Wayne Hankey - Iamblichean/Dionysian principles changed in Aquinas' ontology

Equally, Denys, and the Neoplatonism which derives from Iamblichus, are responsible for the principles governing celestial hierarchy in Aquinas, for the enormous role it plays in his system, for the distinctions of its forms and ranks and for their names. However, a great part of the purpose of this hierarchy for Denys is lost when it is moved into Thomas’ world. What intervenes is Thomistic ontology. He insists rigorously on a distinction between the donation of substantial being, which is the creative act, and all other subsequent donations. The higher angels confer knowledge but not, as in Denys, being, grace, and glory on the lower spirits. Moreover, the equality of humans as compared to angels prevents hierarchical communication in the celestial order being the model for that communication in the church. This modeling is fundamental to Denys’ purpose.
"Dionysian Hierarchy in St. Thomas Aquinas: Tradition and Transformation,"

The compromise does not bring out, indeed, it conceals, the principle which determines the matter for Denys and which will determine it again for Aquinas; i.e. hierarchical action is always mediated. The highest of one order never touches a lower order. There must be a diminution of spiritual virtue to a lower level within a hierarchical rank before a higher order of being can come into contact with a lower. Even then the higher touches only the top grade of the lower order. This characteristically Iamblichan and Procline principle, well known to Aquinas, and accepted by him
...Thomas’ identification of the Iamblichan law of hierarchical mediation with the law of grace
"Aquinas, Pseudo-Denys, Proclus and Isaiah VI.6,"

A consequence of Thomas’ submission to the authority of Denys is that he is essential to constructing Latin intellectual and political systems. Doubtless, Denys is transmuted in the systems of intellectual and institutional power he enables. But ironically, this is precisely because the logic he conveys is more inclusively dialectical than those Aristotle or Augustine provided Aquinas. Though he represents the Greek theological tradition, but carries from it a logic of such synthetic power, because of its embedded Iamblichan - Procline Neoplatonism, Denys has been essential to making Latin Christendom the most potent tradition. Whether that power is only the power for the greatest of self-overcomings or has another fate is also profoundly a question of what the Dionysian corpus really is about. Above all it is a question of the difference between what Denys said and what Aquinas heard, together with the questions as to whether we are either more profound, or more accurate, listeners than Thomas was. The trouble is that we shall be able to answer none of these pressing and difficult questions about the discontinuities, if we do not recognize the continuities.
"Denys and Aquinas: Antimodern Cold and Postmodern Hot,"

Thomas’ hermeneutical horizon was profoundly, extensively and subtly Platonist.
...
Thomas wrote a commentary on his De Divinis Nominibus which is our most important source for his knowledge and judgment of Platonism until the works which follow his reading of Proclus’ Elements of Theology. But, as we shall see below, the pervasive Platonism of the Dionysian corpus was hidden to Aquinas for some time. Because of purposes which remain unknown to us, Dionysius not only hid his identity but also obscured his relation to Platonism. In consequence, Thomas had little control over how the Neoplatonism Dionysius authoritatively conveyed affected him.
...
in the passage from the very late De Substantiis Separatis quoted just above, the doctrine that God is the solitary cause of being for all things is stated in a form which sounds more Platonic than Aristotelian. Thomas speaks there of the First Principle as simplicissimum and argues that “because subsistent being (esse subsistens) must be one ... it is necessary that all other things which are under it exist in the way they do as participants in esse (omnia alia quae sub ipso sunt sic esse quasi esse participantia).”[46] His Exposition of the Liber de causis shows that, having looked at Plato more and more in Neoplatonic terms, Thomas saw that for Platonists all is derived from one exalted First Principle. Even if the Platonists “posited many gods ordered under one” rather than as we do “positing one only having all things in itself”, everyone agrees “universality of causality belongs to God” (universalitas .. causalitatas propia est Deo).
...
Thomas’ assessment of Platonism takes place from within it.
...
Plotinus, Simplicius, Proclus, the Arabic Neoplatonic Aristotelians are not Aquinas’ only sources for this idea crucial to reconciling Plato and Aristotle. Thomas also finds it in the Pseudo-Dionysius. [same sources for Pico's reconciliation of Plato and Aristotle]
...
Thomas’ criticism of Plato, a criticism as much Neoplatonic as it is Aristotelian.
...
Thomas’ view of Aristotelianism had been shaped within the tradition of Neoplatonic commentary, aspects of which his own work continued, and partly as a result of the traditional ascription of the Liber to Aristotle. This, at least to a degree, accounts for his thinking that “Dionysius nearly everywhere follows Aristotle”. After reading the Elements of Theology and comparing it with the Liber and the writings of Dionysius, some of his earlier judgments about the Aristotelianism of the two monotheistic authors were confirmed.
Making this comparison, Thomas found that the doctrine of the De Divinis Nominibus was a monotheistically modified Platonism like that of the Liber de causis. The author of the Liber reduces the plurality of the divine hypostases. With the consequent elevation of the First, its creativity as absolute source is correspondingly secured and exalted. Looking at the doctrine of Proclus, his view is confirmed that even the Platonists teach that the First is the cause of the substance of what follows it. Nonetheless, he judges that the doctrine of creation is more securely taught by Aristotle because of his refusal to posit universals existing per se. In the exposition of the Liber, Aquinas associates its author and Dionysius with Aristotle in a criticism of features of pagan Platonism. He uses Dionysius to correct them all.
“Aquinas and the Platonists,”

Aquinas compares Proclus with Dionysius (in Hankey on Isaiah)

Proposition 10 of the Liber de causis proposes that “all intelligence is full of forms”. The causally higher intellects contain more universal forms, from these derive those intelligences which contain less universal forms.[106] Explaining it, Aquinas first notes his agreement with Proclus that the “superiores habent formas magis universales, inferiores vero minus universales” and then tells us that Denys says the same in the Celestial Hierarchy: ubi dicit quod cherubim ordo participat sapientia et cognitione altiori, sed inferiores substantiae participant sapientia et scientia particulariori.[107] Aquinas proceeds to set out his general doctrine on the role of the angelic illuminations in bringing the divine knowledge and purposes to us.

By the point at which he is explaining proposition 19, Thomas can draw together what we have found in propositions 5 and 10 and bring before us a corollary of the lex divinitatis. Proposition 19 distinguishes between, and connects in a descending causal chain, “intelligentia divina”, receiving the first good gifts from the first cause, “intelligentia tantum”, which has between it and the first cause a mediating intelligence, “anima intelligibilis”, and “anima tantum”, from which we arrive at “corpora naturalia tantum”. Thomas’ explanation refers us to proposition 106 of the Elements (on intermediates between what is wholly eternal and what is in time) and then to the De Divinis Nominibus of Denys. There he finds the law that “fines primorum coniunguntur principiis secundorum”. He compares the “divinae intelligentiae” of the Liber de causis to the Dionysian “supremi angeli sunt quasi in vestibulis deitatis collocati”. The seraphim are the very highest of these. In making the categories of Proclus, of the Liber de causis, and of Denys cohere, he shrewdly places in the rank of mere intellects those angels who intermediate between the highest and ensouled humans: Inferiores vero intellectus qui non pertingunt ad tam excellentem participationem divinae similitudinis sunt intellectus tantum, non habentes illam divinam dignitatem.

Pico's "biblical humanism"

Biblical Humanism and Scholasticism in the Age of Erasmus
34 even before the fiasco of his failed Roman disputation... Pico seems to have already turned to working directly on the text of the Bible
35 commentary on Job, eight Psalms
serious engagement with Jewish commentatorys on the Psalms.
Heptaplus was an esoteric decoding of Genesis using an allegorical key inspired by Proclus, Pseudo-Dionysius, the Cabala, and other Jewish sources
according to Crofton Black, obsolete before it was written

first three paragraphs

Pico della Mirandola's texts contain some of the most controversial writings on angels of the Renaissance. Because he compares man to angels, suggest imitation of angels, becoming angels, and going beyond the angelic state to union with divine—in a text that also celebrates the philosophical-theological value “magic and Kabbalah”—Pico has been suspected of angel magic. As a result of these suspicions, his philosophical treatment of angels has not received the serious attention that it deserves. His ideas about angels when examined carefully turn out not to be so radical or magical, but rather deeply grounded in his Christian Neoplatonic commitments. Pico drew his angelology from Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas, whom he referred to as “the glory of our theology.” He was working with problems he inherited from these authorities concerning the relation between angels and humans and angelic knowledge.

Although the controversial “angel magic” interpretation of Pico has come under historical criticism and is not widely held by Pico scholars (footnote on MVD), these magical interpretations have obfuscated the meaning of Pico's writings on angels, which remain largely neglected although they represent a unique, highly original contribution to Renaissance philosophy, however incomplete and controversial. Recent Pico scholarship has argued for the philosophical seriousness, committed Christian piety, and extensive influence of Pico's thought. In this paper I will review Pico's often unusual, but always pious and philosophical investigations into Neoplatonic and Kabbalistic angel lore. I will argue that his encounters with these foreign angelologies did not represent a dabbling in magic, but rather a philosophical project. It was not an attempt to syncretically include strange or radical non-Christian ideas about angels, but rather an apologetic attempt to find confirmation for Christian angel metaphysics in the ancient and exotic angel lore of the Neoplatonists and Kabbalists.

Admittedly, this philosophical approach cannot take into account all of the problems concerning Pico's “magic and kabbalah.” I will consider approaches to interpreting Pico's “magic and kabbalah” as impacting his angelology, but since these approaches do not seem to work, I will proceed to bracket these problems of magic and consider Pico's angelology as non-magical. Some of the mysteries of Pico's magic and Kabbalah, especially in connection with angels, remain unsolved, but we will be in a better position to solve these problems once we have a better grounding in the philosophical motivations behind Pico's involvement with magic, kabbalah, and angelology.

first paragraph - revised version

Pico della Mirandola's texts contain some of the most controversial writings on angels of the Renaissance. Because he compares man to angels, suggest imitation of angels, becoming angels, and going beyond the angelic state to union with divine—in a text that also celebrates the philosophical-theological value “magic and Kabbalah”—Pico has been suspected of angel magic. As a result of these suspicions, his philosophical treatment of angels has not received the serious attention that it deserves. His ideas about angels when examined carefully turn out not to be so radical or magical, but rather deeply grounded in his Christian Neoplatonic commitments. Pico drew his angelology from Dionysius the Areopagite and Thomas Aquinas, whom he referred to as “the glory of our theology.” He was working with problems he inherited from these authorities concerning the relation between angels and humans and angelic knowledge.

Aquinas on allegorical sense

Aquinas:

“When I say ‘Let there be Light’ and speak of corporeal light, it pertains to the literal sense. If ‘Let there be Light’ is understood as ‘let Christ be born in the Church’ it pertains to the allegorical sense. . If it is understood as ‘let us be illumined in our intellects and inflamed in our affections’ it pertains to the moral sense.” If it is understood as ‘let us be introduced to glory through Christ’ it pertains to the anagogical sense (Super epistolam ad Galatos c.4, lect. 7, in Super epistolas s. Pauli lectura, ed. R. Cai Turin, Marietti, 1953, vol.1. p.621)

intro bit on Pico's magic

Pico's most famous thesis magic+kabbalah / divinity of Christ, got him in trouble,
in his apology, Pico protested that his use of these terms was misunderstood ... Edelheit on fides vs. opinion here?
by magic he means nothing more than the practical part of natural philosophy, nothing supernatural.
by Kabbalah he means something like Dionysian theology, a tradition of Hebrew post-biblical wisdom transmitted by the angels to Moses and handed down in the texts Pico purchased at great expense from his Jewish collaborators.

according to Blum, Pico got in trouble for threatening a boundary between natural philosophy and theology.
but that's not what Yates thought. She and other historians have constructed a vision of Pico as a magus doing supernatural magic.
even after historical criticism, debunking of many of the problems with her view, subsequent readings of Pico's magic still go far beyond what he himself claims to limit magic to.
Mebane and Copenhaver examples of recent defenses of theurgic Pico.
examples of Pico as implying angel magic, "Straight line to later more theurgic Christian Cabala" ala Yates: Brann, Bogdan, Stuckrad

copenhaver's view attractive because fits magic and kabbalah into mystical system, tries to explain Pico as "avoiding" theurgy in sense of conjuring, although he still uses term "Conjure" to describe what Pico is doing with numbers. Farmer offers alternative to Copenhaver that Lehrich criticizes as unreliable (has similar problems trying to interpret 900 Conclusions as a whole system)
problems with Copenhaver's view - assumes a system is there, uses term Pico chose not to use, Pico ignores theurgic aspects of Proclus, Iamblichus, and especially Dionysius

bracketing Pico's magic and possible theurgy and for the most part kabbalah, which topics are already well studied in Wirszubski, Copenhaver, Moshe Idel, Giulio Busi. Rather than looking at Neoplatonists as potential theurgic influences, I will attempt a less speculative interpretation of Neoplatonic metaphysics as the background of Pico's angelology