Gematria - Sepher Sapphires Volume 1.pdf

Aishah (volitive faculty of Adam), Why, hath
Aelohim declared, ye shall not feed upon all the
substance of the organic enclosure?"
He comments: 1W13R Now-eager-
Covetousness ... it is well know that the
Hellenists and Saint Jerome, have seen here, only
a snake, a serpent, properly speaking: indeed
according to the former a very wise serpent, ocpy
cppovtpw.sa.coq and according to the latter, a
serpent very skillful and very cunning, serpens
callidor. This wretched interpretation appears to
go back to the epoch of the captivity of Babylon
and to coincide with the total loss of the Hebraic
tongue: at least, it is there that the Chaldaic
paraphrase has followed it. He says &% Km a
most insidious serpent.
The word m3, as it is employed in this case,
cannot mean a serpent. It is an eager
covetousness, self-conceited, envious, egoistic,
which indeed winds about in the heat of man and
envelops it in its coils, but which has nothing to
do with a serpent, other than a name sometimes
given metaphorically. It is only by restricting this
figurative expression that ignorant people have
been able to bring it to a point of signifLing only
a serpent. The Hellenists have followed this
crude idea. If, through delicacy of sentiment or
respect for Moses, they had wished to rid the veil
in this passage, what would have become of the
garden, the tree, the rib, etc. etc.? I have already
said, in the part they had taken, they had to
sacrifice all to the fear of exposing the mysteries.
The root Wll which, as I have said in explaining
the word TBTl, darkness, indicates always an
inner covetousness, a centralized fire, which acts
with a violent movement and which seeks to
distend itself. The Chaldaic, derives a great many
expressions from it, all of which are related to
anxiety, agony, sorrow and painful passions. It is
literally, a torrefaction; figuratively, an eager
covetousness, in Arabic, it is suflering, a
grievous passion. It is finally, a turbulent
agitation. In the Ethiopic this root verbalized in
the Hebraic Wic'l, depicts the action of being
precipitated, of being carried with violence
toward a thing. The analogous verbs have the
same meaning in Arabic, Ethopic and Syraic.
There is nothing in these which restricts us to the
idea of a serpent.
The hieroglyphic analysis can perhaps give us
the key to this mystery. The reader will
remember that I set down two different roots, %
and IVN, to designate equally, the first principle,
the elementary principle and the unknown
principle of things. I shall now state the
important differences that the Egyptian priest
conceived between these two roots, and in what
manner they expressed this difference.
They attached to both, the idea of movement; but
they considered % as the symbol of movement
proper, rectilinear; and WN at that of relative
movement circular. The hieroglyphic character
which corresponds to these two movements was
likewise a serpent: but a serpent sometimes
straight and passing through the center of a
sphere, to represent the principle %; sometimes
coiled upon itself and enveloping the
circumference of this sphere, to represent the
principle m. When these same priests wished to
indicate the union of the two movements or the
two principles, they depicted a serpent upright,
uncoiling itself in a spiral line, or two serpents
interlacing their mobile rings. It is form this last
symbol that the famous caduceus of the Greeks
has come.
The priest were silent as to the inner nature of
both these principles; they used indifferently the
radicals % or VN to characterize the ethereal,
igneous, aerial, aqueous, terreous or mineral
principle; as it they had wished to make it
understood that they did not believe these simple
and homogenous things, but the composite ones.
Nevertheless, among all these several
significations, that which appeared the most
frequently was that of fire. In this case, they
considered the igneous principle under its
different relations, sentient or intelligible, good
or evil, and modified the radical word which
represented it, by means of the signs. Thus, for
example, the primitive '1N became 13N to
designate elementary )re, %, light, TN
intelligible brightness, etc. If the initial vowels is
hardened, it takes a character more and more
vehement. TI represented an exaltation, literally
as well as figuratively: Ti, a burning center, '20,
a passionate, disordered, blind ardor. The
primate WN was nearly the same.
The movement alone still distinguished the two