Sefer Yetzirah - Gnostic Elements

Gnostic Elements

The Sefer Yetzirah is similar to various Gnostic systems. As the Sefer Yetzirah divides the Hebrew alphabet into three groups, so the Gnostic Marcus divided the Greek letters into three classes, regarded by him as the symbolic emanations of the three powers which include the whole number of the upper elements.

Both systems attach great importance to the power of the combinations and permutations of the letters in explaining the genesis and development of multiplicity from unity. The Clementine writings present another form of gnosis which agrees in many points with the Sefer Yetzirah. As in the latter, God is not only the beginning but also the end of all things, so in the former He is the ἀρχή (= ראשית) and τέλος (= תכלית) of all that exists; and the Clementine writings furthermore teach that the spirit of God is transformed into πνεῦμα (= רוח), and this into water, which becomes fire and rocks, thus agreeing with the Sefer Yetzirah, where the spirit of God, רוח (= πνεῦμα), air, water, and fire are the first four Sefirot.

The remaining six Sefirot, or the limitations of space by the three dimensions in a twofold direction, are also found in the Clementina, where God is described as the boundary of the universe and as the source of the six infinite dimensions.

The "dragon" (תלי tli, perhaps meaning "curled one" as a coiled serpent) which plays such an important part in the astrology of the book, is probably an ancient Semitic figure; at all events its name is not Arabic, as scholars have hitherto assumed, but either Aramaic or possibly a Babylonian loan-word. The "dragon" is often understood as the starry constellation Draco and by extension it represents the cosmic axis (equivalent to the north/south pole) because this constellation coils around the North Star and thus around the celestial axis, as it intersects the northernmost part of the celestial sphere.