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Diotimos Library · Esotericism & Spirituality Collection · Bilingual Edition

Attributed to Abraham the Jew

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Book of Hieroglyphic Figures

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The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume IThe Incarnation and the Birth of the Stone · Manuscript 84r · Scan 197

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French Page · Branch 190 of 351

The Incarnation and the Birth of the Stone · Manuscript 84r · Scan 197

French

Ms. 84r

soit son amie et s’unisse avec lui, laquelle substance doit remplir les devoirs d’une épouse et jouir de ses purs et chastes embrassements, devenir grosse indépendamment de tout commerce et mettre au jour un enfant pur et chaste sans ressentir aucune douleur. Il est impossible de voir la grossesse, la conception et l’enfantement sans tache de la bienheureuse Vierge mieux exprimés que par cette quatrième figure qui est dépeinte sur la table suivante.

Les hommes avec tout leur esprit ne peuvent rien comprendre à la vérité de ce mystère qui est tracé dans l’Apocalypse sous le voile des figures, si la nature et l’art d’Hermès ne les éclairent, puisque la nature et l’art en sont les principes, car rien ne nous devient sensible et aisé à connaître sans l’art et la nature par rapport à nos ténèbres et à notre aveuglement qui pullulent de la matière et de l’infirmité de nos corps. Il ne faut donc pas rejeter les caractères, les emblèmes et les figures inventés par les anciens sages et si fort recommandés, par le moyen desquelles l’art et la théorie par une

Ms. 84r

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I: The Incarnation and the Birth of the Stone

Ms. 84r

will be its friend and unite with it. This substance must fulfill a spouse’s duties and enjoy its pure, chaste embraces, become pregnant independently of all intercourse, and bring forth a pure, chaste child without feeling any pain. The blessed Virgin’s unstained pregnancy, conception, and childbirth could not be expressed better than by this fourth figure depicted in the following table.

With all their intelligence, people can understand nothing of the truth of this mystery traced in the Apocalypse beneath the veil of figures unless nature and the art of Hermes enlighten them, since nature and art are its principles. For nothing becomes perceptible and easy for us to know without art and nature, given our darkness and blindness, which spring from our bodies’ matter and infirmity. We must therefore not reject the characters, emblems, and figures invented and so strongly recommended by the ancient sages, through which art and theory, by a

Ms. 84r

About This Reading Edition

The first manuscript in the Manly Palmer Hall collection at the Getty Research Institute: the Book of Hieroglyphic Figures, presented in French and English with 463 explanatory notes, 13 manuscript plates, 25 source details, an introduction, chapter outline, glossary, bibliography, and register of readings.

Historical Text and Translation

Book of Hieroglyphic Figures (Livre des figures hiéroglyphiques), attributed in the witness to Abraham the Jew. Getty Research Institute, Manly Palmer Hall collection of alchemical manuscripts, accession 950053, Box 1, Hogart manuscript 3; French witness catalogued circa 1800. Manly Palmer Hall is the collector, not the author.

About Diotimos Editions

This historical edition credits Diotimos Editions as its English translator.

Rights

The circa 1800 source manuscript is public domain. The supplied 2026 French reading transcription, English translation, introduction, notes, outline, glossary, register, and editorial arrangement are published with the site owner’s authorization. Source photographs are credited to the Getty Research Institute and Internet Archive in the supplied edition.