De arte cabalistica

«What Simon says and thinks about the Kabbalists and what you say and think about the Pythagoreans seem to me to be exactly the same.» — el reconocimiento mutuo entre las dos tradiciones.

Define la Cábala como recepción de la revelación por símbolos: «Kabbalah is the receiving of this through symobls» [sic «symobls», errata del impreso].

Distingue tres clases de iniciados: los Kabbalici que reciben del aliento celestial, los Kabbalaei sus pupilos, y los Kabbalistae que imitan sin revelación.

La doctrina de los nombres divinos: los doce reordenamientos del Tetragrámaton considerados una sola esencia (p. 339); los trece atributos invocados por Moisés en Éxodo 34 (p. 337); «LA» significa 'no', «AL» significa 'Dios' — la reversión de dos letras invierte negación y deidad (p. 339).

El nombre de cuarenta y dos letras, «Holy and Sanctified», obtenido de la primera permutación del alfabeto Albath y dividido en siete palabras de tres letras (6×7=42); solo los sumos sacerdotes podían pronunciar el Tetragrámaton, cada año de ayuno y expiación.

Los Semhamaphores [grafía de la edición] son los setenta y dos nombres que explican el Tetragrámaton, derivados aritméticamente (Y=10, YH=15, YHV=21, YHVH=26 suman 72) y por los tres versos de Éxodo 14 dispuestos verticalmente.

Pitágoras como cabalista: la lista de sus maestros no griegos (Zora el egipcio, Anacharsis el escita, Zamolxis el tracio, los druidas, los magi de Persia, los brahmanes) y el dictum de Numenio —Platón no es sino Moisés hablando griego ático, en glosa nuestra—.

La Tetractys es el Tetragrámaton griego: «Tetractys ↔ Quaternidad», cuya suma 1+2+3+4 produce el diez sagrado; «Pythagoras said that the mind of God was number».

«When you cast aside the body you come to the free aether, you will be a god and immortal.» — de los Golden Verses.

El origen pitagórico del libre albedrío: Simon lo atribuye a que Pitágoras tomó estas ideas de los cabalistas hebreos.

El nombre eterno se parte en YH/VYH/YHY, que corresponden a la esencia de Ser, al mérito y al concepto de «qué» (Mah); y KVZV equivale a YHVH AHD, «Dios Uno», por intercambio de letras.

El nombre de doce letras «Av Ben veRuakh haKadosh» — Padre, Hijo y Espíritu Santo: la lectura trinitaria explícita.

El nombre efable cristiano: junto al «Nombre inefable» se pone «IES V», y el pentagrámaton YHSVH se da por la mejor pronunciación del Nombre divino; la cruz por gematría: SLM y 'S suman ambas 150.

Los diez sefirot: «There are ten sephiroth, without which nothing—ten, not nine; ten, not eleven»; se representan como raíz, tronco, ramas y corteza, o cabeza, hombros y piernas.

Escala letra→orden angélico (Aleph→Hayoth hakodesh, Beth→Ophanim…) y letra→esfera planetaria (Lamed→Saturno, Mem abierto→Júpiter, Nun abierto→Sol…, Thau→la humanidad).

Las técnicas: las cinco partes de la Cábala reducidas a tres caminos por número, forma y peso; «a word may be substituted for a word, or a letter for a word, or a letter for a letter»; ejemplo canónico YShMH ('reirá') → MShYH ('Mesías').

El peligro de la vocalización: «ZKR, without pointing, denoted both "memory" and "male," and so caused Saul's destruction» — con el paralelo griego Phos = 'hombre' y 'luz'.

El relato del hombre de arcilla: por orden de la Bath Qol, Jeremías estudió el Libro de la Creación tres años; al quitar la aleph de Emeth el nombre pasa a significar muerte.

La cadena de transmisión de la Cábala (Ezra → Simeón el Justo → … → Hillel y Shammai → Johanan ben Zakkai), que hace a Joshua ben Perachya maestro de un cierto Jesús de Nazaret en el periodo macabeo — anacronismo de la tradición talmúdica, consignado tal cual.

La voz de Marranus trae el paraíso coránico: las dos clases de paraíso de las suras se leen como mundos visible e invisible, empalmadas con la doctrina cabalística de los dos paraísos — el punto de sutura entre la voz musulmana y la judía.

Cuatro arcángeles / cuatro demonios con los mismos elementos invertidos: Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, Raphael frente a Samael, Azazel, Azael, Mahazael.

El En Sof como alfa y omega: el Infinito se describe como principio y fin del cosmos; y Belimah, «más allá de lo inefable».

El diálogo incorpora el proceso contra Reuchlin: el ban contra el Espejo Ocular "posted on the doors of all public buildings and churches in Rome", impuesto por «Astarotus», y la autodefensa ante León X: «All the learned of every nation are on my side.»

Consigna que el término «Kabbalistae» fue introducido al latín por Pico della Mirandola; y cita sus Conclusiones: "Meaningless sounds have more magical power than meaningful ones".

«Nothing flourished as did Florence then: all those dead arts were there reborn; no aspect of language or literature was left untouched by those celebrated men.» — Capnion abre la dedicatoria a León X con el cuadro del renacer florentino como escena de origen de su propio proyecto.

«Marsilio put Greek into Latin; Poliziano put Latin into Greek.» — el reparto del trabajo humanista florentino, en el que Capnion inscribe después su propia tarea.

«I entered Florence on or about 20 March 1482.» — la fecha con que Capnion data su visita a la corte de los Medici.

«Having found that, except for some desultory and obscure work in the Laurentian Academy, the work of Pythagoras alone has not been touched by scholars, I thought it might give you pleasure if I brought to light the beliefs of Pythagoras and his followers, that you might enjoy unknown authors in the Latin.» — el hueco que Capnion dice venir a llenar: Pitágoras es lo único que la Academia no tocó.

«I tell my story as an outsider.» — la posición que el autor se asigna en su propio marco narrativo, sin tomar partido entre los tres interlocutores.

«In my tale, two men come separately to Frankfurt in order to visit one Simon, a Jew with knowledge of Kabbalah.» — el planteo del diálogo dicho por su autor en la dedicatoria.

«PHILOLAUS: My name is Philolaus. By nationality I am an Alan,1 by persuasion a Pythagorean.» — el pitagórico se presenta como alano; el estudio introductorio de la misma edición lo llama fenicio, y las dos lecturas quedan aquí sin armonizar.

«MARRANUS: I come from Byzantium, the city of Constantine, which a lot of people call New Rome.» — la procedencia del interlocutor musulmán.

«MARRANUS: None in particular. I am not bound by the rules of any school of thought.» — Marrano se declara sin escuela, condición que la obra le da para hacer de bisagra entre las otras dos voces.

«I do not want to be prevented by the constraints of any sectarianism from freely defending what my conscience allows.» — el motivo que Marrano da para no adscribirse.

«There are more than ten thousand students there, from Persia, Greece, Latium, and Jewry, all in the one university.» — Marrano describe el estudio de Constantinopla como espacio donde las cuatro procedencias conviven.

«They say that Pythagoras derived most of his ideas from this source.» — Filolao enuncia, al llegar, la tesis que el diálogo entero desplegará.

«The Pythagorean is he who gives credence to what is said, remains silent to begin with, and understands all the precepts.» — la definición del pitagórico por el crédito y el silencio, que la obra hará equivaler a la recepción cabalística.

«About twenty-three years ago (in 5238 according to your way of calculating from the Creation3), 420,000 Jews were expelled from Spain.» — la expulsión de España como dato de la conversación, con la cifra y el cómputo que da la obra.

«SIMON: I am both. I am a Jew and I am Simon.» — la presentación del cabalista, con la que la obra funde nombre y condición.

«No, it is just news of you that brings us, for we should like you to explain to us the philosophical method of Kabbalah.» — el pedido con que arranca el diálogo: no la doctrina, sino el método.

«It is by these means that the mind of man, so far as nature allows, achieves that Godlike state which is the zenith of Blessedness.» — Simón fija el fin de la Cábala en la semejanza con Dios hasta donde la naturaleza lo permite; la reserva va dentro de la frase.

«(The Greeks call it telos — you could use the words “far point,” “the ultimate” or “end.”)» — Simón nombra en griego el término al que llega su exposición del fin humano.

«In that state man’s life lacks nothing; it is a life of absolute, unimpeded blessedness: by means of symbolism, all earthly things are thrown away, and the stuff of matter is cast off; we strip Form from Form, until we reach the primal Form, that is both the Form of all things and yet without Form.» — la vía simbólica descrita como despojamiento sucesivo de formas hasta la Forma primera.

«Thus the very world of living things exists by virtue of the living God, who in his name, Adonai, flows through all life, and so we understand Joshua’s phrase: “The living God is among you, and will scatter in your sight the forces massed against you.”» — el nombre Adonai como el cauce por el que la vida divina corre por lo vivo.

«These are “Lying,” “Sprouting,” “Living,” and “Speaking.”» — los cuatro grados de lo existente con que Simón ordena el mundo sensible, de lo inerte a lo racional.

«In making man, God went one better than nature, as is told in the holy story, and fashioned him out of the dust of the earth and the breath of life.» — la doble materia del hombre, polvo y aliento, como fundamento de todo lo que sigue.

«This is what used to be called “deification,” when exterior sense passes from the immediate object to the inner sense, and that passes to the imagination, imagination to thought, thought to reason, reason to understanding, understanding to reflection, and reflection to the light which enlightens man and clasps to itself that enlightenment.» — la deificación descrita como cadena cognitiva que va del objeto externo a la luz que ilumina.

«This seems to have been correctly observed by the Kabbalists, who thought that the Beauty of the physical world should be placed in the middle of the tree by which the ten sephiroth are numbered» — la Belleza en el eje medio del árbol, sefirá central por la que pasa la cadena.

«He intended man to realize by native wit that he is part both of the elements and of this worldly kingdom, as is shown by the strife and friendship of which Empedocles spoke —the same qualities are denoted in the Sephirot by the words Netzah and Hor.» — Simón hace corresponder la discordia y la amistad de Empédocles con dos sefirot.

«In the first state the body stops and the soul (anima) takes over; this is called “animal.”» — el primero de los tres estados del ser con que Simón escalona lo vivo.

«The mind is mistress of all of these, since with light from above it illumines and makes complete man’s intellect.» — la mente por encima de los estados, y su luz recibida de arriba.

«If man were incapable of achieving godliness, then in vain would nature have given him the yearning for it,» — el argumento desde el deseo: si la naturaleza dio la aspiración, sostiene, la meta le compete.

«through the fear of God, and the hallowing of him, by the fear and loving-kindness spread out over him, man can apprehend God in His simplicity through these three methods: Crown, Wisdom, and Understanding.» — las tres sefirot superiores como los tres modos del acceso a Dios.

«This then is the end of man, to which nature formed and made him: to walk like the animals with his feet on the ground, but alone of all the creatures to hold discourse, head held high, with the angels in heaven.» — la definición del hombre por su doble pertenencia, en la voz de Simón.

«This is what the Kabbalists taught on Sechel, Sandalphon, and Mettattron.» — los tres nombres a los que Simón remite la doctrina del intelecto.

«assert that intellect reinstates the Creator, the prime cause of all causes, on his throne» — la fórmula con que Simón lee el mandato del libro de Abraham: reponer al Creador en su trono es acto del intelecto.

«as the commentator on the tree of the ten sephiroth writes, where he states that the rabbis interpreted the words of the prophet: “In your light we shall see light” as meaning: “In the flood of understanding that flows from You, we have understanding and are put right.”» — la lectura rabínica del versículo como unión del intelecto con su objeto.

«On this, Rabbi Joseph of Castile mentions in his book, The Nut Garden: “You should know that because the understanding spirit is infused in men and represents the perfect form within him, it is itself called fire.”» — el espíritu comprensivo llamado fuego, según Gikatilla, a quien la edición nombra de Castilla.

«First we need to know the ethics and morality of sensible people, so that we avoid base behavior, aiming for integrity.» — el orden del currículo cabalístico empieza por la moral, antes que por las ciencias.

«Hence the concurring opinion of the Kabbalists, that: “Indulging your lust, your evil inclinations, as do the stupid, destroys the desire for speculation.”» — la condición moral dicha en negativo: el vicio no solo estorba el estudio, apaga el deseo de especular.

«On nature, Rabbi Judah Halevi writes in his book, Alcozer: “The principal cause of motion and rest is in things themselves; it does not come about by accident» — Simón cita el Kuzari, que la edición nombra Alcozer, sobre la causa interna del movimiento.

«Was it not to Abraham that it was said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them,” but he could not, although he was in his time, according to Maimonides, a celebrated astrologer.» — el límite del saber humano ejemplificado en el propio Abraham astrólogo.

«He says: “Mathematical knowledge was still not perfect at the time of Aristotle.”» — la cita con que Simón relativiza el estado de la matemática antigua.

«Aristotle elaborates on this saying (in the first volume of the fine works that follow his natural history), that the possession of such knowledge is not something human; because it is rarely achieved — scarcely one man in a thousand has it — it seems to sink in by divine agency more than be acquired» — la rareza del acceso, apoyada en Aristóteles, y con ella el paso de la adquisición a la gracia.

«I do not want it to be thought that all old men, no matter who they are, are theologians; “old men” include in their number the loquacious and the argumentative, those tainted by all kinds of vice, from pride, hypocrisy, and avarice to hate and jealousy, and often lust, under cover of religion; all of them following their animal bent, neglecting the light of the mind.» — la edad no basta: Simón acota de inmediato el requisito de madurez que acaba de poner.

«As Solomon says: “Iron sharpens iron —blunt metal gives way to polishing —and when the work is done, wisdom follows.”» — el pulido mutuo como método, frente al razonamiento solitario.

«This pupil, so discreet, so preciously clever, knew that a man is not suited to such lofty sublime wisdom till the heat of desire is dead, a young man’s ardor cooled, till he is far advanced in years and has grown into natural goodness —and that is the only appropriate quality brought by old age —goodness, steady integrity in life.» — la condición de edad y temple para la contemplación de la Merkavá, con su restricción dicha en la misma frase.

«Information transmitted from the senses to the intellect is acquired by persistent study and careful reasoning, but what is transferred from the intellect to the mind, to the light of the mind, takes on the character of the divine; there is no human form with which to clothe it.» — el corte entre lo que se aprende y lo que se recibe, que es donde la obra sitúa la Cábala.

«Thus, in the ancient writings: “Moshe kibbel” —“Moses heard,” and received the law at Sinai.» — la etimología con que Simón funda el término: recibir lo oído, desde Moisés.

«The Kabbalist Azariel Bar Salomon of Garonne writes this: “None of the prophets was strong enough to hear the words proceeding from the mouth of God, save Moses.”» — la excepción mosaica, en cita de Azriel de Gerona.

«Without it none can achieve something as elusive, as difficult, as the apprehension of the divine.» — el alegato de necesidad con que Simón cierra la presentación de su arte.

«Those who are given this by the breath of heaven are known as Kabbalics; their pupils we will call Kabbalaeans; and those who attempt the imitation of these are properly called Kabbalists.» — los tres grados de iniciación, con su jerarquía descendente de recepción, discipulado e imitación.

«PHILOLAUS: Marranus, you have cast off onto a great sea that is hard to cross, and you are not yet into port.» — el pitagórico frena el entusiasmo del musulmán: lo expuesto es apenas el umbral.

«I do not want you to credit the falsehood asserted by some ridiculous sophists —either they haven’t thought about it or they are just ignorant — when they say that “Kabbalah” was a man whose heretical ideas came from the devil and that all Kabbalists are heretics.» — Simón sale al paso de la acusación de herejía y de la fábula que hace de la Cábala un hombre.

«This knowledge is nobler; where the light of the mind falls upon the intellect, and moves our free will to believe.» — el asentimiento cabalístico descrito como movimiento del libre albedrío, no como conclusión forzada.

«I have persevered with this a little to stop you from thinking that divine matters are subject to the finding of weak humanity and to the so-called rules of logic.» — el motivo declarado de la insistencia de Simón contra la lógica.

«Rather, you want the primal, all-embracing, special revelation of the divine, to which all individual revelations can be brought back» — Simón reduce la pregunta por las revelaciones a una sola, de la que las demás derivan.

«“Adam came to every beast and living thing but was not sensually aroused until he came to Woman.” This saying has been twisted by men with warped minds, or rather by the devil incarnate or deadly evil spirits —though how people can believe such a malicious lie, I do not know.» — Simón denuncia la tergiversación del dicho rabínico que se usa contra los judíos.

«These perverts try to incite all good Christians to turn against us, though we live blamelessly and peaceably observing the laws of the state.» — la queja del personaje judío contra la incitación, dicha en presente y en la propia ciudad del diálogo.

«The Hebrew word bo never means copulate, though, where the subject matter requires, it may be understood metaphorically as a euphemism for copulation, as in Genesis 16, where “Go in to my maid; it may be that I may have children by her,” uses the word bo.» — la refutación se hace por filología, y con la concesión del uso eufemístico incluida.

«the first man, now lord of the world, spontaneously gave a name to everything, which teaches us that this resulted from voluntary powers, not instinct.» — la nominación como prueba de voluntad y razón en Adán.

«So, according to Maimonides, he understood that he was to die in sin.» — la muerte que Adán deduce no es la del cuerpo sino la del pecado, según la lectura maimonidiana que Simón adopta.

«In the commentary on the Book of the Creation, the Kabbalists write: “Our fathers’ teachers were famous angels. Raziel was Adam’s.”» — la cadena de maestros angélicos que abre la transmisión, con Raziel al principio.

«I ask you Philolaus, and you Marranus, learned as you are, to understand that my religious obligations prevent me from exposing hidden, sacred mysteries to outsiders with no initiation into Jewish rites.» — la reserva que el personaje judío opone a sus interlocutores antes de seguir.

«As it is written in the Talmud: “The secrets of the Law are given only to men of good counsel, to the sages, who teach the young, and to wise men of learning and intellect.”» — la regla de reserva citada del Talmud, que Simón dice acatar y en seguida flexibiliza.

«We may infer from this that there is one heavenly Adam, the one shown to the angels in heaven, an Adam from God, made by his word, and another, earthly Adam, fashioned from clay by the hand of God, and driven out of the garden.» — los dos Adán, el celestial engendrado por la palabra y el terrestre de barro.

«Onkelos interprets this, in the Chaldaic, as “Behold, Adam was my only son,” that is, the only one begotten by me in eternity.» — la lectura de Onkelos con que Simón lleva el Adán celestial hacia la filiación única.

«Adam told all of this openly to his wife, and, so that posterity should remember and give thanks, he built an altar and began sacrifice.» — el origen del sacrificio en la transmisión de la promesa angélica.

«He tried to reach it with his hand, so that what he got from the Tree he might consume and destroy — hence the name “Abel.”» — la etimología con que la obra explica al segundo hijo por su relación con el árbol.

«He was happy when he saw Cain brandishing the branch of a tree or a wooden club, threatening to kill him, for he hoped that it would be by wood that he was to die.» — Abel muere por madera y lo desea, dentro del hilo que hace de la madera el remedio del pecado.

«There were no iron weapons before Tubulcain, the first smith, who forged bronze and iron for all purposes.» — el dato con que la obra data el arma y sostiene la lectura anterior.

«Even so, one day the original debt will be altogether absolved, and an acceptable offering, an appointed victim will come forward ready to absolve us.» — la deuda queda abierta y su cancelación diferida a una víctima señalada.

«Adam still held in mind the Kabbalah he had received from Raziel: that from his seed would be born a savior.» — la promesa como contenido primero de la Cábala, retenido de generación en generación.

«I must add that he did not actually produce demons and changelings as some of the vulgar and irreverent have falsely claimed.» — Simón descarta la leyenda demonológica sobre la descendencia de Adán.

«It was thought, indeed strongly hoped, that his name would accord with the kabbalah of the angel, the four-letter name, YHWH, or be at the least, “in mercy” or, more Kabbalistically, that he would have the letter S between the four letters.» — el criterio con que la obra evalúa cada nombre patriarcal: si contiene o no las cuatro letras.

«Their names all signify events: whether in the past, like Cain, indicating that he was possessed; or present, like Enos, indicating a man, or future, as Abel, indicating that he would brirjg grief to his parents.» — la doctrina del nombre como signo de un hecho, en pasado, presente o futuro; la capa de texto imprime *brirjg* por bring.

«A Kabbalistic touch: he put his trust in wood15 (as Job says, “There is hope in wood”), and by doing so he was made certain that through wood life was promised to man.» — el arca de Noé leída dentro del mismo hilo de la madera salvadora.

«In Kabbalist tradition this is “He makes it known that Shem will be God’s servant,” as Nachmanides wrote.» — la bendición de Sem leída como designación de siervo, según Ramban.

«Zadkiel was his familiar angel — the Kabbalists write: “The teacher of Abraham was Zadkiel.”» — el ángel instructor de Abraham, dentro de la serie que empezó con Raziel.

«From him he received the same Kabbalah as Adam, the first man, had had from Raziel.» — la identidad del contenido a través de la cadena: lo transmitido es siempre lo mismo.

«According to the prophecy, after all, the original fault could only have wood for its remedy.» — la regla que ordena todo el relato patriarcal en la exposición de Simón.

«Now had Isaac not received from his father the Kabbalah that human salvation would derive from the wood of life, and the offering of a just man, he would not have reached out willingly and so receptively to the death he saw hanging before his eyes — all living things find it hard to die —but, as is only human, he would have cringed at the drawn sword,» — la disposición de Isaac se explica por la Cábala recibida, y la resistencia natural a morir queda dicha dentro de la misma frase.

«Our rabbis worked out, in the writings of Rabbi Eliezer, with the agreement of Maimonides and Rabbi Joseph Gikatilla in his book Gates of Justice, that the holy city of Jerusalem was built there on the same spot.» — la identificación de Moriah con Jerusalén, con sus tres autoridades.

«The word of God fell on Isaac too, brought from heaven by the angel Raphael: “In your seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed,” emphasizing that he was not the Savior.» — el procedimiento del relato: cada patriarca recibe la promesa y con ella la noticia de que no es él.

«He was the first man to see the gate of heaven opened, and a ladder reaching from earth to heaven, and on it he saw, while praying, the four letters YHWH.» — la escalera de Jacob leída como visión del Tetragrámaton.

«There he set up the stone he had anointed as a shrine, known as Bethel, and by his labor added in an S, which by the Notariacon method signifies shemen, or “anointing oil.”» — la letra S entra en el relato por la unción de Betel, preparando el Pentagrámaton.

«By this he prophesied clearly that a savior of the human race would be born from Judah in the last days, that there would be Shiloh, that he would wield a king’s scepter, and that all nations would flow to him.» — la profecía de Génesis 49 leída como anuncio del Mesías de Judá.

«Shiloh, according to Onkelos’s Syriac rendering, means “the anointed” in Chaldaic; him we call the Messiah.» — la traducción de la que depende la identificación.

«He was told everything concerning the root of the original Fall and the manner of the restoration by his angel Metattron.» — Metatrón como el ángel que instruye sobre la Caída y la restauración.

«He knew that he was not of the tribe of Judah, but of the house of Levi,» — la razón que la obra da para que Moisés se excuse: la promesa era de Judá.

«Rashi said: “Your light is the Kingdom of the Messiah, as in the writing ‘I have prepared a lamp for my Messiah.’ ”» — la lectura de Rashi que hace de la luz el reino mesiánico.

«Messiah, through whom would come salvation to the world, would be a prince of peace, as the Kabbalah revealed to him: “In those days peace will abound, till the moon is swept away.”» — el Mesías como príncipe de paz, y de ahí el nombre que David da a Salomón.

«This will be the “Solomon” who builds a loftier temple, eternal, unshakeable.» — el Salomón que la obra espera no es el histórico sino el que levanta el templo permanente.

«So the Kabbalists write: “The Temple below is laid out in accordance with the Temple above.”» — el principio de correspondencia aplicado al templo.

«As Jeremiah wrote in Lamentations, “Our fathers have sinned, not we ourselves, and we have borne their iniquities.”» — el pecado heredado dicho con el versículo que sostiene la doctrina de la deuda original.

«Jonathan ben Uzziah has a similar interpretation, for he renders “Prince of Peace” in the phrase above as “Messiah of Peace” in Chaldaean.» — la versión aramea que refuerza la lectura mesiánica de Isaías.

«One man handing on to another18 —in the same way as the scholastics did —Ezra to Simeon the Just, High Priest and head of the synagogue, he to Antigonus and his companions, who included Zadok and Bethus, originators of the heresies known as Zadokian and Bethusian,19 (as Judah Halevi writes in his third lecture in Alcosder).» — el primer tramo de la cadena de transmisión, con los dos discípulos que la obra da por herejes.

«Such are the masters of Kabbalah: all Kabbalists have followed their pronouncements and what remains of their allegorical explanations of Holy Scripture.» — el cierre de la cadena: lo que queda de esos maestros es el resto alegórico.

«The use of the term “Kabbalists,” or “Kabbalics,” was first introduced to the Latin by Pico della Mirandola. Before him it was unknown.» — la obra data la entrada del término al latín y le pone autor.

«There are, I believe, countless Kabbalists. Nor is there much point in counting them up.» — Simón se resiste al censo que le piden antes de dar su lista.

«But since you insist I shall go over, somewhat perfunctorily, some of those whose books on Kabbalistic contemplation are in everyday use — as many as I can remember.» — el criterio con que la lista se arma: uso corriente y memoria, no exhaustividad.

«Nor can I boast with Mirandola of having, like Ezra who once ordered the seventy to write out volumes on the secrets of Kabbalah, spent vast sums collecting books.» — la pulla a la biblioteca de Pico, y de paso la leyenda de los setenta volúmenes de Ezra.

«The less learned among us for our part, however, use the book of Abraham our father, entitled On the Creation.» — el Sepher Yetzirah atribuido a Abraham y puesto como lectura de los menos doctos.

«There are also Abraham Abulafia’s books on Kabbalah; Ramban’s distinguished commentaries (Ramban is Rabbi Moses ben Nachman, sometimes known as “Gerundensis” in Latin.» — la lista de autoridades, con la desambiguación de siglas que la obra hace expresa.

«Rambam’s Guide to the Perplexed (note the spelling with an “m” at the end; this is Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, the “Egyptian Moses”).» — la distinción entre Ramban y Rambam, advertida por la letra final.

«There is The Gates of Righteousness, by Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, and The Gate of Light, supposed to have been written by the same Joseph in Spain;» — las dos obras de Gikatilla, la segunda con su atribución dicha como supuesta.

«Finally the very gracefully written book on Kabbalah called Alkusari, written in Arabic by Rabbi Judah Halevi to discredit bad philosophers.» — el Kuzari cerrando la lista, con su propósito polémico declarado.

«I will not include the book inscribed “to Solomon” under Raziel’s name. It is occult nonsense.» — Simón excluye de su canon el libro de Raziel dirigido a Salomón, y con eso marca el borde de lo que admite.

«In my opinion there is no one writing on Kabbalah as clever, clear, or lucid as Rabbi Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla, who comes from Salemita.» — la valoración con que la obra encabeza a Gikatilla entre los cabalistas.

«The whole book is called The Nut Garden', as in the song of Solomon: “I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley.”» — el título del conjunto de Gikatilla y el versículo de donde sale.

«Kabbalah is that golden heavenly apple, wrapped in silver thread, bound up in complicated rules and human skills — as is the case with goldsmiths’ work, when they skillfully ornament a sweet-smelling golden apple yet do not mask it completely in silver.» — la alegoría con que se separa la Cábala misma de su arte: oro dentro, plata alrededor.

«And as gold differs from silver, so Kabbalah from Kabbalistic art, though both are facets of the same kind of spiritual insight.» — la distinción queda hecha sin romper la unidad: son dos caras de un mismo discernimiento.

«The Kabbalists write: “Work on Bereshith brings wisdom in nature. Work on the Merkavah brings wisdom in divine things.”» — el reparto de las dos labores, la del principio y la del carro.

«Each of these wisdoms is of this world, for their subject matter is the world, and they are founded in it.» — el límite que la obra pone a las dos labores: ambas siguen siendo de este mundo.

«On this the Talmudists and Kabbalists agree: that there are two worlds.» — el punto de acuerdo del que arranca la comparación entre las dos escuelas.

«The Talmudist, on the other hand, remains in the world of the senses.» — el reparto de posiciones que la obra atribuye a cada escuela.

«Whenever Talmudists and Kabbalists juggle their studies between them, now this side, now that, it is a safe generalization that, as befits the contrasting lives of action and contemplation, using the same passage of Holy Scripture the Talmudists will extract the message of a slave’s fear, while the Kabbalist will extract one of a son’s love.» — la diferencia se juega sobre el mismo versículo: temor de siervo contra amor de hijo.

«We can define the Talmudist as a man who interprets the Law in accordance with the author’s intentions.» — la definición del talmudista por la intención del autor, frente a la lectura simbólica.

«They say: “Taken as a whole the Law intends two things: that the soul be well ordered, and the body well ordered.”» — los dos fines de la Ley, que la obra repartirá luego entre las dos escuelas.

«So the heavens and the earth were finished, and everything belonging to them, which are the four elements that are said to have been first called darkness, the spirit of the Lord, the waters under the firmament, and the dry land.» — los cuatro primordiales que la obra identifica en el relato del Génesis.

«Another reading of “heaven” is “an inflow of fire,” from esh vemayim, meaning “fire and water,” instead of shemayim, “heaven.”» — la etimología que descompone el cielo en fuego y agua.

«He alone of all creatures was granted free will, and to prevent its abuse, laws were made for him, constitutions published, and punishment threatened for wrongdoing.» — el libre albedrío como privilegio y como razón de la ley.

«But the Kabbalists posit two worlds, one physical and the other not —the visible and the invisible; one of the senses, the other of the mind; one of matter, the other of ideas —the lower world and the higher.» — el desdoblamiento del cosmos en cuatro pares de términos.

«Reading “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,” they understand “heaven” as symbolizing the highest and “earth” the lowest, in this way interpreting it as “In the beginning God created the highest and the lowest.”» — la lectura simbólica del primer versículo.

«For which reason, the book of the Law concerning God’s creation begins with the letter beth, which is also the arithmetical figure 2;27 and therefore by Notaricon, the notion is introduced that principally God created “two,” the whole higher world and everything within it, and the whole lower world and all that belongs to it.» — la beth inicial leída por Notaricon como cifra de la doble creación.

«If Moses had written reshit instead of b’reshit, the passage would still be translated no differently from the existing “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”» — el argumento por la letra sobrante: si nada cambia en la traducción, la beth está ahí por otra razón.

«So, in “heaven” everything spiritual is seen to be included, everything from aleph to tau, from beginning to end, and in the same way, in “earth” is contained everything physical from top to toe; and nonetheless, each individual thing was created in that beginning as if it were the only one.» — aleph y tau como principio y fin, y la reserva de que cada cosa fue creada como única.

«Just as Ezekiel has a wheel within a wheel, rolled into each other, in which the glory of God is seen undivided, so Rabbi Saadia writes inn his book Items of Faith that it is “like the yolk in the middle of an egg,” to quote his words.» — las dos imágenes del encaje de los mundos, la rueda y la yema.

«In the second, sensible world, there are nine spheres moved by unmoving fires, of which Metattron keeps continuing control.» — Metatrón al mando del mundo sensible en la arquitectura de la obra.

«The elements are named in turn: fire is seraph, air is cherub, water tharsis, land ariel, and whatever is in the lower world is very much better named in the upper.» — la correspondencia de los cuatro elementos con cuatro nombres angélicos.

«it was decided that there are also two paradises, one in heaven, one on earth, where heavenly man and earthly man pursue the prize of virtue.» — los dos paraísos como consecuencia de la doble naturaleza del hombre.

«both in Kabbalah and in Talmud, is known as the “speculation that enlightens,” or that enables one to see —what you call the intuitive cognition of God.» — el nombre técnico de la intuición de Dios, común a las dos escuelas.

«The Kabbalists say: “Before a man grasps this intuition, his soul is separated from him.”» — la condición extrema que la obra pone a esa intuición.

«they posit two paradises for man’s dual nature, physical and spiritual, and in accord with his double reward, saying “The Garden of Eden, the rivers and all the different things you see in Genesis are ordered according to the intellectual Forms above.”» — el Edén del Génesis leído como copia del orden inteligible.

«They write: “The just, even in death, are called living, and the wicked, even in their lifetimes, are called dead.”» — la inversión de vida y muerte con que la obra ordena premio y castigo.

«the death you die will come from him, and not in the body, but in the spirit.» — la muerte de la sentencia original leída como espiritual.

«We Kabbalists, on the other hand, I think more correctly, believe that the Messiah will come to free the wretched men of the human race from the chains of the original breach of justice, to let their sins fall, to save the souls of those who loyally serve God, souls our father Adam shut out of eternal life until the Messiah makes amends.» — la función del Mesías dicha como liberación del pecado original, no como restauración política.

«It should come about rather in humility and tolerance, not with horses and chariots, but in the name of the Lord our God; not in victories nor in human triumphs, but in work, in simplicity, vigilance, strength of mind, a contempt for heresy, compassionate mercy, and especially in love of God, in men choosing the right, and, at the last, in a heroic, free, and willing death.» — el modo de la reparación, opuesto término a término al triunfo militar.

«The Talmudists attempt to make the liberation of the royal Messiah relate to our physical captivity —our dispersion —and hence refer to upheaval, the noise of fighting, to military expeditions, border attacks, scorched-earth policies, and the victory of an Israelite army, like Moses’ actions against the Canaanites and Philistines that we read about.» — la lectura contraria, atribuida a los talmudistas y expuesta sin armonizarla.

«The true Messiah, if we have worked this out properly, is most clearly seen in one single noble chapter in Isaiah, the one that begins: “Behold, my servant shall understand . . . ,” and which finishes, “and he shall pray for sinners.”» — el capítulo de Isaías que la obra pone como prueba principal, con sus dos extremos.

«telling this to you alone, in confidence —namely that Rabbi Solomon and David Kimhi, two coreligionists who were quite knowledgeable men, made, whether through a lapse in concentration or through embarrassment—“not in front of the Gentiles” —and I don’t know which it was, this severe interpretation of the whole passage, which is that it refers only to the people of Israel in the Dispersion — even though the prophecy quite clearly concerns the Messiah himself, as is explained in pseudo-Johnathan’s translation.» — Simón atribuye a Rashi y a Kimhi la lectura colectiva del siervo y declara no saber si fue descuido o cautela.

«And since he is a just servant of God, he will make many just by their acceptance of him; he himself will bear their iniquities, remove the sins of many, and intercede for sinners.» — el siervo de Isaías leído en clave de expiación sustitutiva.

«The way follows a route of seven exchanges, which are thirteen orders of forgiveness by which the world is to be guided until there be an end to sin and the Messiah come who is the strength of God.» — los siete intercambios y las trece órdenes de perdón como esquema de la salvación.

«There is a way showing the strength of grace that has been bestowed, which is a created strength.» — la fuerza mesiánica se dice creada, no increada.

«Behold the seven methods employed by the Messiah to bring wellbeing to good men and to destroy the evil, as it is written: “And with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.”» — el arma del Mesías es la palabra, y así lo subraya el versículo.

«These words come from the Kabbalistic book mentioned above which warns us that the kingly Messiah conquers the enemies of God’s people not with his hands, but with his words;» — la aclaración explícita del medio: palabra, no mano.

«There is a piece on this in the Kabbalistic book Hacadma: “And this is the secret of the king Messiah who will come swiftly, in our days.» — la fuente que Reuchlin llama Hacadma, sobre el secreto del rey Mesías.

«All his work will begin with the VH and the YH, which is the mystery of the seventh day and this name is his whole name, and everything is accomplished by his hand.» — el pasaje del que Idel discute la lectura: aquí las dos mitades del Nombre aparecen juntas.

«Not that the number of days leads to its being called a mystery; it is rather the passage from a life of action to a life of contemplation, consisting in peace of mind, quietness and calm, and setting ourselves apart from the trouble and material cares of this world.» — el séptimo día leído como paso de la acción a la contemplación, no como cuenta de días.

«According to the Kabbalists, the Messiah has only one name, the unpronounceable YHWH.» — la tesis sobre el nombre mesiánico en su forma más escueta.

«No meddling Talmudist will crawl around this teaching, for the great Rav himself, in a well-known passage in the Talmud, said that the name of the Messiah will come to be called something like “Hanina,” that is, mercy;» — la misericordia como núcleo del nombre, apoyada en el propio Talmud.

«There are no other letters by which “mercy” by itself can be denoted —only the five: Y, H, W, H, and S.» — las cinco letras del Pentagrámaton presentadas como las únicas que dicen misericordia.

«On the letter S, any Kabbalist who knows anything about Kabbalistic Gematria will agree that the numerical value of the letter S comprises the other four letters, and that it also possesses the same properties of clemency and mercy.» — la letra S resume por gematría a las otras cuatro.

«Therefore the awaited salvation of all men rests on God’s mercy alone —Habbakuk openly expressed this when he addressed God, saying “In wrath remember mercy.”» — la salvación queda colgada de la sola misericordia.

«So I am with all the wise Kabbalists in saying that true salvation in the Messiah depends on the degree of nearness to him that we attain.» — la salvación graduada por proximidad, no por acontecimiento.

«And if we cannot get there, yet we must approach, each according to his ability.» — la acotación que sigue de inmediato: se aproxima cada uno según su capacidad.

«This is our man; all our law refers to his coming, not just Moses’ writings, but all the Prophets and all the other books of Holy Scripture (the whole text that we call ’Esrim v’arba, “The Twenty-Four,” and you call “the Bible”; that is, what we call “Torah,” “the Law”).» — los veinticuatro libros nombrados con su término hebreo y su equivalencia.

«Through the Messiah we come to the unknowable God; we come thither through these holy letters, as if on Jacob’s ladder, the ladder that touches the roof of heaven and while God rests upon it the angels ascend and descend, carrying prayers up and gifts down, bearers of petitions and assistance, as some of your people say.» — la escalera de Jacob como figura del ascenso por las letras.

«Our minds cannot, however, by rational means, climb to the soul of the Messiah, except by some incomprehensible intuition that comes in a flash.» — el acceso al alma del Mesías se dice relámpago, y expresamente no racional.

«There are three kinds of world.» — el esquema de tres mundos que ordena el resto de la exposición.

«Or, if you prefer, the first is the lowest world, that of the senses; the second is the highest, that of the mind and the understanding; the third is above the highest, or, if you want, the very highest — indescribable, divine.» — los tres mundos nombrados uno por uno, con el tercero declarado indecible.

«The world then is constructed thus: first from heaven and heavenly things, second from elements and categories, third of human nature and individual men; this last is called, in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin “the small world,” olam ha-qatan, mikrokosmos.» — el microcosmos nombrado en las tres lenguas.

«This whole “body” (as you and Aristotle chose to call it in his book, On the World) is a sphere made up from heaven and earth and their contents —the seven heavenly dwellings and seven earthly dwellings listed by Rabbi Menahem Recanat in his commentary on Leviticus XXV.» — las siete moradas de arriba y de abajo, con su fuente.

«The names associated with heaven are: heaven, firmament, dust, habitation, house, dwelling, deserted place.» — la lista de las siete moradas celestes.

«Secondly, those associated with earth: earth, arka, valley, dry land, desert, inhabited earth, world of life.» — y la de las siete terrestres, donde figura Arka.

«These are: body, spirit, and what is made up from them, which we call nefesh (as the king of Sodom said, “Give me a nefesh,” a “man”), and is made up of four powers of the spirit and the four qualities of the greater world, which is itself endowed with spirit, and enlightened by its own mind, called Metattron.» — la composición del microcosmos y su correspondencia con Metatrón.

«The second world, the highest world of distinct intelligences, Kabbalists call the world of separate sechelim, and the Hebrew philosophers call the world of de’ot.» — los dos nombres del segundo mundo, cabalístico y filosófico.

«From it— as from a farm of livestock —all life is drawn; and the Kabbalists call it the “Land of the Living.”» — la Tierra de los Vivos como fuente de la vida.

«On a very careful inspection of nature it is easily seen that the lower end of the higher world touches on the higher end of the lower to such an extent that at the border it is more often than not a matter for doubt whether these worlds are contiguous or continuous.» — la duda queda planteada como tal: no se decide si los mundos son contiguos o continuos.

«The third world is that of the Deity, consisting in him whom the seraphim call “Holy, Holy, Holy YHWH,” him whom Deuteronomy calls “the great, powerful and terrible” or rather “awe-inspiring” — great before creation, powerful in creation, terrible after creation.» — el tercer mundo definido por tres epítetos repartidos en tres tiempos de la creación.

«Rabbi Azariel, in his commentary on holiness (it follows the note I mentioned earlier), writes: “From the spirit comes the word and voice — not from parting of the lips, nor from the speech of the tongue, nor from the breathing of a man.”» — la tríada espíritu-palabra-voz, con la negación de todo órgano.

«Connect with this what Rabbi Hamai wrote in On Contemplation: “These three are one, and bear these relations to each other: the one, the unifying, the unified.”» — la unidad de la tríada dicha en tres funciones.

«For as Azariel writes in the aforementioned book on holiness: “He is the first-without-beginning, the last-without-end.”» — la fórmula que define al Infinito por doble negación.

«So we read in On Faith and Atonement: “Now I have told you that Being issuing from non-Being has need of nothing, and that Being is in non-Being insofar as it partakes of non-Being, and that non-Being is in Being insofar as it partakes in non-Being. From which we learn that non-Being is Being, and that Being is non-Being.”» — la formulación de ser y no-ser que la obra recoge sin resolverla.

«This goes beyond the intellectual faculties of all of us: we are unable by rational methods to entertain things that are by definition contradictory.» — la contradicción anterior se declara fuera del alcance de la razón, y ése es el argumento.

«Rationality falls far short of the infinite power we have been talking about, it cannot simultaneously connect these contradictories that are separated by infinity.» — la razón no alcanza a juntar contrarios separados por lo infinito.

«following the path of received truth that is Kabbalah, breaks out of the shadows, leaps into the circle of lamplight, from here moves on to daylight, and from the clear light of day comes understanding to illumine (within the limits of human ability) that truth of being — but not non-being, except by the abstraction of all things which are not absolute first principles.» — la progresión de sombra a luz, con su límite humano dicho entre paréntesis.

«When he goes down to the lower powers of nature, which are as heavenly as the others, then with angelic guidance, and with proper reasoning, he applies himself to understanding their value and service, and honors them with special respect.» — el descenso a los poderes inferiores, hecho con guía angélica y no por sí solo.

«Thus arises the Kabbalist’s intimate friendship with the angels, through which he comes to know, in the proper manner, something of the divine names and does wonderful things (commonly known as miracles).» — el trato con los ángeles como vía al conocimiento de los nombres y al milagro.

«Rabbi Meir, for instance, through the name of God (or one made up by the heathen), saved his wife’s sister from the brothel —she had been forced into prostitution, but none of those fornicators (and that is the word for them) had succeeded in violating or deflowering her.» — el milagro de Rabbi Meir, con la duda sobre el nombre empleado dicha dentro de la frase.

«The skills of Kabbalah tend to work for the good of man, while the poison of false magic leads to their downfall.» — el criterio con que la obra separa su arte de la magia falsa: el efecto, no el procedimiento.

«But very shortly night will fall, and, gentlemen, we must part.» — el sábado interrumpe la exposición, y la interrupción es parte de la doctrina que Simón acaba de exponer.

«I shall not only get into trouble for being careless about the rules, but will also betray my Kabbalistic creed» — el motivo por el que Simón corta: seguir hablando sería faltar a lo que enseña.

«Nevertheless his preeminence was derived not from the Greeks, but again from the Jews.» — el paso del Libro I al II se hace sobre esta afirmación, en la voz de los dos visitantes.

«wanted the basic principle of his doctrine to be that the reply to those who asked “Why?” should be, “The Master said so,” which is just like the Kabbalistic habit of never giving any reason beyond “The sages said so.”» — el paralelo de método entre pitagóricos y cabalistas: la autoridad como respuesta.

«It is said that Pythagoras chose the name philosophy on account of this attitude.» — la modestia del término filosofía explicada por esa misma actitud.

«The greatest Hebrew writers were known as hachamim, and the Greeks before him Sophi.» — la equivalencia de los dos títulos de sabio, hebreo y griego.

«So he attempted to embellish an old discipline with a new name.» — la tesis unilineal en una línea: el nombre es nuevo, la disciplina no.

«At that time in Egypt the people then known as prophets practiced philosophy with him as did the Chaldees of Assyria, the Druids in Gaul, the Shamans of Bactria, a number of Celts, the Magi in Persia, the Gymnosophists; then he studied with Anacharsis of Scythia, and with Zamolxis, who had been Pythagoras’ slave, in Thrace.» — la lista de maestros no griegos de Pitágoras, que la edición también da en inglés en la plana impar.

«In fact, Pythagoras cannot rightly be said to have learnt anything from the Greeks and Romans in either theology or the humanities.» — la negativa que sostiene todo el Libro II.

«Rather the case is as presented by Antiphon in his book Lives of Outstanding Men: “Pythagoras went to Arabia and Chaldaea to be taught. Later, in the part of Syria known as Judaea he found a master and teacher in Pherecides.”» — el viaje a Judea y el maestro Ferecides, en cita de Antifón.

«As a result Pythagoras was often nicknamed “The Syrian,” sometimes “The Tyrian,” or “The Tyrenian,” and it is often said that this, the first of all philosophers, was not a Greek but a barbarian.» — los apodos que la obra usa como prueba de la procedencia oriental.

«If I remember rightly, in chapter eleven of his book Praeparatio Evangelica, he adds the comment: “So he got nothing from the wise Greeks, such was the poverty and want of wisdom among his countrymen.”» — la cita de Eusebio con que se refuerza la negativa.

«On the same lines, in Plato’s Timaeus, it appears that an old Egyptian native once said to Solon: “O Solon, Solon, you Greeks are still boys.» — el reproche egipcio a Solón, traído para desmontar la pretensión de antigüedad griega.

«In volume I of his book On Good, he says that Plato and Pythagoras expounded in Greek what had been discovered by the Brahmans, the Magi, the Egyptians and the Jews.» — Numenio como testigo del origen no griego de las dos filosofías.

«We very much believe that what these learned masters of several languages assert is correct: all the Jewish traditions and discoveries have been popularized by non-Jewish plagiarists, first in Greek and then in Latin; there is nothing in our philosophy that was not first developed by the Jews, although by this time they do not get the recognition they deserve» — la tesis dicha en su forma más fuerte, y por boca de los interlocutores no judíos.

«You allude to Euripides’ Hecuba, my dear Philolaus: “The words spoken by the famous and the infamous are the same, yet in impact they are not the same,” and I entirely agree with you on that.» — la cita con que se explica por qué la misma doctrina vale distinto según quién la diga.

«But since it is a Jew handling the subject, a little jerkily and oversimply perhaps, but such is his manner, without doubt what he says would seem rubbish to the sophists of our time if they heard him now or later, for all that they think themselves so clever.» — el prejuicio de recepción nombrado por los propios personajes del diálogo.

«This substance is not, as Antisthenes thought, made up of shadowy logical universals, but of real forms, species, ideas, essences.» — la tercera región de la mente se puebla de formas reales, no de universales lógicos.

«In the Metaphysics he wrote: “Up to a certain point we can explore by means of causality, taking the senses as our starting point; but when we reach the most distant first principle, we can go no further,» — el límite de la causalidad puesto en boca de Teofrasto.

«Concerning the heavenly and the divine, nothing is prior to them; thus there is no way of proving them.» — el argumento formal contra la demostración de lo divino: no hay premisa anterior.

«On this, Plato, in the Timaeus, says that to explain these things is beyond our powers, but he bids us believe previous philosophers, despite their lack of vigorous proof.» — el crédito a los antiguos sustituye a la prueba, según la lectura del Timeo.

«I think that the bitterest factor militating against an understanding of the divine through faith pure and simple is syllogistic logic.» — la acusación central del Libro II contra el silogismo.

«It’s like an attempt to throw these glorious beings into the Tullian dungeon, or trying to tie up Zeus with withies and anchor cable —and according to Homer, Thetis and the hundred-handed giant Briareus would not allow that.» — la imagen mitológica con que se ridiculiza el sometimiento de lo divino a la lógica.

«They are like the Shinarites and Babylonians, descendents of Adam who, unaware of their inherent human weakness, built a huge tower whose top was to touch the sky, who thus became the first Balbel, “authors of confusion.”» — Babel como figura del proyecto silogístico sobre lo divino.

«Let this logic-chopping have its triumph, where fit, in the domain of nature and in human discovery and invention. But it should expect no place in sacred matters.» — el reparto de jurisdicciones, con la lógica confinada a lo natural.

«In volume 1 of the Posterior Analytics, he states that knowledge of immediate things cannot be proved, and later, that “we will call ‘the beginning of knowledge’ and not just ‘knowledge,’ that by which we recognize ‘terms’.”» — el propio Aristóteles usado contra el uso teológico del silogismo.

«However, Philoponus (John the Grammarian) has explained the matter in these truly inspired words: “The present philosopher has made explanation of the quoted phrase in the following way: by ‘the beginning of knowledge’ we understand ‘mind’; not our own mind, but the divine mind above us.» — la glosa de Filópono que traslada el principio del conocimiento a la mente divina.

«Aristotle wrote: “Logic (the rational process) admits of error, as does belief.”» — la falibilidad de la razón puesta en la misma línea que la de la creencia.

«And Aristotle wrote in Book 1 of the Metaphysics that its possession “is not really within the power of man,” for God has it all to himself, or most of it at least, and it is inappropriate to man to search for any knowledge concerning him.» — el saber divino declarado impropio del hombre, con la reserva del *o al menos la mayor parte*.

«Neither mind nor the senses operate syllogistically; mind is far superior to reason, and the senses work on a much lower level.» — el silogismo queda acotado a una sola facultad, entre dos que no lo usan.

«I will cut the discussion short by saying that I believe divine things to lie beyond syllogistic reasoning, and that what does not derive from the senses cannot be understood by human reason, but must be taken simply on trust, accepted and credited for» — la conclusión de Filolao sobre el crédito como única vía.

«I concede the rationality, certainly, of what is drawn from sense-perception and passed on to human discourse; but where “truth” rests wholly on the authority of revelation, I do not allow that to be knowledge, and I would prefer that the syllogism not be used in such cases.» — la concesión y el límite en la misma frase: lo sensible es racional, lo revelado no es conocimiento.

«In his commentary of Psalm 104, Jerome, a native of Dalmatia, compares the use of syllogisms in theology to the plagues of Egypt: “By lice we are to understand the sting of the practice of dialectic, for though it be but a pinprick, it is seductive, and does grave harm to men’s minds.”» — la dialéctica comparada con una plaga, en cita de Jerónimo.

«when they start to argue with you their speech is so terse, and so neatly rounded off, that you find it hard to escape; they will have you tied up and shut in with their syllogisms, they’ll have built a wall with the syllogism and hidden you behind it: you can’t break through and you can’t climb over.» — el silogismo descrito como cerco del que no se sale.

«As Athanasius says in Book 3 of Against the Arians: “Even the faith of the simple-minded is better than the persuasive reasoning of the curious,”» — la fe simple puesta por encima del argumento persuasivo.

«Justin, the Christian thinker, wrote this as the first sentence of his De recta confessione: “Nothing that concerns the divine is clear to man.”» — la premisa patrística que la obra usa como piedra de toque.

«It is not the place of slaves to want to scrutinize their masters’ intentions, except insofar as these impinge on their duties, nor would I say that there was any merit in it should they do so.» — el símil con que se rechaza el escrutinio de lo divino, y con su excepción incluida.

«In every period almost every religion has held that the human intellect does not comprehend what has not passed through the senses, and that what the intellect does not comprehend, the reason cannot handle, and that what is not matter for reason cannot be the object of the reasoning process known as “thought”; and so, whatever accords with the truth of revealed divinity —even though we form imaginary “concepts” of related matters — that we should reverently and dutifully believe.» — la cadena entera del argumento, del sentido al pensamiento, y la conclusión creyente.

«His teaching is not dissimilar to that outlined above: the divine cannot be an object of human thought; a man cannot even form the relevant concepts.» — Gregorio Nacianceno traído como aliado de esa tesis.

«Although I know that many of you plunge all nature into utter confusion with logical devices and mathematical principles, and then set matters of theology on a par with natural science and judge them by these standards, yet divine causes do not run parallel with those of nature, nor can a science of nature rule the divine, still less can it demonstrate that knowledge of what rests solely on trust can be acquired by human reasoning.» — la objeción de Atenágoras a igualar teología y ciencia natural.

«That friend of yours, Dionysius the Areopagite (who has, I think, learned something from the Pythagoreans, or is at least strongly reminiscent of them), says in his book On Divine Names, in the passages dealing with theology: “There is no logically necessary relationship between causes and what is caused.» — la ruptura del nexo causa-efecto en lo divino, con Dionisio adjudicado además a la escuela pitagórica.

«Divine revelation and human discovery are poles apart.» — la tesis del tramo, dicha sin adorno.

«The conclusion of a syllogism can never be clearer than the premises from which it is derived, and even when the premises contain clear certainties, the conclusion always follows from the weaker premise.» — el argumento técnico contra el silogismo teológico: la conclusión sigue a la premisa débil.

«So we are justified in asserting, given the same subject and the same degree of faith, that the states of “acquired faith” and “knowledge derived by proof’ cannot coexist.» — fe y demostración se declaran incompatibles sobre el mismo objeto.

«A man who denies Holy Scripture denies faith, and stands accursed.» — el primer término de una distinción que la obra completa enseguida.

«He is not accursed, just wrong.» — el segundo término: negar una conclusión humana no es negar la fe.

«It is not altogether true that if the premises are derived from “faith,” the conclusions will therefore be matters of “faith.”» — la regla que impide convertir en dogma lo deducido.

«It is well known that among Jews, Christians, and Moslems, it is an axiom of faith that idols are not to be worshipped.» — el acuerdo entre las tres religiones tomado como ejemplo de axioma revelado.

«Something that is “necessary” can be open to doubt, but nothing is clearer than revealed truth.» — la inversión del orden de certezas entre lo necesario y lo revelado.

«Thus, according to Apuleius, when Pythagoras had drained the world of learning, or had become the first to believe in philosophy, he taught his disciples to keep silent.» — el silencio pitagórico como método, no como disciplina externa.

«The first element of contemplative wisdom is that meditation is learning; in speaking, one forgets.» — la fórmula que hace del hablar un olvido.

«As Emperor Constantine wrote to the Alexandrian church on the subject of the Council of Nicaea: “What is unanimously agreed by three hundred church leaders is God’s decree, no more, no less.» — la autoridad conciliar puesta como ejemplo de verdad no discutible.

«Thus Julian is unfair in reproaching us, for to quote Gregory: “Though the words may be different, Pythagoras, in falling back on ‘He has spoken,’ is doing the same thing as us when we say “Believe.’ ”» — la respuesta a Juliano: la fórmula pitagórica y la cristiana hacen lo mismo.

«We can now call to mind how all those who have taken religion seriously have in their teaching methods been of one mind about this, whether they are Kabbalists saying, “They said so,” or the Pythagoreans saying, “He has spoken,” or Christians saying, “Believe.”» — las tres fórmulas de autoridad alineadas, una por tradición.

«Both assert that there are three worlds, and that the third is infinite, or rather “non-finite,” and that all things persist in these three.» — el punto de coincidencia estructural entre Cábala y pitagorismo.

«Hesiod, in the Theogony, says that the powers of heaven, the forces of the elements, and the characteristic qualities of nature are gods born of heaven and earth.» — la primera de las autoridades sobre los seres intermedios.

«Orpheus, the first Greek theologian, writing to Musaeus, calls them spirits: “The spirits of the heavens, the air, the waters, the ground, underground and of fire.”» — Orfeo, llamado primer teólogo griego, y su reparto de espíritus por elemento.

«Apollo himself said, in reply to a question once put by Theophilus, that he and the spirits like him were angels with a duty laid upon them to help others, and that his duty lay with the oracles.» — el oráculo que se declara ángel con oficio asignado.

«They differ from one another not by the reckoning appropriate to matter, but that appropriate to form, namely spirits, free of all matter, absolute, unalloyed.» — el principio de individuación de los seres intermedios: forma, no materia.

«This same “time” has always been, is, and will be, outside time, in the mind of God.» — la eternidad definida como tiempo fuera del tiempo en la mente divina.

«However, no created thing can be drawn into the third world, for there is nothing inherently capable of such sublimity except God.» — el tercer mundo queda cerrado a toda criatura.

«It is one with the divine essence, and is thus, it seems to me, rightly named “the seat of all power.”» — el nombre del tercer mundo y su razón.

«Far from being more important than matter, numbers are in fact secondary to it.» — la reserva que la obra hace al número frente a lo material, dentro de un libro que hace del número su clave.

«“For Plato and the Pythagoreans did not say that Being and One differ in any way; they reckoned the nature of One and Being was roughly that there is an essence of Existence that is both One and Being.”» — la identidad de Uno y Ser en las dos escuelas.

«Thus they said, as Alcinous records, “There is an idea which, with regard to God, is knowledge of him; morevoer, with regard to the world perceptible to the senses is a model, and with regard to itself is a subject of examination, an essence.”» — la Idea descrita en sus tres relaciones, según Alcínoo.

«In the same way as in the world of the senses the first sphere always influences everything that comes after it, so, in the world of intellect we do not only think of individual higher formations influencing all lower formations but further, of the whole higher world influencing the whole lower-world.» — la influencia entre mundos se dice de todo a todo, no solo de parte a parte.

«He said that the One was God.» — la tesis de Jenófanes, de la que arranca la numerología del Libro II.

«The mysteries of Pythagoras were made much clearer to us when he said that infinity, the One, and number were the ultimate bases of things.» — los tres principios últimos del sistema pitagórico según esta exposición.

«Infinity simply designates God’s potency, for no one could ever consider that anything preceded that, which is what is most infinite in God, or rather, is itself the infinite God, in whom are existence and potency, undivided because he unites the essence, the inherent characteristics and workings of every generative and distinct thing, with all the connectives, differences, and unities of their properties and accidents.» — la infinitud identificada con la potencia divina.

«Anaxagoras says: “Everything existed at the same time.”» — la fórmula de Anaxágoras sobre la coexistencia originaria de todo.

«This then is the mingling or intermingling of things that Empedocles and Anaximander refer to —not muddled together in chaos and dark night as Hesiod and Aristophanes have it, but as distinct parts in an ordered whole, existing in the full light of the Deity, and at the innermost center of infinite light.» — el origen se pone en luz ordenada y no en caos, contra Hesíodo.

«However, to be fair on Hesiod, he did not say that chaos, night, and darkness were how things began, but that they came into being from the beginnings.» — la corrección que la obra se hace a sí misma sobre Hesíodo.

«This essence was well named by the ancient philosophers, the “Idea” (from the Greek “seeing,” meaning “understanding”) since it includes everything pertaining to the mind, reason, intellect and the senses, everything living, all substance, and everything to which things appertain; and not only those things which are, but also those which are not.» — la etimología de Idea y su alcance, que llega hasta lo que no es.

«If you accept the piece of Xenophanes already quoted, that the One is God, then since the production of two remains within the divine essence (a number stands alone, according to Boethius the Peripatetic, and in like manner “one” by itself inherently contains “two”), necessarily these two are also God, since within God there is only God.» — el paso del Uno al Dos hecho dentro de la esencia divina.

«Since these three things are the source and beginning, and do not depart from the one essence of God, they are obviously the one God, for his essence cannot be split up.» — la lectura de la tríada como un solo Dios indiviso.

«It is like a tree trunk and its branches, or, just as good, a man’s arm and his fingers.» — los dos símiles con que se explica la multiplicidad sin división de la sustancia.

«If the essence, strictly separate from these, is added to them, there will be a conceptual “quaternity” which is an infinitude, and one, and two, and the substance, completion, and end of all Number.» — la cuaternidad como suma de los tres más la esencia.

«One, two, three, and four, added together, make ten, and nothing more than ten.» — la suma que produce el diez, base de toda la numerología del libro.

«It was from this thdt Pythagoras understood that there was a particular starting point for everything, and he called it the Tetractys.» — de dónde sale el nombre Tetractys; la capa de texto imprime *thdt* por that.

«Further, he wanted to show that it was a god, and would swear by it — ma ton Tetracton — indicating thus that nothing else deserved such reverence.» — el juramento por la Tetractys como prueba de su rango divino.

«Here I am not in agreement with Hierocles since I am of the opinion that Pythagoras himself wrote the Golden Verses.» — la atribución de los Versos Áureos, hecha contra Hierocles y declarada como opinión.

«Equally, I should like Tetractys to be translated, with due respect for its extraordinary holiness, not as “quaternary” or “quaternity,” but in some different way, as “quaterny” or “quaternitude,” like the custom you Christians have of separating the sacred from ordinary profane use by changing ternus or ternitas, the normal words for something threefold, into “trinity” when calling on the sacred person;» — el pedido de un término reverente para Tetractys, calcado del uso cristiano de trinidad.

«MARRANUS: I am reminded by your example, Philolaus, of that marvelous four-letter device through which the salvation of the whole human race is at hand.» — la sutura entre Tetractys y Tetragrámaton la hace el interlocutor musulmán.

«If his name were composed of those four letters, with perhaps some other letter added, he might be thought the Savior.» — el criterio con que el diálogo va a medir a cada salvador antiguo.

«The Thassians called him Savior, and the state mint struck coins inscribed “Of Hercules, Savior of the Thassians.”» — la prueba numismática con que Filolao sostiene el título de Hércules.

«Lately I have taken to reading old silver coins, turning them over and over in my fingers as I do so, loving things belonging to antiquity.» — de dónde saca Filolao sus pruebas: monedas antiguas leídas una por una.

«He came down to earth from heaven like this, and unaccompanied and in the form of a man made appearances in the Epidauros area, but afterwards he multiplied himself, and by his visitations he stretched out his saving right hand over the whole earth, that he might heal sick souls and infirm bodies.» — la génesis divina de Esculapio según Juliano, con vocabulario de encarnación.

«He said that it was the one called “salvation” —the restoration of the human race after the first fall — and that it would be brought about by a just man, a man of peace, a heroic figure whose name would, in mercy, contain four letters.» — Marrano recapitula la tesis de Simón antes de contrastarla con los salvadores griegos.

«It is at the limit of the highest region of the highest world, and joins it to the super-supreme world.» — el alma del Mesías situada en la juntura entre el mundo supremo y el supersupremo.

«(While language purists would have this as “most supreme,” it is rather the world “beyond compare,” at the very top.)» — la nota de lengua sobre el término supersupremo, dicha por el propio personaje.

«Now, if you remember, what Simon put forward —though its expression was somewhat obscure—was what in my opinion you will not doubt, namely that neither these saviors of yours nor the Jews often mentioned with great respect in the twenty-four books39 were worthy enough to be able to bring universal salvation to the human race.» — la conclusión negativa que arrastra también a las figuras bíblicas.

«It is not even that he healed the whole world: he confined his activities to Pergamum, Ionia, Tarentum, Rome, Constantinople, the Aegean and their environs.» — el argumento de alcance geográfico contra Esculapio.

«PHILOLAUS: You are more in love with your own kind, Marranus, than with truth.» — el reproche entre personajes, que la obra deja en pie sin arbitrar.

«It is not enough for you, and people like you, I see, to contend that the foremost men of their time, famous for their virtue and elevated to godly status in antiquity for their outstanding achievements were not gods; you have to go beyond this and make them out to be devils from hell.» — la defensa del pitagórico frente a la demonización de los héroes antiguos.

«The cock is sacred to Phoebus Apollo who is called the sun, because it joyfully cries the hours and the days.» — la explicación del gallo como ofrenda solar.

«Aesculapius was called “the joyful shout for Apollo’s victory” and “Triumph” or “Paean,” referring to the inactivity, the rest that comes after freedom is granted.» — el peán explicado como canto de la liberación.

«The Emperor Julian says that he knew of many who had been helped by Aesculapius in their greatest danger, and confesses that when on the sickbed himself, he had often escaped safe and sound because of his remedies, and he calls Jove as his witness.» — el testimonio personal de Juliano traído como prueba.

«MARRANUS: But what bearing has this on the world as a whole — for it is the whole world that the Messiah is to save; not just its bodies but its minds too.» — la objeción de fondo: la salvación mesiánica es de cuerpos y de mentes, y universal.

«There is a saying: “We think that Hercules achieved everything by speech and reason; he was a wise man.”» — la estatua celta de Hércules leída como alegoría de la palabra, según Luciano.

«I would show you that he was man; just as we are, or even a little less worthy of respect, though he was nobly born of the stock of Proteus and Agenor.» — la reducción de Hércules a hombre, con su genealogía inmediatamente enumerada.

«Some people admire Curtius and the Decii as stout-hearted men, but I would accuse them of recklessness.» — los sacrificios romanos ejemplares releídos como temeridad.

«Sometimes people are led on by fawning and flattery—or they are forced to it by tyrants — to call a man “Savior” when he has not only failed to heal or save them, but has killed and destroyed them; like the Sicilians, who put up a public statue to Verres, with the word “Savior” inscribed on it, as if he had saved them.» — el caso de Verres como prueba de que el título se otorga por miedo o adulación.

«What they offered was not the true salvation; true salvation is eternal life in God, granted by God.» — la definición que cierra el examen de los salvadores antiguos.

«Aristotle, in his book On the Cosmos, wrote this to Alexander: “From God and through God, all that is ours exists.» — la cita aristotélica con que se sostiene el origen divino de todo bien.

«In Book 13 of the Metaphysics, he says: “It would be astonishing if the being which is first, eternal and perfectly self-sufficient did not have as its first good quality the fact of being itself self-sufficient and salvation.”» — la autosuficiencia divina identificada con la salvación misma.

«As God says in Plato’s Timaeus, “That which I have made cannot be dissolved, but everything that is bound in any other way can, if I wish it, be dissolved.”» — la incorruptibilidad se dice concedida, no propia de lo hecho.

«Frail men by their nature die and cease to be; but when they so conform to the will of God they become immortal, and enjoy blessed, never-ending time, they are rightly said to have achieved salvation.» — la inmortalidad como don condicionado a la conformidad con la voluntad divina.

«And he who grants them the blessing of immortality is rightly called the Savior — a word Cicero was the first to employ in general use in Latin.» — la definición del Salvador por lo que otorga, con la nota sobre el término latino.

«If a doctor today cures a dumb animal, and the day after it suffers a relapse, and dies irrevocably, will this be called salvation?» — el argumento contra las salvaciones temporales, planteado como pregunta.

«All salvation that is weakened by the passage of time is imperfect, believe me.» — el criterio temporal con que se descarta toda salvación parcial.

«We should not be unmindful of the fact that salvation does not come from Apollo or other gods except in their intermediary role.» — los dioses quedan reducidos a intermediarios, y la fuente se reserva al Dios supremo.

«It is man, Marranus, man, I say, who needs salvation, and man who needs a savior.» — el sujeto de la salvación se acota al hombre, y no al cosmos.

«All these are slaves to their natures, faithfully and unerringly they follow their natural instincts.» — el argumento para excluir al resto de lo creado: lo que no yerra no necesita salvarse.

«It is this species of creation that Pythagoras termed “Men suffering by their own choice.”» — la fórmula pitagórica que hace del libre albedrío la causa del sufrimiento humano.

«while indeed Solon (according to Herodotus) did remark to Croesus that no one should be called happy till dead and buried, still no one is with any certainty to be thought unhappy while he still lives this life.» — el dicho de Solón se acepta y se le añade su reverso.

«One is the Elysian field, which lasts but for a short while, where those who are close to goodness are found: they can see the higher things as if in a dome above them.» — el Elíseo descrito como estado transitorio, no como premio definitivo.

«The other is Tartarus, so named for the spine-chilling sound “tartar,” like torturer, terror, taint.» — el Tártaro y la etimología sonora con que se lo explica.

«Hence he was called “dictator of the truth” —as if he were the Apollo of his age —and this is what “Pythagoras” means.» — la etimología del nombre del maestro, dentro del argumento de autoridad.

«There is a widespread rumor abroad that Pythagoras believed that after death the human soul enters and influences animals’ bodies.» — la doctrina que la obra se dispone a desmontar, presentada como rumor.

«The notion of transmigration of souls surely arose among men partly ignorant of Pythagorean mysteries, and partly motivated by spite and ill will.» — el origen que se le adjudica a la creencia: ignorancia y malquerencia.

«Thus he says: “The unities in a twofold entity cannot be linked to the unities in a threefold entity.”» — la regla numérica con que se impide la mezcla de especies.

«The seal of the human form, the image of God, does not allow an impression to be made on a lower nature.» — la metáfora del sello, eje del argumento contra la metempsicosis animal.

«Among all the precepts, this one, he declares, is most dear to him: “not to publish God’s image on a seal.”» — el precepto pitagórico leído en esa clave.

«Here is what Hermes Trismegistus, the Egyptian scholar, says in his book addressed to Aesculapius: “One part of man is simple and we call it the form of God’s likeness,”» — Hermes citado sobre la parte simple del hombre.

«and a little later: “There are two images of God, namely, the world and man.”» — las dos imágenes de Dios según el mismo pasaje hermético.

«Thus he asserted that the soul is in existence before the body; “in time” is not to be understood here, but that it is prior in purity and intrinsic worth.» — la preexistencia del alma se acota de inmediato: prioridad de dignidad, no de tiempo.

«For Pythagoras saw the descent of the human soul into the body not as a matter of spatial arrangements, nor as a matter of movement from the intellectual world through each sphere to the elemental world, as Proclus and his followers would have it, but as a series of natural forms in which the ultimate perfection of the human body consists in the rational soul, by which it is that man can best be called a divine animal.» — el descenso del alma leído como serie de formas y no como recorrido por las esferas, contra Proclo.

«Pythagoras says: “Taking the best of heavenly judgments as your guide, when you set the body aside and come to the free upper air, you will be an immortal, incorruptible god, and no longer mortal.”» — el pasaje de los Versos Áureos sobre la deificación tras la muerte.

«The places appointed for this were in the underworld; the bodies were imaginary and figurative, but nevertheless real.» — el estatuto de los cuerpos del castigo: figurados y reales a la vez.

«The guilty soul does not mould this body as if it were really part of it, but is more like a temporary resident, there just for the purpose of being punished.» — la relación entre alma culpable y cuerpo penal se dice de residencia, no de forma.

«The dying Dido says to Aeneas: “Burning with black fire shall I follow,” and Pliny the Younger committed to writing the widely held belief that the house bought by Athenodorus, the philosopher from Tarsus, was known for distressing wails, and that the spectre of a wild old man could be seen there.» — los dos testimonios, poético e histórico, sobre las apariciones.

«In our own time similar horrors are an everyday occurrence; evidence for them may be weak, or sometimes more solidly based.» — la obra pasa a su propio tiempo y gradúa la calidad del testimonio.

«These bodies we call phantasms or apparitions; men’s unfettered souls can take them on, as well as devils.» — el nombre técnico de esos cuerpos y quiénes pueden vestirlos.

«There she was publicly exposed as a ghost by Apollonius of Tyana.» — el episodio de Lamia en Corinto, con Apolonio como desenmascarador.

«Both these stories are from Philostratus the Younger, in Book 4 of his Life of Apollonius.» — la fuente declarada de los dos casos de metamorfosis.

«However, what Pythagoras is said to have declared —that he was once Euphorbus — has another explanation.» — el anuncio de la lectura alternativa que sigue.

«It is used to liken someone displaying some virtue or vice to someone else who has been similarly outstanding.» — la costumbre de comparar por semejanza, que da la clave de la lectura.

«All these are so called because of the parity of and the similarities between their deeds and abilities and behavior, not because they shared the one substance.» — la comparación se declara de conducta y no de sustancia.

«To the well educated it is in fact nothing but the phenomenon of the concerns, the motives and the inclinations of one who is long since dead, being found identical with those of another man or the same man while he is alive.» — la transmigración reducida a coincidencia de móviles e inclinaciones.

«Pythagoras told this well-worn tale. On one occasion, returning from the Magi of Persia (this was the name they gave their sages), he chanced on some friends, and, thinking to cheer up the company, he spoke in the way the Magi did.» — el marco anecdótico con que se explica el dicho de Euforbo.

«He told them that he had in him the soul of Euphorbus, the Trojan soldier, and of Callicles, Hermotimus, Pyrrhus, Pyrandrus, Calidona, Alces, and lastly his own, Pythagoras.» — la lista entera de almas que el maestro se atribuye, y que la obra lee como broma erudita.

«You will not find any of this in Pythagoras’ own books.» — el argumento por ausencia en los escritos propios.

«I cannot bring myself to believe Ovid’s tale about souls transmigrating, or that such a serious and scholarly man should have taught this, and I think it all the less plausible given the differing accounts of other authors.» — Ovidio señalado como origen de la versión popular, y la incredulidad declarada como tal.

«Many hold that Pythagoras was the first Greek to discover the immortality of the soul. Clearly they are wrong; Homer, perhaps the earliest of the Greeks, had given birth to this doctrine.» — la prioridad de Homero sobre Pitágoras en la doctrina del alma.

«But, according to Book 10 of the Odyssey, the souls of those who hold the root and flower of the Moly plant will be safe and under Mercury’s protection.» — la planta Moly, que reaparecerá más tarde como figura del trabajo cabalístico.

«If I verge on riddles, the wisdom of Pythagoras goes well with them. For to speak thus is what he handed down.”» — Iarchas justifica el enigma por la costumbre pitagórica.

«Think of him as my ancestor, Apollonius,” said Iarchas, “Or rather, as my begetting body, for this is what Pythagoras thought Euphorbus.”» — la frase de la que la obra extrae su lectura corporal del dicho.

«The language here points to a transmigration of bodies rather than of souls.» — la tesis del tramo dicha sin rodeos.

«Thus, I would think that Pythagoras’ teaching, that souls migrate to other bodies, rests solely on his saying that he had been Euphorbus before.» — toda la doctrina atribuida se hace depender de una sola frase.

«He wanted by it to hint at a mystery unknown in his time, that basic matter is not only capable of taking all forms, but is filled with the desire, always impelled by the longing, not to be impregnated with any form at all.» — el misterio que la obra pone bajo la alegoría: el deseo de la materia por el cambio.

«As befits a speculative thinker on divine affairs, he did not attribute so many rebirths to the powers of nature, but to God alone, whom, as Herclides of Pontus mentions in Palingenesia, he called Mercury.» — el renacer se adjudica a Dios y no a la naturaleza, y el nombre que se le da es Mercurio.

«He calls him this because he pours soul into all men, then takes it away, then returns it, when and how he wills it.» — la razón del nombre: quien vierte, retira y devuelve el alma a voluntad.

«but not that it may go to any other body.» — la restricción que cierra la doctrina: el alma vuelve, pero no a otro cuerpo.

«I will be so bold on my own account as to assert to you, without metaphor, allegory, or any shade of ambiguity, that Jesus of Nazareth did, in fact, raise Martha’s brother Lazarus when he had been dead four days.» — la única afirmación que el interlocutor declara literal y no alegórica en todo el tramo.

«Then there was the dead Samuel: he was brought to life by a woman of Endor and spoke to the king, Saul, after his resurrection.» — el caso de Endor puesto en la misma serie que los milagros evangélicos.

«He saw a plain filled with the dry bones of the dead, bones piled on bones, each attached to the appropriate joint, and then, sinews and flesh grew, and skin spread out over them, and the spirit went into them, and they lived again, and they stood on their own feet.» — la visión de Ezequiel traída como prueba escrituraria de la resurrección corporal.

«Mohammed, addressing the Turks, the Moors, and the Saracens says: “To those who say ‘when you are bones returned to nothing, what kind of new men will you be made into,’ reply: ‘Though you be made of stone or iron or something still harder, yet he who first created you will call you back to life to breathe again.’”» — la resurrección coránica incorporada a la serie por la voz de Marrano.

«Aristotle believing nothing he could not touch with his own hand, see with his own eyes, or discover by syllogism.» — el retrato de Aristóteles como límite de lo que la obra admite por método.

«I could give you a list of the men called back to life from death, if you were unaware of the fact that we Christians readily believe men’s souls return to their bodies, and that it is firmly a matter of faith that there is to come a general resurrection of all the bodies of men.» — la resurrección general dicha como artículo de fe cristiana dentro del diálogo.

«There are some who are unaware of mysteries so hidden and arcane and they should be forgiven, for not all of us can know everything.» — la distinción entre el ignorante disculpable y el calumniador, que la obra hace antes de responder a los detractores.

«It is said that he joked about him in his Elegy, saying that when Pythagoras saw a dog being hit he said wretchedly, “Leave him, it is the soul of a dear friend —I know him by the way he talks.”» — la burla de Jenófanes, citada para desmontarla.

«Then there is the gross insult of Diogenes Laertes who said that the disciples of Pythagoras live in the underworld with Pluto, and that he himself had seen the soul of Hesiod tied to a bronze pillar, groaning and shrieking, and the soul of Homer hanging from a tree surrounded by snakes.» — la segunda burla, atribuida a Diógenes Laercio.

«The well known writer Aristoxenus says that Pythagoras did not abstain from animals but ate meat, and Porphyry corroborates this in Book 1 of The Beginnings of Living Things.» — el testimonio contra el vegetarianismo pitagórico, con dos fuentes.

«If his advice to those engaged in study was to take pains to avoid heavy food and not to let an incautiously overfilled stomach impede the brain, so as to drive them to apply themselves more earnestly to contemplation, who could but praise such a devoted instructor?» — la dieta explicada por su fin contemplativo y no por doctrina del alma.

«It is said by Xenophilus and Aristoxenes, slightly older contemporaries of his, that he himself ate small pigs and young goats, and you will find in Book 4 of Aulus Gellius’/l ttic Nights that of all vegetables, Pythagoras most used the bean to lighten his digestion.» — la inversión del tópico: el maestro comía justamente lo que se le prohíbe; el título de Gelio sale corrompido en la capa de texto.

«I am both amused and amazed that although they have plenty of good evidence that nearly all Pythagorean philosophy is mystical and allege rical, especially where it concerns the divine, yet they would have us think that its most profound part, that dealing with number, is absolutely straightforward and quite unmetaphorical, imitating Etruscans in their fatuity.» — la incoherencia que la obra señala en sus adversarios: alegoría en todo menos en el número.

«Maximus of Tyre says, in Disputation 10, “in matters imperfectly understood because of human weakness, parable is the better interpreter.”» — la defensa de la parábola como instrumento y no como adorno.

«“A philosopher does well to declare what he knows under a fair veil of imagery, covered with appropriate facts and dressed up in names,” says Macrobius.» — el velo de imágenes justificado por Macrobio.

«Ease of comprehension leads to pupils neglecting their studies — believe me, I know — and the search for what is to be had with ease is a cold one.» — el argumento pedagógico del secreto: lo fácil no se busca.

«In Caesar’s war it was “Venus Genetrix,” Sulla used “Apollo Delphicus,” Marius used the god “Lar,” Jephtha used “Shibboleth.”» — las contraseñas históricas que sirven de paralelo a los símbolos pitagóricos.

«In this way the Pythagoreans have made for themselves by their secret symbols—or Precepts —a bond of indissoluble love and friendship.» — la función social del símbolo secreto: fundar el vínculo del grupo.

«Pythagoras taught that everything begins with number, because when you take quantity and matter apart, you find that matter follows rather than leads.» — el principio de anterioridad del número sobre la materia.

«It was to this latter end, according to Plutarch, in Book 8 of Table Talk, that Philinus was the only diner at the feasts of the Carthaginian Sulla not to eat meat, in order that others should know him to be a Pythagorean.» — la abstinencia como signo de pertenencia, no como precepto.

«Philinus was reproached for this by Leucius, an Etruscan disciple of the Pythagorean Moderatus, who said that he had followed the letter of the teaching rather than the spirit.» — el reproche interno a la observancia literal, dentro de la propia escuela.

«They imitated the Precepts’ outer shell, overlooking their inner purpose, and did so to become known by this kind of sign and to be seen by ordinary people as belonging to Pythagoras’ band.» — el diagnóstico de la obra sobre la conducta pitagórica visible.

«But I must add that in our analysis of the vast areas of human and divine affairs, where we handle countless matters, those gnomic metaphors suit the memory more — they are like markers fixed in the mind.» — la función mnemotécnica del precepto, que es lo que la obra sí le reconoce.

«The most useful Precept on the question of the basis of nature will be “One and Two,” because when we want to examine the causes and origins of the universe, it is these that come most quickly to mind.» — el precepto que la obra pone en la base de toda la física pitagórica.

«Upon first sight one sees that something that is identical with itself is not something else, and so immediately we grasp mentally the fact that “same” and “other” are “one” and “two.”» — la derivación de lo mismo y lo otro a partir del uno y el dos.

«Alcmaeon of Croton, a contemporary of Pythagoras, called “two” “many,” which he said was made up of contraries — rather like the “strife” of Empedocles —but he proposed that they were unfixed and endlessly diverse.» — la versión de Alcmeón, con su diferencia declarada: contrarios sin número fijo.

«But the Pythagoreans went further and in their love of the science of arithmetic confined those diverse qualities of things, opposite in every way, (which Alcmaeon’s school called contraries), to a denary number, that celebrated number that comprehends all things, so that it is finite and infinite, equal and unequal, one and many, right and left, male and female, still and moving, a straight line and a curve, light and darkness, good and bad, square and oblong.» — la tabla de los diez pares de contrarios, cerrada por el número diez.

«If they were “one,” they would not be contraries.» — el fundamento de la oposición: sin el dos no hay contrarios.

«This most beautifully ordered world demonstrates the number’s perfection: we see it moving, according to the Pythagoreans, in ten spheres.» — la perfección del diez leída en la estructura del cosmos.

«Archytas of Tarentum, a leading Pythagorean, included everything that exists in the decad, and following him, Aristotle of Stagira, head of the Peripatetics, listed ten modes of being, or ten categories, which is the name he gave to his book on philosophy.» — las categorías aristotélicas presentadas como herencia del decad pitagórico.

«Eustathius wanted ten “real things,” Alexander of Aphrodisia spoke of ten “voices,” and Porphyry had ten “senses” or “concepts.”» — la serie de comentadores que conservan el diez cambiándole el nombre.

«Now the decad loves two for, starting from one, it is arrived at by two; and it is by two that it is reduced to one.» — la relación del diez con el dos, de ida y de vuelta.

«Simplicius in his commentary, Problems of Quantity, says “Unity, while it remains unity, does not admit of position, whereas a point, while it remains a point, does not reject position.» — la distinción entre unidad y punto, con la que se separa número y geometría.

«At the same time, two can be nothing but two, so that it is the plurality that is called a triad that mathematicians rightly term the first prime number, for the duality that precedes it is not a prime, but better a non-compound number.» — la razón por la que el tres, y no el dos, es el primer primo.

«The ternary number has no desire to rest idle: quite without jealousy it wants its goodness to be multiplied in all creatures.» — el ternario descrito como principio generador, en vocabulario de generosidad.

«It is the Idea of everything created, for, as the mathematicians say, all progression is derived from four.» — la Tetractys presentada como Idea de todo lo creado.

«Zaratus, who taught Pythagoras, used to recite this, calling one “father,” and two “mother,” according to Plutarch of Chaeronea, in On the Procreation of the Soul in the Timaeus.» — el uno padre y el dos madre, en la fórmula que se atribuye al maestro de Pitágoras.

«So in Book 4 of Beliefs of the Philosophers, Plutarch wrote “Pythagoras takes number for mind.”» — la identificación de número y mente, con su fuente.

«The metaphor is not a bad one.» — la obra marca que la identificación es metafórica, y no la deja pasar como literal.

«In the realm of the incorporeal, nothing is more divine than mind; and with particular things there is nothing more absolute than number.» — la razón de la equivalencia: cada término es lo máximo en su orden.

«This will explain why ten is written in Greek with an iota, an upright line, and in Hebrew with a simple point.» — la correspondencia entre el diez, la iota griega y el punto hebreo.

«These signs stand for simple unity, both to those who understand Latin and those who don’t, for from it the decad arises and in it it ceases.» — el signo del diez dice unidad, y el decad va y vuelve a ella.

«which Simon the Jew called the highest of all, the world of the deity which admits of no comparison, which he termed “supersupreme and incomparable.”» — Filolao remite al término que Simón usó, y con eso empalma las dos cosmologías.

«or, as Virgil puts it more accurately in Book 10 of the Aeneid, “the Gods’ high house,” whose summit is a unity, whose sides are trinity, whose floor is quaternity.» — la casa de los dioses descrita en cifras: uno arriba, tres en los lados, cuatro en la base.

«The Tetractys scrutinizes its essence, the first unity, from which everything is produced, and at the same time reflects on its own origin, derived from the first, and on its dual nature.» — la Tetractys puesta como mirada reflexiva sobre su propio origen.

«Indeed Olympus is rightly called the middle world, all clear, filled with distinct form, “where is the court or pavement, of the immortals” (Iliad, Book 8).» — el Olimpo homérico identificado con el mundo medio de las formas.

«Here then is the pyramid which, according to the Pythagorean Timaeus of Locri is the form of fire.» — la pirámide como forma del fuego, con su fuente pitagórica.

«Because the pyramid has four bases, with equal angles, it is the form of fire, being very mobile, and very fine.» — la razón geométrica de esa asignación.

«That this distinct light of essence, closest to God and eternal life, is altogether absent in matter, is found in Book 12 of the Metaphysics, and Book 2 of On the Heavens, where Aristotle writes “The mind’s work is life, but God’s work is immortality, or eternal life,” and he took this from the Pythagoreans.» — la sentencia aristotélica sobre la obra de Dios, adjudicada a fuente pitagórica.

«However, God himself is not created light, but the enlightening source of all light.» — la corrección que impide identificar a Dios con la luz creada.

«Hence Chaldeans and Hebrews hold that God is fire.» — la doctrina del Dios ígneo, atribuida a las dos tradiciones orientales.

«The Greeks called it aeon-, we call it “age,”» — el nombre griego del mundo intermedio y su traducción.

«When the things of this life are overcome you will know the dwelling together (which he elegantly termed sustasis, because they “stand together”) of immortal gods and mortal men.» — el término sustasis para la convivencia de dioses y hombres.

«Let no one think that when we call them gods we are putting them on a level with God, the highest, the ineffable, who has no name.» — la salvedad expresa para el uso del término dioses.

«This is not at all true of the gods, whose scope for action is limited and who are sent to their appointed tasks.» — los dioses definidos por su encargo y su límite.

«Spirits, however good, are not included in the harmony of this middle world by Pythagoras and his followers.» — la exclusión de los espíritus del mundo medio armonioso.

«We call the supreme majesty “God,” because endlessly he penetrates and runs through all things —hence thei from theein, “to run.”» — la primera de las dos etimologías que la obra da para el término.

«And so they are called dei in Latin, or thei in Greek, meaning seeing or sight, hence theasthai, meaning “to see” or “look at.”» — la segunda etimología, por la visión, para los seres racionales intermedios.

«Porphyry wrote in the Isagoge that both we and the angels are rational, and Boethius, translating this into Latin, wrote “both we and the gods are rational.”» — la equivalencia entre ángeles y dioses producida por una traducción.

«Plotinus, who, according to Porphyry and Longinus was a full initiate in the Pythagorean mysteries, says in On Love.» — Plotino inscrito en la escuela pitagórica por doble testimonio.

«The mercy of God is then man’s salvation: for this reason the divinity must be worshipped, and in prayer we must beseech the highest beings to complete our work.» — la conclusión moral del tramo pitagórico.

«Finally, nothing material, corporeal or mixed is admitted there, so you must die and cast the body aside before you are carried away to the gods.» — la condición de entrada al mundo superior, sin excepción.

«MARRANUS: Among them all, only Pythagoras has come so close to the beliefs in our own day.» — el juicio del interlocutor musulmán sobre la proximidad del pitagorismo.

«The base and surface of this city is tetragonal, for in the words of Revelation, from which all this is taken, “the city lies foursquare.”» — la Jerusalén del Apocalipsis leída como figura cuaternaria.

«In Surah 51 he says: “Believers and those who do good shall possess the most beautiful parts of paradise, they will gratify every desire and this is the greatest gain.”» — la primera de las suras que Marrano cita sobre el paraíso.

«In Surah 63 of the Koran it says: “There will the believers lie on silk carpets and rugs of purple, all their wants will be always satisfied.» — el paraíso sensorial en su descripción más concreta.

«You realize, I am sure, Philolaus, that most of this is symbolic, and that almost all you have heard is metaphor, in the manner of Pythagorean teaching, something Mohammed openly admits in his Tradition, where he says “there is another age after this world; it has no likeness to this world by which it can be explained, for neither are its inhabitants mortal, nor its days numerable.”» — Marrano lee el paraíso coránico como metáfora y apoya la lectura en el propio texto.

«So he himself declares that when writing about the divine he had written in metaphor and not openly or straightforwardly, for he numbered the days of the blessed state — days of a thousand years and years of forty thousand years.» — la prueba interna de la lectura metafórica: los números imposibles.

«In the Koran, Mohammed suggests to us two paradises, when he says in Surah 64: “He who feels fear standing in the presence of God shall receive two paradises overflowing with all kinds of good things as his inheritance.”» — los dos paraísos coránicos, que es donde la voz musulmana empalma con la judía.

«Abdias asks “Why is Jerusalem called the blessed house?” Mohammed replies “Because it is sited directly beneath the heavenly Jerusalem.”» — el principio de correspondencia dicho en fuente islámica.

«We heard from Simon about the two paradises, one in heaven, the other on earth, standing for twin worlds, visible and invisible, the one we have now, and the one that is to come, where you have explained a lot in a short space.» — la sutura explícita entre las dos doctrinas de los dos paraísos.

«So wrote Ammonius the son of Hermias about Antisthenes when he said “Man I see, but humanity I do not,” and because of this thought that “humanity” was nothing but a fiction of thought.» — la posición nominalista que la obra rechaza, citada en su forma clásica.

«Those who strive for spiritual sense and the delicate light of the mind understand that greater truth lies in what is not seen than in what is.» — la inversión del criterio de realidad que ordena la cosmología del libro.

«Anything they hear of heavenly life, the gods above, souls in heaven or heavenly beings, they immediately relate to the visible heaven, the bands of stars, the moving firmament, and the circular paths that we perceive by the senses, as if blessed life could stand such turbulent movement, restless tumult and change.» — el error que la obra imputa a quienes literalizan el cielo.

«The distinguished Pythagorean, Plotinus, says in his fourth book On Our Allotted Spirits, “in souls which have gone outside the sensible world, spiritual nature is held to have transcended the whole destiny of birth, and all the necessity of this world. They inhabit the intelligible world.”» — Plotino sobre las almas que salen del mundo sensible.

«Whenever reference is made to true gods, separate intelligences, purer forms, divine spirits, higher beings, angels and souls of the blessed, remember that highest world, and remind yourself of the intelligible, immaterial, simple, abstract world, an incorporeal heaven, an invisible Olympus, a paradise of the mind, supernatural aether, perceptible neither to sense nor reason.» — la regla de lectura que la obra da para toda su propia terminología celeste.

«As “One” is the origin of the mental world, so “Two” is the beginning of the corporeal world.» — el reparto de los dos principios entre los dos mundos.

«It would not be corporeal if it did not consist of these four things — point, line, area and volume.» — la génesis geométrica de lo corpóreo en cuatro pasos.

«In a similar way to Zaratas, the teacher of Pythagoras, who called two “mother,” we call the cube that is derived from two “matter,” the foundation of all in nature, and the ground and seat of substantial forms.» — el cubo derivado del dos y llamado materia, frente a la pirámide que hace de forma.

«It is best to posit a third thing to unite the two, and it will, I think, be necessary to bring in some principle other than Aristotle’s “privation,” whereby matter is made to “desire” form, and as this or that form is missing, so some other is introduced in turn.» — el rechazo de la privación aristotélica y el pedido de un tercer principio vinculante.

«The Athenians, Socrates, son of Sophroniscus, and Plato, son of Ariston, whose thought went much deeper, both put in place of motion or privation the most active of active beings, namely God, and said that underlying the universe were three things: God, Idea, matter.» — la tríada Dios-Idea-materia como alternativa.

«Privation and power do not act on substances.» — el argumento por el que ni la privación ni la potencia sirven de tercer término.

«Infinity lay in the supersupreme and incomparable world; “one,” or “sameness” in the intellectual world; “two,” or “other-ness,” in the sensible world, for matter is the mother of “other-ness.”» — el reparto de infinito, uno y dos entre los tres mundos.

«Earlier still, before Pythagoras, Orpheus wrote in his book of hymns that, after Jupiter, that is, form, whom he calls “the beginning of all,” and after Juno, that is, matter, whom he calls “Jupiter’s bedfellow, mother of all,” —saying, as he calls matter “Juno” as well, “without you has nothing known what life is; you share in all, intermingled so chastely” —after Jupiter-form and Juno-matter, then, Orpheus added, as the third basis of nature, law, that is, distribution, and called it “what strengthens nature.”» — la lectura órfica de Júpiter como forma, Juno como materia y la ley como tercer principio.

«In his songs Orpheus says that this is “heavenly law, the seal of justice,” for the law of nature with one form impresses its seal on matter many times, as a notary stamps many wax discs with the one seal.» — la ley natural como sello que repite una forma sobre muchas materias.

«The origin of the sensible world is now laid open to us, born of the marriage of pyramid and cube celebrated under nature’s law.» — la génesis del mundo sensible dicha como boda de las dos figuras.

«When four-sided bases of these figures are joined as one, they make a dodecahedron.» — el dodecaedro obtenido de la unión de pirámide y cubo.

«Timaeus Locri, a distinguished Pythagorean, says in his book On the World Soul: “Form has the nature of a male and a father, matter that of a female and a mother.» — la asignación sexual de forma y materia, en su fuente pitagórica.

«The gods’ gods are quite without admixture or complication.» — el rango superior de la jerarquía divina, por encima de los dioses naturales.

«The gods of our world rank before souls in the human body: the latter are corporeal, the former not.» — el criterio de rango entre dioses y almas encarnadas.

«Pythagoras refers to all these in the Golden Verses, and grants each their proper worship, but did not allow them bloodstained altars and animal sacrifice, except where this was for reasons of public expediency.» — el culto sin sacrificio sangriento, con su excepción dicha en la misma frase.

«He preferred that daily private sacrifice be made with incense and chanting.» — la ofrenda que la obra le atribuye para el culto cotidiano.

«However, if it shakes off vice, and yet the mark of duty is still stamped firmly on it, nor has it relinquished all feeling for human and mortal virtuous behavior, then it will in time be a good spirit.» — la condición del alma tras la muerte se hace depender de la marca del deber.

«If however it does not merit a good resting place, because of its evil life, it is punished with a life of wandering, as if in exile.» — el destino del alma manchada, dicho como destierro.

«This frightful thing has nothing to do with good men; it harms the bad, and is called a hobgoblin.» — el nombre del espíritu maligno y el alcance de su daño.

«As for souls where there is doubt as to which is their lot — household god or hobgoblin —they are called “god-spirits of the dead.”» — la categoría intermedia para los casos dudosos.

«All this comes to us from Pythagoras, who himself got it partly from the Egyptians, partly from the Hebrews and Chaldees, partly from the deeply learned Persian Magians.» — la cadena de procedencia de la doctrina de los espíritus.

«Pythagoras said that this world copies eternity, and that everything it contains is ranked in accordance with its inherent order, for although corporeal, it is based on the incorporeal.» — el mundo sensible como copia jerarquizada de lo eterno.

«He asserted that this same world was created, and corruptible, though, through the providence and kindness of God, it would never in fact suffer corruption.» — la corruptibilidad afirmada y a la vez suspendida por la providencia.

«He also said that the molecules of the elements were round, except for that of fire which tended to be cone-shaped.» — la física de las partículas atribuida al maestro.

«Some things come into being of necessity, others from fate, choice, luck, or chance, and what causes these is hidden from human reason. (Anaxagoras agrees here.)» — los cinco modos de venir a ser y el límite de la razón para explicarlos.

«following Thales, he divided the heavens into five zones, then into equinoxes, two solstices and the pole, and the earth the same.» — la división del cielo y de la tierra en cinco zonas.

«first to find the elliptic path of the zodiac against the sun; and the moon, he said, seemed to be but a fiery version of the earth, with its plains, its mountains and its valleys.» — la luna descrita como tierra ígnea con su relieve.

«he said that it was a self-moving number distributed in accordance with its powers, with the life-part in the region of the heart, the rational and mental in the region of the head.» — el alma definida como número que se mueve a sí mismo, con sus asientos corporales.

«He said it could not perish completely, as the rational part was the work of the eternal God, though the irrational could suffer decay.» — la inmortalidad se restringe a la parte racional.

«He also said that woman too emitted seed. He said that other animals besides men have reason, but not mind.» — dos tesis fisiológicas y psicológicas atribuidas al maestro.

«Thus, from wild beasts to crickets they are wordless; instead of word they use marks or fixed signs and they communicate by means of these signals.» — la comunicación animal por signos, dentro de esa misma doctrina.

«It is difficult, not to say impossible, for our powers of comprehension to leap suddenly from the natural to the supernatural, from what is completely material to what is wholly immaterial.» — la razón pedagógica de las matemáticas: hacen de peldaño intermedio.

«He wrote a book on them called On Instruction or Education-, just as if meant for boys —hence the title he gave it: Paedeuticon (“Schoolbook”).» — el título del tratado de los ejercicios y su razón.

«From this have sprung the four branches of what we call the liberal arts, like four limpid streams from one spring: arithmetic, geometry, music and astronomy, which he counted among the natural sciences, and included in this book on physics because it is about the movement of bodies.» — las cuatro artes derivadas de un solo manantial, y su clasificación como física.

«PHILOLAUS: Well then Marranus, Pythagoras wanted to subsume all this section under the term “citizenship.”» — el nombre bajo el cual queda la parte moral y política.

«A head of state is clearly badly chosen if he is not also fit to rule his household and himself.» — la continuidad entre gobierno de sí, de la casa y del Estado.

«“Ethical discussion seems to be part of politics, and its basis,” wrote Aristotle in Nicomachean Ethics.» — la cita con que se apuntala esa continuidad.

«A community of the wicked should not be thought of as a state, but as an association of vices, like virtues among the good.» — la definición del Estado por la virtud de sus miembros.

«As Theognis of Megara wrote in To Cyrnus: “You will learn what is right from the righteous, but if you.associate with the wicked, you will lose yourself and your soul.”» — la advertencia sobre las compañías, en cita de Teognis.

«This he set out at some length in the Politics, and more briefly in the Golden Verses, which are, as it were, abstracts.» — la relación entre los dos escritos morales atribuidos a Pitágoras.

«One of these disciples is the theologian Erasmus of Rotterdam, distinguished in many fields and easily the finest writer of our time.» — Erasmo nombrado dentro del propio diálogo como transmisor de los preceptos.

«Thus, good conduct is termed in Greek ethe, with a long “e,” which is like ethe, with a short “e,” which means “customs.” Aristotle, in the Ethics, often agrees with this.» — la etimología que liga carácter y costumbre.

«Our Pythagoras commands us to choose the best course in life; “custom,” he says, “makes that course a pleasant one.”» — el precepto y el papel que la costumbre juega en cumplirlo.

«All moral philosophy he ranked in three bands: first, the worship of God and the divine; next, the respect that individual men owe themselves; lastly, a man’s duty towards others, which he considered particularly close to the area of the divine.» — los tres órdenes de la moral pitagórica, con el deber hacia el prójimo puesto junto a lo divino.

«He often warned against converting to human use what had been dedicated to God, saying: “Abstain from a white cock.”» — el precepto del gallo blanco con su sentido declarado.

«He advises moderation in study and action, but himself says openly “Apply the salt,” which relates to our emotions, called “passions.”» — la sal como cifra de la moderación de las pasiones.

«“There is a great difference,” says Seneca, “between truth and similarity to truth,” which is why the great mass of ordinary and inexperienced people fall so easily into error.» — la distinción senequista traída para explicar el error del vulgo.

«“Do not walk in the public way,” meaning “do not follow the errors of the crowd.”» — el precepto contra seguir al pueblo, con su lectura.

«“Do not wander from the public way,” implying that one should speak as do the mass of people, and not fight against what is generally agreed.» — el precepto contrario, puesto a continuación sin resolver la tensión.

«Elsewhere Pythagoras tells us that “the heart is not to be eaten,” or, “do not torture yourself.”» — el precepto del corazón leído como prohibición de atormentarse.

«“The bottom of the pot should be spread with ash,” meaning you should simmer down, and erase the memory of past ills.» — la ceniza en el caldero como olvido de los agravios.

«“Do not nurse what has curved claws”; this is directed against grasping hands, that you should not be too worried about your daily bread.» — las garras curvadas como cifra de la codicia.

«On fear he says: “Do not turn back when you come to the limit.” In this precept he will not have us tremble not just at death, but neither at whatever may come to pass, however frightening it may be.» — el precepto sobre el miedo, con su alcance ampliado más allá de la muerte.

«You should be cautious about making friends, but once you are friends, friendship is not easily broken off.» — la doctrina de la amistad en su formulación más escueta.

«Truth, not flattery, is the seat of friendship, and thus he said “Do not sprinkle oil on a seat.”» — la verdad y no la adulación como asiento del vínculo.

«One should foster a love of good men, while not allowing one’s anger for the bad to be stirred up, and he gave the warning: “Do not stab fire with a sword.”» — el precepto contra atizar la ira.

«They are false brothers whom they call mourners; “falsehood grows black at the edges,” wrote Tryphon the grammarian.» — la cola negra como signo de los falsos hermanos.

«Pythagoras was the first to use, “All in common among friends,” which Timaeus and Cicero also cite.» — el adagio de la comunidad de bienes entre amigos, con su atribución.

«Pythagoras’ command was “Do not hurt or harm any fruitful tree,” and from this comes the precept “Do not eat fish,” for the fish is a creature which by its nature in no way harms man.» — los dos preceptos encadenados por el criterio de no dañar lo inofensivo.

«As far as the state is concerned, it remains to quote his words “Do not snatch the crown,” meaning “do not flout the law.”» — la corona como cifra de la ley.

«There is also “Do not cut wood in the road,” which tells us that things held in common by all are not to be disturbed.» — el precepto sobre lo común.

«That the flatulence of arrogance and grandeur, the swelling of public dignity, do not become the wise is indicated by the obscure precept “Abstain from beans,” referring to the beans the ancients used in elections to civic office.» — la abstinencia de frijoles explicada por el voto y no por la dieta.

«One thing I have wanted, however, and that was that you should know and not forget that nearly all Pythagorean philosophy is full of signs for words and cloaks for things, a form of communication that he, so it is believed, was the first to take to the Greeks from the Hebrews, as I have already said, and the Egyptians.» — la doctrina del lenguaje cifrado y su procedencia doble, hebrea y egipcia.

«The Egyptian priests used a special alphabet to convey sacred information among themselves, so that the sacred would be kept secret from the common people; wonder would last longer and they would win greater attention.» — el alfabeto sacerdotal egipcio y la razón declarada de su secreto.

«All this comes from Chaeremon and Orus and many Egyptians writers.» — las fuentes de esa noticia sobre los jeroglíficos.

«He therefore enjoined silence on his followers, lest the secrets of the divine be revealed to the mob, secrets grasped better in meditation than in speech.» — el silencio pitagórico fundado en la primacía de la meditación sobre la palabra.

«As he lay dying (this I have heard elsewhere), he is said to have instructed his daughter, in his will, not to promulgate these outside the family or to publish them in any form.» — la prohibición testamentaria de publicar, con la fuente declarada de oídas.

«He had himself in his lifetime shown orally to a small group of people worthy of them, all that was contained in his writing, and had done so in plain terms with no guarded language, in mathematics especially.» — la enseñanza oral sin cifra, reservada a los dignos.

«To begin with the beginning: for God he put infinity, and One; for incorporeal things, number; for corporeal things, figures; for the composite, harmony; for foul sins, unpruned vines; for that which is purest in life, flour.» — el primer tramo de la tabla de correspondencias simbólicas.

«A white cock denotes something dedicated to God; sitting marks humility; turning round means prudence.» — el segundo tramo de la tabla, sobre lo dedicado y las virtudes.

«As for the state, a crown is a sign of law and government; wood in a road indicates public affairs; a bean means ambition.» — el tramo político de la tabla.

«It means that everything you observe you transfer from the senses to the mind, that» — la fórmula del método que Filolao explica enseguida con el ejemplo del caminante.

«Then, as you both move gradually towards each other, the idea that it is a tree vanishes and you picture some animal, though you cannot be sure whether it is a griffin or a stork or some other great big bird.» — el ejemplo de la figura que se acerca, con que se ilustra el ascenso del sentido al concepto.

«When he has gone, you think things over for yourself: this is a man, born of his parents, and they of theirs, and their parents too, of human seed, seed which came from some man, and that at the end of the chain, since nature cannot take infinity, it will seem quite possible to suppose some man who was not born of human seed.» — el argumento que conduce al hombre perfecto: la serie no puede ser infinita.

«You will hold that by the same possiblity it must be granted that there is a soul created not as other souls are, but self-created, perhaps, this soul being not only “perfect,” or “more perfect than other souls,” but the most perfect of all that have been, are, will or could be.» — el alma suprema deducida por el mismo procedimiento, y con su *acaso* dicho dentro.

«We judge that soul to dwell on the level of the supersupreme, or incomparable, world, where there is union of God and created.» — el lugar que se le asigna a esa alma: la juntura de lo divino y lo creado.

«Pythagoras himself said that man could become an immortal god; clearly this demonstrates his view that by one glory could either part of man be made glorious and the whole man happy: the great God either draws in both parts and absorbs them in His deity, or he entrusts to the soul the task of flooding the elevated body with his clarity and glorification.» — la deificación del hombre entero, con las dos vías que la obra deja abiertas.

«This doctrine of Pythagoras sprang from Orpheus, and it is found at the end of the hymn to Mercury.» — la procedencia órfica de esa doctrina.

«Life is prior to meditation; thus, though each should be pure for the pursuit of that than which nothing is purer, surely life is the first to be purified; and only then is meditation to be enlightened.» — el orden entre purificación de la vida e iluminación de la meditación.

«Retreat through reason to mind, extricate your self from all outward things, following the instruction of the emperor Marcus Aurelius: Extricate yourself.» — la instrucción de Marco Aurelio incorporada al método.

«It is not like that, nor can it be increased by quantities of theory and discussion.» — la reserva de Porfirio: la meditación sin práctica no acumula bienaventuranza.

«If this were the case there would be nothing to stop those who swarm in every discipline becoming the blessed.» — el argumento que sigue: si bastara el saber, cualquier erudito sería bienaventurado.

«The moral man occasions the first; physics and mathematics the second; theology the third.» — el reparto de las tres vías a lo divino entre tres saberes.

«And so we ought to remove much of our clothing, both this visible garment of flesh and the layer within us, beneath the surface of the skin.» — el despojamiento pedido en dos capas, la visible y la interior.

«This lengthy and protracted account of Porphyry is leading to one conclusion, that we should come to delight in the good of the intellect and the mind through the world of the senses, by honest lives, undistracted meditation and divine love.» — la conclusión que la obra extrae de Porfirio, con sus tres condiciones.

«Thus for Pythagoras the letter upsilon is a symbol of youth.» — la primera de las correspondencias literales del tramo.

«A “white” word signifies good, while a “black” word signifies bad.» — la clave cromática de las palabras.

«In just the same way our friend Simon used the first letter of the Pentateuch and the middle letter of the Pentagrammaton for special purposes, and Raham, according to David Kimhi, is for allegorical reasons put in place of Abraham, and we can remember enough other instances from his discourse.» — el paralelo entre la técnica pitagórica y la del cabalista del diálogo.

«Astarotus then referred to the book Mirror for the Eyes as a public disgrace, said that it was a stumbling block and its contents misleading, even though the book had, in fact, received the apostolic imprimatur.» — el proceso contra el Espejo Ocular entra al diálogo por boca del posadero.

«Right at the beginning Astarotus had said in the presence of the Pope that he would dispute the verdict, and the Pope had quite definitely refused him permission since during the preceding summer in Rome, the matter had been fully argued and discussed in many open sessions before the most learned luminaries of the world: prelates of the Catholic church, archbishops, bishops, heads of the Orders and their procurators, confessors, scholars; an enormous number of distinguished theologians and jurists, who had declared that Reuchlin should be discharged.» — el relato del juicio romano y de la absolución, dentro de la ficción del diálogo.

«Young Philolaus and Marranus talked over what their host had said to his customers and friends, but thought it was going too far to fight so hard and long over such a small and childish matter.» — el juicio que los personajes emiten sobre el pleito de su propio autor.

«PHILOLAUS: We are a Pythagorean crew and keep every day holy for joyous mediation.» — la respuesta pitagórica sobre el día festivo, que abre el debate del sábado.

«SIMON: We must heed the law of giving each its due; this law being the soul of nature.» — el principio con que Simón funda la obligación del descanso.

«That is why it is laid down that the mediation of a lunar month, that is a seventh part of life, should be a time of rest, in which nothing may be done except where not doing it would occasion irretrievable harm.» — la séptima parte de la vida reservada al reposo, con su excepción.

«Neoptolemus (according to Ennius) does not permit philosophy to be practiced all and every day, and similarly, according to Gregory in his Address to the Eunomians, the contemplation of God should not be undertaken by everyone, nor should an individual do so continuously, nor on all aspects of God, nor beyond his particular capacity.» — las cuatro restricciones de Gregorio a la contemplación, alineadas con el precepto sabático.

«It is something close to this that our Kabbalists express when they say: “The Sabbath is a mystery of the living God.”» — la fórmula cabalística que hace del sábado un misterio y no solo una regla.

«Taking these two words, our sages have explained that the precepts of the Sabbath are both affirmative and negative.» — los dos verbos bíblicos leídos como dos preceptos.

«Others explain, “keep” as meaning “stand watch,” guard duty being something suitable for night time, while remembering is more appropriate to the day.» — el reparto de los dos verbos entre noche y día.

«Here we are slaves, there we are free men, so, here we are told to be on guard, stand watch, keep, while there they are told to remember, recollect, and commit to memory; whence the argument that the word “remember” contains the positive command and is motivated by love, whereas “be on your guard” is the negative command, derived from fear.» — el mismo reparto llevado a temor y amor, y a los dos mundos.

«Now God has not only in general tended to inicate individual festivals by having them listed in the Law in the singular, as is the view of David Kamhi and the Talmudists, but He has also granted us His best and most perfect gift with its special name, what we call the Higher Jubilee.» — el Jubileo Superior como dimensión alta del sábado.

«All pardon, propitiation and inpouring of grace descends from this; no human tongue can tell of it, for no eye has seen it, save you, O God.» — lo que de ese Jubileo desciende, dicho con la reserva de lo indecible.

«This then is the Sabbath of the Kabbalists, to be kept holy for all time.» — la conclusión del tramo sabático.

«Now that we have embarked on this study, I feel that soon we shall get to the bottom of it; that is, that Kabbalah is simply (to use the Pythagorean vocabulary) symbolic theology, where words and letters are code things, and such things are themselves code for other things.» — la definición de la Cábala como teología simbólica, dicha en vocabulario pitagórico.

«I am afraid that if I teach such foreign ideas, I shall suffer what many good men before me have suffered: there will be an ignominious outcry from the spiteful crowd» — el temor de Simón a enseñar ideas ajenas, que la obra hace coincidir con el de su autor.

«Cicero calls them slanderers. If the language will take it, I prefer “slanderees,” for consonance with “Pharisees” which is what you usually call my religious writers.» — el juego de palabras con que Simón devuelve el mote de fariseos.

«I call you both to testify in public that I do not want to teach, and that I prefer to talk about and review whatever I have read in Kabbalah that I think would not displease you.» — la cautela con que el personaje judío acota su propio papel.

«It does not eat everything, it chooses with care, taking now this piece of grass, now that.» — el símil de la vaca que elige la hierba, con que se describe la busca del bien.

«Moly is virtue. Hard work is the root, peace of mind is the flower.» — la planta homérica descifrada en dos términos.

«No mere creature understands it. But a man is said to apprehend it when he comes as close as he can, as he who touches the hem of the garment is said to have touched the man who wears it.» — el símil del borde del manto para la aprehensión de lo divino.

«For our frailty we fall short of that good which is called God and cannot climb there except with steps and ladders.» — la necesidad de peldaños, que introduce la escalera de Jacob del lado judío y la cadena homérica del griego.

«It leaves matter on one side and begins an inner discourse on form — not “form” as discussed in art, better termed “shape,” but natural, higher form.» — el paso de la materia a la forma, con la distinción terminológica hecha dentro.

«It discovers that some forms are particular, here and now, while others are universal, always and everywhere.» — la distinción entre formas particulares y universales.

«Further, those that are universal are not called “forms” at all, but “ideas” or “species,” by those who have learned to use the proper terms.» — el nombre propio de las formas universales.

«It is easy to abstract matter from form, but not form from matter.» — la asimetría de la abstracción, dicha como dificultad del método.

«Our Masters said: Fifty gates of understanding were made in the world, and all were handed down to Moses save one, for it is said, ‘You have made him a little less than the gods.’» — la doctrina de las cincuenta puertas, con la que falta.

«Commenting on this dictum of the Kabbalah, Ramban said in his introduction to Genesis that everything of the nature of that received by Moses through the gates of understanding is contained in the Jews’ Law, whether in a literal or metaphorical sense, in oracular utterance,» — el comentario de Ramban que hace de la Ley el continente de las puertas.

«We cannot see the sun unless the sun can see us and, in the same way, we cannot perceive the upper world unless it perceives us.» — la reciprocidad de la visión como condición del conocimiento de lo alto.

«Given that by physical sight we are able to see not only the face of the sun, but also the higher stars, and deep into heaven, why should mind, which infinitely exceeds out physical powers, not be able to see further and glimpse the contents of the archetypal world?» — el argumento a fortiori por el que la mente alcanza el mundo arquetípico.

«It was through that Law that King Solomon the wise learned from the holy spirit all that he knew.» — la Ley como fuente única de la sabiduría salomónica en esta exposición.

«Gerundensis more than confirms my view, and concludes: “All these things he knew through the Law, and in it he found everything by his explanation, in the minutiae of grammar, in the letters and their ornaments.”» — la sabiduría hallada en la gramática y en los adornos de las letras, según Ramban.

«Everything in the universe is classified in five groups, according to their state: the elements and things made of the elements, souls, celestial bodies, supercelestial bodies.» — la clasificación quíntuple de la que salen las cincuenta puertas.

«These ten modes of essence and understanding, multiplied by five, are the fifty open gates by which we enter creation’s secret lairs, following the clues given in the work of the six days grasped fervently by the Kabbalists.» — la aritmética de las cincuenta puertas: diez modos por cinco grupos.

«He put it thus: “He who would know the denary number in formal arithmetic, and understand the first circular number, will know the secret of the fifty gates of intelligence, and of the great jubilee, and of the thousandth generation, and of the kingdom of all ages.”» — el acertijo de Pico en sus Novecientas Conclusiones, que la obra se propone resolver.

«I would have you think of a plane sphere, or circle, of ten numerical figures, on whose center is a five, which is the mean of ten, and written out separately on the circumference, the individual numbers from which the denary number is computed.» — la figura del círculo denario con el cinco en el centro.

«If you subtract from the greater number the amount by which it exceeds five, the center of the denary circle, and add to the lesser number, that amount by which it is less than five, the pairs of opposite numbers always yield the equalized five and five.» — la operación que hace circular al cinco.

«When this circular number is multiplied by ten it makes fifty — gates of understanding or years of the jubilee.» — el paso de cinco a cincuenta, y la doble lectura del resultado.

«If its surface were perpetual, infinity would result, the kingdom of all generations, called Ensoph by the Kabbalists, the naked deity.» — el término final de la progresión: el Ensoph como deidad desnuda.

«God produced all the rest while cloaked in light as a garment, that there might be light of light, and then, with the light of his garment he created the intelligible world of distinct and invisible spirits, which the Kabbalists call “heaven,” as you have often heard me say.» — la creación desde la luz del manto divino.

«That gate was, our scholars believe, “The Making of Life,” but I do not agree and think rather that it is the essence of God, indicated by the Tetragrammaton symbol, and that it is the incomparable world that cannot be made comprehensible by any analogy.» — la puerta que faltó a Moisés, con la discrepancia declarada frente a los propios doctores.

«For God said to Moses: “My face you will not be able to see.” Or better, “My faces shall not be seen, but I shall proclaim before you the Name of the four letters.”» — la retraducción con que se liga la puerta suprema al Tetragrámaton.

«Rabbi Eliezer said, as it says in his book: “While the world was uncreated, there was God and his Name alone.”» — el Nombre como lo único coeterno con Dios.

«It is said that he sought out the Law through forty-nine gates, and Joshua one less, through forty-eight.» — la cuenta descendente de las puertas de Moisés a Josué.

«So we have from Rabbi Akiva, in the book explaining the alphabet: “After the death of Moses one of the gates was hidden away from Joshua, and forty-eight were left. And Solomon made great efforts to get that gate back, but he had not the strength.”» — el intento fallido de Salomón por recuperar la puerta perdida.

«The second gate, after God, is the archetypal world, and, according to the Jerusalem Targum, it is called “Heaven created in wisdom by God the Tetragrammaton.”» — la segunda puerta y su nombre en el Targum de Jerusalén.

«Moses offers no clear account of this, in case it should be misunderstood and abused by a wild and backward people, or so as not to afford an opportunity for idolatry.» — la razón que se da para el silencio de Moisés sobre el mundo arquetípico.

«Four gates exhibit the insignia of the four elements: fire, the pure element is signed, according to Maimonides in chapter 26 of Guide to the Perplexed, by darkness; spirit by air, water the humid element, and light the substantial form of day, properties which greatly assist in our understanding of what is.» — el reparto de cuatro puertas entre los cuatro elementos, con su fuente maimonidiana.

«Rabbi Solomon Gallus interprets: “The Messiah is compared to light, because it is written: ‘I have prepared a candle for my anointed one.’ ”» — la luz como figura del Mesías en la escala de las puertas.

«And at the highest gate is the one creator of all, unknown to man, save the Messiah, for he is the light of God and the light of the nations; he knows God and through him is God known.» — la puerta suprema y el único acceso que la obra le reconoce.

«These paths were handed down to Abraham at the time of the giving of the covenant, by Zadkiel (according to Rabbi Isaac).» — los treinta y dos caminos transmitidos a Abraham por Zadkiel.

«There are thirty-two paths which run from the very top to the very bottom.» — la definición del sistema de caminos por su recorrido completo.

«The first is called “miraculous understanding” by some, but is more correctly named “hidden understanding.”» — el primero de los caminos, con la corrección de nombre incluida.

«The second is called “understanding that sanctifies.” It is on this that eternal wisdom, called faith, is founded; it is named “faith’s parent,” because it is from the strength of this that faith is diffused.» — el segundo camino y su relación con la fe.

«The fourth is “clear understanding.” It renders pure the Kabbalistic sefiroth and corrects faults in their form; it lays out their limits and scope in such a way that they are neither truncated nor thrown too far apart.» — el cuarto camino, que fija los límites de los sefirot.

«The eleventh is “understanding of clarity,” itself a manifestation of magnificence, and call Hazhazit, because from it is derived the vision of prophets who see visions.» — el camino del que se hace derivar la visión profética.

«The fourteenth is “enlightening intelligence,” Hasmal, the angel of Ezekiel with his face of amber, the originator of the teacher of the mysteries, of the living things, of the sanctuary, and director of their purposes.» — el camino identificado con el Hasmal de Ezequiel.

«The twentieth is the “constituting intelligence” which makes creation itself stand in decent darkness. The masters of Kabbalah say that it is darkness, citing “darkness is in its compass.”» — el camino de la oscuridad constituyente.

«The twenty-first is “renewing understanding.” By it are all created things in this world repaired and renewed.» — el camino de la renovación de lo creado.

«The twenty-fifth is the “collecting understanding.” By it the astrologers collect together the stars that influence fate, in their orbits and circuits, bringing about what happens.» — el camino que la obra pone bajo la competencia de los astrólogos.

«The twenty-eighth is “bodily understanding.” It gives shape to everybody under the heavens, and gives them their concordant size.» — el camino que da forma y medida a los cuerpos.

«Such close association is achieved by the alphabet, which is its function.» — el alfabeto declarado como el medio del trato con los ángeles.

«If we join the letters of the alphabet to the ten Kabbalistic numerations, straightaway we get the number thirty-two.» — la suma de veintidós letras y diez sefirot como origen de los treinta y dos caminos.

«In the book Yetzira it says “There are ten sephiroth, Belima, and twenty-two letters.”» — la formulación del Sepher Yetzirah que sostiene esa suma.

«If we pay attention and add this alphabet to the fifty gates, we find the happy ranks of the seventy-two angels, by whom is said to stand Semhamaphores — that is, the great interpretive name of the high God; for fifty and twenty-two make seventy-two.» — la segunda derivación del setenta y dos, por cincuenta más veintidós.

«Through them, it is thought, did Moses the miracle-worker divide the sea with his hand down to the sea-bed, for these are the angels of division, and God divided the earth in accordance with the number of angels.» — la función de los setenta y dos ángeles en el paso del mar.

«In the book Gates of Justice, the famous master of Kabbalah, Rabbi Joseph ben Carnitol wrote: “And all the nations were left, given into the power of the seventy rulers,” that is, the dominion of the angels to whom the distinguished Kabbalist Racanat assigns (writing on Genesis, chapter 48) the seventy palms that are round the twelve fountains which you know.» — los setenta príncipes de las naciones y su figura en las palmeras de Elim.

«It is clear that there were two pillars, of cloud and of fire, on which were set two angels; so it is not an empty belief that in Moses’ dividing the sea and setting free the children of Israel, the seventy angels of the world and the two angels of the pillars undertook the work of salvation, something which clearly comes to us from the ineffable Tetragrammaton name through the seventy-two names which, once this verse from chapter 14 of Exodus has been explained, are culled from Holy Scripture.» — los setenta más los dos de las columnas, que completan el número.

«These hallowed signs are in the present day stored in memories, and by these symbols the angels are summoned and bring help to men, to the praise and glory of the ineffable God.» — el uso presente de esos signos, dicho como práctica viva.

«All these names spring from the quality of forbearance, say the Kabbalists.» — el atributo del que se hacen derivar los nombres angélicos.

«This forbearance comes from the ten numerations.» — el eslabón que liga esa cualidad con los diez sefirot.

«These are the divine words from scripture: “and the angel of angels went,” and not as the Latin translation runs, “and the angel of the Lord raising himself.”» — la corrección de la Vulgata sobre la que se apoya la doctrina angélica.

«The reply is: “The term elohim is only used to indicate a judge or ruler.”» — la lectura del término como cargo y no como nombre divino.

«Never have I seen these angels or known their names.» — la confesión de ignorancia del interlocutor, que es lo que abre la exposición de los setenta y dos.

«When you link up these three letters in this order the first angel’s mnemonic V-H- Vis obtained, the second angel is Y-H-Y, and the third is S-Y-T.» — el procedimiento de lectura vertical de los tres versos de Éxodo 14, con los tres primeros nombres.

«So too with the rest, whenever they are set out three by three, with the three columns kept properly straight and tidy, some sort of sign that explains the Tetragrammaton will be produced.» — la regla general del procedimiento, y la condición de que las columnas queden alineadas.

«Even the walls seem to exult and rejoice with us that God’s goodness has given us these alphabetical constructions, these signs of human weakness through which we are admitted to the happy bands of angels (given the limits of human ability).» — las construcciones alfabéticas declaradas signo de debilidad humana, y no de poder.

«MARRANUS: I see the letters but do not know what they sound like, and so do not know how to utter these words and invoke the angels.» — la objeción práctica que dispara la doctrina de la invocación sin voz.

«SIMON: As the eyes see them, so do ears hear them, and as they see us, so do they hear us calling.» — la respuesta: la reciprocidad entre ver y ser visto vale también para el oído.

«I will tell you in two words how this comes about: in spirit and in truth.» — el modo de la invocación reducido a dos términos.

«God has not given us this name of the Tetragrammaton that we should call out what is unutterable: you are right to call it anekphoniton, that is, “unpronounceable.”» — el término griego para lo impronunciable, aceptado y glosado dentro del diálogo.

«To Moses’ question, “What is your name?”, the Creator replied “ YHVH is my name to eternity, and this is my memorial from generation to generation.”» — la respuesta del Éxodo que la obra lee en dos planos, eternidad y memorial.

«We know the angels from their works and we have names for them from their individual works:» — el principio de nominación angélica: por la obra, no por la esencia.

«we are too weak to discover their proper names as we do not know their real nature, nor could we use the names if we discovered them, except if it were by concession of divine revelation.» — el límite declarado del sistema entero de nombres angélicos.

«just as the number seventy-two is derived arithmetically from the numerical value of the Tetragrammaton, so the seventy-two angels are produced from the sign of the creator, as if by divine issue.» — el paralelo entre la derivación numérica y la generación de los ángeles.

«Now add ten, fifteen, twenty-one and twenty-six, and the answer is seventy-two.» — la suma explícita de los valores crecientes del Nombre.

«It is because of this that we employ signs, letters and phrases, the hymns and canticles, drums and choirs, stringed instruments, cymbals, organs and other musical instruments: not so that we may soften up God as we would a woman, and not so as to catch the angels with our sweet words and terms of endearment.» — el rechazo del rito entendido como captación de la voluntad divina.

«All these things, and all things like them, are made for us, intended to move us and excite us, to turn us away from the visible and towards the invisible.» — la finalidad del rito puesta enteramente del lado del oficiante.

«This teaching is wholly Kabbalistic, as, in Book 3 of the Guide to the Perplexed, Maimonides says: “It is intended that the ceremonies serve to remind us frequently of the fear and love of God and of obedience to his commands, and to make us believe in God most high, which all men need.”» — Maimónides sobre la finalidad de las ceremonias, adjudicado a doctrina cabalística.

«Our strength is worn away in secular matters, and we need the external physical stimuli of sound and sight to fortify our minds before they can apply themselves to spiritual work, and carry our contemplation to the sublime with energy equal to our previous dumbstruck lethargy.» — la justificación psicológica del estímulo sensorial.

«The angels have been good to us in such a use of images and have often found and introduced to us mortals figures, letters, forms and phrases which before were unknown and incomprehensible to us and which in no way conform to the normal use of language.» — el origen angélico de las formas y frases que no siguen el uso corriente.

«Any sound is good for magic in so far as it is formed from the word of God, because its nature works magic primarily through the word of God.» — la continuación de la conclusión de Pico sobre el sonido mágico, con la condición que la acota.

«Our teachers assert this too: that angels appear to men in different ways, depending on the state and nature of the person seeing.» — la doctrina de que la aparición depende del que ve.

«Chrysostom in his commentary on Matthew, writing in his usual verbose style, has these words to say on this subject about Joseph: “The angel appears in a dream. Why not openly, as to the shepherds and Zachariah and the Virgin? Because that man was a strong believer and had no need of a vision.» — Crisóstomo sobre el modo de la aparición según la fe del que la recibe.

«You are right. The Kabbalists feel just the same and say that Abraham’s strength of seeing was stronger than Lot’s.» — el paralelo cabalístico del mismo principio.

«Others have seen them in the form of fire, or wind and air, at streams and waters, in birds, gems, minerals and precious stones, in prophetic frenzy, through a spirit living inside them, in the shape of letters, or the sound of a voice, and so on.» — la lista de formas en que los ángeles se han dejado ver.

«By this we understand that properly the name of an angel ought sometimes to include the name of God.» — la regla de composición de los nombres angélicos.

«So when the masters of Kabbalah could not derive meaning from the name of any angel, they used the whole of a name of God and formed the angel’s name from it.» — el recurso cuando el nombre angélico no rinde sentido por sí.

«The Romans call their god on the Capitol “Best” and “Greatest,” being “Best” because of his kindnesses and “Greatest” because of his strength.» — el paralelo romano con que se introduce la dualidad de los nombres divinos.

«In the same way, the Jewish nation call their god Yah because of his kindnesses and El because of his strength and virtue.» — el reparto entre Yah y El según misericordia y fuerza.

«‘Yah’ shows that he is the world of mercy, ‘Adonai’ (‘O Lord’) that he is the world of harshness,” as it says in Gate of Light, Chapter 8.» — los dos mundos, de misericordia y de rigor, con su fuente en Gikatilla.

«So there are seventy-two sacred names. They are (in one word) the Semhamaphores that explains the holy Tetragrammaton.» — la definición de los setenta y dos como explicación del Nombre.

«They are to be spoken only by men dedicated and devoted to God and must be pronounced thus in fear and trembling through invocations of the angels:» — la condición moral y el temblor exigidos para pronunciarlos.

«You can summon whatever angel you like by his own symbolic name, for, although each rules over his own separate area, there is nothing they do not share.» — el reparto de dominios angélicos y su comunidad de bienes.

«He says: “This sensible world is located in one place only, but the intelligible world is everywhere,”» — la fórmula de Plotino sobre la ubicuidad de lo inteligible.

«There is no grass or plant below that does not have a star in the firmament that strikes it and says, ‘Grow.’» — el principio de correspondencia astral aplicado a lo vegetal.

«For since the angel is otherness, as God is identity, and since the first otherness is “being two,” so we will be right to think that the number of the angels comes from a multiplication of twoness.» — la derivación del número angélico a partir del dos.

«If you distribute eight angels into each of the nine bands there will be nine times eight, which is seventy-two.» — la tercera derivación del setenta y dos, por el cubo del dos y las nueve jerarquías.

«If from the four letters YHVH, you posit four yods, and going down, three hays, two vavs, one hay, you will soon get the sum of seventy-two, which explains the ineffable and incomparable name of God to which all sacred names lead.» — la cuarta derivación, por el despliegue escalonado de las letras del Nombre.

«Book Three mentary on Exodus 14, asserts that these characters and letters are: “Characters flying above on the level of spiritual wisdom.» — el estatuto que Recanati da a esos caracteres; el encabezado corrido de la plana se cuela en la capa de texto.

«One must not be led astray by the empty superstition that all things are brought from heaven to mortals from the angels; one should rather believe that everything, even in the angels themselves, comes from the Majesty of God through the angels.» — la advertencia contra atribuir a los ángeles lo que viene de Dios por medio de ellos.

«Each of these verses contains the Tetragrammaton with the name of one of the seventy-two angels (except for one relevant verse that comes at the beginning of Genesis).» — la composición de la oración de setenta y dos versos, con su única excepción.

«By these verses they lift their minds as high as they can go towards God and, surrounded by such great praise, courageously ascend from angel to angel, always reaching from one to the next into the sublime.» — el uso de la oración como escalera de ángel en ángel.

«I will say to the Lord, “You are my guardian and my refuge.”» — uno de los setenta y dos versículos salmódicos con que se arma la oración angélica del Libro III.

«The Lord is pleased with those who fear him and in those who have hope in his mercy.» — otro de los versículos de la serie, elegido por contener el Tetragrámaton.

«The Lord will guard your going out and your coming in from now and for ever.» — la oración avanza acumulando fórmulas de custodia, una por ángel.

«The Lord is great and much to be praised, and there is no end to his greatness.» — la serie alterna custodia, misericordia y alabanza sin salir de los Salmos.

«I know, O Lord, that your judgements are fair and it is in your truth that you have afflicted me.» — el registro de justicia dentro de la misma oración.

«The Lord has made ready his seat in heaven and his kingdom will rule over all.» — el versículo del trono, dentro de la serie de setenta y dos.

«The Lord is just in all his ways, and holy in all his works.» — otro de los versículos, sobre justicia y santidad.

«Confess to the Lord for he is good; for his mercy exists to eternity.» — el versículo con que se cierra la serie de la oración.

«Now I have shown you, gentlemen, that there is in every line the Tetragrammaton and the three letters of the angel, placed either straight or in reverse order as normal.» — la regla de composición de la oración, dicha al terminarla.

«They come from the three phrases of Exodus 14, “And he came, and he went, and he turned,” although the Romans have not yet interpreted this rightly.» — los tres versos de donde salen las letras angélicas, con la queja sobre la traducción latina.

«These are the ten divine Names that form the mortal conception of God, whether they be part of his essence or attached to him specifically, and whether they be conceptual or actual.» — los diez nombres presentados como los términos en que el hombre concibe a Dios.

«It is an immense sea into which all our contemplation is sunk, and once sunk is sucked away down a sort of cleft.» — la imagen con que se declara el exceso del asunto sobre la capacidad humana.

«Some of them call these concepts “perfections in the divine” while others call them “negative” and “affirmative” and “absolute” and “relative” or “connotative.”» — los nombres alternativos que reciben los sefirot entre los propios doctores.

«They assert that En Sofis alpha and omega, for he said: “I am the first and the last.”» — el En Sof como alfa y omega; la capa de texto une el término con la palabra siguiente.

«They say too that the “Crown” of the kingdom is the bottomless fount of all the ages and the Father of mercies, whose mystery is that he seals up Essence through Truth.» — la Corona descrita como fuente sin fondo y sello de la esencia.

«This can be proved by arithmetical calculation. If we multiply Ehieh (meaning “essence”) by Ehieh we will get 441, which is the same as Emeth, the word for “true” or “truth,” and the same as Adonai Shalom, which means “Lord of Peace.”» — la operación que iguala esencia, verdad y paz por el número 441.

«As it is written in the book on the ten Sephirot by that great Kabbalist Tedacus Levi, “His goings forth have been from of old, from the days of eternity.”» — la cita del tratado que Reuchlin atribuye a Tedacus Levi, nombre que Idel y Scholem dan por deformación de Todros ha-Levi.

«It is said by Recanat, a fine master of Kabbalah, on the beginning of Genesis: “And perhaps you will ask, why, when Wisdom is the second Sephira, is it called the beginning?”» — la objeción que Recanati plantea sobre el orden de los sefirot.

«It is written in the book of Bahir: “There is no beginning without wisdom.”» — la respuesta que se toma del Bahir.

«I think I am right in replying that infinity itself exists in the three summits of the Kabbalists’ tree of ten Sephirot (which you usually call the three divine Persons).» — la identificación de las tres sefirot superiores con las tres Personas, dicha al interlocutor cristiano.

«Infinity is the most absolute Essence, drawn back in the depths of shadows, and, lying or, as they say, reliant upon nothing, is hence called “Nothing” or “Not being,” and “Not end” (En Sof) because we are so damned by our feeble understanding of divine matters that we judge things that are not apparent in the same way as we judge things that do not exist.» — por qué el Infinito se nombra en negativo, y qué defecto humano explica ese nombre.

«But when it shows itself and becomes something and actually subsists, the dark/I/ep/i is changed into the bright Aleph.» — el paso del Aleph oscuro al Aleph brillante; la capa de texto corrompe la primera aparición del término.

«It is then called the great Aleph, because it desires to come out and be seen as the cause of all things, through Beth, the letter that follows next.» — el Aleph grande y su salida hacia lo creado por medio de la Beth.

«So Aleph accepts this letter as the closest letter to itself and as the most productive, and it is called AB, meaning “father of all generating and producing.”» — la formación de AB, padre, por unión de las dos primeras letras.

«So by joining on to the final letter Nun, Beth produces Ben, meaning “son.”» — la formación de Ben, hijo, por el mismo procedimiento.

«This is the first production in the deity and the beginning of otherness; hence it is called “beginning,” although it is the second emanation from infinity, the second Kabbalistic Sephira, through which all things have been made.» — la Sabiduría como primera producción y principio de la alteridad.

«If you weave both letters of Yah between the letters of Ben, with the letters of each word alternating, you will get Binah, meaning “understanding” or “foresight,” which is the third emanation in the divine.» — la formación de Binah por entretejido de Yah y Ben.

«We have-now noted the three Sephirot which, according to Rabbi Isaac in his commentary on the book on the Creation, are called by the Kabbalists: “The lightest and the supreme” and which are the one seat, on which sits the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of hosts.» — las tres primeras sefirot como un solo trono.

«The following belong to the fourth Sephirah, that of loving kindness, along with the divine name: kindness, mercy, right arm, innocent, the third day, bright fire, the face of a lion, the first foot, thS old man Abraham, East, higher waters, the silver of God, Michael, priest, angel in the appearance of the electrum Hasmal, white clothes, south wind, and others.» — la serie de correspondencias de la cuarta sefirá, de la dirección al ángel y al color.

«In the fifth Sephira, that of seriousness, is the divine name Elohim coming forth from water (as is stated in the book on Creation).» — la quinta sefirá y su nombre divino.

«Attached to the sixth Sephira is Eloha, enlightening speculation, the wood of life, pleasure, the Line of the Mean, the written Law, the High Priest, the rising of the sun and the color purple.» — las correspondencias de la sexta sefirá, incluida la especulación que ilumina.

«Tedacus Levi writes that it is from this place that the seventy nations are spread out over the earth and that its sign is the Truth of the Lord, and that it is called Peace and has its shape pictured in the moon.» — lo que la fuente atribuida a Tedacus Levi dice de la sexta sefirá.

«Its mystery is the third letter of the Tetragrammaton and this mystery is “Our father who is in heaven,” the man above or the heavenly Adam, judgement, opinion, Michael, the old man Israel, the God of Jacob.» — el misterio de esa sefirá ligado a la tercera letra del Nombre y al Adán celestial.

«They are called Belimah, by the Kabbalists, which some understand as Beli, meaning “without” or “beyond” and Ma, meaning “which,” as if it said “ten beyond which,” that is “with the essence of God left out.”» — la primera etimología de Belimah, que deja fuera la esencia divina.

«Others understand it to come from Belom meaning “bridle” in the phrase “Bridle your tongue and do not speak,” because sacred words must not be uttered profanely.» — la segunda etimología, por el freno de la lengua; las dos quedan consignadas sin elegir.

«Day and night they study the Law (the twenty-four books that we call Esrim ve Arba, which means “twenty-four”) and their happiness is derived from the sacred text.» — la meditación continua sobre los veinticuatro libros como fuente de la bienaventuranza.

«My next topic ought to be the princes of the angels and rulers of the demons that the Kabbalists place next to Mercy and Harshness.» — el reparto de príncipes angélicos y demoníacos entre las dos sefirot opuestas.

«It is not a case of reading, writing or talking, but of meditation.» — la aclaración sobre qué es estudiar la Ley día y noche.

«Otherwise, an end or cessation of writing or reading of the Law would require an end to the blessed state also.» — el argumento que sostiene esa aclaración.

«At first,” the Kabbalists assert, “God wrote his Law onto a fiery globe, applying dark fire to white fire.”» — la Ley escrita con fuego negro sobre fuego blanco.

«The letters, so they say, were confused and jumbled up at that stage, though studious men could look at them and speculate with careful consideration until, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, they had no difficulty in picking and choosing letters from every place possible after thorough scrutiny, and then collecting and forming them into particular words, to show good for the virtuous and bad for the sinner.» — el estado original de las letras, revuelto, y el trabajo de reordenarlas.

«Moses did not explain to the vulgar the art either of ordering and varying the order of the letters or of sweetly interpreting Sacred Scripture to elevate the mind, even though he had by then received that art from the divine Majesty.» — el arte reservado, que Moisés recibe y no divulga.

«This art was too divine a matter and was imperceptible to the unsophisticated, so he handed it on to the elect alone — Joshua and the seventy — by word of mouth.» — la transmisión oral a Josué y los setenta como origen de la Cábala.

«It is from them that the chosen of all ages have received this art, and this receiving, as you have already been told, is called Kabbalah.» — el cierre de la definición por el acto de recibir.

«Gregory of Nazianzus, the Greek theologian called “the Great,” says of our Moses in his book On the State of the Bishops: “He receives the Law — for the many, the law of the letter, bin for those above the many, the law of the spirit.”» — Gregorio Nacianceno sobre la ley de la letra y la del espíritu; la capa de texto imprime *bin* por but.

«These words make it clear that your most learned sages, like ours, believe that Moses gave the text of the Law to the people but kept the mysteries, parables and symbols for himself and the elite.» — el doble nivel de la Ley, manifiesto y oculto, reconocido por las dos partes del diálogo.

«But Rabbi Joseph bar Abraham of Salema and most other Kabbalists follow Solomon the king and believe that the art can be divided into three, both in the speculative and the practical aspects, since there are three states of all —number, shape and weight.» — la división en tres caminos, fundada en número, forma y peso.

«A letter may be posited to stand for a word, whether it lies at the beginning or end, or anywhere else, by a mark placed above it. A letter may be posited to stand for another letter through the alphabetical circle, the whole process assuring that, in the end, every arithmetical, geometrical and musical proportion is achieved.» — el detalle del procedimiento y la proporción triple que persigue.

«Take an example. Psalm 21: “O Lord, in your strength the king will rejoice,” is understood by Kabbalists as referring to the Messiah: “O Lord, Tetragrammaton, in your strength the king Messiah. . .”» — el ejemplo canónico de sustitución, sobre el Salmo 21.

«Some say that it is Michael because MLAKY, “my angel,” with the letters transposed makes Michael.» — el segundo ejemplo, que saca un nombre angélico de una palabra común.

«Others reckon that Kabbalah has five parts. For instance,» — la división alternativa en cinco partes, consignada junto a la de tres.

«Your friend Mirandola wrote in his Nine Hundred Conclusions: “Whatever the other Kabbalists may say, I would make a primary division in Kabbalah between knowledge of sephiroth and knowledge of Shemoth (that is, names and numbers), which corresponds to the distinction between practical and speculative science.”» — la división de Pico entre sefirot y nombres, y su correlato práctico-especulativo.

«Shaddai is enshrined in the name Metattron because their numerical equivalents are the same,50 a subject excellently discussed by Ramban in the passage cited above.» — la equivalencia numérica entre Shaddai y Metatrón, adjudicada a Ramban.

«Kabbalists reply that he is the “Lord, King, Faithful,” for the three letters of Amen (AMN) denote the first letters of these three words (ADNY, MLK, NAMN) as Recanat writes on Exodus 15.» — la lectura de Amén por Notaricon, con sus tres palabras.

«This occurs, according to the book On the Creation by Abraham, in twenty-two variations through the revolutions of the twenty-two alphabets.» — las veintidós revoluciones alfabéticas del Sepher Yetzirah.

«The Kabbalists reply that it is a symbol and a sign of the ineffable Tetragrammaton and that it comes from the last alphabet, the twenty-second of the book called the Sepher Yesirah.» — de dónde sale el nombre MSPS: del último de los alfabetos.

«For instance, Gabriel is said to be stronger in power than Michael, for it is written in Daniel about Gabriel that he had a double ration of power because he was “flying in flight,” whereas it says about Michael only that he “came to help.”» — la jerarquía entre los dos arcángeles deducida del giro bíblico.

«So also among the intelligences, Gabriel is philosophically thought to be the power of the active intellect and Michael the power of the passive intellect.» — la traducción filosófica de esa jerarquía.

«For if we did not hold in our hands the revelations of the elders, which you are right to think are not themselves part of the art, a license to expound, however rashly, would be granted to absolutely anyone,» — la tradición recibida como freno del uso libre de las técnicas.

«Nothing gets more twisted to the predispositions of the individual than oracles, not always through ill will but more often through ignorance.» — el diagnóstico sobre la interpretación de oráculos, con su matiz de ignorancia.

«God had promised in Exodus 17: “I will wipe out the memory {ZKR) of Amalek.” Saul thought that if he removed the males he would fulfill the command, because ZKR signifies “masculine.”» — el error de Saúl, causado por la ambigüedad de una palabra sin puntuar.

«There were not yet the distinguishing points and accents in writing that first began in Ezra’s time.» — la datación de la puntuación hebrea, que explica el error anterior.

«Worshippers in the Saturnalia were deceived by the ambiguity and sacrificed a man every year to Saturn, although the oracle could equally well have been obeyed, and Saturn placated, by the burning of lamps.» — el paralelo griego del mismo error, con consecuencias sangrientas.

«Thus the first part is called geometry rather than arithmetic, although both of them in fact have equal importance in this art.» — la razón del nombre de la primera técnica, con su reserva.

«Second is the placing of a letter in the place of an expression.» — la definición de Notaricon en su forma más escueta.

«The third part of the art is exchange of letters, when one letter is cleverly put in the place of another.» — la definición de Themura.

«The three letters of this word each denote a separate part of the art of Kabbalah.» — el acrónimo GNTh, con que Gikatilla titula sus tres tratados, leído como índice de las tres técnicas.

«It is written in Zechariah that the Lord the Tetragrammaton will be One (Ehad, i.e. AHD) and his name One.» — el versículo que sostiene la unidad de Dios y de su Nombre.

«Perhaps he is not called “one,” just as he is not called “Being,” because he is above all being and from him all being emanates.» — la teología negativa aplicada a la unidad misma, y dicha como conjetura.

«Dionysius the Areopagite, in his book on Mystic Theology, subscribes to the same opinion about God with these words: “God is neither number nor order nor one nor unity.”» — Dionisio traído para reforzar esa negación.

«When I pass through all creation and climb above all being I do not find anything except an infinite sea of Nothingness and the spring of all being eternally gushing forth from the depths of darkness.» — el término del ascenso descrito como mar de nada y manantial del ser.

«It must suffice us to know about him what he has revealed about himself.» — el límite que la obra pone a la especulación sobre la esencia.

«The fact that the Tetragrammaton begins with Y was clearly intended to help us realize that he is both a boundless point and the sum total of all number, that is, of all things.» — la Yod inicial leída como punto sin límite y suma de todo número.

«Yod means ten and in the unravelling of the Tetragrammaton it is the tenth letter: YHVH YHV YH Y.» — el despliegue decreciente del Nombre y su cuenta de diez letras.

«YHV is a sign of God, by which Ehieh put his seal upon the world, and it is called Emeth, or Truth, because it is created by multiplying itself by itself arithmetically.» — el sello de la verdad obtenido por multiplicación del nombre por sí mismo.

«Next comes YH, the name of the essence of merit and retribution, as in the Psalms: “If you have heeded iniquities, Yah.”» — la asignación de YH al mérito y la retribución.

«Look at the last letters of the Hebrew words and you will find the ineffable four letters YHVH, whose beginning is Ehieh, middle is Yah and end is infinity.» — la lectura por letras finales, y el reparto de principio, medio y fin.

«For in those six days the only Name of God expressed was Elohim.» — la observación de la que arranca toda la doctrina de los nombres.

«For in every passage of Sacred Scripture where the Tetragrammaton is joined to Elohim, there we see the property of clemency combined with justice.» — la regla de lectura para el Nombre unido a Elohim.

«But if the order is reversed and we get Adonai YHVY, as in Genesis 15: “Adonai YHVH, what will you give to me?”, then we mentally conceive that the numerations (that is, divine properties) go up from lower to higher and finally apprehend the highest light.» — el orden de los nombres leído como dirección del ascenso.

«Elsewhere, though only in the Prophets and the Hagiographa, it is written: “Tetragram of Sabaoth,” as in Psalm 46: “The Tetragram of Sabaoth is with us, our protector is the God of Jacob.”» — la restricción de uso del nombre con Sabaoth a dos partes del canon.

«As for Elohim, it is said that the letter “M” does not signify anything, but is just a grammatical inflexion.» — la desactivación gramatical de la M final, que la doctrina necesita.

«A particularly remarkable disposition in the ineffable name (despite similar occurrences in many other cases) is the fact that its letters, however much they may be twisted this way and that, always mean one and the same thing, namely the being and essence of God who said: “I, YHVH, verily do not change.”» — la invariancia del sentido bajo toda permutación del Nombre.

«It would not be misleading for me to say that anyone intending to make public all the mysteries of the Tetragram would need much study and many words since there is no more an end to the Tetragram than to the substance of God.» — el Nombre declarado inagotable como la sustancia que nombra.

«When the last part of the tetragrammaton, VH, is added to this it gives Eloha (ALVH).» — la formación de Eloha a partir de EL y la mitad final del Nombre.

«So if you take the first part of the Tetragrammaton YH and turn it round and then add to it El, you will get Elohi (ALHY) and by attaching the grammatical inflection “M” on the end it will be pronounced Elohim.» — la formación de Elohim por el mismo procedimiento con la mitad inicial.

«For better clarification of this usage, let the Tetragrammaton be resolved into twelve variations, the most that we can possibly extract.» — el número de reordenamientos posibles, declarado máximo.

«To each of these they apply a particular clause from Sacred Scripture that fits aptly through Notariacon, not for exposition, but as amnemonic intended to remind.» — la función de las frases bíblicas asociadas: memoria, no exégesis; la capa de texto une el artículo con el sustantivo.

«God was ineffable before the creation.» — el primero de los tres tiempos del Nombre.

«After the creation, living in the world as if in his Temple, he was called Adonai.» — el tercero de esos tiempos, y el que introduce la equivalencia con el templo.

«Thus the temple is denoted in Kabbalah by Adonai and vice versa through their equal numerical value.» — la equivalencia numérica entre Adonai y templo.

«In so far as he is himself, he is nothing of those that are but is above all things and has no regard for things outside himself.» — la formulación negativa de la trascendencia divina.

«Such is Sadai, which is translated by Latin speakers as “all-powerful” but means in the Hebrew something more like “self-sufficient,” “self» — la corrección de la traducción latina de Shaddai.

«the name Tetragrammaton is the name through which a man can effect miracles, by acting as a fellow-worker and as a delegate from God.» — la condición del taumaturgo: obra como delegado, no por poder propio.

«It consists totally in the changing round of sacred words, and, since any word may be changed in two ways, we have to admit that there are two separate methods in this part, one of which is the transposition of syllables or words while the other is numerical equality.» — los dos métodos de la tercera parte del arte.

«For example, if I read Isaiah 40: “Who has created these?” and in Kabbalistic fashion transpose the first two words, I will turn them into Elohim (ALHYM) and so produce the beginning of Genesis: “God created,” in place of “Who has created these?”» — el ejemplo de transposición que convierte una pregunta en una afirmación creadora.

«Noah found grace, in Genesis 6, because NH, Noah’s name, becomes HN, which means “grace.”» — la inversión del nombre de Noé como prueba de la técnica.

«All such discoveries occur through transposition because of the primordial confusion of letters in the fiery globe, so that one can take out the letters as if from chaos, pick them from different places and read them forward and backwards.» — la justificación doctrinal de la técnica: el desorden original de las letras.

«Each phrase has letters that add up to 707.58 So “Rebecca conceived fire and straw,” thereby proving the sacred words that Obadiah bears out when he says: “And the house of Jacob will be fire and the house of Esau straw.”» — el ejemplo de gematría que saca fuego y paja del embarazo de Rebeca.

«Finally, we must emphasize this universally applicable limit: although it is the work of a Kabbalist precisely to read one thing but understand it in a different way, nevertheless he will keep to the inviolable rule that good must be understood as good and bad as bad, lest he apply black to white or day to night.» — el límite que la obra pone a toda su técnica: el signo moral no se invierte.

«The primitive alphabet had only 22 letters, and in the beginning all Scripture was written in these letters alone.» — el estado primitivo de la escritura hebrea.

«Thirdly, that each of the basic letters of the alphabet signifies a certain number, even the five final letters which were invented by Ezra the sage long afterwards, at the same time as the vowel points.» — el valor numérico de las letras y la datación de las finales.

«Hence this art can only with great difficulty be translated into the speech of other nations.» — la conclusión sobre la intraducibilidad del arte.

«And Judas the Maccabee replied that in that sign is the presence of the omnipotent, ineffable God.» — la respuesta que Judas da sobre el signo de sus victorias.

«Here yod clearly signifies openly the Name of the Tetragrammaton, while MKBY is in fact a memorable symbol of the divine name of 72 letters, because of their numerical equivalence.» — la lectura de MKBY como cifra del nombre de setenta y dos.

«From this you understand that the whole of a word may be signified by a single letter, either by the letter standing on its own, or by the letter in conjunction with other letters forming a new word.» — la tesis general que el episodio ilustra.

«So no one should doubt that a complete word may be contained in one letter or a sentence in one word or that, conversely, a particular word may be stretched out and denoted by a sentence.» — la reversibilidad del procedimiento, de la letra a la frase y al revés.

«From this comes the wonderful secret science of letters that I have often used when in grave danger and extreme difficulties.» — el uso práctico que el personaje declara haber hecho del arte.

«Letters of this kind become useful to us in four ways if we use them in the right fashion.» — los cuatro métodos de uso de las letras, anunciados.

«They may be taken from the beginning of each word to mean something else, as in the beginning of Genesis: “The sixth day, and the heavens were finished.”» — el primero: las iniciales.

«they may be taken from the end of each word, as in Psalm 1: “Not thus the wicked,” in which the final letters transposed make AMN, meaning Amen.» — el segundo: las finales, con su ejemplo.

«Or, finally, there are letters not considered significant relative to the construction of other words but only in so far as they designate a property of their own.» — el cuarto método: la letra que vale por una propiedad propia.

«So, when two ages are mentioned, the letter Ysignifies the future age and the letter //signifies the present age, that is, this world.» — el ejemplo de ese cuarto método; la capa de texto degrada las dos letras citadas.

«So, on the original position of the letters, they show that aleph is the Way or Rule (Job 33: “I will teach,” i.e. “I shall instruct you in wisdom”);» — la primera entrada del abecedario simbólico.

«beth is the house (Psalm 23: “I shall live in the house of the Lord”);» — la segunda entrada del mismo abecedario.

«For he, like Socrates in the Cratylus, thought it not at all foolish to understand the letters, saying: “We have no better means than that for judging the truth of the primal names.» — Platón traído para legitimar el estudio de las letras.

«It is from this, I think, that the elements are so named, being the hylementa in Greek, or the materials from which, despite their small size, big things come.» — la etimología que liga letras y elementos.

«There is no other language in the world whose letters so perfectly show any number.» — la superioridad numérica del hebreo, afirmada sin matiz.

«On this matter you will have read Priscian of Caesarea when he wrote to Symmachus about numbers, weights and measures.» — Prisciano como referencia latina del sistema numérico-alfabético.

«The fourth grade is the thousands. In this we must revert to the' figures of the former numbers, although they should be written bigger.» — el cuarto grado de la gematría y la letra agrandada.

«They say that two-thousand years preceded the beginning when this world was created.» — la consecuencia doctrinal de la beth grande del Génesis.

«This is because before the word RAShYTh, meaning “beginning,” Scripture places a “big beth,” reading BRAShYTh.» — el fundamento gráfico de esa cuenta.

«Anything more than thousands is considered infinity.» — el tope del sistema numérico y su lectura.

«This abode is called the “world of the angels” or the “angelic world.”» — el nombre del plano que las primeras letras designan.

«From sade to thau come the four elements with their forms and all the things mixed from those elements, both living and not-living.» — el tramo final del alfabeto asignado al mundo elemental.

«In it is man, who is called the “small world” or, in Greek, the Mikrokosmos, meaning “lesser” or “small world.”» — el hombre como término del recorrido alfabético.

«Aleph is a sign of the highest things, which exist under the emanation of the divine goodness.» — la primera letra y su plano.

«Beth, the second letter, signifies the grade of angels second from God.» — la segunda letra y su orden angélico.

«They are called Ophanim, that is, “forms” or “wheels.”» — el nombre de ese segundo orden.

«Gimel represents angels out of the higher essences. They are called Aralim, meaning “great, strong angels.”» — la tercera letra y su orden.

«Daled is a symbol of the fourth emanation among the higher beings, those called Hasmalim.» — la cuarta letra y su orden.

«The letter “he” designates the higher beings of the fifth emanation from God. They are the Seraphim, which, influenced by the power of God through the medium of the fourth intelligence, influence the lower grades, through that same power.» — la quinta letra, y el mecanismo de influencia en cascada que se repite en toda la escala.

«Vav denotes the essence of the higher beings of the sixth emanation. They are called Malakhim or “angels” and, influenced by the power of God through the medium of the fifth intelligence, they influence the lower grades, by that same power.» — la sexta letra y su orden.

«Zain is a symbol of the blessed higher spirits of the seventh emanation. They are called Elohim or “gods.” They are influenced by the power of God through the angels of the sixth rank and they influence the lower grades by the same power.» — la séptima letra y su orden.

«Heth is a sign of the higher beings of the eighth emanation. They are the angels called Ben Elohim or “Sons of gods.” They are full of the power of El through the angels of the seventh order, and they influence the lower grades by the same power of God.» — la octava letra y su orden.

«Teth is a mark of the angels of the ninth emanation. They are called Cherubim and are influenced by the power of God through the medium of the intelligence of the eighth rank, and they influence the lower grades by the same power.» — la novena letra y su orden.

«They are called Ishim, or “Nobles,” and are the lowest of all the hierarchies.» — el décimo y último orden de la escala angélica.

«It is called Sekel haPoel and with it the angelic world is complete.» — la letra que cierra el mundo angélico en la escala.

«Final kaph signifies the ring of the final stars.» — la kaph final asignada a la esfera de las estrellas fijas.

«It is called the eighth sphere in its relation to us, but in relation to the higher beings it is the second orb, divided into the twelve signs of the zodiac, which we call Mazaloth.» — la misma esfera contada al revés según desde dónde se la mire.

«It is called the seventh orb and is attributed to Saturn, whom we call Shabatai.» — Lamed y Saturno, con el nombre hebreo del planeta.

«Mem when open denotes the sphere of Jupiter, called by us Sedeq.» — la mem abierta y Júpiter.

«Mem when closed is a symbol of Mars, whom we call Madim, the fifth orb.» — la mem cerrada y Marte.

«Nun signifies the great luminary called Shemesh, or “Sun.”» — la nun y el Sol.

«Final nun indicates the sphere of Venus, which is called by us Noga.» — la nun final y Venus.

«Samekh is a symbol of the “doorkeeper,” who is called Kokhab, in Latin, Mercury.» — la samekh y Mercurio, con el apodo de portero.

«Ain is a mark of the sphere of the moon, called by us Yareah.» — la ain y la Luna, último de los planetas.

«Pe signifies the intellectual soul, particular and universal.» — la pe y el alma intelectual.

«Final pe denotes the animal spirits which are ruled by the higher intelligences through the power and command of God.» — la pe final y los espíritus animales.

«Sade symbolizes the material both of the heavens (which is intelligible matter) and of the elements (which is sensible matter) and of all that is mixed of the two.» — la sade y la materia en sus dos grados.

«Kuph is the symbol of inanimate things and minerals, and of those things that are called “made of the elements” and “mixed.”» — la kuph y lo inanimado.

«Resh signifies all vegetation, fruit, crops, and things born on the earth.» — la resh y lo vegetal.

«Shin designates everything that can feel, things that crawl and move on the earth, and the fish of the sea, and birds of the air, and all irrational beings that possess the movements of life.» — la shin y lo sensitivo móvil.

«Thau is a symbol of man and human nature which is the most perfect of all created things.» — la thau y el hombre como término de la escala.

«The answer given is that aleph was before everything, including the Law, an explanation that Menahem Recanat records in his first section on Genesis» — la razón de que el alfabeto empiece por aleph y la Ley por beth.

«He takes the alphabet bit by bit and says that aleph is Avir, beth is Hayim, gimel Shalom, daled Hokhmah, he Reyah, vav Shemiyah, zain Reyhah., heth Sihah, teth Laytah, yod Miskab, kaph Osher, lamed Melakhah, mem Mayim, nun Halokh, samekh Ruah, ain Sehoq, pe Zera, sade Hirehur, kuph Shinah, resh Hen, sin Esh, Thau Memshalah, as if ascribing to those letters air, life, peace, wisdom,» — el alfabeto entero de Jacob Cohen, letra por término.

«They have claimed that many senses lie hidden in the exposition of the alphabet.» — la premisa de todo el tramo alfabético.

«However, he says that we are not to work on the interpretation of the letters all our life and struggle for days and nights, either with the books that Rabbi Judah, said to be the first Hebrew grammarian wrote, or with the twenty books that Marinus composed on the rules of the letters, or with the twenty-two that Samuel Nagid published on the same subject.» — la advertencia de Abraham ibn Ezra contra el estudio obsesivo de los alfabetos.

«He was a sensible man, most learned, and his judgement is not to be taken lightly.» — el crédito que la obra concede a esa advertencia, sin retirar su propia práctica.

«When a sign is taken from the beginning of a word, and, as is usual, has a mark on the top of the letter, it is called Rosh haTeibah, the “Head of the Word,” normally written RT.» — el nombre técnico de la marca inicial.

«If it is taken from the very end of a proposed word, then it is called Soph haTeibah, the “End of the Word,” indicated usually by ST.» — el nombre técnico de la marca final.

«SIMON: I shall be telling you far more recondite information in discussing the third part of Kabbalah, called Themurah, in which letters change place with other letters for as many permutations as the alphabet can provide.» — la presentación de Themurah y su alcance combinatorio.

«These combinations of the twenty-two should not be understood in any boorish or uneducated way, for every one of them is the Spirit, as is written in the book of the Creation-.» — la advertencia contra la lectura material de las combinaciones.

«We must contemplate them spiritually with great joy for they have not been handed down to us for denigration or mockery but for us to embrace the mysteries of Scripture with pious faith.» — el uso legítimo de las combinaciones, dicho en negativo y en positivo.

«A kabbalist should not hold his beliefs as does an old woman, but should be strong in his convictions.» — la exigencia de firmeza que acompaña a la técnica.

«You must realize that the twenty-two letters are the basis of the world and of the Law, as is fully explained in Book 2» — las veintidós letras como base del mundo y de la Ley.

«MARRANUS: In one way and another the Jews are so frugal with books of that kind that they do not produce them freely even to a friend, or sell them at any price.» — el obstáculo material que el diálogo consigna para acceder a esos libros.

«must be not just a native and not just wise, but both a counsellor and wise and neither foreign nor unlearned.» — las condiciones del destinatario a quien se puede transmitir el Nombre.

«All existence and all speech arises from these combinations, for of those that are specially termed Gates our father Abraham said in the book» — las Puertas como fundamento de todo ser y todo discurso.

«Not that a single utterance of a single name consists of 42 letters, for any intelligent person would realize, as Maimonides teaches, that no» — la salvedad de Maimónides sobre el nombre de cuarenta y dos letras.

«But a number of names entwined closely together and pieced together from many letters lead the Kabbalist through hidden reasonings to the true understanding of God the Tetragrammaton, Yod H Vav H, which also signify arithmetically 42.65 Forty-two letters of this sort, joined in such a way through such separate names, are referred to as one name» — la composición real del nombre y su equivalencia numérica con el Tetragrámaton.

«Nor is this surprising since clever engineers usually trace the source of a spring by its many different streams.» — el símil con que se justifica llegar a lo uno por lo múltiple.

«This name that deserves such worship and veneration and is designated by the forty-two letters is termed by the best of the sages (may their memory be blessed!) as the “Holy and Sanctified.”» — el título del nombre de cuarenta y dos letras.

«It is said that this was because there once came to him a Bath Qol, or voice from heaven, which ordered him to spend three years sweating over the one volume.» — la voz celestial que ordena a Jeremías el estudio de tres años.

«On the forehead of this newly created man was written YHVH ALHYM AMTh, i.e. “God the Tetragrammaton is true.”» — la inscripción en la frente del hombre creado.

«The man felt the writing on his forehead and without hesitation moved his hand and removed and destroyed the first letter in AMTh, which is aleph.» — el gesto de la criatura que borra la aleph.

«Jeremiah was struck with indignation, tore his clothes and asked him: “Why do you take the aleph from Emeth?” He replied: “Because everywhere men have failed in faithfulness to the Creator who created you in his own image and likeness.”» — la respuesta de la criatura, que vuelve la acusación contra los hombres.

«They did so, and the man became dust and ashes in their sight and disappeared.» — el desenlace del relato del hombre de arcilla.

«Our fathers, Rabbi Tarphon, Maimonides, Rabbi Hamai and other writers, refused, in accordance with the precepts of our teachers, to show that Name to any mortal unless he was worthy of it.» — la reserva sobre el Nombre y las autoridades que la sostienen.

«They said that it should not be handed down to anyone unless he be humble and middle-aged, a man not prone to anger or drunkenness or befouled by perverted habits, but rather a man of peace who addresses himself pleasantly to his fellow creatures and keeps that Name in purity.» — el retrato moral del destinatario admisible.

«Do not, however, despise these names because they are rough and outlandish, for no one should be so bleary-eyed in his examination of sacred matters as to despise the recondite, nor so indulgent to aural delights in hearing about the divine as to venerate, praise and follow only those things that are pleasant to the senses, pretty to the eyes, soft to touch and seductive in their intonation.» — la exhortación a no despreciar lo oscuro por su aspereza.

«When we have led that Name, so great and worthy of all the praise of which men are capable, through all the combinations of letters from the first to the last, then its divine knowledge will show itself to us freely.» — el recorrido completo de las combinaciones como condición de la revelación.

«If you multiply six by seven, you will get 42, which is the sum total of the letters of that Name, which I entrust to your personal inspection with this drawing:» — la aritmética del nombre y el diagrama que la acompaña.

«Each single utterance of this precious Name consists of six letters, as you see, but only in Hebrew, not in any other language.» — la restricción de lengua para la partición en siete palabras de seis letras.

«From that time on this alphabetical Kabbalah or Receiving has travelled to posterity and through it are laid open the greatest mysteries of the divine.» — el origen que la obra asigna a la Cábala alfabética.

«What goes before the presence of God is often rough and unsightly.» — la premisa con que se justifica el trabajo por las combinaciones ásperas.

«This is how he was spoken to: “Behold the Tetragram came, and a great strong wind uprooting the mountains and tearing apart and trampling the rocks before YHVH, and YHVH was not in the fire; but after the fire was a still, small voice, and in that voice the glory of YHVH, which is called Kavod, spoke to him.”» — la teofanía de Elías en el Horeb, con la voz serena al final.

«So we must not stand still but must turn back with the prophet Elijah to our road through the desert, that is, through these prickly circles of barbaric tangles and confused thorns that lie on the road of sacred canonical Scripture.» — el desierto espinoso como figura del trabajo combinatorio sobre la Escritura.

«We shall proceed through the combinations of the twenty-two alphabets until with careful, prudent and unflagging diligence we reach the highest and first alphabet.» — el recorrido de los veintidós alfabetos como método declarado.

«The voice of God rains power and strength in abundance on all the alphabets, from the first to the last, the twenty-second, so that sometimes combinations that are thought insignificant display greater efficacy than names with primary significance, just as a ray of the,sun burns more strongly than the very sun from which it emanates.» — el símil del rayo solar para explicar la eficacia de lo derivado.

«It is this that we strain to catch in our nets when we scour through all the possible combinations in all the alphabets to find eventually in Scripture the seven names enclosed in forty-two letters.» — el objeto de la busca: siete nombres en cuarenta y dos letras.

«This is also the divine name of forty-two letters given as the first alphabetical permutation in the book of Creation.» — el alfabeto Albath como origen de la primera permutación.

«For our father Abraham only put down the permutations and transpositions in this book of Creation because he assumed that the correct order of the ordinary alphabet was known to everyone.» — la explicación de por qué el Sepher Yetzirah omite el alfabeto ordinario.

«The ineffable four letters denote God as he is above all being.» — el primero de los cuatro nombres y su función.

«Ehieh represents God as he is in all being, Adonia shows God as he is the Lord of all, and Sadai shows him as he is lacking nought.» — los otros tres nombres, cada uno con su aspecto.

«So these twenty three names, each of which has forty-two letters taken in accordance with the order of the twenty-three alphabets, are all derived from the first verses of Sacred Scripture: “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was empty and void.”» — los veintitrés nombres derivados de los dos primeros versículos.

«There are other Kabbalists who have indulged in higher speculation and transcend creation and the creatures, who stand in the sole emanation of the Deity.» — la rama especulativa que se abstiene de lo creado.

«This traditional name is written in the Book of Secret Letters, where, in answer to the question of the Roman Antoninus about the holy names, Rabbi Hakados says that from the Tetragrammaton comes the names of 12 letters: Av Ben veRuakh haKadosh, meaning, “Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”» — el nombre de doce letras leído como fórmula trinitaria.

«And from this is derived the name of 42 letters: Av Elohim, Ben Elohim, Ruah hakadosh Elohim. Shalosha beehad, ehad besheloshah, which means: “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, Three in One and One in Three.”» — la lectura trinitaria llevada también al nombre de cuarenta y dos letras.

«PHILOLAUS: We must thank you, Simon. Your explanation has been excellently clear and lucid — if anything in this art can be clear when most of it is veiled and seems to “flee behind the willow trees.”» — el agradecimiento con su reserva incluida sobre la claridad del arte.

«There is little to say on the subject except that, because the wicked used to use the Name of the Tetragrammaton, which had before that only been handed down on every seventh year to suitable, selected priests, with the most careful precautions» — el abuso del Nombre como causa de su prohibición.

«So, to preserve the majesty of the Name, it was forbidden to the priests to use it in prayer and only the high priests were allowed to pronounce it each year in the days of fasting and atonement.» — la restricción final de uso, reducida al sumo sacerdote y al día de la expiación.

«It is pronounced HaQadosh Barukh Hu, meaning, “The Holy one, blessed be he.”» — la pronunciación del nombre de doce letras que sustituye al Tetragrámaton.

«Through this name, they used to pronounce the blessing laid down at a later date by God, in Numbers chapter 6, to be said over the people in place of the Tetragrammaton: “May the Holy one, blessed be he, bless you and may he keep you.» — la bendición sacerdotal reformulada con el nombre sustituto.

«On this passage Solomon of Troyes, the main commentator on Sacred Scripture, writes: “The priests extend their hands as they say: ‘The Holy one, blessed be he, stands behind us,’ as is written: ‘Behold he stands behind our wall, looking through the windows between the fingers of the priests.’”» — el gesto litúrgico y su lectura, en cita de Rashi.

«has been made in honor of the Tetragrammaton, lest it be repeated so many times that it finally suffer neglect (may the great and good God prevent this of all things!).» — la razón de la sustitución: evitar el desgaste por repetición.

«Here, then, is the total garden, GNTh, of Kabbalah, with its three flower beds marked out — Gematria, Notariacon and Themurah.» — el jardín completo con sus tres bancales, que cierra la exposición técnica.

«The same name KVZV symbolically represents the whole Tetragrammaton through the second part of Kabbalah, as Joseph bar Abraham, a citizen of the prefecture of Salem, writes in volume 2 of the Garden of Nuts-.» — la equivalencia KVZV con el Nombre, y su fuente.

«Yod is exchanged with kaph and he is exchanged with vav, and vav is exchanged with zain.”» — los tres intercambios de letras que producen esa equivalencia.

«From this we see that God in his essence is the most one-like One than whom nothing is more one-like, despite the many names given to him to signify his other aspects.» — la unidad de la esencia mantenida contra la multiplicidad de los nombres.

«And in the beginning of Malachi he speaks of himself thus: “And if I am Lords, where is my fear?”, in which passage God is referring to himself in the plural as Lords.» — el plural divino tomado de Malaquías.

«In relation to his immanence he is one, but in relation to his goings forth he is many, as he said: “Let us make man in our image and likeness.”» — la fórmula con que se dicen a la vez unidad y pluralidad, repartidas entre esencia y salidas.

«This is not because it was the custom in a holy language for those in the greatest mystery to speak about themselves in the plural, as Rabbi Saadia writes in his book on Items of Faith.» — la explicación gramatical de Saadia, que la obra recoge para rechazarla.

«This is a weak argument, for immediately after this passage God talks in the singular when he says: “Let me make a helper for him like unto him.”» — el argumento con que se descarta esa explicación.

«So they assert that the three first Kabbalistic numerations — Crown, Wisdom and Understanding — are the single crown of the highest king, as Rabbi Asse writes in his book on Singularity (i.e., of collectivities).» — las tres primeras sefirot como una sola corona.

«You see from this example that we use all the parts of Kabbalah promiscuously, that is, the general transposition of letters, syllables and words, then numerical calculation, notation in capitals and exchange of letters, with each of the kinds that I have explained in my earlier discussion.» — la declaración de que las tres técnicas se emplean mezcladas.

«In the same way, Ehieh Adonai signifies arithmetically the same as Elohim since they both make 86.» — la equivalencia numérica de 86.

«The beginning of the Tetragrammaton is Yah, the middle of Elohim is Yah, and the end of Ehieh is Yah.» — la Yah hallada en tres posiciones distintas de tres nombres.

«On the second day, the angels were created, for he did not say VYHYKN— “and it was so” —on the first day, but on the second day, when the firmament of the heaven was created; made, according to Rabbi Eliezer, out of the light of his garment.» — el signo VYHYKN y la datación de la creación angélica.

«The word written here is not Shamayim, which are the heavens of the orbs, as Rabbi Ama memorably pointed out in his book on Mysteries in Psalm 19, but HaShamayim, with the article Ha- added, as in the summary in the preface of Genesis: “In the beginning God created HaShamayim.» — la distinción entre los cielos con y sin artículo, atribuida a Rabbi Ama, nombre que Idel da por adjudicación errada.

«These are the most high, most celebrated and most wonderful heavens, that have never been seen and never will be seen by mortal eyes.» — los cielos invisibles y su condición.

«Surely it is because of its extension in space that that extended sheet, inscribed like a parchment with the luminaries and stars for its letters, is called Rakia, while we, because of its solidity, call it the firmament.» — el firmamento como pergamino escrito con estrellas por letras.

«In contrast, the invisible sky has no need of luminaries, for it is lit by its own spirit and illuminated by the first cause as by a mind.» — el cielo invisible se ilumina por sí, sin lumbreras.

«From this comes down the prophetic light which is called “Illuminating Vision” and was given to Moses, for the vision of the other prophets is “Nonilluminating Vision,” and is called “Earth.”» — el reparto entre visión iluminadora y no iluminadora.

«I think I am right in believing that it was because of this that our sages said: “The appearance of Moses was like the appearance of the sun and the appearance of Joshua was like the appearance of the moon.”» — la comparación rabínica que ilustra esa diferencia de visión.

«Michael is signified by this phrase VYHY KN which is recited in the account of the following five days’ work, and which is a symbol for Michael according to the first part of the Kabbalistic art of numerical equality.» — la equivalencia entre la fórmula del Génesis y el nombre de Miguel.

«By this we are informed that all the angels are of the same species and, besides, that every body, whether in heaven or earth, has its own guide of its powers to control its activities, whether it be a rational body like the heavens, the stars, and men, or irrational like the beasts and the elements.» — la unidad de especie angélica y el gobierno particular de cada cuerpo.

«An angel has free will, while nature is confined to fixed instinct alone.» — la diferencia entre ángel y naturaleza, que explica el cambio en lo sublunar.

«The angelic state wields the greatest force and power on physical things, which is why the active intellect from which the forms flow is called an angel, as Maimonides testifies.» — el intelecto agente llamado ángel, con su fuente.

«It is called Ruler of the Universe, so our sages say, and is pronounced “Metattron.”» — el título de Metatrón.

«They are equally called angels and there is a multitude of them, in our perspective infinite, though to the creator fixed and finite.» — la infinitud angélica relativizada al punto de vista.

«Your friend Hesiod knew of a similar tradition, for he says in the Works and Days-. “There are thirty thousand immortals of Zeus above the manyfeeding earth, custodians of immortal men who are on watch for justice and wicked deeds, clothed in air and flitting over all the earth.”» — el paralelo hesiódico de los guardianes vestidos de aire.

«In similar fashion, the two powers of will in man are referred to as two angels, the Author of Good and the Author of Bad, according to the Midrash Tanhuma cited by Rabbi Assi in his collection.» — las dos inclinaciones humanas nombradas como dos ángeles.

«A daimon is not the same as a daimonium.» — la distinción terminológica que la obra introduce y en seguida matiza.

«Rabbi Tedacus Levi writes on this subject in his book on the Ten Sephiroth after explaining the four winds, north, south, east and west: “And for these four winds he created four angels that rule over them day and night.”» — los cuatro vientos con sus cuatro ángeles.

«Later in the same book he writes that Michael, who is on the side of Clemency and Pity, is Mamona, that is, the ruler over the east wind up to the middle of the day, and up to the night.» — Miguel y el viento del este, del lado de la clemencia.

«Gabriel, in the power of Judgement and Severity, rules with the north wind over the middle of the night and two measures of the world.» — Gabriel y el viento del norte, del lado del rigor.

«But it is not part of our holy design to discuss at length those lewd and shameful demons, the enemies of the human race, that are called Contrary Powers, whether they be reckoned to wander round the upper regions of fire, or to flit close by us in the air, or to be terrestrial beings causing terror on earth, or to inhabit lakes and rivers and often shake the very sea, or to attack on occasions under the earth and, digging wells and mines and provoking earthquakes and exciting flame-belching winds, to shake the fundaments or, finally, to avoid everything of light and brightness and, in inscrutable shadows, to vex not only the human race but also the brutes, pouring out their speech without sound.» — los Poderes Contrarios repartidos por los elementos, con la abstención declarada de tratarlos a fondo.

«Then they bid him write these letters: SMRKH, but on the outside, rougher part of the leaf to write as well these signs: BVVVV.» — el amuleto de pergamino virgen y sus dos inscripciones.

«They explain this mystery by saying that these are the symbols of the first five verses of Genesis, taking both the first and the last letter in accordance with the second part of the art of Kabbalah.» — de dónde salen esos signos, por Notaricon sobre los cinco primeros versículos.

«Costa ben Luca once wrote that natural amulets are not naturally efficacious but are proved only by experience, as a man believes: “If the small ear-lobe of an abortion be hung from a woman’s neck, she will not conceive so long as it remains on the neck.”» — la objeción de Costa ben Luca a los amuletos naturales.

«But when the words with which the omnipotent Creator made the heaven and earth are used as amulets, could anyone possibly think that they too have no power?» — la réplica de la obra, que distingue el amuleto natural del verbal.

«Rabbi Hama in his Book on Speculation composed it from the four, not magic but solemn and sacred words —or, rather, he had them already composed in the tradition from his predecessors: YHVH ADNY YYA Y AHYH.» — los cuatro sellos de Rabbi Hama, declarados solemnes y no mágicos.

«The meaning of these four signs is “The Lord our God is One Lord,” and such, they say, is the superscription of the four signs joined together.» — el sentido unitario que resulta de juntar los cuatro sellos.

«Plotinus in On the Doubts of the Soul, Book 2, chapter 35, enumerates four things in which there is the power to work miracles: hidden qualities of species, figures, harmonies and prayers.» — las cuatro fuentes del poder milagroso según Plotino.

«Porphyry, too, and Iamblichus say that we have power against the lower spirits, especially through God, but also through the good angels.» — los otros dos neoplatónicos alineados con la misma doctrina.

«Nor is there any race of men in the whole world more cheerfully conversant with this opinion, so it is said, than the Christian divines.» — el reconocimiento de que los teólogos cristianos comparten esa práctica.

«However —and it is reasonable for me to speak the truth, since my audience agrees with me —they are inclined to attribute all this to faith even though they do admit that some little power is contained in the words they say.» — el matiz sobre dónde ponen ellos la eficacia.

«Good Kabbalists agree with them entirely, equally asserting that miraculous works rely on God and faith alone.» — la posición que la obra suscribe: el milagro depende de Dios y de la fe.

«So they denounce as stupid liars those who attribute such miraculous strength and power to the figures, the writing, the lines and the sounds produced by cracking the air alone in themselves, as» — el deslinde frente a quienes atribuyen poder a los signos por sí mismos.

«PHILOLAUS: It is not only the Hebrew Kabbalists who deal with such matters, for the most understanding of the Greeks also attributed much to signs and seals of faith.» — la continuidad intercultural de la doctrina de los signos, en voz del pitagórico.

«The sign that was marked on their clothes was, as the same author from Samosata remarks in his On a Mistake in Accounting, “a triple triangle which forms a pentagram.”» — el pentagrama de Antíoco y su fuente en Luciano.

«When the lines are laid out straight they reveal the Greek word hygeia meaning “health.”» — la lectura del pentagrama como palabra griega.

«MARRANUS: It is surely relevant to mention the “Sign of God,” as they used to call the Cross at that time, which appeared to Constantine the Great at the very hour of midday and in the presence of his whole army.» — el signo de Constantino traído por la voz musulmana.

«So the witnesses to the power of signs and symbols are important men — Maccabeus for the Jews, Antiochus for the Greeks and Constantine for the Romans.» — los tres testigos, uno por tradición, que cierran el argumento.

«He must consider carefully not only the effort required to learn this art but also the danger involved in its controlled exercise.» — la advertencia final sobre el riesgo del arte.

«This is a spiritual science, dealing with spiritual things, and no man can find it easy to be discriminating when spirits are concerned, even if he has been granted the ability to discriminate, after infinitely careful scrutiny, between angels and demons.» — la exigencia de discernimiento entre ángeles y demonios, con su dificultad declarada.

«Believe me, the devils parade their squadrons among us mortals just as much as the angels.» — la simetría entre los dos ejércitos.

«In the army of God there are four leaders before the standards, Michael, Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael, as there are four elements, in accordance with the four regions or the four spiritual numerations, as the Children of Israel once set off in four squadrons (Numbers 2) with Judas to the East, Reuben to the South, Ephraim to the West and Dan to the North.» — los cuatro arcángeles con sus elementos, regiones y tribus.

«Similarly in the army of Satan the standard-bearing avengers hoist their great sails: Samael, Azazel, Azael and Mahazael.» — los cuatro demonios que reflejan esa formación.

«I shall now end with the Kabbalists’ proverb: “The wise man will understand.”» — el proverbio con que Simón cierra su exposición.

«These things portend that virtue and vice are rewarded and that each man should take care how he lives and how he dies.» — la conclusión moral del diálogo entero.

«This is our total philosophy, that, in living well, we die well, and thereby avoid a future existence in Tartarus with the avenging furies and every hope dashed, and that to the evil man comes evil.» — la filosofía completa resumida en una fórmula de vida y muerte.

«Since, as I believe, we are not born for ourselves alone, it is right that we should give some of ourselves to our friends.» — la razón que Simón da para haber hablado todo el día.

«What I have said here is but meager, though it may afford an opportunity to the studious for further thought and investigation.» — la modestia final del personaje sobre lo expuesto.

«On these matters, I, a man of only ordinary intelligence and little wisdom, would not dare to judge, nor shall I judge.» — Reuchlin, en su propia voz ante León X, se abstiene de juzgar lo que ha expuesto.

«Secondly, in the six months I have spent reading these works I have striven to assuage the five year war which, as you know, my enemies have been waging against me, even if I could not avoid it altogether.» — la datación de la escritura y del pleito, en la carta final al papa.

«It is not the town of Cologne nor its respectable university but a specific, unpleasant clique of enemies, a very small and foolish section of the populace, that has done this crime, asserting» — la acotación del enemigo: no la ciudad ni la universidad, sino una camarilla.

«Nearly all Rome leaps to attest my innocence.» — el argumento de respaldo con que abre la autodefensa.

«Every day I receive their testimonials even from the end of the earth, confirming that I have never caused scandal to any man by my writings but that, on the contrary, I constantly build and plant the Church in various languages for the Holy Spirit, which, across the diversity of many tongues, has gathered together the peoples in one faith.» — el mérito que Reuchlin reclama: edificar la Iglesia en varias lenguas.

«I hope, and I trust not in vain, that the Church in years to come will be not ungrateful for my merits, and that in the present time you, most blessed Pope Leo, will judge by deeds rather than words, and will in justice give me the peace and tranquility of mind that I deserve in recompense for the many sufferings I have endured in place of thanks for my services to the orthodox faith.» — la petición de justicia con que se cierra la obra.

«But if you would rather that I spend this life under perpetual persecution by evil men, then I shall rejoice greatly that I should seem worthy to suffer such injustice for our Christ.» — la alternativa que el propio autor se ofrece, y con la que termina el libro.

El aparato de la edición fecha la publicación en 1517.

Trae reimpreso el privilegio imperial de Maximiliano que concede a Thomas Anshelm la exclusiva de imprimir obras cabalísticas por cinco años.

Idel distingue tradición unilineal (Reuchlin: la verdadera filosofía depende solo de la mosaica) de multilineal (Ficino y Pico) — la clave interpretativa de toda la obra; y Ficino, en De religione Christiana, ya afirmaba que Pitágoras era judío.

Idel consigna misatribuciones del propio Reuchlin: leyó «Tedacus Levi» donde el nombre era Todros ha-Levi; atribuyó el Sha'ar ha-Razim a «Rabbi Ama» cuando su autor es Todros Abulafia; cita a Jacob ben Jacob ha-Kohen bajo el nombre de Azriel; y vocalizó mal Haqdamah como «Hacadma».

Scholem señaló el Codex Halberstamm 444 como la fuente principal de Cábala de Reuchlin, y lo llama «der erster Erforscher des Judentums», el primer investigador del judaísmo.

Jones enmarca la obra en el caso Pfefferkorn: el converso que pidió decidir qué libros hebreos quemar, la orden de Maximiliano y la persecución dominica que desencadenó la defensa de Reuchlin; su clasificación de la literatura judía en seis categorías, de las que solo el Toledoth Yeshu y el HaNissachon deben suprimirse.

Jones sobre la recepción: Erasmo en contra («Talmud, Cabala, Tetragrammaton, Gates of Light, these are but empty names»), pese a que la obra cita sus Adages como transmisor fiel de los preceptos pitagóricos; John Colet reconoce la erudición de Reuchlin pero rechaza su Cábala; Francesco Giorgi lo usa en De harmonia mundi; Abraham Farissol prohíbe a sus alumnos discutir Cábala con gentiles.

El glosario identifica a «Astarotus» como pseudónimo demoníaco de su enemigo Hochstraten.

El escenario de mecenazgo: la escena florentina de 1482 con Lorenzo de' Medici («I praised his library to the skies… his treasure lay more in his children than in his books»), y el programa editorial — Ficino publica a Platón, Faber a Aristóteles, Capnion promete al Pitágoras renacido.

«This book is dedicated to His Holiness Pope Leo X, by his humble friend Johann Reuchlin» — la dedicatoria que abre la obra

«Holy Father, philosophy in Italy was once upon a time handed down to men of great intellect and renown by Pythagoras, the father of that school» — y el arranque de la epístola, que hace de Pitágoras el padre de la escuela

«the Pythagorean Philolaus, a Phoenician, and Marranus, who came to Frankfurt from Constantinopole» — los otros dos interlocutores del diálogo, según el estudio introductorio; «Constantinopole» es del original

«the Kabbalist Simon represents a cultural image, whose more precise identity is not elaborated» — y lo que el estudio dice del tercero

«it is none other than the universal restoration, after the primordial Fall of the human race, which is called salvation» — Simón define el fin de la Cábala como restauración universal

«the classical Maimonidean identification of the account of Creation, Ma aseh Bereshit, with the science of nature, namely Aristotelian physics, and of the account of the Chariot, Ma' aseh Merkavah, with the science of the divinity, understood as Aristotelian metaphysics, is a Kabbalistic view» — el estudio introductorio sobre cómo Reuchlin lee a Maimónides

«Good Kabbalah is not possible without a good heart” is a quote from this» — la máxima, que Reuchlin atribuye al Kuzari de Judah Halevi

«the letter M stands for “in the middle of’ (understood, the four letters YHWH» — la operación de Notaricon sobre la letra M

«He wanted to be called by the letter S in the middle of the four letters YHWH» — el Pentagrámaton que resulta de esa lectura

«explain the power behind the work of Creation —impossible.” How much more so with Merkavah» — el dicho de los sabios hebreos sobre lo indecible de la obra de la Creación

«All things below are representations of the things above, and, as the lower is, so is the higher» — el principio de correspondencia, que Reuchlin pone en boca de los cabalistas

«Johannes Reuchlin is one of the major exponents of the Christian Kabbalah; he may even be conceived, as we shall attempt to show it below, as one of the earliest founders of this type of Christian theology.» — Idel abre su introducción proponiendo a Reuchlin no como divulgador tardío sino como uno de los fundadores mismos de esa teología.

«The historical beginning of the Christian Kabbalah is a matter of debate, as it is in regard to the beginnings of the Jewish Kabbalah.» — Idel advierte que la fecha de nacimiento del fenómeno está tan discutida como la de la Cábala judía misma.

«If we accept the ten divine powers, the ten sefirot, as a vital component of Kabbalah, it will be difficult to find Christian discussions of this topic before the end of the thirteenth century.» — la fecha depende de la definición: tomados los sefirot como componente vital, no hay discusión cristiana antes de fines del siglo XIII.

«However, if we accept other ways of defining Kabbalah, found already in the eleventh century, as an esoteric tradition concerning the divine names, the situation may be much more complex.» — con el criterio de los nombres divinos, en cambio, la cuenta se adelanta al siglo XI.

«Indeed, some passages dealing with divine names recur in Christian texts early in the thirteenth century, as the discussions of Joachim de Fiore demonstrate.» — Idel pone a Joaquín de Fiore como ejemplo temprano de esa segunda cuenta.

«However, it is possible to approach the question from another angle: it is not so much the passage of some traditions from one type of religion to another that is the defining moment of the emergence of a certain new phenomenon, but the absorption, especially the creative one, of the techniques that are characteristic of one type of lore, by a religious thinker belonging to another religion.» — el criterio que Idel prefiere no es la transmisión de doctrinas sino la absorción creativa de las técnicas por un pensador de otra religión.

«Thus, the occurrence of a certain combinatory technique of interpretation of the first word of the Bible by separating its letters, as practiced by Alexander of Neckham,4 or of the peculiar combination of letters by means of concentric circles, apparently under the influence of Jewish sources, as evident in the work of Ramon Null,5 may fit this second approach.» — los dos casos que Idel admite bajo ese criterio; la edición imprime *Ramon Null* donde el nombre es Ramon Llull.

«What lacks in all these examples is the explicit awareness that, when dealing with divine names or with combinatory techniques, the Christian author operates in a speculative realm that, at least from the point of view of the primary sources, is a characteristically esoteric type of Jewish lore.» — lo que a esos precedentes les falta, según Idel, es la conciencia de estar operando en terreno esotérico judío.

«seems that before the writings of Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494) those Jewish elements did not become a considerable part of any defined Christian circle, neither were they cultivated by a movement that consciously continued the steps of some founding figures.» — Idel fija en Pico el umbral: antes de él no hay círculo ni movimiento cristiano que cultive lo judío esotérico.

«In other words, while we can easily accumulate interesting pieces of evidence dealing with the acquaintance of various Christian authors with Jewish esoteric topics, they are scanty, disparate, and incontinuous.» — la evidencia anterior a Pico abunda en piezas sueltas y no hace serie; la fuente parte la última palabra con guion de fin de renglón y la herramienta la devuelve unida.

«Reuchlin indeed continued, consciously, a cultural Florentine phenomenon.» — Idel hace de la continuidad florentina un acto deliberado, no una coincidencia de intereses.

«By these two criteria—acquaintance with Kabbalistic material and cultural continuity—Reuchlin is to be conceived as one of the founders of this branch of Christian thought.» — los dos criterios con que Idel adjudica la fundación: trato directo con el material cabalístico y continuidad cultural.

«The main exponent of the Jewish Kabbalah in De Arte Cabalística is the Kabbalist Simon ben Elazar of the Yohaidic family, who was an inhabitant of Frankfurt and takes part in the friendly debates with the Pythagorean Philolaus and the Muslim Mananus.» — Idel describe el reparto de voces del diálogo; la edición imprime *Mananus* donde el personaje es Marranus.

«there can be no doubt that the name of the fictitious author of the book of the Zohar, Rabbi Shimeon bar Yohai, inspired Reuchlin.» — de dónde sale el nombre del cabalista del diálogo, según Idel.

«Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Zohar has been mentioned in Reuchlin’s book, actual quotes from this classic of Kabbalah cannot be detected in it.» — la negativa que Idel deja consignada: el Zóhar se nombra en la obra pero no se cita de él.

«Therefore, while the Spanish Kabbalists were indeed the great experts in matters of Kabbalah in Reuchlin’s generation, none of them would indulge in attempts to introduce a Greek philosopher as expressing views consonant with Kabbalah.» — Idel objeta la verosimilitud del personaje: ningún cabalista español de esa generación habría puesto a un griego a decir lo mismo que la Cábala.

«Neither, I think, would a Spanish Kabbalist—unlike some of his Italian contemporaries—engage in an intellectual conversation on matters of Kabbalah, as Reuchlin would like us to believe it happened in Frankfurt.» — tampoco habría conversado del asunto con no judíos: la escena de Frankfurt es, para Idel, una figura italiana.

«Therefore, the possible cultural image of the learned Spanish Kabbalist, who would converse with non-Jewish persons on the most esoteric Jewish topics, is characteristically Italian.» — de dónde viene entonces la imagen: del cabalismo abierto italiano, no del español.

«On the other hand, as we shall see below, the types of Kabbalah that Reuchlin was acquainted with from a Kabbalistic manuscript he studied would not prevent him from creating the hybrid notion of a Spanish open-minded Kabbalist.» — el manuscrito que Reuchlin manejaba le permitió componer ese híbrido sin contradecir lo que leía.

«Reuchlin presented Kabbalah as the source of Pythagoreanism,11 and therefore as fully consonant with this type of philosophy, a view that had some few, and partial, predecessors in some Jewish texts written at the end of the fifteenth and early sixteenth century in Italy.» — Idel sitúa la tesis central de la obra y le reconoce precedentes judíos italianos parciales.

«However, what is even more important for our discussion than Eusebius’ text is the fact that Pythagoras has been a constant figure in Ficino’s lists of the prisci theologi; as in the other cases, in his commentaries on Plato’s dialogues, Pythagoras is portrayed without mentioning a Hebrew source for his philosophy.» — el contraste que Idel monta: Ficino incluye a Pitágoras entre los teólogos antiguos sin adjudicarle fuente hebrea.

«Pico’s view of this figure is, however, more complex; in an important discussion, he proposes a multilinear theory as regards Pythagoras’s thought:» — Pico, a diferencia de Reuchlin, admite varias líneas de descendencia para el pitagorismo.

«It is conspicuous that, although the historical affinity between Pythagoras and Mosaic sources is secured by mentioning Hermippus’s tradition, the Egyptian alternative is as strong as the Hebrew one, even Moses being portrayed as a student of the Egyptian lore.» — en la versión de Pico la vía egipcia pesa tanto como la hebrea, y hasta Moisés aparece como discípulo de Egipto.

«However, what is new with Reuchlin is the fact that for the first time in the work of a Christian thinker, Kabbalah was presented as the source of a major type of philosophy to be revived for the benefit of Europe;» — la novedad que Idel le adjudica: la Cábala como manantial de una filosofía a resucitar para Europa.

«Reuchlin indicates that the affinity between Kabbalah and Pythagoreanism is not a matter of different corpora which share similar theological views but that the Pythagorean philosophy has been extracted from the Hebrew sources.» — no es paralelismo entre dos corpus: es extracción de uno desde el otro.

«I did not find any support for this view in our Sages’ statements.» — la objeción de Isaac Abravanel a la metempsicosis que Idel recoge en su recorrido de los precedentes judíos.

«He attributes the belief in the metempsychosis not only to the Kabbalists but also to “the divine Socrates” as he was portrayed by Plato in his Phaedon, and also to Pythagoras and other ancient authors whose views were» — Idel sobre Eliahu Hayyim de Genazzano, de los primeros en juntar la metempsicosis pitagórica con la cabalística.

«Scholem’s pathbreaking observation was not exploited by the modem scholarship of Reuchlin.» — Idel señala que la identificación del códice Halberstamm quedó sin explotar; la edición imprime *modem* por modern.

«However, a careful examination of the manuscript may open the possibility that this particular codex could not be the precise manuscript quoted by Reuchlin, though it indubitably mirrors another codex, which was similar from many points of view to the New York codex.» — el límite que Idel pone a la identificación: el Halberstamm refleja la fuente de Reuchlin, pero acaso no sea la fuente misma.

«Scholem’s claim that Reuchlin used the name Tedacus Levi, which represents a distortion of the name Todros ha-Levi, is, in my opinion, correct.» — Idel suscribe la lectura de Scholem sobre el nombre deformado.

«When Reuchlin cites from treatises found in Ms. Halberstamm, he sometimes offers a version of the quoted passage that differs from that found in this manuscript.» — las citas de Reuchlin no siempre coinciden con el manuscrito conservado.

«It should be emphasized that notwithstanding these discrepancies, which may indicate that another codex had informed Reuchlin’s studies of Kabbalah, the content of the Halberstamm codex is very helpful in identifying sources for important segments of Reuchlin’s book.» — pese a las discrepancias, el códice sigue sirviendo para identificar las fuentes de tramos enteros.

«Reuchlin attempted to offer a rather unified concept of Kabbalah, as the singular in the title of his book indicates, and by doing so he attempted to do the impossible.» — Idel lee el singular del título como programa: una sola Cábala, tarea que juzga imposible.

«The main subject of Reuchlin’s first book on Kabbalah, De Verbo Mirifico, was to expose the miraculous powers of the hidden divine name, the Pentagrammaton, formed from the insertion of the letter Sh, the Hebrew Shin, in the middle of the Tetragrammaton; this name formed, according to Reuchlin and his source Pico della Mirandola, the secret name of Jesus.» — Idel resume la doctrina del Pentagrámaton y su procedencia de Pico.

«The meaning of the text is now clear: the Messiah, who will advent in the seventh day, will complete the divine name, since he will act by the dint of the two last letters of the Tetragramaton, VH.» — Idel restituye el sentido del original hebreo que Reuchlin leyó torcido: el Mesías judío completará el Nombre con VH.

«There can be no doubt that the mysterious Shu henriytz is but a permutation of the consonants of the Hebrew Yeshu ha-Notzriy, namely Jesus of Nazareth.» — la clave de la lectura: a Jesús le toca la mitad inicial YH del Nombre, no su terminación.

«The potential danger involved in this view was obvious to the writer, who states that “would the nation of Edom63 will be told about this topic, a great danger will be involved in it.”» — el propio texto hebreo advierte del peligro de que los cristianos se enteren de esa asignación.

«These considerations show that not only were the Hebrew Kabbalistic texts sometimes misquoted but also the general intention of the whole text was not, in some cases, entirely realized by Reuchlin.» — el juicio de Idel sobre el manejo de fuentes: hay cita torcida y también propósito no advertido.

«Strangely enough, the Christian Kabbalist who emphasized more than any other the secret of the miraculous name of the Christ, as the Pentagrammaton, misunderstood the most elaborate Kabbalistic attempt to show that the Christian Messiah is connected to an incompleted form of the Tetragrammaton.» — la ironía que Idel subraya: el pasaje que más le habría servido es el que leyó al revés.

«The view of the Talmudists as worshiping God out of fear, while the Kabbalists do it out of love, is mirroring the famous Christian distinction between Jews and Christians.» — Idel adjudica origen cristiano al reparto talmudistas-cabalistas que la obra usa como propio.

«In fact, Kabbalah is conceived of in Reuchlin in terms which are very close to the way the Christians understood Christianity.» — la Cábala de la obra queda dicha, según Idel, en categorías cristianas.

«His attraction to the esoteric lore of the Jews has provoked, dialectically, a negative reaction to their exoteric law.» — el precio de la simpatía esotérica: hostilidad hacia la ley visible del judaísmo.

«When writing De Arte Cabalística, immediately after his fierce controversy over the Jewish books, Reuchlin is defending a type of Kabbalah that, in many cases, is not only faraway from the content of the original texts he quotes but, in some instances, eventually contradicts their main messages.» — la tesis fuerte de Idel sobre la obra que edita.

«Far from being the founder of the studies of Judaism in Europe, as he was once described77, he was an asiduous student of Jewish texts who was a deeply Christian theologian, and also informed by the Florentine Renaissance.» — Idel disputa el título que Scholem le dio, y que esta misma ficha consigna en la voz de Scholem; se registran los dos sin armonizar.

«It seems that only by studying the full context of the original Hebrew Kabbalistic texts, which were perused and quoted by Reuchlin, that we can become aware of the depth of the metamorphosis those texts underwent when exposed by Reuchlin.» — el método que Idel propone para medir la transformación.

«Though Aristotle never mentioned Pythagoras himself, he is rather negatively disposed toward Pythagoreanism.» — de las notas de Idel sobre la mala prensa filosófica del pitagorismo.

«Mithridates has also translated from Greek a writing attributed to Pythagoras; see ibidem, p. 49.» — Flavio Mitrídates como traductor de un escrito pitagórico, en las notas de Idel.

«It is possible that R. Elijah’s statement is a distortion of Numenius’ well-known dictum: “What is Plato but Moses speaking Attic” (see Gager, ibidem, pp. 66-67), which occurs several times in Renaissance authors such as Ficino and Pico;» — el dictum de Numenio, del que la obra vive, con su circulación renacentista, en nota de Idel.

«It is worthwhile to note that R. Elijah mentions later in the passage that Numenius allegedly stated that he was an reincarnation of Moses.» — la variante que Idel no logra rastrear en fuente antigua.

«On this distinction between the Jewish unilinear versus the Christian multilinear views, I hope to devote a separate study.» — Idel deja abierta la distinción que organiza su lectura de la obra.

«The English translation on p. 95 does not do justice to the Hebrew text as quoted by Reuchlin.» — Idel marca, dentro de la propia edición, un punto donde la traducción inglesa se aparta del hebreo citado.

«The only other codex, which is very similar in its content to the Halberstamm codex, is found also in the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York (Ms. Acc. 78467, Mic. 2194), but this is a later manuscript which was copied after Reuchlin’s death.» — el estado del dossier manuscrito, en nota de Idel.

«This is a reference to Christianity, called Edom in many Jewish medieval sources.» — la clave del término con que el texto hebreo nombra al peligro cristiano.

«I see no reason for Scholem’s description in Reuchlin as the founder of the studies of Judaism in Europe.» — Idel repite la objeción en nota, contra la fórmula de Scholem.

«Erasmus, in his prayer, chose to concentrate on Reuchlin’s competence in the languages of the Bible and excluded the two other aspects of his career which Reuchlin would have wished to emphasize:» — Jones abre su estudio con la oración de Erasmo y con lo que ésta calla.

«For present purposes, these three areas, the linguistic, the literary and the Kabbalistic, provide a suitable framework for a brief review of Reuchlin’s contribution to Hebrew learning.» — el reparto en tres frentes con que Jones organiza el estudio introductorio.

«It was claimed that the rabbis had purposely falsified the text of the Old Testament and given erroneous explanations of passages which were capable of a christological interpretation.» — la sospecha medieval que Jones pone como fondo del rechazo cristiano al hebreo.

«Although the decree was reissued by the Council of Basle in 1434 it had no appreciable impact on Hebrew learning among Christians.» — las cátedras de hebreo decretadas en Vienne y reiteradas en Basilea no llegaron a existir.

«But the desire of Christians to learn Hebrew was not universally welcomed by Italian Jewry.» — la resistencia venía también del lado judío, no solo del cristiano.

«The concern of prominent churchmen with Hebrew lore, however, was motivated by conversionist considerations rather than by a genuine academic interest.» — Jones adjudica el motivo de los coleccionistas eclesiásticos de manuscritos hebreos.

«But despite the assistance of Jews and Jewish converts to Christianity, there is no clear evidence that Pico made much headway as a Hebraist.» — la reserva de Jones sobre el hebreo real de Pico.

«For the mediator between God and man was language, as we read in the Pentateuch; but not any language, only Hebrew, through which God wished his secrets to be made known to man.”» — la premisa lingüística de la que arranca todo el programa, en cita que trae Jones.

«He stresses that anyone wishing to make a proper philological investigation of the Hebrew Scriptures should regard such authors as indispensable.» — Jones sobre la defensa reuchliniana de Rashi, Kimchi e Ibn Ezra como herramienta exegética.

«His intention is, and always will be, to give the youth, bent upon studying languages, a leader under whose banner they would be able to fight, if need be, with those ferocious and rabid dogs who hated all good arts; against the disease and pestilence of everything old; against the burners of books who thirsted for the destruction and extermination of the most ancient monuments.» — el programa pedagógico dicho en clave de campaña, contra los quemadores de libros.

«“I do not discuss the meaning, like a theologian, but rather the actual words, like a grammarian,” he wrote» — la línea con que Reuchlin acota su oficio, según Jones.

«Reuchlin justified his action by claiming that where the theologian may err in his interpretation, the philologist will arrive at the truth.» — el reclamo de jurisdicción del filólogo sobre el teólogo.

«In spite of Reuchlin’s admiration for his teachers and his enthusiasm for Judaica, the fact remained that early in the sixteenth century it was considered unwise for a Christian to display excessive interest in Hebrew.» — el riesgo de época que Jones consigna.

«Although he regarded them as mistaken in their religious convictions, and traced their endless misery to their own unbelief rather than to the uncharitable attitude of the Church, he insisted that they should have the same rights as any other human beings.» — Jones fija con precisión el lugar de Reuchlin: defensa de derechos sin concesión doctrinal.

«Just as Jerome had criticized the Septuagint and Nicholas of Lyra had criticized Jerome, so Reuchlin felt that he had the right to make a judgement on the work of his predecessors, and in so doing promote Hebraic studies.» — la cadena de crítica textual con que Reuchlin justifica corregir la Vulgata.

«The Talmud might well contain some anti-Christian remarks, but how many Christians in Germany could read it, much less be offended by what it said; he admitted that he had not read it himself.» — el argumento y su límite declarado, ambos en la misma frase de Jones.

«To add weight to his recommendation Reuchlin pointed out that what is forbidden usually attracts people; confiscation would only lead to greater interest.» — el argumento pragmático contra la confiscación.

«While he deplored the expulsion of the Jews from Spain and their constant harassment in Germany, he did so because he feared that the resultant loss of the Hebrew language would be detrimental to Christian biblical scholarship.» — Jones nombra el motivo del que sale la defensa, y no es la tolerancia.

«He saw himself, primarily, as a defender of Christianity, not as a crusader for the rights of Jews.» — la corrección de Jones a la lectura filosemita de la polémica.

«He justified his standpoint by claiming that the Kabbalah contained an ancient divine revelation which had been lost.» — el argumento de fondo con que Reuchlin sostiene el valor cristiano de la Cábala.

«Not surprisingly, the Vatican was disturbed by the thesis which stated that “there is no knowledge which makes us more certain of the divinity of Christ than magic and Kabbalah.”» — la tesis de Pico que provocó la investigación papal, citada por Jones.

«When Pico was prevented by an early death from taking the study of Christian Kabbalism any further, his mantle fell upon Reuchlin.» — la sucesión que Jones traza entre los dos fundadores.

«By 1517, the year in which he published his De arte cabalistica, Reuchlin had become a proficient Hebraist and was regarded as the leading Christian authority on postbiblical Jewish writings.» — el lugar de la obra en la carrera de su autor.

«The dedication to Pope Leo X indicates how anxious Reuchlin was to enlist the support of Rome in his fight against obscurantists and anti-Semites.» — Jones lee la dedicatoria como movimiento de la polémica, no como cortesía.

«If I declare that Kabbalah and Pythagoreanism are of the same stuff, I will not be departing from the facts.» — la fórmula de Pico sobre la identidad de las dos tradiciones, que Jones pone como antecedente directo de la obra.

«Reuchlin declares that rationality and intellect fail us when we try to penetrate the mystery of the divine.» — el límite epistemológico del que arranca el Libro II, en resumen de Jones.

«The Kabbalist begins where the philosopher ends.» — la fórmula con que Jones condensa el reparto de competencias que sostiene la obra.

«Reuchlin linked Kabbalah and Pythagoreanism by tracing both of them to Moses.» — el procedimiento unilineal en una línea de Jones.

«Many historians regard the controversy as a clash between humanism and scholasticism, scholarship and ignorance, light and darkness.» — la lectura historiográfica corriente que Jones expone antes de matizarla.

«The conflict was between two intellectual traditions.» — el matiz con que Jones reencuadra el pleito.

«He was never convinced that the mysteries of the Kabbalah should have been popularized and made truly available to all.» — el reparo que Jones atribuye al propio bando reuchliniano sobre la divulgación.

«Cortus Rubeanus, one of its more influential members, wrote to Reuchlin: “You do not lack supporters: you have on your side the illustrious Mutianic order which is comprised of philosophers, poets, orators, and theologians, all ready to fight for you if you so desire.”» — el respaldo del círculo mutiánico, en carta que cita Jones.

«Martin Luther, though still an Augustinian friar when the Dominicans brought their case against the Jews, sided with the Reuchlinists.» — el alineamiento temprano de Lutero.

«During the final years of his life Luther would have had little sympathy for Reuchlin’s promotion of Jewish literature and his cultivation of a Christian Kabbalah.» — y su reversión posterior, que Jones no oculta.

«There is no doubt that in his heart of hearts Erasmus was anti-Jewish.» — el juicio de Jones sobre el defensor más célebre de Reuchlin.

«He persistently refused to accept that the writings of medieval Jewish mystics could have any value whatsoever for a Christian.» — el punto exacto donde Erasmo retira su apoyo.

«Salvation would come, not by adopting the esoteric practices advocated by Jewish mystics, but by leading a blameless life.» — la objeción erasmiana de fondo, en formulación de Jones.

«I do not think there is another man alive that comes so near to Giovanni Pico.» — el elogio inglés que Jones recoge, midiendo a Reuchlin con la vara de Pico.

«It is a book about which I dare not pronounce an opinion.» — la reserva de John Colet sobre la obra cabalística, junto a su veneración por el autor.

«But for this short life there is nothing better than that we should live in purity and holiness, and daily endeavour to be purified and enlightened and fulfil what is promised in those Pythagorean and Cabbalistic treatises of Reuchlin.» — Colet acepta la promesa moral de los tratados y se abstiene sobre su doctrina.

«The pursuit of Hebrew studies for a better understanding of Scripture was one thing, but the search for Christ in the works of the Kabbalists was another.» — la línea que sus admiradores ingleses no cruzan, según Jones.

«Neither Rome nor the Reformers could see any abiding value in ransacking-the works of medieval Jewish mystics for the truths of Christianity.» — el balance de recepción con que Jones cierra: ninguno de los dos bandos recogió la Cábala cristiana.

«G. Kisch, Zasius undReuchlin, Constance 1961, pp. 23-36, argues that legal training rather than literary interests inspired Reuchlin to defend the Jews.» — la lectura alternativa del móvil, consignada por Jones en nota.

«Many Jews saw the threat which Christian involvement in the Kabbalah posed to their own religion.» — el reverso judío de la empresa, en nota de Jones.

«Gikatilla’s works were a major source of the De art. cab.» — la adjudicación de fuente que Jones deja en nota.

«By this letter we acknowledge Thomas Anshelm for his careful seeking out of rare and hitherto unpublished books in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin for the general convenience and utility of scholars, and for the not inconsiderable expense he has thereby incurred, and for his intention to print these books in fine type, and bring them to light.» — el privilegio imperial de Maximiliano, que la edición también traduce al inglés en la plana impar.

«hereby officially forbid anyone of any rank or station throughout the Holy Roman Empire to print copies of this book» — la exclusiva de impresión por cinco años que el privilegio concede.

«Contravention of this order will be punished by the loss of the books and a fine of 5 marks of pure gold payable to our Treasury.» — la sanción prevista.

«Signed in Terzolae on 21 April 1516, in the thirty-first year of our rule in Rome.» — fecha y lugar de la firma imperial, un año antes de la publicación.

«Printer in Pforzheim from c. 1495. Moved to Tubingen, then Hagenau. Published Reuchlin, Brant and Filelfo.» — el glosario identifica a Thomas Anshelm, beneficiario del privilegio imperial, y su itinerario de talleres.

«Reputed author of philosophico-religious treatises called Hermetica, from 3rd cent. A.D. and after.» — el glosario data los Hermetica y consigna la atribución a Hermes como reputada, no como hecho.

«Pseudo-Jonathan, to whom the translation of the Prophets into Aramaic in the early centuries A.D. is attributed (the Targumim).» — la entrada del glosario sobre el pseudo-Jonatán, del que la obra depende para su lectura mesiánica.

«Greek philosopher and mathematician from Samos 6th cent. B.C. Taught in Italy. Details of life and beliefs are obscured by later legend.» — el glosario acota lo que se sabe de Pitágoras y advierte del peso de la leyenda.

«The expulsion of the Jews from Spain was in 1492. Reuchlin was writing in 1517, in fact 25 years later.» — la nota corrige la cuenta de veintitrés años que el diálogo pone en boca de Filolao.

«This is a description of the Kabbalistic tree in which man is put at the center, the tree also serving the purpose of placing in relation the qualities or “numerations” (sephiroth) on which some forms of Kabbalah concentrate speculation.» — la nota explica la figura del árbol con el hombre en el centro.

«The central element in a kabbalistic system first evolved by at least the second century A.D. The Merkavah is the Chariot or Throne of God described in detail in Ezekiel chapter 1 and to be reached only through travel through a series of Halls (hekhaloth).» — la nota data la especulación de la Merkavá y describe su recorrido por salas.

«These terms are not consistently applied by Reuchlin and have no Hebrew parallel. They seem to be fabricated in parallel with theology and theologisten, the similarity of theologist to sophist rendering it a rude term.» — la nota declara fabricados los tres grados Kabbalici, Kabbalaei y Kabbalistae, sin paralelo hebreo.

«Nomadic people found in the Caucasus in late Medieval times and only partly Christianized.» — la nota sobre los alanos, que es la nacionalidad que el propio Filolao se atribuye.

«The supposed family of Simeon bar Yohai (q.v.) to whom the Zohar was ascribed.» — la nota sobre la familia yohaica de la que el personaje Simón dice proceder.

«This insertion of Sh in the middle of the Tetragram is to be the main revelation of the book, at the end of Book III.» — la nota señala dónde desemboca la doctrina del Pentagrámaton dentro de la propia obra.

«SA = 300, ¿ = 30, 22=8, N=50, 7=10 = 398, though A/=40, S/i = 300, Y= 10, H= 8 comes to only 358.» — la nota rehace la cuenta del nombre mesiánico y deja constancia de que la cifra de la obra no cuadra con la gematría de MShYH; la capa de texto degrada los signos de las letras.

«The Zohar, perhaps the most influential of the Kabbalistic works, purports to be the product of Simeon bar Yohai in mid 2nd cent. Palestine but is first attested in Spain in the late thirteenth century and is most likely to have been composed there.» — la nota separa la atribución del Zóhar de su datación probable.

«The book Ha Bahir was probably composed in France at the end of the 12th cent., although it may have been imported from the East.» — la datación del Bahir, con su alternativa oriental dicha como posible.

«This conventional number of 613 precepts is the number signified by the arithmetical connotations of the letters in Tharyag (77i = 400, R=200, y=10, 6 = 3).» — la nota desglosa el cómputo de los 613 preceptos.

«This is a particularly ungainly translation of the Hebrew into Latin.» — la nota marca, dentro de la propia edición, un pasaje donde la versión latina de Reuchlin desmerece el hebreo.

«The Council of Nicaea of A.D. 325 was called by the emperor Constantine to resolve the Arian crisis over the relation between Father and Son in the Trinity.» — la nota sitúa el concilio que la obra usa como ejemplo de verdad no discutible.

«General council of the Catholic Church, originally called in 1431 to deal with the Hussite heresy but eventually resolving into a struggle between the bishops of the Council and Pope Eugenius I who had transferred a rival council to Ferrara.» — la nota sobre el concilio de Basilea, cuyos delegados la obra cita a propósito de la salvación.

«The German humanist Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) defended the value ofjewish scholarship and literature when it was unwise and unpopular to do so.» — la presentación editorial fija las fechas del autor y el sentido de su defensa.

«Reuchlin was exceptional in pursuing and promoting Hebrew studies, believing that a working knowledge of that language was essential for a true appreciation of the Bible and rabbinic literature.» — la excepcionalidad del caso, en la síntesis editorial.

«Toward that end he proposed university endowments that aroused the fury of opponents and led to the famous “battle of the books.”» — el origen del pleito, en la misma síntesis.

«According to Jones, “Reuchlin demonstrates how Christians can make profitable use ofjewish mystical writings, and therefore shares with the reader his understanding of the art of the Kabbalah.”» — la fórmula de Jones sobre el propósito de la obra, citada por la edición.

«It reinforces the historical importance of the man who prevented the destruction of Jewish books and anticipated the more liberal climate of the Reformation.» — el balance histórico que la edición propone.

«In addition to an introduction by G. Lloyd Jones, this Bison Book edition of On the Art of the Kabbalah features a new introduction by Moshe Idel, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the author of many books, including Kabbalah: New Perspectives.» — la composición del aparato de esta edición, declarada por ella misma.

Sefirot (las diez numeraciones) — «Diez y no nueve; diez y no once»: los diez nombres divinos, con En Sof sobre la Corona.

Gematría (aritmética de las letras) — «Called Gematria or "geometry"»; el modo numérico alfabético que los cabalistas abrazaron por entero.

Notarikon — Colocación de una letra por un todo: iniciales (Rosh haTeibah) y finales (Soph haTeibah) despliegan frases enteras.

Temurah — Conmutación reglada de letras; el alfabeto Athbash del Sepher Yetzirah como fuente.

Tetragrammaton (el Nombre de cuatro letras) — Nombre eterno e impronunciable; los doce reordenamientos como una esencia; unido a Sabaoth indica juicio.

Pentagrammaton — La letra S insertada en YHWH vuelve efable el nombre; identificado con el nombre de Jesús.

Ein Sof (el Infinito) — El Infinito incognoscible, alfa y omega del cosmos; la «deidad desnuda».

Schemhamphorasch — Los setenta y dos nombres que explican el Tetragrámaton, derivados de Éxodo 14.

Prisca theologia (la teología antiquísima) — La sabiduría pitagórica no es original: deriva de la recepción hebrea, perdida y recuperada.

Merkavah — La obra del carro se distingue de la del principio: una da sabiduría de lo divino y la otra de la naturaleza, y su contemplación exige edad, temple y alejamiento de las pasiones.

Microcosmos (el hombre-mundo) — El hombre es el mundo pequeño, nombrado en las tres lenguas, y la thau lo pone como término de la escala alfabética del cosmos.

Cadena de transmisión (quién tomó de quién) — De Ezra a Simeón el Justo, Antígono, Hillel y Shammai hasta Johanan ben Zakkai y sus cinco discípulos; lo transmitido es siempre lo mismo que Adán recibió de Raziel.

Philosophia perennis (filosofía perenne) — Una sola sabiduría recibida, renombrada filosofía por Pitágoras; ni griegos ni romanos le enseñaron nada, y Numenio pone a Platón y Pitágoras exponiendo en griego lo hallado por brahmanes, magos, egipcios y judíos.

Cuatro elementos (fuego, aire, agua, tierra) — Fuego es seraph, aire cherub, agua tharsis, tierra ariel; cuatro puertas de la creación llevan sus insignias, y los cuatro arcángeles se reparten elementos, regiones y tribus.

Daimon (entidad intermedia, ni ángel ni demonio) — La obra distingue daimon de daimonium, reparte las almas difuntas entre dios doméstico, hobgoblin y una categoría intermedia, y consigna los Poderes Contrarios repartidos por los elementos.

Secreto (lo que se jura no fijar por escrito) — El arte no se muestra a quien no sea humilde, maduro y pacífico; Moisés lo reservó a Josué y los setenta, y Pitágoras impuso silencio a los suyos por la misma razón.

Iniciación (recepción por grados / metamorfosis del ser) — Tres grados: los Kabbalici que reciben del aliento celestial, los Kabbalaei sus discípulos y los Kabbalistae que imitan sin revelación.

Templo de Salomón (el escenario del oficio) — El templo de abajo se traza según el templo de arriba, y el Salomón que la obra espera no es el histórico sino el que levanta el templo eterno.

Tetractys — El uno, dos, tres y cuatro suman diez; Pitágoras jura por ella como por un dios, y Marrano la empalma de inmediato con el artificio de cuatro letras.

Tres Mundos — Sensible, inteligible y un tercero indecible por encima del más alto; en la juntura entre los dos últimos se sitúa el alma del Mesías.

Metatron — Gobierna las nueve esferas del mundo sensible, se llama Rector del Universo y comparte valor numérico con Shaddai.

Cincuenta Puertas — Diez modos de esencia por cinco grupos del universo; todas se dieron a Moisés menos una, y Josué perdió otra que Salomón no logró recuperar.

Treinta y Dos Caminos — Veintidós letras más diez numeraciones; corren de arriba abajo y se transmitieron a Abraham por Zadkiel.

Nombre de Cuarenta y Dos Letras — Siete palabras de seis letras, llamado Santo y Santificado, obtenido de la primera permutación del alfabeto Albath y solo pronunciable en hebreo.

Mesias — Su nombre es el YHWH impronunciable; vence con la palabra y no con la mano, y la salvación se gradúa por la proximidad que se alcance a él.

Metempsicosis — La obra la niega como doctrina pitagórica: el dicho sobre Euforbo se lee como transmigración de cuerpos, y el sello de la forma humana no se imprime en naturaleza inferior.

Golem — Jeremías estudia el Libro de la Creación tres años por orden de una Bath Qol y forma un hombre que se borra la aleph de Emeth; al quitarla, deshecho, se vuelve polvo y ceniza.

Teologia Negativa — Ni número ni orden ni uno ni unidad, según Dionisio; el ascenso no halla sino un mar infinito de nada, y por eso el Infinito se nombra Nada y No-fin.

Jerarquia Angelica — Diez órdenes de aleph a teth y hasta los Ishim, cada uno iluminado por el anterior; setenta y dos ángeles derivados del valor del Tetragrámaton.