Thesis 11>5
Latin
Quilibet hebreus cabalista, secundum principia et dicta scientiae Cabalae, cogitur ineuitabiliter concedere de trinitate et qualibet persona diuina, patre, filio, et spiritu sancto, illud precise sine additione, diminutione, aut uariatione, quod ponit fides catholica christianorum. Correlarium: Non solum qui negant trinitatem, sed qui aliomodo eam ponunt quam ponat catholica ecclesia, sicut Arriani, Sabelliani, et similes, redargui possunt manifeste si admittantur principia cabalae.
The corollary is printed with the thesis (farmer1998:26482) and belongs to it; Copenhaver also prints it with the thesis (copenhaver2019:20376). The underscore Farmer's OCR shows after 'trinitate' is an artifact and is omitted (farmer1998:26477). Wirszubski, quoting the thesis without the corollary, prints 'Hebraeus', 'praecise' and a comma after 'trinitate' (wirszubski1989:8216).
English
Any Hebrew Cabalist whatever, going by the principles and sayings of the science of Cabala, is compelled beyond escape to grant, about the Trinity and about each divine Person, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, exactly what the Catholic faith of Christians lays down, with nothing added, nothing taken away and nothing altered. Corollary: not only those who deny the Trinity, but those who posit it otherwise than the Catholic Church posits it, such as Arians, Sabellians and their like, can be plainly refuted once the principles of Cabala are admitted. unverified draft
'cogitur ineuitabiliter' is the language of compelled assent in disputation; rendered 'compelled beyond escape'. 'Arriani, Sabelliani': followers of Arius and of Sabellius, whom Farmer describes as judged heretics in part for their views of the Trinity (farmer1998:24293).
Doctrine
The heading of the section promises Cabalistic conclusions that confirm the Christian religion from the very foundations of the Hebrew sages, and Wirszubski notes that this purpose is not touched until the fifth thesis (wirszubski1989:8213; wirszubski1989:8189). The thesis states the programme in its strongest form: a Jewish Cabalist who reasons from Cabala's own principles must grant the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity exactly, with nothing added, removed or changed (farmer1998:26476). The corollary turns the same principles against Christian heresy, so that Arians, Sabellians and anyone else who posits the Trinity otherwise than the Church can also be refuted (farmer1998:26482). Farmer describes the thesis as one of many similar theses and says Pico's planned methods here are unknown (farmer1998:26515). He points to 7a>40, a question Pico undertook to answer by numbers, which asks whose opinion on the Trinity is truer, that of Arius, Sabellius, Wyclif or the Catholic faith, and notes that parts of that 'way of numbers' involved gematria, the reading of words through the numerical values of their letters (farmer1998:26516; farmer1998:24263). Copenhaver reads the message of this and the following theses as the claim that Jewish theosophy conceals the Trinity, as Proclus had built a pagan theology on a metaphysics of triads (copenhaver2019:18344). Because the sefirot are ten, he observes, Pico had room for at least three Trinities among them, and a Trinitarian Kabbalah whose exact architecture Pico kept secret was his main doctrinal goal in these theses (copenhaver2019:18345; copenhaver2019:18360).
unverified draft
Context
Copenhaver sets the Trinitarian theses beside Pico's readiness to try his findings on Jews who refused to convert, and beside earlier staged disputations (copenhaver2019:18303; copenhaver2019:18315). Pico recalled hearing, at the Venetian house of Antonio Cronico or Vinciguerra, the learned Jew Dattilo come over to a thoroughly Christian position on the Trinity, and Copenhaver notes that this Dattilo cannot be identified (copenhaver2019:18318; copenhaver2019:18322). Ficino described earlier meetings at Pico's house in Florence that pitted Elia del Medigo and other Jews against Flavius, the convert who translated much of Pico's Kabbalistic library (copenhaver2019:18315; copenhaver2019:18291). Copenhaver adds that Flavius's Latin versions sometimes supplied Trinitarian clues missing in the originals (copenhaver2019:18295). Wirszubski places the enterprise in a longer lineage: Christian Kabbala descended from Raymundus Martini's Pugio fidei, which used Jewish interpretations of Scripture as proofs of Christianity (wirszubski1989:8591; wirszubski1989:8301).
unverified draft
Reception
The thesis was not among those the commission censured; Blum notes that the Cabalistic theses according to Pico's own opinion went unchallenged (dougherty2008:2808). Copenhaver notes that Pico used the word 'catholicus' throughout the Apology, in the Oration and in this thesis to claim orthodoxy for himself (copenhaver2019:24257). The unidentified author of the notes on Pico's sources in the corpus cites the corollary with 7a>40 as evidence that Pico sought in newly discovered Cabalistic sources a confirmation of the Catholic faith (selfknowledge_notes:766; selfknowledge_notes:769).
unverified draft
Historiography
Wirszubski declines to treat each thesis of the set separately, judging many too vague for precise interpretation, and holds that only about half of the theses from the fifth to the seventy-second bear directly on the confirmation of Christianity (wirszubski1989:8198; wirszubski1989:8191). He nevertheless calls that confirmation the heart of Pico's Christian Kabbala (wirszubski1989:8193). He distinguishes two patterns in it, the Christianizing interpretation of existing Kabbalistic texts and the Christianizing application of Kabbalistic methods, and holds that the second, barely foreshadowed before Pico, marks the beginning of truly Christian Kabbala (wirszubski1989:8245; wirszubski1989:8617). The editor observes that 11>5 names no text and no method, so that it fits neither pattern until the theses that follow supply them, 11>6 with divine names and 11>7 with the name of Jesus (farmer1998:26487; farmer1998:26493; farmer1998:26515). Copenhaver's three Trinities among the sefirot are his reconstruction of what such proofs could have used, not a scheme Pico states (copenhaver2019:18346; copenhaver2019:18361).
unverified draft
Quotations cited
- “the confirmation of Christianity is the heart of Pico's Christian Kabbala” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:8193)
- “whose exact architecture remains Pico's secret” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory (copenhaver2019:18361)
Not established
- How Pico would have proved the thesis; Farmer calls his planned methods unknown (farmer1998:26515).
- Which Kabbalistic texts Pico would have adduced for the Trinity here; the thesis names none.
- The author of the 'notes on Pico sources' cited as selfknowledge_notes; the registry records it as unidentified.
Discussed in
- (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.)
- (unidentified), Self-Knowledge, Illumination and Natural: notes on Pico sources (n.d.)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)
Farmer's cross-references
- 11>6 Trıa magna dei nomina quaternaria, quae sunt in secretis cabalistarum, per mirabilem appropriationem tribus personis trinitatis ita debere a