Translated from the Hebrew by Wm. Wynn Westcott.
(NOTE: The Sepher Yetzirah is one of the most famous of the ancient
Qabalistic texts. It was first put into writing around 200 C.E. Westcott's
Translation of the Sepher Yetzirah was a primary source for the rituals and
Knowledge Lectures of the Golden Dawn. This is the Third Edition of Westcottís
translation, first published in 1887. A Fourth Revised Edition by Darcy Kúntz,
complete with Hebrew text, notes and bibliography, is available from Holmes
Publishing Group, P.O. 623, Edmonds, WA 98020.)
Sepher Yetzirah Part 1
Sepher Yetzirah Part 2
Sepher Yetzirah Part 3
INTRODUCTION
The "Sepher Yetzirah," or "Book of Formation," is perhaps
the oldest Rabbinical treatise of Kabalistic philosophy which is still extant.
The great interest which has been evinced of late years in the Hebrew Kabalah,
and the modes of thought and doctrine allied to it, has induced me to translate
this tractate from the original Hebrew texts, and to collate with them the
Latin versions of mediaeval authorities; and I have also published An Introduction
to the Kabalah which may be found useful to students.
Three important books of the "Zohar," or "Book of Splendour," which
is a great storehouse of Kabalistic teaching, have been translated into English
by S. L. MacGregor Mathers, and the "Sepher Yetzirah" in an English
translation is almost a necessary companion to these abstruse disquisitions:
the two books indeed mutually explain each other.
The "Sepher Yetzirah," although this name means "The Book of
Formation," is not in any sense a narrative of Creation, or a substitute
Genesis, but is an ancient and instructive philosophical treatise upon one
aspect of the origin of the universe and mankind; an aspect at once archaic
and essentially Hebrew. The grouping of the processes of origin into an arrangement,
at once alphabetic and numeral, is one only to be found in Semitic authors.
Attention must be called to the essential peculiarity of the Hebrew language,
the inextricable and necessary association of numbers and letters; every letter
suggesting a number, and every group of letters having a numerical signification,
as vital as its literal meaning.
The Kabalistic principles involved in the reversal of Hebrew letters, and their
substitution by others, on definite schemes, should also be studied and borne
in mind.
It is exactly on these principles that the "ground-work idea" 'of
this disquisition rests; and these principles may be traced throughout the
Kabalistic tractates which have succeeded it in point of time and development,
many of which are associated together in one volume known as the "Zohar," which
is in the main concerned with the essential dignities of the Godhead, with
the Emanations which have sprung therefrom, with the doctrine of the Sephiroth,
the ideals of Macroprosopus and Microprosopus, and the doctrine of Re-incarnation.
The "Sepher Yetzirah," on the other hand, is mainly concerned with
our universe and with the Microcosm. The opinions of Hebrew Kabalistic Rabbis
and of modern mystics may be fitly introduced here.
The following interesting quotation is from Rabbi Moses Botarel, who wrote
his famous Commentary in 1409:--"It was Abraham our Father--blessed be
he--who wrote this book to condemn the doctrine of the sages of his time, who
were incredulous of the supreme dogma of the Unity. At least, this was the
opinion of Rabbi Saadiah--blessed be he--as written in the first chapter of
his book The Philosopher's Stone. These are his words: The sages of
Babylon attacked Abraham on account of his faith; for they were all against
him although themselves separable into three sects. The First thought that
the Universe was subject to the control of two opposing forces, the one existing
but to destroy the other, this is dualism; they held that there was nothing
in common between the author of evil and the author of good. The Second sect
admitted Three great Powers; two of them as in the first case, and a third
Power whose function was to decide between the two others, a supreme arbitrator.
The Third sect recognised no god beside the Sun, in which it recognised the
sole principle of existence."
Rabbi Judah Ha Lévi (who flourished about 1120), in his critical description
of this treatise, wrote: "The Sepher Yetzirah teaches us the existence
of a Single Divine Power by shewing us that in the bosom of variety and multiplicity
there is a Unity and Harmony, and that such universal concord could only arise
from the rule of a Supreme Unity."
According to Isaac Myer, in his Quabbalah (p. 159), the "Sepher
Yetzirah" was referred to in the writings of Ibn Gebirol of Cordova, commonly
called Avicebron, who died in A.D. 1070.
Eliphas Levi, the famous French Occultist, thus wrote of the "Sepher Yetzirah," in
his Histoire de la Magie, p. 54: "The Zohar is a Genesis of illumination,
the Sepher Jezirah is a ladder formed of truths. Therein are explained the
thirty-two absolute signs of sounds, numbers and letters: each letter reproduces
a number, an idea and a form; so that mathematics are capable of application
to ideas and to forms not less rigorously than to numbers, by exact proportion
and perfect correspondence. By the science of the Sepher Jezirah the human
spirit is fixed to truth, and in reason, and is able to take account of the
possible development of intelligence by the evolutions of numbers. The Zohar
represents absolute truth, and the Sepher Jezirah provides the means by which
we may seize, appropriate and make use of it."
Upon another page Eliphas Lévi writes: "The Sepher Jezirah and
the Apocalypse are the masterpieces of Occultism; they contain more wisdom
than words; their expression is as figurative as poetry, and at the same time
it is as exact as mathematics.
In the volume entitled La Kabbale by the eminent French scholar, Adolphe
Franck, there is a chapter on the "Sepher Yetzirah." He writes as
follows:--
"The Book of Formation contains, I will not say system of physics, but
of cosmology such as could be conceived at an age and in a country where the
habit of explaining all phenomena by the immediate action of the First Cause,
tended to check the spirit of observation, and where in consequence certain
general and superficial relations perceived in the natural world passed for
the science of Nature."Ö"Its form is simple and grave; there
is nothing like a demonstration nor an argument; but it consists rather of
a series of aphorisms, regularly grouped, and which have all the conciseness
of the most ancient oracles."
In his analysis of the "Sepher Yetzirah," he adds:--"The Book
of Formation, even if it be not very voluminous, and if it do not altogether
raise us to very elevated regions of thought, yet offers us at least a composition
which is very homogeneous and of a rare originality. The clouds which the imagination
of commentators have gathered around it, will be dissipated, if we look for,
in it, not mysteries of ineffable wisdom, but an attempt at a reasonable doctrine,
made when reason arose, an effort to grasp the plan of the universe, and to
secure the link which binds to one common principle, all the elements which
are around us."
"The last word of this system is the substitution of the absolute divine
Unity for every idea of Dualism, for that pagan philosophy which saw in matter
an eternal substance whose laws were not in accord with Divine Will; and for
the Biblical doctrine, which by its idea of Creation, postulates two things,
the Universe and God, as two substances absolutely distinct one from the other.
"In fact, in the 'Sepher Yetzirah,' God considered as the Infinite and
consequently the indefinable Being, extended throughout all things by his power
and existence, is while above, yet not outside of numbers, sounds and letters--the
principles and general laws which we recognise."
"Every element has its source from a higher form, and all things have
their common origin from the Word (Logos), the Holy SpiritÖ.
So God is at once, in the highest sense, both the matter and the form of the
universe. Yet He is not only that form; for nothing can or does exist
outside of Himself; His substance is the foundation of all, and all things
bear His imprint and are symbols of His intelligence."
Hebrew tradition assigns the doctrines of the oldest portions of the "Zohar" to
a date antecedent to the building of the Second Temple, but Rabbi Simeon ben
Jochai, who lived in the reign of the Emperor Titus, A.D. 70-80, is considered
to have been the first to commit these to writing, and Rabbi Moses de Leon,
of Guadalaxara, in Spain, who died in 1305, certainly reproduced and published
the "Zohar."
Ginsburg, speaking of the Zoharic doctrines of the Ain Suph, says that they
were unknown until the thirteenth century, but he does not deny the great antiquity
of the "Sepher Yetzirah," in which it will be noticed the "Ain
Suph Aur" and "Ain Suph" are not mentioned.I suggest, however,
that this omission is no proof that the doctrines of "Ain Suph Aur" and "Ain
Suph" did not then exist, because it is a reasonable supposition that
the "Sepher Yetzirah" was the volume assigned to the Yetziratic World,
the third of the four Kabalistic Worlds of Emanation, while the "Asch
Metzareph" is concerned with the Assiatic, fourth, or lowest World of
Shells, and is on the face of it an alchemical treatise; and again the "Siphra
Dtzenioutha" may be fittingly considered to be an Aziluthic work, treating
of the Emanations of Deity alone; and there was doubtless a fourth work assigned
to the World of Briah--the second type, but I have not been able to identify
this treatise. Both the Babylonian and the Jerusalem Talmuds refer to the "Sepher
Yetzirah." Their treatise, named "Sanhedrin," certainly mentions
the "Book of Formation," and another similar work; and Rashi in his
commentary on the treatise "Erubin," considers this a reliable historical
notice.Other historical notices are those of Saadya Gaon, who died A.D. 940,
and Judah Ha Levi, A.D. 1150; both these Hebrew classics speak of it as a very
ancient work. Some modern critics have attributed the authorship to the Rabbi
Akiba, who lived in the time of the Emperor Hadrian, A.D. 120, and lost his
life in supporting the claims of Barchocheba, a false messiah: others suggest
it was first written about A.D. 200.
Graetz however assigns it to early Gnostic times, third or fourth century,
and Zunz speaks of it as post Talmudical, and belonging to the Geonim period
700-800 A.D.; Rubinsohn, in the Bibliotheca Sacra, speaks of this
latter idea as having no real basis.
The Talmuds were first collected into a concrete whole, and printed in Venice,
1520 A.D.
The "Zohar" was first printed in Mantua in 1558; again in Cremona,
1560; and at Lublin, 1623; and a fourth edition by Knorr von Rosenroth, at
Sulzbach in 1684. Some parts are not very ancient, because the Crusades are
mentioned in one chapter. Six extant Hebrew editions of the "Sepher Yetzirah" were
collected and printed at Lemberg in 1680. The oldest of these six recensions
was that of Saadjah Gaon (by some critics called spurious).There are still
extant three Latin versions, viz., that of Gulielmus Postellus; one
by Johann Pistorius; and a third by Joannes Stephanus Rittangelius; this latter
gives both Hebrew and Latin versions, and also "The Thirty-Two Paths" as
a supplement.
There is a German translation, by Johann Friedrich von Meyer, dated 1830; a
version by Isidor Kalisch, in which he has reproduced many of the valuable
annotations of Meyer; an edition in French by Papus, 1888; an edition in French
by Mayer Lambert, 1891, with the Arabic Commentary of Saadya Gaon; and an English
edition by Peter Davidson, 1896, to which are added "The Fifty Gates of
Intelligence" and "The Thirty-Two Ways of Wisdom." The edition
which I now offer is fundamentally that of the ancient Hebrew codices translated
into English, and collated with the Latin versions of Pistorius, Postellus,
and Rittangelius, following the latter, rather than the former commentators.
As to the authenticity of "The Sepher Yetzirah," students may refer
to the Bibliotheca magna Rabbinica of Bartoloccio de Cellerio, Rome,
1678-1692; to Basnage, History of the Jews, 1708; and to The Doctrine
and Literature of the Kabalah, by A. B. Waite, 1902.The following copies
of the "Sepher Yetzirah" in Hebrew, I have also examined, but only
in a superficial manner:--
1. A Version by Saadiah, Ab. ben David, and three others, Mantua, 1562, 4to.
2. A Version with the commentary of Rabbi Abraham F. Dior, Amsterdam, 1642,
4to.
3. A Version with preface by M. ben J. Chagiz, Amsterdam, 1713, 16mo.4. A Version,
Constantinople, 1719, 8vo.
5. " " Zolkiew, 1745, 4to.
6. " " by Moses ben Jacob, Zozec, 1779, 4to.
7. " " Grodno, 1806, 4to.
8. " " Dyhernfurth, 1812, 8vo.
9. " " Salonica, 1831, 8vo.
10. A MS. copy dated 1719, in the British Museum.
I add here the full titles of the three Latin versions; they are all to be
found in the British Museum Library.
"Abrahami Patriarchae Liber Jezirah sive Formationis Mundi, Patribus quidem
Abrahami tempora praecedentibus revelatus, sed ab ipso etiam Abrahamo expositus
Isaaco, et per pro prophetarum manus posteritati conservatus, ipsis autem 72
Mosis auditoribus in secundo divinae veritatis loco, hoc est in ratione, quoe
est posterior authoritate, habitus." Parisiis, 1552. Gulielmus Postellus."Id
est Liber Jezirah, qui Abrahamo, Patriarchae adscribitur, una cum Commentario
Rabbi Abraham F.D. super 32 semitis Sapientiae, a quibus Liber Jezirah incipit:
Translatus et notis illustratus a Joanne Stephano Rittangelio, Ling. Orient.
in Elect. Acad. Regiomontana Prof. Extraord," Amstelodami, 1642.In Tomas
Primus of "Artis Cabalisticae hoc est reconditae theologiae et philosophiae
scriptorum." Basileae 1587, is found "Liber de Creatione Cabalistinis,
Hebraice Sepher Jezira; Authore Abrahamo. Successive filiis ore traditus. Hinc
jam rebus Israel inclinatis ne deficeret per sapientes Hierusalem arcanis et
profundissimis sensibus literis commendatus." Johannes Pistorius.
The "Sepher Yetzirah" consists of six chapters, having 33 paragraphs
distributed among them, in this manner: the first has 12, then follow 5, 5,
4, 3, and 4.
Yet in some versions the paragraphs and subject-matter are found in a different
arrangement. The oldest title has, as an addition, the words, "The Letters
of our Father Abraham" or "ascribed to the patriarch Abraham," and
it is spoken of as such by many mediaeval authorities: but this origin is doubtless
fabulous, although perhaps not more improbable than the supposed authorship
of the "Book of Enoch," mentioned by St. Jude, of which two MSS.
copies in the Ethiopic language were rescued from the wilds of Abyssinia in
1773 by the great traveller James Bruce. In essence this work was, doubtless,
the crystallisation of centuries of tradition, by one writer, and it has been
added to from time to time, by later authors, who have also revised it. Some
of the additions, which were rejected even by mediaeval students, I have not
incorporated with the text at all, and I present in this volume only the undoubted
kernel of this occult nut, upon which many great authorities, Hebrew, German,
Jesuit and others, have written long Commentaries, and yet have failed to explain
satisfactorily. I find Kalisch, speaking of these Commentaries, says, "they
contain nothing but a medley of arbitrary explanations, and sophistical distortions
of scriptural verses, astrological notions, Oriental superstitions, a metaphysical
jargon, a poor knowledge of physics, and not a correct elucidation of this
ancient book." Kalisch, however, was not an occultist; these commentaries
are, however, so extensive as to demand years of study, and I feel no hesitation
in confessing that my researches into them have been but superficial. For convenience
of study I have placed the Notes in a separate form at the end of the work,
and I have made a short definition of the subject-matter of each chapter. The
substance of this little volume was read as Lecture before "The Hermetic
Society of London," in the summer of 1886, Dr. Anna Kingsford, President,
in the chair. Some of the Notes were the explanations given verbally, and subsequently
in writing, to members of the Society who asked for information upon abstruse
points in the "Sepher," and for collateral doctrines; others, of
later date, are answers which have been given to students of Theosophy and
Hermetic philosophy, and to my pupils of the Study Groups of the Rosicrucian
Society of England.
Sepher Yetzirah Part 1
Sepher Yetzirah Part 2
Sepher Yetzirah Part 3
| Authors
Details: Translated from the Hebrew by Wm. Wynn Westcott |
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