THOMAS MORE et al.
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first twenty-six verses of the first chapter of Genesis, published in 1489, under the
title of "Heptaplus," and dedicated to Lorenzo de' Medici; (2) an essay towards the
reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle, entitled "De Ente et Uno," published in 1491; (3)
a commentary on Girolamo Benivieni's "Canzone dello Amore Celeste e Divino," the
date of which has not been precisely fixed.
This curious trilogy is a signal example of the insane extravagances into which
an acute and subtle intellect may be led by philosophical and theological
arrière
pensée
. Pico's problem is essentially the same with that on which the most powerful
and ingenious minds of the Middle Ages had spent their strength in vain, to wit -- how
to reconcile theology and philosophy. The difference is that, whereas the older
thinkers had but little knowledge of any other philosopher than Aristotle, and knew
him but imperfectly, Pico in the full tide of the Renaissance has to grapple with the
gigantic task of reconciling Catholic doctrine not merely with Aristotle, but with
Plato, the Neo-Platonists, Neo-Pythagoreans, the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite,
the Orphic and Hermetic theosophies, and indeed with whatever of recondite, obscure,
and mysterious in that kind the Pagan world had given birth to. The result is what
might be expected -- the wildest possible jumble of incompatible ideas, which not
even the most dexterous legerdemain can twist into the remotest semblance of
congruity.
In the dedicatory letter prefixed to the "Heptaplus" Pico explains to Lorenzo
the scheme of the work, and the motives which induced him to undertake it. Besides
the inestimable advantage which he derived from being the immediate recipient of
divine revelation, Moses, it appears, was the greatest of all philosophers. Was he not
versed in all the science of the Egyptians, and was not Egypt the source whence the
Greeks drew their inspiration? Was not Plato rightly called by Numenius
?
Μωσης
Αττιχιζων? [See Note *] True it is that Moses has not the least of the appearance of a
philosopher, but even in the account of the creation seems only to be telling a very
plain and simple story, but that must not be allowed to detract from his claims.
Doubtless he veiled a profound meaning under this superficial show of simplicity, and
spoke in enigmas, or allegories, even as Plato and Jesus Christ were wont to do, in
order that they might not be understood except by those to whom it was given to
understand mysteries.
*Note. Numenius of Apameia in Syria, a syncretistic philosopher, supposed to have lived in the age of
the Antonines. For the phrase see Mullach,
Frag. Phil. Graec. iii. 167.
In all true wisdom there should be an element of mystery; it would not be right
that everyone should be able to understand it. The task of interpreting the Mosaic
account of the creation has been taken in hand by a host of writers, who have
struggled mightily with three cardinal difficulties, which, it would seem, they have
one and all failed to surmount. These difficulties are (1) to avoid attributing to Moses
commonplace or inadequate ideas; (2) to make the interpretation consecutive and
consistent from beginning to end; (3) to bring him into harmony with subsequent
thinkers. Where his predecessors have failed Pico hopes to succeed.
The interpretation is worthy of the proem. In the threefold division of the
Tabernacle Pico finds a type of the three spheres -- angelic or intelligible, celestial,
and sublunary -- which, with man, the microcosm, make up the universe; and thus has
no difficulty in understanding why the veil of the Temple was rent when Christ
opened a way for man into the super-celestial sphere. These four worlds are all one,
PICO DELLA MIRANDOLA
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not only because all have the same first principle and the same final cause, and are
linked together by certain general harmonies and affinities, but also because whatever
is found in the sublunary sphere has its counterpart in the other two, but of a nobler
character (meliore nota). Thus to terrestrial fire corresponds in the celestial sphere the
sun; in the super-celestial, seraphic intelligence. Similarly, what is water on earth is in
the heavens the moon, and in the super-celestial region cherubic intelligence. "The
elementary fire burns, the celestial vivifies, the super-celestial loves." What cherubic
intelligence does Pico forgets to say; but fire and water being opposed, it is clear that
it ought to hate.
In the intelligible world God, surrounded by nine orders of angels, unmoved
Himself, draws all to Himself; to whom in the celestial world corresponds the stable
empyrean with its nine revolving spheres; in the sublunary world the first matter with
its three elementary forms, earth, water, and fire, the three orders of vegetable life,
herbs, plants, and trees, and the three sorts of "sensual souls," zoophytic, brutish,
human, making together "nine spheres of corruptible forms."
Man, the microcosm, unites all three spheres; having a body mixed of the
elements, a vegetal soul, and the senses of the brute, reason or spirit, which holds of
the celestial sphere, and an angelic intellect, in virtue of which he is the very image of
God.
Now it is true that Moses in his account of the creation appears to ignore all
this, but it is not for us on that account to impute to him ignorance of it. On the
contrary, we must suppose that his cosmogony is equally true of each of the four
worlds which make up the universe, and must accordingly give it a fourfold
interpretation. A fifth chapter will be rendered necessary by the difference between
the four worlds, and a sixth by their affinities and community.
We have thus six chapters corresponding with the six days of creation. A
seventh is devoted to expounding the meaning of the Sabbath rest; and to indicate this
sevenfold division of the work Pico entitles it "Heptaplus."
The plural method of interpreting Scripture, it must be observed, was by no
means peculiar to Pico, indeed was in common use in his day. As a rule, however,
commentators were content with three senses, which they distinguished as mystical,
anagogical, and allegorical. To Pico's philosophic mind this, no doubt, seemed a
pitiful empiricism. For what was the ground of the triple method? Why these three
senses and no more? He scorned such grovelling economy and rule of thumb, and
determined to place the interpretation of the Mosaic cosmogony once for all on a firm
and philosophic basis. Digging, accordingly, deep into the nature of things for the
root, as he calls it, of his exegesis, he comes upon the Ptolemaic system with its
central earth surrounded by its nine concentric revolving spheres, the nearest that of
the moon, the most remote that of the fixed stars, in the interspace the solar and other
planetary spheres, and beyond all the stable empyrean. To this he joins the Platonic
theory of an intelligible world behind the phenomenal, and the Christian idea of
heaven, borrows from the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite his nine orders of angels
to correspond with the nine celestial spheres, discerns in the stable empyrean the type
of the immutability of God, in matter as the promise and potency of all things, the
evidence of His infinite power and fullness, throws in the Neo-Platonic doctrine of the
microcosm and macrocosm, and lo! the work is done, and a cosmology constructed,
which to elicit from Genesis may well demand a sevenfold method of interpretation.
The minor details of this curious mosaic, to wit, the correspondence between the nine