The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome

by Michael Hoffman

  “Traditional” and “Conservative” Catholics often indict early Protestantism for being the occult precursor to Freemasonry. They are willfully ignorant of the occult roots of the Church of Rome commencing with the Renaissance era, and the extent to which occultists united with Rome against early Protestant churches and beliefs. Concerning the conversion of Protestants:

  “…there are broader questions involved in (Bishop Juan) Caramuel’s Hebrew studies at Prague. One of his principal responsibilities as Ferdinand III’s President of the Council of Reformation for four years was the process of conversion and re-Catholicization of the Protestant populations. Yossef Schwartz of Tel Aviv University has suggested that (Cistercian theologian Juan) Caramuel may have seen the Ashkenazi Jews as an asset in this endeavor. Y. Schwartz’s thesis is that commentaries on Jewish texts such as the Talmud and the Cabbala—that chronologically postdate the canonical Hebrew Bible—represent a hermeneutic tradition sharing much in common with the Catholic tradition of theological commentary on sacred texts throughout Late Antiquity and on into the Middle Ages. Stemming from similar sources and similar methods, he argues, these two traditions would have shared more in common with each other than either did with the new and heretical doctrines of Protestantism. Rather than studying Cabbalism in order to better refute it, the Cistercian’s curiosity may have had the positive purpose of being a key for the conversion of the Jews. In this rather odd sense, the rabbinical community of Prague could be placed, in Caramuel’s eyes, on the pro-Catholic side of the ledger in the Counter-Reformation drive to eliminate heresy.” 25

  The Spanish monk and bishop, Juan Caramuel (1606-1682), aide to Catholic Emperor Ferdinand III and allegedly assigned the mission of the evangelization of the Judaic people, set forth in his “Sephardic Commentary,” sustained plaudits for top Iberian-Judaic occultists and Talmudists, among them Abraham ibn Ezra, Shlomo ben Yitzhak, Moses Maimonides, Moses Nahmanides, Solomon ben Gabirol, Rabbi Yehudah of Portugal and Rabbi Judah ha-Levi. Of these individuals he wrote in perfect conformity with the tenets of syncretic Church of Rome modernism, “Let those who have been examined here suffice so envy may realize that Spain (I praise my native land; I do not condemn other regions)—whether she be Jewish, whether she be Mohammedan—has given men to the world who would, singly, be enough for her to be pronounced illustrious and be so indeed.” 26

  Caramuel was Abbot-Superior of the Benedictines of Vienna, Grand-Vicar to the Archbishop of Prague, and Bishop of Satrianum, and later of Campagna. He is regarded as a pioneer of the elastic “probabilist” morality that would be expanded by Alphonsus Liguori. Caramuel’s probabilism was based in part on the thought of the Polish Rabbi Samuel of Lublin (Rabbi Samuel Eliezer Ben Judah Edels; 1555-1631).27

  Caramuel’s ally, Bishop Joseph Maria Ciantes, had been appointed by Pope Urban VIII in 1626 to convert the Judaic community in Rome. As part of his evangelism of the Judaics, Bishop Ciantes wrote two apologetic works on the Trinity (1667) and the Incarnation (1668). “Both books were based mainly on ideas taken from Jewish Cabalistic sources…” 28

  Bishop Caramuel’s thoroughly modern, extremist negation of sin has not yet been surpassed even in our twenty-first century. Inside the Church of Rome he represents one wing of the rigged stringent-lenient “pair,” which is a thinly disguised replication of the Talmudic-theological schools of Shammai and Hillel and the gevurah/chesed pair. These are lawyer’s distinctions. God’s law is not subject to casuist categories of rigor and laxity. These categories are artificially imposed upon the Word of God by those with a mentality of lawyers and Talmudists who describe themselves as theologians. They seek to forge a path above duality; beyond good and evil. Observe the backward premise from which Bishop Caramuel proceeds to nullify God’s law:

  “Moral obligation, in Caramuel’s view, arises from the imposition of law. ‘I deny that any moral malice can be understood without (reference to) a precept,’ he argues…in the Benedicti Regulam. ‘As a result, if all laws were to be taken away (whether this is possible or not), there would remain nothing that could be described as morally evil.” 29

  “With the protection of (Pope) Alexander VII, Caramuel clearly weathered the initial storm over his controversial work. Blaise Pascal began to publish anonymously a series of short, satirical counterattacks…Pascal did not analyze probabilism’s theoretical foundations; instead he simply listed ‘the decisions those casuists who had adopted probabilism rendered in particular cases. In the Provincial Letters, probabilism appears not merely ridiculous but even sinister in light of the outrageous actions that its principles will justify.” 30

  While it is true that Caramuel’s book Apologema was consigned to the Index of Forbidden Books in January, 1664, the consignment was necessary to temporarily satisfy the concerns of those conservatives who still respected the original Catholic Church. Let us not stop there, however. But rather, observe what occurred afterward, to the supposed “banned” author: Bishop Caramuel subsequently established, with permission of the hierarchy, a printing plant for his supposedly “forbidden” book!

  In 1664, he published two additional volumes on moral theology and then joined the brotherhood of the Academia napoletana degli Investiganti. Five more books would follow. In 1673, at the behest of the Catholic queen-regent of Austria, Caramuel was appointed bishop of the diocese of Vigevano, a more centrally located and lucrative posting.

  As we endeavor to demonstrate in the pages that follow, Caramuel and his Vatican protectors were representative of the situation ethics that would come to replace Catholic dogma.

  The revolution within the Church did not commence with the Second Vatican Council. It was nearly three hundred years old by the time the secular-Enlightenment in Europe erupted in the eighteenth century.

  1 Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (eds.), The Oxford Classical Dictionary (2003), p. 793.

  2 A circa second century A.D. Roman lexicographer.

  3 Charles L. Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome (1998), pp. 184-185.

  4 Jens Zimmerman, Re-Envisioning Christian Humanism (2016).

  5 In the thirteenth century the rabbi and Kabbalist Moses de Leon wrote concerning the culmination of the theology that was originally an oral transmission of esoteric doctrine which was committed to writing in the early centuries A.D: “This is what is called ‘kabbalah’ (reception), owing to the fact that it is a reception (traceable back) to Moses from Mount Sinai.”

  6 Pope Benedict XIV, Apostolic Constitution Pastoralis Romani Pontificis, March 30, 1741; excerpted in Papal Teachings: The Church (St. Paul Editions, [1962], p. 31.

  7 The Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Surnamed Scholasticus (fifth century AD; English translation 1853), vol. 1, p. 57. The Manichaeans, like Kabbalistic Orthodox Judaism (for example Chabad-Lubavitch), promulgated the doctrine of reincarnation (also known as “transmigration of souls”). Socrates Scholasticos/Scholasticus writes, “Manichaeus…distinctly affirmed a transmutation of bodies, a notion which closely approximates to, and was doubtless borrowed from, the opinions of Empedocles, Pythagoras and the Egyptians, respecting the transmigration of souls.”

  8 Giovanni Pico della Mirandola should not be confused with his nephew, Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola. They differed in age by only six years. Gianfrancesco attached himself to Fr. Girolamo Savonarola and his reaction against the conspirators, but whether sincerely or as an infiltrator and spy, remains a point of historical contention.

  9 https://cruxnow.com/global-church/2016/09/12/pope-okays-argentine-doc-communion-divorced-remarried/

  10 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/04/more-catholic-than-pope.html#more

  11 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/09/for-record-pope-francis-confirms-amoris.html

  12 Ross Douthat, http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2016/01/op-ed-to-ross-douthat-with-affectionate.html#more • January 15, 2016.

  13 March 9, 2015. Translation by Francesca Romana, via http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-popes-impossible-
revolution-for.html#more

  14 Apostolic Constitution Etsi Pastoralis, May 26, 1742; excerpted in Papal Teachings: The Church, p. 32.

  15 Letter Epistola Tua, June 17, 1885; excerpted in Papal Teachings: The Church, p. 263.

  16 Ibid., p. 353.

  17 Encyclical Satis Cognitum, n. 13.

  18 Pius XII, Encyclical Humani Generis.

  19 Bellarmine, Doctrina Christiana: The Timeless Catechism of St. Robert Bellarmine, transl. Ryan Grant (2016), p. 105.

  20 http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-original-story-when-jesuit-cardinal.html#more

  21 John Salza and Robert Siscoe, True or False Pope? (St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 2015), pp. 145-146.

  22 Eleison Comments, February 15, 2014.

  23 Machiavelli, The Prince (emphasis supplied); circulated in manuscript beginning in 1513; first printing: 1532.

  24 Damon Linker, “Pope Francis’ Machiavellian strategy to liberalize the Catholic Church,” theweek.com, October 15, 2014.

  25 Henry W. Sullivan, “Jews of Prague & Jews of Spain: Juan Caramuel’s Account of Medieval Sephardic Writings,” in Juan Caramuel Lobowitz: The Last Scholastic Polymath, p. 158.

  26 Caramuel, Dominicus (Vienna, 1655).

  27Cf. Jean-Robert Armogathe, “Caramuel: A Cistercian Casuist,” in Juan Caramuel Lobkowitz: The Last Scholastic Polymath.

  28 Yossef Schwartz, “On Rabbinic Atheism,” pp. 131-132.

  29 Julia A. Fleming, Defending Probabilism: The Moral Theology of Juan Caramuel, p. 38.

  30 Ibid., p. 14.

  Chapter II

  Neoplatonic-Hermeticism

  In the historical period under examination “Neoplatonic Hermeticism” emerged under the auspices of a “Hermetic” system of belief ascribed to the mythical, eponymous “Hermes Trismegistus,” linked to the “Neoplatonic” belief system ascribed to Plato’s followers in the period 200-500 A.D. forward. It advanced much farther than the old witchcraft systems that tried to dominate in the Middle Ages. Neoplatonic-Hermeticism commanded the Renaissance Church in part because it was self-advertised as angel light and sweetness: a clean system of occult knowledge that pre-dated Christ and prophesied of Him by means of Egyptian “white” magic, and a rabbinic Kabbalism which was allegedly harnessed to benevolent rather than malevolent forces. 1 A Christian and Biblical veneer was thereby attached to the devil’s magical gnosis. To gain entrée to the circles of syncretizing ecumenism and liberalism it was dubbed the philosophia perennis (perennial philosophy, i.e. the eternal philosophy), and the prisca theologia,” (first theology), i.e. the “ancient wisdom narrative,” and this make-believe was the “rocket fuel” which helped to propel it into dominion over the Church of Rome (at a time when Martin Luther was a child and John Calvin was not yet born), and helped to establish it as the referential corpus of western esotericism from then until now.

  Neoplatonic-Hermeticism is the spiritual force and ideological impetus which “split the Church” before there ever was a Protestant Reformation. The clever agents of Rome’s information warfare have managed to lay the blame for this division on “the Protestants.” By this device researchers need not trouble themselves with an authentic investigation into what led to the division of Christendom after the first breakup, between the Orthodox East and the Roman West in 1054. They could satisfy themselves with a cliché: “The Protestants caused it.”

  While much of the arcane doctrine of which Neoplatonic-Hermetic Catholics taught and advocated is at such a level as to be difficult to grasp without a considerable introduction to the subject matter, many orthodox Christians understand what syncretism and religious indifferentism are, and the threat these pose to the Gospel. “…in the light of Neoplatonism, the humanist discovered in mythology something other and much greater than a concealed morality: they discovered religious teaching—the Christian doctrine itself.” 2

  Actually, they discovered nothing of the sort. What they discovered was the right time for putting a false Christ over on the princes and churchmen and other higher-ups. He who said, “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes unto the Father except by Me,” cannot be absorbed into the eternal pagan psychodrama. Hence, He must be transmogrified. Thus was born “The Christ” of symbolism and “The Christ” of the New Age. This pseudo-Christ was imparted by means of the arcane Renaissance papist theology which holds that the pre-Christian pagan religions prophesied and foreshadowed Jesus:

  “Interpretation by means of symbols, in fact, made it possible not only to discern a lofty wisdom beneath fictions of the most diverse character and the most unedifying appearance: it further led to a grasp of the fundamental relationship between this profane wisdom (variable in its outward but immutable in its teaching) and the wisdom of the Bible. Just as Plato accords with Moses, and Socrates ‘confirms’ Christ, so Homer’s voice is that of a prophet. And the Magi of Persia and Egypt, who in their turn mask sacred maxims under a cloak of Fable, are linked to the sages of Israel. Against this background it was inevitable that the same idea which declining paganism has evolved should occur to the humanists — namely, that all religions have the same worth, and that under varied forms, however puerile and monstrous in seeming, is hidden a common truth. Marsilio Ficino leans toward a universal theism, with Platonism as its gospel.” 3

  “Contrary to popular assumptions, the Enlightenment was not anti-religious…its roots reached deeply into the soil of Neo-Platonism and Kabbalism…a line may be drawn…to Renaissance Neo-Platonists like Nicholas of Cusa…and Pico della Mirandola, all the way to…the Enlightenment. In his On the Peace of Faith (1453), Nicholas of Cusa envisions a conference in heaven where the religions are finally reconciled, recognizing that they are one in their moral and spiritual core…” 4

  The Renaissance project was intended to follow the rabbinic model of transformation, whereby the Israelite religion of the Old Testament was changed into the Talmudic/Kabbalistic religion of pagan Judaism, under a compelling Biblical veneer. Long before the proposed synthesis between Plato and Moses, came the realized synthesis of the Talmudic Moses (not to be confused with the genuine Moses of the Pentateuch)—and Egyptian and Babylonian paganism. This monstrosity is almost always presented by university professors and the corporate media of our day as a trend toward liberation, human fulfillment, peace and love, and so forth. Actually it led to the acceleration of the enslavement of Black people (about which we will have more to say) and playing god with nature by “perfecting” God’s “imperfect” Creation, which resulted in the rise of a “scientific” and “medical” priesthood that subjugates Nature. “Such a stance is also found in Abraham Abulafia’s book Or-ha-Sekhel and, following him, Moshe Narboni’s Commentary on Avicenna’s Intentions of the Philosophers, where the claim is made that the prophet who can change the course of nature is the highest among all the prophets.” 5

  Harvard Professor Gilles Quispel writes, “In 1460 a monk brought a Greek manuscript to Florence. The monk, one of the agents that the city’s ruler, Cosimo de’ Medici, had been sent to scour Europe’s monasteries for forgotten writings of the ancients, and what he now brought his patron was a codex containing fourteen treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, an ancient Egyptian sage. This work’s arrival caused a great stir, because Hermes, identified with the Ibis god Thoth, was held to be older than Plato and Moses and the underlying inspiration of all philosophy and religion that followed him…This manuscript contained the nucleus of the Corpus Hermeticum…Along with some astrological and alchemical works, also named after Hermes, these tracts became the fundamental writings of the Renaissance, together called Hermeticism…Hermetic writings…lived on in secret societies such as the Freemasons and the Rosicrucians.” 6

  Marsilio Ficino

  Rev. Fr. Marsilio Ficino (1433-1499), a gifted Catholic philologist and magician with a mastery of early Greek, made the first Latin translation from the recently discovered codex at the urgent request of his patron, Cosimo de’ Medici, 7 who, in 1462, ordered
that Ficino put aside his translation of Plato’s complete works (Opera omnia) in favor of Pimander (a.k.a. the “Corpus Hermeticum”), 8 which was alleged to have been authored by Mercury/Hermes in antiquity. Ficino’s translation of Pimander (Corpus Hermeticum) was printed in 1471. His version of Plato’s Opera omnia, dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici, would be published in 1484, on a day timed to coincide with the astrological conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter.

  The occult Catholic Neoplatonism of Ficino is one of the earliest sources of the ideology of modernism manifested by the Second Vatican Council and in its “post-conciliar” aftermath; and the “spirit of Assisi” as exemplified, beginning in 1986, by Pope “Saint” John Paul II’s syncretic parliament of world religions in Assisi, Italy. Ficino’s Renaissance Catholic Platonism “was part of the humanist project to embrace non-Christian sources of religious wisdom…Ficino believed that Christianity was in desperate need of reformation…in terms of its theological content. In Ficino’s mind, Christian theology had been barbarized by centuries of ill-conceived dependence on Aristotelianism…Ficino understood that in antiquity the best Christian theologians had relied on Platonism…Ficino’s goal was to use a revived Platonism to dramatically reshape contemporary Christianity. In particular, his goal was to rethink the relationship between Christianity and the other great world religions, to break down the narrow, dogmatic barriers imposed in late antiquity that separated Christianity from other forms of religious wisdom. This led him to a new kind of Christian apologetics that, unlike the Christian apologetics of the medieval period, did not seek in any straightforward way to demonstrate the falsity of other religions and the truth of Christianity.” 9

  The Neoplatonic-Hermetic theology of Marsilio Ficino, Catholic priest, theologian and Cathedral Canon, was transmitted from fifteenth century Catholic Italy to seventeenth century Protestant England and from there to those intellectuals who comprised the early Enlightenment: