Plato’s Influence on Gerogios Gemistos Plethon’s Teachings and Beliefs

By Theodore G. Zervas

This paper explores Plato’s influence on Gerogios Gemistos Plethon’s (circa 1355–1452 ACE)
teaching methods and beliefs. I refer to the Byzantine philosopher as Gemistos and not Plethon,
because most of his teachings and works were written while he was known as Gemistos. He
adopted the name Plethon towards the final years of his life. This paper is divided in eight
sections. It begins with a brief biography of Georgios Gemistos and then follows with a
discussion on the general contours of Byzantine education, specifically Outer and Inner Learning
as well as 14th and 15th century Christian perceptions of ancient Greek learning. In section three,
this paper explores Gemistos move from Constantinople to Mistra and follows with a discussion
of Gemistos’s instructional methods, his philosophical teachings and theological beliefs, his
views on Plato and Aristotle as well as his religious and political beliefs. This paper concludes
with a discussion of Gemistos’s lasting impact to the western world. 1

Introduction

Georgios Gemistos Plethon (1355-1452 ACE) was born in Constantinople in a

time when the people of this great imperial city, founded by Constantine almost a
millennia earlier, were unsure what lay ahead in their future. Disease, siege, and political
instability had plagued Constantinople for almost a century. Just five years prior to
Gemistos’s birth a third of Constantinople’s population was lost to the Black Death. For
the last two centuries Constantinople also witnessed a wave of invaders and conquerors.
Christian Crusaders, Barbarians, and Muslim Saracens all gathered outside
Constantinople’s walls looking to capture all her wealth and glory. These were truly
uncertain times, but they were also intuitive times, propelled by humankind’s natural and
curious desire to seek answers outside the realm of a spiritual and religious world.
Gemistos was born in an age when people began to look back in their distant pasts for
answers to questions about themselves and the world around them. It was also an age
when answers to these questions were discovered in the writings of those that lived
centuries ago.
Today Gerogios Gemistos is considered an important historical figure in the
transmission of Greek learning to the West. His writings influenced Thomas More’s
Utopia and his (re) introduction of Strabo’s Geographica to the west likely inspired
Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the New World.2 Gemistos is also remembered as a
teacher and scholar who taught among others, Mark Eugenikos (1392-1444 ACE),
Metropolitan of Ephesus, Vasilios Bessarion (1403-1472 ACE), a Greek Catholic
Cardinal remembered most for his scholarship during the Italian Renaissance, and George
Scholarios (1400-1473 ACE), who would become Gennadios II, the first Patriarch of

1 Theodore G. Zervas is assistant professor of education at North Park University in

Chicago. His most recent book is titled The Making of a Modern Greek Identity: Education,
Nationalism, and the Teaching of a Greek National Past (East European Monographs: Columbia
University Press, 2012).
2 Derrett, J.D. “Gemistos Plethon, the Essenes and Moore’s Utopia.” H&R. (1965). 579-
603.

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Constantinople after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. 3 Gemistos
is credited for encouraging the teaching of classical Greek philosophy, particularly Plato
and advocating a revival of the ancient Greek world. He later changed his name to
Plethon, in honor of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato for whom he admired. He was
well versed in the writings of Zoroaster, Strabo, Aristotle, and Plato, and was even
appointed by the Byzantine Emperor John VIII Palaiologos (1392-1448 ACE) to serve on
the Greek delegation at the Council of Union in Ferrara and Florence in 1438/39.
Gemistos was no doubt one of the great thinkers of his time, but his teachings
were not without controversy. Gemistos outspokenly promoted reviving ancient Greek
paganism and he is thought to have even worshiped the ancient Greek gods. He at one
point declared to the Patriarch of Constantinople, “We over whom you rule and hold
sway are Hellenes by race as is demonstrated by our language and ancestral education.” 4
Christianity constituted the most important dimension of one’s personal identity during
Gemistos’s time. To call yourself a Hellene often meant that you were not a Christian.
Moreover, to learn about the world of the ancient Greeks meant walking a fine line
between the righteous principles of Christianity and the heterodox practices of Greek
paganism. Gemistos’s teachings were eventually seen as heretical, and his passion for
philosophy and the ancient Greeks was found to be anti-Christian, anti-clerical, and anti-
establishment. Nonetheless, Gemistos’s lasting legacy was that he influenced many
during his time.
The Italian Renaissance was gaining ground in the 15 th century. In Italy, Italians
began to realize a wealth of Greek knowledge. The Greek lands that were not that distant
from the Italian city-states were once home to Aristotle and Plato, philosophers Italians
began to admire, and whose writings they discovered could be read in the original. In a
world where ancient Greek learning was increasingly being admired, Greek scholars like
Gemistos claimed they were Greeks, Greeks in the sense of an unbroken sequence of
thinkers since ancient times. Soon Greek scholars were being invited to teach in Italy.
Manuel Chrysoloras (1355-1415 ACE) was one of the first. He held the chair of Greek in
Florence where he lectured on Homer and Plato. Almost 20 years later Gemistos lectured
on the philosophies of Aristotle and Plato at the palace of Cosimo di Medici (1389- 1464
ACE) from where he is also thought to have influenced the founding of the Florentine
Academy. Around the same time, John Argyropoulos (1415-1487 ACE) divided his time
by lecturing in both Italy and Constantinople on Greek literature and philosophy. Some
years later, Demetrios Chalkokondyles (1423-1511 ACE) became professor of Greek
language in Italy where he taught for nearly forty years, and Janus Lascaris (1445-1535
ACE) lectured in Florence on Thucydides, Demothenes, and Sophocles.
Gemistos’s teachings later influenced many scholars in both the Latin west and
Greek east and he has been credited to contributing to the Italian Renaissance. After his
death in 1454 Sisimundo Malatesta reinterred his earthly remains from Mistra in Sparta
to Rimini in Italy with the words “Prince among the Philosophers of his Time”

3 Harris, John, “The Influence of Plethon’s Idea of Fate on the Historian Laonnikos
Chalkokondyles.” Proceedings of the International Congress on Plethon and his Times. Mystras,
Greece, June 26-29, 2002, eds., L.G. Benakis and Ch. P. Baloglou, Society for Peloponnesian and
Byzantine Studies (Athens, 2004), 211-217.
4Woodhouse, C.M., George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (Clarendon
Press, 1986), 102.

2
emblazoned on his epitaph. His teachings and writings nonetheless continued to
influence western scholars and his writings continued to be debated several centuries
after he died.
Although many scholars have examined Gemistos’s theological and philosophical
beliefs, what he taught and how he taught is still for many scholars a historical
conundrum. What little evidence we have on Gemistos’s instructional methods comes
mostly from his writings. Fabio Pagani recently examined Gemistos’s personal
annotations in the margins of several manuscripts by Plato (Parmanides, Protagoras,
Philebus, Timaeus and the Republic). 5 What Pagani found was that within these
manuscripts, Gemistos or someone close to Gemistos made corrections and omissions to
the body of the text. The omissions typically dealt with pagan myths and ancient Greek
religion. Although these notes do not tell us much about Gemistos’s teaching methods,
they do shed light on how Gemistos attempted to understand these ancient texts and even
possibly revise them to suit his and his students’ educational purposes. Nonetheless, what
is key in unraveling how Gemistos taught and what he taught is by examining his own
writings and placing those writings within the context of education during his own time.
Plato’s philosophy nevertheless seems to have shaped Gemistos’s teaching methods and
beliefs, as well as how Gemistos attempted to impart knowledge to his students. In the
following sections I discuss more broadly Byzantine education and Christianity’s struggle
to incorporate classical learning in its teachings.

Outer and Inner Learning

The Byzantine Greeks had always been aware of their classical Greek past. But
unlike their distant ancestors they were Christian and even preferred to call themselves
Roman (Ρωμιος, Ρωμιοι) and not Greek. Still more, Christian learning was of primary
concern in Byzantium and pagan teaching was secondary. Even though they often
disliked being called “Greek” (Γραικοι) or “Hellene” (Έλλην) (appellations that they
found offensive) they were still the inheritors of a Greek or Hellenic tradition. Their
language was Greek and their literature was written in Greek. Surely, the Greek language
they spoke had changed since ancient times, but they could still read and understand it
with relatively few difficulties. They also continued to study the works of the ancient
Greeks and unlike their western rivals they read them in the ancient Greek. They knew
most of the works of Plato and Aristotle, and Homer to them was a great poet whose
works should be appreciated by all learned men. They even believed that one needed
some understanding of ancient Greek philosophy in order to be considered “educated”.
They in other words, valued the teachings of their ancestors, and in many ways they were
Greek. The Greek Orthodox Church also understood this, but was hesitant at times to
accept some of the teachings of the ancient Greeks----especially those teachings that
conflicted with their own Christian beliefs.
Some ancient Greek scholars were better received than others. Both the Catholic
and Greek Churches had accepted the majority of Aristotle’s teachings. Aristotle’s

5 Pagani, Fabio. “Damnata Verba: Censure di Pletone in Alcuni Codici Platonici.”

Byzantinische Zeitschrift. (Vol. 102/1, 2009), and “Un Nuovo Testimone Della Recensio
Pletoniana Al Testo di Platone: Il Marc. Gr. 188 (K). Res Publica Litterarum: Studies in the
Classical Tradition. (Salerno Editrice, 2006).

3
philosophy fit well with the Christian world. It separated science and theology and fell
within Outer learning which consisted of scientific learning. Byzantium had always
made a distinction between Outer Learning and Inner Learning. These were two major
approaches of learning in 14th and 15th century Byzantium. Outer Learning consisted of
secular learning, while Inner Learning dealt with Christian theology. When Byzantine
scholars debated on secular matters they did so in secular terms using their classical
learning as a foundation. At the same time, when they discussed religious matters they
used their knowledge and training in theology as an intellectual foundation.
Byzantine education also consisted of an educational system called trivium
(grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, and
astronomy). Students studied these subjects first before moving into inner or theological
learning. According to the Greek Church the sciences could be studied because they
sought to explain things that existed within the universe or cosmos. Theology however
was the ultimate discipline, because it was revealed to humans by Christianity’s ultimate
authorities: God, the Apostles, and the scriptures. Philosophy on the other hand, posed a
problem for the Church. It was valuable to the Church because it helped train the mind,
but at the same time it taught one to think deeply and question both the sciences and
theology. So unlike the sciences and theology, philosophy-raised questions such as:
Where does the universe originate? Where is the soul located? Or even, is there such a
thing as a soul?
Now Aristotle’s writings did not pose much of a threat to the Church. He was
mainly concerned in explaining things in this world and maintained that disciplines
should be studied separately. On the other hand, Plato differed. Plato assumed that the
soul existed prior to birth, (which went against the Church’s belief that the soul only
appeared after birth) and that disciplines needed other disciplines in order to be
understood. Theology for example needed ethics and physics, and arithmetic needed
geometry and logic in order for one to gain a holistic understanding of the cosmos.
In the 15th century Aristotle was studied more than Plato. The complete works of
Plato were not available to the west until 1423. But the Church was aware of most of
Plato’s teachings. The Catholic and Greek Churches had both made peace with
Aristotelianism earlier, and even Neo-Platonism, which had adopted some of Plato’s
beliefs, was reconciled as Christian Neo-Platonism, a filtered form of Platonism (or even
Neo-Platonism) that incorporated those teachings from Plato that fit within the Church’s
practices and traditions. However, Gemistos was not interested in reconciliation between
Plato and the Church, he was interested instead in teaching Plato’s philosophy in its
purerest form, even if it challenged the Church’s beliefs. Gemistos believed that the
Church had for centuries misinterpreted Greek philosophy to suit its own agendas and
needs and that Greek philosophy needed to be cleansed from its Christian influences and
perspectives. In the following sections I discuss Gemistos move to Mistra and how
Gemistos attempted to teach Greek philosophy to his students.

Mistra

It is not certain when Gemistos settled to Mistra or even why he decided to leave
his home city of Constantinople. Much of the evidence only leads one to speculate on the
specific date and reason(s) behind his departure. Steven Runciman suspects that

4
Gemistos moved to Mistra around 1395.6 C.M. Woodhouse on the other hand suggests
that Gemistos made the move sometime between 1405 and 1409. According to
Woodhouse this would have made Gemistos about 50 years old when he arrived to
Mistra. This also means that Gemistos would have spent almost half of his life in Mistra
since he lived well into his nineties. Reasons for his departure from Constantinople are
even more dubious. Some have suspected he was expelled from the heart of the empire
for his beliefs and teachings. Others have asserted that he was invited to live there by the
despot Theodore I, and his charming Riminese wife Cleope Malatesta.7 Whatever the
case may be it is likely that Gemistos decided to move there on his own initiative.
The imperial family and high-ranking administrators in Constantinople viewed
Gemistos in high regard. As a civil official and servant to the empire, Gemistos held
several high judge positions and even the highest of judicial posts as Judge General---
appointments both awarded by the empire’s highest authorities. One of his obituarists, a
monk Gregorios described him as a “protector of common laws” and that he had
exquisite knowledge of the law. We know he was consulted by several of the succeeding
emperors as well as by several despots from the Peloponnese. He taught many students
that would go on to become luminaries in both the Church and imperial administration.
One of his most famous students Vasilios Bessarion held him in high regard even after his
teachings and writings became controversial. In all, whatever the Church and Gemistos’s
enemies may have thought of him, Gemistos had his supporters and friends.
In 1438 Gemistos was invited by Emperor John VIII Palailogos to the Councils of
Ferrara (1438) and Florence (1439) to discuss the possibility of union between the two
Churches. Even though Gemistos was generally indifferent to the matter, and believed
that one day Christianity would be replaced with a form of ancient Greek philosophy, he
did at one point express concern on the Greek delegations rush to resolve the issue of the
Filioque or “Procession of the Holy Spirit” (Eastern Orthodox Church: …from the Father
Proceeding, Catholic Latin Church: …From the Father and Son Proceeding). On the
matter Gemistos stated,

For even those who disagree with us do not doubt what our Church holds and
proclaims, since they admit that what we say is valid and wholly true, and they
feel obliged to prove that their own views coincide with ours. So no one who
belongs to our Church should be in any doubt about our doctrine, when even
those who differ from us are not.

Gemistos believed that the Greek position could not be changed so hastily since it was
the Latin’s who veered away from the original language of the Nicene Creed. But more
importantly, the prayer to Gemistos was sacred, but not for its Christian contents and
religious uses. Like any good philosopher Gemistos understood the prayer was carefully
crafted, each sentence carefully written and each word carefully chosen by its original
architects. For Gemistos, to adjust what seemed to be a simple word meant revising the

6 Runciman, Steve. The Last Byzantine Renaissance. (Cambridge University Press,

1968).
7 Ibid, Woodhouse.

5
documents original meaning. For reasons unknown, at the end of the conference,
Gemistos voted against union between the two churches.8
Nonetheless, for his service to the empire, Gemistos was the beneficiary of
several Bulls (land privileges) and was even described by Theodore II despot of Morea as
‘intimate (s) with our majesty’. He was seen both as a civic leader and teacher and
was respected by many of his peers within the imperial capital.
Thus, Constantinople seemed like the perfect place for Gemistos to spend the rest
of his life. He lived there most of his life, he had become successful there, and he was
surrounded by his supporters and friends while there. However, Constantinople was a
hectic place where one could easily become bogged down in the everyday day matters of
the empire. Corruption was rampant and the possibility of a Turkish siege was always in
the horizon. While many in similar social positions to Gemistos often retired to
monasteries, Gemistos abhorred the practice of monasticism. In the end, Mistra was the
ideal place for Gemistos. Gemistos would have the flexibility to teach and write away
from any uncertainties and instabilities that plagued his home city.
Mistra was a long way from home in Constantinople, but it had been an important
city for most of the 13th to 15th centuries. It was (and continues to be) a fortified town,
situated on top of Mount Taygetos. In 1205 the Latin’s took control of it after the Fourth
Crusade. In 1249 it became the seat of the Latin Principality of Achaea. By 1261, the
Greek east was able to reclaim it, and Michael Palailogos made it the Despotate of
Morea. During much of Gemistos’s life the Palailogos family ruled it, while Venetians
continued to control much of its coast.9
In a diary entry from July 1447 Cyrianco Ancona (1391-1452 ACE) an Italian
traveler mentions Gemistos after his brief visit in Mistra. He says,

There we found Constantine Dragas, of the royal family of the Palaeologi, the
gloriously reigning despot, and the reasons for my return visit his guest, that
eminent personage, the most learned of the Greeks in our time, and, if I may say
so…a brilliant and highly influential philosopher in the Platonic tradition.10

By this time Gemistos was well known to western humanist like Ancona. Moreover,
from Ancona’s description we know that Gemistos enjoyed the company of Mistra’s
royalty as well as other visitors from the west. In the 15 th century Mistra was a center for
learning. When Gemistos emigrated to Mistra sometime in the 15 th century, it was a small
cosmopolitan city, settled by small colonies of Albanians, Venetians, Spaniards, Genoese,
and Florentines. It was seen as a haven of security during the empire’s troubled years. It
was also a place where Byzantine rulers went when plague, siege, or political turmoil
8 As to why Gemistos opposed union between the two churches, Nikitas Siniossoglou
says, “Plethon opted for the Greek Church because of the inner persuasion that the pagan reform
of Nomoi was possible only within intellectual context of the East. The union of the Churches
required the submission of Orthodoxy to Latin Christianity and cancelled out any alternative.
Conversely, Plethonean reformism echoed a long Platonic tradition that survived in the East even
if in constant tension with Christian Orthodoxy.” p. 39.
9 Ruciman, Steven, Mistra, Byzantine Capital of the Peloponesse. (Thames &Hudson
Ltd, 1980).
10 See Bodnar, Edward W. Cyriac of Ancona: Later Travels. (Harvard University Press,
2003).

6
struck Constantinople. But most importantly, it was a natural haven for Roman
Catholics, secular Greeks, and anyone interested in studying ancient Greek philosophy.
Constantinople had always been the empire’s center and Salonika always came in
second. Athens, the once heart of the ancient Greek world had largely disappeared from
Greek cultural life. By the early 15th century Mistra had made its way as second most
important cultural city in Byzantium.11 One needs to be reminded however that by this
time Byzantium had shrunk to a mere conglomerate of small city-states, which included
Constantinople, Salonika, Trebizond, and Mistra. For much of the 14 th and 15th centuries
the Ottoman Empire had gradually encroached on Byzantine lands, and by 1453 the
Ottomans were able to finally bring it to its knees.
Located in the Peloponnese, Mistra was only a few kilometers from the town of
Sparta, where the ancient Spartans had lived centuries ago. It was a place that freedom of
thought was more readily accepted than Constantinople, it was also the perfect place for
Gemistos to reconnect with his ancient Greek ancestors.

Instructional Methods

State funded education existed in Constantinople between the 4th to 13th centuries.
In 435 ACE Theodosius II founded the Pandidakterion of Magnaura an institution of
higher learning that was controlled by the state. By the 13 th century however state funded
education was limited and most education fell onto private instruction and private
teachers.12
For much of the 14th and 15th centuries, teachers in Byzantium were placed in high
social regard. Only those teachers that had established a reputation as scholars and
learned men would be sought after by Byzantine elites to serve as tutors to their children.
An understanding of the ancient Greeks was an essential credential that all teachers were
expected to possess. It was believed that Greek learning provided the child with a solid
understanding of the secular world. It was also seen as important to preparing Byzantine
elites to serve as functionaries in the imperial bureaucracy. Within Constantinople and
Mistra, Gemistos gained a reputation as a reputable teacher and scholar. As such, he was
sought after by the most elite families to prepare their children for life in the empire.
Much of what we know about Gemistos’s teachings comes from his writings. His
teachings are ambiguous and we know that his students studied under him in both
Constantinople and Mistra. Whether it was in Constantinople or Mistra those that called
him teacher (διδάσκαλος) received much of the same education as under any other tutor
of time. During Gemisto’s time education could be characterized as an intimate learning
experience that occurred between teacher and student. Gemistos mentored a few students
(between one to three) at a time. Most of his students began their education with him
between the ages of fourteen and fifteen. We know that most of his students were males
and part of upper Byzantine society.13 Although we have no record of any female

11 Ruciman, Steven, The Lost Capital of Byzantium: The History of Mistra and the
Peloponnese. (Harvard University Press, 2009).
12 Browning, Robert. “The Patriarchal School at Constantinople in the Twelfth Century.”
Byzantion. (Organe de la Societe Belge d’Etudes Byzantines, 1963). pp. 167-202.
13 Papacostas, George. George Gemistos Plethon: A Study of his Philosophical Ideas
and his Role as a Philosopher-Teacher. (Unpublished Dissertation, 1968).

7
students that he may have tutored, it was not uncommon for women from elite Byzantine
families to be taught by a teacher like Gemistos. The best-known case is the Byzantine
princess and historian Anna Komemne (1083-1153 ACE) who was tutored by the Greek
teacher Niketas Choniates.
During Gemistos’s time the “school” was not associated with a physical building
and space, as it is today. The teacher was essentially the school. Most of Gemistos’s
teachings occurred in his home, but extended outside his home at public lectures, the
diner table or even a stroll with a student.
Most Byzantine teachers used both religious and classical texts during their
lessons (μαθήματα). Books were scarce and most pupils did not have personal copies of
books. The teacher or tutor tended to have at their disposal several books from which
students read or used as instructional material during their lesson (μάθημα). According to
Steven Ruciman, Byzantine students are reported to have been able to recite by memory
long passages from Homer and other classical Greek authors. 14 These were typically pre-
adolescent to adolescent children (between ten to fifteen years of age) who were also
studying Greek grammar and writing. Michael Psellos the 11 th century Byzantine scholar
gives a vivid personal description of this type of learning. He says:

Let those who taught me early on affirm that I went through my lessons with
little difficulty and that I understood them better than others. Learning came easy
to me and I retained much of what I learned. I was able to read out loud my
readings loudly and clearly, write with proper grammar, and recite the entire Iliad
from memory.15

Much of this type of learning would be characterized today as “innate learning” or

the memorization and recitation of information that could be easily forgotten by the
learner over time. Although this was the accepted method of teaching during Psellos’s
time, it was not without criticism. In his study on the teaching of Greek grammar during
the late Byzantine Empire, Robert Robins finds that some detested this teaching
approach.16 The most outspoken critic was Anna Komemne who felt that the teaching of
grammar focused too heavily on structure and mechanics rather than content. Gemistos
however likely strayed away from using this type of teaching method. Gemistos on the
other hand believed that philosophical inquiry needed to raise questions, and explored
from multiple intellectual dimensions in order for learning to occur.
In his defense of Plato we find that like Plato, Gemistos found it important for
teachers to communicate writings to their students orally and have students explain them
in their own words.17 Gemistos wrote, “Plato, like the Pythagoreans before him, preferred
not to write on such subjects but to communicate them orally to his students, because
they would be wiser if they had the sciences in their souls rather than in books.” 18 It is

14 Runciman, Steven. Byzantine Civilization. (University Paperbacks, 1975.)

15 Ψελλού, Μιχαήλ . Εγκώμιον εις την μητέρα. My Translation.
16 Robins, R.H. The Byzantine Grammarians: Their Place in History. (Mouton De
Gruyter, 1993).
17 Patrologiae Graeca, 160.
18 Partrologiae Graeca, 160, 983 D. Also cited in Woodhouse, C.M. Gemistos Plethon:
The Last of the Hellenes. (Claredon Press Oxford, 1986). 43.

8
unclear what Gemistos meant by “soul”, but one could infer that Gemistos likely
discussed these early Greek writings with his students rather than had his students
memorize and recite them by heart.
Although we are not absolutely certain how Gemistos taught, Plato’s educational
philosophy likely influenced Gemistos’s teaching methods.19 Gemistos believed that
philosophy could not be communicated in writing and students needed time for
philosophy to ferment in their minds before they could truly understand its meaning. 20 As
a teacher and pedagogue, Gemistos presented ancient Greek philosophy orally to his
student(s) after which he engaged his student(s) in a philosophical discussion. During the
discussion students would be encouraged to raise questions of their own and refer back to
the text and Gemistos for answers to those questions. At the same time Gemistos asked
his students several questions during their lesson. The questions were intended to draw
out students’ previous knowledge. Gemistos believed that the teacher did not necessarily
need to fill his students with information, but to use what they already knew in order to
expand their own knowledge and refine their thinking. Like Plato, Gemistos believed
that knowledge or intellect (νους) already existed in the child’s soul (ψυχή) and it was the
teacher’s responsibility to draw out that knowledge. Plato described this process “The
Turning of the Soul”. He asserts:

Education is not what the professions of certain men assert it to be. They
presumably assert that they put into the soul knowledge that isn’t in it as though
they are putting sight into blind eyes.21

Plato also illustrated this in the Meno when Socrates’ proved to his skeptic Meno
that Meno’s uneducated slave-boy was capable of doing geometric equations even though
the boy had no formal education. Drawing on the boy’s previous knowledge, Socrates
asks the boy a series of questions on the length and size of squares. Socrates carefully
crafts his questions so that they relate to the boy’s life. In the end the boy is able to solve
the geometric problem, and Socrates is able to prove Meno wrong. Nikitas Siniossoglou
describes this as Platonic and Socratic teaching (τάχα και Πλατωνική και Σωκρατική
διδασκαλία) a teaching method that led to scientific knowledge (επιστήμη) and
contemplation (θεωρία).22 Gemistos understanding of how the child learned was in sharp
contrast to his predecessor Aviccena (c.980-1037 ACE) and many later philosophers who
believed that the child was born with no preexisting knowledge or as a “blank-slate”
(Tabula Rasa) and that it was the teacher’s responsibility to inundate the child with
information. In this way and other ways, Gemistos’s instructional methods were centered
on the learner and considered the ways in which students learned. In the following
section I delve into Gemistos’s philosophical teachings and theological beliefs.
Philosophical Teachings and Theological Beliefs

19 Holmes, Catherine and Aring, Judith, ed., Literacy, Education and Manuscript
Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond. (Bill Academic Publishing, 2003).
20 Ibid, Woodhouse, C.M.
21 Bloom, Alan. The Republic of Plato. (Basic Books, 1968). 518c. p. 197.
22 See Siniossoglou.

9
 Philosophy to Gemistos was the source of all knowledge. For Gemistos Plato was
the most important philosopher and Aristotle was second. In his De Defferentiis Gemistos
compares in detail the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. Gemistos was troubled with his
world’s preference of Aristotle over Plato. One finds that De Defferentiis is also partly
Gemistos’s personal pursuit to vindicate Plato’s work. In De Defferentiis Gemistos
asserts,

Our ancestors, both Hellenes and Romans, esteemed Plato much more highly than
Aristotle. But most people today, especially in the west, who regard themselves
as more knowledgeable than their predecessors, admire Aristotle more than
Plato.”23

Moreover, Gemistos believed that because western scholars were heavily influenced by
Arabic interpretations of Plato and Aristotle, they did not truly understand ancient Greek
philosophy. He argued that the main difference between Plato and Aristotle were their
interpretations of God. On this topic Gemistos’s states:

First then, Plato’s view is that God, the supreme sovereign, is the creator of every
kind of intelligible and separate substance, and hence of our entire universe.
Aristotle, on the other hand, never calls God the creator of anything whatever, but
only the motive force of the universe.24

Gemistos was opposed to Aristotle’s view of God and supported Plato’s. God to Plato
was an abstract intangible and impersonal entity. At the same time God was the creator
of all things that were seen or unseen. In other words, God was a beginning point from
which all other sources of the intelligible existed. This was in contrast to Aristotle and
Christianity’s view of God. Aristotle found God to be the prime mover of all things and
the ultimate source of motion; Christianity on the other hand found God to be more
personal and the creator of all things in the universe. Gemistos argued that Christianity
had simplified God by presenting him in the form of the Holy Trinity. Gemistos believed
Christianity did this to make God more personal and tangible to humankind. To
Gemistos, however, God was far too complex for the average human to understand. God
was not just merely above Being as Christianity had assumed Him to be, God was Being
and the originator of originators.
Gemistos also agreed with Plato’s theory of forms. Plato argued that forms
transcended the empirical world of sensation. According to Plato, anything one saw had
a corresponding form, as did virtue. In other words, there was a form for a person, and
for a house and for a plant, as there was a form for justice, prudence, temperance, and
courage. At the same time forms could not be visualized because they were not objects
of sensation. They were merely objects of understanding that were connected to one
another. According to Plato in order for forms to be understood one needed training in
mathematics and rhetoric and without this wisdom all other virtues would not be
attainable.

23 Patrologiae Graeca, I. Also in C.M. Woodhouse, George Gemistos Plethon: The Last
of the Hellenes (Clarendon Press, 1986), 192.
24 Ibid.

10
 Like Plato, Gemistos taught his students, arithmetic, logic, rhetoric, music as well
as geography, and astronomy. These subjects provided his students with a basic
education. Gemistos believed that after students had a strong foundation in these subjects
then would they be able to begin to understand philosophy. Christian theology on the
other hand did not concern Gemistos much; he believed that theological instruction was
left for monks to teach, to those students who sought a clerical vocation. At the same time
Gemistos argued that even though it was believed that God revealed theology to
humankind, theology was still subject to philosophical investigation and scrutiny.
At the same time, Gemistos developed his own theological beliefs, and according
to some scholars these beliefs were based on ancient Greek paganism and Greek
philosophy.25
C.M. Woodhouse notes one pagan prayer, Prayer of One God that Gemistos may
have recited with his students prior to beginning their lesson. This is the only case we
have where Gemistos may have pushed his neo-pagan religion onto his students. Part of
the prayer goes as follows,

O God, creator of all supreme above all, most excellent, greatest king of all, most
high, compassionate to all, alone most generous to man and most kind, how
unsearchable and unfathomable and ineffable is the ocean of thy goodness, thy
boundless mercy towards man…. O God, the cause of all good things, consent
that I may progress to thy divine knowledge and to exercise of good counsel and
good works in this life!26

The prayer seems religiously neutral. It could be Christian, Jewish, or generally

monotheistic, but at the same it could even be pagan. Take a look at a Hellenistic prayer
called Prayer of Hermes Trismegistus below:

O God the father of all.

Holy are you God, who wishes to be know and is known by your people
Holy are you, who by the word have constituted all things that exist
O God, grant my request not to fail in the knowledge that befits us
Give me the power to enlighten those that are ignorant…
Thus I believe and I bear witness; I advance to life and light
Blessed are you father.

Like Gemistos’s Prayer of One God, the above prayer is also religiously neutral.
It does not mention any of the Greek Olympian God’s and seems to have been voiced by
followers of a monotheistic religion. At the same time there are parallels between
Gemistos’s prayer and the Hellenistic prayer. Both acknowledge a supreme creator and
both ask this higher deity for inspiration and guidance towards achieving knowledge.
What is important however is that Gemistos avoided using a common Christian prayer
with his students, but choose instead one whose practice was not sanctioned by the Greek
Church.

25 See Siniossoglou and Woodhouse.

26 Woodhouse, C.M. p. 45.

11
 V. Hladky’s recent study on Gemistos has cast doubt on Gemistos’s neo-
paganism.27 However, the majority of scholars today agree that Gemistos practiced a type
of neo-paganism that incorporated bits of ancient Greek philosophy and Zoroasterism. 28
No one is certain however what this religion was. To the Church, paganism or what
seemed to be pagan practices meant advocating religious and spiritual worship outside
the realm of a Judeo-Christian or even Islamic tradition.
Skepticism by some scholars as to whether Gemistos believed in the Greek gods
stems from Gemsisto’s use of language in his writings. For example, in some of
Gemistos’s writings he sounds more like he is merely describing Greek paganism, but not
advocating its practice. It is possible that Gemistos wrote in this way as an aegis from
being accused of practicing paganism, but Laws (Nomoi) makes it fairly clear that
Gemistos is interested in replacing Christianity with Greek philosophy and bringing back
several of the Olympian gods for religious worship and spiritual inspiration.29 .
In one passage Gemistos says,

The first of the principled doctrines is about the gods. One of the Gods is Zeus,
the supreme ruler, both the greatest and the best that is possible….He is himself
being in its entirety and completely ungenerated; both father and highest creator
of all other gods. His eldest child is motherless, and the second god is Poseidon.30

Almost a third of Laws offered prayers to the Olympian gods, and pagan
procedures on sacrifice. Gemistos also devised a triadic structure of the divinity,
composed of Zeus, Hera, and Poseidon, with Zeus ascending over the other two. To
Gemistos, Zeus represented the ultimate deity who created the universe. Unlike a
Christian God, Zeus was not an abstract figure, but transcendental and a symbol of reason
that created the entire universe. Poseidon corresponded with Jesus, and Hera with the
Virgin Mary. Gemistos also incorporated angles in his neo-pagan religion that he called
demons (δαίμονες) and in portions of Laws he advocated the worship of the Sun.31

27 Hladky, V., Plato’s Second Coming: An Outline of the Philosophy of George Gemistos
Plethon. (Unpublished Dissertation, 2007).
28 Runciman, Steve. The Last Byzantine Renaissance. (Cambridge University Press,
1968), Woodhouse, C.M., George Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (Clarendon Press,
1986), Papacostas, George. George Gemistos Plethon: A Study of his Philosophical Ideas and his
Role as a Philosopher-Teacher. (Unpublished Dissertation, 1968), Siniossoglou, Nikitas. Radical
Platonism in Byzantium: Illumination and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon. (Cambridge University
Press, 2011).
29Migne, J.P. Patrologia Graeca (1911). Migne’s Patrologia is composed of two
collections: Patrologiae Latinae Cursus Completus, 217 and Patrologiae Graecae Cursus
Completus, of which one series contains only Latin translations. The second series contains the
Greek text with a Latin translation. The entire work was completed in 1911.
30 Much of Gemistos’s manuscripts ended up in the hands of his former student Vasilios
Bessarion. Bessarion later donated his books to the library of San Marco. This except comes
from a manuscript Summary of the Doctrines of Zoraster and Plato thought to have been written
by Gemistos. The text is also found in Patrologia Graeca, 160: 973-73 and in Darien C. Debolt’s
article “Geroge Gemistos Plethon on God: Heterodoxy in Defense of Orthodoxy”.
31Ibid, Woodhouse, C.M.

12
 Gemistos also dismissed Christ as his savior, and referred to Christian teachers
and religious leaders as charlatans. He also suggested that Christianity was filled with
lies that only misguided humankind from finding truth and virtue. Most serious of all was
that Gemistos suggested that the ancient Greeks had achieved a higher spiritual and
cultural level than his Christian world. This went against the Church’s long standing
belief that humankind discovered its spiritual and intellectual apex only after the
revelation of the Christ and Holy Spirit.
Important to Gemistos were also the Chaldean Oracles and Julian the Apostates’s
(331-363 ACE) interpretation of the Oracles. These were parts of fragmentary texts from
the 2nd century ACE, which were primarily Hellenistic commentaries of an “oriental”
mystery poem. Gemistos is thought to have used portions of the Oracles to devise his
neo-pagan theology.32 Greeks had been interested in the Oracles for several centuries.
They were seen as enigmatic and comprising cryptic and prophetic messages. Proclus
Lycaeus (412-485 ACE) wrote a commentary of the Oracles of which Gemistos was
familiar. Gemistos himself wrote a Commentary and Brief Explanation of the Oracles
from which Gemistos gives his own interpretation of the Oracles.
Gemistos’s theological beliefs were not well received by the Church and most of
his students did not adopt his religious beliefs. At the same time, Gemistos beliefs were
not highly unusual for the time. The practice of paganism was very common and the
Church was aware of this. Paganism had always appealed to scholars like Gemistos and
in many parts of the rural Greek peninsula it continued to be practiced several centuries
after Gemistos’s had died. Incorporating pagan practices into Christianity was also
common. Moreover, even though the practice of paganism was a capital offense, the
Greek Church rarely went so far as to carry out the punishment. It was aware that many
people in the empire had yet to fully accept Christianity, (and that it would take some
time before paganism was completely eradicated) but was optimistic that they too would
eventually find Christianity as their true faith. At the same time, Scholarios, Gemistos’s
former student was aware of some of Gemistos’s neo-pagan practices. In his writings, he
makes mention of a pagan cell operating in Mistra and of a secret society (fratria), but
stops short of publicly accusing Gemistos of teaching paganism. It is only after Gemistos
has died that Scholarios takes action.

Gemistos’s Πολιτεία

Political philosophy was also of interest to Gemistos, and Plato influenced much
of his vision of a utopian polis. 33 Much of Gemisto’s political philosophy could be found
in two political treatises: Advice to the Despot Theodore Concerning the Affairs of the
Peloponnese (1416) and Gerogios Gemistos to Manuel Palaiologos Regarding the Affairs
of the Peloponnese (1418). Gemistos’s treatises advocated major economic and military
reforms in the Peloponnese. Gemisto’s proposed a more centralized government in the

32 Burns, Dylan. “The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster, Hekate’s Couch, and Platonic
Orientalism in Psellos and Plethon.” Aries. (Koninklijke Brill, 2006). 158-179.
33 See Peritore, Patrick N. “The Political Thought of Gemistos Plethon: A Rennaissance
Byzantine Reformer.” Polity. (Palgrave Macmillan Jounals, Winter 1997). 168-191 and Garnesey,
P. “Gemistos Plethon and Platonic Political Philosophy. In Rousseau, Ph. And Papoutsakis, E. ed.
Transformations of Late Antiquity:Essays for Peter Brown. Adlershot, (2009). 327-340.

13
Peloponnese, independent from Constantinople’s authority. He also supported a strong
military presence along the Isthmus in Corinth where the region would be guarded from a
northern invasion. Monarchy to him was the best form of government, but within his
ideal state monarchs would also seek the advise of a counseling body of philosophers.
Socially and economically, Gemistos proposed the redistribution of royal land to the local
working peasantry. In this way the region would become self-sufficient and develop its
own economy. Despots in the Peloponnese had for some time imported much of the
regions goods, making its economy mostly import based. Gemistos also proposed that
soldiers would not have to pay taxes and taxpayers did not have to serve in the military.
Like Plato’s vision of a utopian city, Gemistos was also looking to create a city
that operated in accordance with the needs of its people. Each member of the city would
play a social role within the entire function and operation of the state. Gemistos found it
important in maintaining an appropriate division of labor within his Peloponnesian state.
For Gemistos, every city required workers to perform all necessary services---artisans,
craftsmen, farmers and so forth. Every state also required soldiers to protect its borders
and institutions. Finally, every state needed rulers whose responsibility was to govern the
state, by making decisions, developing policy, and enforcing laws. To Gemistos these
rulers needed to be philosophers.
Gemistos believed that radical reforms were needed in the Peloponnese if it were
to remain independent from foreign occupation. He was aware that the system of rule in
Constantinople was not working since the empire was gradually collapsing. Overall,
Gemistos’s Peloponnese looked more like the militarily and oligarchical government
advocated by Plato than the once democratically ruled ancient Athens.

Death and Revival

Gemistos died in Mistra in 1452. Gemistos’s two sons Demetrios and Adnronikos
are thought to have made their way to Italy after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. A
grandson of Gemistos is known to have been living in Italy in 1467. He was supported
financially through a pension set up for him by Cardinal Bessarion. Not much more is
known about Gemistos’s descendants. Almost immediately after Gemistos’s death the
Greek Church and several scholars condemned his life’s work. His final work Laws was
the most controversial of all. His critics judged it to be an esoteric and unjust attack on
the Church and Christianity. Scholarios who in 1454 became Gannadios II Patriarch of
Constantinople (an appointment granted to him by Sultan Mehmet II after the conquest of
Constantinople in 1453) was immensely disturbed by it. He saw it as Gemistos’s final
abuse to the Church. At certain points, the book brought Scholarios to tears and other
points Scholarios was uncertain if Gemistos had gone completely mad. 34 After reading it
in its entirety, Scholarios wished that he had never come across a copy and called for it to
be committed to the flames at once.35
Scholarios believed that Gemistos’s ideas on Zoroaster came from his former
teacher Elissaeus a Hellenistic Jewish mystic, and that his beliefs on polytheism were

34 Petit, L., Siderides, X.A., and Jugie, M. ed. Oevure complétes de Gennade Scholarios.
(Paris, 1928-36).
35 Ibid.

14
derived from the Neo-Platonist Proclus (412-485 ACE).36 Gemistos however never
mentioned Elissaeus in his writings and although Proclus and Gemistos’s shared similar
ideas on Greek paganism they differed in their interpretations on Plato and Aristotle.37
After reflection, Scholarios had concluded that Gemistos was a victim of ancient Greek
doctrines and that paganism and demons had inspired (and even possessed) him to write
in this way. To Scholarios, Gemistos had crossed over from his world, a world that
learned to appreciate ancient Greek literature, to one where Gemistos longed on
becoming like the ancient Greeks in almost all aspects of life.
While most of Gemistos’s Laws were burned, most of his other works were left
unharmed. His mystery school in Mistra continued to stay open under the direction of
John Moschos where it continued to attract students from both Greece and Italy.
Moschos however did away with most of Gemistos’s esoteric teachings on ancient Greek
paganism, but continued to teach students ancient Greek philosophy. The school
however was later closed permanently. It is not certain if Scholarios had the school
closed or if the school had to shut its doors because it had trouble attracting students who
by this time found the Academy of Florence a more appealing venue to learn ancient
Greek philosophy.
By the 16th century few Greek scholars mention Gemistos and the Church’s
attacks on him are almost completely subdued. Several Italian scholars attempted to
translate his De Differentiis into Latin, but the translations were filled with inaccuracies,
and distortions. By the later part of the century a Francesco Patrizzi (1529-1597 ACE)
wrote a revised edition of the Chaldean Oracles from which he criticized Gemistos’s
Commentary on the Oracles. He went so far as to call Gemistos a pagan. Other scholars
of the period as Adolphus Occo (1524-1604 ACE) and George Chariander went to great
lengths to defend his work and restore his name. 38 By the 17th century a French traveler
visiting Athens mentions, Argyropoulos, George of Trebizond, Theodore of Gaza, and
Gemistos as important Greek scholars of the 15th century.
By the early 19th century Gemistos reappears again, this time within the social,
political, and cultural discourse of the Modern Greek national project. In 1821 Greece
declared independence from the Ottoman Empire after almost four hundred years of
Turkish rule. Gemistos’s writings and teachings were used to challenge European
assertions that a Modern Greek national consciousness was a recent construction
imagined by 19th century advocates of modern Greek statehood. For many proponents of
a Greek national state, Gemistos’s views on Greek identity served to legitimize the
existence of a modern state of Greece. This was based on Gemistos’s own views of a
Greek cultural continuity dating back to ancient Greece. In all, Gemistos served as a
historical missing link between ancient and modern Greece, whereby a Greek national
identity had traveled through time intact from ancient, Byzantine, and Modern Greece.
Gemistos was thus viewed as a proto-Greek nationalist for advocating a Greek national
identity based on Modern Greece’s cultural and historic relationship to ancient Greece.

36 Ibid.
37 Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western
Culture. (Cambridge University Press, 2012).
38 See Occo, Adolphus. “Preface”. De Virtutibus (1552) and Chariander, George.
Translation. “De Differentiis. (1574).

15
 In the 20th and 21st centuries Gemistos’s writings and teachings saw a revival in
academic circles. Scholars from various fields examined Gemistos from multiple
disciplinary lenses and perspectives. More recently three books have been written on
Gemistos, C.M. Woodhouse’s, Gemistos Plethon: The Last of the Hellenes (1986), Kostas
Mandilas’s, George Gemistos-Plethon (1997), and Nikitas Siniossoglou’s, Radical
Platonism in Byzantium: Illuminations and Utopia in Gemistos Plethon (2012).
Woodhouse’s work is perhaps the most comprehensive biographical work on Gemistos,
and Siniossoglou’s work is the most comprehensive examination of Gemisto’s
philosophy. Several other academic papers have been published on Gemistos. These
papers have centered mostly on Gemistos’s writings on philosophy, geography, politics,
religion, astronomy, history and national identity.39

Concluding Thoughts

Gemistos is best remembered today for his expositions on Plato and Aristotle and
for his attempts to revive classical studies in Byzantium. Prior to Gemistos, western
scholars had yet to make a concrete distinction between Plato and Aristotle. Aristotle was
preferred over Plato and what was known about Plato was usually distorted by
Neoplatonic interpretations of ancient Greek philosophy. Gemistos helped the west
become aware of the major differences of the two philosophers, but more importantly
why Plato was more significant than Aristotle. Gemistos thus (re) awakened the western
world to Plato in a more purified form. As discussed in this paper, Plato was
controversial to both the Western and Eastern Church’s, because his philosophy
challenged many of the their beliefs, but also because he argued for the intersection of
disciplines for the purposes of learning.
Gemistos’s teaching methods were also likely influenced by Plato’s philosophy.
Like Plato, Gemisto’s understood that knowledge already existed in the student and that it
merely needed to be drawn out. Gemistos also incorporated a teaching strategy that used
questioning and discussion rather than memorization and recitation that had been
popularized during his time.
Scholars today continue to debate Gemistos’s influence on the Italian Renaissance
and the extent to which Gemistos’s imparted Greek knowledge to the west. Gemistos is
not the only Greek scholar to have contributed to the Renaissance. Greek scholars began
immigrating to Italy as early as the 13th century. These émigrés brought with them

39 See Anastos, Milton V. “Pletho’s Calendar and Liturgy.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers.
(Dumbarton Oaks-Harvard University,1948). pp. 183-205. Diller, Aubrey. “A Geographical
Treatise By Georgius Gemistus Pletho.” History of Science Society. (University of Chicago Press,
1937). pp. 441-451. Nicol, Donald M. “Byzantine Mistra—Sparta in Mind.” British School of
Athens Studies. (British School of Athens, 1998). pp. 157-159. Peritore, Patrick N. “The Political
Thought of Gemistos Plethon: A Rennaissance Byzantine Reformer.” Polity. (Palgrave Macmillan
Journals, 1977). pp. 168-191. Webb, Ruth. “The Nomoi of Gemistos Plethon in the light of
Plato’s Laws.” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes. (Warburg Institute, 1988). pp.
214-219. Tihon, Anne. “The Astronomy of Geroge Gemistus Plethon.” Journal for the History of
Astronomy. (1998). pp. 109-116. Bargeliotis, L.C. “Plethons Conception of Justice and Law.”
Phronimon. (2000). pp. 23-29. Livanos, Christopher. “The Conflict Between Scholarios and
Plethon: Religion and Communal Identity in Early Modern Greece.” In Nagy, Gregory and
Stavrakopoulou, Anna. Modern Greek Literature. (Routledge, 2003). pp. 23-35.

16
knowledge and information on ancient Greece that was unfamiliar to most western
scholars. Like many of these Greek scholars, Gemistos saw himself as a descendant of
the ancient Greeks. Gemistos’s language and culture revealed this to him. Gemistos’s
teachings both in Constantinople and Mistra eventually found their way in Italy.
Gemistos accomplished this personally with his lectures in Ferrara and Florence in 1438
and 1439 and through his students. Cardinal Bessarion perhaps played the greatest role
in spreading Gemisto’s philosophy.
For most of his intellectual career Bessarion was an ardent supporter of
Gemistos’s teachings and writings. He was involved in exposing Italians to Gemistos’s
expositions of philosophy, astronomy, geography, and even theology. At the same time,
Bessarion was involved in the preservation of several classical Greek texts. After being
elected cardinal, Bessarion had at his disposal the financial resources and influence to
accommodate a host of Greek exiles in his residence in Rome. Among those were George
of Trebizond, Theodore Gazes, Michael Apostoles, Demetrios Chalkokondyles, and
Adronikos Kallistos. We know for certain that Apostoles was Gemistos’s student and that
the others had read some or at the least were familiar with some of Gemistos’s work.
With the arrival of these exiles, humanist and classical studies was only augmented in
Italy. Michael Apostoles was assigned by Bessarion to save as many Greek manuscripts
located in areas controlled by the Ottoman Turks and Venetians. It is said that because of
Bessarion and Apostoles work over 700 Greek manuscripts were saved from being lost or
destroyed. Later Apostoles’s son, Arsenios (1465-1535 ACE) became inspired by
Gemistos work on a Greek national identity. Like Gemistos, Arsenios believed that in
order for the Greeks or Hellenes to be liberated from their Ottoman rulers they needed to
first look back to their ancient ancestors.
Gemistos today is remembered as a controversial historical figure that was
perhaps misunderstood by his contemporaries. He differed from other scholars of the
Renaissance in that he did not try to mask his beliefs, but instead challenged the
intellectual conventions of his time by raising questions that ultimately forced his critics
and skeptics to reevaluate their own beliefs and teachings. Gemistos understood that for
his society to prosper intellectually it needed to look back to its past. In this way and
other ways, Gemistos was no doubt a humanist and one of the great thinkers and teachers
of his time.

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