[Cosmogony and Thaumaturgy]. (Attributed to Abraham the Patriach).

SEPHER YETZIRAH.

G. Postel in Scholis Italorum

Paris

1552

FIRST EDITION. Prepared by Guillaume Postel with his mystical comments.

Adams S-946; Steinschneider, Cat. Bod. no. 3573; Scholem, Bibliographia Kabbalistica no. 918.

HIGHLY SCARCE FIRST EDITION - IN ANY LANGUAGE - OF THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL WORK OF JEWISH MYSTICAL TEXTS. This Latin edition of the Sepher Yetzirah - translated from a Hebrew manuscripts by the French Orientalist Guillaume Postel - preceded the first Hebrew printed edition by a full ten years. The Sepher Yetzirah is the most esoteric of all Kabbalistic texts and certainly the most influential. The central subject of the Sepher Yetzirah is a compact discourse on cosmology and cosmogony (a speculative form of the Creation act). Systematic in its speculative thought, the work is outstanding for its profoundly mystical character.