
Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus (circa 1485) isn't just one of the most enduringly famous paintings in the world.
It's also a prophecy.
Even before the Old Paganisms were dead, the New Paganisms had already begun to arise.
The Old Pagans were Pagans-by-Tradition. In a sense, their paganism was unconscious; they didn't know that they were pagan. The New Pagans are Pagans-by-Choice. With full awareness of alternatives, they—we—nonetheless choose the Old Ways.
The emperor Julian (331-363) was raised Christian, but chose the Old Ways instead. In a sense, he was the first New Pagan. At the end of the Byzantine Era, the philosopher George (“Plêthon”) Gemistós (1355?-1452), also raised Christian, did the same. Several of his students were self-avowed pagans.
It was they who, after the fall of Constantinople, fled to Italy and, in so doing, sparked the self-conscious rePaganization of the West that we now call the Renaissance: the influx of Old Pagan learning, aesthetics, and values into the West, the process that was ultimately to break the power of the Church and to free the Western mind.
-
Mr. Posch, Thanks for mentioning Plethon! He was a hero and visionary, even if I didn't necessarily agree with all his ideas.