KABBALAH AND THE SCIENCE OF NUMBERS
We have often stressed the fact that the 'sacred sciences' belonging to a given traditional form are really an integral part of it, at least as secondary and subordinate elements, and are far from representing merely a kind of adventitious addition linked to it more or less artificially. It is indispensable to understand this point well and never to lose sight of it if we wish to penetrate, however little, into the true spirit of a tradition; and it is all the more necessary to call attention to this, as in our day one rather frequently notes among those who claim to study traditional doctrines a tendency not to take these sciences into account, either because of the special difficulties presented by their assimilation, or because, in addition to the impossibility of fitting them into the framework of modern classifications, their presence is particularly annoying for anyone who strives to reduce everything to exoteric points of view and interprets doctrines in terms of 'philosophy' or 'mysticism'. Without wishing to elaborate yet again on the futility of such studies undertaken 'from the outside' and with wholly profane intentions, we will nevertheless repeat, because we see daily the opportunity, that the distorted ideas to which they inevitably lead are certainly worse than pure and simple ignorance.
It sometimes even happens that certain traditional sciences play a more important role than that we have just indicated, and that apart from the proper value they possess in themselves in their contingent order, they are taken as symbolic means of expression for the higher and essential part of the doctrine, to the extent that this becomes entirely unintelligible if we try to separate it from them. This is what happens in particular with the Hebrew Kabbalah for the 'science of
numbers', which moreover is largely identical to the 'science of letters', just as it is in Islamic esoterism, and this in virtue of the very constitution of the Hebrew and Arabic languages, which as we have just said are so close to one another in all respects. [1]
The preponderant role of the science of numbers in the Kabbalah is a fact so evident that it cannot escape even the most superficial observer, and it is hardly possible even for 'critics' who are most full of prejudice or bias, to deny or to conceal it. Nevertheless, they are not remiss in giving erroneous interpretations of this fact in order to somehow make it fit into the framework of their preconceived ideas; we propose here especially to dissipate these more or less deliberate confusions, due in good part to abuse of the too famous 'historical method', which in spite of everything wants to see 'borrowings' anywhere it sees similarities.
We know that it is fashionable in university circles to claim that the Kabbalah is linked to Neoplatonism, so as to diminish both its antiquity and its scope; is it not considered to be an unquestionable principle that everything must come from the Greeks? It is unfortunately forgotten that Neoplatonism itself contains many elements that are not specifically Greek, and that in the Alexandrian period Judaism in particular had a far from negligible importance, so that if there really were borrowings, they could have occurred in a direction opposite to that claimed. This hypothesis is even more likely, first because the adoption of a foreign doctrine is hardly reconcilable with the 'particularism' that was always one of the dominant traits of the Judaic spirit, and then because, whatever one may think in other respects of Neoplatonism, it represents only a relatively exoteric doctrine (even if it is based on esoteric ideas, it is only an 'exteriorization' of them), which as such has not been able to exercise a real influence on an essentially initiatic and even very 'closed' tradition such as Kabbalah is and always has been. [2] Besides, we
do not see that there is any particularly striking resemblance between this and Neoplatonism, nor do we see in the form in which Neoplatonism is expressed that numbers play the same role that is so characteristic of the Kabbalah. The Greek language would hardly have allowed it, while it is, we repeat, something inherent to the Hebrew language itself, and must consequently have been linked from the beginning to the traditional form that expresses itself by it.
There is of course no reason to dispute that a traditional science of numbers may have existed among the Greeks, for it was as we know the basis of Pythagorism, which was not only a philosophy but also had a properly initiatic character; and it is from this that Plato drew not only the entire cosmological part of his doctrine such as expounded particularly in the Timaeus, but even his 'theory of ideas', which is really only a transposition in different terminology of the Pythagorean ideas about numbers considered as the principles of things. If we really want to find among the Greeks a term of comparison with the Kabbalah we must turn to Pythagorism; but it is precisely here that the inanity of the thesis of 'borrowings' becomes most clearly apparent. We are indeed in the presence of two initiatic doctrines, both of which give primary importance to the science of numbers, but that science is presented by each under radically different forms.
Here, some considerations of a more general order will be worthwhile. It is perfectly normal that the same science should be found in different traditions, for truth in any domain could not be the monopoly of one traditional form to the exclusion of others. This fact cannot then be a cause for astonishment except no doubt for the 'critics', who do not believe in the truth; and indeed it is the contrary that would be, not only surprising, but even scarcely conceivable. There is nothing here that implies a more or less direct communication between two different traditions, even in the case where one is incontestably more ancient than the other; can a certain truth not be seen and expressed independently of those who have already expressed it before, and, given that independence, is it not all the more probable that this same truth will in fact be expressed differently? It must however be clearly understood that this is in no way contrary to the common origin of all traditions;
but the transmission of principles from this common origin does not necessarily imply the explicit transmission of all the developments that are implicit in it and all the applications which they can produce. All that is a matter of 'adaptation', in a word, can be considered to belong properly to this or that particular traditional form, and, if one finds the equivalent elsewhere, that is because from the same principles one would naturally draw the same conclusions, whatever be the special way in which they will have been expressed here or there (with the reservation of course that certain symbolic modes of expression, being everywhere the same, must be regarded as going back to the primordial tradition). Moreover, the differences of form will generally be greater as one moves further away from principles to descend to more contingent orders; and this is one of the main difficulties in understanding certain traditional sciences.
It is easy to understand that these considerations remove almost all interest regarding the origin of the traditions or the provenance of the elements which they contain according to the 'historical' point of view as understood in the profane world, since they render perfectly useless the supposition of any direct filiation; and even where one notes a much closer similarity between two traditional forms, that similarity is explained far less by 'borrowings', which are often quite unlikely, than by 'affinities' due to a certain ensemble of common or similar conditions (race, type of language, way of life, etc.) among the peoples to whom these forms respectively apply. [3] As
for cases of real filiation, this is not to say that they must be entirely excluded, for it is evident that all traditional forms do not proceed directly from the primordial tradition and that other forms must have sometimes played the role of intermediaries; but the latter are most often traditions that have entirely disappeared, and those transmissions in general go back to epochs far too distant for ordinary history-whose field of investigation is really very limited-to be capable of the slightest knowledge of them, not counting the fact that the means by which they were effected are not among those accessible to its methods of research.
All of this only seems to take us away from our subject, and so returning now to the relationships between the Kabbalah and Pythagorism, we can now ask ourselves this question: if the former cannot be derived directly from the latter (even supposing that it is not anterior to it), and even if this is only because of too great a difference in form, something to which we will return presently in a more precise fashion, can one not at least envisage a common origin for both, which according to some would be the tradition of the ancient Egyptians (this of course would take us back well before the Alexandrian period)? Let us say right away that this is a theory that has been much abused; and as concerns Judaism, we are unable in spite of certain more or less fanciful assertions to discover the slightest connection with what is known of the Egyptian tradition (we are speaking here of the form, the only thing to be considered, since the substance is necessarily identical in all traditions); doubtless it would have links that are more real with the Chaldean tradition, whether by derivation or by simple affinity, as far as it is possible to really grasp something of these traditions that have been extinct for so many centuries.
As for Pythagorism, the question is perhaps more complex. The journeys of Pythagoras, whether they are to be taken literally or symbolically, do not necessarily imply borrowings from doctrines of this or that people (at least as to the essentials, whatever may be the case for certain points of detail), but rather the establishment or strengthening of certain links with more or less equivalent initiations. It seems that Pythagorism in fact was above all the continuation of something that existed earlier in Greece itself, and that there
is no reason to look elsewhere for its principal source; we have in mind the Mysteries, and more particularly Orphism, of which it was perhaps only a 'readaptation' in this epoch of the sixth century before the Christian era, which by a strange synchronism saw changes of form take place at once among almost all peoples. It is often said that the Greek Mysteries were themselves of Egyptian origin, but such a general assertion is much too 'simplistic', and although this may be true in certain cases such as the Mysteries of Eleusis (which particularly come to mind in the circumstances), there are others where this is not tenable at all. [4] Whether it be a question of Pythagorism itself or the earlier Orphism, it is not at Eleusis that we must look for the 'connecting point', but at Delphi; and the Delphic Apollo is not at all Egyptian but Hyperborean, an origin which is in any case impossible to envisage for the Hebrew tradition. [5] And this leads us directly to the most important point as regards the science of numbers and the different forms it has assumed.
This science of numbers in Pythagorism appears closely linked to that of geometric forms; and it is the same in Plato, who in this respect is purely Pythagorean. One could see here the expression of a characteristic trait of the Hellenistic mentality, which is especially tied to visual forms; and we know that among the mathematical sciences it is in fact geometry that the Greeks especially developed. [6] However, there is something else involved here, at least as regards 'sacred geometry'; the 'geometer' God of Pythagoras and Plato, understood in its most precise and, we could say, technical meaning,
is none other than Apollo. We cannot undertake an elaboration of this subject, which would lead us too far afield, and we may perhaps come back to this question on another occasion. It is enough at present to point out that this fact is sharply opposed to the hypothesis of a common origin for both Pythagorism and the Kabbalah, even on the very point where a special effort has been made to link them, and which is really the only point which could have raised the idea of such a connection, that is, the apparent similarity between the two doctrines with regard to the role the science of numbers plays in them.
In the Kabbalah this same science of numbers is in not at all connected to geometric symbolism in the same way; and it is easy to see that this should be so, for this symbolism could not be suitable for nomadic peoples such as the Hebrews and the Arabs originally were. [7] On the other hand, we find something there which does not have its equivalent among the Greeks: the close union, one could even say the identity in many respects, of the science of numbers with that of letters by reason of the latter's numerical correspondences. This is what is eminently characteristic of the Kabbalah [8] and is found nowhere else, at least under this aspect and with this development, unless, as we have already said, it be in Islamic esoterism, that is to say in the Arabic tradition.
It might seem surprising at first sight that considerations of this kind should have remained foreign to the Greeks, [9] since their letters
too have a numeric value (which is moreover the same as their equivalents in the Hebrew and Arabic alphabets), and since indeed they never had any other numerical signs. The explanation of this fact is nonetheless quite simple. Greek writing is really only a foreign import (whether 'Phoenician', as is usually said, or in any case 'Cadmean', that is to say 'Eastern' without any more precise specification, the very names of the letters bearing witness to this), and never as it were became truly one in its symbolism, numerical or otherwise, with the language itself. [10] On the contrary, in languages such as Hebrew and Arabic, the meaning of the words is inseparable from the symbolism of the letters, and it would be impossible to give a complete interpretation as to the deepest meaning of words, that which really matters from the traditional and initiatic point of view (for we must not forget that these are essentially 'sacred languages'), without taking into account the numerical value of the letters composing them; the relations existing between numerically equivalent words and the substitutions to which they sometimes lend themselves are in this respect a particularly clear example. [11] There is thus something here which, as we said at the outset, relates essentially to the very constitution of these languages, something that belongs to them in a truly 'organic' way and is very far from attaching to it from the outside and after the fact, as in the case of the Greek language; and since this element is found both in Hebrew and Arabic, one can legitimately regard it as proceeding from the
common source of these two languages and of the two traditions they express, that is, what can be called the 'Abrahamic' tradition.
From the above considerations we can draw the necessary conclusion, namely that if we look at the science of numbers among the Greeks and among the Hebrews, we see it clothed in two very different forms and based in one case on a geometric symbolism, and in the other on the symbolism of letters. [12] Consequently there can be no question of 'borrowings' on one side any more than on the other, but only of equivalences such as are necessarily to be found among all traditional forms. We leave aside entirely any question of 'priority', which is of no real interest under these conditions, and is perhaps insoluble, for the real starting-point is perhaps very much earlier than the epochs for which it is possible to establish an even slightly rigorous chronology. Moreover, the very hypothesis of a direct common origin must also be ruled out, for the tradition of which this science is an integral part can be seen to date back on the one hand to an 'Apollonian' source, that is to say one that is directly Hyperborean, and on the other to an 'Abrahamic' source, which seems itself to be linked especially (as the very names of the Hebrews and Arabs suggest) to the traditional current that came from the 'lost island of the West'. [13]