Thesis 11>1
Latin
Quicquid dicant caeteri Cabaliste, ego prima diuisione scientiam Cabalae in scientiam sephiroth et semot, tanquam in practicam et speculatiuam, distinguerem.
Farmer's text carries a slash between 'practicam' and 'et' and closes with the folio marker <30v/31r> (farmer1998:26319); both are omitted here, and the slash's function is not explained at that line. Wirszubski prints 'Cabalistae' and capitalises 'Sephiroth et Semot' (wirszubski1989:6820).
English
Let the other Cabalists say what they will: at a first cut I would separate the science of the Cabala into the science of the sefirot and that of the shemot, as into a practical and a speculative science. unverified draft
'distinguerem' is an imperfect subjunctive, a guarded potential ('I would separate'). 'semot' transliterates Hebrew shemot, 'names', and 'sephiroth' the sefirot, the ten divine numerations (wirszubski1989:6836). The pairing is kept in Pico's order, sefirot with practical and shemot with speculative, as Farmer insists it must be (farmer1998:26331).
Doctrine
Pico divides the science of Cabala, a phrase that Wirszubski shows renders the Hebrew hokmat ha-qabbalah, the science of reception, into two parts at a first cut (wirszubski1989:6847). The sefirot are the ten emanated powers of God in medieval theosophical Kabbalah, which the Latin translations Pico used call numerationes (mandosio2012:301; wirszubski1989:6836). The shemot are the divine names, composed from the twenty-two letters with their points and accents (wirszubski1989:6838). The thesis pairs the two sciences with practical and speculative in the order written, so that the science of sefirot is practical and the science of names speculative (farmer1998:26331). The opening clause sets this division against whatever the other Cabalists say (farmer1998:26330; busi2014:19952). Farmer adds that the division was not absolute for Pico, since the first stages of his mystical ascent are intellectual and the practical ascent to God begins through speculation (farmer1998:26335).
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Context
Wirszubski traces the bipartite division, as Scholem had noticed, to Abraham Abulafia's letter to his disciple Yehuda Salmon, preserved anonymously in Latin in Vatican Hebrew manuscript 190 (wirszubski1989:6826). In that letter Kabbala has two parts: the science of the Tetragrammaton by way of the ten numerations, and the science of the great name by way of the twenty-two letters (wirszubski1989:6833). Wirszubski argues that Pico superimposed the relatively late distinction between speculative and practical Kabbala on Abulafia's two parts (wirszubski1989:6892). Abulafia called the relation of the two parts a communion like that of the vital with the rational soul, and Wirszubski takes this as a warning against assuming a neat separation of sefirot and names in Pico (wirszubski1989:6927). In the Apology Pico divided Cabala differently, into a first and true Cabala received from God and sciences called Cabala only by transference, among them the ars combinandi and the supreme part of natural magic (farmer1998:26359). Busi reads the three opening theses as concerned with those human Cabalistic sciences, inferior to the Mosaic doctrine that the Apology sets apart (busi2014:19945). Copenhaver judges that no Christian before Pico had engaged or challenged the Jewish tradition so aggressively on so wide a front (copenhaver2019:14059).
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Reception
The thesis was not among the thirteen that the commission censured in March 1487: Blum observes that the Cabalistic theses according to Pico's own opinion remained unchallenged, as did most of the magical ones (dougherty2008:2808). The one Kabbalah thesis among the censured was a magical thesis, 9>9 in Farmer's numbering and T2M9 in Copenhaver's (copenhaver2019:17047). Wirszubski notes that none of the theses from the fifth to the seventy-second presupposes the divisions and definitions of the first four, and allows that the first four were added after the others had been written (wirszubski1989:7719).
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Historiography
Farmer charges Scholem and Wirszubski, followed by Copenhaver in a paper Farmer dates 1997, with reversing Pico's order by making the science of sefirot speculative and the science of names practical or magical (farmer1998:26326). Wirszubski's text bears the charge out: he takes it as certain that the practical part of Kabbala is scientia semot (wirszubski1989:7115). Read that way, he judged the division by and large correct against the Jewish background, where the theurgic use of names is older than the ten sefirot and the sefirot doctrine is a mystical theology (wirszubski1989:6897). Busi sides with Farmer, calling the inversion by Scholem and Wirszubski a misunderstanding that seriously distorts Pico's Cabala, and quotes Scholem's verdict that Pico's usage of practical Kabbalah is highly ambiguous and contradictory (busi2014:19962; busi2014:20006). Mandosio also calls Wirszubski's reading a misinterpretation, but judges that it does not deeply affect his analysis because Hebrew letters are also numbers (mandosio2012:324). Howlett remarks that Pico oddly associates practical Kabbalah with the sefirot (howlett2021:5408). Copenhaver in 2019 sets the division out in Pico's order, the visionary part as scientia Shemot and the practical part as knowledge of the sefirot (copenhaver2019:18062). The editor infers that by 2019 Copenhaver no longer held the inverted reading Farmer attributed to his 1997 paper (copenhaver2019:18075; farmer1998:26327). The stakes reach beyond this thesis: Farmer's order lets magical operation attach to the sefirot, as in 28.40, while Wirszubski closes his chapter by finding that Pico's own theses do not tally with the neat division at all (farmer1998:26333; wirszubski1989:7710).
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Pico's sources
- Abraham Abulafia, letter to Yehuda Salmon, in Latin as Summa brevis cabalae (Vatican Hebrew manuscript 190), dividing Kabbala into the science of the ten numerations and the science of the names: bipartite division inherited; Wirszubski, following Scholem, holds Pico superimposed the speculative/practical distinction on it (wirszubski1989:6826)
Quotations cited
- “is by and large correct” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:6903)
- “Un fraintendimento, questo di Scholem e Wirszubski” — Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (busi2014:19965)
- “This misinterpretation does not deeply affect Wirszubski's analysis” — Jean-Marc Mandosio, Beyond Pico della Mirandola: John Dee's formal numbers and real cabala (mandosio2012:326)
Not established
- Which passage of Copenhaver's 1997 paper Farmer means; the paper was not in the corpus consulted.
- The function of the slash Farmer prints within the thesis.
- Whether Pico knew Abulafia's letter directly or only through Mithridates' Latin; Wirszubski gives the Latin copy only.
Discussed in
- Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (2014)
- M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (2008)
- Sophia Howlett, Re-evaluating Pico: Aristotelianism, Kabbalism, and Platonism in the Philosophy of Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (2021)
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- (unidentified), Knots and Spirals I: Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- Jean-Marc Mandosio, Beyond Pico della Mirandola: John Dee's formal numbers and real cabala (2012)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)
Farmer's cross-references
- 28.40 Quotienscunque ignoramus proprietatem a qua est influxus super petitione quam petimus, ad dominum naris recurrendum est.