The prisci theologi: Zoroaster, Hermes, Orpheus and the Sibyls

Anyone who enters Siena Cathedral and looks down at the floor, just past the central door, meets a solemn figure in Oriental robes. An inscription identifies him as Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, “contemporary of Moses”. The marble inlay, executed around 1488 to a design attributed to Giovanni di Stefano, is one of the most eloquent testimonies to the prestige enjoyed in the Renaissance by the prisci theologi, the ancient theologians considered guardians of an original wisdom.

Zoroaster and the Chaldean Oracles

The first name in the series was often that of Zoroaster, the Persian prophet. He reached the Renaissance above all as the supposed author of the Chaldean Oracles, a collection of oracular verses in Greek that modern scholars date to the second century AD and link to two figures of the age of Marcus Aurelius, Julian the Chaldean and his son Julian the Theurgist. Plethon prepared an annotated edition attributing them to the magi who were disciples of Zoroaster, and Ficino and Pico cited them as a venerable voice.

The ancient Neoplatonists, from Porphyry to Proclus, had already considered the Oracles an almost sacred text, to be commented upon with the same reverence reserved for Plato. Proclus, according to his biographer Marinus, would have wished that of all ancient books only the Timaeus and the Oracles should survive. The Renaissance inherited from them both the veneration and the error of dating.

Hermes Trismegistus and Orpheus

Hermes Trismegistus, the “thrice greatest”, arose from the fusion of the Egyptian god Thoth with the Greek Hermes. Lactantius, in the fourth century, had cited him respectfully as a pagan prophet of Christianity, while Augustine had criticised his idolatry. When in 1463 Cosimo de' Medici asked Ficino to interrupt his translation of Plato in order to render the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin, he showed that he considered it even older and more precious.

Orpheus, the mythical singer who according to legend could enchant animals and stones, was held to be the author of the Orphic Hymns, a collection of eighty-seven hymns now dated to the late imperial age. Ficino translated them in his youth and, according to the testimony of contemporaries, sang them to the accompaniment of the lyre, convinced that ancient music preserved a particular power.

Pythagoras, the Sibyls and the others

Pythagoras completed the chain as the link between Eastern wisdom and Greek philosophy. To him were attributed the Golden Verses, a short moral poem also of later date, and the story, spread by Iamblichus, of his travels in Egypt and among the Chaldeans. Beside him appeared the Sibyls, pagan prophetesses to whom Christian tradition attributed prophecies of the coming of Christ, painted by Michelangelo on the vault of the Sistine Chapel.

Agrippa moves easily within this pantheon of sages, quoting their sayings alongside those of the Bible, the Church Fathers and the kabbalists. Hermes provides him with passages on the animation of statues, Orpheus with names and attributes of the gods, Pythagoras with the science of numbers. For him, as for his contemporaries, the antiquity of a voice was a guarantee of its authority.

Today we know that almost all these texts belong to the Hellenistic or imperial age and that none of them goes back to the time of Moses. Their historical fascination, however, does not depend on the accuracy of the attributions. It tells, rather, of the Renaissance desire to recognise, beneath the variety of religions and philosophies, a single wisdom of humanity.