Alef = I-Bateleur or = Fou ?

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Kwaw, Mark,

kwaw said:
The quote from the Talmud uses what it considered the original non-Hebraic linguistic meaning of Lamed as 'ox goad' for the purpose of exegesis. The close relationship between Hebrew and the semitic language in which the names of alphabet originated is testified too by the fact that most of the names do have meaning, and frequently the same meaning, in Hebrew. Even where it doesn't, the relationship is often still there as in the fact that though Lamed does not mean ox-goad in Hebrew, it is the root of the word for ox goad mLMD, as Teth is the primary consonant of the word for staff MTH.

I pointed out in my initial post that your method restricts you to the literal Hebrew meanings of the names as can be found in a Hebrew dictionary, and that I have no objection to that. I only wanted to clarify that:

1) Such meanings though not in the dictionary are to found at the time in other sources such as the Talmud, kabbalistic texts and commentaries thereon;

Besides the Zohar, Sefer Yetzirah and Talmud, there was a contemporary Christian tradition for the meanings of the Hebrew letters. For instance Teth meant "The Good" and Lamed meant "Discipline" (easy to see how it derived from "ox-goad"). These meanings were the "standard" Christian tradition throughout the middle ages.

Here is a post from another thread on this subject [edited for relevance]-

"Stephen Langton was the author of a list of Hebrew words and names in the Bible, with definitions of their meanings. It is included in many manuscripts of the Vulgate. Look up "Aaz vel apprehendens" and "Interpretationes hebraicorum nominum". Here is a good example of a 13th century bible with this text (and the names of the Hebrew letters with an interpretation of their meaning)-
http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/d...Number=HM+26061
(scroll down to folio 348v - second image from bottom - and pick the medium or large size)
There are other examples of this book on the web, but I don't know of an English translation.

The Latin bible transmitted the names of the Hebrew letters in many places, that most English translations have omitted. Of particular importance is Psalm 118 (119 in English bibles), with 22 verses, which in the Hebrew and Latin versions names the letters before the verse. Many manuscripts of the Vulgate give the meaning of the letter after the name, such as -
(see http://www.valenciennes.fr/bib/comm...LE=Ms0008.tif images number 204 and 205)

Aleph, doctrina (teaching)
Beth, domus (house)
Gimel, plenitudo (fullness, plenty)
Deleth, tabula (table)
He (meanings vary)
Vau, (and)
Zain, (himself)
Heth, vita (life)
Theth, bonum (the good)
Yoth, principium (beginning)
Caph, manus (hand)
Lamed, disciplina (discipline)
Mem, ex quo (from which)
Nun, foetus vel piscis (foetus or fish)
Samech, firmamentum, erectionem (prop or frame)
Ain, oculus (eye)
Phe, os (mouth)
Sade, justicia (justice)
Coph, vocatio (calling)
Res, caput (head)
Sin, dens (tooth)
Tau, signa (sign)

You can see that a lot of them are actually "correct" by today's standards. This was the Christian tradition (if you google "aaz" and "hebraicorum" you'll get a few other examples).

There are eleven places in the Vulgate where the letters of the alphabet are named.

It's spelled out completely 12 times, six times alone
in Lamentations, all in acrostic contexts - but you wouldn't know
this from reading English translations, especially the venerable
King James, which seems to have gone to great lengths to hide it
(except in psalm 119). The Psalms are numbered according to the
Vulgate and Septuagint - Hebrew and English Bibles use the number in
(parenthesis).

1) Psalm 36 (37)
2) Psalm 110 (111) - 10 verses/22
3) Psalm 111 (112) - 10 verses/22
4) Psalm 118 (119) - 176 verses/8
5) Psalm 144 (145) - this one is missing the NUN, so only 21 verses
6) Proverbs 31 - verses 10-31 are an acrostic
7) Lamentations 1
8) Lamentations 2 - Fe and Ain transposed
9,10,11) Lamentations 3 - 66 verses, each verse three lines
beginning with a letter, and this is spelled out each time in the
Vulgate; Fe and Ain transposed again
12) Lamentations 4 - Fe and Ain transposed
Scholars also point out that Lamentations 5 has 22 verses.

In any case, we can assume that Langton, as a Churchman bound to study the bible and recite the psalms daily, knew as much as any Christian about Hebrew; and since he wrote a dictionary of Hebrew words in the bible, we can bet he was probably one of the most knowledgeable of his age.

So maybe the Hebrew alphabet did have something to do with his numeration of Revelations' chapters; I would have thought the letters of Greek alphabet would have been more appropriate, however, since Jesus says "I am the alpha and the omega" (not Aleph and Tau)."

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=46008

I would suspect that if the order and iconographical content of the TdM or any other trump order were influenced by the Hebrew alphabet, and assuming that a born Christian and not a Jew designed it, it is these traditional meanings that would have been portrayed.

Ross G Caldwell

I see that my links no longer work.

For the Valenciennes Psalms with the Hebrew letters with glosses you have to now negotiate a framed page -

follow the "error" page to the main Valenciennes page; type "bibliotheque" in the search field (top right); scroll down to number 9, the "manuscrits bibliothèque"; scroll down and choose the first category, theology. Choose number 8, and wait for 350-odd thumbnails to load. Look at pages 204 and 205, and you can see the Hebrew letters with their glosses (i.e. Caph manus, Phe os, etc.) on Psalm 118 (119 in the Hebrew and English Bibles).

I haven't done the other link yet, but it doesn't work either.

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell said:
Hi Kwaw, Mark,

Here is a post from another thread on this subject [edited for relevance]-

Thanks Ross, synchronicity or what. I certainly consider such meaning, whether considered nowadays 'correct' or not, need to be taken into consideration as a source of understood meanings of the period. I received today "The Wicked pack of Cards" by Decker, Depaulis and Dummet. I had read up to p.187 where it is stated "Levi's sources narrow to one, Kircher's Oedipus Aegiptiacus' and refers you to the list of Kircher's meanings, they seemed recently familiar but I couldn't remember where from; possibly it is from the above post I have read in a previous thread. Kirchers differences are:

Deleth, Porta
He ecce
Vau uncus
Zain arma
Yoth viri fortes
Mem ex ipsis
Nun sempiternum
Samech adiutorum
Ain fons
Sin dentes (translated as 'animal'?)

Could you translate the differences for us? I think I can guess some of them, but prefer the authority of someone who knows latin. Thanks for your time and input, as always.

Kwaw

Ross G Caldwell

Hi Kwaw,

kwaw said:
Thanks Ross, synchronicity or what. I certainly consider such meaning, whether considered nowadays 'correct' or not, need to be taken into consideration as a source of understood meanings of the period. I received today "The Wicked pack of Cards" by Decker, Depaulis and Dummet. I had read up to p.187 where it is stated "Levi's sources narrow to one, Kircher's Oedipus Aegiptiacus' and refers you to the list of Kircher's meanings, they seemed recently familiar but I couldn't remember where from; possibly it is from the above post I have read in a previous thread. Kirchers differences are:

Deleth, Porta
He ecce
Vau uncus
Zain arma
Yoth viri fortes
Mem ex ipsis
Nun sempiternum
Samech adiutorum
Ain fons
Sin dentes (translated as 'animal'?)

Porta=door
Ecce=Behold
Uncus=hook
Arma=arms
Viri fortes=strong men
Ex ipsis=from/out of themselves
Sempiternum=eternal/everlasting
Adiutorium=assistance/help
Fons=source, spring/well/fount
Dentes=teeth ("animal" is just the cosmic rank Kircher assigns to the letter, not a translation of the term)

The authors of WPC apparently didn't know the Jerome tradition of the interpretation of the letters. Kircher may have known of it, I don't have his book to check, but he does translate some differently.

Jerome's interpretation is present in a letter he wrote to Paula, one of his wealthy sponsors who learned Hebrew and went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in the 380s. His letter to her is letter 30 in the "Fathers of the Church series", unfortunately untranslated there.
http://www.ccel.org/fathers/NPNF2-06/

"TO PAULA.

Some account of the so-called alphabetical psalms (37, 91, 112, 119, 145). After explaining the mystical meaning of the alphabet, Jerome goes on thus: "What honey is sweeter than to know the wisdom of God? others, if they will, may possess riches, drink from a jewelled cup, shine in silks, and try in vain to exhaust their wealth in the most varied pleasures. Our riches are to meditate in the law of the Lord day and night,(1) to knock at the closed door,(2) to receive the 'three loaves' of the Trinity,(3) and, when the Lord goes before us, to walk upon the water of the world."(4) Written at Rome A.D. 384"

Someone has quoted Johanna Drucker, *The Alphabetic Labyrinth*, (London, Thames and Hudson Ltd., 1995; first paperback ed. 1999.) ISBN 0-500-28068-1. pp. 87-88 -

http://www.voynich.net/Arch/2005/07/msg00217.html

"... one document which provides evidence of early readings of the alphabet through Christian symbology is in a letter written by St. Jerome to St. Paula. Known as the XXXth Epistle, this text is also much cited by later authors.

"The passages in St. Jerome, written about 384 A.D., focus on the 118th Psalm which is composed according to the order of the Hebrew alphabet, though using Greek letters. The first verses all begin with alpha and each succeeding set of verses with the succeeding letter until ending with those beginning with tau. Jerome assigns a value to each letter and then groups them into phrases, all the while keeping in mind his ultimate aim, to explain to St. Paula that the alphabet contains spiritual knowledge in symbolic form.

"In the first group are the following letters are equivalents: Aleph = doctrine, Beth = house, Gimel = plenitude, Daleth = the tablets, He = this here. The meaning of this string of elements is at first construed literally by St. Jerome as 'doctrine house plenitude these tablets here.' But then he expands, filing in the gaps, and arrives at the explanation that the first four letters read together mean that 'the doctrine of the church, which is the house of God, is to be found in the plenitude of divine books.'"

I don't have a ready-made English translation, but I happen to have Jerome's Latin, so I'll make a translation of his complete text soon.

Ross

kwaw

Hi Ross

Fantastic stuff as usual, looking forward to the Jerome translation. While on the subject of Jerome, in "The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age" Frances Yates writes:

"Briefly the argument is that the name 'Jesus' is the Tetragrammaton, the ineffable name Yahweh, the four lettered name of God but with a media S [sin] inserted. The meaning implied, and as expanded by later cabalists, is that the S in the Name of Jesus makes audible the ineffable name and signifies the Incarnation, the word made flesh or made audible. This....was not new but had a patristic and medieval tradition behind it and can be found in the works of St. Jerome and Nicholas of Cusa."

Do you know where this is found in St. Jerome? I have done a search of my limited resources and through internet search engines and haven't found anything.

Thanks again for your references and translations.

Kwaw

kwaw

filipas said:
The name of the second letter bet (BYTh) was used to denote 'Temple' (Hullin Talmud; Midrash Shir hash-Shirim). (BYTh was also used as a euphamism for 'sexual intercourse' (Palestinean Talmud, IX, 12; Mikvaoth, VIII, 4; Niddah Talmud, 5), indicating a possible allusion to the medieval legend of Pope Joan. The most common translation of BYTh is 'house'.)

What we have in this single lexical sequence is statistically significant: ignoring the more tenuous (yet still significant) correlations, there are at least 15 literal matches between letter-name meaning and trump iconography (bet, ............[/i]. Thanks,
- Mark

Well, if we consider the popesse as an allegory of the Church, and then if we consider the Church the 'House' of God, then yes we have a match with Beit - House. But we have had to use allegory, a form of exegesis, to get there. If we are to confine ourselves to a surface reading the most obvious relation to beit as 'house' is with the house of god, La Maison Dieu, card 16.

This throws a spanner in the works, but does support the idea that the fool is tau and goes at the end.

Anyone like to explain how? Its a fairly simple puzzle.

Kwaw

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell said:
The authors of WPC apparently didn't know the Jerome tradition of the interpretation of the letters. Kircher may have known of it, I don't have his book to check, but he does translate some differently.

Ross

They provide a correction in the notes of "A history of occult tarot [HOT]":

'p.16 the list of homonyms in the third column is compiled from Kircher's first and second lists, a 'viri fortes' should be replaced by 'principium'. On p.17, it should have been specified that 'Kircher's' homonyms in fact were borrowed from St.Jerome.'

Viri fortes did seem a bit strange, more like the image of Yesod.

It is possible Levi got his homonyns directly from St. Jerome rather than through Kircher, given his training as a priest. They also point out in the notes in HOT that:

"St. Jerome frequently cites homonyms of the names of the letters in writings, notably in his commentary In Lamentationes Jeremiae (Patrologia Latina, Vol.25, col. 787-92) and his Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominum (Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina, Vol. 72, pp. 118 et seq.)."

They point out also that Kircher in different places gives various (and differing) homonyms [sic], but all variations are taken from the works of Jerome.

Other meanings Jerome lists in Liber Interpretationis Hebraicorum Nominum include:
Aleph. mille - thousand
Gimel. retributio - retribution?
Tav. subter - beneath, underneath, below

Kwaw

Ross G Caldwell

kwaw said:
'p.16 the list of homonyms in the third column is compiled from Kircher's first and second lists, a 'viri fortes' should be replaced by 'principium'. On p.17, it should have been specified that 'Kircher's' homonyms in fact were borrowed from St.Jerome.'

Click to expand...

Ah, good they updated their information. The relevant paragraph in WPC is not very strong. In fact some of it makes no sense.For instance, "The names of the letters do resemble other words in Hebrew". What is that supposed to mean?

The names of the letters ARE Hebrew words - the Hebrew names of the letters.

This paragraph is very disappointing, it appears to be very unsound and unscholarly. It's good to see no major point was derived from this - as far as I can see.

It is possible Levi got his homonyns directly from St. Jerome rather than through Kircher, given his training as a priest.

They point out also that Kircher in different places gives various (and differing) homonyms, but all variations are taken from the works of Jerome.

Kwaw

Click to expand...

They use the word "homonym" strangely here. Why not use "meaning" or "interpretation"?

A homonym is normally defined as two or more words with the same sound but different meaning, whether spelled the same or differently.

Words like "boar" and "bore"; "knot", "not" and "naught", etc. are homonyms.

"Aleph" and "doctrina", "Beth" and "domus" are not homonyms. Does Kircher use the word "homonym" in his text?

Well, in any case it is good they kept digging and corrected it in the second volume. There was in fact consistent interest on the part of some Christians in the interpretation of Hebrew words, for mystical and exegetical purposes, throughout the middle ages.

But I personally see no apparent connection between this and the earliest tarot trumps. I realize this is not Mark's argument - he is dealing with the TdM designs and sequence.

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell said:
In fact some of it makes no sense.For instance, "The names of the letters do resemble other words in Hebrew". What is that supposed to mean?

The names of the letters ARE Hebrew words - the Hebrew names of the letters.

I guess they are saying for example that the Hebrew name for the letter ALPh, sounds like or resembles a Hebrew word for doctrine, and another word for ox or cattle, and several other words in Hebrew. I guess they are emphasising that just because the name of the letter sounds like or resembles other words in Hebrew, does not mean that letter 'means' those other words, anymore than we would say the letter B 'means' bee. That is why they consistently use the term homonym. I guess its an example of the many ways in which they consistently seek to ridicule occult and or kabbalistic practice and practitioners.

But I'm only guessing.
Kwaw

prudence

Helvetica said:
Right, I've seen all sorts of correspondences thrown about this forum, with alef as Fool, or alef as I-Bateleur (that's my view, btw), and tav as Fool, or tav as XXI-Le Monde. That pesky Fool seems to get about! I have no preconception as to the fool being tav or shin (a preference for shin), but I do have some trouble accepting alef as anything else but 1, since alef also means 1 in Hebrew, and begins everything, as does Le Bateleur, who is the creator in the Tarot.

So I am curious to read the rationale behind attributing alef to the fool, instead of to the first card of the Tarot, the one always numbered 1 in all systems of Tarot - I- Le Bateleur, the Magician, the Magus, whatever.

(NB: this is a different question than where the fool is ultimately placed, which is a discussion that Fulgour and jmd have been having - see the Fool=shin or Fool= tav thread in this area).

Thanks for your thoughts,
Sophie

Please forgive my cluelessness, but are we still discussng the question posed by Helvetica? I am trying to learn a few things, and am getting confused by (and strongly put off by) what seems to be efforts to "disprove" the findings of others...It feels like a classroom in which only the 3 brightest kids are participating, yet they are only trying to one-up each other, while the rest of the class languishes silently, as we have no idea what on Earth is being debated....

Alef = I-Bateleur or = Fou ?

Ross G Caldwell

Ross G Caldwell

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell

kwaw

kwaw

kwaw

Ross G Caldwell

kwaw

prudence