Proem

Marsilio Ficino of Florence: Proem to the Platonic Theology on the Immortality of Souls, addressed to Lorenzo de’ Medici, a magnanimous man.

Plato, father of philosophers, magnanimous Lorenzo, understood that all minds stand to God as sight stands to the light of the sun, and therefore that they can never know anything without God's light. He rightly judged it just and pious that, as the human mind receives all things from God, so it should direct all things back to God.

Thus, if we philosophize about conduct, the soul must be purified, so that at last, made more serene, it may perceive the divine light and worship God.

Or, if we investigate the causes of things, causes must be sought until at last we find the very cause of causes and, once it is found, venerate it. Our Plato not only exhorts others to this duty of piety; he himself fulfills it above all. The result was that he was called divine beyond dispute, and his teaching was called Theology among all peoples. For nowhere does he treat any subject—whether moral, dialectical, mathematical, or natural—without at once leading it back, with the highest piety, to the contemplation and worship of God.

Moreover, since Plato holds the soul to be like a mirror in which the image of the divine countenance readily shines, as he diligently searches for God himself through every trace, he turns at every point toward the form of the soul. He understands the oracle ‘Know thyself’ chiefly to give this warning: whoever desires to know God must first know himself.

Therefore, whoever reads with the greatest care the Platonic works—all of which I translated into Latin long ago—will indeed gain everything, but above all these two things: the pious worship of God once he is known, and the divinity of souls.

Upon these rest the whole apprehension of things, the entire ordering of life, and all happiness—especially since Plato's views on them are such that Augustine chose him, from the whole company of philosophers, as nearest of all to Christian truth and the one to be imitated, and declared that, with a few changes, the Platonists would be Christians.

For my part, having long relied upon Augustine's authority and been moved by the greatest charity toward the human race, I resolved to fashion a certain likeness of Plato himself as close as possible to Christian truth. I therefore devoted myself with special care to the two matters just mentioned, and judged that the entire work should be entitled Platonic Theology on the Immortality of Souls. In composing it, my principal design was that, in the very divinity of the created mind—as in a mirror set at the center of all things—we might behold the Creator's works, contemplate his mind, and worship him.

I believe—and this faith is not vain—that divine providence has decreed this: that the perverse minds of many, which do not readily yield to the authority of divine law alone, may at least assent to Platonic arguments that lend powerful support to religion; and that those who impiously separate the study of philosophy too far from holy religion may one day recognize that they are no less in error than one who would sever either the love of wisdom from the honor due to wisdom itself, or true understanding from a right will.

Finally, this too has been decreed: that those who think only of what is perceived in the realm of bodies, and who unhappily prefer the shadows of things themselves to true realities, may at last, admonished by Platonic reason, contemplate sublime things beyond sense and happily set realities themselves above their shadows.

Almighty God commands this above all. The human condition absolutely demands it. The heavenly Plato once readily accomplished it for his own people, with God inspiring him. At last we too have undertaken it for our own people in this laborious work, imitating Plato indeed but relying solely upon divine aid. May we have brought it to completion with truth equal to the reverence for divine truth with which we have treated it, so that we wish nothing whatsoever to be approved by us except as divine law approves it.

Yet I judged that the work itself should be dedicated above all to you, magnanimous Lorenzo—not that I might disclose philosophical matters to you, matters you have long discussed so ably that I seem about to publish the secrets of the ancients not so much for you, who by a marvelous power of mind have already seen and mastered them, as for others. Rather, I dedicate it because through your beneficence we too have obtained the leisure in which we could philosophize more readily, and because our Plato seems likely to rejoice greatly in this duty of ours toward you: for you have yourself united philosophy with the highest authority in public affairs, the very union that he once desired above all in great men.