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A decorative woodcut initial 'S' featuring a reclining figure, possibly a saint or biblical figure, in a landscape setting with foliage.
According to the Platonists Followers of the Greek philosopher Plato; during the Renaissance, many Christian scholars integrated Platonic ideas about the soul and the divine into their theology. and the Hebrews Referring here to Jewish mystical traditions, particularly the Kabbalah, which explores the hidden meanings of the names of God., the knowledge of the Divine names is not lowly, but sublime. The Hebrews esteemed this science so highly that they placed it not only before all other sciences, but even before the written law itself, affirming that it had been given to the patriarchs and to Moses. To Moses, it was given not through dead writing A reference to the idea that the "spirit" or mystical understanding of the law is living, whereas the literal text alone can be "dead" without its divine interpretation., but was implanted within his mind, and so passed successively to the prophets, and ultimately to those who succeeded them. Through the power of these names, the Hebrews say, their ancestors performed marvelous things; regarding these names, those ancients spoke in many places, though not completely— The Italian text ends mid-word with "compitamẽ-", likely intended to be "completamente" (completely).