Obj. ID: 40611  De Arte Cabalistica by Johannes Reuchlin, Hagenau, 1517

This text was prepared by William Gross:

One of the preeminent Christian Hebraists of his time, Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) mastered Hebrew and was a founder of thnorcefully defended the Talmud and Jewish literatrure against the attacks of the apostate Jew, Johannes Pfefferkorn
De Arte Cabbalistica is a 1517 text by the German Renaissance humanist scholar Johann Reuchlin, which deals with his thoughts on Kabbalah. In it, he puts forward the view that the theosophic philosophy of Kabbalah could be of great use in the defence of Christianity and the reconciliation of science with the mysteries of faith. It builds on his earlier work De Verbo Mirifico.
This famous work on cabbalistic art is written in the form of a discussion between three men: the Jew Simon, the Muslim Marranus, and the Pythagorean Philolaus, who come together for talks at Frankfurt/Main, the residence of the Jew.
Reuchlin's interest in the Kabbalah was aroused by Pico della Mirandola, whom he met in Italy in 1490, and by Jacob b. Jehiel Loans (d. 1506), the Jewish court physician of Frederick III who taught Reuchlin Hebrew. He sensed the affinity between the neoplatonic elements in kabbalistic teaching and the basic conceptions of the great German platonic philosopher, Nicholas of Cusa (Cusanus), whom he deeply admired. His attraction to Kabbalah remained constant throughout his life and was most probably the positive driving power behind his defense of Jewish literature. Like Pico, he expected to find in the Kabbalah a kind of esoteric Christianity, although in an as yet undeveloped state. In 1494 he published in Basle De verbo mirifico ("The miracle-working word"), the first book in Latin devoted to the subject of the Kabbalah. It consists of three conversations between the author (Capnion), an epicurean philosopher (Sidonius), and a Jew (Baruchias). Their common ground is the conviction that all religions express, albeit in different symbols and at various stages of perfection or distortion, the same original revelation of truth. Presenting a highly garbled and largely unauthentic version of Kabbalah (reflecting Reuchlin's very rudimentary knowledge of the subject at the time), Baruchias praises it as against epicurean philosophy. Reuchlin, who, as it were, stands above the parties, presents the Christian point of view in theosophic garb. The conversations still have a strong anti-Jewish bias. Capnion reveals to his Jewish protagonist the true mystery of the word which works miracles, the true Name of God, which is nothing but the unfolded Name of God, as against the Tetragrammaton YHWH, which is said to represent the Name of God in the period of the dominion of the Law of Moses: the miraculous name in the period of the Messiah consists of the five letters YHSWH, representing, according to Reuchlin, the name of Jesus. This innovation was his main contribution to the development of a Christian Kabbalah. The emphasis in the kabbalistic chapters of the book is on the Names of God and their magical implications, seen as some kind of preparation for Christianity.
Twenty years later, Reuchlin returned to the subject. He had in the meanwhile studied some kabbalistic manuscripts, especially Gikatilla's Ginnat Egoz and Sha'arei Orah (the latter in a Latin translation by Paulus Ricius, published 1516) and a codex of kabbalistic collectanea which indeed contained much valuable information concerning kabbalistic doctrine. In his new work, De arte Cabalistica (Haguenau, 1517, Basle, 15503), which he dedicated to Pope Leo X, he again developed his theme in conversations between Simon, the Jewish kabbalist, the Muslim, Marannus, and Philolaus, who represents Pythagorean and mystical philosophy. Unlike in his former book, Reuchlin here identifies himself more or less with the Jewish kabbalist and explicitly underlines the affinity of some central kabbalistic teaching on God with that of Nicholas of Cusa. The first and third books of the work discuss the Kabbalah at considerable length and with a fair amount of objectivity and sympathy, while the second book contains a long dialogue on Pythagoras' philosophy. Citing many passages from his sources (most of which are found in Ms. Halberstam 444 in the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York), Reuchlin lays equal stress on the theosophic school of Kabbalah as on Abulafia's and Gikatilla's teachings on the Holy Names and their permutations and combinations, although he dissociates himself from the magical misuse of such speculations. Christology no longer plays a part in these expositions and appears, if at all, in marginal comments. The quiet and dignified tone and the wealth of new information assured wide interest in the book and made it a classic of the "Christian Kabbalah." In his polemical Destructio Cabale … (Cologne, 1519), Jacob Hoogstraaten denounced the "kabbalistical perfidy" propagated by Reuchlin, but because of his ignorance of the subject he failed to undermine the considerable influence of Reuchlin's kabbalistic studies.
[Gershom Scholem]

Johannes Reuchlin stated in his introductory dedication of De arte cabalistica, published in 1517, to Pope Leo X that his purpose in writing “of the symbolic philosophy of the art of Kabbalah” was to restore ancient wisdom to the light of day. Focusing on its interpretation of Kabbalah as a symbolic art, readers have positioned this text within the genre of Christian Kabbalah, and too often marginalized it with such words as unorthodox, mistaken, irrational, and insignificant. In examining its claim to wisdom, I re-position De arte cabalistica as a claim to higher knowledge within the context of a number of early modern discourses. Reuchlin called his methodology contemplation; some of his contemporaries, and scholars have labelled it magic. In this thesis, I attempt to disrupt the judgemental boundary separating contemplation and magic by suggesting that DAC, as a theurgical text, encompassed both in its search for knowledge of God.
In these debates between the Jew Simon, the Muslim Marranus, and the Pythagorean Philolaus, held at Simon's home in Frankfurt am Main, Reuchlin provides a discussion of the problem of harmonizing Kabbalah and Christianity (thence the dedication to Pope Leo. X.). The reverse of the title bears a privilege by Emperor Maximilian for Anshelm's Hebrew, Greek, and Latin original editions, with special mention of his editorial merits. This privilege, one of the earliest of its kind, is regarded as a monument in the history of the book trade (cf. Schottenloher, "Die Druckprivilegien des 16. Jhs.", in: GbJ 1933). - II: Second edition, also strongly concerned with Kabbalah. "Beide Werke auf dem Index, Rom 1770, [De verbo mirifico] auch schon auf dem Index Lugdunum 1586" (Scholem, p. 127). These typographical masterpieces from the press of Anshelm, one of the foremost humanist printers, also contain many passages in Hebrew and Greek types.
VD 16, R 1235. Adams R 381. BM-STC German 732. Panzer VII, 83, 126. Scholem 938. Goedeke I, 416, 20. Caillet 9333. Burg (Hagenau) 395. Benzing (Hagenau) 15. Benzing (Reuchlin) 99. Geiger 185, note 4. - II: VD 16, R 1301. Adams R 385. Panzer VIII, 325, 30. Scholem 937. Goedeke I, 414, 3b. Caillet 9333. Benzing (Reuchlin) 24. Steiff 58. Cf. Geiger 179. Not in BM-STC German. Bookseller Inventory # 20559
This volume is bound with another book by Reuchlin, "De Rudimentis Hebraicis".