kwaw
beanu said:
???
The concept of emanation and return, primarily as formulated in neo-platonism, provides the foundations of the 'mystical theology' of several religions including Islamic, Jewish and Christian.
Tarot and Kabbala
???
The concept of emanation and return, primarily as formulated in neo-platonism, provides the foundations of the 'mystical theology' of several religions including Islamic, Jewish and Christian.
kapoore
reply to Hestia
Hi..
Thanks for the support. I posed this topic because it was a question in my own mind, and I have learned a lot in the process of this dialogue. I do take the more intellectual approach to the history of Tarot; but the artistic tradition can provide clues--such as the possibility that the Hermit card might be a Renaissance version of St. Jerome (who was associated with the Hebrew alphabet, the hour glass, the skull, the life of a hermit, and the intellectual life). That was something I discovered in the course of this dialogue. But concerning your comment about the Provencal/Catalonian Kabbalah, I was astonished when you wrote that Moses De Leon was a Christian monk. I agree with you about the Neo-platonism in the Tree of Life, but I thought that might have come through John Scotus Eriugena (possibly) who was a 9th Century Christian Platonist, translator of Pseudo-Dionysius, and a synthesizer. He had a notion that the Tree of Life was a way back into the garden of eden. He is known to have influenced the kabbalists of Gerona. I read this in both Gershom Scholem and the contemporary Kabbalist, Eliot R. Wolfson, in his book, Through A speculum That Shines. On page 293 note he writes, "It is worth noting that concepts found in the Periphyseon of John scotus Eriugena, a text whose possible influence on the Provencal Geronese kabbalists especially Azriel, has been noted in the scholarly literature." Eriugena discusses climbing up the tree of life, being and nought, and other concepts I am assuming are in the Kabbalistic literature (which I have not read and don't know). So, I guess I am saying that I did understand there was Christian influence on Jewish Kabbalah; but I never thought of the writer of the Zohar Moses De Leon as a Christian monk. You know probably of Ramon Llull whom I believe had a strong influence on the Tarot and lived at the same time as Moses De Leon in the same region of northern Spain. Frances Yates wrote about possible mutual influences between De Leon and Llull. Sorry, I am going on. Maybe you have a source on the Moses De Leon reference. Thanks, again.
Hi..
Thanks for the support. I posed this topic because it was a question in my own mind, and I have learned a lot in the process of this dialogue. I do take the more intellectual approach to the history of Tarot; but the artistic tradition can provide clues--such as the possibility that the Hermit card might be a Renaissance version of St. Jerome (who was associated with the Hebrew alphabet, the hour glass, the skull, the life of a hermit, and the intellectual life). That was something I discovered in the course of this dialogue. But concerning your comment about the Provencal/Catalonian Kabbalah, I was astonished when you wrote that Moses De Leon was a Christian monk. I agree with you about the Neo-platonism in the Tree of Life, but I thought that might have come through John Scotus Eriugena (possibly) who was a 9th Century Christian Platonist, translator of Pseudo-Dionysius, and a synthesizer. He had a notion that the Tree of Life was a way back into the garden of eden. He is known to have influenced the kabbalists of Gerona. I read this in both Gershom Scholem and the contemporary Kabbalist, Eliot R. Wolfson, in his book, Through A speculum That Shines. On page 293 note he writes, "It is worth noting that concepts found in the Periphyseon of John scotus Eriugena, a text whose possible influence on the Provencal Geronese kabbalists especially Azriel, has been noted in the scholarly literature." Eriugena discusses climbing up the tree of life, being and nought, and other concepts I am assuming are in the Kabbalistic literature (which I have not read and don't know). So, I guess I am saying that I did understand there was Christian influence on Jewish Kabbalah; but I never thought of the writer of the Zohar Moses De Leon as a Christian monk. You know probably of Ramon Llull whom I believe had a strong influence on the Tarot and lived at the same time as Moses De Leon in the same region of northern Spain. Frances Yates wrote about possible mutual influences between De Leon and Llull. Sorry, I am going on. Maybe you have a source on the Moses De Leon reference. Thanks, again.
beanu
Kwaw...
Yes, I agree. I guess I should have said something more like
"was a key influence in mystic Christianity in the renaissance" instead.
Yes, I agree. I guess I should have said something more like
"was a key influence in mystic Christianity in the renaissance" instead.
beanu
Kapoore
I bow to your wisdom.
I had in fact confused Lull with de Leon in my failing memory. Lull was the Christian Monk.
I don't doubt that de Leon was also influenced by earlier authors.
I was just referring to the way that he is usually attributed as the origin of the "modern" mysticism, probably through his Zohar. Thus he represents a clear and distinct point for the beginning of the modern school of occultism,
even though it would in reality have been a general movement, with history, exchange of ideas, etc. He represents the concept that I was describing - a possible common ancestor to Kabala, Tarot and Alchemy.
Interestingly,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12670c.htm
says that Lull became a hermit at one stage in his life. Perhaps the Hermit card refers to him?
B
I bow to your wisdom.
I had in fact confused Lull with de Leon in my failing memory. Lull was the Christian Monk.
I don't doubt that de Leon was also influenced by earlier authors.
I was just referring to the way that he is usually attributed as the origin of the "modern" mysticism, probably through his Zohar. Thus he represents a clear and distinct point for the beginning of the modern school of occultism,
even though it would in reality have been a general movement, with history, exchange of ideas, etc. He represents the concept that I was describing - a possible common ancestor to Kabala, Tarot and Alchemy.
Interestingly,
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12670c.htm
says that Lull became a hermit at one stage in his life. Perhaps the Hermit card refers to him?
B
jaled
translator
As a matter of fact, St. Jerome is the saint of translators.
kapoore said:
As a matter of fact, St. Jerome is the saint of translators.
kapoore
reply to Hestia/Beanu
Hi..
I completely understand mixing up names in this most obscure of histories. I once drove around listening to courses on tape to have the background to contextual my Tarot origin search. It's so easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. Recently I was thinking about Eriugena (the one who influenced the Catalonian kabbalists), and I had read that he was more Neo-Platonic than Pseudo-Dionysius, whom he translated from Greek into Latin in the 9th Century. (Dionysius being the source of most Christian Neo-Platonism). I just assumed that was because Eriugena had read Plato's Timaeus, but then I was reading about Eriugena's sources and found out he had not read Plato's Timaeus but Calcidius's commentary on Plato's Timaeus. Maybe in the end we'll discover that the occult tradition (including the Tarot) can be traced to Calcidius's commentary on Plato's Timaeus, or on Fate, or on Demons--a very obscure tradition indeed.
Anyway, back to the Kabbalah/cabbalah, Qabala. Here the problem might be deliberate obfuscation. Neol Brann in his excellent book, Trithemius and the Magical Theology, writes, "To the extent that Cabala, a cornerstone of the earlier steganographical manual tract, continued to play an explicit role in polygraphy for Trithemius, it was primarily in its utilitity as a device for linguistic obfuscation." (pp 132) Kircher, the other primary source of occult Qabala, did something similar. He took the Tree of Life from the recently translated Pechitta, and superimposed the Hebrew letters onto that. He was really using the angelic system of Pseudo-dionysius, and other sources such as Jerome's homonyms for the Hebrew alphabet. I'm here quoting the introduction to Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett's, A History of the Occult Tarot, " Kircher identifies each of the first nine Cabalistic ranks with one of the nine angelic ranks constituting the hierarchy of angels according to Christian writers" pp17.
--reply about the hermit
Yes, Ramon Llull has a character called the Hermit, which I don't think was really St. Jerome. Lull's hermit is a wise man living in the wilderness and all the characters of the medieval world--knight, empress, king, and so on--end up asking the hermit for advice. He is like a medieval psychologist. On the other hand, Jerome suffers alone in the wild, befriends a lion, and ultimately has a vision. Maybe the Tarot hermit is a mixture of the two, or possibly the Renaissance inventor was inspired by Lull but more deeply identified with the suffering of Jerome. I'll try to get the links with the paintings of St. Jerome. I like to compare Lucas Van Leyden's Saint Jerome with the Hermit from the Visconti-Sforza Pierpont Tarocchi deck. Lucan van leyden was a generation removed from Tarot invention, but he might have known something of its tradition. He also painted a scene of card players. Also Francesco Benaglio Saint Jerome Best regards...
Hi..
I completely understand mixing up names in this most obscure of histories. I once drove around listening to courses on tape to have the background to contextual my Tarot origin search. It's so easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. Recently I was thinking about Eriugena (the one who influenced the Catalonian kabbalists), and I had read that he was more Neo-Platonic than Pseudo-Dionysius, whom he translated from Greek into Latin in the 9th Century. (Dionysius being the source of most Christian Neo-Platonism). I just assumed that was because Eriugena had read Plato's Timaeus, but then I was reading about Eriugena's sources and found out he had not read Plato's Timaeus but Calcidius's commentary on Plato's Timaeus. Maybe in the end we'll discover that the occult tradition (including the Tarot) can be traced to Calcidius's commentary on Plato's Timaeus, or on Fate, or on Demons--a very obscure tradition indeed.
Anyway, back to the Kabbalah/cabbalah, Qabala. Here the problem might be deliberate obfuscation. Neol Brann in his excellent book, Trithemius and the Magical Theology, writes, "To the extent that Cabala, a cornerstone of the earlier steganographical manual tract, continued to play an explicit role in polygraphy for Trithemius, it was primarily in its utilitity as a device for linguistic obfuscation." (pp 132) Kircher, the other primary source of occult Qabala, did something similar. He took the Tree of Life from the recently translated Pechitta, and superimposed the Hebrew letters onto that. He was really using the angelic system of Pseudo-dionysius, and other sources such as Jerome's homonyms for the Hebrew alphabet. I'm here quoting the introduction to Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett's, A History of the Occult Tarot, " Kircher identifies each of the first nine Cabalistic ranks with one of the nine angelic ranks constituting the hierarchy of angels according to Christian writers" pp17.
--reply about the hermit
Yes, Ramon Llull has a character called the Hermit, which I don't think was really St. Jerome. Lull's hermit is a wise man living in the wilderness and all the characters of the medieval world--knight, empress, king, and so on--end up asking the hermit for advice. He is like a medieval psychologist. On the other hand, Jerome suffers alone in the wild, befriends a lion, and ultimately has a vision. Maybe the Tarot hermit is a mixture of the two, or possibly the Renaissance inventor was inspired by Lull but more deeply identified with the suffering of Jerome. I'll try to get the links with the paintings of St. Jerome. I like to compare Lucas Van Leyden's Saint Jerome with the Hermit from the Visconti-Sforza Pierpont Tarocchi deck. Lucan van leyden was a generation removed from Tarot invention, but he might have known something of its tradition. He also painted a scene of card players. Also Francesco Benaglio Saint Jerome Best regards...
Huck
kapoore said:
...
whatever you think of the hermit and St. Jerome, the Italian motif of the older hermit in Tarot was "Father Time" 
... made popular by Petrarca's poem "Trionfi"
kapoore
Jerome
Hi Huck,
Thanks for establishing the link. I keep mentioning Jerome by Francesco Benglio, but it is hard to find. Apparently, it is in the Kress Collection at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. I like that painting because it looks so much like the Tarot hermit in the way he stands. Also, it gives the impression of the the figure inhabitanting an alternative reality. (Well, I hope people check that one out. ) The conversation is about Kabbalah and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabets possible meaning in the Tarot deck. Saint Jerome is associated with the Hebrew alphabet. There is a pinting by Jan Van Eyck at www.jan-van-eyck.org. In that painting, Jerome is at his desk but he has the hour glass prominently displayed along with other attributes. Father time also has the hour glass. Symbols in the Renaissance carried double meanings; they weren't solo signifiers. Jerome refers to time with the hour glass and the skull (also an attribute). Time is short, and mortality near, perhaps.
Hi Huck,
Thanks for establishing the link. I keep mentioning Jerome by Francesco Benglio, but it is hard to find. Apparently, it is in the Kress Collection at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. I like that painting because it looks so much like the Tarot hermit in the way he stands. Also, it gives the impression of the the figure inhabitanting an alternative reality. (Well, I hope people check that one out. ) The conversation is about Kabbalah and the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabets possible meaning in the Tarot deck. Saint Jerome is associated with the Hebrew alphabet. There is a pinting by Jan Van Eyck at www.jan-van-eyck.org. In that painting, Jerome is at his desk but he has the hour glass prominently displayed along with other attributes. Father time also has the hour glass. Symbols in the Renaissance carried double meanings; they weren't solo signifiers. Jerome refers to time with the hour glass and the skull (also an attribute). Time is short, and mortality near, perhaps.
Huck
Well, we have an hour glass at St. Jerome of Duerer, and we have an hour-clock at the Melancholy of Duerer ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jerome_in_His_Study_(D%C3%BCrer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia_I
... but it isn't Father Time, but St. Jerome and Melancholy (and one has to state that the angel at Melancholy is nearer to Father Time than St. Jerome, as it is winged as Father Time usually is, too).
A lion is usually foreign to Father Time (but standard to St. Jerome).
The Italian hermit is usually Father time, the later French hermit seems to be insecure about the hour glass and prefers probably a lantern, so possibly referring to Diogenes the philosoph, who searched with the lantern for a true man at the market place in Athen and was specific for dogs, as he was regarded a cynic philosoph (cynos = dog).
Father Time appears in the comedia Philodoxos of Alberti in context of a Tychia, who has the adopted son Fortunius (as disguised Fortune) and Father Time appears occasionally together Fortuna or Occasio (variant of Fortune) ... as they appear near to each other in the Tarocchi, as trumps number 9+10 or occasionally 10 + 11.
... ... you cannot change motifs of Tarot cards to St. Jerome, if some St. Jerome fans of the past used the general repertoire to make St. Jerome an interesting figure.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jerome_in_His_Study_(D%C3%BCrer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melancholia_I
... but it isn't Father Time, but St. Jerome and Melancholy (and one has to state that the angel at Melancholy is nearer to Father Time than St. Jerome, as it is winged as Father Time usually is, too).
A lion is usually foreign to Father Time (but standard to St. Jerome).
The Italian hermit is usually Father time, the later French hermit seems to be insecure about the hour glass and prefers probably a lantern, so possibly referring to Diogenes the philosoph, who searched with the lantern for a true man at the market place in Athen and was specific for dogs, as he was regarded a cynic philosoph (cynos = dog).
Father Time appears in the comedia Philodoxos of Alberti in context of a Tychia, who has the adopted son Fortunius (as disguised Fortune) and Father Time appears occasionally together Fortuna or Occasio (variant of Fortune) ... as they appear near to each other in the Tarocchi, as trumps number 9+10 or occasionally 10 + 11.
...
... you cannot change motifs of Tarot cards to St. Jerome, if some St. Jerome fans of the past used the general repertoire to make St. Jerome an interesting figure.kapoore
motifs
Hi Huck,
I guess I didn't understand your last statement about changing motifs. I am exploring a possibility of a relationship between the Hermit card and Saint Jerome. Saint Jerome was one of the most popular artistic subjects of the Renaissance. In 15th Century Italy and Germany the figure of Saint Jerome was associated with the hourglass, the hermit, and the Hebrew alphabet. Saint Jerome was also a saint that represented the humanist movement. As part of the earlier discussion on the Hebrew alphabet I made references to Ronald Decker's book, Art and Arcana, where he discusses Jerome's connection to the Hebrew alphabet, gematria, and other Kabbalistic methods. Since the Hebrew Kabbalah (the literature) itself did not exist in translation during the period when Trump cards were invented, that does not exclude the possibility that the number 22 could be symbolic of the Hebrew alphabet and Saint Jerome. In my mind, I separate the original meanings of the Trumps and the current attributions. But I do think that understanding the historical setting can add a level of understanding to interpreting the cards. Would you agree that the hourglass, the hermit, and the number 22 could be a reference to Saint Jerome? And did you find a similarity between Francesco Benaglio's Saint Jerome and a common depiction of the hermit? Would an art historian looking at the Hermit card in a 15th Century deck consider a possible connection to St. Jerome? Maybe you can connect me with relevant 15th Century art of "Father Time," Saturn, Eternity, etc. And we can compare these with the antique cards along with the artistic tradition of St. Jerome. Would that interest you?
Hi Huck,
I guess I didn't understand your last statement about changing motifs. I am exploring a possibility of a relationship between the Hermit card and Saint Jerome. Saint Jerome was one of the most popular artistic subjects of the Renaissance. In 15th Century Italy and Germany the figure of Saint Jerome was associated with the hourglass, the hermit, and the Hebrew alphabet. Saint Jerome was also a saint that represented the humanist movement. As part of the earlier discussion on the Hebrew alphabet I made references to Ronald Decker's book, Art and Arcana, where he discusses Jerome's connection to the Hebrew alphabet, gematria, and other Kabbalistic methods. Since the Hebrew Kabbalah (the literature) itself did not exist in translation during the period when Trump cards were invented, that does not exclude the possibility that the number 22 could be symbolic of the Hebrew alphabet and Saint Jerome. In my mind, I separate the original meanings of the Trumps and the current attributions. But I do think that understanding the historical setting can add a level of understanding to interpreting the cards. Would you agree that the hourglass, the hermit, and the number 22 could be a reference to Saint Jerome? And did you find a similarity between Francesco Benaglio's Saint Jerome and a common depiction of the hermit? Would an art historian looking at the Hermit card in a 15th Century deck consider a possible connection to St. Jerome? Maybe you can connect me with relevant 15th Century art of "Father Time," Saturn, Eternity, etc. And we can compare these with the antique cards along with the artistic tradition of St. Jerome. Would that interest you?
