Hidden Wisdom in the Holy Bible

By Geoffrey Hodson

In this insightful interpretation of the Holy Bible, the profound spiritual and power-bestowing truths of the sacred language of such Old Testament stories as 'the Creation', 'the Flood and Tower', 'the Life of Joseph as a Mystery Drama', and 'Moses and the Exodus' are liberated from their cryptic enclosure. The second of a two-part abridgement, published in 1994.  

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quest Books
• Release date: Jun 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9780835631716

Book preview

Preface to Volume II

In the first volume of this series, the theory is advanced that many of the narratives recounted in both the Old and the New Testaments, as also in the inspired portions of the scriptures and mythologies of other ancient peoples, contain far more than is apparent on the surface. Undermeanings are said to have been deliberately introduced and are conveyed by the use of a system—widely recognized in ancient times—of so narrating actual events that they also reveal underlying laws governing the emanation, involution and evolution of both universe and humanity. To this end the characters of the people in such stories are made to personify Intelligences, forces, procedures and stages of development in the unfolding universe and the spiritual, intellectual, psychological and physical components of every human being.

Acceptance of this view gives to world scriptures a far deeper significance than if they were regarded as narratives of physical events alone. This approach also helps to explain the inclusion of passages which either contradict known scientific and historical facts, or else repel because recording criminal, immoral or very cruel actions.

If I seem to apologize too much for condemning the literal meaning of certain passages and advancing possible hidden meanings—and I have been so charged by one reviewer of my first volume—it is because I remember and do not wish to hurt or harm those to whom orthodox beliefs mean much in their religious life. Having suffered myself from atheistic iconoclasm, I wish to lead my readers along a more pleasant pathway to what I have come to regard as truth, preferring to win over and persuade to further examination than entirely to crush.

Many biblical passages do indeed present grave difficulties, particularly when deeds are stated to have been performed either, as in the Old Testament, at the instance of the Supreme Deity or, as in mythology, even by deities themselves. Many such textual problems are resolved when the classical keys of interpretation are applied, and this volume of this work offers some of the results of study of the scriptures and mythologies of ancient peoples as if the sages of old had recorded them in the sacred language of allegory and symbol.

Geoffrey Hodson

Auckland, New Zealand, 1966.

Introduction

The basis for some of the proffered interpretations of the Bible given in this book is that Ageless Wisdom to which the Greeks gave the title Theosophia, derived from the two Greek words Theo and sophia—divine wisdom.

The first known literary use of this Greek word is found in the writings of the Neoplatonists in the second century of the Christian era, who employed it to connote the truths revealed to humanity by evolutionary elders at the dawn of human life on this planet. These truths have been added to, checked and rechecked down to the present day by an unbroken succession of Adept investigators. This term, Adept, refers to an initiate of the fifth degree in the greater Mysteries, a master in the science of esoteric philosophy, a perfected human, an exalted being who has attained complete mastery over the purely human nature and possesses knowledge and power commensurate with lofty evolutionary stature. Such fulfillment of human destiny is thus described by St. Paul: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Certain Adepts remain on Earth in physical bodies in order to assist humanity, and are presumably referred to by St. Paul as just men made perfect (Heb. 12:23). The Lord Christ referred to a far more lofty destiny for humanity, saying: Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48 [Revised Version of the Bible (RV)]).

The full fruits of the processes of Adept research and revelation have been preserved by the still living hierophants and initiates of the greater Mysteries. In their doctrinal aspect these Mysteries consist of a vast body of teaching which embraces every conceivable subject to which the human mind can be turned. The fundamental principles of religion, philosophy, art, science and politics are contained within this Wisdom of the Ages. From the time of the closing of the Neoplatonic and Gnostic schools to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, save for the few Alchemists, Kabbalists, Rosicrucians, esoterically instructed Masons and the Christian mystics, Theosophy was little known in the Western world. Before then it was studied in various forms by the Platonists, the Pythagoreans, the Egyptians and the Chaldeans, while in India and China it has been preserved down the ages in unbroken continuity. It is the wisdom of the Upanishads and the Vedas, the very heart of Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and Islam. By means of allegory and symbol it is revealed in the Christian scriptures, the literal reading of which has blinded many Christians to their deeper significance.

The study of comparative religion does in fact reveal the existence of certain doctrines which are common to all world faiths. Although differently presented in each, when collected and blended into a whole these teachings constitute a basic body of revealed Truth which can be studied independently of all religious systems. Each world religion reveals an arc of the circle of Eternal Wisdom. Theosophy, although as yet only partially revealed to humanity, is the full circle of Truth. Age by age, at the direction of Those who are the guardians of knowledge and its accompanying power, aspects of this all-inclusive body of ideas are revealed to humans through world religions and philosophies. The theme of this book is that certain power-bestowing aspects of Theosophia have always been partially concealed under a veil of allegory and symbol. This is because such knowledge can bestow theurgic, hypnotic and other powers susceptible of misuse. Rightly used, however, it can be of great value to humanity and since the present is an age when many are searching deeply for a philosophy of life which will support them when in danger, stress and need, the time has now arrived, I believe, when the outer layers of this veil may usefully, if but partially, be drawn aside. The interpretations of the scriptures which now begin are based upon these convictions. Here, then, is an attempt to lift the mysterious veil of the temple which one day for all people, we may hope, will be rent in twain from the top to the bottom (Matt. 27:51).

Cosmogenesis

Since some of the concepts of the cosmogony of esoteric philosophy are included in the interpretations of the book of Genesis which now follow, a brief statement of them may prove helpful, especially to those contacting these ideas for the first time.

The concept of creation as the emergence and subsequent development of a universe and its contents is regarded in esoteric philosophy as being less the result of a single act of creation, followed by natural evolution, than a process of emanation guided by intelligent Forces under immutable law. The creation or emergence of universes from nothing is not an acceptable concept, the cosmos being regarded as emanating from an all-containing, sourceless Source, the Absolute.

For example, the first five verses of the book of Genesis describe the opening phases of the process of creation as follows:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Thus originally there existed duality in unity, namely the Spirit of God as the masculine creative potency on the one hand and the face of the deep as the feminine creative potency on the other. Primarily there was a dual principle, a positive and a negative, Spirit-matter. During the long creative Night, which in Sanskrit is called Pralaya (period of repose), there was darkness upon the face of the deep. The whole of boundless space was dark and quiescent. Then, it is stated, a change occurred. The Spirit of God, having emerged from Absolute Existence, moved upon the face of the waters. The Great Breath breathed upon the Great Deep, whereupon emanation began to occur and manifestation (Manvantara) was initiated.

Thus, behind and beyond and within all is the eternal and infinite Parent from within which the temporary and the finite emerge, or are born. That boundless self-existence is variously referred to as the Absolute, the Changeless, the eternal All, the causeless Cause, the rootless Root. This is non-Being, negative Existence, no-Thing, Ain (as the Kabbalist says), an impersonal Unity without attributes conceivable by human beings.

In esoteric philosophy the term God in its highest meaning refers to a supreme, eternal and indefinable Reality. This Absolute is inconceivable, ineffable and unknowable. Its revealed existence is postulated in three terms: an absolute Existence, an absolute Consciousness and an absolute Bliss. Infinite consciousness is regarded as inherent in the Supreme Being as a dynamic force that manifests the potentialities held in its own infinitude, and calls into being forms out of its own formless depths. From That, the Absolute, emerged an active, creative power and intelligence to become formative Deity, the Demiurgos (the supernal Power which built the universe—the third manifested Logos [TG]) of the universe-to-be. The illumined sages thus taught that the eternal One, which is potentially twofold (Spirit-matter), is subject to cyclic, rhythmic Motion, a primordial Third which is also eternal. Under certain conditions the relationship of the conjoined Spirit-matter changes from passive unity into active duality—distinct positive and negative potencies.

Thus, when interior Motion causes previously unified, quiescent Spirit-Matter to become oppositely polarized or creatively active, then there is activity, light, Day; for these two (universal Spirit and universal Matter) produce a third, a Son, which becomes the presiding Deity, the Logos, the Architect of the resultant universe. A finite principle has now emerged from the Infinite. Universal Spirit-Matter-Motion have become focused into a Being who is beyond normal human comprehension. This is the One Alone, the only-begotten Son (originally from a Greek Eucharistic hymn; when correctly translated, alone begotten or emanated from a unified, single Source), being of one substance with the Father, which in this case is the Absolute, the Uncreated. By this Son, the Cosmic Christ, all worlds are fashioned, He being the Emanator, Architect, Sustainer and Regenerator of universes and all that they will ever contain.

This formative Logos is the first objective emanation of the Absolute. It is the principle of divine thought, now to be remade manifest in an individual sense, first as the Logos of the whole cosmos, secondly as the solar Deity of a single Solar System, and thirdly as the Logos of the soul of every human being—the dweller in the innermost. These Three are One, indivisible, an integral part of each other, a whole. In the beginning, when newly formed, the First, the One Alone, is purely spiritual and intellectual. Ultimately, as we have seen, It becomes manifested as both the presiding Power, Life and Intelligence transcendent beyond all that objectively exists and the indwelling and transforming Divine Life immanent within all nature, all beings and all things.

These, in outline, are some of the cosmogonical ideas to be found in esoteric philosophy. Further expositions of them will be found in the interpretations of the book of Genesis which follow.

A Mistranslated Word

In interpreting the Bible, beginning with Genesis, attention is drawn to a single important word which appears in the original Hebrew text. This word is tho and translated from the Hebrew means symbolic. Especially note the following three commentaries on the presence of this word in the Hebrew text, and also the way in which it is translated in Genesis 2:4 in the Revised Version of the Bible [the King James Version also makes a similar omission].

These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created. In the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven…(RV)

F. J. Mayers writes in his book The Unknown God:

The first thing we notice when we compare the above version with the original Hebrew text, is that the latter contains a word which is not translated at all in the English. It was also ignored in the Latin translation. The translators apparently did not know what to do with it. The Hebrew Text reads: ‘aelleh tho-ledoth.’ The little word ‘tho,’ which translators have passed over, denotes ‘symbolic.’ It may be applied to a book, a fable, a hieroglyph, a discourse, or anything else which is of a ‘symbolic’ nature. The translators of the ‘Septuagint’ did not ignore the word, but they ‘by-passed’ its real meaning…and translated it merely by the word ‘book’; that avoided raising awkward questions. What the whole phrase really stated quite clearly was, that the ‘generations’ or ‘productions’ of the heavens and the earth…would be described in symbolic language. It is particularly illuminating that the writer of Genesis should himself tell us this in advance. He takes the ground from under the feet of those who are continually seeking to ‘literalize’ and ‘de-spiritualize’ the Bible….

Fabre d’Olivet, in The Hebraic Tongue Restored states: The root ‘tho’ contains every idea of sign, of symbol, of hieroglyphic character….

Nayan Louise Redfield, the translator of The Hebraic Tongue Restored, writes in his Foreword:

He [Fabre d’Olivet] asserts plainly and fearlessly that the Genesis of Moses was symbolically expressed and ought not to be taken in a purely literal sense. Saint Augustine recognized this, and Origen avers that if one takes the history of the creation in the literal sense, it is absurd and contradictory.…

According to the Essenian tradition, every word in this Sepher of Moses [Genesis] contains three meanings—the positive or simple, the comparative or figurative, the superlative or hieratic. When one has penetrated to this last meaning, all things are disclosed through a radiant illumination and the soul of that one attains to heights which those bound to the narrow limits of the positive meaning and satisfied with the letter which killeth, never know.

The learned Maimonides says Employ you (sic) reason, and you will be able to discern what is said allegorically, figuratively and hyperbolically, and what is meant literally.

PART ONE

Creation

1

In the Beginning

Genesis 1

In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth. From a flooded Earth, void and without life, the Creator said, Let there be light, and it was in this light that creation was brought into being.

God began with the waters, drawing them together into seas, allowing the land to appear, and causing the clouds to form. The Creator spoke, and the Earth became green with grass and trees and herbs. That these might grow God looked to the heavens and set there the sun, moon and stars.

Turning again to the seas God spoke, and they brought forth abundant life in the form of fish and whales and sea creatures, and God created birds to grace the shores.

To the dry land God said, Bring forth! and it obeyed, yielding wild animals, cattle and other living things. Yet, in all this beauty something was lacking, and it was then that man and woman were created, made in the image of God. They were loved above all creation and God gave the Earth into their keeping.

And having completed this great work in six days, God beheld all of creation and saw that it was very good.

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. (Gen. 1:1–2)

The Bible opens with these verses of affirmation that an intelligent, self-knowing group of formative agencies of cosmic evolutionary stature (Elohim) was responsible for the direction of the form-producing impulse which arose in precosmic space. Wherever the term God is used in Genesis the word in the original text is the Hebrew Elohim, meaning not a single Being, but an order of creative Intelligences. The terms the heaven and the earth refer to the separation of primordial substance (heavens) from the manifested universe (the Earth).

J. Ralston Skinner, in a passage quoted by H. P. Blavatsky in Vol. VII of her Collected Writings (p. 261), writes: It is made to be read ‘B’rashith bârâ Elohim,’ ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.’ Skinner notes that Elohim is a plural noun, but the form of the verb bârâ (meaning created in Hebrew) is third person singular [in other words, the number of Deity(ies) in the subject and the verb does not match grammatically]. Skinner adds that Nachmanides called attention to the fact that the text might also be read as B’rash ithbârâ Elohim, which translated means In the head (source or beginning) created itself (or developed) Gods, the heavens and the earth, which is more grammatically correct.

The term God as used in these verses is thus not singular but plural in its implications. Although the original directive Intelligence—the precursor and Source of Universal Mind—arose in a unitary state from its root in precosmic space, immediately as that agency became outward-turned, the rule of number obtained: One alone cannot manifest; three are essential to the production of any result. This is as true of cosmic manifestation as of microcosmic or human creation, whether intellectual or physical. No germinal essence is a unit, each at its simplest being a triplicity of potentials, namely the positive, the negative and their productive interaction. So also is the seed of a cosmos which, though a unit in Pralaya (period of quiescence, either planetary or universal), displays a number at the outset of Manvantara (period of activity or manifestation). The term God, therefore, as used in these verses is to be understood, as in Kabbalism, to refer to the group of intelligent, productive agencies inherent in and emanated from precosmic space, the Elohim. The first chapter of Genesis is, in consequence, called the Elohistic and the second the Yahwistic.

The question is sometimes asked, even by children: If God made all things, who made God? Esoteric philosophy answers, No one; for the Demiurgos (the supernal Power which built the universe) or active Logos is an emanation from the immutable Infinite, the Boundless, the Absolute, which cannot will, think or act until it has become partially manifest as finite. This it does by the projection of a ray which penetrates into infinite space, there to become the Architect of the resultant universe.

The kabbalistic perspective on Genesis-like cosmogony is expressed by J. F. C. Fuller as follows: There was a time when Heaven and Earth did not exist, but only an unlimited Space in which reigned absolute immobility. All the visible things and all that which possesses existence were born in that Space from a powerful principle, which existed by Itself, and from Itself developed Itself, and which made the heavens revolve and preserved the universal life; a principle as to which philosophy declares we know not the name.

God—the Totality of Existence

The term God, therefore, carries a number of implications. It includes physical nature; the evolutionary impulse imparted to it; the irresistible formative force which bestows the attribute of self-reproduction and the capacity to express it; the creative Intelligences—the Elohim—which direct the manifestations and the operations of that force; the divine thought or ideation of the whole cosmos from its beginning to its end; and the sound of the creative Voice (Logos) by which that ideation is impressed upon precosmic substance. These, together with all seeds, beings, forces and laws, including those of expansion, alternation, cyclic progression and harmonious equipoise, constitute that totality of existence to which alone may be given with any measure of fitness the majestic and awe-inspiring title God.

If so vast a synthesis may be designated a Being, then that Being is so complex, so all-inclusive, as to be beyond the comprehension of the human mind and the possibility of restriction to any single form. The idea of God also includes everlasting law, everlasting will, everlasting life and everlasting mind.

In nonmanifestation God is quiescent, in manifestation objectively active. Behind both quiescence and activity exists That which is eternal and unchanging, the Absolute, self-existent All. The divine Creator referred to by various names in the world’s cosmogonies is the active expression of that eternal, incomprehensible One Alone.

Emanation, Not Creation

The word create also has its particular significance. The production of something previously nonexistent in any state is not to be understood or implied by this word. To emanate or make manifest more truly describes the process; for cosmos is inherent in Chaos (the primordial, pre-atomic condition in which matter existed before the first atoms and planes of nature were created [TG]), the difference being not of substance but of condition. Formlessness and darkness describe Chaos. Form and light describe cosmos. Both conditions are inherent in precosmic substans.

The verses of Genesis should therefore be translated as follows: At the dawn of the return of Manvantara, the group of creative Intelligences (Elohim) resumed activity, with the result that the seed of Cosmos inherent in Chaos commenced to unfold according to natural law. This process is continuous throughout the period of manifestation, for the universe is a perpetual becoming, not a static condition of being. This applies equally to the primordial elements, to the substances derived from them, to the forms of nature and to their ensouling life. All grows or expands from less to more from the dawn of the first day of emanation to the evening of the last or seventh day.

In Genesis 1:2 is presented the primordial trinity, namely Spirit (not an entity but formless and immaterial spiritual substance), space (waters) and motion. The essential triplicity of the creative agencies is perfectly described. The Spirit of God is the masculine potency within the seed of cosmos preexistent in Chaos. The waters and the deep are symbols or hierograms for the feminine potency, and the movement of the former upon or within the latter is the third potency essential to manifestation. In terms of electricity, it is the current which passes between positive and negative poles. Thus in the first two verses of Genesis the creative necessities are symbolically introduced and creative activity is allegorically described.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. (Gen. 1:3)

Again a threefold agency is described here, but it is an agency differing from the first. Whereas the original triplicity is integral, comprising the whole of existence, its successor is productive only and is completed by a product. The latter trinity of Genesis consists first of ideation—the thought of light; second of active productive power—speech; and third of the product—Universal Mind, here called light. This light should be regarded as the divine Intelligence, the first emanation of the Supreme, that light which according to the Gospel of John is the life of humanity. It is not to be confused with the light of the sun, which is a focus or lens by which the rays of the primordial light become materialized and concentrated upon our solar system and produce all the correlations of forces. The criticism often made by those who read the Bible literally that light appeared three days before the sun is thus disposed of.

Progression from the germinal to the active state is thus indicated. The manifesting process has not only been initiated, but has also become effective. Light is described as the first product of the generative act, and this light is born of ideation and power, or thought and speech, the true parents of cosmos. Yet these three are not separate existences, but one; for speech is thought expressed in sound, and the product, light, was inherent in divine thought.

These masculine and feminine creative potencies, together with motion, preexisted within the germinal seed. The first activity to occur within that seed is ideation, or the arising of the concept of the eternal design. This process is followed by the expression of that archetype in terms of power or energy, the product being divine Intelligence symbolized as light. Thus six agencies are introduced in the first three verses. Two stages are also described, the precosmic and the primary cosmic, the preexistent and the first manifested existence.

Light, An Expression of the First Active Logos

The first-born light contains the potencies of its parents and grandparents, namely power, thought (the parents), and feminine and masculine potency endowed with motion (the grandparents). The first light, therefore, is itself a complete creative power, a synthesis of the total essentials for manifestation, the Cosmic Christos or Son by whom all things were made (John 1:3). By light, self-existing as a unitary synthesis, the sevenfold creative agency is completed. The Adonai [Heb.—Lord or Yahweh, YHWH] is made manifest as Elohim.

The first light may therefore be defined as the active Verbum or Logos (the Word; a divine spiritual Entity; manifested Deity; the outward expression or effect of the ever-concealed Cause—speech is the Logos of thought), the potent, creative agency whose arising from latency in the cosmic seed is the mark, the sign and the demonstration that Pralaya has given place to Manvantara. This first light is the highest manifested Deity, and to it alone, with all that is implied, may justly and truly be given the name God.

No personalization of That, which becomes Creator or Manifestor according to law, is either philosophically sound or spiritually reverent. Though the producer of life-imbued form, it is itself essentially formless, as its symbol—light—accurately portrays. Even in action as a manifesting agency its symbol is speech, or the potency and activity of thought-sound, which again is formless.

A further definition of God as presented in these verses of Genesis might be that it is a single, a threefold and a sevenfold directive Agency, originally inherent in precosmic substans and now active throughout the whole field of creative activity. This activity is infallibly guided by numerical necessity. God as the first light is therefore not almighty, being subject to mathematical law, which is the absolute, if abstract, Monarch of the cosmos. The dual tide Logos-Law best depicts the true parental Deity of which the present cosmos is the product or Son.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. (Gen. 1:4)

External awareness is postulated here as an essential of cosmic formative procedure. The primordial Parent, having awakened from pralayic sleep, first becomes active in terms of light, for light and darkness respectively are symbols of spiritual activity and quiescence. In one interpretation, light in the allegorical language is descriptive of a condition of consciousness, a state of being in which Spirit predominates over matter. Darkness on the other hand symbolizes the dominance of matter over Spirit. The first phrase of this verse is therefore repetitive, and says that precosmic night or Pralaya had given place to cosmic day or Manvantara, but adds that the newly awakened creative Agency was now aware of that change and henceforth entered consciously upon its official activity.

The subsequent division of light from darkness described in the second phrase of the verse is the first biblical reference to alternation. The primary pair consists of precosmos and cosmos, allegorically called night and day, darkness and light, respectively. During the darkness no activity except absolute, and therefore incognizable, activity exists and only darkness—to the finite mind—is prevalent, alternation being confined to cosmos, for once cosmos appears alternation is inseparable from it. This is because a contrasting pair—quiescence and activity or absolute and finite existence—has come into being. These two constitute the darkness and the light which are automatically divided from each other when cosmos appears.

The term God, therefore, here also refers to essential, inescapable law under which duality must be prevalent whenever there is finiteness. From these first parents all successive and subordinate dualities arise, and continue in a descending scale down to the smallest living things. Thus alternation may truly be stated to be both the law of existence and the essential condition of awareness. The moment light exists, darkness is known as its inseparable opposite.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. (Gen. 1:5)

This verse repeats the above-mentioned law of alternation and affirms divine awareness of its operation; for naming and name in the allegorical language describe conscious, demiurgic activity by mind and will, thought and power, to produce individuality out of that which was formerly universal. A name is definitive and separative. Once anything is named it has individuality and is therefore separated from other individualities.

By naming the new cosmos, or the area in it, the Logos limits the universe and marks out an area in which creative activity is to be confined. This insulation also is achieved, or automatically occurs, by the combined operation of consciousness and sound. In this verse, therefore, the external limits of the universe-to-be are defined and marked out. Within those limits the precisely ordained frequencies of oscillation of the creative power must eventually rule.

As the genesis and propagation of the universal egg—symbol of all new creations, whether cosmic, universal or solar—these frequencies are apportioned by numerical law. They are affirmed by Universal Mind as expressive of both the underlying character and the potential attainment of the new universe. The first sentence of the verse, therefore, describes these two processes.

The second sentence, referring to evening and morning, reintroduces the property of time, mentioned in the opening words of the chapter. Subdivisions of time are thus affirmed as being inseparable from the change from Chaos to cosmos. The words in the beginning (b’resheth—at first, in principle) actually mean the beginning, or rather the reemergence of all things. Evening and morning of the first day refer to the opening and the close of the first creative epoch or day.

The use of the word first suggests a succession, thus introducing the subject of symbolical numbers. As indicated in Volume I of this work, numbers in the symbolical language carry meanings beyond their numerical significance. Each number has its own metaphysical meanings, one of which includes the living Intelligence which it also represents.

Every creative day, for example, has its Deity or number; for numbers in this connection are living Intelligences emanated from the One, meaning the finite but universal Intelligence which is the active, but not absolute, Parent of all. In terms of formative Intelligences, when the first of the seven has completed its day of activity, has produced its inevitable effects, it withdraws to give place to its sibling, who is the second in the succession.

And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. (Gen.