giovanni pico della mirandola (1463-94)
And
still, as I reflected upon the basis assigned for these estimations,
I was not fully persuaded by the diverse reasons advanced for
the pre-eminence of human nature; that man is the intermediary
between creatures, that he is the familiar of the gods above
him as he is the lord of the beings beneath him; that, by the
acuteness of his senses, the inquiry of his reason and the light
of his intelligence, he is the interpreter of nature, set midway
between the timeless unchanging and the flux of time; the living
union (as the Persians say), the very marriage hymn of the world,
and, by David's testimony but little lower than the angels. These
reasons are all, without question, of great weight; nevertheless,
they do not touch the principal reasons, those, that is to say,
which justify man's unique right for such unbounded admiration.
Why, I asked, should we not admire the angels themselves and
the beatific choirs more? At long last, however, I feel that
I have come to some understanding of why man is the most fortunate
of living things and, consequently, deserving of all admiration;
of what may be the condition in the hierarchy of beings assigned
to him, which draws upon him the envy, not of the brutes alone,
but of the astral beings and of the very intelligences which
dwell beyond the confines of the world. A thing surpassing belief
and smiting the soul with wonder. Still, how could it be otherwise?
For it is on this ground that man is, with complete justice,
considered and called a great miracle and a being worthy of all
admiration.*
Hear
then, oh Fathers, precisely what this condition of man is; and
in the name of your humanity, grant me your benign audition as
I pursue this theme.*
God
the Father, the Mightiest Architect, had already raised, according
to the precepts of His hidden wisdom, this world we see, the
cosmic dwelling of divinity, a temple most august. He had already
adorned the supercelestial region with Intelligences, infused
the heavenly globes with the life of immortal souls and set the
fermenting dung-heap of the inferior world teeming with every
form of animal life. But when this work was done, the Divine
Artificer still longed for some creature which might comprehend
the meaning of so vast an achievement, which might be moved with
love at its beauty and smitten with awe at its grandeur. When,
consequently, all else had been completed (as both Moses and
Timaeus testify), in the very last place, He bethought Himself
of bringing forth man. Truth was, however, that there remained
no archetype according to which He might fashion a new offspring,
nor in His treasure-houses the wherewithal to endow a new son
with a fitting inheritance, nor any place, among the seats of
the universe, where this new creature might dispose himself to
contemplate the world. All space was already filled; all things
had been distributed in the highest, the middle and the lowest
orders. Still, it was not in the nature of the power of the Father
to fail in this last creative élan; nor was it in the
nature of that supreme Wisdom to hesitate through lack of counsel
in so crucial a matter; nor, finally, in the nature of His beneficent
love to compel the creature destined to praise the divine generosity
in all other things to find it wanting in himself.*
At
last, the Supreme Maker decreed that this creature, to whom He
could give nothing wholly his own, should have a share in the
particular endowment of every other creature. Taking man, therefore,
this creature of indeterminate image, He set him in the middle
of the world and thus spoke to him:*
``We
have given you, O Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment
properly your own, in order that whatever place, whatever form,
whatever gifts you may, with premeditation, select, these same
you may have and possess through your own judgement and decision.
The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within
laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no
such restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody
We have assigned you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your
own nature. I have placed you at the very center of the world,
so that from that vantage point you may with greater ease glance
round about you on all that the world contains. We have made
you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal
nor immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper
of your own being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer.
It will be in your power to descend to the lower, brutish forms
of life; you will be able, through your own decision, to rise
again to the superior orders whose life is divine.''*
Oh
unsurpassed generosity of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable
felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses,
to be what he wills to be! The brutes, from the moment of their
birth, bring with them, as Lucilius says, ``from their mother's
womb'' all that they will ever possess. The highest spiritual
beings were, from the very moment of creation, or soon thereafter,
fixed in the mode of being which would be theirs through measureless
eternities. But upon man, at the moment of his creation, God
bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of
every form of life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate,
the same will mature and bear fruit in him. If vegetative, he
will become a plant; if sensual, he will become brutish; if rational,
he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual, he
will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with
the lot of all creatures, he should recollect himself into the
center of his own unity, he will there become one spirit with
God, in the solitary darkness of the Father, Who is set above
all things, himself transcend all creatures.*
Who
then will not look with awe upon this our chameleon, or who,
at least, will look with greater admiration on any other being?
This creature, man, whom Asclepius the Athenian, by reason of
this very mutability, this nature capable of transforming itself,
quite rightly said was symbolized in the mysteries by the figure
of Proteus. This is the source of those metamorphoses, or transformations,
so celebrated among the Hebrews and among the Pythagoreans; for
even the esoteric theology of the Hebrews at times transforms
the holy Enoch into that angel of divinity which is sometimes
called malakh-ha-shekhinah and at other times transforms
other personages into divinities of other names; while the Pythagoreans
transform men guilty of crimes into brutes or even, if we are
to believe Empedocles, into plants; and Mohammed, imitating them,
was known frequently to say that the man who deserts the divine
law becomes a brute. And he was right; for it is not the bark
that makes the tree, but its insensitive and unresponsive nature;
nor the hide which makes the beast of burden, but its brute and
sensual soul; nor the orbicular form which makes the heavens,
but their harmonious order. Finally, it is not freedom from a
body, but its spiritual intelligence, which makes the angel.
If you see a man dedicated to his stomach, crawling on the ground,
you see a plant and not a man; or if you see a man bedazzled
by the empty forms of the imagination, as by the wiles of Calypso,
and through their alluring solicitations made a slave to his
own senses, you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you see
a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according
to the rule of reason, him shall you hold in veneration, for
he is a creature of heaven and not of earth; if, finally, a pure
contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly withdrawn into the
inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a creature
of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed
in human flesh.*
Who
then will not look with wonder upon man, upon man who, not without
reason in the sacred Mosaic and Christian writings, is designated
sometimes by the term ``all flesh'' and sometimes by the term
``every creature,'' because he molds, fashions and transforms
himself into the likeness of all flesh and assumes the characteristic
power of every form of life? This is why Evantes the Persian
in his exposition of the Chaldean theology, writes that man has
no inborn and proper semblance, but many which are extraneous
and adventitious: whence the Chaldean saying: ``Enosh hu
shinnujim vekammah tebhaoth haj'' --- ``man is a living
creature of varied, multiform and ever-changing nature.''*
But
what is the purpose of all this? That we may understand --- since
we have been born into this condition of being what we choose
to be --- that we ought to be sure above all else that it may
never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed
to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and
uncomprehending beasts of burden; and that the saying of Aspah
the Prophet, ``You are all Gods and sons of the Most High,''
might rather be true; and finally that we may not, through abuse
of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the free
option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift.
Let a certain saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient
of mediocrity, we pant after the highest things and (since, if
we will, we can) bend all our efforts to their attainment. Let
us disdain things of earth, hold as little worth even the astral
orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten
to that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead.
There, as the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim
and Thrones occupy the first places; but, unable to yield to
them, and impatient of any second place, let us emulate their
dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be inferior to
them in nothing.*
How
must we proceed and what must we do to realize this ambition?
Let us observe what they do, what kind of life they lead. For
if we lead this kind of life (and we can) we shall attain their
same estate. The Seraphim burns with the fire of charity; from
the Cherubim flashes forth the splendor of intelligence; the
Thrones stand firm with the firmness of justice. If, consequently,
in the pursuit of the active life we govern inferior things by
just criteria, we shall be established in the firm position of
the Thrones. If, freeing ourselves from active care, we devote
our time to contemplation, meditating upon the Creator in His
work, and the work in its Creator, we shall be resplendent with
the light of the Cherubim. If we burn with love for the Creator
only, his consuming fire will quickly transform us into the flaming
likeness of the Seraphim. Above the Throne, that is, above the
just judge, God sits, judge of the ages. Above the Cherub, that
is, the contemplative spirit, He spreads His wings, nourishing
him, as it were, with an enveloping warmth. For the spirit of
the Lord moves upon the waters, those waters which are above
the heavens and which, according to Job, praise the Lord in pre-aurorial
hymns. Whoever is a Seraph, that is a lover, is in God and God
is in him; even, it may be said, God and he are one. Great is
the power of the Thrones, which we attain by right judgement,
highest of all the sublimity of the Seraphim which we attain
by loving.*
But
how can anyone judge or love what he does not know? Moses loved
the God whom he had seen and as judge of his people he administered
what he had previously seen in contemplation on the mountain.
Therefore the Cherub is the intermediary and by his light equally
prepares us for the fire of the Seraphim and the judgement of
the Thrones. This is the bond which unites the highest minds,
the Palladian order which presides over contemplative philosophy;
this is then the bond which before all else we must emulate,
embrace and comprehend, whence we may be rapt to the heights
of love or descend, well instructed and prepared, to the duties
of the practical life. But certainly it is worth the effort,
if we are to form our life on the model of the Cherubim, to have
familiarly before our eyes both its nature and its quality as
well as the duties and the functions proper to it. Since it is
not granted to us, flesh as we are and knowledgeable only the
things of earth, to attain such knowledge by our own efforts,
let us have recourse to the ancient Fathers. They can give us
the fullest and most reliable testimony concerning these matters
because they had an almost domestic and connatural knowledge
of them.*
Let
us ask the Apostle Paul, that vessel of election, in what activity
he saw the armies of the Cherubim engaged when he was rapt into
the third heaven. He will answer, according to the interpretation
of Dionysius, that he saw them first being purified, then illuminated,
and finally made perfect. We, therefore, imitating the life of
the Cherubim here on earth, by refraining the impulses of our
passions through moral science, by dissipating the darkness of
reason by dialectic --- thus washing away, so to speak, the filth
of ignorance and vice --- may likewise purify our souls, so that
the passions may never run rampant, nor reason, lacking restraint,
range beyond its natural limits. Then may we suffuse our purified
souls with the light of natural philosophy, bringing it to final
perfection by the knowledge of divine things.*
Lest
we be satisfied to consult only those of our own faith and tradition,
let us also have recourse to the patriarch, Jacob, whose likeness,
carved on the throne of glory, shines out before us. This wisest
of the Fathers who though sleeping in the lower world, still
has his eyes fixed on the world above, will admonish us. He will
admonish, however, in a figure, for all things appeared in figures
to the men of those times: a ladder rises by many rungs from
earth to the height of heaven and at its summit sits the Lord,
while over its rungs the contemplative angels move, alternately
ascending and descending. If this is what we, who wish to imitate
the angelic life, must do in our turn, who, I ask, would dare
set muddied feet or soiled hands to the ladder of the Lord? It
is forbidden, as the mysteries teach, for the impure to touch
what is pure. But what are these hands, these feet, of which
we speak? The feet, to be sure, of the soul: that is, its most
despicable portion by which the soul is held fast to earth as
a root to the ground; I mean to say, it alimentary and nutritive
faculty where lust ferments and voluptuous softness is fostered.
And why may we not call ``the hand'' that irascible power of
the soul, which is the warrior of the appetitive faculty, fighting
for it and foraging for it in the dust and the sun, seizing for
it all things which, sleeping in the shade, it will devour? Let
us bathe in moral philosophy as in a living stream, these hands,
that is, the whole sensual part in which the lusts of the body
have their seat and which, as the saying is, holds the soul by
the scruff of the neck, let us be flung back from that ladder
as profane and polluted intruders. Even this, however, will not
be enough, if we wish to be the companions of the angels who
traverse the ladder of Jacob, unless we are first instructed
and rendered able to advance on that ladder duly, step by step,
at no point to stray from it and to complete the alternate ascensions
and descents. When we shall have been so prepared by the art
of discourse or of reason, then, inspired by the spirit of the
Cherubim, exercising philosophy through all the rungs of the
ladder --- that is, of nature --- we shall penetrate being from
its center to its surface and from its surface to its center.
At one time we shall descend, dismembering with titanic force
the ``unity'' of the ``many,'' like the members of Osiris; at
another time, we shall ascend, recollecting those same members,
by the power of Phoebus, into their original unity. Finally,
in the bosom of the Father, who reigns above the ladder, we shall
find perfection and peace in the felicity of theological knowledge.*
Let
us also inquire of the just Job, who made his covenant with the
God of life even before he entered into life, what, above all
else, the supreme God desires of those tens of thousands of beings
which surround Him. He will answer, without a doubt: peace, just
as it is written in the pages of Job: He establishes peace in
the high reaches of heaven. And since the middle order interprets
the admonitions of the higher to the lower orders, the words
of Job the theologian may well be interpreted for us by Empedocles
the philosopher. Empedocles teaches us that there is in our souls
a dual nature; the one bears us upwards toward the heavenly regions;
by the other we are dragged downward toward regions infernal,
through friendship and discord, war and peace; so witness those
verses in which he laments that, torn by strife and discord,
like a madman, in flight from the gods, he is driven into the
depths of the sea. For it is a patent thing, O Fathers, that
many forces strive within us, in grave, intestine warfare, worse
than the civil wars of states. Equally clear is it that, if we
are to overcome this warfare, if we are to establish that peace
which must establish us finally among the exalted of God, philosophy
alone can compose and allay that strife. In the first place,
if our man seeks only truce with his enemies, moral philosophy
will restrain the unreasoning drives of the protean brute, the
passionate violence and wrath of the lion within us. If, acting
on wiser counsel, we should seek to secure an unbroken peace,
moral philosophy will still be at hand to fulfill our desires
abundantly; and having slain either beast, like sacrificed sows,
it will establish an inviolable compact of peace between the
flesh and the spirit. Dialectic will compose the disorders of
reason torn by anxiety and uncertainty amid the conflicting hordes
of words and captious reasonings. Natural philosophy will reduce
the conflict of opinions and the endless debates which from every
side vex, distract and lacerate the disturbed mind. It will compose
this conflict, however, in such a manner as to remind us that
nature, as Heraclitus wrote, is generated by war and for this
reason is called by Homer, ``strife.'' Natural philosophy, therefore,
cannot assure us a true and unshakable peace. To bestow such
peace is rather the privilege and office of the queen of the
sciences, most holy theology. Natural philosophy will at best
point out the way to theology and even accompany us along the
path, while theology, seeing us from afar hastening to draw close
to her, will call out: ``Come unto me you who are spent in labor
and I will restore you; come to me and I will give you the peace
which the world and nature cannot give.''*
Summoned
in such consoling tones and invited with such kindness, like
earthly Mercuries, we shall fly on winged feet to embrace that
most blessed mother and there enjoy the peace we have longed
for: that most holy peace, that indivisible union, that seamless
friendship through which all souls will not only be at one in
that one mind which is above every mind, but, in a manner which
passes expression, will really be one, in the most profound depths
of being. This is the friendship which the Pythagoreans say is
the purpose of all philosophy. This is the peace which God established
in the high places of the heaven and which the angels, descending
to earth, announced to men of good will, so that men, ascending
through this peace to heaven, might become angels. This is the
peace which we would wish for our friends, for our age, for every
house into which we enter and for our own soul, that through
this peace it may become the dwelling of God; sop that, too,
when the soul, by means of moral philosophy and dialectic shall
have purged herself of her uncleanness, adorned herself with
the disciplines of philosophy as with the raiment of a prince's
court and crowned the pediments of her doors with the garlands
of theology, the King of Glory may descend and, coming with the
Father, take up his abode with her. If she prove worthy of so
great a guest, she will, through his boundless clemency, arrayed
in the golden vesture of the many sciences as in a nuptial gown,
receive him, not as a guest merely, but as a spouse. And rather
than be parted from him, she will prefer to leave her own people
and her father's house. Forgetful of her very self she will desire
to die to herself in order to live in her spouse, in whose eyes
the death of his saints is infinitely precious: I mean that death
--- if the very plenitude of life can be called death --- whose
meditation wise men have always held to be the special study
of philosophy.*
Let
us also cite Moses himself, who is but little removed from the
living well-spring of the most holy and ineffable understanding
by whose nectar the angels are inebriated. Let us listen to the
venerable judge as he enunciates his laws to us who live in the
desert solitude of the body: ``Let those who, still unclean,
have need of moral philosophy, dwell with the peoples outside
the tabernacles, under the open sky, until, like the priests
of Thessaly, they shall have cleansed themselves. Those who have
already brought order into their lives may be received into the
tabernacle, but still may not touch the sacred vessels. Let them
rather first, as zealous levites, in the service of dialectic,
minister to the holy offices of philosophy. When they shall themselves
be admitted to those offices, they may, as priests of philosophy,
contemplate the many-colored throne of the higher God, that is
the courtly palace of the star-hung heavens, the heavenly candelabrum
aflame with seven lights and elements which are the furry veils
of this tabernacle; so that, finally, having been permitted to
enter, through the merit of sublime theology, into the innermost
chambers of the temple, with no veil of images interposing itself,
we may enjoy the glory of divinity.'' This is what Moses beyond
a doubt commands us, admonishing, urging and exhorting us to
prepare ourselves, while we may, by means of philosophy, a road
to future heavenly glory.*
In
fact, however, the dignity of the liberal arts, which I am about
to discuss, and their value to us is attested not only by the
Mosaic and Christian mysteries but also by the theologies of
the most ancient times. What else is to be understood by the
stages through which the initiates must pass in the mysteries
of the Greeks? These initiates, after being purified by the arts
which we might call expiatory, moral philosophy and dialectic,
were granted admission to the mysteries. What could such admission
mean but the interpretation of occult nature by means of philosophy?
Only after they had been prepared in this way did they receive
``Epopteia,'' that is, the immediate vision of divine
things by the light of theology. Who would not long to be admitted
to such mysteries? Who would not desire, putting all human concerns
behind him, holding the goods of fortune in contempt and little
minding the goods of the body, thus to become, while still a
denizen of earth, a guest at the table of the gods, and, drunk
with the nectar of eternity, receive, while still a mortal, the
gift of immortality? Who would not wish to be so inspired by
those Socratic frenzies which Plato sings in the Phaedrus that,
swiftly fleeing this place, that is, this world fixed in evil,
by the oars, so to say, both of feet and wings, he might reach
the heavenly Jerusalem by the swiftest course? Let us be driven,
O Fathers, by those Socratic frenzies which lift us to such ecstasy
that our intellects and our very selves are united to God. And
we shall be moved by them in this way as previously we have done
all that it lies in us to do. If, by moral philosophy, the power
of our passions shall have been restrained by proper controls
so that they achieve harmonious accord; and if, by dialectic,
our reason shall have progressed by an ordered advance, then,
smitten by the frenzy of the Muses, we shall hear the heavenly
harmony with the inward ears of the spirit. Then the leader of
the Muses, Bacchus, revealing to us in our moments of philosophy,
through his mysteries, that is, the visible signs of nature,
the invisible things of God, will make us drunk with the richness
of the house of God; and there, if, like Moses, we shall prove
entirely faithful, most sacred theology will supervene to inspire
us with redoubled ecstasy. For, raised to the most eminent height
of theology, whence we shall be able to measure with the rod
of indivisible eternity all things that are and that have been;
and, grasping the primordial beauty of things, like the seers
of Phoebus, we shall become the winged lovers of theology. And
at last, smitten by the ineffable love as by a sting, and, like
the Seraphim, filled with the godhead, we shall be, no longer
ourselves, but the very One who made us.*
The
sacred names of Apollo, to anyone who penetrates their meanings
and the mysteries they conceal, clearly show that God is a philosopher
no less than a seer; but since Ammonius has amply treated this
theme, there is no occasion for me to expound it anew. Nevertheless,
O Fathers, we cannot fail to recall those three Delphic precepts
which are so very necessary for everyone about to enter the most
holy and august temple, not of the false, but of the true Apollo
who illumines every soul as it enters this world. You will see
that they exhort us to nothing else but to embrace with all our
powers this tripartite philosophy which we are now discussing.
As a matter of fact that aphorism: meden agan, this
is: ``Nothing in excess,'' duly prescribes a measure and rule
for all the virtues through the concept of the ``Mean'' of which
moral philosophy treats. In like manner, that other aphorism
gnothi seauton, that is, ``Know thyself,'' invites and
exhorts us to the study of the whole nature of which the nature
of man is the connecting link and the ``mixed potion''; for he
who knows himself knows all things in himself, as Zoroaster first
and after him Plato, in the Alcibiades, wrote. Finally, enlightened
by this knowledge, through the aid of natural philosophy, being
already close to God, employing the theological salutation ei,
that is ``Thou art,'' we shall blissfully address the true Apollo
on intimate terms.*
Let
us also seek the opinion of Pythagoras, that wisest of men, known
as a wise man precisely because he never thought himself worthy
of that name. His first precept to us will be: ``Never sit on
a bushel''; never, that is, through slothful inaction to lose
our power of reason, that faculty by which the mind examines,
judges and measures all things; but rather unremittingly by the
rule and exercise of dialectic, to direct it and keep it agile.
Next he will warn us of two things to be avoided at all costs:
Neither to make water facing the sun, nor to cut our nails while
offering sacrifice. Only when, by moral philosophy, we shall
have evacuated the weakening appetites of our too-abundant pleasures
and pared away, like nail clippings, the sharp points of anger
and wrath in our souls, shall we finally begin to take part in
the sacred rites, that is, the mysteries of Bacchus of which
we have spoken and to dedicate ourselves to that contemplation
of which the Sun is rightly called the father and the guide.
Finally, Pythagoras will command us to ``Feed the cock''; that
is, to nourish the divine part of our soul with the knowledge
of divine things as with substantial food and heavenly ambrosia.
This is the cock whose visage is the lion, that is, all earthly
power, holds in fear and awe. This is the cock to whom, as we
read in Job, all understanding was given. At this cock's crowing,
erring man returns to his senses. This is the cock which every
day, in the morning twilight, with the stars of morning, raises
a Te Deum to heaven. This is the cock which Socrates,
at the hour of his death, when he hoped he was about to join
the divinity of his spirit to the divinity of the higher world
and when he was already beyond danger of any bodily illness,
said that he owed to Asclepius, that is, the healer of souls.*
Let
us also pass in review the records of the Chaldeans; there we
shall see (if they are to be believed) that the road to happiness,
for mortals, lies through these same arts. The Chaldean interpreters
write that it was a saying of Zoroaster that the soul is a winged
creature. When her wings fall from her, she is plunged into the
body; but when they grow strong again, she flies back to the
supernal regions. And when his disciples asked him how they might
insure that their souls might be well plumed and hence swift
in flight he replied: ``Water them well with the waters of life.''
And when they persisted, asking whence they might obtain these
waters of life, he answered (as he was wont) in a parable: ``The
Paradise of God is bathed and watered by four rivers; from these
same sources you may draw the waters which will save you. The
name of the river which flows from the north is Pischon which
means, `the Right.' That which flows from the west is Gichon,
that is, `Expiation.' The river flowing from the east is named
Chiddekel, that is, `Light,' while that, finally, from the south
is Perath, which may be understood as `Compassion.' '' Consider
carefully and with full attention, O Fathers, what these deliverances
of Zoroaster might mean. Obviously, they can only mean that we
should, by moral science, as by western waves, wash the uncleanness
from our eyes; that, by dialectic, as by a reading taken by the
northern star, our gaze must be aligned with the right. Then,
that we should become accustomed to bear, in the contemplation
of nature, the still feeble light of truth, like the first rays
of the rising sun, so that finally we may, through theological
piety and the most holy cult of God, become able, like the eagles
of heaven, to bear the effulgent splendor of the noonday sun.
These are, perhaps, those ``morning, midday and evening thoughts''
which David first celebrated and on which St. Augustine later
expatiated. This is the noonday light which inflames the Seraphim
toward their goal and equally illuminates the Cherubim. This
is the promised land toward which our ancient father Abraham
was ever advancing; this the region where, as the teachings of
the Cabalists and the Moors tell us, there is no place for unclean
spirits. And if we may be permitted, even in the form of a riddle,
to say anything publicly about the deeper mysteries: since the
precipitous fall of man has left his mind in a vertiginous whirl
and and since according to Jeremiah, death has come in through
the windows to infect our hearts and bowels with evil, let us
call upon Raphael, the heavenly healer that by moral philosophy
and dialectic, as with healing drugs, he may release us. When
we shall have been restored to health, Gabriel, the strength
of God, will abide in us. Leading us through the marvels of nature
and pointing out to us everywhere the power and the goodness
of God, he will deliver us finally to the care of the High Priest
Michael. He, in turn, will adorn those who have successfully
completed their service to philosophy with the priesthood of
theology as with a crown of precious stones.*
These
are the reasons, most reverend Fathers, which not only led, but
even compelled me, to the study of philosophy. And I should not
have undertaken to expound them, except to reply to those who
are wont to condemn the study of philosophy, especially among
men of high rank, but also among those of modest station. For
the whole study of philosophy (such is the unhappy plight of
our time) is occasion for contempt and contumely, rather than
honor and glory. The deadly and monstrous persuasion has invaded
practically all minds, that philosophy ought not to be studied
at all or by very few people; as though it were a thing of little
worth to have before our eyes and at our finger-tips, as matters
we have searched out with greatest care, the causes of things,
the ways of nature and the plan of the universe, God's counsels
and the mysteries of heaven and earth, unless by such knowledge
on might procure some profit or favor for oneself. Thus we have
reached the point, it is painful to recognize, where the only
persons accounted wise are those who can reduce the pursuit of
wisdom to a profitable traffic; and chaste Pallas, who dwells
among men only by the generosity of the gods, is rejected, hooted,
whistled at in scorn, with no one to love or befriend her unless,
by prostituting herself, she is able to pay back into the strongbox
of her lover the ill-procured price of her deflowered virginity.
I address all these complaints, with the greatest regret and
indignation, not against the princes of our times, but against
the philosophers who believe and assert that philosophy should
not be pursued because no monetary value or reward is assigned
it, unmindful that by this sign they disqualify themselves as
philosophers. Since their whole life is concentrated on gain
and ambition, they never embrace the knowledge of the truth for
its own sake. This much will I say for myself --- and on this
point I do not blush for praising myself --- that I have never
philosophized save for the sake of philosophy, nor have I ever
desired or hoped to secure from my studies and my laborious researches
any profit or fruit save cultivation of mind and knowledge of
the truth --- things I esteem more and more with the passage
of time. I have also been so avid for this knowledge and so enamored
of it that I have set aside all private and public concerns to
devote myself completely to contemplation; and from it no calumny
of jealous persons, nor any invective from enemies of wisdom
has ever been able to detach me. Philosophy has taught me to
rely on my own convictions rather than on the judgements of others
and to concern myself less with whether I am well thought of
than whether what I do or say is evil.*
I
was not unaware, most revered Fathers, that this present disputation
of mine would be as acceptable and as pleasing to you, who favor
all the good arts and who have consented to grace it with your
presence, as it would be irritating and offensive to many others.
I am also aware that there is no dearth of those who have condemned
my undertaking before this and continue to do so on a number
of grounds. But this has always been the case: works which are
well-intentioned and sincerely directed to virtue have always
had no fewer --- not to say more --- detractors than those undertaken
for questionable motives and for devious ends. Some persons disapprove
the present type of disputation in general and this method of
disputing in public about learned matters; they assert that they
serve only the exhibition of talent and the display of opinion,
rather than the increase of learning. Others do not disapprove
this type of exercise, but resent the fact that at my age, a
mere twenty-four years, I have dared to propose a disputation
concerning the most subtle mysteries of Christian theology, the
most debated points of philosophy and unfamiliar branches of
learning; and that I have done so here, in this most renowned
of cities, before a large assembly of very learned men, in the
presence of the Apostolic Senate. Still others have ceded my
right so to dispute, but have not conceded that I might dispute
nine hundred theses, asserting that such a project is superfluous,
over-ambitious and beyond my powers. I should have acceded to
these objections willingly and immediately, if the philosophy
which I profess had so counseled me. Nor should I now undertake
to reply to them, as my philosophy urges me to do, if I believed
that this disputation between us were undertaken for purposes
of mere altercation and litigation. Therefore, let all intention
of denigration and exasperation be purged from our minds and
with it that malice which, as Plato writes, is never present
in the angelic choirs. Let us amicably decide whether it be admissible
for me to proceed with my disputation and whether I should venture
so large a number of questions.*
I
shall not, in the first place, have much to say against those
who disapprove this type of public disputation. It is a crime,
--- if it be a crime --- which I share with all you, most excellent
doctors, who have engaged in such exercises on many occasions
to the enhancement of your reputations, as well as with Plato
and Aristotle and all the most esteemed philosophers of every
age. These philosophers of the past all thought that nothing
could profit them more in their search for wisdom than frequent
participation in public disputation. Just as the powers of the
body are made stronger through gymnastic, the powers of the mind
grow in strength and vigor in this arena of learning. I am inclined
to believe that the poets, when they sang of the arms of Pallas
and the Hebrews, when they called the barzel, that is,
the sword, the symbol of men of wisdom, could have meant nothing
by these symbols but this type of contest, at once so necessary
and so honorable for the acquisition of knowledge. This may also
be the reason why the Chaldeans, at the birth of a man destined
to be a philosopher, described a horoscope in which Mars confronted
Mercury from three distinct angles. This is as much as to say
that should these assemblies and these contests be abandoned,
all philosophy would become sluggish and dormant.*
It
is more difficult for me, however, to find a line of defense
against those who tell me that I am unequal to the undertaking.
If I say that I am equal to it, I shall appear to entertain
an immodestly high opinion of myself. If I admit that I am unequal
to it, while persisting in it, I shall certainly risk being called
temerarious and imprudent. You see the difficulties into which
I have fallen, the position in which I am placed. I cannot, without
censure, promise something about myself, nor, without equal censure,
fail in what I promise. Perhaps I can invoke that saying of Job:
``The spirit is in all men'' or take consolation in what was
said to Timothy: ``Let no man despise your youth.'' But to speak
from my own conscience, I might say with greater truth that there
is nothing singular about me. I admit that I am devoted to study
and eager in the pursuit of the good arts. Nevertheless, I do
not assume nor arrogate to myself the title learned. If, consequently,
I have taken such a great burden on my shoulders, it is not because
I am ignorant of my own weaknesses. Rather, it is because I understand
that in this kind of learned contest the real victory lies in
being vanquished. Even the weakest, consequently, ought not to
shun them, but should seek them out, as well they may. For the
one who is bested receives from his conqueror, not an injury
but a benefit; he returns to his house richer than he left, that
is, more learned and better armed for future contests. Inspired
by such hope, though myself but a weak soldier, I have not been
afraid to enter so dangerous a contest even against the very
strongest and vigorous opponents. Whether, in doing so, I have
acted foolishly or not might better be judged from the outcome
of the contest than from my age.*
I
must, in the third place, answer those who are scandalized by
the large number of propositions and the variety of topics I
have proposed for disputation, as though the burden, however
great it may be, rested on their shoulders and not, as it does,
on mine. Surely it is unbecoming and captious to want to set
limits to another's efforts and, as Cicero says, to desire mediocrity
in those things in which the rule should be: the more the better.
In undertaking so great a venture only one alternative confronted
me: success or failure. If I should succeed, I do not see how
it would be more praiseworthy to succeed in defending ten theses
than in defending nine hundred. If I should fail, those who hate
me will have grounds for disparagement, while those who love
me will have an occasion to excuse me. In so large and important
an undertaking it would seem that a young man who fails through
weakness of talent or want of learning deserves indulgence rather
than censure. For as the poet says, if
powers fail, there shall be praise for daring; and in great undertaking,
to have willed is enough.*
In
our own day, many scholars, imitating Gorgias of Leontini, have
been accustomed to dispute, not nine hundred questions merely,
but the whole range of questions concerning all the arts and
have been praised for it. Why should not I, then, without incurring
criticism, be permitted to discuss a large number of questions
indeed, but questions which are clear and determined in their
scope? They reply, this is superfluous and ambitious. I protest
that, in my case, no superfluity is involved, but that all is
necessary. If they consider the method of my philosophy they
will feel compelled, even against their inclinations, to recognize
this necessity. All those who attach themselves to one or another
of the philosophers, to Thomas, for instance or Scotus, who at
present enjoy the widest following, can indeed test their doctrine
in a discussion of a few questions. By contrast, I have so trained
myself that, committed to the teachings of no one man, I have
ranged through all the masters of philosophy, examined all their
works, become acquainted with all schools. As a consequence,
I have had to introduce all of them into the discussion lest,
defending a doctrine peculiar to one, I might seem committed
to it and thus to deprecate the rest. While a few of the theses
proposed concern individual philosophers, it was inevitable that
a great number should concern all of them together. Nor should
anyone condemn me on the grounds that ``wherever the storm blows
me, there I remain as a guest.'' For it was a rule among the
ancients, in the case of all writers, never to leave unread any
commentaries which might be available. Aristotle observed this
rule so carefully that Plato called him: auagnooies,
that is, ``the reader.'' It is certainly a mark of excessive
narrowness of mind to enclose oneself within one Porch or Academy;
nor can anyone reasonably attach himself to one school or philosopher,
unless he has previously become familiar with them all. In addition,
there is in each school some distinctive characteristic which
it does not share with any other.*
To
begin with the men of our own faith to whom philosophy came last,
there is in Duns Scotus both vigor and distinction, in Thomas
solidity and sense of balance, in Egidius, lucidity and precision,
in Francis, depth and acuteness, in Albertus [Magnus] a sense
of ultimate issues, all-embracing and grand, in Henry, as it
has seemed to me, always an element of sublimity which inspires
reverence. Among the Arabians, there is in Averroës something
solid and unshaken, in Avempace, as in Al-Farabi, something serious
and deeply meditated; in Avicenna, something divine and platonic.
Among the Greeks philosophy was always brilliant and, among the
earliest, even chaste: in Simplicus it is rich and abundant,
in Themistius elegant and compendious, in Alexander, learned
and self-consistent, in Theophrastus, worked out with great reflection,
in Ammonius, smooth and pleasing. If you turn to the Platonists,
to mention but a few, you will, in Porphyry, be delighted by
the wealth of matter and by his preoccupation with many aspects
of religion; in Iamblichus, you will be awed by his knowledge
of occult philosophy and the mysteries of the barbarian peoples;
in Plotinus, you will find it impossible to single out one thing
for admiration, because he is admirable under every aspect. Platonists
themselves, sweating over his pages, understand him only with
the greatest difficulty when, in his oblique style, he teaches
divinely about divine things and far more than humanly about
things human. I shall pass over the more recent figures, Proclus,
and those others who derive from him, Damacius, Olympiodorus
and many more in whom that to theion, that is, that
divine something which is the special mark of the Platonists,
always shines out.*
It
should be added that any school which attacks the more established
truths and by clever slander ridicules the valid arguments of
reason confirms, rather than weakens, the truth itself, which,
like embers, is fanned to life, rather than extinguished by stirring.
These considerations have motivated me in my determination to
bring to men's attention the opinions of all schools rather than
the doctrine of some one or other (as some might have preferred),
for it seems to me that by the confrontation of many schools
and the discussion of many philosophical systems that ``effulgence
of truth'' of which Plato writes in his letters might illuminate
our minds more clearly, like the sun rising from the sea. What
should have been our plight had only the philosophical thought
of the Latin authors, that is, Albert, Thomas, Scotus, Egidius,
Francis and Henry, been discussed, while that of the Greeks and
the Arabs was passed over, since all the thought of the barbarian
nations was inherited by the Greeks and from the Greeks came
down to us? For this reason, our thinkers have always been satisfied,
in the field of philosophy, to rest on the discoveries of foreigners
and simply to perfect the work of others. What profit would have
dervied from discussing natural philosophy with the Peripatetics,
if the Academy of the Platonists had not also participated in
the exchange, for the doctrine of the latter, even when it touched
on divine matters, has always (as St. Augustine bears witness)
been esteemed the most elevated of all philosophies? And this
in turn has been the reason why I have, for the first time after
many centuries of neglect (and there is nothing invidious in
my saying so) brought it forth again for public examination and
discussion. And what would it have profited us if, having discussed
the opinions of innumerable others, like asymboli, at
the banquet of wise men, we should contribute nothing of our
own, nothing conceived and elaborated in our own mind? Indeed,
it is the characteristic of the impotent (as Seneca writes) to
have their knowledge all written down in their note-books, as
though the discoveries of those who preceded us had closed the
path to our own efforts, as though the power of nature had become
effete in us and could bring forth nothing which, if it could
not demonstrate the truth, might at least point to it from afar.
The farmer hates sterility in his field and the husband deplores
it in his wife; even more then must the divine mind hate the
sterile mind with which it is joined and associated, because
it hopes from that source to have offspring of such a high nature.*
For
these reasons, I have not been content to repeat well-worn doctrines,
but have proposed for disputation many points of the early theology
of Hermes Trismegistus, many theses drawn from the teachings
of the Chaldeans and the Pythagoreans, from the occult mysteries
of the Hebrews and, finally, a considerable number of propositions
concerning both nature and God which we ourselves have discovered
and worked out. In the first place, we have proposed a harmony
between Plato and Aristotle, such as many before this time indeed
believed to exist but which no one has satisfactorily established.
Boethius, among Latin writers, promised to compose such a harmony,
but he never carried his proposal to completion. St. Augustine
also writes, in his Contra Academicos, that many others
tried to prove the same thing, that is, that the philosophies
of Plato and Aristotle were identical, and by the most subtle
arguments. For example, John the Grammarian held that Aristotle
differed from Plato only for those who did not grasp Plato's
thought; but he left it to posterity to prove it. We have, in
addition, adduced a great number of passages in which Scotus
and Thomas, and others in which Averroës and Avicenna, have
heretofore been thought to disagree, but which I assert are in
harmony with one another.*
In
the second place, along with my own reflections on and developments
of both the Aristotelian and the Platonic philosophies, I have
adduced seventy-two theses in physics and metaphysics. If I am
not mistaken (and this will become clearer in the course of the
proposed disputation) anyone subscribing to these theses will
be able to resolve any question proposed to him in natural philosophy
or theology on a principle quite other than that taught us in
the philosophy which is at present to be learned in the schools
and is taught by the masters of the present generation. Nor ought
anyone to be surprised, that in my early years, at a tender age
at which I should hardly be permitted to read the writings of
others (as some have insinuated) I should wish to propose a new
philosophy. They ought rather to praise this new philosophy,
if it is well defended, or reject it, if it is refuted. Finally,
since it will be their task to judge my discoveries and my scholarship,
they ought to look to the merit or demerit of these and not to
the age of their author.*
I
have, in addition, introduced a new method of philosophizing
on the basis of numbers. This method is, in fact, very old, for
it was cultivated by the ancient theologians, by Pythagoras,
in the first place, but also by Aglaophamos, Philolaus and Plato,
as well as by the earliest Platonists; however, like other illustrious
achievements of the past, it has through lack of interest on
the part of succeeding generations, fallen into such desuetude,
that hardly any vestiges of it are to be found. Plato writes
in Epinomis that among all the liberal arts and contemplative
sciences, the science of number is supreme and most divine. And
in another place, asking why man is the wisest of animals, he
replies, because he knows how to count. Similarly, Aristotle,
in his Problems repeats this opinion. Abumasar writes that it
was a favorite saying of Avenzoar of Babylon that the man who
knows how to count, knows everything else as well. These opinions
are certainly devoid of any truth if by the art of number they
intend that art in which today merchants excel all other men;
Plato adds his testimony to this view, admonishing us emphatically
not to confuse this divine arithmetic with the arithmetic of
the merchants. When, consequently, after long nights of study
I seemed to myself to have thoroughly penetrated this Arithmetic,
which is thus so highly extolled, I promised myself that in order
to test the matter, I would try to solve by means of this method
of number seventy-four questions which are considered, by common
consent, among the most important in physics and divinity.*
I
have also proposed certain theses concerning magic, in which
I have indicated that magic has two forms. One consists wholly
in the operations and powers of demons, and consequently this
appears to me, as God is my witness, an execrable and monstrous
thing. The other proves, when thoroughly investigated, to be
nothing else but the highest realization of natural philosophy.
The Greeks noted both these forms. However, because they considered
the first form wholly undeserving the name magic they called
it goeteia, reserving the term mageia, to the
second, and understanding by it the highest and most perfect
wisdom. The term ``magus'' in the Persian tongue, according to
Porphyry, means the same as ``interpreter'' and ``worshipper
of the divine'' in our language. Moreover, Fathers, the disparity
and dissimilarity between these arts is the greatest that can
be imagined. Not the Christian religion alone, but all legal
codes and every well-governed commonwealth execrates and condemns
the first; the second, by contrast, is approved and embraced
by all wise men and by all peoples solicitous of heavenly and
divine things. The first is the most deceitful of arts; the second,
a higher and holier philosophy. The former is vain and disappointing;
the later, firm, solid and satisfying. The practitioner of the
first always tries to conceal his addiction, because it always
rebounds to shame and reproach, while the cultivation of the
second, both in antiquity and at almost all periods, has been
the source of the highest renown and glory in the field of learning.
No philosopher of any worth, eager in pursuit of the good arts,
was ever a student of the former, but to learn the latter, Pythagoras,
Empedocles, Plato and Democritus crossed the seas. Returning
to their homes, they, in turn, taught it to others and considered
it a treasure to be closely guarded. The former, since it is
supported by no true arguments, is defended by no writers of
reputation; the latter, honored, as it were, in its illustrious
progenitors, counts two principal authors: Zamolxis, who was
imitated by Abaris the Hyperborean, and Zoroaster; not, indeed,
the Zoroaster who may immediately come to your minds, but that
other Zoroaster, the son of Oromasius. If we should ask Plato
the nature of each of these forms of magic, he will respond in
the Alcibiades that the magic of Zoroaster is nothing else than
that science of divine things in which the kings of the Persians
had their sons educated to that they might learn to rule their
commonwealth on the pattern of the commonwealth of the universe.
In the Charmides he will answer that the magic of Zamolxis is
the medicine of the soul, because it brings temperance to the
soul as medicine brings health to the body. Later Charondas,
Damigeron, Apollonius, Osthanes and Dardanus continued in their
footsteps, as did Homer, of whom we shall sometime prove, in
a ``poetic theology'' we propose to write, that he concealed
this doctrine, symbolically, in the wanderings of his Ulysses,
just as he did all other learned doctrines. They were also followed
by Eudoxus and Hermippus, as well as by practically all those
who studied the Pythagorean and Platonic mysteries. Of later
philosophers, I find that three had ferreted it out: the Arabian,
Al-Kindi, Roger Bacon, and William of Paris. Plotinus also gives
signs that he was aware of it in the passage in which he shows
that the magician is the minister of nature and not merely its
artful imitator. This very wise man approves and maintains this
magic, while so abhorring that other that once, when he was invited
to to take part in rites of evil spirits, he said that they ought
rather to come to him, than he to go to them; and he spoke well.
Just as that first form of magic makes man a slave and pawn of
evil powers, the latter makes him their lord and master. That
first form of magic cannot justify any claim to being either
an art or a science while the latter, filled as it is with mysteries,
embraces the most profound contemplation of the deepest secrets
of things and finally the knowledge of the whole of nature. This
beneficent magic, in calling forth, as it were, from their hiding
places into the light the powers which the largess of God has
sown and planted in the world, does not itself work miracles,
so much as sedulously serve nature as she works her wonders.
Scrutinizing, with greater penetration, that harmony of the universe
which the Greeks with greater aptness of terms called sympatheia
and grasping the mutual affinity of things, she applies to each
thing those inducements (called the iugges of the magicians),
most suited to its nature. Thus it draws forth into public notice
the miracles which lie hidden in the recesses of the world, in
the womb of nature, in the storehouses and secret vaults of God,
as though she herself were their artificer. As the farmer weds
his elms to the vines, so the ``magus'' unites earth to heaven,
that is, the lower orders to the endowments and powers of the
higher. Hence it is that this latter magic appears the more divine
and salutary, as the former presents a monstrous and destructive
visage. But the deepest reason for the difference is the fact
that that first magic, delivering man over to the enemies of
God, alienates him from God, while the second, beneficent magic,
excites in him an admiration for the works of God which flowers
naturally into charity, faith and hope. For nothing so surely
impels us to the worship of God than the assiduous contemplation
of His miracles and when, by means of this natural magic, we
shall have examined these wonders more deeply, we shall more
ardently be moved to love and worship Him in his works, until
finally we shall be compelled to burst into song: ``The heavens,
all of the earth, is filled with the majesty of your glory.''
But enough about magic. I have been led to say even this much
because I know that there are many persons who condemn and hate
it, because they do not understand it, just as dogs always bay
at strangers.*
I
come now to those matters which I have drawn from the ancient
mysteries of the Hebrews and here adduce in confirmation of the
inviolable Catholic faith. Lest these matters be thought, by
those to whom they are unfamiliar, bubbles of the imagination
and tales of charlatans, I want everyone to understand what they
are and what their true character is; whence they are drawn and
who are the illustrious writers who testifying to them; how mysterious
they are, and divine and necessary to men of our faith for the
propagation of our religion in the face of the persistent calumnies
of the Hebrews. Not famous Hebrew teachers alone, but, from among
those of our own persuasion, Esdras, Hilary and Origen all write
that Moses, in addition to the law of the five books which he
handed down to posterity, when on the mount, received from God
a more secret and true explanation of the law. They also say
that God commanded Moses to make the law known to the people,
but not to write down its interpretation or to divulge it, but
to communicate it only to Jesu Nave who, in turn, was to reveal
it to succeeding high priests under a strict obligation of silence.
It was enough to indicate, through simple historical narrative,
the power of God, his wrath against the unjust, his mercy toward
the good, his justice toward all and to educate the people, by
divine and salutary commands, to live well and blessedly and
to worship in the true religion. Openly to reveal to the people
the hidden mysteries and the secret intentions of the highest
divinity, which lay concealed under the hard shell of the law
and the rough vesture of language, what else could this be but
to throw holy things to dogs and to strew gems among swine? The
decision, consequently, to keep such things hidden from the vulgar
and to communicate them only to the initiate, among whom alone,
as Paul says, wisdom speaks, was not a counsel of human prudence
but a divine command. And the philosophers of antiquity scrupulously
observed this caution. Pythagoras wrote nothing but a few trifles
which he confided to his daughter Dama, on his deathbed. The
Sphinxes, which are carved on the temples of the Egyptians, warned
that the mystic doctrines must be kept inviolate from the profane
multitude by means of riddles. Plato, writing certain things
to Dionysius concerning the highest substances, explained that
he had to write in riddles ``lest the letter fall into other
hands and others come to know the things I have intended for
you.'' Aristotle used to say that the books of the Metaphysics
in which he treats of divine matters were both published and
unpublished. Is there any need for further instances? Origen
asserts that Jesus Christ, the Teacher of Life, revealed many
things to His disciples which they in turn were unwilling to
commit to writing lest they become the common possession of the
crowd. Dionysius the Areopagite gives powerful confirmation to
this assertion when he writes that the more secret mysteries
were transmitted by the founders of our religion ek nou eis
vouv dia mesov logov, that is, from mind to mind, without
commitment to writing, through the medium of of the spoken word
alone. Because the true interpretation of the law given to Moses
was, by God's command, revealed in almost precisely this way,
it was called ``Cabala,'' which in Hebrew means the same as our
word ``reception.'' The precise point is, of course, that the
doctrine was received by one man from another not through written
documents but, as a hereditary right, through a regular succession
of revelations.*
After
Cyrus had delivered the Hebrews from the Babylonian captivity,
and the Temple had been restored under Zorobabel, the Hebrews
bethought themselves of restoring the Law. Esdras, who was head
of the church [sic!] at the time, amended the book of
Moses. He readily realized, moreover, that because of the exiles,
the massacres, the flights and the captivity of the people of
Israel, the practice established by the ancients of handing down
the doctrines by word of mouth could not be maintained. Unless
they were committed to writing, the heavenly teachings divinely
handed down must inevitably perish, for the memory of them would
not long endure. He decided, consequently, that all of the wise
men still alive should be convened and that each should communicate
to the convention all that he remembered about the mysteries
of the Law. Their communications were then to be collected by
scribes into seventy volumes (approximately the same number as
there were members of the Sanhedrin). So that you need not accept
my testimony alone, O Fathers, hear Esdras himself speaking:
``After forty days had passed, the All-Highest spoke and said:
The first things which you wrote publish openly so that the worthy
and unworthy alike may read; but the last seventy books conserve
so that you may hand them on to the wise men among your people,
for in these reside the spring of understanding, the fountain
of wisdom and the river of knowledge. And I did these things.''
These are the very words of Esdras. These are the books of cabalistic
wisdom. In these books, as Esdras unmistakably states, resides
the springs of understanding, that is, the ineffable theology
of the supersubstantial deity; the fountain of wisdom, that is,
the precise metaphysical doctrine concerning intelligible and
angelic forms; and the stream of wisdom, that is, the best established
philosophy concerning nature. Pope Sixtus the Fourth, the immediate
predecessor of our present pope, Innocent the Eight, under whose
happy reign we are living, took all possible measures to ensure
that these books would be translated into Latin for the public
benefit of our faith and at the time of his death, three of them
had already appeared. The Hebrews hold these same books in such
reverence that no one under forty years of age is permitted even
to touch them. I acquired these books at considerable expense
and, reading them from beginning to end with the greatest attention
and with unrelenting toil, I discovered in them (as God is my
witness) not so much the Mosaic as the Christian religion. There
was to be found the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation of
the Word, the divinity of the Messiah; there one might also read
of original sin, of its expiation by the Christ, of the heavenly
Jerusalem, of the fall of the demons, of the orders of the angels,
of the pains of purgatory and of hell. There I read the same
things which we read every day in the pages of Paul and of Dionysius,
Jerome and Augustine. In philosophical matters, it were as though
one were listening to Pythagoras and Plato, whose doctrines bear
so close an affinity to the Christian faith that our Augustine
offered endless thanks to God that the books of the Platonists
had fallen into his hands. In a word, there is no point of controversy
between the Hebrews and ourselves on which the Hebrews cannot
be confuted and convinced out the cabalistic writings, so that
no corner is left for them to hide in. On this point I can cite
a witness of the very greatest authority, the most learned Antonius
Chronicus; on the occasion of a banquet in his house, at which
I was also present, with his own ears he heard the Hebrew, Dactylus,
a profound scholar of this lore, come round completely to the
Christian doctrine of the Trinity.*
To
return, however, to our review of the chief points of my disputation:
I have also adduced my conception of the manner in which the
poems of Orpheus and Zoroaster ought to be interpreted. Orpheus
is read by the Greeks in a text which is practically complete;
Zoroaster is known to them in a corrupt text, while in Chaldea
he is read in a form more nearly complete. Both are considered
as the authors and fathers of ancient wisdom. I shall say nothing
about Zoroaster who is mentioned so frequently by the Platonists
and always with the greatest respect. Of Pythagoras, however,
Iamblicus the Chaldean writes that he took the Orphic theology
as the model on which he shaped and formed his own philosophy.
For this precise reason the sayings of Pythagoras are called
sacred, because, and to the degree that, they derive from the
Orphic teachings. For from this source that occult doctrine of
numbers and everything else that was great and sublime in Greek
philosophy flowed as from its primitive source. Orpheus, however
(and this was the case with all the ancient theologians) so wove
the mysteries of his doctrines into the fabric of myths and so
wrapped them about in veils of poetry, that one reading his hymns
might well believe that there was nothing in them but fables
and the veriest commonplaces. I have said this so that it might
be known what labor was mine, what difficulty was involved, in
drawing out the secret meanings of the occult philosophy from
the deliberate tangles of riddles and the recesses of fable in
which they were hidden; difficulty made all the greater by the
fact that in a matter so weighty, abstruse and unexplored, I
could count on no help from the work and efforts of other interpreters.
And still like dogs they have come barking after me, saying that
I have brought together an accumulation of trifles in order to
make a great display by their sheer number. As though all did
not concern ambiguous questions, subjects of sharpest controversy,
over which the most important schools confront each other like
gladiators. As though I had not brought to light many things
quite unknown and unsuspected by these very men who now carp
at me while styling themselves the leaders of philosophy. As
a matter of fact, I am so completely free of the fault they attribute
to me that I have tried to confine the discussion to fewer points
than I might have raised. Had I wished, (as others are wont)
to divide these questions into their constituent parts, and to
dismember them, their number might well have increased to a point
past counting. To say nothing of other matters, who is unaware
that one of these nine hundred theses, that, namely, concerning
the reconciliation of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle
might have been developed, without arousing any suspicion that
I was affecting mere number, into six hundred or more by enumerating
in due order those points on which others think that these philosophies
differ and I, that they agree? For a certainty I shall speak
out (though in a manner which is neither modest in itself nor
conformable to my character), I shall speak out because those
who envy me and detract me, force me to speak out. I have wanted
to make clear in disputation, not only that I know a great many
things, but also that I know a great many things which others
do not know.
And now,
reverend Fathers, in order that this claim may be vindicated
by the fact, and in order that my address may no longer delay
the satisfaction of your desire --- for I see, reverend doctors,
with the greatest pleasure that you are girded and ready for
the contest --- let us now, with the prayer that the outcome
may be fortunate and favorable, as to the sound of trumpets,
join battle.* back to * copenhagen qabalah