Thesis 11>18
Latin
Qui coniunxerit Astrologiam Cabalae uidebit quod sabbatizare et quiescere conuenientius fit post Christum die dominico, quam die sabbati.
Follows Farmer's text (farmer1998:26797-26798). Akopyan's quotations read 'coniurixerit' for 'coniunxerit' and 'Cabale' for 'Cabalae' in the copies consulted (akopyan2018:695; akopyan2021:1451).
English
One who has joined astrology with the Cabala will see that since Christ, keeping the sabbath and resting falls more fittingly on the Lord's day than on the sabbath day. unverified draft
'sabbatizare' is the Christian Latin verb 'to keep sabbath'. 'dies dominicus' and 'dies sabbati' are Sunday and Saturday (farmer1998:26827). 'post Christum' is taken in the temporal sense, as Akopyan also takes it (akopyan2021:1428).
Doctrine
The thesis claims that a reader who combines astrology with the Cabala will find Sunday, not Saturday, the more fitting day of rest in the Christian era (farmer1998:26797). Farmer glosses the two days as Sunday and Saturday but warns that more lies beneath, since Pico assigns days to particular sefirot and sefirot to particular planets or to Christ (farmer1998:26827). The sefirot are the ten emanated powers of God in theosophical Kabbalah, which the Latin translations Pico read call numerationes (wirszubski1989:7451). In Pico's order they are Crown (Keter), Wisdom (Hokmah), Intelligence (Binah), Piety (Hesed), Judgment or Power (Gevurah), Glory or Beauty (Tiferet), Eternity (Nesah), Splendour (Hod), Foundation (Yesod) and Kingdom (Malkut) (wirszubski1989:7066; wirszubski1989:7478; busi2014:13589; busi2014:15728). Wirszubski states that in Kabbalistic symbolism a 'day' as a rule denotes a sefirah (wirszubski1989:8524). In 11>48 Pico sets Saturn at the seventh numeration and the sun at the sixth (farmer1998:27425). Farmer correlates Jesus, the 'sun' of 11>51, with that sixth sefirah (farmer1998:27508), and he cross-refers 11>46 for the pairing of Christ and the sun (farmer1998:27406). The editor infers one reading from these statements: the Saturday sabbath answers to Saturn, and the Lord's day to the sefirah and the luminary that Pico gives to the Messiah (farmer1998:27425; farmer1998:27508). Farmer himself declines to fix a single reading, because the flexibility of Pico's symbolism yields several plausible ones (farmer1998:26830).
unverified draft
Context
Akopyan places the thesis among those in which Pico justifies Christian practice by Kabbalistic astrology, here an astrological reason for keeping the sabbath on Sunday (akopyan2021:3219; akopyan2018:674). He notes that Pico adds no comment to the proposal (akopyan2021:1423). Pico had already given the sabbath a Christological sense in 11>16, where the three letters of the Hebrew word for sabbath mean that the world keeps sabbath when the Son of God becomes man (wirszubski1989:8405). In 11>61 all things at last keep sabbath in the Son, who is the Wisdom of the Father (wirszubski1989:8368), and Farmer cross-refers that thesis to 11>16 and 11>18 (farmer1998:27766). The German study of Pico's epistemology and Christian Kabbalah (key kabbalah_paradigma; author not confirmed in the corpus copy) reports that the Kabbalistic glossaries can call the ninth sefirah, Yesod, 'Sabbath' and identify the 'great Sabbath' with the third, Binah (kabbalah_paradigma:2095).
unverified draft
Reception
The thesis is not among those the commission censured: Blum observes that the Cabalistic theses according to Pico's own opinion went unchallenged (dougherty2008:2808). In the Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem Pico rejected Roger Bacon's claim that Christians err in not resting on Saturday, the day of Saturn, a star judged unfavourable for action (akopyan2021:5273; akopyan2021:5299). Akopyan observes that Pico there seems to have forgotten his own proposal in the Conclusiones about the sabbath (akopyan2021:5277).
unverified draft
Historiography
Farmer reads the thesis through Pico's correlations of days, sefirot and planets and leaves its precise sense open (farmer1998:26827). Akopyan reads it as an astrological argument for Sunday rest and sets it against the later rejection of Bacon, which he treats as a change of mind (akopyan2021:5277). Wirszubski's account of the sabbath in the Christian theses rests on 11>16 and 11>61 and does not treat this thesis in the passages consulted (wirszubski1989:8405; wirszubski1989:8366). The editor notes the contrast the two texts draw: Bacon's astrology alone pointed to Saturday, whereas Pico's thesis claims that astrology joined to the Cabala points to Sunday, so that the Kabbalistic term is what reverses the astrological verdict (akopyan2021:5299; farmer1998:26797).
unverified draft
Quotations cited
- “there is obviously more here than meets the eye” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:26829)
- “Curiously, Pico seems to have forgotten his own piece of advice” — Ovanes Akopyan, Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception (akopyan2021:5277)
Not established
- Which sefirot Pico meant by the Lord's day and the sabbath; Farmer judges several readings plausible (farmer1998:26830).
- Any Jewish or Christian source for the thesis: none is identified in the sources consulted.
- Wirszubski's 'Conclusio xviii' at wirszubski1989:9918 is a magical thesis, not 11>18; no discussion of 11>18 by Wirszubski was found.
Discussed in
- Ovanes Akopyan, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Astrology (1486-1493): From Scientia Naturalis to the Disputationes (2018)
- Ovanes Akopyan, Debating the Stars in the Italian Renaissance: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Disputationes adversus astrologiam divinatricem and Its Reception (2021)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)
Farmer's cross-references
- 11>19 Si dictum illud Prophetae: Vendiderunt iustum argento, cabalistice exponamus, nihil aliud nobis significat quam hoc, scilicet, Deus ut redem
- 11>20 Si interpretationem suam aduerterint Cabaliste super hac dictione, <tN>, quae significat tunc, de trinitatis mysterio multum illuminabuntur.
- 11>21 Qui coniunxerit dictum Cabalistarum dicentium quod illa numeratio quae dicitur iustus et redemptor_dicitur etiam ze, cum dicto Thalmudistaru
- 11>37 Qui intellexerit in dextrali coordinatione subordinationem pietatis ad sapientiam, perfecte intelliget_per uiam Cabalae quomodo Abraam in di
- 11>46 Per eclipsationem solis quae accidit in morte Christi sciri potest secundum fundamenta cabalae quod tunc passus est filius dei et uerus mess
- 11>48 Quicquid dicant caeteri cabalistae, ego decem spheras sic decem numerationibus correspondere dico, ut ab aedificio incipiendo, Iupiter sit q
- 28.6 Magnus aquilo fons est animarum omnium simpliciter, sicut alu dies quarundam et non omnium.
- 28.8 Animae a tertio lumine ad quartam diem, et inde ad quintam descendunt, inde exeuntes corporis noctem subintrant.