Cornelis Johannes SCHILT
Steven MATTHEWS
Abstract. This essay examines the influence of ancient Christian sources on Renaissance thought, particularly on and through the works of Marsilio Ficino and Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples. Conscious and unconscious bias makes that these influences are often overlooked, combined with a general lack of knowledge or understanding of Byzantine Eastern theology. Our case study details Ficino’s De Christiana Religione and his translation of the Corpus Hermeticum, and the preface to the latter by Lefèvre d’Etaples, and reveals that many ideas found in these writings often attributed to pagan sources, were in fact derived from early Christian writings. We focus on Ficino’s interpretation of theology of the Corpus Hermeticum, and how, instead of introducing novel, heretical concepts, it aligns with the Eastern Christian doctrine of theosis. The essay argues for a re-evaluation of Renaissance intellectual history, emphasizing the significant impact of Byzantine Christian texts on the period’s thinkers, and the role that large-scale computational methods such as those employed by VERITRACE can play to further uncover these intricate influences.
Keywords: Marsilio Ficino, Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples, Corpus Hermeticum, Patristics, Byzantine influence, theosis, Eastern Christianity