Platonism

PLATONISM. - For ancient Greek Platonism, see the entry ACADEMY (I. The Greek Academy). Here the following will be discussed: I. Platonism in the Church Fathers; II. Platonism in the Middle Ages; III. Platonism in the Renaissance.

I. PLATONISM IN THE FATHERS

Among not a few writers of the patristic era, especially the Greek ones, Platonism enjoyed exceptional favour. While Aristotle is the "physicist" or even "the atheist," Plato is "the philosopher": in the very sense that the Fathers give to "philosophy," not as pure theoretical speculation, nor as research into the structure of the universe, but as the science that discovers the norms of life, indicates to man the path to happiness, frees him from the slavery of sensible goods, and elevates him to the contemplation of higher realities. According to Socrates' response to Glaucon in the Republic (V, 475 e), "the true philosophers... are the lovers of truth, who strive to contemplate it." Plato, precisely because he is a philosopher (in this sense), is "the most theological among the Greeks" and, in a certain way, a precursor of Christianity.

1. Meaning of Platonism in the Fathers

The imprecision and mythical form with which Plato had clothed not a few of his doctrines lent themselves to diverse interpretations; and already among his first disciples, beginning with Xenocrates, opposing doctrines appealed to Plato. The doubt raised by the New Academy regarding the existence of immaterial beings is directly attributed to the founder of the school (Cicero, De oratore, III, 18, 67). Such scepticism, due to the consequences it entailed in the moral sphere, provoked strong opposition (v. the indictment of Numenius against Arcesilaus and his successors, in Eusebius, Praep. Evang., I, XIV, ch. 6 ff.: PG 21, 1200 B ff). At the beginning of the 2nd century A.D., on the contrary, due to influences that remain obscure, the syncretism known as Middle Platonism considers the founder of the Academy above all as the theorist of the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, the master who teaches how to live well and to render oneself similar to God through contemplation and union with Him. This point of view could certainly draw upon Plato, especially the Plato of the later period, in the Sophist, Philebus, Timaeus, and Laws. But it is only in Middle Platonism that a statement such as that of St. Augustine can find justification: "Non dubitat (Plato) hoc esse philosophari amare Deum" (De civit. Dei, VIII, ch. 8: PL 41, 233). The Platonism of which traces are found in the Fathers is that of Plato, but first and foremost Middle Platonism, and, later, the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus.

It must also be noted that such Platonism did not exclude the influence of other philosophical systems. Just as Middle Platonism, so too Neoplatonism drew elements from diverse sources: Socrates, Heraclitus, the Ionians, the Pythagoreans, Aristotle (v.); for moral doctrines, Stoicism (v.), sometimes passed to the Fathers through Philo or Plotinus.

2. Principal Representatives

The Fathers and ecclesiastical writers of the first centuries who were most influenced by Platonism are: a) the apologists of the 2nd century: St. Justin and Athenagoras cite the Dialogues, but seem to know them only through florilegia (J. M. Pfättisch, Der Einfluss Platos auf die Theologie Justins des Märtlers, Paderborn 1910). The influence of the "Platonists" is far more perceptible among the Alexandrians: Clement (S. Meifort, Der Platonismus bei Clemens Alexandrinus, Tübingen 1928) and Origen (cf. the Index of the Koetschau edition); and, in the 4th century, Eusebius, Methodius of Olympus, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, St. Gregory of Nyssa, Evagrius; it is not entirely absent in St. Athanasius and St. Basil. b) Among the Latins, Plato was almost unknown. However, the statement of St. Jerome should not be taken literally: "Quanti Platonis vel libros novere vel nomen? Viz in angulos ottosi eos senes recolunt" (Comment. in Epist. ad Galatae, I. III, ch. 5: PL 26, 401 B). St. Augustine is certainly among the Fathers who most utilised Neoplatonism (cf. L. Grandgeorge, St Augustin et le néoplatonisme, Paris 1896; Ch. Boyer, Christianisme et néoplatonisme dans la formation de st Augustin, ibid. 1920). c) In the 5th century, Theodoret of Cyrus, Nemesius, Claudianus Mamertus, Synesius (cf. H. Eibl, Augustin und die Patristik, VIII: Christliche Neuplatoniker des V. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1923) should be recalled; and above all, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

3. Aspects of the Influence of Platonism

These can be specified as follows: a) there is first of all a certain vocabulary, a selection of expressions and images: philosophy considered as the search for the "invisible," a science that is also "love," and of which "union with God" is the supreme term. Alongside this, the body compared to a "prison," a "burden"; souls "weighed down" in their ascent by matter; the necessity of escaping from "here below" and striving "up there"; and also a certain way of understanding the "kinship" of souls with God, "contemplation," and "purification." b) Consequently, the conviction that the "true world" is not that of sensible things, but that of immaterial beings. It was in this conviction that Augustine saw the overcoming of the principal and almost sole cause of his errors (Conf., V, ch. 12, 9). His meditations on the condition of angels (cf. De Gen. ad litteram) take up themes from Neoplatonic speculation on the intelligible world. c) The belief in Him who gives consistency to all, since, not involved in becoming, He is the absolutely simple, the One, the Monad that is at once the Good in itself; everywhere present, because all things participate in Him, and yet distinct, because He does not pass into anything that proceeds from Him, but remains, identical to Himself, in need of nothing. Principle, therefore, transcendent, source of being and of the intelligible that is beyond all being and all intelligibility, beyond science, and yet the light of intelligences, the end and supreme good of all things. Around God, Neoplatonism has felicitous expressions that the Fathers made their own: formally definitive in a certain way if detached from a context that, due to the lack of a doctrine of divine personality and freedom, monism (v.). d) Since every participated effect is inferior to its principle, there are in the structure of the world different degrees of imperfection, to the extent that individual beings distance themselves from their source. Moreover, since effects resemble their cause and follow it "without the distance being too great," the "descent" is harmoniously realised through intermediaries, the inferior attaining the superior; and, since the first principle is also the ultimate end, all things return to God from whom they derive. This cyclical view of the world, provided it is integrated with the affirmation of the freedom of the creative act, could be reconciled with the Christian conception of the origin and end of creatures. Through St. Augustine and Pseudo-Dionysius, it became an important part of scholastic philosophy (cf. Durantel, St Thomas et le Pseudo-Denys, Paris 1919). e) The human soul, in what is highest and at the same time most intimate in it, is a "divine plant," similar to God, capable of attaining Him. This is the destiny of man: he exists through a dependence on the infinite Being, and thus finds himself by finding God, loses himself by losing Him. It is in contemplation that this union with God is realised. But it is necessary that, just as the One is above every intelligible, in contemplation the intelligence not only detach itself from the sensible world, but also from itself, to attain mystical union, which is not science, but "epignosis," spiritual intoxication. These Platonic themes were not employed in the exposition of Christian doctrine except after being rethought and, as it were, vivified by a new spirit. Where the necessary corrections were lacking, imprecisions, inconsistencies, and errors were not avoided.

BIBL.:
J. M. Pfättisch, Der Einfluss Platos auf die Theologie Justins des Märtlers, Paderborn 1910; S. Meifort, Der Platonismus bei Clemens Alexandrinus, Tübingen 1928; L. Grandgeorge, St Augustin et le néoplatonisme, Paris 1896; Ch. Boyer, Christianisme et néoplatonisme dans la formation de st Augustin, Paris 1920; H. Eibl, Augustin und die Patristik, VIII: Christliche Neuplatoniker des V. Jahrhunderts, Munich 1923; Durantel, St Thomas et le Pseudo-Denys, Paris 1919.

4. Difficulties of Platonism — a) Platonism is not merely a belief in an immaterial world more real than the sensible world. It tends to admit that the object of thought exists in reality as it does in thought, and to consider as truly separable those elements that reflection discovers as co-existing in finite being. Hence, Tertullian argues, the aeons of the Gnostics: « Inde neones et formae nescio quae et trinitas hominis apud Valentinum: platonicus fuerat » (De praescriptionibus, VII: PL 2, 22 A). This tendency also contained a danger for the unity of composite beings, particularly of man and the soul. For a "Platonist," man is the soul, and in the soul what matters is the superior part, the nous. From this derived, in spirituality, an asceticism of separation. The contempt for matter and the illusory attempt to free oneself from it gave rise to not a few false mystical directions and adversely influenced others. b) The theological error known as Apollinarism also derived from Platonic trichotomy. "There are some," says Nemesius, "and Plotinus is among them, who, considering the intellect distinct from the soul, claim that man is composed of three elements: the body, the soul, and the intellect. Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, followed them, and upon this foundation he built the rest of his doctrine" (De natura hominis, 1: PG 40, 504 A). In Jesus Christ, the divine Word took the place of the intellect. This easily led to Monophysitism (v.). c) Similarly, regarding the Trinitarian dogma. Petau does not hesitate to see in Arius "a true Platonist" (Dogmata theologica, II, de Trinitate, I, I, cap. 8 § 2). The question is debatable. However, since the Arian heresy considered the generation of the Word as a creation and posited as a principle that the One cannot immediately produce more than a single being, and thus, through it, the rest of the universe (cf. St. Athanasius, Contra Arianos, orat., 2, n. 24: PG 26, 200 A), it was in line with "Platonic" speculation and had to conceive the Trinity as a descending hierarchy of hypostases, in the manner of Numenius and Plotinus. From the very beginning of speculations on the Word, among the first apologists and the Alexandrians, Platonism was a temptation toward subordinationism ([v.] cf. Sum. Theol., 1°, q. 32 a. 1 ad 1: « Nos non ponimus Patrem et Filium secundum substantiam differentes: sed fuit error Origenis... et Arii, sequentium in hoc Platonicos »). d) Platonism, by positing as the first condition for attaining divine truth the separation from matter, opposed the Christian dogma in what is most essential to it: the Incarnation of the Word and the Revelation, through it, to men of the mystery of God. What is most Christian is at the same time what is least Platonic. e) It is therefore understandable that Platonism was condemned by some ecclesiastical writers, known moreover for their habitual severity. "I sincerely regret," declares Tertullian, "that Plato has been the seasoning of all heretics" (De anima, 23: PL 2, 680 ff.). The condemnation, however, does not concern Plato alone, since, in general, "the philosophers are the patriarchs of heresies" (ibid., III: 651 A-B). St. Jerome will write to Heliodorus, evoking the day of Judgment, when "this foolish Plato will appear with his disciples" (Epist., XIV, 11: PL 22, 554).

5. Conclusion. — In the analogies of expression and thought between Platonism and nascent theology, more than one historian has believed to discover a reason for dependence. Harnack asserts: "They approach each other so closely that they often seem to merge" (Dogmengeschichte, I, append. 3; Der Neuplatonismus, 4th ed., Tübingen 1909, p. 824). M. Heinze admits a penetration of Neoplatonism into dogmas (art. Neuplatonismus, in Protestant. Real-Encyclopädie, 3rd ed., III, p. 783). E. Bréhier states:

"It is one and the same evolution that, in the first five centuries, advances pagan thought from the practical problem of inner conversion in a Seneca or an Epictetus to the refined theology of Plotinus and Proclus, and Christian thought from the spiritual and inner Christianity of St. Paul to the dogmatic theology of Origen and the Cappadocians: it is difficult not to see the same factors at work in this transformation" (Histoire de la philosophie, I, p. 491). This is an error. Even when they make extensive use of Plato, the Fathers do not derive from him the rule of their faith. In Plato, they found a type of speculation, a thrust of thought, affinities—sometimes indeed exaggerated—in the way of understanding man's destiny and his relationship with God. But the substance of their doctrine and the conceptual determinations of dogma are sought elsewhere. Clear confirmation of this lies in their explicit declarations. St. Augustine affirms: « Apud Platonicos me interim quod sacris nostris non repugnant reperturum esse confido » (De civit. Dei, VIII, cap. 4, 9 e 10: PL 41, 231-35). Even when he speaks as a Platonist, he is first and foremost a Christian: "This is quite clear: I shall never depart from the authority of Christ" (Cont. Acad., III, cap. 20, 43: PL 32, 957). Similarly, St. Justin already: what he preaches are "the teachings received from Christ and from the prophets who preceded him. They contain the whole truth, whereas in philosophers it is only partial and participated" (Apol., I, 23: PG 6, 364 A). Origen himself, in the De principiis, a largely speculative work, affirms that « illa sola credenda est veritas quae in nullo ab ecclesiastica et apostolica discordat traditione » (I, 1: PG 11, 116 B). He always intended to have no masters other than Jesus Christ and the Apostles (Cont. Cels., I, 42; III, 47: PG 11, 776 A, 981 A, 1017 A). In the school of Origen, as St. Gregory the Wonderworker, his disciple at Caesarea, reports, teaching consisted primarily in the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures (Oratio panegyrica, 15: PG 10, 1093 ff.). If, in ethics and metaphysics, Origen advised resorting to Greek philosophy, it was to draw from it "what may serve as a propaedeutic to Christianity" (Epist. ad Gregorium, I: PG 11, 88 A). Pascal will say: "Plato to dispose for Christianity" (Pensées, ed. Brunschvicg, Paris 1897, n. 219). This "preparation of the soul," which Platonism can provide ("suffragatur religionem vera," says St. Augustine), derives above all from the fact that it believes in metaphysics. For the great current of thought that refers to Plato, sensible things, however beautiful, are but the lowest degrees of a ladder whose summit is lost in the luminous mystery of God. And the soul truly tends to unite with God, whose height always transcends II. In reality, the ultimate conclusion of the Platonic itinerary should be the recognition of the inadequacy of human thought before the Mystery and the hope for a revelation of the supreme truth.

niélou, Platonisme et théologie mystique. Essai sur la doctrine spirituelle de la Grégoire de Nysse, Parigi 1944; A. Dahl, Augustin und Plotin. Philosophische Untersuchungen zum Trinitätsproblem und zur Nuslehre, Lund 1945. Renato Arnou

II. PLATONISM IN THE MIDDLE AGES

Platonism in the Middle Ages found diverse expressions in Byzantine culture, the Arab world, and the Latin West.

1. Byzantine East. — The fact that there was no need to translate the works of Plato and the Platonists explains why the tradition of Platonic thought remained alive in the Byzantine East throughout the Middle Ages, until the fall of Constantinople. However, when the speculative fervor of an Origen (v.), the great Basil (v.), and the two Gregories, Nazianzen (v.) and Nyssen (v.), gave way to the theological systematization of John Damascene (v.), enthusiasm for Platonism gradually waned, while Aristotelianism gained ground. It was not until Arethas, a disciple of Photius, that the cult of Plato, whom George Hamartolos, their contemporary, regarded—as had Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius—as a precursor of Christ, was revived. But it was primarily through the efforts of Michael Psellus (v.) that Plato once again became the greatest philosopher and the closest to Christianity. Alongside Plato’s writings, Porphyry (v.), Proclus (v.), and other Neoplatonists also gained prominence, and Byzantium became the center of Platonism’s diffusion eastward, into Armenia, Georgia, and the Byzantine provinces of Italy. Psellus’s school had a wide following: John Italus and Michael of Ephesus, Eustratius of Nicaea and Michael Italicus, known as the “second Plato,” continued his spirit, links in a chain that extended to Gemistus Pletho (v.) and Cardinal Bessarion (v.).

2. Muslim World. — The Arabs encountered Greek culture not directly from the Byzantines but from the Syrians, after the conquest of their land and Persia (640–642). Lacking scientific knowledge, they eagerly absorbed the rich Greek encyclopedia preserved in the schools of Nisibis, Gundishapur, and Edessa. Under the caliphate of al-Ma'mūn or shortly thereafter, they acquired a double translation of the Timaeus and were able to read in Arabic the Republic, the Laws, and the Sophist with Olympiodorus’s commentary, as well as the Apology, the Crito, and the Phaedo. Additionally, Galen’s Synopsis of certain Platonic dialogues—such as the Cratylus, the Sophist, the Statesman, the Parmenides, the Euthydemus, the Republic, the Timaeus, and the Laws—was translated into Arabic, along with various Neoplatonic writings that Muslim philosophers widely used. Among the latter, particular importance for their influence on Islamic thought attach to the Book of the Five Substances of Pseudo-Empedocles, the so-called Theology of Aristotle, an extract from Books IV–VI of Plotinus’s Enneads (which P. Henry considers a work of Plotinus himself), and the Book of Pure Good, an extract from Proclus’s Elements of Theology, later translated into Latin as the Liber de causis. A distinctly Neoplatonizing tendency is evident in all Muslim philosophers from Persia to Spain before Averroes (v.). It is especially in al-Fārābī (v.), who composed a paraphrase of Plato’s Laws and another recently discovered work (Klibansky, op. cit. in bibl., p. 39) on the convergence of Plato’s and Aristotle’s philosophies, that this tendency is most pronounced. Even Averroes, who in his Great Commentary sought to free Aristotle’s thought from all extraneous elements, not only left a paraphrase of Plato’s Republic but was also, Themistius (v.), seduced by genuinely Platonic motifs in formulating both the thesis of the unity of the possible intellect (De anima, III, comm. 5; Destructio destructionum, I, dub. 8) and that of copulatio with the agent intellect (De anima, III, comm. 36).

Closely related to Arabic Neoplatonism is the Jewish Neoplatonism derived from II. Avicèbron (i.e., Šēlōmōh ibn Gēbirōl, 11th century), in his Fons vitae, which exerted great influence on Christian scholastic thought, alludes to Plato (though it may be an error for Plotinus) where he speaks of a spiritual matter as the subject of all created forms. But this doctrine had already been disseminated by the Book of the Five Substances of Pseudo-Empedocles and by

Ibn Masarrah, who lived in Spain over a century earlier. From al-Fārābī also derives the Neoplatonizing interpretation of Aristotelian thought in Maimonides’s (v.) Mōrēh nēbūkhīm. Neoplatonic elements are equally evident in Kabbalistic speculation, into which G. Pico della Mirandola (v.) sought initiation.

3. Latin West. — At the time of the Carolingian Renaissance, the Latins knew only the fragment of the Timaeus translated by Calcidius (Cicero’s translation was by then almost unknown), accompanied by his commentary. Nevertheless, the indirect influence of Platonic—or rather Neoplatonic—thought never ceased, transmitted through the patristic legacy of Augustine and Ambrose, and through translations of certain writings by the Greek Church Fathers. To these must be added the translations of the works of Pseudo-Dionysius (v.) John Scotus Eriugena (v.), who also translated Gregory of Nyssa’s De hominis opificio and Maximus the Confessor’s (v.) Ambigua. Eriugena’s great work, De divisione naturae, is a bold and powerful synthesis of Christian thought with Neoplatonic speculation. Alongside these channels of Platonic transmission, one must not forget Boethius’s De consolatione philosophiae (especially Book III, meter 9), Macrobius’s commentary on the Somnium Scipionis, Apuleius’s De deo Socratis and De dogmate Platonis, Aulus Gellius’s Noctes Atticae, and Virgil’s sixth book of the Aeneid with Servius’s gloss—all works that continued to be read in the Christian schools of the West. Particularly noteworthy is the school named after the abbey of Chartres in the 12th century. Here, the Timaeus was glossed multiple times by William of Conches (v.), who also intended to comment on Macrobius. From the reading of these works, and from the insights some writers of this period drew for their commentaries on the first chapters of Genesis, derive certain characteristic theories, such as that of the world soul identified with the “spirit of God” that “hovered over the waters” (Gen. 1:2, according to the Hebrew text and ancient versions predating the Vulgate). This doctrine Chartres (v.), the younger brother of Bernard, whom John of Salisbury (Metalogicon, IV, 35) calls “the most perfect of the Platonists,” into a bold theory that sought to establish a perfect correspondence—indeed, identity—between the Christian Trinity and the Neoplatonic triad (the One, Nous, and Psyche or Entelechy).

Shortly after the mid-12th century, and precisely in 1156, two of Plato’s most important dialogues, the Meno and the Phaedo, were translated from Greek by Henry Aristippus, archdeacon of Catania. However, this translation initially did not achieve the diffusion it began to have toward the end of the 13th century. Far greater circulation was enjoyed by the two translations of Nemesius’s De natura hominis, made by Alfonso, bishop of Salerno, and Burgundio of Pisa, both slightly later than the translation of the Phaedo. Nemesius’s work exerted a strong Platonic influence on the scholastics of the first half of the 13th century, an influence soon Aristotelianism (v.). Certain quotations believed to derive directly from Plato in fact originate from Nemesius.

BIBL.:
For Byzantine Platonism: K. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Literatur, Monaco 1897; H. F. Tozer, Lectures on the Geography of Greece, Londra 1873; J. Dräseke, Michael Psellos und seine Schule, in « Byzantinische Zeitschrift », 1895; R. Klibansky, The Continuity of the Platonic Tradition during the Middle Ages, Londra 1939; Id., Plato’s Parmenides in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, in « Medieval and Renaissance Studies », I, 1941-43; G. Théry, Études dionysiennes, Parigi 1932; A. Dempf, Sacrum Imperium, Monaco 1929.
For Arabic and Jewish Platonism: M. Steinschneider, Die hebräischen Übersetzungen des Mittelalters, Berlino 1893; S. Munk, Mélanges de philosophie juive et arabe, Parigi 1859; D. Kaufmann, Geschichte der Attributenlehre in der jüdischen Religionsphilosophie des Mittelalters, Gotha 1877; L. Gauthier, La philosophie musulmane, Parigi 1900; M. Horten, Die Philosophie des Islam, Monaco 1924; R. Walzer, Greek into Arabic, Cambridge (Mass.) 1962.
For Latin Platonism: E. Gilson, La philosophie au Moyen Âge, Parigi 1922; C. Baeumker, Witelo, ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII. Jahrhunderts, Münster 1908; M. Grabmann, Geschichte der scholastischen Methode, Friburgo 1909-11; F. Picavet, Les précurseurs de la Renaissance, Parigi 1909; P. Duhem, Le système du monde, Parigi 1913-17; A. J. Festugière, La révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, Parigi 1944-54; R. Klibansky, op. cit.; E. Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana, Torino 1947.
Renato Arnou

Another indirect source of the knowledge that the Scholastics had of Plato are the Aristotelian writings, in which the polemic against Platonism is incessant. If St. Augustine had saved Plato’s and Plotinus’s “ideal world” by placing it in God, Platonism was definitively defeated in the question of the relationship between soul and body. Although patristic thought had rejected Gnostic and Manichaean dualism, it nonetheless did not conceal a certain propensity for Platonic dualism, which opposed the substance of the body to the substance of the soul. In general, the Fathers seemed to recoil from the Aristotelian concept that makes the soul the act or entelechy of the body, fearing that, as some declared with Plotinus, such a doctrine might compromise the immortality of the soul. But the profound meaning contained in the dogma of the resurrection of the flesh ultimately prevailed, and the concept of the indivisible unity of the human individual ended up prevailing over the Platonic concept that makes the soul the guest or prisoner of the body. The Aristotelian formula that makes the soul the immediate and substantial form of the human body was adopted to dogmatically define Christian thought on the relationship between body and soul, dualism (v.).

But despite this defeat of Platonism, other Platonic motifs, inherited from the Augustinian tradition and from the Neoplatonizing Peripateticism of al-Fārābī Avicenna (v.), continued to exert their seduction on the spirit of certain Scholastics, such as the author of the Summa philosophiae, published by L. Baur (Beitr. zur Gesch. d. Philos. d. Mittelal. 9 [1912], pp. 275-643), St. Bonaventure, whose doctrine of knowledge incorporates consciously Platonic elements, and even St. Thomas, who commented on the De divinis nominibus of Pseudo-Dionysius and the Liber de causis, the source of which he discovered in Proclus’s Elementatio theologica. But above all, St. Albert the Great, who said (Metaph., I, tr. 5, cap. 15): «Et scias quod non perficitur homo in philosophia nisi ex scientia duarum philosophiarum Aristotelis et Platonis». In addition to the many direct citations of the Timaeus and Calcidius’s commentary, he also cites the Phaedo, the Meno, the Phaedrus, the Gorgias, the Laches, the Republic, and the Laws; but these are indirect citations from Macrobius, Nemesius, Eustratios, or Aristotle. Nevertheless, in the De causis et processu universitatis, in the unpublished commentary on the De divinis nominibus, and in his commentaries on Aristotle, he shows that he has assimilated all the thought of the Arabic “Peripateticism,” that is, the doctrines of the Neoplatonizing commentators of Aristotle, which he opposes to the interpretation of the “Latins.” A contemporary of Albert was his Flemish confrere William of Moerbeke (v.), who translated part of Proclus’s commentary on the Parmenides and the Timaeus, the Elementatio theologica of the same Proclus (of which the Liber de causis is considered an extract or free abbreviation), as well as three short works by Proclus: De providentia et fato et eo quod est in nobis, De decem dubitationibus circa providentiam, and De malorum subsistentia. He also translated Themistius’s paraphrase of the De anima, Simplicius’s commentary on the De caelo, and an important fragment of Philoponus on the third book of the De anima.

All this new, genuinely Neoplatonic literature was utilized by the group of German Dominicans who could be considered the continuators of Albert the Great’s work, namely Ulrich Engelberti of Strasbourg (v.), Theodoric of Freiberg (v.), Berthold of Moosburg (v.), and Master Eckhart (v.). Theodoric in particular makes extensive use of Proclus’s Elementatio, of which Berthold left a detailed commentary, preserved in a Vatican manuscript and in a codex of Balliol College, Oxford. In Eckhart, Platonism reaches the dizzying heights of Parmenidean thought. The influence of these thinkers profoundly shaped later German thought: Johannes Tauler and Heinrich Suso (or Seuse) clearly reflect Eckhart’s teaching; Denis the Carthusian, also known as Dionysius Rickel, who professed Thomism in his youth, increasingly oriented himself toward the Platonism of the Albertist current, and Nicholas of Cusa had also read Berthold of Moosburg’s commentary on Proclus’s Elementatio.

Another thinker who utilized the new Neoplatonic literature in the translations of William of Moerbeke was his compatriot and friend, Henry Bate of Malines, author of the Speculum divinorum et quorumdam naturalium, divided into 23 parts, of which only two have been published so far. Bate’s purpose is to demonstrate the agreement between Aristotle and Plato; and he does so in the 4th, 8th, and 12th parts of his great work, which in many respects anticipates by a century and a half Ficino’s Theologia platonica. Around the middle of the 15th century, Bate’s Speculum, transcribed for Pope Nicholas V, entered the Vatican Library, where it still remains, and from there it was borrowed by Pico della Mirandola, who had a copy made for his own library.

C. Baeumker, Der Platonismus im M.A. etc., ibid., XXV, 1-2, ivi 1928, pp. 139-93; M. Grabmann, Die Proclusübersetzungen d. W. V. Meerbeke u. ihre Wertung in d. latein. Litz., in Mittelalt. Geistesleben, II, Monaco 1936, pp. 413-23; R. Kibansky, The continuity of the platonic tradition during the middle ages, Londra [1930]; T. Gregory, L'anima mundi e nella filosofia del sec. XII, in Giorn. crit. della filosofia, it., 30 (1931), pp. 494-508; E. Garin, Contributi alla storia del p. medievale, in Ann. d. Scuola norm. sup. di Pisa, 20 (1931), pp. 58-97.

III. PLATONISM IN THE RENAISSANCE

What distinguishes the Platonism of the classical Renaissance from that of Enrico Bate is the direct knowledge of all of Plato’s dialogues, of Plotinus’s Enneads, and of numerous other Neoplatonic writings. Dante recalls the Timaeus, but it is highly doubtful that he had read it; and to explain the influence that some great Platonic concepts undoubtedly had on his thought, the writings of Albertus Magnus, which were well known to him, would suffice. Petrarch (v.), on the other hand, not only knew the Latin Timaeus and Calcidius’s commentary, but also possessed a copy of the Phaedo and perhaps also of the Meno, translated by Enrico Aristippo (the copy of the Phaedo owned by him and taken from the exemplar bequeathed to the Sorbonne by Gerardo d’Abbeville [v.] is now part of cod. lat. 6567 A of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, and bears brief marginal annotations in his own hand; it had previously belonged to Jacopo Finucci da Castel Fiorentino). But Petrarch also attests to having procured a considerable number of Greek codices of Plato. The number of “sixteen or more books of Plato” (De ignorantia, cod. Vat. lat. 3359, f. 28ᵃ) almost certainly includes the dialogues “translated into Latin, some of which had never been seen elsewhere”; but even subtracting these, the number of Greek codices remains substantial for that time. However, Petrarch, who had begun studying Greek in order to understand Plato, did not advance far in his knowledge of this language. Moreover, to penetrate Plato’s world, he lacked adequate philosophical preparation. He was therefore limited to a rather generic understanding of that world, derived largely from Cicero, Apuleius, and Augustine (v.), but sufficient for him, who never truly posed speculative problems and was rather tormented by moral restlessness. Thus, the shift of veneration from Aristotle to Plato in the Triumph of Fame does not have the philosophical significance often attributed to it, but is rather an expression of a dilettante’s sympathy.

Nevertheless, Petrarch’s example spurred the study of Plato when Greek codices of his works began to flow into Italy and humanists had learned Greek. A student of Chrysoloras (v.), Guarino followed his master to Constantinople, where he remained for five years. Among the codices he brought back, five were of Plato. Codices of Plato were also ARISTEA (v.) and Rinuccio da Castiglione in the third decade of the 15th century; Antonio Cassarino, around 1438, carried a large volume that seems to have contained all of Plato’s dialogues. Other codices continued to arrive from the East even later, brought by Greek scholars fleeing the advance of the Turks, and along with Plato’s writings came the Neoplatonizing commentaries on Aristotle (Themistius, Philoponus, Simplicius, Priscian of Lydia, etc.) and the works of the major Neoplatonists (Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, Proclus [v.]). The arrival of the codices was followed by translations. Leonardo Bruni (v.) mentions a rough anonymous translation of the Republic; to this was added another in 1402 by Chrysoloras himself, too literal and in inelegant Latin. Uberto Decembrio, his disciple in Pavia, attempted to rework it, but only his son, Pier Candido, completed it after 1437. A few years later, Cassarino’s translation appeared. Meanwhile, Bruni translated the Phaedo (1405), the Gorgias (1409), the Phaedrus, the Apology (1424), the Crito, the Epistles (1423–27), and part of the Symposium (1435). Later, Cencio de’ Rustici translated the Axiochus, Filelfo the Euthyphro, Pier Candido Decembrio the Lysis, Rinuccio Aretino the Crito, Lorenzo Lippi the Ion, Poliziano part of the Lysis, and George of Trebizond the Laws, dedicating the translation to Martin V, and the Epinomis. But the glory of having rendered all of Plato and a great number of Neoplatonic writings into Ficino (v.).

The translations were followed by heated discussions regarding the interpretation of Platonic thought and its relationship with the dominant Aristotelianism and with Christianity. These discussions were greatly contributed to by some Byzantine Platonists who came to Italy. First among them was George Gemistos Plethon (v.). Before coming to Florence for the Council that was to address the end of the Greek schism, he had attempted in the Peloponnese, from which he came, a great social, philosophical, and religious reform that was to renew ancient Hellenic culture reconciled with Christianity through Platonism. Interpreting the ancient myths in a philosophical sense, as Plato and even more so the Neoplatonists had done, he believed that the gods of Homer and Hesiod would still find a place in a renewed Christianity as a religion for all humanity. In Florence, he found little agreement in this; but the ardor for the philosophy of the “divine Plato” that he kindled in the soul of Cosimo the Elder and of not a few cultured Florentines would spread from Florence to all of learned Europe. In the bitter polemic that George of Trebizond engaged against Plethon, the more pacific-minded Cardinal Bessarion (v.), once his student, intervened, and in his work In calumniatorem Platonis he outlined the master line of a moderate interpretation of Plato, generally followed by the greatest representative of Florentine Platonism, namely Ficino.

An excellent translator but a mediocre critic, Ficino nevertheless understood Plato as an “Atticizing Moses,” as he had appeared to Numenius (v.), and while through the Pseudo-Hermes Trismegistus he traced Platonic theology back to the wisdom of the Mosaic books, through St. Augustine he made it an anticipation of Christian theology. Far more original and audacious than Ficino’s is the Platonism of G. Pico della Mirandola (v.), who attempts the reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle, and thus of Platonism with Christianity, from a higher standpoint, ascending to the One in which all the differences of being are implied and annulled. From Ficino’s school are usually said to derive, among others, Egidio da Viterbo (v.), who dared to undertake a commentary on the Sentences “ad mentem Platonis,” still largely unpublished, which the author began in the early 1500s until he interrupted it shortly after 1512. But if he takes his starting point from Ficino, he often attempts the boldness of Pico, without, however, reaching II. Curious in this work is the use of pagan myths philosophically interpreted. The example, both in Egidio and in Pico, came from Gemistos Plethon. It should be noted that, due to the impulse coming especially from this Greek Platonist, mythology was rehabilitated in the thought of the scholars of the classical Renaissance, and the old demonological interpretation, as well as the Euhemerist one, was gradually replaced by the theory that in the gods of Greco-Roman religion one sees personifications of naturalistic and philosophical concepts. Thus, the ancient deities could find a place, if not exactly in Christian churches, as Plethon would have wished, in the poetic and literary world and remain there peacefully until the Romantic era and beyond. From Plato’s Symposium, commented on by Ficino, derive the numerous dissertations and lucubrations on love that could be said to be a revival of the poetic discourses of the stilnovisti; so much so that Guido Cavalcanti’s canzone Donna me prega was also recalled, discussed, and interpreted. The most flavorful fruits matured on this subject are undoubtedly Bembo’s (v.) discourse at the end of Baldassare Castiglione’s (v.) Courtier and the Dialogues of Love by Judah Abrabanel, known as Leone Ebreo. The doctrine developed by the latter takes shape in a broad cosmic vision, whose unity is formed by love that binds all things together and is the principle of their development and elevation to union with God.

Having entered Renaissance culture, not even the most resistant Aristotelians could escape the influence of Platonism, which reached them directly through the commentaries of Themistius, Philoponus, and Simplicius. Pomponazzi himself (v.), perhaps the most distant among Aristotelians from the spirit of the new humanistic and Platonic culture, had read all of Plato in good or poor translations, and on one occasion, while commenting in 1513 on Book I of the Physics (ch. 31), he even defended Plato against a criticism by Aristotle: « In hoc mentitur (Aristoteles) attribuendo haec Platoni; quoniam ego vidi Platonem; non est verbum quod dicat ea quae sibi imponit Aristoteles » (Arezzo, Fratern. de' Laici, cod. 389, f. 34°; cf. Bibl. naz. di Parigi, cod. lat. 6533, f. 39°). The most notable fact is not so much the diatribes over the superiority of Plato and Aristotle, but rather the attempts to reconcile them. In this regard, a characteristic PICCOLOMINI, FAMIGLIA (v.), a Paduan Averroist, who (Universa philosophia de moribus, III, Venice 1583, ch. 20, 23) admonishes his contemporaries not to distort the true thought of the two philosophers through forced interpretations and contaminations, but rather to seek their harmony, as one completes the other. He likely had in mind the image of the two philosophers in Raphael’s School of Athens. The rapprochement between Aristotelianism and Platonism in the Renaissance was greatly facilitated by Simplicius’s commentary on the De anima, inspired by Iamblichus. Used by G. Pico NIO (v.) and others, Genua (v.), a Paduan Averroist, and his disciples. With Genua, the most rigid form of Aristotelianism, Averroism (v.), begins to unravel and be reabsorbed into Platonic philosophy. A characteristic example in this regard is M. A. Mocenigo. A disciple of Genua, Mocenigo in 1559 presented himself at a public doctoral disputation in Padua on a significant number of Paradoxa theoremataque, among which were notable those in which the fundamental Averroist theses were conceived in the spirit of Simplicius’s commentary. Ten years later, in the De transitu hominis ad Deum (Venice 1569), his Averroism had completely dissolved into Platonism.

The last noteworthy Platonist of the 16PATRIARCHI (v.) of Cherso. Succeeding Antonio Montecatino at the University of Ferrara—who had planned a great work on the concord between Aristotle and Plato and had expounded Plato’s Republic—Patrizi, who was familiar with all Neoplatonic literature, from the Chaldean Oracles to Proclus’s Elements of Theology and the so-called Theologia Aristotelis, attempted in his Nova de universis philosophia (Ferrara 1591) to organize Platonic thought into an organic and systematic form to oppose the Aristotelian system, which was by then dissolving. However, as acute as he was, he lacked the inspiration of a G. Pico or a Leone Ebreo.

After him, the spirit of Platonism continued to permeate modern philosophy, from Bruno to Spinoza, from Descartes to Berkeley (Locke’s empiricism is a sustained polemic against the Platonic innatism revived by the Cambridge school), from Malebranche to Schelling, from Rosmini to Gioberti. Yet it was a spirit that had freed itself from the letter, while philologists had to labor somewhat to disentangle Plato’s genuine thought from later accretions.

— G. SAITTA