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INITIATION INTO MYSTERIES IN PIco’s WORKS more than any other philosopher in his 900 Theses: he cites 45 theses from Aquinas.”° It is worth noting that Pico learned Aramaic and studied Kabbalah with his tutor Flavio Mitridate, and in Kabbalah the seraphim are the higher angels of the World of Beriah, “Creation,” that is the first created realm which is divine understanding. According to Pico’s explanation, before we could reach this highest level of love, we need to prepare ourselves by meditation, that is by imitating the cherub when contemplating. As we are humans, he says, we do not know how the cherub can contemplate God immediately. Thus, we have to learn this from the Church Fathers: from Saint Paul, who ascended into the third heaven, and his disciple, Dionysius the Areopagite, who explained in the Celestial Hierarchy (Chapter VII, 1-4.) what Paul could see there.” Again, at this point Pico defines an order, where Pseudo-Dionysius specificed parallel activities. This is Pico’s definition: “[Paul] saw them [the cherubs] first being purified, then illuminated, then finally made perfect.””’ In the Areopagite’s description, these three actions are peculiar to all three types of angels, which for me seem to be one, that is the same one having three different aspects: “the first hierarchy of heavenly minds [...] is filled with its due measure of utter purification, of infinite light, of complete perfection.””* When Dionysius explains in more detail, he does not offer a strict order of action: “Purification, illumination and perfection are all three the reception of an understanding of the Godhead, namely, being completely purified of ingnorance by the proportionately granted knowledge of the more perfect initiations, being illuminated by this same knowledge, (through which it also purifies whatever was not previously beheld but is now revealed through the more lofty enlightement), and being also perfected by this light in the understanding of the most lustrous initiations.” is ‘heat, which is not found in fire simply, but exists with a certain sharpness, as being of most penetrating action, and reaching even to the smallest things, and as it were, with superabundant fervor; whereby is signified the action of these angels, exercised powerfully upon those who are subject to them, rousing them to a like fervor, and cleansing them wholly by their heat. Thirdly we consider in fire the quality of clarity, or brightness; which signifies that these angels have in themselves an inextinguishable light, and that they also perfectly enlighten others.” Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Cristian Classics Ethernal Library, http://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa.pdf 1* part, Treatise on the angels, Question 108. Of the angelic degrees of hierarchies and orders. Article. 5 — Whether the orders of the angels are properly named? 1187-1188. Only Proclus and the Kabbalist philosophers are cited more frequently, with 55 references to Proclus and 47 references to the Kabbalist philosophers. Like Ficino, Pico did not share Lorenzo Valla’s doubts about the author of these books being Paul’s disciple. Caponigri’s translation. “Respondebit utique Dionysio interprete: purgari illos, tum illuminari, postremo perfici.” Pico Della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate, 110. 28 Pseudo-Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, VII, 209C. The Complete Works, 165. 3 Tbidem. 25 26 27 + 203 ¢ Daréczi-Sepsi-Vassänyi_Initiation_155x240.indb 203 6 2020.06.15. 11:04:20
