plotinus, and pseudo-Dionysus.
Here I will focus on the line of thought going through Filelfo etc, as that is where I think I might at least know where I am going.
FILELFO AND PHILOSOPHY
Filelfo’s philosophical sophistication has been derided by some, notably Woodhouse, but Hankins has a different view, as indicated in the following pages. Rather than spend time retyping long quotes from Hankins' main discussion of Filelfo, I will just post these pages—it is all relevant--, summarize, and add more quotes.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-APxZ-cdVAw...ins90and91.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tM_7GTGbyV...ins92and93.jpg
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jaVcLTm7Yr...ins94and95.jpg
Summary: Filelfo studied classical philosophy all his intellectual life. In outlook he could be described as an eclectic whose “sources were predominantly Stoic, Stoic, Middle Platonic, and Augustinian,” Hankins says. We can look at Hankins’ footnotes, pp. 93-94 for examples: Augustine, Diogenes Laertius, Boethius, Simplicius, Porphyry, Cicero, pseudo-Plutarch, Proclus. He translated Plato’s Euthyphro probably “around 1430,” Hankins argues (vol. 2, p. 407). He also translated three of Plato’s letters in “1439/1440”—just the time, of course, of Plethon’s visit to Italy. Hankins has nothing but praise for Filelfo’s translations:
Quote:
| Filelfo’s merits as a philosopher emerge clearly when one examines his translations of Plato, which display accuracy, elegance, learning, and philosophical understanding. (Hankins p. 91) |
I actually see lots of opportunity for Plutarch’s essays to have influenced the Milan-based tarot, from the Cary Sheet to the Marseille. To give details would take me too far afield. If you go to “Bianca’s Garden” at THF and do a search in that forum for “Plutarch,” 14 posts come up, mostly by me, relating Plutarch to particular cards. In the “Research” forum there, see the first 5 posts, which are also mostly by me. Cary Sheet examples are the Popess, the Star, and the Moon. (On Aeclectic, see my post on the Star at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.p...6&postcount=37.) In Noblet and after, many cards fit something in Plutarch. Before reading Hankins, I had no suspicion that this orientation might have gone back to Filelfo.
FILELFO AND PLETHON
Then there is the question of Filelfo’s contact with Plethon. It is clear that Filelfo respected Plethon philosophically. Hankins even says that Filelfo even met Plethon:
Quote:
| Filelfo, we know, met him in Bologna after the Council and was deeply impressed by his philosophical knowledge, but there is no suggestion in any of Filelfo’s writings that he was acquainted with the more esoteric side of Pletho’s beliefs, which Pletho was in any case careful to confine to initiates of his school. (p.437) |
Tu m'as dèja inspiré à Bologna, l'amour de ta vertu et de ton savoir. Tu m'inspires aujourd'hui la hardiesse de te prier de m'écrire:
(You already inspired me, in Bologna, with love of your virtue and your knowledge. Today you inspire me with the boldness of begging you to write me...)That does not say in so many words that Filelfo met Plethon. But it is a reasonable inference. Ross objects that what inspired Filelfo could have been some writing of Plethon's, or report about Plethon, brought to Filelfo while the latter was in Bologna. But in that case, it seems to me, where Filelfo received such a thing would have been far less important than what he received: so it would have been more appropriate to mention the writing or report that inspired him rather than the place he happened to get it. Moreover, there is another part of the letter which also suggests such a meeting. Filelfo writes, in Legrand's translation:
Tu m'accorderas donc une faveur des plus agréables, en m'écrivant promptement quelque chose qui soit digne de ton heureuse nature et de mon désir. Il me semblera te voir présent et m'entretenir avec toi, quand je lirai ta lettre fleurie.
(You will thus accord me a most agreeable favor, by writing me quickly something that serves your happy nature and my desire. It will seem to me that I am seeing you present and am conversing with you, when I shall read your flowery letter.)If, in receiving a letter, it will seem to him that Plethon is present, then it is probably evoking a memory of an earlier time when he had seen Plethon in person. I copied out the full paragraph, with my own translation, at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2872836&postcount=34). It ends by addressing Plethon as "Father."
Ross reconstructed Filelfo's whereabouts at the time Plethon was returning to Greece from Florence. He was in Piacenza on June 12, 1439, on his way to Bologna on horseback, a 2 or 3 day ride. The Greek delegation in Florence left June 14, on their way to Venice. The road passes through Bologna. It couldn't have taken them more than a week to get to Bologna. (All this from Ross at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2863917&postcount=32). So the two men could easily have met.
There is also, in Legrand, a Greek verse that Filelfo wrote to Plethon. Ross transcribed and translated it.
ΦΡ. Ο ΦΙΛΕΛΦΟΣ ΓΕΩΡΓΙΩ̨ ΤΩ̨ ΓΕΜΙΣΤΩ̨This says nothing about a meeting. But the date is quite close to when Plethon was returning from Florence to Greece. Ross suggests that
Κοίρανε δι̃ε σοφω̃ν, ʹαρετη̃ς ʹέμψυχον ʹάγαλμα,
̀̀ὸς λάμπεις πινυτη̃ Δαναοι̃ς εν ̀άπασι μαθήσει,
ώς ή νυκτιπλανὴς ʹάστροις εν ʹελαττοσι μήνη,
̀ὸ Ψυχη̃ς πέρι Φρανκίσκος μετέγραψε Φιλέλφος,
Βιβλίδιον λάβε. Λιτότατον, νὴ τὸν Δία, δω̃ρον ·
Κούδὲν θαυ̃μα, πάτερ · τὰ τύχης γὰρ πτωχὸς ̀υπάρχω.
αύγούστου 16, ʹέτ. 1439
FRANCESCO FILELFO TO GEORGE GEMISTOS
O Master, wise divine, living honor of virtue,
Which you radiate from understanding in all learning to the Greeks,
Like the Moon in diminishing the stars coursing at night;
Take this little book On the Soul
which Francesco Filelfo has copied. A simple gift, by Zeus,
Not a wonder, father; for I begin these things a beggar of fate.
August 16, year 1439
...there remains the possibility that Demetrios left Gemistos behind, maybe in Bologna, and that he waited for the Emperor's group to come up in late August or early September.Or Plethon could have sent the gift with the Emperor's delegation to give to Plethon. In any case, the poem suggests an attitude of deep respect.
Besides these interactions, we know that Filelfo read Plethon’s De Differentiis closely. Hankins says,
Quote:
| Filelfo too owned a copy of the De Differentiis which he annotated... (vol. 2 p. 438) |
Plethon, by his own account, wrote De Differentiis in Florence. See e.g.John Monfasani, George of Trezibond p. 202, http://books.google.com/books?id=qiQ...entiis&f=false)
So he could easily have given (in person) or sent (soon after) a copy to Filelfo.
There is also the question of whether Filelfo knew Plethon personally when he was in Greece. The problem is that Filelfo was in Constantinople, in Asia Minor, and Plethon was in Mistra, in southern Greece, on the Peloponnesian peninsula. They were too far apart to have had contact. It is more likely that Filelfo knew Plethon's ideas through people who had known Plethon. Already in 1429 Filelfo was talking about Zoroaster according to Stausberg, at Note 281, citing an Oration of 1429. Strausberg says (http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=gBzyaezyN60C&pg=PA136#v=onepage&q&f=false. Faszination Zarathushtra: Zoroaster und die Europäische ..., Volume 1 p. 136 - 139:
Quote:
| In einer Oratio aus dem Jahre 1429 (!), in der Zoroaster bereits als Fürst der Mager bei den Persen erwähnt wird, legt sich Filelfo noch nicht auf eine Reihenfolge fest,.. |
Quote:
| In an Oration from the year 1429 (!), in which Zoroaster is already mentioned as a prince of the Persian Magi, Filelfo does not commit himself yet to a sequence... |
But Strausberg says, of a Greek scholar who came to Florence and was Ficino's teacher (http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2905039&postcount=104):
Auch bei Johannes Argyropoulos gerät Zoroaster als erster der "Alten Philosophen" in den Blick, als deren Charakteristikum Argyropoulos (wie Ficino) herausstreicht, daß sie ihre Philosophie in Gesängen vortrugen.So there seems to have been a general orientation to make Zoroaster the first of the philosophers, a lineage that passes through Plato.
(Also with John Argyropoulos, Zoroaster is put as the first of the "old philosophers " in the view when of their characteristics Argyropoulos stresses (like Ficino) that they reported their philosophy in hymns.)
From 1429 until 1434, Filelfo was in Florence. But after the return of Cosimo de 'Medici in 1433 things were difficult for him, and some fellow scholars, notably Pogio Bracciolini, turned against him, too, and he had to leave. (A good source here is a biography of Filelfo on the Web in Italian, http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-filelfo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/). He spent four years in Siena, until the end of 1438. During the last parto f the Council of Florence, i.e. the first part of 1439, he lectured at the University of Bologna When the academic schedule there allowed, he workedout a more permanent position in Milan. Ross reports:
His last letter from Bologna was written to Giovanni Toscanelli, on the Ides of April (13 April), 1439 (Bk. IV, letter V (p. 128)).Unfortunately there is a gap in the letters from June until early October of 1439. For his letters in Greek, the gap is even longer. Ross reports (http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2878913&postcount=38) "There is one from Bologna on 29 March 1439 (no. 12 (pp. 31-34)), and the next is from Milan, 23 September 1440 (no. 13 (pp. 34-35)."
His next letter (letter VI (p. 129ff.) is from Milan, written to Alberto Zancario on May 2 (VI Nonas Majas MCCCCXXXIX).
His letters from then through June 8 are from Milan, then he write to Guarnerio Castellioni on June 12 from Piacenza (IV, XI (p. 133), saying he was on his way back to Bologna. He doesn't say why (he is addressing linguistic questions), but of course he was still under contractual obligation with the university.
His next Latin letter is to Friderico (Frederico) Cornelio, dated 15 October 1439, from Pavia (letter XIII (pp. 135-143)). It is a long encomium on his friend's new marriage. He doesn't mention what he was doing during the summer.
In letter XXIX (10 February 1440; to Aloysio Crotto (p. 157)), he says his whole family is now present in Milan. The letters in this volume end on 31 March 1441.
FILELFO, PLETHON, AND THE PRISCA THEOLOGIA
Hankins in one place describes Filelfo’s views in terms that I think probably--but not necessarily, as "Kwaw" demonstrated on the Plethon thread--shows the influence of Plethon. It is on p. 93, one of the pages I posted earlier, but it is worth seeing by itself. For Filelfo, Hankins says:
Quote:
| ...Plato, the greatest of philosophers, owed his greatness in part to having brought together the physics of Heraclitus, the metaphysics of Pythagoras and the moral thought of Socrates. Even Plato’s doctrine of the Ideas had been borrowed from Pythagoras who was himself following Zoroaster and the Chaldean mages. This suggestion of an esoteric diadoche reminds us of Ficino’s ancient theology, although Filelfo first enunciated it in 1464, too early to have been influenced by Ficino or Bessarion. |
Quote:
| He also knew Pletho’s edition of the Chaldean Oracles and derived form it his notion of a “Zoroastrian trinity”...(p. 438) |
Quote:
| We do not hear of Pletho and his followers sacrificing milk-white bullocks within the citadel of Mistra. His polytheism is the polytheism of late ancient Neoplatonism, and especially of Proclus, wherein the gods, arranged hierarchically from the high god Zeus, stand for transcendental principles or causes of substances and changes in the phenomenal world. Zeus is thus a sign for the principle of being, Poseidon (identified also with Neoplatonic Nous) is the principle of activity, Pluto of the human soul and so forth. The pagan myths and biblical stories, insofar as they have not been corrupted by poets and “sophists”, are not historical events, but shadowy representations in linguistic form of metaphysical (or divine) truths, which may only be grasped truly in contemplative noesis. The myths of Orpheus, the rape of Persephone, and Adam and Eve are thus at root the same story; both of them contain hidden truths about the fixity of human destiny, truths which, though visible to hidden powers of intuition within the soul, are strictly beyond the ability of language to communicate.(p. 200, Google Books) |
Quote:
| But above these corrupted religions, there soared a more ancient and sublime form of religion which had been known to “antique legislators and philosophers” and might yet be known to choice spirits in the modern world through a diligent study of the greatest of ancient philosophers. (p. 201, in Google books) |
FILELFO, PLETHON, AND THE TAROT AS HIEROGLYPHS
The influence or lack thereof of the Neoplatonists--especially Plotinus, Proclus, and pseudo-Dionysus--on tarot has been discussed on Aeclectic (on the last-named, there is http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.p...&postcount=210), but I don’t want to go there. I want to focus on just the theme of the “prisca philosophia,” which as far as I can tell was introduced to the post-ancient Latin West by Plethon.
What does the “ancient philosophy” uniting Christianity with paganism—for which Ficino after 1467 found a formulation acceptable to the orthodoxy of the time--have to do with the tarot? I hypothesize that Plethon’s high valuation of a primal philosophy, and a primal religion--one not fully realized until Christ, in Ficino’s revision--connects with what the Italians were also reading in ancient authors about hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs were thought to have been the preferred means by which the Egyptians and after them the Romans communicated their most noble ideas, ideas that in that form could be understood and read by wise men anywhere, anytime.
Filelfo was well aware of hieroglyphs and the thinking about them. His friend Filarete, the architect whom Cosimo had sent to Francesco Sforza from Florence, wrote of hieroglyphs
Quote:
| They are all picture letters; some have one animal, some another, some have a bird, some a snake, some an owl, some are like a saw and some like an eye, and some with some kinds of figures, some with one thing and then another, so that there are few that can translate them. It is true that the poet Francisco Filelfo told me that some of these animals meant one thing and some another. Each one had its own meaning. The eel means envy. Thus each one has its own meaning...(Curran, The Egyptian Renaissance p. 85) |
Quote:
| Vero e che ‘l poeta Francesco Filelfo mi diesse che quegli animali significavano chi una cosa e chi un’altra, ciascheduno ognuno per se, l’anguilla significa la ‘nvidia, e cosi ognuna ha sua significazione, se gia loro ancora on avessino fatto ch’elle fussino pure come sono l’altre e potessinsi compitare. (Curran p. 320). |
Filarete’s reference to Filelfo is confirmed in one of Filelfo’s letters. Charles Dempsey writes:
Quote:
| Filarete’s memory, at least on this one point, did not fail him, for a letter written by Filelfo in 1444 to Scalamonti, the biographer of Syriacus of Ancona, refers to Horapollo and specifically cites the eel as meaning envy (“Renaissance Hieroglyphic Studies and Bellini’s St. Mark,” in Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe p. 354). |
Quote:
| The Egyptians employed the following sign language: a god was represented by an eye, nature by a vulture, a king by a bee, time by a circle, peace by an ox, and so on. They maintained that each nation knew only its own alphabet, and that eventually all knowledge of it would be lost—as has happened with our own Etruscan: we have sepulchers uncovered in city ruins and cemeteries throughout Etruria inscribed with an alphabet universally acknowledged to be Etruscan, their letters look not unlike Greek, or even Latin, yet no one understands what they mean. The same, the Egyptians claimed, should happen to all other alphabets, whereas the method of writing they used could be understood easily by expert men all over the world, to whom alone noble matters should be communicated (On the art of building in ten books, trans. Rykwert, Leach, and Tavernor, p. 256.) |
The examples these Italian scholars cited, following Horapollo, Plutarch, and Amiannus, were moral teachings, not incompatible with Christianity. But with Plethon’s perspective there could also be seen the probability of religious teachings, from a perspective wider than Christianity. Again, there is Alberti’s “winged eye”—the eye of God, but with pagan-looking wings (for the image, see my post at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.p...7&postcount=45). The very word “hieroglyph” meant “sacred carving”—so how could religious matters as well as moral ones not also have been communicated? And could one even separate morality from religion, since the latter was the foundation for the former?
Tarot cards, of course, are also pictures, and the trumps, even in the Cary Yale, mostly depict “noble matters,” in Alberti’s phrase. As such they are capable of being understood by people of various languages; and no doubt some would have thought even by people in the distant future, if the truths communicated were in fact eternal truths and not ephemera. And likewise they mixed pagan with Christian imagery, just as Plethon and those influenced by him did. (By the time of the Cary Sheet, I believe, Egyptianate imagery was added as well (see my post at http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewto...ptianate#p8116). The result might then be something inexpressible in language, known only by intuition.
So my thought is that one way Plethon could have influenced tarot is not in the images of particular cards, nor through Neoplatonism as such, but merely in the significance of the tarot trump images generally, as communicating profound matters of the prisca theologia, transcending language, nationality, and particular religious beliefs and practices. At this time of religious warfare and factionalism, the hope of developing a religion that transcended particular places and their history would have been attractive. There were even Chinese in Florence then, with their picture-language, whose philosophical writings must have been imagined as similar expressions of the prisca theologia on an even broader scale.
Later, Pico’s and others’ research into Kabbalah would tend to confirm the idea of the prisca philosoophia and prisca theologia (the ancient philosophy and theology at the root of all subsequent ones). God’s spoke in geometrical figures, Jewish-derived examples of which can be seen in Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy and also the Sefer Raziel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sefer_Raziel_HaMalakh). God communicated the truth to Adam before the fall, and Adam passed down what he could remember to his posterity. God’s language may also be that spoken by angels, whom Ficino described as speaking in a different language that he could understand (Hankins vol. 1 p. 278, in Google Books).
At some point, I think pretty early, alchemy was added to the mix, as part of the prisca theologia et philosophia. So we see enigmatic pictures of Greek myths offered allegoricaly. It, too, was imagined to be descended from divinity. Although this is late, here is Etteilla in the 18th century, holding that the secret of the elixir was first held by Adam (2nd Cahier, pp. 68-69).
Quote:
| La Médecine universelle tire son origine de l'arbre de vie qui étoit en
Eden; le texte y est formel. Avant de déluge, on no se servoit que de
la Médecine [p. 69] universelle [1: Sans Médecine universelle, on a de
la peine à expliquer comment le grand âge des premiers Hommes...]; la
science en étoit commune à tous les Hommes, & tous vivoient
plusieurs siecles; mais mésusant d'une vie longue jusqu'à s'adonner à
des vices sans contredit impardonnables, les Hommes furent submergés. Par Chanaan, petit-fils de Noé, ceette Science passa seulement aux premiers nés des Chananéens, des Amorrhéens, des Guergésiens, des Hétiens, des Héviens, des Périsiens & des Jébusiens, ainsi par Sem & par Japhet à leurs premiers nés. |
Quote:
| The universal Medicine draws its origin from the tree of life that was
in Eden; the text there is definite. Before the deluge, one was served
only by the universal Medicine [Footnote 1: Without universal Medicine,
it is difficult to explain the great age of the first Men...];
knowledge of it was common to all Men, and all lived several centuries;
but misusing a long life so as to give themselves to unarguably
unforgivable vices, Men were submerged. By Chanaan, grandson of Noah, this Knowledge passed only to the first born sons of the Chananians, the Amorrhians, the Guergesians, the Hetians, the Hevians, the Perisians and the Jebusians, so by Sem and by Japhet to their first-born. |
I don’t know of anyone clearly articulating the belief in the prisca philosophia before Plethon. In fact, Plethon usually isn’t even mentioned, as opposed to Ficino and Pico (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy). Nor is he mentioned in relationship to the prisca theologia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeti...Theologia.22)’ but he clearly had that as well. The tarot, in that spirit, could be conceived as a modern version of the hieroglyphs that, it was believed, were used by the ancients, and even God himself, to preserve a universal philosophy and religion which humanity could gradually understand on deeper levels as it progressed.
This is in addition to the Middle Platonic Plutarchian orientation that I see in the individual images of the Cary Sheet, the added cards of the PMB, and Marseille-style cards, which I attribute more to Filelfo’s influence than Plethon’s.
So by investigating Plethon and Filelfo, we might add a piece or two to this jigsaw puzzle of tarot, or at least learn more of the cards’ historical context
FILELFO'S 1464 LETTER MENTIONING ZOROASTER
IN 1464 Filelfo wrote a letter articulating the prisca theologia in a wa similar to Plethon's and also, to a degree, to Ficioo's slightly later. Ross G.R. Caldwell translated it on my request. I reproduce here Ross's introduction to the text and tanslation, and then the text itself (Aeclectic Tarot Forum 6 Oct. 2011, http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2900130&postcount=77):
I'm not completely satisfied I've understood everything correctly in this passage, but the sense is clear. Filelfo does believe that the philosophy of "Idea" comes from Zoroaster, but he doesn't cite any writings, just Pythagoras' basis in Magian teachings.
He clearly believes in some kind of "prisca philosophia", but not as Ficino would codify it. There is no mention of Orpheus or the Aglaophemus who was held to be Pythagoras' Orphic teacher.
And Ross makes an additional comment:Et huius quidem ideae inventor omnium primus, quotquot aut in Ionica aut in Italica claruissent philosophia, Pythagoras fuisse perhibetur. Secutus is quidem Zoroastren, qui bellum Troianum, ut Plutarchus refert, annis quinque millibus antecessit. Pythagoras enim ut caeteros omnis suae tempestatis, homines, formae venustate, atque praestantia mirifice adeo antecelluit, ut pro Appolline haberetur, ita divina quadam ingenii bonitate atque sciendi studio, cunctis mortalibus superior fuit. Quapropter ubi universam peragrasset Europam, quo undique, quicquid scitu dignum animadvertebat, acciperet, ductus tandem illustri fama sacerdotum, atque prophetarum, Aegyptiorum, profectus in Aegyptum, ubi simul cum lingua omnem illorum sapientiam didicisset, illud etiam intelligere visus est, Aegyptios eximiam omnem disciplinam a Magis, qui a Zoroastre fluxerunt, hausisse. Quare ad Chaldaeos se contulit, quo et Chaldaeos audiret qui astrologiae gloria habebantur insignes, et Magis quos apud illos versari acceperat, congrederetur. Magorum igitur diuturna usus consuetudine non obscure intelligere visus est unum Zoroastren Persen, ut antiquissimum philosophorum omnium, ita etiam acutissimum, sapientissimumque fuisse. Quare ex illa hora, Zoroastris philosophiam amplexus est. Quam postea Plato quoque Pythagoreis usus et auctoribus et doctoribus est secutus. Manarunt in quam ab ipso usque Zoroastre philosopho, quae sapienter et peracute de Idea, scripta a Platone referuntur.
Indeed Pythagoras is held to have been the first discoverer of this idea, of anyone, however many others might have illuminated either Ionia or Italy with philosophy. Of course, he followed Zoroaster, who lived five thousand years before the Trojan War, as Plutarch says. But Pythagoras made himself so preeminent, to all the other men of his time, with beautiful form and outstanding excellence, that he could be taken for Apollo, superior to all mortals, with a kind of innate divinity and spirit of knowledge. He traveled over the whole of Europe, investigating everything that was worthy of attention in its entirety, so that he was admitted, finally, among the illustrious Egyptian priests and prophets, progressing in Egypt, where at the same time he acquired all wisdom in their language, so that he understood that all the excellent Egyptian disciplines which flowed from Zoroaster had been absorbed by the Magi. Therefore he went to the Chaldeans, and heard the astrologers that were held famous among them, and engaging with the Magi among whom he was permitted to dwell. Having enjoyed long experience in the customs of the Magi therefore, he seemed to understand, not obscurely, that Zoroaster the Persian was one of them, as the most ancient of all the philosophers, and thus also the most profound and wisest. Therefore from that time the philosophy of Zoroaster was embraced. Thus afterwards Plato in his turn made use of Pythagoras and was followed by various authors and doctors. They spread, according to what came wisely and acutely from Zoroaster the philosopher himself concerning Idea, writings which are referred to by Plato.
(Filelfo’s Platonic reference to Zoroaster may be referring to First Alcibiades 122a1 :
“And at fourteen years of age he is handed over to the royal schoolmasters, as they are termed: these are four chosen men, reputed to be the best among the Persians of a certain age; and one of them is the wisest, another the justest, a third the most temperate, and a fourth the most valiant. The first instructs him in the magianism of Zoroaster, the son of Oromasus, which is the worship of the Gods, and teaches him also the duties of his royal office; the second, who is the justest, teaches him always to speak the truth; the third, or most temperate, forbids him to allow any pleasure to be lord over him, that he may be accustomed to be a freeman and king indeed,—lord of himself first, and not a slave; the most valiant trains him to be bold and fearless, telling him that if he fears he is to deem himself a slave” (trans. Benjanmin Jowett).
But he doesn't refer to "writings" here, so that's not entirely acceptable. There is another possible intersection of Plato and Zoroaster, when a philosopher named Colotes wrote that Plato had changed the name of Zoroaster to Er in Book X of the Republic. But again, no books are mentoned. Maybe Filelfo's reference is to some apocrypha we don't know about.)And now for my comments: That Filelfo does not mention Orpheus or Aglaeophemus is not surprising, if his source is Plethon. Plethon doesn't mention them either. The list was Ficino's already in 1463, when he hadn't added Zoroaster to his list. As for "writings", the crucial sentences are the last two, especially the last:
Quote:
| Thus afterwards Plato in his turn made use of Pythagoras and was followed by various authors and doctors. They spread, according to what came wisely and acutely from Zoroaster the philosopher himself concerning Idea, writings which are referred to by Plato. |
Quote:
| They call ‘spells’ (l. 55) the intellects linked to him and the separated Forms, which they also call the ‘inflexible upholders of the world’ (l. 57) (Woodhouse p. 53). |
Quote:
| The Father 'perfected everything' (l. 53), that is, he created the intelligible Forms, which he entrusted to the second god to rule over. ...The 'mental spells' (l. 55) are the intelligible Forms, 'conceived b the Father and themselves conceiving and moved towards conceptions by unspoken and voiceless wills'. The latter phrase means 'unmoved wills', for by movement is meant 'simply an intellectual relationship', and 'to speak' is taken to be a kind of motion. So what is meant is 'unmoved Forms'. The supreme intelligible Forms are called the 'upholders of the universe' (l. 57), and chief among them is the second god. In calling them 'inflexible', the Oracle has in mind the immortality of the Universe. |
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HZ9UJFrGgB...odhouse53a.jpg
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6E-fPHW8JW...oodhouse54.jpg
The Oracles themselves, that the line numbers refer to, I gave at the beginning of
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.p...0&postcount=56
So it seems to me that, given Filelfo's respect for and interest in Plethon's writings, that a likely source for Filelfo's last sentence in the letter is Plethon's edition of the Oracles, including either the "Brief Description" or the "Commentary" or both.
A difficulty is that these writings by Plethon are not among those listed by Calderini in the philosophical contents of Filelfo's library. If they were, Hankins would have said so. One possibility is that Filelfo gave them to someone else, when he did not have time to make another copy. It strikes me that Lorenzo's visit to Milan in 1465 might have been such an occasion, a very worthy act of good will toward the Medici, Cosimo's memory, and his protege Ficino, such as might go a long way to repair earlier damage.
It is also possible that Filelfo deduced the connection between Plato and Zoroaster from another source. Ross goes on to say:
Quote:
| There is another possible intersection of Plato and Zoroaster, when a philosopher named Colotes wrote that Plato had changed the name of Zoroaster to Er in Book X of the Republic. But again, no books are mentoned. Maybe Filelfo's reference is to some apocrypha we don't know about.) |
OTHER POSSIBLE SOURCES FOR FILELFO'S COMMENTS
Filelfo refers in his letter to both Plutarch and Pythagoras. In a note at the end of the letter, p. 523, Hankins identifies two sources, p. 523
Quote:
| 250-271: Plutarchus, De Iside et Osiride 369E; Diogenes Laertius I, prol. |
The great majority and the wisest of men hold this opinion: they believe that there are two gods, rivals as it were, the one the Artificer of good and the other of evil. There are also those who call the better one a god and the other a daemon,I notice also that in section 48 Plutarch mentions the Chaldeans, in an astrological context; the Chaldeans were the Babylonians, thought to be the originators of astrology.as, for example, Zoroaster
the sage,
who, they record, lived five thousand years before the time of the Trojan War.
In section III, Hankins' second reference, about Pythagoras's time in Egypt, Diogenes says that Pythagoras "associated with the Chaldeans and the Magi." (http://classicpersuasion.org/pw/diog...pythagoras.htm). III also talks about his time on Samos; I see "Samium" on line 275 of Filelfo's letter. Neither of these talks about the Ideas; so there must be another source..
HERE DOES FILELFO GET THE IDEA THAT ZOROASTER ORIGINATED THE THEORY OF IDEAS? (http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2898337&postcount=66)
Woodhouse has a whole chapter on the "Reply to Scholarios," which he says (p. 308) was probably completed in 1449. Scholarios himself first got it from others, so apparently it circulated among the Greek community. Woodhouse's presentation, like that of the "Commentary," is a mixture of quotes and paraphrases. Among the quotes we have (p. 284f)
Quote:
| the surviving oracles of Zoroaster are clearly consistent with the doctrines of Plato, totally and in every respect. |
Kwaw, however (7 Oct 2011, http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=2901032&postcount=83), found a long quote from Proclus's commentary, showing how Proclus describes how not only the Orphics--"Orpheus"-- but also the "Oracles" contained the doctrine of Ideas:
For the ideas, or four monads of ideas, prior to the fabrication of things subsist intelligibly ; but the order of forms proceeds into the Demiurgus; and the whole number of ideas is one of the monads which he contains. Orpheus also indicating these things says, that the intelligible God [Phanes] was absorbed by the Demiurgus of wholes. And Plato asserts that the Demiurgus looks to the paradigm, indicating through sight intellectual perception. According to the theologist, however, the Demiurgus leaps as it were to the intelligible God, and as the fable says, absorbs him. For if it be requisite clearly to unfold the doctrine of our preceptor, the God who is called Protogonus by Orpheus, and who is established at the end of intelligibles, is animal itself with Plato. Hence it is eternal, and the most beautiful of intelligibles, and is in intelligibles that which Jupiter is in intellectuals. Each however is the boundary of these orders. And the former indeed, is the first of paradigmatic causes; but the latter is the most monadic of demiurgic causes. Hence Jupiter is united to the paradigm through Night as the medium, and being filled from thence, becomes an intelligible world, as in intellectuals.As for Timaeus himself:
..
Plato, therefore, admitting a Demiurgus of this kind, suffers him to be ineffable and without a name, as having an arrangement prior to wholes in the portion of the good. For in every order of the Gods, there is that which is analogous to the one. Such therefore is the monad in each world. But Orpheus gives a name to the Demiurgus, in consequence of being moved [i. e. inspired] from thence ; whom Plato himself likewise elsewhere follows. For the Jupiter with him, who is prior to the three sons of Saturn, is the Demiurgus of wholes. After the absorption therefore of Phanes, the ideas of all things shone forth in him, as the theologist (Orpheus) says :
Hence with the universe great Jove contains,Jupiter however, being full of ideas, through these comprehends in himself wholes - which the theologist (Orpheus) also indicating adds:
Extended aether, heav'n's exalted plains;
The barren restless deep, and earth renown'd,
Ocean immense, and Tartarus profound;
Fountains and rivers, and the boundless main,
With all that nature's ample realms contain
And Gods and Goddesses of each degree;
All that is past, and all that e'er shall be,
Occultly, and in fair connection lies,
In Jove's wide belly, ruler of the skies.
Jove is the first, and last, high-thundering king,The Oracles likewise assert the same things of him as (the Pythagorean) Timaeus. For they say, "The father of Gods and men placed our intellect in soul, but soul in sluggish body." But this is the admirable thing celebrated by the Greeks, concerning him who is according to them the Demiurgus. If however these things are asserted conformably both to Timaeus and the Oracles, those who are incited by the divinely delivered theology [of the Chaldeans] will say that this Demiurgus is fontal; that he fabricates the whole world conformably to ideas, considered as one, and as many, and as divided both into wholes and parts, and that he is celebrated as the maker and father of the universe, and as the father of Gods and men by Plato, Orpheus, and the Oracles; generating indeed, the multitude of-Gods, but sending souls to the generations of men, as Timaeus himself also says.
Middle and head, from Jove all beings spring.
Jove the foundation of the earth contains,
And the deep splendor of the starry plains.
Jove is a king by no restraint confin'd,
And all things flow from Jove's prolific mind.
One mighty principle which never fails,
One power, one daemon, over all prevails.
For in Jove's royal body all things lie,
Fire, night and day, earth, water, and the sky....
...
Phanes, therefore, thus unfolding himself into light from the occult Gods, antecedently comprehends in himself the causes of the secondary orders, viz. of the effective, connective, perfective, and immutable orders; and also contains in himself according to one cause, all intelligible animals. For he excites himself to the most total ideas of all things. Hence also, he is said [by Orpheus] to be the first of the Gods, and to have a form. But he produces all things, and unfolds the intelligible and united causes of things, to the intellectual Gods . (http://ia600501.us.archive.org/12/it...five-books.pdf)
..After this manner therefore, we must say, that Timaeus being a Pythagorean, follows the Pythagorean principles. But these are the Orphic traditions. For what Orpheus delivered mystically through arcane narrations, this Pythagoras learned, being initiated by Aglaophemus in the mystic wisdom which Orpheus derived from his mother Calliope. For these things Pythagoras says in The Sacred Discourse."..So we have the chain 'Plato - Pythagoras - Aglaophemus - Orpheus' from Proclus, with a comparison to the Oracles. In addition, Kwaw says, the chain 'Plato - Pythagoras - Zoroaster' is in Apuleius: his Florida, Apologia & Plato and his Doctrines. Apuleius in turn refers to 'Greek authorities' as his source. Apuleius was abundanently available in the 15th century. Kwaw says that Petrarch for example owned a volume of his complete works (literary and philosophical) prepared between 1340-1343. The medici library has the complete works in manuscripts completed for them by 1425.
Agaisnt my objection that the word "Chaldean" is interpolated by the tanslator and not in the original, Kwaw, post 106, finds in Proclus's commentary on the Republic (In Remp II 220-11-18) the actual phrase Χαλδαίος Θεουργων. "Chaldean:Theurgists" in Fragment 58 of the Oracles embedded there, (http://books.google.com/books?id=Ow0VAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA70&dq=%22II,+220,%20+11-18%22&hl=en#v=onepage&q=%22II%2C%20220%2C%20%2011-18%22&f=false, relating how the sun "was established at the site of the heart".
The upshot is that Filelfo didn't need Plethon to derive Plato's theory of ideas from Zoroaster. He could have found it for himself reading Proclus's commentaries on the Timaeus and the Republic
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