CHAPTER XIII.

1621 — Title of second tractate of second volume — Theosophical and Caba- listic studies of Fludd — Rainoldes — Cabala — its supposed History — Key to real meaning of Bible among Jews — City of Ezekiel — Zodi- acal Signs in Canterbury Cathedral — Human body shaped in temples — Symbols in Hebrew letters — The Secret of the King — The word “ Principium ” — Letters of the Sacred Name — lod — the Upright includes all — The Inefiable Name — Sephiroths — Elements — Dark- ness, Water, Light — The Serpent Form — Circling itself — The wheel — Boehme — Water, the mother — Light — Shin — Numbers in the Sacred Name — Twenty-seven — The World an animal — Zoon — Kepler agrees with this — The Sephiroths in Man — Conclusion.
^HE second tractate of the second volume is entitled, De prseternaturali utriusque mundi Historia in Sectiones tres divisa.” The author’s name follows. The printer’s device is that of religion supported by the Cross, standing on a skeleton. The volume bears to be printed at Frankfort, typis Erasmi Kempfferi, sumptibus Joan. Theo- dori de Bry, anno MDCXXI.” The treatise extends to 199 pages, besides some preliminary matter. It ends with the third part of the second portion of section i.
The first section is entitled, “ De Theosophico, Cabalistico et Physologico utriusque mundi discursu, in Portiones tres diviso.” The bottom of the title has an emblematic picture of King David kneeling on the top of a mountain, uttering the words in the 68th Psalm, ‘‘ In alarum tuarum umbra Canam.” The all-seeing eye in a radiance and a cloudy figure surround it. In a semi-circle above are the letters of the Sacred Name, which are placed in a glory beneath the eye.
Theosophical and Cabalistic subjects were, next to the
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defence of the brethren of the Rosy Cross, the studies Fludd preferred. None of his works fail to exhibit this bent. Where his Rabbinical learning was obtained we do not know. Mention has been made of Rainoldes, President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, “ a man full of all faculties, of all studies, and of all learning.” Eminent for sanctity of life as well as knowledge, Rainoldes has left in his ‘'Censura Librorum Apocryphorum Yeteris Testamenti,” before men- tioned, and also issued at Oppenheim (1611), “ a great structure of curious learning — biblical, historical, chrono- logical, rabbinical, patristic, and scholastic.”^ These lectures ran on for seven years from 1585, while Fludd was an undergraduate at S. John’s.
The science of the Cabala is said by the old Jewish traditions to have been communicated by angels to Adam after the fall. “ And since it was a postulate of the philoso- phers that the tradition, or passage of the spirit or soul of God from heaven to earth, was effected through the Zodiac and seven planets, so they allege that the Cabala was transmitted through the mouths of the Patriarchs and the Messiah, Christos, who personified the planetary sphere.” ^ Doubtless the Cabala is the result of the thought, study, and labour of very many generations of learned men, when learning meant real labour, and solitary thought was saturated by divine belief God delivered the written law to Moses, which he declared to the people, but he was also the repository of a secret science, which, it is alleged, he delivered orally to those whom he considered worthy.
The system of Theosophy, of which the Cabala is the treasure-house, and also the exponent, appears to have in Fludd its first English adept.^ The Jews considered its science the key to the real meaning of the Bible. The secrets of the Cabala are contained in the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, twenty-two in number, in the transposi- tion of these, and in their numerical value. A great service
1 Dowden, Paddock Lee., 75. “ Canon of all Arts, 39-41.
’ Mather’s Kabbalah, p. 5.
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has been rendered to the ordinary reader by the publication of the “ Kabbalah Unveiled ” in the three books of the Zohar, translated and annotated by Mr Macgregor Mather. His preface is full of interest and learning. The Zohar — splendour — is the great storehouse of the Cabala. Even in the shapes of the Hebrew letters certain secret meanings lie hid, some being the, result of part combinations with others. That a secret science of this kind, the result of which is found in the Cabala as we now have it, existed among the learned Jews is incontestible, and that it was perpetuated in another form in the more learned of the early Christian communities is no less certain. The mysteries of the heavenly city of Ezekiel have their counterpart in the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city of S. John. When S. Paul declared, ''We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery,” he in a measure pointed forward to the apocalyptic vision of S. John. Even in the more secular art of the builders in our great cathedrals, " the microcosm seems to have been used as a pattern.” The signs of the Zodiac may be still seen on the floor of the sanctuary of Canterbury Cathedral. The proportions of the human body, whether extended in the form of an ordinary cross, or in the form of the cross associated with the name of S. Andrew, were the type and rule of ancient temple building. In the Cabalistic designs the vesica and the double cube were the rule of all struc- tures and mystic designs. The very fact of the authorship of the four gospels being attributed to persons whose symbols typify the four corners of the Zodiac, shows at what a very early date, if not from the very beginning, this manner of teaching had been adopted by the church. The sacrifice on the Cross was the great act of all time, so that Figure has been the most sacred.
At the very commencement of his treatise, Fludd asks the " candid Reader ” to see in the Hebrew characters of the Divine name, the living and fiery symbols of the sacred Trinity. These are emblazoned, as on letters of fire, on that shield, and will be the very means by which they who
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aTe evil shall be precipitated into the Stygian Lake. But the ineffable word of God, in whom is truth and perfection, will for ever remain in its absolute glory.
To you therefore, exclaims our author, brethren of the true doctrine and secret philosophy, sheltered under the Divine wings — far removed from the derision, obstinacy, and desperate wickedness, who share with me the sanctuary of Truth, who desire to penetrate into the mysteries of Arcane Theosophy — to you, and to you alone, I direct my voice. The Gentiles have but sought to imitate the true doctrine, and the prophet Baruch speaks truly when he says of them, the Agarens and those of Theman, these have not known the way of wisdom, nor remembered her paths. Their opinions are only begotten of the darkness of the lower nature, and they have not realised that the One, most holy, sole and true knowledge of Jehovah, has been declared by His word and wisdom to men of just life and true piety. Thus can the divinely illuminated cry out, “ I understand more than the ancients, for I keep Thy precepts.” This is that wisdom of which Daniel spoke to King Nebuchad- nezzar— “ the secret which the king hath demanded, cannot the wise men, the astrologers, the magicians, the sooth- sayers show unto the king, but there is a God in heaven that revealeth secrets, and maketh known to the king what shall be in the latter days.” Then also did the magi and wise men of Egypt acknowledge that Jehovah was superior to all their arts. Alas I many still follow the example of the king of old, who, forgetting that there was a God in Israel, sought to Baalzebub, the God of Ekron.
In a postscriptum, Fludd, lest the reader should, being ignorant of the Hebrew language, be deterred from the study of what follows, points out that only the knowledge of the Hebrew letters or characters is required. These letters are full of divine meaning.
Before proceeding further with some account of the work, it is to be noted that its form is much less attractive than that of the earlier parts of the “ Historia.” The type
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is small, and the whole style poorer than what precedes it. There are very few illustrations, and those given are poorly done.
The first part of the first section is entitled, “ De characteribus supernaturalibus et mysticis, sen Elementis primariis, Archetypicis, atque supersubstantialibus, in Libros tres distributa.” It commences with a prelude on the word “ principium.” This word, used in the very beginning of holy scripture, is derived from a primitive root, signifying head, victory, summit, &c. This word, also properly ex- plained through Cabalistic science, comprehends all creation. “ He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to licjht the shadow of death.” The letters which form the ineffable mystery of the Tetragrammaton are light, spirit, and fire. The value of the Hebrew letters as numerals is next explained.
The great extent of Fludd’s Cabalistic learning and wonderful ingenuity are seen at great length in this part of the work. The letters of the Sacred Name are used to distinguish the different parts of man’s body.
On a diagram, at the eighth page of the introduction, these are pictured as on the head, the breast, and the centre of the male figure. Man thus becomes a god — head, intellect, heart — life, the centre — natural faculty. At the same time we are to remember the saying of S. Paul — “ The letter killeth ; it is the Spirit that giveth life.” Still, the words of Zophar have a true meaning — That He would show the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is.” All creation is mothered or manifested in these letters — Aleph, darkness, grossness of earth ; Shin, fire or light ; Mem, water. Others represent the seven planets, the twelve signs of the Zodiac. True it is that men now, as in the days of Job, see not the bright light in the clouds.
In the lod [the upright], the whole Tetragrammaton is included. Yet the four letters — 1, 2, 3, 4=10 — proceed from the first, and return to it. It is the centre, Unus,
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unicus, unicurn, i.e., principium, medium et finis. He,” the Hebrew letter, is the symbol of spirit or divine breath- ing. “Vau,” again, is the spiritual ‘'vinculum.” It joins all in one. Thus the macrocosmos and the microcosmos have their likeness and complement — the one of the other, and in the other. “ lod ” is the fountain of living waters. A curious diagram is given (at page 11) of a balance. From lod in glory issues the divine hand, holding the balance, the upright beam of which is “ Vau.” In the one scale is “ Ccielum Empyreum, leve ignis”; in the other, “ Cgelum Elementare grave terra,” “ Dost thou know the balancings of the clouds, the wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge ?”
The ineffable name, Tetragrammaton, taking rise from lod as from a root, spreads in incomparable grandeur, and remains in eternal position in the heavens, spreading to the very centre of the spheres. The very power of lod is Messiah. It was that same power which spake with Adam in Paradise before the fall, but which, in the vision of Elias, overturned, tore up the mountains by the power of his lightnings and earthquake. The fulness of the power of the name of God can thus be seen — its distinction again in the still small voice. The last letter indicates the elemen- tary region.
In the third chapter the ten sephiroths or splendours are named and explained. These form the garment of light with which Jehovah has covered Him.self They are the crown, wisdom, understanding, strength or severity, mercy or magnificence, beauty, victory or eternity, and glory, the foundation, the kingdom. Tlie infinite, incomprehensible essence of God cannot be immediately communicated to the creature. God acts by His perfections, and the soul shows them by reason and virtue. These splendours were also the means or instruments which the great and supreme Architect of the world made use of — still they are always united to God, as the flame is to the substance that burns. The rays of the sun are not divided from it, so these
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splendours are not separated from God. They are all in the letters of the Tetragrammaton. The first three are doubtless the greatest and most powerful. The Messiah exists in Jehovah, as the light of the sun in the sun. The lower world — the empyreum — is made holy. Such holy places were Bethel, where Paradise seemed again to appear, for God was in that place,” where the ladder was set up from earth to heaven. As again, Horeb, where Moses saw the flame in the bush, and was told to put off his shoes, the very ground being holy. God is present in all, and His unity is declared by all. On page 74 is a fivefold picture representing lod crowned. ‘‘ His excellency is over Israel, and His strength in the clouds. Thy throne is established from old. Thou art from everlasting.” He (next to lod) is in a splendour. God is clothed with light as with a garment. Jehovah reigneth ; He is clothed with majesty and strength. Vau — Jehovah — placed His tabernacle in the sun. The lower He — the lower heaven — “ who layeth the beams of his chambers in the waters, who maketh the clouds his chariot, who walketh upon the wings of the wind ”; the earth surrounded by the seas ; the spirit of the Lord filleth the world.” ‘‘ Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God,” that temple of God which is holy.”
The next part of the treatise is “ De dementis secundis et physicis.” Darkness, water, light — and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, let there be light, and there was light.” First there was darkness, then waters, the spirit rising from the bright aleph. The significance of the other Hebrew letters is given. The last, the final, is the mark of Cain, the end and consummation.
The next book treats De primariis naturae Elementis.” First, the reign of total darkness. Darkness was upon the face of the earth,” the abyss of nature. Secondly, the reign of partial darkness. ‘‘ He discovereth deep things out of darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of
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death.” Thus speaks Trismegistus — “ For there were in the chaos an infinite darkness in the abyss or bottomless depth, and waters, [but also] a subtle spirit intelligible in power, and there went out the holy light, and the elements were coafjulated from the sand out of the moist substance.” The first light of the spirit showed the abyss and revealed the waters. “ I alone compassed the circuit of heaven and walked in the bottom of the deep.” The sphere was all lined with air, carried about in a circular motion by the spirit of God. Fludd undoubtedly knew the ancient opinion that matter, first gathered into shape, was imaged by the serpent, which at last circled itself, and so became an emblem of eternity. Boehme also saw this. The circular motion, the wheel of nature, the wheel of life, the wheel of anguish. S. James (iii. 6), speaking of the course or wheel of nature exemplified by the fiery tongue, has the same idea. “ Among the ancient heathen sages, Heraclitus was aware of this wheel in the universe when he spoke of an unwearied coursing fire, by the quenching of which the universe was produced.” ^ The same idea, the wheel of life, is seen by Ezekiel. “ The prophet first saw or heard a whirlwind out of the north (which may suggest to us the almighty will of God as the impelling power), and he beheld a thick cloud, and a fire enfolding itself, circling, and whirling about itself.” ^
The third region of darkness is chaos. But this region “ non sunt ita manes et vacuse ut precedentis.” It has Shin in the centre— the light — the rays of Jehovah burst upon it. The power of God is not seen in hyle. The abyss is now at hand ; it is a mass — rude, confused, ill-sorted. Yet this unformed mass contains the material of heaven and earth. The third day has arrived ; the voice of God calls the waters together ; dry land appears ; seeds, herbs, fruit trees are given ; the light of God is in the midst. S. Peter refers to this (2 Ep. iii. 5) — “ By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the 1 Martinsen’s Boehme, 79. ^ Martinsen’s Boehme, 79.
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water, and in the water.” The Tiber illustrates this. Do we not see it turbid, muddy, and slimy — a water, dense, opaque, but in twenty-four hours again clear and diaph- anous ? So was it with the primordial mass of waters. The deposit became land. Thus water is the mother, holding in solution all fruits, vegetables, animals, and minerals, sulphur, sal, and mercur} . “ For he hath founded
it upon the seas, and established it upon the floods.”
The earth is the true seat of darkness, and when not operated on by the warmth of the sun, the tabernacle of God is frigid. We see this at the far north, at the ultimate Pole. Olaus Magnus tells us that at the extreme north of Sweden a huge mass of land is in perpetual obscurity, continually frozen, with abundance of ice and snow. There is the treasury of God from whence the snow comes. “ Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow, or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail ?” Thus the extreme polar regions are the founts of frigidity, where the snow and hail are condensed. “ Cold comes out of the north ; by the breath of God frost is given.” The cabalistic symbol or sign of the waters is the letter Mem.
The next book treats of the primary elements of nature. Water, the mother of clouds, and of all elements, the supreme mother. Yet the saying of Trismegistus is true — “ The father is the sun, and the mother truly is the moon.” A question is raised — Was water created fresh or salt ? It was at first sweet, but after its separation and conjunction with the earth, it took the nature of saltness. “ An aqua sen sum in se habeat nec ne ?” This is answered in the affirmative, for the Psalm (148) calls, “ Praise the Lord, ye waters that be above the heavens,” and “ heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, praise the Lord.” The waters were spoken to by Moses, Joshua, Elias, and Christ, and responded in obedience. But vast mysteries are in waters. In them proper occult power, operation, and motion are included. The mother of all things, in whose belly the “ spermata rerum ” is contained. The heavens condense
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into waters, the stars are born from and return into water.
Three things bear witness on earth — the water, and the spirit, and the blood — and these three are one.” There are many New Testament mysteries as to water. Baptism is “ ex aqua.” We read also of living water, and the water of life in Paradise. The cloudy pillar in the time of Moses was of water. The noise of many waters was heard by Ezekiel, in his vision of the living creatures, when he stood by the river Chebar.
Light is next explained. Shin is tire and light. “ The Lord talked with you face to face in the mount, out of the midst of the fire.” God is beyond and within all. Shin, Mem. Shin is Sol, that which ministers light. Mem, the limpid spirit of water, is in the centre of light.
Light is really the invisible Word of God. All subsist in it. It is the Divine Word set forth by S. John in the beginning of his gospel. The Fiat is eternal, divine, the splendour of the divine glory, the image of the Invisible, the essence of divinity, and the light of the world. The human heart, receiving and apprehending it, is lighted by it into everlasting life. Not that this light is seen by human eyes, but with the spirit with which God has endowed man. Not till the body is purified and made clean, like the body of Christ, can it be perceived.
Through faith we understand that the worlds were
o
framed b}^ the word of God ; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” ^ That which is visible was made by condensation, by the subtile and invisible spirit or water. The Lord God is a sun and shield. He will give grace [or light] and glory.” For as the sun, which is the light of the visible world, gives life to vegetables and growth to visible bodies, so the divine wisdom is the more precious sun, and gives strength and blessing. In the interior spirit the law of Christ is written, as the law of Moses in the external and visible. The universal and mystical word, the light uncreated, is
^ Heb. xi. iii.
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exhibited in universal nature by the watery Mem and the iofneous Shin. So we are to venerate Jehovah as revealed in the light of the sun, moon, and stars ; in them, by them existing, and existing beyond all and in all. His power is seen both in macrocosm and microcosm, even in the fire of Gehenna. The way to Paradise is shown by the perfect light of His word, that light formerly seen on Urim and Thummim.
The next section treats of the sacred numbers contained in the Tetragrammaton. The universe is divided into twenty-seven parts, produced from the perfect and exact number, three. Thus the Platonists declare that 999 includes or comprehends all mysteries. Cabalists teach that the Tetragrammaton, in its sacred number, encircles and comprehends all things. For He is 5 and again 5 ; lod, 10 ; Vau, 6 — 26 ; and the root or colei, Aleph, 1 — 27.
Thus is God said to be Alpha and Omega — the be- ginning and the end.
Fludd afterwards shows that by the teachings of the Platonists and Trismegistus, the world Zoon is an animal ; wherefore the Psalmist exclaims — “ Heaven and earth, praise God, and rejoice before him.”^ So, then, as the macrocosm is, so also must be the microcosm. He is the Son and image of God, who fills all, and so not an inept figure of the greater world. The ten Sephiroths have their complement in man. “ He made man a little lower than the angels, and crowned him with glory and honour.” Man should have had in him the virtues of the ten Sephiroths, but has been tainted in Elieh the Radix — Adam — and all the branches of the tree are corrupted. But the second Adam, the Redeemer, had no sin or taint. That root was pure and free from corruption. When, therefore, we pray, “ Fiat voluntas,” &c., we pray that God’s will may be done — in heaven, the spiritual nature ; on earth, in the human, bodily nature. The ten Sephiroths are exhibited in man,
^ Kepler, Fludd’s opponent, held the same opinion. — Bethune’s Life of Kepler, p. 40.
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thus — God, mind, intellect, reason, memory, strength, phantasia, internal sense, external sense, and will. So, again, the different attributes of Jehovah are exhibited in the Sephiroths. Take “ Jah in Hocma,” for instance. This is divine wisdom, which is the word and mission sent into the world to dwell in the minds of men. The Sephiroths form the leaves of a tree, of which Tetragrammaton is the trunk. In men the will is the “ dux et gubernator sensum” ; it is the root, and so the head. At page 157 is the diagram. The root is above, and the leaves issuing from the lesser He below for influxus omnium Sephirotharum cadunt in Malchut, ut stellarum superiorum in Lunse orbes cavitatem.” This, therefore, is the beginning of both macro and micro cosmos, named the Word, which was in the beginning, in which was the life, the beginning and the end, properly, in the Apocalypse, called Alpha and Omega, and that tree of life of which whosoever eats shall live for ever, triumphing over death, hell, and the devil. The names of Adam and the earlier patriarchs contain elementary mysteries — Adam, Aleph-Daleth-Mem. The red earth, of which Adam was formed, had in it the virtue of the Sephiroths ; it was, therefore, matter pure and good — a ruby or carbuncle gem. As Trismegistus says — “ Pater ejus est sol, mater vera luna, et ventus putant eum in ventro suo.” The work, as we have it, ends with a short compendium of the whole, or glass of universal causes. Two curious diagrams conclude the work, showing in circles, first, the compounds out of which the animal, vegetable, and mineral bodies are produced; the other, the elements out of which man was made. These are both shown to have a distinct relation to the Tetragrammaton. The diagram representing the elements relating to man has beneath it this sentence : — “ Sic factus est mundus ad imaginem Tetragrammati, sic creatus est Homo ad exemplar mundi, unde ainbo a Mer- curic Trismegisto haud inconsulse Dei filii nuncupantur.” Other two volumes are promised, in which the work is to be completed. Fludd thinks that the ignorant will treat his
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labours with derision and laughter ; yet he declares he issues the work secure on a good conscience, and declares it to be the result of patient labour. He will be content without the vain honours or the riches of the world, being only desirous that he may in peace serve God and receive from Him the impress of His living Spirit. In cujus alarum umbra hucusque cecini et semper canam.”
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