Gender, Kabbalah and the Reformation: The Mystical Theology of Guillaume Postel (1510–1581) (review)

Any new book on Guillaume Postel is welcome, certainly to this reviewer. The author has presented a study of Postel based on his knowledge of the Kabbalah, his ideas about gender, and how both relate to his concept of Reformation. She reviews the facts of Postel's life and discusses the various opinions of his sanity. The author points out, citing James MacLean, that some modern historians have called him insane simply because they may not like his ideas. I would add that some who considered him insane may have arrived at this conclusion not only because they did not like what he said, but did not understand what he was saying, as did the Venetian Inquisitor in 1555 who told Postel he did not understand anything which he had written or tried to explain. The designation of amens by the Holy Office of the Inquisition saved Postel's life rather than proved anything about his sanity. Filipo Archinto, papal legate on the Tribunal in 1555, was probably responsible for the designation of amens, since a madman could not be put to death. To be called mad infuriated Postel, but later he realized that his former friend and pupil in Arabic had saved his life. The author, while not expressing her interpretation of Postel's mental state, notes that a "holistic approach" that sees Postel's ideas as "a product not only of his mind but his entire self seems most appropriate" (15). The author comments on the style of Postel's writing as an underlying coherence and emphasis on analogy, since he firmly believed in the integration and interrelatedness of everything in the universal order. The author states: "One of the most fascinating aspects of his writing is his creative attempt to make the idiosyncratic sound normative" (17). In my opinion, Postel did not think that his views were idiosyncratic; to him they seemed very rational. His lack of the "common touch" often caused problems for him. In regard to Postel's language the author states that "his prose is not only unwieldy, but laced with esoteric meanings and multi-layered symbols." I would agree with the latter two descriptions but would quarrel with the statement that his prose is "unwieldy" or "less appealing than that of some of his contemporaries." His writing is difficult because of the complexity and the learned allusions of his thought, not because of his language per se.

The author quite correctly emphasizes the Kabbalah as a key to understanding Postel's religious concepts because of its mystical and mythical response to philosophical problems. Petry notes that Kabbalah was not on the fringe of Renaissance thought but held a central position. Perhaps the most interesting and important section of this work is the author's discussion of Kabbalah and its particular appeal for Postel. I would emphasize even more strongly than does the author the significance of language, the Hebrew language, that is, the original language to Postel, as a key to his metaphysical system and his predilection for the Kabbalah. Postel remarked that God's greatest gift to Adam was to know the names of things. To know the names of things allowed man to reason and to arrive at a knowledge of God. Since God is One and His Name is One, language represented the unity of the Creator. Postel argued in his many books about language that all languages were derived from the parent language Hebrew and that the Hebrew alphabet contained mysteries that revealed the Author of language. An example of the significance of the Kabbalah in Postel's thought is a diagram drawn by Postel of the Sefirot Tree (The British Library, Sloane ms. 1411, fol. 295) with the manifestations of God's name written in Hebrew. Postel wrote under the Sefirot Tree the words...