The Eight Philosophers

so he sent it to Bias of Priene, who felt the same way, and sent it on again. And so it continued until it passed through the hands of seven sages when it came back to Thales. Therefore these seven sages decided together that the tripod should be offered to Apollo at Delphi, for he is the source of all wisdom. They also erected three tablets containing 147 wise sayings, known as “the Precepts of the Seven Sages” or “the Delphic Maxims.” (You can read more about the Precepts of the Seven Sages and learn how to cast the Oracle of the Seven Sages in my book The Oracles of Apollo.)

The final part of Plethon’s Golden Chain comprises eight important philosophers of the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition, who established the foundations of Plethon’s religion.51 The first of these is Pythagoras himself, who lived from approximately 570 to 495 BCE.52 He was born to an amulet maker and his wife on Samos, a large island off the coast of Asia Minor, and lived there until he was about forty. Many people remember Pythagoras only for the Pythagorean theorem (about the sides of a right triangle), which they learned in school, but he was much more influential as the founder of a spiritual tradition that pervades science as well as Western religion and esotericism.

Pythagoras is supposed to have learned the wisdom of many lands around the Mediterranean, including the Egyptians, Phoenicians, Babylonians, Persians (i.e., the Magi), and, according to some, the Hindu sages.53 Some authors list Thales of Miletus and Bias of Priene (two of the Seven Sages) among his teachers. Eventually (c. 530 BCE), Pythagoras came to Croton in Italy, where he founded an initiatory secret society in which his wisdom was taught and preserved.

Pythagoras was not only a philosopher and mage; he was also a lawgiver. He provided moral instruction to the Greek colonists in Italy and helped them organize their states more effectively. In later years suspicion and political opposition to the Pythagoreans grew, and they were ultimately driven out (c. 510 BCE). It is unclear whether Pythagoras was killed in this uprising or escaped.

51. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 52. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 53. See for example Diogenes Laertius, Lives 8, and Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Way of Life, chs. 2–5.

Second among the philosophers after Pythagoras is Plato (c. 428–348/347 BCE).54 He is supposed to have learned much of his wisdom from the Pythagoreans but also from Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE). He is the first sage in the Golden Chain whose writings have survived to our time reasonably intact and the first about whom we have reasonably factual biographical information.

He lived most of his life in Athens. His name “Platôn” (Πλάτων) is probably a nickname referring to his broad shoulders (he was a wrestler) or perhaps to the breadth of his learning (πλάτος, platos, means breadth); his legal name was Aristocles.

Plato’s most important contribution was his description of the Platonic Ideas or Forms: ideal models or essences of the things in material reality, but existing in another, immaterial reality, outside of time and space. Plethon’s Book of Laws and its appendix called Epinomis were probably inspired by the Platonic dialogues called The Laws and Epinomis.

The third in Plethon’s (non-chronological) list of philosophers is Parmenides, who lived from the late sixth to early fifth century BCE in Elea, a Greek colony in southern Italy.55 Like others in the Golden Chain, he was a lawgiver, legislating for his native city.

Parmenides wrote a long poem On Nature, which survives only in fragments. It seems to describe a sort of shamanic journey or theurgic descent to Kore (the Maiden, Persephone), the queen of the underworld, who taught him about the nature of reality. According to Plethon, Kore is especially responsible for our mortal nature, which is symbolized by the underworld (see chapter 3).

Parmenides was known especially for his knowledge of the nature of reality. Plato’s theory of Forms was significantly influenced by him, and his dialogue Parmenides is concerned with Being. Later Platonists interpreted it to define the nature of the One and the structure of the Platonic realm of Forms.

Next in the Golden Chain is Timaeus from Locri in southern Italy, a fifth-century BCE Pythagorean philosopher.56 Plato studied with him, according to Cicero, and later wrote a dialogue called Timaeus, which presented Pythagorean-Platonic theories of the

54. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 55. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 56. Plethon, Laws I.2.5.

origin and structure of the cosmos.57 This work was very important for later Platonists, one of whom wrote that he would be content if all books were lost except the Chaldean Oracles and the Timaeus!

There is a surviving book, On the Nature of the World and the Soul, attributed to Timaeus, but scholars doubt that he wrote it. (Indeed, a few scholars doubt the existence of Timaeus!) Nevertheless, generations of Platonists (including Plethon) thought that it contained genuine Pythagorean philosophy.

Fifth in Plethon’s list of philosophers is Plutarch of Chaeronea (c. 46–c. 140 CE), which is a small town about fifty miles from Delphi.58 He is best known for his Parallel Lives of the Eminent Greeks and Romans, but also wrote the Moralia, a collection of seventy-eight philosophical and esoteric essays (not necessarily about morality) usually organized into fourteen books. For the last thirty years of his life, he was a priest of Apollo at Delphi, and his essays on ancient religion and esoteric lore were an important source for Plethon (as they still are for us today).

The sixth philosopher is Plotinus (204–270 CE), who was born in Roman Egypt and studied philosophy in Alexandria.59 Later he joined a military expedition into Persia with the hope of learning from the Magi and the Brahmans, but the expedition was unsuccessful and his plans were thwarted. At the age of forty he moved to Rome, where he set up his school, which admitted women as well as men, including Amphiclea, the daughter-in-law of Iamblichus, the last philosopher in Plethon’s Golden Chain.

Plotinus developed Platonic philosophy in a new, more spiritual direction, which historians of philosophy call Neoplatonism or Late Platonism. In particular, Plotinus stressed the ineffability of the transcendent One, the most fundamental principle of unity in all things. Plotinus’s most famous student was Porphyry, who wrote a biography of his master and gathered his writings into a collection called the Enneads (six groups of nine essays each), which is a valuable source of Neoplatonic philosophy.

57. Cicero, Librorum de re publica 1.16. 58. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 59. Plethon, Laws I.2.5.

Porphyry (c. 234–c. 305 CE) is also the seventh philosopher in Plethon’s list.60 He was born in Tyre, an ancient Phoenician city, now a part of Lebanon. He wrote many important works, but most have been lost or destroyed, such as his Against the Christians, of which some fragments remain. Unfortunately his Philosophy from Oracles, which analyzed the Magical Oracles and other divine oracles, also survives only in fragments.

The last philosopher in Plethon’s list, and therefore the last in his Golden Chain, is Iamblichus of Chalcis (c. 245–c. 325 CE), a city in modern Syria.61 Iamblichus was probably a student of Porphyry, but eventually returned to Syria to found his own school in Apamea (near Antioch). A number of Iamblichus’s works survive in whole or in part, including On the Pythagorean Way of Life. One of the most important is commonly known as On the Mysteries of the Egyptians; it explains the theory and practice of “theurgy,” the Neoplatonic ritual practices for congress with the gods (to be explained in chapter 11).

From On the Mysteries, it appears that Iamblichus disagreed with his teacher Porphyry about the importance of theurgy: Iamblichus thought it was essential, Porphyry less so. More recently, some scholars have argued that the difference is more a matter of emphasis than a fundamental disagreement, essentially an illusion resulting from the fragmentary nature of the evidence.62 This is a relevant question for Plethon’s religion, for he seems to have favored the more contemplative practices of Plotinus and Porphyry over the more ritualistic and “magical” spiritual practices of Iamblichus and Proclus, who is not on his list.

Indeed, the absence of Proclus (412–485 CE) is surprising, for he was the most famous Platonist in late antiquity and one of the last heads of the Platonic Academy in Athens. Moreover, Plethon’s worst enemy, Scholarios, accused him of plagiarizing his ideas from Proclus and of trying to hide the fact by not naming him in his Golden Chain.63 In fact, most of Plethon’s ideas can be traced to the philosophers whom he does list, but it is still surprising that he omitted Proclus, whose works were very influential

60. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 61. Plethon, Laws I.2.5. 62. E.g., Addey, Divination and Theurgy in Neoplatonism, ch. 4. 63. Hladký, Plethon, 168.