MARSIUO FICINO AS A CHRISTIAN THINKER: THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HIS PLATONISM1

Jorg Lauster

1. Introduction

Five hundred years after Marsilio Ficino's death the celebrations in England, France, Italy and elsewhere have demonstrated once more that Ficino has an honoured place in Western philosophy. Whether the physician of the Medici, the canon of Florence cathedral and the head of a philosophical circle earned this place thanks to his work as translator and commentator of Plato and Plotinus or to his own writings or-as is most likely-to both, depends on one's point of view. It is not advisable to separate these two aspects of Ficino's work. Ficino did not carry through his enormous project of transla­tion and commentary merely to satisfy a philological interest. Rather, he pursued the idea of a Christian Platonism and for that purpose a knowledge of the writings of Plato and Plotinus was indispensable. He gave an exact account of why Christian theology can and should use Platonic reasoning, and developed a theory about the history of revelation in antiquity which allowed him to presume a divine ori­gin for Platonic philosophy, 2 and which served as an historical argu­ment to demonstrate the affinity of Christianity with Platonism. One of the most important results of this is the way in which Ficino tried to abolish the separation between religion and philosophy with his programme of docta religio and pia philosophia. 3

1 In the following essay I try to resume the basic results of my research on Ficino's theory of redemption in Die Erliisungslehre Marsi/io Ficinos. Theolngiegeschichtliclu Aspekte des Renaissancepkztonismus, Berlin and New York, 1998.

2 For this programme, see J. Hankins, Plato in the lllliUm Renaissance, 2 vols, con­tinuously paginated, Leiden etc., 1990, pp. 282-87 and 460-64; M. J. B. Allen, 'Marsilio Ficino on Plato, the Neoplatonists and the Christian Doctrine of the Trinity', Renaissance Qyarter[y, 37 (1984), pp. 555-84, at pp. 582-84 (now in his Pkzto's Third Eye: Studies in Marsi/io Ficino's Metap~sics and its Sources, Aldershot, 1995); and especially idem, Synoptic Art: Marsilio Ficino on the Histmy of Platonic Interpretation, Florence, 1998.

3 C( Marsilio Ficino, Opera omnia, 2 vols, continuously paginated, Basel, 1576;

46 JORG LAUSTER

In developing this programme Ficino naturally had to deal with theological questions that the tradition of Christian thinking presented. Nearly everywhere in his work are allusions, passages and even trea­tises reflecting his engagement with Christian theology.4 Some writings, moreover, are so dominated by these themes that we can simply call them theological works. The foremost piece is, of course, De Chris­tiana religione, Ficino's great apology for the Christian religion. In the first part of the work, in addition to his famous remarks on the rela­tionship between philosophy and religion, he explains how the author­ity of the Christian religion can be upheld with good reasons against the Jews and Moslems. The second part argues in detail against the criticism and rejection of particular Christian doctrines, for exam­ple, the theory of the Trinity or the lncamation.5 Ficino treats the­ological questions repeatedly in his twelve books of letters, especially in Book II. Among these letters De raptu Pauli should be especially noted. Here Ficino uses the example of St Paul's raptus to heaven to explain his theory of the soul's ascent to God through the vari­ous cosmic degrees. In the Opera omnia we also find a collection of sermons, the Praedicationes, in which Ficino discusses very detailed problems of Christian theology, as, for example, the resurrection of the body or the doctrine of the Sacraments. Finally, Ficino wrote a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. This work exists only as a fragment, the commentary coming to a premature end at Rom. 5:12. The reason for that rupture may have been Ficino's death. At least we can say that it is one of his latest works. Allusions suggest that he intended to comment on all the letters of St Paul.6 If Ficino

repr. Turin, 1959 etc., p. l. Among the large number of contributions to this theme, see esp. P. 0. Kristeller, The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino, tr. by V. Conant, New York, 1943; repr. Gloucester, Mass., 1964, pp. 320- 23; W. Dress, Die Apstik des Marsilio Ficino, Leipzig and Berlin, 1929, pp. 136-38; C. Trinkaus, In Our Image and Likmess. Humanity and Divinity in Italian Humanist Thought, 2 vols, continuously paginated, London and Chicago, 1970; repr. Notre Dame, Ind., 1995, pp. 734-37; C. Vasoli, 'Ficino e il De christiana religione', in his Filosofia e religione nellil cultura del Rinascimento, Naples, 1988, pp. 30-36.

4 It may not be superfluous to mention that I am using here and in what fol­lows the modem conception of theology as reflection on the concerns of the Christian religion, and not the conception of Ficino himself, who could call his main philo­sophical work Theowgia Pliltonica.

5 Cesare Vasoli has demonstrated that Ficino wrote a 'philosophical' first part and then compiled a second from the texts of various medieval theologians, par­ticularly Paul of Burgos; see C. Vasoli, 'Per le fonti del De christiana religione di Marsilio Ficino', Rinascimento, 2a ser., 28 (1988), pp. 135-233.

6 C( Opera omnia, pp. 425 and 433; cf. P. 0 . Kristeller, Supplenuntum Ficinianum, 2 vols, Florence, 1937, I, p. lxxxii.