_ debate. 
an Awe ee vial ths | 
238 
of their aid, the violence of his disorder 
put an end to his existence in thirteen days, 
With respect to the works of this’ au- 
thor, something has already been said, 
and little more remains to be observed. 
“The Conclusiones afford a very complete 
specimen of the learning of the age, and 
of what were deemed the most valuable 
purposes to which learning could be ap- 
plied, However useless and unprofitable 
these purposes may appear to us, it will 
not be denied by any one, who has the 
curiosity to look through the Conclu- 
siones, that the mass of Jearning, which 
must have been possessed by the pro- 
poser of them, is prodigious; when it is 
recollected that,at the time he proposed 
them, he was no more than twenty-three 
years of age. For there is not the least 
reason to suppose, that a person whose 
works prove him to have been a man of 
profound learning, and who, in an age 
and nation distinguished by some of the 
brightest scholars that ever appeared, 
was ranked by their own judgment 
amongst the first, should have challenged 
the discussion of any of the proposed 
sabjecis, without being well provided 
with the knowledge uecessary for such a 
The manner in which the ques- 
tions were propounded leave little room 
to doubt that the author was deeply 
versed in the respective subjects of them ; 
and the Apology for the accused propo- 
sitions, particularly those de Salute Ori- 
genis and de Mogidalgue Cabala, discover 
familiarity with the writings of the Fa- 
thers, as well as with the Greek and He- 
brew classics, and a facility of language 
~ and arguinent that could not be acquired 
at that age without extraordinary powers 
of mind.- 1 would willingly transcribe 
the whole of this. curious piece for the 
amusement.of such of your readers as 
may not have easy access to the original, 
if the limits of your publication would 
allow of it. 
St is curious to observe how greatly the 
sudden growth of learning outstripped 
that of solid science. No age, perhaps, 
was ever se remarkable for the learning 
which it produced as the period from the 
middle of the fifteenth century to the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth; yet, except the 
inestimable obligations we owe to the 
learned men of that time for their edi- 
tions of the classics, later aves have been 
little benefited by their works, which are 
either lost or neglected: and even the 
aciences they treated of, exploded and-- 
diculed. School-divinity and metaphy- 
‘gics, though the most attended “to, were 
TORS ST a ee ee ee Oe tet MP eA oa 
Memoirs of John Pica, Prince of Mirandola. [Octs15 
not the only studies in which the vast 
erudition of that age was wasted. ‘The 
mysterious doctrines of the Cabala form- 
ed a favourite study of some of the most 
learned scholars. ‘The proposition which 
laid Pica open to the indignation of the 
church, was that in which he asserted the 
orthodoxy of Origen; for Origen, not- 
withstanding his meritorious labours in 
the cause of christianity, his daring zeal 
and self-martyrdom, and notwithstand- 
ing the defence of Eusebius, was con- 
signed by the sentence of the church to 
inevitable damnation, on account of his 
errors in the mysteries of the faith. To 
question his perdition, therefore, was to 
deny that the church was the interpreter 
of the divine intentions. The defence 
of this part of the Conclustones is written 
with a boldness that could hardly be ex- 
pected from an Italian of the 15th cen- 
tury. But the hardiest of these propo- 
sitions was that in which it is asserted, 
that faith isnot in a man’s own power, 
In defending this and the other propo- 
sitions, which were taxed with heresy, 
Pica probably relied less on the spirit 
and ability of his justification, than on 
his own high rank and station, together 
with the countenance and protection of 
his powerful friends, particularly the 
Medici, whose liberality of sentiment in 
regard to religious points was so notori- 
ous, that even Leo the Xth, has been 
directly charged, not only with heresy, 
but infidelity.* 
By the Cabala, a term at this time 
generally misapprehended, was under- 
stood sometimes a species of divine magic 
operating by the agency of good spirits, 
as magic commonly so called was suppo-~ 
sed to do by that of evil beings; but the 
true definition of it, as received by the 
best of its professors, is given by Reuch- 
linus,} in his treatise addressed to Lo- 
renzo de’ Medici “Divine Revelationis ad 
salutiferam Dei ct formarum separatarum 
contemplationemtraditm symbolicarecepe 
tio,”—a symbolic acceptation of the Mo- 
saic history (for that is meant by divina 
revelatio) which produced a pure and 
perfect acquaintance with the nature of 
the divinity and of spirits; and according 
to the opinions of some, which seem to 
be revived by the modern Swedenbor- 
DAME OATH Ts Naat TER POPEATER LS 
* Milner’s History of the Church. Vol. iv. 
4} This treatise, which contains the whole 
leaning upon a subject once held in the 
highest veneration by men of learning, is very 
curious, and is te be found in the folio edition 
4 
of Mirandola's works, published at Basil, 
in 1557. 
gians, 
