The Kabbalah Unveiled — S. L. MacGregor Mathers (from Knorr von Rosenroth's Latin) (1887)

28. Five kings (that is, the five letters MNTzPK, Me, Nun , Tzaddi , Pe, Kcijph , which are the roots of the judgments), betake themselves unto swift flight before four (the four letters of the Tetragrammaton which bear with them the influx of benignity. They cannot remain (since the judgments and rigours cease and flee).

[The letters of the Hebrew alphabet are divided into three classes, the three mothers as they are called, AMSh ; the seven duplex letters, BGDKPETh, so called because they are sometimes tenues and sometimes aspirates, according to whether they are written with or without the Daghesh point ; and the twelve simple letters, HVZChTILNSOTzQ. They are also divided into the three categories of Chesed , Din, and Bachmim, or mercy, judgment, and mildness. Now these five letters MNTzPK denote the severest judgments, and their number = 280 = PE, = the name of the angel Sandalphon, SNDLPVN, the angel IOE, or of the wood of the world of Asiah, since the greatest part of it are sterile trees.

29. Four kings slay four (that is, the four letters of the Tetragrammaton are bound together with the four letters of ADNI, Adonai , which) depend from them like grapes in a cluster (in the concatenation of these two names, thus, IAHDVNHI).

30. Among them are set apart (that is, among these paths of the Divine names a selection of holiness is made from these broken vessels) seven channels (that is, seven broken vessels, which now are like the shells, and. contain in themselves a great part of the lights and souls) ; they testify testimony (that is, the souls thus selected, thence having been born into the universe, testify that they are freed from impurity) and they do not remain in their place (and are no longer detained under the shells).

3 1 . The tree which is mitigated (that is, the path of the kingdom or Schechinah, which is the tree of the

KABBALAH.

knowledge of good and evil, which in itself existeth from the judgments, but is mitigated by the bridegroom through the influx of mercies) resideth within (within the shells ; because the kingdom hath its dominion over all things, and its feet descend into death). In its branches (in the inferior worlds) the birds lodge and build their nests (the souls and the angels have their place). Beneath it those animals which have power seek the shade (that is, the shells, “ for in it eveiy beast of the forest doth walk forth,” Ps. civ. 20).

[See the Introduction for the Sephiroth arranged in the three pillars, or tree of life.]

32. This is the tree which hath two paths (for thus is this passage restored in the corrected Codex) for the same end (namely, good and evil, because it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil). And it hath around it seven columns (that is, the seven palaces), and the four splendours (that is, the four animals) whirl around it (in four wheels) on their four sides (after the fourfold description of the chariot of Yechesqiel (Ezekiel).

The seven palaces answer to the 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 9th Sephiroth, operating through the respective orders of angels into the spheres of the seven planets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sol, "Venus, Mercury, and Luna. The four animals, or Cliaiotli J5Ta- Qadesch, are the vivified powers of the four letters of the Tetragrammaton operating under the presidency of the first Sephira as the mainspring or primum mobile of creation. The four wheels are their correlatives under the second Sephira, on their four sides — namely, the four elements of the air, fire, water, and earth,, which are the abodes of the spirits of the elements, the sylphs, salamanders, undines, and gnomes, under the presidency of the tenth Sephira.

33. The serpent (which was made from the rod of Moses — that is, the shell — NVGH, Nogah , or splendour) which rusheth forth with three hundred and seventy leaps (the thirty-two names together with the five letters of ALHIM, Eloliim , which make 37, multiplied by the