so i was reading throough plethon's book of lawss, and I found it odd he associated Zeus with the platonic "form of the good" (the supreme form) and described zeus as an actual creator God. what kind of "return to paganism" suggests making a pagan God into a monotehsitic one?
>>18420009The term “pagan” was coined by Christian writers to refer to anyone who didn’t follow Christianity or Judaism and by this original definition, nearly every religion that has ever existed is “pagan.” It comes from the Latin word paganus meaning “rural” or “country-dweller” because even after Christianity was declared the state religion of the Roman Empire, rural areas still remained majority “pagan” well into the early Middle Ages. The modern equivalent of this would be calling rural conservative Christians in America “rednecks.”But to answer your question, I wouldn’t say Plethon’s theology was monotheistic since he still believed in the other Greek gods and that although lesser to Zeus they were still worthy of worship. His belief regarding the supremacy of Zeus wasn’t anything new since the Ancient Greeks already believed he could overpower the other gods with little effort and that they all served or at least respected/feared him.
>>18420009Middle and Neo-platonism were already halfway there so I believe it is fitting.
