Oldal 142 [142]
GYÖRGY E. SZÖNYI
to attain such a state in order fully to understand Gods plan for creation.
His role model was the biblical patriarch Enoch, who according to some
canonized loci but discussed extensively in the apocryphal Books of Enoch
was elevated to God in his lifetime and was privileged to talk face to face with
the Creator.’
While analysing Dee’s esoteric practice I introduced the term exaltatio
to denote a program to attain epiphanic ecstasy and offered a definition of it
which I explain here. The term exaltatio was rather exceptional in Classical
and Humanist Latin. The sense in which I use it, however, can be found
in Latin dictionaries. The great Teubner, for example, lists meanings such
as “mystical elevation” and “change of status or condition the opposite of
which is humility.” So it can be an esoteric experience which results in the
(transcendental) elevation of the subject, a spiritual equivalent to promotion
in rank in the social world. However, like most signs that have symbolic
connotations, the term also includes negative meanings (in malam partem).
It may stand for superbia or elatio, i.e. “pride” and “conceit.” Allthese meanings
play an important role in the concept of magical exaltatio.* Passive as
opposed to active elevation on the one hand, assertive enthusiasm as opposed
to conceitful delusion on the other all contribute to the complicated cultural
history of occult aspirations which are in close connection with the initiation
into the mysteries. I examine these concepts, drawing on the example of two
Italian Humanists from the time of the Renaissance, Lodovico Lazzarelli
and Giovanni da Correggio. Both were esoterically and hermetically minded
Neoplatonists, like Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, but they are not
as well-known, in spite of the fact that Lazzarelli’s works in particular are no
less intriguing than the writings of his great contemporaries. In the following
I briefly introduce the ideas of these two eccentric early modern intellectuals
and analyse some details of Lazzarelli’s main work, the Crater Hermetis.
! Some works on ecstatic epiphany: Proclus, On the Signs of Divine Possession (in lamblichus,
On the Mysteries, 1989, 150); Gombrich, Symbolic Images (1975); Wind, Pagan Mysteries
(1968). On Enoch: VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (1984)
and also his Enoch, A Man for All Generations (1995); critical English edition of the three
Books of Enoch: Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (1983); on Enoch in
the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Szönyi, The Reincarnations of Enoch... (2011).
? See my John Dee’s Occultism (2004), Introduction.
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