Mirandola's Oration is a useful and interesting look into the Renaissance mind. The increasing dependence on the human mind, and the concept of the (infinite?) perfectibility of man. Part of this noble works is Mirandola's attempts to achieve a workable syncretism between the Greek classical philosophers and the more mystical sides of the Judaism and Christianity.
This loosely structured work typifies the mindset of the hungry thinkers of the fifteenth century. Mirandola's attention is spread thin, from numerology to Orphean poetry. The reader's awareness of this tendency is heightened when reading that Mirandola's intention was to argue nine-hundred points (almost one order of magnitude over Luther's later Ninety-Five Theses!).
Mirandola's work is praised in this edition for having clung to the "fundamental Christian teachings" while exploring other fields. On the contrary, Mirandola has taken a wide range of interests and has imposed on them, neurotically, a then-modern Christian facade. Mirandola seems to place Yahweh in Plato's ideal realm, but shrinks from saying so directly. Rather than making the point that all philosophies point to one transcendent reality, he tells the audience that all philosophies, except Christianity, point to the final philosophy which is enlightened Christianity itself.
This concept misses the point that Christianity is just another attempt to put some structure on the chaos that surrounds the human experience. Admittedly, this tendency towards Christian-directedness may have been difficult to overcome in the fifteenth century. Europe was still restructuring itself after the warring fourteenth century. Perhaps the only sense of structure in the post-plague-and war-world was the Church, such as it was. Perhaps this is why Mirandola holds on so tightly to Christianity as a base.
Another possibility is that Mirandola's dabbling into Numerology and Magic worried him (or his contemporaries). A man found playing with spells or the Cabala might be in serious trouble if he did not try to relate the practice to Christianity. One disturbing outcome of this reliance on a Christian base, however, is the worrisome realization that man may be perfectible but only because of the assistance or allowance of God himself. Mirandola (either out of pious belief, neurosis, or self-preservation) credits all advances to God. In this way, he is crediting his ability to think and philosophize to God. In a roundabout fashion, then, God himself is responsible for Mirandola's development and study.
This absence of personal (existential?) responsibility is the most disturbing of the underlying currents in early Renaissance thought, if Mirandola is to be held up as a typical thinker of the times. It is, of course, unfair to fault Mirandola for not adhering to a self-deterministic philosophy that would not be fully realized for another four hundred years, but modern observers cannot completely divorce themselves from their perspective at the late end of the historical line. Given some of Mirandola's more radical ideas this step should not have been beyond him.
Washington D. C.: Regnery Gateway, 1956.
Jason Carr
The original text can be found at:
http://