smleite said:
What I really like here is to clearly see that, at least from this viewpoint, harmony between these three traditions is possible (via these three languages) within the Occidental esoteric tradition. I personally find it sometimes hard to conjugate in a meaningful way the Greek, Latin (mostly in medieval milieu) and Hebrew contributions to this supposed tradition; there are so many clashing and incongruent aspects in them, that it is hard to see the three concurring to form an harmonious and complete body of initiatory teachings and practices. On the other hand, it doesn’t seem possible (to me, at least) to validate the existence of such “Occidental esoteric tradition” without the concurrence of these three cultures. The “threefoldness” of the languages you present in this thread could be a way to achieve a better comprehension of this desired Occidental body of esoteric knowledge.
All the more because of the changing use and emphasis within the three languages and the "rediscovery" of classical Greek, Latin and Hebrew at the Renaissance, that more or less discredited the mediaeval developments and associations of these languages, so that Mediaeval Latin, for example, fell into disuse except in the Church where it became fixed and almost jargonised; to new Testament Greek and the Greek that developed in the first ten centuries of the Christian era - the Greek of the Church fathers, and of esoteric philosophers - was preferred the Classical Greek of Plato. And people outside Judaism started to learn the Hebrew of the Bible. While there are some relations between Classical Latin and Greek - the Romans knew the great Greek authors, who wrote their "classics"; Hebrew is entirely outside that system of thought and pushed back into the Middle East, attached to an obscure semi-nomadic people several thousand years ago, long before they even became hellenized.
The slow growing together and organic development of these three languages from Hellenic to late Medieaval times - not least through the settling of Jews in Europe, their gradual Europeanisation, and the engagement of many of their scholars and rabbis with Hellenic, aristotelian and scholastic thought - into the languages of matter, mind and soul, disintegrated. The balance was lost. Much was gained with the rediscovery of the Ancient texts by the Humanist scholars - but much, too, was swept away. Classical Latin and Greek, while they opened new intellectual vistas in the quatrocento, also cut off Renaissance and early modern man from his ancient mother languages. Not entirely a bad thing! since it contributed to the fast development and intellectual elevation of the vernacular languages - and hence to the lights of Shakespeare, Goethe and Cervantes - and yet, the vernacular, while it grew vigorous, gradually separated the peoples, and the scholars and artists, of Europe from each other. For a while, scholars still conversed in Latin. But while clerics might be able to speak medieaval latin, no-one knew how to speak Cicero's language. It just wasn't natural in 1600.
Eventually, of course, all ancient languages were reduced to mere intellectual disciplines, and ceased to be living entities.
And Hebrew, which was successfully revived by Ben Yehuda in the late 19th century, proclaimed its separation from European languages, a separation which would made no sense to the likes of Rabbénu Tam in 12th-century France. Even though the Jews were persecuted and expelled repeatedly from a number of European realms (and always finding refuge and a new vigour in another) the contribution of their still living and developing language, texts and philosophy to mainstream European thought continued and grew:
"The fate of the exiles of 1394 in Savoy, the Dauphiné, in Spain and in Italy is better known today. But there was no common, collective destiny for the Jews that were expelled from France. Their spiritual identity is bound up with their writings, their manuscripts of the Talmud, of the Bible, the commentaries they produced were to become the heritage and model of all of Judaism. The lessons of the rabbis from Northern France, taken up by Christian exegesis, have contributed to the biblical education of Europe."
Prof Gerard Nahon, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Pratiques de Paris in
http://www.uni-trier.de/uni/fb3/geschichte/cluse/eu/en_home.html.
And of course, from all these collective studies - Jewish, Christian, mainstream and tangential, Tarot was born, somewhere between folklore and exegesis.
