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Journal of the History of Ideas.
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BY JAMES A. DEVEREUX,S.J.
further; one is left to infer that it arises from the natural bond be-
tween creature and creator. Later, at the beginning of the Third
Discourse, Ficino enunciates the principle from which this might be
derived: that all effects seek their causes as principles of their con-
servation.8 However, he soon introduces a new element into the
argument of the First Discourse, and that is beauty. The turning of
the angelic mind to its source results in the bestowal of the ideas,
which themselves constitute an order or cosmos. The charm of this
order is beauty. Seeing its own beauty the angelic mind is drawn
to it, and this tendency to beauty is called love. Love's origin had
first been assigned to an initial turning of the angelic mind toward
God; now love is said to possess the property or conditio of drawing
toward beauty.9
Thus far we have been speaking of how love had its origin in
the creation of the mens angelica. The creation of the world soul and
of the visible universe follows the same pattern:
So it was with the matter of this world. At the beginningit lay a formless
chaos without the ornamentof the forms; but, attracted by innate love, it
turned toward the soul of the world and offered itself submissively to its
influence.And thus by the mediation of this love, it received from the soul
the ornamentof all the forms which are to be seen in this world. And so
out of chaos it became a world.10
In the following chapter the tendency toward beauty is called
not simply a property of love but is said to constitute its essence.
Here Ficino accepts "the authority of all the philosophers" in de-
fining love as the desire for beauty, or more precisely the desire to
enjoy beauty-"fruende pulchritudinis desiderium."n To be sure,
love is limited to the enjoyment of that beauty which is apprehended
by the mind, sight, and hearing; but it is clearly defined in terms of
acquisition and enjoyment. It generates a circle which begins and
ends with God: the manifestation of his beauty in the world evokes
in creatures a desire which is finally satisfied in the possession of God.
What was God's motive for beginning such a cycle? In the Second
Discourse goodness is said to be of the very essence of God, and
beauty a ray which shines from him through all things.l2 This would
imply a connection between the goodness of God and his creation,
since beauty is the manifestation in creatures of God's goodness.
But it does not necessarily imply that God created the world out of
8 Marcel ed., 160. 9 Ibid., 140.
10Ibid., 141.The Latin reads: "Non aliter et
mundihuiusmateria,cum principio
sine formarumornamentoinformechaosiaceret,illico amoresibi
ingenitoin animam
se direxit seque illi obedientem prebuit, atque hoc amore
conciliante, ab anima
formarumomnium que in mundo videntur, nacta ornamentummundus ex chaos
effecta est." 11 142. 12 152.
84Chapter 13, verse 5. John Charles Nelson in his valuable book, Renaissance
Theoryof Love (New York, 1958), is speakingof the De Amore when he says that
"for all Ficino'sdesire to reconcilePlatonism with Christianity,his
concept of love
is basicallyplatonic"(p. 83). Howevertrue this is of that treatise,I do not think it
can be said of the letters.
8SThe Philosophyof MarailioFicino, 279-280.
6John Colet and MarsilioFicino
(Oxford,1963), 56-76.
8759.
8s E.g., a passage in the TheologiaPlatonica in Opera Omnia,p. 324: "In hac
vita humanusamor in Deum humanae praestat cognitioni,quia Deum nemo vere
cognoscit.Vere autem amant illi Deum quoquomodo cognitum,qui spernuntomnia
propter ipsum."