The Calvinist International
In this installment of Ficino’s De Christiana Religione we move directly to chapter thirteen while passing over chapters eleven and twelve. In those chapters Ficino treats Christ’s authority in the eyes of Gentiles and Muslims while offering rebuttals to those perspectives with arguments borrowed from church fathers. The following chapter treats the eternal generation of the […]
The tenth chapter of Ficino’s De Christiana Religione is one of the lengthiest. I have skipped over chapter nine, which is entitled, “The authority of Christ is not from the stars but from God.” In that chapter Ficino argues against certain extreme forms of astrology which are not very relevant to the modern reader. In […]
Marsilio Ficino’s argument in chapter 8 of his De Christiana Religione is quite similar to St. Paul’s argument in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Galatians regarding the origin of his Gospel message. There Paul argues that his preaching is not κατὰ ἄνθρωπον (from man) but δι’ ἀποκαλύψεως Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ (from a revelation of Jesus Christ). […]
In chapters six and seven of his De Christiana Religione, Ficino continues his argument that Christ’s disciples did not attempt to deceive anyone in their preaching and writings concerning Christ and that they were also not deceived by anyone. Chapter six is mostly made up of quotations from the New Testament writers in which they […]
In chapter five of his De Christiana Religione Marsilio Ficino defends the trustworthiness of the disciples’ testimony concerning Christ. It is impossible that the disciples intended to deceive their followers, Ficino argues, because their actions demonstrate that they possessed the highest virtue. The disciples must have truly believed what they preached since they received no […]
Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499): Christian Humanist Marsilio Ficino is perhaps the paragon of Renaissance philosophical humanism – Renaissance “humanism,” as Kristeller thoroughly demonstrated, properly refers to the promotion of the “humanities” or liberal arts. He was the first in the West to translate the entire works of Plato and it was these translations, which included Ficino’s […]