For the Love of the Gods: The History and Modern Practice of Theurgy - Brandy Williams 2016

Plethon
Stories from the Ancestors

Psellos lived in an empire that had begun to shrink. In 1054, the year Psellos was exiled to the monastery at Bithynia, the Western pope and Eastern patriarch definitively split the Christian churches. The port cities of Italy snagged trade that once had been entirely controlled by Constantinople. Meanwhile, Seljuk Turks overran Byzantine territories. Three centuries after Psellos’s death, the empire commanded a sliver of the territory it had once held, and Byzantine treasures had been carried off to enrich Western European cities. Even so, the emperor still ruled from the capitol of the Byzantine Empire and children of the elite still received a classical education.

Georgius Gemistus Plethon (commonly referred to as Pletho) was born in 1355. In the Byzantine world, the paideia once again seemed like the answer to a troubling time. As usual the Pagan underpinnings of classical Greek culture resurfaced. The scholar Demetrios Kydones tutored both Gemistus and the future Emperor Manuel II. The circles of students around philosophers had always bonded tightly, and this particular circle was no exception; the friendship between Kydones’s students persisted into their adult careers, and Plethon went on to serve Manuel II when he took the helm of the empire.

AN EMPEROR’S FAVOR

The emperor was in a foul mood. Manuel Palaiologos paced the bare stone floor and threw himself into a plain wooden chair. “Do you know why I’ve sent for you?”

“No,” Plethon said boldly, plopping onto a stool.

“It’s your students,” the emperor snapped. “They’re wandering up and down the streets. And do you know what they’re doing? Shouting hymns to the Greek gods!”

Plethon snickered.

The emperor scowled at him. “This is no laughing matter,” he warned. “They say you are corrupting the youth.” He waved at the brass cups on a nearby tray. “Have some wine.”

“Corrupting the youth. Like Socrates?” Plethon said. He peered at the goblets. “Is there hemlock in the cups?”

“Not from my hand. But I won’t be able to protect you here much longer,” Manuel warned. He smiled grimly. “I see that’s caught your attention. I’m sending you away.”

Suddenly chilled, Plethon exclaimed, “Seriously? Where do you mean to send me?”

“To Mystras.”

“Now I need wine,” Plethon said, grabbing a cup. “I’m exiled?”

“So I’ll have it said,” Manuel said. Now that he had delivered his news, he seemed more relaxed. “I need a friend in Mystras. I don’t hear enough about what’s happening there. Anyway, you’ll like it better there, it’s more intellectual than Constantinople.”

Taking a generous draught of wine, Plethon stared into the cup. “Constantinople is the center of the universe.” He looked up. “It is where you live. What will I do without your friendship?”

“You always have my friendship,” Manuel said gruffly. “I’ve no doubt that you’ll have another circle of students in short order.” He barked a laugh. “Mystras will complain less when those students sing Pagan hymns in the streets.”

The Byzantine Empire during the Crusades

From 1095 through the 1290s, Western Europe sent armies to invade the Islamic Middle East, called to a “holy war” by popes of the Roman Church who claimed Jerusalem for Christians. Constantinople served as the jumping-off point for these invasions.

The trip to the Middle East was costly, lengthy, and not always possible to make. If a Crusade couldn’t muster the resources to launch at the distant Muslim cities, there were more local targets. German leaders called to the first Crusade opted instead to target Jewish people in their own lands. The Roman pope called the Albigensian Crusade against heretical Christian Cathars in France. When the Fourth Crusade ran out of steam in 1201, crusaders settled for sacking their ally Constantinople instead, carrying off jewels and destroying Christian treasures.

Early Crusades did conquer Jerusalem and cities along the coast of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. These proved to be enormously difficult to maintain as Christian cities; Saladin retook Jerusalem in 1187 and Acre fell in 1291.

The Roman Church founded the Knights Templar as a band of religious warriors answering only to the Pope. These trained soldiers were pivotal to the success of the Crusades and among the last to leave or die when Islamic armies overran their positions. When the Holy Land fell, the Knights Templar came home.

It was one thing to send armed knights to do battle with Muslims; it was another to have a bored army wandering around your neighborhood. Fortunately, the Christian rulers of Spain had work to offer at home. The Muslim empires had held territory in Spain for centuries. From the eleventh to fifteenth century, Christian kings banded together to oust Muslims, inviting the Knights Templar to assist in the project. The Templars not only gained a new source of employment, they were granted tracts of land and castles in exchange for their aid.

The order’s downfall was its wealth. The Templars were the first European bankers. If you carried your money with you as you travelled, you risked losing it to highway robbers. One of the functions of the Templars was to protect pilgrims travelling from Europe to the Holy Land. Better still, you could deposit funds in one Templar stronghold and withdraw them again when you reached your destination, keeping the funds off the road altogether and making the pilgrim a much less tempting target.

The target transferred from pilgrims to the Templars themselves. All that money made a tempting prize for royalty. European kings strapped for cash to fund armies and other expensive projects borrowed money from the Templars’ flush coffers. When the time came to pay back the loans, they looked for a way to avoid the debts.

King Phillip of France lobbied Pope Clement to close the order. When the pope caved in and disbanded the order, the king swiftly arrested the order’s leaders in France, on Friday the 13th of October, 1307, forever marking Friday the 13th as an unlucky day. The knights were charged with spitting on the cross and worshipping a goat-headed male-female figure, Baphomet.

The Spanish kings on the other hand still had uses for the Templars and resisted the Pope’s order, but ultimately did arrest the remaining free Templars. Miravet, the last Templar stronghold (originally a Muslim castle the Templars had conquered), held out until 1308. The town of Miravet today boasts that its medieval Muslim and Christian citizens coexisted peacefully even after the Templar conquest. Today the Templar castles in Spain are maintained as historical sites.

In Christian Spain some rulers were repressive, and others were tolerant of religious minorities. While Jews and Muslims were not permitted full citizenship, there were places and times where they were not persecuted. In particular, the Christian ruler Alphonso X extended protection to Jews and Muslims in his territory. For three decades of the thirteenth century, this enlightened king in northern Spain developed a lively and literate court and caused numerous texts to be translated from Arabic into Latin languages, including Neo-Platonic texts. Spain produced texts on medieval Qabbalah that mixed Neo-Platonic ideas with Jewish mysticism.

Spain’s multicultural tolerance sharply declined after the time of Alphonso X. The last Muslim kingdom was conquered in 1491. In 1492 the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella required all Jews to convert to Christianity or be expelled from the kingdom. By then, the torch of cosmopolitan European civilization had passed from Spain to Italy.

The Crusader fortresses in central Greece were absorbed into the Byzantine Empire. The town of Mystras (modern Mistra) grew up around a Crusader castle turned over to Byzantium in 1262. A second Byzantine court developed in Mystras, and the intellectual life of the empire shifted from Constantinople back to Greece.

On his arrival in Mystras, Plethon promptly founded a Pagan fraternity and settled in to revive Platonism. An unprecedented political conference offered him the opportunity to make his case on the world stage.

IRRECONCILABLE DIFFERENCES

Two long rows of tables faced each other along the dining hall. Women and men in the elaborate court dress of Florence sat along the tables, many with dogs lying at their feet; servants passed behind them, maneuvering platters of food onto the cloths. Singers, dancers, and musicians drifted in the space between the tables, plying the trade of entertainers.

Plethon was one of the entertainers. He waited with one of his students while the diners feasted on chicken and fish, grilled bread and stuffed pasta, and the flute and drum played, and the dancers twirled around the floor. When the music ended, the plates were cleared, and the diners let their food settle, and that was his moment.

Plethon stepped into the center of the room, cleared his throat, and began to talk. The first few minutes of any speech were like tuning the lyre; he gave his capsule introduction to the life of Plato, a well-memorized set of phrases allowing himself time to adjust to the spotlight and to let the diners fall quiet to listen to him.

Of course he could not fill the hall with his voice alone—that was why his student came with him. John worked the low end of the tables, learning the trade of the lecturer. Plethon himself addressed the head of the table where the city’s master presided over the banquet. Cosimo de Medici ruled Florence with a tolerant but firm hand, managing the affairs of his bank and of the city with equal interest. It was his concern for trade that inspired him to host the council. The differences between the Roman and Byzantine churches threatened the city’s lucrative mercantile trading system; if the churches could be brought into harmony, goods would flow through a peaceful world.

Council delegates debated matters of theology by day and feasted by night. They came from all over the known world: from Rome, Greece, Constantinople, Armenia, Russia, and even from parts of North Africa, as the Christian churches from that part of the world were included in the discussion. A small group of ebony men from Ethiopia huddled together while a Coptic delegation from Egypt spoke to each other in their own dialect.

“You all know the great works of Aristotle,” Plethon said. “He framed the beginnings of our theologies. But Aristotle himself learned from the thoughts of his predecessors. His thinking was only the mirror of the thought of his teacher. It was Plato who cast the great light of knowledge Aristotle has dimly reflected to the world.”

One of the delegates leaned forward. “I have read Aristotle extensively. But who has read more than a little of Plato?”

His host came to his defense. “Few have read more than Plethon,” de Medici said. “His very name evokes the debt he owes to his philosophical teacher.”

“Where are these texts, then, so we can read them too?” the delegate asked.

“The Byzantines have them, and the Moslems. In the Christian tongues we do not,” de Medici said. “Only a few scholars have the knowledge and the language to reach him.” He added offhandedly, “I’m of a mind to have them translated, if I can find the right man.” He waved at Plethon. “Do continue.”

Encouraged by his patron’s attention, Plethon said, “Aristotle and Plato knew God, of course. You may be familiar with the prisca theologia, the spiritual tradition that paved the way for the coming of Christ. Hermes Trismegistus was Christ’s forerunner, along with Orpheus and Pythagoras.” His gaze swept the hall—this was an important point.

“So you see that the teachings of Christ are compatible with the teachings of Aristotle and Plato, and we may safely profit by their study.” It seemed that this was a new idea for some, as they murmured to their neighbors.

The delegate who had spoken before addressed Plethon again. “Do you seriously mean that Plato is superior to the great Aristotle?”

“I do,” Plethon said. “Moreover I can prove it. You see, Aristotle understands God as the mover of the universe. He does not recognize that God is a creator. For Plato, God is the creator of all things, of the intelligible substances. For Aristotle, God is only a force; for Plato, God is the sovereign of the universe.”

The delegate leaned back in his chair. “ … a difference indeed. Can it be reconciled?”

“It is a thorny question,” Plethon said. “To my mind the differences are not possible to overcome. Aristotle simply understood less. For true wisdom, we must turn to Plato.”

Privately, Plethon thought he was overstating his case; few intellectuals in Mystras or Constantinople would agree with him, seeing substantial agreement between Plato and his student. But then Byzantine education still included quite a bit of Plato, and Plethon’s main purpose here was to spark interest in the philosopher’s works. Anyway, the idea of “God” was only a shadow of the numinous reality of the One.

“We know a thing or two about irreconcilable differences,” the delegate said, with a sly glance at de Medici. “We are wrestling with the differences between our churches. I begin to doubt that it is possible to bring us into harmony at all.”

“Of course it is possible,” Plethon said without thinking.

At this the delegate pounced. “Do you think so?” he said. “How would you accomplish this?”

It was the question of the century. Plethon saw the trap too late. How, indeed? Would the Eastern Church recognize the authority of the Roman pope over all Christianity or continue with her own patriarch? Would the Roman Church permit their clergy to marry as the Byzantines did? Did the Holy Spirit issue from the Father or from the Father and the Son together?

The delegate went on, “As a Byzantine, do you support the claims of your own Church? Or has the Roman Church won a convert? Which do you favor?”

“I do not favor either,” Plethon said. “I turn my eyes to the source of all these traditions, to the Pagan past.” He drew himself up. “If we remember our common heritage, the peace of knowledge becomes our future.”

The delegate reared back. “Are you serious,” he said, shocked. “Do you advocate that we all become … become … Pagans?”

For a long moment no one breathed, stunned. Then Cosimo de Medici’s booming laugh filled the hall. “An excellent suggestion!” he said. “Tomorrow, let the hymns to the Pagan gods ring out again!” Relieved, the hall erupted in laughter, while the delegate turned away snickering. De Medici waved at his steward to bring on the next course.

While the servants laid out melon tarts flavored with cinnamon and breads soaked in sweet syrups; while the harper stepped between the tables and strummed a soothing chord; while the delegates and notables relaxed, chatted, and slipped tidbits under the tables to their dogs, Plethon and John slipped away to the kitchen where they joined the other entertainers who were finally getting their dinner.

John blew out a long breath. “That was a tricky moment.”

Plethon shrugged, unconcerned. “We’ll be back tomorrow to give them another little glimpse of the greatness of Plato.”

“But … the master laughed at you!”

“And saved me from another charge of heresy,” Plethon said. “You must remember how this would sound to our enemies.” He dipped a piece of bread. “First we bring them to study Plato. Philosophy leads to the knowledge of the gods.”

His student brightened. “He said we could sing tomorrow. Can I start my lecture with a hymn to Hermes?”

Thinking about what his old friend Manuel would say, Plethon threw back his head and laughed.

The Florentine Academy

Plethon’s lectures inspired Cosimo de Medici with an enduring interest in Plato. When the council ended and Plethon returned to Mystras, de Medici convinced him to leave some of his students behind. John Argyropoulos took up a teaching position giving public lectures of a general nature and exploring Platonic secrets with a few select students.

Argyropoulos’s lectures increased de Medici’s interest in Platonic studies. When he decided to refound the Platonic academy in 1462, he looked to Argyropoulos’s students to staff it. He found two: Marsilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. As Ficino spoke and wrote in Greek, de Medici set him to translate Plato’s works.

Ficino may have been a friend to Hermeticism, but unusually for a Platonist, he was not a friend to women. In A History of Women Philosophers, Mary Ellen Waithe notes it was Ficino who first questioned whether Plato’s priestess Diotima was in fact a historical personage, as women surely could not be philosophers!

As the Turkish Empire threatened Constantinople itself, Byzantine scholars fled the city, taking their manuscripts with them. When a Greek copy of the Hermetica surfaced in Florence, de Medici ordered Ficino to drop everything else he was doing and make a translation. The Hermetica reentered the Western intellectual world at that time; it is important to remember that the Byzantine and Arabic worlds never lost it.

While Ficino toiled as a translator, his student Pico della Mirandola took a decidedly eclectic tack: he was the first Christian to work with the concepts of Jewish Qabbalah. He lived on a substantial inheritance that allowed him to devote himself to writing new texts. His work syncretized Pagan, Christian, and Jewish mysticism with Plato, Aristotle, and Hermetic works.

By 1487 he had composed nine hundred theses on these themes and printed them as his Conclusions. He planned a great conference in Rome to discuss them. Unfortunately, before he could hold the conference, the pope condemned some of his theses as suspect and had della Mirandola jailed. When released, della Mirandola focused on the safer subject of reconciling Aristotle with Plato. He died in 1494 at the young age of thirty-one.

Ficino continued to be employed by his patron de Medici to translate texts and to tutor the de Medici children. He wrote many original works on Platonism, seeking out similarities between Platonic and Christian teachings. Some scholars read his work as a continuation of Plethon’s work and an attempt to return Christianity to its Pagan roots. Ficino died in 1499 at the age of sixty-five.

Plethon returned to Mystras and continued to teach Pagan thought to his students. He died in the 1450s, in his nineties, just at the end of the empire. Constantinople fell to the Turks in 1452, Mystras in 1460. The Turkish conqueror Mehmed II, el-Fatih, appointed cooperative regents from the Byzantine noble families. In particular, he appointed George Scholarios, Gennadios II, to be patriarch of Constantinople.

When Plethon died, his papers were sent to Theodora. She and her husband, Demetrios, had surrendered Mystras to the Turkish conqueror. Alarmed by the contents of the papers, she called on Gennadios to advise her what to do with them.

THE ONLY COPY

“Welcome, old friend,” Theodora said effusively, taking his hands. “Please, come sit with me by the fire. I’ve had your favorite wine brought in and your favorite honey syrup cake.”

Gennadios retrieved his hands as soon as he could. “There’s no need,” he said, reaching for a goblet to keep his hands busy. When Theodora settled by the fire, he moved his chair out of her reach, murmuring about being too close to the heat.

“I am grateful for your friendship,” Theodora said, clasping her hands in her lap. “These are perilous times. I know you have the trust of the sultan.” She sighed. “It seems we are at his mercy.”

“Indeed,” Gennadios agreed. “If Byzantium had survived we would have power of our own. Now we must resign ourselves to being ruled.”

“Byzantium would survive if the sultan returns us to Mystras.” Not even a sticky sweet could lighten Theodora’s angry frown.

“Mystras fell,” Gennadios said carefully. Just last week the sultan had fumed to him, “Demetrios is not man enough to keep any kingdom!” He doubted that the sultan would grant the request to return Demetrios and Theodora to their province. The days of Byzantium were over and the Ottoman Empire held Constantinople now. Gennadios wasn’t inclined to hazard his fragile rapport with the young sultan to stick his neck out for a woman who wanted to be empress.

Theodora squinted at him shrewdly and changed the subject. “I have more than wine and sweets for you,” she said. She waved her hand at a trunk nearby. “I’ve brought you Plethon’s writings.”

Gennadios jumped to his feet and opened the trunk. “These?” he said. He grabbed a handful of papers. “I catalogued these for you and sent them back. I thought you had destroyed them.”

“I can’t bring myself to do it,” she said, lowering her eyes. “They’re the only copies.”

Don’t simper, lady, he thought with irritation. “They are heresy,” he said. “Look at this! He talks about astrology, daemons—he has a calendar of Pagan rituals!” He shook the paper at her. “Listen to this: ’Come to us, O gods of learning, whoever and however many ye be; ye who are guardians of scientific knowledge and true belief; ye who distribute them to whomsoever you wish, in accordance with the dictates of the great father of all things, Zeus the King’. Zeus!”

“You were his friend. His student,” Theodora said. “Can you bear to give up his work?”

Gennadios scowled at her. “These are dangerous thoughts for a perilous time. Our faith is caught between the Roman Church and the Moslem Empire. If we are not precise and pure in our public beliefs we will be lost.”

“They’re yours,” Theodora said, licking her fingers. “Do what you want with them.”

Gennadios tossed the papers in the fire.

Lessons of Plethon

Plethon died in 1452. Although Gennadios had Plethon’s work Nomoi destroyed, he quoted from the work in order to refute it, and made a copy of the outline. Plethon’s students preserved drafts of the manuscript. From this we know enough to be able to say that this could arguably be called the first work of Neo-Pagan revival written in Western Europe.

Plethon taught John Argyropoulos, who taught Marsilio Ficino, who taught Pico della Mirandola, in a direct line of succession. Pico della Mirandola syncretized four religions: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Paganism. From his time forward, this mix of faiths—particularly the mystic and ritual practices of these faiths—would cohere into what we now call Western esotericism and Ceremonial Magic.

Plethon sidestepped the demands of the Roman and Greek Orthodox Churches and their conflict by centering himself in Greek culture. Plethon’s biographer Niketas Siniossoglou makes the point that Plethon’s Paganism was the natural development of his dedication to Hellenistic philosophy. With his invocation to Zeus and his calendar of rituals, Plethon went beyond intellectual inquiry into Pagan religious practice. This should not be surprising; Plethon was Greek, and the Greeks have never forgotten the Pagan gods.

Notes on the Story

Although John Argyropoulos is known to have accompanied Plethon to Florence, he is not recorded as having lectured alongside Plethon. Michel Jeanneret describes banquet customs in some detail in A Feast of Words: Banquets and Table Talk in the Renaissance.

Plethon’s introduction to the Nomoi is quoted by Paul Richard Blum in Philosophy of Religion in the Renaissance.