Bibliotherapy
A Little Guillaume Postel Sampler: Part 3 – ‘The Great Victory of the Women of the New World’
Sitting portrait of Guillaume Postel, French linguist, astronomer, Cabbalist, diplomat, professor, and religious universalist, engraved on a copperplate by Esme de Boulonois; from the book ‘Académie Des Sciences Et Des Arts’ by Isaac Bullart, published in Amsterdam by Elzevier in 1682.
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🌿Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, is part 3 of our little Guillaume Postel sampler, devoted to Mother Johanna, with an excerpt from his 1553 publication, ‘The Great Victory of the Women of the New World‘, written in French-here as text source in its 1970 Slatkine Reprints. A Via-HYGEIA English translation from the French edition🌿We will start with a presentation providing us with a needed greater context by Émile-Jules Grillot de Givry from the foreword of the first French translation from the Italian of ‘The Venetian Virgin‘, published by Bibliothèque Charcornac in 1928 and followed by chapter IX from ‘the Great Victory‘. Part 4 of our little Guillaume Postel sampler will come after soon with selected chapters of the ‘Venetian Virgin‘🌿It is quite rare to find ‘feminine theologies’ in a Christian context, as clearly delineated here below and expressed in such a beautiful and thorough manner, where the female part is an active and equal part of the divine plan, and not just a mainly ‘blamed and passive supporting role‘ to a male dominance, let it be divine. The more we were translating, the more we were having the feeling of an elusive ‘déjà-vu‘ and after an episode of a foggy memory hide-and-seek, we suddenly realized that one of the Catholic Church saints, Louis-Marie Grignion de Montfort, (31 January 1673 – 28 April 1716) known for his peculiar Marial devotion, shares many traits with Postel’s theology: ‘To Jesus through Mary‘, but carefully reframed within the orthodoxy of the Church…More of him soon. You will find in the following text also striking echoes, in their own manner, of the two antinomic Mother Ann Lee of the Shakers and Maria de Naglowska, the ‘Sophiale’ from the ‘La Fleche’ movement, whose works we shared earlier here at Via-HYGEIA-Bibliotherapy. We plan to publish further-on in our little samplers series, one dedicated to Jane Lead, one to Antoinette Bourignon and one to Marie Routchine🌿
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Foreword from the French 1928 edition
of ‘The Venetian Virgin’ by Émile-Jules Grillot de Givry
In the vast movement of renovation of the ideas we call ‘Renaissance’, a truly remarkable destiny alongside the lost seekers of the Mystery: the destiny of Guillaume Postel.
The life of this singular man, of whom we propose to give one day an outline as precise and complete possible, is clearly delineated in two periods that seem incompatible and even paradoxal, but do harmonize well according to the traditional facts of mysticism.
Since the problematic date of his birth till 1547, Postel seeks to solve the enigma of hidden things by mean of scientific esotericism. He is altogether a historian, a geographer, a mathematician and especially, a linguist. From the benches of the Sainte-Barbe college, where he partook his education, he already has the foresight of everything that the East (the Orient) may hide-unknown riches well concealed from the Europeans; he goes to Constantinople, study Hebrew, Arabic and Turkish, a feat at the time quite remarkable; he discovers-because he has a lucky hand- the Sepher Yetzirah and the Zohar, no less! And he is the first European Christian that asked to receive the lights of the Kabbalah. Back in Paris, he reveals to his fellow countrymen the Qur’an, of which they had an improper and ridicule idea of. Then it is the turn of the Talmud, and a great part of the rabbinical literature. He teaches at the College de France, freshly established by king François the First, then he travels in Europe, publishes his books, melts lead type-set characters for the printing of Eastern (oriental) languages.
Without doubt, his doctrines are already obscure, but this defect lies into the fact that he uses imperfectly the European languages. This die-hard orientalist thinks in Hebrew or in Arabic, and follows the Greek syntax. His French is heavy, clumsy and uneasy; his Italian even worse. His Latin, under his pen, becomes a rough language and become complex, foreign to the appeal and naive simplicity of the writers of the Middle Age, nor the elegance and purity of the Classics. But, he is not void of what we would call ‘method’. He is more learned than Scaliger and Juste-Lipse, more encyclopedic than Francis Bacon would become, and he has as much inner thourough-ness upon hidden things than Paracelsus. He is is found for a short time-out of his normal ways-within the rank of the Jesuits, he pulled himself together and got out because he felt he wouldn’t be free to follow the scientific path in which he journeys, his oriental books at hand, steadily. Does he not have all the precision of a Descartes in this sentence that ends a dedication of one of his books to Marguerite de Navarre, in which drops, freezing, and not without a psychological ounce of despise for the readers of frivolous literature? -‘Read with care, before starting judging!‘
Then, in 1547, a spectacular turn of events unfolds, as the second part of his life begins. While being in Venice where he serves as a chaplain for the San Giovanni hospital, he becomes the confessor of a ‘little old woman’, as he would tell himself, ‘of fifty years of age, or so’. She is an illiterate found laboring in the kitchens of the hospital. And here we have this scholar, this theologian, this philosopher nourished with Greek & Hebrew, and watered with Syriac & Chaldean, with Arabic, this Judaicist, this talmudist, this kabbalist who has discovered the esoteric meaning of languages, who commented the Sepher Yetzirah and who was keen to translate the Zohar, he now stands dumb-struck of admiration before mother Johanna. She exposes to him, with an uncommon strength of elocution ‘the highest mysteries upon the multitude of divine things and supernatural things needed to know and love God‘!
In the after-quakes of this singular meeting steers in him, Guillaume Postel reveals his usual enthusiasm. In the same manner he discovered that the Zohar contains the whole evangelic doctrine, he now discovers that mother Johanna is omniscient; she knows ‘the secret doctrines, hidden for three thousand years and known to Moses’ 72 witnesses, and all the notorious Latin writers who recorded them in their books included.’ In short, in a moment of exaltation he shouts: ‘There were no learned doctor in the world that would out-match her!‘ And when he asks her about the origin of such knowledge, she answers: ‘Il signore dice cosi!’ (God says so!). When he tries to understand the mystery of her birth, she admits enigmatically: ‘Nobody knows where i come from!‘
Postel needed no more to see in her the New Eve. Luckier than doctor Faust, with whom he ressembles in so many ways, he can now abandon his books, because this woman talks to him the language of truth. From now on, all of his science, all of his linguistic research, all of his kabbalistic interpretations will be reorganized around mother Johanna’s revelations. All the books he will eventually publish until his death that happened in 1581, will be marked with this deep influence. In the fiery work that operates in his brain, mother Johanna will become the pre-destined Woman, entrusted with completing Christ’s Redemption. This Redemption is not complete; only Man was saved, but not Woman. Or, rather-as it unfolds in Postel’s quite obscure theory about this subject-only the masculine part-or masculine hemisphere of the human soul benefited of this divine salvation, and it is about the feminine hemisphere now is in need of salvation from the darkness.
A doctrine, at time obscure, much disliked by his contemporaries, but that we will see re-born later in England, as Jane Lead and Johanna Southcott will take up and defend-both without any doubt unaware of the work and the very name of Guillaume Postel.
The present book, written in Italian, and published in 1555, five years after the death of mother Johanna, is an exposition of the life of this visionary, interpreted in an relatively easy esoteric sense of assimilation. This small treatise is of the most significant rarity. Only three exemplar are known, and the present translation, faithful result of a most unrewarding labor, helps to finally promote one of the most singular book of the XVI th century, until now completely hidden from most of the readers of the esoteric lore. It was preceded three years earlier by another book, in French, upon the same subject: ‘The Great Victory of the Women of the New World‘. These two volumes complete and explain each other; and in reading them, we are baffled that Guillaume Postel could advocate-during the span of forty years-these audacious theories, shaking down the usual foundations of theology and continuously ‘tread in full heresy’, without knowing the pyre-while others, twenty times less bold, were eventually led to be burned at the stakes.
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‘The Great Victory
of the Women of the New World’
Chapter IX
It has been more than a year that in your house i had to reveal the name of my Mother Johanna, when, following the night of my immutation (Via-Hygeia note: change, here in the sense of initiation, re-birth, spiritual experience) when i wanted to invite some friends to follow me to meet her. For a year, i felt like giving you, Monsignore, the details of what happened and expose everything that is accounted for about the history and the sayings of Johanna, the Virgin, that i call and write about as my Mother and in doing so, may I vindicate her. In order for you and everyone to peruse the following in a pleasant manner, i will share her discourses belonging to her wonderful deeds, my confessed Mother, the Virgin of all Virgins, arranging them in the form of articles and brief summaries, so that the whole world with me may be able to recognize her as being the second part of the manifested divinity, Christ. I will pray that, all that seems strange will not astonish or scandalize you; I am confident of that, especially if you have carefully followed my expositions and pondered this very work i am now dedicating to you.
I. It is without doubt that God is, that he cares for the things of this world, as someone who can & does everything that pleases Him.
II. It is without doubt that He has ordained everything for Man, so that everything manifested through Man’s stewardship He is praised, obeyed and honored.
III. It is without doubt that God values Man more than any other species, since He made them for him.
IV. The World was arranged according to an aim, or an intention of great excellence; and this world is to be led towards such an aim, but there is much delay in the fulfilment of this destiny. And, because of this, it is impossible to cheat the Omnipotent of his will and command.
V. Because it is impossible to deprive God of his original will and command (as the the permissive will is not will), Man was eternally ordered to be made .
VI. It is without doubt that He eternally ordered that mankind, fathers & mothers, mothers & fathers, to be born immortal, in order to praise him forever: To an eternal King, it is just to have eternal subjects praising Him.
VII. It is also very clear that Mankind became corrupted in the belly of their mother and were made mortal. By this, we can see that God was deprived of his intention.
VIII. It is also very clear that all the humans of the world are born mortal and rebel and that they promise (through Reason that is engraved in their hearts) to do good. From this we find that Man is entitled with a double mortality: the first one is of the reasonable part, the second one of the corporeal part.
IX. Not only the true Theologian, but also the Philosopher agree that the reasonable animal has a part that is spiritual, mental or intellectual, that is immortal; they also agree that from Heaven comes to us a seed through the body of the father and the mother, a celestial body similar to the stars, and therefore immortal, if it is not destroyed because of some natural vice at the time of our corporeal death.
X. Because, as the Theologian through divine understanding and the Philosopher through human reason demonstrate the same truth, that of the body being both immortal and dependable: it is then necessary that through the virtue of the divine will, all the reasonable animals that existed, must be in their entirety restored and brought back through a new birth into complete immortality, to them pre-ascribed.
XI. Therefore it is necessary that in all creatures or human having in them reason, the said reason and superior part is by the seed of the new fatherhood restored by an New Adam, or first New Man, so that we are all reset according to the divine plan.
XII. The Philosopher, classifying through demonstrative reason diverse gender, degrees, species or different forms, or formal parts, he must, therefore, have established a crowing original, one that embrasses, maintains everything else; and because the superior heaven contains the lower levels, and are hence gathered into a single nature, essence & union to the prime mobile which is God Infinite.
XIII. And this generic form is called Intelligent agent, and by Alexander the Philosopher is called God, and by Plotinus ‘the eternal human intellect that always understand’. The Theologians, some call it created Wisdom, others created Unity, and also created Light; the Ismailis call it the Mold or form, where every creature was formed and molded; Again, others call it the Spirit or Soul of God, as they understand it to be the mobile essence of Jesus, son of Mary. Some others call it Mahad or fountain or ‘receptacle of the souls’; finally, some call it the general intellect or understanding, that, to sum-up belongs to the King of Kings and only father of human immortality.
XIV. There is, therefore, a necessity to have a formal Father, mental and generic to Whom all the pre-ascribed by God to be reasonable animals, give back through re-generation what they had lost by their prevarication, for themselves and all their ancestors.
XV. As it is understood that God and Nature do nothing without a cause, there is a necessity that the first generation having been corrupted through the father and especially the mother, then also the regeneration must be achieved, not only through the father and the superior part, but even more also by the mother and inferior part called the New Eve.
XVI. It is therefore consequential of what article XIII exposes, that in the natural matter of this world-as there are diverse species, sorts, genders or differences-there must be a leading generic and original one that respond to the leading masculine formal and generic one, by the participation of which the regeneration of the inferior part must be achieved. Therefore, there must also be a Mother in this world with a generic maternity in an person, alike there is a Father with a generic fatherhood in a person.
XVII. Because everybody must be redeemed from the sin of Death, who stands in us against God’s first intention, it is necessary that the Father, with His generic paternity, calls forth from the principal effect, a name to act in us as Salvation. And in ancient times, under one God the world spoke only one language, Hebrew; in Hebrew this name (Via-Hygeia note: the Word), which is called from the principal effect, means Salvation, which is Jesus.
XVIII. Similarly, the generic & spiritual Mother of the world that carries this very name which was called forth for her principal duty, which is-for the people redeemed from Death- partaking them the Grace of God, and because of this very task is being named Johanna-through the excellence of the very name, the Grace of God.
XIX. And because the first generation was extracted from the Father only, the similar substance of the motherhood was extracted from the lateral part of the generic Fatherhood-as the sacred scriptures shows us-it is necessary that the whole glory of the regeneration must be imputed to the Father only-even though it cannot be achieved without the Mother.
XX. Therefore, on the Sixth day, male and female were created in a single being (Via-Hyegia note: the Androgyne), and on the day of Sabbath, the second or lateral part was extracted from old Adam and a woman was made, similar to him, as it was necessary that out of the side of the new Adam a new Eve would be extracted: in her and by her help, he fathers his children that will be wearing two garments.
XXI. This is why there are two parts to be repaired in the human nature, and not only one: The first one, the formal, masculine, paternal, and generic, being superior & celestial; part we ought to be restored into wearing our salvation garment. The second one, the material, feminine, maternal & fertile, inferior and terrestrial; part partaking of the same Father, being restored within the Mother.
XXII. Saint Paul, upon this very matter, clearly marked the difference between the two garments, in saying: ‘ We, moaning, desire this very destiny, aspiring to be covered by our garment or heavenly dwelling, but only if we are found virtuous and not naked‘. Here we see that we ought to be covered by this celestial-terrestrial garment, because our Father is celestial & supra-celestial, and our Mother is celestial & terrestrial altogether.
XXIII. Therefore, we ought to be made alike again with what we were at the beginning, being like the other animals created by the Father & the Mother, covered by the two garments of immortality-one originating from the Father and the other from the Mother, one in the moving part of the soul and one in the receptive part of the soul, we must start this new restoration again from the bottom of the body & blood because we have cheated (through envy and Satan’s works) God in His Will: therefore we ought to receive these two garments again: the first one was received 1500 years ago, and 1540 years later, in motherhood, the second was being restored too; in 1552, i was gracefully covered by the second one, while in Paris.
XXIV. But, as it is not enough that Father and Mother are, they must also be in a person reduced, then the complete seed & substance of the male ought to be surrounded, circumscribe & put ablaze by the seed of Woman, so that Woman would surround the Man of men, and most perfect father; furthermore, it is not enough that the Woman of women just be and it is not enough that the Man of men just be-alike Man and Woman substantially in a person are both male & female (Via-Hygeia note: the Androgyne) before the Woman was extracted from the side of Adam, they ought also to be in that very person reduced as co-operating spiritual agents, chyle & blood, in which all the lost and bastardized humans ought to be regenerated by their white & red spiritual seed.
XXV. This is why trough the prophecy, for the great renewal of the world, it is inscribed into the Scripture that, the Woman of women must surround, not only a child-that must benefit from the grace and long life of God and humanity, but a perfect man, complete et achieved.
XXVI. So, the main and singular quality of my mother & Virgin Johanna, spouse of my father Jesus, is that she surrounds Him forever, to this end, He is forever in her circumscribed, hidden and united, the very grace and spirit of God given to all those who are, and until now damned before they were even born, restoring them in their fulness.
XXVII. And therefore being filled and provided with the substance of my said Father Jesus, as the sovereign degree of the possible intellect continuously surrounding the acting intellect, and the sovereign might of matter or material spirit surrounds its sovereign form, or like the body does with the Soul, and the Soul with the moving part of the soul, and the Moving part of the soul with the Spirit, and the Spirit with the Mens, and the Mens with God; she in forty years did not cease to repent, without even eating meat-when out the forty said years, thirty were used serving meat to the sick and poor without her partaking any, who in turn through a divine inspiration used for her the name of ‘Universal Mother’, by calling her ‘Mother Johanna, to the reprobation of the hypocrites Pauline monks (Via-Hygegia note: From the religious order of Saint Paul the First Hermit. They are a charitable order and have a special veneration to the Virgin Mary).
XXVIII. Therefore, God having her eternally predestined to serve as an example of a most perfect life, consisting in restoring everybody in the spiritual, material and celestial generation, because they were lost by old Eve, God made me, his elder son to announce to everybody this news, which is the latest in the whole Scripture, and through which upon this Earth of the earths this new life is put forth.
XXIX. We all ought to be restored in the immortal life by one mother and Virgin, as our father was engendered by a Virgin and mother; but this is infinitely more new in us than in him, because that for ever she will hide and surround in her the said spouse, my celestial father, for providing us the hidden substance to recreate what took the Virgin mother Mary to keep my father only nine months, flesh and bones of my mother.
XXX. Hence, it was by divine counsel ordered that the inferior and weaker sexe to which Satan has exercised his damning power upon so much, that, besides undermining the human essence in itself, persuaded it that is will become God or as equal to Him; to that purpose, i say, that the inferior sexe in hiding in itself its Spouse, confounded so much Satan, that he and his seed had the head crushed by the seed of woman.
XXXI. By all of this, similar to the demonstrative doctrine of the philosophers, we know that the acting Intellect, that does all things in him before they are done in themselves, who by this fact moves and causes all things by moving or ordering them into their finality and aim, it is impossible that he does or accomplishes anything without his possible, liable or inferior, or feminine Intellect I mentioned before; therefore, it is impossible that the King of kings, the Father of all fathers, the Form of all forms, may achieve the restitution of Humanity, a thing belonging to the world-as for the soul or inferior part-if he does not cooperate with his Wife, who is the sovereign degree of the possible, liable Intellect, because he is the sovereign and first degree of the agent.
XXXII. This is why it is the seed of the Woman and not of Man that must crush the head of Satan. It is women like Deborah & Jahel-and not Barac-who killed Sisera the Canaanite; it is Judith and not the Dukes of Israel who killed Holopherne the Babylonian; is is Esther and not Mordechai who cause Haman the Amalekite to be hanged; it is Ruth the Moabite who was the cause of the creation of the lost lineage of the Messiah; it is Bathsheba ‘the daughter of the Oath‘ who became the mother of the eternal king Solomon. In summary, the great part that was written in the old testament about women, is all but the very figure of the Saint of saints, the Mother & Virgin and generic Spouse, who is Mother Johanna & the New Eve necessary to the new Adam.
XXXIII. To this end, there is in the sacred literature in Hebrew, in unmeasurable manner, that instead of the masculine word, speech, or letter, there is the feminine, and the feminine instead of the masculine, where, as noted by Moses’ 72 Witnesses, is inscribed and hidden this divine mystery of the union of the generic Man and Woman, acting together in a spiritual co-operation over a person, alike the body with the soul, the soul with the moving part of the soul, the moving part of the soul with the spirit, the spirit with the mens, earth with heaven, form with matter.
XXXIV. This is why, as it is written above, God always-through-Jesus-Christ cannot have absolute and final victory over Satan-the-coward who rules by weakening damage and subversion upon the weaker part of human nature-only by using the strong and masculine part. Because, from the beginning Satan did not try to weaken Adam. Therefore if must be by the virtue of that defeated god, being the spirit of the hidden God within the most insignificant creature, that my Mother has chosen to appear to the world. Because we must defeat an evil adversary with his own arms and give him the taste of his own methods.
XXXV. So, i am assured that this doctrine, or spirit, or spiritual might that has bound me forever, will tie Satan and all of his children. As, in Hebrew, it is written in one syllable or word, that Him & Her in one person will crush Satan’s head; which mean her, Mother Johanna and her seed in a person and in one action. And by that operation, the spirit & mens given to the first child of the old Eve are by my Mother restored. Following this, I must be called ‘Jehan-Cain‘, hence carrying the name of my mother and of the first born or elder offspring in this world, upon which the Crown is in me restored by the virtue and spirit of Elias.
XXXVI and last article. Therefore, it must be eternally proclaimed, that by the feminine part- which was by Satan’s evil operation, in our world made or appeared truly un-reasonable-this very stolen reason will be restored in this world. Therefore, this is why the supreme authority was re-planted by the New Adam, under the banner of Poverty, Suffering and Contempt for the things of this world to astound the Satanic and Babylonian Princes, that were willing to be deified and act as owners of the world by wanting stingy wealth, fulminating lust, and through stolen honors want to steer the world. It is because of this that my most holy mother Johanna bears in her Poverty, Suffering and Contempt for the things of this world, she lived her life alike her husband, without revealing herself to other people of the world but me, and this by express order of Jesus, my Father, who also had express it to her. It is my Mother who has revealed the Eternal Rason, through which we can prove all Catholic truth, or destroy any lie.
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Source
‘The Great Victory of the Women of the New World’ (1553)
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Original 1553 French text
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Coming soon:
A Little Guillaume Postel Sampler: Part 4
– Chapters XI & XII From The ‘Venetian Virgin’ (1555)–
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