Michael Psellos

Psellos revived the direct study of Plato in Byzantium after centuries when Aristotle had dominated philosophical education. His commentaries on the Timaeus and other dialogues re-established Plato as a living philosophical authority in the Byzantine curriculum.

"Plato is for me the summit of philosophy, the wellspring from which all streams of wisdom flow." (Letter, paraphrase of Psellos's characteristic stance)

Psellos was the first Byzantine to rehabilitate Proclus's philosophical theology after its long eclipse. His commentary on the Chaldean Oracles and his interest in theurgy placed him squarely in the Iamblichan-Proclean tradition.

His extensive commentary on the Chaldean Oracles draws directly on Proclus's lost commentary and preserves much Proclean material otherwise unknown.

Psellos remained nominally Orthodox and his theological works affirm Christian doctrine, but his enthusiasm for pagan Platonism and theurgy put him under repeated ecclesiastical suspicion — a tension characteristic of Byzantine humanism.

Psellos was forced to make a public profession of faith in 1054 after accusations of heresy related to his philosophical teaching.

Psellos's interest in the Chaldean Oracles, demonology, theurgy, and occult philosophy makes him a key figure in the Byzantine transmission of esoteric traditions to the Renaissance.

His "On the Operation of Demons" (De Operatione Daemonum) and his commentary on the Chaldean Oracles were important sources for Renaissance Neoplatonists.

Psellos was an accomplished rhetorician in the Atticist tradition, and his prose style — elaborate, allusive, self-conscious — exemplifies the Byzantine classical revival of the eleventh century.

The Chronographia deploys the full range of classical Greek rhetorical techniques in its psychological portraits of emperors and court figures.