Sixtus IV, Latin translation, and age forty

Meaning

II.4.36 reports Pico's account of seventy cabalistic books and a Latin translation begun under Sixtus IV, then interrupted by the pope's death. The accompanying restriction specifically says that among the Hebrews no one may touch these books before forty; it is not a rule asserted here about all Hebrew learning. These details support an image of guarded transmission and difficult access to inherited wisdom.

The paragraph does not independently verify the size, identity or survival of that collection. Nor does the age limit become a rule imposed on the present reader. The author adapts the account toward his own philosophical cabala and interpretation of Hermes. It is therefore important to keep the report attributed to Pico separate from the interpretive conclusion Nuysement draws from it. The quoted account says this doctrine contains some points of Christianity, not that cabala and Christianity are wholly identical.