Kabbalistic Mirrors of the Trinity
These are the books of cabalistic wisdom. In these books, as Esdras unmistakably states, resides the springs of understanding, that is, the ineffable theology of the supersubstantial deity; the fountain of wisdom, that is, the precise metaphysical doctrine concerning intelligible and angelic forms; and the stream of wisdom, that is, the best established philosophy concerning nature … And, reading them from beginning to end with the greatest attention and with unrelenting toil, I discovered in them – as God is my witness – not so much the Mosaic as the Christian religion.
There was to be found the mystery of the Trinity, the Incarnation of the Word, the divinity of the Messiah; there one might also read of original sin, of its expiation by the Christ, of the heavenly Jerusalem, of the fall of the demons, of the orders of the angels, of the pains of purgatory and of hell. There I read the same things which we read every day in the pages of Paul and of Dionysius, Jerome and Augustine. In philosophical matters, it were as though one were listening to Pythagoras and Plato, whose doctrines bear so close an affinity to the Christian faith that our Augustine offered endless thanks to God that the books of the Platonists had fallen into his hands. In a word, there is not a single point of controversy between the Hebrews and ourselves on which they cannot be confuted and convinced out the cabalistic writings — Pico della Mirandola.
Having, in previous essays, already made some connections between the specifically Böhmian (or theosophical) vision of the Trinity and the teachings of the Kabbalah, we want to briefly take a look at this topic in a wider scope and see how the doctrine of the Trinity was developed amongst other “Christian Kabbalists” (if such an expression be permitted here) both old and new.
Since the whole endeavor of Christian Kabbalism originally started out as a (primarily) apologetic and even missionary effort, it is no wonder that already its earliest proponents were motivated by an intense desire to demonstrate how this central doctrine of the Christian revelation had already been “veiled” by Moses in the secret tradition that he had “received” (kibel, from which also the word kabbalah) on Mt. Sinai. As already Picus Mirandola – the father of all Christian Kabbalism – proclaimed in his Conclusiones Cabalisticae (secundum opinionem propriam, V):
Every Hebrew Kabbalist, following the principles and sayings of the science of the Kabbala, is inevitably forced to concede, without addition, omission, or variation, precisely what the Catholic faith of Christians maintains concerning the Trinity and every divine Person, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Kabbalistic interpretation of the Trinity has thus a long tradition and ever since the time of Pico the most common way to demonstrate this dogma “secundum modum et principia cabalae” has been by associating the three supernal sefirot of the “Greater Face” to the three Most Blessed Persons of the Christian Trinity, so that still the Chevalier Drach (a 19th century Jewish scholar and convert to Catholicism) could write concerning the “Triple Crown” of Keter-Chockmah-Binah:
One would have to be blind not to see it, or quite obdurate not to want to admit it, that these three Glories are the most holy and indivisible Trinity of Persons in the unity of the Divine Essence. The Kabbalah proclaims this truth in the same words as the Catholic theology … [e.g. in the Zohar where it says] ‘There are two with whom one unites, and they are three; and yet though they are three, they are only one’ (La Cabale des Hébreux, II.1, III.1).
In a sense, it could be argued that this reading can already be found in the Apocalypse of St. John where the “Lord God” (Kyrios ho Theós, i.e. YHVH-Elohim) reveals Himself as “He who is, was, and will be” (1:8). Similarly, at the very beginning of his vision, the holy seer is greeted by the following words:
Grace and peace to you from Him who is, and who was, and who will be, and from the seven spirits before His throne (Rev. 1:4).
Now the name “He who is, was, and will be” (hayah hoveh yi’yeh) is of course a rendition of the Nomen Dei YHVH (as well as of that of Ehyieh)1 and the triple time that it comprises is, in Kabbalistic literature (cf. Yetzirah, 1:5)2, likewise commonly associated with the three supernal sefirot, namely Chockmah (past), Keter (present), and Binah (future). As for the “seven Spirits of God” (tà heptà Pneúmata toû Theoû), these have always been identified by Christian Kabbalists as the seven lower sefirot (thus completing the ten numerations), for as all the most subtle exegetes have pointed out, these “Spirits” are not “angels” in the narrower sense, but in a mysterious way identified with God Himself, as His “seven eyes” (cf. Rev. 5:6, Zach. 4:10), the seven “lights” (Rev. 1:12, Zach. 4:2) or “rays” that emanate from the trihypostatic Sun. As Cornelius a Lapide (he himself an excellent Hebraist and familiar with the Kabbalah) resumes:
These seven spirits are taken to mean the seven divine powers (virtutes) or attributes [viz. sefirot] in which consists the integral perfection of Providence. Further, these qualities are in God and are themselves God, so that it is by them that John is greeted with grace and peace [cf. Rev. 1:4]. These powers in God are thus boundless and have neither end nor limit; and therefore they’re called ‘spirit’, whereas John, in the Apocalypse, calls angels ‘angels’ and not ‘spirits’.
It seems thus as if the image that we’re presented here by St. John is that of the three supernal and seven lower sefirot. And this relates also to the hidden meaning of the word “az” (alef-zayin = 1-7) which, according to Pico (Op. cit. XX), “greatly illumines the mystery of the Trinity”.
What Pico seems to be hinting at here is the tri-unity of the letter alef (א) – a single letter made up of three “parts”, namely yod-vav-yod (י - ו - י), which are also sometimes interpreted as the three letters of the word AIN (אין), i.e. Non-being (or beyond Being) – conjoined to the seven qualities or attributes as the ontological reflection of the superessential Triad, i.e.: “He who is, was, and will be, and the seven Spirits before His Throne”.
Now before we move to alternative perspectives on the Trinity, let us first take a quick look in how far the assimilation of the Three Divine Persons to the Triple Crown can be substantiated from the Kabbalistic sources themselves.
In the Sefir Yetzirah (which tradition ascribes to Abraham) we already read of both the “Word” (Dabar) and the “Breath of the living God” (Ruach Elohim Chayim) or “Holy Spirit” (Ruach ha-Kodesh) and indeed among Christian Kabbalists the Sefer has often been esteemed as the oldest Trinitarian theology put to paper (which is quite interesting, considering that the Fathers too teach that Abraham was the recipient of one of the earliest Trinitarian revelations in the Old Covenant: “Et ipse Abraham tres vidit, et unum adoravit”). Of the Word is it said that it is “running and returning” through and in the sefirot (I:6) and concerning the Spirit we read (I:9):
Ten Sefirot of Nothingness: One is the Breath of the Living God. Blessed and benedicted is the Name of the Life of World: The Voice of Breath (Ruach) and Speech (Dabar): This is the Holy Spirit.
Here the divine Pneuma is linked to the first sefira Keter and seen as preceding even Chockmah or Binah, according to the verse: “I will fill him with the Breath of God (Ruach Elohim), with Wisdom (Chockmah), Understanding (Binah), and Knowledge (Daath)” (Ex. 31:3). This is the “Spirit of the Holy Ancient One” (Attika Kadisha), the vivifying breath of Arikh Anpin, his “influx” (or “influence”), that descends upon the celestial Adam Zeir Anpin (Gen. 2:7): “The spirit of life which rusheth from the two nostrils of Macroprosopus” (as it is frequently described in the Idrot).
Another thing that becomes immediately obvious from the above-cited passage is that, in the Kabbalistic texts, there is not yet a clear distinction made between the “Breath” and the “Word” (at least in the same manner as Christian theology has developed it) which are often used more or less synonymously. We might say that the Breath is that which “carries the Word”, what “articulates” it, and thus in the triad of “Voice, Breath and Speech” that we read about in the Sefer (cf. supra), the Voice is sometimes identified with pure, inarticulate creative power (Chockmah), the possibility of speaking (B’resheet; “In the beginning”), the Breath is the “Spirit over the waters” (Gen. 1:2), and Speech is the “Fiat Lux!” (i.e. Chesed), the compassionate outflowing that reveals the more-than-luminous fountain of Chockmah (and by extension the Ein Sof Aur itself).
This light is a concealed mystery, an expansion expanding, bursting from the mysterious secret of hidden supernal luminous space (Zohar, I.16b).
As for the “Word” itself (Yezirah, 1:6), its “running” (exitus) is sometimes linked to Chockmah (as the principle of expansion) and its “returning” (reditus) to Binah (the principle of contraction). The Word appears thus as the “cord” on which the sefirot are strung together “as pearls on a thread” (or like beads on a rosary), as well as the famous “stream of Eden” that flows out from the primal centre to water the mystical Tree, according to the verse: “His Word runneth swiftly” (Ps. 147:15).
While the Spirit is thus primarily linked to Keter (or to its lower reflection Daath) as that which hovers over the tohu and bohu, viz. the undifferentiated potency of Chockmah and Binah, the universal receptacle of manifestation (Bo-Hu, literally “in it”, meaning the matrix or “divine space” of the Shekinah), in other early Kabbalistic authors there’s a more clear assignment of the “Spirit” of Genesis to Chockmah as the masculine, creative Principle, “fertilizing” the waters (the “womb” of Binah) or as the “fire” (ש = 300 = Ruach Elohim), the Divine Ray, descending into the primordial deep.3 Thus for example Isaac the Blind4:
‘By Wisdom (Chockmah) He established the Heavens’ (Prov. 3:19) signifies that by means of the Spirit of the living God the ‘heavens of God’ (Ps. 115:16) were emanated. These two heavens are the upper heavens and the lower ones below them (The Mystical Torah).
However the image of the Spirit brooding over the waters has of course also a feminine aspect and as such the Ruach Elohim (a feminine word) of Genesis is in Rabbinic literature likewise described as an maternal “dove” hatching her eggs (cf. Talmud, Chaghiga 15a)5, the dove being of course also a common symbol for the Shekinah (in this case the “supernal Shekinah”, Binah). And while the Ruach ha-Kodesh emanates, according to the Yetzirah, from the highest Keter, seen “from below”, from the standpoint of manifestation, it is through Binah that he is delegated to the lower realms.
But ultimately a clear distinction between “left and right” is not possible at this level, for “tohu-wa-bohu” is simply one, undifferentiated and indivisible (just like past and future are in God eternally united in the eternal present), and the one is never without the other, hence why Binah is sometimes also called the “male water”, being eternally impregnated by the “seed” of Chockmah.
The Yod and the Heh [i.e. Chockmah and Binah], in the Divine Name [YHVH] are mingled, and one is contained in the other and they are never separated, being forever united in love, being the source whence emanate all those streams and springs of blessing and satisfaction to the universe (Zohar, II.55a).
And thus we can also conclude concerning the Ruach Elohim – the “Spirit of the Ancient One”, the “Spirit of Chockmah and Binah” (Is. 11:2) – that it presents “the summation of the three supernal sefirot projected as all creative activity” as such (Smith, Kabballistic Mirrors, Appendix I). And this applies, according to our estimation, likewise to the “Word” and “Breath” as they are mentioned in the Sefer Yetzirah6, neither of which seems to be linked to any specific sefira per se, being rather that by which the sefirotic manifestation is effected in the first place, according to the Psalm: “With the Word of God, the heavens were made, and with the Breath (ruach) of His mouth, all their hosts” (Ps. 33:6).7
It thus seems as if the equation of Binah and the Holy Spirit is mostly an innovation of Christian exegetes which finds – at least according to our very limited knowledge of the literature – no direct model in earlier sources. Certainly, the correspondence between the highest Keter and the Father is obvious enough, as is that of “Wisdom” (Chockmah) and the Son – this being of course one the names He is commonly known under in both Scripture and Tradition8. But when it comes to the assimilation of Binah (Understanding, Intelligence, Discernment) and the Holy Spirit, things become more complicated, not least because Binah, “the Great Mother”, is obviously a feminine sefira, a gender not commonly associated with the third Person of the Trinity.9
However, the Christian identification of Binah and the Spirit is, accord to our estimation, certainly more than a mere “makeshift solution” and not without a solid metaphysical and scriptural foundation. As we have shown before, there are indeed many ancient traditions that know of the femininity of the Spirit, or of its “Hypostatic Maternity”; a line of thought also taken up by many more recent authors (often in a “sophiological” context). Thus, according to Borella, the Spirit is the Virginal Mirror in which the Father immaculately conceives His perfect Image, i.e. the Son, and this ties in closely with the sefira Binah which is likewise often described in terms of a mirror that breaks up the pure white light of Chockmah in the seven-fold reflection of the lower sefirot (the “seven gifts of the Holy Spirit”, whom Isaiah calls “the Spirit of Understanding”10).
It is Binah who first “discerns” (bineh) the ideas in the absolutely simple stream of Chockmah and “produces the differentiation of the primordial archetypes” (die Unterscheidung der vorweltlichen Original-Ideen), as Oetinger puts it in his Lehrtafel.
Wisdom [Chockmah] plays before God, and God confirms His intention (Prov. 8); the Holy Spirit [Binah] discerns the secrets of Wisdom and makes three from two and then seven from these and even further ad infinitum (Job 11:6).
Another name for Binah is “Palace” or the “Celestial Jerusalem” – “the Jerusalem above which is our Mother”, as the Apostle put it (Gal. 4:26) – and in this aspect as the “Great Sabbath”, viz. as the world to come (olam ha-ba), or what we might call the “age of the Spirit”, she is indeed often quite closely approached to the Holy Breath. As we read for example in in the Siphra Dtzenioutha (V.42; quoted here with the commentary of Knorr von Rosenroth):
Yobel (Jubilee) is Heh (the first Heh of the Tetragrammaton [i.e. Binah]); and Heh is the Spirit rushing forth over all (because the Mother is the world to come, when in the Resurrection all things will receive the Spirit); and all things shall return unto their place (like as in the jubilee, so in the world to come).
This passage seems to refer especially to the numerical symbolism of the 5 (heh), which is the number of jubilee (in the 50th year), as well as the value of YaM (= 50), “sea” or “ocean”, this being one of the names of Binah (there are also 50 Gates of Understanding, hence why Pico says that “whoever knows the mystery of the Gates of Understanding shall also know the mystery of the Great Jubilee”). We might lastly point out that (seen again “from below”) Binah is the eighth sefira, further approaching her to the mystery of the “eighth day”.
Now the process of emanation, as it is conceived in the Kabbalah, can be viewed from two inverse perspectives: Most often we see a black circle inscribed on a white background with one light radius going from centre to periphery; here the background is the Infinity of Ein Sof and the black surface is the maternal “space” in which it contract itself (according to the doctrine of tzimtzum). Consequently, the point where the Uncreated Light (Ein Sof Aur) pierces the periphery marks the first sefira Keter and the centre is the sefira Malkut, where all is gathered into the “sea of wisdom”.
While this perspective places itself at the point of the view of the Absolute, one could also take the inverse position, the standpoint of manifestation. Here one starts from the primordial centre Keter-Chockmah, i.e. “B’resheet, the point beyond which nothing is known” (Zohar, I.1a), which then radiates outwards into an ever greater diffusion, “from the primal mystic center to the very outermost of all the layers”.
All are coverings, the one to the other, shells within shells, each containing the other; the whole world is like this: all consists of a kernel within, with several shells covering the kernel.
This is the position the Zohar (I.19b-20a) takes when it writes:
The primal center [Keter-Chockmah] is the innermost light, of a translucence, subtlety, and purity beyond comprehension. That inner point extended becomes a ‘palace’ [Binah] which acts as an enclosure for the center, and is also of a radiance translucent beyond the power to know it. The ‘palace’, a vestment for the incognizable inner point, while it is an unknowable radiance in itself, is nevertheless of a lesser subtlety and translucency than the primal point. The ‘palace’ extends into a vestment for itself, the primal light. From then outward, this expands into this, this is clothed in this, so that this is a garment for this, and this for this. This, the kernel; this, the shell. Although a garment, it becomes the kernel of another layer.
Thus Binah appears here as the first reflection of the superessential Light in manifestation, the “celestial Paradise”, the primal existential vibration emanating from the uppermost point (“the Breath coming from the North” of Ez. 1:4) but which is yet substantially divine, that is to say comprised within the realm of divine self-differentiation (olam ha-atziluth). And this conception of the Holy Spirit (viz. Binah) bears of course a striking resemblance to a passage in Schuon (cf. Form and Substance, XVII) which reads:
In God Himself, who is beyond Existence, there is an element that prefigures Existence, and this is the Divine Life, which the Christian doctrine attributes to the Holy Spirit and which it calls Love; toward this Life converge those existences that are plunged in the light of Glory and sustained by it; and it is this Light, this ‘Divine Halo’, which keeps the Paradises outside the ‘migratory vibration’ of existences that are still corruptible.
Indeed the Schuonian gnosis often approaches the doctrines of the Kabbalah quite closely11 and this becomes especially clear when dealing with the question of the Trinity.
According the Trinitarian reading for which Schuon is probably best known, the Father represents Non-being, the Son Being, and the Spirit (divine) Existence (cf. Understanding Islam, II). This “vertical” Trinity is closely analogous to that developed by later Christian Kabbalists basing themselves primarily on Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata (which was more directly inspired by the teachings of Isaac Luria). To quote from van Helmont’s Adumbratio Kabbalae Christianae (III.2):
In that first state, God, who Himself is infinite [i.e. Ein Sof], can be understood by the name Father, as is frequently used in the scripture of our New Federation. A light, then, from the Infinite was emanated and united in the First Adam, that is, the Messiah, through canals [or sefirot]. That can be applied to the denomination of the Son. And the influxes sent down to the lower direction can refer to the character of the Holy Spirit.
Here too the Trinity is conceived as different stages of divine self-manifestation (which transcend the particular sefirotic interrelations as such). The Father is the unqualified Absolute, the “highest Brahman”, the Son is Adam Kadmon, the “Protogonos” or “Universal Man”, the synthesis of all qualities (pure Being), viz. the totality of sefirotic manifestation, that is to say: “The radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature” (Hebr. 1:3) and “the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, by whom all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, who is before all things, and who holds all things together” (Col. 1:15-17).
The Hl. Spirit finally is “the most divine influx that communicates to inferior things, and through which they are drawn to cognition and love, that is, the union with the first Cause” (Adumbratio, III.53)12; a theologumenon that is obviously quite similar to Böhme’s notion of the Spirit as the movement and life within the divine self-manifestation Sophia.
We might also say that the Son appears here as the primordial point, signifying Being as the auto-affirmation of Non-being (the light and dark alef hidden in B’resheet), and the Spirit as Existence and Divine Life, radiation ad extra. Again we find a quite close correspondence to the Trinitarian thought of Schuon, for whom the Spirit represents “Radiance”, i.e. the dynamic, outflowing principle, and the Son the “Reverberation”, i.e. the static and formative principle (Being, Logos, Intellect) which proceed from the supernal Principle (or the “Father”), as the “Heat” and “Light”, “Love” and “Knowledge” (viz. the undulating and straight rays) emanating from the Divine Sun (cf. Guénon, Symbols of Sacred Science, §63, 71).
There is a primary duality, which is the Substance, and – principially within It but in fact outside its absolute Reality – there is Relativity or Mâyâ; now Mâyâ comprises the two aspects just mentioned, Radiance and Reverberation: the ‘Holy Spirit’ and the ‘Son’ who are actualized in and through Mâyâ … Absolute Substance extends Itself, through relativization, under the aspects of Radiance and Reverberation; that is to say, It is accompanied – at a lesser degree of reality – by two forms of emanation, one that is dynamic, continuous, and radiating, and the other static, discontinuous, and formative (Schuon, Op.cit. III).
Thus if we take up the Zoharic image of the “shells within shells”, the Spirit is the principle of radiation whereas the Son corresponds to the Principle of limitation, i.e. the peras and apeiron of the Pythagoreans, which, in their interplay, come together to form the indefinite series of the concentric circles that make up universal manifestation.
We see that the roles are reversed: in the conventional interpretation of Christian Kabbalists, it is the Word which figures as the dynamic, creative Principle (Chockmah), whereas the Spirit is the form-giving, restrictive Principle (Binah), located on the “Pillar of Severity”. But this shouldn’t bother us too much at present, for it is simply a matter of perspective; i.e. whereas in Hebrew thought the radiating principle is seen as male and the form principle as female, in Schuon’s more “Vedantic” perspective it’s exactly the other way round (the creative principle, mâyâ, being of course traditionally assigned the female gender).13 What is essential here is the conception of Son and Spirit as the dual “shakti” of the One, i.e. as the (male) form-principle and the (female) principle of inspiration. And here we are of course reminded of Evdokimov’s conception of the Word as the “Eternal Masculine” and the Spirit as “Eternal Feminine”, which we could call with St. Irenaeus “the two hands of God” (once more recalling Psalm 33:6).
The notion of “Radiance” and “Reverberation” is closely tied to another related triad, namely that of the Absolute, the Infinite (All-Possibility as the Principle of Mâyâ both divine and cosmic), and Perfection, which are primarily intrinsic dimensions of the Absolute itself (“the Highest Good is absolute and therefore it is infinite and perfect”) but also affirm themselves in a “descending” manner ad extra (the male and female principles being the primal manifestations of the two poles of Absoluteness/Necessity and Infinitude/All-Possibility respectively).14
The Absolute is infinite; therefore it radiates, and in radiating, it projects itself; the content of this projection being the Good [viz. Perfection] … The Infinite – at the degree of Mâyâ or, more precisely, at the summit of Relativity – projects the Absolute and thus produces the image, and from the moment there is image – this is the Logos – there is polarization, that is to say refraction of the Light which in itself is undivided. The Good refracted, or the Logos, contains all Perfections possible, it translates the potentiality of the Essence into an inexhaustible unfolding of possibilities, and it is thus the divine ‘place’ of the archetypes.
Geometrically speaking, we could say that the point by its very nature contains both the circle and the rays; that being the case, it projects them. The point here stands for the Absolute; the cluster of rays, for operative Infinity; the circle, for the Projected Good, hence for the totality of perfections.
The principle of radiation or projection – inherent in the Absolute, in the ‘Father’ – corresponds to the ‘Holy Spirit’; and the principle of polarization or refraction, to the ‘Son’. The ‘Son’ is to the ‘Father’ what the circle is to the center; and the ‘Holy Spirit’ is to the ‘Father’ what the radius is to the center. And as the radius, which ‘emanates’ from the center, does not stop at the circle, but traverses it, it could be said that starting from the circle, the radius is ‘delegated’ by the circle, as the ‘Spirit’ emanates from the ‘Father’ and is delegated by the ‘Son’; the character of the filioque, at once justifiable and problematical, becomes clear with the aid of this image (From the Divine to the Human, II.1).
This image, according to which the Father (centre) gives birth to his Image (periphery) by means of the Spirit (radii) is of course quite reminiscent of van Helmont’s (et al.) vision of the Son as the total self-manifestation of Ein-Sof (i.e. Adam Kadmon) and the Spirit as the “influx divinissimus”, the “Breath of Attika Kadisha” which vivifies the Great Adam and is then “delegated” by and through him to the lower Kingdom (not to mention that the image of the three supernal sefirot as centre-radius-periphery is quite widespread among Kabbalists as well).
The Schuonian vision in which the absolute Brahman projects himself via his (feminine) Shakti to “beget” the Logos as his offspring, is not wholly dissimilar from Gnostic genealogies like that of the paternal Monad, the maternal Barbello and their Son Christ Autogenes in the (Sethian) Apocryphon of John, or the Triad of the One/Abyss (Bythos), the “womb” of Ennoia (or Sigé), and the Nous/Logos in Valentianism.
A similar notion is also found in the Pythagorean-Platonic tradition where the One (or the Monad)15 extends into the indefinite dyad (aoristos dyas), a feminine, generative power that the Chaldean Oracles simply call “dynamis”, which then begets the hypostasis of the Nous.
The Monad/Absolute (Âtmâ) is concentration, transcendence, centrality; the Dyad/Infinite (Mâyâ) is extension, immanence, radiation, the indefinite set of geometrical shapes; all that prefigures the immensity of time and space etc. It is also sometimes called Rhea (from rhéô, “to flow”), so that we could even speak of a “mythological Trinity” consisting of the Father Chronos, i.e. the “One” or the “paternal Abyss” (patrikos bythos), the Mother Rhea, and their Son Zeus (Nous).
Truly Rhea is the source and stream of blessed intelligible realities. For she, first in power, receives the birth of all these in her inexpressible womb and pours forth on the All as it runs its course (Chaldean Oracles, fr. LVI).
Rhea, the “divine flow” (or “influx”), “the generative source from whom all divine life – intelligible, spiritual, and mundane – is generated”, does not only mediate between the Father and Son as the productive “power” by which the Godhead begets, but, in being “delegated” by Nous and extending further away from the Principle, it also becomes the Chaldean Hecate, the world-soul, taking the “middle place” between noetic and sensible reality which “communicates to the inferior things and draws them upwards” (to use again the words of van Helmont).
For everywhere Power (dynamis) has been assigned the middle place; and even among the intelligible, it connects the Father and Intellect (fr. IV).
This “Chaldean Trinity” – which even amongst the pagans was “honored as triadic monad” (mounáda trioûkon or tridynamos) – was also quite influential on the Trinitarian thought of the Christian Platonist Marius Victorinus, who conceived the Father as pure Existence (Esse), the Son as Intellect (Intelligere), and the Spirit as the Life (Vivere) mediating between them, whom he also calls “mater” and “conexio”.
Here again we meet with the (now sufficiently familiar) motive of the Holy Spirit as a “feminine” mediatory power between the Father – who is “Omnipotentia”, the “potential-power of being” (Plotinus’ dynamis panton, i.e. “All-Possibility” or the enabling condition of being as such) – and the Son as His “Act” or the “first-existent” (i.e. the self-manifestation of the super- or pre-existent Father); viz., of the Spirit as the “eternal Mary” that begets the Christ-Logos from Eternity (cf. Victorinus, Adv. Arian. 1B. LVI.36ff.).16
Now additional to the dyadic, horizontal conception of Word and Spirit as Chockmah and Binah, the archetypical Male and Female, Father and Mother (Abba we-Imma), that we have dealt with above, there is also one last Kabbalistic reading of the Trinitarian relations that we want to briefly discuss. Here the Son is identified with Tiferet and the Spirit with Malkut. This is not contradictory to the foregoing interpretation, however, but merely present an “explication” of it, in which the parzufim of “Father” (Chockmah) and “Mother” (Binah) are mirrored vertically in that of the “Son” (Tiferet) and “Daughter” (Malkut), so that we might say that the “Lesser Face” presents merely an inverted reflection of the “Greater Face” inclining over the mirroring surface of the primordial waters.
Wisdom Chockmah (mediating between Keter and Binah in the supernal Triad) becomes “incarnate” in Tiferet as the “Divine Heart” (in the middle between the upper and lower waters) and the Holy Spirit (Binah: the Greater Mother, the Celestial Paradise, the Upper Waters) is manifested as Malkut (the Lesser Mother, the Terrestrial Paradise, the Lower Waters). This is the Holy Spirit as the (lower) Shekinah, God’s indwelling Presence in creation, Divine Immanence, and also the Church as the “Kingdom of God on Earth”, viz. the heavenly bride of Christ.
According to this conception the Word (or now more specifically the “incarnate Word”, Christ) as Tiferet is the Logos, the Divine Sun reflected in manifestation as the centre and heart of all things from which extend the six sefirot of Zeir anpin as the six directions of universal extension. As we read in the Bahir (§30):
They said to him: But what is Vav?
He said: The world is sealed with six directions.
They said: Is not Vav a single letter?
He replied: It is written (Ps. 104:2): ‘He wraps Himself in light as a garment, He spreads out the heavens like a curtain’.
The letter Vav (corresponding to the numerical value of 6) represents the six sefirot of construction which are resumed in the single sefira Tiferet (also sometimes synthetically called “Adam Kadmon” or “YHVH”) and this sefira which links the lower “Kingdom” (Malkut) to the supernal Deity is of course none other than the Divine Word as the “mediator Dei et hominem”, or rather: archetypical “Relation as such” (being not only that what links us to God but also the mediating principle in the Godhead itself).17 As Aryeh Kaplan comments on the above quoted Bahir section:
All the six sefirot of Zeir Anpin are actually a single concept, namely ‘relationship’. He answers that the ‘heavens’ [a name for Tiferet] are spread out. Even though it is a single concept, it is represented by six independent concepts, which are the six sefirot.
Thus is assembled the whole Great Name of the Tetragrammaton YHWH: Chockmah is Yod, Binah the upper Heh, and Malkut the lower Heh, these being connected by the middle Vav of Tiferet/Zeir anpin. And in this double dyadic structure (YaH-WeH) we perfectly trace the sign the Sign of the Cross. To Him be Glory and Dominion forever!
It seems as if a similar “vertical interpretation” of the Trinity was also not foreign to Pico, who states that “the Name EHYEH [Keter] is that of the Father, the Name YHVH [Tiferet] of the Son, the Name ADONAI [Malkut] of the Holy Spirit; whosoever is versed in the Kabbalistic science will understand this” (Op.cit. VI).18
It is possible that Pico is referring here to the “trinity” hidden in the letter yod. This “divine letter”, commonly taken to symbolize the Deity, is not only the smallest of all letters, the “primordial point” (י) but also spelled out in three letters YVD, which are sometimes taken to mean the Principle Keter-Chockmah (Y) – for it precisely in its conjunction with Chockmah that Keter is called EHYEH, “Being”, whereas in itself it is AIN, “Non-being” (i.e. simply identical with Ein Sof as such) – the “Son” Zeir Anpin (V), and his bride Malkut (D). As we read in the Idra Zuta (VIII.242-256).
Come and behold! This beginning (resheet), which is called Father [Chockmah], is comprehended in Yod, which dependeth from the Holy Influence [of Keter]. And therefore is Yod, the Most Concealed of all the other letters. For Yod, is the beginning and the end of all things … It is written (Gen. 2:9): ‘A river went forth out of Eden to water the garden’. For Yod, includeth two letters. In the teaching of the school of Rav Yeyeva the Elder thus is the tradition.
Wherefore are VD, Vav-Daleth, comprehended in Yod (YVD)? Assuredly the planting of the garden is properly called Vav [Zeir Anpin]; and there is another garden which is Daleth [Malkut], and by that Vav is Daleth watered, which is the symbol of the quaternary [cf. in this context also the symbolism of the Tetraktys]. And an Arcanum is extended from this passage, where it is written: ‘And a river went forth out of Eden’. What is Eden? It is the supernal Wisdom (Chockmah), and that is Yod (YVD). ‘To water the garden’. That is Vav. ‘And thence it is divided and goeth forth into four heads’ (Gen. 2:10). That is Daleth [whose numerical value is 4]. And all things are included in YVD and therefore is the Father called ‘All’, the Father of Fathers.
We might say that the primordial fountain Yod (י) extends into the “river” Vav (ו) which spreads out via the four streams of Daleth (+) and becomes a “sea of wisdom” (Malkut), according to the verse:
I, Wisdom, have poured out rivers. I, like a brook out of a river of a mighty water; I, like a channel of a river, and like an aqueduct, came out of paradise. I said: I will water my garden of plants, and I will water abundantly the fruits of my meadow; and behold my brook became a great river, and my river came near to a sea (Eccl. 24:40-43).
Thus in the principle point Yod, the “mustard seed”, all the seven lower sefirot are already present as it were in potentia. Chockmah is like a pure white light containing all the colours of the spectrum, yet it needs the “mirror-palace” of Binah to become manifest.
The beginning of all is called the Home of All. Whence YVD is the beginning and the end of all; like as it is written (Ps. 104:24): ‘All things in Chockmah hast Thou made’. In His place He is not manifested, neither is He known; when He is associated with the Mother (be-Ama), then is He made known in the Mother (be-Aima).
Thus only when the Yod (10) is added to the “Mother” (AMA = 42) is the “Son” begotten (BeN = 52).19 This is the conjunction of Yod (10) and Heh (5), which makes Vav (1+0+5 = 6). Now this Vav can be understood in two distinct ways; either it is taken (as in the Bahir) to designate the six sefirot of Zeir Anpin (thence it is called the “lower Vav”), or it is taken as a symbol for the “hook” (ו) of Daath (the “supernal Vav”) which unites AB-V-AM: Father and Mother (or tohu-wa-bohu, THV-V-BHV). This is the meaning “Trigrammaton” YHV as the name of the supernal Triad Chockmah-Binah-Daath, which, when spelled out or fully “extended” (YVD-HeH-VaV) likewise produces 52, i.e. the Son (BeN).
This “extension” or “mirroring” of the supernal Triad in the “lower waters” is also the topic of a passage in the Siphra Dtzenioutha (cf. II.29-43) from which we might quote here as well since it relates quite closely to the passage of the Idra Zuta given above:
The supernal Yod [Chockmah], which is crowned with the crown of the more Ancient One [that is, whose highest apex denotes the highest Crown, Keter] both shineth and is concealed. The IVD (Yod) of the Ancient One, is hidden in its origin because the name is not found [that is, Yod cannot be spelled out by doubling the letter Y-Y like HeH and VaV can].
Heh is extended by another [HeH] and it is discovered through the forms. Vav is extended by another [VaV]. Like as it is written (Cant. 7:9): ‘Going down sweetly to my delight’ … That is the supernal Vav [Daath] and the inferior Vav [Zeir Anpin]. And thus also the supernal Heh [Binah] and the inferior Heh [Malkut]. But Yod, is above all, and with him is none other associated; he is Yod, as at first; neither ascendeth he in himself. For when the double forms are manifested [i.e. HeH and VaV] and are united in one path, in one combination, in order that they may be explained [that is, when they are fully written out] then VD, Vav and Daleth [and not another Yod] is added unto Yod [spelling: YVD].20 Woe! woe! when this [the Yod] is taken away, and when the other two [Daleth and Vav] are manifested alone [thereby separating the lower from the higher sefirot and depriving the ‘Tree’ of its vivifying source]. Absit! absit! Far, far from us be that effect!
The general idea here (concerning the significance of the letter YVD) is of course the same as the in the Idra Zuta; but here we also see how, by a process of “mirroring”, the upper Triad YHV extends into the full Tetragrammaton YHVH (which is, as we have seen, is also a name of Tiferet, viz. Zeir Anpin, the “Son”). Again we might employ the image of the “cross” (+) or of the “four streams”: Yod is the primal source, the centre, the Unique One which “doth not associate” (i.e. become doubled), and it extends into Vav (↑), Vav (↓), Heh (←), Heh (→), that is: YHVH (for the “supernal Vav” of the non-sefira Daath is eternally concealed).21 What is especially interesting from a Christian perspective, is that, according to the Siphra (II.32), this fourfold (i.e. “cruciform”) extension is “discovered in the skull” (be-golgotha), or “in Golgotha”, which is also already hidden in the Yod (YVD), namely the “Son” (Vav) united to the “cross” of Dalteh (4).22 This is the “Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8), i.e. the Logos crucified on the four cardinal directions of universal extension in the “eternal Golgotha”.
Another thing that is worth pointing out is that the passage from the supernal triad (YHV) to the lower quaternary (YHVH) obviously mirrors the well-known symbolism of the triangle and the square (most famously employed in the Timaeus), that is “heaven and earth”, and likewise the three theological and the four cardinal virtues, the trivium and quadrivium, or even the seven verses of the Lord’s Prayer with the first three concerning divine things, and the latter four descending to earthly matters.
There’s even an explicitly Trinitarian reading of the first three verses that we find for example in St. Gregory of Nyssa, which refers the first line (“Pater noster…”) to the Father, the second to the Son (“… Nomen tuum”), and the third to the Spirit (“… Regnum tuum”). This interpretation is also quite interesting from a Kabbalistic point of view, since the “Name” (ha-Shem) obviously refers to the Tetragrammaton (Tiferet), whereas the “Kingdom” is obviously the Shekinah (Binah-Malkut). And these latter two names, YHVH (Tiferet) & Adonai (Malkut), YHVH-ADNY (= 91), are also comprised in the word AMeN (= 91), which is a name of Christ, “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of God's creation” (Rev. 3:14), thus showing us that Christ truly is LORD over heaven (Tiferet) and earth (Malkut) and the true manna (MNA = AMN) come down from heaven. Hallowed be His Name, now and forever, Amen, Amen!
To end off this short exploration of the strange yet fascinating world of Christian Kabbalah let us briefly remark that although the Kabbalah can indeed shed some light on the Mystery of the Trinity (“de trinitatis mysterio multum illuminabuntur”), as Pico rightly says, this light is always a borrowed one. Obviously, Judaism and Christianity share intimate roots and thus the “tools” of the Kabbalah are to some extend quite readily applicable to Christian revelation and speculation (in fact the Cardinal di Viterbo even called the sacra scienca of Kabbalah “not foreign, but domestic” to Christianity!). Yet it is nevertheless still an alien tradition which can never be fully assimilated by Christian thought nor replace the indigenous light of our own Holy Tradition as it is handed down to us by the Apostles and Fathers.
Verily, in all things there shines a vestige of the Blessed Trinity “which scatters tokens of its presence throughout all its works” (quae per omnia opera sua significationis suae sparsit indica) and “since He, the Most Holy Ancient One, is thus symbolized in the Triad, all the other Lights shine forth in triads” (Idra Zuta, II.80). But the Divinity which “is hymned as a Monad and Triad while yet being neither one nor three” (Dionysius), and which has been seen, in a dark mirror, by all the sages who have lifted themselves to the true contemplation of divine things, is worshipped in spirit and truth only by those who know Him as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and who are baptized in this most blessed Name. So let us give thanks to the Holy Blessed One who chose us before the foundation of the world.
Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto
Sicut erat in principio et nunc et semper et in saecula saeculorum
Amen.
As Rabbi Behhai writes in his Exposition on the Pentateuch (64b): “Know that the name Ehyieh here (Ex. 3:14), which is repeated three times in the same verse, corresponds to the three tenses of the verb ‘to be’ (chayah), to indicate that the Blessed One who is the lord of the triple time was, is, and will be. The name Ehyieh contains in itself all three tenses, just like in the name YHVH all three tenses are contained. Thus both of them, Ehyieh and YHVH, have a common signification”.
As Aryeh Kaplan comments this verse in his translation of the Sefer: “Wisdom is always defined as the beginning by the Kabbalists. This is based on such verses as ‘The beginning is Wisdom’ (Prov. 4:7) … Psychologically, Wisdom also represents the past in another manner. Memory is not verbal, but is stored in the mind in a nonverbal mode. It is only when one brings a memory to the surface that it becomes verbalized. Since pure memory is completely nonverbal, it is in the category of Wisdom, The future, on the other hand, cannot be imagined at all, except in verbal terms. One can remember the past, but not the future. The future can only be conceived when it is described. The main way in which we know the future is by extrapolating from our knowledge of the past, or, in the language of the Talmud, ‘Understanding one thing from another’. Past and future are also the counterparts of Wisdom and Understanding insofar that they are respectively male and female. The past is said to be male, since it directly influences the future. In this manner, it is as if the feminine future is impregnated by the past”. We should also add that the present as such is often more specifically linked to Daath (as the fusion of Chockmah and Binah); but since Daath is technically a non-sefira and merely the reflection of Keter, the current interpretation still stands.
“Fire” and “water” being, in the Kabbalah, of course always equivalent to male and female, or the right and the left pillar (cf. for example the “three mothers” of the Sefer Yetirah: alef, mem, shin, representing air, water, and fire, or Keter, Binah, and Chockmah respectively).
However, when Isaac is talking about the Spirit in terms of Chockmah here, he is not necessarily departing from the teachings of the Sefer Yetzirah (which approaches it to Keter); after all it was the same Rabbi who, in his Process of Emanation, first wrote that “two sefirot are encompassed in this word (B’resheet)”, that is Keter (Beth) and Chockmah (resheet).
In fact the Rabbi Salomon Yarhhi gives an interesting explication of this Talmudic passage when he writes: “The Throne of Glory, that is to say of the Divinity, holds itself in the air through the Breath (ruach) of the mouth of the Holy One, blessed be He, and through His Word, like a dove hovering gently over its nest”.
As we have seen “Voice, Breath, and Speech” are likewise approached to the totality of manifesting power (or creative activity) emanating from the highest Crown. This creative activity of the Triple Crown manifests through Daath, and if we consider that Daath is sometimes called the “throat” (or the speaking organ more generally) of Adam Kadmon, we might say that through Daath Voice (Keter-Chockmah) is articulated in Breath (Binah) as Speech (Chesed), which finally terminates in the fully outspoken word Malkut, as the final “product” of speaking.
We should note here that there’ve also always been Christian Kabbalists who have categorically refused all association between the three Trinitarian Persons and the sefirot, locating the Trinity as it were “beyond” it in the inscrutable depths of Ein Sof. And this is also hidden in echad, (AChaD = 13), “One”, namely the ten sefirot and the three Hypostases.
And conversely, in the Zohar, Wisdom/Chockmah is sometimes referred to as the “Word”.
Remember in this context also that in Böhmian theosophy Binah corresponds to Sophia and not to the Spirit who is the movement going from Father through the Son into the Mirror of Wisdom.
“… Binah seu Spiritu Intelligentiae suae, primo produxit lucem, id est Angelicas substantias, seu Mundum Intellectualem” (Kircher, Oedip. Aegyp. II.298).
In fact, Schuon’s “Onto-Cosmological Chain” (cf. Survey of Metaphysics, I.5) bears a striking resemblance to the Kabbalistic Tree (cf. in this context the diagram of Schuon’s “Chain” provided by Bruno Bérard in his Introduction à une Métaphysique, III.c).
If we take up the Kabbalistic image of the Tree we might say that the Son is here the Tree itself (Arbor Vitae), the Father the invisible root from which it sprung, and the Spirit is the “sap” running through it (“Darinnen herrschet der Hl. Geist und gibt dazu Saft und Leben”, cf. Böhme’s Prologue to the Aurora).
However, we the letters of BYNaH are sometimes rearranged to spell BeN-YaH, the “son of Yah” (i.e. of Chockmah), meaning that here it is Binah (as Mundus Intellectualis or the “place of archetypes”) which is conceived of as a “male” begotten by the “feminine shakti” Chockmah (or “the Infinite”). This might also be a good place to recall that, in the original Kabbalah, the sefirot are immensely dynamic in nature and not nearly as “petrified” as the became later, especially in the so-called “hermetic” (or rather occultist) Kabbalah.
The “ontological Trinity” of Father-Son-Spirit is thus, for Schuon, a manifestation of the supernal triad Sat-cit-ânanda, (absolute) Being-Consciousness-Bliss. Sat as pure Being manifests the “middle pillar”, Cit as Knowledge or the “Word”, the masculine pillar of formation, and Ânanda, Love, Blessedness, the feminine, radiating principle of the Holy Spirit. As in the Kabbalah, these three “pillars” manifest on all lower level in a descending manner: (Male) Absoluteness and (female) Infinity give birth to Being (or Ishvara) as their “son”, which then again polarizes in the (male) form-principle and (female) substance-principle (Purusha and Prakriti) which give birth to the (central) Logos and consequently all of (formal and informal) manifestation.
We should note that there is technically a distinction to be made between the Supreme Monad of the One (also called prote monas), which is “not even One” as Plotinus says, and the “secondary monad” of the Nous which is perfectly united yet composite. However, were dealing here not primarily with individual hypostases but with general principle and since both “monads” pertain to the pillar of “Absoluteness” (the former being merely the lower reflection of the latter) such details are, in the present context, rather negligible and need not concern us much.
It must however be pointed out that the Vitorine Trinitarianism does not simply represent a copy of Platonism but rather an early attempt at a “baptizing” of it. Victorinus was not only an Anti-Arian polemicist but also a champion of the homousios and in his adaption of Platonic concepts he is always eager to render the three hypostases equal in dignity and truly consubstantial. The question in how far the Kabbalistic Trinities are “Arian” is of course as old as Christian Kabbalah as such and has always been a topic of heavy debates. Oetinger for example contested vehemently the assertion that Adam Kadmon (viz. the “second Person” of the Trinity) must be conceived of as a “finite creature” (“sobald man den Adam Kadmon endlich macht, so ist der Ursprung des Arianismi da”), for the Word that was with God and was God (Joh. 1) must simply be one with God, i.e. not a creature but a procession, “emanated” (ausgeflossen) or “begotten”, not made (cf. Gegenüberstellung hebräischer und zeitgenössischer Philosophie, §8). This line of argument is of course a common reply of Kabbalists – not only Christian but Jewish too – that have not seldom been accuse of “polytheism” by their exoteric coreligionists; namely that the sefirot pertain the “world of emanation” (olam ha-atziluth) and are thus not to be conceived of as “creatures” (like everything in the three lower worlds) but merely as certain grades of self-differentiation within the Godhead itself (and a similar line of thought is also found in Schuon who says concerning his Trinity of Non-being, Being, Existence, that they merely represent different “degrees of the divine Reality”, not pertaining to external manifestation as such).
We might remark at this point that the letter Vav (ו) in the centre of the Tetragrammaton has sometimes been interpreted as a downwards extension of the principal Yod (י), viz. the principal point Chockmah, designating the descent of the Word-made-flesh in the middle of time. The opinion that Vav symbolizes the Son is also not absent in the Ecclesial tradition. Thus already Joachim of Fiore wrote concerning the Tetragrammaton (which he Latinizes as IEUE): “I pertain to the Father, E to the Holy Spirit, U to the Son, and E to the Spirit again; not as if there were two Spirits, but to show that that He proceeds from the Father and the Son” (In Apoc. 37b) A similar interpretation also given by Albertus Magnus concerning the Name Ego sum Qui sum (the translation of the Tetragrammaton according to Jerome’s Vulgate, which follows the structure of YHWH quite magnificently): “‘Ego’ expresses the first person [grammatically]. It thus designates the Person of the Father, the Principle of the Trinity. ‘Qui’ refers to the subject by adding a determination: it implies a knowing, and thus designates the Son. ‘Sum’ denotes a substantial subject as an effect emanating from the one and the other. It signifies the Holy Spirit which proceeds from one Person to the other, according to the formula ‘Ego sum Qui sum’, I am that I am”.
The tradition that identifies “Macroprosupus” (i.e. Arikh Anpin or Keter) with the Father and “Microprosoupus” (Zeir Anpin) with the Son is of course only one more variation of this reading.
Zeir Anpin is thus also Ben-YaH, the “son of Yod-Heh” (viz. of Chockmah and Binah).
We might note here that the numerical value of YVD (10+6+4) is indeed the same as that of the double Yod (10+10).
This is at least our interpretation of the passage in question, which is admittedly quite obscure.
Cf. also Idra Zuta, XI.451: In the hollow of the Skull (of Microprosopus) shine three lights [which are Chockmah-Binah-Daath: YHV]. And although thou canst call them three, yet notwithstanding are there four [that is, YHVH]”. “Quand on est à trois, on est à quatre”; the three (YHV) begets the four (YHVH) just like three Borromean knots come together to form four intersecting spaces in between them, viz. three primary colors RGB (red, green, and blue) form four secondary colors with white in the centre.
its always intresting to see how common triads are in other faiths