Strato, Chrysippus, and the Almariani · Lexicon

From the book

Marsilio Ficino’s Platonic Theology, Volume I

Marsilio Ficino · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordThe proper names identify positions as Ficino presents them.
In the Platonic TheologyStrato and Chrysippus are introduced as agreeing that life is infused into the world but asserting that this life is the highest God.
In this edition“Will admit” and “will assert” preserve the staged future debate.
A place to readStrato and Chrysippus are assigned a concession and a disputed identification

Meaning

The proper names identify positions as Ficino presents them. Confiteri acknowledges or admits; asseverare asserts firmly; putare thinks or holds. The future forms stage what the named interlocutors would concede and maintain in the reconstructed dispute. Stulte marks Ficino's polemical judgment, not a neutral part of a group's name.

Use in the book

Strato and Chrysippus are introduced as agreeing that life is infused into the world but asserting that this life is the highest God. The Platonists reject that identification: life belonging to and residing in another cannot be first self-subsisting life. The following arguments distinguish God from a form of matter, a component in a composite, and the soul of a particular sphere. The Almariani appear specifically as the target of the claim that God and matter form one animal. Ficino rejects it because a composite's parts stand in potency to the whole, whereas God has no potency toward a further actuality.

The names therefore perform more than decorative historical citation. They mark a partly shared premise and a sharply disputed identification. Accepting an animated world does not, within this argument, imply identifying its animation with God. No independent reconstruction of these thinkers' doctrines is supplied by these local labels.

Places to read

IV.1.22Strato and Chrysippus are assigned a concession and a disputed identification
IV.1.23–272 3 4 5unity, goodness, being, primary agency, and freedom from potency distinguish God from matter's form
IV.1.28a sphere's mutable soul requires a higher stable guide and therefore cannot itself be God

Translation in this edition

“Will admit” and “will assert” preserve the staged future debate. The text's “foolishly” is Ficino's polemic against the Almariani. The supplied spelling is retained without a conjectural historical identification.

Almariani

Almariani. Printed forms: Almariani.

The group named as holding that God and matter form one living being. Ficino rejects the position through the relation of parts to a composite's further actuality; the name is not conjecturally corrected. References: IV.1.27. See Strato, Chrysippus, and the Almariani.

Strato / Chrysippus

Strato / Chrysippus. Printed forms: Chrysippus; Strato.

Named advocates, as represented here, of identifying cosmic life with the highest God. Their agreement about infused life is separated from the identification the Platonists reject. References: IV.1.22. See Strato, Chrysippus, and the Almariani.