[Footnote 317: Dated Florence, 1485; in the Aldine edition of Poliziano's Letters, book ix.] During the period of his Platonic studies at Florence chance brought Pico into contact with a Jew who had a copy of the Cabbala for sale. Into this jungle of abstruse learning Pico plunged with all the ardour of his powerful intellect. Asiatic fancies, Alexandrian myths, Christian doctrines, Hebrew traditions, are so wonderfully blended in that labyrinthine commentary that Pico believed he had discovered the key to his great problem, the quintessence of all truth. It seemed to him that the science of the Greek and the faith of the Christian could only be understood in the light of the Cabbala. He purchased the MS., devoted his whole attention to its study, and projected a mighty work to prove the harmony of philosophies in Christianity, and to explain the Christian doctrine by the esoteric teaching of the Jews.[318] Pico's view of the connection between philosophy, theology, and religion is plainly stated in the following sentence from a letter to Aldus Manutius (February 11, 1491):--'Philosophia veritatem quærit, theologia invenit, religio possidet' ('Philosophy seeks truth, theology discovers it, religion hath it'). Death overtook him before the book intended to demonstrate these positions, and by so doing to establish the concord of all earnest and truth-seeking systems, could be written. He died at the age of thirty-one, on the very day when Charles VIII. made his entry into Florence. [Footnote 318: In the introduction to Pico's _Apologia_ may be read the account he gives of the codex of the pseudo-Esdras purchased by him.]