Revelry and reverie in Plato and early Christian thinkers: Platonic metaphors of Ecstasy in Clement of Alexandria and Pseudo-Macarius

This chapter argues that Pseudo-Macarius, a fourth-century anonymous Syrian monk known for his contribution to the Christian ascetic tradition, employed the Platonic metaphors of baccheia (revelry) and theoria (reverie) to advance an authoritative vision of achieving fellowship with God and joining the Heavenly kingdom, in line with Philo’s reading of Plato, which influenced Clement of Alexandria and his student Origen. The argument expands on my recently published research on the metaphorical meaning/s of baccheia and theoria which Plato advanced to describe the processes of acquiring an altered state of consciousness through the practice of philosophy, and which Clement of Alexandria transformed into markers of achieving spiritual progress in view of gaining citizenship in the kingdom of God.