[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. With THE rare additional illustrated folding leaf (bound at end)

Vinograd, Mantua 86; not in Adams

The earliest extant Hebrew text of systematic speculative thought” (Scholem). 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). The work is outstanding for its clearly mystical character. It opens with the declaration that God created the world with “thirty-two secret paths of wisdom.” These paths are defined as “The Ten Sephiroth and the twenty-two elemental letters of the Hebrew alphabet.” The first chapter elaborates upon the Sephiroth and the remaining five chapters on the function of the letters. A FINE COPY OF THIS IMPORTANT TEXT, INCLUDING THE TANTALIZINGLY ELUSIVE ILLUSTRATEDLEAF.