Thesis 3>55
Latin
Qui ordinem hebraicae linguae profunde et radicaliter tenuerit, atque illum proportionabiliter in scientiis seruare nouerit, cuiuscunque scibilis perfecte inueniendi normam et regulam habebit.
Copy-text Farmer 1998 (farmer1998:21095-21097), u/v as Farmer prints them; the OCR's 'inueniendi_normam' is a space. Farmer's apparatus records '1486 linguae profundae | 1487 lingue profunde' (farmer1998:21104): the 1486 print has the adjective 'profundae', so that it could be read 'the order of the deep Hebrew language'; Farmer prints the adverb. Mandosio cites 'proportionaliter' for 'proportionabiliter' (mandosio2012:474).
English
Whoever holds the order of the Hebrew language deeply and at its root, and knows how to keep that order proportionally in the sciences, will have the norm and rule for the perfect discovery of anything knowable. unverified draft
'tenuerit' is rendered 'holds' (has mastered). 'proportionabiliter' is taken in the sense of the section's proportional method, the correspondence of extreme to extreme and of middle to extremes stated in 3>52 (farmer1998:21081-21083). 'inueniendi' is 'discovery', not 'invention'; Wirszubski stresses that the methods in question are methods of discovery and not only of interpretation (wirszubski1989:9654-9678).
Doctrine
The thesis promises a universal method of discovery to whoever masters the order of the Hebrew language and keeps that order, in due proportion, in the sciences (farmer1998:21095-21097). Farmer refers it to the correlative foundations of Pico's revolutio alphabetariae, which thesis 11>2 names (farmer1998:21169-21170). In 11>2 Pico divides the speculative part of Cabala into four and makes the first part, the science of the revolution of the alphabet, correspond to what he calls universal or catholic philosophy (farmer1998:26383-26389). Farmer glosses the revolution of the alphabet as Pico's anagrammatic method of reading the Torah, apparently the same as the ars combinandi, and universal philosophy as reasoning from cosmic proportion or correspondence (farmer1998:26408-26413). The neighbouring theses set out that proportional method: 3>52 makes the knowledge of God, man and prime matter one science, keeping the proportion of extreme to extreme, of middle to extremes and of extremes to middle (farmer1998:21081-21083). Thesis 3>54 prefers the way of numbers or the way of catholic philosophy to any physical argument for proving prime matter (farmer1998:21090-21092). Wirszubski asks in what sense the order of Hebrew could be the rule for discovering everything knowable, and answers from Pico's sources: the alphabet founds isopsephic equations and letter combinations, which are methods of discovery as well as of interpretation (wirszubski1989:9654-9678). Isopsephy is the practice Farmer describes under gematria, operating on the numerical values of letters and words to hide or reveal messages in texts (farmer1998:3775-3780). Wirszubski adds that the Book of Creation has God create the world with thirty-two paths of wisdom, ten numbers and twenty-two letters, so that numbers and letters can be taken as keys to all knowledge (wirszubski1989:9686-9689).
unverified draft
Context
Farmer calls the section of paradoxical conclusions the locus of Pico's philosophia nova and marks it by its proportional forms (farmer1998:20272-20278). The claim for Hebrew rests on Pico's view of its unique status, which Wirszubski documents from 2>80, that Hebrew is the first and non-accidental language, and 9>22, that only Hebrew names have power in magic (wirszubski1989:9654-9669; farmer1998:20213, 25378-25380). Farmer places the thesis among the methods that Pico claimed lead to knowledge of everything knowable, beside the way of numbers of 7>11 and the method of the extremes and the middle (farmer1998:23784-23786, 23794-23800). Wirszubski quotes 7>11, that through numbers there is a way to the investigation and understanding of everything knowable, as the parallel in the mathematical theses (wirszubski1989:9680-9684). Farmer describes Pico's ars combinandi as drawn mainly from Abraham Abulafia and his commentators, and reports that in the Apology Pico compared it to the ars Raymundi of Ramon Llull (farmer1998:3816-3823). Farmer cites the appendix to the Heptaplus, where Pico transforms the first word of the Torah, Bereshit, to show the principles of the hierarchy of being concealed in it (farmer1998:3869-3874).
unverified draft
Reception
Farmer notes that De Lubac denied that Pico anywhere claims knowledge of everything knowable, a denial that 3>55 and 7>11 contradict (farmer1998:23794-23797). Mandosio cites 3>55 for the view that for Pico the correct use of cabala and of formal arithmetic, the doctrine of formal numbers, could be reached only through the Hebrew language (mandosio2012:422-423, 474). Formal numbers, in Mandosio's account of Pico, are neither the material numbers of merchants nor numbers abstracted from matter, but numbers separated from matter and existing by themselves like Platonic ideas (mandosio2012:195-201). He contrasts John Dee, who in the Monas hieroglyphica held that the mysteries of the alphabet are found in Latin and Greek letters as well as in Hebrew (mandosio2012:446-453).
unverified draft
Historiography
Wirszubski introduces the thesis with a hedge, saying that unless he is mistaken Kabbalah was in Pico's mind when he wrote it (wirszubski1989:9647-9648). Busi and Ebgi treat it as one of the most decided expressions in Pico of the view that Hebrew is at once the instrument and the measure of creation (busi2014:20290-20298). They describe this as an immanentist faith in a language that not only says the world but is it (busi2014:20300-20302). The German study of Pico's Christian Kabbalah, whose author is not named in the corpus copy, reads 3>55 as the claim that all knowable objects are encoded in Hebrew (kabbalah_paradigma:2194-2195, 2240). It holds that Pico requires the alphabetaria revolutio to read them, with temurah, gematria and notarikon as aids, and that for him only Christian-philosophical content forms the authentic core of Kabbalistic symbolism (kabbalah_paradigma:2202-2207). The same study reports Wirszubski's identification of the source of 11>2 as the Summa brevis Cabalae, a Latin version of Abulafia's epistle to Rabbi Yehuda, and Lelli's suggestion that Yohanan Alemanno mediated these readings (kabbalah_paradigma:2235-2239). The thesis states in one sentence the premise that joins Pico's Kabbalah to his philosophia nova: a proportional method, founded on the order of one sacred language, extended to all the sciences (editorial inference from farmer1998:21169-21170, 26383-26389).
unverified draft
Pico's sources
- Sefer Yetsirah (Book of Creation), on the thirty-two paths of wisdom, ten numbers and twenty-two letters: the doctrine Wirszubski adduces to explain why letters and numbers could be keys to all knowledge; no direct source of the thesis is identified (wirszubski1989:9686)
Quotations cited
- “Unless I am mistaken, Kabbala was also in Pico's mind when he wrote” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:9647)
- “not only methods of interpretation but also methods of discovery” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:9678)
- “Refers to the correlative foundations of Pico's revolutio alphabetariae” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:21169)
- “รจ a un tempo strumento e misura della creazione” — Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (busi2014:20292)
Not established
- Whether Pico would have included gematria in the revolution of the alphabet: Farmer calls it an open question (farmer1998:26410-26411).
- A direct Hebrew or Latin source for the wording of 3>55: not established by the sources consulted.
- How Pico meant the order of Hebrew to be 'kept proportionally' in a particular science: no worked example is identified in the sources consulted.
- The author of the German study (kabbalah_paradigma): not named in the corpus copy.
Discussed in
- Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (2014)
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- Jean-Marc Mandosio, Beyond Pico della Mirandola: John Dee's formal numbers and real cabala (2012)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)
Farmer's cross-references
- 11>2 Quicquid dicant alii cabaliste, ego partem speculatiuam cabalae quadruplicem diuiderem, conrespondenter quadruplici partition: philosophiae
- 3>56 Praeter distinctionem rei et rationis ponenda est distinctio tertia, quam ego appello inadequationis.