''Prisca theologia'' ("

ancient Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cov ...

theology") is the doctrine that asserts that a single, true theology exists which threads through all religions, and which was anciently given by God to humans.

History

The term ''prisca theologia'' appears to have been first used by

Marsilio Ficino Marsilio Ficino (; Latin name: ; 19 October 1433 – 1 October 1499) was an Italian scholar and Catholic priest who was one of the most influential humanist philosophers of the early Italian Renaissance. He was an astrologer, a revive ...

in the 15th century. Ficino and

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (24 February 1463 – 17 November 1494) was an Italian Renaissance nobleman and philosopher. He is famed for the events of 1486, when, at the age of 23, he proposed to defend 900 theses on religion, philosophy, ...

endeavored to reform the teachings of the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

by means of the writings of the ''prisca theologia'', which they believed was reflected in

Neoplatonism Neoplatonism is a strand of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a chain of thinkers. But there are some ...

Hermeticism Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a philosophical system that is primarily based on the purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus (a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth). These teachings are containe ...

, and the

Chaldean Oracles The ''Chaldean Oracles'' are a set of spiritual and philosophical texts widely used by Neoplatonist philosophers from the 3rd to the 6th century CE. While the original texts have been lost, they have survived in the form of fragments consisting ...

, among other sources.

... icinosaw himself as one member of a venerable sequence of interpreters who added to a store of wisdom that God allowed progressively to unfold. Each of these “prisci theologi,” or “ancient theologians,” had his part to play in discovering, documenting, and elaborating the truth contained in the writings of Plato and other ancient sages, a truth to which these sages may not have been fully privy, acting as they were as vessels of divine truth.

The Enlightenment tended to view all religion as cultural variations on a common anthropological theme; however, the Enlightenment, which tended to deny the validity of any form of revealed religion, held in very little esteem the idea of a ''prisca theologia''. The doctrine of a ''prisca theologia'' is held by, among others,

Rosicrucianism Rosicrucianism is a spiritual and cultural movement that arose in Europe in the early 17th century after the publication of several texts purported to announce the existence of a hitherto unknown esoteric order to the world and made seeking it ...

.Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition
by Glenn Alexander Magee ''Prisca theologia'' is distinguishable from the related concept of the ''

perennial philosophy The perennial philosophy ( la, philosophia perennis), also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a perspective in philosophy and spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical trut ...

'', although some inadvertently use the two terms interchangeably. An essential difference is that the ''prisca theologia'' is understood as existing in pure form only in ancient times and has undergone a process of continuous decline and dilution throughout modern times. In other words, the oldest religious principles and practices are held to be, in some sense, the purest. The perennial philosophy theory does not make this stipulation and merely asserts that the "true religion" periodically manifests itself in different times, places, and forms. Both concepts, however, do suppose that there is such a thing as a true religion and tend to agree on the basic characteristics associated about this.

References

* Hanegraaff, Wouter J. "Tradition". In: ''Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism'' (Wouter J. Hanegraaff, ed.), pp. 1125–1135. Brill, 2006. . * Hankins, James. ''Plato in the Italian Renaissance'', 2 vols. Brill, 1990. {{ISBN, 90-04-09161-0. Metaphysics of religion Esoteric Christianity

History

See also

References