Page 147 [147]
A CHRISTIAN-HERMETIC-JUDAIC INITIATION...
dressed in white, and he presented his clothing, on which was a dead mans
bloodied head, and certain large gilt medallions, saying ‘vacua vacuis, plena
plenis’ with certain prophecies, claiming to be the true Messiah.”® Obviously,
Mercurio was staging a prophetic-apocalyptic passage through Italy until he
arrived in Rome on Palm Sunday, 11 April. In “Enoch’s” description he was
33 years old and had long curly hair. He was allegedly lively and intelligent
and, although he had never studied grammar or rhetoric, he was an eloquent
speaker. This image could easily recall the Christ of the Gospels (EE 5.2;
Lazzarelli, 119). First, he rode a black horse and he himself was dressed in
black; also, he approached the Vatican with four mounted servants. Crossing
the city centre, he then went to the other side of the river through the Marrano
Gate, and ona grassy clearing, he changed his clothes. He put on sandals and
dressed himself in a blood-stained linen. He parted his hair after the fashion
of the Nazarenes and put a bloodstained crown of thorns on his head to which
a silver plaque was affixed with the following inscription:
This is my Servant Pimander, whom I have chosen. This Pimander is my supreme
and waxing child, in whom I am well pleased to cast out demons and proclaim my
judgement and truth to the heathens... (EE 6.2.2; Lazzarelli, 121)
Hanegraaff rightly noticed that this inscription is similar to that of 1481,
but here the name of Hermes Trismegistus has been replaced by Pimander
(“Lazzarelli,” 28). In the Hermetica, it is clear that these are two different
persons, and Pimander is higher in rank than his deified human disciple,
Trismegistus.
Mercurio then adorned himself with an inkwell and a reed-staff, as if with
a sceptre, and some more breastplates with various inscriptions on them.
In his description of the scene, Enoch-Lazzarelli himself falls into an ecstatic
state: “Immortal God! What secret mysteries and stupendous oracles were
laid open there” (EE 6.3; Lazzarelli, 121). The following images of exaltatio are
in fact paraphrases from the Corpus Hermeticum and even, at some points,
from Ficinos "Argumentum?" (i.e. Preface) to the Pimander:
This is an image of the mind, or, more exactly, a translation or downpouring of
all things that are governed and accomplished in the mind of God. And if I am to
speak more clearly, this image is [...] truly the only drawing-down of the gods to
earth, and the teacher of holiness and piety. (EE 6.4.2, cf. Lazzarelli, 123n49-51)
° Hanegraaff, Lazzarelli, 27; Kristeller, Marsilio Ficino e Lodovico Lazzarelli, 230-31; W. B.
McDaniel, An Hermetic Plague-Tract by Johannes Mercurius Corrigiensis (1941-42), 219.
Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 145 6 2020. 06.15. 11:04:17