(19) 4. Ten are the numbers (of the Sephiroth) out of Nothing, ten--not nine; ten--not eleven. Comprehend this great, wisdom, understand this knowledge and be wise. Inquire into the mystery and ponder it. Examine all things by means of the ten Sephiroth. Restore the Word to Its Creator and lead the Creator back to His throne again. He is the only Formator and beside Him there is no other. His attributes are ten and are without limit.

(27) 6. The appearance of the ten spheres (Sephiroth) out of Nothing is as a flash of lightning or a sparkling flame, and they are without beginning or end. The Word of God is in them when they go forth and when they return. They run by His order like a whirlwind and prostrate themselves before His throne.

(18) 3. The ten numbers (Sephiroth) out of Nothing are analogous to the ten fingers and the ten toes: five over against five. In the center between them is the covenant with the Only One God. In the spiritual world it is the covenant of the voice (the Word), and in the corporeal world the circumcision of the flesh (the rite of Abraham).

(54) we find Sephira [Kether], the first androgyne, at the apex of the upper triangle, emitting Hachama [Chochmah], or Wisdom, a masculine and active potency--also called Jah, יה--and Binah, בינה, or Intelligence, a female and passive potency, also represented by the name Jehovah יהוה. These three form the first trinity or 'face' of the Sephiroth. This triad emanated Hesed, הסד, or Mercy, a masculine active potency, also called El, from which emanated Geburah גבורה, or justice, also called Eloha, a feminine passive potency; from the union of these two was produced Tiphereth טפּארת, Beauty, Clemency, the Spiritual Sun, known by the divine name Elohim; and the second triad, 'face,' or 'head,' was formed. These emanating, in their turn, the masculine potency Netzah, נצה, Firmness, or Jehovah Sabaoth, who issued the feminine passive potency Hod,הוד, Splendor, or Elohim Sabaoth; the two produced Jesod, יסוד, Foundation, who is the mighty living one El-Chai, thus yielding the third trinity or 'head.' The tenth Sephiroth is rather a duad, and is represented on the diagrams as the lowest circle. It is Malchuth or Kingdom, מלכות, and Shekinah, שכינה, also called Adonai, and Cherubim among the angelic hosts. The first 'Head' is called the Intellectual world; the second 'Head' is the Sensuous, or the world of Perception, and the third is the material or Physical world." (See Isis Unveiled.)

(70) Three vertical columns support the universal system as typified by the Sephirothic Tree. The central pillar has its foundation in Kether, the Eternal One. It passes downward through the hypothetical Sephira, Daath, and then through Tiphereth and Jesod, with its lower end resting upon the firm foundation of Malchuth, the last of the globes. The true import of the central pillar is equilibrium. It demonstrates how the Deity always manifests by emanating poles of expression from the midst of Itself but remaining free from the illusion of polarity. If the numbers of the four Sephiroth connected by this column be added together (1 +6 +9 + 10), the sum is 26, the number of Jehovah. (See chapter on Pythagorean Mathematics.)

(2) The Sephirothic Tree consists of ten globes of luminous splendor arranged in three vertical columns and connected by 22 channels or paths. The ten globes are called the Sephiroth and to them are assigned the numbers i to 10. The three columns are called Mercy (on the right), Severity (on the left), and, between them, Mildness, as the reconciling power. The columns may also be said to represent Wisdom, Strength, and Beauty, which form the triune support of the universe, for it is written that the foundation of all things is the Three. The 22 channels are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and to them are assigned the major trumps of the Tarot deck of symbolic cards.

(5) Since, however, the order of all the Gods is profoundly united, and the first and second genera of them, and all the multitude which is spontaneously produced about them, are consubsistent in unity, and also every thing which is in them is one,—hence the beginning, middles, and ends in them are consubsistent according to the one itself ; so that in these, it is not proper to inquire, whence the one accedes to all of them. For the very existence in them, whatever it may be, is this one of their nature. And secondary genera, indeed, remain with invariable sameness in the one of such as are primary; but the primary impart from themselves union to the secondary genera, and all of them possess in each other the communion of an indissoluble connexion.

(76) Thomas Maurice reproduces the above engraving, which is modification of the elaborate tree on the preceding page. The Sephiroth are here superimposed, decreasing in size as they decrease in power and dignity. Thus, the Crown is the greatest and the all-inclusive, and the Kingdom--which represents the physical universe--is the smallest and of least importance.

(51) The Sephirothic Tree is sometimes depicted as a human body, thus more definitely establishing the true identity of the first, or Heavenly, Man--Adam Kadmon--the Idea of the Universe. The ten divine globes (Sephiroth) are then considered as analogous to the ten sacred members and organs of the Protogonos, according to the following arrangement. Kether is the crown of the Prototypic Head and perhaps refers to the pineal gland; Chochmah and Binah are the right and left hemispheres respectively of the Great Brain; Chesed and Geburah (Pechad) are the right and left arms respectively, signifying the active creative members of the Grand Man; Tiphereth is the heart, or, according to some, the entire viscera; Netsah and Hod are the right and left legs respectively, or the supports of the world; Jesod is the generative system, or the foundation of form; and Malchuth represents the two feet, or the base of being. Occasionally Jesod is considered as the male and Malchuth as the female generative power. The Grand Man thus conceived is the gigantic image of Nebuchadnezzar's dream, with head of gold, arms and chest of silver, body of brass, legs of iron, and feet of clay. The mediæval Qabbalists also assigned one of the Ten Commandments and a tenth part of the Lord's Prayer in sequential order to each of the ten Sephiroth.

(68) Because of the close similarity of their creative triad to the Christian Trinity, the later Qabbalists rearranged the first three Sephiroth and added a mysterious point called Daath--a hypothetical eleventh Sephira. This is located where the horizontal line connecting Chochmah and Binah crosses the vertical line joining Kether and Tiphereth. While Daath is not mentioned by the first Qabbalists, it is a highly important element and its addition to the Sephirothic Tree was not made without full realization of the significance of such action. If Chochmah be considered the active, intelligent energy of Kether, and Binah the receptive capacity of Kether, then Daath becomes the thought which, created by Chochmah, flows into Binah. The postulation of Daath clarifies the problem of the Creative Trinity, for here it is diagrammatically represented as consisting of Chochmah (the Father), Binah (the Mother, or Holy Ghost), and Daath, the Word by which the worlds were established. Isaac Myer discounts the importance of Daath, declaring it a subterfuge to conceal the fact that Kether, and not Chochmah; is the true Father of the Creative Triad. He makes no attempt to give a satisfactory explanation for the symbolism of this hypothetical Sephira.

(1) How many, and of what sort, are the Orders of the supercelestial Beings, and how the Hierarchies are classified amongst themselves, I affirm, the deifying Author of their consecration alone distinctly knows; and further, that they know their own proper powers and illuminations, and their sacred and supermundane regularity. For it is impossible that we should know the mysteries of the supercelestial Minds and their most holy perfections, except, some one might say, so far as the Godhead has revealed to us, through them, as knowing perfectly their own condition. We, then, will utter nothing as from ourselves, but whatever angelic visions have been gazed upon by the holy Prophets of God, we, as initiated in these, will set forth as best we can. The Word of God has designated the whole Heavenly Beings as nine, by appellations, which shew their functions. These our Divine Initiator divides into three threefold Orders. He also says that that which is always around God is first and is declared by tradition to be united closely and immediately, to Him, before all the rest. For he says that the teaching of the Holy Oracles declares, that the most Holy Thrones, and the many-eyed and many-winged hosts, named in the Hebrew tongue Cherubim and Seraphim, are established immediately around God, with a nearness superior to all. This threefold order, then, our illustrious Guide spoke of as one, and of equal rank, and really first Hierarchy, than which there is not another more Godlike or immediately nearer to the earliest illuminations of the Godhead. But he says, that which is composed of the Authorities, and Lordships, and Powers is second; and, as respects the lowest of the Heavenly Hierarchies, the Order of the Angels and Archangels and Principalities is third. Next: Caput VII. Sacred Texts | Christianity « Previous: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: On the Heavenly Hi... Index Next: The Works of Dionysius the Areopagite: On the Heavenly Hi... » Sacred Texts | Christianity

(4) The four Qabbalistic Trees described in the preceding chapter were combined by later Jewish scholars into one all-inclusive diagram and termed by them not only the Sephirothic but also the Archetypal, or Heavenly, Adam. According to some authorities, it is this Heavenly Adam, and not a terrestrial man, whose creation is described in the opening chapters of Genesis. Out of the substances of this divine man the universe was formed; in him it remains and will continue even after dissolution shall resolve the spheres back into their own primitive substance. The Deity is never conceived of as actually contained in the Sephiroth, which are purely hypothetical vessels employed to define the limits of the Creative Essence. Adolph Franck rather likens the Sephiroth to varicolored transparent glass bowls filled with pure light, which apparently assumes the color of its containers but whose essential nature remains ever unchanged and unchangeable.

(3) Especially must this be known, that according to the pre-conceived species of each one, things united are said to be made one, and the one is elemental of all; and if you should take away the one, there will be neither totality nor part, nor any other single existing thing. For the one, uniformly, pre-held and comprehended all things in itself. For this reason, then, the Word of God celebrates the whole Godhead, as Cause of all, by the epithet of the One, both one God the Father, and one Lord Jesus Christ, and one and the same Spirit, by reason of the surpassing indivisibility of the whole Divine Oneness, in which all things are uniquely collected, and are super-unified, and are with It Superessentially. Wherefore also, all things are justly referred and attributed to It, by Which and from Which, and through Which, and in Which, and to Which, all things are, and are co-ordinated, and abide, and are held together, and are filled, and are turned towards It. And you would not find any existing thing, which is not what it is, and perfected and preserved, by the One, after which the whole Deity is superessentially named. And it is necessary also, that we being turned from the many to the One, by the power of the Divine Oneness, should celebrate as One the whole and one Deity--the one Cause of all--which is before every one and multitude, and part and whole, and limit and illimitability, and term and infinity, which bounds all things that be, even the Being Itself, and is uniquely Cause of all, individually and collectively, and at the same time before all, and above all, and above the One existing Itself, and bounding the One existing Itself; since the One existing--that in things being--is numbered, and number participates in essence; but the superessential One bounds both the One existing, and every number, and Itself is, of both one and number, and every being, Source and Cause, and Number and. Order. Wherefore also, whilst celebrated as Unit and Triad, the Deity above all is neither Unit nor Triad, as understood by us or by any other sort of being, but, in order that we may celebrate truly. Its super-oneness, and Divine generation, by the threefold and single name of God, we name the Deity, Which is inexpressible to things that be, the Superessential. But no Unit nor Triad, nor number nor unity, nor productiveness, nor any other existing thing, or thing known to any existing thing, brings forth the hiddenness, above every expression and every mind, of the Super-Deity Which is above all superessentially. Nor has It a Name, or expression, but is elevated above in the inaccessible. And neither do we apply the very Name of Goodness, as making it adequate to It, but through a desire of understanding and saying something concerning that inexpressible nature, we consecrate the most august of Names to It, in the first degree, and although we should be in accord in this matter with the theologians, yet we shall fall short of the truth of the facts. Wherefore, even they have given the preference to the ascent through negations, as lifting the soul out of things kindred to itself, and conducting it through all the Divine conceptions, above which towers that which is above every name, and every expression and knowledge, and at the furthest extremity attaching it to Him, as far indeed as is possible for us to be attached to that Being.

(50) It must continually be emphasized that the Sephiroth and the properties assigned to them, like the tetractys of the Pythagoreans, are merely symbols of the cosmic system with its multitude of parts. The truer and fuller meaning of these emblems may not be revealed by writing or by word of mouth, but must be divined as the result of study and meditation. In the Sepher ha Zohar it is written that there is a garment--the written doctrine-which every man may see. Those with understanding do not look upon the garment but at the body beneath it--the intellectual and philosophical code. The wisest of all, however, the servants of the Heavenly King, look at nothing save the soul--the spiritual doctrine--which is the eternal and ever-springing root of the law. Of this great truth Eliphas Levi also writes declaring that none can gain entrance to the secret House of Wisdom unless he wear the voluminous cape of Apollonius of Tyana and carry in his hand the lamp of Hermes. The cape signifies the qualities of self-possession and self-reliance which must envelope the seeker as a cloak of strength, while the ever-burning lamp of the sage represents the illumined mind and perfectly balanced intellect without which the mystery of the ages can never be solved.

(9) Let us, then, make a mental picture of our universe: each member shall remain what it is, distinctly apart; yet all is to form, as far as possible, a complete unity so that whatever comes into view shall show as if it were the surface of the orb over all, bringing immediately with it the vision, on the one plane, of the sun and of all the stars with earth and sea and all living things as if exhibited upon a transparent globe.

Bring this vision actually before your sight, so that there shall be in your mind the gleaming representation of a sphere, a picture holding sprung, themselves, of that universe and repose or some at rest, some in motion. Keep this sphere before you, and from it imagine another, a sphere stripped of magnitude and of spatial differences; cast out your inborn sense of Matter, taking care not merely to attenuate it: call on God, maker of the sphere whose image you now hold, and pray Him to enter. And may He come bringing His own Universe with all the Gods that dwell in it- He who is the one God and all the gods, where each is all, blending into a unity, distinct in powers but all one god in virtue of that one divine power of many facets.

More truly, this is the one God who is all the gods; for, in the coming to be of all those, this, the one, has suffered no diminishing. He and all have one existence while each again is distinct. It is distinction by state without interval: there is no outward form to set one here and another there and to prevent any from being an entire identity; yet there is no sharing of parts from one to another. Nor is each of those divine wholes a power in fragment, a power totalling to the sum of the measurable segments: the divine is one all-power, reaching out to infinity, powerful to infinity; and so great is God that his very members are infinites. What place can be named to which He does not reach?

Great, too, is this firmament of ours and all the powers constellated within it, but it would be greater still, unspeakably, but that there is inbound in it something of the petty power of body; no doubt the powers of fire and other bodily substances might themselves be thought very great, but in fact, it is through their failure in the true power that we see them burning, destroying, wearing things away, and slaving towards the production of life; they destroy because they are themselves in process of destruction, and they produce because they belong to the realm of the produced.

The power in that other world has merely Being and Beauty of Being. Beauty without Being could not be, nor Being voided of Beauty: abandoned of Beauty, Being loses something of its essence. Being is desirable because it is identical with Beauty; and Beauty is loved because it is Being. How then can we debate which is the cause of the other, where the nature is one? The very figment of Being needs some imposed image of Beauty to make it passable and even to ensure its existence; it exists to the degree in which it has taken some share in the beauty of Idea; and the more deeply it has drawn on this, the less imperfect it is, precisely because the nature which is essentially the beautiful has entered into it the more intimately.

(2) "And ye, my disciples, and every one who shall receive the mystery of the Ineffable, will abide with me on my right and on my left, being kings with me in my kingdom. "And they who shall receive the three mysteries of that Ineffable, will be fellow-kings with you in the Light-kingdom; but they will not be alike with you and with those who receive the mystery of the Ineffable, but they will rather abide behind you, being kings. "And they who receive the five mysteries of the Ineffable, will also abide behind the three mysteries, being also kings. "And moreover they who receive the twelfth mystery of the First Mystery, will also again abide behind the five mysteries of the Ineffable, being also kings according to the order of every one of them. "And all who receive of the mysteries in all the regions of the space of the Ineffable, will also be kings and abide before those who receive the mystery of the First Mystery, expanded according to the glory of every one of them, so that those who receive the higher mysteries, will abide in the higher regions, and those who receive the lower mysteries, will abide in the lower regions, being kings in the light of my kingdom. "These alone are the allotment of the kingdom of the first space of the Ineffable.

(4) But it is rather necessary, I suppose, to resume and to set forth the complete fashion of the Divine union and distinction, in order that the whole discourse may be seen at a glance to reject everything ambiguous and indistinct, and to define critically and distinctly the proper Names, as far as possible. For, as I said elsewhere, the sacred instructors of our theological tradition call the "Divine Unions" the hidden and unrevealed sublimities of the super-unutterable and super-unknown Isolation; but the "distinctions," the goodly progressions and manifestations of the Godhead; and, following the sacred Oracles, they mention also properties of the aforesaid "Union; "and again of the distinction, that there are certain specific unions and distinctions. For example, with regard to the Divine Union, that is, the Superessentiality, there is kindred and common to the One-springing Triad, the superessential sustaining Source, the super-Divine Deity, the super-good Goodness, the supreme identity of the whole supreme Idiosyncrasy, the Oneness above source of one; the Unspeakable; the Much-speaking, the Agnosia, the Comprehended by all, the Placing of all, the Abstraction of all, that which is above all affirmation and abstraction, the abiding and steadfastness in each other, if I may so speak, wholly super-united and in no part commingled of the One-springing Persons, just as lights of lamps (to use sensible illustrations familiar to our capacity), when in one house, are both wholly distinct in each other throughout, and keep the distinction from each other specifically and perfectly maintained, being one in distinction and distinct in union; and then, indeed, we may see in a house, in which are many lamps, the lights of all united to form one certain light and lighting up one combined radiance; and, as I suppose, no one would be able to distinguish in the air containing all the lights the light of one or other lamp from the rest, and to see one without the other, since whole in whole are mixed together without being mingled. But, if any one were to take out from the chamber one particular burner, the whole light belonging to it will depart with it; no particle of the other lights being drawn along with it, nor any of its own light left with the other. For there was, as I said, the complete union of all with all, unmingled throughout, and in no part confused, and this actually in a body, the air, the light even itself being dependent on the material fire. Whence we affirm that the superessential Union is fixed above not only the unions in bodies, but also above those in souls themselves, and in minds themselves, which, in a manner unmingled and supermundane, the Godlike and supercelestial Illuminations, whole through whole, possess, as beseems a participation analogous to those who participate in the Union elevated above all.

(5) "And he who hath received mysteries of the first Thrice-spiritual, which ruleth over the four-and-twenty mysteries all together which rule over the space of the First Mystery, of whose region at the expansion of the universe I will tell you--he, therefore, who shall receive the mystery of that Thrice-spiritual, hath the power to go down into all orders which are below him; but he hath not the power to go into the height into the orders which are above him, that is into all the orders of the space of the Ineffable. "And he who hath received the mystery of the second Thrice-spiritual, hath the power to go into all the orders of the first Thrice-spiritual and to pass through them all and all their orders which are in them; but he hath not the power to go into the higher orders of the third Thrice-spiritual. "And he who hath received the mystery of the third Thrice-spiritual, which ruleth over the three Thrice-spirituals and the three spaces of the First Mystery all together, [hath the power to go into all the orders which are below him]; but he hath not the power to go into the height into the orders which are above. him, that is into the orders of the space of the Ineffable.

(65) According to the mysteries of the Sephiroth, the order of the Creation, or the Divine Lightning Flash which zigzags through the four worlds according to the order of the divine emanations, is thus described: From AIN SOPH, the Nothing and All, the Eternal and Unconditioned Potency, issues Macroprosophus, the Long Face, of whom it is written, "Within His skull exist daily thirteen thousand myriads of worlds which draw their existence from Him and by Him are upheld." (See The Greater Holy Assembly.) Macroprosophus, the directionalized will of AIN SOPH, corresponding to Kether, the Crown of the Sephiroth, gives birth out of Himself to the nine lesser spheres of which He is the sum and the overbrooding cause. The 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, by the various combinations of which the laws of the universe are established, constitute the scepter of Macroprosophus which He wields from His flaming throne in the Atziluthic World.

(3) Now ope thine eyes to what I answer thee, And thou shalt see thy creed and my discourse Fit in the truth as centre in a circle. That which can die, and that which dieth not, Are nothing but the splendour of the idea Which by his love our Lord brings into being; Because that living Light, which from its fount Effulgent flows, so that it disunites not From Him nor from the Love in them intrined, Through its own goodness reunites its rays In nine subsistences, as in a mirror, Itself eternally remaining One. Thence it descends to the last potencies, Downward from act to act becoming such That only brief contingencies it makes; And these contingencies I hold to be Things generated, which the heaven produces By its own motion, with seed and without. Neither their wax, nor that which tempers it, Remains immutable, and hence beneath The ideal signet more and less shines through; Therefore it happens, that the selfsame tree After its kind bears worse and better fruit, And ye are born with characters diverse.