Thesis 11>22
Latin
Per dicta Cabalistarum de rubedine Esau, et dictum illud quod est in Libro Bresit Rhaba, quod Esau fuit rubeus, et Rubeus eum ulciscetur, de quo dicitur: Quare rubeum uestimentum tuum? Habetur expresse quod Christus, de quo nostri Doctores eundem textum exponunt, ille erit qui ultionem faciet de uirtutibus immundis.
English
Through the Cabalists' words on the redness of Esau, and that saying in the Book Bereshit Rabbah, that Esau was red and the Red One would avenge him, of whom it is asked, Why is your garment red?, it stands expressly established that Christ, whom our own doctors read in that same text, is the one who will take vengeance on the impure powers.
'Rubeus eum ulciscetur' is kept as a personified title, 'the Red One', rather than smoothed into an adjective, since the thesis turns on the Cabalists making 'red' a name. Bereshit Rabbah is the Midrashic text Pico cites often through Maimonides, Recanati and other medieval sources known to him (farmer1998:26891).
Discussed in
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)