Georgius Gemistus Plethon

MikeH

Kwaw wrote

The following might be of interest, p.138 and notes re:Filelfo, Zoroaster, Pletho etc.,

I am in the midst of transcribing it and google translating it but have to go out now - but hopefully Huck may better relate what it says (and save me the trouble of making a probably erroneous translation) ?

esp. note 181 re; January 1429?

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=gBzyaezyN60C&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note 281 (I assume that's what you meant) cites Hankins p. 522, which we've already seen. In addition, it cites an Oration of 1429. Strausberg says:

In einer Oratio aus dem Jahre 1429 (!), in der Zoroaster bereits als Fürst der Mager bei den Persen erwähnt wird, legt sich Filelfo noch nicht auf eine Reihenfolge fest,..

My attempt at a translation:

In an Oration from the year 1429 (!), in which Zoroaster is already mentioned as a prince of the Persian Magi, Filelfo does not commit himself yet to a sequence...

This only says that in 1429 Filelfo considered Zoroaster part of the Magi in Persia. It does not even make him part of the sequence of philosophers/theologians that ends in Plato; in fact Strassburg explicitly denies that he said such a thing then.

Huck wrote

Stausberg notes, that Filelfo wrote already in 1429 about Zoroaster ("Oratio de laudibus historiae, poeticae, philosophiae" noted as "Una prolusione inedita di Francesco Filelfo" - Strausberg, footnote 279, p. 137/138; Stausberg refers to "Gualdo Rosa").

Footnote 279 is in support of a particular sentence footnoted in the text, which is just about Zoroaster living 5000 years before the Trojan War, as stated by Plutarch and repeated by Plutarch and Filelfo. As far as I can tell, it says nothing about Filelfo talking about Zoroaster's writings or even about the Oracles, much less that Zoroaster wrote about the Ideas. If it does, please translate the German for me. It only shows that Filelfo in 1429 had by then read either Plutarch Isis and Osiris, or Plethon, or both.

Strausberg also refers to Zoroaster in the sentence before. But it has as its source, as indicated in footnote 277, the same page in Hankins that I have already posted and that we have discussed. If there is something new, please tell me what it is.

I do not understand at all how you come to the conclusion that

I think, we have to assume that Zoroaster had been already in the general scholar talking, when Filelfo had been in Greece.

Perhaps there is something I am missing. If so, quote it. To be sure, Zoroaster might have been talked about in Greece (as opposed to Italy) as the author of the Oracles, thanks to Plethon's writings (which were likely pre-1427) or others.' But we don't from these sources have any reason for thinking so.

Kwaw wrote

While there is no mention of Zoroaster in my quotes directly, there are quotes from the the Chaldean Oracles - which I suspect even in the early 15th century to a man like Filelfo who had spent several years studying Greek and collecting Greek texts in Constantinople is as equivalent to "Zoroaster says" as it was in the second half of the 15th century in the latin west.

We have no reason yet for thinking that Filelfo thought before 1427, or even 1430, that Zoroaster wrote the Chaldean Oracles. The name "Chaldean" means "Babylonian"; hence even if they were considered Zoroastrian--which is possible--they would have been considered products of the Zoroastrians in Babylon, not of Zoroaster himself, who lived in Persia, maybe thousands of years before the Babylonian ones who taught Orpheus and Pythagoras. Hence the name "Chaldean." It is true that Filelfo might then have thought Zoroaster to have been the author, but if so there is no indication yet; and if he had, the likeliest source would have been Plethon.

Thank you for putting the references to Ideas in bold. I sometimes miss things. If I have missed something else, let me know. I now have checked out from the library Tarrant's 2007 translation of Proclus's Timaeus Commentary, which has lots of notes.. I also got the In Platonis Rem. Publc. Comment. ed. Kroll, both volumes (vol. 1, at least, is on-line). There is a nice index in the back of vol. 2, with numerous entries for Chaldean Oracles. There is also an entry for "Zoroaster astrologus." If I find anything of interest either way, I will post it.

kwaw

MikeH said:
In addition, it cites an Oration of 1429. Strausberg says:

My attempt at a translation:
This only says that in 1429 Filelfo considered Zoroaster part of the Magi in Persia. It does not even make him part of the sequence of philosophers/theologians that ends in Plato; in fact Strassburg explicitly denies that he said such a thing then.

Cross-posted - while you were posting I was adding a query about that phrase to my post which I did not understand - and here it is answered - thank you.

ps: I have been catching up on the thread - I hadn't realized the references to Strausberg had already been given - just about caught up now, I think!

MikeH said:
I now have checked out from the library Tarrant's 2007 translation of Proclus's Timaeus Commentary, which has lots of notes..

Taylor's is online here:
http://ia600501.us.archive.org/12/i...ry-on-the-Timaeus-of-Plato-all-five-books.pdf

MikeH said:
I also got the In Platonis Rem. Publc. Comment. ed. Kroll, both volumes (vol. 1, at least, is on-line).

Here (if anyone is interested - Greek with Latin intro)

http://ia700409.us.archive.org/15/items/proclidiadochiin01procuoft/proclidiadochiin01procuoft.pdf

MikeH

Looking at Kroll's index and text (Greek, of In Rem), I notice that the Chaldean Oracles aren't even called Chaldean. They are called "logoi" or more frequently "theoparadotos pestagogia"--I may not have the transliteration right, I'll post scans when I have a chance. In the text, the quoted text is on separate lines, at least in the one case I looked at; I don't know if that is Kroll or in the original ms.

Tarrant (trans. of Commentary on Timaeus) just has the word "oracle" or nothing at all, just his quotation marks and footnote, sometimes not even a new line..

So how can we know how Filelfo read these passages when?

kwaw

MikeH said:
So how can we know how Filelfo read these passages when?

?? Unless we can find him making referencing it, or quoting from it - maybe all we can say is that he had a copy of it - and the particular image / quotation of interest to yourself is in there (the nude boy riding on a horse) -- not sure when these 'logoi' were recognized/included as fragments of the Chaldean Oracles, or whether Filelfo would have recognized them as such...

kwaw said:
Ross G Caldwell said:

There is another possible intersection of Plato and Zoroaster, when a philosopher named Colotes wrote that Plato had changed the name of Zoroaster to Er in Book X of the Republic. But again, no books are mentoned. Maybe Filelfo's reference is to some apocrypha we don't know about.)

Click to expand...

As I note above - Filelfo would have known this from the Proclus commentary on Plato's Republic - Clement also describes the myth of Er as being a myth of Zoroaster - for references see here:

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=6p9ZVm-poRoC&pg=PA188#v=onepage&q&f=false

An English Translation of the Zoroaster passage

In Remp. Platonis II

"Some say that the author of this entire myth is not Er, but Zoroaster, and it is as if it was by the name of Zoroaster by which they have made the work known: such is the opinion of the epicurean Colotes of whom we mentioned earlier. Myself, in fact, I have come across four books of Zoroaster On Nature, for which the preface is: "Zoroaster son of Armenios, Pamphylian, maintains the following, all that, having died in battle, he has learned from the gods and all he has derived from the remainder of his inquest." In the midst of these works we find him addressing himself to Cyrus, but he does not specify which Cyrus. He nowhere mentions any details with regards to the myth, except Ananke: he says she is the Air. These books are replete with astrological speculations, and, in a certain place, seem to be opposed to the retrograde revolution which is discussed in the Politics [269 E 3]. Therefore we cannot discern clearly, even if it is actually the name of Zoroaster, and not Er, which was written in the manuscripts [of Colotes], if these books were the original source of the myth of Er. Except that, if we take into account these books and the numerous commentator on this myth, we see clearly that these books place the Sun in the middle of the planets, while the author of the myth places it immediately above the Moon. Thus Plato would not have written this myth after these said books. Others maintain that what has been written (in the copies) is surely Er, but insist that he had been the master of Zoroaster - such is the opinion according to Cronius - , linking in some manner the Er of Pamphylian race to Zoroaster: unless perhaps they intend to link him not to the Persian Zoroaster, but the Pamphylian one, the one precisely of which we claim to have seen read books On Nature."

Clement of Alexandria's comments on the same

The Stromata, or Miscellanies Book V, Chap 14:

"And the same, in the tenth book of the Republic, mentions Eros the son of Armenius, who is Zoroaster. Zoroaster, then, writes: These were composed by Zoroaster, the son of Armenius, a Pamphylian by birth: having died in battle, and been in Hades, I learned them of the gods. This Zoroaster, Plato says, having been placed on the funeral pyre, rose again to life in twelve days. He alludes perchance to the resurrection, or perchance to the fact that the path for souls to ascension lies through the twelve signs of the zodiac; and he himself says, that the descending pathway to birth is the same. In the same way we are to understand the twelve labours of Hercules, after which the soul obtains release from this entire world."

Huck

Mikeh said:
I do not understand at all how you come to the conclusion that

Huck said:

I think, we have to assume that Zoroaster had been already in the general scholar talking, when Filelfo had been in Greece.

Click to expand...

Perhaps there is something I am missing. If so, quote it. To be sure, Zoroaster might have been talked about in Greece (as opposed to Italy) as the author of the Oracles, thanks to Plethon's writings (which were likely pre-1427) or others.' But we don't from these sources have any reason for thinking so.

Well, the thread gets too long and it becomes difficult to find earlier argumentation.

I said earlier in Post #58

Huck said:
In context of Plethon's commentary and explanations to the oracles (inclusive notes to Zoroaster) Stausberg gives the commentary (p. 43), "die vermutlich aus Plethons früher Schaffensperiode stammen und möglicherweise den Charakter von Vorlesungsnotizen haben" ("which possibly have their origin in an early period [of Plethon's work] and possibly have the character of notes used for teaching"). Stausberg thinks, that these are very early.

Stausberg's own "Plethon's frühe Schaffenperiode" says somehow "in an early period of Plethon's work".
He expresses only "an opinion", but I tend to respect that, cause, although I don't know Stausberg, I know from personal experience the institute where he wrote his dissertation and this institute beside other activities works at the edition of ...
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reallexikon_für_Antike_und_Christentum
... Reallexikon für Christentum and Antike, which meanwhile has 23 thick big books full of rather complicated, but well worked articles (and each of the books took about 2 years to be produced, and it is not only written by members of the institute). For the current moment they've reached with the dictionary the letter "M" (Manes). The work started in the 1930's with the first publication 1950.
Stausberg had there a splendid background with much opportunity to communicate to other researchers.

So I think, that it's plausible correct to assume: "... that Zoroaster had been already in the general scholar talking, when Filelfo had been in Greece."
This is meant for Greece (Constantinople and the Morea), but not necessarily for Italy.

Huck

An interesting, rather engaged article with statements to the problem of the "early unknown Plethon" ...
... the author seems to be Turkish (?) and likely lives in Berlin (?)

http://www.ihsanfazlioglu.net/yayinlar/makaleler/1.php?id=151

With (my) thanks he presents some names "from the other side of perception" (the Ottoman history), which gives the possibility to research these names.

************

The text refers to "wahdat-i vujud". This is related to the wiki-article "Sufi metaphysics" and in this article an Andalusian mystical thinker "Ibn Sabin" is mentioned and said to have invented the term "Wahdat al-Wajud" (the same as "wahdat-i vujud" ?). About this thinker now the following short biography is given in English:

Abu Mohammed Abd el-Hakh Ibn Sabin (محمدبن عبدالحق بن سبعين) was a Sufi philosopher, the last philosopher of the Andalous in the west land of Islamic world. He was born in 1217 in Spain and lived in Ceuta. He was known for his replies to questions sent to him by Frederick II, ruler of Sicily. He died in 1269 in Mecca. He was also known for his knowledge of religions (Judaism, Christianity but even Hinduism and Zoroastrism) and the "hidden sciences."

His school is a combination of philosophical and Gnostic thoughts.

He was recognized by Michele Amari as the author, among others, of the responses to the famous Sicilian Questions of Frederick II of Hohenstaufen.

So we have Zoroastrism noted very early - already in Spain. Which makes it likely, that Sufi-members in Adrianople at the end of 14th century also had Zoroastrism in their repertoire.

MikeH

Huck: all Strausberg says on p. 43 (at least that you quote: on my computer, p. 43 doesn't even come up) is that Plethon's edition of the Chaldean Oracles with commentary was likely written very early. That is already in Woodhouse, p. 51, which I quoted earlier. It does not follow that Plethon's views were part of the general discussion in Greece then, or even that Filelfo knew about them then. But it might be true. If Filelfo attended classes with Plethon, or discussed Plethon's views with others who had, then yes. In fact, since Filelfo knew Scholarios, and Scholarios knew Plethon, Scholarios may well have repeated to Filelfo Plethon's attribution of the Oracles to Zoroaster. If these three talking, one to another, and Plethon and Scholarios probably also talking to others, is what you mean by "in the general scholar talking," then yes, more likely than not. In any case, Filelfo didn't repeat this view in Italy, or declare it as his own, until 1464, as far as we know. I am glad you clarified that you meant in Greece, and not necessarily Italy. And of course the source is still Plethon.

Your finding reference to Zoroastrianism in an early Sufi philosopher is interesting. So Plethon's teacher might have gotten his interest in Zoroaster from Sufi acquaintances.

Kwaw: thanks for the translation of Proclus you found. It appears, if I read him correctly, that he is saying that the Zoroaster of the Er myth was asserted by Colotes to be Zoroaster. But Colotes might have been drawing upon the works of a different Zoroaster, the Pamphylian, of the time of a Persian king named Cyrus, thus much more recent than Zoroaster the Magus. Yet the order of the planets in that Zoroaster's writings is different from the order in Plato's myth. On the other hand, others, such as Chronius, say that Er was the master of Zoroaster, which one is not clear. Proclus does not endorse any of these views.

Clement of Alexandria clearly identifies Er, in the view of those writers he is paraphrasing, with Zoroaster the Pamphylian, as opposed to Zoroaster the Magus.

In citing Clement of Alexandria, there is the issue of when Clement's writings became known in the West and to whom. Charles Dempsey says

...Especially important, too, is the part played by the Church fathers and early Church historians, in particular Eusebius of Caesarea and Clement of Alexandria, the unique surviving manuscript of whose Stromata was read by Politian and Ficino, and remains to this day in the Biblioteca Laurenziana. (“Renaissance Hieroglyphic studies and Bellini’s Saint Mark,” p. 343.)

If there is only one surviving manuscript, and it was in Florence, probably Filelfo didn't know it. But perhaps parts of it was known already, I don't know.

But Filelfo did for sure know Proclus's In Rem Publicam. For that source, here is a scan of Kroll's vol. 2, p. 419, index entries for "oracula chaldiaca" and "Orpheus." You will notice that even "Orpheus" is not indicated by name, but by way of "theologos" or "theologia". (It is also at http://books.google.com/books?id=hd1fAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA416&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=4#v=onepage&q&f=false, p. 419).

So when Taylor puts "Orpheus" in parentheses, that would probably be his own comment, as opposed to what is in the original. But I have not checked the Greek edition of Proclus' Timaeus Commentary to see whether the word "Orpheus" appears there or not.

Also, here is p. 111 of Kroll vol. 1. Johnston says that the Oracle about the boy and the horse is on p. 111 lines 3-11. We do indeed see quite a few lines of verse there, clearly set off from the rest of the page and preceded by the "theoparadotos pustagogia" that tells us we are dealing with an Oracle. (It is also at http://www.hellenisticastrology.com...s-Rem-pvblicam-commentarii-ed-Kroll-vol-1.pdf, p. 111).

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-eJZTBdG4i...ADlc/0ODu20Jo2QA/s1600/Kroll110and111vol1.jpg

Such a passage surely would have caught Filelfo's eye. Considering this page, with what I assume is its description of the naked boy and the horse, together with Plutarch's references to the sun as a newborn child at dawn and as the place from which daemons come and go (quoted them earlier), it seems to me that Filelfo wouldn't have needed Plethon's edition of the Oracles as inspiration for the children on the PMB Sun and World cards.

For both Filelfo and Ficino, I am thinking, Plethon is more important as a teacher than as a supplier of sources. He situates the Oracles within the Platonic framework, makes them part of the "ancient philosophy," and puts them in a narrative describing the ascent of the soul. Plethon probably did some of that orally for the Orphic fragments, identifying them as parts of the same philosophy. (Admittedly Proclus does so as well; but he assimilates a great deal of poetic material, i.e. Homer.) For the Oracles and Orphica themselves, Filelfo and Ficino have other sources. Filelfo has Proclus and Plutarch. To them Ficino adds Psellos and many others.

But later, with the separate publication of the Oracles, in Ficino's Latin translation and its translation into other languages, to which Patrizi added more, Plethon does become a source. In that form, I think, he also becomes a source for certain aspects of the 17th century tarot: the dogs on the Moon card, perhaps; the boy and horse on Vieville's Sun card, very likely; Clotho on the Vieville Moon card (and on the Charles VI Sun card earlier), perhaps. And then, I speculate, he may also have in this way provided an esoteric framework of interpretation for the tarot trump sequence as a whole, long before the Golden Dawn.

MikeH

Now I am looking at Stausberg further. It seems like he talks about the Islamic connection to Plethon on pp. 40-41. It looks interesting.

Also, the bottom of p. 140 and top of 141 says more about Plethon in relation to Filelfo and Ficino, bringing John Argyropoulos, Ficino's teacher, into the mix. I don't have time to attempt translating it just now. He refers to a book I have no idea how to get, Field's "John Argyropoulos and the 'Secret Teachings of Plato.'"

Huck

MikeH said:
Huck: all Strausberg says on p. 43 (at least that you quote: on my computer, p. 43 doesn't even come up) ...

http://books.google.com.tr/books?id=gBzyaezyN60C&pg=PA43#v=onepage&q&f=false

That's a Turkish version (I don't know, why), p. 43 is given ... the German remark is under point "[c]"

MikeH said:
... is that Plethon's edition of the Chaldean Oracles with commentary was likely written very early. That is already in Woodhouse, p. 51, which I quoted earlier. It does not follow that Plethon's views were part of the general discussion in Greece then, or even that Filelfo knew about them then. But it might be true. If Filelfo attended classes with Plethon, or discussed Plethon's views with others who had, then yes. In fact, since Filelfo knew Scholarios, and Scholarios knew Plethon, Scholarios may well have repeated to Filelfo Plethon's attribution of the Oracles to Zoroaster. If these three talking, one to another, and Plethon and Scholarios probably also talking to others, is what you mean by "in the general scholar talking," then yes, more likely than not. In any case, Filelfo didn't repeat this view in Italy, or declare it as his own, until 1464, as far as we know. I am glad you clarified that you meant in Greece, and not necessarily Italy. And of course the source is still Plethon.

Plethon came 1427 from Greece, and announced 1429 in Florence [after he got a job], that he would talk about Zarathustra or something similar. I think he announced that publicly. That's what I got from it ... see post #88 and don't forget to click the link.

http://tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=2902241&highlight=1429#post2902241

Filelfo came from Greece and that, what the people wanted to hear from him, was, what he had learned in Greece. That's, how I explain it to me.

I think, he couldn't have it gotten from Plethon himself, as Plethon was in Mystra and there is no indication that Plethon was in Constantinople or Filelfo was in Mystra.

I think, that Timur Lenk's action in 1402 increased generally (in Constantinople and in the Morea) interest in that, what was going on in Persia ... dramatically. I can't imagine, that Zoroastrism wasn't mentioned or talked about, especially when I read, that Zoroastrism wasn't a totally dead region about the end of 13th century. I can't imagine, that Persian court and Constantinople court hadn't diplomatic exchange. Actually I remember dark, that there were even diplomatic contacts between Paris and Timur Lenk.
And there were always trade between Persia and the Black Sea. And some Christians lived in territories far away in Asia.

That's a book about Avicenna ...

http://books.google.com/books?id=77...w#v=onepage&q=avicenna zoroastrianism&f=false

It reports the progress of Islam in Eastern regions and it wasn't totally quick. Zoroastrism lived longer, as it was expected.

Here a list of partly still living Zoroastrians. Most are in India.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Zoroastrians

Letter from Timur Lenk to France and Charles VI [1402]

MikeH

I did look at the link, if you mean

http://www.treccani.it/enciclopedia/francesco-filelfo_(Dizionario-Biografico)/

I didn't see anything about Zarathustra, Zoroaster, or any other person beginning with Z except a Zeno. Filelfo may have said he was going to give a talk, but that doesn't mean he's going to give a talk about Zoroaster. He did in fact mention Zoroaster, according to Stausberg, but just to quote Plutarch (or Plethon) about his living 5000 years before the Trojan War, and also something about Egypt, "Aegyptios eximiam omnem disciplinam a Magis, qui a Zorostre fluxerant, hausisse" which Google translates as ""From the discipline all the more exceptional the Egyptians, who passed from the Zorostre, imbibed," presumably either from Diogenes Laertius or Plutarch, I forget which. It is about the Zoroastrians in Egypt.