OK. First, here are Etteilla’s assignments of days to cards. The parts in parentheses are what I think is implicit in Etteilla, although he doesn’t state it explicitly.
1. Chaos : 1st day. Clouds giving way to light. (“darkness was on face of deep.”)
2. The Sun. 1st day. The light was called day, and the darkness night.
3. The Moon, Water. 3rd day. “that it gives its jet.” Or, let the waters be gathered in 1 place. (Etteilla forgot dry land and plants, which the Etteilla II cards emphasize: “Les Plantes.”)
4. Stars. (2nd day, not said explicitly). Firmament.
5. (Man and quadrupeds; Marseille World card.) 6th day. “God made man in his own image.”
6. 4th day. Sun, Moon, and the Zodiac. “Two Great Lights.”
7. Birds and aquatic animals. 5th day.
8. Repose. 7th day.
So why this order? I have something of an explanation. Here is the short version.
(1) He heard from someone that the first 7 Marseille cards represented the 7 days of creation, but the person was bound to secrecy, because what the tarot signified was not the way it was according to Genesis.
(2) He believes de Mellet's theory that the cards are in reverse order.
(3) Ergo, the seven days are in the last 5 cards of the Marseille plus the male and female Enquirer.
(4) He had to remove "Last Judgment" because it didn’t fit (despite Etteilla’s attempt), and make up another card to replace it, although it doesn't correspond to any Marseille image. That will be for the 4th day, the creation of the Sun, Moon, and Stars.
(5) And the World card is obviously out of order, since it has to do with the creation of man and the quadrupeds, which happened on the 6th day.
(6) And since there are two cards for the first day, he will have to make up another card, not in the Marseille, for the 5th day. Since he has misplaced the 6th day, and has 2 cards for day 1, the card for this 5th day is number 7. and the card for the 4th day is number 6.
Why card 5, corresponding to the World, is where it is, is not totally clear to me. If it can be moved from 1st place, as in de Mellet, to 5th place, why couldn’t it just as easily be moved to 7th place? All I can think of is that he wanted to keep the images that were similar to the Marseille together, even though World is out of sequence.
That is my short answer. My long answer is, of course, longer.
I need to provide a justification of why Etteilla would have heard from people that the seven first cards represent the 7 days of creation, and in what system that is, and why it is confusing around day 5.
The explanation is a little complicated. It has three parts. (1) What the numbers 1-7 meant in Pythagorean number symbolism. (2) How this symbolism is expressed in the 7 days of creation; and (3) how this number symbolism is expressed in the first seven trumps.
An account was readily available in Latin of the first seven numbers, by the Roman philosopher Macrobius, in his
Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. However I cannot relate it very well to the Marseille tarot. No doubt Etteilla couldn’t either. But in Paris 1543, by a “Chr. Wechelus” according to WorldCat, a book was published in Greek called
Theologumena Arithmeticae, ”Theology of Arithmetic” or “Arithmetical Theology”), allegedly by Iamblicus. It is not by Iamblicus, but is authentically ancient, from the 4th century, according to the introduction to the English translation. I have traced the manuscript version back to Bessarion’s collection, mid-15th century Italy, probably brought by him from Greece, then willed to Venice (see
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=613). It remained untranslated into any language until Robin Waterfield’s translation into English in 1988. Some people on Aeclectic have noticed that work’s affinity with some of Etteilla’s interpretations of the number cards. I agree.
I also find evidence of that work’s content in Etteilla’s First “Cahier” (using the link to the Bibliotheque Nationale provided by Kenji). On page 17 we read:
1 est rapporté à Dieu; 2 à l'homme & à la femme, & 3 à la génération qui a pour but un enfant.
1 is related to God; 2 to the man and the woman, and 3 to the generation which aims at a child.
And a little later:
Le Créator forma Adam, mâle & femelle; & sépara ce nombre a afin qu'il pût s'étendre au nombre 3, la génération. Après le nombre 3 vient nécessairement 4, l'univers, que l'on retrouve de même dans le nombre 2 microcosmique...
The Creator formed Adam, male & female; and separated this number so that he could extend to the number 3, generation. After the number 3 comes necessarily 4, the universe, which we also find in the microcosmic number 2...
So we have the first four numbers. In finding the universe in number 2, Etteilla is merely showing off that he knows the Hermetic view that humans, male and the female, contain in themselves the whole universe in miniature.
That, for his exposition of the numbers, Etteilla is drawing on Pythagoreanism (more specifically, Neopythagoreanism, the Hellenistic-Roman era revival of Pythagoreanism) is clear a little earlier, p. 16, where he says of 1
Si nous posons le premier nombre, ou mieux la source des nombres, 1, pour descendre ou monter au premier nombre 2, nous y trouverons l'homme ou son nombre qui est mâle & femelle; le premier comme agent, & le second comme patient;...
If we put the first number, or better the source of the numbers, 1, in order to descend or rise to the first number 2, we shall find man or his number there which is male and female; the first one as agent, and the second as patient;...
It is a Pythagorean doctrine that 1 itself is not a number, but the source of numbers (Macrobius, Stahl translation, p. 90). Macrobius has 2 as the first number; the
Theologumena insists that 2 is a source also and not a number properly speaking, in its case of the even numbers.
In that same paragraph Etteilla talks about the number 2 in different terms than he does in the quote I gave earlier. The male is agent, the female is patient. The
Theologumena says a little more: 2 separates what was mixed in the 1. So 1 contains all the forms of things, the archetypes. 2 separates the ideal, which pertains properly to the 1, from matter, which is the lack of form, on which the one who shapes matter may work. 3 is then what results: enformed matter; matter which is not only differentiated from form, but in its different parts is shaped by different forms (e.g. water, sand, various minerals at various temperatures: these are all conceived as different combinations of the four elements). 4 is then the extension of this process to include the whole universe.
I have not read far enough in Etteilla to know whether he discussed 5 through 7. In the
Theologumena, 5 is the number of the vegetative soul, 6 the number of the animal soul, and 7 the number of the rational soul.
As to how this theory relates to the seven days of creation: Philo of Alexandria had already applied Pythagorean number theory to the days of creation in his work
On The Creation. (
http://www.deeperstudy.com/link/01-creation.html). The Pythagorean language in that work is evident all through; one good example is section 13. But the French esotericists, I hypothesize, tried to improve on his somewhat ad hoc account, which tried to reconcile two versions that were really a little different.
The first day is about God at the beginning. No problem there. Genesis and the
Theologumena Arithmeticae agree, and so does Etteilla.
The second day, in the
Theologumena, is about separation, specifically that of form from matter. In Genesis that corresponds to separating day from night, and the above from the below. The day and the above correspond to Etteilla’s male agent; in Philo, it is the perfect forms in the mind of God (section 20). The Greek for “active” and passive” actually occur in Philo, section 9 in the version I have given the link to. Genesis has this first separation (day from night) in the first day, but the second one (above from below) in the second day. Etteilla follows Genesis, unproblematically except that the stars that he mentions in the firmament have not been created yet. But that is a minor issue.
The third day, in Genesis, is about the creation of nature in all its variety, including land vs. water and all the plants. Before that, matter was a big mess, like mud, in Philo’s image (his section 38; the creation of nature’s variety is expressed in section 40). Etteilla has no problems here; even though he forgot about plants, his disciples added them. In the Pythagorean account this is the generation of particular things, enformed matter. However for the Pythagorean, it is still not alive, in the biological sense: on earth, creation is on the mineral level; things have at best a mineral soul. Plants come later.
The fourth day extends creation to include the whole universe, i.e. the sun, moon, and stars. That is Etteilla’s “Universe”; in Philo, see his section 45. Whether the planets and stars have higher-level souls is a matter of debate. Etteilla seems to view them mechanically, influencing us astrologically in a way analogous to how magnets affect iron.
The fifth day, corresponding to the Pentad in the
Theologumena, is about the vegetative soul, i.e. the soul as expressed in plants. It has no correspondence in Genesis, since there, plants are created on the third day. Etteilla, following Genesis, thus has to depart from the Pythagorean account that I think guided the Marseille cards (to be explained later in this post). I think that is where Etteilla’s problems really affect him, in knowing what to do with the 5th day of creation. He can’t follow the Marseille cards’ Pythagoreanism (to be explained later in this post) and Genesis both. Philo ingeniously found another aspect of the Pythagorean Pentad expressed in fishes and birds, namely, the five senses (sect. 62). Etteilla follows Genesis (and Philo) and gives the 5th day to aquatic animals and birds. But if he's going to keep the Marseille images together, and leave room for the 5th day, that's going to have to be the 7th card!
The sixth day in the
Theologumena is about the animal soul. In Genesis, we have the creation of man and the quadrupeds. Etteilla can follow both traditions, even though he now, keeping the Marseille cards together and with two cards for the first day, he puts put this 6th day on the 5th card.
In the
Theologumena, the number seven is about the rational soul, i.e. the creation of human beings. Well, in Genesis humanity is created on the sixth day, and on the seventh, God rests. Philo simply talks about the rational soul as the crowning point of the sixth day (sect. 69). What does Etteilla do? He puts “Repos” on the 8th card (following Genesis) but also has a picture of a human being (as in the
Theologumena), male in the “Cahier” but female on the card. It is the day when God rests and humanity gets into trouble.
So we see, Etteilla had a hard job, fitting Pythagoreanism with Genesis and also de Mellet’s reversed order of the cards. Not having a clear road to follow, he stumbled a little. I stumble a bit myself at times.
Now we get to the third part of my exposition, about how the Marseille trumps express the Pythagorean symbolism of the numbers just fine the way they are.
The number One represents God in many systems. God is One (Judaism and Christianity). God is the One (Neoplatonism). Pyrthagoreanism said the same.
The Bateleur has four types of objects on his table. He is like the Demiurge of Plato’s Timaeus, shaping the four elements into the various types of things of our world. He is like the Logos in John 1:3. ‘All things were made by him: and without him was made nothing that was made.” Medieval illustrations frequently illustrated God as artificer, for example a famous one in which he holds a compass (search “demiurge” at
http://christianrockhalloffame.com/). The Bateleur is in the position of the Logos, God shaping our world after he had created out of nothing.
Similarly, the one who deals in a card game has representatives of the four elements in his hands, i.e. the cards, out of which, in apparent randomness, a little world is created, parts of which are apportioned to each player. There was also a famous quote by Heraclitus, expressed differently by different ancient authors, some of them Christian and many readily accessible during the time of the tarot’s development. Proclus put it, “And some, as for example Heraclitus, say that the creator in creating the world is at play.” (
http://evans-experientialism.freewe...eraclitus02.htm)/
2 for the Neopythagoreans had to do with separation of he opposites that were contained in the One. The Two was matter as opposed to form, female as opposed to male. dark as opposed to light (and not, as in Etteilla, both together). So we have a woman on the card, esoterically the Virgin Mary, who received the imprint of God in her womb, and later experienced the pain of separation. I think the divine impregnation is the significance of the word “Pances,” French for “Belly,” on the Dodal version of this card.
3 is the child Jesus, the product of the 1 and the 2, the form of God in matter. We see him on the Empress card as the shield on the Empress’s lap, symbolic of the lineage of the Empire which it is her duty to keep going by producing an heir.
4 is for Etteilla the Universe. On the card we have an Emperor holding a globe divided into three, symbolizing Europe, Asia, and Africa. It is the known world of the 15th century, the whole universe as it concerns humanity’s domain. But the Emperor only rules the material side of this domain, the conditions of material life.
5 is the vegetative soul. Plants are born from the earth, grow, and die. Minerals don’t die, they simply get rearranged. The crucifixion is analogous to the plowing of the earth, turning the old plants into the ground. Then new plants emerge. The Pope is the one who governs the institution that protects the vegetative soul, from birth through maturity, death, and finally rebirth.
6 is the animal soul. That has to do with things that can move their whole body from place to place under their own power. Such locomotion is the condition for the ability to make choices, which relatively complex animals have the ability to do, even though it is with very limited ability, guided mostly by instinct. So the esoteric meaning of the Love card is choice, in this case between pleasure and virtue.
7 is the rational soul. The card represents the situation of Plato’s
Phaedrus. The rational soul is on top; the soul of honor (when directed by reason) is the light-colored horse; the soul of passion (which resists reason), the dark colored horse. Reason, in touch with the ideal, controls from above. These colors are can be seen in Noblet’s versions of the card. They of course continue in the 19th and early 20th century, with their white and black sphinxes.
In the Pythagorean system, there are actually 10 days of creation, and God, like the numbers, never stops. But we can stop here.
I hope I have made good on my promises. The 7 days of creation, in their Pythagorean version, are already in the Marseille sequence. Etteilla didn’t have to do a thing. That he did do something, trying to make explicit something known esoterically but about which he was guessing, gives us a clue about where to look so as to reconstruct the esoteric tradition he was after.
This “esoteric” interpretation is not based on anything secret. It is there in the Pythagorean documents and Philo, texts readily available all through the 15th-18th centuries. They just happened to be in Greek, which for many was as good as secret, until the availability of translations. The relationship of these interpretations to the cards is not something I find stated as such anywhere then, except confusedly in Etteilla. But if you look at later interpreters of the cards, i.e. Jodorowsky in
Way of the Tarot, you will see many of the same themes. I have expanded on this point at
http://forum.tarothistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530&p=8518&hilit=jodorowsky#p8518).