Natural Table of the Correspondences Existing Between God, Man, and the Universe

Immaterial productions are represented in these Books as serving as a base and seat for the Spirit of God, which, according to common translations, was carried upon the waters; that is to say, upon the primitive and invisible germs of the Universe, just as we see that in the order of the corporeal Universe, water is the primitive germ of material forms.

Instead of the Spirit of God, the translations should have said, the fecundating action of these Agents, Elohim divine emanations or agents of creation, appointed for the production of this great work; for in Hebrew, proper names are real and essentially constitutive. Now, the word Rouach breath/spirit, which has been translated as Spirit, is not of this class; it signifies only breath or expiration. Therefore, when it is applied to superior emanations and actions, it can only be by analogy to the breath of winds or the expiration of animals, which in its class is a sort of emanation. But in neither example should this sort of emanation bear the name of the Being itself who is its Principle; and one must not confuse the action with the agent if one wishes to proceed with accuracy.

Let us therefore gather here the three tables contained in these three words: Bereshit In the beginning, Elohim, Rouach. The first presents to us the supreme thought conceiving