Abstract
The philosophy of Henry More was deeply indebted to the philosophical tradition of late antiquity. His metaphysics, clearly inspired by the magnificent synthesis of Plato, Plotinus and the later Platonists operated in the fifteenth century by Marsilio Ficino, relied on the continuity of being between Spirit and Matter, which also justified the presence of daemons and disembodied souls within the natural world. However, More fiercely criticised all forms of religious worship in which dii medioxumi were regarded as a mean to rejoin with God (or were worshipped instead of him), including theurgy, or philosophical magic. Theurgy, which was aimed at purifying the soul and reuniting it with the divine, had a central place in the works of the Platonists who followed Plotinus. Intriguingly, More accepted the theoretical premises of theurgy, i.e., the ontological continuity between the natural and the divine worlds, but condemned its practice, which involved the deification of daemons and minor gods. This criticism can be fully understood only if looked at within the context of More’s iconoclastic polemic against the Roman Catholics.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
See Plutarch, De genio Socratis, 593d-594a
- 6.
See Plutarch, De genio Socratis, 593d-594a and Maximus of Tyre, Oratio IX, 6a-g.
- 7.
See Plato, Symposium, 202e. It must be said that the identification of disembodied souls and daemons is first introduced by the Middle Platonists, for Plato seems to suggest that they are different species. See Dillon (1983, 199).
- 8.
When they are truly beautiful, separate souls can really mesmerize those who look at them, for their supple bodies can be easily shaped by their moral nature and good will: ‘For if virtue and vice can be ever seen with outward eyes, it must be in these aereal vehicles, which yield so to the will and idea of good and pure affections, that the soul in a manner becomes perfectly transparent through them, discovering her lovely beauty in all the efflorescencies thereof, to the ineffable enravishment of the beholder.’ See More (1712a, 194).
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- 11.
The Latin quotation is from Ficino’s translation of Proclus’s On the Hieratic Art, as is evident also by the fact that More refers to this work with the title given to it by Ficino, i.e., De sacrificio et magia. See Ficino (1576, II:1929).
- 12.
The astral or spiritual body was an inner body, made out of a semi-material substance, which the soul acquired before becoming embodied and retained after death. See Leech (2011). For a history of this doctrine and its use in different authors see Corrias (2012) and (2013a), Di Pasquale Barbanti (1988), Dodds (1963), Finamore (1985), Hankins (2005), and Kissling (1922).
- 13.
On Ficino and theurgy see Giglioni (2012).
- 14.
For example: Ficino (1989), bk.3:20 and bk.3:26, 350, 388.
- 15.
- 16.
On the dispute between More and Walton see Budick (1970, 219ff.).
- 17.
- 18.
See Lucan, Pharsalia, 9:580.
- 19.
More was the first to introduce the term ‘monotheism’ as an antonym to polytheism and atheism. See More (1660, 62): ‘But thus to make the World God, is to make no God at all; and therefore this kinde of monotheisme of the Heathen is as rank Atheisme as their Polytheisme was proved to be before.’ See also More (1660, 188).
- 20.
Ficino, ‘Apology’, in De vita, p. 399.
- 21.
On More’s heterodoxy see Crocker (2003, 93-119).
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Corrias, A. (2019). Dii medioxumi and the Place of Theurgy in the Philosophy of Henry More. In: Hedley, D., Leech, D. (eds) Revisioning Cambridge Platonism: Sources and Legacy. International Archives of the History of Ideas Archives internationales d'histoire des idées, vol 222. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22200-0_2
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