Dialogues of Love 9781442687868

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DIALOGUES OF LOVE

THE LORENZO DA PONTE ITALIAN LIBRARY General Editors Luigi Ballerini and Massimo Ciavolella, University of California at Los Angeles Honorary Chairs †Professor Vittore Branca Honorable Dino De Poli Ambassador Gianfranco Facco Bonetti Honorable Anthony J. Scirica Honorable Salvatore Cilento Advisory Board Remo Bodei, Università di Pisa Lina Bolzoni, Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa Francesco Bruni, Università di Venezia Giorgio Ficara, Università di Torino Michael Heim, University of California at Los Angeles †Amilcare A. Iannucci, University of Toronto Rachel Jacoff, Wellesley College Giuseppe Mazzotta, Yale University Gilberto Pizzamiglio, Università di Venezia Margaret Rosenthal, University of Southern California John Scott, University of Western Australia Elissa Weaver, University of Chicago

LEONE EBREO

Dialogues of Love

Translated by Cosmos Damian Bacich and Rossella Pescatori Introduction and notes by Rossella Pescatori

UNIV E RSIT Y OF TORONTO PR E SS Toronto Buffalo London

© University of Toronto Press 2009 Toronto Buffalo London www.utppublishing.com Printed in Canada ISBN

978-0-8020-9910-5

Printed on acid-free paper Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

León, Hebreo, b. ca. 1460 Dialogues of love / Leone Ebreo; translated by Cosmos Damian Bacich and Rossella Pescatori; foreword, Brian Copenhaver; introduction and notes by Rossella Pescatori; afterword, Cosmos Damian Bacich. (Lorenzo da Ponte Italian Libary) Translation of Dialoghi d’amore. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9910-5 1. Love – Philosophy. 2. Love – Early works to 1800. I. Bacich, Cosmos Damian II. Pescatori, Rossella III. Title. IV. Series: Lorenzo da Ponte Italian library series B785.L33D613

2009

128'46

C2008-907829-2

This volume is published under the aegis and with the financial assistance of Fondazione Cassamarca, Treviso; Ministero degli Affari Esteri, Direzione Generale per la Promozione e la Cooperazione Culturale; Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, Direzione Generale per i Beni Librari e gli Istituti Culturali, Servizio per la promozione del libro e della lettura. Publication of this volume is assisted by the Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Toronto. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

In memory of Ermenegilda Tondelli Bertotti (Venezia, 12 June 1924–1 January 2009) For her eternal true Love

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Contents

Foreword ix Brian P. Copenhaver Introduction: The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 3 Rossella Pescatori DIALOGUES OF LOVE 1 On Love and Desire

23

25

2 On the Universality of Love 73 3 On the Origin of Love 165

Afterword: The Dialogues of Love in Spanish 361 Cosmos Damian Bacich N OTES

373

P RINTED E DITIONS AND TRANSLATIONS B IBLIOGRAPHY

D IALOGHI D’AMORE

413

M YTHOLOGICAL -A STROLOGICAL N AMES

433

OF THE

419

I NDEX

OF

B IBLICAL

I NDEX

OF

N AMES

AND

AND

WORKS

437

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Foreword

Between 1458 and 1494, Ferdinand or Ferrante, an illegitimate son of Alfonso V of Aragon, ruled the Kingdom of Naples, to be succeeded by two sons and a grandson who were no match for invaders from France and Spain. A different Ferdinand, called ‘the Catholic,’ who was King of Aragon, Castile, Leon, and Sicily, added Naples to his roster in 1504, making this large piece of the Italian peninsula part of the unified Spanish kingdom, and its growing empire, until 1713. Before this shuffling of monarchs, Naples had been a refuge for Jews driven from Spain in 1492 – including Isaac Abravanel (1437–1508), patriarch of a family that had distinguished itself in Iberian politics and culture since the fourteenth century. Isaac and the three sons who came with him in 1492 transplanted the Abravanel dynasty to Italy, where the family thrived and then spread to England, the Low Countries, Turkey, and elsewhere. Having served Alfonso V of Portugal as his treasurer, Isaac fell out with his successor in 1483 and fled to Castile, where he eventually became a minister of the throne – until the expulsion of 1492. Meanwhile, he had also begun to write biblical commentaries and a little philosophy. Although the new humanist philology interested him, he also respected, though he did not parrot, the medieval Aristotelian tradition in the version advocated by Moses Maimonides. The philosophical problem that Isaac studied hardest was also a prominent biblical topic: God’s creation of the world. Against Hasdai Crescas and Levi ben Gerson (Gersonides), he defended the doctrine that God created the universe out of nothing – ex nihilo. Isaac’s position on creation was not at all Aristotelian or even Maimonidean. Aristotle’s world is uncreated and eternal. And although Maimonides prefers the biblical account of divine creation, he admits that he cannot prove it; he also allows that Plato’s version is acceptable, meaning the myth

x Foreword

of creation in the Timaeus. In this late dialogue, Plato gave JudaeoChristian creationism its purchase on philosophy with an account of a Demiurge or Craftsman who makes an orderly cosmos by imposing Forms on the formless matter that already exists. If Isaac’s view of creation was not Platonic, it was even less Aristotelian, and his analysis of the human soul and intellect was aimed at the great Muslim commentator on Aristotle, Averroes. Isaac defends the immortality of the soul, and of the intellect as the soul’s highest faculty, as an immaterial substance distinct from the body that survives the body’s death. He also attacks the related doctrine of conjunction with the Agent Intellect – a single mind that resides in the lowest of the celestial spheres and does the real thinking for all individual humans – as what realizes human happiness and gives mankind its only access to understanding and immortality. Most of Isaac’s writing takes the form of biblical commentaries, written mainly after he left Spain. In Naples and then elsewhere in Italy and Europe, he was able to enrich his thinking with new contacts, not only learned Jews, such as Yohanan Alemanno, who collaborated with Christians, but also Christians, like Egidio da Viterbo, who were students of Jewish thought. His connections with royalty also gave him entrée to humanist courtiers such as Giovanni Pontano, the eminent Neapolitan poet. This was the background – his father’s remarkable career – of the first part of Leone Ebreo’s life. Judah ben Isaac Abravanel, before he called himself Leo the Jew, was born around 1460 and worked as a court physician for Ferdinand and Isabella after his father had entered their service. He came to Italy with his father and brothers in 1492 to make his living as a physician, first in Naples, then in Genoa in 1495, then back to Naples in 1501. Not much more is known about him. There is little enough information that some have asked, without being able to answer, whether he converted to Christianity. We also lack certainty about the original language of his great book the Dialogues of Love, which he finished shortly after the turn of the century. Are the Dialoghi as we now read them in Italian the originals? Or did Judah write first in Hebrew or Spanish or even Latin or French? We do know some things about the Dialogues beyond what the text itself tells us. First, since the learned author was his learned father’s son, we are not surprised that he writes about the soul and the cosmos, about psychology in the context of cosmology as those topics had been debated for centuries by Jews in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, by Muslims in Arabic and also – through his father’s distinguished employment – by Christians in Latin, even the newly classicized Latin of the humanists.

Foreword

xi

We also know that the book that grew out of Judah’s early experience in Portugal, Castile, Naples, and Genoa became a big hit later in several European vernaculars, and in Hebrew and Latin as well, once its first Italian edition was printed in Rome in 1535. But why did a work that appealed to so many readers make its first appearance more than three decades after it was written? And why did publication wait for almost fifteen years after the author’s death? Such questions provoke more questions: for instance, was the text that we now read the whole work as it was planned or written? What is much clearer is that the form and the content of Judah’s book made it attractive to a sixteenth century audience newly captivated by Marsilio Ficino’s Plato – the first complete Plato in a language (Latin) that Western Europeans could understand. The new Plato, along with the newly revived Greek drama, as well as the Plautus and Terence that schoolboys now studied, made the dialogue a literary fashion, but mainly after Judah had already decided to use this genre. Of the two Platonic dialogues that most interested him – the Symposium and the Timaeus – only the former is really dramatic, nor is there much drama in the long conversation between Love and Wisdom that Judah records. But since Judah’s Dialogue is an encounter of genders, of Sofia and Filone, we may ask if the Diotima of the Symposium was much on the author’s mind. We may wonder if he was thinking of what Socrates told Phaedrus and the others about the ‘speech in praise of love’ that he ‘once heard from a woman of Mantinea, Diotima – a woman who was wise,’ as if female wisdom were something to remark about (Symp. 201d, 212c). Both in Judah’s Dialoghi and in Plato’s Symposium, love is a fuel and a cement: love energizes the cosmos that it binds together with the finely graded distillates of soul or life that permeate the All and its hierarchy. Since the cosmic Soul that does this work is also a Mind, Judah believes that our own microcosmic capacity for love is a kind of knowledge – knowledge of God. The God whom we must learn to love is a Father who brought the cosmos to birth from a Mother, an eternal chaos who is herself (somehow) created eternally. But the love of God in the Dialogues that reminds us of Spinoza’s ‘intellectual love of God’ also makes us think of the act of love as conjunction with the Agent Intellect, the Averroist hypostasis that Judah identifies with God. Another way to regard love as knowledge of God, then, is to see it as the intellection that only the Agent Intellect can provide for humans. These themes are common not only in the works of philosophers, both Jews and Gentiles, that Judah knew from his father or discovered in Ficino’s Italy, but also in the sermons, commentaries, and midrashim of biblical scholars, again both Gentiles and Jews – but Jews especially. To be sure,

xii

Foreword

Judah’s range in the Dialoghi is cosmopolitan and syncretist. Although he does not cite Latin or Italian scholarship, he obviously uses it, especially the pagan mythology that Boccaccio had revived. Ficino’s Platonism, and perhaps some of Pico’s idiosyncratic enthusiasms, are as evident as the ideas of Crescas on cosmic love. But if the result is a kind of Platonism, it is a distinctly Jewish Platonism, underwritten by a Jewish version of the ‘ancient theology,’ the mytho-history that Ficino derived from the Church Fathers in order to legitimate his notion of a Platonic tradition of ancient wisdom. But Judah’s key to the secret of love is more philosophical than mythological: love is knowledge of God, and Filone’s guide is Sofia, as Diotima was the informant of Socrates. Not at all perplexed by the contesting claims of reason and revelation, Judah puts his confidence in philosophy – a universalizing philosophy that welcomes Gentile wisdom alongside Jewish learning. Although Judah’s syncretism often seems open to a pantheist metaphysics, he is careful on this point, perhaps because his father cared so much about it. In order to protect his biblical monotheism from evaporating in pantheism, he proposes a Father God who creates – not ex nihilo, however, but from the eternally created Mother of chaos. A Logos like Philo’s also intervenes in the creative process as a vehicle for the Forms that give order to the cosmos. Not much ingenuity is needed to accommodate Judah’s cosmology to Philo’s biblical exegesis or to Plotinus on the Timaeus. But the same can be said for the Cabala that fascinated so many Jews and Gentiles in Judah’s day, when in fact it is hard to imagine that someone with his experience and interests would not have read the major texts of Cabala and used them. The relation between Judah’s eternal Father and Mother, for example, is like the relation between Ein Sof, the Infinite of the Cabalists, and the Crown, the first and highest of the ten Sefirot that pour out of the abyss of the Godhead. But in sefirotic theosophy, it is the second Sefirah that is Wisdom, a female attribute who assists in the work of creation, playing something like the intermediary role of the Philonic Logos that also operates in Judah’s system. In the third book of the Dialoghi, this is what Filone tells Sofia about sapienza or ‘wisdom’: Salamone ne li suoi Proverbi, comparando la sapienza, dice: ‘Cerva d’amore e capriola di grazia, l’affezioni sue in abundanzia ti diletteranno d’ogn’ora e ne l’amor suo crescerai sempre.’ Quando, Sofia, salirai per questa scala al mondo celeste e angelico, trovarai che quelli che participano più bellezza intellettuale del sommo bello, più conoscono quanto manca al più perfetto de’ creati de la

Foreword xiii bellezza del suo creatore, e tanto più l’amano e desiano eternalmente fruire nel maggior grado di participazione e unione a loro possible, ne la quale consiste la loro ultima felicità. Siche l’amore principalmente è in quella prima e più perfetta intelligenzia creata, per il quale fruisce unitivamente la somma bellezza del suo creatore, dal quale egli depende; e da lui successivamente derivano l’altre intelligenzie e creature celesti, discendendo di grado in grado fino al mondo inferiore, del quale solo l’uomo è quello che gli può simigliare ne l’amore de la divina bellezza, per l’immortale intelletto che ’l creatore in corpo corruptibile vuole largire. E solamente mediante l’amore de l’uomo a la bellezza divina s’unisce il mondo inferiore, il quale è tutto per l’uomo, con la divinità.*

What Filone describes to Sofia is the ladder of ascent, a common motif of spirituality and mysticism in the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian traditions as recorded in Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, Greek, and Latin texts from antiquity through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Judah’s ladder leads to higher realms inhabited by ‘other intelligences and heavenly creatures’ that derive from ‘the most perfect created intelligence’ – created by the Almighty, in other words. The ontological descent ends in the lower world of humans, whose love of God’s beauty is the only link between the divine on high and the mortal far below. All that is both obvious and commonplace. But what does the ladder have to do with the quotation from Proverbs (5:19)? In the words of the Authorized Version: ‘Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe: let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.’

* Solomon, in his Proverbs, says: ‘Loving hind and roe of grace, her affections will abundantly delight you at all times, and you will always grow in her love.’ When, Sophia, you ascend by this ladder to the heavenly and angelic world, you will find that those who participate most in the intellectual beauty of the supremely beautiful better recognize how much of the beauty of their Creator is lacking even in the most perfect of His creatures. And they love and desire it even more in order to enjoy the highest degree of participation and union possible to them; and in this their ultimate happiness consists. Therefore, love is in that first and most perfect created intelligence, and through it it is possible to enjoy in union the supreme beauty of the Creator, upon Whom the creature depends. From it the other intelligences and heavenly creatures are successively derived, descending gradually down to the lower world, where man alone can be likened to it in his love of the divine beauty through his immortal intellect that the Creator wanted to give to his mortal body. It is only through the love of man for the divine beauty that the lower world, which is his domain, is united to the Godhead, the first cause and final goal of the universe and the highest beauty universally loved and desired. (Dialogue 3, p. 252–3)

xiv Foreword

The clue may be in the cerva or capriola that the Zohar (1:4a, 2:7b, 3:21b) – the core text of sefirotic theosophy or Cabala – associates with the lowest of the ten Sefirot, the Kingdom or Dweller (Shekinah), the supernal woman who connects the highest world of divinity with the lower worlds of creation. Alluding to Proverbs 5:19, the Zohar explains that when the Holy One visits the cerva, he looks ‘amid pangs and travail’ for those who have been faithful. And at this hour of judgment ‘a pillar of fire will be suspended from heaven to earth for forty days. Then the Messiah will arise from the Garden of Eden … [and] shall be hidden for twelve months in the pillar … [and then] will be carried up to heaven in that pillar.’ Like the ladder that Filone describes to Sofia, the pillar of fire is a route of ascent – indeed, of Messianic ascent. Judah could have known this text – and many others that might illuminate his Dialogues – either from the Zohar itself or, more likely, from the Zoharic commentary on the Pentateuch written around 1300 by Menahem of Recanati. In the case of Cabala, however, God lives nowhere but in the details, in the intricate threads of symbols and images from which the Cabalists weave their midrashim. General associations, such as those suggested above between the Sefirot and the major agents of Judah’s cosmology, are often possible but never conclusive. Reaching conclusions about the Dialogues of Love will now be more possible because Rossella Pescatori and Cosmos Damian Bacich have given us the excellent translation, introduction, and notes that will guide many readers and scholars through Judah’s great book. Brian P. Copenhaver Udvar-Hazy Professor of History and Philosophy Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies UCLA

DIALOGUES OF LOVE

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Introduction: The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo

The last few decades have seen the emergence of a new orientation towards the study of Renaissance philosophy. The scholarly work that has led to this shift ranges from philological studies, archival research, and detailed textual analysis, to the critical analysis of conceptual content and relationships between the various thinkers and their ideas. The result has been a recognition of just how profoundly Renaissance thought – and Renaissance culture as a whole – was shaped by an openness to different philosophical and cultural perspectives and dominated by an effort to find common ground, a universal basis for sharing and organizing knowledge. This realization has led to new insights into the work of well-known humanists and philosophers such as Lorenzo Valla, Marsilio Ficino, and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and of less recognized figures, among them Leone Ebreo. Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love, published for the first time in Rome in 1535, was an important and influential work in its day. The text was well known in the various Italian academies of the sixteenth century; it is cited several times by Alessandro Piccolomini (1508–78), and by Sperone Speroni (1500–88), members of the Accademia degli Infiammati in Padova, by Benedetto Varchi (1503–65), member of the Accademia degli Humidi (later named Fiorentina) in Florence, and by Tullia D’Aragona in her Dialogue on Infinity of Love (1547). Its popularity is confirmed by its printing: between 1541 and 1607 it was republished no less than twenty-four times, and between 1551 and 1660 it was translated into French, Latin, Spanish, and Hebrew. More than just a bestseller, it exerted a deep influence over the future centuries on the work of figures as diverse as Giordano Bruno, John Donne, Miguel de Cervantes, and Baruch Spinoza. Despite its reputation and importance, however, the text of the Dialogues has not been easily accessible during most of the intervening centuries. This

4 Introduction

is due mainly to the unfinished state in which the text comes down to us. It was not published by its author, and it is practically impossible to know if the edition published in 1535 is the complete work. No one has yet produced a definitive modern edition based on all the available evidence. A first attempt was carried out by Giacinto Manuppella, who in 1983 edited a beautiful critical edition with textual notes and documentation, which remains the best available version of the book. However, thanks to the recent discovery of two early manuscripts, it is now considered incomplete. Surprisingly, Manuppella’s edition remains unknown to many Renaissance scholars, who still refer to editions from as far back as 1929,1 which may be easier to find but are not philologically reliable. Between these two editions there is also an English translation, published in 1937,2 which was widely used by scholars who could not approach the Italian. In view of this situation, the time has come for a new English translation. THE AUTHOR’S LIFE AND THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BOOK’S COMPOSITION In spite of the great popularity of this work, its author, Leone Ebreo, has remained an obscure figure. Given the lack of reliable information, it is difficult to reconstruct the details of his life. Leone, whose real name was Yehudah,3 was born in Lisbon, probably between 1460 and 1465.4 He was a member of the prestigious Jewish Abravanel5 family of Seville, which proudly claimed itself to be directly descended from the biblical King David.6 For centuries this family occupied important economic and political positions in both Spain and Portugal. Leone/Yehudah was the first of the three sons of Isaac Abravanel, 7 who, with the title of prince (dom),8 acted as treasurer and minister to King Afonso V of Portugal. Isaac was certainly very important for Leone’s intellectual formation, encouraging him to absorb the medieval Arabo-Judaic tradition (e.g., Averroes, Avicenna, AlFarabi, Maimonides, and other commentators of Aristotle), in addition to humanistic studies imported from Italy, and probably readying him to receive his first initiation into the secrets of the Kabbalah. Even though Dom Isaac had conservative intellectual tendencies, he wished his children to receive an education that included both Jewish and non-Jewish subjects. The royal court and the Lisbon synagogue in which Isaac played such an important role surely also had an influence on the intellectual life of the young Yehudah.9 In 1481 the King of Portugal, Alfonso V, died and the fortunes of the Abravanel family changed dramatically for the worse. The new king, João II,

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 5

began to have concerns about the power of those under the protection of his predecessor and therefore decided to prevent them from having any influence in his affairs. Isaac Abravanel was accused of taking part in a conspiracy of the nobles against the late king. All of his possessions were confiscated and one of his protectors, the Duke of Braganza, was put to death. Fearing a similar fate, Dom Isaac chose to flee. He first went to Seville, where his three sons joined him. Yehudah, still in his early twenties, was hired as physician at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, and it is in this period that he began to use the name Leone, since the Jewish tribe of Judah was often compared to a lion, as in the canticle of Jacob (Genesis 49:9).10 He offered his service at the king’s court for almost ten years, and gained Ferdinand’s trust to such a degree that in 1492, when the Spanish monarchs exiled all Jews from Spain,11 Leone was offered the possibility of continuing in his post as physician, on the condition that he allow his son – named Isaac, about one year old – to be baptized a Christian. Leone would not accept these terms and sought to protect his son by sending him to Portugal, where he and his nurse were supposed to have been met by one of his aunts. Nevertheless, the boy’s freedom was shortlived. João II was succeeded by a new king, Manuel, who in 1495 also decreed that all unbaptized Jews must leave the country and all Jewish children be baptized. Thus, despite all his efforts, Leone’s son was baptized and confined to a Dominican convent. Leone laments this sad episode in his autobiographical elegy Lament upon Destiny. It is unknown if he ever saw his son again. From Spain the Abravanel family fled to Naples. There the regents, first King Ferrante I (1458–94), the natural son of King Alfonso V of Aragon, and then King Alfonso II (1494–5), granted the Jewish immigrants the advantageous status of citizens. Dom Isaac became Ferrante’s finance minister, Leone became court physician, and his brother Samuel a prominent merchant. During this period, Leone was able to frequent the cultured society of the court, one that maintained close contact with Medici Florence12 and the revival of interest in Greek and Latin Humanae Litterae and, more specifically, Neoplatonism. Among the leading figures at the Neapolitan court were Giovanni Pontano (1426–1503), Mario Equicola (1470–1525) and Fra Egidio di Viterbo (1465–1532). In Naples the Abravanel family found a very fertile intellectual environment. Dom Isaac was not only able to finally complete a good number of exegetical works that he began in Portugal and Spain, but also started a whole new series of commentaries. Leone dedicated himself to speculative works. It seems that during these years he completed the treatise De coeli harmonia,13 now lost, and probably began conceptualizing the first of his Dialogues of Love.

6 Introduction

This serene period was, however, interrupted by the arrival of the French troops of Charles VIII in Naples in 1495. One source explains the inevitable upheaval this caused for Leone: ‘After the death of Ferrante and the arrival of the French, Isaac Abravanel was one of the few allowed to accompany King Alfonso into exile in Sicily and the first Jew to set foot on that island since 1492.’14 When Alfonso decided to dedicate himself to monastic life, Dom Isaac went to Monopoli in Apulia, where he began work on a treatise involving biblical exegesis. When the French arrived, Leone instead opted to flee with his wife to Genoa, where he was welcomed by other members of the Jewish community who were employed as physicians. Many Jews who had left Spain were in fact able to find refuge and earn a respectable living in Liguria and Monferrato. The reason for Leone’s move to Genoa is unknown. It may have been the attraction of a congenial intellectual environment and the opportunity to associate with humanists such as Gian Battista and Antonio Fregoso,15 and Pietro and Bartolomeo Gentile Fallamonica.16 He probably also made the acquaintance of the celebrated bishop and jurist Agostino Giustiniani,17 whose library was said to be replete with every imaginable manuscript of Greek, Arabic, and Jewish philosophy. It was in Genoa that Leone probably began to write and may have completed the first of the Dialogues. This period of relative tranquillity ended on 5 April 1501, when the governor of the Republic of Genoa commanded that every Jew (physician or not) visibly carry a sign, a yellow cloth (‘drapo giano’) on his breast. Sensing an increasingly hostile environment, Leone decided to move; along with his wife and second son he left the city, and very likely went to Monopoli, where his father was living. In the same year (1501) Federigo of Aragon, who had been king of Naples since October 1496,18 invited both Leone and his father Isaac to return to his court with a promise of protection. Isaac declined and went to Naples only to pay homage to the king, but not long afterward he journeyed to Venice, where he dedicated himself exclusively to the publication of his own works. Leone instead negotiated to settle in Naples. We know from his elegy Lament on Destiny that in 1504 his second son, Samuel, died at the age of five. Some time later, Leone joined his father in Venice.19 His sojourn in Venice did not last long, however. In the same year (1504) he returned to Naples, where the new Spanish ruler, the viceroy, the ‘Gran Capitán’ Gonzalo of Cordova (1435–1515) became his new protector and hired him as his personal physician. It was between 1504 and 1505 that he composed his biographical elegy Lament on Destiny, and it is likely that he continued to work on the Dialogues.

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 7

When, in 1506, the King of Spain, Ferdinand, El católico, began to govern the Kingdom of Naples, Gonzalo lost his power and his position as viceroy. The Jews, no longer tolerated, were finally banned and expelled from the Kingdom in 1510. Leone did not wait for the forced expulsion, but returned to Venice in 1506. We know that while in that city he dedicated himself completely to the study of philosophy, as attested by his father, who refers to him as one of the most worthy philosophers of that time in Italy.20 In 1508 Isaac Abravanel died in Venice,21 and after this date little is known about Leone’s whereabouts or activity. It seems that he spent some time in Ferrara, then in Pesaro, and probably in Rome.22 Around 1520 he was probably staying in Naples, where he was still in favour with the ruling family who, under Charles V, made allowances for their Jewish subjects. As physician to the viceroy Raimondo of Cordova, Leone became renowned for both his medical skills as well as his philosophy.23 After 1521 there is no mention of him. It is presumed that he eventually went to Rome, but it is not known whether or not he was still alive when the Dialogues of Love was published in 1535.24 PUBLICATION, EDITIONS, AND MANUSCRIPTS The textual history of the Dialogues raises many issues that are far from being solved. Thanks to recent scholarship,25 we now know that Leone himself did not bring his work to the original publisher, Antonio Blado D’Assola. The dedication of the first edition was written by a Mariano Lenzi, who claimed to have brought this wonderful work ‘out of the shadows’ in order to repay his debts to Madonna Aurelia Petrucci with a work that was worthy of her prestige and virtue. Who were Mariano Lenzi and Aurelia Petrucci and why were they connected with the Dialogues? Nobody has yet satisfactorily answered these questions. Santino Caramella (1929) identifies Lenzi as an ‘unknown humanist,’ and this same label is given to him by as renowned a scholar as Eugenio Garin.26 Giacinto Manuppella determined that he was a member of the Lenzi family of Florence, the family of Lorenzo Lenzi, prominent physician and close friend of the philosopher Benedetto Varchi. Mariano Lenzi was probably a courtier, and lived for several years in Siena at the court of Petrucci’s family. Manuppella emphasizes the importance of this Sienese connection: the Dialogues were in the hands of a Sienese humanist, who dedicated the work to a Sienese noblewoman. Manuppella also discovered that Aurelia Petrucci27 was an important person in Tuscan and Roman social and cultural life at the beginning of the sixteenth century, and a poet, among whose works was a sonnet dedicated to the Dialogues.28

8 Introduction

Another interesting connection with Siena returns with Leonardo Marso d’Avezzano, an obscure Latinist who published the second dialogue with the title De amore umano e divino in Rome in 1535, the same year as Lenzi did.29 He seems to have received a manuscript of the four dialogues from Bernardino Silveri de’ Piccolomini of Siena, with the intention of translating them all into Latin,30 a task that was never accomplished. Unfortunately no document attesting to the presence of Leone at the Sienese court has been found. Before 1535 we have only a few clues that acknowledge a broad circulation of the Dialogues in manuscript form.31 Regrettably only five manuscripts have survived to our time. All of them date to before 1535 and contain an Italian text of the third dialogue,32 proof of an earlier interest and circulation of the text among an Italian readership, which does not exclude a Jewish audience.33 Through these manuscripts we can see that Blado’s edition (1535) was corrected according to the new standard for Italian language established by Bembo’s Prosa della volgar lingua (1525). The history of the text comes with one of the most controversial questions concerning the Dialogues: its original language. Since the sixteenth century thinkers such as Tullia D’Aragona34 and Benedetto Varchi35 had no doubt that the original language was Italian, while Claudio Tolomei and Alessandro Piccolomini36 complained about a ‘language change’ introduced in the printed edition. We do not know exactly what they mean with this change from the ‘lingua sua.’ It may only refer to stylistic variations. More recently, Isaia Sonne (1929)37 and Carlo Dionisotti (1959)38 doubted Leone’s ability to write in such correct Italian, if the work was composed by 1501–2,39 less than ten years after his arrival in the peninsula. This idea is rejected by Barbara Garvin (2001) who, considering the manuscripts and the discrepancies on the dates reported in each of them, holds that the work was composed ten years later (1511) and that its Italian is very plausible. At the moment, while there is no precise consensus among scholars, it is generally accepted that the Dialogues was composed in Italian and subsequently edited in conformity with the linguistic standards. The problem of the original language touches upon another issue, the cultural identity of a Jewish intellectual in Renaissance Italy. Arthur M. Lesley40 has observed that the Dialogues makes frequent references to philosophical issues central to the concerns of Jewish intellectuals in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century, primarily the conflict between rationalism and fideism.41 He therefore suggests that the original language of the Dialogues could have been Hebrew,42 supporting his argument with a letter by Saul Cohen Ashkenazi of Candia (1506) addressed to Isaac Abravanel. Saul

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 9

offers an ironic criticism of the works of Isaac’s son, who does not follow ‘the proper course of intellectual development outlined by Maimonides in The Guide of the Perplexed,’ and can be accused of ‘squandering his supposedly philosophical attention on riddles, fables, and eloquence.’43 Garvin (2001), however, thinks that this letter does not refer to Leone’s work, but rather to Isaac’s, and is thus irrelevant to the Dialogues. Other scholars (e.g. Hughes, 2004), instead, think that this letter was addressed to Leone, but it does not imply that Leone wrote his work in Hebrew. Furthermore, none of the other known Jewish writers in Italy in the second half of the sixteenth century and later – Azariah de’ Rossi, Baruch Uzziel Hazaqetto,44 Gedaliah ibn Yahyah,45 and Joseph Baruch from Urbino46 – mentions the existence of a Hebrew version of the Dialogues. The issue of the original language of the Dialogues – Hebrew, Italian, or Latin – would imply other considerations about its stylistic and content choices, and a discussion of its language is still important for a better understanding the work. For Leone, language is not only a means to transfer a concept, but indeed a way to materialize the concept itself. Language should therefore not be separated from content in this work. Language, with its rhetoric and poetics, is deeply connected to imagination, which in Leone’s system represents an important means for philosophical understanding.47 It is also important to remember that in sixteenth-century Italy there was an ongoing debate on the importance of rhetoric and the use of language, and a search for a pure Italian language48 that would go beyond the borders of the many regional states of the peninsula. Yet, considering that in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries many Jewish authors knew and wrote in Romance vernaculars, Leone might also have chosen to write in the vernacular in order to reach as large an audience as possible, both Christian and Jewish.49 In light of their format, dialogic form, Neoplatonic content, and richness of classical mythological references, the Dialogues is clearly directed towards the same audience that Christian philosophers such as Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Francesco Cattani da Diacceto also address. As Andrés Soria Olmedo notes,50 this would explain the wide circulation and intense popularity of the Dialogues. Giuseppe Veltri remarks that ‘the problem of Leone’s position among Renaissance intellectuals is not the Jewishness of his speculation – as some modern authors maintain – but the literary and philosophical value of his writing.’51 So the Dialogues seems to be a deliberate attempt by Leone to systematically integrate Jewish and Arab intellectual traditions with Greek and Latin classicism and Christianity, creating an intellectual bridge between Jerusalem and Athens.52

10

Introduction

ARGUMENT AND CHARACTER OF THE WORK The nature of love was a popular topic of conversation and literary theme in the early sixteenth century. Since antiquity it had been the object of speculative thought that might have the form of either poetry or prose.53 Many of these works, such as Ovid’s Fasti, Remedia amori, and Metamorphoses, or Capellanus’s De amore, were still circulating widely in Italian courts. A discussion of these texts – giving some idea of just how many there were and how much in need of a comprehensive treatment the whole issue stood – appears in Mario Equicola’s Libro de natura de amore, written in the last decade of the fifteenth century and published in Venice in 1525. There we find summaries of the positions of Guittone d’Arezzo, Guido Cavalcanti, Dante, Petrarca, Francesco da Barberino, ‘Ioan de Meun dicto Romant de la Rosa et altri francesi,’ and Boccaccio, as well as Equicola’s contemporaries such as Ficino, Giovanni and Giovan Francesco Pico, Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, Battista da Campo Fregoso, Leon Battista Alberti, Platina, Pietro Edo di Fortuna, Bembo, Battista Carmelita, and Giovanni Jacopo Calandra. Love was essentially at the centre of an extended theoretical debate that during Leone’s time crystallized into two contrary approaches. One, derived from the Aristotelian and Galenic tradition, focused on love in terms of its physical and psychological effects, many of them negative. In writers such as Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72), Bartolomeo Platina (1421–81), Pietro Edo and his Anterotica, sive de amoris generibus (1492), and Battista da Campo Fregoso (1440–1504), love is understood as a form of sickness interfering with the correct exercise of reason. This tradition was characterized as ‘antierotic’ to distinguish it from the other approach, known as ‘erotic,’ in which love is understood as the instrument of spiritual self-realization, the means by which the soul is ultimately reunited with God. This second approach, which had its source in ancient and medieval Platonism and Neoplatonism, was at the centre of the Renaissance Neoplatonism that emerged in Florence during the reign of Lorenzo the Magnificent de’ Medici, and was represented by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) and his colleagues, including Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (1466–1522), Battista Carmelita (1447–1516), Giovanni Jacopo Calandra, as well as Leone Ebreo. The works of these thinkers were extremely influential and were made accessible to a large readership in works such as Pietro Bembo’s Asolani54 and Baldassar Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier.55 The main derivation of this philosophy of love was Plato’s Symposium, where love is considered to be semi-divine because of its intermediate nature. Eros is not a god, but a daemon, son of two opposite elements: its

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 11

mother Penia (poverty) and its father Poros (abundance). Its function is to fulfil the space between gods and humans, between the world of the Ideas (unchangeable, eternal, and true) and the world of the contingencies (changeable, finished, and false). From its mother (poverty, lack, negation) Love is driven to desire what it does not possess. The power of Love is therefore connected to the soul’s desire to search for a more perfect knowledge, to be reconnected to the immutable ideal world. Therefore, Platonic love has a gnoseologic nature; through love the philosopher – being the perfect lover of the truth – reaches an elevated state of knowledge because of his love of knowing. Ficino wrote a commentary on Plato’s Symposium (Commentarium in Convivium de amore). While recuperating this thematic about love and understanding, he added beauty as the divine element that unifies the corporeal and divine worlds. He integrated it according to other speculations of Neoplatonic thinkers, such as Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus.56 The Dialogues moves in this same context, and its success was due to the fact that this work was able to popularize very complicated philosophical ideas: even if grounded in a distinctively Jewish point of view, it made them understandable to a general audience in a way that Ficino’s work did not.57 The Dialogues also became a bestseller in the Renaissance courts of Europe because it offered a useful compendium of philosophical ideas that did not seem to be incompatible with Christian doctrine.58 The book was of interest to almost everyone, inspiring painters,59 courtesans and literate noblewomen,60 poets, intellectuals, and philosophers.61 As regards its Jewish readership, although Leone was always recognized by Jewish intellectuals as a great philosopher,62 his work began to be considered in terms of its own Jewish philosophical and cultural value only in the twentieth century, in particular starting the 1980s with Menachem Dorman’s new Hebrew translation (1983).63 Leone’s Dialogues has yet to be studied or valued for its contributions to the Renaissance in a comprehensive way. Due to the lack of documentation and other contextual evidence, it is impossible to know exactly what the author had in mind while writing the Dialogues. We possess only an unfinished book that was widely distributed and understood in many different ways by its different readers. The Dialogues consists of three conversations64 – ‘On Love and Desire,’ ‘On the Universality of Love,’ and ‘On the Origin of Love’ – that take place over a period of three subsequent days. They are organized in a dialogic format, which is not a philosophic dispute but rather more like a theatrical representation, ‘under the guise of a courtship’ between a man, Philo,65 who

12

Introduction

plays the role of the lover and teacher, and a woman, Sophia,66 beloved and pupil. The discussion, in a truly encyclopedic way, covers different topics that have as their common denominator the idea of Love. As in Bembo’s Asolani, an apparently ‘antierotic’ framework sets the stage for what ultimately becomes a Platonic argument. Sophia is the cause of Philo’s desperate love. For not reciprocating his feelings, she is felt by him to be the one who gives health and poison at the same time. She becomes ‘vitium corruptae imaginationes’ and ‘signum melencoliae,’ or rather an obsession for Philo’s enchanted mind. Philo’s arguments seem motivated by a desire to seduce Sophia; often his speech seems genuine, at other times he is quite ambiguous. Yet what is remarkable about the dialogue is the way in which such a worldly setting, full of sensual implications and double entendres, is made to open out into a discussion of purely spiritual or ‘heavenly’ love. Leone’s philosophical system requires this dialogic form of exposition because the interaction of opposing forces is fundamental to it; the reciprocal dependence of opposites embodied in the two genders is essential to the creation of reality itself. Leone’s contemporaries recognized both the artfulness and the profundity of his position when they referred to it as Philografia,67 literally, the ‘depiction’ or ‘portrayal’ of love, but usually translated as the Philosophy of Love.68 In form as well as content, then, the Dialogues is closely aligned to other works by Italian intellectuals of the early sixteenth century. The dialogue form was one common way to present philosophical material, especially if one wished to reach a large audience. The early humanists had made use of it in order to imitate classical models, primarily Cicero, and as Bembo showed in the Asolani, the form could be adapted to represent life at court, to model ideals of refined conduct as well as elegant speech and literary style. The open, ‘polyphonic nature’69 of the dialogue was also well suited to the free exchange of different points of view70 and thus to the full examination of complex philosophical ideas. The way in which Leone takes advantage of this form is particularly evident in the first of his dialogues, yet he was also faulted by contemporaries for departing from certain norms. According to Carlo Sigonio (De dialogo liber [Venezia: Giordano Ziletti, 1562]), the Dialogues of Love lacks ‘decorum’ in the preparatio, the setting of the conversation. In fact, Leone does not take care to indicate place and time, and the two characters are presented without any introduction. Furthermore, the style of argumentation is not entirely consistent for the entire length of his work. Both interlocutors play a double role. Sometimes Philo’s mode of argumentation is very Scholastic, at other times he applies the Socratic method, letting Sophia arrive at her own conclusions. Sophia, for her part, continually casts doubts

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 13

on Philo’s claims, in a manner appropriate to her characterization, in Socratic terms, as Rational Wisdom, yet she is incapable of expressing the truth herself. Leone therefore elaborated his own peculiar dialogue form that gave him the way to better represent a reality whose presence is signified by a dynamic interaction between opposite types of interlocutors. Prior to Leone there are other examples of the use of dialogue between male-female interlocutors where the woman takes a relevant place – Boethius’s De consolatio philosophiae, Andrea Capellanus’s De amore, Dante’s Divine Comedy – and our author was certainly aware of them. In Hebrew literature uses of the dialogue form are not very common, even though we can find two Iberian examples of popular philosophical writing that made use of it.71 Other examples can be found in medieval philosophical compositions72 written in Arabic, such as Solomon Ibn Gabirol’s Fons vitae and Yehudah Hallevi’s Kuzari.73 Here one interlocutor, however, dominates the discussion to such a degree that they are extended monologues. Leone’s peculiar dialogue seems to be conceived and shaped in order to maintain a symbolic link to its content. Structurally speaking, this work is a veritable mise-en-scène of philosophy, or, rather, a philosophical production that is manifested through the interaction that takes place between Philo and Sophia. As Sergius Kodera74 has observed, the reader finds himself in the position of spectator to a drama about love between two real people. The structure of the Dialogues is thus inseparable from the fact that Philo wants to gain access to the most profound knowledge through Sophia, who, however, being the rational side, resists the seductive speech of the lover and remains constantly out of reach. The work presents itself as an interactive entity that concretizes its content as Philo-Sophia. This philosophy materializes as a dynamic (and ever-changing) reality that is performed by the two voices in dialogue. The extraordinary game that interlaces form and content is deeply and inevitably reconnected to another fundamental theoretical key of the work: the ‘sexual aspect of knowledge.’ The Dialogues, in fact, promotes a type of knowledge for which the act of knowing comes to influence and transform not only the subject’s consciousness but the object’s as well. It is through this type of knowledge that subject and object are able to make a profound connection as they evolve simultaneously, each transforming the other. The dialogue of/on love is a perfect reflection of this epistemological reality. The content is therefore inseparable from the form that embodies it, exactly as the body contains the soul. Like the two voices of the Dialogues these are two opposing elements, one representing the act or actualization of a content, the other, as abstract idea, the potency or possibility to be actualized.

14

Introduction

If we consider the three dialogues as three parts of Leone Ebreo’s work, we can notice a substantial difference in style and references between the first and the remaining two. This change of style and of the subject matter could be simply explained as the product of the author’s progressive intellectual maturation. His first cultural foundation was the philosophical speculation of the Spanish Jews that reached its pinnacle during the thirteenth century in part through the enormous influence of Arabic philosophy and in part from Jewish thinkers.75 Once in Italy he was certainly in contact with the Christian tendencies of thought of the fifteenth century, most of all the Neoplatonism of the Florentine Academy with Marsilio Ficino as its head, and eventually renovated and elaborated his philosophical conceptions under these influences. Although it is not possible to exclude another, more complex, possibility, this change could also have been planned by the author shaping the content in perfect harmony with its form. The structure of the Dialogues, in fact, reveals a theoretical plan for the work that is inserted into the same medieval Neoplatonic Alexandrine tradition, which aims to continue Boethius’s theories explicitly carried on by Ficino and Pico as well. The first dialogue, ‘On Love and Desire,’ thus represents the first and lowest level of an intellectual itinerary connecting the ‘Love’ theme to practical and concrete dimensions, i.e., with ethical or political issues. The second dialogue, ‘On the Universality of Love,’ represents the second step; its content involves a natural feature spreading out from physics, and mythological matters, which in turn is connected to cosmology and astrology. The third dialogue, ‘On the Origin of Love,’ is the third and most elevated step that deals with divine matters, metaphysics and theology. By composing a work that rises from earthly to divine matters and considering Aristotle’s philosophy to be the first level of a knowledge itinerary that concludes in a metaphysics formulated in the best way possible and closer to the revelation of the Holy Scriptures by Plato, Leone was following the same curricular trajectory of the Arab and Jewish Neoplatonists, Christian medieval Neoplatonic philosophers, and his contemporaries such as Ficino, Pico, and Yohanan Alemanno. A fourth dialogue, ‘On the Effects of Love,’ is announced at the end of the third, and it was most probably to follow, in harmony with the ‘circle theory’76 that occupies such an important space in the last conversation. Even though the Dialogues contains frequent references to major Islamic philosophers, no Christian and Italian sources are openly cited, even though their presence is incontestable. Besides Petrarch, Dante, and Boccaccio, Marsilio Ficino is doubtless one of the main philosophical sources. His Commentarium in Convivium De Amore77 was likely of particular significance

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 15

to the organization of Leone’s content, not only regarding the themes discussed, but also in terms of the theoretical frameworks used to discuss them. Many of the theoretical points are also discussed in Ficino’s other works: for example, the notion of ‘anima mundi’ in the Dialogues of Love echoes Ficino’s in the Theologia platonica de immortalitate animorum (1482), and the discussions of astral influences show a strong connection to Ficino’s De Vita (1489). In addition to Ficino, a clear presence of the works of Pico della Mirandola can be detected in the Dialogues, especially the Heptaplus (1489)78 and the Commento sopra la Canzona d’amore di Benivieni (1486). These two works have so many points in common with the Dialogues of Love that it appears almost to be a reworking of the latter with a more precise and more theoretical organization. In Pico we find that same extraordinary syncretism that succeeds in reconciling the sensitive and intelligible realms of Plato, the heavenly and sublunar spheres of Aristotle, the three divine emanations of Plotinus (the nous, the world-soul, and the world of the senses), and also the use of the Kabbalah and its sefiroth.79 The Dialogues, then, should not be seen as separate from the works of Giovanni Pico and his Hebrew teacher Alemanno, in particular his works Hay ha-‘olamim (The Immortal) and Shir ha-ma‘a lot li-Shlomo (The Song of Solomon’s Ascents).80 We could therefore conclude that Leone wished to make his own contribution to the new intellectual and philosophical movement that was so vivid and popular in Italy at the beginning of the sixteenth century. This new movement sustained the notion of sophia perennis, an eternal wisdom, which professes the unity of all knowledge independently from its source and aspect, wherein rationalism and revelation represent two different approaches directed at the same truth. Leone was able to provide a unique contribution with his superb knowledge, combined with a methodology of studying and analysing a text taken from the examples offered by his father’s exegetical works and by the Sefardic Kabbalah, in particular from the book of the Zohar.81 Kabbalah, because it connects and gives a way to receive the revelation of Torah, not only permeates, but also often provides the background for Leone’s syncretism and eclecticism.82 Leone Ebreo’s philosophical system is the product of a syncretism of thought from a variety of traditions. In this way his goal seems to be providing his worldly, acculturated, but philosophically unsophisticated coreligionists with a complete, systematic handbook of philosophic thought, a ‘guide’ to the ‘perplexed’ of his time. Stripped down to essentials, his ‘guide’ can be summarized as follows: the best understanding of the cosmos

16

Introduction is provided by ‘Plato,’ that is, Neoplatonism, though with some modifications along Aristotelian lines, especially in the area of the analytic method. Plato’s system can be fully reconciled with Mosaic teachings; moreover, it is actually dependent on Jewish theology for some of its basic ideas.83

The first thing that we have to keep in mind, however, is that Leone’s Dialogues has as its implicit background the Mosaic teachings – the Torah – and the philosophical system elaborated is conceived so as to contain and reveal the truths that are in them.84 This also brings Leone nearer to Ficino and Pico. A key component of the Dialogues is the use of myth, which becomes fundamental for the exposition of his philosophical system rooted in spiritual eroticism.85 In an extraordinary way, Leone is able to express his system with the strength of imaginatio86 and the power of the stories of classical myths, which are considered fundamental because of the power of their own universal revelatory value. As Philo says: ‘I believe them, because I understand them; and you would also believe them, if you understood them.’87 NOTE ON THE TRANSLATION The only translation in English of the Dialoghi d’amore appeared in 1937 with the title The Philosophy of Love (London: The Soncino Press). F. Friedeberg-Seeley translated the first and second dialogues, while Jean H. Barnes translated the third, which Friedeberg-Seeley revised in order to render the text consistent. The translators expressed their desire to translate the text as literally as possible in order to safeguard the original meaning, even if they admitted difficulties in rendering an English version of an Italian with ‘obscure passages’ that needed a ‘more or less arbitrary paraphrasing.’ As a result, the translation reflected a personal understanding and interpretation, with the consequent changes that distort the original text. Furthermore, it suffers from several unnecessary paraphrases and summaries, and arbitrary stylistic choices, thereby demonstrating a lack of awareness of many explicit and implicit references within the texts. The Soncino Press edition lacks a critical apparatus. The edition of the Dialogues upon which the translation is based is not mentioned;88 it also suffers from the lack of an analytic introduction and local explanatory notes. In short, The Philosophy of Love is a beautiful book owing to both its style and content, and was useful for its time period, but due to the increasing interest in the life and work of Leone Ebreo in the English-speaking world, it was obvious that a new English translation was necessary, both as an

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 17

introduction to the work of this remarkable author for a general public, and as a tool for scholars. Translating the Dialogues was not an easy task, because the text itself is controversial. Our first concern was selecting a text on which to base the translation, considering the numerous unsolvable philological problems. A critical edition does not yet exist, and actually it would be very difficult to edit one, since no manuscripts of the first and second dialogues have survived. At first we considered using the 1535 Blado editio princeps, but we found many discrepancies between it and the translations in Latin,89 Spanish,90 and French made in the sixteenth century.91 We finally decided to base our text on Giacinto Manuppella’s edition (Diálogos de amor, vol. 1: Texto Italiano, Notas e Documentos; vol. 2: Versão Portuguesa & Bibliografia. Texto fixado, anotado e traduzido por Giacinto Manuppella [Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica, 1983]), which is currently the best available text from a philological point of view. The Dialogues is an open-ended, multifaceted, highly challenging, and ambivalent book. As observed, the content is deeply connected to the form, both linguistically and structurally, which involves several problems: first, it is very difficult to render into intelligible English the same thing the author intended to say in Italian. This is so because Leone Ebreo plays with inner references of the language, and many times he says one thing while referring to many others. Thus, it is very difficult to retain in translation those qualities of the original text that made the work what it was in the sixteenth century. We translated as literally as possible, rendered confusing passages in the translation in an appropriate manner, and explained our actions in the notes. We did not forget the previous translation, which for the last seventy years has been the reference work for so many scholars, and we at times refer to it in the notes. This translation was a project undertaken over a period of six years, and the final version was the product of different stages of revision. The first stage consisted of translating the text selected (Manuppella). Rossella Pescatori, a native Italian speaker, carried out the initial translation into English and added the notes. Cosmos Damian Bacich then revised and edited the entire text in order to give it consistency and a proper English linguistic form, and to ensure that the text reflected the original Italian. Many scholars have greatly aided us in this difficult task. In particular we would like to thank David Calta, Massimo Ciavolella, Brian Copenhaver, Jaqualine Dyess, Patrick Geary, Angela Guidi, Arthur Lesley, James Nelson Novoa, Patrick Wen, and Robert Williams.

18

Introduction

Each dialogue has a brief explanatory introduction and summary where the content is discussed together with possible theoretical references. There are two types of textual notes: linguistic and reference. Since we mainly wanted a new translation that would allow the reader to get closer to the original work, we considered it very important to add linguistic notes that clarify the terminology used by Leone (terminology that is extremely connected to the content). We list ambiguous words that we decided to translate coherently with the terminology used by other English translations of other works contemporary with Leone (e.g. Pico’s Commentary on a Poem on Love; Tullia D’Aragona, Dialogue on the Infinity of Love). We must first mention that Leone’s philosophical system is strongly based on gender/sexual polarity; Leone constantly utilizes the gendered system of nouns common to Latinate languages as a structural element of his work. Here is a list of words with a specific gender identity in the Dialogues: anima, ‘soul’ (feminine), intelletto, ‘intellect’ (masculine), sole, ‘sun’ (masculine), bello, ‘beautiful’ (masculine), as opposed to bellezza, ‘beauty’ (feminine). In addition to this Leone Ebreo uses animo (masculine) to refer to the vital spirit, and anima (feminine) to the soul, a more properly intellectual entity. We adopted the common English neutral where possible; where the English neutral was too ambiguous, we opted to maintain the gender categories that exist in Italian. This is the case with a large part of the third dialogue. Note on Certain Terms Onesto in Italian means ‘righteous, good, morally upright,’ and is not exhausted by modern English connotations of ‘honest,’ as in ‘free from fraud or deception.’ We nevertheless translated onesto as ‘honest’ basing ourselves on terminology used by current English translations of Italian authors contemporary to Leone. Atto cognitivo, ‘understanding’: in Leone Ebreo ‘cognizione’ means ‘understanding, or acquired knowledge.’ In the translation we have adopted ‘cognition’ when Leone Ebreo refers to this way of knowing. However, to avoid confusion, we have at times used another more appropriate term. We have adopted ‘knowledge’ when Leone Ebreo uses conoscimiento, which implies the process of knowing. Note that conoscimento is masculine, in opposition to conoscenza, which is feminine. Only a few times does Leone use scienza, which does not correspond to current English ‘science,’ but is rather a derivation of conoscenza.

The Dialogues of Love of Leone Ebreo 19

Leone Ebreo distinguishes, as does Averroes, two types of ‘imagination,’ fantasia and immaginazione. The former is dependent of the physical world, while the latter is instead independent from the physical world and connected with the Divinity. When ‘fantasia’ and ‘imagination’ refers to this specific distinction, we left ‘fantasia’ (instead of ‘fantasy’) for the first and used the commonly used ‘imagination’ for the second. Leone Ebreo also utilizes the verb sapere, as opposed to conoscere, a distinction that exists in many Romance languages, but not in English. Sapere implies an abstract, conceptual knowledge, whereas conoscere implies familiarity with an object or person. Wherever feasible, we tried to identify references in the notes in order to guide readers to further investigation of the topics that Leone’s interlocutors discuss. Some are explicit and easy to identify, and most often the author himself identifies them. Others are implicit, and thus often ambiguous. Where the source is uncertain we did not attempt to identify it. The main goal of this labour of translation has been to offer a new accurate English version of the Dialogues, a text that was certainly very important in the history of Western thought. We hope to have succeeded.

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Dialogues of Love

Mariano Lenzi to the praiseworthy1 Lady Aurelia Petrucci

Among the ancient Egyptians it was common to dedicate works to the god Mercury, since they believed that all arts, sciences, and many of the other beautiful things of this earth were discovered by this god, and that it was therefore only habitual for them to thank the inventor of all that man had learned and gained knowledge of. For this reason Pythagoras and Plato and many other great philosophers went to Egypt to study philosophy. In addition, they learned a great deal at the gates2 of Mercury, which were full of knowledge and doctrine. I too, gracious Lady, believe that those who have had the pleasure of knowing you can likewise benefit, so that in turning to you their beautiful3 thoughts might become nourished by a divine spirit, and they might spend their energies in honour of your name. In doing so, they might learn true virtue by your example just as the ancient philosophers learned at Mercury’s gates. For if one takes stock of the nobility, kindness, morality, and courtesy of your person and considers these together with your honesty, poise, grace, prudence, astuteness, and knowledge, and finally looks again at each of these virtues, he will certainly see that your life is none other than the mirror of those remaining talents and the ideal of how others should live their own. And those who, mired down by earthly concerns, are not able to rise to these celestial thoughts, need only turn their gaze to you, and instructed by your radiance, they will be slowly purged, and will also be made worthy of the lofty contemplation of your divinity. Recognizing this communal and personal need, I have acted like those who, not having their own means, borrow from others to pay their debts. In my desire to repay this great debt I owe you, but recognizing the limits of

24

Dialogues of Love

my own talents and not having produced anything worthy myself, I send you the fruits of another’s labour: these books about love by Master Leone, titled PHILO and SOPHIA. They are about a chaste Love, for a chaste woman who inspires Love; heavenly considerations for a woman adorned with heavenly virtues; the highest of intentions for a woman full of the highest ideals. Thus, with another’s work I wished to show you my willingness to please you and to repay my debt, rather than to postpone it, given my own lack of talent. Although I believe (when I think of you) I have made two small gains at once: to have repaid my obligation to you and to have imposed a new obligation on Master Leone (if one can impose obligations on the dead).4 I believe that he would be quite happy that I have retrieved these divine DIALOGUES of his from obscurity5 and, in the name of such a gallant lady (as you), set them in the light for all to see and so he remains indebted to me for their splendour and your protection. Therefore you, my lady, have become the protector of this work, shining your radiance onto it, as the perfect body to receive light, and in doing so will make it all the more splendid and miraculous to show the world.

Dialogue 1: On Love and Desire

SUMMARY The first dialogue, ‘On Love and Desire,’ is the shortest of the three, and is the least clear in style, language, and content. Even if it is written in an Italian vernacular that tends toward Tuscan, it is organized on rhetorical patterns that recall Cicero’s and Seneca’s works. The language is thick with Latinisms. It discloses a content that seems directed to a particular educated audience, able to recognize all the subtle references; many different philosophers are mentioned, though none is identified by name. In the dialogue a philosophical syncretism discloses the convergences and divergences – mainly based on Aristotle’s thought – between Western Christian and Jewish-Arabic traditions, in particular the Arab Academy, whose exponents are Averroes, Avicenna, Al-Farabi, Ibn-Gabirol, and Maimonides. The main aim is the world of praxis, the world where men act and behave: the definitions of ‘love’ and ‘desire’ and their implication on human life. Definitions of Love and Desire and Their Connection with Knowledge The dialogue starts without an introduction. Philo immediately begins to speak about the fundamental topic of the conversation. He tells Sophia that his knowledge of her provokes love and desire in him. Yet love and desire are closely linked at some point and they can be identical. Both derive from the same cause: knowledge. Sophia logically objects that love and desire cannot be equal; desire always implies a lack and its goal is the possession of the desired thing, while love is based on fulfilment; the desired thing becomes loved after it is attained. Philo partially agrees with her, and, in order to make his point clearer, suggests a series of possibilities of love and desire in connection with human actions and goals.

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Ethical Virtues: Useful, Pleasurable, and Honest. The Good Is of Three Kinds Philo starts investigating the relation between love and desire by analysing why objects are sought. Following Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, Philo reminds Sophia that we seek objects that are useful, pleasurable, and good or virtuous (which Philo names ‘honest’). Examples of these three modalities are health, children, conjugal love, power, governance, love, fame, and friendship. A large portion of the dialogue is dedicated to analysing the extremes associated with what is useful and pleasurable. Sophia concludes by observing that moderation is not the only good behaviour, rather what is noble or virtuous can be found in pursuing an extreme. The extreme that should be pursued in opposition to the active life, therefore, is the contemplative life, which is more proper to a lover of Wisdom because he knows how to dedicate himself completely to the ‘honest,’ noble end. Philo replies by trying to reconcile the opposites, telling her that moderation is the correct mean to follow. The Love of God Is Love for the Highest Good The focus is directed to love of God. A large portion of the discourse is dedicated to explaining the relationship between God and intellect. God is the efficient, formal, and final cause of everything, and the ultimate end for human beings; beatitude consists in the intimate union of the soul with God. Happiness and Beatitude in Men Happiness and beatitude in men are considered first in connection with knowledge, and then with God, who is the source and repository of all knowledge. Here a classification of the sciences is given (one that echoes Boethius’s De Institutione aritmetica, De institutione musica, and the Commentary on Porphyre’s Isagoge) around which the three Dialogues seem to be organized: the first dialogue deals with logic and moral philosophy; the second dialogue deals with natural philosophy and astrology; the third dialogue with the first philosophy. Human Love and the Practical World Returning to the starting point, how does this explain the love of Philo for Sophia? How can earthly love be classified? Philo tries to justify his desire

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for Sophia by telling her that carnal love is deeply connected to spiritual love, which is born from reason. Sophia, sceptical, asks Philo why a love that originated in reason can become so unreasonable and inconsiderate. Philo answers by telling her that all loves are characterized by extravagance. Furthermore, one must distinguish between three modalities of reason: first, knowledge, which is the origin of love; second, ordinary reason, or self-love, which governs life and is a balance between extremes; third, extraordinary reason, which, in breaking the limits of prudence, leads to self-alienation and self-sacrifice. Attention is then redirected to the contrast between the contemplative and the active life. Philo says that the second type of love is more worthy than the first one. Passions are superior to ordinary reason, but love has its own reason, which is extraordinary and heroic. The first dialogue concludes by announcing the topic of the second, and with Philo’s pain and suffering that results from loving Sophia.

*** PHILO: Knowing6 you, Sophia, provokes7 in me love and desire. SOPHIA: These effects on you of knowing me, Philo, seem discordant8 to me. But perhaps your passion makes you to say this. PHILO: They are discordant for you, because they are alien to every correspondence. SOPHIA: But loving and desiring, as affects of the will, are contrary to each other. PHILO: And why are they contrary? SOPHIA: Because the things we value as good – those that we have and possess – we love. What we lack, we desire. So what we love, we first desire, yet once we obtain the object of our desire, love comes and desire vanishes. PHILO: What brings you to this opinion? SOPHIA: The example given by the things that are desired and loved. Do not you see that we desire health when we do not have it? But we would not say that we already love it. Yet, after we possess it, we no longer desire it, but instead love it. Before possessing them, wealth, inheritance, or jewels are desired but not loved; once obtained, however, they are no longer desired, but loved. PHILO: Nevertheless, when we lack health and wealth, we cannot love them until we obtain them, yet we would love to have them. SOPHIA: This is an incorrect use of ‘to love’ – meaning ‘wanting to have something’ – which is really the same as ‘desiring something,’ because love is for the object loved, whereas desire is the wish to possess or acquire that object. So it does not seem that love and desire can occur together.9 PHILO: Your arguments, Sophia, demonstrate the subtlety of your intellect rather than the truth of your assertions. For if we do not love what we desire, we will desire what we do not love, what we abhor and hate. This is a complete contradiction in terms. SOPHIA: I am not deceived, Philo, for I desire what I do not love, since I do not possess it. Yet, as soon as I have it, I will love it and no longer desire it. Nor does this mean that I could ever desire or love something I hate, because the object of love is something I have and the object of desire is something I lack. What better example is there than that of children? One

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who has none desires them, but does not love them, whereas one who already has them loves them, but does not desire them. PHILO: Since you give the example of children, you should also remember the case of the husband, who is both desired and loved before he is ours, yet once he is ours, he is no longer desired nor sometimes even loved, though in many cases love does persevere and also even grows over time. The same thing often happens in the husband with respect to his wife. Doesn’t this example seem to prove my point more than yours refutes it? SOPHIA: Your words do not satisfy me completely, but only in part, especially your example, since it seems as doubtful as the issues we are discussing. PHILO: Then I will speak to you in more universal terms. You know that love is for things that are good or considered good, because any good thing is lovable. And just as there are three types of goods – the useful, the pleasurable, and the ‘honest’10 – so too are there three types of love; one comes from pleasure, another from profit, and still another from what is ‘honest.’ The last two, once possessed, must be loved at all times, whether before or after obtaining them. Pleasurable things are not loved after they are obtained; once we possess those things that delight the material senses, they are more often hated than loved. Because of this you must concede that a person loves those things before possessing them, just as when desiring them; yet once they are completely possessed, desire of them vanishes, and even more often, love of them vanishes. That is why you should concede that love and desire can occur together.11 SOPHIA: Your arguments (according to my point of view) are strong enough to prove your first point. But mine, which go against them, are neither weak nor devoid of truth. How can one truth be contrary to truth itself? Resolve this ambiguity that makes me so confused. PHILO: I come, Sophia, to ask you to relieve my suffering and instead you ask me to clear up your doubts. Perhaps you are doing so to steer me away from this path that displeases you, or because you truly dislike the concepts of my poor intellect as much as the affects of my distressed will. SOPHIA: I cannot deny that the refined and pure mind can persuade me more than amorous will. Nor do I believe that I am not offending you, because I appreciate what is most worthy in you. If you love me as much as you say, you must quickly seek to quiet my mind12 rather than to stir my passions.13 So, leave everything else behind and resolve these doubts that I have.

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PHILO: Even though I have a counterargument ready, I am forced to bow to your wishes, since this is a consequence of the law that sets beloveds as triumphant over forced and defeated lovers. I say that there are some who are completely contrary to your opinion, and these people maintain that love and desire are in effect the same thing, because they claim that everything desired is also loved. SOPHIA: They are clearly wrong; for, even if we concede that everything desired is loved, it also is certain that many things are loved but not desired, as is the case with all of the things one already possesses. PHILO: You have offered a valid counterargument. But there are others who believe that love is something that contains in itself all the desired things even before one possesses them, as well as those good things that have already been acquired and, because they are possessed, are no longer desired. SOPHIA: This does not sound true for me either; since, as it is said, many things are desired that cannot be loved because they do not exist. Love is for things that are present, whereas desire is for those that are not. How can we love children or our health if we do not have them, even though we desire them? This makes me believe that love and desire are two contrary affects of the will. And you have just told me that one can coexist with the other. Clear up this doubt for me. PHILO: If love is only for things that exist, why can’t desire also be? SOPHIA: Because, just as love presupposes the existence of things, desire presupposes their absence. PHILO: Why does love presuppose the existence of things? SOPHIA: Because knowledge must precede love, since nothing can be loved that we do not first recognize under the quality14 of good, and we cannot come to know something that is not actually15 present. This is because our mind is like a mirror and a model,16 or to define it more precisely, an image of real things. So we cannot love things, unless they are already in the reality. PHILO: What you say is true. Yet, for this same reason, desire can be directed only to things that exist, because we do desire only those things that first we had known under the qualities of the good. Thus, the Philosopher has defined the good as that which each person desires,17 since knowledge applies to things that exist.18 SOPHIA: There is no denying that knowledge precedes desire. But more precisely I would say that it is not only knowledge of things that exist, but also

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of things that do not, since our intellect judges something that exists because it considers19 that this thing exists, while it judges another thing that does not exist in the same way. Since the intellect’s duty is to discern being from non-being, it is necessary for it to know which things exist and which do not. Therefore I would say that love presupposes the knowledge of things that are present, and desire of those things that are not present and those of which we are deprived. PHILO: The knowledge of the beloved or desired thing as good precedes both love and desire. And neither of them can recognize that thing as anything other than good; otherwise this recognition would cause the known thing to be detested entirely, rather than loved or desired. Thus both love and desire presuppose the existence of their objects in reality just as in knowledge. SOPHIA: If desire presupposed that its objects exist, it would follow that when we judge something as good and desirable, it would always be true. But do you not see that often it is false, and cannot be found to be so in reality? It would therefore seem that desire does not always presuppose the existence of its object. PHILO: What you are saying happens with love just as much as with desire, since oftentimes a thing that is valued as good and worthy of love is instead irritating and detestable. And just as the truth of how things are judged causes correct and honest desires – the source of all the virtues, temperate acts, and praiseworthy deeds – so too the falsehood of how things are judged causes bad desires and dishonest loves – from which spring all human vices and errors. Therefore, each of them presupposes the existence of the object. SOPHIA: I am not able to accompany you on such lofty flights. Let us, please, seek lower levels. I see, however, that none of the things that we most desire we properly love. PHILO: We always desire what we do not possess, but this does not literally mean what does not exist; instead, desire is normally for things that exist, but which we cannot have. SOPHIA: Furthermore it often occurs towards the things that do not effectively exist but which we wish to be, but which we do not wish to have. This is the case when we wish for rain, or for good weather, or a friend to visit, or for something else we can do. We desire things which do not yet exist in order to benefit from them, but not to possess them, and for this very reason we cannot really say that we love them. Thus desire is properly for things which do not exist.

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PHILO: Something which has no being is nothing, and what is nothing cannot be loved and therefore cannot be desired or possessed. The things you mentioned, even if they are not actually present when they are desired, nonetheless have the possibility of being. And we may desire them to rise into actual being from this potential being. So it is with things that exist but which we do not possess, since we can desire that these existing things become ours. Thus, desire concerns either something that does not yet exist and comes to be or something we lack and we want to acquire. Why would you claim that every desire presupposes in part being and in part privation, and then wish that its fulfilment be the achievement of that absent being? So desire and love are based on the existence of something, and not on nonexistence. Three qualities must precede the object of desire, in this order. First, existence;20 second, truth;21 and third, goodness. Only with these qualities that object can be loved and desired. It cannot become such an object without first being valued as good, for otherwise it would neither be loved nor desired. Before it can be judged as good, it must first be recognized as real, and as it occurs in reality before its knowledge, so it must exist in reality. This is because something first has an existence, then it is impressed upon the intellect, which afterward judges it as good, and finally loves and desires it. That is why the Philosopher says that the real being and the good become one. The ‘being’ exists in itself; 22 it is real when it is perceived by the intellect; it is good when the intellect and the will associate it to things that have to be loved and desired. Desire, therefore, presupposes the existence of the thing as much as love does. SOPHIA: I can see, though, that we do not only desire many things that are lacking to the person who desires but also in themselves; for example, health and children when we do not have them. We certainly do not love them, but instead we desire them. PHILO: What a person desires is still not completely non-existent, as you say, even if he lacks it and it has no being of its own. Instead it must have some sort of existence; otherwise it could not be recognized as good or desirable if it does not actually exist in some form. This is the case with health for a sick person, since it is something that resides in the healthy and which he or she possessed before falling ill. It is the same with children; even though they do not exist for those who desire them because they lack them, they nevertheless exist for others, since who has not been someone’s child at some point? That is why whoever doesn’t have children knows about them, judges them as a good, and thus desires them. These ways of existing are enough to allow a sick person to conceive of health and

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a childless one of children. Thus we love and desire things that in some way have real being and are recognized to be good. Love seems to be common to many things that are good, whether we have them or not, whereas desire is for those things we do not have. SOPHIA: What you say implies that everything we desire we also love, and this is the opinion of some. Love and desire would be a category23 that contains of all those things that are valued as good; both those we do not possess and desire and those we already possess and are not desired all, according to your opinion, would be loved. I do not think that the things which are completely lacking (as I said before, children and health) can be loved, even though the person who does not possess them desires them. This is because, as you say, the existence of these objects that other people have is not enough to make us know them and, consequently, to make us love them. For we do not love other people’s children or health, but our own, and when we lack it, how can we love it, even though we desire it? PHILO: Now we are not very far from the truth. It is still common in colloquial speech to say that the things we desire are things we love because we judge them as good. But, strictly speaking, a person cannot assign something as an object of love if this does not have real being, as in the case of children or health when we do not have them. I am speaking about real love; for we can feel imaginary love for any object of desire, since this object exists in our imagination. From this imagined thing a certain love is born, the object of which is not the real thing desired (since in actuality it does not yet exist), but rather a notion of this object drawn from its general being. Such love has no proper subject since it lacks a real one, because it is not real love. It is only simulated and imaginary since its desire of such things is stripped of true love. One finds three varieties of the classes of love and desire in things. One class is when things are both loved and desired, such as it occurs when we do not possess virtue, wisdom,24 and a laudable person. Another one is when things are loved but not desired, such as all the goods that we had and already possess. Then another one is when things are desired but not loved, as with health and children when we lack them, or other things that do not have material being. Therefore, the things that we both love and desire are those that we deem good, that have a material being, and that we lack. Those things that we love but do not desire are the same previous ones when we have and possess them. Those things that we desire but do not love are not only things we lack, but cannot form an object of love since they do not have a proper being.

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SOPHIA: I understand your explanation and I am very pleased by it. But I see many things that exist, and when we do not have them, we desire them, but we do not love them until we actually possess them. They are then loved but not desired. Such is the case with riches, a home, a vineyard, a jewel; for when they belong to others we desire them, but we do not love them, since they belong to someone else. However, once we have acquired them, desire for them vanishes, and love takes its place. So before they are acquired, they are usually desired but not loved, yet after their acquisition they are usually loved and not desired. PHILO: What you say is true. And I am not saying that all things that are desired (and exist) are also loved, but I stated that things which are desired must exist, for otherwise, even if they are desired, they cannot be loved. This is why I did not use the examples of a precious thing or of a home, but of virtue, wisdom, or a laudable person, since these, when they are lacking, are desired and loved equally. SOPHIA: Tell me why there is difference among things that are desired and exist. Why can some of them be loved and desired at the same time and others cannot? PHILO: The cause is the difference between the objects of love. As you know, there are three types: useful, pleasant, and honest, each of which has a different relation to love and desire. SOPHIA: Explain the difference between them, that is, the difference between loving and desiring, and so I might better understand. Please define love and desire, so that, through those definitions, I may comprehend all three varieties. PHILO: It is not as easy as it might seem to you to define love and desire so as to cover all their aspects. For their nature is manifested differently in each, nor can one read such an extensive definition in the ancient philosophers’ works. Nevertheless, for the present discussion, it consists of defining desire as an affect of the will for the existence or possession of what it lacks and love as an affect of the will to enjoy the thing judged good through union with it. And from these definitions you will begin to understand not only the difference between these affects of the will (one of which, as I mentioned, seeks to enjoy the object of desire through union, whereas the other seeks its coming into existence or its possession), but also you will still see, through those, that the object of desire is what is lacking. Yet love can be either something one has or something one has yet to

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acquire; for the will may seek enjoyment through union with both the things that we lack and the things that we have, since such an affect presupposes neither possession nor privation, but is common to both.25 SOPHIA: Since such definitions need further explanations, it suffices as an introduction to my question about the reason for the differences between loving and desiring the three different kinds of objects you mentioned: the useful, the pleasant, and the honest. Go on, then. PHILO: Useful things such as wealth or particular commodities are never loved and desired at the same time. Instead, when we do not have them, they are desired but not loved, because they belong to others. On the contrary, when we acquire them, our desire for them ceases, and then we enjoy them as our own through union as our property. Nonetheless, even though desire for those particular riches we already possess ceases, new desires for other things are immediately born, and those whose desire is directed towards the useful have an infinite number of varying desires: as one ceases because it was obtained, another greater and more pressing26 enters. So that the will is never satisfied with similar desires, and the more these people possess, the more they desire. They are like those who try to quench their thirst with salt water; the more they drink, the more they are thirsty. And this desire for the useful is often called ambition or even cupidity. Temperance27 in this is called ‘contentment’ or ‘satisfaction’ of our basic needs, and it is an excellent virtue. It is also called ‘moderation’ because it is content with what is necessary. And the sages say that he who is truly rich is content with what he has.28 And so the extreme of this virtue is greed for the superfluous, whereas the other extreme is ceasing to desire what one needs and this is called ‘sloth.’29 SOPHIA: What are you saying, Philo?!?! Haven’t many philosophers said that one should abandon all wealth? And some of them, to tell the truth, did not abandon it … PHILO: That was truly the opinion of some of the Stoic and Academic philosophers.30 But is not sloth to stop wanting to fulfil basic needs? They did so, however, in order to turn themselves to the contemplative life of personal and heartfelt contemplation. They therefore saw riches as a great obstacle, since they occupy the mind and distract it from its speculative activity and from contemplation, wherein perfection and happiness lie. The Peripatetics, however, hold that one should acquire wealth as a necessary condition of the virtuous life, saying that, even though riches are not virtues, they are at least instruments of virtue, because without the necessary

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means, we could not practise generosity or munificence, nor engage in alms-giving or other charitable works.31 SOPHIA: Is it not enough to have goodwill and readiness to perform such deeds, once one has the means? In that way a man without riches could be virtuous. PHILO: No, good intention will not suffice without good works; for virtues are the habit of doing the good and are acquired by persevering in good works. And since these types of works cannot be performed without wealth, it follows that without wealth one cannot attain certain virtues. SOPHIA: Why didn’t the Stoics recognize this? And how can the Peripatetics deny that riches distract the mind from blissful contemplation? PHILO: The Stoics accept that certain domestic and civil powers cannot be acquired without wealth. But do not be deceived in understanding what happiness is for them; happiness for them is the contemplative life, for which one must leave behind riches, and even more the powers derived from them, because these can turn into vices. Instead, the individual must follow other more exalted virtues that are nearer to supreme happiness. The Peripatetics agree with this. The only difference between them and the Stoics is that the latter, who desire the noblest, do not take account of what is necessary for certain moral virtues that require riches: as it occurs for men of great character, who are looking to possess supreme happiness, and have the light of the sun, but still search for the light of a candle, since they know very well that such wealth more often than not causes vice rather than virtue. But the Peripatetics, recognizing that riches were not necessary for such great men, who are illuminati, pointed out other great powers inferior to those and demonstrated how some of these powers could be acquired through wealth. Each school of thought, however, conceded that sloth consists in ceasing to desire what is necessary to obtain those virtues not acquired through intellectual contemplation. Sloth is the opposite of the vice of greed for what is superfluous, whereas the mean between the two extremes will be moderation in desiring what is necessary, which is the highest virtue with respect to the desire for useful things. SOPHIA: You have shown that there is a virtuous mean and two sinful extremes32 in respect of our desire for the useful things; are there any other similar means and extremes with respect to those useful things that we already possess? PHILO: There certainly are and they are equally obvious. The unbridled love of riches acquired or possessed is ‘avarice,’ which is a great and vile

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practice,33 since when somebody’s love of his own riches is more than it should be, it causes him to conserve them more than is right and not to expend them as is morally and reasonable right. To exercise moderation in loving such things, along with their correct administration, is a noble and virtuous mean that is called ‘liberality.’ The absence of love for our possessions and the unfitting dissipation of them is the other extreme vice that is at the opposite of avarice, called ‘prodigality.’ So the miser and the prodigal are full of vice, following the two extremes in their love of the useful, whereas the liberal man is virtuous since he follows the middle road between the two extremes. And in this way, as I already told you, one can find both love and desire of the useful in moderate and immoderate forms. SOPHIA: What you said and how you said it sounds good to me. Now I would like to hear the modes of love in pleasurable things, which seems closer to our specific case. PHILO: Just as, with useful things, real love is found together with desire, so too with pleasurable things, desire is inseparable from love, since all the pleasurable things that are lacking until we possess them completely, and we satisfy our desire for them, are always sought at the same time they are desired and loved. A drunkard desires and loves wine even before tasting it, until he is sated by it; a glutton desires and loves sweets before eating them, until the point at which he has had enough. And whoever is thirsty, while he desires, also loves what he is drinking, and whoever is hungry desires and loves food; and so too do men desire women (and women, men) before possessing them. These pleasurable things have the quality that, once obtained, oftentimes both our desire and love of them cease and are transformed into disgust and abhorrence. This is true for one who is thirsty or hungry, since once he is satisfied, he does not want to eat or drink, but these things instead provoke disgust. And this is true of other material pleasures, because desire for them ceases with satiety, so that love and desire flourish and perish together. It is true that in pleasurable things one finds some who are immoderate in their desire for them, just as there are those who excessively pursue the useful. They are never satiated or seek to be so, and gluttons, drunkards, and libertines all dislike satiety and soon return to love and desire of things of the same sort. And their desire for such things is properly named ‘appetite,’ just as desire for gain is called ‘ambition’ or ‘cupidity.’ Excess in desiring and discussing pleasurable things is called lust, which may be carnal lust, or lust for food and drink, or other superfluous delicacies or uncontrolled lavishness; and those fed by such vices are called ‘lustful.’ Those individuals in whom reason resists vice in some way, even

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though it is eventually dominated by it, are called incontinent. But those who completely forsake reason without seeking to struggle against the habit of vice in any way are called intemperate. And just as this extreme mode of lust for pleasurable things is the equivalent of avarice and cupidity for the useful, I therefore view excessive abstinence as the other extreme, which could be likened to prodigality with respect to gain, since the one spends his wealth in a way incompatible with a noble life, while the other sacrifices the pleasures necessary to support life and maintain health. The mean of these two extremes is a very great virtue called continence. And when our reason is still able to overcome sensual desire by way of virtue, although we feel stimulated by it, this is called ‘temperance.’ When the sensuality of everything ceases to stimulate our virtuous reason, but there is a temperate reaction to pleasures, without avoiding the necessary or acquiring the superfluous, some call it ‘fortitude.’ True strength, they say, belongs to he who conquers himself, since pleasure has more power over human nature than what is useful, being its means of self-preservation. Therefore, whoever is able to moderate this excess may be said to have conquered his most powerful and intrinsic enemy.34 SOPHIA: I like what you said about love and the appetite for pleasurable things. But I have doubts about some of the things you said about pleasurable things that are desired and loved when we lack them and not when we have them. Even if this is true as far as desire is concerned, it does not seem to be true in the case of love of them. In fact, during the time that it takes for somebody to obtain the pleasurable things he loves them, but he does not love them before, when he does not have them. It seems that the savour of such pleasures enlivens35 the love of them. PHILO: It does not only arouse the appetite and stimulate our desire and enjoyment of them, which enlivens love, yet you know that a person only desires and has an appetite for what he lacks. SOPHIA: How can that be? For we see that pleasurable things, once obtained, are not only loved but are also most desirable.36 Therefore, we should not have, but lack even what we have already obtained. PHILO: It is true that such things are loved and desired once obtained; but not after we possess them entirely, since once they are acquired we are accustomed to their company and we lose both love and desire for them. For, while we are acquiring them, they are still lacking until we reach satiety. I say rather that with the first taste, our recognition struggles to make an approximation of the pleasurable object and this incites our appetite

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even more while enlivening love. The cause is the feeling of privation. This feeling becomes stronger and sharper with the presence and taste of the pleasurable object that is lacking. So that, when one partakes of it to the point of satiety, there is no more lack. No more desire and love are directed to the enjoyment of the object, and dislike and disgust take its place. Appetite and love, therefore, are connected to the lack of a pleasure, and not to its enjoyment. SOPHIA: That is enough for me. Now you have already spoken of what is useful and what is pleasurable and how they are both similar and different in their relationship to love and desire. Yet even though I can follow the obvious cause of their similarity, the reason for their difference or contrariety in connection to the will remains a mystery to me. Therefore I would like to know more about this. Because love is not found together with desire in the case of what is useful; instead, while desiring a person does not love, and once desire ceases, love begins. In the case of pleasure it is the contrary, so that one loves as much as he desires, and when desire ceases so does love. Tell me why we find so many differences in two types of love that are so similar, and why that is. PHILO: The cause lies in the different ways of enjoying the two kinds of objects of love and desire. For since utility is a continual possession of something, then the more one possesses, the more one enjoys its use. Therefore love is not present until the object is obtained and desire continues until the moment of possession. If, however, possession ceases and after a time ends completely, there will be desire, but not love. But as for pleasure, its enjoyment does not consist in complete or partial possession. Rather, it consists of a certain attention mixed with privation, and when this ceases, enjoyment ceases as well, and consequently one’s desire and love.37 SOPHIA: It seems reasonable that desire requires a lack of what is pleasurable, but love would seem more readily to require its presence and enjoyment.38 And no pleasure can be derived from what we wholly lack, neither can we feel love for it, even though we may desire it. So love of what is pleasurable must be possible only in actual enjoyment and not before, when it is lacking, nor afterward, when we are sated. PHILO: You have made a very subtle objection, Sophia, for you are right in saying that love of pleasure is not possible when enjoyment is mixed with privation. But you must know that in the pure appetite for pleasure39 there is an imaginary contentment that comes even if we have not yet enjoyed its effects. This does not occur with the ambitious desire for useful things, for

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often their lack causes sadness in those who desire them. That is why you will often see that those men who crave pleasure are happy and joyous, whereas those who are ambitious for useful goods are discontented and melancholic. The reason for this is that what is pleasurable has more power over the imagination40 than what is useful, when their object is absent; what is useful, however, is more powerful than the pleasurable in relation to the real possession of the object. So, it happens that in the case of pleasure there is no yearning lack41 without contentment, and no effective pleasure42 without lack. Because of this in both cases love and desire occur in the same way. But appetite and desire are stronger than love in the moment of yearning lack, and love is stronger than appetite in the moment of the effective enjoyment. SOPHIA: What you have said sounds good to me, since we see that imaginary dreams of enjoyable things do in fact produce real pleasure. Sometimes it can also be produced by the strength of our fantasies when we are awake, yet not by imagination of useful things. There is still one more thing I would like to know: in comparing these two types of love, which of them is more extensive and common? And can the two of them coexist with respect to the same loved object? PHILO: The love of what is pleasurable is far more noble, extensive, and common because not everything that is pleasurable is useful. Instead, those things that most delight the senses are of little use to the person who delights in them, neither for his body or health nor for the acquisition of riches. But pleasure, which combines for the most part with what is useful, when it is recognized as such, is the most pleasurable in acquiring riches. As they are acquired, they generate pleasure for the person who acquires them; their continual possession, however, diminishes this considerably since pleasure seems to be the result43 of the effect of acquiring those things we lack. Therefore, it appears that pleasure consists more in the acquisition than in the possession of things. SOPHIA: I am satisfied with your answer regarding pleasurable things. Now it seems time for me to understand something of the other type of desire and love, those for honest things, which is the most worthy and admirable. PHILO: Loving and desiring honest things is truly what makes a man distinguished, since such loves and desires cause the intellectual soul to excel, and the intellectual soul is that part of man that defines him as such, and it is the part that is farthest from matter and darkness and nearest to divine light. It alone, of all the human parts and potentialities, is able to reject

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bestial mortality. Thus love and desire for the honest consists in two qualities of our intellect, namely virtue and wisdom, which are the foundations of goodness.44 It in turn takes precedence over the profit of what is useful or the delights of pleasure, since pleasure resides principally in our sense of utility and our reasoning, whereas virtue dwells in our intellect, which surpasses all other faculties and is the end to which these other two are directed. For we seek the useful because it gives pleasure, since, through the wealth and possessions we have acquired we are able to enjoy the delights of human nature. Pleasure exists for the sustenance of the body. The intellectual soul uses the body as instrument for its acts of virtue and wisdom. Therefore, the end of man consists of honest, virtuous, and wise acts, which precede all other human acts and the other types of love and desire. SOPHIA: You have shown the excellence of the honest end over the pleasurable and useful ones. But our goal is to figure out the difference between love and desire with respect to ‘the honest,’ similarly to what we attempted to do in the case of pleasurable or useful ones. PHILO: I would have told you, if you did not interrupt me. Love and desire for honest things in part resemble love and desire of both the useful and the pleasurable ones; in another way they are like love and desire of the useful ones and unlike those of pleasure, and in still another way they are unlike love and desire of either. SOPHIA: Explain each of these parts separately. PHILO: Concerning desire, the ‘honest’ path is similar to the useful and pleasurable ones; our desire is always for what we lack. Just as we desire useful or pleasurable things when we lack them, the same is true when we desire wisdom, virtuous actions, and conduct, when we do not have them. In this the honest path is very similar to the pleasurable one; in both cases, love coexists with desire. For just as when we desire pleasurable things we love them even before we have them, so we also desire and love wisdom and virtue before having them. But in this the honest path is unlike the useful one; indeed it is its opposite, because in the case of useful things, when we do not possess them, we do not desire and love them. SOPHIA: What is the cause of this similarity between the honest and pleasurable path, and this dissimilarity between honest and useful ones? Reason would argue that honest things either are like health and not obtained or like the things that are not present and therefore cannot be loved, as is the case of virtue and wisdom: they cannot be loved when we do not have

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them, even though we desire them. In fact, when we do not have virtue and wisdom, they do not exist for us. PHILO: The useful is completely alien to whoever desires it, except in the act of possessing it, and it is for this reason that it cannot be loved until it comes into being. But pleasurable things, as I have already told you, are desired before they are actually possessed and this desire produces a certain excitement and pleasure in the imagination that is the subject of love, since there is a little existence of them in the lover himself. And no less – perhaps even more – with the desire for wisdom, virtue, and honest things generates a certain mode of being of those things in the intellectual soul. In fact, desiring virtue and wisdom is just wisdom and the most virtuous way of desiring. This particular mode of being of the honest things that we desire but do not have resides within the noblest of our faculties. Thus, the desire for them is worthy of being accompanied immediately by love. It happens then that desire for the honest path ends in a greater love than that of the desire for the pleasurable. So in both, desire is accompanied by love, when these objects are not present, and this does not occur in the case of the useful path. SOPHIA: That is sufficient for me. Please shed light on the other two remaining parts. PHILO: The honest path suits the useful one in the love of things we have and possess entirely; just as material possessions are loved once they are acquired, so too with wisdom and virtue in honest things: once we have attained them, we love them deeply. In this the honest path is unlike the pleasurable one, because for the latter, once something is perfectly enjoyed, it is no longer loved, but usually becomes hateful and irritating. Therefore, the honest path differs from both of them – useful and pleasurable ones – not only because love always accompanies it, both when we desire but do not possess it and when we possess it and no longer desire it (something that we cannot find in the other two); but it is also unlike them in another thing and noteworthy property: whereas in the other two the virtue45 lies in the middle ground between love and desire (excess in useful and pleasurable things is an extreme that produces all the major human vices), with respect to the honest path, the more that love and desire are superfluous and unbridled, the more it is praiseworthy and virtuous. Anything less than this is vice, for whoever lacked this love and desire would not only be full of vice, but inhuman. In fact the honest path is the true good, and this good – as the Philosopher says – is what all men desire, even though each man naturally desires knowledge.46

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SOPHIA: I think I learned this dissimilarity in another way. PHILO: In what way? SOPHIA: Regarding the honest path, it is said that the ‘superfluous extreme’ is virtuous, because the more we desire, love, and pursue it, the greater virtue is attained. The ‘poor extreme’ is vice, because there can be no greater vice than a lack of love for honest things. In the case of the other two paths – useful and pleasurable – we find the opposite, since virtue consists in the ‘poor extreme’ of desiring loving, and pursuing useful and enjoyable things. Vice consists of the ‘excess extreme,’ in excessively pursuing and caring for them. Thus, in the case of the honest path, virtue lies in excessive love for the honest things and vice in little love for them, whereas, with respect to what is useful and pleasurable, virtue consists of loving them very little and vice of loving them too much. PHILO: Your definition is true for some kinds of men because the virtue of useful or pleasurable paths consists of the ‘poor extreme’ of loving and pursuing these things. This is not universally true, however, since often in the moral life, virtue is the middle ground between these two and not an extreme of either of them. For, just as it is a vice to love too much in the useful and pleasurable paths, so too not loving is a vice, or more precisely, not loving enough, as I told you before. And the Peripatetics, it is true, those who follow the intellectual and contemplative life, wherein ultimate happiness lies, think that vice lies in caring for useful things or desiring pleasurable ones, and not only in extreme excess, but even in mediocrity. Scarcity is necessary for intimate contemplation,47 because the use of useful and pleasurable things is a great impediment. According to the Stoics, what is necessary for a life of contemplation is much less than what is necessary for the virtuous life of mortal men. Thus in the moral life virtue consists of moderation regarding useful and pleasurable things; yet in the contemplative life it consists of the extreme of paucity of useful and pleasurable things. In the moral life, both extremes are vices, whereas in the contemplative life only the poor extreme is vice.48 SOPHIA: I know how these two definitions occur, but tell me the reasons for this dissimilarity between the honest, the useful, and the pleasurable paths. PHILO: This is the cause: just as unbridled appetite for pleasure and insatiable greed for riches are the elements that let our intellectual soul sink into the oblivion of matter and dim our mind’s light in the shadows of sensuality, so our insatiable and burning love of wisdom and virtue for honest

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things renders our human intellect49 godlike and transforms our frail body – vessel of corruption – into an instrument of angelic spirituality. SOPHIA: Do you not consider moderation and balance50 to be included in honest things when they occur in the useful and pleasurable things? PHILO: Since they are virtues, why would they not also be included among honest things? SOPHIA: If they are honest things, then why are their extremes a vice? For you said that the pinnacle of virtue lies in ‘extreme excess’ and not in the ‘poor excess’ or in ‘balance.’ You also say that virtue is in the balance of the useful things and in the excess of pleasurable ones. This is equally a contradiction. PHILO: Since you have a subtle51 mind, try and make it wise. The virtue found in what is useful and pleasurable path is not because of its nature, and this is because of sensual enjoyment (or rather, the imagined usefulness of exterior things,52 which are alien to intellective spirituality, which is the origin of honest things). In sensual enjoyment, just as love and desire become more excellent, so virtue and goodness53 become more noteworthy. But utility and pleasure can only have a place in intellective reason if their love and desire is in moderation and balance. In fact moderation and balance are their only virtue, and, when this mean is not achieved, vice prevails to a greater or lesser degree in relation to utility and pleasure. This is because these loves, when bereft of reason, are evil and vicious, and proper to brute beasts rather than to human beings. Only the mean, established by reason, is true love. And from that mean it happens that the more vehemently we desire, love, and pursue something, the more true virtue results. Because such desire is no longer just for pleasure or utility, but is for their moderation, which is an intellective virtue, which is truly an honest thing. SOPHIA: You have now satisfied me regarding the differences between loving and desiring the things of our will, and I have understood the causes of those differences. However, I would still like to know to which of the three categories the following objects of love and desire belong: health, children, husband, wife, and power, dominion, rule, honour, fame and glory, all of which we both love and desire. It is not clear to me whether they belong to the category of the useful, the pleasurable, or the honest. In fact, on the one hand, they seem pleasurable in the enjoyment that having them affords us; but on the other hand, they do not seem to be so; because once we obtain and possess them, we continue to love them, without being sated

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and disgusted. So it seems that they should be numbered among useful things or honest things, rather than with pleasurable things. PHILO: Health, even though it serves a useful purpose, is in itself pleasurable. Nor is it improper that some pleasurable things be useful too, just as many useful things are pleasurable; and in both it is possible to find things that are honest. Thus health is mainly pleasurable, in view of its enjoyment; but it is also useful and even honest. Because of this no abundance of health is ever annoying or bothersome, as other things that are merely pleasurable are. When we possess such things, we do not value them in the same way as when we lack them and desire them. And there is another reason why health does not annoy or bother us; because the sensation of pleasure is not only directed to our outward, material senses, as foods to our taste, or carnal enjoyment to touch, or perfumes to smell. These soon become annoying; but health is close to our spiritual senses, which take more time to satiate. This is because it does not consist in hearing sweet music and melodious voices nor in seeing beautiful and well-proportioned figures; on the contrary, the enjoyment of health is felt with all human senses – both internal and external, and also in the imagination. When we do not have it, we desire it, not only with the sensuous appetite, but also with our will governed by reason. So it is an honest pleasure; although we normally value it less because we continually possess it. SOPHIA: What you said about health is enough. Speak about children. PHILO: Children, even if they are sometimes desired for utility, as is the case for inheritance and acquisition of wealth, are also loved and naturally desired because of pleasurable ends. Yet we see nothing similar in brute animals, whose pleasures do not extend past their five material senses, which we named above. In fact, although parents find delight in watching and listening to their children, this and the mere possession of them is not the end of a parent’s desire. The main delight is imagination and thoughts54 about them (and this is a spiritual potential,55 which does not belong to the external senses); and because of this an irritating satiety of them does not occur. And even more so because they are not only desired by a sensual appetite, but also by the will directed by the rational mind, which is the governess of nature who never errs. So (as the Philosopher says),56 since animals do not have individual perpetuity and recognize themselves as mortal, they desire at least to be immortal through their offspring; this is the desire of potential immortality for mortal animals.57 Because of this point, the pleasure from children is different from that derived from other enjoyable things, and it

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follows that when we have them, we do not experience an irritating satiety of them. In this they are similar to health; because not only does love not end with their possession, but on the contrary, once we have had them, we love and preserve them with effective diligence. And this occurs because of the desire for future immortality that rests upon them. So our enjoyment of children, because it is an honest thing in men, is characterized by that continuous love proper to honest things, as occurs with health. SOPHIA: I understand what you said about love of children. Now tell me about the love of the wife for her husband, and that of husband for his wife. PHILO: It is evident that the love of spouses is pleasurable; but it needs to be joined to the honest. This is why, after enjoyment occurs, reciprocal love is always preserved and continually grows, because of the nature of honest things. Moreover, useful, pleasurable, and honest elements converge in matrimonial love. In fact, each spouse continually receives some utility one from the other and this greatly contributes to the prolongation of their love. Thus, starting from being pleasurable, matrimonial love continues because of its connections to both the useful and the honest paths, and with these two together. SOPHIA: Tell me now about the desire of men for power, dominion, and rule. Into which of the three types does love for them fall? PHILO: Loving and desiring power is for the pleasurable, together with the useful. But because its enjoyment is not material to the senses, but spiritual, because it occurs in imagination and human thoughts, and because – and even more – this pleasure is united with what is useful, human beings who possess power are not satisfied with it. Rather, when they have acquired kingdoms, empires, or dominions, they love and preserve them with cleverness and attention, not because they partake of the honest path (for indeed there is only a little goodness58 in most of these desires), but because with this enjoyment human imagination is not sated, as it happens with material senses. On the contrary, it is naturally difficult to satiate, because its desires are neither useful nor pleasurable. This is also because they love the dominions they possess and they try to preserve them with great care, continually desiring to increase them with insatiable cupidity and boundless appetite. SOPHIA: It still remains for me to learn about honour, glory, and fame: into which of the three categories of love do we need to place them? PHILO: There are two kinds of honour and glory: one false and bastard, the other true and legitimate. Bastard honour flatters power; legitimate honour

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is the reward of virtue. Bastard honour, which powerful men desire and seek, falls into the category of the pleasurable. However, because its enjoyment is not directed to the senses, which are easily satisfied, but only to insatiable imagination, there is no satisfaction, as for the other pleasurable things. On the contrary, although it lacks what is honest, because in effect it is alien to any honesty,59 nevertheless, once acquired, bastard honour continues and preserves itself with a desire for its insatiable increase. But legitimate honour, which is the reward for honest virtues, though pleasurable by nature, ends in an enjoyment mixed with the honest. For this reason, and also because it is rooted in boundless imagination, it happens that once its subject matter is acquired, legitimate honour still loves and desires itself with insatiable desire. Nor does human imagination rest satisfied with the honour and glory enjoyed during a lifetime; but it desires – and may in great measure obtain – their continuation after death. This is commonly called fame. It is true that honour is the reward of virtue, but it is not the pure goal of honest and virtuous actions, nor should we act moved by it. In fact the goal of the honest path is the perfection of our intellectual soul, which is made more truthful, pure, and enlightened through virtuous acts, and with wisdom it becomes embellished by the divine picture.60 So the goal of real virtue cannot lie in the opinion of men, who locate honour and glory in their memory and writings that preserve fame; nor can imaginary pleasure be the proper end of pure goodness, which derive the concepts ‘glorious’ from glory and ‘famous’ from fame. These are indeed the rewards that the virtuous people rightly obtain, but not the goal that moves them to illustrious deeds. Honest virtue should be praised, but virtue should not be practised for the sake of praise. And although those who laud increase virtue, virtue would decrease if lauds were the reason for the virtue. But because of the connection that these pleasures have with the honest path, they are constantly appreciated and loved, and we always desire to increase them. SOPHIA: I am satisfied regarding the things that I asked you, and I know that all these objects of desire fall into the category of imaginary enjoyment;61 but in some the useful is mixed in, in others the honest, in others both the useful and honest, and that is why the right combination of them does not cause satiety or disgust. But now I must still learn from you about human friendship and love of God: of what type and condition are they? PHILO: Human friendship is sometimes directed to utility, sometimes to pleasure. But these types of friends are not perfect, nor do they make for a stable friendship; because, if the motivation for those friendships is removed, I mean if there is no longer something useful and pleasurable,

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these friendships end and dissolve along with their cause. But true human friendship is the one that generates the honest bond of virtue; because such a bond is indissoluble, and generates a stable and wholly perfect friendship. This alone among human friendships is the most commendable and praiseworthy; this is why friends bond in such a human way that the good or the bad of each also belongs to the other; each may feel the other’s joys and sorrows even more intensely than his own, often lightening his friend’s sorrows by the part he takes in them, or helping him and sharing his labour; in fact, such company in life’s tribulations lessens the load. The Philosopher defines such friendships by saying that a true friend is another self, 62 meaning that those bound in true friendship have a twofold life, constituted by two persons, each by his own and that of his friend. Thus, his friend is his other self and each embraces within himself two lives; his own and his friend’s, loving both persons and guarding both lives with equal devotion. And this is why Sacred Scripture commands honest friendship, saying: ‘You will love your neighbour as yourself,’63 and wants friendship to be a union of equals, in which one love is in the hearts of both friends. Such a union and bond must be based on the mutual virtue or wisdom of both friends. This wisdom, being spiritual, and thus alien to matter and free from corporeal limitations, removes the distinction of persons from bodily individuality. It generates in such friends a particular mental essence, preserved by their joint knowledge, love, and will, devoid of difference and dissimilarities, exactly as if the subject of love were one single soul and essence conserved in two persons, and not multiplied in them. In conclusion I say this: honest friendships make one person into two and two persons into one.64 SOPHIA: You have told me much about human friendship with few words. Let us move on to love of God, because I desire to know about that, since it is the greatest of all. PHILO: The love of God not only has something of the honest path, but comprises in itself the goodness of all things and all the love for them, and this is because Godhead is at once the origin, means, and end of all honest actions. SOPHIA: If Godhead is their origin how can Godhead be their end and even their means? PHILO: The Godhead is origin, because upon Him depends the intellectual soul – the agent of all human goodness.65 The intellectual soul is nothing but a tiny ray of the infinite splendour of God, assigned to humans to make them rational, immortal, and happy. Moreover this intellectual soul, in

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order to achieve honest things, must participate in the divine light;66 in fact, although it67 was produced brilliant as a ray of the divine light, because of the impediment of its connection with the body, and because it is obscured by the darkness of matter, it cannot attain the noble disposition of virtue or the clear concepts of wisdom, unless it is re-illuminated by the divine light in those actions and conditions. As the eye, although is clear in itself, can see neither colours nor figures nor other visible things unless illumined by the light of the sun, which, spread in that eye, in the object seen, and in the intermediate space, actually causes sight in the eyes; so also our intellect, while in itself clear, is obstructed by honest and wise actions in the same way, because it is accompanied by a crude body and so darkened that it needs to be illuminated again by the divine light.68 This light, by bringing it from potential to act, and illuminating the ideas69 and forms of things that proceed from the activity of understanding, which is the mean between intellect and the ideas of a special part of the imagination named fantasy, makes the intellect rational, prudent, and wise in act, inclined to all honest things and adverse to dishonest ones. And removing all darkness from it, the intellect thus remains perfectly brilliant in act. Therefore, in both ways the Most High God is the beginning upon which all honest human things depend, as well as their potentiality and their actualization. Because the Most High God is pure, supreme goodness, infinite excellence and virtue, it is necessary that all other goods and virtues derive from Him, as from the true source and cause of all perfection.70 SOPHIA: It is right that all honest things should have their origin in the Most High Creator; there was not any doubt of that. But how is He their means and end? PHILO: The merciful Godhead is the means whereby every virtuous and honest action becomes effect. For since Divine Providence is suitable in a higher degree to those who partake of the divine virtues71 – and in greater proportion in accordance to the greater degree of their participation; there can be no doubt that divine virtues greatly assist their performance, aiding the virtuous people to achieve and perfect their honest actions. Moreover, in another way, the Godhead is a means in these actions; because, since He contains in Himself all virtues and excellences, He is the example that must be imitated by all those who seek to act virtuously. What greater loving piety and mercy are there than those of God? What greater liberality is there than His, Who is part of every created thing? What justice more complete than that under His government? What greater goodness,72 more stable truth, deeper wisdom, more diligent prudence than what we know to be

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in Godhead? Not because we distinguish it in His essence, but because we see His work in the creation and preservation of the universe. So, for whoever will trust in the Divine virtues, imitation of them is the way and means to attract us to all honest and virtuous actions and all wise concepts that the human condition can achieve. Because God not only is father by generating us, but a master and wondrous administrator who attracts us to all good things through His clear and manifest examples. SOPHIA: I am very pleased that Almighty God is not only the beginning, but also the means of all our good. Now I would like to know how He is also its end. PHILO: Only God is the regulated end of all human actions. In fact, the useful exists in order to obtain worthwhile pleasures, and necessary pleasure exists in order to sustain human life, whose end is the perfection of the soul. The soul attains perfection first, through the habit of virtue, and afterwards, through it, reaches true wisdom, whose end is to know God, Who is supreme wisdom, supreme goodness, and the origin of all good. This type of knowledge causes in us immense love, filled with all excellence and goodness;73 in fact, we love honestly in as much as we recognize it as good. The love of God must therefore surpass every other honest love and virtuous action. SOPHIA: I learned that another time74 you said that, because He is infinite and wholly perfect, He could not be known by the human mind, which is in all respects finite and limited. This is because in order to know we must comprehend; but how can what is finite comprehend infinity or how can what is limited comprehend immensity? And because it cannot be known, how can it be loved? You said that a good thing must be known before it can be loved. PHILO: God the immense is loved to the degree that He is known. And just as He cannot be wholly known by men, nor His wisdom by human beings, so neither can He be wholly loved by men, or loved to the degree befitting His nature. Nor is our will capable of such an extreme of love; our mind is such that its knowledge is conditioned by the capacity of the knower and not by the immense worth of the known. Nor is our will able to love Him as He deserves to be loved, but only with all the intensity of which it is capable. SOPHIA: Is it still possible to know the thing that the knower does not comprehend? PHILO: It is enough for us to comprehend the part of the thing that we know; for the object of knowledge is comprehended by the knower according to his

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powers, not according to those of the object. Do you not see how the form of a man is impressed on, and received75 by a mirror, not as a perfect human being, but within the limits of the powers and capabilities of the mirror’s perfection (which reflect the figure only and not the essence)? Our eyes receive the impression of fire, not in conformity with its burning nature, but only with its colour and shape, otherwise they might be consumed. What greater example is there than that of the whole vast hemisphere of heaven received by such a tiny element as our eye? Observe that its minuteness is such that there are wise men who hold it indivisible and essentially insusceptible to natural division. Yet the eye knows objects according to its visual power, size, and nature, not according to the state of things as they are. It is in this manner that our infinitesimal intellect comprehend God in His infinity; according to the power and capacity of human intellect, and not to the bottomless sea of the Divine essence and immense wisdom. Our love of God follows and corresponds to such knowledge as in conformity to the power of the human will, and not to the infinite goodness of the most high God Himself. SOPHIA: Tell me, does desire mix with this love of God? PHILO: Certainly, love of God is never stripped of ardent desire to gain whatever we lack in knowledge of God. So that as knowledge increases, so does the love of the God we come to know. In fact, as the nature of God infinitely exceeds human knowledge, and as His goodness no less exceeds the love men can bear Him, they continue to nourish a happy desire, as ardent as it is unbridled, to ever grow in the knowledge and love of God. For this growing is always possible for human beings with respect to the Object of such knowledge and love, though in terms of human powers it may be limited and brought to rest at that point beyond which a human being may not be able to reach. Or, even more if he is at the highest degree, there is still in him an impression of desiring to know what he lacks, even if he can never attain it – even if he were blessed – because the excellence of the Object of his love is above human potentiality and disposition.76 Even though in those who are blessed this residue of desire cannot cause suffering for the lack it, since it is humanly impossible to obtain more; rather, reaching the limits of the possible in knowledge and love of God affords them a supreme enjoyment.77 SOPHIA: Since we have touched on this point, I would like to know how this human beatitude occurs. PHILO: There have been different opinions on the topic of happiness. Many have judged it to lie in utility and possession of the goods of fortune, and

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abundance thereof while life lasts. But this opinion is manifestly false. In fact, such material78 goods are so only in virtue of the spiritual79 good upon which they depend; and happiness must consist of the most excellent. All else is a means to such happiness, but itself serves no further goal, being the goal of all. Even more, such material goods rely on the power of Fortune, while happiness must only rely on the power of human beings. Some others held a different opinion; they said that beatitude consists in pleasure. These are the Epicureans, who assert the mortality of the soul, and believe that there is no other happiness for humans except for every kind of pleasure. But the falsity of their opinion is not hidden. In fact, pleasure destroys itself when it becomes satiety and fastidious; while happiness gives a whole contentment and perfect satisfaction. We said before that the end of pleasure is what is honest, and happiness is not for any other goal, but is itself the final cause of all things. Therefore – without a doubt – happiness is in honest things and in the actions and faculties of the intellectual soul, which are the most excellent, and the goal of the other human faculties. Through these actions and faculties, Man is Man and more excellent than all other creatures.80 SOPHIA: How many and which are these faculties of the intellectual actions? PHILO: I say that they are five: Art, Prudence, Intellect, Science, and Wisdom.81 SOPHIA: How do you define them? PHILO: ART is the faculty of producing things according to reason, things that require the work of our hands or physical labour. This includes all mechanical arts in which the bodily tool is used. PRUDENCE is the faculty of acting according to reason, and consists in the practice of good human morals, which includes all virtues performed by the means of will and by the two affects of the will, love and desire. The INTELLECT is the faculty associated with the principle of knowing which faculties are known and conceded by everyone naturally when words are understood; as it is when ‘good is to be pursued and evil to be shunned,’ and when ‘contraries cannot be together,’ and other similar notions in which our intellectual potentiality operates its essence. SCIENCE is the faculty of cognition and conclusion based on the principles just mentioned; and under it we range the seven liberal arts, in which the intellect performs according to its essence. WISDOM is the faculty that includes the previous two together, and it is the principle and conclusion of all the things that exist. Only it reaches the highest knowledge of spiritual things. The Greeks name it THEOLOGY, which means ‘Divine Science,’ and it is also named FIRST PHILOSOPHY, being the leader of

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all the sciences. And our intellect realizes itself in this when it is in its ultimate and most perfect being.82 SOPHIA: In which of these two true faculties does happiness consist? PHILO: It is evident that it does not consist in art or in artificial things, which rather take away from our acquisition of happiness. Beatitude consists, therefore, in the other faculties whose actions are included in those of virtue or wisdom, in which happiness really consists. SOPHIA: Tell me more precisely in which of those two types of happiness ultimately consists: does happiness lie in virtue or in wisdom? PHILO: Moral virtues are indispensable routes to happiness, but their proper subject is wisdom. Yet wisdom would not be possible without moral virtues. For whoever lacks virtue cannot be wise, in the same way no one who is wise can be without virtue. So virtue is the route to wisdom, and wisdom is the place of happiness. SOPHIA: There are many types of knowledge, and there are different sciences according to the multitude of objects acquired and the diversity and modality by which the intellect knows them. So now tell me in which, or in how many, of these sciences happiness consists, if it is knowing all things that are, or some of them, or if it consists in the cognition of a single thing. And, if it is the cognition of a single thing, tell me what kind of thing it may be whose cognition alone makes our intellect happy. PHILO: There have been some sages83 who believed that happiness consists in knowing all the sciences of things, all of them, without missing a single one. SOPHIA: What reasons do they give to prove their opinion? PHILO: They say that our intellect is initially the pure power of understanding, whose potentiality is not determined by one set of things, but is generally and universally extensible to all objects. As Aristotle says, the nature of our intellect is essentially capable of understanding and receiving everything, just like the nature of the agent intellect,84 which makes such things intelligible and enlightens them with our intellect, and allows it to do any intellectual thing. It illuminates and imprints everything upon the potential intellect, which is thus raised from obscure potentiality to actuality, which is illuminated by the active intellect. It follows that its supreme perfection and its happiness consists in passing from potentiality to complete actualization of all things that must exist, because, since it is potentiality in relation to them, its perfection and happiness must be in knowing all of them,

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so that no non-actualized potentiality or lack be left in it. This is the ultimate beatitude and happy ending of the human intellect. At this end, they say, our intellect is completely deprived of potentiality, and is made actual. The intellect unites and becomes one with its active intellect, which illuminates the elimination of potentiality, which causes its diversity. Thus, the potential intellect becomes purified in actualization. This union is the ultimate perfection and true beatitude. This is called the happy copulation of the potential intellect with the active intellect.85 SOPHIA: Their explanation seems to me less elevated than persuasive; but it seems to me that it more easily infers the non-existence of beatitude than the mode of its essence. PHILO: Why? SOPHIA: Because if man is not to be happy till he has known all things, he will never be so; for it is practically impossible for a man to reach the cognition of all existent things, because of the brevity of human life and the diversity of the things of the universe. PHILO: It is true what you say. It is manifestly impossible for a man to know all things and know each one individually. In fact, in the various regions of earth there are many different kinds of plants, terrestrial and flying animals, and other mixed lifeless things; a man cannot traverse the whole globe of the earth in order to know and see them all. If he could look into the sea and its depths, where there are many more kinds of animals than on earth (so much so that it is doubtful whether there would be more eyes or hairs in the world; for it is computed that there are as many eyes beneath the waters as hairs on land animals), it would be unnecessary to explain that it is impossible to know heavenly things, neither the number, nature, or properties of the stars in the eighth sphere, whose multitude forms forty-eight constellations. Between them twelve are in the Zodiac, which is the route taken by the Sun. Twenty-one figures are located in the northern part – between the equator and the Arctic Pole – which is visible to us and which we call the Northern Hemisphere.86 The remaining fifteen figures are those that are visible in the Southern part, between the equator and the Antarctic Pole, which is hidden from us. And there can be no doubt that in that southernmost zone, around the Pole, many other stars are to be found, in figures unknown to us, because they are always below our hemisphere. For thousands of years we have been ignorant of this; and only now have we gained some news of this through the recent journeys of the Portuguese and Spaniards. Nor is it necessary to express all that we do not know about the spiritual, intellectual, and angelic

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world, and about divine matters, about which our knowledge is less than a single droplet compared to the whole ocean. I am even leaving out all the things we see without knowing about them, even matters pertaining to ourselves, so that some have said that we are ignorant even of our own differences. But at least there is no doubt that many things in the world that we can neither see nor hear, and therefore cannot understand, exist; since, as the Philosopher said, there can be nothing in the mind that has not passed through the senses.87 SOPHIA: How? Do not you see that spiritual things are apprehended88 by the intellect without ever having been seen or felt? PHILO: Spiritual things are all intellect; and the intellectual light is in our intellect, just as it is in itself, through union and by its very nature. But this is not like the things of the senses, which need the activity of the intellect to render them intelligible. The intellect receives them as a thing received by another thing. Since they are all material, it is rightfully said that they cannot be in the intellect if they are not found beforehand in the senses, which know them materially. SOPHIA: Do you think that all those who understand spiritual matters, understand them because of that unity and property that they have with our intellect? PHILO: I do not say this, although this is the perfect union of spiritual things. But there still is another way; we know spiritual things through their visible or perceived effects. As you see by the perpetual motion of the heavens, we know that the motor is neither a body nor a physical power, but a spiritual intellect separated from matter. You could not know this unless its motion had first been perceived by your senses. After this mode of knowing there is another, more perfect one, in connection to spiritual things. This occurs when our intellect understands the intellectual science in itself, which at that time is actualized because of the identity of nature and sensual unity that has with spiritual things. SOPHIA: I understand this. But let us not lose the thread of our argument. You said that beatitude cannot consist in knowledge of all things, because that is impossible. If it is impossible for human happiness to be found in that, I would like to know how some sages89 have maintained this impossibility. PHILO: Those men did not mean that happiness consists in knowing all these particulars individually; but they define ‘knowledge of all things’ as

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the knowledge of all sciences, which deal with all things according to a certain order and universality. Since they give an account of the essence and modes of all existent things, they give common knowledge of all things, even though some are not found in our senses. SOPHIA: Is it possible for a single man to have such knowledge of all sciences? PHILO: The possibility is a distant one. Thus, the Philosopher says that on the one hand it is easy to find all sciences, and on the other hand it is difficult, and this means that it is easy to find all sciences among all men, but with difficulty in one single man. Yet even if the possibility were realized, happiness could not consist in knowledge of many different things at the same time. In fact, as the Philosopher says, happiness does not consist in the faculty of knowing, but in the act of knowing;90 the wise man is not happy while he is asleep, but while he is taking advantage and enjoying his intelligence. Thus, if this is so, beatitude must consist in a single act of understanding; for although we may have many faculties of knowledge simultaneously, we can actually understand only one thing at a time. Happiness therefore cannot depend on our knowing all or many different things, but must consist only in our knowing a single thing. It is true, of course, that to reach beatitude we must perfect ourselves in all sciences. In the art of demonstrating truth and distinguishing it from falsehood in all subjects and studies, which is called logic; in moral philosophy, which consists in the exercise of prudence and of virtues in action; also in natural philosophy, which deals with all things capable of movement, change, and alteration; in the philosophy of mathematics, which deals with quantities, either numerable or measurable. This, considered as pure number, constitutes the study of arithmetic; studied as the quantity of sounds, it constitutes the science of music; as pure measure, the science of geometry; and that of astrology, when it deals with the dimensions and motions of the heavenly bodies. Above all we must perfect ourselves in the part of learning that comes nearest to the union with happiness, the First Philosophy, which alone is truly called wisdom, and it deals with all things that exist, and understands them more in proportion to the greatness and excellence of their being. This doctrine alone deals with spiritual and eternal things. The essence of these things is in itself of far greater worth and is more intelligible than that of material and corruptible things, even if to us they may be less known, since – unlike matter – they are beyond the reach of our senses. This regards our intellect; with respect to cognition, it is like the eyes of the bat in front of light and visible things.91 So the light of the sun, which in itself is the brightest, cannot be seen by the eye because it cannot bear to

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look at such brightness, but the eye can see the brightness of the moon that is proportional to its faculties. This wisdom, or First Philosophy, as it is called, embraces the knowledge of things divine, as much as that is possible for human intellect; and for this reason it is called Theology, which means ‘speech of God.’ Thus, knowledge of the different sciences is necessary to happiness; but happiness does not consist in these, but in the most perfect cognition of only one thing. SOPHIA: Clarify this cognition, which alone makes man happy: what is it, and what is its object? Because, whatever it is, it seems strange to me that the cause of happiness should be attributed to the cognition of a part rather than of the whole. In fact, that former argument, from which you inferred that happiness consists in actual knowledge of all things or sciences that our intellect has the power to understand, seems to me to imply that our intellect, being potential, should find its beatitude in knowing those things in act. If this is so, how can it find happiness in a single cognition, as you say? PHILO: Your argumentations are conclusive; but reason shows that truth cannot be contrary to truth, and one must give way to the other. You must understand that happiness consists in knowing one thing only, and it cannot reside in knowledge of all things, each one individually; more accurately, in the knowledge of a single thing that comprises all the things in the Universe. And, once this thing is known, all others are known together in an act and a greater perfection than would be possible if they were each known separately. SOPHIA: What is this one thing, which, being but one, is all things together? PHILO: Intellect, for its proper nature, has no assigned essence, but is all things. In the case of intellect in potential, it is all things potentially. In fact, its proper essence is to understand all things in potential. And if it is intellect in act, pure being and pure form, it contains within itself all the degrees of being and all forms and acts of the Universe; it contains all in being, unity, and pure simplicity. So whoever can know it by seeing it in being, knows, in a single vision and the simplest cognition, the entire being of all things in the Universe together in a more perfect and purely intellectual way than their own nature would yield. In fact, material things have a far more perfect being in the act of intellection than they have in themselves. So in the knowledge of the agent intellect alone it is possible to know the whole of the sciences of things, and thus man makes himself blessed.92 SOPHIA: Then clarify what kind of intellect this is, which causes beatitude by understanding itself?

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PHILO: Some hold that it is the active intellect in copulating with our potential intellect. These two intellects together see at one time all the things in act with a single spiritual and brightest vision and through this the intellect becomes blessed.93 Others say that beatitude is when our intellect, wholly enlightened by its copulation with the active intellect, becomes wholly actualized without residue of potentiality, and sees itself according to its inmost intellective essence. This essence contains and sees all things spiritually. In the very same intelligence, the thing understood and the act of understanding it are without any difference or separate science.94 They also say that when our intellect becomes essence95 in that way, it becomes and remains essentially one with the active intellect, without any trace of division or multiplicity remaining in them. This is how the most illustrious philosophers discuss happiness.96 It would take a long time out of our discussion to talk about what they adduce for and against. I will only say that the others, who most profoundly contemplate Godhead, say (and I myself with them) that the active intellect, which gives light to our potential intellect, is God the Most High. And because of this they hold that beatitude is certainly the cognition of the divine intellect, in which all things are contained perfectly and before any created intellect, because in it all things are in essence, not only because of the intellect, but also because it is their cause, being the first and absolute cause of all things that exist. Thus, He is the cause that produces them, the mind that guides them, the form that informs them. They were made for the end that directs them. From Him they proceed, and to Him they ultimately return as to their last and true end and common happiness. He is the first being; and all things exist through participation in Him. He is pure act; He is supreme intellect, upon which every intellect, activity, form, and perfection are dependent. To Him all things are directed, as to their most perfect end. In Him they subsist spiritually without any division or multiplicity, in the simplest unity. He is true happiness. Everybody needs him, but He needs no one. In seeing Himself, He knows all; and in seeing, He is seen by Himself. With His vision, all is perfect unity; however, whoever is not capable of so much comes to know Him to the best of his ability. When the human or angelic intellect, according to its capacity and virtue, sees all things united in highest perfection, it partakes of His happiness, and becomes and remains happy, according to the level of its being. More than this I will not say, since the quality of our topic won’t allow it; nor is human language sufficient to express precisely what our intellect feels in all this, and it is impossible for the human tongue to express the spiritual purity of divine things. It is enough for you to know that our happiness consists in the knowledge and vision of God, in which all things are seen perfectly.

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SOPHIA: I will not ask you more about this; it is enough for my capabilities, if not it is already too much. But I still have one doubt. At times I have heard and understood that happiness does not exactly consist in knowledge of God, but in loving and delighting in Him. PHILO: Because God is the true and only object of our happiness, we love Him through both knowledge and love. The sages held divergent opinions regarding these two activities, that is, whether happiness really consists in knowing God or in loving Him. But you must be content to know that both activities are necessary to beatitude. SOPHIA: I would like to know the reasons that motivated the authors of these two positions. PHILO: Those who hold that happiness consists in loving God give this reason: beatitude consists in the ultimate act that our soul performs in relation to God, because He is the ultimate human goal. Since it is necessary to know Him before we can love Him, it follows that happiness consists, not in the knowledge, but in the love of God, which is the ultimate act. Moreover, they say that delight or enjoyment is an essential element of happiness, and this enjoyment is a property of the will. Therefore, they say the true happy act is voluntary: that is, love, from which enjoyment is derived, and not from the activity of intellect, for it is less bound up with enjoyment. The others give a contrary reason: happiness consists in the act of the principal and most spiritual faculty of our soul. Since the intellectual faculty is more essential than the will and more remote from matter, beatitude does not consist in an activity of the will, which loves Him; rather, as they say, love and pleasure follow on knowledge as additions, but do not constitute the main goal.97 SOPHIA: Both arguments seem equally valid to me. Yet I would like to know your position. PHILO: It is difficult to attempt to solve a problem so long debated by ancient philosophers and modern theologians. But in order to satisfy you, I will only tell you this in our discussion, which you have used to divert me from telling you how my spirit98 is afflicted because of you. SOPHIA: Speak only about this; then, when we are sated of divine matters, we will be able to talk more purely about our human friendship. PHILO: Among the true and necessary propositions there is one which says that happiness consists in the ultimate activity of the soul as its true end.

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The other is that happiness consists in the actualization of the most noble and spiritual potential of the soul, and that is the intellectual one. Again it is undeniable that love presupposes knowledge; but it does not follow from this that love is the ultimate activity of the soul. In fact you should know that, in regards to God, as other objects of love and desire, there are two forms of knowing. One precedes love that causes those; but this is not the cognition that perfectly unifies. The other is about love, and is caused by love; such unifying cognition is the enjoyment of perfect union. So, in the first place, bread must be known, and because of this it is loved and desired when we are hungry; and, if we did not first have an ideal knowledge of it, we could neither love nor desire it. And by means of this love and desire we attain true unified cognition of the bread, namely, when we actually eat it. The true knowledge of bread consists in tasting it. The same is true of the relation between men and women; in fact, knowing a woman ideally causes love and desire, and from love comes the unified knowledge that is the goal of desire. So it is, too, with regard to whatever else we desire and love. In fact, with regard to everything, love and desire are a means of raising us from imperfect knowledge to perfect union, which is the true goal of love and desire. These are affects of the will, which translate divided cognition into enjoyment of perfect cognitive union. When you understand this intrinsic nature of theirs, you will recognize that it does not differ greatly from that of mental desire and mental love, although our earlier explanation, when we were discussing the subject in a general way, was rather different. And so we could really define love as the desire to enjoy in union an object recognized as good; moreover, as I told you before, desire presupposes the absence of the desired thing. Now I tell you that even when the good exists and we possess it, we may desire not indeed to have it (for that is already achieved), but to enjoy it with a cognitive union. And we may desire such future enjoyment because it does not yet exist. We call such desire love, which is a desire to possess things we lack, or desire to enjoy in union those that we have obtained. Both of these may properly be called desire, but the second is more accurately love. Thus, we define love as ‘a desire to enjoy in union,’ or truly ‘a desire to become one with the thing loved.’99 Now, returning to our purpose, I say: first that knowledge has to be of God; second, that it is possible to have knowledge of such an immense and sublime thing. So by knowing His perfection, though incapable of knowing it completely, we love and desire to enjoy Him in the most perfect knowing union possible to us. This great love and desire of ours abstracts us into such contemplation, so that our intellect rises in a way that, illuminated by unique divine grace, it comes to know things higher than human

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capacity and speculation; and it attains such union and copulation with God the Most High that after this our intellect recognizes itself to be derived from and part of God, rather than intellect in human form. Then its desire and love are fulfilled, with far greater satisfaction than they had from the first knowledge and our previous love. Love and desire may well remain, if not for this uniting knowledge, which it has already, but for continuing the enjoyment of such a divine union, which is the truest love. Nor could I affirm that we experience pleasure in such a blessed act, apart from the time in which it was attained, because at that moment we enjoy obtaining the desired and missing thing. In fact, the best part of enjoyment is when there is a remedy for the lack we feel and we obtain the desired thing. But, in enjoying the act of happy union, no impression of imperfection remains. On the contrary, there is a complete satisfaction of union, which is above any enjoyment, contentment, and joy. And in conclusion I tell you that happiness does not consists in the first act of knowing God, which leads us to love, nor in the love itself, which follows on that first knowledge; rather, it consists solely in the copulative act of intimate cognitive union with God, who is the supreme perfection of the created intellect. And this is the ultimate act and blessed goal, in which more divinity than humanity is found. For this also the Holy Scriptures – after commanding us to know the perfect and pure unity of God, and love Him more than the useful things of greed and the pleasures of appetite and all the honest things of the soul and rational will – says is our ultimate goal: ‘Therefore with the same God you shall copulate.’100 Elsewhere, too, in promising the ultimate happiness, it says only, ‘And with God Himself you will copulate,’101 with no promise of anything else such as life, eternal glory, supreme pleasure, happiness and infinite splendour, or other such things; because this copulation is the most proper and precise term to designate beatitude and contains all the good and the perfection of the intellectual soul, as constituting its true happiness. It is true that in this life it is not easy to gain such beatitude, or – if one were able to obtain it – to enjoy it continually. The reason for this is that, while we live, our intellect is in some way trapped in the matter of this fragile body of ours. Because of this, one who has achieved such copulation in this life could not continue this perpetual enjoyment, because of the connection with the body. And after the copulation with God it would return to the recognition of material things as before; except when it reached the end of life, the soul would copulate with God and abandon the body completely, retiring in supreme beatitude, copulating with the Godhead. And the soul afterwards, separated from the connection with the body,102 and because of its deliverance from all impediments, eternally enjoys its happy union with

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the divine light, in the same way as it happens for the blessed ones and disembodied intelligences, the heavenly bodies and their motors, each according to the degree of its dignity and perfection, and this is forever. And now I think, Sophia, that this little bit of spiritual things should be enough for you. And coming back to me, see if I can find a remedy for the passion that the affections of my will give me for sustaining this bodily companion. SOPHIA: First, I want to know from you what kind of love you say you bear me. You have shown me the nature of the many different loves and desires found in human beings, and have grouped them into three categories. So make clear which type of love is the one you bear me. PHILO: I can neither understand nor explain what kind of love I bear you, Sophia. I feel its force indeed, but I do not comprehend it. Its passion is such that it has made itself master of me and of my whole spirit. As my sovereign ruler, it knows me; but I, a servant under its command, cannot rise to knowledge of it. However, I know my desire seeks what is pleasurable. SOPHIA: In that case you must not ask me to satisfy your will as a remedy. Nor can you blame me for not giving in to you, since you have just shown me that when one obtains the pleasurable end of desire, not only does desire cease, but love is eliminated and changed to hate. PHILO: You are not content to choose fruit that is sweet and good for you from our argument. But God does not want you to choose a bitter and poisonous fruit in order to give me satisfaction. And you cannot boast of gratitude in this, or make a show of pity, when with the very shaft that sped from my bow in your favour you would cruelly pierce my heart! SOPHIA: If, as I suspect, you consider your love of me a worthy thing, I would be acting unworthily if, by granting the fulfilment of your desire, I caused the extinction of that love. In so doing, I should indeed be cruel both to myself and to you, since that would put an end both to your loving me and to my being loved. Instead, I will be take pity on both of us and deny you the object of your wild desire, so that your sweet love will not end. PHILO: You mislead yourself or, perhaps, you want to mislead me, accusing me of false premises concerning love by saying that I told you about the pursuit of the object of desire that extinguishes love and converts it into hatred. There is nothing more false! SOPHIA: How is this false? Did you not say that an essential attribute of pleasurable love is that its satiety changes into fastidious hate?

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PHILO: Not all pleasures cause hate when they are attained. Indeed, virtue and knowledge delight without ever exasperating the mind, and we always desire and seek their increase. Nor is it only these objects, which are honest in themselves, but also others that are not, such as power, honour, and wealth. All these are pleasurable to obtain, and yet never provoke repulsion; on the contrary, the more we have of them, the more we desire. SOPHIA: You appear to be contradicting what you said before about pleasure. PHILO: What I said before was that objects that generate satiety and annoyance are those that gratify only our external senses, or rather our material senses (such as taste and touch). But that is not true for what gives pleasure to sight, hearing, and smell. Solomon says that the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.103 And much less are fantasia and imagination sated with the things that gratify them, such as honours, riches, dominion, and similar things, which are always sought after. But the pleasure taken by the mind and intellect in the activities of virtue and wisdom is far more insatiable. And in the enjoyment of these activities, the more inexhaustible such pleasure is the more excellent and honest it is. SOPHIA: I understand very well that pleasure, when it is in the potential state, is more spiritual than the soul, and it is so much more insatiable than irritating. But, according to common practice, the pleasure your desire seeks from me is a gratification of the sense of touch, which is the one that most easily feels fastidious satiety. So it is reasonable to deny it to you.104 PHILO: It is manifest that to the senses of touch and taste (which, out of all five, were created to maintain the existence, not merely of the individual, but of the species, through successive procreation of like by like, which is operated through touch) nature gave a bigger extent in operation than the others like sight, hearing, and smell. The reason for this is because the latter three are not indispensable to the existence of the individual, nor to the continuance of the species; they only exist for the convenience and utility of humans and the higher animals. Since their existence is not necessary, they have no need of limits on their functioning. And, since the life of a man is not destroyed by lack of sight, hearing, or smell, neither is it destroyed by an excess of these, unless by accident. But, since taste and touch are necessary to human life and procreation, their absence would involve human ruin. Likewise, an excess of those would be the cause for a lack in humans, because excessive eating and drinking would kill a man as surely as hunger and thirst, and similarly too frequent carnal copulation. Likewise, extreme heat and cold would cause a distortion of the sense of

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touch. In fact, since the bond of pleasure is strongest in those two senses, on account of their indispensability to the conservation of the human individual and species, it was convenient to set natural limits to them, so that, while pleasure urged them to harmful excesses, they might be restrained by these natural limitations, thus saving the individual from being permanently damaged by such excess. Nature has therefore shown equal wisdom in imposing natural limits and restraints on the senses of taste and touch rather than on the others for its preservation, as it has in producing them for its existence. Even though a lover’s appetite is sated by the union of copulation, and when it is contained his desire or appetite ceases, cordial love does not end; rather it makes a closer and more binding union possible. This union allows the actual conversion of each lover into the other, or rather rendering two into one, removing as far as possible every division and distinction between them, leaving love in greater unity and perfection.105 Because of this, the lover remains continually desirous of enjoying continual union with the beloved, which is the true definition of love. SOPHIA: So you admit that the goal of your desire resides in the most material of the senses, which is touch. And if love is as spiritual as you say, I am amazed that you should place its goal in something so base. PHILO: I am not conceding to you that this is the goal of perfect love: I have told you that this act, far from dissolving perfect love, rather confirms and integrates it through the bodily activities of love, which are desired insofar as they point to the reciprocal love in both lovers. And this also because when two spirits are united in spiritual love, their bodies desire to enjoy such union as is possible, so that no distinction may persist, but the union is perfect. Even more so, since a corresponding physical union increases and perfects the spiritual love, just as prudent consciousness is perfect when the corresponding actions accompany it. In conclusion I tell you that, although we previously defined love in general, the proper definition of the perfect love of a man for a woman is the conversion of the lover into the beloved, together with a desire that the beloved also turn into the lover. And when such love is equal on both sides, it is defined as the conversion of each lover into the other. SOPHIA: Although your positions are both plausible and subtle, I base my opinion on experience, which is more valuable than any other reasons. We see many who love, who, after having obtained from their beloved those favours of physical love that they desired, come to an end, not only of desire, but even wholly to love them: love in some cases changes into hate.

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So it was with Amnon,106 son of David, who so passionately loved his sister, Tamar. Because of her he fell into sickness and danger of death. Yet, once Jonadab had procured for him what he desired from her through deceit and violence, he felt such hatred of her that, after raping her, he sent her out from his house in broad daylight. PHILO: There are two kinds of love. One of these generates desire or mere sensual appetite, so that when a man desires a person, he loves her. Such love is imperfect, because it depends on a sinful and fragile source, and because it is the offspring of desire. Such was the love Amnon felt for Tamar. And it is true (as you say happens) that, once desire or carnal appetite is fulfilled and sated, all love entirely vanishes. In fact when the cause, which is desire, disappears, its effect, love, often turns into hate, as happened in this instance. But for the other kind of love, love generates desire of the beloved, instead of being generated by desire or appetite. On the contrary, when we first love perfectly, the strength of that love makes us desire spiritual and bodily union with the beloved. Thus, the first kind of love is the offspring of desire, while the second is the true father and true generator of desire. When this love fulfils its desire, it does not cease, even though the desire and appetite end. In fact, the removal of an effect does not provoke the removal of its cause. As I told you before, perfect desire to enjoy the union with the beloved never ceases, because this desire is always conjoined with love and has the same essence. What ends immediately is the particular desire and appetite for the physical acts of love, and that ends because of the fixed limit that nature imposes on such acts. And though they are not continuous, they are bonds of that love, rather than causes of its dissolution. So you do not have to make excuses for the perfect love that I bear you based on the faults of imperfect love. In fact, the love I bear you is not the offspring of desire, but rather my desire is the offspring of love, which is its father. And my first words were that ‘knowing you provokes in me love and desire.’ I did not say, ‘desire and love,’ because my love is in no way derived from desire, but existed before that, which was produced by it. SOPHIA: If the love you feel for me does not come from appetite, and was not generated by desire, nor was born of idleness and human wantonness (as the saying goes), please explain to me who/what produced it. No doubt every human love has a beginning and birth; and whatever is born has a progenitor. Never do we find a son without a father or an effect without a cause. PHILO: Perfect and true love, such as I feel for you, is the father of desire and son of reason; it was generated in me by right cognitive reason. Knowing

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you to possess virtue, intelligence, and grace, equally admirable and wondrously attractive, my will desired your person, which reason rightly judged to be noble, excellent, and worthy of love in every thing. This affection and love have united me107 with you and generated a desire in me that you may be united108 with me, so that I, your lover, may form one sole person with you, my beloved, and equal love may make our two spirits one, which may vivify and govern our two bodies. The sensual element in this desire excites the appetite for physical union so that the union of bodies may correspond to the unity of the spirits wholly co-penetrating each other. Look, Sophia, in me it is so because subsequently knowing reason produced love, and then love produced desire, and this was present in my first words, since the fact that I knew you provoked love and desire in me. For the knowledge I had of your lovable qualities caused me to love you, and love moved me to desire you. SOPHIA: How can you say that true love is born from reason? For I have learned that perfect love cannot be governed or restricted by any reason; and this is why is it called unbridled, because it will not be tamed or governed by the bridle of reason. PHILO: What you have learned is true. But although I said that such love is born from reason, I did not say that it is limited or directed by reason. On the contrary, I say that after it has been produced by the knowing reason, love, having been born, no longer submits to the orders and rule of reason, which generated it. It instead becomes unyielding to its mother, and so unbridled in its passion as to harm the lover; for he who truly loves another does not love himself. This is against all reason and duty; because love is charity, and charity should begin with ourselves. But we do not do this, because we love the other more than ourselves; and this is no small thing! Because love is deprived of all reason after its birth, it is pictured blind and eyeless, and because Venus, his mother, has very beautiful eyes, he desires what is beautiful.109 Reason judges a person to be beautiful, good, and lovely; and love is born from this. Cupid is also depicted naked, because great love cannot be dissimulated by reason, nor covered by prudence, on account of the unbearable sufferings it inflicts. And he is a little child, because love lacks prudence and cannot be ruled by it. He is winged, because of the speed with which love enters into the spirits and the speed with which lovers pursue their beloved. He is self-abstracted, and because of this Euripides110 says that lovers live only in the body of the other person. He is depicted as shooting arrows, because he wounds from afar, aiming at the heart as his proper target, and because, too, the wound of love is unfore-

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seen, like that of the arrow, and also because he causes a narrow and deep wound not easy to see, hard to tend and very difficult to heal. Whoever sees it on the surface thinks that it is small; but that which is hidden is extremely dangerous, and mostly forms an incurable fistula. And, just as an arrow-wound is not healed, even though the bow that sent the arrow be unstrung or broken, so will the wound of true love not be made whole by any joy that fortune may grant or which the beloved may sometime offer, nor even by the irremediable loss of the beloved in death. So do not be surprised that perfect love, though born of reason, is not subject to reason. SOPHIA: No, instead I wonder how love can be praiseworthy when it is not governed by reason and prudence; in fact, I thought this was the difference between virtuous and wholly wanton, chaotic, and unrestrained love. So, I wonder which of these is the perfect love. PHILO: You did not understand correctly. Unrestraint is in fact not a property of wanton love, but pertains to all mighty and great loves, be they honest or dishonest. The only difference is that when the love is honest, its excess increases the virtue; when it is dishonest, excess aggravates the fault. Who can deny that honest love may comprise wondrous and boundless desires? What love is nobler than the love of God? Yet what is more ardent and boundless? It is not subject to reason, which guides and preserves men, since many for the love of God have held themselves of no account and resolved to lose their lives. There are those who love God so much that they do not love themselves, just as those who are unhappy love themselves so much that they do not love God. In conclusion: how many have sought to die and have consumed themselves enflamed with love of virtue and glorious fame? But such self-destruction is not allowed by ordinary reason, which rather orders all things to the end of living well. I might add that many have gladly courted death for love of noble friends; but, though the examples I could give are many, to avoid prolixity I will omit them. But surely the fiery love and boundless affection of a man for a woman is no less irreproachable, I think, than a woman’s love for a man, so long as it is born of true knowledge and judgment that she is worthy to be loved. Such love is no less honest than pleasurable. SOPHIA: I would like your love to be governed by the reason that gave birth to it, and which governs every worthy person. PHILO: Love governed by reason does not usually force a lover, and, though it has the name of love, it does not have its effect. In fact, true love forces the reason and the person who loves with a marvellous violence in unbelievable

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ways; and more than any other human hindrance love confuses the mind, where judgment lies; it erases the memory of all other things in order to fill the mind only with itself, and utterly alienates a man from himself, and makes him a slave of the beloved. It makes him an enemy of every pleasure and company, a lover of solitude, melancholic, full of passions, surrounded by sufferings, tormented by depression, martyred by desire, nourished by hope, stimulated by despair, oppressed by thought, anxious from cruelty, afflicted by suspicion, pierced through by jealousy, constantly distressed, overtired by restlessness, always in pain and full of sighs, never unbowed by grief or wrongs.111 What else can I tell you, save that the lover’s part is a continual death in life and life in death? But what I find even more wonderful is that, unbearable and overwhelming as is such a lot in its cruelty and tribulations, his mind neither hopes nor desires or designs to escape it, but even holds for his mortal foe whoever counsels or succors him. Do you think, Sophia, that a man in such a labyrinth can recognize the laws of reason or rules of prudence? SOPHIA: Do not say so many things, Philo! In fact, I see clearly that in lovers words are more plentiful than passions. PHILO: This is a sign that you do not feel them because you do not believe in them. It is hard to believe the immensity of a lover’s suffering if one has not shared it. If my sickness were contagious, you would believe not merely what I say I suffer, but much more. In fact, I can neither express what I feel nor keep silent about it. Neither can what I am saying describe the least part of what I am suffering. How could you imagine that a lover’s tongue might remain free to pretend fabulous passions, while he finds himself plunged in such affliction and deep confusion that his reason is confused, his memory preoccupied, his fantasy alienated, and his emotions overcome by endless grief? What I say is only that which words can convey and my tongue express. The rest will be understood by whoever has been forced to experience it by adverse fortune, has tasted the extreme bitter-sweetness of love, and could not, would not, and did not know how to, refuse its delicious poison at the outset. Indeed I, in good faith, I have never, nor can I find a way to explain it. My spirits are aflame, my heart is consumed, and my entire person is ablaze. Do you not think that he who finds himself in such a condition would free himself if he could? But he cannot, because he is not at liberty to free, or attempt to free, himself. How then can someone who is not free be governed by reason? For all corporal bondage leaves only the will free, but the bondage of love first binds the lover’s will and then subjects his whole person to this will.112

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SOPHIA: Doubtless lovers suffer many afflictions until they obtain what they most desire; but, after that, all fortune settles down. So this suffering proceeds rather from desire of what they lack than from true love of it. PHILO: In this, too, you do not speak as an expert. In lovers whose sufferings vanish upon attaining carnal pleasure, their love does not come from reason, but from carnal appetite. And, as I told you before, their sufferings and passions are carnal, not spiritual like the wondrously deep and intolerably poignant ones felt by the lovers whose love springs from reason. The suffering of these lovers is not satisfied, nor is their love mitigated, by carnal joy. Instead, I say and declare that, if they suffered greatly before, they suffer far more and more irresistibly after such union. SOPHIA: Why should their passion grow after they have achieved their desire? PHILO: Because such love is a desire for perfect union of the lover with the beloved, only such a union involves the complete interpenetration113 of one with the other. This is possible for their spirits, which are spiritual, because, through effective mental action, incorporeal spiritual ones can interpenetrate, unite, and blend as one. But after such union and penetration – contrasted with that which they desire – they remain in their separate bodies, and each occupies a particular space of its own, an even more ardent desire for that union, which cannot be perfectly consummated. And, since the mind constantly aims at complete fusion with the beloved, it abandons its own person, and the incompleteness of the union forever increases its affection and suffering, which either reason or will or prudence cannot limit or resist. SOPHIA: It appears that my spirit greatly accepts your reasons. But there is one thing I find hard to concede: that love or any other good thing can be found in men, or in the world, which is not governed by reason. It is obvious that reason is the ruler and governor of all good and praiseworthy things (since the worth of things is measured by their participation in reason). How then can you affirm that perfect love is not governed by it? PHILO: Since only this is your remaining doubt, this is the only thing I will clarify in this conversation114 of ours. You must know that two sorts of reason are found in men. One may be called ordinary, the other extraordinary. The purpose of the first is to sustain and preserve men in the honest life, so all other things are subordinated to this goal. Whatever affords an obstacle to the good life of man is reproached and rejected by this reason. This is the type of reason that – as I told you – cannot govern or limit perfect love. This

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is because in pursuing the beloved such love injures and afflicts our own person, life, and welfare with unbearable harm. But the purpose of extraordinary reason is to attain the thing beloved. It does not care for safeguarding its own interests. Instead, it puts them off, preferring to acquire the beloved thing, just as one must put off the less noble in order to attain the best. In fact, as the Philosopher says,115 the beloved is of greater worth than the lover116 because the beloved is the goal, and the goal is of greater perfection than that which serves it. Consequently, it is reasonable for someone to labour for an object of greater worth, as you can understand from natural and moral examples. From nature: you will see that a man about to be wounded in the head will guard it with his arm, because the head is the more important part. So it is with the lover and the beloved. And since the beloved is more noble, and the lover less noble, it is only natural that the lover should shun no affliction or suffering in order to possess the beloved, but pursues the beloved as his true end with every potential diligence and care, abandoning all his possessions as if they belonged to another. The example from morals is this: ordinary reason commands us to conserve our wealth for our own necessity in order to be able to live well and comfortably; but higher reason commands us to dispense it well and comfortably to others, to the nobler goal of attaining the virtue of liberality. Therefore, the first reason commands us to seek our own utility and honest pleasure, whereas the second commands us to labour and burden both mind and body for a nobler goal, which that reason judges worthier of our love. SOPHIA: Which of these two types of reason do you think we ought to follow, Philo? PHILO: The second is worthier and of higher degree, just as the prudence of the liberal man in spending his wealth virtuously is nobler than the miser’s prudence in accumulating wealth for his own needs. In fact, though he who acquires goods is prudent, what is greater and more admirable is the prudence of he who liberally disburses them. That man who maintains himself reasonably in a worthy and excellent love without enjoying it is like a great tree ever green and of many branches, but bearing no fruit, which we might truly call sterile. And surely he in whom no good love is found is accompanied by few virtues. It is also very true, however, that the one who seeks his pleasure in wanton and graceless love, which springs from carnal appetite and is unsupported by the reason of the beloved’s merits, is like a tree bearing poisonous fruits, whose rind has a sweet taste. But that first love, chosen by reason, manifests a great suavity, not only to the carnal appetite, but to the spiritual mind with an inextinguishable affection. And when you

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learn, Sophia, how full of love the Universe is, not only among the corporeal things, but even more among spiritual things, and how, from the first cause of all to the last thing created, there is none without love, only then will you have greater reverence for it, and then you will acquire a greater notion117 of its genealogy. SOPHIA: If you wish to leave me contented, you will also show me that. PHILO: It is very late for such a tale. It is time indeed for your gentle person to seek rest, while my mind keeps its usual anguished vigil. Although my mind remains alone, it is always accompanied by you, and this contemplation is as suave as it is anxious. Vale. ***

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Dialogue 2: On the Universality of Love

SUMMARY The second dialogue, ‘On the Universality of Love,’ deals with the presence of love in the entire universe, directing its focus to natural philosophy, physics, zoology, meteorology, astronomy, and astrology. Leone exhibits his immense knowledge illustrating and combining the theories of eminent philosophers such as Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, Al-Ghazali, Avicenna, Al-Farabi, Averroes, Maimonides, and Ibn Gabirol. Stylistically speaking, this dialogue is more elaborate than the previous one, both linguistically and formally. It is preceded by a little introduction, with a rhetorical exordium elaborated as a theatrical captatio benevolentiae of the kind proper to Plautus’s comedies. Sophia starts speaking, asking a distracted Philo to continue the conversation of the previous day. She would like to know the origin of Love, but Philo defers this topic to another day, telling her that it is methodologically necessary to investigate how a phenomenon is distributed before analysing it. Therefore, the conversation will deal with the universality of Love in the cosmos. Love in the Lower World Philo starts his new lesson exploring ‘that love’ that exists in the lower or sub-lunar world. Indeed, love characterizes all living beings. Five causes (desire and delight in generation, continuation of the species, benefit, natural affinity, and continual companionship) produce love and are common to humans and animals. Humans have two other peculiar causes: conformity of nature and temperament, and moral and intellectual virtue. These five

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causes are then considered in elemental and inanimate beings, which are also subject to love even if in a different way. Love in the Heavens Philo continues in illustrating ‘that love’ that exists in the heavens. The heavens act towards earth exactly as a male acts upon a female, so the entire universe is characterized by a male–female polarity, which tends to unite through love. The generative function of the seven planets is analysed as well as the ways corresponding to the generative function of seven parts of the body, and in this way strong analogies between macrocosm and microcosm are established. The human body is considered to be the perfect simulacrum of the universe because it contains the three worlds of the cosmos: earth, heaven, and the divine. The particular love of heavenly bodies is explained; harmony is the principal cause of their mutual love, and the Pythagorean theory about music is considered to be an effect of astral love. In fact for heaven, just as for human beings, love provokes an attraction towards entities that have conformity of nature and temperament. At this point it is said why love produces moral and intellectual virtue; it is necessary and good because it keeps the entire universe united. Interpretation of Pagan Myths Sophia asks about the veracity of the stories of the poets. To her, the lascivious fables of the pagan gods, when compared to the reality in the heavens, seem be devoid of truth. Philo responds by telling her that the so-called lies of the poets contain important truths hidden under the veil of allegory. There are six important reasons for allegorization: (1) the refusal to reveal the truth to the unworthy; (2) to make memorization easier through poetic brevity and rhythm; (3) to entice and encourage the weak through beauty; (4) to preserve truth from temporal change through fixed versification; (5) to provide something for everyone through the various levels of meaning; and (6) to increase the possibilities of passing on truth to successive generations, since more people are able to understand literary formulation than abstruse discourse. Allegory is a necessary vehicle for the conservation of the truth of doctrine, while its poetic and figurative form represents the truth in all its various levels, literal or historical, moral, celestial, and metaphysical. Sophia asks Philo to illustrate the meaning and the truth contained in Greek mythology, and to analyse the hierarchy of the gods and the significance of their names. The exegesis of the stories of pagan

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gods reveals a connection to the physical world and to the stories told in the Bible. The gods’ genealogies explain the generations of the different worlds (of the intellect, of the world-soul, and of the terrestrial world) and contain important truth, which can be related to those that are explained in philosophical and theological doctrines. Mythopoiesis is a specialized language in which truth is revealed. Philo therefore tries to bridge the gap between the revealed truth of the Holy Scriptures and that of Greek and Roman mythology. Astrological Amity and Enmity Greek and Roman mythology refers to astrology, particularly the affinities and antipathies among zodiac signs and the heavenly bodies. This leads to a discussion of love in the ‘intellectual’ or spiritual world. Love in the Intellectual World Sophia wants to know more about the love of spiritual beings. It is her assumption that love implies a lack, and therefore it seems contradictory to her that spiritual beings – who are perfect – love lower, imperfect beings. Philo replies to her by surveying metaphysical positions from Aristotle, mainly referring to his Arab commentators, which deal with the love of the intelligences for God. He defines love as the principle that unifies the whole universe and compares the universe to an individual or person. So each part (material, spiritual, lower, upper) of the universe is important for maintaining the unity and integrity of the universe. Without love the universe could not exist, and only through love can the world-soul be united to the world of generation and decay, becoming a living organism. Conclusion Sophia then asks Philo to tell her about the birth of love, and its effects, which will be the topic of the next dialogue(s). Philo promises to deal with them on different days because of lack of time, but asks her if she loves him in return. She replies in an ambiguous and elusive way, reminding him to maintain his promise the following day.

*** SOPHIA: God save you, Philo. Are you passing by without speaking? PHILO: She who wishes me well is the enemy of my well-being. God save you too, Sophia. What do you want from me? SOPHIA: I would like you to remember the debt you owe me. It seems to me that now it is a good time to repay it, if you wish. PHILO: I in debt to you? For what? It surely won’t be for any kindness or goodwill. You have been generous towards me only with suffering. SOPHIA: I admit that this is not a debt of gratitude but of promise, which, though less kind, is no less binding. PHILO: I do not remember promising you anything other than to love you and suffer your scorn until Charon1 bears me over the river of oblivion; furthermore, if the soul still has feelings in the world beyond, mine will never be detached from its affection and martyrdom. There is no need for you to remind me of this promise that I continue to pay daily. SOPHIA: You do not remember, Philo, or you pretend not to. Yet it is just as necessary to remind the debtor about the debt as the creditor about the credit. Don’t you recall that during the previous day, at the end of our talk about love and desire, you promised to speak to me fully about the origin and genealogy of love? How have you forgotten so quickly? PHILO: Oh, I remember! But you should not be surprised, Sophia, that since you usurped my memory I cannot remember those things. SOPHIA: If I usurp your memory, I free it from alien matters, not from my own. PHILO: My soul only recalls your matters, which fill it with love and sorrow. These others, although they too are yours, are outside my suffering. SOPHIA: Be that as it may, I forgive your forgetfulness, but not your promise. And since we have enough time, let us sit in the shade, and tell me about the birth of love and its origin. PHILO: If you want us to talk about love’s birth, I must first tell you about the communality of its being, and its broad universality; and then another time we will talk about its birth. SOPHIA: Does not the origin of a thing come before its universality? PHILO: It is first in being, but not the first in our knowledge.2

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SOPHIA: How could this be? PHILO: Because the universality of love is more manifest to us than its origin; and from clear things we come to the knowledge of unclear ones.3 SOPHIA: You speak the truth in saying that the universality of love is very manifest. Indeed no man is without it, either male or female, either old or young; and even children, in their first cognition, love their mothers and nurses. PHILO: So are you admitting that love is the most common thing in all humanity? SOPHIA: Yes, and love is even present in all irrational animals that procreate. It is found among females and males, between offspring and parents. PHILO: Procreation is the cause of the love not only among men and animals, but in many other things as well. Love is found not only in these creatures, but it is common to so many things in the world. SOPHIA: So first tell me what other causes of love are present in living beings. Then tell me how we can even find love in the living things that do not procreate. PHILO: I will tell you first the one, and then the other. Animals,4 beyond the fact that they naturally love convenient things by seeking them just as they hate inconvenient things by rejecting them, also love each other for five reasons. First, because of the desire and delight in generation between males and females. Second, because of the continuation of the species, as in the case of the love of fathers and mothers towards their children. Third, because of benefit, which not only generates love in the recipient towards the giver, but also in the giver towards the recipient, even though they belong to two different species. Thus, it is possible to see that a female dog or goat can nurse a human baby, with a great love between them; so it is with any other animal of the same or different species. Fourth, because of the natural affinity between the same and similar species; so you can see individuals of each species of nonpredatory animals enjoy each other’s company, because of the love that makes them congregate. And even predators, though they avoid each other because they want to enjoy the hunt alone, respect and love those of their own species and do not use their own natural cruel ferocity or venom. Again, it is possible to find in different animal species some friendly similarities, as it is for the dolphin with man, just as it is possible to find natural hatreds, like the basilisk towards man, for whom the mere sight is fatal. Fifth, because of continual companionship, which makes friends not only of animals that are

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of the same species, but also of different species and natural enemies, as it is possible to see between a dog and a lion, and a lamb and a wolf who become friends because of companionship. SOPHIA: I have understood the cause of the love in animals; now tell me about the causes of love among human beings. PHILO: The causes of mutual love among human beings are the same five as in animals, but the use of reason makes them more intense or weaker, rightly or wrongly, according to the difference in each human being’s goal. SOPHIA: Show me these differences in each of the five causes. PHILO: The first – the desire or delight that there is in generation – is in human beings the cause of a more intense, stable, and proper love than in animals, though this is normally obscured by reason. SOPHIA: Say more in more detail about these differences. PHILO: It is more intense in men, because they love women more vehemently, seeking them with greater anxiety; so much so that because of them they stop eating and sleeping, and defer any rest. Love is firmer in them, because between a man and a woman it has a longer duration, so that neither fulfilment, nor absence, nor obstacles are enough to dissolve it. This is more proper to man, because every man considers a particular woman to be more his own than what occurs to the male of the animals in connection with his female; even though it is possible to find some animals that have similar appropriation, in men this is more perfect and determined. Furthermore, such love is more veiled in men than in animals, because reason seeks to curb its excesses, and judges it to be ugly when love is not regulated by reason. It is because of the strength of this carnal appetite, and because of its insubordination to reason that men cover their genitals, which are considered shameful, and rebelious against proper righteousness.5 SOPHIA: Tell me the difference between human beings and animals in the second motive of love, which is the continuation of the species. PHILO: Because of the continuation of the species, in animals only children and parents love each other reciprocally; and mothers more so since they are normally their nurses, or the father when he nourishes the children, and not otherwise. But human beings love fathers and mothers equally, and their siblings and other relatives too, because of the affinity of their origin. It is also true that sometimes human avarice or other excesses suffocate not only the love of the parents and siblings, but even more so of fathers and mothers and even of wives, which does not happen in irrational animals.

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SOPHIA: Tell me the differences regarding the third cause of love, which is benefit. PHILO: Benefit causes a man to love another, just as in animals. But in this I would like to praise the irrational animals more, because they are moved to love by gratitude for benefits received rather than by the hope of receiving them. But the greed of virtueless men moves them more readily through hope of gaining a single benefit, than through gratitude of the many they have already received. But this cause (benefit) is so broad that it seems also to include the majority of the others. SOPHIA: And in that fourth motive of belonging to the same species, tell me if there are any differences between human beings and animals. PHILO: By nature humans love each other, as well as do other animals of the same species; and especially if those humans come from the same country or land. But humans do not have as firm and certain love as animals have. The most ferocious and savage animals do not use cruelty with those of the same species; a lion does not prey on another lion, nor does a snake inject poison into another snake. Humans, instead, receive more evils and murders from other humans than they do from all other animals and adverse things of the universe. Human enmity, deceit, and weapons kill more humans than all other accidental and natural things. The reason for the deterioration of the natural love between humans is greed and concern for superfluous things. Hostility is generated out of these things, not only between distant people from different countries, but also between those of the same land, of the same city, of the same household, between brothers and brothers, between fathers and sons, between husband and wife. To this must be added other human superstitions, which are the causes of cruel hostilities. SOPHIA: You still have to speak about the last cause of love, companionship; whether there is any difference between humans and animals. PHILO: Companionship and conversation have more effect on human love and friendship than among animals because they are more intrinsic to humans. So speech penetrates more into human bodies and spirits, and even though it ends with absence, it leaves its impression on human memory more than in animals. SOPHIA: I have understood all these five causes of love, which are in irrational animals, and even more so in humans, and I have understood their difference. Now I would like to know whether there is another reason of love in humans that is not found in animals.

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PHILO: There are two causes in humans that are not in animals. SOPHIA: Define them. PHILO: One is the conformity of nature and temperament of one man to another, which, without any reason, makes them become friends upon knowing each other; and because there is no other reason for such friendship, it is said that it is due to conformity of temperament. Indeed, there is a certain likeness or harmonious conformity of one temperament to the other. In the same way it is possible to find hate between human beings without an apparent reason, and this is because there is a disproportionate dissimilarity of their temperament. Astrologers say that this friendly conformity starts from a similar position of the planets and heavenly signs on the date of birth of the one and the other; and this is also the reason for the hostile difference between the temperaments deriving from the inharmonic celestial position at their birth. We find this cause of love and friendship in humans, but not in animals. SOPHIA: And what is the other one? PHILO: The other is moral and intellectual virtue; and because of this excellent men are greatly loved by noble men. And their merits cause honest love, which is the most worthy of all, because humans – without any other cause, but only for virtue and wisdom – love each other effectively with a more perfect and firm love than they have for useful and the pleasurable things. And these two include the other five causes of love. Only this is honest love, which is only generated by right reason. This is why it is not found in irrational animals.6 SOPHIA: Now I understand that many causes of love exist in men and in animals. But I see that all of these are proper living things, and none of them happen to be non-living bodies. But are you saying that love is not only common to all animals, but even more to other non-sentient bodies? This seems strange to me. PHILO: Why strange? SOPHIA: Because nothing can be loved unless it is first known, and nonsentient bodies do not have in themselves a cognitive faculty. Moreover, love proceeds from will and appetite and it impresses itself onto the sensations. Non-sentient bodies have neither appetite nor sensation; so how is possible for them to love? PHILO: Knowledge and appetite7 and, consequently, love fall into three types: natural, sensuous, and rational-voluntary.

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SOPHIA: Explain to me these three. PHILO: What can be found in the non-sentient bodies – such as the elements and mixed bodies (which are made of insensible compounds, like metals, and certain stones, and also plants, herbs, or trees) is natural knowledge, appetite, or love. All of these have a natural cognition of their aim and a natural inclination to it. This inclination drives them to their aim, just as for heavy bodies that descend and light ones that ascend, as if to their own known and desired place. This is called inclination, and it truly is appetite and natural love.8 This sensitive knowledge and appetite, or sensuous love, is what we find in irrational animals; they follow what is good for them, and they avoid what is disadvantageous. Like the quest for food, drink, fair weather, sexual mates, rest, and similar things. One must first know all these things in order to desire or love and then to pursue them. If the animals did not know them, they would not desire or love them; and if they did not desire them, they would not seek their possession, and without them, they could not live. But this type of knowledge is not rational, neither is this desire or love connected to the will, because the will comes with reason. Rather they are produced by the faculty of the senses. And because of this we call them sensitive knowledge and love or, more precisely, appetite. Rational and voluntary knowledge and love are only in humans, because they come from and are managed by reason, which among all the generated and corruptible bodies is only shared by humans. SOPHIA: You are asserting that voluntary love is proper only to humans, and it is not present in other animals and lower bodies. And you are also asserting that love or sensuous appetite is found in irrational animals and not in insensitive bodies. And you are asserting that love or natural appetite is only present in lower and insentient bodies. So now I want to understand if perhaps this natural love is still present in lower bodies with the sensitive love, which is proper to them, and whether this natural and sensuous love is also in humans along with voluntary and rational love, which is proper to them. PHILO: You ask a good question; and so it is. Along with the greater love, the lesser is found; but with the lesser the higher is not always found. So in humans, rational and voluntary love are present together with sensuous love. This follows the things of the senses that are proper to life, seeking things beneficial to life and avoiding those that are detrimental, and the natural inclination of insentient bodies is also in them. So, if a man falls from a high place, he will tend naturally downwards, like a heavy body; and in animals

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too there is this natural inclination, so that, as in heavy bodies, they naturally seek the centre of the earth, as their own known and desired place. SOPHIA: What gives you the right to call these natural and sensuous inclinations ‘sensuous love’? Love is more properly an affect of the will; and out of all creatures the will is found only in humans. You should call the others ‘inclinations’ or ‘appetites,’ not love. PHILO: Things are known by their opposites. As Aristotle says,9 there is a single science of contraries. If the opposite of something is and has the name ‘hate,’ it must reasonably be called ‘love.’ Now, since in humans voluntary hate is the opposite of love, in animals hate of things that are detrimental to life is the opposite of love of things that are beneficial to it. Consequently, the animal flees the former, in order to follow the latter. So hate is the cause of its fleeing, just as love it is the cause of its pursuit. In irrational bodies there is natural love of the heavy for the depths, and because of this they are directed to them, just as they flee the opposite out of hatred. The light body behaves in the opposite manner, loving heights and hating depths. So because hate is found in all, love also is found.10 SOPHIA: How could one love, if it does not know? PHILO: One knows in loving and hating. SOPHIA: And how can one know, who has neither reason nor senses nor imagination, like these lower insentient bodies? PHILO: Even though they do not have these faculties of knowledge in themselves, they are directed by Nature, who knows and governs all lower things, the World Soul, to right and infallible knowledge of natural things, for the preservation of their essences.11 SOPHIA: And how can one who does not feel love? PHILO: Just as lower bodies are rightly directed by Nature to know their own end and their own places, so too they are directed by the same entity to love and desire them, and they are moved to find them when separated from them. And just as the arrow seeks its target, not because of its own proper knowledge, but because of the knowledge of the archer who aims it, in the same way these lower bodies look for their own places and end, not because of their own knowledge, but because of the right knowledge of the prime Creator, infused in the World Soul and the universal nature of the lower things. Thus, just as the arrow is directed by artificial knowledge,

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love, or appetite, these irrational bodies are directed by natural knowledge and love.12 SOPHIA: The type of love and knowledge found in these lifeless bodies sounds right to me. But I would like to know whether there is any other type of love or appetite for their proper place in them, as the light body has for the heights, and the heavy body for the depths. PHILO: The elements and the other lifeless bodies love their proper places, and hate those that are opposite, just as animals love things beneficial to them, and hate detrimental ones, and so flee from the later and seek the former.13 This is also the kind of love that terrestrial animals have for the land, and aquatic animals for the water, and winged creatures for the air, and the salamander for the fire in which it is said to be born and live. Such is the love of elements for their proper places. Besides this kind of love, I tell you that there are another five causes of reciprocal love in the elements, which, as we said, are present in animals. SOPHIA: All of them? PHILO: All. SOPHIA: Tell me about them in depth. PHILO: I will start from the last one, which is love for the same species, because this is the most evident one.14 You may see how fragments of land, which are outside the whole, are moved to rejoin the rest by a potent love. So too, stones that freeze in the air speedily seek the earth. And the same is true with rivers and other waters, which spring from the womb of the earth in exhaling steams, and converting into unrestrained water, as soon as they attain sufficient volume run towards the sea to reach it and all the elements of the water because of love for their own species. And the airy steams or winds generated in the earth’s cavities strive to break forth with earthquakes, because they desire to be united with the air, their element, out of love of their species. Thus, in the same way the fire, which is generated here below, moves to ascend to the place of its own element, because of the love of its own species.15 SOPHIA: I understand the love that the elements have for their own species. Tell me about the other causes of their love. PHILO: I will tell you about the penultimate of the five motives of love, which is the fourth of association, because this too is evident, being related to their natural places.

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SOPHIA: And what other association can be found in the elements or in similar bodies? PHILO: Each of the four elements – earth, water, air, and fire – likes to be at rest near one of the other elements, but not the opposite of them. Earth flees the closeness of the heavens and fire, and seeks the centre, which is the most remote from the sky. It likes to stay close to water, and near to the air, but below it, not above it; because if it is raised above, it flees away downward, and it never pauses until it is as distant from the heavens as it can be.16 SOPHIA: Why does it behave so, when all good comes from the heavens? PHILO: It does so because it is the heaviest and largest of the elements, and since it is lazy, it likes to rest more than any of the others. And because the heavens are in continuous, ceaseless motion, the earth, in order to be at peace, seeks to distance itself as much as possible from it, and finds rest only at the centre, which is the lowest point, encompassed as it is by water on one side and air on the other. SOPHIA: I understand about the earth. Tell me about water. PHILO: Water too has in itself something heavy and lazy, but less so than the earth and more so than the others; and because of this it flees the heavens in order to avoid such rapid motion as that of air and fire. It seeks out the lower places and likes to stay close to the earth, although above it and below the air, loving both of them. And it has antagonism and hatred towards fire, and so it runs away and distances itself from it. And it cannot bear to be by itself without the company of the others. SOPHIA: Tell me about air. PHILO: Because of its lightness and thinness air is fond of nature and nearness to the heavens, and with the best of its ability seeks to stay close to the heavens. It rises higher, but not into the immediate vicinity of the heavens because its substance is not pure like that of the fire, which occupies the first place. So air loves to stay close to fire, just below it; and it loves also to be close to water, and the earth, but it cannot bear to be below them, if it is not above them. It follows the perpetual circular motion of the heavens with ease. It is a friend to fire and water, both of which are opposed and hostile to each other. It places itself in the middle as a friend to both, to prevent them from injuring each other in continual war. SOPHIA: You have neglected to tell me about fire.

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PHILO: Fire is the thinnest, lightest, and purest of the elements, and loves none of them, except air. And it likes to be close to it, yet above it. It loves the heavens, and it does not rest anywhere, until it reaches heaven. This is love of association as it appears in all the four elements. SOPHIA: I like your answer. But why did you not explain why it is so hot, and why water is so cold, and the qualities of the others?17 PHILO: Because this does not pertain to the knowledge of love. But I will tell you, because it will be useful for the others. You know that the heavens, with their constant motion and with the rays of the sun, the other planets, and the fixed stars of the eighth heavenly sphere, warm this sphere of the inanimate body that fills all concavity within the lunar heaven. The first part of this sphere, which is the closest to heaven, receives more heat, thus purifying itself, and becomes very thin, light, and very hot. Heat is so great that it consumes all the moisture and remains dry; and this is fire. Extending then further from this heavenly heat into that part of the sphere that follows fire, it heats it again, but not so much as to consume the moisture. This is air, which is both hot and moist, and purified, rarefied, and lightened by heat only slightly less than fire, because it is heated less. This heavenly heat extends further into the sphere beyond air and is too thin to heat the next element. Indeed, being so remote from the heavens, it remains cold, yet not so cold as to expel all moisture. It is still heavy, on account of the density that results from the cold, and it seeks the lower regions. This is the element of cold and moist water. Beyond this, the frigidity of what remains at the centre of this sphere below water is so great that it expels all moisture and what remains is a huge, very heavy, and dry body, like the earth. Therefore, since they are nearer to the heavens, air and fire receive more heavenly warmth and benefit, which is the life of lower bodies, and they love the heavens more. And no matter where they are, they try to stay close to them, moving in a continuous circular motion. Because the other two, earth and water, receive little heat and life from the heavens, they do not love them, nor do they try to be close to them, but rather flee them, to be at rest without constantly circling with them.18 SOPHIA: If the earth is, as you said, the lowest and basest of all the elements and the most remote from heaven, the source of life, how is it that so many more things are generated there than in any of the other elements? For example, so many types of stones – some large, bright, and fair, others clear and very precious – and metals, not only the coarse ones, such as iron, lead, copper, tin, and quicksilver, but also other rich and brilliant

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ones, such as silver and gold. Moreover, all the diversity of herbs, flowers, trees, and fruits that the earth brings forth; and furthermore, so many different forms of animals, all of them bound to the earth. Indeed, although there are some plants and many different animals in the sea, and there are also those that fly through the air, all of them can recognize themselves in the earth, and that is where they generally come to rest. And, above all, in it the human race is generated, which has the most wondrous perfection among all the bodies below the heavens, which is not generated or situated in any other sphere of the elements. How then can you say that earth is the basest and most lifeless of the four elements? PHILO: Even if the earth is very far from the heavens and is in itself largest, coldest, lowest, and most alien from life, being united at the centre, it receives all the influences and rays of all the stars, planets, and heavenly bodies, and here they combine, strongly attracting the virtue of all the other elements to the earth, which themselves combine in so many different ways as to generate all the things you mentioned. This thing would be impossible in the sphere of any other element, because none other than the earth is a common receptacle of all the elemental heavenly virtues. All of them join together in the earth, and only pass through the other elements. Only in the earth do they stop, because of its density and central position, and all the rays strike it powerfully. So earth is the normal and proper wife of the heavenly body, and the other elements are its concubines. Because of this heaven generates the most of his offspring in earth; and earth becomes adorned with so many different things.19 SOPHIA: My doubts are satisfied. Let us return to our main subject. Tell me about the other causes of love universal to animals and humans, such as the third type, benefit, and the second one, continuation of the species, and the first, desire and the pleasure of generation, and whether they are found in the elements and other inanimate bodies. PHILO: In these elementary bodies the third – love for the sake of benefit – is one with the second – the continuation of the species. Thus, the generated body loves the generator as its benefactor. The generator loves the generated one as the recipient of its benefit. This cause of continuation of the species can be found clearly in the offspring of the elements. So you can observe generated things in the sphere of air by the vapours that rise from the earth and the sea. When these vapours are moist, they are generated by water, snow, and hail. Once generated, they descend quickly and with loving force to visit the sea and their mother earth. If the vapours are dry, they become

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wind and fire particles; the winds seek the air with their strength, and the fire particles ascend to seek fire. Everything is moved by love of its own origin and generative element. You will also see the stones and metals generated by the earth, when they are away from it, seek it with haste, and never stop until they come to rest in the earth, as little children look for their mothers, and only with them are they at peace. The earth generates them with love, and keeps and preserves them. Plants, herbs, and trees have so much love for the earth – their mother and generator – that without corruption they never wish to be separated from their mother. Indeed, with their roots they embrace the earth lovingly, like children do with their mother’s bosom. And this earth, like a tender mother full of charity and love, not only generates them, but continually nourishes them with its own moisture, drawn from its viscera to the surface to sustain them, as a mother does when she draws milk from her womb to her breasts to nurse her children. When there is not enough moisture for the earth to give to her20 children, she asks the heavens and the air with prayers and supplication; and she buys it and negotiates for it with vapours that arise from her, which give birth to the rain water for the nourishment of her plants and animals. What mother could have more compassion and charity towards her children? SOPHIA: Certainly such care is admirable in an inanimate body such as the earth; and even more admirable is the care of the one who made the earth so full of care. I still need to understand the first cause of love in animals, which is the desire and the pleasure of generation, and how this is found in the elements and bodies with no sentient soul. PHILO: Generative love is present in the elements and in the matter of lower things, in a more abundant way than in all others. SOPHIA: How is it present in matter? Is the matter of all these lower things perhaps something other than these four elements? We see that all the other generated things are from them. PHILO: Yes, this happens. But the same elements can themselves be generated. We must therefore tell out of what they are generated. SOPHIA: Out of what? From one to another. We see that water becomes air, and air water; and fire becomes air, and air fire; and this is also true of the earth. PHILO: What you say is true. But in those things generated by the elements, the elements themselves are the matter and substance that remains in the thing generated by them, with all four of them virtually joined together.

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But when they generate one from another, this cannot be, because when fire becomes water, fire does not remain in the water: fire becomes corrupted and water is generated. Since this happens, we need to assign a common matter to all the elements, a matter that allows these changes. It takes on the form of air, then the form of water, and so on for the others as well. Philosophers call it prime matter, and the more ancient call it ‘chaos,’21 which in Greek means confusion, because all things, potentially and originally, are together in confusion; and everything is made from it, each of itself, separately and successively. SOPHIA: And what kind of love can be included in this matter? PHILO: According to Plato, it longs for and loves all the forms of generated things,22 as women do towards men. And, because its love, appetite, and desire are not fulfilled by the actual presence of any one form, it falls in love with the other that is missing, and, leaving one, takes to the other. Thus, because it cannot bear all the forms in act at once, it receives them successively one after the other. It also possesses, in many of its parts, all forms together; but because it wishes to enjoy the love of all forms, each of those parts must constantly change into the other. Since one form is not enough to sate its appetite and love, which greatly exceeds its satisfaction, a single form cannot quench this insatiable appetite. And, since it is the cause of the constant generation of those shapes that it lacks, it is the cause of the constant corruption of the forms it possesses. Because of this, some call it a harlot,23 because of the variety and inconstancy of its loves. Indeed, when it has one, it desires to leave it for another. Yet the lower world is so much embellished with this adulterer love and it makes possible so much wondrous variety of fair-formed things. Thus, the generative love of this first matter, its continual desire for a new husband, and the enjoyment that it receives from a new copulation are the cause of the generation of all things that can be generated. SOPHIA: I have a good understanding of the love, appetite, and insatiable desire, which are always found in this prime matter. Now I would like to know what kind of generative love can be found in the four elements, since they are contraries of each other. PHILO: The love in the four elements, even if they are contraries, is the generative cause of all the mixtures and compound things that are made by them. SOPHIA: Tell me how.

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PHILO: Because they are contraries, the elements are divided and separated. Since fire and air are hot and light, they seek the upper places, and flee the lower ones. Because earth and the water are cold and heavy, they seek the lower places, and flee the upper ones. Nevertheless, through the benign intercession of the heavens and by means of its motion and rays, they are often joined in friendship. In that form they blend together with such a friendship that they become almost uniform in body and quality. This friendship is able to receive, through the virtue of heaven in everything, other forms more excellent than any of the other elements, in different degrees, even though the elements are still present in their matter. SOPHIA: What are these forms that the elements, through their friendship, receive? And how many degrees do they have? PHILO: In the first and slightest degree they receive the forms of inanimate mixtures, like the forms of stones; some are dark, others lighter, and still others bright and splendid, to which the earth gives its hardness, water its lustre, air its diaphanous or transparent quality, and fire its luminosity and brilliance with the rays found in precious stones. The forms of metals also come from this first friendly fusion of the elements; some crude – like iron and lead – others more refined – like copper, tin, and quicksilver – and others clear and beautiful – like silver and gold – in which all the elements dominate, water as well as fire, which it uses to liquefy them. In all of these, the form of the compound – stone or metal – is more perfect in proportion to the friendship of the elements, fused in them, which is greater and more equal. When the friendship of these four contrary elements is of a larger degree, and its love is more united with greater equality and with less excess of each of them, not only do they have the form of their combination, but also receive more excellent shapes, such as these that are animate. First they receive those of the vegetative soul, which governs the germination, nutrition, and growth of plants in each direction, and the generation of their species through seed and branch. In this way all the kinds of species of plants are generated; herbs are the least perfect among them, and the most perfect are trees. And also among them, the vegetative soul in each species is more perfect than in the other species and more excellent in result, to the degree that these four contrary elements are with it in love, unity, and equal friendship. This is the second level of their friendship. And when the love between the elements is greater, more unified, and equal, not only do they receive their shape from their mixture and from the faculties of nutrition, growth, and reproduction of the vegetative soul, but they also receive the forms of the sensitive soul with the senses, locomotion, imagination,

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and appetite. At this level of friendship all the species of terrestrial, aquatic, and winged animals are created. Some of these are imperfect, because they do not have any motion, and they have only the sense of touch; but the perfect animals have all the senses and motion. One species is more excellent than another in its activities, in proportion to the friendship of its component elements. If this friendship is greater, there is greater union and equality. This is the third level of love in the elements. The fourth and the last level of love and friendship found in the elements occurs when elements reach the most equal love and the most unified friendship possible. At this level not only do they receive the mixed, vegetative, and sensitive forms united with motion, but they also become capable of participation in a form that is far more remote and alien from the baseness of these bodies prone to generation and corruption. Indeed, they participate in the form that is proper to the heavenly and eternal bodies. This form is the soul, which among all the lower bodies, is found only in the human species. SOPHIA: But how was it possible that human being, made by these same contrary and perishable elements, could have obtained an eternal and intellectual form, allied to the heavenly bodies? PHILO: Because the love that characterizes his elements is equally uniform and perfect in a way that unifies all oppositions of the elements. From this, a body is formed; this body is distant from any contradiction and opposition – like the heavenly body, which is devoid of any contrary. Because of this, human being achieves participation in that intellectual and eternal form by which only the heavenly bodies are commonly informed. SOPHIA: I have never heard of such friendship in the elements. I know well that the form of the compounds is more or less perfect in accordance with the perfection of the fusion of these elements … PHILO: Does not the fusion of the elements and their friendship (as is the joining of contraries without conflict or contradiction) seem to you to be true love or friendship? Some call this friendship ‘harmony,’ ‘music,’ or ‘concord.’ As you know, friendship makes concord, just as enmity causes discord. Thus, the philosopher Empedocles24 says that there are six causes of generation and corruption among the lower bodies: the four elements along with friendship and enmity.25 The friendship of the four opposites causes all generation of the compound bodies from them, while their enmity causes their corruption. In accordance with these four degrees of love that I told you about, within the four elements, which cause the generation of all compound bodies in the four levels of composition, you should

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understand that the same degrees of hate are the cause of their dissolution and corruption. So, just as all evil and ruin come from the enmity of these four elements, all good and generation come from their love and friendship. SOPHIA: I like your discourse on the types and the motivations of the love found in this lower world, that is, in all things subjected to generation and corruption: in humans and beasts, in plants and in mixed bodies without any soul, and in the four elements and prime matter common to everything. I see that it happens in the same way; one species of animals loves another and shares its company, yet hates another and avoids it, and some species of plants are friendly to others and they are born together, and when they are together they grow better. Whereas others are enemies and when they are nearby they disturb each other. We see metals stay with one another in their own minerals and not with another; and the same for precious stones. We see how the magnet is so loved by iron that, despite its density and heaviness, it moves and goes to seek it out. In conclusion, I see that there is no body under the heavens unmoved by love, desire, and appetite, whether natural, sensuous, or truly voluntary, according to what you told me. But it seems strange to me that love is present in the heavenly bodies and in the spiritual intellects, because they do not have the passions of the bodies that are subject to generation. PHILO: Love is not found in a smaller degree in the heavenly bodies and in the intellectual things; indeed, love is more eminent and excellent in them. SOPHIA: I would like to know how. Because the main and more universal cause of love that I see is generation. And because there is no generation in eternal things, how could love be present in them? PHILO: There is no generation in them, because they are not subject to generation and they are incorruptible. But the generation of lower bodies comes from the heavens, as from a true father; as well as matter is the first mother for their generation. Afterward there are the four elements, of which the earth is the greatest, and is the most manifestly mother. And you know that fathers love their generation as much as mothers do – indeed they have a more excellent and perfect love. SOPHIA: Tell me more about this paternal love of Heaven. PHILO: I will tell you in a general way that Heaven, as father of all things that are subject to generation, moves with a continual circular motion over the whole sphere of prime matter, and moving and mingling all its parts, matter brings forth all the types, species, and individuals of the lower world

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of generation; just as when the male moves over the female and in moving her, she creates offspring.26 SOPHIA: Explain this type of reproduction more fully and clearly to me. PHILO: Prime matter, like a female, has a body, which receives moisture that nourishes her, spirit that penetrates her, and natural heat that tempers and gives life to her. SOPHIA: Define each of these for me. PHILO: The earth is the body of prime matter, which is the receptacle of all the influences of her male, which is Heaven. Water is the moisture that nourishes her. Air is the spirit that penetrates her. Fire is the natural heat that tempers and gives life to her. SOPHIA: How does Heaven influence generation in the earth? PHILO: The whole body of the heavens is male, covering and encompassing her in its continual motion. She, although still, moves a little because of the motion of her male counterpart. But her moisture, which is water, and her spirit, which is air, and her natural heat, which is the fire, actually move because of the motion of the male Heaven. All these things are moving in the female at the time of coitus due to male motion, even though she does not move her body, but is at rest in order to receive the seed of her male. SOPHIA: What kind of seed does Heaven give to the earth, and how can he give it to her? PHILO: The seed that the earth receives from Heaven is the dew and rainwater. It, through the rays of the sun, the moon, the other planets, and fixed stars, generates in the earth and the sea all the species and individual compound bodies in the four levels of composition, as I told you. SOPHIA: Which are the producers of this seed in the Heaven? PHILO: The whole Heaven produces it with its constant motion, in the same way the whole body of a man cooperates to produce semen. And just as the human body is composed of homogeneous, unorganized parts such as bones, sinews, veins, membranes, gristle, and the flesh – which fills up the space between them – so the great body of the eighth heaven is composed of fixed stars of diverse natures, divided into five magnitudes, and a sixth species of nebulous stars, together with the substance of the diaphanous body of the heavens, which links and fills up the space between the one and the other.

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SOPHIA: And what part do the seven planets have in generating the seed of the world? PHILO: The seven planets are seven heterogeneous – which means organic – parts that are essential to the generation of the seed, just as in the human being there are those that produce the semen.27 SOPHIA: Tell me about them in depth. PHILO: The generation of the semen in the man depends first on the heart, which provides the spirits with natural heat, which forms the semen. Second, the brain provides the moisture, which is the matter of the semen. Third, the liver tempers the semen with a delicate concoction that refines it and then adds to it the purest type of blood. Fourth, the spleen, after having purified it with the attraction of the melancholic dregs, condenses it and remakes it airy and viscous. Then the kidneys with their own concoction render it pungent, warm, and arousing, most of all by the addition of the cholic, which they receive from the bile. Sixth, there are the testicles, in which the semen is perfected in complexion and in its nature as seed. Seventh and last is the penis, which conveys the semen to the receptive female. SOPHIA: I understand how these seven organs contribute to the production of the man’s seed. But what does this have to do with the seven planets? PHILO: In the same way the seven planets in the heavens contribute to the generation of the seed of the world.28 SOPHIA: How? PHILO: The sun is the heart of heaven, which produces natural spiritual heat, which causes vapours to rise from the earth and the sea and to generate water and dew, which is the semen; its rays and its phases guide it, mainly through the changes of the four seasons of the year created by its annual motion. The moon is the brain of the heavens, which causes the moisture that is the normal semen; and because of its changes, the winds shift and the waters descend to earth. It produces the night’s moisture and the dew, which is seminal nourishment. Jupiter is the liver of heaven; with its warmth and gentle humour it promotes the birth of the waters, and tempers the air and moderates the climate. Saturn is the spleen, which with its coldness and dryness congeals the vapours, freezes the waters, moves the winds that bring them, and tempers the dissolvent power of heat. Mars is the bile and the kidneys of the heavens, which – due to its extreme heat – is favourable to the ascent of the vapours, and liquefies the water, makes it

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flow, thins it, and makes it penetrative in order to give the vapours the fervour of seminal heat. In this way the frigidity of Saturn and the Moon do not disincline the seed to generation by depriving it of this effective heat. Venus is the testicles of the heavens. It plays a huge role in the production of water that is good and perfect for insemination; its coldness and moisture are beneficial, and it is the most apt to lead to earthly generation. Given the proportion and closeness that the kidneys and testicles have in the production of the semen, the poets have imagined Mars being in love with Venus, because the one furnishes the stimulus and the other the moisture inclined to the semen. Mercury is the penis of heaven, sometimes advancing, sometimes retreating, at times it causes the rains, other times it obstructs them. It moves both because of the sun’s proximity and the different phases of the moon; just as the penis moves out of the desire and incitement of the heart and the imagination and memory of the brain. Because of this, Sophia, you see that Heaven is the most perfect husband to the earth, because with all his29 organic and homogeneous parts, he moves and makes every effort to give her the semen and to generate so many beautiful and different progeny in her.30 Do you not see that such extreme diligence, such subtle providence, could not be perpetuated were it not for the most fervent and most delicate love that Heaven, like an actual active man,31 has towards the earth and the other elements and to prime matter, as if to his own wife whom he loves and has married? And Heaven loves his progeny with a wondrous solicitude for their nourishment and preservation, as his own children. And the Earth and matter love Heaven like a dear husband, or lover and benefactor; and the things generated by Heaven love him as their caring father and wonderful guardian. It is this mutual love that binds the material universe together and adorns and sustains the world. What other more significant demonstrations could you have for the universality of love? SOPHIA: The mutual and conjugal love between Earth and Heaven and the analogy of earth as a wife and of heaven as a husband, with the correspondence between the seven planets and the organs that contribute to the production of human semen, is quite amazing. I had indeed understood that according to astrologers each of these seven planets represents a human organ, but not an organ governing generation; rather, the planets more often represent the external organs of the head that serve sensuous and interior cognition. PHILO: It is true that the seven planets signify the seven orifices in the head, which aid perception and cognition; the sun the right eye, the moon the left (because both are the eyes of Heaven); Saturn the right ear and Jupiter the

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left (but according to some it is the other way around); Mars the right nostril, and Venus the left (but according to others the reverse); Mercury the tongue and mouth, since he presides over speech and learning. But this does not prevent them, as astrologers say, from signifying the other seven body parts, which are connected to generation, as I told you.32 SOPHIA: Why do these planets refer to two systems of human body parts? PHILO: Because these seven organs of cognition correspond to the seven of generation in the human being. SOPHIA: How so? PHILO: The heart and brain are to the body as the eyes are to the head; the liver and spleen are like the two ears; and the kidneys and testes are the two nostrils. The penis is analogous to the tongue in position, shape, and power of extension and retraction; it is placed in the middle of all, and it works in the same way as the penis, its movement generates physical progeny; the tongue generates them spiritually with specific speech,33 and it gives birth to spiritual offspring just as the penis does with the physical offspring. The kiss is common to both, one often provoking the other. All the other organs assist the tongue in cognition, because it is the end and outcome of the process of learning; the same happens with the penis. All the other members are necessary to the penis in the process of generation, which is their end and their final goal. And just as the tongue is placed between the two arms, which are tools for executing what we know and say, so the penis is located between the feet,34 the instruments of motion for approaching the receptive female. SOPHIA: I understand this corresponding proportion between the cognitive members of the head and the generative members of the body. But tell me why we cannot find two different sets of planets in heaven that correspond to the cognitive and generative functions, in order to have a perfect analogy? PHILO: Because of its simplicity, heaven generates the lower things with the members and tools of cognition. And in this way the heart and brain – the Sun and the Moon – produce the genital seed of heaven and they are also the eyes through which it sees. The liver and the spleen – Saturn and Jupiter – which temper the seed, are the ears through which it hears. The kidneys and testicles – Mars and Venus – which produce the seed, are the nostrils through which it smells. The penis, which gives the seed, is the mercurial tongue that guides in cognition. But in the human being and other perfect animals, even though they are image and likeness of the heavens, it was

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nevertheless necessary to separate the cognitive and generative organs, and to locate the first on the higher part, the head, and the second in the lower part of the body, which, however, correspond to each other. SOPHIA: I am satisfied with this. But I still have some doubts about how you compared heaven to a man, and matter, the earth, and the other elements to a woman. I always understood that man is the likeness not only of the heavens, but also of the whole corporeal and incorporeal universe together. PHILO: Precisely it is; man is the image of the whole universe, and because of this the Greeks call him ‘microcosm,’35 which means little world. However, man,36 as well as any other perfect animal, contains in itself the male and female, because its species is continued through both, not through either by itself. And therefore not only in the Latin language does homo mean the male and the female; but even more so in the Hebrew language, which is the eldest and the source of all the other languages, Adam, which means man, signifies male and female, and its meaning includes both together.37 And philosophers claim that heaven is only one perfect animal.38 Pythagoras39 postulated that in it there is a right and left, as in all the other perfect animals, saying that the half of heaven between the equinoctial line to the Arctic Pole, which we call the Northern Hemisphere,40 was the right side of heaven, because from that equinoctial line towards the north he saw bigger, brighter, and more numerous fixed stars than those that he saw from the equator to the other pole. Even more it seemed to him that heaven produced more abundant and excellent offspring among lower things in that part of earth than in the other. He named the other half of the heavens, the one from the equinoctial line to the other Antarctic Pole – which is not seen by us – the left of the heavens. But the philosopher Aristotle,41 confirming that Heaven is a perfect animal, says that it does not have only these animal’s parts, the right and the left, but also, beyond those above mentioned, it has the parts of the perfect animal; the front and the back, which are face and shoulders. The top and the bottom, which are head and feet, are parts of the length, which naturally precedes breadth. The front and the back, which are face and shoulders, are parts of the thickness of the animal’s body, which is the basis of both length and breadth. So, since there is a right and a left in heaven, according to Pythagoras, it is necessary that the other four parts of the other two dimensions are in it: head and feet, from the length; and face and shoulders, from the breadth. Aristotle says this: that the right of heaven is not our Pole, nor the left the other, as Pythagoras says. Instead, the difference and the superiority of one over the other would not be in heaven itself, but is in appearance or in relation to us;

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and perhaps in the other part, which we do not know, more fixed stars and more habitations on earth could be found. (In our times the experience of Portuguese and Spanish voyages has demonstrated part of this.) He says that the east is the right of the heaven, and the west is the left; and he asserts that all the body of heaven is an animal, whose head is the Antarctic Pole unknown to us, and the feet the northern Arctic Pole. Thus, the right remains in the east, and the left in the west; the face is that part from east to west; and the shoulders, or the back that part from west to east below.42 So, since the universe is a man, or an animal that contains both male and female, and since heaven is one of the two in a perfect union with all its parts, surely you can believe it is the male, or the man; and the earth and the prime matter, together with the elements, is the female; and these are always linked by conjugal love, or rather in a reciprocal affection of two true lovers, as I told you. SOPHIA: I like what you told me about Aristotle, and about the animal nature of heaven and of its six parts, which naturally are different in animals and plants. Even though [in plants]43 there is the difference between head and feet; what is the head is the root, and the feet the leaves; in this a plant is the reverse of an animal, with respect to the top and the bottom. However, they don’t have differences in the other parts; in contrast, they have neither face nor shoulders, neither right or left. But about what Aristotle says, that the east is the right of heaven and the west the left, I have a doubt: the east and the west are not the same for all the inhabitants of the earth. Indeed, our east is the west for the others that live below us, known as ‘antipodes.’44 Our west is their east; and all the parts of the circumference of the heaven, from the east to the west, are east for certain inhabitants of the earth, and west for others. Which of these easts is the right? And why is one more so than another? And if every east is right, could another be right and left? This point is dubious.45 Resolve it for me. PHILO: Your question, Sophia, is not easy to answer. Some say that the east, which is the right of the heaven, is the east for those who live at the centre of the length of the inhabited world, between sunrise and sunset; because they believe that half of the earth’s surface, the dry land, is inhabited, and the other half is covered by water. SOPHIA: This is true. PHILO: No, indeed, it is not true! Because we know that most of the circumference of the earth, from sunrise to sunset, is dry; and each has its east, and neither of them must be more right than the other; even more so because

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what for one is east, is west for the other. And in this way the very same east would be both right and left, as you said. And because of this some others say that the sign of Aries is the right of the heaven, and Libra is the left. SOPHIA: How so? PHILO: When the Sun is in Aries, it has great power. And in it all plants come forth and the world is rejuvenated. And when it is in Libra all things begin to wither and age. SOPHIA: Even if it were so, Aries would still not be the right, because it is not always in the east, but sometimes in the west. And when it is east for somebody, it is west for somebody else. And Aristotle states that the east is the right. PHILO: A good refutation, especially because not all the inhabitants of the earth find the sun so kindly and benevolent when it is in Aries. Because those in the other half of the earth, who live beyond the equinox line and see the other Antarctic pole, who are called ‘antichthones,’46 receive the benefits of spring when then sun is in Libra, because it starts nearing them then; and they experience the autumnal decline when it is in Aries, because it is then moving away from them, contrary to what happens with us. So our right would be their left, yet the right of an animal is right to everyone, and so too is left. SOPHIA: No doubt this is so. Because I understood that those who live beyond the Torrid Zone enjoy spring while we have autumn; and they have autumn when we have spring. Yet I beg you, Philo, do not leave my doubt without a true resolution, if you know it. PHILO: Aristotle’s commentators did not find any other way to resolve this doubt than these two. And, because they did not know the weakness of this solution, they settled on the least inconvenient reason they could find. Sophia, you must settle for what they who knew much more than you settled for. SOPHIA: I settle for what suits me, not what suits others, and I see that you are even less satisfied with these solutions than I. And in order to appease me, you must either concede that your Aristotle made a mistake, or you must state concretely what you find to give me a more satisfactory answer than this. PHILO: Because my mind has been converted into you, none of my concepts can be denied to you. I understand Aristotle in another way. He subtly

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explained the functions of these six parts, in the heaven and in every perfect animal. He says that the top, or the head, which is the starting point of an animal’s length, is what the capacity of motion depends on (because certainly the motor nerves and spirits come from the head or brain) and the right is where motion starts, as it is clearly manifested in man. And the face, or the front, is where the motion of the right begins; and the other three parts are opposite to these in such operations. SOPHIA: I understand this. Let us get to the doubt. PHILO: Aristotle said that the right is the part where the sun rises and the other is where the stars and planets are, and this is the east. And he says that this is not proper to a part that is marked materially, but it is virtual in all of them, because they are east and are drawn to the west, and not the opposite, as with the erratic motion of the planets, which is from west to east. Because whenever there is motion from the left side, it is like the imperfect and weak motion of the left hand in the human being; thus, the motion from east to west in any part of the heavens is a motion coming from the right side. So, since the head of heaven is the Antarctic Pole and the feet the Arctic, as he says, it is necessary – because all the parts of the heavens always move from east to west – for that motion to be from the right, and the opposite from the left. And the face remains in the part between east and west, above where the heavens journey in a rightward motion. The shoulders are the part that remains behind the east; below which the east splits off, as the right hand does from the shoulders. SOPHIA: I think I understand you. And according to this, in the heavens, only the top and the bottom, or the head and the feet, are materially separated; and one of these is one of the two poles, and the other the other pole. And the other four parts separated themselves in a formal way with respect to the direction of the motion. Is this so, Philo? PHILO: Yes, you understand it very well. SOPHIA: Be that as it may, in animals these six parts are all materially distinct and separated. Tell me why there is this difference between them. PHILO: The animal moves in a straight line from place to place, and the parts of its length and breadth are separate and distinct. But in the heavens, which move with a circular motion unto themselves, and always rotate around themselves, it is necessary for those parts within it to be materially the same, and all the same in all. They are distinguished only in shape and in the direction of motion. Because of this the head and the feet of the

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heavens, which are the two poles, are materially divided and are never interchangeable, just as in animals. SOPHIA: If one thing is both east and west, it follows that the same thing is right and left too. PHILO: That is not so. For, although materially speaking a particular part of the heavens is east to some and west to others, it is east for all when it is in its east, in accordance with the motion that all the heavens and each of their parts make; and because of the direction of the motion the heavens are always right and never left. Yet the heavens never move themselves, nor any of their parts, in an opposite motion to that rightward motion, or the reverse, as the errant planets always do – and because of this their motion is leftward; planets move in this reverse way because they counteract the rightward motion of the heavens, in order to foster the lower contraries, and to cause their continual generation. SOPHIA: I have understood you, and I remain satisfied as to the rest of my doubts. But I would like you to tell me how philosophers arrive at the conclusion that one human being alone is the simulacrum of the whole universe, of the lower world of birth and decay as well as the heavenly world of the spirit, angelic or divine. PHILO: For some reason it seems that you are diverting me from our subject, the universality of love. But because this has some relation to our subject, I will tell you about it briefly. All these three worlds that you mentioned – of birth, heaven, and the intellect – are contained in man as ‘microcosm’; and they are found in him not only distinctly in power and function, but occupying distinct organs, parts, and places in the human body.47 SOPHIA: Teach me in detail about all three. PHILO: The human body is divided into three parts (following the model of the world), each above the other. And starting from the bottom, the first is a sheet of tissue or membrane, which divides the body into two halves at the waist; this is called the diaphragm, extending from the lower part to the legs. The second is above that sheet of tissue up to the head. The third, still higher, is the head. The first one contains the organs of nutrition and generation: stomach, liver, gall, spleen, gall bladder, bowels, kidneys, testicles, and penis. This part in the human body is analogous to the lower world in the universe; just as in the latter the four elements are generated from prime matter, so in the same way in this lower part the humours are generated from food, which is their first matter: hot, dry, and subtle choler, the same

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quality as fire. Warm, wet, moist, and gently tempered blood is the same quality as air. Cold and liquid phlegm is the same quality as water, and the melancholic humour, cold and dry, is the same quality as earth. From these four elements the animals are generated, and they have, besides nutrition and growth, perception and motion; and plants, which do not have sensations or motion, but only nutrition and growth are generated; so are those that are mixed and do not have a living soul – incapable of perception, motion, nutrition, and growth – the feces of the elements, and these are stones, fungi, salts, and metals. So from these four humours, generated in this first and lower part of the humours, organs are generated, which direct nutrition, growth, perception, and motion – like the nerves and membranes, sinews, muscles – and others that have in themselves neither perception nor motion, such as bones, cartilage, and veins. Moreover, other things are generated from food, and they do not have perception, motion, nutrition, or growth, but are the feces and dregs of the food, and the humours, such as excrement, urine, sweat, nasal mucus, and earwax. As in the lower world certain animals spring from corruption – many of them poisonous – so from the corruption of the humours different kinds of worms spring, and some of them are poisonous. Just as in the lower world, man, who is a spiritual animal, is finally generated with celestial participation, so, from the best of the humours, from those that are most subtle and vapour-like, subtle and purified spirits are produced, generated with the cooperation and restoration of the vital spirits, which are always held in the heart; and they belong to the second part of the human body, which corresponds to the celestial world, as we will tell. SOPHIA: I understood very well the correspondence of the lower part of man to the lower world of generation and corruption. Tell me now about the celestial world. PHILO: The second part of the human body contains the spiritual organs that are above the diaphragm tissue up to the throat passages: the heart and the two lungs, right and left. The right is divided into three sections, the left into two. This part corresponds to the celestial world. The heart is the eighth sphere of fixed stars with all the heaven beyond it, and this is the ‘primum mobile,’ which moves everything. And it moves always in the same way, uniformly and circularly, and its continual motion sustains all corporeal things in the universe. It is the source of all other continuous motion in the planets and elements. The heart48 works similarly in the human body; it always moves in a circular and uniform motion, never taking a rest, and with its motion it sustains the life of the entire human body,

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and it is the cause of the continual motion of the lungs and of all the pulsing arteries of the body. In the heart all the human spirits and virtues are contained, just as in heaven49 all the bright, great, medium, and small stars are contained. And there are so many heavenly figures connected with the primum mobile, [such as]50 the seven errant planets, which are named so because they are errant in their motion. At times they go forward, sometimes they come back, other times they go fast, and other times slow, and all follow the primum mobile. The lungs are like them, because they follow the heart and serve it in its continuous motion. The lungs are spongy, dilating and contracting, sometimes rapidly, other times slowly, just as the errant planets. And just as for the planets their leaders in the government of the universe are two luminaries, Sun and Moon, and above with the Sun there are three higher planets – Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn – that accompany it, and above with the Moon another two, Venus and Mercury; so too the right lung, the more important of the two, is the simulacrum of the sun, and therefore it has with it three distinct small parts that proceed from the same lung. And the left lung, which represents the Moon, has two of these; and all of these together are seven in number. Just as the heavenly world sustains this lower world with its rays and continual motion – transferring the vital heat, spirituality, and motion through them – this heart too, together with the lungs, sustains the whole body with the arteries, which transfer all its heat, vital spirits, and constant motion. Therefore we can see a prefect likeness in everything. SOPHIA: I like this correspondence of the heart to the spiritual organs with the celestial world, and its influences on the lower world. If you wish to gratify me, tell me now about the correspondence of the spiritual world to the human body. PHILO: The head of the human being, which is the higher part of his body, is the simulacrum of the spiritual world. And this, according to the divine Plato (with whom Aristotle does not disagree), has three degrees: soul, intellect, and godhead.51 The soul is the source of celestial motion and supplies and governs the nature of the lower world, just as nature governs the prime matter in it. In the human being this is the brain, with its two powers of sensation and voluntary motion; these two are contained in the sensitive soul, and this is connected to the world-soul, which maintains and moves the bodies. In the human being there is the possible intellect, which is the ultimate human form, and this corresponds to the intellect of the universe, in which all the angelic creatures are contained. Lastly in the human being there is the active intellect; and when it is connected with the

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possible intellect, it becomes actual and full of perfection and the grace of God, in copulation with its sacred godhead. In the human being this is what corresponds to the divine source, from which all things begin and to which all things are directed and return as their ultimate end.52 This should be enough for you, Sophia, given our familiar discourse concerning the likeness of man to the whole universe, and how the ancients were right in calling him a microcosm. There are many other detailed similarities, which would be redundant and not directed to our purpose. Regarding what we have already said, we will use this notion when we discuss the generation and origin of love; and then you will understand that the members of the universe, the higher and the lower things, and the lower and the higher things do not love one another in vain, since they correspond to the parts of one whole body in which they are perfectly integrated.53 SOPHIA: We have been carried away, and have digressed somewhat from our main topic. Now, let us return to our purpose, Philo. You demonstrated, if I understood correctly, how great the love of the Heaven is, akin to a generating man, towards the Earth and the prime matter of the elements, which is like a woman who receives his generation. There is no doubt, according to this, that Heaven loves all things procreated by the Earth or rather by the matter of the elements, like a father his own children. This love is amply displayed in the care that he takes in sustaining and nourishing them; producing the rain in order to nourish the plants, the plants in order to nourish the animals, and both in order to nourish the human being as his firstborn, or favourite, son. Heaven changes the four seasons of the year, spring, summer, autumn, and winter, for the generation and nourishment of things and to temper the air for the needs of their life and to stabilize their constitution. And again we see that generated things love heaven, their true and loving father, through the joy that animals have at sunlight and the arrival of day, and through their sadness and retreat at the darkness of heaven when night falls. I am sure that you could tell me much more about this. However, I am satisfied with what you said about the reciprocal love of Heaven and Earth, as man and woman; and about the love of each of them towards generated things, as the love of a father and mother towards children; and about the love of their creatures towards the earth and towards the heaven, like children to their mother and father. But what I would like to know from you is whether the heavenly bodies, besides loving the things of the lower world, also love each other. I notice that among them there is no generation, which seems to me a principal cause of love between things in the universe. Because of this it seems that there should not be love between them nor mutual delight.

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PHILO: Although there is no recurrent mutual generation among celestial entities, they do not lack perfect and mutual love. The main cause shown in their love is the friendship and harmonious concord perpetually found in them. You know that every concord starts with true friendship and with true love. If you were to contemplate, Sophia, the correspondence and concord of the motions of the celestial bodies (of the first ones that move from east to west; and of the others that move in the opposite direction, from west to east; one faster, the other slower; some late, and others still later; sometimes moving forward, other times retreating; and sometimes remaining stationary in their forward direction, sometimes in their retrogression; sometimes they turn aside northward, other times southward, heading towards the middle of the Zodiac; and one of them, the sun, never turns away from the direct way to the Zodiac, neither to north nor south, as all the other planets do), and if you knew the number of the celestial spheres, which makes this diversity of motion necessary (their dimensions, forms and positions, their epicycles, their centres and eccentrics; one ascendant, another descendent, one to the east of the sun, and the other to the west; along with many other things, which would take too long to relate in this discourse of ours), you would see such wondrous correspondence and concord of the different bodies and of different motions in one harmonious union that you would remain stupefied by the art of their creator. What greater proof of true love and perfect delight of the one towards the other is there than to see a harmonious conformity established and enduring in so great a diversity? Pythagoras said that as they move the celestial bodies generate exquisite voices,54 which correspond to each other in a harmonic concordance; and he said that that celestial music was the cause that maintained the weight, number, and measure of the universe. To every sphere and each planet he assigned its own peculiar sound and tone; and he told of the harmony resulting from them. And he says that the reason why we do not hear or listen to this music is that the heaven is so remote from us, or else that we are accustomed to it, like those who live near the sea; they do not hear its noise because of their familiarity with it, as opposed to those who hear it for the first time. Therefore, because love and friendship are the cause of every concord, and because in the celestial bodies there are greater, much more stable, and more perfect concordances than in all the lower bodies, it follows that there is a greater and more perfect love and more perfect friendship among them than there is in these lower bodies. SOPHIA: The mutual and reciprocal concord and harmony found in the celestial bodies seems to me an effect and symptom of their love rather than

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the cause of it. And I would like to know the cause of such reciprocal love in the heavens. Because, apart from propagation and continuation through birth, which are the most powerful causes of love among beasts and humans, I see that none of the other causes pertains to the celestial bodies; neither deliberate benefit of one over the other, because everything of theirs is ordinary; nor the fact of belonging to the same species, because, from what I understand, in the celestial bodies there are no species, nor is there gender in their identity, or if there is, each of the celestial bodies is its own species; nor companionship, for we see that, due to the order of their movements, at times they are together, other times they are separated, nor does one have to generate new love or the other new friendship, since these are ordinary things without an inclination of the will. PHILO: Although none of the five causes of love common to human beings and animals is found in the celestial bodies, perhaps those two proper to human beings are present. SOPHIA: In what way? PHILO: The main reason for the love found in the celestial bodies is conformity in their natures, as in humans there is conformity in temperaments. Among the heavens, planets, and stars there is such a conformity of nature and essence, and in their motions and acts they correspond to each other with so much proportion, that they become united harmoniously in their movements and acts. Indeed, they seem to be different members of one organic body, rather than different separate bodies. As it is with different voices, one sharp another grave, a single song that is pleasant to the hearing is generated, and if one note is missing, the whole song or harmony is destroyed. In the same way these bodies that differ in magnitude, motion, weight, and light, because of their proportion and conformity, produce a harmonious proportion, and it is so unified that if the smallest part is missing, the whole is ruined. Therefore, this conformity in nature is the cause of love in the celestial bodies, not only as with different people, but like the organs of the same person. So, just as the heart loves the brain and the other organs and gives them life and natural heat and spirits, and the brain provides nerves of perception and motion to the other organs, and the liver provides blood and veins because of the love that they have for one another and which each of them has towards the whole as to its own part, and since this love is stronger than any love for another person, so the parts of heaven love each other with natural conformity and, cooperating in unity of purpose and function, they serve one another, fulfilling each others’

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needs in order to make a perfectly organized celestial body. The other cause proper to human beings’ love is also present in them, because of virtue: for each of the celestial bodies has excellent virtue, which is necessary for the being of the others and of all the heavens and universe. And since the others know these virtues, they love the others because of them. And I say also that they love due to the benefit that they gain, not only directed to one alone, but to the entire universe, since without it everything would be destroyed. And in this same way virtuous men love each other, that is, for the good that they do for the universe, not for a particular benefit, as it is for useful things. So, because the celestial bodies are more perfect than the animals, the two causes of love found in human beings, who are the most perfect animal species, are in them. SOPHIA: If there is, as you say, such strength of love among celestial bodies, the things poets make up about the love of the celestial gods, like the loves of Jupiter and Apollo, must not be in vain. Except that these poets made this love wanton, like that of male for female, some conjugal and some adulterous; and they even make it generate other gods. Such things are certainly alien to the nature of celestial beings, but, as the common people say, the lies of the poets are many. PHILO: No, the poets did not speak in vain images nor lies, as you believe. SOPHIA: How did they not? Would you ever believe such things about the heavenly gods? PHILO: I believe them, because I understand them; and you would also believe them, if you understood them. SOPHIA: Then lead me to understand them, so that I may believe them. PHILO: The ancient poets, implied not only one, but many intentions in their poems, and these intentions are called ‘senses.’ First they placed the literal sense, as a kind of exterior rind, the story of some people and their noteworthy and memorable deeds. Within this same fiction they place, like an inner rind nearer to the core, the moral sense, which is useful to the active life of human beings, in approving virtuous acts and condemning vices. Beyond this, beneath those same words they signify some true knowledge of natural, celestial, astrological, or theological things, and sometimes these two or even all three scientific senses are included in the fable, like the kernels of the fruit beneath its rind. And these core senses are called ‘allegorical.’55

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SOPHIA: It takes no small artifice or slight talent to weave into a narrative, whether true or fictional, such numerous, diverse, and lofty meanings. But I would like some brief examples in order to make it more believable to me. PHILO: Believe with certainty, Sophia, that the ancients were no less bent on exercising their minds in the art of signifying knowledge than on gaining its true understanding. And I will give you an example. Perseus, son of Jupiter (for a poetic fiction), killed the Gorgon and, after his victory, flew to the ether, which is the highest heaven. The historical sense is that a certain Perseus, called son of Jove (Jupiter) because of his share in the jovial virtues, or because he was a descendent of one of the kings of Crete, Athens, or Arcadia, named Jupiter, killed Gorgon, an earthly tyrant, because Gorgon in Greek means ‘earth.’ And because of his virtue, he was exalted by men to the heavens. It also means, morally, that Perseus, a prudent man and son of Jupiter, and endowed with Jupiter’s virtues, destroyed base and earthly vice, symbolized by the Gorgon, and ascended to virtuous heaven. It also means, allegorically, first, that the human mind, Jupiter’s daughter, by killing and overcoming the earthiness of the Gorgonic nature, raised itself to an understanding of lofty and eternal things, in whose speculation human perfection consists. This allegory is natural, because man comes from natural things. It also aims to signify another celestial allegory. The celestial nature, Jupiter’s daughter, caused death and destruction among lower terrestrial bodies by being in continual movement. This celestial nature, triumphant over corruptible things, detaching itself from their mortality, flew on high and remained immortal. It also signifies the third, theological, allegory. The angelic nature, the daughter of Jupiter, the supreme god and creator of everything, in destroying and removing all corporeality and earthly matter, symbolized by the Gorgon, rose to heaven, and consequently the intelligences separated from the body and matter are those that perpetually move the heavenly spheres.56 SOPHIA: What a wondrous thing it is to be able to put into so few words of a tale so many illustrations full of true science, each one more excellent than the other. But tell me, I pray you, why did they not declare their teaching more openly? PHILO: There are many reasons why they wanted to say these things with so much artifice and conciseness. First, because they considered it was hateful to nature and to the Godhead to reveal their exalted secrets to every man, and in this they were certainly right, because to declare too much of the truth and profound science is to introduce it to those who are not competent

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to receive it, in whose mind it becomes spoilt and adulterated, like good wine in an ugly container.57 The universal corruption of doctrines among all men follows such adulteration, and each of them becomes more corrupted as it is passed from incompetent mind to incompetent mind. This malformation derives from too much open promulgation of scientific truths, and in our time this has become – speaking in the broad terms of the moderns – so contagious that we can no longer find intellectual wine that is not already spoilt. But in the ancient times the secrets of intellectual knowledge were included within this rind of fable with the greatest artifice, so that only minds fit for divine and intellectual matters might penetrate them, minds capable of preserving, and not corrupting, the true sciences. SOPHIA: I like this notion; exalted and noble matters must be entrusted to great and lucid minds or they will be defiled by those who are not so. But tell me the other reasons for the poetic fictions. PHILO: They did this for four other reasons. The first is because they wanted brevity, so that in a few words they could imply many meanings. This brevity is very useful for preserving things in the memory, especially when it is done with such skill that by merely remembering a tale, one can remember all the doctrinal senses beneath those words. The second, in order to combine the pleasures of story and fable with intellectual truth, and what is easy with what is difficult, so that, human frailty being first drawn by the pleasantness and ease of the story, the truth of the science might enter in the mind with wisdom. Just as children are taught discipline and virtue starting with what is easiest, keeping everything together, one man on the rind, the other in the core, as in poetic fictions. The third reason is for the preservation of things of the intellect, so that they will not be altered during the process of time in the minds of different people, because, by enclosing such judgments within these tales, they cannot deviate from their terms. Moreover, to this end of a solid preservation, they expressed the story in ponderous and finely tuned verses, so as to make their corruption more difficult, because vice cannot suffer strong measure, so that neither incompetent minds nor the mistakes of the writers can easily adulterate the sciences. The fourth and last is that with the same food they could feed different guests with different flavours, since baser minds can only take from the poem the story with the embellishment of verse and melody; other, higher minds, beyond that, feed on the moral sense; and others still, the highest, beyond this, can feed on the allegorical food, not only natural philosophy, but also astrology and theology.58 In addition to this there was another goal. Since these poems are such a common food for

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every kind of person, they are established in perpetuity in the minds of the multitudes, even if only a few can taste the very difficult things, and the memory of these few can be erased in a short time, because there may be a period of time in which men may deviate from doctrine, as we saw in some nations and religions, like the Greeks and the Arabs, who were once most learned, but now have almost completely lost their science. The same happened in Italy at the time of the Goths;59 later, what little there is now was renewed. The remedy for such a danger is the art of depositing the sciences within fabulous and storied songs, which because of the pleasure and the delight verse, are always preserved in the mouths of the common people, men, women, and children. SOPHIA: I like all these causes of the poetic fictions. But tell me about Plato and Aristotle, the princes of the philosophers: why did one of them not use verse (even though he used fable), but only prose, and the other one used neither verse nor fables, but didactic speech? PHILO: The lesser never break the laws, only the great. The divine Plato, desiring to extend science, removed one of its locks which is verse; but he did not remove the other one, which is fable. Thus, he was the first to break that part of the law that is the preservation of science; but he did it such that he left it locked in its fabulous style, which was enough to preserve it. Aristotle, bolder and more interested in spreading it, with his own new way of exposition, also removed the lock of fable and completely broke the law of preservation, and he spoke in a prose of a scientific style about things of philosophy.60 It is a fact that he used such a marvellous art in expressing himself so concisely, so comprehensively, and with such meaning, that this was enough for the preservation of science without verse and fable. Thus, in answering Alexander of Macedon, his pupil, who had written to him surprised that he had made manifest such secret books of holy philosophy, he replied that his books were published and not published; published only for those who understood them from him.61 From these words you can infer, Sophia, the difficulty and skill in Aristotle’s speech. SOPHIA: I take note; but it seems strange to me that he says that none could understand it, and then only those who understood it from him, because there were many philosophers after him, and all of them understood these things, or at least the majority of them. In this regard, his speech not only seems false to me but, even more, arrogant, because, if what it is saying is clear, this knowledge should be understandable to higher minds, even if they do not have his living words. For writing is not useful to people who

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are present now, but to those who are far way in time and distance from it. Why should nature not enable such great intellects to understand Aristotle through his writings, without having been able to understand them directly from him? PHILO: This saying of Aristotle would indeed be strange if it had no other meaning. SOPHIA: What other meaning does it have then? PHILO: He calls his listener the one whose intellect understands and philosophizes in the same way as the intellect of Aristotle himself, in whatever time or land he may be. This means that his written words do not make any man a philosopher, but only those whose minds are disposed to philosophical cognition, as was his own mind; and one person may understand, and others will not, just as happens with that type of philosophy, whose meaning is concealed beneath poetic fiction. SOPHIA: By this account, Aristotle was not wrong in removing the difficulties of verse and fable, since he left the doctrine locked very strongly within his discourse, though it was secure enough for the preservation of the science in enlightened minds. PHILO: He was not wrong, because he remedied that with the greatness of his genius, but he emboldened others who were not great to write philosophy in prose, and because of a promulgation of other parts of his philosophy, which came to unfit minds, this resulted in its falsification, corruption, and ruin. SOPHIA: You have now told me a lot about this. Let us return to the poetic loves of the gods of heaven: what can you tell me about them? PHILO: I will tell you many things. But first you must learn what, which, and how many variations there are of these poetic gods, and then you will know about their loves. SOPHIA: You are right, so tell me what kind of gods these are. PHILO: The first god of the poets is that first creative cause, which conserves and governs all things in the universe, and he is commonly named Jupiter, which means ‘helping father’ of everything, since he created them out of nothing and gave them being. The Romans called him ‘excellent great one,’ because any good and any being are derived from him. The Greeks called him Zefs,62 which means ‘life,’ because all things have life from him, or

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rather he is the life of all things.63 It is true that this name Jupiter was attributed by the omnipotent God to some of his noblest creatures; and in the celestial world the second of the seven planets received this name, which was named Jupiter because of its greater fortune and of a refulgent splendour and most excellent influences in the lower world; it improves it and makes the men under its constellation and influence more excellent and brings them greater fortune. In the lower world fire is also called Jupiter, because it is the brightest and the most active of all the elements and the life of all the lower things, since (according to Aristotle) we live by way of the vital heat. Moreover, this name was shared by men. Some of them were most excellent, and they aided the human race, one of these was Lysanias of Arcadia, who, when he went to Athens and found an uncivilized population with bestial attitudes there, not only gave them human laws, but he also taught them divine worship, whereupon they made him their king and worshipped him as a god, naming him Jupiter, because of his participation in Jupiter’s virtues. In a similar way, Jupiter of Crete, son of Saturn, in his government of these people, forbade them to eat human flesh and other bestial rites, and instructed them in the customs of men and the knowledge of God. Thus, he too was named Jupiter and worshipped as a god, because they thought he was an envoy of God, and formed by him, whom they called Jupiter. SOPHIA: Did the poets ever call this supreme God by another proper name? PHILO: His proper name was Demogorgon,64 which in Greek means ‘Earthgod,’ meaning god of the universe, or rather still ‘terrifying god,’ because he was the oldest and greatest of all. And they say that he was the creator of everything. SOPHIA: After the supreme God, which other gods are established by the poets? PHILO: First they established the gods of the sky, such as Pole, Heaven,65 Ether, and the seven planets – Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo – the Sun – Venus, Mercury, Diana (or the Moon), and all of them they call gods and goddesses.66 SOPHIA: Why do they apply deity to corporeal things, such as those in the sky? PHILO: Because of their immortality, splendour, and magnitude, and because of their great power in the universe, and chiefly because of the divinity of their souls, which are intelligences without matter or corporeality, pure and continuous act.

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SOPHIA: Did these ancients extend the name of God even further? PHILO: Yes, and it descends into the lower world; because the poets used to call the elements, seas, rivers, and the great mountains of the lower world gods; they named Jupiter67 the element of fire, Juno the element of air, Neptune the water and sea, Ceres the earth, and the depths of the earth Pluto. Vulcan was the name of the mixed fire that is burning inside the earth, and in this way many other gods were parts of the earth and the water. SOPHIA: This is very strange; the things that they call gods are the bodies without a sensitive soul. PHILO: They call them gods because of their magnitude, fame, function, and the importance they have in this lower world; and moreover because they believe that each of them was governed by a spiritual virtue that participated in the intellectual divinity; or rather (as Plato remarks) each of these elements has an incorporeal formal principle, and because of its participation they have their own natures, which he calls ideas, and considers that the ‘idea’ of fire is the true fire, since it is its formal essence, and that elemental fire is fire in virtue of its participation in its ‘idea,’ and the same with other things. So it is not strange to attribute divinity to the ‘ideas’ of things; from this they posited divinity in plants, especially in those that are common foods and useful for human beings, like Ceres is for fodder, and Bacchus for wine, and because of their universal usefulness and necessity to men. In addition to this plants also have their own ‘ideas’ like the elements. And for this same reason they called the human virtues, vices, and passions gods or goddesses, because, in addition to those named for their excellence and for their power, they participate greatly in divinity, and yet the main cause is that every virtue, every vice, and every human passion has its own common ‘idea,’ which, because of their participation in everything, are found in humans to a greater or lesser degree. Because of this among the gods there are those named Fame, Love, Grace, Cupidity, Pleasure, Discord, Labour, Envy, Deceit, Perseverance, Sorrow, and many others of the same kind; each had its own ‘idea’ and incorporeal principle (as I told you), by which it is proclaimed a god or goddess.68 SOPHIA: Even if the virtues have ‘ideas’ for their excellence, in what way can vices and evil passions have any? PHILO: Because among the heavenly gods there are some good or favourable fortunes, such as Jupiter and Venus, upon whom many benefits are ever dependent, and there are also other bad ones that are inauspicious, such as

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Saturn and Mars, from whom much evil comes. In the same way, among the Platonic ideas there are also some principles of good and virtue, and others that are principles of evil and vice, because the universe needs one and the other for its preservation. According to this need, any evil is good, because everything that is necessary to the being of the universe is surely good, since its essence is good. Therefore, evil and decay are necessary to the existence of the world like good and birth are, for the one prepares the other and leads it. Do not be surprised then if both of them have an immaterial idea as divine principle. SOPHIA: I have also heard that vices and evils consist of a lack, and are caused by a defect in prime matter and by its imperfect potential essence; how then they can have a divine principle? PHILO: Even if this were true according to the Peripatetic doctrine, it is undeniable that matter itself is produced and organized by the divine mind, and that all its effects and defects are directed by supreme wisdom, because they are necessary to the total essence of the lower world and the human being. So, proper ideas are associated by God with their own principles, not material ones, but efficient and formal, the cause of the being of these imperfect things, rooted in privation and hypostatized by the necessary being of the universe. SOPHIA: I am satisfied with this. Let us return to our subject, and tell me: is the name ‘god’ more communicable among poets? PHILO: They ultimately wanted to communicate it specifically to men, though only to those who had some heroic virtues or had accomplished exploits similar to the divine ones and great things and worthy of eternal memory, like the divine ones. SOPHIA: And only out of this similarity do they give the name of ‘god’ to mortals? PHILO: They do not call them gods because of what is mortal in them, but only because of what is immortal, and that is the intellective soul. SOPHIA: This is so in all human beings, yet not all of them are gods. PHILO: Not all are equally noble and godlike. But through his acts we know the rank of the soul in the human being, and the souls of those who in deeds and virtues are like gods. They actually participate in the divinity and are like its rays. So, they have been called gods for various reasons. Certain human beings have received the title of the name of god for their

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excellence, such as Jupiter, Saturn, Apollo, Mars, Venus, Mercury and Diana, Heaven,69 Pole, Ether, and the other names of fixed stars from among the constellations of the eighth sphere. Others were called their sons: Hercules, son of Jupiter, Neptune, son of Saturn. Others of lesser merit were given the name of the lesser gods, such as Ocean and Earth, Ceres and Bacchus, and other similar ones, or sons whose fathers were in some cases gods, or their mothers, goddesses; in other cases, the mother was not a goddess, and in still others again the father was a heavenly god, or the mother a lesser goddess. And in this way the fictions of the poets about heroic men called gods multiplied; because, in narrating their life, deeds, and history, they signify ideas of moral philosophy. When then they quote the names of the virtues, vices, or passions, they signify concepts of natural philosophy; and by quoting some names of the lower world of generation and decay, they demonstrate astrology and the science of the heavens. Yet, in quoting some names of the heavenly gods, they signify the theology of God and the angels. So these fictions were ingenious and most wise in the manifold naming of their gods.70 SOPHIA: I now understand a great deal about the nature of the pagan gods and their diverse nomenclature. Now tell me about their loves, which is our goal, and how one can conceive of their generative generation and successive genealogies, as the poets determine, not only for those heroic men, whom they call participative gods, but also for the heavenly and lesser gods, since in those tales that they tell about them their dissoluteness, marriages, and births seem absurd. PHILO: It is time now to explain something about their loves and their generation. You should know, Sophia, that not all generation is carnal generation or a wanton act; this sort of generation occurs only in human beings and animals. Generation is indeed common to all the things of the world, from the first God to the last thing of the world; save He that only generates but is not generated, whereas all the other things are generated and the majorities are also generative. And most generated things have two principles of generation, one formal and the other material, or rather one giving71 and the other receiving72 (thus, the poets call the formal principle the ‘giving father’ and the material principle the ‘receptive mother’). And because these two principles cooperate in the process of generation of whatever is generated, it was necessary that they should love each other and unite in love to produce offspring, as the fathers and the mothers of human beings and animals do. When this union of the two parents occurs regularly in nature, it is called (by the poets) ‘matrimonial,’ and one is called husband

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and the other wife. But when the union is an extraordinary one, it is named amorous or adulterous, and the parents, or rather those who generate, are named lovers. Thus, you may allow loves, marriages, births, kinship, and genealogy among the higher and the lesser gods without astonishment. SOPHIA: Now I understand you. And I like this universal basis in the gods’ loves. But I would like you to explain to me more accurately the loves in the stories about some of them, at least the most famous, and their generation, and I would like you to start from the generation of Demogorgon,73 who, as you say, is to be understood as the first and supreme god, because I understand that he sired some of his sons in a strange way. Tell me, I pray you, what you know about this. PHILO: I will tell you what I understood of Demogorgon’s progeny. The poet Pronapines says in his Protocosmos74 that Demogorgon was only in the presence of Eternity and Chaos, and while resting within eternity, he heard a tumult in the womb of Chaos; and thus, in order to help it, Demogorgon stretched forth his hand and opened the womb of Chaos, from which Strife emerged, with a dreadful and dishonest face, causing a tumult. Strife wished to fly towards the heavens, but Demogorgon cast him down. While Chaos was still overcome by sweats and fiery groans, Demogorgon did not remove his hand until he had drawn Pan and his three sisters, called the Fates, from the womb of Chaos.75 Since Pan seemed to Demogorgon to be the most beautiful thing generated, he made him his steward and gave him the three sisters as a retinue, that is to say, as servants and companions. Chaos, being delivered from this weight, by order of Demogorgon set Pan on his seat. This is the legend of Demogorgon, though in the Iliad Homer assigns the generation of Strife or Discord to Jupiter, making her his daughter, and he says that because she displeased Juno at the birth of Eurysteus and Hercules, she was cast down to earth from heaven. The poets also say that Demogorgon produced Pole, Phaeton, Earth, and Erebus. SOPHIA: Tell me the meaning of this fable of Demogorgon’s generation. PHILO: It means the generation, or rather the production, of all things from God, the supreme creator. They say that Eternity was his companion, because he alone is the true eternal one, and he is and was and will be forever the origin and cause of all things, since there is no temporal sequence in him. They also give Chaos as his eternal companion, Chaos (according to Ovid),76 who is the common matter, mixed and indeterminate, of all things, since the ancients held it to be coeternal with God. From it (when he was pleased) he generated all created things as true father of them all,

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and Matter is the common mother of every generated thing. In this way they claim that only the two parents of all things are eternal and ungenerated, and together they are father and mother. But the poets claimed that the father was the principal cause, and Chaos the accessory or concomitant cause. It appears that such was the opinion of Plato, in the Timaeus,77 about the new generation of the things that were produced from eternal and indeterminate Matter by the supreme God. But we could correct this, because, since God is the creator of all things, it is also necessary that he produced the matter of all generated things. One must understand, though, what they meant by saying that because Chaos was with God in Eternity, He produced it ab eterno, and that God produced all the other things from this Chaos, at the beginning of time (according to the Platonic theory). And they call it ‘companion,’ despite the fact that it was created, because this Chaos was produced ab eterno and always with God. And since it was the Creator’s companion in the creation and production of all things, and his consort in their generation (because it was immediately produced by God, and all the other things were produced by God and Chaos, or rather matter), Chaos may rightly be called God’s companion. But because of this it is not wrong to say that it was produced by God ab eterno, just as Eve, created from Adam, was his companion and consort, and all the other human beings were born from these two.78 SOPHIA: It seems very clear that in this fable they wish to signify the generation of the universe by the omnipotent God, as father, and by his Chaos, or matter, as mother. But tell me something about the meaning of the details of the fable; for example, about the tumult in the womb of Chaos, and about the hand of Demogorgon, and about the birth of Strife and the others. PHILO: The tumult that Demogorgon heard in Chaos’s womb is the potentiality and appetite of indeterminate matter at the germination of differentiated things, and this differentiation caused and usually causes tumult. The stretching forth of Demogorgon’s hand to open Chaos’s womb is the divine power that wished to reduce the universal potentiality of Chaos to a distinct act, which was the opening of the pregnant womb to put forth what was hidden inside. They depicted this extraordinary mode of generation by means of the hand, and not by the usual genital member, in order to demonstrate that the first production or creation of things was not ordinary like the natural generation that is customary and which follows this original creation, but instead it was strange and miraculous, made by a mighty hand. It says that the first thing to emerge from Chaos was Strife, and indeed the first thing that came out was the differentiation of things, which were not yet separated

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within it, and in its deliverance through the hand and power of the father Demogorgon these things were separated. This separation is called ‘Strife’ because it is based on an opposition among the four elements, which are contraries to one another. And the story depicts him with an ugly face, because in effect division and opposition are defects, just as harmony and union constitute perfection. It says that Strife wished to ascend to heaven and that he was cast down to the earth by Demogorgon, because in heaven there is neither discord nor opposition (according to the Peripatetics), and therefore the heavenly bodies are not corruptible, but only the lower ones are, because among them there is opposition, and opposition is the cause of decay. Therefore, his being thrown down from heaven to earth signifies that heaven is the cause of all the lower oppositions, and that heaven is without opposition. SOPHIA: How can it cause them then? PHILO: Because of the contrary effects of the planets, stars, and heavenly signs, and the opposition of the celestial motions, one from east to west, the other from west to east, one northward, the other southward. Moreover, because of the contrary location of the lower bodies in the sphere of the lunar heaven, which are closer to the circumference of heaven, and thus light, and those far from it and closer to the centre, which are heavy. All the other oppositions of the elements depend on this opposition. And this could also signify – for the ancient and Platonic opinion – that the stars and planets are made of fire because of their brightness, and the remainder of the celestial body is made of water because of its diaphanous quality and transparency. Hence, the Hebrew name for the skies is sc’amaym and it is interpreted as exmaim,79 which in Hebrew means ‘fire and water.’80 Accordingly, Strife and Opposition in the first creation rose to heaven because they are made of fire and water, but they did not remain there afterwards; rather, they were cast down from heaven to live continuously on earth, where successive generation happens because of their constant opposition. SOPHIA: It seems strange to me that in heaven there are contrary elements like fire and water. PHILO: If the first matter is common to the lower and to the heavenly things (as it is the opinion of many,81 including Plato), it is not strange that some opposition of elements is found also in the heavens. SOPHIA: Why then does it decay like the lower bodies? PHILO: Plato82 says that the heavens too are in themselves corruptible, but the divine power makes them indissoluble. With this he wants to signify

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the active intellectual forms that shape them; moreover, because these heavenly elements are purer and almost souls83 of the lower elements, they are neither mixed in the heavens as they are in the lower realms, so that fire is only in the those that are bright and water in those that are transparent, and consequently, even though at the beginning of the generation from Chaos’s womb Strife wanted to ascend to heaven, it was nevertheless thrown into the lower world, where it now dwells. The fable continues telling that even though Chaos was exhausted – sweating and fiery sighs during the delivery of Strife – the hand of Demogorgon persisted and brought forth from its womb Pan with his three sisters, the Fates. For this it is meant that those spasms after the birth of Strife are the nature of the four opposite elements. The soreness is the earth, which is the heaviest, the sweat is the water, and fiery sighs are the air and the fire. The divine power produced from Chaos the second son as cause and solution of the exhaustion of these opposite elements. Pan, which in Greek signifies ‘all,’ is the universal nature that orders all the things produced from Chaos and which placates opposites harmonizing them together. Therefore, Pan was born after Strife, because harmony comes after and follows discord. There were also produced with him three sisters: the Fates, named Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos, whom Seneca calls Fates.84 They signify the three orders of temporal things: the present, future, and past. It is said that God made them to be the servants of the universal nature, because Clotho is interpreted as the development of present things, and she is the fate who winds the thread that now is spun; Lachesis is interpreted as protraction (that is, the production of the future), and she is the fate who stretches the thread that remains to be spun on the distaff; Atropos is interpreted as ‘without return’ (that is, the past that cannot return anymore), and she is the fate who spun the thread already collected on the spindle. They are named Parcae (Fates) because of their opposition, since they spare no one. It said of Pan that he was enthroned by order of Demogorgon, because nature administers the divine order and governance of all things. Then the generation of Demogorgon follows with a sixth son, named Pole,85 the last sphere that turns between the two poles, Arctic and Antarctic; a seventh child is named Phaeton,86 who is the Sun, and an eighth one, female, is named the Earth, which is at the centre of the world.87 They say that Earth gave birth to Night,88 because Earth’s shadow causes the night. Furthermore the night is understood as the decay and absence of the forms of light, and night is derived from the tenebrous matter. They say that Fame89 was the second daughter of Earth, because the earth conserves the fame of the mortals after they are buried in her. They said that her third son was Tartarus,90 who is Hades, because all

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the generated bodies return to the lower womb of Earth. They say that Earth gave birth to all these children and others without a father, and consequently these are defective and lacking in being, and they depend on gross matter and not on form. The last son of Demogorgon was Erebus,91 which means inherence,92 the inherent potentiality in all lower things. This is the matter of the things subject to generation in the lower world. It is the cause of the generation and corruption and each variation and mutation of the lower bodies, and in the human being (who is named ‘little world’)93 it is the appetite and the desire to acquire all new things. From this the poets say that Erebus generated many sons: Love, Grace, Fatigue, Envy, Fear, Cunning, Deceit, Perseverance, Want, Misery, Famine, Lamentation, Disease, Old Age, Languor, Darkness, Sleep, Death, Charon, Day, and Ether. SOPHIA: Who was the mother of so many children? PHILO: Night, the daughter of Earth, from whom Erebus was born and all these children. SOPHIA: Why do they attribute all these children to Erebus and Night? PHILO: Because they all come from inherent potentiality and from nocturnal privation, both in the greater lower world and in the small human one. SOPHIA: Tell me how. PHILO: Love, which is desire, is generated by inherent potentiality and by privation, because matter (as the Philosopher says) desires all the forms from which matter is excluded.94 Grace95 belongs to the desired or loved thing, and this already pre-exists in the desiring mind, or rather in the potentiality of inclination. Fatigue represents the worries and labours of the desiring one to reach the object of desire. Envy is what the desiring one has towards whoever possesses. Fear is what is felt about losing what is acquired, because any acquisition can be lost, or what is desired risks not being acquired. Cunning and deceit are means of acquiring desired things; perseverance is used to seek them, whereas want, misery, and famine are privations from desired objects. Lamentation is complaint at not being able to obtain what is desired or at the loss of what was acquired. Disease, old age, and pallor are dispositions of the loss and decay of what had been gained by will or power of generation. Darkness and sleep are the first of the losses, and the ultimate decay is death. Charon is the oblivion that follows the decay and loss of what had been acquired. Day is the lucid form that the inherent potentiality of matter can achieve, and this is the human intellect. In man this is lucid virtue and wisdom, towards which the will of

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the perfect and its desire are directed. Ether is the heavenly spirit of the intellect, which is the one that can participate in the potency of matter and the human will. And these two children of Erebus, Day96 and Ether, may also signify the two natures of Heaven; the brightness of the stars and planets – named Day – and the diaphanous quality of the sphere – named Ether. SOPHIA: What do these heavenly natures have in common with Erebus, who is the matter of things that are born and perish; and how can they be Erebus’s children? PHILO: Because many of the ancients (including Plato) affirmed that these characters of Heaven are composed of the matter of lower bodies, so they become the most excellent sons of Erebus. SOPHIA: What you have summed up for me about the progeny of Demogorgon is enough. The only thing left is for me to understand the things pertaining to love, such as the love of Pan, second son of Demogorgon, for the nymph Syrinx.97 PHILO: The poets fictionalize the god Pan with two horns on his head pointing towards the sky, a fiery face, and a long beard that hangs down to his breast. He has in his hand a rod and a pipe of seven reeds and wears a spotted fur. He has short, rough, and graceless extremities, ending with goat’s feet. They say that Pan, having entered into a contest with Cupid, and being bested by him, was compelled to love Syrinx, a virgin nymph of Arcadia, and she, whom he was pursuing and who was always fleeing him, was barred by the river Ladon. She begged help from the other nymphs and was changed into a tuft of marsh reeds. When Pan, who was following her, heard the sound made by the wind as it shook those reeds, he discerned such sweet music that his delight in the sound and his love for the nymph moved him to pluck seven of them. He joined them together with wax, and he made the Pan flute, a gracious instrument to play. SOPHIA: I would like to know if the poets signified some allegory in this. PHILO: In part there is the historical sense. A rustic man, Silvanus of Arcadia, having fallen in love, devoted himself to music and invented the pipe with the seven reeds joined together by wax. No doubt! It also contains another, more elevated and allegorical meaning. Pan, which in Greek means ‘all,’ represents universal nature, which governs all worldly things. The two horns on his head extending to the heavens are the two poles of heaven, the Arctic and Antarctic. The spotted fur that he wears is the eighth sphere of stars that is in the heavens. The fiery face is the sun with the other planets,

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seven in all, just as there are seven organs in the face. The two eyes, two ears, two nostrils, and a mouth (as we explained before) represent the seven planets; his hair and long beard down to his breast are the rays of the sun, other planets, and stars, which hang down into the lower world in order to make every generation and fusion. His short rough limbs are the elements and the lower bodies, full of coarseness and roughness in comparison to the heavenly ones. In between these extremities his feet are goat’s feet, because goat’s feet never walk straight but leap and caper irregularly. Such are the feet of the lower world and its motions that change from one essence into another, in no particular order, from which coarseness and irregularities the heavenly bodies are exempt. This is the meaning of the figure of Pan. SOPHIA: I like it, but tell me the meaning of his love for Syrinx also, which concerns our purpose more. PHILO: They also say that this universal nature, so great, powerful, excellent, and wonderful, cannot be without love. Therefore he loved the pure virgin, for she was uncorrupted, which is like the stable and incorruptible order of the things of the world, because nature loves the best and the most perfect. As he pursued her, she fled, because the lower world is entirely unstable and constantly in disorderly change, like the goat-footed one. The virgin’s flight was blocked by the river Ladon, which is heaven, which rolls continuously like a river and retains the uncorrupted fugitive stability of the generable bodies of the lower world. Although heaven is not free of a constant instability because of its constant local motion, this instability is regular and eternal, like a virgin without corruption, and its deformities have a regular and harmonious concord (the music or melody of heaven, about which we spoke earlier). These are the reeds of the river grass into which Syrinx was changed. In these reeds the spirit produced melodious sound and harmony, because the intellectual spirit that moves heaven causes its consonant musical correspondence. Of these reeds Pan took seven to form the flute, and this refers to the choir of the spheres of the seven planets and their wonderful melodious harmony. For this reason they say that Pan carries the rod and the pipes that he always plays. This is because Nature constantly makes use of the regular motions of the seven planets to produce the changes of the lower world. See, Sophia, how concisely I told you the content of the love of Pan for Syrinx.98 SOPHIA: I liked hearing of Pan’s falling in love with Syrinx. Now I would like to know of the generation, marriages, adulteries, and loves of the other celestial gods, and their respective allegories.

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PHILO: I will tell you about those things only briefly, because telling you about all of them would be too long and tedious. The origin of heavenly gods is Demogorgon, and his two grandchildren, the children of Erebus or, by some others’ account, his own children, and these are Ether and Day, his sister and wife. They say that Caelus,99 or Heaven, was born of these two. Among the pagans his name was Uranus, father of Saturn, because he was so excellent in virtue and so deep in intelligence that he seemed heavenly and deserving to be the son of Ether and Day, for he participated in the ethereal spirituality with his mind, and in the divine light with his virtue. The allegorical meaning of this is evident, because Heaven – which surrounds, hides, and covers all things – is the son of Ether and Day, yet Heaven is a compound of ethereal nature in its subtle and spiritual diaphanous quality, and of divine lucid nature because of the luminous stars Heaven has. Ether is named father because he is the main part of the heavens, both because of his extent, which embraces all the spheres, and moreover (according to Plotinus, echoing Plato)100 because he permeates the whole universe, which he maintains is full of ethereal spirit. Whereas the luminous bodies are only particular members of the heavens, just as woman is only a part of the whole that is man. And, finally, because Ether is a more subtle and spiritual body than the luminous bodies of the stars and planets. Thus, Aristotle101 says that the stars, being larger and denser than the rest of the heavens, are able to receive and retain light in themselves, which is impossible for the planets because of their transparent subtlety. Plotinus thinks that Ether is so subtle that it is able to permeate all the bodies of the universe, the upper as well as the lower, and stays with them in their location without increasing their volume. For it is an interior spirit, sustaining all bodies without increasing their natural corporeity; thus, Ether has the property of a spiritual husband, and Day has that of being a material mother. Heaven is produced and compounded of these two natures.102 SOPHIA: And who was born of Heaven? PHILO: Saturn. SOPHIA: And who was Saturn’s mother? PHILO: Saturn, king of Crete, was the son of Uranus and Vesta. Because Uranus was named ‘Heaven’ because of his excellence, Vesta, his wife, was named ‘Earth,’ because of her faculties in generating so many children, and even more because of Saturn, who was inclined to terrestrial things and was inventor of many devices useful to agriculture. Moreover, Saturn was of a slow and melancholic disposition, in the same way as the Earth is; and

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allegorically Earth (as I told you) is the wife of Heaven in the generation of all the things of the lower world.103 SOPHIA: How could Saturn, who is a planet, be the son of Earth? PHILO: First he is the son of Heaven, because he is the first planet and the nearest to the starry heaven, which in an absolute way is called ‘heaven’ and as father he embraces all the planets. But Saturn has many affinities with the Earth. The first is his leaden colour that verges on the earthy, and then because among all the wandering planets Saturn is the slowest in his course, just as the earth is the heaviest amongst all the elements. Saturn takes thirty years to finish his circle in the heavens, and Jupiter, who is the slowest of the others, twelve years; and Mars two years, and the Sun, Venus, and Mercury one year, and the Moon one month. Besides this, Saturn resembles earth in the disposition that he influences, which is cold and dry, and the men in whom he is dominant he makes like himself: melancholic, mournful, ponderous, slow, and earthy of hue, with a bent for agriculture, buildings, and works of the earth, all of which this planet rules. He is pictured as old, sad, ugly, meditative, poorly dressed, with a scythe in his hand. Indeed, this renders the men who are ruled by him like him, and the scythe is a tool of agriculture, to which he makes them inclined. Besides this, he gives great intelligence, deep meditation, true science, just counsel, and constancy of spirit, because of the nature of the mixture of the heavenly father and the terrestrial mother. Ultimately, from the father he receives the divinity of the soul, and from the mother the ugliness and the decay of the body. Because of this he signifies poverty, death, burial, and those things that are hidden beneath the earth, without a bodily garb or adornment. Thus, they created the fiction that Saturn devoured all his sons, but not his daughters; indeed he destroys all individuals, but preserves the roots of the earth, their mothers. So he is rightly called son of Heaven and Earth.104 SOPHIA: Who was Saturn’s son? PHILO: The poets attribute to Saturn many sons and daughters, such as Chronos, whose name means ‘determinate time’ or, better yet, temporal circuit, since he represents the year, which is the time of the sun’s course. So they say he is Saturn’s son, and the cycle of Saturn is in fact the longest temporal cycle that a man may observe in his life, and indeed the most protracted, which (as I said) occupies thirty years. For those of the other planets occupy a shorter time.

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SOPHIA: Who was Saturn’s wife, the mother of Chronos? PHILO: His wife, the mother of Chronos and his other children, was Opis, his own sister, daughter of his father, Heaven, and his mother, Earth. SOPHIA: Do they mean any other thing when they refer to Opis, who is the real wife of Saturn, the king of Crete? PHILO: The allegory is that Opis105 means ‘work’ and represents the working of the land, whether in the guise of agriculture or the building of cities and habitations. She is rightly both sister and wife to Saturn. She is sister by being daughter of Heaven, the main cause of the agriculture of the earth and the terrestrial inhabitation, so that Opis’s parents (or rather those who generated her) are the same as those of Saturn, Heaven and Earth. She is his wife, because Saturn produces the buildings and agriculture as agent, whereas Opis is the passive and material receptacle. SOPHIA: And what other children did Saturn have by Opis? PHILO: Pluto, which means the centre of the earth, called ‘inferno,’ and Neptune, which means the abyss of the sea, because Saturn has his dominion in both of these realms. And the poets give him other children. But, to return to the heavenly things that are our subject, I tell you that Jupiter106 was a son of Saturn. Jupiter is the planet next to Saturn. In the heavenly order the planet Jupiter follows Saturn, just as Jupiter, king of Crete, succeeded his father Saturn; and this Jupiter received the name of that good and benevolent planet because of his benign and noble virtues, as it was for his father because of his aforementioned similarities. These two kings participating in the nature of those two planets were given their names, as if those heavenly ones had descended to earth and become men. They also resembled those two planets in the things that separately and jointly occurred to them. SOPHIA: You have already told me about Saturn. Now tell me about Jupiter, and the allegory of what occurred to him in relation to his father Saturn, and his own concerns. PHILO: About which events do you want me to speak? SOPHIA: About how it is said that when Jupiter was born he was hidden from his father Saturn, who was killing all his children. PHILO: The allegorical meaning is that Saturn destroys all the beautiful and excellent things that reach the lower world from the other planets, especially

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those that come from Jupiter, which are the highest and most glorious things, like justice, liberality, magnificence, religion, elegance, splendour, beauty, love, grace, goodness, freedom, prosperity, wealth, pleasure, and other similar things. Saturn ruins and destroys all these things. Those who were born under greater influence of Saturn than Jupiter have these gifts nullified in them and these excellent things destroyed, or at least obscured, as happened to Jupiter of Crete, who, since he was a weak child, was hidden from the malevolence of his father Saturn, who wanted to kill him because of his power over him. SOPHIA: And what is the allegory they tell about Saturn being prisoner of the Titans, and his son Jupiter setting him free with his strength? PHILO: They mean that, if Jupiter is very strong at someone’s birth, or at the beginning of any building or habitation or great work, and if it appears in a favourable dominant aspect, Saturn sets free those born under this sign from any disaster, misery, and captivity and suppresses all misfortune. SOPHIA: And when they say that Jupiter, after having set Saturn free, deprived him of his kingdom and relegated him to hell, what does it mean? PHILO: The story goes that Jupiter, after freeing his father from the prison of the Titans, deprived him of his kingdom and forced him to flee to Italy; here he reigned together with Janus,107 and founded a land where Rome is now, and he died in confinement. The poets name Italy ‘inferno,’ both because it was at that time lower than Crete, so that that king deemed it a hell in comparison with his own kingdom, and because Italy is in fact lower to or lower than Greece because it is located more to the west, and in fact the east is higher than the west. But the allegory is that, because Jupiter is more powerful than Saturn with respect to any person or deed, he deprived Saturn of his dominance over such individuals and made him lower in influence. And it also means, universally, that because Saturn reigned first in the world of generation, restraining seeds within the earth and congealing the semen of animals at the beginning of the conception, when it is the season for the things born to grow and acquire grace, it is Jupiter who rules and presides over them, and, in depriving his father Saturn of his sovereignty, he relegates him to hell, which is one of those dark places where the seeds of things at the beginning of generation are hidden, over which Saturn has his dominium. SOPHIA: These allegories of the events between Saturn and Jupiter sound interesting to me. And because they have a subtle meaning, so much more

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interesting will be the things told about Jupiter’s virtue, victory, justice, liberality, and pity. PHILO: He is described so because they tell that he instructed people in how to live well, forbidding many of the vices they had. People would eat human flesh and sacrifice it, and he delivered them from that inhuman custom. This means that the heavenly Jupiter with his benevolence forbids all cruelty to human beings and makes them merciful, and prolongs and preserves their lives, guarding them from death. Consequently, Jupiter in Greek is called Zeus, which means life. They say that he gave law and religion and founded temples, because the planet Jupiter confers such things to human beings, making them law-abiding, temperate, and observant of the divine cult. They say that he conquered most of the world, which he divided among his brothers, sons, and relatives, and for himself he kept only Mount Olympus, where he made his residence. And human beings used to go there to request his righteous judgments, and he granted justice to all the oppressed. This signifies that the planet Jupiter gives victories, wealth, and possessions in abundant measure to jovial men,108 and that he has a pure and limpid nature, alien to all greed and ugliness, and that he renders men righteous, lovers of virtue and upright judgments. Because of this in Hebrew he is named Tsedeq,109 which means ‘justice.’110 SOPHIA: I like all these jovial allegories. But what will you tell, Philo, of his loves; not only his marriage with Juno, but also in adultery, since they are more aligned to our purpose? PHILO: The meaning of the story is that Jupiter has as wife his sister Juno, daughter of Saturn and Opis, who was born of the same birth, but before him. The allegorical meaning for some is that Juno represents earth and water, Jupiter air and fire; others suppose Juno to be air and Jupiter fire, between which there seems to be brotherhood and union; still others suppose her to be the moon. Each of them adapts the fable of Juno to his own opinion. SOPHIA: And you, Philo, what do you understand by Juno? PHILO: I understand the power that governs the lower world and all the elements, and especially the air, which is what surrounds and encompasses the water and penetrates earth throughout. Because the element of fire was neither known nor acknowledged by the ancients, who rather held that the air was continuous and close to the lunar heaven, although the first part is the hottest, because of the nearness of these two heavens, and because of their

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continual motion. Consequently (thanks to the universality of air in the whole sphere that is more pertinent to Juno) she is the power that rules the whole world of the heavenly bodies. But this power is attributed to the planet Jupiter because he is the most benign, excellent, and the highest after Saturn, his father, the intellect that creates the celestial soul, and Opis his mother, who is the centre of the earth and the prime matter. Jupiter remains midway in the heavens, because he is the principle and father of the other planets and between Heaven and his sister Juno, who comprises all that lies between earth and the heavens; and because they are contiguous, they are called brother and sister, and it is said that they were born at the same birth in order to denote that the celestial and the elemental worlds were brought into being together by intellect as father and matter as mother (as Anaxagoras111 says). It is consistent with Holy Scripture regarding the production, or rather the creation, of the world, when it says that God created heaven and earth from a single source and seed of things.112 They say that Juno emissed first from her mother’s womb, because they assumed that the formation of the whole universe began from the centre and progressed outward till it reached the remotest circumference of heaven, like a tree growing up to its top. This is consistent with what the Psalmist says: ‘The day when God created earth and heaven, he placed lower, corporeal, things before the higher in the order of creation.’113 And they are called to be joined in marriage because (as I told you before) Heaven is the true husband of the elemental world, which is his true wife, the one active, the other passive. And she is named Juno because she gives help, almost like the etymology of Jupiter,114 because both of them are good for the generation of things, one as father and the other as mother. Juno, however, is said to be the goddess of marriage and the midwife of women in childbirth, because she is the governing virtue of the world, and of the union of the elements and the generation of things.115 SOPHIA: It is enough for me. Now tell me about their offspring, about Hebe, female, and Mars, male. PHILO: Their fictions say that because Apollo was in the house of his father Jupiter, he gave his stepmother, Juno, some bitter lettuce together with other things to eat. Thus she, who previously was sterile, suddenly became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter named Hebe, who, because of her beauty was proclaimed goddess of youth, and married Hercules.116 SOPHIA: What is the allegory? PHILO: Because the sun – named Apollo – was in the house of his father Jupiter, meaning it was posited in Sagittarius – the first mansion of Jupiter –

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and from there until Pisces – second sign of Jupiter in the Zodiac (with the span of time that goes from mid-November to mid-March), Juno, who is the elemental world, became pregnant due to the great cold and humidity of these months. This is the meaning when it is said that Apollo gave her bitter lettuce to eat, because that lettuce is very cold and wet, and these two qualities render the earth pregnant, when the earth was sterile from the past autumn, and the roots of the seeds of the things began to assume the power of germination, which is true conception. Thus, the earth gives birth during spring, which comes when the sun passes from Pisces to Aries. Because everything is rejuvenated and every plant is then in flower, Hebe is called goddess of youth. Indeed, Hebe is the germinating virtue of spring, which is born from the heavenly Jupiter and the terrestrial and elemental Juno through the intervention of the sun. And they said that she married Hercules. Therefore, men who are eminent and famous for virtue are named ‘Hercules,’ and the fame of such men is ever young; it never dies or grows old.117 SOPHIA: I now understand about Hebe; tell me about Mars, their son. PHILO: Mars, as you know, is a hot planet and produces heat in the lower world. This heat, uniting with the moisture represented by Hebe, causes the generation of this lower world, which is represented by Juno. Thus, with heavenly Jupiter Juno gave birth to this daughter and this son through whom all the lower generations happen. They also say that since Hebe stands for universal generation of the world, Mars, who is fiery and destructive, stands for dissolution, which is caused mainly by the great heat of summer that dries up all moisture. So these two children of Jupiter and Juno are both the generation and destruction of things, through which the lower world perpetuates itself. Because corruption derives from a heavenly principle only accidentally, due to the fact that its own work and intention is generation, they say that Juno gave birth to Mars afterwards by percussion of the vulva, because dissolution comes from the defect and violation of matter, not from the intention of the agent.118 SOPHIA: I like this allegorical meaning about the marriage and legitimate offspring of Juno and Jupiter. I would like to know something about the loves and extraordinary generations, such as Latona, Alcmene, and others. PHILO: They say that Jupiter fell in love with the virgin Latona and made her pregnant. Juno suffered greatly from this, and she not only incited all the parts of the earth against her, so that none would safeguard her, but also had her pursued by Python, an enormous serpent, who chased her from

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place to place. So, while fleeing, she went to the island of Delos, where she found shelter, and here she gave birth to Diana and Apollo.119 Diana came forth first and assisted her mother, taking the role of midwife, at the birth of Apollo, who, once born, with his bow and arrows killed the aforementioned serpent Python. SOPHIA: Tell me the allegorical meaning of all this. PHILO: It means that at the time of the Flood, and shortly thereafter, the air was so dense from the vapour of the water that covered the earth – because of the extreme and constant rain that occurred during the flood. At that time no light of sun or moon appeared in the world, since their rays could not penetrate the density of the air. Hence, the story says that Latona (who is the circumference of the heavens where the Milky Way is) was pregnant by Jupiter, her lover. And, because she wanted to give birth to the lunar and solar light in the universe after the Flood, Juno (who is the air, water, and earth) was so offended by her jealousy at this pregnancy that she prevented Latona’s delivery and the apparition of the sun and moon in the world by her condensation of the vapours. In this way she ensured that no region of earth could receive or have sight of her. After this, the serpent Python (who represents the great amount of moisture that remained after the Flood) persecuted her with the continual ascent of vapours, which condensed the air and prevented the rays of the moon or the sun from being born. And the fable names the extra moisture ‘serpent,’ because it caused the destruction of the earth’s plants and animals. Finally, on the island of Delos (where the air was first purified by the dryness of the sea’s salinity), Latona gave birth to Diana and Apollo, because the Greeks believed that the first place where the moon and the sun appeared after the Flood was the island of Delos.120 It is said that Diana was born first, because first the moon appeared at night, and then Apollo was born, and appeared during the following day. Thus, the appearance of the moon prepared that of the sun, as though the moon were a midwife to her mother at the birth of her brother. Once Apollo was born, they say that he killed Python the serpent with his bow and arrows. This means that the sun, when it appeared, used his rays to dry up the moisture that was preventing the generation of animals and plants. SOPHIA: What does Apollo’s bow mean? PHILO: I could tell you that it is the circumference of the sun’s body, from which the rays issue like arrows, and this is because arrows presuppose an arc. But in effect Apollo’s bow has another and more peculiar attribute, which I will explain to you when we discuss his loves. And I could tell you

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about another more ancient, learned, and wiser allegory of the birth of Diana and Apollo. SOPHIA: Tell me, please. PHILO: It refers to their fashioning at the creation of the world, in general agreement with the Holy Scripture of Moses. SOPHIA: How so? PHILO: Moses writes that, when God was creating the higher, heavenly, world and the lower, terrestrial, world (the terrestrial world with all the elements was confused and made into a dark and gloomy abyss), and breathed His divine spirit upon the waters of the abyss, He produced light. This was the first night and the first day.121 This is what the fable of Latona’s delivery means. She is the heavenly substance, with whom Jupiter (the most high Creator of all things) was in love. He impregnated her with the luminous bodies, mainly the sun and the moon, because Juno (the sphere of the elements in a state of confusion) resisted, the luminous bodies could not penetrate her, but instead they were repulsed from every part of the sphere. Besides this, the abyss of water (the serpent Python) prevented the heavens from giving birth to the light of the sun and moon on earth. Finally, on the island of Delos (the dry land, which initially was not large, like an island amid the waters) they first appeared. In fact, because the waters receded, the air there was not so dense. Hence, the Holy Scriptures tell that, after the creation of the first day, night and day were created, the ethereal firmament was put forth on the second day, and it came about from the separation of the air, water, and earth. Then, on the third day, the earth was dried, and this was the principle of the production of plants; and on the fourth day the sun and the moon appeared above the drained earth, which is figured by Latona’s delivery on the island of Delos. This delivery is interpreted as their conception on the first day, and birth and apparition on the fourth, during the six days of Creation. They say that Diana came out first and was midwife at the nativity of Apollo, because night in that creation preceded the day, and the rays of the moon began to prepare the air to receive those of the sun. Apollo killed Python, who is the abyss, because the sun with its rays gradually drained and progressively uncovered the earth, purifying the air and absorbing the water and evaporating the undigested moisture of the abyss left all over the globe, which prevented the creation of animals, even though it did not preclude that of plants, because they are more moist. Hence, on the fifth day of Creation, which was the one following the apparition of the luminaries, the aerial and aquatic animals were created, and

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these were less perfect. On the sixth and last day of the creation the human being was formed as the most perfect of all the lower beings, at the moment in which the sun and the heavens had already disposed so many elements and tempered their combination that it was possible to make from them an animal in whom the spiritual was melded with the corporeal, and the divine with the terrestrial and the eternal with the corruptible in one wondrous composite.122 SOPHIA: I very much like this allegory and its conformity with the creation narrated in the Holy Scripture of Moses, and the continuation of the work throughout six consecutive days. It is truly admirable that it is possible to conceal such great and lofty things beneath the veil of Jupiter’s carnal loves.123 Tell me also if love for Alcmene has any meaning. PHILO: The fiction is that Jupiter fell in love with Alcmene124 and consummated his love for her in the form of her husband Amphitryon, and Hercules was born from her. You know that among the Greeks Hercules means ‘very decorous man who is excellent in virtue,’ and such men are normally born from well-complexioned, beautiful, and good women, as was Alcmene. She was an honest and generous125 lover of her husband; and it is with such women that Jupiter normally falls in love, and he transfers to them his jovial virtues, so that they conceive mainly under Jupiter. Her husband is almost the instrument of conception, and this means that Jupiter consummated his love for her in the form of Amphitryon, her husband, but that were it not for the virtue and influence of Jupiter, Amphitryon’s seed would not have been decorous enough to generate the virtue of Hercules, whose divine virtues derive from Jupiter. So he was truly son of Jupiter and figuratively, or instrumentally, son of Amphitryon.126 The same is to be understood of all eminent men who may also be named Hercules,127 like the most famous son of Alcmene. SOPHIA: Jupiter also fell in love with others, and he had other sons from them. Tell me something about them. PHILO: Many loves are applied to Jupiter, and the reason for this is that the planet Jupiter has a friendly nature, and inclines those who are born under his influence to friendship and love. Since his love is honest, and those who are born under his influence (whom the poets call his sons) have some relationship with the other planets, he makes them lovers of honest things, which are melded to the nature of that planet and have those things in common. Hence, sometimes he imparts a clear, pure, bright, open, and sweet love that is proper to his own jovial nature. Thus, they imagine him to have

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loved Leda128 and to have consummated his love for her in the form of a swan, because swans are white, clear, and sing sweetly. For this reason Leda embraced him, and she was embraced by him, and gave birth to Castor and Pollux129 at the same time, and they were named Jupiter’s offspring because they were excellent in virtue. So too Helen, because of her bright swan-like beauty, and the two brothers were transformed into the sign of Gemini, because the house of Mercury confers sweet eloquence, which is represented by the sweet song of the swan, and this indicates that purity of soul together with sweetness of speech are potent in causing love and friendship. At other times Jupiter imparts his honest love in a way that is not so clear and manifest, but clouded, intimate, and concealed, and because of this they say that he loved the daughter of Inachus,130 whom he possessed in the form of a cloud. And if Jupiter has intercourse with Venus, he orders love in a pleasurable direction. Thus, they maintain that he loved and possessed Europa131 in the form of a beautiful bull, because the sign of Taurus is in the house of Venus. When he has relations with Mercury, he confers a love tending towards the useful, because Mercury procures wealth. Thus, they said that he loved and enjoyed Danae in the form of a golden rain,132 because the liberal distribution of wealth makes a man beloved by the needy, who receive it like a golden rain. Because he is in conjunction with the sun, he gives love of state, dominion, and the heights of greatness; and they signify this by the tale of his love for and union with Asteria133 in the form of an eagle. When he is in conjunction with the moon, he creates a tender, fond love like that of the mother or a wet nurse for a baby; hence, they say that he loved and conquered Semele,134 daughter of Cadmus, in the shape of Beroe, her wet nurse. When he is under the aspect of Mars, he creates a hot, fiery, burning love; so they say that he loved and won Aegina135 in the form of lightning. When he is combined with Saturn he creates a mixed love, which is honest and ugly, and in part humanly rational, in part disdainful and bad; hence, they create the fiction that he loved and obtained Antiope as a satyr, who has the upper parts of a man and the lower parts of a goat, because the sign of Capricorn is the house of Saturn. Moreover, if Jupiter is in a feminine sign, he gives a feminine love, and because of this they say that he loved and obtained Callisto in the form of a female.136 If he is in a masculine sign, especially in the house of Saturn, and so in Aquarius, he gives a masculine love, so they depict that he loved the boy Ganymede, whom he changed into Aquarius, the sign of Saturn. And I could still tell you more allegories about all these loves, and others, of Jupiter, but I leave them out, because they are not very important, and also to avoid wordiness. It is enough for you to know that all his loves denote types

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of love and friendship that depend on Jupiter’s influence on those that are influenced by him because of their birth. This influence is sometimes imparted by him alone, sometimes together with various other heavenly signs, and this explains the great number of his different children and the stories of those who participate in Jupiter’s virtues in a different way, and the different ways of this participation. SOPHIA: We have discussed Jupiter’s loves a good deal. Tell me about that famous love of Mars, his son, for Venus. PHILO: You already learned above about the birth of Mars through the percussion of Juno’s vulva. This means that the planet Mars is very hot, pungent, and stimulating towards the generation of the lower world, called Juno, and he is Jupiter’s son because he is the planet that is next to and below him. The planet Venus, according to the ancients, is in the middle, then after Mars, then Mercury, then the Sun and then the Moon. Most modern astrologers, however, place the sun between Mars and Venus.137 Concerning Venus the poets tell different fictions. Sometimes they call her ‘Great,’ attributing the most excellent things of nature to her, declaring her the daughter of Caelus (her father) and Day (her mother).138 They give her Caelus for father because Venus is one of the seven heavenly planets, and Day for mother because she is very bright, and, as the morning star, Venus anticipates the day and, as the evening star, Venus prolongs it. They say that she gave birth to the twin loves and the three sisters called the Graces. This signifies that love among the lower things proceeds from the two benign parents named ‘Fortunes’: from Jupiter – the ‘greater fortune’ – and Venus, the ‘lesser fortune.’139 Jupiter is father because of his superiority and masculine excellence, and Venus is mother because she is lesser, lower, and feminine. Again Jupiter’s love is honest, perfect, and masculine; that of Venus is pleasurable, carnal, imperfect, and feminine. From these assumptions they depict this love born of both as a twin,140 a compound of the honest and the pleasurable, and also because true love must be twofold and reciprocal in both lovers. Hence, they generated the Graces together, because love is never without grace on both sides. They say that Venus, entering the house of Mars, caused anger there. This means that when Venus is found in the birth of any one of the signs that are the houses of Mars in Heaven, which are Aries or Scorpio, she produces furious lovers and ardent love because of the heat of Mars. So it is when Venus is under the aspect of Mars and they depict her girdled with a basket, when she makes espousals and marriages, to denote the strong link and indissoluble bond that Venus makes between those who are joined in love. They apply to her certain animals – doves –

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because they are devoted to amorous communion; and among the plants the myrtle, both for its sweet scent and because it is always blooming, just as love is, and also because the myrtle’s leaves grow two by two, just as love is ever twofold and mutual. Moreover, the fruit of the myrtle is black, signifying that love gives a melancholic and anguished fruit. Among flowers, they assign her roses, for their beauty and agreeable scent, and also because they are surrounded by sharp thorns, as love is surrounded by passions, sorrows, and harsh torments. SOPHIA: Is it the same Venus who is pictured on the sea, naked, on a floating shell? PHILO: In fact, there was only one human Venus, daughter of Jupiter and Dione, and they created the fiction that she married Vulcan, when in fact she was married to Adonis; and others believe that she really married Vulcan first and later Adonis. She was Queen of Cyprus,141 and so devoted to sensual love that, setting herself as example, she legalized the prostitution of women. Because of her great beauty and splendid features she was named Venus, because she was like the brightness of that planet, since it was considered that the heavenly one might have influenced her, and not only in her great beauty, but also her burning wantonness, since it is her nature to cause pleasurable life and sexual generation in the lower world. Hence, Venus of Cyprus was first worshipped as a goddess and endowed with temples. But under this guise the poets said many fictitious things that are the simulacrum of the natural complexion of heavenly Venus. And her eminent virtues are indicated by the title ‘Great Venus, daughter of Caelus and Day,’ as I have already told you; but the poets demonstrate her incitement to carnal wantonness by telling another tale of her birth. They say that Saturn cut off the testicles of his father, Caelus, with his scythe. And others say that Jupiter was that one who castrated his father Saturn with his own scythe and he threw [the testicles] into the sea; from their blood, joined with the foam of the sea, Venus was born; and therefore they depict her naked on a shell on the sea. SOPHIA: What is the allegory of her strange origin? PHILO: The testicles of Caelus are the generative virtue, derived from heaven in the lower world, and of this Venus is the proper instrument, because she is the one who rightly gives appetite and generative virtue to animals. Saturn cut them off with a scythe, and Saturn’s name in Greek is ‘Chronos,’ which means ‘time,’ the cause of generation in this lower world, because its temporal things are not eternal and they necessarily have an origin and are

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generated. Moreover, time destroys the things subject to it, and each corruptible being must be generated. Thus, through Venus, time, symbolized by Saturn, brought generation from heaven to the lower world, whose name is ‘sea’ because of its continual changes from one form into another through ceaseless generation and decay. This is represented by the castration with a scythe, because through destruction the generation of this world is possible. Also, the proper nature of Saturn is to destroy, just as that of Venus is to generate, because this is the cause of birth, and the other the cause of the death. For if things were not destroyed, there would be no generation. And therefore they say that Saturn with his scythe, which dissolves and destroys all things, cut off the genitals of his father, Caelus, and threw them into the sea of the world, and out of them Venus was generated, and she gives to the lower world generative virtue, melded with the potential for corruption because of Caelus’s severed testicles. Those who say that the testicles belonged to Saturn, from which Venus was born, indicate that Saturn prevents generation. Thus, Jupiter cut off his testicles; this is why he remained incapable of generation, but the generative tools that Saturn was missing then shaped Venus, who is the complete cause of generation. Also they mean to say that Saturn is the planet that first, after coition, causes conception, since it causes the semen to congeal and because of this it rules over the first month of pregnancy; but straightway Jupiter takes to Saturn’s dominion over conception, shaping the creature in the second month, over which Jupiter itself rules. This means to signify the cutting off of the testicles of the father Saturn, who is first over conception. It is said that from those testicles Venus was born, because she is fundamental to generation; and even more so because the planet Venus rules in the fifth month and makes all the formation and beauty of the creature perfect. Hence, they say that she was generated by the blood of the testicles and by the foam of the sea, and this means that the animal is generated by the sperm of the male, which is the blood of the testicles, and of the light sperm of the woman, which is similar to the foam, or it could be seen for the foam, the seed of the man, which is similarly white, and for the blood that of the woman, which nourishes the creature. They depict her nude, because it is not possible to cover love, and also because she is carnal love and because lovers find themselves naked. She swims in the sea, because generative love extends throughout this world, which changes continually like the sea; and also because love makes lovers restless, uncertain, inconstant, and tempestuous as the sea.142 SOPHIA: I have now understood much about the origin and the birth of Venus. It is time for me to hear of her falling in love with Mars.

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PHILO: They say that Venus was married to Vulcan, and because he was lame, she fell in love with Mars, who was active and showed prowess with arms. While she was secretly consummating her love with him, she was seen by the Sun, who told Vulcan, who then secretly cast invisible iron nets around the bed where the two were lying, and thus they were caught in their nakedness. Then Vulcan called the gods, specifically Neptune, Mercury, and Apollo, and showed them the naked Mars and Venus who were caught in the iron nets. At this spectacle they covered their face out of shame. But Neptune alone beseeched Vulcan, and for his prayers Mars and Venus were freed.143 Thus, Venus forever hated the Sun and all his offspring, and because of this she drove all his daughters to commit adultery. SOPHIA: What can you say now, Philo, of such wantonness and adultery among the heavenly gods? PHILO: The allegory of this fable is not only scientific, but also useful, because it shows how the excess of carnal wantonness not only injures all the powers and qualities of a man’s body, but also causes defects in the same act with the reduction of the normal act itself. SOPHIA: Explain it to me in detail. PHILO: Venus is the sensual appetite of man, which is derived from Venus and is great and intense in proportion to the efficacy of the influence of Venus on his birth. This Venus is married to Vulcan, who is the god of the lower fire, which in human beings is his natural heat, which limits and puts into act his concupiscence, and as her husband he is always united in that act. They say that this Vulcan is son of Jupiter and Juno, and was cast out of the heavens for being lame, and he was nourished by Thetis, and that he is Jupiter’s blacksmith, and makes all his devices. By this they mean that the natural heat of human beings and animals is the son of Jupiter and Juno, because it has something of heaven mixed with materiality, and, because of the participation of Jupiter and heaven, is subject to the natural, animal, and vital virtues. Due to its mixture with matter, it is not eternal as is the effective heat of the sun and other heavenly bodies, nor always potent, nor yet always identically disposed in the human body. Instead, like a limping man, it grows greater and less, rises and falls with the different ages and temperaments of the human being. The fact that Vulcan was cast out from the heavens for being a cripple means that heat and the other heavenly things are uniform and do not limp like the lower things. They say that Thetis – who is the sea – nourished him, meaning that both in animals and earth the heat is nourished by moisture – which is more intense or weak

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depending on the need. They say that Vulcan is Jupiter’s smith and artificer because he is the minister of as many wondrous jovial works as are found in the body. So because venereal concupiscence is married and united with natural heat, she falls in love with Mars, who is the fervent desire of wantonness, because he gives burning, excessive, and immoderate lust, and therefore they say that he was not born of the seed of Jupiter nor participated in any good of him, but he was born of the percussion of Juno’s vulva, which means the toxicity of the mother’s menstruation (because Mars by his burning incitements makes the matter of Juno prevail over the reason of Jupiter). Thus, concupiscent Venus habitually falls in love with the ardent Mars. Hence, the astrologers posit great friendship between these two planets, saying that Venus tempers all the malice of Mars with its benign aspect, and, because lust abounds when there is the mixture of both, the Sun (which represents clear human reason) reveals and accuses them to Vulcan, showing that because of this excess natural heat will be lacking. So Vulcan sets invisible chains, in which both adulterers find themselves shamefully trapped, because lack of natural heat involves the lack of the power of lust, and thus the excessive desires find themselves bound captives, powerless, stripped of effect, shamed, and penitent. So Vulcan reveals them ashamed to the gods. This signifies the lack of natural heat felt in all human faculties that, because of their virtuous functions, are called divine, and which are, and remain, impaired when natural heat is missing. They specify three gods: Neptune, Mercury, and Apollo, who preside over the faculties of the human body. Neptune is the nutritive soul with the natural virtues and power that come from the liver, caused by abundance of moisture, over which Neptune presides. Mercury is the sensitive soul, which contains perception, movement, and thought, derived from the brain and proper to Mercury. Apollo is the pulsating vital soul, which provides the spirits and natural heat through the arteries, and who has his seat in the heart, because (as I told you before) the heart is to the human body as Apollo is to the world. Thus, excessive lust is followed by damage and shame to the heart and its powers, to the brain and its powers, and to the liver and its powers. None of them is enough to pacify Vulcan, or to cure his injury, except Neptune, who is nutritive power, and can restore the expended natural heat and restore potency to unleash lust through his nourishing moisture. They say that Venus had a great animosity towards the Sun’s offspring and she drove all his daughters to adultery, changing their nature into her own, because love is reason’s enemy and lust is contrary to prudence; not only does love not obey reason, but it perverts and adulterates all its advice and judgments, altering them to its own inclination, which it judges good and its

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ends worthy of achievement, and accordingly pursues them with the greater diligence. SOPHIA: I understand enough about Mars and Venus. And thus the poets must say that from these two lovers Cupid was born.144 PHILO: So it is; because the true Cupid – who represents amorous passion and complete concupiscence – is formed of the wantonness of Venus and the fervour of Mars, and therefore they depict him as a little child, naked, blind, winged and as an archer. They depict him as a little child, because love always grows and is uninhibited, like children. They depict him naked, because he cannot be covered or disguised; blind, because he can see no reason opposed to him, and is blinded by passion. They depict him winged, because of his great speed, since the lover flies with his thoughts and is always with the beloved and lives in her; the arrows are the ones with which he pierces lovers’ hearts, they make narrow, deep, and incurable wounds, produced mostly by the corresponding rays of the lovers’ eyes, which are like arrows. SOPHIA: Tell me more about how Venus gave birth to the Hermaphrodite by Mercury. PHILO: You should know that the poets say that Mercury was born of Caelus and Day, and is a brother to Venus, but others consider him a son of Jupiter and nourished by Juno.145 They proclaim this Mercury god of eloquence, god of the sciences (mainly mathematics, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astrology), god of medicine, god of merchants, god of thieves, messenger of Jupiter, and interpreter of the gods. His emblem is a staff with a snake coiled round it; and on these premises there are many legends related to him. But in effect the planet Mercury influences the qualities of these things according to his position at a man’s birth. So if the planet Mercury is strong there and with a good countenance, it gives eloquence, elegance, sweetness of speech, learning, and talent for mathematical sciences. With Jupiter’s countenance it produces philosophers and theologians, and with a favourable face of Mars, Mercury makes true physicians, and with an unfavourable face of Mars, Mercury makes thieves and bad physicians, especially when they are burnt by the sun (and from this comes the fable that he stole Apollo’s cattle; they also say that he sired the thief Antolomus of Lichio).146 With Venus Mercury produces poets, musicians, and verse-makers, with the Moon, merchants and traders. With Saturn, Mercury confers the deepest knowledge and prophecy of the future. By its own nature Mercury varies according to the nature

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of the planet with which it is mixed: mixing with a masculine planet, Mercury is masculine, and with a feminine planet, feminine. Among men, many were called Mercury, particularly certain sages and physicians of Egypt who exhibited mercurial qualities. Because Mercury is a bright planet, the poets make it a son of Caelus and Day, since Mercury participated in the substances of the heavens as well as of the light of day, since the light of all the planets comes from the sun, which makes the day. Mercury is the brother of Venus, because they have the same parents, and the two planets themselves are bound together and each of them travels their course in almost the same time period, one year, and they always stay near the sun, without straying from it, and because of this they say that they are brother and sister. Others posit Mercury as son of Jupiter because of his divine knowledge and virtue, and they say that he was nursed by Juno, because human knowledge comes from divinity and it is maintained in material writings, which Juno represents. They call him messenger of Jupiter, because he announces and foretells future events that Almighty God wants to carry out, and because of this and his eloquence they call him the interpreter of the gods. His staff is rightness of mind, which makes the sciences possible, and the snake wound around it is the subtle discourse that surrounds the right mind; or rather the staff is the speculative intellect, whose object is the sciences, and the serpent is the active intellect of prudence, whose object is moral virtue. The snake, because of its sagacity, stands for prudence, and the staff, for its straightness and firmness, is a sign of science. SOPHIA: I have learned that the staff147 was given to him by Apollo. PHILO: The fable is that Mercury stole the cattle of Apollo, and because someone named Battus148 saw him, Mercury gave him a cow to keep him silent. But out of doubt and because he wanted to test Battus’s loyalty, Mercury assumed the figure of another man, and went to Battus, and he promised him an ox if he would reveal who had stolen the cattle. Battus told him everything. Then Mercury, fearing Apollo, turned him into a stone. When at last the truth was revealed to Apollo because of his own divinity, he took up his bow to shoot Mercury, but he could not reach him because he had made himself invisible. They then came to an agreement; Mercury presented Apollo with the lyre, and Apollo gave Mercury the staff as a gift. Others say that Mercury, foreseeing Apollo’s anger, secretly removed his arrows from his quiver, and when Apollo perceived this, though he was angry, he laughed at Mercury’s cunning and forgave him, giving him the staff and receiving from him the lyre.

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SOPHIA: What does this fable signify? PHILO: Its meaning is that those born under Mercury are poor, yet cunning in secretly obtaining the abundant wealth of kings and great lords, because they are apt to be kings’ administrators and secretaries in virtue of their mercurial capability. This is the meaning of Mercury’s theft of Apollo’s cattle. Apollo represents a mighty lord, and the cattle his abundant wealth. When princes are infuriated by their thievery, they are able to free themselves from that anger with their mercurial cunning, and by removing the possible instruments of their punishment and softening the rage of their lords, they retain their favour. Furthermore, their low status keeps them from being offended by their masters’ fury, because they do not offer them any resistance. Indeed, Mercury is the smallest of all the planets, and accordingly the solar rays and their consuming power harm him less than any other planet. As soon as they are in accord, Mercury gives Apollo the lyre and Apollo gives him the staff. This means that the wise man born under Mercury serves his prince with harmonious prudence and sweet eloquence, represented by the lyre, and the prince confers on him power and authority and gives credit and reputation to his wisdom. Hence, Plato says that power and wisdom must embrace, because wisdom tempers power and power promotes wisdom. It means too, that when the sun and Mercury correspond in a perfect conjunction in a good house and sign at birth, they make the mercurial man of letters powerful and the solar man and great lord wise, prudent, and eloquent. SOPHIA: You have told me much about Mercury’s birth. Now it is time for you to explain to me what I asked you about: how the Hermaphrodite was born from Mercury and Venus. PHILO: This is what Ptolemy says in his Centiloquium.149 The man at whose birth Venus appears in the house of Mercury or Mercury in the house of Venus, and more so if the two are corporally united, will be inclined to foul and unnatural lust. There are those who love men and have no shame in being both active and passive, not only playing the part of a man, but that of a woman too. They call such a person a hermaphrodite,150 and this means a person of both sexes and the truth is that they are born of a conjunction of Mercury and Venus. The reason is that these two planets do not combine well and naturally, because Mercury is wholly intellectual and Venus is wholly corporeal. So when their two natures are mixed they produce a counterfeit and unnatural lust. SOPHIA: You have told me a great deal about the loves, marriages, and generations of the heavenly gods, about the father of the universe Demogorgon

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and about the heavenly fathers Ether and Uranus, and about the planets that proceed from them: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. I still need to know about the children of Latona and Jupiter: Apollo and Diana, though about Diana there is not too much to say, since (as they say) she was always a virgin. I would just like to know the love of Apollo for Daphne, who is said to have been changed into a laurel while fleeing from him. PHILO: You have already learned everything about the generation of Apollo and Diana. They depict Diana as a virgin, because the moon’s exceeding cold withholds the incitement and ardour of sexual desire from those born while she is dominant. They call her the goddess of hills and fields because the moon has great influence over the germination of grasses and trees, and with them the moon nourishes the wild animals. They call her the ‘huntress’ because she assists those who hunt by night with her light. And they call her the ‘guardian’ of roads because her nocturnal light makes the roads safer for wayfarers. They say that she carries a bow and arrows because her rays are often dangerous to animals, especially when they slip through shafts like arrows. They give her a chariot drawn by white deers, because of their speed, indicating that her motion is more rapid than that of any other sphere, since she accomplishes her revolution in one month. Her proper colour is white. Her name is Moon, because, when new, she illuminates the early part of the night, and her name is also Diana, because, when old, she anticipates the day, illuminates the morning before sunrise, and also because she often appears during the day. SOPHIA: This is enough about Diana151 for me. Tell me about Apollo and his falling in love, because this is only one I have yet to hear of. PHILO: For the poets Apollo152 is the god of wisdom and medicine. He carries the lyre that Mercury gave him and presides over the Muses. They ascribe the laurel and the crow to him, and they say that he carries a bow and arrows. SOPHIA: I want to know the meaning of this. PHILO: He is the god of wisdom, because he rules in a special way over the heart and enlightens the spirits, which are the origin of human knowledge and wisdom, and also because by his light we see perceptible things, the origin of knowledge and wisdom. He is the god of medicine, because the virtue of the heart and the natural heat that depends on it throughout the body safeguards health and cures illness. Likewise, because the sun’s temperate heat in spring cures the long illnesses left by the winter and autumn. During

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those seasons the sun’s heat is weakened and lessened by their cold, and thus many illnesses are produced that are cured by the renewal of heat in spring. He is given a lyre and they say that he is the god of music, because he produces the harmony of the pulsation derived from the spirits of the heart throughout the human body, the harmony that expert physicians recognize by touch. And moreover because the celestial harmony is composed of the diverse movements of all the spheres, which Pythagoras (as I told you) believes consists in a concord of sounds. The sun, being the largest, brightest, and chief of all the planets, is their captain and directs the whole harmony. Thus, they attribute the lyre to him, saying he received it from Mercury, because Mercury furnishes concord and rhythmic harmony, but the sun, as chief, is the conductor of the heavenly music. This is right, since the sun’s motion is more regular than that of any of the other planets, ever unswerving through the middle of the Zodiac, straight upon its course. So the motion of others is measured by the sun’s one, just as all the others draw their light from it. This is the meaning behind the tale that Apollo leads the nine Muses who represent the nine heavenly spheres that form a harmony. Apollo is the one who produces their universal concord. His arrows are the rays, which often cause harm by their excessive heat or by the infection of the air, and this is why they make him the author of pestilence. Among the trees, they assign him the laurel, because it is warm, aromatic, and evergreen, and because wise poets and victorious generals are crowned with it, and all of them are subject to the Sun, who is the god of wisdom and the author of victories and the exaltation of rulers. They dedicate the laurel to him for still another reason; because Apollo, as the god of wisdom, influences divination. So they say that, when he killed Python, he began to give oracles at Delos. And about the laurel it is written that, if a man sleeps with its leaves around his head, he dreams about true things and his dreams participate in divination. Because of this they assign the crow to him, because they say that the crow has sixty-four different sounds, from which auguries and prophetic omens were drawn, more than from any other animal. SOPHIA: I am satisfied about Apollo’s nature and quality. Tell me how he fell in love with Daphne. PHILO: The poem says that Apollo was boasting in Cupid’s presence about the power of his bow and arrows, with which he killed the poisonous serpent Python. It seemed that he did not respect the force of Cupid’s bow and arrows, but considered them childish weapons, unfit for such a fearful stroke. Because Cupid was offended by this, he shot a golden arrow at Apollo and a leaden one at Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus. This made

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Apollo love the virgin Daphne and pursue her like gold, and he caused Apollo’s love to weigh on Daphne like lead, so that she continually fled him. But Daphne, seeing herself pursued and almost overtaken by Apollo, prayed for help from her father Peneus and other rivers, who, in order to save her, changed her into a laurel. And Apollo, finding her transformed into a laurel, embraced her so hard that she trembled for fear. At the end, Apollo took some of her leaves, and with them wreathed his lyre and quiver, and claimed the laurel as his own tree, which pleased Daphne greatly.153 SOPHIA: The fable is beautiful. But what does it mean? PHILO: They want to show how great and universal the power of love is, even over the Sun, the proudest and most powerful god of all the heavenly gods. Therefore, they graciously create the fiction that he was boasting how he used his bow and arrows, which are his very hot rays, to kill the horrible snake Python, who was destroying everything. This monster, as I told you, represents the moisture of the Flood, which had remained spread over the earth, preventing the generation and nourishment of man and every other earthly animal. So you may know, Sophia, what exactly the bow of Apollo represents, besides his orbit and the Sun’s arc, through which he remedied the damage of the flood and secured us against the cruel Python, I shall tell you that it is that real bow of many colours that is found in the air with the sun, when the weather is wet and rainy, the one the Greeks call ‘Iris.’ It signifies what Holy Scripture says in Genesis:154 after the flood the only remaining human beings were the righteous man Noah and his three sons, who had escaped in a floating ark with one male and one female of each species of earthly animal. God promised that He would not continue the flood anymore, and as a pledge He gave him that bow or Iris, born in the clouds after rain, offering certainty that the flood will never return. Since this bow is formed by beams from the sun’s orb falling on the wet, dense clouds, whose varying density, and thus different ways by which they receive the rays, causes its variety of colours, it follows that it was the bow of the sun that became a guarantee and surety against a recurrence of the flood by God’s decree. SOPHIA: How does the sun with his bow offer us such a surety? PHILO: The sun does not impress itself on the subtle and serene air when it makes the bow, but on the dense moisture, which, if its density were great enough to produce a flood by copious rains, would be unable to receive the solar imprint and produce the bow. Therefore the appearance of this imprint

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and bow assures that the clouds do not have the density that might cause a flood. This is the guarantee and surety that this bow gives about the flood, and the force of the sun causes this thing. It purifies the clouds so deeply and thins them so that, when it imprints its orb on them it makes them incapable of producing the flood. So it was reasonable and wise to say that Apollo killed the serpent Python with his bow and arrows. At such an accomplishment Apollo was very proud and exultant, as is the sun’s nature, but nevertheless he could not defend himself from the shot of Cupid’s bow and arrow, since love not only compels lower things to love higher ones, but draws the higher to love the lower. Thus, Apollo loved Daphne, daughter of the river Peneus, who is the natural moisture of the earth, derived from the rivers that flow through her. The moisture loves the sun, and the sun, sending to the moisture its burning rays, seeks to attract the moisture to it, exhaling the moisture in the form of vapours. It could be said that the purpose of such exhalation is the nourishment of the heavenly bodies, because the poets proclaim that they are fed on vapours that rise from the moisture of the sphere of the earth. But since this is still metaphorical, it is understood that the sun and the planets are chiefly sustained in their proper role, which is to direct and preserve the lower world and, consequently, all the universe by means of the exhalation of moist vapours. Because of this the sun loves the moisture in order to turn the moisture to it at its need,155 but the moisture runs away from the sun because everything flees what consumes it. Moreover, this happens because the solar rays drive the moisture into the pores of the earth, causing the moisture to flee from the surface, where the sun dissolves it. When the moisture has entered the earth and cannot run away from the sun any more, the moisture changes into trees and plants with the help and influence of the heavenly gods – the procreators of things – and with the help of the rivers that reinforce and rescue it from persecution and capture by the sun. They say – according to the fable – that Daphne changed herself into a laurel because it is an excellent tree that is eternal, evergreen, scented, and hot in its generation, and it displays the union of the solar rays with the moisture of earth more than any other tree. She is called daughter of the river Peneus, because the land through which this river passes produces many laurels. They say that Apollo adorned his lyre and quiver with her leaves, signifying that illustrious poets – who are Apollo’s lyre – and victorious captains and ruling sovereigns – who are the Sun’s quiver (the Sun is the giver of illustrious fame, mighty victories, and lofty triumphs) – are the only ones to be crowned with laurel as a sign of eternal honour and glorious fame. Because just as the laurel endures so long, so does the name of the wise and victorious immortal; just as the

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laurel is evergreen, so too their fame is forever young and never grows old or arid. Just as the laurel is warm and scented, so the fervent spirits of these men radiate a sweet perfume unto far places, from one region of the earth to another. Thus, the name of this tree is laurel because this tree is to all other trees as gold is to other metals,156 and because the ancients, as it is written, named it ‘laudo’ because it lauds or praises, and because its leaves formed the crowns of those worthy of eternal laudation.157 This is why this is the tree that was assigned to the sun, and they say that no bolt of heaven can strike it, just as time cannot dissolve virtue’s fame, nor can the motions or mutations of the heavens, which strike all other things of this world with exhaustion, decay, and oblivion. SOPHIA: You have satisfied me regarding the loves of the heavenly gods, as well as the spheres of the seven planets. I do not want you to take further trouble over the love affairs of the other terrestrial and human gods, since they have little importance for wisdom. But I would like you to explain, without fable and fictions, what the wise astrologers think about the particular loves and hatreds that the heavenly bodies and other planets have for each another. PHILO: I will briefly tell you part of what you ask, because the whole matter would be too long. There are nine heavenly spheres that astrologers have been able to discern. The seven nearest to us are the seven errant planets. The other two higher ones are the eighth sphere, which is the one into which most of the stars we see are set, whereas the ninth and last is the diurnal sphere, which, in one day and night, or twenty-four hours, completes its entire revolution, and during that time rotates all the other heavenly bodies with it. The circuit of these higher spheres is measured by their division into 360 degrees, distributed among twelve signs of 30 degrees each. And the name of this circuit is the Zodiac, which means the circle of animals, because those twelve signs have the figures of animals: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. Three of these have a fiery nature, hot and dry (Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius) and three have an earthly nature, which is cold and dry (Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn), three have an airy nature, which is hot and moist (Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius), and three have a watery nature, cold and moist (Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces). Their signs are related to one to another by friendship or hatred, since each three with identical natures divide the heavens into three equal parts, and are only 120 degrees apart, and therefore are completely friends (like Aries with Leo and Sagittarius, Taurus with Virgo and Capricorn, Gemini with Libra and Aquarius, Cancer with Scorpio and Pisces). The agreement

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of their triple aspect of the same nature puts them in perfect friendship. And those signs that divide the Zodiac into six, separated by 60 degrees, share a half and imperfect friendship (like Aries with Gemini, and Gemini with Leo, and Leo with Libra, and Libra with Sagittarius, and Sagittarius with Aquarius, and Aquarius with Aries); and these, besides their congruence in their sextile aspect, agree in that they are all masculine and all of the same active character, which is determined by their warmth, or the dryness of their fiery nature, or by the moisture of the nature of the air. Because in effectuality there is a discrete conformity and friendship between fire and air, even though they are elements. Equal agreement is found between the other signs, whose nature is that of earth or water, because they too are to a certain extent in harmony (Taurus with Cancer, and Cancer with Virgo, and Virgo with Scorpio, and Scorpio with Capricorn, and Capricorn with Pisces, and Pisces with Taurus), and all of these have a sextile aspect, being separated by 60 degrees, and are feminine and have the same active character of coldness, though they vary in their passive character from dry to moist, as earth differs from water, and because of this their friendship is half and imperfect. Nevertheless, if the signs opposite to each other in the Zodiac are at the greatest distance possible, which is 180 degrees, they have complete enmity between them, because the place of one is opposite and wholly contrary to the other. When one is descendent, the other is the ascendant; when one is above the earth, the other is below. And again, they still have the same active character; both warm or both cold, yet their passive character is always contrary, because if one is moist, the other is dry, and this, combined with their distance and opposite aspect, makes them capital enemies (like Aries to Libra, Taurus to Scorpio, Gemini to Sagittarius, Cancer to Capricorn, Leo to Aquarius, and Virgo to Pisces). And when they are separated by a quarter of the Zodiac, 90 degrees, they are half hostile, both because the distance causes their half opposition, and because their natures are opposite in both characters, the active and the passive. If one is fiery and hot and dry, the other is watery and cold and moist, and if it is a hot and dry air sign, the other is a cold and dry earth sign (as is Aries with Cancer, Leo with Scorpio, Sagittarius with Pisces, because one is from fire, the other is from water; and as Gemini is to Virgo, Libra is to Capricorn, Aquarius is to Taurus, because one is from air and the other is from earth). Or else they are contrary at least in their active character, because one is warm, and the other is cold (as it is for Taurus with Leo, Virgo with Sagittarius, Capricorn with Aries, and the same way Cancer is with Libra, Scorpio with Aquarius, Pisces with Gemini), because all of them are contrary one to another in their active quality and with a square, semi-hostile aspect.

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SOPHIA: I understand the love and hatred, both perfect and imperfect, between the twelve celestial signs. I would like you now to tell me whether this love and hatred exists between the seven planets. PHILO: The planets love one another when they face each other with a favourable trine aspect, and with a distance of 120 degrees, the aspect of perfect love. Or from the sextile aspect, at half that distance, that is, 60 degrees between one and the other, the aspect of slow love and semifriendship. But they become enemies and hate one another when they are opposed one to the other at the greatest distance possible in the heavens – that is, 180 degrees – the aspect of complete hatred and enmity and total opposition; also when they are in the quarter aspect, at half the former distance – that is, with 90 degrees between them – which is an aspect of semi-hostility and slow hatred. SOPHIA: You said about aspects that the trine and sextile give love and the opposing and squared give hate. Tell me whether they are at one or at variance when in conjunction. PHILO: The conjunction of two planets is one of love or of hate according to the nature of the two conjoined. So if the two beneficial planets called ‘Fortunes,’ Jupiter and Venus, are in conjunction, they offer each other love and benevolence. If the Moon is in conjunction with either of them, the conjunction is happy and loving; but if the Sun is in conjunction with them, it makes the conjunction noxious and inimical, because it renders them combustive and of little power, although the Sun is something good but not much so for their combustion. Mercury and Jupiter form a happy and friendly conjunction; with Venus a loving one, even though not very correct. With the Moon there is a mediocre friendship, but with the Sun it is combustive and their conjunction is not very friendly, unless they be most perfectly and materially united, in which case the conjunction would be most excellent and loving, and the power of the Sun is increased thereby as though there were two suns in the heavens. The conjunction of the Sun with the Moon is very hateful, although some astrologers declare it to be favourable especially to secret things, when they completely unite corporally. But the conjunction of each of the unfortunate planets, Saturn and Mars, is hateful to all of them, except that of Mars with Venus, which creates excessive amorous wantonness. That of Saturn with Jupiter is agreeable to Saturn and hateful to Jupiter. But their conjunction with the Sun is both inimical to the Sun itself and harmful to them, because the Sun burns and afflicts their power. And in

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having bad effects, with Mercury and with the Moon they have a very bad conjunction, and it is useless for themselves. SOPHIA: Since the conjunctions vary for good or evil according to the nature of the conjoined planets, do the other aspects – beneficial or harmful – also vary according to the natures of the two in aspect? PHILO: The beneficial, and therefore also the harmful, aspects are differentiated more or less by the characters of the planets in aspect. So when two Fortunes, Jupiter and Venus, are in trine or sextile, the aspect is excellent; but if they are opposed, or square, they look at each other with hostility, but they do not give any bad influence, although they give only a little good which is difficult to obtain. So too, when each of them sees that the Moon and Mercury or the Sun are in an amorous aspect, this denotes happiness at the fate of their nature, but if they look upon each other with a hostile aspect, this means that there will only be a little good and it will be received with difficulties. But if those two ‘Fortunes’ face the two ‘Misfortunes,’ Saturn and Mars, with a good aspect, they give some slight good, but not without fear and mischance. If they face them in a bad aspect, they give evil under the appearance of good, except in the case of Mars with Venus, for these combine so well that when there is a good aspect between them, they are very favourable, especially about things related to love. Jupiter and Saturn, when they are in a favourable aspect, send godlike, elevated, and good effects that are far from sensuality. Again, the fortunate Jupiter tempers the harshness of Saturn, and when Venus is favourably placed it counters the cruelty and villainy of Mars. When Mercury is in a good aspect with Mars, it brings little good to Saturn, and if it is in a bad aspect, it brings great harm, as its nature can transform itself into the nature of that planet with which it is melded. With the Moon, Mercury is beneficial when in a favourable aspect, harmful in the unfavourable one. The two ‘Misfortunes’ in connection with the Moon in a bad aspect are most harmful; if they are in a good aspect they are not beneficial, but they moderate the bad effect, in the same way as when they are with the Sun. The Sun and the Moon in good aspect are excellent and counteract all the excesses and losses of Mars and Saturn, but, when they are in a bad aspect, they are difficult and not good. That is a summary of the variations in their aspect. SOPHIA: I am satisfied, Philo, with what you have told me of the loves and hatreds between the twelve signs and between the planets. Please tell me whether the planets also love or hate one sign more than another. PHILO: Surely, they do, because the twelve signs individually are houses or mansions of the seven planets, and each of them loves its own house,

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because while it is in that sign, its power is exalted; and it hates the sign opposite to its house, because when it is there, its virtue is afflicted. SOPHIA: How are these twelve signs distributed as houses among the seven planets? PHILO: The Sun and the Moon have each one house in heaven: that of the Sun is Leo, that of the Moon Cancer. The other five planets have two houses each: Saturn’s houses are Capricorn and Aquarius, Jupiter’s Sagittarius and Pisces, Mars has Aries and Scorpio, Venus, Taurus and Libra, Mercury, Gemini and Virgo. SOPHIA: Tell me if they attribute any cause to the order of these distributions? PHILO: According to the ancients the cause and the order of the planets’ position is that because of Saturn’s exceeding coldness. Saturn is the highest one, and it took Capricorn and Aquarius as its houses. When the Sun is in those two, from mid-December to mid-February, the weather is colder and stormier than at any other time of the year. These qualities are proper to Saturn. Because Jupiter is closer to Saturn, its two houses in the Zodiac are next to those of Saturn. Sagittarius is before Capricorn, and Pisces is after Aquarius. Mars, which is the third planet and is next to Jupiter, has its two houses next to Jupiter’s: Scorpio before Sagittarius and Aries after Pisces. Venus, which, according to the ancients, is the fourth planet and next to Mars, has its two mansions near those of Mars: Libra before Scorpio and Taurus after Aries. The Sun, which the ancients considered the sixth planet and next to Mercury, and the Moon, being the seventh and last planet, has its house after Gemini, which is Mercury’s other house. Thus, the planets have obtained their houses in the Zodiac not by chance, but according to a definite plan. SOPHIA: I like this order and it conforms to the positions of the planets according to the ancients, who placed the Sun below Venus and Mercury. But according to modern astrologers, who place it next to Mars and above Venus, this order would not be right or reasonable. PHILO: According to modern astrologers the order would still be right, if one begins not with Saturn, but with the Sun and Moon and their houses, as these are the two chief luminaries of heaven and the rest are their followers. The Sun and Moon are foremost in caring for the life of this world. SOPHIA: Explain this.

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PHILO: Since we started before from Capricorn, which is the winter solstice when the days begin to lengthen, we will now start from Cancer, which is the summer solstice, when the days are longest and their growth comes to an end. Cancer, who, being cold and moist like the nature of the Moon, is the Moon’s house. Leo, which comes next, being hot and dry like the nature of the Sun, and since the Sun is very powerful when it is in Leo, is the house of Sun. SOPHIA: So are you setting the Moon before the Sun? PHILO: Do not be amazed at this, because in the holy creation the night comes before the day, and, as I told you, according to the poets, Diana played midwife at the birth of Apollo. So it is correct for Cancer, which is the house of the Moon, to come before Leo, which is the house of the Sun. Next to these two are the two houses of Mercury, which is closer to the Moon, the first and lowest of the planets, and Mercury is the second to it, whose houses are Gemini before Cancer and Virgo after Leo. Venus is the third, and it is above Mercury, and has its houses next to those of Mercury: Taurus before Gemini and Libra after Virgo. Mars, who comes fifth, is above Venus and the Sun; its houses are next to those of Venus: Aries before Taurus and Scorpio after Libra. Jupiter, being sixth, is above Mars: it has its houses next to those of Mars, Pisces before Aries and Sagittarius after Scorpio. Saturn, which is the seventh and the highest, is above Jupiter, and its houses are next to those of Jupiter: Aquarius before Pisces and Capricorn after Sagittarius; and they come to be close to each other, because they are the last opposite signs and the farthest from those of the Sun and Moon, which are Cancer and Leo. SOPHIA: I am satisfied with the order of the planets and the distribution of the twelve signs in their houses. And it is right that each should have its own house and hate the opposing one, as you said. But I would like to know whether such opposition of the signs corresponds to a difference or opposition between the planets, of which such opposite signs are the houses. PHILO: Surely they correspond because the opposition among the planets corresponds to that of the signs, their houses. Thus, the two houses of Saturn, Capricorn and Aquarius, are in opposition to those of the two luminaries, the Sun and the Moon (i.e., to Cancer and Leo) in virtue of the contrary of Saturn’s influence and nature to those of the two luminaries. SOPHIA: How so? PHILO: Because, since these luminaries are the causes of the life of plants, animals, and men in this world, with the Sun supplying natural heat and

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the Moon the radical moisture, since by heat they live and by moisture they are nourished. Therefore, Saturn is the cause of the death and destruction of lower things through its contrary characteristics of coldness and dryness. The two houses of Mercury, Gemini and Virgo, are contrary to those of Jupiter, Sagittarius and Pisces, because of the contrary of their influences. SOPHIA: What are they? PHILO: Jupiter instils a tendency to gain abundant wealth, and because of this jovial human beings are generally rich, magnificent, and opulent. But Mercury, because it gives the aptitude for delicate scientific investigation and examination of ingenious teachings, turns the soul away from the acquisition of wealth. Consequently, the wise are generally not very rich and the rich not very wise, since knowledge158 is gained by the speculative intellect, and wealth by the active intellect. Since the human soul is one, when it devotes itself to practical life, it grows alien to contemplative life, and when it is devoted to contemplation, it disregards worldly business. Such men are poor by choice, for such poverty is worth more than acquired wealth. So it is right that the houses of Mercury are opposite to those of Jupiter, and men at whose birth the houses of one are in the ascendant above the earth have the houses of the other descendent beneath the earth, so it is rare for a good jovial man to be a good mercurial, and vice versa. The two houses of Venus, Taurus and Aries, remain because of the contrary constitution of one and the other. SOPHIA: Contrary in what way? It would be better to say friends and in great conformity. As you yourself said, Mars is in love with Venus and both agree greatly.159 PHILO: It is not the contrary of their influences, as between Jupiter and Mercury, but it is in their natures, as between Saturn and the luminaries, although they are also, as I told you, contrary in influence. But Mars and Venus are contrary only in the quality of their natures, because Mars is dry, hot, and ardent, and Venus cold, moist, and temperate, unlike the moon, whose coldness and wetness are excessive. Because of this Mars and Venus agree greatly like two contraries that, when blended, produce temperate effects, especially in the activities of nutrition and generation, with one furnishing the heat – which is the active cause in both – and the other the temperate moisture – which is the passive cause of the two. And although Mars’s heat is excessive in ardour, Venus tempers and makes it proportionate to these operations with its sober coolness. Therefore, it is upon this contrariety that the congruence and love of Mars and Venus are founded, and only thus do they have opposite houses in the Zodiac.

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SOPHIA: I like this reason for the opposition of the signs out of hate, or rather the contrariety of planets in their houses. Please tell me whether something of their love and kindly friendship appears in their order and opposition, as do hate and contrary. PHILO: They do appear, especially in the case of the luminaries. You will see that Jupiter – being the Greater Fortune – has neither of its houses look upon those of the two luminaries, Sun and Moon, with an ill aspect. Just as Saturn – being the greater Misfortune – has neither of its houses in a favourable aspect towards those of the luminaries; on the contrary, its houses are in opposition, totally hostile. But the first house of Jupiter, which is Sagittarius, looks with a trinal aspect of perfect love on Leo – the house of the Sun – the major luminary; its second house, which is Pisces, looks on Cancer, house of the Moon, the lesser luminary, with the same trinal aspect of perfect love. Again, none of Mercury’s houses looks on the houses of the Sun and Moon with a hostile aspect, since it is very intimate with them. Indeed, its first house, Gemini, is in sextile, the aspect of halflove, with Leo, the Sun’s house; and its second house, Virgo, looks on Cancer, the Moon’s house, from the same favourable sextile aspect. The houses of Venus, and the lesser Fortune, and Mars, the lesser Misfortune, remain. And because these planets are similar in influence their houses manifest a moderate degree of amity and enmity to those of the Sun and Moon. Aries, the first house of Mars, has a trine aspect with Leo, house of the Sun, because both planets and both signs are of identical nature, hot and dry. But with Cancer, the house of the Moon is in quartile, the aspect of half-enmity, because of the opposite character of Mars and its house Aries – which are hot and dry – in relation to that of the Moon and its cold and wet house, Cancer. And Scorpio, the second house of Mars, is in trine – the aspect of perfect love, with Cancer – the Moon’s house, and both signs are of similar nature, cold and wet. But with Leo, the Sun’s house, it is in quadrate aspect, because of the opposition between dry heat, the character of Leo, and wet cold, as is Scorpio. Almost in this way the houses of Venus are brought to those of the luminaries; because Taurus, the first house of Venus, looks on Cancer – the Moon’s house – from a friendly sextile aspect and both are cold, and at Leo – house of the Sun – from a quartile semihostile aspect, and Leo is hot and therefore contrary to it. So Libra – the second house of Venus – is in sextile, a friendly aspect, with Leo, as both are hot; but with Cancer, which is cold, in quartile, so half-inimical. Thus, these two planets, Mars and Venus, are half facing Saturn and half facing Jupiter, so that their houses have mixed relations with those of the Sun

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and Moon. I could tell you, Sophia, about many other degrees of friendship and enmity between the heavenly bodies, but I want to leave this subject because they would make our discussion too long and difficult. SOPHIA: Regarding this matter I would like you to tell me one more thing; do the planets have other kinds of friendship or hate in relation to astrological signs, beyond the fact that their houses are contrary one to other, or rather very favourable?160 PHILO: They are very favourable to each other. First because of the exaltation of the planets, each of which has a sign, and in this they have the power of exaltation. The Sun has Aries, the Moon Taurus, Saturn Libra, Jupiter Cancer, Mars Capricorn, Venus Pisces, and Mercury Virgo, even though that is one of its own houses. They also have authority over the triplicities, when three planets join in one sign. And these are the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn in the three fire signs, which fall among the six masculine signs: Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius. Venus, the Moon, and Mars have authority over the feminine signs, namely, over the three earthly signs, Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn, and over the three watery signs, Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces. Saturn, Mercury, and Jupiter have authority over the remaining three masculine signs: Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius. For the sake of brevity I will not tell you in detail the reason for this grouping, but I will merely point out that the three masculine planets exercise their triple authority over the masculine signs, and three feminine planets do the same over the feminine signs. Moreover, the planets love their own decanate: each ten degrees of the Zodiac forms the decanate of a planet. The first ten degrees of Aries are of Mars, the second ten of the Sun, the third of Venus, and so on according to the order of the planets and signs, to the last degrees of Pisces, which form a decanate of Mars again. Moreover, the planets, except the Sun and Moon, love their terms, and each of the other five planets has certain degrees for its term in each of the signs. Furthermore, all the planets love the splendid and propitious degrees and hate the dark and afflicted ones. And they love the fixed stars when in conjunction with them, especially if they are large bright ones of the first or second magnitude; and they hate those fixed stars that are contrary in nature to themselves. And now it seems to me that I told you so much of the heavenly loves and hatreds that it should suffice for our discussion. SOPHIA: I now understand abundantly the loves of the heavenly ones. Now I would like to know, Philo, whether their spirits, namely the spiritual intelligences of the heavens, are, like all other material creatures, also bound by

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love, or whether, since they are without matter, they are likewise free from the chains of love. PHILO: Even if love is present in corporeal and material things, it is not proper to them. On the contrary, like being, life, intellect, and every other perfection, goodness and beauty is dependent on the spiritual and descends from the immaterial to the material. So, all these excellences exist first as spiritual beings and then as corporeal ones. Thus, love has its prior and essential being in the intellectual world, and thence is extended to the corporeal.161 SOPHIA: Tell me the reason. PHILO: Do you have any against this? SOPHIA: One immediately comes to mind. You indicated that love is a desire for union, and whoever desires lacks what he desires. But spiritual beings lack nothing; deficiency is proper rather to matter. Therefore, no love should be found in them. Moreover, since material beings, which are imperfect, usually desire to be united with the spiritual ones, which are perfect, how can the perfect desire union with the imperfect? PHILO: Spiritual beings have love not only towards one another but also towards corporeal and material beings. What you are saying about love implying desire, and desire implying defect is true. But this is not strange, because spiritual beings are in order of perfection each more perfect than the other and brighter and more sublime in essence than the lower, who is lacking and loves the higher and desires to be united with it. Therefore, all of them love principally and greatly the supreme and perfect God, who is the fountain162 from which every being and good thing is derived, and all of them desire union with Him with affection163 and always obtain it with their intellectual activity. SOPHIA: I concede that you say that spiritual beings love one another,164 and because of this the lower love the higher, but the higher does not love the lower. By no means, however, do the spiritual beings love corporeal ones, who are material, because they are more perfect and consequently cannot desire or love them, as you said. PHILO: I was ready to answer this argument, if you were patient. Know that, just as the lower beings love the higher ones, and they desire to be united with them for the sake of that greater perfection which they lack, the higher beings love the lower ones and desire to be united with them so that

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the latter will be more perfect. And this desire does indeed imply a lack; not in the higher one who desires, but in the lower who needs, because when the higher loves the lower, with its superiority it desires the perfection for the lower that the lower being is unable to furnish. Thus, the spiritual beings love the corporeal and material ones; with their perfection they are directed to supply the others’ lack and when they are united with them, they make them excellent.165 SOPHIA: And you, which do you think is the truer and complete love? The one of higher for lower or that of lower for higher? PHILO: That of higher for lower and of spirit for matter. SOPHIA: Tell me why. PHILO: Because the one is in order to receive, the other in order to give. The higher spirit loves the lower as a father his child, and the lower loves the higher as a child his father. Moreover, the love of the spiritual world towards the corporeal world is similar to the love that a male has for his female. And the love of the corporeal for the spiritual is similar to that of the female for the male, as I explained above. Have patience, Sophia. The love of the male, who gives, is more perfect than that of the female, who receives. And among human beings, the love of benefactors for those who receive their benefits is greater than the love of beneficiaries for their benefactors. Because the latter love for their gain and the former for virtue, and utility enters into one love, while the other is wholly honest. And you know how much greater the honest is than the useful. So it was right that I told you that spiritual beings’ love towards corporeal ones is so much more excellent and perfect than the love that corporeal beings have towards the spiritual. SOPHIA: I am satisfied with what you told me. But two other uncertainties still remain. The first is: if desire presupposes lack, it must be a lack of what is desired by the one who desires and loves, and not lack of the lover’s perfection in the beloved, as you seem to say. In other words: the lack is in the lower who is desired and loved by the higher. The other uncertainty is that I had understood that the persons who are loved, insofar as they are loved, are more perfect than lovers, because love is proper to good things, and the thing loved is the end and purpose of the lover, and that the end is nobler. How then can the imperfect be loved by the perfect, as you say? PHILO: Your uncertainties are rather important. The solution to the first is that in the order of the universe the lower depends on the higher and the corporeal world upon the spiritual. So the lack in the lower would involve

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lack in the higher upon whom it depends, inasmuch as imperfection in an effect signifies imperfection in its cause. Therefore, because the cause loves its own effect and the higher its lower, it desires to perfect the lower and unite it to itself, so as to deliver it from imperfection. In delivering it, it likewise delivers itself from defect and imperfection. Thus, when the lower fails to achieve union with the higher, not only does the former remain incomplete and unhappy, but also the higher is tarnished by the lack of its own excellent perfection. For no father can be happy while his son is imperfect. In this regard the ancients say that the sinner soils166 and offends the Godhead, whereas the just men exalt Him. Therefore, it is right that not only does the lower desire to be united with the higher, but that the higher also loves and desires to be united with the lower, so that each may achieve perfection to its own degree, without any lack, and thus the universe is united and is progressively linked by the bonds of love that unite the corporeal with the spiritual world and the lower with the higher. This union is the final end of the Supreme Artificer and Almighty God, when He created the world with ordered diversity and unified plurality. SOPHIA: I see the solution of my first doubt, now solve my second one. PHILO: Aristotle solves it. For, after proving that those who eternally move the celestial bodies are immaterial intellectual souls,167 he declares that they move them for some end and purpose of their souls, and that such an end is nobler and more excellent than the mover himself, since the end of a thing is nobler than itself. Of the four causes of natural things, that is, the material, the formal, the efficient – which makes or moves the thing – and the final cause – which is the goal that moves the agent – the material is the lowest, the formal is better than the material, and the efficient is better and nobler than both of them, since it is their cause. The final cause is the most noble and excellent of all four and more so than the efficient cause, for the goal of the final cause moves the efficient cause. For this reason the final cause is named the ‘cause of all causes.’ The conclusion is therefore that the ultimate end, which is the reason why each intellectual soul of every heaven moves its own sphere, is not only more excellent than the body of the heaven, but also than its own soul. In this regard Aristotle says168 that the ultimate end is loved and desired by the soul of heaven, which with firm desire and insatiable appetite eternally moves the heavenly body that is proper to the soul of heaven by its love, thus loving and giving the body life and energy, even though the body is less noble and lower than the soul is, because one is body and the other is intellect. And the soul does this principally because of the love that it has towards its beloved, who is higher and

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more excellent than the soul, and the soul desires to be eternally united to the intellect and becomes happy with that union, as a true lover with its beloved. By this example you will be able to understand, Sophia, that higher beings love lower ones and the spiritual love the corporeal, because of the love for what is higher than they, and they love them in order to benefit from their union, and, loving them, they benefit their lower beloved. SOPHIA: Please, tell me which of them is greater than the intellective souls, which move the heavens, and which can be their lovers and desire a union that gives them happiness and drives them to be active and eternally move their heavens. And you must also tell me how the higher beings, in loving the lower ones, enjoy union with those higher than themselves, because it is unclear to me the reason of this. PHILO: Regarding your first question, the philosophers who have commented on Aristotle were interested in finding out what were so excellent, fine, and more sublime than the intellectual souls that move the heavens. Those of the first Arab Academy,169 Al-Farabi, Avicenna, Al-Ghazali, and our own Rabbi Moses from Egypt170 in his Moreh, say that two intelligences are assigned to each sphere; one of them effectively moves it and is the moving intelligence of that sphere, while the other finally moves the first, because it is the end that drives the mover, that is, the intelligence that animates the heaven and moves its sphere, and who is loved by it as the most excellent intelligence, and, desiring of union with the object of its love, eternally moves its heavens.171 SOPHIA: Why do the judgments of philosophers declare that the number of angels, or separate intelligences, that move the heavens is equal to the number of spheres that they move, and not more? According to these Arabs, there would be twice the number of intelligences as spheres. PHILO: They said that they affirm this declaration and this number for each of the two species of intelligences, that is, those who move and those who give an end, because necessarily there must be as many moving intelligences and as many final intelligences as there are spheres. SOPHIA: They truly alter the ancient dictum by doubling the number. But what can they say of the first Mover of the supreme heaven, whom we believe to be God? It is also impossible that He have any goal better than Himself. PHILO: These Arab philosophers maintain that the First Mover is not the most high God, because God would then be a soul assigned to a sphere, just

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like the other motor intelligences. And this allocation and similarity would be very problematic. But they say that the goal towards which the First Mover moves is the most high God. SOPHIA: And is this opinion accepted by all other philosophers? PHILO: Certainly not. Averroes172 and others who commented on Aristotle after him maintain that there are as many intelligences as spheres and no more, and that the most high God is the First Mover. Averroes says that it is not problematic for God to be assigned to a sphere, as soul or form giving being to the highest heaven, because those souls are separate from matter. Because His sphere is that which contains and embraces the whole universe and turns all the other heavens by its movement, the intelligence that informs, moves, and gives it being must be the most high God and no other. Because He, being Mover, is not equal to the others. On the contrary, He remains far higher and more sublime, in the same way that His sphere is more sublime than those of the other intelligences. And, in the same way that His heaven enfolds and contains all the others, His power173 contains the power of all the other motors. And if the fact of being called motor like the others were to imply that He is like them, [according to the first philosophers] He would still be equal to the other final intelligences, by being, like them, the goal of the First Mover. In conclusion, Averroes says that to posit more intelligences than the strength of philosophical reasoning implies, is not proper to a philosopher. This is because we cannot discern more than what reason demonstrates to us. SOPHIA: It seems to me that this theory is more limited than the former one. But what would this individual174 say in the face of what Aristotle (and with him, reason) asserts: that the end of the motor of a sphere is of greater worth than the motor itself? PHILO: According to Averroes, Aristotle means that the same intelligence that moves is the end of its own continual motion, and this is because it moves the sphere in order to achieve its own perfection. According to him, it is nobler because it is the goal of the motion, not because it is its efficient cause. So this affirmation of Aristotle has to be understood as a comparison between two kinds of causality – the efficient and the final – inherent in one and the same intelligence, rather than as a comparison between two distinct intelligences, as the others before him say. SOPHIA: It seems strange to me that Aristotle says that one and the same intelligence is more perfect than itself.

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PHILO: It also seems unreasonable to me that an assertion that is so absolutely comparative, as that of Aristotle, should be understood as referring to a single intelligence. And although this statement of Averroes is true (and mainly regarding the First Mover, who, being God, is necessarily the end of His motion and action), and even though it is also true that the final cause is more excellent than the efficient cause, it does not seem that Aristotle wished to affirm this with that statement. SOPHIA: So which of these do you think is the correct one? PHILO: The demonstration that the end of all the motors of the heavens is an intelligence more sublime and higher than all, loved by all with the desire to be united to it, and in it their happiness consists. This is the most high God. SOPHIA: And do you believe Him to be the First Mover? PHILO: It would take a long time to tell you all that might be said on this subject, and perhaps it would be audacious to prefer one theory over another. But when I concede that the mind of Aristotle wished the First Mover to be God, I have to tell you that he believed that He is the end of all the motors, and therefore is more excellent than himself. Indeed, in Him it is more important that He be the final end of everything, because the one is the end that directs the other. SOPHIA: And you deny that the other motors move their heavens in order to achieve their own perfection that they desire to enjoy, as Averroes says? PHILO: I do not deny it. On the contrary, I tell you that they desire union with God in order to achieve their perfection, and this is why their ultimate goal and purpose is their perfection. But since this consists in their union with the Godhead, it follows that their ultimate goal is in the Godhead and not in their own perfection, and thus Aristotle says that this Godhead is a higher goal than theirs, and not, as Averroes maintains, their own perfection immanent to them. SOPHIA: And is it for a similar reason that the beatitude of human intellective souls and their ultimate end lies in union with God? PHILO: Certainly not, because their ultimate perfection, end, and true beatitude does not consist in their own souls, but in their elevation and union with the Godhead. Almighty God is the goal of everything and beatitude of all intellectual beings, and this does not exclude the fact that their own perfection is their ultimate goal. Indeed, when it is in the act of happiness, the

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intellective soul is not in itself anymore, but is in God, who makes it happy because of His union. And this is where its ultimate end and happiness consists, not in itself, insofar as the soul does not have this beatified union. SOPHIA: I like this subtlety, and I am satisfied with regard to my first question. So let us move on to the second. PHILO: You want me to make clear to you how the intelligence, by loving and turning the body of the heavenly sphere, which is inferior to it, could become better and be elevated to the love of God and attain a happy union with Him. SOPHIA: That is precisely what I wish to learn from you. PHILO: The difficulty is further complicated by the fact that the proper and essential act of an intelligence separated from matter is to understand itself and in itself everything together, and this is because – as happened to the sun in the mirror – in it the divine essence shines in clear vision, and the essence contains the essences of all things and is the cause of all. In this act the happiness and ultimate goal of the intelligence must consist, and not in moving a heavenly body, which is a material thing, and an extrinsic act to its true essence. SOPHIA: I like to see you bleeding my wound in order better to cure it.175 So let us have the remedy. PHILO: You have heard from me, Sophia, that the whole universe is one individual, like a person, and each one of these corporeal and spiritual, eternal or corruptible, bodies is a member or part of this great individual, because each and every one of its parts was created by God with a common goal as well as a purpose peculiar to each part. It follows that the whole and parts alike are perfect and happy to they degree that they rightly and completely discharge the functions designated by the most high Maker. The end of the whole is the unitary perfection of the entire universe, as designated by the divine architect. The end of each part is not only the perfection of that part in itself, but also rightly to promote the perfection of the whole, which is the universal end and the first purpose of the Godhead. And for this common end, rather than for its own end, each part was created, ordered, and consecrated, so much so that, failing in a part of the service in the acts pertaining to the perfection of the universe would be a graver fault and a greater unhappiness than if it failed in its own activity. So it finds more happiness in the common end than in its own end, in the same way as in individuals, because the perfection of one of its parts, like the eye or

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hand, does not consist only in being principally a good eye or hand, nor again in the ability of the eye to see much or the hand to work many crafts; but firstly and mainly it consists in the eye’s seeing and the hand’s doing what is fitting for the good of the whole person. It is made nobler and more excellent by the proper service that each part does for the whole person than by its own beauty and own actions. Many times, in order to save the whole person, the part spontaneously offers and exposes itself to its own danger, as for example an arm will counter a sword to guard the head. So, because this law is always observed in the universe, the intelligence is made happier by moving the heavenly sphere (an act necessary for the existence of everything, even if it is extrinsic and corporeal) than by her inward essential intelligence, which is her own act. And this is what Aristotle means by saying that the intelligence moves towards a higher and more excellent end, which is God, and towards achieving His order in the universe.176 Thus, by loving and turning its sphere, the intelligence binds the union of the universe, of which the proper consequence is the love, the union, and the divine grace that unifies the world, and this is its ultimate goal and the happiness it desires. SOPHIA: I am pleased, and I believe that for the same reason the spiritual intellectual souls of human beings unite in such a fragile body as the human one, in order to fulfil the divine plan for the coherence and unity of the whole universe.177 PHILO: You spoke well, and so speak the truth. Since our souls are spiritual and intellectual, they cannot derive any good from associating with what is corporeal, frail, and corruptible, but they would be far better off in their intrinsic and pure activity of intellect. But they attach to our body only out of love and service to the most high creator of the world, drawing life as well as intellectual understanding and divine light from the higher and eternal world to the lower and corruptible one, so that even this lowest part of the world may not be without divine grace and eternal life, and that each of the parts of this great animal may be as vital and intelligent as it is in its entirety. And because in this our soul exercises the union of the whole universe according to the divine order, which is a mutual principal goal in the production of things, the soul rightly enjoys divine love, and after separation from the body achieves unity with the most high God, and this is the soul’s ultimate happiness. But if the soul fails in this role, it is deprived of this love and this divine union. For the soul this is the supreme and eternal sorrow, because it could, with the right governance of its body, rise to paradise on high, but for its iniquity the soul remains in lowest hell,

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banned eternally from union with God and its own beatitude, unless indeed divine compassion178 were so great as to offer the soul an opportunity of reparation. SOPHIA: God save us from such error and make us upright executors of His holy will and divine command. PHILO: May God do so. But you already know, Sophia, that this cannot be accomplished without love. SOPHIA: Indeed, love in the world is present not only in every common thing, but is always supremely necessary, since nothing can be blessed without love. PHILO: Without love not only can there be no beatitude; but the world would not exist nor would anything be in it, if there were no love. SOPHIA: Why all these things? PHILO: Because the world and things in it can exist only insofar as it is wholly one, bound up with all it contains as an individual with its members; otherwise the division would cause its total perdition. For since nothing joins the universe to its different components if there is not love, it follows that this love is the cause of the existence of the world179 and of all its things. SOPHIA: Tell me how it unifies the world and makes one thing out of so many different things. PHILO: You can easily understand it from what has already been said. The most high God creates and governs the world by love, and binds it together in unity, and this is because, given that God is one in the simplest unity, whatever derives from Him will necessarily still be one total unity, because one derives from one, from pure unity and perfect union. Moreover, the spiritual world is united with the material by means of love; otherwise would the separate intelligences or angels of God ever unite with, or inform, or become life-giving souls, if they did not love? Would intellectual souls unite with human bodies to make them rational, if love did not oblige them? Or would the world soul unite with this sphere of generation and decay, if not for love? Again: inferiors unite with their superiors, the corporal world with the spiritual, the corruptible with the eternal, and the whole universe with its Creator, through the love that is given and its desire to unite with Him and be beatified in His divinity.

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SOPHIA: And it is so because love is a vivifying spirit that penetrates the whole world and is a bond that unifies the entire universe. PHILO: Because you feel this way about love, there is no need to speak to you further about its universality,180 about which we have spoken today. SOPHIA: You still need to tell me about the birth of love, as you promised me. You have spoken a great deal about its presence in the whole universe and in everything, and I clearly perceive that in the universe there is no being without love. All that is left for me is to know its origin and something about its good and bad effects. PHILO: I owe you a lesson about the birth of love, but to speak about its effects is a new request. Nor do we have time for either, because it is already too late to start a new topic. Please ask me that another day, when you like. But tell me, Sophia, why, if love is so universal, is there none in you? SOPHIA: And you, Philo, do you really love me so much? PHILO: You see it, or you know it. SOPHIA: Since love is normally reciprocal and creates likeness in persons (according to what I learned from you so many times before), it must be that you feign love for me or that I feign love for you. PHILO: I would be satisfied if your words were as false as mine are sincere; but I fear that you, like me, do not speak the truth, which is that one can neither feign love nor deny it for long. SOPHIA: If you have true love, I cannot be without it. PHILO: What you do not wish to say, in order not to utter falsehood, you want me to believe by argumentative conjecture. I tell you that my love is true but sterile, since it is unable to produce its likeness in you; and that it is strong enough to bind me, but not you. SOPHIA: How so? Is not love’s nature like that of a magnet, which unites opposites, draws the distant together, and pulls what is heavy? PHILO: Although love has greater power of attraction than the magnet, whoever will not love is far heavier and resistant than iron. SOPHIA: You cannot deny that love unites lovers.181 PHILO: Yes, when both are lovers. But I am only a lover and not a beloved, and you are only a beloved and not a lover. How then do you expect love to unite us?

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SOPHIA: Who ever saw an unloved lover? PHILO: I myself, and I think that for you I am like another Apollo with Daphne. SOPHIA: So you would have it that Cupid has wounded you with a golden arrow and me with a leaden dart?182 PHILO: I would not have it, but I see that it is so. Because your love is desired by me more than gold, but mine for you is heavier than lead. SOPHIA: If I were Daphne to you, fear of your words would change me into a laurel more quickly than fear of Apollo’s shafts transformed her. PHILO: Words have little force. They are unable to accomplish what the rays of the eyes normally accomplish with a single glance: mutual love and reciprocal affection. Yet in your resistance to me I see you transformed into the laurel: as immovable from your position, as unchangeable in purpose, and as difficult to win to my desire whenever I approach you. And you are like a laurel, which is also ever-blooming and sweet-scented, and whose fruit has only a harsh and bitter flavour, mixed with a succulence that is stimulating to whoever relishes it. So, for me you have become a laurel. And if you wish to see the symbol of your metamorphosis, look at my mute lyre, which will never resound unless it is adorned with your most beautiful leaves. SOPHIA: It would not be honest to confess nor to deny that I love you, Philo. Believe whatever reason tells you is more suitable, even if you fear the contrary. And because time now invites us to rest, it would be better for each of us to go do so; soon we will see each other again. Till then, apply your mind to recreation and remember your promise. Addio. ***

Dialogue 3: On the Origin of Love

SUMMARY The third dialogue, ‘On the Origin of Love,’ is the longest, double the second and four times the length of the first dialogue. Stylistically speaking, it is the most developed, in terms of both language and organization of content. The prose is distinctly clean of Latinisms, and the Italian takes a decisive ‘Tuscan’ direction. The content concerns metaphysics, and the main aim of the discussion includes very theoretical topics that revolve around the central theme of this conversation: the soul’s ascent and reconnection to its original place. This dialogue is rich in terms of philosophical references. Although the preference is mainly Neoplatonic, there is an extreme eclecticism melding the thought of personalities such as Al-Farabi, Avicenna, AlGhazali, Averroes, Maimonides, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, and both the Spanish and the Italian Kabbalah. The dialogue is also permeated with echoes of Leone Ebreo’s philosophical contemporaries. Beginning with his father, Isaac Abravanel, we also can feel the presence of Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, and Yohanan Alemanno. Love’s Physiological Effects on Lovers, and Love Alienation As in the second dialogue, Sophia opens the conversation with a sort of comic captatio benevolentiae; she stops and with her words awakens an alienated Philo, who is walking by without paying attention to what is happening around him. Philo admits that he was concentrating so much on his inner thoughts that he did not recognize exterior reality. Philo says that love produces an ecstatic state in those who are subject to it, and he is experiencing this. This state is comparable to sleep and contemplation. This

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topos, also known as ‘abstractio mentis’ or ‘melancholic cogitation,’ was proper to traditional and contemporary treatises on love; love alienation was a typical commonplace of anti-erotic literature and was clinically studied for its extreme outcomes (madness) on ‘affected’ individuals. Philo again starts his speech reconnecting to the anti-erotic theme, describing the ecstatic effects of love on him. His examination, however, is directed to compare the ecstasies of love to another type of ecstasy, a mystical one given by God’s kiss that leads to the most excellent death. Intellect and Soul (a) Intellect as Spiritual Vision; (b) World-Soul and Human Soul This discourse provides the occasion for clarifying some theoretical issues connected to the intellect and the soul. Philo compares the divine intellect to the Sun, and the human intellect to the eye. Leone is in perfect synchrony with the contemporaneous philosophical debate on the nature of the soul and intellect, which occupied thinkers such as Ficino, Pico, and Cattani da Diacceto. Leone, though, perfectly masters his deep knowledge of Aristotelian positions – mostly mediated through Arab commentators – and Platonic and Neoplatonic ones. In order to better explain the nature of the soul to Sophia, Philo offers another visual and practical example: the world-soul (as well as the soul of each individual) is like the moon, which, with its phases, is an aster that has both spiritual and material characteristics. Sometimes the moon loves the Sun as a female loves a male, and in this case it is immersed in spirituality; at other times, the moon is attracted to the earth, and it is obscured by materiality. Intermezzo: The Effects of Love Between the first and the second parts of the dialogue Philo laments his suffering from unrequited love, and he exhibits a complete repertoire of poetic passages connected to love. The tone changes completely, and the theatricality of the situation functions as second captatio benevolentiae, most likely directed to regaining the attention of the reader, with a break that gives rest to the mind before continuing on to very difficult topics. A fourth dialogue that will deal with the effects of love is then announced. Here Philo reveals to the reader who Sophia is. He calls her daughter of Love and Wisdom, and the one who is searching the Truth, sister of Love. Therefore, Philo is proclaiming her ‘rationality,’ because she is looking for a kind of understanding that categorizes things using a rational knowledge.

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The Origin of Love (a) Essence and Nature of Love: The Striving for the Beautiful As the second part of the dialogue opens, the conversation begins again with another theoretical discussion, returning to the problem of the essence of love, which was already discussed in the first dialogue. His position now is more precise; all his philosophical sources are laid out and slightly modified. The previous Aristotelian-Maimonidean approach is integrated with some lines retaken from Thomism, even if the discourse evolves towards Neoplatonic positions, where the echoes of Italian contemporary thinkers, with Ficino at their head, are very strong. Not only is love always desire, desire is also always love. Their essence is the same, but the difference is only nominal. Philo is therefore warning Sophia – and the reader – to be careful and not be trapped or confused by linguistic auxiliary labelling, which helps to map a thought, being (as Sausurre many centuries later would say) signs and not signifiers. In the Dialogues, and particularly in the third, aesthetics is deeply connected to the rhetorical pattern. There is a deep connection between imagination and intellect for the whole process of philosophical understanding, and rhetoric as well as poetics are disciplines that apply to the reign of imagination. (b) Love of God Sophia asks about the difference between human love and divine love. Philo thus provides ample space about the problem of Love of God. This discourse is not new, but Philo is able to present a deep synthesis of positions that were already expressed in Dialogues 1 and 2; the Aristotelian-ArabicMaimonidean direction is considered but integrated with the Neoplatonic. (c) Beauty, the Good, and Love Here the theoretical point of Beauty is introduced, one that was completely missing in the first dialogue, and thereby the Dialogues are perfectly harmonized with contemporary philosophical debate (see Ficino, but in particular Francesco Cattani da Diacceto with his De pulchro). (d) First Problem: Is Love Born or Eternal? The discussion is then directed to answering five questions: whether Love was born of some cause or whether it is eternal and self-produced; if Love was produced, when was it born; where was Love born; who were the parents of Love; why was Love born in the universe and for what end was it produced? This gives the author the opportunity to express his own eclectic

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philosophy, which ends in theology, based on a mystical erotic spirituality resolved in the cosmic androgyny of God and of the universe with an obvious Kabbalistic reference. For the first question – whether Love was born of some cause or whether it is eternal and self-produced – the conclusion is that Love had an origin, by the simple fact that Love implies two different polarities: the beloved and the loved. Here some mythical examples are given: the love of Achilles and Alcestis. After that Sophia asks about the particular love that God has in connection with His creatures. The love of God is different from terrestrial or vulgar love and can be compared to that of a father for a son. (e) Second Problem: When Was Love Born? And What Was the First Love? The second question – If Love was produced, when was it born? – connects the origin of love with the origin of the world. Here there are three theories regarding the creation or generation of the world. A reconciliation between Aristotle, Plato, and the Bible is attempted. One of the main issues is the problem of matter, whether eternal or not. Obviously Leone responds to a contemporary debate (i.e., Ficino, Pico, but also his co-religionists, and one of them his father Isaac Abravanel). The philosophical issue becomes a cosmological and theological one, and it seems that Leone takes the direction of Spanish Kabbalistic positions (Philo proclaims an original indeterminate principle, which it is possible to identify with the En-Sof, from whom there are the emanation of two first principles – Intelletto or Acting Wisdom, which we can identify with the sefirah Hokhmah, and Sapienza, Wisdom in Act or Understanding, which we can identify with the sefirah Binah). (f) Third Problem: Where Was He Born? The third question – Where was Love born? – aligns Love directly to God. Love was born in God and was the intrinsic Love of God for Himself. Philo and Sophia have to deal with very difficult theoretical subjects that conclude with the observation that in God love is unity and trinity at the same time. This same property is also found in the Love that produced the world. The Love of the created world was born in the angelic world. This Love aligns beauty and knowledge. Sophia wants to know more about the relationship that exits between beauty and knowledge, and Philo deals with several philosophical points that are connected to a gnoseologic process characterized at its highest level by an emotional knowledge centred on desire. Avicenna’s cosmologic theory of the descending and ascending circle of universal love is compared to that of Averroes, which asserts an immediate relationship of all the levels of the universe with God’s beauty.

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(g) Fourth Problem: From Whom Was Love Born? The fourth question – Who were the parents of Love? – investigates the generation of love according to the poets, Plato, and the Bible. In particular, the story of the Androgyne contained in the Symposium is reconnected to the biblical tale of Adam and Eve in Genesis. Love was produced by beauty and knowledge, and several theoretical explanations are given for each of them, an eclectic approach that aims to synthesize different philosophical perspectives – with Aristotle, Plato, and Neoplatonism at their head – and what the Holy Scriptures, in particular the Song of the Songs, reveal. (h) Fifth Problem: Why Was Love Born? The fifth question – Why was Love born in the universe and for what end was it produced? – resolves itself in claiming that the particular end of Love is the enjoyment of the Bello (beautiful), while the universal end of Love is to make the beloved more perfect. Different philosophical points concerning Aristotelian and Platonic perspectives are analysed and the discourse arrives at the conclusion that love is necessary for the double circle of the creation. Epilogue: Suffering from Unrequited Love The dialogue finishes with Philo lamenting his unhappiness for a love that does not cause pleasure but only suffering. Sophia remains firm in not giving in to him, and as a conclusion there is a prelude to a fourth conversation about the effects of love.

*** SOPHIA: Philo! Philo! Do you not hear or do you not want to reply? PHILO: Who is calling me? SOPHIA: Do not pass by in such a hurry. Listen to me. PHILO: Are you here, Sophia? I had not seen you. I was passing by without noticing. SOPHIA: Where are you going with such attention that you neither speak to nor hear nor see the friends around you? PHILO: I was attending to some needs of the part of lesser value.1 SOPHIA: Lesser value? It cannot be of little value to you if it deprives your eyes of seeing and your unclosed ears of hearing. PHILO: But that part does not have more value in me than in another person, nor do I consider it more important than it should not actually be, nor are the present needs so important that they can alienate my mind.2 So the things that I am attending to are not the cause of my alienation, despite what you think. SOPHIA: Tell me, then, the cause of your preoccupations. PHILO: My mind, bothered by worldly business and the necessity of such base pursuits, has withdrawn into itself for refuge. SOPHIA: In order to do what? PHILO: You know3 the goal and the object of my thoughts. SOPHIA: If I knew it I would not ask you; since I ask you, I cannot know it. PHILO: If you do not know, you should. SOPHIA: Why? PHILO: Because she who is familiar with the cause must be acquainted with the effect. SOPHIA: How do you know that I know the cause of your meditations? PHILO: I know that you know yourself better than anyone else. SOPHIA: Although I know myself, though not as perfectly as I would like, I do not know that I am the cause of your abstract imaginations.

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PHILO: You and the other beautiful and beloved ones have this custom: though you know the passion of those who love you, you act like you do not know it. But just as you are more beautiful and more generous than the others, I wish for you to be more truthful, because it is proper to you to be without blemish, and I would not like your habits to blemish you. SOPHIA: I see, Philo, that you can escape my accusations in accusing me. Let’s not dispute further whether or not I am aware of your passions. Tell me clearly, what was making you so thoughtful just now? PHILO: Since you would like me to tell you what you already know, I say that my mind, as it often is, was withdrawn in contemplation of the beauty formed in you, whose image is impressed upon it, and which is always desired. This caused me to take leave of my perception of what is outside me.4 SOPHIA: Ah, ah you make me laugh! How can something be impressed so effectively on the mind when it cannot even enter through the eyes when it is present? PHILO: You speak the truth, Sophia. Because if your radiant beauty had not entered through my eyes it could not have perforated5 my perception and imagination as deeply as it did. It couldn’t either have penetrated my heart, or have thus chosen my mind for its eternal habitation, forming your image like a sculpture upon every part of it. The rays of the sun do not pass through the heavenly bodies and the elements beneath them to the earth more quickly than the effigy of your beauty passed into the centre of my heart and into the core of my mind. SOPHIA: If what you say were true, it would be more amazing that the doors of your sight and hearing should now scarcely be opened to me, the one who has been so intimate with your mind and its complete mistress.6 PHILO: And if I were asleep, would you accuse me? SOPHIA: No, because sleep would excuse you, since it usually deprives the senses. PHILO: The cause that deprived me of those sensations is just as great as an excuse. SOPHIA: What else could remove them save sleep, which is a half-death?7 PHILO: ‘Ecstasy,’ or we can name it ‘alienation,’ caused by loving meditation, which is more than half-death.

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SOPHIA: How can thinking alienate the human being from his senses more than sleep, which casts one to the ground like a corpse?8 PHILO: Sleep is more likely to cause life than to destroy it. And loving ecstasy does not do this. SOPHIA: How so? PHILO: Sleep restores life in two ways, and it is produced by nature for two goals. The first, for resting the organs of sense and outward motion, and restoring the spirits9 that control their operations, so that they will not be consumed and worn away by their continual labours during wakefulness. The second, so that the nature of these spirits and their natural heat may be used for the digestion of food. In order to do so perfectly nature induces sleep by stilling external motion and perception, and withdrawing the spirits into the body, so that all may be engaged together in the nutrition and recreation of the animal part of the being. In order for this to be so, look to the heavens, which do not eat nor tire of their perpetual motion, keeping continual watch and never sleeping. Therefore, in animals sleep is a cause of life rather than a semblance of death. But the alienation caused by loving meditation happens with sensory and motion deprivation, not naturally, but violently, and it brings neither rest to the senses nor refreshment to the body; on the contrary, it impedes digestion and the person becomes consumed. So if sleep could excuse me for neither speaking to you nor seeing you, loving alienation and ecstasy should excuse me even more. SOPHIA: Are you saying that one who is awake and thinks sleeps more than one who slumbers? PHILO: I say that he feels less than one who sleeps, because in the ecstasy of love, no less than in sleep, the spirits are withdrawn into the body, leaving the senses imperceptive and the limbs devoid of motion. This happens because the mind gathers itself in so as to deeply contemplate an object which is so intimate and desired that it completely occupies and alienates its, just as now the contemplation of your shapely image, the goddess of my desire, did to me. SOPHIA: It is strange that thought should produce the same stupor that deep sleep normally causes, for I see that while thinking we can speak, hear, and move, but without thinking these operations cannot be performed perfectly and in an orderly way. PHILO: The mind is what governs sensations and orders the voluntary movements of men. So in order to accomplish this duty it is necessary for

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the mind to issue forth from within the body to the exterior parts in order to find the tools to perform those actions and to approach the exterior objects of the senses, and in that way it is possible to see, hear, and speak while thinking without any problem. But when the mind gathers within itself to contemplate a beloved thing in the most effective way and closest union, it recedes from its external parts and, abandoning both senses and movements, retires within itself with the greater part of its faculties and spirits into that meditation, without leaving within the body powers other than the one without which life could not be maintained. And it is the vital power that keeps the heart in perpetual motion, and the breath of the spirits through the arteries, bringing fresh air from the outside and releasing what is already firing from within. Only this remains with a little nutritive power, because it is mostly prevented by deep reflection, so a little food will support a thinker for a long time. And just as in sleep, when the nutritive power is strong, correct reasoning of the mind is absorbed, deprived, and occupied, and the imagination is troubled by vapours that rise to the brain from the food in process of digestion, producing dreams that are vain and disordered, in the same way, the intimate and efficient way of thinking absorbs and occupies sleep, nutrition, and digestion of food. SOPHIA: At one moment you make sleep resemble contemplation when they both deprive the body of senses and movements and draw the spirits within; and at another, you make them opposite, since you say that the one deprives and occupies the other. PHILO: And in effect it is so, because they are similar in some things and dissimilar in others. They are similar in what they discard, and dissimilar in what they acquire. SOPHIA: How is that? PHILO: Both sleep and contemplation abandon and deprive sense and motion to an equal degree; but sleep abandons them by making the power of nutrition stronger; contemplation abandons them by making the power of thought stronger. Again, they are similar because they both draw the spirits from the exterior to the interior of the body; and they are dissimilar because sleep draws them to the inferior part of the body under the breast, which is the abdomen, where the stomach, liver, intestines, and the nutritive organs and other organs are placed, so that they may take charge of the digestion of food for the nourishment of the body. In the opposite way, contemplation draws the spirits to the highest region of the body above the breast, which is the brain, the place of the faculty of thought and dwelling

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of the mind, in order for there to be perfect meditation. Moreover, the intention and need of withdrawal of the spirits is different in them. Sleep withdraws them in order to withdraw the natural warmth together with them, in the quantity necessary for digestion during sleep. But contemplation retires them in order not to retire the warmth, but to retire all the faculties of the soul, uniting the whole soul and strengthening so as to better contemplate that desire. Then, because there is so much difference between sleep and contemplation, it is right for the one to banish and overcome the other. Contemplation, however, no less than sleep, deprives the body of all sensations and movements, but perhaps it deprives the body of them with more violence and force. SOPHIA: It does not seem to me that the person who is thinking loses all sensations just like the one who sleeps. And you would not deny that in the ecstasy of love the lover still retains considerable power of reflection and imagination connected to sensations, while none of these things remains to the person who sleeps except nutrition, which is not connected to the sensations, since it can be found also in plants. PHILO: If you consider well, you will find the contrary: because in sleep, although we lose the sensations of sight, hearing, taste, and smell, we do not lose the sensation of touch. While we sleep, we can perceive cold and hot. Moreover, fantasia persists in many things, though it is disordered in its dreaming, and most of the time passions are present. But when rapt in contemplation, we lose the perception of cold and hot together with all the other sensations; and also we lose the cognition and fantasia of everything, save the object we contemplate. Even the single thought that remains with the lover in meditation is not of himself, but of the beloved. Nor, when he reflects on her, is he any longer himself, but he becomes one with what he contemplates and desires. Because when the lover is in the ecstasy of contemplating the beloved, he has no care or thought for himself, nor does he perform any natural function, sensation, motion, or reason on his own behalf, but is estranged from himself in everything, belonging to and wholly transformed into the object of his love and contemplation. This is because the essence of the soul is its own act. And when the soul concentrates on itself in order to intimately contemplate an object, the soul’s essence is transported to it and the soul is its own proper substance. And the soul no longer exists as the soul and essence of him who loves, but as the actual form of the beloved. So the alienation of the ecstasy of love is far greater than that of sleep. How then, Sophia, can you accuse me of neither seeing nor speaking to you?

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SOPHIA: It is undeniable that we continually see how the effective contemplation of the mind normally occupies the sensations. But I would like to know more clearly why this happens. So tell me, when we are thinking so deeply, as often happens, why do the sensations not remain in their operations? The mind does not need the use of the sensations in order to contemplate, because they do not have a place in the mind’s work; nor does it require the abundance of natural heat needed in the digestive process, nor the energies that are functional to the sensations. For the mind does not function by means of corporal spirits, since it is incorporeal. So, in meditation, what is the need of losing sensations, and why are they so withdrawn and concentrated? PHILO: The soul is one and indivisible in itself, but by distributing itself throughout the whole body and permeating its exterior part to the surface, it branches out for certain activities relating to sensation, movement, and nutrition among various organs and divides itself among many different faculties, just like the sun, which, being one, divides itself and multiplies through the expansion and multiplication of its rays, according to the number and diversity of places to which they are directed. Therefore, when the spiritual mind (which is the heart of our heart and soul of our soul), through the force of desire, withdraws into itself to contemplate a beloved and desired object, it draws every part of the soul to it, gathering itself into one indivisible unity. Though they serve no purpose, the spirits are withdrawn with the soul, and collected, either in the centre of the head, where cognition is, or in the centre of the heart, where desire resides, leaving the eyes without sight, the ears without hearing, and also the other organs without sensation and movement. Even the inner organs of nutrition slow their constant and necessary work of digestion and distribution of food. The human body then has only the vital power of the heart, which, as I have told you, is the continual custodian of life. This power is the intermediary between the powers of the human body, both in location and dignity, and it binds the higher with the inferior part together. SOPHIA: How is the vital power a bond, in its position and dignity, between the upper10 and lower11 parts of human being? PHILO: The place of the vital power is the heart, which is in the breast, and is midway between the inferior part of the human being, which is the abdomen, and the higher part, which is the head. The heart is thus midway between the lower and nutritive part, which is in the abdomen, and the higher and cognitive part, which is the head. So through it, these two parts

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and faculties in the human being are connected. If the chain formed by this vital power did not exist, our mind and soul, in the most ardent contemplation, would be released from our body, and the mind would fly away from us, leaving the body without the soul. SOPHIA: Would it be possible that in those contemplations – here the mind is so far exalted – this chain of life would be drawn away with it too? PHILO: The desire might be so keen and the contemplation so intimate that the soul would cast off all fetters and be withdrawn from the body, and by reason of the closeness of their union the spirits would be dissolved, so that the soul, cleaving in love to the object of its desire and contemplation, could quickly leave the body without any life at all. SOPHIA: Such a death would be sweet. PHILO: Such was the death of our blessed ones who parted from their bodies, contemplating with supreme desire and mingling their whole soul with the divine beauty. So Holy Scripture, speaking of the death of the two holy shepherds, Moses and Aaron, said that they died by the mouth of God;12 and the sages declare metaphorically that they died kissing the Godhead, and this means that they were rapt by that love’s contemplation and divine union, as you have learned.13 SOPHIA: It seems to me a great thing that our soul can so easily fly to corporal things, and then withdraw its whole being to spiritual things, and although, as you say, it is one and indivisible, it can nevertheless direct itself between things so entirely different and distant as corporeal and spiritual things. I would like you, Philo, to give me some explanations that would help me better understand this wondrous flight of our soul, and for you to tell me how the soul leaves and rejoins the sensations, and assumes or suspends the habit of contemplation, as you have told me. PHILO: In this the soul is inferior to the abstract intellect, because the intellect is uniform in everything, without motion from one thing to another, nor from itself to things foreign to it. So the soul, which is inferior to the abstract intellect (because the first is dependent on the latter), is not uniform, but is midway between the intellectual and the corporeal world (I mean the medium and link connecting the one with the other). It must therefore have a nature composed of spiritual intelligence and corporeal mutability, because otherwise it could not animate bodies. So it happens that the soul often sets aside its intellectual nature to attend to corporeal things, and takes care of the sustenance of the body through the medium of the nutritive faculty, or,

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through the activity of the sensorial organs, discerns those objects of perception that are necessary to life and thought. At certain times, the soul retires into itself and returns to its intellectual nature, when it connects and unites with the pure intellect above the soul; and so it exits from the corporeal to go back to the intellectual, according to its passing inclination. Thus, Plato14 said that the soul is composed of itself and of another, of the indivisible and the divisible, and also that it is a number that moves itself. By this he means that the soul’s nature is not uniform like that of pure intellect, but that it has a number of natures; it is neither corporeal nor spiritual, and moves continually from one nature to another. And he says that the soul’s motion is circular and perpetual, not, however, that it moves from place to place as body, but as spirit and in the fulfilment of its various activities it moves within itself, that is, from its intellectual to its corporeal nature, and then returns again to the intellect, always in a circular motion. SOPHIA: It seems to me that I have almost understood this difference in the nature of the soul that you establish; but I would indeed be thankful if you could find a good example to better put my mind at peace. PHILO: What better example is there than the two heavenly rulers whom the Most High Creator made to be the patterns of the intellect and the soul? SOPHIA: Who are they? PHILO: The two luminaries: the great one, which makes the day, and the small one, which supplies the night. SOPHIA: You mean the sun and the moon? PHILO: Those very ones. SOPHIA: What have they to do with the intellect and the soul? PHILO: The sun is the simulacrum of the divine intellect on which every intellect depends, and the moon is the simulacrum of the world-soul from which every soul proceeds. SOPHIA: In what way? PHILO: You know that the world is divided into the corporeal and spiritual, or incorporeal. SOPHIA: Yes, I know that. PHILO: And that the corporeal world is apprehended by sense and the spiritual world by the intellect.

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SOPHIA: This also I know. PHILO: And you must know that among the five senses, sight alone gives us perceptual knowledge of the corporeal world, just as intellectual vision gives us intellectual knowledge of the incorporeal world. SOPHIA: Why, therefore, do the other four senses – hearing, touch, taste, and smell – exist? PHILO: Sight alone is the one that knows all bodies; hearing aids the cognition of things, but it does not draw the cognition from the things in themselves, like the eye does, but it takes it through the medium of language, which has already acquired either through sight or by hearing it from another whose knowledge comes from sight. Thus, sight is prior to hearing, and the eye takes general precedence over the ear as the essential source of intellectual knowledge. The other three senses are all corporeal, created for practical knowledge,15 and use of those things nourishes the animate being rather than intellectual cognition. SOPHIA: Yet animals, which do not have the intellect, have both sight and hearing. PHILO: Yes, they have them, because they also need them for bodily sustenance. But in the human being, besides being useful for sustenance, they are essential to his intellectual cognition; in fact, corporeal things provide knowledge of incorporeal things, which the soul receives through hearing when it learns from another or from sight, which has its own knowledge of bodies. SOPHIA: I understand this very well. Please continue. PHILO: Neither of these two types of sight, corporeal and intellectual, can see without the light that illumines it. And corporeal sight or eyesight cannot see without he light of the sun that gives light to the eye and object, through the medium of air or water or any transparent or diaphanous substance. SOPHIA: Do fire and bright objects also give light and make sight possible? PHILO: Yes, but imperfectly, in as much as they participate in the light of the sun, which is the primal luminary, and without this light, received directly from the sun or indirectly from another entity participating in the sun’s function and form, the eye would never see. In the same way, intellectual vision could in no way see and apprehend incorporeal things and universal causes, if it were not enlightened by the divine intellect. Not only

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the faculty of intellectual vision, but also the forms there are in imagination (by means of which the intellectual faculty acquires intellectual cognition), are illuminated by the eternal forms in the divine intellect. These are the prototypes of all created things, and they pre-exist in the divine intellect in the same way than the prototypes of the forms of things made by art pre-exist in the mind of the craftsman, which is Art itself (and Plato names only these forms Ideas). Intellectual sight, its object, and the medium of the intelligible act are all illuminated by the divine intellect, as happens to corporeal sight, with its object and means through the sun. So it is evident that in the corporeal and visible world the sun is the simulacrum of the divine intellect in the intellectual world.16 SOPHIA: I like the resemblance of the sun to the divine intellect, and although the true light is that of the sun, the influence of the divine intellect – in a felicitous comparison – may still be called light, as you name it. PHILO: Yes, and furthermore that of the intellect is more rightly called light than that of the sun. SOPHIA: Why is that more correct? PHILO: Just as the intellectual faculty is more excellent and its perception more perfect and true than that of the eye, so the light that illumines intellectual vision is more perfect and more truly light than that of the sun which illumines the eye. And moreover, the sun’s light is neither body, nor passion, nor quality, nor accident of bodies as some inferior philosophers believe. Yet it is but the shadow of the intellectual light, or rather, the splendour of that light in the noblest body. Hence, the wise prophet Moses said of the beginning of the creation of the world that, all things being in tenebrous Chaos, like an abyss of black water, the spirit of God, breathing over the water of Chaos, brought forth light. By this he means that the light of corporeal vision was produced from divine intellectual light on the first day of creation, and on the fourth day it was applied to the sun, the moon, and the stars.17 SOPHIA: Tell me, please: how can the light of bodies be an incorporeal and almost intellectual thing? And if it is corporeal, how can you deny that it is either a body, or a quality, or an accident of a body? PHILO: The light of the sun is no accident, but a spiritual form, which depends on and is formed by intellectual and divine light. This light is also present in the other stars, but to a lesser degree than in the sun. In the lower world this light is corporally part, as form, of fire, and other bright

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bodies. But in the diaphanous and transparent bodies, like air and water, the light of what illuminates is represented as separable and intellectual, and not corporeal act, as if it were a quality or passion, and the diaphanous is only a means of the light and not subjected to it.18 SOPHIA: Why not? PHILO: Because if light in diaphanous bodies were a quality predicated on a subject, it would conform to the six conditions that characterize it. First, because it would be diffused through each part of the whole element in succession; but light penetrates immediately throughout the whole of the diaphanous object. Second, because an incidental quality changes the nature of a subject; but light brings no change to the diaphanous bodies. Third, because the quality extends over a limited space; but light is diffused throughout the diaphanous bodies without a limit or measure. Fourth, when the cause of the quality is removed, some trace remains in the object for a time, just as water retains its heat after it is withdrawn from the fire. However, when the illuminant is removed, no light remains in the diaphanous body. Fifth, a quality moves with its subject, but the light that illuminates an object – such as air or water – does not move with the motion of the air or water. Sixth, the several qualities in a subject combine and mix together or form a whole; but many lights do not form a single light (you can see that if you walk by the light of two lanterns: there will be two shadows and the number of shadows will always correspond to the number of lanterns; indeed, if three or more lamps are placed at different angles to a fissure in a wall, you will see that they will give three separate lights through the hole). All these things show that light in a diaphanous body or rather in the body that gives light is no corporeal quality or affection, but a spiritual activity by means of which the diaphanous passes on the light of the illuminant; and this activity is separable through the removal of the illuminant. Not in a different way the light helps both diaphanous and intellect, or rather the intellective soul, and the body, which has an existent, or rather essential, connection with the intellectual soul, even if it is not mixed with the soul. Therefore, it is not changed with the body’s changes, nor does it receive corruption from the corruption of the body. So the true light is the intellectual one, which – essentially – illumines the corporeal and incorporeal world and in the human being gives light to the soul and to intellectual sight. From this light derives the light of the sun, which formally and actually illumines the corporeal world, and in the human being gives light to the eye’s sight in order to apprehend all bodies, not only those of the lower world of generation (as the other senses are also doing), but

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also the divine and eternal bodies of the heavens, which is the principal cause of the intellectual cognition of the incorporeal things in the human being. In fact, seeing the stars and the heavens in perpetual motion, we come to know that their movers are intellectual and incorporeal, and the wisdom and power of the creator who fashioned them, as David says: ‘When I see your heaven, the work of your hands,’ 19 etc. SOPHIA: You make the sight far more excellent than all the other senses together; nevertheless, I see that these, and in particular touch and taste, are more necessary to the life of the human being. PHILO: They are more necessary to corporeal life, and the sight is more essential to the spiritual life of the intelligence, and therefore is more excellent in its organ, object, medium, and act. SOPHIA: Explain to me these four excellences. PHILO: The organ of sight is clearer, more spiritual, and well made than the other organs of the other senses; because the eyes are unlike the rest of the body, they are not carnal but full of light, diaphanous and spiritual; they look like stars, and their beauty surpasses that of the other parts of the body. You will know that they are made with the composition of their seven humours, or rather tunicae,20 and this can be seen more than in any other parts of the body, or rather organs. The object of sight is the whole corporeal universe, both the heavenly and the inferior: the other senses can apprehend only imperfectly a part of the inferior world. The medium of touch is flesh. The medium of smell are vapours; that of taste is humidity; and of hearing is air in motion. But the medium of sight is the bright spiritual diaphanous body, which is the air illuminated by the light of the heavens, which exceeds all other parts of the world in beauty as the eye all other part of the animated body. The act of the other senses covers but few things in the objects that they apprehend. Smell feels only the stimulus of vapours. Taste only feels the stimulus of the humidity of food and drink; touch the stimulus of the passive qualities; and with little common sense, they are perceptible only to matter, and their perception is imperfect. So the forms of these three senses are only proximate stimuli. Hearing, however, is more spiritual and has a wider range of activity, it is only perceptible to the heavy or sharp repercussion of the air, set in motion by the impact of one body with another, and this at short distance; and its forms are closely bound up with the affection of impact and corporeal motion. The eye, however, sees things that are in the furthermost horizon, and in the first heaven, and through the medium of light apprehends all bodies, near and

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far, perceiving their forms without being subject to any affection. Sight recognizes the distance, colour, luminosity, size, sharp, number, position, and movement of everything, as if the eye were a spy21 of the intellect and all intelligible things. For this reason, Aristotle says22 that we love sight more than any of the other senses, and in effect it contributes more to knowledge than the others. Therefore, in the human being (who is a world in miniature), the eye, among all his corporeal parts, is like the intellect to the faculties of the soul, and is its simulacrum and disciple. So in the big world the sun among all bodies is like the divine intellect among all the spiritual ones, and it is the intellect’s simulacrum and true disciple. Just as the light of the human eye is dependent and serves, with many differences, the intellectual light and its sight, so the sun’s light depends on and serves the first and true light of the divine intellect; therefore, you can rightly believe that the sun is the true simulacrum of the divine intellect, and above all, it resembles it in its beauty. So, because supreme beauty resides in the divine intellect, in which the whole universe is most beautifully prefigured, so in the corporeal world the highest beauty is that of the sun, which makes the whole universe beautiful and bright.23 SOPHIA: As you said, the sun is the true simulacrum of the divine intellect in the same way that the eye is that of the human intellect. There is indeed a great similarity between the human intellect and the eye and the divine intellect and the sun; even though, it seems to me that there is a disparity between our eye and the sun, which does not exist between our intellect and the divine intellect. It is this: our intellect resembles the divine in that both see and impart light; and the divine intellect not only apprehends all the forms of the things contained in the intellect, but also illuminates every other intellect with his bright and eternal Ideas, which we can also name ‘forms.’ Because of this our human intellect not only apprehends the forms of everything, but also enlightens all the other cognitive faculties of the human being, so that even though their cognition is of individual and material things, it is directed by the intellect that is not bestial, like that of the other animals. Consequently, eye and sun do not resemble each other so much, because the eye sees but does not illuminate, and the sun illuminates, but does not see. PHILO: Perhaps they are not different in this. In fact, the eye not only sees because of the universal illumination of the diaphanous bodies, but also because that particular illumination by light rays proceeds from the eye to the object. These rays are not sufficient of themselves to illuminate the medium and the object; nonetheless without them the universal light would not suffice for actual vision.

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SOPHIA: Do you believe, then, that the eye sees by sending rays from itself to the object? PHILO: Yes, I believe so. SOPHIA: So in this you are not a Peripatetic. Indeed, Aristotle sustained and maintained that vision is produced by the representation of the form of the object in the pupil of the eye, and not by the transmission of rays as Plato says.24 PHILO: Aristotle did not demonstrate against Plato. I maintain that in the act of vision both things are necessary: the transmission of rays from the eye to apprehend and illumine the object and the representation of the form of the object in the pupil. Furthermore, these two contrary motions are not sufficient without a third and final motion, which is the eye that mediates the rays on the object, for a second time on to the object to make the form impressed conform in every respect with the external object. In this third action consists the true cause of vision. SOPHIA: This theory sounds new to me. PHILO: On the contrary, it is as old as it is true. What I want to prove to you is that the eye not only sees, but first illuminates what it sees. So, do not believe that the sun illuminates only without seeing; because of all the senses, sight alone is judged to exist and this is even more perfectly in the heavens than in the human being or any other creature. SOPHIA: How could it be? Do the heavens see in the same way that we see? PHILO: Better than we can. SOPHIA: Do they have eyes? PHILO: What eyes are better than the sun and stars, which in the Holy Scripture are called the eyes of God because of their vision? The prophet says for the seven planets: ‘Those seven eyes of God that encompass all the earth.’25 And another prophet says that the starry heaven is His body full of eyes; they call the sun eye, and say: ‘eye of the sun.’26 These celestial eyes can both see and illuminate, and through vision they apprehend and know every object in the corporeal world and its mutations. SOPHIA: And if they have only the sense of sight, how can they apprehend the objects of the other senses? PHILO: They cannot apprehend those things that are purely affections in the way that the other senses are doing; thus, they do not feel flavours through

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taste, nor qualities through touch, nor vapours through smell. However, since the heavenly beings are the causes of the natures and qualities of the elements (for the latter are derived from the heavens), they have causal foreknowledge of them, and they also apprehend the causes of their affections and effects by means of sight. SOPHIA: And what of hearing? Do they hear? PHILO: Not by their own organ, because they only have sight. Instead, by seeing the movements of the body, and of the lips, tongue, and other organs of speech, they understand their meanings, as you may have seen many men who are skilled in watching do, when seeing the movement of the lips and mouth, without hearing the voices, they understand what is being said. How much stronger will the sight of the great and shining stars be, and especially that of the brightest sun? In fact, I believe that the sun penetrates the entire body of the world and even into the opacity of the earth with his light, as we see by the natural heat which the sun infuses into the centre of the earth. In this way the sun very subtly and perfectly comprehends all things, affection, and arts of the corporeal world with only its faculty of sight. So also in the dual activity of seeing and giving light our intellect is similar to the divine intellect in two things, sight and light; the sun is similar to the divine intellect in seeing and giving light to things. SOPHIA: You told me a lot about the resemblance of the sun to the divine intellect. Tell me something about the resemblance you say the moon has to the world-soul. PHILO: Just as the soul is the mean between the intellect and the body, and is made and composed of intellectual stability and unity and corporeal variance and mutability, so the moon stands midway between the sun (simulacrum of the intellect) and the corporeal earth, and is thus composed of the unique and immutable light of the sun and the varying and mutable darkness of the earth.27 SOPHIA: I understand you. PHILO: If you have understood me, explain what I said. SOPHIA: It is manifest that the moon is midway between the sun and the earth; in fact, its position is below the sun and above the earth, and between them both. Ancient authorities in particular said that the sun is immediately above the moon.28 Moreover, the fact that the composition of the moon is both solar light and terrestrial darkness is proved by the dark spots

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that appear in the middle of the moon when it is full of light, so that its brightness is mixed with darkness. PHILO: You understood a part of what I said, the most simple, even though you missed the main part. SOPHIA: Then make the rest clear. PHILO: Beyond what you said, the very light of the moon, or luminosity, is slow to shine because it is midway between the clear light of the sun and the terrestrial darkness. Moreover, the moon is always composed of light and darkness, because, except when it is eclipsed, one half of the moon is always continually illuminated by the sun and the other half is in darkness. And if I did not fear to digress, I could tell you in detail how in this composite structure there is a similarity between the moon and the soul (as the moon’s true simulacrum). SOPHIA: Please, tell me anyway, so that this thing will not remain imperfect in me, and also because I like this matter and I do not remember having learned this from anybody else. The day is so long that there will be enough time for everything. PHILO: The moon is round like an orb, and when it is not in eclipse it receives the sun’s light on one half of its globe, while the other half, being the reverse side of the globe that does not see the sun, is always in darkness. SOPHIA: It does not seem to me that half of the orb of moon is always illuminated; this happens only when there is a full moon. At other times, the light does not cover the half of a sphere, but only a part of it, sometimes greater and sometimes less, according to whether the moon is waxing or waning. In addition, sometimes it seems that it does not have any light at all, at the time of the new moon and for one day before and after. PHILO: You are right about the appearance, but in reality the whole of one half of the moon’s orb is always lit up by the sun. SOPHIA: Why does this not appear so? PHILO: Because the moon is always moving (getting nearer to or farther from the sun), the light, which always illuminates one half of it in the form of a circle, changes from one part to another, from the upper to the lower or from the lower to the upper. SOPHIA: Which do you call the lower and which the upper?29

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PHILO: The lower part of the moon is turned towards the earth and watches us, and we perceive it when either a whole or a part of it is illuminated. The upper part is turned towards the heaven of the sun above it, and we do not perceive the moon even when it is bright. Once every month the whole of the moon’s lower half is illuminated by the sun, and we see it full of light, on the fifteenth day of the lunar month because the moon is facing the sun in opposition. Another time the upper half is illuminated, when the moon is in conjunction with the sun that is above it and gives light to the whole of its upper part; and the lower side turned towards us remains in utter darkness. At that time the moon does not appear to us for two days; on the other days of the month there is a different illumination of the half of the orb of the moon, because after conjunction, as the moon travels away from the sun, the light begins to leave the upper part and to pass gradually to the lower, turned towards us. One half, however, is always full of light, because the light that is lacking in the lower part is present in the upper, and we do not always see a complete half of the orb. This process continues until the fifteenth day, when the whole of the lower part turned towards us is bright and the upper part is dark. After this, the light begins to transfer to the upper part, and it gradually decreases for us until it reaches the upper part and we are left without light, and the upper, which we do not see, is all bright. SOPHIA: I understand well the passage of the light and darkness from one half of the moon to the other, from the upper part towards the heaven and the lower towards us, and vice versa. Tell me how there is the simulacrum of the soul in this? PHILO: The light of the intellect is stable, but when it is transmitted to the soul, it becomes inconstant and mixed with darkness, because the soul is composed of intellectual light and corporeal darkness, as the moon is composed of solar light and corporeal darkness. The mutation of the light in the soul is like that of the moon, passing from the upper to the lower part turned towards us and vice versa. The soul sometimes uses the whole of its cognitive light, which the intellect has, in the administration of corporeal things, so that its higher intellectual part remains in utter darkness, putting off all contemplation abstracted from matter, denuded of true wisdom and wholly absorbed in prudent administration and corporeal uses. And just as when the moon is full and in opposition to the sun, the astrologers say that it is in an aspect of maximum hostility to the sun in that moment, so too, when the soul takes all the light that it derives from the intellect, and transfers it to the lower part in the direction of corporality, it is in opposition to

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the intellect, and completely cuts itself off from the intellect. The opposite occurs when the light is received by the higher spiritual part of the soul, turned towards the intellect: the soul unites with the intellect like the moon does with the sun in conjunction. It is very true that such divine copulation causes the soul to abandon corporeal things and all care for them, and it remains in darkness like the moon in its lower part turned to us. And because the soul is rapt in contemplation and copulation with the intellect, it takes no heed of bodily things, nor their wise administration. Yet, in order for the whole body to not be dissolved, the soul is constrained to draw apart from its copulation with the intellect, imparting the light gradually to the lower part, just as the moon does after conjunction, and the more the lower part receives a quantity of intellectual light, the more the higher part will lack it, because perfect copulation cannot coexist with providing for corporal things. It follows that the soul, like the moon, turns to direct its light and cognitive faculty towards the corporeal world, taking it away gradually from the divine, in order to preserve the body, and entirely abandons the contemplative life. Then the soul is like the moon on the fifteenth day, full of light towards us, but full of darkness towards the heavens. Moreover, it follows that the soul, like the moon, withdraws its light from the lower world, and gradually returns in the higher divine one, until it returns to that total intellectual copulation and total corporeal darkness. Thus, the light of the intellect changes continually in the soul, from one part to another, and the same occurs with the opposing darkness (as the sun’s light in the moon) with a remarkable similarity. SOPHIA: I am amazed and happy to see how excellently the perfect Maker30 of the universe placed a portrait of the two spiritual luminaries of the heavens in the two luminaries of the corporeal heaven, the sun and the moon, so that when we see them, who cannot be hidden from human eyes, our mind’s eyes can see the spiritual one, which can be visible to them. But in order to perfect my knowledge (since you told me about the resemblance in the soul to the conjunction and opposition of the moon with the sun), would you also tell me about its resemblance to the two quadrate aspects called the quarters of the moon (the one seven days after conjunction and the other seven days after opposition), and if they may have some meaning to the changes of the soul. PHILO: Certainly they have a meaning, because those quarters31 are exactly when the moon has half light in the upper part and the other half in the lower. Because of this the astrologers call the quartile aspect that of halfhostility and conflict. Because, since the two opposite parts are equal and

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have an equal part in light, they dispute as to which shall take the rest. In the same way, when the intellectual light of the soul is equally divided between the higher part of reason (or the mind) and the lower part of sensuality, the one contends with the other regarding who must dominate, reason over sensuality, or sensuality over reason. SOPHIA: And what does it mean that there are two quarters? PHILO: One is after conjunction, and from then on the light in the lower part begins to exceed that in the higher. So also in the soul, when it turns from copulation to opposition, after its two parts attain the same quantity of light, the higher is overcome by the lower because sensuality conquers reason. The other quarter is of opposition, and from there the upper part (which we do not see) begins to overcome the lower part that we see in light. The same happens in the soul when it turns from intellectual opposition to copulation; because both parts are equal in the light, the higher intellectual part begins to overcome and to conquer the sensual one. SOPHIA: It seems to me that this point should not be set aside. Tell me more, if you have some similarity to the four amicable aspects of the moon to the sun ready, the two sextile and the two trinal, in connection with the soul’s changes. PHILO: The first sextile aspect of the moon to the sun is on the fifth day after conjunction, and is one of friendship, because the upper part shares the light with the lower without conflict, while it is stronger and the lower is subordinate to it. This is also true in the soul. When it leaves copulation, it shares a little of its light with the corporeal things because they need it, and in doing this reason still has mastery over sensuality. And because the corporeal things at that time are weaker, the astrologers say – judging corporeal welfare – that this aspect is of a lesser friendship. The first trinal aspect of the moon to the sun is at ten days after conjunction, and most of the light is already directed towards us; the upper part, however, is not deprived of light, but it is subordinate to the lower. And this is so in the soul, when it passes from the first quarter to opposition; reason does not remain without light, but most of the time it operates in corporeal things without any conflict. And, because the corporeal things are abundant, the astrologers properly call the trinal the ‘aspect of perfect friendship.’ The second trinal aspect of the moon to the sun is at twenty days after conjunction, and after opposition, and before the second quarter. Already the light is to be transmitted to the upper part, which was completely dark in opposition, but without conflict. Most of the light is still in the lower part directed

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to us. The same occurs in the soul when it turns from the body, to which it has been completely dedicated, and begins to give part of itself to reason and intellect, so that, since corporeal things are even more abundant, it joins with the intellectual splendour of the things, and this aspect is the second aspect of perfect friendship according to the astrologers. The second sextile aspect of the moon to the sun is on the twenty-fifth day after conjunction, that is, after the second quarter and before the following conjunction. The upper part has already regained most of the light, although a sufficient measure still remains in the lower part, so that without conflict it is subordinate to the upper part. In the same way the soul, when it has turned away from corporeal things, not only makes reason equal to sensation, but it considers reason higher to sensation without conflict, and it still provides for the needs of corporeal things, though always governed by the right mind. But, since on this occasion corporeal things are weak, the astrologers, judging this aspect, call it an ‘aspect of diminished friendship.’ After this fourth and final friendly aspect, if the soul tends to the spiritual it comes to divine copulation, which is the soul’s supreme happiness and the diminishing of corporeal things. So, Sophia, the soul is a number that moves in a circular motion, and the number of the numbers is the same as the number of the lunar aspects with the sun, of which there are seven and the conjunction is the tenth unity, which is the beginning and end of the seven numbers, as it is the beginning and end of the seven aspects. SOPHIA: I am happy with the lunar simulacrum to the human soul. I would like to know if you have any similarity that connects the eclipse of the moon to the things of the soul. PHILO: In this too, the Painter of the world was not negligent. There is an eclipse of the moon when the earth is interposed between the moon and the sun, the source of its light. When the earth’s shadow falls upon every part of the moon, in all its parts, both upper and lower, it remains in the darkness. And the moon is said to be ‘eclipsed’: in fact, there is total absence of light in both the halves. The same occurs in the soul. When corporeal and terrestrial things come between the soul and the intellect, it loses all the light that it received from the intellect, not only in its higher, but also in its lower practical parts. SOPHIA: How can body come between soul and intellect? PHILO: When the soul is too inclined towards material and corporeal things and destroys itself in them, it loses reason and the intellectual light in everything; in effect, it not only loses divine copulation and intellectual

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contemplation, but also the soul’s active life becomes completely irrational and purely bestial, and mind or reason have no place in it nor in its lustful practices. The soul is thus so miserable, being eclipsed from the light of the intellect, that it is at the same level of the soul of the brute beasts and it assumes their nature (and Pythagoras says that such souls as these migrate into bodies of wild beasts and animals). So, just as the moon is sometimes totally and partially eclipsed, the soul, too, sometimes wholly and sometimes partially, loses the intellectual light in all of its acts and sometimes becomes bestiality, though not in all acts. Be that as it may, bestiality, in all or in part, is the greatest destruction and absolute defect of the soul; and because of this David says to God: ‘Deliver my soul from destruction, and from the power of the dogs my only one.’32 SOPHIA: I very much like this last comparison of the corrupted, dark, and bestial soul, with the eclipsed moon. I would like only to know if the eclipse of the sun has some similar meaning. PHILO: The eclipse of the sun does not imply any privation of light in his body, like that of the moon; in fact, the sun is never without light, and it seems that light is his proper substance. The defect is in us and the creatures of the earth who, through the interposition of the moon between us and the sun, are deprived of his light and remain in darkness. SOPHIA: I understand this, but tell me, what is the resemblance to the intellect? PHILO: This: the intellect is never deprived, nor found wanting of its own intellectual light, as occurs to the soul. In fact, the intellective light is the very essence of the intellect, without which33 it34 would have no being. It is also in the soul by participation of this intellect. So, because of the interposition of terrestrial sensuality between the soul and the intellect, the sun is eclipsed and becomes dark and deprived of the intellectual light, in the same way as occurs to the moon, as I told you. SOPHIA: I can see that the sun and the intellect are similar in that neither is subject to privation or defect. But in the defect of light that the solar eclipse causes in us, by the interposition between us and the intellect, what is the resemblance to the intellect? PHILO: Just as, when the moon is interposed between the sun and us from the earth, we are deprived of the sun’s light, and it is received wholly on its upper part, while the lower side facing us remains in darkness; in the same way, when the soul puts itself between body and intellect, that is, when it copulates and unites with the intellect, it receives the whole of the intellectual

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light onto its higher part and its lower corporeal part remains in darkness. The body, not being illuminated by the soul, ceases to exist, and the soul separates from it. This is that happy death caused by the copulation of the soul with the intellect, and which our blessed ancients Moses, Aaron, and others, of whom the Holy Scripture speaks, enjoyed; in fact, they died through the mouth of God,35 kissing the Godhead, as I have told you. SOPHIA: I like this resemblance. And it is good and right that, in joining in such perfect union with the divine intellect, the soul’s connection with the body is dissolved. In this way this eclipse is only bodily, and not of the intellect, which is always unchangeable, nor of the soul, who rejoices in it.36 So too the eclipse of the sun is only for us, and not for the sun, which never obscures itself, nor is hidden to the moon, which then receives the whole of the intellectual rays on its upper part. May God, therefore, make our souls worthy of such a blessed end. But tell me, please: since this soul is spiritual, what imperfection or affection can it have in itself that makes it subject to so many changes, sometimes turning towards the body and other times towards the intellect? The movement of the moon away from the sun is manifest cause of its changes towards the sun and towards the earth, but this cause is not found in the spiritual soul. PHILO: The cause of so many mutations in the soul is the double love that resides within it. SOPHIA: What is the love of the soul, and why is it double? PHILO: In the divine intellect there is the highest and most perfect beauty, the soul, which is a splendour deriving from it. The soul therefore falls in love with that highest intellectual beauty, its higher origin, just as the imperfect female falls in love with her male who perfects her, and she desires to be happy in this perpetual union. To this another double love must be added, the love for the corporeal world inferior to it, like that of the male for the female, in order to perfect in the world the beauty that it draws from the intellect through the first love. It is as if the soul is impregnated with the beauty of the intellect and desires to give birth to it in the corporeal world, or it truly takes the essence of this beauty to implant it in the body, as a craftsman takes examples from the intellectual beauty in order to sculpt them into the bodies that he fashions in his own way. This love does not only happen in the world-soul, and the intellect in the great world, but this same love occurs to the soul of the human being with his intellect in the small world. Because the love of the human soul is double, directed not only towards the beauty of the intellect, but also towards the likeness of beauty that there is in the body, it

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happens that at times the love of intellectual beauty is so strong that it draws the soul to leave all affection for the body, so much that it totally disconnects itself from it and consequently the human being undergoes happy copulative death (as I told you happens in the sun’s eclipse). At other times the contrary happens, because, attracted unduly to the attractions of the love of corporeal beauty, it leaves completely the inclination and love for the beauty of the intellect and in this way hides itself from its higher intellect, and becomes wholly corporeal and obscured from intellectual light and beauty (as I told you in the moon’s eclipse). At other times the soul operates by both loves, intellectual and corporeal, or rather with temper and balance, and then reason either contends with sensuality (the example that I gave you of the two quadrate aspects of the moon to the sun), or else the soul inclines to one of the loves (corresponding to the four favourable aspects, two trinal and two sextile). When the inclination is towards intellectual love, if it is small and still subject to sensuality, man is called continent; and if he is directed greatly to intellectual love, and there is no sensual drive left, man is called temperate. But if the soul inclines more to the love of corporeal things, it is the contrary: if the inclination is small and the intellect offers some resistance, man is called incontinent; and if it is great and the intellect is entirely passive, he is called intemperate.37 SOPHIA: I am quite satisfied with this reason for the changes of the soul: love for intellectual beauty and love for corporeal beauty. Consequently, in the human being, too, there are two different loves and two different beauties, intellectual and corporeal. I know that intellectual beauty far excels that of body and is an adornment of far greater price. I now must learn from you if perhaps the moon (like the soul) has these loving inclinations towards the sun and towards the earth, and perhaps in this also the moon is the simulacrum of the soul. PHILO: Undoubtedly it is a simulacrum; in fact, the love that the moon has for the sun (on which its light, life, and perfection depend) is like that of the female for the male, and that love makes it eager for union with the sun. The moon also loves the terrestrial world, as the male loves the female, to make it perfect by its light and influence, which the moon itself in turn receives from the sun. In fact, the moon is subject to the same changes of the soul; but I won’t explain those with examples, because I do not want to go on further with this matter. I tell you only that, just as the soul transmits the light of the intellect to the corporeal world because of its love for both, so the moon transmits the light of the sun to the earth because of the love that it has for both.

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SOPHIA: I like also this other similarity, and you have certainly set my mind at rest concerning this question. PHILO: Do you agree, Sophia, after this long explanation, that when our soul contemplates an object with a supremely intense love and desire, it can and does abandon the senses together with the other powers of the body? SOPHIA: Yes, it can do without any doubt. PHILO: Then, your complaint against me, Sophia, is not right. When you saw me rapt in thought and without sensation, at that time my mind was withdrawn to contemplate the image of your beauty with all the soul; and having lost all power of sight, hearing, and movement, only the power that we have in common with the beasts led me along that path, which I first desired. So, if you want to complain, please complain against yourself, who have locked the door in your own face. SOPHIA: Yes, I complain that the image of my person has more sway over you than my person itself. PHILO: It is more potent. Because the image inside our mind is stronger than one from the outside; in fact that image, because it is inside, has already become master of all those that are inside. But you can judge, Sophia, how impossible it would be for your image to receive another into its company, when it will not even receive you. SOPHIA: Very bitter you paint me, Philo. PHILO: No, I paint you ambitious because you rob me, yourself, and everything else. SOPHIA: At least I am useful and contribute to your health, by removing many boring and melancholy thoughts. PHILO: No, you are poisonous. SOPHIA: Poisonous? How? PHILO: The poison of such venom is harder to counteract than any bodily poison. And just as poison goes straight to the heart and does not take its leave until it has consumed all the spirits that follow it, destroying the pulse, freezing up the extremities, and taking all life away from the body, if no external remedy be applied, so too your image is inside of my mind and from there it never leaves, drawing all the powers and spirits to itself, and together with these it would cut off my whole life, were it not for your

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presence in the outside world restoring to me my spirits and perceptions, snatching the victim away, in order that my life may be spared. SOPHIA: So I correctly said that I am healthy for you, because if in my absence my image is poison, my presence is its antidote. PHILO: You only rob your image of its prey because it bars your entry. Indeed, you did this not in order to do me good, but for fear that, if my life were to end, your poison would end along with it. And because you wish my torment to endure, you will not allow your image to poison me to death, for pain increases as it is prolonged. SOPHIA: I cannot agree with your statements, Philo. At one time you make me divine and greatly desired by you, and at another you find me poisonous. PHILO: Both statements are true and compatible: for your poison is caused by your divinity. SOPHIA: How can evil possibly come from good? PHILO: It may happen, but indirectly, through the intervention of insatiable desire. SOPHIA: In what way? PHILO: Your beauty appears to me in a form more divine than human; but since it is ever accompanied by poignant and insatiable desire, it is converted within into a pernicious and raging poison, so that the more overwhelming your beauty is, the more violent is the poison of the desire it produces in me. Your presence serves as an antidote only because it spares my life, but not in taking away the poison of my grief. In fact, it even prolongs it, and gives it fresh potency, because the vision of your person blocks the goal, which would end my ardent desire and bring rest to my troubled life. SOPHIA: You gave me an exhaustive explanation of your alienation; I do not wish to examine it further. In fact, it was for another purpose that I called you, and there is something else that I want from you. PHILO: What else? SOPHIA: Recall your promise, which you have already made to me twice, about telling me the story of the birth of love and of its divine descent; and you must also tell me about its effects on lovers. The time seems opportune, and you say you were not bent on important business. Therefore make good on your promise.

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PHILO: In point of fact, I find myself obliged to seek fresh credit rather than to pay what I owe. If you wish to do a good deed, help me to make new debts and do not constrain me to pay old ones. SOPHIA: What is your need? PHILO: A great one. SOPHIA: Of what? PHILO: What is greater than finding a remedy for my most cruel suffering? SOPHIA: Do you want me to advise you? PHILO: I would like always your advice and help. SOPHIA: If you are faithful in small debts, whenever you seek larger credit, it will be granted you; for the honest debtor is master of his neighbour’s goods. PHILO: Do you then consider your request a small one? SOPHIA: Small in comparison to what you are asking. PHILO: And why? SOPHIA: Because it is easier for you to give what you are able than to obtain the impossible. PHILO: This same reason should constrain you to give me first some remedy, and all the more since the benefit would be mutual. Each must give of what he has, and receive what he lacks and needs. SOPHIA: In this way you would be repaying neither a debt nor a kindness, and I see that you wish to gain fresh payment for what you have already promised. Pay the debt once and for all, and then you may speak of how we can be of mutual benefit to one another. PHILO: There are many debts, however, that are not promises. SOPHIA: Will you give me an example? PHILO: To help one’s friends in every possible way – does not this seem to you a debt? SOPHIA: This would be paying a kindness, not a debt. PHILO: It would be a kindness to aid strangers who are not our friends. But to help friends is a duty, the neglect of which springs from the vices of infidelity, cruelty, and avarice.

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SOPHIA: Even if what you say is true, you will not deny that of all obligations a promise should be paid before a debt, which is not a promise. PHILO: This, too, I cannot allow. In fact, it is only reasonable that a debt that is a duty in itself and requires no promise should be paid before what is only a debt, because it is a promise. And in reality, a debt without a promise takes precedence over a promise without a debt. For example, the fact that you must remedy my terrible suffering is a true debt (since we are true friends), even though you have made no promise. But my promise was not to pay you a debt but a kindness; nor do you stand in any need of it, since it was not to rescue you from some danger or hurt, but only to give you pleasure and ease of mind. The payment of your debt, therefore, which was not promised, should precede that of mine, which was a promise freely given. SOPHIA: A promise alone constitutes a debt and no other obligation is required. PHILO: It is truer to say that a debt alone constitutes a promise, and that no further promise need be given. SOPHIA: Even if what you say were so, would you not understand that what I want from you is the theory of love, and what you want from me is its practice? And you cannot deny that knowledge of the theory should always precede application in practice, since it is reason that rules man’s work. Though you have already given me some information about love, both its essence and its universality, it seems that I am lacking the main subject if I do not know its origin and effects. So, without further delay, you must perfect what you have already begun and satisfy my remaining desire. Because – as you allege – if you love me rightly, you must love my soul more than my body. Therefore, do not leave me imperfect in knowledge of such high and worthy understanding. And if you want to tell the truth, you must admit that your debt is joined with the promise, so that it is you who should make the first payment. And if mine does not follow, you will then have the all the more reason to complain. PHILO: Nobody can resist you, Sophia. When I think I have barred your every avenue of escape, you flee by a new path, so that it is necessary to do as you wish. This is mainly because I am the lover and you are the beloved, and it is you who must give the law and I who must obey it.38 Indeed, I already wished to serve you in this, and tell you something of the origin and effects of love, because this pleases you. But I cannot decide whether I

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should speak of it with praise or blame, since its greatness deserves praise, and its cruel ferocity, especially towards me, deserves blame. SOPHIA: Speak the truth only, whether in praise or blame, and you will not go wrong. Philo. To praise one who causes harm is not right, and to reproach one who can cause much harm is dangerous. I am confused and do not know what to choose. Tell me, Sophia, which is less evil. SOPHIA: Truth is always a lesser evil than falsehood. PHILO: Safety is always a lesser evil than danger. SOPHIA: Are you a philosopher and fear to speak the truth? PHILO: Although the virtuous man will not tell a lie, even though it serves him, the prudent man does not speak the truth when it is both harmful and dangerous. In fact, when a truth is damaging, it is prudent to hold one’s tongue and rash to reveal it. Sophia. A fear of speaking the truth seems dishonourable to me. PHILO: I have no fear of telling the truth, but of the injury I might incur in doing so. SOPHIA: Since, as you say, you are so wounded by the arrows of love, what more have you to fear, and what evil can you suffer that has not already been inflicted upon you? PHILO: I fear a new punishment. SOPHIA: What do you fear that can be new? PHILO: I fear that what happened to Homer will happen to me: Homer who – for singing to the detriment of love – lost his sight. SOPHIA: Yet you do not need to be afraid of losing it, because love (without having said anything against him) already took it from you. In fact, a little while ago you passed me by, unseeing, with open eyes. PHILO: If, as you have observed, love threatens to take away my sight, merely because I have commiserated with myself over its ill-doing and the torment it inflicts upon me, what will it do if I publicly denounce it and inveigh against its works?

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SOPHIA: Homer was rightly punished, since he spoke evil unjustly of one who had done him no wrong; but if you speak ill of love you will be justified, for it gives you its worst. PHILO: Rulers who are not benevolent punish more out of anger than by the light of reason. And love would have greater cause for revenge on me than on Homer, for I am its subject, which Homer was not. And if it punished him merely on account of his rude speech, it will inflict a much sterner punishment on me, for both insolence and disobedience. SOPHIA: Speak anyway, and if you see that its anger is kindled against you, take back your words and ask for forgiveness. PHILO: Do you wish that I should risk my health, like Stesichorus?39 SOPHIA: What did Stesichorus do? PHILO: He sang against the love of Helen and Paris, and vilified it, whereby he suffered the same punishment as Homer and lost his sight; but being aware of the cause of his blindness, which Homer was not, he straightaway redeemed his fault by composing verses in a different vein, in praise and honour of Helen and of her love, and the god of love was at once moved to restore his sight. SOPHIA: Yet you may say what you please; in fact, in my opinion, like Stesichorus, you already know how to save yourself. PHILO: I shall not put it to the test, because I know that love would treat me more harshly; in fact, the master is chiefly provoked to cruelty and rage by a fault in his own servant. Moreover, I intend to exercise greater caution than these two poets. At present we shall speak in all reverence of the origin of love and of its ancient genealogy, but I shall as yet say nothing of its good and bad effects, so I may have no occasion to praise them through fear, or to blame them through rashness. SOPHIA: I would not like you to leave our story unfinished. Since the beginning of love consists in its origin, its end consists in its effects; if fear does not let you mention its faults, at least tell of its merits. Perhaps in this way you will be able to propitiate love itself, so that you may become reconciled with it and win a place in its good graces; for those who give excessive punishment are usually liberal in their mercy. PHILO: Yes, if the praise were true, but if it were not, it would be flattery. SOPHIA: Nevertheless, one needs to flatter those who are stronger.

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PHILO: If flattery of benefactors is despicable, how much more so is flattery of those who do evil things? SOPHIA: Leaving aside your passion and the score between you and love, I beg you, tell me which of the two kinds of effects of love predominate, the good, worthy of praise, or the evil? PHILO: If truth rather than passion will govern my speech in what I say, I shall find far more effects worthy of praise than of blame; and not only are they greater in number, but their goodness exceeds the evil of the ill effects. SOPHIA: If, therefore, the good effects of love outweigh the bad in quality and in quantity, omit nothing in your narrative, and you will win the favour of love by revealing its great benefits, rather than punishment for giving a true account of its few evil effects. And if love is numbered among the heavenly spirits (as it is said), the truth should not be displeasing to it; for truth goes hand in hand with divinity, and is the sister of all the gods. PHILO: For today it must suffice us to consider the birth of love, and at another time we will speak of its effects, both good and evil. Perhaps I shall then have resolved to do your pleasure, and to tell you the whole story. And if the god of love is enraged against me, I will send Truth, who is his sister, to placate him, along with you who are his daughter, and resemble his mother. SOPHIA: I thank you for this invitation and willingly lend you my services as mediator. But so that this day may not be lost in empty words, tell me if, when, where, of whom, and why this ancient, ever active, and most celebrated lord was born. PHILO: Sophia, your question concerning the birth of love, divided into these five parts is as wise as it is concise and well turned; and I will repeat and extend the parts in order to see if I have understood you correctly. SOPHIA: I know very well that you understand me, but you will do a favour to me if you repeat and explain them. PHILO: You first ask if love is engendered and derived from someone else, or if it is truly uncreated and has never depended upon any antecedent. Second, you ask: assuming it was generated, when was it born and has it perchance existed or been caused ab aeterno, or is its existence limited in time; and in the latter case, in what era was it born, at the time of the creation of the universe and production of the world, or at some moment since then? Third: you ask regards the place of its birth and in which of the three worlds

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it originated – whether in the lower world of the earth, or in the heavenly world, or perhaps in the spiritual, that is, the angelic and divine world. Fourth: you ask about its parents. Who they were, and specifically whether it had only a father or only a mother, or if it was born of two parents and who they were, whether divine or human, or of some other nature. And still in this regard, what was the genealogy of love? And finally, as the fifth question you wish to know the goal for which it was born into the world, and why it had to be born. In fact, the final cause of a thing is that for which it was created, and the goal of every created thing is the prime intention of the creator, although it is the last stage in his work of creation. Are these, Sophia, your five questions with respect to the birth of love? SOPHIA: They certainly are. And though I gave you the questions you have amplified them so much that I have indeed a good hope for the desired answers; in fact, just as wounds that are opened and properly examined are more easily healed, so doubts are more perfectly resolved when they are clearly dissected and delimited.40 Let us come to the conclusion then, since I am waiting for it anxiously. PHILO: You must know that to answer these questions relating to the birth of love it is necessary to assume its existence and to know what its essence is. SOPHIA: It is evident that love is, and each of us can testify to its existence.41 There is no one who does not feel it in himself and see it. Furthermore, it seems to me that you gave me a sufficient account of its essence the day we spoke of love and desire. PHILO: I notice that you confess you feel in yourself that love exists. I was afraid42 (out of lack of experience) that you would ask me to demonstrate its existence, and this would indeed be hard to do for one who feels no love within herself (as I presumed was the case with you). SOPHIA: So I have already released you from this worry. PHILO: Granted the existence of love, do you have the things of which we spoke the other day, regarding the knowledge of its essence, well fixed in your mind? SOPHIA: I think I remember well. Nonetheless, if it is not a burden to you, I would like you to repeat briefly what I should have in my memory concerning the essence of love, so that I may more readily understand what you have to say about its birth.

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PHILO: I would gladly comply with this request, but I do not remember those things well enough. SOPHIA: You boast that you have a good memory, but if you cannot remember your own matters how will you remember those of others? PHILO: If my memory contains them, how can it be useful to me for my own? And if I do not remember regarding myself, how do you suppose I shall remember past discussions? SOPHIA: It seems strange to me that you cannot remember the words you yourself formed.43 PHILO: When I was talking with you, my mind formed the reasoning and my tongue formed the words which it sent out. But my eyes and ears worked in a contrary direction and drew your image and gestures with your words and accents into my soul, so that they alone remain impressed on my memory and belong to me, and my own have become foreign to me. If anyone should ask me, I could remember what you said, but what I sent out of mind and memory through my mouth will be remembered by whoever wishes. SOPHIA: And so it is: truth is always one and the same. If what you told me the other day was true, your mind will serve you again in formulating those same truths, even if your memory should not help you to repeat it. PHILO: I certainly believe that this is possible, though not in the same manner, form, and order as before. Nor can I repeat every particular to you, because I do not remember them. SOPHIA: Then tell me however you like, because difference of form does not exist when the substance is the same. And I, who remember what you say better than yourself, will point out where I see you making omissions or changes. PHILO: Since you wish me to tell you what love is, I will give you a simple and universal definition. Love commonly means desire for something.44 SOPHIA: This is indeed a simple definition, and you could express it more briefly merely by saying that love is desire. For where there is desire there must be something desired, just as all love must have an object. PHILO: What you say is true; but my statement is not faulty. SOPHIA: Yes, but if you define love in general as desire, you must concede that all love is desire and all desire love.

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PHILO: This is so because the definition becomes identified with what is defined and takes in both terms. SOPHIA: I remember that you argued differently the other day: that love is not always desire. In fact, we often love those things that are ours and which exist, just as a father loves his children, a healthy man his health, and a rich man his possessions. But, desire is always for things that do not exist, or if they do, we do not have them; in fact, we desire what we lack, either so it may come into existence if it is non-existent, or so we may acquire it if we do not already have it. However, persons and objects that we love often exist and belong to us, and we never love what does not exist. How then can you say that all love is desire? PHILO: I remind you that we first defined love and desire differently: we said that desire was a voluntary affect of being or having the thing judged to be good and lacking, and love was a voluntary affect of enjoyment in union of an object judged good and lacking. Nevertheless, we also stated that although desire is for things that are lacking, this always presupposes (the same is true for love) some being; in fact, though it may be lacking to us, it exists in others or in itself, and if not actually, then potentially; and if not in reality, at least it exists in the imagination and mind. Further, we proved that although love is sometimes felt for an object we possess, it always presupposes some lack with respect to that object, just as desire does. And we showed that love, although it sometimes is love of something possessed, nevertheless it always presupposes some lack with respect to that object, just as desire does. This is either because the lover has not yet achieved perfect union with the beloved, so that he loves it and desires to be finally united with it, or because although he possesses and enjoys it at present, he may be deprived of its enjoyment in the future, and therefore it forms the object of his desire. So, in effect, good reasoning shows desire and love to be one and the same, although in the vernacular each word has its own significance, as you have said. At the end of our discourse, therefore, we defined love as the desire for union with the beloved, and we showed how all desire is love and all love desire, according to which I have now given you the universal definition of love, the desire for something. SOPHIA: Because love and desire are two words that often signify different things I do not know how you can make them mean the same thing; in fact, although the same thing may be said to be loved and desired, they would seem to be two different affects of the soul in respect to an object. In fact, it seems to be one thing to love, another to desire it.

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PHILO: It seems so because of the way people speak,45 and indeed, there are certain modern theologians46 who make an essential difference between the one and the other, saying that love is the beginning of desire, because the object is first loved and then comes to be desired. SOPHIA: With what reason do they make love the origin of desire? PHILO: First they define love as pleasure47 in the spirit48 from the object that seems good, and from that pleasure a desire proceeds for the pleasing object. This desire is motion towards a goal, which is the beloved, so that love is the beginning of the motion of desire. SOPHIA: This definition fits the love for objects we lack and which are not numbered among our possessions, and then it explains the motion of desire will follow. What about our love of objects we already possess (which cannot be the origin of a motion of desire); how do explain it? PHILO: They say this: because the love of an object that is lacking is the satisfaction it produces in the spirit of the lover and the origin of the movement of desire, the love of a possession is none other than the joy and pleasure in the enjoyment that we have when we enjoy the beloved, which is the end and goal of the movement of desire, where it finds lasting peace. SOPHIA: They therefore postulate two species of love: one for objects that we lack, which is the origin of the movement of desire; the other for objects that we already possess, which is its goal and end. This last good seems to be something other than desire; on the contrary, it is subsequent to it. There is not, however, such discrepancy in the case of the former, when both love and desire are for something that is lacking. Do these theologians have further evidence of the difference between the two affections of love and desire? PHILO: They give another reason, which they find in the opposite of these two affections, which differ from one another: the opposite of love is hate, and they maintain that the opposite of desire is escape from the hated object. Therefore, they continue, just as love is the origin of desire, so hate is the origin of escape; and just as hate and escape are two passions that are for removing the evil thing, so love and desire are two passions that are for acquiring the good thing. Moreover, they say that just as joy or pleasure is the goal and cause of love and desire, so sorrow or pain is the cause of hate and escape. And just as hope is the mean between love and desire and joy (in fact hope is directed to a future and remote good, and joy or pleasure is directed to a present or experienced49 good), so fear50 is the mean between

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sorrow51 or grief,52 on the one hand, and escape and hate on the other. In fact, fear is directed to a future or remote evil and sorrow or grief is directed to a present and experienced evil. In this way these theologians make desire entirely distinct from love, not only from that which is the origin of desire and which they call satisfaction, but also from that which is its end and goal, which they call joy and delight. SOPHIA: It seems to me that this distinction is well made. Why do you not agree with it, Philo, but instead maintain that love and desire are one and the same? PHILO: These theologians are still deceived by the existence of two different words, and in compliance with the opinion of the masses, they seek to create a distinction between passions that in reality does not exist. SOPHIA: In what way? PHILO: They make an essential difference between love and desire, which are one and the same in substance, and they make the love for an object we lack and the love for an object that we possess different; yet the passion is the same in both cases. SOPHIA: If you do not deny that love is pleasure from the beloved object that causes desire, you cannot deny that love is desire, that is, its origin and the beginning of its motion. PHILO: The pleasure53 of the beloved thing is not love, but the cause of love, as much as it is the cause of desire. In fact, love is none other than the desire of what is pleasing; so pleasure with desire, and not without, is love. Thus, love and desire are the same in effect, and both presuppose pleasure. Desire, if it is motion, is the motion of the soul towards the object of desire, just as love is the motion of the soul towards the beloved, and satisfaction is the origin of this motion that we call love and desire. SOPHIA: If love and desire were one and the same, their contraries would not be different: for the opposite of love is hate and the opposite of desire is escape. PHILO: Here again the truth is different. In fact, escape is corporeal motion, the contrary not of desire, but of the pursuit that is subsequent to desire. In fact, the contrary of desire is abhorrence, which is equivalent to hate, which is the contrary of love. Therefore, just as love and desire are one and the same, so their contraries are one and the same also.

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SOPHIA: I see that love and desire are one in substance, and so too their contraries; but, as these theologians say, the love of an object that we do not possess and of objects possessed seem to be very different. PHILO: It seems so, but indeed they are not different. The love of an object that is possessed is not pleasure and joy of fruition (as they say); the one who possesses the thing loved is pleased and enjoys the possession, but enjoyment and pleasure are not love, because love, which is motion or beginning of motion, cannot be one and the same as joy and delight, which signify rest and are the end and goal of motion. I say that they have a contrary progression: in fact, love goes from the lover to his beloved, but it is the beloved who imparts joy to the lover, since joy implies possession and love implies privation and is always one and the same with desire. SOPHIA: We also love the thing we possess, which is not yet lacking. PHILO: Actual possession is not lacking, but its continuation in the future is lacking; and this possession is desired and loved by the one who possesses in the present. And present possession gives pleasure, while future possession is desired and loved. Thus, whether our love is for an object we possess or not, it is the same thing as desire, but not the same as pleasure; just as grief and sadness are different from hate and abhorrence, because grief is in connection with the present possession of an evil, and hate is directed at not having it in the future. SOPHIA: In what order, then, do you rank these passions of the soul? PHILO: The first is love and desire for a good thing; its contrary is hate and abhorrence of a bad thing. Then hope comes after love and desire, and it is for a future good or for one that we lack, while the object of fear, its opposite, is a future bad thing or one that we are as yet without. Just as, when hope is joined to love or desire, the good that we love follows as a consequence, so, when fear is joined to hate and abhorrence, escape from the hated bad thing follows. The goal is joy and pleasure for a present and connected good thing, and its contrary, grief and sorrow, for a present and experienced evil. This passion of joy and pleasure for a good thing, although it is the last to be consummated, is the first in intention. In fact, in order to obtain joy and pleasure, one loves, desires, hopes, and pursues; with this passion the spirit finds peace and rest when it is achieved in the present, and it is loved and desired for the future. Thus, reasoning correctly with whatever philosophical method, love and desire are essentially one and the same, although one species of love is more properly called desire, and

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another love, in a manner of speaking. These two words are not alone in denoting this same passion: because that which is loved may be the object of affection, delight, choice, appetite, and will, and also of desire. Although these words and others of a like nature are each applied more particularly to one species of love than to another, in substance they all have the same meaning, which is the desire for things that are lacking. In fact, what we possess, when it is possessed, is neither desired nor loved, but always is loved and desired, because it is in the mind under the species of a good thing. Therefore, we desire and love this thing if it is not, and we wish for it to be real and as it is in the mind; we wish what is in potentiality to become act, and if it is act and we do not have it, we wish to have it, and if we have it now, we wish to have fruition of this forever; in fact, the future fruition has being and we lack it. Such is the love between father and children, who wish to have enjoyment of each other in the future as in the present, and so the healthy man loves health, and the rich man richness, and he not only wishes that his wealth may increase, but that his present enjoyment of it may be continued in the future. Love, therefore, like desire, must be love of things that are in some sense lacking; and here Plato defines love as the appetite for a good thing in order to possess it forever, and this forever implies a constant lack.54 SOPHIA: Although love is associated with some constant lack, it presupposes the existence of its object. In fact, love is always love of things that are, but desire is truly for things that we lack and, sometimes, for those that do not exist. PHILO: You speak correctly when you say that love is for things that are, because what is not cannot be known, and we cannot love what cannot be known. What you say, however, that desire is sometimes directed to things that are not, in order to make them real, is not absolutely true. In fact, what does not have a mode of being cannot be known, and that which cannot be known can never be desired. The object of desire must therefore exist in the mind; and if it is in the mind it must also exist outside it, in reality, though not actually, but potentially in its causes, for otherwise knowledge would be fallacious. Love, therefore, is in every respect nothing other than desire. SOPHIA: You have clarified that every love is desire, and always for things that, though they have some mode of being, are lacking either in the present or in the future. But I still have a doubt: although all love is desire, I would not, however, say that all desire is love. In fact, it seems that love is only in living persons, or in things that cause some kind of perfection (such

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as health, virtue, riches, wisdom, honour, and glory). For those things are normally loved and desired, but there are many other things, accidents, or actions that, though we lack them, we should never speak of as objects of love and desire. PHILO: Do not be deceived by the way the masses use words. In fact, often a name with a general meaning is applied to one of its species only, and this happens in the case of love.55 SOPHIA: Give me an example. PHILO: The literal meaning of the word cavalier is one who rides a fourfooted animal, but it is only appropriate to those who are trained and skilful warriors on horseback. The word merchant literally signifies one who buys anything, but is only used to denote those whose particular profession it is to buy and sell goods at a profit. So love, though the generic name for every thing desired, is only applied to people and things whose existence is more stable, and other things are said to be desired rather than loved because their being is weaker. However, all of these are in effect loved. Indeed, although I do not say that I love something that does not yet have being, I do say that I would love for it to be, and if I do not have it, that I would love to obtain it. This is our true intent in desiring an object: if it is not in existence, I desire for it to be, and if I do not have it, I desire to have it. Nevertheless, love, being a more excellent word, is applied chiefly to people who are in being, or to excellent things that contribute to our perfection, or possessions; and in connection with other things we prefer to say ‘to have an appetite for,’ ‘to choose,’ and ‘to desire,’ rather than ‘to love,’ ‘to have affection for,’ or ‘to prefer,’ because these last two terms are usually inspired by objects of a nobler and more lasting character. Love is generally applied to things, and desire to the actions of their being, or to have them, although in substance the meaning of the two words is the same. SOPHIA: I am also satisfied by this, and I concede that in mortals every love is desire and every desire love. But what will you say about irrational animals? In fact, it is clear that they desire what they need, whether it be food or drink, enjoyment, or their freedom when it is taken from them; yet they only love those things with which they are in immediate contact, like the male the female, the mother her young, or domestic animals those who feed them. PHILO: Animals also love to have what they desire, and desire not to lose what they love, so that in everything love is one with appetite and desire.

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SOPHIA: I will tell you, Philo, about love that cannot be called desire. PHILO: What is it? SOPHIA: Divine love. PHILO: Even this is more rightly desire. In fact, God is desired above every other thing by he who loves Him. SOPHIA: You do not understand me. I am not speaking of our love towards God, but of His love towards us and for all the objects of His creation. Because I remember our second discussion where you said that God loves very much all the things that He produced. You surely will not say that this love presupposes privation. Indeed, God is supremely perfect and lacking in nothing. If, therefore, we can postulate no lack in Him, His love cannot be desire; in fact, desire (as you yourself have said) is always for something that is lacking. PHILO: You want to swim in a deep sea! You must know that everything which is ascribed to us, when attributed to God, is no less different in form and significance than His exalted state is far removed from our lowly position. SOPHIA: Explain what you mean more clearly. PHILO: We can say that a human being is good and wise, and these two things can be said also of God. But just as God is more excellent than the human being, so is His divine unity, goodness, and wisdom more exalted. In the same way, the love that God has for His creatures is not of the same species as human love, nor is His desire the same: in fact, in the human being they are both passions and presuppose something that is lacking, whereas in God they connote the perfecting of all things. SOPHIA: I believe what you say, but this does not entirely resolve my doubt. In fact, if God feels love and desire, you must admit that he loves and desires; and if He desires, He must desire that which in some sense is lacking in Him. PHILO: It is indeed true that God loves and desires; not, however, what He Himself lacks, (because He does not lack anything), but that which is lacking in the object of His love. He desires that all things produced by Him may become perfect, and more especially to attain that perfection which they can achieve through their own works and deeds, which, in the case of mankind, will be virtuous acts and wisdom. Thus, divine desire is not a

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passion of His, nor does it presuppose any lack in Him; on the contrary, it is rather His unlimited perfection that causes Him to love and desire that His creatures may reach the highest degree of their perfection, if they lack it, and if they have achieved it, that they may enjoy it in lasting happiness. He gives them unceasing help and encouragement for this goal. Are you satisfied with this, Sophia? SOPHIA: I like it, but this explanation does not entirely satisfy me. PHILO: What else do you want? SOPHIA: Tell me why love and desire must necessarily be applied to God because others are defective; this is because He does not lack anything, and this does seem right. PHILO: You must know that this was why Plato56 maintained that the gods do not love, and that love is neither a god nor an Idea of the Supreme intellect; in fact, according to his definition, love is the desire for something beautiful that is lacking, and this cannot be ascribed to the gods, who have all beauty and lack nothing. He therefore made love to be a great daemon, intermediary between the gods and humans, who conveys to the gods the good deeds and pure spirits of humans, and to humans the gifts and blessings of the gods, because all is made through the medium of love. And Plato’s statement is that love is not a beautiful act, because if it were, it would neither love nor desire beauty (since we do not desire what we already possess); but that love is potentially beautiful and loves and desires actual beauty. It is therefore a mean between the beautiful and the ugly, or composed of both, as potentiality is composed of being and privation. SOPHIA: And why do you not approve of this opinion and reasoning of your Plato, of whom you are normally such a great friend? PHILO: I do not agree with him on this topic because, as Aristotle, his disciple, said of him, although we are friends of Plato we are greater friends of the truth. SOPHIA: And why do you not consider his position57 to be true? PHILO: Because he himself contradicts it elsewhere,58 affirming that those who contemplate divine beauty intimately become the friends of God. Did you ever see a friend, Sophia, who was not loved by his friend? Again, Aristotle, in his Ethics,59 says that the virtuous and wise man is happy and becomes the friend of God, and God loves him as someone similar to Him; and in Holy Scripture it is said that God is just and loves just men, and also

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that God loves His friends, and that the righteous are the sons of God, who loves them like a father. How, then, will you have me deny that there is love in God? SOPHIA: Your authorities are good, but they will not satisfy me unless they satisfy reason also; and I did not ask you who attributed love to God, but rather why it must be attributed at all. It seems more reasonable to maintain, as Plato says, that no love can exist in Him. PHILO: A reason can be found that impels us to attribute love to God. SOPHIA: Please, tell me. PHILO: God created all things. SOPHIA: That is true. PHILO: And He continually maintains them throughout their being; in fact, if He were to abandon them for one instant, they would all turn into nothing. SOPHIA: This also is true. PHILO: Therefore, He is a true father who generates his children, and after their birth rears them with total care and diligence. SOPHIA: Indeed a father. PHILO: Tell me, therefore: if the father did not have desire, could he ever generate? And if he did not love His generated children, would he maintain them with such extreme care? SOPHIA: You are right, Philo, and I see that the love of God for His creatures is more excellent than their love for each other and for Him, just as a father’s love is more excellent than that of one brother for another. But what remains difficult for me is that love and desire, which always imply privation, do not imply privation in the lover himself, but only in his beloved thing, as you say of divine love. Have you ever found among us humans any love that presupposes a defect in the beloved and not in the lover? PHILO: The simulacrum of the love of God for His inferiors is the love of a father for the child of his body, or of a teacher for his pupil, the child of his spirit, and it also resembles the mutual love of friendship between virtuous men. SOPHIA: In what way? In this it is not similar: the father desires always to have delight in his son, the same is true of friendship, and this presupposes a lack of continued enjoyment in the lover, which can in no way apply to God.

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PHILO: Although in this respect love and desire in man do not resemble them in God, they are alike, however, in that a father’s love consists principally in the desire that his son have every good that he needs, and this presupposes a lack in the son or beloved and not in the father or lover. In the same way, the master desires that his pupil may increase in virtue and wisdom, which the pupil lacks but not the master; and one friend desires that the other may find and continually enjoy that happiness which he lacks. It is true that when the desire of these lovers, who are mortal, or the good of their beloved becomes an effect, they are rewarded by joy and pleasure that they did not experience before; and this does not happen to God, because no new happiness, delight, and other passion or new change can be in Him, in connection with the new perfection of His beloved creatures; in fact, He is free from every passion, constant in His immutability, and filled with gentle happiness, sweet delight, and eternal gladness. It is only different because His rejoicing is reflected in His perfect children and friends, but not in those who are imperfect. SOPHIA: I like this discourse very much. But what comfort can you give me for the fact that Plato, with all his genius, denies that there is love in God? PHILO: Regarding the species of love that Plato discusses in his Symposium60 (that is, only human love) he speaks the truth and this it cannot be in God. But it would be false to deny that universal love, about which we are speaking, is not found in God. SOPHIA: Explain the difference to me. PHILO: In the Symposium Plato only discusses that kind of love that is in men, and which terminates in the lover but not in the beloved. This is commonly called love, and that which has its end in the beloved is called friendship and benevolence.61 Plato defines correctly this kind of love as desire for beauty. He says that it is not found in God, because he who desires beauty neither possesses it nor is beautiful himself, whereas God, Who is the supremely beautiful, has no lack of beauty, nor can He desire it. His love, therefore, cannot be of this first kind. We, however, who are discussing universal love, must equally consider both that which has its end in the lover, presupposing some lack in him, and that which has its end in the beloved, who therefore suffers some privation. For this reason, we have not defined love as the desire for a beautiful thing (like Plato), but only as the desire for something, or as the desire for a good thing, which may be wanting in the lover or only in the beloved. Such is a part of the love of the father for the son, of the master for the disciple, and of one friend for another; and such,

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too, is the love of God for His creatures, the desire for their good but not for His. Both Plato and Aristotle concede the existence of this second form of love, and declare that the most virtuous and wisest of humans are the friends of God and much loved by Him. For He eternally and dispassionately loves and desires their perfection and happiness. And even Plato said that the word love may be universally applied to every desire of anything whatsoever, and of any desirer whatsoever, but it is peculiarly applicable to the desire of beauty. He did not therefore exclude all love from God, but only that species which is the desire of beauty. SOPHIA: I like the fact that Plato remains truthful, and does not contradict himself. However, the definition he gives of love does not seem to exclude the love of God (as he would have it) but rather to include it no less than the definition that you have given. PHILO: In what way? SOPHIA: Just as in defining love as the desire of a good thing you mean that there is some deficiency either in the lover or in some other person whom he loves, so I, in defining love as the desire of a beautiful thing (as Plato would have it), understand that this beauty is wanting either in the lover, or else in the beloved and not in the lover, and therefore my definition will also include the love of God. PHILO: You are deceived if you believe that the beautiful and the good are the same in everything. SOPHIA: Do you then make some distinction between the good and the beautiful? PHILO: I certainly do. SOPHIA: And how? PHILO: He who desires the good, can desire it for himself, or for another whom he loves, but he may only desire the beautiful exclusively for himself. SOPHIA: Why? PHILO: The reason is that the beautiful is appropriate to the one who loves it; in fact, what seems beautiful to one does not to another, and therefore what is beautiful to one is not beautiful to another. The good, on the contrary, is universal62 in itself; and because of this, what is good is more often good to many people. Therefore, he who desires the beautiful always

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desires it for himself because it is lacking in him; but he who desires the good may desire it for himself or for a friend who needs it. SOPHIA: I do not perceive the distinction you make between the beautiful and the good; for just as you say that a beautiful thing may seem beautiful to one person and not to another, so I say truthfully that a thing may seem good to one person and not to another. And you see that the wicked man judges evil to be good, and therefore follows it, and he rejects good because he considers it to be evil, and he is the opposite of the virtuous man. So, what happens with the beautiful also happens with the good. PHILO: All men of sound judgment and upright and well-balanced character consider the good to be the good, and the bad to be the bad, just as all who have the normal faculty of taste find sweet food sweet to their palate and bitter food bitter; but to those of diseased and corrupted understanding63 and intemperate will,64 good appears evil and evil good, just as sweet tastes are bitter to the sick man and bitter is sometimes sweet to his palate. And just as sweetness, though it may seem bitter to the sick, is no less sweet in reality; so good, although judged evil by the diseased understanding, does not, therefore, cease to be truly and universally good. SOPHIA: And is not the same for the beautiful? PHILO: Certainly not, because the beautiful is not the same for all the humans of sane understanding and virtuous character. In fact, although a beautiful object is universally recognized as good, it will appear of such beauty to one virtuous man that he will be moved to love it, whereas to another it will seem good but not beautiful, nor will he be inspired to love it. And just as good and evil in their relation to the spirit65 resemble sweet and bitter with respect to taste, so the beautiful and the non-beautiful seem (in the spirit) like the savoury, or delectable, and the non-savoury to the taste, and likewise the ugly and deformed to what is abhorrent and nauseating to the taste. So, just as a thing is considered sweet to everyone who is healthy, but savoury and delectable for some, and not to others, so a person or object may be recognized as good by every virtuous person, but to one it will be so beautiful that its beauty incites him to love, and for another it will have no beauty whatsoever. Thus, you must understand that passionate love, which hits the lover, is always love of a beautiful thing. Plato speaks of this alone in defining love as the desire for the beautiful, which is the desire for union with a beautiful person, or for the possession of a beautiful object, such as a beautiful city or garden, a fine horse or falcon, a beautiful robe or a splendid jewel. And either we desire the possession of these things or their continual

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enjoyment, once they are ours; and this species of desire always presupposes some deficiency in the lover, either in the present or in the future. Plato says that this love is not in God, not that in God there is no love; because this love does not lack potentiality, affection, and privation, things that are not found in God. And further, he calls it a powerful daemon, because (according to him) this daemon is midway between the purely incorporeal and perfect and the wholly corporeal and imperfect, just as potentialities and passions are midway between purely corporeal activity and divine intellectual activity, and also between beauty and ugliness; in fact, potentiality is the mean between privation and actual being. And because love is the greatest among the passions Plato calls it a great daemon. However this may be, universal love is not only concerned with good things that are beautiful, but also with good things that are not beautiful. It follows that its object is a universal good, whether it be beautiful, useful, virtuous, or pleasurable, or any other species of good that might be found. In fact, it happens that the object of love is sometimes a good that the lover lacks, and sometimes the beloved or a friend lacks; and it is by this second species of love that God loves His creatures, in order to make them perfect in every good thing that they lack. SOPHIA: Did any of the ancient philosophers ever define love in general as a consequence of its universal goodness? PHILO: Who better than Aristotle in his Politics?66 There he says that love consists solely in wishing good for somebody, either for oneself or for another. Notice how his definition, in order to include every species of love, specifies not the beautiful but the good, and elegantly and briefly he includes both the species of love in this definition. That is, if the lover desires the good for himself, it is he who stands in need of it, and if it is for another whom he loves, it is lacking only in this beloved object or friend, and not in the lover. The love of God is similar. Aristotle, therefore, who defines love as universally good, included in this divine love. Plato, who defined it with particular reference to the beautiful, excluded it, because the love of a beautiful object implies deficiency in the lover only, to whom the object appears beautiful. SOPHIA: Aristotle’s definition does not satisfy me as it does you. PHILO: Why not? SOPHIA: Because it seems to me that the true nature of love is always to wish for one’s own good; and not for that of another, as Aristotle means. In fact, the true and ultimate goal of every human action is to attain one’s own

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good, pleasure, and perfection; and because of this everybody does all that he does, and if he wishes for the good of another, it is on account of the pleasure he takes in that other’s welfare. So his own pleasure is the motive of his love, and not another’s good, as Aristotle says. PHILO: What you said is no less subtle than true; in fact, the real and ultimate end of any action is the perfection, pleasure, good, and final happiness of him who performs it. A lover desires the good for his friend or beloved, not only in order to obtain the pleasure he receives from that good, but also because he receives the same good as his beloved, for he is not only a friend of his friend, but another self. Hence, the good of his friend is truly his own, and in desiring his friend’s good he desires his own. You know already that the lover is transformed and converted into the beloved; therefore, you may believe me when I say that what pertains to the beloved is more truly the lover’s than his own possessions, and belongs more essentially to him than to the beloved, if the latter reciprocates his love. Then the good of each will belong to the other, and not to himself, so that two people who love each other mutually are not really two people.67 SOPHIA: How many then? PHILO: Only one, or rather four. SOPHIA: I can understand how two people may be one, since all lovers are united and become one in love; but four … how? PHILO: Each one being transformed into the other becomes two, at once both lover and beloved; and two multiplied by two makes four, so that each of them is a twin, and both together are one and four. SOPHIA: I like this union and multiplication of the two lovers; but it seems to me very strange that Aristotle would make one species of love to be the desire of another’s good. PHILO: Aristotle assumes that the end of love is always the good of the lover; but this is either his immediate [good], or mediated through the good of his friend or beloved. And he declared that a friend is another self. SOPHIA: I will concede this gloss of Aristotle’s definition to you. But when understood this way, it does not include the love of God, as you said. PHILO: And why not? SOPHIA: Because if, as you say, God loves the good of all His creatures, He must thereby love His own good, and this not only presupposes a lack of the desired good in His creatures, but also in Himself, which is absurd.

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PHILO: I have already explained to you that a defect in a created object casts the shadow of a defect on the creator, but only in his relation to the object, as the maker to the thing made. Thus God, in loving the perfection of His creatures, may be said to love the relative perfection of His work; any defect in the creature would induce the shadow of a defect in this divine craftsmanship, and the perfection of the creature would testify to its relative perfection. So the ancient teachers said that the just man makes perfect the splendour of God and the wicked man blemishes it. In this way, I can concede to you that God, in loving perfection, loves the perfection of His divine action and the lack that this love presupposes in Him is not in His essence, but in the shadow of the relation of the Creator to His creatures. And since this can be stained by a defect in them, He desires them to be made perfect through His own immaculate perfection. SOPHIA: I like this subtle reasoning; but in our first discussion you told me that love was a desire for union. This definition will not include the love of God, which is for the good of His creatures, but not a desire of union with them, for no one desires union save with that which he judges to be more perfect than himself. PHILO: No one desires union except with an object by being united, to which he would be more perfect than without that union. I have already told you that the divine work is more perfect to a relative degree when creatures, by reason of their perfection, are united to the Creator than when they are lacking in this union. But God does not desire union with His creatures in the same manner as lovers desire union with the persons whom they love. He desires the union of His creatures with His Godhead, in order for their union to be perfect, and for His work as Creator to be immaculate in relation to His creatures. SOPHIA: I am content with this explanation. But I am still uncertain about that difference – that you claim is so big – between the beautiful (which figures in Plato’s definition of love) and the good (by means of which Aristotle defined it); in fact, the beautiful and the good seem to me to be one and the same. PHILO: You are mistaken. SOPHIA: How can you deny that every beautiful thing is good? PHILO: I do not deny it, but it is commonly denied by the masses.

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SOPHIA: How? PHILO: It is said that not every beautiful thing is good; for some things that seem beautiful are bad68 in effect, and some things that seem ugly are good. SOPHIA: This does not occur. In fact, a person considers something beautiful, and still considers this thing to be good. This is because if in effect this thing is good, in effect it is also beautiful. If a person considers a thing ugly, this thing can be considered also bad from the fact that it is also ugly. So if this thing in effect is good, in effect it is not ugly. PHILO: Your refutation is good, although, as I have told you, the beautiful has a greater part than the good in appearance, and the good a greater part than the beautiful in existence. My reply, however, is that although every beautiful thing is good, as you say, either in essence or in appearance, it does not follow that every good thing is beautiful.69 SOPHIA: What good is not beautiful? PHILO: Sweet and healthy food and drink, a rare fragrance, a temperate climate; you will not deny that these are good things, but you would not call them beautiful. SOPHIA: Though I would not actually call them beautiful, I believe that they are. In fact, if good things are not beautiful they must be ugly, and being good and ugly seem to me contrary to one another. PHILO: I would like you to speak more accurately, Sophia. It is true that goodness and ugliness cannot exist together in respect to the same thing, but it is not true that everything that is not beautiful is ugly. SOPHIA: What is it then? PHILO: Like many good things, it is neither beautiful nor ugly. In fact, you may see that among humans, who are subject to beauty and ugliness, there are some who are neither beautiful nor ugly. And this is also true among many species of good things, which possess neither beauty nor ugliness, such as the examples I have given you, which are truly subject to neither of these qualities. There is this difference, however, between people and things: we say of people that they are neither beautiful nor ugly when they are beautiful in one part and ugly in another, so that they are neither wholly beautiful nor wholly ugly; but the good things that I named have neither beauty nor ugliness in their whole or in their parts.

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SOPHIA: This mixture of beauty and ugliness in neutral persons cannot be denied; but I would like an example and further evidence of this neutrality in good things that are neither beautiful nor ugly.70 PHILO: Do you not see that many people are neither learned nor ignorant? SOPHIA: What are they then? PHILO: They are believers of the truth, or right-thinking.71 In fact, those who believe the truth are not wise, since their knowledge does not come from reason or learning, nor are they ignorant, for they believe the truth or have a correct opinion of it. In the same way, we find many good things that are neither beautiful nor ugly. SOPHIA: The beautiful, therefore, is not only good, but good with some addition or complement. PHILO: Indeed, with some complement. SOPHIA: And what is this complement? PHILO: Beauty:72 a good with beauty is beautiful, and a good without beauty is not beautiful. SOPHIA: What is beauty? Does it add anything else to the good besides its goodness? PHILO: To explain and to define beauty would require a long conversation; in fact, many perceive and name it, yet they do not know what it is. SOPHIA: Who cannot distinguish between the beautiful and the ugly? PHILO: Everyone recognizes the beautiful, but few know what makes all beautiful things beautiful, which we call beauty. SOPHIA: Please, tell me what it is. PHILO: Beauty has been defined in various ways, but at present it does not seem necessary to explain and distinguish truth from falsehood, which is too much for our purpose. Moreover, I think we shall have much occasion to speak of beauty at a later stage of our discussion. Now I will only give you its true and universal definition in brief. Beauty is grace,73 which, delighting the spirit74 that knows it, moves it to love. And that good thing or person in which this grace is found is beautiful; but that good in which this grace is not found is neither beautiful nor ugly. It is not beautiful because it does not have grace, and it is not ugly because it does not lack

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goodness. Indeed, when grace and goodness are lacking, there is not beautiful, but only bad and ugly. In fact, there is a mean between the beautiful and the ugly, but between the good and the bad there is no true mean, because the good is being and the bad is non-being. SOPHIA: Did you not tell me that potentiality is the mean between being and privation? PHILO: It is the mean between actual and perfect being and total privation. Potentiality, however, is being with respect to privation and privation with respect to actual being; therefore, it is a mean composed of privation and actual being in equal proportions, just as love is a mean between the beautiful and the ugly. It does not therefore follow that there can be a mean between being and the privation of being, because there can be no mean between possession and lack of possession, since they are opposites. And just as potentiality is possession relative to pure privation (and there is no mean between them), so privation is relative to actual possession, nor is there any mean between them. Thus there is a mean between the beautiful and the ugly, but none between absolute good and evil. SOPHIA: This definition pleases me; but I would know why this grace does not belong to every good thing. PHILO: Good, useful, temperate, and pleasurable things are found among the objects of all the external senses; but the grace (called beauty) that delights and moves the soul to true love is not found in the objects of the three material senses, taste, smell, and touch, but only in those objects of the two spiritual senses, sight and hearing. So pleasant and nourishing food and drink, delicate perfumes, a healthy climate, the sweetness of bodily love,75 together with their goodness, sweetness, gentleness, and utility, are necessary for both human and animal existence, yet they are not beautiful. In fact, in these material objects there is no grace or beauty, nor can grace and beauty pass through the three gross and material sensations to delight our soul and prompt it to love of the beautiful. Beauty is only found in the objects of sight, such as beautiful forms and shapes and beautiful pictures, the perfect symmetry of the parts with the whole, well-proportioned limbs, beautiful colours and clear light, the sun, moon, and stars, and the heavens in all their splendour. This grace exists in objects of sight by reason of their spiritual nature, and it usually enters through clear spiritual eyes, to delight our soul and move it to love such an object; and this is what we call beauty. It is also found in objects of hearing, such as beautiful oratory, voices, speech, song, music, consonance, proportion, and harmony; grace is found

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in the spirituality of these things, moving the soul to delight and to love through the medium of the spiritual sense of hearing. Thus, grace and beauty are found among beautiful things that are objects of the spiritual senses; but they are absent from very material good things, and from material sensory objects, which, though good, are not beautiful.76 SOPHIA: Is there, perhaps, another faculty beside sight and hearing, in man with which he can apprehend the beautiful? PHILO: The cognitive virtues, which are more spiritual than sight and hearing, have an even greater knowledge of the beautiful. SOPHIA: What are they? PHILO: They are imagination and fantasia. Fantasia arranges, distinguishes, and ponders sensory things, and discerns grace and beauty in many other sources, moving the soul to the delight of love. And, indeed, one speaks of a beautiful fantasia, a beautiful thought, or a beautiful invention. Intellectual reason knows even more about the beautiful; it apprehends universal, incorporeal, and incorruptible grace and beauty in particular and corruptible bodies, which is far more potent in driving love and pleasure in the soul. Such are the laws, virtues, and human sciences,77 which are all called beautiful: beautiful study, beautiful law, beautiful science. But the most exalted cognition of man is that of the abstract mind, which, in contemplating the science of God and things abstracted from matter, delights itself and falls in love with the highest grace and beauty that is in the Creator and Maker of all things. In this it attains its ultimate happiness. Thus, the soul is moved by the grace and beauty that it receives spiritually through the medium of sight, hearing, imagination, understanding, and intellect. And this grace that delights the soul and moves it to love is found in the objects of these faculties by reason of their spirituality, and not in the objects of the other faculties of the soul, on account of their material nature. So the good, in order to be beautiful (even though it is corporeal), must have with its goodness some kind of spiritual grace, so that, in passing through spiritual paths into the soul, it may move it to rejoice in its beauty. In this way, human love (of which we are chiefly speaking) is truly, as Plato says, the desire of a beautiful thing, and universal love, as Aristotle says, is the desire of a good thing. SOPHIA: This account of the essence of love as an introduction to our discussion of its birth is enough for me. Let us now come to what I desire, and answer those five questions that I put to you concerning the origin of love.

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PHILO: Your first question is whether love was born, that is, whether it took its origin from others, which are its productive78 cause, or whether it is primary and eternal and not produced by any another. To this I would answer that love must be preceded by others, and can in no way be primary and eternal; in fact, we must grant that there are other things prior to it in the causal order. SOPHIA: Tell me why. PHILO: There are many reasons. First, because the lover is prior to love, as the agent is to the act, and therefore the first lover must be prior to, and the cause of, the first love. SOPHIA: That the lover must be prior to the love that is created in loving seems to be quite reasonable. So a person can be without love, but love cannot be without a person. Tell me the other reason. PHILO: Just as the lover is prior to love, so is the beloved. For if there were not first a lovable person or object, it would be impossible to love, and there would be no love. SOPHIA: You are right in this, too. In fact, there can be no love either in the lover or in the beloved if there is no object or person to be loved. But the lovable object could be without love, which means without being loved. And it certainly seems that the lover and the beloved are the origin and the cause of love. PHILO: What difference in causality do you think there is, Sophia, between the lover and the beloved, and which of them seems to you to be the primary cause of love? SOPHIA: The lover seems to me to be active, like the father, and the beloved person or object the recipient, like the mother. This is shown by the very nature of the words, for lover is active and beloved passive. Therefore, the lover is the primary cause of love, and the beloved the secondary cause. PHILO: You are better at asking than answering, Sophia. In fact, the very opposite of what you say is true. The beloved is the agent cause, generating love in the soul79 of the lover, and the lover is the recipient of the love of the beloved, so that the beloved is the true father of love that is generated in the lover. The lover is the mother, who gives birth to this love, conceived by the beloved, and gives birth to it in the likeness of the father. Therefore, the goal of love is in the beloved, which is its first generative principle. Thus, the beloved is the primary, agent, formal, and final cause of love, as

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complete father, and the lover is only the material cause, like the pregnant mother who gives birth. This is what Plato means when he says that love is birth in the beautiful.80 And you know that the beautiful is the beloved by whom the lover is first made pregnant and conceives love in the likeness of the beautiful and beloved father. And this love is directed towards the beloved as its final goal. SOPHIA: I was wrong and I am pleased to know the truth. But what will you tell me of the meaning of the terms, which have deceived me, where ‘lover’ means active and ‘beloved’ passive? PHILO: This is true, because the lover is active in the service of love, but not in its generation, and the beloved is the recipient of the service of the lover, but is not passive in the causation of love. And if I ask you which is worthier, the one who serves or is served, the one who obeys or is obeyed, and the one who respects or is respected, you will assuredly answer that the servant, though active, is lower than him who receives his services. And such is the relation of lover to beloved, for the lover serves, obeys, and respect his beloved. SOPHIA: This is true of lovers who are less worthy than their beloved. But when the lover is truly the nobler, this assertion must be reversed, and the lover must become the father of love and the higher one, and the beloved the mother and lower one. PHILO: Although there are lovers who of their own nature are more excellent than their beloved (as the husband, with respect to his wife whom he loves, the father to the son, the master to the pupil, and the benefactor to those who receive his gifts; or, in a universal sense, the heavenly world to the earth that it loves, the spiritual to the corporeal, and finally God to His creatures whom He loves); nonetheless, every lover, by being a lover, inclines to his beloved and cleaves to her like the lesser part to the whole, because it is the beloved that generates and drives love, and the lover is moved by her. SOPHIA: And how can the higher be inclined and subordinate to the lower? PHILO: I have already told you that whatever anyone loves and does is to obtain his own perfection, joy, or pleasure. And even if the beloved is intrinsically not as perfect as the lover, the lover becomes more perfect, or at least his joy and pleasure will be increased, by union with the beloved. It is this new perfection, joy, and delight that the lover acquires through union with the beloved (whether the beloved be intrinsically more or less

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worthy than himself) that inclines the lover towards the object of his love. And he does not thereby become defective or wanting in nobility or perfection, but rather achieves union and perfection with the beloved. So not only he who loves a person is attracted to her because of the perfection and joy that he will acquire in union with the other, but also he who loves, not a person, but any object whatsoever, and desires to possess it in order to improve himself with that acquisition. SOPHIA: I understand this. But what do you say of two persons who have reciprocal love, and each of whom is both lover and beloved? You must concede that each is lower and higher to the other, which would be contradictory. PHILO: There is no contradiction. On the contrary, it is true that each one, in loving the other, is lower than the other, and in being loved is higher. SOPHIA: Would each, therefore, be higher than himself? PHILO: This also is true, for each lover is higher than himself as beloved, and if perchance one were to love himself, he would be higher as beloved than himself as lover. And I have already told you, when we spoke of the universality of love, that Aristotle, in the view of Averroes,81 holds that God is the mover of the first diurnal sphere, which He moves through love of a more excellent thing, just as each of the other intellects moves its own respective sphere. Since none is more excellent than God, but all are lower than He, we must say that God moves the highest sphere through love of Himself, and that in God it is more sublime that He should be loved by Himself than that He should love Himself. Even so, His divine essence consists of the purest unity, according to what you learned from me more extensively. If God, therefore, in His most simple unity, has more of the highest and supreme [qualities] because He is loved by Himself rather than in loving Himself, how much greater will be the effect in two mutual lovers? In fact each, as beloved, can be more excellent than both himself and the other, as lovers. SOPHIA: Your reasoning would satisfy me if I did not see that Plato clearly asserts the opposite. PHILO: What does he say to the contrary? SOPHIA: I remember that in his book the Symposium82 he says that the lover is more divine than the beloved, because in loving he is rapt by a divine furor. Therefore, he says that the gods are more generous and disposed to give favours to those who do extraordinary things for their lovers

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than to lovers who do extreme things for their beloved. He gives the example of Alcestis,83 who, because he was willing to die for his beloved, was brought back to life and honoured by the gods; yet he was not conveyed to the Isles of the Blessed like Achilles, who was ready to die for his lover. PHILO: These words that Plato reports in the Symposium are of Phaedrus, the young gallant and disciple of Socrates. He defines love as a great and extremely beautiful god, who, because he is so beautiful, loves beautiful things. And since love is in the lover as a quality in its true subject and dwells within his heart like the child in his mother’s womb, so, Phaedrus said, the lover, by the divine love that he has, is more godlike than the beloved, who has no love in himself but only causes it in the lover. Thus, the god of love gives divine furor to the lover, which he does not give to the beloved, and so the gods are more propitious to those who serve their lovers (as is proved by the story of Achilles), than to lovers who serve their beloved (as testified by the story of Alcestis). SOPHIA: Does this reason not seem sufficient to you, Philo? PHILO: It does not seem correct, nor did it seem right to Socrates. SOPHIA: Yes? And why? PHILO: Socrates, arguing with Agathon the orator (who also held Love to be a great god of supreme beauty) proves that Love is not a god, because it is not beautiful, as all gods are. He shows that Love is not beautiful, because it is the desire for the beautiful, and that which is desired is always lacking in the one who desires it; in fact, that which is possessed is never desired. Socrates therefore says that Love is not a god, but a great daemon, the mean between the gods above and humans below; and although it is not beautiful, like a god, it is not ugly like the lower beings, but is the mean between beauty and ugliness. In fact, the desirer, although he is not actually that which he desires, is potentially. If love, therefore, is a desire of the beautiful, it is potentially beautiful, and not actually, after the manner of the gods.84 SOPHIA: What do you want to infer from this, Philo? PHILO: I am showing you that it is the beloved who is divine and not the lover. The beloved is beautiful in act, like God, and the lover who desires the beloved is only potentially beautiful; and although he is made godlike by his desire, he is not a god like the beloved. And in fact, in the mind of the lover the beloved is respected, contemplated, and adored like a god, and his beauty is esteemed as divine by the lover, so that none other can compare

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with it. Are you not, therefore, persuaded, Sophia, that the beloved takes precedence over the lover, both in excellence and in the cause of love, and is in every way more worthy? SOPHIA: Yes, certainly; but what do you say of the example of Achilles and Alcestis? PHILO: Alcestis, who died for his beloved, was not honoured like Achilles, who died for his lover. The lover is obliged of necessity to serve his beloved as his god, even unto death, and cannot do otherwise if his love is true, for he is already transmuted into the beloved, in whom his happiness consists, and his good is no longer in himself. But the beloved is under no obligation to the lover, nor is he constrained by love to die for him, and if he wishes to act like Achilles it is a free and purely altruistic action. Therefore, like Achilles, he must receive a higher reward from the gods. SOPHIA: I like what you say, but I cannot believe that Achilles, if he had not also been the lover of his lover, as he was the beloved, would have wished to die for him. PHILO: I would not deny that Achilles loved his lover, since he was ready to die for him. But that was mutual love, caused by the love that his lover had for him. Wherefore we can rightly say that he died for this love of his lover, which was the primary cause of their mutual love, and not for that love which he returned to his lover and which was caused by him. SOPHIA: I like the reason that made Achilles worthier of reward from the gods than Alcestis. But how can the beloved always be the god of the lover? It would follow that the creature beloved of God would be a god for God Himself, which is absurd. And this applies not only to the love of God for His creatures, but also of the spiritual for the corporeal, the higher for the lower, and the noble for the ignoble. PHILO: The love that exists between creatures presupposes privation. This is so not only in the love of lower for higher, but in that of higher for lower. In fact, no creature is absolutely perfect, and in loving not only his superior, but also his inferior, he grows in perfection and approaches the highest perfection of God. And the higher not only increases his own perfection by doing good to what is lower than himself, but also the perfection of the universe, which is the ultimate goal, as I have told you. Because of this increase of perfection in lover and in the universe, the lower and beloved is also made divine in his higher lover. In being loved, he participates in the divinity of the supreme Creator, Who is the first and highest object of love, and

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by reason of this participation every beloved is made divine. So since God is the supremely beautiful one, every beautiful thing partakes of His beauty, and every lover approaches Him in loving the beautiful, though it is lower than himself. And the lover thereby increases in beauty and divinity, thus causing an increase in the beauty and divinity of the universe. And this same lover increases his own beauty and divinity, approaching more closely the supremely beautiful. SOPHIA: You answered only regarding the love that the higher has for the lower among creatures, but not of the love of God for His creatures, in which lies the greatest force of my argument. PHILO: I was about to tell you. You must know that love, like many other activities and qualities that are attributed to both God and creatures, is not understood of God in the same was as it is of His creatures; indeed, I have already given you examples of certain attributes. You know that in all creatures love implies a lack, even in heavenly and spiritual beings, for all lack the supreme perfection of God, and their every action, desire, and love is in order to approach as nearly as possible this perfection. Moreover, in lower beings love not only implies privation, but also, in some cases, passion, as in humans and animals, and in others, natural inclination, as in other elements and in the mixed and sensitive bodies. In contrast, in God love is said to be neither passion, nor natural inclination, nor privation. For He is free, impassive, and wholly perfect, and nothing can be lacking in Him. SOPHIA: What, therefore, is the meaning of the word ‘love’ for God? PHILO: It means the will to benefit His creatures and the whole universe and to increase their perfection as far as their nature is capable of doing. As I have already told you, the love that is in God presupposes a lack in the beloved but not in the lover, so that it is the opposite of human love. God rejoices to see His creatures increase in perfection through their love of Him. God enjoys and rejoices (if we can say ‘rejoices’), and in this the supreme perfection shines forth more brightly, as I have already said. The Psalm says, ‘The Lord rejoices with the things that He made.’85 This increase of divine joy and perfection is not absolute in God, but only relative to His creatures. And therefore love in God does not prove any kind of privation in His absolute being, but only in His relative being, with respect to His creatures, as I have explained to you. This relative perfection of God is the goal of His love for the universe and for each of its parts, and it is that which fills them with the highest perfection of God. This is the goal of divine love, and the beloved of God, because of which He produces, sustains,

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governs, and moves everything. And since the Godhead, in its supreme oneness, is necessarily both beginning and end and lover and beloved, its beloved is more divine than the divinity itself, as every beloved is more divine than its lover. SOPHIA: I like this and I am quite satisfied with the priority of the beloved over the lover in the generation of love. This is enough for the first question that I put to you: whether love was born, that is, whether it was born of another or uncreated. I now see clearly that love is generated by the beloved as its father, and born of the lover as its mother. Will you not turn to my second question, which is: when was love first born, and if it was produced from eternity, or born of eternal lovers, or if it was created in time, either at the beginning of creation, or at some specific time, and if so, which? PHILO: This second question of yours raises no small difficulties and problems. SOPHIA: Why do you find it more difficult than the first question? PHILO: Because the first love that humans know is clearly divine love, through which the world was created by God, and this seems to be the love that was first born. Since, therefore, humans have for many thousands of years been uncertain as to when the world was created, it is doubtful when this love was born. SOPHIA: Explain this doubt that has troubled humans concerning the time of the creation of the world, and we shall understand the difficulty as to when love was born, which depends upon it. Once it has been clearly stated, you will find the way to a solution more quickly. PHILO: I will tell you. Suppose that all men think that the most high God, the father and creator of the world, is eternal without any beginning in time. They are nevertheless divided in their opinion concerning the creation of the world, whether it exists from eternity or was produced at some later time. Many philosophers hold that it was produced ab eterno by God, and is like God in that it never had a temporal beginning. Among these are the great philosopher Aristotle and all the Peripatetics. SOPHIA: And what difference, then, would there be between God and the world if both existed from all eternity? PHILO: The difference between them would still be great, because God would have been the creator from eternity, and the world would have been created from eternity: the one the eternal cause, the other the eternal effect. But the faithful and all those who believe in the sacred laws of Moses hold

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that the world was not produced ab eterno, but was created out of nothing at the beginning of time, and certain philosophers also seem to believe this. Among them is the divine Plato, who, in the Timaeus,86 says that the world was made and generated by God, and produced out of Chaos, which is the confused matter that provides the material for making all things. And even though Plotinus, his follower, wants to reconcile him with the theory of the eternity of the world, saying the Platonic generation and production of the world is understood to be ab eterno, Plato’s words seem to assign to it a beginning in time, and it was understood thus by other illustrious Platonists. It is certainly true that he makes Chaos, out of which everything is made, to be eternal, that is, eternally created by God. And this the faithful do not believe; for they hold that up to the time of creation God alone existed without the world and without Chaos, and that the omnipotence of God created all things out of nothing in the beginning of time. Indeed, Moses nowhere gives any clear indication that he held matter to be coeternal with God. SOPHIA: There are then three theories87 concerning the creation of the world by God: the first of Aristotle,88 which says that the whole world was created ab eterno; the second of Plato,89 who holds that only matter or Chaos was created from eternity, and the world was created at the beginning of time; and the third of the faithful, who hold that everything was created out of nothing at the beginning of time. Could you, Philo, now tell me the reasons in support of each of these opinions? PHILO: I will tell you something briefly, even though the essential part will be very long. It seems to the Peripatetics that created things in the world are such that it is repugnant to their nature to have a beginning and an end. Such things are prime matter, continual generation and corruption, the nature of the heavens, motion, especially circular, and time. SOPHIA: How is it repugnant to the nature of these five things to have had a beginning? Why is it that prime matter, along with generation and corruption, could not have been made anew, and why could the heavens and their circular motion, and time that proceeds from it, have no beginning in time? PHILO: Since you wish to figure out the reason for this, it will be necessary to tell you, though we shall digress somewhat from our subject. Prime matter, according to Aristotle, cannot be newly made, because everything made must be made of something, and all agree that it is impossible to make something from nothing. If, therefore, prime matter had been made, it would necessarily have been made out of something else, and that something else would be

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prime matter and not the former; and since this process cannot be continued ad infinitum, a matter that is truly primary and has never been made must be postulated. Prime matter, therefore, is eternal, and also the generation and corruption that are made by it, and because prime matter is always imperfect in its essence, it must always exist in the form of some substance. Now the generation of the new is caused by the corruption of what is already in existence; therefore, corruption must precede every generation, and generation every corruption: thus, the chicken exists because of the corruption of an egg. Generation and corruption, therefore, belong to eternal things and have no beginning, just as every egg is produced by a hen, and every hen from an egg, and neither of them is absolutely the first in time. Again, the Heaven seems to be eternal by nature, because if it were generated it would be corruptible, and this is impossible, because it has no opposite like the elements and their composites; for corruption is produced by the victory of contraries, and generation also is a movement from one opposite to another. It is clear that the Heaven has no contrary, because it is impassive and immutable in its substance and nature, and its circular form is alone among all other figures in having no contrary. In consequence, it is repugnant to circular motion to have a beginning; for just as a circle, like that of the heaven, has no beginning, and every part of it is beginning and end, so circular motion is without a beginning, and every part of it is both beginning and end. The same applies to first motion: for if it had been generated, its generation, which is motion, would be prior to the first, which is impossible. And as this process of generated motions cannot be retraced to infinity, a first eternal motion must be reached. Again, time, which depends on first motion, since it registers numerically preceding and succeeding motions, must likewise be eternal. In fact, every instant is in reality the end of past time and the beginning of the future, and there can be no instant that is the first and the beginning of time. Time is therefore eternal and without beginning. SOPHIA: I understand the reasons that led Aristotle to make prime matter and the heavens eternal in themselves, and the generation of substances, circular motion, and time eternal in the continual succession of their parts. Has he, perhaps, other reasons besides these to prove the eternity of the world? PHILO: Those I have given you are his natural reasons. The Peripatetics also add two other theological reasons, one taken from the Creator’s nature, the other from the end of His work. SOPHIA: Explain these to me also.

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PHILO: They say that, since God the Creator is eternal and immutable, His work, which is the world, must have been made in a given form from eternity, because the thing made must correspond to the nature of the one who makes it. Further, they say that the purpose of the Creator in the creation of the world was none other than the desire to do good; why, therefore, should He not always have done this good? In fact, there could be no impediment to God, Who is omnipotent and all perfect. SOPHIA: The Peripatetics’ reasons seem strong, especially the theological ones that deal with the eternal nature of the divine Craftsman, and of the finality of His voluntary creation. What do the Platonists say, and we who believe in the sacred Law of Moses, which assigns a beginning in time to universal creation from nothing? PHILO: We say many things in our defence. We concede that in the course of nature nothing can be made from nothing, yet we hold this to be possible miraculously, through divine omnipotence – not that the material consists of nothing, as statues are made out of wood, but that God can create things anew without the previous existence of any material whatsoever. And we believe that, although the heavens and prime matter are naturally neither generable nor corruptible, they were originally created out of nothing with the whole of creation, by miraculous and divine agency. And although it is naturally repugnant to the successive generation of opposites, circular motion and time, to have a beginning, nonetheless originated at the time of the wondrous creation, depending as they do upon prime matter and the newly created heavens. With regard to the nature of the Creator, we believe that eternal God acts, not out of necessity, but out of free will and omnipotence. And just as He was free to establish the universe as He pleased, the number of orbs and stars, the size of the heavenly spheres, the elements, and the number, measure, and quality of all creation, so He was free in His desire to give a beginning to creation in time, even though He could have made it eternal like Himself. With regard to the aim of His work, we believe that although His purpose in the Creation was to do good, and according to our reasoning eternal good is better than temporal good, nevertheless since we cannot attain to an understanding of His wisdom, we cannot attain to a knowledge of its true purpose in His works. Perhaps in Him the temporal good in the world’s creation precedes the eternal. God’s omnipotence and His free will are sooner recognized in having created all things from nothing than from eternity. This latter form of creation would seem to be a necessary dependence, like the continual dependence of light upon the sun, and would not prove the formation of the world to proceed from free grace and

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wondrous kindness; as David says, ‘I said that the world is fashioned through the grace and mercy of God.’90 SOPHIA: But He would seem to be more powerful in making a good thing eternal than temporal. PHILO: To make something both temporal and eternal would seem stronger. SOPHIA: How can the world be both temporal and eternal at the same time? PHILO: It is temporal in having had a beginning in time, and eternal because, as many of our theologians hold, it is not to have an end. Supreme power is reflected in its temporal origin as well as infinite kindness is reflected in its eternal conservation. And, more generally, I would speak to the Peripatetic about the supreme wisdom of God, about which he can know so little. How could he unveil the purpose of God or the end and goal of His wisdom? Therefore, we may necessary conclude, as the prophet says in the name of the Lord, ‘as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.’91 SOPHIA: Your reasons are enough for me to defend myself from a Peripatetic, even if I cannot attack him, and Plato can use the very same in his own defence. But what cause had Plato to make Chaos eternal, since God in His omnipotence can create it out of nothing, and the whole world from it, as we say? PHILO: Since it is enough that faith not be offended by reason, we have no need of proof, because then we should have knowledge and not faith. It is enough to believe firmly that which reason does not disprove. Plato, however, made prime matter eternal so that Moses’ account of Creation might be upheld by the reason of philosophy; for he wished to be and to appear a philosopher, rather than a believer in the Law. SOPHIA: And what reason does Plato give in order to reconcile the creation of the world in the beginning of time with the assumption that matter, or rather Chaos, is eternally produced by God? And what advantage is there in assuming Chaos to be eternal if he assumes it is made from nothing? PHILO: I will answer your last question first. It is better to not contradict what the ancients affirmed and what is long established by saying that nothing can be made out of nothing;92 and although he assumes the world to be made anew, he does not assume it to be made from nothing, but of the material of ancient and eternal Chaos, the mother of all things created and shaped. You know also that the first scholars who studied theology assumed

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that before the world only the great god Demogorgon93 was in existence, with Chaos and Eternity as his companions. SOPHIA: Has this ancient saying that nothing can be made out of nothing any other reason in its support than the approval and agreement of ancients? PHILO: If it had no other reason in its favour, it would not have been known and accepted by so many excellent ancient thinkers. SOPHIA: Tell me the reason, and let us leave the authority to the ancients. PHILO: I will tell you, and this will require me not only to answer the second part of your question, but also the first part together with the second. And you will see what constrained Plato to assert not only that the world was made anew, but also that Chaos, the material of the world, was made from eternity by the Supreme Creator. SOPHIA: Please help me understand this, because I desire to. PHILO: Plato, seeing that the world was fashioned of one common substance, and that each of its parts was part of that common substance, informed with its own form, recognized rightly that the whole, like each of the parts, was composed of an element, a formless substance, common to all things, and of a form peculiar to itself, which shapes it. SOPHIA: You are right; go on. PHILO: He judged that this formation of the whole, as of each of the parts, was of necessity new and not from eternity. SOPHIA: Why? PHILO: Because it is necessary for the formless to precede the formed. If, Sophia, you see a wooden statue, do you not judge that the wood was first without the form of the statue? SOPHIA: Yes, certainly. PHILO: Chaos, therefore, must have been found formless, and not in the form of the world. So the formation of the world shows it to be new and created anew, while what is formless, which is what made it, shows itself as not new, but eternal in duration. It follows, and must be conceded, therefore, that just as the unformed world has been made anew, so formless Chaos can never have been new, but has existed from eternity. You see, then, why the ancients claim that nothing can be made out of nothing:

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because making means forming anew, and form is relative to the formless of which it is made, since nothing formed can be made out of nothing formless. As, therefore, the formed world is made anew, so formless Chaos from eternity is created by God. SOPHIA: Although I will allow you to say that Chaos has existed from eternity, I will not concede that it was created by God. PHILO: You must concede it. Chaos is formless and imperfect, and a productive cause must be assigned to it, and this must be universal form and perfection, just as Chaos itself is universal formlessness and imperfection. And this productive cause is God. SOPHIA: What? Does God have a form? If so, He could be formed and created anew, which is absurd. PHILO: God is neither formed, nor does He have a form, but is supreme absolute form from which Chaos and all its parts take their form. The world, together with every part of it, was made and formed from both. Their father is that divine form,94 and the mother is Chaos, both from eternity. But the perfect father produced out of himself the single substance, and imperfect mother, and all worlds are made and formed anew out of both, their children, in which matter is combined with paternal form. This is why Plato asserts, and not without reason, that Chaos was created by God from eternity, and that the world with its parts is made and formed anew by Him in the Creation. SOPHIA: I would very much like to learn this argument of Plato’s. But I still have an objection against his assumption that what is formless must exist prior to and without the formed. This priority, although it must be conceded regarding nature, must not be conceded regarding temporal succession. Pure formlessness cannot exist without form, and form is that which confers being upon the formless. Therefore, either form and matter must exist from eternity, and therefore also the whole world (as Aristotle says), or both must be created anew, as the faithful believe. And so, either way, matter is prior essentially, but not temporaly, as Plato states. 95 PHILO: It is clear that matter has a natural priority over form, as the subject to the thing that is attributed to it. But it must also be conceded that matter is prior in time to any actualization or forming of itself, as Aristotle shows. Matter must first exist potentially before any form coeternal in matter; and (as Aristotle says) [to posit] act in potential is nothing else but to eliminate completely the nature of matter and of potentiality.96

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SOPHIA: Why, then, does Aristotle say that the world is formed from eternity? PHILO: Because he does not posit prime matter as being common to the whole universe, but only to the lower world, subject to generation and corruption, in which he posits prime matter to be eternal and that there is no form coeternal with it, but that it ever constantly receives and loses new forms by a process of generation and corruption. He posits an eternal succession of many and different forms, which are eternally subject to eternal generation and corruption, but each one of them is a new being, generable and corruptible. SOPHIA: So Aristotle will not assign matter to the heavens where there is no generation? PHILO: He does not on any account want the heavens and stars to have substantial matter, because in that case they would be subject to generation and corruption, like lower bodies. But they are only an eternal body whose substance is subject to motion, but not to generation. SOPHIA: And why does Plato not say that eternal matter is eternally and successively informed by a series of forms? PHILO: To Plato it seems impossible that a formed body should not be made of formless matter. Hence heaven, the sun, and the stars, which are beautifully formed, are made of formless matter, like all lower bodies. SOPHIA: And is the matter of the heavens perhaps the same as that of the lower bodies, or different? PHILO: It can be none other than prime matter, formless in every way, because there is no means of multiplying or varying it, and it must be identical in all its composites. And to Plato it seems right that all the world, just as it has a common Father, Who is God, should also have a mother common to all its parts, which is Chaos. And the world is the child of them both. SOPHIA: So the angels and pure intelligences must be composed of matter? PHILO: There were some Platonists97 who said that Chaos has its part in the angels and other spiritual beings, because it provides their substance, which is informed intellectually by God, without corporeality. In this way the angels would have incorporeal and intellectual matter, the heavens next, corporeal and incorruptible matter, and the lower beings matter, which is subject to generation and corruption. But those who believe that the intelligences are the souls and forms of the heavenly bodies hold that matter is

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only found in the composition of the heavenly bodies, and not in the intelligences that are their souls. SOPHIA: Therefore, according to Plato, are the heavens made of the same matter of which we are made? PHILO: Yes, the very same. SOPHIA: How, therefore, can they be eternal? PHILO: Because Plato states that the heavens are also made anew of formless matter, coeternal to God. SOPHIA: Very well. But they must also be corruptible like the lower beings, because matter needs to be continually shaped in time. PHILO: Plato also holds that the heavens are dissoluble in themselves. In fact, everything made of matter and form would dissolve, but divine omnipotence makes them indissoluble, though they are dissoluble in themselves. SOPHIA: And do you believe that God, who made the heavens to be dissoluble by nature, would make them indissoluble, contradicting the very nature of His own work, and appearing to confute Himself? PHILO: Your objection is strong. Yet Plato, in the Timaeus,98 says that the Most High God, speaking to the celestial beings, says, ‘You are the work of my hands and transitory99 in yourselves; yet since it is wicked to allow the beautiful to dissolve, through my will shall you be indissoluble, because my power is greater than your fragility.’ But I believe that Plato did not imply that the heavens are eternally indissoluble, but rather meant to show why they are not continually subject to generation and corruption and of short duration, like the lower beings, though they are all made of the same matter, which makes them temporal and dissoluble. In fact, he says that although on account of their material nature they should be dissoluble, by reason of their great beauty of form, drawn in large measure from God, their life is very long. SOPHIA: Then are the heavens going to be dissolved, according to Plato? PHILO: They are. SOPHIA: And can you tell me when he thinks this will happen? PHILO: When they have completed their natural time, like that of the lower bodies: limited, though of much greater length.

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SOPHIA: Has anyone assigned a limit to this time? PHILO: The philosophers before Plato, of whom he was a disciple, say that the lower world is corrupted and renewed every seven thousand years.100 SOPHIA: And how long does it remain in corruption? PHILO: For six thousand of the seven thousand years Chaos continually generates the lower bodies, and when these are completed, they say that Chaos gathers all things into itself and rests during the seven thousandth year. In that interval it again becomes pregnant with a new generation for another six thousand years. SOPHIA: How many of these seven thousand years have passed? PHILO: According to Hebrew truth, we have already reached the five thousand two hundred and sixty second year101 since the beginning of Creation, and when the six thousand years are completed the lower world will be dissolved. SOPHIA: And who will cause them to dissolve? PHILO: Corruption will be caused by the predominance of one of the four elements, most probably fire, or perhaps water. SOPHIA: When will the heavens be corrupted? PHILO: They say that when the lower world has been corrupted seven times, that is, in seven times seven thousand years, heaven will dissolve with all that it encompasses, and everything will revert to Chaos and prime matter. And this will come to pass after forty-nine thousand years have passed. SOPHIA: And what is believed will happen then? PHILO: Although it is audacious to speak of such high and unknown things, I will tell you. It is thought that after Chaos has been idle for a space, it will again be made pregnant by divinity, will conceive the world, and once more will take a form upon itself. SOPHIA: And before this world was made, do they believe that it was made before? PHILO: Perhaps. SOPHIA: And has this process ever had a beginning? PHILO: Because Chaos is the eternal mother, we assume that its offspring, generated by God – eternal and omnipotent father – is eternal. This means

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that it is an infinite number of times in succession, bringing forth the lower world every seven thousand years and the heavens, with all else that is subjected to the renewal, every fifty thousand years. SOPHIA: How do intelligent souls, angels, and pure intelligences share this corruption of the world? PHILO: If they are not composed of matter and form and have no part in Chaos, they find themselves in their own essence separated from bodies, occupied in contemplation of the Godhead. Again, if they are composed of matter and form, they receive their form from their common father, the most high God, and their substance and incorporeal matter from Chaos, their universal mother, as our Albenzubron102 asserts in his book De Fonte Vitae. So they too will give back each of their parts to their parents in the fifty thousandth year: substance and matter to Chaos, which then receives its own back from all its children, and intellectual form to the supreme God, its father and giver. These Forms are preserved in the splendour of the exalted ideas of the divine intellect until they return again in the creation and generation of the universe. Chaos, in becoming pregnant by the Godhead, gives birth to material substances informed by all the ideas in the lower and corporeal world, where they are subject to successive generation and corruption; in the heavenly corporeal world, subject to circular motion but not to continual generation and corruption; and in the intellectual world, incorporeal and motionless, and neither generable nor corruptible. And at the end of the cycle everything is again dissolved, returning to its original parents, as I have told you. SOPHIA: If heaven is dissolved with all that it embraces when forty-nine thousand years have passed, as these philosophers say, then the eighth sphere, where the multitude of the fixed stars are placed, can make only a few revolutions during the life of the world and during its own life, since its motion is so slow. In fact, according to what I have understood from you, some astrologers say that it takes no less than thirty-six thousand years to complete one revolution (and others say that it takes more than forty thousand). If its life is not more than forty thousand years, it can make little more than one revolution throughout the whole of its life, which seems strange to me. PHILO: According to them, its whole life and that of the rest of the universe does not last longer than the time it takes to make a single revolution. In fact, although the first astrologers calculate this to be thirty-six thousand years, and others of an earlier date give a lower figure, the moderns, in

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whom we place greater faith as having longer experience, ascribe forty thousand years to its revolution. The theologians therefore say that human life continues for as long as the eighth sphere takes to make one revolution; and when this is completed all things will be dissolved, the Forms reverting to the Godhead, and matter to its mother Chaos, who, having rested for a thousand years, will once more become pregnant by the divine intellect and informed by all its Ideas, and after the fifty thousandth year will return to generate the heaven and the earth together with the other things of the universe. And the astrologers also, meaning this, say that when the eighth sphere has completed one cycle all things will go back to what they were before.103 SOPHIA: Astrology, therefore, corroborates the sayings of these theologians. But since the life and dissolution of everything depends on the revolution of the eighth sphere, as if caused by it, tell me whether the duration and corruption of the lower world, which occurs every seven thousand years, is perhaps caused by some heavenly motions. PHILO: Yes, it is caused by the motion of this same eighth sphere in its movement of accession and recession, which takes place every seven thousand years, seven times during its whole cycle, and each movement causing the dissolution and renewal of the lower world. And when the seventh time comes the heavens are dissolved, after forty-nine thousand years, which is seven times seven, as I told you. SOPHIA: This agreement with astrology is quite a demonstration. But tell me, did these astrologers receive this teaching from their reason alone, or did they have it from authentic discipleship? PHILO: I have already told you that, when they state that the world is corruptible, they believe they are supported by reason. But it would be difficult to find any philosophical reasons for assigning a time to this corruption, and they have only the testimony of astrology. But both say they have it on divine authority, not only from Moses, the divine lawgiver, but since Adam, the first [man], from whom the unwritten oral tradition, called Kabbalah (signifying ‘reception’) in the Hebrew language, came to the sage Enoch, and from Enoch to Noah the famous, who, after the Flood, on account of his discovery of wine, was called Janus,104 because Janus in Hebrew means wine. And they depict him with two opposite-looking faces, because he was alive before and after the Flood.105 He left this, with many other human and divine matters, to the wisest of his sons, Shem, and to his descendant, Heber, who were the teachers of Abraham, who was called the

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‘Hebrew’ by Heber his forefather and master. Abraham also saw Noah, who died when Abraham was fifty-nine years old. According to what is said, from Abraham and his successors Isaac, Jacob, and Levi came the legacy of the Hebrew sages called ‘Kabbalists,’ who say that it was confirmed by Moses through divine revelation, not only by word of mouth, but also in many passages of Holy Scripture, with proper and authentic proofs. SOPHIA: If these things are contained with some colour of truth in the Holy Scriptures of Moses, and are thereby of greater value, I would like you to explain them to me. PHILO: I will tell you what they say, though I do not persuade you to believe it, because their evidence in the texts is not clear, but figurative. And my role in this – in order to please you – is purely of that of a narrator, though we are digressing from our purpose. Moses (as you know) says that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh day He rested from His labour. In commemoration of this He commanded the Hebrews to do all their work in six days, and on the seventh day to rest from all manner of labour. These theologians say that each of the days required for the divine creation of the lower world represents a thousand years (David also says that a thousand years in respect to God are one day). Therefore, the six ordinary days occupied in the work of the divine creation are equivalent to the six thousand years in which the lower world was generated, and He gave the seventh day of rest to Chaos, without generative work in the lower world. Again, according to rites of the Jews, they have to number seven weeks from the day of their exit from Egypt, that is, forty-nine days; and on the fiftieth day they celebrate the feast of the giving of the Law, which the Godhead wanted to be a universal law for all people. They said that it represents the seven renewals of the lower world in forty-nine thousand years, and the new communication of the divine Ideas in the universal Chaos and in the recreation of the whole universe. They say this is not only signified in Moses’ number of slaves freed, but also in the number of years, one year representing a thousand, because the great celestial year is a thousand years. Wherefore Moses in his Law commands that the earth be cultivated for six years, and in the seventh that it be left fallow, without work or property. They say that the earth represents Chaos, which is the reason why Hebrews, as well as the Chaldeans and other gentiles do, commonly call it earth. Therefore, the Mosaic law will signify that Chaos must conceive those things that are subject to generation for six thousand years, and in the seven thousandth year it will rest, when all things become confused together promiscuously without distinction.106 Thus, Moses commands

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that in the seventh year debts and bonds of ownership shall be loosed and everything revert to its original condition. This seventh year is called shemita, which means ‘relaxation’ and signifies the releasing of all proper qualities in the seven thousandth year, and the reversion of all things to primary Chaos. This shemita, therefore, is like Saturday in the days of the week. Moreover, Moses says that when seven shemitas have passed, that are forty-nine thousand years, the fiftieth year has to be yobel, which in Latin is translated as ‘Jubilee’ and also ‘reversion.’107 In that year there had to be perfect rest for all things, both for the land and for the market, and every slave reverted to freedom, and every bond was released, the earth not to be worked and its fruits to know no owner, and every possession, irrespective of all contracts, was to return to its original owner. And this was called ‘the year of liberty.’ The Scriptures say: ‘In this year of Jubilee every man will return to his origin and root, and liberty shall be proclaimed throughout the earth.’108 So in that year past things were extinguished, and a new world began for fifty years, as before; and they say that this Jubilee used to signify the fifty thousandth year in which the whole universe is renewed, both the heavenly and the corporeal. I could tell you many other things concerning this matter; but this must suffice to give you some notion of the position of these theologians and the reasons that explain their boldness in assigning a limit to the existence of the world. SOPHIA: How can they claim Moses for their side when he so clearly says that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth; and this seems to include Chaos in the rest of the creation? PHILO: They read different things into the text. The word for ‘in the beginning’ in Hebrew can mean ‘previously’;109 therefore, I would say, ‘before God created and separated the heaven and earth,’110 that is, the heavenly world and the terrestrial one. In other words, the earth that is Chaos was empty and void. It is stated more accurately by the fact that it was confused and rough, which means hidden, and it was like a dark abyss of many waters over which the divine spirit breathed, like a great wind over the ocean, giving light to the dark, secret, and hidden waters, and drawing them forth in successive waves. This is what the spirit of God did, which is the supreme intellect full of Ideas. When this spirit was transferred to the dark Chaos, it created light in it, exposing some hidden substances through the means of its Ideal form.111 On the second day God placed the firmament, which are the heavens, between the higher waters, which are the intellectual essences, the supreme waters of the abyss, or Chaos, and the lower waters, which are the essences of the lower world, subject to generation and

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corruption. Thus, He divided Chaos into three worlds: the intellectual, the heavenly, and the corruptible. He then divided the lower world into the elements of water and earth, and when He had caused the dry land to appear, He made it bring forth grass and trees and creatures that inhabit the earth and fly above it and move in the waters. On the sixth day, after all other things had been made, He created man. In this way, in a summary fashion, they understand Moses’ Scripture of the Creation, and believe that it proves that, before the Creation, Chaos was indeterminate112 and through Creation it was separated and orderly distributed into the whole universe.113 SOPHIA: I like seeing you make Plato a follower of Moses and placing him among the Kabbalists. This information is enough, since neither absolute reason nor a particular faith forces me to believe it. But tell me if, perhaps, their assumptions can resolve in a more rational way those Aristotelian arguments than those of the faithful, who believe that the world was created once only. PHILO: Aristotle himself accepts the assertion that another world must have existed before this one, and before that another, and so on in continual retrogression, all made by eternal matter. He thinks that this is more reasonable than the opinion that this world had a beginning and nothing existed before it. In fact, one theory wants an eternal successive order in the generation of the world, and affirms that nothing can be made out of nothing, whereas the other one does not imply this. So against the former opinion the strongest of his arguments does not apply, like the one that nothing can be made out of nothing, and that prime matter cannot be newly made or generated. Plato accepts and presupposes these two assertions, as well as the two theological arguments concerning the divine work; it must be eternal like the Creator Himself, so the goal of His work, which is good, must also be eternal. Plato allows for both of these propositions for what is part of the divine activity. He maintains, however, that God only confers His eternity on those that are capable of its enjoyment: the intellect, where the Ideas are, and prime matter, which is Chaos. In fact, the one is pure actuality and form and the other pure potentiality and wholly formless matter, the one being the universal father of all things and the other the universal mother. Only they could partake of the divine eternity, since they were made by God from eternity. But their children, who through the medium of their two parents are made and formed by God, as is the whole universe and each of its parts, are not capable of such eternity. In fact, every created thing is formed, composed of the matter of Chaos and forms from the intellectual Idea, and must have a beginning and end in time, as I told you before. So

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the work and end of the divine creation were eternal in the first parents of the world, but not in this particular formed world, and are eternal in the eternal succession of many worlds; just as Aristotle himself holds that no creature in the lower world is eternal, but only its generation and the prime matter of which it is composed.114 SOPHIA: I clearly see the solution of the theological arguments and of the first natural one of Aristotle. But how will Plato solve the other four? PHILO: Unlike Aristotle, Plato does not admit that Chaos can exist without form. Instead, he says that, after having procreated, for a long period Chaos draws all things together into itself and is at rest with them, becoming pregnant with the Ideas until it again returns to conceive and to give birth to a new universe. Plato concedes that generation is eternal in many successive worlds, but not in one, which is Heaven; in fact, the contrary, on whose account it dissolves what it is formed by it, made and composed of matter and form. All such things must dissolve, and consequently its circular motion ceases, although universal motion is eternal through the eternal and successive generations of Chaos. And about time, he says that it is also eternal, not because of the motion of the heavens, but because of the eternal motion of the successive generations of Chaos.115 SOPHIA: I like Plato’s solution to Aristotle’s arguments, and you have told me much of the creation of the world according to three different opinions: the eternity of one single world, according to Aristotle, the eternity of many successive worlds, according to Plato, and the creation of one single world and of the whole universe, according to the faithful. Now it seems we return to our subject of love, and that you should answer my second question: when was love born and what was the first love? PHILO: The first love is that of the first lover for the first beloved. But since neither of these was ever born, but instead both are eternal, we need to say that their love, which is the first love, was never born, but is as eternal as they are, having been created by them from all eternity. SOPHIA: Tell me who are the first beloved and the first lover; so that knowing their love I will know the first love. PHILO: The first lover is God, who knows and wills. The first beloved is God, the supremely Beautiful. SOPHIA: The first love, therefore, is of God for Himself. PHILO: Yes, certainly.

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SOPHIA: Many absurd and contradictory things would follow from this. First, the absolutely simple and divine essence would be divided into a part loved and not loving and a part loving and not loved. Second, God the lover would be lower than Himself as beloved, for, as you yourself have shown me, every lover, as lover, is lower than himself as beloved. If love is a desire for union (as you told), in loving God desires to unite Himself with Himself, and although He is always one with Himself, it would follow that God lacked some part of Himself. Such love presupposes privation. And many other similar objections would arise that I will not enlarge upon here because they will be clear to you and to anyone who has understood the conditions that you have ascribed to love. PHILO: It is not right, Sophia, to speak of the intrinsic love of God, lover and beloved, with the same tongue and the same lips with which we normally speak of earthly loves. There is no difference between lover and beloved in Him; rather, this intrinsic relation makes His unity more perfect and more truly one. Because His divine essence would not be supreme unity if there were not in it the beloved beauty and knowledge, and the lover who knows, and both are most excellent love. So just as in God, the knower, the thing known and cognition itself are all one and the same (and even if we say that he who knows becomes more perfect with the thing known, and that cognition derives from both), in the same way in Him lover and beloved and love itself are one, though we count them to be three and say that the lover is informed by the beloved and that love derives from them both as from father and mother, the whole is one simple unity and essence or nature, which can in no way be divided or multiplied.116 SOPHIA: If He is nothing else than pure unity, what is the origin of this threefold reflection we are discussing? PHILO: When His pure clarity is impressed on an intellectual mirror117 it makes this threefold reflection, as you yourself learned. SOPHIA: Our cognition of Him would be false and deceptive, since out of the single and the one it makes three. PHILO: It is not false, for our intellect cannot encompass and comprehend the Godhead that infinitely exceeds it in its intellectual nature. And you would not call the eye or a mirror a delusion, although it cannot comprehend the sun in all its splendour and greatness, nor the terrible burning nature of fire. It is enough that the eye or mirror should receive the impression of these things according to its capacity and nature, and in this it is a

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faithful recipient, even though it cannot grasp the whole nature of the object received. In the same way, it is enough for our intellectual mirror to receive and imprint118 the infinite divine essence according to the capacity of its intellectual nature, though there is a measureless difference between them, and it cannot understand the nature of the object. SOPHIA: Yes, it cannot grasp the object as it is, but this does not explain its conversion of absolute unity into three. PHILO: On the contrary, being unable to understand the pure unity of the divine object, it multiplies it relatively and by reflection into three. A clear and single object cannot be impressed upon another less clear than itself unless its own exceeding brightness be multiplied into several lesser lights. See the sun, when it transmits its rays upon the clouds, forming the rainbow: its light is transformed into so many colours by their reflecting it, or by water or a mirror. And in itself it is pure light without any colour of its own, yet it transcends and contains every other colour. In the same way, divine Form, which is perfect unity and simplicity in itself, cannot be transfigured119 except by the reflection of its light and the multiplication of its Form. SOPHIA: Why does our intellect make the one into three and not another number? PHILO: Because One is the beginning120 of numbers; because One says primary form, and Two is primary matter, and Three is the first being composed of both the previous. Moreover, since our intellect is a composite of both threefold and singular, it cannot comprehend unity without a threefold relation; not that it makes three of one, but comprehends the one in a threefold form and considers that in the divine object there is the purest unity, which in supreme simplicity contains the nature of the beloved, the lover, and love without any multiplication or division, just as the sun contains the essence of every particular light and colour in its simple and absolute brightness. It is the inferiority and impotency of the intellect that causes it to receive this unity of love in the threefold form of beloved, lover, and love, as three joined together in one. And with this, Sophia, you will resolve your doubts and any others that might occur to you concerning the intrinsic love of God, as lover, for Himself as beloved. SOPHIA: I think I have understood your meaning; but if you could make clearer how the beloved, the lover, and love could be the same thing in God, this will give me more satisfaction.

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PHILO: Just as in the one who is intelligent the object of the intellect and the intellect itself are divided in potentiality and united in actuality, so the lover, the beloved, and love are divided in potentiality and one and the same and indivisible in actuality. If being in act makes them one and indivisible, then when they exist in the highest and purest divine actuality, they must be one in single and absolute unity, and in every other lesser grade of actual being their unity is not so perfect or so nakedly evident by the threefold nature of love and intellection. SOPHIA: This abstraction pleases me, but there is one thing that I cannot agree with. Although I will concede that our intellect grasps the divine unity, which contains and goes beyond all three natures of love – beloved, lover, and love – in a threefold relative form, I cannot allow you to consider that one of these three aspects depends on the other, meaning the lover on the beloved, and that the third, which is love, is born of these first two as from a father and mother. All production and generation is very alien and opposed to the simplicity of the divine unity. PHILO: It is not only correct, but necessary, that divine unity should be impressed on us even in this creative form. For just as one must be multiplied into three in our intellect, so this threefold nature must be represented in it as interdependent, for otherwise it would be three natures and not one, and moreover our intellect would be deceptive. And unity cannot appear as multiplication, if that multiplication does not maintain the unity of the product. So I have told you that in the Godhead the mind, which is loving wisdom, eternally proceeds from beloved beauty, and love was born from these two ab eterno, from the beloved beautiful as the father and from knowing, or the lover, as the mother. And I say that the lover was produced, but not born. He does not have two parents, which are essential for procreation, but only one forbear, just as mother Eve was produced from father Adam, and Chaos or matter, the universal mother, from the divine intellect, which is the universal father. But love, I say, was born, because it was produced by the father or beloved, and the mother or lover, just as all men have been born since Adam and Eve, as well as the whole world of intellect and matter. If, Sophia, you will enlighten your mind, you shall see where the production and multiplication come from. SOPHIA: Explain this to me too, because I cannot understand it by myself. PHILO: The first universal intellect, together with all the Ideas, was produced out of the splendour of the beloved divine beauty and is the father of the universe and the form, husband, and beloved of Chaos. Chaos, the

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mother of the world and lover and wife of the first intellect, was produced out of the clear and wise mind of the Godhead, the lover.121 The loving universe was generated because of the noble and divine love, which was born from these two having the Intellect as father and the Chaos as mother. I could tell you much more about this matter in order to ease your mind, but it would be too far removed from our purpose, and for now this is enough. SOPHIA: I would like you to explain it better. PHILO: Man is intelligent and the nature of fire is a thing understood by him. Now when man and fire are in potentiality with respect to understanding, they are two separate things, and the intellection, also in potentiality, makes a third thing. But when the human intellect actively comprehends fire, it unites with its essence and is one with the fire in the mind; so too this same intellection, when active, is the same as the intellect and the intellectual fire, and they are no longer divided. In the same way, the potential lover is other than the potential beloved and they are two persons, while potential love makes a third that exists neither in the beloved nor in the lover. But when the potential lover becomes actual, he is made one and the same with the beloved and with love. If, then, you can see how these three different natures may become one and the same through act, how much greater their union is in supreme and divine act, where they are one pure and single nature without any kind of division. SOPHIA: I have understood the intrinsic love of God from you. Although we attribute to it a birth and allow that it was born of God as both lover and beloved, nonetheless this love was born of God from all eternity and is one with His eternal unity to all eternity. Therefore, there is no necessity in questioning when this love was born, since God is eternal and knew no birth; but I would like to know when the first love of the world was born after this intrinsic love. PHILO: The first love after this intrinsic love that is one with God was that by which the world was made, or rather created; and it was born at the same time as the world, because it is the cause of its birth, and the true and immediate cause must exist at the same time as the effect and the effect as the cause. SOPHIA: How is love the cause of the birth of the worlds? PHILO: The world, like every other thing that is made and generated, is born of two parents, father and mother; and it could never be conceived if it were not for the mutual love that unites them in the act of generation.

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SOPHIA: Who are these two parents or generators? PHILO: The first parents are one with God, as I have already told you, and are the supremely Beautiful or the supremely Good (as Plato calls them),122 which is the true father and the first beloved, and the lover that is one with the divine mind, or wisdom, or vision, who, knowing his beauty, loves and produces intrinsic love. The first mother together with the father are one and the same with the same Godhead. The Godhead, therefore, loving its own beauty, desired to bring forth a son in its own likeness, and this desire was the first extrinsic love, which is of God for the created world. Its birth caused the first production of the first worldly parents and the production of this world. SOPHIA: Who else do you call the parents of the world? PHILO: The two first generated by God in the creation of the world, who are the first intellect –where all the Ideas of the supreme Creator, or supreme wisdom, are resplendent – the father, the former and generator of the world, and dark Chaos with the shades of all the Ideas, who contains all their essences, the mother of the world. Through the medium of these two, as the first instrumental parents, and with amorous desire, God created, formed, and fashioned the whole world in the likeness of beauty, or wisdom, or the divine essence. Besides the divine extrinsic love, a second love was also present at this creation – that of Chaos for the intellect as the wife for her husband – and this was reciprocated by the intellect as the husband reciprocates the love of his wife. Through their love the world was conceived. A third love was also necessary for the creation and existence of the world: that of all its parts for another and for the whole, and this I discussed at length with you when we spoke of the universality of love.123 These three loves were all born when the world was born, which is when the two first parents were born. Therefore, if the world is eternal, as Aristotle would have it, these first loves were born from eternity together with the intrinsic divine love that is one with God, and there is no need to say anything about this. And if the world and both its parents were created at the beginning of time, as we faithful believe, these three loves were born successively at the beginning of creation. In fact, that love and desire of God for the creation of the world in the image of His beauty and wisdom was born first; second, when the first parents had been created, love was born between them, which is the second love; then, after the formation of the universe with all its parts the third love was born, the love of the uniting world. And if perhaps the world was created in time by two eternal parents

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(as Plato holds), then the first love of God that produced the first instruments or parents of the world (the intellect and Chaos) was born from eternity together with these parents. And the other two loves accompanying the divine love were born at the beginning of time when the world was made – the love between the parents being born at the beginning of the creation of the world and the other, the love of union, at the end of its formation; and these two loves were born as many times as the world was made. So according to the theory of the generation of the world there must be opinions on when love was born. You, Sophia, who are one of the faithful, must believe that divine extrinsic love and worldly intrinsic love, which are the first loves after the intrinsic love of God, were born when the world was created by Him out of nothing. SOPHIA: I like having learned all these things concerning when love was born, and not only the various opinions of the sages, but also the statement of the faith, upon which we must base ourselves. Enough of the second question, then. Let us pass on to the third, and tell me, if necessary, where love was born, whether, perhaps, in the lower world of generation and corruption, or in the heavenly world of perpetual motion, or in the spiritual world of pure intellectual vision. PHILO: Since you have already learned from me that the first love to be born was the extrinsic divine love, by virtue of which the world was created by God the creator, it should be manifest to you that love was born in God. SOPHIA: I was well aware of this. My question does not concern divine love, whether intrinsic or extrinsic, which is more exalted than what my mind can attain, but worldly love. PHILO: About this I have told you that the first was the mutual love born of the first intellect and Chaos, so that love was first born in them. SOPHIA: I remember that, too. But according to what you said, this love is of the progenitors of the world, its father and mother, rather than of any of its parts. I want to know about the love that exists in the created world, in which of its parts it was born, whether in the corruptible, the celestial, or the angelic, and in what part of each of these parts. PHILO: When the question is expressed more clearly, the solution becomes less controversial. My answer is that love was first born in the angelic world and from there it was imparted to the heavenly and corruptible world. SOPHIA: What reason moves you to make this statement?

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PHILO: Since love (as I have told you) proceeds from beauty, where beauty is greatest, oldest, and coeternal, there love must be born first. SOPHIA: It seems that you wish to deceive me. PHILO: How? SOPHIA: Because you tell me that where beauty is there is love. And you have already shown me that love is where beauty is not. PHILO: I do not deceive you; it is you who deceive yourself. I did not tell you that love consists in beauty, but that it proceeds from it, and that love exists where there is beauty that causes it; not, however, that it exists in this beauty, but in that which lacks and desires the beautiful. SOPHIA: Therefore, where beauty is most lacking there should be the most love, and there it was first born. And since the lower world is more wanting in beauty than the heavenly and the angelic, love must exist there in greater abundance, and this we must consider to have been its original birthplace. PHILO: Again, Sophia, I find you more subtle than you are wise, and I wish that the recollection of our past conversation served you to find the truth rather than to contradict it. Do you not see that not only a lack of beauty causes love and desire for it, but more especially a knowledge of it in the lover who lacks it and esteems it as good, excellent, desirable, and beautiful, so that the lover desires it in order to enjoy it? The more the knowledge of this beauty is clear in the lover, the more intense his desire is and the more perfect his love. Tell me, therefore, Sophia, whether this knowledge will be more perfect in the angelic or in the corruptible world? SOPHIA: In the angelic world, certainly. PHILO: Therefore love is more perfect in the angelic world, and there it had its origin. SOPHIA: If love exists in the lover according to the extent of his knowledge, then you are right in placing its origin in the intellectual world. Yet it is my experience that love presupposes a lack of beauty as well as a knowledge of it, and proceeds no less from the one than from the other. In fact, privation even seems to be the first condition of love, and the second condition is a knowledge of the beauty that is wanting and which is desired because it is beautiful. Reason would therefore lead us to suppose that, where the lack is greatest, there love was born, that is, in the lower world, where there is

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greater privation, although knowledge is not so great as in the angelic world. This is the first condition for the production of love. PHILO: Although both privation and knowledge of the beautiful are causes that produce love, privation not only comes before knowledge, but cannot even compare with it. SOPHIA: Why not? Privation must precede knowledge, just as a thing must exist before knowledge of it, and an object must first be lacking before one can become aware of its absence. PHILO: Privation certainly precedes knowledge in time and origin, because a thing must first be lacking before it is missing, as you say. But privation is not first in importance among the causes of love, for without knowledge it produces neither love nor desire of a good or beautiful thing. You see humans with neither wit nor knowledge who have neither love of wisdom nor desire for learning; but when knowledge is added to the lack of a beautiful or a good thing, it is this knowledge that principally induces love and desire of it. Where knowledge is accompanied by the lack of a certain degree of beauty, as in the angelic world, there love is born, and not in the lower world, where there is privation in plenty but no knowledge. SOPHIA: I will not yet concede defeat, nor can I allow that knowledge is thus more important than privation among the causes of love. Knowledge can be together with beauty; furthermore, in the universe those who have the most beauty have the most cognition (what beauty is more excellent than cognition itself?) Knowledge, therefore, stays closer to beauty rather than to the privation of beauty, and the greater the knowledge the less it remains where the beautiful is lacking. Therefore, where knowledge is great (as in the angelic world), there can be only a little privation and, in consequence, little desire and love; in fact, the person who has little wants little. In the lower world, however, where privation is great and knowledge and beauty small, desire and love must be more intense, and there they must first have been born. PHILO: I am very pleased, Sophia, that your mind124 will not be at peace until it is in perfect harmony with every aspect of speculative truth. In this doubt of yours you use certain ambiguous statements that make it appear valid to you, such as knowledge existing together with beauty, that it is beauty itself, and that it does not exist in the privation of beauty; and you are correct regarding actual knowledge, which is the most perfect, but not regarding potential knowledge of that which is lacking. SOPHIA: Explain this difference better, because I do not think I understand it well.

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PHILO: Excellent beauty is one that knows itself, and high knowledge is knowledge of its own beauty. This knowledge does not presuppose privation, but rather the possession of the beautiful thing that is its object. And in the universe, to the degree that beauty is more excellent, it has greater knowledge of itself, and this induces neither desire nor love, except, perhaps, through its own self-contemplation. There is another kind of knowledge, however, the object of which is not the beauty that the knower possesses but that which he lacks. This is the knowledge that generates desire and love in all things that are lower than the supremely beautiful. SOPHIA: Because this second knowledge presupposes privation and is knowledge of beauty that is lacking, it must cause greater love in the lower world where there is a lack of beauty, than in the angelic world, where the lack is small. In fact, knowledge must be proportionate to the beauty that is lacking and which is its object. PHILO: This is your second fallacy. You should know that, just as the first habitual knowledge is more excellent in what is more beautiful, and in the angelic world it is more excellent than in the lower world, so this second privative knowledge is greater in higher beings than in lower ones, except in the most high God, where there is no privative cognition, since His cognition is of His supreme beauty, which does not lack any grade of perfection. SOPHIA: But you will not deny that these higher, heavenly, and angelic beings are less deprived of beauty than the lower and corruptible beings. So the desire of the beauty they lack must be greater among the poor lower beings than among the rich angelic ones. PHILO: Your conclusion is incorrect. In fact, it is not the thing that most lacks the good which most desires the good that it lacks, but that which has the greatest knowledge of the good that it lacks. Observe the various species of lower beings: the elements, stones, and metals, which lack beauty to a high degree, yet have little or no desire for it because they have no knowledge of the good that they lack. SOPHIA: But you have already shown me that they also have natural love and desire. PHILO: Yes, but only for that degree of perfection natural to them, in the same way that weight tends towards the centre, lightness to the circumference, and iron towards the nearest magnet. SOPHIA: Nonetheless they have no cognition.

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PHILO: I have already told you that the cognition of the generating nature is meant to direct them towards their natural perfection, without any other cognition on their own part, so that their love and desire is neither intellectual nor sentient, but only natural, which means that it is governed by nature and not by themselves. Thus plants, which are the least perfect of animate beings as most lacking in beauty, do not have desire for it because they don’t know it, except slightly, in so far as beauty relates to their natural perfection. In corporeal animals, which are far more lacking in beauty and perfection than rational humans, the desire and love for the good that they lack is infinitesimal compared with that of humans. They lack less cognition of the beauty that only extends to bodily pleasures, whereas their love, being sensory, cannot be directed towards the intellectual beauties that they lack, which are the most excellent of all beauties. Moreover, among humans themselves (as I have already told you) those who have a weaker intelligence125 and consequently less knowledge are those who lack more beauty and perfection, and desire it least. And the more intelligent and wiser they are, the more their lack of intellectual perfection and beauty decreases, and their love and desire of it becomes more intense. For this reason Pythagoras called wise men philosophers,126 which means those who love or desire wisdom. In fact, the one who has more wisdom knows what he lacks more in order to perfect it, and desires it more. And he desires wisdom such that, since wisdom is far broader and deeper than the human intellect, he swims the farthest into its divine sea, and as soon he knows its width and depth, he desires even more strongly to arrive at those shores of perfection possible to him. Its waters are like salt water, for the more a man drinks, the thirstier he becomes. The delights of wisdom can never be satisfied like those of other pleasures; instead, they become ever more desirable and less satisfying. In this regard Solomon, in his Proverbs, says: ‘Loving hind and roe of grace, her affections will abundantly delight you at all times, and you will always grow in her love.’127 When, Sophia, you ascend by this ladder128 to the heavenly and angelic world, you will find that those who participate most in the intellectual beauty of the supremely beautiful better recognize how much of the beauty of their Creator is lacking even in the most perfect of His creatures. And they love and desire it even more in order to enjoy the highest degree of participation and union possible to them; and in this their ultimate happiness consists. Therefore, love is in that first and most perfect created intelligence, and through it, it is possible to enjoy in union the supreme beauty of the Creator, upon Whom the creature depends. From it the other intelligences and heavenly creatures are successively derived, descending gradually down to the lower world, where

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man alone can be likened to it in his love of the divine beauty through his immortal intellect that the Creator wanted to give to his mortal body. It is only through the love of man for the divine beauty that the lower world, which is his domain, is united to the Godhead, the first cause and final goal of the universe and the highest beauty universally loved and desired. Otherwise the lower world would be wholly separated from God. Love, therefore, was born in the created world in its angelic part, and from there was imparted to its other parts. SOPHIA: My mind would be put at ease with this account, and I could certainly allow that love was first born in the angelic world, where it reaches the peak of its desire, if it did not seem strange to me to associate the smallest lack of beauty with the greatest knowledge and desire of what is lacking, as you affirm to be true of the intellectual world. In fact, these things should logically be proportional, and the experience of knowing and the desire of the beauty that is lacking should be proportionate to the lack, as I have already told you. Although, Philo, you with your subtle reasoning allege the contrary to be true and your arguments cannot be refuted, your conclusion seems contradictory, because it makes the lack disproportionate to the desire and knowledge of that which is lacking. PHILO: We said that the angelic world was more beautiful than the corruptible world, and therefore less deficient in beauty than the lower one, because where there is greater perfection, necessarily there is less privation and lack of beauty. Nonetheless, when you consider the measure of the deficiency in beauty relative to the love and desire of which it is the cause, you will find not only that it is equal in the angelic world to the deficiency in the lower world, but even exceeds it and is greater, in that it induces greater love and desire than in the corruptible world. SOPHIA: This seems even stranger to me. Tell me why there is equal privation in both worlds and also (if possible) why it is even greater in the angelic world compared with that of the corruptible world. PHILO: Since the beauty of the Creator is more excellent than any created beauty and is the only perfect beauty, you must concede that this beauty is the measure of all other beauties and that the privation of perfection in the others is measured by it. SOPHIA: I will certainly concede this to you, because it is indeed true that divine beauty is the cause, end, and measure of all created beauties. But tell me more.

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PHILO: You will also concede that divine beauty is immense and infinite, in that there is no proportion commensurate with the most excellent of created beauties. SOPHIA: This also seems to be necessary: the beauty of the Creator cannot in any way be proportionate to that of any created thing, and those perfections found in His creatures are not comparable to His beauty, wisdom, and every other perfection. But I do not understand this title of infinity that you give to beauty, because infinity means an indeterminate, imperfect dimension, and a perfect quantity has its limits that make it perfect. If, then, divine beauty is the most perfect, it must be whole and have its boundaries and be not infinite, as you say. Moreover, since finitude and infinity are conditions of an extended or numerical quantity that is only found in bodies, and divine beauty is incorporeal and not affected by every corporeal passion, I do not understand how you can make it infinite. PHILO: Do not be deceived by the properties of the word ‘infinite,’ which signifies an indeterminate and imperfect quantity. This is far away from divine beauty. Yet we can only speak of God and incorporeal things in words that are in some sense corporeal. In fact, our language and speech are corporeal in themselves. Again, ‘perfect’ is a word incompetent for the Godhead, because it means entirely made, and there is nothing made in the Godhead. But by ‘perfect’ we mean free from all imperfection and containing every perfection; and by ‘infinite,’ that the perfection, wisdom, and beauty of God the Creator cannot be related to or compared with any other created perfection. The perfection of Him Who created all things out of nothing must exceed that of all His creatures, which in themselves are nothing, just as supreme being is greater than pure nothingness. This excess is immeasurable, and there is nothing that may be proportioned or compared to it. This is what we call infinite, although in itself it is whole and perfect. Moreover beauty, wisdom, being, and every divine virtue are called infinite because they are not confined to any essence of their own, nor to any finite subject; on the contrary, all the perfections in God are most abstract, transcendent, and infinite, since they are not limited in their own subject and essence, as are the being and beauty of every created thing by its proper essence.129 SOPHIA: I am pleased to learn how we apply the word ‘infinity’ to divine perfections. Tell me further how the lack of beauty in the angelic world is equal to that in the corruptible world.

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PHILO: The infinite is equally distant from every finite thing, whether large or small, because it cannot be measured by the multiplication of what is large or small. SOPHIA: This seems reasonable; it is also strange for the imagination130 that a large quantity should not have more affinity with and approximate more closely to the infinite than a small one, and that they are not more commensurate. Please, better explain this statement to me. PHILO: Imagination should not hinder reason in one like you, Sophia. You see well that infinity cannot be measured by any kind of measure, great or small, because it would then be contained by that measure and not be infinite. Therefore, neither a half, nor a third, nor a quarter, nor any fraction whatsoever can be related to it, because that fraction would then give its measure. It is therefore prime, indivisible, and immeasurable, without limit and without end, and no finite thing, however great or excellent it may be, can be proportional to it by any kind of relation. SOPHIA: Give me an example, so that my imagination may be put at ease. PHILO: Time, according to the philosophers, is infinite; it had no beginning and will have no end, although we the faithful believe the contrary. According to the philosophers, then, because time is infinite, it cannot be measured by any quantity of finite time, great or small. So it cannot be related to or measured by a thousand years any more than by one hour, for infinite time contains and exceeds many thousands of years no less than a few hours, and neither the one nor the other can measure its infinity. You will not deny, therefore, Sophia, that infinite time exceeds a thousand years no less than one hour. SOPHIA: It cannot be denied that the difference between the infinite and any finite quantity, whether great or small, is infinite just the same. PHILO: Therefore divine beauty, which is infinite, exceeds the most beautiful of the intelligences separated from matter no less than the least beautiful of corruptible bodies, since this beauty is the measure of them all and none can measure this beauty. The first angel, therefore, lacks as much of the divine beauty as the lowest worm upon the earth.131 They are thus equal lacks, which is to say that the lack of beauty of every creature relative to the beauty of the Creator is infinite, and infinity may in some sense be said to be equal to infinity, although equality is a condition of the finite. And divine beauty, being perfectly abstracted from any subject and intrinsic limit, can never be compared to any created and limited beauty, just as the infinite cannot ever be related to the finite.

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SOPHIA: It seems to me that it is necessary that privations are equal in one way, but I still have two doubts in this regard. The first is: if the angelic and corruptible worlds are equally distant from the infinite divine beauty, the one should not be more perfect than the other, because the perfection of created beings seems to exist in their greater or lesser approximation to their Creator. The second is: you say that no creature can be compared with the Creator; how can this be truth in contrast with what the Scriptures says, that man is made in the image and likeness of God? I have already learned from you that the world is image and likeness of God; and there is no doubt that the angelic world is far more similar to the Godhead than all the rest, because the image must be proportionate to the figure of which it is the image and the simulacrum to that of which it is a likeness.132 Created things must therefore be proportionate to the Creator, because they are His image. PHILO: Your doubts show cleverness, but their solution is not difficult. Although divine beauty in itself133 is immense and infinite, the portion that God shares with the created universe is finite, and was imparted in different finite degrees, less to some, and more to others. In fact, every created beauty is created with its own essence and finite subject within which it is confined. The angelic world received most, then the celestial, and then the corruptible. These parts are proportional one to another, and that which has the largest is said to partake in the highest degree of the Divinity and to approximate the most closely to It, not because it is more proportionate to divine infinity, since there can be no relation between them, but because a higher measure of the beauty imparted by the Creator to the created world has fallen to its lot, and it is less restricted, less concrete, and less limited by its own essence. So when a creature is said to be more approximate to its Creator than another, this is not because it is more proportionate to Him, as you understand in your first doubt, but because it partakes more liberally of the divine gifts. And this should solve your second difficulty, because God has implanted His image and likeness in His creatures through this finite beauty imparted to them by the immensely Beautiful.134 The image of the infinite must be finite – otherwise it would not be an image – of what it is the image. The infinite beauty of the Creator is depicted and reflected in finite created beauty like a beautiful figure in a mirror;135 but the image is not commensurate with its divine imaged object, instead it will be Its simulacrum, likeness, and image. Man, the created world, and more especially the angelic world can therefore be made in the image and simulacrum of God without bearing any proportion to His great beauty, as I have told you. Regarding this the prophet says: ‘To whom will you liken to God, or what

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simulacrum will you compare to Him?’136 And in another place he says: ‘To whom then will you liken Me, proportionally?’ – the saint said – ‘Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and see who created these things, who produced their immense multitude and He calls them all by names by the greatness of His supreme might, for that He is strong in power; no place is deprived of Him.’137 Observe, Sophia, how clearly this prophet in his wisdom showed how the immeasurable excellence of the Creator cannot be compared with that of His creatures, even that of the heavenly and angelic beings. He says to them that he created all of them numberless and all with their own essence and name, and through His omnipotence and immense power they have being and are not deprived of it. In fact he said, ‘they are nothing,’ because nothing can be the comparison or proportion with that font of being,138 which of itself converts nothingness into being and confers upon it the highest degree of perfection? Regarding this, in her prayer to God, Hannah says, ‘Nobody is holy as the Lord, because nobody is without You.’139 This means that whoever receives being cannot be compared with the one from whom he receives it. SOPHIA: You have shown me that both the angelic and corruptible worlds are deprived of beauty, but you still have to show me how this privation is even greater in the angelic world, which seems not only strange but contradictory, because if they are equal in both cases one cannot be greater than the other. PHILO: You have learned the reason for their equality; and I have told you that the privation of beauty is greater in the angelic world because it is more aware of it. In fact, when two people lack something in equal measure, the deficiency is greater in him who is most aware of it, and therefore his desire for what he lacks is stronger. If a nobleman and a peasant are equally lacking in courtesy and chivalry,140 in whom is the deficiency greater, in the nobleman who is conscious of his lack, or in the peasant who does not understand what these things are? Which of these desire them the more strongly? SOPHIA: The nobleman, certainly. Because he who does not feel neither suffers privation nor desires the things he does not have. PHILO: In the same way, although there is an equal deficiency of infinite beauty in the heavenly and corruptible worlds, in the angelic world, which has a greater awareness of the immense beauty that it lacks, the privation is greater, and therefore the desire and love more intense than in the lower world. So, even if the privation with respect to the divine beauty is equal,

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the lack is smaller due to poverty of awareness in the latter, and the desire and love of beauty is weaker. The privation in the two worlds is therefore equal with respect to that which is lacking, which is infinite in both cases, and is greater or lesser with respect to the one suffering the privation according to the measure of its knowledge, desire, and love of what it lacks. SOPHIA: I understand very clearly why the privation of beauty in the angelic world is not only equal to that of the lower world but even greater, and therefore that its love and desire are more ardent and intense and of greater worth, so that the place where love was first born is rightly taken to be the angelic world. But my mind is still troubled concerning its nobility. Since lack of beauty is an imperfection, where the lack is greater the imperfection must also be greater. Therefore, it would follow that the angelic world, which, according to you, is most wanting in beauty, would be more defective and less perfect than the corruptible world, something that is absurd. PHILO: The absurdity you speak is about what would follow if the privation of beauty – which I have told you is greater in the angelic world than in the corruptible – were an absolute and total privation. This would truly cause a greater defect in that which suffers it. I did not say, however, that this kind of privation was greater in the angelic world, but only that which incites and produces love and desire, which is not a defect in created things but rather a perfection. Therefore, it is reasonable that it is greater in the angelic world than in the corruptible one. SOPHIA: The difference in terms does not satisfy me. Explain these two kinds of privation, the privative one and the one that produces love and the difference between them. PHILO: The lack of any perfection can be in act only, even if the potentiality exists, and this is lack, properly speaking; or if it is lacking both actually and potentially, it is called absolute privation. SOPHIA: Give me an example of both of these. PHILO: Among artificial things you may see a piece of rough wood that lacks the form and beauty of a statue of Apollo, nevertheless it potentially has these qualities. Water, however, lacks the form of the statue both actually and potentially, because a statue cannot be made of water as it can of wood. The former lack, which does not exclude potentiality, is called lack; the second, which covers actuality and potentiality, is called absolute privation. In nature, the prime matter which is in fire and water, though actually lacking the form and essence of air, is not, however, potentially lacking in it, because

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air can be obtained from fire and from water; but it lacks the form of the stars, the sun and moon, or a heavenly being, not only in act but potentially, for prime matter has no power or possibility of becoming heaven or star. This difference is in the lack of beauty from the angelic to the corruptible world. In the angelic world the lack is only in actuality, but not in knowledge and inclination, which is equivalent to potentiality in prime matter. Just as in the latter lack of actuality gives it inclination and desire for every form that it has potentially, so the cognition and inclination of the angelic world towards the highest beauty (which it lacks) gives it an intense love and burning desire. This lack is not absolute privation; in fact, the one who knows and desires what he is lacking is not totally deprived of it, for knowledge is the potential being of what is lacked, and the same is true of love and desire. But in the lower world, where there is no such knowledge and desire of this supreme beauty, it is lacking in act and potentiality; and this lack is absolute privation and true defect, and not the lack that directs one to know, inspire, and produce love, which is a perfection in created things. This lack is found to a greater degree in more excellent things; that is, it is more knowing and producing of love than in the corruptible world, and the privative lack is less. The contrary happens in the corruptible world, because the lack that inspires love is found to a lesser degree and the privative is greater, so this world is less perfect and more defective.141 SOPHIA: I see the difference between the lack of beauty leading to the knowledge and production of love, which is greater in the intellectual world, and the pure privation of knowledge and love, which prevails in the corruptible world. And I am aware that one implies perfection, and the other defect. But I still have three doubts. First, the lack in the lower world cannot be called absolutely privative, because even here supreme beauty is known and desired by humans who are part of this world. Second, the cognitive and desiderative lack of the highest beauty does not seem to me compatible with the potential being of the thing that is actually lacking, as you have said, because potentiality can be reduced to actuality, but no finite beautiful thing can have infinite beauty, which you say is what is known and desired. Third, it seems strange to me that God does not place in any created thing knowledge and desire of what is lacking and impossible to acquire, as would be the case you were describing of the angelic world. Philo, solve these doubts, so that my spirit will be more at peace about this topic of the birthplace of love. PHILO: I expected such doubts from you. They are pertinent, because with their solution you will understand more fully that love was born in the

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angelic world, as I have told you. As to the first doubt, I tell you that in the corruptible world there is no clear cognition of the supreme divine beauty; this can only be attained by the intellect in act, separated from matter, which is a mirror capable of the transfiguration of the divine beauty. Such an intellect does not exist in the lower world, because the inanimate composite elements, plants, and animals lack intellect; and man only has potential intellect in that he understands corporeal essences, apprehended through the senses, and what he can reach, when he is sustained by true wisdom, is knowledge of incorporeal essences through the medium of corporeal essences. Thus, from the movements of the heavens we come to know their movers, which are incorporeal and intellectual powers, and subsequently we attain the cognition of the first cause as of the first movers. But this is like seeing the shining body of the sun in water or in any other diaphanous body, since weak sight cannot directly see it. In the same way, our human intellect sees the incorporeal in the corporeal, and even though it knows the first cause to be measureless and infinite, it knows it through its effect, which is the corporeal universe. Thus, the Master is known by His works, and not by direct perception of Him or of the design of His work in His mind. And this is the manner of cognition of the angelic world, where the intelligences, being separated from matter, are able to see, or rather in them divine beauty is impressed directly and immediately, clearly and not enigmatically,142 just as the eagle’s eye is able to look directly into the brilliant light of the sun.143 SOPHIA: Did you not show me that the human intellect sometimes attains such perfection, and that it can rise to union with the divine or angelic intellect, separated from matter, and have active enjoyment of it, seeing it directly and not through any potential reason or corporeal medium? PHILO: This is true, and the philosophers hold that our intellect can copulate with the active intellect separated from matter, which is that of the angelic world. When it attains this state, however, it is no longer potential human intellect, nor corporeal, nor is it of the corruptible world. It is either already made part of the angelic world, or it is midway between the human and the angelic. SOPHIA: Why midway and not totally angelic? PHILO: Because in copulating with the angelic it must be lower than it, because that which copulates is lower than that which is copulated. In the same way, the angelic is lower than the divine beauty, from the copulation with which it derives its highest pleasure.144 The intellect, therefore, having

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copulated with angelic being, has almost the relationship of the angelic to the divine, and is midway between the human intellect and the angelic, just as the angelic is midway between it and the divine, although the divine, being infinite, is greatly beyond any midway point and is the final degree of beauty, not proportionate to any other. There are, therefore, four degrees of intellect: the human, the copulative, the angelic, and the divine. The human is divided into the potential (that of an ignorant man), and actual (that of a wise man), thus making five degrees.145 So you will learn that the human intellect, even the copulative (according to the Philosopher), cannot apprehend divine beauty directly, nor can it have any vision and understanding of it. Therefore, love and desire cannot be directed immediately towards this unknown beauty, but only indirectly through cognition of the first cause and first mover by means of bodies. This cognition is neither perfect nor absolutely true, nor can it induce the pure love and intense desire that the highest beauty requires. Nonetheless, through copulation with the active intellect it is possible to become acquainted with its essence, whose beauty is finite and towards which its love and desire are directed. And through it, or rather in it, it sees and desires divine beauty as if in a crystal or a clear mirror, but not directly in itself, as does the angelic intellect. SOPHIA: I also remember that you said that the souls of the holy fathers and prophets copulated with the Godhead itself.146 PHILO: What I have now told you is according to the Philosopher, who investigates the highest perfection that humans can attain naturally. But the Holy Scriptures showed how much higher the human intellect can fly when, through the grace of God, it is made prophetic and elect by the Godhead, because then it can have copulation with the divine beauty directly, like that of the angels. SOPHIA: Did every prophet attain to such a degree of the divine vision? PHILO: None except Moses, who was the Prince of the prophets. All the others, however, received their prophecy through an angel, and their fantasia participated with the intellect in their copulation. So their prophecy came to them for the most part in dreams and in sleep with figures and examples of fantasia. Moses, however, prophesied while awake, with his mind clear and free from fantasia, and copulated with the Godhead itself without the medium of angels and without figures or fancies, except on the first occasion when it was new to him. That time Aaron and Miriam (the brother and sister of Moses) grumbled, saying that they were prophets like him. And God said that they were not like him, saying to them: ‘If God prophesies

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unto you, it is in a mirror or in a dream,’ which means, through the mirror of the angel and in the company of dreaming fantasia. He goes on: ‘My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all my house. With him I speak mouth to mouth by vision, and not in dark speeches; and the figure of God he sees.’147 And this means that he was the faithful recipient of all the Ideas that are in the divine mind, for he prophesied by word of mouth and not through the medium of angels, but with clear intellectual vision, without dreams and riddles. And finally, like the foremost of angels, he sees the most beautiful figure of God. And we are told that he alone, and no other prophet, received the divine vision after the manner of the angelic intellect. In fact, Holy Scripture says that Moses spoke with God face to face, as one man speaks with another; and in this way he received the vision of God and prophesied directly.148 SOPHIA: Who could have achieved so much exaltation in life? It must have been in death when the soul was already loosed from the body. PHILO: You believe that copulation with the Godhead took place so easily and was so intimate, perpetual, and without interruption that it could not happen during life on earth. In fact, we believe that not only Moses directly copulated with the Godhead in death, but also that many of the other prophets and holy fathers have attained this divine union at their death, although Moses alone experienced it in life. SOPHIA: I sufficiently understand the solution of the first doubt. Now I would like you to solve the second: how can the angelic intellect have infinite beauty potentially although it can never attain to it in actuality? PHILO: It is impossible for the finite to become infinite, just as it is impossible for the creature to become the creator. And this acquisition does not exist potentially in the souls of the blessed, but the copulation and union with the infinite beauty of God does exist potentially, even though they are finite, and to this end they are assisted by their cognition of His measureless beauty, and to it their love and desire is addressed. SOPHIA: How can the infinite be known by the finite? And how can infinite beauty be impressed upon a finite mind? PHILO: This is not strange, because the thing known stays and impresses itself on the knower according to the way and nature of this knower, and not of the thing known. Observe how a half of the hemisphere of the heavens is seen by the eye and impressed on the infinitely small pupil, not according to the nature and greatness of the heavens, but according to what

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the pupil is able to grasp in quantity and power. In the same way, infinite beauty is impressed on the finite angelic or blessed intellect, not according to its infinite nature but according to the finite capacity of the mind that comes to know it. In fact, the eye of the eagle sees, and the brilliant light of the sun is transfigured149 directly in it, not as it is in itself, but in the way the power of the eagle’s eye is able to receive it. The knowledge of the infinite divine beauty is another type, which is comparable with its object; this is the knowledge of the highest God of His own beauty; it is as if the sun saw itself with its brightness (which is visible); that would be perfect vision, the knowledge being equal to its object. So there are three kinds of vision of God, as of the sun. The lowest is that of the human intellect, which sees divine beauty obscurely in the corporeal universe, which is its simulacrum, just as the human eye sees the luminous body of the sun mirrored in water or impressed on any other diaphanous body, because it is unable to look at it directly. The second vision is that of the angelic intellect, which perceives the immense divine beauty directly though not on equal terms, but receiving it according to its finite capacity, just as the eye of the eagle looks on the bright light of the sun. The third is the vision of the divine intellect of its own infinite beauty, and this knowledge is commensurate with its object, as if the luminous sun could see itself.150 SOPHIA: I am pleased by your solutions to this second doubt. But it still remains difficult for me to understand how the angels, since they are immutable and in a state of similar happiness, can have some potential perfection of actual being, as you said, prior to their divine copulation. And whether they are always copulated with the Godhead, they do not need to desire or love what they constantly possess; for, as you say, desire is of what is lacking and not of what is eternally possessed. PHILO: Since the object is so much more excellent than the knower, it is not strange that the cognition and copulative union of the finite mind with infinite beauty should always be capable of increase, through the desire and love that are caused in that immense lack of the highest beauty known, in order to enjoy even more the copulation and unifying contemplation of this beauty. And although the angels are not temporal, their eternity is not infinite, nor entirely without succession like that of the Godhead. Therefore, although they are incorporeal and have no corporeal motion, they have intellectual motion towards their first cause and ultimate goal, with successive contemplation and copulation. Philosophers call this succession ‘angelic time,’151 and it is a mean between the time of the corporeal world and divine eternity. Potentiality, love, intellectual desire, and successive copulation and

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union can exist in this succession, as I told you, and even if I conceded that the angels always enjoy the same degree of copulation, they would not lack love and desire for its continuation to all eternity. In fact, we have already seen how we love the good things that we possess, desiring that we may enjoy them with everlasting pleasure. Thus, angelic love is always directed towards divine beauty, intensively and extensively. SOPHIA: I am satisfied regarding the second doubt. Tell me something of the third. PHILO: The solution of the third is manifest from what has already been said about the second. I concede to you that no pure love, desire, inclination, or tendency is in any creature, either by God or by nature, save to achieve or to become something possible, and not towards what is purely and manifestly impossible. So, because of this, you will observe that a man has no desire to reach the heavens on foot, or to fly with wings, or to be a star or to take one in his hands, and such similar things. Although these things are excellent enough in themselves, and although a man is both deficient in them and conscious of their value, he does not desire them, because they are clearly impossible, and where there is no hope of achievement, neither is there desire. In fact, the hope of acquiring something pleasurable, when it is known and it is lacking, incites love and desire to acquire it. And where the hope is low, the love is never intense nor the desire ardent, and where hope is vain, because acquisition is impossible, love and desire of the knower also is hopeless. Love and desire of the angels to enjoy infinite divine beauty is not, however, something impossible and desperate because, as I have told you, they are able and hope to attain and enjoy that beauty as their true happiness. And they are always directed to this beauty, which becomes their proper goal, even if this beauty is infinite and the angels are finite. SOPHIA: I have well understood the solution to the third doubt, and I see that you add a fourth condition to love: not only must its object be beautiful and known to the lover, and in some sense lacking or potentially lacking in him, but according to you it must also be possible to attain this object and there must be some hope of its acquisition. This seems reasonable, but we find that experience proves the contrary: we see that naturally humans always desire not to die, which is clearly impossible and without hope. PHILO: Those who desire something do not believe that what they desire is entirely impossible to obtain. They have learned from the study of the stories of the Law that Enoch152 and Elijah,153 and also St John the Evangelist154 are immortal in body and soul, although they see that this

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was a miracle. So everyone thinks that God can perform a similar miracle for him. Furthermore, there is a remote hope joined to this possibility that drives a low desire, which is chiefly because death is horrible and the corruption of the body detestable to whoever is alive. The desire is not directed to attaining something new, but rather to not losing the life that that one already has, and it is such an easy thing to deceive men into hoping not to lose life, although by nature it is impossible. This species of desire is so slow that it can be felt towards an impossible and imaginary object, if this thing is of great importance to the desirer. Furthermore, the foundation of this desire is not vain in itself, though it is somewhat delusory, because the desire of man to become immortal is truly possible, since man’s essence, as Plato correctly states, is none other than his intellectual soul which, through virtue, wisdom, cognition, and love of God, is made glorious and immortal. So those who are in eternal punishment are not called wholly immortal because their punishment is their privation of the divine vision, which produces the death of the soul, even though the soul is not entirely annihilated. Those who are deceived into thinking that their corporeal being is their proper essence believe that the immortality that they naturally desire is for their corporeal being, while, in truth, it is but for the spiritual, as I have explained to you. Thus, Sophia, from this you will ascertain the firmness of human intellectual soul. In fact, if man were not truly immortal in his intellectual soul, which is the true man, immortality would not be so generally desired. The other animate beings, since they are wholly mortal, may be considered to have no thought, knowledge, desire, or hope of immortality, nor do they even know what mortality is, even though they flee from danger and pain. Because there is only one knowledge of opposites: man, who knows death, knows and tries to obtain immortality for himself, which is the immortality of his soul. And he would not do this if it were not possible to obtain it, in the way that I have told you. From this true desire there derives the false desire that the body should not die, with the other reasoning that I have explained to you. SOPHIA: I am content with the solutions to my doubts, and I realize that the love of the created universe was truly born in the angelic world. Only one thing seems inconsistent to me about what you told me concerning Plato, which is where he says that love is not a god, but a powerful daemon. I have already learned that Plato makes the order of daemons lower than the gods, that is, the angels. Therefore, according to him, love does not originate in the angelic world, but in the daemonic. So the angels must be wholly deprived of love, since it is not correct that a daemon that is lower should

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inspire love in its superiors, the angels, as it does in humans, in relation to whom it is higher.155 PHILO: We have discussed156 the love of the universe more amply than Plato does in the Symposium, and in fact we are considering the origin of love in the whole created world, while he only deals with the origin of human love. Some think love is a god or goddess who eternally incites love among humans. Against them Plato says that love cannot be a god because the gods have actual perfection and beauty in themselves, because they are truly perfect and beautiful. But human love is neither possession nor perfection of beauty, but desire of that which is lacking. Therefore, its beauty is only potential and neither actual nor possessed like that of the angels, for love is truly the first passion, and its being consists in a potential tendency towards the beauty which it loves. So Plato posits the origin of love to be lower than the gods, that is, a daemon, whose beauty is potential compared with angelic beauty, which is in act. And just as he posits the ideas as the principles of actual human perfections, science, and wisdom in act, so he makes the daemons, which are lower than the gods, the principles of the powers, faculties, and passions. Since love is the primary passion of the soul, as I have told you, he gives it a great and powerful daemon as its origin. But the love of which we were speaking is not a corporeal passion in the angels, but an intellectual tendency towards the highest beauty. It is, therefore, more exalted than men or daemons and is the origin of love in the created world. Plato himself does not deny this, because he holds that love exists in the most high God and is imparted to the other gods, as that of a daemon is imparted to human beings. But because this love is of a higher nature than the latter, he does not deal with them both at once, as we have done. SOPHIA: I am now satisfied also regarding this last doubt. Now I would just like to know from you how the love that was born in the angelic world proceeds from there and transmits itself to the whole created universe, and if all the angels participate in the love of divine beauty directly, or each by means of the next angel superior to it.157 PHILO: The angels partake of the divine love in order to enjoy union with it. Regarding this, philosophers, theologians, and Arabs are at variance. The school of Avicenna and Al-Ghazali and our rabbi Moses and others hold that the first cause is higher than all the intelligences that move the heavens, and it is the beloved cause and goal of all. Because it is the simplest unity, with the love of its infinite beauty, it immediately produces of itself alone the first intelligence and mover of the first heaven, and this intelligence alone enjoys

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immediately vision and union of the Godhead; in fact, its love tends immediately towards the Godhead as its own cause and blissful end. This intelligence has two contemplations: the first is of the beauty of its cause, by virtue and love of which it produces the second intelligence. The second is the contemplation of its own beauty, by virtue and love of which it produces the first sphere, composed of incorruptible and circular body and intellect, which is its own lover; and it is itself the perpetual mover of this sphere, which is the true object of its love.158 The second intelligence contemplates divine beauty, not immediately, but by means of the first, as one who sees the light of the sun through the means of a crystal. And it also has two contemplations: that of the beauty of its cause, by virtue and love of which it produces the third intelligence; and that of its own beauty, through which it produces the second sphere and governs its perpetual movement.159 Thus, they postulate the production and contemplation of all the intelligences and heavenly spheres, each successively bound up with the next, whether there be eight spheres (as the Greeks hold), or nine (for the Arabs), or ten (for the ancient Hebrews and some modern ones). The number of the motor intelligences is the same as the number of the spheres, by virtue of their souls, and the motion of the spheres is perpetual circular motion about their own axis, by reason of the knowledge and love that their soul has for its intelligence and for the supreme beauty that is reflected in it; and they all pursue this beauty in order to copulate with and enjoy it as their ultimate and happiest goal.160 The least of all the movers that moves the lunar sphere, through contemplation and love of its own beauty, produces and perpetually moves the sphere of the moon; and through the contemplation of the beauty of its cause it is said to produce the active intellect that is the intelligence of the lower world and almost is the world-soul. So these thinkers say (as Plato holds) that this last intelligence, through contemplation and love of its own beauty, confers upon the lower world the forms in their various degrees and species that are found in prime matter, and its beauty moves perpetually from form to form, in continual generation and succession. Through contemplation and love of the beauty of its cause, this last intelligence produces the human intellect, the last of the intellects and the first in potentiality. When it is illuminated, the human intellect is reduced to actuality and acquires wisdom, so that, through the force of love and desire, it can rise to copulate with this same active intellect, and see in it, as through a final lens or crystalline mirror, the immense divine beauty, and rejoice in it with eternal bliss, as the final goal of the whole created universe. Thus, the hierarchy of created beings descends not only to the final sphere of the moon, but even to the last prime matter. From there it elevates this prime matter with inclination, love, and desire to

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approach divine perfection, from which it is the most removed, ascending step by step through the forms and formal perfection: first, in the forms of the elements; second, in those of inanimate compounds; third, in those of the plants; fourth, in those of animals; fifth, in the rational human form in potentiality; sixth, in the active human intellect; and seventh, in the copulative intellect united with the highest beauty by means of the active intellect. Thus, the Arabs posit the universe to be a circle, the beginning of which is the Godhead; and from Him a continuous chain of being connects to prime matter, which is the most distant from the Divinity, and there the circle ascends through the various degrees of being until it returns to the point of origin, which is the divine beauty, through the human intellect’s copulation with it.161 SOPHIA: I see how these Arabs understand that love descends from the head of the angelic world to the last part of the lower world, and from there it ascends to its first principle, passing successively from one degree of being to another, with wondrous order and in the form of a circle with a definite point of origin. I am not competent to judge the truth of this opinion, but it is clearly ingenious and pleasing. Tell how other Arabs disagree about this matter. PHILO: I think I have already told you that, as a pure Aristotelian, Averroes went to great pains to contradict and invalidate everything that he did not find in Aristotle, either because all his works did not come into his hands (notably the metaphysical and theological works), or because they did not agree with his own opinion and judgment. Not finding this hierarchy of the universe in Aristotle, he consequently contradicted his Arab predecessors and refuted it.162 In fact, he sees no reason why the interrelated and multifarious essences in the universe should not depend immediately on the one perfectly simple God: he noticed that all is united as members of one body. Through this union of the whole all the parts can depend on the supremely simple and divine unity. And in the mind of God the whole universe is exemplified as the form of his work is in the mind of the craftsman. But that form in God does not imply a multiplication of essence; on the contrary, according to him, the essence is one, and in created things it is multiplied, because they lack the perfection of the Creator.163 So God’s ideas, in comparison with created essences, are many, even though they are one with the divine mind by virtue of being in it. Averroes, therefore, says that divine beauty is directly impressed on all the intelligences that move the heavens, and that they are all immediately derived from it, together with their respective spheres, all the Forms, prime matter, and the human intellect, which

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alone are eternal in the lower world. But he says that this impression, although it is immediate in all, is nonetheless found in greater or lesser degree. So divine beauty is impressed on the first intelligence more nobly, spiritually, and perfectly, and with a greater resemblance to its simulacrum, than on the second, and on the second with greater perfection than on the third, and thus in continual succession down to the human intellect, which is the last of the intelligences. In bodies beauty impresses itself in a lower way; in fact, here it has a dimension and can be divided; nevertheless it is impressed more perfectly on the first sphere than on the second, and so in succession until, upon reaching the sphere of the moon, it comes to prime matter, in which all the Ideas of the divine beauty are impressed, as they are on each of the intelligences, on the movers and souls of the heavens, and on the wise and active human intellect. The impression, however, is not so clear and luminous, but is obscured and subject to corporeal potentiality; and the impression on prime matter is in the same relation to that on heavenly bodies as the impression on the potential human intellect is to that on all the other actual intellects. There is no difference between these two impressions, save that in prime matter all the formal Ideas are impressed potentially and corporeally, since it is the least of all corporeal substances, and in the potential intellect they are impressed potentially, yet not corporeally, but spiritually or intellectually. To these successive degrees of impression of the divine beauty correspond the love and desire of it in the intellectual world, passing from one degree to another, from the first intelligence to the potential human intellect, which is the lower and last of the human intellects. And in the corporeal world (where love depends on the intellectual), beauty passes in the same way from the highest heaven down to prime matter, which thus resembles each one of the heavenly spheres; because each of these in the insatiable love that they have for divine beauty, and to increase their participation in and enjoyment of it, moves in perpetual circular and restless motion, so prime matter, in its insatiable desire to partake of divine beauty by the reception of forms, moves continually from one form to another in the unceasing circular motion of generation and corruption. I could tell you more about each of these two opinions concerning the nature of the succession of the essences and loves in the universe, with the differences and reasons that each one adduces in favour of his opinion and against that of his opponent, but I will leave them, because I do not want to digress with something that is not necessary to our purpose. It is enough that each of these two opinions gives you an answer to your question, which was how love in the heavenly and lower worlds depends on the angelic world, its birthplace, so that it is common to the whole created universe.

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SOPHIA: I have understood the disagreement between these two Arabic opinions about the succession of the impression of divine beauty and about the love of divine beauty in the levels of intellectual beings in the universe. I seem to understand that the first is like the impression of the sun on a clear crystal, through which it is impressed upon another one less clearly, and so on, until it reaches the human intellect, which is the last and least clear of them all. And the second hierarchy, passing from the first intelligence to the human intellect, is like the impression of the sun falling directly on several mirrors, each one less clear than the last. Therefore, for one reason or another, I see that love in the whole created universe depends on the angelic world. I am entirely satisfied with my third question concerning the birthplace of love, for I am assured that in the created universe it was first born and originated in the first intelligence, the head of the angelic world, as you have said. It seems to me that the time has come for you to answer my fourth question: what is it, of whom was it born, and who and how many were its parents? PHILO: The Greek and Latin poets, who number Love among the gods, attribute different parents to him, and some call him Cupid, others Amor. They hold there to be more than one Cupid; but the chief is that blind, naked, and winged boy who carries a bow and arrows. And they say that he is the son of Mars and Venus, and others say that he was born of Venus without a father.164 SOPHIA: What do they mean by this? PHILO: Cupid, the god of love, represents voluptuous, pleasurable, and libidinous love, so in their fictions they depict Voluptuousness as his daughter. This immoderate and burning love is found in those men at whose birth Mars and Venus are in the ascendant, in friendly aspect, and in conjunction. In fact, Venus gives an abundance of natural moisture, digested and disposed to lust, and Mars the hot, burning desire, so that one contributes excessive potency and the other excessive desire. And poets call Mars (who is gives the heat) the father, because he is active, and Venus is said to be the mother, because humidity is material and passive. Those who say that Love has no father wish to imply that burning lust knows not intellectual reason, which is the father and governor of the voluntary passions, and therefore he has a mother only, Venus, the planet and goddess of amorous delights. The other Cupid is said to have been the son of Mercury and Diana, and to have been ‘feathered,’ which means winged. He represents the inordinate desire of riches and possessions and the love of useful things that makes a

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man quick, or almost flying in his pursuit. This love is found to be excessive in those who are born when Mercury and the moon are in the ascendant, in conjunction, in amicable aspect, and in favourable signs; because Mercury makes these men quick and subtle dealers, and Diana, the moon, bestows great earthly riches upon them. The poets call Mercury, who is active, the father of the love of useful things, and Diana, being material and passive, the mother. SOPHIA: Of the three species of love – the pleasurable, the useful, and the honest165 – the poets have pictured two Cupids presiding over two species. Have they perhaps pictured yet another to be the god of virtuous166 love? Philo. No, because Cupid signifies burning and inordinate love and desire, without moderation; and these excesses are found in the pleasurable and useful, but not in the honest, because honest means moderation, balanced order; and honesty, even if great, can never be immoderate or excessive. The poets, however, speaking of the origin of Love, sometimes depict it as honest and sometimes as all three aspects of his nature together. SOPHIA: Tell me what they say of the parents of Love, just as you have told me about Cupid. PHILO: I was just about to tell you. Some hold Love to be the son of Erebus and Night, or the first of her many children (according to what I told you when we spoke about the universality of love). SOPHIA: Which love are they talking about, and what do they signify by these two parents? PHILO: They speak of love in general, which is the first among all the passions of the soul. As I told you, they fictionalize Erebus as the god of all the passions, and so of the potentialities of matter, and by Erebus they mean the tendency and potentiality of the soul and matter towards good and bad things. Because love is the first passion, they depict him as the firstborn of Erebus; and they attribute other sons of a similar nature to him, all of which are affections that are a consequence of love, as I have fully explained to you. The poets call Night the mother of Love, to show how love is begotten of privation and lack of beauty together with an inclination for it; because Night is simply privation of the beautiful light of the day. In this universal love all three species meet together without distinction. [Later] poets imagine another god of love, the son of Jupiter and the greater Venus, who is said to have been a twin.

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SOPHIA: Which species of love is this, and what do its parents demonstrate? PHILO: By this they mean honest and temperate love, directed to any nature of acquisition, whether for the pleasure or profit of the body, and this moderation makes the love of corporeal things virtuous. Or regarding incorporeal things, it makes them virtuous and intellectual, the honesty of which consists in that love that is as ardent and intense as possible, while its dissolution and dishonesty remain in an attitude of high submission and slowness. They consider Jupiter, whom the poets call the highest of the gods, as father to this love.167 In fact, this virtuous love is divine, and the end of its desire is the contemplation of the beauty and omnipotence of Jupiter. And I have already told you that the beloved is the father of love and the lover its mother. The mother of this species of love is said to be mighty Venus, not she who incites sensual desire, but her intelligence who inspires virtuous and intellectual love and desire, as the mother desirous of the beauty of Jupiter, her husband and the father of virtuous love. And, according to the astrologers, when Jupiter and Venus are in friendly aspect and conjunction at someone’s birth, because they are benevolent planets and both Fortunes, the person who had them in favour will be generous, fortunate, and a lover of every good and every virtue, and moreover endowed with honest and spiritual love, as I told you. In fact, for corporeal things, Venus gives the desire and Jupiter makes the honesty; for intellectual things Jupiter gives the desired object and Venus the desire. And they are the father and the mother of honest love. Just as Venus, in conjunction with the power of Mars, makes human desire excessive and licentious, so her conjunction and marriage with Jupiter makes the person honourable and virtuous. SOPHIA: I now understand how love is the son of Jupiter and Venus. Tell me now why these poets imagine him as a twin. PHILO: Plato quotes something that Pausanias says in the Symposium,168 when love is defined as a twin because in reality there are two Loves, just as there are two Venuses. For each Venus is the mother of Love. Therefore, just as there are two Venuses, so there must also be two Loves. Since the first Venus, the great, is heavenly and divine, her son is virtuous love; whereas the second Venus, being lower and wanton in her pleasures, is mother to brutish love. In this way love is twin, and there are two Loves, the honest and the brutish. SOPHIA: So is this twin love only honest, as you said? PHILO: This joins Cupid, the son of the lower Venus and Mars, with Love, the son of the great Venus and Jupiter in twin love; but we follow those who

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define the twin love not to be Cupid, but the son of Jupiter and great Venus: honest love. SOPHIA: How can only honest love be a twin? PHILO: They picture this love as twin because, as you have heard, honest love is found in corporeal and spiritual things, in the one by moderation and restriction, in the other by every possible growth and increase. He who is honest in the one will be honest in the other, and, as Aristotle says, every wise man is good and every good man wise. Love is thus twin in a way that it is both corporeal and spiritual. Again, this twofold aspect is in agreement with the love between friends and honourable friendship, because it is always mutual. In fact, as Cicero169 said, friendship is between virtuous men and towards virtuous things, so that friends love one another on account of their respective virtues. Furthermore, love is twin in each of the friends or lovers, in that each is both himself and that which he loves, and the soul of the lover’s soul is his own beloved. SOPHIA: I understand the parentage of Love as the poets fictionalize it.170 I would like to know what the philosophers say. PHILO: We find that Plato, also through fable, attributes other principles to the origin of love. In the Symposium, in the name of Aristophanes171 he declares that the origin of love was as follows. At the beginning of all things, the human race included a third species that was not mere man or woman, but was called ‘Androgyne,’ being at once both male and female. And just as man was derived from the sun and woman from the earth, that kind derived from the moon, which is compounded of the sun and earth. An Androgyne was thus great, strong, and terrible, having two human bodies joined together at the breast, and two heads set on one neck with two faces, one on each side of the shoulders, four eyes and ears, two tongues, two sets of genitals, four arms and hands, four legs and feet, so that its form was almost circular. It moved very swiftly, not only upright and backwards and forwards, but also rolling over on its four feet and four hands with great speed and impetus. Swollen with pride at their own strength, they dared to give battle to the gods and to oppose and threaten them. Jupiter, therefore, taking counsel with the other gods, after much deliberation decided that the androgynes should not be destroyed, for in the absence of the human race there would be none to pay honour to the gods; nor, however, should their arrogance be left unpunished, because toleration would bring insult upon the gods. Therefore, he decided to divide them in two, and he sent Apollo to cut them in half lengthwise and to make of one two, so that they could only

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walk upright on two feet; in this way the number of divine worshippers would be doubled. Moreover, Apollo was to warn the androgynes that if they sinned further against the gods, he would return and divide each half into two, and they would be left with one eye and one ear, half a head and face, one hand and one foot, on which they would have to hop along as if lame, and thus they would be like figures sculptured on columns in basrelief. Apollo then cut the androgynes in half through the breast and the belly, and turned the faces round towards the side, which was cut so that, seeing the incision, man might be reminded of his evil ways and the better observe the section cut off from himself. Over the breast bone he placed skin, and drew together all parts of the skin that had been cut over the belly and tied them together at the centre, and this knot is called the navel. And he left a few wrinkles round it made by the scars of the incision, so that, seeing them, man might remember his sin and punishment. When each part saw that it lacked the other it became desirous of reintegration, and the two came together and were united in close embrace; and thus they stayed, taking neither food nor drink until they perished. For their parts of generation, which before had been the front of man, were facing backward, behind their shoulders, so that they cast their sperm upon the ground, where it caused mandrakes to spring up. Jupiter, therefore, seeing that the human race was completely dying out, sent Apollo to turn their genitals to the front of the belly, so that in mutual embrace they might beget their own kind and be satisfied and return to seek what is needful for the preservation of life. From that time forth, love, which reconciles mankind and reintegrates its primeval nature, was engendered; and by its restoration of two become one again, which healed the sin which that two out of one. Love is therefore in every human being, male and female, for each of them is but a half and not a whole man, and therefore desires to be made whole in its other half. Therefore, according to this legend, human love was born out of the division of man. And its parents were the two halves, both male and female, loving each other with the goal of being reintegrated. SOPHIA: The story is beautiful and ornate, and it is impossible not to believe that it signifies some beautiful philosophy, especially since it was composed by Plato himself, in the Symposium, in Aristophanes’ name. So tell me, Philo, something about what it signifies. PHILO: The fable comes from a tradition that was referred by an author more ancient than the Greeks, that is, the sacred history of Moses concerning the creation of the first human parents, Adam and Eve.

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SOPHIA: I never heard that Moses made this into a fable. PHILO: He did not tell this as a fable with such specific details,172 but he declared the substance of the fable in a succinct way; and it was from him that Plato took his fable, amplifying and adorning it after the manner of Greek oratory, thus creating a disordered and confused version of the Hebrew material.173 SOPHIA: In what way? PHILO: On the sixth day of the creation of the universe, man was created, the last of all its parts, and Moses tells the following story. ‘God created Adam (that is, human) in his own form, in the form of God he created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them: Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and dominate it.’174 And then the story tells of the end of creation on the sixth day and the rest of the seventh day, the Sabbath, and the blessing of it. The story continues, telling how the earth began to bring forth plants after vapour had risen from the earth generating the rain. And it says that ‘God created man of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the spirit of life, and he became man with a living soul.’175 And God, having planted a garden of delights with every beautiful tree and fruit, together with the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, placed man in the garden to labour over it and to care for it, with the commandment that he should eat of every tree except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day he ate of its fruit he would die. And the text continues: ‘God said: It is not good that the man should be alone; I will place a helper before him. And God created every beast of the field, and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see which one he would call for himself, and he called each one by its own name; yet man did not find a helper before him. God caused a sleep to fall upon him, and took one of his parts and closed up the flesh in its place; and from this part which he had taken from man he made woman and brought her to the man. And the man said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called [virago],176 because she was taken out of man to be his wife. Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother, and be joined to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’177 The narrative continues with the deception of the serpent, the sin of Adam and Eve in eating of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the ensuing punishment. It then says that Adam knew Eve, his wife, and begot Cain and then Abel. And it tells how Cain killed Abel and was cursed as an outcast for his sake, and numbers the descendants of Cain. And the

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concluding words are these: ‘This is the book of the generation of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; male and female he created them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam (that is, human) on the day when they were created.’178 SOPHIA: What would you infer from this sacred story of the creation of man? PHILO: You should have perceived that this sacred narrative contradicts itself. In fact, it first says that God created Adam on the sixth day, both male and female; then that God said: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helpmate before him,’ that is, create his female counterpart. And it is said that God made her by taking one of his sides from him in sleep. Therefore, she was not made in the beginning, as was first said. Again, at the end of the narrative, speaking of the offspring of Adam (as you have seen), we read that God created man in the likeness of God, ‘Male and female created He them, and He called their name Adam in the day that they were created.’ It would appear, therefore, that there was at once both male and female at the beginning of the Creation, and that the woman was not made subsequently by the withdrawal of the side or rib, as is narrated. Again, each of these texts appears to be a clear contradiction of the other: first, God is said to have created Adam in His own image, ‘male and female created He them, and blessed them, etc.’ Adam is the name of the first male, and the female was called Eve when she was created. God, therefore, in creating Adam and not Eve, only created a male, and not male and female as the text says. Moreover, the words at the end of the narrative are even stranger: ‘These are the generations of Adam. In the day when God created him, male and female created He them, and called their name Adam in the day that they were created.’ Look how it says that God, in creating Adam, made both male and female; yet He called them both by the name Adam in the day that they were created. And no mention is made of Eve, which is the name of the female part of man, although we have already been told how, Adam being alone and without woman, God created her out of his side and rib and called her Eve. Do not these seem to you, Sophia, to be very great discrepancies in the holy texts of Moses? SOPHIA: These discrepancies truly seem great, and that holy Moses should contradict himself so obviously as to seem deliberately is not credible. Therefore, it is credible that he wished to imply a hidden mystery beneath these evident contradictions. PHILO: You judge well; and in fact he wants us to sense that he is contradicting himself, and to search for the intended reason.

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SOPHIA: What is its meaning? PHILO: The ordinary commentators literally struggle to harmonize this text, saying that it first refers in brief to the creation of both man and woman, then extensively tells how the woman was made from the side of the man. This, however, is not really satisfactory, because from the beginning it implies a contradiction in the general account. It does not say that God first created Adam and Eve, but only Adam, male and female (and the final text also confirms this when it states at the end that ‘God called their name Adam, in the day that they were created’). Moreover, no mention is made of Eve in this account of the creation of the whole man, except in the division of the ribs; thus, the problem of the contradiction remains unsolved. SOPHIA: What, therefore, do you think is the meaning of these contradictions in terms? PHILO: It means that Adam, that is, the ‘first man,’ whom God created on the sixth day of the Creation, being a human individual, contained in himself male and female without division; and therefore the text says that God created Adam in His own likeness, ‘male and female created He them.’ And at one time it speaks of Adam in the singular as a man (Adam, one man), at another in the plural (‘male and female He created them’) to denote that, being one individual, he contained in himself both male and female. Wherefore the ancient Jewish commentators in their Chaldean language here say, ‘Adam was created of two persons, the one part male, the other female.’ Moreover, the last text, which says that God created Adam male and female and called their name Adam, they interpret as meaning that Adam alone contained both sexes, and that there was first an individual called Adam, because the woman was never called Eve until she was separated from the male, Adam. And this was the source of that ancient androgyne of Plato and the Greeks, who was half man and half woman. Then we come to the saying of God: ‘It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper before him.’179 And this means that it did not seem good that Adam, male and female, should be contained in one single body, joined at the shoulders, with the faces turned in opposite directions; but it was better that the woman should be divided from him, and that they should come face to face, that she might be a helpmate for him. And God made trial of man by bringing all the beasts of the field and the birds before him to see if he would be content with any of the female species as his mate. And Adam named each of the animals after its own kind, but he did not find any satisfactory helper or

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consort. Therefore, [God] caused a sleep to fall upon him, and took one of his sides (the word in Hebrew being equivalent to rib, but here and elsewhere it stands for ‘side’), that is, the side or feminine person that was behind Adam’s shoulders. And he separated it from Adam, and filled up the place of the division with flesh. And of this side he made the woman, separate from man, who was called Eve only when she was divided from him and not before, when she was a side and part of Adam. When God had made her He presented her to Adam, awakened from sleep, who then said: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man.’ And it continues saying, ‘Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.’180 Which means to say that man and woman, being two divided halves of a single carnal individual, come together again as one body and individual in marriage and coitus. From here Plato took the division of the androgyne into two separate halves, male and female, and of the birth of love, which is the inclination remaining in each of the two halves to be made whole and reunited with the rest of the body. You will, however, find this difference between the two versions: Moses holds the division to be for the better, because he gives us the saying, ‘it is not good that man should be alone; let us make a helper worthy of him.’ And after the division he tells of the first sin of Adam and Eve through eating of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for which they each received a distinct punishment. But Plato holds that man first sinned when joined together as male and female, and the punishment was this division into two halves, as you have already heard.181 SOPHIA: I am pleased to see that Plato drank of the waters of the sacred fount. But where does this difference come from, and why does he hold the division of man to be caused by and subsequent to his fall, contrary to the sacred history, which makes the cleft to be good and helpful to man and prior to his fall? PHILO: It is not so much of a difference as it seems, if you consider it well. In this Plato more often confirms the sacred history than contradicts it. SOPHIA: In what way? PHILO: In effect, sin is what cuts into182 man and causes his division, just as righteousness makes man integral and preserves his unity. Again, we can truly say that when man is divided this makes him a sinner, and when he is united, there is no inclination to sin nor to be separated from his union. Thus, since sin and the division of man are almost one and the same thing

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(or two inseparable and interchangeable things), it is possible to say that from division comes sin (as Holy Scripture says) and from sin division (as Plato says). SOPHIA: I would like you to explain to me the reason of this similarity more clearly. PHILO: First I will tell you how to understand the Hebrew history, and then that of the Platonic fable. First, because human being was male-female, as I have told you, there was no possibility of sinning. In fact, the serpent could not deceive the woman while she was joined to man, as the serpent did once she was separated from the man. The serpent’s strength and shrewdness were not enough to defraud both united together. But when they were divided into man and woman through the divine incision for their own good, one in front of the other in coitus directed to generation, the primary intent of the Creator, there followed the possibility of sinning. So the serpent was able to deceive the woman separated from man into eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And the woman also made the man to eat with her, and so they were included together in the sin and punishment. In fact, you will see that the story tells first of the creation of the earthly paradise, and that Adam, who unites in himself both male and female, was placed there in order to work and preserve it. The commandment given to the same joined Adam was to not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then it is narrated that after the incision Adam, separated into male and female, was vulnerable and, once this division is made, the story sets the deception of the serpent and the sin of Adam and Eve and their punishment. Thus, in the Hebrew history the division had to precede the sin. But the Platonic fable, even though it is taken from the Hebrew and one with it, is made differently: in fact, it sets the sin in the united man, when he wants to fight against the gods. So as punishment for his arrogance, he was cut and divided into two, male and female. And the fable tells that they receive their genital organs as a remedy for death, as you learned. And when you know, Sophia, the allegorical meaning of both these stories, you will see – although in two different modalities – the same intention. SOPHIA: Not only does the Platonic fable show that it was designed with some wise meaning, but the Hebrew history also, in its original union and subsequent division of man, proves that something more is implied about the nature of the human than would appear in its literal sense. In fact, I do not believe that man and woman were at any time other than divided into

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two bodies as they are at present. Please, Philo, tell me the meaning of the one and the other. PHILO: The first purpose of the Hebrew history is to show that man was created in a state of beatitude and located in the earthly paradise,183 even though he was male and female (the human species is preserved not in one element184 but in two, which are male and female, and both together make an individual human being, with the complete human species and essence). Nevertheless these two elements and parts of man in that blessed state were linked at the shoulders with their faces turned from one another. This implied that their being together was not inclined towards coitus nor to generation, nor were their faces turned towards one another as is usual for this purpose. On the contrary, as if alienated from such an inclination, the story says that they were united with their faces turned in opposite directions. This means that they were not corporally united, but united in their human essence and mental inclination; that is, they were united in blessed divine contemplation, not directed to one another in order to receive pleasure and carnal coitus, but in order that they could better help one another. The woman, deceived by the serpent, caused her own sin and that of her husband, and they ate of the forbidden tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is carnal pleasure, apparently good in principle, but in fact bad in its ultimate goal, for carnal pleasure diverts human beings from the path of eternal life and renders them mortal. Therefore, the text says that when they had sinned they became aware of their nakedness and tried to cover their genitals with leaves. They were ashamed of them, because those genital parts diverted them from the spiritual inclination in which they formerly delighted. As punishment for their sin they were cast forth from the earthly paradise in which all their spiritual delight was found, and were assigned to work the earth with toil, because all corporeal pleasures are accompanied by struggles, by the fact that they imply care for generation and procreation of children, which was the remedy for their mortality. Therefore, the generations of Adam and Eve were not written of until they were cast forth from the Garden of Eden, when it says straightway: ‘He knew his wife and she conceived and bore Cain his son, etc.’185 This, therefore, is the first purpose of Moses in recounting the story of the union and division of the human being and his sin and punishment: to show that God had made him potentially divisible so that his two parts being turned face to face might the more easily come together in the union of the flesh, their inclination being diverted from spiritual to corporeal things.

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SOPHIA: This allegory would sound good to me if it did not seem strange that God should not have made man and woman for the purpose of procreation, and that sin should be the cause of generation, which is essential for the perpetual preservation of the human species. PHILO: God made man and woman such that they could generate; but the true end of man is not generation, but happiness in the divine contemplation and in the Paradise of God. In this contemplation he remained immortal and had no need of generation, because in him the human essence and species was perpetually preserved, just as immortals have no need to beget children of their own species. (See the angels, planets, stars, and heavens; they do not give birth to children in their own likeness.) And generation, as Aristotle says, was a remedy for mortality. Therefore man, as long as he was immortal, did not generate his own kind; but when he was made mortal through sin, he came to his own aid by raising up his own kind through the power that God had bestowed upon him, so that by one means or another the human race should not perish.186 SOPHIA: This first allegorical meaning pleases me and incites my desire for the second that you mentioned already. Therefore, please tell me about it. PHILO: The first man, and indeed every other man in the whole wide world, is made, as Scripture states, in the image and likeness of God, both male and female. SOPHIA: Every man, how? Every male or every female? PHILO: Every male or rather every female. SOPHIA: How can the female alone be at once both male and female? PHILO: Each of them, man or woman, has a masculine part, perfect and active, which is the intellect, and a feminine part that is imperfect and passive, the body and matter. So this is the divine image impressed upon matter: the form, which is the male, is the intellect, and the formed part, which is the female, is the body. In the beginning, therefore, these two parts, masculine and feminine, were joined in absolute union in the perfect man whom God had made, so that the sentient and feminine body was the obedient follower of the masculine intellect and reason. There was then no division in man, and his whole life was intellectual. And he was placed in the earthly paradise, in which were all manner of beautiful and fragrant trees, the tree of life the most excellent among them. In the same way, in the intellect that is enlightened, such as that of Adam and of every other man

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equally perfect, there is knowledge of every eternal thing and, above all, pure and vital knowledge of the Divinity. Now God commanded Adam to eat of every tree in the garden, even of the tree of life, which would give him eternal life; so the intellect, through the knowledge of eternal things and more especially of the Divinity, becomes immortal and eternal and attains to its true happiness. But Adam was not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil because he would thereby become mortal; in other words, he should not let his intellect be diverted by sensual activities and the things of the body, such as sensual pleasure and the pursuit of riches, for these are good in appearance and bad in reality. The tree is called the tree of knowledge of good and evil because the knowledge of these things concerns neither the true nor the false, which relate to eternal things of the intellect, but only the good and the bad, as they affect the appetite of man. In fact, to say that the sun is bigger than the earth can be called neither ‘good’ nor ‘bad,’ but ‘true’ or ‘false’; to acquire riches, on the other hand, you would call neither true nor false, but good or bad. The tree of knowledge of good and evil that was forbidden to Adam is the pursuit of the knowledge of corporeal things, which diverts the intellect from the object of its true happiness. This tree alone can make man mortal; in fact, as eternal truths of God make the intellect divine, true, and eternal, as they are, so sensuous, corporeal, and corruptible things make it material and corruptible like themselves.187 Although the Godhead foresaw that this way of union of the two parts of man, with the obedience of the feminine corporality to the masculine intellect, could bring happiness to man and immortality to his essence, which is his intellectual soul, nevertheless it could make his body, the feminine part, easier to be corrupted. This is true for the individual (in fact, when the intellect is inflamed with the knowledge and love of the eternal and divine, it abandons all care of the body and leaves it to perish before its time), and also for the preservation of the human race (because those who are burning with intellectual contemplation despise corporeal love and flee from the lascivious act of generation, and this intellectual perfection would cause the human race to become extinct). Therefore, God determined to establish some division or mean between the feminine and sensual part and the masculine and intellectual part, turning the intellect and the senses to certain corporeal desires and activities necessary for the sustenance of the individual man and for the preservation of the species. This is the meaning of the text when it says: ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper before (or rather facing) him’;188 in other words, that the sensual and feminine part should not be so subservient to the intellect that it will offer no resistance, but should attract it to bodily things just enough for

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the benefit of both the individual and the race. When man, therefore, had been shown all the animals and had recognized in them all how each took heed for corporeal nourishment and the propagation of its kind, he began to find himself defective, because he did not also have a similar reason for affection for his feminine part. Being, then, desirous of imitating them in this, as the text says, God caused a sleep to overcome Adam, and as he lay dormant, He divided the feminine part from the masculine, which from that time forth Adam recognized as his true wife, separated from himself. This signifies that, as unusual sleep came to Adam, denoting loss and relaxation of that first intellectual vigil and ardent contemplation, the intellect began to incline to the body, as the husband to the wife, and to have due care for its sustenance as for a part of itself, and for the propagation of its kind in order that the species might be preserved. In this respect, therefore, the masculine and feminine parts were separated for a good and necessary end, and there followed the resistance of feminine matter and the inclination of masculine intellect towards it, with a due recognition of the needs of the body. When, however, inclination was no longer tempered by reason, as was right and the purpose of the Creator, but overstepped the dividing line between intellect and matter, it became submerged in sensuality, and there followed the sin of man. This is what the story means when it says the serpent deceived the woman, telling her to eat of the forbidden tree of knowing good and evil, and when she and Adam had eaten from it, their eyes would be opened and they would be as gods, knowing good and evil. And the woman, seeing that the tree was good for food, beautiful, and a delight to the eyes, and desirous of wisdom, partook of the fruit and gave it to her husband. Thus, ‘their eyes were opened so that they became aware of their nakedness, and sewed fig leaves together to make aprons.’189 The serpent represents the carnal appetite that, when it finds the feminine part somewhat separated from the intellect, her husband, and defying his rigorous laws, first incites and deludes her, muddying herself with carnal pleasures and darkening herself with the pursuit of immoderate riches, which is the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for the two reasons I gave you. And the serpent showed the man and woman that by this means their eyes would be opened, that is, they would know many things of a similar nature that they did not know before, in other words, much shrewdness and knowledge pertaining to lasciviousness and greed that they lacked before. Moreover, the serpent said they would resemble the gods in the fertility of their conception: in fact, just as God, the intelligences, and the heavens are the causes that produce all creatures lower than themselves, so man, by means of continual sexual intercourse comes to beget numerous offspring. The corporeal

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and feminine part not only did not allow herself to be ruled by her intellectual husband in this matter, as was right, but drew him into the immersion in corporeal things, ‘eating of the fruit of the forbidden tree’ with her. And ‘straightway their eyes were opened,’ but not those of the intellect, which soon were closed, but the eyes of the fantasia, which serve the body in its carnal and wanton practices. ‘And they became aware of their nakedness,’ which is the disobedience of the flesh to the intellect, and therefore they contrived to cover their members of generation as shameful and rebellious against reason and wisdom. And immediately, the narrative continues, ‘they heard the voice of God and hid themselves,’ which means that they were ashamed to recognize those divine things that they had abandoned. Punishment followed their sin, and the sacred history tells separately about the three different punishments of the serpent, the woman, and the man. ‘God cursed the serpent’ above every other beast, and ‘made him to go on his belly and to eat dust all the days of his life, putting enmity between the woman and her seed and the serpent and his seed, so that man shall bruise the head of the serpent and the serpent shall bruise his heel.’ This means that the carnal appetite of man is more unbridled than in any other animal; and the serpent moves with his belly on the ground; that is, the carnal appetite inclines the heart to earthly things, and turns it away from the things of the heavens. His whole life long he eats of the dust, because carnal desire feeds on the basest and meanest of all created things; and hatred arises because carnal appetite is detrimental to the body and destroys it with excess, from which many ills and deformities derive, so that even desire itself fails, consumed away by the disorders and diseases of the body. The woman was punished with a multitude of sorrows and labours: ‘in sorrow should she bring forth children, and her desire should be to her husband, who should rule over her.’ This means that a depraved life brings sorrow to the body, and its pleasure is mingled with pain, and in labour must it bring forth its kind. Nonetheless, since Eve loved the intellectual part as her husband, he should still ‘rule over her’ to govern and restrain her corporeal activities. To the man (because he listened to the words of the woman and ate of the forbidden tree), God said that ‘the ground should be cursed for his sake, and with sorrow and weariness should he till it all the days of his life; and thorns should spring up for him, and he should eat of the herb of the field, and eat bread in the sweat of his face until he returns unto the earth from which he was taken, for he was dust and unto dust he should return.’190 This signifies that earthly things should be accursed and harmful to the intellect, and should be sorrowful and distressing food for it, like that which brought mortality to the immortal. And all the success of earthly

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pursuits would be fraught with toil for man and painful, like the prick of the thorn. His food would be the herb of the field, which is the food of irrational animals; in fact, like them he had placed his life in sensuality alone, and if he wished to eat bread, it would be by the sweat of his brow, digging and toiling, which signifies that if he wished to eat the food of men and not of beasts and to carry on the work of man, it would be difficult for him, by reason of the contrary tendency already acquired with brute sensuality. And God told him that all these evils would follow upon his sin until he should return to the earth from where he came. Of all mortal creatures of the earth he alone was made immortal, and yet he wished to become like the dust of the ground, muddying himself with the sins of the body; and this was why he had to return to dust as to his origin, equal in mortality to the other creatures. And the text straightway continues: ‘Adam called his wife Eve,’ which is speaking animal191 and female, because she was ‘the mother of every living creature.’192 This means that he called the corporeal part by a name such as that of the other animals, because it was the cause of every kind of bestiality in man. Moreover God, through the medium of the intellect, which had left the contemplative life for a lesser one of action in order to understand the things of the body, began to teach Adam and Eve crafts, so that ‘they made coats of skins to cover their nakedness; and He sent them forth from the garden to till the ground,’ that is, He took them away from contemplation to attend to earthly things, leaving them, however, the possibility of returning to eat of the tree of life and to live eternally. And this is why it says, ‘God placed to the east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep watch over the way of the tree of life.’193 The two cherubim denote the two spiritual intellects with which man is endowed, the potential and the active, and the flaming sword turning every way is the human imagination, which turns from the corporeal to seek the light of the spiritual, so that taking that way, he could, by leaving the mud, behold and follow the way of the tree of life and live eternally by the light of the intellect. Adam, however, being exiled from paradise with the sentence of mortality, procured the succession and the preservation of the species by generating sons for himself. But since he had fallen into sin, his firstborn, Cain, was a sinful man and slew his brother, the second son, Abel, which means ‘nothing,’ because he remained as nothing, since he perished from the succession. But when the violence of his sin had cooled down, being one hundred and thirty years old and reverting in some measure to the things of the intellect, which is similar to Godhead, he begot a third son, in his intellectual likeness, who was called Seth, which means ‘position.’194 In fact he said, ‘God appointed me another seed

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instead of Abel whom Cain slew.’195 From Seth followed a generation of virtuous men, as is told in Holy Scriptures. From that time forth ‘men began to call upon the name of the Lord.’196 This signifies that the first fruits of sin are evil, such as Cain, which signifies ‘evil habit’; and when sin has lost some of its power it makes men vain and empty like Abel, which means ‘nothing’; but when man returns to the intellectual life and to knowledge of the name of God, his seed is virtuous and endures, like that of Seth.197 This, Sophia, is the allegorical wisdom that the true history from Moses signifies: the union of the male and female in man, their establishment in Paradise, the command laid on them, their division, their sin through the deceit of the serpent, the punishment of all three, the possibility of a remedy, the engendering of evil and imperfect offspring, and finally of the perfect one who succeeded the first two; all these things (following the allegorical meaning) the first man really suffered in his body and they signify the life and works of every man, his ultimate happiness, the demands of his corporeal nature, and the consequences of excessive sin together with its punishment and the possibility of eventual salvation. If you look into the story, you will behold as in a mirror the life of every man with his good and his evil, and you will recognize the way that must be shunned and the way that must be followed to attain to eternal happiness without dying. SOPHIA: I thank you, and this explanation of the sacred history makes me wish to be cautious and wise. But let us not, therefore, neglect the similar allegory of Plato’s fable of androgyne, which is born from this. PHILO: When the allegory behind the Mosaic narration of human first generation is understood, it will be an easy task to see the purpose of the Platonic myth. It says that humans were first double, half male and half female, united in one body. That is, the intellectual and corporeal parts were united in man in accordance with the original design of his creation, so that the corporeal and female half should be entirely subservient198 to the intellectual and male half, without division or opposition. Further, the male nature derives from the sun and the female from the earth, and since the whole androgyne was composed of both these parts, it derived from the moon. Therefore, as I have told you, the sun is the pattern of the intellect, the earth of the body, and the moon of the soul, which is at once both intellectual and corporeal and comprises the whole human essence, just as the moon is made up of the light derived from the sun and gross matter similar to that of the earth, which, moreover, is the opinion of Aristotle. The narrative continues that since the androgynes were very powerful, they sought battle against the gods. In other words, being entirely dominated by the

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intellect and rapt in the contemplative life without resistance or opposition on the part of the body, they were almost equal to the angels and matched themselves against the disembodied intelligences (as David says of the creation of man, ‘You made him a little lower than the angels,’199 and Moses, speaking in the name of the Lord, ‘The man is become as one of us,’200 and this is before his fall). Jupiter, therefore, casting about for a remedy, caused him to be divided into two halves, male and female. And the two parts are not infused intellect and character (as some imagine), but the male is the intellectual part and the female the corporeal part, and the two together make up the whole man. For man being entirely given up to contemplation became one with the angels and spirits, which is contrary to the purpose of the Creator, in other words, that he should alternately be composed of mind and body; when his nature became wholly angelic the human frame was destroyed, and both the individual and the race would have perished. And this it is which Plato calls man’s striving with the gods. Therefore, he was divided, that is, his body was made to offer some resistance to the intellect and the latter to incline to the necessary care of the body and its material nature, so that the life of man might be human rather than angelic.201 And moreover, Plato says that from this division love was born, because each half desires and loves reintegration with its other half; in other words, the intellect would take no heed of the body save for the love that it bears its consort and female half, nor would the body be governed by the intellect were it not for the love and affection that it bears its husband and masculine half. Moreover, the story tells us that even when the two halves came together in love, they did not seek the things that were necessary for their sustenance, and they perished; wherefore the god Jupiter caused their genitals to be turned facing each other, and so they remained satisfied and in union and in generation of their kind their division was healed. This signifies that the purpose of the division of the intellectual and corporeal parts was that man, in finding satisfaction in bodily pleasures, might take heed for the sustenance of the individual, and through the propagation of his kind for the preservation of the species. Finally, he is warned that he must sin no more, because each half of him would then be divided and remain only a quarter of man. And the meaning of this is that if the intellectual part of man is not united in itself, but divided in imperfect knowledge and counsel, it will be imperfect and weak in its nature; for it is unity that makes it vigorous and perfect, and division that takes away its perfection and strength. Similarly, when the body is united in seeking what is needful, it is made perfect, and when it is divided in the acquisition of superfluous things that give no lasting satisfaction, it is thereby made imperfect and

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weak. By this division within his parts man comes to lose not only that first intellectual union of the androgyne, but also the division into halves required for human existence, and is but the half of a half, leading a depraved and sinful life. This is the allegorical meaning of the Platonic fable. The other details concerning the actual incision, the council of the gods, and such like are but ornaments of the story to make it more pleasing and lifelike. SOPHIA: I like this allegory, as it suits the Platonic fable of the androgyne. But I would like, Philo, that you could tell me a purpose that relates it to our subject of the birth of love. PHILO: The connection between this subject and our allegory is as follows. All human love and desire is born of the co-alternate division of the human intellect and body, because the intellect that is inclined to its body (like the male to the female) desires and loves the things that belong to it; if these objects are necessary and temperate, these loves and desires are honest on account of their moderation and restraint, and if they are excessive, they are lascivious and corrupt affections leading to sinful actions. Again the body, loving the intellect (as the woman loves the male husband), ascends to the desire for perfection, striving with sense, eyes, and ears, and with the senses, fantasia, and memory, to obtain what is necessary for right thinking and eternal intellectual treasure in which the mind of man is blessed. And this desire and love is absolutely virtuous, and the more ardent it is, the more praiseworthy and perfect. In this, therefore, Plato has shown the birth of love and of every species of human love only, of which he posits the intellectual part as the father and the bodily part the mother. And the first love of man is this mutual love between the one part and the other, such as the love between man and woman. In the second place these two parents give birth to every kind of extrinsic love and desire of man, and these may be divided into three categories: the intellectual, which are absolutely noble (like those of the united and whole man in the original, happy life in paradise); the corporeal, which are necessary and restrained, the moderation of which places them among the virtuous desires of the body (such as man experienced when he was divided for his essential good and before he sinned); and, finally, corporeal desires, which are unbridled, superfluous, and inordinate, making those who are subject to them bestial and vicious in their sin (such was the life of man when he was covered with the mud in knowledge of good and evil, immersed in lasciviousness and inured to sin). These [species of love and desire] all depend on the mutual love that exists between the intellect and the body, as I have told you.

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SOPHIA: I know who Plato says are begetters of love in man, who is ‘a miniature world.’ I would now like to know if he has also assigned the first parents of the universal love of the whole corporeal created world.202 PHILO: After Plato defined the progenitors of human love in the book of the Symposium, in the name of Aristophanes, as you have heard, he was also careful to designate the first parents of universal love in the whole corporeal world, in the name of the prophetess Diotima,203 the teacher of Socrates in the school of love. She told him that the birth of love happened in this way: on the birthday of Venus all the gods were assembled at a banquet and with them was Poros, son of Metis or Sagacity and the god of abundance. Now when they were done feasting, Penia, also known as Poverty, came in to them in the guise of a poor woman to have something to eat from table of the gods. She used to stay with the poor who beg outside the doors. Poros, being drunk on nectar (for wine was as yet unknown), went into the garden of Jupiter to sleep; and Penia, constrained by necessity, thought of how, through cleverness, she might conceive a child by Poros. So she went to lie with him and conceived Love. And from these parents Love was born, the archer and follower of Venus, because he was born under her influence and is ever desirous of the beautiful, because Venus is herself beautiful. And because he is the son of Poros and of the poor beggar woman, Penia, he partakes of the nature of them both. In the first place he is rough, squalid, ever flying barefoot over the earth without home or shelter to cover his head, or bed or blanket to lie on. He sleeps in the street, under the open sky, and, like his mother, is ever in want. Like his father’s side of the family, however, he is continually procuring good and beautiful things, and is ardent, bold, and impetuous, a skilled hunter, ever weaving new intrigues, diligent in caution, eloquent, a philosopher at all times. He is a promise-breaker, enchanter, sorcerer, and sophist, and in accordance with his mixed nature he is neither wholly mortal nor immortal, but is alive and dead in one and the same day, and is resuscitated at one moment and fainting the next. And this is his perpetual state because he combines the natures of his father and mother. What he gains he loses, and what he loses he regains, so that he is never a beggar and never rich. He is constituted of a mean between knowledge and ignorance, for none of the gods is a philosopher or a seeker after wisdom, because they are wise already; neither does the truly wise or quite ignorant man seek after wisdom, for he has no desire to grow wise. And truly this is the worst defect in an ignorant man: that he neither is nor desires to be wise, because we cannot desire that of which we feel no lack. The philosopher, therefore, is a mean between the ignorant and

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the wise, and because he is not beautiful like the wise man, who seeks after the wisdom he lacks, nor is he ugly like the ignorant man, who is wanting not only in beauty but also in the desire of it. Love, therefore, is truly a mean between the ugly and the beautiful. SOPHIA: The fable is well composed, and clearly it shows the conditions and forms of Love from the rich father and the poor mother blended together. But I would like to know the meaning of Poros, the father, and Penia, the mother, and of the time, place, and manner of the birth of Love, their son. PHILO: The wise Diotima shows ingeniously in this fable who the progenitors of Love were, and how he was born, and what manner of nature his parents bestowed on him. In the first place, he was born when the gods were assembled together at a feast on the birthday of Venus. Some there are who understand by the birth of Venus the influence of the intelligence, first of the angelic world and then of the world-soul, life already having been imparted by Jupiter, essence by Saturn, and first being by Caelus, who were the three gods at the feast before the birth of the greater Venus in the angelic and in corporeal and in world-soul. But we won’t consider such abstract and vague allegories, which aren’t proportionate to the literal meanings of the fable.204 This same Diotima (as you have heard) understood Venus to represent beauty, so she says that Love always loves the beautiful because he was born when beauty was born. This means, therefore, that love was born at the same time as beauty, because all love is of a beloved object, and every beloved is beautiful; and because of its beauty, whether real or apparent, it is loved, love being a desire of the beautiful. Further, she says that when the gods were feasting at the birth of Venus, poverty-stricken Penia was standing outside to grasp some leftovers from the table of the gods. And the god Poros, the son of Sagacity, being drunk from nectar, left the house where he was feasting with his companions and went into the garden to sleep. Therefore, Penia, desirous of having a son by him, lay down beside him and conceived Love. This signifies that when the gods (that is God, together with the angelic world) impressed beauty in their own image on the created and corporeal world, in which task they vied with one another in generosity and were glad at heart as at the feast on the birthday of Venus (which is beauty itself), the poverty of potential matter, desirous of sharing in the beautiful forms and divine and angelic perfection, intervened. Poros, the son of Sagacity (that is, the rich intellect), being the worse for nectar (that is, filled with the divine Ideas and Forms), desired to impart these for the benefit of the lower world, even though an inclination to something lower was a defect in him. And this is why he is said to have gone into Jupiter’s garden to sleep

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there, that is, to put to sleep his vigilant cognitive faculty and to apply it to the corporeal world of motion and generation, which is the garden of Jupiter. For the heavenly intellect is the house and palace of Jupiter, where they were feasting and drinking the divine nectar, which symbolizes the eternal contemplation and desire of the supreme beauty and majesty of the Divinity. When the intellect, the son of Sagacity (which is the most high God), wished to impart of himself to the lower world, the poor woman Penia came to him in her distress, that is, the potentiality of matter, desirous of perfection, became pregnant by him who was intoxicated with the desire of corporeal perfection, asleep as he was in his eternal and divine contemplation, and somewhat distracted from it in order to impart perfection to needy matter. Love then was born of them both, because love implies perfection, not in actuality but in potentiality; and so the intellect, which is in the body subject to generation, is potential form and potential intellect, and because it is intellect it recognizes beautiful things, and because it is potential it lacks their possession and desires actual beauty. And this is what is meant by saying it is a mean between the ugly and the beautiful, for the potential intellect and the material forms are a mean between pure and wholly formless matter and the disembodied forms and actual intelligences of the angels, which are truly beautiful. Therefore, Diotima assigns to Love both qualities and characteristics that are proper to its imperfect mother – connected to the corporeal and needy matter, which is mortal and changing – and those that are proper to its rich father, Poros – connected to the perfect intellect. And Diotima considers Love as a philosopher and not as a sage, because the potential intellect desires wisdom and is potentially wise and not actually like the angelic intellect.205 Then Diotima showed by her story that the potential intellect partakes of the actual or active intellect, angelic or divine, and its potentiality is not derived from its own intellectual nature (as some think),206 but only from its association with needy matter, deprived of all actuality and made up of pure potentiality. Further, she taught that the first cause of the generation of love was generated beauty, and its true parents are knowledge of beauty, which is its father, and the lack of it, which is its mother. For that which is loved and desired must first be known as beautiful and lacking, or potentially lacking, and there must be a desire to always conserve it. Therefore, Sophia, you must know that the father of universal love in the lower world is the knowledge of beauty and its mother is the privation of this beauty. SOPHIA: I understand this; but it seems to me that these parents must be applied only to the corporeal world, and, moreover, only in the lower world of generation. And I have already learned from you that love is found first

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and mainly in the angelic world, and you assigned the very same two causes to that origin, in other words, the knowledge and privation of beauty. PHILO: It is true that love is caused by knowledge of beauty, which is lacking not only in the lower world but principally in the angelic; but this is the infinite beauty of God, which is lacking in all created intellects and they know, love, and desire this beauty. This beauty is named by Plato ‘great Venus,’ which means beauty of the intellectual world. This beauty was not born in time because it is eternal and immutable, nor can its love be born again, but if it was ever born it must have been from eternity in the divine world. Nor does the privation of the beauty happen because of the intervention of very poor Penia, or matter, with intellect. In fact, in that world there is no matter; but this happens because the lack implied in the creature created by the highest perfection of the Creator, or rather by the excellence of His beauty, exceeds that of His creatures. Poros and Penia are, therefore, truly the parents of the love born in the lower world at the birth of the minor Venus (that is, of the beauty imparted to generated bodies, but not to the love of the angelic world), and this later lover is higher than drunken Poros in the garden of Jupiter and it is alien to needy Penia. SOPHIA: I have now understood what the fables of the poets and philosophers mean about the birth of love and its parentage. I desire now to know fully and clearly who are the first parents of love, both human and universal love. PHILO: First, Sophia, I will tell you who I think to be the father and mother common to all love, and then, if you wish, I will refer it to the love of men and of the world. SOPHIA: This order pleases me, because general knowledge should precede the particular. Tell me, therefore, who is the common father of all love, and who is its mother. PHILO: I do not posit that the mother is absolute poverty, like Diotima, nor that the father is affluent cognition, as she wanted. Nor do I consider the beauty of Venus to be connected to his birth, or that she is the midwife and goddess who presides over it in the absence of his father and mother,207 as Plato elsewhere said. In fact, love is said by all to be the son of Venus, and according to some to have no father. But setting aside the fictions and opinions of others, I will tell you that the universal father of every love is the Beautiful, and the universal mother is cognition of the Beautiful, mixed with poverty. Out of these two, like a true father and mother, love and

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desire are generated; in fact, the Beautiful is known by whoever is lacking that Beautiful and he who is lacking straightway loves and desires the Beautiful. So love is born when the Beautiful is conceived in the mind of him who knows the Beautiful and is lacking and desires this Beautiful. The Beautiful that is the beloved is therefore the father and generator of love, and the mother is the mind of the lover, made pregnant by the seed of the Beautiful. And the seed is the exemplum of this beauty in the mind of the knower. This mind, being pregnant by it, desires union with this Beautiful, or rather a generation of a similar Beautiful. And you have already learned how the nature of the father and generator belongs to the beloved, and the nature of the mother to the lover who is made pregnant by the beloved, and desires birth in the Beautiful, as Plato himself says.208 SOPHIA: I like this clear and precise definition of the mother and father of universal love. But before I ask you for further explanation, you must resolve a contradiction that appears in two words. You say that the mother of love is the cognition of the Beautiful that is lacking, and on the other hand that she is first made pregnant by the form of the Beautiful, and therefore desires and loves the Beautiful. The contradiction is this: if the mind of the knower is pregnant by the Beautiful, the mind does not lack the Beautiful, because it possesses the Beautiful, just as the pregnant woman who has a child within her, and does not lack it. PHILO: If the form of the Beautiful were not in the mind of the lover under the aspect of Beautiful, good, and joyous, this Beautiful would never be loved by the lover. Those who are entirely without beauty have no desire for beauty, but he who desires the Beautiful is not entirely without the Beautiful. In fact, he has knowledge of the Beautiful and his mind is impregnated with the form of his beauty. But because he lacks the essential, in other words, perfect union with the Beautiful, the desire of this main effect that he lacks comes to him. This is the desire of enjoyment of the Beautiful through union. And its form impressed on his mind drives him to desire, just as the pregnant woman longs for the day of her delivery that she may bring forth to the world the secret contents of her womb. Thus, the mother of love (the lover), though deprived of the perfect union with the beloved thing, is not entirely without the exemplary form of her beauty, which causes her to love and desire union with the Beautiful that is lacking. SOPHIA: What you say is pleasing to me, but one difficulty remains. It seems that the mother and lover, made pregnant by the beautiful father, gives birth to or generates the father himself as her son. In fact, you say

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that generation and childbirth are none other than union and active enjoyment209 with this same father. PHILO: Your argument is subtle, Sophia, but if you were even more subtle you would see the solution. The act of enjoying union with the Beautiful is not absolutely and entirely the same as the Beautiful itself. Even though it is similar, just as the child is similar to his own father, there is always a maternal impression of the loving cognition joined to this paternal likeness. In fact, the act would not be one of enjoyment if, on the part of the knower and lover, it were not directed to the recognized beautiful object. In this way it is the true son of lover and beloved, and takes its material part from maternal cognition and its formal part from paternal beauty. And as Plato shows, love is a desire of conceiving in order to give birth to the Beautiful in the likeness of the father; and as such is not only intellectual but also corporeal love. SOPHIA: Tell me how each of these kinds of love consists in being pregnant with the desire to give birth to the Beautiful, and why such generation is desired. PHILO: You see how not only in man, but in every animal, there exists the desire for the cognition of those who are like in kind. How many troubles, labours, and danger parents, particularly mothers, undergo in the generation and rearing of their children, even so far as to give up their life for them. The immediate goal is the production of the Beautiful, similar to that by which the mother wishes to be pregnant, and the final end is the desired immortality. In fact, individual animals do not possess eternal being (as Aristotle says),210 so they desire and struggle to perpetuate their species by the propagation of their kind. And very often they are more solicitous of the life and existence of their offspring than of their own, deeming their life to be past but that of their offspring to be the future. So they must perpetuate their own lives by continual generation of their kind. These same ends occur also in the human soul, which, pregnant of intellectual beauty, virtue, and wisdom, desires continually to generate similar beauty in virtuous actions and the practice of wisdom. This is because their actual generation confers true immortality of greater worth than that which is acquired by the animals through the propagation of their kind. And as the father’s body suffers corruption, but his seed is preserved and perpetuated in his children, so the powers of the soul, though they may fail, are perpetuated in virtuous acts and habits of right thinking, which make them eternal. This, therefore, will explain to you how the father of

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love is the beautiful beloved, and the mother the knower and lover of it; and how she, being pregnant of him, loves and desires to give birth to similar beauty through which she may be made one with and have everlasting enjoyment of the virile beauty of her consort. SOPHIA: I think I understand well how the Beautiful, or rather beauty, is the father of love, and the knower and desirer the mother who, being pregnant by him, desires to give birth to his like. This signifies union and enjoyment of this beautiful beloved. But I see that in this way the whole process consists of beauty, because the father is the beautiful, the pregnant mother embodies his cognitive form and pattern, and the desired son is the movement towards unitive fruition of this Beautiful. And I am amazed that you rate beauty so highly, for if it were prior to all love, it would follow that it preceded not only the lower world and the abstract intellect of man, but also the heavenly and the whole angelic world, since in each of these (as you have said) love is found and they are all truly lovers. Again, if, as you have sometimes said, love exists in the supreme Divinity for His creatures, and we have the testimony of the Holy Scriptures that He is their Lover, how can one imagine that beauty is meant to precede that which absolutely precedes all things? PHILO: Do not be surprised, Sophia, that beauty is what makes every beloved to be loved and every lover to love, and this is the beginning, middle, and end of every love. This is because there is the beginning in the beloved, the middle is the remembrance of the lover, and the end is the enjoyment and union of the lover with the beloved. In fact, because the supremely Beautiful is the most high Craftsman of the universe, the beauty of every created thing is the perfection of the work of the master Craftsman in his construction, and it is in respect to this quality that the thing made bears the greatest resemblance and relationship to the maker, and the created to the creator. And because all the parts of the universe participate in this Godhead, it is not strange, but right, that the Godhead precede every other thing, both while the Godhead makes those lovable things and the others that know the lovable things and love and desire to partake of them, through the divine beauty that was their craftsman. And this beauty only precedes love in created things, whether corporeal, corruptible, and heavenly, or incorporeal, spiritual, and angelic; but also the love that comes from God for His creatures. This is none other than the wish that the beauty of His creatures may grow to be like the supreme beauty of their Creator in whose image they were created. Beauty, therefore, must precede love in God, just as something beautiful and lovable is a prior condition of the existence of a lover.

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SOPHIA: I see your answer to my question, and although it may seem satisfactory, it does not satisfy me, because I do not understand the greatness of the dignity and excellence of this beauty very well, nor do I see how it is of such importance that it can be the beginning of all excellent and perfect things, as you make it out to be. I would like you to better satisfy my mind concerning the essence of this beauty. I remember very well that once you defined this beauty to me as grace that delights the mind211 with the knowledge of this beauty, and this knowledge moves it to love. But I still have the same thirst to learn about the essence of this grace and of its supreme importance for the Creator and for the whole universe, even as I desire to learn of the essence of beauty, defined in this way. PHILO: I also remember that I showed you part of the spiritual essence of beauty. In fact, I explained to you that among the five external senses beauty is not apprehended by the three material ones, touch, taste, and smell (for the temperate qualities of the tactile pleasures of amorous pleasure are not called beautiful, neither is taste sweet to the palate nor a soft fragrance); but only by the two spiritual senses. One, partly through hearing fine speeches, excellent reasoning, beautiful verses, sweet music, and beautiful and harmonious melodies, and the other mostly through the eyes, in beautiful forms and colours, proportioned compositions, and light in all its varied splendour and so on. This all denotes how beauty is a spiritual thing that is abstracted from the body. I have also showed you that the greatest beauty is inherent to those faculties of the soul that are most exalted above the body, such as in the imagination of beautiful fantasies, thoughts, and inventions; to a higher degree in intellectual reason separated from matter, with beautiful studies, art, science, and the practice of virtue; and even more perfectly in the abstract mind, seat of the first human wisdom, which is the true image of the highest beauty. Therefore, you will begin to understand that beauty is totally apart from corporeal matter, and how beauty is spiritually transferred to it.212 SOPHIA: Yet common people mainly attribute beauty to bodies, as proper to their essence, and this certainly seems to pertain to them more truly. And if incorporeal things are called beautiful it seems only metaphorically so, as, for example, when they are called great in the same way as bodies, such as great spirit, great intellect, great memory, great art, although the incorporeal is in itself non-dimensional, and in truth can be neither great nor small except by comparison with corporeal objects, which are measurable. Beauty, likewise, seems to be a property of bodies and alien to incorporeal objects.

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PHILO: Although this happens in greatness because it is proper to quantity and quantity is proper to the body, what reason do you have to suppose that beauty is the same? SOPHIA: Besides the use of the noun that applies the word ‘beauty’ to bodies, corporeal beauty is reputed by the masses to be the true beauty. There is another reason: beauty seems to be the proportion of the parts to the whole and the symmetry of the whole with its parts, as indeed many philosophers213 have defined it. Therefore, it is a property of a measurable body and of a whole composed of parts, and properly presupposes a body characterized by quantity. And if it is attributed to incorporeal things, such as harmony and reasoned oratory, it is because, like the body, they have parts of which they are composed in due proportion, and therefore they are termed beautiful, like the composite and proportioned body. In this way, in the thoughts of the imagination, understanding, and intellect the relationship of the parts to the whole is copied from the body, which is truly composed of proportionate parts that are called beautiful. Therefore, what is proper to beauty, just as to magnitude, appears to be a body, which is the proper substance for quantity and composition of parts. PHILO: The use of this word ‘beautiful’ by the masses is in proportion to the knowledge they have of beauty. Since they can understand no beauty save what is apprehended by corporeal sight or hearing, they believe that there is none other than this one, unless it is fictitious, dreamed, or imagined. But those whose mental vision is clear and who see far beyond corporeal things have a greater knowledge of incorporeal beauty than those whose pleasure is in sensual delights. And they know that the beauty of the body is inferior, small, and superficial compared with that of the spiritual one. In fact, corporeal beauty is the shadow and image of spiritual beauty, from which it is derived, and is none other than the splendour that the spiritual world imparts to the corporeal one.214 They also see that the beauty of corporeal objects does not proceed from their corporeal or material nature. In fact, if it were this way, each body and each material thing would have the same mode of beauty, because matter and corporeality are the same in every substance, or rather the greatest would be the most beautiful, which frequently does not hold in reality, for beauty requires being a mean, and what is greater or lesser than the correct mean is deformed. And they know that beauty in bodies is derived from participation in that of higher incorporeal beings. And the incompleteness of their participation gives the measure of the imperfection of their beauty, so that deformity is inherent in body and beauty comes to it from its spiritual benefactor.215 The eyes of your body,

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Sophia, are therefore not sufficient to perceive beautiful things. You must behold them with the incorporeal eyes and you will recognize true beauty that the masses can never know. In fact, just as the physically blind cannot apprehend beautiful forms and colours, so those who are mentally blind can neither apprehend nor rejoice in the brightest spiritual beauties. And there is no pleasure in beauty where there is no knowledge of it, and whoever does not taste of its waters is deprived of the sweetest of delights. If, then, corporeal beauty, which is only the shadow of spiritual beauty, so delights the beholder that it seizes total control of him and not only takes away his freedom, but kills all desire in him to regain it, how much greater will be the effect of pure intellectual beauty, of which the corporeal is only the shadow and image, in those who are worthy to behold it! May you, therefore, Sophia, be numbered among those who dedicate themselves not to the shadow of beauty but to its Master, the highest in beauty and delight. SOPHIA: This is enough, and I shall not be deceived into thinking of beauty as the masses do. But I wish that you would resolve the question of the proportion of the parts to the whole for me, which makes up the common view, and which proves beauty to be a property of bodies and to exist only by analogy and not as a property in incorporeal substances. PHILO: This definition of beauty given by some modern philosophers216 is neither true nor adequate. If this were the case no simple body that was not composed of various parts proportioned one to another could be called beautiful, and therefore neither the sun nor the moon, nor the stars in their beauty, nor shining Venus and the elegant Jupiter could be so. SOPHIA: But they have the beauty of the circular form, which is the most beautiful of all figures, making a whole in itself and containing parts. PHILO: The figure of circle is certainly beautiful in itself, but its beauty is not caused by the proportion of the parts to each other or to the whole. Its parts are equal and homogeneous and therefore can have no proportion. Nor is it the beauty of the circle that gives beauty to the sun, moon, and stars, because if it were, every circular body would be as beautiful as the sun. Their beauty consists in luminosity, which in itself is not a figure and has no proportionate parts. Moreover, flaming fire, gleaming gold, and shining precious stones would not then be beautiful, because they are wholly simple and their parts are of one nature with the whole, without any difference of the one relative to the other. Again, according to this theory, only the whole and none of the parts would be beautiful, except in relation to the whole; but you may know a face that is sometimes beautiful and

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sometimes not, although the proportion of the parts to the whole remains unchanged. Beauty, therefore [does not appear to consist in the proportion of the parts].217 Moreover, according to this philosophy, pleasing colours would not be beautiful, nor would light, even though it is the most beautiful thing in the corporeal world, in which it is the source of all beauty. Similarly in hearing, a soft voice would not be called beautiful, as it is. And if the beauty of music is to be the harmony of the parts, what, then, is intellectual beauty? If it is said to be ordered reasoning, what can be said of the understanding of simple things and of the purest divinity, which is the highest beauty? Therefore, if you consider well, you will find that although there is beauty in proportionate and harmonious things, it transcends their proportion, and therefore beauty is found not only in objects composed of proportionate parts, but in an even higher degree in simple objects. SOPHIA: Does it follow, then, that what is disproportionate can be beautiful? PHILO: Not yet. In fact, being disproportionate is a defect and an evil, and nothing that is evil is beautiful. This, however, does not imply that proportion is beauty itself. In fact, among those things that are neither proportionate nor disproportionate because they are not composite, objects of rare beauty are found, and further, some proportionate and harmonious things are not beautiful, and not every beautiful and good thing is proportionate. Moreover, proportion and harmony are also found in evil things: for example, among merchants it is said that the greedy man and the swindler soon come to agreement, and fear goes hand in hand with cruelty and prodigality with theft. Every beautiful thing, therefore, is not proportionate, nor every proportionate thing beautiful, as these thinkers imagine. SOPHIA: What, therefore, is the beauty of corporeal things, and what makes well-proportioned figures and bodies beautiful if beauty is not proportion? PHILO: You must know that matter, the substratum of all lower bodies, is in itself formless and the mother of every deformity, but being formed into all its parts by the influence of the spiritual world it becomes beautiful. And the forms transmitted to it by the divine intellect, and by the world-soul, or from the spiritual and heavenly world, take away its deformity and give it beauty. Thus, beauty in the lower world comes from the spiritual and heavenly world, just as ugliness and deformity are properties peculiar to it by reason of its defective and imperfect material nature that goes to the making of all its bodies. SOPHIA: So each body would be equally beautiful because in its essence it is formed by the higher world.

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PHILO: I concede that each body has a kind of beauty imparted to it by the form that informs its matter; but they are not all equally beautiful, because the forms do not provoke their perfection upon all lower bodies in the same way, nor do they remove the deformity of matter to the same extent in every substance. Thus, in some they take away a small measure of the deformity, in others to a greater degree. And the more of this material deformity the form is able to remove, the greater will be the beauty of the body, and the less it has power to remove, the less beautiful will be the body and the more defective. This difference exists not only in the different species of the bodies of the lower world, but also in the various individuals of a species. Indeed, one man will be more beautiful than another, and one horse a finer specimen than another, if the form of which his essence is composed has better subdued matter, and therefore been able to take away a larger measure of its deformity, endowing it with beauty.218 SOPHIA: Why, then, do proportionate bodies appear beautiful? PHILO: Because the form that best informs matter orders the parts of the body by the light of the intellect so that they are proportionate to one another and to the whole. And they are so arranged that they may further the ends and activities of the body, unifying in the best form possible the whole and the parts, whether different or similar – that is, homogeneous or heterogeneous – so that the whole should be single and perfectly formed. And thus it is made beautiful. Now when matter is stubborn, the form is unable to unite and order the parts to the whole after the manner of the intellect, and the body remains deformed and its beauty is decreased on account of the disobedience of defective matter to the informing and beautifying form. SOPHIA: I am pleased to know the beauty of lower bodies, and what makes it and from where it comes. But one thing remains obscure to me: a part of your argument against those who say that beauty is proportion, that is to say, that pleasing colours are beautiful; and yet they are not united by form. Light is of great beauty, yet its parts are not informed and united as a whole; and again, the sun, moon, and stars, although they are bodies, are not composed of form nor are they informed by any form.219 Why, therefore, are they beautiful? Moreover, music, harmony, sweet voices, polished oratory, resonant verses are things that have neither formless matter nor any form that informs them, and yet they are beautiful. Finally, those beautiful creatures of the imagination and reason and of the human intellect that you have described are not composed of matter and form, and yet their beauty surpasses that of every other thing in the lower world.

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PHILO: You asked correctly, and I was going to explain to you the beauty of these things, even though you wouldn’t have mentioned. As I have told you, in the lower world all beauty is of form, which makes substances beautiful when it succeeds in overcoming formless matter and in subduing rude corporeality. Therefore, it is right that the forms themselves should be more beautiful, or even beauty itself, since they can make the ugly beautiful of their own power. In fact, if they were not beautiful they would be either ugly or neutral, that is, neither beautiful nor ugly, and if they were ugly how could they give beauty by their essence? For a contrary cannot by virtue of its essence produce its contrary, but rather its kind. Again, if form is neutral why does it cause beauty rather than ugliness? And yet it is always beauty that follows on form. You must, therefore, concede that the forms are more beautiful than what they inform. Colours, therefore, are beautiful because they are forms, and if substances with vivid colouring are made beautiful by them, how much more beautiful must they themselves be, or even beauty itself! And pure light will have even greater beauty, since it makes colour and coloured objects beautiful, and it is the true form in abstract bodies and those blended with corporeality, as you have already learned. If light, then, is the mother of the ephemeral beauties of the lower world, it is only right that it should be most beautiful.220 The sun, moon, and stars are beautiful on account of their light, which serves them all as form, and they themselves, according to Themistius,221 may be called forms rather than informed bodies. And since the sun is the father of beautiful light, it is right that it is the first among all beautiful corporeal things. The other heavenly luminaries that receive and participate in the light first and continually from the sun then follow. After them the sun makes all other shining and coloured substances in the lower world beautiful; and in particular flaming fire, since it is more formal and less corporeal by reason of its subtlety and lightness, and because it partakes in a higher degree of the solar light. And its formality appears in that it does not allow its nature to be violated or changed by any other contrary element, except when it is totally consumed, because no other element can cool or moisten it, or induce in it any quality contrary to its own nature so long as it remains fire. This, however, is its own custom with the other elements: in fact, it heats water and earth and dries the air, contrary to their proper natures. And, throughout the whole lower world light is universal form, taking away the ugliness of darkness of chaotic matter; and it makes bodies that have most part in it the most beautiful, so that it is rightly called true beauty. The sun from which it derives is the source of beauty, and it passes first through the moon and stars, its noblest adherents. Harmony is beautiful because it is a

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spiritual form, ordering and uniting many different voices into a single and perfect harmony, after the manner of the intellect. And soft voices are beautiful because they are a part of harmony and, partaking of the whole, they partake of its beauty. The beauty of oratory comes from this spiritual beauty that combines and unites many different kinds of material words into a perfect intellectual union, forming a species of harmonic beauty, so that it can rightly be called more beautiful than corporeal beauty. Poetry, with its intellectual beauty, has more of the harmonic beauty of sound. The beauties of cognition and reason and of the human mind clearly take precedence over every corporeal beauty because they are truly formal and spiritual and bring order and unity to the many and various sensitive and rational concepts of the soul. Furthermore, they bestow the treasures of learning upon minds disposed to receive beauty. There is also an artificial beauty in all objects that are beautified by art. In this way the beauty in the whole of the lower world issues from the spiritual in the forms and by their presence in corporeal substance. And these forms, which are formal beauties, are always abstracted from matter. In fact, they will in no way consort with the deformity of matter, which obstructs their beauty. So the virtues and wisdoms are always beautiful, but informed bodies are sometimes beautiful and sometimes not, according to whether their matter is tractable or hostile to formal beauty. SOPHIA: I understand how all natural beauty in the corporeal world derives from the form or forms that shape the bodies in their material substance. But I still must understand the origin of the beauty of artificial things, since it does not come from the spiritual or heavenly source of the natural forms, nor is it of their number and nature. PHILO: Just as the beauty of natural things is derived from natural forms, whether essential or accidental, so the beauty of artificial things derives from artificial forms. Therefore, the definition of both kinds of beauty is the same. SOPHIA: And what is this definition? PHILO: It is formal grace, which delights and moves him who apprehends it to love. And just as this formal grace belongs to natural form in natural beauty, so it belongs to artificial form in artificial beauty. And in order to know how the beauty of artificial objects comes from the form of the art with which they are fashioned, you might imagine two pieces of wood of the same size, one carved in the form of a most beautiful Venus, the other untouched, and you will recognize that it is not the wood that makes the

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Venus beautiful, because the other similar piece of wood has no beauty, and therefore its form or artificial design must be its beauty and that which makes it beautiful. And just as the natural forms of bodies are derived from an incorporeal and spiritual origin that is the world-soul, and ultimately from the first divine intellect, in which two spiritual beings, in which all forms first exist with more exalted essence, perfection, and beauty than in lower bodies subject to division, so the artificial forms are derived from the mind of the human maker in which they first exist with greater perfection and beauty than in the beautifully designed object. And just as when we ignore the material of an object the better to consider the beauty of its design we are left only with the Idea in the mind of the craftsman, so, subtracting matter from beautiful natural objects, only their ideal forms remain, pre-existing in the first Intellect and then imparted to the worldsoul. You will easily understand, Sophia, how much more beautiful must be the single idea of a work of art in the mind of the artist than when it is dismembered and diffused throughout the material object, because union enhances all beauty and perfection, and division detracts from it, and the elements of the beauty of the wooden statue of Venus are separated, each standing on its own merit, so that the beauty of the created statue will be less vivid and weaker than that which is in the mind of the craftsman.222 In fact, he conceives the form of his work with all its parts, the one setting off the other and increasing its beauty, and the beauty of the whole is contained in each part and that of each in the whole without discord or division. If, therefore, a man were to see the one and the other, he would know that the beauty of the design is beyond comparison with that of the thing designed as being the cause of its beauty; and in the company of corporeal substance it decreases in perfection as the substance increases. For the greater the mastery of form over the roughness and ugliness of matter, the greater the beauty of the artificial object, and the greater the opposition of matter to form, the less will be this beauty. It follows, therefore, that form is most beautiful without a body, just as a body is infinitely ugly without form. And natural things are in this the same as artificial things, because it is clear that the forms that make natural bodies beautiful exist with a far higher degree of beauty in the mind of the Creator and true architect of the world, in the divine intellect. For there they are all abstracted from matter, mutation, or alteration, and from all manner of division and multiplication; and the beauty of the whole makes each one of them beautiful, and the beauty of each is found in the whole. These forms are also all contained in the world-soul, which is its second maker, though not with that measure of beauty that is in the first creative intellect, because in the soul they do not

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exist in pure union, but with some multiplication or ordered diversity, the soul being the mean between the creator and the created. In the world-soul, however, they enjoy a far greater measure of beauty than in corporeal things, for there they exist spiritually in ordered unity, abstracted from matter, mutation, and motion. And all the souls and natural forms in the lower world emanate from the world-soul, distributed among the various bodies, and all are subject to change and motion with successive generation and corruption, save only the rational human soul, which is free from corruption, mutation, and corporeal motion, though with some intellectual motion and spiritual reception of the forms. For it is not combined with a body like the other souls and natural forms, as we said of the artificial, of which the predominant ones in their association with matter are more beautiful in themselves and make the body that they inform more beautiful, and those that are submerged in matter are less beautiful in themselves and make the body that they inform defective. And the opposite is true of natural bodies. The most beautiful is that which is elevated by its form and is the most subject to it, and the ugly is that which resists its form and draws it down to itself. You, Sophia, will be able to know through this discourse how the beauty of lower natural and artificial bodies is none other than the grace that each has from its own form, whether essential or accidental, or from its artificial form. And you will understand that the forms in themselves, of one kind or the other, are more beautiful than that which they inform, and are far more excellent in beauty in their spiritual being than in their corporeal being, even though their corporeal beauty is apprehended partly by corporeal vision and partly by corporeal hearing, unlike the spiritual, which is apprehended by the eyes of the soul or of the intellect, which are capable and worthy of such perception. SOPHIA: How are the eyes of our soul and intellect proportionate to spiritual beauty? PHILO: Because our rational soul, since it is the image of the world-soul, is in a hidden way shaped by all the forms existing in the world-soul itself, and therefore by the use of reason, by being similar, it distinguishes each one of them and loves and relishes its beauty. The pure intellect that shines forth in us is likewise the image of the pure divine intellect, and is stamped with the unity of all the Ideas. And it is this which, crowning the discourse of reason, reveals to us those ideal essences in intuitive, single, and abstract knowledge, when our well-schooled reason merits such cognition. So with the eyes of the intellect in a single intuition we can see the highest beauty of the first Intellect and of the divine Ideas. Seeing this, we enjoy and love

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the highest beauty. With the eyes of the understanding and by ordered reason we can see the beauty of the world-soul, and in it all the ordered forms, whose perception again produces pleasure and love. The two corporeal beauties, the one that is achieved by seeing and that which is achieved by hearing, are also proportionate to these two spiritual beauties of the first Intellect and the world-soul as their simulacra and images. The one apprehended by sight is the image of the intellectual beauty because it consists wholly in light and is perceived through the medium of light. And you know already that the sun with its light is the image of the first Intellect. Therefore, just as the latter illumines the eyes of our intellect with its beauty and fills them with beauty, so its image, the sun, with its light, the splendour of that intellect made into form and essence in the sun, illumines our eyes and makes them apprehend all the beautiful shining corporeal bodies. The beauty that is apprehended through hearing is the image of the beauty of the world-soul, because it consists in concord, harmony, and order, as the forms exist in the world-soul in ordered union. And just as the hierarchy of the forms that is in the world-soul beautifies our soul and is apprehended by it, so the ordering of the various parts in harmonious song, meaningful oratory, and verse is apprehended by our hearing, and through this medium delights our soul by reason of the harmonious and concordant forms impressed upon223 it by the world-soul.224 SOPHIA: I have now understood how corporeal beauties, apprehended by both vision and hearing, are the image and simulacra of the spiritual beauties of the first Intellect and of the world-soul; and that just as our eyes and ears apprehend the two species of corporeal beauty, so our rational soul and intellectual mind apprehend both kinds of spiritual beauty. One doubt still remains in me, however. I see that our soul and intellect, through the medium of the eyes and ears, know and judge corporeal beauty, and take pleasure in beauty and love it, because our eyes and ears truly seem to be merely the channel and path of corporeal beauty to our soul and intellect. I find it reasonable, therefore, that they should incline to corporeal rather than to spiritual beauty, as you have said. PHILO: No doubt it is the soul that knows, judges, and senses all forms of corporeal beauty and takes pleasure in them and loves them, and the soul is not the eyes and ears, although they are the soul’s means. In fact, if the latter were to know and love beauty, it would follow that everyone would have an equal knowledge of corporeal beauty, and love it and rejoice in it in like manner. For all have eyes and ears, yet you may see many beautiful things that are hidden from many with the keenest vision and neither afford them

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pleasure nor move them to love. And how many men of good hearing are there who have no taste for music, nor does it seem beautiful to them, nor can they love it; and to others beautiful poetry and oratory seem to be just trifles to while away the hours. Knowledge of corporeal beauty, therefore, and its power to evoke pleasure and love, would seem to depend not on the eyes and ears by which this beauty is communicated, but on the soul where they are going. SOPHIA: Because you are causing my doubt to grow, I will interrupt your answer so that you may tell me the reason why all souls do not have the same cognition and love of the Beautiful and why they do not all take the same pleasure in it, while every eye and ear is directed to the Beautiful. PHILO: You will see the answer to this question together with the solution to your doubt if you let me speak. You know that corporeal beauty is formal grace. And I have already told you that all abstract forms are spiritually contained in ordered union in the world-soul, of which our rational soul is the image, because its essence is a latent figuration of all those spiritual forms impressed upon it by the world-soul, her original and pattern. This latent figuration is what Aristotle calls potentiality and universal preparation of the potential intellect to receive and understand all forms and essences. For, if they were not all potential and latent in it, it could not receive and understand them in actuality and by pre-existence. Plato says that our speech and understanding is the reminiscence225 of things pre-existing in the soul in a state of oblivion, and this is the same as the potentiality of Aristotle, and the latency of which I have told you. You should know, therefore, that all the forms and Ideas do not spring from bodies into our soul, because to migrate from one subject to another is impossible; but their representation by the senses makes these forms and essences, which before were latent in our soul, shine forth. This enlightenment Aristotle calls the act of understanding and Plato memory,226 but their meaning is the same though expressed differently. Our soul is therefore filled with formal beauties that in truth, are its proper essence; if they are concealed within it, this latency is not on account of the intellect, which is its essence, but by reason of the connection and union the soul has with the human body and matter. In fact, although the soul is not blended with matter, the union and connection that the soul has with matter suffice to render her essence, in which the hierarchy of formal beauty is found, shadowy and obscure, so that the beauty diffused among bodies must first be imaged within the bodies in order to bring to light the latent beauty in the soul. But since this latency and darkness differs greatly in the souls of human individuals according to the diversity of

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obedience of their bodies and matter to their souls, it happens that one soul will recognize beauty easily and another with greater difficulty, and a third not at all, because of the roughness of its matter, which does not allow light to be brought to the darkness that the matter causes in the soul. Therefore, you may see one man who of himself will straightway recognize beauty, and another who will need teaching, and a third who will never be taught. Again, a soul will recognize some forms of beauty with ease, and others with difficulty, because its matter is more proportionate and similar to some bodies and beautiful things than to others. Thus, the latency and shadow of beauty in the soul is not the same everywhere, hence the soul easily recognizes a part of this beauty through the communication of the senses, and a part not. And the differences among various men in this respect are too numerous to be set forth. You could understand, therefore, that all natural beauty that our soul perceives through the medium of bodies is none other than that formal beauty which the world-soul has taken from the intellect and distributed among earthly bodies, and the true beauty from which it fashioned and informed our understanding in beauty’s own image and likeness. Therefore, we can easily pass from the cognition of corporeal beauty to cognition of the beauty of our intellect and of the world-soul, and – by means of our pure intellectual mind – of the highest beauty of the first divine intellect, as happens when, starting from the cognition of an image, we can have cognition of its original. So corporeal beauties are spiritual in our intellect, and as such they are known by it. For this reason I have told you that the eyes of our understanding and intellect know spiritual beauty, whereas rationality knows the beauty of the forms that are in the worldsoul through the discourse of reason regarding corporeal beauties, which are worldly images caused by them. Instead, the pure mind knows directly, in a simple intuition, the unique beauty of the Ideas of the first Intellect, which is final human beatitude. And you must know that those souls that have difficulty perceiving corporeal beauties – the spiritual that lies within those corporeal beauties – and can only extract them from material ugliness and corporeal deformity with difficulty, also find difficulty in knowing spiritual beauty of the soul: virtue, science, and wisdom. And although every man who has eyes sees bodily beauty, not every individual recognizes this as beautiful nor delights in this beauty, but only those who love this beauty, and they in varying measure according to the depth of their affection. In like manner, although every soul knows spiritual beauty, not all hold beauty in the same esteem, nor do they all rejoice in possession of beauty, but only those who are lovers, and these in a greater or less degree according to their natural inclination to spiritual love.

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SOPHIA: I understand how our soul spiritually knows beauties, first the corporeal and then the incorporeal. These beauties pre-exist in the first Intellect and in the world-soul with surpassing brightness and in our rational soul in darkness and latency. I also understand that just as those who know the beauties better love them, and others do not, so those who know the incorporeal ones better are their ardent lovers, and others are without this love. Furthermore, you told me that those who clearly know corporeal beauties and who apprehend them easily are those who recognize more fully and swiftly the spiritual beauty of the intellect and highest soul. I have an objection to this, however, and of no small importance. If the love of beauty is caused by perfect knowledge of that beauty, it follows that just as those who have a full knowledge of corporeal beauty are those who have a full knowledge of the spiritual, so those who love corporeal beauty intensely must be the chief lovers of incorporeal intellectual beauty such as wisdom and virtue. But the contrary is clearly the case; in fact, those who greatly love corporeal beauties are deprived of cognition and love of the beauties of the intellect and almost blinded to them. In the same way, those who have the most ardent love of intellectual beauties usually detest the corporeal, leaving and hating them, and fleeing from them. PHILO: I am happy to understand your doubt, because its solution will show you how far corporeal beauties may be known and loved and how far they must be avoided and hated, and the nature of the most perfect knowledge and love of them and of the false, sophistic, and superficial. You have heard that the soul is the mean between the intellect and the body, and I am speaking not only of the world-soul, but also of our soul, its simulacrum. Our soul, therefore, has two faces, like those I told you about: of the moon turned towards the sun and the earth respectively, the one being turned towards the intellect above it, and the other towards the body below.227 The first face looking towards the intellect is the intellectual reason with which the soul is connected to universal and spiritual cognition, extracting the forms and intellectual essences from particular and perceptible bodies, ever transforming the corporeal world into the intellectual. The second face turned towards the body is sense, which is particular cognition of corporeal things, to which is added and mixed the materiality of the corporeal things known. These two faces have contrary or opposed motions. And just as our soul with its upper face or understanding makes the corporeal incorporeal, so the second face, or perceptible cognition, approaching the objects of sense and mingling with them, draws the incorporeal to the corporeal. Corporeal beauties are recognized by our soul through these two forms of cognition

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with one or other face: perceptible and corporeal or rational and intellectual. Corporeal beauties are known by our soul through one of these two forms of cognition: with one of the two faces, one with perceptible and corporeal cognition, sensual love, and another, with rational and intellectual cognition. And according to each of these two cognitions of the corporeal beauties, the love for them is shaped in the soul: for perceptible cognition, sensual love, and for rational cognition, spiritual love. There are many who have the luminous face of the soul turned towards the body and the dark face turned towards the intellect. This is because their soul is immersed in and quite attached to the body, and the body is not obedient and hardly overcome by the soul. Almost all of their cognition is sensuous, and therefore the entire love that they bear it is purely sensual, and they neither know nor love spiritual beauty, nor do they delight in it or deem it a beauty worthy of love. These are very unhappy men, differing little from brute beasts, save that they have the additional qualities of lasciviousness, wantonness and concupiscence, greed and avarice, and the other affections and passions that make men not only base and worthless, but also untiring and insatiable, in continual strife and discord, knowing neither ease of mind nor contentment. In fact, the imperfection of such desires and pleasures takes away all satisfaction and lasting peace in accordance with the nature of restless matter, the mother of perceptible beauty. There are others, however, who can more truly be called men, for the face of their soul that is turned towards the intellect is no less luminous than that which is turned towards the body, and in some it is even more brilliant. These make rational cognition the true end of their sensible knowledge, and they only value perceptible beauty perceived by the lower face insofar as rational beauties can be extracted from them by the upper face, which is true beauty, as I have told you. And though they allow their spiritual soul to remain with the lower face towards the body, corporeal forms are immediately raised by contrary motion to the upper, rational face, which draws from them the intelligible forms and species, recognizing this to be the true beauty in them and leaving the corporeal and the perceptible as the rind of the incorporeal, or beauty in shadow and image. And just as they lead one type of cognition to another, so they do for one love to the other – from the perceptible to the intelligible; they love material beauty so much that their cognitions make them know and love the spiritual and non-material ones. They love only the latter ones as true beauties, and they receive pleasure in enjoying them. Not only do they not love and delight in the rest, which is corporeal and perceptible, but even hate it as gross matter, and flee from it as from a dangerous enemy, because association with corporeal things is a stumbling

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block to the happiness of our soul, cutting the soul off with the perceptible light of the lower face from the intellectual light of the upper, which is the soul’s true happiness. And just as gold, when alloyed and mixed with baser metals and elements, loses its beauty, perfection, and purity, because its goodness consists in being unalloyed and free from all impurity, so the soul that is obscured by the love of perceptible beauty can be neither beautiful nor pure, nor attain beatitude until it is purified and cleansed from every incitement to this beauty; and then it comes to possess its true intellectual light without any interference, and in this the soul finds happiness. You deceive yourself, therefore, Sophia, in making suppositions about who has the greatest cognition of perceptible beauties. You believe that the greatest cognition is in the one who has sensory and material knowledge of them and neglects to extract the spiritual beauty. But you are mistaken; instead, this cognition of corporeal beauty is imperfect, because he who makes the accessory to be the principal has a warped judgment, and he who prefers darkness to light does not have true vision, and he who turns his affection from the original to the simulacrum or image does himself harm. The perfect cognition of corporeal beauty is such that spiritual beauties can easily be extracted from those incorporeal beauties; and thus the lower face of our soul, turned towards the body, has light enough when it is the servant of the light of the upper and intellectual face, and is its accessory and lower and its medium, and if the upper yields to it, both the one and the other will be imperfect and the soul will lose its equilibrium and happiness. Love, therefore, for lower beauties is fitting and good only when its purpose is to extract from them the spiritual beauty that is truly lovable, and when love is mainly directed towards these spiritual beauties, and the corporeal ones only receive the second share for the sake of the spiritual. For just as glasses228 are good, beautiful, and prized in so far as their strength is proportioned to the eye and assists in the imaging of the visual forms, if they are too strong and out of focus they are not only useless, but harmful and an impediment to sight. In the same way, cognition of perceptible beauties is good and is the source of love and pleasure in so far as its end is for the cognition of intellectual beauties and induces love and enjoyment of the latter. And when this cognition is not proportioned and not directed towards that end, it is harmful and detracts from the beauty of intellectual light, which is the end of human endeavour. Be careful, therefore, Sophia, and do not get stuck in the mud of the love and pleasure of material beauty, drawing your soul from its fair intellectual beginning to immerse it into the sea of deformed body and ugly matter. Do not let happen to you what happened to the one in the fable who, seeing beautiful forms mirrored in ugly water,

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turned his back on the original, and, pursuing the shadowy images, dove in and drowned in the images of the turbid waters.229 SOPHIA: I am pleased by your teaching in this, desire to follow it, and know how much it is possible to err in the cognition and love of corporeal beauties, as well as the great risk that one has to face when one deals with them. And I clearly see that corporeal beauties, because they are beauties, are not corporeal, but are only a participation of the corporeal in the incorporeal ones; the spiritual bodies infuse the splendour into lower bodies, the beauties of which are truly only the shadow and image of intellectual and incorporeal beauties. The true good of our soul is to rise from corporeal to spiritual beauties and to know the higher intellectual beauties through the lower and perceptible beauties. Despite all of this, I still desire to know what this spiritual beauty is that makes every incorporeal thing beautiful and is also communicated to bodies, not only in large measure to those of the heavens, but also in greater or lesser degree to the lower and corruptible bodies, and above all to human beings mainly in their rational soul and intellectual mind. What is this beauty, therefore, that is spread throughout the universe and all its parts, and through which the whole and every part is made beautiful? For although you have explained to me that beauty is formal grace, the cognition of which leads to love, this is only the beauty of shaped bodies and of their forms. But I would like to know more precisely how this is the shadow and image of the incorporeal, and what manner of thing this incorporeal beauty is upon which the corporeal depends. In fact, when I know this I shall be familiar with true beauty that gives of itself to all things, and I will not need that particular cognition and definition of corporeal beauty that you have given me, because the definition of the latter is not the definition of beauty itself, but only the fact that it exists in a body. I do not know what this same beauty is beyond the bodies, and I mainly desire to know this. Please, show me this with the other things, too. PHILO: Just as in beautiful artificial things, as you have learned, beauty is nothing else than the art of the craftsman diffused throughout the made objects and throughout their parts. Therefore, true first artificial beauty is this ‘scientific’ art, which pre-exists in the mind of the craftsman, upon which the beauty of artificial objects depends, as on their original Idea communicated to them all. In the same way, the beauty of all natural bodies is nothing else than the splendour of their Ideas, and therefore they are the true beauties by which all things are made beautiful. SOPHIA: You explain this thing in a way that is just as obscure as what you set out to explain. You tell me that true beauties are Ideas; but I need to

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know what Idea is no less than beauty itself, especially since the existence of the Ideas, as you know, is far more hidden from us than the existence of beauty. You therefore want to explain the clearer part by what is most hidden. And not only is the essence of the idea more mysterious than that of beauty, but the very existence of the idea is also more ambiguous and uncertain. In fact, all concede that there is a true beauty on which all other beauty depends, whereas many of the wisest philosophers, such as Aristotle and his followers, the Peripatetics, deny the existence of the Platonic Ideas. How, therefore, will you explain to me what is sure by what is ambiguous, and what is evident by what is mysterious? PHILO: The Ideas are nothing else than the notions230 of the created universe with all its parts in the mind of the highest Craftsman and Creator of the world, the existence of which no reasonable person can deny. SOPHIA: Tell me why this cannot be denied. PHILO: Because if the world is not accidentally created, as is made evident, moreover, by the relation between the whole and its parts, it must have been produced by a mind or wise intellect, which created it in that most perfect order and proportion that you and every wise man may discover. And whoever considers this is amazed at the wondrous order, not only in the whole but in the least of its parts, in the order and relation of which one will see the highest perfection of the mind of an Artificer and His infinite wisdom in creating the world. SOPHIA: I would not deny this, nor do I think it can be denied. In fact, in myself and in each of my bodily members I see the great wisdom of the Creator of all things, which passes my comprehension and that of all wise men. PHILO: You know it well, and you would stand even more amazed when you see the anatomy of the human frame and of each of its parts, with how much cunning ingenuity and wisdom it is contrived and fashioned, for in every part the immense wisdom, providence, and care of God the creator is revealed. As Job says, ‘In my flesh I see God.’231 SOPHIA: Let us go further, to the Ideas. PHILO: If the wisdom and art of the supreme Craftsman has made the whole universe in all its parts and divisions of: parts in the highest perfection, harmony, and order, it is necessary that the notions of all these things, so wisely made, pre-exist in the same perfection in the mind of this Creator of the world, just as the design of artificial things must first be known in the

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mind of their craftsman and artificer; otherwise they would not be artificial but only accidental. These notions of the universe and of its parts in the divine intellect are what are known as the Ideas, that is, divine foreknowledge of the things in creation. Have you, therefore, now understood what the Ideas are and what their true nature is? SOPHIA: I understand clearly. But tell me, how can Aristotle and the other Peripatetics deny their existence? PHILO: It would require a long discourse to tell you how Aristotle disagrees with Plato, his master, with regard to the Ideas, and the reason for each of his arguments and those that are the most telling. I will not start speaking of this subject at the present, because such a lengthy digression is far from our purpose and would only serve to take our discussion from its main subject. I only tell you, for your satisfaction, that Aristotle neither denies nor can deny what we have said about the Ideas, although he does not call them by this name. In fact, he asserts that the Nimos232 of the universe,233 that is, the wise order of the universe, from which the perfection and plan of the world and all its parts are derived, pre-exists in the divine mind, just as a general plans how he will marshal his army, and upon this plan the organization and operations of every section of his troops depend. In effect, therefore, the Platonic Ideas in the mind of God are allowed by Aristotle, although he speaks of them under another name and with other figures of speech.234 SOPHIA: I understand this similarity; but tell me something else about the difference between Plato and Aristotle concerning the essence of these Ideas, which Aristotle and his followers sought so strongly to deny. PHILO: I will tell you in brief. You should know that Plato placed in the Ideas the essences and substances of all things, so that it is thought that everything created by them and the corporeal world is thought to be shadow of substance and essence rather than substance and essence itself. Therefore, Plato disdains corporeal beauties in themselves because, he says, being the mere shadow of Ideal beauties, they are only of value in revealing and inducing a cognition of the latter and, in themselves, are almost worthless. Aristotle wants to be more tempered in this; in fact, it seems to him that the supreme perfection of the Craftsman must produce works of art perfect in themselves, and therefore that the corporeal world contains the true essence and substance of all its parts, and that the Ideas are not the essences and substances of things, but the generative causes upon which their order depends.235 So Aristotle maintains that the first substances are

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individual and that in each of them is preserved the essence of the species. Regarding these species he does not admit that their universals are the Ideas, since these are the causes of real substances, but only intellectual concepts of our rational soul, taken from the substance and essence that is in every real and particular thing. These universal concepts he therefore names ‘secondary substances’ because they are abstracted by our intellect from first individuals. Aristotle does not intend, like Plato, for the Ideas to be first substances nor secondary, but the primary cause of all corporeal substances and of all their essences composed of matter and form. In fact, he considers that matter and body are contained in the essence and substance of corporeal things; and into the definition of every essence, genus, and differentiation a first matter or corporeality enters in, which is the common material form, such as the genus, and the specific form as the differentiation, because essence and substance are composed of both matter and form.236 According to Aristotle, in the Ideas there is neither matter nor body, so there is neither essence nor substance in them, but the Ideas are the divine origin on which all essence and substance depend, first substances being the first real and corporeal effects and secondary their spiritual images. He therefore maintains that the beauties of the corporeal world are true beauties, but caused by and dependent on the first ideal beauties of the first divine Intellect. From this difference between these two theologians derive the others connected to the Ideas, and also most of all their theological and natural disagreements. SOPHIA: I am pleased to know this difference, and I would also like to know where your view most inclines. PHILO: When you know better how to consider it, you will find even this difference consists in the application of words, rather than in their meaning, according to which they have to be used. In other words, what is the meaning of essence, substance, unity, truth, goodness, beauty, and such like, applied to objects in reality. So I follow them both in meaning because it is one and the same in both cases. In the use of words perhaps Aristotle should be followed, because the language of the more recent one is more polished and his terms more discriminating and subtle in their application. I will tell you this, too: Plato, in finding that the first Greek philosophers did not think that there were any essences, substance, or beauties other than the corporeal ones, and that nothing else existed save the body, had to cure them like a true physician with the contrary belief. Thus, he showed them that the body in itself has neither essence, nor substance, nor beauty, nor indeed anything but the shadow of the spiritual and Ideal essence and

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beauty of the mind of the Creator of the world. Aristotle at his time found that thanks to Plato’s teaching the philosophers had moved far away from the body and considered that each beauty, essence, and substance is in the Ideas and none in the corporeal world. He saw that these philosophers had become negligent of the cognition of corporeal things, their activities, motion, and natural mutations, and of the causes of their generation and corruption. This negligence would cause imperfection and deficiency in the abstract cognition of the spiritual origin of body, whereas the greater cognition of the effects ultimately induces perfect cognition of their cause. So it seemed to Aristotle that it was time to moderate this extreme, which in the process of time had perhaps come to overshoot the goal of Plato. And, as I have told you, he showed that essences and substances produced and caused by the Ideas truly exist in the corporeal world, and true beauties are also found there, though depending on the purest and most perfect Ideal beauties. Plato was then a physician who cured the sickness by excess, and Aristotle a physician who preserved the health, already procured by the work of Plato, by the practice of temperance. SOPHIA: It has given me a good deal of satisfaction to know what is meant by the Ideas and why their existence is necessary, and also that Aristotle does not absolutely deny them, and the difference between his conception and that of Plato. And I will not question you further on the matter, so as not to distract you from our subject of beauty. To go back to this theme, you told me that true beauties consist of the intellectual Ideas or notions of the pattern of the order of the universe and its parts that pre-exist in the mind of its Creator, meaning in the first divine Intellect. Though it seems possible to me to grant that their beauty is greater than and prior to any bodily beauty of which it is the cause, I cannot grant that the Ideas are the true and absolute original beauty by reason of which every other thing is made beautiful or is beauty. Yet the Ideas are numerous, as it is common to call them the exemplary concepts of the order of the universe and all its parts, which are so many as to be well nigh numberless. If each of these Ideas is beautiful or beauty itself, the first and true beauty must be something higher than the Ideas, by which every Idea is beautiful or beauty by participation in it. In fact, if true beauty were peculiar to one of the Ideas, no other could be true or primary beauty, but rather secondary through participation in the first. You must explain to me, therefore, what is the first true beauty upon which that of all the Ideas depends, since the beauty of the Ideas themselves does not satisfy the requirements of first beauty, by reason of their multiplicity.

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PHILO: I am pleased that you bring out this doubt, because its solution will put a satisfactory end to your desire to know what the first and true beauty is. First I will tell you that you are deceived in believing that there is a divided diversity and multiplicity in the Ideas, just as there is in the worldly counterparts that depend on them. In fact, the faults of effects do not occur and are not found in their perfect causes, but are peculiar to the effects, as such. And by virtue of their being as effect they are far removed from the perfection of the cause, so that defects occur in them that have no preexistence nor proceed from their cause. SOPHIA: But it seems that from good causes good effects proceed, and that the effect must so resemble its cause that the cause may be known by its effect. PHILO: Although a good effect comes from a good cause, the goodness and perfection of the effect are not therefore equated with that of the cause, and although the effect resembles its cause, it does not follow that it is equal to it in its perfective qualities. It is certainly true that perfection in the cause induces perfection in the effect, but this is in due proportion to the effect and not equal to that of the cause. In fact, the effect would be cause and not effect, and the cause the effect and not the cause. It is also true that the effect, as effect, is as good and perfect as the cause is as cause, but they are not absolutely equal in perfection; indeed, the effect is greatly lacking in the perfection of its cause, and therefore suffers defects that are not found in the latter. SOPHIA: I understand the argument, but I would like some examples. PHILO: You know that the corporeal world proceeds from the incorporeal as the true effect from its cause and creator. Nonetheless, the corporeal does not contain the perfection of the incorporeal, and you see how defective the body is compared to the intellect. And if you find many imperfections in the body, such as dimension, division, and, in certain cases, mutation and corruption, you must not therefore conclude that these defects pre-exist in the intellectual causes, but that they are in the effect only in so far as it falls short of the cause. Do not, therefore, believe that the plurality, division, and diversity in earthly things pre-exists in the Ideal concepts of them. On the contrary, that which is one and indivisible in the divine Intellect is multiplied ideally relative to the parts of the world produced by this Intellect, and in relation to these parts the Ideas are many, although one and indivisible with the divine Intellect.237

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SOPHIA: How is it possible that many concepts of many and various things are one? PHILO: Are these several things not parts of the universe? SOPHIA: They are. PHILO: And is the whole universe with all its parts not essentially one? SOPHIA: Certainly. PHILO: Therefore, the concept of the universe and the Idea of it is one in itself, and not many. SOPHIA: Yes, but just as the universe, being one, has many parts with different essences, so this concept and Idea of the universe will have many and different Ideas in itself. PHILO: Even though I concede that the Idea of the universe contains many different Ideas of the parts in it, it is undoubtedly true that just as the beauty of the universe is prior to the beauty of its parts, because the beauty of each is derived from that of the whole, so the beauty of the Idea of the whole universe is prior to the beauty of the Ideas of its parts. In fact, being the first, it is the true beauty, and by giving of itself to the other Ideas of the parts, it makes them beautiful in varying degrees. Moreover, the separate multiplication of the Ideas cannot be conceded, because although the first Idea of the universe, which is in the mind of its highest Creator, reflects the ordered multiplicity of its essential parts, this multiplicity does not therefore induce any essential or separable diversity in the Idea nor a dimensional or numerical division, as it does in the parts of the universe, but the first Idea is multifarious in such a way that it remains indivisible, pure, and absolutely simple in itself, and in perfect unity, containing the plurality of all the parts of the created universe, together with the order of all their degrees, so that where one is, they all are, and the whole does not take away from the unity of the one. Here one contrary is not separated in place from another, nor diverse and opposed in essence, but joined together; with the Idea of fire is that of water, with the Idea of the simple that of the complex, with the Idea of each part that of the whole universe, and with the Idea of the whole that of each of the parts. In this way, the multiplicity in the intellect of the first Creator is pure unity and the diversity is true identity, so that man can understand it with his spiritual intellect rather than express it in corporeal speech, for the material nature of words prevents the accurate representation of this purity, far beyond the skill of any human artist to paint.238

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SOPHIA: It seems to me that I understand this sublime abstraction: how multifarious causation is contained in unity, and how many different and separate things depend upon one most simple thing. If, however, you were to give me some concrete examples, I would be greatly pleased. PHILO: I remember having already given you a visible example, which is the sun with all the colours and light of every corporeal substance. In fact, although they all depend on the sun, and all the essences of the colours and the light of the universe in their varying gradations exist in it as in their Idea, they are not multiplied and divided in it as in the lower bodies that it illuminates, but are comprised in one essence, the light of the sun, which, in all the different shades of light and colour in the universe, its unity contains. So you will see that when the pure light of the sun falls upon the humid clouds opposite it, it forms what men call the rainbow, made up of many complex and varying colours, and thus you may only behold them all together or each separately. So too when the sun appears in our eyes it produces a multitude of different colours and lights all together in the pupil, so that we perceive the multiplicity that exists with the unity, without being able to make any separable difference between them. In this way the sun makes all things resplendent. In fact, it is impressed on air and water in a multitude of colours and lights together, without separation, since it is one and single. Thus, the perfect, single light of the sun, since it unites every grade of light and colour, is represented separately in different bodies with a myriad of colours and lights, and in our eyes and in the diaphanous, such as air and water, with all these colours and lights united together, because the diaphanous is less removed from the simplicity of this light than the opaque, and more able to receive it as a unity. In this manner the intellect of the divine Craftsman imparts its pure and supremely beautiful Idea containing every degree and essence of beauty in the bodies of the universe, with a multitude of separable and beautiful essences in a hierarchy of descending orders. In our intellect, and in that of the angels and heavenly beings, it is represented as multiform united beauty without any separation or division; the more excellent the intellect that receives it in actual being and clarity, the greater is the unity of this multiformity; and the greater the union, the greater the beauty of the intellect and the more nearly does it approach to the first and true beauty of the intellectual Idea that is in the divine mind. And, for your greater satisfaction, besides the simulacrum of the sun, I will give you yet another: that of the human intellect, which is similar in character to its pattern. You see how a simple concept is represented to our fantasia

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or preserved in our memory, not in its unique simplicity, but as a multiform and united imagination emanating from the one and simple concept, and it is represented in speech in a sequence of many words, which are numerically separated. So the representation of the concept of our intellect stays in our fantasia or memory in the same way as the sun is mirrored in diaphanous things, and divine beauty in every created intellect. And the concept is impressed on our speech as the light of the sun is represented on the opaque, and the beauty and wisdom of God in the various parts of the created world. Thus, you can know the simulacrum of the participation of the highest beauty and wisdom, not only in the visible light of the sun, but also, and its very simulacrum, in the representation of our intellectual concepts in inner sense or outward hearing. SOPHIA: You have completely satisfied me with this example of the reflection of the sun’s rays in the two types of recipients, the gross and opaque and the subtle and diaphanous, which may be compared to the representation of the divine intellectual Idea in the created universe in the two recipient natures, the corporeal and the spiritual and intellectual. The sun with its light, as you have already told me, is not only an example of the divine Idea and intellect, but a true simulacrum made by it in its own image. Therefore, just as the sun imparts its shining beauty as a whole or separately to the various gross and opaque bodies, so the divine intellect imparts its ideal beauty as a whole and separately to all the essences of the different corporeal parts of the universe. And just as the sun imparts the light of its beauty with multiform unity to subtle and diaphanous bodies, so the divine intellect imparts its ideal beauty with multiform unity to the created intellects, whether human, heavenly, or angelic. But I only desire to know one thing regarding the first beauty, which you maintain to be the pattern and exemplary form or Idea of the whole created universe, both corporeal and spiritual, the notion and order of which are pre-existent in the divine mind or Intellect in accordance with which it was produced together with all its parts. Because this Idea of the universe is the first and true beauty, as you say, it would follow that the beauty of the world in form would be above every other beauty as being the first, which seems to me utterly unreasonable. The beauty of the divine intellect or mind clearly precedes the beauty of the Idea and pattern that is laid up in it and conceived by it, just as the beauty of the cause takes precedence over that of the effect that it produces. This Idea is not, therefore, the first beauty – as you say – but that of the intellect and divine mind from which the Idea and its beauty emanate.

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PHILO: Your difficulty comes from false and insufficient cognition, brought about by the inevitable use of inappropriate terms. For because we say that the Idea of the world is in the divine mind or intellect, you think that the Idea is something other than that intellect or mind in which it exists. SOPHIA: It is necessary to say so, for what exists in something is necessarily other than that in which it exists. PHILO: Yes, if it properly existed in it, but the Idea does not truly exist in the intellect; on the contrary, the idea is the very intellect and divine mind. In fact, the idea of the world is the supreme wisdom by which the world was made, and the divine wisdom is the word and its intellect and its true mind. Because not only in it but in every active and created intellect, wisdom, intent, and intellect itself are one and the same, and only to us humans is its simplicity and pure union represented in this threefold form. The union is greatest in the highest and purest divine intellect, which in all its aspects is one and the same as ideal wisdom. Thus, the beauty of the Idea is the very same beauty of the intellect; not that beauty is in it, as a quality in a subject, but the intellect or Idea is the very first beauty by which everything is beautiful. SOPHIA: Therefore, you claim that the divine mind and intellect are the example of the universe according to which it was created. PHILO: Yes, they are. SOPHIA: The divine intellect, therefore, would only exist to give being to the world, since it is none other than the pattern from which the world was created, and could have no intrinsic worth. PHILO: This does not follow, because the divine intellect is in itself most excellent and eminent above the whole created universe. And though I have told you that is its example, I do not want to say that it was made for the universe as a model for a work of art, but rather that by reason of its supreme perfection the whole universe results and is derived from it in its likeness and image; and its excellence exceeds that of the universe as the real person is greater than his image and the light than the shadow that it casts. So that supreme beauty – which in itself is absolutely pure, simple, and perfect unity – is produced in the universe in multiform unity of the single whole, with its several parts as far removed from its original perfection, as the effect is from its more excellent cause, as I have explained to you. SOPHIA: This divine and abstract unity quiets my spirit; and I know that the highest beauty is the first wisdom that, being imparted to the whole

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universe, makes every part of it beautiful, so that there is no beauty save wisdom, either conveyable or conveyed, the one productive, the other produced, the one absolutely pure and supremely one, the other diffused, extended, separated, and multiplied, though always the image of that highest and true beauty, first wisdom. But I want only one more thing in order to quiet my mind.239 Because, as you have said, first beauty is divine wisdom and the Idea of the universe, or created intellect, or its mind, the beauty of God would seem to be prior to it, and the first true beauty, and the other that you claimed to be the first would seem instead to be the second, just as the wise man precedes wisdom and the intelligent man precedes the intellect. The first beauty, therefore, must be that of the supremely wise and intelligent one and the second that of His supreme wisdom and intellect; and the more especially since this wisdom is the Idea of the universe, the example and model of the created world, as you have said, and you must concede that it is preceded by God Himself, since the architect must precede the design and first make his model out of which he will fashion his work. And just as God precedes the Idea of the universe, so His beauty must be prior to the idea, just as the beauty of the latter is the first beauty of the created universe. The beauty of the Idea and first intellect, or of the divine mind and wisdom, is therefore second in order of beauty, and not first, which priority belongs to the supreme Maker, and not, as you would have it, to the Idea. PHILO: I am not displeased that you have raised this further doubt, because its solution will finally resolve this question and will direct you to the final end of this matter and will unify you to the knowledge of the highest and true beauty, above all others, first and most eminent. First, therefore, I will solve your doubt quite easily, showing you that the first Intellect, according to Aristotle,240 is one and the same as the supreme Godhead, and in no way different, save in the terms and philosophical method that we use in speaking of His perfectly simple unity. So Aristotle maintains that the divine essence is nothing else than supreme wisdom and intellect, which, being the most pure and simple unity, produces the single universe and all its parts in the ordered union of the whole. And in its capacity of creator it apprehends this whole with its parts and divisions of parts in one single act of cognition in knowing Himself, who is the highest wisdom, upon which everything depends, being made in its image and simulacrum. In God, therefore, the knower and knowledge, the wise and wisdom, the intelligent and intellect are the same, and the thing understood by Him. This thing, which is the most simply one, without any multiplication, is the perfect cognition of the

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whole universe and of each of its created things. This is far clearer and more exalted, perfect and accurate than the separate cognition of each part divided from its fellows. But that cognition is the first cause of all things, and of each of them, and this cognition is free from the imperfections of its effects in the cognition of those, and it can have an infinite and most perfect cognition of all the universe and each thing created in any of its parts with unity and simplicity. According to this Peripatetic theology of the divine essence, the solution to your doubt is therefore obvious. Since God is His own wisdom and the first intellect and Idea of the universe, His beauty is the same as that of His wisdom and intellect, which is the idea of all things. And, as I have told you, this is the first and true beauty, through greater or lesser participation in which every created thing is made more or less beautiful. The same universe contains all, and it is what has the greatest share of this beauty, being made in beauty’s true image; and of all its parts the intellect receives the most perfect and lifelike impression and is the most clearly impressed by its clear rays.241 SOPHIA: After this added explanation, my thirst for a new drink of this matter vanished, because your last explanation has so satisfied me that I will soon direct my intellect to digest it, instead of seeking new things. Nonetheless, since you called this first path to satisfaction the Peripatetic one, if there is any other which I should understand, please tell me, even though I may not be worthy to receive it properly. PHILO: It is good to take another path to respond to your doubt, by conceding that the wisdom and intellect of God, meaning the Idea of the universe, are in some way distinct and other than the supreme God, and it seems that Plato holds this. In fact, he maintains that the divine intellect and wisdom, which is the ideal Word,242 is not properly the most high God nor yet completely other and separate from Him, but that wisdom is something dependent on and emanating from Him, and not in reality separate and distinct, as happens for the light of the sun. His intellect, or rather true wisdom, Plato calls ‘the creator of the world,’ the Idea of the world, containing in its simplicity and unity all the essences and forms of the universe, which Plato calls Ideas. This means that the highest wisdom contains all the concepts of the universe and every part of it, and by means of these concepts all things are created and known as one. Plato says that God most high, Whom he sometimes calls the Highest Good, is above the first Intellect – the source from whom243 the first Intellect emanates. And he says that the Intellect is not being, but beyond being, for the first essence is the first being and the first Intellect is the first Idea. Plato considers this Godhead to be so hidden

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from the pure abstracted human mind that the human mind can scarcely find a name for it, and therefore the human mind more often calls the Godhead the Ipse,244 without any other properties of name, fearing that any name that the human mind could devise and the material tongue utter would not suffice to characterize the most high God. There were even some Peripatetics who wished to follow in his footsteps, although imperfectly, such as Avicenna and Al-Ghazali, and also our own rabbi Moses,245 and their followers. They say that the mover of the first heaven and body, which contains the whole universe, is not the first cause; instead, the first Intellect or Intelligence is the first and immediate cause, which is above every intellect and every mover of the heavenly bodies, according to what you learned when we talked about the universality of love. I won’t speak more about this theory, because this was a mixture of the two theological ways of Aristotle and Plato, and this was of less value, less correct, and less abstract than either of them. SOPHIA: According to this Platonic path my doubt seems justified. If the first Intellect proceeds from God, His divine beauty must be the first and true beauty, and not that of the first intellect, as you have said. PHILO: I was about to resolve this doubt. You know that the most high God is not beauty, but the first origin of His beauty, and His beauty, or the first emanation from Him, is His highest wisdom or intellect and ideal mind. Therefore, although this beauty emanates from God Himself and this beauty itself depends on Him, it is not the first beauty of God, because this God is not beauty, but He is the origin of His first and true highest beauty, which is His highest wisdom and ideal intellect. If we concede that God is wise and intelligent and comes first to His supreme wisdom and intellect, it does not follow that His beauty precedes the beauty of this supreme wisdom, and it is not right to allow that His beauty comes before the beauty of His highest wisdom, because His wisdom is wisdom’s same beauty. God comes first to His wisdom and to His beauty, which is the first and true beauty. And as the author of wisdom, He is neither beauty nor wisdom, but the fountain from which the first beauty and highest wisdom spring. The beauty that He has is His supreme wisdom and, being diffused throughout the whole universe, it brings beauty to every part of it. There are, therefore, three degrees of beauty in the world: the author of beauty, beauty itself, and his participant, which are the Beautifying Beautiful, Beauty, and the Beautified Beautiful.246 The beautiful that gives beauty, or father of Beauty, is the most High God; Beauty is the most high wisdom and first ideal intellect; and the Beautiful made beautiful, son of this Beauty, is the created universe.

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SOPHIA: The supreme abstraction of this second solution elevates my intellect so that it seems not to belong to me, but rather to be a ray of the first divine Intellect and highest wisdom. But for my satisfaction, tell me why you do not call God the highest Good, Beauty, as you do with His first intellect. And why must you assign an origin to the highest beauty, as to wisdom and the first Intellect. PHILO: Because wisdom is the reason for the true beauty, and not the wise one from which beauty emanates. The reason is that beauty is a thing of its own beauty, visible or with the corporeal eyes, or with those of the intellect; for the satisfaction, charm, love, and delight that it brings to the beholder, it is called beauty. Moreover, as I have told you, no produced intellectual sight can understand more than divine wisdom. But the principle of beauty, even though it knows that it exists because of the knowledge that it has of His wisdom, cannot discern something in Himself that can be called ‘beauty.’ Therefore, Plato attributes the origin and source of beauty to this supremely Beautiful. Then he calls the highest wisdom, which is revealed in its ordered work with its own proportionate parts, first and true beauty, because of its unity, in which all the essences and Ideas in their various degrees are contained, and it is represented as supremely beautiful in the intellects that can contemplate it. It is not possible to have a sort of knowledge of the absolutely pure and hidden origin of this beauty; for if we can give a name that properly defines this origin, how shall we attribute beauty to Him? Here again I can give you the sun as an example, the simulacrum and corporeal image of the incorporeal Godhead. The greatest beauty that the human eyes can behold in the sun is the light that surrounds it. Although the eyes can only fix their gaze in order to see it, the eyes know that this is the first and most brilliant light of the universe, upon which every other light is dependent, just as it happens for the intellectual eyes in connection to the highest wisdom as the first beauty. The eyes, however, can discern no luminosity, beauty, or other quality in the inner substance of the sun on which the surrounding orb of light depends, but they only know that there is some body or substance that emits and creates the beautiful light that is part of itself and the source of all light and beauty in the corporeal world. In the same way, the intellectual eyes can only know that there must be a supremely beautiful and wise author of supreme beauty and wisdom. And just as the first light of the sun is produced by the first Illuminator247 and itself produces all the luminous bodies that constitute the corporeal beauties of the universe, so supreme wisdom and beauty depend on the supremely Beautiful, or rather the Beautiful giving beauty,

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which makes all the corporeal and incorporeal beautiful beings of the created world through their participation in it/Him. SOPHIA: After this, I don’t have anything else left to ask you, except which of these theological ways most satisfies your mind. PHILO: Because I follow Moses on theological wisdom, I feel closer to this second theory, for it is truly Mosaic theology. Plato, because he had greater notions of this ancient wisdom than Aristotle, followed it. Aristotle, who penetrated less deeply into abstract things, and unlike Plato did not have the testimony of our ancient theologians, denied that hidden territory, which he could not see. He joined supreme wisdom, which satisfied Aristotle’s intellect, with first beauty, and, without seeing beyond this, he affirmed that wisdom-beauty was the first incorporeal origin of all things. Plato, instead, because he learned from the ancients in Egypt, could sense further, even if he was not able to see the hidden principle of supreme wisdom or first beauty, and made the latter into the second principle of the universe, dependent on the Most High God, the first principle and cause of all things. And though Plato was for so many years Aristotle’s teacher, he learned from better teachers than Aristotle, who learned from Plato, because Plato studied with our ancient fathers. In fact, the disciple of the disciple cannot go as far as the disciple of the master. In addition, although Aristotle had extremely subtle powers of reasoning, I think that his intellectual power248 could not rise as high as that of Plato; unlike other thinkers, he did not wish to believe the master in the things that he was unable to prove by the powers of his own genius. SOPHIA: I will follow your doctrine and that of Plato. I will understand what I can understand, and I will believe you in what I cannot, because you see beyond things better than I. But I would like you to show me where Moses and the other holy prophets signified this platonic truth. PHILO: The first words – which Moses wrote – were: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ And where we say in the beginning the ancient Chaldean interpretation said ‘with wisdom God created the heaven and the earth,’249 because ‘wisdom’ in Hebrew is called ‘the beginning,’ as Solomon says, ‘the beginning is wisdom,’ and for the word ‘in’ we can say ‘with.’ See how the very first words show the world to have been created by wisdom, and that wisdom was the first creative force, although it was the most high God, the Creator, Who through His supreme wisdom first created beauty and made the whole created universe beautiful. In this way the first words of the wise Moses denoted the three degrees of the Beautiful:

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God, Wisdom, and World. And the most wise King Solomon, as the follower and disciple of the divine Moses, declares in the first of his Proverbs: ‘The Lord by wisdom founded the earth; with His highest science He established the heavens. By His knowledge the depths were broken up, and the heavens drop down the dew.’250 And therefore he instructs, saying: ‘My son, let not them depart from your eyes: see and observe the highest contemplations, which will be the life of your soul,’251 etc. This could not be written more clearly.252 SOPHIA: Like Plato, Aristotle also allows that God has made all things by wisdom, but the difference is that he makes wisdom one and the same as God, and Plato declares that it depends upon Him. You say that the Platonic is the Mosaic. I would like you to show me this difference clearly in the ancient authorities. PHILO: Our first teachers speak with great precision on such matters, and do not say that ‘God, being wise, created’ or ‘wisely created,’ but ‘God with wisdom,’ to show that God is the highest creator and wisdom is the means and instrument through which the creation happened. This is clearly exemplified in the saying of the devout king David: ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath [spirit] of his mouth.’253 The Word is wisdom and is like the breath that goes out from the mouth, so wisdom proceeds from the first wise Being; and wisdom and the wise are not one and the same, as Aristotle maintains. For further evidence, see how clearly King Solomon delineates this in the Proverbs, in the passage that begins by saying: ‘I am Wisdom,’ and that wisdom contains every virtue and beauty of the universe, science, prudence, arts and the temperate virtues. And at the end he says: ‘I have counsel, and reason, I am intellect, I have strength. By me, kings reign, and the great ones know the truth. I love those who love me; and those that seek me easily find me. I have with me all decisions, fair and right, and my friends will participate greatly and I will fill their treasuries.’254 After this Solomon, as you see, told how from divine wisdom comes all knowledge, virtue, and beauty in the universe, which wisdom imparts in great measure to him who loves and seeks her. Thus, he continues: ‘The Lord produced me in the beginning of his way, before all his works. I was set up from everlasting, from eternity, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth; while as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the beginning of the dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there: when He set a compass upon the face

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of the depth: when He gave the sea His decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: when He appointed the foundations of the earth: then I was by Him, as a master workman: and I was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him; rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. So, my children, listen to me and obey my commands,’255 etc. Observe, Sophia, how clearly this king in his wisdom showed that the highest beauty proceeds from and is generated by the most high God, and that they are not one and the same, as Aristotle maintains. In fact, he calls wisdom ‘the beginning of His way’; and the way of God is the creation of the world, and the highest wisdom is the beginning of the creation, and through this beginning the world was created, interpreting as wisdom the saying of Moses, ‘in the beginning God created’256 etc. And he declares that highest wisdom is the first product of the Godhead, prior to the creation of the universe, because through it the world, and every part of it, was created. Like Plato, he calls wisdom a master workman because wisdom is the art or design by which the whole universe was fashioned by God, that is, its pattern and model. And wisdom is said by Him to signify that the effect is not essentially divided from its cause, but joined to it. Every pleasure and good comes from it, whether it is in the heavenly or terrestrial world, and the beauty of the earth is only a little thing compared with that imparted to the sons of men. In fact, as I have told you, just as the beauty of the light of the sun is received more perfectly in the rare and diaphanous than in the opaque, so the first Beauty or highest Wisdom is impressed more truly and perfectly on the created angelic and human intellects than on all other bodies that Wisdom informs in the universe. And Solomon in his wisdom not only declared this emanation and Idea to be the beginning of the creation under the form and name of highest wisdom, but also in his Song of Songs under the form and name of beauty. And when speaking of Wisdom he says: ‘You are all beautiful my love; there is no spot in you.’257 See how clearly he signifies the supreme ideal beauty of the divine wisdom, placing beauty in every part of her,258 free from all defects. The same cannot be said of anything that is beautiful by participation, for, insofar as it is the recipient, the participant is never beautiful, but defective, and that which partakes of beauty is never wholly beautiful. Again, Solomon calls [beauty/Wisdom] ‘companion’ because Wisdom was with God at the creation of the world, as art dwells with the craftsman. And in another place he testifies to Wisdom’s singleness and purity, saying ‘Seventy are the queens,’ etc., and ‘but my dove, my undefiled is but one.’ And he calls for Wisdom: ‘O my dove, who are in the covert of the steep place, let me see your countenance, let me hear your voice; for sweet is your

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voice, and your countenance is comely.’259 He declared that the simple unity of highest beauty is hidden because of Wisdom’s260 elevated station above all created beings. Again, he invokes beauty so that she may impart herself to the bodies of the universe, not only by her visible presence, but by ‘her voice and speech’ because of the wise way of the created intellects. Solomon, in his love of the highest beauty, relates many other things pertaining to beauty in his Song of Songs that I must omit if our discussion is to have an end. I will just tell you this: just as he signified as ideal wisdom the highest beauty, so he called God, from Whom beauty emanates, the supremely Beautiful, saying ‘You are beautiful, my beloved, and also pleasant: also our bed is green,’261 which means that He is not beautiful by participation, like His creatures, but the first [of all being and the] creator of beauty. And he denotes the bond and union of the highest beauty with the supremely ‘beautiful,’ from which Wisdom emanates, saying their bed is green, which means that God, in conjunction with the highest beauty, makes the whole universe beautiful, bringing forth fruits and flowers. Again, in Ecclesiastes, he declares beauty to be imparted to the universe in the words ‘He had made everything beautiful in its time,’262 a saying taken from Moses: ‘and God saw everything that He had made was very good.’263 And God is said to have seen that every part of the universe was good, and that the whole was very good, because good means beautiful; and therefore it is associated with vision, because goodness that is seen is always beauty. And He who sees it to be good is God, because it was the vision and supreme wisdom of God that made beautiful or imparted beauty to every part of the world and made the whole very beautiful and good through the combined impression of all divine wisdom and beauty. SOPHIA: I thank you for the solution to my doubts, and even more for the clear and abstruse notions you have given me of the sacred and ancient teaching of the theology of Moses. And I am myself satisfied in the cognition of true beauty, which I truly know to be the highest divine wisdom, which shines forth in the whole universe, making the whole and every part beautiful. But one thing I would hear from you: why King Solomon in his Song of Songs makes love exist between the supremely Beautiful and supreme Beauty? In fact, since the former is the lover he would be lower than beauty, his beloved, according to what you demonstrated, and yet you maintain Him to be the original producer of that beauty. This would seem inconsistent. PHILO: I will tell you this, too, in order to give you satisfaction. You know that Solomon and other theologians who follow Moses maintain that the

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world was produced as the son of the supremely Beautiful, the father, and of the highest Wisdom or true Beauty, the mother. And they say that the highest Wisdom, being in love with the supremely Beautiful, as a female for a very perfect male, and the supremely Beautiful returning this love, she becomes pregnant by the highest authority of the supremely Beautiful and gives birth to the beautiful universe, their son, with all its parts. And this is the meaning of the love that Solomon in his Song of Songs places between the beautiful mate and most Beautiful beloved. And because the latter has more reason to be beloved by her than she by him, in that he is the author and creator of her being and she is the created and lower than him, she always calls him ‘my beloved,’ as the lower the higher. And he never calls her ‘beloved,’ but ‘my consort,’ ‘my dove,’ ‘my undefiled one,’ ‘my sister,’ as the higher to the lower. And she becomes perfect in her love for him, and she is no longer barren, but conceives and brings forth the perfection of the universe; whereas his love for her is not so that he may acquire perfection, since none can be added unto him, but that he may impart her to the universe, the child that beauty bears him. Even though he also gains from her a relative perfection, because the perfect son makes perfect the father, this perfection is not essential and real, as it occurs in beauty. As an image of this, from the perfect male and the imperfect female the man is born, who is a microcosm,264 or world in miniature. In the heavens this happens with the sun and moon, which, like human lovers, generate all things in the lower world, as I have described to you. SOPHIA: The marriage in love of man and woman is therefore the simulacrum of the sacred and divine marriage of the supremely Beautiful with the highest Beauty, from which the whole universe takes its origin. The difference is that supreme Beauty is not only the consort of the supremely Beautiful, but also the first daughter produced by him.265 PHILO: In this too you will see the simulacrum:266 in the first human marriage, Eve was first taken from Adam as her father, and she was his daughter, and she afterwards became his wife in marriage. From this whole discourse I think that you should sufficiently be aware of how love of the universe was born from the first Beauty as father, and the cognition that he had of its mother, the first created Intelligence and mover of the highest sphere that contains the whole corporeal universe, which, having the cognition of this supreme beauty, desired the latter insofar as she was wanting in herself. In the same way, each individual love is engendered by participation in that supreme Beauty, and in cognition of it in him who lacks it

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and desires union with it. And the love is greater inasmuch as the participation in the highest beauty, or cognition of it in him who lacks it, is more abundant. And the lover is more excellent insofar as is greater the beauty that he loves. For exceedingly beautiful things bestow beauty in like proportion upon their lovers. So it is right, Sophia, that we should set aside trivial beauties mingled with deformity and ugliness, such as that of matter and of the body, and only love them in so far as they lead to a cognition and love of perfect incorporeal beauties, and hate them and flee from them in so far as they prevent the enjoyment of pure spiritual beauties. And we principally love the great forms of beauty separated from formless matter and gross corporeality, such as the virtues and sciences, which are ever beautiful and devoid of all ugliness and defect. And here again we may ascend through a hierarchy of beauties, from the lesser to the greater and from the pure to the purest, leading to the cognition and love, not only of the most beautiful intelligences, souls, and movers of the heavenly bodies, but also of the highest beauty and of the supremely beautiful, the giver of all beauty, life, intelligence, and being. We may climb this ladder only when we put away the corporeal clothes and material affections, not only despising their petty beauties in comparison with the highest, upon which they and others more exalted depend, but also hating them and fleeing from them, since they prevent us from attaining true beauty, in which our good consists. In order to behold this beauty we must put on the spiritual clothes of inviolacy and purity, like the high priest who, on the Holy Day of Atonement, when he enters into the Holy of Holies,267 puts off his vestments of gold, studded with precious gems, and, clothed in white raiment and spotless apparel, implores divine mercy and pardon. For when we have attained cognition of the highest Beauty and of the supremely Beautiful, our love of him will be of such strength that we shall forsake all else for the love of these two, with all the powers of our intellectual soul united in His pure mind. Thus, we shall become exceedingly beautiful, as lovers of the supremely Beautiful and participants in its Beauty, and we shall enjoy sweet union with the ultimate happiness and desired beatitude of the enlightened souls and pure intellects. In fact, because the supremely Beautiful is our father, first Beauty our mother, and the highest Wisdom our native land from which we came, our good and our happiness consist in returning there and in being gathered to our parents, rejoicing in sweet sight of and delightful union with them.268 SOPHIA: God grant that we not fall by the way and not be cut off from such divine joy, but that we may be among those who are chosen to attain ultimate

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happiness and final beatitude. You have no less contented me with your answer to my fourth question concerning the parents of love than with your solution of the other three, that is, if, when, and where love was born. Now only my fifth question remains: why love was born in the universe, and to what end it was produced. PHILO: According to what you have already learned from the answers to your four previous questions concerning the birth of love, it is not necessary to give a lengthy reply to this last one. We can easily understand the end for which love was born in the universe if we consider the purpose269 of individual love between human beings and others. You see that the end of every love is the pleasure of the lover in the beloved, just as the end of hatred is to avoid the pain that the hated object would produce. In fact, the end that is obtained by love is contrary to that avoided by hate, and so the means to attain these ends are contrary. And the means of love are hope and pursuit of pleasure, and those of hate fear and escape from pain. Therefore, if the end of hate is to separate oneself from grief, as bad and ugly, the end of love is approach to pleasure, as good and beautiful. SOPHIA: Then Philo, you would maintain that the end of any love whatsoever is pleasure? PHILO: I certainly do. SOPHIA: Therefore, not every love is a desire of the beautiful as you have defined it. PHILO: How does that follow? SOPHIA: There are many pleasures in which beauty has no part. Those which give the most pleasure are of this kind: things sweet to the taste, or fragrant smells, and of touch, not only the tempering of one extreme with another, in the agreeable moderation of heat by cold or cold by heat, dryness by moisture or the reverse, etc., but above all in the extremely strong sexual enjoyment that surpasses every other bodily pleasure. Beauty is found in none of these things, nor can they be called beautiful or ugly. Yet you make them to be the end of love; in fact, all are acquired by means of love and desire. The desire of the beautiful is not, therefore, the true definition of love, as you have said, but the desire of pleasure, whether it is beautiful or not. PHILO: Again, as I have already told you, love, desire, appetite, will, and other similar words are often used broadly with the same meaning; nonetheless,

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when accurate terminology is employed, some distinction must be made between them. And while some will differ in meaning, others will be more or less the same. It is certainly true that every love is desire, but not all desire can accurately be called true love as I have defined it to you; because every pleasure is accompanied by desire and all desire is directed to pleasure, but not every pleasure is accompanied by love, although pleasure accompanies love as its proper aim. Certain forms of pleasure are therefore the aim of each love, and all pleasures are the aim of desire, and desire is the common genus of both love and non-love. SOPHIA: Is love then a species of desire? PHILO: Yes, truly. SOPHIA: And what do you call the other species that is not love? PHILO: I would call it appetite or carnal desire. SOPHIA: What difference do you draw between love and appetite? Is not the purpose of both the same, the enjoyment? How, therefore, can you make such distinction between them? PHILO: It is true that the end of each of them is pleasure, but beautiful pleasure is the end of love, and unbeautiful pleasure the end of appetite. SOPHIA: If the end of appetite were unbeautiful pleasure it would be ugly; and not only is it strange that the ugly should give pleasure, because nature abhors it as its opposite and follows the beautiful as its beloved, but it is also impossible, for every ugly thing is bad, just as every beautiful thing is good, and desire is never for a bad thing. In fact, Aristotle says that the good is what everybody desires and has appetite for. PHILO: I remember having corrected this error in you once before,270 when you thought that everything that is not beautiful is ugly. This is not so, for there are many things that are neither beautiful nor ugly because the two contrary, beauty and ugliness, are not found in their nature, and yet they are pleasures, such as all those you named. SOPHIA: You will surely not deny that everything beautiful is good? PHILO: No. SOPHIA: Hence, the unbeautiful is not good, and everything that is not good is bad. In fact, as you have told me, there is no mean between them. Therefore, everything that is not beautiful is bad, and those pleasures that are not

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beautiful will be bad. And this is false, because unbeautiful pleasures are desired, and everything that is desired is good. PHILO: In this you are again mistaken. Although every beautiful thing is good, not every good thing is beautiful; and although everything that is not good is bad and not beautiful, not everything that is not beautiful is bad and not good. On the contrary, the good is more common than the beautiful, and therefore some goods are beautiful and some not beautiful. Every pleasure is good in that it gives pleasure, and therefore it is desired; but not every pleasure is beautiful. Thus, there are good and beautiful pleasures, and these are the end of the desire that is love. And there are other good and unbeautiful pleasures, like those you have named, that are the end of desire which is not love, but more properly appetite, corporeal desire. SOPHIA: I understand well the difference you establish between loving desire and appetitive desire: love’s end is good and beautiful enjoyment, while for appetite it is good and not beautiful enjoyment. I am astonished that you agreed with me in making every pleasure to be good because it is desired, and everything that is desired to be good. But, although this is taken from Aristotle271 – who defined the good as that which is desired – and because we convert the definition with what is defined, it is necessary that everything desired be good, and that each good be desired. We therefore observe the contrary: that many pleasures are not good, but are bad and harmful and ruinous, not only to the health and life of the human body, but also to the welfare and life of the soul. And despite this, they are desired by many people, otherwise they would not be pursued. Not every desire, therefore, is directed to a good thing, nor is each desire good, nor is each enjoyment good, but many of those desires and pleasures are contrary to and destructive of human well-being. PHILO: It cannot be assumed from Aristotle’s statement that everything that is desired is good, because he does not say that the good is that which is desired, but that it is that which everybody desires. And this definition functions well with the definition of good; in fact, that which all men desire is truly good. SOPHIA: And what is this good that is the object of human desire? PHILO: Aristotle himself explains, and he says that it is knowledge, and he begins his Metaphysics272 with the words ‘All men by nature desire to know’; and this is not only good but true and always beautiful. Aristotle, therefore, in no way obliges us to say that everything that is desired is good.

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SOPHIA: Why then did you allow me to assert, and even confirm it? PHILO: Because in effect it is so, and the end of will and desire is the good, and everything that is desired is considered good and pleasurable, and thus everything that is pleasurable, insofar as it is pleasurable, must be good and desired. But desires and pleasures that are desired are like those who desire them, sometimes temperate by nature when their desire is for temperate pleasures, and sometimes unrestrained, when their desire is for unrestrained pleasures.273 SOPHIA: Therefore these pleasures would not be good. PHILO: They are not truly good in themselves, but are good to the desirer, because they seem good to him and he desires them as good. He desires them because they acquire the semblance of being good, and this happens because his complexion is not temperate and this makes him mistake, first in his judgment, and then in the enjoyment that he desires, the enjoyment that, though bad, he esteems as good. SOPHIA: There are, therefore, pleasures that are not good, although they appear so, and desires for things that are not good, which is contrary to what you have previously asserted and confirmed to me. PHILO: Because every pleasant thing seems good, it partakes of some good that gives it the appearance of good and inspires desire for the good that is in it. You see that enjoyment, because it is pleasure, is a good thing, just as grief, its opposite, is a bad thing because it is pain. So it is plausible to affirm that, as all pain is hated, feared, and shunned, in the same way, all pleasure is desired, hoped for, and pursued. SOPHIA: Why, therefore, do you hold that many pleasures are bad and unrestrained, and so too the desires and the desirers of them? PHILO: Good and evil can be in a subject, not in the same part, but in different parts, because a thing may appear good in a small way, but intrinsically and essentially evil in the greater way; such are evil and uncontrolled pleasures, which, in that they give pleasure, seem good, but in themselves are bad. In fact, the good that they have from their form is united with the iniquity274 of matter and hidden in it. So they are intrinsically bad and have some apparent goodness that gives pleasure. Moreover, this good is not absolute, nor is it apparent or pleasurable to everybody, but only to those with intemperate desire, who are attracted by the smallest good, without consideration of the greater evil within those things. This small and superficial

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good, however, does not deceive temperate men, because they recognize the greater evil with which those things are mixed, and therefore do not consider them to be pleasant or desirable, but as fundamentally painful and to be abhorred, feared, and shunned. These pleasures are for the most part associated with the carnal appetite, for most pleasures of the palate and of amorous sensations and other forms of indulgence are evil and pernicious. SOPHIA: Are any of these corporeal pleasures, nevertheless, truly good? PHILO: Yes, those that are temperate and necessary to human existence and to reproduction, which, although carnal, are called virtuous because they are restrained and tempered by the intellect, and they are called honest. And the desire for these pleasures and those who desire them are truly virtuous and honest. SOPHIA: Is there, perhaps, this same distinction between good and evil among the beautiful pleasures, as well as among those that are not beautiful? PHILO: Indeed there is, because there are many things that are loved as beautiful in which, although there is some formal and apparent beauty that makes them beloved, it is so overwhelmed by the deformity and ugliness of their matter that, in reality, they are ugly and to be hated and shunned rather than loved. The beauty of gold, ornaments, jewels, and other material luxuries that are not necessary to life belong to this kind, and the love of these things is properly called cupidity and avarice. In the same way, reasoned speeches and verses well turned and full of wit appear beautiful, and yet contain dishonest and ugly phrases; so too vain fancies and conceits that appear beautiful are judged to be ugly by the light of reason. The same are unmerited glory and honour and unjust dominion and power, which are desired as appearing beautiful, whereas in themselves they are ugly and dishonourable. The love of these things is called ambition, and the desire of all the things that are good and beautiful in appearance but not in reality is commonly called lust. SOPHIA: There are, therefore, according to this reasoning, four kinds of pleasure: two good and beautiful and two good and not beautiful. Of the good and beautiful one is real and the other apparent, and similarly of the good and not beautiful one is in a real, and the other in an apparent, good. Do these same differences exist in the various desires and in the desirers? PHILO: In the desires, yes. In fact, there are all four distinctions just as among the pleasures desired; but we need only postulate two kinds of desirer, the temperate and the intemperate, or rather the virtuous and the

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vicious. Those who are temperate desire good things, which are beautiful or not beautiful, and are such in reality and not merely in appearance; but those who are immoderate in their desires seek pleasures that are beautiful or good in appearance but not in reality. And this difference is caused by the goodness and beauty that is in the souls of the desirers. In fact, one who is good and beautiful loves truly beautiful pleasures and desires those that are essentially good, and one who has no real, but only apparent, goodness and beauty loves those pleasures that are not truly but only apparently beautiful. There are, however, means between these two; in fact, some people are temperate and virtuous in certain pleasures and incontinent in others, and some are temperate for the most part and incontinent in a few things, and others the reverse, yet they are regarded as honest or dishonest according to their strongest natural inclination. SOPHIA: I understand how every pleasure is either apparently or truly good and is therefore the object of desire; and those that, besides being good, are seemingly or truly beautiful are not only desired but also loved. And therefore you said that the end of love is the enjoyment of the lover in the beloved; and so the end of desire must be the enjoyment of the desirer in the object of his desire. In fact, there is no difference between them, save that one who desires without love desires as good something in which beauty does not exist or is not apparent to him, and that one who desires and loves, loves as good something that is either truly beautiful or appears so to him. But I would like you to tell me, Philo, how this end of love can be reconciled with that which you gave me in its first definition, which is the desire of union, because union seems to be something other than enjoyment. PHILO: On the contrary, it is the very same thing. In fact, enjoyment is nothing else than union with the enjoyable. And the enjoyment, as I have told you, is the only good, which is beautiful, or at least it appears so to the desirer. Therefore, to say that the end of love is the enjoyment of the lover in the beloved is equivalent to saying that it is the union of the lover with the beloved. SOPHIA: I understand also this, but I still have a doubt about the fact that you make enjoyment the end of each love. In this way each love would be love of the enjoyment.275 And you, following the opinion of Aristotle, told me that there are three kinds of love, the pleasurable, the useful, and the honest. How, then, can you leave out the two main ones, and make it wholly pleasurable, assuming that the end of love is pleasure?

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PHILO: Although Aristotle divides love into three categories, as you have said, and he names only one of them pleasurable, you must know that the end of all three is pleasure. In fact, just as one who loves corporeal pleasures tries to enjoy union with those things, and one who loves useful things desires to possess them because of the pleasure he achieves in their acquisition and possession, you will find many who delight far more in riches than good food and drinking or amorous pleasure, and they will often leave these things behind in order to gain what is useful, so for the honest one his goal is extremely pleasurable, and he as lover desires to enjoy the pleasure of honest acquisition. Thus, the end of each of the three kinds of love is ultimately the fact that the lover enjoys union with the beloved, whether it is pleasurable, useful, or honest. SOPHIA: Why, therefore, does Aristotle call only one kind of love pleasurable and the others by a different name? PHILO: Because carnal delights are commonly called and held to be true enjoyment, not because they truly are so in reality; in fact, inferior enjoyment is found in them, because they are base, material, and most of them without beauty. And they are more truly the object of desire than of love, as you have heard, and if they have any beauty, it is obscured by the iniquity of their matter and submerged in its deformity, and any goodness in them is lost in their evil. Therefore, they have only apparent and not real goodness and beauty. Aristotle, however, following the common opinion, called this form of desire ‘the pleasurable.’ The useful, since in most cases it does not give pleasure, is called by a different name to distinguish it from the first kind of love, and because it partakes more of the useful than of the pleasurable, and principally because it delights the mind rather than bodily sense like carnal pleasure. The third kind of love, although it is far greater and more truly pleasurable than the other two, is called honest, both on account of its virtuous nature, which is the essence of its species, and also because it delights the spiritual mind and not, like carnal pleasure, the bodily senses. As I have told you, although carnal pleasure is the most manifest to the masses and also animals, it really has little or no goodness or beauty.276 SOPHIA: How can this be? Do you not see that there are many pleasures of the body that are essential to the life of the individual and to the preservation of the species? And this is because of nature, or rather because of the mind of the supreme Creator who, with wondrous art and most subtle wisdom, ordered and dedicated all the organs that are proper to the goal of

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reproduction. How, then, can these pleasures, though carnal, not be good in reality but only in appearance, as you say? This does not seem correct. PHILO: I never said that these kinds of pleasure were bad and only good in appearance; rather, I can assure you that they are truly good. SOPHIA: But they are carnal pleasures, and the love of them is love of enjoyment. PHILO: They are certainly carnal pleasures, but they cannot be included in the pleasurable species. On the contrary, they truly belong to the honest when, as I told you, they are temperate and are directed to procuring the nourishment of the body and the preservation of the species. When abused, they become wanton and dishonest and belong purely to the pleasurable, devoid of all honesty, and their goodness and beauty is only apparent and not real. SOPHIA: How so? Do you exclude those that are carnal pleasures from the species of the pleasurable because they are temperate and honest? It does not seem correct to me that you can exclude them from their own pleasurable species, as you are doing. PHILO: I do not separate them wholly from their species, but I maintain that they are not merely pleasurable, which would imply an absence of virtue, because they are honest pleasures. SOPHIA: Therefore, one and the same pleasure is the object of two kinds of love, the pleasurable and the honest? PHILO: They are truly included in both these species, but in different perspectives. In fact, those pleasures are necessary to the body and, even though they have a material part in the pleasurable, they have their formal part in the honest, which is their moderation, in accordance with the necessary and excellent purpose to which they are directed, and that purpose is the sustenance of the individual and the preservation of the species. The same thing happens for the love of the useful. This love is directed to the sake of gain, without righteousness, and this means that this love is not temperate and not proportional to life and virtuous actions, but is only good and beautiful in appearance, and in reality is evil and pernicious. Such are cupidity and avarice. But when this love is tempered and proportioned to its corporeal and spiritual ends it is truly good and beautiful and partakes of both the useful and the honest love, for its matter belongs to the useful and its form or moderation belongs to the honest.277

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SOPHIA: Therefore, sometimes love of the honest is materially love of the pleasurable and sometimes love of the useful. Might there be any love that is virtuous both materially and formally, without partaking in any degree of the other two kinds? PHILO: Honest love is love of moral and intellectual virtues. And because morals concern the activities of man, their matter must be in conformity with the nature of these activities in which virtue exists. Therefore, the virtue of continence or moderation in carnal pleasures has corporeal pleasure as matter, and continence and moderation in that pleasure as form; the latter affords the lover greater and worthier pleasure than its corporeal and material part, for the spirit is greater than the body. In the same way, the virtue of liberality and the observance of a just means in the acquisition of wealth has the useful for matter, and contentment in the possession of riches tempered and restrained by generosity in their administration, for form, whereby the virtuous lover takes pleasure in the possession of useful things. Similarly, in all other moral virtues that concern human activities, such as fortitude, justice, prudence, and others, matter consists in the nature of the activity and the form in the virtuous practice of moderation in that activity. The intellectual virtues, on the contrary, are wholly so, and matter has no part in them. Indeed, they are not directed towards corporeal activities or pleasures that would involve association with matter, but towards intelligences and things eternal, separated from the body. Therefore, they are all intellectual forms devoid of matter; and they are purely and truly virtuous in themselves, and not by participation like the moral virtues, wherefore Plato calls the love of them divine. SOPHIA: And what does Plato call the other species of love? PHILO: Like Aristotle, he divides love into three kinds, but according to a different classification, namely, animal, human, and divine. Plato calls ‘animal love’ the excessive love of corporeal things not tempered by virtue nor measured by right reason, and this includes both wanton carnal pleasures and cupidity, avarice, and other vain ambitions. In fact, since all these desires lack the moderation and restraining influence of the human intellect, they are purely bestial, like those of the animals, who know not the use of the intellect. He calls ‘human love’ that one which is directed to the moral virtues, which is able to temper the activities of sense and imagination and moderate their enjoyment. Because this love has a material corporality and an intellectual and honest form, Plato calls it ‘human love’; in fact, human beings are composed of body and mind. And he calls ‘divine love’ that love of wisdom

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and the cognition of eternal things. Because this love is wholly intellectual, virtuous, and formal and free from any association with corporeal matter, it is called ‘divine.’ And only in this love do human beings participate in the divine beauty. And when human love becomes greater than animal love, the pleasure of the lover in the beloved, which is its end, is greater and more excellent than corporeal and unregulated animal pleasures, which commonly are considered the main components of pleasure; in effect, in human love they are low and not so strong. You will therefore understand that when divine love is more sublime than human love, the pleasures that this love brings are so much greater, more delightful, more lasting, and more intensely desired by the one who knows it than the pleasures afforded by other moral virtues and human loves. So if we classify love according to the Peripatetics or the Stoics, you won’t find any definition that sets the end of love in the pleasure of the lover in the beloved, as I have told you.278 SOPHIA: I see that in effect it is so: the end of each particular love is the pleasure of the lover in union with the beloved. So now you can go on answering my question and tell me what is the universal end for which love was born in the universe. In fact it seems to me that in this case it is easy to set pleasure as its end, as it is of the particular loves of men and animals. PHILO: It is a good time to tell you. You know that once the world was created by the supreme Creator through the medium of love, He, as supremely good, in seeing His immense beauty and loving her, and she likewise Him as the supremely Beautiful, created or rather generated in likeness of his beauty the beautiful universe. For the end of love, as Plato says, is birth in the beautiful. When the universe had been produced by its supreme Creator in the likeness or image of His immense wisdom, the Creator’s love towards this universe was born, not as of the imperfect for the perfect, but as the love of the supremely perfect for the inferior and less perfect and as of the father for the son and the cause for its single effect. So the end of this love is not that the lover may acquire the beauty that he lacks, nor in the enjoyment of the union of that beloved, but it is that the beloved acquire a greater perfection, which the beloved will not have without the love of the lover. The divine lover enjoys the greater beauty that the universe attains through his divine love, as happens in each love of superior for inferior, of causes for effects, fathers for sons, of teachers for students, and of all benefactors for their beneficiaries, because their love is the desire that their inferior may reach a higher degree of perfection and beauty, in the union of which this lover enjoys the beloved. The goal of the lover’s love is his enjoyment of perfection and beauty that the beloved attains.

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SOPHIA: Regarding this topic I remember you told me of this distinction – the one between the love of the superior for the inferior and the inferior for the superior – and your account was almost identical in matter, if not in form. And I am aware that although the end of each of these loves is the pleasure of the lover in the acquired beauty of the beloved, the love of inferior for superior is for the sake of the beauty of the superior and beloved that he lacks, and the end of this love is the pleasure of the lover in union with the beauty of the superior and beloved that is lacking in him. But the love of the superior for the inferior is for the sake of the beauty which is lacking in the inferior and beloved, and the lover rejoices in the acquisition of this beauty by the beloved as in the end of his love, just as the beloved rejoices in his possession of that beauty and union with her, which was lacking in him before and therefore was the object of his love and desire. And I am aware that the love of the highest Creator for the created universe is of this kind, and this condition belongs more essentially to His love than to that of any superior for an inferior, although it is similar to them all. And it is even evident for the divine love, as you say, in connection to the universe, which through this love acquires the highest degree of beauty possible to it, as one can see for the love of the teacher for the disciple regarding its intellectual perfection and beauty. And this is exactly the case of the love of superior for inferior. So divine love not only does not signify a lack in the superior lover, but rather the highest perfection imparted in the fullest measure possible to the created universe, unless, indeed, we were to imagine some relative lack, the shadow of the effect in the cause, as you have previously told me. Do you think, Philo, that I have understood your subtle definition of the love of the superior for the inferior with the mutual pleasure of the one in the other? PHILO: It seems that yes, you have indeed given a good account of it. But what then? SOPHIA: I want to observe that as a reply to my question this does not satisfy me; because I am not asking you the reason why divine love was born, which took place at the creation of the world, but why love of the created universe was born and what its end is. PHILO: I will satisfy you when you decide to learn the remainder, even though this is only the necessary prologue. The first divine love – the love of the most high God for His own supreme beauty and wisdom – was the cause of the creation of the universe in the likeness of that beauty, and also of its continual preservation. The love that first produced it ever preserves it

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from dissolution by continual creation. The second divine love, which is love for the created universe, is what brings creation to its ultimate perfection. So just as the first being of the universe comes from the first love that precedes it, its final and perfect being is caused by the second divine love, that which has as its object the universe, in the likeness of the father who, first loving himself, desires to generate his likeness in the beautiful, and through his first love generates his son. He then acquires a new and second love towards his son, by means of which he wants his loved son to reach his final perfection and the highest possible degree of beauty. SOPHIA: I understand this also, and I am well pleased to have heard your lesson. Nonetheless you have not yet shown me the purpose for which love was born in the universe, although you have shown me the two purposes of the two forms of divine love, the first, the creation and the second, the perfection of the universe. You have still, therefore, to tell me the third, the end for which the love of the universe was born. PHILO: I am going to tell you. But about this, you must first understand what it is in which the created universe finds its perfection. SOPHIA: I have already understood this and I do not need a second lesson. For since the universe, as you told me, is produced in the image and likeness of the highest Wisdom, its perfection consists in being the simulacrum of that wisdom, which is the proper purpose of its creator. This is what happens in every artificial thing, whose perfection consists in being made similar to the proper form of the art that is in the mind of the craftsman. And this is the true purpose of the craftsman in making his object; and so it must be in the created universe. PHILO: It is certainly true that this is the first perfection of the created universe and the first end of the supreme Creator in its production; and you have well likened it to an object produced by art, and that it should resemble as nearly as possible the wisdom of the divine Maker. But this is not its ultimate end and ultimate perfection; in fact, as in every artificial thing, for example, a glass used to drink, its first perfection and end is to be made in the true likeness of the form and design that is in the mind of the craftsman, and its ultimate end and perfection is to be used in its true function for which it was made, that is, for drinking, and of these two the first perfection is the end of the workmanship and the last is the end of the finished work. In the same way in the created universe, the first end and perfection of the producer’s work consists in the perfection of the divine workmanship, which is the proper simulacrum of the divine wisdom, but the ultimate end

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and perfection consists in the universe carrying out those activities and functions for which it was created. This is the purpose of the finished product; in fact, the end of what the craftsman makes is the end of the craftsman’s work. And the craftsman’s work makes the end of its being. SOPHIA: What, then, are the activities and functions of the created universe that are its end and its ultimate perfection? PHILO: Many perfecting activities are found in the universe; but their ultimate perfection consists in the ultimate and most perfect of them, and the other lesser activities are but a way or a stepladder that conduct one to the ultimate and highest perfection. This is equal for everybody.279 So that as the universe takes its being from the Godhead, as his true, rightful issue, so its perfecting activities consist in the true return of its being to the Godhead, from where it first issued. Therefore, just as the Godhead willed to be the efficient origin of its existence, so the Godhead will be its ultimate end. In fact, the most high God willed not only to be the efficient cause of the world, but also the formal and final cause: the efficient cause in creating it, the formal cause in preserving and sustaining it in its own being, and the final cause in leading it back to Himself as to its ultimate perfection and end, by means of the perfecting activities of the universe.280 SOPHIA: I have correctly understood how the supreme God is in three ways the efficient, formal, and final cause of the universe: one because of the outcome of His creation, the other because He maintains and preserves it, the other because He leads it back to perfection. But tell me, what are these perfecting activities of the universe that cause it to return to their Creator, and what is the last and most perfect of these in which their ultimate perfection consists? PHILO: The activities of the universe are partly corporeal and partly incorporeal. It is certain that their return to God does not consist in the corporeal, because it is thereby separated from the pure Godhead rather than brought nearer to Him. So, their return must consist in spiritual activities that depend solely on the intellect, which is separated from matter. The whole created universe, therefore, returns to its Creator through the activities of the intellectual part, which God willed to impart to it.281 SOPHIA: Does the intellect have any other activity different than understanding?282 PHILO: No.

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SOPHIA: Therefore, the activities that make the universe perfect are not many but one only: intellection. PHILO: Though I will concede that the intellect has no other activity than that of intellection, the intellection of different things forms different intellectual activities; and although they are all perfecting actions and serve to advance the creature in its return journey to its Creator, the intellectual activity that is the direct cause of this return is that which has as its object the divine essence and highest wisdom. In fact, in this, as I have told you elsewhere, every object and every degree of intellection consists and is comprised. And by this agency the whole essence of the potential intellect can be conveyed to pure actuality, and other created active intellects can be brought to the highest degree of their perfection. And in these, again, there is a scale of widely varying degrees. Moreover, not all activities are the same, and, as I have already told you in our first discussion, our intellectual soul returns to its supreme Creator by three means: intellection, love, and the enjoyment of union.283 SOPHIA: Therefore, you admit that there is another activity of the intellect besides intellection? PHILO: You already know that, although in corporeal things love is different from intellection, as a corporeal passion from a spiritual activity, the two are found together in intellectual and immaterial essences, and their love is intellectual and their loving intellection is of the highest things; the only distinction between them is the work of reason and not the real or essential. Moreover, enjoyment in union is the ultimate and most perfect act of intellection, for the more perfect the intellectual activity, the greater and more perfect the union of the intellect with its object. SOPHIA: This intellectual activity would, then, suffice as the ultimate end and perfection of the universe without mention of the other two. PHILO: It is not enough, because the third cannot be attained save through the medium of the other two. For as I have told you, there is knowledge both with and without love. And there is one kind of knowledge with love that precedes love and has love as its end, and another that is preceded by love and is the end of love. SOPHIA: Remind me briefly and plainly about this. PHILO: Cognition without love is of good things, which are not beautiful and therefore not desired, or of bad and ugly things, perhaps because they

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do not look beautiful or ugly or they are neither hated nor refused. All other types of cognition, which are of good and beautiful things, have either love or desire as their end – such is the cognition of food, the need for which is followed by desire or else it is itself the end of desire and such is the actual enjoyment of food when we partake of it. There is no doubt that this is the perfect understanding of food, the uniting one, and with this the previous desire vanishes. The first cognition was imperfect, since it was not uniting, and this want of union entails desire; and it is this desire that leads to perfection in union when the want is fulfilled and the desire vanishes. Thus, desire and love are nothing else than the way of imperfect cognition leading to perfect and uniting cognition. The three perfecting activities of the understanding will similarly lead the universe to its first cause. In fact, the first act of return of the creature is the first intellectual knowledge284 that contains His immense wisdom and supreme beauty. And feeling himself cut off from union with it, he loves and desires to enjoy it in perfect union, as the lover seeks to be wholly transformed into the most beautiful beloved. It is by means of this love and desire for the Godhead that ultimate and perfect union is attained, the final and most perfect activity. In this consists not only the beatitude of the intellect, transformed and united with the Godhead, but also the ultimate perfection and happiness of the whole created universe of which the intellect is the principal and most essential part. And through the intellect alone the whole of the universe is made worthy of union with its lofty beginning, and of achieving perfection and lasting beatitude in enjoyment of its divine union. SOPHIA: I understand how the ultimate perfection of the whole created universe consists in this final activity and uniting enjoyment of the created intellect in its supreme Creator; but I am considering the end of each love in the universe and the need of its birth. In fact, I see that the final act of union and perfection of the universe induces its present love and is the end of the love that precedes it. It is evident, therefore, that the end of the love of the universe is its ultimate perfection, which is its final act and enjoyment of union with its Creator. But there are other loves in the universe besides that of the created intellect for its first cause. I would like you to tell me the common end for which each love was born in the created universe, including every individual love of this kind. PHILO: Every degree of being in the universe is subordinate to another and ranked from the first to the last and from the lowest to the highest, in such a way that the essence of prime matter is subordinate to that of the elements; the essence of the elements to that of the inanimate composites; the

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essence of inanimate composites to that of animate beings with a vegetative soul; the vegetative to the animal essence; and the animal essence to the human essence, which is the final and highest degree of being in the lower world. Moreover, in humans the lesser faculties are subordinate to the greater, which are those of the vegetative soul to those of the sensitive, and those of the sensitive to those of the intellectual, which is the final and highest faculty, not only in humans but in the whole of the lower world. In the intellect, also, the activities are ranked from the lowest to the highest according to the order of the intelligible things that are their objects, even up to the highest and final intelligible object. And as this is the highest being and ultimate end to which all things are ordered. So the human and angelic intellection, of which this highest being is the object, is the highest activity of the human, celestial, and angelic intellect, to which all others are subordinate as to their final end, which consists in the perfection of the created universe. In the same way, you must understand that the various loves in the created universe are subordinate, the lower than the higher, up to the final and supreme love, that of the universe for its Creator. The true end of this love is uniting enjoyment of Him, which is its ultimate perfection, as you have already learned, so that the end of the last and highest love of the created universe is the ultimate and common end of every individual love.285 SOPHIA: I am aware that this is how the uniting enjoyment of the intellectual creature with its Creator is not only the end of love that it has for Him, but of all love throughout the whole created universe. But I would like you very much to show me the hierarchy of loves in the universe from the first to the last, just as you have shown me the hierarchy of degrees of being from the lowest to the highest. PHILO: What do you want to know, Sophia? Only the half-circle of the hierarchy of love in the universe, like that which I showed you of the beings contained in it, or the whole circle? 286 SOPHIA: I do not understand what is meant by the half or complete circle of love in the universe, nor why the hierarchy of degrees of being about which you have told me is semicircular and not complete. Nevertheless, since the whole of a good is better than a part, I wish that if the circle of being is only half you would complete it, and show me the whole circle of love. PHILO: The circle of all things is that which gradually begins from their first origin, and passing successively through each thing in turn, returns to its first origin as to its ultimate end, thus containing every degree of thing in

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its circular form, so that the point which is the beginning also comes to be the end. This circle has two halves, the first from the beginning to the point most distant from it, the mid-point, and the second from this mid-point to the beginning again. SOPHIA: This happens in the geometrical circle. But tell me how can this be true of the circle of the universe? PHILO: Since the beginning and end of the circle is the supreme Creator, the half of this is the descent from Him to the lowest and most distant point from His supreme perfection. And first in order of descent comes the angelic nature with its ordered degrees from greater to less; then follows the heavenly, ranging from the heaven of the Empyrean, which is the greatest, to that of the Moon, which is the least; and from there the circle passes to our sphere, the lowest of all, which is prime matter, the least perfect of the eternal substances and the farthest removed from the high perfection of the Creator. In fact, as He is pure actuality so it is pure potentiality. And matter is the terminating point of the first half of the circle of being, which descends from the Creator through successive degrees, from greater to less, to prime matter, the least of all. At this point the circle begins to turn through its second half, ascending from lesser to greater, as I have already described, from prime matter to the elements, then to the composites, from these to the plants and the animals, and finally to humans. In humans it ascends from the vegetative to the sensitive soul and finally to the intellect, and in intellectual activities from one less intelligible object to another more so, until it reaches the supreme act of intellection of the supreme divine intellect; and this is final union, not only with the angelic nature, but through its medium with the same supreme Godhead. Observe how the second half of the circle, ascending through the various degrees of entities, comes to terminate in the divine origin as its ultimate end, perfectly integrating the graded circle of all entities. SOPHIA: I see that this circle of being is made whole in passing through each degree in turn. And although you explained this to me before, in another connection, such delight and satisfaction does it bring to my mind that it is ever new to me. Now will you show me the circle of loves in their various degrees? This is the purpose of our discussion. PHILO: As the first half-circle of being is born and created out of the highest being, and descends from the greater to the lesser, down to the lowest degree of Chaos or prime matter, and in the other half-circle returns from the lesser to the greater, to the source whence it first went out; so love has

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its origin from the primal Father of the universe, and from Him successively descends in a fatherly way, from the greater to the lesser and from the perfect to the imperfect or, more properly, from the more beautiful to the less beautiful, so that the perfection and beauty of the Godhead may be diffused in the highest measure possible throughout every degree of being in both the angelic and the heavenly world. So each degree of being with paternal love generates its immediate inferior, imparting its being or paternal beauty to it, although in a lesser degree as is only fitting. And this process is continued throughout the whole of the first half-circle down to Chaos, the least of all entities. And from them love begins to ascend through the second half-circle, from the lower to the higher, and from the imperfect to the perfect, in order to achieve its perfection, and from the less to the more beautiful, in order to enjoy its beauty. In fact, prime matter naturally desires and wants the elemental forms to be beautiful and more perfect than itself, and the elemental forms the composite and vegetative, and the vegetative the sensitive, and the sensitive love with a sensual love for the form of the intellect that, passing with intellectual love from the intellection of a less beautiful intelligible object to another more beautiful, finally attains to that act of intellection which is the divine intellect, the highest of all intelligible things. And this is attained through the final love of His highest beauty. With this the circle of love is reunited in the supreme good, the ultimate beloved, which was the first lover, creator, and father. SOPHIA: The first half-circle is therefore of the love of the more beautiful for the less beautiful and of the perfect for the imperfect, and the other half is the very contrary, being the love of the less for the more beautiful. And not only is it strange that the more beautiful should bear productive love for the less, because nothing desires what is less than itself, but also that the whole universe should be divided into two halves by these two kinds of love. I would like you to explain why. PHILO: The love of father for son, teacher for disciple, cause for effect, is no less efficacious, but perhaps even more so, than that of inferior for superior. In fact, they do greater things through the love that they have for them, in producing, generating, and allowing them to improve, and they only desire to reach their own perfection. And although the inferior ones have no beauty that is lacking in the superior ones, for which they love desiring this beauty, they love their own beauty in order to impart this beauty to their inferior, in whom it is lacking; by this imparting of beauty to the inferior the superior remains more beautiful, since its inferior becomes beautiful because of him, and this holds for the beauty of the whole universe, as I told

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you more extensively. The whole of the first half-circle consists of the love of the superior for the inferior, less beautiful than itself and generated by it. The producer is more beautiful than what he produces, and it is love that causes him to generate and impart his beauty; so it is from the highest creature down to prime matter, the least of all creation, because love of the greater for the lesser is the means and cause of generation. In the other half-circle, on the contrary, from prime matter to highest Good, since this is conducted through a perfective ascension from the inferior to the superior, it is necessary that love go from the less to the more beautiful in order to acquire greater beauty and to be united with that. So the circle passes from one degree to another above it, until the created intellect is united to the highest beauty and comes to enjoyment of the supreme good by means of the final love of it, which is the cause of the active union of the universe with its Creator, where its ultimate perfection is. SOPHIA: I am very pleased to learn about the whole circle of the loves of the universe, which corresponds to the various degrees of being. With this I know that the end of these loves is the final act of union of the universe with its Creator, because the end of productive love is for the inferior to return to the superior, and the end of the successive degrees of love of the inferior to return to the superior is the last love that induces the last act of union of the universe with the highest Good, which is its ultimate perfection. Thus, the end for which all things proceeded from the pure and most beautiful divine unity was for the universe to be brought back into that unity and the whole to attain its beatitude in this perfection. But Philo, remember that you told me that the end of all love is the pleasure of the lover in the beloved, and you said that the end of the love of the universe is the same kind; now you place it in the act of union with the divine origin, which would seem to be something else. PHILO: It is not different. In fact, even as this activity is highest, in being the union of the universe with the highest Beauty, so the pleasure that is in it, which is the true end of love, is immeasurably greater, and the greatest and highest enjoyment of all pleasure of created beings. And I already told you that the pleasure of the lover is none other than union with the beauty that he loves. When that beauty is finite, the pleasure is finite, and it is greater or lesser according to the measure of beauty. And because beauty is infinite, as the ultimate love of the created universe – which is to say, its intellectual part attracted to the highest Good – it is necessary that the end of that love is immense and infinite pleasure. This is the end of the love of the whole created world, and the reason why love was born in the universe.

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For without the love and desire to return to the highest Beauty it would have been impossible for things to go forth from the Godhead; and without paternal love and generative desire similar to the divine, it was impossible to proceed from one degree of being to the other, each produced by its superior in an ever-ending descending hierarchy from the Godhead to prime matter. It is paternal or creative love that governs the whole of the first half-circle, from Highest Being287 down to the least, Chaos. In the same way, created beings could never return to union with the Godhead and acquire that highest enjoyment, which is the perfection and happiness of the whole universe, since they are so immensely far from them in the prime matter, if it were not for love and desire for this very return, as for their ultimate perfection, leading to the final and actual happiness of the universe. Therefore, as the end of the productive love of the first half-circle was the love for return of the second, and the end of the latter is the ultimate perfection and beatitude of the universe, it follows that love was born in the universe to lead it to its final happiness. SOPHIA: I truly know that love was born in the universe, first in order to make bigger its successive creation, and then in order to bless it with the highest pleasure, by procuring its union with the supreme Good, its first beginning. With this I am satisfied regarding my fifth question about the end for which love was born in the universe. I would still like to know three things related to this matter. First, although pleasure must be the end for natural or sensual love – that love which proceeds from the soul and faculties of the body – it does not seem suitable for it also to be the end of intellectual love. In fact, pleasure is a passion, and as the intellect is separated from matter, it is not possible, nor is it right, that it be the subject of any passion, and even more so with the angelic and divine intellects, whose love should not have had enjoyment as their proper end. So pleasure cannot be the common end of all love, as you have said. Second, although the end of all love for return is pleasure, as you said, this would not seem to be the end of creative love. In fact, no one finds pleasure in approaching something that is not beautiful; therefore, the end of productive love would seem to consist in giving and imparting beauty where it does not exist, rather than in taking its own pleasure, as you have asserted, since there can be no pleasure where there is no beauty. Third, you said before that the love that the Creator bears the created universe is that which leads it back to its perfection, just as the love that He has for His own beauty is the cause of His creation; and now you tell me that the love that conducts Him to His own perfection is that which the universe has, through its intellectual part, for

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the highest divine beauty. The love of God for the universe, therefore, is not that which brings it to its perfection, but that of the universe for God. Resolve these three doubts for me, and I will be satisfied, because then you will have fulfilled the promise you made to tell me of the birth of love. PHILO: For such a small remaining sum, I would not remain in debt.288 Sensuous pleasure, like sensuous love, is a passion of the sensitive soul: love is the first of its passions and pleasure is the last and the end of that love. But intellectual pleasure is not a passion in the intellect that loves. And if you concede that there can be a love in intellectual beings that is not a passion, you must also admit that they can have pleasure without passion. This is the end of their love, and it is more perfect and abstract than the activity of love itself. SOPHIA: If the love and pleasure of intellectual beings are not passions, then what are they? PHILO: They are intellectual acts,289 according to what I said to you, far from all natural passions, though we have no other name to give them, since similar activities in perceptible bodies are called passions. And I have already told you that love in the created intellect is the inclination from first intellection of the intelligible beautiful to the ultimate perfect union with it; and the pleasure of the intellect is none other than this same uniting intellection with the highest intelligible beauty.290 SOPHIA: And what are love and pleasure in the divine intellect? PHILO: Divine love is the inclination of His most beautiful wisdom towards the image of His own beauty, which is the universe produced by Him, together with His return to union with that supreme wisdom. Divine pleasure is the perfect union of the image of God within Himself, and of His produced universe within Himself as producer. So David says, ‘The Lord enjoys His effects.’291 In fact, in this union of Creator with the creature there is not only the pleasure and salvation of the creature (as David says, ‘We will enjoy the supreme beginning of our salvation’),292 but also God’s enjoyment for the happiness that results as effect. And it should not be strange to you that God enjoys, because He is the highest enjoyment of the universe, and by reason of the eternal love of His beauty it is necessary that the highest pleasure resides in Him, proceeds from Him, and is directed towards Him. Therefore, the ancient Hebrews, when they were delighted, would say, ‘Blessed is He in whom enjoyment has Him as its habitation’:293 and the enjoyment in God is at the same time the pleasure that provokes

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joy, and the object of the joy. And it is not strange that we should say that God rejoices in the perfection of His creatures, when we read in Holy Scripture that because of the universal sinfulness of humans the flood came, and that ‘God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only increasing in evil. And the Lord repented to have made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. And the Lord said: ‘I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth,’294 etc. If, therefore, the wickedness of man makes God grieve in His inmost heart, how much more will his perfection and blessing give Him cause to rejoice! But in truth neither grief nor pleasure are passions in Him, for pleasure is a grateful harmony in perfection of the work of His hands and grief is the privation of this through the creature’s fault. SOPHIA: My first doubt is satisfied, and I am aware that the pleasure of intellectual things, in which passion has no part, is greater and more truly pleasurable than that of the body, which is subject to passion; and also that the love of the intellect, since it is without affection, is greater and more truly love than that of the impassioned body. Answer, therefore, my second question. PHILO: Because of what I told you about the first it will be easy to answer the second. In the love of the superior for the inferior in the whole of the first half-circle from God to prime matter, the pleasure of the superior, which is the end of its love, does not consist in union with the less beautiful and inferior, as you would argue, but in uniting that unbeautiful or less beautiful with itself, giving it beauty or perfection by imparting to it its own beauty. Both effect and cause receive an enjoyable perfection, because a beautiful and perfect effect increases the beauty and perfection of its cause and gives it reason to rejoice, in its added relative beauty, as I already have told you. And since I have shown you that God rejoices in the perfection of His works and is saddened by their defects, so much the more is it fitting that the creature should rejoice in the good of its dependent effect and grieve at its evil. SOPHIA: You have also released my spirit from this second doubt, and I see how the end of all love in the universe is the pleasure of the lover in union with the beloved, whether inferior or superior to him. You only have to resolve my third and final doubt: if the love of the universe for God is that which leads it to its ultimate perfection in union with Him, why did you say before that the love of the Creator for the universe is that which procures this effect and brings the universe to the blessed end of union with the highest Beauty?

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PHILO: It cannot be denied that, just as the love of the universe is its guide to joyful and blissful union with the Creator, so the love of God for His creatures is that which brings them into His divine union, in which they attain their beatitude with supreme joy. This is like the generative love of the father for the son, yet it is not love of the son, who does not yet exist, but the love of himself that causes the birth of the son, because he desires to become a father to increase his own perfection, producing a child in his own image. There is a second love, of the son when he is born, and it is this that makes the father nurture, raise, and lead him to possible perfection. In the same way, the generative love of God for the universe is not the love that He bears the universe, but another, prior to it, that is, the love of Himself, desirous of imparting this supreme beauty to the universe created by Him in His image and likeness. For there is no perfection or beauty that does not grow when it is communicated; thus, the tree that bears fruit is always more beautiful than that which is barren, and running waters springing from their fountains are worthy of greater admiration than those which remain enclosed and imprisoned within banks. When the universe was created, God’s love for it also came into being as that of the father for the newborn son. The end of this love was not only to preserve the universe in its first created state, but also, and more truly, to guide it to its ultimate perfection in blissful union with divine Beauty. SOPHIA: Although by reason of the paternal likeness divine love for the universe seems to be that which leads it to its end and final perfection, this seems to be the true function of the love that the universe bears for divine Beauty, since it is through it that the universe is inclined, through a medium,295 to union with that Beauty in which its happiness lies. And although the other, the love of God for the universe, would also seem to be a cause of this union, its true function is not yet clear to me. Please, show me this. PHILO: The work of the love of God in causing our happiness and that of the whole universe is like the manner by which the sun causes us to see it. There is no doubt that our eyes and visual faculty, to which is added the desire to behold the light, enable us to see the light and substance of the sun, in which we rejoice. Nevertheless, if our eyes were not first illumined by the sun and its light, we could never obtain sight of it; in fact, without the sun it is impossible for the sun to be seen, because it is perceived by means of itself. In the same way, our love and that of the universe for the supreme divine Beauty is what leads us to the joy and pleasure of union with it; nonetheless, neither our love nor that of the universe was ever capable of

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such union or worthy of such a high measure of bliss and perfection; our intellect was not helped and enlightened by the highest divine Beauty and the love that it has for the whole of creation. For it is this that quickens and exalts the love of the universe, giving light to its intellectual part, so that it may lead it to the joy of union with the supreme Beauty. Because of this David says, ‘By your light we see light,’296 and the prophet, ‘Turn us unto you, O Lord, and we shall be turned,’297 and another says: ‘Turn me, and I shall be turned; because you are the Lord my God.’298 For if God were to abandon us we could never return to Him of our own accord. Solomon, in his Song of Songs, in the name of the intellectual soul enamoured of divine Beauty, has expressed this even more plainly, saying, ‘Draw me, we will run after you: the king had brought me unto his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in you, we will remember your loves more than wine: the upright love you.’299 See how the intellectual soul first prays that it may be drawn in by the love of the Godhead, and then it will run swiftly in pursuit, by virtue of the love that burns within it. And the soul says that, being placed by the hand of God within His chamber, which is united by divine grace to the very heart of the divine Beauty and majesty, it will then attain the supreme pleasure, the end of which is its love for God. Moreover, the intellectual soul will remember His love more than wine, which is the divine love that will always be present for it, remembered in the mind, unlike the love of worldly things of no greater worth than the love of wine, which intoxicates300 a man and leads him away from the right paths of mind. Therefore, he finishes, ‘the upright love you,’ which means ‘You are not loved because your spirit is not pure – case of carnal love – but the upright of the soul is what loves you.’301 See how the intellect first speaks in the singular, saying, ‘Draw me,’ and straightway changes to the plural, ‘we will run after you,’ only to return to the singular, saying, ‘the king had brought me unto his chambers,’ and again to the plural, ‘we will be glad and rejoice in you, we will remember your love more than wine.’ This is to show that not only the intellectual part of man, but also the created universe together with all its parts, rejoices and is made glad in union with Him. Therefore, it is said, in the plural, ‘the upright302 love you,’ because all incline to divine love through their intellectual part. Thus, the splendour of divine love first leads us to our highest pleasure and happiness; and after this the ardent labour of His love comes leading us to our beatitude and to union with the highest beauty. And that you may the better understand this, you may behold His likeness mirrored in the two perfect lovers, man and woman. For although the man, the lover, burns with love for the woman of his desire, this love can never be consummated nor come to fruition, which is its proper end, unless the woman gives

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him some token of her corresponding love and affection, in the light in her eyes, the softness of her speech, and by her gentle and loving demeanour, so that his love may be fanned into flame and may give him the strength and courage to achieve that blissful union of lover with beloved, the perfecting end of his burning love. SOPHIA: My doubts are entirely satisfied, and you are now released from the debt that bound you to tell me of the birth of love. For you have repaid me no less truly with your third answer than with your two former answers, concerning the essence of love and desire and its universality. And from your third answer I have learned the true history of the birth of love, and how the love of God for the universe and of the universe for Him was born with the universe itself, together with the mutual love of its parts one for another. And I know that it derived its origin in the created universe from the angelic world, and therefore it is offspring of the noblest stock. Its parents are cognition and beauty, and the midwife who presides at its birth is privation. Finally, I know that its end is the pleasure of the lover in joyful union with beloved beauty, and that the end of universal love is union with the highest beauty, the ultimate end, bringing lasting happiness to all creatures, which the Most High God of His mercy wants to grant us. Although, Philo, I used to imagine that yet another end for which love was born was sometimes to afflict and torment lovers who are enamoured of their beloved. PHILO: Even if love brings affliction, torment, distress, and anxiety, and many other troubles that it would take long to describe to you, they are not its true end, but rather it is that sweet delight that is the very contrary of these things. However, you have spoken truly, not of every love, but certainly of mine towards you. For its end has never been pleasure or delight, and I see that its beginning, middle, and end can be only grief, anguish, and passions. SOPHIA: Why does the rule not work in you? And why is your love also deprived of that which is the rightful end of all love? PHILO: This you may ask yourself, not me. It is my part to love with all the powers of my spirit. If you make this love barren and deny it its deserved end, do you want me to find excuses for you? SOPHIA: I wish that you would find your own. Since your love is without that true end that you have assigned to all love, either it cannot be true love, or else this is not the true end of love. PHILO: The goal of every love is pleasure, and none is truer than my love, for its goal is the enjoyment and pleasure of union with you. And to this

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goal both lover and love were ordained. Nonetheless, not everyone who expects an end attains it, especially when its acquisition must depend upon another. And such is the pleasure of the lover, the end towards which his love is directed: in fact, he will never achieve this end if nothing leads to the reciprocal love of his beloved. Thus, my love for you is deprived of its end because you do not return that love that is its due. For if love was born throughout the whole universe and in each of its parts, in you alone, it seems, it never came to birth. SOPHIA: Perhaps it was not born because the seed was not well planted. PHILO: The seed was not well planted because the soil was unwilling to receive the perfect seed. SOPHIA: Is this love therefore defective? PHILO: In this respect, certainly. SOPHIA: Every defective thing is ugly. How, then, can you love what is ugly? In fact, if your love seems beautiful to you, then it is therefore neither right nor true, as you say. PHILO: There is nothing so beautiful as to be without blemish, unless it is the supreme Beautiful. And in you there is so much beauty that although it is accompanied by the defect that causes my unhappiness, your surpassing beauty has greater power to move me to love than the one small defect has to move me to hate you. SOPHIA: I do not know what kind of beauty I have that can move you to love. You have shown me that true beauty is wisdom; but I have none except that which you have imparted to me. True beauty, therefore, resides in you, not in me, and I ought rather to love you than you to love me. PHILO: It is enough to tell you the cause of my love for you without searching for the reason why you do not love me. All I know is that my love towards you is so great that none remains for you to love me. SOPHIA: It is enough that you should tell me why you love me, since I am not beautiful; for either beauty must be other than wisdom, or else you do not have true love for me. PHILO: I spoke truly when I told you that the highest beauty is divine wisdom. And this is so mirrored in the form and grace of your person and in the angelic disposition of your soul, that though it lacks something in practice, your image is made divine in my mind and as such it is esteemed and adored.

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SOPHIA: I did not believe that flattery could fall from your lips, nor that you would ever wish to address me with such words. According to you, I cannot be beautiful, because there is no wisdom in me; and yet you would tell me that I am divine! PHILO: The disposition to wisdom is the beauty that God imparted to the intellectual souls when He created them; and He made the soul more beautiful as it was more inclined to wisdom. Yours was a rich gift. To be wise in actuality consists in learning and familiarity with doctrines, and it is like artificial beauty over and above that of nature. Do you wish me to be so dull-witted303 as to forsake the love of great natural beauty because it lacks something of artificiality and study? I wish to love a great and unstudied natural beauty instead of one that is studied and without beauty. And my words were not flattery, as you imagine, for if your beauty were not really made divine in me, my love for you could never have banished all else from my mind save your image. SOPHIA: Even if it was not flattery, it is a mistake to believe that a frail person like me could assume divine form in you. PHILO: I cannot even concede to you that it is a mistake. For it is peculiar to lovers that the beloved should be made divine and considered to be so in the mind of the lover. SOPHIA: It is, therefore, a universal error. PHILO: All cannot be in error, unless love itself was an error. SOPHIA: But how can the image of the beloved suffer such a change in the mind of the lover that it is transformed from human to divine without error? PHILO: Since our soul is the painted image of the highest beauty, and by its nature desires to return to its divine origin, it is ever impregnated with this natural desire. When, therefore, it perceives a beautiful person whose beauty is in harmony with itself, it recognizes in and through this beauty divine beauty, in the image of which this person also is made. And in the mind of the lover the image of this beloved, the latent divine beauty that is the very soul, comes to life with the soul’s beauty, and gives it actuality, as if it received it from the beauty of the divine original itself. Therefore, this [image] is made divine and its beauty is increased, just as divine beauty is greater than human beauty. And the love of it becomes so intense, ardent, and active that it steals away sense, imagination, and the whole mind, as if it were divine beauty drawing the human soul to itself in contemplation.

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And the image of the beloved person is revered in the mind of the lover as divine, to the degree that the beauty of the soul and body of the beloved is more excellent and more similar to divine beauty and as it reflects the highest wisdom more clearly. This is conditioned by the nature of the mind of the lover that receives the image, for if the divine beauty is so latent and sunk so deep that it is wholly overwhelmed by matter and corporeality, then even if the beloved be of surpassing beauty, it can hardly be made divine, because so little of this divinity shines forth in the receiving mind. Nor can that mind perceive how great the beauty of the beautiful beloved is. Therefore, it rarely happens that souls of low estate, submerged in matter, bear love for great and true beauty, and that their love is of high price; but when a person of the highest beauty is loved by a soul full of light and raised above matter, in which the highest divine beauty shines forth with exceeding brightness, then this person truly assumes the cloak of divinity in the mind of the lover, who forever adores her as divine and is filled with most intense, mighty, and ardent love for her. Now my love for you, Sophia, confers a large measure of the divine upon that corporeal and spiritual beauty that you bear within. And although the clarity of my mind is not proportionate to such an end, nor capable of making your divine beauty as it would be appropriate to your image, the excellence of your beauty makes up for this deficiency in my darkened mind. SOPHIA: It is not necessary, therefore, that I love304 a false flatterer, since his words are inspired by love, nor is it an error, since this proceeds from the nature of the beautiful and of the soul. But I see that the cause of my transformation from human to divine is the divinity of your mind in its wisdom, rather than my lowly beauty. PHILO: I wish this deception of yours towards me could make your spirit love me as would be suitable if you believed, rather than only saying it with words. If, however, you do not believe it, as is right, you cannot deny that the highest divine beauty, which is infinitely greater and more excellent than all other, is led by the love of the humblest finite human mind to return that love and to draw the intellect, by means of this same love, into that blessed happiness of union with itself. Why, then, should you, who of all mortals so resemble the supreme beauty, have no desire to perfect this resemblance and to return joyfully the love that is extended to you? SOPHIA: I do not much believe that my resemblance ends in this.305 In fact, just as the divine beauty draws the lover solely into the spiritual union of the mind, and yet the beauty returns his love, so I would not deny that I

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love you and desire union with your mind, not of yours with mine, but mine with yours, as the lesser to the more perfect. And you cannot doubt this when you consider how attentive I am to every thought of yours, and how I rejoice to learn of your wisdom. Of that other bodily union that lovers always seek, I neither believe nor wish that any desire be found in you or me. In fact, just as spiritual love is full of goodness and beauty, and all its effects contribute to our happiness and well-being, so corporeal love seems rather to contain nothing but evil and ugliness, and its effects for the most part seem to be pernicious and hurtful. And so that I can better reply to you about this matter, please tell me, as you have promised, which of the effects of human love are good and laudable and which are harmful and despicable, and which are more numerous. And then you will be released from every debt that you have incurred through your promises to me.306 PHILO: I see, Sophia, that, in order to flee from my just accusations, you demand payment of the rest of my debt. What I remember is that I gave you an ambiguous promise. At the moment you can see that it is not the time for such payment, since we have lingered too long in this discussion of the origin of love, and it is already time to leave you to your rest. Think about paying your debts to me, to which love, reason, and virtue oblige you. If I have time, I will not fail to pay what my promise and my loving slavery to you oblige me. Vale. ***

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Afterword: The Dialogues of Love in Spanish

If Yehudah Abravanel’s Dialogues of Love is read to this day, it is in large part due to the work’s perennial popularity in the Spanish-speaking world. Miguel de Cervantes, in his ironic prologue to Don Quixote (1605), advised, ‘If you write about love, with the couple of ounces of Tuscan that you know, you’ll run right into León Hebreo, who will inflate your meters,’1 a statement that gives us some idea of Leone’s fame at the end of the sixteenth century. The author of Quixote had good reason to mention Leone Ebreo, since as a young man Cervantes had read the Dialogues and seasoned his pastoral novel La Galatea (1585) with a good deal of Leone Ebreo’s Platonism.2 It is also no coincidence that the Iberian peninsula in the sixteenth century witnessed a proliferation of dialogues and love treatises written in Castilian. Works regarding the theory of love, such as Maximiliano Calvi’s Tratado de la hermosura y del amor (1576) and the anonymous Diálogo de amor, intitulado Dórida (1593) are examples of this trend towards a literary Neoplatonism inspired by Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues.3 The influence of the Dialogues can also be felt in the birth of the ‘mythological manuals,’4 such as Juan Pérez de Moya’s Philosofía secreta (1585) or Pedro Sánchez de Viana’s translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (1590), all of which relied heavily on Leone Ebreo’s allegorical interpretation of classical mythology. 5 Most of these works date from the last third of the sixteenth century, when Spanish translations of the Dialogues of Love were beginning to appear in print. THE FIRST SPANISH TRANSLATION (VENICE, 1568) The first to translate the work into Castilian prose was, like Leone Ebreo himself, a member of the Iberian Jewish exile community. ‘Guedella Yahia,’6 who signs his name to the first Spanish version of the Dialogues (Los dialogos de

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amor de Mestre Leon Abarbanel medico y Filosofo excelente),7 dedicates his work to King Philip II of Spain, and reminds the sovereign that the book’s author was himself Spanish. He adds that the ‘Naceon Espannola’ (an ambiguous phrase that could refer both to Spaniards on the peninsula and Jewish exiles from Spain) would derive great benefit if the work were available in its own language. This reference to the author is significant, since Yahia’s translation is the first edition of the Dialogues to bear Leone Ebreo’s true surname,8 one that would have been familiar to many of the book’s readers, both Jewish and Gentile.9 The translation closely follows the 1545 edition of the Dialogues published by the print shop of Aldus Manutius,10 though it contains numerous errors and the Spanish displays orthographic borrowings from Portuguese. In addition to Leone’s text, the translation contains an appendix that bears the title Opinions drawn from the most authentic and ancient philosophers who wrote about the soul and its definitions.11 The author of this appendix is a certain ‘Aron Afia, filósofo y metafísico excelentísimo.’ Afia (ca 1540), also known as Aharon Afiya, a recognized ex-converso physician, mathematician, and philosopher, had been the teacher of Moses Almosnino, the celebrated rabbi of Salonika, and had collaborated with him on a Hebrew translation of John Sacrobosco’s Tractatus de Sphaera.12 Opiniones consists mainly of a glossary of philosophical and metaphysical definitions of terms related to the soul, with references and quotes from authorities such as Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, Seneca, and St Augustine. The last definition of the soul, however, is the most telling. It states that it is an incorporeal substance that is divine, immortal, vegetative, sensitive, and moveable that informs the body, and ends with an appeal to the ‘most holy law’ of Moses. This final definition encapsulates the nature of the soul in the words of Genesis: ‘Let us make man in our image and likeness’13 and ‘God formed man out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his face the spirit of life and he was man in a living soul.’14 Afiya’s Opiniones thus surveys the then prevailing notions of the soul and sums them all up in the ancient wisdom of Hebrew theology. By adding Afiya’s work to a translation that places the original identity of the author of the Dialogues of Love in the foreground, Yahia reasserts the Jewish origin of the book and its content at a time when it was in danger of being obscured, partially thanks to a widespread assumption that Leone had converted to Christianity.15 It is difficult to determine the impact of this translation in Spain, or how many copies eventually made their way there. Nevertheless, Yahia’s translation of the Dialogues of Love into Spanish represents an important achievement in the history of the work, giving Spanish-language readers everywhere access to the text in their own

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language. His translation, which was reissued in 1598 without the dedication to Philip II, would continue to be read among Sephardic exile communities for many years after the book was forbidden reading for Catholics: among the works in Spanish found in Baruch Spinoza’s library when it was catalogued in 1677 was a copy of ‘Dialogos de amor’ by ‘Leon Abarbanel.’16 The fact that the work later appeared in an aljamiado version17 points to the hypothesis that Jews of Spain and Portugal living superficially as Christians, as well as the Spanish-speaking Jewish exiles spread throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, were its likely intended audience.18 CARLOS MONTESA’S PHILOGRAFÍA UNIVERSAL DE TODO EL MUNDO (1584) Among Christian authors there was also great interest in translating the Dialogues, though it took somewhat longer to successfully produce a translation. Carlos Montesa, translator of the second Spanish version of the Dialogues of Love (Zaragoza, 1584) explains that he decided to undertake a translation because of the poor quality of previous attempts: The [translations] that some began, which would have been good if they had finished them, did not attain their desired end. Others that were completed were so Latinized and Italianized that the Spanish was difficult to understand; indeed they required a new explanation, and that is why they have never been published.19

Montesa’s translation bears the title Philografia Universal de Todo el Mundo de Los Dialogos de Amor de Leon Hebreo, Traduzida de Italiano en Español, corregida, y añadida, por Micer Carlos Montesa, Ciudadano de la insigne Ciudad de Çaragoça. ‘Philografia’ is the term Montesa coined in order to define Leone Ebreo’s far-reaching theories on love: ‘which means universal description of the love of the whole world, since this is subject of this work.’20 This translation, which seems to be based on the 1535 Blado d’Asola edition, differs markedly from the first Spanish version, in both style and content. While Yahia’s re-appropriation of the Dialogues as a Jewish work broke new ground, Montesa’s translation can best be described as an attempt to adapt the text to the sensibilities of Counter-Reformation Catholic Spain. The translator was a native of Zaragoza and member of its Ilustre Colegio de Abogados, as indicated by the Colegio’s 1591 rolls sheet. In 1588 Montesa was the first student to be awarded the degree of Doctor, and he later taught civil law at the same university, at least until 1592. A contemporary letter of the University Rector tells that the celebrations in

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his honour were considerable, with King Philip II in attendance.21 His father, Hernando Montesa, had been secretary to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, the ambassador of Charles V in Venice and his representative at the Council of Trent. In his prologue Montesa tells that it was his father who first sought to translate the Dialogues into Spanish, but he had been unable to complete the task. As far as the author of the work is concerned, Montesa limits himself to merely explaining that Ebreo was a physician and ‘very learned in all faculties.’22 He adds that his fame was such in Italy that the popes continually begged him to reside in Rome.23 In juxtaposition to the synthesis that Afiya provided concerning the soul, in which all the ancient and modern wisdom could be summed up in the ‘most holy law’ of Moses, Montesa provides his own Apologia en alabança del amor, a love treatise that draws from many of the same sources as Afiya, yet synthesizes them in the Christian doctrine of the redemptive suffering of Christ.24 Quoting passages from Plato’s Symposium and Ficino’s commentary on it, the Timaeus, and above all St Augustine, Montesa declares love to be the efficient cause of all things in the universe. He proceeds to comment on love as the basis of all virtues, and uses examples of ancient fables that extolled love, such as that of Damon and Pythias. Throughout the work, the Zaragozan cites a host of authorities in support of his treatise, including Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, Virgil, Parmenides, St Thomas Aquinas, the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, Horace, Euripides, and, in a transparent act of re-appropriation, ‘our own Leone Ebreo.’25 Montesa gives his reasons for writing the Apologia: ‘I have brought this forth in order to show the obligation we have to love each other … We Catholics, who have this precept from God, what greater obligation do we have?’26 The phrase ‘we Catholics’ recurs throughout Montesa’s translation, substituting for ‘we faithful,’ the term that Ebreo used when his interlocutors Philo and Sophia speak in the firstperson plural. In addition to substitutions such as this one, Montesa’s use of circumlocutions to refer to Abravanel’s ideas regarding the intellect’s union with the divine as ‘copulation’ suggest that the translator did not consider it advisable to give free expression to certain more directly sexual aspects of Leone’s Platonic discourse. What emerges is a version of the Dialogues of Love that departs in places from the Italian text, but which in exchange exhibits a Spanish prose that is much more smooth and intelligible than Yahia’s. Montesa’s references to Plato’s works, in his prologue and Apologia, and his specific references to Marsilio Ficino show that, in latesixteenth-century Spain, the intellectual climate was such that even jurists like himself had been drawn to Renaissance Neoplatonism. Nevertheless, Montesa’s concern to cast the work in a Christian light is evident, and his

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choice, while not gaining him the favour of later critics, seems to have served him in the short term. Of all of Leone Ebreo’s Spanish translations, Montesa’s was probably the one with the largest circulation. Thanks to a notary document from 1585 regarding the printing of the fe de erratas, we know that 1500 copies of the 1584 edition were printed.27 The work was reissued in 159328 and 160229 as well, possibly making it the most widely circulated version of the Dialogues printed in Spanish. THE INDIAN’S TRANSLATION (1590) The third translation of the Dialogues to be published in Spanish is the one to have achieved the widest modern renown: that of Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (Madrid, 1590). Praised by critics since the nineteenth century for its stylistic elegance, Garcilaso’s translation also bears the distinction of being the first published literary work by a native of the Americas. The title page of Garcilaso’s version is boldly self-referential: LA TRADUZION DEL INDIO DE LOS TRES Dialogos de Amor de Leon Hebreo, hecha de Italiano en Español por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega, natural de la gran Ciudad del Cuzco, cabeça de los Reynos y Prouincias del Piru (THE TRANSLATION OF THE INDIAN OF THE THREE Dialogues of Love by Leone Ebreo, made from Italian to Spanish by Garcilaso Inca de La Vega, native of the great City of Cusco, head of the Kingdoms and Provinces of Peru)

Garcilaso, son of a Spanish conquistador and an Inca princess, would later gain recognition for his two-volume history of Peru, The Royal Commentaries of the Incas (1609) and the General History of Peru (1617), but his translation of the Dialogues marked the real beginning of his literary career. While the translator’s name does not even appear on the frontispiece of Yahia’s version, and Montesa’s name appears several lines down in his title page, Garcilaso has created a new work: The Indian’s Translation. By

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drawing the reader’s focus to himself immediately, Garcilaso moves Leone Ebreo to the background while occupying the foreground as creator of a new edition. His translation makes unabashed reference to the ‘Kingdoms and Provinces of Peru,’ perhaps in opposition to Montesa’s translation, which bore the motto ‘Cesari restitutis Peru regnis spolia tiranor (um),’ a reference to Pedro de la Gasca, a relative of the Inquisitor General of Aragon, to whom the translation is dedicated. Pedro de la Gasca had suppressed the conquistador uprisings in Peru at the behest of Charles V, uprisings in which Garcilaso’s father had been implicated. Indeed, as if to counteract the derogatory reference to Peru in Montesa’s work, Garcilaso, in his dedication to Philip II, speaks of his translation as ‘the first fruits offered to Your Royal Majesty … by your vassals born in the New World.’30 Garcilaso sets out his translation method explicitly, claiming that his intent is to ‘interpret faithfully, by means of the very words that the author wrote in Italian, without adding any superfluous ones.’31 Garcilaso’s is indeed a more literal rendering of the Italian text than Montesa’s (he does not, for example, replace ‘faithful’ with ‘Catholics’), yet his Castilian prose has received accolades for its clarity and elegance of style and has remained the basis for almost all modern Spanish translations of the Dialogues of Love. Like that of Yahia, the text follows the 1545 Aldine edition. In comparison to the other Spanish versions, perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Inca’s translation of the Dialoghi d’amore is his addition of a ‘Table of the most notable things contained in this work.’32 The table, which begins with the entry ‘Aaron and Moses died contemplating the Godhead’33 and finishes with ‘Zodiac means circle of animals,’34 is a list of conceptual headings, each of which corresponds to an annotation to the text of the Dialogues. Adding marginalia to Abravanel’s text was not an innovation of Garcilaso’s; it had appeared previously in Yahia’s Spanish version, as well as in Du Parc’s French translation (1551) and Saraceni’s Latin translation (1564). A numerical comparison alone can be enlightening: while the margin notes in the 1568 Spanish translation amount to a total of 55, Garcilaso’s number more than 1000, on average almost three per printed page, thereby providing the reader with a running commentary and guide to the text. The Inca’s marginal notes (drawn largely, but not exclusively, from Saraceni’s Latin translation) are much more abundant and useful for guiding the reader to the type of interpretation Garcilaso wants. They serve as brief commentaries that summarize and highlight key passages for the reader, as these examples show: The good is what all desire.35 From known things we come to the knowledge of those that are not known.36 The philosopher must speak the truth fearlessly.37

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By highlighting certain passages, not only does Garcilaso establish his own authority as arbiter of Ebreo’s text for the reader, but he subverts his very claims of an unmediated text by assuming the role of arbiter in the dialogue between Philo and Sophia. Sometimes this role of mediation appears in adding conceptual precision to the text in order to clarify ambiguities. In passages where Leone compares the Platonic tale of the Androgyne to the Genesis story, the Inca makes use of annotations to stress that one is fable and the other is ‘history.’ Garcilaso is at pains to point out that for Leone ‘fable’ only applies to Plato’s account, and not to Scripture (‘histories’) from which such fables are said to be derived: The fable of the Androgyne was taken from Sacred Scripture.38 Statement on the Hebrew history and the Platonic fable.39 First allegorical meaning of Moses’ history of the creation of man.40 Such a distinction helps to accomplish two goals: first, Garcilaso shows that both accounts are similar in that they contain allegorical meanings not apparent superficially, and second, he shows that he is capable of grasping Abravanel’s exegesis, which establishes a hierarchy between the two accounts, in which Plato’s Androgyne myth is a derivation/corruption of the Genesis account of the creation of human beings. This distinction between fable and history would later be put to use in Garcilaso’s Royal Commentaries of the Incas, where he proposes his own interpretation of Inca myth.41 THE PORTO MANUSCRIPT The fourth known Spanish translation of the Dialogues of Love is the only known version found only in manuscript form. This document, Ms. 1057 of the Biblioteca Pública Municipal in Porto, Portugal, was first described by Eduardo Augusto Allen, second chief librarian of the Biblioteca in the Catalogo da Bibliotheca Pública Municipal do Porto.42 The author of the catalogue indicates that the manuscript is written in ‘letra do 17 seculo’ (60) though he offers little further description.43 The translation carries no clear attribution, though on the last numbered folio the name ‘Alonso de la Camara’ is signed. Joaquim de Carvalho, who mentioned the document early in the twentieth century, believes that the translator was most likely the signatory,44 though this cannot yet be verified. The manuscript is bound and consists of 240 numbered folios, with the addition of three more unnumbered folios that contain a summary with the title ‘Genealogia del Amor, Argumento.’ It also contains several short poetic compositions in Spanish as well as Italian dialects, which are likely written by another hand than that of the translator.

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The translation, which is distinct from the others mentioned above, is divided into six dialogues rather than three. Most versions of the Dialogues follow the chapter division of the 1535 editio princeps, in which the three dialogues differ proportionately in length from one another: Dialogue 2 is approximately twice as long as Dialogue 1, and Dialogue 3 is approximately twice as long as Dialogue 2. What the editor of the Porto manuscript has done is to divide Dialogue 2 in two (Dialogues 2 and 3, respectively),45 and to break up Dialogue 3 into three sections (Dialogues 4–6) of varying but somewhat equivalent length.46 Since, with the exception of the first dialogue, none of the manuscript dialogues finishes at the same place as in the Italian original, the translator has fashioned new endings for each chapter. The work bears extensive marginal notes, some of which are comments on the text itself or summaries of topics treated therein (similar but not corresponding to those of La traducción del Indio), and others cross-reference an ‘original Italian’ edition, and the Latin edition of Giovan Carlo Saraceni. It is therefore possible to date this manuscript to no earlier than 1564, the date of publication of Saraceni’s Latin edition. The page references do not correspond to the 1535 Blado d’Asola editio princeps, but rather to the 1541/45 Aldine editions.47 This datum, together with the evidence that both Yahia and Inca Garcilaso seem to have used the 1545 Aldine edition, is further evidence of the diffusion and popularity of versions printed by the Aldine press. In comparison to the other three translations, the Porto manuscript displays a much greater degree of manipulation of the text of the Dialogues. Not only does the translator parallel Montesa’s practice of substituting or adding the word ‘Catholics’ wherever Abravanel uses ‘faithful,’ but he inserts what appear to be his own biblical translations in place of Leone’s. Moreover, since the editor decided to divide the work into six dialogues instead of the three wherever possible, he has had to invent transitional dialogues to provide a beginning and an ending for those places where the author had not intended to interrupt the dialogue. RECEPTION The comments of the Spanish translators provide clues to the text’s reception during the first century of its publication. All praise Leone Ebreo and his work for the erudition it contains. Yet the problems posed by the text are evident. Inca Garcilaso, whose translation appeared in 1590, cautioned readers that ‘often it seems that [Leone Ebreo] does not bring his subject matter to a satisfactory conclusion and that it is done in an artificial way … Hence it is necessary to wait until the end where all satisfaction will be

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found.’48 Montesa believed that Ebreo’s work, while noble and clever, was in some areas obscure, thereby making it impossible to preserve ‘propiedad’ or elegance in Spanish without modifications: ‘I have even added and removed in places some things that obscured the subject matter, in order facilitate it, since in many places it was obscure and belaboured.’49 Yahia, whose admiration for the author of the Dialogues was demonstrated in his dedication, distances himself from some of Abravanel’s harmonizing of Genesis with Plato’s Timeus by adding this gloss: ‘And this is what is said according to the opinion of some, but I defer to Scripture.’50 The unknown translator of the Porto manuscript was also suspicious of Leone’s use of the Bible. In glossing the passage in Dialogue 3 regarding the sin of the first man and woman and their subsequent expulsion from Paradise in Genesis, the translator has this to say: ‘[Leone Ebreo] places two cherubim [at the gates] and Sacred Scripture only places one. Genesis 3.’51 Thus, we can discern a common view among the translators that the text of the Dialogues of Love presents problems in need of resolution. Such concerns are reflected in a notice found in the 1581 Portuguese Index, which censures – though does not prohibit – the Dialogues of Love,52 especially those sections dealing with the Genesis account as well as ‘Jewish and Platonic fables.’53 PLATONISM The humanistic intellectual climate that produced these translations was one in which a good deal of interest in Platonism had been generated, despite the overt Aristotelianism of much of Spanish philosophy. The three Christian translators, Montesa, Garcilaso, and the translator of the Porto manuscript, reference Plato in their prologues, dedications, and notes, in particular the Symposium and the Timaeus. Yet, as we can discover from reading Beardsley’s compilation of Spanish-language translations of classical texts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,54 Platonic texts in Spanish were not abundant. A Spanish edition of a work such as the Dialogues would have been very attractive to a reader with an interest in Platonic philosophy in this era, as it clearly was, based on the number of translations published. Of all the editions, including Yahia’s, Inca Garcilaso’s offers the most ‘anti-Aristotelian’ version of the Dialogues of Love. Not only does he not censure Ebreo’s language (as in contrast, Montesa and the translator of the Porto manuscript do), he does not adopt a critical stance towards Leone’s ideas about the origin of the human race (as even Yahia had), but in some places his marginal notes openly criticize Aristotle as inferior to his master Plato. This approach certainly opened Garcilaso’s translation to a broader range of interpretation,

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though it does not seem to have helped the work’s material success in the short term. Indeed, given the fact that Montesa’s translation was printed three times, once in the seventeenth century, the evidence would seem to indicate that Montesa’s way of navigating the doctrinal difficulties of Leone Ebreo’s approach to Plato was the most attuned to the tastes of contemporaneous Spanish readers and censors, nor can we exclude the hypothesis that his family connections helped smooth the way for the commercial success of his translation. Meanwhile, Garcilaso’s edition, while certainly praised by some of his contemporaries and by modern critics, did not achieve the desired reissue during the 1590s that its author had planned, even though the Dialogues of Love was not put on the Spanish Index until the seventeenth century. In 1953 Eugenio Asensio posed this question regarding Garcilaso’s failure to reprint his translation: We knew his intention of reprinting the Dialogues in 1594. Now we see that he had polished and augmented them, and he had them ready for the press since 1592. The translation, it seems, was received with accolades by the public and with esteem by the learned. The corrections were a response to some of his own observations and those of others. If we interpret his words correctly, which are only apparently contradictory, he had limited himself to providing headings and a brief summary for each chapter as well as touching up some phrases, without deeply altering the structure of the text. The reprinting he had dreamt of never took place, although in 1599 Garcilaso authorized the scribe Juan de Morales to do so. Did the censors delay or deny its approval?55

To Asensio’s question we could add more of our own. Did Garcilaso read Montesa’s translation? Did Montesa read Garcilaso’s? What happened to the manuscripts of the Inca’s re-edited translation? Can the Porto manuscript, also divided into chapters, provide clues? What is clear is the connection between Montesa’s and Garcilaso’s translations. Intentionally or unintentionally, Garcilaso’s translation, ‘first fruits of the new world,’ contrasts sharply with Montesa’s, whose dedication praises the one sent to neutralize those who broke loyalty with the Spanish crown in the New World.56 It was an Inca, a representative of the very empire that the usurpers vanquished, who dedicated the next, more Platonic, translation to the King of Spain. THE END OF AN ERA Despite the efforts to make Yehudah Abravanel’s Dialogues widely available in the Spanish-speaking world, the officially sanctioned diffusion of

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the work throughout the empire was not destined to last much beyond the end of the century in which it had been published. By 1612 the work was on the Index of the Spanish Inquisition57 and was prohibited entirely by 1632.58 Even Garcilaso had resigned bitterly himself to the work’s restriction: ‘The holy and general Inquisition in these kingdoms, in its latest expurgation of prohibited books, while not banning it in other languages, ordered it to be collected in the common tongue because it was not for the common people.’59 It could be argued that by the time of its prohibition in Spanish territories, the Dialogues of Love had transcended its original purpose. As The Indian’s Translation, Yehuda Abravanel’s Dialogues had gone beyond the world of arguments over eros and beauty, and of polemics between Christians and Jews over the meaning of the ancient wisdom, and became linked to the controversies surrounding the Spanish conquest of the New World. Garcilaso had meant his translation to be a preamble to his historical works on the Spanish conquest of the Americas, its history and prehistory, and his repeated references to The Indian’s Translation in the prologues and dedications of his subsequent writings only solidify that impression. Works such as his Comentarios reales de los Incas (Royal Commentaries of the Incas, 1609) and La historia general del Perú (The General History of Peru, 1617) were considered fundamental historiographic texts for much of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. By the late 1720s, however, they began to be associated with separatist sentiments by Spanish authorities,60 and were later definitively banned after their association with the Túpac Amaru II uprising in Peru in 1781. RENEWED INTEREST It would take Spain’s crisis of self-awareness in the nineteenth century to establish once and for all the place of the Dialogues and its author in the pantheon of Spanish letters. The celebrated Hispanist Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo dedicated a lengthy discussion to the place of the Dialogues of Love among the Platonists of the sixteenth century in his Historia de las idea estéticas en España (History of Aesthetic Ideas in Spain, 1884). Far from deeming the Dialogues to be an imported exoticism, Menéndez Pelayo considered the work to represent the popular philosophy of the Spanish sixteenth century.61 He would later republish The Indian’s Translation, which he considered ‘more elegant and classic than that of Montesa,62 as part of his multivolume Orígenes de la novela (Origins of the Novel, 1915). A resurgence of interest in the figure of Garcilaso Inca and his opus during

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the twentieth century gave rise to several re-editions of The Indian’s Translation well into the 1990s in both Spain and Latin America. Garcilaso scholars like the late José Durand were quick to note the parallels between the lives of these two exiles and dedicated much study to literary and philosophical affinities between Ebreo and the Inca. Garcilaso’s has indeed become the most easily accessible version of Ebreo’s Dialogues in any language to this day, eclipsing those of his contemporaries Montesa and Ibn Yahya (available today only in specialized archives) and awarding the humanist from Cuzco his long-awaited triumph.63 Early Spanish Versions of the Dialogues of Love: – Los dialogos de amor de Mestre Leon Abarbanel Medico y Filosofo excelente. De nuevo traduzidos … Venice: 1568, 1598. – Philographia universal de todo el mundo, de los dialogos de Leon Hebreo. Traduzida de Italiano en Español … por Micer Carlos Montesa … Çaragoça: Lorenço y Diego de Robles, 1584. – La traduzion del Indio de los Tres dialogos de amor de Leon Hebreo. Hecha de Italiano en Español por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega. … Madrid: Pedro Madrigal, 1590. – Los dialogos de amor de Leon Hebreo: traducidos de Italiano en Español … por Micer Carlos Montesa. Çaragoça: Lorenço de Robles, 1593. Reprint of Philographia universal... (1584). – Philographia Universal de todo el mundo de los dialogos de Léon Hebreo. Traduzida de Italiano en Español … por Micer Carlos Montesa … Çaragoça: Angelo Tavanno, 1602. Reprint of 1584 edition. – Ms. 1057. Biblioteca Pública Municipal, Porto, Portugal. – Or. Gaster 10688. British Library (a version of Yahia’s 1568 translation written in Hebrew letters). – Ms. II/1881. Real Biblioteca, Madrid, Spain (a manuscript that bears little resemblence to the Dialogues of Love, other than its title).64

Notes

INTRODUCTION

1 Santino Caramella, Giuda Abarbanel, Dialoghi d’amore (Bari: Laterza, 1929). 2 The Philosophy of Love, trans. F. Friedenberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes, intro. Cecil Roth (London: The Soncino Press, 1937). 3 The vague name ‘Leone Ebreo’ was identified for the first time with Yehudah Abarbanel, son of Isaac Abravanel, in 1568 by the author of the first Spanish translation of the Dialogues, most probably Gedalia Ibn Yahya. Before that, in 1551, Baruch Usiel Chesqueto mentioned Yehudah Abravanel as the author of a work (whose title he did not mention) in an extremely clear Italian in his introduction to a new printed edition of Isaac Abravanel’s The Source of Salvation. 4 Most of the information about his life is contained in the Telunah ‘al ha-Zeman, The Elegy upon Destiny, published for the first time in 1844 in the second volume of Histoires des médecins juifs anciens et modernes (Bruxelles: Société Encyclographique des Sciences Médicales), ed. Eliakim Carmoly (1802–75). At that time, Carmoly claimed to possess the manuscripts of the two main poetic works of Leone Ebreo, The Elegy Upon Destiny and the Lament on the Death of his Father. Ebreo’s poetic work can be found in the following editions: Manuel A. Rodrigues, ‘A obra poética de Leão Hebreu. Text hebraico com versão e notas explicativas,’ Biblos: Revista da Faculdade de Letras 57 (1981), 527–95; ‘Poesie Ebraiche (versione letterale),’ in Leon Hebreo, Dialoghi D’Amore, ed. Santino Caramella (Bari: Laterza, 1929), 395–410; and Carl Gebhardt, Die hebräischen Gedichte des Jehuda Abrabanel genannt Leone Ebreo (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1929). There are also English translations of the The Elegy Upon Destiny (Ray Scheindlin, ‘Judah Abravanel to His Son,’ Judaism 41.2 [1992], 190–9) and of Lament on the Death of his Father (Pnina Navè, ‘Leone Ebreo’s Lament on the Death of His Father,’ in Romanica et Occidentalia: Études dédiées à la mémoire

374 Notes to page 4 de Hiram Peri (Pflaum), ed. Moshè Lazar [Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1963], 56– 69). Other information derives from the life and works of his father, the eminent statesman, financier, and exegete Isaac Abravanel, and from what is known about Jewish history and culture of this period in Europe.The following studies contain biographical information: Bernhard Zimmels, Leo Hebreu, ein Judischer Philosoph der Renaissaince sein Leben, sein Werke und sein Lehern (Breslau, 1886); Joaquin de Carvalho, ‘Leâo Hebreu, Filósofo,’ in Obra completa. Tomo I, Filosofía e História da filosofía, 1916–1934 (Lisbon: Coïmbra, 1918), 149–297; Carl Gebhardt, Dialoghi d’Amore: Hebräische Gedichte (Heidelberg: 1924, 1929); Hiram Peri (Heinz Pflaum), Die Idee der Liebe: Leone Ebreo. Zwei Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Philosophie in der Renaissance (Tübingen, 1926); Giuseppe Saitta, ‘La filosofia di Leone Ebreo,’ in Filosofia italiana e umanesimo (Venice: La nuova Italia Editrice, 1928); Santino Caramella, Giuda Abarbanel, Dialoghi D’amore (Bari: Laterza, 1929); and Isaia Sonne, Intorno alla vita di Leone Ebreo (Florence: Civiltà moderna, 1934). Giacinto Manuppella, Diálogos de Amor. Vol. 1: Texto Italiano, Notas e Documentos; Vol. 2: Versão Portuguesa & Bibliografia. Texto fixado, anotado e traduzido por Giacinto Manuppella (Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica, 1983) offers a vast and detailed list of archival documents that confirm only some of the biographical information given by the previous studies. The recent work of James W. Nelson Novoa, Los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo en el marco sociocultural sefardí del siglo XVI (Lisbon, Cátedra de Estudio Sefarditas ‘Alberto Benveniste’ da Universidade de Lisboa, 2006) offers the most reliable and precise biographical information with new archival documents. 5 There is a variation of spelling for Abravanel: Abarbanel. See Elias Lipiner, Two Portuguese Exiles in Castile: Dom David Negro and Dom Isaac Abravanel (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1997). 6 In his own Commentary on Zachariah (chap. 9, fol. 293), Don Isaac refers to Isaac ben Geath (9th century), who affirms that after the destruction of the first temple, the two families who descended from King David sought refuge in Spain, one in Lucena and the other in Seville. This noble lineage, of almost legendary status, was continually underscored not only by Isaac Abravanel, but by all the members of this family, to the point that it was the one thing they were most proud of since … ‘the very fact that it could be maintained so long and so persistently seems to offer sufficient indication that the family not only had projected itself on the scene of history with important deeds and personalities of merit, but it was also imbued with that sense of historic mission which we find so strongly expressed in Don Isaac’s life and thought.’ Ben Zion Netanyahu, Don Isaac Abravanel, Statesman and Philosopher, 5th ed., rev. and updated (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press), 3–4.

Notes to pages 4–5

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7 His brothers’ names were Josef and Samuel. 8 ‘Attesting to their strong consciousness of noble ancestry and high station, members of Lisbon’s Jewish elite often referred to their fathers by the Hebrew title nasi (prince), an honorific title with an Iberian history stretching back to the “golden age” of the Jews in Muslim Spain. Those so designated were wealthy communal leaders and, typically, well-connected with non-Jewish society’s upper echelons as well. In Christian Spain, awareness of lineage intensified in Jewish circles after 1391, as increasing emphasis on the noble title “Don” reflects. In Portugal, the equivalent “Dom” was prefixed onto the noble title and distinguished Jews such as Yehudah and Isaac Abarbanel.’ Eric Lawee, Isaac Abarbanel’s Stance toward Tradition (New York: State University of New York Press, 2001), 11. 9 In these years it seems he also began his career as a physician at the Portuguese court even if, as Nelson Novoa (Los Diálogos de Amor) reports, no archival evidence documents it. 10 Taking this name was fairly common for a Jew named Yehudah. In effect, being named Judah/Yehudah (Giuda in Italian) while living among Christians could imply social stigma. The name Judah (Judas) bore the negative connotations of the betrayal of Jesus Christ. 11 Concerning the persecution and the decrees on the expulsion of the Jews see David Raphael, ed., The Expulsion 1492 Chronicles: An Anthology of Medieval Chronicles Relating to the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain and Portugal (North Hollywood, CA: Carmi House Press, 1992). 12 It is also important to note that political, cultural, and personal relations involved Florence and Naples. An alliance between Florence and Naples was signed in January 1467 in Milan. In April 1466 Lorenzo De’ Medici visited Naples for the first time, meeting King Ferrante and his heir Alfonso, Duke of Calabria. The relations with Medici family were so good that Alfonso declared himself to be ‘half Florentine’ (‘Io son mezzo fiorentino, perché mi sono allevato in quella patria la quale il magnifico Piero (Piero II, di Lorenzo De’ Medici) e tutta la casa sua io amo tanto, che non saprei mai esprimere’). (Tammaro De Marinis, La biblioteca napoletana dei re d’Aragona, 4 vols. [Milan: Hoepli, 1946–52], 1:99–100). 13 The existence of this work is attested to principally by Amatus Lusitanus, Portuguese marrano and physician, and by two internal references in the Dialogues. This work actually raised the issue of whether Leone Ebreo ever met or was in contact with Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (whose family was connected to Mariano Lenzi, the one who had given the Dialoghi d’Amore to its publisher). Giuseppe Saitta (1928) supports this hypothesis, according to Lusitanus: ‘Jehuda Abrabanelius, magni illius Jehudae sive Leonis Abrabanelii Platonici

376 Notes to pages 6–7

14

15

16 17 18

19

20

philosophi, qui nobis divinos de amore dialogos scriptos reliquit, nepos/ … supremum diem obit … apud se librum justae magnitudinis, quem avus suum composuerat, reservatum habebat, cui de Coeli armonia titulus erat, non nisi longobardis literis inscriptus, et quem bonus ille Leo divini Mirandulensis Pici precibus composuerat, et ex eius proemio elicitur; quem librum ego non semel pecurri et legi, et ni mors immature nepoti huic ita praevenerat, eum brevi in lucem mittere decreveramus. Est sane opus hoc doctissimus, in quo bonus ille Leo quantum in philosophia valebat satis indicaverat’ scholastico tamen stilo inscriptum’ (Centuria VII, Curiatio 98) (Saitta, 1928: 13). See also H. Pflaum, ‘Leon Ebreo und Pico della Mirandola,’ Monatsschrift für Geschichte und Wissenschaft des Judentums 72 (1928), 344–50. But we do not know if that ‘divini Mirandulensis Pici’ refers to Giovanni Pico or his nephew Giovan Francesco Pico. Carvalho (1918: 24) is convinced that it was the latter. Regarding this issue see also Giuseppe Veltri, ‘Philo and Sophia: Leone Ebreo’s Concept of Jewish Philosophy,’ in Cultural Intermediaries, ed. David B. Ruderman and GiuseppeVeltri (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 55–66. ‘Morto Ferrante, calati i francesi, don Isaac Abravanel fu fra i pochissimi richiesti da re Alfonso di seguirlo nella sua fuga in Sicilia: primo ebreo che rimetteva piede in quell’isola dal 1492.’ Attilio Milano, Storia degli ebrei in Italia (Turin: Einaudi editore, 1963), 228. Cf. Antonio Fregoso (d. 1515), Opere. Antonio Fileremo Fregoso, ed. Giorgio Dilemmi (Bologna: Commissione per i testi di lingua, 1976). See also Ausonio Dobelli, L’opera letteraria di Phileremo Fregoso (Modena: A. Namias e c., 1898; Gian Battista Fregoso (1453–1504), Anteros, sive tractatus contra amorem (Milan: Leonardus Pachel, 1496); and Baptistae Fulgosii Factorum dictorumque memorabilium libri IX, with different editors. Bartolomeo Gentile Fallamonica, Canti di Bart. Gentile Fallamonica, poeta genovese del secolo XV, ed. Giuseppe Gazzino (Genoa: Tip. della gioventù, 1877). Cf. Aurelio Cevolotto, Agostino Giustiniani: Un umanista tra Bibbia e Cabbala (Genoa: ECIG, 1992). The French were defeated by the Aragonese forces under the leadership of Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, el Gran Capitán. Ferrante II regained his throne on 7 July 1496, but he died prematurely on 7 October 1496. The second son of Alfonso II, Ferrante’s uncle, succeeded as ruler of the kingdom. During this time he composed poems in Hebrew dedicated to his father’s works: one poem of six verses to the Zebach Pessach, a commentary on the PesachHagada; another of six verses for the Rosh Amanah, a treatise on the Thirteen Articles of Faith; another of 19 verses for the Nachlath Aboth on Pirke Aboth. All can be found in Italian translation in Caramella’s edition. The father said of his son: ‘He is undoubtedly one of the most skilful philosophers of Italy in our day. And he thinks that the opinions of Ibn Roschd

Notes to page 7

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22

23

24

25 26 27

377

[Averroes] contained a greater host of ambiguities and inexactitudes than all the others. According to his own view, prime matter is corporality, and he adduced the proofs from the fifth book of Aristotle’s Metaphysics. But since I do not hold the same view as he, I have not spoken of it’ (‘Appartiene indubbiamente ai più valenti filosofi d’Italia dei nostri tempi. Ed egli pensa che le opinioni di Ibn Roschd [Averroé] contennero maggior copia di ambiguità e di inesattezze che tutte le altre. Secondo il suo proprio parere, la prima materia è la corporeità, ed egli ne addusse prove dal v libro della Metafisica di Aristotele: ma siccome io non sono di questo suo parere, non l’ho rammentato’) (cf. Caramella, 1929: 421–2). Leone composed another elegy lamenting on the death of his father, which has become important in determining the date of the earlier elegy. Cf. Gebhardt edition (1929). Even if there is no specific documentation, several scholars believe that Leone spent a significant time in Rome. See James W. Nelson Novoa, ‘La pubblicazione dei Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Ebreo e l’Umanesimo dell’Italia meridionale,’ in Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Cátedra ‘Alberto Benveniste’ de Estudos Sefarditas, University of Lisbon, Portugal, 2007. Manuppella (1983: 5790) references one document attesting to Leone’s involvement in the defence of the rights of Jewish people against the payment of unfair levies. Other documents put in evidence Leone?s activity as physician to the Viceroy Ramón de Cardona (1467–1522, viceroy 1510–22). Regarding his caring for the health of Cardinal Raffaele Riario de San Giorgio (1451–1521), cf. Nelson Novoa (Los Diálogos), 50 nn.76,78. In his article ‘La data della morte di Leone Ebreo’ (Giornale storico della letteratura italiana 27 [1909], 446–7). Solmi hypothesizes that Leone Ebreo died in 1542 and that the Dialogues of Love had been published by him with the false name of Mariano Lenzi. Solmi cites another work published in 1649 by Johann Heirich Alsted (1588–1638), ‘1542 Leo Judae moritur’ in vol. 4 of the Scientiarum omnium encyclopedia in support of his claim. His hypothesis was later rejected by Heinz Pflaum ‘Un predecesor desconocido de León Hebreo,’ Tesoro de los Judíos Sefardíes y su Cultura. Otsar Jehude Sefarad 1 (1959), 5–9, showing that ‘Leo Judae’ is simply a generic name and should not be confused with our Leone. Nelson Novoa discusses this issue in an article in preparation, ‘New Documents Regarding the Publication of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore.’ Eugenio Garin, Storia della filosofia italiana (Turin: Einaudi Editore, 1966), see vol. 2:596. The Petrucci family had a great many connections with Roman nobility. Pandolfo Petrucci married Aurelia Borghese, whose family had great importance in Rome and the papal court. Diplomatic relations with the Medicis were always good. Aurelia Petrucci (1511–42) was the granddaughter of Pandolfo Petrucci,

378 Notes to pages 7–8

28

29 30

31

32

33

who governed Siena as Signore 1487–1512. Her father was Borghese Petrucci (son of Pandolfo and Aurelia Borghese) and her mother was Vittoria Piccolomini. Borghese and his brother Fabio were expelled from Siena in 1516 and replaced, through the influence of Leo X, by Rafaello Petrucci (d. 1522). Fabio’s brief return to power (1522–4) ended the family’s prominence. Pandolfo Petrucci played a very active role in the interstate politics of the Renaissance. Another study attesting to the importance of Aurelia Petrucci in Renaissance cultural life is James Nelson Novoa, ‘Aurelia Petrucci d’après quelques dédicaces entre 1530 et 1540,’ Bulletino senese di storia di patria 109 (2004), 103–26. Cf. Manuppella (1983), 445–6, and Rime di cinquanta illustri poetesse di nuovo date in luce da Antonio Bufolin, e dedicate all’eccelentissima Signora D. Eleonora Sicilia Spinelli Duchessa D’Atri (Naples: Presso Antonio Bufolin, 1695). Nelson Novoa (Los Diálogos). Cf. Manuppella, 1983: 441–6, and J. Nelson Novoa, ‘New Documents Regarding the Publication of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’Amore.’ Hispanica Judaica 5 (2007), 271–82. We need to mention that it seems there is an allusion to Leone’s works in three letters of Baldassar Castiglione. In the first one from Madrid, addressed to Andrea Piperario on 14 March 1525, Castiglione asks for the grammar books of Gian Giorgio Trissino and Pietro Bembo, as well as the books of ‘Maestro Lione’ (‘… quando si potrà haver la gramatica del medesimo Tressino, e Bembo. Mi sarà carissimo haverle insieme con quelli libri di Maestro Lione …’). In the other two, dated 30 April and 7 June 1525, he repeats his request for Leone’s books. See Baldassar Di Castiglione, Lettere inedite e varie, ed. Guglielmo Gorni (Milan/Naples: Ricciardi, 1969), 90, 97, 101. Three of these manuscripts (Harley 5423, conserved at the British Library; Patetta 373 and Barberiniano Latino 3743, conserved at the Vatican Library) were considered by Manuppella for his critical edition in 1983. Two new manuscripts (Western 22, Columbia University Library, and Ms. 22, Biblioteca Comunale di Ascoli Piceno) have recently come to light. They will hopefully contribute to a new critical edition of the Dialogues of Love under preparation by James Nelson Novoa and Rossella Pescatori. For the early history of the manuscripts see Paolo Trovato, Con diligenza corretto: La stampa e le revisioni editoriali di testi letterari italiani (1470–1570) (Bologna: Il Mulino, 1991). See also Stella Capel, Per un’edizione critica del terzo dialogo d’amore di Leone Ebreo (Del nascimento d’Amore) (Rome-Amsterdam: Leiden, 1981–2; Barbara Garvin, ‘The Language of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi D’Amore,’ Italia 13 (2001) (Jerusalem: Hebrew University Magnes Press), 181–210; and Nelson Novoa (2006). As the Barberiniano Latino 3743 attests, this manuscript is annotated with Hebrew glosses.

Notes to pages 8–9

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34 Tullia D’Aragona, Della infinità di amore (1547), in Giuseppe Zonta (1912), 185–248. 35 Benedetto Varchi, Hercolano (1560) (Florence, 1570), 279: ‘Cicerone fu divino ne’ suoi Dialoghi, come nell’altre cose. Ma se I Dialoghi di Lione Hebreo dove si ragiona d’Amore fusseri vestiti, come meriterebbero, noi non haremmo da invidiare né i Latini, né i Greci.’ (Cf. Garvin, 2001: 191). 36 Della Institutione (1543). 37 Isaia Sonne, ‘Le-She’elat ha-Lashon ha-Mekorit shel Vikukhei ha-Ahavah liYehudah Abravanel,’ in Ziyunim: Kovez le-Zikhrono shel Y. N. Simhoni (Berlin, 1929), 142–8. 38 Carlo Dionisotti, ‘Appunti su Leone Ebreo,’ Italia medievale e umanistica 2, 2 (1959), 409–28. 39 There is an internal date in Dialogue 3, “According to Hebrew truth, we have already reached the five thousand two hundred and sixty second year from the beginning of Creation” (Dialogue 3, p. 236). The year 5262 of the Jewish calendar corresponds to 1501–2 of the Gregorian calendar. About this problem see Garvin (2001) and Nelson Novoa (2006), who noticed that in the manuscripts of the third dialogue there are discrepancies on this date; in the eldest of the manuscripts, Patetta (f. 55r), the date is 5272, ten years later, which would be 1511. This same date is also reported in the manuscript conserved at Ascoli Piceno. 40 Arthur M. Lesley, ‘The Place of the Dialoghi d’amore in Contemporaneous Jewish Thought,’ in David B. Ruderman, ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and Baroque Italy (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 170–88. 41 Cf. Lesley (1992), in particular p. 177. 42 Justified by the fact that the Dialogues seemingly address and respond to the ideas of Neoplatonists and Christian kabbalists: ‘Jews could respond to the challenge of Christianity that was reinforced by Plato and Cabala in two ways: by rejecting Plato and Cabala, and consequently Christianity; or by making Plato and Cabala serve Judaism instead. The first response, of course, is characteristic of Elijah del Medigo, and the second, of Yehuda Abravanel, in the Dialoghi d’amor’ (Lesley, 1992: 184). 43 Lesley (1992), 185. 44 Who wrote a brief biography of Isaac Abravanel. 45 Who wrote Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (Venice, 1587) and is a possible translator of the Dialogues into Spanish. See Cosmos Damian Bacich, ‘Negotiating Renaissance Harmony: The First Spanish Translation of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore,’ in Comitatus 36 (2005). 46 Who translated the Dialogues into Hebrew. For further investigation see Garvin (2001), 191 n.28.

380 Notes to pages 9–10 47 See Aaron W. Hughes, ‘Transforming the Maimonidean Imagination: Aesthetics in the Renaissance Thought of Judah Abravanel,’ Harvard Theological Review 97 (2004), 461–84. 48 Various theories on the Italian or Etruscan language originating directly from Aramaic, and thus from Hebrew, are known to have circulated at the time. Annius of Viterbo (1432–1502) argued that central Italy had been settled by Noah after the biblical Flood, and that ancient culture had developed in the area around Viterbo. See Giovanni Nanni, Comentaria fratris Ioannis Annii … super opera diuersorum auctorum de Antiquitatibus loquentiu confecta … (Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1498). Ann Moyer has noted that ‘Annius’s appeal had lain especially in the references, characters, and narratives that suggested a unity of ancient religious revelation, Christian at its core; it recalls the writings of Pico. Annius had asserted that ancient mythological figures could be identified with Biblical ones, and produced a syncretic mythology (Noah, for example, had become Janus to the Romans). Since Etruria could trace its people back directly to Noah, it followed for Gelli that ancient Etruscan had developed from ancient Chaldean and so was very different from Latin. Thus in the modern era Tuscan had no need to rely on Latin for its normative and aesthetic standards.’ See www.history.upenn.edu/ coursepages/hist342/RSA%20Talk%202006.htm# _ednref13. 49 Very plausible if the work actually dates to 1511 (see note 33). 50 Andrés Soria Olmedo Los Dialogos d’Amore De Leon Hebreo: Aspectos literarios y culturales (Granada: Universitad de Granada, 1984), 101. 51 Giuseppe Veltri, ‘Philo and Sophia: Leone Ebreo’s Concept of Jewish Philosophy,’ in Cultural Intermediaries, ed. David B. Ruderman and G. Veltri (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004). 52 Interesting studies on this subject include those by Stephen Clark, From Athens to Jerusalem: The Love of Wisdom and the Love of God (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984); Leo Strauss, ‘Jerusalem and Athens: Some Introductory Reflections,’ Commentary 43 (1967), 45–57; and Jaroslav Pelikan, What Has Athens to Do with Jerusalem? Timaeus and Genesis in Counterpoint (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997). 53 For further investigation see Donald A. Beecher and Massimo Ciavolella, eds, Eros and Anteros: The Medical Tradition of Love in Renaissance Culture (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1992); Jean C. Carron, Discours de l’errance amoureuse (Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin, 1986); Massimo Ciavolella and Amilcare Iannucci, eds, Saturn from Antiquity to the Renaissance (Ottawa: Dovehouse Editions, 1992); Michèle Gally, L’intelligence de l’amour d’Ovide à Dante: Arts d’aimer et poésie au Moyen-Âge (Paris: CNRS, 2005); C.S. Lewis, The Allegory of Love: A Study in Medieval Tradition (London: Oxford University Press, 1936); and Mary F. Wack, Lovesickness in the Middle

Notes to pages 10–11

54 55 56

57 58

59

60

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Ages: The ‘Viaticum’ and Its Commentaries (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990). The Asolani were published for the first time by Manutius in 1505, even if they were already partially realized in 1497–8. The four dialogues of the Libro del Cortigiano were published for the first time by Manutius in 1528, but they were already circulating by 1516. Marsilio Ficino translated Plotinus, Proclus, Iamblichus, Porphiry, the Orphic hymns, hermetic texts, and Pseudo-Dionysus, and commented on them having in his mind the speculation of a whole medieval Christian tradition that was strongly influenced by Neoplatonism (to give a few names: Augustine, Boethius, Pseudo-Dionysius, John Scotus Eriugena, and Bonaventura). Veltri (2004), 62. Christian readers were able to see in the Dialogues established ancient authorities such as Moses, Plato, and Aristotle, as well as echoes of ideas found in Christian writers such as Lactantius, Augustine, Boethius, Dante, and Boccaccio. There are descriptions of the love of God for himself, expressed in a seemingly Trinitarian manner; the reconciliation of Platonic philosophy with biblical teachings is joined with the idea that gentile philosophy had derived from the ancient Hebrews (concepts dear to the Fathers of the Church, including Augustine). Moreover, one enigmatic passage in the work that seems to number St John the Evangelist among those thought to enjoy bodily immortality along with the prophets Enoch and Elijah most probably caught the attention of many readers by its explicit mention of a Christian saint (Cosmos D. Bacich, Writing Outside the Lines: Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Spanish Translations of Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love [Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005], 49). In addition to this we cannot forget, as Bacich (ibid., 49) reminds us, that ‘since the Dialogues were printed posthumously, the identity of the author, known to many readers only as ‘Leone Ebreo,’ had become somewhat mysterious. The idea even circulated that Leone had died a Christian, and this was further fostered by the attribution in the 1541 and 1545 Aldine editions: ‘Leone Medico, di natione ebreo et dipoi fatto cristiano.’ Leone’s Dialogues could be an easy source of information, and inspiration for the meaning of mythological subjects and allegories. See Salvatore Settis, La Tempesta interpretata (Turin: Einaudi, 1978); Edith Balas, Michelangelo’s Medici Chapel: A New Interpretation (Philadelphia: American Philosophy Society, 1995); and Rossella Pescatori, ‘Images and Simulacra of the Soul: Reading Female Allegory in Veronese’s Paintings, and Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues,’ in Cadernos de Estudios Sefarditas 6 (2007), 149–70. Most prominent among them Tullia D’Aragona, Dialogo De infinità d’Amore and Vittoria Colonna’s poems.

382 Notes to page 11 61 Including Pietro Aretino, Il filosofo (1546); Torquato Tasso, Dialogo sull’amore; Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha; Camões, Lusiads; and the poems of John Donne. 62 The first Hebrew translation of the Dialogues was published in Lyck, Poland, in 1871, but the translation itself was done in the sixteenth century, probably by Leone Da Modena (1571–1648) or Baruch di Urbino. Leone was recognized by Jewish authors since the late Renaissance as a Jewish thinker and philosopher. Baruch Usiel Chesqueto, Azariah dei Rossi (1514–78) mentioned him as a great Jewish thinker. Abraham Cohen de Herrera (ca. 1570–1635), in his famous philosophical work Gate of Heaven, mentions Leone as one of the most famous Jewish philosophers, on the same level as Maimonides and Joseph Calvo. For further references see Nelson Novoa (2006), 185–6. An interesting study involving the reception of the Dialogues in contemporary Jewish communities is Nelson Novoa, ‘An Aljamiado Version of Judah Abravanel’s Dialoghi d’amore,’ Materia Giudaica 8.2 (2003), 311–26. 63 The actual status of Dialogues studies is well delineated by Shoshanna Gershenzon: ‘Scholarly opinions are divided among [1] those who classify the Dialogues as essentially medieval, [2] those who lay equal stress on the work’s medieval and Renaissance elements, and [3] those few who classify Leone as a Renaissance thinker’ (Gershenzon, ‘Myth and Scripture: The Dialoghi d’amore of Leone Ebreo,’ in Shalom Sabar, Steven Fine, and William M. Framer, A Crown for a King [Jerusalem: Gefen, 2000], 125–45). Among the first group are Alfred Ivry and Schlomo Pines, ‘Medieval Doctrines in Renaissance Garb? Some Jewish and Arabic Sources of Leone Ebreo’s Doctrine’; H. Davidson, ‘Medieval Jewish Philosophy in the Sixteenth Century’; and Moshe Idel, ‘The Magic and Neoplatonic Interpretations of the Kabbalah in the Renaissance.’ All are found in Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, ed. Bernard D. Cooperman (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983). The second group includes Colette Sirat, A History of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Bernhard Zimmels, Leo Hebraeus, ein judischer Philosoph der Renaissance (Leipzing: Th. Schatzky Buchdruckerei, 1886); Heinz Pflaum, Der Idee der Liebe Leone Ebreo (Tubingen: Verlang von J.C.B. Mohr, 1926); and, on the edge of Renaissance sustainers, Susan Damiens, Amour et Intellect chez Leon l’Hebreu (Toulouse: Edouard Privat, 1971). For the third group, see Nicola Ivanoff, ‘La beauté dans la philosophie de Marsile Ficin et de Leon Hebreux,’ Humanisme et Renaissance 3 (1936); Julius Guttmann, Philosophies of Judaism (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964); Charles Nelson, The Renaissance Theory of Love: The Context of Giordano Bruno’s ‘Eroici furori’ (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958). Most non-Jewish scholars who have dedicated some attention to Leone Ebreo refer to him as part of the Neoplatonic

Notes to pages 11–12

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65

66 67

68 69 70

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movement of the sixteenth century (e.g., Kristeller and Garin). Recent studies dedicated to Leone Ebreo’s Judaic philosophy are Angela Guidi, ‘Platonismo e neoplatonismo nei Dialoghi d’Amore di Leone Ebreo: Maimonide, Ficino e la definizione della materia,’ Medioevo. Rivista della filosofia medievale 28 (2003), 225–48; Guidi, La sagesse de Salomon et le savoir philosophique: Matériaux pour une nouvelle interprétation des ‘Dialogues d’amour’ de Léon l’Hébreu, Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Théologiques, 91.2 (April-June 2007), 241–64; Seymour Feldman, ‘Platonic Cosmologies in the Dialoghi d’amore of Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel),’ Viator 36 (2005); and Aaron W. Hughes (2004), and ‘Epigone, Innovator, or Apologist: The Case of Judah Abravanel.’ It seems that the author had a fourth dialogue on the effects of love in mind. The third dialogue concludes with Philo saying that there is no space and time to discuss the topic of the effects of love, but that another day he will start this new conversation with Sophia. We do not know whether Leone ever wrote this fourth dialogue or whether it was lost: there are no surviving editions. See also David Harari, ‘The Traces of the Missing Fourth Dialogue on Love by Judah Abravanel Known as Leone Ebreo’ (Hebrew) Italia 7.1–2 (1988), 93–155. It is interesting that his name recalls Philo of Alexandria (20 BC–40 CE), an important Jewish philosopher who tried to reconcile Greek philosophy with Judaism by means of the art of allegory. See the very interesting study of R.A. Baer, Philo’s Use of the Categories Male and Female (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970); J.J. Vila-Chã (1999); and David Runia, Exegesis and Philosophy: Studies on Philo of Alexandria (Aldershot, Hampshire; Brookfield, VT: VariorumGower, 1990). For the figures of Philo and Sophia see the recent study of Guidi (2007). The second Spanish translation has in its title Philographía universal de todo el mundo, de los Diálogos de León Hebreo. Traducida de italiano en español, corregida y añadida por Micer Carlos Montesa (Zaragoza, 1584). As it was in the title of the previous translation in English. Cf. The Philosophy of Love, trans. Friedeberg-Seeley and Barnes (1937). Nuccio Ordine, ‘Il dialogo cinquecentesco italiano tra diegesi e mimesi,’ in Studi e problemi di critica testuale, (ed. Spognano) 33 (October 1988), 155–79. The dialogue form had certainly been used in the Middle Ages, yet at this time its structure was more directed at keeping the arguments and discussions at hand within a rigid parameter of accepted forms of comparison and debate. The term ‘dialogue’ derives from the Greek ‘dialegesthai,’ the root it shares with ‘dialectic,’ yet all of this does not necessarily lead back to Plato. The dialogue is not only a literary form, but also something radically conceptual in scope and it is for this reason that it incorporates within itself philosophical discourse. It is Plato who offers the most polished model of the literary use of the dialogue.

384 Notes to pages 13–14

71 72 73

74 75

76

77

Other models of philosophic dialogues were also found in Roman rhetoric, in particular Cicero. Shem Tov Falaquera (1225–90), Epistle of the Debate and The Book of Seeker. On this subject see Aaron W. Hughes (2004) and The Art of Dialogue in Jewish Philosophy (forthcoming 2008). Solomon Ibn Gabirol (ca 1021–ca 1055), who is mentioned in the Dialogues as Avicembron, and Yehudah Hallevi/Hallewi (ca 1075–1141) are two figures of enormous relevance to the formal and ideological construction of the Dialogues. Both composed their works in the Iberian Peninsula under the influence of Arabic culture. The Fons Vitae was reputed for centuries to have been written by a Muslim. Ibn Gabirol’s identity was discovered by Solomon Munk in 1846. In the Sefer haKuzari by Judah Halevi there exists a medical tradition derived from Avicenna which gives form to his own psychological doctrine that is founded on a combination of Neoplatonic and Aristotelian elements. Judah Halevi is often considered a precursor of Kabbalah, or at the very least a mediator of concepts that in successive eras will become part of Kabbalist doctrine. See also Isaac Myer, Qabbalah. The Philosophical Writings of Solomon ibn Yehudah ben Gebirol or Avicebron, and Their Connection with the Hebrew Qabbalah and Sepher ha-Zohar, with Remarks upon the Antiquity and Content of the Latter, and Translations of Selected Passages from the Same. Also, An Ancient Lodge of Initiates, Translated from the Zohar (London: Stuart & Watkins, 1970), reprint of 1888 edition. João José Vila-Chã’s doctoral thesis, ‘Amor Intellectualis?: Leone Ebreo (Judah Abravanel) and the Intelligibility of Love’ (1999) offers a thorough analysis of the Fons Vitae. Sergius Kodera, Filone und Sofia in Leone Ebreos Dialoghi d’Amore (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin: Peter Lang: 1995). Leone Ebreo quotes the Arab philosophers Al-farabi (870–950), Avicenna (980– 1037), Al-Gazeli (1058–1111), and Averroes (1126–98), and the Jewish philosophers Maimonides (1135–1204) and Ibn Gabirol (1021–58). It is interesting to note that in their analysis of eros, the more rationalist and scientific branches of Arabic philosophy imply a whole speculative structure with medical, astrological, and psychological aspects that are still closely tied to medieval concepts, even though similar notions are found within the Renaissance interest in the connection between the stars and psychological types. According to Moshe Idel (Ascension on High in Jewish Mysticism [Budapest: CEU Press, 2005]) and Tristan Dagron, it was probably inspired by al-Batalyawsi, Ibn al-Sid, Kitab al-Hada’iq (The Book of the Circles), translated into Hebrew in Spain during the Middle Ages by Moses Ibn Tibbon (see Dagron’s Introduction to the Dialogues d’Amour, trans. Pontus De Tyard [Paris: Vrin, 2006]). Marsilio Ficino completed his Commentary on Plato’s Symposium, De Amore in 1474–5; its Italian translation, El libro dell’amore, followed right after.

Notes to page 15

78

79

80

81

385

Benivieni composed his Canzona d’amore in 1484, and Pico della Mirandola wrote his Commento on that song shortly after. The ‘Asolani’ by Pietro Bembo appeared in 1505; dated at the end of the 15th century were also the ‘Panegirico dell’amore’ by Francesco Cattani da Diacceto, who composed De pulchro, and the Libro della natura d’amore. Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente et uno, ed. E. Garin (Florence: Vallecchi editore, 1942). For other information see K. Safa, L’humanisme de Pic de la Mirandole (Paris: Librarie Philosophique J. Vrin, 2001); A. Raspanti, Filosofia, teologia, religione: L’unità della visione in Pico della Mirandola (Palermo: Edi, 1991); Guido Canziani, Le metamorfosi dell’amore: Ficino, Pico e I Furori di Bruno (Milan: Accu, 2001); P.C. Bori, Pluralità delle vie: Alle origini del Discorso sulla dignità dell’uomo di Pico della Mirandola. (Milan: Feltrinelli, 2000); V. Allegretti, Esegesi medievale e umanesimo. L’Heptaplus di Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (Milan, Ravenna: Centro Studi Lotario-Edizioni del Girasole, 1997); Brian Copenhaver, ‘Number, Shape and Meaning in Pico’s Christian Cabala: The Upright Tsade, the Closed Mem and the Gaping Jaws of Azazel,’ in Natural Particulars, Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, A. Grafton, N. Siraisi, and G. Ruggiero, eds (Cambridge, MA, and London: MIT Press, 1999). The analogy of the microcosm-macrocosm is central to Kabbalist theories, which consider the Torah as a living organism. Cf. Gershom G. Scholem, Kabbalah (New York, London, Penguin: 1978). Moreover, the Torah is often compared to the ‘tree of life,’ which has roots, a trunk, branches, and bark that together form a unified entity. As with the discrepancies in the Torah that find unity in the name of God, each aspect of his creation is revealed in the objects of this world. Indeed, the Torah appears in various forms in the different cycles of creation, shemmitot, which provoke continuous mutations that nevertheless are unable to ultimately change its structure. In particular in this last work, Beauty is hypostasized as an important means to reach the divine. Recall that tiferet, beauty, is one of the ten sefirot, and in Alemanno it is the seventh and highest level of the spiritual world. See Hughes (2004: 470). See also Yohanan Alemanno, ‘The Song of Solomon’s Ascents,’ trans. Arthur M. Lesley, PhD dissertation, University of California Berkeley, 1976. Sefer ha-Zohar (‘the Book of Radiance’) emerged mysteriously in Spain towards the end of the thirteenth century. It is a commentary on the Torah, the Five Books of Moses, and is written in the form of a mystical novel. Zohar gives particular directives of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. See Ron Feldman, Fundamentals of Jewish Mysticism and Kabbalah (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1999); Moshe Idel, ‘Interpretations of the Cabbala,’ in D. Ruderman, ed., Essential Papers on Jewish Culture in Renaissance and

386 Notes to pages 15–17

82

83 84

85 86 87 88

89 90

91

Baroque Italy (New York and London: New York University Press, 1992); M. Idel, Absorbing Perfections: Kabbalah and Interpretation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002); G.G. Scholem, Jewish Gnosticism, Merkabah, Mysticism, and Talmudic Tradition (New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1965). Further evidence of the use of philosophia perennis in Leone Ebreo can be seen when he applies the hermeneutic proper to Jewish midrashim, and found also in the Zohar, to the stories of Western myth. His goal is to demonstrate that these tales can also confirm the Truth already contained in the Bible. Ebreo in a way retraces the steps of Philo of Alexandria (30 BC–AD 50), who aimed to apply the categories of Greek philosophy to the Bible in order to show that these two sets of knowledge were not separate, but rather united, by divine law. Gershenzon (2000), 126. Thus we can infer that in a way the Dialogues takes a position in the contemporary Jewish debate between fideism and rationalism; the work exhibits a comparison between the wisdom revealed to Israel and the ordinary knowledge or understanding formulated by the philosophers. However, Leone Ebreo’s resolution completely embraces the conception of the sophia perennis theorized by Ficino. As Ariani (1984) states: ‘un discorso della seduzione che trascende l’oggetto amoroso in un’ascesa della ratio attraverso gli ordini supremi dell’Essere.’ Cf. Hughes (2004). Dialogue 2, p. 116. Most likely it is Gebhardt’s or Caramella’s version (1929), even if in some notes mentioned the ‘Saracenus’ edition’ (the Latin translation) and an unspecified ‘French translation,’ which may have been one of the following: Leon Hebriev de l’amovr, vol. 1 (1551); Philosophie d’amour de M. Leon Hebreu (1551); Dialogues d’Amour, 2 vols in 1 (1551); Léon L’Hébreu, La sainte philosophie de l’amour (1595). For full details, see the section ‘Printed Editions and Translations of the Dialoghi d’amore,’ pp. 000 ff. Leonis Hebraei, De Amore dialogi tres (1564). See ‘Printed Editions and Translations.’ Leon Hebreo, Los dialogos de amor de Mestre Leon Abarbanel medico y filosofo excellente (1568); Philographia vniversal de todo el mvndo, de Los dialogos de Leon Hebreo (1584); La tradvzion del Indio de los Tres dialogis de amor de Leon Hebreo (1590); Los dialogos de Léon Hebre. Traduzidos de Italiano en Español (1593); Dialogos de amor compuestos por Maestro Leon Abarbanel Hebreo medico excellentissimo (1598); Philographia vniversal de todo el mvndo, de Los dialogos de Leon Hebreo (1602). Bacich has noted that at least two of the Spanish translations follow the 1541 or 1545 Aldus Manutius edition of the Dialogues of Love.

Notes to pages 23–35

387

ON LOVE AND DESIRE

1 Valorosa is not English ‘valorous,’ a reference to military values alone. The term, in fact, implies multiple connotations: valorosa means to be full of values of any kind (intellectual, moral, spiritual, etc). 2 Colonne di Mercurio could be literally translated as Mercury’s columns, but Mariano Lenzi uses this in a figurative way, referring to the founding knowledge derived from Mercury. The columns were at the door or gates of a palace, or temple. Here the Roman god Mercury (Hermes in Greek – the pagan god messenger of the gods) is identified with the Egyptian god Thoth, or Theuth, who was thought to be the inventor of writing. Thus, Mariano Lenzi also refers to the Corpus hermeticum, a collection of mystical and theological writings that dates back the third century AD. 3 Bei, this adjective appears only in the Blado edition (1535). 4 Se l’ombre obligar si possono, literally, ‘if it is possible to oblige the shades.’ 5 Tenebre: ‘darkness.’ 6 Conoscendoti: knowing. Conoscere, ‘to know,’ is used to express a knowledge based on experience. Desire refers also to physical desire. 7 Causa: ‘causes and incites.’ 8 Discordanti: unmatched in a disharmonic way. 9 Plato, Symposium, 203b–e; Ficino, De amore, VI, 9; Pico, Commento, II, 1. 10 Onesto: literally, is ‘honest,’ but in this context ‘virtuous’ is more suitable. See Aristotle, Nich. Eth., VIII, 2 and Cicero’s De amicitia. 11 Plato, Symposium, 205d; Aristotle, Nich. Eth., VIII, 2. 12 Intelletto. 13 Appetito. 14 Spezie. 15 Effettualmente: ‘in effect.’ 16 Esemplo. 17 Aristotle, Nich. Eth., I, 1, 1094a2–3; Topics, III, 1, 116a19–20; Rhet. I, 6, 1362a23. 18 Ibid., III, 6, 1113a. 19 Giudica. 20 L’essere. 21 Verità: here ‘effective reality.’ 22 Aristotle, Nich. Eth., VIII, 2, 1155b. 23 Genere. 24 Sapienza: knowledge or wisdom. 25 Plato, Symposium, 205b; Aristotle, Nich. Eth., VIII, 2–3. 26 Affannoso.

388 Notes to pages 35–47 27 28 29 30

31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

Il temperamento di quello. Pirkei Avoth, V, 1; Maimonides, Mishneh Torah (MT), II, 1. Negligenzia: ‘negligence.’ Aristotle, Nich. Eth., II, 6; Maimonides, MT, 1, 4. For the opposition between Stoics and Peripatetics, see Cicero, De finibus, III, xii–xiii, 41–4 and III, xv, 49. Here the Peripatetics are grouped together with the Academic Platonists. The following passages focus on the opposition of active to contemplative life, very important in Western philosophical and religious thought. Leone connects the philosophical opinions to the rabbinic tradition, in particular to the Pirkei Avoth, a collection of maxims whose primary focus was ethical-juridical; they were the most well-known section of the Mishnah. Aristotle, Nich. Eth., II, 6. È offizio vile ed enorme. Here a strong the presence of Pirkei Avot (VI:6) can be deduced. Vivifichi. S’appetiscano. Ficino, De voluptate, X. … la presente dilettazione del dilettabile. Puro appetite del dilettabile. Plato, Philebus 32b–c, and Ficino, De voluptate, X. Mancamento appetitoso. Dilettazione effettuale = obtained, real pleasure. Rimedio: literally, remedy. Il fondamento della vera onestà. Virtù. Aristotle, Nich. Eth., I, 6 and Metaph., I, 1. Ibid., Nich. Eth., X, 6. In regard to the honest path. Intelletto. Mediocrità is Aristotle’s golden mean, not the English mediocrity. Ingegno: intelligence. Esteriore: ‘corporeal.’ Onestà. Fantasia e cogitazione. Spiritual potenzia. Aristotle, De anima, II, 4, 416a26, and De gen. an., II, 1, 731b31. Plato, Symposium, 207 a–d. Onestà: righteousness. Onestà: righteousness. Con la sapienza si fa ornata di divina pittura. Divina pittura: divine painting. Dilettabile fantastico.

Notes to pages 48–54 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

84 85

389

Aristotle, Nich. Eth., IX, 4, 1166a29; also in Cicero, De amicitia, XX, 1, 80. Leviticus 19:18; Matthew 22:39. See Ficino, De amore, II, 8. Depende l’anima intellettiva agente di tutte l’onestà umane. Cf. Maimonides, Guide, I, 68. Bisogna che partecipi del lume divino. Here Leone uses lume, a masculine noun, instead of luce, its feminine synonym. Aristotle, De anima, III, 5, 430a10. Anima intellettiva. Here in complement to intelletto, masculine, Leone Ebreo uses luce divina, which in Italian is feminine. Spezie: literally, ‘species.’ Maimonides, Guide, I, 70. Ibid., III, 27. Bontà. Onestà: righteousness. An allusion to De coeli harmonia, a lost philosophical work of Leone Ebreo. See also Maimoides, Guide, I, 51. Comprende. Abito. Ficino, Theol. Plat., XIV, 10. Esteriori: referring to appearances. Interiori. This passage echoes Cicero, De finibus, III, xii–xiii, 41–4 and III, 49. Artistotle, Nich. Eth., VI, 3, 1139b15ss. Aristotle, Metaph., I, 1, 981b27–9. ‘Sages’ seems to refer mainly to the Jewish Maimonides (Cordova 1135–Cairo 1204); two Arab philosophers, Al-Farabi (Wasij, Turkestan 870–Damascus 950) and Avicenna (Kharmaithen, Bokhara 980–Hamadan, Northen Persia 1037); and the Jewish Ibn Gabirol (Malaga, 1021–Valencia 1058). Al-Farabi is Abu Nasr Mohammad Ibn al-Farakh al-Farabi, an authoritative Arabic commentator on Aristotle. Avicenna, is Abu¯ ‘Al ¯i al-H . usayn ibn ‘Abd Alla¯h ibn S ¯ina¯, another authoritative commentator on Aristotle. Intelletto agente. The references here may be linked to different traditions. The influence of Arabic philosophers (e.g., Al-Farabi) can be perceived, but also Christian mysticism (e.g., St Bonaventure). The terminology may also be connected to the ecstatic branch of kabbalah and is very likely linked to the Zohar. In this case there is probably a reference to the actual debate between kabbalistic positions: on one hand, ecstatic kabbalah, whose defenders were Abraham Abulafia (1240–90) and Joseph Gikatilla (1248–1305), and on the other, Spanish kabbalistic thinkers, such as Judah Hayyat (1450–1510) and Isaac Mar Hayyim (unknown dates),

390 Notes to pages 54–66

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97

98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110

who were tied into the intellectual circle of David Messer Leon, his father (Judah, 1420–95) and Isaac da Pisa. Tramontana. Aristotle, De anima, III, 12. Apprendere: ‘to learn.’ Uomini savi: ‘scholars.’ Aristotle, Nich. Eth.., X, 6; see also Plotinus, Enn. X, 6. Aristotle, Metaph., II, 1, 993a–b. This position can easily be reconnected to Al-Farabi’s thought. See also Pico, Commento, I, 3–6. This theory originates with Alexander of Afrodisia, De intellectu. This theory is supported by Al-Farabi, Avicenna, and Averroes. Essenziato. This discourse will be taken up again in Dialogue 3, when Philo will discuss the essence and nature of Love. Here the opposition echoes the debate between Aquinas and the Dominican order and Duns Scotus and Franciscan order; for the former group happiness could be reached through intellect, for the latter by means of will. This same debate was common also to Jewish thought during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; Maimonidean rationalism was opposed by the fideism of Hasdai Cresca (Barcelona 1340–1410). Animo. See Ficino, de Amore, VII, 6; Lucretius, De rerum natura, IV, 1108–16. Deut. 13:4. Ibid. 10:20. The death for divine kiss. See Maimonides, Guide, III, 51; see Dialogue 3, p. 176, note 13. Ecclesiastes 1:8. Maimonides, Guide, III, 7; see also Ficino, De amore, II, 9. An echo of Ficino, De amore, II, 8. 2 Samuel 13:1–22. See also Ficino, De amore, VII, 7; Francesco Cattani Da Diacceto, Tre libri d’amore, 3.4; Baldassar Castiglione, Book of the Courtier, 4.52; Pietro Bembo, Asolani, I. Convertirmi. Converti. Petrarch, Triumphs of Love, III, 162. We do not know which of Euripides’ works Leone Ebreo references. It might be the tragedy Hyppolitus (vv. 525–7), in which Eros is the lord of the world, and introduces desire into people’s hearts through their eyes. The Dolce Stil Novo gave currency to the same concept.

Notes to pages 68–87 111 112 113 114 115 116 117

391

See also Ficino, De amore, II, 8. All the effects of lovesickness are listed in this expressive climax. Penetrazione. Confabulazione. In this case the philosopher is Plato. See Plato, Symposium, 180, a–c. L’amato ha ragione di più perfetto che l’amante. Notizia: ‘notion,’ ‘clue,’ ‘information,’ ‘knowledge.’

ON THE UNIVERSALITY OF LOVE

1 In Greek mythology Charon is the ferryman of the dead. Hermes brings him the souls of the deceased, and Charon ferries them across the river Acheron, the river of oblivion. See also Dante, Inferno, canto 3, 94. 2 Cognizione. Later in the third dialogue cognizione will be translated as ‘cognition’: this knowledge implies an understanding, an acquired knowledge received through a clear distinction of things. 3 Aristotle, Physics, I, 1. 4 For the following discussion the main source is Aristotle, Metaph., XII. 5 Moderata onestà. 6 These five causes of love are also in Al-Ghazali’s The Revival of the Religious Sciences (‘IHyâ’ulum ad-dîn). 7 Appetito, in Aristotelian and Scholastic terminology, means ‘tendency’ or ‘will’; at other times Leone uses the term inclinazione, ‘predisposition.’ 8 Aristotle, De caelo, IV, 3; Physics, IV, 3; Maimonides, Guide, I, 36, 72; II, 4. 9 Aristotle, Categories, VI, 6–17, and Metaph., II, 2. 10 Aristotle, Metaph., IX, 2, 1046b10–11. 11 The reference here is to Plato’s Timaeus, 30c. Plotinus, Enn., IV, 3, 9. See also Ficino, De vita, I; Maimonides, Guide, II, 4. 12 Aristotle, De anima, III, 3, 428a9–14 and 434a1–4. 13 Pliny, Historia naturalis, X 14 Ficino, De amore, III, 2. 15 A principle of physics from Epicurus, according to Lucretius’ De rerum natura, VI, 535–607. Another source is Seneca, Naturales quaestiones, VI, 2.3, 1. 16 Aristotle, Physics, IV, 5; De caelo, IV, 5; Maimonides, Guide, I, 36. 17 Maimonides, Guide, II, 19. 18 Aristotle, De gen. et corr., II, 3–4. 19 Aristotle, De gen. an., I, 2, 176a13–17; Plato, Timaeus, 50d–51a. See also Isaac Abravanel, Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation) in reference to Genesis 2:4. 20 ‘Her’ refers to earth for its personification.

392 Notes to pages 88–97 21 This is the concept of prime matter in Aristotle. See also Maimonides, Guide, I, 28, but also Ovid, Metam., I, 7. 22 Timaeus, 49, according to Maimonides, Guide, I, 17. See Aristotle, Physics, 1, 9, 192a23–5. See also Francesco Cattani Da Diacceto, De amore, I, 7. Also Isaac Abravanel in Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation) dealt with this matter. 23 See Maimonides, Guide, III, 8. 24 Empedocles (ca 492–ca 432 BC). See also Aristotle, Metaph., I, 4, 985a21; Ficino, De amore, III, 2; Dante, Inferno, 12:41–3. 25 Aristotle, De anima, I, 2, 404b. 26 See Zohar, 1:30a. 27 Aristotle, De partibus animalium, II, 1, 646a10–17. 28 Francesco Cattani Da Diacceto, De amore, Book II, 5. 29 The masculine pronoun is used because Heaven is considered here to be a husband. 30 Earth. 31 Come proprio uomo generante. 32 It is possible to find a similar analogy in the Sefer Yetzira, a Kabbalistic text. 33 Locuzione disciplinare. 34 Piedi: here ‘feet’ mean ‘legs.’ In fact, in Hebrew foot and leg are indicated with the word regel. 35 The cosmos as living individual is found in Plato, Timaeus, 30b, 37d, 69b–e. Plato was the first to adopt this idea, used also by Stoicism and Neoplatonism (see Plotinus, Enn., IV, 4, 35–6, and Proclus). See also Maimonides, Guide, I, 72. We can see this conception also in Zohar, II, 23b, 24b, and I, 253b–4 a. 36 Understood as the human being. 37 Maimonides, Guide, I, 14 interprets Adam as denoting the human species. Also Isaac Abravanel in his Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on Creation) deals with this issue. Genesis 1:27 and 5:2. See Dialogue 3, p. 275. Zohar, 1:49a. 38 See Plato, Timaeus, 30a–31b, Ficino, De vita, III, 2. 39 Pythagoras of Samos (571–496 BC). References to Pythagoras are found in Boethius, De musica, II.2; Cicero, Tuscul. disput., V, 3, 9–4, 10; Hugh of Saint Victor, Didascalion; and in Leone’s contemporaries such as Ficino and Pico. 40 Tramontana. 41 Aristotle, Metaph., I, 5; De caelo, II, 2, 285a25. 42 Aristotle, De caelo, II, 2, 285a29. 43 Caramella added the words on parenthesis in order to have a complete sentence that made sense. 44 Plato, Timaeus, 63a; Aristotle, De caelo, IV, 1. 45 See Isaac Abravanel, Shamayyim Hadashim, II, 1.

Notes to pages 98–115

393

46 Aristotle, De caelo, II, 3; Cicero, Questiones Tusculanes, I, 78. 47 Isaac Abravanel in his Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation) also dealt with this topic. 48 Maimonides, Guide, I, 72. 49 The eight heavens of Ptolemaic cosmology. 50 Caramella’s addition. 51 Plato, Timaeus, 64f–72e. 52 Maimonides, Guide, I, 72; Ibn Gabirol, Fons vitae, III, 2. 53 The androgynous nature of the universe. 54 See Macrobius, Somnium Scipionis, XVII; Maimonides, Guide, II, 8. 55 Augustine, De Trinitate, 15, 9, 5; Aquinas, Summa, 1-1, 10; Dante, Convivio, 2:2– 9; Letter to Can Grande de la Scala, X, 7; Pico, Apology, in Opera omnia, p. 178. Pico’s Jewish source is very likely Bahya ben Asher, Commentary on the Torah, written about 1291 in Saragossa. Maimonides, Guide, I, preface; Zohar 2:176a–b. 56 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum., XIV, preface and XV, preface; Augustine, City of God, 18:14; Pico, Commento, I, 6, 7. 57 Tristo vaso. 58 Pico, Heptaplus, 2nd intro. 59 ‘Goths’ is used in the Blado and Marso editions, while ‘Greeks’ is used in all other editions. 60 Pico, Commento, IX, 9. 61 This could be interpreted as ‘Only for those who had heard him interpret them.’ 62 As written in the Blado and Marso editions. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, II, 2, 8–10. 63 Cicero, De natura deorum, II, xxv, 64 and II, xxvi, 66. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, II, 2, 2–10. 64 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, proemius. The reference to Demagorgon (see note 73 below) testifies to Leone’s direct dependence on Boccaccio’s Genealogiae. Sections of this dialogue are practically a direct translation of this book. 65 Ouranos is the Greek name for the sky, Latinized as Uranus. In Roman mythology it is Caelus. 66 Proclus, Platonic Theology, and Cicero, De natura deorum, II, xxiii, 60–1. 67 Cicero, De natura deorum, III, xxi; Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, V, 1. 68 Augustine, City of God, 18:14. 69 Cielo. 70 Cicero, De natura deorum, II, xxiv, 62; Lattantius, Instr., I, 15, 6; Plinus, Historia naturalis, II, 19. 71 Dante: ‘active.’ 72 Recipiente: ‘passive.’ 73 Demogorgone. Demogorgon, although often ascribed to Greek mythology, is actually an invention of Christian scholars, imagined as the name of a pagan god

394 Notes to pages 115–22

74 75 76 77 78 79

80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99

or demon associated with the underworld and thought of as a powerful primordial being. Demogorgon is first mentioned by a Christian Scholastic philosopher of ca 350–400 AD who had been writing glosses to Statius’s Thebaid. This unidentified scribe is misidentified with various Christian authors by enthusiastic modern demonologists. Before this date, there is no pagan mention of any mythical ‘Demogorgon’ anywhere. By the late Middle Ages, nevertheless, the reality of a primal creative pagan ‘Demogorgon’ was so well fixed in the European imagination that ‘Demogorgon’s son Pan’ became a bizarre variant reading for ‘Hermes’ son Pan’ in Boccaccio’s Genealogiae deorum, 1.3–4 and 2.1, misreading a line in Ovid’s Metam. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 3, 2–4. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, V, and, about Erebus, XIV. Ovid, Metam., I, 6–9 Timaeus, 28c. See Dialogue 3, p. 228. Ficino, De amore, I, 3 or In Philebum, II, 1. We left the word that we found: exmaim, which stays for esh-mayin. See Bereshit Rabbah, IV, 7. Timaeus, 40a; Plotinus, Enn., II, 1; Pico, Heptaplus, 2nd proemio. See also Pico, Heptaplus, II. Ficino, In Plotino, II, 1 and Platonic Theology, X, 5. Plato, Timaeus, 41a–b. See Maimonides, Guide, II, 13, and Ficino, In Plotino, II, 1. Anime, which can be understood as ‘essences.’ Le quali Seneca chiama ‘fate.’ Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 5. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 7, 5. Ibid., I, 6. Note that Phyton and Phaeton are conflated. The geocentric concept of the universe is still present at this time. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 8 and I, 9. Ibid., Gen. deorum, I, 10, 3; Vergil, Aeneid, 4:173–84. Ibid., Gen. deorum, I, 11. Ibid., Gen. deorum, I, 14, 1. Erebo che vuol dire inerenzia. This inerenzia is used only by Leone. Mondo piccolo: man as microcosm. Aristotle, Physics, I, 9, quoted in Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 15, 1. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 16; Cicero, De natura deorum, III, 44. Leone names her Die, which is Hemera, representation of the day; she was the daughter of Nyx and Erebus. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 1. Ibid., Gen. deorum, I, 4, 1–2. Celius, Caelus is Uranus, as in Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, II, 1. See also Pico, Commento, II, 16.

Notes to pages 122–32

395

100 Plato, Epynomides, 984b–c; Plotinus, Enn., II, 1, 105 and IV, 3, 17. Ficino, In Phaedrum, X and Platonic Theology, VIII, 6; De vita, III, 3; De amore, II, 2. 101 De caelo, II, 7. 102 This passage exemplifies Leone’s syncretism. The references are Plato, Timaeus, 58d and Phaedrus, III a–c; Ficino, In Phaedrum; and Isaac Abravanel, Shamayyim Hadashim. 103 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, II, 1–2. Some elements of this passage can be found in Pico, Commento, II, 17. 104 Ficino, De vita, I, 3–6 and III, 22. 105 Rhea, Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, III, 2,1. 106 Giove. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, II, 2, 7; Ficino, De vita, III, 6. 107 A possible source is Annius of Virterbus (Giovanni Nanni, Comentaria fratris Ioannis Annii … super opera diuersorum auctorum de Antiquitatibus loquentiu confecta … (Rome: Eucharius Silber, 1498). On Janus see Pico, Commento, II, 25. 108 Uomini gioviali: those men born under the influence of Jupiter/Jove. 109 Sedech in the Italian text. 110 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, IV, 1; Ficino, De vita, III, 6, 22. Notice that Tsedeq is also the Hebrew name of the planet Jupiter. 111 The reference is probably founded on Aristotle, Physics. 112 Gen. 1:1. See also Plotinus, Enn., III, 4, 1. Ficino also referred to Plotinus, Theol. Plat., III, 1. 113 Ps. 102:26. See Bereshit Rabbah, I, 15, and Dialogue 3, p. 241. 114 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, IX, 1. 115 Cicero, De natura deorum, II, xxvii, 66. 116 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, IX, 2. 117 Ibid., IX, 1, 4 and IX, 2–13. 118 Ibid., IX, 3, 3. 119 Ibid.,, IV, 20, 4. 120 Ibid., IV, 20. 121 Gen. 1:1–5; Maimomides, Guide, 2, 30. 122 See Dialogue 3, p. 240 and note 110. 123 Sotto il velame degli amori carnali di Iove. It echoes Dante, Inferno, 9:63: ‘Sotto il velame de li versi strani.’ 124 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, XIII, 1. 125 Formosa indicates richness of qualities. 126 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, I, 9, 5. 127 Ibid., XIII, 1. 128 Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, XI, 7. This myth was used also by Dante in Paradiso, 26:97–9.

396 Notes to pages 132–54 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163

Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, IX, 7 Ibid., VII, 22. Ibid., II, 62. Ibid., II, 32 and 33. Ibid., IV, 21. Ibid., II, 64. Ibid., VII, 55. Ibid., IV, 67, 68. Maimonides, Guide, II, 9 in reference to Ptolomy, Almagestis, IX, 1. Plato, Symposium, 80d–c; Plotinus, Enn., III, 5; Ficino, De amore, II, 7; Pico, Commento, II, 16. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, III, 22; Pico, Commento, II, 16 and 22. Ovid, Fasti, IV, 1; Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, III, 22, 2. See Dialogue 3, p. 271. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, XI, 4. Pico, Commento, II, 16. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, IX, 3. Ibid., IX, 4, 1 and Dialogue 1, note 75. Ibid., II, 7, 4–5. Ibid., II, 14. La verga. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, II, 12. The most probable source is G. Pontano, Centum sententiae, quod Centiloquium dicunt, a Iouiano Pontano versae. ‘Hermaphrodite’ is a synonym for homosexual. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, III, 21; Ovid, Metam., IV, 288–9. Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, V, 2. Ibid., V, 3, 1–3. Ibid., VII, 29 and IX, 4, 2. Gen. 6:9–10. Boccaccio also suggests this parallel; see Gen. deorum, VII, proem. 3. See Dialogue 3, p. 238. E perciò ama l’umidità per convertirla a sé nel suo bisogno. Etymological game: l’auro, ‘the laurel’; aurum in Latin is ‘gold.’ Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, VII, 29, 3–9. Scienzia. Si confanno molto bene insieme. Ben auspicienti. Ficino, De amore, II, 2–3. Che è la Fontana. Affettuosissimamente.

Notes to pages 154–72

397

164 Caramella adds: ‘E che amino Dio, ma non il contrario’ (and that they love God, but not the contrary). 165 Ficino, De amore, III, 1. 166 Pone macula. Understood as ‘it leaves a spot,’ ‘makes dirty.’ The human action can therefore change or give back the divine balance. See Isaiah 45:7 and Maimonides, Guide, III, 10. 167 Anime intellettive e immateriali. Aristotle, Metaph., XII, 7, 1072b1–4. 168 See Aristotelian concepts in Maimonides, Guide, II, 4. 169 Thinkers whose works were translated from Arabic. Medieval Christian philosophers and theologians classified these thinkers together under the name of the Arab Academy. 170 Maimonides. 171 Avicenna, Metaphysics, IX, 2; Maimonides, Guide, II, 4. 172 Averroes, In Metaph. XII, comm. 44 173 Virtù. 174 Averroes. 175 Mi piace di vederti insanguinarmi la piaga per curarla poi meglio. 176 Maimonides, Guide, II, 4. 177 Plato, Phaedrus, 248c; Plotinus, Enn., IV, 8; and Ficino, De amore, IV, 4. 178 La divina pietà. 179 L’essere del mondo could be translated also as ‘existence.’ 180 Communità. 181 See also Ficino, De amore, II, 8. 182 See above note 156. ON THE ORIGIN OF LOVE

1 Andava per alcuni bisogni della parte che men vale. 2 Estraere l’animo mio. In all the manuscripts and in Blado’s edition the verb extrahere is used. 3 Here Leone Ebreo uses the verb sapere, and not conoscere as in the Dialogue 1. 4 M’ha fatto lassare i sensi esteriori: literally, the senses connected to the exteriority. About this topos – known as ‘alienatio amorosa’ – see also Petrarch, Canzoniere, Sonnet 94; Cavalcanti, Canzone 30; Ficino, De amore 11, 8 and De vita, I, 6. 5 Trapassare: to pass through. 6 Patrona del tutto. 7 Mezza morte. See Ficino, Theol. Plat., XIII, 2. 8 The following passage deals with the topic of the vacatio animae; possible references are: Maimonides, Guide, II; see also Ficino, Theol. Plat., XIII, 5.

398 Notes to pages 172–191 9 10 11 12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31 32

33 34 35

Spiriti: vital energies. Superiore, meaning also higher. Inferiore, meaning also inferior. Num. 20:23–9; Deut. 32:48–50. The topos of the death for divine kiss was already present in Dialogue 1, p. 61, with the references to Deut. 35:5, Num. 32:38, and the Song of Songs 1:2. See also Maimonides, Guide, III, 51. This theme was widely discussed in Arab, Jewish (e.g., in Zohar, 1:83a–b, and 3:144a–b), and Christian literature. See Pico, Commento, cap. VIII on stanza IV, Conclusiones Cabalisticae numero LXXI, secundum opinionem propriam, n. 13. Timaeus, 35a. Conoscimiento. See Ficino, Theol. Plat., XIII, 1; De sole, cap. IX; Macrobius, Commento in Somnium Scipionis, I, 14, 19. Gen. 1:3; see also Ficino, De sole, X. See Ficino, Theol. Plat., XVIII, 4 in particular on the analogy between light and soul. Ps., 18:2. See also Ficino, De sole, II. Sette umidità, o vero tuniche. Spione. Aristotle, De sensu, I, 437a; De Anima, III, 3, 429a3. See Ficino, De sole, VI; Theol. Plat., II, 9. Plato, Timaeus, 44d–49a; Aristotle, De sensu, 437b9–438a5; and Ficino, Theol. Plat., XII, 1. Zach. 4:10. Ezek. 10:12. Ficino, Theol. Plat., X, 2 in reference to Lucretius. Maimonides, Guide, III, 9. All the following passages must be read keeping in mind the genders of the nouns: Luna = Moon, feminine; Sole = Sun, Masculine; Anima = Soul, feminine; Intelletto = Intellect, masculine. For the use of the moon as an analogy for the soul, see Plotinus, Enn., V, 6, 4, 15–20. Fattore. Quadrati: squares. Ps. 22:21. This quote presents differences between the manuscripts and the Blado edition, where a verb essere is added before, acquiring the meaning ‘to be unique.’ Refers to intellect. Refers to Luce intellettuale, intellectual light. Morirono per bocca divina.

Notes to pages 191–217 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

399

Intellect. Pico, Commento, X, on stanza VI, and Cattani da Diacceto, De amore, I, 2. A te tocca darmi la legge e a me con esecuzione osservarla. Stesichorus (640 BC), alias Tisia, is considered the first poet of Magna Graecia. The palinode that made him famous in the Renaissance is described by Leone. Francesco Cattani da Diaccetto starts his Panegirico d’amore telling the story of Homer and Stesichorus. The story of Stesichorus is also in Plato, Phaedrus, 243a. Smembrati. Il suo essere. Ch’io timido stava: ‘Because I was intimidated.’ Formare: to shape. In Augustine, De civitate Dei, XIV, 7, it is possible to find a similar definition. Il modo di parlare: literally, ‘speech,’ but it refers to rhetoric. Aristotelians, who follow the definition of Aquinas; see Summa theologiae 2-1, q. 25, a. 2, and q. 26, a. 2. Complacenzia. Animo. Congiunto: ‘united,’ ‘connected,’ ‘attached.’ Timore. Tristizia, which also means sadness. Doglia, which also means pain. Complacenzia: meaning also enjoyment. Mancamento continuo. Plato, Symposium, 205b. Ibid., 201c, and 202d–3a. Oppinione. See Ficino, De amore, VI, 4. Aristotle, Nich. Eth., X, 7–8. See also Ficino, De amore, III, 3. Plato, Symposium, 205d. See Ficino, De amore, III,1. Benivolenza: literally, love. Comune. Ignegno. Volontà. Animo. This definition is not in Aristotle’s Politics, but in Rhet., II, 4, 2. See also Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 2-1, q. 26, a. 4. See Ficino, De amore, II, 6. Gattiva = cattiva. ‘Ben le repruovi, non ostante che (come t’ho detto) ne l’apparenzia più luogo ha il bello che ‘l buono, e ne l’esistenzia più il buono che il bello; ma respondendo a

400 Notes to pages 218–35

70

71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87

88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96

97 98 99

te, dico che, se bene ogni bello è buono (come dici) sia in essere sia in apparenzia, non però ogni buono è bello.’ ‘Quella composizione di bellezza e bruttezza ne le persone neutrali non si può negare; ma di questa neutralità di quelle cose buone che non sono belle né brutte, vorrei qualche esemplo o evidenzia più.’ Opinanti. La bellezza. Bello is translated ‘beautiful.’ Leone Ebreo uses bello, ‘beautiful,’ as opposed to bellezza, ‘beauty.’ See Ficino, De amore, I, 4. Animo. Dolcissimo atto venereo. See Ficino, De amore, I, 4. Science must be read as knowledge. Causa producente. Animo. Parto in bello. See Dialogue 2, pp. 157-8. Plato, Symposium, 179c–80a. Alcestis was a woman, but in all versions of the Dialogues she appears as a man. Plato, Symposium, 201d–3a. Ps. 104:31. See also Dialogue 1, p. 49. Plato, Timaeus, 28c. The possible source is Maimonides, Guide, II, 12, 14, and 18. See also Isaac Abravanel, Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation) on Gen. 1:1, and Ficino, In Timeaus commentarium, 13. De caelo, I, 12. Timaeus, 48a–9a, 50b–e. Ps. 33:6. See also Maimonides, Guide, II, 17. Isa., 55:8–9. See also Plato, Timaeus, 41a–c; Maimonides, Guide, II, 27 and 29; and Pico, Heptaplus, Proem. An echo of Lucretius, De rerum natura, I, 155. Demogorgone, see Dialogue 2, pp. 111–12. Formalità expresses the meaning of being the origin of all the forms. Timaeus, 2a, b, c. See also Ficino, De amore, I, 3. See also Maimonides, Guide, II, 14; Ficino, In Philebus, II, 1, I; Abravanel, Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation), in French translation, p. 10. One of whom was Salomon Ibn-Gabirol. Timaeus, 41a–b. See Dialogue 2, p. 117. Dissolubili also means perishable.

Notes to pages 236–47

401

100 See also Maimonides, Guide, II, 29–30 in reference to Bereshit Rabbah, 3, 7; see also Zohar, 1:50b on the connection to the jubilee. 101 This is the date from which the Dialogues are dated [1502 AD]. Recall that this is the date present in Blado edition, and in the manuscript Barberino Lat 3743/ 111b. Three other manuscripts, Ms. Patetta 373 of the Vatican Library, Ms. 22 of the Biblioteca Comunale of Ascoli Piceno, and Ms. 22 of the Butler Library, Columbia University, New York, all provide the following alternative reading: ‘… a cinque milia duecento settanta a dui del principio della creation …,’ which would situate the action of the dialogue in the year 1511–12. 102 The philosopher Salomon Ibn Gabirol. 103 See Philo of Alexandria, On the Account of the Worlds’ Creation Given by Moses, 8–9. 104 Dialogue 2, p. 125; Pico, Commento, II, 25. 105 On Noah and his offspring see Midrash Tanhuma Noah, 5 on Genesis 6:9 and Zohar, 1:60a and, on the wine yard, 1:73a. 106 Senza proprietà alcuna. 107 Lev. 25:8–12. See also Zohar, 1:50b. 108 Lev. 25:13. 109 Innanzi implies a space and time connotation. 110 Gen. 1:1. See Zohar, 1:15a and 1:16a. See also Bahir, 2:2, where originally the earth is seen in a state of tohu and then changed to bohu, which can be read as bo hu, ‘in it is something,’ something with substance in opposition to chaos. See also Bahir, 9:11; Isaac the Blind, Peirush Sefer Yetsirah, 2:6; Azriel of Gerona, Peirush Sefer Yetsirah, 1:11; Nahmanides, on Gen. 1:2. It should be noted that in the Zohar earth is identified with Shekhinah, and she was just matter (tohu) in a chaotic state, before form (bohu) emerged from her. 111 Per estrazione de le sustanzie occulte illuminate da la formalità ideale. See also Pico, Heptaplus, I: 2. 112 Confuso: ‘confused.’ 113 See also Ficino, De amore, I, 3; and Pico, Heptaplus, 2nd preface. 114 Plato, Philebus, 23c; and Ficino, In Philebus, II, 4. 115 See Plato, Timaeus, 41a–c. 116 See Maimonides, Guide, I, 68; Ficino, Theol. Plat., II, 9; Pico, Conclusiones, 49. 117 See Dialogue 1, p. 51, and Dialogue 2, p. 160. 118 Figurare: to paint or draw. 119 This word recalls Dante; see Paradiso, 1: 70. 120 Principio. 121 Zohar, 1:15a. 122 Plato, Republic, 7.508–9. See also Plotinus, Enn., I, 6.9, 41–3. 123 Dialogue 2, pp. 115–16.

402 Notes to pages 250–63 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150

Animo. Quelli che sono di ingegno più debile. Cicero, Tuscul. disput., 5:3.8–9. Prov. 5: 19–21. See, for example, Dante, Ficino, and Pico, for whom human love becomes a scala coeli (‘ladder to heaven’) in which the senses are abandoned for a higher life. See also Ficino, De amore, VI, 18 and also In Philebus, II, 1. Here and later on the term used is fantasia. Here there is an echo of Pico’s Oratio, De dignitate hominis. L’immagine debbe essere proporzionata a la figura di che è l’immagine, e il simulacro a quello di che è similitudine. Beauty (bellezza) is always feminine in Italian and Beautiful (bello) masculine. Probably Leone uses bellezza and bello in order to be closer to Plotinus. See Plotinus, Enn., 1, 6.6, 22–7, where the ‘beauty’ of the One is termed superbeauty (huperkalon, or kallone) and that of beings kalon; see also Enn., 6.7.33. Ne le creature è l’immagine e similitudine di Dio per quella bellezza finita participata da l’immenso Bello. See Dialogue 2, p. 116. Isa. 40:18. Isa. 40:25. A reference to Fons vitae of Solomon Ibn Gabirol. 2 Sam. 2:2. Civili e signorili ornamenti. See Ficino, De amore, VI, 7. Enigmate. This passage echoes Dante, Paradiso, 1. Here is reported the position of Al-Farabi, The Ideal City, 27. See also Dialogue 2, p. 157. Aristotle, De anima, III, 5; Maimonides, Guide, I, 62–3. See Dialogue 1, p. 61. Num. 12:1–8. Num. 12:8. Maimonides, Guide, II, 35 and 36. … che l’occhio dell’aquila vede, e si transfigura in quello il lucido e gran sole direttamente. With obvious reference to Dante, Paradiso, I, 48–70. This ascension is illustrated in the book of the Zohar as: (1) the knowledge of the exterior aspect of things, or, as the ‘the vision through the mirror that projects an indirect light’ (Zohar, 2:36b), (2) the knowledge of the essence of things, or ‘the vision through the mirror that projects a direct light,’ (3) the knowledge through intuitive representation, and (4) the knowledge through love, since the Law reveals its secrets only to those who love it (2:99b).

Notes to pages 263–75 151 152 153 154

155 156 157 158 159 160 161

162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176

177

403

Evo angelico. Gen. 5:24. Kings 2:11. Although most scholars consider the name of St John the Evangelist to be a later addition, we have left it in the body of the text since it is found in the manuscripts and in the Blado’s edition. Symposium, 201a–3a; Ficino, De amore, VI, 3–4. Abbiamo confabulato. See Dialogue 1, pp. 57ff. See Dialogue 2, p. 157, where intelligence corresponds to angels. This is the hierarchic model of emanations used by Al-Farabi and Avicenna. See Avicenna, Meth. of Shifa, IX, 4; Maimonides, Guide, II, 22. Al-Farabi, The Ideal City, X; Maimonides, Guide, II, 11 and 22. See Maimonides, Guide, II: 4; Avicenna, Meth. of Shifa, IX: 3; Dialogue 2, note 173. See Ficino, De amore, II, 2. Abravanel, Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation). The possible source is Ibn al-Sid, Kitab al-Hada’iq, translated into Hebrew by Moise Ibn Tibbon. See Averroes, Tahafut, III. See Dialogue 2, pp. 158ff; Averroes, Tahafut, III; and Maimonides, Guide, II, 22. See Dialogue I, p. 67, and Dialogue 2, p. 120. Delettabile, utile e onesto. See also Dialogue 1. Amore onesto. See Dialogue 2, pp. 132ff. Symposium, 189d–92a; Ficino, De amore, II, 7; Pico, Commento, II, 22. A probable reference is De amicitia, 21. Come i poeti fingono. Symposium, 189d–91d; see Ficino, De amore IV, 1–2; Pico, Commento, III, 3. Non l’ha favoleggiata con questa particularità e chiarezza. Some Jewish sources can be different midrashim, in particular Bereshit Rabbah, VIII, and, as a collection of midrashim, the Zohar, 1:34b. Gen. 1:27–8, with references to Bereshit Rabbah, 8:1; Zohar, 1:37b, 1:47b, 2:55a, 3:5a, and 44b. Gen. 2:7–17. See Zohar, 1:49a. In Hebrew man is ish (written alef-yod-shin) and woman is ishah (written alef-shin-he). Virago is the word used in the Latin Vulgate. In the Blado edition as well as in the manuscripts the symbol ‘&’ replaces a noun that was not understood by the copyists. In the Barb. Latino manuscript only is written the word ‘mogliera.’ The origin of the term ‘wife’ is in Gen. 3:20. The origin of the English word ‘woman’ (OE wife + man) fits neatly here. Gen. 2:18–23.

404 Notes to pages 276–94 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207

208 209 210

Gen. 5:2. See Bereshit Rabbah, 17:2, Zohar, 1:55b. Gen. 2:21–2. See Zohar, 1:34b, 48b, 49b. Gen. 2:23–4. See Zohar, 1:49b. In Pico, Heptaplus, II, 6 this is interpreted as the two sides of the soul. Incidere ‘to cut into, incise’ or ‘to affect, to have repercussions.’ Maimonides, Guide, I, 1 and 2. Also Isaac Abravanel in his Comment of Creation dealt with this topic. Supposto: component. Gen. 4:1, but also in Zohar, 1:36b. Aristotle, De gen an., II, 1. See Maimonides, Guide, I, 2. Gen. 2:7, but also in Zohar, 1:49a. Gen. 3:7; Zohar, 1:36b; Maimonides, Guide, I, 2. Gen. 3:17–19. See also Zohar, 1:46b. Animale loquace. Gen. 3:20. Gen. 3:24. See Zohar, 1:53b. See Zohar, 1:55a. Gen. 4:25. Gen. 4:26. See Maimonides, Guide, I, 7 and also Isaac Abravanel, Perush ‘al ha-Torah Bereshit (Commentary on the Creation). S’acquetava. Ps. 8:6. This psalm is quoted in Italian in the Blado edition, but in Latin in all the manuscripts. Gen. 3:22. See Ficino, De amore, IV, 4. See Dialogue 2, p. 96 and note 35. See Symposium, 203a–4a; Ficino, De amore, VI; Pico, Commento, II, 13. Plato, Symposium, 203 a–d; Ficino, De amore, VI, 1. Ficino, De amore, VI, 7; Pico, Commento, II, 18–19. Plato, Timaeus, 47e–53b. Leone probably refers to Ficino, De amore, VI, 7. o vero lucina o parca in quella. Lucina means ‘midwife,’ Juno was named Lucina; and the Parcae, the Fates, were the Roman goddesses connected to birth and destiny. Symposium, 206 b–e. See Ficino, De amore, VI, 11. Fruizione. Aristotle, De gen. an., II, 1; De anima, II, 4, 415a; De gen. et corr., II, 9, 336b30. Plato, Symposium, 207c–d.

Notes to pages 296–313 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218

219 220 221

222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229

230 231 232

233 234 235

405

Animo. Ficino, De amore, I, 4. Cicero, Tuscul. disput., vi, 31; Augustine, Epist., 3; Ficino, De amore, V, 3. Plato, Symposium, 210–12; Ficino, De amore, V, 3. Plato, Hippias mayor, 287–9; Ficino, De amore, V, 3, 6. Among them Ficino (De amore) and Cattani Da Diacceto (De pulchro, and De amore libri tres). Part added by Caramella and Manuppella. Maimonides, Guide, III, 8 and Ficino, De amore, V, 5 also deal with the imperfection of matter, even though Leone here follows closely Plotinus, Enn., I, 8.5, 8.14; II, 4.16. Averroes, De subst. orbis, 6. Ficino, De amore, I, 4. Themistus (317–88 AD), an important figure in the history of science, largely because he produced paraphrases of Aristotle’s and Plato’s works to make them understandable to everyone, most of which were translated into Arabic and much used by Arab scholars. Some survive in Greek, Latin, Hebrew, or Arabic translations: e.g., Aristotle’s Post. analytics, De anima, De caelo, and book 12 of the Metaphysics. The thesis of Themistus appears also in Averroes, De subst. orbis, cap. 5. Ficino, De amore, V, 5. Figurata da. Ficino, De amore, II, 3. See Ficino, Theol. Plat., XI, 3 and XII, 1. Ricordo. It is interesting to compare this to what Pico says in Commento, III, 3. Occhiali. A reference to the myth of Narcissus. Leone echoes Dante, Inferno, 30:124–9; Paradis, 3:10–30. For the myth see Plotinus, Enn., I, 6, 8; Ovid, Metamorphoses, III; Boccaccio, Gen. deorum, LIX; Petrarch, Triumphus Cupidinis, II, 145– 50; and Ficino, De amore, VI, 17. Notizie: concepts or notions. Job 19:26. Nimos is the Hebrew transcription of the Greek nomos. Nomos is law, directive principle, rule. Leone Ebreo takes the term nomos not directly from Plato and Aristotle, but from Philo of Alexandria’s De plantatione or other Arabic sources. Aristotle, Metaph., XII, 10. Ibid., VII(Z). Aristotle, Categories, 5, 2a11–14; Metaph., IV, 8 (1017b12–14).

406 Notes to pages 314–31 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249

250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269

Aristotle, Metaph., IV, 28, and Z, 12 (1038a4–6). Ficino, Theol. Plat., II, 11. Ficino, In Parmenide, cap. 8. Animo. De anima, 3.4, 430a3–4; Metaph., XII.9, 1075a2–5. Aristotle, Metaph., XII, 9. Il verbo ideale. Da chi. Latin for ‘He Himself.’ Here the immediate reference is Plotinus, according to the interpretation of Ficino’s Theol. Plat. Maimonides. Plotinus, Enn., I, 6, 6, 22–7; VI, 7, 33, 20ff; Ficino, De amore, II, 4. Primo Lucente. Ingegno. About this interpretation see Targum Yerashalmni, Bereshit Rabbah 1:1, Azriel of Gerona, Peisrush ha-Aggadot, 81; Nahmanides on Genesis 1:1; Zohar, 1:2a.– 15a, 1:3b, 1:16b, 1:20a, 1:145a. Pico, Conclusions according to the Secret Teachings of the Hebrew Cabbalists, 25–6. Prov. 3:19–20. Prov. 4:20–3. See Maimonides, Guide, II, 30. Ps. 33:6. Prov. 8:12, 21. Prov. 8:22–32. In the manuscripts this quote from Genesis 1:1 is in Latin. Song of Songs 4:7. ‘Her’ refers to divine wisdom. Here Leone is playing with the genders of the nouns: Sapienza, wisdom (feminine), and Bellezza (Beauty), feminine. Song of Songs 2:14. Wisdom here takes a feminine personification; from here the pronouns referring to it will be in the feminine form. Song of Songs 1:16. Eccles. 3:11. Gen. 1:31. See Philo of Alexandria, De opificio mundi. See Zohar, 1:15b. Ma prima figlioula prodotta da lui. See Dialogue 2, pp. 127ff. Santo Santorum. Ex. 26:33–4. See Dialogue 1, pp. 60–1 and note 99. Fine.

Notes to pages 332–58 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286

287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304

407

See above, Dialogue 3, pp. 213ff. A reference to the Nich. Ethics. See Dialogo 1, p. 29. Aristotle, Metaph., I, 1, 980a20. Ficino, De amore, II, 5–6. Malizia is also evil. See Dialogue 1, note 9. For this section see Dialogue 1, pp. 59ff. Aristotle, Metaph., VII. See Ficino, De amore, VII, 13 (for human or vulgar love and for divine love). Ma in questo tutti comunicano. Plotinus, Enn., V. Volse participare. Plotinus, Enn., V, 1. Intendere. See also Dialogue 1, p. 60. Conoscimento intellettivo. Pico, Oratio, De hominis dignitate; see also Fracesco Cattani da Diacceto, De amore, I, 4. It is very difficult to establish Leone’s sources for the circle of love. Similar perspective are in Plotinus’s Enn., but also Ficino’s De Amore, 2, 1; another possible reference could be found in Zohar or al-Baralyawsi’s Book of the Imaginary Circles. Sommo Ente. Per questo poco resto non voglio lasciare d’uscire di questo debito. Atti intellettuali. See Dialogue 1, p. 58ff. Ps. 104:31. Ps. 95:1. Ps. 119:23 and 143. Gen. 6:5–7. Mediate. Ps. 36:10. Lam. 5:21. Jer. 31:18. Song of Songs, 1:4. Imbriaca. Tu non sei amato per irretitudine d’animo, come sono gli amori carnali, ma la propria drittezza de l’anima è quella che t’ama. Rettitudini. Grosso. Ambiguous: either ‘that I love’ (Ch’io ami), or ‘that I call [you]’ (chiami).

408 Notes to pages 358–62 305 Nè in questo credo molto dissomigliarmi. 306 These words attest to a fourth dialogue that was either lost or never written. AFTERWORD

1 From the Edith Grossman translation (New York: HarperPerennial, 2003). Original: ‘Si tratáredes de amores, con dos onzas que sepáis de la lengua toscana, toparéis con León Hebreo, que os hincha las medidas.’ 2 This thesis was advanced in López Estrada’s classic study La Galatea de Cervantes: Estudio crítico (La Laguna de Tenerife: Universidad de La Laguna, 1948). 3 See Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo’s classic text De las vicisitudes de la filosofía platónica en España, in vol. 9 of Obras completas: Ensayos de crítica filosófica (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, 1948). See also Otis Green, Spain and the Western Tradition (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1963). 4 The term was coined by Jean Seznec in The Survival of the Pagan Gods: The Mythological Tradition and Its Place in Renaissance Humanism and Art (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995). 5 For more information on the Dialogues of Love and its relationship to Spanish mythological manuals see Andrés Soria Olmedo, ‘“Posada antigua de la philosophia”: Los Dialoghi d’amore de León Hebreo como manual mitográfico,’ El Crotalón: Anuario de Filología Española 1 (1984), 819–29. 6 Most current scholarship identifies this name with Gedalia Ibn Yahya, rabbi and author of the book Shalshelet ha-Kabbalah (The Chain of Tradition), published in Venice in 1587. Born in Imola, Italy, in 1526, Yahya was the second son of Rabbi Joseph ben David ibn Yahya, whose father and grandfather had left Portugal around the year 1490, seven years after Isaac and Yehuda Abravanel. Other scholars point to Gedalia ben Moshe ibn Yahya, a thinker from Salonika in the circle of Amatus Lusitanus (Abraham David, ‘Gedalia Ibn Yahya, auteur de Shalshelet ha-Qabbalah,’ Revue des Études juives 153.1–2 [1994], 132 n. 162; see also James Nelson Novoa, ‘Consideraciones acerca de una versión aljamiada de los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo,’ Sefarad 65 [2005], 117). 7 The work is curious in that it bears no printer’s attribution, nor does it carry any of the approbations necessary for a work of its time. 8 LOS DIALOGOS DE AMOR DE MESTRE LEON ABARBANEL MEDICO Y FILOSOFO EXCELLENTE. DE NUEVO TRADUZIDOS en lengua castellana y deregidos ala Maiestad del Rey FILIPPO. Previous Italian editions all listed variations of the attribution found on the 1535 editio princeps. See ‘Printed Editions’ section below. 9 Though the Abravanels had left Spain in 1492 following the Edict of Expulsion, they had been on good terms with the Catholic monarchs, and it seems that

Notes to pages 362–3

10

11

12

13 14 15 16 17

18

19

20

409

their relations remained cordial with subsequent Spanish rulers, often supporting Imperial Spain against French ambitions (Segre 178). Philip II himself had even had contact with the Abravanels: in 1558 Jacob Abravanel, nephew of Leone, wrote to King Philip proposing a large sum of money in exchange for permission for the exiles to return to Naples for a guaranteed period of twentyfive years. Philip, according to Henry Kamen, ‘had serious financial problems but rejected the offer’ (Kamen, Philip of Spain [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997], 84). This edition carries certain peculiarities that distinguish it from the 1535 editio princeps, as well as other Aldine editions, one of which was the assertion that Leone Ebreo had converted to Christianity. For more information on these peculiarities, see Damian Bacich, ‘Writing Outside the Lines: Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Spanish Translations of Leone Ebreo’s Dialogues of Love (Dialoghi d’amore).’ PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2005. Opiniones sacadas de los más auténticos y antiguos filósofos que sobre la alma escribieron y sus definiciones. Nelson Novoa has published an electronic edition of this brief text as part of Anexos de la Revista LEMIR (Facultad de Filología de la Universidad de Valencia, 2005), at www.parnaseo.es. Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, ‘The Ultimate End of Human Life in Postexpulsion Philosophic Literature,’ in Crisis and Creativity in the Sephardic World 1391–1648, ed. Benjamen R. Gampel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), 230. ‘Hagamos hombre a nuestra imagen y semejanza.’ ‘… formó Dios al hombre de polvo de la tierra y espiró en su cara espíritu de vida y fue hombre en alma de vida.’ Genesis 2:7. The 1541 and 1545 Aldine editions of the Dialogues of Love listed the work’s author as ‘Leone Medico, di natione ebreo et dipoi fatto cristiano.’ Adri K. Offenberg, ed., Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana: Treasures of Jewish Booklore (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1994), 104. The ms. in question is Or. Gaster 10688 of the British Library. For a description, see Nelson Novoa, ‘Consideraciones acerca de una versión aljamiada de los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo.’ For a more detailed study of the translation see Damian Bacich, ‘Renaissance Harmony in Conflict: The First Spanish Translation of Leone Ebreo’s Dialoghi d’amore,’ Comitatus 36 (2005), 114–41. ‘Las que algunos començaron, que fueran buenas si las acabaran, no consiguieron su deseado fin. Otras que se acabaron, quedaron tan latinizadas y Italianadas, que con difficultad el Español las pudiera entender; antes tenían necesidad de nueva explicación; y por esto nunca han salido a luz.’ ‘que quiere decir descripción universal del amor de todo el mundo: como es la materia, que en esta presente obra se trata.’

410 Notes to pages 364–7 21 Ángel San Vicente, ‘Impromptu para la historia de la música en la Universidad de Zaragoza,’ Nassarre 1.1 (1985), 119–21. 22 ‘muy docto en todas las facultades.’ 23 ‘siempre hicieron mucha merced porque residiesse en Roma.’ 24 ‘el morir Dios, por el amor que tuuo a los hombres.’ 25 ‘Nuestro León Hebreo.’ 26 ‘Esto he traydo aqui para mostrar, la obligacion que tenemos de amarnos unos a otros … Nosotros pues católicos; que tenemos este precepto de Dios, quan mayor obligacion tenemos?’ (Apología en alabança, f. 10r). 27 Manuel Abizanda y Broto, Documentos para la historia artística y literaria de Aragón procedentes del archivo de protocolos de Zaragoza: Siglo XVI. (Zaragoza: Tip. la Editorial, 1915), 25. 28 This time under the title Los Dialogos de Amor de Leon Hebreo: Traduzidos de Italiano en Español, corregidos y añadidos por Micer Carlos Montesa. 29 A copy is preserved at the library of the Monastery of El Escorial. 30 ‘las primicias que primero se ofrecen a V.R.M. de lo que en este género de tributo se os debe por vuestros vasallos los naturales del Nuevo Mundo’ (La traducción del Indio de los tres diálogos de amor de León Hebreo, ed. Andrés Soria Olmedo [Madrid: Biblioteca Castro, 1996], 13). 31 ‘interpretarle fielmente, por las mismas palabras que su autor escribió en italiano, sin añadirle otras superfluas’ (ibid., 20). 32 ‘Tabla de las cosas más notables que en esta obra se contienen.’ 33 ‘Aarón y Moisés murieron contemplando la divinidad.’ 34 ‘Zodíaco quiere decir cerco de animales.’ 35 ‘El bien es lo que todos desean’ (ibid., 31). 36 ‘De las cosas conocidas venimos al conocimiento de las no conocidas’ (ibid., 96). 37 ‘El filósofo debe decir la verdad osadamente’ (ibid., 268). 38 ‘La fábula del Andrógino fue sacada de la Sagrada Escritura’ (ibid., 377). 39 ‘Declaración de la historia hebrea y de la fábula platónica’ (ibid., 383). 40 ‘Primer alegórico sentido en la historia mosaica de la creación del hombre’ (ibid., 384). 41 See Efraín Kristal, ‘Fábulas clásicas y neoplatónicas en los Comentarios reales de los Incas,’ in Homenaje a Jose Durand, ed. Luis Cortest (Madrid: Verbum, 1993), 47–59. 42 Catalogo da Bibliotheca Publica Municipal do Porto (Porto: Imprensa Civilisação, 1893). 43 Joaquim de Carvalho cited the ms. in his 1918 monograph Leão Hebreu, filósofo ([Lisbon: Coïmbra, 1918], 30). Since Carvalho, Paul Oskar Kristeller in his Iter Italicum also mentions the work (vol. 4; Porto, Portugal: Biblioteca Pública Municipal, [1966]). More recently, it has been studied in James Nelson Novoa, ‘El ms. 1057 de la Biblioteca Municipal de Oporto: Una traducción castellana

Notes to pages 367–70

44 45 46

47

48

49 50 51 52

53

54 55

411

desconocida de los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo,’ Revista di filologia e letterature ispaniche 7 (2004), 9–42. See also Bacich, ‘Writing Outside the Lines.’ Leão Hebreu, filósofo, 34. The translator himself tells us, referring to the Aldine edition of either 1541 or 1545: ‘Fol. 63/Pa. 2, linea 14, he dividido este dialogo’ (f. 57/2). Dialogue 1: ff. 1–31r; Dialogue 2: ff. 32r–58r; Dialogue 3: ff. 59r–96r (Dialogue 2– end); Dialogue 4: ff. 97r–140v (blank folios 141r–2v) (Beginning of Dialogue 3); Dialogue 5: ff. 145r–82v; Dialogue 6: ff. 184r–240v; Last 3 folios: ‘Argumento.’ The copies we consulted are those held by the UCLA Young Research Library Department of Special Collections. In both the 1541 and 1545 Aldine editions there seems to be a pagination error, in that the folios are misnumbered by some 20 pages. The translator in the ms. annotations has compensated for this. ‘concluye muchas veces parece que la material de que va tratando la concluye no con buena satisfacción, y es artificiosamente hecho … Por lo cual es menester esperarle hasta el fin de ella donde hallarán toda satisfacción’ (21). ‘aun he añadido, y quitado en partes, algunas cosas que escurescian la materia, para facilitarla, la qual en muchas estava escura y dificultosa.’ ‘Y questo si dize segundo la opinion d[e] algunos ma io me aremetto ala escritura.’ ‘Pone dos cherubines y la sagrada escriptura pone uno solo. Genesis 3°.’ According to Pinto Crespo (Inquisición y control ideológico en la España del siglo XVI [Madrid: Taurus, 1983], 267), censors tended to be more demanding on works printed in the vernacular. Since there existed no Portuguese edition at the time, the censors could be referring to the Italian editions and the 1551 French editions. However, since neither Montesa’s nor the Inca’s translations had been published yet, it is altogether likely that copies of the 1568 Spanish translations were circulating, especially among the converso community in Portugal. ‘Dos Dialogos de Amor de Lião Hebreo Abarbanel, se hão de riscar algu˜as cousas que tem, principalmente fabulas Iudaicas, & Platonicas, como o que diz da criação do primerio home¯?, &c. & he costume neste Regno, não correr, senão e¯mendado polo sancto Officio’ (J.M. De Bujanda, ed., Index de l’Inquisition portugaise: 1547, 1551, 1561, 1564, 1581 [Quebec: Université de Sherbrooke, 1995], 695). Given the date and the mention of the surname Abarbanel (Abravanel), it is clear that the ecclesiastical censor is making reference to the 1568 Venetian edition, which was therefore circulating in Portugal. Theodore Beardsley, Hispano-Classical Translations Printed between 1482 and 1629 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1961). ‘Conocíamos su intención de reimprimir los Diálogos en 1594. Ahora vemos que los había limado y acrecentado, y que los tenía listos para la imprenta desde 1592. La traducción, por lo visto, fué recibida con aplauso por el público y con estima por los doctos. Las correcciones respondían a algunos reparos propios o ajenos. Si interpretamos bien sus palabras, solo en apariencia contradictorias, se

412 Notes to pages 370–2

56

57 58

59

60 61 62

63

64

había limitado a encabezar los capítulos con un corto resumen y retocar algunas frases, sin alterar a fondo la estructura del texto. La soñada reimpresión nunca se realizó, aunque Garcilaso en 1599 dió poderes para ello al escribano Juan de Morales. ¿Demoraron o negaron los censores su aprobación?’ (Eugenio Asensio, ’Dos Cartas desconocidas del Inca Garcilaso,’ Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 7 (July–December 1953), 587–8). For more information see Carlos Mackehenie, ‘Apuntes sobre las traducciones castellanas de León Hebreo,’ Mercurio Peruano, November 1940, 678–97. In this article Mackehenie also dismisses the hypothesis that Garcilaso plagiarized Yahia’s 1568 translation. Ibid., 588. Antonio Márquez, Literatura e Inquisición en España (1478–1834) (Madrid: Taurus, 1980), 237. Interestingly enough, while Montesa, Inca Garcilaso, and the translator of the Porto manuscript took pains to cast the work in a Catholic light, ultimately none of them addressed the issue of Abravanel’s de-Christianizing appropriation of Boccaccio’s allegorical exegesis, which left out the interpretation of Gentile myth as prefiguration of Christ. ‘La santa y general Inquisición de estos reinos, en este ultimo expurgatorio de libros prohibidos, no vedándolo en otras lenguas, lo mandó recoger en la nuestra vulgar porque no era para vulgo’ (Historia general del Perú, 13). The Inca is most likely referring to the Index Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgatorum (1612) of Sandoval y Rojas: ‘Leonis Hebraei Dialogi, donec prodeat expurgatio. En Castellano: Leon Hebreo, Dialogos, o Filografia Vniversal de todo el mundo, en Castellano o en otra lengua vulgar.’ See Aurelio Miró Quesada Sosa, El Inca Garcilaso y otros estudios garcilasistas (Madrid: Ediciones Cultura Hispánica, 1971), 221–2. Méndendez Pelayo, De las vicisitudes de la filosofía platónica en España, 74. ‘Utilizo, con leves correcciones encaminadas a hacer más claro el sentido, la traducción del Inca Garcilaso, que me parece más elegante y clásica que la de Montesa’ (ibid., 71). David Romano’s popular 1953 Spanish translation of the Dialogues of Love has also been reissued, most recently with an introductory study by Andrés Soria Olmedo (2002), whose 1984 monograph Los ‘Dialoghi d’amore’ de Leon Hebreo: Aspectos literarios y culturales (Granada: Universidad de Granada) is a fundamental text for scholars of the Dialogues. James Nelson Novoa, ‘Consideraciones acerca de una versión aljamiada de los Diálogos de amor de León Hebreo,’ Sefarad 65 (2005), 117.

Printed Editions and Translations of the Dialoghi d’amore

ITALIAN

Leone Ebreo. Dialoghi d’amore di maestro Leon Medico Hebreo. Ed. Del Blado d’Assola. MDXXXV (1535). – Dialoghi d’amore composti per Leone Medico di nazione Hebreo e di poi fatto cristiano. Venice: Presso Aldo Manuzio, 1541. – Dialoghi d’amore composti per Leone Medico Hebreo. Venice: Presso Aldo Manuzio, 1545. – Dialoghi d’amore composti per Leone Medico. Venice: Aldo Manuzio, 1549. – Dialogo della comvnita dello amore, intitolato amore divino et hvmano. Nuouamente & con diligenza ristampato, 1552 [47 folios]. – Dialoghi d’amore. Quattro edizioni dei figli di Aldo, dal 1549 al 1552, una quinta del 1558. – I Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Hebreo Medico. Di nuovo corretti e ristampati. Venice, apud Domenico Giglio, 1558. – I Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Hebreo Medico. Di nuovo corretti e ristampati. Apud Bevilacqua, 1562. – I Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Hebreo Medico. Di nuovo corretti e ristampati. Apud Giorgio de’ Caualli, 1565. – I Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Hebreo Medico. Di nuovo corretti e ristampati. Apud Bonfadino, 1573. – I Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Hebreo Medico. Di nuovo corretti e ristampati. Apud Giovanni Alberti, 1586. – I Dialoghi d’amore di Leone Hebreo Medico. Di nuovo con diligenza corretti, & ristampati. Venice: Appresso Gio. Battista Bonfadino, 1607. – (Giuda Abarbanel). Dialoghi D’amore. A cura di Santino Caramella. Bari: Laterza, 1929.

414 Printed Editions and Translations of the Dialoghi d’amore – Diálogos de amor. Vol. 1: Texto Italiano, Notas e Documentos; vol. 2: Versão Portuguesa & Bibliografia. Texto fixado, anotado e traduzido por Giacinto Manuppella. Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica, 1983. – Ed. S. Caramella, online at http://www.bibliotecaitaliana.it/dynaweb/bibit/genere/ trattati/leone/@Generic_CollectionView, 2003. – (Yeudah ben Isaac Abarbane). Dialoghi D’amore. (I: Dell’amore e del desiderio.) Intro. and notes by D. Leopore. Transcription of 1565 edition. Turin: PonSinMor, 2003. – Dialoghi d’amore. Ed. D. Giovannozzi. Intro. E. Canone. Bari: Laterza, 2008. HEBREW

Leone Ebreo, ‘Vikuach’ al ha Ahabah, (Disputazioni sopra Amore). Trans. Joseph Baruch da Urbino (17th century). Herausgegeben im Selbstverkage des Verneins M’Kise Nirdamim. (L. Sibermann). Lyck, 1871. – Sihot al ha-ahava. Trans. and intro. Menachem Dorman. Jerusalem: The Bialik Institute, 1983. LATIN

Leonis Hebraei, doctissimi atque sapientissimi. De amore dialogi tres. Nuper a Joanne Carolo Saraceno purissima candidssimaque Latinitate Donati, necnon ab eodem et singulis dialogis, argumenta sua premissa, et marginales annotationnes suis quibusque loci insertae alphabetico et locupletissimo indice his tandem adjuncto, fuerunt, par Juan Carlos Sarrasin. Venice, 1564. – De amores dialogi tres. A Joanne Carolo Saraceno purissima, candidissimaque Latinitate donati. In Artis Cabalisticae: Hoc est Reconditae Theologiae et Philosophiae Scriptorum. Vol. I. In quo praeter Paoli Ricii Theologicos & Philosophicos libros sunt Latini pene omnes & Hebraei nonnulli praestantissimi Scriptores, qui artem commentarijs suis illustrarunt. Opus omnibus Thelogis, et occvltae abstrusaeque Philosophiae Studiosis pernecessarium: & hactenus a clarissimis multis uiris magno desiderio exspectatum. Ex D. JOANNIS PISTORII, Niddani Med. D. et Marchionvm Badesnsivm Consilarj Bibliotheca […] Basel: per Sebastianum Henricpetri, 1587. FRENCH

Léon l’Hébreu. Leon Hebriev de l’amovr. Vol 1. Lyon: Par Jean de Toynes, 1551. – Philosophie d’amour de M. Leon Hebreu. Traduicte d’italien en Francoys par le seigneur du Parc, Champenois. Lyon: G. Rouille & T. Payen, 1551. – Dialogues D’amour, 2 vols in 1. Trad. anonyme attribuée à Ponthus de Tyard. Lyon: chez de Tournus, 1551.

Printed Editions and Translations of the Dialoghi d’amore 415 – La sainte philosophie de l’amour. Contenant les grands & hauts poincts, dequels elle traite, tant pour les choses Morales & Naturalles, que pour les diuines & supernaturelles. Traduite de l’italian par le Seigneur du Parc (Denis Sauvage), Lyon: chez Rouille. Repr. 1595. – Dialogues d’amour. French translation attributed to Pontus de Tyard and published in Lyon, 1551, by Jean de Tournes. Ed., with intro. and notes, T. Anthony Perry. Chapel Hill: University of North Caroline Press, 1974. – Dialogues d’amour. Traduction de Pontus de Tyard, published in Lyon, 1551. Ed. Tristan Dagron and Saverio Ansaldi, with intro. and notes by Tristan Dagron. Paris: J. Vrin, 2006. SPANISH

Leon Hebreo. Los Dialogos de amor de Mestre Leon Abarbanel Medico y filosofo excellente. De nuevo tradvzidos en lengua castellena y deregidos ala Maiestad de Rey Filippo. Con priuilegio della Illustrissima Senoria. Venice: con licenza delli Svperiori, 1568. – Philographia vniversal de todo el mvndo, de Los dialogos de Leon Hebreo. Traduzida de Italiano en Español, corregida, y añadida, por Micer Carlos Montesa, Ciudadano de la insigne Ciutad de Caragoça. Dirigida al muy Illustre Señor don Francisco gasca Salazar Inquisitor Apostolico del Reyno de aragon, y Maestre Escuelas de la Vniuersidad de Salamanca. Es obra sutilissima, y muy prouechosa, assi para seculares, como religiosos. Visto y examinado por orden de los Señores del Consejo Real. Con Licencia. Zaragoza: En casa de Lorenço y Diego de Robles Hermanos, 1584. – La tradvzion del Indio de los Tres dialogis de amor de Leon Hebreo. Hecha de Italiano en Español por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega, natural de la gran Ciutad del Cuzco, cabeça de los Reynos y Prouincias del Piru. Dirigidos a la Sacra Catolica Real Magestad del Rey don Felipe nuestro señor. Madrid: En casa de Pedro Madrigal, 1590. – Los dialogos de Léon Hebreo. Traduzido de Italiano en Español, corregido y andido por micer Carlos Montesa de Saragoça (1584) dal tip. Angelo Tavanno (repr. 1593 and 1602 [see p. 372, above]). – Los dialogos de Léon Hebre. Traduzidos de Italiano en Español, corregidos y andidos por Micer Carios Montesa. Dirigida al muy Illustre Señor don Francisco Gasca Salazar Inquisidor Apostolico Del Reyno de Aragon, y Maestre Escuelas de la Vniuersidad de Salamanca. Es obra sutilissima, y muy prouechosa, assi para seculares, como Religiosos. Visto y examinado por orden de los Señores del Consejo Real. Con Licencia, y Privilegio. Zaragoza: por Lorenço de Robles, 1593. – Dialogos de Amor compuestos por Maestro Leon Abarbanel Hebreo Medico excellentissimo. De nvevo con summa delixensia corexido e restampado. Venice, 1598.

416 Printed Editions and Translations of the Dialoghi d’amore – La Traduzion del Indio de Los tres Dialogos en Español. Por Garcilasso Inga de la Vega natural de la gran Ciutad del Cuzco, cabeça de lo reynos y prouincias del Piru. Dirigidos a La Sacra Catolica Real Magestad Del Rey Don Felipe Nuestro Señor (1590). In Nueva Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. 21, 278–459. Madrid: Casa Editorial Bailly-Bailliere, 1915. – Los dialogos de amor. Buenos Aires: Gleitzer Editor, 1944. – Dialogos de amor. Trans. Garcilasso Inca de la Vega, 2nd ed. Buenos Aires: EspasaCalpe Argentina, 1947. – Dialogos de amor. Edición según l ade Madrid de 1590, con observaciones preliminares de Eduardo Julia Martinez. Traducidos por Garcilasso Inca de la Vega. Madrid: Libreria General Victoriano Suárez, 1948–9. – Diálogos de amor. Trans. and prologue David Romano. Barcelona: José Janés Editor, 1953. – ‘Dialogos de amor.’ In Obras completas, Garcilaso Inca de la Vega, edición y estudio preliminar del P. Carmelo de Saenz de Santa Maria. 17–227. (IXXXVII, 15– 554.) Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, 1965. – Dialogos de amor. Trans. Carlos Mazo del Castillo; ed., with Intro., notes, and indices José Maria Reys Cano. Buenos Aires: Promociones y Publicaciones Universitaria, 1986. – Dialogos de amor. Tranas. Garcilaso de la Vega, el Inca. Intro. and notes Miguel de Burgos Nuñez. Seville: Padilla Libros, 1989. – Dialogos de amor. Trans. David Romano; intro. and notes Andrés Soria Olmedo. Madrid: Alianza Editorial; 1st ed. 1984, 2nd ed. 2002. – La traducción del Indio de los tres Diálogos de amor de Léon Hebreo. Ed. Andrés Soria Olmedo. Madrid: Ed. de la Fundación José Antonio de Castro, 1996. GERMAN

Leon Hebreo. Des Leone Ebreo (Jehuda Abarbanel) Dialoge über die Liebe. Aus dem Italienishen übertrangen von J. Schwerin-Abarbanel. Berlin, 1888. – Dialoghi d‘amore. Poesie Hebraiche. Ristampati con introduzione di Carl Gebhardt. Heidelberg: S’Gravenhage; London: Carl Winters Universitatsbuchhandlung, Oxford University Press, Biblioteca spinoziana, 1924. – Dialoghi d’amore. Hebräische Gedichte. Herausgegeben, mit einer Darstellung des Lebens und des Werkes Leones, Bibliographie, Register zu den Dialoghi. Ubertragung der hebräischen Texte, Registen, Urkunden und Anmerkungen von Carl Gebhardt. Heidelberg, London, Paris, Amsterdam: L. C. Winter, Oxford University Press, Les Presses Universitaires, Menno Hertzberger, 1929. – Dialoghi d’amore: Dialoge zwischen Filone und Sophia über die Liebe. Vorgelegt, übersetzt und paraphrasiert von Sergius Kodera. Vienna: Universität, diss., 1993.

Printed Editions and Translations of the Dialoghi d’amore 417 ENGLISH

Leon Hebreo. The Philosophy of Love. Trans. F. Friedeberg-Seeley and Jean H. Barnes, with intro. by Cecil Roth. London: The Soncino Press, 1937. PORTUGUESE

– Diálogos de amor. Trans. Reis Brasil. Lisbon: Livraria Portugal, 1968. – Diálogos de amor. Vol. I: Texto Italiano, Notas e Documentos; vol. 2: Versão Portuguesa & Bibliografia. Texto fixado, anotado e traduzido por Giacinto Manuppella. Lisbon: Instituto Nacional de Investigação Cientifica, 1983. – Diálogos de amor, Presentation João Vila-Chã; trans. Giacinto Manuppella. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional – Casa de Moreda, 2001.

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428 Bibliography Pines, S. ‘Medieval Doctrines in Renaissance Garb: Some Jewish and Arabic Sources of Leone Ebreo’s Doctrine.’ In Jewish Thought in the Sixteenth Century, edited by Bernard Dov Cooperman, 365–98. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni. Commentary on a Canzone of Benivieni. Translated by J. Sears. New York: P. Lang, 1984. – Commentary on a Poem of Platonic Love. Translated by Douglas Carmichael. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1986. – Commento sopra una canzone d’amore. Edited by P. De Angelis. Palermo: Novecento, 1994. – De hominis dignitate, Heptaplus, De ente et uno, e scritti vari. Edited by E. Garin. Florence: Vallecchi, 1942. – Opera omnia (1557–73). With an introduction by C. Vasoli. Hildesheim, New York: Olm, 2005. – Oration on the Dignity of Man. Translated by A.R. Caponigri. Washington: Regnery Publishing, Inc.; Lanham, MD: Distributed by National Book Network, 1998. Pirke Avot (Hebrew). New York: Hotsa’at ‘American Jewish Book Company,’ 1921. Plato. Epinomis. Introduction, critical text, and commentary, edited by O. Specchia. Florence: F. Le Monnier, 1967. – Hippias mayor; Fedro. Versión directa; introduction and notes by J.D. García Bacca. Mexico City: Universidade Nacional Autónoma de México, 1945. – Philebus. Translated, with introduction and notes, by D. Frede. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1993. – Plato on Love: Lysis, Symposium, Phaedrus, Alcibiades, with selections from Republic, [and] Laws. Edited by C.D.C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2006. – The Republic. Translated with an introduction by R.E. Allen. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. – The Symposium of Plato. Translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley; edited and introduced by D.K. O’Connor. South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press, 2002. – Timaeus. Translated, with introduction, by D.J. Zeyl. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 2000. Plinius (the Elder). Historia Naturalis, Histoire naturelle. Text established and translated, with commentary by H. Zehnacker. Paris: Belles Lettres, 2004. Plotinus. The Enneads: A New, Definitive Edition with Comparisons to Other Translations on Hundreds of Key Passages. Translated by S. Mackenna. Burdett, NY: Published for the Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation by Larson Publications, 1992. Pontano, G. Clavdii Ptolemaei Polvsiensis Alexandrini Omnia, qvae extant, opera, geographia excepta [microform]: quam seorsim quo[que] hac forma impressimus:

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Index of Biblical and Mythological-Astrological Names

Aaron, 176, 191, 261, 366 Abel, 275, 285, 286 Abraham, 238, 239 Achilles, 168, 224, 225 Adam, 96, 116, 169, 238, 245, 274, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281, 282, 283, 285, 329, 392 Adonis, 134 Aegina, 132 Agathon, 224 Alcestis, 168, 224, 225, 400 Alcmene, 128, 131 Amnon, 65 Amor (or Love), 66, 125, 134, 224, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274 Amphitryon, 131 Antiope, 132 Antolomus of Lichio, 138 Apollo, 106, 111, 114, 127, 128, 129, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 150, 164, 258, 273, 274 Aristophanes, 273, 274, 289 Asteria, 132 Bacchus, 112, 114 Battus, 139 Beroe, 132

Cadmus, 132 Caelus. See Heaven Cain, 275, 280, 285, 286 Callisto, 132 Castor and Pollux, 132 Ceres, 112, 114 Charon, 76, 119, 391 Chronos. See Saturn Cupid, 66, 120, 138, 142, 144, 164, 270, 271, 272, 273 Danae, 132 Daphne, 141, 142, 143, 144, 164 David, 65, 181, 190, 231, 239, 287, 326, 351, 354 Day, 119, 120, 122, 134, 138, 139 Demogorgon, 111, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 122, 140, 232, 393, 394, 400 Diana, 111, 114, 129, 130, 141, 150, 270, 271 Dione, 134 Diotima, ix, x, 289, 290, 291, 292 Elijah, 264, 381 Enoch, 238, 264, 381 Erebus, 116, 119, 120, 122, 271, 272, 394, 395

434 Index of Biblical and Mythological-Astrological Names Ether, 111, 114, 119, 120, 122, 141 Europa, 132 Eurysteus, 115 Eve, 116, 169, 245, 275, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280, 284, 285, 329

Ladon, 120, 121 Latona, 128, 129, 130, 141 Leda, 132 Levi, 240 Love. See Amor

Fame, 112, 118 Fates (Parcae), 115, 118, 404

Mars, 93, 94, 95, 102, 111, 113, 114, 123, 127, 128, 132, 133, 135, 136, 137, 138, 141, 147, 148, 147, 150, 151, 152, 153, 165, 270, 272 Mercury, 23, 94, 95, 102, 111, 114, 123, 132, 133, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 147, 148, 150, 151, 152, 153, 270, 387 Metis (or Sagacity), 289, 290, 291 Moses, 130, 131, 176, 179, 191, 227, 228, 230, 231, 238, 239, 240, 241, 261, 262, 274, 275, 276, 277, 280, 286, 287, 325, 326, 327, 328, 366, 367, 381, 385, 401 Muses, 141, 142

Ganymede, 132 Gorgon, 107 Graces, 133 Hades, 118 Hannah, 257 Heaven (Caelus or Uranus), 94, 103, 111, 114, 120, 122, 123, 124, 127, 133, 134, 135, 138, 139, 141, 242, 290, 293, 294 Hebe, 127, 128 Heber, 238, 239 Helen, 132, 198 Hercules, 114, 115, 127, 128, 131 Hermaphrodite, the, 138, 140, 396

Narcissus, 405 Neptune, 112, 114, 124, 136, 137 Noah, 143, 238, 239, 380, 401

Inachus, 132 Opis, 124, 126, 127 Janus, 125, 238, 380, 395 John the Evangelist, St, 264, 381, 403 Juno, 112, 115, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 136, 137, 138, 139, 404 Jupiter (or Zeus), 93, 94, 95, 102, 106, 107, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 271, 272, 273, 274, 287, 289, 290, 291, 292, 298, 395

Pan, 115, 118, 120, 121, 394 Pausanias, 272 Peneus, 142, 143, 144 Penia, 11, 289, 290, 291, 292 Perseus, 107 Phaedrus, ix, 224, 395 Phaeton, 115, 118, 394 Pluto, 112, 124 Pole, 111, 114, 115, 118 Poros, 11, 289, 290, 291, 292 Python, 128, 129, 130, 142, 143, 144

Index of Biblical and Mythological-Astrological Names Sagacity. See Metis Saturn (or Chronos), 123, 124, 134, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 290 Semele, 132 Seth, 285, 286 Shem, 238 Socrates, ix, x, 224, 289 Solomon, xi, 63, 252, 325, 326, 327, 328, 329, 354 Stesichorus, 198, 399 Strife, 115, 116, 117, 118 Syrinx, 120, 121

Tartarus, 118 Titans, 125 Thetis, 136

Tamar, 65

Zeus. See Jupiter

Uranus. See Heaven Venus, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151, 152, 153, 270, 272, 273, 289, 290, 292, 298, 302, 303 Vesta, 122 Vulcan, 112, 134, 136, 137

435

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Index of Names and Works

Abravanel, Isaac, vii, viii, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 165, 168, 368, 373, 374, 376, 379, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 400, 401, 403, 404 Abulafia, Abraham, 389 Afia, Aron Daniel, 362, 364 Afiya, Aharon. See Afia, Aron Daniel Alemanno, Yohanan, viii, 14, 15, 165, 385 Alexander of Aphrodisia, 390 Al-Farabi, 73, 157, 165, 384, 389, 390, 402, 403 Al-Ghazali, 73, 157, 165, 266, 323 Alighieri, Dante, 10, 14, 380, 381, 391, 392, 393, 395, 401, 402, 405 Amatus Lusitanus, 375, 408 Anaxagoras, 73 Annius of Viterbo, 380, 395 Aretino, Pietro, 382 Ariani, Marco, 386 Aquinas, Thomas, 364, 390, 393, 399 Aristotelian corpus (excluding references to scholastic commentaries on Aristotle): Categories, 391, 405; De anima, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 402, 404, 405, 406; De caelo, 391, 392,

393, 395, 400, 405; De gen. an., 388, 391, 404; De gen. et corr., 391; De partibus animalium, 392; De sensu, 398; Metaphysics, 333, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 397, 405, 406, 407; Nich. Eth., 26, 387, 388, 389, 390; Physics, 391, 392, 394, 395; Politics, 214, 399; Rhet., 387, 399; Topics, 397 Aristotle, viii, 4, 15, 53, 75, 82, 96, 97, 98, 99, 102, 109, 110, 111, 156, 157, 158, 159, 161, 168, 169, 182, 183, 209, 212, 214, 215, 216, 220, 223, 227, 228, 229, 233, 234, 241, 242, 247, 268, 273, 281, 286, 294, 306, 312, 313, 314, 315, 321, 323, 325, 326, 327, 332, 333, 336, 337, 339, 362, 364, 369, 381, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 398, 399, 402, 404, 405, 406, 407 Augustine of Hippo, 362, 364, 381, 393, 399, 405 Averroes, viii, 4, 19, 25, 73, 158, 159, 165, 168, 223, 268, 377, 384, 397, 403, 405 Avicenna, 4, 25, 73, 157, 165, 266, 323, 384, 389, 390, 397, 403

438 Index of Names and Works Bahir, 401 Biblical literature: Deuteronomy, 390, 398; Ecclesiastes, 328, 390, 406; Exodus, 406; Ezekiel, 398; Genesis, 5, 154, 169, 362, 367, 369, 392, 398, 400, 401, 403, 404, 406, 407; Isaiah, 397, 400, 402; Jeremiah, 407; Job, 312, 405; Kings, 403; Lamentations, 407; Leviticus, 389, 401; Matthew, 389; Numbers, 398, 402; Proverbs, xi, xii, 252, 326, 402, 406; Psalms, 395, 398, 400, 404, 406, 407; 2 Samuel, 390; Song of Songs, 169, 327, 328, 329, 354, 398, 406, 407; Zachariah, 398 Bembo, Pietro, 10, 12, 378, 385, 390 Blado d’Assola, Antonio, 7, 17, 363, 387, 393, 398, 401, 403, 404 Boccaccio, Giovanni, x, 10, 14, 381, 393, 394, 395, 396, 405 Boethius, Anicius Manlius Severinus, 26, 364, 381, 392 Bruno, Giordano, 3 Calvi, Massimiliano, 361 Capel, Stella, 378 Caramella, Santino, 7, 373, 374, 376, 392, 397, 405 Castiglione, Baldassare, 10, 378, 390, 422 Cattani da Diaccetto, Francesco, 9, 10, 165, 166, 167, 385, 390, 392, 399, 405, 407 Cavalcanti, Guido, 19, 397 Cervantes, Miguel de, 3, 361, 382, 408 Cicero, Marcus Tullius, 12, 384, 388, 389, 392, 393, 394, 395, 402, 405 Colonna, Vittoria, 381 Crescas, Hasdai ben Abraham, vii, x, 390 Dagron, Tristan, 384 Dionisotti, Carlo, 8, 379

Dionysius the Areopagite, Pseudo-, 381 Donne, John, 3, 382 Duns Scotus, John, 390 Durand, José, 372, 410 Egidio di Viterbo, viii, 5 Empedocles, 73, 392 Epicurus, 391 Equicola, Mario, 5, 10 Eriugena, John Scotus, 381 Euripides, 66, 364, 390 Ficino, Marsilio, x, 3, 9, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 165, 166, 167, 168, 364, 381, 383, 384, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407 Fregoso, Antonio, xiv, xxxix, 6 Fregoso, Gian Battista, 6, 10, 376 Gabirol, ibn Solomon (or Albenzubron), 25, 73, 165, 237, 384, 389, 393, 400, 401 Garcilaso de la Vega, el Inca, 365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 381, 409, 412 Garin, Eugenio, 7, 377, 383, 397 Garvin, Barbara, 8, 9, 378, 379 Gebhardt, Carl, 373, 374, 377 Gershenzon, Shoshanna, 382, 386 Giustiniani, Agostino, 6, 376 Guidi, Angela, 17, 383 Hallevi, Yehudah, 13, 384 Harari, David, 383 Homer, 115, 197, 198, 399 Horace, 364 Hughes, Aaron, 9, 380, 383, 384, 385, 386 Hurtado de Mendoza, Diego, 364

Index of Names and Works Iamblichus, 11, 381 Idel, Moshe, 382, 384, 385, 386 Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 371, 411, 412 Kodera, Sergius, 13, 384 Kristeller, Paul Oskar, 383, 410 Lactantius, 381 Lenzi, Mariano, 7, 8, 23, 375, 377, 387 Lesley, Arthur, 8, 117, 379, 385 Lucretius, 390, 391, 398, 400 Lusitanus, Amatus, 375, 408 Macrobius, 393, 398 Maimonides (Moses the Egyptian), vii, 4, 9, 25, 73, 157, 165, 266, 323, 382, 384, 388, 389, 390, 391, 392, 393, 394, 396, 397, 398, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406 Manuppella, Giacinto, 4, 7, 17, 374, 377, 378, 405 Manuzio, Aldo (Manutius Aldus), 362, 381, 386 Marso, Leonardo, 8, 383 Menéndez Pelayo, Marcelino, 371, 408 Montesa, Carlos, 363, 364, 365, 366, 368, 369, 370, 371, 372, 383, 410, 411, 412 Munk, Salomon, 384 Novoa Nelson, James, 17, 374, 375, 377, 378, 379, 382, 408, 409, 410, 412 Ovid, 10, 361, 394, 396, 405 Parmenides, 364 Pérez de Moya, Juan, 361 Pescatori, Rossella, xii, 17, 378, 381 Petrarch, Francesco, 14, 390, 397, 405, 427

439

Petrucci, Aurelia, 7, 23, 377, 378 Petrucci, Pandolfo, 377 Philip II, 362, 363, 364, 366, 409 Philo of Alexandria, 383, 386, 401, 405, 406 Piccolomini, Alessandro, 3, 8 Pico della Mirandola, Gianfrancesco, 10 Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni, x, 3, 9, 10, 14, 15, 16, 18, 165, 166, 168, 375, 376, 380, 385, 387, 390, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 398, 399, 400, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407 Plato, vii, viii, ix, x, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16, 23, 73, 88, 102, 109, 112, 116, 117, 120, 122, 140, 168, 169, 177, 179, 183, 206, 209, 210, 211, 212, 213, 214, 216, 220, 222, 223, 224, 228, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 241, 242, 247, 248, 265, 266, 267, 272, 273, 275, 277, 278, 279, 286, 287, 289, 292, 293, 294, 306, 313, 314, 315, 322, 323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 339, 340, 362, 365, 367, 369, 370, 371, 379, 382, 383, 384, 387, 388, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 399, 400, 401, 404, 405 Platonic corpus: Hippias major, 405; Phaedrus, 395, 397, 399; Philebus, 388, 401; Republic, 402; Symposium, ix, 10, 11, 169, 211, 223, 224, 266, 272, 273, 275, 289, 364, 369, 384, 387, 388, 391, 396, 399, 400, 403, 404, 405; Timaeus, viii, ix, x, 116, 228, 235, 364, 369, 381, 391, 392, 393, 394, 395, 398, 400, 401, 404 Plautus, ix, 73 Pliny, 403 Plotinus, x, 11, 15, 73, 122, 228, 381, 390, 391, 392, 394, 395, 396, 397, 398, 401, 405, 406, 407

440 Index of Names and Works Pontano, Giovanni, viii, 5, 396 Porphyry, 11, 392 Proclus, 11, 381, 392, 393 Pronapines, 115 Ptolemy, 140 Pythagoras, 23, 73, 96, 104, 142, 190, 252, 362, 392

Speroni Sperone, 3 Spinoza, Baruch, ix, 3, 363

Rabbinic literature, Midrash: Bereshit Rabbah, 394, 395, 401, 403, 404, 406; Midrash Tanhuma Noah, 401; Pirkei Avot, 388 Rossi, Azariah dei, 9, 382

Varchi, Benedetto, 3, 7, 8, 379 Veltri, Giuseppe, 9, 376, 380, 381 Vergil, 394

Saitta, Giuseppe, 374, 375, 376 Sánchez de Viana, Pedro, 361 Saraceni, Giovan Carlo, 366, 368 Seneca, 25, 118, 362, 391, 394 Seznec, Jean, 408 Sonne, 8, 374, 379 Soria Olmedo, Andres, 9, 380, 408, 410, 413

Themistius, 301 Tibbon, ibn Moise, 384, 403 Tolomei, Claudio, 8 Tullia D’Aragona, 3, 8, 18, 379, 381

Yahyah, ibn Gedeliah (Yahia, Guedella), 9, 361, 362, 363, 364, 365, 366, 368, 369 Zohar, xii, 15, 384, 385, 386, 389, 392, 393, 398, 401, 402, 403, 404, 405, 406, 407