REFERENCES
- Meric Casaubon, A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John Dee (a Mathematician of Great Fame in Queen Elizabeth and King James their Reignes) and Some Spirits, London, 1659, "The Preface," p. 38.
- Cabala as a system based on a neo-Platonic world view was harmonious with other strains of neo-Platonism and hence was well suited to Dee's application of it. The cabalistic view of creation by emanation from the Hebrew alphabet led to conclusions very similar to those of Reymond Lull and the alchemical tradition. Alphabetical symbols and indeed all symbols represented cosmic realities. A knowledge of those symbols conferred natural magical powers upon the adept. The tradition that Cabala, a medieval invention, was a sacred knowledge revealed by God to all his patriarchs and prophets made the system especially holy to its Renaissance practitioners. Reuchlin's chief cabalistic works De verbo mir(fico and De arte cabalistica are based on the belief that Cabala is the parent of all the occult arts. Greek wisdom, according to Ruchlin, was simply a descendant of the true Cabala. Reuchlin, like the other noted Renaissance cabalists William Postel and Pico della Mirandola, believed the true Cabala to be a proof for Christianity and hence a missionary tool important in converting the Jews to a complete knowledge of God. With these few basic points in mind it is easy to see why a Hermetic like Dee was attracted to Cabala.
- This paper seeks to augment the interpretation of specific symbols found in the Monas developed by C. H. Josten in his "A Translation of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), with An Introduction and Annotations," Ansbix, 12, 84–221, 1964, by supplying a more general framework into which those interpretations may be fitted.
- This work was translated into Latin in 2552 by Dee's acquaintance William Postel. The transla-tion was entitled Abrahami Patriarchae liber Jezirah, sive Formationis mundi, Paris, 1552. The title underscores the belief in Cabala's divine origin and antiquity. For a discussion of Postel and Cabala see William J. Bouwsma, "Postel and the Significance of Renaissance Cabalism", Renaiss-ance Essays, ed. Paul O. Kristeller and Philip P. Wiener, New York, 1968, pp. 252–66. The cabalistic cosmogony of Y ezirah was chosen because Agrippa's De occulta philosophia, a work which influenced Dee, reflects a detailed knowledge of that type of cosmogony.
- Sepher Y ezirah, trans. by Knut Stenring, London, 1923 p. 22.
- Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Of Occult Philosophy, trans. by J. F. [John French?], London, 1651, 1, 74, p. 60.
- Ibid., p. 161.
- Francis A. Yates in her Theatre of the World, Chicago, 2969, p. 9, notes Dee's partiality to Agrippa and in footnote 16 mentions the three editions of De occulta philosophia which he possessed.
- John Dee, "Mathematicall Preface" to The Elements of Geometrie of Euclide, Trans. H. Billingsley, London, 1570, p. 3. The passage in De arithmatica goes on: "From hence the four elements were borrowed from the many: From hence the change of time: From hence the motion of the stars turning in the heavens." [Translation mine from Boetii opera, Venice: Joannus and Gregorius de Forlinio, 1497, found in the Wellcome Library]. Dee's views about the relationship of numbers to reality are also like those of Nicholas of Cusa, whom he quotes in the "Mathematical Preface". For a brief discussion of Dee and Cusa see Peter J. French, John Dee, the World of an Elizabethan Magus, London, 2972, pp. 103–5.
- Agrippa (6), I, 74, pp. 160–163.
- Ibid., II, 2, p. 170.
- Ibid., II, 2, p. 170.
- Agrippa discussed cabalistic exegesis in op. cit., Book II. The discourse on notaricon in chapter 24 is representative of Agrippa's approach.
- Dee's belief that alphabets are derived from geometrical figures, which are themselves founded in numbers, perhaps explains the adoption of geometrical rather than numerical symbols in the Monas. Agrippa in Book II of De occulta philosophia, wrote, "Geometrical Figures also arising from numbers are conceived to be of no less power", (Agrippa in op. cit., p. 253), To Dee, geometry was the science of magnitude, and magnitude was rooted in numbers. This relationship is made clear in the "Preface" (Billingsley (9), p. 5) where he describes astronomy as "arithemtike circular" in which "numbers are become, as Lynes, Playnes and Solides".
- C. H. Josten (3), p. 121.
- Ibid., p. 123.
- Such a view seems justified by Dee's belief, expressed in ibid., p. 135, where he identified his inter-pretation with the "real" Cabala born by the law of creation. If the interpretative art were present at the Deity's act of creation, Dee was certainly the lost art's restorer and not its founder.
- Ibid., p. 125.
- Ibid., p. 127. In II, 23, of op. cit., Agrippa discusses the power of geometrical symbols which arise from points and circles.
- Ibid., pp. 125–7.
- Ibid., p. 129.
- Ibid., p. 133. Dee's appeal to the Jews to accept mystical philosophy and recognize themselves as part of other nations fits well with Peter French's discussion of Dee's desire to unite a Europe torn by religious dissention by means of Hermeticism. In this goal, as French indicates, Dee was one with Postel, who saw Cabala as the tool to unite Christianity and Judaism. Reuchlin and Pico also viewed Cabala as a factor able to unify religions. See Peter J. French (9), p. 135.
- Josten (3), p. 135.
- Ibid., p. 141. Ostanes is mentioned in theorem XV, ibid., p. 167, Pythagoras in theorem III, ibid., p. 159 and Anaxagoras in theorem XVIII, ibid., p. 179.
- In an unpublished paper, "Was John Dee a Copernican?" read before the Midwest Junto of the History of Science, April 12,1974, J. Peter Zetterberg argues convincingly, on the basis of this and other passages, that John Dee used, but did not accept, Copernicanism.
- Josten (3), p. 209.
- In theorem VIII, Dee identifies Pythagoras with cabalistic interpretation and numerology. Johannes Reuchlin in his De veybo mirifico, Basel, 1495, stated that the Tetragrammaton of the Hebrew scriptures was the true source of the Pythagorean tetrad.
- Josten (3), p. 217.
- Meric Casaubon (I), "The Preface", p. 38.
- Casaubon's doubts as to the validity of the Monas and its techniques—doubts based on his own view that Dee was influenced by evil spirits—were not universal among learned men of the seven-teenth century. Athanasius Kircher in his Obeliscus pamphilius, Rome, 1650, pp. 364–79, discussed Cabala and interpreted the Monad cabalistically. He does not acknowledge Dee's work on the Monad but puts forth a similar view that the rectilinear cross represents the four elements, the point of the circle the sun, and that the planetary symbols can be derived from the Monad. The Monas certainly would have made "sense and reason" to Kircher.
- Josten (3), p. "5.