Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was one of the luminaries of the Florentine Renaissance and the scholar responsible for the revival of Platonism. The translator and interpreter of the works of both Plato and Plotinus as well as of various Hermetic and Neoplatonic texts, Ficino was also a musician, priest, magus and psychotherapist, an original philosopher and the author of a vast and important correspondence with the intellectual figures of his day including Lorenzo the Magnificent. Professor Allen has become the foremost interpreter of Ficino's metaphysics and mythology, and the ancient sources they draw upon; and this collection of essays assembles his work on Ficino's complex interrogation of Platonic 'theology' as not only a preparation for Christianity but as an enduring medium for intellectuals to explore and to express Christian truths.
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499) was one of the luminaries of the Florentine Renaissance and the scholar responsible for the revival of Platonism. The translator and interpreter of the works of both Plato and Plotinus as well as of various Hermetic and Neoplatonic texts, Ficino was also a musician, priest, magus and psychotherapist, an original philosopher and the author of a vast and important correspondence with the intellectual figures of his day including Lorenzo the Magnificent. Professor Allen has become the foremost interpreter of Ficino’s metaphysics and mythology, and the ancient sources they draw upon; and this collection of essays assembles his work on Ficino’s complex interrogation of Platonic 'theology’ as not only a preparation for Christianity but as an enduring medium for intellectuals to explore and to express Christian truths.
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus, was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. This volume contains Ficino's extended analysis and commentary on the Phaedrus.
This book represents the first ever systematic philosophical study of Marsilio Ficino’s Commentary on Plotinus’ ‘Enneads’ (first published in Florence, 1492), this work of Ficino being arguably as definitive for the Florentine thinker’s later work as the Platonic Theology was for his earlier. Publication of the present study uniquely illuminates the extent to which Plotinus had always been the crucial influence over Ficino’s revolutionary projects of introducing Platonic thought based on original Greek sources to western Europe, correcting certain features of late medieval and Renaissance Aristotelianism, and laying the foundations of a new Christian Platonism. The study can be read both as an independent introduction to Ficino’s later philosophy and as the complement to the first modern edition and translation of the Commentary on the 'Enneads' itself also by Stephen Gersh (I Tatti Renaissance Library, 2017-).
Marsilio Ficino, the Florentine scholar-philosopher-magus, was largely responsible for the Renaissance revival of Plato. His commentaries remained the standard guide to the philosopher’s works for centuries. Vanhaelen’s new translation of Parmenides makes this monument of metaphysics accessible to the modern student.
In The Gospel in the Western Context, Gert-Jan Roest focuses on discerning a Western contextual gospel, an endeavour that is very relevant to the current state of Christianity in the postmodern and post-Christendom West. After giving an in-depth analysis and synthesis of how Hendrikus Berkhof and Colin Gunton read the Western context and contextualize their Christology, he develops a gospel-centred model for reading the context. Meanwhile, he makes a creative and much-needed attempt to connect the two disciplines of systematic theology and missiology and convincingly shows that both disciplines cannot only enrich one another but also can give church practitioners insight and wisdom for their tasks.
The head is the most divine part of the body and ruler of all other parts. The gods endowed the front of the head with organs informing the forethought of the soul. First they constructed light-bearing eyes so that the pure fire within us, which is akin to that of day, flows through the eyes in a smooth and dense stream — from within without. In daylight, a fire-stream issuing from the eye meets a fire-stream coming from the object of vision, i.e., it flows out like unto like and, coalescing therewith, it forms one kindred substance along the path of the eyes’ vision. And this substance, having all become similar in its properties because of its similar nature, distributes the motions of every object it touches, or is touched, throughout the body and informs the soul thus bringing about that sensation which we now term “seeing.” The soul when looking outwardly see the shadows and images of other souls. But when she looks inwardly, she evolves her own essence and the reasons which she contains. At first, she sees herself. When she penetrates deeper into the knowledge of herself, she finds within herself both intellect, and the orders of beings. When she proceeds even deeper, she perceives with eyes closed the celestial hierarchies and the essential unity of being. Love is its own act and harvests the spectacle of celestial beauty. Love is the eye of the desirer. By its power, the lover can see the beloved. Sight sees out of time, in an instant. The other senses function in time. My eye and God’s eye is one eye, one sight, one knowledge, one love. If the soul shall see with the right eye into eternity, then the left eye must be as though it were dead. Brahma moves about, becoming manifold within the heart, where the arteries meet, like the spokes fastened in the nave of a chariot wheel. Iris is the chariot wheel. The aperture of the eye is the axle hole.
Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism.
The twelve essays in this new collection by John Monfasani examine how, in particular cases, Greek émigrés, Italian humanists, and Latin scholastics reacted with each other in surprising and important ways. After an opening assessment of Greek migration to Renaissance Italy, the essays range from the Averroism of John Argyropoulos and the capacity of Nicholas of Cusa to translate Greek, to Marsilio Ficino's position in the Plato-Aristotle controversy and the absence of Ockhamists in Renaissance Italy. Theodore Gaza receives special attention in his roles as translator, teacher, and philosopher, as does Lorenzo Valla for his philosophy, theology, and historical ideas. Finally, the life and writings of a protégé of Cardinal Bessarion, the Dominican friar Giovanni Gatti, come in for their first extensive study.
