POETIC THEOLOGY AND JEWISH KABBALAH IN FIFTEENTH-CENTURY FLORENTINE SPECULATION:

GIOVANNI PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA AND ELIJAH HAYYIM BEN BENJAMIN OF GENAZZANO

FABRIZIO LELLI

In the first centuries of the common era, a Neo-Platonic trend of thought, merging rational speculation, exegesis of ancient poetic texts and a new attitude to classical religious traditions developed in the Middle East on the basis of the legacy of Greco-Roman culture.

It was rooted in the philosophical conviction that myth should be looked upon as a means that had allowed God to disclose supernal secrets to religious souls. In this context poets were seen as initiates to whom a truth belonging to a different le-vel of reality has been transmitted, and then poets in turn transmit that same truth to those worthy of it.

This mode of transmission involved the use of a coded discourse, in which eve-rything was expressed through symbols. Having been merely literary artists, poets became theologians striving to cautiously transmit truths to which philosophy also provides a direct access. In this perspective, if Plato considered poetry a lower disci-pline, directed mainly to women and children, and thus incapable of distinguishing good from evil, it was now possible to establish a total agreement between Platonic thought, which was reread as a sort of theology, and all the “allegorical theologies” that could be found in ancient mythical poetry, for instance in Homer, Hesiod and Orpheus.1

1. See L. Brisson, How Philosophers Saved Myths: Allegorical Interpretation and Classical Mytho-logy, Chicago 2004.

145

The rise of dogmatism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam gave origin to a long-las-ting debate on religious attitudes to myth. Myth now had not only to accord with history and philosophy, but it had also not to conflict with the foundations of re-ligious traditions. Thus, both in the Jewish and the Christian environments an effort was made to erase pagan mythology from religious discourse.

However, throughout the Middle Ages myth could be saved by resorting to the same allegorical interpretations of classical myth that had been developed by the Neoplatonists. Byzantine Christian authors on the Eastern side of the Mediterra-nean and Spanish Jewish kabbalists on its Western side reintroduced a mythical discourse in their religious traditions that could be understood as a form of theo-logical poetry.

In the first half of the fifteenth century the Florentine intellectual environment was influenced by Byzantine Neoplatonic theologies introduced into Italy espe-cially during and after the 1439 Council of Florence, an endeavor made possible by the diplomatic and financial activities of the Medici family.

The practical aim of the Council of Florence was to reunite Western and East-ern Christians, and although the Council failed in that respect, its theoretical a-chievements went far beyond the political expectations of the Medici. The trend to read Christianity through pagan myth thanks to the rediscovery of Greek texts brought to Italy by the Byzantines opened the path to a thorough search of all the mysteries conceived in different religious systems. Among those mysteries, hidden in sacred poetry, Jewish Kabbalah could become a major tool for a new theological understanding of Christianity.2

Giovanni Pico della Mirandola was a Christian scholar who lived in the second half of the fifteenth century (between 1463 and 1494) and who spent the last years of his brief life in Florence.3 Inspired by the revival of Greek sources encouraged by the Medici, he studied Platonic and Neoplatonic sources, focusing especially on the ancient view according to which an allegorical reading of mythology could explain the deepest mysteries of Christian theology. However, besides merging Plato, Py-thagoras, Hermes and Orpheus according to the Florentine tradition fostered by Marsilio Ficino’s Latin translations from Greek, Pico decided to include kabbalistic texts in his all-comprehensive analysis of pagan myth. Pico's idea of a perfect syn-cretism of the different philosophical and religious systems of thought found its

2. See M. Idel, La Cabbalà in Italia (1280-1510), Florence 2007. 3. On Giovanni Pico's attitude to Jewish Kabbalah, a long debated issue, see the bibliographic refe-

rences in F. Lelli, “Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni”, in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Eso-tericism, W. J. Hanegraaff et al. (eds.), 2 vols., Leiden 2005, II, 949-954.

146

best expression in his Conclusiones nongentae (Nine-hundred Conclusions, or The-ses), an amazing anthology of the most various sources of human knowledge. The Theses, which were printed at the end of 1486, meant to be publicly discussed in Rome in 1487, but, before the discussion took place, a committee appointed by Pope Innocent VIII stopped Pico's plans, declaring that six of the Theses were sus-pect and condemning seven others. Most of the condemned Conclusions deal with Jewish Kabbalah. According to Pico, this Jewish discipline would then be a doc-trine provided by God to sages in order for them to disclose the secrets of the uni-verse, at the same time being a theoretical and a practical tool of powerful magic. Pico held that Kabbalah is a form of magic higher than natural magic: if the latter's aim is that of investigating supernal entities, Kabbalah certainly allows the initiate to penetrate the mysteries of the divinity of Christ. One of Pico's condemned The-ses affirms in fact that “no knowledge gives us more certainty about Christ's divin-ity than magic and Kabbalah”.4 Following Ficino's speculation, Pico wanted thus to establish a beneficent magic based on ancient authorities, which might involve the celebration of special rituals for summoning angels; in this manner, the human soul could be united with higher entities, thus creating a path leading to Christ or directly to God. Read in this perspective, Kabbalah was a Gnostic-Hermetic doc-trine, a poetic theology that intended to investigate a hidden God, one of those disciplines belonging to the so-called prisca theologia tradition which the humanists cherished so much, especially in the Florentine environment.5

This Platonic-mythical reading of Kabbalah was not new in contemporary Jew-ish circles and caused problems in the small Italian communities. Judah Messer Leon, a fifteenth-century Ashkenazi scholar well versed in Aristotelian philosophy, sent a letter to the members of the Florentine community in which he warned them against any Platonizing of Kabbalah.6 He probably feared possible misunder-standings of Jewish dogmas, when read according to a mythical interpretation. Moreover, the dogmatic approach to Judaism practiced by Spanish authorities, such as Moses Maimonides in the twelfth century and Joseph Albo in the early fif-teenth, was held in high esteem by Italian Jewish intellectuals. This approach to faith allowed religious scholars – especially in Italy – to read Judaism in parallel

4. Nulla est scientia quae nos magis certificet de divinitate Christi quam magia et cabala (Conclusio Magica secundum opinionem propriam, 9; G. Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones nongentae. Le novecento Tesi dell'anno 1486, A. Biondi [ed.], Florence 1995, 118).

5. See F. Lelli, “Prisca Philosophia and Docta Religio. The Boundaries of Rational Knowledge in Jewish and Christian Humanist Thought”, in Jewish Quarterly Review, 91 (2000), 53-100.

6. See S. Assaf, From the Collection of the National Library in Jerusalem. A Tribute to David. Vo-lume in Honour of David Yellin, Jerusalem 1935, 237 (Hebrew).

147

with Christianity, as a faith based on dogmas that could be interpreted rationally. A trace of the polemics against the Florentine community provoked by Messer

Leon can be seen in Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano’s treatise Iggeret hamudot, the Epistle of Delight, a work on philosophy and Kabbalah written in the last decade of the fifteenth century in a double form: it is both a letter and a formal treatise.7

Elijah Hayyim, born in Central Italy in the first half of the fifteenth century, was a member of the Jewish banking elite that from the end of the fourteenth century had been allowed to settle in Tuscan cities. Like the other Jewish banking families, the Genazzanos had originally come from Rome and they boasted of descent from the priestly families deported by Titus after the destruction of the Second Temple. Roman Jews therefore stressed the distinctive character that made them unique in the diaspora and that underlined the differences between them and the Ashkenazi and Sephardic communities.

Elijah Hayyim wrote his Iggeret hamudot just at the moment when refugees from the Iberian peninsula were arriving in large numbers to Italy. For many Ital-ian Jews the arrival of Sephardic refugees threatened the good but fragile life that they had managed to build for themselves over the previous two centuries. This is the reason why Genazzano attacks contemporary Sephardic intellectuals, denounc-ing them for the radical ideas which, according to him, could only destroy the true Jewish tradition. With these views in mind, Genazzano responded to some inquir-ies addressed to him by his former yeshiva-fellow David, the son of Benjamin ben Joav of Montalcino. This Benjamin of Montalcino, the head of a renowned Tus-can yeshiva, had been the main target of Judah Messer Leon’s criticisms against the Florentines some forty years before.

Genazzano was very sensitive to the Neoplatonic atmosphere of Florence, and in several passages of his treatise he reveals a thorough knowledge of some of the major trends of the Platonic interpretations of Kabbalah, which were common among his Jewish contemporaries and which had been borrowed by Pico della Mi-randola.

At one point, Genazzano discusses a passage from the Sefer ha-iqqarim (the Book of Principles), a philosophical and apologetic treatise by Joseph Albo. Al-though this work by a Spanish Jew had become very influential among Italian Jew-ish thinkers of the fifteenth century, Genazzano refutes the dogmatic interpretation of Jewish faith presented by Albo.

Genazzano objects to a rational dogmatic understanding of Judaism, stressing

7. See Eliyyah Hayyim ben Binyamin da Genazzano, La lettera preziosa (Iggeret hamudot), F. Lelli (ed.), Florence 2002.

148

that this version of his faith has nothing to do with rabbinic and kabbalistic tradi-tion, the only true tradition that provides a deep understanding of Judaism. In other words, Genazzano holds that the kabbalistic reading of rabbinic and liturgical features of Judaism is the only way to adhere to the values of a faith rooted in Scripture and not in rational analysis. What is significant for us is the emphasis the author puts on contemporary non-Jewish trends of thought in order to support his views.

Let us trace his steps. Among the issues discussed by Albo and then criticized by Genazzano, one is the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, gilgul ha-neshamot. These are Genazzano’s words:

In the Book of Principles, Joseph Albo presents evidence to argue that the soul is a spiritual essence existing in its own right and is not a material faculty – an ac-quired intellect – as most of the self-appointed philosophers have assumed. The argument is well formed. However, at the end of the same chapter, the author writes that from this theory “the Cabalists derive their doctrine of transmigra-tion,” and so on… This is my reply. Elijah says: “Joseph Albo … has actually made a very common mistake by claiming that ‘Cabalists derive their doctrine of transmigration,’ because this is not correct. Cabalists did not derive their doc-trine from the view of philosophers; theirs is an accepted tradition that came to them from Abraham and Moses our teacher, peace be upon them. It is a doctrine of the Law and of our teachers of blessed memory. Evidence can be found in the commandments of the levirate that began to be enforced in the time of the patri-archs. The whole book of Ruth is based on that mystery, and one who studies the Midrash on Ruth knows and understands that this is a teaching received through tradition.8

Genazzano follows the kabbalistic interpretation of the levirate rules, which he could find in the Book of the Zohar or in Recanati’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, a kabbalistic work much more popular in fifteenth-century Italy than the Zohar. So far his intention is explicit: Genazzano praises the rabbinic-kabbalistic tradition as certainly of higher value than the rational understanding of Judaism required by Maimonides, Albo and other Spanish authors. He then continues:

Look, in an ancient book attributed to a sage named Zoroaster, I have actually found some words of his on this issue: “The doctrine of the transmigration of souls was revealed to the Indians by the Persians, who received it from the Egyptians,

8. See Genazzano, Lettera preziosa, 151-152.

149

they from the Chaldaeans, and they in turn from Abraham. Then the Chal-daeans expelled Abraham from their land because they hated him for saying that the soul is the source of movement, that this is what sustains matter, that there are many souls and so on.” 9

In order to support rabbinic authority, Genazzano quotes Zoroaster, a major authority for those Florentine humanists, who read Latin translations of the Greek treatises attributed to this mythical Persian sage in order to find evidence for Chris-tian traditions. The conception of a transmission of divine knowledge through a chain of initiates, – which had been common among the Neoplatonists of late anti-quity and was revived in the fifteenth century by Florentine intellectuals - also worked its influence on a Jewish Florentine scholar. Now in the above mentioned Giovanni Pico’s Conclusions there is a Platonic Conclusion according to the Arab Ade-landus, written a few years before Genazzano’s text. There we read that: “All the In-dian, Persian, Egyptian and Chaldean sages believed in the doctrine of the transmi-gration of the souls”:10 Pico’s words parallel Genazzano’s statement exactly, though Genazzano’s reference to Abraham may also echo the views of the Byzantine scho-lar George Gemistus Pletho, a philosopher who had taken part in 1439 Council of Florence. In his Treatise on the Laws – meaning Plato’s Laws – Pletho maintained that Abraham actually believed in metempsychosis, and Pletho found evidence for this among the Indians, Persians and Egyptians.11

Genazzano, showing himself to be fully aware of the most current debates among non-Jewish thinkers, calls on the views of Florentine humanists both to de-monstrate the higher antiquity of Jewish revelation and to argue against rational dogmatic views held by his co-religionists. His goal becomes even clearer when we read the passage of Genazzano’s letter that immediately follows the previous one:

I have also found that Numenius the Pythagorean and also Guadlandus put stock in such claims. Numenius, out of his great love of the Mosaic Law, main-tained that the soul of Moses had transmigrated into his own body. We read in

9. See ibid., 152. 10. Transcorporationem animarum crediderunt omnes sapientes Indorum, Persarum, Aegyptiorum et

Chaldaeorum (Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones secundum doctrinam philosopho-rum qui Platonici dicuntur: Secundum Adelandum Arabem, VIII. Pico della Mirandola, Conclu-siones nongentae, 38-39).

11. See M. Idel, “Differing Conceptions of Kabbalah in the Early 17th Century”, in Jewish Thought in the Seventeeth Century, I. Twersky and B. Septimus (eds.), Cambridge, Mass. 1986, 137-200: par. D.

150

the same passage that Numenius kept “the Law of Moses beneath his head in bed so that all his questions would be answered in a dream.” 12

On the other hand, what Albo writes about the Cabalist doctrine of the transmi-gration of the human soul into animal bodies appears only in some statements of recent Cabalists. As a matter of fact, I did not succeed in finding support for this theory in the words of our teachers. However, I did find that it was a teaching of various ancient philosophers, such as Pythagoras and his followers.13

Numenius, the second-century philosopher of the Pythagorean school, was the favorite of Christians who wished to find evidence of Jewish influence on ancient pagans. He was said to know the Septuagint, to have used the philosophy of Philo, and to have been a Jew himself. In the first of the very few fragments of his work that have come down to us, Numenius speaks of the Jews, maintaining that they, along with the Persians, Indians and Egyptians, possess a wisdom higher than Greek wisdom. This clearly parallels Genazzano’s statement. Numenius was also credited with wishing to reconcile Plato, Homer14 and the Hebrew Bible with an allegorical reading of their poetic and prophetic words.

In other terms, by quoting Zoroaster and Numenius, Genazzano associated Biblical authority with the mystagogic figures cherished by the Florentine Neopla-tonists and by Pico, in particular. In Genazzano’s text, Numenius is related to Py-thagoras, then to a mysterious Guadlandus, who in my opinion should be identi-fied with the Adelandus of Pico’s Conclusions.15 Moreover, in Numenius’ fragment 56 we read that “The Egyptians, and in particular Hermes, say that [the God of the Jews] is Osiris… the Greeks that he is Dionysus or Orpheus.”16

Like the many other prophets and sages who had received divinely-revealed truths from their Jewish predecessors and had hidden them in allegorical poems,

12. The legend of Numenius of Apamea who identified himself with Plato and with an “Attic Moses” was particularly cherished by humanists fond of Neoplatonism, both among Jews (e.g., Judah Abravanel) and Christians (e.g., Ficino, Pico): cf. J. Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Pa-ganism, New York 1972, 64-68. On Numenius and his belief in transmigration into animal bodies, see J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists, New York 1977, 377-378. See also below.

13. Genazzano uses here the Hebrew phrasing “pilosof qadum”, a literal rendering of the Latin priscus philosophus (Genazzano, Lettera preziosa, 153-154).

14. See Porfirio, L’antro delle Ninfe, Milan 1986, 115-116. 15. See Genazzano, Lettera preziosa, 75-77. 16. See M.J. Edwards, “Atticizing Mosed? Numenius, the fathers and the Jews”, in Vigiliae Chris-

tianae, 44 (1990), 64-75: 65.

151

Numenius can thus be linked with the Orphic tradition.17 Given his awareness of the humanist culture of Italy, Genazzano reached conclusions no different than those of his non-Jewish contemporaries, when they produced such interpretations as attributing to Adam the mythical characteristics of the divinely inspired Orphe-us, finding proof of the latter in Hermetic literature. As a matter of fact, the legen-dary Thracian poet was most often cited by Florentine humanists in support of the religious dogmas of monotheism, the Trinity, and creation as recounted in Gene-sis.18

A significant example of the rereading of the Orphic poetic theology according to the Jewish Kabbalah appears in Pico's Thirty-one Theses according to my own opi-nion on how to understand Orphic Hymns according to Magic, that is, according to the hidden wisdom of God and nature, which I first found in them.19 The title itself hints at an identification of Orphism with a divine and natural magic, that is Kabbalah. The fifteenth of these theses explains that "Night in Orpheus is the same as the En Soph in Kabbalah",20 a reference to the darkness of God's world as seen from man's eyes. When dealing with the pictorial representation of the concept of En Soph, Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano explains:

And here you have the pictorial representation of the information that follows from the account [of the Sephirotic tree]. This is my explanation: the En Soph (No-End or Infinite), pictured above the Crown, shows that the first Sephirah, the Crown, is infinite, which is why the figure shows it half-black and half-white; the black part means that a person who uses reason to rise up and think of what is above it enters into deep darkness and cannot escape; the white part indi-cates that in its own right the Sephirah Crown is light and not darkness; and the expression No-End means that the Crown is infinite.

Elijah Hayyim of Genazzano, like other contemporary Jewish scholars, was

17. See also Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Discorso sulla dignità dell’uomo, F. Bausi (ed.), Parma 2003, 132-133: “… scribit Iamblicus Calcideus habuisse Pythagoram Orphycam theologiam tanquam exemplar ad quam ipse suam fingeret formaretque philosophiam. Quin idcirco tan-tum dicta Pythagorae sacra nuncupari dicunt, quod ab Orphaei fluxerint institutis…”.

18. See D.P. Walker, “Orpheus the Theologian and Renaissance Platonists”, in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 16 (1953), 100-120: 109.

19. Conclusiones XXXI secundum propriam opinionem de modo intelligendi hymnos Orphei se-cundum Magiam, id est, secretam divinarum rerum naturaliumque sapientiam a me primum in eis repertam.

20. Idem est Nox apud Orpheum et Ensoph in Cabala (Pico della Mirandola, Conclusiones non-gentae, 122)

152

aware of the interest shown by Christian humanists in mythical interpretations of "ancient theologies". Following in their footsteps, they adapted various prisca the-ologia conceptions to their own kabbalistic tradition, in order for them to stress the greater antiquity of the Jewish religious lore.