Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Jul 2024)
ANTI-LATIN WRITINGS OF GEORGE GEMISTOS PLETHON: TEXTS AND CONTEXT
Abstract
This article presents an analysis and translation with commentaries of the works of George Gemistos Plethon related to the anti-Latin polemic: his treatise against the book defending the Latin dogma and a letter to cardinal Bessarion with Plethon’s answers to his objections. The analysis and commentary include studying the history of these writings, their theological and historical context, and their connection with the views of Plethon as a whole. The anti-Latin writings of Plethon, known for his commitment to Platonism and Hellenic religious and philosophical concepts, as well as his participation in the work of Ferraro-Florence Council, his support of St. Mark of Ephesus and criticism of the Unia aroused particular interest among researchers and led to ambiguous assessments and contradictory interpretations of the personality, views and goals of Gemistos. The work re-examines a number of the related issues, in particular, Vojtĕch Hladki’s interpretation that Plethon was a Christian and did not have any neo-pagan circle of followers, and his “Laws” were simply personal notes which did not reflect any actual religious views of the author. The article has shown that, despite the formal defense of Orthodoxy at the Council and the written treatise against the Filioque, Plethon remained a Platonist, faithful to those non-Chris tian views that he outlined in the “Laws” and which deeply outraged George Scholarios, then leader of the Orthodox resistance. Plethon used his anti-Latin treatise not just to criticize the Filioque, but to set out the foundations of “Hellenic theology,” which, from the point of view of Gemistos, had a philosophical logic that Christian theology had abandoned. Plethon rejected the union with the Latins not because of his own Orthodox beliefs: from his point of view, the union was useless as a purely human device that could not help the state, and the main sin of the Byzantines, because of which they lost divine help, was unbelief, in contrast to Turks, into divine providence, which the philosopher understood, like the Stoics, as an inevitable fate.
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