Thesis 9>9
Latin
Nulla est scientia quae nos magis certificet de diuinitate Christi. quam magia et cabala.
Copy-text Farmer 1998 (farmer1998:25208-25209), after the Rome print of 7 December 1486 (colophon farmer1998:28040-28042); u/v as Farmer prints them. Farmer's text has a point after 'Christi', which the citations of the thesis by Wirszubski and Edelheit do not reproduce (wirszubski1989:6244; edelheit2022:21285). The Apology passage printed by Wirszubski introduces the thesis as 'Quarta conclusio per istos damnata' (wirszubski1989:6252), whereas in the order of the Apology's Questions it is the fifth (copenhaver2022:846).
English
No science does more than magic and Kabbalah to make us certain of Christ's divinity.
'scientia' is a body of knowledge in the scholastic sense; in the Apology Pico restricts the comparison to sciences that rest on revelation neither in their method, nor in their principles, nor in their conclusions (wirszubski1989:6253-6260). 'certificet' is rendered 'makes certain'; Pico's gloss limits the certainty to what humanly discovered sciences can give ('eo modo quo de hoc certificare possunt scientiae humanitus inuentae', wirszubski1989:6256-6257).
Condemnation
Q5 in the order of the Apology: Magic and Kabbalah and Christ's divinity. Printed 7 December 1486; censured by the papal commission in February-March 1487; the work as a whole condemned by the bull of 4 August 1487.
'de virtute sermonis falsa, erronea, superstitiosa et heretica', declared unanimously (wirszubski1989:6245-6246); Farmer's English 'false, erroneous, superstitious, and heretical' (farmer1998:7025-7026); Blum's translation from Dorez and Thuasne's edition of the record 'Wrong, erroneous, superstitious, heretical' (dougherty2008:2183, 2218).
Doctrine
The thesis ranks bodies of knowledge by the certainty they give about one proposition, Christ's divinity, and puts magic and Kabbalah first (farmer1998:25208-25209). It closes a run of three theses: 9>7 denies that Christ's works could have been done by the way of magic or of Kabbalah, and 9>8 makes the manner of Christ's miracles, not the things done, the most certain argument of his divinity (farmer1998:25200-25205). In his declaratio before the commission and in the Apology, Pico limited the comparison to sciences that rest on revelation neither in method, principles nor conclusions, and among these he named natural magic and the part of Kabbalah that is a science and not revealed theology (wirszubski1989:6252-6260). The certainty meant is reached not a priori but a posteriori, from effects: to know that Christ's miracles testify to his divinity one must first know that no natural power could have produced them, and the science that best knows what natural agents can and cannot do is natural magic together with the part of Kabbalah concerned with the powers of the heavenly bodies (wirszubski1989:6294-6313). Kabbalah here has two senses, which Pico separated in the same Question: the revealed tradition given to Moses, of which he claimed to be the first among the Latins to make explicit mention, and a 'transumptive' Kabbalah comprising the art of combination and the science of superlunary powers, the highest part of natural magic (wirszubski1989:6320-6334, 6349-6359). Pico held that the fact and manner of Christ's miracles are known only from Scripture's testimony (wirszubski1989:6268-6273; farmer1998:7054-7059). Wirszubski observes that the declaratio and the defence 'rest entirely on the distinction between revealed and nonrevealed science' (wirszubski1989:6264-6266).
Context
The thesis stands fifth among the thirteen in the order of the Apology, which is nearly the commission's order of inquiry (copenhaver2022:840-850). Innocent VIII created the commission in February 1487 and twelve of its sixteen members attended the first meeting on 2 March (copenhaver2022:514-515, 543-546). Copenhaver judges Q5, 'now the most discussed of Pico's 900 propositions', to have been unintelligible to the judges and detached from the scholastic philosophizing of the other condemned theses except Q7 (copenhaver2022:912-918). In the Apology Pico mocked the prelates for understanding nothing of Kabbalah, 'not even the word' (copenhaver2019:16710-16711), and told of a commissioner who, asked what the Cabala was, replied that it was a wicked and diabolical man named Cabala (edelheit2008:16954-16962). Copenhaver sets the thesis against a climate in which Innocent VIII had endorsed witchcraft trials in 1484, in a text printed with the Hammer of Witches in 1486 (copenhaver2019:16719-16722). Farmer adds that the magical theses, despite all disclaimers, were open to suspicions of demonology and witchcraft (farmer1998:1353-1359). To defend Q5 Pico needed a long exposition of scriptural numerology, and he promised to cite no Platonists or Pythagoreans, only the Church's experts (copenhaver2022:2290-2294).
Reception
The commission declared the thesis, unanimously, 'de virtute sermonis falsa, erronea, superstitiosa et heretica' (wirszubski1989:6244-6246). Farmer renders the verdict 'false, erroneous, superstitious, and heretical' and calls this the most notorious thesis in the text in Renaissance times (farmer1998:7024-7026). Wirszubski finds the reason in the wording: the thesis seems to set magic and Kabbalah above the evidence of the Gospels (wirszubski1989:6246-6248). None of the Kabbalistic conclusions was itself condemned (wirszubski1989:6241-6242). Farmer reports that the commission reluctantly admitted the second of the two theses preceding 9>9 to be 'true and tolerable', while complaining that, being connected with magical things, it could be taken in a bad sense (farmer1998:7077-7084). Pico's answer in the Apology ends by claiming that he had said magic and Kabbalah help us know Christ's divinity 'non haeretice, non superstitiose, sed scientifice' (wirszubski1989:6314-6318). Giovanni Caroli answered the thesis in his treatise on Pico's conclusions (edelheit2022:21284-21288). The bull of 4 August 1487, not published until four months later, condemned the whole work and named propositions 'cherishing the deceits of the Jews' and arts 'disguising themselves as natural philosophy' among its grievances (farmer1998:1326-1331, 1350-1352).
Historiography
Cassirer took the thesis as the hardest case for any unity in Pico's thought, asking whether Pico 'takes refuge in magic' in treating the foundations of Christian dogma (cassirer1942:440-453). Farmer faults Yates for writing that Pico's meaning is nowhere fully explained, since the Apology explains it in detail (farmer1998:7031-7034). Farmer reads that explanation as Pico's original plan, not a retreat, because 9>7 and 9>8 already frame the thesis in the same way (farmer1998:7077-7080). Copenhaver is less generous: the Apology's recasting of the thesis as a disjunctive hypothetical was 'Clever and correct but evasive', and the thesis itself reckless in Rome (copenhaver2019:16697-16706, 16723-16725). Elsewhere he finds it 'less outrageous in context', since 9>6-9>8 make Christ the First Cause who needs no magic or Kabbalah (copenhaver2019:17618-17642). Edelheit places Pico's opening distinction between humanly invented sciences and revealed theology within standard scholastic practice (edelheit2022:7198-7205). Black treats the defence of this thesis as the place where Pico's definition of Kabbalah must be read (black2006:6716-6723). The thesis shows how far its bare wording outran its sense: read alone it ranked magic above theology, while its neighbours and the Apology made magic and Kabbalah handmaids to a Scripture-based proof from miracles (editorial inference from farmer1998:7054-7059 and wirszubski1989:6268-6276).
Pico's sources
- No source for the thesis is identified in the material consulted; Pico's own exposition is the fifth Question of the Apology, 'Quaestio quinta de magia naturali et cabala Hebraeorum' (Opera, 166 ff.): the author's later exposition of the thesis, not a source of it (wirszubski1989:6249)
- Theses 9>6-9>8, which frame 9>9 in the Conclusions: the immediate context Farmer uses to show that the Apology's reading was Pico's original plan (farmer1998:25194)
Quotations cited
- “rest entirely on the distinction between revealed and nonrevealed science” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:6265)
- “de virtute sermonis falsa, erronea, superstitiosa et heretica” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:6246)
- “false, erroneous, superstitious, and heretical” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:7025)
- “now the most discussed of Pico's 900 propositions” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy (copenhaver2022:913)
- “understanding nothing at all about Kabbalah, not even the word” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory (copenhaver2019:16711)
- “fuisse perfidum quendam hominem et diabolicum, qui dictus est Cabala” — Amos Edelheit, Ficino, Pico and Savonarola: The Evolution of Humanist Theology 1461/2-1498 (edelheit2008:16961)
- “non haeretice, non superstitiose, sed scientifice” — Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (wirszubski1989:6316)
- “true and tolerable” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:7081)
- “cherishing the deceits of the Jews” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:1331)
- “disguising themselves as natural philosophy” — Stephen A. Farmer, Syncretism in the West: Pico's 900 Theses (1486) (farmer1998:1350)
- “takes refuge in magic” — Ernst Cassirer, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: A Study in the History of Renaissance Ideas (cassirer1942:450)
- “Clever and correct but evasive” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory (copenhaver2019:16706)
- “seems less outrageous in context” — Brian P. Copenhaver, Magic and the Dignity of Man: Pico della Mirandola and His Oration in Modern Memory (copenhaver2019:17621)
- “Wrong, erroneous, superstitious, heretical” — M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (dougherty2008:2218)
Not established
- Why the Apology passage printed by Wirszubski calls this the fourth condemned conclusion ('Quarta conclusio', wirszubski1989:6252) while the Apology's order of Questions makes it the fifth: not established by the sources consulted.
- The notarial record of the verdict (Dorez and Thuasne 1897, pp. 130-131, cited at wirszubski1989:6279) is not in the corpus; the Latin formula is taken from Wirszubski's quotation of it.
- Pedro Garcia's rebuttal of this Question in his Determinationes (1489) was not consulted; its content is not established by the sources consulted.
- Whether the neighbouring thesis that Farmer reports as judged 'true and tolerable' (farmer1998:7079-7082) is the same as Copenhaver's Q11 on miracle (copenhaver2022:848); the inventory leaves the identification of Q11 as 9>8 or 9>7 unconfirmed. Not established by the sources consulted.
- Which Hebrew or Latin Kabbalistic texts stand behind the 'transumptive' Kabbalah of this thesis: not established by the sources consulted for this entry.
Discussed in
- Crofton Black, Pico's Heptaplus and Biblical Hermeneutics (2006)
- Giulio Busi and Raphael Ebgi, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Mito, magia, Qabbalah (2014)
- Ernst Cassirer, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: A Study in the History of Renaissance Ideas (1942)
- Brian P. Copenhaver, Pico della Mirandola on Trial: Heresy, Freedom, and Philosophy (2022)
- M. V. Dougherty (ed.), Pico della Mirandola: New Essays (2008)
- Amos Edelheit, Ficino, Pico and Savonarola: The Evolution of Humanist Theology 1461/2-1498 (2008)
- Amos Edelheit, A Philosopher at the Crossroads: Giovanni Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Scholastic Philosophy (2022)
- (author to be confirmed from front matter), Erkenntnistheorie und christliche Kabbalah: Das Paradigma des Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- (unidentified), Knots and Spirals I: Pico della Mirandola (n.d.)
- Brian Ogren, The Beginning of the World in Renaissance Jewish Thought: Ma'aseh Bereshit in Italian Jewish Philosophy and Kabbalah, 1492-1535 (2009)
- (unidentified), Self-Knowledge, Illumination and Natural: notes on Pico sources (n.d.)
- Chaim Wirszubski, Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (1989)
Farmer's cross-references
- 1>6 De distinctione ex natura rei non debent discordare Thomistae et Scotistae, si suos doctores fundamentaliter intelligant.
- 9>10 Quod magus homo facit per artem, fecit natura naturaliter faciendo hominem.
- 9>7 Non potuerunt opera Christi uel per uiam magiae uel per uiam cabalae fieri.
- 9>8 Miracula Christi non ratione rei factae, sed ratione modi faciendi, suae diuinitatis argumentum certissimum sunt.