2008 Woodie Awards
Are Hermes and the Kabbalah Irrelevent?
Giordano Bruno and the Kabbalah
Joshua Harrison
Issue date: 9/20/05 Section: Arts & Culture
While our sages tell us that "scribal jealousies increase wisdom," Bruno vehemently dissents from this position. Scribal jealousies for him, as we have seen, constitute an Oxford pedantry that could only hinder the coming celestial reform. Yet, based on the amazing work of Dame Frances Yates, Karen Silvia de Leon Jones chose to write a book based entirely on the scribal jealousies and the Oxford pedantry that the Renaissance magus so decried.
Yates contends numerous times in her book that, though Bruno dabbles in Kabbalah, following in the illustrious footsteps of Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, his is a strictly Hermetic program. Leon Jones disagrees vehemently. She claims that Bruno is a Kabbalist, and that his Kabbalistic dialogues reflect this.
This argument could now go one of two ways. In the first scenario, Leon Jones could show us not only how Bruno was a Kabbalist, but also how his general program of religious harmonizing worked. Thus, she could tell us how Bruno's "hermetic reform" would've united Catholic countries with Protestant ones. She could explain the place of the Jews, and Jewish wisdom, in this great harmonization. She could explain Bruno's complex messianic politics, and his hopes that various Kings or Queens might usher in an age of religious syncretism in Christianity based on the pre-Mosaic wisdom of Hermes. Leon Jones could even make all of this relevant by pointing to Bruno's Baroque context, with its inquisitions and its Reformation, and by talking about the religious fragmentation of the time and contrasting it with our own, increasingly splintered religious context.
Leon Jones could have done all of these things. Instead, she chose to point to very limited examples that lend no resonance and no context to the amazing figure of Bruno. The first proof Leon Jones gives of the fact that Bruno is a Kabbalist is the recurring motif of the ass in Bruno's celestial reform. This motif, she brilliantly shows, is a Jewish one. Balaam rode an ass and the ass is an important Jewish symbol. Thusly, she concludes that Kabbalah was the consistent hermeneutic thread in all of Bruno's works, and that he did not just steal his Kabalah from Pico and Agrippa.
Yates contends numerous times in her book that, though Bruno dabbles in Kabbalah, following in the illustrious footsteps of Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, his is a strictly Hermetic program. Leon Jones disagrees vehemently. She claims that Bruno is a Kabbalist, and that his Kabbalistic dialogues reflect this.
This argument could now go one of two ways. In the first scenario, Leon Jones could show us not only how Bruno was a Kabbalist, but also how his general program of religious harmonizing worked. Thus, she could tell us how Bruno's "hermetic reform" would've united Catholic countries with Protestant ones. She could explain the place of the Jews, and Jewish wisdom, in this great harmonization. She could explain Bruno's complex messianic politics, and his hopes that various Kings or Queens might usher in an age of religious syncretism in Christianity based on the pre-Mosaic wisdom of Hermes. Leon Jones could even make all of this relevant by pointing to Bruno's Baroque context, with its inquisitions and its Reformation, and by talking about the religious fragmentation of the time and contrasting it with our own, increasingly splintered religious context.
Leon Jones could have done all of these things. Instead, she chose to point to very limited examples that lend no resonance and no context to the amazing figure of Bruno. The first proof Leon Jones gives of the fact that Bruno is a Kabbalist is the recurring motif of the ass in Bruno's celestial reform. This motif, she brilliantly shows, is a Jewish one. Balaam rode an ass and the ass is an important Jewish symbol. Thusly, she concludes that Kabbalah was the consistent hermeneutic thread in all of Bruno's works, and that he did not just steal his Kabalah from Pico and Agrippa.