Thesis 11>49
Latin
Qui sciuerit correspondentiam decem preceptorum ad prohibentia per coniunctionem ueritatis astrologicae cum ueritate theologica, uidebit ex fundamento nostro praecedentis conclusionis, quicquid alii dicant Cabalistae, primum preceptum primae numerationi correspondere, Secundum secundae, Tertium tertiae, Quartum septimae, Quintum quartae, Sextum quintae, Septimum nonae, Octauum octauae, Nonum sextae, Decimum decimae.
The thesis runs over a line break at 'Septi-/mum' and continues at farmer1998:27436; the inventory copy stops at the break. Farmer's OCR prints the number as '11249' (farmer1998:27430). Akopyan reads 'tertius' for 'Tertium' (akopyan2018:749).
English
Whoever knows how the ten commandments correspond to the forbidding [powers], by joining astrological truth with theological truth, will see from the foundation laid in my preceding conclusion, whatever the other Cabalists say, that the first commandment corresponds to the first numeration, the second to the second, the third to the third, the fourth to the seventh, the fifth to the fourth, the sixth to the fifth, the seventh to the ninth, the eighth to the eighth, the ninth to the sixth, and the tenth to the tenth. unverified draft
'ad prohibentia' ('to the things that forbid') is obscure; Farmer's English does not render it (farmer1998:27482), and Akopyan's Latin keeps it (akopyan2018:746). The editor conjectures a link with the power that 'does not prohibit' in 11>50 (farmer1998:27440); the sources consulted do not discuss the phrase. 'fundamento nostro praecedentis conclusionis' refers to 11>48.
Doctrine
The thesis extends the correspondence of 11>48 to the Decalogue: whoever joins astrological with theological truth will see that the ten commandments answer to the ten numerations in a set order (farmer1998:27430). The numerations are the sefirot, the ten emanated powers of God in theosophical Kabbalah, called numerationes in Pico's Latin sources: Crown (Keter), Wisdom (Hokmah), Intelligence (Binah), Piety (Hesed), Judgment (Gevurah), Glory (Tiferet), Eternity (Nesah), Splendour (Hod), Foundation (Yesod) and Kingdom (Malkut) (wirszubski1989:7451; wirszubski1989:7066; busi2014:13589). The first three commandments go to the first three numerations and the eighth and tenth to their own numbers, while the fourth goes to the seventh, the fifth to the fourth, the sixth to the fifth, the seventh to the ninth and the ninth to the sixth (farmer1998:27433; farmer1998:27436). Reading the list through 11>48, the editor derives a planet for each commandment from the fourth onward: the fourth Saturn, the fifth Jupiter, the sixth Mars, the seventh Mercury, the eighth Venus, the ninth the sun and the tenth the moon (farmer1998:27424; farmer1998:27434). Farmer's note on 11>48-50 treats the three theses as one group, glossing the numerations as the sefirot and the edifice as the fourth to tenth (farmer1998:27453). Howlett uses the pairing of the first commandment with the first numeration as evidence that Pico acknowledges one as the number of Keter (howlett2021:5433).
unverified draft
Context
Farmer counts the Ten Commandments among the decads that Pico's theses bring into correspondence with the ten spheres, the ten sefirot and the ten operations of the soul (farmer1998:4748; farmer1998:4781). The German study of Pico's epistemology and Christian Kabbalah (key kabbalah_paradigma; author not confirmed in the corpus copy) holds that all ten sefirot can in this way be assigned to the commandments, which are thereby introduced as supralunar and ideal values, as they later are in Ricci (kabbalah_paradigma:1553; kabbalah_paradigma:1603). It pairs the thesis with 5>3, in which the illumination of the middle by the superior is signified alike by the Platonists' gathering of souls on Mount Ida and by the Hebrews' gathering of souls at Sinai to hear the Law (kabbalah_paradigma:1643). Copenhaver reports that a commandment against adultery showed Recanati a secret about the union of Tiferet with the Shekinah, which Pico restated in a thesis of the first Cabalistic set (copenhaver2019:15889).
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). Sheila Rabin quotes it in Farmer's translation among four Kabbalistic theses on astrology (dougherty2008:7894). Akopyan quotes 11>48 and 11>49 together as the theses in which Pico combines the ten sefirot with the ten spheres, and reads them as descriptive astrology without predestination (akopyan2018:679; akopyan2018:714).
unverified draft
Historiography
Farmer's reading makes the thesis an instance of the forced fit, in which the demands of symmetry press simpler sets into the structure of more complex ones (farmer1998:4713; farmer1998:4781). The German study reads it as the moral counterpart of the cosmological scheme, lifting the commandments into the supralunar order (kabbalah_paradigma:1603). Howlett uses it for the arithmetical sense of the numerations, the first commandment answering to the first numeration and so to the number one (howlett2021:5434). None of the sources consulted explains the order of the assignments (farmer1998:27453; kabbalah_paradigma:1643). The editor notes that under 11>48 the fourth commandment, placed at the seventh numeration, falls to Saturn, the planet whose day Roger Bacon, as reported in Pico's Disputationes, wanted Christians to keep as the sabbath (farmer1998:27434; farmer1998:27425; akopyan2021:5299). Whether the fourth commandment is the sabbath commandment depends on how Pico numbered the Decalogue; if it is, the thesis would put in the language of the Law the pairing of sabbath and Saturn that 11>18 overturns in favour of the Lord's day (farmer1998:26797).
unverified draft
Quotations cited
- “The mania for correspondences” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:4711)
- “als supralunare und ideale Werte eingeführt werden” — (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (kabbalah_paradigma:1604)
Not established
- How Pico numbered the Decalogue. In the count used in Jewish tradition the sabbath commandment is fourth and in Augustine's count third (the editor's general knowledge, not drawn from the sources consulted); the link with Saturn holds only on the former.
- The meaning of 'ad prohibentia', and why Farmer's English omits it (farmer1998:27482).
- The rationale of the non-sequential assignments.
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)
- 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.)
Farmer's cross-references
- 11>2 Quicquid dicant alii cabaliste, ego partem speculatiuam cabalae quadruplicem diuiderem, conrespondenter quadruplici partition: philosophiae
- 11>48 Quicquid dicant caeteri cabalistae, ego decem spheras sic decem numerationibus correspondere dico, ut ab aedificio incipiendo, Iupiter sit q
- 11>50 Cum dicunt cabalistae a septima et octaua petendos filios, ita dicas in merchiaua inferiori accipi, ut ab una petatur ut det, ab altera ne p
- 28.22 Licet fiat multiplex coordinatio curruum, tamen inquantum attinet ad phylacteriorum mysterium duo sunt currus ordinandi, ita ut ex secunda,
- 28.9 Per sex dies geneseos habemus intelligere sex extremitates aedificii procedentes a Bresith, sicut procedunt cedri a Libano.