Thesis 11>11
Latin
Modus quo rationales animae per archangelum deo sacrificantur, qui a Cabalistis non exprimitur, non est nisi per separationem animae a corpore, non corporis ab anima nisi per accidens, ut contingit in morte osculi, de quo scribitur: praeciosa in conspectu domini mors sanctorum eius.
Farmer's OCR prints the number as '11211' (farmer1998:26598). Wirszubski prints 'contigit' for 'contingit' and a comma after 'anima' (wirszubski1989:8079); Novak's transcription has 'racionabiles' and 'separacionem' (novak1982:874). The quotation is Psalm 116:15, Vulgate Psalm 115 (farmer1998:26676; novak1982:877).
English
The Cabalists leave unstated how rational souls are offered to God by the archangel. It comes about only by the soul's separating from the body; the body separates from the soul only per accidens, as happens in the death of the kiss, of which Scripture says: Precious in the Lord's sight is the death of his saints. unverified draft
'per accidens' is kept in its scholastic Latin: the body's separation from the soul, which is death proper, is not what the sacrifice aims at but may follow from it. 'mors osculi', the death of the kiss, is the Kabbalists' binsica, which Pico's Commento defines as the soul's union in intellectual rapture with separate things, so that it abandons the body altogether (wirszubski1989:7816; farmer1998:26676).
Doctrine
The thesis interprets 28.1, where the archangel Michael, as the superior priest, sacrifices to God the souls of rational animals as the lower priest sacrifices irrational ones (farmer1998:17532; farmer1998:17563). Pico adds what he says the Cabalists do not express: the sacrifice consists in the separation of the soul from the body, not of the body from the soul, except per accidens, as in the death of the kiss (farmer1998:26598). In Pico's Commento the Kabbalists' binsica, death of the kiss, occurs when the soul in intellectual rapture unites so closely with separate things that, lifted from the body, it abandons it entirely (wirszubski1989:7816; farmer1998:26923). Wirszubski explains the thesis through the Platonic distinction between two deaths: ordinarily the sacrifice of rational souls is ecstatic rapture, the separation of the soul from the body, and not death, which is the separation of the body from the soul; but rapture can end in death, as in the death of the kiss (wirszubski1989:8098). He holds that this distinction is, as far as he knows, absent from Pico's Kabbalistic sources and first appears in this thesis (wirszubski1989:8074). He also reads in it a mysticism of prayer, since Recanati took Leviticus 1:2 to allude to Michael's sacrifice and made the mystic's sacrifice a self-immolation by which the soul draws near to God (wirszubski1989:8105).
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Context
Wirszubski traces the allegory of the death of the kiss as the soul's adherence to God to Maimonides, who read the Sages' dictum that Moses, Aaron and Miriam died by a kiss as death in the rapture of apprehension, and who linked it to the Song of Songs (wirszubski1989:7852; wirszubski1989:7895). He rules out Maimonides as Pico's direct source and identifies it instead as Recanati's Commentary on the Pentateuch, from which Pico's thesis 28.44 derives verbatim and which describes the ripe soul that leaves its terrestrial garment and adheres to the Shekhinah, the divine presence (wirszubski1989:7904; wirszubski1989:7912; wirszubski1989:7960). Pico also read the Latin of Gersonides on the Song of Songs, whose manuscript is annotated in his hand, and there the translator added 'cabalistarum' to the dictum about the kiss (wirszubski1989:8009; wirszubski1989:8057; wirszubski1989:8062). Copenhaver sets the thesis beside Plotinus on death as the parting of soul from body, Maimonides and Gersonides, and Socrates on philosophy as practice for dying (copenhaver2019:15976; copenhaver2019:15983).
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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). Novak uses this thesis and the Zoroastrian thesis 8>7 to date Pico's knowledge of the death of the kiss before his meeting with Yohanan Alemanno, and notes the motif's later presence in Francesco Giorgio, Egidio da Viterbo, Castiglione and Bruno through Pico (novak1982:878; novak1982:860).
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Historiography
Farmer holds that 28.1 is explicitly given a mystical reading in this thesis, and objects that the two texts Wirszubski claims as Pico's sources for 28.1 concern the symbolism of the sefirot and touch on no mystical issue (farmer1998:17563). Wirszubski reads the thesis as Pico's Platonizing addition to his sources, since Recanati does not draw the traditional distinction between the two deaths (wirszubski1989:8073). Howlett notes that Maimonides may have been Pico's source in the Conclusions, while in the Commentary Pico names Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as well, which she suggests could represent a triad of sefirot (howlett2021:8913). Wirszubski had ruled Maimonides out as the direct source on account of significant differences (wirszubski1989:7905). Howlett reads the kiss as a bridge between two ascents to God, noesis and henosis, and Pico's version as a solitary union that is never a full union of the two (howlett2021:8923; howlett2021:8929). In the editor's reading, the thesis shows Pico adding a Platonic doctrine to a rabbinic image and presenting the result as what the Cabalists leave unexpressed (wirszubski1989:8076; farmer1998:26599).
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Pico's sources
- The aggadah of the archangel Michael sacrificing the souls of the righteous, reported in Pico's thesis 28.1: the doctrine this thesis interprets; Farmer notes that Pico here points to a mystical reading of 28.1 (wirszubski1989:8084)
- Menahem Recanati, Commentary on the Pentateuch (Venice 1545), fols. 77va-78vb, on the death of the kiss: Pico's Kabbalistic source for the death of the kiss, according to Wirszubski (wirszubski1989:7912)
- Levi ben Gershom (Gersonides), commentary on the Song of Songs, Latin by Flavius Mithridates for Pico (Vat. Lat. 4273): annotated by Pico; its translator's interpolation 'cabalistarum' may account for Pico's attribution of the allegory to Kabbalists (wirszubski1989:8014)
Quotations cited
- “This distinction, unknown, as far as I am aware, in Pico's Kabbalistic sources” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:8075)
- “these Conclusionesare important only in that they date Pico's knowledge of the term” — B. C. Novak, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno (novak1982:878)
Not established
- Why Pico says the Cabalists do not express the manner of the sacrifice; he gives no reason.
- Whether the lost Latin translation of Recanati carried an interpolation like the one in Gersonides; Wirszubski does not know (wirszubski1989:8049).
Discussed in
- Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (2014)
- (unidentified), Filosofia e cabbala nel Commento al Cantico (n.d.)
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- B. C. Novak, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno (1982)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)
Farmer's cross-references
- 10>14 Siquis in opere precedentis conclusionis intellectualiter operabitur, per meridiem ligabit septentrionem; si uero mundialiter per totum oper
- 11>12 Non potest operari per puram Cabalam, qui non est rationaliter intellectualis.
- 11>13 Qui operatur in Cabala sine admixtione extranei, si diu erit in opere, morietur ex binsica, et si errabit in opere aut non purificatus acces
- 28.1 Sicut homo et sacerdos inferior sacrificat deo animas animalium irrationalium, ita Michael sacerdos superior sacrificat animas animalium rat
- 8>7 Quae dicunt interpretes super .xiiii. amphorismo, perfecte intelligentur per ea quae dicunt cabaliste de morte osculi.
- 9>14 Siqua est natura immediata nobis quae sit uel simpliciter_uel saltem ut multum rationaliter rationalis, magicam habet in summo, et eius part
- 9>16 Illa natura quae est orizon temporis aeternalis_est proxima mago, sed infra eum.
- 9>17 Illius naturae quae est orizon temporis et aeternitatis propria est magia, inde est petenda per modos debitos, notos sapientibus.
- 9>18 Illius natura quae est orizon aeternitatis temporalisest mago proxima, sed super eum, et ei propria est cabala.
- 9>26 Sicut per primi agentis influxum, si sit specialis et immediatus, fit aliquid quod non attingitur per mediationem causarum, ita per opus cab