Corpus Hermeticum_Ficino- The High Priest of the Renaissance

8/15/2019 Corpus Hermeticum_Ficino- The High Priest of the Renaissance

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31/5/2016 Corpus Hermeticum

http://philipcoppens.com/ficino_mag.html

Speaking of… Javier Sierra in “The Secret Supper” has speculated about a relationship between Ficino and Leonardo Da Vinci. Sierra has clevesuggested this was a secret relationship, for indeed there is no evidence to suggest that Leonardo was on close or friendly terms with Ficino. All thevidence suggests that the two were not friends, with Leonardo hardly making a dent in Florence and never admitted to the Platonic Academeventually seeking his employment elsewhere, and Ficino being one of the town’s most respected and known people – how the following centuriehave repainted history! Still, it is clear that Leonardo was a child of his time and aware of the Hermetica and influenced by its tradition and the “tren

– t he Renaissance – that s wept through Florence and soon elsewhere; as the trend rippled through Italy and France, Leonardo rode the wave, wheremany members of the Platonic Academy largely remained in Florence. For them, Florence was the place to be… Some evidence of Da Vincexposure to the Hermetica can be seen in the seating arrangement of the disciples in “The Last Supper”: they are grouped in four groups of thretalking only among themselves, corresponding to the four elements in the Zodiac, with Christ in the middle, representing the Sun. As to why a chalicmay be missing: a possible explanation may be found in chapter four of the Corpus Hermeticum.Ficino’s influence was much wider than “just” Botticelli and Leonardo Da Vinci. Studies have shown that the German Renaissance artist AlbrecDürer took his inspiration from Ficino. The figure in the Melancholia of Dürer symbolises the "children of Saturn", who meditate on the secrets wisdom. Michelangelo too may have been influenced by Ficino's ideas, definitely having been exposed to them during his presence at the court of tMedicis. In short, name any Renaissance painter and you will see the guiding hand of Ficino behind the painter, either directly or indirectly. He paintethrough others…

Ficino was a walking library, full of knowledge of the ancient world, more so than most men ever tocome after him. He also subscribed to the notion that there was hope for world renovation (bestremembered in the word Renaissance – rebirth – itself), which would occur through art, science andtechnology. This “new hope” was his new religion, the infusion of Platonic-Hermetic thought withinChristianity, which was creating a manifesto for a new Christian Church. He declared that religion’sbasis had to be philosophy (which was largely absent from Christianity) and believed that Plato shouldbe read in the churches. Such integration would, by default, not go smoothly. For one, Ficinoconsidered the human soul to be both immortal and divine, made in the image of God, which was a

contradiction of the Bible that claimed that the soul was not naturally immortal and could only becomeso through Christianity. In his introduction to the translation, he stated that the Logos, the Word, wasthe basis of a peaceful philosophy, in which experiencing the divine nature of the soul was the ultimategoal for Man. It is clear that the marriage of these pagan divinities with Christ was not a straightforwardtask. Another problem was that Plato was a pagan and the Hermeticum was believed to contain first-hand knowledge of the Egyptian – pagan – religion. Christianity had stated that all – all – of thisheretical knowledge had been made redundant with the birth of Christ… so there was no need toconsider, let alone introduce, let alone allow, it to be read in churches.But there was hope. Many of the Hermetic writings closely resemble portions of the Gospel of John,one of the few if not only Christian texts cherished by the medieval Cathars. Later, Martin Luther actually believed that the author of the Corpus had merely copied the writings of John the Evangelist. Avery old Egyptian text says: “In the beginning was Thoth; and Thoth was in Atum; and Thoth was Atumin the unfathomable reaches of primordial space.” The Prologue of John’s Gospel, beginning with “TheWord was with God and The Word was God”, closely resembles the actions of Thoth – and Thoth was the Egyptian name of Hermes, the god Wisdom. Ficino himself did not fail to see the similarities between the Corpus Hermeticum and John’s Gospel and even stressed these in hintroduction to his translation.

It is clear that Ficino was playing a dangerous game. What inspired him to live so dangerously? The answer seems to be that either Pleton and h

school knew that Christianity was not as “original” as the Western Church thought it was, or Ficino worked it out on his own. But the end conclusion simple: Ficino realised that Christianity was a variation – an interpretation – of a group of followers of the Corpus Hermeticum, specifically the cult Serapis. His “new religion” was nothing more than restoring Christianity to its roots.The cult of Serapis was specifically, as many Egyptologists have pointed out, the cult of the dead Osiris, which was also known as the Arkite worshof Osiris. Osiris, almost everyone now seems to know, shares many characteristics with Jesus, both ascending to reside as King of the Otherworfrom the World of the Dead.The religion of Serapis was a wisdom cult, which means it must have had a body of literature. But what was that body of literature? Both the SerapCult and the Hermetic literature are dedicated to the Egyptian god Thoth, the Greek Hermes, from which the Hermetic literature takes its name. WheChampollion translated the hieroglyphic script in the 19th century, he stated that the Corpus contained the ancient Egyptian doctrine. According to twprominent scholars, Bloomfield and Stricker, the Corpus Hermeticum was indeed the “bible” of the Egyptian mystery religion of Serapis. Interestingthis is exactly what Ficino himself believed. But he also believed that with the Corpus Hermeticum, the Florentine Academy received the “true biblei.e. the sacred literature which had been used in the training of John the Baptist and Jesus; it was the bible of original Christianity, the Serapis cult. short, the revolution that Ficino tried to achieve was to do away with centuries of corruption of Christianity and return the religion to its true roots. Thproblem was that this meant that he would have to do away with most of Christianity…


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When we explore the contents of this “original Christian bible”, we find that it specifically reflects tnew belief system of the Renaissance, which called for a direct experience of the divine. The centrmythical image of Hermeticism, described in the first treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum, “Poimandrethe Shepherd of Men”, is the ascent of the soul after death, and its passage through the spheres of tseven planets. When entering the Eighth Sphere (the Fixed Stars), it joins the company of the Blesse

An identical journey is described in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, where the soul must traverse tseveral halls of the Otherworld and be weighed against a feather (an act performed by Thoth), beforecan enter the Paradise of Osiris. Furthermore, Thoth and his Hellenised counterpart Hermes were tmessengers of the gods, those who travelled between Heaven, the Kingdom of God, and Earth, tRealm of Man. In Christianity, this mediator role was Christ and Christ alone. After finishing htranslation, Ficino exclaimed: “the Renaissance expresses, by a new song of joy from the sodescending from the Creator, the enthusiasm of the spirit receiving the light.”There is more: Ficino correctly stated that the Christian cross, the symbol of Christianity pexcellence, was originally the symbol of the pagan Egyptian god Serapis. But how to align Serapis aHermes with Christ? Ficino stated that Hermes had foreseen the advent of Christ, which meant that had an excuse to study Hermes, as he had been a pagan prophet of the coming of Christ. It however, highly doubtful that Ficino truly believed this; it was “just” a clever ploy to stop peopmeddling with his interest. But there is, of course, an interesting little joke in there: the Serapis cuwith Hermes, and Jesus were very closely related… and stating that Hermes was one of those who hforeseen the advent of Christ was a novel theory… but one that was more true than those Ficino saidto probably realised.

The Florentine Academy actually possessed the rituals of the Serapis cult. The writings of the Roma

author Apuleius were cherished reading for the Platonic Academy. Apuleius gave many detaileaccounts of the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris. He wrote how, in the procession of the Initiates of Isthey followed a chest or ark, magnificently ornamented, containing an image of the organs of generati(i.e. the phallus) of the dead Osiris. “These ceremonies represented the death of [Osiris], slain by h

brother [Seth].” Ficino’s translations of Apuleius therefore gave the Academy detailed accounts of the rituals of the Serapis cult.Ficino realised that Christianity was a slightly modified continuation of the cult of Serapis. Many historians have observed – and wondered – about tapparent duality of Ficino in being both a priest – in fact the chief priest of the Florentine Cathedral – and a Hermeticist. He seemed to link pagaHermetic thinking to Christianity, which seem on the surface incompatible. In his time, Ficino’s opponents criticised: “Would you think this man ispriest of God as he wished to appear, and not rather the patron and high priest of Egyptian mysteries?” It therefore seems that even his opponenknew the truth about Ficino’s true allegiance… and what he truly believed. But when we accept that he saw the cult of Serapis as original Christianithis apparent duality disappears…

The link between the Corpus Hermeticum, John the Baptist and the Serapis Cult is able to answer one of the most nagging questions of the history othe “underground stream”, a question that Picknett and Prince’s book Templar Revelation posed when it showed that the people who worshipped Johthe Baptist were also Hermeticists. They, like many others who brought up questions and links between heresy and the Hermeticum were never abto explain why this would be the case. But now this question can be answered. As the Corpus Hermeticum and the Serapis cult were the same, aas there is evidence that John the Baptist was a priest of Serapis, it follows that those who held John in high esteem would do this because of hparticular doctrine, which was the Hermeticum. This also explains why the rediscovery of the knowledge of the Corpus Hermeticum happened within

group of people, the Florentine Academy, who had been driven to understand the true origins of the Baptist’s message. It may also explain wLeonardo Da Vinci was fascinated with John the Baptist… and why Florence was specifically cherished as being the capital of the Renaissance, fJohn the Baptist was the city’s patron saint.

Most historians have underestimated the true heresy of the Renaissance as its leader never openly attacked Jesus’ central position, which wouseem to have been the logical scenario if it was a heresy. But surely men with the political and commercial knowledge and expertise such as the dMedici-family must have realised that if they tried to do just that, their public stance would immediately condemn them to prison… or worse. Publdiscrediting of Jesus never led to anything positive – witness the Cathar crusade.Furthermore, it should be noted that they had nothing against Jesus, who they after all considered to have been a Serapis priest. Their problem wawith what had become of “his” Church and its dogma, which was not in line with Jesus’ or the Serapis’ teachings. Rather than a wisdom cuChristianity was a dogmatic cult.So rather than attack, they redefined. Though the figure of Christ maintained its central position, the image of Christ as “the Son of God who suffereon the cross for humanity” had been replaced by the figure of a mortal man who was “the essence of perfection and harmony”, who had achieved – use Ficino’s wording – his “God Potential”. Ficino’s student Pico della Mirandola viewed man as a “magus”, equipped with a divine creative powegiving him control over his own destiny through science. He believed that nothing was more convincing of Christ’s divinity than magic. Priests Serapis were magicians and Ficino claimed that Jesus was a magician, as such identifying the former “Son of God” with a priest of a pagan beliFicino tried to be like he believed Jesus had been: a magician. And that is why he gave to Botticelli and others magical information, which theworked into their paintings.


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In retrospect, the Academy had very little direct effect on the thinking of the general public, noteven in Florence. And that is why Ficino “the man” has largely become a footnote in history.But it would be wrong to suggest they did not have any effect; the key word is “direct effect”;indirectly, the Academy brought about the Renaissance and the transformation of Europe, thediscovery of America and the birth of science.With the translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, they had the necessary material in hand todiscover what society original Christianity wanted to establish. In 1492, Ficino wrote that an“Age of Gold” was upon Mankind. The first sign would be the revival of arts, which had beenturned into a liberating technique to liberate Man’s “God Potential”, the divine spark that was ineach of us. That project, as we now know, was a success.On the surface, it might seem that their revolution was merely a purely artistic one. History,however, has only chosen to remember these attempts (perhaps because they weresuccessful), but there were also political attempts to bring about social change. History haschosen to forget these. Ficino himself mentioned that the revolution of art was merely the firststep. He wrote that the revolution of the communication technology (printing) was the key tothe Apocalypse, which would lead to this “Age of Gold”, in which a rebirth of Christianity wouldoccur. The Academy thus became the breeding ground of a conspiracy to try and overthrowthe Catholic Church. It was a bold attempt to reform from within, covertly, rather than from theoutside, openly and aggressively.In these attempts, they required the assistance of bright young men, who were willing to takecentre stage. A young priest steeped into occult knowledge, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,was such a man. Pico had arrived in Florence on the day when Ficino had completed thetranslations of Plato’s writings. With all the necessary ammunition to mount their attacktherefore available in Latin, Ficino and other members of the Platonic Academy pushed Pico toformulate a compendium of nine hundred propositions – a manifesto. It was the battle plan withwhich the Medici-circle wanted to attack the outdated dogma of the Church. The propositionsare clearly Hermetic in origin and were presented to – and seen by – the Pope as a challengeto Church and Christianity. Unsurprisingly, the attempt failed… quite miserably: Pope InnocentVIII did not indulge such pagan inspired thinking and placed Pico’s writings on the Papal Index, threatening Pico with expulsion.The next step in any conspiracy was getting infiltrators into the “enemy camp”. Though Ficino and most members of the Academy were priests, nonheld high enough positions in the Church and were too visible on the radar to pull this off. Therefore, Lorenzo de Medici engineered the promotion oone of his sons to the position of Cardinal, thus clearing the first hurdle in a – successful – race to the Papal office. It opened up a potential, but onwhich in the end was never truly realised – and which Ficino never would live to see anyway.

Ficino was the herald of a new age. More than a herald, he laid the foundation and made sure that his child would not want for anything. He had higaspirations for his offspring, which in the end, its foster parents could not accomplish. Still, the Renaissance was not a failure; it was a transformatioand remains a paradigm shift for Western society. But the child became so famous, that no-one pays due reverence to its father.

Corpus Hermeticum_Ficino- The High Priest of the Renaissance

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