ancient city of Alexandria

Synesii and Comparative Religion

We can speak of “Synesii”, “mirror images” of the philosophical bishop Synesius who developed a wide ranging Syncretism. These include Neoplatonists Ficino and Pico in Renaissance Florence with their interests in Platonism, Kabbalah, and Hermeticism; the seventeenth century Cambridge Platonists in England; nineteenth century Romantics such as Coleridge; and the American Transcendentalists (Emerson thought Synesius “magnificent”). In the twentieth century, Mircea Eliade did much to academicize this outlook, and syncretist Joseph Campbell helped to bring it to a broad audience