The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES Nothingness to open itself, Being to shut up, and the world to spread itself. It has spanned the heavens, and assembled with its power the tabernacle of the spheres, with the cords of its might it has bound the curtains of the creatures of the universe, and touching with its strength the edge of the curtain of creation, has joined that which is above to that which was below.’—(Prayers of Kippour.) We have given to these bold qabalistic speculations the only form which suits them, that is, poesy, or the inspiration of the heart. Believing souls will have no need of the rational hypotheses contained in this new explanation of the figures of the Bible; but those sincere hearts afflicted by doubt, which are tortured by eighteenth-century criticism, will understand in reading it that even reason without faith can find in the Holy Book something besides stumbling-blocks; if the veils with which the divine text is covered throw a great shadow, this shadow is so marvellously designed by the interplay of light that it becomes the sole intelligible image of the divine ideal. Ideal, incomprehensible as infinity, and indispensable as the very essence of mystery! 71