Through meditating on and deconstructing names … Expand. View 2 excerpts, cites results. Problematic Use of Revelation in Dispensational Theologies. Mathematics, Computer Science. Language, Culture, Computation. Did Evagrius Ponticus AD —99 have obsessive—compulsive disorder?
Journal of medical biography. The Dying God. The ancient mysteries : a sourcebook of sacred texts. Preface 1. The mathematical hypothesis is expounded at length in The Theology of Arithmetic , a pseudepigrapha written by one of Iambilichus's followers[29].
Mathematics by dealing with the abstract rather than any given particular can reveal the patterns of the world more clearly than nature, although they are manifested there too. This interest in the deeper meaning of numbers is also profoundly Greek.
It reaches back at least as far as the mysterious Pythagoras who lived in the 6th century BC about whom sadly we have very little reliable information, though Iambilichus was to write a hagiographic life of him. It is also found in the works of Plato - particularly in the Timaeus. The Greek system of enumeration, like the later Roman one, used letters to substitute for numerical values and this led to the practice of isopsephy - the adding of the values of individual letters in a phrase to produce its number something which dates back at least to the third century BC[31].
It is from the Greeks that the ancient Jews borrowed their own system of numbers, ie the use of letters to stand for numerical values. This is seen for the first time on the coins of the Maccabees. That then leaves 15 letters which in turn is 2 short for the five Aristotlean elements. This awkwardness shows first that the ancient Jews were deeply interested in applying this system to their own alphabet, but also that it was they who had borrowed from the Geeks not vice versa.
We can see therefore that the core doctrines expressed in the Qabalah are not, at root, Jewish, but Greek. We can also see that out third condition is fulfilled - these two cultures were in constant contact and thus it is not surprising that ideas passed from one to the other. An earlier instance of such intellectual development in Judaism was the emergence of the notion of Satan who seems to be a variant of the Persian god of evil, Ahriman, whom the Jews encountered during their exile in Babylon.
In short the Qabalah is in fact an emanation of NeoPlatonism. The doctrines of Neo-Platonism were alive and well in the thirteenth century in both Provence and Spain. In the Jewish world we see them in the eleventh century work of Bar Chiyya Abraham Jaudaeus , a native of Barcelona who may well have moved to Narbonne, his contemporary, the poet Solomon Ibn Gabirol Avicebron and the great 12th century polymath Maimonides.
These doctrines were transferred to the West in particular by John Scottus Eriugena in the ninth century AD[34] and then developed by the philosophers of the School of Chartres in the 12th century[35].
Nor should we forget the Islamic philosophers Al-Farabi Alpharabius and Ibn Sina Avicenna - the latter of whom interestingly posited that there were 10 emanations from the Godhead each containing its own supernal triangle[36]. Given the intellectual world in which he lived, it is best to see Moses of Leon not as the conduit of some ancient tradition, but rather as an original philosopher who played a major role in applying the principles of Neo-Platonism to his own faith.
Where does this leave us? First we can see that Dion Fortune, though wrong in her belief that the Qabalah is an ancient doctrine, was right in her assertion that the different races of mankind have their own ways of apprehending the Godhead.
The glory of western man is his rationalism on which our civilisation has been founded. Plotinus seeks to give his reader the rational tools with which to apprehend the Godhead.
It is because the Qabalah is an emanation of this western tradition that it appeals so strongly to us[37]. Second, it is important to remember that true insights about being and existence neither gain nor lose additional merit from their age. The Qabalah thus loses nothing of its value through being a set of medieval rather than ancient dogmata.
Tradition is a living, not a static, thing and thus grows and develop. In particular, the Lurianic Qabalah in its discussion of an evil tree the Qliphoth deals with the question of evil in a more effective way than many neoPlatonic authors. However, it is also worth that seeing a work in its broader context can add to a greater understanding of it. One can gain much from reading Virgil alone, but one will gain more if one has also read Homer.
It is to be regretted in this respect that the lecture for the 4th grade of the society pays no attention to these important philosophers. At the very least we should all become familiar with the two great pagan Neo-Platonists of antiquity Plotinus and Proclus, and also St Augustine and the Pseudo-Dionysius, the ancient Christian writers most deeply affected by this philosophy.
To those luminaries we should add the great renaissance synthesisers of neoplatonism and the qabalah, Marsilio Ficino and Pico della Mirandola. This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, from students of Ancient History and early Christianity, to Qabalists and modern magicians. Includes are appendices. The Hermetic Qabalah is a fluid, living spiritual system that finds new exegesis in Liber AL vel Legis; the central and most important document of Thelemic Doctrine.
And it's in the Greek Qabalah that we find the initial starting point for all of Western culture and philosophy, art and science. Thelemic Qabalah. The first of a four-volume set; covering the theoretical aspects of the Holy Qabalah from a Thelemic perspective. He is also aware of the New Age interest in these matters and has included extensive appendices for those who might wish to make practical use of the Greek techniques.
Description This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, from students bqrry Ancient History and early Christianity, to Qabalists and modern magicians. Send email to list-subscribe blather. To send periodic emails The email address Users provide for order processing, will only be used to send them information and updates pertaining to their order.
Many thanks to the writer and the publisher. Its dualism makes it more Zoroastrian than Christian and Barry even argues that it should not have been incorporated into the New Testament.
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