Text source: AMBIX Vo1. 23, Part 2, July 1975

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.AMBIXVo1. 23, Part 2, July 1975

JOHN DEE'S MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA: GEOMETRICAL CABALA

By MICHAEL T. WALTON*

MERle Casaubon's opinion that John Dee was "a Cabalistical man, up to the ears, ... as mayappear to any man by his Monas HieroglYPhica",l not only alerts one to Dee's involvementin Renaissance Cabalism, a movement which included men like Reuchlin, Pico, Agrippa andPostel, but also suggests a clue to the purpose and meaning of his cryptic Monas. While itmay be argued that Casaubon used the term "cabalistical" to mean only that Dee wroteenigmatically, evidence within the Monas, as well as Dee's connection with Renaissancecabalists, speaks for a more specific denotation of the adjective. The following discussionwill attempt to elucidate the role of Cabalism in Dee's thought by demonstrating that theMonas is a form of geometrical Cabala. Through the cabalistic method, Dee was able toexplain and manipulate symbols important to his Hermetic point of view.2 Thoughunusual in the way it applies cabalistic doctrines, the Monas reflects Renaissance cabalisticthinking, and hence is intelligible in those terms.3

I

Two doctrines of the Cabala are clearly apparent in the Monas. The first is the cabal-istic cosmogony. This cosmogony was widely believed to have been revealed by God to theancient Hebrew patriarchs and prophets. The early cabalistic work Sepher Yetzirah orBook of Formation presents in concise form the basic tenets of the cabalistic creation whichthe Monas reflects.4 The second doctrine is the method of scriptural exegesis developed bycabalists. The techniques of notaricon, tsiruf and gematria are the primary means ofcabalistic interpretation.

The view of creation presented in the Sepher Yetzirah is one of emanation through aseries of symbols. Numbers, letters and words, all aspects of the Hebrew alphabet, wereconceived of as the intermediaries between God and the created world. The RuachElohim, the Spirit of God, was the source of three lesser emanations: Air, Water and Fire.These were identified with the letters aleph (X), mem (S) and shin (~). From these three"mothers" arose six other emanations, which completed the heavenly realm. They were"Light and Depth, East and West, North and South."5

The alphabetical view of creation was validated in the Yezirah by a demonstration of itscorrespondence to physical reality. The seven double letters of the Hebrew alphabet wereequated with the seven days of the week, the seven planets, the seven heavens and the sevengateways of the body. The twelve simple Hebrew letters were found to be the source of thetwelve zodiacal signs, the twelve months and the twelve members of man. The "obvious"correspondence between the Hebrew alphabet and the visible world led cabalists to manipu-late that alphabet in an attempt to understand and control the universe.

The type of alphabetical cosmogony found in the Yezirah became an important featureof Agrippa's influential De occulta philosophia. In book one, he introduced a view of thealphabet and its relation to the physical world which parallels that of the Yezirah.

The omnipotent God hath by his providence divided the speech of men into diverslanguages; which languages have according to their diversity received divers,

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, JOHN DEE'S "MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA»: GEOMETRICAL CABALA 117

and proper Characters of writing, consisting in their certain order, number, andfigure, not so disposed, and fonned by hap, or chance, nor by the weak judgementof man, but from above, whereby they agree with the Celestiall, and divine bodies,and vertues.6

Later in his discussion Agrippa indicated that the Hebrew alphabet Hisof all most sacred"and that its seven double letters and twelve simple letters lCsignifie"the seven planets andthe twelve zodiacal signs while the "three mothers" signify the elements Air, Fire and Water.'

Dee was apparently very fond of Agrippa's work and could easily have learned the basiccabalistic cosmogony from anyone of his three copies of De occulta Philosophia.8 Cabala'sappeal to Dee, however, must have come not only from its general agreement with langu-ages and writing, as Agrippa amply demonstrated, but also from its similarity to an assump-tion set forth by Boetius that the world was created from numbers. As an Hermetic and amathematician, Dee was committed to the virtues of numbers in both the natural andsupernatural realms. In his "Mathematical Preface," he approvingly quoted the secondchapter of Boetius' De arithmetica: "All things ... do appeare to be formed by the reason ofnumbers. For this was the principall example or patterne in the minde of the Creator:'9This view of a numerological cosmogony received much attention from Agrippa. In Book I

of De occulta philosophia, he correctly states that numbers derived from the Hebrewalphabet are important to cabalistic manipulations.10 Later on in the work he para-phrases Boetius that "all things ... seem to be formed by the proportion of numbers".llThe connection which Agrippa thus saw between the tenets of Cabalism and Boetius'numerical creation must also have been obvious to Dee. Dee probably also welcomedAgrippa's opinion that both Christian and Hebrew divines viewed numbers as the mostefficacious of signs.

But amongst all Mathematicall things, numbers, as they have more of form in them,so also are more efficatious, to which not only Heathen Philosophers, but alsoHebrew, and Christian Divines do attribute vertue and efficacy .... 12

Cabala's attraction for Dee probably was enhanced by the power which it promised theadept. Cabala was believed to supply important keys to unlock the secrets and power ofnature. The cabalistic cosmogony was only a framework and quite useless without anaccompanying method to explore the meaning and apply the power of its symbols. As al-ready stated, the cabalistic method was based on the three techniques of notaricon, tsirufand gematria,13 Notaricon is the art of decomposing words, especially those found in theSacred Scriptures, and treating their letters as abbreviations for other words or ideas. Thenotariconic method would interpret the letters of the phrase B'reshith, in the beginning, tomean tlin the beginning God saw that Israel would accept the Law". Tsiruf is the divisionand/or transposition of the parts or letters of a word into all possible permutations so as toform other words. By applying tsiruf, B'reshith is found to yield B're He created, Shith,six. The phrase tlHe created six" was used to support the doctrine of creation by emana-tion. Gematria is the technique of employing letters as numbers. An example of gematriais Genesis 38: 2 where the words tlLo, three men stood by him" are found to have thenumer-ical value of 70r. The sum of the names Michael, Gabriel and Raphael is also 701. Theconclusion is that they must have been the three men.

The Cabalistic method of exegesis is not limited to Jewish theology or the Hebrewalphabet. The techniques are so pliable that they can be applied to any theology or alpha-

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1I8 MICHAEL T. WALTON

bet. They can even be used with numbers and, as the Monas demonstrates, with symbolsconstructed from geometrical figures.14 Dee, being disposed to believe that the world wascreated from numbers, found in cabalistic techniques a way to unravel the order of thatcreation. In the Monas, Dee felt that he had explained the creation by cabalistic meansand that he had imbued the common astronomical symbols "with immortal life" and madethem "able to express their especial meanings most eloquently in any tongue and to anynation".15

II

In the epistle dedicatory of the Monas, addressed to Maximilian II, Dee unfolds thepurpose of his remarkable work. The basis of the Monad was the alchemical symbol forMercury [fig. IJ. Its proper interpretation, i.e., the reconstruction of astronomical symbolsfrom it, was described by Dee as the "restorer" of all astronomy and as a "sacred art ofwriting".

Mercury may rightly be styled by us the rebuilder and restorer of all astronomy[and] an astronomical messenger [who was sent to usJ by our IEOVA so that wemight either establish this sacred art of writing as the first founders of a new dis-cipline, or by his councel renew one that was entirely extinct and had been wholywiped out from the memory of men.16

Dee's treatment of the Monad's interpretation as an art of writing which revealed allastronomical knowledge, both the greater astronomy of the heavens and the lesser astron-omy or alchemy, is significant. His doubt as to whether his interpretation was a new art ora restored one is never explicitly resolved, but one feels that he believed a knowledge of theinterpretative art was possessed by the originators of mystical and alphabetical symbols.17

Dee readily accepted the cabalistic axiom that alphabets have mystical powers. He wasespecially convinced that alphabets were the key to "all things visible and invisible".

And you, 0 famous King of the Romans, will not be astonished at my now men-tioning in passing that the science of the alphabet contains great mysteries, sinceHe, who is the only author of all mysteries has compared Himself to the first andthe last letter. .. How great, then, must be the mysteries of the intermediateletters? and it is not surprising that this mystery should be so constituted in letters;for all things visible and invisible, manifest and most occult things, emanating(through the medium of nature or art) from God Himself, are to be most diligentlyexplored in our wanderings .... 18

Not only did alphabets contain all knowledge, but specifically by "wandering" through hisnew geometrical alphabet, the Monad, Dee intended to explore things both manifest andoccult. To attempt and complete this goal would indeed make the Monas a work of greatvalue.

What made the Monad.a type of alphabet? Dee answers this question by saying thatthe sureq or dot vowel point and the yod or line of the Hebrew alphabet are the source of allother alphabetic letters, for all figures can be made from lines and circles, which are them-selves generated from points and lines.19 The Monad, as we learn in theorem two, isgenerated from a point and a line. The Monad, then, can be justifiably termed Ha rareexample of this kind of investigation" which derives knowledge from letters.2o Dee doesnot wish, however, to address the philosophers of "letters and language" but rather hisfellow mathematicians. Mathematicians as the highest of philosophers, he implies, are the

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JOHN DEE'S ((MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA": GEOMETRICAL CABALA IIg

only ones who can deal with his special alphabet. Indeed, arithmeticians, musicians andgeometers will be struck by the great truths of their art implicit in the Monad. Of thegeometer, Dee wrote,

The geometer (0 my King) will begin to feel embarrassed, and the principles ofhis art will seem to him insufficiently established (which is very strange) when heunderstands what is here secretly murmured and intimated, namely that by thesquare mystery of this Hieroglyphic Monad something circular and altogethereven [by round] is being conveyed .... 21

Astronomers willregret their coldnights under the stars and the optician "will confoundthe stupidity of his art" when they learn the revelations of the Monas. Most important,perhaps, the Hebrew cabalist will see his art used outside of the Holy Language. In fact,Dee reveals that it is by the cabalistic arts of notaricon, tsiruf and gematria that the Monadwill be explained. Cabala will be his tool to show the unity of the mystical symbols of alltraditions. Through understanding Dee's "holy art", the Hebrews, if they understandtruth, will be brought into harmony with all nations.

And now I come to the Hebrew cabbalist who, when he will see that (the threeprincipal keys to his art, called) confines of the language called holy, and that,moreover, the signs and characters of that mystical tradition (which was receivedfrom God) [sc. the cabbala] are brought together from whencesoever ([and arederived] from certain obvious visible and invisible things), then compelledby truth,if he may understand he will call this art holy, too; and he will own that, withoutregard to person, the same most benevolent God is not only [the God] of the Jewsbut of all peoples, nations and languages.22

Dee felt that the exposition of the Monad was the highest purpose of cabalistic techniques.His geometrical Cabalawas the "real cabala", the most holy art. It transcended the usefulbut vulgar Cabala, which worked with common letters. Of both arts he believed,

That no mortal may excuse himself for being ignorant of this our holy language,which ... I have called the real cabbala, or [the cabbala] of that which is, as Icall that other and vulgar one, which rests on well-knownletters that can be writtenby man .... 23

The grand scheme of the Monas, then, was to reveal the real Cabala and showhow its properobject, the Monad, could teach astronomy by divine force "without words". In thededicatory epistle, the numerical creation of Boetius was linked to the alphabetical Cabala.Dee chosehis "restored" geometrical art of writing as the highest level of Cabala. It incor-porated all of the symbolsfound in the mystical tradition and was the key to a knowledgeofthe mysteries of Hermes, Ostanes, Pythagoras, Democritus and Anaxagoras.24 Throughnotaricon, tsiruf and gematria, he promised to lay bare all cosmicsecrets and relationships.His purpose and promise were to make of the Monas what might be termed a HermeticPrincipia M athematica.

III

The :firstuse of the cabalistic method within the Monas is as a geometrical form ofnotari-con. Dee describes the components of the Monad as symbols of cosmic realities. Thiscorresponds closelyto alphabetical notaricon, wherein each letter represents a word or con-cept. Theorem one states that all things happen by means of a straight line and a circle.The Monad embodies this basic reality, for it is composed of lines and circles. Theorem

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120 MICHAEL T. WALTON

three declares that the point and line contained in the Monad, essentials in the productionof a circle according to theorem two, represent the geocentric universe.25 Because the sunis the highest perfection in the universe, the full circle with the visible centre also signi-fies it. The use of notaricon is extended to explain the Monad's joining of a half circle to thesolar circle [fig. 2). The half circle symbolizes the moon. The two parts taken togethermean that in an evening and a day, the duration of a creative period in Genesis, the light ofphilosophers was made. Two final examples of notariconic interpretation deal with therectilinear cross and the sign of Aries [fig. 2). The cross depicts the mystery of the fourelements from which the world was made by the action of fire, symbolized by Aries.

"-J The moon

Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 0 The geocentric universe orthe sun

t The four elements

FireDee's Monad

Fig. 3. i: Fig. 4. 1-Saturn Jupiter

Fig. 5. Fig. 6.

Venus Mercury

The technique of tsirufwas applied by Dee in deriving the signs of the planets from thecomponent parts of the Monad. As in alphabetical Cabala, the various parts were per-muted to form meaningful symbols. Theorem twelve states that the signs of the planetscan be formed from the symbols of the moon, the sun and Aries. Saturn results from acombination of the rectilinear cross with one half of Aries attached to its lower right quad-rant [fig. 3J. The construction fo Jupiter is said to be opposite to that of Saturn [fig. 4J.Theorem thirteen deals with Venus and Mercury in a similar vein. Venus is made byattaching the solar circle to the cross [fig.5J. Mercury is the same as Venus, excepting onlythe addition of the lunar half circle [fig. 6J. The majesty of the sun and its relationship tothe moon and the zodiacal signs are demonstrated by means of tsiruf in theorems fourteenand fifteen. The word tsiruf appears in theorem twenty-three as a precise term describingthe permutations of numbers which Dee associated with the Monad.26 It is clear, however,that the derivation of the planetary symbols from the Monad is an application of tsiruf.

John Dee used gematria or numerical interpretation to a considerable extent in the

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JOHN DEE'S "MONAS HIEROGLYPHICA": GEOMETRICAL CABALA 121

Monas. Numbers are derived from the Monad in theorems eight, eleven and eighteen totwenty. 27 Theorem twenty-three and the concluding theorem twenty-four, however,suffice to illustrate gematria in the Monas. The discussion in twenty-three among otherthings takes up the relationship of the rectilinear cross with the Pythagorean quaternary.Applying tsiruj, Dee established that the numbers one, two, three and four, the basis of thecross and the tetrad, have twenty-four possible permutations. By means of a gematriaticinterpretation, Dee links, in theorem twenty-four, the twenty-four permutations to thehours of the day, the six wings of the four Gospel beasts found in the Apocalypse of John,and the twenty-four elders mentioned in the same apocalypse. This passage is particularlyillustrative of Dee's application of the cabalistic method.

Thus we shall now at last, in this our twenty-fourth speculation, consumate andterminate the permutations ... of the quaternary, to the honour and glory of Him(as John ... witnesses in the fourth and last part of the fourth chapter of the apoca-lypse) sits on the throne and around Whom four animals (each having six wings)speak day and night; Whom also twenty-four elders, ... falling prostratefrom twenty-four seats , adore .... 28

Thus, the cabalistic method allowed Dee to extract from one symbol the signs, symbols andnumbers which the astrological, alchemical and scriptural traditions had developed up tohis day. The Monad became the key to understanding the universal harmony when viewedthrough Cabala. Within Dee's interpretation of the Monad, the traditions found inAgrippa's De occulta philosophia are readily apparent. The Monas linked the belief inalphabetical powers and the validity of cabalistic exegesis to the Boetian type of numero-logical cosmogony, so dear to Dee. The Monad became the highest of alphabets, anumerical one. It was nevertheless subject to cabalistic analysis and, according to Dee'sneo-Platonic outlook, yielded rich treasures when so handled.

Certainly, understanding Cabala does not completely explain the meaning of the symbolsfound in the Monas. The value of those symbols is conferred upon them by the traditionswhich they represent. The central role of the sign for Mercury, for example, can only begrasped by referring it to the alchemical tradition. The same is true of the rectilinear crossand its representation of the four elements. A knowledge of Cabala does, however, clarifythe framework which unites the various symbols used in the Monas. In addition, Cabalahelps to explain why Dee handled the signs as he did. Casaubon's analysis of Dee and hisMonas is perhaps also illuminated by an acquaintance with Cabala. He wrote, uIt is but alittle book, but I must profess that I can extract no sense or reason (sound and solid) out ofit; neither yet doth it seem to me very dark or mystical."29 If one understands the basictenets of Cabala, as Casaubon must have, but rejects it as a divine key for understanding thecreation, as Casaubon did, the Monas ceases to be "dark or mystical" but remains foreignand without "sense or reason".30 To Dee, however, who viewed symbols differently andaccepted Cabala, the Monas was the achievement of a lifetime, a summation of the universe.The Monas was indeed a precious gift to Maximillian from a man who had strained thesearching powers of his mind Uto the utmost" in its composition.31

Acknowledgement. I should like to thank Professor A. G. Debus for his valuable criticism ofan early version of this essay.

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122 MICHAEL T. WALTON

REFERENCES1. Meric Casaubon, A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr. John

Dee (a Mathematician of Great Fame in Queen Elizabeth and Kin.g James their Reignes) and SomeSpirits, London, 1659, "The Preface," p. 38.

2. Cabala as a system based on a neo-Platonic world view was harmonious with other strains of neo-Platonism and hence was well suited to Dee's application of it. The cabalistic view of creation byemanation from the Hebrew alphabet led to conclusions very similar to those of Reymond Lull andthe alchemical tradition. Alphabetical symbols and indeed all symbols represented cosmic realities.A knowledge of those symbols conferred natural magical powers upon the adept. The traditionthat Cabala, a medieval invention, was a sacred knowledge revealed by God to all his patriarchsand prophets made the system especially holy to its Renaissance practitioners. Reuchlin's chiefcabalistic works De verbo miriftco and De arte cabalistica are based on the belief that Cabala is theparent of all the occult arts. Greek wisdom, according to Ruchlin, was simply a descendant of thetrue Cabala. Reuchlin, like the other noted Renaissance cabalists William Postel and Pico dellaMirandola. believed the true Cabala to be a proof for Christianity and hence a missionary toolimportant in converting the Jews to a complete knowledge of God. With these few basic points inmind it is easy to see why a Hermetic like Dee was attracted to Cabala.

3. This paper seeks to augment the interpretation of specific symbols found in the Monas developedby C. H. Josten in his "A Translation of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica (Antwerp, 1564), with AnIntroduction and Annotations," Ambix, 12,84-221, 1964, by supplying a more general frameworkinto which those interpretations may be fitted.

4. This work was translated into Latin in 1552 by Dee's acquaintance William Postel. The transla-tion was entitled Abrahami Patriarchae libey jezirah, sive Formationis mundi, Paris, 1552. Thetitle underscores the belief in Cabala's divine origin and antiquity. For a discussion of Postel andCabala see William J. Bouwsma, "Postel and the Significance of Renaissance Cabalism", Renaiss-ance Essays, ed. PaulO. Kristeller and Philip P. Wiener, New York, 1968, pp. 252-66. Thecabalistic cosmogony of Yezirah was chosen because Agrippa's De occulta philosophia, a work whichinfluenced Dee, reflects a detailed knowledge of that type of cosmogony.

5. Sepher Yezirah, trans. by Knut Stenring, London, 1923 p. 22.6. Henry Cornelius Agrippa, Of Occult PhilosoPhy, trans. by J. F. [John French?], London, 1651, 1,74,

p.160.7. Ibid., p. 161.8. Francis A. Yates in her Theatre of the World, Chicago, 1969,p. 9, notes Dee's partiality to Agrippa

and in footnote 16 mentions the three editions of De occulta philosophia which he possessed.9. John Dee, "Mathematicall Preface" to The Elements of Geometrie of Euclide, Trans. H. Billingsley,

London, 1570. p. 3. The passage in De arithmatica goes on: "From hence the four elements wereborrowed from the many: From hence the change of time: From hence the motion of the starsturning in the heavens." [Translation mine from Boetii opera, Venice: Joannus and Gregorius deForlinio, 1497. found in the Wellcome Library]. Dee's views about the relationship of numbers toreality are also like those of Nicholas of Cusa, whom he quotes in the "Mathematical Preface". Fora brief discussion of Dee and Cusa see Peter J. French, John Dee, the World of an ElizabethanMagus, London, 1972, pp. 103-5.

10. Agrippa (6), I, 74, pp. 160-163.I!. Ibid., II, 2, p. 170.12. Ibid., II, 2, p. 170.13. Agrippa discussed cabalistic exegesis in op. cit., Book II. The discourse on notaricon in chapter 14

is representative of Agrippa's approach.14. Dee's belief that alphabets are derived from geometrical figures, which are themselves founded in

numbers, perhaps explains the adoption' of geometrical rather than numerical symbols in theMonas. Agrippa in Book II of De occulta philosophia, wrote, "Geometrical Figures also arisingfrom numbers are conceived to be of no less power", (Agrippa in op. cit., p. 253), To Dee, geometrywas the science of magnitude, and magnitude was rooted in numbers. This relationship is madeclear in the "Preface" (Billingsley (9), p. 5) where he describes astronomy as "arithemtike circular"in which "numbers are become, as Lynes, Playnes and Solides".

15. C. H. Josten (3), p. 121.

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JOHN DEE'S tcMONAS HIEROGLYPHICA": GEOMETRICAL CABALA 123

16. Ibid., p. 123.17. Such a view seems justified by Dee's belief, expressed in ibid., p. 135, where he identified his inter-

pretation with the ureal" Cabala born by the law of creation. If the interpretative art were presentat the Deity's act of creation, Dee was certainly the lost art's restorer and not its founder.

18. Ibid., p. 125.19. Ibid., p. 127. In II, 23, of Opecit., Agrippa discusses the power of geometrical symbols which arise

from points and circles.20. Ibid., pp. 125-7.21. Ibid., p. 129.22. Ibid., p. 133. Dee's appeal to the Jews to accept mystical philosophy and recognize themselves as

part of other nations fits well with ~eter French's discussion of Dee's desire to unite a Europe tornby religious dissention by means of Hermeticism. In this goal, as French indicates, Dee was onewith Postel, who saw Cabala as the tool to unite Christianity and Judaism. Reuchlin and Picoalso viewed Cabala as a factor able to unify religions. See Peter J. French (9), p. 135.

23· Josten (3), p. 135·24. Ibid., p. 141. Ostanes is mentioned in theorem XV, ibid., p. 167, Pythagoras in theorem III, ibid.,

p. 159 and Anaxagoras in theorem XVIII, ibid., p. 179.25. In an unpublished paper, "Was John Dee a Copernican?" read before the Midwest Junto of the

History of Science, April 12, 1974, J. Peter Zetterberg argues convincingly, on the basis of this andother passages, that John Dee used, but did not accept, Copernicanism.

26. Josten (3), p. 209·27. In theorem VIII, Dee identifies Pythagoras with cabalistic interpretation and numerology.

Johannes Reuchlin in his De verba mirijico, Basel, 1495, stated that the Tetragrammaton of theHebrew scriptures was the true source of the Pythagorean tetrad.

28. Josten (3), p. 217.29. Meric Casaubon (1), "The Preface", p. 38.30. Casaubon's doubts as to the validity of the Monas and its techniques-doubts based on his own

view that Dee was influenced by evil spirits-were not universal among learned men of the seven-teenth century. Athanasius Kircher in his Obeliscus pamphilius, Rome, 1650, pp. 364-79, discussedCabala and interpreted the Monad cabalistically. He does not acknowledge Dee's work on theMonad but puts forth a similar view that the rectilinear cross represents the four elements, the pointof the circle the sun, and that the planetary symbols can be derived from the Monad. The Monascertainly would have made usense and reason" to Kircher.

31. Josten (3), p. 115·