Customer Reviews

Platonic Theology, Volume 2: Books V-VIII (I Tatti Renaissance Library)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Thanks to the efforts of a team of brilliant scholars, we now have this most remarkable work, On the Immortality of the Soul, rendered for the first time in a clear and direct English translation. Now this superlative summation of the Platonic Theology was penned by the founder of the Platonic Academy of Florence, Marsilio Ficino, who was, by all means, an outstanding philosopher and a devoted Catholic priest. Furthermore, it must be noted that Ficino's work is the culmination and first-fruits of some two-thousand years of speculative thought, respectively within traditions Pagan and Christian, as well as Eastern and Western. Yet the main currents of his Theology of the Soul flow primarily from Plato/Augustine, from Aristotle/Aquinas and frequently through Plotinus and the Neoplatonists, yet very seldom through the Pre-Socratics, the Magi and Averroes/Avicenna. It must be remembered that, in light of all Ficino's eclecticism, the author's aim was to combat neo-skepticism while at the same time producing a well-rounded and fundamentally orthodox Theology of the Soul for the whole of Christendom. Now it would be superfluous to provide a summary of these six volumes in a single review; and this is even true of this, the second volume. The scope of this work is extraordinarily broad and every detail is so profound and important that neglecting any part of it would be to neglect the whole. But a short comment on the second volume will have to suffice: Ficino regarded the soul as belonging to the third essence of Diety [=Universal or Primary Soul], where particular souls derive their existence and find their ultimate existence and final rest in that very original/universal essence alluded to above. All souls then being born of an incorporeal, eternal, divine nature are necessarily incorporeal, sempieternal and by participation [=by exemplifying civic and contemplive virtues], capable of becoming divine or godlike. Therefore, all souls are immortal by nature but not all are blessed and godlike. Nothing is said of a Hades or netherworld in this volume since Fincio's goal here is to simply demonstrate that both good and bad souls are necessarily immortal. Overall it may be said that the reader who ventures through the Platonic Theology of Marsilio Ficino, will be captivated by its style, elated by its loftiness and charmed by the arcane and mystic elements which enliven the text. [for more on Ficino, see the review posted for *volume one]