(Paulus Israelite”). De sexcentum et tredecim Mosaice sanctionis edictus. * Eiusdem Philosophica; prophetica; ac talmudistica. * Eiusdem in cabalistarum. * Eiusdem de Novem doctrinarum ordinibus

RICIUS, PAULUS

Jacob de Burgofrancho

Pavia

1510

Four parts in one volume. FIRST EDITIONS. Four title pages, first two printed in red and black. Printer’s mark on last leaf of Parts I-III. Opening letters historiated

Not in Adams; Scholem, Bibliographica Kabbalistia (1933), p. 128, no. 941. Not in Library of G. Scholem on Jewish Mysticism (1999)

A RARE FIRST EDITION OF THIS IMPORTANT COLLECTION OF WRITINGS ON THE KABBALAH AND JEWISH PHILOSOPHY. Probably of German origin, Ricius (d. 1541), was baptised in Italy in about 1505. He became professor of philosophy and medicine at Pavia and during that period established connections with the Court of France. After 1514, he was physician to Emperor Maximilliam I in Augsburg and in 1530, Emperor Ferdinand I made him Baron of Sprinzenstein. Ricius was one of the few apostate Jews of the age who made a serious contribution to Christian Hebraism. He knew both Reuchelin and Erasmus, and in 1521, was named Professor of Hebrew at Pavia. He translated Jewish and Muslim texts and wrote a series of works designed to confirm the Christian faith and refute Jewish arguments by means of the Kabbalah. He is today, remembered primarily as the father of the Christian Kabbalah, The present treatises, evidently issued together, are among his earliest published works. The first concerns the 613 edicts of the Mosaic law. The second, a disputaion with the synagogue and defense of the Christian faith on philosophic, prophetic and Talmudic grounds. The third, an introduction to the Kabbalah with a summary of its rules and dogmas (one of the earliest publications of Chrisitan Kabbalah); and the fourth, a compendium of the nine categories of doctrine and its relation with the dogma of the philosophers. See Contemporaries of Erasmus, vol. III, pp. 158-60; F. Secret, Les Kabbalistes Chretiens de la Renaissance (1964) pp. 87-99 and Notes sur Paulus Ricius et la Kabbale Chretienne en Italie, in Rinascimento, vol. XI (1906) pp. 169-92; EJ, XIV cols. 163-4