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The Case of Guillaume Postel (1510–81)

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The Case of Guillaume Postel (1510–81) SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY AND THE TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE IN CHRISTIAN KABBALAH: THE CASE OF GUILLAUME POSTEL (1510–81) Jean-Pierre Brach For who hath despised the day of small things? (Za. 4, 10) Guillaume Postel1 was born in a small village of Normandy, to parents of a humble condition, after whose early death he rapidly moved to Paris. Originally self-taught in the Liberal Arts and oriental languages, he also attended lessons at the Colleges of Sainte Barbe and Cardi- nal Lemoine, where he is likely to have met some important french Humanists, as well as certain representatives of the milieu of J. Lefèvre d’Etaples, some of whom actually taught there. After a while, the young Postel came in contact with some well-connected individuals who, favourably impressed by his learning, endeavoured to promote him at the French Court. Royal attention first manifested itself by sending him, in a minor diplomatic capacity, to Tunis and Istanbul, on a quest for oriental manuscripts destined to enrich King Francis the Ist’s library (Feb. 1535–June 1537). In 1538, his first books were published in Paris, while the year 1539 saw his appointment as “royal lecturer” in oriental languages and mathematics at the recently founded Collège Royal or trilingue, to become the Collège de France. As soon as 1540, however, he felt the first tremors of a profound and lasting spiritual crisis2 which gradually made him turn aside from the quest of wordly advantages. At approximately the same time, he acquired the conviction to have heard divine voices, ordering him henceforth to reform his own spiri- tual life and dedicate his efforts to the purpose of establishing a univer- sal religious concord. Consequently, Postel left Paris on foot for Rome, where he arrived in March 1544, to try and join the newly formed 1 Bouwsma, Concordia Mundi. 2 Maillard, ‘Postel le cosmopolite’, 208–9. 304 jean-pierre brach Company of Jesus, which he believed to be a suitable frame for carry- ing out his own reformist goals. He remained in that city until the Spring of 1546, and was ordained as priest in the meantime by the then Vicar General of the city, F. Archinto (1495–1558). Yet, unable to make him abandon his already firmly rooted conviction of having providentially been chosen as the “angelic pope”, eventually announced by Joachim of Flora (1132– 1202), the Jesuits finally rejected his applicancy. Free, therefore, to move about as he pleased, Postel traveled in Northern Italy and even- tually arrived in Venice (late 1546), first taking up residence at the Ospedaletto san Zanipolo (hospital St John and Paul) as chaplain and meeting there a fifty-year old woman he was soon to call his Madre Zuana (Mother Joanna), and the Venetian Virgin.3 While ministering for years to the poor and the orphans in the care of this establishment, this woman was apparently living an intense mystical life (including the reception of the stigmata), endowed with visions and prophetic revelations.4 Having rapidly elected him as her confessor, it seems she shared in fact his convictions about the imminence of a universal Restitutio, and even encouraged his personal claims to the role of pastor angelicus! Considering this, it was almost inevitable that Postel should, in turn, look upon her as possessing a profound spiritual wisdom, notwith- standing her illiteracy. However, since Postel moved in February 1548 from the Ospedale dei Derelitti to the house of one of his local friends, the printer J. della Speranza,5 it would appear that the two were in close contact no longer than—at most—eighteen months. Postel, nev- ertheless, was to remain a lifelong enthusiast of his Venetian Virgin, whose private revelations (including, of course, those concerning his own mission) he found confirmed at every page of the Zohar and numerous other kabbalistic texts he was actively meditating, translat- ing or actually composing (Or ha-Menorah/Candelabrum Typicum, 1548) during this venetian sojourn.6 3 Kuntz, G. Postel, 69–142; other bibliographical references about her in Postel, Des admirables secrets, 85, n. 131 and Petry, Gender, Kabbalah and the Reformation, 95–116. 4 Ellero, ‘Postel e Venezia’. 5 Maillard, ‘Postel le cosmopolite’, 198, n. 2. 6 Secret, ‘Guillaume Postel en la place de Realte’, 61–8. .
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