DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.71556#0108
74
LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO.
CHAPTER V.
A SKETCH OF THE MODERN PLATONISTS AND THEIR OPINIONS.
As Michael Angelo's poetry and art were more or
less influenced by Platonic, theories, we propose in
this chapter to place before our readers a brief
sketch of the peculiar dogmas and opinions of that
sect of the Platonists with which, as a member of
the Florentine Academy, he became associated,
This sect originated at Alexandria, in the third
century, and from thence to the sixth exercised
a potent influence in almost every part of the
Roman empire. Its founder, Ammonius Saccas,
was born of Christian parents, and educated under
Pantsenus and Athenagoras, learned and eminent
Christian teachers, but who set their disciples the
example of philosophising upon the doctrines of the
Gospel with a freedom wholly at variance with the
exclusive claims of a Divine Revelation. Ammo-
nius in this respect went far beyond his teachers,
and, becoming fired with the ambition of founding
a new sect which should combine the most popular
principles both of heathenism and Christianity, he
plunged into the wildest latitudinarianism of opinion,
and availed himself of the great name of Plato in
LIFE OF MICHAEL ANGELO.
CHAPTER V.
A SKETCH OF THE MODERN PLATONISTS AND THEIR OPINIONS.
As Michael Angelo's poetry and art were more or
less influenced by Platonic, theories, we propose in
this chapter to place before our readers a brief
sketch of the peculiar dogmas and opinions of that
sect of the Platonists with which, as a member of
the Florentine Academy, he became associated,
This sect originated at Alexandria, in the third
century, and from thence to the sixth exercised
a potent influence in almost every part of the
Roman empire. Its founder, Ammonius Saccas,
was born of Christian parents, and educated under
Pantsenus and Athenagoras, learned and eminent
Christian teachers, but who set their disciples the
example of philosophising upon the doctrines of the
Gospel with a freedom wholly at variance with the
exclusive claims of a Divine Revelation. Ammo-
nius in this respect went far beyond his teachers,
and, becoming fired with the ambition of founding
a new sect which should combine the most popular
principles both of heathenism and Christianity, he
plunged into the wildest latitudinarianism of opinion,
and availed himself of the great name of Plato in