In every place and time men speak and drink because it is natural, but they speak
and drink at different times and places, and in a different order, since the order
for doing so is established by opinion rather than by nature. Similarly, God is
adored among all peoples in every century, although not with the same rites and
in the same ways, because it is natural [for man to adore Him].^13Our religious nature is a natural fact, what today might be called a biological
universal. Religion is‘the affinity of the soul for God’.^14 Ficino even claims,
strikingly, that it is religion, not reason, that is the specific difference of man,
separating him from the animals, for the latter have some kind of reasoning
capacity but no religious sense.‘Worshipping the divine is as natural to men
almost as neighing to horses or barking to dogs.’^15 Man without religion is a
monster.^16 Ultimately religious belief and behaviour is caused by God, who
informs each human soul with a natural desire for himself and a natural vision
of himself.^17
Ficino’s understanding of the nature of religion seems to come principally
from theDe mysteriisof the late ancient Platonist Iamblichus.^18 This was a text
Ficino knew well and translated into Latin around 1488.^19 In that work
Iamblichus is defending theurgy against the‘rationalist’attacks of Porphyry.
In the course of his defence, Iamblichus says:
You sayfirst, then, that you‘concede the existence of the gods’: but that is not the
right way to put it. For an innate knowledge about the gods is coexistent with our
nature, and is superior to all judgement and choice, reasoning and proof. This
knowledge is united from the outset with its own cause, and exists in tandem with
the essential striving of the soul towards the Good.‘Cum religionem dico, instinctum ipsum omnibus gentibus communem naturalemque intellego,
quo ubique et semper providentia quaedam, regina mundi, cogitatur et colitur. Ad quam certe
pietatem causis praecipue tribus inducimur. Primo quidem naturali quadam, ut ita loquar,
sagacitate ab ipsamet providentia nobis infusa; deinde philosophicis rationibus ex ipso aedificii
ordine architecti providentiam comprobantibus; postremo propheticis verbis atque miraculis.’
All citations hereafter will be by book, chapter, and paragraph number of this edition.
(^13) Platonic Theology14.10.10:‘Ubique et semper loquuntur homines atque bibunt, quoniam
est naturale, sed aliis temporibus atque locis alio ordine loquuntur et bibunt, quoniam oper-
ationis ordo opinione constat potius quam natura. Similiter apud omnes gentes omnibus saeculis
adoratur deus, quia naturale est, quamvis non iisdem sacris ac modis.’
(^14) See Jörg Lauster,‘Marsilio Ficino as a Christian Thinker: Theological Aspects of his
Platonism’, in Michael J. B. Allen and Valerie R. Rees (eds),Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His
Philosophy, His Legacy(Leiden, Boston, MA, and Cologne: Brill, 2002), 45–69, at 51.
(^15) Platonic Theology14.9.1.‘Cultusque divina ita ferme hominibus naturalis, sicut equis
hinnitus canibusve latratus.’Compare also the opening paragraph of Ficino’sDe doctrina
christiana, in Marsilio Ficino,Opera omnia, 2 vols (Basel, 1576; anastatic reprint, Turin,
1983), 1:33 (hereafterOpera). References are to the page numbers of the reprint.
(^16) De christiana religione, cap. 3, inOpera1:33.
(^17) See James Hankins,‘Iamblichus, Ficino and Schleiermacher on the Sources of Religious
Knowledge’,Erudition and the Republic of Letters1 (2016), 1–12.
(^18) Ibid.
(^19) Paul Oskar Kristeller,Supplementum Ficinianum, 2 vols (Florence: Olschki, 1937), 1.cxxxii.
60 James Hankins