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Jewish Magic with a Christian Text: A Hebrew Translation of Ramon Llull's Ars Brevis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Harvey J. Hames
Harvey J. Hames*
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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Extract

In July or August 1474 in Senigallia, a town on the coast of the Adriatic sea, a translation into Hebrew was completed of the Ars brevis, a work by the medieval Christian philosopher, mystic, and missionary Ramon Llull. Within a couple of years, this translation had been copied a number of times, and from the colophon of one of these copies, it appears that this work was rated very highly by its Jewish readers as an aid for achieving mystical experience. Any interest shown by the adherents of one faith in the texts of another is important for shedding light on common intellectual interests and contacts. This translation is of especially great significance in that there appears to have been in Italy in the fifteenth century a circle of Jewish scholars willingly engaging with a Christian text in order to achieve divine illumination. Here, I will try to shed some light on this group of Jewish savants and to situate their interests within the wider context of the Renaissance.

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Traditio , Volume 54 , 1999 , pp. 283 - 300
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Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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References

1 MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mic 2312, fols. 41r-v. I would like to thank Charles Lohr, Elena Lourie, Jocelyn Hillgarth, and Anthony Bonner for reading drafts of this study and for their criticisms and suggestions. My thanks also to Yad Hanadiv, Jerusalem, for the scholarship that allowed me the time needed for writing this article.Google Scholar

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6 Llull dictated a sort of autobiography entitled Vita coaetanea in 1311. For a Latin edition see Raimundi Lulli Opera Latina , vol. 8, ed. Harada, H., CCM 34 (Turnhout, 1980), 271–309. For a medieval Catalan translation with embellishments, see Llull, Ramon, Obres essencials, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1957–60) 1:31–54. See also Bonner, A. and Badia, L., Ramon Llull: Vida, pensament i obra literària (Barcelona, 1988) and Bonner, A., Selected Works of Ramon Llull, 2 vols. (Princeton, 1985) 1:3–52.Google Scholar

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16 The manuscript (for details of which see the following note) also contains the following works: an anonymous Tractatus de incarnatione, fide, spe, prophetia et charitate; Aristotle's De memoria et reminiscentia, De somno et somniis (both De somno et vigilia and De somniis), De longitudine et brevitate vitae, all from the Parva naturalia, and a spurious work attributed to Aristotle, , De mundo. Google Scholar

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21 On these two scholars and their connections with Pico, see Wirszubski, C., Between the Lines: Kabbalah, Christian Kabbalah and Sabbatianism (in Hebrew) (Jerusalem, 1990), 13–48 and his Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism (Cambridge, Mass. and London, 1989), 69–118; Lelli, F., “Un collaboratore ebreo di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola: Yohanan Alemanno,” Vivens Homo 5 (1994): 401–30. See also Ruderman, D., The World of a Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol (Cincinnati, 1981); and his “The Italian Renaissance and Jewish Thought,” in Renaissance Humanism: Foundations, Forms and Legacy , ed. Rabil, A. Jr., 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 1988) 1:385–87, 397–404. Alemanno was proud of his connections with Pico and that their names were so similiar. In the introduction to his commentary on the Song of Songs, Alemanno wrote: “my master Count Jhoanni della Mirandola, my name is like his, Yohanan … named Ashkenazi in Hebrew and Aleman in Latin.” See Perles, J., “Les savants juifs a Florence a l’époque de Laurent de Médicis,” Revue des études juives 12 (1886): 255–56.Google Scholar

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24 See his Collectaneae, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library 2234 (Reggio 23).Google Scholar

25 Alemanno knew and studied the Hebrew version of Ibn al-Sid al-Batalyawsi's Katab al-Hada'iq (Book of the Imaginary Circles) in which the concept of a ladder (an allegory for the Universal Soul) for ascending from earth to the Agent Intellect appears. Alemanno's adaptation of this motif in his ‘Einei ha-’ Edah, a commentary on Genesis, influenced Pico della Mirandola's formulation of the ladder used for ascent and descent in his Oratio. See Idel, M., “The Ladder of Ascension — The Reverberations of a Medieval Motif in the Renaissance,” in Twersky, I., ed., Studies in Medieval Jewish History and Literature (Cambridge, Mass., 1984) 2:83–88.Google Scholar

26 See Mari, Abba, Sefer Minhat Kena'ot (Offering of the Zealous), ed. Demitrovski, C., 2 (Jerusalem, 1990), 818.Google Scholar

27 These words seem to indicate another name for Pinhas or his father Nethanel.Google Scholar

28 MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mic 2312, fols. 41r-v.Google Scholar

29 See Bonner, A., Selected Works, 1:646, n. 1 for the probability of a lectio facilior by later manuscript copyists preferring to read “St. Dominic” instead of the Cistercian monastery of San Domnino in Pisa.Google Scholar

30 See Wirszubski, C., ed., Flavius Mithridates, Sermo de Passione Domini (Jerusalem, 1963).Google Scholar

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32 He received a benefice from Pope Sixtus IV in 1474 and another from John II of Aragon in 1475, as well as being the beneficiary of a number of prebends from different churches. See Simonsohn, S., “Some Well-Known Jewish Converts during the Renaissance,” 21–25.Google Scholar

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35 See Novak, B. C., “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Jochanan Alemanno,” 127, n. 19. See also Simonsohn, S., History of the Jews in the Duchy of Mantua (Tel Aviv, 1977), 583.Google Scholar

36 On the Jewish community of Senigallia, an important commercial center with a market, see Saffiotti Bernardi, S., “Aspetti e problemi della presenza ebraica nell’ Italia centro-settentrionale (secoli XIV e XV),” Quaderni dell’ Instituto de scienze storiche dell'università di Roma 2 (1983): 227–72; Sierra, S., “Il sacco del ghetto di Senigaglia nel 1799 in un documento dell’ epoca,” in Volume speciale in memoria de Attilio Milano, La Rassegna Mensile di Israel , ed. Colombo, Y. et al., 36 (1970): 7–9, 381–88; and Sacerdoti, A. and Fiorentino, L., Guida all’ Italia Ebraica (Genoa, 19882), 255–57. On his return to Florence in 1488, Alemanno was employed as a tutor by Yehiel of Pisa for his two children Isaac and Samuel. See Novak, B. C., “Pico della Mirandola and Alemanno,” 127.Google Scholar

37 See Gross, H., Gallia Judaica (Amsterdam, 1969), 219–20 and Green, J., “The Trabot Family” (in Hebrew), Sinai 79 (1977): 147–63. It is likely that the family left France during the fourteenth century (along with many other Jews as the expulsions became more frequent), making their way to Savoy and from there into Italy.Google Scholar

38 ibn Yahya, Gedaliah, Sefer Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (Amsterdam, 1697), fol. 49.Google Scholar

39 Colon, Rabbi Joseph, Responsa (Venice, 1579) and see also Pines, A. D., ed., New Responsa of Rabbi Joseph Colon (Jerusalem, 1970). On the supposed disagreements between Joseph and Messer Leon, see Rabinowicz, H., “Rabbi Colon and Messer Leon,” Journal of Jewish Studies 6 (1955): 166–70. Joseph Colon was also in correspondence with Elijah del Medigo, see his Responsa, nos. 54, 77.Google Scholar

40 See MS Oxford Bodleian 2218, fol. 210v: “By Nethanel, the son of Levi, a disciple of Rabbi Colon.” Google Scholar

41 See Alemanno, Johanan, Sha'ar ha-Heshek (in fact Heshek Shelomo) (Livorno, 1790), fol. 7.Google Scholar

42 On the motif of the divine kiss (mitat neshikah) in Jewish literature see Fishbane, M., The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism (Seattle and London, 1992), 3–50.Google Scholar

43 In his Oratio de hominis dignitate, in Opera omnia, 1:317, Pico della Mirandola uses the image of Jacob's ladder to describe the ascent of the pure soul to God. See Idel, M., “The Ladder of Ascension — The Reverberations of a Medieval Motif in the Renaissance,” 83–88. In a footnote (n. 31) in this article, Idel suggests that Llull's ladder is a scala intellectus rather than a scala naturae. The ladder of being or scala naturae plays an important role in many of Llull's works such as the Ars brevis — the ninth part which treats the novem subiecta, which are the ladder of being; Felix — where it provides the framework of the whole book; the Arbre de ciència, and the Liber de ascensu et descensu intellectus. Google Scholar

44 Alemanno referred to the tenth sefirah, Malchut, as The Gate of Heaven (sha'ar ha-shamayim), and it would stand to reason that ezer refers to the sixth sefirah, Tiferet, as the peak attained through death by divine kiss. On Yesod being referred to as a “tower,” see Idel, M., “Jerusalem in Thirteenth-Century Jewish Thought” (in Hebrew), in The History of Jerusalem: Crusaders and Ayyubids (1099–1250), ed. Prawer, J. and Ben Shammai, H. (Jerusalem, 1991), 274–75. Idel, in the aforementioned article, shows how the connection between the temple and Jerusalem are used as sexual symbols to express the intimate relations among the three sefirot Tiferet, Yesod, and Malchut.Google Scholar

45 See Alemanno, Johanan, Heshek Shlomo, MS Berlin, Or. 832, fol. 120v. See also Novak, B. C., “Giovanni Pico della Mirandola,” 145. See also Perles, , “Les savants juifs a Florence,” 253: “For the past twenty years I have considered elucidating the words of this Solomonic song”; and 255: “new and old solutions are from God, and He granted me [Johanan] a little [of these solutions] for the past twenty years….” Google Scholar

46 See Alemanno, , Song of Solomon's Ascent, in Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 76.Google Scholar

47 As M. Idel has shown, there are grounds for Jewish influence on the Hermetic corpus and for the identification of Hermes with Enoch. See his “Hermeticism and Judaism,” in Hermeticism and the Renaissance: Intellectual History and the Occult in Early Modern Europe, ed. Merkel, I. and Debus, A. G. (Washington, D.C., 1988), 59–62.Google Scholar

48 MS Berlin, Or. 832, fol. 129r–v.Google Scholar

49 See Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 175–80. See also MS Berlin, Or. 832, fol. 124v: “and in the allegorical sense it indicates that the spirit will not wish to ascend the mountain of the Lord (har adonai) until it it has entered the courtyard of the king….” The latter refers to the tenth sefirah, Malchut, and the ascent of the mountain is to the sixth sefirah, Tiferet. See the similarity between this and the imagery of the colophon quoted above. It is interesting to note that according to Llull in the section of the Ars brevis (212) dealing with definitions: “Gloria est ipsa delectatio, in qua bonitas, etc. quiescunt.” Google Scholar

50 Alemanno also considered Moses to be a magician who manipulated the emanations from the sefirot in order to perform the miracles reported in the Bible. See Idel, M., “The Magical and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance,” in Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy, ed. Ruderman, B. (New York and London, 1992), 123–24.Google Scholar

51 See Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 149. On the centrality of the temple see Pedaya, H., “The Divinity as Place and Time and the Holy Place in Jewish Mysticism,” in Kedar, B. Z. and Zwi-Werblowsky, R. J., eds., Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land (London and Jerusalem 1988), 84–111. It is worth comparing Alemanno's ideas on the mors osculi with those of Pico as expressed in his Commento sopra una canzone d'amore, in Pico della Mirandola, G., De Hominis Dignitate, Heptaplus, De Ente et Uno , ed. Garin, E. (Florence, 1942), 557–58 and in his Conclusiones Cabalisticae secundum opinionem propriam, Opera omnia, vol. 1, nos. 11, 13, p. 107.Google Scholar

52 Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 132.Google Scholar

53 This implied polemic against the Christocentric view is perhaps further emphasized by Alemanno's terminology. In the Heshek Shlomo he talks about the “new spirit,” ruah hadashah, in the man trying to cleave to the divine. This “new spirit” exemplified by Solomon can be seen in opposition to the Christian “Holy Spirit,” which helps man achieve grace through the mediation of Christ. See MS Berlin, Or. 832, fols. 121r, 125r, 126v.Google Scholar

54 This is indeed what Alemanno does in a study curriculum which he sets out in his Collectaneae. The highest levels of achievement are based on the study of non-Jewish magical sources because they have recorded Solomon's ancient wisdom. See Idel, M., “The Study Curriculum of Johanan Alemanno,” 310–12, 321–28.Google Scholar

55 Llull, Ramon, Ars brevis, 253–54. It is important to note that the Hebrew follows the Latin faithfully to this point. The Hebrew translation, like the original Latin, also divides the thirteenth section into four parts: “Thirteenth part, which treats of the method for teaching this Art, and is divided into four parts (De tertia decima parte Quae est de modo docendi hanc Artem. Pars ista dividitur in quattuor partes).” Google Scholar

56 MS New York, Jewish Theological Seminary, Mic 2312, fol. 41r.Google Scholar

57 This is magia naturalis, which, while it changes the course of nature, works according to preconceived laws that are known and understood by the practitioner. There is no arbitrary change of nature. See Idel, M., Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (New York, 1995), 81 and idem, Golem: Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on the Artificial Anthropoid (New York, 1990), 173–75.Google Scholar

58 On these typologies of Kabbalah, see Scholem, G., Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York, 1974 3), 119–55, 205–43 and Idel, M., Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, 1988), xi–xx, 112–55. See also Idel, M., Hasidism, 45–102. The supposed dichotomy between these typologies has lately begun to be questioned by some scholars, for example, Pedaya, H., “ ‘Ahuzim be-Dibbur’: An Investigation of the Ecstatic-Prophetic Trend among the Early Kabbalists” (in Hebrew), Tarbiz 65 (1996): 565–636. For a discussion of Abraham Abulafia's understanding of the different types of Kabbalah, see Wolfson, E. R., “The Doctrine of Sefirot in the Prophetic Kabbalah of Abraham Abulafia,” Jewish Quarterly Review 2 (1995): 336–71; 3 (1996): 47–84.Google Scholar

59 See Idel, , “The Study Curriculum,” 317.Google Scholar

60 Alemanno informs the reader in his Hay Olamim (The Immortal) that in 1470 he was thirty-five years old, meaning that if he followed his own study curriculum, he would have been in the last of the seven year cycles while in Padua. See Lesley, , “The Song of Solomon's Ascent by Yohanan Alemanno,” 261 and Novak, , “Pico della Mirandola,” 126.Google Scholar

61 See Idel, M., “The Study Curriculum,” 313–24.Google Scholar

62 In his Song of Solomon's Ascent, Alemanno talks about the “spiritual force of the letters,” in other words the letters as talismanic objects, by permutation of which the divine influx can be harnessed. See Idel, M., Hasidism, 158. See also Alemanno's Collectaneae, MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, 2234 (Reggio 23) fol. 95v where the magical potential of drawing down the divine influx by combination of letters is further attested.Google Scholar

63 Although Pico immediately qualifies this similarity, writing “licet forte diverso modo procedant.” See his Apologia, in Opera omnia, 1:180. See also Pico's Conclusiones (completed in November, 1486) and especially the Conclusiones Cabalisticae secundum opinionem propriam, 107–11. See also Wirszubski, C., Pico della Mirandola's Encounter with Jewish Mysticism, 133–52, 258–60 and McGinn, B., “Cabalists and Christians: Reflections on Cabala in Medieval and Renaissance Thought,” in Popkin, R. H. and Weiner, G. M., eds., Jewish Christians and Christian Jews: From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Dordrecht, Boston, and London, 1994), 16–21.Google Scholar

64 See his Commento sopra una canzone d'amore, in Pico della Mirandola, G., De Hominis Dignitate, Heptaplus, De Ente et Uno, ed. Garin, E. (Florence, 1942), 535. In the Commento, printed in the Basel 1573 edition of Pico's Opera omnia, 1:912, the relevant passage is missing.Google Scholar

65 Pico's categorization of the different types of Kabbalah is quite complicated, but is important for understanding what type of Kabbalah he equates with magic. Chaim Wirszubski suggested that for Pico, practical Kabbalah was a mixture of both sefirotic and Abulafian ecstatic Kabbalah. This could also be a result of Pico's meeting with Alemanno. See Wirszubski, , Pico della Mirandola, 133–52. See also Idel, , “Hermeticism and Judaism,” 66–70 and Yates, F., Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, 84–116. Pico had a printed edition of the Ars brevis in his library. The first printed edition comes from Barcelona in 1481, and the first edition printed in Italy dates from 1485 (Rome?). See Kibre, P., The Library of Pico della Mirandola (New York, 1966), 261, no. 1071 and Rogent, E. and Duràn, E., Bibliografia de les impressions Lul·lianes, 1 (Palma, 1989), nos. 3, 6.Google Scholar