Zoroaster and Chaldeans · thesis 8>11

Thesis 8>11

Latin

Dictum illud Zoroastris, ne exeas cum transit Lictor < >, perfecte intelligetur per illud Exodi, quando sunt prohibiti Israhelite exire domos suas in transitu angeli interficientis primogenita aegyptiorum.

Copy-text: Farmer 1998, line 24951; 1486 print folio <28r/28v>

Apparatus (Farmer): 1486 ne ex eas | 1486 trasit | 1487 omits blank space

1486 reads 'ne ex eas' and 'trasit' for 'ne exeas'/'transit'; the blank space in the editio princeps (apparently left for an Aramaic word) is omitted in 1487 (farmer1998:25017).

English

That saying of Zoroaster, 'Go not out when the lictor passes by < >', will be understood in full from the passage of Exodus in which the Israelites were forbidden to leave their houses as the angel went by, slaying the firstborn of the Egyptians.

Sense checked against farmer1998:25001, which renders 'Lictor' as 'the attendant'; 'the lictor' is kept here as the closer equivalent of the Roman office named in the Latin. No divergence in sense.

Translation: machine-drafted 2026-09-26 by TRANSLATOR-T09b; sense checked against farmer1998:25001; awaiting human check; re-rendered 2026-09-27 by TRANSLATOR-FIX (D-13)

Attribution: Pico's own opinion (section 8>, on the understanding of Zoroaster and his Chaldean expositors) · Pico's stance: endorses

Discussed in

• Giacomo Corazzol, From Sinai to Athens: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's philological quest for the transmission of theological truth (2019)

Mention records in the corpus: 2 (deterministic harvest; see Method).

Farmer's cross-references

• 8>10 Per canem nihil aliud intelligit Zoroaster_quam partem inrationalem animae et proportionalia, quod ita esse uidebit qui diligenter dicta omn
• 8>12 Per Syrenam apud Zoroastrem nihil aliud intelligas quam partem animae rationalem.
• 8>13 Per puerum apud interpretes nihil aliud intellige quam intellectum.