Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance Platonists

Author(s): D. P. Walker
Source: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 16, No. 1/2 (1953), pp. 100-120
Published by: The Warburg Institute
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/750229 .
Accessed: 30/11/2014 16:15

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

The Warburg Institute is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of the
Warburg and Courtauld Institutes.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE
PLATONISTS

By D. P. Walker
TLyap & tLlHD&cV? Rwij &airtX[CCV;
?q
I (Numenius,apud ClementAlex.,
Stromata,
I, xxii)
Ficino's Orphicsinging
are several
quite waysdistinct Orpheus in which
important was to
There
men of the Renaissance. It is indeed this richness of meaning that makes
him stand out against all the other Greek mythical heroes, religious teachers,
philosophers, and poets, who play such an essential part in the thought and
art of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. For Orpheus could be any, and
often was all of these. I am dealing here with only one of these aspects:
Orpheus as a theological writer. But some of the others are relevant to this,
especially in so far as they increase his authority and prestige as a theologian,
and must be briefly mentioned.
First, he was believed to be the founder of an esoteric mystery religion;'
so that, as a theologian, he was not merely commenting on an already existing
Greek religious tradition, but was providing the fundamental sacred writings
of his own. It is also important, as we shall see, that according to Diodorus
Siculus2 he learnt his religious rites in Egypt. Though Diodorus and others
specifically connect these with Dionysius, he was also regarded as the source
of all esoteric Greek religion; as Proclus says, "All the Greeks' theology is the
offspring of the Orphic mystical doctrine."3 Among the sects thus connected
with Orpheus the Pythagoreans are particularly important. For Iamblichus4
(and after him Proclus) stated that it was from disciples of Orpheus that
Pythagoras, and through him Plato,5 had learnt that the structure of all things
is based on numerical proportions. Orpheus could thus become the ultimate
source of the Timaeus.
Secondly, we must bear in mind Orpheus as the type of the ethically
influential, effect-producing singer. Orpheus with his lyre charming the rocks,
trees and wild animals was normally interpreted6 as meaning that he was a
divinely inspired poetic teacher, possessed by Platonic furor, who reformed
and civilized his barbarous contemporaries, "the stony and beastly people,"
as Sidney calls them.7 Ficino, who developed the doctrine of the furores so
that the greatest poets were thought to be possessed not only by the poetic
furor, but also by the religious (Bacchic), prophetic, and amorous ones, gives
Orpheus as an example of this: "Omnibus his furoribus occupatum fuisse
Orpheum libri eius testimonio esse possunt."s It was a characteristic of such
inspiration that the poet received supernaturally revealed knowledge of human
I v. Otto Kern, OtphicorumFragmenta, Ber- thagoras-Plato.
6
lin, 1922, pp. 26-30. Main classical sources: Quintilian, Inst.
Cf. ibid., test. 216
2
Kern, test. 95-7. Orat., I, Io9; Horace, Ars Poetica, 391. There
(Herodotus). were of course other interpretations.
7 Sir
3 Proclus, Theologia Platonica, 1, 6 (Kern, Philip Sidney, An Apologie for Poesie,
test. 250). London, 1595, ed. G. Gregory Smith (Eliza-
4 lamblichus, Vita Pythag. (Kern, test. 249). bethanCritical Essays, Oxford, 1904), p. 151/2.
5 Proclus (Kern, test. 250) explicitly gives s Ficino, In ConviviumPlatonis ... Comm., in
the filiation: Orpheus -Aglaophemrs - Py- his Opera Omnia, Basle, 1576, p. 1362.
100

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS ioi
and divine things.' Thus Orpheus the legendary singer reinforces the claim
of Orpheus the theologian to be in receipt of divine revelation. The same
consequence, an increase of his authority, was produced by the frequently-
made comparison between Orpheus and David, whose music was powerful
enough to cure Saul's madness and who also wrote divinely inspired songs of
religious content. Guy Lef~vre de la Boderie, whose motto, printed at the
beginning and end of his publications, was "May Holy David sprout forth as
One orphically,"2 wrote a long poem in which translations of Orphic frag-
ments and of the Psalms are embedded, in order to show that the same God
inspired both.3
Orpheus' musical "effects" are also important with regard to fifteenth-
century enthusiasm for the Orphic Hymns. Music, in that it harmonized the
dissonances in the soul produced by its conjunction with the body, could be
used as a preparation for philosophic or religious contemplation, as it was by
Ficino4 and later by Tyard,5 or, combined with magic rites, as a means to
religious ecstasy. It was known from Marinus' Life that Proclus had zealously
sung and studied Orphic hymns,6 and had used "methods of purification,
both Orphic and Chaldaean, such as immersing himself in the sea resolutely
every month, or even two or three times a month,"' in order to attain to a
1Iv. e.g. Ficino, Opera, p. 287 (Theologia 3 La Boderie, L'Encyclie des Secrets de l'Eter-
Platonica, XIII, ii), where Orpheus is named, nite', Antwerp, n.d. (privilege dated Oct.
together with Homer, Hesiod and Pindar, as 1570), p. 189, entitled: "Guidon Le Fevre de
one of the "legitimi ver6 poitae" who show la Boderie aus Poetes de ce Temps, se jouant
knowledge of all the arts, which, without a bon escient sur l'Anagrammatisme de son
supernatural inspiration, they could not have nom, L'VN GVIDE ORFEE. Cantique."
learnt. The ultimate source of this is, of 4 Music had this effect both by its direct
course, Plato's Ion. harmonizing influence on the spiritus (and
2 'AyLoS AOCt8 v ppoot 6p9pt.x0S,an ana- thence on soul and mind), and because it
gram of his name. Cf., amongst many juxta- imitated the harmony of the heavens, itself
positions of Orpheus and David: Clement of an imitation of the divine music "in aeternai
Alexandria, Protrepticus,c. i (Migne, Pat. Gr., Dei mente" (Ficino, Opera, p. 614); cf. ibid.,
8, col. 49 f.; the famous musical opening, p. 651, on his own use of it "ut caetera
where the Greeks are exhorted to leave sensuum oblectamenta penitus negligam,
Orpheus's music for David's); Ficino, Opera, molestias animae corporisque expellam, men-
p. 673 (Letter to Alessandro Braccio, who, tem ad sublimia Deumque pro viribus eri-
gifted with furor as described in the ion, is gam"; p. 562, used "adversus atrae bilis
urged to "canere Deum," as did Moses, amaritudinem"; p. 56i f., long chapter (De
David, Zoroaster, Linus, Orpheus, etc.); Vita coelitits comparanda,xxi) on use of music
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Opera Omnia, to capture beneficent planetary influences).
Basle, 1572, I, Io6 (Orphic Conclusiones, 5 Pontus de Tyard, Solitaire Premier (I552),
No. 4: "Sicut hymni David operi Cabalae ed. S. F. Baridon, Geneva, 1950, p. 18/9
mirabiliter deserviunt, ita hymni Orphei (ascension of the soul through the four
operi verb licitae & naturalis Magiae"); Platonic furores; the first, poetic, by music
Marot, Oeuvres, ed. Guiffrey, Paris, 1875- harmonizes the "horrible discord" of the soul
1931, V, 198/9 (Dedication of his Pseaumes, caused by its union with the body.
1541): 6 Probably not those now known as
Orphic
N'a il souvent au doulx son de sa lyre
Bien appais6 de Dieu courrouc6 l'ire? Hymns, which are quoted by no ancient
writer. Marinus, Life of Proclus, tr. L. J.
N'en a ii pas souvent de ces bas lieux
Les escoutans ravy jusques aux cieulx, Rosan (in his The Philosophy of Proclus, New
Et faict cesser de Saail la manie York, 1949), PP. 24, 27, 28.
Pendant le temps que duroit l'armonie? 7 Ibid.,
Si Orpheus jadis l'eust entendue, p. 23-
La sienne il eust A quelque arbre pendue;"

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
10o2 D. P. WALKER

theurgic union with God. It was a magical, and perhaps theurgic,1 use of the
Hymns that Pico rediscovered :"Nihil efficacius hymnis Orphei in naturali
Magia, si debita musica, animi intentio, & caeterae circumstantiae, quas
norunt sapientes, fuerint adhibitae."2 The Orphic Hymns, sung with their
"debita musica," are, I think, what Ficino means by the "antiquus ad
Orphicam Lyram carminum cantus."3 He says several times that he practised
this himself, and lists the revival of it among the great achievements of fifteenth-
century Florence, together with the resuscitation of Plato by the academy at
Careggi.4 Indeed an example of the magical efficacy of this Orphic singing
occurs right at the beginning of the history of the academy. In a letter of
September 1462 to Cosimo de' Medici,5 Ficino tells that some time earlier he
had been singing "relaxandae mentis gratia" the Hymnumad Cosmum(in fact
entitled 'rp.vo 'oVOpvoU),)6 which, in his translation, ends: "Exaudi nostras,
Cosme, preces vitamque quietam pio juveni tribue."7 Just after he had sung
it again "ritu Orphico" a few days before writing, he received a letter telling
how generously Cosimo was to patronize his studies; Cosimo must have been
inspired by "celesti quodam afflatu" at the very time that Ficino was singing
the hymn for the first time, and have thus granted the prayer it ends with.
Considering the typical pun (Cosimo-Kosmos), this should perhaps not be
taken too seriously;8 but on the whole Ficino certainly did take his Orphic
1 No
one, I think, would dare to affirm "Orphei hymnos exposuit, miraque, ut ferunt,
dogmatically what the aim of Pico's Orphic dulcidine ad lyram antiquo more cecinit").
magic was, but cf. his Apologia (Opera, p. 124), Pico, also, was in the habit of singing "ad
where, after quoting Iamblichus' statement (v. lyram" Latin prayers of which he had com-
supra, note 4, p. ioi) that Pythagoras' doctrinesposed the words and the music (G.-F. Pico's
are derived from Orpheus, he goes on to say Life of him, in front of G. Pico, Opera,no pag.).
that from the latter "quicquid magnum sub- 4 Ficino, Opera, p. 944-
limeque habuit Graeca philosophia ut a primo 5 Kristeller, Suppl., II, 87 (and Della Torre,
fonte manavit. Sed qui erat veterum mos op. cit., p. 537).
theologorum, ita Orpheus suorum dogmatum 6 Orphica, ed. E. Abel, Leipzig, 1885, p. 6o.
MWd-ryOv0cLv 6aWoV L
mysteria fabularum intexit involucris .. ." xCi6' veo0pivT.
which Pico has stripped off. This seems to There is an invocation to K6a[Le7 xazcp
me to imply something more than the magic earlier in the hymn.
which is "naturalis philosophiae absoluta 8 Such a pun may, of course, be entirely
consummatio" (ibid., p. 120). serious, considering the widespread belief in
2 Pico,
Opera, p. Io6 (Orphic Conclusions the magical power of names, one of the basic
No. 2). assumptions of Cabalism and Natural Magic,
3 Ficino, Opera, p. 944, cf. ibid., pp. 822, supported by the theory of language, deriving
871, 6o8; Naldi's two poems to Ficino (in ultimately from Plato's Cratylus, according to
Kristeller, SupplementumFicinianum, Florence, which words have a real, and not conven-
1937, II, 37, De Orpheoin ejus cytharapicto, and tional, relation to their referents. But some
II, 262, in which Ficino, by metempsychosis, of Ficino's puns are undoubtedly jocular, e.g.,
has Orpheus' soul via Pythagoras and En- Opera, p. 788 (Letter to Foresio) : "Si quis
nius); Della Torre, Storia dell'Accademia nobis objiciat, illos nimium delirare, quibus
Platonica di Firenze, Florence, I902, p. 490 nimium agitur res de lyra. Respondebis ...
(conjectures on Ficino's musical education; nos ... lyrare ne delyremus." La Boderie, an
suggests that, in a scholars' play, he played enthusiastically Orphic follower of Ficino,
the part of a boy who sings to a lyre given justified his passion for anagrams of proper
him by a Muse, with the words: names thus:
Mulcentem tigres adamantaque saxa trahentem Vrayment Platon n'a point pour n6ant recherche
Tu cape sacratam numine, sume lyram.), La secr6te vertu aus propres noms comprise,
Ayant de noz H6bries ceste science aprise
p. 789 (from Corsi's biography of Ficino: Comme autre meint secret qu'aus Grecs il a cache.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS 103

singing seriously, and the ritualistic, magical (either in Pico's or Collingwood'sx

sense) use of the Hymns may, as we shall see, provide a clue to the origins
of the interest in all the Orphic writings.2

II
The Orphica. The traditionof the "Prisci Theologi." The veilingof truth
"Let us now," in the words of Thomas Taylor,3 "proceed to his theology;
exchanging the obscurity of conjecture for the light of clear evidence; and
the intricate labyrinths of fable for the delightful though solitary paths of
truth."
The Orphica can, for our purposes, be roughly divided into three groups:
(I) Fragments of verse embedded in various ancient writers, mainly in
the Greek Fathers, particularly Pseudo-Justin (author of the Cohortatioad
Gentiles),Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, and in Proclus.4 These are of
varying dates, some possibly going back to pre-Platonic times.5
(2) The Hymns.6 These are now usually thought to be of the second or
third century A.D. and are not quoted by any ancient writer. They are not
particularly Orphic in content, but are considered by modern scholars to be
genuine examples of hymns used by some religious sect. Like other Hellenistic
hymns, they consist largely of strings of epithets.
(3) The Argonautica.This is a poem of the late fourth century A.D., based
largely on the Argonauticaof Apollonius of Rhodes.7
(L'EncycliedesSecretsdel'Eternite,n.d. (1570/1), London, I935; K. Ziegler, articles Orpheus
p. 254, cf. p. 213). and Orphische Dichtung in Pauly-Wissowa,
1 v. Collingwood, The Principlesof Art, Ox- Real-Encyclopddieder ClassischenAltertumswissen-
ford, 1938, p. 57 f. Pletho's theory of prayer schaft, Stuttgart, 1942; E. R. Dodds, The
(v. infra, n. 6, p. IO8) is an example of Col- Greeks and the Irrational, Univ. of California,
lingwood's meaning of magic. 1951, Ch. V.
2 v. infra, p. Io8. 6 There is a critical edition of these by
3 The Hymnsof Orpheus,Translatedfrom the Quandt (Berlin, I940), which I have not
original Greek: With a PreliminaryDzssertation been able to see. The only other modern edi-
on The Life and Theologyof Orpheus,London, tion is that by Abel (v. supra, note 6, p. 102).
1792, p. I2, introducing a detailed exposition The editio princeps is: 'OppecS 'Apyovottuvxx,
of Proclus' metaphysics. Philippi Junte, I5oo, containing,
4A fairly complete edition of these was Florentie,
besides the Argonautica,Orpheus' and Proclus'
published by Henri Estienne: Ilov•omS Hymns; the edition is probably by Constan-
9LL,6aoc9og.Poesis Philosophica, vel saltem, tine Lascaris (v. E. Legrand, Bibliographie
Reliquiaepoesis philosophicae,Empedoclis,Par- hellinique, Paris, 1885, I, lxxxvi). At least a
menidis, Xenophanis,Cleanthis, Timonis, Epi- dozen other editions appeared during the
charmi. Adiunctasunt Orpheiillius carminaqui I6th century. There are at least 24 MSS.,
a suis appellatusfuit 6 OeoX?6yoq.Item, Heracliti mostly of the I5th century; none are earlier.
et Democritiloci quidam,& eorumepistolae,Paris, It seems likely that the first MS. was brought
1573. There was a different edition of them over from Constantinople by Giovanni
in I588: Oppe cq en- . . ., Paris, Aurispa in 1424 (v. R. Sabbadini, Biografia
OeooyL•x
Steph. Prevosteau, 1588. The invaluable Documentata di Giovanni Aurispa, Noto, I890,
modern edition of them by Kern has already p. 20, and Ambrosius Traversarius, Latinae
been cited (v. supra,note I, p. Ioo). Epistolae, ed. L. Mehus, Florence, 1759, col.
5 I am not, of course, here concerned with 1026/7).
the extremely controversial historical prob- 7 There is a critical edition and translation
lems of ancient Orphism, on which see: by G. Dottin (Les Argonautiquesd'Orph&e,Paris,
W. K. C. Guthrie, Orpheusand GreekReligion, 1930). For ed. princ. v. supra, note 6, p. 103).

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
10o4 D. P. WALKER
Of these, group (i) is for us by far the most important. The Hymns, apart
from the use of them just described, are not very suitable to Christian-Platonic
purposes; but their lack of any specific content made them well fitted for
ingenious, Proclus-like interpretations, of which Ficino's commentary on the
Hymn to Nature' is a good example. The Argonauticawere chiefly of interest
because of passages where Orpheus sings short cosmogonies,2 and the mention
that he had been to Egypt.3
With regard to the antiquity of all these works and their attribution to
Orpheus, Renaissance scholars were aware that many of the Orphic poems
must be of widely different dates; they knew, from the SuidasLexicon, that
several different authors had written under the name of Orpheus.4 Agostino
Steuco, in 1540, and Henri Estienne, 1566, both assert on internal evidence
that the Hymns must be later than most of the Fragments.5 Leonardo Bruni,
in about 1420, and Gian-Francesco Pico, in 1496, even reproduce Aristotle's
denial that Orpheus was the author of the Orphica or indeed that he ever
existed.6 But, on the whole, at least as far as group (I) is concerned, these
questions were not discussed; those syncretistswho make great use of Orpheus
assumed that the Orphica, even if not all literally by Orpheus, were the
genuine sacred writings of a very ancient religious tradition.
The context in which group (I) was found by Renaissance scholars was
extremely important, since it indicated how these fragments might be used.
The Greek Fathers were quoting Orpheus in order to show that anything
valuable in Greek philosophy had been stolen from Moses, and Proclus pointed
the way to the interpretation of polytheism in terms of an intricate scheme of
metaphysical entities.8 Proclus would also suggest the conception of an
ancient, pre-Platonic, religious tradition, including Orpheus, the Chaldaean
Oracles and Pythagoras. It was on a combination of these lines that the
Renaissance syncretists worked.9 They all made certain basic assumptions,
which are, roughly:
1 Letter to Germain de Ganay, in Ficino's phische Schriften, herausg. Hans Baron, Leip-
translation of Athenagoras' De Resurrectione, zig, 1928, p. 133 (Proemiumin quasdamorationes
Paris, 1498, reprinted by Kristeller, "The Homeri, proving these to be the oldest; else-
Scholastic Background of Marsilio Ficino," where (ibid., p. 59, Le Vite di Dante e di Petrarca)
Traditio, II, 257, 1944. he cites Orpheus and Hesiod as examples of
2
Orph. Arg., 1. 419 (cf. Apollonius Rhod., poets inspired by furor). Gian-Francesco
Arg., I, 492). Pico, Opera Omnia, Basle, 1573 (Tom. II of
3 Ibid., 1. both Picos' Op. Omn.), p. 36.
43-
7 This is explicit in Cudworth, who dis-
4 v. Kern, op. cit., test. 223, cf. ibid., test. 225
(ConstantineLascaris,7rpo)ey6Leva 'rou aopou3 cusses the antiquity and authenticity of the
'Opcpis). at great length and finally concludes
5 Steuco, De PerenniPhilosophia,Lyons, Orphica
that, though some are perhaps not by Or-
I540, I, xxviii (Steuco, OperaOmnia,Venice, pheus but by Pythagoras and other disciples,
i591, III, f. 24 vo). H. Estienne,Praefatio
his O1zt ~
to most of them are in the tradition of the "alle-
'HpoaxSq rnovtae•r gorical theology" initiated by Orpheus
CpwAe60xovreqS
notL7Ta,I566, p. 487; this contains the (Ralph Cudworth, The true intellectual System
Orphic Argonautica, Hymns and Lithica. of the Universe, 2nd ed., London, 1743, I, IV,
6 Cicero, De Natura Deorum, I, xxxviii: xvii, pp. I, 294 f.; first ed. 1678).
"Orpheum poetam docet Aristoteles nun- 8 On Proclus see Rosan, op. cit. (supra,
quam fuisse, et hoc Orphicum carmen Py- note 6, p. IoI).
thagorei ferunt cujusdam fuisse Cercopis." 9 Other modern works dealing with this
Leonardo Bruni Aretino, Humanistisch-philoso- kind of syncretism are: Ludwig Mohler,

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS 105
Either: there were partial pre-Christian revelations, other than that given
to the Jews, and/or a continuous tradition of divine knowledge deriving
ultimately from pre-lapsarian Adam;
Or: the only pre-Christian revelation was the Jewish one; but this filtered
through to the Gentiles. The usual channel of communication was Egypt;
Moses had taught the Egyptian priests, or had left books there.
The second of these is the more usual assumption; or the two can be
combined together, if one substitutes "chief" for "only" in the second. From
either or both these assumptions derive lists of ancient thinkers, the prisci
theologi,all teaching the same religious truth; a typical one would run some-
thing like this: (Adam, Abraham), Zoroaster, Moses, Hermes Trismegistus,
(the Druids), Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato . . .1 The series culminates in the
New Testament; but, since the main intention is to provide a Christian
Platonism, it can be continued to include the Neoplatonists, as valuable inter-
preters of Plato, and Denis the Areopagite, the disciple of St. Paul, whose
remarkable conformity with Proclus greatly increased the authority of the
latter.2 These prisci theologimay either derive successively one from another,
or each may be said to have visited Egypt and there learnt the Mosaic
doctrine, or, more usually, both. Orpheus is nearly always the oldest of the
Greeks, and, having visited Egypt, is thus the main source of religious truth
for Pythagoras, Plato, etc.; but these had also studied in Egypt and were also
influenced by Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus3-that is to say, the tradi-
tion had several channels, which might all operate at once. The occurrence
in the Orphica of odd bits of Homer and Hesiod is, of course, explained the
wrong way round ;4 Hesiod's theogony is thus thought to be based on Orpheus'.
Occasionally, however, it is suggested that Musaeus was the teacher of Or-
pheus, instead of being his disciple or son as usual ;5 this was because, in
Kardinal Bessarion als Theologe, Humanist und continentur"; cf. ibid., p. I, where the Druids
Staatsmann, Paderborn, 1923 (Quellen und are mentioned), p. 871/2 (where the list is
Forschungen.. . herausg. v. d. G6rres-Gesell- extended to Plotinus and Ficino himself), cf.
schaft, Bd. XX); Th. Freudenberger, Augus- Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino,
tinus Steuchus aus Gubbio, Augustinerchorherrund Columbia U. P., I943, p. 25; Steuco, Op.
Papstlicher Bibliothekar (1497-1548), Mtinster Omn., III, 97v, I4', 26r; Amaury Bouchard,
i. W., 1935; Bohdan Kieszkowski, Studi sul De Lexcellenceet immortalitede Lame, Bib. Nat.
Platonismo del Rinascimento in Italia, Florence, MS. Fr. 1991, f. 10, 32v; Gemistus Pletho,
1936; Giuseppe Anichini, L'Umanesimo e il -% c
E7uyypO~y% ed. C. Alex-
Nooyv
problemadella salvezza in Marsilio Ficino, Milan, andre, trad. A. Pellissier,
acOo[ev.e,
Paris, 1858, pp. 30-
1937; Milton V. Anastos, "Pletho's Calendar 32 (Zoroaster... (Magi, Brahmins, Curetes),
and Liturgy," Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 4, Eumolpus . . . seven sages . . . Pythagoras,
pp. 183-305, Harvard U. P., 1948; P. O. Plato... Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus; cf.
Kristeller, "The Scholastic Background of Anastos, op. cit., p. 280), 253; Cornelius
MarsilioFicino," Traditio,II, 257, 1944,and Agrippa, De Incertitudineet Vanitate Scientiarum
"La Posizione storica di Ficino," Civilta declamatio invectiva, ed. of 1539 (no place), c.
Moderna, 1933(whichI have not been able to lii, Ivi.
see); E. H. Gombrich,"Iconessymbolicae," 2v. Introduction to Oeuvres Completes du
Journalof the Warburg andCourtauld Institutes,Pseudo-Denys L'Ariopagite, ed. & trad. M. de
XI, 163, 1948. Gandillac, Paris, 1943.
1 v., e.g., Ficino, Op.Omn.,p. 25 (De Chris- 3 Cf. supra, p. ioo, and infra, n. 6, p. Io7;
tiana Religione, c. xxii: "Prisca gentilium n. 9, p. i08.
Theologia, in qua Zoroaster, Mercurius, Or- 4 E.g. G.-F. Pico, Op. Omn., p. 130.
pheus, Aglaophemus, Pythagoras consense- s E.g. Steuco, Op. Omn., f. 24V, who adds:
runt, tota in Platonis nostri voluminibus "quod ipse non affirmo."

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Io6 D. P. WALKER

Eusebius,1Artapanus states that the Greeks called Moses Musaeus2-Orpheus

can thus learn directly from Moses. This is, unfortunately, contradicted by
Orpheus' own writings,3 and for most Renaissance writers Orpheus is the
oldest of the Greek poets, philosophers, theologians.
We now come to the question: why, if Orpheus and Plato had read the
Pentateuch in Egypt and recognized it as divinely inspired, did they not
merely translate it4 and comment on it? The answer to this is in the theory
of the poetic veiling of truth with fables, and its correlative, the allegorical
interpretation of religious texts. It has, of course, been generally considered,
from the time of Philo and the Greek Fathers up to the Renaissance, that
most or all of the Old Testament could and should be interpreted allegori-
cally;5 thus the very source of this tradition, Moses' writings, was itself
wrapped in fables.6 As Pico explains, in his Heptaplus,Moses seems "rudis"
only because he is talking in fables; which he does both in order not to blind
the simple and ignorant with too much light, and in order to convey several
quite distinct meanings at once.' Thus Plato and Orpheus are only following
their master's example when they too conceal the truth in enigmas, fables and
myths, lest it should be profaned and despised by the vulgar.8 Plato also had
an additional reason:" Socrates' death was due to imprudently unveiled talk
about religious truth. By means of these theories the whole of ancient poly-
theism can be explained away, or rather accepted allegorically.'0 It must
also be remembered that Renaissance poets and philosophers were often
1
Eusebius, Praep. Evang., IX, xxvii, 432 a, pattern shown to Moses on the mountain)
(Kern, test., 44). and the double account of the creation in
2
Moses was also occasionally identified Genesis. Clement (Strom., V, xiv), on the
with Hermes (Eusebius, ibid., 432 b; cf. Ficino, other hand, thinks that Platonists rightly de-
Op. Omn., p. 29). Dorat (elegiacs in La duced the intelligible and sensible worlds
Boderie, Encyclie, p. 156) adds to Musaeus- from the double creation of heaven and earth
Moses, rather wildly: Hebrus-Hebrew, Daph- and of man (Genesis i. I, 8, 1o; i. 27; ii. 7;
nis-David, Hesiod-Isaiah. cf. Eusebius, Praep. Evang., XI, xxiii, xxiv).
3 v. Kern, fr. 247, lines 4, I8, test. I68. Pico finds his three worlds (angelic, celestial,
4 Augustine (Civ. Dei, VIII, xi) deals with sublunar) clearly represented in Moses' divi-
the difficulty that the Scriptures were not yet sion of the tabernacle into three parts (Exodus
translated into Greek by suggesting that xxvi-xxviii; Pico, Heptaplus, in Pico, De
Plato, while in Egypt, had them read to him Hominis Dignitate, De Ente et Uno . . . , ed. E.
by an interpreter. Garin, Florence, 1942, p. 186).
5 I am using the term "allegorical" a little 7 Pico, Heptaplus, ed. cit., p. 170o.
loosely, to refer to any non-literal interpreta- 8 A very frequently cited text is Plato,
tion. Epist., II, 312 d e, (cppoao-ov aot8 L 81
6 v.
e.g. Clemens Alex., Stromata, V, iv-xii; . . . etc.). Cf. Bessarion, In Calumniatorem
o•myt.&v
V, xi, contains a good example of his Biblical Platonis, ed. L. Mohler, Paderborn, 1927,
interpretation: the Pythagoreans' and Soc- p. 11 (Ch. I, ii, "Quam ob causam Plato de
rates' teaching that, for religious contempla- summis rebus aut nihil aut per aenigmata
tion, the soul must be separated from the body scripserit"), 15; Steuco, op. cit., III, 8v, where
derives from Moses' command (Leviticus, vii) the Plato letter is compared with the opening
that burnt offerings be skinned and divided of Orpheus' Palinode (v. infra, note 8, p. I lo);
into parts. According to Ps. Justin (op. cit., Pico, passage quoted above, note I, p. I02.
c. 29, Migne, Pat. Gr., 6, col. 296), Plato's 9 v. infra, note 7, p. 109.
theory of Ideas derived from his failure to 10 E.g. Pletho (op. cit., p. 130) states that he
understand the mystical sense of Moses' uses the names of gods only as a conveniently
writings; he took too literally Exodus, xxv. 9, short way of referring to metaphysical enti-
40 (the tabernacle to be made after the ties; cf. infra, note 6, p. io8.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS 1o7
themselves deliberately veiled and obscure, and echo again and again "Odi
profanum volgus et arceo."' Pico, for example, was intentionally enigmatic
in his Orphic Conclusions because "secretam Magiam a nobis primum ex
Orphei hymnis elicitam fas non est in publicum explicare" 2 and ean Dorat
taught the Plkiade:
... comment
On doit feindre et cacher les fables proprement,
Et a bien desguiser la verit6 des choses
D'un fabuleux manteau dont elles sont encloses :

which they certainly did their best to carry out.4

III
The beginningsof Renaissancereligioussyncretism:Ficino,PlethoandBessarion
In the Renaissance the Orphica appear in company with the Hermetica,
the Chaldaean Oracles (i.e. Zoroaster),5 the Sybils, etc., all of which are used
for the same end: to link Moses with Plato, Genesiswith the Timaeus,and both
with Christian doctrine. I am, therefore, dealing with only one strand in a
tradition made up of several. These writers who use this prisca theologiato
reconcile Platonism with Christianity can, I think, be said to start with
Ficino,6 who greatly influenced many of his successors, and the list, by no
means complete, would continue: the two Picos, Symphorien Champier,
Amaury Bouchard, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Agostino Steuco, La Boderie,
Duplessis-Mornay, Walter Raleigh ... Cudworth ... Thomas Taylor. One
might, however, perhaps push the origins of this kind of syncretism a little
further back than Ficino. Gemistus Pletho, who, according to Ficino,7 gave
Cosimo de' Medici the initial idea of starting a Platonic academy, is an
obvious candidate. Kristeller writes:8 "Ficino obviously derived at least one
characteristic idea from Pletho-the idea of an ancient tradition of pagan
theology that led directly from Zoroaster, Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus,
1 Horace, Carmina,III, i. Remplyd'un feu divin, qui m'a l'ame eschauff6e,
2
Pico, Op. Omn., p. io6 (Orphic Concl., Je veux mieux que devant, suivantles pas d'Orf&e,
Descouvrirles secretsde Nature et des Cieux . . .
No. I).
3 Ronsard, Hymnede l'Automne(OeuvresCom- 5 Plethoseemsto have been mainlyrespon
pletes, ed. Vaganay, Paris, 1923-4, VI, 159); sible for the attributionof these Oracles to
cf. his Abbregede l'Art PoetiqueFrangoys,1565 Zoroaster(v. Anastos,op.cit., p. 287).
(ed. cit., IV, 471): "Car la Poesie n'estoit au 6 To be complete the history should be
premier Age qu'une Theologie allegorique, takenbackinto the MiddleAges: St. Thomas
pour faire entrer au cerveau des hommes Aquinas,e.g., mentionsOrpheusas a poetic
grossiers par fables plaisantes et colorees les Literaturund
theologian (v. Curtius, Europdische
secrets qu'ils ne pouvoient comprendre, quand LateinischesMittelalter, Bern, 1948, pp. 221-3),
trop ouvertement on descouvroit la verit&. and several times states that Plato was able
Eumolpe Cecropien, Line maistre d'Hercule, to get so near the truth because he had visited
Orphee, Homere, Hesiode inventerent un si Egypt (quoted by Bessarion, op. cit., p. 297).
excellent mestier." Aquinas' source is St. Augustine, Civ. Dei,
* Ronsard in his Hymnesconsidered himself VIII, xiv, xxxvii.
to be an Orphic poet; the first of them begins 7 Ficino, Op. Omn.,p. 1537; cf. Della Torre,
(Hymne de l'-terniti, i1556, ed. cit., VI, i) : op. cit., pp. 426, 443, 456, 530.
8 I 5.
Philosophy of Ficino, p.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
io8 D. P. WALKER
and Pythagoras to Plato and his followers .. ." This is perhaps true, with
one, for us, important exception: Pletho does not in any of his surviving works
mention Orpheus, nor quote, nor refer to, any Orphica.1 But this does not
necessarily mean that he had not read them. For neither does he mention
Proclus, who, as his adversary Gennadius pointed out,2 is certainly the main
source of his theology, and he could not have read Proclus without becoming
aware of the importance of the Orphica. Moreover he wrote out a copy of
fourteen of the Orphic Hymns,3 and it seems likely that these have some
connexion with the hymns that figure so largely in the surviving bits of his
Nomoi, with the elaborate directions for singing them, for musical modes,
postures, days and times of day.4 Here we have something very like Pico's
and Ficino's theurgic, magic singing of the Orphic Hymns ;5 and Pletho, like
Pico, interprets Orpheus' gods as well-defined metaphysical or natural prin-
ciples.6 Since Ficino's interest in Orpheus as a theologian probably began
with the Hymns, which are among his very earliest translations from Greek
(I462),7 together perhaps with his first reading Eusebius' PraeparatioEvangelica
in the same year, it does seem quite possible that the ultimate source of this
interest may have been an enthusiasm for a peculiar type of ancient hymn-
singing which Pletho left behind him after the Council of Florence (I438/9).
With regard to the derivation from Pletho of the general theory of a "prisca
theologia," that too is possible; but it should be remembered: first, that once
Ficino had begun reading such authors as Eusebius, Proclus, or even Augus-
tine,9 such a theory would occur to him in any case. Secondly, Pletho was an
anti-Christian writer,'x and was therefore using the priscatheologiafor purposes
1 Kieszkowski writes
(op. cit., p. 33): "Ple- decipientium daemonum, A quibus malum &
tone parla frequentemente delle tradizioni non bonum provenit, sed naturalium vir-
religiose antiche, specialmente delle dottrine tutum, divinarumque sunt nomina, A vero
orfiche, mettendole in rilievo .. .", giving as Deo in utilitatem maxime hominis, si eis uti
examples Pletho's scheme of Olympic gods, scierit, mundo distributarum." Pletho's con-
and his references to Eumolpus and the ception of prayers and hymn-singing was very
Curetes. The only one of these which might much more rational than Pico's; he states
possibly seem to be specifically Orphic is the that they have no effective connexion with an
last; but Pletho interprets the Curetes objective divinity, either as praise or suppli-
euhemeristically, as early Greek theologians, cation, but are of purely subjective value,
parallel to the Brahmins and Magi (Pletho, moulding our p•vmoarwxovto that which is
op. cit., pp. 30-32). divine in us (v. Pletho, ibid., pp. 150, 186).
2 v. Anastos, op. cit., p. 29I. 7v. Kristeller, Suppl. Ficin., I, cxliv/v;
3v. J. Morellius, Bibliothecae regiae Divi Della Torre, op. cit., p. 537.
Marci Venetiarum. . . Bibliotheca manuscripta 8 v. infra, p. III.
Graeca et Latina, I, Bassani, 18o2, p. 269. 9 Cf. supra, note 6, p. 107. The theory of
4 Pletho, Plato's being a follower of Moses appears
Hcpt NoVuav,ed. cit., p. 202 f.,
230 f.; cf. Anastos, op. cit., pp. 255, 267 ("In already in Bruni, though he rejects it on
both matter and style, Pletho's hymns . . chronological grounds (Prologue to his trans-
closely resemble the pedantic hymns of lation of the Phaedo,cited by Della Torre, op.
Proclus and the pseudo-Orpheus"), 268 (sug- cit., p. 444). His source is St. Augustine (Civ.
gestion that Pletho's system of four modes is Dei, VIII, xi), who rejects the tradition that
based on the eight xo% of Byzantine liturgy). it was through meeting Jeremiah that Plato
5 v. supra, p. 102. had learnt Moses' doctrine, but thinks it very
6 Pletho, op. cit., p. 202 (e.g. Apollo-- probable that he had read the Pentateuch.
identity, Artemis-diversity); Pico, Op. Omn., 10 v. Pletho, op. cit., p. 258; cf. Kieszkowski,
p. Io6 (Orphic Conclusions, No. 3): op. cit., p. 15.
"Nomina deorum, quos Orpheus canit, non

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS Io09
very different from Ficino's. Thirdly, George of Trebizond's attack on Pletho
and Platonism appeared circa 1455,1 whereas Bessarion's reply was not pub-
lished until 1469, though written about ten years earlier;2 Pletho and his
Platonism would therefore be in particularly bad odour in the 1450's and
146o's. This was perhaps the real reason why Ficino did not publish his
translation of the Hymns3-he did not want to follow in Pletho's footsteps.
Bessarion would be another obvious source for Ficino, were it not that
Ficino had apparently not read the In Calumniatorem Platonisuntil Bessarion
sent him a copy in 1469.4 Nevertheless, Bessarion is another important
starting-point, though probably less influential than Ficino, for the Christian
interpretation of Plato and the prisci theologi. He only cites Orpheus once,5
though he remarks "quem Plato in plerisque sequitur," and is not in general
much concerned with pre-Platonic theologians. But he does state that Plato,
when in Egypt, learnt much from Mosaic writings.6 He reproduces Pseudo-
Justin's suggestion that Plato was prevented from clearly publishing his true
religious views by the example of Socrates' death.' He examines with great
detail and competence the resemblances and differences between Platonic and
Neoplatonic triads and the Christian trinity.8 All these are typical and
persistent themes of the Renaissance Platonists with whom we are concerned.

IV
Orpheus'monotheism.His Palinodein theRenaissance
The main religious truths which Ficino and his followers found in the
Orphica and in other prisci theologiwere: monotheism, the trinity, and the
creation as recounted in Genesis. Orpheus is chiefly cited in connexion with
the first two, and I shall confine myself to these.
For monotheism, by far the most important and most frequently cited
1 In MS. (v. Mohler, Bessarion, I,
350 f.). Bessarion).
It was printed much later: Comparationes 5 Bessarion, In Cal. Plat., ed. Mohler, p.
PhylosophorumAristotelis et Platonis a Georgio 121; Orpheus' aether and chaos, produced
Trapezuntio viro clarissimo, Venice, 1523. from Time (Kern, Fr. 54 (Damascius) and/or
2 Bessarion, In CalumniatoremPlatonis, Rome, 66 (Proclus) ), are the same as r6 nl-pmaand
1469; v. Mohler, op. cit., I, 358 f. ,6 &neypo in Plato's Philebus (I6c, 23c,
3 Ficino, Op. Omn.,p. 933 (Letter to Mar- 24a-e). Bessarion possessed a MS. copy of the
tinus Uranius, June I492): "Argonautica & Orphic Hymns and Argonautica (Venice,
hymnos Orphei, & Homeri & Proculi, Theo- Marciana, cod. gr. 480; v. C. Nigra, "Inni
logiamque Hesiodi, quae adolescens (nescio di Callimacho," Rivista difilologia e d'istruzione
quomodo) ad verbum mihi soli transtuli, classica, Turin, I892, p. 200).
quemadmodum tu nuper hospes apud me 6 Ibid.,
p. 245, based on: Augustine, Civ.
vidisti, edere nunquam placuit, ne forte Dei, .VIII, xi; Cyril, Contra Julianum, I
lectores ad priscum deorum daemonumque (Migne, Pat. Gr., 76, col. 524 f.); Eusebius,
cultum iamdiu merit6 reprobatum, revocare Praep. Evang., passim. Mohler's comment on
viderer, quantum enim Pythagoricis quon- this is (op. cit., I, 389): "Wer m6chte aber
dam curae fuit ne divina in vulgus ederent, ihm das verargen, da seine Zeit tiberhaupt
tanta mihi semper cura fuit, non divulgare noch keinen Einblick in die philosophie-
prophana . . ." Considering the enormously geschichtliche Entwicklung gehabt hat!"
7
important part played by the ancient gods in Bessarion, op. cit., p. 229; cf. Ps.-Justin,
Ficino's published works, this seems, by itself, Cohort. ad Gent., c. 20 (Migne, Pat. Gr., 6,
an insufficient reason. col. 276).
8
4v. Ficino, Op. Omn., p. 616/7 (letter to Ibid., pp. 93 f., 297 f.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
IIO D. P. WALKER

Orphic fragment is that known as the Testament(Atmo"imx) or the Palinode,

now usually considered to be a Jewish forgery, of which there are several
versions in Ps.-Justin, Clement, Eusebius and Cyril.I In the Justinian version,2
Orpheus, after shutting the doors against the profane, announces to his dis-
ciple, Musaeus, that he is now going to speak the truth-let not Musaeus
deprive himself of blessed eternity through those things he previously believed,
but look to the Divine Word, to the one Ruler of the universe, and be guided
by Him. He is one, self-created, creator of all things; no mortal has ever
seen Him. Out of goodness He sends mortals evil things, bloody war and
weeping pains (or in Eusebius' version:3 He does not send them, but men
are subject to them). He is seated in the heavens on a golden throne; the
earth is under His feet; He stretches forth His right hand over the oceans,
and makes the mountains and seas to shake.
The Greek Fathers, except Eusebius, cite this as a recantation, as showing
that Orpheus, having visited Egypt and there read Moses' writings, realized
the error of his former polytheism4-that is, as a means of discrediting the
Greek gods. Ficino, however, and his earlier followers, did not wish Orpheus
to abjure all his polytheistic writings; the many gods were still indispensable
and could be made harmless in a variety of ways,5 in Ficino's case by inter-
preting them as aspects of the one Jove: "... Orpheus non solum deos omnes
in uno collocat Jove tim opifice mundi, quim animo mundi, verum etiam in
quolibet Deo saepe numina cuncta commemorat, quem nos in libro de sole
imitati sumus."6 In a letter of I492,7 Ficino, after saying that he did not
publish his translation of the Hymns for fear of encouraging polytheism, sends,
as promised, "tutiora quaedam Orphei carmina." The first of these "safer
Orphic songs" is an extremely free Latin version of the Palinode,which omits
the warning to Musaeus not to be misled by former beliefs, so that any appear-
ance of its being a recantation has gone.s This version is taken from George
1 Kern, Fr. 245-247. Eusebius says his 5 Cf. supra, notes Io, p. Io6, and 6, p. Io8.
version comes from Aristobulus; if so, the frag- 6 Ficino, Op. Omn.,
p. 1371. Cf. Bessarion,
ment would date from the 2nd century B.c.; op. cit., p. 233 (III, v: "Quod Plato sub
but these passages from Aristobulus in Euse- nomine Jovis unum et primum deum colit") ;
bius are often thought to be forgeries of the Augustine, Civ. Dei, IV, xi (refutation of the
3rd century A.D. attempt to include all the gods in Jupiter).
2 Kern, Fr. 245. 7 v. supra, note 3, p. 10o9.
3 8 First nine lines given by Ficino (Op. Omn.,
Kern, Fr. 247, lines 13-16.
4 E.g. Ps.-Justin, Coh. ad Gent., c. 14/15 934):
P-.
1
(Migne, Patr., ser. graec., 6, col. 268): "Some Vos qui virtutem colitis, vos ad mea tantum
of you, I think, must be aware, if you have Dicta aures adhibete, intendite vestros.
read Diodorus Siculus and other historians of Contra qui sanctas legesaninrosque
contemnitis, hinc vos
those times, that Orpheus and Homer, and Effugite, & procul hinc miseri, Procul ite profani.
Solon, who gave the Athenians their laws, and 6 Tu ver6 qui divinas specularis, & alta
and Plato and Mente capis museae voces, complectere & illas,
Pythagoras several others, Aspiciens sacris oculis, sub pectore serva.
having visited Egypt and profited by Moses' Hocque iter ingressus, solum ilium suspice mundi
writings, afterwards published things that Ingentem authorem solum, interituque carentem.
were the opposite of what they previously had The
corresponding lines in Eusebius (Kern,
wrongly thought about the gods. For even Fr. 247) are:
Orpheus, who was indeed your first teacher
of polytheism, later announced to Musaeus S OCLOT L4 -C d •ipplot,
6~O(i
and other noble listeners the following about (PEUYov'greg ?
8xaw)v &ka6o
EOcatoS,o8'1(eloCLo
•Upoc xycac
reOv'roC
the one and only God." -
rraLv6tou a a'&xouc, oycay6pou ixyove M'9S,

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS 1i x
of Trebizond's translation of Eusebius' PraeparatioEvangelica,1of which there
is a manuscript in the Bibl. Mediceo-Laurenziana, bearing the Medici arms
and dated 1462,2 the year in which Ficino was translating the Orphic Hymns.
I cannot conceive of any motive George could have had for deliberately
mistranslating these lines, and he was a notoriously inaccurate translator.3
Ficino may merely have been misled by this incompetent version; but it seems
unlikely that he should neither have looked at the original Greek text of
Eusebius,4 nor have known any of the versions in the other Fathers.5 It is per-
haps also significant that he has chosen the version which does not make God
into the avenging Jehovah.6 Agrippa, who also, in the De OccultaPhilosophia,
could not do without the ancient gods, quotes part of the same translation of
the Palinodein the chapter entitled: "Necessariam esse Mago veri Dei cogni-
tionem, & quid de Deo veteres senserunt Magi atque philosophi."7 Steuco
is willing to take it as a recantation, but only if the Hymns (the chief evidence
of Orpheus' polytheism) really are by Orpheus, and not, as Steuco thinks
probable, by some much later poet.8 And elsewhere he quotes the Palinode,9
&
Mouac!i'-ephE 18 ae xrt&
y&p&?eta, IV76 lucem attulit, quam eo foede laniando, ad-
b&va'rTOecam yPoivro' 9 4 crOvocg&t6pan, dendo, ac depravandojustam de se querelam
egS8•) 6yov Oetovp•aocS• rou'r 7pooaipeuse, posteris reliquit .. ."
1OUve)vxpocslEg voephv xuros - e5 8'idpove 4 There are two MSS. of it (i4th and I5th
&~rpo~nvrol), ouvov 8'&a6pox6alioLo
rUTc•iYV
century) in the Bibl. Med.-Laur., the later
&O&vac'rov.... having a family-tree of the Medici in the
margin (v. ibid., p. xix).
"museae" in line 6, which makes little sense
5 It must be admitted that no MSS. of the
and no grammar, may be a misprint. I am relevant works of Ps.-Justin, Clement Alex.,
not sure whether Musaeus (line 4 in Eusebius) and Cyril are in the Bibl. Med.-Laur.
has turned into the Muses or not. George of 6 Clemens Alex.
(Stromata, V, xiv) points
Trebizond (v. note i, p. xix ) has: out the parallels between the Palinode and
S... & alta the Old Testament God: Isaiah lxvi, I ("Thus
Mente capis musaevoces amplectere:et illas saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne
Aspiciens... and the earth is my footstool"), Iviv, I ("O
The original edition of Ficino (Ficino, that thou wouldst rend the heavens .
that the mountains might flow down at thy . .
Epistole, Venice, 1495, f. clxxxv) has:
presence"); Deuteronomy xxxii, 39 ("See now
I Tu verbqui divina specularis,& alta that I, even I, am he, and there is no God
Mente capis musee voces: complectere:& illas. with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound
Aspiciens... and I heal: neither is there any that can
Agrippa, De Occulta Philosophia, in his Opera, deliver out of my hand"). He also takes two
Lyons, Per Beringos Fratres, n.d., p. 254, lines of the Aristobulus version of the Palinode
III, ii, has: (Kern, Fr. 247, lines 22-24): "No mortal
could ever see the lord, except a single off-
6 Tu verb qui divina specularis,& alta. shoot of the ancient race of the Chaldaeans"
Mente capis Musaee,voces complectere,& illas -as referring to Abraham or Isaac. Ficino
Aspiciens...
(Op. Omn., p. 29) also cites these lines and
1 (begins) Ad santissimumpapam Nicolaum. q. suggests they refer to Enoch, Abraham or
Georgii Trapezuntii in traductionemEusebii Prae- Moses; cf. Ph. de Mornay, De la Veriti de la
fatio, I470, no pag., XIII, xii. Religion Chrestienne,Antwerp, I581, p. 509.
7
2 Bandini,
Catalogus Codicum Latinorum Bi- Agrippa, De Occ. Phil., III, vii, cf. III, ii.
bliothecae Mediceae 8 Steuco, op. cit., III, 24v (De PerenniPhilos-
Laurentianae,Florence, 1774,
I, 347. phia, I, xxviii, "Ex Theologia Orphei, de
3 v.
Praefatio to E. H. Gifford's edition of Verbo divino, & qubd sit vox divina: & qubd
Eusebius, Praep. Evang., Oxford, I903, I, formator mundi"; throughout this chapter
p. xliv, where he quotes Petavius: "Trape- bits of the Palinode are quoted), III, 2v.
zuntius Latina sua versione non tam Eusebio 9 Ibid., III, 46r-v.
8

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
1I2 D. P. WALKER

omitting the recantatory lines, and introducing it by: "Orpheus igitur etiam
vetustissimus,' ante omnes celebratos in Graecia philosophos & poetas, multis
carminibus de singulari Deo, non secus atque Prophetarum quis, mira
exprompsit." Sir Walter Raleigh also omits the recantatory beginning when
quoting this fragment ;2 he introduces it thus:
"And as in Pythagoras, in Socrates, and in Plato: so we find the same
excellent understanding in Orpheus, who everywhere expressed the infinite
and sole power of one God, tho' he uses the name of Jupiter, thereby to
avoid the envy & danger of the time .. ."

and then quotes the Pico Conclusion:3 "The name of those Gods of whom
Orpheus doth sing are not of deceiving devils . . . but they are the names of
natural and divine virtues." La Boderie, on the other hand, translates the
Palinodefaithfully, even expanding the recantatory lines ;4 but he follows it
immediately with two other Orphic fragments which confirm the Ficinian
interpretation of Orpheus' many gods as aspects of one-in which case no
recantation is necessary. The first, which in Ps.-Justin also comes after the
Palinode,says tersely:
Zeus is one, Hades is one, Helios is one, Dionysos is one,
One God in all. Why should I speak to you of them separately?5

The second will be discussed below." Philippe de Mornay accepts the Palinode
as a recantation, citing Ps.-Justin as evidence that Orpheus invented Greek
polytheism;' but he too does not quote the opening lines of the fragment, and
implies that these gods were only poetic fictions, though dangerous ones.8
These last three writers belong to a period, after the Council of Trent and
the establishment of Protestantism as an irremediable fact, in which the
acceptance of the ancient gods, in any form, was more uneasy. They still
have something of the liberal, sympathetic attitude to the Greeks of Ficino
and the earlier sixteenth century; but living in a more intolerant atmosphere,
with all boundaries more sharply marked, they deal with polytheism in a
1 He has just given a list of ancientswho Qu'est-ildonc besoingqu'ici je te recite
'
wrote well of the one God-"Trismegistus, Un un, & A part tout ce qu'un seul excite?
Orpheus, Sibylla, Empedocles, Pythagoras,
Melissus, Anaxagoras, Philolaus, Pherecides
6 v. infra, p.
7 115.
. . "-and remarked that the older the more Philippe de Mornay, De la Veritg de la
clearly monotheist. Religion Chrestienne,Antwerp, 1581, p. 54- Cf.
2 Raleigh, History of the World (first ed. supra, note 4, p. Ii0o.
8 Ibid.: "Mais il est temps de venir aux
1614), London, 1733, I, vi, sec. vii.
3 v. supra, note 6, p. Io8. Poetes anciens, qui estoyent aussi Philosophes,
4 La Boderie, Encyclie,p. g9o: & qui ont faict par leurs fictions ouverture a
la pluralit6 des Dieux. Entre iceux se ren-
De moy tu as apris choses par-ci devant contre tout le premier Orphee que Justin en
Contre les bonnes moeurs, & la vie ensuivant:
Mais maintenant je veu la Verit6 t'apprendre. appelle le premier Autheur, qui premier leur
a donne des noms & des genealogies: Mais
La Boderie (ibid., p. 191) '
5 Kern, Fr. 239. voici sa repentance en son hymne Museus,
translates : qui est appellk son Testament; c'est a dire sa
'
Et Jupiter est Un, Un Pluton, Bacchus Un, derniere doctrine, & laquelle il veut qu'on
Un Soleil, Un Dieu Seul Atous ces noms commun. se tienne."

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCEPLATONISTS
i"3
more cautious, more overtly censorious manner. Raleigh and La Boderie
both write passages which are paeans of triumph on the final destruction of
the pagan gods by Christianity; but in both cases a note of elegiac nostalgia
is, to my ear, unmistakable.' Mornay, though nearly half his De la Veriti
Chrestienneis taken up with showing how near the ancients approached to
Christian truth, has towards the end of the book two harshly euhemeristic
and Augustinian chapters against the gods,2 of whom he writes in this manner:

". .. & Orph6e mesmes, qui les a deifiez n'en parle pas autrement
[sc. que les evhemeristes]. De Juppiter que lisons nous? Juppiter, dit
l'histoire, chasse son pere, il tient ses assises en la montagne d'Olympe,
il ravit Europa en un vaisseau nommd le Taureau: Ganymedes en un
autre, qui s'appelloit l'Aigle.... Enfin apres avoir donn6 quelques Loix,
& departy les charges de son estat entre ses amis, il meurt, & est enterr6
en la ville de Gnose: Qu'est cela que la vie, & d'un homme, & d'un
tresmeschant homme?"3
This is paralleled by his attitude to earlier literary, as opposed to syncretist,
humanists:
"Un Politian, dit Vives,4 mesprisoit totalement la lecture des Escri-
tures. Voyons donq ce qu'il prisoit. Toute sa vie il a dispute s'il falloit
1 E.g. Raleigh, op. cit., I, vii, sec. viii: "Ju- De Defectu orac., 418e. In Eusebius (Praep.
piter is no more vexed with Juno's jealousies; Evang., V, xvii), as in La Boderie, Pan repre-
death hath persuaded him to chastity & her sents the pagan gods. In Rabelais (IV, xxviii,
to patience; and that time- which hath de- ed. Plattard, Paris, 1929, IV, I I6) he is Christ
voured itself, hath also eaten up both the crucified (cf. Milton, Hymn on the Morning of
bodies and images of him and his: yea, their Christ's Nativity, (1629) (Poetical Works, ed.
stately temples of stone & dureful marble. Beeching, Oxford, 1921, p. 2), which contains
The houses & sumptuous buildings erected a Gotterddimmerung, mostly of non-Greek gods,
to Baal, can nowhere be found upon the but:
earth; nor any monument of that glorious
The shepherdson the Lawn
temple erected to Diana. There are none Or ere the point of dawn,
now in Phoenicia that lament the death of Sate simply chatting in a rustick row;
Adonis: nor any in Libya, Creta, Thessalia, Full little thoughtthey than,
or elsewhere, that ask counsel or help from That the mighty Pan
Was kindlycom to live with them below.)
Jupiter. The great God Pan hath broken his
pipes: Apollo's priests are become speechless: Cf. A.-J. Krailsheimer, "Rabelais et Postel,"
and the trade of riddles in oracles, with the in Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance,
devil's telling men's fortunes therein, is taken
XIII, 1951, p. 187.
up by counterfeit Egyptians, and cozening 2 Mornay, op. cit., pp. 509, 526: c. xxii
astrologers." La Boderie, Les Hymnes Ecclesi- "Que les Dieux adorez par les Gentils estoyent
astiques, Paris, 1582, p. 190: (at Christ's birth) hommes consacrez a la posterit6"; c. xxiii
Dans les cueurs tenebreux des hommes par le monde "Que les Esprits qui se faisoyent adorer soubs
Tout soudainon ouyt les Dieux payensfremir, les noms de ces hommes l1, estoyent Daemons,
Et par l'air obscurcy les noirs Demons gemir. c'est a dire, diables, ou malings Esprits." Cf.
Comme lors que Thamus le nocher osa dire
Augustine, Civ. Dei, VI, vii; VII, xviii, xxxv;
Que le grand Pan est mort, soudain on ouyt bruire
Les cris, les plaints, les pleurs, et les hurlantes voix VIII, xxiii-xxvi.
Des faux Dieux abatus en l'ombre de la Croix. 3 Ibid., p. 519.
4 Vives, De VeritateFidei Christianae, II, vii
This legend of the death of Pan would be a (Op. Omn., Valentiae Edetanorum, I782-90,
good symbol in which to study Christian atti- VIII, p. 165)-
tudes to pagan gods. Its source is Plutarch,

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
114 D. P. WALKER
dire Vergiliusou Virgilius, Carthaginensisou Carthaginiensis,primus ou preimus;
& s'il a eu quelque reste de loisir, ce a este pour faire quelque Epigramme
Grec, en louange de paillardise, & de Sodomie. . . Au contraire, un
Marsile Ficin, un ConteJehan de la Mirande, l'honneur en toutes sciences,
& de l'Italie, & de leur siecle, apres avoir leu tous les bons autheurs du
monde, se sont venuz reposer en nos Escritures, & ont este en fin des-
goustez de toutes autres; de celles cy ne s'en sont peu rassasier."I
This change of attitude towards Greek theology, due to historical develop-
ments between the generation of Ficino and that of La Boderie, must be dis-
tinguished from the more fundamental difference of outlook that one finds,
for example, between the two Picos. Gian-Francesco Pico is at the beginning
of a line of anti-philosophic fideism, which leads through Agrippa's De Vanitate
Scientiarumand Henri Estienne's and Gentien Hervet's translation of Sextus
Empiricus to Montaigne's Apologiede RaymondSebond.2 In his Examen Vanitatis
doctrinaegentiumhe cites or quotes the Palinodefour times, in each case with
the same intention as the Greek Fathers: to discredit Greek theology and to
show that any truth it contained had been stolen from Moses.3 Orpheus'
visit to Egypt is always mentioned; he even prefers Orpheus to Pythagoras
and Plato, because, by the time the latter had visited Egypt, the Mosaic
tradition had become corrupted with polytheism. He cites no other Orphica
and is extremely harsh on Orpheus as a polytheist; Orpheus was the inventor
of the amorpuerorum,4and this, says Pico, is an unnatural vice which usually
accompanies the unnatural belief in many gods.5 This was also one of George
of Trebizond's accusations against Plato, namely that he practised and en-
couraged paederasty and heresy,6 and one which Bessarion thought serious
enough to use most of one Book out of four in refuting it.I Agrippa has the
two attitudes successively; the De OccultaPhilosophiais sprinkled with Orphica
and unacknowledged bits of Ficino and the elder Pico,8 whereas, in the
strongly evangelical De Vanitate,he contemptuously dismisses the
"
"gentilium theologiam Museo, Orpheo, Hesiodo quondam descriptam,
quam omnino poeticam & fabulosam esse in confesso est; quam Eusebius
& Lactantius & aliorum Christianorum doctores jamdudum validissimis
rationibus profligarunt .. 0."

He also refers to Orpheus' paederasty, making the ingenious suggestion that

1 Mornay, op. cit., p. 617.
2See Hugo Friedrich, Montaigne, Bern,
1949, p. 161 f.
3 G.-F. Pico, Op. Omn., pp. 724-5, 756, 814,
oo009.
4 Ovid, Metamorphoses, X, 83 (Kern, test.
77); cf. Poliziano, Orfeo (? 1472), ed. Car-
ducci, Bologna, 1912, pp. 389-90.
5 G.-F. Pico, Op. Omn., p. 471.
6 III, vi, vii.
Comparationes,no pag., sig. Miii", Nv f.
7 Cf. G.
Bessarion, op. czt., pp. 429-492.
Pico, Commento. . . sopra una canzona... de Giro-
lamo Benivieni, ed. Garin (De Homn. Dign.,
etc.), pp. 537-8; in clearing Platonic homo-
sexual love from imputations of vice he gives
as examples of pure love: Orpheus and
Musaeus, Socrates and Alcibiades (and
"quasi tutti e' piii ingegnosi e leggiadri della
gioventh di Atene"), and others.
8
E.g. De Occ. Phil., I, xiv; II, xxv, xxvi;
9 Agrippa, De Vanitate, c. xcvii.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS I15
it was with the powerful, though effeminating, effects of his music that he
seduced the Thracian youths.'

V
TrinitarianOrphica. The drift towardsheresy
Two other important monotheistic fragments,2 which will lead us on to
the trinity, usually occur together, as they do in Proclus. They are both part
of the specifically Orphic theogony, in which Zeus swallows the first-born
god, Phanes, and thus unites the multiplicity of the whole universe, as Proclus
explains.3 Renaissance writers do not, of course, try to work out Orpheus'
theogony as distinct from Hesiod's, since the former is for them the source of
the latter ;4 but these are fragments which do tend, however interpreted, to
carry a certain metaphysical content. The first is translated thus by Thomas
Taylor :5
Hence with the universe great Jove contains
Extended aether, heav'n's exalted plains;
The barren restless deep, and earth renowned,
Ocean immense, & Tartarus profound;
Fountains & rivers, and the boundless main,
With all that nature's ample realms contains;
And Gods & 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.

The other, sometimes called the HymnofJove, is possibly referred to in Plato's

Laws,6and is quoted in the Ps.-Aristotle De Mundo7and, in a longer version,
by Porphyry (apud Eusebium) and Proclus.8 It begins: "Zeus is the first,
Zeus the last, high-thunderer: Zeus the head, Zeus the middle; from Zeus
all things spring; Zeus is male and immortal bride." Then are enumerated:
"fire and water and earth and aether, night and day, and Wisdom, first
creator and sweet Love"; all these lie in Zeus' great body (or palace).
These two fragments can be taken simply as assertions of monotheistic
belief in one creator, while Wisdom and Love are respectively the Son and
1
Ibid., c. xvii. But he does include Orpheus (ibid., p. 299); but, as to the Palinode, the
in a list of those who thought rightly about Fathers were misled by "certain counterfeit
the soul (ibid., c. lii). Orphick verses in Aristobulus [i.e. apud Euse-
2 The final fate of the
Palinode, before we bium; Kern, Fr. 247], made probably by
leave it, may be seen in Cudworth. He some ignorant Jew; wherein Orpheus is made
examines in great detail the questions of to sing a palinodia" (ibid., p. 302).
Orpheus' existence, antiquity and mono- 3 Kern, Fr. 167, I68.
theism (op. cit., p. 294 f.), and concludes that 4 v. supra, p. 105. On the differences be-
he "acknowledged one supreme unmade tween the two theogonies see W. C. K.
Deity" and that "the Pythagoreans and Guthrie, Orpheus, p. 83.
Platonists not only had Orpheus in great 5 Proclus, Comm. on Timaeus, transl. Th.
esteem, he being commonly called by them Taylor, London, 1820, p. 263 ; Kern, Fr. I67b.
6 OEooy),oc,the theologian, but were also 6 Plato, Laws, IV,
715e (Kern, Fr. 21).
7 Kern, Fr. 21a.
thought in great measure to have owed their
theology and philosophy to him, as deriving 8 Kern, Fr. 168.
the same from his principles and traditions"

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
116 D. P. WALKER
the Holy Ghost, as in La Boderie' and Mornay,2 or they can be interpreted
in more perilous ways. Ficino, in a letter on the Platonic furores,3quotes the
Hymnof Jove and equates Jove with the animamundi,having just before quoted
the famous passage from the Aeneid:
Principio coelum, ac terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra,
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.4

In the letter containing the Palinode,5 he quotes it again in full, together with
Porphyry's commentary on it,6 which takes Jove as the mens mundi, "who
created all things therein, containing the world in himself."' This interpreta-
tion, repeated by Agrippa,8 comes near to making Jove into the creative Logos,
God the Son.9
This step is taken by Steuco; all these things in the Palace ofJove are, he
says, what the Platonists call Ideas, what the Christians and Hermes Tris-
megistus call Wisdom or Logos.'0He then quotes a crucial passage from St.
Paul,11 as a parallel:
Who [sc. Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of
every creature: For by him were all things created, that are in heaven,
and that are in the earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones,
or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him
C
[at'xOov] and for him [Eteo~6TO].2

Since Steuco believed that the Jews knew only the second person of the
Trinity,13he is able to equate Jove with Jehovah, as well as with the Son. Like
the rest of the Platonists, Steuco compares or identifies the persons of the
1 La Boderie, Encyclie, p. 192: making God to be all," and finally decides
that Orpheus does not go beyond an orthodox
M6me ce grand Harpeur a voulu designer of immanence; which he backs up by
Le Fils, & Saint Esprit pour les siens enseigner. degree
"La Sagesse, dit-il, fut la mere premiere quoting Coloss. i. 15-17 (quoted lower on this
Avec le dous Amour." 6 Bouche de lumiere! page).
10 Steuco, Op. Omn., III,
2 I22v.
Mornay, op. cit., p. Io02. 11Ibid., III, I23r. St. Paul, Coloss. i. 15-I7.
3 Ficino, Op. Omn., p. 6 2. 12 Orpheus' "gods and goddesses" in Jove's
4 Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 724-727- body (v. fragment quoted supra, p. I 15) are
5 v. supra, note 7, p. I I0o. Paul's Thrones, Dominions, etc.; Orpheus
6Apud Eusebium, Praep. Evang., III, ix. can be excused for giving angels both sexes,
7 "AM '6v voOv'oo x6a[LouU6oX[ljPVOV7-E, since they are, of course, neuter-though
86 rO&v a 68) & L
L7Tgllo6py aeV o V r6v x6a(Gov. Christian theologians rightly give them the
Ficino: ". .. Jovem mundi mentem arbi- worthier sex (the male) (Steuco, ibid.).
trantes, quae in se ipsa mundum continens 13 Steuco, Op. Omn., III, 3v, 25r. Though
produxit." Steuco was Librarian of the Vatican, this is
8 Agrippa, De Occ. Phil., III, vii.
9 The likeness of these by no means the most startling of his un-
Fragments to Stoic orthodoxies; he also believed that the empy-
pantheism, especially when coupled with the rean heaven was eternal and uncreated, and
Virgilian passage, did not trouble the earlier that God, when creating man, took on human
syncretists. But in the I7th century Cudworth form (Freudenberger, Aug. Steuchus,pp. 219 f.,
(op. cit., I, 305 f.) discusses at length "that 210 f.).
strong and rank haut-goust" in Orphism "of

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCE PLATONISTS 117

Trinity with Platonic or Neoplatonic metaphysical principles:' the Father is

the One and the Good, the Son is Mind and Being. As Mind, he is the
creating Jehovah, both containing the Ideas and identical with them, who
created the universe on their model, like the Platonic demiurge.2 He is Being,
since he is Jehovah, who announced to Moses "I am that I am," Ets 6
which was regularly interpreted by the Fathers as equivalent to "I am Being"
(V,s,
(1 0b6v, i.e. Plato's 0 v)). The third person of the Trinity was some-
v-, or animamundi. But, on the whole, attention was
times provided with anima,
concentrated on the first two persons; probably because the equation Holy
Ghost=anima mundi was too obviously heretical, though it was sometimes
suggested,4 and also because, as Steuco says :5 "tertius [sc. opifex] semper
fuit obscurior, etiam apud nostrates."
Steuco, however, was exceptional in firmly identifying the Orphic Jove
with God the Son; there were plenty of other possibilities in the Orphica. I
have already mentioned Wisdom and Love in the Hymnof Jove;6 there is also
the Divine Word in the Palinode.7 Ficino, Pico, and Mornay also all suggest
Pallas Athene,8 who appears in Orphica quoted by Proclus,9 where she is
said to have sprung from the head of Zeus that she might be the creator of
many works. There is another frequently used trinitarian fragment, which
Mornay quotes in an ingenious way, so as to make an historical link between
Hermes Trismegistus (Egypt) and Orpheus; it is an oath, found in Ps.-Justin:10
I swear by thee, heaven, the wise work of great God,
I swear by thee, Voice of the father, which he first pronounced
When he constructed the whole universe with his counsels.

This, in the SuidasLexicon,is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. Mornay first

quotes it when exposing Hermes' trinitarian doctrine, and then, a page later,
quotes it again as Orpheus', with the comment: "C'estoit, comme il appert
cy-dessus, une prikre qu'il avoit apprise de Mercure."11
These speculations on the Trinity-Platonic, Neoplatonic, reinforced with
bits of Orphica, Hermetica, Chaldaean Oracles-have an evident drift to-
wards heresy.12 It is, I think, generally admitted that the Greek Fathers, as
8 Ficino,
1 V. e.g., Steuco, Op. Omn., III, 3'-5, I . Op. Omn., p. I8; Pico, Op. Omn.,
Cf. infra., pp. I18-9. p. Io8 (Cabalistic Concl., No. Io; Orpheus'
2 Ibid., III, Iov, 13v f. Pallas is the same as Zoroaster's paterna mens,
3 Exodus ii. 14. Eusebius, Praep. Evang., XI, Hermes' Son of God, Pythagoras' wisdom,
ix (compared to Plato, Timaeus, 27d-28, 37e); Parmenides' sphaeraintelligibilis) ; Mornay, op.
Clement Alex., Stromata, I, xxv; Augustine, cit., p. 102.
Civ. Dei, VIII, xi; Steuco, Op. Omn., III, I Ir, 9 Kern, Fr. 174-7. Cf. Augustine, Civ. Dei,
25v. Cf. Bessarion, op. cit., p. I I6. VII, xxviii (Varro equating Minerva with
4 E.g. Steuco, Op. Omn., III, I2r, 30`-31; Plato's ideas); Plato, Cratylus, 407b (Athena
Mornay, op. cit., p. I I6 f. (somewhat tenta- derived from O 0~o0 v67Eq).
tive identification of Plotinus' anima mundi 10 Kern, Fr. 299.
with the Holy Ghost); Bessarion, op. cit., 11 Mornay, op. cit., pp. o10-2.
p. 299 (excusing Plato for having the anima 12 Cf. D. Cantimori, "Anabattismo e Neo-
mundi as the third hypostasis, and quoting platonismo nel XVI Secolo in Italia," Recon-
Virgil, Aeneid, VI, 724). diti della R. Acc. Naz. dei Lincei Classe di scienze
5 Steuco, Op. Omn., III, 34v. mor., stor. e filol., S. 6, XII, Rome, 1937,
6v. supra, pp. I 15-6. PP. 543, 552-3.
7 v. supra, p. I I0.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
x18 D. P. WALKER
opposed to the Western, tend to emphasize the distinctness of the persons of
the Trinity at the expense of their unity; even when remaining within the
bounds of orthodoxy, they assign special functions to the second and third,
which come near to destroying their consubstantiality with the first and each
other.' It is noticeable, even in the few examples given here from Renaissance
scholars, that there is a strong insistence on the Son as creative Logos;2 this
may have been due, in some measure, to the interest in Orphica which sent
them back to these Fathers. It is an easy transition to pass from regarding
Platonic or Neoplatonic triads (e.g. One, Mind, Soul) as foreshadowings of,
gropings towards, the Christian Trinity to regarding them as helpful ways of
partially understanding a mystery, and thence to taking them as real explana-
tions of it, or as identical with it. In the case of the equation Mind-Intelligible
World = Son-Logos, this seems already to be happening in Clement of
Alexandria,3 and it happens in Eusebius in an unmistakably Arian way:4 he
quotes Plato on the Good beyond Being, identifies it with God the Father,
and then emphasizes that it absolutely transcends all Being, so that the Ideas
cannot be coessential with it, i.e., the Son is not of one substance with the
Father. And Eusebius, it will be remembered,5 is one likely starting-point of
Ficino's, and hence of his followers', syncretism.
The Renaissance Platonists were themselves aware of this danger. Bes-
sarion, in rebutting George of Trebizond's charge that Plato was a source of
heretics (particularly of Arius and Origen), claims that it is the heretics' fault
if they do not interpret Plato according to the Bible, but the Bible according
to Plato; 6 but he was acutely conscious of the danger of making Christianity
fit Platonism, instead of the other way round. He constantly indicated points
where Plato is not reconcilable with orthodoxy,7 and was especially careful,
when dealing with the Trinity, to emphasize that Platonic hypostases are not
coessential with each other, that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be reached
by natural reason, and to establish the orthodox doctrine by long quotations
from St. Augustine and St. Thomas.8 Pico, in his commentary on Benivieni's
Canzona,though he adopts a Platonic scheme involving a created Mind called
the Son of God, takes care to point out that this is not the Christian truth.9
Mornay, however, commenting on the famous three kings in Plato's Epistle
II,10 which he interprets as the Good, the Demiurge and the anima mundi,
writes:
Or encequ'il les renge au dessous l'un de l'autre, il semble bien Ar-
rianiser. Et encor est ce beaucoup en un Payen. Mais quand il recognoist
1
v. e.g., The CatholicEncyclopedia,ed. C. H. 4 Eusebius, Praep. Evang., XI, xxi.
Herbermann, etc., New York, XV, 1912, 5 Cf.
supra, p. 0o8.
pp. 52-3 (art. Trinity); Dictionnairede Thdologie 6 Bessarion, op. cit., p.
Io03
Catholique, ed. A. Vacant, etc., XII, Paris, 7
E.g., ibid., p. 87 (pre-existence of souls,
1935, col. 2307, 2322 f., 2332 f. (art. Pla- souls of celestial bodies).
tonisme). 8 Ibid., pp. 297 f.
2 In Steuco he is plainly the creator in
9 Pico, Heptaplus etc., ed. Garin, pp. 464/5.
Genesis. -
Plato, Epist. II, 3I2e: nept v ivroO)v
3 10
E.g. Stromata, V, xiv, IV, xxv. Cf. Dict. oart XOCx &xevoU X
EvexOCivrOC,
x&al• O&-tov
de Theol. Cath., III1, cols. i55, 158-161 (art. &xelvo rTCO•V' x"ctro
&'vtovtv CO eutepOvU 7ept
v xcaXv
Clement d'Alexandrie). 6r& asKepcX,xct tpcorovnept-ritplcxm.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
 ORPHEUS THE THEOLOGIAN AND RENAISSANCEPLATONISTS iI9
une mesme essence, il monstre que la diversite est es functions seulement,
& en l'ordre des causes, qui est bien passe plus outre que les Ariens.1
Steuco had gone further in this dangerous direction; he sharply criticizes Pico
and Ficino for supposing that Plato and the prisci theologithought Mind was
a creature and not co-eternal with the Father-this Arian error was confined
to the later Platonists.2I Steuco wishes the ancient theologians to be not only
Christians, but strictly orthodox ones, who would have been on the right side
at the Council of Nicaea. This attitude is the exact opposite of Bessarion's,
who insists that Plato and the rest could not possibly have been Christians
and must not be considered as such, and it is an attitude which, I think,
inevitably leads to heresy.

VI
Summaryof waysin whichtheologicalOrphicaare importantin the Renaissance
Since this essay is a preliminary sketch which deals with only a fraction
of the relevant material, I should like to conclude it by indicating briefly the
ways in which the Orphica seem to me important for the history of Renais-
sance thought; only some of these have been shown in the preceding pages,
and that incompletely and perhaps not clearly.
The content of the Orphica, as interpreted by Renaissance Platonists, is
on the whole so indistinguishable from other available hellenistic sources that
it is impossible, or unwise, to attribute to them any specific influence. There
are two possible exceptions to this. First, some of the Orphica have a positive
pantheistic content,3 which might at least strengthen other similar, probably
Stoic, influences on Renaissance philosophy. Secondly, there is the context
in which the Orphic fragments were found: Clement and Eusebius, with their
dangerous Platonic expositions of the Trinity,4 and Proclus, with his multiple
interpretation of pagan gods as metaphysical and natural principles.5
The Orphica remain, however, chiefly important, not because of their
content or context, but because they reinforce the belief in, and form part of,
a prisca theologiawhich confirms the compatibility of Platonism with Christi-
anity. As suggested in Section I, Orpheus was a particularly eminent member
of the sequence of prisci theologibecause his other aspects, legendary and
historical, increased his authority as a theologian or connected him with
activities highly valued by Renaissance Platonists. The significance of this
tradition of ancient theology is, again, not so much in its content, which a
priori had to conform with Christianity, as in the results of supposing the
existence of such a tradition and in the assumptions it involved.6 These results
may be summarized under the following interconnected categories.
The belief in the prisca theologia:
(i) led to an extremely liberal, open kind of Christianity, to an emphasis
on the similarities rather than the differences between various religions. This
1 Mornay, op. cit., p. 123.
2
4 v. supra, pp. I I6-8.
Steuco, Op. Omn., III, 42v. 5 v. supra, pp. 104, i o6, Io8.
3 v. supra,p. 116 and note 9. 6 v. supra, p. 105-

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
120o D. P. WALKER

tendency seems even to survive the Reformation and the Council of Trent;
Mornay and La Boderie, for example, hardly ever mention points of dif-
ference between Catholicism and Protestantism.
(ii) enabled pagan philosophy to be accepted as historically part of the
Christian tradition, and thus saved Ficino and his followers from the strain
or dishonesty of the "double truth," still alive with the Paduan Aristotelians.
(iii) helped the survival, in innocuous forms, of the pagan gods and
heroes; Ficino and Pico were able, with a clear conscience, to sing Orphic
hymns to Uranus or Phoebus.
(iv) strongly influenced the Renaissance interpretation of Plato and the
Neoplatonists. Historically Plato was considered as deriving from Moses;
teleologically, as leading up to the Christian revelation. This viewpoint, how-
ever erroneous it may seem to-day, did at least provide an intelligible frame-
work into which one of the most enigmatic, if most profound, of all philoso-
phers could be fitted.

This content downloaded from 155.97.178.73 on Sun, 30 Nov 2014 16:15:58 PM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions