Prisca Theologia

The prisca theologia, the 'ancient theology', is the Renaissance conviction — championed by Ficino and Pico — that a single divine wisdom was revealed in remotest antiquity and handed down through a succession of inspired sages: Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus, Pythagoras, and so to Plato, all in harmony with the truth later fulfilled in Christianity.

It is the esoteric cousin of the golden chain of the Neoplatonists and the ancestor of the 'perennial philosophy' — the belief in one timeless truth underlying every authentic tradition. The idea licensed the Renaissance project of reconciling Plato, Aristotle, the Hermetica, and the Kabbalah into one universal wisdom.