[on cosmogony and thaumaturgy]. Anonymous (Attributed to Abraham the Patriach)

SEPHER YETZIRAH

Jacob ben Naphtali Hacohen

Mantua

1562

FIRST EDITION. Title within woodcut architectural arch. Numerous spherical charts and Kabbalistic diagrams. Lacking folding chart. Previous owner’s inscription on title: “Yohanan Yeranen.” Extensive marginalia in an Italian hand. On title: “It is written in Sepher Otzroth Hayim by R. Hayim Vital in the name of his master R. Isaac Luria that the commentary to Sepher Yetzirah ascribed to RABaD is not by RABaD but rather by another great kabbalist. Tziyoni wrote that we have a tradition that Abraham our father composed Sepher Yetzirah.” On page 78b, a passage has been stricken and supplied in the magin by hand. On the final page a censor’s date of 1611. On rear blank the owner records the births of his several children.

Vinograd, Mantua 86; not in Adams

A FINE COPY. “The earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic speculative thought” (Scholem). The central subject of the Sepher Yetzirah is a compact discourse on cosmology and cosmogony (speculation on the act of Creation). The work is outstanding for its clearly mystical character. It opens with the declaration that God created the world with “32 secret paths of wisdom.” These 32 paths are defined as “the ten sephiroth and the 22 elemental letters of the Hebrew alphabet.” The first chapter deals with the Sephiroth and the remaining five chapters with the function of the letters. The final leaf contains a bibliographical listing of 23 kabbalistic works which are cited in the commentaries, prepared by the publishers. According to G. Scholem, the commentary attributed to Nachmanides, is actually the work of Azriel ben Menachem of Gerona. See Kiryat Sepher, vol. VI (1930), pp. 385-410.