Golden Dawn Hebrew before c. 1900

kwaw

This list (with heh as ver punica) is also given in "Syriacae linguae prima elementa". 1971 - there is only a snip view however, so I don't know the context or purpose (could there be a possible syriac explanation for the worm, I wonder.).

Another book I looked at gave "Caninius" as a source for Coph = Simius. Wondering who this Caninius could be led me to Angleo Canini, who had published Institutiones linguae Syriacae, Assyriacae atque Thalsmudicae, una cum Aethiopicae. Atque Arabicae collatione, in 1554, with the table in the above (which maybe a modern reprint of his work, not sure). The book is available as a pdf download from here:

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rc...F_VtpTrEesmUQSg&bvm=bv.59568121,d.d2k&cad=rja

Wiki entry on Angelo Canini:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angelo_Canini

The Italian has a little more information:

"In 1554 C. published in Paris his first work on Eastern languages ​​, dedicating to the bishop du Prat : Institutiones linguae syriacae , assyriacae atque thalmudicae , a cum aethyopicae atque arabicae collatione, republished in the same year with the addition of a Novi Testaments multorum locorum historica Enarratio.

"The Institutiones was one of the first ( if not the first ) grammars of Oriental languages ​​to have been printed. In it, C. exposes the naive theory that the original Hebrew language are derived from Syriac , Arabic and Ethiopic, with its four greek dialect distinctions , Latin and the Romance languages. In Enarratio , later reprinted in Antwerp in 1600 under the title De locis S. Scripturae hebraicis A. C. commentarius, C. aims to explain etymologically New Testament passages in which there appears Hebrew terms. Of this work there is a third edition, in London ( 1660) : Disquisitiones leased aliquot Novi Testaments obscuriora ( in Critical Sacred , VII , London 1660 , p. 211 ff.) ."
 

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Ross G Caldwell

Another book I looked at gave "Caninius" as a source for Coph = Simius. Wondering who this Caninius could be led me to Angleo Canini, who had published Institutiones linguae Syriacae, Assyriacae atque Thalsmudicae, una cum Aethiopicae. Atque Arabicae collatione,
"The Institutiones was one of the first ( if not the first ) grammars of Oriental languages ​​to have been printed. In it, C. exposes the naive theory that the original Hebrew language are derived from Syriac , Arabic and Ethiopic, with its four greek dialect distinctions , Latin and the Romance languages. In Enarratio , later reprinted in Antwerp in 1600 under the title De locis S. Scripturae hebraicis A. C. commentarius, C. aims to explain etymologically New Testament passages in which there appears Hebrew terms. Of this work there is a third edition, in London ( 1660) : Disquisitiones leased aliquot Novi Testaments obscuriora ( in Critical Sacred , VII , London 1660 , p. 211 ff.) ."

Good to see you've been busy too! I found Canini this morning, and while his theory about the origin of Hebrew may be "naive" (I'm not sure how naîve it was for the time), he is clearly Duret's source, or at least his ultimate source, since Canini claims to be the first person to give this "simple interpretation" of the letters ("simple" being the same word Duret used):

"Literae, quibus Hebraei Chaldaeique utuntur, viginti duae sunt, figura dissimiles, vi ac sono eaedem (...)
Quorum significatum exponere, quod perfecte hactenus fecit nemo, haud equidem ab re fore existimo. Eusebius enim, cui (ut res ipsa loquitur) Judaeus aliquis imposuit, venia dignus est. Ignoscendum etiam Hieronymo, qui Eusebium imitatus, eadem tradidit. Nos quantum è lingua Hebraica atque Chaldaica intelligere potuimus, hanc simplicem collegimus interpretationem."

The letters which Hebrew and Aramaic use are twenty-two, very different in their form, power and sound.(...) It would be by no means unhelpful, in my opinion, to explain their meaning, because thus far no one has perfectly done it. Eusebius, for instance, for those which (as he himself says) the Jew established, deserves some indulgence. Jerome too should be forgiven, who handed them down, copying Eusebius. But insofar as we have been able to understand from the Hebrew as well as the Aramaic language, we acquired this simple interpretation.

He seems to have arrived at some of his conclusions from a comparative study of Aramaic or Syriac. No doubt his study of Greek sources helped as well. For instance, he surely came across Plutarch's comment about Alpha -

(see e.g. http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/symposiacs/chapter9.html#section91

τῷ Κάδμῳ βοηθεῖς ὁ Βοιώτιος, ὅν φασι τὸ ἄλφα πάντων προτάξαι διὰ τὸ Φοίνικας, οὕτω καλεῖν τὸν βοῦν, ὃν οὐ δεύτερον οὐδὲ τρίτον, ὥσπερ Ἡσίοδος, ἀλλὰ πρῶτον τίθεσθαι τῶν ἀναγκαίων;

(Plutarch. Moralia 738a;. edition of Gregorius N. Bernardakis. Leipzig. Teubner. 1892. 4, pp. 362-363;
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg112.perseus-grc1:738a )

"What! have you, being a Boeotian, nothing to say for Cadmus, who (as the story goes) placed Alpha the first in order, because a cow is called Alpha by the Phoenicians, and they account it not the second or third (as Hesiod doth) but the first of their necessary things?"

(http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg112.perseus-eng1:9.2.3 ;
Plutarch's Morals. Translated from the Greek by several hands. Corrected and revised by. William W. Goodwin, PH. D. Boston. Little, Brown, and Company. Cambridge. Press Of John Wilson and son. 1874. 3., p. 439 )

So it seems that it is not a Rabbi, but the Italian Christian scholar Angelo Canini, who is our source for the correct etymologies of Aleph and Gimel (and for introducing the incorrect one of "blemish" for Mem).
 

Ross G Caldwell

Aha, it's only a partial list on p.7 because it is given in full on the previous page (duh!)


Aleph, bos - ox
Beth, domus - house
Gimal,camelus - camel
Daleth, ostium - door
He, vermis punici - punic worm
Vau clauus aduncus - hooked nail
Zain, telum - a weapon
Heth, quadrupes - quadrupeds
Thet, involucrum - covering, envelope
Iod, manus - hand
Caph, palma - palm of hand
Mem, macula - stain, spot, blemish
Nun, piscis - fish
Samech, basis - the base
Ain, fons - fountain, source, spring
Phe, os - mouth
Sadi, hamus - hook
Coph, simius - ape
Res, caput - head
Scin, Dens - teeth
Thau, crux - cross

Only the definitions of He, Heth, Thet, and Mem are obsolete by modern standards. With the theory of derivation from Proto-Sinaitic, only established after Champollion deciphered hierolglyphs in the 1820s, does Ayin become clearly "eye", making "fountain" obsolete.

Pretty good for comparative linguistics. I still haven't found the basis for He as "ver(mis) punici" though.
 

Ross G Caldwell

This has been really great Steve. It has answered a question that has been in the back of my mind for a long time... the history of the interpretation of the letters, alphabetic scholarship in general.

It will be hard to beat someone - Angelo Canini - who explicitly claims to be the first person to make this "simple interpretation."

I've looked through Kircher - not exhaustively, but scanned through Oedipus Aegyptiacus, to see if he anywhere lists the "simple" meanings of the Hebrew alphabet that we now know was available to him, in Canini, Becani, Duret (probably missed some), but I didn't see anything like it. Just the traditional and mystical meanings. He was certainly erudite enough to have come across these meanings, or alternative readings to Jerome and the Kabbalists.
 

kwaw

It was a good find/search, I enjoyed (all the more so in that it had a result/source) - I too believe C. the original source for the 'simple' meanings - and an excellent job he did too, (3 copyists follow each other missing out He? Was the one they copied confused by ver punica I wonder, and left it out?). I too think it anachronistic to call his theories 'naive' - for the time and information at hand he made excellent use of his linguistic talents, up their with the best of modern philology.

I was planning to do a chronological table of the alphabet meanings with reference to ones the french/english esoteric schools followed - but at the moment am dog/house-sitting and having to share computer/internet on S/O's computer who hogs it for f/b games (haven't got the wifi password - so can only get online by single lan line) - so it might be a couple of weeks until I can get to my own computer/internet connection - all the information is stored on S/O's computer - can't give it the attention or have the access,for the formatting, time or concentration I need at the mo... (hard to concentrate with S/O hovering anxious to feed some farm animal, harvest some crops, solve a criminal case or do some virtual baking and washing up (and asking me what's for dinner while last night's non-virtual dishes still need clearing up!). Have about 1/2 hour a day in ten minute or so sections! (It shouldn't take long, the information is at hand when I can access it - but if you want to do such a collative chore in the mean time feel free! Me, I'm a great collator, a hopeless analyst (far too uncritical and speculative, and an excellent sophist - I can argue for any scenario.)

re: why the difference between French and English schools - maybe for the French the association between letters as numbers was enough? That was always a botch job of course, and one the English school sort of rejected/annulled by accepting the Fool as first, and thus were forced to go back to the letters as having meaning (and a mystical significance) beyond their numeration? (That is a simplification and my point is a bit more complex than that, but I suppose that is the root of it and all I have time for at the mo!)
 

Ross G Caldwell

I'm planning to do the collative and comparative work, but not tonight! It's been fast and furious these last two, three days. I'll have to let the dust settle as I doze off... and back on tomorrow, to see if I have a clear picture of the structure of the information, and what is missing.

Both schools have "art" in them, things that make them quirky, make things dance. Like making the Fool Shin for Levi, a dogma never abandoned by his followers (possibly because of its illogicality - I still haven't figured out Levi's reasoning, or intuition, in this matter), or starting the Zodiac and decans with Regulus for the GD. Papus just does what I would have done, start with the Ace of Batons as the first decan of Aries (which forces, or allows, him to put the Valet for the 10s (instead of the Princesses of the GD) as a kind of ad hoc step between the suits - see pp. 242-243), but someone - Mathers I presume - gave this part of the system its art, its feel of being organic. The trump-letter assignations, by contrast, being so strictly "logical", are less interesting than Levi's. When it comes to Crowley, as an exponent of the GD tradition, he had the advantage of Frazer, and his own genius, to deepen the otherwise wooden GD trumps (and the rest of the pack, but structurally nothing changed). Between the orrhodox GD and Waite, and Christian-Papus-Wirth, in other words, there isn't much to choose between for glosses on the trump meanings: they are just purple prose stuck with dogmatic nuggets (or gems, depending on your point of view, of course). But I am probably biased, being steeped in Crowley.

I still can't qualify why the French school never took up the Hebrew letter meanings more seriously, as one of those dogmatic nuggets necessary to understand the true nature of the trump they were preaching on. It will probably take a closer reading, where I'll see places where they could have gone there, but veered away. Reading between the lines, I may get some insight.

(added: a Facebook post just reminded me of the esoteric card I hate the most, Levi's fault and adopted by both schools, the Wheel of Fortune. The real, original meaning is so much better, so much more profound and worth studying for itself. They just killed it, even Crowley and Harris couldn't bring it back. What the esoteric traditions do to this card offends my aesthetic and philosophic senses the most. And even outside of the history, just the art and the doctrine behind it is lame. It's like they didn't know what to do with this card, they tried to tame it - to tame Fortune - and it just doesn't work, in any sense.)
 

kwaw

(added: a Facebook post just reminded me of the esoteric card I hate the most, Levi's fault and adopted by both schools, the Wheel of Fortune. The real, original meaning is so much better, so much more profound and worth studying for itself. They just killed it, even Crowley and Harris couldn't bring it back. What the esoteric traditions do to this card offends my aesthetic and philosophic senses the most. And even outside of the history, just the art and the doctrine behind it is lame. It's like they didn't know what to do with this card, they tried to tame it - to tame Fortune - and it just doesn't work, in any sense.)

...a misunderstanding of Fortune, skew whiffs the rest... in a way it is the heart, the context in which to understand the whole sequence... (well, the middle sequence at least), that is, an understanding of the narrative (if there is one), is not possible without an understanding of Fortune. Whether or not there is a narrative, the misunderstanding of Fortune as expressed by any of the esoteric schools points to a revisionist, reconstructed 'narrative' (rather than an esoteric, underground' apostolic stream)...

...or does it? Exoteric streams follow erroneous tributuries, as for example that of the meanings of letters, how not, if not more so, esoteric ones?

(SO has goneto bed btw: and I am way too relaxed with many an Efes and a vodka and coke - so no more in a condition to be posting than being pressed to ... whatever:)

g'night xxx
 

Ross G Caldwell

I'll invite myself to your beth in Anatolia, you'll see one day, Steve. Given the way Egypt is, Turkey is now our No. 1 plan for a "foreign" vacation (Italy doesn't count as foreign to us, just a neighbour). We have to see (C)I(n)stan(tino)bul, where I need to pick up a meerschaum pipe or two, and then do a bit of archaeological sightseeing of the Seven Churches that are in Asia.

For the Wheel of Fortune - I remember disliking it aesthetically, the first time I saw it, right after Christmas 1979 when I began studying the RWS. It was the only card PCS couldn't bring to life (Temperance is barely breathing). Levi's own is actually the best of the tradition; at least it really stays close to the TdM, and it is diagrammatic rather than trying to be aesthetically pleasing as well -
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2d/Levi-10.jpeg?uselang=fr
I have no love for Wirth, Colman-Smith, or Harris' interpretations. The other two trumps that I don't like the esoteric glossing of are Temperance and the Bateleur/Magician. I guess the occultist can't do much more with table-top conjurer than make him a magus, but I don't think he can really take it. He has to stay low and simple, like in any of the ancient images. He becomes absurd in the esoteric tradition. All three of them - Wirth, PCS, Harris' (multiple attempts) are pretty ugly, imo. For Temperance, only Harris rescues her, no doubt because of the real similarity with alchemical art that she based herself on. This makes it aesthetically compelling.

I guess the 19th century occultist can't handle Fortune. It's all about dominating with the Will (somewhere I read an insightful comment about Levi being influenced by Schopenhauer; I don't know if it's true, but the Magus imprinting his will on the malleable world idea seems true). But the Tarot isn't Machiavellian - there's no dominating Fortune and Fate. Almost as bad as the esoteric glossing of Fortune is the Florentine placement of the Chariot above Fortune; this subverts the designer's intention, in my opinion, which was to place virtù and fortuna in contrast, opposition. There's no lesson beyond that simple fact. Muddying the waters so that virtue always ekes out a win, is a gloss itself, it seems to me (so C's Temperance is also a moralization of the original sequence; B (some of them at least) moves her to lessen Love's relation to the Pope, and C moves her to lessen the shock of the Devil after Death).

For me Fortune is at the head of the section of fortuna and fato, "bad things", as of course you know from the other forum. So she defines the section, but not the heart of any (normal sense of) narrative, for me. I suppose if we are going to argue narrative though, we should do it in another thread (which will no doubt attract attention and you know the rest).

I suppose either Yod or Kaph is a good letter for the card, since a hand actually turns the wheel; all the exegete has to do is decide whether that hand is ultimately Fickle Fortune or Divine Providence.
 

Zephyros

I'll invite myself to your beth in Anatolia, you'll see one day, Steve. Given the way Egypt is, Turkey is now our No. 1 plan for a "foreign" vacation (Italy doesn't count as foreign to us, just a neighbour). We have to see (C)I(n)stan(tino)bul, where I need to pick up a meerschaum pipe or two, and then do a bit of archaeological sightseeing of the Seven Churches that are in Asia.

Istanbul is breathtaking, my whole family is originally from there. Walking in it, you really feel that you're somewhere that was the capital of the world for centuries. I can't recommend it enough! The area of Anatolia is wonderful, too, although I was less impressed with Antalia itself.

Now, I still think you're looking for the answers a few thousand years too late, but I guess I didn't understand your basic premise. I'll re-read the thread. :)
 

Ross G Caldwell

Istanbul is breathtaking, my whole family is originally from there. Walking in it, you really feel that you're somewhere that was the capital of the world for centuries. I can't recommend it enough! The area of Anatolia is wonderful, too, although I was less impressed with Antalia itself.

Excellent - you must have a lot of advice then. I'll pick your brain when we plan our trip. The closest I've been so far is our local kebab, whom we affectionately call "the Turk". They are not short on advice for Istanbul either.

Now, I still think you're looking for the answers a few thousand years too late, but I guess I didn't understand your basic premise. I'll re-read the thread. :)

Sure. The parallel question that arose - the way I saw it anyway - was when scholars figured out what the letter names meant; it was not what the letters really orginally meant, which I am sure the Phoenicians who invented it knew perfectly well. But there is a lot of time between that and Paleo-Hebrew, and then yet more time between Paleo-Hebrew and Square Hebrew, and then another thousand years between that and the earliest rabbinic discussions of the meanings of the letters. Square Hebrew resembles the original Phoenician alphabet -the parent of all alphabets - less than Greek, Etruscan or Latin does. I don't believe that the Rabbis had a comparative evolutionary table of alphabets on hand when they taught what the letters meant. We probably have to wait for the 17th century, or the late 16th, if we're lucky, for that.

Discussing the original original meanings just puts us in the historiography of scholarship on the alphabet. Unless and until a document from circa 1400 b.c.e. shows up explaining the invention of the alphabet, why these specific signs were chosen, then all of our discussions will remain part of the stream of the first question - when did scholarship figure out what the letters meant?

(I know that some Qumran scribes wrote the divine Name (but nothing else) with paleo-Hebrew script; it would be interesting to know if they knew the whole alphabet as such, but I don't think there is any evidence of it. Samaritan doesn't resemble paleo-Hebrew any more than Square Hebrew does; it's only when we place all these alphabets in a table in chronological order that we can detect evolution)

Given the sacredness of the alphabet in which the Law was written, I would think that theories about evolution from some pagan precursor would be akin to blasphemy. I really don't think we'll find pre-rabbinic (or rabbinic) writings in which there are speculations about the original meaning of the letters according to the Phoenician alphabet, let alone derivation from Egyptian hieroglyphic idolatrous writing.