D.P. Walker’s The Ancient Theology (1972) has not made as much impact as Frances Yates’ Art of Memory (1966), but is based on the same strategy of identifying an influential complex of ideas and tracking its effects and transformations. For the history of the classical tradition Walker’s book is particularly important because it deals with major ingredients in recurrent efforts to reconcile pagan classical thought with Christianity, from the Renaissance to the eighteenth century.
The basis for this reconciliation was the claim that God had originally given his revelation to all mankind; for the most part it had been distorted by priests, either because abstract truths had to be veiled in symbolic imagery to persuade simple minds, or merely to increase their own wealth and/or power. However, the revelation had been secretly preserved and handed down by wise men, the ‘ancient theologians’. The list of these sages varied: in addition to Orpheus, Hermes Trismegistus, Moses, Pythagoras, a...

