Diotimos Reading Desk

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Reading language

The Law, the Letters and the Book of Nature

literal. “The three mothers, Emes,” says the great Abraham—or, as some think, Rabbi Akiba—[New translation of the Latin:] “are air, water and fire: still water, hissing fire, and air as the middle spirit.” [Vaughan’s English:] the three mothers, Emes, or aleph, mem and shin, are air, water and fire: a still water—mark that—a hissing fire, and air the middle spirit. The same rabbi says again: “The three mothers, Emes,” [New translation of the Latin:] “in the world are air, water and fire. The heavens were created from fire, earth from water, and air came forth from the spirit that stands between.” [Vaughan’s English:] the three mothers, Emes, in this world are air, water and fire. The heavens were made from fire, earth from water—observe this Kabbalistic teaching carefully—and air proceeded from a middle spirit. Speaking of the three mothers’ generation, the Kabbalist introduces ten secret principles, which I think not ten people have understood since the Sanhedrin: I find such nonsense in most authors who attempt to discuss them. The first principle is a spirit seated in its original, incomprehensible fountain retreats, like water in its underground channel before it springs forth. The second principle is the first Spirit’s voice. This breaks out like a spring, where water flows from the earth and becomes visible to the eye. They call

it “spirit from spirit.” The third principle is “spirit from spirits”: a spirit proceeding both from the first Spirit and from his Voice. The fourth principle is “water from spirit”: a certain water proceeding from the third Spirit; and out of that water came air and fire. But God forbid that I should speak further about them publicly. It is enough that we know the creature’s origin and to whom we should ascribe it. When the Kabbalist tells us what God did with the three mothers, he uses only this phrase: [New translation of the Latin:] “He weighed Aleph with all, and all with Aleph, and likewise with each of the others.” [Vaughan’s English:] He weighed Aleph with all, and all with Aleph, and did the same with the other mothers. This is very plain if you consider the elements’ various mixtures and secret proportions. So much for Kabbalah’s natural part; I shall now show you its metaphysical part. It is strange to consider the unity of spirit and doctrine among all Wisdom’s children. This proves infallibly that a universal schoolmaster is present with all flesh, whose principles are always uniform: namely, God’s Spirit. The Kabbalists agree with the whole world of magicians that in spiritual mysteries the human being both acts and undergoes action. This is plain:

for Jacob’s ladder is Kabbalah’s greatest mystery. Here we find two extremes: Jacob at the ladder’s foot, and God standing above it, as the Jewish writer says, [New translation of the Latin:] “sending forms and influxes into Jacob, or into the human subject.” [Vaughan’s English:] shedding some secret influx of spirit upon Jacob, who here represents humanity generally. The ladder’s rungs or steps signify the intermediate natures through which Jacob is united to God, lower things to higher. As for the angels said to ascend and descend by the ladder, their movement proves they did not belong to the higher hierarchy but were other secret essences: they ascended first and descended afterwards. Had they come from above, they would have descended first, contrary to the text. Here, reader, I would have you study. Returning to Jacob: it is written that he slept, but this is a mystical expression signifying death—the death the Kabbalist calls [New translation of the Latin:] “death of the kiss”; [Vaughan’s English:] “the death of the kiss”—of which I must not speak a single syllable. Briefly, they agree with us in theology’s secret: no word is effective in magic unless first made alive by God’s Word. Their Shemhamphorash makes this clear, for they hold angels’ names ineffective unless

some divine name, such as Yah or El, is joined to them. Then, they say, those names’ power and virtue enable them to work. We have examples in all the extracted names: Vehu-Iah, Elem-Iah, Jeli-El and Sita-El. This practice with letters was a most subtle foreshadowing of the substantial Word or Spirit’s conjunction with the water. Take care to understand me rightly, for I mean with the elements. So much for the truth. To conclude, I would have the reader observe that false grammatical Kabbalah consists only in rotations of the alphabet and transposition of letters in the text, by which Scripture has suffered many rackings and flayings. True Kabbalah uses the letter only as a device for obscuring and hiding its natural secrets, as the Egyptians formerly used their hieroglyphs. In this sense the art’s first professors possessed a literal Kabbalah, as appears from that wonderful, most ancient inscription in the rock on Mount Horeb. It contains a prophecy of the Virgin Mother and her son Christ Jesus, engraved in hieroglyphs formed by combinations of Hebrew letters. God alone knows by whom—perhaps Moses or Elijah. This is most certain: it can be seen there today; and for

it we have the testimony of Thomas Obecinus, a most learned Franciscan, and Petrus a Valle, a gentleman, both of whom travelled in those regions. No better proof can be given that Jewish learning—I mean their Kabbalah—was chymical and ended in true natural operations than the Book of Abraham the Jew. There he set out this art’s secrets in fairly plain terms and figures for the benefit of his unhappy countrymen when God’s wrath scattered them throughout the world. Nicolas Flamel, a Frenchman, found this book by chance and, with its help, eventually attained the miraculous medicine called the philosophers’ stone. But let us hear the gentleman describe it himself.

“For two florins,” he says, “there came into my hands a gilded book, very old and large. Unlike other books, it was neither paper nor parchment, but made, as it seemed to me, from the delicate bark of tender young trees. Its brass cover was well bound and engraved throughout with letters or strange figures. For my part, I think they may well have been Greek characters or some similar ancient language. I am certain that I could not read them and that they were neither signs nor

letters of Latin or of the Gauls, of which I understood a little. Inside, the bark leaves were engraved and written with admirable care, using an iron point, in beautiful, neat, coloured Latin letters. It contained three times seven leaves, numbered at the top. Every seventh leaf had no writing. Instead, on the first seventh leaf was painted a virgin being swallowed by serpents; on the second seventh, a cross with a crucified serpent; and on the last seventh, deserts or wildernesses with many beautiful fountains running through their midst, from which issued numerous serpents moving here and there. On the first leaf was written in large gold capitals: ABRAHAM THE JEW, PRINCE, LEVITE PRIEST, ASTROLOGER AND PHILOSOPHER, SENDS GREETINGS TO THE JEWISH NATION DISPERSED AMONG THE GAULS BY GOD’S WRATH.

After this it was filled with great execrations and curses, often repeating the word Maranatha, against

anyone who should look upon it without being a priest of sacrifice or a scribe. The seller knew its worth no more than I did when I bought it. I believe it had been stolen or taken by force from the unfortunate Jews, or found hidden somewhere in their former dwelling place. On its second leaf he comforted his nation, advising them to flee vices, above all idolatry, and await with gentle patience the Messiah’s coming. The Messiah would conquer all the earth’s kings and reign eternally in glory with his people. Without doubt this had been a wise, understanding man. On the third leaf and in all the writing that followed, he taught them the transmutation of metals in ordinary words, to help his captive nation pay tribute to the Roman emperors and accomplish other things of which I shall not speak. He painted the vessels at the sides and taught them the colours and everything else, except the first agent. Of that he said nothing; but, as he declared, he had fully painted and represented it on the fourth and fifth leaves with very great ingenuity and craftsmanship. Although it was well and intelligibly

162.The three-mother passages are presented through Latin wording, followed by Vaughan’s English. The new renderings translate the printed Latin afresh; they do not silently replace his historical glosses.

163.The attribution to Abraham or Rabbi Akiba is reported by Vaughan, who explicitly offers alternatives. The edition preserves that uncertainty rather than certifying either author.

164.The ten principles are an ordered cosmological account. Vaughan’s language of spirit, voice and water lets him align it with Christian creation, while his refusal to disclose more remains part of the text.

165.“Spirit from spirit,” “spirit from spirits” and “water from spirit” preserve the distinctions between the printed Latin formulas. They are not interchangeable names for one ordinary material.

166.Weighing Aleph with everything is read by Vaughan as mixture and proportion. This is the point where an operation upon letters becomes, in his exposition, an account of Nature.

167.“Agent and patient” means both acting and being acted upon. The ladder joins the human recipient to higher principles through intermediate natures.

168.The ascent-before-descent argument turns on the order in Genesis 28:12. Vaughan takes narrative order as evidence for the origin of the ladder’s moving essences.

169.The “death of the kiss” denotes a mystical theme within his discussion. Vaughan names it but expressly declines to explain it; the edition supplies no invented missing instruction.

170.Yah and El are the divine names attached to the angelic forms in this example. Vaughan reads the added divine name as a sign of power derived from God rather than inherent in an isolated sound.

171.“Metathesis” means transposition. Vaughan condemns a reading reduced to rearranging letters while allowing letters to veil another kind of knowledge.

172.The Mount Horeb inscription’s antiquity and Christian meaning are assertions Vaughan supports by named travellers. His phrase “it may be” marks his own uncertainty about its maker.

173.Obecinus and Petrus a Valle are presented as travelling witnesses. The testimony supports Vaughan’s report within his argument; it does not remove the need to distinguish the claimed ancient inscription from its early modern interpretation.

174.The Flamel narrative is introduced as proof of chymical Kabbalah. The following first-person account is a quotation embedded by Vaughan, not Vaughan’s own eyewitness description.

175.The description counts twenty-one leaves in three sets of seven, singling out leaves seven, fourteen and twenty-one. “Leaf” is retained rather than converted into a modern page count.

176.The virgin, crucified serpent and serpents issuing from fountains are distinct images. Their recurrence does not warrant collapsing them into a single event or a single fixed meaning.

177.The book’s proposed purpose is the relief of a captive nation through transmutation. Vaughan retains this social purpose alongside its restricted access and missing first agent.